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city girl gets lost

to start with Austin is dark unlike Chicago where everything shines like a glow worm. here i literally have to open my cellphone to see the car door key hole, yes because remember folks, my beast is from 1993, pre-key fob. the streets are dark, lack visible (i.e. useful) signage and the erratic drivers have me on pins and needles. I'm just trying to stay inside the yellow lines... and hello! I'm lost. but that's not the story for today. today's story boys and girls is about taking a very, very long walk. think groundhog day, the movie...so i set out around nine a.m. along a course parallel the twisting river. the path makes approximately a nine mile oddly-shaped circle which i don't intend to traverse today yet I'm eager to explore beyond the boundaries I'd set for myself in days past. It's going well, halfway through i see a little road that leads off to my favourite swimming hole which is exciting, now i know how to get there when my bike arrives later this week. so i make the left turn, crossing the bridge that obviously leads back around to where i started. however, no, all things being entirely personally unequal  for Ana, it can't be that easy or obvious. i find myself clumping along a root strewn eighteen inch dirt path where the Kafkaesque foliage twists and curls more and more densely. the emergency blue boxes have disappeared. i began to wonder if perhaps this is the road less traveled? from my dry ravine i can see apartment buildings above and to the left of me and Barton Springs pool to the right but i can't figure out how to get to either. i laugh nervously and call my lifeline to let them know where to look for my dead disfigured body which no doubt is about to happen. being hard-headed (and in need of a good pee) I'm sure i can find my way out continuing this path but reason takes over and i double back. once back on the at-points-paved-dirt-gravel route i breathe a sigh of relief where i can again snicker softly to myself as a man wearing a hair corset passes me. what? that's not a corset, that's his thick black chest hair which inexplicably does not grow above his nipples. or the pathetic dog that strangely appears to be an oatmeal colored really small and very skinny lamb on a leash, poor thing, it looks strikingly similar to the owner. ..oh for f's sake! stop laughing and  start crying, my latest path has no outlet. (R) for reverse i climb a short slope where a thin man dressed in a Canadian tuxedo is staring out at the water and standing dangerously close to a small black bear? oh that's just a big Rottweiler.
i want you to know although i eventually made my way back it didn't happen without painful circling three or four times, I'm sure i saw every one in Austin today on my eighteen mile journey.
i just wish I'd had the energy to mingle.
 
..."am i an example of a calculated birth to a star chart for clowns..?"-the vowels, pt2
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