Calls himself Muskrat

I've lost my blip energy. My waves have gone flat. I even deleted the picture I made of Jude's prairie falcons. I love the picture, but my heart wasn't in that blip. I was pushing myself to be cheerful, and it wasn't authentic.

Today I went out to get a frame for Diane's drawing of Taiga, and I took my camera along as I always do. I thought maybe the light in the plum trees would inspire me, maybe a reflection would fire me up, a lost hat, something.

This young man and a few of his friends stumbled out of a brewery where they'd apparently been celebrating St. Patrick's Day according to time-worn custom, and they literally bumped into me. He said, "Hey! You've got a camera. Can you take my picture? It's my birthday!"

I said sure, and he composed himself in this way, a curiously studied pose. Someone must have once told him he has a nice profile. His friends went on. I snapped. He started to run off to catch up with them, and I called after him, "Wouldn't you like me to send it to you?"

He looked surprised. "Oh wow, would you really do that?" He ran back, told me his email address, which has the word muskrat in it. Neither of us had a pen, so I just memorized it.

After he left, I wondered why he wanted me to take a picture of him on his birthday if he wasn't ever going to have it himself. Why did he want some random old woman on the street to have this self-consciously posed picture of him? It brought to mind the questions Laurie asks on her blip today. Did he think of himself as subject or object? In any case, I find something endearing about his chubby hands and the way he composed himself to be photographed. I see the child in the man, and I like the slightly-flushed pinkness of his face, so I didn't convert it to black and white. I don't quite have my Blip energy back, but this did make me smile.

Thank you all again for your many expressions of sympathy and understanding and for your many tales of loss and mourning. I had not expected to be as flattened by this as I am. So be it. Happy birthday, Muskrat!

P.S. One of the most adorable blips I've ever seen: a newborn baby squirrel being rescued, about the size of a finger.