The fading holidays

Merry Christmas All!!!

To commemorate the holiday I present Imogen Heap lyrics.
I can relate to them from my own holiday experiences over the years.

Just for now

It's that time of year

Leave all our hopelessness's aside

If just for now (just for now) leave awhile

tears stop right here

I know we've all had a bumpy ride.

I'm secretly on your side

How did you know?

It's what I always wanted

Could never have had too many of these

Well I, quit kicking me under the table

I'm trying; will somebody make her shut up about it?

Can we settle down please?

It's that time of year

Leave all our hopelessness's aside

If just for now (just for now) leave awhile

tears stop right here

I know we've all had a bumpy ride.

I'm secretly on your side

Lie down

Deep breaths

Count to ten

Nod your head

I think something is burning

Now you've ruined the whole thing

Muffle the smoke alarm

Whoever put on this music?

Better quick shop remove it

Pour me another

Oh, don't wag your finger at me

It's that time of year

Leave all our hopelessness's aside

If just for now (just for now) leave awhile

tears stop right here

I know we've all had a bumpy ride.

I'm secretly on your side

Get me outta here

Get me outta here

The Return

Well I am back in Oregon now. I have returned from my stint in Los Angeles. It has been pointed out that I need to update my blog.
I enjoyed the job I did in Long Beach. The internship at the Aquarium of the Pacific was educational and will look good on a resume. Granted there was still a lot left unlearned when I left, but that was just an unavoidable byproduct of the constraints imposed in the nature of the internship. I spent most of my working time doing fairly routine feedings, maintenance, and other animal care. Much of what I did sounds a lot more exotic than it actually is (i.e. feeding Black Tip Sharks). Than again mot many people get to do things like that so who’s to say what’s exotic or not, it all depends on the standards of comparison. I won’t go into detail about the specifics of what I did here since most people wouldn’t know what I was talking about anyway. If anyone has any specific questions I will answer them but in this forum I will be vague. I was scheduled to work twenty hours a week but I worked late most days. I can see myself doing this job or something similar for a career. I was deeply content at work. I tend to rate the jobs I have had by the baseline feeling I have for them. I was interested in staying on but as I am now I am not considered really ready. I need my master’s, a dive certification, and more experience. So I have moved back to Portland to try to accomplish those goals. When I wasn’t working I just hung out with my friends. It was like finally being done, being free of the unending struggle to reach a place in my life where I can say I have arrived at a destination. I got a lot of the you're “reliving college again” sentiment from others and I think it was an inaccurate assumption. Life is better lived in close community with ample time to pursue your hobbies and interests. By all means work hard, but there is much more to life than that.
So that I guess is the job summary. I spent three months working in an ongoing effort to pursue my strange obsession. The ocean and its denizens fill me with a great sense of joy and wonder, I can lose myself in them for hours. I figure I have to work, and I figure that though I may not be the best at fisheries science I don’t feel nearly as passionate about anything else. So you have to do what you love.

The other most significant part of the three months was living with Ryan and living close to Eric. I am back in Oregon now and it is colder here, in every way. I miss already the relational closeness I feel toward those men. Forgive me if I become maudlin, I blame Sigur Ros who is supplying this posts soundtrack. Here in Portland my relationships are either figments, strained in odd ways by circumstance, or just beginning. I once wrote of this place as an empty place where ghosts lived, overdramatic certainly, but somewhat accurate. What can I say for the three months I lived with my best friends? These are people I could tell anything, there are no secrets. I already have had the urge to drive south again. My friends down there are the greatest men I have ever known.

So I am here in Portland trying to find my way again.

The one where Jeff saves a shark.

Today I saved a Bamboo Shark from an ill-advised, but brilliantly executed, attempt at escape. The lid to the tank for the sharks is a big flimsy plastic plate that has a line of very small ventilation holes at the front of it, apparently on rare occasions the sharks find a way out. Now the shark in question was about half the length of my forearm and this hole, as priory stated, is small. So this shark had to get the momentum to clear the water and had to angle to go through the hole just right after breaking the surface. Basically this sharks little maneuver required physics at a level that is frankly beyond me. (I know this from personal experience as my second term of physics at Portland State can be accurately described as a complete rout.) But thankfully I saved the little guy. So here is the story on its unabridged format.
I was going around today to begin my second feeds and when I got to the Bamboo shark tank I was startled to see this shark sitting on top of the tank lid looking fairly dry and as much at peace as a shark can look. I thought at first that the shark had exited this life and been placed on the lid by someone while they went to get the paperwork for it. I think I can summarize my thoughts like this. “Ooohh poor little guy. I bet Jen was really bummed….wait why isn’t it in a mortality bag?....HOLY SHIT the gills are moving!!!!! It’s still alive!!! It’s not supposed to be out of the water at all!!!” So I picked up the shark and put it in the tank, supporting it with one hand. I held it there and it sat quietly on my hand and it occurred to me that I didn’t want to just let it swim off in case Jen wanted to keep it under observation and then I further realize that I hadn’t seen Jen all day. So I stood there for a couple minutes holding the shark with no where to put it, I got a net which I used as a quarantine compartment until I was able to find Jen. We watched the shark for a bit but it was fine so we let it go back and mingle with the others. And that is the fairly boring story of how I saved a small shark form a tragic fate.

The one where Jeff eats himself to death.

Big trouble losing control,

Primary resistance at a critical low,

On the double gotta get a hold,

Point of no return one second to go,

No response on any level,

red alert this vessels under siege,

Total overload, systems down, they've got control,

There's no way out, we are surrounded,

Give in, give in and relish every minute of it

Freeze, awake here forever, I feel a weakness coming on.

I am beset by dessert, soda, and lethargy. My folks sent a cheesecake, Rachelle bought anther and a cookie mother lode for a party thingy she threw and there is so much soda there is room for little else. I have been…..unwise perhaps in pacing myself as far as eating the dessert before it expires. Tonight I shot the cheesecake moon and lord, it could be fatal. The last two days I have spent effectively dead watching friends when not at work and eating mind-numbingly high sugar meals. Let’s just say, even in this short of time, I can tell I am losing my lean, malnourished looking physique in place of something a little more reminiscent of my junior high self. (I apologize to my wife.)

paper boats

A funeral for Ultimate Frisbee

Today since Eric was not attending the bible study I usually accompany him to I decided to take the time and join a pick up game of Ultimate Frisbee. It is a game I love, and I haven’t been able to find a game for the last three years. I used to play every Sunday while I went to Biola University and I was pretty good. I was a little better than the average player but wasn’t spectacular or anything. So since they still have pick up games on campus I decided to give it a go. I would rate my experience on an embarrassment scale of 1 to 10 as a 7.8. I played for one painful hour and I was horrible, I could catch and throw just fine but I couldn’t run worth anything and as a result my attempts to guard other players were little better than a joke. I attended a funeral for my Ultimate Frisbee pick up game experience. I just have to remember being back in this place steeped in history that all those things I tied in my mind to the places are all dead and gone. Ultimate Frisbee today joins the ranks of the buried and I won’t try to resurrect it again. Maybe another time and place with equally informal players I will create a new thing but what I remember so fondly is dead. I bailed as soon as I could from the game without seeming like a quitter though I am sure everyone was happy to see me go. I was passed from team to team like the fat kid in a pick-up game of basketball at a junior high and I don’t blame them for doing it. I got back here to find the house empty and everyone gone. I wish I would never have went to the field today…and besides my legs and pride are sore now.

Yeah, we're stubborn and melodramatic,

I am a socially awkward person. If you know me you are probably cocking an eyebrow and wondering how this could possibly be some kind of new revelation. Yes, you all already know. But my conversational difficulties result from an overly analytical mind with a nihilistic bent. My awkwardness was driven home to me two days ago at work as I waited for the unaccountably slow freight elevator with another female associate who works as an aquarist in a different part of the aquarium. (As an aside….was that sentence of legal length? I don’t have Elaine here so we are flying solo without a proof reader………….please assume crash positions.) At any rate we’ll just keep moving along with the story, run-on or no. So I was waiting at this elevator and the minutes just start ticking by. We are both standing there avoiding eye contact, pretending the floor has an interesting tile mosaic rather than mere stained concrete and I realize I can’t think of a thing to say. Well to be fair I could think of something to say, a single line of completely obvious banality. “Man, this elevator is slow.” But it’s a conversational dead end isn’t it? I mean what is there to respond with other than “yes, yes it is a slow elevator.” If she was unusually chatty the best it could evolve into is a discussion about various elevators we’ve ridden and their relative speeds and let’s be frank, does anyone really want to have that conversation? Elevators are poor story material. I heard an elevator story from a camp speaker back in high school that was funny but that was because it involved a little bit of unintentional public nudity and a little bit of that can make any story a bit funnier. I don’t have a single memorable elevator story but I have a fair repertoire of situational nudity stories. * And furthermore what would be the ultimate point of said elevator conversation. Now most of you are probably thinking “well forget the elevator, you both work at the aquarium you could talk about that.” Here’s the thing though, yes the elevator is long but it will arrive within five minutes and we will arrive at our destinations a mere three minutes after boarding. The ground we could cover in the time allowed would be so minimal I just couldn’t see the point. Lets, just for kicks, play out a conversational scenario. The portion in red contains actual words spoken.

Jeff: “So do you work with the marine mammals?”
Girl: “Oh yeah I do. Are you with fish?”
J: “Yeah I am an intern over at the tropical wing.”
G: “Oh that’s cool. Do you like it?”
J: “Yeah I do my names Jeff by the way.”
G: “I’m (insert name here). Good to meet you.”

G: “Yeah, I know its only one floor but the stairs get tiring after having run them all day.”
J: “Yeah, it’ll do that.”

G: “See you later.”
J: “Have a good day.”

Now wasn’t that just deliciously worthless? I myself would go for the short awkward bit of silence which is exactly what I did. If we were both at a party and I had time, I might go for the chat just to pass the time.

* This story contains a significant portion of my bridal party, the groom’s dinner, a brunt out headlight, and a police officer.

and if anyone can correctly identify the picture they get a cookie.......(Daniel Webster I am so sorry, I know not what I do.)