We'll all be crazy by then

I need time to sit around and do nothing constructive. It gives me ideas. This is the only reason I've remained self-motivated to run on a regular basis for 4+ months this time. When I started, I just ran into the woods and looked around. A couple years ago, I took a class in grad school where one of the labs was identifying trees. This appealed to the part of me that likes to categorize. Nature is much easier than people. 

So when I go for a run, I like to pick out the trees I know and speculate about the ones I don't know. I like to look at coppices and split trunks and try to figure out why the tree didn't grow normally. "Tree doctor" I am not, so I always conclude that deer tried to eat it when it was a sapling, but it bravely lived on. I call the split trunk trees tuning fork trees or wishbone trees. I think of the leaves of sassafras trees as dinosaur footprints (too much Land Before Time as a kid). I look at dead, barkless trees and conclude that they were the victim of lightening strikes and they are striking so pale and stiff among the vines and the other trees that haven't given up on the struggle for sunlight. Sometimes I look at yellow sunset light illuminating the bark of a tree twenty feet up through dark leaves, and I swear to the tree that I'll come back in 10 years and pat its trunk, see how it's got on. I look around to make sure no one sees. It's just between me and the trees.

I took to introspection this weekend. The result: I will no longer try to care about things I don't have to. Trying to care should end at some point. Example: professional football. The new season has started and it's always on TV and I realized that I dislike it. This probably extends to professional basketball too - I'll know when the season starts.

I don't know if the reversal of this holds true - I will no longer try not to care about things I don't have to.

Also, why do I know so many people who have so little trouble dating large numbers of people? I think I've dated less than the average person my age, but I can't imagine going through with all the casual flings my friends start and escape before they get invested. As my friends pair off, my single friends will shrink and shrink until...who's left? Oh, we'll all be crazy by then.