Wednesday has 23 minutes left

The big news of the day: I GOT UP ON TIME!
Yes, when the alarm blared at 5:30 I carefully hit one snooze, and when it blared again 9 minutes later I got up and got moving. I think mental resolve can make a 100% difference in waking up, which is why discovering that I can leave at 7:30 and the world won't end really cut the legs out from under my timeliness this semester. But this morning I got up, and it felt good to leave a little after 6.

At work I did the daily logs and data, waited to meet with Tom (which we never did), cleaned up various loose ends, and tried to move ahead with the totes project. It was supposed to be a co-op lunch day, but everyone either couldn't make it or was gone, so I went to the Midway by myself to sate my growing craving for the the cheesy, ranchy, french-fried, vegetable-mediated deliciousness of a cajun chicken salad. It lived up to all expectations, and as I sat alone at the table I worked on the manual update project and then planned out the tracklist for my album. It was significant, in my mind, to come away with 11 tracks in a specific order that I'm fairly confident in. It brings focus and boundaries to what I need to work on, and gives me that important first step from which to work from now on. I wonder if this album will really happen, and if it will be any good outside my circle of friends. I wonder how much I should charge for it.

I was planning to work some overtime ($20 post-tax per hour!), but then I remembered (thank goodness) the dentist appointment at 6:15. So I left at 3:54pm, stopped by home, and swung by Best Buy to get a firewire card and inspect car subs before hitting the dentist. Subs are expensive. My teeth are in bad shape. 6 cavities to get filled on 2 different visits. Bad news to be sure, but far from unexpected. I'm glad to have gone this long since my last cavity (years and years ago), considering the amount of pop and candy I enjoy on a regular basis. Dr. Qualk said nonchalantly to "switch to diet," at which I snorted a laugh. Perhaps some day I will drink fizzy water loaded with caramel color and bizarre chemicals, but for now it's sugar or skip it. And I'm doing a lot of skipping it. It's a matter of brushing during the day, which is why I'm bringing a toothbrush to work tomorrow. And flossing, which is do-or-die for preventing cavities.

At home I ate dinner, watched a funny Simpsons, paid my PA state tax balance, and hit the homework. I'm very happy to say now that 6 of the 7 problems are done, and to the best of my knowledge they are right. The seventh I leave for tomorrow since it involves diffusion, which is different from what the other problems were about. This P-chem stuff really is pretty cool. I punched some numbers on a lark, and informed Dad that there are roughly 5 times 10 to the 28th power air molecules (21% oxygen, 79% nitrogen) hitting our kitchen table's top surface every second. That's 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or Ten Octillion. Every second. And all those molecules, smashing into everything all around us constantly, bumping us with an octillion little bumps every second, are "air pressure." When you suck out some of those molecules from the inside of an empty pop bottle, the octilllion ones on the outside keep hitting at the same rate, and that force crumples the plastic in with unstoppable firmness. It's interesting to contemplate the blase reality of the effects of such abstract concepts as flux of particles through a mathematically-defined area (which is the number of molecules hitting the table per second).

So now I've written this post, which I thought would be short 'cause I really didn't have much to say and didn't want to be typing for a long time. But of course I found plenty of things to say. I wonder why I can say so much with so little provocation, while it seems like pulling teeth to find out from some people what their major is. Speaking of teeth, I'ma get novicaine shots three Fridays from now when I start getting cavities filled. My two mouth shots as a kid are one of the very few scarring memories of my childhood. Since the day the dentist probed around in the deepest untouchable regions of my jaw with his needle and the shot came out the tip and pounded into some unknown tissue, I have feared and hated the prospect of cavities. It was sufficient motivation to get me to brush, of my own volition, basically every single night of my life (save a few bizarre nights in Akron). If you've read my blog much at all and I've communicated my life with any degree of competency, you should appreciate how stunning this is. I can't even make myself read the Bible every day when I know the eternal fruit it would yield, but I'll get myself up out of my warm drowsy bed while my limbs cry for sleep when I remember I haven't brushed yet. If I don't do it I'll end up getting another shot, so brush away. Now I've gotta make flossing have that same import (which it once did), and I've gotta feel the connection between drinking a can of pop and my enamel decaying and the needle being sunk down again into the inside of my mouth.

Jars of Clay is amazing. Not a lot of their songs are huge stand-out five- or six-star jewels, but as I play through their albums in iTunes I keep raising my head and listening and thinking what a sweet song this is. Even stuff I can't recall at all, once its coming through the speakers, seems like I've known and loved it all my life. And their last two albums, with rich lyrics written by real Christians to boot, are nearly matchless. Even Audio Adrenaline seems cheesy compared to "Amazing Grace" or "Come and Let Us Mourn Awhile."

If I could live anybody's life right now, it would be Jon Foreman. He's doing exactly what a huge part of me cries to do. He writes songs that pierce my heart, he has a killer band of hilarious, skilled guys, he puts on personal, musically rich, freely experiential concerts, and millions of people across America can sing his songs by heart. Oy. Well, my life is in God's hands, and that's not a sad thing, 'cause He knows far better than me what will work out.

Now it's Thursday. And late again. Keeps happening. Oh well. I'm getting up at 5:39 this morning.

--Clear Ambassador