My morning!

I won my handball tournament!

Of course, there wasn't any real competition there, but it was worth it just to get to know a bunch more people. I met Marc, a tri guy who looked about my age, Dean, an older guy who is hilarious, Eddie, the guy I played in the finals, Jessica, who it turns out will be going to Fargo with us next week, and exchanged contact information with Steve and Phil, two really helpful and nice guys. But I suppose I'll start at the beginning.

I set my alarm for 6:15. That may seem early, but what you might not know is that I didn't even know where this place was until last night at 10:00 or so, at which point I texted the only people I knew to ask if they were going. None were. So I resigned myself to biking the 12 miles there before it started at 9:00. I also wanted breakfast, and I'd been meaning to make pancakes for a while, so I gave myself a bit of time to do that. Speaking of, this is what happens when I try to make pancakes:

The problem, of course, is that I have no patience, so I just fill the frying pan and hope for the best. It doesn't always fail though:

I was pretty careful to spread the batter out evenly on this one, and I was rewarded with a passable pancake. I ate the many pieces of the first one, then immediately realized I should have eaten the whole one, since I didn't have a way to store an entire pancake at once anyway. So this is how that pancake is in my refrigerator now:

Google said that it would take me an hour and six minutes to bike the twelve miles to Lifetime Fitness in Bloomington. I decided to give it an hour for sure, just in case I got lost or something weird happened. I set out at just after 7:20, and this is what I road for more than half of the time:

I made pretty good time, and even passed a guy on a road bike. Twice even, since he ran a red light and I had to catch up again. Having my own entire lane was amazing, but it gave way to a bit of heavy traffic for the last couple of miles, which was less enjoyable, but still no real problem. I arrived just after 8:00, beating Google's time by about twenty minutes. Not bad for a mountain bike and a backpack!

The structure of the one-day tournament was as such: people were split into groups to play round robin. This would determine the divisions we got put in for the playoffs for the little plaque/prize things. I won my round robin games (one game to 21) 21-4, 21-4, 21-4, 21-8. I meant to hold the last guy to four points, but some stupid hand errors combined with some pretty good spin serves thwarted my perfect run. I was put as the one seed for Division 1. I was playing Marc first, and he made some good shots, but I won 15-1, 15-8. He seemed like he was generally in good position, but he just didn't quite end the point when he got the setups he wanted. That's a common theme when people play against me though. In fact, I was asked multiple times how I got to the balls I got to. I didn't really have a good answer, so I replied that I thought it had something to do with my wrist action. I don't have to be in a good position to hit a good shot because I can put pace and accuracy on the ball from just about wherever.

I played Eddie (I think that was his name) in the finals, and he hit some good serves to start. It was pretty obvious he was just going for broke, and it was paying off! He was up 10-8 for a while as we traded being on serve, but I eventually wend on a streak and took it 15-10, 15-1. So I was the champion, I guess. After one point where I dove for a shot up front got up and made a between the legs get off the back wall, and then retrieved a pass down the right side, Eddie said, half under his breath, "That's the best I can do. I can't hit it any better than that." I just smiled to myself. So the tournament was over, but it was only just after noon, so I asked if anyone wanted to keep playing. Everyone looked at me like I was a little crazy, but I wheedled, "come on, at least we can play doubles, less running!" They bit, and the four people from the semifinals paired up and had at it. I played with Steve, a tall guy who readily took the right side and let me take all the shots I wanted. It was awesome. I think I single-handedly demoralized the other two guys (Marc and Eddie, obviously) when at one point it was just me at the front court and they just kept hitting kill shots and I just kept getting them back, only to have them lob me. I ran it down and killed it behind my back. Eddie shook his head, Steve gave a bit of a cheer, and Marc just looked a bit sick.

I hung out and ate as much as possible of the lunch they had before I left. I had paid 28 dollars to play in this thing, and there were way more sandwiches/wraps than there were people, so I made myself a bit sick (for a good cause). Also, they were delicious. They were from the cafe at the fitness center I think, because there were employees in charge of bringing the food down to the courts and keeping the gatorade refilled, so they were healthy and pretty good. The healthy muffins from the morning though... it turns out those need some sugar. I grabbed what I think was supposed to be a blueberry muffin, but it just tasted like bran or wheat or something with hints of mushiness. Luckily after I choked that down, there was plenty of fresh fruit (pineapple, cantaloupe, and strawberry) to make up for it. With the sandwiches was a salad with bleu cheese, nuts, and raisins, another salad with garbanzo beans, spinach, and sun-dried tomatoes, and even more fruit (same kind as before). The sandwiches had some delicious sort of mustard/mayo/avocado spread, along with meat, lettuce, and cheese. Delicious all around. Between the food, the handball, the award, and the contacts, it was probably worth the money (I ate three sandwiches).

I biked back, and saw this:


 

Kites! Very distracting to someone trying to bike by, but it was also really cool to see! Because I biked through at least two suburbs, I saw plenty of other fields full of people. One had bouncy houses and balloons, one had peewee football, one had soccer fields with a wide variety of ages enthusiastically pursuing balls at all sorts of crazy angles. There were other parks with tennis courts, lakes, and people jogging. That is, until I missed my turn. See, I had gone to the fitness center on a one-way street that turned into a two-way street after a couple miles. So naturally I took the same street back, but when it turned back into a one-way, I just turned right blindly and figured I'd hit another one-way street going the direction I wanted (I knew there was one, by the way). I somehow missed that street and it wound up that the next street I recognized was the one that went right in front of the law building (Cedar), so instead of going back to my apartment, I wound up here. Cedar is not nearly as bike-friendly, though, and the last couple miles were a bit hard on the nerves. I was riding in a parking lane, but whenever there was actually a car there, it meant I had to look back and gauge whether or not the car behind me looked like one that would care about running me over. A couple times I jumped on the sidewalk rather than go out into the road, but that's not really any safer. I obviously made it back fine, but I will certainly be avoiding that road in the future. Trust Google's green bikeways is the moral for the day.

So here's what I have to show for it all:

I feel a bit out of it. I guess combining a full day of handball with biking got me a bit sleepy. So I'm going to nap, and then maybe I'll edit some poems on my iPad. Thanks for reading! Oh! and I decided on a league. I'm going to play for the midway YMCA team near campus. They have what is generally considered one of the weaker teams, so I'll be able to jump in as their number one singles player, giving me the opportunity to play the best players on the other teams. I'm in this for my own improvement, after all, not for whatever the league championship is. It should be fun!

Third post today? Yeah, no life, I get it...

There's probably such a thing as too much to say about one's self. There's also probably such a thing as too much free time, too sad an existence to come up with something interesting to do, and a plethora of other excesses to which I will no doubt go. But as long as I'm at a computer and have something to say, I might as well write it down.

Also, I took some pictures of my ankle because people kept asking if it were bruised or swollen, and I didn't really know how to answer because it doesn't look that different to me:

 

I included smaller versions of my left foot because I always compare the two sides to each other when I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking for. I guess there's minor discoloration and a bit of swelling, but it doesn't feel any worse than any other time I've done it, so I'm definitely playing handball on it tomorrow. I'll think about taking it easy at frisbee on Sunday though (yeah, who am I kidding?).

One other thing that's been on my mind recently is that Sarah can't stand my blog! It's weird. She says it doesn't sound like me writing. She also said it sounded like I didn't respect Rebecca enough as an individual person, which I was a bit surprised to hear, but makes sense. I think I always defined her in terms of our relationship together, and I probably didn't ever give her enough credit as a person of her own. I think I do that with most people I've been around a long time, and I'd be surprised if other people didn't, to be honest. I know kids almost universally, think of their parents as "means to an end," whether that end is a new toy, their favorite food, or staying up later. Rarely do they think "I wonder what my mom would like in her life as a person of her own," or "I wonder what it means to my dad for me to take this action." I guess I saw Rebecca as a "means to avoid loneliness" or a "means to a great girlfriend" rather than as an entire separate entity. Or maybe I'm grasping at straws and just saying things that sound right even though I probably wouldn't have said them unless I was put into that frame of mind. I know I see Brian currently as a "means to a challenging handball game." I know he has a fiance, and that he's probably busy and stuff, but it's not like I'm going to actually think about these people outside the contexts with which I'm familiar. I'm not going to sit here theorizing about what people's lives mean outside of me unless it's relevant. It's too much work, to be honest. I'll keep track of the facts. I'll know what they are doing, and I'll know some things about them, but I can't keep track of people as their own entities. It's just not possible to think of very many people that way, if any. We can say we want the best for people, but half the time what it sounds like we mean is "I would be unhappy to see you unhappy, so please be happy so I don't have to be unhappy." Is that the same thing as actually contemplating them as another person? I doubt it. So I doubt I think of other people as people very often. It's possible my readers do and that I'm alienating my audience, but deep down inside I'm not sure that's how people work. And I know I've tried with all of my close friends to know them as entities at one point or another, but because they just aren't me, I always came up short. So I guess that's my excuse? I don't know where I was going with this. I genuinely don't think I was only using Rebecca, but as many perspectives as I can get are helpful. Each one adds a bit to the overall perspective I'm trying to develop.

Sarah said she liked reading my blog when I biked across the country, though. I guess maybe it's because I had more events to talk about, which lends itself to more humorous anecdotes than my typical introspection and recounting of my day-to-day life. She says the only times she sees the "me" she knows is in the parenthetical asides in this blog. I think that's interesting. Because the parentheses are where I provide "color commentary." But that's just one side of me, and to think she doesn't even recognize the analytic side of me is a bit disconcerting. And if she didn't like my blog before I put her in it this prominently, I can only imagine her reaction to this post, but as I've said, this isn't really for anyone but me at this point. I'm happy if people want to read it, and I hope it's not incredibly boring, but it can't be more interesting than my life.

I revised a few poems for my other blog. I still like the poem "Obstacle" too much to change, though I did switch one word.

Here's one that's been in the works for a while. I just pulled it off my phone and completed it, so it needs some work before it makes its way to the other blog, but I figured I'd get it out anyway. Otherwise it will just sit there staring at me accusingly every time I scroll past is on my way to jot another note down to blog about later.

When they clone us, and our perfect versions run the world
we will tell ourselves from them by our blemishes
our scars heralding the blunders
turned either epic
or tragic.
The stitched arm somehow still attached
after being dragged out the broken window
of the upside-down van
skating the half-pipe of the ditch,
one axel perpendicular to the other
and a shoe worming its way up under dashboard
a place seldom explored by footwear
except when culverts flip things on their heads,
and hurl laptops, still playing "Lost"
into the snow, its screen glowing, uncracked
out of the thing layer of icy particles
a halo left behind in the wake of an epic story.

His clone would never have that scar,
the stitches holding together the arm
that flung blood further than the damning beer
into the woods, so when the cops showed up
all they cared about was the Centrum for Men.
The blemishes on our hips from every diving catch
(and only noticed after every diving drop),
those won't be there when you leave this world behind.
Your soul won't have that mark
though it might bear the one I left
when you left.

It's an imperfect analogy, the perfect clone
to the all-to-human soul.
They walk around blameless
and our souls, too, can have no evidence against.
No fingerprints to tie them to the scene
where they fell asleep and swerved
into the semi,
but the scars left behind
on faces, foreheads, hips
mean something more than "I did this thing."
They mean you lived this thing
this life that gives you badges
for every bad decision.
Their strengthened ankles only mean
they never sprinted, heedless of terrain
never stopped too suddenly, never changed
directions without knowing the consequences.
But even when we're careful, we can misstep
so better to run than walk, better to not look back
at the clones we leave behind
as we rush toward our next injury
our next soul-sculptor
and leave them to their perfection.

That whole poem started from this line in my phone: When (not if) they clone me i will tell myself apart from him by the scars, pockmarks, imperfections. And it somehow became about the car accidents I've known people in, the difference between the body and who we actually are, the difference between our experiences and ourselves, and I don't know what to do with it, which direction to take it. That's the problem with my style of writing. I just go line by line and put one thing after another. Making it tie together can get tricky. So I'll just put this up here and wait a while to see if some time crystallizes anything for me. In the meantime, I'm hungry, and I have some fish in my freezer a mile away calling my name. Thanks for reading!

Things that didn't happen today

I have so many notes in my phone! As usual, things start off with handball. I went on Tuesday after very little sleep, and I actually beat the only guy I sometimes lose to. We were playing on our normal courts, and I won 21-12, 21-10, but in the second game I was up like 16-1 or something before he went on a crazy serving streak. So I was feeling pretty good, but my tiredness caught up to me and I only barely beat a guy I normally crush before they all left for the bars. I was invited, in what is becoming quite the trend, but I didn't go because of needing sleep and food. And also not really wanting to go. But before I left I saw they were playing ping pong while waiting for some people to shower. I hopped in and beat the winner before leaving. Just casually good at everything. (This is foreshadowing.)

The next day I got a text from Brian at handball asking to play at 3:45. I agreed, and this time we played on the show courts. They have a side wall made of glass, which adds yet another element to take into account. I lost the first game narrowly, won the second, and then rolled my ankle in the third. It was excruciating. I sat on the floor for a while just thinking about how this was ruining everything. I got up eventually and walked around gingerly, and eventually we finished the game out, though I lost handily. A couple of times I was just running normally and I felt my ankle click and sort of seize up, so I stopped and just didn't take my shot. I tried stretching it out at night, and it wasn't feeling much worse than other times I rolled it, so when Brian said he had to leave early Thursday and asked if I would mind showing up at 3:30 for some handball, I agreed yet again. And yet again we played on the show court. This time I won both games!

Brian is very good at handball. His kills off the back wall are way more consistent than mine and roll out a lot lower a lot more often. But he isn't as fit as I am, and when he starts to get tired his footwork suffers a bit and he starts skipping shots short off the floor. So my strategy became: hit a good serve, hope for the best, and get back absolutely everything. Basically, if I can make him hit one more shot than he expects to hit, I will win the point, because when you think the point is over you stop thinking about footwork, moving forward, setting up, etc. So I was diving for like every third shot and getting to a lot of them. Highlights included a between the legs get off the back wall into a diving kill shot on the front, a backhand/fist kill on a shot he had basically rolled out, and multiple left-handed flails in the back corner that turned out okay. It also helped that I rolled out at least five serves off the right glass wall, a shot that's hard to return when you can see it, much less when the wall is semi-transparent.

So then Brian left and I was alone against a bunch of people who are not good at handball. There were three guys, three girls, and me. And it was one of the girls' first time. She was, of course, accompanying her boyfriend. I played a game of cutthroat with the two guys who weren't her boyfriend while he showed her some stuff, and after that exciting endeavor (21-2-3), he challenged me to a game. I agreed, of course, and when we got in the court he said "Man, that was probably an interesting game. I think you guys are all on very different levels." I said that was probably accurate, wondering which level he was putting himself on. We started, and I could not bring myself to try. He went up like 6-0, I served for a while to go up 8-6, and then I missed like five behind the back shots in a row. He was up to like 14 at one point before I served it out. During an intermission (he needed to take some time to catch his breath, blaming the sub he ate immediately before (though I myself might have blamed the hundreds he's obviously not mentioning...) he mentioned he played tennis in high school. It was pretty obvious from the way he emphasized his overhead-style windups and his footwork. We chatted a bit about tennis, and I said I only played two years and then ran track.

We played some cutthroat with one of the girls, and I kept just playing to have fun. We got into a few rallies at the front wall, and I did my usual dive to one side, pick up the shot, recover back to the middle of the court in time to make a play on another shot that would have been a kill on almost anyone else. After one of these little episodes, the guy (whose name I can't remember) said "You're not even human!" We exited the court, me victorious again, and sat around for a little while. I grabbed a couple extra balls and started juggling, and Kristina said she could do that, and sure enough, she could. So, being the fun-loving, least-showboating, least-competitive person I've ever heard of, I grabbed another ball and juggled four. I dropped a few throws into trying Mill's Mess with four (haven't tried it in a few years, and couldn't really do it when I was practicing), and, having impressed everyone thoroughly, I grabbed a fifth just for good measure. After somehow detouring our conversation on athletics through the sports I've done (soccer (briefly), tennis, cross-country, track in high school, basketball (briefly), wrestling, cross-country in middle school, handball and frisbee in college, racquetball, golf, and disc golf casually, cycling on and off throughout), the guy just gave up. I didn't mention all of those things of course. And I suppose technically I even have Iowa Games medals for canoe/kayak, and a few little things from when I did archery. Huh.

I jogged into a court and threw for a while to stay loose, and Kristina poked her head in to say I was a keeper. I came out of the court and asked if they were starting a soccer team. But it actually was really nice to hear them say that. I've never felt like I could fit in somewhere easily, and I definitely didn't expect showing off to ingratiate myself. But when I don't know what to do, I just show off. I'm "that guy." I even promised Kara I'd go to the bars with the group when she got back from her trip to North Carolina in a month. I figure these people are pretty fun, and a few of them have already said they don't all drink, so I think I'll give it a shot.

A notable thing occurred as I was walking into the rec on Wednesday. The first week I was here they just had card scanners like every other place I've been, but recently they put in these biometric reader things that take your palm print or something. All I know is you're supposed to walk up to the machine, stick your hand into the pneumonia-transmission device, and type in your student ID number. Well, Wednesday was the first day I didn't have to look mine up! I guess I'm becoming a Minnesotan right quick. Also on Wednesday (so it doesn't need its own paragraph, even though it's totally a new topic), Brian asked if I were doing the tournament on Saturday (now tomorrow). I said I hadn't really heard about it or looked into it, but I emailed the guy, and now I'm in! So I have that to look forward to. I hope my ankle holds up, because I'm ready to play! I haven't played real matches in a long time, and I think there will be some genuinely good people there. Then I have another IM frisbee game on Sunday. (It turns out I'm staying busy after all, mom!) Between these things and blogging for four hours a day, I'm really not hard up for ways to avoid studying.

Thursday morning I woke up at 8:30 for my 8:45 class. It was a classic grab-a-banana, pack-a-bag-as-fast-as-possible, shin-banging, stop-light-running sort of morning. (There are a bunch of one-way streets around here. It feels safer running the light because I only have to look one direction. That's how that works, right?) Luckily, the cop I only noticed after I was across the intersection was either not looking my way or didn't care! I even made it to class on time! My first class was fine, and my second was going fine until the very end. We were talking about "standing" yesterday too, and at the end, the professor was giving us some background about a case brought against a government agency due to its failure to enforce the Endangered Species Act overseas. Again, it hinged on whether the injury was truly imminent rather than hypothetical. The claim for the plaintiffs was basically that they had gone to the animals' habitats overseas and hadn't seen them. Then, the US government was thinking about starting construction projects, but the ESA had recently been revised to not necessarily include overseas activity. The judge (Scalia again) said that in order for the injury to the plaintiff to actually be imminent or actual, the plaintiff would have to show impending harm. For instance, if they were researchers who specialized in the animals in question, there would be harm because those animals dying would be costly to their livelihood. My teacher asked if the plaintiffs purchasing plane tickets would be enough to satisfy true imminence. Unwilling to commit, the student he was asking hemmed and hawed. Then the teacher said, "And do you know why they didn't have concrete plans to go back? A civil war had broken out since their last visit. So what did Scalia want her to do? Grab a bushplane into the area and drop in with her camera and her Kalashnikov?" And with that, class was dismissed to a good deal of laughter.

And now, in closing, two random observations:
1. We listened to Thurgood Marshall argue for the NAACP in a desegregation case. He sounded exactly like Bill Cosby. I really hope that doesn't make me racist.
2. At one point I must have given pandora permission to access my GPS on my phone. I have since revoked that privilege for all but a limited number of apps. The result is that I still get commercials for Ames stuff all the time. I'm sorry Pandora, but I just won't be shopping at Wheatsfield co-op. But thanks for making me miss home! (I also won't be attending the house-flipping speech in Des Moines. Or buying a car there while I'm at it.)

The hits keep coming

I bombed a quiz today. And by that, I mean I probably missed three or four points. Unfortunately, the quiz is only out of twenty. And even more unfortunately, the average on the quiz last year was nineteen. So I probably got the equivalent of a D. That's pretty bad. It's even worse because two of the points I missed were because I just didn't get back to questions I only partially answered before moving on. Each question asked for three things, and I put down the first two that popped into my head and got on with it. Then I went back and double-checked some stuff, the two-minute warning hit, and I didn't get back to finishing those off. Very annoying.

Then I went back to my apartment. I've been alternating between telling people I live in my kitchen and telling them I have a kitchen in my bedroom. One girl from handball is leaving for a month, so another girl asked if it was okay for her to sleep at the first girl's place while she's gone. I jokingly said she was going to lock her out, and she said she'd just come stay with me if that happened. I asked if she wanted to sleep in a sink. That's my guest bedroom. A sink.

Anyway, I knew I needed to get to school a bit early. The bookstore was closed (for lunch, I assumed) when I left, and I needed to buy the supplementary reading material for my afternoon class and take notes. It was only like 14 pages of reading, so I wasn't that concerned. However, upon returning to the school, it was immediately apparent the book store was still not open. I did what I should have done earlier, which was to walk over and look at the stupid thing, and sure enough, the hours were for Monday-Thursday. I was screwed. Plus, this was the only class I hadn't been called on yet for a response. My time was drawing near. I walked upstairs and saw a guy from my class. I asked him if he had his supplement handy, and he said sure, so I grabbed it and frantically took notes for fifteen minutes I made it about halfway through the assignment, handed it back, and went to class.

We talked about a bunch of stuff, and I was enjoying the discussion. He had called on a bunch of people in quick succession about minor details for the case we had covered before. Then it came time to talk about this new case (the only one I had gotten through in the supplement), and sure enough "Mr.... Pesch?" I acknowledged I was there, and he asked me to give the facts of the case. (It's called Clapper v. Amnesty International USA) I said that basically the problem was that the plaintiffs were concerned the government was invading their privacy, and wanted to sue for damages and to make it stop. He asked how they could claim damages, and I said they thought it met both the "imminent damage" and "actual damage" requirements for standing (this whole unit is on standing, which is a complicated thing I might go into later). They believed they were in imminent danger of having their privacy breached, and they were incurring current damage as a result of trying to prevent that from happening. He asked how that could be, when they couldn't know they were being observed (it turns out the government isn't very forthcoming about who they are conducting their surveillance on). I said it was a likelihood the plaintiffs felt approached certainty due to their resemblance to past cases, the government's obvious interest in their communications, and the government's capability to observe them.

He then turned to another person for a reason the case lacked standing on the injury grounds. She stated the court's opinion (given by Alito) that it doesn't meet the imminence requirement due to the fact they can't prove the surveillance is taking place, and theorizing about it perhaps taking place requires too many assumptions. Among the assumptions listed were: that the government was sure to be interested, that the government would pursue action under the act the plaintiffs were suing under, that the government's court for surveillance would approve their request to observe the plaintiffs, that the government would succeed in carrying out the surveillance, and that this would have the result the plaintiffs were concerned about. Now, I had only read the case for about ten minutes before class, so I was wracking my brain trying to think of a rebuttal to this laundry list of criticisms I knew were coming. In case you don't know, the case was actually thrown out based on its lack of standing, so I'm arguing for the losing side. I was drawing a blank the whole time the girl was talking, right up until the professor looked at me for my response. Then I remembered my good old philosophical training, and I'm pretty sure my eyes lit up as a light bulb popped into a cloud over my head. "Yes, there are a lot of conditions that need to be met, but a long list of likely conditions doesn't make the outcome unlikely necessarily. If each of those things is actually reasonably certain to occur, then the hypothetical situation might still be imminent rather than unsubstantiated." Sure enough, he took that and ran with it. He asked me some leading questions, like "So, Mr Pesch, how likely is it that the government would want to observe known terrorist connections?" "Pretty likely, I'd say." "And how likely is it that the government agencies will use this statute (the most current one, rather than others still on the books, but from years ago)?" "Again, I'd say that would be the most reasonable assumption." "Have you ever heard of an agency having its request to survey known terrorists turned down?" "I can't say that I have." "And would we be correct in assuming the government is capable of such surveillance?" He didn't wait for my response here. He just continued with "I think we'd all be pretty uncomfortable if the government couldn't do that." With that, class was over. I had nailed it.

Then the most remarkable thing happened. The two girls sitting in front of me (both from my section; this is a two-section class) turned around and said I did a good job. I said "I know, especially for not actually having the supplement!" and raised my notebook to show my half-page of frantically-scribbled facts. They said something to the effect of "no way!" Next, one of the smarter guys in the section complimented me, saying "Wow, he really stuck with you for a while. Nice job." I thanked him, mentioning again that I didn't have the supplement. Greg told me that he probably called on me due to my choice of clothing. I guess a shining pink beacon at the back of the room is a likely target... Then, on my way out, yet another guy said I did good, and then asked if I was going to play magic this weekend, as there is a new set coming out. I said I wasn't, and that I generally didn't play magic unless I had a bunch of free time, as it eats up both time and money. I stopped during undergrad, and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to play much during law school. He said he was buying a box, and that he might get some drafts or something together, and I said to look me up for sure if that was happening.

I walked outside, only to realize I didn't really need to leave yet, so I went back into the library to type some of it up before I departed. On my way back into the building, the millionth guy in a row congratulated me. Then he asked if I was going out with the section right after class. I said I didn't do the bar scene since I didn't drink, and he said I was welcome to come hang out anyway. I made a noncommittal noise, and he let it drop. I got to the computer lab and started typing, only to have a girl come over and ask if I was going out tonight. Again, I declined. She said she figured, and that she hadn't seen me at any of the events. I told her she was likely to keep not seeing me, but to have fun. It was about 3:40 when the guy who lent me the supplement walked into the library and came over to ask if I had done the online assignment for 4:00. I panicked a bit, and said no. He asked what I was doing then, and I said blogging, but that I really needed to get that assignment done since I forgot about it entirely. I thanked him again, and was like "That sure came in handy!" He looked confused and then said "Oh, that was you?" Yes. Yes it was...

I rushed through the online assignment and forgot to print it once, but got it in with a minute or two to spare. Then I remembered I still hadn't mailed my entry in to the handball tournament next weekend. So I biked home and got the envelope. The only mailbox I knew about was most of the way back to the law school, so I returned with banana bread in tow to type the rest of this up while watching some videos online. Typical Friday evening for me after all. Computer and food. But things are certainly better than they were right after the quiz. All those compliments totally drove that from my mind, even though that was worth a grade and the participation wasn't. So that was my day. I wanted to get it all down while it was still fresh in my mind, but I have even more to type, so I'll start the next post right away. Thanks for reading!

I put pictures in it so it wouldn't look as boring as it is...

Okay, I've slept. It's amazing how that helps.

A few things I forgot to say about my weekend:

I got mango juice! At the store with my dad. And that bears mentioning because MANGOES! I like mangoes. And there were items in the box of food I wasn't quite expecting. Like whole almonds and whole brazil nuts. Which might have been okay, but I have no table, so in cracking them I was left with quite a mess on my hands... Good thing I stole that vacuum cleaner! (I mean, good thing my dad forgot that vacuum cleaner and I totally didn't remember it either for a long time as it was sitting right in front of me; whichever you think is more plausible...)

I also took a picture of the jersey I bid for the frisbee in, since it's the first time I got dirty in Minnesota and everything...

As you can see, I do not lay out like you are supposed to. It's no wonder my shoulder has constant problems. (In case you don't know, the dirt should be on the front. I lay out onto my shoulder and then obviously slide on my back.) I lay out correctly at handball, but I guess the sports just have different requirements. For instance, in handball I have to be able to get up quickly for the next shot, and I also have to be able to direct where the ball goes, generally in an upward manner. But in frisbee, the only goal is to reach as far as possible, and I feel like I reach farther with one arm stretched as far as possible than if bidding onto my front.

Also, because my dad brought me a bedframe and a dresser, the dresser took up all the space I was using to put shoes. But the bedframe solved the problem:

Should a boy have this many shoes? I'm even wearing my sandals! And I still want more shoes, too. I need brown dress shoes, for instance. And I'd like a pair of shoes to run in that aren't coming apart on the bottom, but I guess those would replace the running shoes I have, not actually add to the count...

I have a great way of keeping track of my groceries. I have an ongoing list (like everyone, I'm sure), but I don't take items off the list. I just move them down the list on the other side of a break in the list. So when I buy something, I move it down, and when it runs out, I put it back up, and then when the list on top has more things on it than the list on the bottom, I go shopping! That could be a while now, though, since I have too many things I wasn't accounting for. Like fruit, for instance. I ate three pieces of fruit with my lunch because I bought bananas and grapes, and then my mom sent me apples and pears. At least there wasn't overlap. And through some further clairvoyance, she must have seen me pick up the cashews and put them back down, since she sent me those too! My parents are great. My mom even tolerates 1:00am phone calls. And then sends me emails until after 2:00! Either she's incredibly dedicated or I scared the crap out of her. It was probably some combination.

See that? That was a segue into what happened after my crazy night of no sleep and half-depressing, half-distract-myself-with-interesting-things-that-happened post. At least, it was a segue until I ruined it. Now it's just a broken transition, going in circles like a wheeled apparatus for lazy people to drive in tour groups. That's right, segue metaphors. I'm cool like that.

So. I finished my post, went to the bathroom, contemplated going home for an hour, decided to just stay here (wardrobe critics be damned!), and went back to the library. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but I must have still had a bit of adrenaline or brain-frenzy or something weird, because that wasn't happening. I waited it out, though, and fell soundly into a peaceful slumber. Or that's what would have happened if I hadn't jerked awake twenty minutes later out of a nightmare where I was sliding face-first into a wall! I don't have any context to go with that. I just remember jerking awake like in those fake dreams where you're tripping and you catch yourself by sitting up in bed. Except I was in the library and my hand had gone numb from my head being on it. The people started trickling in, and I pulled out my book and briefed a couple cases before going to class.

My classmates haven't really approached me all year. I've always been the guy who nobody really knows. The guy with the headphones in, the guy who gets to class just before it starts and leaves right when it finishes. It turns out all I needed to do was look like a dog had dragged me across town and jammed caffeine pills down my throat. Apparently I'm much more approachable that way. From now on, my pickup line will just be to not sleep at all and look really sad. Works like a charm. That's my way of saying that two girls actually came up to me and talked. Not one. TWO! And at separate occasions. The first asked if I was doing okay because I looked really tired. I said I hadn't slept, she asked if I was studying, and I had to hold back a laugh. Of course I wasn't studying. God, who would have to study? Nope, can't say that. But that's about all the filter my brain had the energy for, so I mentioned ex-girlfriend talks/troubles, and she gave me a pitying look. She asked some follow-up questions, but I was saved by class starting.

Then we had a study group session that I was thinking about skipping but didn't because we have a quiz in that class on Friday. And a girl sat down beside me (when there was an empty seat two seats away, might I add), and started a conversation. Or our practice quiz started the conversation. I'm not sure. But after I said I was up all night and went through the same routine, she mentioned she had just watched a TED talk about how sleep deprivation really messes up the neurology in your brain. I agreed wholeheartedly. Then she mentioned she saw my (recently changed) Facebook picture of me biking and asked if I did that. I said I don't really do the racing thing anymore. She asked out of the blue if I had ever toured, and I said, yes, as a matter of fact, I had done a bit of that (ACROSS THE ENTIRE COUNTRY). She said she bought a bike, and four days later she biked the Mississippi river trail from north to south. It was all a bit more than I could handle. I go from no contact to talking to a girl about actual relevant things, and it seems the only thing I have to do is tie a sign to my body that says "pathetic" and have giant rings and wrinkles under my eyes. The secret is out, gentlemen.

Oh, one other detail. I forgot my headphones in the computer lab. I must have left them still plugged into the computer when I left. That sucked, until I found them right where I left them, still plugged into the computer some fully-covered foreign girl was using. This happens to me all the time, actually. On multiple occasions I've left my Magic deck at the table after I'm done with a match. No big deal, just like $1,500 dollars in cards (minimum) sitting out there for free. On two separate occasions I've had Xavier help me look for it. Both times he was right in the middle of ribbing me out when we went up to the lost and found and they handed it back to me. He thinks I'm the luckiest guy. I was skeptical until the same thing happened with my whole backpack. (That had more money in cards than I have in money inside it.) So I got my headphones back.

I was back to myself the last two days. You guessed it: no follow-up. I was actually relieved. Headphone defense is a powerful thing. I will try not to let my guard down again. Sometimes I don't even have music playing. That's actually the best, because someone will approach you and yell a bit, and I'll give them this very confused look because I've totally forgotten I have headphones in, and they will take that to mean my music is playing so loudly I still haven't heard them and repeat it again EVEN LOUDER. Then I realize what's going on and shake my head, taking my (silent) headphones out of my ears so they know they can talk in a normal voice. That happens a lot, and every single time it is exactly the same. It's sort of like when you tell someone your name, and they repeat it back to you, and you nod to let them know that yes, they did in fact hear your incredibly simple name correctly, except then they say the last part wrong! And you've already nodded, and in the case of the guy in my class, the professor has already moved on, and that's his name forever now. Hilarious.

That's all I really have time for tonight. I have some reading to do for tomorrow. I have a couple poems started though. I also haven't posted any poems to that other blog since the first three because I wasn't happy with the edits I did. Either I didn't change stuff and I knew I wanted to, or I did change something and I'm not sure I liked it. But in going through my 6,000 emails, I found even more, so I'll try and get to putting a few up in the next couple of days. Thanks for reading!

Oh no! It's part-depressing, part attempt at normalcy! What do we do, captain?

If you A: decide to read the post turn to page (this page).
If you B: decide to flee for your lives, turn to page (any page but the other depressing ones)

Whelp,

It's 4:00. Just another one of those nights, seems like.

I just went through every email in my gmail account. That was an impressive feat. when I started, my inbox had over 4,000 messages. It now has 20. There were over 6,000 messages total. There are now 3,339. And I discovered some interesting chronological facts. There were 947 conversations with one particular lady, who I conversed with at some length tonight. Reading through, it is actually depressing how excited we used to be just to email the other person. Chat logs from when I was in class reveal snippets like "I can't wait until you get home!" and brief emails I sent her stated I would have breakfast ready for when she finished her morning class. It has been four years since we started going out. She first contacted me in November of 2008. Five years of knowing her, and tonight I was told we can't even really be friends. That there is no hope of ever being together, no matter what. I did not take the news well.

Surprising, I know, since I haven't eaten since breakfast yesterday, and haven't slept since before that. You'd think these conditions would be ideal for handling bad news, but alas, 'tis not the case. A frantic call to my mother at a silly hour provided a much-needed voice, but it turns out that when one person doesn't want to know another person anymore, there isn't actually much recourse left. We talked anyway, mostly trying to figure out what I was missing that would help me begin to move on. I just want information, which seems to be the one thing that I can't really get at. According to my mother "people are just complicated things" and "you can't understand them." How very inconvenient.

I hate to think of it as a five-year investment. I know I wasn't just "putting in my time" and hoping to be rewarded at the end. It was actually a really good relationship for a lot of it, and despite the problems, I was always sure it would eventually smooth itself out. See, I was fairly confident I had found a girl with the right characteristics that meant, even as she changed, matured, etc. she would still be the kind of person I would want to be around. She was kind, funny, and incredibly eager to try anything that sounded fun. She was at the same time a hard worker, athletic, determined, and intelligent. And I honestly don't think these qualities changed much. What did change was our attitudes toward each other. We talked for a few hours tonight about what it was that made me less appealing to be around, and it was, in general, my complacency. My laziness.

I knew I was being lazy. I knew I wasn't living up to my potential. I wasn't the bright college student with a patent in the works, who played frisbee and handball while lifting and running, biking, and finding time to send tons of flirty emails. I was the guy who woke up at 11:00, read articles about Magic: the Gathering on his phone until brunch at 1:00, and stayed up until he fell asleep. I was the guy who watched season after season of whatever tv show caught his (our) eyes. In a row. I was no model of attractiveness. I focused on activities she didn't share (handball and magic), didn't go to school, and worked minimal hours. And I was content, because I knew deep down it wasn't going to last. And it didn't. I got my applications in to law schools eventually, and I committed to the best one that would give me a scholarship. I wasn't worried about attending, but I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy it more than doing "whatever I wanted" with my time.

Well, it turns out that I do enjoy it. I feel more active in the classroom than I ever have in my life, and I haven't even spoken more than a handful of times. I've played more quality handball than I could have otherwise. I even played frisbee for the first time in a long time on Sunday. It's all been amazing, barring the breakup. What really bites about that particular thing, of course, is that now that I'm happy and feeling similar to the guy who wrote those flirty emails, who made time for gmail chats at all hours of the day, who set aside time to cook and who had the pleasure of watching her face genuinely light up at the prospect of some time together. I know that's not who we are, of course, but the contrast between then and now is harsh, especially because I can still picture the girl learning how to throw a frisbee, who biked miles just to see me and talk about music, and who filled chat boxes with <3's at the prospect of a weekend together at Mount Rushmore or in Chicago.

My legs have alternated between numb and tingling for the past few hours.
My stomach hasn't unclenched to show its hunger
So I guess, as small as it can be folded in on itself,
It's full.
And yet my head feels empty, waving over my shoulders
On a neck behaving like the playground spring toys
My too-tall sister and her good friend (My ex-friend?)
Would jump on as I looked around a bit furtively
Wondering if any pram-pushing mom's were judging us
Instead of grabbing my own seahorse, cow, or fish
And joining them for a grinning, brimming minute.

That just sort of happened. I started that sentence thinking that would be a normal paragraph, and then it didn't quite turn out like one. I don't really know where to go from here. I guess I'll talk about my weekend?

My dad came and visited me! That was really great, actually, because I'm really bad about leaving my apartment, and he drove me to go get groceries I couldn't get at the Aldi I walk to. So I have ketchup and soup and stuff now, all without high fructose corn syrup. And Bisquick! I was actually really excited about that. You know something's changed in your life when you're amped up at the idea of adding a bit of liquid and some eggs to some pre-made mix. But there you have it. My "cooking" to date has consisted of heating up various sources of protein (beef, chicken, eggs), boiling noodles, pouring milk over cereal, and eating fruits and vegetables. Bisquick is like the gourmet trial of my kitchen. I'll even have to use the oven...

We also went to Target (a store I never go to because it's more expensive than the bare minimum), where I got some decent pens, another notebook (because I can't count the number of classes I have), some cutting mats so I stop cutting on my counter, and some underwear (compression shorts as well as stock, humdrum stuff). See, it turns out that it's easier to just buy more of whatever item of clothing you have the least of than it is to do laundry. Unless everything happens to run out at the same time, I could go broke using this scheme of avoidance, especially considering the dresser my dad brought with him. So much space, and so little variation in my wardrobe... Interestingly, the underwear (normal Hanes stuff, from the look of it) is much thicker than the stuff I'm used to. This must be a recent development, since I'm sure  it wasn't the case when I bought mine only five or six YEARS ago. Man, underwear really stands the test of time.

My dad also brought with him a vacuum cleaner, some food (fresh tomatoes from the garden!), and a bed frame, so no more sleeping on my ground mattress. It reminded me of my freshman year of college for a while there. My freshman year I had my own room because someone left our floor and my roommate moved out. I promptly dragged his bunk bed into the closet, pulled both mattresses off the beds, and just put them on the floor. I wasn't climbing no stinking bed frame if there wasn't going to be anyone else in the room! So I worked sitting on my mattresses at a coffee table, and slept on a mattress on the floor. It was great. This time, I had a box spring anyway, so it wasn't quite a perfect simulation, but again, I am improvising a study arrangement. I have no chair. Instead, I use a pilates exercise ball and for a table I have an upside-down laundry basket! It works great, actually. I have the book I'm reading at the time on my lap and my notes on the basket in front of me. And I'm ready to bounce into action at a moments notice.

Astute readers from last paragraph may be wondering about the vacuum cleaner. Yup, my whole apartment is carpeted. Of course, by "whole apartment" I mean my closet-sized floor space with attached kitchen appliances, but still, it means that any food dropped makes things dirty in a hurry. And there's nothing quite like picking up your noodle from the floor and wondering whether the added fuzz is a good source of daily fiber. So my parents sent me a vacuum, for one-time use, and my dad took it back with him. Or meant to take it back with him. Instead, he dropped me off after dinner, and by the time I noticed it standing there it wasn't worth returning for. Profit!

Let's see, what else happened? I played frisbee! We have an intramural team with three decent players (including me, and defining decent as I wouldn't mind playing with them outside of intramural), and a whole bunch of other people. The roster had like 18 people, which is entirely too many for two 20 minute halves per week. That's right, one game a week, timed halves, no score limit. My captain is Greg Arenson, and he's a stud. He played for NexGen (a touring frisbee team), and was first team all-region his sophomore year of college. He was probably all region a bunch of other years, but that's the only one I came across (I was reading all my emails recently and there was a LOT of frisbee-related chaff. Some of it was links to things like "Michael Brisbois: second team all region" though, and lo and behold, there was Greg's name). He said he was already feeling out of shape, but I think we all were. Oh, and we only had nine people total show up! And one of those was a girl who didn't want to play much, and one was a guy we called as a last-ditch effort when we had five people total because he was the only one whose phone number we had readily available.

We went up 3-0 to start. Greg then mentioned we should take it a bit easier on them. We did so, and the scored. He then said "screw that, let's crush these guys." And his word was our command. We rattled off like five straight points (mostly on just throwing it deep to whoever wanted to run) before my highlight reel point came to pass. I decided it was my turn to sprint deep, and Greg unleashed a monster forehand. This guy can throw! Seventy to eighty yards easily, and I missed a step because I didn't locate the disc right away. So there it was, going further than I thought, and everyone was already yelling at Greg for throwing it too far. So, I "kicked it into high gear" (aka propelled my short little legs even more ridiculously) and made one of the best bids I've ever made. I was actually full-extension, a couple feet off the ground, and it was epic, because as almost anyone can tell you, I rarely do cool things like this. I even touched the disc! No, I didn't catch it. I hit the top of it with my hand and it landed in the back of the endzone as I plowed a furrow with my shoulder. But I made a sweet play on it, and everyone (both teams) seemed quite impressed. I got up, made sure I wasn't bleeding too badly, and got back on D.

"Now we could end the story right there, but shorty didn't quit, there was something in the air. Something about it, he knew he couldn't doubt it, something appealing, he couldn't fight the feeling..." That's right, I kick, PUSHED myself into a layout D on the first throw of the next possession. I was "guarding" the handler who picked up the disc (we had stopped playing good defense a while ago), and when I saw him glance to his right and cock back a forehand, I took some steps off him, spotted his wide open receive (see citation about no defense to speak of), and bid. I got a solid D, and, being me, immediately picked up the disc like you're not supposed to. The first person downfield should never do that. It just gives them free stall counts as your team catches up with you. But Greg saw, and Greg is fast, so Greg ran into the endzone. I, needing to cap things off in style, wind up this monstrous push-pass grip and let it fly over the heads of both of the people involved in the D I just got to Greg who was just drawing level with me at the time. Of course, it hits him in stride ten or fifteen yards in front of me for the score. Highlight of my recent memory.

Thanks for reading! I'm going to end this here (it's 5:20, and I need to do my homework yet before class at 8:00), and I'll pick up with depressing things again next time.