Love Darts

I've been trying to tell myself I'll feel better if I visit my blog. I will feel better, right? What makes you feel better?

<crickets>

Okay, I'll keep up my end of this conversation. I feel better when I walk and I look for small things. Today, I looked at rain drops on sweet pea tendrils. They were beautiful doodles, all curls and light.

I looked at a snail. Her shell rocked back and forth as she made her way across the path. Her shell was battered, as if she'd struggled with it. I told her she was beautiful and she let her antenna come back out after hiding her face for a while.

I know how she feels.

She really was beautiful, a black spiral showing deep windings. She might be a Pacific Sideband snail. I wondered if the spiral tells told how old she was. I wondered at the little bumps on her tender flesh, a pattern that looked like spikes but were probably only ridges like the lines on a European slug.

I found out that calling my visitor 'she' might be misleading. One website said she was a hermaphrodite. I'm reluctant to look that up on my computer because I might get all kinds of strange photos that I don't want to see. You know how bad it can get online. So, I'll take their word for it. Sex is strange, especially when love darts are involved. Did you know that land snails shoot out love darts?

Watch this and my work is done. Now, you're educated and you can say you have voyeuristic tendencies too. Don't those snails deserve a little privacy?

I didn't think so either. I admit. I watched the whole video, but it was a little icky there for a while.

Thank you for listening, jb