number nine

number nine: fly down seventy slides. 

I put that one on the list because lord help me if I ever just completely give up slides. not necessarily because I have a thing for them but because of what it might mean about who I've become. if I can't haul myself up a ladder to fly down a shiny silver slide every once in a while, well then maybe I'm a little bit dead inside. also-- cheap thrills, I'm not above them. 

I can tell you right now I have not flown down seventy slides, not even close. but I have been down a few. 

let's see.

there was the big concrete slide in san francisco, just up the street from bob and jen's house. went down that one so fast I popped both sandal straps. put my feet down in a desperate attempt to reduce the break-neck speed at which I was traveling. cried about the sandals (which were favorites) but have zero, and I mean zero, regrets.  

there was the slide at the park in our old neighborhood in portland. a bright red and yellow spiral number circa nineteen seventy something, by far my favorite slide in the city though admittedly, not very fast. I lumbered down that thing like a two-ton drunken sloth. still, prettiest. favorite.

there were the two slides at my favorite park here in atlanta-- the noguchi playscape at piedmont park. flew down those guys on my 45th birthday. I say 'noguchi playscape' not because I'm fancy but because that's what it's called. designed by japanese-american sculptor isamu noguchi back in 1976, it's modern art you can climb on. a dream playground, really, and important but not at all dignified, which I discovered the second my shirt flew up over my head on the way down that first slide. joy, I tell you, unmitigated. mr. noguchi, I thank you.

there have been an assortment of slides along the way, a garden variety, if you will, of average playground slides. sturdy plastic numbers in the colors du jour-- deep purples and teals, sensible browns. great conductors of static electricity but nothing really worth mentioning here.

all totaled, I'd say I've been down about 12 slides but let's call it an even 15. that means 55 more slides in the remaining (as of today) 763 days. it seems I have some sliding to do. 

here's to not being dead inside. and to things that make you say wheeee.