You ever think about ultimate power? And yes, I intentionally phrased that in the nerdiest way possible.
Like, everybody probably thinks about what superpower they would like to have, but thinking about "ultimate power" has a much more maniacal bent to it.
What is ultimate power?
Is it being able to raise armies of the undead to flashmob your ex-girlfriend's bathroom when she gets up in the morning?
Is it being able to shoot giant blasts of energy and finally ridding the world of roller rinks. Because, let's face it, roller rinks, like polio, should not exist anymore. Society has progressed.
Is it being able to impose your will upon all of mankind and establish a new world order in which you rule from your Chocolate Ice Coffee Techno Palace in the Arctic?!
Those are probably all correct answers. Add in laser beams somehow to any of them and you've built a pretty sound case for Ultimate Power.
But I think the ultimate power lies in the human spirit. It's our capacity for reason and compassion and imagination. It's about using those things to overcome our physical limitations and becoming or creating something larger than ourselves.
And ultimate power is using that understanding...
to be able to shoot giant blasts of energy and finally rid the world of roller rinks!
I don't care how much beauty and brilliance comes from the nobility and generosity of a good soul, I'm gonna choose weird awesomeness every single time. It's like choosing between a team of sled dogs to get a vaccine to a struggling Alaskan village or getting to sit in your living room and eat a treasure chest full of mashed potatoes and gravy.
One is glorious and fulfilling, and the other is a team of sled dogs on a mission to get a vaccine to a struggling Alaskan village.
NEW LIFE GOALS!
OWN AN OVERSIZED NEON GREEN ARMCHAIR AND/OR LOVESEAT!
BUY MORE FLANNEL EVERYTHING!
HONE A FINER TASTE FOR EXOTIC BREADS!
LEAD A GROUP OF PLUCKY INDIVIDUALS TO A CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH THEN KILL THE REF WITH A BALL-PEEN HAMMER, ULTIMATELY TEACHING THEM THAT THEY'VE ACCOMPLISHED NOTHING!
EAT MORE KIWIS!
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
"Criss Your Cross and Apple Your Sauce!"
I like science. Main reason I decided to stop pursuing science as soon as possible is that I am terrible at labs. In much the same way I'm terrible at cooking. And the two are probably related. I'm very bad at the process, largely due to my chronically shakey hands and my ability to stand around in crowded areas and look scared and useless, and then when I get to the results part, where I have to analyze whatever the experiment was about, I'm even worse. Because at least with cooking, the analysis is always the same. You eat it. Maybe you decide whether it was good or bad, I don't see why you need to stretch yourself that far. You made food. You ate the food. It's a beautiful holistic process.
But experiments are messy. You mix the chemicals and swirl the thing and look at the stuff and then something happened and at the end of any experiment in high school I'd always be left with this lost, empty, apathetic feeling. Which, if you really dug down deep was probably just me thinking, "I can't eat this."
Plus I was always the last one to finish so the whole class would be waiting on me and the teacher would get mad and then I'd be anxious and hungry and just fill in the conclusion with, "Nothing happened! We all just died a little bit!"
One thing I wish we'd been free to do more in my science classes is thought experiments. Thought experiments are all about things you could never actually do and in thought experiments I don't have to worry about my shakey brain-hands spilling hydrochloric acid on my face.
But experiments are messy. You mix the chemicals and swirl the thing and look at the stuff and then something happened and at the end of any experiment in high school I'd always be left with this lost, empty, apathetic feeling. Which, if you really dug down deep was probably just me thinking, "I can't eat this."
Plus I was always the last one to finish so the whole class would be waiting on me and the teacher would get mad and then I'd be anxious and hungry and just fill in the conclusion with, "Nothing happened! We all just died a little bit!"
One thing I wish we'd been free to do more in my science classes is thought experiments. Thought experiments are all about things you could never actually do and in thought experiments I don't have to worry about my shakey brain-hands spilling hydrochloric acid on my face.
So I designed a thought experiment and I'd like to share it.
This thought experiment is intended to observe the effects of Me-Andy trying to help a group of three elderly women who are all joined at the neck on the body of a giant hound, like a cranky geriatric Cerberus, decide which v-neck t-shirt they should buy for their grandsons at Old Navy.
"I would get that one."
And then the Grandma-thing howls and covers me in flames and I stop-drop-and-roll until a Costumer Service lady comes over and helps me, but in a way that suggests she may be a tiny bit racist.
"Oh my gosh! Sir, do you need help? Quick, where's your white power now?!"
That was unnecessarily rude to a person in need of serious medical attention. This is not the time or place to be having this discussion.
And so, the conclusion of my thought experiment, the Andy Thought Experiment, is that all of this makes for a pretty poignant weekend.
In fact, from now on, this scenario will serve as a One on the Poignant scale. Which I just invented. You're welcome, Planet Earth!
This thought experiment is intended to observe the effects of Me-Andy trying to help a group of three elderly women who are all joined at the neck on the body of a giant hound, like a cranky geriatric Cerberus, decide which v-neck t-shirt they should buy for their grandsons at Old Navy.
"I would get that one."
And then the Grandma-thing howls and covers me in flames and I stop-drop-and-roll until a Costumer Service lady comes over and helps me, but in a way that suggests she may be a tiny bit racist.
"Oh my gosh! Sir, do you need help? Quick, where's your white power now?!"
That was unnecessarily rude to a person in need of serious medical attention. This is not the time or place to be having this discussion.
And so, the conclusion of my thought experiment, the Andy Thought Experiment, is that all of this makes for a pretty poignant weekend.
In fact, from now on, this scenario will serve as a One on the Poignant scale. Which I just invented. You're welcome, Planet Earth!
Monday, July 23, 2012
CRATEEVITY!
Today went by pretty fast. Which is a good thing.
I become one step closer to jumping into the real world. But ideally, after a brief plummet, I'd like to land on a giant clown shaped balloon head full of angry butterflies that take me to a magical Denny's where I can eat omelets all day and go boating at night.
Wait. What? I mean...I hope I succeed through the somewhat creepy power of friendship.
Friendship is kind of a creepy power when you think about it. You meet someone and you're like, "Wait?! We like the same movies and laugh at the same kind of pain? Let's join forces to increase our awesome on the world!" It's not like the old, real friendship of the past when it was more about...collecting coal or grain or whatever so you wouldn't die.
"That's my buddy, Randal. He has fourteen kids and calls his wife, "Vampire Bat" but he works real hard and he can hold his whiskey so I reckon he's alright."
But, the real thing I wanted to talk about is the reason my day went by so fast is I tried to focus on creativity.
Like, being creative for creativity's sake.
Which really just ends up being weird. And you aspire for a cool kind of weird and not a I-think-this-person-has-problems weird. But everybody wins either way.
We had two hours of Arts and Crafts time today so I sat down and put most of attention to drawing whatever weird shapes and creatures came out on the page.
I drew a pterodactyl with a cupcake body. I drew a really creepy face with flower petals around it and its neck led down to some soil in a pot. I drew this weird gelatinous blob which was either being vomited out of a skinny, spiky, floating thing with eye-stalks or the blob was wearing the eye-stalks creature as a hat. And then I couldn't think of anything else so I drew a cone and wrote, "The Club Can't Even Handle Me Right Now" beside it.
I'll take a picture of it tomorrow and post it here. That description was lame.
But, you know, BE CREETAVE! It's just lumping stuff next to other stuff that shouldn't go with it. But you think it should! It's like playing God, in a way.
But it's good. It's like a good test of friendship I guess. If we want to pick a theme and stay with it. Cuz it gets down to something that's removed from all the social etiquette and routine. Not that that stuff isn't important but human beings are fairly good at recognizing and reproducing the concept of normal. So, because of that it might take you a while before you really realize someone is not compatible with you at all. Manners and decency is good for strangers and meeting people but I feel like they can also be promotional signs for Caverns Expeditions.
You see one and you're like, "Oh! I think I want to go explore a cave for the day. This place looks professional and sanitary."
But as the tour goes along things get darker and slimier and in the heart of the cave is a twisted old troll whose body is made of knots and listens to Journey albums backwards.
And it's kind of a big let down because you thought it was gonna be a fun time...but it turned into evil.
I'm not sure. I'm not sure which is better. Because creativity is nice because it's like someone holding up a picture in your face of a Brontosaurus playing the trombone on an asteroid and saying, "THIS MAKES SENSE RIGHT?!" And if you can dig that, then chances are you'll probably get along with them. If you can accept that deep down, they are dinosaurs, brass instruments, and Armageddon-type space rocks, then you've probably set the foundation for a solid relationship.
But we all know impersonal interaction is important too.
So...I guess if a person doesn't need anything from you, and you aren't being paid to act normal, there's nothing really stopping you from letting your freak flag fly.
I become one step closer to jumping into the real world. But ideally, after a brief plummet, I'd like to land on a giant clown shaped balloon head full of angry butterflies that take me to a magical Denny's where I can eat omelets all day and go boating at night.
Wait. What? I mean...I hope I succeed through the somewhat creepy power of friendship.
Friendship is kind of a creepy power when you think about it. You meet someone and you're like, "Wait?! We like the same movies and laugh at the same kind of pain? Let's join forces to increase our awesome on the world!" It's not like the old, real friendship of the past when it was more about...collecting coal or grain or whatever so you wouldn't die.
"That's my buddy, Randal. He has fourteen kids and calls his wife, "Vampire Bat" but he works real hard and he can hold his whiskey so I reckon he's alright."
But, the real thing I wanted to talk about is the reason my day went by so fast is I tried to focus on creativity.
Like, being creative for creativity's sake.
Which really just ends up being weird. And you aspire for a cool kind of weird and not a I-think-this-person-has-problems weird. But everybody wins either way.
We had two hours of Arts and Crafts time today so I sat down and put most of attention to drawing whatever weird shapes and creatures came out on the page.
I drew a pterodactyl with a cupcake body. I drew a really creepy face with flower petals around it and its neck led down to some soil in a pot. I drew this weird gelatinous blob which was either being vomited out of a skinny, spiky, floating thing with eye-stalks or the blob was wearing the eye-stalks creature as a hat. And then I couldn't think of anything else so I drew a cone and wrote, "The Club Can't Even Handle Me Right Now" beside it.
I'll take a picture of it tomorrow and post it here. That description was lame.
But, you know, BE CREETAVE! It's just lumping stuff next to other stuff that shouldn't go with it. But you think it should! It's like playing God, in a way.
But it's good. It's like a good test of friendship I guess. If we want to pick a theme and stay with it. Cuz it gets down to something that's removed from all the social etiquette and routine. Not that that stuff isn't important but human beings are fairly good at recognizing and reproducing the concept of normal. So, because of that it might take you a while before you really realize someone is not compatible with you at all. Manners and decency is good for strangers and meeting people but I feel like they can also be promotional signs for Caverns Expeditions.
You see one and you're like, "Oh! I think I want to go explore a cave for the day. This place looks professional and sanitary."
But as the tour goes along things get darker and slimier and in the heart of the cave is a twisted old troll whose body is made of knots and listens to Journey albums backwards.
And it's kind of a big let down because you thought it was gonna be a fun time...but it turned into evil.
I'm not sure. I'm not sure which is better. Because creativity is nice because it's like someone holding up a picture in your face of a Brontosaurus playing the trombone on an asteroid and saying, "THIS MAKES SENSE RIGHT?!" And if you can dig that, then chances are you'll probably get along with them. If you can accept that deep down, they are dinosaurs, brass instruments, and Armageddon-type space rocks, then you've probably set the foundation for a solid relationship.
But we all know impersonal interaction is important too.
So...I guess if a person doesn't need anything from you, and you aren't being paid to act normal, there's nothing really stopping you from letting your freak flag fly.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Big Ol' Log
I used a foam roller yesterday. It's like a big Styrofoam log that you roll on.
And the first thing I did was lay my back over it
and then I heard a loud popping sound, I couldn't breathe, and I made a sound like an eighty-year-old prostitute sucking raisins off the back of a horse through a bendy straw.
(that's not really what it sounded like I just liked the image. Also, she's from Estonia.)
Then I curled up in the fetal position and simultaneously cried/laughed for a good thirty seconds.
But afterwards! I could breathe so much easier. It was like I'd had this big, balled-up, writhing, festering, sack of partially-melted plastic babies grafted onto my back and someone had swooped up from behind me and torn it off.
The way I was breathing was like that time I took steroids for a cough and it opened up my lungs too well and all I could do was breathe and laugh hysterically.
So anyway, I think the point is that sometimes painful things can be really good for you.
Like, a giant log of foam roller is like well-deserved humiliation. And for that reason we should learn to embrace humiliation.
I know that I walk around most of the time thinking, consciously or sub-consciously, "I'm not a jerk! I'm not a jerk! I'm not a jerkwad. I'm special and special and special and special and special!"
And it's not necessarily bad to think that, but I think sometimes it can become too restrictive. You're afraid to do anything because you don't want to run the risk of catching yourself being a jerk. In the same way that over time you build up all this tension in your back from exercising or compulsively checking the internet...or drawing schematics for a gazelle-shaped community center....or having dreams about cooking up ham planes for the Fascist resistance.
So when someone comes along and really embarrasses you or really calls you out on something that you've neglected to see while you're so wrapped up in your own head, like the fact that some of your stories aren't interesting to anyone and it's a miracle you've even bothered remembering them, it's a lot like rolling over a log of sweet mercifully painful foam. It hurts, and you're shattered for a second, but if you avoid denial or hatred and really try to understand someone's honest perception of you (even if they're being a jerk about it) it can help you breathe a little easier. Yeah, you can be a jerk and you're not that special and your back is a knotted mess of worry and tension.
Cuz that's honesty. And the fun part of life is when honesty collides with your delusions and shocks you and it hits you with this pain that's like, "THIS IS REAL LIFE!". Like a dreidel you've been staring at for the past eight months finally stands up and puts on a hat and says, "Time to get back to my job putting down stray cats at the animal shelter."
And you're like, "Dreidel! I had no idea! I thought you were just a dreidel!"
And that switch, that moment where you're straddling between what you thought was true and what has walked up and slapped you in the face demanding to be the real truth, is probably the most fun you can have with your brain's pants still on.
And the first thing I did was lay my back over it
and then I heard a loud popping sound, I couldn't breathe, and I made a sound like an eighty-year-old prostitute sucking raisins off the back of a horse through a bendy straw.
(that's not really what it sounded like I just liked the image. Also, she's from Estonia.)
Then I curled up in the fetal position and simultaneously cried/laughed for a good thirty seconds.
But afterwards! I could breathe so much easier. It was like I'd had this big, balled-up, writhing, festering, sack of partially-melted plastic babies grafted onto my back and someone had swooped up from behind me and torn it off.
The way I was breathing was like that time I took steroids for a cough and it opened up my lungs too well and all I could do was breathe and laugh hysterically.
So anyway, I think the point is that sometimes painful things can be really good for you.
Like, a giant log of foam roller is like well-deserved humiliation. And for that reason we should learn to embrace humiliation.
I know that I walk around most of the time thinking, consciously or sub-consciously, "I'm not a jerk! I'm not a jerk! I'm not a jerkwad. I'm special and special and special and special and special!"
And it's not necessarily bad to think that, but I think sometimes it can become too restrictive. You're afraid to do anything because you don't want to run the risk of catching yourself being a jerk. In the same way that over time you build up all this tension in your back from exercising or compulsively checking the internet...or drawing schematics for a gazelle-shaped community center....or having dreams about cooking up ham planes for the Fascist resistance.
So when someone comes along and really embarrasses you or really calls you out on something that you've neglected to see while you're so wrapped up in your own head, like the fact that some of your stories aren't interesting to anyone and it's a miracle you've even bothered remembering them, it's a lot like rolling over a log of sweet mercifully painful foam. It hurts, and you're shattered for a second, but if you avoid denial or hatred and really try to understand someone's honest perception of you (even if they're being a jerk about it) it can help you breathe a little easier. Yeah, you can be a jerk and you're not that special and your back is a knotted mess of worry and tension.
Cuz that's honesty. And the fun part of life is when honesty collides with your delusions and shocks you and it hits you with this pain that's like, "THIS IS REAL LIFE!". Like a dreidel you've been staring at for the past eight months finally stands up and puts on a hat and says, "Time to get back to my job putting down stray cats at the animal shelter."
And you're like, "Dreidel! I had no idea! I thought you were just a dreidel!"
And that switch, that moment where you're straddling between what you thought was true and what has walked up and slapped you in the face demanding to be the real truth, is probably the most fun you can have with your brain's pants still on.
Friday, July 20, 2012
How Do You Spend Your Free Time?
The important thing about Free Time is the "Free" part. Short for Freedom of course.
And so, the important thing is that your free time is spent expressing your freedom.
You know, waking up at 6:30 and running 10 miles then walking around your living room naked singing the theme song from the Greatest American Hero.
If that doesn't make you feel free, you probably have a problem with your free-tuitary gland.
Hehe, gland.
And so, the important thing is that your free time is spent expressing your freedom.
You know, waking up at 6:30 and running 10 miles then walking around your living room naked singing the theme song from the Greatest American Hero.
If that doesn't make you feel free, you probably have a problem with your free-tuitary gland.
Hehe, gland.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
One Thing of Fun
We play a lot of dodgeball games where I work. After a while, you get a good sense of who the habitual criers are. The ones who aren't really hurt, crying is just their go-to response (not surprisingly, these kids are overwhelmingly brats).
But it gets fun because once you realize they don't actually get hurt and you see them about to start up you can say in an authoritative voice, "Don't cry! You're fine!".
Which I find really funny in a sick way. denying someone's expression of pain and sadness. "NO CRYING!".
I mean, there's something inherently terrifying about that statement that almost makes you want to cry.
Like when someone gets mad at you for saying "sorry" too much and your only response is "I'm sorry!"
Haha, my fifth grade teacher broke me to tears over that in front of the whole class.
Her: stop saying sorry, Andy.
Me: I'm--I'm--s-s-s-sorry.
Her: STOP IT! Don't cry!
Me: Ahhhhh!!
But that's how most lessons go as a kid. Your brain gets trapped like a goat with its head stuck in a fence, you cry, you cry more, you move on.
Adult life probably works along the same lines, not sure yet.
But it gets fun because once you realize they don't actually get hurt and you see them about to start up you can say in an authoritative voice, "Don't cry! You're fine!".
Which I find really funny in a sick way. denying someone's expression of pain and sadness. "NO CRYING!".
I mean, there's something inherently terrifying about that statement that almost makes you want to cry.
Like when someone gets mad at you for saying "sorry" too much and your only response is "I'm sorry!"
Haha, my fifth grade teacher broke me to tears over that in front of the whole class.
Her: stop saying sorry, Andy.
Me: I'm--I'm--s-s-s-sorry.
Her: STOP IT! Don't cry!
Me: Ahhhhh!!
But that's how most lessons go as a kid. Your brain gets trapped like a goat with its head stuck in a fence, you cry, you cry more, you move on.
Adult life probably works along the same lines, not sure yet.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Roll With It
Today my sister's car (formerly my car AKA The BUICK LESABRE! OR the single most important possession of my teenage years) got a flat tire. My dad went out to where she was, replaced the tire and began to drive home.
The spare tire went flat.
My dad, unfazed, walked the half mile back to our house and got me to drive him back to the car. He removed all the change from the ash tray and promptly sold the car to some mexicans standing fifty feet away from where the car's spare tire went flat.
The exchange went something like this:
(My dad walks over to the guys): Hey, my car broke down over here. Would it be okay if I left it overnight and picked it up in the morning. I'm probably gonna junk it.
The guys: You got a car? How much you want for it?
Dad: 300.
Guys: 150.
Dad: Sold.
________________________________________________________________
If that's not wheelin' and dealin', I don't know what is.
Wheelin'-Dealin' Dan.
I'll miss you Buick. You were a fine American automobile. That smelled of fresh laundry from the Yankee Candle Air Freshener.
The spare tire went flat.
My dad, unfazed, walked the half mile back to our house and got me to drive him back to the car. He removed all the change from the ash tray and promptly sold the car to some mexicans standing fifty feet away from where the car's spare tire went flat.
The exchange went something like this:
(My dad walks over to the guys): Hey, my car broke down over here. Would it be okay if I left it overnight and picked it up in the morning. I'm probably gonna junk it.
The guys: You got a car? How much you want for it?
Dad: 300.
Guys: 150.
Dad: Sold.
________________________________________________________________
If that's not wheelin' and dealin', I don't know what is.
Wheelin'-Dealin' Dan.
I'll miss you Buick. You were a fine American automobile. That smelled of fresh laundry from the Yankee Candle Air Freshener.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Uberleben Uberlessons
A couple summers ago I downloaded this game called Uberleben.
It's really simple. You're a little pixel-man who for unknown reasons is following down a large tunnel full of obstacles and jaggedity things that are trying to turn you into a bloody splat.
Seen there^
You can see that in this picture the person is only about 18 seconds into the fall so the obstacles are fairly spread out and you have time to look at each one and see where the holes are and make decisions on how you want to get through.
But after about two minutes of falling, the obstacles get so close together that you can't distinguish one from the other. It becomes an impassable wall of whiteness. If you try to look at everything you need to get through you're going to get completely overloaded and then splat-ified.
So, after playing this game a whole bunch a bunch a bunch a bunch (I mean, I've played this game A LOT), I've realized that the trick is to stop looking at the obstacles altogether. The only thing you focus on is looking for a clear blue spot as far ahead of you as possible and positioning yourself to get there.
Little tiny spots of clear blue in the distance. And none of the rapidly growing walls of death are to be concerned with.
So...that's my Personal-Insight-Based-Off-Vaguely-German-Video-Game-Tip of the year!
________________________________________________________________________________
I've become slightly more cavalier in that I no longer break for speed bumps.
IT'S A BIG DEAL, OKAY!?
You know how most people will slow way down for a speed bump and roll over it real nice and slow like it's this delicate thing full of eggs from some endangered bird and if they're awakened the species would be wiped out but also the enraged fetuses would latch on to the underside of your car and burrow into the fuel tank and everything would explode in a giant fireball.
I think, without realizing it, that that is the attitude I had towards speed bumps. But about a month ago I was visiting my friend and she lives in a neighborhood with a lot of speed bumps and we were driving around and...and she rolled right over the speed bump. She just...she didn't break or nothing!
And I didn't say anything but I'm sure my butt cheeks clenched up real tight for a second. It really stuck out to me. I was like, you can...you can just roll right over them? We're all still okay. The car hasn't violently shaken to pieces, fire isn't falling from the sky, how...did....but why...does everyone...
When I'm driving to and from work there's these two speed bumps on the way out and now I never break for them! I just laugh at other people.
"haHA! What are you? AFRAID TO DIE?!"
I'm sitting shirtless in my car, driving with my knees while I eat an entire halibut I've kept warm in the back of my car all day. I've got a pirate hat that I've removed and filled with tartar sauce and black pepper.
It's changed my life, not breaking over speed bumps. Can't let lumps dictate your life!
DOWN WITH LUMPS! UP WITH PEOPLE!
(and yeah, maybe it makes sense to encourage people to slow down in areas that are full of children. IF YOU'RE SOFT! Speed bumps are a clean sign that all of these safety precautions have made the world safe enough for children to focus on their deep and terrible inner-fears. This is only further perpetuating the demand for liberal arts degrees and higher education. If we make the world scarier, kids can focus on important things like REPRODUCTION AND TOILING IN FIELDS!)
DOWN WITH SAFETY! UP WITH TOIL!
It's really simple. You're a little pixel-man who for unknown reasons is following down a large tunnel full of obstacles and jaggedity things that are trying to turn you into a bloody splat.
Seen there^
You can see that in this picture the person is only about 18 seconds into the fall so the obstacles are fairly spread out and you have time to look at each one and see where the holes are and make decisions on how you want to get through.
But after about two minutes of falling, the obstacles get so close together that you can't distinguish one from the other. It becomes an impassable wall of whiteness. If you try to look at everything you need to get through you're going to get completely overloaded and then splat-ified.
So, after playing this game a whole bunch a bunch a bunch a bunch (I mean, I've played this game A LOT), I've realized that the trick is to stop looking at the obstacles altogether. The only thing you focus on is looking for a clear blue spot as far ahead of you as possible and positioning yourself to get there.
Little tiny spots of clear blue in the distance. And none of the rapidly growing walls of death are to be concerned with.
So...that's my Personal-Insight-Based-Off-Vaguely-German-Video-Game-Tip of the year!
________________________________________________________________________________
I've become slightly more cavalier in that I no longer break for speed bumps.
IT'S A BIG DEAL, OKAY!?
You know how most people will slow way down for a speed bump and roll over it real nice and slow like it's this delicate thing full of eggs from some endangered bird and if they're awakened the species would be wiped out but also the enraged fetuses would latch on to the underside of your car and burrow into the fuel tank and everything would explode in a giant fireball.
I think, without realizing it, that that is the attitude I had towards speed bumps. But about a month ago I was visiting my friend and she lives in a neighborhood with a lot of speed bumps and we were driving around and...and she rolled right over the speed bump. She just...she didn't break or nothing!
And I didn't say anything but I'm sure my butt cheeks clenched up real tight for a second. It really stuck out to me. I was like, you can...you can just roll right over them? We're all still okay. The car hasn't violently shaken to pieces, fire isn't falling from the sky, how...did....but why...does everyone...
When I'm driving to and from work there's these two speed bumps on the way out and now I never break for them! I just laugh at other people.
"haHA! What are you? AFRAID TO DIE?!"
I'm sitting shirtless in my car, driving with my knees while I eat an entire halibut I've kept warm in the back of my car all day. I've got a pirate hat that I've removed and filled with tartar sauce and black pepper.
It's changed my life, not breaking over speed bumps. Can't let lumps dictate your life!
DOWN WITH LUMPS! UP WITH PEOPLE!
(and yeah, maybe it makes sense to encourage people to slow down in areas that are full of children. IF YOU'RE SOFT! Speed bumps are a clean sign that all of these safety precautions have made the world safe enough for children to focus on their deep and terrible inner-fears. This is only further perpetuating the demand for liberal arts degrees and higher education. If we make the world scarier, kids can focus on important things like REPRODUCTION AND TOILING IN FIELDS!)
DOWN WITH SAFETY! UP WITH TOIL!
Friday, July 13, 2012
EduSummerCation
So, summer 2012 will forever be known as the summer where, at the ripe old age of 21, I finally learned how to dive.
And the great thing about learning to dive in front of kids is that they'll be excited to watch you, and even more excited to mock you when you fail.
I was going off the diving board today and on one of the jumps, I jumped off the end of the board and was up in the air, and I got into sort of a horizontal tuck and then I froze. I completely forgot what to do. So I landed in a sort of crouched belly flop and I just remember this stinky, mustard, yellow-green color flashing before my eyes and the first thing I see when I get above the water is a little girl in the program saying, "Andy, I just want you to know. That was the worst jump I've ever seen."
Two Things:
One: When people get really angry, they see red. I think when you do something really stupid and embarrassing, you see stanky-dank green. I saw a mother duck once, sitting on her nest. And as I was watching she got up, covered her nest with some grasses and what-not, then jumped into some water and immediately ejected this stream of foul, putrid, yellow-ish bodily waste. That is the color of shameful incompetence. Duck excrement.
Two: Being a kid is hard. Like, if I was the age of a kid in the program, and I had done that and heard someone tell me that was the worst jump they'd ever seen. That would've broken me. I would've had to put my towel over my head and try to drown the pain in french fries from the snack bar. You don't have enough experience or confidence at that age to protect you from comments and humiliation like that. You haven't graduated high school. You have to be driven everywhere. You've never tried to purchase condoms from a Wal-Mart on Christmas day at midnight. You haven't done anything.
The night I wandered into a Wal-Mart on midnight on Christmas to try to buy condoms, was the night I became impervious to anything anyone under the age of thirteen could say to me. You enter into this whole new world and you suddenly have this power and realization that you could blow their little minds at any second. It'd be like showing them the shape of infinity. Some sort of spiraling fractal that twists into itself forever and forever.
I'm impervious to mockery from people severely younger than me! Huzzah!
And the great thing about learning to dive in front of kids is that they'll be excited to watch you, and even more excited to mock you when you fail.
I was going off the diving board today and on one of the jumps, I jumped off the end of the board and was up in the air, and I got into sort of a horizontal tuck and then I froze. I completely forgot what to do. So I landed in a sort of crouched belly flop and I just remember this stinky, mustard, yellow-green color flashing before my eyes and the first thing I see when I get above the water is a little girl in the program saying, "Andy, I just want you to know. That was the worst jump I've ever seen."
Two Things:
One: When people get really angry, they see red. I think when you do something really stupid and embarrassing, you see stanky-dank green. I saw a mother duck once, sitting on her nest. And as I was watching she got up, covered her nest with some grasses and what-not, then jumped into some water and immediately ejected this stream of foul, putrid, yellow-ish bodily waste. That is the color of shameful incompetence. Duck excrement.
Two: Being a kid is hard. Like, if I was the age of a kid in the program, and I had done that and heard someone tell me that was the worst jump they'd ever seen. That would've broken me. I would've had to put my towel over my head and try to drown the pain in french fries from the snack bar. You don't have enough experience or confidence at that age to protect you from comments and humiliation like that. You haven't graduated high school. You have to be driven everywhere. You've never tried to purchase condoms from a Wal-Mart on Christmas day at midnight. You haven't done anything.
The night I wandered into a Wal-Mart on midnight on Christmas to try to buy condoms, was the night I became impervious to anything anyone under the age of thirteen could say to me. You enter into this whole new world and you suddenly have this power and realization that you could blow their little minds at any second. It'd be like showing them the shape of infinity. Some sort of spiraling fractal that twists into itself forever and forever.
I'm impervious to mockery from people severely younger than me! Huzzah!
Thursday, July 12, 2012
On the Gravel with a Grimace
While I was getting ready to leave for my run today I saw a little ID card my dad has for his work with his picture and name on it. I picked it up and smiled and said, "That's my DAD!"
You ever get weirdly proud of your parents for no reason? Well..."no reason" isn't really accurate. I have every reason to be proud of my parents. But...why would looking at an ID card trigger that?
I guess it's because I never see my parents outside of our house very much. I don't see them in the "real world". So for them to be acknowledged outside of the house...I don't know. But I took a picture of it! Good job, parents!
________________________________________________________________
I don't pretend to have a big influence over the kids I watch over during the day. Like, I might be remembered by some of them when they're my age. But I don't think I'm teaching them any important life lessons or anything. Which is fine. It's supposed to be mindless summer fun, not an enrichment program.
BUT!
I get my moments in.
Today we were eating snack and a girl I'm sitting at a table with goes, "Can I get another juice box?"
And without thinking I go, "Nope. It's not Double Juice Thursday."
"What's Double Juice Thursday?"
"Every Thursday that occurs on a date that's a prime number. Double Juice Thursday."
And maybe. just maybe. The kids are going to associate Prime numbers for the rest of their life with Double Juice Thursday. One of those kids might get really into advanced math. He becomes one of those people who are trying to find the largest prime numbers and he can't quite remember why but every night when he's up late, crunching numbers and running programs and what not, he's crushing juice box after box. Just slamming down the j's.
Or the day before yesterday we were playing floor hockey and two of the older kids were talking to me over at the sidelines and one of them hits the other in the crotch with the stick and I yelled out, "NUT CHECK!"
And the kid with the stick goes, "Wait...what did you say?"
And I go, "That's a nut check."
It was definitely a lightbulb moment for both of them. The other kid goes, "Nut check...butt check! Arm check! Head check! Neck check!"
I'm pretty sure they already knew people getting hit in the groin is funny. But thanks to me they've reached that next level of calling out something when someone gets hit in the groin. And that's gonna last them at least through high school and probably for the rest of their life.
The last one...I'm not so sure it will have a positive influence but it will probably make a difference. There's one pretty quiet kid who likes to keep to himself a lot and so just for my own amusement I go out of my way to talk to him whenever I see him.
It'll be 90 degrees outside and he'll be wearing jeans so I'll go up to him and say, "I see you're wearing pants today. I approve. You know what I'm going to start calling you? Doctor Magnificent."
And he just kinda looks at me...then looks away from me...trying to act like I'm not there.
But, best case scenario: That kid is going to grow up to never wear shorts again and drive around in a retired school bus full of speakers and smoke machines. Basically, he's going to own the Magic Bus and he'll just drive around to basketball courts in the park, blasting early 90s hip hop. He steps out of his van and a thick cloud of smoke engulfs the entire court and slowly he emerges from the mist. He's got thick black rings around his eyes, wearing a doctors coat covered in motor oil and blueberry pie, wearing cowboy boots. "Protect Ya Neck" is blasting in the background and he strides up to the baddest dude at the park and says, "I'm writing you a prescription for a new staircase. Cuz a Scrawny Punk like you can't STEP TO ME!
Feeling mad hostile, ran the apostle,
Flowing like Christ when I speaks the gospel!
Protect ya neck!
Doctor Magnificent is out!"
And then he peels out of the parking lot and goes to a Mexican supermarket where they give him free ice cream that's about to go bad.
Yeah...actually. I think that kid got the best deal of all.
You ever get weirdly proud of your parents for no reason? Well..."no reason" isn't really accurate. I have every reason to be proud of my parents. But...why would looking at an ID card trigger that?
I guess it's because I never see my parents outside of our house very much. I don't see them in the "real world". So for them to be acknowledged outside of the house...I don't know. But I took a picture of it! Good job, parents!
________________________________________________________________
I don't pretend to have a big influence over the kids I watch over during the day. Like, I might be remembered by some of them when they're my age. But I don't think I'm teaching them any important life lessons or anything. Which is fine. It's supposed to be mindless summer fun, not an enrichment program.
BUT!
I get my moments in.
Today we were eating snack and a girl I'm sitting at a table with goes, "Can I get another juice box?"
And without thinking I go, "Nope. It's not Double Juice Thursday."
"What's Double Juice Thursday?"
"Every Thursday that occurs on a date that's a prime number. Double Juice Thursday."
And maybe. just maybe. The kids are going to associate Prime numbers for the rest of their life with Double Juice Thursday. One of those kids might get really into advanced math. He becomes one of those people who are trying to find the largest prime numbers and he can't quite remember why but every night when he's up late, crunching numbers and running programs and what not, he's crushing juice box after box. Just slamming down the j's.
Or the day before yesterday we were playing floor hockey and two of the older kids were talking to me over at the sidelines and one of them hits the other in the crotch with the stick and I yelled out, "NUT CHECK!"
And the kid with the stick goes, "Wait...what did you say?"
And I go, "That's a nut check."
It was definitely a lightbulb moment for both of them. The other kid goes, "Nut check...butt check! Arm check! Head check! Neck check!"
I'm pretty sure they already knew people getting hit in the groin is funny. But thanks to me they've reached that next level of calling out something when someone gets hit in the groin. And that's gonna last them at least through high school and probably for the rest of their life.
The last one...I'm not so sure it will have a positive influence but it will probably make a difference. There's one pretty quiet kid who likes to keep to himself a lot and so just for my own amusement I go out of my way to talk to him whenever I see him.
It'll be 90 degrees outside and he'll be wearing jeans so I'll go up to him and say, "I see you're wearing pants today. I approve. You know what I'm going to start calling you? Doctor Magnificent."
And he just kinda looks at me...then looks away from me...trying to act like I'm not there.
But, best case scenario: That kid is going to grow up to never wear shorts again and drive around in a retired school bus full of speakers and smoke machines. Basically, he's going to own the Magic Bus and he'll just drive around to basketball courts in the park, blasting early 90s hip hop. He steps out of his van and a thick cloud of smoke engulfs the entire court and slowly he emerges from the mist. He's got thick black rings around his eyes, wearing a doctors coat covered in motor oil and blueberry pie, wearing cowboy boots. "Protect Ya Neck" is blasting in the background and he strides up to the baddest dude at the park and says, "I'm writing you a prescription for a new staircase. Cuz a Scrawny Punk like you can't STEP TO ME!
Feeling mad hostile, ran the apostle,
Flowing like Christ when I speaks the gospel!
Protect ya neck!
Doctor Magnificent is out!"
And then he peels out of the parking lot and goes to a Mexican supermarket where they give him free ice cream that's about to go bad.
Yeah...actually. I think that kid got the best deal of all.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Beaned OR The True Meaning of Summer
This morning, as I finished my run, pushed my sister out of the bathroom and hunkered down for an early morning BM (an AM-BM (a BM in the AM)), I was thinking about how summer is a time for relaxing. Summer is a time for leaning back and saying, "You know what? It's not my problem. None of it. None of it, of it all, is in any way my problem. I'm just gonna sit here and look good."
That's what summer should be about. Sitting around and looking good doing it. Spring and Fall aren't for sitting around and looking good. They're times of transition. They're times of movement and preparation. Winter definitely isn't for sitting around. It's about generating heat to stave off the ever growing shadow of Night's icy claw (cept' for Christmas).
But a good summer should be about having a great time doing next to nothing.
Hassle-free.
My go-to image of summer in my head is me next to a body of water just letting the sun melt the Hassles right off me. Big stupid smile on my face. Some punk kid tries to step to me with a hassle and he gets swallowed up by an evil pile of Foam Pool Noodles. I dive into a swimming pool, glide over to the other end, get out, grab an immaculate, white towel and step inside the house through a sliding glass door onto cool white tile and go over to the kitchen to pour another tall glass of pink lemonade while "The Girl from Ipanema" plays in the background.
That moment, that fleeting picturesque moment removed from all other aspects of my life, is the pinnacle of summer. Everything leading up to and everything proceeding that moment is neurotic, stress-filled, achievement-obsessed, noise and chaos. But that brief interval is my faith in the season of Summer. I believe the miracle of Summer is the occurrence of that sequence of events.
For the rest of my life I can know that at some point between the months of June and August I knew how to be cool. I can look at young people later on and yell, "I KNEW HOW TO BE COOL! I WAS FRIGGIN' SAVVY WITHOUT EVEN TRYING, YOU AMATEURS!" Again, the rage there shows how it all fell apart but it still doesn't tarnish that moment.
Anyway, I was thinking about that this morning and then I get to my job surrounded by a whole bunch of kids and people who are not on the same wavelength at all. And I'm standing in half a gym with 45 screaming children trying to play Kickball-Basketball all at once and one of them runs over and yells, "I HATE EVERYTHING!"
And I go, "ok. here's what I want you to do. take your fist, and hold it out, and imagine this is your anger. this is all of your anger. squeeze it tight, then...just let it go. release it from your hand like a delicate butterfly."
And she goes, "I feel a little better. BUT I'M STILL FULL OF HATE!" And then she starts grabbing me and other kids come over and steal my car keys.
And then...later...I got caught in the bathroom by one of my co-workers while I was looking at my calves. Shameful. But it was only for a second and they're the only nice muscles I have!
He goes, "Whatcha doin', Andy?"
Me: UHHHHHHH...
Him: Are you hiding in here?
Me (as I'm quickly walking out): Yeah.
And then I'm in the gym and this girl is balled up on the middle of the floor, sobbing uncontrollably and so I tell her to come over and tell me what's wrong and she's got a yellow jacket in her hand, tears streaming down her face, she can barely speak, face is bright red. She says, "One of the kids threw a ball at it and now it's de-ee--a-ee-ad (she was sobbing over the word dead)." Then she asks if she can take it home so her mom can "identify" it.
I don't want to be insensitive so I say, "Um...sure...but go put it somewhere else and take it with you at the end of the day."
She says, "I'll go put it in a bag." And runs out.
I don't know where she's going to get a bag but about two minutes later, a woman I work with comes into the gym and says, "You're letting them keep dead bees now, Andy?"
And I go, "She was crying!"
Her (laugh-scoffs): Shut up. I made her throw it away.
Me: She was really upset!
______________________________________________________________________
So, I guess what I learned today is...not all dreams come true. Nor should they. Because weird stuff you couldn't even imagine happening is going on all the time. So...enjoy that. And your AM BM.
It'll help you grow...or some crap.
That's what summer should be about. Sitting around and looking good doing it. Spring and Fall aren't for sitting around and looking good. They're times of transition. They're times of movement and preparation. Winter definitely isn't for sitting around. It's about generating heat to stave off the ever growing shadow of Night's icy claw (cept' for Christmas).
But a good summer should be about having a great time doing next to nothing.
Hassle-free.
My go-to image of summer in my head is me next to a body of water just letting the sun melt the Hassles right off me. Big stupid smile on my face. Some punk kid tries to step to me with a hassle and he gets swallowed up by an evil pile of Foam Pool Noodles. I dive into a swimming pool, glide over to the other end, get out, grab an immaculate, white towel and step inside the house through a sliding glass door onto cool white tile and go over to the kitchen to pour another tall glass of pink lemonade while "The Girl from Ipanema" plays in the background.
That moment, that fleeting picturesque moment removed from all other aspects of my life, is the pinnacle of summer. Everything leading up to and everything proceeding that moment is neurotic, stress-filled, achievement-obsessed, noise and chaos. But that brief interval is my faith in the season of Summer. I believe the miracle of Summer is the occurrence of that sequence of events.
For the rest of my life I can know that at some point between the months of June and August I knew how to be cool. I can look at young people later on and yell, "I KNEW HOW TO BE COOL! I WAS FRIGGIN' SAVVY WITHOUT EVEN TRYING, YOU AMATEURS!" Again, the rage there shows how it all fell apart but it still doesn't tarnish that moment.
Anyway, I was thinking about that this morning and then I get to my job surrounded by a whole bunch of kids and people who are not on the same wavelength at all. And I'm standing in half a gym with 45 screaming children trying to play Kickball-Basketball all at once and one of them runs over and yells, "I HATE EVERYTHING!"
And I go, "ok. here's what I want you to do. take your fist, and hold it out, and imagine this is your anger. this is all of your anger. squeeze it tight, then...just let it go. release it from your hand like a delicate butterfly."
And she goes, "I feel a little better. BUT I'M STILL FULL OF HATE!" And then she starts grabbing me and other kids come over and steal my car keys.
And then...later...I got caught in the bathroom by one of my co-workers while I was looking at my calves. Shameful. But it was only for a second and they're the only nice muscles I have!
He goes, "Whatcha doin', Andy?"
Me: UHHHHHHH...
Him: Are you hiding in here?
Me (as I'm quickly walking out): Yeah.
And then I'm in the gym and this girl is balled up on the middle of the floor, sobbing uncontrollably and so I tell her to come over and tell me what's wrong and she's got a yellow jacket in her hand, tears streaming down her face, she can barely speak, face is bright red. She says, "One of the kids threw a ball at it and now it's de-ee--a-ee-ad (she was sobbing over the word dead)." Then she asks if she can take it home so her mom can "identify" it.
I don't want to be insensitive so I say, "Um...sure...but go put it somewhere else and take it with you at the end of the day."
She says, "I'll go put it in a bag." And runs out.
I don't know where she's going to get a bag but about two minutes later, a woman I work with comes into the gym and says, "You're letting them keep dead bees now, Andy?"
And I go, "She was crying!"
Her (laugh-scoffs): Shut up. I made her throw it away.
Me: She was really upset!
______________________________________________________________________
So, I guess what I learned today is...not all dreams come true. Nor should they. Because weird stuff you couldn't even imagine happening is going on all the time. So...enjoy that. And your AM BM.
It'll help you grow...or some crap.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Giant Fighting Robots
Sometime down the line, many years from now, I'm going to find myself in a pit of doubt and despair. I'll probably be hunched over in a bathroom stall, gasping for air, sweating profusely, racked with pain from the idea of marching on through this barren, unforgiving, god-forsaken wasteland we call existence.
And it's at moments like this, you need to look to yourself for affirmation. You need to find something that defiantly stands tall and triumphantly rings out, "I AM ME!". One of the reasons I keep this blog going is that I like to look back at old posts and see if I can find something like that in my writing. I get several years removed from it all and go back and see if I can assess whether the person who wrote something several years ago has any potential. Can I see anything redeeming in the former version of myself?
Well, in an effort to please the doubtful and troubled versions of myself in times yet to come, let it be known throughout the digital land that on this day I wrote about GIANT FIGHTING ROBOTS!!
______________________________________________________________
Marcus was a quiet, shy child. Until the Turbo-Vultures ate his parents! When the only people he had ever truly loved and trusted were plucked from their hybrid-car (SWOOP!) on the way back from the grocery store and taken high atop Mount Doom (which is actually quite scenic and pleasant in the spring time), Marcus Callahan entered into a time and place unknown to most mortal men. Marcus was forever plunged into the twisted and perilous landscape of Action!
But for Marcus Callahan, Action was not just a mindset or dragon-filled location. It was an entity that lived and breathed inside of him. It was a possession that changed an average eight year old boy with untied shoes into a six-foot five-inch barrel-chested behemoth with a mane of fiery red hair and a beard that could scrape the grease stains off a garage floor--while he performed HE-MAN CHIN UPS! That doesn't mean he was raising his chin above a bar. No. That'd be too easy. HE-MAN CHIN UPS is short for HE-MAN CHIN UPPERCUTS! Where he squats down low and uppercuts chunks of the ground into the air with his chin.
For many, this transformation would be more than enough incentive to go on a murder-filled vengeance spree. But Fate wasn't done with Marcus Callahan. One night, beneath the full moon, as Marcus stood on the edge of a cliff overlooking his hometown--howling at the moon while cranking out three thousand deep-knee-squats and tearing through bicep curls using two rabid coyotes in heat as free weights, he was struck on the forehead by an eighteen-wheeled Mac Truck BIG RIG FROM THE GODS! It plummeted from the sky like a crazed asteroid from some heavy-metal, testosterone based galaxy and made contact with his deeply furrowed brow.
Marcus Callahan didn't even blink.
The Semi was stopped cold when its awesome mass met the impenetrable and indomitable will of Marcus's skull. And in that stand-off, Steel realized that it must finally bow to the force of Man.
Marcus opened his jaws wide, like a python about to swallow a wild boar, and crammed all eighteen-wheels down his gullet--creating an unholy union of man and machine that can only be maintained through SUPRA-MAXIMUM LEVELS OF AWESOME!
He jumped high into the upper layers of the atmosphere and screamed, despite the minimal amounts of air, "THIS IS FOR MY MOMMY AND DADDY!" and that yell reverberated throughout the whole globe and turned all the clouds into lightning bolt shapes and bulls playing the drums!
Then Marcus descended with the power of American Steel and Combustible Engines and brought his ten-ton elbow crashing down on the face of Mount Doom so that it exploded into hundreds of thousands of mountain chunks which Marcus turned into hundreds of thousands of Outback Steakhouses and scattered them all across the globe so that the mountain could never be reformed again.
The Turbo-Vultures were homeless and had to go on welfare! They bought off brand breakfast cereals in dog-food sized bags for their kids causing a decline in their STANDARDIZED TEST SCORES!
With his vengeance momentarily completed, Marcus Callahan retreated to the Arctic Circle to spar with narwhals and learn the secrets of the lost art of Polar Bear Kung-Fu.
________________________________________________________________
And it's at moments like this, you need to look to yourself for affirmation. You need to find something that defiantly stands tall and triumphantly rings out, "I AM ME!". One of the reasons I keep this blog going is that I like to look back at old posts and see if I can find something like that in my writing. I get several years removed from it all and go back and see if I can assess whether the person who wrote something several years ago has any potential. Can I see anything redeeming in the former version of myself?
Well, in an effort to please the doubtful and troubled versions of myself in times yet to come, let it be known throughout the digital land that on this day I wrote about GIANT FIGHTING ROBOTS!!
______________________________________________________________
Marcus was a quiet, shy child. Until the Turbo-Vultures ate his parents! When the only people he had ever truly loved and trusted were plucked from their hybrid-car (SWOOP!) on the way back from the grocery store and taken high atop Mount Doom (which is actually quite scenic and pleasant in the spring time), Marcus Callahan entered into a time and place unknown to most mortal men. Marcus was forever plunged into the twisted and perilous landscape of Action!
But for Marcus Callahan, Action was not just a mindset or dragon-filled location. It was an entity that lived and breathed inside of him. It was a possession that changed an average eight year old boy with untied shoes into a six-foot five-inch barrel-chested behemoth with a mane of fiery red hair and a beard that could scrape the grease stains off a garage floor--while he performed HE-MAN CHIN UPS! That doesn't mean he was raising his chin above a bar. No. That'd be too easy. HE-MAN CHIN UPS is short for HE-MAN CHIN UPPERCUTS! Where he squats down low and uppercuts chunks of the ground into the air with his chin.
For many, this transformation would be more than enough incentive to go on a murder-filled vengeance spree. But Fate wasn't done with Marcus Callahan. One night, beneath the full moon, as Marcus stood on the edge of a cliff overlooking his hometown--howling at the moon while cranking out three thousand deep-knee-squats and tearing through bicep curls using two rabid coyotes in heat as free weights, he was struck on the forehead by an eighteen-wheeled Mac Truck BIG RIG FROM THE GODS! It plummeted from the sky like a crazed asteroid from some heavy-metal, testosterone based galaxy and made contact with his deeply furrowed brow.
Marcus Callahan didn't even blink.
The Semi was stopped cold when its awesome mass met the impenetrable and indomitable will of Marcus's skull. And in that stand-off, Steel realized that it must finally bow to the force of Man.
Marcus opened his jaws wide, like a python about to swallow a wild boar, and crammed all eighteen-wheels down his gullet--creating an unholy union of man and machine that can only be maintained through SUPRA-MAXIMUM LEVELS OF AWESOME!
He jumped high into the upper layers of the atmosphere and screamed, despite the minimal amounts of air, "THIS IS FOR MY MOMMY AND DADDY!" and that yell reverberated throughout the whole globe and turned all the clouds into lightning bolt shapes and bulls playing the drums!
Then Marcus descended with the power of American Steel and Combustible Engines and brought his ten-ton elbow crashing down on the face of Mount Doom so that it exploded into hundreds of thousands of mountain chunks which Marcus turned into hundreds of thousands of Outback Steakhouses and scattered them all across the globe so that the mountain could never be reformed again.
The Turbo-Vultures were homeless and had to go on welfare! They bought off brand breakfast cereals in dog-food sized bags for their kids causing a decline in their STANDARDIZED TEST SCORES!
With his vengeance momentarily completed, Marcus Callahan retreated to the Arctic Circle to spar with narwhals and learn the secrets of the lost art of Polar Bear Kung-Fu.
________________________________________________________________
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Trees and Plants and Things
If you haven't noticed by now, the titles rarely have anything to do with the posts.
So that's why I'm gonna talk about diving boards. And things I've learned while watching them.
Group the First is the little kids. They're tiny, energetic, never standing still in line, they all kind of look like they have to pee because they're so excited they're going to get to jump off again. They're totally in their own world, like hamsters on an exercise wheel. You can stand and stare at them while they perform this ritual again and again and they'll never look at you back. That's what makes them so fun to watch. You know they don't care about anyone else at the pool. They just want to jump off the board, paddle over to the ladder as fast as possible, and jump off again. The only thing they're concerned with is the sensation of the jump. They barely move the board at all but those precious tenths of a second where they are in total free-fall followed by the rush of the water as it swallows them whole has got to be sending off all types of crazy reactions in their brains. It's a pure adrenaline rush from the moment they're sprinting down the board to when they jump and they're above everything and everyone and there's a momentary jolt of fear as they begin to fall that shoots up to some crazy stratospheric level when they land in the water and now they're in this whole new medium. They can move and turn in any direction and the only limit, a beautiful limit, is how long they can stand without releasing the air from their tiny lungs. You can just tell from watching them that it's a death-defying, exhilarating, euphoric experience.
The second group is the inbetween-ers. This is the worst group to watch. It's the teenagers/ older kids who have clearly gotten over the sensation of the jumping and the falling and the swimming but they aren't brave enough to do anything but jump in. Some of them can dive or flip but they're just too inbetween to be interesting. They're aware of their friends and the people there and you can see them looking around and watching everyone else. It's not that they aren't having fun, it's just that the rush has mellowed for them and it seems like they're just kind of going off out of habit. They're progressing in small amounts but they don't have the confidence to create something like the third group.
The third group are the guys who make the diving board something to watch. Usually it's the deeply-tanned guys, probably muscular, they wait in line like they own the place. You can always tell when they know they're good. They have the confidence and control to know that they're going to do something that will simultaneously inspire and intimidate everyone watching. And they know people are watching, they want people to watch. It's magic, in a way. When you see a guy step up to the board, take a hop and put all of his weight down to send himself skyward in a beautiful arc as he corkscrews three times in the air before cleanly diving down into the water with only a minute splash, the perfect underscore to the brief aerial miracle you've just witnessed. When you see it, you almost can't believe that it came from anywhere. There's no way this guy could've learned it. He couldn't have ever struggled with it at any point in his life. One moment, he was a crying baby. The next day, he was a full-formed man who could jump off a diving board like nobody's business.
But I think that's the whole "secret". As a runner, I think I'm at about the level of diving-board guy. I can impress the people who show up at whatever local event and don't really follow professionals. But before a race I never act like I'm going to win it or impress anyone. I've usually got my head down, not making eye-contact with anyone, off by myself staring at my shoes, wondering how I'm going to mess up. But that's such a weenie, inbetween-er way to handle things. Yeah, sometimes you're going to mess up and burn-out in a race or belly-flop in the pool. But you're never going to do anything if you don't act like you can already do something impressive. That's the energy and the confidence and the excitement of creation.
Because let's face it, most everything is a whole lot of nothing. It's empty. A track is a track. A diving board is a diving board. A blog is a blog. There's nothing inherently amazing about any of it. It's people who make it exciting. It's people who take this nothing and turn it into something incredible and memorable and sacred. And the miracle is they produce it out of nowhere. It comes from somewhere deep down, from trials and pain and a hard-fought sense of self and control to take this nothingness and put in that surge of energy that the little kids are getting high as a kite off of and turn it into a balanced, beautiful, elegant display. That's the whole transcendence part.
And that's probably worth being excited about.
So that's why I'm gonna talk about diving boards. And things I've learned while watching them.
Group the First is the little kids. They're tiny, energetic, never standing still in line, they all kind of look like they have to pee because they're so excited they're going to get to jump off again. They're totally in their own world, like hamsters on an exercise wheel. You can stand and stare at them while they perform this ritual again and again and they'll never look at you back. That's what makes them so fun to watch. You know they don't care about anyone else at the pool. They just want to jump off the board, paddle over to the ladder as fast as possible, and jump off again. The only thing they're concerned with is the sensation of the jump. They barely move the board at all but those precious tenths of a second where they are in total free-fall followed by the rush of the water as it swallows them whole has got to be sending off all types of crazy reactions in their brains. It's a pure adrenaline rush from the moment they're sprinting down the board to when they jump and they're above everything and everyone and there's a momentary jolt of fear as they begin to fall that shoots up to some crazy stratospheric level when they land in the water and now they're in this whole new medium. They can move and turn in any direction and the only limit, a beautiful limit, is how long they can stand without releasing the air from their tiny lungs. You can just tell from watching them that it's a death-defying, exhilarating, euphoric experience.
The second group is the inbetween-ers. This is the worst group to watch. It's the teenagers/ older kids who have clearly gotten over the sensation of the jumping and the falling and the swimming but they aren't brave enough to do anything but jump in. Some of them can dive or flip but they're just too inbetween to be interesting. They're aware of their friends and the people there and you can see them looking around and watching everyone else. It's not that they aren't having fun, it's just that the rush has mellowed for them and it seems like they're just kind of going off out of habit. They're progressing in small amounts but they don't have the confidence to create something like the third group.
The third group are the guys who make the diving board something to watch. Usually it's the deeply-tanned guys, probably muscular, they wait in line like they own the place. You can always tell when they know they're good. They have the confidence and control to know that they're going to do something that will simultaneously inspire and intimidate everyone watching. And they know people are watching, they want people to watch. It's magic, in a way. When you see a guy step up to the board, take a hop and put all of his weight down to send himself skyward in a beautiful arc as he corkscrews three times in the air before cleanly diving down into the water with only a minute splash, the perfect underscore to the brief aerial miracle you've just witnessed. When you see it, you almost can't believe that it came from anywhere. There's no way this guy could've learned it. He couldn't have ever struggled with it at any point in his life. One moment, he was a crying baby. The next day, he was a full-formed man who could jump off a diving board like nobody's business.
But I think that's the whole "secret". As a runner, I think I'm at about the level of diving-board guy. I can impress the people who show up at whatever local event and don't really follow professionals. But before a race I never act like I'm going to win it or impress anyone. I've usually got my head down, not making eye-contact with anyone, off by myself staring at my shoes, wondering how I'm going to mess up. But that's such a weenie, inbetween-er way to handle things. Yeah, sometimes you're going to mess up and burn-out in a race or belly-flop in the pool. But you're never going to do anything if you don't act like you can already do something impressive. That's the energy and the confidence and the excitement of creation.
Because let's face it, most everything is a whole lot of nothing. It's empty. A track is a track. A diving board is a diving board. A blog is a blog. There's nothing inherently amazing about any of it. It's people who make it exciting. It's people who take this nothing and turn it into something incredible and memorable and sacred. And the miracle is they produce it out of nowhere. It comes from somewhere deep down, from trials and pain and a hard-fought sense of self and control to take this nothingness and put in that surge of energy that the little kids are getting high as a kite off of and turn it into a balanced, beautiful, elegant display. That's the whole transcendence part.
And that's probably worth being excited about.
Friday, July 6, 2012
Making Me Nervous
I was reading this book about cycling training because I was bored at work today. I was flipping around and I saw this section about this thing called, "No Man's Land".
No Man's Land is training at about 80 to 85% of your maximum heart rate, or in more practical terms, No Man's Land is that steady, typical, bread-and-butter pace that you build into on a normal training run. You don't feel easy but at the end you don't feel worn out either. It's a pace that makes you feel like you've put in a decent effort--helps you sleep at night.
But this book and a bunch of other elite cycling coaches claimed that training at this pace is absolutely useless. It's a pitfall. What happens when you train at this pace is that you aren't helping your body get comfortable with race pace while at the same time you are working too hard to allow your body to recover. Your stressing the upper end of your comfort. You aren't getting out of your comfort zone while simultaneously working your comfort zone too hard.
What the book argued is that you should take your easy days super easy and make your hard days super hard. Well, I do the exact opposite of that. I have a bought a cabin in No Man's Land and I train there year round.
I see the logic behind the book's argument. If you're going to race, you should do work at that race pace or harder and everything else should be about recovery at a pace that stresses your aerobic system. That would be the ideal way to race.
But, if I may defend my No Man's Land training. First of all, it feels good. If you see running as a sort of self-medicating process, which I do, there's nothing better than pounding out a hard effort at the end of the day.
More importantly, I don't see myself as an easy/hard type of person. I'm a grinder. Easy/hard has too many ups and downs in both life and running. I would much rather just set the pace at comfortably hard and grind for hours and days and years and decades so that I'm not even climbing, I'm just waiting for the world to change around me. I like routine. I like the quiet, tiring satisfaction of putting in an honest effort every single day.
But there's also a madness in it that appeals to me. It's an attraction to the mind-numbing monotony and repetition. No highs. No lows. Just keeping a pace no matter what. When you really get down to it, when you really cut to the bone of it you realize it's not human at all. It's a loss of self. The No Man's Land training is this place you can reach regardless of how you feel or how the conditions are. To the point where how you feel doesn't even really matter. You don't have a say in it. The pace, the grinding pace is all that matters and it will be met today and the next day and the next day.
Easy/hard is...personal, in a way. Everyone has highs and lows. That's not how I like my stress though. I can't have total stress and total relaxation, I'm equally terrified by both. I want to slowly press all the time until whatever is in my way just crumbles out of boredom or forgets what it was doing in the first place. It has a tortuous quality to it.
A steady, ceaseless push until all that's left is...friggin' diamond dinner plates with John Cleese and Frank Shorter high-fiving in the center.
__________________________________________________________________
That's just how I see myself in life though. In anything I do. I will show up. I will always show up. I will put in a productive amount of work and a sufficient, thoughtful amount of effort and then I will show up the next day and do that again. Just grind through it. No more. No less. No special days. No bad days. Just me all the time and no cake on your birthday.
Work- grind.
Running- grind.
Relationships- grind.
Dancing- grind.
Writing- grind.
Comedy- grind.
I will be there. I will do it. If not, I don't want to bother with it at all. I'm like a very low energy robot-dog that is trying to destroy the world by digging to the Earth's core from out in the backyard.
Or like a solar-powered robot-bear who owns a bakery and makes a designated amount of cakes every day until he reaches enough cakes to blow up the Earth's core.
Or like a hydrogen-powered donkey trying to learn the German language by memorizing five words from the Robot to German dictionary every day...until he blows up the Earth's core.
No Man's Land is training at about 80 to 85% of your maximum heart rate, or in more practical terms, No Man's Land is that steady, typical, bread-and-butter pace that you build into on a normal training run. You don't feel easy but at the end you don't feel worn out either. It's a pace that makes you feel like you've put in a decent effort--helps you sleep at night.
But this book and a bunch of other elite cycling coaches claimed that training at this pace is absolutely useless. It's a pitfall. What happens when you train at this pace is that you aren't helping your body get comfortable with race pace while at the same time you are working too hard to allow your body to recover. Your stressing the upper end of your comfort. You aren't getting out of your comfort zone while simultaneously working your comfort zone too hard.
What the book argued is that you should take your easy days super easy and make your hard days super hard. Well, I do the exact opposite of that. I have a bought a cabin in No Man's Land and I train there year round.
I see the logic behind the book's argument. If you're going to race, you should do work at that race pace or harder and everything else should be about recovery at a pace that stresses your aerobic system. That would be the ideal way to race.
But, if I may defend my No Man's Land training. First of all, it feels good. If you see running as a sort of self-medicating process, which I do, there's nothing better than pounding out a hard effort at the end of the day.
More importantly, I don't see myself as an easy/hard type of person. I'm a grinder. Easy/hard has too many ups and downs in both life and running. I would much rather just set the pace at comfortably hard and grind for hours and days and years and decades so that I'm not even climbing, I'm just waiting for the world to change around me. I like routine. I like the quiet, tiring satisfaction of putting in an honest effort every single day.
But there's also a madness in it that appeals to me. It's an attraction to the mind-numbing monotony and repetition. No highs. No lows. Just keeping a pace no matter what. When you really get down to it, when you really cut to the bone of it you realize it's not human at all. It's a loss of self. The No Man's Land training is this place you can reach regardless of how you feel or how the conditions are. To the point where how you feel doesn't even really matter. You don't have a say in it. The pace, the grinding pace is all that matters and it will be met today and the next day and the next day.
Easy/hard is...personal, in a way. Everyone has highs and lows. That's not how I like my stress though. I can't have total stress and total relaxation, I'm equally terrified by both. I want to slowly press all the time until whatever is in my way just crumbles out of boredom or forgets what it was doing in the first place. It has a tortuous quality to it.
A steady, ceaseless push until all that's left is...friggin' diamond dinner plates with John Cleese and Frank Shorter high-fiving in the center.
__________________________________________________________________
That's just how I see myself in life though. In anything I do. I will show up. I will always show up. I will put in a productive amount of work and a sufficient, thoughtful amount of effort and then I will show up the next day and do that again. Just grind through it. No more. No less. No special days. No bad days. Just me all the time and no cake on your birthday.
Work- grind.
Running- grind.
Relationships- grind.
Dancing- grind.
Writing- grind.
Comedy- grind.
I will be there. I will do it. If not, I don't want to bother with it at all. I'm like a very low energy robot-dog that is trying to destroy the world by digging to the Earth's core from out in the backyard.
Or like a solar-powered robot-bear who owns a bakery and makes a designated amount of cakes every day until he reaches enough cakes to blow up the Earth's core.
Or like a hydrogen-powered donkey trying to learn the German language by memorizing five words from the Robot to German dictionary every day...until he blows up the Earth's core.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Bloopity Dooper Doop
So, sometimes in life things happen to you that are exciting and interesting and are easy to turn into a story.
You're just walking around in the tall grass like the Pokemon sprite character that you've always secretly wished you could become...
And suddenly that BLANANADDADALDALNALDNALNDANANAANAAAAAA!!!! music starts playing and everything goes all strobe-y and you're like, "OH MY GOD! REAL LIFE IS HAPPENING TO ME RIGHT NOW!"
But in the game it's like, "WILD CLEFAIRY APPEARS!"
And you're like, "What?! What is this?! What is this...marshmallow-y...pink...dinosaur?...cream-puff...thi--I'M GONNA CAPTURE IT!"
And then you can totally share that story and it's interesting and everyone is all "YOU TEACH ME AND I'LL TEACH YOU!"
Right? Right? Right.
But that's only some of the times. Other times, you're just walking around in the tall grass, or maybe you're not even in the tall grass. Maybe you've decided you don't want to deal with the tall grass today but you still want the day to amount to something.
And earlier today I was freaking out like, "Oh my gosh Andy. You have to write something but nothing has happened to you today. Or yesterday. Or the day before that."
But then I realized that that's okay. Because I can just make stuff up.
My imagination is like a bucket of paint on the blank white canvas of my day. And then I take that bucket, turn away from the canvas and throw it into outer space because my canvas is on the Moon now!
Don't you see, you bearded and snaggle-toothed children of the world? Imagination is like a butt that controls the weather! Everyone has one, you're just using it all wrong!
____________________________________________________________________
So I woke up with a denim jacket in my mouth, I'm chewing on it softly. I don't own any denim jackets and the name 'Kelly' is stitched on the inside left pocket.
So as I best I can tell, some dude named Kelly was riding in around in his Corolla late last night and his sandwich senses started spazzing all-out to the max. This led him to my house where he undoubtedly sensed my bed-time comfort hoagie that I use because I can't find the time to get enough red-meat inside me during the day.
So he must have broken in through my window using a series of progressively larger trained- baby lambs. It's simple really. First he sends the tiniest lamb through, and that lamb makes a tiny hole. Then a bigger lamb, and a bigger lamb, and a bigger lamb, until he has discretely made a hole just large enough for him to enter through.
____________________________________________________________________
So I woke up with a denim jacket in my mouth, I'm chewing on it softly. I don't own any denim jackets and the name 'Kelly' is stitched on the inside left pocket.
So as I best I can tell, some dude named Kelly was riding in around in his Corolla late last night and his sandwich senses started spazzing all-out to the max. This led him to my house where he undoubtedly sensed my bed-time comfort hoagie that I use because I can't find the time to get enough red-meat inside me during the day.
So he must have broken in through my window using a series of progressively larger trained- baby lambs. It's simple really. First he sends the tiniest lamb through, and that lamb makes a tiny hole. Then a bigger lamb, and a bigger lamb, and a bigger lamb, until he has discretely made a hole just large enough for him to enter through.
After that he just had to replace my hoagie with his jacket, Indiana-Jones style, and sneak out back through the window. Then of course he must have fought off my harem of super-model bodyguards and made sure he signed the guestbook book by the mailbox. The models probably weren't very hard to defeat. I don't feed them very much and during the summer they get all dry and yellow when they're out in the sun all the time. I hope he didn't use a fake name on the guestbook. I question both the doctorate and existence of Professor Cheese-Pecs McRanchy-Thighs...(sounds like a weird new exercise creation from a rogue Arby's..)
Anyway, after solving that magical mystery machine I decided the best thing to do would be to eat about five blueberry pancakes and learn how to talk to fish.
Unfortunately, I couldn't concentrate on the fish because I kept hearing this loud banging sound coming from inside the closet. There were also some muffled feminine yells. It was probably just one of Kelly's sheep that got stuck in there.
Sheep. They are such little rascals.
______________________________________________________________Anyway, after solving that magical mystery machine I decided the best thing to do would be to eat about five blueberry pancakes and learn how to talk to fish.
Unfortunately, I couldn't concentrate on the fish because I kept hearing this loud banging sound coming from inside the closet. There were also some muffled feminine yells. It was probably just one of Kelly's sheep that got stuck in there.
Sheep. They are such little rascals.
Wow, in that story, I ended up implying that I trapped someone in a closet. DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING!
___________________________________________________________________
Prologue: Girl-Kelly gets out of the closet and admits to trying to steal my night-time hoagie but was trapped in the closet by the eleven year old with no eyebrows who occasionally drops by to steal quarters from my change bowl for his underground gambling ring.
No harm, no foul, Kelly!
___________________________________________________________________
You see? 96% of that story didn't happen at all! And yet, its themes of redemption and moral-conflict, and sandwiches can still resonate inside of you as if they were true events that had been forced down your gullet.
And that's the power of imagination!
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Repleted
Recently, I was sharing a mattress in a loft in a cabin in West Virginia in a thunderstorm with a sinus infection. Needless to say, it was not the most peaceful night of sleep. At the foot of the mattress was a fan which we had turned on to full power because we were in the loft of the cabin in West Virginia in a thunderstorm while I had a sinus infection and the heat was severe. Without the fan, we would've sweat the bed many times over. The sweat would've seeped into the floor and compromised the integrity of the wood, causing us to fall through to the ground floor, the sound of which would startle the nearby bears who were already in a dander thanks to the intense spanish-themed thunderstorm (DERECHO) outside causing them to go on a killing spree to ease their troubled bear-minds.
But in preventing that doomful-day scenario, I had one of the weirdest, most sensory-overloadingest nights in my adult life.
Here's what I can remember:
(And I don't intend this to be a list of complaints. I was never mad or upset. This was an accumulation of things that caused a certain disbelief and amazement at a moment in my life that I usually associate with dancing animals and watching drunk people eat pancakes.)
There's the whir of the fan. WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! And I thought, I can tune this out. NOPE! WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! That loud hum serves as the base layer for everything else that happens. It's like the milk-chocolate coating in the candy bar of craziness.
I have a quilt I need to keep warm but makes me sweat because I'm sharing it and I'm a sweaty person (especially while sharing) so when I pulled the quilt down all the sweat evaporates and cools me cools cools me down. I don't want to go back to the quilt but now I'm lying there without any covering and that leaves my hands in want of something to do. If I don't have a covering to keep my hands preoccupied whilst I slumber, how can they be trusted?! I'm not there to look after them. Who knows what shenanigans Vanderbauzer and Cool Hand Luke could get into? Yes, those are the names of my hands.
There's the flashing lightning and thunder which doesn't bother me but I think it might be causing the dog downstairs to make retching noises every once in a while.
There's this pressure behind my nose and eyes that feels like someone is inflating a balloon underneath my face while my body is trying to compensate by pouring mucous out of everything. Mucous seems like one of those ancient remedies that actually make things much worse. Mucous is like leeches or drilling a hole in someone's head. It's wrong. When you're sick, your body doesn't need blood taken out of it and it definitely doesn't need this thick slime that needs to be sopped up every fifteen minutes by the roll of toilet paper sitting by the fan. If you do manage to fall asleep for a little bit you wake up with this crust around your face and something inside you screams, "WHY CAN'T MY LIFE JUST BE BEAUTIFUL AND REFRESHING LIKE A HAAGEN DAZS COMMERCIAL!"
At one point I'm pretty sure I felt a bug crawl across my face so I slapped myself, thought I felt the bug land beside me on the mattress and then proceeded to blindly slap the mattress in the dark for a few minutes, right next to the head of the person I was sharing the mattress with.
Later on, I feel a twinge in my calf just as it's about to start cramping up so I sit straight up and grab my leg but it goes away before it gets really bad and before I can even think about what's happening my head is down and I'm asleep.
Basically, I'm not sure if any of the night actually happened because I think I was alternating between sleep and awake about every fifteen minutes. I had no concept of time, only flashes of consciousness between short, hazy dreams that were sometimes about worms crawling underneath my fingernails.
It was like a weird torture but it was also fun, you know? When you hit the point where your body fails to discern reality then whatever your fevered imagination comes up with your brain just rolls with it. Your consciousness kinda becomes a used car salesman in a local TV commercial.
"NO IDEAS REJECTED! YOU BRING IT DOWN AND WE WILL ACCEPT WHATEVER YOU TELL US IS REAL! NEW, OLD, CRAZY, STUPID, or SUPPRESSED?! WE ARE TAKING ANY AND ALL THOUGHTS DOWN HERE AT ANDY'S BRAIN! If you reach over and touch the person you're sleeping next to and it seems like they're a giant snake with a clown's face, three eyeballs, and an afro made out broccoli and double-refried beans then grab a flaming baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire because we will treat that as GENUINE FACT! OUR STANDARDS ARE SO LOW YOU'LL WANNA TRY TO DRY HUMP YOUR WAY TO A NOBLE PEACE PRIZE!"
So that's what that night was like.
Then I wake up and there's two mysterious bloody spots on my feet.
"Oh, I'm probably a werewolf now."
That next day I sit in the sun for four hours, go on a two hour run and by the time dinner comes around I'm in full-on zombie mode with a thousand-yard stare, not blinking clutching a towel to my face and thinking, it's either all real or none of it's real. it's either all real or none of it is real. it's either all real or none of it is real but it doesn't really matter either way because I could burst into moths and fly to the clouds if I said the magic words.
But it was fun. It was genuine, exhausting, relaxing, overwhelming, numbing fun. THE ONLY KIND WORTH HAVING!
But in preventing that doomful-day scenario, I had one of the weirdest, most sensory-overloadingest nights in my adult life.
Here's what I can remember:
(And I don't intend this to be a list of complaints. I was never mad or upset. This was an accumulation of things that caused a certain disbelief and amazement at a moment in my life that I usually associate with dancing animals and watching drunk people eat pancakes.)
There's the whir of the fan. WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! And I thought, I can tune this out. NOPE! WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! That loud hum serves as the base layer for everything else that happens. It's like the milk-chocolate coating in the candy bar of craziness.
I have a quilt I need to keep warm but makes me sweat because I'm sharing it and I'm a sweaty person (especially while sharing) so when I pulled the quilt down all the sweat evaporates and cools me cools cools me down. I don't want to go back to the quilt but now I'm lying there without any covering and that leaves my hands in want of something to do. If I don't have a covering to keep my hands preoccupied whilst I slumber, how can they be trusted?! I'm not there to look after them. Who knows what shenanigans Vanderbauzer and Cool Hand Luke could get into? Yes, those are the names of my hands.
There's the flashing lightning and thunder which doesn't bother me but I think it might be causing the dog downstairs to make retching noises every once in a while.
There's this pressure behind my nose and eyes that feels like someone is inflating a balloon underneath my face while my body is trying to compensate by pouring mucous out of everything. Mucous seems like one of those ancient remedies that actually make things much worse. Mucous is like leeches or drilling a hole in someone's head. It's wrong. When you're sick, your body doesn't need blood taken out of it and it definitely doesn't need this thick slime that needs to be sopped up every fifteen minutes by the roll of toilet paper sitting by the fan. If you do manage to fall asleep for a little bit you wake up with this crust around your face and something inside you screams, "WHY CAN'T MY LIFE JUST BE BEAUTIFUL AND REFRESHING LIKE A HAAGEN DAZS COMMERCIAL!"
At one point I'm pretty sure I felt a bug crawl across my face so I slapped myself, thought I felt the bug land beside me on the mattress and then proceeded to blindly slap the mattress in the dark for a few minutes, right next to the head of the person I was sharing the mattress with.
Later on, I feel a twinge in my calf just as it's about to start cramping up so I sit straight up and grab my leg but it goes away before it gets really bad and before I can even think about what's happening my head is down and I'm asleep.
Basically, I'm not sure if any of the night actually happened because I think I was alternating between sleep and awake about every fifteen minutes. I had no concept of time, only flashes of consciousness between short, hazy dreams that were sometimes about worms crawling underneath my fingernails.
It was like a weird torture but it was also fun, you know? When you hit the point where your body fails to discern reality then whatever your fevered imagination comes up with your brain just rolls with it. Your consciousness kinda becomes a used car salesman in a local TV commercial.
"NO IDEAS REJECTED! YOU BRING IT DOWN AND WE WILL ACCEPT WHATEVER YOU TELL US IS REAL! NEW, OLD, CRAZY, STUPID, or SUPPRESSED?! WE ARE TAKING ANY AND ALL THOUGHTS DOWN HERE AT ANDY'S BRAIN! If you reach over and touch the person you're sleeping next to and it seems like they're a giant snake with a clown's face, three eyeballs, and an afro made out broccoli and double-refried beans then grab a flaming baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire because we will treat that as GENUINE FACT! OUR STANDARDS ARE SO LOW YOU'LL WANNA TRY TO DRY HUMP YOUR WAY TO A NOBLE PEACE PRIZE!"
So that's what that night was like.
Then I wake up and there's two mysterious bloody spots on my feet.
"Oh, I'm probably a werewolf now."
That next day I sit in the sun for four hours, go on a two hour run and by the time dinner comes around I'm in full-on zombie mode with a thousand-yard stare, not blinking clutching a towel to my face and thinking, it's either all real or none of it's real. it's either all real or none of it is real. it's either all real or none of it is real but it doesn't really matter either way because I could burst into moths and fly to the clouds if I said the magic words.
But it was fun. It was genuine, exhausting, relaxing, overwhelming, numbing fun. THE ONLY KIND WORTH HAVING!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)