Study break

I haven't eaten enough
for basic body maintenance
which I guess is self-destructive
behavior of the sort
people are always talking about.

But how appropriate
that I feel this empty.

It's too perfect to ruin
with the banalities
of yet another grilled cheese
reminder of masterpieces
manufactured for the lips
of another.

What could more obscene
than eating as if consumption
will lead to satisfaction?
So rather than rush
to rectify this gnawing
I'll revel, reflecting
on the tastes I'll be missing.

Poem:
Don't worry, I'm not starving myself. It's just that when I got hungry at work it felt appropriate, and I decided to experience it instead of just mindlessly consuming food. I must say, it's more interesting that I thought it would be to actually think about the fact that I'm hungry. Usually I either realize it and eat immediately, preemptively eat so as to never arrive in this situation in the first place, or, in the worst case scenario, push the realization out of focus in the event no food is readily available. I guess it takes a bit of a shake-up to get around to this.

Observation:
I got my new headphones today. They are huge and make me look silly. Also, they are amazing. None of the headphones I've had previously have sounded like these. Where there was once a baseline in the songs I knew, there is now a base chorus. It turns out that base isn't just a term for "that one low note used to set a beat," but can actually refer to an entire register of notes. Just when I think they've played the lowest note, another one lower shudders through the earpieces and sends a bit of a chill up my spine. The model I got was the Ultrasone DJ1 Pros, and while I'm curious what other types of headphones might sound like, these have blown me away so far. They are also amusing in that they are basically just speakers strapped to my head with little cushions to seal them. The cushions are spectacular, and allow for almost no sound leakage in or out. Of course, when I take them off the fact that they are really nothing more than speakers becomes apparent, since without anything to seal the sound in to, the music comes out loud and clear. I guess that could be a positive, though, if I wanted to share whatever I'm listening to.
The purchase of these has two immediate consequences on my life. The first is that I am now effectively deaf to the world. Unless the sound source is touching me, I'm not going to hear it. The second is that I will have a permanent dent in my hair where the strap presses into my head. These are small prices to pay for the pleasure I am experiencing. Actually, that first one isn't so much a price as yet another unlooked-for benefit. It turns out I don't like very much of the stuff I hear of the outside world anyway. I'll just have to be sure to be more olfactorily aware in case of emergencies (fires, etc.) Chances are still good that if you hear about a really stupid-sounding fatality in the next few days it's going to be me. I could totally imagine the scenario where I'm sitting at work transferring plant cells from one petri dish to another and then all of a sudden the flames that have been ravaging the building for an hour finally close in on me. But at least I'll go out to the tune of beautiful music.

Here's a picture!


Me:
The awkwardness of my ex-girlfriend and my sister being friends has become quite apparent. Not that I was really expecting it to remain hidden, but I thought I'd write a bit about it since it's on my mind. It turns out that my sister bought my ex a cat. Well, an adorable little kitten, but you get the point. This was something she had talked about wanting, and something I had cautioned rather strongly against, since she's out of town almost every weekend for frisbee during the seasons that is going, and busy with school and stuff the rest of the time, and I think cats (kittens especially) deserve as much attention as you can give them. Furthermore, she will be graduating soon with no guarantee that she'll have a place for the cat to stay after that. All in all, it just didn't strike me as prudent (since she already stranded her dog with her parents when she left the house for college).
That's not the real reason this is annoying, of course. The annoyance is that apparently she needed such an extreme form of consolation after cheating on her boyfriend and then breaking up with him. Gee, what a harsh situation to go through... Good thing she has such a good friend to cheer her up. And just to add (unintentional) insult to (emotional) injury, when my sister and I were talking and I made a comment about how I must not have been an interesting enough guy, my sister jumped right to her defense, saying that she just wants to know what else is out there. Not quite the reassurance I was fishing for. At the very least she could have mentioned that I'm not that uninteresting. It's not like she needed to go overboard and list the fact I'm involved in many sports at pretty high levels, have a patent pending for genetics, published works of all sorts in the local literary magazine, and a plethora of other things pointing toward the contrary. But you know, throwing me some sort of bone would have been nice. It's not like I'm expecting a new pet or anything. I mean, my standards are pretty low...
That's about all the ranting I'm in the mood for today. Other events in my life include the upcoming LSAT, studying for the LSAT, worrying about the LSAT, and occasionally eating/sleeping.

Looks like I have free time OR A post about self-pity

I haven't been posting here for a variety of small reasons. I tell myself I don't have time, or that I'm never going to actually be a writer, or that I'm not up for the obligation of posting regularly. Sometimes I don't post because I feel like being defiant. And these things have made me realize that this HAD become a blog for some of the wrong reasons. Now, for a bad segue.

I listen to Starcraft 2 commentary. Starcraft 2 is a video game, and while I have only played it a few times (to little success), I find it fascinating. The premise is that you have to build an army starting basically from scratch while managing your resources and technology to gain an advantage over your opponent, who is trying to do the same thing. It falls into the genre RTS (Real-Time Strategy) because all of  It's played professionally, most notably in Korea, where it is televised and the teams have 16 hour-a-day practice regimens. Anyway, the most famous commentator/castor is a guy named Sean Plott. His screen name (and name he is known by to almost everyone) is Day[9]. I would definitely recommend you watch his video My Life of Starcraft, no matter whether or not you are interested in the game, or even interested in games in general. It can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJztfsXKcPQ    It's almost two hours long, so it's not to be undertaken lightly, but it's worth it. This paragraph has been leading up to the fact that Day[9], when talking about reasons for wanting to play Starcraft, said something along the lines of: you have to enjoy every aspect of it. You have to enjoy working on splitting your workers (the first thing you do in the game, a routine action), much like to be a good author you have to enjoy writing individual sentences. You can't want to play Starcraft because you want to be good at Starcraft and be a pro, just as a writer can't write because they want to have a bestseller. (I don't think that quote is in the video I linked, but that video is amazing anyway.)

The point is: I enjoy writing sentences. I love making little internal jokes inside my work that I know nobody else will pick up on. I don't leave a sentence in my writing if I see a way it can be improved upon. The way words flow together, the way the rhythms of sentences form, and even the use of parentheticals versus commas intrigues me. I enjoy the craft that is writing. So from now on, when I blog, it won't be because I felt obliged. And it won't be because I want people to read it. Which also means I won't be adhering to my little POEM setup anymore. Yes, I still plan on including poetry. I just don't want to be confined. I've decided it's not about forcing myself to write (as it says in my blog description), but about giving myself an outlet. Therefore, if I stop feeling like writing, there will be breaks. I might not update for a while. I'll try and let my readers know, though. I don't like having my blog in the back of my mind while I'm doing other things, the four other pairs of eyes that read it burning into the back of my skull as I guiltily play Magic: The Gathering. And I'm going to write whatever I want (as usual, I suppose). Unfortunately for you, that starts now.

The title of my post refers (obviously to those of you who know me) to the fact that my girlfriend broke up with me. Yup, the very same girlfriend I took that amazing vacation with. When people ask me why (sometimes with that look which conveys "how did you screw that up? She was so nice!") I get to say, "I guess she preemptively broke things off, knowing I'd probably react badly when she told me about the times she cheated on me." So that's the cause of the free time (and probably the self-pity) mentioned in the title. And because the termination of a two-year relationship is obviously affecting me, you'll probably get to hear more about it if you decide to keep reading this blog. But I will try not to harp on it too much (though you might justifiably avoid reading for the next few days, just to be safe).

While I do have more time now that I'm not in a relationship (and consequently not playing frisbee due to not being able to look at her and the guys she decided were more important than me), I do have the LSAT coming up next weekend, so I will be spending a decent amount of time in preparing for that. You know, so I have an excuse at the ready in case I don't find my way back here as promptly as I thought.

So without further ado, a bit of a blog post:

Not About Pillows

People sometimes punch pillows
frustrated, screaming into them
to dull the sounds of sudden emotion
roiling through, released into the fabric
accompanied by dribbles of spit
and unceremonious tears.

Apparently, I shatter bicycle helmets.

An interesting analog to pillow-punching
and noisier than yelling,
the smash of plastic on cement
a harsh but empty echo
off the metal garage door

At least I know now helmets do their job
as I pick it up and examine its single dent
before bending over,
fingers wedged in the vents
and rip it apart
the plastic shell and polystyrene foam
evidently not designed to resist
the particular force I am exerting
though whether it's due to it being lateral
or emotional
I couldn't say.

I straighten, dropping the pile
of once-helmet, left wondering
what the attraction was in the first place.

Poem:
Pretty sure this doesn't need explanation, but in retrospect the series of actions/thoughts was pretty amusing. I got home, put my bike in the garage, and took my helmet off in a perfectly normal manner. Then I started to walk inside, paused, and what I honestly thought was: "This helmet is pretty old, and I don't really need to use it. And I'm pretty sure smashing things is supposed to make people feel better. Well, here goes!" I really took the time to analyze the particulars, and came to the conclusion it was the best option. THEN, and only then, did I cock my arm up and windmill it into the floor by its straps. It bounced quite a ways, but didn't actually seem much the worse for wear. So I set into it, and ripped it apart. And it DID make me feel something other than what I was trying to avoid, but unfortunately I also felt a bit aggressive, and sort of like smashing more things. I looked around briefly, but didn't see anything else that was really all that expendable, so I went inside and started writing instead. And that's how that poem came about. It's pretty rough (OBVIOUSLY), but hey, at least I'm writing again, right?

Observation (A section to skip if you don't like me wallowing in self-pity):
Hindsight is 20/20 my ass. I still have no idea what really went wrong. I look back at the relationship, and all I see are contradictions. Like a few days ago I said I was thinking about taking handball really seriously and going to more tournaments, and she encouraged me, saying she'd support me however she could, even saying she'd chip in monetarily (something I of course refused). And at my last bicycle race I said I was beginning to think the only way I'd be able to have enough money to do all the things I wanted to do was to marry rich, and she responded that she would try to get a high-paying job. Basically, what I'm trying to say was I was a bit blindsided. I still don't know how someone who is unfaithful could say those things. So as if I wasn't cynical enough before, now I get to distrust everyone for a while.
I guess I should take a moment to say that I'm not incredibly mad at her or anything. If she doesn't want to be with me, of course I don't want her to be with me. I'm just constantly frustrated by the things that keep cropping up. Little things, like she knew all my passwords to things, so I have to change them, just to be safe. Little things like picking up my phone and seeing her as the screen saver (before I obviously changed it). Little things like how I took literally 96% of my pictures with her in them, because I'm apparently an over-trusting fool who thought a good thing could last. Little things like not having someone to say good night, and I love you to when I'm finally tired enough to sleep at two in the morning. Except, of course, that last one isn't really such a little thing.
So I wish I could say things were clear in retrospect, that now I can see what went wrong, and learn, and grow, and all that sentimental crap. Instead, confusion reigns. I still can't quite believe she was capable of sleeping with another guy and lying to me so convincingly. You, dear reader, may not know her, but I can assure you there is nothing about her that would prompt that thought. She's a hard-working, talented, intelligent, innocent-looking girl. So I guess my observation for today is just that: the hyphenation. "-looking."

Exercise:
Because I don't really feel like doing a writing exercise, I think I'll just free write here for fifteen minutes. We'll see what comes of it.

Floyd had been growing decreasingly excited about his birthday as it drew nearer. The events in the days leading up to it had been mundane enough to warrant mentioning (quite a feat when you think about it, as there is really no shortage of mundanity in the world these days). In fact, it had been weeks since his routine had been broken in the slightest, and that was only because his cat had literally bored itself to death. He had been petting it as it slept (in exactly the same way he did every night before bed), and its quiet purring simply ceased. There was no wheeze, no final breath, no wisp of soul escaping into the aether. It simply grew gradually colder. Only after a few minutes had passed did Floyd actually catch on to what had occurred. He calmly picked up the body, put it in an appropriately-sized shoebox, and exited the back door to his yard, where he grabbed a shovel. With an all-too-practiced hand he dug a perfectly symmetrical grave the exact depth he required. He gently knelt and placed the box in the hole, filled in what he could, and spread the remaining soil around evenly so as not to leave an area of grass without sunlight. He surveyed his work, noting that the other graves had turned out nicely as well, but still regretting the blotch of dead grass near the first one (from before he had learned the trick about spreading the soil around after you were finished). That made three this spring. He really should look into getting better cats. Or a more exciting life, but honestly, he'd probably consider the switch in cats first. Perhaps if that didn't work out he could add an element of the unknown into his life. Like rolling some dice to determine which side of the bed he would sleep on. Yes, that would do nicely.

Me:
I'm not sure there's a lot to say here. I guess I could fill you in on some of the things I've been doing since my last post. I finished out the road biking season in an acceptable manner, and actually got pretty decent at time trialing near the end, though the 40 km state time trial was a bit more than I was ready for mentally. It didn't help that the markers on the road were in miles rather than kilometers, a fact that only really hit me when I got to the turnaround and was quite taken aback. (Yes, it should have been obvious, had I been thinking a little more. Or really, thinking at all. But I wasn't.) I think there was a good three mile section where I was just too miserable to ride well. Thoughts about never time trialing again fluttered through my brain, delightful fantasies distracting me from the torture I was putting myself through. Of course, since I wasn't concentrating on the torture, it wound up taking longer. I finished with a time in the low 57's, averaging just over 26 miles an hour. So not terrible, but as usual I was left with the thought "I could have gone faster." Which is a very frustrating thought for me to have, especially considering I knew going into the time trial I had never done one that long before and really couldn't expect that much of myself. So what I really need to be thinking is "I'll be faster next time." The only problem with that is it implies a next time, completely negating the fantasies I was clinging to about never suffering like that again. Quite a conundrum.
Most recently I've ridden my cyclocross bike a couple of times. I'd say I raced it, but the course was apparently really easy, so I'm not sure it counted as a real cross race. I did win, though, so that was pretty cool. I like the fact that the ground provides enough resistance that if you try hard you are rewarded with a gap over the person behind you. Drafting is still advantageous, of course, but it definitely feels like the strongest person has a better chance of winning than in road racing. It's too bad I'm terrible at bike handling. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that the rest of the courses are easy too...
Oh, and as you might have guessed, I'm still playing a bit of Magic: The Gathering. It's fun, and about the only time I interact with people other than my family (by choice), so I guess that's my justification. Also, it turns out I'm not terrible at it. I'm thinking about traveling a bit to see if I could have more success, but if I were to do that it would be difficult to...
PLAY HANDBALL! I'm thinking about making this my priority for the winter to see how possible it would be to play at the top level. I know there are a few people who make a living at it, but I doubt that would be my goal. I just want to see how far I can go. I really haven't been playing that long (about four years now), and I feel like I'm almost within reach of the people I've seen who play at a high level. I don't know what is required to span the gap, but I'm willing to find out.
You may think these things don't leave a lot of time for writing, and you're right. I don't know what will happen as far as that is concerned. That is especially true if I get into a decent law school. (Which reminds me that I guess I no longer have to apply to Drake to stay close to Ames...). But I will be making an honest effort at writing more, and we'll see where it goes. It's not my primary concern currently, but I doubt it will ever fade from my passions altogether. Who knows? Maybe I'll eventually man up, quit everything, and try and make it as a starving writer. But right now I'm leaning more toward attending law school and writing when it works into my schedule.

Again, I apologize for the lack of posting, if only because it came without warning. But I'm back for now! Thanks for reading.

Mostly Pictures

Ode

You sicken me with sweetness
honey, thick and sharp,
running slowly enough
to savor the process
of biting numbness
as I shrink from your
cloying ways.

Oh honey, how I've missed
the slight bumps
granulations in the smoothness,
irregular pockets of purity
when crystalline clarity
spills out and melts away.

Poem:
Honey is delicious. Also, it's a bit of a metaphor about how something too sweet can be overwhelming, but the good moments make up for it. I don't know if that comes across very well, but it was in the back of my mind while I was writing.

Observation:
Turns out this post is having a bit of trouble posting. I got an error message, and things are freezing up, so I'm just going to get what I have up (hopefully), and try again tomorrow. I think it's the pictures that are making things a bit complicated. Anyway, thanks for reading, and I'll be back at it soon.

Me:
I still have vacation stories up my sleeve, but they seem less exciting the more removed I get from them, so I'll sort of skip around to the interesting stuff. Sunday we woke up quite unmolested, packed quickly, and entered the Needles section of Canyonlands. There wasn't anyone taking money, so even though we had a pass, it didn't seem like it was doing much. We hiked from Elephant Hill trailhead until we had seen some pretty views, and turned around to continue on our quest to see more parks. Needles is interesting in that it offers a different sort of rock formation to look at, but it definitely seems like it would be better to attack this park from a backpacking approach than day hikes. So I made sure we had seen what I thought was a good representation of what the park had to offer, and we were off to our next park.

Is it just me, or does this look like Snoopy the dog on his red house? Okay, I guess usually he is lying o his back in the comic and this looks like a dog on its tummy, but considering I hardly ever play the "what does that look like?" game, I thought this was pretty decent.

Next up was Capitol Reef. In a similar fashion to Canyonlands, this park doesn't have anything I would call astonishingly beautiful. It's just a nice place to be. Then again, being as partial as I am to the western United States, almost anywhere would qualify as a nice place to be as far as I'm concerned. Having witnessed Rebecca's love of water firsthand at Mill Creek, I decided the best hike for us at Capitol Reef was Sulphur Creek. The trail is simply the creek bed (though you can take an overland route to cut distance if desired. I've hiked this before, but as with every water-based trail, this offers a different view around every bend. In the later parts of the day the orange glow of the sun really brought out the color, and all in all, it was a nice, rather relaxing walk in the water. The waterfalls were pretty, too, even if I did almost fall down one. Don't worry; in addition to not dying, I even managed to catch my sunglasses as they fell off my head and threatened to plunge over the edge.

And now, by popular request (the only request), the story of how I hiked Bright Angel Point (with pictures). To understand why my sister wanted to hear about this story you should probably know some things about me. Or rather, I should clarify some things you probably already know about me. As a person terrified of dying (as I would assume many are), I take decent precautions to not put myself in situations where that might occur. As such, I tend to avoid heights. Okay, I'm just scared of heights. The other thing you have to realize is that this trail is high up in the air. There. I've pretty much set the scene. We drove into Zion after a decent night's sleep intending to hike the Narrows. However, we knew the water had been pretty high recently, and as such, had a backup plan of skirting death at high altitude prepared just in case we weren't able to go with our first option. Lucky me, the water was too high to hike in the safe canyon floor, so we got to go up on top instead. (They only let people hike the Narrows if the water is under 140 cfs for 24 hours, and that was the first day it had dipped below the mark. We came back to it later in the week (obviously, since I've written about it), but it was still quite high even then.



Also, it was hot enough that this happened:

We grabbed the shuttle to the Grotto where the trail began and started our hike. It looked like this:

And then it looked like this:




(In case it doesn't show up that well, this photo is of about eight switchbacks up what is basically a vertical wall.












Here is a better photo (not mine).













I thought that was quite a bit of elevation gain for our hike, but I knew there was another section to go. The so-called Angel's Landing. Having crested the top of our last switchback, we were greeted by a view of what lay ahead. At first glance, I thought I could probably do it. Then I noticed that what I could see was not the extent of what was in store. After going up a narrow strip of rock, we had to go down, and then back up even higher to reach our destination. We could see people (really small-looking people, really far away) climbing up and down on their hike either out or back, and I started to think this was going to be quite a task. I'm incredibly sure I wouldn't have done it on my own, but if Rebecca was going, I was too. In my head I was thinking I wanted to be there in case anything went wrong, but looking back, that's just like thinking "Well, if one of us is going to die, the other might as well be there to watch. Or potentially die with them." So not the best logic ever, but it resulted in me having something to talk about, so no complaints here. Now there weren't many places on the trail I felt like stopping to dig a camera out of my bag (since I needed all of my hands for clinging to whatever solid objects I could find), but here are some pictures I do have:

A view of what we climbed up.



















And a view of how pointless it was for me to be there in case Rebecca fell. Sheer cliff walls, and about four feet to walk on the entire way. Never again (probably).














A view down the canyon. It sure was pretty. Too bad I was constantly too afraid of where my feet were to be looking around much.

















A view back the way we had come from.














We eventually made it back to safety, hiked a bit further on the rim trail (bad idea and not worth the time or effort), and descended back to the canyon floor. The descent was quite hard on my knees, but overall I was mostly just happy to be alive.

It's a gradual process.

On tap for today: three quarters of a normal post. Didn't feel poetic, but wanted to get this up.

Observation:
My observation for today is pretty depressing. But maybe it's only depressing if you happen to be me. Here it is: It turns out I would probably not be qualified to work at McDonald's. You know, that oft-joked-about job reserved for the dregs of society? Yup. Last night made me pretty sure I wouldn't pass muster. (I used to think that expression was passing mustard. Maybe McDonald's is in my future after all?) Anyway, my dad had grilled up some really delicious vegetable burgers (spicy black bean) and told us to put whatever toppings/condiments we wanted on them. And here's what I did: I put some pickles on top of the burger, and then sprayed some ketchup and mustard onto the other side of the bun. Then, upon assembling the burger, I realized I had put the slippery stuff on the bottom bun. At that point, I just shook my head at myself. See, not only does the additional weight of the burger cause the ketchup and mustard to ooze out all over the place, but the slickness of the liquids causes the burger to lose integrity, sliding apart at the slightest opportunity. It's not like I've never had a burger before. How many times have I bitten into a sandwich and known the ketchup and mustard are on top? Thousands? I guess on the bright side, cutting McDonald's from my career options isn't such a bad thing.

Exercise:
Begin a story with the last line, and write backward (end with the first line). Read it backward, then read it forward.

(This takes forever. And it's really frustrating, because I kept wanting to write two sentences at a time as a way to segue between thoughts. Enjoyable challenge though.)

He hadn't buzzed, and was in the middle of asking the lady in white what the heck she was doing there when a brief, intense look restored him to silence. The nurse, he had quickly learned, was a sort of no-nonsense, practical, and altogether humorless individual, so it was a bit surprising to him that she had taken the time to pay him an extra visit. She seemed concerned, squinting at him over her clipboard while telling him someone was coming in to see him. He tried to tell the nurse he was in no mood to receive visitor's, but she either didn't hear him or didn't believe him. He heard the door open. By now there was no way his hair was still presentable, the pillow having flattened one side and added an interesting topiary-like feature near the top. The sheets felt a bit too warm, too clingy, restraining him from whatever slight movement he may have been considering. He felt her hand brush against his, and he turned his head, grimacing slightly. It was reassuring to have her there by his side, though pain in his torso prevented him from moving much. At least I don't have to fix the roof, he thought as he closed his eyes.

Me:
I have a lot of biking stories built up by now, so I'll take a break from recounting my vacation to bring my life up to date. Thursday morning was a disaster. Rebecca had made me oatmeal recently, and I felt like duplicating it for breakfast. I was unable. It was the blandest bowl of mush I'd ever tasted. Luckily, honey transformed it from a bland bowl of mush to a delicious bowl of sugary goodness. Of course, the quantity of honey I added probably rendered it into more of a candy than a breakfast food, but I ate it happily. The disaster continued. I was supposed to hang out laundry to dry, and despite the cloudy weather, it seemed rather dry. I even checked the weather radar and forecast. Exactly ten minutes after I finished hanging it up, I was in the kitchen packing a lunch when the pitter patter of little raindrops (big raindrops) alerted me all was not well. I went out and pulled the now-wetter-than-before laundry off the line.
But you're probably wondering what this has to do with cycling. Well, I've always noticed that the worse things go before a race, the better the race itself goes. And this was one of those times. I had a 12k time trial that evening, and my previous best time was around 17:40. My time for this particular race? 16:49. It was pretty great, and that is an understatement.
Then Friday was another time trial. This one was 20k, but I was doing it on a tandem with my dad. The thing about tandems is, when you're on the back, there is no wind to cool you off. Sure, you're more aerodynamic, but you're also blind. I couldn't see without stinging eyes for a few minutes after we finished. This one also went well, though I didn't feel nearly as good as I did Thursday. And that is an understatement. I felt awful. My calf started cramping before we'd even gotten halfway, and at one point I was sure the tandem was going to snap in half we were so out of sync with our shifting weight. Nevertheless, we were only three seconds away from having the fastest overall time of the night. We finished in 27:33, so I wasn't too unhappy.
Which brings my cycling tales up to today. Today was a road race. I was signed up for two laps of a 27 mile course, but the Iowa Games decided it was too hot. Apparently we are under some sort of heat advisory for the next four days or so, and they shortened my race to one lap. This was my sort of course. Meaning, of course, that there are hills on it. There are two major climbs, and the last comes with three kilometers to the finish. The guys who signed up for two laps are the ones who are pretty good at cycling, so I didn't have much opportunity to do interesting things. At one point there were some people attacking and I decided to participate, but I was not nearly strong enough to get away. So I sat in for the most part (took a few pulls when things slowed down), and climbed hard. The first climb has a steep descent to it, and I am still unwilling to risk anything at high speed after crashing quite a few years ago, so I was off the back by the time the group started going up. I climbed up to the back, noticed the back was moving backward in comparison to the front, and climbed pretty hard to get up to the group that was moving the right direction. I felt pretty terrible during the climb, and I'm pretty sure I was just at my limit, but by the time we got to the top of the hill I started feeling better immediately. I noticed things were still slow, so I pulled through to get the pace back up and test my legs out a bit. Sure enough, not a lot of people were feeling as good as I was. This boded well for the finale.
I sat in for quite a while doing as little work as possible and we eventually made it to the last hill. I descended in my usual slow fashion and got a bit boxed in on the ascent. I made it up to the third wheel of the group, with two people off the front. I was thinking the two guys in front of me would give a hard chase and I would be able to attack after they made the catch. However, it quickly became evident we were not getting any closer to the two guys up the road, and with only just over 1.5 kilometers to go, my options were limited. I attacked. I looked back, and there was no response from the group. The climb took quite a bit out of the group, and I got away clean. I made it up to the two up the road with almost exactly one kilometer left, but I thought the group behind might be getting organized enough to bring us back, so I didn't grab their draft like I should have. I pulled through, and one guy attacked immediately. I had no energy left, so I watched first place disappear up the road. Still scared of the group behind, I was pretty sure the kid I was with was in a different age category. I sprinted, but he came around me and got second overall. I guess I just need to realize how much of a gap is safe, but it definitely wasn't worth getting caught by the group. An assured top-three finish was better than risking it all in a bid for first.

Trapped in Another World!

Observation:
The reason this is updated so poorly today (and hasn't been updated very recently) is that I spent the entire day today playing Magic: The Gathering. For anyone who doesn't know, this was a rather fun and, dare I say, important activity for me through high school. I haven't played since then, except for some very casual games in the dorms once or twice. It was excellent to go back. It is as addictive as ever. My observation, though, concerns what I call the world of Magic. Yes, it has a fantasy setting, but no, that's not what I'm referring to. What I'm talking about is what occurs when you walk into a shop. An instant change sweeps over you. Females no longer exist, for one thing. It is all men. Correction: it is all overweight, rather unattractive men with too much time and or money on their hands, engaging in banter and name-calling. And it is awesome. If you're prepared for the environment and can jump in and shoot the bull with the guys, you can spend (as I found out) twelve hours in this world without noticing.
And another thing. The people haven't changed. It's the same core group of guys that was there when I stopped, they all still play similarly, and the hierarchy is undisturbed. Perhaps the most amusing thing was the fact that not even the music had changed. I don't know what radio station they have coming in, but it's the same song selection to the point that, while I don't like the songs (and actively dislike many of them), I know all the lyrics. I don't even realize I know all the lyrics until I catch myself anticipating the next line. It's crazy. And for that reason, the fact that I was sucked into another world (a la Alice, but a bit more voluntarily) I don't have a full-fledged post for you today. But I had a great time. My next post will talk about some more cycling stuff and will hopefully have the creative components I don't have the time or energy to include here. Thanks so much for bearing with me.

Me:
Saturday dawned, and we packed up the tent. The plan was to hike in the Needles area of Canyonlands and maybe go to Arches if there was time. However, it turns out that Canyonlands is awkwardly huge, and we were on the wrong side of it, making it way easier to go to Arches for the day. At the entrance we bought an annual pass for the national parks, knowing we would go through enough on this trip alone to make it worth the eighty dollars. We went straight to the northern end of the park and started hiking. We hit all the major arches, and I realized that these rock formations are much less interesting the third time you see them. I think it has something to do with the fact that they are so individual that you remember each of them perfectly, making revisiting something a bit droll. And there are only so many ways you can see them. The vantage points are the same every time, and as an obvious result, the view is identical to every photo ever taken of them. So while this park was one of my favorites, it has lost a bit of its magic.
We hiked the Devil's Garden trail and the Delicate Arch trail, drove through the sights around the southern end of the park, and realized that there wasn't really anything else to do while we were there. And Rebecca had looked up a swimming hole near Moab she wanted to go to, so after tracking down some allergy medication for some odd symptoms she was experiencing, we made our way to Mill Creek. As we were pulling in, so was an ambulance. And a firetruck. And some police cars. I was unsure that this was the place to be at the moment, but we were blocked in by the emergency vehicles, so we headed up the trail.  The path ran along the creek for a couple of miles before heading into the water. It was moving pretty fast, so we crossed and headed up a left fork (as was described by the internet as the way to the swimming area). Along the way we found a deeper, slow section, and Rebecca took full advantage to combat the heat. Eventually we pressed on a bit and found the spot we were looking for. I could keep writing, but it's probably easier to show this video of Rebecca jumping in (note that she is not the first person we see plummeting from above).

Unbeknownst to me, there were many people on top of the cliffs. Not wanting to go back up amongst the crowd, Rebecca decided we could go. I, having no interest in jumping or getting wet in general, thought that sounded fine. We made it back to the car and got some ice cream from a store that appeared on my phone as Kaleidoscoops. Unfortunately, that was not the name of the establishment when we arrived, but they did have ice cream, so we got some anyway, despite the disappointment brought on by the less-awesome name. We looked at a map for a while and departed, heading for the Needles District of Canyonlands, and more specifically, a campground just outside it called Hamburger Rock. It was a pretty long drive in, but luckily it was also a pretty, long drive in. The branching canyons and sunset-lit rock formations looked nice, and we were hoping vigorously that one of the six spots advertised at the campground would be open. So eager were we to find the campground that we drove past the entrance, turning instead into the Needles Outpost campground. This turned out perfectly, as things sometimes seem to for me. You see, we had really hoped to have our first campfire, but it turns out that particular dream required some firewood. Needles Outpost had some, making us happy, but still anxious to find the campground for which we had set out.
When we came to the park entrance we knew for sure we had gone too far. We turned around and drove back the way we had come, looking at the odometer to estimate where the turn should be. Of course, the turn was labeled from the other direction. It wasn't really our fault for missing it after all, since there wasn't any sign from the direction we had originally traveled. We made the turn, and when the pavement turned to gravel, I started apologizing to my car. It was worse than the normal washboard-style backroads usually encountered out west. There were huge rocks jutting up through the road's surface, threatening to rip out the underside of my car, and the disparity in elevations caused my vehicle to pitch and roll with every section.
Having made it to the campsites, we quickly ascertained that we were the first ones there. And since it was already getting dark, it seemed like we were destined to have it all to ourselves. Which was awesome at first. The campsites are situated inside rock formations, and it was beautiful. I made the fire (much to the surprise of my companion, who seemed to have some doubts as to my ability to accomplish this feat), and we ate some hotdogs and s'mores. It was at this point I made an excellent discovery. See, the chocolate "bars" we had taken along were no longer really worthy of the term. They were packets of liquid. After opening one and attempting to scoop the chocolate onto the mushy mass (and having it run all over everything in the process), I realized they could just be treated as giant condiment packets. I ripped the corner open and squeezed. Dare I say genius? It worked brilliantly, and we enjoyed quite a few delectable delights.

Then the fact that we were alone in the middle of nowhere set in. It didn't matter too much obviously, but I couldn't help having it run through my mind that were we to be beset by something (a bear? I don't know), we would have no help. If it's true there is safety in numbers, we were not very safe. So I slept a bit nervously. One idea I had was keeping the car key readily accessible so I could hit the alarm button in an attempt to scare away anything that seemed out of place. Of course, nothing like that happened the entire trip, but it reassured me to have a contingency plan (albeit an untested, perhaps ineffective one).

Vacation begins with poetry edits and religious surprises

Poem:
See exercise. Convenient, right?

Observation:
One of the most surprising moments of my life occurred when I was talking to my mom about religion. I was talking about my atheism, and she said something that caught me so off guard all I could do was let out a puff of air somewhere between a laugh and a cough. She said not believing in God was like taking the easy way out. And looking at it with some degree of separation, I can see where that idea comes from. If faith is defined as believing in something without absolute proof, it probably does seem like having faith is a challenge. According to some philosophers, the only thing that makes faith worth having at all is the fact that it is constantly challenged and returned to (Kierkegaard). So not believing would be seen as giving up the challenge, or taking the easy road. Now let me explain why I chuffed out the air I did.
I am terrified of dying. As an atheist, there is no reassurance available to me. I look at my life, realize it's going to end all too soon (yeah, I'm in my twenties; it's still too soon), and instead of thinking "Hey, things are going to be awesome in the afterlife," I get to think "Well, I guess that's going to suck." And the best part is, it's indescribable just how much it's going to suck. Because it's not like there's anything to which it can compare. It's just an end. A really depressing blackness (I guess? It's probably not blackness, since I won't exist to perceive blackness) that concludes my being. So I looked back at my mom and said "What!? I wish I believed in God. You know how much better I would feel 'knowing' this wasn't the only thing there was to being me?" I won't go into the reasons I have for my atheism. They're pretty basic, and yet so convincing I am completely confused by people with faith. But at the same time, I am envious. Oh my am I envious. To be reassured, to actually fall asleep at night, to not randomly realize in the middle of a perfectly normal activity that my life is inexorably proceeding to termination. Those are things to be envious of. So when my mom said I was taking the easy way out, I chuffed. I lost control of my breathing momentarily because I had never even considered that someone might think of it that way. Because trust me, it's not easy from where I'm sitting.

Exercise:
Pick a poem, story, or blog post that you’ve written. Go through and get rid of words and phrases that aren’t absolutely necessary. Then go through it again, reconnecting everything and rearranging the words that remain so they are compelling. See how short you’re willing to go.

Original:

Undistracted

The stillness vibrates
Soundless air too empty
To remain still.
The thunder of eyelashes
Colliding in blackness
Echoes in my empty mind
As dim lights gleam
Off metal scraps
And mentality alternates
Between throbbing foreground
And backgrounded thoughts.

My heart announces itself
In my eardrums
Steadily increasing its pace
As reality shrinks in,
Glinting metal melding into
White walls, replacing pictures
With shadowed shapes

Unbearable
Headphones convey life's soundtrack
Drowning out my mortal heart
With unsteady beats of bass
Intangibility replaces
Real walls and shining splinters
Sheltering my mind
From the void of closed eyes.

Words removed:

Undistracted

Stillness vibrates
Soundless air empty
remain still
thunder eyelashes
Colliding in blackness
echo my empty mind.
Dim lights gleam
Off metal scraps
And alternates
throbbing foreground
backgrounded thoughts.

My heart announces
my eardrums
increasing pace
As reality shrinks,
Glinting metal melding
White walls
Unbearable
Headphones life's soundtrack
Drowning my heart
With unsteady bass
Intangibility replaces
Real walls shining splinters
Sheltering my mind
From the void of closed eyes.

Revised version (trimmed more):

Empty air vibrates
soundless waves.
Thunderous eyelashes
collide in blackness.
Dim light gleams
off metal scraps.
Alternate:
throbbing foreground,
backgrounded thoughts.

Heart in eardrums
faster
as reality shrinks
to glinting metal,
white walls,
unbearable.

Headphones:
life's soundtrack
drowning my heart
in unsteady bass,
both thumping.
Walls and shining splinters
shelter my mind
from the void of closed eyes.

Me:
Now that I have finished talking about the second half of the trip I took, I suppose it's time to hit upon some of the other things we did on our vacation. And yes, this means I don't have anything better to talk about. My life is so uninteresting that I have to relive my vacation from weeks ago rather than try to come up with something worthwhile from my current mundane existence. (All I'm doing is biking, eating, sleeping, and occasionally working.) Anyway, I guess I'll go all the way back to the beginning. We left on a Friday morning to drive and begin seeing things Saturday. We had been hoping to leave Thursday night and maybe be able to see something Friday, but I had a time trial to ride (and get destroyed at by my teammate Kevin, who is crazy fast even without aero equipment), so we delayed a bit. And then Rebecca slept straight through her alarm, so we delayed a bit more (no big deal, it was just funny to surprise her in the morning with an "I'm outside, you ready?" and hear a very sleepy "Uh?" in response). So then we drove. And that's about that until we got to Denver, at which point Rebecca found mountains. Now, I've been around a lot of mountains, and I guess their effect has worn off somewhat, but Rebecca's camera made an immediate appearance. To be honest, I didn't know just how many pictures she had taken until we got back. It turns out that for every time I saw her take a picture (which was plenty), she had actually snuck in like five more. The driving was fun, though, and it was great to see her so excited.
Then we saw something unexpected: there were bikes on the side of the road. On a bike path near the road, it appeared. We saw them a couple more times, and, intrigued, we stopped in Vail just down the road and backtracked to find where they were coming from with some assistance from my iPhone. It turns out there is a trail leading up the mountain pass from Vail, and that it is incredibly easy to find from the highway. There was a parking area next to the road, so I broke out the bike I had taken along and started off (albeit with no water). Just up the road a barricade was across preventing cars from going any further. This was awesome! I had the entire road to myself, and then it turned off onto a bike path which was immediately scenic. Here is a video I took (I hope):

I made it to the top (or where I saw the bikes in the first place, perhaps not the top of the trail), and stopped to enjoy both the view and the bathrooms I found conveniently placed there. And snapped this photo:

It had taken me the better part of an hour to make my way slowly to the point I considered the top. It took about fifteen minutes to get back down. It was pretty fun coasting along, but when I did need to pedal after about ten minutes of coasting, my legs protested slightly. Apparently they had gotten too used to the good life and thought everywhere should be downhill from everywhere else. I can't say I disagree. That would be neat.
I rejoined Rebecca, who had hiked up a convenient trail while I was riding, and we resumed driving, pulling into a campground near Canyonlands National Park late that night. We set up the tent and went to sleep, ready to begin our vacation in earnest the next day.

In conclusion: Ants are losers

Beneath Us

The firewood swarms solid
fire-red with ants drawn to dead
fish heads on spines pitched
into the pit, heads on pikes
to warn others: Beware
of bait. An endless swarm
of passers-by heed no warning,
for there is safety in numbers,
and if that's true
they are safe everywhere
from everything.

We are walking on their nest
building on their homes
and stepping on their children
as they march single file
(in so many files)
which is lucky
for if they marched en masse
we'd be swept away
the ground alive
and carrying us down
into the pit
our skulls on our spines.

Poem:
Ants are creepy. There are way too many ants. So creepy.

Observation:
Iowa is flat. Yup, this is another observation based on a bike race. Luckily, most of the time Iowa is windy, which adds some resistance and something to work with during a race. Unfortunately, neither hills nor wind were present on the course I rode yesterday, which meant it was really boring. I had resigned myself to a sprint finish, something I haven't ever been eager to do, and so something I have never really done before. Surprisingly enough, I wound up in perfect position during the run-in to the finish line, and then I had the great idea of botching the whole thing up. I swung out of the draft to come around the guy in front of me, looked up and realized I had way further to the finish than I thought. Exactly as this was happening the rest of the field opened the spring, and all I had time for was to think "Darn" as they all came by me. And that was that. Forty-something miles of racing and nothing to show for it but a ruined sprint.

Exercise:
Take an Aesop's fable--- for example, "The Tortoise and the Hare" ; "The Ant and Grasshopper"; "Frogs Desiring a King"--- and change the animals and/or the story and/or the moral at the end.

The hare crested the hill only to see the tortoise celebrating his victory. "Curse that nap," he muttered to himself. It was the upset of the century, and the other animals would never let him live it down. The bear and the monkey tossed the tortoise into the air in a happy display of jubilation. He soared practically into the branches of a nearby tree (the one to which the finish line banner had been tied) before plummeting back to earth. The experience was exhilarating, and the tortoise, arms raised in celebration shouted "Again! Again!" The hare faded into the background, anxious to avoid attention.
Now, most people would say the moral of the story has something to do with not wasting talent, or that the hare did something wrong by taking that nap. But think about the tortoise for a second. He had flown. He had experienced soaring through the trees, the wind rushing under his shell, and the weightless feeling of being unburdened. The shell didn't weigh him down. And the speed. The entire race he had moved slower than half the speed with which he had been tossed into the air. To see what he had been missing out on, what the hare experienced every day? It was torture from the moment they set him down. The tortoise couldn't return to his life of mediocrity. Back to his crawling movement, hauling his shell around at a pace slightly faster than the grass grew underfoot. Sure, the hare was embarrassed temporarily. He couldn't look his friends in the eye for a while, but the tortoise went the whole rest of his life knowing the peak had passed. So perhaps the moral of the story is that it's better to lose and know you could have won than to won and know you never will again.

Me:
On the trip to Sand Dunes we were thinking about stopping somewhere a bit further away from the park and taking some time to roast marshmallow. Normally that would be plural. You know, roasting marshmallowS. But after a week in a car at well over a hundred degrees, the term was definitely singular. What we had at our disposal was a plastic bag with a single, poofy mass that had conformed to the triangular corner in which it was stored. The stickiness was unbelievable, but we were determined to roast it or perish in the attempt. Unfortunately, we were in that unfortunate situation where the only campgrounds we looked at were priced inconveniently, especially given their lack of anything very interesting around. So we continued on, thinking that if we were going to pay twenty bucks to pitch a tent, we might as well do it right next to the park. En route, Rebecca used my phone and managed to locate an almost-unknown campground that had opened earlier that year right outside the park. In case anyone finds themselves in the area and wanting to drive a ways on a gravel road, it is located up the road to Zapata Falls. The best part was that it had no signs indicating its presence, so there were plenty of spots available. Or maybe the best part was that it was still so newly-opened that it was free. Or that it was so newly-opened that the bathrooms were clean. In any case, it was a great find.
We woke up and I wanted to make a quick go of it out to the dunes, since once the sand heats up things become a bit less enjoyable, especially if you want to walk barefoot. The thing about Sand Dunes is: once you've seen it, you pretty much get it. Yeah, it's impressive, and you should definitely hike up to the top of one of the bigger dunes (which is what we did), but upon looking at it for a while, all that's really left is to head back down to the car. Which is awesome. The trek up is strenuous, an exercise in persistence, as every step is met with a cascade of sand carrying you back toward the ground. The trek down is, well, not a trek. It's just plain fun. There is no unsure footing, so you can run as fast as you want. In fact, your feet sink in and stabilize you as you go. Balance is a bit tricky, but you can fly once you get used to it. Of course, if you're as enthusiastic as Rebecca, you get going a little too fast and the only effective method of stopping is to fall over. So it's kind of like me trying to ski. A long ride up, a short ride down, and you fall over and get snow (sand) inside of everything.
And that was about it. We headed back from there, drove late (saw some fireworks during the drive), and got back around four in the morning.