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!
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