Eye for an eye gives us a better perspective.

As not riding it around would make me even tardier than usual, I frequently ride my bike around campus. The other day, as I made my way back to my car after a particular vile round of classes, I found myself stuck behind a massive youth volleyball team. I slowed down and sort of idled along behind them, lost to my angry musings.

But, then, a little girl in the back turned to look at me.

She smiled and I smiled back, and then she began tapping the shoulders of her teammates. "Hey," she said. "Get out of the way." And so she ran ahead of me, clearing her cow-like team off the sidewalk and eventually we found ourselves at the head of the entire group. She turned to me and beamed proudly.

"Thank you so much." I said. "You're welcome." She said. "Team captain, right?" I asked. Her smile dropped slightly. "No." "Ah, well." I said. "Sounds like your coach made a big mistake." I looked up at the woman I presumed to be her coach and raised my eyebrows. The girl smiled widely and I continued on my way.

You know, it's not often, but every once in a while I'm reminded that people aren't so bad. Even if it is a precious minority, it's enough, I think, to balance out the rest of them.

Comments

Carolynn said…

That is adorable.

July 15, 2010 at 12:13 AM

Pseudo-science (like psych).

I consider myself a man of science. I try to approach problems and deal with them logically, using observations previously recorded to handle new problems. So of course my interest was piqued when someone I knew posited that men are needier and more complicated than women. An interesting theory. But to properly examine it, one must understand the concept of sexual selection and its two aspects: male competition and female choice. Which brings us to point one: men are needier [in relationships] than women. This is true. In a natural/primal setting, the males are generally love-'em-leave-'em kinds of guys. Their main objective is to reproduce as much as they can. Humans, in their infinite wisdom, have decreased the emphasis on this to the point where it has become a footnote in male purpose. Civilization dictates that, instead of finding a partner for the sole purpose of reproduction, males find females for life companionship. With the effective removal of their natur...

I'm a geologist, not an alcoholic.

I thought I had seen people drink before. Hell, I thought that I had drank before. But, clearly, I thought wrong on both of those counts. I cannot, for the life of me, think of a reason to justify all of the drinking that transpired down there last week. There was no rhyme or reason to it, it just was. Field work just makes a man thirsty. Taking this class was easily one of the best things I've ever done. We worked hard every day out in the field. Wake up at 7, leave the beach house by 8, hit the water by 9. My first three field days were in service on the R/V Acadiana , a 58 foot vessel that towed the CHIRP fish , the air gun, and the streamer to measure all the seismic data--looking at the subsurface of the seafloor we drove over. My second ship was the R/V Itasca using the multibeam , sidescan , and grab sampler --getting seafloor surface bathymetry. They were long, exhausting days and we returned to the docks around 6 or 7 every evening. And then, drinking. So much ...

What the fuck am I looking at.

Today, I went to the gym and found something new. I found a room with pads on the floor and walls. A room with a punching bag hanging from the ceiling. It was like walking into a dream come true. It was exactly what I had been looking for for months. For years , even. And I attacked that bag. I'll be spending a lot of time there, I think. I have been in such an inexplicably good mood these last few days. I don't know what the deal is. Maybe it's because I've been eating so many bananas. It's probably because things are going pretty well and I'm just feeling good. Doing nice things, feeling confident. Good things. And most importantly, I'm feeling less tired. Maybe it was a diet change. Maybe it's all the exercise. I will probably never know, but that doesn't bother me.

everything is fine

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