The In Betweens

If concentrating means focusing attention and energy upon a single matter, idea, or task, I don't concentrate well. It's not that I concentrate poorly, but I find it unrealistic to completely and thoroughly devote myself solely to the job of writing a paper during finals week of my senior year of college. So, to bring mental and emotional relief, I thought I'd catalog the thoughts and musings that come to mind between my actual work and writing...

I'm worried about my back. I know it's not quite straight, but it's felt especially crooked lately.

Savings CDs... I have trouble justifying them. Banks... I'll always be suspicious of them.

I wonder how much God is doing around me that I am completely unaware of.

Maybe I'm just young enough that I'm in that natural phase of wanting to look older, but I don't expect to be one of those fellows who will ever be embarrassed about their age. I'm actually looking forward to being old... and even old looking. I'm not sure why, really... but I'm not planning to avoid it or pretend that years are not happening to me.

Speaking of old: Mmmm... peanut butter and banana sandwiches are tasty. These will never get old to me. They are particularly satisfying in that they are healthy... when you have the right bread, and the real peanut butter... the kind that is from real peanuts ground before your very eyes into the plastic container in your very hands... mmm.

I'm glad I bought a cell phone. I legitimately am glad.

It will be good to start exercising again after graduation.

Those two guys on the bus, who were 35.... I wonder if their passion for that video game they were discussing was any kind of reflection for how many hours of their lives were consumed by it. The way they were sharing experiences, and even the vocabulary they used to say goodbye to each other tells me they are entrenched quite deep... and that saddens me. Maybe I'm just conceited.. and they'd just as quickly dub one of my thrills as petty. But lately I've experienced new life, rich life. Video games seem like such a counterfeit of everything I've experienced lately to have substance.... relationships, experiences, thrills, even dissappointments... I hope their love is just a passing phase and not a distraction that leads nowhere.

I saw some friends using a Nutty Pot (sp?) last night... a tea-pot looking creation you can use to pour salt-water up one nostril so it comes out the other... apparently cleaning and clearing in marvelous ways. For a guy with sinuses as perpetually clogged as mine are, the Nutty Pot is an attractive prospect. Maybe I'll get one for a graduation present... oh I hope I hope. And a bike helmet... I intend to start biking around - partly for the excercise, partly for the money saved, and partly even cause I'm starting to care about what my role is in caring for the earth and environment. And my riding a bike is going to make a difference, dang it!

I'm reading about how age affects language in my sociolinguistics text book. Sometimes I laugh when I hear older adults talk about youth: "Rebellion can be expressed superfically in distinctive outer markings such as gree-dyed hair, nose-rings and ripped jeans. They must be, in teenage terms, "far-out" or "way-out", "awesome", "crazy," "fabulous," "the most," "the max" (maximum)." Academic classification by a far-removed outsider of a demographic that would be indifferent and unimpressed.... I chuckle. It's the most if you, ask me. Definitely way-out at least.

"We ain't what we wanna be, and we ain't what we're gonna be - but we ain't what we wuz." (South Carolina mountain proverb). Suddenly, "getting to know someone" never seemed so complicated and slippery. It truly is a trick knowing someone who is always changing...