BoldUlysses.com

“Amazed” by Lonestar is the sappiest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. The lyrics are inept, the music is laughingly bombastic, and the whole production is so unbelievably cloying it’s unreal. I listened to it on the way home from an errand this morning just to laugh at it. I get the impression it was made just so good ol’ boyfriends could sing it (squeakily) on the karaoke machine to their girlfriends at the pool hall. It’s indisputably one of the worst songs I’ve heard.

Of course, then I hear Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” five minutes later on the same station, and I’m groovin’ along to it, even though objectively they’re probably close to the same level of schmaltz. But at least the Bon Jovi song sounds a bit more sophisticated, even though it’s not–just a different genre.

I feel pressure. I feel like I’m being productive, but in a way I’m baling water, since there’s no underlying organization, and at the rate I’m going I’d have to spend an unacceptable amount of time to stop and get organized, though that’s probably not true.

Gahh. Where is the victory that I want to permeate my life? Where is the rising above the mudane, nine-to-fiving? Where is the ambition, the drive that I need?

And again, all I want to do is run away. If I don’t catch myself sometimes the feeling of “I don’t belong here” is almost suffocating. But what am I looking for? I thought about this on the way back from Kinko’s. Is it a place, a situation, a collection of friends, a job, a career, a mindset, what? And I think it’s just a state of being. It’s a collection of circumstances that I can think about at any given point of the day and rest my mind upon them. But it’s all transient. I felt that in France, in Nice, and I told (and still tell) myself that it would be a permanent sensation if I lived there, and it’s not–it comes and goes as the people and situations swirl around me. But just knowing that I could feel that way, that content, that deeply, even for a moment as I did–I’ve never felt that here. Never. There’s always been something else, something I’ve been subconsciously longing for, and Nice is as close to that place as I’ve come, physically. I think it’s like getting into a relationship with someone–you resist idealizing; you know that in addition to all those good qualities you see, that there are flaws, and yet you long for them in spite of those flaws. Same difference with France–I long for it in spite of the fact that I know it won’t be like it was at the Pignols except for a very small percentage of the time.

But in the end, I need to learn, as Paul said, the secret of being content in all circumstances. God, help me to learn that. Give me insight and understanding and the knowledge of how to apply that to my life, or how to let You apply it.

It wasn’t what it was supposed to be. It shouldn’t have happened that way. We were supposed to be each others’ grand amour or something akin to it… I’ll confess I had more than just friendship wrapped up in my regard when we talked across the table in that Friendly’s in Rochester after church on that snow-covered Sunday.

I guess I just wasn’t what she was looking for. Could I have even been at that point in both our lives? Doubtful, even if we lived closer together–she was intensely busy with her ministry and her friends. I would have been an impostor, an outsider trying to elbow his way in.

Still, I think about it a lot. More than it warrants, really. But I really did fall in love with her.

See, how can you say that? How can you say that when the percentage of emails and letters that she actually replied to was dismally small?

I don’t know what it was. But… ahh. I still think about you.

Why do women like men? What’s attractive about men? It’s the most mystifying thing imaginable. I can’t fathom it to save my life, and it’s probably a good thing. Kissing a boy? Wanting to be held by a boy? What is there in that that’s inherently appealing? I don’t see it at all. Men are crude, and insensitive, and coarse, and everything else under the sun. I just don’t get it. I think I’m finding it harder and harder to visualize how a woman would be attracted to me, since it’s been so long, especially since there’s been any mutual attraction. I don’t let myself become infatuated as easily, either, as I used to–that’s probably part of it–I guard my emotions very carefully from the time where I used to obsess constantly over one particular girl for a few weeks or months and then move on to the next. It’s not like that anymore, but at the same time I feel like I’m forgetting things that that kept up, that that mindset helped my practice, so to speak.

I think I just want someone to fall in love with. Someone with whom a real possibility exists. I have nothing; no one.

I just want the world to stop for a few days so I can catch up. I’m lagging this morning; I feel bleary, even after 8-odd hours of sleep, and I know that this evening isn’t going to help matters much either, what with my slaving away on the car. I just want a break. Funny thing is, even when I do catch a break, I take it for granted–witness the weekends of doing absolutely nothing and I still feel as tired. Maybe knocking out responsibilities is key? Yes, I think it is.

So Stephen and Truly are dating now. I’m really happy for him and excited for him. She’s a great girl, and great fun to be around. It makes me feel even more out of the loop again, and I can feel the cynicism, the “lone wolf syndrome,” insisting that I’m better off on my own, that I don’t NEED somebody else, that I’m stronger than they, that it’s by choice and that I’m holding out for the right one for me–all these things come creeping back in. I really feel left out, though, not desperate, just really really wanting to find the right one for me. And I was going to write “the one who fulfills my romantic expectations.” Is that what I’m waiting for? Is that too much or the wrong thing to want? I’ll say this: I know that whoever I end up with, our courtship isn’t going to follow the traditional, in-my-head template for romance, but I do know how being in love feels, and that’s something I think is more or less constant across the possible range of experiences. But what do I know. It could be completely different.

John’s bachelor party was good fun, between the pool hall, the pool football, hanging out, hazing John, etc… I feel like I’m a little too old for this crowd sometimes. There’s no one within a few years of me age-wise, and sometimes I feel like I should hang out with older guys, people who have a more far-ranging perspective on life.

Gaaah. I gotta keep moving. I need a nap.

Europe seems more and more distant these days. I just read the word “ausfahrt” in my list of interests, and instead of provoking an immediate memory of how we laughed and laughed about it in Germany (and afterwards), it just seemed like another word. The connection was dissolving. I wish I were back there. I wish I had a job there and an apartment somewhere on the outskirts of one of the smaller towns inland, like Tourettes or Vence or even La Gaude. I also wish I were dating Félicie, too. I wonder if it was my imagination, or whether we actually had some chemistry. I was on “entertaining” mode a bit more than usual (which is to say, some, haha), but I did receive a look from her more than once of the nature that would cause my heart to skip half a beat in any other circumstance. And when she had to leave, the look, the “Après toutes ces années,” the soft running of her fingers across the top of my shoulders… I wanted to block out the rest of the company and just exist with her for a few minutes. Such beauty. I’ve not been able to get over it since. It’s part of what made that night perfect–her smile, her laugh, the avid interplay of words and her patience with my bumbling French.

I don’t really know her, though. I have a mental image of her, of her attributes and personality, but I know very little of factual value. I’m careful of guard my heart from being overwhelmed, from building a romantic image of her that I want to see, now that she isn’t here, but my curiosity still overwhelms me–just the desire to get to know her, to see if there’s the chance that my hopes could be true.

I’m so torn. Follow the dream (and it is a dream at this point) or follow the girl and the country. Granted, the qualities of the country are more fixed, more certain than the situation with the girl, and if I knew certain things for sure I might really go the latter route, but I have to be true to what’s been on the forefront of my agenda for so long. I have to try. I couldn’t brook the regret of not knowing if years down the road I looked back after not having gone for it. Money. What’s money. Money’s the problem, always the problem–but if it’s in God’s plan and timing for this point in my life, He’ll provide the finances. I know He will.

Private-only for a little while. Mindset shift. Be back soon. You won’t even miss me.

I don’t want this to be a performance. I don’t want it to validate my life. I don’t want it to be, really, for anybody but me. I don’t want to live my life through here, to substitute friendships in real life for those I form through here, precious as those are. I spend too much time flipping through here, creating a personality for myself that diverges slightly from the way I am, or represents myself a little differently. Now it’s just going to be me. Just me. Hence the recent spate of private entries. Maybe I’ll publicize them further down the line; who knows.

Tinkling cascades of keys, successions of musical descent, smudged bass lines widening through the inky blackness of the backdrop, going to pieces around the words, softly laid on the latticework of notes and touches of extraneous sound. Delicate. Some adjective beginning with a prolonged “s.” Pure. Tiny, but not in size, in conception. Comingbackcomingbackcomingblack. Now. NOW. Nownow. Now. now. nOw. NOw. NOWnowNOW. Fingers dig into the flow of the present past me, somehow understanding will accomplish a reversal, will stop things. It’s all recorded. It stands there in the past. As soon as I press the key, say the word, think the thought, it becomes past. So past, so past, so past, over and over and over and over and over and it’s part of me now. Layers upon caked layers upon, my personality is painted on, flaking at the edges, cracking in the sun of circumstances. So thick, so glassily opaque, so immovable, crusts of habits and thoughts that are in the past now. And the chance is coming up; I can feel it approach, blackened mind groping about in the distance, stumbling foward, stumbing over into then and now and past and here and leaping over distance and far away and who what where when inquiries for which no answer arrives. Think, just think just think just think just think about it. Realize it. Apply the mind like a mask to the newspaper and pull it away, after having pressured the impression of now and past. We don’t know what we’re swimming in, and I could have this epiphany, this moment out of time where I could see the structure of the world like a blanket, pulling the stems of understanding out of the now and further up and further in, where the inside is bigger than the outside, the future is more past than the present, my life regresses under my eyes and there’s a turnabout of paradoxes, spinning infinity down to nothing and back to the universe again. I know these things. Something knows, something under the weight sludge of dragging my face forward and the closed eyes understanding we all share. Some know, but on blackboards and in textbooks, but no one KNOWS because you need to see it, you need to be pulled up out of our plane, to understand the sphere you need to look past the circles. Touches of it are here, and I want to know, but it’s a Cassandra desire, since even if I did know no one would have a means of knowing too… The knowing wouldn’t avail me.

I’m actually…not tired. And reasonably clear-headed. Who’d have thought enough sleep could make such a difference?

Details, details…

oh I want to fly,
fly forward into the light…
be alive, to come alive

I remember sunny mornings in particular, the way the light was so crisp and the shadows were such clear cutouts of their objects. The edge between light and dark bisected my vision as I squinted my eyes in the morning light, and I turned around to feel the disparity of temperature between those things illuminated by the breaking sun, and those still in the cold darkness of the shade.

I can’t express things in words this morning. I rested my head in both my hands, tilted to the side, stared into space for a minute or two and just breathed, every exhale making its presence felt. I need to focus; I need to concentrate; I need to move and be productive, yes. Mind over matter.

There’s a red plastic cup outside on the hot concrete, or at least what’s left of one. I ran over it for the fourth time just a few minutes ago pulling back into the Design Services parking area from my stint today at the Gazette. It’s just a mangled scrap of plastic now, and I’ll probably throw it in the trash before I drive home in half an hour or so.

I have an ever-widening hole in my khakis. This is the only pair I own that’s long enough. I used to have a couple more pairs, but they either got lost or disintegrated through use. Every other pair of khakis in the closet is 34 length, which is just too short—the pant legs don’t break at the ankle when I stand straight up. So this is my last decent pair, and now they’re done for too. The only clothes shopping I think I’ve done in the past year was for a couple of shirts from a thrift store, and for a beanie at Walmart for the upcoming winter (this is back when my hair was really short).

There are stacks of change just to right of my monitor, six to be precise, three penny stacks, one dime stack, a nickel stack and a quarter stack. The quarter stack is the shortest, since I took a good number of those home to use in the laundry machines before we left for Europe. I still haven’t washed clothes, and we’ve been back well over a week.

Money comes in; money goes out. I’m not living from paycheck to paycheck any more (thank goodness), but every time I get another influx of income, the government wants more money, or the insurance company wants more money, or the apartment complex wants more money, or one (or all) of my cars stands out in the parking lot, mechanical bits in disarray, which of course you can’t see because it’s got the car cover on and the hood is closed, but I can see what it needs to run again, and says to me, “Spend money on me. You have that extra hundred. You have to at least get me running properly, right?” and then the cycle starts again next month and I can’t get rid of anything even though I want to chuck a grenade under the left rocker panel of the white Supra and blow it six feet in the air, flipping over and over, a fireball a la Mission:Impossible 1.

I want to get rid of things. Things wear out, things consume, things exhibit entropy. Only those things which display the required degree of usefulness in relation to daily life will remain… But then, I want to get rid of my daily life too, mannerisms, attitudes, pretenses, excesses of opinion and thought. Too many people. Too much to do. Too much to think about. Too much written on the blades of the ceiling fan as it rotates slowly overhead at 2:30 in the morning before another Thursday morning when I’ll have to haul my ass out of bed after resetting the alarm five times, and working on page 291 of the Undergraduate Bulletin, playing jackhammer techno through the headphones to keep my mind engaged and saying hello and goodbye to Lauren all day as my only actual human contact. What a crock.

I don’t want the white picket fences. I don’t want the American dream. I don’t want to be some nut-brown, overweight, greased-up tycoon sitting on the deck of his fishing boat, knocking back another beer and checking the reels; I don’t want to be the five-time award-winning district manager for Burger King in the southwest region of whatever state, coming home to his blue-shuttered home in Suburbia, USA. I don’t want to be like anybody I know; I want to be like myself, which works because I hardly know myself.

I want to run away. I was going to add “from home” but that doesn’t work because it doesn’t feel like home here. It won’t be like in every movie where the runaway feels a certain tie, even years later, back to the place from which he ran, because “it’ll always be home”—but I can imagine the future of such an event and I can tell I won’t feel some grand, mystical tie back to this area. The only things about here that I’ve missed while away were the easyness of everything, sparks of the routine that I’ve developed, but that’s something I can generate anywhere I go; familiarity and a certain stability bring those qualities into existence. But there’s nothing beyond that about here. I may feign a home-y tie to regional affectations like the food, the way of life, particularities here and there, but that’s just the familiarity coming through—in large part I say those things because I can; the emotional resonance has never been there.

Time to drive back to the apartment so I can attend part of the youth leaders’ retreat this weekend. Funny how the more I want to be alone, the more these events keeping popping up… But I’ll go; I’ll give it a shot. And I’ve run out of thoughts that want to be made quasi-coherent. For now.

1. I bought Jobs for Travel Lovers last night at Barnes & Noble. I ducked in for five minutes to buy an issue of european car (I really need to get a subscription to that), since B&N is pretty much the only place I can find it, and on a whim perused the “Careers” section of the store on my way back up to the register. Somehow when I arrived at the register with book and magazine in hand the cashier felt compelled to tell me all about her trip to KeyWest for Spring break and the “booze cruise” she went on. But it wasn’t unpleasant conversation.

2. I have enough of those little Subway stamps for a free foot-long sub. w00t.

3. Bought a bulletin board and a hanging file box last night at Walmart on the same shopping trip as above. I put on some They Might Be Giants (oddly fitting, actually) and waded through a 6-inch high mount of papers on the bedroom floor, getting everything filed away. My life is now completely organized. From a paperwork standpoint, at least. Wish I could say the same about my work environment… Heh.

4. I have never owned a car with a cupholder.

5. Anybody want to go see Sonic Youth with me at the Cradle on Aug. 19? Tickets are $25, which is kinda steep, but they put on a great show from all accounts I’ve heard.

6. I still can’t snap with my right hand. Left is fine, but for some reason my right is defective when it comes to snapping.

Caught a matinee of Saved! yesterday to fend off the boredom (and to spend some time with Elyse before she’s whisked away again to parts unknown). Cute movie, but somehow underwhelming… Overall, it followed the standard teen movie structure pretty faithfully, only using over-the-top religiosity as the plot device and medium for most of the gags. If the film had been more subtle and the cracks against mainline Christianity had been more woven into the film themes and structure, it would have been more effective, I think. As it was, there were a few quite clever zingers but overall the Christian rhetoric the main characters used was inauthentic-sounding and on the surface, which just left me with the impression that the filmmakers didn’t really understand what they were taking on… But on the other hand, perhaps it’s an exaggerated view of what non-Christians see in the Christian community–in that sense, it’s quite interesting and enlightening, since it’s a perspective that’s hard to adopt after having been a believer and regular church-attender for years. We get completely desensitized to how impersonal and fake the language and “standard Christian answers” can sound sometimes (most of the time?). I think it’s a challenge for anyone (not just believers) to speak out of where we really are and not retreat into patent truisms and clichés when interacting with someone… That’s what I took away from the film, at least. Anyone else seen it? What was your opinion?

Thanks for all the shared excitement concerning the camera’s rediscovery, but as it turns out, it was something of a hollow victory, since now I can’t find the cord that connects the camera to the computer, and of course it’s a unique Nikon item that I can’t find at Best Buy or whatever, and the card reader I bought won’t read the size cards it takes… I swear it’s all a conspiracy, all starting with those special camera batteries.

I’m so tired of everything. I’m tired of my interests, I’m tired of where I am now, tired of complaining and moping about lack of direction and purpose onto here. I thought I had a dream; I thought I knew for sure about where I’d be in a year or three, but now I’m not so sure anymore. Was it just something that I held in front of me so I could settle that part of my life? It’s looking increasingly likely, especially since the Europe trip and the degree of emotion with which I felt myself respond to the possibility of living in France, which makes my motivation to start pilot school pale in comparison. I guess I just don’t want a repeat of what happened in college, where I chose my major based on where I thought I should be, doing something I felt I had talent for, not necessarily something I loved, which just pulled the legs out from under the whole affair, since my motivation, my drive, was marginal to begin with. In other words, just because I’m good at math, for example, doesn’t mean I like it…

And I’m starting to feel that was about my “dream” of being a missionary pilot. I’ve had this far-off vision since the latter years of high school, and what do I have to show for it? A good bit of research, a few months volunteering at a missionary aviation organization, some prayer letters sent out, a few other odds and ends, but that’s it. I’ve not invested in it in months, and it’s been on my mind the whole time… Is this just a temporary lapse of motivation, or is it a sign of something more permanent? Goodness knows it’s not the first time I’ve been in this place, but it’s the first time I’ve questioned things so seriously. And it’s not something I can come back to later after a few years overseas, either–pilot school takes around 3-4 years to complete, and the cutoff age for hiring in the field is around 30… And I’m pushing 26.

I don’t know anymore. I just know I don’t want to be here. And I don’t want to waste any more time musing about, trying to figure out where I’ll be headed next. I want to be packing, so to speak, I want to be on my way.

I need a shower and a shave.

take the dreams that should have died
the ones that kept you lying awake
when you should’ve been all right
and throw ’em all away

I found my digital camera! You know, the one I thought had been stolen back in January.

Donald and I had been sharing a room here at the apartment for a while (the master bedroom’s so much bigger than either of the two other bedrooms that we felt it was a fair arrangement in the beginning–long story), but recently we’ve been noticing that it would be really swell to have our own rooms, our own space. So earlier this afternoon we moved him into the “computer room,” and moved my computer into here, my bedroom. And digging through piles of stuff, rooting through a bag that had laid under a bookshelf since around Christmastime (I’m a little disorganized), I found my digital camera! That just made, like, my whole month, and it’s only the 3rd. w00t.

It’s a little weird not having any set responsibilities on a Saturday–no car group in the morning, no youth group in the evening. It’s quite nice, actually. Now, what to do, what to do…

midnight is where the day begins

Especially when you’re still getting over jetlag… Heh.

Big summer raindrops are falling, darkening the concrete driveway outside my window little by little… Fortunately the car’s just outside so I was able to verify that the window is indeed rolled up. I was anti-A/C before, but after having been in Europe for a couple of weeks, where the weather was unbelievably clement the whole time, my penchant for having the window down is now solidified with a couple of weeks of practice.

The rain’s falling more steadily now–we’ll be under the tail end of the cloud soon, I imagine. Part of me wishes very much that it would just rain for a few days nonstop, or close to it. I have a lot of things to process, to think about, and whenever I’m assailed with thoughts to this degree my instincts run towards contemplation inside… But another part of me just wants to tell stories, to work through things with a listening, non-evaluative ear. It’s a dichotomy of desires for interaction that’s rarely resolved.

Last night I watched some of Donald’s 4-odd hours of video footage from the trip. His digital video camera was plugged into the TV via RCA cables, but I had to watch the small screen on the camera–the jostling movement of the image on the larger TV screen was making me a bit queasy. I watched some of our initial arrival in London, some of Paris (walking around the Notre Dame, etc), and Monaco too… He fell into the habit of turning the camera on me whenever it was switched on and having me give regular “updates,” all of which, in retrospect, sound completely asinine, but… It’s what we have. The issue now is whittling 4 hours of raw footage down into 15-20 minutes for a little recap video. Gonna be hard, but Donald’s a real pro. Some possible soundtrack songs:

Hooverphonic – Inhaler
Ivy – I’ve Got a Feeling
Coldplay – In My Place
Travis – Love Will Come
U2 – Lemon (Jeep Mix)
The Creation – Making Time

I have it all written out on a napkin somewhere… Ah well.

I feel sometimes like stress should be a transferrable commodity. That is to say, if I’m going to get stressed out about something (I’ve resigned myself to the fact that by-and-large, it’s inevitable, at least to a small degree), I’d rather get stressed out over, for example, finding the next meal or the next point of lodging in Europe than over the fact that the stereo headunit I bought for the Audi off eBay is hardly “new in the box,” as advertised. It’s like, if I’m going to be experiencing the stress and using at least some of it to motivate me forward, I’d rather use it towards more elemental goals. Everything I get worked up about seems so trivial again. I say “again;” it didn’t before–it’s new since the trip, I think.

Lots of things are new. Pespectives are new. Desires are new. Or perhaps they’re just newly unearthed after having been dormant for a while, but if that’s the case, I’ve never felt them this acutely before. I think being older, manning the helm of my life (to the degree that I do control it), knowing that yes, there are possibilities, gives them wings, as it were, it whatever emotional spheres they orbit inside me. During my family’s last two-year sejour in France, and even four years ago when we visited the country for a little over two weeks, my parents called the shots, and I was happy to tag along, content to soak up the moving panorama of the countryside from the rear passenger window of the car. But recently, the smoky glass, the filter of surrendered responsibility was removed, and although we only skipped off the surface, there were moments, like standing silent for minutes on end, surveying the paysage from the villa patio, or finding my way alone back from Bonn to Wiesbaden at night on the autobahn, when I felt the thrilling twinge of me vs. the world–a fundamental conflict, one that’s nearly silenced by the daily trappings and nonsense I bury myself in here.

On vera. We shall see. That’s all I could say to the Pignol family after Félicie mentioned to me for the second time that night that they had a spare room if I’d like to stay for a little while, then or in the future… It’s not the sort of place that I’d want to move without having a job lined up–my interpersonal skills aren’t up to the task of winging it in such an expensive land after just having stepped off the plane.

One thing I do know, though, something I felt in my gut after just having arrived at Dulles, silently taking the shuttle to the rental agency, letting the moving panorama of the parking lots move across my eyes: There are more things that I miss about France than there are things I’m happy to come back to here. Not people, mind you, but cultural elements, situations, intangibles… Yes, I will go back. In what capacity I don’t know, but I will.

There’s just… so much.

And I am… so tired.

Haha. This is going to be piecemeal, and not chronological either, but just me remembering things out of sequence–that’s about all I can muster.

For starters, though, an overview.

Back home, safe and sound, praise God.

Only it doesn’t feel like home.

More on that later.

I’ve been up for 28+ straight hours traveling, gotta get ~3 hours of shut-eye and head to work tomorrow. ‘Night, all.

Owie. A little sore this morning. Ran with Aaron for about three miles yesterday morning along the river at the valley floor, then hiked 6-7 miles up the mountain and around back to Lauterbrunnen. Some trails were close to a 60 degree angle for 10-15 minutes at a time, switchbacking back and forth. But we made it to the top of the ridge and got an incredibly breathtaking view of the three mountains just a range over that constitute “the Top of Europe,” Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau. I wish we had gotten pictures and videos, but our resident cameraman, Donald, was huffing and puffing after the first 1000 feet or so of the hike (he had an appendectomy not two and half weeks ago), so we ended up leaving him behind (unintentionally).

More to come… We’re leaving for Italy and then Nice in just a few minutes… Pray for us! Italian drivers are cuh-razy.

Quick update from Lauterbrunnen (this internet cafe has the crappiest connection imaginable, but I guess it’d be unfair to expect much more).

Little Swiss town bordered by immense mountains, not least of which is the Jungfrau, one of the highest peaks in the Alps. We’re in a lovely hostel and I’m quite full from a big pot of chili and noodles cooked in the hostel kitchen. Yum. Lots of hiking tomorrow. We’ll take tons of pictures–it’d be hard not to what with the waterfalls all around cascading hundreds of feet down to the valley floor.

Next update from Nice, probably! Hope you’re all well!

Spent a nice day in Germany today. Got up late, packed up, and drove down with Aaron and Donald to Stuttgart, where we visited the Porsche and Mercedes museums before heading back. From the perspective of enjoying the daily activities, I think it’s a good thing I drove Elyse up to Bonn last night, as she’d have been bored to tears today, though we enjoyed in muchly (well, Aaron and I; Donald didn’t say much the whole trip).

Quick note on driving: They know how to here! It’s so wonderful. Highways (Autobahnen and Autoroutes in Germany and France, respectively) are either two or three lanes; trucks stay mostly in the right lane, only venturing into the middle lane to pass, and cars occupy the left two. People pass only on the left, use their signals, and get out of your way quickly if you’re coming up behind them. And drive around 90-110 mph, on average. People stick to the speed limit when there actually is one (around construction and in hilly country), and aren’t boneheaded like most American drivers. I love it. Except of course for the fact that our little rental Opel is hardly Autobahn-worthy (at least in my mind). Ah well. When I have my 850csi I’ll come back and have some fun :o)

I doubt I’ll be able to post from Switzerland, but I’ll try. Auf Wiedersehen!

We’re just outside Frankfurt now in a smaller German town called Wiesbaden, where we’ll be for a few days (follow us on your handy Euromap!). We had a slight shift of plans last night and decided we’re going to stay here an extra day before we head to a little town in Switzerland called Lauterbrunnen (I think that’s how you spell that). We’ll be there for two days at a little family-owned B&B/hostel, then we’ll head to Nice for the last bit of our trip.

The Autobahn was entertaining. Aaron drove most of it, and on a slight downhill managed to push the car up to 198 km/h (around 120 mph). And we were still getting passed, and at a good rate, too. ‘Twas interesting, to say the least.

I think I’ll need a vacation after this vacation. It’s pretty intense, especially when you shift gears in the middle and decide go a different direction. *le sigh* Next update soon!

‘Nother quick note from the road–We’re about to head out from Paris to Germany (Frankfurt, to be precise). Lovely dinner last night sitting outside at a restaurant at the top of the hill in Montmartre. More about that later, though (among many other wonderful things yesterday…)

Hope you are all well, and talk to you soon!

Who am I? Why do I get so hung up on this? Why does the thought of clubbing produce such an immediate gut reaction? I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know… I hate it. I want to scream, to pound the earth, to run around and excise the energy. I spend minutes, dozens of minutes, growing into hours, staring into space trying to analyze the way I feel. Why do I feel this way? It’s only dancing. I mean, what the heck? Why do I have an identity crisis every time this subject pops into my mind?

I thought about it a bit in the bathroom, and arrived at one possible conclusion–that the worldview and attitude towards relationship and courtship conveyed and portrayed in clubs is so different from my own that it’s difficult for me to feel comfortable there. I don’t know. All I know is that I just want to draw back into my shell at the mere mention of the subject, at the very thought of interacting with and around alcohol with large groups of people that I don’t know at all. I makes me INTENSELY uncomfortable. But then I think, people in very chaste societies, much more prudish than me, have been dancing as a means of courtship for centuries, in a plethora of different cultures. Why me? Why now? Why this society? It has to be ME–my own problem, or attitude, or outlook, or identity. What is the matter with me? Maybe I’m just a complete control freak, a tightwad, a prude, a wet blanket. My self-image gets rattled and almost shattered everytime I think of it.

And the paradoxical thing is that I don’t want anyone to help me with it, either–I’m so insecure about it, and yet, I’m incredibly selfish and obstinate in my refusal for consolation. I don’t want to feel like it’s a weakness I have to overcome–I want to rationalize it away as part of my personality, which it is to a certain extent… And yet. I don’t know. So I sit here and stew, and boil over inside, and rub my eyes, and exhale strongly, and fidget, and can’t fall asleep–everything that indicates someone who’s really struggling with something, but I don’t want Dorothy, who’s sitting across the room from me, to ask me what’s wrong, because then I’d have to explain the situation to her, and she’d try to console me or talk me down or something like that, and I don’t want that.

I don’t know what I’m feeling. And it frustrates me beyond BELIEF that I can’t figure this out and arrive at a conclusion that allows me to preserve everything that I want to. Fuck it. I’m just to go to bed, do what I gotta do tomorrow, let everyone amuse themselves on their own terms, and just do what I have to do, whatever that means. I’m just going to draw back into my own shell, be the quiet intellectual, or whatever the heck I am, and do my own thing. I just want to be alone for the rest of my life, and only let myself out of my own shell in very, very select situations. That’s my absolute first instinct, and probably what I’ll end up doing.

Going on this trip with people who enjoy things different ways than I do was a mistake. Inviting Elyse was a mistake. Subconsciously taking responsibility for everyone’s enjoyment of France and in particular Paris was a fatal mistake–one I only realized this evening when Elyse came up and admitted that she thought this trip was a mistake. And I feel like I’m being bypassed as a source of consultation, someone who led us through incredibly boring and non-enjoyable parts of Paris today, and someone who puts a damper on everything that we do and participate in. Of course she didn’t say that; she just made some offhand mention of how tired and malnourished she’s been, but I know she feels like I’ve really let things down, and she has to take matters into her own hands and plan the next day. And I feel like a failure for that.

And I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t feel any of this–that’s the crux of the matter, and that feeling assaults me incessantly, adding to the other feelings, and I hate it. I hate the way I feel right now, I hate the way that I can’t just sort through this with either myself or somebody else, and I hate that I won’t be able to fall asleep tonight for several hours and I’ll be wiped tomorrow, though I’ll manage.

I just want the France I know. The France I love. The familiar France or La Cote D’Azur and slow daylight pace, and having food with French families and relaxing and taking things slow around the pool, and sharing our own experiences with one another and getting know one another through conversation, like we had tonight around the dinner table. I LOVED that, but Aaron was fidgety, and Elyse hates the family here, Donald’s up for anything (love that kid), and I have no idea about Dorothy.

Fuck it all. I’m going to poke around here for a couple more minutes and then I’m heading to bed. Yep.

Another update from the road… We’re in Paris now, at the Ransom’s house (the family who is very generously putting us up for the nights we’ll be here). It’s a gorgeous house in the Parisian suburb of Garches, just to the west of the city and south of La Défense. Quiet street, cool breezes, creaky stairway. Aaron, Donald, and I are on the top floor and the roof is gabled, so our ceiling is pointed at the top and very tall. It also happens to have windows in it and just the right height for me to stand and rest my arms on, and I did for a good half-hour, just feeling the Parisian night breeze and listening to the trees rustle. It’s in moments like that that my expectations of travel don’t let me down–for a few brief minutes it’s all I want it to be, and more.

Tomorrow’s agenda in Paris has yet to be finalized, something we’ll all do over breakfast. I think I’m going to run down the local boulangerie (bakery) and buy some pain au chocolat (like a croissant with chocolate in the middle) and a baguette or two for the road. We’ll see.

Sleep in London was beyond restful last night. I made it a point to stay up as long as possible, to de-jetlag as soon as we could, and we actually made it to about 10:30 before we conked out. I woke up first, wonder of wonders, at about 8-8:30 the next morning, and we ventured downstairs for a full English breakfast while listening to the morning news on the radio. We walked around a bit for the rest of the morning through local parks and ducked into the Science Museum. Our train through the Chunnel left at 3, and was amazingly smooth and quick. The stage through the tunnel itself only takes about twenty minutes, and then you’re back topside again, only in France :o) Pulled into the station, and amid a bit of difficulty, secured the car reservation, bought some flowers for Mrs. Ransom, got a bit to eat, and actually made in on the roads out of Paris and found their house successfully.

That’s the Reader’s Digest version… I’m going to bed soon and want to rest up for tomorrow. Somehow I think I might end up being the wake up call for everyone else again. After enough consecutive nights of 3-4 hours of sleep, anything over 6 or so is relished.

More updates tomorrow, hopefully! Thanks for your prayers and well-wishes, everyone. They’re felt, with certainty. À demain, alors!

w00t! Hey all; we’re here in London. At an internet cafe near Paddington Station at the moment, and I have to be brief–we’re trying to do this whole thing in less than an hour on one computer so as not to pay more than a pound (quid?), so Donald and Aaron are breathing/reading over my shoulder.

Long story short–made it here safely (obviously), found the hotel, it’s a bit tight, especially for three red-blooded Amercican boys, and our room’s on the top floor, but it’s all quite nice. The weather is stellar; 70s and partly cloudy with a light breeze. Lovely in the evenings especially. More details to come–one of the other guys wants on. I’ll probably be writing to you next from France. Cheerio, all!

Okay.

I think I’m ready. All the preparations are made (or as made as they’re going to get). Pray for us.

See you all in two weeks. Goodbye, à bientôt, arrivederci, auf wiedersehen, etc… :o)

Here I stand
in front of your imagination

Last youth group of the year was last night, complete with small group mini-parties, a very short teaching by Jeremy, and a water fight at the end. I bought five bags of candy, a tube of Pringles, and a bag of Sunchips for the small group party, and brought the PS2. I’ve never seen candy go that quickly before, and I grew up in a household with three overactive teenage boy metabolisms. After 45 minutes I had no candy left, and these are the BIG bags of candy–Reese’s PB cups, Peppermint Patties, Skittles, 3 Musketeers bars, etc… At one point someone (I don’t remember who) made the very ill-advised decision to enter the room carrying a box of ice cream bars. Within seconds, a shout of, “Ice cream bars, who wants any?” resounded throughout the room, and amidst a cloud of ice cream bar wrappers and tearing cardboard box the hapless entrant barely escaped.

Part of it might have had something to do with the deal I struck with Donald’s (7-8th grade boys) small group before the meeting started. The water war was slated to take place at the end of the meeting, and in order to secure better odds for our group, I talked with Donald. He had been plotting a strategy ever since he heard about the possibility of a water war, and had made a supply run earlier that afternoon in which he purchased several hundred water balloons. He had even come to youth group about an hour early just to begin filling them and loading coolers, buckets, whatever he could find. I admired his strategizing, but I also wanted a piece of that action. So I struck up a deal whereby his small group guys could hang out in our room, eat candy, and play the PS2 (and Apples to Apples, which I also brought) instead of just languishing in the kitchen assisting him, and we’d have access to his water balloon stash. It was a perfect deal, but between the influx of Donald’s small group guys and the friends many of them had brought, the room was about three times as full as it usually was, hence the extremely shortened lifespan of the bags of candy.

As for the water war itself–things never quite work out the way we plan, although in this case I was surprised by the fact that the actual event wasn’t the polar opposite of my vision, as often happens. From the perspective of an organized game, as it was intended to be, it was, of course, was something of a bust. The leaders had tried valiantly to make up rules and goals prior to the event and to brief the kids on them, even separating them into teams. But as you can well imagine, the one thing on everyone’s mind as they stepped outside and grabbed their guns was just who they wanted to soak, squirt, hose down, drench. Before the chaos began I said I gave it 5 minutes before everything completely degenerated into a free-for-all. Turns out it took even less time than that, somewhere on the order of 30 seconds. Donald was prowling around the parking lot with his cart full of water balloon-filled coolers, and once he was discovered, anybody and everybody (mostly 7-9th grade boys, I was happy to say, since they knew of its existence beforehand) descended on them and started lobbing them into the crowd around the water hose. Within 15 minutes everyone was quite giddy and soaked to the skin. ‘Twas quite fun, although not having brought a dry change of clothes made cleanup a soggy experience. I had loads of fun.

We’re leaving for Europe in a day and half. Virgin Atlantic flight 21 out of Dulles, 7:30 PM Tuesday, to be precise. I’m so stressed about it. I’ve made all the reservations and travel arrangements, but things happen, even when you think you’ve got everything squared away. I might seem like I have it all together, but I don’t–it’s only by His grace that this trip is going to go smoothly and well, and the weight of responsibility is heavy underneath the affectations of calmness I might project. Please pray that it’ll go well, and if it doesn’t, that nothing catastrophic would happen inside the creation of a story to tell our friends on our return (you know, the “interesting” bits). There’s still so much left to do, loose ends to tie up, work schedules and projects to file away until I get back, and for heaven’s sake, packing. Gaaah.

Donald’s going to bring his digital video camera with about three hours of blank tape (and possibly more) available. I told him I want him to tape everything. We stood around outside the car earlier this evening and just planned out possible shots and situations and scenarios. There’s going to be so much raw footage when we get back that we’re not going to know what to do with it all. Donald and I want to whittle it down into a nice compilation of our trip, though. I’ve already started making mental note of songs I’d want on the soundtrack. That’s going to be grand.

And now, more work… Glad I took that 3-hour nap earlier.

Wacky things happen at the Gazette in the waning hours of the Friday workday, when we’re all highly dependent on caffeine to make it home, never mind the fact that the anticipation of the weekend to come would probably serve to motivate us through to 5 o’clock.

The most oft-targeted personality on campus for our commentaries is obviously our beloved Chancellor, James Moeser, whose picture appears in the paper with a noticeable regularity on account of the number of university functions he attends. We’ve taken to calling him “Da Meeze” with the same inflection spoken by the members of SNL’s Chicago Superfans when referencing “Da Bulls” or “Da Bears.” As far as I know it’s an appelation limited to Gazette office usage; I’ve not heard it outside this room.

He has a knack for appearing so many photographs around campus that it’s hard not to poke fun at one or two, especially the more, shall we say, “unfortunate” shots. Scott, our editor, was all good and ready to run this one before I pointed out that the Meeze was posturing during his speech with a distinctly Nazi-esque gesture. We promptly yanked it in favor of another, but the discussion continued on the subject of the now-designated Herr Meeze. Susan, the assistant editor, speculated that perhaps he wasn’t saluting at all, but attempting to levitate a portion of the wall with some latent Jedi-ish telekinetic ability. That theory received favorable reviews from Scott and myself, and I set about constructing a depiction of the actual event. The results were amusing, especially if you switch back and forth between the images and repeat to yourself, “Wall goes up. Wall goes down. Wall goes up…” and so on and so forth. I love Photoshop.

Oi. Time to go home…

Did I get it in this morning? I swear, my mind is so acclimated to deadlines and timeframes that I could describe the completely superfluous elements of my daily routine in work-like terms, cloaked in deadlines and buzzwords and such. It’s not healthy…or is it? For someone for whom time-management is an ongoing struggle, maybe it’s a good thing? As long as I’m not dreaming about work, I tell myself… It’s definitely not welcome there :o)

The Europe trip is all but planned and financed. Just a few more reservations to make, and I need to get travelers’ checks, too. Elyse has lodging the whole time, we have transportation everywhere we need to go, and a more relaxed itinerary that won’t (I hope) kill us. I seem to have become the point man for this whole operation over the last week or so… Not my natural inclination (I’m not a planner) but I think I’m doing okay, by the grace of God. Just gotta remember the maps, the sunscreen, and the swim trunks. And to get on the plane on the 15th. Yeah.

Got the Audi back on the road last weekend with the installation of the fuel tank I picked up from a boneyard in Asheville on Friday. See how happy it (he?) looks to be driving around again? Just a few more kinks to work out and I’ll be able to actually get it inspected, wonder of wonders. That would be a minor miracle, and I’m not even kidding. For those who know me and my automotive history, getting cars their yearly inspection has always been a crapshoot, hit or miss. We’ll see how this one fares after we return from overseas.

The last youth group of the year is this Saturday. We’re having “small group parties” (mine is the 9th grade guys) along with a huge water war. Andy (my co-leader) and I need to scare up some video game systems and buckets of candy for the “party” (that combo is always a hit with that tier of adolescent male), as well as some weaponry for the water war. Guess I’ll have to raid the attic at my parents’ place. I know we have half a dozen water guns hiding somewhere…

It’s a Gazette day today. I won an award for my work with the Gazette a few weeks ago. I got a “Star Heel” award, which is basically a piece of paper, a $20 gift certificate to my choice of three stores, and I get to put my own name in the Gazette (haha!). It’s a small gesture in the grand scheme of things, but it’s the first real commendation I’ve received at work, and it was very affirming. Thanks, God :o)

Now for lunch… I think I might duck into Cosmic or Carrburritos today; haven’t had Mexican in a while.

Tired. Oi. I should, like, not be up this late. I happen to be in the premier echelon, the elite of the world’s time-wasters (I can whittle away prodigious amounts of the stuff when I put my mind to it), which would explain why I’m still here at work. This is craptacular.

I’ll post a more comprehensive entry in the morning.

Note: I did leave and come back later this evening. I’ve certainly not been here since 8 this morning, heh.

Wow, gee, I just love being at work until 2 in the morning two nights in one week. So fun. 55 hours a week rocks my socks. At least I got Monday off. No, wait, I came to work that day after I got home from Florida. Oh yeah.

gottamakeittojulygottamakeittojuly…

*sigh*

The seat renderings are done. 340 pages of Undergrad Bulletin formatted. Now I just have to plan the whole trip to Europe, put the engine and transmission back into the red Supra (as per my agreement last November with Jeff), drive out to Asheville to pick up a fuel tank for the Audi, install that, get its exhaust leak fixed, call Scott and plan a youth group guys’ paintball party next Friday, scare up $1500 from somewhere, run, work out, etc etc…

Oh yeah, eat and sleep too.

Guh. Prayers appreciated.

I could really use a lower back massage. I think between bending over the car yesterday to reach the rear bank of spark plugs after sitting in the car for several hours, and then going for a good run (within a few seconds of the 3.5 mi. record) did something to the muscles back there. Ow. Sore. I’ll stretch when I get home, I think. I’m getting old, heh :o)

Called Madame Pignol in Vence over lunch today and fared much better than I thought I would. Maintained a good conversation, all my expressions came back to me, my accent was decent, and it worked out well. Only thing is, they’re going to be gone the weekend we plan to be there, so staying with them is out. Maybe we can scrounge up a few more friends in the area. Argh. I do not need planning stress. We could always stay at the Mas de Vence, where we have in the past, as it’s relatively inexpensive (especially if you split a double room four ways–meaning I’d have to sleep on the floor, but I don’t mind), very near to the inner city, and the hotel restaurant is absolutely stellar. Oh, and they have that stalwart bastion of investigative reporting, the Nice Matin, downstairs every morning. We shall see.

Back from Florida. Infinitely glad to be back as far as location, not so glad to be back in the thick of things schedule-wise. It was a welcome island of solace in the middle of the madness that these two months will be. Over the weekend I think I slept more than I have in the past week and a half combined, on a big hotel bed no less, that was actually long enough (those who know me know how atypical it is for me to find sleeping arrangements that don’t force me to sleep on a diagonal in the bed). The wedding was lovely. I was appointed the official videographer minutes after arrival by the mother of the bride, a sometimes arduous and awkward duty, but one I welcomed since it gave me a task to perform. I found I could plant myself in the thick of scenes and goings-on and not feel self-conscious when I had the camera on and pointed at the action–somehow the act of viewing matters through the unit’s small screen made me feel oddly detached from everything, though I was only feet away. After the reception was the best part of the whole affair. The toasts were plentiful and wonderful, and I danced more than I have in a long while.

Listening to this music makes me want the good. I hear it and I want to invest in, to experience the wholesome, the complete, the sincere, the right. The corrupt, the world-weary, the blasé, the squinty-eyed cynicism I feel around me sometimes might be more interesting for a season or two, but the strong chords feel like coming home, a welcoming embrace, a re-centering acceptance…

Began Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance over the weekend, and although I’m only part-way through, I like it immensely so far. Not only does the author write in a style I find familiar and accessible, he probes existential questions through metaphors to which I can readily relate. He leaves treatises open-ended sometimes, too (or seems to–perhaps he’ll resolve things later in the book), giving the philosophical gist of the writing a mildly self-deprecating bent, which just makes it all the more accessible. He removes the obscure QED-isms from the typical tone of that genre and strikes up an easy conversation with the thoughts in his mind, so to speak. I like it a lot.

The car broke down on the way home. Paul and I were about halfway through the wasteland of I95 running through South Carolina when I heard an odd vibration running through the car. The music was turned up; I shut it off and listened. It sounded almost like we were running over a continuous rumble strip in the road, but it didn’t disappear when I switched lanes. Then the car started hestitating, and I looked for an exit. Fortunately it happened just before an off-ramp, so we took it and directed the ailing car into the nearest gas station, pulling into a parking spot right next to a phone booth (neither Paul or have cell phones). I popped the hood; it turned out that the serpentine belt had frayed and a cord had severed half the spark plug wires. I went inside and asked the attendant if there was an auto parts store nearby, which there was. Fortunately my parents weren’t too far behind in their car, so they arrived, and we drove down to the store, bought the belt and the wires, and returned. The adjustable wrench didn’t slip off the belt tensioner as I undid it, the spark plug boots came off readily, and fifteen minutes and ten greasy fingers later the car was running better than it had in a while. God really came through for us–we could have been stranded on the road somewhere with a much more serious vehicular failure.

“You will never grow rich but you will have a life of endless interest and variety,” James Herriot wrote. I would wish that for my life.

Loud, brash, noisy guitars. Amps turned up to 11 (“This one goes to eleven.”) Wall-of-sound rock, with multi-layered vocal harmonies thrown on top for good measure. That’s what I want right now. I knew I shouldn’t have left Definitely Maybe at home. Dang it.

I despise and loathe the dryer in the apartment complex’s laundry building. Granted, I’m drying colors, but I don’t even have a pair of jeans in there for once and it’s taking three cycles to get it all dry, whereas its facing companion finished the whites in just one load. That, if you ask me, is some serious dryer underachievement. I think it’s about time to start browsing the want-ads for used washer/dryer sets.

It’s relentlessly humid. After the evening is through it’s not terribly warm outside, but the air is so laden with moisture that the sweat just stands on your skin after the slightest bit of exertion. Thank goodness for A/C.

Driving down to Gainesville, Florida, tomorrow for my cousin Justine’s wedding on Sunday. They’re apparently having some sort of extended family social/cookout-type thing on Saturday, and as we’re going to miss the rehearsal dinner tomorrow evening, our presence would be required at the cookout. Shouldn’t be too bad, although encounters with my mother’s side of my extended family inevitably tend to leave a stale taste in my mind. It’s the perennially overachieving side of the family. The older of my two cousins, Jessica, was married last summer. She has a doctorate in medieval English or some such from Harvard, studied in Oxford, Cambridge, the whole lot, taught at UCLA for a number of years, and is now teaching at Yale with her husband, another English professor. Her new father-in-law’s idea of a toast at the wedding was to express his pride in all his children equally through reciting their accomplishments. It sounded like a sweet gesture at the time, and Jessica’s husband’s family certainly aren’t sub-par on the achievement scale either, but it retrospect it’s hard not to interpret the magnitude of the father’s admiration as a sort of sum total of his children’s accomplishments in the world to date. And that’s the sort of milieu I’m headed for tomorrow. I have a feeling it wouldn’t matter much if I were completely miserable with my life as long as I were making headway in the world. I’ll tell them about my second job designing the aircraft seat, and the pleasant variety inherent in the graphic design gig at UNC, and they’ll smile approvingly, without any attempt at inquiry as to whether it’s where I’m supposed to be. Accomplishments don’t mean a thing if you’re not where you’re supposed to be. But on the other hand, it’s not really fair to expect that kind of in-depth interest in my bien-être anyway–it’s just small talk among relatives. I’ll just cruise through, catch up on much-needed sleep, finish reading All Creatures Great and Small (excellent book), buy Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance at a local Barnes & Noble and start that, go through the motions at the wedding, and rest. The next few weeks are going to be a whirlwind anyway, ramping up to the Europe trip.

Quick note: I love it when I fire up internet radio and Andain’s “Beautiful Things” is playing. Just made my morning.

sailed ’round the world
we were hoping to find
more than the sum of all we left behind

I think I’m paying for it today. It was only yesterday evening as I stepped off the last flight into RDU that I began to feel the effects of the previous 48 hours. Worked solid on Monday from just before 8 until 2:30 the following morning, with only breaks for meals, slept about 3 hours, got on a plane at 8 Tuesday morning after a ticketing snafu, arrived in New Mexico just after 12:30, blew through the presentation and entertained comments and questions, had some time to just hang out with Todd in the airport for about an hour, flew back, changed planes again in DFW, and landed here around 12:30 this morning. And now I’m here back at work.

So I did it. The whole four-flights-in-one-day thing, that is. But…yeah. Even though I managed to sleep on three of the four flights, I’m still mildly sore. My neck is a mass of tension; has been for days…I think that’s just tiredness, though. It’s like I told Barend as he was driving us to the airport–I never really understood in a tangible sense the value of business aviation until I took these two trips out west. If I were higher up on the management totem pole, and to a lesser degree now, the ability to dictate my own travel schedule would be absolutely invaluable.

Something about being on an airplane makes one think about travel in general, so my thoughts naturally drifted to the Europe trip quite a bit. There’s still so much left to do, left to figure out and prepare surrounding that excursion. I tried valiantly not to worry about it, but matters were hard seeing as how my gut was already in that mindset (stomach-set?). There’s so much I want to do…and there’s no way we’ll be able to do all of it. At some point I’m just going to have to let that go. I tend to focus on the sights I want to see to the exclusion of thinking about the friends I’ll be there with, the experience of hashing things out in a foreign (though still Western, mind you) setting, with very little safety net. And…yeah. Enough thinking about it for now. 260 pages of Undergraduate Bulletin await.

L’éspace entre mes doigts a besoin des tiens

Probably a good idea to clean out the bottom of the toaster oven when it catches on fire just trying to toast a couple of muffin halves. I congratulated myself afterwards, though, in reaching instinctively for a glass of water and extinguishing the fire quickly enough so that the smoke detectors remained silent. Didn’t even disturb my roommates and their respective significant others as they watched the rest of Anne of Avonlea in the living room (“Um, John, the toaster just caught on fire. It’s out now.” “Huh? What?”). But yeah… no peanut butter muffins for me last night.

Going to Albuquerque again tomorrow; what joy is mine. This past week has been insane, so they’ll have to understand that I’ve not had the chance to be quite as prolific this time around in the depth of my design development. Ah well. They know I can deliver the goods, at least, from last time. If this is going to be a reasonably frequent occurance, which I hope it’s not, I should start tallying up frequent flyer miles. I’m just going for the day, which reasonates in my mind like it’s a trip just down the road or something, and then I realize I’m flying three quarters of the way across the country. The fact that it would be a feat of some magnitude to succeed in explaining that to a citizen of centuries past amuses me slightly.

Odd dreams. My experiences daytripping to New Mexico and back I think influenced one. I don’t remember the context or who was there, but I remember suggesting on a whim to a group of people that we take a day trip to Jersey. No, not New Jersey, but the Isle of Jersey, just off the French coast in the English channel. Somehow, I don’t know how, I found a flight, and we arrived in Paris much sooner than I had expected. I thought we would be in good shape, assuming we could find a train ride to St. Malo (the town on the French coast from which ferries depart). They were all set to leave later in the day, though (mirroring a measure of my real-life experiences with reseaching flights to Albuquerque), a frustrating development that meant that we wouldn’t be able to complete the trip in one day, as I had oh-so-reasonably expected we would have been able to. I suggested that we all take a trip to visit nearby Mont St. Michel instead, and everyone consented.

At this point I woke up at 8:30 in a panic because I realized I was going to be late for work, and confused beyond measure as to how I could have forgotten to set both alarms. I threw some dark jeans on, looked for something simple, simple, simple in my closet, put on deodorant, grabbed my shoes, and–wait a minute. A sneaking suspicion came over me, and I checked the date on the clock, verified my hunch with both calendars, put my shorts back on, and crawled back into bed for another couple of hours.

I had another dream at this point, involving driving an ’80s BMW 3-series to a grassy field where we were all going to climb into the bed of a pickup truck and gambol around the field, chewing up the sod with the tires. For some reason I didn’t get in, and they whipped around the field without me, coming within inches of my parked car. I decided to get in and move it up a bit… Then suddenly I was in a seat behind the pilot and copilot of a Convair B-58 Hustler, flying supersonically at very low level (~50 feet). The pilot was dodging trees left and right with well-nigh feline reflexes, and having a great time of it, too. I remember the ground below rushing by at an immense rate, and also making the offhand comment that the B-58 was one of the sexiest planes I knew of… ‘Twas odd.

Okay, these are hilarious (right-click and save-as; they’re rather large):

1 2 3 4

Just so we’re clear, they’re satirical, meant to be a tongue-in-cheek look at what some people think Jesus is like. Thank goodness He’s not :o)

“Why do you think I want this boat? All I want to do is sail away…”

Two weeks in Europe seems awfully short as I stare at my little desk calendar here at work. The days are boxed and marked out with a black felt-tip pen.

Why do I want to go back so badly? What draws me to it? Is it some longing for a childhood left behind? The place invariably meets my expectations after all these years; it did in 2000 when we returned for a few days. It’s hard to think I would appreciate it more now than I did when I was younger… I was always a bit solitary and pensive, and absorbed my surroundings on my own terms, and I knew what I was seeing was a place of beauty like none I had ever seen before, or was likely to see again (not in the same way, at least). I think, more than anything, I want to share those experiences with people. The thought of returning by myself repels me. But then I catch myself: It’s just my naiveté talking. I have experiences, strong feelings wrapped up in those places, all the more tumultuous since they’ve been dormant for so long, and even though the same foreign vistas might be moving across our eyes, what goes on underneath may be completely different, uncategorizable as better or worse, just different. I want to share the sights and places, but more than that, it’s some desire to include my companions into my memories, to fill some loneliness I didn’t know I felt. And that’s grossly unfair to them. We’ll create new experiences, new memories, sure, but between those and existing in that place for a few days won’t exorcise the loneliness I felt for the better part of those years. I don’t know what to do about it, if anything. I may just have to carry it with me.

sail away with me
what will be will be

The music is a city of sound. Smooth-walled and shimmering monoliths rise around the patchwork grid of the populace. They form a human mist that swirls around the base of the glass edifices. A uniform whole comes into focus as we twist the lens of interpretation and arrive at the correct distance for a holistic view. Somehow the ever-present societal instinct toward dissection into fragments easily carried by our short-term memory is quelled, and the now of the sound spreads out before and behind me in time. I just want to exist in eternity for a minute.