Walking to work, My Mind is Playing Tricks on Me

That’s why she’s called my better half.

I was dead set on making the trek to Killeen and getting the trusty Shadow repaired. Then El called last night. She said: “Why don’t you just walk to work and wait until your parents come down this weekend and take the bike in then?”

So, your humble narrator walked to work this morning. And home from work this afternoon.

The walk to work was really nice. The weather was great. It was a little humid, but the wind was blowing hard enough to make it comfortable. It took around 40 minutes to walk. I don’t know how far S&W is mile-wise from my apartment – but none-the-less, the walk was nice.

Work was okay. I implemented a javascript that will probably be used on the new S&W home page whenever we decide to launch it. That and researching the utilization of streaming video took up the majority of my day – along with another meeting.

After lunch, I was actually looking forward to my walk home….

There aren’t many sidewalks in Temple like you would find in larger cities. I had to walk along the sides of access roads and in medians. Along the way, I could see the new sprouts of Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrushes. I can tell that Temple will yield a very pretty Texas Spring.

Today I decided to buy myself a six pack of beer, walk home, let the belt buckle flap open, sit in front of the tube and watch ER.

I walked to the local convenience store. I grabbed a sixer of cheap beer and took my place in line. In front of me stood a kid – barely pushing 18 years of age. I could tell this because I watched as he fumbled for his ID when the cashier asked for it. He had at least 3 ID’s in his wallet. This guy was buying a pack of Swisher Sweets. The big ones. It didn’t dawn on me until after I bought my own poison that I had just thought, last night, about going to this same convenience store and buying myself a cigar.

As I approached the counter, a song began to play in my head: “My Mind is Playing Tricks on Me”, by the Ghetto Boys. I don’t know why the hell this song came into the ol’ thinker – but it did.

Anyway, I made my purchase and I was on my way. I was only a block or two from the apartment. I took the shortcut. The straightest distance between two points is a straight line. It just so happened, that one of the points in-between was one of the town’s Catholic church grounds.

I’m strutting along, with gangsta rap ringing in my head, a six pack of cheap beer swinging from my grip in a plastic bag, through a nice, manicured church parking lot. It took me a second, then I interrupted my own brain muzak to think to myself: “F#*K, I’m walking through church grounds, looking like a bum. Then I thought: “Sh*t, I just said ‘F#*k’ on church property”.

I figured I should stop while I was ahead, so I walked faster and started humming that tune again. As I approached the edge of the church property, I saw something on the ground. I knew what it was, but I knew I had to get closer just to verify it. It was kind of like anyone’s desire to walk up to a dead body, even though they know it will be disturbing – but just to do it anyway.

It was a dead blackbird. He was a big fellow too, almost crow big. I don’t know how he could have died. He couldn’t have been hit by a car, he was too far from the street. He was lying, face up, wings spread, right below three nice, medium sized trees that were planted closely together. He was in the process of decomposing – maybe a couple days deceased.

I’ve seen symbols in my day – I wonder if this is another.

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