You have to wait for things to rot before you come in with your ax. A huge oak tree was struck by lightning in a vacant lot behind the house. There was a protracted ordeal, and eventually, the aforementioned axium popped into thought.
Pre--lightning incident, I had cleared a bicycle path from my back door to the winding steep alley two hundred fifty feet down from the littered, sloping vacant lot. Post-giant spark, one half of the unfortunate tree crashed the length of my bicycle path. There were huge branches obstructing me and my bicycle. Tree crap removal was long and arduous.
Right off the bat, I destroyed a chain saw. It was puny. Okay for annoying sumac trees diameter of a closet pole, but unsuited to the Paul Bunyan act I was looking at.. The hatchet was no good, mainly because my arms go out after ten minutes. There were alternate bicycle path options, and they all were contiguous with bountious fronds of poison ivy and smashed beer bottles. People love winging the things out of cars and into the vacant lot. People also enjoy throwing their broken flat screen televisions out of moving cars. I could get a bike through the lot, but it was Tarzan-like.
It took years for the tree detritus to partially decompose. One georgous autumn it all reached it's nadir in resistance to me. I was able to smash it up with an ax and drag it out of the way. The bicycle path was back up to snuff. I feel as though I was compensted for the last time I tried hacking it up with the ax, because if failed the first time, and worked the second. Ego gratifation was acheived because ridiculously soft wood breaks easily. It's like recovering lost machismo.
Huge tree branches can impact your mobility. One may be obliged to accomodate the obstruction, until such time as options land in your bag of tricks. Behind the house it was natural decomposition that tossed me a few lucky baubles and bangles. In other matters, other things have their natural way of spoiling, and being made obsolete.
Waiting for it to rot may be a method in practical politics. Could be a slow process of letting it society rot. At which point one can clear one's path. Your Schwinn will be unobstructed.
Words and light fracture in much the same way. The sunlight hitting the mirror that I was carrying sent rays scurrying in shards across the sidewalk as I hiked it from Home Fucking Depot to the bus stop, East Liberty, along the East Busway. I was waiting for the bus, the P1, and the P1 bus always makes me think of the word 'penis.' That gives the bus many meanings, aside from being public transportation. It's rather like a penis because it's phallic in shape, longer, that is, than wide. Sigmund Fucking Freud would love the way I make the association.
It's like the bus drinks people in at one stop and then pisses them out at another stop. We're all equal in this dime store reflection of daily life. Everyone is a part of the same scintillating urine steam. That is a fractious meaning, in terms of a bus, and the mirror, made of safe flexible acetate wriggled harmless beams of light all the fuck over the place, so I think I made my fucking stupid point. All the fuck I did was buy a mirror and take the motherfucker home, but a boy can think about things. Fuck with the meaning of stupid common crap. Fuck with what is seen and heard. I wasn't talking to anyone. Assholes everyone were welcome to their private thoughts, like "how come that motherfucker is walking around with a one foot by four foot shit-house mirror?" If the fuckers really wanted an answer, I would have provided them one. Gratis, for fuck sake. I'm that fucking sociable.
I just bought the mirror at Home Depot in East liberty and had to carry it home on the bus. The fucking thing was intrusive. It was reflecting light where it wasn't asked for, which is minor tough shit, no matter, no one was being blinded by it, such as with the use of a laser pointer. But it was stealing the other passenger's image, the way photographers steal the image of people whose picture was taken without their permission. Now that there are cameras everywhere, everyone's soul is being stolen from them, but that is by the Powers, and they are entitled to do as they wish with the images they steal. The Internet is like that. So is the not-so-fucking-great outdoors. No privacy. I'm just another bozo on the bus, and I happened to have bought a mirror for the house. There was a hassle.
A nut job sitting in the back of the bus, in a seedy looking, overused surgical mask, saw his reflection in my mirror. I wasn't stealing the jerk's soul, and I wasn't lumping the poor fuck's image in with everyone else's reflection. I had to face the mirror in one direction or other, and they didn't have bags at Home Depot large enough to cover the mirror, so I had to stuff the receipt in my pocket, to prove I didn't steal the fucking thing out of some asshole's tacky looking budget housing unit. But he was seated way behind me on the bus, and since he could see himself in my mirror, he took the sitch all fucking wrong. I didn't give flying fuck about the sick bastard. I was, on the other hand, looking at the mirror, and I could see the guy pointing at me with a prominent index finger. The fucker started right in.
"You quit watching me, motherfucker," he said, loud and hostile, more at the back of my neck than to me. He could probably see my face in the mirror, and I could see his. That made things one more shitty two way street. Pittsburgh is loaded with shitty two way streets. There wasn't too much room between seats on the bus. I tried to turn the mirror so his reflection wasn't in it. There wasn't enough room. I was stuck with the mean, crazy bastard's reflection.
Why the fuck should I apologize to a sick fuck for what was happening. He was looking in my mirror. I was't stealing the bastard's soul, or, if I did, it was unintentional. Like when you accidentally leave the Giant Eagle with unpaid-for items in your shopping cart. They can still nail your ass for shoplifting, though, even if it was an accident. But he can't have my ass arrested for stealing his soul by accident. Or for holding his image in my mirror, against his will. It's almost fucking kidnapping, if you dig for the point. And he wanted justice. Sure as fuck, it isn't really fair.
One more ass-fucking time I was a lucky punter in Pittsburgh. The indignant bastard pulled the cord for a stop, and I could see him, in my mirror, exit the bus, and the incident was over, no violence, no bon hommie, no meaning either. Just animosity towards people reflected in a cheap synthetic mirror. There were at least half a dozen people's image in the flimsy, unbreakable acetate film. One asshole in six gave me a hassle, and then fucked off. Statistically, I could say I'm fairly well tolerated in this miserable occupied territory.
It's bad enough they don't teach shop class in schools anymore, but they need to go back to teaching public health. When I took health class in 1967 we had a great big eighty year old jock for a teacher, and he was a well spring of modern info. He would tell us to ease up on the Camel straights, and quit gargling whiskey first thing in the morning. That was some darn good advice. Most of us were coughing our lungs up.
We learned about how the organs of the body start waving a white flag when they're about to go to the hot place, like when your liver swells up and you start puking all over the place. He'd tell us to eat some veggies, so we can crap normally. He even showed us how to burn suspicious skin lesions off using a soldering iron. Naturally, we'd get yelled at if we didn't return the things to shop class right away. Teachers were strict back then. Most important, though, he told us not to be a bunch of whiners when we get a few teeth knocked out playing sports. That happens to every one. The important thing is that the team wins.
It remains to be seen what happens with the pandemic, and all. Maybe they can start back up with public health class next year.
