Broken-Tail-Squirrel

There is a philosophy paper I should be writing write now, or even a japanese paper that needs to get done by Friday, but I've already written a third of the philosophy paper tonight and don't have mind enough to continue.

Instead, I want to write about my favorite squirrel. Simply because.

My favorite squirrel on all of campus is Broken-tail-squirrel. I met him last year, or rather I cam across him repeatedly as he schizophrenically did whatever it is squirrels do with their time midwinter with two feet of snow on the ground. He was scrawny, very thin. Thin enough that I wondered if he had enough fat to survive the rest of winter, and February here is no were close to the end of winter. We had flurries in April last year, and it took well over a month for the two feet of snow that fell on Valetine's day to dissipate. I saw Broken-tail-squirrel shortly after this large snow, he was digging about in the snow, and like his name implies, his tail was broken in two. That latter half swung back and forth as he hopped around. It seems to have snapped clearly, but remained attached so that the tail arched as usual up to the break, then the rest of it hung vertically and dragged on the ground.

I'd never seen such an injury in an animal before. I wondered if there was an open wound that might get infected, or if the bit of tail dragging behind him might impede his survival. He was so tiny, I was sure I would never see him again.

Yet the next day I saw him, as active as any of the other squirrels, his tail dragging behind him. When I saw him, which was at least three or four times a week, I would comment to whoever was with me at the time, "Oh look, its Broken-tail-squirrel." Around mid-March I stopped seeing him. Slightly disheartened I figured he had finally fallen ill, or starved or been killed.

It wasn't until after all the snow had melted in late April and the temperatures had finally begun to rise that I saw him again.

On South Campus, in the same general area where I used to come across Broken-tail-squirrel, a squirrel darted in front of me on the side walk and up a nearby tree. He stopped around my head's height on the trunk and observed the surroundings. I glanced at him, as is my habit of following the activities of the squirrels around me and giggling at their antics, and found that he had an abnormally short tail. It was only about half the length of the tails of its peers. I had noted that some squirrels did have very short tails, but there was something odd about this one. The tip didn't taper off as most squirrel tails do. It just stopped.

Not thinking any more of it, I continued about my day. I don't recall if it was before seeing this particular squirrel or shortly after, but my room mate and I came across a soggy piece of fur on the sidewalk on the way to lunch on day. Looking at it I commented that it looked like a squirrel tail. It was the same grey fur with white over fur that most squirrels of this area have, the exception being the large and somewhat creepy brown squirrels. The bit of flesh was stuck to the sidewalk and the ragged fur blew in the wind. My room mate said it was disgusting. It didnt particularly bother me.

That is until I thought of Broken-tail-squirrel! I thought, what if the broken half had fallen off? How many squirrels are missing large portions of their tails on this small campus? Not many! Broken-tail-squirrel must have still been around, and here was his broken tail!

When I next saw the peculiar squirrel with the abnormally short tail I observed the tail. It cut off abruptly with the long fur from earlier on in the tail hanging loose where there was nothing underneathe it. This was Broken-tail-squirrel! He had survived the winter, and though he still looked very small, he was healthy and vibrant.

When I returned to school in the fall I found him again, he is still around, though now his tail seems to have round out where fur has grown over what was likely bare skin before. I look out for him when I am outside, just to make sure my favorite hardy little squirrel is still around.

Other people's issues

Lay your worries down on me,
My shoulders are strong,
and I have long since learned the art
of shrugging off the harm.
So lay you worries off on me
so I can shrug my shoulders clean,
Then when I take my leave of thee
We will both end up free.

As of late, I have noticed that I have become somewhat of the person to go to (even to those I hardly speak to) to spill all their problems. They bitch and complain and spill their worries, I nod sympathetically and offer what advice I can, tell them I understand. Then they say, "I'm sorry, I just laid all my worries on you/ just told you my life story," to which I reply, "That's okay, I'm a good listener, it doesn't bother me."

I wonder, have I always been this way?

At my boredest...

It turns out I'm at my boredest in Philosophy....who'd have thought. I mean, its not like I've mentioned it at all before and complained about the class....yeah.

I tend to spill out poetry when bored and already two things have been created in philosphy, one complete and the other just a jumble of thought.

Completed:
Philosophy just might be
The most backward subject
I’ve studied.
Round and round
The argument goes
And still a conclusion
We forego.
This is this,
But this is not.
We are brains!
We are minds!
And while we argue
What are functional and natural kinds
I watch the bee fly
Into the ceiling light.

and the jumble of thoughts....

What if when I saw red, I saw what you saw when you saw green? and I always described it the same way as you because I was always taught to describe it that way too. So when saw a fire burning bright red and described it as such to you, you imagined it like you see red, but I saw and imagined it like you saw green! We would never know we saw different things!