Look Out, Ndereba

I'd kind of slacked off on the excercise for the past couple of weeks (frisbee not included), but this Tuesday I found that I can run a whole six minutes without any discomfort, this after walking briskly for five minutes! Okay, so Ndereba is still pretty safe, but this six minutes of easy running seemed impossible in February.

Poached in the Middle Middle

After three weekends of frisbing, I feel confident enough to get more aggressive at the next game even though I still don't understand what the hell my coach is saying half the time. Like most activities with a devoted following, ultimate disc has the requisite lexicon of jargon that makes no sense to the rest of the world. Here are a few of the words I've learned and what they seem to mean. Don't worry, all the yelling I mention is done in a kind and sporting spirit.

Poached: I think this is when the defense leaves one person open to double team another offensive player. It sounds bad, but I'm not sure.

Middle middle: A position I don't have to play.

The Cup: A defensive formation in which my teammates yell at me to let me know who to mark.

Mark: Involves standing close to that player and waving my arms around.

Handlers: Players who know what they're doing. They throw the disc back and forth looking for opportunities to move it down the field while I stand around or occasionally run to an orange cone, wondering if I am helping the team in any way.

Lay Out: when players, usually male, throw themselves into air horizontally in an insane all out effort to catch the disc. This gives them the opportunity to display their physical prowess, daring, and denial of mortality. Laying out also maximizes a player's dirt and cool scab coverage. To get even more dirt on the body, the lay out can be followed by a gratuitous half somersault over the turf.

Cut: Something I really ought to be doing when on offense, but instead I stay in one place or run to an orange cone, then run back to my place.

Pick: Some kind of a foul. When someone yells pick, everyone has to stand in place until everyone starts running around again and the game can continue.

The Force: Defenders try to force the offense to throw in a certain direction. This determines my position relative to the player I am covering, unless I get confused, then my position is again determined by teammate yelling and how fast I can manage to run at that point in the game.

Huck: What the...

Beer: Tastes better when served in a clear plastic cup instead of a Styrofoam cup.

Cricket: A mysterious circle ritual performed by the brown men in white sweaters who share the field and clubhouse with the frisbers.

Unhappiness 101

Here are some lessons in avoiding unhappiness from the school of my life. See if you can tell that I made them up all by myself:

1. Don't Ask Why
Well, okay. You can ask why sometimes. Why is a perfectly legitimate thing to wonder about future situations (for example, "Why are we about to investigate the creepy noise in the woods armed only with flashlights?"), but when looking backward, why's a tricky situational son of a bitch. Even more frightening is the prospect of actually finding an answer. Once you know why, then either you'll have to do something about it, or worse, you'll know that nothing can be done. Just thinking about why makes my arm sore from the potential heavenward fist shaking.

2. Cheer Up, Everybody Dies Alone.
Worrying about dying alone or even living alone just sucks and is completely pointless. Sure, I'd probably enjoy growing old with some significant other, but I don't have one and I might not ever have one. I am in grave danger of asking myself why I don't, so I will refer to lesson 1.

Doing Too Much and Not Enough

As much as I enjoyed the sun this weekend, as much as I applied the lessons of happiness class, I was so very very down this weekend. The grooves of nutty thinking are so well-worn in my brain that it takes very little to flood my mind with misery, in spite of frisbee and flowers.

I feel exhausted, but I haven't accomplished anything.

I want to change so badly, but I have no sense of progress. All around me, people are doing grown-up things. There are no rational reasons why I can't do some of those things, yet they seem impossible for me. Doing the simplest thing is a huge challenge for reasons real and psychological.

I sense all my challenges at once, all tangled up, each contingent on the other.
Here are two examples.
FindeditorialassistantJobnojobshererelocation5thousanddollarmovingexpensesfindapartmentbreakleasescrewroommatehavetomake allnewfriends.
Findeditorialassistantjobnojobshere3hourcommutenotimeforexcerciseorsocialifeforyears.

I know I'm thinking too much. Or I'm not thinking enough. I need more information.

I already did the crazy work-for-nothing-to-get-into-the-media-industry thing once, and frankly I'm really pissed off that I'll probably have to do it again.
Does it have to be that way? I sure as hell hope not, but it looks like it does.

I am the One

I've been participating in a study. Every week I attend what I call Happiness class. This week's homework was to record 3 positive things that happened each day and write why they happened.

This lead me to a startling conclusion: I am the catalyst of all positive events in my life.

Of course, I had nothing to do with the recent sunny weather, but I am the one who decided to eat lunch outside. I am the one who took the bus to the park to play in the grass.

And when confronted with negative events, which my happiness teacher did not instruct me to record, I was the catalyst of all comforts. When I felt sad, angry, or anxious, I am the one who went for a walk, counted backwards from 1000, and ate a salad for dinner anyway.

I'm not denying credit to any solar systems, deities, ancient mathematicians Indian or Greek, or to my own ancestors. I'm just accepting my power.

Lunch Special

Yesterday, Shoofly strolled over to the campus with her baby to meet me for lunch on the green. It was a very welcome change of pace. Baby Shoo was intrigued by the helium balloons tethered to a lamp post for a campus Israel fest, Isrealpalooza.

The students on this campus tend to take anything --a social event, a political cause, a nation state-- and associate it with an unrelated mass marketed consumer product. In this case, students sported Israel as mints t-shirts. Israel, like Altoids, is curiously strong. Actually, you can make all kinds of connections between Israel and Altoids, but I'm not going there.

Spring brings many outdoor rallies. Earlier in the week at the campus multicultural fest, a co-ed troupe of Asian dancers drew a crowd with some kind of hip-hop meets traditional stick dance. At first I thought "only in America." But then I thought, "naw, probably in Canada, too, at least. Definitely in the Philippines." I give the dancers props for not wearing t-shirts that said "Got Bamboo?" or "Tinikling gives you wings."

Anyway, I'm so happy that Shoofly and her little one decided to make their lunch time visit. They are great company.

3-5 Years Experience

I keep telling myself that it's not impossible to find employment doing something other than what I'm doing now, but when I look at the on line job postings it seems just that--impossible. Everyone wants 3 to 5 years experience. Everyone wants someone whose education and career points to the job with laser focus.

If I could master time travel, go back to the 90's and undo all the things that make my resume so weird, then perhaps a mere writing job would be a bit beneath me. Perhaps, then, I should apply to be Mistress of Time Space Continuum, but that job probably requires 3 to 5 years experience as well. I would just be in another crazy loop, which is where I am now.

The thought of taking another admin job terrifies me. I read stories about admins who work their way up from the position, but I don't think I have it in me. It would so easily turn into more years of the same, never making enough money, constantly being asked where the donuts are...

Only one thing is certain: I cannot think my way out of this problem. Maybe I'll go back to the career coach or return to my school's previously useless career planning center.

If I Had a Car

I would never have taken that bus and learned
that someone stole the lady's purse
with all her methadone inside and that all they gave her as a replacement was a twelve day supply.
What a grown man ain't supposed to do,
That there is such a thing as a water ice/news/white tee-shirt stand,
How suddenly, there were nice houses, and then suddenly run down houses again.

Still, I wish I had a car.

Because It Rained This Weekend

I'll never get to play frisbee. Never ever.
I'll never make new frisbee friends.
I'll have to scrape a boat with old people or
I'll sit in my apartment and get lumpier and lumpier.

Then I'll die.

Oh, sure. This train of though seems completely rediculous now.