Ode to toothpick

I've taken to toothpicks. I like the look and feel of a toothpick. I usually keep one between my lips. I have one there right now. This toothpick is my friend.

It's there when I walk to class. It's there when I read. It's there when I write.

Toothpick.

What stories are for

It'll be another late night at #METASWAG.

I now have a full staff under my wing at the IDS, which, with the invaluable help of Fran, I'm doing my best to manage. I never could've anticipated the toll working a full-time job and studying as a full-time student would take on my free time. It's something of a happy (privileged) dilemma, though. And here I am.

This morning I woke up emotionally numbed, despite being rocked to sleep by that extraordinary thunderstorm last night. The wind and rain threw me into an enriching sort of journey through past summer storms. It was a lovely high that felt earned. Nevertheless, I was hazy this morning...

... Until I picked up Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. It's already burrowed its sparse imagery and lyrical self-reflection into my consciousness. It's the rare sort of storytelling that makes me want to sit down and write something its equal. After I spent an hour with that masterwork I hopped in the shower feeling completely renewed. I played Julianna Barwick's The Magic Place as loud as I could and curled up under the hot water, breathing deeply and feeling out my headroom.

If I hadn't snuck that holy moment into my morning, I doubt I could've confronted the rest of my day. It was a typically demanding run through my white, male, bourgeois commitments to journalism and academia.

Tragically, because I chose to party so rapturously over the weekend, I've suffocated my weeknights with readings - which are thankfully engaging and diverse - and thrown away any hope of relief till Thursday.

Speaking of the weekend: How about that ice? It robbed me a retreat to Andrew's home, but later provided us a deliciously difficult obstacle course to overcome. Turns out Falafels tastes best after trekking through the frozen tundra with your friends. Turns out Drive looks best from the back of an unsophisticated auditorium. Turns out the air smells best when your sinuses aren't clogged.

And it turns out reading feels better once you've taken the time to slow down and appreciate the day.

Freak

I'm feeling especially enlightened lately.

What could've been a whirlwind of commitment-juggling has instead felt like heaven. While the work has felt overwhelming at times, it's never soured my day. Rather, I have found human moments in between my hours and hours at the IDS and everything else in my life. My editorship takes the lead, but can't slow me down. I've maintained all my resolutions, figured out new things about myself and those I care about, and finally feel like I'm accomplishing something real.

The challenge of maintaining a full-time job and completing schoolwork and keeping up relationships is taking me to brand new parts of my headroom. It's amazing, really. All I feel is proud of myself.

Change has never felt so constructive.

Real Real

Listen, #METASWAG readers, I know this blog is now just walls of text. It'll only last a month.

Come February, I'll spiff the place up with videos and pictures and lists and reviews and what have you. In the mean time, things will stay so simplistic in a way.

So, let's talk about the weather. Winter came and went in a single day, and what we're faced with now is the replenishing reality of springtime in January. My window is open; I breathe the air. This post is only to tell you how I feel. I feel taken care of.

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I Sang In Your Home

I am a singer.

I am tearing up from a combination of coughing too hard and listening to music that matters to me. It's past my bedtime. I spent the past two days in Batesville, Ind., with my dear friend Andrew Cambron. We ate buttery food and drank Budweiser, watched an IMAX movie and played Xbox, and drove for some time while listening to Slim Shady. Today I spent several hours training for my semester-long stint as an IDS editor. After the meetings, I went home to get dinner and visit with my beautiful family. After that, I cleaned my bathroom (now to be shared with Sara Jones). Then I spent a few hours writing and illustrating for Friday's paper.

I usually don't write such matter-of-fact posts, but it feels nice after writing with a deliberately colorful voice for an audience outside this blog.

Kanye has been tweeting non-stop for a few hours now. I always getting excited by his enthusiasm, his burning a fuel for my own fire. Who knows what I can accomplish with that in my engine? I have the power to get up from under me.

This is an extraordinary time in my life. Everything is changing.

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10.0 Best New Year

Welcome to 2012, #METASWAG.

More than usual, the strike of midnight this January 1st meant to me a graduation from my own liminality. I can't pretend my many bad habits will vanish with the calendar year, but I can promise to adopt more good habits. I'm ready to learn. I know this spring semester poses an academic and professional challenge, but I can't help but marvel at its promise of fun and self-enrichment. Optimism is my new religion. 

In 2012, I hope I don't smother you with the rumble of my schedule. I'd rather this blog be a space in which to smuggle my momentary wonder. If I have to turn over some ideas in my head, the turning will be found here.

This doesn't exactly signal a reimagining of #METASWAG. I have trouble not writing about the music and movies I love. I'll still produce hundreds of words without much in the way of a thesis. The hopeful change is that I'll blog more regularly, about coherent subjects, and with more deliberate language. I wouldn't be surprised if during the first week of classes I write an absurdly long and recklessly unfocused 3 a.m. post. That's not what this is, is it?

I feel confident in myself. Bring on the learning!

(And remember, there's nothing to make you feel alive like Jeezy's "F.A.M.E." or Train's "Drops Of Jupiter" or Henryk Górecki's 3rd Symphony)

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