south dakota winds blow me home

the glare of my computer screen doesn't tan my skin the way i'd like, it doesn't feel warm, and the computer's heat on legs probably isn't healthy. but that's how i live during the winter, when i freeze going outside and have a constant reminder why winter sports are so hard when it's 15 below zero. i love the outdoors, and i love being active, but both of those activities tank when it's this cold out, and i become a slow-moving, tired, often sick, and cerebral sort of guy. i try to convince my housemates to play board games, they try to convince me to watch movies, and i end up spending most of my time typing up papers. at times, it's academically useful, but i still miss the spring. and i'm ready for the 40 degree temperatures we're supposed to have this week.

i've spent the last few months trying to write a paper--a future chapter of my dissertation--on the topic of hope, especially along the highway in between my homes in south dakota and minnesota. i can't say how interesting the paper is (someone else will have to be the judge of that), or whether it is much of a scholarly contribution, but i did find it useful to figure out what i think about the topic of hope. even more so, i found the process of writing, rewriting, and writing again to be a good, if lengthy process.

you see, all too often i find that people who study environmental issues are forced to reckon with two things, without enough of a third. they encounter loads and loads of environmental problems--climate change, extinction, pollution, consumption, waste. and they encounter theorists destabilizing both how they've thought of environmental issues (i like wilderness; people damage the environment) and indicting the easy solutions already in place (let's set up national parks; let's participate in sustainable tourism and organic food). they rarely hear about helpful, hopeful, working solutions to environmental problems, or ways of thinking about environmental issues more generally. and i think that this could be improved. and i'm trying to figure out how. i guess if you want to read the first installment of my thoughts, let me know, and i'll send you the paper, but i'll warn you that it isn't short. if you want something shorter to fill your time, track down a copy of this song and listen to it.

what i like about this song, aside from the fact that a friend wrote it, is that it tells a good story about someone's life and loves at home, complex and ambiguous as they are, never trying to be too good/moral, yet not trying to be overly deviant either--it's not about being an angel or a devil, a puritan or an alcoholic, just someone with some experiences back home with friends. right now, i'd like to pretend that it were warmer and that i had a year to spend however i want, guilt-free and economically able, hanging out and playing soccer, hiking in the black hills or the boundary waters, sleeping in a tent or walking cross-country, picking up a few more experiences to write about along the way. but i'll have to wait on that for now.

south dakota by the lonesome crowded east

yellow lines are painted on
all the roads that I drive on
when I'm in south dakota.
I get off work, no where to go
another summer with my friends back home
spent dancing and drinking
in my friend's basement.
We bike drunk across the town,
I pass out on the ground
just watching the summer pass in a blur.
The setting sun means soon I'll go
head out east, and I don't know
just when I'll see you again

so let's pretend
that you'll remember every moment of every single day
let's pretend that you'll stay in touch after we part ways
let's pretend that a thousand miles isn't very far
let's pretend that we're different... even if we're not

we go camping in the west
two dumb kids who are at their best
just finding love for the first time.
it starts to rain on our tent,
so we stay in, and we invent
words to all the songs that I can never remember.
driving home on 29
I can't believe it's almost time
to try to forget that you ever existed
so I hold my breath
and I hide every clock
hoping you won't realize how late it's gotten

so let's pretend
that you won't leave when september comes and rears it's ugly head
let's pretend that this night will last, tomorrow won't begin
let's pretend that every song I wrote just for you
let's pretend that we're different... even if we're not

South Dakota winds blow me home
and I'm tired of sleeping and drinking alone
so I close my eyes and pray for another year
hoping when I open them, you will be here