I Lament on Birds

13, Woodpecker

Woodpeckers depend on dead and drying wood for nesting purposes. The male red-bellied woodpecker takes the initiative in locating a nest hole. He will then seek approval from his female mate by mutual tapping. The red-bellied woodpecker excavates holes in trees for nesting and roosting. By excavating cavities, they play an important role in the forest communities for other species as well. For example, species such as squirrels and bats use these cavities as shelter. The female red-bellied woodpecker accepts the nesting hole by completing the excavation and entering the nest hole.

It looks like this bird has accomplished his goal. Do birds have goals? Do they plan out, like, they'll grab ten twigs a day to have a full nest by January or something?

I remember there was this one time when I was at this mall, and there was an ice skating rink in the center. I decided you know what? I might as well try it out, what could go wrong? As expected, I spent the whole time hugging the wall and struggling against the ice to move. But, I decided to try to reach these star things on the ground away from the wall, and as I worked for my goal, I found an incentive to keep going: a smoothie stand on the second floor. I just kept thinking, get there and I'll get a smoothie, get there and I'll get a smoothie, over and over again. Sounds, silly, I know, but I did reach the star (after falling a couple times) and I did get a smoothie after that. Strawberry something, I think.

You know, after summer ended, I made three goals. Let's see if any of them have been as successful as that example at the mall.

1. Get into a regular exercise routine.

This one's pretty simple. I never joined any sports in the past, and as a result of that I've become terribly unfit. I have all the weights and a treadmill available to start doing this, but I haven't gotten into an actual routine. I do go to the exercise room and run a mile and lift weights sporadically, like twice a week, so it's a start.

2. Take advantage of opportunities (and through that be in more social situations).

I came to this realization that the opportunities are all around me, and are specifically being given to me, but I still don't take them. As I said in the last chapter, that's why I'm so separated from others, I'm simply never in groups. My goal in this is that if I see an extracurricular that I like, don't just think huh, that looks cool, but actually put the action to join it. And if someone invites me to a party, I should take it, I need the interaction. I've seen that parties aren't prisons-they're worse- but I can leave any time if I'm overwhelmed, I just need that chance to build connections.

3. Invest in my hobbies.

Oh boy, I'm like a crappy renaissance man over here. I'm... okay, at everything. I need to put more time into my interests, improve at them. Let's go over some of my hobbies and how I'm doing at them.

Reading. The amount I read has taken a drop since middle school. I'm reading more now, however, with A Handmaid's Tale on my kindle and Neverwhere on my bedside table. I'm also thinking about rereading some of the things I read when I was younger, but didn't comprehend as well. Over the summer I reread Leven Thumps, and then all the sequels, and that was a lovely experience. I should read Ender's Game again.

ASL. I'm hard of hearing. Sign language would be a very handy skill to have. I'm not doing too good on this one.

Writing. I have so very many story ideas, and even an overarching mega story to go along with that. Over the summer I had a little spark of genius when I was walking around in a city at night and saw an ambulance pass by and had the thought of: first chapter, bad thing happens to someone. Second chapter, someone sees ambulance and continues their part of the story. And that sort of interconnectedness in a story interested me, so I started writing Ceaseless Night, and, wouldn't you have it, made this Wattpad account. I've developed a whole lot behind the scenes and my creative writing class is helping get me on a roll (though I could certainly write more). 

I've recently come to the revelation that writing an entire novel might not be the smartest move for someone as inexperienced as I, so I'm putting Ceaseless Night on the backburners in favor of a shorter Story Bit. It'll be a continuation (or prequal? I don't know)of the thing in Story Bits called Conspiracy, and feature this guy escaping a facility and stuff.

The kalimba. It's this neat xylophone esc instrument from Zimbabwe. Thus far I can only play a very poor rendition of Canon in C on it, but I'm improving.

And last but probably least. Photography. I've already done a whole lot of photography, you are looking at it right now, all the birds are pictures I took (you can probably tell by how low quality they are). I'd say this can be sort of a laid back hobby. I'll just take my camera on trips and take pictures of anything that interests me.

It's pretty easy to make a good picture, just up the saturation.

Unfortunately, Wattpad can barely even handle one picture, so I'll just describe them. My first, like, actually good picture was taken in this ghost town, and it was of this abandoned theater thing, with just two folding chairs sitting in front, completely empty. I like trying to make up some metaphor behind it. I also have lots of really good wallpaper photos, like this overhead shot of a bouquet. If you ever need a nice wallpaper, I got you covered. Some of my pictures are very abstract, like there's one I took at night, with the right half being the wall of my house illuminated by a yellow light, and the left half being complete darkness. It looks very ominous.

Honestly, for all of these goals, I just need to convert the time I spend watching YouTube and writing a diary on Wattpad into time spent on actual things with real meaning. I'm not doing very good, but at least I'm doing better, so that's a plus.

If you meet one of these birds on your travels, keep in mind that they'll do anything to take food from the smaller birds. Adieu.