hold on tight.

to group or not to group

i have a window in my office. my desk is right in front of said window, and my computer is on said desk. if you've been following along this means that anything that happens within the frame of my window i can see by shifting my gaze a millimeter from the computer screen to the window.

this is both a blessing and a curse.

i was a good kid growing up. yes, i was talkative and got in some trouble for that, but i never got called to the principal's office or severely disciplined other than a few errant detentions. in first grade, however, mrs. greenlee did call my mother and set up a parent-teacher-student (parent = my mom; teacher = mrs. greenlee; student = me) meeting after school one day. at this meeting mrs. greenlee explained that while i was a very bright student i seemed to have some "focus" issues. she said that i had trouble following directions not because i couldn't understand them but because i would always get distracted as they were said. she did comend me, however, on always knowing whose pencil it was that was rolling across the floor and who was walking down the hall. it was determined, as a result of this conference, that i would devote more energy to focusing on instructions and "important" matters. my desk was also moved from the prime real estate by the interior window to the front row of the classroom.

now, after decades of "focus" and determination i have regained my rightful seat in front of a window. but goddamn, if i don't look up from an email every time a pigeon flies by! the worst/best part is that thanks to our office building being in a "U" shape, i can co-workers busy at work in their offices across the way.

as i was eating lunch today i saw a group of four ladies from work walking across the loading dock/lot. i assumed they were going to lunch, but they were really dressed down. one woman even looked like she was wearing pajama pants. about 45 minutes later i see the foursome walking back and they're all guzzling water, which made me realize they had probably all gone to the gym. mystery solved.

instead of closing tupperware and gmail and getting back to work, i instead opened this blog and starting thinking: what if we were more like pack animals? what if we did everything together. at first it seemed kind of nice. i mean the two cats living in my house certainly seem to enjoy the campionship. plus, it's fun to cook dinner with someone or talk while folding laundry. but animals seem to share everything. birds bathe together, for instance. bathing with someone else can be awesome but that's under some pretty specific circumstances. imagine having to share the shower with a sibling or a roommate at 6:30am while half-awake and potential late. awful. or eating. birds fucking chew up their food and spit it into each others mouths! awful!! or walking in a line. ducks, quail, all those foul waddle along in a line. one line leader that's not paying attention or drunk steps out into traffic during a No Walk sign and the whole lot gets run over. AWFUL!

group activities may seem fun, but after further reflection i'm a little wary. maybe that's why i was always keeping such close tabs on my classmates back in first grade.

and also why i'm always watching when those pigeons come and go out my window now.
not really to be trusted, are they?

birds of a feather

why do people hate pigeons? probably the reason my grandma hated all birds: they are dirty.
"they can't be much dirtier than us, plus they fly, grandma! so they don't even have to walk on the ground as much." she wasn't impressed with my logic. and looking back, if i was obsessive compulsive, that reasoning probably wouldn't have driven me to accept the winged creatures lovingly into my home either.

i spent a few hours in the park today watching the pigeons peck their way back and forth across the grass, terrorizing some prissy girls on a towel. the birds were in turn terrorized by two young boys with bikes. although the pigeons were smart enough to disperse as the boys rode their bikes through the middle of their pigeon huddle, they weren't smart enough to actually flee the area. again and again they danced: group of pigeons coo cooing as they waddle around a patch of grass. little boys circle around then dart at the birds. pigeons take flight to evade the youngsters. pigeons return to the same spot several minutes later. through all this back and forth i noticed that pigeons' flapping wings sound just like rustling leaves.

today is day 1 of 2 of the chicago air and water show, and when the pigeons weren't flying, i attempted to locate the fighter jets through the clouds. they can go a lot faster than their sound waves travel, so i was constantly looking in the wrong place. i was also tricked several times when the el rumbled by and i mistook it for a plane's roar.

the pigeons sound like leaves and the el sounds like a fighter jet.
that's practically a bad poem.