Beer or water

I'm at one of those points in the night where I can't help but wonder if I want beer or water. Obviously I eventually want water. But right now, beer would probably serve me pretty solidly.

Minutes later, I chose beer.

I feel like the last week has been my way of trying to recapture home. I went back to Gustavus, I drove home for a Twins game, I bought the new Hold Steady record (screw this New York crap, they're from Minneapolis), I watched the last Twins game with a bunch of Gustavus grads, I saw P.O.S. last night, and I saw Limbeck tonight. I even bought a lot of Summit to bring back here with me.

And I don't care what anybody says, aside from California, I think Minnesota is at least a second home to Limbeck. It's gotta be at least on par with Kansas.

It's not that I don't like Madison. Don't get me wrong, I think I'm happy here. I don't think that I'd be happier with any of the other options I had. I just don't think I was ready to leave home. I don't know that I ever truly would be.

Honestly, one of the weirdest things I've ever experienced happened to me Tuesday night. I was driving home and I was about 4 hours in when I decided to put on the Hold Steady record. And somewhere between the Lowry tunnel and the song, I swear I felt something from the city. Almost hug like. It was really weird, but I swear I could physically feel something just being back there. Weird shit, man.

Anyway, its too bad the Twins lost, but I think the sweep went over ok with me if only because it went quickly. I wish I could've been there to see Radke pitch one of his last games. He gave us 12 years, I feel like I could at least give him some clapping or something. But honestly, I think all year I never expected much from them, and so the ending was ok with me. If anything, they gave me a lot of hope for next year.

On to real life though. I don't think I've really discussed school with anyone aside from my mom. And that was weird because it's hard to say anything negative without her worrying far more than she needs to. So anyway, here's the thing: I love teaching and I dare say I'm not a big fan of learning these days. Maybe I'm sick of classes, maybe it's just the fact that ultimately I don't care to know some of this stuff, but whatever it is, my motivation to go to class is just gone. On the other hand, my motivation to TA classes is pretty much what keeps me going from day to day. Honestly, these kids are inspiring, and I never thought I'd see myself saying that (either the part about calling 19 year olds "kids" or the part about being inspired by students). Not that I didn't want to, just that, honestly, who sees that shit coming? Like, it still amazes me, but there are times when I'm grading homework and it's like "Holy fuck, kid, how did you suddenly get so good at this?" And I love it. I had someone drop my class because she didn't do well on the first test, and honestly, it hurts. I feel responsible. I feel an obligation to her. And dammit, it's nice to feel something when it comes to what I'm doing, because I spent a hell of a long time just doing it because I could. And I think that's the problem with class. By comparison, it just doesn't do anything for me.

I think in a lot of ways my life is going back to being like it was in high school. Only with more beer. And that's not bad, it just takes a little adjustment for me. Like, 4 years ago, I would've loved this life. Now it's just a little weird because I got myself used to something else. I feel like I'm getting caught up in the past a lot, and as much as it seems like that's generally frowned upon, I fucking like the past, ok? It was good to me. Not that the present isn't. Just lay off the past, man. It's starving.

Well, that beer's done. Time to resume the debate.

Ok, beer it is. But I feel like I have to earn this one with a series of bulleted points.

-Me to myself as I looked in the fridge: "Counting tells me this is my boy. Oranges tells me oranges is good." Translation: I have a bunch of hefeweizen and a couple oranges, and damn if they aren't good together.

-Limbeck just keeps getting better. The show was amazing, better than either of the other two times I've seen them. At the end I picked up an EP they had for sale. It's got a couple new songs and new recordings of three songs from the last album. It's all stellar.

-As good as the new Decemberists is, I feel like it might get buried among the other new CDs I've gotten lately and be forgotten for a while. That happens sometimes. Still, I have faith that it'll work itself out in the long term.

-I need an orange peel bowl.

-I hope my bouncing between short term thoughts and more developed thoughts isn't too distracting.

-I desperately want to play guitar for like the 10th time today, but Todd has to get up in 4 or 5 hours. That's what happens when you get a job.

-I was messing around with my guitar earlier, and for the first time ever, i actually wrote something. Or at least played something that wasn't written explicitly by someone else. It's just a little chord progression, nothing brilliant or new, but it sounds good, which is more than I've ever accomplished before.

-I want to give Todd a nickname, but the only thing that comes to mind is "the Toddler". That doesn't work, does it?

-Do you even know who Todd is?

-I haven't seen Josh in like 48 hours. I think we lost him to his new computer. I'm ok with that.

-I miss baseball. As represented by the fact that I've thrown this orange around far more than I've attempted to eat it.

-I miss football even more. Every fall day where I don't play football kills me a little inside. not that that's anything new. I've felt that way for years. It's just the number of days when I actually play gets fewer and fewer each year.

-I watched Eternal Sunshine last night. I think I enjoy breaking my heart. But, along with that, two things: 1) Kirsten Dunst is gorgeous. 2) That's one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen.

-I meant to mention this a while ago, but Caithlin De Marrais of Rainer Maria gives Neko Case a run for her money.

-Beer here is really good. Our student union serves Oberon. For reals. At least part time. Not to mention the local breweries.

-I'm working on the whole radio thing here. Not that I have time, but I'm gonna go ahead and fake it. I'm still in the training stages, but I'll let you know if I ever get anything worked out.

-Making almost $20,00 a year makes me feel rich until I notice what the rest of the world is making.

-How does one go about meeting the hot girl who rides his bus but he never sees otherwise and never has any reason to talk to?

-I needed this.

-I've let my hair grow really long for lack of any idea of what else to do with it. If anybody has any thoughts by all means let me know. Otherwise I'll probably just get a really bad "emo" haircut for like 2 hours along the way to cutting it fairly short again.

-I'm glad I downloaded 2 seasons of Entourage. Now I want more. Jeremy Piven is a fucking genius. Period.

-Fuck this RBI baseball shit. I'm 70 games into an undefeated season of Bases Loaded, and dammit I'm gonna finish the season that way.

-I have an amazing urge to call people "kiddo". What's up with that?

-Remember when we ran into Dan? That was fucking weird.

-In honor of the comeful circle nature of this blog, and because I don't think I mentioned this before to most of you, one of the weirdest things I've ever done was buying beer in front of coach Hansen of "Mike Phil" naming fame. Apparently the high school football coaches have a preseason meeting in the Byerlys restaurant area, and apparently shopping in the liquor store puts you in full view of them. And for reals yo, it's weird.