Tonight everyone is out, some to dinner, others to movies, others just out and about with friends. I am luxuriating in an evening in - alone. Sometimes it just feels good to not have plans. My guys like to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings ... I just really don't. It's just too much random visual and aural noise for me ... and the wings I choose are too spicy. Better for me to snuggle in with a couple of new books, The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene and Flatland A Romance of Many Dimensions, Edwin A Abbott 1884 and the rest of my new magazine, the January edition of Real Simple. I've been putting off reading Flatland ... it was a gift last Christmas 2009 I think, it looks kinda dorky ... watch it be awesome. Strangely, coincidentally, both books have multidimensional space in common.

One of the visits to the Smithsonian Museum ... past the Hope diamond ... tucked in to a corner, was a rock on which different lights were shone. It was fascinating to see how dramatically my perception of the rock changed in the differing light. I know the human eye is "set" to distinguish information or images within a specific range ... I just think it's cool to imagine what we might "see" or "miss" with just a little tweaking.
I really like flying airplanes for a lot of different reasons ... they are just so cool ... but certainly one of the reasons is the freedom of movement ... and the edges of that freedom. Kind of a perfect marriage of art and science ... magical.
Ever since I was a little kid I've thought there must be a lot more then meets the eye ... my hands can acquire information that refines the perceptions formed visually ... sounds are so universal and tell us things that are hard to put in to words ... and so on. One of my friends is blind and as an experiment I spent the day blinded ... I recommend it. Our eyes shortcut us (like chutes and ladders) in to missing a lot of information. I believe there are layers or places or spaces where our senses preclude entry. We talk about the principles of modern physics as something happening out there in the universe ... or as an event that happened some incomprehensible time ago. What if rather then holding it at a telescopes length we look nearer? That book "Esther" that I have recently finished reading, makes a case for the invisible hand of God. I have friends who believe God is more present, more in the moments then I have believed ... now I am starting to wonder if it is possible that God is more present then I've thought. I'm starting to wonder if there is a switch somewhere ... some little tiny adjustment that might effect my ability to see Him ... nearer, "nower".

"Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see."
Martin Luther King, Jr.


Well ... on to some valuable quiet time.

P.S. I heard the new song on my playlist BoB ... Airplanes and liked something about it last time I was in ATL ... remembered to add it to my iPod yesterday and added it here tonight. The other song Watching Airplanes came up on the iTunes search and I liked it too ... seems like representation of opposite ends of the spectrum. Anyway, I thought they might be fun here for a couple of days. I am also liking the soundtrack to TRON for workouts ... and that elliptical workout is going well. I didn't realize how much I missed the cardio. I am in the process of starting Yoga again too.