I Am Somebody.

Today I was Somebody. Well, I'm somebody every day, usually the same person every day actually. But today I was the Somebody that you think of when you go "Oh, somebody will..." and you don't do whatever it is you thought Somebody should do?

I was that Somebody. I was walking with my dog today along a little path by a lake. I felt good because I was finally getting some Vitamin Daylight. I thought about Thoreau, because I think about Great American Pastoralists when I am relaxed. Mentally comparing the scrubby little weeds to Walden, ecetera.

And I walked by some trash. I thought, "Somebody should pick that up, Thoreau would not approve."

And I kept walking. I saw some more trash. I thought "Somebody should really pick that up, people are along here all the time and it would be so easy to just pick some up and throw it away."

And I kept walking. I kicked a beer can. It ricocheted off the plastic motor oil bottle, set carefully at the base of a tree by some of the ATV-ers that use this path. I thought "How difficult is it to carry a trash bag with you? You carried the full can here, couldn't you carry the empty back out?"

And I kept walking, grumbling to myself about how inconsiderate people are. Then I had a revelation. I thought, "Why didn't *I* carry a trash bag in here? Then I could have carried some of this trash out!"

Smart me, right? So I walked back and got two trash bags. Now, understand, it took me a while to think about this. I'm not automatically a nice person.

I wouldn't have done it if, for instance, I had skipped the walk and just sat and read in the daylight instead of exploring a little bit. I wouldn't have done it if I had been talking to someone else or playing with my Phone or if I hadn't been constantly detangling my dog from the straggly little weeds that make up a Texas forest.

I started walking back along the path, again. I'd gone about three quarters of a mile the first time because the trail on the lakeside quickly turned into muck because of the recent rains. I figured I'd just go down to the washout where all the debris from the lake washes up, and get what I could reach from the trail. I picked an old ATV radio off an anthill and just so you know, ants resent it when you take away their mysterious Radio To The Gods.

I found a Creepy Little Doll.

Creeptastic, right? She's mostly naked.

So I cleaned up the little washout area where a bunch of beer cans, styrofoam, flipflops and

various other boating debris, and I composed this blog post in my head (which was originally much funnier and introspective and inspirational and everything), and I got all angry at humanity and then I got all zen about it.

And I was really grateful to an old ex boyfriend. He was the first Ex, the first major boyfriend in all the important ways, and the first one who broke my heart. I know it's creepy, and it's been years or whatever, but picking up trash made me glad that he'd figured out that we weren't going to work. Then, I was the type of person who thought it was hilarious when he'd drop a beer can or styrofoam cup and say "Go back to nature little cup, be free!" Much of my attraction to him was irrational, and fueled by beer.

No, I am an enlightened person now. Thoreau cheers from his grave! Litter is not fucking funny folks. Don't mess with Texas. Because Somebody will eventually clean that up.

To recap: An hour and a half. A quarter mile of trail. Roughly fifty pounds of trash. Walden's memory is honored. It wasn't really all that hard, and I feel proud of myself.

A productive day, except for the November sunburn and a desperate hope that the itching on my arm is psycho-symptomatic. Now I have to get this SafetySuit song out of my head.