The half-life is the time it takes for half the amount of a substance to decay.

Something like Zeno's paradox applies, where you can never get rid of all the substance because you'll always take away half of the remaining amount, but be left with half.

But it doesn't work out that way, because substances aren't infinitely divisible.

...Zeno's paradox doesn't work out either, but I'm not sure why.

two poems

Nov 2nd

Is nothing sacred?

And where, if not in this place

Do bared feet tread holy ground?

No one is afraid not to hear

"Remove your sandals, for the ground on which you stand is holy ground."

Is there so little ground

that so few must unlace their boots?

Or is it now, when we must wash each other's feet,

That the ground on which we stand is holy?

Nov 3rd - Nov 9th

The leaves are falling off of the trees

and

we spend our idle hours (of which there are few)

holding hands, together in the reading glen

in the place where

I first said that I kinda liked you

and

you told me I had an adorable face

and

I told you that I thought you were beautiful

and you told me to shut up

but your eyes shone like wet tortoise shells.

That was back when we were seventeen

and

we were still scared of saying "I love you"

well

I'm still scared because you may think I'm nice

but I'm aware of my own volatility

so

for now, we'll satisfy ourselves with looks of

mutually held but un-communicated feeling.

But you better watch yourself girl, because one of these days

I will probably get down on one knee

and

ask you a yes or no question

I'm telling you this now so that when that day comes

you won't be too surprised

you won't be flustered

and you'll have thought of an answer

and you'll say "Yes."

Pop-Pop

The man I don't remember

Who forgot everything until he forgot how to live

Who wore a blue polo and smiled amid the sails

Who had a silver watch that was given to my father

Who forgot everything and is even now being forgotten

Heaven; I know his exit

But I are troubled with his later entrance.

I who have one grandmother remaining to me

I who forget her husband, the man who forgot

I am too late.

What little immortality I could lend him he can no more receive.

The knowledge of him slips from me like his life and memory slipped from his body.

And soon no words will come to me in his name.

When I am dead, Heaven, don't trouble yourself

Trouble with the living, whom you trouble.

The (my) problem with worship

I have a problem with worship.

Not, like, in an "i object" sort of way. I just struggle to worship. There was a worship service tonight (at COLLEGE!); I stopped by for a little while, listened to some songs (great basist) and then left. I just. I just don't get worship. I never feel it.

It always seems like worship is about feeling a certain way. Having this feeling and being moved by it: to close your eyes, to sway, clap, dance, jump, breath, praise God. And I never feel like that. I always stand, watching the performers and wincing when the lyrics become to repetitive.

But maybe the problem is with me. Walking back from the worship service, I was thinking about it, and why it's always so hard for me to be in worship services. I think, maybe, it has something to do with the way I view God; and - deeper - with the kind of person I am (but, maybe they're not such different things). I try to understand things. That's what I do. I solve problems, I understand things. But you can't understand God, I know that. I've let go of that after years of trying. But I still automatically box the world into what I can understand. And that includes God. And a god that can fit inside my head isn't much worth worshiping.

I'm typing this in betwTh

I stopped being involved in politics at all for a while. Now, when there isn't any good music on the radio, I listen to NPR news on the way to work. Sometimes, if the news story is good, I won't check back for music. Anyway.

This debt limit thing is crazy.

I don't understand it, I mean, it's a multifaceted and complex issue. Our debt sucks, though, and anyone can tell you that the longer you put off paying your bills, the worse things will be in the end. I don't know if what we're watching happen is the beginning of a financial reckoning for the United States. I wonder if anyone thought our debts would come due like this. I don't understand why the debate is over raising the debt ceiling. We did that in February, and our debts simply came due a little later. We still have to pay. We just can't borrow more. Maybe that's a good thing.

And, meanwhile, we have two wars going on, wars that - if our airport's increasingly stringent and invasive security measures are any indication - don't make us any safer.

The other thing is that our leaders are tossing around numbers like trillion as if they mean nothing. It's as if they can't scale their imagination. A trillion of anything is a lot. Multiple trillions is crazy.

Why can't the government operate like a business? I mean, I'm not crazy, right? Every successful company operates at a profit. They pay their workers, their operating costs, their debts, and they have money left over. So, why can't the government? Why can't they charge (tax) for services (armies, schools, healthcare) and have money left over? That's not a stupid idea. I feel like the government gets used to bad business because they don't have to work for their paycheck. They just get it from taxpayers. Which is how it's supposed to work. But... don't act like you deserve my money. I'm only giving it to you because I expect you not to be a screw-up. Thanks to NPR radio, I am beginning to see what a foolish expectation that is.

(PS. The Mountain Goats are sweet. Bright Eyes was meh.)

The Underground (T.S. Eliot)

On the underground and into the dark,

On the underground and into the dark,

Train's movin' but there ain't no sparks

On the underground and into the dark.

Slow Procession into the dark

on the underground a funeral march

They're all wonderin' is it me in the casket

but they know that it is so they're too scared to ask it.

Oh my soul, shut up and see,

Whatever's comin', is it comin' for me?

They say "It's cancer, what'cha gonna' do now?, well

no one lives forever on the underground."

Oh my Lord, where are we now?

I think we made it but I don't know how.

One little step on your eternal stair, well

I think we made it but I don't know where.

They say it's somethin' but I wish I was sure

It isn't nothin' but I wish it was more

They say I'm young and I'll figure it out, but

I'm runnin' out of time on the underground.

(I'm never really going to finish this, but you can hear the rough audio here)

(And i totally stole much of this from Arcade Fire's Antichrist Television Blues)

poempost. toast. toast.

In some way, I want to drive for a very long time.

And also. I want to sit in the backseat.

I feel like driving is introverted.

Paying attention to blinkers and brights.

Sometimes it's hard to do all those things with just one hand.

But I still like holding yours and driving.

The backseat, it's like a cocoon, like that Arcade Fire song,

I like the peace in the backseat.

But right now I feel lonely, empty of the friends who live far away.

So I'd throw a bag together, put on that Bob Dylan mix Michael gave me...

And I'd drive... I don't know where. To Massachusetts, I guess.

(I think this was supposed to be a poem, but I guess I'm just writing now)

I'd drive to Oxford, MA, and walk through its streets wearing my Oxford hoodie.

I'd compare the libraries and the cathedrals - and if there aren't any cathedrals

(Are there any cathedrals in America? I feel we aren't reverent enough to hold any)

then I'll laugh and say, "Well, what was I expecting?"

And I won't have to answer that question, because I wasn't expecting anything, really.

Oxford, MA - geez, it's just somewhere to go, isn't it?

I'd do all that. But, who am I kidding, I wouldn't really.

But, someday, years from now, I'll look at my friends,

(I'll probably make friends at college)

And I'll ask, "did I ever have such good friends as I had in high school?

when we would dress in suits and read poetry and carry notebooks?"

then I'll laugh and say, "Well, what was I expecting?"

And, right now, I'm not sure what.

A man - unknown to me and so

A man without hypocrisy -

stands to pray.

Oh my dear God.

Could I ever become a man who

believed the same thing for forty years?

Will I ever be the man who sits for forty years?

Who prays before every meal

Who stands

And prays, "Our Father..."

Will I ever be the steady job

The white-shirt-blue-tie office worker?

Will I ever hold myself steady?

I have never feared to ask questions,

Until I am overwhelmed by them.

Have I thrown myself so deeply into myself

That I can never know who I am?

Will I turn, and turn upon myself

Like dough, kneading my thoughts into themselves

But never rising, never cresting,

Never asking and answering.

Answer me, these. And all others.

Until I see you and am answered by you.

I could never stop asking till then.

parelandra (or, a rainstorm on the way home from work)

Stepping out from a little repetition,

I blink in the unexpected sunlight.

But I can smell the troubled air,

furrow my brow and sow.

Then, down the road, the clouds unburden themselves

washing against the windshield with a sound

- like lungs with pneumonia.

Until the earth breathes easy

and glows with newness.

I wrote my first check today

Beginning a long series of checks I make out to the government, I paid a speeding ticket.

So I was driving to frisbee with my brothers in the car with me and we were laying down some sick beats. Jay was rapping and I wasn't paying much attention to either my speedometer or the cars in the other lane. Thus, I failed to notice the police car approaching until it was too late to reduce my speed to anything less than nineteen miles above the posted speed limit. Surprisingly, I handled it really well. Like. I didn't even swear.

Then, at frisbee, there was a quick turnover and I spotted an undefended player completely open in my endz0ne. I paused just long enough to mutter the f-word before taking off to cover him.

What is it with competitive sports and making me swear? I feel like such a screw-up. The only time I ever use the f-word out loud is when I'm playing competitive sports.

Following the policy of my soccer coach of two years ago, I later benched myself for the rest of the game on account of my profanity. I sat in the grass being bitten by mosquitos, watching everyone else play a game I love, and feeling like crying because I was having a really terrible evening emotionally. The weight of having to go home and tell my parents about getting a speeding ticket, as well as the unspoken shame of having failed once again to keep my language in check bore down on me like a train bears down on a stupid metaphor.

I don't know how to stop this. Other than not playing frisbee. I'm so angry with myself.