I did laundry today. I looked for a little bottle of touchup paint. Not for the laundry, of course, but as a separate instance of doing something tangible. Going to a hobby shop and saying “I need something vaguely the shade of the car from Dukes of Hazzard” was, naturally, less productive than I’d hoped for.
Cool place, though. He had model planes and model cars. He had Normandy invasion dioramas right next to models for the Enterprise. He had a plane that, at first, I thought had been buried to give it that aged look. When you leaned it you could see it was painted on. Incredible.
Anyway, I had pictures on my phone, but they were only so helpful I should have just taken my bike. On this topic the Internet is not very helpful, but that’s more the bike maker’s fault than the Internet. The Felt site says “Gloss Orange.” Having said “This one … No … This one … No … ” at least six times today I’m sure there is more variation in orange than I’d like. For a moment I’d convinced myself that the paint in the red-orange bottle was the right color. Life is good; these are the sorts of dilemmas that vex me.
I spent the afternoon at the library, where I was when a high school student called to ask me about the journalism and mass communication program at Samford. I stood outside in the beautiful sunshine — it was about 70 degrees — and talked on the phone.
I went inside, wrote emails. Did research. Looked up and wondered it had possibly become that vaguely defined “evening.” It was only 4 p.m., but what was sunny now looked like the gloaming. And then the rains came, that good Hollywood stuff that just appeared and saturated everything. The weather reports say we got about two-tenths of an inch. Certainly seemed like more.
About the time the rain let up I began to wonder if I’d rolled my window back up. (I had.) I got in the car and was fiddling around with my phone and backpack and various things and listened to sirens go up and down the road in a big hurry. I got engrossed in an email on my phone when a police officer parked next to me.
They’d found me!
It is important that he parked next to me, and not behind me. And that he helped his son hop out of the passenger seat. They were going to look for things at the library together! The child was the age when it would be So. Cool. to ride in a police car. Just a Tuesday with dad for this guy, though.
At home I looked at journals. I ate two tangelos and thoroughly disproved the efficacy of the peeling method I’d used just the night before. I listened to music while I dripped juice down my fingers. At one point the first orange was just drenching the second, unpeeled, orange. In that first moment, that orange dripping on an orange moment of watching-something-fall-and-not-being-able-to-stop-it was full of bizarre thoughts.
Should I move that orange? Should I move this one? Do I need to rinse it off? That’s a lot of juice. Why am I even going to eat this one now? There’s nothing left to it. Just look at it all over the place.
My hands were sticky for a long time after that.
To the grocery store, where we bought dinner and forgot our “Save The World” bags. The very nice cashier helpfully pointed out that we could use this plastic one to line the garbage can in our bathroom. Why has this cashier been in my bathroom? How did she know that was this bag’s fate?
Watched some episodes of Parks and Recreation. I want a DJ Roomba:
And also a ghost Roomba:
Also watched this, because this is always right:
I wonder why those tux ties didn’t stick around longer.
Much more on Twitter, including CBS and CNet, the reinvention of the baby boomer, an interactive map of drones being used for law enforcement in the U.S. today and a cat listening to Bob Marley. A few things on Tumblr today, too.
