It's Better in Wyoming.

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From a May 24 AP story: The little boy spotted the pretty pile of colored sand on the floor of the vast hall and couldn’t resist. Slipping under a protective rope, he danced all over the sand, ruining the carefully crafted picture. Never mind that it was the creation of eight Tibetan monks who had spent two days cross-legged on the floor of Union Station, meticulously pouring the sand into an intricate design as an expression of their Buddhist faith. ----- According to the story, the monks were very laid-back about the incident. If that's true, I admire their restraint. Since they typically destroy sand designs like these anyway, maybe it's easy for them to let go of their attachment to the work. For me, I guess I want my work to last. But, like sand paintings at the train station, so are the days of our lives.

I rented Borat last night. I wish I had my money back. What a stupid, stupid film. Maybe my judgment of the film reflects my lack of sophistication and refinement. Or maybe it reflects my red state values. Or maybe I just can't take a joke. The thing is, it really wasn't funny. I hope that I'm smart enough to appreciate good satire; this wasn't it.

So it occurs to me that my recent posts lack optimism. I sound like one whiny, pessimistic, negative, self-pitying, cynical old grump. So the cheery title to today's post--"HURRAY!"--is part of my effort to shake myself out of this pathetic valley of despair and celebrate the good things going on all around me. Hurray for: --my old neighbors, Jeff and Natalie. Jeff got a new job closer to both sets of their parents, so they pulled out on Saturday for Twin Falls, Idaho. They had me, and some other friends, over last week for dutch-oven chicken, and they loaded me up with all of the stuff in their freezer that they didn't want to haul across Wyoming. So now I'm blessed with pheasant drumsticks, a couple of chucker birds, some pork choppies, and several bags of currants. They're good people, and I'm sad to see them go, but I'm happy that they're headed on to better things. --Wyoming weather. Yeah, I realize I spend a lot of time waxing poetic about th...

Whoever said that honesty is the best policy was lying.

It occurs to me, today, as I was reading an email from a friend of mine, that sometimes you can't win. So instead of spending a bunch of time trying to make things right, sometimes it's smarter to say, as my friend David would: "fuck 'em." Which is not quite the same as being indifferent. It's just a healthy recognition that sometimes you can try to make connections to others, and to do right by them, and be a friend to them, and they'll still misinterpret your actions. So, instead of getting all worked up about it--and probably making things worse by trying to make them better--"fuck 'em" seems a much more appropriate response.

I guess one thing I like about riding the motorcycle, after just getting back from my first weekend trip, is that it forces me to prioritize. What I mean is, it's generally pretty easy for me to get sidetracked thinking about what's for dinner, or thinking about summer plans, or thinking about a cute girl, or thinking about neat cabin floorplans, or whatever. On the bike, if I get sidetracked and start daydreaming about stupid things, I could end up dead. Another thing about the motorcycle: At 55 miles an hour, it felt like being on a fast horse. At 75 miles an hour, it felt like being strapped to the wing of an airplane. Mostly, though, what I want to talk about is the overall experience. People talk about how the big attraction of riding a motorcycle is the 360-degree view that is unobstructed by glass and door columns and such. And in fact, that's pretty damn neat. BUT, it's only part of the total sensory experience. The really cool part of the ride, for me,...

So, tonight I went with my friend Aaron (my roommate back in the undergrad days) to dinner at another friend's place. We had steak and salad and bread. But one of the steaks--one from Tom's dad--was huge, a one-and-a-half-inch-thick slab of ribeye . So we left it on the grill while we had dinner. Then, after we gorged ourselves, the big steak was finally done. We had it for dessert. We're the opposite of vegetarians. While other people are cutting out meat during the main course, we're adding it to additional courses. Mmmm , steak. It's like ice cream, only meaty. Mmmmm . Then, after dinner, we came back to Aaron's house and played video games. I just died 29 times and killed one enemy, playing a first-person shooter. At this point I'm happy to report no feelings of increased aggression. I don't feel like driving down to Federal and shooting up the guy who pulls up next to me at the light. I don't feel any more like slapping the crappy customer servi...

I love learning the history of words. I love the word 'vapid.' 'Vapidity' is, in fact, a real word, not just one I made up. 'Vapid' probably comes (according to dictionary.com) from latin roots related to stale wine. It's accepted meaning, these-a-days, is 'without liveliness or spirit; insignificant.' Princeton's WordNet 3.0 gives this contextualized use of the word: 'a bunch of vapid schoolgirls.' My blog has been feeling a bit vapid lately. Thoreau says, 'Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. Why is it that men give so poor an account of their day if they have not been slumbering?' You'd think, after a perfectly good day like today, that I'd have something to stay, something of substance . Instead, mere vapidity: that of no significance, the essence of flat wine. Our man Henry also says, 'We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn,...