Tuesday 23 April 2002

Pic of the day: A certain sign of spring is this red bush, obviously a garden plant and a stranger to our climate; it grows at the beginning of a barely used path, not far from the houses in our neighborhood but certainly not in anyone's garden either. Presumably it was thrown out sometime and took root there. While the native bushes still hesitate, this immigrant is celebrating spring in full glory, all alone.

Meanwhile on Earth ...

Living in this fantasy,
working with reality,
I have come back here again
to touch the sun and feel the rain;
invitations, conversations, friends to make me strong:
I've seen that light and I watch it shine,
living in the world.

Chris de Burgh: Living in the world, from the CD Quiet Revolution.

Actually, the invitations are few and far between now. That's a natural continuation of my steadily more asocial lifestyle, and not a palpable loss to me as it would have been to most humans. I'm just not a very physical person, I guess. Still, I do take a break from my games and my philosophy and my novels now and then to walk the Earth as a human. And I do indeed work with reality, or at least as close an approximation as we can get. Any fiction there is purely unintentional. Shame I cannot write about work anymore, but that's the hand I'm playing now.

I see in the earlier years entries for this month that I managed to sneak a visit to my best friend every time. This year I did not. I won't go so far as to say that I miss her, or anyone. But it sure was nice while it lasted. Luckily, the past never really disappears. It is always there, a part of us. Remembering the conversations we had while sane people were already asleep, it still makes me smile.

***

A less pleasant aspect of reality is visiting the dentist. Yesterday was my last visit this year, if all goes well. It has cost me about the same as a month's rent all in all, so it's good to be finished with that aspect. And I'm not so much of a masochist that I enjoy the drilling and gaping and too bright light either. Then again, I usually don't use painkiller unless it's near surgery. Root canals definitely qualify, but the usual patchwork doesn't.

Actually these three visits were two years' patchwork. The previous spring, I had an appointment the day after my mother died. I spent quite some time on the phone trying to reach the dentist, but he never answered. Ever since, whenever I thought of the dentist I thought of that time, and stopped thinking of it. It would go another year before I visited again. So I guess I got what was coming to me. Or not even that. The work this year was mostly replacing the two fillings that fell out while eating chewy chocolates.

***

One nifty thing about having a daily diary is that I realize spring wasn't so early the previous years either. It seems that every year I am kind of surprised it hasn't come already. Well, it is very carefully coming now, kind of stealthily. The nights are not cold anymore, though the days are not really hot. Pollen is in the air, but not yet any type that makes me uncomfortable. Small leaves are showing on the bushes in sunny spots.

Russ (high school seniors) are wearing their bright and strangely decorated uniforms and doing antics in the main street. Sadly for them, the main street in Kristiansand is undergoing heavy reconstruction. This means they cannot safely crawl from one end of it to the other, as they would usually do. But after much whining, the bronze horse is put back in the street, smack in the middle of the construction area, so the russ can sit on it for hours. It almost certainly hurts after half an hour or two. I passed by recently as two girls clambered down from the horse after such a stint. They did not move very naturally at first. One of them took it upon herself to shake loose the seat musculature. *blink* I had assumed until then that the pet phrase of Slick in Sinfest, "shake that booty", was not referring to a literal anatomic possibility.

Evidently I am not all that familiar with the world after all. At least I'm not "worldly", and I guess that's all for the best. After all, you cannot walk two paths at the same time without stumbling on one of them. And don't we all live somewhat in our own world, seeing it from different angles?

I've seen the wonder of the forest in the light,
I've seen the miracle of winter birds in flight,
I've seen the universe come flashing in the night,
living in the world.
And when they call me, I will be waiting,
when it's time to go...
But I'm not ready yet!

Living in the world.