Insensitivity.

There are a million other names for it, but I think that one word means enough.  She is in a state of complete obliviousness--oblivious being one of those words for which I wish "oblivion" was a noun, don't you?--obliviousness toward something that offends me more than most other things, and all I can do is.....well, forgive her for it.

This is the problem with me.

I can't help but be fascinated by something so cactus-like.  I should stop, I should speak no more to the cactus, for the cactus has spines, but the cactus is so very hollow that I just have to stick my hand inside and see what it feels like.  Unfortunately, in the same area as the cactus lives the coyote, and nothing is more obnoxious than a coyote.  Even though the cactus says the same things as the coyote, somehow the coyote is just that much uglier, that much more menacing, that much more of something you'd like to laugh at on the side of the road---as roadkill.  The cactus, however, does not make good roadkill; in fact it makes a good pet, as long as you don't sit on it.  But if it wants to sit on you, you have to let it.  A very unhealthy relationship, even I think so, but only a cactus enthusiast understands why keeping the cactus as a pet is worth it.  Truthfully, the cactus is actually a very friendly pet, if it is not fraternizing with coyotes.

Laugh all you like at my stupid desert analogies!  I don't mind, because the fact of the matter is.....  I'm addicted to touching the cactus, regardless of the pain.


-G.V.

Everything is scarier when it's far away.

I noticed this one morning as I looked at myself in the mirror from a room or two away.  I'm not sure what it is, if it's the lack of detail or if it's the amount of detail, detail you're surprised you can actually see from such a distance, detail that in a painting or a video game or on film you cannot see from a distance, due to bad focus or graphics or the imperfections of human artistic skill, or what have you.  But in reality, for those with good vision (or perhaps if you are wearing your glasses, I wouldn't know), detail is still very present even when you see something from a distance.

But maybe it wasn't really detail I was seeing in the mirror from the room or two away, because I couldn't see my pores or anything, perhaps it was paranoia.  I could easily pick out things I'd never previously felt uncomfortable with about my face, thinking my cheeks are a little unbalanced, or my mouth looks too crooked, anything that might look strange or cause my face to look deformed in some way.  Just as everything is frightening when it's far away, everything is frightening when it's deformed too.

If you turn the light off, and then view yourself in the mirror while brushing your hair, you may give into your paranoia and see something that isn't really there, depending on how skittish you are.  If you turn the light off, and then view yourself in the mirror while brushing your hair from a distance, I have no doubt that you will see something that isn't there--or is, depending on your skepticism.

This is not only a phenomenon of mirrors, however, or even of the dark.  While walking around a neighborhood one day, I chose to take a glance down one of the streets.  There was an intersection, which of course is not frightening.  It's just an intersection, something we deal with in our cars or as pedestrians everyday.  The next intersection, a block or two down, is also not to be feared.  It is still familiar to us, still an intersection.  The next intersection, however, is another story. To our minds, it is not an intersection. It is almost at the end of our vision.  It is not familiar territory, even if we have traversed that same intersection many times.  The intersection is in the distance, its traffic lights seem as faraway and foreign to us as a star, and...

...once again our attention to detail comes into play.  One can't help but ask "Wait, that person in the window of the convenience store on the corner of the intersection, doesn't it look like they're staring at me?" Perhaps we'd even go so far as to trick ourselves into thinking that a pedestrian in the intersection were staggering, a type of walk that we tend to associate with the dead and the undead.  And if the intersection were empty, we would spend a few minutes staring deeply into its distant peculiarity, only to be startled severely when a woman appears seemingly out of nowhere to use the crosswalk.

Perhaps this is why the closet is such a scary place for children.  The door from the rest of the house that enters the bedroom is often very close to a child's bed, and yet somehow this does not create the same frightful imagination as does the door on the opposite side of the room, so alien, so dark, so faraway.  For those children whose closet door is closer to them than their bedroom door, it seems they tend to be more afraid of the bedroom door, more convinced that there will be something hanging from the hallway ceiling if there is even a shiver of light showing.  Interesting, isn't it?

I urge you to take a gander at your kitchen, or your bedroom, whichever your house allows you to stare at from afar.  Do it for awhile.  Make sure you're alone.  Take notice of the details your eyes may direct themselves toward, such as the cupboards, or the dresser, or goodness the sink. Are you comfortable?


Just an observation of mine.

-Guillermo Vasquez

I enjoy telling the stories of others. Recently I met a man who was very interesting, and told me a tale from his youth. I hope I did it justice, so please give me your thoughts.



( rushing water )

Continued from seasick. I apologize for the switch in tense since last time. Past tense works better for describing these events, I believe.


( safety )