Ordinary World

 But I won't cry for yesterday

There's an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive

Lyrics to another great song I'm just learning the title of: I happened to hear it while watching a TV series preview for the Emmy-nominated series "Sweet Tooth" on Netflix....."Ordinary World" plays throughout the preview, but not by its original singers, Simon LeBon and Duran Duran. Great song for singing about an apocalyptic world, which is what Sweet Tooth was about. So many great TV series, so little time! And they're all rated 90% or higher on Rotten tomatoes! It's so hard to catch up. MJ just went to watch Oppenheimer on Sunday and the only thing I could think of was, "Man, that's a 3-hour movie! Plus previews was probably 3.5 hours.... I don't have that much time!" The whole world could change within that 3 hours without your phone. 

I recently picked up a book called "100 Trails, 5000 Ideas...." and it's essentially my summer hike for 2023: I can picture myself going through all those hikes. It's almost like being there and hitting the highlights. I probably will never hike the Appalachian Trail (fun fact: not the longest trail in America, nor the oldest trail, and not the hilliest, but if you walk the whole trail due to the dips and rises in elevation it's like the equivalent of having climed Mount Everest), but I'll have hit the highlights in 1 millionth of the time it took to do so. I'll never do the Pacific Crest Trail, or the John Muir Trail, or the Pacific Northwest Trail, but some of the smaller ones like the Seattle Waterfront Trails seem doable (especially since MJ and I are going to Seattle this weekend!) and Tallulah Gorge in Georgia (never heard of it but seems like a big Georgia thing). I had gone to some of the trails listed like the Narrows in Utah (fun walk I did almost 10 years ago, just remember having to wear special boots to traverse through water), and Riverwalk in San Antonio (apparently the most popular tourist draw in the state, MJ and I took the river tour, it was like Venice except more.....urban and commercial, unfortunately). Of course hikes and vacations are done best in person; I just rode my bike for an hour and the important thing was getting out in the world and also not staring at a screen doing Chinese or Japanese translations the whole day, but it's also the potential of being out there and being able to go miles and miles in any direction, to imagine what other fun trips are out there, the smell of the wind and the green grass that can't be duplicated especially on late summer evenings. But I guess I do like the smell of the 100 Trails book.... it's new and reminds me of a bookstore, another place I can go wherever I want and go miles and miles in any direction, but not have to travel anywhere to do it (and enjoy the nice comforts and benefits of indoor A/C).