175445 standing up in the bow of the [ship], feeling the peril of the waves shattering against my face, Chris saying You should have been born in a different time. grabbing, finally, the legs of that flailing cursing spitting zombie-attack kid at GLS, participating in the takedown, and it's the high point of my day, if I'm honest. Peggy saying (looking back it seems like over and over again), "Mat, you have adult ADD." And later, "neurodiversity," and "people with that kind of brain tend to do well in high-pressure, varied jobs, like EMT and so on...." it's like a crack in the granite is widening, and I'm looking through to some kind of genuine competence, service, poetry, and being alive. guy on Leo's podcast said, I want the high point of your scientific career in college to be when one of your most certain, cherished beliefs turns out to be not true. I'm not necessarily who I thought I had to convince myself they all were telling me I had to be. terabithia, my rad Kat, even though she pisses on my stuff, is still my rockstar hero, she's a mean, lean hunting machine, she lays her ass out all night and scratches at the door at 5 am, no apologies and none needed, I let her in and mumble myself back to sleep. #pdp (2014)