The internet connection on the bottom floor of the rec is a bit spotty. When I enter the bathroom, there's a good chance that at some point the music I'm streaming will cut out. Well, sure enough, right before I'm about to stand up, a dramatic silence falls upon my ears. About then my urine feels slightly warmer than normal. Which is incredibly weird in and of itself, since how would any one bodily fluid feel warmer than another? I look down to investigate, and lo and behold, there is a faint red line running down the middle of the toilet bowl. "Well, crap." I attempt to force a few more drops out and direct them at the bowl, but I'm about dry, and only a couple fall. But they are certainly red. I debate taking a picture, but my mind about that is made up for me when the toilet automatically flushes. The battle has begun.
(If you want, I'll point some fun little euphemisms I threw in there. The well, "crap" was a bit gratuitous, but I was pretty proud of the "spotty" internet connection and the "streaming" music. Because, you know, my stream of urine was spotted with blood.)
Now, as with any adversarial confrontation, it is important to know thine enemy. Luckily, WebMD is a thing, and after a slightly awkward conversation with my parents, I am left hoping I have a urinary tract infection, since the alternative seems to be cancer. Oddly enough, I don't have any of the other symptoms WebMD is alerting me about. There was never any burning sensation, I haven't been going abnormally frequently, and I haven't had any difficulty going either. So I don't know what to think. A brief further consultation with the internet (using an incognito tab on my browser so nobody that steals my phone will know I've been researching UTI's, despite the fact that I'm obviously blogging about it and not hiding it at all) reveals I should drink some cranberry juice. Unless it's cancer. Then the cranberry juice probably won't help (probably won't hurt though).
I do that. I go to the store for the second time in two days after having not shopped for basically an entire month. I drink two quarts of cranberry juice in an hour. I don't like cranberries, so this is another pretty big concession on my part. The psychosomatics start to kick in. I feel sick to my stomach, though I felt fine literally every second up until I noticed blood coming out of my penis. I guess it's understandable for that sight to have that effect, but come on brain, you should know better. The fact that I have most of Mike Birbiglia's standup comedy routine memorized is coming back to haunt me. You see, he used to play a game with himself on long car trips (a regular occurrence for a person trying to make it starting out as a comedian). The game was a little competition with himself to see how clear he could get his urine. Then one day it came out bloody, and he lost that game pretty badly. Which is sad when it's a game against nobody. He had cancer, which is where the routine takes on a bit of a less funny tone for me recalling it in my current state. Don't worry though guys; I refuse to have cancer. That just wouldn't be cool.
Mike's routine goes on to talk about his subsequent prostate exam, surgery, and recovery. I'm a bit more concerned with the cancer question, but not that worried because bad things don't really happen to me. A repeating though in my head is "man, if I was going to get a UTI, you'd think I could at least have had sex or something..." And now that I have one, my chance of getting laid goes way down. Actually, that's not true. It's pretty hard to quantify a decrease from one near-zero number to another. I guess if you look at it as a percentage decrease, from, say, 1% to 0.005%, then my chances have diminished by a factor of 200, which is pretty severe. But my "lost opportunity damages" (I know all about those now; go law school) are negligent, so let's not focus on that either. All I know is, I'm going to beat this thing. Unless it requires a lot of work. Or more cranberry juice. Or cancer.
Thanks for reading!
(Update: My last trip to the bathroom was normal. I am unsure what to make of this. I had no symptoms, then I had one symptom, and it was a doozy. Now I'm back to none. Has anything changed? I guess we'll find out in part 2!)
December 20, 2013
December 19, 2013
That's it
I'm done. After a solid 11 hours of outlining yesterday leading into my four-hour contracts exam today, my last final is behind me. I must say, I do enjoy law school though. Even the tests are interesting. A couple people looked at me really strangely when I expressed that my torts exam was fun, so I held my tongue today, but at least I'm not dreading any of the future semesters. Of course, I have no idea what my grades will be, but there's nothing I can do about it now. So I'll watch some movies on my computer while bouncing cashews off my mouth to find in a month or so. (I did find the wasabi pea that went missing so long ago. It was under a laundry basket.) I also went shopping for the first time this month, so I have fruit and cashews. I didn't buy anything else, since I'll be back home and mooching in a couple days, but after eating only oatmeal for the past week (with an exception of a free bagel last Thursday and some pasta Monday), I'm more than satisfied with any flavor whatsoever. My cashews even say they're from Cedar Rapids, IA! I'm enthusiastic about everything. Don't worry; it won't last.
I don't really have anything to report from my hermitage. I've read over 2,000 pages of legal text in the past week preparing, and while it wasn't the worst experience of my life (because like I said, at least it's interesting), I don't think there's much that bears repeating. I'm also not allowed to share exam contents, so I can't really go into much at all about the last week. Except I played some handball on Thursday and Sunday. I might play tonight, but I'm feeling a bit too lazy to bike to downtown St. Paul (mostly because of the ride back in the dark). I set up a final match with Matt Hiber tomorrow in any event, so I'll be leaving Minnesota on a solid note.
I am playing in my first magic the gathering tournament in a long time on Saturday. I have no expectations as to my ability, but just being in that environment again will be quite an experience, I'm sure.
I forgot my tea in my bottle rack outside today. The bottle seems to have survived the freezing, but it was unfortunate in that I didn't have my tea during the test, and in that I still don' t have my tea on account of it being solid.
The maximum word count for my Constitutional law class was 2,500 words, which I hit almost exactly. I spent a decent amount of time thinking through the various aspects and paring down what I wanted to say, and I turned it in with three minutes remaining. I got lucky the printers I went to were working, since otherwise I probably wouldn't have made the 8-hour deadline. Then in my 4-hour torts exam I hit just over 4,500 words. I sort of petered off after three hours, since I wasn't desperately typing any more. But it turns out that's a solid 11 pages single spaced (18 double), so not too shabby. I don't know what I wrote today, since it was divided into sections, but I'd guess around 3,000. Again, it was more a matter of coming up with something to say for the last hour than than it was hurrying to finish in the allotted time, so either I'm doing something wrong or I'm doing alright.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I have some cashews to track down. And some cars to watch explode. And some magic to think about. Thanks for reading!
I don't really have anything to report from my hermitage. I've read over 2,000 pages of legal text in the past week preparing, and while it wasn't the worst experience of my life (because like I said, at least it's interesting), I don't think there's much that bears repeating. I'm also not allowed to share exam contents, so I can't really go into much at all about the last week. Except I played some handball on Thursday and Sunday. I might play tonight, but I'm feeling a bit too lazy to bike to downtown St. Paul (mostly because of the ride back in the dark). I set up a final match with Matt Hiber tomorrow in any event, so I'll be leaving Minnesota on a solid note.
I am playing in my first magic the gathering tournament in a long time on Saturday. I have no expectations as to my ability, but just being in that environment again will be quite an experience, I'm sure.
I forgot my tea in my bottle rack outside today. The bottle seems to have survived the freezing, but it was unfortunate in that I didn't have my tea during the test, and in that I still don' t have my tea on account of it being solid.
The maximum word count for my Constitutional law class was 2,500 words, which I hit almost exactly. I spent a decent amount of time thinking through the various aspects and paring down what I wanted to say, and I turned it in with three minutes remaining. I got lucky the printers I went to were working, since otherwise I probably wouldn't have made the 8-hour deadline. Then in my 4-hour torts exam I hit just over 4,500 words. I sort of petered off after three hours, since I wasn't desperately typing any more. But it turns out that's a solid 11 pages single spaced (18 double), so not too shabby. I don't know what I wrote today, since it was divided into sections, but I'd guess around 3,000. Again, it was more a matter of coming up with something to say for the last hour than than it was hurrying to finish in the allotted time, so either I'm doing something wrong or I'm doing alright.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I have some cashews to track down. And some cars to watch explode. And some magic to think about. Thanks for reading!
December 9, 2013
Study break
I am accumulating a vast backlog of events which I would normally relay here, but unfortunately finals are looming and I am unwilling to procrastinate (at least in this way). Here is a brief summation:
Two weeks ago I lost my league match to Hiber pretty convincingly, though I had it tied at 18-18 in the second game.
Thanksgiving happened! I had a great time with my parents. Ate good food. Deviled eggs were a fantastic surprise. Waiter was British (his first Thanksgiving; seemed confused at some of the concepts, candied yams in particular). That accent...
I watched all the episodes of "Sherlock." It is confusing to watch Khan (Star Trek) running around with Bilbo (Hobbit) solving murders. Good show though.
I won my league match on Tuesday, beating Brian 21-20, 21-5 as Midway swept the University team and secure first place in the league by 37 points (matches are worth 12, 9, 7, and 5 points)
I worked out a bit, rowed 2,000 meters in 7:25, 1,000 meters in 3:40, and a bunch of easy stuff early in the week. Thursday I rowed 1,000 meters in 3:35, took a drink, and rowed another 1,000 to finish 2,000 in 7:16. Also sprinted 500 in 1:39 that day, which isn't great, but not bad after having already put out some decent effort.
I turned a paper in Wednesday I had a decently enjoyable time writing (all-night, of course, but interesting research and thought went into it).
I took a quiz Tuesday, which I haven't picked up yet.
I gave my Constitutional Law book to a guy because I was going to be busy this weekend and he still hasn't returned it.
I ate a can of wasabi peas. I amused myself by tossing them into the air and catching them in my mouth. I upped the ante by bouncing on my exercise ball at the same time. Result: there is currently a wasabi pea hiding somewhere in my room, location unable to even be approximated. (Should my mouse make another appearance, he may be in for a surprise.)
I slept for 14 hours between Wednesday and Thursday. I then stayed up way too late on Thursday night, but that allowed me to sleep for the car ride to Milwaukee.
I realized I had lost a $100 bill somewhere between my apartment and the tournament site, which I was planning on using to pay for gloves and my outstanding entry fee. (Gloves were unavailable anyway, parents covered entry fee.)
I played in a handball tournament in Milwaukee. I lost my first round of open singles and open doubles (blaming a perfectly clear back glass wall, but also not playing splendidly).
I won three matches in the consolation bracket Saturday, beating Contreras, Jeff Streibig, and Anthony Selestow 15-3?, 15-12?; 9-15, 15-8, 11-7; 15-13, 15-3 respectively. I ate a ton of food and even had a bunch of dessert around midnight due to no willpower combined with delicious temptation.
I won the consolation finals 21-20, 21-16 over Dane Szatkowski, seeded fifth in the open draw to start the tournament. He had played more matches than me that weekend. I played well though.
I won $150, mitigating my loss on the weekend.
My ride braved hazardous driving conditions in an ancient rear-wheel-drive boat and I arrived home safely.
I recovered $100. (My building manager texted me asking if I had lost anything recently, since they had something they couldn't figure out the owner of. I responded all I had lost was a $100 bill. It had been turned in by my neighbor.)
Those are the highlights. I can't wait to see the video highlights over break. A reason to come home in itself. Good weekend overall. Good week in general. Study time. Thanks for reading!
Two weeks ago I lost my league match to Hiber pretty convincingly, though I had it tied at 18-18 in the second game.
Thanksgiving happened! I had a great time with my parents. Ate good food. Deviled eggs were a fantastic surprise. Waiter was British (his first Thanksgiving; seemed confused at some of the concepts, candied yams in particular). That accent...
I watched all the episodes of "Sherlock." It is confusing to watch Khan (Star Trek) running around with Bilbo (Hobbit) solving murders. Good show though.
I won my league match on Tuesday, beating Brian 21-20, 21-5 as Midway swept the University team and secure first place in the league by 37 points (matches are worth 12, 9, 7, and 5 points)
I worked out a bit, rowed 2,000 meters in 7:25, 1,000 meters in 3:40, and a bunch of easy stuff early in the week. Thursday I rowed 1,000 meters in 3:35, took a drink, and rowed another 1,000 to finish 2,000 in 7:16. Also sprinted 500 in 1:39 that day, which isn't great, but not bad after having already put out some decent effort.
I turned a paper in Wednesday I had a decently enjoyable time writing (all-night, of course, but interesting research and thought went into it).
I took a quiz Tuesday, which I haven't picked up yet.
I gave my Constitutional Law book to a guy because I was going to be busy this weekend and he still hasn't returned it.
I ate a can of wasabi peas. I amused myself by tossing them into the air and catching them in my mouth. I upped the ante by bouncing on my exercise ball at the same time. Result: there is currently a wasabi pea hiding somewhere in my room, location unable to even be approximated. (Should my mouse make another appearance, he may be in for a surprise.)
I slept for 14 hours between Wednesday and Thursday. I then stayed up way too late on Thursday night, but that allowed me to sleep for the car ride to Milwaukee.
I realized I had lost a $100 bill somewhere between my apartment and the tournament site, which I was planning on using to pay for gloves and my outstanding entry fee. (Gloves were unavailable anyway, parents covered entry fee.)
I played in a handball tournament in Milwaukee. I lost my first round of open singles and open doubles (blaming a perfectly clear back glass wall, but also not playing splendidly).
I won three matches in the consolation bracket Saturday, beating Contreras, Jeff Streibig, and Anthony Selestow 15-3?, 15-12?; 9-15, 15-8, 11-7; 15-13, 15-3 respectively. I ate a ton of food and even had a bunch of dessert around midnight due to no willpower combined with delicious temptation.
I won the consolation finals 21-20, 21-16 over Dane Szatkowski, seeded fifth in the open draw to start the tournament. He had played more matches than me that weekend. I played well though.
I won $150, mitigating my loss on the weekend.
My ride braved hazardous driving conditions in an ancient rear-wheel-drive boat and I arrived home safely.
I recovered $100. (My building manager texted me asking if I had lost anything recently, since they had something they couldn't figure out the owner of. I responded all I had lost was a $100 bill. It had been turned in by my neighbor.)
Those are the highlights. I can't wait to see the video highlights over break. A reason to come home in itself. Good weekend overall. Good week in general. Study time. Thanks for reading!
November 26, 2013
Just some things
I lost to Matt Hiber again today, to the surprise of nobody. What was surprising is that I lost 11-10 in the tiebreaker. So that's encouraging. I actually play him again tomorrow for league, so hopefully the trend of drastic improvement continues and I can steal a win for my team. Games with him are dictated by really long runs of points. Neither of us is particularly good at getting the server out, so once one of us is serving it usually results in at least a few points. Also, we played with an Ektelon ball because he prefers it, and I actually liked it too. It has a bit more weight to it, so it carries a bit further past your opponent. He claims it hurts his hands less for some reason that I don't quite understand, but luckily my hands didn't seem to be adversely affected, so I guess it's all good. I wonder what we'll play with tomorrow...
I didn't have class until 1:25 today because we finished our contracts syllabus early. However, there is an optional class tomorrow I'm going to go to. And then a rescheduled Civil Procedure class that we don't usually have on Tuesday so that we can all skip Wednesday entirely. So one last busy day and then my semester is basically over. Or maybe that's when the semester actually starts, since the only things that determine my grade are yet to come, and the studying (or lack of it) I do between now and finals is really the only thing that will wind up determining my grade anyway. After class I grabbed a free muffin and bagel and headed back to the rec to work out a bit. It turns out I've lost seven pound since I weighed myself on Friday night after the smorgasbord. So that's apparently a thing that can happen. Last week was odd in that I had a bunch of free food I gorged myself on at lunch all week, and that was bracketed by free huge dinners at both weekends. But I also worked out a lot more than I had been so now that I'm back to not eating much, my metabolism is still amped up from the workouts, and I'm losing weight again.
Speaking of working out, I had a hard time trying today. I was a bit tired from the match earlier, and I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that I was going to be playing him again tomorrow. So every time my muscles started hurting I immediately thought "Well, I might not want to try too hard, since I want to be able to give it my best tomorrow." Which is silly, of course, since I know that I'll feel fine tomorrow anyway. So I did a bunch of really small efforts instead of a long one. My brain just wouldn't tolerate suffering for any length of time, so I compromised by cranking out a couple baseline times for some shorter rowing distances. I rowed a 500 in 1:40 and a 1,000 in 3:32, both times I know I can improve upon, but also pretty decent for my second week rowing. For instance, those times are much closer to the 75th percentile than the 50th percentile among people reporting times to the records website. If I'm near the top 25% of lightweight rowers in my age division, I think I'm pretty pleased. The 1,000 was pretty funny in that I started way too fast. I felt really good because it was my second effort of the day, so the beginning felt easy. I was at a 1:38 pace to start, and I knew I couldn't maintain it, but I figured I would just grind it out the best I could as the going got tough. Well, the going got really tough for the last 250 meters, and I think I finished at a 1:50-something pace. So I suppose there's already something definite to look at for improving! I rowed at a pretty easy pace for a while after that as a cooldown/excuse to say I did more than I actually did, then left.
Between handball games today Matt asked me a few questions. First he clarified that I went to Iowa State, which I confirmed, noting that it was a good choice because they give scholarships to National Merit Scholars and made my choice of major a little more forgivable. He was quite interested in the fact I took time between college and law school, so I mentioned I had a girlfriend finishing her degree and I wasn't all that sure of what I wanted to do anyway. When he learned we weren't together anymore he had a pretty odd reaction. He said, "After the first one, the rest are easy." I must have looked at least partially as confused as I felt, since he followed that up with "Not that that was your first girlfriend, but you get what I'm saying." I can wholeheartedly say that I do not. Not only was this breakup way harder than my first one, I don't ever want a breakup to be "easy." I couldn't quite tell if he meant it would be easy to find relationships after the first one or easier to let them go, but I can assure you that neither of those things is remotely true in my case. I have no desire in acquiring relationships just because I can. I'm sure it's not that difficult if your only goal is to have girlfriends, but I have never been the sort of person interested in dating someone before I already know them pretty well and can see definite potential. Maybe if that's what I was interested in, subsequent breakups would be easier, since it's not like you'd be severing a significant part of yourself. It would just be a "Well, you turned out to not be at all what I wanted in a girlfriend, so see ya!" sort of deal. Which means I screwed up in entering that relationship in the first place as far as I'm concerned. It's probably true to a certain degree that future breakups will be easier, though, since I don't think it's very likely I'll have a relationship that lasts five years again. That, and I don't know how easy it will be to commit to someone as fully as I have in the past. But I told myself after my first relationship not to let that happen again, and look how that turned out. So maybe I'm just a sucker for love. I suppose there are worse things to be. What I do know is that it will probably be incredibly confusing for whoever I do wind up dating, since I'll be guarding against the possibility of it ending by trying to play it cool, being aloof, and doing my general "I'm not affected by things" impersonation (which I seem to be pretty good at) while at the same time wondering if she is a girl I can commit to and see myself loving. At least I'm acknowledging up front that I'll probably be a walking contradiction. Does that make it any better?
I don't know. What I do know is that Facebook yielded a couple of good articles in the past few days that I figured I'd share. This one is mostly amusing, awesome, and requires no elaboration:
http://www.upworthy.com/read-the-witty-suggestion-an-advice-columnist-gives-to-a-homophobic-parent?c=bl3
While this one is a bit more comment-worthy:
http://www.upworthy.com/ever-hear-about-the-lady-that-spilled-coffee-on-herself-at-mcdonalds-then-sued-for-millions?g=2
Now that I'm studying cases like this on a daily basis, I find myself both more and less interested in articles like this. On the one hand, I completely understand why she won, so I don't really care about the "point" of what the article is trying to get at. On the other hand, I pick out language like "industry-standard" and immediately start thinking of reasons that's an excuse and not an excuse given the circumstances. McDonald's claimed that the coffee temperature wasn't any hotter than other establishments and that it was ideal for the roasting process. But according to a case I read recently involving tugboats (and Judge Learned Hand, who happens to be awesome), the fact that a practice is standard does not of itself make that practice excusable. It's a similar argument to the "if everyone jumped off a cliff" situation, but with a bit of a twist in that for a tort claim there also has to be a better option available. So then the question takes on a different meaning and scale. Of course that's only one component. There's also the question of adequate warning, faulty manufacture process, negligence in serving, assumption of risk, strict liability, and probably some other things that aren't coming to my head right away.
Well, I'm going to go to bed before my stomach convinces me I am hungry enough to eat something.
Oh! One last thing, though. A person on facebook was making applesauce and posted some pictures labeled "crab applesauce." I legitimately thought "That is DISGUSTING! Who would eat seafood-flavored applesauce?!" before slapping myself up alongside the head and realizing that crab-apples are a thing. But that's the state of our food right now. It's gotten to the point that there are so many novelty foods and combinations that I honestly can't rule anything out. People eat rattlesnakes, crickets, chocolate-covered all sorts of stuff, and blend weird things into smoothies all the time, so who am I to second-guess a persons desire for crustacean-infused applesauce?
Thanks for reading!
I didn't have class until 1:25 today because we finished our contracts syllabus early. However, there is an optional class tomorrow I'm going to go to. And then a rescheduled Civil Procedure class that we don't usually have on Tuesday so that we can all skip Wednesday entirely. So one last busy day and then my semester is basically over. Or maybe that's when the semester actually starts, since the only things that determine my grade are yet to come, and the studying (or lack of it) I do between now and finals is really the only thing that will wind up determining my grade anyway. After class I grabbed a free muffin and bagel and headed back to the rec to work out a bit. It turns out I've lost seven pound since I weighed myself on Friday night after the smorgasbord. So that's apparently a thing that can happen. Last week was odd in that I had a bunch of free food I gorged myself on at lunch all week, and that was bracketed by free huge dinners at both weekends. But I also worked out a lot more than I had been so now that I'm back to not eating much, my metabolism is still amped up from the workouts, and I'm losing weight again.
Speaking of working out, I had a hard time trying today. I was a bit tired from the match earlier, and I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that I was going to be playing him again tomorrow. So every time my muscles started hurting I immediately thought "Well, I might not want to try too hard, since I want to be able to give it my best tomorrow." Which is silly, of course, since I know that I'll feel fine tomorrow anyway. So I did a bunch of really small efforts instead of a long one. My brain just wouldn't tolerate suffering for any length of time, so I compromised by cranking out a couple baseline times for some shorter rowing distances. I rowed a 500 in 1:40 and a 1,000 in 3:32, both times I know I can improve upon, but also pretty decent for my second week rowing. For instance, those times are much closer to the 75th percentile than the 50th percentile among people reporting times to the records website. If I'm near the top 25% of lightweight rowers in my age division, I think I'm pretty pleased. The 1,000 was pretty funny in that I started way too fast. I felt really good because it was my second effort of the day, so the beginning felt easy. I was at a 1:38 pace to start, and I knew I couldn't maintain it, but I figured I would just grind it out the best I could as the going got tough. Well, the going got really tough for the last 250 meters, and I think I finished at a 1:50-something pace. So I suppose there's already something definite to look at for improving! I rowed at a pretty easy pace for a while after that as a cooldown/excuse to say I did more than I actually did, then left.
Between handball games today Matt asked me a few questions. First he clarified that I went to Iowa State, which I confirmed, noting that it was a good choice because they give scholarships to National Merit Scholars and made my choice of major a little more forgivable. He was quite interested in the fact I took time between college and law school, so I mentioned I had a girlfriend finishing her degree and I wasn't all that sure of what I wanted to do anyway. When he learned we weren't together anymore he had a pretty odd reaction. He said, "After the first one, the rest are easy." I must have looked at least partially as confused as I felt, since he followed that up with "Not that that was your first girlfriend, but you get what I'm saying." I can wholeheartedly say that I do not. Not only was this breakup way harder than my first one, I don't ever want a breakup to be "easy." I couldn't quite tell if he meant it would be easy to find relationships after the first one or easier to let them go, but I can assure you that neither of those things is remotely true in my case. I have no desire in acquiring relationships just because I can. I'm sure it's not that difficult if your only goal is to have girlfriends, but I have never been the sort of person interested in dating someone before I already know them pretty well and can see definite potential. Maybe if that's what I was interested in, subsequent breakups would be easier, since it's not like you'd be severing a significant part of yourself. It would just be a "Well, you turned out to not be at all what I wanted in a girlfriend, so see ya!" sort of deal. Which means I screwed up in entering that relationship in the first place as far as I'm concerned. It's probably true to a certain degree that future breakups will be easier, though, since I don't think it's very likely I'll have a relationship that lasts five years again. That, and I don't know how easy it will be to commit to someone as fully as I have in the past. But I told myself after my first relationship not to let that happen again, and look how that turned out. So maybe I'm just a sucker for love. I suppose there are worse things to be. What I do know is that it will probably be incredibly confusing for whoever I do wind up dating, since I'll be guarding against the possibility of it ending by trying to play it cool, being aloof, and doing my general "I'm not affected by things" impersonation (which I seem to be pretty good at) while at the same time wondering if she is a girl I can commit to and see myself loving. At least I'm acknowledging up front that I'll probably be a walking contradiction. Does that make it any better?
I don't know. What I do know is that Facebook yielded a couple of good articles in the past few days that I figured I'd share. This one is mostly amusing, awesome, and requires no elaboration:
http://www.upworthy.com/read-the-witty-suggestion-an-advice-columnist-gives-to-a-homophobic-parent?c=bl3
While this one is a bit more comment-worthy:
http://www.upworthy.com/ever-hear-about-the-lady-that-spilled-coffee-on-herself-at-mcdonalds-then-sued-for-millions?g=2
Now that I'm studying cases like this on a daily basis, I find myself both more and less interested in articles like this. On the one hand, I completely understand why she won, so I don't really care about the "point" of what the article is trying to get at. On the other hand, I pick out language like "industry-standard" and immediately start thinking of reasons that's an excuse and not an excuse given the circumstances. McDonald's claimed that the coffee temperature wasn't any hotter than other establishments and that it was ideal for the roasting process. But according to a case I read recently involving tugboats (and Judge Learned Hand, who happens to be awesome), the fact that a practice is standard does not of itself make that practice excusable. It's a similar argument to the "if everyone jumped off a cliff" situation, but with a bit of a twist in that for a tort claim there also has to be a better option available. So then the question takes on a different meaning and scale. Of course that's only one component. There's also the question of adequate warning, faulty manufacture process, negligence in serving, assumption of risk, strict liability, and probably some other things that aren't coming to my head right away.
Well, I'm going to go to bed before my stomach convinces me I am hungry enough to eat something.
Oh! One last thing, though. A person on facebook was making applesauce and posted some pictures labeled "crab applesauce." I legitimately thought "That is DISGUSTING! Who would eat seafood-flavored applesauce?!" before slapping myself up alongside the head and realizing that crab-apples are a thing. But that's the state of our food right now. It's gotten to the point that there are so many novelty foods and combinations that I honestly can't rule anything out. People eat rattlesnakes, crickets, chocolate-covered all sorts of stuff, and blend weird things into smoothies all the time, so who am I to second-guess a persons desire for crustacean-infused applesauce?
Thanks for reading!
November 25, 2013
My weekend
And yet again, I begin typing without a clear idea of what I'm going to say.
What I do know is that I spent a decent amount of time listening to spoken word poetry on YouTube, and here are some of the highlights of that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EILQTDBqhPA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sXOxIq65zg
Also, I went to a formal-ish dinner on Friday. Because I am constantly paranoid about how to dress for things, I was glad I didn't wind up looking foolish. Also, I was especially proud I remembered how to tie a tie. Well, not so much remembered as thought it through and logic-ed my way to victory. Which is also kind of cool.
I don't know if this makes me vain or not, but I took pictures of myself. Here's one from before the party:
Dessert was served not long after, and oh boy was that an adventure. I haven't eaten that much since, well, I guess last weekend. Hmmmm. And Thanksgiving is this week? Quite a trend I'm establishing here... Dessert was chocolate-covered strawberries, key lime miniature torte/pie things, chocolate truffles, shortcake, and chocolate raspberry cheesecake. All amazing of course. We socialized for another chunk of time, during which I spent each new conversation trying to figure out what the person I was talking to already knew about me. I don't talk to anyone at school, see, and it seems like everyone has a slightly different impression of me as a result. So to some people I'm the guy who plays handball, to others I'm the guy who rides bikes. Others know about Magic, most know about frisbee, and everyone knows me as the guy who wears shorts. So my goal became to dispel whatever stereotype they had of me. The people who thought I was a jock for being sporty I talked to about scholarly topics, the people who knew about Magic I talked to about exercise, the people who only knew I wear shorts all the time... well, at least I was dressed decently enough to prove I'm not hopeless. We left, and I made a brief stop into the law school to use the bathroom. And who am I kidding, I also wanted to get an idea of what I actually looked like; all I have in my room is a small mirror. I took some more pictures, but the lighting in the bathroom wasn't great. I wound up wearing my leather jacket instead of a sport coat both for warmth (it was single digits with a nasty wind) and because I didn't want to look like I was trying too hard. I think it looks pretty decent actually. (Obviously, or I wouldn't be putting the pictures up, right?)
I weighed myself when I got home, and I had put on three pounds in one night! Ugh. At least I had a lot of exercise to look forward to in the morning.
Sure enough, I between body pump, handball, basketball, and my walk home, I felt pretty exhausted by the end of the six hours I spent outside my apartment this weekend. Basketball doesn't really count, though, since I was just playing with Joseph. His friend didn't show up to play with him, so I stepped in. He had a few house rules (no double dribble, make it take it but only for him, and I had to shoot my first shot from the three point line), and it was overall an adorable time. He pulled out the victory after a hard-fought 10-9 battle which involved me jumping as high as I could at the slightest pump fake (because otherwise there wasn't a way for him to get around me to get a shot off). I can't imagine how awesome it must be to be actually tall. How do tall people ever lose at any sports ever? I'm lucky handball has no height requirement.
David showed up around 12:00, and I was already pretty worn out. I won our first game pretty easily, lost the second 21-20 after going down 17-6, and lost the third in similar fashion. I just couldn't motivate my legs to move until I was about to lose! He asked to play a real match where I tried the whole time, so I said I would be free Thursday. It turns out that my classes got cancelled for Wednesday, however, so now my parents are coming up for Thanksgiving Day. I'm sure it won't be a problem to reschedule with David, and I can't wait to stuff my face again! We have reservations at a place that looks pretty nice, so I'm excited. Also, I get to spend Thanksgiving with my family after all!
I'm playing Matt Hiber over lunch tomorrow, then my league team faces off against the university's team in the battle of the only undefeateds on Tuesday. Then no school while I work on my paper about federal jurisdiction on Native American Reservations. And a bunch of other stuff I'm no doubt supposed to be working on. I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting, but it's sort of late and I don't really need an excuse to stop typing anyway. So there.
Thanks for reading!
What I do know is that I spent a decent amount of time listening to spoken word poetry on YouTube, and here are some of the highlights of that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EILQTDBqhPA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sXOxIq65zg
Also, I went to a formal-ish dinner on Friday. Because I am constantly paranoid about how to dress for things, I was glad I didn't wind up looking foolish. Also, I was especially proud I remembered how to tie a tie. Well, not so much remembered as thought it through and logic-ed my way to victory. Which is also kind of cool.
I don't know if this makes me vain or not, but I took pictures of myself. Here's one from before the party:
I decided to go with a tie, and luckily another guy in the group of four I was showing up with also wore one, so I didn't feel like an idiot. I think we might have been the only people there with them, but hey, better a bit too nice than feeling under-dressed. Though I'm certainly more used to feeling under-dressed. The soiree was catered by what must have been a fairly upscale place. The first thing I put on my plate was a rib with the meat basically falling off the bone and cooked in a fancy-looking sauce. They were served in individual portions, so I didn't know how much to take. Next, I put on two different kinds of salad, one with spinach, mandarin oranges, walnuts and strawberries, the other with different kinds of vegetables, beets, and some other stuff I couldn't taste by the time I got to it. The reason I couldn't taste it? I ran out of room on my plate and resorted to piling food on top of other food. So my salad became buried under rice and pasta. There was also a cheesy potato dish, sauteed vegetables, two kinds of bread, and sea bass. The sea bass was particularly good. It practically melted in my mouth, and it had this sweet/tangy sauce that turned out to be highly addictive. I went back for seconds and just grabbed another rib and two more portions of sea bass. And some cheese tortellini. I never got any of the salmon because it was still cooking when I went through the first time and had migrated to the dining room table by the time I went back up. (I was eating in the living room.) Obviously I ate way too much. Next came the challenge of socializing, made especially hard for everyone because of the enormous amount of food just ingested. It was common to see a person flushed from the heat of the crowd (forty people in a house, even one as big as this, raises the temperature significantly, especially when there's lots of hot food being served) and stuffed to the gills almost nodding off in the middle of whatever conversation was occurring. Groups of three to five people seemed to be the most common size, so whoever wasn't fully participating in a given conversation tended to stare into the distance with a glazed-over expression of contentment.
Some guy took a bunch of pictures and posted them on Facebook. Here I am, cropped out of a larger picture of me and the person I was half-heartedly talking to at the time. Also, for some reason this was the only picture this guy posted where he used flash on his camera, so I had the most ridiculous red-eye glare going on. So I did what any person would do: copied it into Paint and attempted to clumsily color-fill pixel by pixel. Just in case you noticed that my eyes look weird, trust me, it's not as bad as it was.
Dessert was served not long after, and oh boy was that an adventure. I haven't eaten that much since, well, I guess last weekend. Hmmmm. And Thanksgiving is this week? Quite a trend I'm establishing here... Dessert was chocolate-covered strawberries, key lime miniature torte/pie things, chocolate truffles, shortcake, and chocolate raspberry cheesecake. All amazing of course. We socialized for another chunk of time, during which I spent each new conversation trying to figure out what the person I was talking to already knew about me. I don't talk to anyone at school, see, and it seems like everyone has a slightly different impression of me as a result. So to some people I'm the guy who plays handball, to others I'm the guy who rides bikes. Others know about Magic, most know about frisbee, and everyone knows me as the guy who wears shorts. So my goal became to dispel whatever stereotype they had of me. The people who thought I was a jock for being sporty I talked to about scholarly topics, the people who knew about Magic I talked to about exercise, the people who only knew I wear shorts all the time... well, at least I was dressed decently enough to prove I'm not hopeless. We left, and I made a brief stop into the law school to use the bathroom. And who am I kidding, I also wanted to get an idea of what I actually looked like; all I have in my room is a small mirror. I took some more pictures, but the lighting in the bathroom wasn't great. I wound up wearing my leather jacket instead of a sport coat both for warmth (it was single digits with a nasty wind) and because I didn't want to look like I was trying too hard. I think it looks pretty decent actually. (Obviously, or I wouldn't be putting the pictures up, right?)
I weighed myself when I got home, and I had put on three pounds in one night! Ugh. At least I had a lot of exercise to look forward to in the morning.
Sure enough, I between body pump, handball, basketball, and my walk home, I felt pretty exhausted by the end of the six hours I spent outside my apartment this weekend. Basketball doesn't really count, though, since I was just playing with Joseph. His friend didn't show up to play with him, so I stepped in. He had a few house rules (no double dribble, make it take it but only for him, and I had to shoot my first shot from the three point line), and it was overall an adorable time. He pulled out the victory after a hard-fought 10-9 battle which involved me jumping as high as I could at the slightest pump fake (because otherwise there wasn't a way for him to get around me to get a shot off). I can't imagine how awesome it must be to be actually tall. How do tall people ever lose at any sports ever? I'm lucky handball has no height requirement.
David showed up around 12:00, and I was already pretty worn out. I won our first game pretty easily, lost the second 21-20 after going down 17-6, and lost the third in similar fashion. I just couldn't motivate my legs to move until I was about to lose! He asked to play a real match where I tried the whole time, so I said I would be free Thursday. It turns out that my classes got cancelled for Wednesday, however, so now my parents are coming up for Thanksgiving Day. I'm sure it won't be a problem to reschedule with David, and I can't wait to stuff my face again! We have reservations at a place that looks pretty nice, so I'm excited. Also, I get to spend Thanksgiving with my family after all!
I'm playing Matt Hiber over lunch tomorrow, then my league team faces off against the university's team in the battle of the only undefeateds on Tuesday. Then no school while I work on my paper about federal jurisdiction on Native American Reservations. And a bunch of other stuff I'm no doubt supposed to be working on. I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting, but it's sort of late and I don't really need an excuse to stop typing anyway. So there.
Thanks for reading!
November 20, 2013
Upswing
I felt amazing about my quiz today! I finished the fifteen-minute quiz with five minutes to spare, had confidence about every answer, and there was only one I wasn't quite sure I remembered verbatim from the book. I wonder if I have to give credit to the tea now though... That would be depressing. With that out of the way, the next thing on my agenda is to write a paper by December 4. Then finals start coming fast and furious, but I'm still having a hard time getting scared about those since I haven't ever had any trouble with tests before. I guess I hadn't had any problem with quizzes before either, though...
I got free pizza today, and it was so intriguing I couldn't stop eating. I had one gyro piece with lamb meat, gyro sauce, feta cheese, and onions, one Hawaiian (because it was positioned directly behind me when I sat down, so all I had to do was turn around during the speech and grab some), one crazy vegetarian/mexican thing with black beans, jalapenos, green peppers, and some spicy sauce, and one piece of burgers and fries, which had a tangy sauce to either mimic ketchup or barbecue sauce. I felt a bit too full after, but I went to work out in an effort to compensate.
Rowing again! I looked up what would be good times. I would be classified as a lightweight (under 165 pounds), and the record time for the current season for 1,000 meters is 3:02, 2,000 meters is 6:22, and 5,000 meters is 17:30. Averages are 3:34, 7:31, and 19:50 respectively. And I guess I should keep in mind that these are only averages of people who want to record their times, so they probably aren't including terrible people. My average pace over ten minutes yesterday would have given me a 7:40 for 2,000, or a 3:50 for 1,000. So assuming I can go faster than I did if I apply myself harder over shorter distances, I'm already better than average. I put in a longer effort today. I was thinking I'd try going for half an hour, but I sort of went too fast to start, so I called it quits at the 5,000 meter mark, so at least I got a time for that distance. I finished in 19:40-ish, which I feel is pretty good for my fourth time rowing. Heck, that's not far off a running time for a 5k! And it's already below average. Another reason I stopped: blisters! My hands are not toughened up to this particular sport yet.
The second reason was that some guy was trying way too hard to ride his hipstery-looking road bike as fast as possible. He passed me a bit before some stairs (mandatory cyclocross dismount), and I wasn't going to react. My calf had started cramping up a bit at the gym, and I was a bit worn out. But then my transition at the obstacle caught me back up (I still do a flying dismount and quick remount in case my life ever depends on having this ability), so I tried a bit, staying with him until we got to a red light. After the light, I gunned it. Unfortunately, he was even more competitive than I gave him credit for, and I looked over to see him swerving between cars to get into the left-turn lane. Well, that also happened to be the intersection I turn left at, but we were going back at rush hour, so I didn't even try and get over. Instead, I turned right, biked to the end of the line of cars waiting, did a u-turn. and crossed when it changed. Sure enough, I looked over to see him stuck behind a car that didn't make it through on the green light going the other way. Justice!
I've been on facebook a bit more than I'd like to admit recently. I'll claim it's because my section is coordinating car pools for getting to the dinner my professor is throwing on friday, and also because there is a handball thread about who is playing when I check on, but mostly it's boredom, as I'm sure is plenty obvious. So here are some things that cropped up on there!
http://universityprimetime.com/school/unh/article/nurse-discusses-5-regrets-people-tell-her-before-they-die
Assuming this is a checklist, I think I'm doing pretty well. I'm actually really proud of the way I live true to myself. I feel very self-aware and conscious of the decisions I make. Sure, I set myself aside occasionally (not that much, obviously), but it's always a decision. I'm not conforming for conformity's sake. I'm conforming on my own terms, damnit!
I certainly don't work harder than I want to, so that's an easy one. I only commit to something when I'm ready to give myself over to it, and while this contradicts the "shoot for the moon, because even if you miss, you'll end up with the stars" strategy, I have yet to be severely disappointed. I like my approach (of course; I wouldn't be egotistical me if I didn't). Take advantage when something presents itself, and if something is too good to pass up, don't!
Of the five, not having the courage to express my feelings is probably what I consider to be my weakest point. Unless a person happens to be one of the three or four people I share things with, I am pretty guarded. This blog may be seen as evidence to the contrary, of course, but there's a pretty big difference between sharing my experiences and opinions and sharing my feelings. Sure, you get a general sense of my feelings, and occasionally I'll get at them directly, but when it comes down to saying things that I want, etc. I really don't do a very good job. Actually, now that I think about it, there's a pretty strong pattern there. I am not hesitant at all to discuss things I want to change, things that I don't like, or things that I am worried about, but expressing my desires or affirmative feelings is much harder for me. It ties back into the idea of commitment, sort of, in that I feel like if I say I want something, that obligates me to go about getting it or making it happen, so if I don't acknowledge it, I don't have to do it. I still want it, of course, but I don't feel like I'm letting myself (or others) down if I don't take steps to chase it. I know that's all in pretty general terminology, but hopefully the point got across anyway. Basically, I have an easier time complaining than saying what I want because if I express desire, I feel like I'm setting myself up for disappointment. Sure, I'll be disappointed anyway, but it's different if it's something I've acknowledged and failed at.
I don't wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. This goes back to the regrets thing again, obviously. If someone is actually my friend, it shouldn't be a chore to keep in touch, and even if we fall out of touch (like has happened with me and David or Chuck) when we get back together briefly, it still feels like old times. Granted most of the time is spent reminiscing about the good old times when we were actually friends, but that's fun in its own way. And after a while of reminiscing, it's easy to remember the reasons we were friends and feel like it's possible again despite the fact we don't talk much anymore. So there's no "wishing I had done anything different" because that's a silly things to impose anyway. If I actually wanted to do something, I would do it.
Some people who know me might think this is another issue I would have. I disagree. I outlined this fairly recently, so you might know where this is going, but I am not a generally unhappy person. I allow myself to feel happiness when it presents itself, but I don't go out of my way to find it, since I think there are a lot of very worthwhile experiences to be had in other emotional states. Plus, perpetually happy people are just annoying. It seems they've either deluded themselves or are genuinely too out of touch to realize there are important things occurring every day that, if you give them their due consideration, warrant unhappiness. So I don't smile that much, and I maintain a pretty even keel for the most part, but I love the fact that I'm alive, and I really am thankful for every moment I get to choose how I spend my time. Which is actually all the time. So on the one hand, I'm not happy on a consistent basis, but on the other, I'm thrilled constantly that my life is the one it is and that I'm a person I'm happy being.
One sentence from that paragraph in the article did ring a bell, though: "The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives [not choosing to be happy]." I know what the author is getting at, since I've certainly fell into a lull where I thought I was happy enough and set aside my priorities, but even during that time I was able to acknowledge to myself that I was still happy to be making the choice to be lazy. The moral of the story is that I value my volition really highly, I suppose.
http://cities.barna.org/the-most-post-christian-cities-in-america/
It seems I've moved away from the 42nd most "post-christian" city. And into the 30th! Progress! Weirdly, Cedar Rapids is more "post-christian" yet, but I'm going to content myself with here. It's just not worth having to live in Cedar Rapids. (Although the Magic scene there is quite good these days, actually. No handball though.) Thinking about living locations, it occurred to me that for the first time in my life, I have no real desire to go back to Ames. I still love the town, but the people just aren't a draw anymore. Seeing all that familiar stuff will just remind me of times I was happier relationship-wise, and knowing I'm in the same town as all the people I used to spend time with and now have no reason to I think will just be depressing. Even seeing my sister will just remind me that she's best friends with the girl I thought I would still be with, and it's not like we had that much to talk about to begin with anyway. Which doesn't leave much. The only non-nostalgic, actual reason to go back to Ames seems to be my parents. But I talk to my mom all the time anyway (obligatory acknowledgment here for Sarah S), and there's really only so much to do together. I'm sure it would be fun to play handball with the good ol' guys, but I won't improve my game by being there. Magic people have a relationship of facility and commonality more than personality, and I don't play here anyway. Sarah S said she'd have a boy visiting from Texas/Pittsburgh while she's back in Ames, so my time with her would be limited anyway (even more than usual, and that's saying something (I feel like I have to fight for every minute I spend with her because a lot of people demand her time. Or maybe I demand too much of it and am really selfish (probably that one).)). It's weird, because I love Ames, so my first reaction is looking forward to going home, but then the rest hits me and I'm left a bit bewildered. Is Minneapolis home, then? Not even close. I guess I'm finally the hobo people have been speculating I might eventually become.
Tea is incredibly cheap. I get 20 bags for like a dollar or something, and yet I'm still cheap enough to reuse them to the point they are probably absorbing flavor from the water rather than contributing anything. My process is this: I make one tall glass of fresh tea, then a second. Then I put the bag in with every other tea bag I've used to date and cross my fingers something good happens. So far the last step has produced what approaches tea. But of course, I have no idea what my standards for tea should even be. I know I've always thought tea tasted like weirdly-flavored water anyway, so maybe it all qualifies. Maybe I make my tea way too strong. Maybe I'm doing it all wrong. But hey, I had a good run at that quiz today, so I'm going to call it qualitea. (Stole that pun from Charlieissocoollike. And probably about a billion other people.)
Other things that indicate an upswing (or a lull before the storm of finals): I set up a time to play Matt Hiber next week. I don't have much homework (because I'm supposed to be studying, but I'm not), I have more food than usual because my mom is a master smuggler (smuggless?), the weather has been quite good, I get to sleep as much as I want tonight, I have honey crisp apples (related to the aforementioned smuggling), lots of people have said they'll show up to handball tomorrow, I get lots of free food all the time (eating a free salad as I type), and best of all, I'm not dead (less of an upswing, since I wasn't dead before now...)!
Thanks for reading!
I got free pizza today, and it was so intriguing I couldn't stop eating. I had one gyro piece with lamb meat, gyro sauce, feta cheese, and onions, one Hawaiian (because it was positioned directly behind me when I sat down, so all I had to do was turn around during the speech and grab some), one crazy vegetarian/mexican thing with black beans, jalapenos, green peppers, and some spicy sauce, and one piece of burgers and fries, which had a tangy sauce to either mimic ketchup or barbecue sauce. I felt a bit too full after, but I went to work out in an effort to compensate.
Rowing again! I looked up what would be good times. I would be classified as a lightweight (under 165 pounds), and the record time for the current season for 1,000 meters is 3:02, 2,000 meters is 6:22, and 5,000 meters is 17:30. Averages are 3:34, 7:31, and 19:50 respectively. And I guess I should keep in mind that these are only averages of people who want to record their times, so they probably aren't including terrible people. My average pace over ten minutes yesterday would have given me a 7:40 for 2,000, or a 3:50 for 1,000. So assuming I can go faster than I did if I apply myself harder over shorter distances, I'm already better than average. I put in a longer effort today. I was thinking I'd try going for half an hour, but I sort of went too fast to start, so I called it quits at the 5,000 meter mark, so at least I got a time for that distance. I finished in 19:40-ish, which I feel is pretty good for my fourth time rowing. Heck, that's not far off a running time for a 5k! And it's already below average. Another reason I stopped: blisters! My hands are not toughened up to this particular sport yet.
I did a couple jump rope sets and went for a bit longer on my precor machine workout as well. As I was sitting around drinking water after cooling down on the rowing machine, three guys came up and started yanking on the machines for all they were worth. One in particular was obviously bigger and stronger than me, so I was curious what his times were. It turns out he was hitting 2:06 or thereabouts. And he quit after five minutes. So at least I'm not horrendous. And hopefully I don't look ridiculous, either!
Biking home was better than usual for two reasons. I saw a guy hand-cranking his way along the bike path on one of these:
He was flying, too, for that matter. I had to put a bit of effort to the pedals to stay close enough to gawk.
The second reason was that some guy was trying way too hard to ride his hipstery-looking road bike as fast as possible. He passed me a bit before some stairs (mandatory cyclocross dismount), and I wasn't going to react. My calf had started cramping up a bit at the gym, and I was a bit worn out. But then my transition at the obstacle caught me back up (I still do a flying dismount and quick remount in case my life ever depends on having this ability), so I tried a bit, staying with him until we got to a red light. After the light, I gunned it. Unfortunately, he was even more competitive than I gave him credit for, and I looked over to see him swerving between cars to get into the left-turn lane. Well, that also happened to be the intersection I turn left at, but we were going back at rush hour, so I didn't even try and get over. Instead, I turned right, biked to the end of the line of cars waiting, did a u-turn. and crossed when it changed. Sure enough, I looked over to see him stuck behind a car that didn't make it through on the green light going the other way. Justice!
I've been on facebook a bit more than I'd like to admit recently. I'll claim it's because my section is coordinating car pools for getting to the dinner my professor is throwing on friday, and also because there is a handball thread about who is playing when I check on, but mostly it's boredom, as I'm sure is plenty obvious. So here are some things that cropped up on there!
http://universityprimetime.com/school/unh/article/nurse-discusses-5-regrets-people-tell-her-before-they-die
Assuming this is a checklist, I think I'm doing pretty well. I'm actually really proud of the way I live true to myself. I feel very self-aware and conscious of the decisions I make. Sure, I set myself aside occasionally (not that much, obviously), but it's always a decision. I'm not conforming for conformity's sake. I'm conforming on my own terms, damnit!
I certainly don't work harder than I want to, so that's an easy one. I only commit to something when I'm ready to give myself over to it, and while this contradicts the "shoot for the moon, because even if you miss, you'll end up with the stars" strategy, I have yet to be severely disappointed. I like my approach (of course; I wouldn't be egotistical me if I didn't). Take advantage when something presents itself, and if something is too good to pass up, don't!
Of the five, not having the courage to express my feelings is probably what I consider to be my weakest point. Unless a person happens to be one of the three or four people I share things with, I am pretty guarded. This blog may be seen as evidence to the contrary, of course, but there's a pretty big difference between sharing my experiences and opinions and sharing my feelings. Sure, you get a general sense of my feelings, and occasionally I'll get at them directly, but when it comes down to saying things that I want, etc. I really don't do a very good job. Actually, now that I think about it, there's a pretty strong pattern there. I am not hesitant at all to discuss things I want to change, things that I don't like, or things that I am worried about, but expressing my desires or affirmative feelings is much harder for me. It ties back into the idea of commitment, sort of, in that I feel like if I say I want something, that obligates me to go about getting it or making it happen, so if I don't acknowledge it, I don't have to do it. I still want it, of course, but I don't feel like I'm letting myself (or others) down if I don't take steps to chase it. I know that's all in pretty general terminology, but hopefully the point got across anyway. Basically, I have an easier time complaining than saying what I want because if I express desire, I feel like I'm setting myself up for disappointment. Sure, I'll be disappointed anyway, but it's different if it's something I've acknowledged and failed at.
I don't wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. This goes back to the regrets thing again, obviously. If someone is actually my friend, it shouldn't be a chore to keep in touch, and even if we fall out of touch (like has happened with me and David or Chuck) when we get back together briefly, it still feels like old times. Granted most of the time is spent reminiscing about the good old times when we were actually friends, but that's fun in its own way. And after a while of reminiscing, it's easy to remember the reasons we were friends and feel like it's possible again despite the fact we don't talk much anymore. So there's no "wishing I had done anything different" because that's a silly things to impose anyway. If I actually wanted to do something, I would do it.
Some people who know me might think this is another issue I would have. I disagree. I outlined this fairly recently, so you might know where this is going, but I am not a generally unhappy person. I allow myself to feel happiness when it presents itself, but I don't go out of my way to find it, since I think there are a lot of very worthwhile experiences to be had in other emotional states. Plus, perpetually happy people are just annoying. It seems they've either deluded themselves or are genuinely too out of touch to realize there are important things occurring every day that, if you give them their due consideration, warrant unhappiness. So I don't smile that much, and I maintain a pretty even keel for the most part, but I love the fact that I'm alive, and I really am thankful for every moment I get to choose how I spend my time. Which is actually all the time. So on the one hand, I'm not happy on a consistent basis, but on the other, I'm thrilled constantly that my life is the one it is and that I'm a person I'm happy being.
One sentence from that paragraph in the article did ring a bell, though: "The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives [not choosing to be happy]." I know what the author is getting at, since I've certainly fell into a lull where I thought I was happy enough and set aside my priorities, but even during that time I was able to acknowledge to myself that I was still happy to be making the choice to be lazy. The moral of the story is that I value my volition really highly, I suppose.
http://cities.barna.org/the-most-post-christian-cities-in-america/
It seems I've moved away from the 42nd most "post-christian" city. And into the 30th! Progress! Weirdly, Cedar Rapids is more "post-christian" yet, but I'm going to content myself with here. It's just not worth having to live in Cedar Rapids. (Although the Magic scene there is quite good these days, actually. No handball though.) Thinking about living locations, it occurred to me that for the first time in my life, I have no real desire to go back to Ames. I still love the town, but the people just aren't a draw anymore. Seeing all that familiar stuff will just remind me of times I was happier relationship-wise, and knowing I'm in the same town as all the people I used to spend time with and now have no reason to I think will just be depressing. Even seeing my sister will just remind me that she's best friends with the girl I thought I would still be with, and it's not like we had that much to talk about to begin with anyway. Which doesn't leave much. The only non-nostalgic, actual reason to go back to Ames seems to be my parents. But I talk to my mom all the time anyway (obligatory acknowledgment here for Sarah S), and there's really only so much to do together. I'm sure it would be fun to play handball with the good ol' guys, but I won't improve my game by being there. Magic people have a relationship of facility and commonality more than personality, and I don't play here anyway. Sarah S said she'd have a boy visiting from Texas/Pittsburgh while she's back in Ames, so my time with her would be limited anyway (even more than usual, and that's saying something (I feel like I have to fight for every minute I spend with her because a lot of people demand her time. Or maybe I demand too much of it and am really selfish (probably that one).)). It's weird, because I love Ames, so my first reaction is looking forward to going home, but then the rest hits me and I'm left a bit bewildered. Is Minneapolis home, then? Not even close. I guess I'm finally the hobo people have been speculating I might eventually become.
Tea is incredibly cheap. I get 20 bags for like a dollar or something, and yet I'm still cheap enough to reuse them to the point they are probably absorbing flavor from the water rather than contributing anything. My process is this: I make one tall glass of fresh tea, then a second. Then I put the bag in with every other tea bag I've used to date and cross my fingers something good happens. So far the last step has produced what approaches tea. But of course, I have no idea what my standards for tea should even be. I know I've always thought tea tasted like weirdly-flavored water anyway, so maybe it all qualifies. Maybe I make my tea way too strong. Maybe I'm doing it all wrong. But hey, I had a good run at that quiz today, so I'm going to call it qualitea. (Stole that pun from Charlieissocoollike. And probably about a billion other people.)
Other things that indicate an upswing (or a lull before the storm of finals): I set up a time to play Matt Hiber next week. I don't have much homework (because I'm supposed to be studying, but I'm not), I have more food than usual because my mom is a master smuggler (smuggless?), the weather has been quite good, I get to sleep as much as I want tonight, I have honey crisp apples (related to the aforementioned smuggling), lots of people have said they'll show up to handball tomorrow, I get lots of free food all the time (eating a free salad as I type), and best of all, I'm not dead (less of an upswing, since I wasn't dead before now...)!
Thanks for reading!
November 19, 2013
Brief update before study time
I drank a bunch of green tea today. I was awake in all my classes, but I also got plenty of sleep, so I'm not sure if that played into it at all. I still don't really like the taste, but I think I'm already used to it, so as long as it's actually beneficial, I suppose I'll keep doing it.
I got free gyros today. I'm glad I get to type that instead of say it. I always pronounce it "heuros," and I always second-guess myself. Then I had to listen to people talking about how mining is bad for the environment. Yup, I'm pretty sure I knew that already. But know I know an hour more of it, I guess.
Yesterday I got free chinese food for listening to a guy talk about his help in re-writing Minnesota statute to account for gay marriage. That was okay, but he was pretty dry. The food wasn't though! So I spend most of the time recording the food I had eaten since I last updated my calorie-tracker app. It was pretty unhappy with me about that malt I had on Saturday, but other than that, I'm doing okay. Also, I learned that it's always fun to hear a man in a suit say the word "lesbian." And even more amusing when he pauses ever so slightly before "sperm." He was talking about the troubles with gay couples and parenthood, you see. He was obviously used to the subject, since it's in his line of work, but I guess some words never quite flow off the tongue. (Not lesbian; he said that just fine. I'm just immature and think it's hilarious for some reason when a well-dressed man says it to a room full of college kids.)
After class I headed to the rec to work out/play handball with anyone who showed up, since I wasn't scheduled to play for my league team. I did basically the same thing as yesterday, except my mom told me that one time she went to an indoor rowing thing where they rowed 2,500 meters and she overheard a guy say 10:00 would be a good goal. So I rowed for five minutes to warm up, jumped some rope, sat down, and gave a pretty decent effort. Five minutes in my address was hovering around the 2:00 mark for 500 meters, which meant I was exactly on pace for ten minutes. I gave it my all from there on out, and I finished with this:
I got free gyros today. I'm glad I get to type that instead of say it. I always pronounce it "heuros," and I always second-guess myself. Then I had to listen to people talking about how mining is bad for the environment. Yup, I'm pretty sure I knew that already. But know I know an hour more of it, I guess.
Yesterday I got free chinese food for listening to a guy talk about his help in re-writing Minnesota statute to account for gay marriage. That was okay, but he was pretty dry. The food wasn't though! So I spend most of the time recording the food I had eaten since I last updated my calorie-tracker app. It was pretty unhappy with me about that malt I had on Saturday, but other than that, I'm doing okay. Also, I learned that it's always fun to hear a man in a suit say the word "lesbian." And even more amusing when he pauses ever so slightly before "sperm." He was talking about the troubles with gay couples and parenthood, you see. He was obviously used to the subject, since it's in his line of work, but I guess some words never quite flow off the tongue. (Not lesbian; he said that just fine. I'm just immature and think it's hilarious for some reason when a well-dressed man says it to a room full of college kids.)
After class I headed to the rec to work out/play handball with anyone who showed up, since I wasn't scheduled to play for my league team. I did basically the same thing as yesterday, except my mom told me that one time she went to an indoor rowing thing where they rowed 2,500 meters and she overheard a guy say 10:00 would be a good goal. So I rowed for five minutes to warm up, jumped some rope, sat down, and gave a pretty decent effort. Five minutes in my address was hovering around the 2:00 mark for 500 meters, which meant I was exactly on pace for ten minutes. I gave it my all from there on out, and I finished with this:
It doesn't stop right away, but I know I finished in 9:35! I'll look up what a good time is at some point, but tonight I'm going to pretend I'm amazing.
I jumped rope for a while, ran on my pre-cor machine with my one-minute variations (though this time I upped resistance with every cycle), and then sat down to row again. I started off with a 2:10 pace, and I decided I was just going to concentrate on being as efficient as possible. Sure enough, it dropped to around 2:00. It's really crazy how much difference a little bit of variation makes in this sport. 2:00 is ridiculously harder than 2:05, for example, but it's also much easier than 1:55, which is what I had been doing. So after five minutes I was averaging around a 2:02. I struggled for the remainder to get it averaged out to about 2:00.
I'm pretty pleased with myself! I really hope it's justified...
Anyway, I jumped rope for a bit, then I got to play some easy handball with some folks. Then it turned out the university league team was playing at home today, so I got in a singles game and a doubles game with the people that showed up for that. I studied while everyone was playing, though, and that's a thing I really need to get around to tonight, so I'm afraid I'm going to cut this short.
Can you believe 170 people looked at my blog today/yesterday? I don't know why that is, but I'm sort of honored. Thanks for reading!
Oh, and I saw this on the internet today:
It just took me like eight minutes to find it though, since the person misspelled squirrel as "squirell," and even once I figured it out through some interesting detective work, google wanted to thwart my recovery of the image using its nefarious autocorrect. The reason this is awesome, though, is that it's called Jean-Claude Van Squirrel, and I had just seen this video posted on facebook:
Because I know lazy people exist, I'll spoil it for you: Jean-Claude Van Damme does the splits like the squirrel. EXCEPT THE TREES ARE MOVING TRUCKS! That guy is cool.
But seriously, I have to study.
November 18, 2013
Blogging with pictures (and poems)
I mentioned that I started rowing a bit last week. It is pretty fun, leaves me sweaty, but not exhausted, and works almost all of the major muscle groups. A pretty good recipe for a workout that doesn't seem to interfere with also wanting to be able to give 100% at handball either that same day or the next day. I have decided to document my progress somewhat, since I always do better when I have something to focus on improving. Here is what I did the first time:
I rowed for 30 minutes total. The first ten minutes I went pretty hard, keeping the pace under 2:10. The middle ten minutes I just maintained a comfortable rhythm, trying to get the hang of the motion and make sure I wasn't overdoing it on my first time, and the last ten minutes I ramped it up again. I like working out in stages like that. I don't get bored, and when I can focus on something new, I have a lot easier time regulating my performance. Today I went back to the gym and hopped on the machine. I rowed ten minutes at a time again, but instead of a middle section of going easy, I jumped rope in between for five minutes. My shoulders felt like they were going to fall off, which made getting a run of more than fifty hops in a row rather difficult (which made me rather frustrated), but I felt like the variation was good, again. Here's a picture of my second set statistics. I averaged a 2:00 500-meter pace for both of my ten-minute sections, which I think is okay. I sprinted the last bit to see what I had left, which wasn't much. These concept 2's are much harder than the water-resistance machines elsewhere in the building!
When I was struggling with my computer the other day and resetting accounts and stuff, I took this picture. It looks entirely normal until...
It says to make a password reset floppy disc! What?! There isn't a floppy drive anywhere on my machine, nobody uses them these days, and this is a copy of Windows 7! It's not like this is from 1994 or something! (Also, you can see my long-lost handball video in the background on my desktop. Alas, poor folders, I knew ye well.)
I found this to be a particularly funny take on the classic parenting hypothetical. It makes so much sense! Especially since I tend to make pretty smart friends who are usually at least somewhat concerned with self-preservation. Not that I am the sort of person to blindly follow them off a bridge, but hey, if Chuck and David told me it was the correct option, there's a pretty good chance I'd wind up airborne (after examining their logic, of course).
To conclude the phone pictures for the day:
No explanation required.
I had a hundred people read my blog yesterday! I'm assuming some random ad sent them there or something, since I can see the traffic source information and it sure wasn't from people searching for it on google, but I'm still happy!
Now that I have a computer at home, I no longer have a reason not to upload some of the things I've been writing down at random intervals. So here's a poem:
Peanut Butter
I accidentally refrigerated my peanut butter.
It got caught up with the condiments,
reduced to a mere topping, a garnish pushed
back into the cold with the pickles and olives.
It wasn't right
for such an integral part of my diet
to be tossed in with mere frivolities.
My ex loved peanut butter,
so now I pause sometimes,
mid-spoonful, as the tongue-arresting
thickness makes hesitation easy,
and wonder whether I actually like it
or whether I just like liking it,
like the girls I meet in her wake
who smile, and I wonder, if I wink
would they wink back?
And would I even want them to,
since I know them even less about them
than I know peanut butter,
and I don't even know peanut butter well,
since my feelings there, too, remain unresolved:
Do I like it,
or just like that it takes my mind
to a better time,
when I leveled out her gouging spoonfuls
with my odd obsessive need
for uniformity?
I knew peanut butter was always there for me
when I needed a simply way
to make her smile.
Sad? Here, I put peanut butter on
a thing
because I don't know how to show
that it kills me not to know
a better way to cheer you up.
The concoctions became more elaborate.
Peanut-butter-topped
anythings
became peanut-butter-chocolate-banana
everythings,
which eventually gave way themselves
to peanut butter chocolate wafers,
(separated meticulously) sandwiching swirled
dark-chocolate-peanut-butter-infused scoops
of multiple flavors of ice cream,
all splitting a banana.
All met with disdain,
so now I eat it plain.
The low-sodium Skippy
tastes shitty.
So I think I like peanut butter for peanut butter
the way I liked her for her.
By that I mean, I know it's good,
but even then it grew on me more
addictive,
until I was spooning it absent-mindedly
into my mouth at 1:35am,
listening to classical music
and not even tasting it.
Like I said, I'm not very impressed with my poetry these days. I don't mind the ideas/analogies or whatever, but it doesn't strike me as good writing. I'm obviously too close to it all still to really maintain good perspective on which details are objectively good and which are just meaningful to me. I read some poetry recently to try and remember what it felt like to be writing from a more literary place rather than pure emotion. This is what resulted:
Trip to the Grand Canyon
If the wind had blown you into the Grand Canyon
I might have spent the rest of my life crying
as I watched you fall.
But at least I'd know how I felt,
have justification for these sudden urges
to abandon bouts of happiness
mid-laugh.
Or maybe I'd have spent the rest of my life watching you fall
literally,
as I cast myself after you
grabbing for either your hand, outstretched
(back when you still wanted me to catch you)
or, failing that, your hair, furling
in unappreciated beauty,
reduced to a handhold.
I once joked I'd hammer-throw you
Trunchbull-style, by your braid,
but as we are now,
both falling,
there is no method to propel you,
though I might manage to get beneath
and brace for impact.
And see? That didn't really help at all! So I don't really know what to say. It's probably one of those "time heals all wounds" sorts of deals. Time heals all over-emotional poetry? That could probably catch on. Let's start it circulating.
So in an effort to get my emotions out, I just let loose:
Weird
It feels weird that I'm angrier now
about her cheating then,
when all that's changed
is how long it's been
since I reminded myself
by looking at her
grinning, lit-up face,
or her sleeping form content
and gradually splaying outward,
her once-cold limbs expanding
until, upon contact,
the reflex-cuddle
makes up for everything,
her sleepy grin enough
for forgiveness.
Wasabi
I wondered today whether I liked the taste more
or the burn, since the taste is inseparable from the pain
and at some point Pavlovian responses point
to partnerships so bound and wound up in one another
that the pair of sensations start to substitute
and skip out, leaving me loving pain
and you long gone.
Imprudent purchase
Is there anything more egotistical
than a feet-sweeping gesture?
How many women, carried away
from their factory job by Richard Gere
to the applause of their coworkers,
realize months, or years,
later, that the glory wears off
but the reasons for rejection remain?
And how many wannabe Richards are there
trying to suspend rationality
the necessary moment to board a plane
risking the five-hour empty flight home
to hold a boombox blaring overhead
or spontaneously spout the perfect proposal
to a girl subtly different from the one they flew to meet?
And don't worry; there are more. There are some about other subjects, too, of course (from sandwich artists, to high-release backhands) but those don't do nearly as good a job of highlighting what I wish I could get rid Harry-Potter-Pensieve style, putting it on the page in lieu of being distracted at random times. The last one is particularly funny to me, since it started as a poem called "almost a romantic" and by the time I was done editing was just cynical. Typical me, right? The original was about how I constantly entertain thoughts (sometimes even seriously) about things I wish I could bring myself to do. Things like not take no for an answer, board a plane, and see her face to face. Or board a different plane and see Sarah S on a whim. Or tell a random girl I think she's pretty (I almost did this today, actually. It was weird.) But I can't crest the hump. Here's how the poem originally started:
I'm almost a romantic
but that's a binary proposition
you either are or aren't
no hand grenades here
(close doesn't count).
So my temptation
to put my heart en route
even as it approaches one
stalls out without the needed clout.
Actions are binary, despite how close we feel to taking them. Which I suppose is benefiting me the times I'm entertaining things I know are stupid, but I've never done foolhardy romantic things, really, so I don't actually know if they're stupid or not. I just assume they are, as shown by how the poem wound up. And finding out for sure that it doesn't work would be sad, too, of course. As long as I don't actually do anything, I can still entertain the fantasy, teasing myself with how close I come to finding out.
I guess there was one poem I entertained the thought of polishing, but I really don't like when author's acknowledge their medium in general, so I sort of abandoned it before I finished.
Spoken poetry
My poetry isn't spoken word.
Read aloud it's absurd, it's rushed
its rhythm drops
and details go unheard.
So if I speak it, I go slow
savor the syllables, and sibilance, and flow
as I go
from one rhyme, paused precarious
to that infernal one,
internal and nefarious
which if rapidly regurgitated
might never register
unacknowledged and frustrated.
That's all the typing I have time for tonight, unfortunately. I guess the caffeine must be doing something, though, since I'm not really tired. Which is good, since I should definitely get around to doing my homework and studying for my quiz on Wednesday! Thanks for reading!
I rowed for 30 minutes total. The first ten minutes I went pretty hard, keeping the pace under 2:10. The middle ten minutes I just maintained a comfortable rhythm, trying to get the hang of the motion and make sure I wasn't overdoing it on my first time, and the last ten minutes I ramped it up again. I like working out in stages like that. I don't get bored, and when I can focus on something new, I have a lot easier time regulating my performance. Today I went back to the gym and hopped on the machine. I rowed ten minutes at a time again, but instead of a middle section of going easy, I jumped rope in between for five minutes. My shoulders felt like they were going to fall off, which made getting a run of more than fifty hops in a row rather difficult (which made me rather frustrated), but I felt like the variation was good, again. Here's a picture of my second set statistics. I averaged a 2:00 500-meter pace for both of my ten-minute sections, which I think is okay. I sprinted the last bit to see what I had left, which wasn't much. These concept 2's are much harder than the water-resistance machines elsewhere in the building!
I jumped rope again after, again with difficulty. Then I grabbed a handball, and completely mis-hit it on the first couple attempts. After that, though, I felt really good! The ball was going where I aimed, and my hands felt closer in power than usual. So maybe this working out thing will help after all... Who knew? I grabbed the jumprope again after hitting for a while and managed a couple hundred hops in a row, so I was even feeling better about that. I threw in fifty cross-overs to finish off the streak, and then did 25 doubles (I don't know what to actually call these things, since I don't actually jump rope, but hopefully they are self-explanatory) before I hit my shin and called it quits. I finished things up with ten minutes on a precor machine, which is cool because you get to choose your range of motion. So I got to mimic running stairs for a minute, short strides for a minute, and bounds for a minute, and repeat that for the ten minutes. I really like variety.
On my way home, I bought some green tea from Aldi. I got both flavors they had, one plain, the other with lemon and ginseng. I made the plain one first, since if I hated it, I wanted to have something to look forward to. It wasn't delicious, but knowing it's good for me goes a long way in making it tolerable. The caffeine content wasn't listed, though, so I'm not sure how much to drink at night before trying to sleep. This is unfortunate, since I was sort of planning on drinking tea whenever I felt hungry, but now it seems that may result in me being awake all night. I made some of the ginseng too, which I'm putting in the refrigerator to take to school with me tomorrow. Having tried a sip, I can't say I'm very impressed by the claim of lemon or ginseng. Apparently Aldi has a decent reputation for tea, though, as it won some weird contest in europe involving tea. Granted, I have no idea how that compares to anything on this side of "the pond," but I'm going to claim it's good anyway:
When I have three minutes before class starts, I hit the random button on my XKCD app. Occasionally I screenshot the ones I like. Here are some more pictures about big questions!
Between XKCD and SMBC, I am constantly reminded this problem is something tons of people (especially ones prone to thinking a lot) struggle with all the time. The difference, of course, is that they choose to joke about it, while I am not usually so inclined.
Sarah was wondering about her parenting ability the other night, so I figured I'd include this one:
When I was struggling with my computer the other day and resetting accounts and stuff, I took this picture. It looks entirely normal until...
It says to make a password reset floppy disc! What?! There isn't a floppy drive anywhere on my machine, nobody uses them these days, and this is a copy of Windows 7! It's not like this is from 1994 or something! (Also, you can see my long-lost handball video in the background on my desktop. Alas, poor folders, I knew ye well.)
I found this to be a particularly funny take on the classic parenting hypothetical. It makes so much sense! Especially since I tend to make pretty smart friends who are usually at least somewhat concerned with self-preservation. Not that I am the sort of person to blindly follow them off a bridge, but hey, if Chuck and David told me it was the correct option, there's a pretty good chance I'd wind up airborne (after examining their logic, of course).
To conclude the phone pictures for the day:
No explanation required.
I had a hundred people read my blog yesterday! I'm assuming some random ad sent them there or something, since I can see the traffic source information and it sure wasn't from people searching for it on google, but I'm still happy!
Now that I have a computer at home, I no longer have a reason not to upload some of the things I've been writing down at random intervals. So here's a poem:
Peanut Butter
I accidentally refrigerated my peanut butter.
It got caught up with the condiments,
reduced to a mere topping, a garnish pushed
back into the cold with the pickles and olives.
It wasn't right
for such an integral part of my diet
to be tossed in with mere frivolities.
My ex loved peanut butter,
so now I pause sometimes,
mid-spoonful, as the tongue-arresting
thickness makes hesitation easy,
and wonder whether I actually like it
or whether I just like liking it,
like the girls I meet in her wake
who smile, and I wonder, if I wink
would they wink back?
And would I even want them to,
since I know them even less about them
than I know peanut butter,
and I don't even know peanut butter well,
since my feelings there, too, remain unresolved:
Do I like it,
or just like that it takes my mind
to a better time,
when I leveled out her gouging spoonfuls
with my odd obsessive need
for uniformity?
I knew peanut butter was always there for me
when I needed a simply way
to make her smile.
Sad? Here, I put peanut butter on
a thing
because I don't know how to show
that it kills me not to know
a better way to cheer you up.
The concoctions became more elaborate.
Peanut-butter-topped
anythings
became peanut-butter-chocolate-banana
everythings,
which eventually gave way themselves
to peanut butter chocolate wafers,
(separated meticulously) sandwiching swirled
dark-chocolate-peanut-butter-infused scoops
of multiple flavors of ice cream,
all splitting a banana.
All met with disdain,
so now I eat it plain.
The low-sodium Skippy
tastes shitty.
So I think I like peanut butter for peanut butter
the way I liked her for her.
By that I mean, I know it's good,
but even then it grew on me more
addictive,
until I was spooning it absent-mindedly
into my mouth at 1:35am,
listening to classical music
and not even tasting it.
Like I said, I'm not very impressed with my poetry these days. I don't mind the ideas/analogies or whatever, but it doesn't strike me as good writing. I'm obviously too close to it all still to really maintain good perspective on which details are objectively good and which are just meaningful to me. I read some poetry recently to try and remember what it felt like to be writing from a more literary place rather than pure emotion. This is what resulted:
Trip to the Grand Canyon
If the wind had blown you into the Grand Canyon
I might have spent the rest of my life crying
as I watched you fall.
But at least I'd know how I felt,
have justification for these sudden urges
to abandon bouts of happiness
mid-laugh.
Or maybe I'd have spent the rest of my life watching you fall
literally,
as I cast myself after you
grabbing for either your hand, outstretched
(back when you still wanted me to catch you)
or, failing that, your hair, furling
in unappreciated beauty,
reduced to a handhold.
I once joked I'd hammer-throw you
Trunchbull-style, by your braid,
but as we are now,
both falling,
there is no method to propel you,
though I might manage to get beneath
and brace for impact.
And see? That didn't really help at all! So I don't really know what to say. It's probably one of those "time heals all wounds" sorts of deals. Time heals all over-emotional poetry? That could probably catch on. Let's start it circulating.
So in an effort to get my emotions out, I just let loose:
Weird
It feels weird that I'm angrier now
about her cheating then,
when all that's changed
is how long it's been
since I reminded myself
by looking at her
grinning, lit-up face,
or her sleeping form content
and gradually splaying outward,
her once-cold limbs expanding
until, upon contact,
the reflex-cuddle
makes up for everything,
her sleepy grin enough
for forgiveness.
Wasabi
I wondered today whether I liked the taste more
or the burn, since the taste is inseparable from the pain
and at some point Pavlovian responses point
to partnerships so bound and wound up in one another
that the pair of sensations start to substitute
and skip out, leaving me loving pain
and you long gone.
Imprudent purchase
Is there anything more egotistical
than a feet-sweeping gesture?
How many women, carried away
from their factory job by Richard Gere
to the applause of their coworkers,
realize months, or years,
later, that the glory wears off
but the reasons for rejection remain?
And how many wannabe Richards are there
trying to suspend rationality
the necessary moment to board a plane
risking the five-hour empty flight home
to hold a boombox blaring overhead
or spontaneously spout the perfect proposal
to a girl subtly different from the one they flew to meet?
And don't worry; there are more. There are some about other subjects, too, of course (from sandwich artists, to high-release backhands) but those don't do nearly as good a job of highlighting what I wish I could get rid Harry-Potter-Pensieve style, putting it on the page in lieu of being distracted at random times. The last one is particularly funny to me, since it started as a poem called "almost a romantic" and by the time I was done editing was just cynical. Typical me, right? The original was about how I constantly entertain thoughts (sometimes even seriously) about things I wish I could bring myself to do. Things like not take no for an answer, board a plane, and see her face to face. Or board a different plane and see Sarah S on a whim. Or tell a random girl I think she's pretty (I almost did this today, actually. It was weird.) But I can't crest the hump. Here's how the poem originally started:
I'm almost a romantic
but that's a binary proposition
you either are or aren't
no hand grenades here
(close doesn't count).
So my temptation
to put my heart en route
even as it approaches one
stalls out without the needed clout.
Actions are binary, despite how close we feel to taking them. Which I suppose is benefiting me the times I'm entertaining things I know are stupid, but I've never done foolhardy romantic things, really, so I don't actually know if they're stupid or not. I just assume they are, as shown by how the poem wound up. And finding out for sure that it doesn't work would be sad, too, of course. As long as I don't actually do anything, I can still entertain the fantasy, teasing myself with how close I come to finding out.
I guess there was one poem I entertained the thought of polishing, but I really don't like when author's acknowledge their medium in general, so I sort of abandoned it before I finished.
Spoken poetry
My poetry isn't spoken word.
Read aloud it's absurd, it's rushed
its rhythm drops
and details go unheard.
So if I speak it, I go slow
savor the syllables, and sibilance, and flow
as I go
from one rhyme, paused precarious
to that infernal one,
internal and nefarious
which if rapidly regurgitated
might never register
unacknowledged and frustrated.
That's all the typing I have time for tonight, unfortunately. I guess the caffeine must be doing something, though, since I'm not really tired. Which is good, since I should definitely get around to doing my homework and studying for my quiz on Wednesday! Thanks for reading!
November 17, 2013
Guys! I have a COMPUTER! (and it isn't even broken) WHEE!
I am, however, bad at computers. As a result, I erased all of the handball footage I got from this weekend. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
A lot of stuff happened, so I'm just going stream-of-consciousness here, and if it's unreadable, so be it. (I don't know why I include little disclaimers like that. Obviously it's not going to be unreadable. I know how to write, and I'm certainly not expecting anything terrible to wind up in the post unbeknownst to me. Maybe it's like the equivalent of fishing for compliments. I do that too, so I suppose it makes sense.)
I received word from my mom that, since my dad was planning on officiating a bike race this weekend, she was debating coming up to Minneapolis on Saturday to watch some of my handball tournament. I was happy, but apprehensive. I played poorly at league again on Tuesday (letting Dane take me to a tiebreak when I normally don't have much of an issue winning), and I didn't want to disappoint. I resolved to break out of my slump. I went to handball on Thursday and played Dane again. I lost a game. The slump appeared unbroken. Then it turned out I drew Matt as my first round opponent. Things were not great. I dislike playing Matt. Don't worry, though; everyone does. He just has a very annoying attitude on court. He has an awkward-looking hitting style, he moves weirdly, and worst of all, he constantly hinders his opponents slightly. I don't know whether or not that is deliberate. I suspect what happened was that at some point he didn't move out of the way as much as everyone else, but it wasn't an obvious call, so the ref didn't say anything. As a result, his opponent missed his shot, but may not have complained, because as is the case with most handball shots, there's always something the hitter could have done to make the shot. So it's not always the first reaction to call a hinder. We play the game because we want to play not because we want to stop for silly hinder calls all the time. So he won the point, and maybe after this happened a few times, it became ingrained: when I do X, then Y results. In this case, when he moves less, his opponents miss more. And if its a subtle thing (which it usually is, though sometimes the hinders are blatant), the refs and opponents don't say anything. I know when I play him I don't call anything. I leave the court with a general feeling of dissatisfaction, though. I know there were probably calls I could have made, but like I said, it's mostly subtle stuff.
Also, he yells at himself constantly. Which is awkward in its own right, since it makes me feel bad for beating him. Like I'm sorry, and since I don't want him to conclude the match with ritual suicide over his self-disappointment, maybe I shouldn't be quite so hard on him. Obviously a terrible mentality for competition, but I know I do it. So when match time rolled around on Friday, I was feeling generally unexcited. I played just okay. He got double digits on me both games, so I obviously wasn't playing optimally, but it didn't go to a tiebreak like it did a few weeks ago in league. I wasn't happy, but hey, I was on to the next round. I sure didn't feel slump-free, however. I watched my next opponent, Brian, play his match against Dane, and that went to a tiebreak. I know Brian is capable of heating up and serving six aces in a row, though, so I didn't want to take anything for granted.
To make things even more interesting, my mom asked Piper if she wanted to attend. That way there would be some conversation for the car ride, and Piper knows a bit about handball and is generally up for an adventure. She's a pretty busy person, though, so I was surprised when it worked out. The reason this meant things were more interesting? Piper means cameras. Which I love, normally. But it meant that my trend of poor play might be recorded for all to see. (All in this case meaning the three people who ever watch the replays. But those would be three people I know and want to impress, so it still mattered to me. It's all a matter of perspective. I might tie back into that later if I remember it.) So now you know where the footage came from that I inexpertly lost in my computer-operating endeavors. Things are coming together nicely.
I slept decently, woke up, and cleaned my apartment. I did this so I could vacuum, since I had been holding my parents' vacuum cleaner hostage for months now, and if I was going to relinquish it, I ought to at least use it before setting it free. So I vacuumed at 9:00 am. I hope my neighbors were okay with that, but since I have yet to talk to any of them (aside from a reluctant "hello" on the rare occasion they are trying to also use the front door when I either come or go), I wasn't too concerned. I had given my mom directions to a parking lot on the recommendation of Dane, and then given her some rather-detailed instructions on how to navigate from there to the handball courts (which are obnoxiously visible to the outside of the building, but trapped behind a maze of corridors on the inside). I showed up a few hours early to my match and preoccupied myself with spectating and jumping in any available court to warm up.
I would normally go back and insert this somewhere relevant, but hey, I made that excuse earlier, so I might as well take advantage of it: That reminds me. The night before, after my match, I was also running into every available court. Only that was in the tow of Joseph, the boy (six-ten years of age) from Midway who had come with his dad to watch the tournament. When he saw me, he latched on, and I was adopted. We played two games of handball. Or, rather, we played one and a bit more games of handball. At that point, his body language made it obvious he had to use the bathroom, but since I am the furthest thing from an expert on kids, I ignored it. Sure enough, a few points later he asked if he could leave to use the bathroom. I said yes. He just sort of looked at me. I said "Do you know where it is? Do you want me to come with?" So there I was, taking a little boy to the little boy's room. After he was finished, he said I had to explain why he was gone if his dad got mad at him for leaving. I said I doubted he would be mad, and Joseph agreed, since I was a good guy. Almost enough to warm your heart, until you remember how expensive and generally annoying kids actually are. We finished our game with one notable occurrence: Joseph cheated! I have no idea how to handle this situation. I'm not his parent. I'm not even sure I'm an authority figure, although I guess I'm as authoritative as most other people Joseph encounters. But I usually just goof around and am silly. So I told him I'd let him have that one bad call, we'd replay the point, but that if he wanted to play with me he had to be honest. Joseph followed me around the rest of the night and near the end became fixated on reffing a match. I told him that was the job of the losers from the last round, so he would have to wait. He was unimpressed with my argument, and I didn't have a better one other than "you're a little kid who doesn't even know all the rules; nobody wants you to ref their match." Luckily, sticking to my story of it being someone else's job worked long enough for him to get distracted by trying to find someone to play me so he could ref that match. It turned out that nobody was looking to play a high-level open player at that point in the night, but it bought me ten minutes, at the end of which Joseph reluctantly retreated into a pout. Then I pulled my phone out to check something and he asked if he could see it. I handed it over, and he was sad I didn't have any games. I asked if he knew how to play solitaire. He didn't, so I taught him, which was plenty of distraction that he stopped being sad and sat contentedly while I watched the remainder of a match. He left not long after.
So anyway, Saturday morning I was periodically warming up for a couple of hours. My mom showed up, having successfully navigated the complexities of the newly-renovated rec center. This was additionally awesome in that she had with her the shoes I bought online and shipped to her house, as well as Naked juice of the mango variety. Oh! Speaking of food, the new organizer for court sports at the rec put on quite an event! Each person got an insulated mug for entering, he catered in Qdoba for dinner on Saturday night, there was fresh fruit all weekend, there was a refrigerator of Powerade and water, he had Bruegers Bagels for breakfast, and Jimmy John's for lunch! Of course, apparently he did this at the expense of prize support (a fact we'll get to later), but hey, the more happy people, the more people will turn out to the event the next year. Mom also had padding for my gloves, and a bunch of unrequested items (many of which she seems to have snuck into my apartment while I wasn't looking (a feat even more impressive considering the size of my apartment; I mean, there are only like three things to look at). So I got to decline Gatorade, since that is one of the only things I know I usually have trouble keeping down. What's that? Another tangent opportunity? Don't mind if I do!
Qdoba was actually amazing. I ate way too much, since I hadn't had lunch that day (no free food, and no food in my apartment as a result of relying on free food and not shopping), and didn't want to eat before my match. So I loaded up. I then polished the mountain of rice, steak, salsa, guacamole, queso, and beans off with two bottles of pink lemonade Powerade (the only acceptable flavor because it's the only flavor I'm okay with being as watered down as Powerade tastes to me). Then I ran all over tarnation (because I'm an old man in this story now) with that young whippersnapper. I got home and realized I was feeling quite sick to my stomach. I promptly vomited. Well, I had enough time to change the trash bag, so I guess it wasn't super promptly, but it happened. Then my nose started bleeding (from pressure buildup while vomiting? Is that a thing?). Then I vomited again. This time it was epic, though, since when I puked, a stream of blood erupted from my nose! My first reaction was "Whoah, cool!" followed promptly (and this was actually prompt) by "Should I be worried?" It turned out that no, I shouldn't be worried. I held a tissue to my nose and it stopped sooner than most nosebleeds I've had (and I've had a lot). I threw up maybe one more time, but it felt like it was mostly for good measure. Like maybe I didn't have to, I could have held it down, but if it was willing to come out, I might as well let it.
So I wasn't feeling like Gatorade, to say the least. Piper taped my shoulder, which was feeling a bit sore from the match Friday, but nothing out of the ordinary. The tape might have even helped, since it feels great now. I was playing on the show courts with glass side walls for all my matches (now that I'm an open competitor and all), so the fact that Piper brought two cameras was awesome. Multiple angles! I took the court, and it turned out I was serving first. I knew Brian sometimes gets off to a slow start, preferring to play his way into a match. So enough with what passes for suspense around here: there was no slump to be found. I went up 17-0 in the first game before winning 21-3. The second game started off closer (he got to serve first and was warmed up and all), but I eventually wen on a run. There were a bunch of cool highlights I was hoping to upload here, but alas, my ineptitude ruined that. I won 21-14 in the second game, but it wasn't that close after I was up 16-8 or so. So I was in the finals against Matt Hiber, a talented stay at home dad who teaches the handball class at the university here. I got demolished. I don't know if it was my lack of focus (I was definitely more focused for my match with Brian), my poor strategy (I tried to end rallies with kill shots instead of taking his position into consideration), or if he was just very on the ball (he rolled out all but one setup I gave him, I think), but I wasn't really in either game. I got his phone number after the match though, and we're going to play over lunch, hopefully with regularity. Of course, this means I will have to start doing my homework, and it might even mean I need to start buying more food, but when faced with an opportunity, I have to take advantage, and this certainly qualifies. For my troubles, I got a ten dollar gift card to Chipotle. Not quite the spoils I was hoping for, but like I said earlier, I'm sure I got more than my fifteen dollars out of the food provided, not to mention the experience of playing in a tournament.
The three of us left before the last match was done and headed out to eat. I felt a little bad making my mom drive up and pay for dinner, since usually in our family it's tradition to repay the kindness of the time it takes to drive by at least covering the meal, but I'm back to believing I'm a broke college kid, so I took advantage like one. We went to a Himalayan place (called the Himalayan). Piper had eaten there before, and I even knew about it, though not by reputation. It just so happens it's basically on my street. I bike past it every time I take the fastest route to the Midway Y for Saturday handball. (This isn't as frequently as you might think. Between getting lost, getting adventurous, and wanting to take bike paths over city streets, I've only been by it on five or six trips.) I used the opportunity to add another animal to my list of those consumed: Yak! Unfortunately, this was not as spectacular as I was hoping. The appetizer was yak meat with sauteed onsions and other vegetables wrapped in dough and fried. They were delicious, but the onion and dough really didn't let me discern anything about the quality of yak other than it tastes like beef. Which may be all there is to yak anyway, but I was still idealistically hoping for more.
At some point it was revealed to me that my mom had printed off my latest blog entry for perusal during the trip. I suppose that is as good a conversation piece as anything else, but it caught me a little off guard. I wasn't sure if my mom had done that because she was worried about me (in which case, it's not like there's a solution to the problem anyway), or if she had just assumed the topic would be interesting. As it is, I don't really like talking to people who know me about my writing, a fact I've communicated, but never really explained fully. I suppose part of it stems from the fact that most people I talk to about personal stuff at this point know enough about me that they can tell if I lie to them. While I don't ever really feel compelled to lie when it comes to my writing, it's nice to have that back door to turn to when some subject or other becomes slightly uncomfortable. (This doesn't apply very well in this case, obviously, since the subjects of my blogs are obviously personal already.) I write mainly from experience, and while I don't mind talking about those experiences, sometimes it's just easier to say something short and slightly less true than it is to actually spell things out.
I had this conversation with my mom a couple of weeks ago, actually. She mentioned hearing on the radio that publishers would rather publish lesser quality material by a writer willing to do press work and book tours than superior work by a reticent writer. I immediately said that was cool, and that I'd like to tour if I had a book I was proud of, a reaction that caught her by surprise, understandably. But the thing is, when people don't know where (or who) you base your thoughts off of, it's fun to talk about subjects of writing. The awful part is when I write something and then receive three different messages from three different people all wondering just what I meant by that, when in reality I didn't mean anything. Usually, I'm just fascinated by an experience, be it emotional, physical, observational, and I want to try and capture it as efficiently and realistically as possible. This means blending multiple experiences together, enhancing some details, leaving others out, and in the end, each of those decisions means something to anybody I shared the experience with. I can only repeat "I don't know; it's just what I felt like" so many times before it starts to lose meaning. This was actually a major reason I didn't write much after graduation. I felt very self-conscious, and I didn't want to explain myself. Trying to figure out both what I want to say and how to say it in a way that keeps everyone else happy is way too much for me to handle, even today. Luckily, I have the excuse that I'm basically alone up here in Minneapolis, so anyone with a grudge will at least have to inconvenience themselves to confront me.
Talking about the blog entry was harmless, really, but also didn't really accomplish much, since by all acknowledgment there is nothing to be accomplished. All that really happened was some re-hashing of the fact that balance is important in life, something obvious, but also obviously unobtainable. There's always something more pressing than the rest of things. My mom theorized that it may be whatever you encourage grows to be who you are in the end. I am tempted to reject this proposition straight off, since I think that I could go through my life in a positive manner and yet still not be convinced that's who I actually am. Yes, it will become habit, but that doesn't make it genuine. I actually have two analogies for this one. The first is my diet. I started because I wanted to do anything I could to make myself more attractive to the girl I was with. But I stayed with it because I knew it was the right thing to do, and I heard that anything you do for three months becomes habit. Well, three months passed, and sure, it's now habit for me to feel guilty for eating too much. I recognize when I'm doing it; I know when I should stop, but it doesn't erase my desire to keep eating. I've indulged a few times recently, and I both regret it and don't. It comes back to balance. I need to balance the structure that's theoretically evidence of balance by doing irresponsible things also. The second analogy is psychopaths. I can't remember if I've discussed this before, so it's possible I'm repeating myself. In one of my philosophy classes we were talking about this topic, because it's been proven that people who are actually psychopaths are physically incapable of experiencing moral qualms regarding their actions. The correct areas of their brain just don't show activity when faced with moral decisions. Obviously they know the "right" answer, but to them it doesn't feel right, it is simply right in the sense it is correct. The italics mean so much... Psychopaths get a bad rap, of course, because the bad ones are really bad, but some go through life perfectly normally. I feel sympathy for them quite frequently. I occasionally wonder where the boundary is between "psychopath" and "ultra-rational." I mean, I am capable of rationalizing just about anything. I can put it in a framework that makes even the most ridiculous action seem reasonable. So when I think about "feeding" the appropriate tendencies (as my mom put it), which in this case means focusing on being a sociable, intelligent, generally fantastic human being (which I know I can be), there is nothing there that implies I will "turn into" the person I am emulating. In fact, I've been doing that more or less my whole life. My indiscretions have been, for the most part, investigations into exactly what constitutes normal. Does a person get in trouble for throwing rocks? Yes. Does a person get in trouble for swearing? Yes. Does a person get in trouble for writing potentially crazy stories? No. Could they if people found out they weren't fiction? Probably (as yet untested, but evidence certainly leans one direction). My investigations since I've grown up haven't needed to be based on experience, since I can more easily anticipate and figure out what will happen, but I still do more than my fair share of boundary-testing. (That is probably not true, actually. I bet everyone feels like they do more than their fair share of boundary testing. I am confident this is one of those "unique like everyone else" scenarios.)
These days, I am just as interested in testing my own boundaries as those of the people/society around me. So I still jibe at people when they might not expect it to see how they react, but I also preoccupy myself with figuring out the minimum I can do to succeed in school, the minimum I can buy and still survive, etc. The results are consistently amazing. People are surprising in their reactions, I am surprising in my tolerance, and even more surprising is my unwillingness to do certain things. I wonder every so often what the minimum amount of human interaction I need is, and it's either WAY more than I think, or I'm just not willing to find out. For instance, Rebecca emailed me a couple of weeks ago, I responded, and she responded rather quickly, but also included she was sorry for the delay. I said she had no obligation to email me, and that I was confused why she was emailing me at all, actually, since I had no idea what my role in her life was anymore. (This is a heavily condensed version, I'm sure.) <- (That is a sentence I wouldn't have included if I didn't care about what people reading my writing thought.) She hasn't emailed me since, and I resolved to be okay with that. But then I emailed her today asking why. It just happened that in that moment the curiosity outweighed any bad consequences that came to mind (since there really aren't many), and I couldn't come up with a reason not to. If I were actually conducting my experiment to see what the minimum contact is, I would simply remind myself of that fact as I do when I feel bored and my first instinct is to eat something. Because once I think "I'm bored, what food do I have?" I immediately start to feel hungry. If I stop and think back ten minutes, though, I realize I'm not actually hungry. My body just knows there's potential for food and responds accordingly. (My mouth is watering as I type this, for example.)
So that was a long tangent about why I don't think it's fruitful to attempt to embrace one "version" of me over the other. I think the fact that I come back to the question of death is part of what defines me as me, and just because I don't have to do that doesn't mean I should ignore it. I may sound like I'm trying to make myself out to be a martyr when I describe it, since I do obviously subject myself to suffering, but the terror that accompanies those thoughts matters too much to me to stop experiencing. Knowing my mom, I don't know how she reads these posts. I know she worries about me a lot, and reading me say things like "I feel like a psychopath sometimes," or "Sometimes I get so terrified of death I feel like I should kill myself the next time the thought of it doesn't scare the crap out of me" can't be easy. But don't worry! I'm actually (probably) fine. I just enjoy think about things through the medium of typing.
We all shared some of the dishes we ordered. I got a lamb tikka masala, Piper got a tandoori-cooked chicken dish, and my mom went with the standby of palak paneer. They were all excellent, and I think the three combined encompassed pretty much the ideal meal. Oh, we also got garlic naan. My dish was rich, with a tang of something I am not going to try and describe because thinking too long is stopping my train of thought. My mom's wasn't quite the same as other dishes I've had of that name, so it was awesome to try a variation (that was still amazing), and Piper's was a drier dish with some actual spice to it (though not spicy/hot per say), and rounded things off perfectly. All in all, fantastic. Then we went to the malt shop for dessert. I weighed myself this morning, and I'm actually up four pounds from where I started the weekend! I'm sure that will dissipate, but still, over a tournament weekend it's rare for me to put on that much weight.
We came back here to drop me and my stuff off between food stops (since it's so close to the Himalayan restaurant anyway), so I downloaded the video onto my new computer, my mom stashed way too much stuff in my cupboards while I wasn't looking (my fridge too!), and we pumped up my exercise ball. That turned out to be quite a process. I ended up cutting open a pen to use as a funnel from my bike pump to the opening in the ball, which happened to work perfectly, but definitely was aided by the multiple pairs of hands. Oh, and speaking of being helped out, my mom taught me a bit about how to row! It turns out I wasn't doing it completely wrong, but it was cool to see how it should actually look, and having her sit down beside me helped me mimic her motion pretty well, I think. So that was awesome. And I met a lady at the handball tournament who offered to be my surrogate mom while I'm in Minneapolis, which was way too nice of her (bordering on uncomfortableness/strangeness as far as I'm concerned) though she was talking to my mom for a while, so I'm sure she just felt like she knew me way better than I feel I know her. So I have her number for some reason now.
I may be forgetting some things, but that was the gist of the weekend. And that was only Saturday, really. Today I spent fiddling with my new computer. Oh right! I can explain why I deleted all the footage I wanted to include. So there was an account on the computer that wasn't password protected. I renamed it "Ryan," but the "user" folder was still called "John," as was the computer. So I renamed the computer, but it was annoying me that when I was downloading things (like antivirus software), it would still say John in the folder path. So I created a new account and I was going to do a very complicated-sounding procedure to get the computer to reassign all the right things to a renamed account after modifying some stuff in the operating system directory, when I realized "Hey, this is a new computer! I don't care about any of his settings or stuff anyway!" And promptly deleted his account entirely and created a new one with the appropriate privileges to accomplish the task. Then I went to my desktop and was like "Oh.... Yeah... Not everything was his..." So I feel stupid. I was totally looking forward to changing my facebook profile picture to something that's relevant (rather than biking, which looks cool, but isn't very accurate anymore). I even paused and screen-captured a sweet one of me diving, hitting the ball in midair. And then I deleted it all. Maybe that's punishment for hubris? I don't know.
Also, at the malt shop, I got chocolate blueberry because I've had chocolate-covered blueberries and they are delicious. Neither of my dining companions had heard of this idea, however, and my mom gave me a weird look. Then she ordered honey-flavored ice cream... Talk about a hypocrite. Piper got cookies and cream, a solid choice, but not one I ever go for. I think we were all fairly happy though.
Now I'm going back and seeing how many things I referenced meaning to get back to them and then rambled on while forgetting. For instance, I said I would come back to the idea of perspective way up there at the beginning. And I think what I had in mind was talking about our dinner conversation, though I didn't mention anything about perspective when I actually got to that point. So now I don't know if that's what I actually meant or if there's something else I'm forgetting. So my bad. Hopefully it wasn't a boring read, anyway (way to close with another stupid bet-hedging clarifying sentence, Ryan...)! Thanks for reading!
A lot of stuff happened, so I'm just going stream-of-consciousness here, and if it's unreadable, so be it. (I don't know why I include little disclaimers like that. Obviously it's not going to be unreadable. I know how to write, and I'm certainly not expecting anything terrible to wind up in the post unbeknownst to me. Maybe it's like the equivalent of fishing for compliments. I do that too, so I suppose it makes sense.)
I received word from my mom that, since my dad was planning on officiating a bike race this weekend, she was debating coming up to Minneapolis on Saturday to watch some of my handball tournament. I was happy, but apprehensive. I played poorly at league again on Tuesday (letting Dane take me to a tiebreak when I normally don't have much of an issue winning), and I didn't want to disappoint. I resolved to break out of my slump. I went to handball on Thursday and played Dane again. I lost a game. The slump appeared unbroken. Then it turned out I drew Matt as my first round opponent. Things were not great. I dislike playing Matt. Don't worry, though; everyone does. He just has a very annoying attitude on court. He has an awkward-looking hitting style, he moves weirdly, and worst of all, he constantly hinders his opponents slightly. I don't know whether or not that is deliberate. I suspect what happened was that at some point he didn't move out of the way as much as everyone else, but it wasn't an obvious call, so the ref didn't say anything. As a result, his opponent missed his shot, but may not have complained, because as is the case with most handball shots, there's always something the hitter could have done to make the shot. So it's not always the first reaction to call a hinder. We play the game because we want to play not because we want to stop for silly hinder calls all the time. So he won the point, and maybe after this happened a few times, it became ingrained: when I do X, then Y results. In this case, when he moves less, his opponents miss more. And if its a subtle thing (which it usually is, though sometimes the hinders are blatant), the refs and opponents don't say anything. I know when I play him I don't call anything. I leave the court with a general feeling of dissatisfaction, though. I know there were probably calls I could have made, but like I said, it's mostly subtle stuff.
Also, he yells at himself constantly. Which is awkward in its own right, since it makes me feel bad for beating him. Like I'm sorry, and since I don't want him to conclude the match with ritual suicide over his self-disappointment, maybe I shouldn't be quite so hard on him. Obviously a terrible mentality for competition, but I know I do it. So when match time rolled around on Friday, I was feeling generally unexcited. I played just okay. He got double digits on me both games, so I obviously wasn't playing optimally, but it didn't go to a tiebreak like it did a few weeks ago in league. I wasn't happy, but hey, I was on to the next round. I sure didn't feel slump-free, however. I watched my next opponent, Brian, play his match against Dane, and that went to a tiebreak. I know Brian is capable of heating up and serving six aces in a row, though, so I didn't want to take anything for granted.
To make things even more interesting, my mom asked Piper if she wanted to attend. That way there would be some conversation for the car ride, and Piper knows a bit about handball and is generally up for an adventure. She's a pretty busy person, though, so I was surprised when it worked out. The reason this meant things were more interesting? Piper means cameras. Which I love, normally. But it meant that my trend of poor play might be recorded for all to see. (All in this case meaning the three people who ever watch the replays. But those would be three people I know and want to impress, so it still mattered to me. It's all a matter of perspective. I might tie back into that later if I remember it.) So now you know where the footage came from that I inexpertly lost in my computer-operating endeavors. Things are coming together nicely.
I slept decently, woke up, and cleaned my apartment. I did this so I could vacuum, since I had been holding my parents' vacuum cleaner hostage for months now, and if I was going to relinquish it, I ought to at least use it before setting it free. So I vacuumed at 9:00 am. I hope my neighbors were okay with that, but since I have yet to talk to any of them (aside from a reluctant "hello" on the rare occasion they are trying to also use the front door when I either come or go), I wasn't too concerned. I had given my mom directions to a parking lot on the recommendation of Dane, and then given her some rather-detailed instructions on how to navigate from there to the handball courts (which are obnoxiously visible to the outside of the building, but trapped behind a maze of corridors on the inside). I showed up a few hours early to my match and preoccupied myself with spectating and jumping in any available court to warm up.
I would normally go back and insert this somewhere relevant, but hey, I made that excuse earlier, so I might as well take advantage of it: That reminds me. The night before, after my match, I was also running into every available court. Only that was in the tow of Joseph, the boy (six-ten years of age) from Midway who had come with his dad to watch the tournament. When he saw me, he latched on, and I was adopted. We played two games of handball. Or, rather, we played one and a bit more games of handball. At that point, his body language made it obvious he had to use the bathroom, but since I am the furthest thing from an expert on kids, I ignored it. Sure enough, a few points later he asked if he could leave to use the bathroom. I said yes. He just sort of looked at me. I said "Do you know where it is? Do you want me to come with?" So there I was, taking a little boy to the little boy's room. After he was finished, he said I had to explain why he was gone if his dad got mad at him for leaving. I said I doubted he would be mad, and Joseph agreed, since I was a good guy. Almost enough to warm your heart, until you remember how expensive and generally annoying kids actually are. We finished our game with one notable occurrence: Joseph cheated! I have no idea how to handle this situation. I'm not his parent. I'm not even sure I'm an authority figure, although I guess I'm as authoritative as most other people Joseph encounters. But I usually just goof around and am silly. So I told him I'd let him have that one bad call, we'd replay the point, but that if he wanted to play with me he had to be honest. Joseph followed me around the rest of the night and near the end became fixated on reffing a match. I told him that was the job of the losers from the last round, so he would have to wait. He was unimpressed with my argument, and I didn't have a better one other than "you're a little kid who doesn't even know all the rules; nobody wants you to ref their match." Luckily, sticking to my story of it being someone else's job worked long enough for him to get distracted by trying to find someone to play me so he could ref that match. It turned out that nobody was looking to play a high-level open player at that point in the night, but it bought me ten minutes, at the end of which Joseph reluctantly retreated into a pout. Then I pulled my phone out to check something and he asked if he could see it. I handed it over, and he was sad I didn't have any games. I asked if he knew how to play solitaire. He didn't, so I taught him, which was plenty of distraction that he stopped being sad and sat contentedly while I watched the remainder of a match. He left not long after.
So anyway, Saturday morning I was periodically warming up for a couple of hours. My mom showed up, having successfully navigated the complexities of the newly-renovated rec center. This was additionally awesome in that she had with her the shoes I bought online and shipped to her house, as well as Naked juice of the mango variety. Oh! Speaking of food, the new organizer for court sports at the rec put on quite an event! Each person got an insulated mug for entering, he catered in Qdoba for dinner on Saturday night, there was fresh fruit all weekend, there was a refrigerator of Powerade and water, he had Bruegers Bagels for breakfast, and Jimmy John's for lunch! Of course, apparently he did this at the expense of prize support (a fact we'll get to later), but hey, the more happy people, the more people will turn out to the event the next year. Mom also had padding for my gloves, and a bunch of unrequested items (many of which she seems to have snuck into my apartment while I wasn't looking (a feat even more impressive considering the size of my apartment; I mean, there are only like three things to look at). So I got to decline Gatorade, since that is one of the only things I know I usually have trouble keeping down. What's that? Another tangent opportunity? Don't mind if I do!
Qdoba was actually amazing. I ate way too much, since I hadn't had lunch that day (no free food, and no food in my apartment as a result of relying on free food and not shopping), and didn't want to eat before my match. So I loaded up. I then polished the mountain of rice, steak, salsa, guacamole, queso, and beans off with two bottles of pink lemonade Powerade (the only acceptable flavor because it's the only flavor I'm okay with being as watered down as Powerade tastes to me). Then I ran all over tarnation (because I'm an old man in this story now) with that young whippersnapper. I got home and realized I was feeling quite sick to my stomach. I promptly vomited. Well, I had enough time to change the trash bag, so I guess it wasn't super promptly, but it happened. Then my nose started bleeding (from pressure buildup while vomiting? Is that a thing?). Then I vomited again. This time it was epic, though, since when I puked, a stream of blood erupted from my nose! My first reaction was "Whoah, cool!" followed promptly (and this was actually prompt) by "Should I be worried?" It turned out that no, I shouldn't be worried. I held a tissue to my nose and it stopped sooner than most nosebleeds I've had (and I've had a lot). I threw up maybe one more time, but it felt like it was mostly for good measure. Like maybe I didn't have to, I could have held it down, but if it was willing to come out, I might as well let it.
So I wasn't feeling like Gatorade, to say the least. Piper taped my shoulder, which was feeling a bit sore from the match Friday, but nothing out of the ordinary. The tape might have even helped, since it feels great now. I was playing on the show courts with glass side walls for all my matches (now that I'm an open competitor and all), so the fact that Piper brought two cameras was awesome. Multiple angles! I took the court, and it turned out I was serving first. I knew Brian sometimes gets off to a slow start, preferring to play his way into a match. So enough with what passes for suspense around here: there was no slump to be found. I went up 17-0 in the first game before winning 21-3. The second game started off closer (he got to serve first and was warmed up and all), but I eventually wen on a run. There were a bunch of cool highlights I was hoping to upload here, but alas, my ineptitude ruined that. I won 21-14 in the second game, but it wasn't that close after I was up 16-8 or so. So I was in the finals against Matt Hiber, a talented stay at home dad who teaches the handball class at the university here. I got demolished. I don't know if it was my lack of focus (I was definitely more focused for my match with Brian), my poor strategy (I tried to end rallies with kill shots instead of taking his position into consideration), or if he was just very on the ball (he rolled out all but one setup I gave him, I think), but I wasn't really in either game. I got his phone number after the match though, and we're going to play over lunch, hopefully with regularity. Of course, this means I will have to start doing my homework, and it might even mean I need to start buying more food, but when faced with an opportunity, I have to take advantage, and this certainly qualifies. For my troubles, I got a ten dollar gift card to Chipotle. Not quite the spoils I was hoping for, but like I said earlier, I'm sure I got more than my fifteen dollars out of the food provided, not to mention the experience of playing in a tournament.
The three of us left before the last match was done and headed out to eat. I felt a little bad making my mom drive up and pay for dinner, since usually in our family it's tradition to repay the kindness of the time it takes to drive by at least covering the meal, but I'm back to believing I'm a broke college kid, so I took advantage like one. We went to a Himalayan place (called the Himalayan). Piper had eaten there before, and I even knew about it, though not by reputation. It just so happens it's basically on my street. I bike past it every time I take the fastest route to the Midway Y for Saturday handball. (This isn't as frequently as you might think. Between getting lost, getting adventurous, and wanting to take bike paths over city streets, I've only been by it on five or six trips.) I used the opportunity to add another animal to my list of those consumed: Yak! Unfortunately, this was not as spectacular as I was hoping. The appetizer was yak meat with sauteed onsions and other vegetables wrapped in dough and fried. They were delicious, but the onion and dough really didn't let me discern anything about the quality of yak other than it tastes like beef. Which may be all there is to yak anyway, but I was still idealistically hoping for more.
At some point it was revealed to me that my mom had printed off my latest blog entry for perusal during the trip. I suppose that is as good a conversation piece as anything else, but it caught me a little off guard. I wasn't sure if my mom had done that because she was worried about me (in which case, it's not like there's a solution to the problem anyway), or if she had just assumed the topic would be interesting. As it is, I don't really like talking to people who know me about my writing, a fact I've communicated, but never really explained fully. I suppose part of it stems from the fact that most people I talk to about personal stuff at this point know enough about me that they can tell if I lie to them. While I don't ever really feel compelled to lie when it comes to my writing, it's nice to have that back door to turn to when some subject or other becomes slightly uncomfortable. (This doesn't apply very well in this case, obviously, since the subjects of my blogs are obviously personal already.) I write mainly from experience, and while I don't mind talking about those experiences, sometimes it's just easier to say something short and slightly less true than it is to actually spell things out.
I had this conversation with my mom a couple of weeks ago, actually. She mentioned hearing on the radio that publishers would rather publish lesser quality material by a writer willing to do press work and book tours than superior work by a reticent writer. I immediately said that was cool, and that I'd like to tour if I had a book I was proud of, a reaction that caught her by surprise, understandably. But the thing is, when people don't know where (or who) you base your thoughts off of, it's fun to talk about subjects of writing. The awful part is when I write something and then receive three different messages from three different people all wondering just what I meant by that, when in reality I didn't mean anything. Usually, I'm just fascinated by an experience, be it emotional, physical, observational, and I want to try and capture it as efficiently and realistically as possible. This means blending multiple experiences together, enhancing some details, leaving others out, and in the end, each of those decisions means something to anybody I shared the experience with. I can only repeat "I don't know; it's just what I felt like" so many times before it starts to lose meaning. This was actually a major reason I didn't write much after graduation. I felt very self-conscious, and I didn't want to explain myself. Trying to figure out both what I want to say and how to say it in a way that keeps everyone else happy is way too much for me to handle, even today. Luckily, I have the excuse that I'm basically alone up here in Minneapolis, so anyone with a grudge will at least have to inconvenience themselves to confront me.
Talking about the blog entry was harmless, really, but also didn't really accomplish much, since by all acknowledgment there is nothing to be accomplished. All that really happened was some re-hashing of the fact that balance is important in life, something obvious, but also obviously unobtainable. There's always something more pressing than the rest of things. My mom theorized that it may be whatever you encourage grows to be who you are in the end. I am tempted to reject this proposition straight off, since I think that I could go through my life in a positive manner and yet still not be convinced that's who I actually am. Yes, it will become habit, but that doesn't make it genuine. I actually have two analogies for this one. The first is my diet. I started because I wanted to do anything I could to make myself more attractive to the girl I was with. But I stayed with it because I knew it was the right thing to do, and I heard that anything you do for three months becomes habit. Well, three months passed, and sure, it's now habit for me to feel guilty for eating too much. I recognize when I'm doing it; I know when I should stop, but it doesn't erase my desire to keep eating. I've indulged a few times recently, and I both regret it and don't. It comes back to balance. I need to balance the structure that's theoretically evidence of balance by doing irresponsible things also. The second analogy is psychopaths. I can't remember if I've discussed this before, so it's possible I'm repeating myself. In one of my philosophy classes we were talking about this topic, because it's been proven that people who are actually psychopaths are physically incapable of experiencing moral qualms regarding their actions. The correct areas of their brain just don't show activity when faced with moral decisions. Obviously they know the "right" answer, but to them it doesn't feel right, it is simply right in the sense it is correct. The italics mean so much... Psychopaths get a bad rap, of course, because the bad ones are really bad, but some go through life perfectly normally. I feel sympathy for them quite frequently. I occasionally wonder where the boundary is between "psychopath" and "ultra-rational." I mean, I am capable of rationalizing just about anything. I can put it in a framework that makes even the most ridiculous action seem reasonable. So when I think about "feeding" the appropriate tendencies (as my mom put it), which in this case means focusing on being a sociable, intelligent, generally fantastic human being (which I know I can be), there is nothing there that implies I will "turn into" the person I am emulating. In fact, I've been doing that more or less my whole life. My indiscretions have been, for the most part, investigations into exactly what constitutes normal. Does a person get in trouble for throwing rocks? Yes. Does a person get in trouble for swearing? Yes. Does a person get in trouble for writing potentially crazy stories? No. Could they if people found out they weren't fiction? Probably (as yet untested, but evidence certainly leans one direction). My investigations since I've grown up haven't needed to be based on experience, since I can more easily anticipate and figure out what will happen, but I still do more than my fair share of boundary-testing. (That is probably not true, actually. I bet everyone feels like they do more than their fair share of boundary testing. I am confident this is one of those "unique like everyone else" scenarios.)
These days, I am just as interested in testing my own boundaries as those of the people/society around me. So I still jibe at people when they might not expect it to see how they react, but I also preoccupy myself with figuring out the minimum I can do to succeed in school, the minimum I can buy and still survive, etc. The results are consistently amazing. People are surprising in their reactions, I am surprising in my tolerance, and even more surprising is my unwillingness to do certain things. I wonder every so often what the minimum amount of human interaction I need is, and it's either WAY more than I think, or I'm just not willing to find out. For instance, Rebecca emailed me a couple of weeks ago, I responded, and she responded rather quickly, but also included she was sorry for the delay. I said she had no obligation to email me, and that I was confused why she was emailing me at all, actually, since I had no idea what my role in her life was anymore. (This is a heavily condensed version, I'm sure.) <- (That is a sentence I wouldn't have included if I didn't care about what people reading my writing thought.) She hasn't emailed me since, and I resolved to be okay with that. But then I emailed her today asking why. It just happened that in that moment the curiosity outweighed any bad consequences that came to mind (since there really aren't many), and I couldn't come up with a reason not to. If I were actually conducting my experiment to see what the minimum contact is, I would simply remind myself of that fact as I do when I feel bored and my first instinct is to eat something. Because once I think "I'm bored, what food do I have?" I immediately start to feel hungry. If I stop and think back ten minutes, though, I realize I'm not actually hungry. My body just knows there's potential for food and responds accordingly. (My mouth is watering as I type this, for example.)
So that was a long tangent about why I don't think it's fruitful to attempt to embrace one "version" of me over the other. I think the fact that I come back to the question of death is part of what defines me as me, and just because I don't have to do that doesn't mean I should ignore it. I may sound like I'm trying to make myself out to be a martyr when I describe it, since I do obviously subject myself to suffering, but the terror that accompanies those thoughts matters too much to me to stop experiencing. Knowing my mom, I don't know how she reads these posts. I know she worries about me a lot, and reading me say things like "I feel like a psychopath sometimes," or "Sometimes I get so terrified of death I feel like I should kill myself the next time the thought of it doesn't scare the crap out of me" can't be easy. But don't worry! I'm actually (probably) fine. I just enjoy think about things through the medium of typing.
We all shared some of the dishes we ordered. I got a lamb tikka masala, Piper got a tandoori-cooked chicken dish, and my mom went with the standby of palak paneer. They were all excellent, and I think the three combined encompassed pretty much the ideal meal. Oh, we also got garlic naan. My dish was rich, with a tang of something I am not going to try and describe because thinking too long is stopping my train of thought. My mom's wasn't quite the same as other dishes I've had of that name, so it was awesome to try a variation (that was still amazing), and Piper's was a drier dish with some actual spice to it (though not spicy/hot per say), and rounded things off perfectly. All in all, fantastic. Then we went to the malt shop for dessert. I weighed myself this morning, and I'm actually up four pounds from where I started the weekend! I'm sure that will dissipate, but still, over a tournament weekend it's rare for me to put on that much weight.
We came back here to drop me and my stuff off between food stops (since it's so close to the Himalayan restaurant anyway), so I downloaded the video onto my new computer, my mom stashed way too much stuff in my cupboards while I wasn't looking (my fridge too!), and we pumped up my exercise ball. That turned out to be quite a process. I ended up cutting open a pen to use as a funnel from my bike pump to the opening in the ball, which happened to work perfectly, but definitely was aided by the multiple pairs of hands. Oh, and speaking of being helped out, my mom taught me a bit about how to row! It turns out I wasn't doing it completely wrong, but it was cool to see how it should actually look, and having her sit down beside me helped me mimic her motion pretty well, I think. So that was awesome. And I met a lady at the handball tournament who offered to be my surrogate mom while I'm in Minneapolis, which was way too nice of her (bordering on uncomfortableness/strangeness as far as I'm concerned) though she was talking to my mom for a while, so I'm sure she just felt like she knew me way better than I feel I know her. So I have her number for some reason now.
I may be forgetting some things, but that was the gist of the weekend. And that was only Saturday, really. Today I spent fiddling with my new computer. Oh right! I can explain why I deleted all the footage I wanted to include. So there was an account on the computer that wasn't password protected. I renamed it "Ryan," but the "user" folder was still called "John," as was the computer. So I renamed the computer, but it was annoying me that when I was downloading things (like antivirus software), it would still say John in the folder path. So I created a new account and I was going to do a very complicated-sounding procedure to get the computer to reassign all the right things to a renamed account after modifying some stuff in the operating system directory, when I realized "Hey, this is a new computer! I don't care about any of his settings or stuff anyway!" And promptly deleted his account entirely and created a new one with the appropriate privileges to accomplish the task. Then I went to my desktop and was like "Oh.... Yeah... Not everything was his..." So I feel stupid. I was totally looking forward to changing my facebook profile picture to something that's relevant (rather than biking, which looks cool, but isn't very accurate anymore). I even paused and screen-captured a sweet one of me diving, hitting the ball in midair. And then I deleted it all. Maybe that's punishment for hubris? I don't know.
Also, at the malt shop, I got chocolate blueberry because I've had chocolate-covered blueberries and they are delicious. Neither of my dining companions had heard of this idea, however, and my mom gave me a weird look. Then she ordered honey-flavored ice cream... Talk about a hypocrite. Piper got cookies and cream, a solid choice, but not one I ever go for. I think we were all fairly happy though.
Now I'm going back and seeing how many things I referenced meaning to get back to them and then rambled on while forgetting. For instance, I said I would come back to the idea of perspective way up there at the beginning. And I think what I had in mind was talking about our dinner conversation, though I didn't mention anything about perspective when I actually got to that point. So now I don't know if that's what I actually meant or if there's something else I'm forgetting. So my bad. Hopefully it wasn't a boring read, anyway (way to close with another stupid bet-hedging clarifying sentence, Ryan...)! Thanks for reading!
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