Heart of Granite, Heart of Darkness
On Saturday a group from Pearl Street set out for Enchanted Rock. No picture can really prepare you for the scale of it, so I won't provide one. But it's this giant dome of pink granite counter-top* that you can see from miles away as you approach. It heats up in the sun, and then at night as it cools it makes very loud noises: this led the Native Americans (and surely settlers) to believe it to be enchanted.
We saw a rattlesnake. Rob, who is high on brains (among other things) but sometimes not entirely possessed of common sense got in a picture with it, and then proceeded to molest it with sticks and rocks until it rattled like a homicidal infant. We also discovered that cactus tastes a little like pomegranate, and took recordings of the coefficient of friction for wet granite. At the foot of the dome we found a creek so calm and clear that it seemed to run out of heaven; however, the geology major present, Costas, informed us that more likely uranium run-off from the llanite was toxic to most things that would otherwise cloud the water.
Despite marvels like Enchanted Rock, I find myself missing the cool southwest Virginia hills. Today is worse than most other days, it seems; even though things are going well here, the urge to drop everything and fly home is nearly overpowering. I know at least some of this is a desire to return to things that no longer exist, though, so I restrain myself. Still--I miss the cold roar of the Cascades and the green rustle of the oak and pine forests in the wind, and the sudden short thunderstorms heralded by the electric smell of ozone that so many call the smell of rain.
Our third roommate backed out yesterday, so we are again searching for someone. This, piled atop the pain of a thousand tiny insignificant things going wrong, has bestowed upon today a dark cloud that I cannot seem to shake. Usually directing my eyes upward to the blue sky is enough to shed such feelings, but today a too-hot sun glares back at me.
Whoever is in charge of Pearl Street's air conditioner insists on keeping the temperature in the low sixties. This is not what I came to Texas for, so I insist on keeping my window open; the effect is that my room resembles an oven to most visitors. I leave my door open until Steve from down the hall shows up and less-and-less politely closes my door. Yesterday he closed it while I was in the laundry room and locked me out. I haven't really got the energy to tell him that I just don't care about the air conditioning right now. It's a hard thing for me to say, because I feel so strongly about conservation, and simply because it's inconsiderate for me to not care (by definition). But I can't bring myself to feel anything about it.
I just want to bury my head in her lap and cry, today; but instead I will imagine her hands on my head as they were two days before she was stolen from us, and I will try to contribute something to the world to make up for all that I take.
* Literally, though the government is trying to stop people from mining the llanite, named for the nearby Town of Llano.
We saw a rattlesnake. Rob, who is high on brains (among other things) but sometimes not entirely possessed of common sense got in a picture with it, and then proceeded to molest it with sticks and rocks until it rattled like a homicidal infant. We also discovered that cactus tastes a little like pomegranate, and took recordings of the coefficient of friction for wet granite. At the foot of the dome we found a creek so calm and clear that it seemed to run out of heaven; however, the geology major present, Costas, informed us that more likely uranium run-off from the llanite was toxic to most things that would otherwise cloud the water.
Despite marvels like Enchanted Rock, I find myself missing the cool southwest Virginia hills. Today is worse than most other days, it seems; even though things are going well here, the urge to drop everything and fly home is nearly overpowering. I know at least some of this is a desire to return to things that no longer exist, though, so I restrain myself. Still--I miss the cold roar of the Cascades and the green rustle of the oak and pine forests in the wind, and the sudden short thunderstorms heralded by the electric smell of ozone that so many call the smell of rain.
Our third roommate backed out yesterday, so we are again searching for someone. This, piled atop the pain of a thousand tiny insignificant things going wrong, has bestowed upon today a dark cloud that I cannot seem to shake. Usually directing my eyes upward to the blue sky is enough to shed such feelings, but today a too-hot sun glares back at me.
Whoever is in charge of Pearl Street's air conditioner insists on keeping the temperature in the low sixties. This is not what I came to Texas for, so I insist on keeping my window open; the effect is that my room resembles an oven to most visitors. I leave my door open until Steve from down the hall shows up and less-and-less politely closes my door. Yesterday he closed it while I was in the laundry room and locked me out. I haven't really got the energy to tell him that I just don't care about the air conditioning right now. It's a hard thing for me to say, because I feel so strongly about conservation, and simply because it's inconsiderate for me to not care (by definition). But I can't bring myself to feel anything about it.
I just want to bury my head in her lap and cry, today; but instead I will imagine her hands on my head as they were two days before she was stolen from us, and I will try to contribute something to the world to make up for all that I take.
* Literally, though the government is trying to stop people from mining the llanite, named for the nearby Town of Llano.