O Praise the Humble Pen Light

Longtime readers of this blog know that I was raised in Palos Verdes, a little bump of dirt that sticks out into the ocean at the bottom of Santa Monica Bay, that part of the Pacific Ocean trimmed by all the beaches of Los Angeles County.

This will seem like a non sequitur, but once when I lived in Haines, Alaska, one of the guys who worked at the one radio station in town -- a public radio station, naturally -- mentioned that he was from Marblehead, MA, a place he described as being "on a peninsula and built to stay that way."

Palos Verdes is kind of like that, too, the Los Angeles version of that anyway.  Or it was.  I haven't been back in decades and can't think of a reason why I would in the future, so it may have changed, but that's how I remember it.

The thing is, being in Los Angeles County, where the skies are uniformly pink all night from dusk to dawn because of all the streetlights, Palos Verdes, even with its intention to be and stay elite and also pseudo-countrified, had tons of streetlights, too.  I could walk anywhere after the sun went down -- once I was old enough, of course -- and there would be light on my path, or on my road.  Just about anywhere.  I think there were some parts of the Portuguese Bend area where I used to race around in my VW bug just to fly over the bumps and around the nigh-hairpin turns where there weren't a lot of streetlights.  But even there I remember them, even out where nobody lived because the earth was too unstable and every time they built a house it ended up in the sea.

Even Northern California, where I lived before we moved to this coast, had plenty of streetlights, even in wooded and other semi-rural areas, as long as they were residential.

So one of the things that has freaked me out about living in Massachusetts has been the lack of streetlights.  It's one of those things that makes me feel like I live in a foreign country.  Once you leave the center of a town or city, there are practically none.  When I walk around after dark, even here in town, if I don't pass a house with lights on, the sidewalks are often pitch black.  I'm not sure if it's because this is one of those New England things that have just always been this way, if this is a conscious choice to save money and resources, or if this is a conscious choice against the very sort of light pollution that makes L.A. a huge bowl of pinkly glowing mere night-ishness where you cannot ever see the stars in the sky unless you go far up into the hills and mountains.  Because I see more streetlight hardware in Massachusetts than I see lit streetlights, I tend to suspect a combination of the latter two, and I respect those choices even though they are not the safest, not for drivers, not against crime, and not for night walkers, or in winter, late afternoon walkers.

The sidewalks around here, like the streets, are not smooth.  Tree roots and simple decay have made their mark on pavement, where there is pavement.  Also, besides the bumps and chunks of pavement, gravel, and loose rocks, there are obstacles, debris in autumn, snow and ice in winter, dog leavings and a certain amount of human-source litter always.

Longtime readers of this blog, besides knowing where I spent my childhood, also know that I do not walk around entirely on standard issue body parts.  Several of my longtime readers and many casual visitors also do not walk around on two human legs.  But we do walk around, or crutch around, or wheel around.  And though I cannot speak for the others, I certainly refuse to be stopped by darkness.  Nights are beautiful, and businesses are open after sunset, and I will not be excluded from the darkly beautiful parts of my own life or prevented from doing business after 5:00 once we're off Daylight Savings Time just because I don't have all my original agility, such as it ever was.

Day or night, I trip a lot, and I fall sometimes.  I don't really mind.  I take it all in my stride, as it were.  The tripping, though, sometimes it hurts more than a fall.  I will stub my prosthetic foot on some unseen obstacle like a little unexpected hill in the pavement or something, and the suddenness with which my stump automatically clenches in response often results in a very painful muscle cramp powerful enough to stop me in my tracks.  I have to stand and consciously relax the muscles before I can move forward.  It's not horrible, but it is kind of a drag.  Since I don't yet seem able to train my stump not to respond this way, I like to avoid it wherever I can.

To do that, I have to be able to see where I'm going.  Specifically, I have to be able to see the pavement.

Because I don't have the right size batteries for my tricycle's headlamp, and also because I recently accidentally broke off the front reflector (and it will make awesome earrings; just wait and see), tonight I decided to walk to the post office.  This is what the pavement looked like two houses past the post office on the way home:

This is what it looked like after a car drove by:

This is what it looked like when I photographed it with a flash:

Not too bad; there's worse on my way home than this.  Still, the road definitely rises up to meet me in not entirely predictable ways.  Fortunately, I am ever armed with this:

Yes, I have a purple pen light, specifically a MAG Solitaire flashlight!  It is an outstanding thing to have, too.  (Sorry, the website doesn't seem to sell the purple ones.)

No, it is not as powerful as a big ol' honkin' flashlight, the sort designed to light up the night and also that you could use to strike someone over the head and knock him out in an action movie, but those are kind of a drag to carry around, what with being all big and heavy and stuff.  Besides, if you are anything like me, even if you own such a thing, the likelihood that you will remember to grab it on the way out the door at the beginning of any given excursion is probably slim to none.

You've got to have your keys, though, right?  Most of the time you will remember to bring your keys.  A pen light, as you can see, can easily be attached to your keychain and will likely not take up significantly more room in your pocket than a small Swiss army knife.

I tried to take a picture to show you how great it is to have a pen light when you are walking black and lumpy sidewalks in the dark.  I'm not sure you can tell from this.

Seriously, though, it's a big improvement.  And it's only nine bucks, and it fits on your keychain.  So if, like me, you already have complications in your gait and don't need to battle with random external ones, I highly recommend you get yourself one.

Comments

[Kay]

When I lived in Tempe and occasionally refused to sit in my hot van when I could get to the university on my scooter, I had a halogen bike light that I could mount or detach from it's holder. That worked great for dark streets at night. And I was in the street much of the time because of no sidewalks or sidewalks without curb cuts.

My new scooter, which I've had maybe five years, has a built-in headlight. Fantastic. It is necessary for backing up the ramp into my vanwithout backing off the side of the ramp. Good for evening walks. Great for power outages in the house when everyone is scrambling to get backup power for my vent. At least we can see.

[Bipolarlawyercook]

I think it is a combination of El Cheapo and of avoiding light pollution. New England sidewalks will always be bumpy. What with the Old Trees, Frost Heaves, and random municipal projects, I don't think I've seen a smooth patch of sidewalk more than about 5 feet square my entire life-- and I'm a native.

Penlights are a good idea, but wouldn't do me any good, since I trip on nothing, in broad daylight.

[elizabeth]

Well, I was totally with you on the post and even had a thigh clench with you described your stump clench/cramp. Then the pictures showed up, or more specifically the little comments that people who have had a bit too much of that "waccy tabbacy" start putting on their photos. I was mesmerized at this alternative dialogue about text and the colour of your flesh and your trying to copyright darkness? And does "Yo" preserve copyright?

I think there was a point to the blog for pedestrians about keys and flashlights (which is totally useless to use manual wheelies but the lights that go on your head for runners are not a bad substitute) but I was more interested in the subversive photo commentator, who felt the need to defend assertions about the picture (who said it wasn't abstract?) - which was, too enjoyable for words - but since the comments won't let me put up my own commented pictures....this is where it ends.

[alphabitch]

Lights are good. My street has plenty of lights -- not so many that it's glaringly horrible, but enough to feel safe. However there are no sidewalks. The streets parallel on either side, for some reason, do have sidewalks but mine does not, and it's kind of curvy and hilly. As I am a pedestrian commuter as well as a frequent dog walker, I find myself wearing a goofy reflective vest in the early morning and late afternoons. Yes, it looks silly, but given that I am nearly always dressed in black, I think it's a good idea. Cars drive way too fast on my little street. I do have one of those halogen lights that clip on your handlebars or whatever. I know it's somewhere around here. It's not obviously blue, but sorta bluish, and has a blink setting. I liked it for cycling, as motorists tend to notice a blinking blue light in their mirrors.

A key chain light might be more useful, though. But that thing you said about how you've got to have your keys? Hahahahaha! I've even lost the ones I hid outside in case I lock myself out. Which I do about once a week.

Maybe I should attach a spare key to Ruby's collar.

[Sara]

Kay, yes! Built in headlamp! Awesome! Some of us, those with the not exactly reliable memories, should probably have things implanted into our bodies like headlamps in our foreheads or housekeys in our forefingers that we could just flick a switch to reveal. But since that technology is far away, keychain pen lights and built in headlamps on our every form of transportation will just have to do. And along those lines, you will no doubt be relieved to hear that I bought new batteries for my tricycle's headlamp today. :)

BLC, I am every bit as bad and always have been. And part of the problem is that even in broad daylight I don't actually look at the ground most of the time, though I did when I was learning to walk again. But lots of our sidewalks are unpaved, and lots of areas around here, including the neighborhood where we lived when I had my leg off and where I rehabbed myself walking to work, don't have sidewalks at all, let alone bumpy, cluttered ones. So in those situations, yeah, okay, I'll watch my step -- assuming I can find the light, of course.

Thanks for your take on the reasoning behind the paucity of streetlights. As a foreigner, I am just not clued in about these things. At least where you live there are more of them.

Elizabeth, I have not partaken of that particular herb in at least 22 years. I am naturally wacky.

The thing is, especially since I've never been paid for most of the stuff I put up here (unlike things you see in magazines and other printed matter, for example, about which there is some confusion in the Land of Internet), I have to make sure everyone who searches for pictures and finds mine out of context knows that they are not free for just any use just because I stuck them on my blog and they could be found by a search engine. So I digitally watermark every single one of my images that can possibly be classified as my work and I type these dorky little copyright notices into all of them in PhotoShop. Sometimes, though, it just seems so ridiculous, so I make fun of myself or slip little messages in just to entertain myself and whoever might notice them. So far, only you and Alphabitch have ever noticed any.

The color thing is a big deal fascination for me. To color the words in these little notices, I use the eyedropper tool within the text tool in PhotoShop which shows you a little eyedropper-shaped cursor which you position over a color already within the image and then click on. Then the text will be that color. To get that pale pink, I clicked on the whitest part of my finger in that image. I thought that color would come out ecru or a very pale cream, but it's pink! It's real, live, candy-pale, suitable for Hello Kitty or gothic enjoyment pink! I thought that was astonishing and delightful.

I have a whole ever so slightly neglected project devoted to teaching people to see color -- real color, the way it really is, not the way we think it should be -- by using jigsaw puzzles. To play with it, go here. (There are only summer and fall pix there right now; someday I will throw in some winter and spring pix, too, to give a fuller sense of the true palette of a year.)

Alphabitch, I'm so glad you mentioned the vest, because that's another feature of the pen light I forgot to mention. Yes, it also makes you more visible to carry even a tiny light. Last night I was wearing black boots, black jeans, and a black Polartec jacket in, yes, pitch blackness. Clever, right? Fortunately, I had my little light, so I wasn't a total car target.

I think the idea of attaching a key to Ruby's collar is ingenious. Just remember to put it back the second you've got your door open!

I am paranoid about leaving the house without my keys because -- TMI alert -- I almost always have to use the bathroom the very second I get home. Yes I did my Kegel exercises and no I didn't ever have a baby but yes I'm middle-aged and that sadly means things just don't always stay where they're supposed to quite as long as I need them to. The idea of being locked out on the brink of such an event is truly unbearable to me, so I've gotten in the habit of not closing my front door unless I am touching my housekey in my pocket at the same moment. It's just better that way.

Er -- suddenly I find I have something I have to do. Please excuse me.

[elizabeth]

Okay colours and jigsaws - I apparently have long standing debates about what is blue v. purple (arose again tonight) but I actually have no problem with that in your pictures because for instance, in LA: Grass was brown, soil was grey, trees were dusky, leaves were brown and black, bushes were brown (I think during the drought years I lived there almost everything TRIED to be brown) - but also the way I do jigsaws is simply stare and stare and stare at the jigsaw pieces until I can tell where the colours start to blend and then simply assemble the jigsaw. This seems to drive Linda insane (Linda is a "Does this fit there....or maybe there" type of jigsaw person).

[Sara]

I hope the debate did not arise again because of my photo of my little flashlight, because it does look more blue in this photo than it actually is. If you saw it in person, you would immediately see that it is purple.

But, see, even in L.A., grass isn't always or usually brown, not exactly. It's yellow. Or it's grey. Or it's ecru striped with olive and rust and sepia. Shadows aren't black or grey; sometimes they're blue or purple or brown or just a darker shade of pink or whatever other color they are cast upon. Know what I mean? So when you break an image down until all the colors are just colors, totally out of context, you can see just the colors without the shape telling you what it is and therefore what color to think you should be seeing, and then when you put the pieces together, they become things, and then we rethink what's really there.

That's my theory, anyway.

[elizabeth]

nope....you're just wierd.