Dear Diary,
I need to talk to you in a rambling, non-edited sort of way today because, in spite of walking several miles on the mean streets this morning, I am a little nervous and unfocused and having a very hard time doing even one of the many, many things I need to be doing today.
Let's start with talking about those walks on the mean streets and see where it goes, because those walks fill me with lots and lots of questions and it's a safe bet I can ask them of you without having you laugh at me.
Am I nuts because I think the collection of washers I've found on the mean streets is beautiful?
Like, I would frame them and be happy having them on my gallery wall.
Also, I understand how washers and nuts and bolts and such wind up on the streets, because cars and trucks, and things that go, just naturally shake them loose and shed them after awhile.
But, Diary, how does all the silverware wind up on the street?
Who takes their dinner out to the street to eat it?
Why don't they pick up their silverware when they drop it?
Why aren't there ever any knives?
And these keys...
What do they open?
Are their owners locked out forever?
Diary,how come I find so many yellow #2 pencils on the street?
What were they writing that they were cast off in such a manner?
Why do I feel sorry for them?
I feel sorry for the many pairs of smashed and broken eyeglasses I see in the street, too.
How did they come to be there?
Are they missed?
And another thing, Diary, I was walking down this sidewalk this morning...
...and being very careful not to step on the lines.
Why?
Because I was thinking about this ridiculous childhood rhyme we always chanted on our way to school:
"Step on a crack, you break your mother's back. Step on a line, you break your mother's spine."
Who on earth thinks up such terrible things for kids to chant?
And why pick on our dear, sweet mother?
Since I seem to be venting all my pent-up feelings about my walks on the mean streets, Diary, I'm just going to make a confession.
I take pictures of some wonderful things I see along the way, like these gorgeous roses which someone with an eye for beauty planted by their mailbox, ...
...and these colorful posies growing at the side of the road.
I appreciate their natural beauty, but I confess that sometimes I feel obligated to notice it.
I never feel obligated to notice the round, metal things which I am always delighted to find along the way.
Why do I like them?
What thrilled me about discovering that the power companies mark their big tree-trunk poles with these?
And why was I disappointed to find that, at some point along the way, they had changed from this 'gentler' font?
Why do I love the paving company emblem set in the concrete curb at the middle school?
So many round, metal things catch my eye when I am walking; some more or less permanent...
...and some there only temporarily.
Lastly, because I'm feeling better now, Diary, I just want to tell you that I am very conscious of being watched when I walk.
I wonder if other people have noticed The Watcher, too.
He's a little, um, unnerving.