The morning before we went to Colorado, I couldn’t sleep,
so I took some time to go through some old stuff of mine and worked on
uncluttering my room, putting my pebbles, old news clippings from others,
photos, paper clips, Lego instructions, Legos, and condoms together, and
recycling old bits of paper. Then I
scooped Peter’s litter box. After that
we drove down to Colorado. I also
started reading The Tao of Leadership. We went to Whole Food’s and I got a new non-crown bottle cap from a
drink I got there. Finally we got to
Colorado and heard Jamie, Graham, and Nick were staying in Denver that
night.
The
next day as I went into town with my mom, with the toilet still not working
yet, it occurred to me that poverty cannot be the sole reason for lack of
plumbing in the Third World, but perhaps lack of experienced engineers and tax
payers to pay for and dig sewage systems. Indeed it seems that while we in the West may send them so many doctors
and teachers, they have so few in their own countries, and the way we practice
medicine and schooling in the U.S. may need to be adapted to fit the cultures
of the Third World. Mom and I then shred
a Bhakti Chai while I nibbled on a chocolate blueberry scone and a chocolate
chip cookie. Then I went into Minerals
and bought myself several different fossils, a leather sack, and a worry stone
for Mom. After that I went to Fire on the
Mountain and bought myself a crochet needle. I also went to Weston Hardware and bought myself five new Native
American post cards. Mom came and met me
there and I gave her the worry stone, for which she thanked me, and she bought
me a salted caramel.
When
we got back we found out our toilets were working again. I also organized all the recyclables in my
duffle bag into bags from all my times shopping at Weston Hardware. After a dinner of shrimp scampy (for me just
the shrimp) I read (or reread) more of The
Silmarillion. Then I found out,
after talking with Verizon about my phone, which had me locked out and was
frozen, that my phone was broken, and I needed a new phone, luckily covered by
the warranty, which they could transfer all my contacts and photos onto. I also thought back to how I realized why our
attempts to build infrastructure in the Third World don’t go so well, and saw
that social sciences are not useless on par with math and science like people
think.
The
next morning I read more of The
Silmarillion. Then I gathered some
wood to make a reclaimed cross. After
that I went into town and got some chocolate peanut butter cake from the coffee
shop, four blood red buttons for my snake from Fire on the Mountain, a jigsaw
puzzle from the book store, and some chuckles from Weston Hardware. Shortly after that Mom, Dave, Graham, and I
went to the Grill and I had some delicious tacos. I got back and read more of The Silmarillion. The next morning I read more of The Silmarillion. After that I completed my jigsaw puzzle. Then I did some puzzles on-line. Later I read more of The Silmarillion. The next
day I found some more wood for making bottle cap signs. It turned out that we would be leaving
Colorado on the second of January rather than the first, because my mom was having
severe headaches and needed to get home to get them treated.
After
we dropped off Dave we listened to Comedy Central Radio to pass the time. After that I drove on the highway for about
an hour. My mom and I then switched, and
after that I drove for another hour. After that we switched and continued to listen to Comedy Central Radio
some more, while I realized that Legolas may have been the way he was portrayed
in The Hobbit movies (with the exception of Tauriel, as she was only added to
put in a female character) because if he had been in Thranduil’s army during
the siege of Erebor by the elves, he might have been a prominent soldier who
Gloin would have recognized and told Gimli about, and they would have both
treated Legolas with hostility at the Council of Elrond, and Legolas’s mother
may have been dead because when Thorin was interrogated by Thranduil,
Thranduil’s wife did not sit next to him as Queen of Greenwood, and Legolas and
Gimli might not have become such good friends. I also realized that ASAN-KC works with disability-related organizations
involved in social science (disability studies), art, music, and literature,
which are my passions, and I finally decided that I am not all that passionate
about filmmaking. As we got home, I
realized my tendency to “hoard” may have come from the fact that in the past, I
did not always think I would have very much beyond the bare necessities, and
wanted to save what little luxuries I had (bottle caps, Lord of the Rings
bookmarks, postcards, etc.), and that I used to have so much trouble with
school work (around elementary school) and developmental milestones that I often
had trouble understanding what people wanted from me later in life, whether
teachers, parents, or bosses.
