Curious, Curiouser, and Curiousest

I’m in one of my moods at the moment. No, not the kind where I write soft porn from the vantage point of a squirrel. I wish. Those moods are fun. I am in a semi-depressed/melancholy state. As surprising as that is… The wonderful thing is that I am on my front porch swing with Dunkyn and Dolan. The first of the year. Makes me happy! Winter will soon be dead. Dolan will jump down from the swing any second in deceleration of his independence. Dunkyn, my soul in a dog, will remain ever enmeshed by my side, occasionally nudging my hand impatiently for attention. I could ramble on about my mood, how I am more confused by the quasi-romance happening, how it is making me very happy in one sense and lonely in another, or how I have to spend the rest of the semester getting up at 5:45 AM to teach in a classroom where they teacher wants to be on her own and resents my presence and is making it known more all the time, or how I seem to be stuck in the state of binge eating, and my jeans and self-worth are paying the price. I could tell you about those things, but I won’t. Glad I didn’t bring it up.
I think, instead, I will focus on three strange happenings in my life, ending with the most recent. None particularly interesting or valuable, so it makes perfect sense that I would spend precious time documenting their existence.
Over the past two weeks, I have been struggling to see: eyes burning, hardly able to have my eyes open in daylight, the surrounding word haphazardly fading in and out of focus. After nearly fourteen days and a variety of eyes drops, I decided to go into the eye doctor, convinced that they would tell me that I was being a dramatic and that I simply needed to bathe or some such nonsense. Well, upon sitting in the chair, and the first optometrist aid calling in another optometrist aid to see if they noticed anything strange in my left eye, the real doctor was called in. His first comment was, “You must be tough as nails, most people wouldn’t last five minutes with this in their eyes.” I smiled and nodded, and opted to not mention the six months of the previous year spent in tears. He took a pair of tweezers (after applying numbing drops) and pulled out a piece of plastic that he said was working its way into my eyeball, resulting in a delightful infection. Who else would have plastic stuck in their eyeball, have no recollection of its origin, and walk around ignorantly for two weeks with it protruding out of its new sheath? There is reason I don’t do drugs or drink to excess. This is me sober!
The second thing is not strange, it just is what it is. I love my neighborhood. Love, love, love it. Now that the weather is nice, the boys and I have been going on two hour walks (one hour at a time because their little feet and legs get tired). We roam all around the area, enjoying the sun, older houses, and the spring flowers beginning to bloom. The boys are so different, Dunkyn being petrified of every person in existence and nothing else, and Dolan being terrified of everything but any person who ever existed. Whenever we come across someone, Dunkyn tears off behind me to get away from the evil monstrosity that is humanity, and Dolan charges forward to embrace (by leaping upon) each mortal flaw and virtue. It is amazing both of my arms have not been permanently removed from their sockets. We made the mistake of taking a walk around six in the evening, not thinking about the rest of the world just arriving home from work. Throughout the entire walk there were never fewer than four other dogs and their owners in sight (not exaggerating), accompanied with a host of wives, husbands, same-sex lovers, friends, children, strollers, cigarettes, walkmans, poop-bags, tricycles, and cell-phones. Most of the time I consider myself to be one of the most of loving of humanity kind-of-person I know. I have now decided that human-kind is a plague akin to the mosquito population and should promptly be exterminated.
Finally, today, ending my bi-annual beard growing extravaganza, I decided to shave. There are two good things about beard growing, during that time, my blue eyes look gorgeous (not sure why, but they only look like that when the rest of me is covered in hair), and when I shave I look fifteen years old for about thirty minutes. Very fun. Today, I decided to splurge (again, complete shock, I know…) and got a hair cut and a shave from Floyds Barber. This is always where I get my hair cut, every two weeks, but have never got a shave. It was an hour and a half process. Thirty minutes for the hair, and an hour for my face (it takes me about three minutes to shave it myself). For those of you that know me, you are most likely aware that I have a bit of an exhibitionist streak in me (lucky you, if you are dating me, or just happen to catch a show). However, having my face shaved by someone else and in public was near scandalous. I felt more than naked. It felt very pampering and S&M all at the same time. I have never had a blade held to my throat before. In different circumstances, it might be a good thing; nevertheless, I will here on out be shaving myself, where people can’t see me. On a good note, with the exception of a few missed hairs (how there is skin left, let alone hair, after an hour of shaving, I have no idea) my face was as smooth as it has ever been—for about two hours. Kinda like trying menudo, glad I can say I did it—might puke in my lap if I had to repeat the process. And now that I have turned the conversation over to involuntary regurgitation, it is time to go iron and watch Lost…