A Return To Barley Flats

[Sean]

Cecelia and I wanted to do something easy on Saturday, so I took her up the Barley Flats Road. I had been there once before, but this was her first visit. I thought she would enjoy the trip, because it has water tanks and benchmarks to find. But we also explored a side road which was new to me and led, I suppose, to the entrance to a Cold War-era fallout shelter for the old Nike missile complex.

[Girl Hiker]

Not sure if I have time to read this long ass report!

[Sean]

Not sure if I have time to read this long ass report!

I wonder how I should reply to this comment.

[Tom Kenney]

Not sure if I have time to read this long ass report!

I wonder how I should reply to this comment.

With a verbose stream of jargon and miscellany.

[Girl Hiker]

You don'tt have to reply because it is a joke! its funny that your report is so short. Usually, they are long lol

[Sean]

Not sure if I have time to read this long ass report!

I wonder how I should reply to this comment.

With a verbose stream of jargon and miscellany.

It's funny how we associate the act of thinking with flowing water. Actually it's not that funny. Why do we say "it's funny" when we really mean "it's interesting"? It's probably not all that interesting either. Perhaps it's interesting to me. But in reality it's just some thought that popped into my head, which I then copied onto this forum without first considering whether it's worthy of publication. Because stream of consciousness is fun. It's the new postmodern art of the dialogue. Which gets me back to the original thought: how thinking is associated with flowing water. A stream of thought. I could stare at a mountain stream for hours, just like I could listen to a babbling prophet for hours. It's super peaceful. Sometimes I fall asleep with the looney late night radio playing, the host and guest droning on and on about the latest Sasquatchian conspiracy theory. Flat-earthers soothe my soul with their vocal flows of words strung together. The only streams of consciousness that bore me come from politicians filibustering Congress. I hate it when people use words instead of fists. If Chuck Schumer hates President Trump so much, he should just punch his enemy in the face. Standing up at a podium and live-streaming his brain-farts is ridiculous. Did the people of New York elect you to be like flowing water under a bridge, or like a ninja warrior silently removing the enemy?

Anyway, here's a picture of Cecelia and me in a water tank.



Or is it a picture of us outside the tank peering in from above?

A water tank doesn't really symbolize thought, like a stream does. The water just sits in the tank, constrained. It doesn't move. It doesn't flow. Life is about moving forward, going on from one place to the next. Like gypsies. That must be why gypsies are so good at stream of consciousness communication. I think Twitter and Facebook are run by gypsies. Social media is a contest to see who is the quickest thought vomiter in the West. Fuck the east, south, and the north. The west is the best! Hit that "like" button! I'll submerse you in my river of wisdom once again if you get this post to 100 likes!

This is Cecelia hiking through some bushes.



Bushes sometimes go on and on like a stream or rant. But then they can be wiped out by a wildfire. What is a wildfire for consciousness? Hmmm...Terrible disease or injury can put you in a vegetative state. Do brain dead people have thoughts? I wouldn't know.



That's Cecelia happy to be alive in the brain on a water tank.

A drought! I was trying to think of what a wildfire for streams would be. I guess it would be a drought, which is not really something. It's the absence of something, unlike a wildfire, which is something.

And that's metaphysics, y'all!!!

[HikeUp]

Succinct disdain would have been enough.