A Day

Today was a day.

At first I was going to type "Today was a great day," based on the last half. But then I remembered missing the alarm, missing the bus, sleeping through a class, and the frustration of not being able to comprehend the control setup for a system with delay. But I certainly wouldn't write "Today was a pretty lousy day," 'cause I read some of the Bible (!!!), slept for almost 2 hours after eating a delicious sandwich, worked out for more than an hour, and spent 5 hours of wonderfully balanced homework and fun stuff up in the computer lab doing tomorrow's process control assignment with Charlie and Joam. Does anybody else realize how wonderful relationships are when you're working on something with other people? It's like you can just interact, joke, hang out together, and not be concerned with any of it 'cause you have to do it 'cause you're working. The focus isn't the "relationship," it's what you're doing. Charlie and I have been having a blast this semester doing process control, safety and design together. But if he just came over to the house to hang out, we probably wouldn't have much to do, and it would be kind of strange. Last semester with Jenna as my homework partner was great, too. Sports are like that too: they're great for getting to know people and building some familiarity without sitting around talking - every word having no purpose but conversation, every action having no escape but to indicate something about yourself, the other people, or what you think of them.
More generally, being forced to do work can be quite nice. It removes self-reflexivity. You have to think about less. You have no choice! The more free time, and the more free your time, the more culpability you shoulder as to your use of it. This may not be coherent to others, but it's one of those I feel rather strongly and have been enjoying a lot at an elemental, "I wouldn't do this voluntarily" level this semester.
Oh, and today was good day too because I hit up Fuel & Fuddle after the computer lab at 11:30 and got a Magic Head and a Flying Buffalo, both of which were exquisite. It's hard to believe how good their pizza crusts are.

In other news, I'm gaining weight.. but my waistline is shrinking. I'm staying over 145, but I keep wishing I had one more hole in my default belt (thrift store, baby!), which used to fit perfectly. So I guess that means I'm gaining muscle weight, which is sweet. I noticed an improvement in my karate kick height, too, which means my hours of hamstring stretches are paying off. Today I walked up the stairs from the basement to the 12th floor of Benedum twice (282 steps, 2 at a time) and it wasn't that big of a deal (whereas typically I'm sucking air in like a positive displacement vacuum pump by the 10th floor and my quads feel like stiff, burning steaks). I'm putting 2 45's on each side of the bench press machine, and I can do three sets of pullups without weight assist. All of which is to say, it looks like there's some progress on the exercise front. Which is thrilling to see, 'cause exercising is basically like throwing a bottle out on the ocean -- you do what you do, but you have no direct control over what actually happens. It's an amazing thing to see your body actually responding and getting more able to do things. Muscle growth is the coolest, because it's adding to your very frame - the limbs you carry about everywhere and see in every mirror. I could never *will* my body to make more muscles or lift more weight, but it has come about to that effect on its own, due to the conditions I have imposed through working out.

As I was riding the elevator down from the computer lab I was thinking about this general (yes, we're making a bit of a jump here :-) ) topic: I just love it, way deep down, when I find myself arriving at a conclusion that I read or heard about elsewhere before or when I find myself experiencing something I heard about and couldn't really imagine at that time. Like when I get to know a piece of music enough to reach criticisms in my own opinion that I read about somewhere. Or like when I found myself wishing I had a multiband compressor to de-ess vocals in my recordings after reading about de-essing dozens of times in my compressor research. Suddenly it was right in front of me, not because I read about it but because I needed it. This semester is like that. Whenever somebody talks about being "Oh man, soo busy!" I just don't know how to picture that. When seniors talked about living down in the computer lab for design, I just couldn't imagine it. But here I am. I drove down to Pitt Sunday after the Steelers game at the Harvey's and spent a couple hours down in B72 with Charlie working on distillation columns (and Walker Texas Ranger clips on YouTube :-) ). I spent 5 hours in the computer lab tonight, and I spent something like 7 hours down in B72 a couple weeks ago. It's happening just like they said, but not 'cause it's what's supposed to happen, but because it has to happen. Not because it's what seniors do, but because it takes that long. And as long as I'm sitting here in a sea of deep black with the screen filling my view and the fire flickering to the left, I might as well get REALLY abstract and deep (And also make some declarations and generalizations beyond my solid knowledge yet held firmly by my mind and thus representative of my thinking, flawed though it may be):

I really really like it when things come about naturally. That's part of what frustrates me about modern America, and much of the modern world. Why do we have a State of the Union Address? It's not 'cause we need the President to tell us what's happening. Everybody knows way too much already. It's just an old tradition that we do 'cause the Constitution says we're supposed to do it. When we're forced to function at a level different from that dictated by basic principles such as survival and, shall we say, "primal" desires/needs, I just find it frustrating. Which is one of the reasons I'm getting fascinated by football.
Step back and look at it, people. The entire nation of America, from the time its children are old enough to understand words, is grooming them for football. From pee wee football on through all the years of childhood, the thousands of schools across the country are a giant farm training almost every guy how to throw and catch, and gradually lifting up those who are good at it, till in high school and college thousands of kids spend most of their life for football--lifting, practicing, playing, and watching. And all for what? For a few teams scattered around the nation and among them a handful of stars that get most of the glory. Nobody is telling us to do this. It isn't something like a Fourth of July parade that's sorta just done for form and not many people come to and you almost feel sorry for the veterans and avid community people out there on the street. It's a vibrant, "primal" system that literally engulfs our entire nation. Traffic was drastically light Tuesday morning after the Steelers' Monday Night Football appearance this season. See how cool that is? The nation is acting as one, not 'cause somebody's tyring to convince us to all get together on this football thing, but because we all love it and it has the vibrancy of a successful, popular thing. (We are sheep, after all). The football stadiums of America, with the cars gathering and parking for miles around, the pulsing roar of the crowd, the blimp floating overhead, the dozens of TV cameras hovering around, the coaches and trainers and docters and beer sellers and painted fans and uniformed players are no different from the Coliseum and gladiators of old. It's just that now things are clean and we watch it on TV, and it's all run by ad money and team owners instead of Caesar and soldiers.

I didn't really intend to write about all of this, but it's one of those things that occupies my thoughts fairly often and that makes me sit and wish for a different life in a different time sometimes, and those are the kind of things I want to record and remember, so I can see how I change and recall how I was and thought during these years.

Today was a good day. Regardless of the rough morning (I was truly unhappy for a few minutes in process control class as I was falling asleep despite my frantic efforts to follow Parker's lecture and desperately trying to understand what the HECK he was doing and how it all fit together), when I walked out of Fuel & Fuddle at 1:21am I felt on top of the world. I had slept far far longer than planned in the afternoon, but I had used that rest to work out long and well and get the process homework all done before coming home (where distractions make work very hard). I stepped out of the door and into the cold breeze coming down Oakland Avenue, and just loved it. My cold tolerance has gone quite strangely high this year; I'm almost trying to keep summer going on by not getting out the huge clumsy leather jacket of years past. I let it blow into me and relished the crispness. There were snowflakes falling thinly in the light of signs and streetlights, melting on the windshield. A few people walked along the sidewalks. I had read the Bible and worked out, and the time in the computer lab sat in my mind as such an eminently pleasant time--sipping perfect Dr.Pepper from the can, munching some snacks, dealing with Charlie's quasi depression and intensity over the homework (in his always good-natured Charlie way), helping him and Joam with the homework, doing snippets of Facebook and AIM inbetween making real progress on the problems, finding them doable but not trivial (unlike health & safety), and looking with satisfaction at the as-expected plots turned out by my complex Simulink process simulations. Jenna was working at F&F and we got to catch up a bit when she wasn't busy waiting tables. I had been gone since 9 that morning - 16 and a half hours. One of those things I used to hear about and not even be able to imagine doing. It was fall, headed towards winter and the warmth and richness Christmas, and the cold felt good. It was a good day. It's a wonderful life :-)

Thank you Lord! I should and could be happy in an unpleasant and difficult life, but You've given me rarely-disturbed bliss. I don't expect it to go on for the rest of my life like this, so I'm very grateful for every day that continues so pleasantly, and I pray that when true trials come, grace will come with them and I'll take it.

And here, relative to this entire post, is the thought and prayer of last night, as I paced the famly room and laid sleepless on my bed battling the thought of eternity:

Another insipid masquerade
Another deceptively pleasant day
All of the trophies on my shelf
I'm tired of looking at myself.. and all of these boring things

So open my eyes
Open my eyes..
Blow my mind
I want to see God..
(I want to see God)

I want to see miracles today
I want to see change I can't explain
There's got to be more to life than health
More than just looking at myself.. and all of these boring things

So open my eyes

Get the balloons and ticker tape
I'm having another self-parade
Look at all the floats I've made
Is this all my life can say?

..open my eyes
..blow mind
..I want to see God

--Clear Ambassador