post desert

i drove to joshua tree NP for thanksgiving week. it managed to catch me by surprise despite expectations. fiona seemed busy having sex. its always hard for me to catch her when she is with this current ex-boyfriend. one thing i still feel is that we have the luxury of taking each other for granted. our friendship is long enough to give us this kind of room. on another day i will catch her eye and get her to talk. in the mean time, i did get a stream of heart-breaking stories about the the public school children in phoenix, az.
my other surprise was her past current ex. yes, i somehow always climb with fiona and 1-3 people who want to love her. but the stars aligned and we got along perfectly. he caught my enthusiasm for the rock, the physical game. and our words were hands with keys. i didn’t want to assume anything but he called on the drive back and said it.
cynically: i feel sticky. it must be i’m lonely and will talk with anyone. i’m getting good at asking questions. i’m adding emotional significance to every experience because i want it.

but that doesn’t make sense. since when have i been able to dash in attachment whenever its missing? i’m wavering on this point but writing it down will help. or maybe the goal of figuring out what felt real should be reserved entirely for high school students. looking back i can never find the evidence to support the emotion.

not cynically: i’ve wanted to get to know aaron since i met him in high school. this happened. i look forward to seeing him in the next beautiful place we decide to meet.

more shells

what have i learned so far? One of the best feelings is the power to make someone happy. Also, the power of giving someone the power to make you happy. I’m learning that what I consider a fake concession is something with both meaning and the open, airy feeling of exposure. so maybe my insistence that the vulnerability is not genuine is a small attempt at defending myself from humans.

more awake, less sleep

last night my rag-tag grad-school bunch met to go find the comet tails. for the small groups i’ve been joining since high school, i always feel that circumstances and a serious limit on time has brought us together. intentionality, choice, a picking out and gathering is missing. we are spending time together because its what we can do at this energy local minima.

But! Stars it was. The kids stacked into cars and we drove into the gold hills I eye from inside windows.  we landed into a little people log pile on a bike path and stared up into the movie: a random spread of bodies under the horizon, faces up, making noises. we got philosophical. we said “oh. ooooh. did you…? wow.” and there was one boy who missed every single one. then the coyotes joined us: first one voice, then a whole pack of voices. and our responses to their streaks of notes were like our responses to the meteor shower.

we drove home while i felt like a little mummy buried in the back seat. every choice of song wrapped me up stronger in a soft, thick layer of emotion.

pre pre

I’m trying a new strategy of stories. There are interesting people around me — I will talk to them. This differs from my previous strategy, when I would not give out half a chance. As one drawback, this makes me more vulnerable: if the selected target isn’t entirely receptive to my subtle eye contact, then there lands another blow to an ego like a sheet of metal beaten into a turtle shell.
It’s been hard for me because the future-story that emerges the strongest from our talks is the picture of us finding the past again. And the past has been beaten perfect by memory. Without dents, I don’t have the purchase to grab on and maneuver the bulk out of sight. It insists on blocking most of my vision.
So taking the longest view possible, I can say I will remember this. I regret nothing. I regret not knowing how to find a place both private and honest enough to record the process. Maybe just the paper trail we leave behind will be enough. Maybe the problem is not constructive a narrative here while I live it elsewhere. I’m afraid that if I write my thoughts now then when the truth plays out the contrast will be painful. Funny, because there are many times when I jump here just to capture the naive view. I want to remember it after the event and after the event has skewed my perception. Here, too, I think the naive self is going to be a valuable voice. Pre-what, though? Pre-rest-of-life.

circular rings

TED talk on happiness tells me:
our frontal lobes are terrible planners. we can’t predict but we still think there are greener pastures. if we are asking about happiness, no matter the course taken by a human, the happiness levels off to a shared baseline. if you are paraplegic or lottery winner, a year later you’ll report back the same numbers.

lesson delivered by TED talker: be happy with what you have; don’t make changes because you think you’ll be happier — you’ll be the same.

my lessons:

- we probably haven’t figured out how to assay happiness. a few questions may not capture a complex path of emotional/chemical up and down. think of the memories, the moments each has had. maybe looking back, the lottery winner has a curve that makes him happier. i don’t know if the surveys to measure happines are integrating the paths or just taking an x,y coordinate at t. so! first, a proof of principle: we need to find something that is known to make people happy and then test these surveys to see if they can capture the difference. wait, i have a better idea: we need to find something that is known to make people happy, then stop.

- if you end up at the same level as you started, this is not an argument for no change; this equally argues in favor of change. since it doesn’t matter what we do or what happens to us with regard to happiness, we might as well do something as opposed to doing nothing. increasing happiness may be a flawed motivation as it will not work; however, it will not harm us to act on it, either. who cares what you lose or change in chasing down the green grass — you’re still equally happy.

- how much behavioral modification is possible through a realization of the process? if i know that happiness is just a false fruit on a deceptively short stick, can i really argue myself out of acting on it? if we understand how our emotions are awful manipulators, can we cut the strings? what happens if we cut the strings? are we more honest? happier?

morals

my alarm clock has a “daylight savings” button. instead of changing the hour twice a year, i can do the significantly more convenient and hit a button. all it costs is an entire button. how can a human being design such a thing and sleep at night? am i the only one with a conscience? this is what happens when we are allowed to advertise: whole button-functions are created so they can be bullet-pointed on a box.  this alarm clock is also solar-powered… it tends to stop working at night.

staying out of the valley has not made me a better person.  let’s note that down for posterity.  when i try to make this decision in the future, i should keep in mind that its hard to con productivity out of a self that feels cheated.  today i scavenged together a halloween costume (i am a climbing plant!), went to lab in costume (lots of freshly picked ivy involved), and then climbed at the gym in costume.  the lab trip was mostly me eating left-overs from yesterday’s lab party. so! now to work? harder than it looks.

in other news, my empathy bruise is almost gone. it came, left, left implications. i get a real pleasure from pretending i read meaning into these kinds of things. or, more accurately, i like a good story and will believe one just in order to tell it. so, therefore, i think i noticed this mark on my arm around the same time he fell off the rock. i’ve never experienced this kind of black and blue. there is a single, hard, white point at the center. i don’t remember hurting myself — i’ve been climbing only crack — nothing sharp or pointed to catch me. he was bleeding out of the same forearm at the same time. i wish humans were able to transmit pain this way. sometimes, i know they can.

draft car

some small updates:

i) There are complications with getting my barn, red. I think the landlord, along with the rest of the world, is trying to trick the innocent. But as an innocent, I can’t be sure. While roommate Lisl and I decided to play it safe and give up on the house, small worms of regret were eating my liver. Once we figured out how to take a calculated risk and keep a little hope on the side, I was instantly happy. Lesson: I am averse to being risk averse. I will not take the safest bet (poor oxen, wagon on the river!) and I need to take the time and figure out how to launch for what I want with passion and humility. The alternative: waffle until last minute, pretend you’ve decided not to jump, then go head first.

ii) I wrote a paragraph on tea leaves in the sink and rejecting more of my mother’s dogma. WordPress ate said paragraph (its first word-meal — much better track record than livejournal so far). This is a place holder (mental, physical). I may replace it.

iii) I rode into work on a windy Monday behind a road biker. I drafted him early and stuck close. The wind howled loud around us; his matching spandex flashed in the glassy sunlight. As two connected, precariously balanced points, we weaved through the daily grind on the rest of the pavement. I ran into lab after this commute — red, damp, feeling I was moving twice the speed of the co-workers. I want him as my ride every morning.

iv) My weeks are journal club, seminar, seminar, journal club. At the beginning of this week I felt hit by the idea of application. Honestly, science has slowly been draining of meaning. I’ve been less excited about ideas and more intent on asking “why do we care?” and “why does this matter?” Am I less hooked by the abstract? Is this a growing process? What should I do tomorrow? After Monday, I’ve been looking at all the talks in this other light. If I can’t find the motivation, should my science focus switch to medicine? The idea blew me over. After figuring out some stem cell details, this girl was able to advise a change in bone marrow transplant regiments. Instead of a single dose, a series of smaller operations will work better. I imagined how she changed the course of lives. But nothing is that simple.

el capitain tv

i spent the weekend climbing with four beautiful french people. Their melodious voices made interactions with any ameri-cains seem limited to exchanging grunts. i admit i enjoyed myself. my sentence structure is slowly breaking down into something heavily influence by direct translation from the european. i enjoy it!
language aside, the trip included both good climbing and good climbs. i felt i was comparing the past to the present… but to a tolerable extent. on friday i got a letter from him. i read it in the sad way reserved for letters with four stamps and international ink marks. given that kind of start, i think i was able to move forward admirably.
this weekend, talking and talking about big wall and climbing strong, i think i moved one realization step closer to that goal.

in season

i love rain in palo alto. more than the east cost allows, it feels like a holiday here.  i’ve always wanted to feel this way about rain.  not a daily sky chore to wash the window, this rain is a smear of shimmery lip gloss on the smooth pink lips of california’s smile. well, maybe only in LA. this rain is a special occasion — everything smells like eukalyptus and the elegant shapes of the trees become more elegant.  the leaves lie more form-fitting.

i can’t wait for winter in california; i’ve always needed this relationship to the cold and grey skies. in december lisl and i should be moving into the barn.