Month: April 2012

I set out at noon for this place on the Minnesota River. The day was cold, only 40 or 45 degrees, but so wet that I could be sure the temperature would stay roughly the same. I dressed more for water resistance than for warmth. The overcast sky scattered light everywhere in the phenomenon so coveted by photographers. These optics and the wetness of the foliage always make the various shades of green so much more distinct than usual.

Although I could feel the cold in my wet toes and fingertips, I was rewarded for my afternoon adventurousness. At the beginning of the day I told myself I would do something new today, and I did. I followed a new trail where I saw northern shovelers, blue-winged teal, tundra swans, red-tailed hawks, bald eagles, wood ducks, American coots, great blue herons, and a chipping sparrow. For many of these birds, today was a day not for adventure but for loafing before continuing their yearly journey north.

I saw only two people on my walk, and only from a distance. And I had an encounter with a fox. The fox was reddish orange and its fur was wet. I saw the black tips of its erect, triangle ears. Through binoculars I watched it traipse and bound. It was looking around for prey, not paying me any mind at all. From the distance I was at I don’t know if it even saw me. It appeared to be using its sight as much as its hearing to hunt. Or perhaps it was foraging, taking whatever it could get. Maybe it was a mother who had pups to bring food to. Funny that they should be called “pups.” I have read that a fox can bark like a dog. It did not catch anything before I lost sight of it, as it entered a dense copse of quaking aspen.

Because my perception is dim and my memory is distorted, there are certain moments I must record as they happen. I feel compelled to write them down so they don’t dissipate like vapor and go cold. The time when I helped a dead-drunk man to a bench, the time I skinny-dipped with eight girls in the Caribbean, the time I heard meteorites as they fell to earth, all these events can slip away from me if I do not put them down somewhere. My hike alone on a cold and drizzly – but bright – April afternoon is the same way.

Lately I in order to get my rebelling body to go to sleep in the afternoon I have been doing something that may not be entirely wholesome: I will take 50 mg of diphenhydramine (generic Benadryl), then shower, then eat a big sandwich and a bowl of oatmeal, and then have a small glass of whiskey (about 100 mL). This puts me out pretty quickly, especially if I exercised earlier in the day.

However I can see at least three problems with this tactic. First, I wonder what, if any, interaction there is between the alcohol and the diphenhydramine. Is it more taxing on my liver, maybe? I am at least taking the diphenhydramine by itself instead of popping Tylenol PM tablets, which some people take to help them sleep but which also includes acetaminophen, which is not necessary unless you have an ache.

Second, I try to avoid big meals like that. I am worried about blood sugar spikes. We talked in class once about how 80% of people with diabetes mellitus type II are overweight or obese. But what about that 20% who are of healthy weight? That is a significant percentage. Obviously there are other risk factors for chronic diseases, and there is growing certainty that blood sugar fluctuations do not help.

Finally, diphenhydramine quickly loses its effectiveness if you take it every day. I can only pop this stuff every once in a while if it is going to keep giving me the goods.

The obvious solution is to get a damn day job like normal people. But that is impossible at this time. Because of things.

1. I am going to try to use the terms “invaginate” and “invagination” much more frequently in everyday conversation. And if anyone comments on it, I will accuse him or her of being the sicko for even suggesting that there is anything naughty about the word.

2. I am going to do some video or audio recording of my grandma so we have more than just images of her when she is gone. Images are silent but when a loved one dies people often wish they had recordings of his or her voice.

3. I am going to camp the fuck in some state forests here in Minnesota. I was not even aware of these vast tracts of land. But apparently you can camp in them at a reduced rate, set up camp at more remote locations within them, and they have even fewer people around than state parks. I should do it before the ticks really start to come out.

4. I am going to find a female to be my companion in the exchange of certain sympathies that are vital to my being.

5. I am going to dress a little better. I was flipping through an issue of GQ and there was a before-and-after type style makeover, and the “before” guy was wearing almost the exact same thing I had on! The author had some condescending comment such as “Nothing says, ‘I just threw this shirt on’ like a tee shirt poking out under the collar.”

6. I am going to continue reading Les bienveillantes, which has become another interminable project of mine. After all it is right up my alley: gore, French language, and some very methodical and exacting descriptions of the action. But il n’est pas court.

I didn’t get into the program. Oh well. I suppose I can just apply again next year. Better make my application more competitive. And so on. No big deal, right?

But it’s all shit! Shit, dammit! No one cares if you to fail. What is there to all this but endless eating and gnawing? One’s heart is just a pulsating vessel. When people are constantly shouting, "Ay man, you got fitty cent for tha bus?" and harassing and following, the heart reacts. It gets inflamed. Many vascular insults combine to cause lifelong systemic injury and eventually a catastrophe.

One man thinks, "Boy, I am a part of the glue of the community, I just had a great spontaneous conversation with a gentleman out back. It’s amazing how you can connect to someone when talking face to face." Another man thinks, "This fool walks his dog at the exact same time every night and he about to get his ass robbed."

One woman thinks she has the appreciation and goodwill of her co-workers. Another clicks the "dismiss" button in an update box in an online social network.

People are like ships passing in the night? No, not at all. That sounds poetic, but we are more like passing fish. Just as rapacious but much more dumb and blind and diseased.

Women, actually.

One of them was manifestly skeletal. Totally arms and legs, to the point where it looked like her clothes were just fabric draped over her. I was worried she was going to bruise me with a sharp bone sticking out here or there. She apparently had enough glycogen stored in those stringy little muscles to power her on the dance floor for a couple of hours, because she sort of swayed her torso and paddled her arms to the music vaguely. Good for her.

Another was an Austrian chick. She and her friend from Berlin said that while America was great, it was not meeting their expectations so far. It was not "number one." I told her a lot of medical terms came from German discoverers. She corrected me: "Actually, the terms are Latin." I gave her the examples of Virchow’s triad and Schwann cells but I don’t think she understood me because of the language barrier, the loud music and the alcohol. So I looked dumb. She was pretty but she smoked about five cigarettes in a row during our brief conversation.

The other girl was paraplegic and in a motorized wheelchair. What she lacked in motor function, she made up for in number of friends, who were dancing all around her wheelchair while she sat there. It occurred to me that if one of us danced with the girl in the wheelchair, her friends would be free for the taking. Or maybe she was a famous physicist. Or maybe we were in a social experiment and our reactions were being filmed. Then I realized that was preposterous and a person with disabilities does not deserve to be stared at or talked about just for going out in public. But still. Thanks to frat boy humor websites I could not help but make the comment about how one guy jumps on the "grenade" for the sake of his buddies. But that usually refers to fat grenades, which is something the grenade can actually change. It’s cruel either way though.

Some phrases stick with you even apart from their context.

"Steel true, blade straight." A favorite quotation of Arthur Conan Doyle (Not his own words).

"Alea iacta est." The die is cast. Attributed to Julius Caesar as he crossed the Rubicon. Or something. I don’t really know my Roman history. My teacher, who will remain unnamed, chose to skip over that era in my world history class.

"Life is a warfare and a stranger’s sojourn." Marcus Aurelius, in his Meditations. The quote goes on. I encountered the passage first in "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" by Carl Sagan and wrote it down somewhere. He elaborates on his philosophy of duty and pursuit of understanding even in the midst of hardship.

In an interview with the members of the band Beach House, which I love, the singer said there are some phrases that stick with her for days or weeks, cycling in her mind until she finally puts them down in a song. I love their album "Teen Dream," but sometimes it does seem like the lyrics are just a bunch of significant-sounding phrases strung together. I am looking forward to May 15 when their new album comes out.

We drove down on Friday, listening to The Jayhawks and Ravi Shankar. We went to the Morton Arboretum, which was almost on par with the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in scenery and horticulture. We went bowling, and I was happy just to break 100 (what happened to me?). Got Indian food and got Irish food (I got the obligatory Guinness). We rode the scooter. And we saw the Hunger Games. It was pretty good. Very bloody for a kid’s movie though. I am not sure what the next two movies will be about since everyone dies in the first one. But my 12 year old niece assures me there is PLENTY more to come in the story.

The weather was beautiful the whole time. We did not go downtown. Oh well. It requires a lot of travel on the L or the Metra and there is a lot of walking and spending. Just going to the Field Museum would have been over a hundred dollars.