Some short travels

Was thinking about what I'd talk about for most of today. Running to the closest Chapters (by my estimate almost a three mile run) I saw garbage in a hedge, a coffee cup and a crushed up can, thought that may be something but really it just caught my eye.

I kept my eyes open for people, but for the most part they were few and far between. It remdinded me of a zombie movie, until I realized I haven't really sat through many zombie films. There's 'Shawn of Dead', but that's a pastiche of zombie movies.. and that may be it.

Then I remembered I was going to Chapters with the intent of reading more of "The Walking Dead".

It's a pretty fantastic series if you've never read it- you know how zombie films end before everything returns to the world as we know it? In fact everything happens so fast that the people in those stories don't have to worry about what happens when they start running out of food, when they run out of gas, when they meet other desperate people... well Walking Dead is an extended situation where they do have to worry about those things.

I just remembered Zombieland, which was an AWESOME movie, and in fact also dealt with some of the realities of a changed landscape. Well, still read Walking Dead, it came out first and is the best.

I'm on issue #70 or so (reading them in collected trades it's hard to keep track exactly) after everything the heroes have been through they've found something of a sanctuary, but the group seems so psychologically damaged that they're about to become their own worst enemies and try to take over the sanctuary by force, or else end up getting themselves kicked out of the place.

I'm looking forward to the AMC series when it comes out.

I stopped at the Metro outside of the Chapters on the way in- picked up a chocolate milk and sauntered over to the Chapters- an older (50's?) couple who were very clean cut, professional, both had glasses with a hint of colour on the rim- I'd call them yuppie's but that currently carries a youthful connotation. Maybe as the baby boomers keep on keeping on a new word will emerge, or else this one will lose the 'youth' orientation. Anyways: the thought crossed my mind that they'd see me as some kind of tough guy with my black t-shirt and jeans straight out of Grease. But then again, how tough were those guys? And I guess they had white shirts, whatever. And maybe chocolate milk ruins the illusion.

I took a moment to look around me, to see how much our world relied on each other- but not in the good way. I saw a bunch of people that appeared to be working for the Metro that they were in line to buy from- it reminded me about the company store.

Have you heard of the company store? "I sold mah soo-ul to the company store bum bah bum bah" That's a song line.
I know it as the store that served the families of miners- they weren't paid wages enough to go to anyplace that didn't accomodate them, that didn't have a credit system in place for them, as instituted by the overarching mining company, so the workers got more and more stuck where they were.

It's a pretty depressing cycle.

When I considered how to break the cycle what immediately came to mind was the phrase "desire leads to suffering."

Then my mind flipped it- suffering leads to desire. I thought that was interesting.

After my Chapters visit I got to run back home! Yeah, feels pretty good.

A sketchy dude asked if I had a phone he could use as I was running by in an alleyway behind the Parkway mall- I said no. Sorry, but if you want to ask someone for a phone call you can put down your bottle (not making some kind of metaphor for him being childish, this was like a wine bottle or something) and go to a well lit area by the street or something. Or call collect. Or just walk where you want to go.