Thoreau're you doing?

Spent my day at work yesterday gloriously serene and quiet. Things were simple and complex and beautiful- I imagined that as the feeling or state of being I will be in just before I die.

Of course I also had a slight headache yesterday, and as I don't usually get headaches, I managed to give myself a little scare. Not too much. I was probably just tired without realising I was tired.

In spite of the fact that I was probably tired, I felt very alert. Aware is perhaps the better word. That of course doesn't necessarily make it so (feeling aware doesn't necessarily equal being aware)

I felt like a taut band was pulled over my left shoulder for a kind of emphasis. There was no actual band- I did some pushups before leaving for work, it felt great.

During a break I read the introduction and first ten pages to Walden. I've felt a kindship with Thoreau since a particular american literature class of a few years back, and that was just with me reading approaching nothing of his work, just liking the cut of his jib from the lecture. The intro mentioned an idea about your clothes growing into yourself, taking on certain of their owners aspects when they become firmly entrenched in the identity of their owner. It occured to me that that was exactly why I have so much trouble with getting new clothes- anything I like the idea of- clothes wise- doesn't feel like me at the time. I've pretty much worn the same thing for the past decade plus... I had a year a bit ago where I had some blue pants with big pockets, those were good times. They were actually pretty difficult to run in, relatively speaking. And my only pair of jeans have a good sized hole in the crotch.
I'm not exactly a fashion raven over here. I mean maven.

I'm a poor representative for Thoreau, making it sound like all his ideas revolve around clothing- no way, that was just something that leapt out from the intro, so don't even worry about it.


Driving home from work yesterday, with a black licorice sucker (not as disgusting as expected) not too much trouble reaching the Don Valley Parkway, having to get around the Lakeshore what with its crowded closed-Gardiner-Expressway runoff. Incidentally, the trick was the Queen's Quay. But yes, driving along at a good speed, Bedouin Soundclash's "Wall's Fall Down" starts playing on the radio- I love that song, especially when I'm alone in the car, because it has some rather tricky higher notes, and I can get them, but only if I don't mind belting them out. Hence the lonely car being a necessity. As ever, I don't know all the words, and what words I think I know don't always make sense.

That's not true, the words I know merely sound contradictory- that can still make plenty of sense, you just have to figure it out. Most things are contradictory on the surface, if this song embraces that (as I pretend it does) then that's another point in its favour.

"He says he's a stone
No man's a stone"

It speaks to me. I belted it out, and smiled a lot as I did so.