Do you listen to your gut?

Ever get one of those super strong feelings that something isn't right? For no reason at all, something in your brain is just screaming at you that something's wrong?

I had that feeling on a hike recently. I really was looking forward to hiking the Oyster Dome on vacation. I'd hiked it many times before. But the morning I got up, something in my brain said go hike by Mount Baker instead. I ignored it, and drove all the way to the trailhead, and the voice was louder. I ignored it and started hiking. I made it half a mile, and with each step a deep and unexplainable feeling of anxiety and dread grew stronger and stronger until it felt like my gut was screaming at me and I became physically nauseous. So I turned around, hiked back to the car, and drove out to a different trail by Mount Baker, and the bad feeling went away. I enjoyed a lovely hike up around Bagley Lakes instead.

I'll never know why I had that feeling, but I trust that my gut, my subconscious, whatever, can pick up on subtle cues and warn me of trouble ahead. Maybe it was because I had my dog, who I've never taken up on the steep cliffside before. I woke up two days later with a sprained ankle I didn't know how I obtained, so maybe I had the beginnings of the injury already that could have exacerbated more quickly on the steeper grade. Who knows where the feeling came from. I always assess to see if it's just fear or intuition, but if it's the latter, I think we do well to listen.

One time I got validation of my intuition. Back when I delivered newspapers, I had finished my route and was driving home. It was 5am on a major road leading to the interstate, and was not at all uncommon to be sharing the road with other cars, but one morning my intuition sent me a red flag. Somehow, I had a gut feeling where I just knew the car behind me was following me. There was no logical reason to assume this, but my gut was screaming at me don't go home.

Instead, I decided to head to the combo gas station/24 hour McDonald's and get some breakfast. If there was something to the feeling, then I'd be in a place with people who could get help. If it was nothing, then hey, at least I get breakfast. The car followed me into the driveway, which still was not an unusual thing, as that gas station had the cheapest gas on the strip and the McD's was the only 24 hour fast food there as well.

However, as soon as I passed the pumps and was clearly heading for the drive-thru, the car behind me quickly wheeled around and peeled out of that parking lot at full speed! I shook as the realization dawned on me that my gut was right, I was being followed. I don't know why someone was following me at five in the morning, and I can't explain why my gut knew it, but it clearly taught me that sometimes, we just need to listen to our gut, even if it seems totally irrational. Sometimes, somehow, we perceive more than we know.

I spontaneously picked up a hitchhiker the other day

Last month I went on a mini-vacation back to Bellingham to visit some friends and get some hiking and kayaking in. On my return, I stopped in Thorp not only to fuel up and pick up some crack-laced popcorn (Little River Candy Co. has toffee popcorn that is bomb, yo!), but I also visited the Thorp Mill where I got a one-on-one tour of the place and discovered it was more interesting than I expected it to be. I don't know how interesting I originally expected it to be, but it was a pleasant visit.

On my way back, there was a hitchhiker on her way south. She was disheveled and clearly hadn't bathed in a while, but something compelled me to pull over and pick her up. I don't know why, I didn't even think about it. While this wasn't the first hitchhiker I've ever picked up, it's not something I commonly do. I pulled over, she told me she was from Alaska and heading to Oregon. I told her I could get her as far as Yakima.

I had regrets about this.

The woman was nuts. She didn't talk, and she fucked with my power window the whole way, up and down. She also hated my dog, which sucked because my dog loved her and didn't understand why he wasn't allowed even near the passenger seat.

Do you know what the drive is like between Thorp and Yakima? Once you get past Ellensburg, you got about 25 miles of nuthin'. Just quietly, awkwardly driving through desert hills with just the sound of my passenger side power window going up and down and up and down the whole fucking way. I was afraid she was gonna burn out the motor in my window! And since it was the middle of the desert in summer and there was no place to stop, I couldn't very well change my mind and kick her out early, even though my anxiety was growing with the silence.

Finally I dropped her off at a hotel in Union Gap. Hope she got where she was going.

Hide yo magazines, hide yo dildos

After a summer of sweltering heat, I finally got maintenance to come and put in some ACs in my house. It's the end of the season so it sort of feels like a moot point, but hey, they finally showed up.

So there I was, hanging out in mis-matched shorts and a shirt because it's too damn smokey to breathe outside, and the maintenance guy comes in. He looks around my living room to figure out where to put a unit, and then goes to the bedroom.

As he's looking around, I notice he glances at my nightstand...a nightstand adorned with a few books, a water bottle, and a bright purple dildo, because of course. Hey, I'm a single lady living alone! At that point it was too late for me to try and hide it because that would just be bringing attention to the dildo in the room. As soon as he left it was safely hidden under some pillows.

Then as I returned to sit down while the maintenance guys worked, I remembered I had a bullet on the coffee table! It was a recent acquisition, still in its packaging, and I think it wasn't as noticeable. At an inscrutable glance it looks like it could be an MP3 player or something. I hid it safely away.

That's when I remembered the other bullet lying on a shelf in the bedroom. I checked on it but it was safely obscured.

I might have too many toys lying about...