See, What Had Happened Was...

Dumb things get said quite often. You don't really have to pay attention to notice it, either. You'll hear idiocracy when it's nearby. I hope.

If you don't, I have some bad news for you. Or maybe I don't. I'm told dumb people lead way happier lives, and feel more fulfilled and keep reading this here if you really want to feel better about the idea that you might be an idiot and there's some sort of silver lining. Because, fuck it. Dumb people deserve good news too, right? You're not really still reading this paragraph, are you? I’m not calling you dumb. But I also cannot confirm that you aren’t dumb, as I have no idea beforehand who is going to read these entries. You’re probably not dumb, but you also might be. You really could just skip to the next paragraph and not worry so much about whether or not I’m going to try to qualify your level of intellect. This is going to keep going on for two more sentences. You really shouldn't feel obligated to ready every word of this unless... well, you could also be obsessive-compulsive as well. Regardless, let's move on.

And look, it’s not like smart people can’t be dumb at things too, or say dumb things that they later have to live down, or just momentary lapses. At times, there are signs that something near you is about to be a huge waste of time, resources, manpower, money, effort, opportunity, hell, signs that it's just going to be a waste. Perhaps it's what's going on, and you've taken part before and you know that nothing significant will get accomplished, like a procrastinator's convention, or a session of Congress in the U.S. House of Representatives. Maybe you know things will be pointless because of who is involved, people that have wasted your time before. Maybe you’ll be in a worthless and time consuming place, like the DMV. Or Toledo. I don't know. But after your time on this earth is severely waster a few times, you may start to look for signposts that something utterly fruitless is going to occur soon.

There's one phrase that many have identified as a direct correlation with a thought that will probably underwhelm everyone that hear it. And I'll share it with you, so that you know for sure the next time you hear someone actually use it, or use it to refer to something nearby that failed this test of using what was probably basic logic. The phrase is, quite simply,

"See, what had happened was..."

Listen for that exact setup to any discussion, and my guess is you are not going to find a well-planned sequence of events that were set in motion. The phrase, as far as I can tell, was first introduced officially in an episode of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, but there's absolutely no way that it hadn't ever been uttered before that moment. Something about this phrase is timeless, almost as timeless as people trying to explain things that are without explanation.

I should know. I was in a situation without explanation once. At least not a good one.

Well, see, that's not true. Technically, every situation has an explanation. It may not be something anyone wants to hear, and it may just prompt more questions to be asked,  but there is always an explanation for how we got to where we are.

For example...

A few weeks ago, I left work later than I should have and got stuck in a flood situation about 5 miles from my house.

You see, what had happened was about a week prior, I got a flat tire coming home from the gym. It was in the morning, I had forgotten something at home and drove most of the way back to our apartment when I started hearing and feeling the car struggle to make turns or maintain a straight line. And I turned the radio down and, yep, tire's flat. So I get home, and we got the spare tire on the car that can't go faster than 58 miles per hour. So I can drive the car but very gradually and can't get it replaced until the following weekend.

Well, it would turn out that between the flat tire and the next weekend, our part of town would receive about 13-16 inches of rain within a 6 hour period, and would present a real problem. And it’s not like it’s never flooded here in Madison before, but granted I had never been directly involved in it and , frankly, I thought other people were just full of shit. I thought a foot or a foot and a half of rain would not be that big of a deal. So despite being warned by my lovely wife, Tara, who is always right about this kind of thing, I didn’t try to leave work as soon as possible at 5:00 on the evening that this rain started coming down. Now, in my defense, the rain had been coming down for a while prior to this time, so the events that I’m about to describe to you may have occurred the exact same. Not sure. All I know is that trying to finish some work and leaving around 6:15 did me absolutely no favors.

I hop in my low sitting Sedan on 3.5 wheels and note, quite calmly, that there is quite a lot of water around. Falling from the sky, in the parking lot that I am about to leave, pretty much everywhere. But there’s not a reason to panic. The car starts, more or less with the same normal rate of difficulty, and I start on the back road journey that I normally do. And again, there’s a noticeable increase of water from what I normally see on rainy days, but I’m chugging along, through what appears to be a constant quarter mile of a puddle. And there’s not a whole lot of other cars on the road, so it isn’t a big deal that I can’t actually see where the lanes begin and end, and the street lights don’t really seem to be working anywhere over in this area as I’m driving through, but hey, again, nothing to worry about.

Now, I get to Greenway Station, a shopping center area on my way home with a few restaurants, some bars, a bunch of shopping outlets, and a few hotels. I will swing back to why this is important in just a second. I try to continue through the back roads on my way home, as my wife suggested. And it was the roads right after Greenway Station that I began to have problems. As in, there were no roads to make it through to continue my journey. The first way I went had a Jeep parked in the middle of the road. And by parked, I mean, the hazard lights were on, the drivers side doors and passenger doors were open, and the road underneath was not visible because of the apparent river that formed there. So yeah, that wasn't going to work.

I hen turned around and tried to get back to the highway to get around that area, and found this also was not much of an option, because other cars were turning around that, again, had way better chances of getting through the water than I ever would. So I turned back from turning around and tried to get through another way, and this is the photo I took of the most feasible way to get across the area I was now trapped in:

To be fair, I have this photo because I actually stopped and watched an SUV make it through this. I decided to watch in case they began to be swept away by the current, not that I was going to know exactly what to do, but I felt better about it when I saw them pull out on the far shore. So with that, I turn around and head back to Greenway Station, and sit down at the bar area to attempt to wait out the storm for a bit. An hour or two pass, and the forecast reveal that there is not real end in sight to the rainfall that evening, it was not going to quit until at least the following morning. So I try one more time to get out, by backtracking to the way that I came in the first time to this shopping area, and that is more flooded than anything else I've seen.

It began to sink in that I may be trapped here, actually trapped away from home for an undetermined amount of time. I called Tara again to explain the current status of the situation, and she said she would reach out to one of the hotels and try to get me a room, since I would need somewhere to go as a fail safe. I reluctantly agreed, although very annoyed that under normal weather circumstances, I could walk home from here if I really needed to. I'm not naive enough to think that walking through a downpour and flooding currents would tilt the odds in my favor, though, and so I agreed to have dinner at the bar and chill out rather than try to venture out again. At this point, the cable service in the bar keeps going out, so there's nothing to watch on TV. The internet is spotty so completing my homework assignment out of boredom is also off the table.

About an hour later, Tara confirmed that the hotel had a room for me. I decided to close my tab and head over there so that I could at least try to relax for the next few hours, get a good nights sleep, and then see if I can confirm what's going on at work the next day. And I get to the car and realize that is has not stopped raining since I had last left the car. This is important because now the very parking lot that I am sitting in is no longer a given for me to leave, since I am so low to the ground in this death trap on 3+ wheels. The puddles turned into a mass lake in the parking spaces outside of Home Goods and Guitar Center, so I had to navigate my way around to get to the parts of the lot that my car would not need to float through. I circle around the next bank of shops and come to an apartment complex up on this little hill, the only area around that I am sure won’t be under water in the next hour, and I park in an open space for the night.

Only because I’m pretty sure how to get to the hotel from my current location, I grab my computer bag and start hustling through the rain to get to the hotel from my current spot. It’s no more than a quarter mile, right around the corner from where I am. But as i start running down a slight grassy hill, the power goes out. Like, every-fucking-where around me. Street lights, neon signs from the nearby stores, everything. Goes black at the same time. And I’m jogging when this happens so naturally, I trip and fall down this hill as I’m running, so I slide all over in the damp grass and mud, that’s cool, definitely needed that. When I get back to my feet, I’m fairly sure I know which direction I was running before, but there’s a bit of doubt, honestly. I get back to the sidewalk, and make my way around the same corner I was going towards, and I can see that the sidewalk ends and I will need to walk the last few hundred yards to the hotel (the right one, at least) in fairly high water. Which, at this point, is a small price to pay. Hurrying through the water, I make it to the front of the hotel through the mini-moat that has formed, and I’m a bit surprised to find several people out sin front of the hotel, smoking and shooting the shit with each other. Then I remember that the power is out, and the flood lights in front of the hotel are almost certainly emergency lights, so this is one of few places that have light at the moment. Moving inside, I come to a short line at the front desk. Who doesn’t have power. So how the hell do they know if they have reservations or not? I’m concerned that I wont have a room after all and will have to go back to my car. And believe it or not, I’m not in a great mood at this point of the evening, and that would not be welcome news.

Well, good news is that they had printed out the reservations about an hour prior, so they had my name on the list. Sadly, the guy in front of me did not call ahead. So he did not have a room set up, and it took way too long to get that part sorted out. Because he was so sure that the power was going to come back on while he was sitting at the counter. And it didn’t. So he gave up his credit card number and took two full bottles of wine from the bar area. So the lady at the counter was happy to see my name and give me a keycard for the room I had reserved.

You might be thinking, it’s an electronic card, how does the door work? I asked as much, and the front desk lady confirmed that the rooms all had battery operated readers. So I was fine there. But couldn’t see shit in the room when I first got in. But i was drenched, so I basically just stepped down and used the towels to dry back up. No TV, no internet, my phone is on 11%, can’t charge anything, so I just laid in bed, at what was around 1 AM. To make matters more annoying, the windows didn’t have any of the thicker sheets that blocked out light from the outside. Or it did, and I couldn’t find it there in the bedroom with me. Whichever you want to believe actually took place. But the parking lot across the way just happened to have someone sitting in a truck with their high beams on. Pointed right at my god damn window. After all of this, with nowhere to go and nothing to do but try to go to sleep, and someone’s high beams are pointed in my dam window. As you can imagine, I just buried my head in my pillows, curled up, and stuck it out for the next three hours until the power came back on.

See, I’m lying. About 20 minutes into it, I jumped out of bed and started trying to flag this dude down to turn off his bright ass lights. And I still had my clothes damp in the closet trying to dry them, so I am completely naked, using a hotel blanket to try to cover myself as I still try to get attention but not too much attention so I can tell, through interpretive dance, that I no longer want the spotlight pointed at my window. It was one of the few times in my life that I wished that myself and a large percentage of the population knew sign language. But even then, they would need binoculars to see my signs correctly, so honestly, it would not have mattered. Long story short, it ended, the power came back on at about 4 and the dude with the high beams left. I got a good 3 hours nights worth of sleep and came downstairs for the obligatory continental breakfast. Drove home in still a shitload of traffic, had to find a place to get gas on the way. Found several spots where cars had been abandoned but the after had subsided, so it just looked like a third world country. Yeah, it was that kind of morning. And then work was closed for all of that next day and most of the following morning. Fun times.

So yeah, that’s my story there, which doesn’t have a particularly great progression, but has the point that I already made. Dudes, just listen to your wife. For better or for worse. Just do what she says, or be prepared for the substantial consequences you’ll face. And then have to listen to how you should have just listened. That’s almost as annoying the story itself, is having to tell it back and knowing how dumb it sounds to tell any story that starts the with, “See, what had happened was...”

IHOP

I hope

I hope on paper

And write these thoughts through  hell and sweat and vapor

So I can sleep well and read it out loud later

I hope

I hope that I make it a minute to rest for a sec

So I can reclaim breath and keep anger in check

And later be pleased that my mind is a wreck

But that wreck is a beautiful mess to respect

Whenever it’s left to reflect

I hope

I hope on the keyboard in sight

That worldly frustrations can make the mutations

And patience can lead to delight

And as the apple of one eye, even if

It’s as a crabapple, I can still be worth the bite

Though I will not take it as a slight, if I’m not the leader

And I’m not the chosen one, I don’t just have to be right

But I can be what’s left as the option, and left

To defend and be stern and calm and

Unnecessarily polite

I hope

I hope that they’ll say I was tough

I hope that they’ll say I was up to the hype and

I hope they’ll say I was enough

I hope I’m enough of the grace under pressure

I hope that I’m built for the rough

I just hope

I hope on paper

When words cannot whisper what’s needed

And those sweetest thoughts I could let escape out

Are not worth it to be repeated

It’s not what I get every time that I seek it

Which is why I hope I don’t actually need it

I hope

I hope that I’m blessed with more strength than the stressin’

Can teach me the best of my preconceived lessons

And test me to not ask the epic of questions:

What am I actually hoping for here?

I hope

I hope I never have to hear that

Which I truly know I don’t truly revere

I hope the truth finds me as I become near

It all becomes mine and it all becomes clear

For maybe it’s your words that were burning my ear

And not rising flames to my sides and the rear

That advance me as wickedness quickly appears

I hope

I hope I’m prepared, that I’ve rose to the tier

Where I can just grin, and I can just sneer

And call in a favor to get to the clear

And labor enough to deserve all the cheer

And savor the flavor of tables of beer

I hope I combat through the fear

On the road that unfolds as I steer

I hope

Honesty, Brutal Honesty

One time, I was at summer camp. And I was in line getting food from the warmed trays that the kitchen staff was refilling. And One of the staff, this shorter black lady with that trademark spunky attitude that black women are known for, she was going on about what some cop had said to her as I was passing by, and she said something to the effect of, "I told him, 'You better arrest me right now, before I go 'head and arrest YOU and YOUR punk ass!" and the rest of the kitchen staff was cracking up. And I was curious, so I decided to ask what that meant, so I said, in so many words, "Arresting the cops? What the hell are you talking about?" And not in a flippant or disbelieving way, but trying to understand better. And this woman turns to me, and scoffs, and says, in words I will never be able to quite shake off, "Don't you worry about it, lil' BOYYYYY!" and she makes this really demeaning face when she says it, so I just kind of take a step back, incredulous that anyone has labeled me like this. I even retorted back at her, "Little boy? Me?" I wish I had had more to say back than just that, but I got at least that much out of my face. She just shook her head and kept laughing, carrying on with the rest of the kitchen like I already wasn't there. One of the other guys back there, a young scraggly looking white dude with a bunch of tattoos and a beard, just shook his head and chuckled at me. "Bertha's not to be trifled with, little dude!" It was a turning point.

I finished getting my food, paid for it at the counter, and walked over to the table with the other counselors that I was working the camp with. And I couldn't stop looking at the shirt I was wearing, with yellow and green stripes. And one of the other counselors asked me what was wrong, and I looked at her and asked, "Be honest. Do I dress like a kid in middle school?" She gave me a wide eyed, surprised look and stumbled through a response that didn't answer my question. That's how I found out I needed to update my wardrobe the first time in college. And It wasn't the fellow counselor that I was friends with, whose opinion I actually valued, that made the difference. It was little ass Bertha in the kitchen, calling me a little boy with her snap judgement evaluation of who I was based on (I have to assume) the clothes I was wearing.

And okay, maybe it was the glasses and how my hair would have looked, and maybe even just the way I carried myself. But the point is, she looked at me and saw a boy. And it made me realize that I kind of did, too. And that was what I needed to hear at that moment.

Now, a quick note: I could have told this story differently. I could have just left it as:

I was a summer camp counselor once. It was a lot of fun and it taught me a lot about myself. Particularly that I needed to update my wardrobe.

That's what I could have said. But that would not have been owning up to what the moment really was for me. I've had many moments of embarrassment and self-deprecation throughout my life, many of which I continue to share in this exact forum. And I've learned something from most of them. But each and every one of them, for one reason or another, I have had to own up to, because these are some of the most honest moments a person can know. You see, it's easy to own a proud moment, that you want to brag about and show off to the world. Anyone can take their best side and polish it up, and crop out the love handles and adjust the lighting to the best side of them, and show that off. But it ain't real.

Few people will show the uncut, raw, silly, unkempt, slovenly, crude, obnoxious, or sheer unappealing side of themselves. Nobody wants to be a villain, or a schmuck, or just whatever they truly are in their core if their core isn't pure gold. They always want to present a representative. They want to show the ambassador side of themselves because that's the side that people feel the most comfortable sharing. No one wants to share the posts they made that sound slightly homophobic, racist, or chauvinistic. It's about seeming like an enlightened, majestic aristocrat with a sense of humbleness and humor. No one wants to present the side of their relationship where they look like a villain that has their spouse on a tight leash or they don't value the opinions of their coworkers and customers at work or they park like a douchebag every morning at their favorite coffee shop because they're the only one in a hurry whose time matters. People want to be seen as confident, secure, and the epitome of loveliness, for all of us to envy.

Not only that, but I know a lot of people get brave over the internet through all of it's anonymity and would never say half of the shit in person. It's easy to talk shit about someone's music when you see the video on youtube, but then you still want the autograph and the selfie in person if they come to the same mall as you. I have no issue with being brutally honest unless you don't have the balls to bring that same honesty in person. And it's not just an internet thing. Say what you were willing to say behind your least favorite coworkers back to her face too. When that snarky barista asks what you said after you make a backhanded comment about her service, tell her and fill out a negative comment card, just make sure you have your coffee in hand and you don't plan on coming back for a couple of weeks until this blows over. That cop that wrote you a ticket that you know you didn't earn? Don't say a god damn thing, you don't need this ass whooping. He isn't wearing a bodycam and there's no traffic to witness this, just be polite, take the ticket and get the hell out of here, what are you, crazy? Being honest is not worth it every single time. Keep your comments and your mouth full of teeth where they are.

In case you missed it, that was more honesty at the end of that paragraph, just to honestly convey that it's not actually always worth it to be honest. But sometimes, being honest and owning up to exactly where you are and what is happening actually makes sense. Sometimes, honesty is the one reason that things come back to a sensible station instead of spiraling into something really stupid and unnecessarily painful.

It was Halloween of my freshman year of college.

I won't go into details, but Halloween in Madison, WI is kind of a big deal.

Just saying, people know about it. Except I didn't really know about it until I was here for it.

I first figured out that there was something abnormal going on the morning of the friday of that weekend when a large group of students ran into my Calculus lecture and put on a performance that can only be described as, "what it looks like in Pac Mans world when he gets a power up." As in, there was a pac man costume, there were ghosts, there was once of the power up balls, and they actually simulated pac man hitting the power up and chasing the now white colored ghost out of the lecture hall. Best part about it was that the professor, this little Asian lady, tried to teach over top of this 'performance' and the pac man music that they brought in with them.

I'm not saying that happens to everyone's calculus class, but it definitely happened on my watch.

That's not the moment of honesty I'm talking about.

That moment came later on in the night. It came after a party that was spirited and boisterous and loud and all the things you expect from a typical Friday night on most college campuses, and that would have been fun enough. The notable thing is that after this party, a number of guys at the party decided to dress up in different costumes and begin running around campus like insane people. Now, you may ask, what were the costumes that these young men changed into? And my response is, they all had on man thongs, bright colored sunglasses, and gigantic afros. And basically not much else. Yep, you read those words right.

Now, it's important to note that the party I was at was for track and field team members, which I was a part of. The guys in afros were mostly short-and-middle distance runners, all of whom had just finished a long and grueling training season and were now preparing for the end of the semester before competition in a few months. They all had running shoes on as well, in case that isn't clear, and they are all familiar with this tradition that has been passed down for several years throughout our team around this time of year. But again, I knew none of this was going to occur.

Also keep in mind that this was right around the time that social media was becoming a huge thing, but not everyone had camera phones that could accurately depict what people looked like when they were moving fast enough.

Anyway, suffice to say, I was drunk at the time and thought this was both insane and hilarious. I might have been more disgusted if not for the fact of how hilarious this shit looked in person while intoxicated for the sixth time ever or so (I didn't drink in high school prior to this, so being drunk in itself was new and insanely entertaining despite the fact that I had no idea what I was doing on a nightly basis). So when these wigged marauders started jogging and chanting "Hoo-rah!" towards the campus and capitol building, of course I tagged along. I felt I had to see where this went. And it was a ton of fun, running along such ridiculousness and being connected to it but still not technically being a participant in case things went downhill fast. Which it really could have too. But it was fine on that Friday. I even jettisoned my shirt and jacket in a strategic spot that I knew I could probably retrieve it from along the way, and ran along with the group shirtless, adding to the chanting and running. It was way more fun than it probably sounds like, I totally get that.

But there was one moment that would have otherwise marred my entire weekend. Or semester, for that matter. And this is where the honesty comes in. And I understand the irony of talking about honesty on a night like Halloween. It's a day marked by dressing up and pretending to be something other than what you are. It's basically the third least honest day of the year, behind Valentine's Day and New Years Eve. Halloween takes lying and makes it fun for all ages. It's cosplay for amateurs, and it's festive and there's a dark scary history for some and, yeah, whatever, the day is about lying. And so I will do my best to tell the truth about exactly how this moment happened.

We had run all the way down State Street and were on the front lawn of the Capitol building, and were essentially catching our breath. And I realized, in the midst of how much fun I was having, that I had to piss terribly. I had been holding it in and all of the sudden it was a very serious need all at once. So I looked around for a likely restaurant or something that I could use, only to remember that we were surrounded by bars and restaurants that would all be absolutely packed full, and I couldn't get into the bars because I was 18 at the time, so I was very much screwed. I thought I was going to just piss myself right there on Capitol Square, and just blame it on the absurdity of the night and claim someone spilled a nasty drink on me or something. But then, to the left, I saw an upperclassman that I respected enough to not mention his name here, relieving himself in a nearby bush, with seemingly no consequences. So I shuffled over, not widening my stance too much, and proceeded to do likewise.

The instant I begin my stream of relief, he finishes and scurries away, clearly not proud of what he had just done from his gestures alone. I turn and watch, curious why he felt the need to flee the scene like that, and then I see it as I turn back around to mind the target I'm painting. The corner of my eye catches the lights on top of a bicycle riding on the ledge right above where I am let the river run. It's an older looking guy with unnecessarily tight shorts on for an October night, and a helmet and gloves on, and he has a toothpick in his mouth. And he shakes his head and calls out to me, "Come on up here once you finish, son."

I turn, and look at the guys I came into this situation with are standing there, trying not to look but obviously watching the situation unfold. A few are laughing openly, others are trying to keep it together in case I get taken into custody. In their position, I'm not sure which role I would fulfill. But I digress.

I was going to run at first. Partially because I had no money to afford a ticket, I was barely able to pay for all of my books and tuition and food as it was, so this would be much more than just embarrassing, this would be expensive, at least to me. Not to mention, I had yet to establish if police in this town were friendly or antagonistic, since I had not lived here long and generally assumed that police in the midwest were not fond of black dudes. So I was planning on running, after I finished peeing. But lucky for me, I had to pee a whole lot. Like floodgates, it just kept coming out, and I realized, standing there, trying to rush out the pee so I could flee the scene, how much I must have drank to pee like that. And I had an honest moment with myself:

Oh shit, I'm drunk. Like actually drunk. Running from the police is not going to be a good way to improve my situation. They will not be cool with that.

I also figured that with all of these mostly naked dudes in afros having accompanied me, one of them was sure to spill the beans on who we were and therefore it was possible that even if I somehow got away, I could later be tracked down and cited for resisting arrest (which was a long shot to even be a problem but I really thought I could get away in my mental state at the time, so again, pretty good thing that I didn't run). Last, but not least, I remembered a bit from Chris Rock, a favorite stand-up comedian of mine, whose advice was, put simply, "If the police have to chase you, they're bringing an ass-kicking with them." And I did not want to provide reason for anything like that.

So I resolved to face whatever music awaited me. I finished peeing and climbed up onto the ledge above, and hopped the mini fence area to where the officer stood next to his bike. Yeah, I forgot to mention, he had a bike. So I never would have gotten away regardless.

"Okay, let me see some ID." I hand over my drivers license. He takes a half glance and seems to get actually mad.

"Now tell me you didn't come all the way from Texas for a god damn Halloween party!"

And here was where more honesty came into play: I actually was a student here, and had not come to Madison, WI for Halloween alone. It took some convincing to get him to believe me, though. I didn't have my student ID. But for some reason, I did have my athletic ID that let me get into training facilities. So after a minute or so of going back and forth on where I had come from to party, I found this in my wallet and showed it to him. And the conversation completely changed.

"Oh, you're...heh heh you're a track guy, huh? Good thing you didn't try to get away from me though, huh?!" The guy started cracking jokes and completely opened up to me about chasing people on his bike or training for a half marathon. I did my best to keep it together during the conversation, but I was flabbergasted that not running had turned out to be the right decision. Two other cops came up to us and joined in on the conversation, and struck a similar, friendly and understanding tone. I learned that while my decision was not a particularly good one, it was not even close to the dumbest thing that they had seen that evening. They were telling stories about some dude that tried to scale a building in a Spongebob Squarepants outfit, and had actually hooked himself on a window sill and had to be rescued. They kind of forgot I was there for a bit.

But at one point, the first guy turned back to me, and I had my final, sobering, honest moment of the story. I looked him in his eye and said:

Sir, I have no idea what came over me. But I don't have a good excuse for what I was doing. And if you have to write me a ticket for it, I understand.

Because I did. There was no defense for peeing in the bushes of the capitol building of the state. This could be seen as a fairly direct way of pissing on the state of Wisconsin. This, or what the Dallas Cowboys did to the Packers several times throughout the 1990's, as I was reminded of many times right after becoming a Packers fan a few years ago.

The three cops all nodded at me, and the guy handed me back my license. "You seem like a good kid, just don't do it again, and try to have fun that's not gonna get you in trouble." And I kind of was taken aback a bit, but I wasn't gonna sit and ask if they were sure or anything. I just started thanking him, and I reached out and shook his hand.

And then we both remembered at the same time that I had just taken a piss and had yet to wash my hands. So he was a bit disgusted by that and, yeah, kind of a weird moment in time there. I asked if he'd prefer a hug, and he said he would not. So I thanked him again and ran before he actually did change his mind. The other guys I was with all thought it was lucky that I got off with a warning at the time, but I got some shit for it the rest of that year, which is a pretty small price to pay considering I might have had to explain my way out of police custody if I had decided to try to flee.

All I'm saying is, you're going to need that brutal honesty now and again, when other forces are telling you that you've already studied enough, or that fight with your spouse wasn't your fault at all, or that you definitely aren't too drunk to outrun the bike cops.

Until next time.

Life is Plan B

Are you who you thought you would be when you were younger?

Of course you aren't. I mean, who the hell would have come up with YOU?

Or me, for that matter. I certainly didn't.

I'll tell you more about it another time, but I really didn't think I'd even be alive this long. I know that's weird to hear, but you gotta understand I was a really weird kid. I didn't pay attention to most things going on around me, and to tell you the truth, it was a lot of fun not paying attention and then having to try to snap back into the moment afterwards. You probably think the goofy, silly, unfocused, wayward, and abstract people that you know can't help being who they are. I'm sure most of us can't, but the great majority of us also don't really want to help it. Or we do. I have only met a fraction of the other abnormal people that walk the earth. And I must say, one thing we don't do well is let others know what to expect from us.

To let others know what to expect from us, we would have to know for sure what we were capable of, and that's just not realistic. You don't usually see what your future holds as well as those around you, usually that have been down the path you are starting down or that have been around you long enough to observe something you couldn't have seen for yourself. As many realizations that we have in our own heads, that are complex and are built with all of this insight into our own experiences that no one else could possibly know, some of the most clear and crystallizing moments in our lives are made up by other people introducing concepts to us that we never imagined we'd hear, that in tun shift fundamental ideas in our own minds for years to come. The most mundane piece of advice, that another lives their entire life on and doesn't even consider worth taking seriously, well that may be the missing piece to the puzzle of unlocking the true potential of you have always been searching for in your entire existence. You never know what thoughts will end up blowing your mind, or another person's mind, or starting a thought train that takes you way stage left and brings you to a realization that you can't believe no one ever told you before.

Realest piece of advice I ever got was on a plane that had touched down in New York City. The plane got into La Guardia airport sometime around 10 in the morning, and I was barely paying attention as the passengers started trying to get off the plane and the person in the seat behind me asked if I'd been to NYC before. And I hadn't, so i said I hadn't. And she asked why I was there. And I told her I was there to visit Columbia University and that I might end up running track there, which was also true. I don't know why I keep affirming to you that I didn't lie to this stranger on the airplane, but the point is, she said that was great and that I should enjoy the trip, even if I decide I don't like the school or the city is a bit too much for me.

And for some reason, that surprised me a bit. I had been looking away, out the window trying to see what I could of the city, barely even really talking to her. But the last bit, about not liking the city or the school, it made me turn and ask, "You don't think I'll like it here?"

And she shrugged and said, "No, it's not that so much. It's not for everyone, but that's not really what I mean."

Now my interest was piqued. "Well, then what do you mean?"

And she just shook her head and said, "Life is Plan B. You have absolutely no idea where this is all going to take us. Just enjoy the ride." And she smiled and pulled her bag down from the overhead bin, and there she went.

And it's not like I didn't enjoy my visit. The city itself was massive and chaotic, but fun and inviting all at the same time. And Columbia University had a beautiful campus, and it was a great school and an amazing opportunity and I was so blessed to even be in the running for admission there. And yet...

I didn't really want to go there. I mean, would it have been really cool? Probably. Would it have changed my life in ways I would not ever fully realize? Almost certainly. Was it going to be way too expensive? Yup. This place was also going to cost me an arm and a leg, and if I was going to run track, those were going to come in handy. Plus, I wasn't sure about the coaching staff, because they didn't really have a coach for my events, just one main coach for all of the mens events and a few others that basically walked around praising whatever advice he gave out. The coach was a former olympian, so it's not like he didn't know training in general, but watching the little bit of the practicing that I did, there wasn't a lot going on that I was going to learn from. I was going to be, at least for the time being, largely on my own. Which may not have been such a bad thing all the time, because I definitely liked doing things my way and still had an idea of some of the things I could do to improve, but I also knew that I benefit from being pushed, and working by yourself doesn't usually have that built in.

There were other factors, too. It was going to be too expensive in retrospect, and I knew it already without wanting to admit it. Also, I was going to be cramped into this little corner of Spanish Harlem far from home where I would need to learn a lot of things in big city living that I don't think would have sunk in as quickly as they would probably need to for me to not get robbed or get a severe ass kicking or both or worse. So just other stuff for why I didn't end up trying to go there. I told the coach I was not interested, even though I thanked him for the opportunity to see the school and the training facilities, and that was that. And I ended up attending Wisconsin, and ran track for them, and blah blah, other stuff that was amazing and a great time yada yada National Championship and Big Ten Triple crown, I know, you don't really care and it's not the focal point of the story.

But this is. I had this friend that I met freshman year that played another sport, who we'll call Cynthia. Cynthia was a hardworking, goofy, enjoyable, successful woman, and I don't think she ever once believed that anything she did was good enough. She was always pushing for the next thing on her list or trying to find points to improve on everything she did. I noticed this more than a few times with her while we were both undergrads, and then after we graduated, I lost track of her for a while. But I ran into her randomly on campus a few years ago, on a summer weekend with my fiancé and her parents on campus. I had to run to the car to pick up, of all things, my wife’s purse. And on the way back, I run into Cynthia, and we chat for a bit, and it was nice seeing her and all but I could tell right away she was still frazzled, like always. And I asked her what was up. She said, in a nutshell:

I’m in the middle of moving my life from here (Wisconsin) back to my home (California) and I don’t know how long I’ll be there or what I’ll be doing when I get there, or if I’m going to grad school or law school, and I’m basically freaking out and not knowing what I’m doing. So I have about 3 days left to figure out my life.

This is closer to accurate than you probably think. Anyway, I tell her my story on the airplane and the whole “Life is plan B” gist and I think it helped. And I admitted to her that she didn’t actually have to  listen to anything I had to say. I mean, what the hell did i know? I was holding a purse like a football because I thought it was somehow less awkward that way. But I just said to her, "You're gonna be fine. No, you're gonna be great. You are great. So stop worrying about how you're going to do it all and just figure out what you want to go do first. I mean, shit, you've got this one random life, just go do it all, right?" I'm fair certain that was my ending advice to her, which wouldn't be advice for everyone, because not everyone is going to go off and do it all. But she might, I really believe that she could and she probably wants to. I hope Cynthia is doing well.

Anyway, she may also be on a completely different path than where she was when I last saw and spoke with her, and that's cool too. But I believe you're better off finding out for sure what your plan B is than insisting that that your personal plan A has to, HAS TO come to fruition. You don't have to go do it all, you don't have to settle for plan B, but you do have to... well, I guess you don't have to do anything. You could just sit here, reading this blog over and over again, and no one could necessarily stop you, if that's the path you really want to adhere to. But hopefully, you expect more from yourself than that, and others around you do, too. And something like that will build you to do more than just accept whatever is on the path for you, but to go and choose the path you want, even if it means preparing for a backup and a backup to that and so forth. After all, life is plan Q sometimes too.

Talk at ya later.

The DSW DJ

My sister and I were talking a while ago about something that occurs to me today: persistence. We were talking about it because she wants to be an actress, and is trying to pursue this on a few fronts in a crowded and talent-packed place like New York City. And we were talking about actors that had to struggle for a long time, and work shit jobs and almost give up and then break through. And you know who came up? Peter Dinklage.

Who some of you may only know as Tyrion Lannister, while others only know that he's the midget (or little person, my bad) in Game of Thrones. And people know the movies he's shown up in and the success he's had now, but probably don't know that he had to struggle and work a data processing job for years, and then decide if he was going to quit the job to pursue acting seriously the whole time and be broke until it pulled through. But he did it. And he's one of the easier actors in Hollywood to recognize, both from his talent, his distinct roles, and his diminutive stature.

My point in bringing it up to my sister was just that it could have been someone else that broke through in his first big role in "The Station Agent" or who appeared in "Elf", "Find Me Guilty", "Death At A Funeral", another "Death At A Funeral" or a bunch of other roles. There were like 30 other little people that didn't get the parts, and had to keep struggling. Everything the dude had to do to get by allowed him to progress, but we've never even heard about all these others that could have had it worse or been more talented, all of whom probably hate Dinklage's guts for taking all the good little jobs.

Here's a link to the video project my sister recently posted, if you're interested.

My point is just that you have to take advantage of whatever opportunity you have, and basically not worry one bit how it looks while you're going through the process of getting where you want to get to. It's not something anyone wants to hear, especially while you're going through the rough, ugly part of this particular process. But going through ugliness or unpleasantness, or even randomness, tends to bring us to opportunities we didn't plan on hoping for, and that can lead us to discover things about ourselves that we may not have realized otherwise.

It can, of course, also break us and ruin the opportunities we thought we would have, and leave us clawing through the remaining opportunities. And when that happens, we have to push through with whatever we have left to work with. And that is easier said than done basically every time. It is tough to stay positive before, during, and after the fall, except to acknowledge that what you're dealing with 1. probably won't kill you, 2. hasn't killed you yet, or 3. didn't actually kill you even though maybe it still will slowly without you realizing it. And I know this might not sound overly positive, even though I kind of do mean it in a positive way.

Okay, let's try to explain this a different way.

A while back, I got dragged to shopping at the Designer Shoe Warehouse with my wife, who was at the time my fiancee. I'm fairly sure it was in 2016, the year before we were to be married, and I was all about doing things for her and spending time with her but still very much not a fan of shoe shopping. Come to think of it, I've been in the stage of hating shoe shopping since before I met her. I think I was born there, and I have no plans of leaving anytime soon. But there I was, on a football Sunday afternoon, stalking my fantasy teams while wandering up and down the wide aisles, aimlessly and apathetically while Tara was in her zone trying to find options to match several of her outfits and all this other stuff I really couldn't bring myself to focus on.

I remember being a bit mad at myself for allowing her to bring me out of the house at this particular time, regardless of how much I love her. I remember quite specifically that the Packers were playing, and it was a good game, whoever they were playing, and here I was, trying to give as little pushback to whatever my wife-to-be said so we could get out of there and back before at least the 4th quarter. I also remember being mad at others in the store with me, both male and female, that were wearing Packers gear. I mean, what kind of shit is that? You'll go out and buy the Clinton-Dix jersey and then not sit and watch the only game of the week that the guy wearing that shirt appears in? What kind of lame poser punk-ass mother-...see, I need to stop for a second, it's still fresh in my mind. Gotta just bring it back calm and remind myself that this is how much I must love my wife, to be discussing the colors of heels and cross trainers on any given Sunday.

There was another reason this day stuck out to me. Don't ask me why, but there was a DJ working at the shoe store on a Sunday afternoon. No crowd dancing, no hype man, no one singing or rapping or playing alone. Just a dude with two turntables set up about 20 feet in front of the entrance, with a little mini light show going along with his beats. Probably the lamest possible setup for a performance of any kind (I understand if you want to debate that DJing is ACTUALLY a performance, but that's not the point here). I mean, the light show was a sign that this guy might have had promise, a sad reminder of how out of place this set up was, and completely useless with the overhead lights all at once. Encouraging, dismaying, and curious all in one fell swoop.

Here's the thing, I was half paying attention to what he was spinning, and I must say, this dude was actually setting up a good vibe, all things considered. I found myself nodding back and forth to some of the tunes, even mouthing out some of the words, which meant I knew lyrics to whatever he was putting down. So regardless of not really enjoying shoe shopping, not wanting to miss watching a football game and not wanting to be a punk to my future wife, for several moments I found something to enjoy at the Designer Shoe Warehouse on this chilly afternoon.

At one point, he played the Cha-cha slide, and I lost some respect for him. But that means I had respect for him to be lost. He was DJing at the god damn DSW during the Packers game, and he still made his way up the ranks in my book. And it reinforced a valuable lesson for me: You better make the most of every opportunity that comes your way. I had to tip my hat to him as we walked out, because not everyone can take a job like that seriously and still thrive. Because he could have showed up drunk, or messed up on mollies and been just a shitshow. He could have panned to his demographic and played overly emotional pop songs to further emphasize feminine vibes where it was clearly already the main focus of everyone in the building. Hell, he could have played stuff just to mess with everyone there, like orchestral opera or Himalayan monk chanting, or playing popular records backwards and pretending it sounded normal. But he didn't. He earned that check and grooved his ass off and damnit if I didn't get a bit inspired from it.

My point in all of this is that this DJ almost certainly had other shit he'd rather be doing. I really hope so, anyway. The DJ that turns down other gigs to play records at a shoe store on a Sunday afternoon, he's not thinking too far down the road, is he? But the dude, he showed up, and did what he does, and he converted a skeptical bystander, me, which means he can probably do this kind of thing in a better environment. And don't get me wrong, this guy may have gone home that night and smoked a ton of meth because this was his last night of sanity before a breaking bad moment. But maybe, years later, he will look back at that same afternoon as one of the reasons he grinded through a relatively less successful part of his career like a god damn champ.

And truth be told, I'm now a bit let down when I get dragged shoe shopping and there's not a DJ now. Payless needs to step their damn game up.

Bubye now.

In a Sentimental Mood

"What is our life? It's looking forwards or looking back. That's it."

Al Pacino said that in one of my favorite movies. Glengarry Glen Ross. Which is based on a play, come to think of it. So it's not like I should credit Pacino for saying what they told him to say. I should credit David Mamet, the guy that wrote the book that became a movie worthy of Pacino, Jack Lemon, Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris, Kevin Spa- never mind who else was in the movie, okay? Al Pacino said this line, and it's always stuck with me. Especially anytime that I get sentimental.

Hi, by the way.

I was looking back through pictures this afternoon, because I have all of this homework that needs to get done before Superbowl Sunday, and naturally I can't really concentrate on anything I'm trying to get done for tomorrow. I've been watching action movies at close to full volume, I've been reading up and watching tutorials on ethical hacking, I even brushed up on my Italian lessons on Rosetta stone. Nothing seemed to help me get focused. and because I can't get focused, I know myself well enough to know that I pretty much have to let my mind wander on whatever odyssey it wants to pursue before I get everything out and can focus again. And so here we are.

Also, we had some Apple Wine left. So I've been drinking what equates to spiked apple juice. So there's that.

Still, the thought of looking forward and looking back has always appealed to me. I'm definitely someone who lives a lot of their life within memories and fantasies. Re-envisioning the past and the future, well, it happens quite often for me. And it's not such a bad thing to do, so long as you can still go through the present without being overly influenced by what happened or what my happened. And maybe that's a problem of mine. I don't really know. We never really know our biggest weaknesses while we are experiencing them, no matter how self-aware we are. No one ever comes up with a flash card and says, "Oh, I'm sorry, the answer we were looking for is, "Constant fear of disappointing one's mother. You lose everything you wagered from the second round."

And not that I fear that, but it doesn't change the fact that I always wonder how I'll look back and remember these exact moment. Will I see them fondly, or will I lament that I wasn't doing something more productive, something specific? Will I recall this evening and say, "Guhh! Why the hell wasn't I studying Mandarin? That would have put me so much farther ahead with my clients right now!"? Or, will I regret not trying to write more of my book about the events of Webster St. in Madison, WI between August 2011 and August 2014, when so much random and entertaining shit went down and only a select few know the full story and perhaps only those individuals would really care to hear it all?

Maybe others would, maybe not. I'm sentimental for that kind of shit.

Your own story is always so much more interesting to you than others. That's just how it goes. Your memories, your intentions, your actions, even the stuff you didn't do, it's way more important and interesting to you than to anyone else who wasn't there. It is what it is, I'm sorry if that doesn't sound right. It's damn near impossible to appreciate what's going on while it's going on.

For example, I ask you, what is the funniest thing you've ever seen in person? Like, the thing that made you laugh the hardest that you've ever laughed? I'll bet it's not something that can just be simply explained. It can't be explained for me quite so easily.

I saw the funniest thing I've ever seen at my high school graduation practice. At that event, I have never laughed harder, in my entire life. I came close to passing out because I couldn't breath on account of laughing to hard. And here's the story.

There was an individual. We'll call him Joe. Or rather, Joe-Joe. Sure, why not? Joe-Joe, or JJ for our purposes, was not one of my favorite classmates. I distinctly didn't like this guy. He tried way too hard to act like he was an awesome guy, and an awesome athlete, and a smart and high achieving student, and he was none of these things. And if he had just owned who and what he was, he would have been fine, because not everyone is a high achiever, or a stud runner and football player, or a huge ladies man. But when you're not one of those things and you won't stop talking about how much you are, well, people get tired of it and they start to take notice. Given enough time, they start calling you out about it, leaving you with two options:

1. Own up.

2. Show up.

Guess which of the two JJ tried to do on this story?

We were at the practice session for our graduation, where all we did was simulate how we would walk down the aisles for our graduation ceremony in about 2 weeks time. There was so little going on, so after the obligatory ten minutes of instruction, on a week day of our senior high school year when grades had already been locked in place, all any of us had to do was stay quiet and  not embarrass ourselves.

Enter our 'friend', JJ. Because I'm playing a bit fast and loose with the term 'friend' here.

It wasn't just me at this point that was fed up with this little bastard. I'm sorry, the guy would not SHUT THE HELL UP. He had no game, he was a goofy looking dude with nothing to brag about, and he kept trying to tell my friend, whose name is John so we'll call him Johnny for this story, he kept telling Johnny that he could hit on any girl at graduation and get them to give him their phone number. And if you can believe it, this was worth our time back in 2005, when phone numbers were still a big deal and you had to try to get the ability to contact a member of the opposite sex. So JJ goes on and on about his non-existent game, and finally, Johnny puts him on the spot and says something like, "Okay, JJ, you can get anyone, then go get someone's number right now! Stop talking about it and just do it! Stop flapping your gums and fucking do it!"

Now, I don't think Johnny actually meant to provoke a reaction with what he said. I think he just wanted JJ to slink away in embarrassment. And, in retrospect, that would have been the better move. But alas, JJ, looked around, confused, and then started off toward a particularly large group of young women who were playing cards.

I have to pause and contain my laughter because of how much joy I got out of seeing him shuffle off in this direction while I watched. Because, wow. Just wow. You talk about watching the numerous Crusades that left Europe that didn't take back the Holy lands like they thought they would, or the people that took off in planes trying to cross the Pacific ocean that just never came back, or the poor bastards that start trying to chug a gallon of beer at a bar when they've been drinking too much all night as it is, that's the feeling I got when JJ shuffled off to try to get a phone number from one of this group of adolescent females, most of which knew him and had no such interest, but others whom didn't even know he had gone to school with them. It was like the band playing as the Titanic started sinking, I both couldn't turn away and  had to work to contain my laughter on his walk over alone.

Now you're probably thinking, okay, he'll go over to someone specific, and try to strike up a conversation, or even drop a pickup line than will at least start something specific. Nope. JJ walked over, sat behind the girl he wanted to say hello to, and didn't say anything. You've got all these girls in a circle and some chairs lined up behind them from the practice about 3 feet away from who we'll call Jenny for this, and that's where he chose to position himself. He just sat down silently and watched a group of fifteen girls continue to play cards. But it was painfully obvious that he had walked over and sat behind Jenny specifically. And gradually, each girl in the circle playing cards looks over and wonders, what the hell is that about?, and then goes back to the game. And this lasts for a good ten minutes, without JJ saying a word. And it should be paralyzing, and kind of sad and almost endearing. And I'm telling you that I hate this bastard enough to have laughed harder and harder through ever minute of it, where when it ended, and he finally just got up and walked away because the entire circle was just staring at him, and he waved casually and then just got up and strolled away like a god damn racewalker, I spent an hour trying to recover from how hard I was laughing. It was that serious. I was worried I wouldn't be able to stop. 

And I get that it doesn't mean anything to most of you reading this, but this moment will be forever cemented in my mind as one of the funniest things I've ever seen, hands down. Not just a matter of 'you had to be there', which I've mentioned in a previous blog post. This is a matter of,  you had to be there, and know the people involved, and even then, you might not think it was so funny unless you were me. Some things are only funny, looking back, as yourself, remembering the shoes that you were wearing (figuratively). Never forget that your own perspective will always shift certain things to where only you understand why the thought you had was exactly appropriate. Don't feel weird about looking back every now and then, or looking forward to the specific thing that you can't wait to see different. Enjoy feeling something that no one else could possibly feel in the moment.

That's more than enough. Bye now.