Camping

Currently listening to:
In the Morning
Norah Jones

"Now the cities we live in could be distant stars
And I search for you in every passing car."
*****
Another late post. It seems in college I won't be able to focus to record daily events as they happen.

Well, Friday I got the scores back for my biology test (95) and calculus test (80). I need to work a bit more on math, I guess. Carly and I had planned a one-on-one camping trip and it actually happened. We left on Saturday after eating and getting some orange juice and soy milk to go. We decorated my car with feathers and a string of pine cones and loaded an old swivel living room chair along with our blankets and such. Kiersten, our RA, caught us before we left and let us borrow her tent.
Then we went to a thrift store called "Thrift Store" to look for one of those aged iconic sweaters with blocky pictographs of trees or houses on it. There was nothing like that, but Carly found an 80s/90s jacket that looks like something my mom would have worn. I bought a "drug rug" which is the closest thing they had to a Mexican poncho. I really want one of those blanket ponchos with the head slit you slip on. And then we left.
We drove around an hour and a half into the mountains, stopping the while to barefoot the Poudre river and collect wood. After looking down a couple dirt roads, we found a nice spot surrounded by trees and with two fire pits: a large one and a small baby one. The tent ended up next to the small one. Farther down the dirt road since of erosion appeared and large roots seemed to have grown along the surface; the road sort of curved and became more vertical as it did so until it evened out at the next camping spots and eventually the main road. Each camp spot had some wood to take from, and I saw many stumps. During the night I actually heard campers pulling in nearby start chopping at trees. There should probably be a law against that.
So we built a fire and drank kava and cooked dinner and opened some alcohol. I turned on the car so we could listen to Regina and Grizzly Bear and Norah Jones. Once it got dark I felt like I was twirling in space because it was too dark to see the ground and the slope caused missteps which sent me facing the other direction. I gathered a bunch of pine cones and tossed them into the fire and they caught fire on the bottom, a little crystal of light on each platform shelf. Tier by tier the flames move upward until the cone is engulfed and burned until there's nothing more to burn, and each shelf retains a bright glow. The whole thing falls with a touch. It was so dark so quickly that we decided to turn in. The fire was smoldering and we used up one gallon of water so we left it, and it was still smoldering by morning.
She's a little snorer;I didn't get a lot of sleep. I had to unroll my sleeping bag later when it became much colder. In the morning we saw a chipmunk scamper near our site. Carly set up her chair in the woods with the framed owl stitched art and thin floor mat, to photograph. I think the ones with her in them are the best, but she liked the idea of the empty chair. Then we loaded up and went to see the spot where I did my vision quest. I think she was impressed with the view. I still have to write up the short story version of it, but I finished the poem. After that, we headed back. That's all I can think of right now.

Where I Live

On days like this I look from my window and see treetops swaying and clouds moving in a perfect blue sky. The position of my room in the building puts my window in a place where the rest of the building isn't visible. I feel like I'm in some large house on a hill, and my window is open, and the trees sway the breeze through to me. A plane moves through the air - a small white speck - and I wonder where they are going and why I'm not going too.

Dandelion Wine

Currently listening to:
Welcome Home, Son
Radical Face

You're still on my mind, every day.

Just a Quick Update

Friday I took a biology and calculus test. I know I aced the bio test, and I know I passed the calc test.

Walking in the courtyard in front of the library, this spiky fruit dropped right in front of me. It was an unripened Ohio buckeye and the squirrel that had dropped it got another and scampered down and away. So I carried the fruit all the way to the dorm and said to Jen, "look what a squirrel threw at me." For some reason this really cracked her up and it has been repeated throughout the weekend.
Also, before the calculus test, I was studying and a squirrel ran up the tree I was under and started eating the maple seeds, dropping crumbs on me all the while. So silly.

That night, I did an alcohol run for three groups of people and between all the money I was given, I ended up with six dollars myself, after giving back change to a couple people. I didn't even have to drive! Really, though, a tip should be given. On the way back, the car lit up and hotboxed back to the dorm. Then Jen appeared because we had a paint date, and Kalyn came in for a while. We discussed things and decided to do the kava which had come to me in the mail. So I made a large smoothie with whole milk, orange-kiwi-strawberry-banana juice, and the root. I had the most with Jen having almost the same amount; Kalyn took the least and couldn't stomach it so she gave half to my roommate. She seemed to regret it a little, because Jen and I were all peaceful and giggly after a while. We sat in the hallway, after painting, and some people joined including my RA and her boyfriend and the RA on the adjacent hall. They knew we were on stuff and were having a good time with it.
That night I had really vivid dreams about the first day of school, but I can't remember what school it was or any details. My body was relaxed and desensitized. My roommate's alarm went off and he turned it off and went back to sleep, and after that I couldn't really get back into the place I was in. I'm over that kid and am ready to live in a single situation next year.

Also, this weekend the floor did a minor craft period and Kiersten, my RA, showed me how to use hemp to make bracelets. So I made two in two different styles, then wove the extra strings together so that they had a rat-tail of sorts. I didn't paint a door-stop, but we all had tea and it was a lovely time.

A Wind Named Amnesia

The wind is quite strange here. One side of the street may be a current of warm dry air that weathers oneself, while the other side may be a draft of cool wet air. It blows almost all the time to some degree. Unrelenting, the wind hits and caresses away my mind, leaving me blank. It's difficult to be emotional here, to be anything but quiet.

A Little Something

Not sure what more to do with this or where it's going. I'll just post what I have.
*****

A horizontal string of light fades in and intensifies. Morning. I open my eyes and the strings become spheres. I know in falling asleep I lay on my side, but somehow I end up on my back by morning. She wakes on her side, facing me. Was she sleeping? Was I really sleeping? I cannot remember; but she looks back at me with eyes shining with morning dew and I'm reassured. Under bed covers her index finger brushes mine and all come together to interlock and embrace. This is one moment of many between closed eyes: a new time arrived at with each blink. The morning goes on like this, under cotton sheets warmed by two.
A horizontal string of light fades in and intensifies. Morning: half an hour later; waking next to her. The sheets jump sharply and sink like a mountain in quicksand, leaving a little hill. The landscape of the bed changes as her arm makes its way toward me under the tight sheets. She arrives, her hand hovering above me. Slowly her fingertips alight on my chest and spread outward as the palm makes its way closer to my hair-laden skin. Warm hand heating my surface which the sheets had chilled. The static her fingers collected on the journey to me raise my hairs and prick my skin until her hand covers my heart.
A horizontal string of light fades in and intensifies. Morning: twenty minutes later. We pass our morning this way, accumulating a little pile of moments, like haikus which paint a bigger picture.

This College

Currently listening to:
Summer Babe
Pavement

Another strange night. Since it was Friday, everyone was trying to find a party. So there was one group I was with doing pre-drinking and they switched rooms and I went to visit other people. When I came back there was another group, all the less partying people of the floor, waiting outside the room for the other group so that they could go to a party with them. John Beasley and his 16 year-old friend Adam came out and scooped me away to the forest to smoke. We talked and smoked and I came to realize that many of the guys here (likely of the same temperament as John and Adam) have sex high up on their list of priorities right now. They spoke of their memories and hopes for a sexual night. Then headlights passed over us and John said "Oh, shit!" and ran. Adam and I got up and ran, too, all three of us going different directions. As I ran, the light passed over me and seemed to come back and focus and grow larger on me. I was running through a dark room, all natural light vanished as I tore through bushes and vines; all I could see was a fence above me with an orange artificial light glowing through the metal bars. I jumped it and was lost, but came to find I was at the front courtyard to my dorm. I walked nonchalantly back to the side door and saw the red and blue police light stopped in the forest. Perhaps it had caught someone? But everyone had gotten away.

I went back to the dorm to find the groups still waiting around. I went in the room and told the tale. The group outside left and we soon followed, but I had to grab a jacket and they left me. After waiting around where they said they were, I found out they had already left for a house party. So I went there and was stopped at the door because I didn't know the house owners. Eventually I got in, and I really wish I hadn't. There were probably a hundred people in the small front of the house and John told me there were two hundred more in the backyard. My friend Maiwand had followed my friends to the party and he was out of place but didn't seem to notice. He's from Afghanistan. He related that he hadn't really had anything to drink and wasn't too into socializing because the people there were only interested in "baggy pants." I talked to a couple people but I just wasn't comfortable, like a plant watered with salt I was suffocating and lost my night high immediately. I left. Maiwand said he wanted to stay longer to watch people.

I always try to follow my heart.
Back at the dorm I visited in Anna's room, then Carly's. Perspective is different in these states and it seems as if people are giving weird looks, but they probably aren't.

I'm glad I started out at a small college like Webster. This sort of large college makes the demographic of party goers seem very large.

Nice Beard

Currently listening to:
Human
The Killers

"Are we human, or are we dancers?"
*****
Today while trying to return a book and getting envelopes and stamps, I ran into "nice beard" guy again. The first time I was waiting in a line and this guy with sunglasses and a long pointy Viking sort of beard walked by wearing these short-shorts with a bubble pattern. He said to me, "nice beard, man." And I said, "you too, man."
So I was walking by him again and I immediately start smiling as we passed. He wore a baby blue set of short-shorts this time. He said, "nice beard, man" without smiling at all. Since he had sunglasses on, I couldn't tell if his eyes were smiling. I said, "you too, man."

Also, in the morning there was a strange guy on a bike who seemed to be singing along with music he was listening to, only it was in an Asian dialect. However, he soon turned his bike around and retraced his path while cursing. Turns out he is white and he was singing in English, but it was all muddled as if he were on something. Then he wanted to lock up his bike, I suppose, and he did this weird bird whistle of sorts like it would reveal to him a good open spot to park. I don't know. There seem to be a lot of weird people, or maybe they aren't weird themselves.

Eatable

Yesterday I ate a pot cookie, only I should have eaten just half of it because I'm skinny and susceptible to pot. So I did that at 1 PM and by 2 I thought I was going to be sick, so I lay down on the floor to nap. I had my legs over each other and it felt like the melded into a fin, like a merhuman. I didn't throw up like last time, though. I don't have much comfortable luck with that drug.
Grabbed a late dinner at 7 where I ran into Maiwand and Jen Ralph and Azra. Suddenly I was in Sam's room with a bunch of girls and I was a little stoned still and Sydney asked if I was high because I was spacey, and I said I didn't think that changed much from day to day, and everyone else agreed. We all drank and then they left to seek parties. This is a big house party sort of school.
I think when there's a meteor shower, I can arrange some people to go back into the mountains to truly see it.

"If someone wants a sheep, then that means that he exists." -Antione de Saint-Exupery

At first when I saw this quote I thought it meant the person that wants the sheep exists. After the cookie hit me I knew that it was the sheep that existed. You can't want something that doesn't exist, or that you don't know!

Visions

Friday evening I headed for Estes State Park for the free camp sites so I could try to do a vision quest. It was a successful first attempt, even though it was only for a day, though not in the way I expected. Vision probably means more like "insight," but if you do it for the usual three days, I guess the term may apply in other ways.

I met a couple nice people there, Beth and Roger and their part blue heeler, who took my name down in case I went missing. After the night, I approached their campsite again and the blue heeler actually came out to greet me. I take that to be a good sign. It's given me lots to think about and I'll probably write a poem and story and paint about the experience.

I got back Saturday morning and the day kind of drifted away from there. Hopefully tomorrow night there will be a hookah outing. It will be my first time.

People

Currently listening to:
91.7 FM
Texas Ind. Radio

People here are kind of strange. The workout movement is at large, I guess because this is a sports school. I never really understood working out to get muscle that isn't needed on a day to day basis. What I mean is that we all have an inherent strength which comes from how we live our lives; having no more strength than is needed. However, most students here seem preoccupied with working out, such that they walk a long distance to the Rec Center.
Then, to support their bodies, they must take in more water and food to re-energize so that they might workout once more. It all seems very inefficient to me, especially since it requires much time out of the schedule.

Furthermore, everyone seems to enjoy competitive sports to some degree. Competitive games. It is difficult to get people for cloud watching or a casual tossing of frisbee. I'm not active enough for most people here; I move much slower, and it feels like that's a barrier. People like enthusiasm here, and exertion. These are not my people and I'm not sure I can find the relationships I have found at other institutions here.