Sunday, November 16, 2008

Bye Bye High Blood Pressure, Hello Peaceful Solitude

Well. Today was all about peaceful solitude. And my high blood pressure, which is no longer high. Maybe in part due to days like today.

Sunday started off with the aforementioned photo documented icy cold skinny dip. During that icy dip I decided I was going to have a human free day. Just me to talk to myself all day long.

At 11 I needed to be in the Tandy Hills zone again. So, even though I'd hiked there the day before I decided a solo hike would be a totally different thing. I thought it would be cold like yesterday, so I totally overdressed. I was dressed for the 40s, but it was in the low 70s.

So, I thought to myself the early morning skinny dip was refreshing, why not go on a skinny hike?

I rarely see anyone at the Tandy Hills. It's actual name is Tandy Hills Natural Area. I know where the isolated trails are. I thought it might be a liberating blood pressure reducing type thing to do. I was right.

When I was done with my au naturel nature hike I decided, since it was nearby, roller blading at Quanah Parker Park would be a good thing. I don't think roller blading would be a fun thing to do au naturel. That and it'd look ridiculous wearing the protective pads and nothing else. I'll spare you a photo of me roller blading today.

After the roller blading I decided to make a 3 park day of it and went to Oakland Lake Park. Just to sit and watch the birds. There are a lot of birds in Oakland Lake. And turtles. I never saw a black goose before, but I saw one today. The black goose was with a pair of white geese, which you can see for yourself in the photo.

The first photo at the top is also at Oakland Lake Park. I was sitting in the lotus position on the edge of a wall.

In two weeks I've gotten my blood pressure down to a good reading, as in 118/69, pulse rate of 56. I think getting off the sleeping pills is one cause. Amping up the exercise so as to not need the pills, due to being worn out by the end of the day, is another likely cause. Zero tolerance for Toxic People likely has many benefits, including lower blood pressure. And I've cut way back on coffee. I think the early morning cold swims also might have a salubrious affect.

Well, it's time to put some clothes on and go have some human interaction. All this solitude gets sort of boring after awhile.

5 comments:

Cupcake Parade said...

I think I see your coin slot

Gar said...

I am curious how you take pictures of yourself. You've either got an assistant with a strong stomach or your doing this ridiculous timed shutter thing where you put the camera on top of a well placed hill then run jiggling back in position to claim the correct pose before the timer goes off. And then the odd sensation as you stand in your pose waiting for the timer to go off and maybe it never happens.
Would you ever do this during the summer when the snakes are out? :) That made me laugh.
I can see the freedom of the nude thing. The photographing myself nude thing has never been something I've wanted or tried to do. Well, except that one time, with that girl, but then I wasn't by myself. It was different.
I still don't get it.

Durango said...

A camera with a self timer is not the method used. It's a video camcorder ran by an assistant. There is no posing, just walking. Stills are easy to extract from the resulting video. I've never seen a snake at the Tandy Hills. It would be more pleasant to hike au naturel when it was above 100 degrees. But then there are sunburn issues. And grasshoppers.

Gar said...

You realize that 90% of that post was about being alone. And now you go and tell us you had an assistant video taping your naked ass. How alone is that?

Or have you trained a German Shepherd to walk behind you with a video camera strapped to it's head.

Visions of that poor puppy from the Grinch movie come to mind.

Durango said...

You really leave no room for poetic license, totally literal boy. Parts of yesterday I was in total solitude. Other parts of the day, not so much. I don't have a dog. These days you must also always consider that any thing you see photo-wise could easily have been altered. You only thought you saw my naked ass.