Twitch

Somewhere around the middle of this past spring, my eye started twitching. At first, it just felt like a tiny, itty little spasm. Weeks later, it was frequent enough to become a mild concern. Later still, it was actually impairing the vision in my left eye. Couldn't figure out what was causing it. Lack of sleep, poor diet, stress, something I can't pronounce? No idea.

It's been over two months since I walked out of my last undergraduate classroom.

I wanted to go to graduate school in Alaska. Yea, Alaska. Four thousand miles away, 5 time zones, 59th parallel and all that. Wanted to study Remote Sensing, figured I'd become one of those climate scientists the politicos are always claiming not to be. I was getting good vibes from up north, all signs pointed to go and all that. Of course, the phrase: "Yea, you know how we said we fund all our graduate students? That's not actually true" wasn't verbatim, but it was close enough.

When I started that endeavor, one of the professors that I asked for a letter of recommendation from said that she hadn't really thought I would head in that direction. I forget her exact wording, it was awhile ago. What hit me was the way she said it; it was like she was disappointed. I don't know, I have a hard time reading people. I should have asked her what she though I would have done. I never realized how much I valued her opinion.

So yea, grad school didn't happen. I more or less put all my eggs in one basket on that one, but that was just my optimism taking over. (I need an actual pair of rose tinted glasses, it would just work)

Then there was the idea of just getting a job. Since I was looking in a completely different direction the entire time, I wasn't really prepared for the fact that my degree isn't worth much without either several years experience, multiple technical certifications, or a masters degree.

...crap.

Ah yes, my student loans are about to come crashing down on me, I have no employment but a poorly paying gig to say the least, and a steep climb to make my degree useful. I'm not fishing for pity or advice. I'm just trying to say that the twitch in my eye clearly knew its welcome was worn out. It disappeared the other day and didn't leave so much as a whiff of it's cologne.

Coming up for air

It was my last semester. A quiet one. Kind of a lonely one, too. The money ended somewhat abruptly, and with little notice, in the middle of last fall. It was fortunate that I really only needed one more course to graduate, so this past spring, I only had the one.

Two days a week. One course. I never lived on campus (having started this endeavor with a wife, that would have been awkward), so the most social interaction I had with my friends on campus was in class and, of course, the various times we gathered to study.

I got a part time job to cover the cost of that last course, and quickly found myself disliking the entire situation. There were my final moments in college? Barely seeing any of the classmates and faculty that have become friends? Spending my evenings in a quiet, depressing button-down under a fluorescent light?

I spent more time alone this spring than I had any other semester since I got here. I attended my graduation ceremony yesterday. It was a satisfying experience that, perhaps, may have been more so had it been attended by more than just those who were graduating.

I didn't start college right out of high school. I spent years in dead end employment, feeling slowly crushed by the supposed reality that I could never do better than that. When I started college, I was overwhelmed. I had no idea what I was doing.

I'm not the same person I was when I started this.

The crazed dreamer

It's never when I go to sleep the first time, but rather the second when I remember my dreams. As a boy, my dreams were abstract, wild, jumbled almost. Now there's just an oddness to them.

I was studying for an upcoming test (in statistics tomorrow, actually) in what seemed like a large house. Then there was piano music playing in a nearby room. The kind performed either by someone with three hands, or someone with insane skills. (I didn't recognize it at the time, but they were playing U.N. Owen Was Her) When the music stopped, out came one of my former professors in little more than a nightgown, looking like she had just woken up and decided to teach that piano why it existed.

...who then promptly wondered why I was in her house, but let me stay in the guest room because it was too cold out to open the door.

Then we were watching YouTube videos. Olan Rogers showed me his latest video, which was him and another guy running a race, but the track was filled with gym equipment, mostly stair steppers, and they had to step through them. Then he decides to cheat by jacking a car. So he runs to this car, which is being driven by a sparkly albino (sparkly white hair, skin, and sparkly eyes), shoves her over, and steals the car.

Turns out his video was sponsored by the car company, which is why it got so much attention.

Of course in this dream, the albino and I start talking. We're hanging out, acting like best friends, and then she says the makeup is bugging her. So she wipes some of it off, rinses part of her hair (all in about 1 second, it's a dream people), and I am shocked, SHOCKED, to discover that she's not actually an albino. She was a red haired girl from my statistics course, and she wanted help studying for the test tomorrow.

New Years Revolutions

Every January I hear the same thing. People resolving to change something. Losing weight / getting in shape is almost a cliche. Get a job, get out of debt, spend more time with family, blah blah blah. These are all good things, yes. But when I look at them, I think they're not enough. I see those things as square one. You should have a job, you shouldn't let yourself go, you should spend more time with family. There is no bottom, people, you can always get worse. Saying that you need to get to zero is a good start.

But it's not enough.

You want to make a new years resolution? Stop making new years resolutions. Worked for me.

Better luck next time, Mayans

Hey everyone, the new Mayan calendars are out!

OK, so the Mayan calendar ended and we didn't. That's alright, I didn't get raptured last year, survived various planetary alignment, June 6, 2006, and that lame Y2K "bug". The last time someone told me the end was near, and it was actually near, it was the girl with the English accent living inside my GPS. When she starts delivering prophetic end-time messages, I'll consider it.

Meanwhile...

I'm noticing that these holidays have become a season of replacement parts. When I was younger, the question I would ask myself was, "what do I want?". Now, the question rattling through my head when someone (typically my mother) asks me what I want becomes, "what do I need?". I've started to crave practicality.

When did that happen?

Early Mourning

Sure, it's Christmas morning. I would always get up early as a kid, no hesitation. It was after I had kids that I got up earlier.

Much earlier.

The compulsion to get out of a perfectly warm bed has long since dropped a few lines on my to-do list, but here I am anyway, blogging at crap-o'clock on the 25th of December. And all because I have kids. But not just because I *have* them, no.

It's because they're right there. Literally. Since I became a father, I haven't been home for Christmas morning more than once. Every other time, we're staying with family. When my oldest was past the phase where he wouldn't sleep anywhere strange for more than two hours, his brother entered it. I woke at something like 2 this morning because a toddler decided my face was warm and not quite drooly enough. Meh, life story time.

So much of my life I just didn't do anything, half because I was afraid I would fail, half because I didn't think I'd like it, and half because I was afraid I would succeed. Wait, let's back up:


I used to be afraid of heights.

I remember way back in grade school, we had a drill where everyone had to jump out the back door on the bus. Literally, jump. There were people right there, but I was terrified. People were laughing at me, but I didn't care, I was frozen in horror at the concept of even a split-second free fall. Later, in that same grade school, I visited a friends, and he had a tree house (of sorts). I could climb up, no problem. Coming down, though... same problem as before. I didn't see how high up I was.

Even though I wasn't.

It was an odd thing, this fear of heights wasn't just heights, it was falling. I couldn't stand the idea of a diving board, but a glass elevator up a skyscraper was fine. It all came to a head one summer day, forever ago. I was at as amusement park and met an attraction that hoisted you up on a cable about 200 feet, and swung you. My sister was there, and we opted to take this somewhat fun looking ride. We suited up, and they began to lift us. At my side was the cord I was supposed to pull when they gave the signal, beginning our ride. It was at the moment they started to lift us that I realized something. Something horrifying.


That's exactly what I was afraid of my entire life. That which fed me terror was staring me in the face, and I had fed myself to this beast. There was no backing out without enduring painful, excruciating humiliation. The cord was on my side, and there was only one of them. What happened next was entirely up to me. I'll admit, I started to panic, but didn't let it overcome me. Instead, I told my sister that I was afraid.

That was step 1.

I'll never forget what she told me that day. It wasn't some huge, soul warming moment that I can cherish forever. It wasn't some grand, poetic moment that can't be excluded from "Karl: the Movie" without enraging fans of the book. In fact, it was nothing overly consequential. In fact, I'm not even going to tell you what she told me. I'm telling you what it did. I, a grown man, was afraid of heights, and my little sister didn't judge me for it.

That was step 2.

I pulled the stupid cord. Not because I wasn't afraid any more, but because I realized I didn't need to be. My head was taller than that stupid bus door, that tree fort wasn't build higher than 4 feet off the ground, and that cable could have swung a 1964 Buick without so much as a groan.

I didn't leave that amusement park any less afraid of the world than before. In many ways, having kids now, I'm actually more afraid of the world. But there I was, dangling a couple hundred feet over a small lake, knowing that the moment the signal came, I had an immediate choice. To let that one fear win again, cripple, and humiliate me yet again.

Or punch it in its stupid face. Looking back after all these years, I realized something. I didn't decide to pull that cord at step 2. It was when I was willing to tell my sister that I was afraid at all. I wanted to overcome that fear, and I didn't care if she knew I had it. The shackles of some ridiculous phobia had become worse than admitting it was there. I admitted my fear to her, and nothing bad happened at all.

That was the day I became willing to face my fears.

Merry Christmas.

Forever and a day

A few years ago, my sister accomplished a crazy large project where she scanned over twenty years worth of family photos. Everything was labelled; date and place. In the past few weeks, I decided to separate the ones with just me, and see what was going on. From baby pics to wedding pics.

That was a mistake.