So, I survived the conference, and read, without having to resort to reciting Berkeley Breathed’s ”Goodnight Opus” (which I now have memorized, as it is the only story that will get the boys to fall asleep…if you read it at least thrice). There were quite a few more students there than I had anticipated, which was great, and not as many professors to ask loads of off the wall questions, which was also great. Come to think of it…I got one question only, so maybe that isn’t really so great. I did dress up (though I didn’t have enough time to find a hat with a crow on it, or a hat to which I could attach a crow), but I couldn’t pull it off “Slam” style. Far too nervous for that. The dressing up did help, I think. Nicer to think of it as a theatrical something. No matter, it is over and I am moving on to another essay.
I have had an image stuck in my head for the last couple of weeks. It alternately confuses me and cracks me up, every time I consider it. There is an older gentleman (in his seventies?) who is constantly in motion around my neighborhood. He is either running, riding a bike, walking, doing some combination of all the three, or sitting in his garage and, presumably, resting. I always pass him several times while I am running around the settlement here, and it always reminds me of the guy we used to refer to as, “Ghandi,” riding his bike in the merciless Tucson sun. “Ghandi,” was an exceedingly tan, bald, and hairless man, on a bike. In fact, I never saw him off of the bike. He was painfully fit, barely clothed, and I would estimate that he was of an age somewhere in his forties. The constant motion is curious to me, as one who would like nothing better than a full hour or two, just to sit around. I am a lazy, lazy woman at heart (and mind, I suppose).
As usual, I was running, boys in stroller, and fighting the wind; we passed the gentleman a couple of times, Liam waved and shouted, “Hh-aye!” The third time, we were approaching the man as he was heading toward us, and suddenly, I saw an elderly Asian man on a bicycle speed up to get just in front of the gentleman (I’ll call him “Wally”), and “Wally” began to book it after the cyclist! He was gaining some real speed! The Asian man nodded and smiled as he passed us, and ”Wally” continued hoofin-it after the cyclist, brandishing what looked like a knife blade shining in the sun. Shocked, I realized as I got cloer, that the “knife” was a piece of mail. When the cyclist put enough distance between himself and “Wally,” “Wally” seemed a bit defeated, and slowed to a mosey, mail still in hand. I was still running, but those were some of the most confusing seconds I have had as a runner.
It was like watching Inspecter Clueso and Cato. I am baffled by the surreal display, and have no idea what was going on there. Was it some odd sort of training exercise? The only thing that could have made that episode more surreal would have been to see a cluster of diminutive “Disney Princesses,” battling it out with giant Q-tip-looking things, a la “American Gladiator…” which happened indeed to be occurring just a few houses away…
Your Partially Deconstructed,
Prucilla
