thoughts on bees and trees

 From sitting outside drinking coffee:

If any other bug or animal got as close to you as bees and stinging insects did, you'd just swat them away. You wouldn't even think about it. You'd be like 'get away. rude.' But because of that deeply ingrained threat of violence you just kinda freeze up and wait for them to leave. Maybe some people still swat at them. I've seen that. Seems silly to me though. What if they sting you?

There's something there about the threat of violence and closeness that I don't want to explore.

But I'll say this. The bee or yellow jacket or whatever doesn't want to sting you. I don't think. I think they're curious. I think they started from curiosity. And then that aggressive curiosity eventually necessitated a retaliatory threat. 

And maybe there's something there too about curiosity and violence. 

I don't know. I don't have the answers. I'm a guy trying to be on screens less and sitting in a chair. A guy who scrunched his face up when a yellow jacket gave him a once over.

And then, later, I thought "If you didn't know about wind you would think that trees can move like that on their own and that would be wild."

'Helloooooooooooooo thereeeeeeeeeeee. I'm a treeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Hiiiiiiiiiiiii'

little bird

This morning I sat outside. I wanted to see if I could be still for long enough that birds would fly down and do their bird thing in the little yard outside my apartment. One pinkish bird flew down and was attacking all the old dandelions. I couldn't figure out why it was doing it. It wasn't eating them I don't think.

Do birds eat dandelions? I'm pretty sure dandelion seeds spread through the wind. By their design.

Are birds in really windy places better adapted at flying in the wind? 

Sometimes at track practice in high school it would be really windy and I would watch birds try to fly across the field and the wind was too strong so they wouldn't get anywhere. They would just be blown backwards. 

My other memory of the wind is from middle school when I was trying to get to my bus at the end of the day and walking into the wind I wasn't able to exhale and it was like I was choking on air and I had to turn my head to breathe. 

Today I cleaned a lot of the glass out of the bus. Calvin wanted the kids who broke the windows to clean the bus but I didn't want that because I don't think they would do a good job and also I think cleaning something you care about shouldn't be a punishment. Like that's caring for the bus. I don't like the idea of it being forced upon people who don't want to do it. That seems hurtful to the bus in some way. I don't know. 

My right wrist is a little strained so I couldn't use it as much to lift today but that's okay because at some point my right hand and right shoulder got stronger than my left side so I view this as an opportunity for my left side to catch up.

The last time I saw a dog that I knew the name of was like...ages ago. So long ago. Distant distant past. I do not interact with dogs.

That's not true. I saw my parents' neighbor's dogs last weekend and I know their name. I lied. 

my eyes felt irritated all day

 not sure why.

a good day though.

Oh. I had a thought today.

I was walking up the stairs to my apartment and it's like this tunnel that goes through the hillside and at the top of it where the entrance to my apartment is, is this little grassy area and as I was getting to the top of the stairs my head poked out of the stairwell and this little squirrel that was squirreling around in the grass saw me pop out of nowhere and kind of freaked out and scurried away and my immediate thought, my instantaneous reaction was

Oh, what if I was a little kid that saw that I scared the squirrel and got really upset and started crying because I accidentally scared it.

'I'm sorry I scared you squirrel!'

another week another post about sprinting

ok ok ok ok ok here's what I learned.

Ever since I started taking video of myself sprinting I've had the question

why do I look like that?

And also when I watch the elite sprinters I ask

why don't I look like that? how do they look like that?

And I thought I had figured it out and had been trying to get there over the past month by focusing on straightening my leg before touching the ground. The only problem was when I would try to sprint like that I'd run really slow. And then when I went back to just doing what feels fast I would run much faster. So we had to readjust. 

I had a hypothesis so I took video of myself basically running in place but imagining that I had a small roughly knee-high hurdle in front of me that I had to step over. When I went back to watch the video, all the cues and positions that really fast sprinters get into were there. I was doing it. I was doing the thing. I wasn't going anywhere but I was at least moving my legs the way fast sprinters move their legs.

So that was exciting and encouraging. In future workouts, my warm-up is going to focus on hitting those positions and stepping over that imaginary low hurdle (they're also sometimes called wickets) while gradually increasing the speed. I think what's happening is that as I'm speeding up, I'm not able to maintain the form. So I'll do the right form while basically standing still. Then I'll try to go a little faster. And I'll progress over like 3 or 4 reps until I'm not hitting the form anymore. And then I'll just sprint. But one would hope that over time the form I hold at true top speed and my "consciously trying to have good form" form will become more similar.

Yes yes yes. That is the plan.

 

sat outside again today

 it was nice. go to my camp.

gonna start sitting outside in the evenings. maybe during the day. maybe whenever I can

 it's part of my dwelling initiative. it's called sitting outside in the grass. just do it as much as you can.