Something like optimism

On Christmas Miracles

2009-12-21T10:56:00.002-05:00

For the last four years, I've written a Christmas story in lieu of sending out Christmas cards. Below, please find this year's story.

Christmas Miracles
by Brad Rohrer
Christmas 2009

“Thank you for letting me be here today. I realize, looking out, that I don’t know many of you, and that’s probably to be expected. I can’t claim to be as close to Nicole as some of you, but she has affected my life greatly. In all honesty, her impact on my life has been profound and lasting, and that’s prompted me to be here today.

“I think the right way to start one of these is by talking about the first time she and I met. Okay, here goes: ‘I remember the first time I met Nicole.’ Truthfully, I don’t know that it was the actual first time we met, or the first time we spoke, but for the purposes of this, it will be.

“It was about two weeks before Halloween, three years ago. Leaves were falling, the weather was turning crisp, and I was working as an Assistant Manager at Walgreens at the time - a job I did not enjoy at all. That day, Nicole and two of her friends came in. One of my cashiers came to me and told me she thought the three girls that just came in were stealing makeup. I went over to that aisle to check on them and sure enough, there were three eleven year-old girls, one of whom was tucking some ‘Lip Smackers’ in her purse. I escorted all three of them to the office and my manager – Ms. Walker - started reading them the riot act.

“When she said she would call the police, the two other girls – both of whom had merchandise in their purses, by the way – burst into tears. Nicole kept quiet the entire time. I remember observing them and noticing the differences – the other two girls were both dressed a little ambitiously for their age, and Nicole was wearing jeans and a Chicago Bears T-Shirt (which may have engendered some sympathy from me). The other girls were a little...puffy?....and Nicole was so thin. The expression “all knees and elbows” popped in my head and just stuck there.

“Ms. Walker was talking to them about Responsibility and Civic Duty when the police showed up. I briefly talked with Officer Slamkowski (our designated shoplifting liaison, it seemed) and he asked me what the girls had taken. I explained that the two other girls had each taken makeup, but that it didn’t appear Nicole had anything. He went inside the office and brought the girls out. As they walked past me, Ms. Walker told them she didn’t want to see them in the store unsupervised ever again. It was then – not when they were caught, not when the police were called - it was THEN that she started crying. It seemed odd to me.

“Well, I was scheduled to close that night, so I put it out of my mind. I mean, catching shoplifters wasn’t exactly a rarity in those days. Later that night, I was at the photo counter when Nicole came back in. I recognized the T-shirt, and the knees and elbows, I guess, when she approached me. She handed me a letter and just stood there. I still have that letter, and I’d like to read it to you today, to give you an idea of the kind of girl she was.

“Dear Mr. Stephenson – I should point out that my last name is spelled correctly, which is a huge deal, as it meant she had actually put effort into the letter, and not just guessed – Dear Mr. Stephenson, I am truly sorry for our actions earlier today. It is wrong to steal and we made a bad decision. I am writing to ask that I be allowed to be in the store, because I have to pick up my grandpa’s medication for him sometimes. He lives in the Heisel Retirement Center and can’t get around on his own. I promise I will behave when I am in the store. Signed, Nicole Rumphley

“I didn’t know how to react. To show that kind of maturity said a lot – not only the letter, but also the concern for her grandfather over herself. I had already made up my mind, but pretended to still be considering.

“’Nicole,’ I said, ‘I need you to be one hundred percent honest with me. Did you steal anything?’

“She paused before answering. ‘No,’ she said, in a clear, quiet voice, ‘but my friends did, and I’m supposed to be the responsible one. I should have stopped them.’

“I said ‘Nicole, if I felt I had to take responsibility for all the dumb things my friends have done, I would be the guiltiest person on Earth. You’re allowed to come into the store, but your friends aren’t. Do you understand?’

“When I said that - honestly, it was like watching a Disney flower see the little cartoon sun and just bloom all at once. She thanked me over and over, and then scampered out of the store. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that she hadn’t been worried about getting in trouble. She had been worried about not being able to pick up her grandpa’s medication.

“I saw her from time to time after that, in the store obviously. She would pick up her grandfather’s medication and usually a Snickers bar – I envied her ability to enjoy them, as it’s been years since I’ve been able to sneak a candy bar guilt-free. She always had such energy; some say it was the Snickers bars, but I believe it was more than that. She was so sunny, and just radiated optimism and joy, affecting everyone she met.

“The crux of the story comes on Christmas Eve, three years ago. At Walgreens, Christmas Eve is the busiest day of the year, and one of my favorites. Everyone works, all of the employees bring in a dish to share, and we all actually have fun working. I had to open the store, getting there extra early, because I knew the day would be hectic. Shortly after I arrived, the phone rang. The assistant manager who was supposed to come in and work from noon to 8:30 was calling to say that there had been a last-second cancellation, and his local band had a chance to open up for a huge national band that night. The opportunity was too big for them to miss, he said. I was happy for him, of course, but very disappointed for myself. I knew I would have to work later, and my plans to watch ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ by myself that night were pushed back.

“In a surprisingly out-of-character move, Ms. Walker said she would stay later, and that I could still go home at five o’clock. I was delighted. I remember saying ‘It’s a Christmas miracle’ to my camera clerk in the stockroom, and we both laughed like idiots. The day continued, until just after noon, just after I had eaten a great deal of the potluck dinner. As I was coming back from my break, Nicole came in the store. She was wearing a reindeer antler headband that would have looked ridiculous on anyone not smiling as much as she was. She greeted me and I asked her what her Christmas plans were.

“’Do you really want to know?’ she said.

“I told her I absolutely wanted to know, and she leaned in close. ‘I’m going to find a Christmas miracle tonight.’

“’Really?’ I said, ‘Seems like a pretty big goal.’

“’Tonight there’s going to be a Christmas miracle! I had a dream!’

“I had to admire her spirit, if nothing else. ‘I could use a miracle,’ I told her, ‘when and where is this dramatic event taking place?’

“’You don’t believe me,’ she said, frowning, ‘but I’m going to be at Staton Hills Park tonight, and I’m going to find my Christmas miracle!’

“’I’m think I’ve had my miracle of the day,” I told her, thinking about Ms. Walker staying late, ‘but I hope you find yours. In case you don’t, though, let me buy you your Snickers bar today.’

“She left the store, waving to the clerks as she did. I remember chuckling at that, as much for my appreciation of her belief than anything. At that time, I did need a miracle. I dreaded coming to work every day, I felt like I was wasting my life in a job that brought me zero joy. My personal life was a mess; I had no faith and interest in any kind of...well, any kind of anything. I was quick to be cynical and make a snarky joke about others - I was generally a miserable person. In that particular Christmas season, I think I out-Grinched the Grinch. At least on the inside.

“Shortly after that, Ms. Walker called me into the office, saying she wasn’t feeling well. I asked her what was wrong, and she said she hadn’t eaten much, just the Christmas tamales one of the pharmacy techs had brought in. She got incredibly sick and ended up going home for the day and, in fact, missing several days of work. And yes, I was concerned for her, but I was also disappointed that I would, in fact, be staying until 8:30 that night. I was silently grateful for my bland diet, which led to me skipping the tamales.

“I made it through the rest of my work day, surviving on the four different types of brownies my employees had brought in. I left the store just before 8:30, intent on going home after a fourteen-and-a-half hour day.

“As I was leaving, one of my neighbors came in and said that a pipe had burst on one of the main roads, and that I would need to take a different route home. He ran a carpet-cleaning business, and so had been called in for an emergency basement cleaning in one of the affected houses. He had also talked with one of the city guys working on the pipe fix and they said they had no idea what had caused the pipe to burst, as the weather was cold, but not THAT cold. I thanked my neighbor and headed home. At that point, I just wanted to not be around people at all.

“I drove away from work that night, and my mood got worse and worse. What else could go wrong for me? From an exhausting day of work to people not showing up to my boss getting sick to this stupid detour on my way home...no Christmas Eve plans, no Christmas cards from old friends, no mistletoe kisses, no family to celebrate Christmas morning with...what was so special about Christmas anyway? Just a holiday where you spend money you don’t have on people you don’t like for gifts they don’t want.

“I was so mired in my self-pity and anti-Christmas sentiments I hadn’t been paying attention to much else. And sure enough, as I was a little over halfway home, my car ran out of gas. Once I figured out what had happened, I got so angry at myself for letting it happen. My plan had been to buy gas and a lottery ticket on the way home, because I figured a story where a down-and-out loser won the lottery on Christmas would make for a good TV movie some time in the future. With the freak pipe burst and detour, I had forgotten all about it.

“I was about as low as I could get at that point. My head dropped against the steering wheel and I thought about everything that had gone wrong over the past few weeks – even years. I have never felt so low, never felt so alone. I prayed out loud for the first time I could remember at that moment, begging God for help, begging for a miracle. I actually said it out loud. I actually asked for a miracle.

“It was then that I remembered Nicole’s words, that a Christmas miracle would happen that night. I looked out my car window and realized that I was just one street over from Staton Hills Park. I tried to start my car, hoping against hope that ‘a car starting with no gas’ would be the miracle she had talked about. No such luck.

“I thought that maybe I could borrow Nicole’s phone to call for a ride. I locked my car and walked down the street, thinking about how ridiculous this was – trying to borrow an eleven year-old’s cell phone on Christmas Eve IF she had even been allowed out of the house for her supposed ‘miracle.’ It’s a ridiculous concept, I’ll grant you that.

“There wasn’t much to see from the street, so I went down the hill into the park. As I got nearer to the lake, I heard people talking, so I headed toward them. As you may have guessed by now, Nicole was one of those people. She was with her grandfather, Mason, who was bundled up in a wheelchair, and someone else. Nicole saw me approaching and fair to flew toward me.

“’Mr. Stephenson! You came!’ The joy on her face was a real thing. It was unguarded, unbelievable, really. ‘We’re waiting by the water for our miracle!’

“She dragged me by the arm to the other two people. I had seen her grandfather in the store a few times over the years and he greeted me as only grandfathers can. Then Nicole introduced me to the other person; her name was Mary, and she was the most beautiful woman I had ever met. I stumbled through my greeting and tried to figure out who she was in the scheme of things. Nicole saved me at that point and said that she was ‘Grandpa’s Replacement Nurse.’

“As Nicole and Mason headed closer to the water, I struck up a conversation with Mary. I learned she had moved to town a month before and just started her job. She said she was surprised that she had gotten a job as a home care nurse so quickly, claiming it as – and I’m not making this up – a miracle.

“Well, people get jobs all the time, so I didn’t really consider it an actual miracle. Then she told me she hadn’t been assigned to work that day, but got called in when Mason’s regular nurse got sick from eating some bad tamales.

“That seemed odd to me, but coincidences happen. I’m sure there are people who couldn’t be here today who don’t know each other who got sick because of similar things. It happens, right? I asked her what she had been planning on doing that night and her eyes – beautiful eyes, by the way – watered. She told me her family was still ‘back at home’ and that she was planning on calling them and watching ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ while on the phone with them after her shift ended with Mason.

“For those of you keeping track, that’s her having this particular job, on this particular night, for this particular reason, and we shared similar plans for the evening (minus the phone call on my end). I stayed at work much later than intended because of a rock concert and unexplained illness – then, because of an unexplainable pipe burst, I had to take a different route home, running out of gas one street away from a park where I knew people would be. This could all be dismissed as coincidence. Improbable, yes...but not impossible.

“What happened next, though...a man was walking through the park, singing ‘All I Want for Christmas is You.’ I remember because one of my friends has her cell phone ringtone set as that all year. He was carrying something, although we couldn’t tell what. He came up to us and said that he had been at Starbucks and they had messed up his order, giving him hot chocolates when we wanted something much fancier. He asked us if the four of us would like cups of hot chocolate for Christmas. We gratefully accepted – the man, whose name I never learned – mentioned that one of the hot chocolates was sugar-free, which was perfect for Mason’s diabetes. So...four free cups of hot chocolate, for four people, on Christmas Eve.

“As we sipped our hot chocolate – the perfect kind, mit schlag – Mary and I talked while Mason and Nicole looked for Christmas stars. And we continued to talk. When Nicole was practically asleep on Mason’s lap, we decided to go. Nicole apologized to me for not seeing a miracle and I didn’t say anything. Just as we got ready to leave, fireworks burst into the air over the lake. Some kids on the other side were trying to light up the sky to find Santa, I’m told, but for a moment, as those red and green bursts of light filled the sky, I felt it was the perfect moment in a life filled largely with imperfect moments. Nicole’s face lit up just as bright as those fireworks, and Mason called out that it was a Christmas miracle! We all hugged one another and I can’t begin to describe how right everything felt.

“Yes, there certainly was a miracle in the works that night. Not the fireworks or hot chocolate, no. As some of you have probably guessed, Mary and I started seeing one another shortly after that. We were married before the next Christmas. I’ve never met a woman like her, and I owe it all to Nicole’s belief in Christmas miracles. To her faith, which was such a large part of the events that led me to that park that night. Now, Mary couldn’t be here today, as she’s home taking care of our little twin miracles, but I know she sends her prayers to family members and close friends.

“When I got the news of Nicole’s passing, I was stunned. To think that one so young, so bright, with her entire future before her could be gone just like that...

“I’m not going to pretend to understand why Nicole had to be taken from us. If I could borrow from Kermit the Frog (with an assist from Charles Dickens), ‘Life is full of meetings and partings; that is the way of it. I am sure we shall never forget Nicole, or this first parting that there was among us.’

“I firmly believe that Nicole is heaven, probably assisting with Christmas miracles for other people, and we’ll meet again sometime, and I can thank her for the miracle that changed my life.

“Some of you may be scoffing at my talk of miracles, citing the fact that each of the individual circumstances can be easily explained. This is true; everything that happened had a rational reason behind it. All of the things that led to my meeting Mary were improbable, not impossible. But I ask you this: how many improbable events have to line up for something to be impossible, for something to be miraculous? I look at all the little events that led me to Staton Hills Park that night, and I am amazed at how many different things had to be in place in order for each of us to be there at that time. And then, once we met, the hot chocolate, the fireworks...

“The temptation to be cynical is present, I’m sure. Faith is often mocked by people who fancy themselves educated, and I understand that. I’m not asking any of you to share the belief in the miracle. I am, however, asking you to be on the lookout for your own Christmas miracle. Maybe it won’t be a big thing, perhaps something as simple as finding a stamp for your last Christmas card when you think you’ve run out, or finding an ornament you thought the dog ate, or even just realizing how lucky you are to spend Christmas with your loved ones.

“I’ll also encourage you to be a miracle for someone else – even something as simple as letting someone else have that parking spot closest to the mall entrance, or donating clothes and food to those in need. There are many, many ways that you can do something wonderful this winter. I truly hope you can be a part of a miracle yourself this year.

“Thank you for your time, and Merry Christmas.”

ON HALLOWEEN (AGAIN)

2009-10-30T13:48:00.002-04:00

I used to love Halloween, with the exception of the time I wrote about last year. Getting older, however, has sucked much of the fun out of it for me.

SPOOKY STUFF - I've never been a spooky kind of guy. As a kid, I was absolutely TERRIFIED of "Large Marge" in the movie Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, so I never graduated to the Friday the 13ths, the Nightmare on Elm Streets, or the, uh, Halloweens. I can handle It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, but that's about it. [Yet I love Stephen King's books. Weird.]

CANDY - Let me get this out in the open: I would eat nothing but candy if I could. I just stared at the keyboard for fifteen minutes trying to figure out what my favorite candy bar is, and I couldn't come to a solution. So naturally, as candy was a large part of the Halloween experience, you'd think I'd still be all for it. Nope. I know that I have an appetite that has trouble limiting portions...so eating one candy bar often leads to eating MANY candy bars, which leads to weight gain, guilt gain, and diabetes gain. So I've cut the candy out of Halloween. I hate getting old.

COSTUMES - I have also never been a big dress-up kind of Halloweener. As a kid, my costumes weren't excessively elaborate - I just threw on a Joe Montana jersey and called myself a football player. In middle school, I threw on a hockey jersey (despite my lack of hockey-related skill or experience...or ice skating know-how, for that matter) and called that a costume. So the dressing-up part of Halloween doesn't appeal to me. And yes, I enjoy the prospect of attractive women dressing up in revealing clothing as much as (or more than) the next guy, but working with college students makes me feel very parental to many of them. It's to the point where I want to stop them before they leave the building and make them go put on a jacket or something.

EVIL - Well, I'll still have a devil's seance ouija party in the cemetery and summon some Lovecraftian monstrosity tomorrow. It is Halloween, after all.

ON HONESTY

2009-10-27T13:02:00.002-04:00

I had a topic I was going to write about today ("On Making Moves,") but chickened out, as I know family members read this occasionally. I guess I live in a world where I don't want my mom reading how the new Weezer single impacts my move-making strategy.

It's a challenge for me, balancing honesty (which is important) with appropriateness (which I evaluate as "appropriate for my family"). For example, our Mexico City Standoff Video, filmed in the spring, has two F-bombs in it. I don't say them, I didn't write them, but still felt very odd showing the video to my parents. In the new video (due next week!), my character has a few off-color lines. I don't want my family seeing that, either.

As I was waiting for the director and DP to show up yesterday, I realized how my life is basically somewhere between the character Bradley Stevenson (featured in LAST summer's video, as well as the one that's due next week) and the stage name of Brad Roar! (exclamation point not my idea) Truthfully, I'm not 100% the conservative fun-hating always-for-decency person that Bradley Stevenson is. I'm also not the up-for-anything-on-stage performer that Brad Roar! is supposed to be (During any of our "Naughty Bits" shows, I was just as R-Rated as anyone, if not more so). Speaking of performing, I was always very nervous about my parents seeing me perform in Chicago, as I had no control over the topics the group explored. Working in a PG-13 group has relaxed my anxieties on that front.

In any event, I always feel like I'm holding back with one side of my personality or the other. I use very conservative terminology (or skip stories entirely) in my weekly update so as not to offend my Arkansas friends or make them think less of me (the reaction when I described a girl as "cute...but possibly a stripper" was much stronger than I thought it would be). Conversely, I am loath to speak to my less-conservative friends about ways in which their lives could be less...controversial (although I'm honestly having a hard time thinking of examples right now, as my less-conservative friends are typically more live-and-let-live - I guess I did get a fair amount of grief when I decided not to date a girl because of differing religious views [among other things]).

The truth is that I'm somewhere between Bradley Stevenson and Brad Roar! As I strive to live with more congruity between thoughts and actions (and words), I know there's going to be moments of discomfort as I try and figure out how to express myself in a manner that is both honest and appropriate and, every once in a while, actually entertaining. Also, that Weezer song is great.

ON TENURE

2009-10-23T10:38:00.002-04:00

Today is officially my three-year anniversary at work. Why, it seems like just yesterday I spent the morning filling out forms with HR, then half of the afternoon reading the RD manual, then the rest of the day looking up funny videos on Youtube. (If I were a lesser man, I would make a smarmy joke here - something along the lines of "Oh wait - that WAS yesterday!" and the laugh track would kick in.) As it turns out, due to union rules, I received tenure today.

I'm not entirely sure what tenure is/does. I'm told that if I'm going to be fired, I have to be fired for cause (for example, the school can't just decide to not renew my contract). As I've gotten good evaluations each year I've been here, I wasn't worried about my contract not being renewed. I figure if I get fired for cause, it's going to be "for cause." I'm going to earn that firing.

I was actually unsure about working here in the first place. They said it was a one-year contract, and at the time I was still set on getting into a doctorate program after a year. I took the job and started looking for new ones almost immediately (about a week after I started here, a job opened up at UC-Santa Barbara, which seems VERY appealing when the weather turns cold). And despite my efforts to find another job, nothing has worked out just yet.

Not that it's been all doom and gloom. I've met some great people, both within the position and outside of it. Obviously, none of that would have happened had I bolted after one year. There would be no Bradley Stevenson jokes, the best man speech at Wes and Retha's wedding would have been a little different, and who knows what would have happened with improv stuff?

Aside from what-ifs, I never thought I would be tenured in an entry-level job. I had four years of management experience coming into the position, and saw it as a transitory thing, a brief stopping point before moving into a mid-level job. I'm ready to move on, as I wrote about a month ago, but today is a day of realization for me - that three years and one week ago, the Bears beat the Cardinals on a Devin Hester punt return.

ON POSITIVE FEEDBACK

2009-10-22T12:58:00.002-04:00

As you may have heard, President Barack Obama recently was announced as the winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. This caused some consternation, as many people felt he hadn't done enough to warrant the award. I made an offhand joke about me winning the "Nobel Pizza Prize" on my Facebook page. While it's not a good joke per se, people know I love pizza, and several people clicked that they "liked" it. For reasons beyond my ken, I simply BASKED in those likes. I was like Demi Moore's character in the movie Indecent Proposal, just rolling around in "likes." All this, and only FOUR people actually liked it. The feedback meant that much to me. (My other analogy was comparing myself to a puppy having its belly rubbed. For some reason, the Demi Moore one just seems more appropriate).

Several months ago, a friend cautioned me against being "needy." My complaint that I put a lot of work in writing an update and didn't get much back prompted her caution. I respect her opinion, and have been trying to NOT be needy, and just accept that not everyone either likes what I do or has time to provide feedback. That's okay. I get that.

Still, part of me thrives on people liking what I do. I love having big audiences for improv shows and making them laugh. I'm okay with having small audiences, as long as they laugh. I'm always pleasantly surprised when someone I don't know says they enjoy the podcast or the Bradley Stevenson character from my work with Senior Discount (new video coming soon!). And feedback from my best man speeches - to have a stranger come up to me and say how much they enjoyed it - that meant a LOT to me. (I expected my friends to laugh. They are comfortable with my sense of humor, and are generally more supportive).

Ultimately, I know that I can't rely on other people's feedback to tell me what I'm doing is good or bad. It's an internal thing, and I need to keep plugging along, doing work (comedically or otherwise) that I think is good, and let the universe sort out its quality on its own. But still, every once in a while, like everyone else (I imagine), I like to hear I'm doing a good job.

ON MUSIC AND MEMORIES

2009-10-21T10:36:00.003-04:00

It is always a tiny surprise to me that music can evoke such powerful memories. Flash back with me, if you will, to Christmas break of 1998-99. I had received the three "Lord of the Rings" books for Christmas. I had also purchased two CD's from the punk rock label "Fat Wreck Chords," one of which was Tilt's "'Til It Kills." I read all three of the books while home over break WHILE listening to the CD's. And some of the lyrics went well with the books - the song "Acathisia," for example, has a line that reads "I got these shoes for nothing/And they have lasted me forever/Searching up and down the lost highway."

To this day, I hear that song and can't help but think of Frodo and his friends - this was before the movies, so I call on my own image of what the characters looked like. (Truthfully, they look a little more cartoony in my mind.)

It doesn't end with music and fictional characters, though. Whenever I hear the Bush song "Glycerine," I think of my friend Bob. We worked together at a pizza place as teenagers and would joke about Glycerine being "our song," and we would faux-slow-dance around the kitchen when it came on the radio. Bob died in a car accident in 2000, so hearing that song unexpectedly always makes me think of him and smile (one of my favorite Bob jokes was the classic "If your parents got divorced, would they still be considered brother and sister?") It makes perfect sense that that particular song would evoke memories of that specific person.

Recently, however, the music-mind link seems to be getting out of control. The band The Airborne Toxic Event has a song called "Sometime Around Midnight." The theme of the song seems to be that the protagonist (the song is written in second-person) loved a woman who has gotten away, then he sees her at a bar, so he gets drunk and acts foolish (I'm oversimplifying). I shouldn't relate to much of the song - I don't drink, for one.

When the song comes on, though, I get a very clear image of a friend of mine in Los Angeles. I don't know why I think of her - don't get me wrong, she's worthy of pining over, she's certainly as enchanting as the unnamed girl in the song - but this particular song has no connection to us at all. I've spent no time with her when this song was playing, so it's not like it's a special part of our friendship. Lyrically, she's never left a bar with another guy when I was there, I've never made a drunken scene about her leaving said bar, we were never romantically involved at all (though I've always thought she was beautiful). So there is absolutely no rational reason for her to pop into my mind when I hear the song (and as the song is on my playlist at the creatively-named playlist.com, it's fairly often).

Nevertheless, the song evokes her pretty completely in my mind - and I don't understand why. The only rationale - honestly, the only one - is that the song starts with "And it starts/Sometime around midnight," and my LA friend is the only person I know cool enough to start her social life around midnight. That's it - that's the only reason. Is it a weak and possibly specious link? Probably. Am I impressed with my use of "specious?" You'd better believe it. Did I just look up "specious" to make sure I used it mostly correctly? Absolutely.

ON STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

2009-10-20T14:28:00.002-04:00

I've been thinking a lot about group formation lately. Two aspects of my life come to mind - work and improv.

In both situations, I am blessed to be working with people who have strengths different from my own. At work, there are people who are strong in terms of programming, or developing relationships with their RA's. In improv, perhaps people are better singers (there are no worse singers in our group than me) or people can be counted on to be more "out there" in terms of developing characters, always making unconventional choices.

At work, the leadership is obviously directed for us. We know who reports to whom. In some situations, however, someone has to step up and run the show, so to speak. We just had an interview with a candidate in which only the RD's participated. I happened to be sitting nearest the candidate and so started things off. As the candidate delivered one of his answers, I found myself wondering if the rest of the room resented me for running the interview. It's not an intentional thing on my part - I just wanted it to get done. No one said anything to me, but maybe I'll wait to see how tomorrow's interview goes before asking everyone how they feel. It's just that I've been here the second-longest (tenured on Friday) and think that with great seniority comes great responsibility...just like Spider-Man Senior said.

Improv is different. While our rehearsals are run by our director, everyone else kind of chips in for the rest of what we need to do. We all try to book shows, we all work on publicity, we all try to support the group. The only problem is that when something falls through the cracks, no one notices. It's a frustrating thing, and certainly one we all have to work on, but it's the nature of a communal approach. And certainly from the business side (as opposed to the creative side) of the group, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. I created most of the press kit for the group, as well as a program that we have apparently not given out in a while. Hmmm.

I don't know that I have any huge, glaring weaknesses in either aspect of my life. Lest you think me vain, I don't have any huge glaring strengths either. Let me put it another way: in the game "Mario Kart" for the Super Nintendo, different drivers were good at certain things and less good at other things (for example, Donkey Kong had a high top speed but low acceleration). The Mario character was balanced - not exceptional, but also not deficient in anything. If life is the SNES Mario Kart, I'm Mario.

ON THE FMYLIFE PHENOMENON

2009-10-19T11:24:00.002-04:00

I was at Target on Sunday morning, buying supplies for a meeting. The scent of pretzels was in the air, and I stopped by the counter, considering how delicious a cinnamon-sugar pretzel would be for breakfast. The girl in front of me ordered breadsticks. The woman working said they didn't have any, and the girl left. As she did, she said "No breadsticks? Ugh! [Frick] my life!"

Now, I know how it feels to not get the food you've been craving. But...really? You need to say that because your life is THAT bad when you don't get Pizza Hut breadsticks from a Target on a Sunday morning (very close to noon)?

The phrase [Frick] My Life, heareafter abbreviated as FML, is popularized on the website fmylife.com, where people write in little stories about things that go wrong in their life. Some of the things are serious (infidelity) and some are...less serious (assuming someone is buying a Halloween costume when it's just their clothes). Most are amusing in the "other people are in pain" kind of way (which sounds callous when it's spelled out like that). I see the value in using this site as a coping mechanism, sharing the pain with other people could lessen it, I suppose. But when the expressions finds its way into everyday life, into real life, little question marks appear above my head.

I was a big proponent of swearing while I was in college, and now I am not. While I see the value in a few choice epithets (for example, when your team's running back fumbles inside the five yard-line...on two consecutive plays), I think for "life description" things need to be a little more serious than breadsticks not being at your beck and call. For example:

"Today, Nazis discovered my family hiding from them. All that's going to remain of my legacy will be a diary. FML."

I realize that all people have problems, and that comparing hardships is an exercise in futility, but I think if one is going to [frick] their own life, things need to be worse than a lack of breadsticks. For example, there could be no cinnamon-sugar pretzels ready.

ON HOT CHOCOLATE

2009-10-16T10:13:00.002-04:00

Obviously, I haven't blogged recently. I have been in a funk recently and didn't feel like writing every day "This is another reason why I hate everything." That's no fun. No one wants to read that. I waited for the funk to pass (as it did) and then was stuck with writer's block for another week (odd, since I haven't written anything else in two months). And now I'm stuck here, one paragraph in, and all the inspiration I felt this morning is dissipating.

I recently purchased a hundred-dollar coffeemaker. This is an out-of-character purchase, as I don't drink coffee. I bought it with the sole intention of making single-serve cups of hot chocolate. I reasoned that 77 cups of hot chocolate would save me the money I would be spending on Dunkin' Donuts Hot Chocolate. It's true. I did the math and everything.

For some reason or another, I apparently am dead-set on making that money back within the first two months, as I have been drinking hot chocolate like reindeer drink eggnog (which is to say...a lot, and often, and oddly enough, with antlers). I have been perfecting the mix of whipped cream, mug size, and temperature, but still...a lot of hot chocolate.

From a deliciousness standpoint, it's been great. From a financial standpoint, I have changed my behavior to justify this purchase. If I didn't have this appliance, I wouldn't be drinking as much of this toasty scrumptious beverage. I wouldn't drink 75 DD Hot Chocolates over the course of even three years - why am I trying to cram all this marshmallow-coated goodness in two months?

I hate justifying purchases like this, because once I start, I find it very difficult to STOP comparing price-versus-benefits. Several years ago, I analyzed the amount of time spent playing Halo 2 online, and the cost of my Xbox, the game, Xbox Live, etc. I then compared it to other games I had purchased and tried to figure out which game banged me for a buck the most.

That's how that expression goes, right?

I started reading a book on behavioral economics last night, and it's blowing my mind, so all of that is coming to the forefront of my mind again. I'll likely have a lot more to write about that subject in the future, but for now - hot chocolate. Back the matter at hand.

The fact is, this coffeemaker changed my life. If I ever have friends over who want coffee, I will be able to provide them with coffee in many different flavors and forms. I will be able to make myself 60-calorie cups of hot chocolate whenever I want, and share those with friends who don't like coffee, as I did yesterday. And really...can you put a price on the happiness of your friends? And, if so, is it cheaper than a Dunkin' Donuts Hot Chocolate?

[Not my most cohesive post, but I'm a little rusty. Bear with me.]

ON KNOWING WHEN

2009-09-08T15:53:00.002-04:00

I've been back and forth about leaving this job. Seriously, when I moved here, I was already looking. But now...I'm ready to go. I just need to find another job and place to live, more friends, other opportunities to be creative, and some good restaurants and I will put in my notice here. Seriously.

ON A FAVORITE DAY

2009-09-04T10:29:00.002-04:00

Last night was my fantasy football draft. During the day, I repeatedly told people it was my "fifth-favorite day of the year." (Christmas Day, Thanksgiving Day, my birthday, July 4th, and the FF draft. Arbor Day can go to hell.) As the day went on, I started to believe it, and tried to figure out why the day mattered so much.

The league has been (mostly) the same group of guys for going on eight years. We've done a live online draft for three years, allowing us to mock picks as they are made for people who are online. While I would prefer we all get together and do the draft together, the distances involved prevent it (from Massachusetts to Calgary - we're spread out).

I guess if one word had to sum up the experience, it would be potential. Immediately after the drafting is over, there's a week before anything happens. I have that whole week to think about how good my team is going to be, how everyone else's teams will be crushed by injuries or poor play, and how good it's going to feel to get the championship bobblehead. I have the whole football season to look forward to, and I spend a good half an hour trying to figure out which games will be on TV here so I can cheer my players on (as I have Tom Brady, that means I will get to see my QB play every week).

It was also entertaining to watch my own draft kind of self-destruct. I had ranked 143 players, with the idea that I would strictly follow that list throughout the draft. It didn't happen. I reached for a team defense a round or two before I should have. I didn't take the top tight end I had ranked, I skipped a few receivers...but overall, I think it came out well.

Now, to figure out my week one lineup...

ON TREADING WATER

2009-09-02T13:48:00.002-04:00

The last few weeks have been stressful. Nothing out of the ordinary, mostly work stuff. I feel like it's a struggle to keep my head above water during times like this, and this year was busier than most.

It was, however, an exception. Not because I didn't keep up with the numerous demands work placed on my life, but because I decided to raise the bar for myself. Instead of forgetting about extracurriculars, I continued with as much improv as possible. Instead of forgetting friends, I tried to make a point to catch up with people I hadn't heard from in a while. And instead of skipping the podcast, I skipped writing a blog entry for the past three weeks. In my defense, my moldy office was "fixed" yesterday.

I don't know why I went through this stressful time without a crutch of any kind. No stress eating, no crying jags, no extra medication. Part of me wanted to prove I could get through this on my own - except that part of me was wrong. It sucked. I would have loved to have eaten Snickers bars for dinner every night for the past three weeks. That crutch would have been both supportive and delicious. But no - I wanted to be Snickerless (I only lost .4 pounds over the past two weeks - surprising, considering I had several super-low-calorie days) for reasons I'm not entirely clear on.

But I made it. My building has moved in, I am caught up on work, and I am enjoing Ultra Violet Diet Mountain Dew. My head is above water, I'm clinging to a lifevest, and trying my best to swim away from the sinking ship that is "Budget Cuts." Now, to find an island with mysterious hatches...

ON A FUN NIGHT OUT

2009-08-11T15:11:00.002-04:00

Last night, we went to Dave and Buster's. I hadn't been in a while, and it always strikes me how seriously I take "ticket games." I really want to get those tickets to get usually-low-grade prizes, that would have been much less expensive had I just used the money directly for (for example) the pint glasses.

As I think on it more, I suppose there's something to be said for the experience. There's not much point to going to a place like D&B's by oneself, with the idea of "I'm going to get two pint glasses tonight!" The prizes are there as a bonus, something extra that makes the night a little more enjoyable. So the next time some wiseguy points out the relative value of the prizes, feel free to cite the "fun" included in the "price" of the prize.

In addition to the cheap gifts, we added a little of our own excitement to the night. I had a free T-shirt from my school's orientation program. I brought it with me and called it a trophy. The person who had it could be challenged at any game at any time throughout the night; winner of that game kept the shirt until they were challenged again. The shirt changed hands many times throughout the night, on a horse-racing skill game, DDR, trivia...but it ended up being most hotly contested in the final game of pop-a-shot. The decision was made to go best of three; the first two games were split and the last one...was a tie! In sudden death, my cheese-loving friend Casey took home the trophy. In our post-evening discussions, she said that made her in charge of the "trophy" the next time we go to Dave and Buster's. I'm really glad the trophy idea worked so well last night, and I'm even more glad that it seems to be a hit for the future as well.

ON TALENT

2009-08-10T15:45:00.002-04:00

I saw a commercial for a new TV show yesterday, and truthfully, it looks awful. Allegedly a comedy, nothing in the trailer made anyone in the room laugh; I would say we had a broad range of senses-of-humor in the room, as well.

It's really becoming more clear to me that it isn't the most talented people who succeed. People who are thoroughly mediocre but are either a) extremely hard-working or b) extremely well-connected seem to rise to the top of their fields. There's a lesson in this somewhere. The lesson being, of course, that people who make decisions as to what airs or gets recorded are stupid.

It's a frustrating thing, to go on a website and see an eight-minute video with a ton of jokes get about 400 total views, but then a two-minute video with a moderately famous person on it gets tens of thousands of views - but has no jokes. People are conditioned to think highly of this performer, so they do. It sounds petulant and reeking of jealousy, but I would think that a website featuring funny videos would benefit be focusing on content rather than name recognition.

It's a tough thing. I need to work harder on connecting with some influential people.

ON HYPOCHONDRIA

2009-08-06T11:41:00.002-04:00

I won't sit here and pretend that I'm often sick. Thinking back to my youth, I didn't miss a day of school other than a campus visit between seventh and twelfth grade. I didn't take any sick time for work during the four years I was at Walgreens or the two years at Arkansas. And since I've been here, I've probably missed a combined two days due to illness or just needing to sleep.

It's weird when I do get sick - I hate feeling bad, but I also hate admitting I need help, so I am loath to actually go to the doctor. However, when I get just a little sick - a headache, or my current stomach acid problem - I assume the worst. I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to tell my family how I developed the brain tumor that I am sure is causing the headache. Then I go to bed, wake up, and feel fine. (Note: I would love to send my family a singing telegram to break the news.)

As to my current deal, in which I feel like I am always full up to my throat and don't want to eat, I checked WebMD and it listed some possible awful things for me. Instead of going to a doctor for further tests, I just follow the treatment advice on there for whatever disease I self-diagnose. It's a terrible path, and certainly not the right one, but I apparently will go to great lengths to not go to the doctor (I also don't completely understand how insurance works, and what they actually pay for).

So I struggle on, a little under the weather, but unwilling to seek treatment, finding comfort instead in the weight loss that I have no doubt will accompany this all-oatmeal diet. Honestly, if it's still bad tomorrow, I'll go to the doctor, but until then - Zantac should take care of things, right? That's what their commercials would have me believe!

ON RESPECT

2009-08-05T11:55:00.002-04:00

Last summer, my office had what we in the business call a "mold problem." As in "mold is growing everywhere because my a/c isn't functioning correctly, and that's a problem." I let the facilities staff know; they came by with a ladder, took out the ceiling tile, said "here's the problem," and then never fixed it.

They put in a short-term fix, sure, and a custodian sprayed my office with bleach (ruining several of my personal belongings), but at least the toxic mold had been dealt with.

Until, of course, this summer. After my week's vacation, I came back and noticed that it was noticeably humid in my office. In addition, I had some waterspots on the ceiling. I let facilities know. The Assistant Director looked and it. And then nothing was done. No dehumidifier was purchased, no plastic was put down, nothing. Now, my couch is ruined, the mold has spread a dangerous amount, other rooms are being affected - and nothing is being done by facilities.

My bosses have been very supportive. One is giving up her lunch today to purchase a dehumidifier to at least blunt the problem, since no one seems to be in a rush to repair it. I'll drag the couch out myself and let another department deal with it, because there's no way I'm keeping it in the office.

The point is - how did this happen? Is it because I'm entry-level, no one realizes that I might actually like to work out of my office? If this happened to another administrator, wouldn't the problem have been fixed sooner? While I don't feel it was intentional, I definitely feel disrespected by the whole process, and will cite this in any future exit interviews as one of the reasons I end up leaving.

ON SOCIALS

2009-08-03T11:49:00.003-04:00

For both of my loyal readers, I apologize for the lapse in posting. I had vacation for a week, then a week full of meetings and updates, which led to little time for blogging. It's also nice to be able to refresh the brain, topic-wise, instead of worrying about meeting a self-imposed deadline.

I had two get-togethers over the weekend with my co-workers. Friday night's was not to my liking; despite having more time to prepare for it mentally, I went in prepared to be the spoiler, and to "party poop," if you will. Got there and was just kind of out of it and asocial, heading to the back room to watch TV as everyone else talked. Granted, the X Games were on, and it was awesome to see Travis Pastrana attempt a trick and crash horribly, but still...looking back, I feel as though I should have made more of an effort to be social.

I got called for a second get-together on Saturday night. Since I felt so negative about my attitude from Friday night, I made it a point to go on Saturday. It ended up being a really good time; we played Trivial Pursuit and my team won. [I may have said in the past about how I hate playing trivia games, because the expectations are always there for me to do well.] When I left, I felt pretty good about our time together.

Maybe it's that I spend so much time with off-campus friends, that I often forget about my on-campus friends and the opportunities they provide, and the very different aspects of my personality that come out with them. It ended up being a fun weekend; amazing, considering I was on duty for the entire time.

ON PERFECTION...AGAIN

2009-07-23T18:16:00.001-04:00

I've heard countless times about how baseball is the perfect game to bond fathers and sons. Something about the alleged timelessness of having a catch in the yard, going to your first professional game, learning how to properly charge a bunt. I don't know the logistics of it, because I never believed it.

My dad was a basketball guy. He played at an NAIA school in college, and passed his love for the game on to my older brother and me (and, to an extent, my sister). So we never had the "Field of Dreams" moments together in the same way, instead focusing on the proper way to shoot a free throw or how to defend a pick-and-roll.

Today, however, we arrived during the eighth inning of the White Sox game. We knew they were winning, but that was about all. After a ground ball barely rolled foul, my dad commented that judging by the crowd noise, he wondered if pitcher Mark Buehrle had a no-hitter going. Not only did Buehrle have a no-hitter going, it was a perfect game - no hits, no walks, no errors - through eight innings.

While the White Sox were batting in the eighth, we flipped around. ESPN was promising to show the last inning live (CSN or whatever it's called now was carrying the game). This broke my heart, as I had seen several live feeds of the ninth innings of no-hitters ended on the first batter, and figured it was a curse to Buehrle. We flipped back to the channel and they were announcing a defensive replacement, with a new center fielder.

At this point, my dad said "New center fielder? Uh-oh, don't drop the ball!" This was very much in line with my thinking at the time. And, on a 2-2 pitch, the Rays' hitter send a shot to just left of center field. It was headed over the fence - only replacement center fielder DeWayne Wise - who had been in the game for five pitches at this point - leapt up the wall, squeezed the ball in his glove, smashed into the wall with his body, bobbled the ball, then caught it in his bare hand. My dad and I both cheered out loud, enraptured by this turn of events.

A strikeout (with resounding calls of "He gone!") followed, then the 27th batter of the game. A grounder to short, throw to first, and my dad and I were cheering joyfully. We had witnessed history, the 17th perfect game in regular season history, the 6th pitcher to throw a no-hitter (April 2007) AND a perfect game...and not only did we watch it together, but I will always remember his eerie premonition about the DeWayne Wise catch. It's not exactly "Field of Dreams," but I'll take it.

ON GOLF LESSONS

2009-07-20T14:45:00.003-04:00

I remember reading somewhere that golf is a game of "almosts" - that even if you get a birdie on a hole, you'll spend the rest of the day thinking about the eagle you almost got, had the ball only bounced differently. Or, in my case, the par I almost got had the putt rolled a little differently. The key after the round, I suppose, is to focus on what DID go well, rather than dwell on what could have been better, had a little thing only gone more in your favor.

There are a million factors to take into account - distance from the hole, wind speed, angle of the ground, whether you have an audience...and all of them seem to matter. Honestly, I marvel that anyone anywhere has made a hole in one, because there's such a "butterfly effect" - even a slight wind gust can push your ball a different way.

It's a lesson in acceptance on a micro scale. The shot has been hit, and once it leaves the club, you have no control over it (despite my attempts at body languaging the ball so it goes where I want). So many things in life are like that, things that we can't control after a certain point. I guess it's on all of us to keep track of where things are going - even if it happens to be off two trees and into the weeds. That's a metaphor.

Dad joke: or a meta-FORE!

ON WOO-ING

2009-07-17T09:59:00.003-04:00

We went out to a hibachi restaurant last night. As there were four of us, we ended up sharing our grill with another family of four - a father, mother, and two kids.

As the meal started, the father engaged us in a little conversation. Rather, he tried to engage us in conversation. I wasn't interested in talking with this guy - who was he? As the meal continued, my friends talked more with them, even asking him to "act disgusted" at one part of the meal. By the end of our time at the restaurant, we realized we had had a pretty interesting conversation with this family of strangers.

There's a program on leadership skills called Strengthsquest. A person takes a long quiz and then the program tells them which of 37 "strengths" are their top three. And when I initially heard about this program, I wanted to be a WOO - which stands for Winning Others Over. WOOs strike up conversations with people easily - such as at a hibachi grill table. Based on last night - I am not a WOO.

I do not meet others easily, unless I am absolutely prepared for the whole situation. Job search conferences are a situation where I know I have to be outgoing and friendly and willing to strike up a conversation, so I can WOO as necessary there. On the other hand, I am not likely to come off as very friendly if I am by myself in the grocery store checkout line. I'm a little more guarded and not WOO-y.

Meeting people is a skill I need to work on, but more than that, it's a skill I need to WANT to work on. Really, what is the worst* that could have happened if I tried to talk with these people I didn't know at the restaurant last night? They think I'm weird and have a story for their friends. Whatever. I think I was more nervous about my friends saying (when we got to the car) "Wow, Brad, you really wouldn't shut up. That poor family..." I don't want to embarrass myself OR my friends through inappropriate WOO-ing.

* - for a "worst thing," this is pretty tame.

ON BIAS

2009-07-16T16:01:00.002-04:00

I took a few journalism classes in college; I do not profess to be an expert in the field of news reporting. But lately, I've been more and more frustrated with stories I've read and seen.

For example, a Facebook friend posted a link to an article about a recommendation made by President Obama to increase vaccination coverage. Intrigued, I clicked through to read the article and discovered a very slanted piece of writing opposed to the program. While I understand an individual's concerns about the program (sort of), the tone of the piece was absurdly biased.

To me, if an article exists as news, it should be free of bias. I understand the need for a hook to draw the audience in, but shouldn't something like that be saved for political commentary shows in which the commentary on the news is the focus, rather than the news itself?

I'll admit, it's entirely possible that because the article was slanted against Obama (opposing my personal opinion) that I noticed it. Perhaps the bias in articles slanted against President Bush (matching my personal opinion) went unnoticed by me, or simply served as "news" validation of my opinion. I have no problem admitting that. I'm just frustrated by the fact not only does America seem to allow "either-or" sides on issues and politics, that the reporting of said issues would fall so uselessly on one extreme or the other.

Plus I hate articles that compare me to comic strip characters.

ON CREATIVITY

2009-07-15T14:35:00.002-04:00

Although my birthday was last Friday, friends and I celebrated last night, as it was the first time we could all get together. After a sterling improv rehearsal, we all went out to dinner. It wasn't perfect - they were out of rice, which left my side dish as "taboulli" - to my credit, I tried it. (Verdict: hhurrghh!)

After dinner, we headed back to Chuck's house for presents and a movie. And I can say that without exception, my friends are ridiculously creative. To wit:

* A typewritten letter accompanying the book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

* A pre-order for Bioshock 2, with an "instruction manual" card with a lot of (intentional) grammatical errors - because they know how much I love correcting grammar!

* A Transformers card that used to say "To a great Dad," only it had been changed to "To a great Brad" with a marker.

* An amusing caricature of me, including full-frontal caricatured nudity.

* A "story card," complete with different-yet-similar amusing caricatures of me, telling the story of my birth

* An unflattering picture of me set in a matte backing as a motivational poster - with the caption as "eloquence" and the explanation being my final two lines before quitting my former improv group. "I'm resigning my board position effective immediately...I'll be at Dunkin' Donuts."

* A poster-sized print of a photo of me and my justafriend Casey, photoshopped with a giant heart outlining us and some soulful Boys II Men lyrics printed on it. Chuck thinks it's hilarious to make jokes about romantic involvement between me and (Sousa's girlfriend) Casey - I don't know if she thought the poster was funny, but I did.

After the gifts, we watched a very funny movie and then all peaced out. A great birthday celebration. Now, to hang this poster...

ON OVERPLANNING

2009-07-14T14:51:00.002-04:00

I was really struggling to figure out what to write about today. I considered finding an old email and sharing my creativity again...you know, because my other poems have gone over so well. Instead of finding something worth sharing, I found out how ridiculous I am.

Here is what happened. I was interested in a girl. She was in the Masters' cohort in front of mine; that is, she would be graduating in May 2005 (and I in May 2006). I had seen her a few times around campus but hadn't really talked with her. Sure she was cute, but what really intrigued me was that we were out with a big group of people at a bar and she prayed out loud. Yeah. One night, during a game of sand volleyball, I ALMOST asked her out, but chickened out at the last minute for reasons I'm not clear on. An unrelated note - playing sand volleyball with your mobile phone in your pocket is a mistake.

In any event, rather than simply asking her out, I decided it needed build-up. So I thought it would be a GREAT plan to get flowers for her - but didn't want to make it too obvious to everyone else that I was sweet on her (apparently I have the mind of an eighth-grader). I'm pretty sure at this point I had told her I was interested in her, if this one old email to other friends is to be believed. In any event, I decided to get flowers for her AND her two friends who worked in the same office and would send them a message that was quasi-anonymous (or quasinonymous, if you will).

I bought the flowers and found they didn't fit in the vase I bought. I opted to cut down the stems to make them a little shorter and less likely to tip over...turns out a pizza cutter isn't enough to cut through certain flower stems. After finding sharp scissors, which cut much better, I spent about an hour getting the message on the card correct - the message which ended up being 22 words long. I got an RA to take the flowers over to the office they shared with instructions to tell them whom the flowers were from only if they asked - but then to say that he wasn't supposed to say. They did not ask.

The goal was that all three would think I was sweet, and that the one I was interested in would be encouraged by the other two to date me. Sadly, the girls had trouble figuring out who sent the flowers and involved many other people in their discussion of the two clues, so my desire for quasinonymity failed.

As, of course, did my plan. The girl in this case has been happily married (probably) to some other guy for a few years, and I've gotten a new pizza cutter since then. So really, we're pretty much even.

ON DUNK TANKS

2009-07-13T14:51:00.002-04:00

Friday afternoon found me at a block party in downtown Providence. While I was excited about seeing Senior Discount play, my attention was drawn to a dunk tank at one end of the (kind of sad) block. For a dollar (donated to some animal-type charity), one received the opportunity to try and dunk representatives from a local radio station (they claimed it was "Dunk-A-DJ," but unless radio stations hire solely young ladies in their early 20's, I would say there was some bamboozling involved in the titling).

As a firm believer in the Golden Rule, I didn't want to participate. But I was cajoled into it (it didn't take much cajoling, to be honest) and stepped up for my opportunity. My first throw went wide right. My next toss, however, found its mark, sending the girl tumbling from her perch into what I'm sure was cold water below. My third throw was uninspired and missed.

Now, I've been dunked in a dunk tank before. It sucks. The water is cold, and unless you're the first person, there are bits of debris that came from other people's feet or the air, not to mention all the effluvium in the tank. Gross. But at least those throws are honest, a test of skill.

Until, of course, little kids or cute girls get it in their heads to "press the button," dunking the shivering individual with no skill or effort involved, short of the fear of reprisal - which, now that I think on it, does not take any effort either. But I can say that it was incredibly frustrating to think that I had dodged a bullet (so to speak), only to have someone walk the twenty feet toward my cage - my only defense against the imminent dunking being splashing water in their direction. Usually accompanied by a gleeful shout, the person would slam the lever, sending me into the water.

[closing joke deleted]

ON TURNING 31

2009-07-10T09:49:00.002-04:00

As I look at the past year of my life (since I wrote "On Turning 30," which really kicked off the "On ____" blogging thing for me, even if I didn't start doing daily updates until much later), I have a few actual highlights from the past year.

* Starting the weekly Chuck and Brad podcast has been a trip. The fact that we have listeners that aren't directly friends with either of us is alternately gratifying and terrifying.

* I have probably been less unconfident in my self over the past year, including the astounding realization that I am not as repulsive as I honestly believed for most of my life.

* Improv-ly speaking, we not only had the chutzpah to give up a standard weekly gig to strike out on our own to support our own vision of improv.

* I have watched a lot of movies and read a lot of books, and thought about them in a critical way, rather than blanket statements such as "That was bad."

* I've written something like 200 blog posts, hitting almost every weekday since the end of September. In doing so, I've started to become more comfortable writing about myself.

* I've been a happier person - not that I don't have my down moments, but on the whole, I've really been less depressed than in years past.

Thanks for everything.

ON PUNK

2009-07-09T13:31:00.003-04:00

I was out for a walk the other day, listening to some NoFX as I tried in vain to burn off a weekend meal or two. And their song "The Separation of Church and Skate" talked about how punk rock has become kind of mainstream, kind of safe.

One of requests in the song is to "stop singing songs about girls and love." This raises the question: what makes music "punk?" Does it have to have certain elements? For example, is a band like Rage Against the Machine punk? Their songs are political, and not about girls and love. However, Tom Morello's guitar riffs for Rage are more complicated than the stereotypical punk band.

Does it have to be about relatively simple chord progressions and songs about unrest with the establishment? Is that what punk is about? Does a punk have to wear the uniform or ripped clothes, lots of black, and, if possible, a mohawk? Can someone (like me) who wears sports T-shirts and jeans ever truly be considered a fan of punk music?

For me, it's been about enjoyment of the music. As I've written earlier, I don't enjoy bands who are busy exploring the duality of tonality and atonality - I like to keep my music to a few power chords, a good bass line, and some entertaining lyrics. That's all I need. If a band can satisfy my earholes, I am okay with it, regardless of genre.

I don't really understand why a band like NoFX has "punk credibility" and bands like Good Charlotte don't, at least with hardcore fans. There's no arbiter of punk, deciding what is or isn't punk enough, and casting bands into Punk Hell.

I am trying to figure out who Punk Satan would be...a Jonas Brother? George W. Bush? Bette Midler? I can't think of a good punchline. It's been a long day...

ON TRAVEL

2009-07-07T11:10:00.003-04:00

I have about thirty minutes before leaving for the airport, so I figured I'd put pen to paper, so to speak. I am off to West Virginia, via Cincinnati, for a job interview.

The higher ed job search process is a little ridiculous. At one large SEC school last year, I interviewed with a total of 24 people - TWENTY-FOUR!!! - throughout the course of the day. Not just bosses or co-workers - people from other departments, RA's, the whole nine yards. Taken together over the course of eight or nine hours and it adds up to a stressful day.

I have developed a strategy, though, to deal with this. I call it the "it's just a job" attitude. If things go well with the school and they offer me the position - great. If I'm not the right fit or they aren't the right fit for me - I can handle that as well. It's just a job; it doesn't define me as a person. No need to stress out about it.

This strategy has not been 100 percent, but it helps me from becoming overanxious about the day. This is the seventeenth school I've visited over the past five years, so you would think I would be used to the questions and kind of have an idea of what to expect. I don't, really, but it's okay. I'm honestly more concerned about the travel arrangements (will I make my connection in the Cincinnati airport?) than about any interview questions.

In any event, I've never been to West Virginia before, so at the very worst, I'll be in a new state tonight.

ON INDEPENDENCE DAY WARS

2009-07-03T11:13:00.003-04:00

I believe it was the summer of 1996, just before my 18th birthday. I and my pizza-making friends decided to have a "bottle rocket war" in the woods. After spending a hundred dollars or so on fireworks, and much more in scratch-off lottery tickets, we headed out.

Our battleground was the woods near the pizza restaurant where we all worked. There was a "bomb shelter" back there (I have no idea what the original purpose of the structure was, but it COULD have been a bomb shelter at one point) and that served as our home base. And although the ground was littered with beer cans, none of us had anything to drink that day - just a lot of fireworks.

What, you ask, is crazier than ONE bottle rocket with no stick? Try TWELVE. We'd leave the "heads" of the rockets in their packaging and break off all the sticks. Twist the wicks, light it, throw it up - ideally, they ignite while falling, covering a maximum area of ground. Dangerous? Probably. Stupid? Yes. Fun? Absolutely. [Note: we called them "Shih Bombs," after our good friend Dan Shih, who allegedly invented them.]

But bottle rockets weren't enough for us that year. We decided it would be a good idea to get Roman Candles to shoot at one another. Essentially, we were shooting balls of fire at one another - for fun. No eye protection or anything - just fireballs flying through the air. Fortunately, no one got hit all afternoon, but it wasn't for a lack of trying on anyone's part.

Oddly enough, our fake war led to a real sense of acrimony as we all accused each other of hogging all the best fireworks - and by "best," I mean "most dangerous." For as much as I didn't understand arms proliferation on the world stage (and still don't), I certainly got a glimpse into it on that 4th of July. And while I get significantly less enjoyment out of fireworks than I once did, the urge to throw a Shih Bomb at someone comes up every once in a while.

ON HORROR

2009-07-02T15:41:00.002-04:00

Due to my malleability, I gave into peer pressure last night. It's been a long time coming, but eventually, you knew it had to happen. I finally watched Saw II.

A little backstory: I hate horror movies. I have never seen any movie in the Halloween franchise, any of the Friday the 13ths, and I think I've seen three of the Nightmare on Elm Street films. Not necessarily by choice, more like I was shamed into them.

A few months ago, I gave into my podcasting friend Chuck's demands and watched the original Saw movie. And you know, for as afraid of it as I was going in, it was more of a thriller than a traditional movie. Chuck (repeatedly) compared it to the movie Seven, which I enjoyed, and I agree. The original Saw is not a horror movie. It is a thriller with horror elements.

I was told that the second movie was the most "traditional horror movie." And honestly, I don't know if it was. There were certainly a lot of tense moments in the movie, and some gore, but there were also some INCREDIBLY tense moments in the movie "No Country for Old Men," which is not considered a horror movie. Granted, no one ended up in a pit of syringes in No Country for Old Men either, but there were a lot of parallels between the two movies (people died).

Have I been wrong in writing off horror as a genre of movies? Is this like people who foolishly say "I listen to all types of music, except for country," thereby limiting themselves from experiencing the feelings that go with a certain song/movie? If so, am I really comparing Michael Myers to Martina McBride?

Yes. Yes I am.

ON GRIPING

2009-07-01T13:27:00.003-04:00

I was just working hard - you know, standing in the lobby watching a cartoon - when another employee walked by. Through his expletive-laced rambling, one thing became abundantly clear - he is not happy with his job.

He railed against how work doesn't get done and it falls back on him. He railed against having to do work that wasn't in his job description. He railed against the administrators and their decisions. Meanwhile, on TV, Anakin and Obi-Wan chased Count Dooku.

I politely excused myself from this rant and came into my office. Not because I had any pressing work to get done, but really to avoid being the target of his next tirade. Sure enough, his voice carried down the hall, griping about and cursing everything on campus.

I thought back to when I was a busboy half a lifetime ago. Something had happened - likely nothing serious, we were just busy and I let loose with a similar tirade. Probably a little less profanity. And another busboy - one whose highest aspiration in life was to make enough money to continue buying marijuana - said "If you hate it so much, why don't you just quit?" I was speechless for a moment, and he continued: "Seriously, if this is the worst job in the world, leave. If it isn't, shut up and get back to work."

I wish I had said that to my co-worker today. I'm afraid he would have actually quit, though, leaving more work for the rest of us. And then how would I find out what happened to Anakin and Obi-Wan?

ON CRAYONS

2009-06-30T11:33:00.003-04:00

Back in college, a friend and I were talking about our goals for the upcoming year. After discussing all of my videogame-related goals, he said "I want to keep the crayons in my life." Unsure what he meant, I asked for follow-up. This was his explanation:

"When you're a kid in kindergarten, you can turn in your "homework" really however you want. You can use crayons to practice your letters. As you get older, the restrictions become a little tighter - you have to use pencil or pen. Then just pen, although you could get one of those awesome four-color pens and write all of your papers in green ink. Towards middle school and high school, it's blue or black ink only, and then (later) in high school and college, you have to type everything, often getting your fonts assigned by professors. So as part of this year, I want to keep something in my life that makes me remember how much fun I used to have at school."

The next time I was at the store, I bought him a 64-pack of crayons (with sharpener!). From time to time, I think about trying to keep some sense of childlike wonder and appreciation in my life. I may not be limber (or light) enough to climb trees any more, so I try to make do with what I have.

More often than not, this comes from some form of media - yesterday I watched "E.T." for the first time ever, and then read the second two-thirds of the book Redwall, recommended on this blog a few weeks ago. It just helps me to remember that life isn't all about back pain and Roth IRA's. Good stuff, I tell you.

Please, do something to keep the crayons in your life.

ON MANAGING EXPECTATIONS

2009-06-29T11:19:00.002-04:00

The improv troupe I am a part of took second in the first-ever "Best of New England" tournament at the Providence Improv Festival! We're very excited, seeing as how we've existed as "SkyPunch" for about two months, and put on one of our best performances in recent memory in the semifinals.

That having been said, I am a leetle disappointed that we didn't perform better in the finals. I woke up early this morning and couldn't fall back asleep, wishing I had performed better; not that I did terribly, but I wish I had been funnier, or a better actor, or more handsome. Anything that would have helped us win. I realize there is nothing that could be done, and that, from a personal point of view, four shows in 25 hours took more out of me than I thought it would.

It's been said that golf is a game of "almosts." If a golfer gets a birdie, he (or she) will forever think about how they "almost" got an eagle. That's how I feel about last night. I'm glad we got into the finals; heck, we were all elated to make it to the semifinals, and over the moon to make the finals. But to get that close, and then not perform as well as we could...that's what bothers me. It's an "almost" - we left the eagle putt a foot short.

It's still nice to have a birdie, though.

Also a benefit - we met a LOT of people who are also into the improv scene in New England. Some really talented, funny, great people. So to get second out of a group of 24 talented groups - maybe it's not as bad as I thought it was this morning.

ON LETTING GO

2009-06-26T11:16:00.003-04:00

We performed last night. The show went well - not necessarily the best we've ever done, but certainly a strong show that had some huge laughs throughout. After we finished and headed to the bar to drink our gingered ales, another group performed.

Now, this other group performs a very different show than we do. They have audience members get up on stage with them and do improv. It's a great concept, it really is. The execution is lacking. But here's the kicker - the audience members that joined them for the first two games were plants. Two of these alleged audience members regularly attend their shows, and so regularly spend time on stage with the performers. Theoretically, I can handle that, I don't have a problem with it. But the third plant...she used to be a performer with the group...until about a month ago.

I think it was an unethical approach on the part of this other group. I would go with "despicable," but to be honest, this third plant - she was only on stage for about a minute, so it actually made little difference in the grand scheme of things. If they had been the only people in the whole audience volunteering, then yes, I could see them coming up on stage - but they weren't. I was sitting in the back, surveying the whole room and saw a whole host of hands go up before the plants'. I lost a lot of respect for that group last night.

But so it goes. After that, we headed over to see a group from Bowdoin College perform, and they were pretty good. A little unpolished, and I was definitely jealous that their crowd was much larger than ours.

The voting system is what kills me. Each group is scored by the audience on a scale of 1 to 5. The six groups with the highest average scores advance to Sunday night's semifinals; the two highest-scoring groups from the semifinals advance to the finals, immediately following the semifinals. We have no control over the outcome.

And this kills me.

It's very hard for me to not have control over the outcome of things (this is one of the reasons I don't drink). I know that we did well. Other improvisers were impressed by us, I also know that. And one audience member turned around to us and said "You guys were much better than the other group," which I appreciated. But none of that matters if another group goes up and does twenty minutes of poop jokes for an audience consisting of just their friends, who rate them highly no matter what. It's a frustrating thing, having no control over this part of the process. The thing I keep repeating to myself is that we did the best we could, and that we didn't cut any ethical corners to do so.

ON THE IMPROV FEST

2009-06-25T10:17:00.003-04:00

Tonight, we perform at the Providence Improv Fest. Sky Punch is taking the stage at 8 pm for about half an hour of unscripted, unplanned hilarity. I am confident that we will do well, but I hesitate to say that we'll make it to Sunday's finals.

Part of this is the rather arbitrary judging criteria. We're not really sure how it goes, other than the audience that sees us rates us. Does it matter if we have forty people give us 10's, and one person gives us a 5, and another group has only two people attend, both of whome give them 10's? I honestly don't know.

Last year when we performed in the "Local Jam," I took the afternoon off, claiming I had a headache. I went to the zoo (to cure my headache, of course). This year, I am being more honest, saying that I want the whole day off to have less to worry about. I am going to the zoo again with my friends in an attempt to establish a personal tradition. Maybe the honesty this year will give me a few karmic points that could be applied to our audience score.

In any event, I'm excited to perform.

ON BACK PROBLEMS

2009-06-24T10:04:00.003-04:00

Right around the time I turned 22, I ruptured a disc in my lower back. I'm not sure how it happened, although it's very possible I twisted wrong while getting in the car or something equally ridiculous and boring. I tried to blame it on sleeping on a friend's pull-out couch, but that seems dubious, at best.

I started at Walgreens that summer, and lifted and moved boxes all the time - being a new assistant manager was not the glamorous work I thought it would be. As I did all this work, things got worse. I began to walk hunched over, unable to straighten up fully. My twenty-minute drive home had to involve a stop somewhere along the way because of the pain running down my leg.

I got X-rays and an MRI done - even so-called "open" MRI machines are terrifying, by the way - and when the results came out, even I (with my untrained eyes) could see the disc contents pressing against the sciatic nerve. Gross. Surgery was scheduled, then pushed back due to a death in the surgeon's family. Finally, I went through with the operation.

After another couple of weeks, I was free to go back to work and resume normal life. I kept up with the physical therapy for a few weeks, but eventually kind of forgot about it. More lifting and stretching led to more back pain about two years later; before it got too bad, I went to the doctor and he recommended physical therapy rather than a second surgery. Therapy went well.

A year after that, I was at work, being peckish with my employees, and the pharmacist said "Why are you in such a bad mood? Is the weather affecting your back?" I stopped what I was doing and really thought about it. It was an epiphany. When the weather is chilly and rainy, the little arthritis I have in my lower back acts up - not enough to make me hunch over or unable to get out of bed, but just enough to affect my mood. If I had continued my therapy after my surgery, would the little arthritis monsters have had time to set up shop around the ol' L4/L5 area? I don't know.

The point is, it's been chilly and rainy for the past four days.

ON FATE AND FOOD

2009-06-23T11:23:00.002-04:00

This past weekend, my friend Chuck and I drove around Providence, waiting for inspiration to strike us in the form of "a place to eat." We both were open to new restaurant ideas and maybe some new tasty dishes (okay, okay, I was open to trying an old familiar dish from a new place). We didn't really have a deadline, other than the fact that we were both hungry.

I don't know what we were waiting for, in terms of inspiration - like the wind would blow a 75% off flyer for a steakhouse directly into the windshield or something. It was more of a "that place looks sketchy" or "I don't really feel like pizza" kind of inspiration.

When I was taking the train to improv classes in Chicago forever years ago, I would occasionally get to the loop early, then walk around and let the crosswalks guide me. I would get to an intersection and just go whichever way the "walk" signal led me. Eventually, I'd get to a place to eat, then find my way back, take my class, and go home. It seems very out of character for me to let fate decide my meals, but I offer this caveat: McDonald's has locations everywhere, and I would usually end up at one of them. You know, for good luck McNuggets before class.

If I lived in a city, I think I would be open to the idea of wandering around a little more and continue to let the crosswalks guide me. I mean, come on, there are pizza places everywhere in NYC - and it's hard to make offensively bad pizza. However, driving adds a whole different element to the situation, because one is often focused on "the traffic" and "not running over pedestrians" and junk like that.

Chuck and I? Well, we didn't end up at a McDonald's. Rather, it was a mid-priced Italian restaurant, where we both got chicken parm. Not that adventurous, but still...it was something new, and that's something.

ON SOMETHING I WROTE 12 YEARS AGO (II)

2009-06-22T09:43:00.004-04:00

"The most romantic work ever created" continues...

------------------------------------
Slowly, unsure yet full of confidence all at once, I approach you, not noticing, not caring about the events that transpire around me. My eyes wander, but the image I see remains the same. My mind races through scenarios, you won't talk to me, you turn your back and walk away, you just don't notice me. I doubt all of these. Somehow I just know that you aren't that type of person. The feeling flying through my body escalates, building, climbing, reaching, what to say?

My fears are laid to rest as I draw nearer. Our eyes meet again, and you smile. The smile sends shocks vaulting through my mind. I almost laugh, embarrassed, the greeting I offer is a mask - I want to tell you, to tell the room, to tell the world, that I think you are the most graceful, most amazingly beautiful, most perfect woman I have ever encountered. I want to tell you that I love you.

But I can't.

Excitement buzzes around us, I can almost feel it, pulsing rhythmically, in perfect synchronization with the pounding of my heart. I can barely restrain myself - my Juliet, my Venus, my love. By now it seems as though every eye in the room has taken note of us. Something special is happening here, now.

Our conversation flows, like some mighty river that will not be dammed. You are easy to talk to - I don't feel like I'm speaking, it's as if you can read my thoughts, my heart, directly.

Always. Forever. Eternity. These are the words that flash through my mind. Do you read these? Will you believe them? You are beautiful tonight - but you don't have to be. Even at your worst, I will stand beside you, supporting you, admiring you. And time will pass, and play his cruel games with our lives, our life. But time and nature, fate and destiny, heaven above and hell below can not and will not change my feelings for you. Read my heart, dear, and know this:

I love you.
-------------------------------------

Re-reading this, I am a leetle embarrassed by parts of it, but that "time and nature..." part is still one of my favorites. Sadly, the girl who inspired it did not swoon and then ask me out, as I'd secretly planned. Maybe it was the Juliet/Venus line that did it...

ON SOMETHING I WROTE 12 YEARS AGO (I)

2009-06-19T11:02:00.003-04:00

I have shared things I have written on this site before on two occasions; both poems made me cringe more than a little. This next piece - I would say I'm "less ashamed" of it. The girl who inspired it was never interested in me - although I never did technically ask her out. What can I say? I was still at the "write stuff about girls I think are pretty and hope they ask me out" stage of my dating habits. I moved out of that stage like three days ago.

I also titled it "The most romantic work ever created," which may be a bit of a stretch. The second part of this will be posted on Monday.

-------------------------------
You look beautiful tonight. The way you glide across the floor, floating, angelic, entrancing the admiring gaze of every person, forcing people to crane their necks in order to look for just another instant, another moment. Your demeanor is simple, your manner casual. Yet you captivate me with a word! I am held by some tremendous attraction, immovable, trapped in a fantasy world which only you and I inhabit.

You look beautiful tonight. Your dress is not extravagant, it does not scream "Notice me!" But people do. They do not notice your dress, the gentle way it slopes down your body, offering subtle highlights and screaming accents all at once. They notice you, your smile, the smile that lightens not only the room but also my heart.

There are things they don't notice. Far too captivated by your smile, they do not notice your eyes. Earthy brown with a hint of fire behind them. These are eyes that will not shed unnecessary tears. These are eyes I love. This is a woman I could love. Or do love.

Your hair, dark, like the night sky, the chandelier light sparkling in it, on it, like stars in the heavens. Wisps of it hang down, framing your face as if it were some priceless work of art. I smile as I imagine your face in the Louvre, and the endless lines of people waiting just to see it. I would walk by and tell people "I have seen this face, I have seen this woman. She is more beautiful than any spring sunrise, any fall sunset, any miracle Nature could produce. And you are.

How do I approach you? I hesitate, intimidated, for a moment. You glance my way. Our eyes meet, for what could be eons or seconds. I cannot move. My heart somersaults over itself, leaping up, down, in, out, bent on making every cell aware of your presence. And they are. Every nerve buzzes, the blood pumps, hot cold, something shoots up and down my spine, my knees go slightly weak, I am alive. Who are you that you have this power?
---------------------

Wow, I apparently was really into both commas and similes when I wrote this, huh? I am a little confused by the line about Nature, because it makes it seem like this girl was somehow unnatural. I was a little reticent to share this, because "earthy brown with a hint of fire" is my go-to description of a girl's brown eyes, and if it's out there, I can't use it again. Oh, and I used "You look beautiful tonight" twice and don't revisit that phrasing anywhere else in the work. Hmmm. Speaking of eyes, what's up with the unnecessary tears line? What a weird phrase.

Loyal podcast listeners will be happy to know this doesn't end in any threats.

Again, the end of this will be posted on Monday.

ON COMFORT ZONES

2009-06-18T14:37:00.003-04:00

I have a small comfort zone. For example, I am familiar with a limited number of foods, and I know the "type" of food I like and the "type" of food I don't. I have no desire to try, for example, fried clams, because they don't seem like the type of food I would like. I am much more comfortable eating popcorn chicken (which seems like the analogous chicken dish), so I will always take that over fried clams.

Recently - or maybe not so recently, as I really examine my life - friends have strongly encouraged me to leave this comfort zone. Not only when it comes to food (although I suspect that was where the most recent round of encouragement BEGAN - the idea of "trying new foods"). The comfort zone my friends wish me to leave/expand is my dating comfort zone.

I hate this idea. I don't want to leave my comfort zone because it is, by definition, comfortable. And the opposite of comfortable is uncomfortable, which is no fun.

Despite my myriad objections, I gave into the pressure and agreed to accept help from my friends. They have offered to work on my opposite sex-communication skills, to encourage me to meet people I wouldn't typically approach, and then to date people I maybe wouldn't date without prodding. Why did I allow myself to be badgered into this? Maybe it's my take on Newton's First Law again - that I am in one place, comfortable but not necessarily happy - and need a nudge to get rolling again. Maybe it's because I subconsciously WANT to date girls I wouldn't typically date but need a reason to do so. Also, having friends encourage me allows me to blame them if things go horribly awry and I wake up in a bathtub full of ice missing a kidney. Or maybe it's just that I know it makes my friends happy to believe they are helping me, and that I am willing to help myself. And I guess it's possible I agreed to this because I believe it's important and good for me to expand/leave my comfort zone?

Or, it's possible that the song by No Use For A Name finally got to me:

What would the worst thing be
If you took the wheel and lost control?
No one is safe inside your safety zone.

In any event, the Summer of Love starts Sunday. Fried clams...maybe those can wait until the Autumn of Batter-Dipped Seafood.

ON SELF-DEFENSE

2009-06-17T11:00:00.002-04:00

I was learning some basic self-defense techniques from my volatilely-tempered friend last night. You know, how to block a haymaker and follow it up by shoving someone out of the way, how to counter a knife attack to the gut. Stuff like that.

As I was driving home, reflecting on what I had learned, I realized that I am woefully unprepared for a fight. I don't really know any proper striking techniques, I know now two techniques to defend against two specific attacks, I cry easily. If we get into a bar fight, I am screwed.

I'm not even good at talking my way out of a situation. In the heat of a confrontation, I am more likely to attempt to make a joke than anything (and I use attempt as a weak attempt to describe a weak attempt at humor). Occasionally, it will be an insult that goes over the other person's head - like comparing them to Former President Millard Fillmore or something equally ridiculous.

So if I can't fight back, and I can't talk my way out of a situation, what is my defense? It dawned on me - I don't care bit about looking tough. I will gladly walk away from a confrontation and be called all types of horrible names (like "chicken" or "yellow-belly") because I don't care at all about maintaining machismo. Whether or not this is an actual defense mechanism is open to debate, but for the time being, it's what I'm going to go with.

ON FRIENDSHIP COUCHES

2009-06-16T10:34:00.005-04:00

Please think for a moment about moving a couch, trying to find a place in a house to put it. You and someone else are in charge of moving it as necessary. If both people are carrying it at about the same height, maneuvering it around corners and through doorways gets easier. Both people have the same goal - to move the couch - and it's easier to handle the situation.

If one person, however, lets their end of the couch droop, or worse, just drops it and walks away, one person is left holding the entire couch - probably with a sore back. Similarly, one person shouldn't be trying to lift the couch over their head if the other person isn't willing or able to raise it that high.

Obviously, the couch is a metaphor. In this case, a metaphor for friendship. Friendships, like any other relationships, take effort to maintain. Ideally, a friendship consists of equal effort on the parts of both parties. If one person is making all the effort to maintain the friendship - maybe they have the time or energy to do so - can it really be called a friendship? Because at that point, it's just one person dragging a couch across the floor, probably scuffing the hardwood floors, no less.

I look at the relationships in my life and realize that I make a lot of effort with a lot of people who aren't even trying to keep their end of the couch off the ground. The Mr. Brightside part of my personality says that they likely have other things to do; I understand this. Not everyone is capable of lifting a couch all the time, not everyone has the time to write emails and make phone calls as often as I do. But a minimum of effort is necessary to keep the couch moving, isn't it?

I admit that it's also possible that I'm trying to lift the couch over my head when the other person is just fine with it at waist-level. I'm an overcommunicator - am I also an "overcarer?" Do I care about others more than necessary? Do I need more validation than others that our friendship, in fact, exists?

A different side of my personality says that there's something positive about trying to lift a couch all by myself; that it makes me a stronger person, that there's something ennobling about this unconditional friendship, that it means I'm a good person if I keep making efforts when there's no reciprocity. Maybe it's the Christian part of my personality says that unconditional love is the way to go.

Maybe it's something in the middle. That if they aren't trying, then maybe the couch of friendship is good where it is, and we should leave it where it stops, throw a dust cover over it and move on. And while I hate dust covers, it's got to be easier than trying to continue to move these couches all on my own.

All this talk of couches makes me want to take a nap.

ON FOOD ALERT

2009-06-15T10:35:00.002-04:00

I am on "food alert" until further notice. It's a term I invented for weight management, rather than weight loss. My weight - while not out of control like last summer at this time - is just at the high point of where I want it to be. To prevent further weight gain, I have tried to limit my diet to not include greasy foods or eating late at night.

This, however, does not always dovetail with my lifestyle. I am a night owl, and tend to get hungry late at night. I've tried to just eat a 100-calorie pack before getting in bed, but...sometimes I'm out with friends at a place that serves chili-cheese fries. How can I help myself there? Just this weekend, I ate a dinner of burger and fries on Saturday much later than intended because I was waiting for friends - ditto for Sunday night (except with homemade pizza).

I know that the food I eat is my decision, and I can't blame others for what I eat and how much I weigh. And I certainly have no excuse for not exercising enough - even if my mile-and-a-half run on Saturday resulted in a surprising amount of chest tightness (I blame the one slice of pizza I ate before running).

I really don't know why I'm so concerned with my weight. I'm not in danger of obesity or anything, and I also don't want to get to the point where I never eat anything delicious because I'm worried about my body fat content. I just would like to make smarter choices regarding my diet, and maybe putting all of this in writing is what it's going to take for me to do so.

ON DOOMSDAY

2009-06-12T10:50:00.002-04:00

I recently finished reading a book entitled Apocalypse 2012 and it has me mildly terrified of the future. Essentially, the world is going to go through a profound change on December 21, 2012. There are many ways this could occur.

The "supervolcano" under Yellowstone might explode, spewing radioactive lava all over the place, annihilating most of the western United States and causing a nuclear winter situation for the rest of the world. Solar flares may cause a huge disruption in the earth's magnetic field - not to mention somehow being linked to hurricanes and earthquakes.

But all of that is like three and a half years away. Plenty of time for me to stock up on canned food and clean water. No problem. Until I read the part about many of the Western religions hinting at an end around the same time. Hmmm...that's odd, I follow a Western religion...which prophesies a Rapture in which believers ascend to heaven, then three and a half years of relative stability before three and a half years of things like supervolcanoes exploding. Let's do a little rudimentary calendar check here...it would appear that three and a half years before December 21, 2012 is.....June 21, 2009. You know, a week from Sunday.

Okay, okay, the writers of the Bible certainly didn't have access to the calendar system we now use and take for granted. Surely there's another interpretation...let's see...the book of Revelations says it will be a period of 1260 days, 42 lunar months of relative stability before the bad stuff hits. And a little more rudimentary calendar checking...1260 days before December 21, 2012 is July 10, 2009.

Also known as my birthday.

Am I a theologian or mathematician? No. I've always been interested in eschatology - the study of end times - so this all strikes a chord with me. Do I really believe that a few minutes of counting days led me, of all people, to successfully predict what people have been trying to predict for millennia? Absolutely not. Furthermore, I know that you can use math to prove almost anything if you can manipulate the numbers correctly. And my final disclaimer - I'm also a person who believes that Easy Mac and Tuna is high cuisine.

Still, reading this last night before bed really threw me for a loop. I am a believer, and as such, would likely be raptured - but still, I'd miss the last season of "Lost!"

ON COMPLAINING

2009-06-11T14:13:00.003-04:00

I love getting free stuff. Last night, a group of us went to see "The Hangover." The movie was very funny, but an apparently tipsy woman in the back laughed obnoxiously and talked through much of the movie. A friend went to get an usher - and she shut up when the usher was there, then resumed her prattling when he left. Finally, another patron (possibly) threatened her and she was quiet for the end of the movie.

Of the fourteen of us, zero were happy with this situation. We eventually found a manager and lodged our complaint - namely, that nothing had been done by cinema staff to shut this annoying woman up. The manager listened to us, made a few weak excuses, then offered us all free "re-admits," or tickets for future movies. It was a smart move on their part, as it ensures that we all will come back in the future (and, presumably, spend money on concessions).

As a former manager, I always gave people what they wanted, with probably two exceptions coming to mind over a four-year career in retail (one woman was seen by our staff stealing the condoms that she later tried to return with a receipt she found in the trash). I knew that it was the best way to deal with an upset customer, especially when they were upset but not being a jerk about things.

I've tried to limit my jerkiness when dealing with frustrating customer service situations. Sure, once I swore at the staff of a Buffalo Wild Wings, but other than that, I've tried to be calm and follow protocol. When the McDonald's near campus messed up my order, I very calmly drove it back and waited in line until I could speak to a manager. They fixed my order and gave me coupons for future purchases (that I never used). Had I done what I wanted to do - throw the burgers at the windows, smearing ketchup and mustard all over the place - not only would I not have gotten any of that, I probably also would have had the cops called on me.

I have also gotten free stuff from Papa John's. And a hot dog place back home. And at least three other restaurants I can't think of the names of. The point is, it pays to complain, as long as it's done calmly and rationally and not angrily. If being calm and rational fails, there are always other options.

Or, you know, this.

ON GROWNUP-NESS

2009-06-10T12:42:00.002-04:00

Despite the fact that I have been an adult for almost thirteen years - at least in the eyes of the law - I have never felt like one. For example, I still feel awkward calling friends' parents by their first names.

This past week or so, I have apparently decided to try other things I consider adult. I bought my first pair of sunglasses (I had previously received a pair for pre-ordering a video game). I got sick of squinting and worrying about the visor when driving in the evenings, so boom - sunglasses it is. Now, I'm not exactly a fashion maven, so they aren't particularly stylish (or particularly unstylish), just functional.

Much more indicative of adult status - I bought cuff links this week. I purchased a white dress shirt some time ago and didn't realize it had French cuffs at the time. It has taken me the better part of two years, but I finally got around to buying cuff links so I could actually wear the shirt. The fact that I forgot to iron the shirt and didn't end up wearing it is immaterial - I have the means to do so.

And the third adult thing I'm working on this week is changing my own windshield wiper blades. I know the basics of how to change the oil in my car, but I've never done it on my own. My passenger side wiper has been terrible since this winter, so I finally got around to buying wiper blades yesterday. Granted, I called my dad to see if he thought there was any difference in brands of wiper blades (he didn't), but still...I'm taking care of my investment on my own. Boom. Adult.

Now, to reward myself for being an adult, I'll spend some time on the Internet. I'll just type in "adult entertainment" and see what - oh dear.

ON FOLLOWING THROUGH

2009-06-09T11:25:00.002-04:00

There's a whole lot of things that I'd like to do. For example, I have the GMAT Study Guide on the office coffee table right now. The plan was to take the GMAT in the fall and start on some MBA classes in the spring [Note: I don't feel like I need the MBA - I just want to continue my education]. I neither took the test or any classes, although part of the reason for that may have been an old friend (on whom I once had a ridiculous crush) telling me that business school was more headache than opportunity.

So that's one thing un-followed through by me.

In addition to the blog you are reading, I have another. I started it two summers ago with the idea that I would write a little bit every day and after a year or so, I would have a complete story. Not novel-length in terms of word count, but novel-length in terms of ideas. And don't get me wrong, I love the ideas, but after a while, the inspiration kind of just fizzled out like a fart in the rain, effectively ending the story after 117 entries.

That's another thing un-followed through by me.

This summer was going to be the summer I finally launched my own domain on the ol' Internet. I have registered two different spellings for it, designed it (on paper) and have done nothing with it since then. My grand ideas for movie reviews, extended versions of things like these blog posts, and even video blog contributions from some of my less-literate friends were going to revolutionize the web like no one's business...as of now, both of those domains still redirect to this blog. While there is still plenty of time to get that up and running, I don't know if I still have the gumption to do so.

Yet another thing un-followed through by me.

I don't know what it is; maybe it's because I get bored easily, maybe it's because I don't feel like I'm getting encouragement from outside sources (which I realize is the wrong thing to use for motivation). In any event, I see that I have two options - get bummed out by this and give up on other things I'm working on (podcasts, young adult novels) or get it in gear and start being more concerned about seeing things through until the end. Which path will I take? Eh, I'll figure it out tomorrow.

ON ROOTING FOR LOVE

2009-06-08T11:42:00.002-04:00

An improv scene I saw many years ago featured one man instructing another on the proper way to be a groomsman. "You don't have to do anything," the character said, "you just kind of stand up there and...root for love."

The phrase "root for love" stuck with me, and subsequent weddings found me saying/writing/shouting "Hooray for love!" at every opportunity. I believe I use a Sharpie and a JC Penney shopping bag to make a "Hooray for love!" sign. The same wedding also found me using an offertory envelope and a pencil to make a Homer Simpson-style pennant that just read "Weddings."

At a wedding yesterday, I toned down my cheering methods, but the phrase "Hooray for love" definitely made it onto the matting of the picture they asked the guests to sign AND into my best man toast. Rather than worry about schmoopy sentimentalism, I'll go with joy for the bride and groom, happiness for their marriage, and ginger ale for my toast drink.

It's so happiness-inducing to see people who obviously love one another very much make this huge commitment, and then throw a big party for all their friends and family. R&W, thanks for letting me be part of your day, and thanks for the shoes. Hooray for love, and hooray for you.

ON ENDINGS

2009-06-05T10:10:00.002-04:00

I finished reading Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series recently - twelve books (including the prequel), somewhere in the area of 10,000 pages, many hours on my couch spent digesting all of this. The first five books were good enough to win the 2008 Brammy for Favorite Book of the Year.

And I didn't like the ending.

Don't get me wrong, most of the plot got wrapped up as it should have. The right characters survived, the right characters didn't (and in the right way). But the overall theme of the last twenty pages just seemed mean-spirited toward religion, and I think I took it a little personally.

In his Dark Tower series, Stephen King talks about the ending not being any more important than the rest of the journey. That the experience of seeing the world through these characters was the important part - not what happens to them in our imagination AFTER the events of the book. And there's a certain validity to this argument, but I can't emotionally wrap myself around it.

For the first 9980 pages, I enjoyed these Sword of Truth books. But if I went back and re-read them, knowing what I know about how the series ends, how much of this (supposed) mean-spiritedness would I see in different parts? By that rationale, the ending IS important. It would be like watching "The Sixth Sense" after seeing the ending of that for the first time (or having a resident tell you the end of it because he was mad that he THOUGHT someone stole his wallet). You can't separate the ending from the rest of the story, even the story is incredibly long and involved.

Or it could be something as simple as a short-ish blog post with a terrible ending; my butt itches.

ON RESPONSIBLE REPORTING

2009-06-04T13:17:00.004-04:00

Recently, an article came out about our new improv group. We were interviewed on Monday night for the article - there was no tape recorder present, and the man interviewing us took some notes. We didn't know how the interview went, but it seemed okay. We talked about comedy, some things we've done in our past, and some other things in our life.

The article came out yesterday, and is fairly inaccurate. And while all of the simple factual errors bother me, and the assembled quotes bother me, I have to be happy that at least our group's name is out there, right? Someone probably said "Any publicity is good publicity," and that's what I have to keep reminding myself.

Speaking of publicity, at this Sunday's MTV Movie Awards, Sacha Baron Cohen - dressed as his character "Bruno," descended from the rafters, landing directly on Eminem. Eminem was upset by this turn of events and stormed out. There was a lot of buzz about whether or not the incident was staged, which is good publicity for MTV, Cohen, and Eminem.

The "responsible reporting" factor comes in shortly after. One of the writers for MTV wrote on his personal blog that the whole incident was planned and rehearsed and staged. News organizations (including Yahoo!) picked up on this and reported it. However, the post was soon taken down. Some took this as maintaining the possibility that the incident was NOT scripted, but that it was a writer continuing to poke fun at the situation (which, I might add, would be a GREAT way to follow it up had it NOT been scripted).

I guess my concern is about the availability and accuracy of information that is reported through news organizations, be they small local papers or multinational conglomerates. There was a story a few weeks ago about a student who faked a quote from a composer on Wikipedia, and how many stories printed the quote as fact straight from Wikipedia. If this is going to be the case following my death, let the record show that I was a fantastic kisser. Report it as fact!

ON BECOMING A REGULAR

2009-06-03T15:23:00.002-04:00

When I worked at a pizza place in my youth, we had many regular customers. One who stuck out in my mind was the Colonel, a man who may or may not have had an actual military background. He had a very distinct order that he placed every time he came in, and after a while he was requesting his favorite cook (although honestly, there wasn't a lot of difference between the six of us. Also, I'm only saying that because I was not the cook he requested). We all wanted to take care of this guy for reasons I'm not entirely clear on.

Since I left that job, it's been kind of a latent desire of mine to become a "regular" somewhere. This would be reliant on several things:

1) A low turnover of staff, so that they recognize me each time I come in,
2) Something distinctive about my order - easier to remember, and
3) Repetition, repetition, repetition.

I thought I was a regular for a while at the Chick-Fil-A in the Student Union at Arkansas. I was very particular about my grilled chicken sandwich, and eventually that stuck in the lunch employee's mind. However, I failed to achieve true regular status, as going to Chick-Fil-A in the evenings resulted in the same service that everyone else got - nothing special about me!

I am close to regular status at the mall pizzeria near this campus. I go in at the same time every Saturday, ordering a slice of pizza and small Coke with no ice. If you look at my three arbitrary categories, I have them...the same staff seems to be working most Saturdays, the "no ice" is distinctive, and I have been in there for Saturday lunches about 40 of the last 50 weeks. I believe I am a regular there, but because of the pre-assembled nature of their pizza, there is no real way for me to tell. The woman who works the counter calls everyone "Honey" - not just me.

So Wednesday nights are my new attempt to achieve regular status. We got to Ruby Tuesday's and order the delicious Triple Prime Burger. A gay friend's ex-girlfriend is our waitress each week, and I have finally figured out the appropriate mix of ingredients that enhances the sheer succulence of the burger. Now it's on to number 3 - repetition. Ideally, I'll be a regular by the end of the summer - just in time to have staff meetings on Wednesday nights and lose "regular" status. Blerg.

ON A RECENT PASSING

2009-06-02T11:38:00.003-04:00

My friend's father passed away this morning in a car accident. My friend is holding up pretty well, and his fiancee is with him to help him deal with everything.

It's a rough thing, death. It really forces me to examine my own mortality - not just the shockingly long "Bucket List" I have, but also the sheer fact that I will one day shuffle off this mortal coil. It's frightening. Intellectually, I understand death's role in the circle of life, but intellect takes a back seat on days like today.

My friend said that his father was "ready," which I at first took as "he had a will." However, my friend was letting me know that his father was a Christian, and that he had been saved. I share the same faith, and know that the family can take solace that one day they will be reunited as a family, as part of a much larger Family.

I suppose the only thing we can do is the best we can we have with our time here. To let those we love know that we love them. To let our legacies be ones of joy and love, and not of greed and anger. To make the world a better place, even if it's only for one person for one day.

I have nothing else to say today. Nothing at all.

ON FEELING MY AGE

2009-06-01T11:32:00.002-04:00

So I went to a theme park today for the first time since the last time. This time, no one got sick.

Let me preface all of this by saying that as a kid, I LOVED theme parks. I have clear, distinct memories of riding roller coasters over and over again and loving it. I remember getting to the park at 10 am and staying until the park closed at 10 or 11 pm. I gleefully spent my parents' money trying to win very-closed-to-rigged carnival games for prizes like a cheap stuffed tiger.

This most recent trip...I don't know. We got to the park around 11 or 11:30. We went on all the roller coasters. I grumblingly spent my own money trying to win a Bears football (an astounding zero-for-six in throwing a football through a tire). I complained about food prices. I willingly sat in the shade while waiting for friends to get off a ride. I didn't want to go on the water ride because I didn't want to walk around in wet shoes all day. And then we left by 7:30.

What on earth happened to me? When did this stop becoming fun? I can look at other things in my life and know when they stopped being entertaining - for example, go-karts decreased in fun when I got my drivers' license. But I don't know what happened to my capacity to enjoy roller coasters. I'm old, and that's a sobering thing to realize just before plummeting down a surprisingly steep drop on "Bizarro Superman."

ON MOTIVATION (II)

2009-05-29T14:07:00.002-04:00

In my weekly update the other day, I wrote about how anger is one of my strongest motivators. It didn't seem like others were getting enough done as quickly as I would have liked, so I got fed up and did a bunch of work myself. I am glad to have it done (at least rough versions of everything), but I don't know why it had to resort to me getting mad to get anything done.

Another powerful way to motivate me is to tell me that someone is better than me, but only if I think they aren't. For example, if you were to tell me that I couldn't play guitar as well as the lead guitar player from Senior Discount, I wouldn't pick up a guitar and attempt to prove you wrong; I would agree with you and go back to eating my Snickers Ice Cream Bar. If, however, you told me that I couldn't run a mile in less time than him, I would scoff, then prove you wrong at the next opportunity. Prove you wrong by a lot, ideally.

Even when I know I am being shamelessly manipulated in this fashion I fall for it. Case in point: while at Walgreens, I had a terrible manager. One day, she asked me to tie up the cardboard in the baler - a job I despised. I hemmed and hawed about doing it until she looked directly at me and said "That's okay. [The camera guy] can do it better than you anyway." Oh, that just wouldn't work for me. I went back to the stockroom and put my bachelor's degree in Communications to use by baling that cardboard into the best bale that ever baled! The manager laughed at me the entire time and said she couldn't believe how easy it was to get me to work like that, and that she'd be sure to use it in the future. Fortunately, she didn't.

I guess the drawback (for me, anyway) to working in anger is that if something doesn't go right, I get even more angry - this leads to me punting papers across my office or swiping the inbox off my desk or punching a puppy in the nose (two of those things actually happened!). But in the short term, an angry me is a busy me, and bringing out my naturally-dormant competitive nature is a surefire way to get me to work hard. Please do not use this knowledge against me.

ON CALLING IT QUITS

2009-05-28T13:46:00.004-04:00

As I browsed Facebook this morning, I realized something: I don't care about many of the people on my "friends" list. Not at all. I don't care how well they know each other, I don't care which Disney princess they resemble, and I don't care if they lost their phone.

I sound very cantankerous in that paragraph. Please bear with me.

I also strongly suspect that those people don't care about me. But at this point, it's apparently much easier to keep someone as a "Facebook friend" than to click the three times necessary to de-friend someone (in this instance, of course, "de-friend" being a completely acceptable verb). I gave that some thought and realized that it isn't the effort to remove them from a friends list that is the problem - it's the social cost.

Take this example: I de-friend someone who used to be an RA for me here. They come back to visit and I see them on campus. They haven't seen my status updates advertising improv or podcasts in a while and realize I am no longer their facebook friend. Social awkwardness ensues, until I end up apologizing profusely, because that's what I do.

But my train of thought does not stop just at local destinations! I have the boyfriend of a former RA as a Facebook friend. He now lives in India, and has no plans to return to the US. I have no plans to travel to India. I have not spoken with him in five years, and even then, our conversations were perfunctory at best. So why on earth can't I bring myself to click "Remove Friend?" What, on the off chance that I am traveling in India AND the hotel loses my reservation so I need a place to stay and I have Wifi access AND he just happens to be on Facebook at the same time AND is willing to put me up for the night AND cook me bland American food? That seems like a highly unlikely confluence of events.

It's entirely possible that I hold on to these people for selfish advertising purposes - the more people SEE a status update advertising a new podcast or something, the more likely we are to have someone check it out...probably. It's been a while since I've taken a marketing class. So to remove those potential sets of eyes - well, that's just shooting myself in the foot, right?

I guess it comes down to knowing who my friends are, and being able to differentiate between real friends and Facebook friends, which really isn't that difficult. I would delete this whole post, but I DID use "cantankerous," "perfunctory," and "confluence." Woohoo vocab!

ON STARTLEMENT

2009-05-27T16:49:00.002-04:00

I now live in an empty 204-bedroom building. Students are gone for the present, staff only works so late at night, leaving just me. It's wonderfully quiet, and I haven't had any frightening moments...until last night.

Now, I've lived here over Winter Breaks, Spring Breaks, summer breaks, etc., and it has never bothered me. I may have been bragging about this at lunch, as one of the other RD's said that they didn't like living alone (or at least living THIS alone).

Cut to last night. I pulled my car into its parking spot, looking up at all the dark windows. Smiling inwardly at my own bravery, my fearlessness of living in a big abandoned building. I had my keys in one hand and used that hand to brace myself as I picked up belongings from the passenger seat and then -

KATHUMP!

I froze, waiting.

KATHUMP!

For a very brief instant, all of the terrible possibilities of what could be happening raced through my mind - and it's amazing how fast the human mind can process these things. Killers, vampires, werewolves - all were equally likely to be attacking me at that precise moment.

They did not.

I had accidentally pressed the "release trunk" button on my remote, and the opening of the trunk was what had startled me so deeply. Even though there was no one around, I still felt a little sheepish as I shut the trunk and headed inside. Stupid empty building.

ON BEING ADVANCED

2009-05-26T10:20:00.002-04:00

The following are confessions that will likely cost me street cred, but that's okay. I'm tired of living a lie.

With the exception of two songs, I don't really enjoy the music of Radiohead. I don't get it, I don't understand it. I'm sure they're musical geniuses, but the part of my brain that is needed to access the understanding of their music is missing. Given the choice between Radiohead and a much less complex punk band, I will always choose the punk band. Does this make me less musically cool? Short answer: yes.

Wes Anderson films - I don't really enjoy them. Before I saw "Bottle Rocket," I was told it was both "great" and "hilarious." Nope. "Rushmore" was allegedly the funniest movie ever. I didn't laugh. I mentioned this to a friend, who told me that "It isn't the kind of funny you laugh at." Setting aside the ridiculousness of that statement, I didn't enjoy "The Royal Tenenbaums" either. [I have yet to watch "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" or "The Darjeeling Limited."]

I think there's a certain "cool" factor behind movies like these, and artists like Radiohead. A certain "If you don't think these things are great, you really don't understand art" cache that goes with them. So does NOT enjoying them make me part of the unwashed masses that DON'T understand art? I was of the opinion that art is more subjective than anything, and that different types of art appeal to different people. For example, if I prefer Van Gogh to Picasso, does that make me less cool? Does that mean I just don't "understand" Picasso? Am I not advanced enough?

FYI, the two Radiohead songs I enjoy are "Creep" and "High and Dry."

ON MESSAGES FROM THE BEYOND

2009-05-22T14:41:00.002-04:00

Via another blog, I learned about the website "Dead Man's Switch." Inspired by fail-safe switches that function in the event of operator death, this website allows you to write emails, which are then encrypted and stored. If you go a user-specified amount of time without replying to emails from the website, your email is sent out.

I thought about this yesterday, and really tried to think about what I would want sent about sixty days after my passing (likely from a SweetTart overdose). Obviously, one to my family telling them that I love them. One to any married couples I know, bringing them a message from the afterlife, that they should name their child(ren) after me. And one to like eight or nine different girls telling them that I have always loved them and them alone, but that they should never mention the email to anyone ever.

That's all well and good, but then I thought of it - a buried treasure email to all my friends. Now, those of you reading this blog would know it was a fake, but other people wouldn't - you're in on the joke! Here's a sample of what it may or may not look like:

"On the day of the summer solstice in the year after my passing, you must go to my home town. Find the home that saw me thrown out, ninety feet from a place I didn't see often enough. From that home, follow the iron rails away from the Purple Martin, walking for the square of my 1992 number steps. Then, take ten paces toward the noon sun and dig. There you will find a treasure beyond repair."

That is, of course a rough draft. Anyone who falls for it will end up digging, hopefully for hours in the hot sun, looking for a treasure that doesn't exist. That's what they deserve for not reading this blog. It's a fake! It's all a fake!

(Or is it?)

ON BUTTERFLY EFFECTS

2009-05-21T13:14:00.007-04:00

The situations in the "Reality" portion are true, going in reverse chronological order. The "Alternate Reality" portions are conjecture, based on the "butterfly theory" in which one minor choice can have far-reaching effects. Enjoy.

REALITY 1: I am full after one-and-a-half hot dogs. Because the second hot dog cost an astounding $2.49, I can't help but finish it. Several hours (and one improv show) later, I head out with friends. My stomach gets progressively more upset as time passes, and I end up getting sick in the bathroom of a TGI Friday's. The cute, fun waitress gives me my ginger ale and then offers me Saltines - because that's what she gives her kindergarteners when they are sick. Abashed, I tone down my flirting and leave, alone.

ALTERNATE REALITY 1: I am full after one-and-a-half hot dogs. Even though it's a waste of $1.25, I throw out the extra half. After the improv show, I use the restroom at the theater. We arrive at TGI Friday's and I turn on my goofy suave charm for the waitress, who falls in love with me. We make sweet, sweet passionate love between the dumpsters in the parking lot. She gets pregnant, and the child grows up to cure dyslexia.

REALITY 2: I am prepared to make out with a girl who lives several hours away from me. Since I am in town for another reason, I have a hotel room. She and I have flirted on the phone for months and I am ready to go not ALL of the way, but certainly most of it. Some of it. Okay, part of the way. I mean, she's coming from a wedding, I look handsome, the mood is right...and she develops a ridiculous cough on the way from the reception to my hotel room. The first thing she says when I open the door is "I almost threw up in the lobby." Nothing happens, and I go to sleep, alone.

ALTERNATE REALITY 2: She does not develop this strange cough. The first thing she says when I open the door is "I want to kiss your face!" Despite my fumbling and attempting to only go part of the way, we end up making sweet, sweet passionate love on the bathroom floor. She gets pregnant, and the child grows up to develop a working time machine.

REALITY 3: I am the RA on Duty. Another RA has been stood up by her friends, leaving her literally all dressed up with no place to go. We have half-flirted for months, and I actually say "We should make out!" She agrees, but only if I shut the door. For reasons foggy to me now, I don't get up to shut the door. Nothing happens, and I go to sleep, alone.

ALTERNATE REALITY 3: I get up and shut the door. She practically tears off my scrubs and dirty T-shirt...then shoves me out in the hallway and re-locks my door. I sprint to the bathroom to find something to cover up with, but slip and crack my skull open. As my life slowly ebbs away, I reason that at least no one ended up pregnant.

ON EXPRESSIONS OF ANGER

2009-05-20T13:57:00.002-04:00

A good friend broke his hand last night. How, you ask, did he accomplish this? Surely it was something noble, like rescuing orphaned nuns from a dragon! No. Ah, then it must have been something manly, like bare-knuckle boxing against Wolverine and his adamantium skeleton! No. I see, it was a freak accident of nature, such as a tree falling on his outstretched arm! No, it was none of those things.

He punched a couch.

What, you ask, did this couch do to offend his sensibilities? Nothing - the Blue Jays scored a run against the Red Sox. In his frustration, he punched a couch. The solid, possibly-adamantium part of the couch. Even better - the Red Sox didn't even lose the game because of this run - it was just a run.

Now, I'm someone who does stupid physical things when I get angry. I've punched doors, my refrigerator, I've thrown keys and remotes, I've punted a sheaf of papers...but I have yet to break anything - either a bone or a piece of furniture. But here's the rub - I don't feel any better after these little outbursts. In fact, I usually feel worse, because I feel so stupid about it (or upset that I have to pick up the papers).

I don't know why I do it. Sometimes I get the urge to hit things when I'm angry. I wish I could say that I will learn a lesson from my friend's cast/impending surgery, but I probably won't. No optimism today...

ON JINXES

2009-05-19T13:13:00.002-04:00

About a week or so ago, I realized that I had not had a building-wide fire alarm this academic year. As we've had many instances of vandalism and drunken tomfoolery, I consider this a minor miracle (the Vatican is investigating). No need to do rounds of the building to make sure everyone was out, no writeups from the illegal stuff we found in the rooms. No problems.

I foolishly mentioned this to another RA, then immediately searched for wood on which to knock. I wouldn't want to jinx the building with only a week or so to go - of course not! Then I laughed and said that I'm sure my mentioning it was a jinx - at this time, I was secretly hoping that by mentioning the jinx, I was jinxing the jinx, and we would continue on our no-fire-alarm path.

This morning, low water pressure in the sprinkler system caused a building-wide fire alarm. Frick.

I think we're prone to notice jinxes when they occur, but seldom when they don't. Seriously, if I counted the things I've mentioned that HAVEN'T happened, it would absolutely dwarf the number of things that have. For example, I've often thought about what it would be like if terrorists (for some reason) broke into my dorm. It hasn't happened. After reading all these zombie books, I've talked at length about those scenarios - and to my knowledge, the undead are not shuffling toward North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, intent on gnawing on delicious ol' me. So right there - two things that are clearly NOT jinxes.

Furthermore, why the focus on negative things when discussing jinxes? Why isn't it like "You know, I have never met a bikini model with an advanced degree in mathematics?" According to jinxology, a branch of science which doesn't exist but should, I would probably meet Dr. Boobies in the next week or so. But, to paraphrase my good friend Ice-T, we live in the real world, and unfortunately, "stuff" ain't like that. So is mentioning positive things and then jinxing it so they DON'T happen just typical cynicism, or do the things we think and say (on a micro scale) affect the outcome of events surrounding us? That would be a ridiculous way to live, right? There's absolutely NO WAY that's true.

But just in case...
The Blackhawks haven't won a Stanley Cup in a while...
You know, I've never found a winning lottery ticket on the ground...
What are the odds of the government outlawing "Meet the Spartans?"

ON BEING COOL UNDER PRESSURE

2009-05-18T13:27:00.002-04:00

I was walking from my office to my apartment today, to drop off some paperwork before heading to lunch when my RA stopped me.

"There's a fire in the dumpster outside," she said, "I've already called the cops."

No panic in her voice. No panic in my reactions, either, as I grabbed a fire extinguisher and headed outside. Two police officers had arrived, and one took my offered extinguisher and sprayed down the dumpster - not enough to actually extinguish the fire, but enough to keep it from spreading. I got two more (heavy) extinguishers, one of which the officer used. The fire department arrived to a little smoldering mess in the dumpster, which they then hosed down.

I think it's telling that none of us panicked at all - in the slightest - during the whole ordeal. I don't know how different it would have been if the fire had been inside, or closer to my car (yipes!). But for the time being, everyone acted completely coolly, without unnecessary screaming or excitement.

Several (many?) years ago, I read the story of a father whose family freaked out when there was a bee in the car. He calmly pulled over and rolled down the window, allowing the bee its freedom and the honorable windshield death it surely deserved. He talked about his experience as a fighter pilot, and how it had prepared him for things like this - keeping your cool when things aren't going well. While I am not a fighter pilot (I'm not even good at airplane-based video games), I'd like to think that I can keep it together when things are going poorly.

This all goes very well with what I'm reading in The Zombie Survival Guide. If there's a zombie uprising, you should probably come get me, or I will end up calmly being eaten by zombies.

ON GLEE

2009-05-15T11:20:00.003-04:00

Last night, the Boston Bruins lost game seven of their best-of-seven playoff series to the Carolina Hurricanes. In overtime, no less. The guy who scored the game-winning goal had cheap-shotted a Boston player in the face in game five. It was a very tough moment for Boston sports fans...and I couldn't have been happier.

I have lived in this area for over two and a half years. When I got here, I was definitely caught up in the enthusiasm; this is a region that loves its sports passionately. I would root for Boston teams against anyone but my hometown teams. I genuinely liked it when Boston teams won.

But over the past two-plus years, something has changed. Part of it is that it doesn't seem like at least two of the teams have exactly conducted themselves ethically. There was much hullabaloo about the Patriots videotaping signals from opposing coaches a few years ago, and Bill Simmons recently wrote an excellent column detailing the 2004 Red Sox Championship team and its curious relationship with steroids (I was not here for that, but have certainly seen the fallout from it since I arrived). So those serve as reasons to dislike two of the teams - there's no tangible reason to root against the Bruins, right?

I think the reason I delighted in the Bruins loss is that I interact with a lot of Boston sports fans. True, they are passionate about their teams, and I admire that. But I work on a college campus where students are ridiculous about each and every Red Sox playoff games, breaking bottles and windows to either celebrate or commiserate. After the Patriots loss in the Super Bowl, someone wrote "NY GIANTS SUCK" in an elevator. Their medium? They wrote it in feces. IN FECES.

I spent most of any playoff game praying that the game will be a blowout, so that students would have time to get used to the outcome, win or loss, and that there wouldn't be a dramatic finish that got all the students out of their rooms and into public areas - which is where trouble starts. And by "trouble," I mean "dumpster fires."

I have friends who are Boston fans, and I like to see my friends happy. So a part of me is always rooting for their happiness. But last night, when the Bruins lost in heartbreaking, punched-in-the-stomach fashion, I could NOT stop smiling. I was positively gleeful in their defeat, not because I like the Carolina Hurricanes (I don't), but because I knew that all of these troublemaking Boston fans would be SAD. Their alcohol-fueled destruction would be accompanied by angry swears, not by joyous angry swears. Seriously, I looked like the Joker, with a smile positively cut into my face - and I'm sorry to all my friends who like Boston sports, but I am glad your team is done. I also hope the Red Sox don't make the playoffs, so that I won't have to worry about extra nights of work during October. I hope the Patriots play well enough to support any players on my fantasy team, but I hope you miss the playoffs. Again.

This whole post may seem contrary to a post from a few weeks ago, in which I confessed to rooting for the Celtics. I root for the Celtics only because a friend's husband gets a (bigger?) playoff bonus if they continue on, and they have a new baby to take care of. Plus, as I mentioned, I have a free Celtics T-shirt. And I know that the only person who "rioted" with the Celtics title win last year was another RD who set off fireworks in my parking lot, and I don't anticipate any feces-related graffiti from him if the Celtics lose to either the Magic or the Cavaliers.

Perhaps someone will end up accidentally clicking on this post expecting a review of the upcoming FOX series "Glee." Sorry. It looks good, but for now, I'm just absolutely basking in the sports-related depression of some hungover, angry-at-the-world students.

By the way, the Blackhawks are still alive.

ON RATIONALIZING

2009-05-14T13:53:00.002-04:00

I am the type of person who gives back change if I get too much from a cashier. In fact, I have taken back eleven cents a week later because I got too much change from a gas station attendant. This is the person I am.

Last night, I was exposed to a different way of thinking. An employee at a national retailer made an error; doing so allowed one savvy consumer to access goods not only before their street date, but also for free. A friend (not "a friend," but an actual friend) took advantage of this situation to his advantage. I subtly frowned on this and we discussed the situation.

This friend pointed out that this was an error made by the corporation. The relationship between the singular consumer and the massive corporation - that gets rich profiting off of other people's art, relying on buying and selling used items for a large portion of their profit. Neither my friend nor I approve of this company's policies. In addition, my friend - after taking advantage of the situation - notified store employees of the problem, allowing them to correct it for six different items.

So it boils down to this; I am less against this practice then I was last night, and I am honestly torn. Are we obligated to try and level the playing field against this national company that really profits from other people's art or desperation? Is solving the problem for five other items worthy of a reward of some sort, even if that wasn't the original intention? No physical items were taken; is this the equivalent of using a coupon code that you don't actually have? (For example, searching for Domino's coupons that result in a free sandwich/dessert, despite the fact that the coupon wasn't specifically offered to me?) Was this action okay?

Is this all justification for the action, or have my thoughts of the past night served only as poor rationalization for my friend's behavior?

(For those concerned, no merchandise has changed hands, and nothing illegal took place during the course of the evening, with the notable exception of harassment of a waitress at Ruby Tuesday's. Triple Prime burgers are delicious!)

ON MEASURING UP

2009-05-13T13:27:00.002-04:00

I am not always the world's most secure individual. It's entirely possible that I "sell myself short" on good qualities, preferring to seem humble in the face of praise. When I do brag, it's often good-natured joking around, such as clamoring for a promotional video for my new improv group featuring only my personal highlights - obviously, I'm kidding.

Deep down, I worry about our improv group. I have seen my fair share of improv, and I've often come away impressed with the savvy-ness of both the players and the audience in places like Chicago and New York. Newport audiences are completely different, so I think I've always subconsciously assumed that our group can't compare to what I casually dubbed "big city" improv.

Well, last Friday, five of us headed up to Improv Boston to see a show featuring two teams. And, well, it turns out that the groups weren't necessarily as savvy or as, um, funny as I remember. I hate to trash other groups, so I won't go into too much detail, but they made some basic mistakes that a performing group really shouldn't - not that our group is perfect, but still...I expected a lot more and didn't get it. So it looks like we DO measure up to big city improv - at least in Boston.

I was thinking about job interviews recently, and I think I FINALLY came up with an answer to the question about what my weaknesses are - rather than saying something stupid like "I work too hard" (how is that a weakness for a company? they WANT you to work hard!), I think I'm going to talk about how I measure myself against my role models in the field and always find myself lacking in some area or another. The answer shows that I aspire to be better, but that I am also aware of my own shortcomings (ignored in this answer!) and am very "meta," in that I think about thinking.

Those of you who are also interviewing, feel free to use that answer, unless, of course, we are interviewing for the same job. If that is the case, please say that your weaknesses are massive office supply theft and chronic contagious gastrointestinal disorders.

ON SEVERAL DIFFERENT REASONS FOR JOY

2009-05-12T11:44:00.002-04:00

Reason #1 - The Blackhawks won their series against the Vancouver Canucks last night. This is their first trip to a conference finals since 1995 - I was in high school, just finishing my junior year and more excited about that summer's trip to Indianapolis to see Bush, Sponge, and Weezer at the X-Fest than hockey. (Note: We left before Bush played). But this year has really peaked my interest in Chicago hockey again - it's a young, exciting team, and the future looks bright, even if we fall short in the conference finals.

Reason #2 - Pearl Jam is going to have a Rock Band game devoted to their live music! And what's more, fans get to vote on which versions of the songs are used! Personally, I'm going to try and write in the version of "Last Kiss" from the Vegas show I saw in which Eddie messed up the words. But still, a company decided that my favorite band is worth having a whole game - placing them solidly in the same category as Aerosmith and Metallica - two bands in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It's nice to feel like I actually like something that is cool for once - I wonder when "Rock Band: Mitch Malloy" is coming out...

Reason #3 - Work is about to get much easier! After today's ice cream social (easy and delicious) and tonight's pizza-based staff meeting (delicious and easy), students will be moving out in drips and drops, with the deluge of departing students taking place next Tuesday and Wednesday (and then a few trickles the following Sunday and Monday). I often joke that this job would be so easy if not for the students, and during the summer I get to live that joke.

Reason #4 - Next week's season finale of How I Met Your Mother - I read somewhere that he is actually going to meet the mother, which brings a sort of closure to four years of storytelling (although last night's episode hinted at something that will happen near the end of NEXT season, and I'm a sucker for ambitious foreshadowing).

Reason #5 - I am currently reading my first Dean Koontz book, Odd Thomas. It's terrifying, in a good way. Even my nightmare based on the first hundred pages couldn't dampen my enthusiasm for it...another author whose works I can enjoy.

ON CONFLICT

2009-05-11T13:20:00.002-04:00

I read The People of Sparks by Jeanne Duprau yesterday. For those unfamiliar, it is the sequel to The City of Ember (which was recently made into a movie, which is why I read it in the first place) and deals with people struggling to adapt to a new way of life while dealing with finite resources. This struggle eventually boils over into a fairly serious conflict (although it is a young adult book).

The book is pretty obvious in its exploration of the nature of conflict. War is bad, but avoiding conflicts is also bad in a different way, etc. I think that I personally tend to avoid conflict by attempting to resolve it (with varying amounts of success). I feel that I know a lot of people who thrive on conflict - people on campus use "belligerent" as a synonym for "drunk" - in other areas they do not mean the same, but we have a lot of angry drunks at this school - but I do not enjoy conflict.

I used to be terrified of conflict and confrontation. As an RA, my heart would pound every time I had to deal with loud residents; that has become so old hat to me that I don't even really think about it anymore. Occasionally, my blood will get up and I will confront people, but it's certainly a rare thing for me to have heart-pounding conflicts these days.

So this made me question myself - do I avoid conflicts? I think that I do, but not necessarily because I am afraid of the results. I just feel like the results are not worth the hassle of the conflict. For example, if there is one parking place close to the mall, and I see it at the same time (or even before) someone else, but they want it, I would probably let them have it, because I don't mind the walk from a further parking space. Does that make me a coward? Sure, I could get out of my car and yell at the person, but what does that solve? Their day is ruined, my day is ruined, and still - only one of us can get the parking spot.

I know that I occasionally can be perceived as a chump for feeling and acting this way, but ultimately, I'm trying to put others' needs in front of mine. It's entirely possible that I do this too often and so deprive myself of some good things, but so what? I already have a lot of good things, so why hog them all? Why not SHARE the storehouse of food between the people of Sparks and the people from Ember? Granted, the book wouldn't have been written, but still...

ON POETRY

2009-05-08T13:20:00.003-04:00

I was reminded over the past few days of a conversation I had with a former co-worker. She had studied poetry (and was planning on studying it further), and I was explaining to her how I didn't "get" free verse poetry, because it was basically writing sentences in strange ways. She told me that it wasn't about the format, that it was about what the words made the reader feel, and that I should be reading poetry to enjoy it, not to find deep and hidden meanings.

With that said, I humbly submit this shame-inducing effort from my high school days...this is probably worse than the effort I posted several weeks ago:

[note: wow, this really is bad.]
----------------------------------
182 v.1

Just as love had me leaning over
To smell the roses Reality walked by
And kicked me into the thorns - blood
Fell in the form of tears and various
Obscenities describing the ramifications of
Your flaunted enthusaism - really, was there
A need to grind what was left of my heart
Into hamburger meat? Did it have to be
Done in front of so many? My emotions have
Somersaulted endless times attempting to tll me
How to act; what am I supposed to do? Find
Someone else, lead them on, then break their heart?
My soul's committed suicide the pain has spread from deep inside
In solitary I abide for hours and hours I watched me die
I don't want help I don't need that
I don't want to deal with all this crap
My heart's in shambles just like my soul
What must I do? Write a thousand poems
Containing my love for you? Words fail in
Their attempt to describe your beauty - I
Need you - what else can I say? You
Had me tangled in your web of illusory
Merriment; Life would be good if I was
Able to have you; but apparently I just wasn't
Meant to be happy - when did you make that choice?
--------------------------------------------------

Blerg. So, so, so, so many things wrong with it. Some questionable word choices, excessive semicolon usage, the weird rhyming breakdown, competing themes (do I hate her? do I love her? do I hate that I love her?) and the kind of blame-shifting that can only be done by 16-year-olds. The odd thing is that this girl did NOTHING to lead me on, so I really don't understand where all of that rage came from.

Also written in pencil in the upper left corner by someone else: "You're very talented. I wish I could only write like you. Thanks for letting me read these. PS This one is awesome! It's my favorite." I have no idea who wrote it - maybe the girl who cried when she read it during English class? However, the girl who inspired it left a note as well - "That's very wrong Brad."

ON ANTS AND GRASSHOPPERS

2009-05-07T13:17:00.002-04:00

As part of my compensation at work, I get a meal plan. And while it sounds good, getting $1250 a semester or so to spend, I don't use it as often as I probably should. Since it carried over from last semester, I have about $1000 to spend with three weeks to go.

Previous years - when the meal plan was different - found me with about $150 left at this time of the year, which I would spend on Gatorade or Powerade or something to get me through the summer. As mentioned previously, I am a firm believer in deferred gratification, so this was nothing new. But to have a thousand dollars or so - that's just an embarrassment.

A fellow RD has almost run out of money. He spent it on late-night snacks, as well as buying meals for friends and strangers throughout the year. As he is way short on funds, I have been buying lunches for him for the past two or three weeks, and I am glad to do so. I can't help but think of the fable of the ant and the grasshopper, though - the ant saved up supplies for winter, the grasshopper partied with all his grasshopper friends all year, and then - come winter, he had nothing. The kindly (and likely handsome) ant took in the grasshopper and they did whatever it is insects do all winter together and the grasshopper learned a valuable lesson - spend freely, because someone else will take care of you when things get hard.

Wait, what?

It may seem like I'm bitter toward the grasshopper in that story, and I don't think I am. I do believe in forethought and planning ahead, but have been known to take it too far.

Continuing my deferred gratification examples, I have something like 33 vacation days, and 35 sick days to use at some point. If and when I leave this school, I get paid for the vacation days but not for the sick days - so why don't I use them on days when I don't feel like working? A friend assured me that if she worked at a job with sick/vacation days, she wouldn't stockpile them like I have, which is fine. She's a grasshopper, and truthfully a world of all ants and no grasshoppers would be pretty dull, just as a world with all grasshoppers and no ants would be pretty chaotic. Yet I cannot deny my ant nature, and so rarely use sick days, even when I am sure I have brain ulcers.

All of that having been said, I placed an order today for ten cases of water and twelve cases of different sodas...total cost to my meal plan: $722, leaving me with more than enough to get me and few grasshoppers through the last few weeks of school. So suck on that, Aesop.

ON TYPICAL-NESS

2009-05-06T13:31:00.002-04:00

Growing up, I had a timetable set for my life. At 17, I would graduate from high school (summer birthday). At 21, I would graduate from college. And by the time I was 25, I would be happily married to a supermodel. Add some kids in before I turned 30, and things were looking up for my imaginary life...

In my actual life, which I am actually living, I graduated on time from high school and college, but then took my fallback job - a manager at Walgreens, and not a PR guy for the XFL (dream job!). As I was mildly ashamed of my profession, I didn't actively seek out relationships, and so I certainly wasn't married by the time I was 25. And, well, the less said about the production of children the better. So I occasionally got bummed out about this in the past.

A few weeks ago, a "wise" friend told me about his agreement with a mutual friend, that neither of them would be normal guys living normal lives. A very cute girl I know said that she wasn't the type of girl who went to school to get her MRS degree (a joke that took me a surprisingly long time to understand). And then I realized - was that my highest aspiration growing up? To be a normal guy? To get married right out of college and settle down?

I'm not going to criticize anyone's life choices, especially because everyone is different, and has different goals and wants and needs and favorite pizza toppings...but I can say (with the benefit of hindsight) that the route my imaginary life would have taken is kind of boring compared to the route my actual life has taken. In my imaginary life, I wouldn't have moved to Arkansas or Massachusetts, and I certainly would have had less time for improv and making hilarious videos. And I LOVE those parts of my life! I would have been working at Walgreens, supporting a growing brood and talking with neighbors about the secrets of lawn care. I've been upset about my life not taking the path that I assumed was "normal" without realizing that I'm not a normal person! [Note: I would not say "abnormal." Let's go with "atypical."]

So that's that. I am aware that I tend to vacillate between being a "normal guy" and being the guy I am, but hopefully this revelation will lead to less discontent with my life, and exponentially more awesomeness. Again, I am not trying to judge anyone who did get married right out of high school or college, although it may seem that way with my "boring" comment up there. It's just that I'm a atypical guy, and those choices don't really fit with the person I am...

ON WINDING DOWN

2009-05-05T13:07:00.003-04:00

The school year is almost over; this delights me. Work is probably about three weeks away from getting extremely easy, all of my weekend duties are done, soon I will be able to do laundry whenever I like without worrying that an angry student will pee into the detergent slot...good stuff.

I also have six RA's leaving at the end of the year. Four are graduating, two are going to take some time away from the position. And it's difficult to keep them motivated to achieve their goals for the year, in terms of number and type of programs, for one. I don't think they will skip out on the tasks they have for closing the building, because that would let everyone else down, but programs...I just don't see the effort. And I don't have a carrot or a stick with which I can motivate them.

Moving forward, I think that in the future, I'll take the opportunity at winter training to address this phenomenon. I want to think that the type of person we hire is the type of person who takes pride in their work, and would continue strong efforts throughout, even if there is no carrot or stick.

I knew I was a lame duck manager at Walgreens. I got the offer to go to grad school while working, in fact. So I knew when I was leaving, and I had no plans to return, so I really had no excuse not to work hard. However, with the exception of my last Memorial Day*, I did work hard for the last three months in that position. I don't think it was pride that motivated me, just that while I was still in the position, I should still put forth the effort to maintain the position. I guess I'd just like to see that kind of effort from the people working for me.

* I read all of Harry Potter 3 in the stockroom that day.

2009-05-01T13:47:00.003-04:00

ON LASTING IMPRESSIONS

Although I am admittedly pretty terrible at remembering faces, I like to think I am good at remembering people. That may sound like a contradiction - sometimes I think the subtitle of my life is "a study in contradiction" - but sometimes I feel like I remember other people in far greater detail than they remember me. This used to bother me a lot; now it bothers me less.

In fifth grade, a new kid joined our school. He was easy to remember (and I try to present this as factually as possible without sounding judgmental), as he had a birth defect that left him minus a few fingers and one leg. Before he arrived at school, midway through the year, the teachers told us to be nice to him, not to tease him, etc. And I thought he and I got along just fine - I discovered a glitch in the Nintendo game "Ninja Gaiden" which helped him beat the game, for goodness' sake. After that year, his family moved away, and I didn't expect to ever see him again. The Labor Day weekend following that year - granted, fifteen months later - I ran into him at Plymouth, Indiana's "Blueberry Festival." I greeted him enthusiastically and he looked at me and said "Do I know you?"

Ouch.

I was thinking about that as I perused Facebook the other day. How many of the people I took improv classes with eleven years ago would remember me, or not be weirded out that I remember them? I think THAT, as much as anything, makes me apprehensive about contacting them. Because I feel like those classes meant so much to me and don't know what they meant to anyone else; people in that class went on to work at Second City, to do improv in the Netherlands, to write plays...and there was me, a suburban kid who didn't know what "downstage" meant. Not that we didn't all work together to create some very funny stuff - that's the beauty of improv - but still, I can't help but feel like an outsider.

One woman - a very, very, very funny woman - was in that class. I was taking the classes over the summer between years at school. So I took Level One with her between my sophomore and junior years, then Level Two with a completely different class between my junior and senior years. During my senior year at Bradley, Second City's National Touring Company came to campus and performed, and this very very very funny woman was performing with them! I greeted her enthusiastically and she paused, looked at me, and I knew it was coming - so I blurted out that we were in the same Level One class. I still don't think she remembered me, but she was very gracious in our conversation about fellow Level One class members. It's weird, because I'm fairly certain she's reasonably successful in the world of comedy, and I am very proud of knowing her (and anyone else I know who seems to be happy or doing well, for that matter).

I guess I sometimes feel like other people mean a lot more to ME than I mean to THEM. This isn't Typical Brad Self-Pity...just an observation. I'm sure there are people in my life that feel that I mean more to them than they mean to me. In any event, we'll see how the ol' Facebook Friend Request works out...I'm thinking complete Internet crashes around the world, but that's probably a worst-case scenario, right?

2009-04-30T13:12:00.002-04:00

ON NEW BEGINNINGS

Last night, we finally decided on the name for our new improv group. We're going to be known as "Sky Punch Improv." We have performance opportunities lined up, which is unusual for a new group...although I don't know how new we are, as we've all been performing together for the past eight months (some of us have been together for nigh on two years - that's right, nigh).

I know a lot of groups get to this point and then fizzle out. Honestly, I had my doubts for the past few weeks whether or not we'd actually get started, but it seems like things are going pretty well. There's a certain buzz about us, we're all re-energized and re-excited about these chances. The possibility of making our own way, of blazing our own trail...it's refreshing.

All that remains to get my professional and personal lives in gear and I'll be set, new beginning-wise.

2009-04-29T13:19:00.002-04:00

ON PROFESSIONALISM

This morning we got a little talking-to about how we (as a team) communicate with one another. This was precipitated by the meeting we had last week to set up our summer duty schedule. Heated words were exchanged, and I thought that was the end of it. Apparently it is not, and now we are "encouraged" to have a "players-only" meeting to work out our communication issues.

I don't think this idea is a permanent solution - seriously, I occasionally lose my temper with friends, and I obviously have more affection for them than I do for work people. Sometimes tempers get lost, especially with ten people all vying for the same week on duty.

I am happy to say that I wasn't the snapper or the snappee last week - I avoided the conflict entirely, as I was out of the room at the time. However, I have had my share of unprofessional moments, including the one below. I am not proud of it, and am in fact ashamed of it.

EXAMPLE: It was a long day at Walgreens. We - the assistant managers - were working setting up a new store, and we were told it would be an eight-hour day. So I went to my store to open it up and do some necessary work there until another assistant got there. At 9, when another assistant got there, I headed over to the new store. After seven or so hours there, I got ready to leave with the rest of the assistants. I was told I couldn't, that my eight hours started when I got to the new store. I protested, as there was no one else that could work at my home store. I lost this protest, and was told - by my district manager, no less - that "if I wanted to be a manager, I should act like a manager." I responded in the heat of my anger with "If you want me to act like a manager, you should pay me like a manager!" and grumpily went back to work.

Whoops.

The next day another district-level supervisor pulled me aside and pointed out the utter foolishness of my actions. I called the DM to apologize for my behavior, citing stress in my personal life as the reason for my outburst. I'm not entirely sure how true that was, as frustrations with that job were at a boiling point, but it's much easier than saying "I don't really want this job, and in fact think I can do more with my life," which would lead to me being let go from the position (I assume).

Would a meeting two weeks after with the DM help? Maybe it would for a few months, but at some point, my frustrations would have come back up and manifested themselves in a different way. Hence my reluctance to put any faith in the meeting we will inevitably have here, especially since we are likely to have staff turnover in the near future. But I get to see my co-workers in a more relaxed, friendly situation - maybe that short-term benefit is all we're going to get out of this meeting. Maybe that's all we need to get.

2009-04-28T13:20:00.002-04:00

ON THE BEACH

We have beautiful weather here today. A little breezy, comfortably hot, just all around beautiful. The kind of day that makes it possible to deal with the stupid winter weather (I'm looking at you, Blizzard That Made It Unable For Me To Attend Friend Christmas), just to get to today.

A lot of students are taking advantage of the weather to head to the beach. And I've turned down a few invitations to go, partly because there needs to be a line between my work and my home life, but also partly because I'm not much of a beach person.

While I am an optimist in other areas of my life, I am a beach pessimist. What do you do at the beach? Nothing. You lay in the sun and do nothing. If I want to lay around and do nothing, I will be in my comfortable bed in relative (okay, absolute) privacy. The sand is hot and ends up in every nook and cranny in your car, clothing, and body. Seriously, like three days later you go to eat a sandwich and find one grain of sand that has miraculously survived showers, brushing, and even general beverage consumption. That's no good.

In addition, I've always been more than a little self-conscious about my pastiness. This has mostly passed, and I am comfortable with who I am and how near-translucent my skin is. But in the past - forget about it. The shirt stayed on. I realize the paradox of wanting to tan but having to take off the shirt in order to get some sun; and I choose the "I'll stay in the air conditioned house" side of that paradox.

If I were in Southern California or Hawaii, would I be more of a beach person? Maybe - chiefly because I could surf, and that's something I really would like to pursue. Because that's something to actually DO, not just lay around. In the meantime...no beach for me. I'll be in my apartment with the lights off and the a/c on, doing nothing in comfort.

2009-04-27T13:18:00.003-04:00

ON CONFRONTATION

One of my co-workers/friends has said he is in a very confrontational mood today. His building has been...active?...lately, with broken windows, hate graffiti, people shoving RA's, police not responding to what allegedly sounded "like gunfire." Just a bunch of terrible stuff in the past week or so.

Now, my building has not been perfect angels all year, but they've only had one incident that even held a candle to my friend's building (when students pulled down part of the drop ceiling in a common room). He and I had completely different responses to these actions.

As mentioned above, he is in a "confronting" mood. I was not; I was in a disappointed mood when all of this happened. Part of this is my "Mr. Neutral" personality, and part of it is that occasionally, getting angry and confrontational invites further reprisal. It takes two to tango, and I am not willing to dance with these foolish students.

For example, a few months ago, a group of us were at a movie. A young man in the row in front of us was texting; one bearded member of our group said "Put it away, man." Now, he said it in kind of a jerk-y manner (not too terribly jerk-y, but a little). I think if he had been very confrontational, very jerkish about it, it would have caused the texter to be kind of a jerk back - to re-jerk*, if you will. The situation would have escalated from there. Conversely, if someone with a Brad-like personality had said "Excuse me, could you stop texting during the movie?" the response would have been one of two things - either putting the phone away and apologizing or a snort and ignoring of the request. In this instance, I think my bearded big-nosed friend found the right balance between being commanding and requesting.

So I worry for my friend tonight, as he is on call, and has said he will be looking for opportunities to confront students. I don't know that anything terrible will happen tonight; too many of these students deal with their authority issues in secret, by spitting on police cars when the officers aren't around, for example. My concern isn't for him getting in a fight or anything tonight; just that these students will rebel in different ways that result in damage to his personal property. It's up to him to find the line between command and request; he is certainly capable of walking that line...it's whether or not he chooses to walk it that I don't know.

*I'm very proud of "re-jerk." What a great word.

2009-04-24T10:17:00.002-04:00

ON THE END OF MY ROPE

Sometimes I really question my commitment to working with college students. I was on call last night, and it really got to me. I went to bed with an upset stomach, and there's no way it WASN'T stress-related.

I get incredibly frustrated by the ignorant behavior I see all around this campus. After a student disabled the fire sprinkler system and flooded a building on Monday night, Wednesday night saw two (2) fights, then I was on last night. And it didn't start out too badly, but as the night wore on, I got more and more upset about things. Stupid things, but once my mood got into the "bad" category, it wasn't improving itself.

I fail to see the allure in smashing the window in a public bathroom. A short while after that, I got a call that there was another fight - this turned out to be a "near miss," as another RD was able to successfully mediate things before they got out of control. Just after THAT, we got a call that two hallways were "trashed." I went over to check it out and it was ridiculous - shaving cream smeared into the carpet, trash thrown and kicked throughout, jelly smeared on doors and walls. It was disturbing and disgusting.

As I was walking back to my building, I was on the verge of just losing my temper entirely and likely embarrassing myself with a tantrum. I said a little prayer to help me make it through the night, and got back in my apartment. Despite my upset stomach, I eventually fell asleep, and did not receive another call all night.

Now, I'm not one to pretend to understand how faith works. In Cold Sassy Tree, author Olive Ann Burns says that prayer is for spiritual things and not material things - and that really made sense to me. So I don't know what happened last night - I'm not going to pretend to be important enough that God decided to make my half of the campus behave after 1 am. But I do know that I was at the end of my rope, then got a good night's sleep, and have now successfully climbed back up my rope, high enough to get perspective on things.

2009-04-23T10:06:00.002-04:00

ON OPENING LINES

Last Sunday, I went to Barnes and Noble. I saw a pretty girl working there. I am usually loath to say anything to a strange girl, especially around the school I work for; heaven forbid I say anything and it turns out she's one of the students from my building (or worse, will live in my building next year because she's a freshman this year). As I tried to figure out what to say to this girl, the only thing I could come up with was "So...books, huh?"

Obviously, I did not actually speak with her. I also briefly considered asking her to help me find a book, but since the book I was looking for was a fantasy novel (that they didn't have, the jerks), I figured that wouldn't help. I also thought it would make it look like I didn't know how to use the Internet to order books. So the moment passed and I went home.

About two weeks ago, I was at the Walgreens near my friends' apartment in Rhode Island. I noticed a very cute assistant manager [I described her has having "arresting eyes."] working there, but she was busy, so I didn't say anything. I figured I'm in this Walgreens fairly regularly and would have the opportunity to speak with her at another time. Last night was that time.

Since I worked at Walgreens five years ago (has it been that long? Wow!), I knew we could find some common ground to explore. I walked down the food aisle and saw a damaged package of granola bars. I checked the expiration date on the box and sure enough, it was expired. I grabbed the box (then checked the one behind it, which was also expired). Boom, instant conversation starter, right? She was behind the photo counter (the photo girl was back in the 1-hour lab), so I approached with this gem:

ME: These are incredibly outdated.
HER: (checks them) They sure are. Thanks!
ME: (awkwardly) I used to work for Walgreens like five years ago, so I notice stuff like that.
HER: (chuckles)

Ugh. I should have let it go there, but no...

ME: That would never have happened at my store! [Note: I was obviously joking.]
HER: Oh, really?
ME: (grabbing a Diet A&W Root Beer from the cooler) No, It would have and did.

Ugh again. I don't know why it's so difficult to start conversations with strangers - particularly girl strangers - but it is a skill I lack. The bright side of all of this is that at least I got two packages of expired granola bars off the shelf. That probably saved at least four lives. When you look at it that way, I'm kind of a hero.

2009-04-22T12:46:00.002-04:00

ON APPRECIATION (II)

While it is all well and good that today is "Earth Day," it is a much more important holiday to me. Today is the annual "RD Appreciation Day" at my college. As I am an RD, I love it.

It started when I got in my office and saw that the RA's had made little construction paper signs and hung them up on the back of my door. On my desk was a "The Office"-approved "World's Best Boss" mug with three packets of fancy hot chocolate included. There was a card that all of my RA's had signed, as well as a gift card for FYE (inside of a Victoria's Secret gift card box). Aside from the brief moment of questioning whether they actually got me a Victoria's Secret gift card, it was a very nice surprise.

I have to say that I really feel like I needed this boost, professionally speaking. TS Eliot said that "April is the cruelest month," and I have to think that he worked at a college when he wrote it. Spring Break is over, Spring closing isn't coming up for a few weeks - it's really the Waste Lands of the school year. So to get something like this sprinkled in - it's a great feeling.

Now, to carry that feeling over every day for the next 32 days, until the RA's move out...

2009-04-21T09:59:00.003-04:00

ON LOYALTY

I grew up in Northwest Indiana. Because of our close proximity to Chicago, we got Chicago TV. Because we got Chicago TV, we became fans of Chicago sports teams. Sure, I enjoyed the 85-86 Bears, but I really came into my own as a fan with the Chicago Bulls of the 1990's. I have very clear memories of watching the clinching game in 1993, seeing John Paxson hit that three-pointer, followed by Horace Grant's defensive play at the other end. After the game, my friend and I went outside - in the dark - and practiced Paxson's shot over and over again. The neighbors didn't care - we were all awake celebrating.

Since Michael Jordan left the Bulls in 1998, I have cared significantly less about pro basketball. The Bulls had some pretty lean years, then chose possibly my least favorite college player ever in Joakim Noah. My loyalty to the team was significantly tested. Add in the fact that I have lived in Arkansas (no pro team) and now live an hour south of Boston and it's very difficult to remain a fan.

Last night my "hometown" Bulls played the Boston Celtics - and I just realized I spent the entire day in a Boston Celtics T-shirt. I didn't realize it until I was watching "Sportscenter" at the end of the day - I had just spent the whole day silently supporting the team that was playing "my" team! What kind of a disloyal jerk am I?

Upon further reflection, I realized that I have been to more Celtics games than any other team, with the exception of the Chicago White Sox. My friend's husband is a scout for the Celtics, so I naturally root for them to succeed. And the shirt I was wearing was picked up for me by a different friend, one who actually attended the game one (which Chicago won). So in being disloyal to my team, I was actually loyal to more than one friend.

I guess it comes down to the fact that my loyalty to a pro basketball team is less than my loyalty to my friends. That's noble, I think. My loyalty to the Chicago Bears, however - all the free T-shirts in the world aren't going to buy that.

2009-04-17T13:22:00.002-04:00

ON PIZZA

About half an hour from my hometown, there's a little pizza place called "House of Pizza." Although it isn't the pizza I most closely associate with growing up, I think it's delicious. The same style of pizza is used at other restaurants in Northwest Indiana, one of which opened probably three minutes from my parents' house - an easy treat when I go home to visit.

Because of these things, I like to think that I am sympathetic to places with "House of Pizza" in the name. And, like with improv and comic strips, I probably take pizza more seriously than truly necessary. So yesterday, when I had the opportunity to try "Warren House of Pizza" in Warren, RI, I was something like optimistic.

The servers were friendly. The atmosphere was vintage small-town pizzeria. The prices were okay - even though I still owe Chuck at least $3.50 for my share of our food. We started with chicken nachos. The server - again, friendly to the point of obsequiousness - asked us if we wanted the chicken meat marinated. We said sure, yet the nachos came kind of dripping with this mystery chicken sauce. Hmmm. Apparently I have a different definition of marinated than Warren House of Pizza does.

But then came the pizza, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say it was my least-favorite of any pizza I've had since coming to the Northeast. Despite the fact that they used apparently the same "formula" as many other pizza restaurants around here [Note: Within ten minutes of my home in Indiana, there are at least three very distinct "styles" of pizza, excluding franchises like Pizza Hut. At my current residence...not so much.], it fell short in pretty much every conceivable category. Flavor, texture, temperature, everything. I was disappointed, but not surprised.

I thought a lot last night about why pizza should matter so much to me, and I think I figured it out. It's my favorite "affordable" food (as opposed to slabs of ribs or steak or something), I worked at a pizza place for three years, and I really identify pizza with home. So maybe I've spent the past two and a half years trying to find - and I can't believe I'm about to type something so ridiculous - a slice of home.

2009-04-16T12:59:00.002-04:00

ON PASSION

I was reading an article on Yahoo yesterday about mistakes job-seekers make. Among other things were showing up early, talking about how much you need the money, and probably pooping in the interviewer's coffee mug (I wasn't reading very closely, but I assume that would disqualify a candidate). One other thing the article mentioned was that you should always demonstrate a passion for the field, and not talk about jobs you would rather be doing.

I have interviewed for a lot of jobs, and have failed at the overwhelming majority of them. And I am beginning to think that part of the reason is that I don't demonstrate a passion for the field of higher education. I enjoy working with college students (most of the time), but I don't regularly read articles about the industry. If I got to a conference, it's for social reasons and not for professional development. [Note: when I say "social reasons" I mean to meet some ladies, of course! Heyo!]

So when I am asked where I see myself in five years, I figure I should be honest, and say that my five-year plan changes from time to time. There are times when I can see myself advancing in the field, but there are also times when I see myself pursuing something else in a completely different field (non-profit?). There are days when I wake up and hope to just win the lottery and not worry about work (although I would organize a Foundation and give my money away). There are days when I really feel I should be pursuing something in the entertainment field, as I do truly enjoy that - but the stability of a "real" job is something I can't let go of. But I can't say all of that, because it makes it seem like I don't have a plan, and for whatever reason, interviewers like people with plans for themselves.

I don't want to tell a school I am passionate about their job and not mean it 100% Maybe I start at a new place, and then two months later get a call saying "Hey, we're filming a pilot for a Senior Discount show based on the videos, come work with us." It would certainly be incredibly difficult to pass up that opportunity, and I feel it would kind of be betraying the (new) school to not admit that right off the bat. But by doing so, I come off seeming like I don't want to work with college students - which isn't the case! (most of the time) Balancing honesty and forthrightness with the desire to get a job is tricky, but I'm always going to put honesty first in these situations.

A soon-to-enter-law-school friend of mine wrote in his admissions essay about finding time to do what he loves as a part-time hobby. I agree with that - but didn't know how to phrase it in my past fifty-something interviews with different schools. I think that knowing how to say "I am passionate about entertaining people" or "I am passionate about helping people" can be phrased as "I am passionate about people" during an interview. As long as my interviewers don't ask any follow-up questions, I should be golden. And in this economy, who's got time for follow-up questions?

2009-04-15T11:02:00.003-04:00

ON NOTICING

I plan to debut my new shoes tonight at rehearsal. And while I plan to make a big deal out of it ("They're black Nikes! Like most of the shoes I've bought in the past ten years!"), I realize that most people would not point out their new shoes, instead waiting for someone to notice.

I fall very short as a "noticer." It takes a HUGE difference for me to notice that someone has gotten a haircut, for example. Honestly, if you didn't donate a foot of your hair to "Locks of Love," I'm probably not going to notice. It's not that I don't care...it's that I honestly don't notice. I know that's a very sitcom-y situation to get into - man does not notice woman's haircut - but it's the truth. It's how I am.

I'm also a terrible face-recognizer. I can memorize names from a list all day, but if I meet someone once - we'll say "your aunt" in this case, and then see her again several months later, the odds are that I won't remember her. This is a problem in my job, as there are about thirty people on the "no-trespass list," and if they were to walk into my office, I wouldn't know them from Adam. When I was an RA and was trying to learn the names of all of my residents, I went by what they were wearing on move-in day - so a guy named "Camden" will always be "the guy wearing the bright yellow 'Taxi' shirt" to me.

I know that I have my strengths, but visually processing information is not one of them. It's something that I don't really know how to improve, or if it can be improved. Am I stuck like this? Are there exercises I can do? Is it something that can be "fixed" through the grind of repetition? Or is there some huge crazy miracle that will make me an instantly-better noticer?

I wonder if these new shoes will be that miracle.

2009-04-14T14:37:00.002-04:00

ON ENTRAPMENT

My friend and podcast companion Chuck sent me an email today. After discussing my thoughts on the Rock of Love Bus Season Finale (really, Bret Michaels - Taya?), he wrote about the concept of entrapment, specifically as it relates to the people at "Perverted Justice."

Now, for those of you who don't know, Perverted Justice is a terrible name for an organization. Wait, there's more. They surf the internet and locate people who are trying to find minors to have sex with. They then have conversations with these people - the "perverts" from the organization's name - and lure them to a house, where the police or Dateline AND the police are set up, and the perverts are arrested for trying to have sex with a minor.

Let me be clear: I support the mission of this organization. Online sexual predators are bad, any way you slice it. However, it seems like what they are doing would be entrapment if they were, in fact, police officers. But because they are private citizens, they can lie to these people and set them up to be arrested (by passing along the information and chat logs to police) without it being considered entrapment. And that doesn't seem right.

For example, let's say there is a pervert named "Vernon." (I didn't want to pick the name of a friend, and I honestly have never met someone named "Vernon.") Vernon lives in Massachusetts, but then someone working for Perverted Justice pretends to be a 14 year-old in Rhode Island. Vernon is dumb and gross, and shows up at the fake house to have sex with this 14 year-old, and then gets arrested for, among other things, crossing state lines to have sex with a minor. And again, let me be clear: I in no way support Vernon in this instance. However, he wouldn't have crossed state lines to get "stung" if he hadn't been set up by someone PRETENDING to be 14 in a different state. It doesn't seem right that Vernon is going to have this federal charge when he was faked out by a private citizen. It does seem right, however, that Vernon is going to prison. So it boils down to this - do the ends justify the means?

Let's look at another situation? What if you say that someone stole something from you? You know the police need more proof, so you break into the place where it is kept to try and get some of it back to prove where it is. When you are going through this self-created sting operation, you get caught breaking and entering. You can't say "This is just like Perverted Justice! I am undercover as a private citizen!" No. You aren't perverted justice. You're actually OJ Simpson, during the arrest that actually sent him to prison. Way to go. I just totally entrapmented you into it.

Sucker.

2009-04-13T13:43:00.002-04:00

ON CHEATING

A co-worker went in last week for gastric bypass surgery. After researching gastric bypass surgery and learning what it actually was, I was kind of surprised. I knew that this co-worker had been trying to lose weight last summer (when I was losing weight unhealthily) by maintaining a conservative diet and doing some exercise. Now, she's apparently given up on that plan and opted for a surgery to a) shrink her stomach and b) make food pass straight from the stomach to the lower small intestine, so fewer calories are absorbed.

I support my co-worker in this attempt to improve her life. However, a part of me questions this approach. I'm ashamed to admit that a little part of me sees this as taking a shortcut to a different and healthier lifestyle. I have spent the better part of the day trying to figure out why I feel that way to no avail.

In 2000, a disc in my back somehow ruptured. Because of this, I had back surgery. Now, I didn't feel that was cheating, although theoretically I could have improved my lifestyle through physical therapy. So is having gastric bypass surgery rather than increasing exercise and reducing calories cheating?

I believe liposuction is cheating, as I don't feel it's used for health purposes, as gastric bypass traditionally is. I remember an episode of some reality show where the girl refused to try and eat healthy, saying that she would just "have the surgery." (Gastric bypass, not lipo.) And THAT seems like cheating. At least my co-worker tried traditional methods before opting for the surgery.

I mean, we live in a world where a lot of things are possible through medicine. For example, you can take a pill to get rid of your headache, and also take a pill that makes you feel less depressed. Does that mean one or the other is "cheating?" See, in my mind, the headache pill is not cheating, but the antidepressant is. If your default setting is "head not hurting," a headache restores you to that. But if your default setting is "not happy," an antidepressant fiddles with that, and it does seem like cheating. So by that rationale, gastric bypass messes with your default setting, and does seem like cheating.

I guess the fact that my coworker tried other methods before setting on this one makes it seem more honorable. It was a last resort, tried only after other avenues failed to reduce the health risk that was present in her life. So props to her on taking a major step to improve her health and well-being.

2009-04-10T14:04:00.002-04:00

ON ADAPTING

My sister recently moved into a new house in California. The house is new, and they are experiencing their share of "the money pit" style difficulties. For example, their "master toilet" (an expression I may have just invented - and love) was leaking through the ceiling into the living room. While I think this is amusing, it would be less amusing if I were in the living room - as her husband was.

But they are handling it in stride, adapting to the changes in their life much better than Tom Hanks and whatshername in "The Money Pit." Their laptop broke, my niece has discovered the joy of throwing things over the railing from the second floor to the first...but they adapt.

I get very stuck in routines in my day-to-day life. Every Saturday I have pretty much the same thing for lunch (slice of mall pizza and a small Coke with no ice), then go to the same stores in the same order to buy different things in the same series - new Stephen King comic, new Terry Goodkind book, new Guitar Hero game, etc. Same Lean Cuisines, though.

The question I am forced to ask myself today is this: how well do I adapt to big changes in my environment? I think the answer is "not as well as I could." A friend wrote to me a year ago about people being "chameleons," and adapting to their environment by changing in order to fit in. I know that I am guilty of this, to an extent. I don't think I'm a very good chameleon, though, as I maintain a certain core during all my adaptations. For example, in high school, I took the attitudes of my friends - trendy stuff is bad, Primus is good, etc. - but didn't start smoking marijuana or doing nitrous. When I went to college, my friends were typically studious and leaders - but I didn't stop having fun and being immature.

So it comes down to the fact that I adapt by not adapting. Or, to quote a certain Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town, "I change by not changing at all."

2009-04-09T13:54:00.002-04:00

ON BREAKUPS

Last year, I was sitting in my office, working hard as usual (cut to: me watching videos on Youtube and laughing at a cat dangling from a spinning ceiling fan). My RA came in and told me that his Master's program had concluded - mid-February - and that he would be leaving the position a week later. I felt terrible - hurt that he would spring this on me like he did, bothered that he was leaving. I just didn't want to deal with him.

Well, last night, I put in my two weeks' notice in my improv group. It was a difficult decision and a difficult statement to get out. Not because I don't feel it's the right decision for me, but because I feel like I'm hurting other players and the owners of the theater. I don't want them to feel bad personally, it's no grudge there. But I feel terrible, like I am making them feel as bad as I felt last year when my RA left.

This is one of the (many?) disconnects between my heart and my head. It is like a certain bartender I know - I find her attractive and exciting (heart), but I know that there are many many many many ways in which we are not compatible (head) (including the fact that she doesn't like me much at all). Because of this obvious disconnect, things are weird when she's around (although I don't think I've seen her in months, it was the best example I could share).

I felt guilty when I was leaving school each time I've graduated - high school, college, grad school. My head knew it was the thing to do, but my heart knew it would miss my friends, and the time we spent together. Heck, part of this is probably also fear of the future, of the unknown, of leaving what is comfortable and easy.

Getting the head and heart in line takes time, I know this. I have other creative opportunities on the horizon, as well as an new exciting improv group. While these other opportunities won't replace all the positive memories I have from my time with the one I am leaving, I feel I'll become a better person by going through all this. And if I don't, and if I continue to feel bad, there's always this.

2009-04-08T14:48:00.002-04:00

ON WINNING

My dad likes to say "If I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all." For proof of this, he cites his many losses in the "Powerball" lottery drawing. I would say that there is a certain amount of good fortune in his life (and mine), as he owns his own home, two cars, and has children who care about him (one of which is me, and really, that's pretty much a genetic jackpot).

For a while, I held my dad's dim view of our family luck. However, a few years ago, I was entered in a raffle at a housing conference. I won a prize and ended up with soy-based wickless candles. Yeah. I loudly lamented this win, as I really had no use for these things...until my friend Mario said "Shut up, Brad. At least you won something!" I had to admit, he was right. Oh, and I may have also cheated to win by giving myself extra entries, I really don't remember. But I know that I shouldn't complain too much, because I did get something for nothing.

This past Monday, there were prizes for correct Red Sox trivia questions during lunch. A friend went up for the first question, got it right, and won two Red Sox tickets to tonight's game. Sweet prize, right? The next question came - some friends missed it, then I decided to try my luck. And I got it right! Woohoo! Red Sox tickets for - what? No tickets? Okay, what did I win?

I'll tell you what I won: the ugliest T-shirt I have ever seen. It's somewhere between periwinkle and lavender, with splotches of bright yellow paint on it. The front reads something about activity, and the back has, right between the shoulder blades, the phrase: "clebr8 stayn actv!" [sic x 7]. It is awful. Oh, and it's an extra-large, so it fits me like a poncho.

I realize I have no right to complain, especially because I didn't pay anything for this shirt, and, at the very worst, I can wear it while working out this summer. But still, to go from Red Sox tickets to that...maybe my dad was right.

2009-04-07T13:50:00.003-04:00

ON APPRECIATION

Today is the second of two "RA Appreciation" days on campus. Yesterday, we had goody bags full of candy prepared for each of our 128 RA's, as well as posters to put up outside their rooms. All of the supervisors wrote paragraph blurbs that were distributed to the RA's en masse, just to get an idea of our feelings on the position.

Today, however, was the "carnival," and I use the loosest approximation of the word. We had cotton candy, sno-kones, and some snacks. Ooh, plus a pinata! This get-together was scheduled from 12n-2p. For the first forty-five minutes, there was one RA present.

As supervisors, we started to get a little frustrated. We had spent time and effort putting this day together, and no one was showing up. Previous years' efforts had also had poor attendance, and it seemed like kind of waste of time and resources. Ultimately, about twenty of our 128 RA's came through and enjoyed some appreciation, which felt pretty good.

Here's the rub: does it really matter if they show up or not? We are sending the message through these events that they are appreciated. And whether or not they choose to attend the meeting, or to complain about the quality of the goody bags, that's their prerogative. It doesn't change the fact that they are appreciated. It's the gesture, right?

Part of me feels like we, as supervisors, owe it to these people to uncomplainingly present events or goody bags, and not care if our efforts at appreciation are appreciated. It's like giving someone a gift for their birthday. If I give someone a DVD and they exchange it for something else, it shouldn't bother me. It's theirs to do with what they wish.

I mean, I still DO care, but I shouldn't.

2009-04-06T11:03:00.002-04:00

ON GETTING BACK INTO IT

Last summer, I lost thirty pounds, going from a husky 193 to a not husky 161 (which was lower than I wanted to get). Part of my weight loss plan was running three times a week (along with Tae-Bo another three times a week). Once school resumed and I found myself sharing the track with the track team, the urgency to run had faded (since I passed my goal weight), and I felt self-conscious with my slow pace, as track team members fair to flew past me.

So I stopped running, with the idea that I would just watch my diet all winter, and if I needed to start working out again, I would do some Tae-Bo or some equally indoor exercise. During the winter, drumming to Rock Band songs on "Expert" served as my primary cardio workouts (which really work out just my right leg). And while my weight did creep back up, it never got higher than 170 (which was my goal weight).

Since I have once again realized how much I love eating, I know that I need to add in some exercise. I'm not looking to lose weight - I can eat more, as long as I exercise. And, since yesterday was the first truly nice day we had, I decided to go for a run. No track team on the track making me feel old and slow, I'll just set a nice easy pace, listen to some "So Much for the Afterglow," and knock out a mile and a half.

Cue pain in my chest. That wasn't pleasant, although I like to imagine it as just shaking the winter cholesterol out of my ventricles and whatnot. Cue pain in my legs - I walk all the time, why can't my body handle going slightly faster than that? And cue pain in my back, probably from dealing with my belly bouncing up and down as I ran. I finished my six laps and walked a cooldown, happy I had made it through, not only physically, but mentally.

I got home, showered up, and rested for the remainder of the night. I woke up today and I'm sore, which is to be expected. It's a good sore, though, with the feeling that I am doing something to make my life better. And since I'm not on the same bare bones approach as last summer, I can at least ease this soreness with a Snickers bar. You know what they say: No pain, no gain...ing the right to eat a Snickers.

2009-04-03T11:17:00.002-04:00

ON BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION

An engaged couple I know recently got a dog. She is a toy pug, a tiny little thing. I went to their place last night to say hello and play with the dog, of course. Apparently, the dog doesn't do any tricks when people are around (a "Mystery Men" reference would fit well here), but for some reason, she decided to sit, lay down (front paws splayed out), and then roll over on command (pretty much). For all of this, she got a treat.

The male half of this couple is also trying to train the dog to "play basketball." He attached a suction-cup mini basketball hoop low to the ground. He then says "slam dunk," at which point the dog is supposed to pick up a tennis ball in her mouth (which looks adorable!), then go over to the hoop, stand on her hind legs, then drop the ball through the hoop. She would then get a treat. Although the trick isn't perfect yet, it's really one of the best dog tricks I've ever heard of.

Other friends have done a great job training their dogs. Rewards after going out and "doing their business," sure, but other stuff as well. I'm a sucker for a dog that knows how to "shake," which is apparently surprisingly easy to teach.

With all this thought on Pavlovian responses on my mind this morning, I went to do my laundry. I was six minutes late getting my clothes out of the dryer, which is pretty unusual for me, as I am normally a "right on time" guy. I went down to the laundry room...to find the custodian folding my laundry. I NEVER fold my own laundry! I learned that I should just leave my clothes in the dryer and they will be folded for me. My negative behavior (leaving my clothes in too long) was rewarded with a positive result (folding!). You know, the opposite of how you would train a dog. Woo!

2009-04-02T13:20:00.002-04:00

ON EARLIER ATTEMPTS AT CREATIVITY

When I was in high school, I was a weird kid. I know I've mentioned this before, so it should come as no surprise. But if you combine that weirdness with a statewide poetry contest...well, you get something like this beauty, appropriately titled:

"Love isn't just blind, it's stupid."

A cobra on my toilet seat
Reddened, raw and uncooked meat
With week-old fish, smelling so rank
Ignition wires in my gas tank
Some booby traps beside my bed
A guillotine above my head
A heavy weight above my door
That just missed me but broke my floor
Poisoned coffee ev'ry dawn
Land mines buried in my lawn
A necktie noose around my throat
A Killer Bee hive in my coat
My clothes are soaked in gasoline
A bomb inside my TV screen
A pillow in my face each night
And forty wild dogs that bite
Black widows wrap me with their silk
Ebola virus in my milk
Nuclear weapons in my room
That haven't quite yet gone Kaboom
I'm burning there in effigy
Why are you doing this to me?
You're killing me! Now this is true
But darling I'll always love you
And if you leave, I'll surely die
"Hey why did she say goodbye?"

Shel Silverstein-inspired closing line aside, this was pretty awful. It's nonsensical, it varies the level and intensity of murder attempts, it's ABOUT murder attempts.

For the competition, entrants had to submit three poems...and this was the best of the three. Yikes.

Needless to say, I did not win.

2009-04-01T13:26:00.002-04:00

ON PRANKS

April Fool's Day is not my favorite day of the year. I don't like being pranked, I don't like having practical jokes played on me. Therefore, I also do not really enjoy pranking other people, as I am a "Golden Rule" kind of person. I realize that pranking someone else would likely create enough joy to balance out the negative feelings I would get from being the prankee, but it's usually not worth it to me.

I have fallen for the occasional larger-scale prank before. Years ago, a wrestling website I frequented posted four or five fake-but-plausible stories. I believed the first two, then questioned the next couple, then realized what date it was. The next year, I remembered going into the day that they had posted fake stories and was prepared to enjoy them for what they were: jokes. These are pranks on a large scale.

Today I have only seen one real large-scale prank. Gmail claims that they will have an automated response program to write "reply" emails for their users. It took a few seconds, once I understood the concept I knew it couldn't be real. I chuckled and continued to my email.

A short while later, a friend came into my office and asked him to assist with HIS April Fool's Day prank. I told him no, then asked what it would be. He said he was going to tell some soon-to-be-married friends that his wedding gift to them was going to be a chainsaw sculpture of a bear.

That is a terrible prank. Even if I liked pranks, I wouldn't help out with that. What a terrible idea.

Another group of friends takes particular pleasure in pranking a friend. Last Christmas, a wise friend got the idea to let slip the possibility that we were getting him a $200 gift certificate...for a dollar store. We all gleefully latched onto the idea, and I had the bright idea of making a fake gift certificate in Microsoft Publisher. After he opened it, we let him stew about it for a moment, then gave him his real presents. And truthfully, I don't think it's that mean of a prank. Now, if we hadn't told him about it, and then circulated a notice to local dollar stores to be on the lookout for fake gift certificates, and he ended up getting arrested for fraud...no. I wouldn't have gone along with that at all. Probably.

2009-03-31T13:13:00.002-04:00

ON DEFENSIVENESS

I have taken a lot of criticism over the past few weeks. Some of this criticism has been work-related, some personal-related. That's fine - it really is - but what is less fine is the response to my response.

"You're getting defensive!" is a common retort (to my common retorts).

Well, duh. Of course I'm getting defensive. Isn't defending oneself the RIGHT thing to do when facing something like this? When it's a free exchange of ideas? For example, if someone tells me that the color blue is ugly, but I like the color blue, should I just capitulate and agree that blue is ugly? Of course not, that would be silly.

So I defend myself and my stances on different things, from actions at work to feelings in my personal life. I then proceed to get scolded for being defensive. What? It really seems like these people just want me to agree with what they are saying without hearing my side of things. Maybe that's the case, but it's a lousy case to be. I should be able to express why I think, feel, or act the way I do without being called defensive.

Put it this way: I have a right to my ideas and feelings. They are like (in this analogy) a hundred dollar bill. If someone tried to take my hundred dollar bill, I would try to defend it (probably ineffectively, but I would try). I wouldn't be called defensive for that.

I think the problem isn't being defensive. The problem, it would seem, would lie in lashing out at someone who is criticizing you. Not being defensive, but being offensive (I'm thinking of the sports definition and not the "this offends me" version). To continue my outstanding hundred dollar bill example, the problem would be me continuing an assault on that person after they stopped trying to take my money. Or even responding in an excessive manner, such as slashing their tires and lighting their grandmother on fire. Those would be problems.

A person should be allowed to defend themselves without receiving further criticism. Unless, of course, I am the one doing the criticizing, in which case...just do what I say.

2009-03-30T13:11:00.002-04:00

ON PERFECTION (AGAIN)

I finally got around to watching "The Last Samurai" yesterday. (My bearded friend recommended it to me about fourteen months ago. In my friendship defense, he has yet to watch "Josie and the Pussycats," which I have recommended several times. Probably.) I really enjoyed the movie and am reminded that Tom Cruise can be a fantastic actor, excluding, of course, his performance in "Tropic Thunder."

But the point of this "perfection" is not Tom Cruise's performance. One line from the movie struck a chord with me. In his journal, Tom Cruise's character commented that the village of samurai with whom he was living and training spent the entirety of their day devoting themselves to the "perfection of whatever they pursue." As I was spending my entire Sunday amusing myself through movies, television, and video games, I figured I was doing a perfect job of that. But in everything else...

I think we say "Good enough" far too often. In modern America, I think "good enough" has replaced "perfect" as the new perfection. Standards have been lowered...and lowered...and lowered to the point where even average is exceptional. And that is so, so sad. I mean, I look around the building where I live, and bathroom signs are hung askew, typos and misspellings abound on fliers and posters, and ceiling tiles are half-falling out. Was perfection the goal in any of these things? Possibly. But was perfection attained? No. I realize there is a difference between things the samurai were working on (swordfighting, farming, cherry blossom-admiring) and the things I notice ("New dinner hours for the 'cafeferia!'").

I guess this can all be summed up by saying that I will try to become a better writer, a better employee, a better improviser, a better friend, a better person.

And honestly, "Josie and the Pussycats" could DEFINITELY have been a better movie.

2009-03-27T13:32:00.003-04:00

ON INERTIA

As loyal readers of mine undoubtedly know, I am huge fan of laws of motion. Wait, what? Anyway, Newton's First Law of Motion, often simply referred to as the Law of inertia, says that an object in motion (or at rest) will continue in that motion (or that lack of motion) until acted on by an outside force. For example, if you threw a 64 mile-an-hour fastball into the vacuum of space, it would continue in its initial direction and velocity until it was affected by the gravity of some planetary body or hit by a comet or something. Make sense? Great.

Sociologically speaking, Newton was on to something, even if he was busy getting hit on the head with apples and campaigning to have units of force named after him. For example, one often hears about couples staying together simply because they have grown comfortable with one another.

I haven't dealt with that, myself. I think I have stayed in FRIENDSHIPS that weren't the best for me because they were really the only friends I had, and I wouldn't have had anything else to do with my time. That's a kind of friend inertia.

On a much less serious note, I recently submitted the word "televisionertia" to urbandictionary.com (my 2nd entry!). I thought of it because for some reason, I keep watching the show "Heroes." I don't particularly enjoy the show. I never liked it as much as others did. But I know that Tuesday morning, some of my co-workers are going to be discussing it, and I'll feel obligated to halfheartedly participate in the discussion. I haven't had anything to make me stop watching the show, so I continue. Boom. Law of Inertia.

Finally, the impetus for this post - a chubby balding friend recently learned that the corporate office has made the decision to close his retail location. He'll get a severance package and all that, and I have no doubt that he'll be able to find another job. But at the same time, couldn't this be what jumpstarts another aspect of his life? I feel that this kick in the [humorous body part] is just the "outside force" acting on him to change his work inertia. Since he WAS at rest, now that this outside force has acted on him, he'll pick up a direction and a velocity.

2009-03-26T10:03:00.003-04:00

ON CLOSE CALLS

My dad had to drive to the airport Tuesday night. From their home, it is about an hour's drive on the highway, traveling at speeds greater than I would drive. After he pulled into his spot in the parking garage, he got out of the car and noticed a back wheel was seemingly askew. Putting it out of his mind, he went to meet my sister's husband at baggage claim.

They came back to the car and checked it out and sure enough, it seemed to be a serious problem. They decided to drive the car out of the parking garage so that it could be met by a tow truck. He backed the car out, and started driving...for about twenty feet, at which point the wheel fell off. [In my mind, it's very similar to the car breaking down in "The Blues Brothers" or "Road Trip."]

Eventually, they got help, jacked the car up, and moved one lugnut from each of the other wheels to the offending wheel, drove the car out of the garage, and then had it towed home.

Now, this couldn't have been fun to deal with...they got home about three hours after they planned to (with a full day of moving stuff planned for the following day), they had to pay over two hundred dollars for the tow, but really, if something was going to go wrong, that's probably as well as it could go, right? I mean, the idea of losing a tire while going 70 on the highway is incredibly frightening. And they could have lost a tire while on the narrow ramps to the second or third floor of the parking garage, snarling traffic leaving O'Hare. So all in all, this was a close call that worked out.

A few months ago, my cousin had a seizure while driving. Again, it was very fortunate that he was able to get the car in park before losing complete control. And doubly fortunately, the seizure took place on the road directly in front of a hospital. Come on, if that happened in a movie, and that saved the character's life, you wouldn't believe it.

And to complete the rule of threes, and continue the theme of vehicle trauma, I was jetskiing (waverunning?) years ago with a friend. I cut across his nose to make a wake for him to jump and my hand slipped off the throttle. I ended up getting T-boned. Both jetskis were cracked, and it cost us over two thousand dollars to fix them (I honestly don't know if we even bothered to ride them again after we got them fixed). But when I saw the damage to the jetski I was driving...I would say the nose of his machine missed my bare ankle by about two inches. Just think about that - a direct impact on my ankle bone at around twenty miles an hour by a 700-pound waverunner. In the middle of a lake. It could have been terribly awful, but fortunately, it ended up just being awful.

If you have had any close calls, I would love to read about them in the "Comments" section.

2009-03-25T11:07:00.002-04:00

ON MIDDLE SCHOOL

I have been thinking a lot about middle school lately. About the awkwardness that goes with adolescence. About all the stupid things we did, said, and thought. For your amusement, I present several stupid things that Middle School Brad did:

* I repeatedly asked girls out, fully expecting them to say no. Hoping they would say no, so I could act all put-upon and sad for different girls, who would then pity me and want to go out with me. This strategy never worked...even when I asked out Kristy H 150 times during one class.

* Along the lines of self-pity - I claimed to have kept a list of parties that I had not been invited to. I then used this information to wrangle an invite to Kevin C's party...where I promptly spilled root beer all over the floor. And then to John M's party...where I punched someone in the nose (the strobe light was on!). And then to Kristen B's party, where I did nothing wrong. Probably.

* I wore hockey jerseys all the time. One week in particular sticks out - I remember wearing different jerseys on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to impress a girl I had lunch with on those days. this would have been okay, probably, if I had ever watched or played hockey. I had never even been ice skating at the time.

* In sixth grade, I wrote a story about skydiving for a vocab assignment that ended with "Splat!" I then wrote another story for a different assignment that had a robot character who said "Bleep" before every sentence. I tried to give myself the nickname "Mr. Bleepsplat." It did not stick.

* A friend had gone to a concert for the band "Slaughter." I thought he had gotten souvenir pictures of the lead singer (Marc Slaughter), and wanted a copy. To kiss up to this friend, I called him "Sir" for a year and a half. I never got the pictures - because he never had them.

Not that there weren't things I was proud of - I remember telling a joke in English class that referenced a Simpsons episode that went over huge (the punchline was "Krusty Underwear.") I made a half-court shot at the end of a basketball game in seventh grade, and the game-winning free throw at the end of a game in eighth grade. Plus I STILL hold the record for "most rejections during one class period."

2009-03-24T11:40:00.003-04:00

ON PEARL JAM

Today is the re-issue of Pearl Jam's classic album "Ten." When it originally came out in 1991, I wouldn't have anything to do with the band. I was still very much into hair metal, and was still buying tapes from bands like Trixter and Britny Fox. The grunge revolution started without me. As I mentioned last week regarding Def Leppard - I started to get into the bands that my brother listened to, and, despite his copy of Nirvana's "Nevermind," he never really got into grunge, so I didn't either.

A few years later, Pearl Jam's "Vs." came out, and I continued to avoid them. By that time, I was starting to form my own opinions about music, and my opinion, stolen from people I worked with, was that any "trendy" music couldn't possibly be good. And I considered Pearl Jam trendy. I hated the song "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" based on its title, although I had to admit the refrain is catchy (it didn't help matters that a cute girl had copied down all the lyrics to the song and I didn't know how to get her attention in a way that DIDN'T involve mocking the song).

Some years after that, "Vitalogy" came out, and while other people I worked with were coming around, I wasn't having it. I went off to college, content to listen to Everclear, Jewel, and Sheryl Crow. At home over breaks, I would get together with friends to play cards. During these marathon sessions, Pearl Jam would inevitably shuffle through the CD player. And I realized: I liked these songs. A lot. Granted, I had the lyrics completely wrong..."Don't go on me" COULD have been "stomp the wombat," but it seems unlikely, doesn't it?

So I finally got some Pearl Jam CD's. And then I listened to the live CD of their performance in Chicago, recorded in October of 2000, and I realized that they were an excellent live band. I soon became a huge fan, getting not just their studio releases, but also a surprisingly large number of their live shows. I went with friends to Vegas in 2003 and saw Pearl Jam perform, then saw then less than two weeks later in Chicago. Both shows were fantastic for different reasons, and I realized that Pearl Jam was my favorite band.

Their eponymous CD, released in 2006, is great, hearkening back to the days when they produced straight-ahead rock. I put it up there with "Ten" and "Vs." as my favorite Pearl Jam albums. I purchased their double CD of rarities, their double CD of Greatest Hits, and four DVD's.

Today, my iPod has over thirty hours of Pearl Jam on it. I am planning on picking up the re-issue of "Ten" and the accompanying DVD, including their MTV "Unplugged" performance. And I am currently downloading the "Ten" album to play along with in the game "Rock Band 2." Considering how much I didn't care for them - admittedly for stupid reasons - it's kind of shocking how much I enjoy their work now.

All of this serves as proof that 13 year-old Brad was an idiot. And that 30 year-old Brad finally got to use the word "eponymous."

2009-03-23T16:05:00.002-04:00

ON MOUNTAINS AND MOLEHILLS

When I worked at Arkansas, I did a terrible job of communicating my concerns to other people. I would let these things build up inside me for a long time. In addition, I would talk about the situations with other people who were equally frustrated, amplifying both of our feelings.

Eventually, I would have a talk with a supervisor, who would calmly point out that whatever was causing me such grief was really not a major issue. Sometimes because it could be resolved easily, and sometimes because once I aired my grievances, I found I didn't much care about the problem.

For my exit interview, I went in with seven pages of single-spaced notes about situations I had encountered during my two years. And I went through these issues, one by one, and found that in many cases, I was making a much bigger deal of things than they actually were. But because I didn't talk about it, it got bad. It's like a cut on your arm - if you wash it out right away, it's probably going to heal quickly and cleanly. If you let it go without treating it, it may fester and swell up and eventually explode, drenching those around you with infected pus.

The point is, I learned to - most times, not all the time - talk about the issues that were bothering me when they were bothering me. Yes, I am still guilty of emotionally vomiting on people (I am full of colorful analogies today), but I know that isn't the right way to go about it. Talking these things through prevent mountains being made from molehills. Of course, getting rid of the moles would probably work just as well...

2009-03-20T10:56:00.002-04:00

ON RESPONSIBILITY

I had someone come in yesterday and talk to me about my finances. While I have a guy to take care of my long-term investments, I figured it couldn't hurt to talk with someone else. This new review of my financial state was a good exercise, even if I don't know what kind of actions I will or won't take based on his advice.

For instance, he was delighted - some would say giddy - that I have no debt. I think that comes from my very fiscally responsible upbringing, in part. As kids, we would get five dollars a week for an allowance - and have to put half of it in the bank. So while a friend getting the same allowance could but TEN packs of baseball cards a week, we could only get five (baseball cards used to be much cheaper). And I learned to get by with less of the frivolous things in life.

When I went to college and got my first credit card, it was made very clear to me that it would only be used for major emergencies. So I didn't use it - I would actually write checks to myself and slowly drain my checking account over the course of the school year, only to build it up with summer jobs. While friends were spending money taking awesome vacations, I would just go home.

I should also point out that I was an academic scholarship student, and, as such, had no student loans to worry about.

When I bought my car, I HATED the idea of having that giant balance hanging over my head. So I paid it off as quickly as possible, paying about 133% of my payment each month, as well as putting tax return and work bonuses toward it. And within a year, I had paid down the entire balance and owned the car outright. Debt avoided.

And now...I am saving money for retirement (thirty-two years to go!) and trying to stay ahead, savings-wise. I see people my own age taking sweet vacations again (or still) and wonder how they are affording it - I feel like while I'm not making a boatload of money, I'm not on welfare, either. So I don't get it - why am I not jetting off to exotic destinations every other weekend? Is it because so much of my money goes to buying fancy unnecessary new electronics and media? (It could be worse - I WANT a new receiver and new cell phone and new bedroom TV, but keep trying to save toward those purchases.)

I guess my problem isn't so much me not having those things, but that I see my friends having these things and want them for myself. So I guess I am just coveting instead of being greedy...well, that's a relief. I'm breaking a commandment instead of committing a deadly sin. Awesome.