Too hot and you burn up, too cold and you freeze.

The couple stood there at the painting and cooed each other. "Look at the beautiful strokes," they said. "The technique, and how he pulls it all together." And they were right. It was a technical masterpiece, and beautifully done. The strokes boldly created the mountains that were as indefinite yet significant as the myths that surrounded them, and decades ago the artist's brush forcefully propelled mist over those mountains. The mountains we watched in this sterilized museum. The couple was so wrong. I wanted to scream. "You fools!" The technical skill is simply the surface of art. How could they know? They didn't have the context. The sage in the work was gone. He had furled himself up--or been furled up--and a faceless monstrosity took his place. Perhaps it was for the better, as there was no longer any path for him. The village was isolated and alone. There were only insurmountable cliffs on all sides, stained with the rust and pollution of the mechanization that suffocates humanity. A soul was dieing in that painting. It was screaming out in the only way it could before it, too, was furled up and forgotten.

"The contrast in the colors are amazing," they said over that eternally bloody, dieing carcass. Then they moved on to the next work of art in that sterile museum, flirting and cooing.

How to finish top 10 in bike races: sandbag

The night air had a warm, damp smell to it, which spread over the city and softened it to a quiet lull. A cold fringe reminiscent of winter licked at my face, as my light quietly cut through the darkness ahead of the bike. It was the first spring night of the year.

A winter was over where my lack of fear was augmented by stress, which opened to apathy. The consequences forced me to relearn fear, for sheer self-preservation. Like all fear, it was crippling. With the stress gone, and time to practice and rest, the fear is replaced with skill and confidence. Those will soon give way to love. Love once again of the motion and views. Of wind in my face and the sensation of my tires gliding through corners. Love of what I do and the desire to continue it: well.

Was it 30th St, or 30th Ave?

The letters, sent every week like clockwork, were penned in thoughtful calligraphy. The ink told stories of adventure and triumph, of soul crushing tragedy and defeat. The words painted mountain valleys and urban landscape in beautiful poetry. The author, a young man, would inquire what the recipient thought about this or that, what was happening in her part of the world. He wrote what was on his mind, and what he had learned. It was an attempt to give her things, to help her with anything he could, to work with her, to grow together and learn together, mutually.

That man carried the letter--sealed in the thin, paper envelope--down the sidewalk. He passed under cherry trees in their first round of blossoms, a promise of freedom from the cold, overcast and misty weather. Warm, sunny, spring days were soon to come, when the cherry blossoms would again rise up and rain down from the trees. The man walked over the fallen blossoms with a subtle bounce in his step. He was later than normal that day.

He reached the blue mail box and found the mail carrier already there, pulling the previous day's letters out, to be shipped to their respective locations. The mailman was middle-aged with thick skin, and moved with a dulled quickness.
"Can you add this to the pile?" the man held out the letter.
The mailman grabbed it, glanced at the address neatly penned in calligraphy, and paused. "So you're the one sending these letters." He looked at the man. "She doesn't live at that address anymore." The mailman didn't notice the emptiness that descended from the brow of the man. "She left no forwarding address, and with no return address on these letters, we can only toss them in the trash." He held the letter back out to the man.

The man stood there, frozen, as a breeze blew across his face. He stared through the letter and past the mailman. The few seconds expanded into an eternity. He took a few steps back from the letter, clumsily turned, and walked off briskly and rigidly. His foot clipped a part of the sidewalk uprooted by a nearby tree, he caught himself, and kept going.

Two weeks later he was again walking down the sidewalk, letter in hand, as if he knew nothing better. At the mailbox, he habitually glanced at the letter to make sure it was addressed correctly: It now had one name, carefully and neatly penned, and one stamp: no address, nothing else. He heard the paper envelope slide down against the metal of the box, and the crash of it into the pile of letters within. "Next time, maybe I won't use a stamp," he thought to himself. He turned, and walked down the sidewalk with a bounce in his step.

If I can do this, everything else will be easier? Screw that!

I had a sick feeling well up inside of me. I felt my blood drain, my heart sink into my stomach, and my brain melt. I was ready to vomit. I wanted to stand up and walk out. To just get away. Why am I here? I now know better than this.

I did not leave. There would be consequences for leaving. I had the choice to play along, to come out OK, or to leave and have problems. I have found myself, once again, hostage to myself in a bizarre system. This time, at least, I know what is going on. I just need to play along for a little longer, then I will be free. I believed that years ago. That there was something to it, there was something good and worthwhile in the future. The alleged light is little more than a carrot on a stick. It was not worth following. Follow my heart, not the idiotic dogma of train tracks laid in front of me. So much has gone to waste. I was just out of this tunnel, so how am I back in here so quickly? I am ready to blow my way out. It's too dangerous. Give it a couple weeks, then I will be clear. If I am not, all bets are off. Waiting is too much an excuse for inaction, but now it is what I must accept.

My blood stained my clothes, but I got up to heal and push forward. In another time I had lost my way. I found it now, and I've left clues how to find it again. I'll fall again, get lost again, but as long as there is life in me, until it kills me, I will get back up, clean myself off, and move forward. I know what I need to do, when I get through this. I need to do it, and I need to avoid this place.

A few days after an argument over bikes on public roads

Reasons given for having a blackeye, stitches, scrapes, a limp, and soreness throughout my body (besides the "you should see the other guy"/"you should see the car").
-"I made fun of cal-poly one too many times."
-"I challenged someone to a dance-off."
-"Randy was not pleased with my paper presentation yesterday."
-"Loyce, did not take kindly to the question I had about 585"
-"I talked to Bernard about my PhD application, and things got a bit heated."
-When he walked into class and saw me, a friend yelled "Oh my God, Steven! What did Loyce do to you?" Loyce is the professor that was at the front of the room.

Reasons I wish I was in this condition:
-Saving baby orphans stranded on K-2

Reasons I was in this condition:
-Bike crash on the way home last night.

I was doing 20 or 25. The details of what exactly happened are fuzzy. I remember pulling out of a street and onto a main road behind one car with another car a hundred yards or so back. Then my memory is briefly blank only to restart with the feeling of myself struggling to keep control of the bike, like I had trouble keeping it upright. There's no visual memory of it, just tactile. My feet were then off the pedals and sliding over the ground. I must have been out of the saddle and still over the bike (this happened to me in another near crash when a foot pulled out of the pedal). It felt like a dream.

Then I remember laying in the road with pain throughout my body. Still no visual memory, and it felt like another dream. I crawled to get out of the road, although I'm not sure how I picked the right direction. Three people ran up to me from different sides telling me to stay still. I realized, with disappointment, that it was not a dream. I really was laying in the road, at night, after a bike crash, and in a whole lot of pain.

Only later did it occur to me how hard I must have hit the ground. Fortunately nothing broke, and I should be back in shape soon enough.
As for the bike, I only caught a glimpse before the fire fighters loaded it up and I got in the ambulance. The front wheel was considerably bent. Hopefully the frame is OK.

Why do people keep making TV shows about places I live!?

Unlike the OC, I feel like Portlandia hits the mark. Too well.
For example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVmq9dq6Nsg

Now that I watch it safely removed, it's hilarious and silly, but if I came across that crowd while biking in my spandex in Portland, it would mean as much to me as seeing backed up traffic in LA. Actually, I would probably be annoyed with all the people constantly clogging the bike routes. To not see people like that in a normal day in Portland would be the ridiculous thing.

The other sketches are no better (or worse?).

Finally, any of us can be boring, awesome people

There are numerous people that live colorful and interesting lives that often go beyond our imagination, and, fortunately, there are numerous opportunities for those people. Especially in college, newsletters are flooded with opportunities and scholarships for those people with diverse, powerful, and interesting lives. But what about the rest of us?

After consulting with a friend, I think it's time to make a scholarship that goes to the most dull and boring people (citizens and permanent residents only). Of course, there are a lot of us. To narrow down the field, priority will be given to people who have demonstrably strong experience living vicariously through others. The application would be similar to normal college and scholarship applications, but written for someone else. Essay topics would ask the applicant to describe how someone they know has overcome diversity to become a better person, and ask to describe experiences that built that other person's character. The successful applicant will include constructive feedback and helpful questions they asked the person they lived vicariously through, along with how they sat there to watch, listen, and think about how great it would be to live that life, too.

I would rock that application.