But what is color? Is it a property of the light that illuminates the leaf of an orchid petal? Is it the chemical architecture of the petal that reflects that light? Is it in the photopigments sitting at the back of my eye, or pathways coursing through my brain? I cannot articulate any of this well, which is why, now, I am reading, and learning from those who can.

my exploration into the mysterious jungle of COLOR begins here.

my guide will be

hymenopus coronatus
I had NO IDEA there could be no direct paths between blue and yellow, or between red and green. To get from blue to yellow, we must first journey through either red or green. Red and green can never be seen simultaneously in a color, and the same is true for blue and yellow.

disorienting times. graduation, moving, starting in a new lab, people vanishing all over the place. i am moved out of my slater perch on the green.
i have no home until sunday, so i am crashing in on glorious glorious friends. and dan is avoiding me like a plague of pants-less locusts. I feel pretty good, but somewhat uninspired. nothing has lit a fire through my bones in a while.
Last night, Seth showed me a few moments of waking life, and taught me that this moment is holy too.

Brillo pad in hand, I dig into the crusty steel of the now-empty dining room salad bar. Leaning to reach the underbelly of a flourescent light, I realize--haHA! I have done it, the unthinkable! I am IN the sneezeguard. And no one is going to stop me!
Two days of working in the main dining room were blissful.
Scrub scrub scrub scrub scrub scrub scrub scrub
eat
Scrub scrub scrub scrub scrub scrub scrub scrub
eat
Ari Adlan and I spent hours perfecting a technique to wash the small oval windows that center the swinging doors.
abdication of responsibility and ambition
waking up way too early

exiting into the hot sun shortly after lunch
manual labor in exchange for housing, in a communal dining room
it felt great
i was on kibbutz

Tuesday was Lag Ba'omer, and my beach bonfire KUMZITS went deleriously well. On no budget whatsoever. Bonfire. The sweet smack of frigid saltwater. Shaving my beard and finding my naked face again. Drums. Guitar. Kosher smores. The smokey honey of fire-cooked potatoes, onions, garlic, and apples (each individually foilwrapped). Lying down with old friends and new acquantances to stare at the sky. Dancing wildly. Shaking some ass.
Hod L'Hod. Sareet, who had driven up from New Jersey to celebrate her birthday, explained it. The omer correlates with mystical spherot--seven weeks of seven days each, corresponding to the unique pairings of each of the seven mystical spherot. Lag Ba'omer is Hod L'Hod. Thankfulness to Thankfulness. The beauty of being able to be thankful, to appreciate the awesomeness of any moment--a priviledge and a gift unanswerable.

I miss home. But much of home isn't even well localized any more. Many JDS friends have already scattered themselves across the globe. But perhaps this is just a way of calming my angst at not having plans to return to Chevy Chase for the first time.

i have not posted for a while. but i have produced, oh i have produced. quickly. much.
last wednesday, i wrote 24 pages. the next day, i wrapped it with a final 12. i revised those 36 (double chai) over the weekend, revised 15 pages i had written earlier in the week, and wrote another four more. all told, about 60 pages i handed in on monday. i am proud to say i learned a lot. but i know that i did not make art or revelation out of my work.
i just kept on going. and i think revelations can't come unless you stop.
today i stopped. i was reviewing statistics with Bill on the enormous green i like to call my front lawn, and he went in to go to the bathroom.
i laid back, and spread my body across the grass like a picnic blanket. matters at hand fled the busy crossroads of my attention and i stared at the arching drift of the cloud terrain above me. it was then that i understood what my 36 pages and days of learning had been about, although my already turned in paper did not peep this explicitly.
individual identity is a gift.
humans aren't the only ones to receive this gift, and it comes to others in many forms.
but the recepients of this gift are still few and priviledged among the legions of the earth
it is a gift
without which we would not know ourselves or others.