BoldUlysses.com

I am so ridiculously tired. The game’s on right now. If we could block out and get an offensive rebound things would look better–but I’m not complaining at this point. Stephen is loud. Really, really loud. Too loud.

I drove to Winston-Salem this afternoon to talk to an admissions counselor and firm up school plans for the fall. It’s about an hour and a half drive one way, and it’s the first long drive the Audi’s successfully completed. And while I love that car, the wind noise on the highway is well-nigh unbearable after 45 minutes or so… Didn’t help that my 2-month-old, $250 headunit decided to stop playing cds about halfway in to the trip out there, either. The culmination of all this made for a trip that was much more tiring than it should have been. Thank goodness I’ve gotten a decent amount of sleep the past two nights, otherwise I’d have been really sketchy out there on the road.

I shouldn’t complain too much, though–it was a good trip. I have hard numbers for budgeting and hard dates to schedule around. I drove out to the aviation complex, too, about half an hour down I40. They’re in the process of building a new, very large hangar near the airstrip, one that can accommodate five small aircraft and that they’ll use for the mechanical training part of the curriculum. It’s a really nice facility.

More later. There’s no way to tune out Stephen’s exclamations, and they’re just mentally jarring as I try to type.

I now present you with a Buddy Hackett quote:

“Eat that! That’s good. That’s pressed kelp. It aereates your liver.”

1. A side effect of reading Flanagan’s U2 bio, especially when he delves into descriptions of the Zooropa tour, is that it makes me really really want to actually see the shows. It’s similar to how his account of the songwriting process induces me to pop in an album and listen to a particular song again to see if I can discern all the musical and lyrical touches whose addition is described in the book. I’ll make a trip to Borders or B&N tonight to see what I can find in the way of tour DVDs.

2. What, if anything, goes through your mind during physical exercise? My mind wanders a lot of the time and I think about schedules and relationships and goals and such, but a focus on some aspect of my exertion is always present, more prominently so when I’m really pushing myself (running up a hill or trying to beat a PR or something). I try to focus on the cadence of my breathing, and sometimes near the end will repeat phrases to myself, a bit mantra-like, to promote the right frame of mind, like, “The body is the instrument of the mind,” or, “The will supercedes the emotions.” Sounds a bit Zen-like, but it works. I think it helps me, in my mind and body, divide the feeling of exertion from the goal that I’m focused on accomplishing–it helps me dwell less on how I feel than what I’ve set out to do, and it has the added benefit of improving my form as well.

3. Do you ever have a day when you feel totally, utterly incompetent? Doesn’t matter whether or not the feeling is based in reality. I’m feeling a bit of it today. Seems like I put out one fire just in time for another to flare up.

4. Last U2 bit, promise. Reason #193 why the band has the best album art known to man: On All That You Can’t Leave Behind, the photography and design either depict or suggest an airport, traveling, voyaging physically or temporally, being propelled forward somehow–lots of interrelated themes. And the beginning of “Walk On” is the most convincing musical representation I’ve ever heard of what it feels like to leave the ground in an airplane. Of course the sensation provokes different emotions depending on your response to flight in general, but for me the song communicates perfectly the exhilaration of the experience–barreling down the runway, the nose slowly rotating skyward, and then that first complete lurch into the air, everything smoothing out, and the ground dropping away… I could listen those first 30 seconds over and over and not get tired of it. And the album art captures something of this as well, strengthening, underlining that theme in the song and on the album. So great.

Preach it, Tom:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/opinion/27friedman.html

With a couple of reservations, I’m totally on board with that. First off, the moniker “Geo-Green” isn’t going to appeal to anyone except Europeans and Nader supporters. Something a bit more broad would be in order, like “New Fuel” or “Smart Policy.” (haha)

And secondly, I’m not entirely sold on his fixed-at-$4/gallon gas price hike. Sure, it will change the habits of those of us buying new cars, but what about those of us who can’t afford a new car or simply don’t want the financial ball-and-chain of car payments over a half-decade or so? It’s an area where applying our efforts toward developing a renewable, cleaner alternative to gasoline (one that would work in existing engines) starts to make a lot of sense. Heck, we did it with air conditionning, a staple of American life, when we switched from R12 to R134 in the early ’90s. Sure, the 134 doesn’t cool quite as effectively, but it’s environmentally-friendly, a recharge is dirt cheap at your corner auto parts store, and heck, it cools. Those were the goals. So the path for technological transition has already been blazed, many times over. A/C is just one example. Thinking of ways to apply government pressure toward the end of developing a new fuel is a bit more problematic, though–nothing immediately comes to mind except the administration simply acknowledging the issue and the goal, starting dialogues, and leading by example, ideas the editorial put forth.

We shall see.

English, as a language, should be dragged out into the town square and summarily shot.

Why?

No *official* second person plural.

I should *not* have to choose between “y’all” and “you guys.”

Nope. Shouldn’t have to.

That is all.

Don’t believe what you hear / don’t believe what you see

It’s beautiful outside today, even if it’s kind of a wild beauty. The pressure gradient over us is still fairly steep, and the frequent wind gusts that blow by the window next to me testify to it. Still, driving to lunch today, it certainly felt like this kind of a day in spite of the patchy, rent clouds overhead.

* * * * * *

My dad’s a bit in the marital doghouse after some comments he made over Sunday lunch. We all convened at my grandmother’s house in Raleigh for an Easter lunch and basketball game viewing/nap session. Lunch was wonderful (my grandmother mercifully refrained from cooking her infamous rice), and we were about halfway through the meal when our hostess mentioned how my uncle Richard, presently an almost-retired English professor at FSU, had been offered a new job. My dad immediately quipped, “A used car salesman?” My grandmother either chose to ignore the comment or simply didn’t hear it (a likely possibility since she’s deaf in one ear), but my mom was so upset that she left the room.

It’s a complicated situation. My dad’s relationship to his in-laws isn’t the most chummy, for the most part on account of completely opposite personalities (they’re very academic and somewhat aloof; my dad likes to watch football and grill out, that sort of thing), but they’ve always been cordial and there’s never really been anything in the air, at least not that I could detect. My dad’s certainly aware of the divergence of personalities, and his approach to the matter is to poke fun at it in sort of a self-deprecating way. Occasionally though, especially after a few glasses of wine at the tail end of a big meal, he’ll say things without thinking them completely through, as was the case yesterday.

It’s been going on for a while now, but has just recently come to a head between my mom and him. I think more than anything she feels like he doesn’t respect her family, at least not in a diplomatic way that would impress respect on my brothers and I (and any other company that happens to be present). But Paul and David and I are certainly familiar enough with my dad’s occasional attitude to circumvent its influence in our thinking, and we have a great deal of respect and regard for our extended family, and it’s been that way for years. I remember approaching my dad in my mid-teen years with a concern that he wasn’t communicating respect for my grandmother in his conversation, and I’m sure he took it to heart, but the process of change I think can be pretty long, especially when it’s not an issue on the marital front burner, as it is now.

Of course I just rolled with the comment (and a few others that came up in quick succession before my dad realized what he was doing), but later on last night he called me, obviously in the aftermath of a conversation with my mom, and asked me what else he had said, just wanting to talk about it, I think. It felt a little weird, since my dad’s has never really made an effort to confide in me (a good thing, I think), mostly because our personalities are quite different and you confide in people who you feel will understand you best, but I listened and told him what I thought about the situation. It’s hard to know how to approach that kind of conversation since he never came to me for advice or with encouragement when I was much younger, but it means a lot to me that he does now. I’ll always say that my dad’s effort to alter his relationships with his sons as they grew older (less “father,” more “friend”) is one of his best qualities.

* * * * * *

I had Arby’s for lunch today. No, not the quasi-healthy “market fresh” sandwiches, but a big, honkin’ 3/4 pound of thinly-sliced roast beef called the “Big Montana.” That hit the spot. I’ve had a persistent minor headache over the course of the past week, and the last time it happened I recall my nutrition during the previous week had been a little spotty, albeit healthy, and indulging in a big, fatty fast food meal for the first time in weeks solved the problem.

Same thing today. Boy I feel great again.

I sat in the car after I got back to the apartment complex earlier. OtR’s “Poughkeepsie” had just started playing on the stereo, and I sat there in silence and listened to it all the way through. My eyes scanned the contents of the car in the dark, which I usually keep fairly clean, but was a bit cluttered tonight. The factory repair manual sat in the back seat, pages dogeared and greasy from use. Underworld’s Pearl’s Girl EP topped a stack of cds in a cardboard box on the passenger seat. And my toboggan perched on the front edge of the seat next to the little wicker basket filled with candy, my mom’s Easter gift. I fingered the car keys in my palm, running my index finger and thumb along the dull, serrated edges of the metal. The stop-start cadence of the song continued, just a guitar and her voice, singing words whose tone reached me more readily than their literal meaning.

It’s quiet in the apartment. I have a bad case of the Sunday nights. The heat, which we had turned off last week in the midst of the stellar weather, is back on again, though it only comes on for a few minutes at a time, very infrequently.

I feel like going for a nice long run. Hitting the blacktop is the ticket.

I’ll be gone in just a few short months, not too far away but far enough. I’m more than ready.

1. Last night the air was so mild and cool I opened the window and turned on the ceiling fan. It was perfect.

2. I watched Love Actually for the first time earlier. Cute film. Shame I’m not British and it’s not Christmastime.

3. I want this car.

4. I’ve been getting really hungry lately around 12:30-1 a.m. This is a little weird.

5. Odd dreams last night. I went to bed around 1:30 (I was up reading) and woke up momentarily around 2:15 or so, by which time I had so many and they had been so vivid that I was going to record them, but…a writing instrument was nowhere to be found around the bed, and getting up would have frittered away the dreams just through the simple mental act of searching for something with which to write. A pen is now permanently stationed on my nightstand.

6. I want tennis.

7. I cleaned and organized my entire garage earlier. It looks so good I want to take a picture of it. More than any area in the apartment, the garage feels like “my domain.” Cleaning and organizing was very satisfying.

8. Wikipedia is a huge time waster/the best site on the internet.

9. I want France.

1. I keep wanting to write a poem. A long one. Ideas keep bouncing around in my mind about something a little experimental, with ambiguous distinctions between author and subject, story present and reader present, depth and surface. Something John Ashbery-ish. He is the master.

2. This morning was excellent in a way I’ve not had in a long time. I actually caught up with my billing earlier than the end of the month for once, did a little productivity review to see how productive I have to be for the rest of the month in order to meet my goal, and plowed through a good half-inch covering of papers on my desk. Sometimes it feels better to get organized than it does to accomplish actual design work.

3. I think I’m going to open an IRA in order to save myself about $600 in owed taxes. I’ve been wanting to invest money for a while now, and I think this will be a good start.

4. Sometimes I think about women that I’ve been attracted to, and how, at least initially, my level of comfortableness in approaching them has always seemed to be inversely proportional to their level of attractiveness to me. In other words, I’ll feel more awkward around a more attractive woman; I’ll have a harder time relaxing and being myself. It’s an instinctive thing; I try to talk myself out of it but it never (or rarely) works. I always thought it was kind of a function of my own personality, because I’d observe other guys who seemed to be buoyed, energized, more themselves the more unknown the social situation got. Thing is, though, I always thought about their social behavior in general, blanket situations (mixed company events like parties and the like) without thinking specifically of instances like interacting with a woman they found attractive. I have a hunch that feeling awkward and nervous around someone to whom you’re attracted is a much more universal event than my intuition surmised. But we do that, though–we isolate ourselves and convince ourselves that we’re the only ones who ever feel this way. Ha–if romantic comedies are any indication, the otherwise-suave-guy-making-an-ass-of-himself-around-attractive-girl phenomenon is ubiquitous. And we all know movies are the reflection of real life.

I want out. Out. OUT.

Sitting here at the Gazette…normally a respite from the standard office stuff…waiting for the Quark license server to decide to behave and let me access the program I use to do about 90% of my work…tired because I’m actually getting up and to work ON TIME these days…eating a “Milky Way Caramel” which is quite good… …and I just want out.

I’ve tried to write this paragraph about four times now. It doesn’t work.

My bracket is rocking out. I’m 26-6 so far… Called the Syracuse loss, the UAB victory, and the NCSU win (go Pack!). This is going well–might actually win that $2.50 office pool (it was a 50 cent buy-in). That’ll buy…let’s see…Not much. A Newcastle? :)

I need sleep, badly. I had a good lunch–a chicken burrito from Carrburritos with a side of all-flour chips and a glass of water, so I was riding the calorie wave right after lunch. But then I had to drink a Coke around 2:30, right as the food energy was done digesting, so the drop-offs from the caffeine high and from lunch happened simultaneously and around 3 I just hit a brick wall. One minute I’m cranking, next minute I can’t keep my eyes open. Had to get up and make a couple of loops ’round the building just to be able to finish out the day.

I decided it was going to be polar opposite movie weekend. I rented Schindler’s List and Eurotrip. I rented the first because I’ve never seen it, and the second for the same reason, plus a few other reasons like the fact that I meant to watch it before we left last summer, but never did, and because I find Michelle Trachtenberg quite attractive, if much too young for me. Ah well. The movie was dumb and gratutious and pretty offensive in bits if you’re European, but definitely amusing in parts, and it was fun. The heavy film’s up for an evening viewing tomorrow.

It’s drizzly out. And freezing cold. It’s the kind of cold that doesn’t hit you with a blast as soon as you step outside, but that you feel deep down inside after a few minutes sitting in the car, waiting for it to warm up. Fortunately even on the #2 fan speed the Audi’s interior heats up almost instantly once the engine’s up to temp.

* * * * * *

I watched a mini-documentary piece on VH1 while eating dinner. It was on the evolution of rap and hip-hop, and specifically focused on gangsta rap and its heyday in the early/mid ’90s. I watched about an hour of it.

That kind of thing is very interesting to me. Growing up homeschooled in a white, Christian, suburban home, I had absolutely no point of contact with anything in that scene or any of the emotions that fueled that subculture (at least not their flavor of it). When gangsta rap was topping the charts I was listening to Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman, not terribly bad music in its own particular idiom, but there was so much more out there that I would have sought out if I had only had the means. It wasn’t for lack of curiosity–I’d always been fairly musically progressive and investigative (I introduced my family and friends to a lot of the music they now listen to regularly, just through searching it out and keeping my ears open for something good–which I still do, and I know most of you do), but if I had brought home a copy of The Chronic my parents would have been beside themselves.

But more than that, at that point in my life I just didn’t really want to listen to it. I think we choose music that we can relate to, and I couldn’t relate to any of the experiences they described in gangsta rap, not even the feelings–angst, aggression, thug life, etc…and the boasting that made up much of the music just sounded silly to me–humility was something I thought was pretty instinctive for most folks. There were elements I did like–I was attracted to the rhythms of it (I’ve always liked complex rhythms in my music after growing up in a synthetic, rhythm-dominated musical culture, i.e. Europe), but that wasn’t enough to overcome my hesitations at the time.

It’s still so foreign to me, but it’s mesmerizing for that very reason. I love finding the artistry and the technique and the skill in something I previously thought was completely commercial and without any artistic merit. To read about groups like Public Enemy or Dre or the Fugees or late-’90s OutKast pushing the envelope in their own particular sphere of the music world is fascinating. I’ve always been attracted to creativity, in whatever form it takes. Even as far back as ’95 and ’96 I’d stay up late most Saturday nights and watch Showtime at the Apollo after SNL… Amateur Night was ten times more cringe-inducing to watch than any episode of American Idol, and the energy of the live acts kept my eyes glued to the screen. I used to discuss the show the following week with some of the younger black cashiers at the supermarket where I worked as a bagger, and they were blown away that probably the whitest kid they knew would watch the Apollo. Not that it gave me any “cred” or anything, but it was a conversation piece. I was and always will be an outsider looking in, but I’m okay with that. Nothin’ but love, y’all :)

yep.

I’m doing marginally better today. Had lunch at Carrburrito’s with David and Mihali, which was nice. It’s been a while since I’ve had some Actual Human Contact™ (aside from immediate family members yesterday). I need to get out of my own head more often.

In the interest of a fair and balanced journal (like the Fox News Journal!), how about a cursory list of things that it’s good for women to know how to do? I haven’t pondered this yet, at least not in an objective sense–I’ve always thought any list that I would try to compile would end up bearing too close a resemblance to a run-down of attributes I look for in a girl (as far as a relationship possibility). Bit of a conflict of interest there. But here goes, as universal as I can think of. Most girls should be able to:

– Drive a stickshift
– Climb a tree
– Play chess
– Carry a tune

I don’t have that many. I’ve been sitting here for five minutes trying to think of another that would fit the paradigm for inclusion. It’s considerably harder to think of them than for the previous list. Hmm. The mental mechanism I use to come up with these is simply to pose myself the question, “How would I complete this sentence for the gender group in question: ‘You never know when you’ll have to…'” Thinking about it in that manner tends to rule out the mundane, run-of-the-mill essentials (like being able to decorate an apartment or cook a square meal), focusing instead on skills that are just nice to have in one’s “tool belt” of capabilities, for occasional, spontaneous situations.

With that in mind, anything else I should add?

* * * * * *

Aaron and I used to always complain to one another that there seemed to be a double-standard between men and women in terms of conversational maintenance–with the women with whom we were acquainted at least. We would compare notes on how we always seemed to be the ones starting and maintaining the conversation, while the girl just responded in kind and didn’t fire back many (or any) questions our way. I think we both got somewhat frustrated that with the majority of girls we knew, if we didn’t spur the conversation along with another question or observation, all talk would eventually cease. I remember trying “experiments” a couple of times where I would just stop cold after I’d received a response to the second or third question (with a polite nod or two to smoothly taper off the discourse), and invariably we’d just stand around silently for two, three, four, five minutes until I fired another question her way.

This was high school, mind you, matters have somewhat improved, and I certainly don’t consider myself the world’s greatest conversationalist (if anything I feel worse off now than I did then, paradoxically). But I remember it was something Aaron and I would talk about and shake our collective heads over in mild frustration.

I did my taxes last night. I thought I’d come out better than last year, when my employer screwed up my withholding and I ended up having to pay $300 instead of getting a refund like normal people.

Well. They did it again. Somehow my withholding was magically changed to a “3” from a “0” in between my new (permanent) employee orientation in February and now. So I owe Uncle Sam $1400.

I was so mad last night I couldn’t see straight. It wasn’t just that…but that was the culmination of a long line of financial fiascoes that have been assailing me. I can’t remember having been that angry in a long time. At a lot of things–myself, the university, God… It wasn’t good. At all.

Moral of the story: Make absolutely sure you’re having enough withheld so you’ll actually get a refund when tax season rolls around again.

I am so discouraged right now. For a million different reasons.

I love running. I love that the only equipment I need is a good pair of running shoes and a stretch of road or a path or trail. I love the variety of people I see at races–older folks, teenagers, people of just about every body shape and size. I love the good tiredness just after a race or a quality run. I love my frame of mind during a run–things are somehow simpler, clearer–it’s hard to explain. And I love the absolute effortlessness that kicks in a couple of miles into a good run when my muscles and cardiovascular system are up to speed and I’m just gliding along. It’s great. I can’t see myself ever giving it up, even if I get ridiculously busy or stressed or swamped for weeks or months at a time. It’s something I’ll always make time for.

I’ve been haphazardly compiling, in my mind, a list of things that it’s good for every guy to know how to do. I rule out stuff I consider too obvious or understood (like knowing how to cook a decent meal or drive a stickshift or go clothes shopping–I mean, come on). These are just skills that I feel are good to invest in, in the interest of being a more “complete” individual. Most guys should be able to:

– Tie a bow tie
– Grill out
– Change their own oil
– Ride a motorcycle
– Pick their way through a conversation about sports
– Give a toast on the spur of the moment
– Run at least a mile uninterrupted
– Defend their political views
– Order a decent wine
– Give CPR
– Sew on a button

That’s all I have so far. I can’t do all of those. I can do most, and certainly would like to be able to do them all. The list is always in flux too… Something to shoot for.

I cannot get my hands warm today. Even after watching the game on television inside and eating a bowl of soup they’re still cold. The warm water on the hands trick is next on the list.

Growing up I never understood why marriage is so hard. My dad always impressed upon me the seriousness of the institution, how it wasn’t something to be undertaken lightly, and so on and so forth, and would always include a stanza in his speech about how “hard” marriage was, how he and my mom really had to “work” at it. I remember as a teenager casually telling him that marriage really didn’t seem all that hard–to me at that time it just seemed like two people living together all the time working through various relationship issues and difficulties, none of which really seemed all that overwhelming, at least not from what I’d seen. I never had anybody with whom I really didn’t get along, at least nobody I couldn’t avoid, so I didn’t have a prototypical situation in mind. He was borderline indignant and emphatically reiterated his position that marriage really was hard. He obviously didn’t think I took the matter seriously enough at the age of 14 or 15. I never did get a specific example from him about what made marriage so difficult. I don’t know why I didn’t press the issue–I think I just assumed that those were private matters between he and my mom.

And to this day it’s still somewhat of a mystery. I’ve been through relationships and there were always issues to work through, misunderstandings and miscommunications and snubs and forgiveness and all of that, but nothing that’s really lined up with my mental conception of what my dad meant when he used the word “hard.” He would use that word in other contexts like physical exertion and religious persecution and such like–things that it was easier for my mind to visualize as “hard,” and that’s the sense of the word that I latched on to.

* * * * * *

I love the movie The English Patient, the books Great Expectations and The Grapes of Wrath. I don’t really know why I love these things. They’re about heartbreak, hardship, unrequited love, and have nuances of storytelling that have no connection with anything I’ve ever experienced. Granted, I’ve certainly been through some degree of those things, but I respond to some films and books in such a way that I only experience with others if they consciously mine some vivid part of my past.

It leaves me wondering whether there are events that we experience in our past that blend together with other events to create our present personality, but lose their identity as individual events in the process, severing their connection to the present. It’s like mixing together yellow and blue to create green. The original colors lose their identity in the process of forming the green, and the green may not obviously have a bluish or yellowish tint, nothing that would betray its origins. Or visualize a ship on the ocean that puts a dinghy to sea. If you lost all memory of the dinghy setting out from the larger ship you’d know, perhaps by its insignia or livery or some such, that it had a connection to the ship, but the precise nature of that connection may not have been immediately obvious.

I feel the same way about certain experiences, books, movies, and music. I’m sure they connected to my personality at some point in the past and influenced it, which is why I respond to them so strongly, but I can’t trace it on the top level of my mind. Perhaps I felt more deeply when I was younger, when I first read those books and watched those films, and the color of unrequited love washed over me day and night–emotions whose memory has since ebbed away, but lives on underneath to burst through in untraceable upwellings when I watch scenes from a movie or read pages out of a book. Who knows.

It sounded more deep when thinking about it during my run last night. Oh well.

Some t-shirt designs I’ve been working on for the youth conference in June. The name of the annual event is “War Cry” (long story) and the theme this year is “Invasion.”

(just in case, all designs are © 2005 Matt Suffern)

So far I’m striking out with the people who review these things… I just haven’t yet put together The One that makes their collective heart go pitter-pat. Some design direction would be nice too, but all I’m getting is, “We kind of like that one…” and, “That’s one not so much,” and so on and so forth. I guess I shouldn’t complain too much–it’s really not that bad. I just wish they’d take a poll of the kids as far as the designs–I try to design stuff that they’d actually want to wear after the conference is over… Meanwhile, some on the review committee wants me to translate this (not my design) to a shirt. It’s a nice design and all, but some just won’t work on a shirt. A strong, simple motif is key. Subtle shadings and nuances = bad. We’ll see where this goes.

[/mini-rant]

The day’s been pretty good so far, actually :)

How many of you know how much is in your checking account at any given time? How many of you know how much you spend in a typical week on necessities? How many of you actually budget?

Why is it that when I finally decide to get this part of my life under control and do all three that my checking account implodes? I’m not overdrawing…but we’ve been in the single digits at least twice in the past couple of weeks.

It’s a good thing I don’t have any debt of any kind otherwise I think I’d really be up a creek. I’ve been keeping meticulous track of what I spend but that never seems to line up with the balance I can view online, mainly because of the varied delays between when I pay for things and when it shows on my account. I think I’m going to have to just make deposits and pay cash for everything for at least a couple of weeks so my checking account can settle down and I can get a handle on a concrete amount. It’d be a good way to weed out extraneous withdrawals being made too–it’ll be easier to see a transaction I don’t recognize and call the bank and inquire about it. I think that’s the right place to start.

* * * * * *

car rambling

I don’t want to just survive. I want to thrive.

My best thoughts always come to me while I’m running… There’s something about exercise to occupy enough of my mind to give space for the really essential thoughts to come to the forefront to be dwelled upon.

Moving to Winston-Salem is really going to be the boot camp of my life. There are so many things I could do, want to do, will do. It’s safe to say that most of my days will be occupied with school, but afterwards, I want to do so many thing to use my God-given abilities, and to stretch those I already employ. I want to publish that children’s book I’ve been doing sketches for and start my own graphic/web design small business/consulting service, among other things. I certainly have the experience and the portfolio pieces to present myself well. I’ll probably have another third-shift job too–who knows where.

The common thread that ties all these together is that I know I’ll have success in them. It’s not just some idle pondering and meek wondering, “Ooh, I hope that would work out if I tried it…” No–it’s a certain knowledge that I’ll have success in that which I need to survive. I’ll be provided for, and more–I’ll thrive.

And this movie is going to rock. Just finished the book–absolutely brilliant stuff.

Even in North Carolina it’s rare to get two days more diametrically opposed than these two. Yesterday was the most beautiful day imaginable–mild, temperate, sunny, perfect for a picnic or a nap in the grass, possibly both. This morning–sheets of rain, dark clouds, hail, frigid blasts of wind… I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: This state’s weather patterns are on crack.

The stress this morning has abated somewhat after a fanatically productive first hour in the office, knocking out items on the to-do list left and right. Still hasn’t subsided completely, but it’s only 10:30–I have the rest of the day to button down.

Nothing interesting this morning, folks, even by my oh-so-lofty standards (note: sarcasm). Actually there are some things–stay tuned for a filtered entry later.

Faraway, so close
Up with the static and the radio
With satelite television
You can go anywhere
Miami, New Orleans
London, Belfast and Berlin…

I love this album. Love. Favorite U2 period, no question (1990-1997).

Bono’s lyricism has always been interesting to me. Ever notice how he makes the ends of the sentences rhyme, but in between he’ll pack as many words as possible? I never noticed that until I heard Johnny Cash sing his lyrics in “The Wanderer.” Having someone with their own distinctive vocal style sing Bono’s lyrics really makes their quirks and ideosyncrasies stand out.

Okay folks, I just went with friends to see this movie. One word: badass. Some of the best martial arts I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some. The Thai-style fighting employed in this movie makes the Japanese and Chinese forms just seem like they’re lightly slapping one another in comparison. The brutality of it is definitely something to see. Not that that’s something to revel in, but it certainly gives the film a more powerful physicality than its Japanese and Chinese counterparts. Highly recommended.

I am seriously cheesed off. It’s all an evil conspiracy (is there any other kind?).

We have a small George Foreman Grill at the apartment. We have cooked many tasty meals on it. About 3-4 months ago, it broke. It will not come on when plugged in. I am now trying to fix it. I fixed the toaster oven no problem; I fix my car on a weekly basis–I can fix this. And I had the problem narrowed down to an electrical component on the inside of the casing, this doodad.

I’ve been writing a lot lately. I think part of that is because I’ve simply been alone a lot lately. When Erin and I were dating my posts weren’t nearly as frequent, for the most part because I’d just tell her a lot of what I write in here. Writing in here allows the concepts to develop to a fuller degree than they did when I talked with her, but on the other hand, having somebody to bounce thoughts off and interact with is just irreplacable. I’d take the latter most days (not exclusively) over solace and the ability to just write and write all the tripe that passes through my brain. But I think sometimes I just like the mental exercise of arranging my thoughts into sentences and paragraphs.

My parents are in Portugal this week. My dad (who works for IBM) had a presentation to give near Lisbon, so they took advantage of the oppotunity to make a mini-vacation out of it. They’re going to visit Seville and Gibraltar and Moorish country in southern Spain too–I’m sure they’ll hit all the highlights. What this means for me is that I have to cat-sit Cleo after work. Well, I have to come home and feed her at least, but she’s always a little wound up from being cooped up inside all day so we play with the string a little bit too. And I always end up staying longer than I think I will…fish something out of the cupboards for dinner and pop in a movie. And write a journal entry–that’s contributed to my frequent posting of late too.

I’ve decided that when I sit and think about past romantic interests and mull over the fact that I’ve been quite single for the past two and a half years–that’s when I’m not doing enough. That’s when I’m being lazy and allowing my mind to wander and drift. It’s actually a pretty good low-productivity indicator, especially at work. When I reach the level of googling old girlfriends–that’s when I have to snap back to reality and focus on the task at hand. All it takes is a little self-awareness.

rambling about the fuss over Intelligent Design

There’s a little spot of lavender paint near the bottom of my brown button-down shirt. Can’t see it when the shirt’s tucked into my jeans. It’s been there since Spring of ’99, sophomore year of college. Somewhere around April, before our first Odyssey of the Mind competition, I laid out reams of newspaper on the tiled floor of the wide hallway that connected the larger, collective studio in the back of Leazar Hall to the smaller ones in the front of the building.

All the freshman design studios are held in the larger room, which was a cafeteria before Fountain was built on west campus. I pulled more all-nighters than I care to remember in that huge, partitionned room–times of delerious, sleep-deprived laughter with my classmates interrupted by frantic bouts of drawing, sketching, painting, constructing, whatever the project was that week… It’s where I spent most of my time, even sophomore year when my studio was in Brooks Hall proper. People started specializing in their respective degrees after the first year… Friend groups were more homogenous, stratified.

But that particular evening I was in the Leazar hallway, laying out newspaper for a painting experiment. I found a big rectangle of cardboard somewhere, cut it to size (still large), and laid it on the newspaper. I found rolls of duct and masking tape and created a gridwork of rectangles and squares on the cardboard with the overlapping bands of silver and white. I only had buckets of house paint at my disposal, but it was just as well. I dipped a stirring rod into the orange bucket and flung the paint down on the cardboard, over and over again, before repeating the process with lavender, then orange again, then lavender, back and forth randomly. After a while I paused and applied more tape to the work in progress, impressing structure on the randomness. Then more color, and more tape. More color… When I was done the cardboard was a mishmash of multicolor paint and tape, coming forward, receding, interacting, swirling around and again. Unfortunately… the newspaper hadn’t helped much as far as sheltering the floor, and when I removed it a nice stencil of overshot was evident. My clothes came through relatively unpainted, although I think those jeans were relegated to work/art duty from then on, and the spot of paint I wasn’t able to remove is still on my shirt to this day. I think there’s a reason Jackson Pollock stood on ladders when flinging his paint, and not just because his canvasses were so large, either. Well, come to think of it–he would get down and interact with the paint with his hands, too. Nevermind.

rambling about a book

This morning is needlessly stressful, meaning I feel more stressed than I am. Ever have those mornings before a big test where you go to bed anxious the night before, sleep uneasily, and wake up with an almost overwhelming case of nervousness, which subsides in an hour or two, regardless of whether or not the test had actually taken place? I used to. That first half-hour after I got up was brutal sometimes, even if I knew the nervousness would calm down in a little while. This morning’s been one long extended “first half-hour,” inexplicably so, but that’s the nature of it.

The weekend was wonderful. Most of Saturday was filled with car stuff

Went home to do laundry last night (the laundry machines at the apartment complex are forever breaking), had some of my mom’s leftover lasagna (best in the world, bar none), and started on my taxes. While folding laundry in the TV room I was talked by my mom into watching a tape of a recent Oprah that she had gotten from a friend. The guest on the show was the co-author of this book. Have any of you seen this? I had already actually seen him as a guest on Leno when I was flipping channels a few weeks ago.

The show was good. I think the basic principles advanced in the book and on television are true, by and large. There are far too many women out there who make excuses for men who are just never going to come around. Yes, the fantasy scenario exists where the man magically wakes up, realizes what he’s been missing, and becomes everything the woman ever wanted him to be for her, but realistically, we decide pretty quickly (varies from guy to guy) whether there are relationship possibilities or not, and honestly there’s not much that you can do to change that–a good incentive to just be yourselves day-in day-out. What takes guys like myself so long sometimes (think a month or two) is that we’re trying to build a solid friendship first before advancing to the next level, but if you’ve already got at least a rudimentary friendship and he’s not making the next move, then there’s very, very little chance that he will. That’s how it works.

Honestly though, watching the show got a little depressing. Yes, it’s empowering for men too. Yes, it encourages us to step up and take the initiative and be honest and upfront, which often entails sitting down and actually trying to figure out how we feel about things and where to go from there–not always an instinctive process. And I want all that and think, to a certain degree, that I already do some of that. But really, the thought that kept running through my mind the whole time was that when I find the woman that I will be that “into,” as it were, enough to really go for it, there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that she be “into” me. Seriously folks. Not looking for sympathy or reassurance. After three rejections in the past year, that’s the way I feel. And really I just don’t want to deal with it anymore. I’m so tired of all the mixed messages and the misunderstandings and the speculation and all that nonsense. I just don’t have the time or the desire to expend emotional energy into relationship matters at this point, which is probably a good place to be since I’m completely devoid of romantic interests. My brain has a limited capacity and a limited ability to process information, and the chunk of brain activity devoted to sitting around and thinking about relationship possibilities could be used in so many other ways–my relationship with God, hobbies, programs, pursuits, the future–heck, life in general. And that’s how it will be.

The Wine Saga™

It’s my first reasonably slow day at work in a couple of weeks, hence the avalanche of photos. Here are some of the ones I didn’t think were worth sharing back when I posted the first batch–in other words, here are all the ones with me in them…heh.

lots of pictures — 56K folks be warned

a few skiing pictures

What a hellish day. Or more accurately, what a hellish ordeal with the car. I’ll remember to revise my time-of-repair estimates to four times as long as I think it’s going to take me, instead of the customary three.

car stuff

1. The “Wayne the Brain” episode of ATHF is one of the funniest ones (I’ve just seen “Total Re-Carl” too many times now…). In the words of Wayne, “‘SUP.”

2. My computer’s back up and running. I took it to the Mac Store at the mall after making an appointment online for a consultation at the self-described Genius Bar. Took in my computer and immediately got comments from three or four people that it was “a classic.” I mean, it’s not that old. It’s not even beige. Well… I guess six years is pretty old in computer years.

But they fixed it. Or, more accurately, they took it in their back room, plugged it into a monitor and keyboard, and it booted right up, showing no signs of the problems I was having. I brought it home and it fired right up, just like it always has. Weird. At least the guys at the Mac Store didn’t charge me anything for their time.

3. The new Nature Valley™ “Sweet & Salty Nut” bars are unbelievably good. Almond flavor is the best (and the best for you).

4. I have two tickets to this and I’ve not asked anyone yet. Hmm. Decision-making ensues…

I just got back from the store where I bought some toothpaste. Tooooothpaste. Tooth-paste. We smear whitish paste on the bristly end of a miniature brush and scrub our teeth with the resultant concoction two, three times a day. It was momentarily amusing standing there in the store thinking about it. Ever have those moments when you step back mentally from something you do day-in day-out and think about it from another perspective? Family dinners are fun to think about. At a preset time during the day, we all gather together around a wooden platform in a designated chamber of the house for the purpose of placing various nutrients in a particular orifice at the top of our bodies and ingesting them. Ever think of what a well-intentioned alien would tell his superiors upon reporting back from a reconnaissance mission to Earth? Probably something similar. Try explaining something you do routinely without using any of the words that sum up various processes involved in that action (eat, drink, sleep, talk, walk, drive, etc).

I’m a nerd.

Some days it just feels like I’m in a sort of endless time loop working here at the university… Like time repeats itself over and over and I just get older. Spring commencement is rolling around again. I think about all the upperclassmen who go here and how not so long ago my friends and I were in that category, but now…things are more amorphous, indefinite, shapeless in the realm of those I’m in contact with regularly. New friends spring up for a few months at a time and then fall away again just as effortlessly. And even if it’s desired, resuming things is hard sometimes because our lives move along tangential arcs, only in contact for a short while, as opposed to the more parallel lines of a college environment. Who knows what a few short months will do.

I think about graduating seniors and my first instinct is to think, “Well I’m just a little older than that,” and then I remember that it will have been four years come this fall. My youngest brother will be a junior. In college. And my life is slowly, inexorably moving away from that era, but working here keeps it on the forefront of my thoughts.

It’s a beautiful day. Cool, clear, and breezy. My window’s open to city noises outside.

Spring is a weird time of year. Sometimes I almost feel like the perceived fickleness of the weather during the season (even if it’s no more variable than it is any other time of the year) gives it an unstable, almost volatile quality that plays havoc with my stress levels. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s relatively early in the year and the possibilities locked up in the rest of the months lay before me–the anticipation is strong. Maybe it’s because it’s intrinsically a season of change, much as autumn is, but the latter season bears down on the known quantity that is the holidays, giving it a more stable feel. I don’t know what it is, but I can feel it coming.

So many people I know are going through major life changes this year. It definitely sets this year apart from the last, which was quiet by and large. I’m moving to W-S, Stephen is too, Donald’s getting married, Aaron’s looking for a job, David’s interning in Illinois over the summer, people are starting school, finishing school, moving, changing jobs left and right… The landscape of my friends will be substantially different when the dust settles and the end of the year rolls around–not that I’ll be losing any, but that so many tectonic shifts are occurring within their respective lives.

I’ve decided I really enjoy reading Tom Friedman’s editorials. He’s got a vision to improve the country that one-ups most of the other columnists, who tend to just sit and gripe. While I don’t agree with everything, I really think he’s hit on something with his proposals for an energy-conservation plan:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/opinion/13friedman.html

Why doesn’t the current administration give even a head-nod these days to policies that will take us more than just few years down the road? Do they have any concern for the next few generations? Sadly the only explanation that I can think of is that power corrupts, and the ability to use force is often employed because it’s available and easy. While I’m not optimistic for change, I pray that the president decides to shun the foreign policies and mindsets of his first term and think along different, more far-reaching, more visionary lines. To employ a biblical reference, “Without a vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18a, KJV). I pray that the president will see with clear eyes what really motivates people and regimes to change, and that he would shape his policies and goals accordingly.

We have the intelligence and the technology to be at the vanguard of this movement. Instead of complaining that more and more high-tech jobs are going overseas and nagging the government to do something about it, let’s create some by embracing the next big shift in our way of life. But Detroit insists on cranking out more SUVs and Hemi-powered hot-rods. People ask me, as a “car guy,” what I think of the new Dodge Charger or the Pontiac GTO or the Hummer H2 (all over-testosteroned tire-shredders, and successful ones at that), and I tell them: The cars are just…stupid. Want to know the difference between an American car manufacturer and an overseas (namely, Japanese) one? Vision. American manufacturers think one, maybe two years down the road and cater to what the public wants now, now, now… Japanese firms have a vision for their company that extends five, ten, fifteen years out, anticipating energy crises and designing cars that are paragons of efficiency and technological innovation. The Accord Hybrid and Lexus RX400h, for example, are brilliant cars and I hope they sell in the millions. I think the stage is being set for another energy crisis on the scale of the one that occurred in the early ’70s, one that forces American manufacturers to rethink their product lines, and unfortunately this time we’re not ahead of the curve technologically, so we stand to lose even more domestic jobs than we did the last time around. And that’s not even considering the fact that the political stakes on the global scene are much higher…

What’s my solution? Not physical government intervention, not subsidies, not tax breaks or free parking spaces or special highway lanes, all of which worked great in California in getting a viable electric car to market (note: heavy sarcasm). No, none of that. Instead: Vision-casting, on the same level as Kennedy when he inspired our country to go to the moon. Leadership through influence, not coercion. If the administration talks about it, focuses on it, acknowledges it and inspires up-and-coming engineers and businesspeople to devote their resources to it, I think it will take off. That’s my hope and prayer, at least.

Kinda makes me wish I had majored in engineering instead of design. But I can still proslytize about it.

p.s. — And while I’m at it, I just might as well say: The main focus of hybrid cars is not fuel mileage, people! Get over it (speaking to car magazines here)! Yes, they’re more economical than an average car, much more so in the city when the gasoline engine shuts off, but the main point is low emissions. Low emissions. Repeat that to yourselves. All hybrids are classified as PZEVs, or Partial-Zero-Emissions-Vehicles, meaning that when the electric motor is running they emit nothing out the tailpipe. If you want fuel economy alone buy a diesel. As for me, I’ll take the best of both worlds and spring for a hybrid.

Okay. Must stop ranting.

It’s been kind of a mixed weekend. Saturday morning was the first meeting of the car group for the new semester, and it went quite well… Went to Rudino’s for lunch (great calzones), before which John changed the oil in his Camaro and I made a trip to the hardware store to pick up some odds and ends to fabricate a tool. Most of the pieces I needed to make said tool (to press out the Audi’s front control arm bushings, which are completely shot) were associated with plumbing, like pipes and caps and adapters and such. Turns out that they’re made of a remarkably hard grade of steel, and while bearing down on one of the caps, held by the bench vise, the drill bit snapped and I fell on the drill, giving me a nice bruise right in the center of my chest. Didn’t knock the wind out of me, but it didn’t feel too pleasant, either. But I got the tool made in the end–will use it later this week for the needed repairs.

This afternoon I ran in a local 5K. Deceptively downhill initially, and a couple of pretty steep inclines near the end made it not really condusive to a good time. I ran around a 21:50. Not fantastic, but not terrible either. I tried to relax during the run, which was a big difference from the UNC run back in December that I was considerably more amped-up for. My pace was pretty near dead-on relative to my current fitness level, I think–I could have picked it up a little bit near the end, but not much. I seem to be stuck at around a 7 minute mile. There’s a 10K coming up near the end of the month…that’ll be good motivation to train a little harder.

My computer’s been on the fritz all weekend. I downloaded an automatic operating system software update on Friday night, and my video card hasn’t worked properly since. So my Mac is indisposed and I’m typing from Donald’s computer. I tried to take the machine to the Mac store in the mall to have the burgeoning hackers there look at it, but it’s by appointment only, so I was turned away. Tried to drown my sorrows in a stack of recent car magazines at the Barnes & Noble next door, but it didn’t do much except give my eyes something to gloss over while my mind wandered about that situation and others that I find myself in lately.

I am terrible at managing money. That’s a hard admission. My checking account is constantly bobbing above and below the line of solvency and I can’t seem to achieve any stability. It’s just getting absolutely ridiculous, and I need to take care of it, need to manage my income and cash flow and savings, etc. I can’t go to Winston-Salem in this state; I can’t. I have a threefold plan: First, organize. I need to sort out all my bills and statements and figure out exactly how much money I have now. Next, I need to keep tabs on how much money I have at any given time. This is the area in which convenience is key. If I don’t have an immediate, down-to-the-penny accurate answer to someone who asks me how much money I have in my checking account, then I’m failing in that area. And finally, I need to budget. I have to look a couple of months down the road, anticipate expenses, and plan accordingly. Yep. This is the time to rein everything in.

Arthur Miller died today.

Sometimes I think about others around me, friends my age, who seem much wiser than their years. I think about wisdom, and how it’s a partially a product of experience, and how some people seem to have had many more experiences crammed into the same number of years as my own age, giving rise to more opportunities from which to learn than I’ve been privy to. I wonder if somehow they’re endowed with a greater ability to experience life, they’re more innately awake, aware, alive than the rest of us.

But then I realize that time moves at the same speed for everyone. We all have the same capacity for accumulating experiences and memories that help make us who we are. I think that even if we’ve not had the same number of noteworthy experiences, every waking hour we’re absorbing our environment, if not with our conscious mind, certainly with our subconscious, so the sum total of our accumulated sensory information, both conscious and subconscious, must be the same for a given age. And granted, depending on our personality and disposition, we may respond more strongly to a smell, or a sight, or a certain touch, but the volume of information that we’ve stored through time is the same.

What does this mean? Not much. I’m just fascinated by how our subconscious and conscious minds interrelate and how the smallest things will sometimes trigger a wave of emotion because they reach around our conscious mind and tap into what’s below, behind, beneath… It’s why we respond the way we do to a piece of artwork or a poem or a conversation or a song that may not be beautiful in the conventional sense, but that touches a nerve in the more voluminous part of our mind, the subconscious. It’s my paradigm for explaining what moves creative expression from good to great–the fact that I can’t get my rational, conscious mind around it, but that I do respond to it in a deep, resonating way. There’s so much more…

It’s a chilly, blustery day outside. The clouds have been swept from the sky and the bare tree branches make quite a din every few minutes in the stiff breeze. I think it will be a great night for stargazing…if I could only find a spot somewhere around Jordan Lake where I can make clear, uninterrupted observations.

My comments and stories rarely have funny or interesting conclusions, deep insights, or points, for that matter. Storytelling as a conversational practice was something I realized was commonplace only in my later years of high school, and it was never something any of the members of my family engaged in, at least not to the point where I noticed it growing up. Oftentimes I’ll be listening to a friend telling a story, and while I realize that the event being described may not have been extraordinary or even really noteworthy, their manner of relating the event makes it seem exciting. Gestures, eye contact, tone of voice, and emphasis on words and pauses all make the difference. I feel like half the time when I’m describing a really interesting event, I tell it such a way that it seems even less interesting than it should be… It’s like I shoot my stories in the foot inadvertently. It’s a skill that I’ve tried to consciously develop, but for years I thought that extraordinary experiences (not many of which occur to me) were the key to good stories, and I’ve had a hunch lately that the draw is more in the telling itself than the actual event.

Skiing was amazing. I’ve honestly not experienced better skiing on this continent. The snow was perfect, the runs were long, the lifts were reasonably fast, the weather was darn near ideal (at least for the first day), and the company was wonderful. Had a great time. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Snowshoe for a 3 or 4 day trip. There aren’t as many slopes as a European resort or one out west, but enough to keep one occupied and entertained for a good long while. Most of them are concentrated on one particular side of the mountain, but on the other side there are two, both black diamonds (one a double black) that are each a mile and a half long. They make for some great skiing, all the more since the quad lift at the bottom of them is really fast. Aaron and I got in about three runs on one in half an hour or so.

I couldn’t imagine the trip going better than it did. We only made a few wrong turns on the way up, the conversation in the car was great, the hotel was good (with an indoor pool, twin jacuzzis, and a bar with a pool table), and it wasn’t terribly expensive, either. We even found a great mom & pop place to eat on Monday night. If only I could have stopped worrying about work the whole time things would have been perfect.

Leaving for Snowshoe for a few days this coming evening. Gonna miss the Superbowl ’cause of travel, but I’m not really conflicted about that. Everybody’s betting on the Pats anyway.

The temps are supposed to be in the 40s, with sun, Monday and Tuesday, the days we’ll be skiing. While it’s nice weather in winter, it’s not the best for snow. Let’s hope the weather is “worse” for once.

mini-rant

stories