Just Breathe

Things I thought about whilst lying in the humid semi-dark of the yoga studio, attempting to clear my mind of thought:

• Wouldn't it be weird to see an owl with no eyes, just a giant glassy mirror at the back of its skull in which you could see the stars?
• What colour are Janice Parker's eyes? Brown? Blue? 
• Whoever's feet those are  about 12 inches from my face really needs to give 'em a scrub.
•  Remember that time the elk stood behind the station wagon and there was no driving for like an hour?
• Have I been breathing? Am I remembering to breathe?
• Justin Trudeau: right- or left-handed? 
• The day I got my ears pierced when I was twelve: Christ that hurt. I think my mom was laughing. Was she laughing? OF COURSE SHE WAS LAUGHING.
• I like gin.
• Wonder what Greta's doing. Bet she's breathing and clearing her mind.
• I am the worst at clearing my mind. 
• Cocktail peanuts or the ones with the skins?
• What's tape made out of? 
• Now is not the time to think about chin whiskers.
• Turtles are weird. But not as weird as wombats.
• Wombats would have made Anglo Saxons happy because another w word.
• Wyrd bith full aread. WOMBAT.
• onetwothreefourfive. six seven. 
• At least when my hair was longer I could put it in a bun and not be lying on this wretched elastic knot thing. 
• I bet my head is too lumpy to rock the bald thing.
• You know, that Chris Pine kid isn't so bad as Captain Kirk. 
• But spiders could crawl in my ear and maybe I would be so relaxed that I wouldn't notice and then they would have babies and my brain would be overrun with spiders. How many legs would that be if, say, each of the three spiders that crawled into my ear had something like 42 babies each? 
• You should breathe. 
• Janice Parker: blue or brown? 
• They probably have way more babies than 42. 
• I never liked Charlotte's Web but it is sure better than the Afghanistan trilogy of terror that made Kid cry every school night for three months. 
• The Taliban is the worst. 
• I never saw Palmyra.
• Oh no! Not the Oakridge Boys' "Elvira!" Kill me.
• BREATHE.

 This is me relaxing.

On Deafness (the Blue Period)

Tuesday morning, prominent local eye clinic. Bleach-blonde receptionists and bureaucrats with tasteful pieces of flair, eyelash extensions and dramatic eyebrows click-clack through the hallways. I've been sitting in a waiting room for over an hour with my aged relative, who is not only a little sight challenged at the moment, but also a little bit (a lot) deaf. For some reason, this clinic plays nature films on smallish ceiling-mounted TVs, the volume turned down low, in a kind of blissful refutation of the challenges faces by at least 80% of the clientele.

Ask me anything about flying squirrels.

Click-clack, goes the buxom blonde in the close-fitting black suit. Click-clack across the waiting room floor. And then back.

Zoom! Flying squirrels!

Click-clack.

Scuttle, go the Galapagos lizards.

Whomp, go the birds that cannot land.

Click-clack. There goes the blonde again.

Click-clack, again, but this time from the beaks of beautifully odd birds with blue feet.

You see where this is going, don't you? You do.

I didn't.

Which is why, as the robust blond in the close-fitting black suit click-clacked past me and my father, I found myself shouting to the lovely deaf man: BOOBIES! THEY'RE BOOBIES!