Persistence
There is a stubbornness
to these old trees,
ugly in their contortions
but beautiful in their persistence,
wrapped around rocks
and rooted in nothing
as they project from the sides
of sheer red sheets.
There is a coldness
to the baking boulders,
which, when forced free
by tree roots,
fall and fracture
into manageable masses.
These treacherous traverses
tumble the tired
on their untrusted legs,
hinder progress, and force retreat,
but it’s worth the twisted ankle
and the wrenched knee
to see the rest of the scholarly,
the sophisticated,
turning back.
Poem:
I guess this is another poem about going places out west m0st other people don't make the effort to go. I like this one because of the analogy to the trees, which really are impressive in their ability to stick around in the strangest places. And their ability to shape the rock faces with their roots is a testament to their stubbornness. I edited this to be more focused on concrete detail. The original was more concerned with the abstract concept of persistence and nature's ambivalence to human contact, but I thought this still captured a good deal of that, and the description makes it more intelligible.
Observation:
I'm dropping my philosophy of technology class. Here is a rant to explain why. I walked in today to a very full classroom. I think all but one or two desks were full, and the room was pretty packed. This is a larger class than I like for philosophy, since it encourages professors to adopt a more lecture-based approach rather than center the class around discussion. The professor for this class has only been here a short time, and from the beginning of the period it seemed like the class was going to be tedious. He began by trying to get to know every person's name. He would read a name, and then ask for a fact to associate with whoever was called to help him out. With some effort, this occupied a good 15-20 minutes of class time. During this process, he felt obligated to offer his own opinions at random. When one girl said she enjoyed showing dogs, he asked her what her favorite breed was. When she replied she had an Irish Setter/Spaniel, he just said "Wrong. The only answer is Golden Retriever. They are the best dog."
I was displeased.
So with twenty of our ninety minutes gone, he introduced his lecture topic. It happened to be the definition of technology. Now, this concept is a bit more complicated than it might appear at first, since when you're in a philosophy class, all definitions are quickly deconstructed and analyzed based on their subjective interpretations. So I acknowledged the need for this defining to take place. But rather than get on with it and either give us a definition to discuss or ask for our input, the next thing he did was break us up into small groups. I don't like small groups, and this was no exception. After the process of rearranging the class needlessly had been accomplished, he gave us two questions. The first asked for a feature common to all technology, and the second asked for two types of technology that weren't electronic.
These questions would have taken me less than a minute to answer on my own. He gave us fifteen. And the worst part is, it took us fifteen. I said what I thought was the right answer, and my group ignored me. I stated again that I thought all technology was comprised of tools used for a specific purpose or the facilitation of certain tasks. My group somehow interpreted this as a segue into whether or not technology had to be physical. So they spent the next six minutes discussing this random tangent, and I sat there and fumed. Eventually they put down some random thing as an answer that was incredibly vague. I think it was that technology is something used to solve a problem. That was fine. It was quite similar to what I had said at the outset of our group's little discussion, but as long as it wasn't obviously wrong, who was I to complain?
The second question somehow took an equally long time. I said, "just write down combustion and medicine." They interpreted this to mean go back to their discussion about whether the non-physical could be a type of technology. At one point they had on the piece of paper that philosophy was an example of technology. I was on the verge of tears. Eventually I convinced them that the question wasn't hard and that the obvious answers I had provided would serve the purpose admirably.
Forty of our ninety minutes had passed.
The next fifteen were not occupied by a class discussion of our groups results. That would have been the obvious thing to do. Nope. Naturally, the next thing we did was, on the count of three, point to the person we thought had contributed most to our group's discussion. We weren't allowed to point at ourselves. We did this three times. We were in groups of six, so this meant that half of the members were given extra points. Not a single person in my group pointed at me. Not once. I was baffled. Only after we had rated each others' helpfulness did we learn how accurate their contribution was. This seemed backward to me. How were we to know who was most helpful without knowing who was closest to being correct? But we were finally going to get to the point of the lecture, so I shut up and stuck it out.
I was wrong.
We spent the next ten minutes shouting out what we had come up with. The first group's response was that technology consisted of tools used to solve problems. The rest of the answers, while phrased differently, neatly fit into that definition, but we took the time to go through and say them all anyway. Then we tested them to see if they were all right. Finally, we got to the definition the professor was going to use. "A tool used to accomplish a task." The revelation was unsurprising. It had taken us 75 of our 90 minutes to arrive at this single point. The next fifteen were spent clarifying the point. At the end, he told us he was very glad with our discussion, and he could tell this was going to be a great class. Oh, and never mind what we thought, the Patriots were going to win the Super Bowl. I'm not sure why he bothered to ask our opinion to begin with.
I have no idea how this passes for teaching. We literally learned one thing in ninety minutes. It's an embarrassment. If wasting time is something that passes for a teaching strategy, I'm pretty sure there is something wrong with our methods. I'd much rather just walk in, sit down for twelve minutes, get the information I need, ask any questions, and leave. This was a waste of my time. And the group work? I had given correct answers within the first 30-45 seconds, but received no credit for participation because I refused to partake in substandard conversation.
It's no surprise I've dropped. I'm just sad I won't be able to fill out a teacher evaluation form at the end of the semester.
Exercise:
"Dream Solution"
Your character has a nightmare. But in the middle of it, he or she creatively solves the problem. For example, Ted dreams that he is being backed to the edge of a cliff by someone coming at him with a saber. All of a sudden, Ted realizes that the saber is made out of the same tin foil his wife used to wrap up the peanut butter cookie dough for the freezer. Hey, have fun! What is your character's nightmare, and what is his or her "dream solution"?
Poor Gladys had never been fond of mirrors. It might have had something to do with her unshapely figure, or her perpetually unkempt hair, but mostly it was because she couldn't stand looking herself in the eye. So when, one night, her dreams led her to a funhouse filled with reflections, she was in quite a predicament. When the mirrors fell away and the reflections were left standing, she started to scream. As the various contorted versions of herself advanced, all desperate for eye contact, she came to the sudden realization that, since she was almost completely sure this wasn't a viable scenario in the world she usually frequented, she was probably dreaming. Unfortunately, this realization did little to help. Gladys, you see, had never been quick to think on her feet. She wasn't really quick to think in general, but standing was obviously her worst position. So she sat down. This helped matter immensely. Not only was her mind instantly more agile, but she no longer had to contend with the eyes. Except for those of the particularly squat version waddling over from her left. But, in full control now, she concocted a solution. In front of each of the lumbering figures appeared a mirror, perfectly flat and perfectly accurate. Gladys sat in the middle of the circle, happy to realize they were constructed of one way glass. She delighted in watching the facial expressions of her doppelgangers as they were introduced to their harsh reality, and woke up still chuckling.
Me:
My legs are tired, and I'm approaching that state myself. It's one of those times where if I were more alert I might have the energy to bore you with philosophy, but as it is, I'm not quite up for it. Instead, I will simply comment that I enjoy chocolate to an unhealthy degree, that it is convenient I'm dropping the only class I didn't order every textbook for, and that I have yet to find a main dish that doesn't benefit from some amount of sunflower seeds. When I acquire what I deem a large amount of a new additive, I start trying it on everything. Most recently these additives are sunflower seeds and lemon juice, both of which come in quantities far superior to the amount anyone needs in the near future. Lemon juice is not as universally appealing as sunflower seeds. In case that wasn't obvious. Good night.
January 14, 2011
January 13, 2011
In Which I Finally Get Around to Opening My Notebook
I wonder whether those tattooed knuckles
ever considered autism
as a possibility as the ink was pressed
into the rebellious skin.
I wonder whether the teen
at the tattoo parlor
intent on etching her soul
on her hands
was thinking about kids
or about wrinkles
which fold some of the ink away
keeping it secret
as other parts fade in the sun.
And I wonder what she thought
when those hands picked up her son
for the first time, the dark ink contrasting
harshly with the soft, pale skin.
Did it ever seem foolish?
Were the tattoos more planned
than the pregnancy?
Did her rebellion fade gradually with the ink
or was it a sudden separation
when the stick showed positive?
Poem:
I'm finally getting around to opening the notebook I try to carry with me everywhere, and this poem was inside from a time I (obviously) saw a woman with old tattoos trying to deal with her crying boy. She looked around constantly, her gaze both apologetic and defiant, and when she noticed my attention, she told me he was autistic, like she needed to make an excuse. Too bad my parents didn't have that one at their disposal. All of my public scenes would have been a lot easier to explain, I'm sure. I just nodded at her. I wasn't intending to convey disappointment or anger or anything. I just wanted to write things down in my notebook. So this poem resulted. This is obviously a rough draft, but I think it has potential, even though the idea of old tattoos is obviously not a new topic.
Observation:
In my political science class there was a guy with a laptop. On the laptop were two stickers. The first said "Abort73.com" and the second said "IHOP mission base." Now, I knew absolutely nothing about either of these things, but I was made curious because obviously abortion is a big issue, and IHOP to me is a place that makes some fantastic pancakes. This guy didn't seem like a guy particularly interested in either of these things. When the professor asked us to seat ourselves based on political self-identity, he moved to the far right. So I knew I absolutely had to figure out what these things meant in order to make fun of them. Sure enough, Abort73.com is an anti-abortion website purporting to provide all the facts you need to know about how people with a different viewpoint murder innocent babies every day, and IHOP, rather than being an establishment focused on deliciousness, stands for International House of Prayer.
As a pro-choice atheist, I feel I am obligated to make fun of these things. Not their beliefs. I'm not going to open that can of worms here (and if you want to talk with me about my views, it's possible I won't even be that open to sharing them in private). I have long since resigned myself to the fact that people on both sides are unable to benefit from argumentation. But I will poke merciless fun at these stickers. Now, when I saw the sticker "Abort73.com" I was taken aback. I honestly thought that this person was making a statement about a goal. Like, everyone should abort 73 fetuses. The NFL has a program called the play60 program that encourages kids to play for 60 minutes a day, for example. I'm sure there is some logical reason for their website name, but honestly, I think they should have thought it through a bit better. And the IHOP one is equally poorly targeted. If there were a mission that involved eating pancakes, rest assured I would be all over that. This was almost cruel in the way it got my hopes up. If there was a pancake rebellion that needed to be put down, or an evil pancake dictator that needed to be consumed, I was fully prepared to report for duty to whatever mission base there was. And there's no way this organization doesn't know that acronym is more commonly associated with breakfast food. So I think in both cases, these methods of spreading the word need some serious reconsideration.
Exercise:
"Falling Mattresses"
"They had been waiting, umbrellas up, for the falling mattresses." Take this as the first line of your story and start writing.
They had been waiting, umbrellas up, for the falling mattresses. There was little doubt they would be on their way soon. The forecast had called for it, after all. The dogs and cats came plummeting to earth just as predicted, and it was sure that the mattresses would be close behind. The people in the streets had little idea just what kind of mattresses to expect. The prevailing theory held that a twin-size was the maximum the clouds above could produce, but a few Mastiffs and Maine Coons had wound up on rooftops when the estimates had called for the largest of each species to be Golden Retrievers and slightly-overweight Calicoes. So the people, while figuring the upcoming shower to be a mostly crib-sized affair, were ready to duck under nearby overhangs at a moment's notice.
Me:
In general, today was a pretty mediocre day. I missed the bus I wanted to catch after my first class. I saw the bus which immediately precedes it leaving the stop, so I started jogging, sure that I would get there just as the one I wanted arrived. Sure enough, I walked up just as it got to the stop. It paused, and I started walking toward it, only to have it leave again as I was looking through the doors. It must have been the only time I've seen that bus stop at that stop without anyone disembarking, too. It's a major stop on the route with transfers to all the other routes around town, and to have it leave after I was so sure I wouldn't have to walk back to my apartment in the cold was a disappointing turn of events indeed.
Switching topics completely, in my philosophy of law class we were challenged to come up with an example of a self-evident moral truth. As a graduating philosophy major in an intro-based class, I am greatly looking forward to dismantling peoples' responses. I have discussed the idea of an objective morality in at least three separate classes, and I don't think we've ever been able to come up with an example, but it's always fun to see people try. I honestly think morality is a myth. It's a well-perpetuated myth, and it does a lot of good, but to suppose that any action is objectively wrong is presumptuous on a couple of counts. The first is that I think a situation can be thought of to justify any action. Now, the more horrific the action, the more convoluted the situations become, but that doesn't mean the situation doesn't exist. The second reason I scoff at people assuming there is an objective morality is that, even if there is one, it's impossible for us to be sure we are interpreting it correctly. In other words, even if there is a right and wrong to the universe, there's no way for us to know at the time we make our choice, what the right option is. Even looking back, there is no way to know absolutely we made the wrong decision, since the alternative could have led to a completely different outcome than we assume. Suppose you regret running a stop sign, for example. There is no way to know that, had you obeyed the law, the few seconds you were set back wouldn't have resulted in you hitting a small kid whose ball happened to roll into the street. It's the whole "butterfly effect" thing, essentially.
Sorry to have gone off on a philosophy tangent. It will undoubtedly happen again in the "me" sections, since it's what I think about a good deal. Thanks for bearing with me, though. Oh, and sorry for the extremely delayed posting from yesterday.
ever considered autism
as a possibility as the ink was pressed
into the rebellious skin.
I wonder whether the teen
at the tattoo parlor
intent on etching her soul
on her hands
was thinking about kids
or about wrinkles
which fold some of the ink away
keeping it secret
as other parts fade in the sun.
And I wonder what she thought
when those hands picked up her son
for the first time, the dark ink contrasting
harshly with the soft, pale skin.
Did it ever seem foolish?
Were the tattoos more planned
than the pregnancy?
Did her rebellion fade gradually with the ink
or was it a sudden separation
when the stick showed positive?
Poem:
I'm finally getting around to opening the notebook I try to carry with me everywhere, and this poem was inside from a time I (obviously) saw a woman with old tattoos trying to deal with her crying boy. She looked around constantly, her gaze both apologetic and defiant, and when she noticed my attention, she told me he was autistic, like she needed to make an excuse. Too bad my parents didn't have that one at their disposal. All of my public scenes would have been a lot easier to explain, I'm sure. I just nodded at her. I wasn't intending to convey disappointment or anger or anything. I just wanted to write things down in my notebook. So this poem resulted. This is obviously a rough draft, but I think it has potential, even though the idea of old tattoos is obviously not a new topic.
Observation:
In my political science class there was a guy with a laptop. On the laptop were two stickers. The first said "Abort73.com" and the second said "IHOP mission base." Now, I knew absolutely nothing about either of these things, but I was made curious because obviously abortion is a big issue, and IHOP to me is a place that makes some fantastic pancakes. This guy didn't seem like a guy particularly interested in either of these things. When the professor asked us to seat ourselves based on political self-identity, he moved to the far right. So I knew I absolutely had to figure out what these things meant in order to make fun of them. Sure enough, Abort73.com is an anti-abortion website purporting to provide all the facts you need to know about how people with a different viewpoint murder innocent babies every day, and IHOP, rather than being an establishment focused on deliciousness, stands for International House of Prayer.
As a pro-choice atheist, I feel I am obligated to make fun of these things. Not their beliefs. I'm not going to open that can of worms here (and if you want to talk with me about my views, it's possible I won't even be that open to sharing them in private). I have long since resigned myself to the fact that people on both sides are unable to benefit from argumentation. But I will poke merciless fun at these stickers. Now, when I saw the sticker "Abort73.com" I was taken aback. I honestly thought that this person was making a statement about a goal. Like, everyone should abort 73 fetuses. The NFL has a program called the play60 program that encourages kids to play for 60 minutes a day, for example. I'm sure there is some logical reason for their website name, but honestly, I think they should have thought it through a bit better. And the IHOP one is equally poorly targeted. If there were a mission that involved eating pancakes, rest assured I would be all over that. This was almost cruel in the way it got my hopes up. If there was a pancake rebellion that needed to be put down, or an evil pancake dictator that needed to be consumed, I was fully prepared to report for duty to whatever mission base there was. And there's no way this organization doesn't know that acronym is more commonly associated with breakfast food. So I think in both cases, these methods of spreading the word need some serious reconsideration.
Exercise:
"Falling Mattresses"
"They had been waiting, umbrellas up, for the falling mattresses." Take this as the first line of your story and start writing.
They had been waiting, umbrellas up, for the falling mattresses. There was little doubt they would be on their way soon. The forecast had called for it, after all. The dogs and cats came plummeting to earth just as predicted, and it was sure that the mattresses would be close behind. The people in the streets had little idea just what kind of mattresses to expect. The prevailing theory held that a twin-size was the maximum the clouds above could produce, but a few Mastiffs and Maine Coons had wound up on rooftops when the estimates had called for the largest of each species to be Golden Retrievers and slightly-overweight Calicoes. So the people, while figuring the upcoming shower to be a mostly crib-sized affair, were ready to duck under nearby overhangs at a moment's notice.
Me:
In general, today was a pretty mediocre day. I missed the bus I wanted to catch after my first class. I saw the bus which immediately precedes it leaving the stop, so I started jogging, sure that I would get there just as the one I wanted arrived. Sure enough, I walked up just as it got to the stop. It paused, and I started walking toward it, only to have it leave again as I was looking through the doors. It must have been the only time I've seen that bus stop at that stop without anyone disembarking, too. It's a major stop on the route with transfers to all the other routes around town, and to have it leave after I was so sure I wouldn't have to walk back to my apartment in the cold was a disappointing turn of events indeed.
Switching topics completely, in my philosophy of law class we were challenged to come up with an example of a self-evident moral truth. As a graduating philosophy major in an intro-based class, I am greatly looking forward to dismantling peoples' responses. I have discussed the idea of an objective morality in at least three separate classes, and I don't think we've ever been able to come up with an example, but it's always fun to see people try. I honestly think morality is a myth. It's a well-perpetuated myth, and it does a lot of good, but to suppose that any action is objectively wrong is presumptuous on a couple of counts. The first is that I think a situation can be thought of to justify any action. Now, the more horrific the action, the more convoluted the situations become, but that doesn't mean the situation doesn't exist. The second reason I scoff at people assuming there is an objective morality is that, even if there is one, it's impossible for us to be sure we are interpreting it correctly. In other words, even if there is a right and wrong to the universe, there's no way for us to know at the time we make our choice, what the right option is. Even looking back, there is no way to know absolutely we made the wrong decision, since the alternative could have led to a completely different outcome than we assume. Suppose you regret running a stop sign, for example. There is no way to know that, had you obeyed the law, the few seconds you were set back wouldn't have resulted in you hitting a small kid whose ball happened to roll into the street. It's the whole "butterfly effect" thing, essentially.
Sorry to have gone off on a philosophy tangent. It will undoubtedly happen again in the "me" sections, since it's what I think about a good deal. Thanks for bearing with me, though. Oh, and sorry for the extremely delayed posting from yesterday.
January 12, 2011
Poptarts are Puzzling
The Ocean, that is
I'm a stranger to the ocean,
though perhaps a familiar one,
as with the girl in class
who I nod to outside in passing
without knowing her name.
They are both attractive,
though only one will move first
if I stand here, toes in the sand
and wait for the tide to change.
I see her often enough,
the ocean, that is,
to know she's worth knowing better
and to attract me every time I smell
that distinctive scent.
So each time I near her,
the ocean, that is,
I silently hope this time
we won't stay separated
by this strange familiarity.
Poem:
Ah, yes. This poem. I wrote this a while ago laughing at myself because I wasn't willing to make the first move. Like, ever. I always just sat there and hoped to be approached. Now, there's nothing really wrong with that, I suppose, since I wound up with the girlfriend I have now, and she's awesome. But I've always hoped I wouldn't be such a passive person. And I'm pretty sure I haven't changed. So this poem is just sort of lecturing myself about what I could do differently. And it's also about the ocean, which is pretty nifty in its own right. A bit too big for my taste, but fun to meet up with every once in a while.
Observation:
I bought a package of poptarts from a vending machine today. It wasn't my proudest moment, but necessity dictated I put something in my stomach. The ingredients list is atrocious, but they were the best deal as far as amount of food per dollar was concerned. So I walked to the microwave, put them in, hit the "plus thirty second button" and then realized I should figure out how long they should actually be in there. I grabbed the package out of the top of the trash, flipped it over, and to my surprise, the directions said to microwave for 3 seconds. Well, at this point the microwave said they had been in for 11 seconds, and by the time I got the door open (in a bit of a panic, I assure you), a good 13 seconds had passed. No flames seemed to be issuing forth, so I curiously prodded them slightly. No response. My finger remained intact. I removed the pastries from the microwave and cautiously took a bite. Delicious. They were the perfect temperature.
Now I was sure the instructions on the back of the packaging were an error. Perhaps the 3 was supposed to be followed by a zero. So, like any reasonable person, I googled it. It turns out I am one of the last people in the world to discover this. Also, I am not the first person to write a blog post about it. But since this was one of the major discoveries of my day, I decided it warranted a comment.
Exercise:
"OCD"
Your character is an obsessive compulsive. Describe his or her morning. Do not use the words "obsessive compulsive."
My bathroom floor is always cold, which wouldn't be such a bad thing if I hadn't lost my slippers a few days ago. To make the situation bearable, I brought a rug up from downstairs. After straightening it to line up with the tiles, I realized it was a slight bit larger than the area between my door and the bottom of the sink. If I scooted if forward, it wouldn't line up with the line of tiles, but if I left it lined up, the door wouldn't close properly. I resorted to leaving the door open, straightening the rug one last time before brushing my teeth. I opened a new toothbrush from my cabinet, noted I was running low, and reminding myself to pick up another bulk package of them from Wal-Mart on my way home. I noticed a fleck of toothpaste on the back of my my right ring finger, so I washed my hands briefly. I used the toilet, washed my hands thoroughly, and made my way downstairs to my kitchen. Then I realized I was unable to close the door behind me as was customary. I took the rug with me downstairs.
Me:
It took a good portion of my willpower to get on my stationary bike tonight. I came back after two and a half hours of handball and was feeling a little beat up. I made the unfortunate decision to run the back of my head into the wall, which resulted in a bit of a headache, and my hip was scraped and bruised from other actions that were a bit reckless on the court. But I did it, and I felt proud of myself. And then I went to bed and didn't update. So now this is really late. Sorry about that.
I'm a stranger to the ocean,
though perhaps a familiar one,
as with the girl in class
who I nod to outside in passing
without knowing her name.
They are both attractive,
though only one will move first
if I stand here, toes in the sand
and wait for the tide to change.
I see her often enough,
the ocean, that is,
to know she's worth knowing better
and to attract me every time I smell
that distinctive scent.
So each time I near her,
the ocean, that is,
I silently hope this time
we won't stay separated
by this strange familiarity.
Poem:
Ah, yes. This poem. I wrote this a while ago laughing at myself because I wasn't willing to make the first move. Like, ever. I always just sat there and hoped to be approached. Now, there's nothing really wrong with that, I suppose, since I wound up with the girlfriend I have now, and she's awesome. But I've always hoped I wouldn't be such a passive person. And I'm pretty sure I haven't changed. So this poem is just sort of lecturing myself about what I could do differently. And it's also about the ocean, which is pretty nifty in its own right. A bit too big for my taste, but fun to meet up with every once in a while.
Observation:
I bought a package of poptarts from a vending machine today. It wasn't my proudest moment, but necessity dictated I put something in my stomach. The ingredients list is atrocious, but they were the best deal as far as amount of food per dollar was concerned. So I walked to the microwave, put them in, hit the "plus thirty second button" and then realized I should figure out how long they should actually be in there. I grabbed the package out of the top of the trash, flipped it over, and to my surprise, the directions said to microwave for 3 seconds. Well, at this point the microwave said they had been in for 11 seconds, and by the time I got the door open (in a bit of a panic, I assure you), a good 13 seconds had passed. No flames seemed to be issuing forth, so I curiously prodded them slightly. No response. My finger remained intact. I removed the pastries from the microwave and cautiously took a bite. Delicious. They were the perfect temperature.
Now I was sure the instructions on the back of the packaging were an error. Perhaps the 3 was supposed to be followed by a zero. So, like any reasonable person, I googled it. It turns out I am one of the last people in the world to discover this. Also, I am not the first person to write a blog post about it. But since this was one of the major discoveries of my day, I decided it warranted a comment.
Exercise:
"OCD"
Your character is an obsessive compulsive. Describe his or her morning. Do not use the words "obsessive compulsive."
My bathroom floor is always cold, which wouldn't be such a bad thing if I hadn't lost my slippers a few days ago. To make the situation bearable, I brought a rug up from downstairs. After straightening it to line up with the tiles, I realized it was a slight bit larger than the area between my door and the bottom of the sink. If I scooted if forward, it wouldn't line up with the line of tiles, but if I left it lined up, the door wouldn't close properly. I resorted to leaving the door open, straightening the rug one last time before brushing my teeth. I opened a new toothbrush from my cabinet, noted I was running low, and reminding myself to pick up another bulk package of them from Wal-Mart on my way home. I noticed a fleck of toothpaste on the back of my my right ring finger, so I washed my hands briefly. I used the toilet, washed my hands thoroughly, and made my way downstairs to my kitchen. Then I realized I was unable to close the door behind me as was customary. I took the rug with me downstairs.
Me:
It took a good portion of my willpower to get on my stationary bike tonight. I came back after two and a half hours of handball and was feeling a little beat up. I made the unfortunate decision to run the back of my head into the wall, which resulted in a bit of a headache, and my hip was scraped and bruised from other actions that were a bit reckless on the court. But I did it, and I felt proud of myself. And then I went to bed and didn't update. So now this is really late. Sorry about that.
January 11, 2011
Hasty Update: Bike Crash and Weather Stuff
Bicycle Accident
When I fell, plummeting slowly,
and saw the sandy roadside
casually lifting itself closer,
I knew my mistake
merited a deeper concern.
And when time sped up again,
and I was instantly acquainted
with every intricacy the road could offer,
I decided, quite spontaneously and unwillingly,
to go into shock.
The middle-aged woman who stopped
soon after, who rolled her window down
and frowned at me with concern,
was not convinced I was fine.
Neither was the doctor
who pulled out the pieces
of road I had tried to smuggle
into his room without anyone knowing.
And when the shock wore off
and things became less funny,
I was forced to concur.
Poem:
As I mentioned in my last post, I crashed my bike while going rather rapidly down a mountain in Oregon. I was pulling a trailer on my bike, and when I hit a couple of huge cracks in the road I was catapulted over the handlebars. I skidded to a stop on the shoulder, and I didn't feel like I was too bad off until I looked down and realized I had no fingertips. And there was a huge hole in my palm. I was rescued by a nice woman who dialed 911 for the $800 ambulance ride. I had anesthetic poured all over my arm, and it was pretty painful, but after it took effect it was fun to watch the doctor pull chunks of asphalt out of my arm. I still have a scar that's tinged black from the road. So the poem is just my thought process, how things slowed down for a bit before impact during the panic, and how I went into shock for a while and didn't think things were as dire as everyone was making them seem.
Observation:
Oh boy were those weather forecasters wrong for today. They said there was a possibility of ten inches of snow falling overnight, but I woke up to absolutely no change from the day before. I guess the snow removal guys had already been paid to work in anticipation or something, because I saw three 0f them brushing already clear sidewalks in their little vehicles. I had enough time to get back from my first class, and then the snow started falling. Foolish boy that I am, I tried biking to class again later in the afternoon, and was somehow unsurprised to see no snow removal happening whatsoever. After sliding around on my bike for a while, I made it to class in one piece. I don't know what governs the decision-making of the mysterious snow people, but I'm pretty sure it's not based on what's best for me. It was fun to watch people gawk at the stupid guy biking in terrible weather. And I was in shorts, which made matters all the more entertaining.
Exercise:
"Flying a Kite"
Describe a person flying a kite:
It wasn't as fun as he remembered. When he was a child, flying kites has been his favorite weekend activity. He even had different fields he would travel to depending on which direction the wind was from. Now, standing in his "easterly" location, he struggled to recall what had been so addictive to his smaller self. The kite rose hesitantly, its tail draping drably down. He played out the line gradually, wishing the wind were strong enough to threaten to rip him from the ground. As a ten year-old, he had exhilarated in jumping with the gusts, trying to time his leaps well enough to leave the world behind. It hadn't worked, and now he had no intention of trying.
Me:
I have a lock. It turns out that mentioning things in your blog can make your mom pity you enough to purchase things. Not only that, but the lock is the best lock ever. I complained that combination locks were too tiresome, and keyed locks were a hassle because the last thing I need is one more thing to keep track of. This lock works like a combination, but has a slider that moves in four directions. You decide the password, which can be any length and any combination of moves. It's way too much fun. I must have spent fifteen minutes trying to decide which ways I liked moving it and setting the combination. Then I spent another ten minutes just opening and closing it. It's just a satisfying experience. The enjoyable clicks of the sliding mechanism, the speed with which it operates, and the fulfilling clunk at the end as it opens are addictive. The only problem I can think of is that there is a high likelihood that I will be doing this all the time, making it impossible to keep my code a secret. My stuff will probably get stolen anyway. But I will have fun until it does.
When I fell, plummeting slowly,
and saw the sandy roadside
casually lifting itself closer,
I knew my mistake
merited a deeper concern.
And when time sped up again,
and I was instantly acquainted
with every intricacy the road could offer,
I decided, quite spontaneously and unwillingly,
to go into shock.
The middle-aged woman who stopped
soon after, who rolled her window down
and frowned at me with concern,
was not convinced I was fine.
Neither was the doctor
who pulled out the pieces
of road I had tried to smuggle
into his room without anyone knowing.
And when the shock wore off
and things became less funny,
I was forced to concur.
Poem:
As I mentioned in my last post, I crashed my bike while going rather rapidly down a mountain in Oregon. I was pulling a trailer on my bike, and when I hit a couple of huge cracks in the road I was catapulted over the handlebars. I skidded to a stop on the shoulder, and I didn't feel like I was too bad off until I looked down and realized I had no fingertips. And there was a huge hole in my palm. I was rescued by a nice woman who dialed 911 for the $800 ambulance ride. I had anesthetic poured all over my arm, and it was pretty painful, but after it took effect it was fun to watch the doctor pull chunks of asphalt out of my arm. I still have a scar that's tinged black from the road. So the poem is just my thought process, how things slowed down for a bit before impact during the panic, and how I went into shock for a while and didn't think things were as dire as everyone was making them seem.
Observation:
Oh boy were those weather forecasters wrong for today. They said there was a possibility of ten inches of snow falling overnight, but I woke up to absolutely no change from the day before. I guess the snow removal guys had already been paid to work in anticipation or something, because I saw three 0f them brushing already clear sidewalks in their little vehicles. I had enough time to get back from my first class, and then the snow started falling. Foolish boy that I am, I tried biking to class again later in the afternoon, and was somehow unsurprised to see no snow removal happening whatsoever. After sliding around on my bike for a while, I made it to class in one piece. I don't know what governs the decision-making of the mysterious snow people, but I'm pretty sure it's not based on what's best for me. It was fun to watch people gawk at the stupid guy biking in terrible weather. And I was in shorts, which made matters all the more entertaining.
Exercise:
"Flying a Kite"
Describe a person flying a kite:
It wasn't as fun as he remembered. When he was a child, flying kites has been his favorite weekend activity. He even had different fields he would travel to depending on which direction the wind was from. Now, standing in his "easterly" location, he struggled to recall what had been so addictive to his smaller self. The kite rose hesitantly, its tail draping drably down. He played out the line gradually, wishing the wind were strong enough to threaten to rip him from the ground. As a ten year-old, he had exhilarated in jumping with the gusts, trying to time his leaps well enough to leave the world behind. It hadn't worked, and now he had no intention of trying.
Me:
I have a lock. It turns out that mentioning things in your blog can make your mom pity you enough to purchase things. Not only that, but the lock is the best lock ever. I complained that combination locks were too tiresome, and keyed locks were a hassle because the last thing I need is one more thing to keep track of. This lock works like a combination, but has a slider that moves in four directions. You decide the password, which can be any length and any combination of moves. It's way too much fun. I must have spent fifteen minutes trying to decide which ways I liked moving it and setting the combination. Then I spent another ten minutes just opening and closing it. It's just a satisfying experience. The enjoyable clicks of the sliding mechanism, the speed with which it operates, and the fulfilling clunk at the end as it opens are addictive. The only problem I can think of is that there is a high likelihood that I will be doing this all the time, making it impossible to keep my code a secret. My stuff will probably get stolen anyway. But I will have fun until it does.
January 10, 2011
Handball Stuff
Handball Floor
There are sweat splotches on the floor
where droplets landed after being flung
from whirling bodies
which pivot in the corners
like tops that can't quite seem
to stop bouncing off the walls.
The floor is filmed with dust
and footwork requires focus
on its slick surface,
except where swaths
have been cleared
by sliding bodies,
impromptu brooms
thrown about ungracefully
and thudding in desperation.
Grown children
clinging clumsily to their fascination
with a bouncing ball.
Poem:
I'm not sure this is finished. I feel like I should add more to it, and if it comes to me I'll probably do so. I haven't ever really written about a sport I play, and I wanted to try it. I'm undecided whether or not I will try it again. The reason I chose this in particular is (aside from it being the sport I played most recently) that the floors of our courts are in increasingly bad condition. People disregard the signs specifying which types of shoes to wear, they are never cleaned, and our previous best court has been taken over and destroyed by the boxing and cycling clubs. So the topic was on my mind.
Observation:
Handball is a pretty weird sport. For example, the best player in the world is an overweight ex car salesman. Athleticism, while obviously beneficial, plays less of a role than in most other sports I've tried. Strategy and a good sense of where the ball is going are essential, and it encourages constant adaptation. It's also one of the few sports I've played that doesn't skew itself toward tall people. When I played tennis I wanted to be taller to take advantage of more serving angles. Basketball is a no-brainer, and ultimate frisbee, where at least there are situations in which height should be dominated by tall people as well. A bigger wingspan for throwing means a harder time for the defense, and tall people obviously have an easier time getting the the disc first. But in handball, being taller just means you have to bend down more to get the shots near the floor. Long arms, while useful in many situations, are ungainly for shots that are directed into the body. All in all, this is the sport for me. I don't have the raw sprint speed required for other sports, but in handball I can make up for it with good anticipation. And my hand-eye coordination is pretty decent, allowing me to pick up shots on the fly and disrupt the rhythm of the game. I would try and get more people to play this sport, but there's a problem: you have to hit the ball with your hands. When first starting out, the sport is a bit of a chore. After my first time playing, I took my glove off and my hand was so swollen I couldn't distinguish the knuckles as I biked home. Now, there are more intelligent ways to go about starting the sport. There are lighter balls beginners can use, padded gloves, and if you acquire good technique, that will take a lot of the stress off the palms of your hands. But coming from tennis, I just smacked the ball with my hand in a flat motion repeatedly, and the bruises I wound up with made playing in the future a trying experience. So when people ask me whether or not it hurts my hands, I say "Only for the first month or so." Which is a pretty big commitment to ask of someone who isn't sure about the sport and just wants to try it out. For me, it was worth all the pain and then some to finally find a sport to which I was well-suited.
Exercise:
"Your character visits the dentist"
Your character visits the dentist. Write the scene.
Typical waiting room. Tropical fish meander around their tank, tireless in their attempts to hypnotize the waiting patients. I'm watching the blue one, which is smaller than most of the others, but follows a less-established pattern. I don't think I've ever been to a waiting room without a fish tank. I briefly wonder whether tank maintenance is part of the dental school course requirements. I can imagine students interspersing their knowledge of teeth with facts about pH levels and salt concentration. The species of fish seem pretty standardized as well. They're probably given a formula sheet. For a tank of size x, fishes y and z are required in a 4:3 ratio, but only if fish q is included and the water is changed every other week.
My reverie is broken when my name is called, and I realize that, yet again, the tank has done exactly what it is supposed to: distract me from my visit. For all the trepidation that accompanies the scheduling of the appointment and the days leading up to it, the few minutes closest to the moment of truth never seem so bad. And it's all due to these stupid fish tanks. They won't even let me wallow in my stress. As I walk by the tank, I give the blue fish a dirty look. He seems pretty unconcerned.
Me:
I was the victim of a crime yesterday, which was a new-ish experience for me. I've had my bike snatched from bike racks before, I guess. That was actually kind of amusing, since the bikes I ride around town are usually pretty junky. My dad throws them together from a combination of garage sales and whatever he has lying around, which usually means their net worth is around ten dollars. And the person who stole my bike left my sixty dollar helmet. So I was less disappointed than one might think. I guess the people stealing bikes aren't the sort who want their heads protected anyway, so it worked out for the both of us.
But today I had my stuff stolen out of a locker while I was playing handball, which was a much less fun experience. I had employed a similar strategy as with the bike case; I didn't have anything I thought was worth taking. But they took it anyway. So I went and reported it, and they said they'd been having problems with this sort of thing. There's a fake camera-looking thing in the hallway, but I guess the thieves found out it was fake or just didn't care. The person I was reporting the theft to told me that they had found other stolen stuff around the building after the thieves had abandoned it, so while I filled out the form, one of my playing companions, Piper, went out searching. Sure enough, it hadn't gone far. In fact, the thieves had returned it to the hallway. They had decided my team biking coat, bright red puma shoes, phone, and driver's license weren't things they could effectively commandeer, as they were all things that could readily be identified with me. One thing I am confused about is why they bothered to return it to the hallway. Now, I do appreciate the fact that it was easy to find, but it seems like a terrible idea from the thief's perspective. Where is the one place he/she knows the person missing the stuff could be? Answer: that hallway. What are thieves never supposed to do? Answer: return to the scene of the crime. It would have been really funny if they had been caught returning my stuff.
So I wasn't in a very bad mood as I left. I was surprised someone would actually take all of my stuff from the hallway, especially when I knew there wasn't really anything worth their while. I had just assumed they would go through the pockets wherever my stuff happened to be and then leave, hoping I didn't notice anything amiss. But I had my coat, so I wasn't too upset. Then later I realized I didn't have my iPod, and I was a lot less content with my coat. The thing I missed the most? The picture I had been drawing on my sketchbook application. I had spent hours on that. I can replace the music, apps, etc. for free, but the pictures on there were unique. And if you recall, I just cracked the screen. So even though I didn't ever mean to have it in my pocket, it still wasn't something I thought someone would steal. I'm not sure what I'm going to do in the future. I still don't think I have anything someone would want, but I guess that doesn't matter as much as I thought. So maybe I'll get a lock.
There are sweat splotches on the floor
where droplets landed after being flung
from whirling bodies
which pivot in the corners
like tops that can't quite seem
to stop bouncing off the walls.
The floor is filmed with dust
and footwork requires focus
on its slick surface,
except where swaths
have been cleared
by sliding bodies,
impromptu brooms
thrown about ungracefully
and thudding in desperation.
Grown children
clinging clumsily to their fascination
with a bouncing ball.
Poem:
I'm not sure this is finished. I feel like I should add more to it, and if it comes to me I'll probably do so. I haven't ever really written about a sport I play, and I wanted to try it. I'm undecided whether or not I will try it again. The reason I chose this in particular is (aside from it being the sport I played most recently) that the floors of our courts are in increasingly bad condition. People disregard the signs specifying which types of shoes to wear, they are never cleaned, and our previous best court has been taken over and destroyed by the boxing and cycling clubs. So the topic was on my mind.
Observation:
Handball is a pretty weird sport. For example, the best player in the world is an overweight ex car salesman. Athleticism, while obviously beneficial, plays less of a role than in most other sports I've tried. Strategy and a good sense of where the ball is going are essential, and it encourages constant adaptation. It's also one of the few sports I've played that doesn't skew itself toward tall people. When I played tennis I wanted to be taller to take advantage of more serving angles. Basketball is a no-brainer, and ultimate frisbee, where at least there are situations in which height should be dominated by tall people as well. A bigger wingspan for throwing means a harder time for the defense, and tall people obviously have an easier time getting the the disc first. But in handball, being taller just means you have to bend down more to get the shots near the floor. Long arms, while useful in many situations, are ungainly for shots that are directed into the body. All in all, this is the sport for me. I don't have the raw sprint speed required for other sports, but in handball I can make up for it with good anticipation. And my hand-eye coordination is pretty decent, allowing me to pick up shots on the fly and disrupt the rhythm of the game. I would try and get more people to play this sport, but there's a problem: you have to hit the ball with your hands. When first starting out, the sport is a bit of a chore. After my first time playing, I took my glove off and my hand was so swollen I couldn't distinguish the knuckles as I biked home. Now, there are more intelligent ways to go about starting the sport. There are lighter balls beginners can use, padded gloves, and if you acquire good technique, that will take a lot of the stress off the palms of your hands. But coming from tennis, I just smacked the ball with my hand in a flat motion repeatedly, and the bruises I wound up with made playing in the future a trying experience. So when people ask me whether or not it hurts my hands, I say "Only for the first month or so." Which is a pretty big commitment to ask of someone who isn't sure about the sport and just wants to try it out. For me, it was worth all the pain and then some to finally find a sport to which I was well-suited.
Exercise:
"Your character visits the dentist"
Your character visits the dentist. Write the scene.
Typical waiting room. Tropical fish meander around their tank, tireless in their attempts to hypnotize the waiting patients. I'm watching the blue one, which is smaller than most of the others, but follows a less-established pattern. I don't think I've ever been to a waiting room without a fish tank. I briefly wonder whether tank maintenance is part of the dental school course requirements. I can imagine students interspersing their knowledge of teeth with facts about pH levels and salt concentration. The species of fish seem pretty standardized as well. They're probably given a formula sheet. For a tank of size x, fishes y and z are required in a 4:3 ratio, but only if fish q is included and the water is changed every other week.
My reverie is broken when my name is called, and I realize that, yet again, the tank has done exactly what it is supposed to: distract me from my visit. For all the trepidation that accompanies the scheduling of the appointment and the days leading up to it, the few minutes closest to the moment of truth never seem so bad. And it's all due to these stupid fish tanks. They won't even let me wallow in my stress. As I walk by the tank, I give the blue fish a dirty look. He seems pretty unconcerned.
Me:
I was the victim of a crime yesterday, which was a new-ish experience for me. I've had my bike snatched from bike racks before, I guess. That was actually kind of amusing, since the bikes I ride around town are usually pretty junky. My dad throws them together from a combination of garage sales and whatever he has lying around, which usually means their net worth is around ten dollars. And the person who stole my bike left my sixty dollar helmet. So I was less disappointed than one might think. I guess the people stealing bikes aren't the sort who want their heads protected anyway, so it worked out for the both of us.
But today I had my stuff stolen out of a locker while I was playing handball, which was a much less fun experience. I had employed a similar strategy as with the bike case; I didn't have anything I thought was worth taking. But they took it anyway. So I went and reported it, and they said they'd been having problems with this sort of thing. There's a fake camera-looking thing in the hallway, but I guess the thieves found out it was fake or just didn't care. The person I was reporting the theft to told me that they had found other stolen stuff around the building after the thieves had abandoned it, so while I filled out the form, one of my playing companions, Piper, went out searching. Sure enough, it hadn't gone far. In fact, the thieves had returned it to the hallway. They had decided my team biking coat, bright red puma shoes, phone, and driver's license weren't things they could effectively commandeer, as they were all things that could readily be identified with me. One thing I am confused about is why they bothered to return it to the hallway. Now, I do appreciate the fact that it was easy to find, but it seems like a terrible idea from the thief's perspective. Where is the one place he/she knows the person missing the stuff could be? Answer: that hallway. What are thieves never supposed to do? Answer: return to the scene of the crime. It would have been really funny if they had been caught returning my stuff.
So I wasn't in a very bad mood as I left. I was surprised someone would actually take all of my stuff from the hallway, especially when I knew there wasn't really anything worth their while. I had just assumed they would go through the pockets wherever my stuff happened to be and then leave, hoping I didn't notice anything amiss. But I had my coat, so I wasn't too upset. Then later I realized I didn't have my iPod, and I was a lot less content with my coat. The thing I missed the most? The picture I had been drawing on my sketchbook application. I had spent hours on that. I can replace the music, apps, etc. for free, but the pictures on there were unique. And if you recall, I just cracked the screen. So even though I didn't ever mean to have it in my pocket, it still wasn't something I thought someone would steal. I'm not sure what I'm going to do in the future. I still don't think I have anything someone would want, but I guess that doesn't matter as much as I thought. So maybe I'll get a lock.
January 9, 2011
A Bunch of Unrelated Stuff
Germophobe
He carried a bottle of Purell everywhere
and a package of handiwipes.
He had started with just the Purell,
but one day a stranger asked to borrow it,
and since he wasn't a weirdo
just a germophobe,
he had been quite willing to relinquish it temporarily.
But when the bottle was returned
it came with a little bit of doubt.
Where had that man's hands been?
It had been his practice to apply Purell
after every contact with the vast, germ-filled world,
but now the bottle of Purell
belonged to that world.
He couldn't very well Purell his hands
after every time he used the stuff.
He'd be Purell-ing perpetually.
So now he had the handiwipes.
Poem:
I thought of that poem literally four minutes ago as I was typing something else, so I guess if you were wondering what my writing looks like unedited, you have a prime example. I'll leave it that way, but I'm pretty sure I'll change the ending when I go back to it. It seems too clean. I feel like the life of a germaphobe shouldn't end cleanly like that. I didn't get into the real conflict the man might experience. But I do love the phrases "Purell-ing perpetually, and "just a germaphobe." I know germaphobe isn't the technical term. There are two different things "germaphobes" might be suffering from. The most obvious is OCD, but there's also a more specific term, mysophobia. Either way, I wanted to write a poem about it, but I am not in a serious mood. Maybe I'll re-write it in a serious way in the future, but for now, that's what we've got.
Observation:
There's nothing like playing sports with girls to make you feel better about yourself. I would assume it's pretty common knowledge by now that men and women are built differently, so hopefully I won't be harangued by people who think I'm being sexist. It's really just the fact of the matter. I'll leave that debate for now and move on. The sport I'm talking about in this case is ultimate frisbee, which in case you don't know, originated as a sport for hippies to play together and feel good about themselves. And then we took it and put it into the competitive arena with shouting matches, intentional fouling, and grudges. The objective is to move a disc (frisbee, to the less enlightened) into an endzone without letting it contact the ground. But the important detail of this story is that I am a boy and the people I played with yesterday were girls.
Now, the women's team at Iowa State is a good team. They went to the national tournament two years ago, and some of them play on a team from Ames that won the mixed division world championships in Prague. But we still needed some rules to equalize the playing field. The first rule was that I would play left-handed. I am not left-handed. In a sport that revolves around throwing (and involves a rather complex throwing motion to boot), this was a pretty big setback. The next rule was that if I played defense on a girl, I wasn't allowed to jump. When things still weren't quite evened out, jokes were made about blindfolding me and making me run backwards. All in all, it was quite a boost for the old ego. Not that it needed it.
Exercise:
"Magical Furniture"
This is a little exercise in magical realism. With realistic detail, write a scene in which your character had a conversation with a piece of furniture. Assume the person and the piece of furniture disagree about something.
She didn't know the bench was so immature. That might have surprised her even more than the fact that it started talking when she tried to clean it.
"Hey hey hey. What are you doing?" were it's first words. They were pretty unimpressive, to be honest. Until you remembered they were coming from a wooden bench. That fact added a certain something.
Julie responded with surprising poise. "I'm going to clean this bench," she said, looking around a bit. Now, granted, if she had thought the bench was actually talking to her, she might have reacted with a bit more incredulity. But she was poised nonetheless.
"No! I don't wanna be cleaned!" Had the bench possessed arms, it would have crossed them defiantly, and if it had eyebrows, it would have frowned. As it was, if you squinted really hard, you might have been able to notice a slight shift in the grain of the wood on the top surface.
"Oh!" She approached gradually, eyes flicking everywhere in an attempt to isolate the source of the sound. She knew speakers could be made awfully small these days. "Why not?"
"I just don't." The four legs tried their darnedest to stomp for added emphasis, but to no avail.
"It will make you shiny and pretty. That sounds nice, right?" She had paid extra close attention that time, and either this prank was unbelievably elaborate or she had some serious reevaluating to do regarding her preconceptions of benches.
"No!" The petulant bench showed no sign of backing down.
Julie had never been one to force things upon others, but she also had never been one to have a dirty entry hall. The conflict threatened to compromise her very identity. More so than any fact of the bench talking, this dilemma made her sit back and think things through.
Me:
I'm fine, how are you?
I don't have a lot to say about me. When this occurs, I will simply provide a random fact from my past. I used to juggle. My mom taught me because I wanted to give a presentation on how to juggle in the fourth grade, but couldn't actually do it. So I learned, and eventually it led me to exciting places like Madison, Wisconsin for an event called "Madfest." It's a pretty awesome experience. Anyone could come up to you at any point and ask you to juggle with them. At this level, juggling can involve intricate patterns passing clubs between people at odd intervals, and crazy tricks. I got okay at juggling, and even juggled in our middle school talent shows. At one point I tried to bike across the country with a juggling group to benefit the Shriner's Children's Hospitals. I crashed at 30 mph and lost a good portion of my skin, which ended that. I can still juggle, of course, but I haven't done much with it for years. It's a good skill to have, I think.
He carried a bottle of Purell everywhere
and a package of handiwipes.
He had started with just the Purell,
but one day a stranger asked to borrow it,
and since he wasn't a weirdo
just a germophobe,
he had been quite willing to relinquish it temporarily.
But when the bottle was returned
it came with a little bit of doubt.
Where had that man's hands been?
It had been his practice to apply Purell
after every contact with the vast, germ-filled world,
but now the bottle of Purell
belonged to that world.
He couldn't very well Purell his hands
after every time he used the stuff.
He'd be Purell-ing perpetually.
So now he had the handiwipes.
Poem:
I thought of that poem literally four minutes ago as I was typing something else, so I guess if you were wondering what my writing looks like unedited, you have a prime example. I'll leave it that way, but I'm pretty sure I'll change the ending when I go back to it. It seems too clean. I feel like the life of a germaphobe shouldn't end cleanly like that. I didn't get into the real conflict the man might experience. But I do love the phrases "Purell-ing perpetually, and "just a germaphobe." I know germaphobe isn't the technical term. There are two different things "germaphobes" might be suffering from. The most obvious is OCD, but there's also a more specific term, mysophobia. Either way, I wanted to write a poem about it, but I am not in a serious mood. Maybe I'll re-write it in a serious way in the future, but for now, that's what we've got.
Observation:
There's nothing like playing sports with girls to make you feel better about yourself. I would assume it's pretty common knowledge by now that men and women are built differently, so hopefully I won't be harangued by people who think I'm being sexist. It's really just the fact of the matter. I'll leave that debate for now and move on. The sport I'm talking about in this case is ultimate frisbee, which in case you don't know, originated as a sport for hippies to play together and feel good about themselves. And then we took it and put it into the competitive arena with shouting matches, intentional fouling, and grudges. The objective is to move a disc (frisbee, to the less enlightened) into an endzone without letting it contact the ground. But the important detail of this story is that I am a boy and the people I played with yesterday were girls.
Now, the women's team at Iowa State is a good team. They went to the national tournament two years ago, and some of them play on a team from Ames that won the mixed division world championships in Prague. But we still needed some rules to equalize the playing field. The first rule was that I would play left-handed. I am not left-handed. In a sport that revolves around throwing (and involves a rather complex throwing motion to boot), this was a pretty big setback. The next rule was that if I played defense on a girl, I wasn't allowed to jump. When things still weren't quite evened out, jokes were made about blindfolding me and making me run backwards. All in all, it was quite a boost for the old ego. Not that it needed it.
Exercise:
"Magical Furniture"
This is a little exercise in magical realism. With realistic detail, write a scene in which your character had a conversation with a piece of furniture. Assume the person and the piece of furniture disagree about something.
She didn't know the bench was so immature. That might have surprised her even more than the fact that it started talking when she tried to clean it.
"Hey hey hey. What are you doing?" were it's first words. They were pretty unimpressive, to be honest. Until you remembered they were coming from a wooden bench. That fact added a certain something.
Julie responded with surprising poise. "I'm going to clean this bench," she said, looking around a bit. Now, granted, if she had thought the bench was actually talking to her, she might have reacted with a bit more incredulity. But she was poised nonetheless.
"No! I don't wanna be cleaned!" Had the bench possessed arms, it would have crossed them defiantly, and if it had eyebrows, it would have frowned. As it was, if you squinted really hard, you might have been able to notice a slight shift in the grain of the wood on the top surface.
"Oh!" She approached gradually, eyes flicking everywhere in an attempt to isolate the source of the sound. She knew speakers could be made awfully small these days. "Why not?"
"I just don't." The four legs tried their darnedest to stomp for added emphasis, but to no avail.
"It will make you shiny and pretty. That sounds nice, right?" She had paid extra close attention that time, and either this prank was unbelievably elaborate or she had some serious reevaluating to do regarding her preconceptions of benches.
"No!" The petulant bench showed no sign of backing down.
Julie had never been one to force things upon others, but she also had never been one to have a dirty entry hall. The conflict threatened to compromise her very identity. More so than any fact of the bench talking, this dilemma made her sit back and think things through.
Me:
I'm fine, how are you?
I don't have a lot to say about me. When this occurs, I will simply provide a random fact from my past. I used to juggle. My mom taught me because I wanted to give a presentation on how to juggle in the fourth grade, but couldn't actually do it. So I learned, and eventually it led me to exciting places like Madison, Wisconsin for an event called "Madfest." It's a pretty awesome experience. Anyone could come up to you at any point and ask you to juggle with them. At this level, juggling can involve intricate patterns passing clubs between people at odd intervals, and crazy tricks. I got okay at juggling, and even juggled in our middle school talent shows. At one point I tried to bike across the country with a juggling group to benefit the Shriner's Children's Hospitals. I crashed at 30 mph and lost a good portion of my skin, which ended that. I can still juggle, of course, but I haven't done much with it for years. It's a good skill to have, I think.
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