This is a short video I took on my digital camera at the famous Abbey Road intersection in London. This was the summer after I graduated high school, July 2008. I really like how happy the kid is after his Mom takes the picture.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Thoughts on Puberty
This is another old piece of writing I found on my family computer.
I woke up one 5th grade morning soaked in body oils and covered in zits. A pungent odor was emanating from my armpits. OK, maybe my descent into puberty was not that drastic, but it did begin to occur rather early. While most boys start the painful and awkward process around 7th or 8th grade, there I was, a 5th grader with pubic hair that was much more significant than a little peach fuzz. My mother was the first to realize the process had begun. She bought me some odd combination of soap and jelly, saying “This is deodorant. You put it under your arms.”
“Like here?” I said, motioning to my elbow.
“No, like on your armpits.”
After overcoming that initial hurdle, I settled into a daily routine. Every morning I woke up, showered, washed my face, put on my deodorant, and went to school, where all that preparation was rendered meaningless after a rather sweaty gym period. I could have been on one of those late night infomercials, peddling a book/DVD combo entitled “Living with Puberty: Get Your Life Back in 5 Easy Steps!” Or something like that.
Pretty soon, my voice began to change. And then I met my new worst enemy: the squeak (a.k.a. the high pitch voice crack common in those with such dynamic vocal chords as my 5th grade self). I dreaded our class reading time because the teacher, knowing that I was one of the brightest students in the class, often called on me to read aloud. A recipe for disaster if ever there was one. I will not entertain you with my interpretation of the first two paragraphs of Lois Lowry’s "The Giver." The hairs on my neck stand up at the very thought of it.
It was about this time in my delicate development that I realized I was a heterosexual. The supporting evidence? My pubescent infatuation with Kelsey Mills’ breasts. If you could call them breasts. In retrospect they were more like tropical mosquito bites, the kind that swell a tad larger than normal ones and make you think, “Perhaps I should see a doctor.” But compared to the other flat-chested 5th grade girls she was supremely well endowed. I found myself dreaming of her at night and pondering aloud, “Are you my angel?” It took me a full year to figure out why I woke up with a sticky something on my stomach each morning.
I graduated 5th grade, spent the summer growing about 9 inches, and entered Thompson Middle School with the awkward look of a person whose outsides are growing faster than his insides. I looked more like an 8th grader than a 6th grader, minus the muscle definition and subtle beginnings of a moustache on my upper lip. My friends ridiculed me about my appearance, my exorbitant amount of zits in particular. My face slightly resembled the surface of the moon, though this did not make me cosmic or mysterious, or grant me unusual power over the world’s oceans. Mostly, I was just ugly.
I decided to declare war on my face. Not a regulated, UN approved war, but a filthy, standardless battle characterized by guerilla tactics and the death of the innocent. Each morning I would stand in front of the mirror for an hour, angling my head so the light reflected off my face, accentuating certain pimples.
“Well if I pop this one today, it should be mostly healed within a week. Its position in the center of my forehead is unfortunate, seeing as Sara’s birthday party is next week. Michelle will be there. Well, I’ll pop it, pray for a speedy recovery, and with luck, appear at the party good as new in seven days time.”
You cannot say I was a tactless general.
My quintessential puberty experience was undoubtedly my first kiss. The incident was remarkably awkward; the kiss itself, notoriously unskilled (on my part, at least). The story behind this brief, semi-sexual encounter, however, is stuff of legend. It was 7th grade and I was at a dance with “my boys.” I cannot recall why or where the dance was being held, or why I was even there (god forbid I actually danced at one of those things, or do anything besides sulk awkwardly in the corner, drawing attention to myself in a negative fashion). All I know is that at one point a beautiful woman walked by me, and somehow I worked up the courage to speak to her — yes, with actual words. I took a deep breath, and with a voice of suave maturity, as smooth as wine, declared, “You’re hot.” She grimaced. Ideally she would have smiled and returned the sentiment, perhaps by saying, “You’re cute,” or “Your pimples are really symmetrical.” But no, she grimaced and walked on. Defeated, I sulked over to the refreshment stand to drown my pain in a can of Sierra Mist.
About six songs later, the girl came back over and said that her friend wanted to dance with me. My body immediately began a quick series of physiological responses. First, I got an erection; next, my eyes began eagerly scanning the crowd, seeking out my dazzling dance partner. She appeared, and my ever-capricious penis resumed its flaccidity. She was at best less than attractive, at worst, recently escaped from the local dude ranch. That night she fell somewhere in between. She smiled, revealing a row of yellowed, crooked teeth. I took her hand and led her onto the dance floor, where we rigidly held each other and swayed back and forth with the ease of two people who have no idea what they are doing, but are trying desperately not to show it.
After the song we parted ways, but not for long. My friend Brian approached me and delivered the news that would forever alter my life and thrust me forward into the realm of the experienced: “Dude, she wants to hook up with you.”
“With me?!”
“Ya dude, don’t be a pussy, go do it!”
With the fear of being labeled a pussy weighing heavy on my mind, I ducked into the bathroom to contemplate my options. I reasoned that though she was rather ugly, I was in no position to have high standards (or medium standards, which she still would not have reached), having never kissed anybody, ever. My mind made up, I urinated, threw water on my face, and boldly stepped through the doorway and out into the unknown.
What followed is slightly hazy, but certain images stand out in my mind. There’s a huge circle of teenagers… my friends! And her friends! My sweaty palms wedged deep in my pockets. Her crooked smile, banana-yellow and calling me from the center of the circle. My footsteps, progressing with the hesitancy of a man walking to the gallows. An embrace, a pause, and then the darkest wetness I have ever known.
Puberty is a time to grow and change, mentally, physically, and socially. A time to discover the opposite sex, fall in love, get your heart broken, and then do it all over again, bi-monthly. In retrospect I am glad that I went through this process earlier than others, because it leaves me the voice of wisdom, the advisor to my peers, the hardened general who has enough experience with the matter to confidently say, “The party is in four days. I wouldn’t pop that one yet.”
I woke up one 5th grade morning soaked in body oils and covered in zits. A pungent odor was emanating from my armpits. OK, maybe my descent into puberty was not that drastic, but it did begin to occur rather early. While most boys start the painful and awkward process around 7th or 8th grade, there I was, a 5th grader with pubic hair that was much more significant than a little peach fuzz. My mother was the first to realize the process had begun. She bought me some odd combination of soap and jelly, saying “This is deodorant. You put it under your arms.”
“Like here?” I said, motioning to my elbow.
“No, like on your armpits.”
After overcoming that initial hurdle, I settled into a daily routine. Every morning I woke up, showered, washed my face, put on my deodorant, and went to school, where all that preparation was rendered meaningless after a rather sweaty gym period. I could have been on one of those late night infomercials, peddling a book/DVD combo entitled “Living with Puberty: Get Your Life Back in 5 Easy Steps!” Or something like that.
Pretty soon, my voice began to change. And then I met my new worst enemy: the squeak (a.k.a. the high pitch voice crack common in those with such dynamic vocal chords as my 5th grade self). I dreaded our class reading time because the teacher, knowing that I was one of the brightest students in the class, often called on me to read aloud. A recipe for disaster if ever there was one. I will not entertain you with my interpretation of the first two paragraphs of Lois Lowry’s "The Giver." The hairs on my neck stand up at the very thought of it.
It was about this time in my delicate development that I realized I was a heterosexual. The supporting evidence? My pubescent infatuation with Kelsey Mills’ breasts. If you could call them breasts. In retrospect they were more like tropical mosquito bites, the kind that swell a tad larger than normal ones and make you think, “Perhaps I should see a doctor.” But compared to the other flat-chested 5th grade girls she was supremely well endowed. I found myself dreaming of her at night and pondering aloud, “Are you my angel?” It took me a full year to figure out why I woke up with a sticky something on my stomach each morning.
I graduated 5th grade, spent the summer growing about 9 inches, and entered Thompson Middle School with the awkward look of a person whose outsides are growing faster than his insides. I looked more like an 8th grader than a 6th grader, minus the muscle definition and subtle beginnings of a moustache on my upper lip. My friends ridiculed me about my appearance, my exorbitant amount of zits in particular. My face slightly resembled the surface of the moon, though this did not make me cosmic or mysterious, or grant me unusual power over the world’s oceans. Mostly, I was just ugly.
I decided to declare war on my face. Not a regulated, UN approved war, but a filthy, standardless battle characterized by guerilla tactics and the death of the innocent. Each morning I would stand in front of the mirror for an hour, angling my head so the light reflected off my face, accentuating certain pimples.
“Well if I pop this one today, it should be mostly healed within a week. Its position in the center of my forehead is unfortunate, seeing as Sara’s birthday party is next week. Michelle will be there. Well, I’ll pop it, pray for a speedy recovery, and with luck, appear at the party good as new in seven days time.”
You cannot say I was a tactless general.
My quintessential puberty experience was undoubtedly my first kiss. The incident was remarkably awkward; the kiss itself, notoriously unskilled (on my part, at least). The story behind this brief, semi-sexual encounter, however, is stuff of legend. It was 7th grade and I was at a dance with “my boys.” I cannot recall why or where the dance was being held, or why I was even there (god forbid I actually danced at one of those things, or do anything besides sulk awkwardly in the corner, drawing attention to myself in a negative fashion). All I know is that at one point a beautiful woman walked by me, and somehow I worked up the courage to speak to her — yes, with actual words. I took a deep breath, and with a voice of suave maturity, as smooth as wine, declared, “You’re hot.” She grimaced. Ideally she would have smiled and returned the sentiment, perhaps by saying, “You’re cute,” or “Your pimples are really symmetrical.” But no, she grimaced and walked on. Defeated, I sulked over to the refreshment stand to drown my pain in a can of Sierra Mist.
About six songs later, the girl came back over and said that her friend wanted to dance with me. My body immediately began a quick series of physiological responses. First, I got an erection; next, my eyes began eagerly scanning the crowd, seeking out my dazzling dance partner. She appeared, and my ever-capricious penis resumed its flaccidity. She was at best less than attractive, at worst, recently escaped from the local dude ranch. That night she fell somewhere in between. She smiled, revealing a row of yellowed, crooked teeth. I took her hand and led her onto the dance floor, where we rigidly held each other and swayed back and forth with the ease of two people who have no idea what they are doing, but are trying desperately not to show it.
After the song we parted ways, but not for long. My friend Brian approached me and delivered the news that would forever alter my life and thrust me forward into the realm of the experienced: “Dude, she wants to hook up with you.”
“With me?!”
“Ya dude, don’t be a pussy, go do it!”
With the fear of being labeled a pussy weighing heavy on my mind, I ducked into the bathroom to contemplate my options. I reasoned that though she was rather ugly, I was in no position to have high standards (or medium standards, which she still would not have reached), having never kissed anybody, ever. My mind made up, I urinated, threw water on my face, and boldly stepped through the doorway and out into the unknown.
What followed is slightly hazy, but certain images stand out in my mind. There’s a huge circle of teenagers… my friends! And her friends! My sweaty palms wedged deep in my pockets. Her crooked smile, banana-yellow and calling me from the center of the circle. My footsteps, progressing with the hesitancy of a man walking to the gallows. An embrace, a pause, and then the darkest wetness I have ever known.
Puberty is a time to grow and change, mentally, physically, and socially. A time to discover the opposite sex, fall in love, get your heart broken, and then do it all over again, bi-monthly. In retrospect I am glad that I went through this process earlier than others, because it leaves me the voice of wisdom, the advisor to my peers, the hardened general who has enough experience with the matter to confidently say, “The party is in four days. I wouldn’t pop that one yet.”
The Shopkeeper
I recently raided my family's desktop computer. It's an old Dell that has been around since I was 13. Naturally, I discovered numerous gems on it, everything from pictures of me with a "Jew-Fro" to saved AIM conversations from freshman year of high school. This is a story I found that I wrote in my senior year AP English Lit class. It was inspired by an angry letter written in 1975 that I purchased at a garage sale. I forget the writer's name, but apparently he purchased a box of peanut brittle from Kraft Foods and was quite dismayed to find that it was filled with spider webs and larvae. So he wrote to the company and demanded some free coupons and better quality control. Can't say that I blame him.
The Shopkeeper
Growing up, my three favorite things in life were (from 3rd to 1st) Thanksgiving, Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” and my mailman, Ted. I knew not his last name, marital status, favorite color, deepest secrets, etc. etc., only that his name was Ted, and he was deeply committed to delivering my family’s mail in a timely and regular fashion. Each day (except Sunday, of course) at 3:00 PM he would walk slowly and purposefully to my red mailbox, the mail tucked under his left arm, a cup of coffee held preciously in his right hand. I frequently made excuses to be outside at 2:55, with the hope of striking up a conversation with my trusty postal liaison. On these days, he would say, in an unnaturally high voice, “Hey kid,” to which I would respond, “Hey Ted.” While conversation was not the focal point of our relationship, I felt we had a different connection, one much deeper than mere words could possibly cater too. You see, I had always dreamt of being a mailman. I longed to wear the stiff, government issued uniform, to carry the sack of letters and bank statements, to be the man upon which some faraway neighborhood depended to deliver its post.
I truly wish this was an essay documenting my long and illustrious career in the Postal Service, or perhaps my heart-warming, unforgettable friendship with Ted. It is not. Rather, this is the story of how my dreams were spoiled by my bastard of a father and his god forsaken general store. My dad, Jim, was raised in rural Idaho. The area was so rural, in fact, that the nearest post office was fifteen miles away. Accordingly, my father never developed any type of affinity for the hardworking and respectable people that deliver our mail. At the age of 25 he moved to Branchdale, Pennsylvania and opened a general store, Jim’s. The store was his pride and joy. Six years later, my mother married him knowing that next to the store she was his one true love. They lived in peace for two more years, at which point I was brought kicking and screaming into the world.
I am not by any means knowledgeable of the deeper workings of the universe. I am not in touch with the cosmos, nor am I a spiritual man by nature. But I feel that I know enough to securely identify a blaring error in His plan. Why would a boy who longs to be a mailman be born to a general-store-owning father whose sole wish for his son is that he carries on the family business?
My father’s desire for me to take over Jim’s upon his death changed my life forever. You need not know the particulars; all that is important is that following my runaway and subsequent return, and after the light “chat” we had as he lay on his deathbed, guilt took over and I agreed to forget about my dreams and work at the family store.
And so it was that on my twenty-first birthday, I woke up at 5:00 AM and walked over to the store. On the way I passed the post office. Inside were three mailmen, each with an enormous grin on his face, eager to tackle the day’s work. When I got to Jim’s I opened the doors, cleaned the counter, and waited for the sun to rise. People started moseying in around six. I sold a lot of sugar. I took a lunch break. A kid tried to steal a candy bar. I went home.
I settled into this routine, finding only bitterness in its monotony. One day I woke up and realized that I was twenty-six. Had I really spent five years wasting away at Jim’s? Was I cheating my destiny? Where was Ted? I cursed my father every day.
Years passed. I grew a beard and put on twenty pounds. I slept with Amy Shelton from Lightly Road. My mother died, but before she did she told me how proud she was that I was keeping up my father’s legacy, keeping up the family legacy. And then one day, at the age of thirty-seven, I snapped.
It was a cool but pleasant morning, perfect weather for delivering the post. I got to Jim’s at 4:30AM to meet a Kraft Foods representative who was delivering items to the store. I had ordered canned mac and cheese and boxes of peanut brittle, two items that had been flying off the shelves. Upon my arrival, I saw that the man was severely overweight and smoking a fat cigar. He spoke in a deep, guttural, barely comprehensible voice: “Ya I go’ tha’ stuff for ya. Sign here ok?” It seemed he wanted to be on his way, so I signed quickly and together we lugged the boxes into the store.
Twenty minutes later I came upon a ghastly discovery. I was stocking peanut brittle on the corner shelf when I realized that inside the box, coating the delicious (and quality-guaranteed) Kraft item, was a thick layer of spider webs and larvae. This particular box had clearly spoiled in transit, and now it looked like a science experiment had taken place inside the plastic container. The larvae were pulsating, and they looked like they might explode at any given second. God only knows what would have happened then.
Now, any other day, any other second, I would have acted the part of the responsible worker and removed the dangerous item from the shelf. I would have written a strongly worded letter to Kraft Foods complaining about the disgusting incident and threatening to sue on the grounds of “psychological damages.” But not today. For moments before I picked up the contaminated box I had been thinking about my father and about the life he had left there for me. I was just so bitter… It was because of him that I was stuck behind the counter at Jim’s, unable to realize my true dream. Because of him that every day blended into one, monotonous, never ending nightmare. I looked down at the blighted peanut brittle with these thoughts in my mind, and made a strange connection. Was the brittle representative of my life? Was I slowly decaying, caving under the pressure of outside forces?
“To hell with you dad.”
I put the box back on the shelf.
Two hours later, a rather rotund young woman walked into the store. Her cheeks were flushed red from some excess of physical activity. She had a cell phone to her ear and was babbling incessantly. Spittle flew when she talked. Upon reaching the corner shelf, she did not hesitate in selecting an item that would satiate her painful hunger. In her rush to eat and continue talking, she hustled over to the counter without ever looking closely at the contents of the Kraft’s Peanut Brittle box she had chosen. She paid, ripped open the container right there at the counter, and eagerly stuffed a large piece of spider web and larvae coated peanut brittle down her fleshy throat.
It was as if her eyes realized what had happened before the rest of her body did. They opened wide in fright, and then squeezed shut in disgust. Her face turned green, and from my angle, her head looked like a bushel of lettuce. She let out a soft “oh!” I heard a voice coming through her cell phone say “WHAT? WHAT? CAN YOU HEAR ME?” Then she shuddered, keeled over, and died.
And for the first time in a while, I laughed.
Yes, there was an investigation, and yes of course there was a trial. I was charged with “Unlawful and Irresponsible Action” as well as “Third Degree Manslaughter.” I pleaded innocent, but the jury, upon reviewing the Jim’s security tapes from the day in question, declared me guilty, saying, “Son, those tapes show you gazing intently at the infected box for two minutes, and then knowingly placing it on the shelf. If you are not guilty, then who is?” I suppose they had a point.
But it’s not all bad. My cot is much more comfortable then I expected it to be, and my cellmate is very amicable for a convicted arsonist. And the greatest surprise of all: Ted is here! Turns out he’s doing ten to twenty for Federal Racketeering. He got rather high up in the Postal Service and made some bad decisions. We work together in the mail room, sorting and delivering letters to all the inmates. Sometimes, when I look at him a certain way, I think he almost remembers me.
The Shopkeeper
Growing up, my three favorite things in life were (from 3rd to 1st) Thanksgiving, Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” and my mailman, Ted. I knew not his last name, marital status, favorite color, deepest secrets, etc. etc., only that his name was Ted, and he was deeply committed to delivering my family’s mail in a timely and regular fashion. Each day (except Sunday, of course) at 3:00 PM he would walk slowly and purposefully to my red mailbox, the mail tucked under his left arm, a cup of coffee held preciously in his right hand. I frequently made excuses to be outside at 2:55, with the hope of striking up a conversation with my trusty postal liaison. On these days, he would say, in an unnaturally high voice, “Hey kid,” to which I would respond, “Hey Ted.” While conversation was not the focal point of our relationship, I felt we had a different connection, one much deeper than mere words could possibly cater too. You see, I had always dreamt of being a mailman. I longed to wear the stiff, government issued uniform, to carry the sack of letters and bank statements, to be the man upon which some faraway neighborhood depended to deliver its post.
I truly wish this was an essay documenting my long and illustrious career in the Postal Service, or perhaps my heart-warming, unforgettable friendship with Ted. It is not. Rather, this is the story of how my dreams were spoiled by my bastard of a father and his god forsaken general store. My dad, Jim, was raised in rural Idaho. The area was so rural, in fact, that the nearest post office was fifteen miles away. Accordingly, my father never developed any type of affinity for the hardworking and respectable people that deliver our mail. At the age of 25 he moved to Branchdale, Pennsylvania and opened a general store, Jim’s. The store was his pride and joy. Six years later, my mother married him knowing that next to the store she was his one true love. They lived in peace for two more years, at which point I was brought kicking and screaming into the world.
I am not by any means knowledgeable of the deeper workings of the universe. I am not in touch with the cosmos, nor am I a spiritual man by nature. But I feel that I know enough to securely identify a blaring error in His plan. Why would a boy who longs to be a mailman be born to a general-store-owning father whose sole wish for his son is that he carries on the family business?
My father’s desire for me to take over Jim’s upon his death changed my life forever. You need not know the particulars; all that is important is that following my runaway and subsequent return, and after the light “chat” we had as he lay on his deathbed, guilt took over and I agreed to forget about my dreams and work at the family store.
And so it was that on my twenty-first birthday, I woke up at 5:00 AM and walked over to the store. On the way I passed the post office. Inside were three mailmen, each with an enormous grin on his face, eager to tackle the day’s work. When I got to Jim’s I opened the doors, cleaned the counter, and waited for the sun to rise. People started moseying in around six. I sold a lot of sugar. I took a lunch break. A kid tried to steal a candy bar. I went home.
I settled into this routine, finding only bitterness in its monotony. One day I woke up and realized that I was twenty-six. Had I really spent five years wasting away at Jim’s? Was I cheating my destiny? Where was Ted? I cursed my father every day.
Years passed. I grew a beard and put on twenty pounds. I slept with Amy Shelton from Lightly Road. My mother died, but before she did she told me how proud she was that I was keeping up my father’s legacy, keeping up the family legacy. And then one day, at the age of thirty-seven, I snapped.
It was a cool but pleasant morning, perfect weather for delivering the post. I got to Jim’s at 4:30AM to meet a Kraft Foods representative who was delivering items to the store. I had ordered canned mac and cheese and boxes of peanut brittle, two items that had been flying off the shelves. Upon my arrival, I saw that the man was severely overweight and smoking a fat cigar. He spoke in a deep, guttural, barely comprehensible voice: “Ya I go’ tha’ stuff for ya. Sign here ok?” It seemed he wanted to be on his way, so I signed quickly and together we lugged the boxes into the store.
Twenty minutes later I came upon a ghastly discovery. I was stocking peanut brittle on the corner shelf when I realized that inside the box, coating the delicious (and quality-guaranteed) Kraft item, was a thick layer of spider webs and larvae. This particular box had clearly spoiled in transit, and now it looked like a science experiment had taken place inside the plastic container. The larvae were pulsating, and they looked like they might explode at any given second. God only knows what would have happened then.
Now, any other day, any other second, I would have acted the part of the responsible worker and removed the dangerous item from the shelf. I would have written a strongly worded letter to Kraft Foods complaining about the disgusting incident and threatening to sue on the grounds of “psychological damages.” But not today. For moments before I picked up the contaminated box I had been thinking about my father and about the life he had left there for me. I was just so bitter… It was because of him that I was stuck behind the counter at Jim’s, unable to realize my true dream. Because of him that every day blended into one, monotonous, never ending nightmare. I looked down at the blighted peanut brittle with these thoughts in my mind, and made a strange connection. Was the brittle representative of my life? Was I slowly decaying, caving under the pressure of outside forces?
“To hell with you dad.”
I put the box back on the shelf.
Two hours later, a rather rotund young woman walked into the store. Her cheeks were flushed red from some excess of physical activity. She had a cell phone to her ear and was babbling incessantly. Spittle flew when she talked. Upon reaching the corner shelf, she did not hesitate in selecting an item that would satiate her painful hunger. In her rush to eat and continue talking, she hustled over to the counter without ever looking closely at the contents of the Kraft’s Peanut Brittle box she had chosen. She paid, ripped open the container right there at the counter, and eagerly stuffed a large piece of spider web and larvae coated peanut brittle down her fleshy throat.
It was as if her eyes realized what had happened before the rest of her body did. They opened wide in fright, and then squeezed shut in disgust. Her face turned green, and from my angle, her head looked like a bushel of lettuce. She let out a soft “oh!” I heard a voice coming through her cell phone say “WHAT? WHAT? CAN YOU HEAR ME?” Then she shuddered, keeled over, and died.
And for the first time in a while, I laughed.
Yes, there was an investigation, and yes of course there was a trial. I was charged with “Unlawful and Irresponsible Action” as well as “Third Degree Manslaughter.” I pleaded innocent, but the jury, upon reviewing the Jim’s security tapes from the day in question, declared me guilty, saying, “Son, those tapes show you gazing intently at the infected box for two minutes, and then knowingly placing it on the shelf. If you are not guilty, then who is?” I suppose they had a point.
But it’s not all bad. My cot is much more comfortable then I expected it to be, and my cellmate is very amicable for a convicted arsonist. And the greatest surprise of all: Ted is here! Turns out he’s doing ten to twenty for Federal Racketeering. He got rather high up in the Postal Service and made some bad decisions. We work together in the mail room, sorting and delivering letters to all the inmates. Sometimes, when I look at him a certain way, I think he almost remembers me.
Friday, April 9, 2010
First Post: my evening/some drawings
Well, I've done it. I've created a blog. As I'm unsure what to write in my very first post, I think I'll just share with you how I spent this past evening, so you have a good understanding of the events that led up to my taking the proverbial leap into the blogosphere.
I spent tonight at an off-campus house, doing the very typical college thing: playing beer pong, playing variations of beer pong (Civil War), and (not as typical) smoking orange flavored hookah. Needless to say, the hookah was delicious, the most savory part of the evening. I just had a thought: Imagine if inbetween puffs the tobacco went from orange flavored to Keystone flavored? Oh my god. I'd be drinking and smoking Keystone (Getting keystoned?). Horrendous. Anyway, of the 8 or so people present, I'd consider one of them to be a close friend and one a friendly acquaintance. The acquaintance definitely moved up a few rungs when she did me the massive favor of putting on "Party in the USA," (much to everybody else's dismay) and not revealing that it was I who had requested it. I accomplished this risky, seemingly anonymous request through great subterfuge: a discreet text message. I always feel a little devious if a situation presents itself that requires me to text somebody who is in the same room as me, but sometimes it's just unavoidable, like when you want to hear "Party In The USA" in a room full of people who will presumably tar and feather you over the matter. I am a huge fan of this song, and I write that proudly and without compunction. I feel like a number of my future blog posts will be about music, so I will surely dedicate one to Miley, Britney, and other artists who repeatedly churn out brilliant pop songs (with the help of a creative team, of course).
When the song ended, I went outside to talk to the people who were smoking cigarettes on the stoop. April is a fickle month, and it was far colder than I expected it to be. I put my beer can down right outside the doorway and stepped inside to get my coat. When I opened the door again this is what I saw: one party-attendant's legs covered in beer, the can laying crushed and kicked to the side, and a rather butch lesbian screaming "WHO THE FUCK WOULD JUST LEAVE A BEER CAN RIGHT THERE?!" I turned right back around and retreated to the safety of a room with witnesses. Apparently Leslie (the lesbian, whose alliterative name I found out eventually) stepped outside for a smoke, inadvertantly stomped down on my can, and sprayed everyone in the vicinity with cheap beer. My bad. Also, I hope that readers who don't know me well understand that I write "the rather butch lesbian" with the most kind and warm intentions possible. I am the most pro-gay straight guy I know, as will be illuminated in future posts about my adventures with Deg (pronounced "Dedge"), who holds the titles of phallus connoisseur, regal homosexual, and beloved friend.
A semi-digression: Had this been last semester, there is a great chance I would not have been at this party. My girlfriend is currently in Peru doing a study abroad program, but back in the Fall we spent most Friday nights together. I don't want to portray myself as one half of the elitist, elusive happy couple that everybody loves to hate (I know I did, before I met her), because that certainly isn't us. But there are undeniable differences in the amount of time I find to spend with other people. This is certainly a positive thing; I've strengthened numerous other relationships over the past few months, and I don't think this would have been possible to such a lovely extent had M. been here. And of course, she is having an amazing time in South America. That being said, I am eagerly awaiting her return to America come May.
I left the party after three hours or so because I was hungry and wanted to start this blog. On the walk back to my room my mind was zipping back and forth between a few topics: M., pending group projects, my upcoming trip to Japan (definitely going to write about that later), and macaroni and cheese. I know this post is rambling, but I feel like most of my writing is like that. It's tough for me not to go off on tangents, in speech or on paper. Sometimes I feel like I have so much to say and no time to say it, and other times I feel curiously blank, like I have a very comfortable 'nothing' to contribute to a conversation/situation. Perhaps blogging about my mundane experiences, exciting experiences, encounters, relationships, and other things will help me figure out why this is so. In any case, I am glad that you will be here with me along the way.
On a final note, I started to draw this semester. Now, I don't claim to be a good artist; I am nothing of the sort. Most of my drawing are of strange, ugly girls saying things to equally strange, ugly boys. My favorite part about it all is the talk bubbles. I'm going to post my drawings on this blog periodically. I hope you like them.
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