Beo v the TarHeels

So Beo and the Eco Mama are on vacation. Scratch that, Beo is on vacation tagging along with the Eco Mama as she attends marathon 12 hour Conferences. So while she is working on surviving marathon meetings I am touring University Campuses, reading Chomsky, and blogging my heart out. Sprout and Bird are at home in the care of their grandmother. Life is good.

At present I am sitting in a sweet little establishment right off campus in Chapel Hill, North Carolina called the Jack Sprat Cafe which is equi part sports bar, sandwich shop, and coffee house. To my right is a philosophy grad student and on my left is a group of card playing 30 somethings planning a trip to Mexico. In front, just to ground me in reality, is a 72" screen blaring the Florida/Oregon game.

Chomsky is brilliant, but his Hegemony or Survival is a bit much to take in over a cappuccino and March Madness so I ordered some pasta salad and switched gears. I love college towns-so eclectic-intellectual yet carefree; vibrant while remaining serious. Somehow you are able to seamlessly switch gears from issues of critical importance to complete irrelevance with ease and that adds an amazing degree of life to the entire atmosphere. It is the ability to table a topic, to speak in generalities, that seemingly allows you to discuss virtually anything with anyone. I can't imagine myself getting nearly as polemic in a debate in this atmosphere as I would at home-it is as if here, in a more intellectually free space the ideas can remain just that-and that their implications to my family, my village, my heirs can be tabled for a bit while the ideas are flushed out.

I guess that is the greatest gift that Mia could give me for our anniversary-the ability to take myself, and my issues, a little less seriously. If only for a time, but hopefully long enough to revitalize my mind and spirit for the tasks ahead. Will that mean I will actually watch a basketball game? Given that I had to Google the correct spelling of TarHeels, probably not. But it will mean that at least for a space dancing through the night at a mediterranean themed club will be more important than the perviousness of my rain gardens or the rockwell rating of my spade.

Gotta run... looks like Florida is pulling ahead.

I think.

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