Did you see that picture I stuck in last night's post, of the ghost on the stairs? I did an image search for that exact thing, and it was about the seventh picture to come up.
However, the eighth picture (done by the same people, in the same location), was far, far more disturbing, and I actually regretted having seen it so late at night.
Now you've seen it too. You're welcome.
Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In March: 1829
I accidentally closed the wrong file this morning, and lost the work I did last night before retiring. This is fairly easily replaceable, because I was recording at the time, but it will take time I otherwise* could be using writing or sleeping or YouTubing or hiking or half-rollerblading.
Seems like there's a lot of that going around.
I was driving down the road toward the library in the afternoon, when I got it into my head that the day was warm enough (it was sixty-one degrees) to do my monthly hike today instead of on a weekend. So I turned and headed back to the canyon I went to on the last day of February and turned back from with my tail betwixt my legs. I got lost (of course) and had to ask my phone to guide me, and somehow I was more than a mile down the road from where I was supposed to be.
There were a few other cars in the parking lot, but I saw almost nobody there, unlike the other two times I'd been there. I ended up encountering a couple of couples, one with a dog, one with a baby, one with just each other, but for the most part, I was alone. Almost all of the snow was gone (maybe 94% of it was gone), and I had only brought the single long-sleeved shirt, but I wished I had brought less than that, because the warmth of the sun plus the physical exertion was enough to heat me up.
I also got thirsty, and when I got high enough that the little stream that goes right down the middle of the canyon had deep points, I took a drink or two. At one point, I just stuck my face right in it, embracing my inner mountain man.
 |
| Drinking fountain. |
There's a waterfall really close to the parking lot--half a mile, perhaps--and the first time I went up there, there were people giving rappelling lessons off of it. This time, there was a huge ice formation at the bottom of the falls, but with a jagged five foot tall entrance in the ice, and to my surprise, there were still people with cords and climbing equipment going down the rock wall next to it. I suppose that would be fun, if you had someone to do it with, but hey, most things are.
I kept looking for animals in the mountains around me, and tried to imagine seeing something terrifying--like a ten foot spider or angry wolves or Rosie O'Donnell with the power of Thor--coming down the side toward me, hungry for a hiker on his own. Didn't see anything, though, except for a single butterfly that must have hatched too early, and will die the next time it freezes again.
I went up another half mile, almost reaching the point where the stream becomes a river, and you would have to walk over a fallen log last year to get across it. But I hadn't seen people in a while, and didn't want to risk that (especially with how cold the water in that river would be right now). So I sat down, took a picture, then turned around and headed back. And even though it took no exertion to descend the hill, it was much harder to not slip and slide on the rocks, just like it was last month when all of it was covered in snow.
I did take a moment to explore the ice under the falls, and it made my pants, shirt, and shoes wet for the rest of the day, but it looked pretty neat. I thought, if I kept the video short, I wouldn't have to upload it to YouTube and have the aspect ratio ruined. But I guess I was wrong.
Just for fun, I jogged down the hill once it became the long straight stretch I struggled so much getting up back in February. I don't know if I'll ever go there again, but I did get my hike in for this month.
Afterward, I stopped at the park down the hill where I took my laptop last year after the same hike, and re-wrote the Bryan Adams sketch I had lost in 2019--a sketch I've never decided what to do with (should I record it myself or ask somebody else to do the woman part with me?). I sat on a table and wrote a bit more on the "Lara and the Witch" story I'm now nearly finished with, even though I don't know where it's going. A couple of families with far too many children came to the park while I was there and ate their dinner near me, loudly talking, laughing, and complaining (they got shorted something called a cheese melt, despite having waited for half an hour for their food).
I guess I'm spoiled, having a library with a quiet floor I can come to whenever I feel like it. I'm like the blind Korean man, or the homeless guy that comes here every single day, or the creepy Punk Rock-looking dude who refuses to wear a mask and once told me "I don't like to be told what to do!" for no reason.
Push-ups Today: 149
Push-ups In March: 1866
I grabbed a story at random to edit the audio of (I was editing it at the park until the families started to show up). This one is called "The One-Eyed Man Is King," and it's quite terrible. I had intended it to be one of those "bonus" stories in my audio collections (which, just like last month, and the month before, and the month before and the month before andthemonthbeforeand... is not going to get published in March), but in doing the editing, I am considering putting an episode out for it. I don't release nearly the number of episodes I should, and when I do, it's getting rarer and rarer that I have a story to present.
But this would be one I could do a show about, trying to figure out where the story goes wrong, and why it lost the contest I wrote it for. In my head, the story is pretty good, but like "Know When To Walk Away," something didn't translate right from my brain to the pen. Of course, I really like "Know When To Walk Away," despite its failings, and "One-Eyed Man" is another story.
Literally, I guess.
Words Today: 804
Words In March: 14,640
*Crap, that reminds me: the same think happened with the first chapter of "A Lovely Singing Voice" last year. I never thought to retype it, even once I'd edited the audio. More crap to do, one day.
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