I Could Get Used to the Country

I was about to title this post "I could live in the country" but I quickly took it back. I could if I had to, but I would really rather not. Really.

Blackfoot is a nice little place. Probably just good enough for how long I'm here, though. They have a small lake that drains and ices over during the winter, refilling itself during the summer months. I walked around this one of the first nights that I was here, and enjoyed strolling past the Blackfoot airstrip.

Cozy little town. Went to a cafe today, wandered around walmart - all this without headphones. Just as much as I believe that modern man must subject themselves to the elements from time to time, I think it is good for us to hollow out our ears as well. Listen to the wind; listen to the ambience of people in a crowded grocery store; it's all good for the creative mind. I even took inspiration from the televised ads that Walmart has on the ends of their aisles. I don't know what it is that made my muse leap, perhaps that it's just so dystopian typical.

It's the production value of professional commercials that grabs me. Especially when you take that idealized, staged environment - edited to perfection - and place it in a completely human and imperfect setting like walmart. This perfect voice condescending to ordinary individuals, telling them how to live their lives and what they need in order to be more like the image placed on an lcd screen before them. I'm not bitter, I promise, I just think it says something about society. Good or bad? I'm not going to go there, I just find it interesting in a purely aesthetic sense.

So I bought some tea. I love how you can buy a nice, big drink that will last you five or ten minutes for the same price that you can buy a box of tea that comes with twenty tea bags. I think the thing I really love about tea is that you get a hot, relaxing beverage and you don't get any calories on the side. There's no sugar, there's none of that. It's just pure, natural flavor. And I love finding new tea flavors to keep on hand at home.

So today was a good day. I got to sit down on the side of this frozen lake and do some writing. I love just finding interesting sights and creating scenarios with my imagination and putting myself in them. Going to places all by myself and filling in the absence of people with the setting of a story. So therapeutic.