In other news...

-For starters, I'd forgotten how much I hate moth season in Denver. It usually lasts all of June--the city is filled with miller moths, which are small enough to somehow get indoors over the course of the day but large enough to leave big greasy-looking splotches when you kill one. I missed last year's, and the year before I seem to recall being not-so-bad because of a late freeze, so I'd all but forgotten about them, but my reaction to moths buzzing around my room at night is completely visceral and somewhat embarassing. Nothing quite like flailing at an insect lazily caroming around my room to make me feel like a kid again.

-I was watching "the Real World" tonight on MTV, and remembered a little essay by Chuck Klosterman I read at some point over the spring about how the Real World was more enjoyable than the vast majority of reality television (he cited Big Brother, but I think it applies to tv generally) because it utilized an enormous library of popular music. His argument was that the score to a Real World episode imbued all the conversations and clips with meaning by placing them in a context created by pop cultural associations with specific songs. The realization I had tonight was that this is, strangely enough, a direct application of some of the historiographic theory we read in one of my classes last semester--Hayden White's theory on historical emplotment. The distilled idea is that there are archetypal 'plots' available to a culture (tragedy, satire, heroic drama, etc) and that historians 'naturally' embed the events they describe into one or more of them in the process of historical writing. White describes this process as a critique of traditional histories, since actually human events contain far more complexity than can be conveyed once a plot has been (unconsciously) selected and used. This is exactly why playing "Black Hole Sun" during a conversation MTV has decided is a "turning point" is so... helpful to viewers. By providing signposts throughout their chronicle of the lives of the seven strangers chosen to live in a house together, MTV is able to emplot complex and decontextualized interactions into a recognizable narrative. And that's why I love "the Real World." Well, that and the fact that they chose Denver for this season; I'm hoping to find people to go downtown with me to cruise the bar scene, and, hopefully, get us on MTV, which, even though the network itself is so easy to put down for selling out, catering to pre-teens, and what have you, still would be pretty cool.

My short attention span

Anecdote: in class once, my favorite math professor was critiqued by a student for having a short attention span. His response: "That may be true, but you know who else has a short attention span? Look! A bug."

I'm not quite sure what happened (probably the Internet), but it feels like my attention span has shortened as well. The length of time I can spend reading without pause seems to have decreased; I start many tasks that don't get finished until I've paused, started something else, and then returned to them. I'll have a song in mind that I really want to listen to in the car or on my computer, but I lack the wherewithal to listen to it all the way through.

Now I know that to some extent this sort of priority-shifting was a defense mechanism at school against actually doing anything productive or substantial--a procrastination tactic. It was in the same vein as "do the easy stuff before the hard stuff, regardless of what's due when" and "I'll start after dinner." Unfortunately, I seem to have habitualized it. Indeed, I stopped writing this entry twice already to do other inane Internet-related things... and I just did it again. This is another one of those warning signs, since it always seemed to me that having a decent attention span was necessary to basically any job that you had to think about in order to do. Although I'm planning basically a month of self-improvement: waking up at a regular hour, eating better than I do at school and at consistent times, working out a little to stay in shape, mayyyybe prepping a little for the LSAT to keep myself sharp (I'm probably going to substitute snobby reading for LSAT stuff); I didn't consider what I can/should do to improve my focus. I guess it's something else to think about.

education/credibility *and* "home" for a month (bonus double issue)

On the plus side, I've certainly been keeping busy. Monday was the Colorado Bar Ass'n golf tournament, where I got to stand outside and pour people beer from a keg, as well as hand out free golf balls (it paid better than any regular job I've ever had except private tutoring). Tuesday, I was so inspired that Chris and I went out and played nine holes, as well as hitting a shitload of range balls--my core muscles are still a little sore. Wednesday, the CO Bar had me move boxes, which I finished ahead of schedule and followed up with a nap and some 24. Today, I managed to wake up late, mow the lawn, and then go to a farewell party for my friend Corey; the two of us go way back, from church as little kids to working at the movie theater together, and we've stayed in ok touch since. After high school, he's been sort of bouncing around, never really holding down a full-time job, not going to more school, living with friends who ended up covering part of his rent, and so on. Well, corey is moving to Hawaii, Kona specifically, to live in a shanty in the forest and hunt pigs and get welfare and food stamps. Apparently a friend of his is living that specific lifestyle, and corey is joining him. Um, yeah. So I hope I hear from him again, basically, and wish him all the best, but... man.

Also notable was the farewell party itself. I'd sort of drifted out of hanging out with that group of friends, just cause I'm so rarely in Denver anymore; they got really heavily into Denver's hardcore (the genre of music) scene, and a couple of them are in a band. Needless to say, I knew about five people at the party, and everyone else, though as far as I've seen nice people, was a stranger who was a little intimidating to talk to. Part of the problem, I realized a couple hours in, is that I wanted to talk or ask about school all the time. That works fine with people at college, since it's a point of commonality, but it seemed like it was not a topic worth raising to most of the people there. Are you still in school? Um, where? I just felt like it would have established me, already one of three people not wearing a black tshirt and/or un-tattooed, as an elitist prick, like I was trying to sort of set myself apart. Needless to say, I felt awkward. Occaisionally I wonder if that stinging criticism my mom offered the first summer I got back from college, "It's made you spoiled, like you're too good for your own family," is more right-on than I'd like to admit. I felt like I couldn't really connect with people tonight, and it seems like the way school blankets my life is at least partially responsible. Spending monday through wednesday on my feet made me realize how long it's been since I worked a day not in an office, mowing the lawn made me realize how long it's been since I've done any real work outside, and tonight made me realize that all I felt comfortable talking about was by its nature exclusive, rather than inclusive (stories from abroad, little questions about college-related crap, and so forth). Happy as I am about all that learning I'm doing, when I can't explain the "math research" I'm doing later in the summer to anyone, let alone justify how it could possibly be worthwhile, it makes me wonder where I'm going, really, and what I'm accumulating all that debt for.

In other news, I realized tonight that although I was born and raised here, Denver doesn't feel like home. I know that there's that realization when you first get home from college that your house, your room aren't really yours the way they were. That's long gone, as basically all the furniture in my room has been replaced, and my closet been emptied of almost everything when I'm not here. While driving around tonight, though, I transcended that feeling. I realized that it feels more like I'm visiting Denver on the way to somewhere else instead of living at home for a little while. Although I enjoy Colorado, I feel like it's become clear in the last couple years that I have some friends who will never leave the state (or will return after college, if they're going to school elsewhere), while others have other cities that make perfect sense for them. I'm not sure where exactly I'll end up, but it doesn't feel like here.

so far

After a fall semester that brought a welcome amount of free reading, a break I realized I needed from doing the same thing all the time (which clearly bodes ill for my career prospects), spring was not so impressive. I got through, I believe, three books not-for-school, all of which were pretty good, certainly, but not great. This summer, I figured since I'm first home and then doing math again I may have the chance to get back on track. To this end, I went ahead and reserved some books from the library while I was driving back from college, and picked them up today.

Unfortunately (i.e. the cause of the titular dilemma), I also reserved season 3 of 24, thinking there would be a backlog of requests, and I would be lucky to get it before the end of June; it was waiting for me today. Thus, the dilemma: I only have a week to watch season 3 as it is, but right now I'm only five episodes into season 2. Unless I want to pay a shitload of late fees, I have 43 episodes of 24 to watch in seven or so days...

coolest... dilemma... ever.

In other news, I managed to get a little job for the next week; the Colorado Bar Association (the attorney kind of bar) has extended a contract offer to me to assist them with their golf tournament; apparently, they needed someone to lift heavy stuff and not look too uncomfortable in a collared shirt, and I fit the bill.

the start of summer

So I'm home again for a little more than a month--the longest I've spent in Denver since the summer of 2004 and the longest I've been home without a job since... spring 2001? sophomore year of high school. It'll be weird, undoubtedly. Needless to say, I see this as an opportunity to establish domesticity. Already tonight, I cooked dinner for the family (grilling salmon and a little stirfry); I grilled steaks last night and am making the famous El Pato chicken tomorrow, with some personal touches, hopefully. Although last semester's dream of cooking at school was a failure, I have nothing but time, at least until June 24th or so, and I'm looking to expand the reperatoire.

Also planned: watching a ridiculous amount of NBA playoff action (esp considering we have one of the best first/second rounds in recent memory), getting through season 2 (and possibly 3) of 24, doing some reading, working out a little bit, getting tan by working in the yard, etc. So hopefully 'bored' won't actually be this part of the summer.

It was, however, the best description of the drive out here. The first 775 miles of the I-15/I-70 corridor out of LA just plain suck (with the exception of that one long valley in central utah). There's nothing to see, it's kind of hazy and washed-out even with sunglasses on, and, I'm sorry, but Nevada does not deserve to be a state. Without silver mining (which left, oh, a hundred years ago), they make their money on tourism, which may be the most ironic commercial success ever, considering how little the state has to offer (water as well as worthwhile sites). I say turn it back into a territory. I'm sorry that Harry Reid will have to leave the Senate, but, honestly, if there's an excuse for that state's existance other than their lack of gambling laws, it sure isn't along I-15.

Other thoughts: everyone in Utah is a courteous driver. The sky is bluer in Colorado than anywhere else I've ever been on earth. Eating fast food four meals in a row is terrible for you. Some music is paced perfectly to drive to, unless I'm tired, at which point I need rap. Fourteen hours on the road alone is a lot of time to think about things; I feel like I emerge from those long drives having overthought a couple fairly trivial things (possibly having a little to do with the ex) and having neglected to seriously ruminate on the deep things I would have like to believe I would spend my time thinking about. Oh well.