In Which I Adhere to My Schedule Despite Bad Scheduling

Alone in the Woods

A man can only wander so much in a camper.
The floor plan puts dinner one step away
from slumber, and worried pacing
takes him from bedroom to steering wheel
with no time for thinking before the next about-face.

Rain traps him with ambitions of contemplation,
no release of decision or destination
possibilities bouncing off a kettle-topped stove
and occasionally seeping out windows cracked for air
to echo out into the tree trunks.

The applause of rain on the roof a backdrop
to building tension, clouded sky yellowed
through foliage and tinging everything
with unhealthy anemia, white tile glancing
guiltily, and eyes broadcasting despair
with a glance through the wall at the life outside.

Poem:
I saw a video clip of a camper and was feeling a bit nostalgic regarding camping, and this is what resulted. Of course (as is probably obvious), I have a definite preference for tents. Something about a camper just makes things a bit less authentic.

Observation:
We are talking a lot about the justice system in my law classes. Imagine that. But today was particularly interesting because in one class we talked about what it takes for someone to be considered negligent, and in the other we talked about Miranda rights. The first topic was discussed in the context of situations where someone did something wrong, but the extent of the damage seemed out of proportion to the action. Like a person crashed their car, but it just so happened that hidden under the spot their car hit was a bomb and they blew up a house. It doesn't seem right to consider them responsible for the damage done to the house, even though it was their accident (probably negligent) that caused it. So we talked about the types of causation before getting around to the idea I liked, which is that you are responsible for any damages caused by you being in a position of privilege not shared by those you damage. So if anyone could have crashed their car there, it's not like it was your particular privileged state that made it happen, so it's not really your fault. But then I wondered about cases where someone is privileged, but not negligent. The case we discussed in class concerned a man docking his boat at another guy's dock because there was a bad storm coming, which boat then damaged the dock during the storm, and it was ruled that he should pay for the damages despite the fact that the decision he made was completely warranted. Now, I agree that he should pay for the dock he damaged, even though he had no other choice, since it was his own risk for being in a boat to begin with. But going back to the car example, imagine the bomb was only able to be triggered by a really nice sports car. So only someone in a position of privilege could set it off. Does that mean the guy who sets it off is really responsible for the whole outcome, simply because it occurred due to privilege? Our discussion was cut short. I plan to ask on Friday when we have class again. Miranda rights will have to wait for some other time, unless I have something more interesting to talk about by then. Let's just say I'm not sure they should be necessary, though I have no problem with them being there, and I'll elaborate if I have time at some other point.

Exercise:
One of the important things in good prose writing is to have more than one thing happening at once. In this exercise, describe a kiss, taking your time and trying to visualize the action clearly and precisely. However-- have something else going on at the same time. Maybe one person is thinking of a different boyfriend, or perhaps someone's leg is falling asleep, or maybe one person is worried about the garlic pizza he had for dinner.....

Their lips drew closer, their eyes fluttering tentatively closed, but Jordan still wasn't quite sure it was going to happen. It was only last month he had been told by his doctor he would never walk again. He sat on the pale leather couch and wondered what to do with his hands. The things he could still move, though at the moment any movement he felt could lead to an interruption. And he knew he didn't want that. So they remained by his side as he tried to focus on the present. On the feel of her breath on his cheek. On the fact that she had had the presence of mind to put her arms around his neck first before leaning in. On the fact that her hair was suspiciously odor-free after all the romantic scenes of men sensuously inhaling the perfect scent from their lady's tresses. He could feel all of these things, but he held off believing in it all until the very end, until the smoothness of her lips departed and the slight stick of her lip gloss meant she had pulled away. His eyes opened. Hers were open already. Had he been sitting there, eyes closed, for too long? Did she think him silly? But before he could think too hard, she leaned forward once more.

Me:
I have a time trial to ride tomorrow potentially. Although the weather looks terrible, and I'm always looking for an excuse to avoid a chance at embarrassment. But I am excited to put together the nicest computer I've had the pleasure of designing this weekend. It has four one-terabyte hard drives in RAID10, an SSD for the operating system, eight gigs of memory, and a pretty fast (and easily overclocked) quad-core processor. (Trust me, I did my research. More memory than that is overkill, and programs aren't designed to utilize six cored unless you're planning on doing some crazy multitasking.) And it has a pretty awesome blu-ray burner, a better-than-decent graphics card, and just great specifications in general. Maybe I'm strange for enjoying this process so much, but finding good deals has it's own appeal, and then putting it all together to form a working machine? Well that's pretty cool, even if it is easier than most people realize. And with this build I get to mess around with extra connector cards because I had a request for it to be firewire compatible, as well as ready for high speed wifi.