One Bad Hazard

 Lately I've been riding around on this rickety old bicycle and photographing graffiti art around the city, all of which is better than the atrocities you'll find at the Walker Art Center. I'm trying to get around to it before the white paint goes over. 

I'm a recovering workaholic trying to find things to do instead of working myself to stress-induced heart arrhythmia. So unorthodox hobbies ensue like urban foraging, vandalism photography, and backpacking in the remote wilderness with almost no preparation. I guess that started when I was seven and running around the woods with a flaming beacon of rolled up newspaper that I set on fire and  used to light my way through the forest at night.   

My dad gave me a pocket knife when I was nine, but I was afraid to use it. I didn't think I had the authority because it was a Boyscout knife, and the first thing I did was cut myself.  Once I got over that hump of hesitation, I started using it to whittle sticks into spears that I threw at my brothers. My dad always took my brothers on Boyscout expeditions, to places like Philmont, Denali, and Seabase. I was left at home alone with my mother to watch bad 90's RomComs and foster a budding sugar addiction. So I kind of hated them.

As an adult, I'm glad I was never partisan to the world of Boyscouts. I did finally get that whole knife thing under control, and I feel pretty responsible about it. Unless I'm cutting up butternut squash. Then there's blood splatters on the fridge and all over my clothes and on the floor and just fucking everywhere. 

But I digress. A lot. So now I ride around Minneapolis on my bicycle snapping pictures of graffiti wherever I find it.  All I'm missing is a little basket and a bell. I'm out of place on the LRT, getting passed by serious bikers: buff dudes in really tight clothes going faster than I drive my car. Which I guess makes me a bad hazard since I'm not always paying attention to where I'm going or what's behind me.