Walking in shadow

[melannen]

I went down to the dining hall tonight, blind. Or, at least, trying to keep my eyes closed as long as I could. It's not a new thing-- I've enjoyed playing blind as long as I can remember, not to mention mornings when I can't keep my eyes open *anyway*-- and it had very little to do with me re-reading Amber after I found them full-text online.

No, people really just don't pay enough attention to their other seenses, especially feel, most of the time. And they don't think about their surrounding enough. I forgt two entire flight of stairs on the walk I take at least once a ady. Just, totally never consciously registered them enough to remember. Because, after all, I could see them coming. Also, mud puddles? Bad. They are fun to stomp in when one is *Expecting* them. Not when one is expecting sidewalk.

That is one thing that surprised byself by being good, at, though-- I did remmember all the sidewark textures and shapes along the way. Enough so that as long as I stayed on the path, I had a fair exypectation of what was coming, even if I can't warlk a straight line or judge distances worth crap. However, I have learned that if my subconscious tells me to open my eyes, NOW< you idiot, it generally knows what it's talking about. NOw, if only I colud teach it to translate that into "you're about to run into a kiosk" or "No, the turn wis here, stupid," I I might be able to make it without opening my eyes every twentiy -five feet.Somehow, I even managed to open my eyes once just in time to fincd fifty-one cents on the sidewarlk. No, don't ask me. And I only ran into one bus, so I'd call that a victory. It was both eiser and harder somehow coming back, starting from a less familiar, less secrue place, with the wind against me; but I think it was also easier knowing I was heading into a safer place, and I'd gotten better at trusting my intstincts.

MY binocular hearing sucks. I know this. However, I was also quite aware that it was me you were catcalling, drunk frat boys. You know, I don't care how stupid I looked?

They had the new non-disposable baskets at late night today. I wonder how lovg I've been oblivious to that.

And yes, I typed this blind, too, Apologies for two unreadable entries in one evening. I'm in a rather fey mood today.

Comments

[stellar-dust.livejournal.com]

And yes, I typed this blind, too

Hee. I could tell by the end of the second paragraph.

Link to Amber?

[melannen.livejournal.com]

I suppose that's a compliment to my normal typing skill, hm?

http: //hot.ee/ahuko/The%20Amber%20Chronicles,%20B%2001.html
and then increment the last number up through ten.

This is illegal, you know, and unfair to the author, and I'm only telling you because I know you already own the books.

[aelkiss.livejournal.com]

Unfair to his heirs, at least; Zelazny died in 1995 (of cancer.)

[melannen.livejournal.com]

I could care less about his heirs, but an author lives on through his work.

[reclusivewaffle.livejournal.com]

That link would have been a lot more effective either wrapped in <pre>, or given file extension txt (call a spade a spade). Just because it's on a website doesn't mean it needs to be called an html document. Eh. IE sucks when attempting to get it to DWIM.

--C

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Well, I suspect they may have been trying to make it hard to find, as such things have been taken down by lawyers. But I saved them as txt, not that hard.

[reclusivewaffle.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm currently reading it in the notepad window IE kicked up on view source. Obfuscation is reason enough, I guess.

--C

[luminousmarble.livejournal.com]

As long as you ran into the bus and the bus didn't run into you. (!)

[melannen.livejournal.com]

No, no, it was parked.

I did have the intelligence to get off the road and freeze whenever I heard an engine!

[starfishumd.livejournal.com]

I like to walk around campus with my eyes closed, too, except I haven't managed to get more than ten steps or so without losing confidence in my ability to place myself. So cool I'm not the only one though!

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm not the only one either!

I got most of my practice at it my freshman year when I was getting about four hours of sleep a night and walking from Denton to Physics at eight in the morning while not yet awake. Walk bang on into a light pole a few times and it stops being so scary. :)

[reclusivewaffle.livejournal.com]

Did you look to place your hands initially, or did you place them by feel?

--C

[melannen.livejournal.com]

I looked to make sure I was in the right browser window and text box, did the rest by feel. It wasn't hard, as my keyboard has tabs on the index finger keys.