Out and About

I got out of the house today, thankfully. I dropped off some videos at Blockbuster, and pointed myself south from there, sticking to the areas just west of the Expressway. Seeing as yesterday was a rather cool evening, I threw on a sweater before heading outside. BIG mistake. I got a few blocks, and started to really sweat it out a bit. Still – the sun felt nice on my face, and being outside felt right.

Not sure what this was for, but I enjoyed how much information was communicated through an arrow and a balloon.

Shortly after I passed this church, I rounded a corner where some kids were playing. This small Hispanic kid looks up and we catch each other’s eyes. I wave to him and I expect him to say “Hi” or run away or something. To my surprise, he asks me “Ni hau?” This kid asked me how I was doing, in Mandarin Chinese!

I was pretty taken aback, and tried to talk to him a bit more (in English). I told him his Chinese was really good, and he sort of ran off, a bit embarassed, and a bit happy.

This is outside a Montessori school. I once did a paper on Montessori, when I was an undergraduate, for a “Sociology of Education” class. I checked out a lot of books from the library. I had them in a pile on my bedroom floor for a long time. I didn’t crack open a book until the night before, and wrote the entire paper that night. I got a C- on it. Somehow.

According to my research, Montessori is either a small city-state in Albania, or some sort of very pungent cheese.

I had passed by a church where what looked like a wedding had let out. I ended up walking in front of a small group of younger kids, and we kept the same path for a good number of blocks. At one point, I looked over and there was this small boy who was sort of shadowing me, to my left.

I ended up spotting this statuette of Mary on a tree, and stopped to take a photo. Wouldn’t you know it – the people who had been walking with me lived at this house. If they thought it odd that I just happened to stop in front of their home to take pictures… they didn’t let on.

After this, I meandered over to Filter and sat there for a few hours. Read some poems and tried to scribble out some notes for a new poem. It’s been the first time I’ve tried to write something new, so that was a good sign (despite the fact that I stared at a blank page for at least an hour plus).