when things find their place.

It's late, and I am content.

I have been freezing my water bottles lately. They turn in to plastic covered blocks of ice. If I remove one of them from the frigidness of the freezer right before a run in the deep of heat, when I return home, it's thawed just enough to send cold ice chills through my body with just one sip. While I sit and type this, there is a frozen bottle at the highest point in my room, de-thawing, and simultaneously making eery crackling noises. The noises are spaced far enough apart from each other that each time one happens, I forget that I have already discovered the source of the sound, and I am frightened all over again.

Fear is a funny thing. It's been present inside of me lately, and it didn't ask my permission to enter. Now that I have become aware, I have officially asked it to leave. It's a waste of my time, and even though I am a sincere proponent of hospitality in most forms, I will not allow the "F" word to dine at my table.

Speaking of tables and dining: Spaghetti and meatballs. A table. A glass of wine. All but the table and wine prepared my the hands of me. A source of thankfulness, free of fear.

This prepared a foundation of contentment that made my walk home especially wonderful, though my sock that kept sliding off of my heel risked ruining the walk. It slid down, and it angered me. I readjusted it to it's place, and then I passed with ease the twenty-something Korean man, smoking a cigarette and trying to win a dum dum sucker out of a pink skill crane machine. Uphill was ideal, and even surfaces - they kept the sock in place. Uneven surfaces caused me to fear...to walk in a way that wasn't comfortable, just so that my sock, shoe, foot balance wouldn't be knocked out of place. It made my walk feel false, forced, unenjoyable. I passed the middle aged couple, dining at a plastic blue table, on the dirty gray sidewalk. Dishes covered the tables surface, with cuisine that is becoming familiar to me, being picked at with chopsticks, at eleven thirty in the evening. These kind of unexpected, out of place sights bring me joy. They also distract me from focusing on the stupid sock, which makes it slide down even more, off of my heel and down to the arch of my foot.

I finally did what I knew I should have done much sooner, but didn't because of the feeling - based on I don't know what - that I needed to have the sock on. I took the damn thing off, and made it home in a confident worry free stride. Now, it's late, and I am content.