Some quick pics from the Port Street Festival...

And good morning, everyone. It’s a little after four, when I usually rise, but I’ve been up since about 2:45. If I wake after 2:30 I’m dangerously close to the point of no return. Oh well. I’ll survive.

I think stress drove this bout of comparative insomnia. Yesterday was a long, physically painful day of boring meetings. The specter of a position change at work, one that might be a lose/lose for everyone involved, threatens. What can I learn from this? First, I don’t want to fall into unproductive behavioral patterns. I know what the panic attacks are like. I know how the long hours of soul-deadening conflict impact my family, and I won’t let that happen again. I’m grinding my teeth. I’m not sleeping. These are bad signs. This will be a test. This last few years have been a good run.

At least this weekend looks wide open. Maybe I’ll have a beer tonight. Last night Dawn, Mike and I sat at Mike’s picnic table and talked while the neighborhood kids played yard to yard. I’m back in a workout routine but damn, this morning my legs hurt, even after coffee. If I can pull off thirty on the elliptical and basketball this morning, then another thirty and weights tomorrow, then maybe I’ll take Sunday off. No, no, not Sunday, because Memorial Day weekend messed up my schedule. Monday. We’ll see.

So what did I get out of the badlands trip? Bullet points:

• The trip was transitional in that I think I was both saying goodbye to some negative skin, if you will, and gearing up for the next challenges.
• I was put in a solo survival position, with the car, and I responded well. That’s important.
• I reconnected with the holy.

I’m going to leave it as that for now. I don’t know I have a good answer just yet.

Have a good Friday.

Right now I am DOMINATING cornhole. I am 5-0 in individual competition. You are all witnesses.

T and I hiked along the lake yesterday...

Holy crap, is today already May 22nd? How did that happen? I’m in the newly cleaned dining room, listening to the latest St. Vincent disc after f—king around most of the morning when I should have cleaned. No, that’s not entirely true. I hit Target for more fancy stick-to-the-wall hooks for prints in the new office. And I dropped S’s forgotten lunch off at his school. But other than that I channel-surfed and watched the “Fanboys” middle third between emails, etc. By one I felt guilty enough to start working on the house. The windows are open to a slightly cool, windy afternoon.

I promised a couple people I would get the South Dakota trip into text. Here we go.

Day One

Since I didn’t sleep until after midnight (S and I hit a Brew game) the night before, I skipped the gym, slept a little later, and hung out with the boys before heading west. N and I sat on the couch, chatting, once the Saturn was loaded. I said goodbye to M and the boys and headed out into the grey, misty morning. The first few hours were slow going, rain and construction, west to 90 and north to LaCrosse. I listened to Speaking of Faith and ate cheese sandwiches. In Minnesota the rain faded away and the speed limit increased to 70. Driving for nine, ten hours is boring, but Krista Tippet kept me focused and by late afternoon I entered South Dakota. The Saturn shook a little, and I thought something might have been wrong with the car but once I stopped I realized the wind was blowing as hard and cold as I had ever felt. Conversation would be impossible; this is the kind of blaring, unbalanced wind you see weather channel reporters braving near hurricanes. At least the skies were clear. I hit Chamberlain around dinner time, parked the car, and admitted to myself that I wouldn’t be running the neighborhood around the hotel as planned. The desk woman at the deserted Days Inn pointed me in the direction of the town for food. The hotel pool was waterless, so no swimming, either. Oh well. I snagged an omelet at a local diner after crossing the terrifying, river-spanning bridge connecting one part of Chamberlain with the other. The waiter was a very polite teenager who, when he wasn’t getting my order or food, returned to a corner table to chat with his friends. After paying for the surprisingly expensive (eight bucks) but serviceable omelet I returned to the wind, drove back to the hotel, and got online before reading, downing some melatonin, and falling asleep.

Day Two

I was up early but not in a particular hurry. The Badlands visitors center didn’t open until 8AM. Oh, I forgot to mention, the evening of Day One also featured a no holds barred battle with Hotels.com to change my Rapid City reservation. Fuck hotels.com. Never use them. After driving west past the time change I arrived at the Badlands and parked in the Castle trail parking lot to talk through my issues with hotels.com customer service for another twenty minutes until the problem was resolved. I cut up to the visitors center. They’ve renovated the place. Sean, do you remember last time we were there, they were working on the visitor’s center? I don’t remember entering four years ago, but I remember you and me hanging out there eight years back. The new space has a few dinosaur dioramas, an expanded gift shop, and a small theater that loops a pretty cool twenty minute Badlands film. Oh, and the bathrooms are spotless. Don’t underestimate the draw of spotless bathrooms in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, after checking out the film and cruising the gift shop (a cool fishing hat and a couple books…never quite sure what I should buy) I returned to the Castle Trail parking lot and started on the trail. The Castle Trail is described as “mostly moderate” but the first mile is the hardest. I lost the trail about a half mile in and had one of those “no way in holy fuck do they expect me to climb over all this shit” moments before I turned back and found the right pole. If you’ve never been to the Badlands, the trails are marked with poles hikers follow. So, in other words, you stand near one pole and look for the next to know which direction you should head next. So I lost one. Then I found it again. The Castle Trail’s first half mile features much jumping over crevices and climbing up inclines. After you get past the initial formations the trail levels off through grassland. I saw a big-eared deer and some huge rabbits. I felt a sense of “wow…I’m here” as I walked through the grasslands and thanked the present spirits for allowing me into their space. No one else was around. I didn’t see another human being for close to four hours. I looped over the Medicine Trail and sat near the sign marking the intersection of the Castle/Medicine/Saddle Trails and ate more cheese sandwiches. My legs were tired. I skipped the next Castle extension and looped around back on the return Castle trip, taking pictures all the way. Why was I so tired? I don’t know. Maybe the exhaustion was a letting go. I was so relieved to reach my goal of the Badlands that maybe my legs gave out. I felt myself saying goodbye. I’m not sure when I’ll return. I love the Badlands for reasons I can’t really articulate. The area is so sparse, so inhospitable, that I feel a sense of transience, a sense of how long the earth lasts and how little we do and how our dusty souls live near the point where the two meet.

After I reached the car I downed a diet coke and headed west. I passed Rapid City and headed north to Bear Butte, one of the holiest places in Native American theology. Sturgis, the motorcycle rally town nearby, is ugly as hell, and the prim woman at the tourist center seemed confused as to why I asked for Bear Butte directions. I drove through town, turned right, and drove seven miles or so, just past the “biggest biker bar in America” to the park’s entrance. I had no idea Bear Butte would be totally deserted. No one manned the park entrance’s hut so I drove through without paying and parked near the trailhead leading up the mountain. I took pictures of the prayer clothes lining the trees and walked partway up the path. The space is beautiful and I didn’t want to rush. I kneeled and prayed. I could feel how the space’s holiness. For what did I pray? I thanked whatever spirits were present on the mountain for my very life, for this American land, for the hands that move beneath the ground and keep the earth alive.

After retracing my path through Sturgis (and yelling at some woman who startled me at the gas station by trying to sell trinkets to people filling their tanks) I found my way back to Rapid City. I snagged a sub at a cool coffee shop, checked out some stores (nothing interesting), and hit the small hotel, where I apologized to the desk clerk for the hotels.com snafu. She was cool. This hotel, right on an awful hotel strip, was really four buildings in a row. I settled into my tiny room and decided to go out. Mt. Rushmore was too far away, and I wasn’t in the mood for the tourist thing, so I hit a local Borders (the Twilight guide I wanted to get M isn’t released until September) and cruised through the upscale mall before getting back in the car and hitting Starbucks for some iced tea. Then I settled into the hotel for the season finale of “Parks and Recreation”, some NBA playoffs, and reading until I fell asleep.

Day Three

I woke early, 2:30 Rapid City time, 3:30 Wisconsin time. After packing to Sportscenter I went for a run. Danielle, the desk clerk, told me to run up a steep hill, but the hill road only stretched about a half mile before dead-ending at a huge house. I probably set off the perimeter security system because I pretty much hit the driveway before I realized the road was private. Two deer also leaped from the trees and scared the living shit out of me. The run down was calmer. I ran a couple miles through the neighborhood across the street from the hotel, showered, and unsuccessfully tried to purchase two egg mcmuffins at the closed McDonalds on the way out of town. A billboard told me Wall Drugs opened at 7AM. Although I was early I though WD might have something cool for the boys. I cut back through the Badlands, took some pics at the freezing, windy dawn overlooks, and peed right out in the open. No one was around. Then I cut back through Wall, another depressing as hell town, and decided I didn’t want to wait the half hour for WD to open. Around noon I stopped for Subway. Krista Tippet talked about spirituality until I drew closer to Sioux Falls.

About fifteen miles west of Sioux Falls something in the Saturn popped and steam emerged from the hood. I pulled over and turned off the car. Now, after a meditative hiking session I was in the best mental frame possible for a car breakdown. Plus, I was alone, so I didn’t have to worry about the kids staying safe or the like. I could see an exit in the distance, perhaps a couple miles down, so I grabbed my backpack and started walking the side of I-90. Near the exit were a billboard for an RV repair shop and a seedy gas station/fireworks store. I called the RV place and asked if they knew anyone who would give me a tow and take a look at the car. The RV woman gave me a number to a repair shop. The guy at the repair shop said he was too busy and gave me the number of another repair shop. After some confusion on the car’s location this guy said he’d send a tow. I hustled back to the car (many dead things on the side of interstates) just in time for some huge, fat guy to get the car up on the flatbed tow truck. His name was Mike, a nice enough guy, and we talked about the small town through which we cut on the way to the repair shop. The owner of the repair shop, a younger guy who reminded me of my brother in law, turned the Saturn’s key and the entire fucking engine fell out. You could see pieces flying everywhere. He said he could get another engine in a week but I had accepted, the second he turned the key, that the Saturn had served its purpose. Thank you, beautiful machine, for thirteen years and 170,000 miles. I hope they treated you well when you got junked. I paid eighty bucks for the tow, took off the plates, and hit up Mike for a ride to the Sioux Falls airport. Thank you, people of Humbolt, South Dakota, for your kindness. Mike drove me in the owner’s truck to the airport and waited while I rented a Ford Focus for 200 bucks in order to drive the last eight hours to Milwaukee. Once I was on the road I called Corey, who offered to pick me up at the Milwaukee airport that night, and M, who laughed when I told her the story. The Focus was quite nice, really, and I hauled fucking ass through the rain. The hiking and car breakdown left me exhausted. Corey and I met at the airport. He drove me home, where I walked in the door near 10:30, inhaled some pizza, and collapsed.

Tomorrow…what I got from the trip…enough for now, don’t you think?

Tuesday night, nearing eight, one of those late school year nights when the kids are out in the neighborhood probably later than they should but the weather is so beautiful calling them inside for the night seems unfair. S and I are watching the Brewers (done 1-0 to the Astros). N survived his first t-ball practice and, had he time to play afterward, he probably would have been in a pretty good mood. I had it in my mind that I would wait until I wrote all about the SD trip before I posted on the blog but I probably won’t finish the long post until Friday. I want to write now.

The last few days have been decent. The SD trip calmed my soul. Where to start since then? Let’s go with Sunday. M and the boys went to church for a teacher appreciation gathering. I cleaned and started laundry. The day was still cool, way too cool for mid-May, so I left the windows closed and worked out on the elliptical while watching the Brew game. Man, I needed the sweat after Friday in the car (even though I ran Friday morning) and car-shopping Saturday. What else did I do? Read, play chess with the boys (I took all three to Target on a legos/chess set search), baseball on the front sidewalk, and catching up on television. Just what I needed.

After an hour of cardio Monday morning and some controversy over my decision to skip hoops, I drove into work and started setting up the new office. Although we’re in the basement I have small ground-level windows. I can’t stand overhead lights. Three low-illumination lamps, hanging under the cabinets, are enough for now. Most of the morning passed emptying boxes and organizing files. Terry and I did lunch in the cafeteria (remind me to skip the cafeteria in the summer, please) and I finished off most of the office before late afternoon visitors kept me busy until I left near four. After dinner I sat behind the fence for S’s first game. He did well. I listened to NPR and read The Jewish Messiah while avoiding other parents. Never am I more aware of my social ineptitude, combined with distaste for “parents of sports participants” culture, than on the side of a park district baseball game. Please leave me alone, people. I know you don’t want to talk with me. I don’t want to be rude, but ninety percent of the time the feeling is mutual. I’m not here to grandstand my testosterone, talk about hunting, or act like I give a shit about the score. Let me listen to NPR and lower my eyes to the page.

This morning I attended a long full-University meeting in which I had to thank, on the mic, an administrator for her efforts before she returned to faculty ranks. Once I finished my spiel I relaxed. Once the meeting ended I realized I had a couple hours to kill so I drove home and worked out to Sportscenter before returning for faculty senate. My friend Lance nominated me for faculty council president so I nominated him back. Heh. I’m not ready for that responsibility. I hope I didn’t sound like a jerk. Anyway, I cut out of the meeting at 3:15, stopped at Blockbuster, then hauled ass home to make sure T reached baseball practice on time. M took N to his first t-ball practice while I lifted weights and T and S spazzed out in the neighborhood.

And here I am, suddenly tired. I’m happy tonight. Calm. Hope you are too. Good night.

Some Badlands pics from earlier today...full post later...

1. Prayer cloths at Bear Butte.
2. and 3. A couple of black and white pics I took on the Castle/Medicine Trail loop.
4. A big-eared deer that stood and watched me for a while on the trail.
5. Eating lunch at the halfway point of a three hour hike over rough ground.

More later!

I'm in Chamberlain South Dakota!

I’m up, before two, Monday morning. I fell asleep early, by eight, so I’m not entirely surprised. I’m struggling lately. This weekend passed like a holding pattern before a week I didn’t particularly want to start. I hate those weekends.

What did I do Sunday? S and I rose early, and the rest of the boys followed not long after. N and I sneaked to the donut shop for mother’s day donuts. I wrote an Eleanor Rigby review and continued in The Jewish Messiah. I cleaned the kitchen. Oh, T, S, and I played baseball in the back field. Later the three of us also hit Pick and Save (change machine), Target (vitamins, clocks), and Hobby Town (model car, ancient Roman armymen). N neither wanted to play baseball with us nor come out to the stores. He just wanted to stay home and play with his action figures, video games, etc. Sometimes he worries me. What am I supposed to learn from N, and how can I help him survive in the world? He’s so much like me sometimes he’s crazy, and at the risk of sounding overtly dramatic, I wouldn’t wish my adolescence on anyone. He needs to find what makes him happy in the world. So do I, I guess.

Later I half-watched the Cubs game, read, played a little football, made pasta for dinner, and read some more. You know what’s throwing me off? I know I’m lifting a lot and doing the protein powder, but my weight is still increasing more than I expect. Is that supposed to happen? I have no idea. My clothes still fit, though, and my upper body is definitely stronger, so I’m going to stay on the program, if you will, for now. I guess if you take protein powder for your muscles your weight is supposed to rise, right? I don’t fucking know.

I’m struggling. God, please make sure my youngest son doesn’t have to go through what I went through. I know I can’t protect him all the time, but I get the feeling he and I are meant to support each other and learn from each other in some way. He’s a beautiful kid, and he’s doing ok, but sometimes he reminds me of me in ways that scare me down to the very core, that scare me in ways that send me to the journal at 2AM on Monday mornings.

The weather also bothers me. Fifty and windy is too cold to do much outside. I could use a week of baking temperatures. And I hate hot weather.

School visits this morning, then a student lunch, then the semester’s last class. The end of the semester’s garbage needs taking away. Have a good day.

In in Alterra’s again, Saturday afternoon, eels’ “Things the Grandchildren Should Know” playing on the headphones. Gunmetal grey clouds hover to the northeast. I’m hopped up on coffee and iced tea. My shoulders are slumping forward.

This morning I woke before six and hit the gym by 6:45. I wasn’t feeling the energy but I knew I would persevere on working out all day if I didn’t go early so I hauled my ass into the car and finished the usual full-on cardio workout by eight. M left for a class at the Y not long after I returned, so I showered, ate breakfast, and deposited my ass on the couch. After sportscenter, Dollhouse, and channel surfing I read from the very entertaining “Jewish Messiah” and fell asleep on the front porch. The boys kept asking me questions (they apparently haven’t learned that, you know, people are sleeping when their eyes are closed) so I got just enough sleep to wake up bitchy. After lunch and the invasion of half a million neighborhood children I decided to drive over the coffee shop early to knock out some end of the semester grading. Oh, before I left, however, N tried to keep a neighborhood kid out of his room while they were both playing legos because, in his words, “I just want to play alone in my room in peace.” Is that kid my son or what? I graded for an hour or so, and I don’t have many papers left, BUT I CANNOT GRADE ONE MORE GODDAMN PAPER TODAY. I can’t. I’ll finish tomorrow.

Last night I slept near an open window and the first midnight rain kissed my cheek while I slept.

I’ve been thinking about stress, aging, and spirituality lately. I know that I’ve got many thirty, forty years left on this planet if a disease or bus or whatever doesn’t get me first. And I know I worry too much about stupid things. I don’t know how not to worry. But part of the vocabulary that may help includes surrendering to God. Now, this may mean going to a different church, maybe the same one, I don’t know. But I’m finding peace with the idea.

While I was writing that paragraph “Dust of Ages” came on the MP3 player.

This is the day that I
Give myself up cold
To dust of ages
Settles on your days
So you shake coat off
And get on your way

That doesn’t sound as peaceful as I sometimes feel.

I’m on the couch, 7PM, waiting for the start of the Cubs/Brew game. The kids are playing in the back with cars in the sandbox. The neighbors are over, as usual, but that’s not a bad thing. M is off at some party in which women try to sell each other purses. I think. Why do women torture each other so?

Today was decent. The weather is beautiful, summery, with rain and temps cooler by twenty degrees due after midnight. I cut the grass (pleasantly surprised the lawn mower started easily), cut back old growth and overgrown tree branches, and glued two of those scary nail-ridden panels that seem to fall off the house exterior every year back to the house. I’m terrified a kid will fall on them. And I’m trying to worry less lately. Guess I still need to work on that.

This morning I overslept (if you can call waking at 4:45AM oversleeping) and didn’t hit the elliptical before basketball. I lifted weights after hoops and had planned on the home elliptical but skipped it after all the yard work. What did I do after that? I cleaned the kitchen and watched the first thirty minutes of “The Wrestler”.

Maybe I should have worked out. My weight is going up, which is frustrating, although my clothes feel pretty much the same and I can attribute at least most (I hope) of the weight gain to muscle build. Maybe I should pull back on the protein powder. I don’t know.

Oh, I also finished “Eleanor Rigby” tonight. Not bad, some pitch-perfect passages, but elements of a ridiculous plotline leave the book between “ok” and “pretty good”.

Ok, the game is distracting me. More tomorrow, when the rain should keep us inside.

Have I mentioned my Sunday night rule? On Sunday nights I refuse to socialize with any human being outside my family. Don’t call me. Don’t stop by. Stay the fuck away. Sunday nights are sacred for clearing my head and getting ready for the week. Actually, that rule is starting to spread to Sunday afternoon and pretty soon should arrive at Sunday morning. What’s wrong with that, you know? I’m following my own personal Sabbath.

I bring this up because one of my friends invited my family over today and I turned down the opportunity in about four seconds. M and the boys went on their own. S and one of the other family’s kids are in the same grade and play together often. At home I worked out and watched the Brewers game. Later I read Eleanor Rigby in the bathtub and picked up T from a friend’s house. Tonight I want to curl up in bed and get back in the early morning wakeup routine. Back to work tomorrow. I’m both ready and exhausted. Does that make sense?

5/2/09 7:51PM Saturday

I’m in the Grafton Alterra’s, Saturday night, nearing eight. The sun is falling, and I’m in the window facing north, listening to my Hold Steady/Drive By-Truckers mix and finishing up grading papers. Maybe it’s the caffeine combining with emergence from illness, but holy fuck, I live in Wisconsin! How the fuck did I get here? And isn’t southeastern Wisconsin beautiful on a late spring night? The sun is falling on a cloudless sky and cars are passing back and forth in front of the building. The cute coffee shop girls have grown accustomed to my consistent Saturday night presence, off in the corner with my headphones and computer, and smile when they give me my change. Life is good.

So what’s been up this week? Monday night T, S and I caught the Brewers game for S’s birthday. Pics to follow, but they’re already up on facebook. Why haven’t you checked, lazy blog readers? Anyway, we had a great time, although I had to lean on T a little for spazzing out in his seat. He doesn’t have S’s sports focus. I also froze my ass off walking back to the car in the pouring rain. In turn, the cold rain, and probably not swine flu, rendered me sick later in the week. On Thursday and Friday I had to stay home. I’m serious. I couldn’t go to work because of the swine flu fear. They wouldn’t have let me in the door. I wonder if they would have called security. I can imagine the security guards huffing it across campus ready to bean me with their batons. But I’m their friend! Would I have been able to talk them down? We’ll never know. Anyway, I slept a lot and essentially felt as if I was going to faint if I walked more than twenty feet at a time. I also watched Transporter 3, one of the worst movies I have ever seen (and I liked the first Transporter movie, just to be clear), and read some Doestoevsky (sp? I’m not checking). The temps were supposed to improve but hovered just below sixty, too cold to open many windows.

This morning I felt well enough to get on the road after close to three days of quarantine. I drove down to Borders (5 buck gift certificate plus 40% means very cheap third book in the Twilight series for M’s mother’s day present), Best Buy (Twilight movie to add to the present) and Costco (the usual). While I was tired upon my return I wasn’t dead. Ross stopped by to show me his scooter (he wants me to buy the machine) and we sat on the back porch and talked for a while. Mike stopped by, too. The neighborhood kids ran from yard to yard until the neighborhood mothers lassoed them up and drove them up to the park on the bluff. After Ross left I managed thirty minutes on the elliptical. The sweat felt good after two illness-attributed days off of working out. Tomorrow I’m going for weights and cardio.

Now I’m at the coffee shop. M’s watching her mother’s day present at home. T has a friend staying over. S and N are probably playing Wii. The sun has set. I’m facing the window, but I can see the people working in the coffee shop behind me in the reflection. The cars are turning on their headlights as they pass. Life is good. Life is fucking good. Please stay this way. Thank you very much.