"Oh Ramier, Ramier"--Regette feels like a pigeon even though she is a butterfly

After Summer's seriousness, I too experienced some thoughts that weren't hilarious. Which is unusual, because what bounces around in my head is usually highly amusing (basically, I crack myself up like a crazy person), but this one particular thought wasn't. It was, however, a good pondering thought, for sick days and couch-bound musing.

I considered where I am in life, and felt a bit like a pigeon, trapped inside a box.



Let me back up a bit, to the engine room of this thought-train, to give better background to the conclusion above.

Firstly, I was pondering my lack of faith at work yesterday. Not lack of Faith (eh...I don't want to get into that right now, my head pounds as is), but lack of faith in people, and the world in general. I told my co-worker that yesterday was the last day to buy prom tickets and my date had not contacted me since he asked. I worried that perhaps he didn't buy me one.

She told me, "Have a little faith in the boy," but I didn't. I didn't at all.

I turned on my cell phone after work to find he had texted me and that he had indeed bought tickets and he needed to know the color of my dress. He apologized for not contacting me sooner, explaining exams had kept him busy.

On to why I feel like a pigeon...

B.F. Skinner loved pigeons; they were his favorite experimental animal. He even designed rockets guided by pigeons (eh, not the point, sorry). Once he put some hungry pigeons in a specially designed box that fed them on a fixed interval schedule. Well, the pigeons thought that when the box despensed food, it must have been due to something they had been doing at the time.

The pigeons became superstitious. They danced in circles continuously, or bobbed their head, or puffed out their chests--whatever they had been doing last time they were fed.

When I doubt the world, when I doubt people, sometimes I act like these pigeons. Like before I take an exam, I always go running, then I drink a cup of coffee and take two Advil--not because I'm in pain or tired, but because that is what I did last time and I did well last time.

That is why I did not text him to ask if he got the tickets. Last time I texted a guy, I ranted about literature, flirted misguidedly a bit, and he never texted me again.

I'll just keep dancing in circles until the mysterious forces of the universe give me some metaphorical bird seed.

A pigeon today, a butterfly tomorrow,
Regette