Finger Man and the Totality

Joyful Togetherness and Crabby Solitude

My favorite part about the eclipse was that for a few days, people were talking about something with anticipation and wonder. While there were a few cranks who got amplified (as usual) it was easy to tune them out and see people excited to experience a phenomenon that was free for everyone. Even if it was a cloudy day, like where I live, it was nice to step outside and hear the birds singing like it was sundown, and catch a crescent of the sun masquerading as Luna.

Sarah and I lounged in the hammock and caught a few moments of the occlusion before the clouds rolled in. That was nice.

Like I said, if you went looking, you could find cranks; on Reddit (which I’ve deleted again—I jes can’t quit you) someone was claiming that a woman who believed the eclipse was the rapture left her huge tips and then demanded them back. Anything for clicks, I guess. I try not to turn over rocks, even though I love seeing newts and wriggly critters, because it disturbs them, and who the hell am I to tear the roof off of some newt’s house? It’s not like collect them, a la Gussie Finknottle, and keep them in my newt sack.¹

The same with human creepy-crawlies… it’s best to leave them be.² But sometimes you just can’t. On my morning walk, sometimes I circle the parade ground at Timber Creek before moseying through the woods along the water to listen for birds and maybe get a glimpse of a Belted Kingfisher or my cranky pal the Great Blue Heron (they have the same initials as Grievous Bodily Harm, and I imagine they would pierce you through the gizzard as soon as look at you, if they were big enough).

On the circle, I often pass a crotchety old dude who looks like a bulked up Jonathan Banks, aka Michael Ehrmentraut from Breaking Bad, a bald white guy with a scruffy white goatee, who walks in gray sweats and never smiles or nods. The other day, I noticed that he stopped pumping his arms when he had me in sight, and he extended both of his large middle fingers. He kept them pointed to the ground, but there they were.

Maybe he was doing a finger stretch? Index, middle, ring, pinky! Extending each of them engages different muscles in the forearm, and perhaps he was doing a form of Pilates. If he was, the only muscle he was engaging was for the middle finger. The New Jersey state bird (which you can’t report in eBird, to my chagrin). I was puzzled. wasn’t wearing a shirt with any sort of slogan that might induce a reaction. To be sure, I waited until he was far away, and I took out my birding monocular and aimed it at his hands.

He was pumping his arms like any other walker, his hands held in loose fists. No finger. This was no metatarsal stretch exercise. The bald prick was giving me the double bird. Surreptitiously, even. He didn’t even have the chutzpah to wave it in my face. And no, he wasn’t wearing headphones, so he couldn’t be giving some podcaster the finger, which I could fully understand.

The next time around, I watched for it. The moment I was in sight, his fists turned to the old fuckaroo. He avoided eye contact, but there they were. Fully extended. What else could I do but respond to his challenge? I went full bird with both hands, keeping them aimed at the ground as he did—no need to escalate this Cold War into a full-on Cuban Middle Finger Crisis—but as I am wont to do, I did smile and make eye contact. Maybe even waggled my eyebrows.

I didn’t want a reaction, and I didn’t get one, but I wasn’t going to walk home and wonder why Grumpy McGee was flipping me off, and brood about it all day. I think next time I might sing, “Good Morning” from Singin’ in the Rain and do a little dance, to see if I can get a smile out of him.

But it’s not my duty to make everyone I meet happy. Though I’d take that job in a minute, if it paid. Birds do it for free. Like this Eastern Bluebird that I saw at Black Run Preserve, last weekend. What a stunner:

On that hike, I also watched a small flock of Tree Swallows swooping over the water as they ate mosquitoes. They’re so fast that photographing them is a challenge, but I managed to snap one or two. The video is better. I’ll share it at the end.

Things other than the eclipse that I enjoyed recently include a podcast episode, Chinwag with Paul Giamatti, who had documentarian Errol Morris on the show, to talk about author Harry Crews, serial killer Ed Gein, and more.

Harry Crews is a writer I admire, because he refused classification, and wrote about everything from towns with snake-culling festivals to bodybuilders, martial artists, and a boy who eats a car, piece by piece, on national television. After I’m done reading Michelle Zauner’s memoir, Crying in H Mart, I’m going to pick one of the Crews books I haven’t read, perhaps Body or Karate is a Thing of the Spirit.

Sarah and I also watched The Last of Us, the zombie miniseries based on the video game, starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. It was good, probably my favorite zombie narrative since Max Brooks’s novel World War Z, but it’s still a zombie story, and if you guess that everyone is going to die and leave Ellie and Joel to march alone across a landscape bereft of pesky neighbors, you’d be right. It’s better than most, and more character-driven, so you can overlook the tropes that have to be satisfied. Nick Offerman plays a wonderful role as part of a gay couple of preppers, and Joel’s choice at the end has been debated by gamers for years, but it makes for a good story that keeps you thinking, and wondering what you’d do in his place.

Another good was the essay, “Choose Your Own Adventure For ‘80s Kids,” by

Paul Crenshaw

, which recalls Satanic Panic, nuclear terror, quicksand, and other fears we grew up with, and pits them against those of the next generations. Maybe we’re defined by what we fear. Or can be, if we let it.

My friend Josh Stallings let me write an essay for 7 Criminal Minds, where I talk about how I wrote Vyx Starts the Mythpocalypse as a serial novel, and how I’m gearing up to do it again for the sequel. I would be remiss if I did not remind you that you can order the paperback of Vyx Starts the Mythpocalypse from Amazon, that the e-book is available on Kindle and all other e-book formats, and if you would like a signed paperback, you can buy one directly from me, all at the provided links.

As promised, here are the tree swallows.³

1. Please do not kick me in the newt sack.

2. This isn’t me telling anyone to not feed the trolls. It’s my preference, but you do you.

3. And as an ‘80s kid, whenever I read “tree swallows,” I think about this scene from Poltergeist.