Kim and I hiked up to rattlesnake ledge today and came up with this awesome story about when ol’ Pasty McLellan (from logghe calling me ‘the pasty irish kid’ friday) rides his horse into town and all the townfolk go running to hide their whiskey. It was pretty epic but I’m kinda too tired to dictate it at the moment.

A couple of times this weekend I’ve want to stop what I was doing and write, knowing I’d forget what thought was going through my head at the time. Of course, for the most part I have.

Wendell wanted to make a cosmopolitan the other day and I ended up reading about cosmopolitanism. It doesn’t seem like a bad way of thinking, although someone schooled can probably argue otherwise. It reminded me of thinking or reading recently about colors are perceived and thinking about the consensual agreement that whenever we all see something blue, we call it blue, and assume we all see the same thing. Science surely has an explanation for why it’s not really an assumption, involved rods and cones and such, but we definitely do it with names and stamps on less tangible things like feelings.

I don’t know that you can tell or teach anyone what love or happiness is. Surely you can speak of what you believe evokes your feelings that you label that way, but your hedging on the association staying attached to the communique. I don’t know that it does. The adolescent arguing with their parents about how they’re in love with someone that their parents don’t approve of comes to mind. My dad once told me one of the biggest shames of humanity is that we have to keep relearning everything; it’s a terrible balance to maintain. Every generation gets the opportunity to form new viewpoints and ideas (as long as they don’t automatically inherit those of their parents), throwing away old grudges and social norms, yet they have to  make the sames mistakes and have all of life’s experiences all over again.

It’s a foul mix to sort out. I know I sort of put off dealing with people for quite a few years longer than most, but I don’t expect to have much of it sorted out in the next few years. Not that I expect to have the question to fourty two ever… but I do expect some gray areas about what I like and don’t like less blurry, beyond simply those things that I enjoy and those that evoke frustration.

Even something like the difference between frustration and anger seem unclear to me at the moment. My first thought was that the key is in your actions. Frustrations are difficulties while anger produces actions that are regrettable. Feelings like lust seem like they’d touch into this circle of regret producing feelings, although the things we regret are certainly unique as we’re awfully good at convincing ourselves bits aren’t are fault.

Anyways, got the new chain on the trek yesterday. I used a chain tool for motorcycle chains to try to pull the old one, got it stuck and just resorted to the grind wheel. I had trouble with the new chain, and with the derailleur I still don’t understand under what circumstances I would need to shorten it, unless it was really long but it seemed like I should know. Biggest trouble was tuning the derailleur though. First, don’t flip the bike and tune it upside down, the added weight of the derailleur hanging makes a difference; that took me a bit to figure out. But I can’t get some skip out of the middle gear on the back. I’m calling it good enough at this point. After some problems last year, 20/20 recommended I put new shifters on, which I did, but maybe I need a new cassette too because it’s worn or something. I’m not going to start replacing all the parts though, it’s not worth it. Somehow I’ll have to remember to just watch out for that gear.

I haven’t looked at fixing the rear rim on the schwinn yet, although I did tap all the spokes to see if any were obviously loose. I should, I want to, but I’m really tired and I think I’ll go read for the thirty seconds that it will take me to fall asleep from sitting still finally this weekend.