Sweat: Merits and Drawbacks

Yesterday was one of those classic midwestern summer days, ninety-two degrees, about three hundred percent humidity. It was the kind of day that makes you appreciate what life is like for a steamed dumpling. I don't love that kind of heat, but in the right context I don't hate it either. I think the key to being out in the world-as-oven is simple: you have to keep moving. I've worked more than my share of manual labor jobs, and while I never relished a nine-hour day in ninety-plus degree heat, I have found that the act of doing something - lifting rocks, digging holes, painting - makes the heat a lot more tolerable than, say, just sitting still being miserable. First, it gives you something to think about other than sweating. Second, and more importantly, it gives you something to play against - almost like an added challenge. Lifting forty pound rocks into a wheelbarrow and then hauling them up a thirty-foot scaffold is one level of difficulty. Doing it while your internal organs are cooking adds an edge, in the "oh yeah, is that all you got?" defiant sense of the word. This is a good thing, because it is important to maintain that part of your personality that believes to the last breath that you can't be beaten.

In addition to the defiant part of my person, the one waiting for a coach to tell me to step back up to the line for another round of suicide windsprints, the heat also requires - in a completely paradoxical way - that you give in to your surroundings and live on the world's terms. Yes, you can go inside and get air-conditioned, and even when you go outside that AC will follow you for a few moments, keeping a lovely - though quickly departing - halo of cool around you. But at some point, you have to go outside and be in the world. The heat is out there, and it's not going away. If you work outside all day, it's really not going away, so you have to make peace with it, let it sink into your being and become part of you. There has been more than one sweaty afternoon where, after toiling and dripping and sucking down water for an entire day, I find myself enjoying the heat, reveling in the radiating pulse of oppressive air. This is not to say that I don't keep moving forward in defiance of nature's continuing attempts to kill me, but there is also a level of sweat-soaked enjoyment that comes from accepting the world purely on its own terms.

Summmmmer

It is, at long freaking last, almost about time for me to enjoy a long-needed change of mental pace. I taught the last day of Summer Session I today, meaning that out there in the world right now there are fourteen young persons sweating their brains off studying for a final that I hope will not kill them. Really, they'll be fine.

This also means that I'm about to move into a world where there is not a constant daily pressure to

a) create or tweak a lecture,

b) deliver said lecture in an engaging fashion (college theatre majors are not, it turns out, naturally inclined to be stricken with wonder about, say, Medieval Theatre, and I guess I can't blame them)

c) lead discussion on a play that I might or might not love but must know inside and out

or

d) grade stuff.

Now most of you are saying, "hey, ass hat, these things above sound like, um, you know, a job, and most of us have to do that about 50 weeks out of the year, so quitcherbitchin'" This is true. This is very true. There is, however, some extra stress to the world of academia, because in addition to all of these things there are many other "unfunded mandate" type responsibilities that you must do.

This was not intended to turn into a whine session about my career. I love my job. Seriously, love it.

The point, and I swear there might be one, is that I am incredibly fortunate to be someone who gets to change channels regarding work, and that feels like a welcome opportunity right now. The next two months will consist of some unknown sort of work (and some much-deserved travel), but the particular pressures of teaching - basically being onstage most every day - will not be part of them. I still am not exactly sure what work is going to come my way, but I'm looking forward to it. With any luck, it will be outdoors, and will involve building something with my hands. The perfect channel-change.

Oh, and here, for your possible amusement, is the poster I created to lure unsuspecting students into taking my theatre class this summer. (You have to advertise for the summer section or else you might not get enough kids to take it, and then you'll be doing a bit more sweating and building than you had expected. Yes, I know, I'm complaining both ways. So be it.) All of these persons were actually covered during the class, and I will award $536 or less to the person who can correctly identify them all:

Practice What You Preach

A few tips on driving a 1997 Toyota Celica through a blizzard during which seven inches of snow have already fallen and another one or two are currently on the way:

1. Carry a snow snow shovel in your car. You will have to dig yourself out at least once for every mile you travel (statistics based on recent personal experience), so just plan on it, and have the right tools. A lightweight but wide plastic shovel is the way to go.

2. Come with the right gear: hat, waterproof coat, waterproof gloves, and substantial stomping boots. Bring the wrong stuff and you will end up wet and cold, which is no way to go through life.

3. Warm up the car. I am, to the likely disappointment of Al Gore, a big fan of this. Twenty minutes usually suffices to get most of the snow melted off of your windows. If you get sidetracked in your apartment and the car warms up for a half hour, don't feel too bad, you've only burned about 10% as much fuel as Al does in thirty seconds in his private jet.

4. Make sure your rear defogger works. If your car is more than, say 167,000 miles old, it may have developed some electrical problems which you may have put off fixing, the result of which might be to render rearward view damn near impossible, which is not good if you are considering attempting a parking-brake-assisted u-turn and need to know if there is someone behind you.

5. Attempt parking-brake-assisted u-turns. They are just a hell of a lot of fun, and also a very useful way to reverse course if you can't find a sufficiently plowed side street.

6. Don't slow down for anything, and definitely don't stop. Ever. The car is too light to start moving again in any substantial amount of snow, and mostly the tires will just spin for a while. You can get started, but it will take a while. Expect the sort of acceleration that would get you from a dead stop to the other side of the intersection in about eight seconds. If it's uphill, you're never going to get moving again ever, at least not forward. Either way, to be sure, just simply refuse to stop. Disregard stop signs, stop lights, cross traffic, law enforcement officials, pedestrians, migrating polar bears, etc. Momentum is your lifeline. Don't relinquish it for anything.

7. Don't turn left. Or right. During blizzards, intersections are dumping points for plows, and attempts to turn will leave you cursing, wheels spinning in the middle of traffic, so just forget it. Go straight, always. If you must turn, scout the intersection well ahead of time (driving while holding binoculars is dangerous, but well worth the advance notice) and be sure that they've been plowed. If you find an intersection that looks sufficiently plowed, only attempt a turn if you can also obey rule #6. If you're going to have to stop, then just keep going straight, even if it means going a few miles out of your way.

8. Accept the offers of any kindly students or law-enforcement officials who volunteer to push your car while you wildly gun the engine in hopes of a return to forward progress. These people are the saints of the world and will someday sit at the right hand of Jesus.

9. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt driving around without sunglasses for the better part of a half hour looking for your dentist's office in hopes of getting a teeth-cleaning before they close early for the day, getting stuck three times while pulling into the parking lot, enter the office to the applause of two hygienists and a secretary who have been watching your valiant efforts out their window, discover that you are in urgent need of a bathroom, use the dentist's office bathroom, exit that bathroom disoriented from frustration and snowblindness and dim indoor lighting and walk full-speed into a very clean floor-to-ceiling pane of glass that is right next to the open doorway you had intended to walk through. Do not do this. You will receive much sympathy from the office staff (following their loud, simultaneous cry of "Oooooh!" at your moment of impact), but this will not offset the bruise to your ego and left temple.

None of this, of course, even remotely dampens my entheusiasm for massive and repeated doses of snow snow snow. I wish it were still snowing right now. Bring it on.

Snow! Snow snow snow! Also: More snow!

Listen: There are some of you out there who are naturally, understandably anti-snow. It is, after all, fundamentally a pain in the butt in any practical sense of the word. When it snows that means it's cold, and all life activities are harder when its cold. Those of you who know me know that I am no huge fan of the cold, as there is a certain part of my being that must surely have been reincarnated from a brittle old woman who kept her thermostat at 75 from November to April. So yes, I'm with you. The cold is not fun. And again, I will admit that there is some definite hassle to the added winter element of snow. Driving is more difficult, cars must be brushed off, the cuffs of your pants get wet, etc. etc.

To you inside people, to you snow-haters, I say this: move south. If you're not sure if you have moved far enough south, wait for one winter. If you find yourself complaining, keep going south. Eventually you'll get to where you need to be.

The rest of us will be up here enjoying the hell out of the fluffy white stuff that we hope keeps piling up, week after week. Thanks to my current visits to a certain sweet girl who lives in Chicago, I've had more than my fair share of snow this winter, and we haven't even gotten to February yet! This makes for constant winter wonderland type situations, which are awesome in general and especially awesome if you are witnessing them with someone you love atop a 22nd-story roof deck next to a giant lake. To wit:


Though roof-decks are a pretty fantastic way to view a blizzard, the only true way to demonstrate your love of a winter-wonderlandish day is to bundle the hell up and go tromp around in it. And yes, you have to tromp. That's really the only way to do it. Throw on about sixty layers, cover as much exposed skin as possible, and go see some things. The world is covered with white, and it is tranquil, perfect, filled with joy. Sharing that walk with someone is even better, so find a tromping friend and get out there now please.




I love it I love it I love it.

Sheesh

Yes, I'm alive. A few observations out of the blue (or, as this day would have it, the very crappy gray):

1. Forties and rainy: Still the worst weather known to humanity. If you're sitting in some Godforsaken desert nation right now praying for a few drops of rain so that you have some liquid in which to boil your United Nations Famine Relief Rice, trust me, you are happy that it is not forty and rainy. Also, why the heck do you have a computer?

2. A perfect statistical summary of the college-student mindset: On such a day as today (see item #1) there are to be seen in the hands of the hundreds of students milling about a given campus, the following items: Umbrellas: 40%. Nothing: 60%. On backs of said students: Anything resembling a waterproof or weather-appropriate jacket: 40%. Some kind of absorbent material such as cotton: 60%. Was I like this in college? I have no specific recollection. I'd like to think not, but you never can tell.

3. Excessively long sentences today? Yes. Overuse of colons? Yes. Proofreading? No.

4. Use of lists? Yes.

5. It must be said that a bike ride through rural Southern Indiana in the fall is one of the most subtle pleasures a person can seek, if said person is inclined to outdoorsyness and rigorous physical activity. Also, if said person enjoys rest stops on a bike ride that feature Dixieland Ragtime bands, apple cider, and Krispy Kreme donuts, that is an added bonus. So go ride at least one day of the Hilly Hundred.

6. Holy Jumping Jeepers on a Pogo Stick am I busy. But loving it. But dying. If you happen to find a few extra hours of sleep laying around, kindly bundle them into a padded envelope and send them to me. 2nd Day Air preferable.

Summer Saturday

A summer weekend day done the way it should be:

10:30 a.m. Roll casually out of bed, unhurried, guilt-free.

11:15 a.m. Finish reading paper and eating breakfast on the deck.

Noon. Help dad clean out his gutters. Begin to break a sweat. Occasionally peek in on Euro 2008 soccer games being played. Relish soccer at the highest level.

1:15 p.m. Lunch at brother's house. More soccer watching. Casual conversations about nothing in particular. Bask in general listlessness.

2:30 p.m. Inspired by professionals on tv, leave house to go kick around a soccer ball with friends.

3-6 p.m. Kick around. Crosses, shots on goal, more crosses, nine holes of soccer golf, penalty kicks. Play World Cup with recent high school graduates who happen to be out at fields. Get ass kicked a little bit, but also enjoy the hell out of self.

6:30 p.m. Shower. Air conditioning. Hydration. Examine sunburned shoulders.

7 p.m. - 2 a.m.: Dinner, drinks, poker, Rock Band, unknown shenanigans.

The Future Is (Almost) Now

Given the rate at which technology advances, it seems likely that in about five years somebody is going to have to blast this thing with an RPG until it falls into an open vat of molten steel: