Let's Take A Walk

I decided that the small town Cedar bug is starting to get to me.  One strain in particular that tells me that walking around any dark neighborhood at night is decently safe and that I'm not going to get murdered/mugged/________(insert maiming activity here).

Which brings us to our walk last week on Saturday night.

If I ever happen to venture up to Salt Lake, I always find myself generally going to the same place on Saturday night with a good group of people.  This night was no exception.

So, I found myself hanging out with some good friends and we decided to go to the club we usually attend on Saturdays.  Weird thing was, there was something not terribly fun about the flashing lights and loud music that night though.  You see, right before this, I had attended the film, The Master.  I had never heard of this movie and I only saw it because in line at the movies with my friend, we talked to the strangers in front of us who had just bought tickets for the next showing of that movie and they raved about how great it was.  Thus, we bought tickets, entered the theater, and took our seats.

Let's just say the next two hours and fifteen minutes were...existential.

That became the word of the night: existential.  Of all the movies (which this one I'd recommend to see) to see that night, it had to be the one that made me think. THINK.  About. My. Damn. Life. Come on world, the weekends are for turning off those thoughts that make me worry about what I'm going to do with my life.  I always just end up at death.  I skip everything else good that happens in your life and I'm just dead.

So here I am at a raucous place of sin, sitting on a chair on the patio thinking about my ultimate demise, so you can imagine why I wasn't having a spectacularly peachy time.  As the night wore on, one of my friends decided to head home so I volunteered to walk them to their car. You know, in case they broke their femur on the way or something.

With the quiet hum of an engine, my friend headed off into the night and I was left outside, hearing the steady beat of the bass from the music inside.  As I began to walk back towards the club, I stopped and started thinking. When the thinking starts, we all know it's going to downhill from there.

I continued to walk.  Past the club, down the street, and I just kept going. A few blocks later, I walked into a 7 Eleven, cursed that they didn't have the pina colada slurpee flavor, and settled for the largest size with a cherry flavor. I then took the opportunity to do a city smart thing to prevent me from losing my valuables.

Take note: Put your valuables such as phones, credit cards, and cash, into your underwear.  Most muggers won't check there since they'll ask you to empty your pocket and/or purse/bag.  Hence, why you wear tighter underwear to become mugger-proof.  If you're a mugger reading this, totally a lie. People don't carry valuables on them. And I might have pepper spray. And special-ops training.  But seriously, this shit works.

I'm sure you guys can see my gears clicking since I took the physical preparation of being mugged yet I continued to walk. I can't really explain it either other than the fact that I wanted some quiet time in nice weather to sort through my own muddled mind (and I didn't feel like paying to get back into the club).  My mind was determined to ignore all those public service announcements in my head that told me not to walk downtown* by myself.

Don't think I didn't have any thoughts of being stabbed by a hobo, but those thoughts were overpowered by the thoughts about life.  I began reflecting which is probably one of those building blocks of existentialism.  Where would I be if I had never moved out of Salt Lake? Can my major take me to where actually want to go? Where is that anyway, the place I want to go to? Am I happy with what I'm doing or deceiving myself by staying busy all the time? How religious am I or do I even consider myself religious? Who is this Mitt Romney and is his hair actually real? (Jk, we all know he's a robot. No? I gotta read the paper more...).

Of those, I contemplated my major the most or at least my plans for the coming months.  Graduating in may means if I'd like to attend grad** school, I need to take the GRE, which means I have to prepare to take that and if I fail that THEN I CAN DO NOTHING MORE AND MIGHT AS WELL FIND MY CARDBOARD HOME ON THE STREET I'M WALKING ON.  That, or pursue another degree in a field I like more where I can pursue a Master's in that field.

I began to feel insignificant in the city as I quietly sipped and walked along, the only noises far off being police siren's and the sound of my footsteps behind me. But we all have to get to this point, right? Where you questions yourself when you find yourself at these turning points.  Sometimes, you just have to sit at that crossroads for a little longer, especially if you have the time to do so.  Sometimes, you have to make that quick decision to get up and keep walking until you face an outcome.

I ventured onward and the only berating from a stranger I received was a few words in Spanish.  As a car passed me, they slowed down, stopped, and yelled at me in Spanish.  I stared, they stared, we all stared, and they drove on.

Potential kidnappings avoided in-counting: 1.

My face started to become wet suddenly and I looked up only to be sprayed in the face more by the sprinklers of the capitol building. I had walked into the avenues and here I was at the capitol building on a Saturday night, or Sunday morning really (it was about 2 in the morning by this time). At this point, my city senses turned backed on and I decided to hide sit behind a small wall that shielded the landing from the street.  I sat there until my friends called me, wondering where I had gotten off to. They then came and snagged me from my potential new home, ending my short existential adventure.  Probably for the best though, since any more reflecting and I might have become vegan or something like that.


Only slightly unfortunate since I had picked a nice spot on the hill for my cardboard mansion.

Sippin' on a slurpee hiding from the popo. Thug life, I think.

Hopefully now you (the reader) are thinking about your life and you probably hate me for it. The sick existential cycle continues! Please only send hate-mail in the form of baked goods.

*To get a feel of where I was, I think I started out on about 200 North and...300 West?  Not terribly scary, not terribly safe either. These are my best guesses since I wasn't particularly paying attention to the street signs, I was going off of landmarks.  We all know that is the best kind of direction keeping.  Just going in One direction.  Get it? One Direction, like the boy band.  I was trying to appease to any tween girls out there. I have a theory that if you shouted that into an elementary school loud enough you could start a full on riot.

**I automatically first wrote that as Grad school, not grad school.  You can see how I feel subconsciously about the idea of grad school. Like some kind of sacred idol.