A recovered bit of literacy from the past...

So I was cleaning out the garage this weekend and decided that its been 10 years since I have cleaned out my trusty tool box. I found a bunch of random stuff that had accumulated since college and decided to just empty it out and hose the whole thing down. Among the items I found were the following:

-Three worn out tooth brushes
-A green keychain bottle opener from some fraternity, origin unknown.
-Various nuts, bolts and screws from past projects
-Eight pictures of girls from high school in an old wallet insert I used to carry freshman year.
-Twisty straws
-A 2 inch convex lens from an old magnifying glass
-and a dental dam, dried up and useless. This was one of the items Matt and I acquired at the Planned Parenthood workshop during school.

I also found a single folded sheet of standard 8x10.5 inch notebook paper, college ruled. On it was written in pencil (Bic Mechanical, nothing better) a poem. The paper is dated 1-23-02 and also contains 2 remarks written in blue pen. I took a poetry class that year and so I can only assume that is when I wrote it but for what purpose or motivation I cannot recall.

The top right contains "1/10" in blue pen. I guess it was part of a writing assignment or maybe extra credit. The text of the poem is transcribed below. Punctuation and spelling are not corrected.
********
although the weirding winds don't know
it's always to the west they blow
and in their hurried passage carry
souls of dead that wished to tarry
what lands they travel, to we pray
for peace at dreary death's delay

to stray or stay, to fire or light
to burn or warm them through the night
and at the end the winds remain
to circle far and carry again

********
Below the poem follows the second remark, also in blue pen.

This is outstanding.
Also depressing.

What a mystery this poem presents. It was only 6.5 years ago and there is certainly a lot of poetry kicking around on my hard drive though I would hardly call it 'outstanding.' However mysterious I found myself interested to try and remember what I used to think and feel and how different the world seemed back then.

To that end I will be hauling out my notebooks from the days of yore and start slapping my crusty old writing out onto the internet. Some will be good, most of it will be categorically awful or just nonsensical without the context in which it was created.

However it will be interesting to revisit the nascent scribblings as my brain transitioned from adolescent to adult.

Splash damage (and other video game terms I wish cropped up more in casual conversation)

After 27 and perhaps a half uneventful laps this morning at yonder YMCA a tiny movement altered the course of my whole day. I was just doing a little backstroke when a lateral movement of my right arm caused something dreadful to happen.

It pops out sometimes, my shoulder I mean, right out of the socket. Ever since that night at the young life camp in Saranac where I tripped onto a root and my clavicle let go of my humerus and scapula it has happened every so often. Hell that phenomenon has been a major obstacle towards getting back into swimming for the better part of a decade.

Finally, this iteration, it happened. Dear god it hurts like hell when it does. Just think of splitting a chicken wing into the drumette and two-bone sections. Then imagine that is your arm at the biggest point of articulation.

As if swimming doesn't wreak enough havoc on the rest of me! Now I know its zero impact but there are plenty of ways for the pool to hurt you. Lets consider a few.

Muscle fatigue is the combination of lactic acid buildup, micro tears and all the usual goodies that come with psychotic quantities of aerobic exercise. Its like having a three dimensional sunburn all the way down to the bones. Sometimes I can almost feel where the ligaments meet with bone tissue starting to peel and fray.

Then there's the irritation issue. Sure being totally stripped of all the oil in your body comes in handy, cuts down on deodorant costs and leads to wicked awesome hair effects but it comes with a price. I always feel stuffy and snotty at the same time. Way back when it was so bad at times that I would just leak mucous all day from my nose. There's a great feeling! Its like snorting a pureed jellyfish and then slowly drizzling it out for 9 hours.

My feet feel like stress balls ringed with sandpaper. Part of that is due to the scum I no doubt pick up from walking around barefoot on the perpetual christian wetness that is the ymca locker room floor.

Huzzah though, its working at least. While my physique remains somewhere well within the boundaries of endomorphic masculinity at least, after so long, there is finally hope again.

Now on the topic of physical health and sanitation (in my case tri-weekly chemical sterilization) I have to expound. My time between service orders today and more significantly last night has dwelt heavily on a few major points.

Meth Mouth: Holy.....Crap....It.....Is......Gross.

Intellectual Honesty: I wonder, and I hate that I cannot even breach this discussion without eyes rolling away. But why do we segment what we treat with skepticism and what we treat with faith?

I know I know, change the record man. But I don't want to change the record. I just want some homogeneity when it comes to how people process information. I mean it is SO OBVIOUS how 'ID' people are lying and obscuring the truth (as best we know it) to suit their ridiculous agendas. I hate it. I hate it because it muddies the waters. Granted its certainly not as idiotic at the hydroplate theory. I mean you'd have to be pretty FN dumb. Just look at the site, its totally retarded.

And I intend to smack them around for being douche bags.