Looking Backward for Security

Thoughts on Young Love

I am but three months away from the commencement of my twenty-fifth year. The quarter-century mark is not only a milestone in the sense that we admit that we've lived over 25% of our lives, but also a milestone in new beginnings as a new season of life sweeps over and carries us forward. In short, people just change and no one is an exception.

Some of these changes are sad ones, like the realization that Santa won't be coming to see you, that your labor is not guaranteed or likely to be your own, and that unlimited slices of pizza are a thing of the past. Others are fun, like taking responsibility, freedom of travel, and intellectual maturity. Most of them, I've found, are just incidental and merely interesting to note. Puppy love is one of those things. Below I've listed ten thoughts on young love as it was (past-tense) in my experience. Perhaps you have some thoughts of your own.

1) A girlfriend's arch nemesis is a video game.

2) Your first true love is like a can of Altoids. Intense and so refreshing that you think nothing can stop it. Then, very suddenly you find yourself with an empty tin and a sheet of tissue paper that vividly describes the now-missing product. Eventually you put quarters and dimes in the tin to make it somehow useful and carry on as usual.

3) No matter how much you think you can make it work, you probably just can't make it work. Trying to fall in love with someone at 19 is like trying to fit a square peg into a triangle hole. The more you try the more beat-up both get. Wait for the triangle peg. Wherever the heck it is...

4) Remember that first kiss? That was nice. Unless, of course, it was just awkward. Often this is the case.

5) Getting to know new girls is fun (and for a while it is super fun). Eventually, getting to know one even more than any of the rest seems like a better idea.

6) Girls from north-eastern NC are trouble. Ok, maybe that's just my experience. (I'm mostly kidding).

7) Girls giggle a lot. This is incredibly attractive to 19 year old men. It is intolerable to most 21 year old men. I'm not sure what triggers the change.

8) Our sense of smell has the strongest power to conjure memory recall. If you don't want to remember a girl, avoid taking note of her perfume.

9) "I love you," in youth, is as easy to say as "I like mustard better than mayonnaise" or "Bunnies have fuzzy ears."

10) A song that has meaning to two young smittin' folks get's 1/4 of it's meaning from the lyrics and 3/4 from something that really, in hindsight, wasn't that profound.

Power-assist Arm

Oh, Dear Blog,

One day I looked in the mirror and thought, "you're kind of a skinny little sucker, you should work out." That was over seven weeks ago and happily, I have been working out regularly ever since. Funny thing is, I'm still a skinny sucker. Some people are just not ever intended to be big and muscular, I don't think. Then there are people like me that just never lift heavy things -- but when they do they get places.
"A sure-fire solution," I thought, "is to just start lifting some heavy things." In light of this I started lifting heavy things even when I'm not working out.

This is all well and good until you realize that lifting heavy things out of context really has a capacity to make you look indefensibly crazy. There is no good excuse for someone walking in to find you holding a chair over your head in one arm or repeatedly lifting a guitar amp in the corner. You just don't say anything. Then you brush your teeth and go to bed.

The Evergreen State

North Carolina glazed over like a honeybun yesterday. No, not with delicious insect by-product, just with regular old winter weather. On my way to work at 7AM I experienced "PT Cruiser on Ice, the Spectacular." There is nothing like skidding down a hill in Raleigh, avoiding other wrecked cars to get your senses buzzing early on. Also I fell on the ice and hurt my hip. All of this has led me swiftly to the conclusion that I am "over" winter. Spring is officially on notice to hurry up and get here.

10 Ways To Annoy People

(these are observations, not a personal playbook)

1) Engage their hazard lights periodically while riding in their car.
2) When dining out, pick your plate up and sniff it loudly and for an uncomfortably long time in front of the wait staff.
3) Paper clip three of four corners on every document you handle.
4) Try to finish every sentence that they say as they're saying it. If you don't know what they're going to say just mumble made up words and repeat them. Smile and nod while doing so.
5) Do push-ups, crunches, or jumping jacks in the elevator. If anyone comments simply state that you're committed to a healthy lifestyle.
6) While engaged in conversation, stare at the other person's eyebrows.
7) Talk with a foreign accent for longer than 3 minutes.
8) Make up a person that the two of you supposedly know. Constantly reference that person even after they confess no knowledge of him/her.
9) In any setting that is not a rural farm, chew on a long piece of straw.
10) Unlock your door, enter the vehicle, and shut your door before unlocking any of the others.

Cashew Joy

This is one of those days where I just start typing and see what happens, so watch out. It's kind of like how I talk. I have several options for what I could say, but the first one that comes out is usually the one that is most clearly a poor choice in hindsight. At least in writing I can go back and erase the awkwardness that doesn't serve my purpose.

In small talk at work it's the worst. I am one of those poor misguided saps that has an internal dialogue going on in my head at all times. It's like an announcer at a hotdog eating contest, only my life is about 90% less interesting than a hotdog eating contest. So I'm giving the play-by-play on scratching my nose and what shade of blue on jeans says "Hey, I'm a fun guy, look how blue these jeans are" when someone comes up and says,

"Sloan, hows it going?"

Suddenly torn from my wonderland, I respond with:

"There's a good one today!"

This is accompanied always with a big cheesy smile and direct eye contact. Someone told me once that smiling and making eye contact helps make up for always saying stupid things. I think they are wrong. I think it just makes people look at me like I'm an immigrant or something -- theres a flush of confusion followed immediately by this little hint of sympathy.

"Oh, he's adjusting to a new culture."

On the worst of these occasions there was a guy named Jon that I kind of knew through friends of friends, you know, we had talked before. A couple of guys went with me to Walmart and walking down the isle and I spot this guy from 15 feet away. Dead collision course, we both see each other, but I am not at all prepared to greet him.

"Hey, what's up?" Jon asks.

"COOL!" I loudly respond.

I catch that look of complete loss as we pass and I don't look back. We make it another 10 steps in silence before one of the guys next to me finally says, "Did you just say, 'cool' to that guy?"

Yes. Yes I did.

A 2D Life in a 3D World.

Remember the 90s? I do, kind of. I remember when Star Wars was re-realeased in theaters and my uncle insisted the whole family go. Then there was the time my family went to Washington DC and I saw Men in Black at a mall theater. At some point there was a failed attempt at cub scouts and church league basketball but those are memories too deeply repressed to bring to light now. Happily, scattered amongst the Goosebumps books and doodles of monsters on my homework, there was a very pleasant childhood to be had there.

Now, thinking back on it, I am confronted with the fact that there were 24-year-olds in 1995. Somewhere on this floating pea-shaped celestial mass there was a 24 year old man doing, you know, 1995 things. Maybe he was listening to Gangsta's Paradise, or Boombastic, or (secretly) Kiss From a Rose. Maybe he was having his first taste of a life with bills and real responsibilities, just like my present-day self. I wonder if he was as excited about the Nintendo 64 as I was. Who knows?

All I do know is that 1995 was not that long ago and now that 24-year-old is 39. I don't know who or where he is but sometimes, when it gets very quiet, I can hear his sighing. It is a heavy sigh, but not one weighted with remorse or regret or a longing for what had and what could have been; it is weighted simply with age and experience. A noble sigh passing through the home of a common man. He puts his arms behind his head, leans back into his favorite chair and as he does, from somewhere else in the house he hears the stirring of his family. The corner of his mouth turns up involuntarily. His birthday is next week -- he'll be 40. How quick and beautiful is the pace he's been made to keep in getting here. 

I Knew a Charmander Once...

Thinking deep thoughts is fun sometimes*, and sometimes it's fun to just enjoy a day of, you know, not thinking. On this day,  I toured a local business, ate delicious chicken, played video games and watched half of the new Star Trek movie. You know what else? I enjoyed the heck out of it.

Tomorrow is all work and very little play so soon enough the universe will balance itself out again.

As a final brain tease I leave you with a question: What period in U.S. History was the most "American?"
I know my answer, but will save the rant for later.

*Concession: the depth of my thought is still kiddy pool at best.