Even if you have seen it in pictures, you really don’t understand this strange stone village tucked in between staggering mountain peaks and profound valleys. This is a landscape that is truly three dimensional, and it has little or nothing to do with the two-dimensional landscapes we are familiar with on the central plains of the United States. Standing at the top of Machu Picchu and looking out over the entire settlement gives one the feeling of profound vertigo as the mesa drops off in front you, dropping off five or six hundred feet in two or three horizontal meters. The differences between the level areas where the buildings are located and the central grassy plazas are striking, and one spends the entire visit climbing stairs in one direction or other. Just getting to Machu Picchu from Aguas Calientes (the small town at the bottom of the mountain where tourists begin their climb to the top) is a challenge because the road is a series of thirteen switchbacks that take you up to Machu Picchu, so you’re already a little dizzy when you make it up to the central plateau. The pictures do not prepare you for the experience: the depth of the three-dimensional reality of Machu Picchu is not really reproducible in two-dimensional photography. Yes, you can get an idea of the scale of the roughly hewn mountains that jut straight up only to plunge down insanely into a the river gorge below. One should be holding on to something while trying to take it all in. After walking around a bit, you do start to understand the majesty of the place, its grandeur as an emperor’s luxury palace, its bold statement of power and ego. The construction of Machu Picchu is an over-the-top statement by an Incan emperor, Pachacuti, who was so powerful that he could build his palace in this out-of-way high plateau and get away with it. Machu Picchu served many functions, both secular and sacred for a star-gazing emperor of Tahuantinsuyu (the Inca name for the empire) who was at his height of power when he decided to build this odd home in the clouds. One notices almost immediately that many of the clouds surrounding the site are seen from above, not below. Except for the tourists, though, the place is strangely empty. None of buildings have roofs, which have long since fallen in and disintegrated, so in some aspects, we are now looking at the desiccated skeleton of a long-since dead corpse. Abandoned before the arrival of the Spanish, the Incas, whose empire would collapse not long after the arrival of the Spanish, never came back to Machu Picchu, and it fell into disuse forever. One might study the cosmology of this enigmatic town which sits silently at about 8,000 feet, or examine the construction secrets of Incan masons, or we could marvel at their ability to cut giant blocks of stone, move them, and then to lift them into place on a temple wall. Machu Picchu is, however, inscrutable and does not give up its secrets willingly or easily. The mysteries of why this was built, or the function of some of its stranger structures will forever be unknown. One could wander about Machu Picchu for years, going up and down its endless staircases, and never really understand it as a construction. Certainly, its main message is about wealth and power, how to get it, how to keep it, but there seems a little more to it as you ponder its almost endless terraces, it narrow passages, its symbolic geometric iconography. The entire structure seems to be the unification of earth and sky via this intermediary point between two huge mountain peaks, a ridge daring both the mountains and the valleys. My point would probably be this: don’t let anyone tell how interesting Machu Picchu might be, go and experience it for yourself. Tip of the hat to Millennium Tours of Texas for breaking down all of the barriers and making this trip so easy and so possible.
Category Archives: ritual
On Machu Picchu
Even if you have seen it in pictures, you really don’t understand this strange stone village tucked in between staggering mountain peaks and profound valleys. This is a landscape that is truly three dimensional, and it has little or nothing to do with the two-dimensional landscapes we are familiar with on the central plains of the United States. Standing at the top of Machu Picchu and looking out over the entire settlement gives one the feeling of profound vertigo as the mesa drops off in front you, dropping off five or six hundred feet in two or three horizontal meters. The differences between the level areas where the buildings are located and the central grassy plazas are striking, and one spends the entire visit climbing stairs in one direction or other. Just getting to Machu Picchu from Aguas Calientes (the small town at the bottom of the mountain where tourists begin their climb to the top) is a challenge because the road is a series of thirteen switchbacks that take you up to Machu Picchu, so you’re already a little dizzy when you make it up to the central plateau. The pictures do not prepare you for the experience: the depth of the three-dimensional reality of Machu Picchu is not really reproducible in two-dimensional photography. Yes, you can get an idea of the scale of the roughly hewn mountains that jut straight up only to plunge down insanely into a the river gorge below. One should be holding on to something while trying to take it all in. After walking around a bit, you do start to understand the majesty of the place, its grandeur as an emperor’s luxury palace, its bold statement of power and ego. The construction of Machu Picchu is an over-the-top statement by an Incan emperor, Pachacuti, who was so powerful that he could build his palace in this out-of-way high plateau and get away with it. Machu Picchu served many functions, both secular and sacred for a star-gazing emperor of Tahuantinsuyu (the Inca name for the empire) who was at his height of power when he decided to build this odd home in the clouds. One notices almost immediately that many of the clouds surrounding the site are seen from above, not below. Except for the tourists, though, the place is strangely empty. None of buildings have roofs, which have long since fallen in and disintegrated, so in some aspects, we are now looking at the desiccated skeleton of a long-since dead corpse. Abandoned before the arrival of the Spanish, the Incas, whose empire would collapse not long after the arrival of the Spanish, never came back to Machu Picchu, and it fell into disuse forever. One might study the cosmology of this enigmatic town which sits silently at about 8,000 feet, or examine the construction secrets of Incan masons, or we could marvel at their ability to cut giant blocks of stone, move them, and then to lift them into place on a temple wall. Machu Picchu is, however, inscrutable and does not give up its secrets willingly or easily. The mysteries of why this was built, or the function of some of its stranger structures will forever be unknown. One could wander about Machu Picchu for years, going up and down its endless staircases, and never really understand it as a construction. Certainly, its main message is about wealth and power, how to get it, how to keep it, but there seems a little more to it as you ponder its almost endless terraces, it narrow passages, its symbolic geometric iconography. The entire structure seems to be the unification of earth and sky via this intermediary point between two huge mountain peaks, a ridge daring both the mountains and the valleys. My point would probably be this: don’t let anyone tell how interesting Machu Picchu might be, go and experience it for yourself. Tip of the hat to Millennium Tours of Texas for breaking down all of the barriers and making this trip so easy and so possible.
On weaving
While in Peru, I got a chance to see what hand spinning and weaving is really all about. Spinning and weaving are ancient arts which have been practiced for multiple millennia by multiple civilizations who were faced with the limitations of making their clothing out of animal skins. Though leathers and hides were our first natural “clothing” (ignoring the metaphorical fig leaf, that is), those materials are cumbersome and difficult to manage and bettered suited to more rugged applications such as footwear, belts, and hats. Weaving, whether it be cotton, wool, or silk, allows greater flexibility for shaping garments to the strange forms of human beings, a collection of odd curves and straight lines. From a practical standpoint, you don’t have to kill an animal to get its skin, which is an enormous break for hunters who might have to face dangerous animals and risk serious injury or even death. Cotton and silk hold no such risks, and cutting the wool off a sheep is not nearly as dangerous as fighting a full-grown bear for his skin. The spinners and weavers I saw in Peru were using techniques for spinning yarn that were adopted by their ancestors multiple millennia ago, using their hands, a wooden spool, and gravity to get the right spin and tension on their new yarns. It looks simple, but I am sure only the most skilled spinners (Arachne et al.) are enlisted to make the yarns that will go into the new textiles that the weavers will create. The weavers set up their looms of varying sizes according to the actual work at hand–nothing like stating the totally obvious. The bigger the loom, the bigger the piece they are making. The secret to good weaving probably depends on three things: good yarns, a good project plan, focus, especially if the weaving involves a design. Though designs are not mandatory for making a good blanket or coat, designs are a big part of human existence, enhancing the aesthetic experience and making life just a little more fun. Humans wouldn’t be human if they did not want to beautify their work, individualizing the weaving experience and personalizing their work. The designs are not particularly difficult to do, but the work requires care and concentration. It is a skill that must be learned. Weaving by hand, on a manual loom, is not a project that might be approached either lightly or superficially, requiring patience, a steady eye, a calm nerve, and a certain dedication that is not found in every person. Good weavers are probably made, not born. In Peru I found that great care was taken in the preparation of yarns, and that these weavers were also great dyers in the sense that they were experimenting with colors and traditional dyes that could be made out of natural materials which they had on hand, not industrial dyes made out of harsh chemicals. I could tell that “weaver” was both a profession and an identity, and that these women, because all were women, took great pride in their profession which gave them both a purpose in life and an identity as a worker, giving them a bit of an income. Some might say that this is just so much circus or theater for gringo traveler who looking for an exotic or quaint indigenous show or exhibit at which he might take some pictures to take back to the family, and, at the same time, buy a few souvenirs for the wife and family, which is, I think, a little cynical and whiny. All tourism provides those opportunities at some point. These native Peruvian women can spin and weave and make some beautiful things. They have talent as artists, as creators, as contributors. To say anything less would be to sadly undermine a vast pool of very talented people. Spinning and weaving, two ancient talents still practiced today in rural Peru.
On weaving
While in Peru, I got a chance to see what hand spinning and weaving is really all about. Spinning and weaving are ancient arts which have been practiced for multiple millennia by multiple civilizations who were faced with the limitations of making their clothing out of animal skins. Though leathers and hides were our first natural “clothing” (ignoring the metaphorical fig leaf, that is), those materials are cumbersome and difficult to manage and bettered suited to more rugged applications such as footwear, belts, and hats. Weaving, whether it be cotton, wool, or silk, allows greater flexibility for shaping garments to the strange forms of human beings, a collection of odd curves and straight lines. From a practical standpoint, you don’t have to kill an animal to get its skin, which is an enormous break for hunters who might have to face dangerous animals and risk serious injury or even death. Cotton and silk hold no such risks, and cutting the wool off a sheep is not nearly as dangerous as fighting a full-grown bear for his skin. The spinners and weavers I saw in Peru were using techniques for spinning yarn that were adopted by their ancestors multiple millennia ago, using their hands, a wooden spool, and gravity to get the right spin and tension on their new yarns. It looks simple, but I am sure only the most skilled spinners (Arachne et al.) are enlisted to make the yarns that will go into the new textiles that the weavers will create. The weavers set up their looms of varying sizes according to the actual work at hand–nothing like stating the totally obvious. The bigger the loom, the bigger the piece they are making. The secret to good weaving probably depends on three things: good yarns, a good project plan, focus, especially if the weaving involves a design. Though designs are not mandatory for making a good blanket or coat, designs are a big part of human existence, enhancing the aesthetic experience and making life just a little more fun. Humans wouldn’t be human if they did not want to beautify their work, individualizing the weaving experience and personalizing their work. The designs are not particularly difficult to do, but the work requires care and concentration. It is a skill that must be learned. Weaving by hand, on a manual loom, is not a project that might be approached either lightly or superficially, requiring patience, a steady eye, a calm nerve, and a certain dedication that is not found in every person. Good weavers are probably made, not born. In Peru I found that great care was taken in the preparation of yarns, and that these weavers were also great dyers in the sense that they were experimenting with colors and traditional dyes that could be made out of natural materials which they had on hand, not industrial dyes made out of harsh chemicals. I could tell that “weaver” was both a profession and an identity, and that these women, because all were women, took great pride in their profession which gave them both a purpose in life and an identity as a worker, giving them a bit of an income. Some might say that this is just so much circus or theater for gringo traveler who looking for an exotic or quaint indigenous show or exhibit at which he might take some pictures to take back to the family, and, at the same time, buy a few souvenirs for the wife and family, which is, I think, a little cynical and whiny. All tourism provides those opportunities at some point. These native Peruvian women can spin and weave and make some beautiful things. They have talent as artists, as creators, as contributors. To say anything less would be to sadly undermine a vast pool of very talented people. Spinning and weaving, two ancient talents still practiced today in rural Peru.
On losing the Super Bowl
I don’t quite understand the significance of a winner-take-all one-game playoff for the championship of the National Football League. After watching over forty of these things, none of them deliver the drama of the hype that is built up before the big game which turns out to be extremely anticlimactic. Even the exciting, close games are anti-climactic. Yesterday’s game was no different. Some great plays were mixed in with a few awful mistakes, and the Ravens won by three. So, on this given Sunday, the team from Baltimore won by three, which is not to say they were better, it just says that they won. Time finally ran out. The final grains of sand trickled through the hour glass, and the team from San Francisco came up three points short. I’m just not convinced that it means anything. The simulacra of battle, a non-lethal version of “take-the-hill”, is played out on a grid of one hundred yards with each team defending their “hill” at each end of the field, harkening back to the eighteenth century when the English and the French faced off on different battlefields across Europe. What is it about human beings, males in particular, that they must fight to prove dominance, to elect a winner. Why are we hardwired for violence? Granted, football is incredibly violent, but protections are built in to make it very painful, but generally non-lethal. Players are wounded in the simulacra of war, but they aren’t killed. Football is the ultimate simulacra of war with rules in place so that a winner might emerge and vanquish the loser. The losers are destined not only to the shame of defeat, but because they are not destroyed, they must live with their defeat. The worst aspect to their defeat may not be the humiliation of watching the victors pick up their trophy, but perhaps it is the dark shadow of losing which will descend on them, erasing them and their excellent season from the collective memories of all who saw them lose. No one remembers the losers–no fame, no glory, the taste of blood and dirt in their mouths as they lie beaten and sore on the ground, the sound of the winners shouting out their victory. The losers lost only by three points in this case, which makes their loss all the more bitter and painful. Was it a question of luck, of skill, of the stars, of predestination, of cowardly behavior, of bad planning, of poor execution, or perhaps it was a combination of many of those things. Now, it is all over, and planning for the next season is already underway. The fans will remember their heroes, and the vanquished have been swept into the shadows of sports history inhabited by the unlucky second-place finishers. Other than a little excitement when the lights went out, or when the losing side almost caught up to their destroyers, the game was a humdrum affair. Ironically, more people will remember the new advertisements that were displayed during breaks than will remember the actual game, which was pedestrian at best, totally forgettable at worst. So Audi, M & M Mars, Volkswagen, Anhauser-Busch, and Dodge had great games displaying their latest marketing strategies for selling their products. Perhaps playing the Super Bowl is less about deciding which team is best and more about a lollapalooza canon-sized salute to our hyper-consumer capitalistic society, obsessed with selling/buying the next big thing. The game is only a pretext to selling us more stuff.
On the Spanish fighting bulls
There is no figure more iconic in Spanish culture than the fighting bull, all 1,400 pounds of him. When students ask me about Spain, they inevitably also ask if we will be going to a bull fight, the ritual slaughter of one of these brutal animals. Even though the bull is highly recognized, highly iconic, he occupies a very small part of real Spanish culture. Yet bullfighting is such an odd and outrageous spectacle that it has become one of the most recognizable parts of Spain’s image. The fighting bull, a rather savage and brutal species of cattle, are native to Spain and have been bred for centuries for this one purpose: to be killed by a “matador de toros” or torero, armed only with a very sharp sword and his cape. Given the ferocious nature of these animals, bullfighting is an extremely dangerous line of work, and many men have died because of it. The bulls are raised in the distant high pastures of the central, southern, and western mesas that cover most of Spain. Curiously, the cows of the same species are relatively tame in spite of their large fierce appearance. The ranchers that raise these animals begin to cull their herds to the “plaza” when the bulls reach about three years of age and weigh in at about 1,200 to 1,500 pounds. I will skip the exact details of the ritual killing of these animals, ritual slaughter because others have written about it before and done a much better job–Hemingway, for example, in Death in the Afternoon. One might make an argument for the art of bullfighting, the danger, the ballet, the pressure, but I’m not super-impressed. Raising a large animal in order to kill it with a sword seems like animal cruelty, I’m just saying. Others would disagree and say that this is tradition, culture, and passion, but I would suggest that not all traditions, not all bits of culture, are worth saving. I don’t think that Spanish culture is better because of bullfighting, and I don’t think Spanish culture would be missing a whole lot if bullfighting went the way of the Dodo bird. A few old cigar-smoking curmudgeons with raspy voices will be free at five o’clock on any given afternoon, ranchers will have to raise regular beef cattle, and a few skinny guys with good sword skills will have to get real jobs. Still others will argue that it is hypocritical to challenge or criticize bullfighting and then go eat a hamburger. Yes, we slaughter our beef cattle, but it takes but a moment, not the average fifteen minutes that a single bull might last.To idealize bullfighting seems disingenuous, if not outright reckless, turning the ritual slaughter of an animal into a spectacle and business. Since I am not really Spanish, (I hear the murmuring), I just don’t understand either the ritual or the tradition. Perhaps I am just a bleeding-heart, tree-hugging, granola eating liberal that has no guts for a little pain and suffering, and I don’t understand the beauty of the pageantry, the glory and art of the successful bullfighter who runs that sword into the bull’s back. Perhaps I just don’t understand the danger, the challenge, the pain, the athleticism of the entire dark scene–blood, sweat, sand, swords, pink socks, and guys with ponytails. The bull is at the center of an extremely bizarre happening that is almost impossible to describe to the uninitiated. The animals are huge, fast, and dangerous, and the guys trying to kill them are definitely risking their lives, but in the end, I might ask, what’s the point? Prove they are more macho than the animal?
On cemeteries and graveyards
What could I possibly say about cemeteries that has not already been said? Seriously creepy, still, morbid, sad, pastoral, cold, lonely, desolate, the destination from which no one returns but the gravedigger and the clergy. You can call the local bone pile anything you want, but it never stops be exactly that: a bone pile, a pile of bones. That which is left when we die, the mortal combination of bone and flesh, unmoving, unfeeling, unseeing, is not but the leftovers of a life that burned brightly for a short amount of time before the soul took its leave, leaving only ash and emptiness behind. I am not convinced that there is any point in burying bodies in the ground. There are health issues for doing it, but the mortal remains of any person are only what remains after death. In spite of what Dr. Frankenstein might have alleged at some point in the past, bodies cannot be regenerated or reanimated once the end has come. There is a limit to what modern medicine and empirical sciences can do with the spark of life, but then again cemeteries are monuments to defeat and the inevitability of death, an inevitability that gives us all energy and passion, knowing that all mortal things are finite. Cemeteries are clearly about memory, creating memory, creating a monument, mourning, loss, the past, and leaving it behind. We build cemeteries because we fear death and need to put it inside an official area where we normally don’t go. Yes, we go to cemeteries to leave flowers, mourn for the dead, and to leave the newly dead, but otherwise our legends and mythologies are designed to scare away the curious and the foolish. The living know only too well that death is only always too close, but that by isolating death in a special place, death is far away and removed. The tombstones are iconic of both death and memory, and although they carry the names of the dead, the stones are a reassurance to the living that they are, indeed, alive because no stone yet carries their particular name. The cemetery is then both attractive and repellant to the living, a normal by-product of a healthy society which cannot conceive or understand the true nature of life’s final mystery. All will go to the cemetery in their time, and so in our sadness and loss, we erect monuments and stones to the memory of the departed. The stones do nothing to alleviate the sadness of loss, but the simulacrum of funerals, burial, and departure are traditions and rituals which distract us from the business at hand, saying goodbye to a loved one. For outsiders, the cemetery is a completely different kind of place: an inscribed history of a place, the people who lived there, and the people who still live there. Cemeteries, when cared for, are pleasant, quiet, pastoral scenes which are good for thinking and relaxing. What is sad, however, are the forgotten cemeteries which herald changing times and displaced civilizations, forgotten families, the abandoned dead. Perhaps cemeteries exist because the living fear being forgotten at all. Yet the brutal reality of time and memory is the cruel truth that at some point in the future, we will all be forgotten. The physical never endures. Poetry endures, words endure, stories endure. The details may fade, but the essence of art, poetry, words, will endure even when the faces are forgotten. So we dig the graves and plant the headstones.
On time poverty
I think we all wish we had more time to do the things we would like to do. As a nation, we run to work, run to school, run to piano lessons, to football practice, to band practice, to the grocery store, to church, to whatever the next thing is. Today I didn’t eat lunch until 5 pm, which was totally my fault for bad planning, but I felt like I was running to and fro in the earth without a moment to breath, think, or take stock of the day–not to be sure. Time slips away and the day is gone, and I often feel like I’ve accomplished little or nothing, all the while thinking about what I have to do tomorrow, which is already stacking up as a busy day, and I’m not even there yet. We have successfully filled our days with so many meetings, events, happenings, practices, and duties that we must blindly scurry from place to place like so many moles looking for our next meal. Should lunch or dinner be something that we wolf down just to gain a little protein and few calories so we don’t pass out at the next football game? We text messages instead of talk to people, we send emails instead of communicating, we skype because we can’t be in two places at once. We double-ook and over-commit ourselves, and before we know it, we are late to everything, stop lights are our enemies, traffic and parking are more of challenge than pleasure. As we rush about trying to make everyone happy, we neglect our own poor abandoned soul in favor of trying to please everyone, so basically no one is happy. They don’t call it the rat race for nothing. There has to be a point in everyone’s life when you reach a breaking point: your clothes are sweaty and wrinkled, you did just miss a meeting, you don’t know where you are supposed to be, your head hurts, your stomach grumbles, you don’t really know what your life has become other than a chaotic jumble of people, places, and things. You no longer know what a rose smells like unless it comes in an air-freshener, you don’t remember the last time you sat with someone and just talked about nothing. You are stressed and cranky and facing an all-nighter because someone wants another paper or a report or an accounting or something. Should you have another cup of coffee really quickly? Or maybe a shower will help you wake up? Everything turns into a band-aid, a patch job so you can get the next task done. You lose perspective. If only you had more time to get things done. Is it time to start saying “no” and begin to recuperate your life? Is there more to life than over-committing to a dozen causes, to working sixty hours a week, to creating a schedule that is so hostile that your life is no longer your own? Perhaps.
On time poverty
I think we all wish we had more time to do the things we would like to do. As a nation, we run to work, run to school, run to piano lessons, to football practice, to band practice, to the grocery store, to church, to whatever the next thing is. Today I didn’t eat lunch until 5 pm, which was totally my fault for bad planning, but I felt like I was running to and fro in the earth without a moment to breath, think, or take stock of the day–not to be sure. Time slips away and the day is gone, and I often feel like I’ve accomplished little or nothing, all the while thinking about what I have to do tomorrow, which is already stacking up as a busy day, and I’m not even there yet. We have successfully filled our days with so many meetings, events, happenings, practices, and duties that we must blindly scurry from place to place like so many moles looking for our next meal. Should lunch or dinner be something that we wolf down just to gain a little protein and few calories so we don’t pass out at the next football game? We text messages instead of talk to people, we send emails instead of communicating, we skype because we can’t be in two places at once. We double-ook and over-commit ourselves, and before we know it, we are late to everything, stop lights are our enemies, traffic and parking are more of challenge than pleasure. As we rush about trying to make everyone happy, we neglect our own poor abandoned soul in favor of trying to please everyone, so basically no one is happy. They don’t call it the rat race for nothing. There has to be a point in everyone’s life when you reach a breaking point: your clothes are sweaty and wrinkled, you did just miss a meeting, you don’t know where you are supposed to be, your head hurts, your stomach grumbles, you don’t really know what your life has become other than a chaotic jumble of people, places, and things. You no longer know what a rose smells like unless it comes in an air-freshener, you don’t remember the last time you sat with someone and just talked about nothing. You are stressed and cranky and facing an all-nighter because someone wants another paper or a report or an accounting or something. Should you have another cup of coffee really quickly? Or maybe a shower will help you wake up? Everything turns into a band-aid, a patch job so you can get the next task done. You lose perspective. If only you had more time to get things done. Is it time to start saying “no” and begin to recuperate your life? Is there more to life than over-committing to a dozen causes, to working sixty hours a week, to creating a schedule that is so hostile that your life is no longer your own? Perhaps.
On waking up (in the morning)
Yes, the sleep deprivation experiments have been going very well. I’m finally to the hallucination stage. I slept almost nine hours last night in an attempt to “catch up” a bit, although I know that’s a worthless idea as well. Between work and school I have lost a lot of sleep. Getting up early to go to school or work has deprived me of a lot of valuable shut-eye, but worst of all, I hate the feeling of hearing the alarm and having to wake by force, not allowing myself to gradually come awake. I feel a little wobbly and sick, my eyes don’t focus and my balance is off. My stomach feels funny, but the idea of food makes me sicker. I rub my eyes, but they refuse to focus. My only refuge is the shower. Shower, shave. Is my blood really that red? I put in my contacts, which is nigh on the level of brain surgery at those ungodly hours of the morning. My brain feels like someone stuffed cotton candy in there. And all the while I’m trying to get my bearings, the clock is ticking, and departure time is creeping up quickly. I put a cup of day-old coffee into the microwave in the hopes that it doesn’t taste all that bad when it’s hot. Why don’t my socks match? Did this shirt always have this greasy spot on it? Back to the closet to find another shirt only to find that they are hanging in the laundry room. And the clock ticks. I’m still not a happy camper and now I have to find all my stuff: keys, wallet, cell phone, Itouch, books, papers, hat; and I half to make sure that there is nothing special I have to take for today. Sleepiness adles my brain. I grab my lunch off of the counter and put it with the rest of the things that are going today. I grab the coffee out of the microwave, and now I have a cup of day-old stale coffee that is now warm–no improvement. Where’s my stupid watch? Now, my pockets are full, I dump out the coffee (which is what I should have done in the first place), button a stray button, think about a light jacket today, but decline, gather up my things and head for the door. My head is already full of cotton candy, but now other things such as student advisement, a conference paper, classes, and meetings are all begging for time in the cerebral cortex. My ride arrives (I carpool), and I head out the door, giving thanks that I am not driving today.
