master meep

 master meep

floopy booboo!

corpulent donker

here's what I'll say!

colonoscopy exams. there's cooler procedures we could be doing than that

1- wrap people up in toilet paper like mummies. when you're 40 you should get that.

2- swim in a pool full of jello. when you're 60 you should do that.

3- we find a person with your same name and you talk on the phone with them when you're 20.

4- count to 1,000. when you're 11 years old we make you go in a room and count all the way to 1,000.

5- just throw a brick though the office building of some big multinational corporation that wants to watch the world burn and is actively working towards it. this should be doled out like jury duty. you get a letter in the mail and you gotta go find a brick and chuck it.

6- reverse colonoscopy. A reverse colonoscopy is where we invent an edible camera and you eat it and then just watch what happens on a screen until your stomach acid dissolves the camera. you can do that on a birthday of your choosing

7- Stridulation. I was thinking about cricket legs and how they make noise and that is called stridulation and then I found out there's a MAMMAL that also makes noise this way and whatever you think this mammal looks like--that's not what it looks like. 

ladies and gentlemen! the lowland streaked tenrec!!

a right proper lad if I've ever seen one!

yesterday while coaching I said, "who knows what an isopod is?"

and this kid thought about it for a second and went, "is that a critter?!"

And I said, "yes. it is a critter."

 

floppy rainbow

some good tab cats from today and also a meditation on plants and dirt

 Evil Raccoon

Tiny Zingo

highlights of my day right there.

Here's another reason I like plants. I like plants because they grow in dirt. And normally when we use dirt in a figurative sense we mean it in a negative way or we even have the word "dirty" which is bad but that's so lame because plants grow in dirt and that's awesome because plants are awesome and they wouldn't have it any other way. I guess if you want to be fancy you could say that plants grow in "soil" but even the word "soiled" is bad so there's just no winning for plants and dirt.

Except in my household. In my household there is winning for plants and dirt every day all the time. I wake up in the morning and I say, "good job plants! good job dirt! you're doing so great!" And maybe one day I'll just be some dirt and I'll be so excited to be that. I don't know why we gotta imagine that we're going to a place up in the clouds where there's literally no dirt after we die. Um...excuse me, we could just be in the dirt which is where we know the body/ashes is anyway. And then you're in the trees and plants which is awesome. My grandmother on my dad's side had her ashes buried under a lilac bush and it's a living memorial to her and that's incredible.

weighing in on the eiffel tower controversy

a lot* of people have been asking me to give my two cents on the olympic rings Eiffel tower controversy and I've decided to break my silence and speak my truth.

if you don't know, for the Paris games, the iconic olympic rings were placed on the tower with the understanding that they would be taken down by the end of the year. But now, the mayor of paris whose name I don't know says she wants them to stay up until 2028. The family of the designer of the tower has cried foul play. Or, in french, 'le jeu irrégulier!!"'

An age old argument about who gets to decide how the big metal thing will be dressed up. Well if there's anything I've learned in all my many years of working with children it's that if anyone starts arguing over anything and it's a big headache then just take the thing away. No more Eiffel tower. Nothing is worth fighting about and disturbing my ever-so-fragile peace. 

I move that the Eiffel tower be thrown in the bottom of the ocean with a whale carcass and we set up a webcam to look at the various kinds of life that form around the whale and the symbol of *searching for symbol of Eiffel tower*

french industrial prowess

But yeah just take the rings down. It's like leaving the Christmas tree up in February. If you're going to leave anything up, leave up Halloween decorations. And just put Santa hats on the skeletons.

Do the equivalent of putting santa hats on skeletons on the olympic rings on the Eiffel tower.

Put reindeer skeletons on the olympic rings on the Eiffel tower in the bottom of the ocean next to a whale carcass and call that a new holiday called Mebtobericus.

lonely police

 today this girl I coach came up to me and told me that at lunch she and her friend play this game called "lonely police" where after the students get dismissed from lunch there's a lot of trash on the floor and usually there's one piece of trash all by itself and so they go tell the custodian to get it because he's the lonely police.

and I said, "why don't you pick up the trash?"

And she said that she's not allowed to because the lunch room is divided and they have to stay on their side.

And I was like, "oh fair enough."

And then we invented this game where you and another person stand on one leg and you try to push/pull the raised leg to make the person lose their balance. You can't kick and you can only make contact with the other person's raised leg on the ankle or below.

another year another spider plant giveaway

 hit me uppppp

I have a lot more I'm planning to pot soon

how'd that get there?

dfw

  “The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.”

some lyrics to nothing

 when I'm making rice

then I make it in a pot

and I set it on a burner

and I hope it's not forgot

for if it burns asunder

and my hopes are all for naught

then I'm living by the charity of the moss

MOSS MOSS MOSS

so shiny green and bright

a blanket that is strong enough to hold me down

at the end of the day

 "at the end of the day" that's a commonly used phrase. It's supposed to highlight what really matters. You have some experience and you think a lot of things and feel a lot of things but at the end of the day you're only supposed to think about one thing and feel one thing. 

That's terrible logic. Really bad.

Usually at the end of the day I have the worst attitude and am more likely to think negatively about something than any other part of the day. No, what it should be is, "at the start of the next day".

That's when you have clarity. When you've processed things into dreams and weird little plays of the mind. That's the time to reflect. At the start of the next day. 

"Well you know at the end of the day all you can really do is despair and think about how you're a deeply flawed human being. But at the start of the next day you remember that what really matters is friendship and the laughs we had along the way. So, there you go."

thinking about orders

 I was reading something or other the other day. It was about--well it was about Nietzsche but that part wasn't all that interesting but there was this part at the end that talked about what an Order is--like the technical definition of an Order and it's a group of people whom by voluntary association hold themselves to specific high standards. I said that weird. People choose to be a club based on the rules of the club. 

I think it's a cool idea because it's not like a normal group where the rules are sort of separate or in place to prevent bad stuff while you're doing whatever else. Like, oh you're in the climbing club and a rule is you can't spit on your hands and then climb the climbs or walk underneath people or eat chalk or whatever. 

But if you're in the ORDER OF ESOTERIC WHITTLERS. Then you have to whittle and craft from wood all manner of esoteric and mystical brickabrack. It's like the limiting conditions don't detract from or inhibit the experience, the limitations create meaning and purpose. 

So go start an Order if you want. 

grapevine grapevine grapevine

 there's a place off lone pine with a mighty fine grapevine

visiting home

 

 

road movie to berlin

 The first time I heard They Might Be Giants was at the summer day camp I went to that had two vans. The red van did not have a working stereo. The WHITE VAN had a cd player/ cassette player and the two cool guy counselors who drove the white van would play the album Flood by They Might Be Giants on it and you got to listen to songs like Particle Man, Birdhouse in Your Soul, and Istanbul (not Constantinople). It was a huge deal to be in the white van and get to listen to the crazy songs and I remember the time me and my friend got on what was ordinarily the big kid van. 

At some point after that or around that time there was also an animated music video to Particle Man on Tiny Toon Adventures.

My next memory of the album is my dad buying it and my sister and I and my dad listening to the album all the way through on the way home and stopping in the driveway and until it finished. I remember my dad saying that he liked that it was a bunch of short catchy songs.

Recently I was driving a group of campers and put on Flood again. It's the same CD that my dad bought at least 20 years ago. For a while my favorite song from the album has been the closing track, Road Movie to Berlin. It's a song about mortality and accepting life for the finite one-way journey that it is.

My favorite verse goes:

We were once so close to heaven

Peter came out and gave us medals,

declaring us the nicest of the damned.

And then there's this really long pronounced silence

Time won't find the lost

it'll sweep up our skeleton bones

so take the wheel and I will take the pedals.

I just think those are such good lines. Time won't find the lost, it'll sweep up our skeleton bones. Like, the passage of time won't uncover anything or bring anything back. It will only brush things into oblivion. That good good existential finality. But then the last line is sweet because there's a sense of camaraderie and togetherness as we go forwards in the only direction we can go. Right? Two or more people driving in a car together. It's a great example of choosing your attitude. Like the facts are gonna be what they are, time goes on and we aren't getting to heaven, but gosh darn it we're together and we're gonna be nice about it. 

That's that on that. 

end of summer pics

 

what made this summer my favorite ever

 #1- Poplar. We did something new that was a big success and added a new dimension to camp. It was scary going into it and there was a lot of uncertainty but we got through it and everyone walked away with a great experience. It was a dream come true and something I'm really really proud of.

#2- We had the best team we've ever had during my time. We added two amazing counselors and brought back nearly everyone else and I think it elevated the entire camp. The staff that I've known since they were campers are excellent people who I feel really lucky to know and they keep getting better. I saw new levels of professionalism and confidence and caring that made my heart feel like it was going to explode from joy.

#3- I think I did a good job. My big goal for the summer was to handle situations calmly without raising my voice and I wouldn't say I was perfect but I'd definitely say it was my best summer on record. I think I also continued to come up with new ideas and add to the culture.

(also related to #2 and #3 is consistency. consistency and familiar faces is so so huge. this is the longest I've ever been at a single job and the consistent team we've built makes us really effective. I just remembered how at other jobs when there's turnover you end up fighting a lot of the same battles over and over and making the same mistakes and relearning the same lessons and it's pretty incredible that we've largely avoided that.) 

#4- Connections to campers. Maybe the most important metric of success is the number of campers we make a connection with and an impact on. We did a lot of great work this summer to make our camp a place where any kid of any age can have a great time and feel part of the community. One of my biggest strengths is I think I can do a good job of engaging with the youngest girls and the oldest boys and every group in between and we have a team of versatile counselors who can do that as well. 

There are things to improve and strive towards but we done did good.

one thing I like about myself is all of my good qualities

and one thing I dislike about myself is all of my bad qualities

but one thing I like about myself is not disliking myself for my faults

also one thing I like about myself is that the little guy that sits in the command chair of my brain that is in charge of executive function and the part of me that is the parent/adult of myself...thing...that guy does a good job. so, good job being functional, me.

unexpected moments of intimacy

I was stopped at the light on Ridge and Grady on my way back from the grocery store with my window half down when a women pulled up next to me in an on Miata convertible with the top down. It was red with an antique plate and patches of paint missing from the bumper. She was slightly ahead of me so I could only see the back of her head as she turned on her radio and "Ooh La La" by the Faces started playing. I turned off my radio and saw her look down and gently bob her head to the music.

I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger

Her light turned green and she drove off. There wasn't really anything remarkable about the encounter except how close we happened to be in that moment. We could've had a conversation without even raising our voices. Like we weren't in these weird domed space ships that zip around and it's easy to imagine that other humans don't even exist.

And then I thought, as I often do, about how I drive in the vehicles that my grandparents owned and I put up the blanket over the back seat that my dad and I put up the first day I got the car. 

And then I was frustrated, as I often am, by how weird it is, particularly for guys, to talk about things like intimacy and feeling close to someone. Shout out the lady in the red Miata. 

it's all moves in a game

 going to camp is playing a big game called 'camp' that is made up of a bunch of different smaller games. and everything you say and do is a move that tries to establish the game you're playing.

For example yesterday I was at a park where kids get picked up in town and a boy asked if he could go to the bathroom which was on the other side of a baseball field from the parking lot we were waiting in. I have to say 'yes' and immediately he takes all the other kids from the van except one with him to the bathroom which I was immediately skeptical of. I didn't want to leave the one girl alone in the van so I watched from afar and after a few minutes I'd realized that they'd gone over to play on the playground that was next to the bathhouse. So then I had to play the "You did something wrong" game and in a big voice say "NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT!" and carry on about how they had broken trust and were out of supervision and lied to me. And that boy had played some version of the "I'm going to see what I can get away with" game. I mean, I kinda get it. The playground is right next to the bathroom and they are a group of children but when we're in a public space that is outside of camp, I want eyes and ears on everyone at all times. That's the "you did something wrong" game.

Then there's the "larger than life" game. Where you take the regular occurrences of camp and treat them like the momentous historical events. A lot of the time for me this looks like commentating on games that people are playing. I was watching a kickball game with a group of kids on Thursday and we were in the commentator booth providing play-by-play coverage. 

Another game I love to play is the "spirit of camp" game. This is mostly with counselors and it's where I assess how closely you are adhering to the "spirit of camp". What it usually looks like is either praising or griping about various actions. One move I was fond of this year was commenting on whether the counselors took a route into camp that goes by the pool that the campers aren't allowed to take or took a longer path through the woods that the campers use. It's also a lot of assessing how engaged a counselor looks at any given moment. More broadly you could call this game "test of faith".

Another really popular game is "get it?" It's another way of saying 'inside joke' but it doesn't have to be pre-established. It's just saying something that on the surface level doesn't mean much but there's a second layer that you want people to recognize and pick up on. 

Getting a group's attention and explaining rules or steps to follow is playing "I'm in charge". And that's where you do moves to show that you know what you're talking about and people should listen to you. Most of "I'm in charge" is getting people to stop talking. It also has a lot to do with presence and attitude. 

"In Cahoots" is a really powerful game. That's where you set a premise or a mission and convince the group around you that you are united and an in-group. This is a popular one at meals. I started something called the "clean plate club" this summer where you just lick your plate clean and then we take a group photo with everyone's clean plates. 

"Role Reversal" is a game where the person in authority acts like an exaggerated version of the group they have authority over. That's one I really like. It could be considered a variation of "get it?"

"One of Us"is using attention and praise to establish someone as part of the in-group. It's establishing rapport and making someone feel seen and heard. 

Most of these have to do with building a sense of group and community and establishing the norms and values of that group. It's a lot of "do you like what I like? do you laugh at what I laugh at? do you value what I value?" I don't know if it's helpful to write this out or if it's just a bunch of navel-gazing but I'd argue it's useful to breakdown something big and amorphous like camp and how to act in a complex social situation into discrete parts in some way.

Other games include "you're my special" which is where you latch onto one person and make them the be-all end-all of your life at camp. And there's "nobody loves me" which usually looks like throwing a fit because you don't feel seen or heard. "Hideaway" is where you go off and make your self inaccessible with one or more people. 

 

I've been driving a shuttle van into town from camp this week

 And I had them all go around and do Rose-Bud-Thorn and they all had such great answers and it was really sweet. I love reflection and recaps so much. And I also hate ending a day or an experience without doing them. They make me so happy. 

The unexamined life is not worth living!

Also we had a discussion today about which plants would win in a fight.

Growth is the greatest weapon of all!

a field camp bedtime story

 Once upon a time there was a camp in a field and one day a man came to that camp and his name was Shmanderson but they just called him Andy. And he was part of the camp and went on many adventures. He touched the bear on top of Gertie's Country Store. He saw the vulture that lived in the abandoned mill. He had the cops called on him at the reservoir. He saw a British ghost while looking for a crashed airplane at Mint Springs. He got lost at the Rockfish Gap community center. He went to the Dolly Sods and climbed the highest mountain and squelched in the sphagnum bog. He went to Costa Rica and drove a van. He went to Florida (twice) and also drove a van. He hiked from Blue Ridge to Camp Albemarle through the river. He went to all the 7-11's in town in one day. He went into the Glade Spring cave and got stuck in the mud. He hiked the entirety of the Rivanna Trail and almost the entire Rivanna River. He had many more adventures too but the real adventure was the people he met and the people they grew up to be. And Shmanderson said, "Well I guess I did alright" and took a nap for 8 months straight.

the mission remains lifting people up emotionally and socially

 right? what does that mean?

giving people an elevated experience. you know it when you see it. it's when someone seems energized. bold. silly. engaged. immersed. open to the new. a state of plasticity! where new connections are formed.

that is the mission that is always the mission.

looking forward to the off season

The time outside of camp is for making a better version of myself to come back to camp. I wrote out some goals for the year and I'm excited because for the first time in my adult life they don't include running a lot of miles every day. Which is something I've loved doing for a really long time but it just takes a lot of energy and time and inevitably I would have to drop other stuff to make hitting mileage possible. I'm still going to focus on sprinting and climbing, so being active, but I'm going to hopefully schedule it in a way where the workouts are only 30 to 40 minutes and not overly tiring. The hope is that that also frees up time to whittle and learn the melodica!

We'll see

thought of the day

if you want to seem interesting, be interested

they told me it was a mugshot

 

day of the immense sun, and action and ambition and laughter

Great is youth, and equally great is old age . . . . great are the day and night;

Great is wealth and great is poverty . . . . great is expression and great is silence.

Youth large lusty and loving . . . . youth full of grace and force and fascination,

Do you know that old age may come after you with equal grace and force and  

 fascination?

Day fullblown and splendid . . . . day of the immense sun, and action and ambition  

 and laughter,

The night follows close, with millions of suns, and sleep and restoring darkness.

I think Walt Whitman is taking in everything as it is and basking in its totality. The default way of thinking is to pick and choose, right? Being young is better than being old. Wealth is better than poverty. But he's saying everything that exists exists with the same level of force and fullness. Nothing that is real is any less real than anything else. The only illusion is the illusion of difference. That's why he repeats 'great' that's why he repeats "grace and force and fascination".

Do you accept the totality? Do you?! I guess so

track meet with them boys

really fun. it's been such a great summer

 

"no one likes that"

 That's been my go-to line for correcting behaviors.

You need to stop jumping on people. You need to give people space. You need to stop yelling. You need to stop barking. You need to stop grabbing people.

No one likes that. No one likes any of those things. 

I think sometimes I get in my head that showing frustration or being frustrated is bringing other people down or not being the best person I can be. But, it's true that correcting behavior is work and showing frustration is a cue to a kid that they're doing something that is upsetting to people. 

You ever encounter a really annoying person out in the world and think, why are they like that? or what would it take for them to stop being like that? It takes work! And it's work I definitely believe in. I've seen people improve and it's a really good feeling to watch someone go from using behaviors all the time to being someone you can have a conversation with.

So that's my pep talk to myself. Don't lose your spark babe but keep fighting the good fight.

went to meghan's wedding today!

 at camp holiday trails!

learned how to juggle 3 clubs!

ate yummy tofu!

hooray!

I am not immune to propaganda

 

 

hunchin' and crunchin'

 you know where I'm at

you know where I be

make an impact

 the easiest way to make an impact is to be fascinated with something or someone. show interest.

the sky is beautiful. the trees are beautiful. the world is full of beautiful people. you miss it all if you're too hung up on what's going to happen or what's already happened and then you've done nothing but sat out your turn. take your turn. play the game. it's meant to be played. it's the universe smiling at itself and all it asks is that you smile back.

summer camp is my favorite thing!

just finished a two week session and it was so great. I love existing at camp. I love sleepaway camp the most. It's an excellent way to be alive.

I think I don't put much value in searching for meaning but I do put a lot of value in creating meaning and if camp does anything it's creating meaning.

midsummer reflection

physically: Overall I feel great. Not worrying about hitting a mileage goal has proven really beneficial and healthy. I said 4 years ago that if I stopped running I would be a better counselor and that's kinda come true. I still get really tired and have to nap some days but that's just being outside in 90+ degree heat all day. Camp gives me energy.

emotionally: Also pretty good. Summer is the time I get to be the most social and it's the context where I feel most comfortable being social so I'm doing great. I definitely still get stressed at times but I think I'm managing it well and not letting it linger. The other day I did some drawing when I was feeling a little beat down and stressed and I had the realization that, as far as this summer is concerned, we've already won. We did Poplar and it was great. We won the big game. This is all icing on the cake. 

I also got confirmation this week that Poplar was a hit and we'll do it again and that was really big. I knew it was great and that I worked really hard but to see that recognized was affirming. 

I've done a good job this summer of managing stressful situations while staying calm and not raising my voice except when safety is an immediate concern. I've leaned heavily into using my 'therapy voice' in a semi-joking way and I've noticed a lot of success with that. I also have two new co-workers at camp who both work in schools during the year and I think being around them more has helped me be more mindful and patient. 

mentally: I guess mentally is the same as emotionally in a lot of ways but I'll say that I've been making a lot of videos this summer and I feel really good about that. I'm happy with how productive I've been.

Life's not perfect but it's pretty darn close.

Looking ahead: 

I want to continue to use the influence I have to move camp towards a more welcoming, expressive, supportive place. A great camp, to me, is something like the Cambrian Explosion. 

The Cambrian Explosion is this point in the fossil record where all these different types of complex organisms/animals appear seemingly out of nowhere. If you set up the right environment, people are free to be who they want to be. 

Like when the ocean is a very harsh unforgiving place then you end up with a lot of simple, single-cell organisms that can't expend the energy to be anything more. I'm playing fast and loose with biology but whatever. I think people and personalities are similar. When I'm stressed or worried, I'm not going to try to be a new or best version of myself. I'm mostly going to shut down and be really reactive to everything that happens. 

When I feel supported and accepted then I'm going to be my Opabinia self. That's where I've learned the most about myself and the world. 

So yeah, my goal is to work towards that.

Elijahball Tournament 2024

 the thing I like about camp is that every day you have chances to be kind to people and if you stick around long enough you find out that those moments when you really made a connection meant a whole lot to them

IT'S LIKE MINING FOR GOLD BABY!

is it the food or the meal and the importance of ceremony

 At the end of camp last week we did a thankful circle and a lot of the boys said they were thankful for the food and I have a couple thoughts on that

1- food is a safe thing for boys to be thankful for. it's necessary for survival and no one can accuse them of being overly sentimental for liking it

2- teenage boys love food

3- I would argue that part of the reason the food was enjoyed was because the meals had ceremony to them. We started the meals by gathering outside the lodge and singing and recognizing things that had happened. We had a ritual for entering the lodge and a song we sang before everyone was seated. We let people serve themselves so they decided their plate and portions. We sat as cabins and everyone knew how the meals operated. All of the things surrounding the food made the food feel significant and good.

I present these other examples of ceremony as evidence:

1- In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, it seems odd that Cassius and Brutus are worried about Caesar's coronation because he already wields absolute power anyway. The argument I read in a footnote in college was that this is because of the importance of the ceremony. The formal announcement of Caesar's power and status makes all the difference.

2- Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. When the Peanuts kids decorate and scream-sing Hark the Herald Angels Sing, the true meaning of Christmas is revealed. It's not just a hollow act of consumerism that Charlie Brown is lamenting at the beginning of the movie, it's a true communion.

3- I forget what the third one was.

Ritual is a powerful thing.

what do I do for fun? start summer camps with my friends!

 

feeling incredibly blessed

 I'm about to go be director for a week-long sleepaway camp. This is something I've been working towards for at least 8 years and it's a culmination of building a lot of relationships and skills. I like to temper my expectations but I'm looking at the group and our plan and it really seems like it's going to be the highlight of my year and my camp career. 

my goals are to stay grateful, stay present, and soak it all in.

haven't kept up with camp updates but it's going really well

 I'm really excited for the sleepaway camp next week. I think it's going to be really great.

 

camp day 7

Today this kid asked me, "how many adventure weeks do I need to do to be in the friend group?"

I think he meant like, how much do I have to do to have "made it". Like be a known entity at camp. Be established. 

I said, "Heh. I don't know anything about that. I'm just a counselor."

camp photos

 

day 3

"In regular Newcomb you have to play with at least two people, so in Anti-Newcomb you play by yourself and throw to your imaginary friends and then you cry and drown the town in your lonely lonely tears."

-a kid explaining one of the rules of anti-newcomb

day 2

 The thing I'll remember about today was that it was a really great group of guys who were almost the exact same group I paddled with last year and to see how much they've grown and matured is really gratifying. They really showed respect and had fun too! Great day on the water.

camp day 1

 kayak smelled stinky

smelled like a dead mouse in there

had to fish it out of the hollow part of the kayak for the better part of an hour

ADVENTURE BABY!

do you think things have a set path and are bound to happen or are we all in a box that's being shaken around and making everything collide into everything else?

 stepped in a big ol poopy today so these thoughts are weighing on my mind

 "No. Andy. You can't hang random [crap] from the ceiling. We already have enough of that."

"Fine. Then I'll just throw it away."

"You can't throw that away, those are important wires. Where did it even come from?"

"Nobody cared about this until I recontextualized it! That's what artists do!"

-yesterday when I tried to put a bundle of old A/V wires on a random pipe in the ceiling, the same A/V wires that months ago I hung up on the wall and dubbed a 'festive wreath'

one thing I learned at the therapeutic boarding school I worked at 7 years ago

 This school was the first time I heard the phrase "cannot distinguish other people's emotions from their own."

There were some boys there who were working on differentiating their own feelings from the feelings of people around them. So like if they saw another boy who was sad or angry or frustrated then they would assume they also felt that way.

When I first heard about it I thought it was the wildest thing. How could you possibly mistake someone else's feelings for your own? That's like thinking something someone else said was something that you said. 

Now I don't think it's such an out-there concept. Today I was thinking about not letting other people's stress become my stress. And, in turn, not stressing other people out with the stress I got from someone else. 

I AM A RIVER! I AM A FRESH SUMMER BREEZE!

 Sometimes when you're 33 and you start practicing to get better at jumping you learn things that you feel like you're too old to have learned. I've been doing these things called 'pogos' a lot which is where you jump with your legs pretty straight and you try to bounce basically instead of bending your knees every time. Anyway I was really bad at them at first and recently I've started to realize that if you sort of anticipate the landing with your feet and ankles you can get an extra little push into the ground. It's hard to put into words but it's been one of many discoveries. 

I'm gonna go watch Bob Beamon's Olympic long jump

be present. be your best self

 camp is fast approaching and I'm starting to think about all the things I could be planning and preparing and that can feel overwhelming but then I remember that most of the best things I've ever done were not planned out well in advance but came out of a spontaneous moment where I was really paying attention to what was going on and open to the spark of the moment.

my big goals for the summer are

1) be present as much as possible. specifically, recognizing when I can do the most good at any given moment.

2) react calmly when stressful and unexpected things happen

3) build a culture of attentiveness and chaotic goodness

my door swells shut

 my door has started to do this thing where something about the heat and humidity causes the door to swell or the frame to shrink or something but basically I can't get out of my apartment with just one hand. I pull and pull and then I use both hands and I still can't get out. And then I have to throw my whole body into the door to try to break the seal and then it opens very easily.

AND THEN there was this time I found an earwig on my kitchen countertop so I put it in a plastic bowl and was going to take it outside but my door was sealed shut so I was furiously trying to open the door with one hand as it was sealed shut and with the other hand I was holding the bowl with the earwig in it and the earwig kept trying to crawl up the sides of the bowl and get to my hand so I had to keep readjusting it so it wouldn't get me and it almost broke me.

the scorpions were on the radio

And the Scorpions make me think of my dad because he likes the Scorpions and then after that the George Thorogood version of "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" came on which also makes me think of my dad because we quote lines from it nearly every time we see each other and we have since I was in like middle school or something. Which is pretty funny that we've joked about this song where this guy is a deadbeat and has no place to live and goes to a bar and gets blasted out of his mind.

I said I know.

Everybody funny.

Now you funny, too.  

may

 the way I remember May is that it's the month that's asking the question

"may you go on to summer?" And the answer is yes, you may. When? June!

getting better at jumping

 when I was in 3rd grade they had us fill out this survey about ourselves and then they told us they were going to give it back to us at the end of 5th grade and we'd be surprised by how much we'd changed.

And I remember thinking in third grade, 'ha! nice try. you won't get me! I'm gonna remember this stuff.'

And then I got it back at the end of the 5th grade and had zero memory of writing down that my favorite activity was JUMPING. 5th grade me even thought that was kind of a lame answer.

Well 33 year old me thinks it's an awesome answer and it's time that 5th grade me takes a backseat because GUESS WHAT? We're working on jumping again.

everything is so green and alive

 I mean this stuff is good

It's good out

like really good

are you seeing this? are your eyes open to the splendor?

cuz buddy it's happening right now

when? everywhere

where? right now

drink it in!

I don't like AI

 I think it's dumb and stupid and bad and gross

now when I Google questions instead of seeing search results I get this AI overview thing

terrible

so then I started testing it

if I search 'what's the largest country on Earth' I get an AI overview

but if I ask 'how many stomach a cow got?' then I think it's too weirdly phrased and so Google just does its normal thing

but then I tried 'which country of them the most biggest one' it gave me the same AI overview as before

so I don't know. I am more than willing to completely alter my phrasing and vocabulary to try to thwart it

Feed the Cats

 this is one of those long rambly posts that's really just for me but whatareyougonnadoyaknow?

For the past 2 months I've been looking into sprinting training and trying to learn more about how to coach/improve sprinting and speed. Pretty quickly you'll come across something called "Feed the Cats" which is this program developed by this high school coach named Tony Holler. 

Feed the Cats is the opposite of how I developed as a runner. I looked like an 11 or 12 year old until I was about 17. Growing up I never felt like I was someone who was naturally talented or athletic, probably because I was way smaller than everyone else. The one thing I was good at that other people seemed to not enjoy as much was running a lot and putting in a lot of work. I think before my sophomore, junior, and senior year I ran more miles over the summer than anyone else on the cross country team. I won the most improved award my sophomore and junior year at the end of the season. The longer the race and the harder the course, I would do better and better relative to everyone else on the team. It's the classic you get out of it what you put into it and I think it affected me more than anything else in my life at the time. I put a lot of my identity into being someone that works hard and puts in long hours that other people aren't willing to put in.

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. It got me a long way. It got me all the way to my 30s before I started thinking things like, "I don't think this easy 10 mile run is really doing anything for me." It got me to the 10 miler this year where I knew my training had been really good and I checked the mileage and intensity boxes and ran the worst time ever (the weather was maybe a larger factor but whatever). It got me to playing capture the flag in the summer last year and realizing, "man, I'm SLOW" 

What I'd told myself was that I couldn't get by on athleticism and that my route was hard work hard work hard work and that I'd eventually be able to out work other people. And in the process of that I think I lost whatever athleticism I did have.

In college I was doing my thing of running hard nearly every day and trying to run a lot of miles and it felt like on any given week I could race an 800 in about 2:08 or 2:09. It was something I raced a lot in high school and even though I had gotten away from a lot of that training I could still pull it out when I had to. Earlier this Fall I would struggle to run 2:20 pace for 500 meters. I would run a 500 and a 300 with a 3 to 4 minute rest between and the combined 800 time would be about 2:18. I was doing more or less similar training but I'd lost the ability to be fast.

And you could say, 'well aging is just like that. what you really gotta do is move up the marathon where it's all about endurance.' But that sounds awful to me. If something feels wrong, why make the ruts in the path even deeper? I don't feel older. I think I want to let go of something that isn't serving me anymore.

Maybe a reasonable person would look at all this and think, 'well gosh why's it so important anyway?' but when you get into running and you see your weekly mileage numbers go up and you're running longer than you've ever run before and you're setting PR's and beating people you used to lose to and winning (?!) races it's like the most affirming, identity building--you're gonna be chasing that high for the rest of your life. Or until you're 33. 

But anyway Tony Holler of Feed the Cats would look at all that mileage and all that effort and hard work and, what he would call "conditioning" and say, "Of course you're slower now, all that work killed your athleticism and speed." His philosophy centers around peak speed and athleticism. He wants athletes to be as fresh as possible, running as fast as possible as often as possible. It's the antithesis of my work hard all the time and be a little to a lot tired all the time approach. He wants racehorses, not workhorses.

And two or three years ago I would've looked at that and said, "But I'm a workhorse!" I need a lot of volume because if I'm not working hard then I'm automatically going to get beat by everyone who's more talented. Which, maybe that's true but two things have changed since then:

1) I really don't care if I run another 60 or 70 mile week again. I know I can do it. I did it for a whole year. I could go out and run a 100 mile week but it would just make me really tired. It wouldn't be the fun challenge that it was my junior year of college. 

2) Climbing has taught me that I can still improve at new skills. I don't have to be a distance runner for all my days forever more. I can get better at things I thought that I had no affinity for. And that's fun.

Even as I'm writing all this, a part of me from high school and college is thinking, man you sold out. you lost the way. what do you mean you don't care about mileage anymore? what about once a runner? what about the trial of miles? you're soft now.

To which I'd say, the whole point was to get better! Mileage was a means to an end. To improve! I know I put in a block of work that can stand next to any other season in my life and I didn't get better! At some point you just have to be honest with yourself. 

I feel like I've done a poor job of explaining Feed the Cats but you can look it up if you want. I've been watching his videos nonstop for the past day and a half and it's made me reflect on everything I've been writing: who I am, what are my beliefs when it comes to sports, what makes a good athlete. 

The thing I love about Tony Holler is he seems like a guy who's doing it right. He cares about performance. He cares about discipline and intentional effort and most importantly he cares about a program that serves his athletes and makes them better at doing something they love doing. I had the unspoken belief that sprinting was something I wasn't any good at and was incapable of getting better at and good sprinters are just born with it. And now I'm at a place where I can see the road map of how I would go about trying to get better.

Be an athlete!

somebody cut the lock on the gate and broke into camp :/

 that's lame, dude

they didn't do anything but still

lame

you wouldn't know what to say to yourself

 

 

may10

 

 tape two french fries together make em bigger

tape two french fries together make one bigger fry

use tape and now a fry of double the width can be crafted

twice as much

tape two french fries together them them big fry

buy tape

buy french fries

must be more than one

tape two fry make one

people say the tape doesn't stick to the fry

an invitation to smash the fries together into a mass of potato

just like entropy

it releases heat

here's some things that I think would be cool if my generation started doing

 more pack formation. like the way previous generations centered around the idea of the nuclear family, I think it would be really cool if we focused more on wolf packs. packing up.

estimating wrong. I always thought it was really dumb and kind of insulting that every few years in school we had to learn how rounding and estimating works. Like "if you wanted to round up 256 to the nearest ten, what would it be?" That's stupid. Just tell the person 256. Or you could also say 250. It doesn't matter. I never liked it and I still don't. 

get really into sequins. just seems like a market we could really take over if we wanted to. "THESE ARE FOR US NOT FOR YOU!"

destroying things we don't like. we should just destroy things. like buildings or whatever. And I know that's a crime and bad but no one ever considers the violence and destruction that went into making all the terrible buildings that no one likes. Destroying forests and wildlife is a violence that's regulated and deemed permissible but it's still awful and destructive. Right? 

In every house there should be a puke calendar and whenever anyone pukes in the house you mark it on the calendar and it lives in the basement with the circuit breakers and whatever and when you move you don't bring it with you it just stays there.

in every town there should be a bad guy who is always causing trouble and if you want you can try to catch them and if you do they throw a parade for you and the bad guy has to stay home for one week until they can be a bad guy again

that's all I got for now. I think these ideas are really good and everyone within like 5 to 10 years of my age should start living by these rules and I think it will really...I think it would mean just as much as if you did anything else but, despite that, things must still exist anyway.

point of art

 ask people what the point of art is and you'll probably get a bunch of nimbly pimbly answers like

I don't know

and

art doesn't have a point

and

to affect people emotionally in some way

or 

communicate ideas through a medium

or something like that which I think is lame. The point of art that I like the best is to give you permission. Art succeeds when it gives someone else permission to make the art or do the thing they have been wanting to do.

Art is a hammer not a ravioli. That's what I'm trying to say. 

You can eat a ravioli yum yum and that's fine but that's not what art is. What do you do with a hammer?

You pick it up and drive sharpened steel into planks of lumber.

You wouldn't just look at a hammer, a mighty sledge, and go, "wow gosh em gee that sure is nice."

And I'm not trying to say that art has to be practical in any way. Regardless of practicality or purpose, art should flip some switch inside you that makes you want to do a thing you maybe didn't even know you wanted to do. Art can reveal the nails you've been meaning to pound and give you the tool to do it.

I'm also not saying it's a perfect 1 to 1 relationship. Like if you see a painting you like and now you want to make paintings like that. It can be. But it could also be a song that gives you permission to think and act a certain way. Or a sculpture whose process inspires your own process. 

The process of making something is "doing something" and so it doesn't make sense to me why the appropriate response should be "receiving". Doing begets doing. 

photo-shoot fresh. looking like wealth.

 

I have a camera again

 

the soft must prevail

I was helping clean out the lifeguard shack at camp today. The guard shack is a dark place full of things like snakes and spiders and stink bugs and rusty metal and saws and hammers and mouse poop and dust and detritus. An inhospitable place where only the roughest toughest meanest grimiest nastiest can exist.

And there in the middle of the filth and gore where is this little rubber ducky. Not even a rubber ducky. One of those squishy gummy things that all dust and dirt stick to and can never be unstuck. And there it was. In spite of everything around it.

The soft and weak and squishy MUST exist! It must! There is no way around it. 

"Only the strong survive!"

No! This cannot be true. In the entirety of existence is the irreducible element of the easily broken and destroyed and tarnished and it MUST be so!

"Why?! But why?"

Because, baby, because baby.

 

Erin living with me this spring/summer!

 

on being 33

Some people are like, "I never thought I'd live this long." I always had a pretty good idea I would live this long.

I feel younger than I thought I'd feel.

Do I have any profound insights having lived this long? What have I learned?

In the long run, it pays to be kind.

Be an easy laugh.

I feel like I need a spicy one.

My fake chicken nugget intake went up SO MUCH this year. Skyrocketed. When you're 32 you realize fake chicken nuggets are a winner.

I really like the QORN ones. I buy a big bag of like 30 at a time.

That's something I'd tell 29 year old me. Get on the nug train.

why I think mitski's my love mine all mine is so so so good

 Look at the lyrics! Look at the poetry!

Moon, a hole of light

Through the big top tent up high

Here before and after me

Shinin' down on me

You don't have to think deeply about the beauty of these words but I think you CAN and you'll be richly rewarded for it!

What is Mitski describing?

Why is the moon a hole of light through the big top tent up high???

THINK ABOUT IT!

What is a big top tent associated with?! A CIRCUS! A SHOW! I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that Mitski is looking up at the moon and seeing illumination from outside of a world that Jean Baudrillard would describe as hyperreal!

What what what? What fancy words is this?

It's not that complicated! The hyperreal is simply the point when a representation or symbol of something real becomes indistinguishable or confused from reality. Something that is REALER THAN REAL! We feel this all the time when we point out something is simply a construct. Swing a dead cat in a dark alley and you'll find an example of the hyperreal. 

You know what ISN'T the hyperreal?? THE MOON! The moon is outside of the circus of the hyperreal that's riddled with media and ads and the constant bombardment of information that's meant to make you forget who you are and what you're doing or could be doing!

In a moment of epiphany Mitski sees the moon and recognizes that the Moon has existed before her and will exist after her. THIS IS IMPORTANT!

What kind of mental state does the circus of the hyperreal want to cultivate?? Anxious! Self-conscious! Self-centered. It wants to keep you running! It wants to keep you worried about temporal things and always more more more!

THE MOON CARES NOT! THE MOON SHINES DOWN ON MITSKI BECAUSE IT ALWAYS SHINES AND ALWAYS HAS AND ALWAYS WILL! THE LIGHT OF THE MOON IS UNCONDITIONAL! Feeling the connection to the Moon has a profound impact on our protagonist Mitski as she goes on to explain!

Moon, tell me if I could

Send up my heart to you?

So, when I die, which I must do

Could it shine down here with you?

The line that resonates with me the most is "So, when I die, which I must do"

AHHHH!!!

I love all media and stories and songs and poems that openly confront the inevitably and certainty of death! You can find hordes and troves and piles and heaps of meditation on the importance of being mindful of the fact that one day you and everyone you know will die! I CAN'T OVERSTATE THE IMMENSE IMPORTANCE OF THIS FACT! THIS IS ONE OF THE FUNDAMENTAL PARADOXES THE DRIVES THE ENGINE OF THE SOUL!

IF ALL I'VE EVER KNOWN IS THE EXPERIENCE OF BEING ALIVE HOW CAN I POSSIBLY CONCEIVE NOT BEING ALIVE?!

I could say a lot more about this but I'll move on to the final idea which is expressed here in the verse and again in the chorus.

What is Mitski getting at? What is Mitski proposing??!

To put it simply! The feeling that resonates within Mitski upon gazing at the moment is a feeling that is BEYOND EGO. The self that calls itself the self. The ego can be thought of as linked to or an extension of hyperreality. 

SIMPLER! Mitski sees the moon! Mitski feels a connection to something that is completely outside of herself. Mitski wonders if this feeling--this feeling of connection to eternity and light--can this feeling live on! Which, of course it can! It must!

I'm not explaining it well. But it leads into the chorus which I would argue the kind of love that Mitski is referring to is the love of universal consciousness. Being outside the ego is associated with this endless compassion and love and oneness with everything.

'Cause my love is mine, all mine

I love mine, mine, mine

Nothing in the world belongs to me

But my love mine, all mine, all mine

My baby, here on earth

Showed me what my heart was worth

So, when it comes to be my turn

Could you shine it down here for her?

When Mitski says 'nothing in the world belongs to me' she's saying that she is renouncing the world of things, the world of the hyperreal, the world of the ego that wants to be attached. That wants the temporal to be permanent. But what IS eternal is love. 

If it feels paradoxical it's because it is. You'd think the repeated use of the word 'mine' would indicate something very selfish and self centered but it is NOT UNLIKE!

NOT UNLIKE!

NOT UNLIKE!

SONG OF MYSELF BY WALT FREAKIN WHITMAN!!!

YESSSS!! WE DID IT! WE GOT THERE! WE GOT BACK TO WALT!!

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

IT'S THE SAME THING! IT'S THE SAME THING! DON'T YOU SEE?! THEY'RE SAYING THE SAME THING BUT DIFFERENT WAYS!

In the state of mind that Walt and Mitski are in it makes no difference to say I own everything and I own nothing! Because they're talking about a boundless self! 

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth,

And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,

And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,

And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers,

And that a kelson of the creation is love,

WHAT THE HECK IS A KELSON???

IT"S LIKE...THE LONG UNDERSIDE PART OF A BOAT! LIKE THE SPINE OF THE BOAT KINDA?!

Anyway, I just think the economy of Mitski's words are brilliant and the song is beautiful and her voice is incredible and it affirms the soul when you listen to it. Our capacity for love is what opens us up to the possibility of a world beyond the self and that is eternity and eternity is love. Right? It sounds less cool to say it that way when you can feel it in Mitski and Walt Whitman.

:P

one time when I was in kindergarten we had a day where the only point of the day was that some guy brought in a cow heart

and it was like cow heart day where everyone got to go out to the blacktop where the cow heart was on a table and look at it and maybe even poke it

and I didn't feel well or something that day so I had to stay inside while everyone else went out to look at the cow heart

to this day I still haven't seen a cow heart in person or in photographs

at this point I'm sure you're thinking the same thing I'm thinking which is "well Andy why don't you Google a cow heart picture right now and react to it?"

No.

Don't you understand. Can't you see what this has all been about the whole time?

That's not my path to walk. In the words of blink-182 "fate fell short this time."

Why don't YOU look up a picture of a cow heart and tell me what it's like?

Also, now as a person who has worked with kids his entire professional life, it is absolutely WILD for someone to be like, "hey I got this cow heart, we should show it to ALL the kindergartners." 

I'm not saying it's a bad thing it just ain't no cocomelon.

I'll be thinkin' boutcha

happy birthday (yesterday) mawmaw

saw this on Instagram today and it reminded me of my own mawmaw. powerful words.

 

Making these rings

 

works in progress

 sometimes (yesterday) I go to youtube and search 'tigers' and just watch videos of tigers like walking around and swimming and stuff

but not the fight videos! I don't want to watch animals fight!

I just think they're neat

Ezra Pound once wrote!

A Pact

I make truce with you, Walt Whitman—

I have detested you long enough.

I come to you as a grown child

Who has had a pig-headed father;

I am old enough now to make friends.

It was you that broke the new wood,

Now is a time for carving.

We have one sap and one root—

Let there be commerce between us.

He also wrote in Notes for Canto CXX

“I have tried to write Paradise

Do not move

      Let the wind speak

        that is paradise.

Let the Gods forgive what I

        have made

Let those I love try to forgive

        what I have made.”

DO YOU SEE THE CONNECTION BETWEEN LET THE WINDS SPEAK AND THE POWER TO SUCK IN THE AIR OF SPRING?!

Ezra Pound and Walt Whitman are masters of their craft and they have climbed to the top of the heap that is rickety pile of human achievement and admitted that the air and wind are more precious on their own than any lyric they can fashion!

TWO POINTS!

ONE: This reminds me of how mad that awful Robert Frost poem made me when he tried to tell the winds how to blow! What an absolute buffoon!

TWO: I love that Ezra Pound calls himself a grown child and refers to his younger self as a pig-headed father! And then he goes on to discover for himself what Linkin Park had already been telling us the whole time! "I tried so hard and got so far but in the end it doesn't even matter!"

The point is in trying! The point is to go with full intention and belief and then look back and say "Oh yeah I was completely wrong" but you can't say that if you never try. 

DO NOT MOVE! LET THE WIND SPEAK! THAT IS PARADISE!

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU MAKE PEACE WITH WALT WHITMAN AND STOP CREATING ITALIAN FASCIST PROPAGANDA! EZRA POUND YOU ABSOLUTE DOG!

BREATHE the air of spring

"In all pure poetic work there must especially come in the power to suck in the air of spring, to put it into song, to breathe it forth again—the palpable influence of spring, the new entrance to life."

Do you understand what this man is saying?! Do you understand what Walt is going on about??

Have you harnessed the power to SUCK IN THE AIR OF SPRING?! Have you smelled it? Have you tasted it? Have you absorbed it into your being and breathed it forth again? Have you?

Have you???

There's nothing else. I've seen it. I've looked. There are many things like it but the resonant frequency of being on this Earth is encapsulated in this sentence by Mr. Walter Whitmanthony himself! Stop looking! It's right here! If you keep looking then you've gone passed it and you'll maybe never find it. It's right here! It's the start line that you've failed to cross and you're headed the complete opposite direction looking for a finish!

This isn't about poetry! Do you know what Walt Whitman thought about poetry?? He said,

"Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much?

Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?

Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,

You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)

You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,

You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,

You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self."

HE'S SAYING YOU MUST LIVE! HE'S SAYING THE CLOSEST THING A POEM CAN EVER APPROXIMATE TO IS GIVING YOU SOME SEMBLANCE OF WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO LIVE!

IF POETRY WERE A LA CROIX ITS FLAVOR WOULD BE LIFE AND LIFE IS FOUND IN SUCKING IN THE AIR OF SPRING!

It's not any more complicated than that. 

Walt Whitman said,

"To elaborate is no avail, learn’d and unlearn’d feel that it is so."

You can't puzzle it out! You can't think your way to it. The only thing you can do is feel it in your whole lungs and then remind yourself that YES! YES! THIS IS THE ENTRANCE TO NEW LIFE!

IT'S LIKE A DOOR! IT'S LIKE A THRESHOLD THAT YOU CROSS AND YOU KNOW YOU'VE CROSSED IT BUT THERE'S NO OTHER THERE THAT IS THERE! YOU JUST KNOW YOU'VE CROSSED IT! YOU CAN'T STAY AND AS SOON AS YOU'VE ARRIVED YOU'VE DEPARTED BUT BREATHE THE AIR! BREATHE THE AIR OF SPRING!

BREATHE THE AIR OF SPRING!