well, friends, let me tell you about my walk.

it’s been several years since i’ve taken the time to meander around the neighborhood i live in (or any neighborhood, for that matter). and apparently, i’ve picked the most amazing night ever.

after visiting the ATM to deposit some rent and going to the post office to pay off my car, i headed towards aurora for some reason. just a slow walk. i started to absorb the things around me. i’ve always enjoyed checking out how others lived from this type of night-time, street-level vantage point, but i haven’t been on a walk as special as this since the night when all the snails crowded the sidewalk.

tonight, there are flowers in bloom that smell amazing. like the best laundry detergent you could ever imagine. and there’s a maple tree flirting with the wind as it tousles it’s hair. with glittering bark from sap or slugs, i can’t tell. and five neighborhood cats hunting, only one of which would even acknowledge my standard “kitty! come be my friend!” line. and it’s not the one that lives in my basement, captain jean luc picard of the u.s.s. enterprise. and the dusty scent of new construction in several different sites. there’s a guy with a vw beetle and half an empty records sticker having a party fueled by electronic music. and the breeze is just cold enough against your face to make it tingle. over on aurora, cars are speeding past. and out in the distant eastern sky, jumbo jets are blazing parallel lines across the sky with their contrails and the almost full moon, just rising, is obliged to set them ablaze with pale yellow light.

and then, when you think to yourself that everything is as almost perfect as it can be and you’re walking through the local park on your way to type your thoughts on the internet, a meteorite rockets toward earth, leaving a molten trail of flaming alien dust in it’s wake. the largest one you’ve ever seen. the kind that makes you say “oh, wow” out loud in the night. by yourself.