Growth
Another wet and overcast day in the city.
Everything is darkened, dampened, and seemingly depressed. Even the street lamps don't seem as bright as they ought to.
But this season is a boon for the vegetation, and the life it supports, in all its forms.
Cars drive along the wet pavement where the rubber and wet asphalt make it sound like the road has been covered in cellophane, and the ambient light radiating from the corners of every car smears across the ground, blending into a myriad of clashing oranges, red, greens, and black. As I go down the sidewalk I see all kinds of litter strewn about in unattended grass in front of the knick-knack shop that opened and closed in a single month. Arriving at the light rail station there is still more garbage strewn about. I then imagine what it would be like if everybody actually used garbage cans, and how it would save money because you'd never have to bring in a crew to search and round up garbage. I then also contemplate how if the garbage was not there, that crew would be without a job...so there's sort of an odd, symbiotic relationship that emerges within the city.
Light rail arrives.
I get on the train: I look left, and I look right. The usual assortment of tired workers, young G's, old G's, and students such as myself. I never sit down but rather assume my place in front of the door that's going to open at my stop, and I stare blankly at the window for the 3 stops in between where I am and where I'm going. I glance up and read the warning label with white text on a black background informing passengers that they will be punished under penal code 587 (A) if they pull the emergency-door level in a non-emergency event. For a moment in my mind's eye I imagine myself doing this; I'd never really pull the lever though. I think about how the metal for the train must have been fabricated. I think about the fitting tolerances that must be allowed between the rail and the wheels. I ponder what kind of current is supplied to the light rail train to make it careen down the tracks, and to power the air-conditioner unit that keeps the passengers comfortable.
I arrive at my interchange, and go through the routine of crossing over the tracks and waiting for the train headed in a direction just deviated of the one I came from. Young black youth's with headphones saunter over as well, headphones playing what sounds to me like a demo program for a drum-machine, walking like they have a limp, and head occasionally whipping around to stare in some direction as though they were waiting for a something to happen. I am already in place across the track, and when one comes my direction I make no movement; like a leaf in water coming upon a rock, he slows down, then hovers about and keeps going. An older black gentlemen with a nice suit colored red and brown like clay and alligator shoes to match, standing tall at 6'8" with short hair joining a short beard as white as wool, approaches from my right walking along the bumpy yellow "loading zone" that runs alongside the track in the station. I take a step back out of his way and, when he is just only in my peripheral view, give the slightest of nods. He also gives the slightest of nods, and proceeds along. I step back to where I was, and board the train.
After a few stops on the train two officers of the Regional Transit patrol appear seemingly out of thin air, one of them saying with a firm voice "Tickets and passes, please." One immediately becomes occupied with another passenger (though for what reason I am unaware), and the other who made the announcement makes his assertion as he walks down the aisle and thanks each person for having their item ready. Then the second officer becomes unoccupied, and starts the same routine until a passenger next to me mentions the other officer did this already. I look out the window and see we're now passing by a cemetery and notice that the sky has the same color as some of the tomb stones I can see through the foreground of cement walls with gaps of chain-link fence covered in ivy go rushing by. For a moment, I also see myself in the reflection upon the window set inside the door.
I arrive at my final stop and move to yet another position for my next departure. There is already one other student there waiting, and I come to take my place and turn it into two students. Within twenty minutes two becomes four becomes seven becomes ten. Everybody, already being well trained now in the unspoken social etiquette of feeling awkward around everyone, maintains at least three feet of distance from each other person. The shuttle has two elevations in it and I sit in the first seat of an elevated row; there is a panel there fixed to the shuttle where I can keep my right hand out of view. After I'm seated a fairly pretty girl sits opposite to me just slightly off to the side on the lower elevation. As the shuttle goes my boyishness gets the better of me, and I take a quick glance at her only to find she's already looking at me. I look away as a smile I can't stop comes to my face, and I set my head on my hand. I have a brief fleet of day dreaming; I imagine myself walking her to class and talking about the Zombieland movie that's showing at the studen union soon, and how zombies have been doing well as a theme for cinema. I imagine myself sitting in the fountain area making playful conversation while noodling around on the guitar. I imagine I get to see that secret smile that everybody has in them. My boyishness gets me again, and I take another look, and again she is already looking at me. I look away again, only this time I don't imagine anything. I tell myself to get real; I don't have enough game to get myself between point A and B. I follow my protocol of thought and make the assumption that she is already taken. My skin is also not particularly great this day. I am immediately tired of my day dreaming, steal away my focus, and look at the floor until my stop arrives.
Before going to my first class I make a quick stop by the Engineering department and grab 4 copies of the Add slips (for adding into classes). Even at 8:30 A.M., with the office being open only 30 minutes by this point, the office is already busy.
I head over to Sequoia Hall and find my classroom occupied by another class already in session. I sit against the wall across the hallway from the door and decide to write some lyrics to a song of my own creation that I could only dream of ever hearing in its fullest form. As I am writing another couple of students show up, glance at the door, then glance at me, and then sit down in the hallway. In hardly another moment, another student comes by, looks at the door, then at me, then looks in the door, then enters the room.
"Oh, you're not waiting for anatomy?" asked one of the students who initially sat down.
"Nope, I'm waiting for that one, actually" and point to the door across the hall. They both look at each other and chuckle just a little, and walk into anatomy. Shortly after that another student comes down the hall...looks at the door, looks at me, and then sits across the hall from me and pulls out an anatomy book.
"Oh, that room is actually open, I'm not even waiting for this class."
"Oh? Huh...well, thanks!" And he walks in.
I am amused, and for a short while ponder how people's perception of the door and its availability was affected just by where I sat in relation to it.
Eventually my class assembles and the routine of early-morning engineering is underway. Before the class starts though a student in a desk adjacent to mine was having a conversation with an older gentleman. "Man, I feel so old now and like I've been in school forever."
This causes me to turn slowly and look upon him briefly with inspection as though I were about to say something. I then cock my head just slowly at the older gentlemen and meet eyes with him, and raise an eyebrow as if to say, "This kid must know a thing or two eh?" and the older gentleman smirks, because he understands my gesture, and proceeds to ask, "How old are you?"
"I'm twenty-two years old, but I'm already on my fourth year."
What does he know? I'm twenty four and on my sixth year.
But what do I know?
"Well, you're still leagues ahead." says the older man, and I feel slightly better.
"Professional Topics for Mechanical Engineers" was the title of the course. Basically a hybrid of statistics, economics, and ethics. When the teacher asked if we knew what we'd be learning about (before giving the information of its hybrid nature), I almost wanted to say "Planned Obsolescence!" I think this class will be fairly easy in this case since in my last semester at the city college I took both Statistics and Economics. I guess I'll have to play along with the whole "ethics" thing for now.
Back to the Engineering complex that is Riverside Hall for trying to add into Fluid Dynamics. I make brief talk with another engineer about how challenging of a professor Estelle Eke is. She has a brilliant mind but expects everybody to perform at her level. Then I get a surprise: a friendly acquaintence of mind from my Dynamics class last semester, Joe, shows up for Fluid Dynamics as well. I make some talk with him about Mechanics of materials since he is taking it with the same professor (Salveson) that I had the semester prior. He asks if he can borrow my text book, and I am immediately wary. I am a strictly-business kind of guy, and already in my mind I am preparing to have him sign a written form of consent of my own design should anything sheisty go down, and he tries to get out of owing me a book. I plan to keep my text books primarily for when I will need to study for the Engineer in Training examinations.
Class begins and our graduate-student professor Smarkle (who is surprisingly caucasion for such a name) amuses the class. He'd mentioned how when trying to create a gmail account the name it recommended to him was "AsSmarkle" He starts going over the course syllabus when who should come through the door: Allison. As she takes a seat, and just as she turns, I make my finger into a gun and fire an imaginary shot along with a smile at her. She's surprised, for just a moment, and smiles back and waves. Joe is also amused by the fact she is in this class, as we three had occassionally formed a study group for our Dynamics course. The material for today was only slightly interesting as we touched down on the basics of viscosity, the rest being all extremely basic day one disclaimers like, "You should know by this point your units for force, velocity, density, and..." the list goes on.
After class I decided to get something to eat with Joe. My plans for the day at some point were to have lunch with Allison when she had her break from 1:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M., but I was very hungry in the immediate moment and figured when Allison came around I could keep her company just as well. So we got some of the hot, delicious, greasy, chinese food that's served in the food court from Kung Fu Fat's along with some very spicy chili sauce. We briefly look around for a place to sit and Joe eyes a spot at the end of two tables pushed together, one of the tables being occupied by a pair of young ladies.
"Hey, sorry to bother you, would you mind if we sit here?" says Joe
"No, not at all / go ahead." they say with their friendly phrases overlapping.
One of them isn't quite comfortable with it entirely I can tell, but that doesn't bother myself nor Joe.
Once we sit we discuss this and that; the prospecting of rescpectable women during this semester, about how Eke was smart and how she was practically wiping all of our noses the whole semester while she'd rather be off designing jets for fun. He also has his own bar out in Old Roseville, just around the corner from the Owl Club where I once played with Plexxus. I remember that particular night as well: I was becoming exhausted from a lack of food that particular day to a point where I almost fainted while we were setting up. Charles asked me if I was hypoglycemic, and I still wonder about it myself since it was not the first time I'd ever been asked that question.
Eventually Joe and I finish our meals, and we part ways for the day while striking a new deal to bring the mechanics of materials book by tomorrow. I have some time between now and my luncheon with Allison, so I decide to head on over to the book store. As I walk in there's an employee standing at the door ready to great people, "Hello, welcome to the book store." says the pretty blonde girl. "Hello" I say, and again steal away my focus. They have the first floor setup for the bustle of students buying their books, a great leap beyond when the bookstore used to have a quarter of the floorspace and only had four registers compared with the thirty it has now. In my mind I briefly contemplate just how much money is being exchanged here in a single hour.
Say every cash register services one customer a minute.
And that each customer will buy some number of books averaging out to $200 (we're being conservative here)
And say that, for this hour of the day, the store is at its busiest, and no register has a pause between serving customers.
(30 registers)(1 customer / minute )( $200 / customer-register)( 60 minutes / hour) = $360,000 / hour
Staggering. More money is made in that single hour than some people make in a year, or two years, or five years. I imagine showing this figure to a person in each of these cases, and how they might react to it.
This is also the first semester in some time where used Engineering books have been available.
I've still got time until I meet with Allison, so I decide cozy up in a rather uncomfortable rocking chair in the student union's fireplace lounge, and read Lord of the Flies. One thing I like about the way this is written, particularly the details, is that some things are extremely graphic while others leave it to imagination. A general thing to think about a book, but this one does it quite well. Here's a small excerpt:
"So Ralph asserted his chieftainship and could not have chosen a better way if he had thought for days. Against this weapon, so indefinable and so effective, Jack was powerless and raged without knowing why. By the time the pile was built, they were on different sides of a high barrier."
I also like seeing the slow transformation and bloodlust that is entering Jack's personality, and how he is coming to love hunting for the pig more than eating the pig itself.
I check my watch, and the time is 1:14 P.M.
Perhaps Allison is just busy, or having to deal with some class issues.
As I am slowly walking and contemplating this I notice a flier for the Union's Art Galler and its new exhibit. I step inside and nicely spaced along the perimiter of the walls are framed photographs. Just as I start to look at one the young woman tending the counter says, "Oh hey, you should look at the Artist's Comments placard over there before seeing all of these, it says some really interesting things."
While I cannot recall explicitly what he said, the artist's message was strong, for me at least, because I feel this call in myself every now and then...I'm sure everybody does, in some way. It's only human, I think.
He was tired of where he was in life...tired of the monotany, tired of feeling like he was grinding away every day, and tired of missing out on an entire world that was revolving around without a care of his existence. So he quit his jobbed, sold what possesions he could absolutely afford to live without, took his 401K, and travelled Asia for the entire year of 2008 in China, Tibet, India, and Pakistan. And from this journey he was evermore grateful of his own life and the blessings of fortune and good health it held, and further understood just how without so many others in the world are. He titled his exhibit "Growth"
Some pictures were of places that had an overview of amazing landscapes, one being a mountain of which none had ever reached its summit.
Another series of pictures were of sulfur miners. One in particular was a photograph of the hand of a sulfur miner who had been working in the mines for twenty five years. His finger tips looked long and frail, with the skin atop the hand looking loose at it creased while he held is fingers as straight as he could. If you could still call them fingers, though. As you move down the finger from the meat of the hand itself, it starts to take on odd and unnatural hues of blue and violet, with long nails on the end that almost make you think it's the bone of the fingertips coming out from the abused flesh. A feeling of untold gratefulness comes over me, and how lucky and privaleged I am. I also wonder how that man's hands would have sounded if he had been able to play guitar with those hands for twenty five years instead, and pity a person I will never meet in my life.
I liked the photoalbums he put together more than the photos mounted on the walls, honestly. I was reminded slightly of my own trip to Japan, and how amazing it was to be immersed in another culture. A whole new set of awkward and unspoken rules that I am excused from breaking informally, because I am so trained to my own akward and unspoken rules.
As I get to the last of the photos in the album, I take a moment to think about my own dreams.
1:44 P.M.
Hm...maybe there was another class.
So I recall that I have to go and get a new parking permit for the semester. I don't drive a lot at the start of the semester but once the end comes around and I need to spend hours and hours on campus, I am sometimes drive each day I have classes. As I walk into the building I am also walking alongside several others. Their feet make all kinds of noise, and when I notice this I try to walk so that my feet make no sound such that even I can't hear it. And I do, and somehow pleased by the fact I can do this in boots. I wait in line, I hide my hand, I keep my eyes to myself, and I talk as minimally as possible.
By now it's 2:00 P.M. and I assume I have been blown off by Allison.
At first I want to think it's that, at least, but I assume that she probably was just busy since it's only the second day of school.
Still, I'd expected at least some kind of simple message.
And thinking these words in my own mind I am reminded of how I myself have been guilty of all this at one time, and I resent myself a little.
Then, I resent myself for recalling it.
As I head home and do a near exact reversal of my morning commute, I feel like time is rewinding and that I have not accomplished anything this day, and this makes me feel so tired.
I see people who are worse off than me, and even attempting to imagine their place makes me further tired.
And when I imagine that everybody in the world has some kind of problem, well, I just feel beat. Defeated, almost.
I get home at 4:00 P.M., let the cats in, discard my backback and jacket, and fall onto my bed; flat on my back, spread out and feeling just like a starfish must feel. Slow, cumbersome, and brainless.
And I linger towards sleep, while thinking of my own dreams.
Maybe one day, I will write a book, and people will read it.
Maybe one day, I will make a song, and people will sing it.
Maybe one day, I will speak my voice, and people will heed it.
Maybe one day...and maybe not.
My mind drifts to school again and just how long I have been taking, and what it's been taking of me. I think about how while my Mom or Dad would say things at the end or start of a term like "Keep trying" "Keep at it" these are rather a customary thing to say, much in the way that you congratulate somebody on a marriage or getting a promotion. I try to think of who has helped motivate me in this direction. I try to recall inspiring words beyond those which are customary. I try to find a face of encouragement in my mind and only find my own, which is feeling more worn every day. And in this moment, I feel alone.
And I am broken out of this lapse as Chester and Stubbs jump onto my bed, seemingly in unison, and each takes a place curled up or sprawled upon each of my arm pits.
This gives my mind rest, and I fall asleep.
And I dream.
Everything is darkened, dampened, and seemingly depressed. Even the street lamps don't seem as bright as they ought to.
But this season is a boon for the vegetation, and the life it supports, in all its forms.
Cars drive along the wet pavement where the rubber and wet asphalt make it sound like the road has been covered in cellophane, and the ambient light radiating from the corners of every car smears across the ground, blending into a myriad of clashing oranges, red, greens, and black. As I go down the sidewalk I see all kinds of litter strewn about in unattended grass in front of the knick-knack shop that opened and closed in a single month. Arriving at the light rail station there is still more garbage strewn about. I then imagine what it would be like if everybody actually used garbage cans, and how it would save money because you'd never have to bring in a crew to search and round up garbage. I then also contemplate how if the garbage was not there, that crew would be without a job...so there's sort of an odd, symbiotic relationship that emerges within the city.
Light rail arrives.
I get on the train: I look left, and I look right. The usual assortment of tired workers, young G's, old G's, and students such as myself. I never sit down but rather assume my place in front of the door that's going to open at my stop, and I stare blankly at the window for the 3 stops in between where I am and where I'm going. I glance up and read the warning label with white text on a black background informing passengers that they will be punished under penal code 587 (A) if they pull the emergency-door level in a non-emergency event. For a moment in my mind's eye I imagine myself doing this; I'd never really pull the lever though. I think about how the metal for the train must have been fabricated. I think about the fitting tolerances that must be allowed between the rail and the wheels. I ponder what kind of current is supplied to the light rail train to make it careen down the tracks, and to power the air-conditioner unit that keeps the passengers comfortable.
I arrive at my interchange, and go through the routine of crossing over the tracks and waiting for the train headed in a direction just deviated of the one I came from. Young black youth's with headphones saunter over as well, headphones playing what sounds to me like a demo program for a drum-machine, walking like they have a limp, and head occasionally whipping around to stare in some direction as though they were waiting for a something to happen. I am already in place across the track, and when one comes my direction I make no movement; like a leaf in water coming upon a rock, he slows down, then hovers about and keeps going. An older black gentlemen with a nice suit colored red and brown like clay and alligator shoes to match, standing tall at 6'8" with short hair joining a short beard as white as wool, approaches from my right walking along the bumpy yellow "loading zone" that runs alongside the track in the station. I take a step back out of his way and, when he is just only in my peripheral view, give the slightest of nods. He also gives the slightest of nods, and proceeds along. I step back to where I was, and board the train.
After a few stops on the train two officers of the Regional Transit patrol appear seemingly out of thin air, one of them saying with a firm voice "Tickets and passes, please." One immediately becomes occupied with another passenger (though for what reason I am unaware), and the other who made the announcement makes his assertion as he walks down the aisle and thanks each person for having their item ready. Then the second officer becomes unoccupied, and starts the same routine until a passenger next to me mentions the other officer did this already. I look out the window and see we're now passing by a cemetery and notice that the sky has the same color as some of the tomb stones I can see through the foreground of cement walls with gaps of chain-link fence covered in ivy go rushing by. For a moment, I also see myself in the reflection upon the window set inside the door.
I arrive at my final stop and move to yet another position for my next departure. There is already one other student there waiting, and I come to take my place and turn it into two students. Within twenty minutes two becomes four becomes seven becomes ten. Everybody, already being well trained now in the unspoken social etiquette of feeling awkward around everyone, maintains at least three feet of distance from each other person. The shuttle has two elevations in it and I sit in the first seat of an elevated row; there is a panel there fixed to the shuttle where I can keep my right hand out of view. After I'm seated a fairly pretty girl sits opposite to me just slightly off to the side on the lower elevation. As the shuttle goes my boyishness gets the better of me, and I take a quick glance at her only to find she's already looking at me. I look away as a smile I can't stop comes to my face, and I set my head on my hand. I have a brief fleet of day dreaming; I imagine myself walking her to class and talking about the Zombieland movie that's showing at the studen union soon, and how zombies have been doing well as a theme for cinema. I imagine myself sitting in the fountain area making playful conversation while noodling around on the guitar. I imagine I get to see that secret smile that everybody has in them. My boyishness gets me again, and I take another look, and again she is already looking at me. I look away again, only this time I don't imagine anything. I tell myself to get real; I don't have enough game to get myself between point A and B. I follow my protocol of thought and make the assumption that she is already taken. My skin is also not particularly great this day. I am immediately tired of my day dreaming, steal away my focus, and look at the floor until my stop arrives.
Before going to my first class I make a quick stop by the Engineering department and grab 4 copies of the Add slips (for adding into classes). Even at 8:30 A.M., with the office being open only 30 minutes by this point, the office is already busy.
I head over to Sequoia Hall and find my classroom occupied by another class already in session. I sit against the wall across the hallway from the door and decide to write some lyrics to a song of my own creation that I could only dream of ever hearing in its fullest form. As I am writing another couple of students show up, glance at the door, then glance at me, and then sit down in the hallway. In hardly another moment, another student comes by, looks at the door, then at me, then looks in the door, then enters the room.
"Oh, you're not waiting for anatomy?" asked one of the students who initially sat down.
"Nope, I'm waiting for that one, actually" and point to the door across the hall. They both look at each other and chuckle just a little, and walk into anatomy. Shortly after that another student comes down the hall...looks at the door, looks at me, and then sits across the hall from me and pulls out an anatomy book.
"Oh, that room is actually open, I'm not even waiting for this class."
"Oh? Huh...well, thanks!" And he walks in.
I am amused, and for a short while ponder how people's perception of the door and its availability was affected just by where I sat in relation to it.
Eventually my class assembles and the routine of early-morning engineering is underway. Before the class starts though a student in a desk adjacent to mine was having a conversation with an older gentleman. "Man, I feel so old now and like I've been in school forever."
This causes me to turn slowly and look upon him briefly with inspection as though I were about to say something. I then cock my head just slowly at the older gentlemen and meet eyes with him, and raise an eyebrow as if to say, "This kid must know a thing or two eh?" and the older gentleman smirks, because he understands my gesture, and proceeds to ask, "How old are you?"
"I'm twenty-two years old, but I'm already on my fourth year."
What does he know? I'm twenty four and on my sixth year.
But what do I know?
"Well, you're still leagues ahead." says the older man, and I feel slightly better.
"Professional Topics for Mechanical Engineers" was the title of the course. Basically a hybrid of statistics, economics, and ethics. When the teacher asked if we knew what we'd be learning about (before giving the information of its hybrid nature), I almost wanted to say "Planned Obsolescence!" I think this class will be fairly easy in this case since in my last semester at the city college I took both Statistics and Economics. I guess I'll have to play along with the whole "ethics" thing for now.
Back to the Engineering complex that is Riverside Hall for trying to add into Fluid Dynamics. I make brief talk with another engineer about how challenging of a professor Estelle Eke is. She has a brilliant mind but expects everybody to perform at her level. Then I get a surprise: a friendly acquaintence of mind from my Dynamics class last semester, Joe, shows up for Fluid Dynamics as well. I make some talk with him about Mechanics of materials since he is taking it with the same professor (Salveson) that I had the semester prior. He asks if he can borrow my text book, and I am immediately wary. I am a strictly-business kind of guy, and already in my mind I am preparing to have him sign a written form of consent of my own design should anything sheisty go down, and he tries to get out of owing me a book. I plan to keep my text books primarily for when I will need to study for the Engineer in Training examinations.
Class begins and our graduate-student professor Smarkle (who is surprisingly caucasion for such a name) amuses the class. He'd mentioned how when trying to create a gmail account the name it recommended to him was "AsSmarkle" He starts going over the course syllabus when who should come through the door: Allison. As she takes a seat, and just as she turns, I make my finger into a gun and fire an imaginary shot along with a smile at her. She's surprised, for just a moment, and smiles back and waves. Joe is also amused by the fact she is in this class, as we three had occassionally formed a study group for our Dynamics course. The material for today was only slightly interesting as we touched down on the basics of viscosity, the rest being all extremely basic day one disclaimers like, "You should know by this point your units for force, velocity, density, and..." the list goes on.
After class I decided to get something to eat with Joe. My plans for the day at some point were to have lunch with Allison when she had her break from 1:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M., but I was very hungry in the immediate moment and figured when Allison came around I could keep her company just as well. So we got some of the hot, delicious, greasy, chinese food that's served in the food court from Kung Fu Fat's along with some very spicy chili sauce. We briefly look around for a place to sit and Joe eyes a spot at the end of two tables pushed together, one of the tables being occupied by a pair of young ladies.
"Hey, sorry to bother you, would you mind if we sit here?" says Joe
"No, not at all / go ahead." they say with their friendly phrases overlapping.
One of them isn't quite comfortable with it entirely I can tell, but that doesn't bother myself nor Joe.
Once we sit we discuss this and that; the prospecting of rescpectable women during this semester, about how Eke was smart and how she was practically wiping all of our noses the whole semester while she'd rather be off designing jets for fun. He also has his own bar out in Old Roseville, just around the corner from the Owl Club where I once played with Plexxus. I remember that particular night as well: I was becoming exhausted from a lack of food that particular day to a point where I almost fainted while we were setting up. Charles asked me if I was hypoglycemic, and I still wonder about it myself since it was not the first time I'd ever been asked that question.
Eventually Joe and I finish our meals, and we part ways for the day while striking a new deal to bring the mechanics of materials book by tomorrow. I have some time between now and my luncheon with Allison, so I decide to head on over to the book store. As I walk in there's an employee standing at the door ready to great people, "Hello, welcome to the book store." says the pretty blonde girl. "Hello" I say, and again steal away my focus. They have the first floor setup for the bustle of students buying their books, a great leap beyond when the bookstore used to have a quarter of the floorspace and only had four registers compared with the thirty it has now. In my mind I briefly contemplate just how much money is being exchanged here in a single hour.
Say every cash register services one customer a minute.
And that each customer will buy some number of books averaging out to $200 (we're being conservative here)
And say that, for this hour of the day, the store is at its busiest, and no register has a pause between serving customers.
(30 registers)(1 customer / minute )( $200 / customer-register)( 60 minutes / hour) = $360,000 / hour
Staggering. More money is made in that single hour than some people make in a year, or two years, or five years. I imagine showing this figure to a person in each of these cases, and how they might react to it.
This is also the first semester in some time where used Engineering books have been available.
I've still got time until I meet with Allison, so I decide cozy up in a rather uncomfortable rocking chair in the student union's fireplace lounge, and read Lord of the Flies. One thing I like about the way this is written, particularly the details, is that some things are extremely graphic while others leave it to imagination. A general thing to think about a book, but this one does it quite well. Here's a small excerpt:
"So Ralph asserted his chieftainship and could not have chosen a better way if he had thought for days. Against this weapon, so indefinable and so effective, Jack was powerless and raged without knowing why. By the time the pile was built, they were on different sides of a high barrier."
I also like seeing the slow transformation and bloodlust that is entering Jack's personality, and how he is coming to love hunting for the pig more than eating the pig itself.
I check my watch, and the time is 1:14 P.M.
Perhaps Allison is just busy, or having to deal with some class issues.
As I am slowly walking and contemplating this I notice a flier for the Union's Art Galler and its new exhibit. I step inside and nicely spaced along the perimiter of the walls are framed photographs. Just as I start to look at one the young woman tending the counter says, "Oh hey, you should look at the Artist's Comments placard over there before seeing all of these, it says some really interesting things."
While I cannot recall explicitly what he said, the artist's message was strong, for me at least, because I feel this call in myself every now and then...I'm sure everybody does, in some way. It's only human, I think.
He was tired of where he was in life...tired of the monotany, tired of feeling like he was grinding away every day, and tired of missing out on an entire world that was revolving around without a care of his existence. So he quit his jobbed, sold what possesions he could absolutely afford to live without, took his 401K, and travelled Asia for the entire year of 2008 in China, Tibet, India, and Pakistan. And from this journey he was evermore grateful of his own life and the blessings of fortune and good health it held, and further understood just how without so many others in the world are. He titled his exhibit "Growth"
Some pictures were of places that had an overview of amazing landscapes, one being a mountain of which none had ever reached its summit.
Another series of pictures were of sulfur miners. One in particular was a photograph of the hand of a sulfur miner who had been working in the mines for twenty five years. His finger tips looked long and frail, with the skin atop the hand looking loose at it creased while he held is fingers as straight as he could. If you could still call them fingers, though. As you move down the finger from the meat of the hand itself, it starts to take on odd and unnatural hues of blue and violet, with long nails on the end that almost make you think it's the bone of the fingertips coming out from the abused flesh. A feeling of untold gratefulness comes over me, and how lucky and privaleged I am. I also wonder how that man's hands would have sounded if he had been able to play guitar with those hands for twenty five years instead, and pity a person I will never meet in my life.
I liked the photoalbums he put together more than the photos mounted on the walls, honestly. I was reminded slightly of my own trip to Japan, and how amazing it was to be immersed in another culture. A whole new set of awkward and unspoken rules that I am excused from breaking informally, because I am so trained to my own akward and unspoken rules.
As I get to the last of the photos in the album, I take a moment to think about my own dreams.
1:44 P.M.
Hm...maybe there was another class.
So I recall that I have to go and get a new parking permit for the semester. I don't drive a lot at the start of the semester but once the end comes around and I need to spend hours and hours on campus, I am sometimes drive each day I have classes. As I walk into the building I am also walking alongside several others. Their feet make all kinds of noise, and when I notice this I try to walk so that my feet make no sound such that even I can't hear it. And I do, and somehow pleased by the fact I can do this in boots. I wait in line, I hide my hand, I keep my eyes to myself, and I talk as minimally as possible.
By now it's 2:00 P.M. and I assume I have been blown off by Allison.
At first I want to think it's that, at least, but I assume that she probably was just busy since it's only the second day of school.
Still, I'd expected at least some kind of simple message.
And thinking these words in my own mind I am reminded of how I myself have been guilty of all this at one time, and I resent myself a little.
Then, I resent myself for recalling it.
As I head home and do a near exact reversal of my morning commute, I feel like time is rewinding and that I have not accomplished anything this day, and this makes me feel so tired.
I see people who are worse off than me, and even attempting to imagine their place makes me further tired.
And when I imagine that everybody in the world has some kind of problem, well, I just feel beat. Defeated, almost.
I get home at 4:00 P.M., let the cats in, discard my backback and jacket, and fall onto my bed; flat on my back, spread out and feeling just like a starfish must feel. Slow, cumbersome, and brainless.
And I linger towards sleep, while thinking of my own dreams.
Maybe one day, I will write a book, and people will read it.
Maybe one day, I will make a song, and people will sing it.
Maybe one day, I will speak my voice, and people will heed it.
Maybe one day...and maybe not.
My mind drifts to school again and just how long I have been taking, and what it's been taking of me. I think about how while my Mom or Dad would say things at the end or start of a term like "Keep trying" "Keep at it" these are rather a customary thing to say, much in the way that you congratulate somebody on a marriage or getting a promotion. I try to think of who has helped motivate me in this direction. I try to recall inspiring words beyond those which are customary. I try to find a face of encouragement in my mind and only find my own, which is feeling more worn every day. And in this moment, I feel alone.
And I am broken out of this lapse as Chester and Stubbs jump onto my bed, seemingly in unison, and each takes a place curled up or sprawled upon each of my arm pits.
This gives my mind rest, and I fall asleep.
And I dream.