Stranger Wisdom

General State of Being:
I had a rather lousy day today. I think it all started because the ants are still haunting me...alas, not in my pancake mix or my garbage can this time, but in my subconscious. I woke up this morning with the feeling that I'd spent all night with them. All I recall is having this dream that I brought home a brand new suitcase and when I threw it open on my bed, ants came swarming out everywhere and went into my pillowcases and under my covers. Yeah...I'm still thanking my brain for that one.

So, this day of mine...you've gotta love the first-funk-of-the-year. The same feelings of claustrophobia I was feeling yesterday, spiraled into a bonifide funk today. I purposefully rearranged my To-Do pile so that I could spend most of my day doing mindless database work and devote most of my brain energy to diagnosing the funk. And what did I come up with? I think it's the age-old (question: can something be 'age old' when you're 24?), "Why are you here, at this very moment, working in this stuffy high-rise? What are you really doing and how will it translate into what you'll do with the rest of your life?" (Yeah! All that before I'd finished my first cup of coffee...sheesh!) I was thinking about how after all of my work to choose a graduate school and to use big, intelligent-sounding words in describing exactly where I want my career to go and what I want to do when I get there, that I really don't know just where I want this life to take me. That there are some days when life would just be so much simpler if I was a white water raft instructor on the good ol' Snake River or a Sierra Club hikers guide in Yosemite. But deep down, I know I'm destined to love this life full of struggle and trouble admist my small attempts to be good and to do justice, whether it be on a grand scale from a grand high-rise, or one person at a time...

And though this is all starting to sound sickeningly euphoric, I still wasn't buying my attempts to convince myself that I'm doing nothing but exactly what I am destined for. And so the funk continued until late into the evening, when, on my way back from the bookstore, I came across a white-bearded homeless man who was trying to pack up all his belongings, many bags and boxes of various shapes and sizes, onto one tiny little granny cart on wheels. I said hello to him and he smiled and said, "The more precise I try to get, the worse it looks." I repeated it over and over to myself for the last of the walk to my house. Can you believe it?! I couldn't make up advice better than that! Divine wisdom at the exact moment I needed it most! It took me about half a block to let it really sink in...and I've felt better ever since.


Song of the Day:
"Rainbow" - Jack Johnson & GLove, Thicker Than Water soundtrack
well i woke up this morning
a rainbow filled the sky
yes i woke up this morning
a rainbow filled the sky
well that was god telling me
everything's gonna be alright

well so long good friends
when will we meet again?
i said so long good friends
when will we meet again?
well i don't know, don't know
but i guess i'll see you then

well i'm gonna pack my old guitar
move on down the road
i'm gonna pack my old guitar
move on down the road
where i go i don't know
but i guess i gots to go

well i woke up this morning
a rainbow filled the sky
well i woke up this morning
a rainbow filled the sky
that was god telling me
everything's gonna be alright