All day in the horrible desert yesterday...

Like the title says, I was all day in the desert yesterday, from about 11 to 9 PM. Before leaving some Jehovah’s Witnesses were going about looking for Spanish speaking people. I saw the dad first as I was gathering trash in a box and had put it out my door and was still filling it up. I thought he was a probation officer from the look of him, coming to talk to one of my new neighbors. But then I saw them coming up and heard “Jehovah’s Witnesses”. I had only a few days ago been once again reading up about their false prophecies. I decided to talk to them when I saw the second neighbors they came to didn’t take to them, and also probably didn’t speak Spanish, decided to talk to them to see if they could answer a question I knew would refute them. Before asking I talked to the dad a very little amount, and saw he spoke English decently, just spoke it was an accent, but his six? year old son had no accent. They were both dressed formally, a light blue dress shirt and ties and black pants. I asked the dad something that was almost exactly like this, “The Bible says that there’s only one God, but Jehovah’s Witnesses say Jesus is another god. If Jesus isn’t God, why did he allow worship of himself? Remember how the angel in Revelation told John not to worship him when he did? But when about two people I think, worshiped Jesus, he didn’t say anything. I’m not trying to argue.” The dad replied peacefully (at least it seemed peaceful to me) “Of course you’re not trying to argue. I can’t speak English (or he said “English well”) but I would like to give you some information.” I offered my email first, but he seemed to be taking a while to write it down, so then said my number, but I had forgotten it, so then I just gave my email. He then asked if I knew anyone who spoke Spanish round where I lived, and I didn’t, but mentioned there was a Spanish family (as in Mexicans) living nearby, but that they had suddenly disappeared.

Then I went out into the desert, collecting things, and eventually went in search of my ipod like I had planned the day before, but didn’t find. At about 7 PM I think (I have no watch and no more ipods to use to check the time), after exhausting myself and drinking decent tasting public water and wetting my clothing and body with it (it was hot yesterday, but not very hot, but I heard on the radio this morning there was record breaking heat all over the southwest, but it seemed no hotter then usual to me, in fact seemed a few degrees cooler to me, but maybe that was because I had soaked myself in water before and during my exploration), ok so after that, I cracked my neck, then straightned it back, but found I couldn’t turn my neck! It hurt trying and I found I was paralyzed, so I slowly lied on my back and tried to crack it again thinking cartilidge or whatever was in the way, but now I think it was because of a misalignment due to a degraded disc being that I’ve cracked my neck often during my life, very often, like about every 10 mins usually, till I started my desert explorations over the past 6 months (apparently moving around helps make your spine more flexible. But since I hadn’t lied down or sat comfortably or sat at all for more than about 10 mins during that 8 hour exploration, and had been mostly constantly walking, and my feet hitting rocks often and me often stumbling, and getting badly dehydrated, my spine apparently had a less than good amount of water in it so that the discs in my spine weren’t supporting me well, and the weakest part, the part where I crack my neck often, which is probably damaged, got worse to the point where it was collapsed I theorize. Had I become paralyzed I imagine I would have been dead in a few hours, as I was in a part of the desert that I found no one ever goes, or very rarely, and where my voice probably would not have been heard even if I managed to get of a few yells. But I was near the top of a cliff, which had somewhat of a half circle shape, and there was a rest stop far in the distance, and some nearby apartments, so maybe, if I had been able to notice a car there, might have been heard.

While the light was dying out I had also spent about thirty mins searching for this beautiful botryoidal rock I had lost about a month and a half ago, maybe two months ago. It was a little less than an inch in diameter I think, was opaque and was lavendar colored. It resembled another one I had found about five months ago, lying by a plant, but that one I lost had much better symmetry and caused me to give a “wow” when I saw it, it was that beautiful, but I lost it while using a very old and dirty sweater I found as a shemag to cover my face that day, because I had been in the sun for about six hours and didn’t want my skin to burn. I gathered rocks on that day, and yesterday, so that my eye would eventually see this rock. At least I found two sparkling rocks while looking, and a nice fossil rock. I can’t understand why I can’t find it since I know I saw it just a short while before losing it, and know the general area where it must have dropped. And since it was opaque rather than having one dirty bottomed side, I don’t understand why I haven’t seen it yet. I’m thinking I haven’t either because it slipped under the dirt or while I was shaking the dirty sweater out again, had flinged it rather than having just dropped it.

I then, sadly left after thorough searching when it was nearly completely dark, and on the way went for a trash bag with rocks I had put inside, which I hid in a crevase and to not degrade in the sun, but after just a few steps it bottomed out and I walked back home with only a small amount of rocks. So disappointing. I wish I had a helper, but I don’t want competition nor do I have the money to pay anyone for their help. But, even if I did have competition, I know it would be unlikely being that this work I’ve chosen is so Hellish that an extremely few amount of people would do it, which I know, because many people have seen me do it for months now, and only three or four people gave it a try, and barely tried; it is that hot and miserable here. They also see I get covered in dust too, and that it’s all repetition. I also lost two very good fossil rocks about a week and two weeks ago, and though I know the general area where, haven’t found them yet. There’s also a wonderfully shaped heart-shaped rock that I found about a month ago, and which even left a heart-shaped impression in the ground when I picked it up, but I didn’t mark the spot because I feared someone would see me marking it, and take it before I could get back to it. I tried to get a pic of it with my laptop and external webcam when I found it and put it next to the heart-shaped impression, but the laptop wouldn’t start up because it became drained. My fear was paranoia though, since I remember finding a nice large red rock that could have been used for decoration, but when I came back for it after having left it from exhaustion or having too many rocks to take back already, found it was gone, and I know I didn’t lose it, because it stood out, and I’ve alread been in the area where it was many time. I’ve also had rocks stolen off my porch, and they weren’t even anything to steal, unless a smoothish gray round rock is a very valuable thing, but it isn’t.

I also found a blind snake (the smallest known snake and which stays burrowed mostly), a small one two nights ago, which I thought at first was an Earth worm. I found it near the edge of a Mesa, at night, where I usually look for rocks to take. It wasn’t on dusty soil either, but the hard rock filled soil. I supposed it was there because it had gone up a sandy path that connects the Mesa to an area below the Mesa which has much more dusty soil. I noticed yesterday when coming back from below the Mesa, coming back from a public rest stop, that over two or more of my footprints in this one thin part where there was nice refinded dusty soil, a thin snake like trail, not a long one, but just a few feet, which may have lead into this bush area. I tried seeing if there was a snake around but had little energy left and so went back up to the middle of this Mesa with horrible boulders and human debri, looking again for a lost ipod.

I plan to go to Walmart today to get a cheap mp3 player and Walmart’s $4 year long accident insurance for portable electronic devices, because besides that being a good deal, found that all the mp3 players I’ve used stopped working after about a month, from dust and water damage. Apparently that’s a common thing, very common, being that Walmart is offering that warranty, and mp3 players must be super popular, being that Walmart can offer such a cheap warranty. I was in no worse mental shape from not being able to listen to music like I usually do while rock hunting though, and actually maybe even better, since my headphones have become so worn out that they often slip off, and the cord is often an annoyance being that it snags on my knee when I bend down to look for rocks and then come up again, after which I then put the cord behind my neck, and since the music I like has become very repetative to me, and because the headphones trap heat in your heat (and these are the over your ear black faux leather padded kind). Hopefully I’ll be able to afford new white over the ear headphones soon, or find some comfortable in your ear type, but those always become itchy and painful after a about three days.

My right arm muscles, on top and below my wrist have been in pain for a long time now, about two months. It hurts below my wrist as I’m typing (carpel tunnel?). I hope I’m not doing permanent damage. If my bikes and my $200 gorilla cart hadn’t been stolen, I’d probably be in a lot less pain, not have gotten paralyzed, have manby more rocks right now, and in a much better mood. I think a good pair of shoes I have were also stolen, but I think they are just buried somewhere under the rocks I have everywhere in my home.

A large sun spider aka camel spider aka wind scorpion that I’d found and was using to eat roaches outside my deck, died about a week ago. I found a new male one, smaller, and non-violent, and it so far survived in the sun partially, without food, for a day. Last night I tried to feed it ants, but apparently realizing what they were it started running all over and wouldn’t stop, so I put it in another container and tried to get it to eat a cricket, but it wouldn’t and eventually I dumped it on a shirt, held it down with a q-tip and forced the cricket in its face and it finally ate, but after about a minute I think, when I moved the q-tip again, suddenly backed away and stopped. I tried the forcing thing again and it acted like I had broken it’s neck and it jittered its feelers. I finally got it to move again after this and it’s now in a pyrex measuring cup on top of one of my speakers. I expect it will die soon, though I’m not hoping it will. I could let it go of course, but I want to see what it takes to keep it alive till it becomes big. I’d also like to find out if it becomes violent as it gets older.

Something strange happened while the sun was going down yesterday, but while there was still good light, I caught two beetles that looked like this bug here I found out about two days ago: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pecunium/3168166703/in/photostream only their coloration was different. Strange that the photo discovery coincided with catching two the next day.

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