"Nature is famously, fabulously, wantonly complex... it blindly cobbles together myriad random experiments over thousands of generations, resulting in wonderfully inelegant organisms..."
- Biometrics; Design by Nature, National Geographic
*Note on the absence of music tonight* So I have this thing where I get songs stuck in my head, and I've found that one way to get them out is to post them on this blarg of mine. I have a slight obsession with getting the version I like. This creates problems because while youtube is a great resource for halfway pirating music, it's far from perfect. I couldn't find the right version of 3 x 5 by John Mayer. This song is perhaps my favorite of Mayer. The version I have somewhere buried in my old music collection is a live track before he got god awful cocky with his performances. So no music tonight, go turn on some Sufjan Stevens or something.
So, I was reading National Geographic today, and I came upon this article about New Jersey Bird Blitz, and it had a picture of a heron they said was nocturnal, which immediately reminded me of those herons Luke, Michael, and I nearly ran into in Florida. Those things were massive. I'm pretty sure if we pissed them off enough, they could have speared us with their beaks. Or clawed our eyes out. Or both for that matter. Also in the same issue, there was an article on biomimetics. Engineers are coming up with this novel idea to look to nature for ideas for improving technology. Way to stay ahead of the curve, sort of.
Other than my national geographic binge, I read a News Week and a Rolling Stone. I'm not normally a magazine person, I prefer my books thanks, but today I just felt the need to deviate from the norm and kind of lose myself in something unrelated to my life, yet still feel apart of this world. I think that makes sense. Anyway, it worked, because I didn't do anything school related even though my take home exam is due on Wednesday. Oh well, there's always tomorrow. Though, after tomorrow, it's due, so I'm kind of running out of tomorrows.
I have this beautiful Moleskin journal that I bought in February, and I've been slowly filling it up with entries. The black ink intricately loops around on the smooth cream colored pages, spilling out everything I don't say aloud and belaboring every secret of mine five times over because there's no one to stop me. I find it highly medicinal to write in it. I have a few other journals that I've kept from years past and its always a lesson in humility to go back and read them. Especially my seventh grade journal. I like to think I've grown up a lot since seventh grade, but I've come to the sad conclusion that I've just become better at not publicly making a fool out of myself. I think that that's how most of us are, privately; our awkward seventh grade selves, hidden by a false sense of maturity. It would definitely explain some people I know. And also raise the question of when do we actually grow up? When does the pretending to be mature and the actual transformation into a mature adult happen? I remember reading a book that discussed the loss of a right of passage, The Last American Man, by Elizabeth Gilbert. (Great book, by the way, everyone should read it.) Gilbert was talking about how since we've streamlined our existence beyond what's needed and taken our connection of nature away in the process, we don't have a distinguished idea of what separates the men from the boys, and so youths turn to the most obvious ideals of our culture; materialism and wealth among many others. But doesn't that make you wonder what kind of people we strive to be if our rights of passages into adulthood are superficial acts based on material wealth?
I know there isn't just one right of passage into adulthood, but doesn't it make you wonder? When will we truly call ourselves adults? When we finally get to sit with the parents at Thanksgiving instead of at the kids table? Better yet, will we ever truly know that defining moment? Will our parents throw it at us when we're in over are heads "you're an adult now, good luck", and we must except it because they're our parents and would know of such things. But then we're left with that negative connotation stuck in our heads. More often than not I would think adulthood is sprung on us, leaving us stunned to have suddenly arrived at the last stage of our lives and slightly miffed as to how it happened in the first place.
For those of you who are still with me after this giant block of text, I spoke with the padre about that briefly alluded to camping trip in Swissconsin. Nicole doesn't think we'd survive. (There was also mention of restarting civilization and setting traps to promote gene flow, if that gives anyone an idea of what conversation we were having.) Theoretically, if we went, it would probably be over fall break (11-14 of October). As a reference point, it's about a 7 hour drive from Louisville to my dad's house, not including Chicago traffic. My dad said to plan in advance, and I realize this is four months in advance, so I don't expect real planning to start until after school starts and everyone gets an idea of the degree of hellishness this semester has in store for everyone.
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