A simple, uh, man's daybook

I read this on Monica's blog the other day and decided to steal it from her, though she only borrowed it from the other Monica.

outside my window. . .
The day is cooler than this past week. Actually it feels cooler now than when I ran this morning, though perhaps it was just the heat reflecting off the track. I was going to write this on the porch, but when I say "cooler" it still means nearly eighty degrees. The breeze is nice, the grass is long, and I unfortunately have no sweet tea.

I am listening to. . .
MPR's The Current, which I shamelessly promote to all my music-loving friends. Listen, fall in love, contribute and proselytize. Also: Peter Bradley Adams [via @BMick], The Avett Brothers [via co-worker Emily], and a lot of Ryan Adams. Highly anticipating Wilco (The Album) as it's dropping in t-minus three days.

I am thinking. . .
Pondering really. About grad school, houses and girls. Not really in that order, but they're all present within my mind.

I am thankful. . .
For air conditioning - I'm far, far from being a warm-weather person, and my life would be some sort of hell without an A/C unit in my bedroom. For friendships that encourage me to use my brain and heart, reigniting passions within me that had dulled to near-nonexistence. For iced teas and iced coffees. For my job.

from the learning room. . .
Nothing much, unfortunately. With classes over for the summer I have embraced the slacker-lifestyle: reading a lot of non-fiction and immersing myself into Battlestar Galactica. I need to be thinking/preparing for a couple of things: GRE, ACSM [American College of Sports Medicine] accreditation, CPR/First aid certifications.

from the kitchen. . .
My fridge and cupboards are almost empty. I'm not around much during the summer, and usually eat pretty lightly for breakfast and dinner. I probably should do dishes this weekend.

I am wearing. . .
Shorts. With the heat most of my housemates and I have been wandering around the house in our underwear. It really was too hot for clothes. Since it's a bit cooler today I reinstated the idea of wearing more than just my underwear.

I am hoping. . .
To understand a great mystery. That we figure out our living situation [we need one or two more guys for the fall]. That Josh and I will be able to end our game of phone tag.

I am creating. . .
I restarted work on my story/screenplay again. Trying to work the kinks out of the plot so I can start with the dialogue.

I am praying. . .
For community. For friendship. For forgiveness. For wisdom. For justice. For babies.

around the house. . .
The house has been incredibly empty this summer, which doesn't necessarily bother me, but it is nice to hang out with folks. Since we're down two guys and our schedules and trips are all over the place, we don't spend much time together. I'm supposing that this fall will be different, but who knows.

I am reading. . .
I took a short break from For Whom the Bell Tolls to reread the last two Harry Potter books [inspired to do so by @JenniferVM and the upcoming movie]. I'm halfway through number seven, so it will be back to Hemingway soon enough. I've been thinking of starting up a theology book, but I'm not entirely sure I'll have the drive to commit to that.

one of my favorite things. . .
Currently I, and my co-workers, are on a crossword kick. Unfortunately our boss put the kibosh on that the other day. It's fun to take down a challenging puzzle as a group. Also, since this post was inspired by Mon, hanging out with the Ghalis is another favorite "thing" of mine. I've been able to hangout with Mark several times this summer and I must say that I've missed him, I hope that he returns to Iowa after his Egyptian adventures. And I have had a couple of chances to be around the parental-Ghalis, and have been encouraged and felt the presence of wisdom among them. And in a bit of time I'll get to spend time with Monica, which I'm looking forward to a little bit.

a few plans for the rest of the week. . .
Tonight: church, a movie, hangs outs? Tomorrow: golf, soccer [U.S.? Wow] and reading. The week: my boss will be gone, so I'm sort of filling in for him. But it should be a light week, with the holiday coming up and all. And perhaps this will be the week that I come out of disc golf retirement to shoot a round with Brandon and Mark, so hopefully we'll get some good weather for that.

a picture thought i am sharing. . .


My dad and I are going to Montana to fish in July, so this is a photo of things-to-come, but with me doing the flycasting and maybe holding up a huge fish. Maybe. you have my love.

When your heart is scattered

I have a problem. I guess it isn’t as much as a problem as it is a complication. It becomes a problem when I have to make life-changing decisions. It is thus: that when I come to love people I love the places that I associate with them and subsequently find it difficult to live anywhere but there. Since I have many close friends whom are scattered across the globe it is hard for me to be fully content living in any one place.

My currently tentative three-year plan involves deciding on where I would like to live out, at least, my thirties. Unless I can talk someone else into paying my bills, I will probably do grad school here at Iowa State. Which isn’t a bad thing, but it involves me making a decision against Oregon State, University of Wisconsin, Michigan State, etc. – the local universities of some of the other desirable locales. When that [final] era of schooling is done, I should probably have a decision ready or I may live forever in a state of ambiguity. FOR-ev-er.

My current plan for making this decision: getting married and having her make that decision. Just kidding.

Seriously though, I want to reconcile this love I feel for my friends with the fact that I will have to live apart from most of them, and it’s a tough task. I know that some people are content with knowing that they had great friends in that era of their life, but they can compartmentalize the eras of their life to be okay with that. I’m loyal to a fault, so that’s not easy/possible for me to do.

I suppose that long distance friendships aren’t impossible. Five years ago when I was living in Des Moines and Josh was living in Tennessee we made great use of free night minutes and developed a far better friendship than we had while living with each other. Of course we were single, absurd and relatively carefree then; nonetheless, it proves that to some degree that friendship can be deepened despite the distance. However, the mystery remains. I’ll let you know in three years how it all works out. you have my love.

Prayers at midnight

When I was younger in my faith I tried on several occasions to write down all the things I could think of that I could pray for. These lists included the names of all my friends and acquaintances at the time and ended up being pages and pages long. It would be fine the first few days, I would just make my way down the list and pick off a few that I knew were in need of "serious prayer" [what does that even mean?]. Within a week I felt overwhelmed, would throw the list out and declare that I would just pray for whatever came to mind.

These days I have a whiteboard in my room, which I use for running schedules, a lot of unused blog ideas, keeping track of bills, and things that need prayer. The prayer list has eight headings, with a total of twelve subheadings. Essentially, seventeen [don't mind the math, I got out of bed to write this] things to pray for. And yet, when I quiet myself to pray, I still feel overwhelmed. It isn't a matter of quantity, but the weight of the needs. I think of my father's health, the community that surrounds me, the unrest in Peru, the lost of Germany, the lost amongst my friends and I don't know where to start. To make matters worse, the state of my faith is incredibly messy. That may be an understatement. I need to remind myself what prayer is - what my faith is: communion with God.

Our Father, who is in heaven, Holy is your name. May your Kingdom come, may your will be done in my life, on this earth as it is done in heaven. Grant us our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, forgive me my pride, as I forgive those who have wronged me. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil - that we might do good. May the Kingdom, the power, the glory and honor be yours forever and ever. Amen.

Rehearsals for a departure

I'm not sure if I've ever made this public, but my main mechanism of defense is to run away. When things get tough, I get out. Case in point: the Portland experience. I moved out there because things were tough here, and I moved back because things were tough there. It occurs on the micro level as well; I avoid all sorts of conversations that might make me uncomfortable.

Lately I've been in the mood to prove myself wrong, so I decided to stop running away. I'm not entirely sure of my career path, but I've set my course. And that course may even take me to grad school. Again. I was frustrated with my living situation, but I decided that it was better to struggle amongst people than to live easily alone. And I've been thinking about how I need to get back into the proverbial fight regarding my faith. To a lesser degree I restarted reading "For Whom the Bells Toll," which I had given up on because at the time I was over-Hemingwayed. In regards to the micro, well. I haven't figured that out yet. I'll let you know how that goes. you have my love.


Post title taken from Damien Jurado's album of a similar name. You should listen to it.

The loneliness of the long run

First I must admit that I will not be running Dam to Dam this year as I may or may not have wrote earlier. At a month out from the race I decided that I just didn't have my distance up to par. I wanted to be at eleven or twelve miles and I was at eight. You should know that I don't consider a run as long until it's six or more miles, although someday I hope to be like one of these amazing guys. I needed a new goal so I decided that this summer I will get faster. A lot of mile and two mile repeats, shorter interval runs, but keeping up the longer runs on the weekend. I actually haven't had a long run in several weeks, which means I need to get to it.

I ran middle distance my first two years of high school. I don't have many regrets, but not running cross country and not finishing the last two years of track are on my list of regrets [I don't actually keep a list of regrets]. At the end of practice our coach would send us on a long run to, well I don't really know why, I suppose it was good for us in some fashion. A lot of the guys in the group were cross country runners, and so I would eventually find myself alone at the back of the pack, running through the wilds of West Des Moines.

Those runs, so long ago now, remain the foundation of my long runs these days. I end up in the country or some tucked away corner of the city where I can run by myself and embrace the loneliness of a middle distance runner. The thought crossed my mind today how odd it is that I, as someone who must have community to survive, also love being alone in a time where I'm pushing my body to its limits. I am a weird mix of intro- and extro- version. But there is also something to be said about these long runs being somewhat meditative, maybe more on that some other day.

News and notes: I finished the semester, not strongly, not weakly, I managed. I made a trip to Western Michigan, which was lovely and I loved seeing the Gateses and Jennifer and the lake dunes. Any day now we will finish phase II on the massive warehouse overhaul. Word on the street is that this film may be shot on location in my home away from home [the warehouse] - which would be absolutely incredible, or incredibly annoying. That's all I got for now. you have my love.

Next

I have been thinking about what is "next" lately. I suppose it's a good time for it. Winter has, I hope, officially ended and there is an abundant amount of new life growing in the out-of-doors. The semester is ending, which points my focus to the classes I have on the horizon. If my mind wasn't already thinking about the possibilities of dating someone, the fact that a lot of relationships are beginning or blossoming into the "M" word, and the collapse of the Her? Campaign would bring my thoughts towards the idea of romance. Another season of Lost is ending. People are moving. And so on. So what is next?

I have a year of classes left, then a summer internship. Hopefully this internship will be somewhere that I can stay. I know I've listed places that I am thinking about, but there are really only three (some days four) places that I will seriously look into moving to - or staying in. It feels weird. When I finished at Trinity I knew that my only bet was to go home again. This time that really isn't an viable option, meaning that I have to move on. And I want to move on. This next chapter of my life has been delayed long enough.

I daydream about what it would be like to live like an actual adult. As much as I love the freedom offered by being a student, at times it seems flat. I do so much and, if I'm not careful and purposeful, all that I do can be of very little substance.

The next year, as they all do, will go fast. It will be a busy summer then two busy semesters and I will be at the next step. I can only hope that I'll be ready. I have this idea that it would be a lot easier to take this next step with someone, even if it was a friend. I'm not sure I see that happening, but I guess there's still a year left for that to come to fruition.

For those of you thinking that I had abandoned this blog 'o mine, I have to say that I considered it. Briefly. I've enjoyed blogging so much that I can't just give it up. I may be busier/lazier than previous blogging eons, but maybe that's why I ought to keep writing. I've been thinking that I may write a story (from my life or from my mind) every week, if just to keep my mind thinking about the narrative. Hopefully I can continue telling this story, I'd like to give this chapter a good ending while getting ready for whatever is next. you have my love.

Homemade economic remedies

It seems as though half of the nation is in a gripped panic in the face of a potential economic meltdown. The other half of the nation is watching something on cable. I'm here to quell your fears America, I will tell you how to overcome this season of fear.

Investing
Investing is crucial to accruing and preserving wealth. However, the markets are all over the place and no one company is safe to put your money in. But there is one entire industry that is going untapped and is only growing. I know, you want in on the ground level, don't we all. I present to you the future of American wealth:



That's right, the plastic beaded necklace [PBN] is the wave of the future! I think that the PBN will bypass the publicly traded market and go straight to the commodity market. The demand for PBN is as high as it has ever been; people will humiliate themselves in public, degrade themselves, and even run into busy streets for PBN. Not only do I recommend that you invest in PBN in the markets, but I would also prescribe buying as much PBN you can and stockpiling it. If and when the economy fully collapses, I foresee PBN being used as a currency. If you are unable to purchase PBN for yourself at any party supplies warehouse, you can certainly return to the practice of our ancestors: gathering; particularly in times of festivity and parades - the next season of PBN abundance is during early July. Best of luck to you, my friends, in BPN accumulation.

Identity
Americans are constantly making purchases of items to "define" their identity: clothes, cars, electronic devices, etc. These are non-durable goods, meaning that they will not last. Eventually they will fade into material nothingness or into meaninglessness. Instead of showing off one's identity with these purchases I am encouraging a one-time purchase that will allow for cheaper purchases of those other items. This purchase which I am promoting has already found its niche in the lower class of our nation, thus showing high potential for the middle and upper classes in the face of economic hardship. I give you your future identity marker:



That's right, the "neck tat" can easily reveal to even complete strangers who you really are. In the above picture the upstanding gentleman went with something simple and to the point. I can only assume that it is the name of the woman who is his first and only love. Putting her name on his neck tells the world of the love and commitment that he has for her. Truly neck tats can provide the external identity marker that you crave.

Last ditch idea
Time is running out and I am losing in Madden '94 for Sega Genesis, desperation is running high, and though I am trying my best to overcome the mounting pressure of an impending loss, I can not. With mere seconds left on the clock I do the only honorable thing left to do: I pause the game and hit reset. If the economy gets worse and showing signs of immediate collapse, then President Obama and his colleagues around the world should just pause the game and pull a worldwide economic reset. Everyone gets to keep what they have, all debts are cancelled, all banks are given equal amounts of money, all monetary inflation rates are done away with, and all incomes and prices of goods return to their 1950's levels. You know, kind of like in The Matrix Revolutions. Didn't it succeed in restoring the reputation of that movie franchise? I can only imagine the good it would do for the world economy.

And there are Travis' homemade economic remedies. I only ask that when you put these ideas into practice that you tell all who will listen that these concepts originated in my brain. Now if you excuse me, I think there's a NCIS episode on that don't remember the outcome of. you have my love.