Another essay. This one's better. I promise.

THE PREFACE:
This was originally written on July 14, 2010. It was the summer following my Freshman year of college. Massive changes had occurred and I was kinda freakin' out, but in a really calm manner (FACT: I like to contradict myself). I think the only person who knew me well over the whole span of this little adventure was Treyson, who is alluded to in the essay. I'm not positive he noticed the change as thoroughly as I did, but who cares. Read it and enjoy it.

THE STORY



On Life Views and Social Concerns

I have never fully understood how a person can change so drastically over a relatively short amount of time. Physical features and personal interests aside, when morals, religious and political views, and social habits mutate into something totally different it is an important and life-altering event. A simple example is a sheltered, well behaved child going off to the real world and “exploding out of the slut closet,” so to speak. I, as many others, have experienced comparable change (on several occasions).

While I was in middle school, I was a shy, awkward, nerdy guy. I had a couple friends who I hung out with on occasion, but mostly I sat at home and did nothing. I did not really care what people thought of me, save for my crush, at whom I awkwardly glanced every so often. (I know they say not to care what other people think of you, but let us be honest; it matters.) That lack of social concern would explain why I only had a couple friends. I had my morals, which were tied closely to my Catholic religion, and I stuck by them fairly well. I stayed this way for several years, losing only a few morals with a chance of being more social.

Right when my morals dropped enough for me to hang out with fast women and watch people smoke pot at the age of sixteen (I thought that was rock bottom at the time), I was invited to a youth group after Sunday Mass. I am not sure if I am easily persuaded or if I was just incapable of thinking for myself, but that one youth group was enough for me to change completely by my next birthday. I joined the group and learned more about what Catholicism taught. Realizing everything I was doing wrong, I began to alter my life toward supreme righteousness.

I became an extreme Catholic, confessing my sins monthly, never swearing, etc., which inadvertently lead to me realizing none of my classmates at my Catholic school acted remotely Christian. I became “that guy,” the one who is a bit too eccentric and forceful about beliefs. Even more of an outcast, I luckily and somehow kept some friends friends from school(plus the ones from youth group, naturally).

My newfound understanding that almost all “Catholics” actually suck at practicing the religion was the first blow to my until then ever-growing faith. The effect was compounded by own personal amoral decisions, and ultimately by a good friend confessing he was in a relationship with another man (which, as I recall, I followed up with a fist bump). I felt strange getting used to this at first -- not knowing how to act or what to think. It was a total shelter-shock. But no matter what, I refused to believe this guy would be damned for loving someone that just happened to also have a penis.

I was halfway through my senior year of high school at this time, and I stopped considering myself a Catholic. I re-solidified a friendship from my childhood, a friendship I hold dear to this day. I became a little more social, cared a bit more about what other people thought about me, and coasted spiritually. At this point, my outlook on life was something like “I hope I can make more friends” and “I hope I figure out my life.”

I graduated, spent my summer with my girlfriend and the guys from the youth group (though they were unaware of my religious fallout), and then came college. Several members of my graduating high school class attended the University of St. Thomas with me, but because I was never very close to any of them I regressed to extreme shyness. I eventually became close with my co-graduates and they introduced me to alcohol and good times, including but not limited to streaking and my drunken habit of learning everyone’s name at the party. Unfortunately, the friendships hardly extended past that point, except for the roommate of two fellow high school graduates, who was pretty damn cool.

The year went by and I learned a lot about myself and what I wanted to do. I discovered my limits when my grades dropped and I went back home, somewhat downtrodden, to work my third summer at the local pool. My thoughts at this juncture were “Alright, it is time for change. Look out, Obama, there is a new man in town.”

The beginning of my summer vacation began with a fairly amicable split between my girlfriend-of-essentially-three-years and me. I am unaware if my ensuing personality change was due to not being in a relationship and the freedom therein, or if it was an inevitable transition that the universe deemed necessary. Within weeks I had become noticeably different, being significantly more social, more eccentric, and more of an ass, but in a nice I’m-just-kidding sort of way. This is how I currently am.

My overall confidence and generally appealing demeanor are, I assume, direct results of my new outlook on life, which essentially amounts to “Fuck it. I will do exactly as I damn well please.”

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This is not a thoroughly detailed account of the change. I could mention an ass-ton more events or inner-thinkings that led to the changes, but those are for my close friends.

Per usual, you are required to comment, subscribe, and vote (polling is at the bottom of the page).

Bonus Post: Poetry

Seeing as I enjoy English so much (not the people -- they're cool too but that's irrelephant), it's natural that I've taken some courses in the subject. Among the assignments involved therein included poetry. Because I almost feel guilty about not updating more often I'm going to upload a select few that others and I think are good. What follows will not have much for humor, but that's fine. You can deal with it. As usual, comments are encouraged -- more so this time.

I ask that you do your best to enjoy yourself.

1. THERE'S NO TIME

Inspired by the album "Zombie EP" by The Devil Wears Prada

Running - 

I’ve been running for days.

Searching for an escape from the

Hell this world has become.

They call them

The godless.

Each of them spreads

The curse

To humans - the living ones

That are terrified, depressed, enraged,

Or some combination of the three.

I am made of anger.

I feel no remorse

As I pull the trigger that

Tears their fragile brains

Into nothing.

They call them

The godless.

Truth is,

We all are.

2. NATURAL WORLD

I step out of my lovely home

Into the natural world, where the rain falls slowly, calmly,

Like leaves caught in the wind.

The purple grass licks playfully at the

White tree trunk

That extends gracefully upward

Into its canopy of scarlet, jade, and sapphire.

The one-legged owl of small stature

Squats, satisfied, surveying surroundings,

Situations, absorbed with silly sights.

The schnauzeberry bush glows gently

In the soft azure sunrise.

My neighbors, the

Unicorns,

Dance softly on their lofted porch

To the “Greatest Hits of Silence,”

Absorbed in each others’ clopping hooves.

The street is lined with monochromatic tulips,

Whose color occasionally and suddenly turns negative.

The plump, flowing, crowned, pollen spreaders ride

Majestically on the royal interactive vector field.

The world is as it should be.

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Now, I know that some if not most of you are the kind of people who are all "that doesn't rhyme so it's clearly not poetry." Fuck you guys. As with several parts of life, I take the liberal side. I have written poems that rhyme, and they tend to be more bland than anything (probably because I'm bad at it, but that's not the point). I prefer to focus on line and stanza breaks. I've found that playing with these aspects of poetry is much more rewarding than finding words that sound similar to other words. I write, not rap.

Now bring on the comments. And I want constructive criticism, not destructive cynicism (LOLOL pun from previous paragraph).

Alright, let's make me famous.

I Was "Busy"

So I fell behind on some blog posts. We've been over this -- I have no schedule. I also haven't had much ambition since school let out, which means you don't get anything new, but another essay post that was originally written in my senior year of high school. It's about beards. I like beards. I want a beard. I only have scruff. I am disappoint.

Please, enjoy.




A YOUNG ADULT'S DESIRE


I distinctly remember being in the fourth grade when we were forced to watch those terrible sexual education videos while bits of nervous laughter and confused looks scattered themselves in the audience. Back then I almost dreaded the days when that would happen to my friends and even me.

Several years later, we watched those same videos, but the process had already begun, and I had my worries, as did my friends, about how I would turn out. Specifically, I was concerned about my height, looks, voice, and facial hair. As I approach the end of this stage of my life, I look back and see that each of those is starting to reach a satisfying end, with the exception of facial hair. My blatant lack of that which is “beard” is becoming the greatest disappointment in all my puberty.

In Phillip Lopate’s essay “On Shaving a Beard,” he mentioned a “tribe of bearded men [with] patriarchal firmness . . .” (369). In my early high school years, I had yearned to be involved, and even more so to be a leader. As Lopate suggested, beards bring with them a certain impression of wisdom, or even power. He continued by saying, “[Those with beards] strike me as good providers. They resemble trees (their beards are nests) or tree cutters. In any case, mentally I place them in the forest, with flannel shirt and axe” (369). This connection that has been made to lumberjacks makes owning a beard even more alluring, as lumberjacks are known to be brave and strong as the trees they cut.

Later in Lopate’s essay, he reflects on when he first decided to grow his beard and compares it to joining a “fraternity,” claiming “to collect the equivalent of approving winks from other beardies, fellow conspirators in the League of Hirsutes” (369). Comedian Dane Cook once said that every man wants to be a part of a heist. I believe the truth in that statement exists because of the empowering sense of being up to something. If growing a beard constitutes being a “conspirator,” count me in.

I’ve known people who have had beards, as well as other forms of facial hair. In restaurants I have seen men with long white mustaches that reach beyond their faces. I’ve had friends, both older and younger than I, who have nurtured their own beards, be it a shaggy goatee or a thick, full-on beard, to near perfection. After reading Phillip Lopate’s essay I was inspired to search for fancy beards on the Internet, and was pleasantly surprised with my findings. Though such actions peak my jealousy, I have been compelled to go up to every man with a nice-looking beard and shake his hand. Or if this is not possible, I will at least give him an excited thumbs-up.

I know I am not yet finished with my journey toward total manhood, but my relatively hairless face is not showing enough promise of future growth to fill my beardly desires. My only hope at this point is to shave more than is necessary, and rub my cheeks for ten minutes each day so as to increase the blood flow to the area. My desperation for facial hair is endless, as is my love for majestic beards.

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Okay, that was a bit of a let down. I promise to have a real update before the end of the month.

Don't forget to comment, subscribe, vote in the poll (bottom of the page), call me, share with your friends, start a revolution, save the world. . .

Attack of the Throat

College is awesome, apart from the whole going to class and doing homework thing. Luckily, I managed to find a way to skip three consecutive weeks of class, turn in no homework, and suffer major consequences in only one of my four classes. The way I discovered is called "contracting tonsilitis and Strep type C."

THE BEGINNING

It all started the week I got back from spring break. I felt a scratchiness in my throat, but I just figured it was from too much hookah or something like that. Not too long after, the scratchiness transformed into a stinging pain. Being away from home, I went to my makeshift mothers' room and complained. While Mario Party was rubbing my head and putting up with my incessant complaints, Nurse Chicken Noodle went to get a thermometer. After discovering that I had a fever of 101.3, I was happy to discover I didn't have to go to class. I still felt as though there was a tampon stuck in my throat (Jake and Amir Reference). While I was lying on their love sack, I distinctly remember telling an absolutely hilarious joke that I can't remember any more. Now that I think about it, I probably just yelled (which was painful) to get their attention and then farted really loudly, and then laughed for a good minute or so.

Anyway, I went to the Health Center the next morning. They tested for Strep (only type A), Mono, and probably HIV. They could clearly see that my tonsils were swollen, so they put me on some antibiotic that was a distant cousin of Penicillin. My mother and my brother are both allergic to Penicillin. My parents came up to get me and I spent the next few days at home.

NOT FUNNY

Not even 24 hours after I started the medication, I developed a pain between my chest and my lungs. Again, I ignored it for a while, assuming it was caused from how I was lying on my bed for the whole day. WRONG. Allergic reaction. I had to complain to my mom at one in the morning because it started to feel as if Hannibal Lecter had tried to get at my heart and gave up halfway through (probably because I don't have one). A trip to Wal-Mart and two Bennies later, I fell asleep, got a new prescription, and got back to the cities in time for the weekend. I felt well enough, so I drank. Don't act like you're surprised; we all know I have no sense of responsibility. Anyway, Monday came, I went to classes, and everything was fine, just like December 6, 1941.

DARK NIGHT

Tuesday was a good day. It was sunny, beautiful, and warm (it was probably in the mid-forties, but it's Minnesota after winter; mid-forties is t-shirt weather). I was about to go to class when I discovered that someone was offering free burgers, so I got those instead. It was around this time that I noticed it felt awkward to swallow. I ignored it because I'm a man, and I insist on toughing it out until it gets scary. We ate the burgers, had a beer, enjoyed the day, and called it a night. Then four A.M. came around.

I woke up because swallowing felt like forcing a handful of thumb tacks down my throat, and, surprise! I had run out of pain killers. I had to suffer through half-sleep until eight so I could get more drugs.

Apart from the intense pain of swallowing, I didn't feel THAT bad, which is why I was mildly surprised when the doctor told me I had a fever of 102.6. They took another throat culture, gave me some Tylenol, some steroids to reduce swelling, a new prescription for an antibiotic (number three), as well as a prescription for Vicodin. As happy as I was to hear Vicodin, I eventually found out that it just gives me a mild headache -- No hallucinations, no dizziness, and I can't even be sure it killed the pain. The fun part about this trip to the doctor was that I had the privilege of utilizing an IV for the first time in my life. Unfortunately, the nurse that tried first had to dig around two separate times for a minute each. I don't know if any of you have had needles stabbing around underneath your skin, but it feels kinda like this:

Ok, it wasn't that painful, but it's definitely not comfortable. Once the IV was in and working, I had some saltine-steroid sandwiches and some Gatorade. Finally, I was starting to feel better and I could return to class and catch up on whatever I missed. But not before finding out that it was Strep type C, which apparently makes normal strep look laughable and asinine.

LOLOLOLOLOL NOT!

Remember how this all started right after spring break? Yeah, well, now it's Easter. I get home after feeling healthy for about five days. My parents take me to our church's Good Friday service (I'm unsure if it's a service or a Mass, but that's just a technicality so who gives a damn (pun)). My throat is hurting again, and I'm about to launch into a fuckin frenzy because of how absolutely absurd this illness is getting. Luckily, we caught it before it tore my throat asunder, and today marks the day I finished my fourth and (hopefully) final prescription for this infection that clings on harder than most women.

Fun Idea: Next time a loved one angers you, call them a filthy insipid little prude/wench/harlot/simpleton/etc. It will show your superiority and make them love you more.


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Pincess Dye Has Been Bitching, So Here's a New Post

He made me write that title, by the way.

Anyway, it's been a day or two or four since the last time I posted, so I'm giving the people what they want. Unfortunately for you, I'm busy, or something, and "haven't had the time" to write a new post. In lieu of that, I'm going to give all you sexies a paper I wrote my senior year of high school for a PSEO class. There were certain requirements for it that might make it less entertaining than it could have been, but fuck you and quit complaining. Make fun of whatever you want.



THE OSTENTATIOUS LIVES OF CHILDREN



Even in the early years of life, I had known I was different from my siblings, if only minutely. I was preceded in life by Archer, my older brother, and Toons, my older sister. Archer was five years older than me, and made his superiority known. I, on the other hand, made my inferiority known, specifically to my mother, with the intentions of safeguarding myself and ensnaring my brother in my mother’s vicious grasp. I used my weakness as a defense, and it worked astoundingly well, until my parents left the house. My sister, at these times, would often entreat that we play nice, and do something less aggressive, which inadvertently led to Archer stripping the Ken doll and performing the most hilarious dance routines a six-year-old had seen. Such was a typical day of my childhood.

More than my parents on most days, my siblings are the main part of my upbringing, at least through my early teen years. We all, as siblings, agree that our time together was priceless. While our visits are fewer and farther between, we still maintain our familiar friendship, which includes the sporadic outbursts of fights that really aren’t worth fighting.

My sister, being the only girl, naturally felt left out. She would try her ploys, such as implementing a “points system” to see which one of us could get on her better side, which lasted several months and consisted of a chalk board and a lengthening set of tally marks, one side for my brother, and one for me. I, being the younger and more apt to acquiesce to such schemes, felt it mandatory to compete.
When I asked my sister what she thought was the hardest part of having me as a sibling, she responded, “The hardest part of having you as a sibling was probably because you were male and I was outnumbered in that aspect, or because you were the youngest and you got fucking everything. That and you didn’t have to do shit.” She continued her comment, saying, “There’s been quite a few times when I’m pissed off at you, but looking back there’s been a lot of good times. There were no times I was like, ‘You fucking whore.’”

In our time together, we have developed a frighteningly stunning array of memories together. I have been told several times from each of them about the time my brother pulled my diaper while I was climbing stairs, only to have it empty like “an ice cream bucket” down the stairs. My brother, when told during a telephone interview that anything he said could be published, responded, “So, I shouldn’t say anything about the time we recorded our farts?” Of course, he should have, because that period of our lives, including my sister’s, is one of the earliest memories I have of our bonding. This can give the reader some insight into why, perhaps, I am the way I am.

My brother and I, being male, were inherently different from my sister, and therefore had a different relationship. In his essay, “The Disposable Rocket,” John Updike comments on the differences between the males and females of the race:

Any accounting of male-female differences must include the male’s superior recklessness, a drive not, I think, toward death, as the darker feminist cosmogonies would have it, but to test the limits, to see what the traffic will bear – a kind of mechanic’s curiosity. The number of men who do lasting damage to their young bodies is striking; war and car accidents aside, secondary-school sports, with the approval of parents and the encouragement of brutish coaches, take a fearful toll of skulls and knees. (641)

His words resound deep within me, knowing that between my brother, my father, and me we fit the bill entirely. Whether it was fighting with plastic bats, fists and feet, or in a video game, Archer and I were much more violent than Toons. So much so that our parents removed the game “007 Golden Eye” from our possession and gave a calmer game, “1080 Snowboarding,” to my sister instead.

My brother and I had a somewhat typical siblinghood between us. When I asked him recently what it was like growing up with me, he paused before saying, “Imagine the worst headache that you’ve ever had, every day, three times a day. That’s what it was like growing up with you.” He has also mentioned that my sister threw up on my uncle around the time I was being born, and how this action was a bad omen for my entrance into their lives. Wisecracks aside, Archer was grateful to have a brother in the family who was more wiling to roughhouse than Toons was. “I forced you to roughhouse,” my brother admitted, knowing that his influence had a lot to do with my nature as a child. As might be expected, this plan backfired when I would want to roughhouse when he did not. His comments on this particular attribute of mine are that “you were definitely a biter and a clawer

As the topic of rivalries come up with siblinghood, I must mention the rivalries we had. Being the youngest, weakest, and dullest minded, I felt a bit inconsequential compared to my bright, popular siblings. In Arielle Greenberg’s poem, “Boxcar,” her first stanza reads a bit like an argument between siblings: “You’ve got that shiny boxcar/painted Rage-on-Wheels in fire letters on the side/& you’ve been driving for years/& you zip through town on just your own/heidy-ho and I’ll tear you down.” This fits better yet because of the large plastic truck we would fight over for control to drive. Sibling rivalries are nothing to be joked about, because they often end in tears; unfortunately, those tears typically belonged to the youngest of the group.

However, with growing up often comes growing apart. Not to say that we loved each other less; being apart may have helped to love each other more. But as more time passed, the less we were together, and my brother had gone off to college all too soon, especially for me. He had gradually spent less and less time at home, so the change was easy on the family for the most part. We still missed him, but had become accustomed to his absence. When he came home for visits, he and I would promptly resume our fighting and joking.

The same sort of thing happened when Toons had left for college, with a progressive move away from the home toward more opportunities. More recently, my sister and I have grown closer, through several opportunities we were given to bond. For example, the time she made me her “sober cab,” that is to say, “designated driver.” I gained many new insights into my sister’s life after that night, and I wouldn’t trade the experience for much of anything.

Even now I know that there were some things that could not be helped, what with me feeling such an outcast. And according to the patterns of birth order, I was very correct. Based on the article “Birth Order,” the third and youngest child, which is me, tends to want his duties done for him, and also feels that he “[m]ay not be taken seriously.” This was certainly a perfect fit in my case, as in my childhood, I felt I wasn’t getting nearly the attention I deserved, which was far more than anyone needed.

I know I’m lucky to have the friendships I have with Archer and Toons, and I am ever grateful, most of the time. We always manage to make each other laugh, whether through reminiscing or something new we come up with. During his interview, my brother said of our relationship, “Thanks for taking it all in stride. And I say that because I made you put up with a lot of shit throughout the years.” I accepted this because of the truth within, though I know I had returned the favor with my own pranks, like putting old food coloring in his drink to make it taste bad. My siblings and I are inseparable, insofar as we stay on the others’ good side.

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