I walk outside

and as I swing the door open and wide, I have to shield my eyes from the unexpected luminance issuing forth from our nearest star. I am temporarily blinded, and broadcast a moderate cry as I take another step out onto the sidewalk, and wait just a moment before I fully commit myself, releasing the doorknob to my front door, and I let it shut behind me with a 'click' as the lock snaps home.

I am all-in this game now, like an astronaut upon feeling the shakings of the vehicle below him as ignition takes place, who must submit entirely to fate and blind beliefs. I was this astronaut now, there was no turning back at this point, and I was going to the liquor store.

I stepped cautiously, allowing my eyes to adjust the the sudden brightness of a late May day in Oregon. You see, in Oregon in May, you just don't know. You can never know. Sunny, rainy, maybe snowing, probably raining, but maybe sunny? Maybe for only a few minutes? Maybe all day? Who knows? Do not bother checking with the weather people, they don't know either, although they like to pretend like they know. They are paid to pretend to be able to predict the weather. How crazy is that?

So, my eyes began to adjust, and I stepped again and again, no longer having to watch my feet, or my shoes to see where they may land next. There was traffic in the street nearby. I saw a fellow pedestrian coming my direction on the sidewalk, and I was afraid I may have recognized him as a neighbor, although I did not know or remember his name. This could be trouble. I was in no condition to mingle or perform smalltalk. I stopped moving. I spun around, and then I looked straight up into the sky. 'WHY ME?' I asked a god I did not think could hear me. 'Why do I have to try to talk to this guy when I only want to be left alone on this Saturday? KILL ME NOW!' I demanded from my god.

My god is a tricky god though, he would not allow me the convenience of killing me here and now, he wanted me to mingle apparently. As my neighbor approached I realized I was looking up into the sky and muttering to myself, cursing. My neighbor avoided eye contact. My neighbor walked right past me without saying anything to me. ... Maybe there was a god after all? Was I saved?

A moment later I continue along my original path, past a few shop windows to the liquor store just down the street. I made a mistake, I looked at myself in reflection in a shop window as I was passing, and I was disgusted with myself. I was incredibly fat. I had a beard. I had something inappropriate on top of my head, a baseball hat, a do-rag, a knit cap, something to obscure the shame beneath. I was an abomination, an abortion, tottering around on two legs. From the inside, I felt like a caveman. I felt very hairy and large and strong, but maybe slow. I felt like I could not express my feelings, but could only grunt and point at what I wanted, and make primal expressions with my face. I had a wallet and I had money - but would I be able to use it? Could I count? I felt incapable of managing my finances. I suddenly felt like a fossil, I was evidence that man DID exist here and now, and definitely had a skeleton, but I was no longer relevant. Did I matter? I made it to the corner, and waited for traffic to thin before jaywalking across the street against the light. Me. Want. Go there.

With my every step, I was aware of my 300 chins jiggling, my bloated personage far overweight, my knees struggling to maintain. This could not possibly be good, I thought. My face was itching crazily with the beard I had just recently decided to cultivate for some other silly purpose. I felt a little like King-Kong, but a tiny one. I could not swat an airplane out of the sky, and I was not about to scale a tall building, and there was not even any tiny blond woman I wanted to hold tightly in my mighty grip or embrace. I thought about this. King Kong had way more going on for him than I do. I had to admit this, and it did not make me feel good.