butterfly vengance

Things have been running pretty dry ’round here as of late. School has been granting me repeated atomic wedgies with such delicious repetition that I hardly even notice the funny walk, anymore. Our jazz sextet has been playing Wednesday late-night gigs the last few weeks, which psychologically splits each week into two weeks for me. The first week runs Sunday to Wednesday and the second picks up from Thursday to Saturday. It is awful to wake up on Thursday, feel like it should be Saturday, and realize that it’s actually Monday. I doubt I’m explaining this effectively, so I’ll just drink more beer and move on…

Today was by far the nicest day this town has seen since last October. I hopped in the wagon this morning and trucked on down to Park Point to chill in the sand and take some pictures. After all the high winds we’ve been having, the bay is now completely filled up with gleaming white chunks of ice. It looks like they’ve been stocking the Lake with hunks of marble for building an elegant Duluth II.

Out at the Point, 10-foot drifts of snow have accumulated at water’s edge over the course of the winter, and now in the blazing heat of April their days stand numbered. As soon as I reached the beach I kicked off my Birkenstocks and ran out in an attempt to climb these icy sentinels, but the wide expanse of slush that stood between me and my desired conquests proved too much for my bare feet. It was the kind of cold where you jump back into warmth and the pain just intensifies, flooding up from your feet into your spine, making you lurch and stumble about for a few moments in nauseating agony. It was so fun I did it a couple of times. Then it stopped being fun.

I found a few things. Pictures will follow soon after post-processing and when I’m not so tired. For now, ponder their vague meaning:

“He who controls the Spice, controls Arakkis. He who controls Arakkis, controls Dune.”

Words of love in the sand.

A star-spangled lighter.

On the drive back into Canal Park I saw a butterfly. It greased across my windshield. I ran my wipers to remove its presence but my window was down so all the washer fluid drained off the glass and into my face. By the luck of a terrible design flaw the butterfly got its vengenace.