I have been watching a lot of DVD's lately.

Maybe it is the cold. The temperature has dropped, in just a couple of weeks, from the sixties to the thirties. Brrr! I miss not being able to go out biking. Yes, I know you can 'theoretically' bike all year 'round. But I am a wuss. I admit it. I am not going out biking when there are thin layers of ice here and there. BTW, it just started snowing! Just now! Ah, well. I guess it is November already.

Or maybe it is the darkness. What idiot thought of adding to the misery of diminishing daylight by moving the clock back an hour? I mean, everybody is up at six anyway. And it is dark then anyway, daylight saving time or not. So this is effectively only zapping another hour of daylight from the end of the day. Making it dark when you are finishing work, at 5 pm, instead of being able to enjoy at least a modicum of brightness until six o'clock. I know this whole thing started with farmers and their need for daylight to work. Jada-jada-jada. Do I look like a farmer? Those farmers can just haul themselves out of bed an hour earlier. And let me sleep!

Anyway. DVD's. I rent my DVD's from a local video rental shop, place, thingy, something. And I have become vaguely familiar with most of the faces of those that work there. Maybe it's just my video place, but why is it that the average clerk at Wal-Mart or K-Mart looks retarded next to the kids in that place? I mean, these are similar jobs, yes? Requiring similar skills. Similar hours. Probably paying roughly the same. So why is it that I can carry on a conversation about Kafka with a guy at the DVD rental shop without incidence, while mentioning anything that's not on a shelf in Wal-Mart, to one of the clerks there, will get me a referral to the help desk (where no help is to be found, parenthetically)? This has nothing to do with me. I am sure that the average Wal-Mart-er is twice as smart as I am. But there is no denying it. Video clerks beat store clerks. Hands down. Why?

Anyways (reprise)! There is this girl. And she just started working at the video place. Which is not out of the ordinary. She herself is neither. Maybe in her early twenties, dark-haired, brown eyes, thin frame, aloof, nice smile. All average. But she has a withered hand. She does not seem to be able to move it much, and it is much thinner than her other hand. It is also slightly deformed. Not that you would necessarily notice. Because she shields it and hides it. Elegantly. And this created the strangest energy between us. I tried not to look. Because my mother taught me not to stare. And this girl noticed that. And tried even harder to hide her hand. In the space of a few minutes, this became a sort of a coy issue. Somehow both bashful and evasive, even flirtatious, at the same time. It had an air of mischief about it, and this girl appeared coquettish, even though she was just trying to hide a part of her which didn't conform. I saw something, of her, which she didn't want to show, or which 'shouldn't' be seen. I know this sounds strange, maybe even downright twisted, but in some manner it was a very fragile, even erotic moment.

OK. I admit it. It does sound sick.

So be it.