Sometime around 1 I decided that I’d brave the heat and humidity and take a walk downtown to check things out.
Putting on my lightest, loosest clothes (more on that later), I began my trek and found that it wasn’t quite so bad as I thought it would be.
In fact, there was a very strong breeze that made things almost pleasant.
One of the reasons that I was considering going out in the first place was because I didn’t really have anything at home that I could easily turn into a meal, so I figured I’d head over and see what kind of food options were available to me.
After about a mile of walking, though, I spotted a Subway and decided I’d stop there to get something to eat before continuing on.
Once I was done eating, I really didn’t feel like walking the rest of the way over to the area in which most of the events are taking place, so I headed home, deciding that maybe later in the afternoon or early evening I’d venture out again.
At this point that seems unlikely, based on the cloud cover and the rumbling of thunder.
Since I still needed to feed myself, I made a quick trip over to Super Target.
As I arrived in the area I found that I had apparently just missed some rainfall given that the road and parking lot were wet (though the water was already rising up as steam to add to the overall swampiness).
When I got back home I found that the rain had headed this way and that once again I had just missed it, though now it seems that a bigger storm will be rolling in soon.
Even though I was wearing the lightest clothing possible when I headed out, I was still wearing pants, not shorts.
I wear shorts around the house, and when I go for walks on the trails (I only recently started doing that), but other than that I always wear pants.
Why? Well, in part because I’m of the opinion that men should always wear pants because, after all, nobody wants to see their hairy, pasty legs. If I were in charge of this country it would be like a reverse Islamic situation with men covered from head to toe, while women could wear whatever they wanted (and ideally, in some cases – though clearly not all – as little as possible).
The main reason I don’t wear shorts, though, is because my ethnic background is Finnish, British, and German.
For those of you who are of a mathematical bent, this particular ethnic combination can be expressed as White+White+White=Really Fucking White.
That I spend most of my time inside only adds to the vampiric aspects of my skin.
Is it a matter of being ashamed of my bone-white skin? Not really, it’s more a matter of my skin all but combusting when it comes into contact with direct sunlight.
(Sun block of even the highest SPF provides only minimal protection and is hardly worth taking the time to apply.)
20+ years ago there was a day on which I had occasion to be outside pretty much from the early morning hours until past sunset (which comes pretty late back home in the summer). I was wearing shorts. It was a very sunny, cloudless day.
I got burned so badly on the backs of my legs that bending to sit was one of the most painful maneuvers I’ve ever had to perform and remained so for days afterwards.
It was then that I vowed, “Never again.”
I suppose that it’s basically become something of a phobia, as the odds are that I wouldn’t get burned like that again if I wore shorts to work (Though the fact that the A/C keeps the place freezing is sort of a deterrent to wearing shorts for me.) or to the store, or whatever, but I just don’t feel comfortable being outside in shorts unless I’m swimming (which I hardly ever do these days).
When I walk on the trails, my legs don’t get that much direct sunlight, so burning isn’t really a problem. I still feel uncomfortable wearing them, but sweats are just too much of a hassle when it’s hot out.
When I moved to Tucson I developed an entirely new ability: I could tan.
Prior to that I only came in two colors, Albino White and Lobster Red.
Never once did I get sun burnt the whole time I lived in Tucson, despite the fact that even someone as reclusive as I am can’t really avoid the sun there.
It must have been an environmental thing, though, because once I moved to Virginia I totally lost that ability.
On the topic of tanning and people and of people who should wear shorts, while I was in Subway eating my sandwich and reading an e-book on my PDA, a pair of tanned and toned legs caught my eye, and I looked up to see a hand adjusting some extremely short shorts that were clinging quite nicely to a very shapely behind.
I tried to avoid staring too openly as the woman moved to get in line, but as she began to turn towards me I started to look up slowly to take the rest of her in. She appeared to be a very petite but well-proportioned young woman, and I was definitely liking what I was seeing…until I got to her face.
The problem isn’t that she had an unattractive face, the problem was that once I saw her face it became clear, in a way that it decidedly was not judging simply by her body, that, at best she was 14 years old.
This sort of thing happens way too often.
Girls that young should not be that well-developed.
Naturally I felt guilty and creepy once I saw how young she was, even though I realized that I couldn’t be faulted for looking when I had no idea just how young she was.
If I’d kept looking at her after I’d realized, that would be a different story, but I didn’t, so honestly I have no reason to feel guilty and creepy.
But I still do.
As I was writing this my cell phone rang to let me know that I had a voice mail (why it didn’t ring when I was actually getting the call rather then sending it to voice mail is beyond me).
It was “Scott’s wife Stacy” That’s actually how she put it, as if I would be wondering which Stacy it was calling me, since, you know, there are so many women calling me all of the time it’s hard to keep them straight.
Anyway, she and Scott and the kids were at Jamie and Casey’s house here in Leesburg and were inviting me over for a barbecue.
So I went over and had brats and hot dogs and eventually a sundae, as we went out to get ice cream to wait for it to get dark enough to set off the fireworks they had.
While they were setting off the fireworks we could mostly see the actual Leesburg fireworks over the trees.
We never did get any more rain beyond the downpours that I managed to avoid.
Once they finished their fireworks I hit the road so as to (mostly) avoid the rush of post-fireworks traffic, and so now here I am writing this.
And now I’m posting this.
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