All is not Lost

Energy is relative.

It takes energy to move my fingers across this keyboard. It would take energy if I were to get up and throw this laptop across the room. It would take a considerable more amount of energy to locate my professor in order to tell him that I simply could not complete that essay, my computer had unfortunately crashed in a bout with gravity. Ah the kinetic dragon can be a nasty one.

But I digress.

I missed a question on my reading quiz for Chem 1110. Chapter 7a. I said energy is released in the breaking of a chemical bond. But no way girl! the correct answer was B: energy is lost. It always takes energy to break a chemical bond. At least thats what it said in the corrective notes. And I totally agree. Though here is the thing - Prof is only asking the question from one side of the story. He isn't being fair to the recipients of the break up's energy rolling around out there in the big, big world.

Im still losing chemical energy right now as my hand beats across these keys. My heart is beating in my chest (I've always hated the word pumping in reference to heart pulsations.) and my stomach is breaking down that lovely cashew chicken stir fry from Gwinn. I'm losing it all - slowly.

But around me things are gaining. I move my glass from the floor to the bedpost and my loss is kept as potential energy in the very being of the cup and its distance from the floor. My body is releasing heat (While I myself stay at homeostasis, nice and comfy) down down into the floor. Maybe first floor Emmerson is somehow benefiting from my very being. Yes, that would be nice - I would love to be such the philanthropist that even my heat benefits those around me.

That is a joke.

Anyways. Sure, Mr. Professor, energy is "lost" in the breaking of a bond. Yet the term fits to loosely. A size nine show on a size six foot. It's not lost because whatever is around that microscopic relationship at the time will absorb said energy. It's all give and take. It's beautiful. When my heat leaves my body, I lose it. But my bed that I sit on, its gaining energy. Thermal energy. So really, the inverse of the situation proves my answer right. Yeah energy is lost in the break-up. But there is also energy gained.

(I know, I know. Anti-climactic ending. I've just been arguing the semantics of a test question this whole time. Maybe the next post will be more juicy and personal, we'll see.)

Anyways speaking of LOST, it's that time of night again. We're almost done with season 1, and I just can't get over Sayid and Shannon's relationship. I mean c'mon, really?

1 in 25 people are psychopaths

There have been several things I have been meaning to say lately.

Every time one idea seeps in, ready for posting (on this blog adored by hundreds, right?) another starts making its way through. It's a passive aggressive system, forced by gravity.

Like water in a drain.

This is the picture in my mind: Thousands of eggs, dropping from the sky. White, glossy, and farm fresh from Trader Joe's. Whatever they chance to break on they seep into, expending the energies of their fall into the ground - all our now and future thoughts hidden inside their cognitive yolks. They fall on the grass, on the pavement, in the trees - and if your lucky - onto your own head. Thats when you get to keep the thought all to yourself.

We're all just living under falling eggs. We're all just walking on eggshells.

Does that put the hens in the sky?

"No, honey. Clouds aren't a combination of condensed moisture and water vapor in a high energy state, they're a home for chickens."

The metaphor has gone too far by this point, but the picture was nice when it happened.

Now I'm together with my people in this little nook in the corner of Emmerson. Fabs is reading The Sorrows of Young Werther, saying out loud the parts that strike him. Quoting the eggs that fall directly overhead. "The only real smiles are the smile's of dreamers..."

Maybe you are right, Goethe, maybe. But everyone knows your quite the cynic, too, and I believe that I can trust you no more than I can the optimistic kitten.

However, the longer I sit here the more I enjoy Werther's statement. In the company of friends in a secret place. I am looking around and I am thinking that I

see dreamers, too.

an ode to The Buyer

Did you know that I invented the ipod?

It is true, and if we pretend that words are proof, I can prove it to you.

Several years ago it was sunny but still cold and I was outside in the orchard picking up pruned branches from the ground. Grass was growing, weaving itself over severed limbs. With every stick picked up from the ground grass would break off and follow trails of kinetic energy I left in the air. I was soon warmer than the breeze.

More importantly, the CD player I was using had frustratingly limited battery life. And it was ugly. And I had been listening to the 12 songs on my mix on repeat for the last two hours. Cousin Casey made it for me, and though it was filled with 8th grade lovelies like Wilco, Modest Mouse, and AC Newman, the cutting edge dulls fast on young ears.

Then what I thought next would someday change our world:

What if they made something that acted like a hundred different CD players, but was the size of just one. What if they created something that kept many different musics safely inside, but had a battery life that would outlast the time it took me to pee.

"Maybe someday," I thought.

A month or so later I climbed onto the old country school bus and Emma Hilton was sitting there, like she had been every day the year before, only this time something was different. the buzzword? ipod. Our fascination? insurmountable. Everything I had described in my head that day in the orchard now tangibly existed in the palm of my hand. Chris Martin was singing to me his favorite color right out of the little square of black magic technology I had previously composed in my head.

So, I invented the ipod. Did I reap any of the benefits from my great contribution to society? Of course not. But I have a greater responsibility to worry about. My ability to will the distant, ambiguous They to do my bidding. I thought small, portable music device and they said "ipod."

you can just call me The Consumer. Super powers without the cape. The orchard trees have been pruned again, and I'm thinking new thoughts. How about contact lenses that act as cameras in your eyes? I think we could all really benefit from something like that.

and I'm just saying.. you heard it here first.

Television Sucks

I sat down to write about family and time and process but the blaring of Criminal Minds is creating a black whole wherein these ideas sat just seconds ago. I really wanted to write tonight, I promise. But Sgt. Davis is loudly grilling some crusty man about hookers and crime scenes and honestly my heart can't move past the cheap dialogue.

And does she care? no.

Will she ever read this? see question #1.

I never knew one could live so close and exist in a space so far away.

shit.

Instant Reminiscing - we were so young.

ah friends, the stuff of life.

watch it bigger here.

Thanks for being so honest.

We drove to Capitol Hill tonight. I didn't want to drive my car, my eyes were tired and my heart was nervous about the six pages I had yet to start - the deadline of tomorrow morning creeping closer all the time. Britt took the keys and asked me which button unlocked the door.

"Blue."

And then I opened the door and slid into the passenger seat and after a little trouble with shifting into reverse, we went forward. Upward to the Hill and she maneuvered the Ol' Subie so well. All the lights were winky last night, staring down from the tops of the now-familiar buildings. Maybe they were silhouetting the figures of people bent over desks in last minute attempts to gain one more foot on tomorrow. Maybe tonight they will do the same again. Everyone putting one foot forward for Morning. Sometimes I wonder how Evening feels, the girl with the potential to be beautiful but no one ever really looks twice.

Britt was right, I've been loving the women metaphors lately.

Well the lights and the people and the rooms were all far away, and Bon Iver sounded too good and too winter 2008 to really give the worried, hurried people much more thought.

People should know Dire Straits

Six blog posts in, and I've already achieved writers block. thoughts just aren't fitting together in a cohesive manner lately. So lets regress into lists again:

The shower is on next door. I love the methodical sound of running water paired with the typing clack of computer keys.

Someone is singing somewhere outside. A reminder of humanity.

My 8:oo class class is canceled for tomorrow. 9:00 wake up call, here I come.

I have great friends, within and without of the current context of my life.

This weekend I will hike the ridge.

I'm not going to bullet point these things, but I am going to share one of my favorite poems with you-

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Thank you, Madi Becker. this is a poem I always return to. You showed me it in the back stacks of the Blue Room, and it has always felt important.