Snow Day

1) Why I am here

Six inches of snow = no school, but also no electricity at home because snow-filled trees toppled and hit powerlines that lead to my apartment. So I am here, in the building of employment, elevating myself over the wall of the present to see which Sox team will win tonight. I make no predictions.

I spent the morning making a snowman at another teacher's house, with four kids under 11 and a massive yellow lab to direct my labor. The obvious necessity of using prophylactics aside, being around young kids is nice every so often. I have no tricks or methods of being kid-friendly.

2)
Notes on Response to Culture-lessness and Its Discontents

Of what do you make a world? Songs on the radio, knitting, books on military strategy, albums by bands like Killdozer, extremist politics or just plain old politics, journalism, news, the Sunday New York Times, Nascar, Fantasy Football, "indie" rock, a musical instrument you play yourself, a romantic relationship that hopefully involves love sharing spectular sex and genuine fulfillment, cab rides, obscurantism, long walks down city blocks, cooking, eating, eating at places not your home where you pay money for strangers to bring you food you chose from a list of possible food to eat, people watching, guns, hunting, billiards, crocheting, animal husbandry, knitting, whittling, whistling: do any of these belong to you? I do not know you.

Me, I make culture out of washing dishes, going on drives, attending to fictional soirees, and taking the occasional walk through a place where no people or houses exist. I also spend a lot of time in my mind, searching around for lost articles in which I used to clothe thought.
I am vastly less cool than I used to be, or than I boot-strapped myself into being: if that makes sense. I'm not one to champion pessimism, but in this case I will champion couldgiveshitaless-ism, which is qualitatively neutral from one angle and non-existent from another.

3) Philosophy Is But Its Own Quandary

Of what exactly is empathy a function? I am surrounded by rather insular individuals, who see no reason to pay attention to or care about what goes on elsewhere. Without venturing into categorical imperatives or a richly textured imaginative construction of the Other, is there a firm basis for contesting their neutrality or disinterest, if that is what it is? Perhaps not, but the world then seems reduced, or recessed. I like variety - I even like to come across people whose matrix of self-constitutive factors - psychology, culture, what they ate for breakfast, etc. - is at such a remove that all I can do is stare. I guess I will leave insulated well enough alone.

4) Reading the Bible

Reading the Bible can be very boring. In bare expository form - who goes where when to do what - there is much to criticize. But imagery, metaphor, figure of speech type stuff has its place, regardless in one's proclivity for belief in salvation/redemption/eternity.

I like Jeremiah, find Paul's prose a bit much, and of course Jesus is a superstar throughout. I find it easy to picture Jesus walking on water, always have, ever since Sunday school. And I can picture Jesus walking in a crowd, say just before he tips over all those tables in the temple. But for some reason I can't get an image of Jesus walking alone, or even with a few disciples, out in the country. He seems like an urban kind of walker - praying out in that Garden of Gethsemane, I can handle that - but walking not so much.

5) Flossing, smoking, and stretching

Previously thought tedious, flossing is now a presumptive winner for Comeback Habit of the Year. Smoking cigarettes and dying of slow suffocation in the future looks to have the lead for Habit Most Likely To Not Be Missed. Stretching - not YOGA! - but good old fashioned touch-your-toes, bend-your-knees stretching has a slight lead over one-on-none basketball for New Habit of the Year.