Attempting & Tempting

Brief thoughts for today:

• I am TRYING to tie up a lot of loose ends regarding grading, and submitting grades.
• I am TRYING to clean and tidy my U Offices.  They look like my rats have taken up residence here, and I need to bring back order.
• I am similarly TRYING to clean and tidy my research labs.  Replicate the rat analogy above here as well.
• I feel very stiff and sore.  I have not ran yet today, and am planning on TRYING to run at the U track when I close up in my offices and labs today.
• I think I need to do weight training to help build tone.  I keep telling myself this, but I keep avoiding it.  I need to change this.
• Even though it only Tuesday, I have been anticipating and imagining all day while working.... going to the Retiree's Cigar Group this Thursday.  I think the end of the semester grind has me looking even more forward to having that prescribed time to "let things go" for a bit.  This has become such a valuable form of friendship, peacefulness, and relaxation.  It is so unlike the rest of my day-to-day that it is a very refreshing reprieve.  
• I have too damn much paper all about me.  I WANT to simply chuck all of it and start fresh.  But, amongst the mountains of paper accumulated across this semester, I am sure there several things I NEED to save.  But, that makes it all the more slow-going and very much a grind.... having to look at each and every single damn piece of paper.  And, yes, I KNOW I should "put everything in its damn place" every time so I do not have this sort of struggle.  But, with the speed by which everything tends to need to be done at this place, I always accumulate piles (mountains) of paper. And, with the way the U electronica is going, that is NO FASTER nor any easier.  
• Ever since my Dad's 102nd.... and the glorious pipe I allowed myself to indulge in.... my memories as I fall to sleep have been more focused upon my very youthful pipe adventures.  Last night I was remembering the Summertime reading I did while lounging on the relic of a treehouse.... mostly just a platform by that time.  I remember taking a big jug of water with ice, my pipe and pipe tobacco, and my library checked-out copy of Huxley's "Brave New World".  Being up on the platform (perhaps ~15 - 20 feet up), I was densely in the canopy layer of those woods.  After I settled in to read and smoke my pipe, things would become rather quiet on my end, and I remember seeing a lot more directly the birds and squirrels interreacting with each other in the canopy.  I was remembering well, the softness of the flavors of the Prince Albert pipe tobacco I had surreptitiously "borrowed" from my Dad's big pound tub of the gentle leaf that was always in the kitchen cupboard, usually alongside a similar pound tub of Sir Walter Raleigh as well.  It was a beautiful Summer afternoon immersing myself in the gentle, but rich pipe tobacco and also the enlightening words of Huxley.  Such an amazing book. Beyond its rich story (a dystopian style of story, if you have not read this work), there was a rather detailed account of developmental biology as well.  I believe that work helped shape me to have the interest and passion I have for an embryological/early development focus for much of my research.  

Damn, I am not actually being brief, am I?  I will halt it here for today.  I admire the man, but I guess I could never say my writing style is "Hemingway-esque" could I?  

PipeTobacco