if i was such a ghost

life is good. quite good in a number of ways. i had an amazing last weekend. even with the terrible cold keeping me from feeling good outside and the looming end of the semester (and the paper writing and grading that entails). so it's mixing my life up - lots of good and lots of work. and lots of cold these last few days.

lately i've been thinking about whether i will want to continue my master's thesis topic for my dissertation topic (having committed to my current program for the phd). i'm writing about ecosystem health right now, and it's a very big topic and quite interesting in a number of ways. lately i've been wandering (in my head) and exploring other ideas. all this when i should be writing my thesis (or final papers).

my favorite idea is personal development of environmental values/cares/support - tentatively pragmatic environmentalism (a slight translation from environmental pragmatism, which is normally environmental ethics translated into policy/action) - i think about the importance of (a) experience; (b) ecological consciousness (understanding connections/relatedness); (c) values/caring for nonhuman nature; (d) expansion of worldviews/imagination on scales of space, time, and kind using thought experiments, scientific models, and literature; (e) living these personal developments through knowing what to do and how to best act. i think this idea might be good in a number of ways - it would be expanding on david orr's work in a number of ways and trying to put a number of environmental ethics/science ideas into practice. who knows though. dissertations are good when they are insightful/useful, focused, and important. finding a topic that fits those criteria can be difficult.

the cold has made life more difficult at times - it was snowing and sunny today - late in april - and a week or so ago it was above 80 degrees. i just don't like the cold very much. sometimes it makes me wonder whether i would be better off were i to be a migrating creature (like geese/ducks and some retired humans) since i'm unable to hibernate like bears (or at least i don't really like it), and i am not always the best adaptive generalist that can handle the really cold and really hot days - i just don't know - there aren't really very many "jobs" that allow/encourage migration - that's why people struggle with things (or take vacations) until they can retire. i am kind of the person that doesn't want to be looking forward to retirement to live the way i want to live - i'd much prefer to live the way i want to live much earlier than that. it often feels like this is hard to do.

and i guess i enjoy what i'm doing - i am developing community with groups of people. it is pretty interesting i think that most people when confronted with hardship turn to community - whether it is the chance of environmental/nuclear/biblical apocalypse, discriminatory or disempowering/disenfranchising institutions/people, or other difficulties. it's not just solidarity or shared problems/worries - community is something much more than that - and community is good. and community can be with a decent-sized group, but just as often it is with one other person.

here's a personal message for those of you reading this page. email me sometime soon. tell me what you've been thinking about - memories you have that you think are important or songs that have been important to you - that's something i'd love to hear sometime soon. it would make this less one-way espousing and more of a communicative process. besides, i'm usually better at listening than talking (and whatever the analogue for internet communication is) - i have, however, worked to develop the other part of communicating some. and i thank you in advance for your thoughts. a good email address to send me stuff is: unintruder@yahoo.com

this is an interesting analysis of a decemberists' album:
http://www.stylusmagazine.com/feature.php?ID=43

this is about a strange/interesting canadian director from whose movie (archangel) the interlude whispering comes from
http://www.northernstars.ca/directorsmz/maddinbio.html

i really like this song - it has been getting a lot of listening from me - i'm not exactly sure why - many other decemberists songs are amazing (i'm really liking red right ankle, here i dreamt i was an architect, and sixteen military wives - the last of which everyone should watch the video). i think the song just fits in with some aspect of experience that i appreciate - like a good story or movie - i don't need to have experienced the music to love the song - it's perhaps related to suspension of disbelief, but it's just nice and good music - i love the interlude. i love how the words "california one" and the last bit about paying overdue fines just fit with the music - how they just make sense in the context of the song - a context that i couldn't really describe, that might not even make sense. but it just seems right. i think that is what colin meloy is best at - music that just seems right. i'll return to the topic of music lyrics and what i appreciate about different groups sometime soon.

california one / youth and beauty brigade by the decemberists

take a long drive with me
on california one, california one
and the road a winding goes
from golden gate to roaring cliff-side
and the light is softly low as our hearts become sweetly untied
beneath the sun of california one

take a long drive with me of california wine
and the wine it tastes so sweet
as we lay our eyes to wander
and the sky, it stretches deep
will we rest our heads to slumber beneath the vines of california wine?
beneath the sun of california one

annabelle lies, sleeps with quiet eyes
on this sea drift sun
what can you do?
and if i said, oh it's in your head
on this sea drift sun
what can you do?

i've heard of ghosts
good ghosts who wander the battlefield at night
guiding soldiers out of danger
you can see the remnants everywhere
always warning of a stray bullet. . .
if i was such a ghost, i would stay so close to you
you could feel my breath on your chin


we're calling all bed wetters and ambulance chasers
poor picker pockets bring 'em in
come join the youth and beauty brigade

we're lining up the light-loafers
and the bored bench warmers
castaways and cutouts, fill it up
come join the youth and beauty brigade
nothing will stand in our way

i figured i'd paid my debt to society
by paying my overdue fines at the multnomah county library, at the library
they said "son, go join up
go join the youth and beauty brigade"

come join the youth and beauty brigade
nothing will stand in our way

happy earth day

i'm not sure exactly when i realized that earth day was an important day - yes, it's socially constructed, but so is everything really. and april 22 seems now like one of the most important days of the year. it seems like an awesome day.

i started climbing trees when i was really young - i've always loved climbing trees. i started walking purposefully in trees 6-8 years ago. i started hugging trees five or six years or so ago. i've hugged trees in many different places, of many different kinds - and i guess i like it. yes. it's weird. especially since i don't have some protective purpose like where the name came from (people hugging and chaining themselves to large trees so they wouldn't get cut down in the pacific northwest). i wouldn't mind hugging trees for that purpose some time - not sure if/when it will happen.

but the meaning in my hugging trees is more just in appreciation. think about it for a second. think about what trees do for us - all the different things - really surface things like giving shade and wood to build houses - firewood to burn in campfires - think about all the oxygen they give us so we can breathe (and what could be better than oxygen i ask) - think of the water they help purify, the soil they create, the soil they keep from eroding, the scenic landscapes they give, the habitat they give to so many other organisms. trees are awesome.

and trees aren't all that earth day is about - it's about a lot more than that. in general, the symbolism here is that earth day is the only day we think hard about valuing nonhumans. and what we do with that valuing involves our own actions. i can't make a tree do anything (i can make it do nothing by killing it). i can't make a squirrel do much (except maybe run away). but i can regulate my life and my impact on society so that nonhumans have more freedom to do what they want. so that trees can be trees and bears can be bears. so today - first value the nonhuman-ness in the world. then do something with your own life so that the rest of stuff can be itself. don't cut off your relationships with things - just cut down on our control - make it influence rather than dominance.

this song helps explain some part of my thoughts and feelings today. i hope that willy mason can be all that he wants to be - i hope that i can be too. i want to be someone real - someone that helps people realize that real people like trees and lions/tigers/bears - they care for them. and we don't need a bunch of garbage to keep us going. i want to be happy. and i will be - with the help of awesome other people i know.

oxygen by willy mason

I wanna be better than oxygen
So you can breathe when you're drowning and weak in the knees
I wanna speak louder than Ritalin
For all the children who think that they've got a disease
I wanna be cooler than t.v.
For all the kids that are wondering what they are going to be
We can be stronger than bombs
If you're singing along and you know that you really believe
We can be richer than industry
As long as we know that there's things that we don't really need
We can speak louder than ignorance
Cause we speak in silence every time our eyes meet.

On and on, and on, and on it goes
The world it just keeps spinning
Until i'm dizzy, time to breathe
So close my eyes and start again anew.

I wanna see through all the lies of society
To the reality, happiness is at stake
I wanna hold up my head with dignity
Proud of a life where to give means more than to take
I wan't to live beyond the modern mentality
Where paper is all that you're really taught to create
Do you remember the forgotten America?
Justice, equality, freedom to every race?
Just need to get past all the lies and hypocrisy
Make up and hair to the truth behind every face
That look around to all the people you see,
How many of them are happy and free?
I know it sounds like a dream
But it's the only thing that can get me to sleep at night
I know it's hard to believe
But it's easy to see that something here isn't right
I know the future looks dark
But it's there that the kids of today must carry the light.

On and on, and on, and on it goes
The world it just keeps spinning
Until i'm dizzy, time to breathe
So close my eyes and start again anew.

If i'm afraid to catch a dream
I weave your baskets and i'll float them down the river stream
Each one i weave with words i speak to carry love to your relief.

I wanna be better than oxygen
So you can breathe when you're drowning and weak in the knees
I wanna speak louder than Ritalin
For all the children who think that they've got a disease
I wanna be cooler than t.v.
For all the kids that are wondering what they are going to be
We can be stronger than bombs
If you're singing along and you know that you really believe
We can be richer than industry
As long as we know that there's things that we don't really need
We can speak louder than ignorance
Cause we speak in silence every time our eyes meet.

On and on, and on, and on it goes
The world it just keeps spinning
Until i'm dizzy, time to breathe
So close my eyes and start again anew

the words were written wrong

i'm all confused lately - i'm loving life, but i'm confused. i'm starting to get into the habit i need to be in for my own physical and mental health (playing frisbee/soccer most days). i'm starting to get into the thesis writing habit (giving it 1-2 hours of each day), which is absolutely necessary at this point in my game. i'm loving spring as i always do. teaching and classes are fine. i think relationships with people are going pretty decent. the only big decisions in my life involve figuring out where to live this summer and where to live next year (and how to plan vacations). but some things in my life just seem confusing. unable to sort out. and i guess that's fine - i can live with ambiguity. confusion is probably a better word here.

so i'm being mysterious and vague, huh? unfortunate really, but it isn't likely to change - if i don't know what i'm confused about - if i don't know what's on my mind, how can i explain it? you can deal with it the same way i can. i'll concede that i'm busy. and i'll concede that there are a lot of things to worry about. maybe that's it.

but really the truth is, i have really good friends - i have good activities - i have good life goals - i have good family stuff - i eat well - i get to sleep - i feel quite fulfilled - so why do i say i'm confused. it's probably some inherent part of my life - i've never been without it. i just need to go with what i got rather than trying to figure out what could be different in my life. yeah, i'll do that. you should too if you feel the same confusion over good things in your life.

when i was younger, i developed a bunch of strange habits - many related to my older brothers (either in reaction to how they treated me or to do cool things that they might think were important). i developed high pain tolerance and lost my ability to feel pressure points. breathing became a conscious activity. and it wasn't all that bad. but there was a short time when i tried to get so i could sleep with one or both of my eyes open (i think - and i was told this a couple times at least - it's not really something one can know for oneself without the feedback of others). i learned how to sleep with high levels of awareness. actually, now that i think about it, i'm less sure this had anything to do with my brothers at all. but i tend to relate things back to them. kind of funny.

when i was trying to get rid of my case of insomnia in high school, i started doing controlled breathing exercises - it helped me to relax, and that was good - it didn't help me sleep however - i just went into a different state where i felt like everything was pretty relaxed except for my head - so it allowed parts of me to rest, but not really the part that needed the rest the most. it took me realizing how much i liked dreaming and the stuff that i could figure out while sleeping for me to finally start sleeping again. then first year of college hit, and i had a high stress roommate - i would usually go to bed at 10pm or 2am just because i couldn't go to sleep when he was trying to go to sleep - often i couldn't go to sleep while he was in the room. he just radiated stress. i started sleeping with a pillow over my head and became so accustomed to it that year that it took me most of the next summer to stop sleeping with a pillow over my head. habits are strange.

i'm still trying to figure out what i think this song is about and more importantly what this song means to me. the group is great - it was an acquired taste as is often the case lately. but the song - i like the instrumentation and the simplicity of the music. it combines with a pretty complex story i think - the simple enough read is that it's about being in a theatre group, but that has some surface/metaphoric content. i like the openly understood fakery inherent in the song - being fake is real here. i think that's something we can all learn from, whether it's this song, the most recent movie i watched (closer), or reading deconstructionist views of reality. okay, so i've went way too far in connecting things up when i shouldn't, especially when all this is bordering on nonsense - just remember that the only good parts here are the memories of my life and the song lyrics - head straight for them. but if you want an emo-ish song, go for this one.

all our vice by the new amsterdams

It's a clandestine arrangement that we never could get to stick.
Every night under the table with the sick and the fits.
Never cast as the romantic lead but somehow on our feet.
We're waiting to be received and the whole scene sighs relief.
Somehow everyone functions with a barely visible scar.
Know the length we'd go was so far, so far.
At nights I see the sun come up but don't remember where it went down.
A realist whose time has come, it feels like I'm the only one.
Obstacles to overcome, but now I don't trust anyone.

So, here's to all our vice and our secret double life.
I'll sleep with one eye open and maybe you'll save my life.

Another cool assed show under the table on the ground.
Keep the floorshow up to sound and the light show up to specs.
If we drown until we're exhausted it's what nobody expects.
Nothing left to lose.
Everything to prove.
Nothing we can't do.
Not anything for you.
The words were written wrong.
My life imitates your songs.
On and on and on.

Here's to all our vice and our secret double life.
I'll sleep with one eye open, maybe you'll save my life.

me with nothing to say

so i haven't said much here recently. and there are reasons for that. i've recently been trying to figure out what i'm doing the next few years - whether and where to get a phd from somewhere. i'll be continuing on at my current program at the university of minnesota. i may decide to go somewhere else after next year (who knows - wisconsin, oregon, or something). and for now i'll be quite happy - i'll be teaching a couple courses next year (speech, or maybe science issues), helping with the program in environmental ethics (convening a conference on environmental ethics and a lecture series on organic food), and taking some cool courses (literature and the environment, environmental law, political philosophy). so i should have a good time coming up. and i'll get back to writing again. sorry about that. oh yeah, listen to this song - especially the drum part. i love it.

autumn sweater by yo la tengo

when I heard the knock on the door
I couldn't catch my breath
is it too late to call this off?

we could slip away
wouldn't that be better?
me with nothing to say
and you in your autumn sweater

I tried my best to hide in the crowded room
it's nearly possible
I wait for you, oh, most patiently

we could slip away
wouldn't that be better?
me with nothing to say
and you in your autumn sweater

so I looked for your eyes and the waves looked like
they'd pour right out of them
I'll try hard, I'll try always
but it's a waste of time
it's a waste of time if I can't smile easily
like in the beginning
in the beginning

we could slip away
wouldn't that be better?
me with nothing to say
and you in your autumn sweater

we could slip away
wouldn't that be better?
me with nothing to say
and you in your autumn sweater
you in your autumn sweater
you in your autumn sweater
you in your autumn sweater