I want to go back to bed, but that's impossible. I slept exceptionally well.

My windows to the world make it look like someone drove my office through a carwash. How can windows that get wet so often be so dirty on the outside?

The marvellously understanding construction crew that's working on neighboring Franklin Hall has taken the opportunity to drill concrete today. My cozy little workspace, my cove of production and calmness, is being repeatedly shaken by a loud, high-pitched roar. At best, it sounds like putting your ear to an overworked, revving automobile engine. It's constant.

And that's through my headphones.

I wonder on days like this if I'm playing outside of my body. What do I mean? Am I trying to accomplish things that someone cursed with my body, ability and traits was never meant to do. How productive is someone supposed to be if they're so rattled (and rattled so easily) by minor environmental adversities? If I can't write concentrate important pieces of geographic literature now, when I'm healthy and relatively happy, what am I going to do when life throws me a real curveball, something beyond sad weather and noise?

What happens as my body begins its inevitable self-destruction, which all of us will face. And how soon that will be, having now passed the age of 25 and in what would be considered prime years for most athletic individuals.

Except gymnasts. They don't count.

It wasn't long ago with bum ankles and sore knees that I nearly wrote off my life-long love affair with the outdoors. In fact, it was just before this summer. Every time we went outside and did moderately active things, I hurt, so why go outside? I've hiked the Grand Canyon, up small mountains, biked dozens of miles in a trip, and other physical feats, but now, at 24, I was ready to give them up to pain. That's a frightening place to be at that age.

Of course, I've since bought a new pair of shoes that have helped substantially, and now we hike often. I've started a mostly-vegan diet (still using up leftovers...) that I'm pretty sure has helped me shed about five pounds in the last couple weeks.

But I've seen the track that my body could and probably will travel. Luckily, I offered to go on standby to avoid overbooking, and will be guaranteed first class on a later flight. But even with free drinks and leather seats, the trip is scary as hell because the notion that my body will give up before I've done what I want to is very terrifying and very real. And this is to say nothing for the genetically guaranteed brain-rotting that will happen around age 70-75.

See? If I was a mindless drone, this wouldn't be a consideration.

How masochistic is God to curse someone with at least half a brain with only half a body?