it's always the calves, man

 Still trying to get my knee better. Today I had better range of motion and I decided to go to the gym even though I can't do too much and I had a minor 'ah HA!' moment when I went over to the stairs to stretch my calves and felt a lot of tightness in my left calf and then after stretching it out I could almost immediately bend my knee more so that was a good discovery. Today was a lot better than the previous days and I should have suspected the calves sooner. I was doing heavy weighted calf raises with a barbell and I jumped the weight up too heavy too soon. It all makes sense.

Dang. I felt like I had about a week or so where I was really firing on all cylinders and doing so much and then got hit with a one-two punch of wrist hurt and knee hurt and I was really in shambles for a few days. Feels like this keeps happening this year. Oh well. Getting back on track now I think. Ever forward.

I don't like when I can't pursue my goals

being hurt is no fun. but I'm still pursuing my goals. even if I'm taking some steps back. I'm still pursuing my goals. 

knee is acting up

 I've had some bad luck this spring with missing training. Coaching, sickness, and now my knee is swelling up. I don't think I did anything to seriously injure it, it just came on the last few days and seems like it wants to linger for a bit. No pain. It's just swollen and doesn't want to bend all the way. This happened a couple times in high school and college and then it would disappear and I never knew why. Still frustrating though.

All the little red mites are out. They're on every surface. They're everywhere. All the little red mites.

you guys think the future is determined?

 I'm not sure. On the one hand it's like,

Of course the future is determined. The architecture of it is all laid out. Time is an unfolding event based on the start position from the Big Bang. You'd be a daggone fool to think your limited perception of time and reality has any bearing on what will or won't happen. It's an illusion of the ego.

But on the other hand,

Even if the future is determined, that determination is still unknowable. And so the events themselves don't really matter as much as your anticipation of them. The future is undetermined in the sense that you don't know what you're going to think or feel about it. 

Which I think speaks to the point that you can also point at larger truths and that can provide useful context but at the end of the day you're you in your body. 

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!'