Upwelling=productivity

I have this image of my brain all bandaged up in a hospital bed–one leg up in traction, a vase full of flowers on the table nearby–bravely pushing through recovery after a nearly tragic run-in with the 80-dimentional freight train called My Data. Though the writing has been going well, Breck’s exceedingly kind words about my ability as a writer were of no comfort to me this afternoon when I was up in front of my class trying to explain estuarine circulation in a well-mixed environment without ever having had a chance to discuss with Jan what I thought I understood, but what she tersely pointed out to me at the end of my lecture I did not. So it’s back to the flash drive and the Sigma Plot, trying to find patterns where there are none, trying to explain 70,000 possible influences on the variability of one dataset, and generally doing everything I can to short-circuit myself entirely. Yesterday evening I had so totally had it that all I could do was curl up on the couch on the bridge of the R/V Centennial on the ride home in the dark with my headphones in and play solitaire on my ipod listening to country music for an hour. It made me feel better but my brain still feels battered. I think I’m going to call it the weekend now.