Hypnoostrich

Powerllama

Sometimes I think we all tend to live in the moment a bit more than we should. I caught myself doing this today. After reading it all over the place in the news this week, I've learned that al Qaeda is planning a 'Terror Spectacular' for us. I've learned that they've managed to build up their strength to pre-9/11 levels, and we're now at an elevated level of alert for terrorist attacks. I've learned that no matter who's in charge, Iraq is still going to have to get much worse before it starts getting better. I've learned that terrorism is ineffective, but nobody realizes this; not the US government, not the terrorists, and not the countless innocent civilians who will be the most likely victims should another attack occur. And after thinking about this, weighing in the fact that I have to board a plane tomorrow afternoon - Friday the 13th - and fly into JFK International Airport to spend the better part of a week in New York City, I'm slightly uneasy -- but not for obvious reasons.

See, we've all been operating in the "if, not when" mindset. IF we get attacked again, how and where will it happen? IF we get attacked again, how will we react, and what will that accomplish? Well, unfortunately, in the modern world in which we live, terrorism is a fact of life. It's going to happen again, somewhere. Am I likely to die tomorrow? Not really. I'll wait in some ridiculously long lines I'm sure, and maybe I'll get strip searched, but I'm most likely going to wake up Saturday morning in NYC. Still, there is going to come a day just as horrific as September 11, 2001. And nobody knows how that's going to play out, but it doesn't matter. Having only lived through one such tragedy as an adult with the cognitive ability to fully understand such a complicated web of circumstances and reactions, it almost seems like a blip on the radar. Regretfully, it's not, and though I probably won't ever be a victim of such an attack, we live in a time where everyone can be a bystander, lined up as close to the action as they would like to be.

And so I guess this is the day I truly realized the inevitability of massive tragedy for the first time.

Lightningswan

I don't know if it's laziness. Maybe it's just a lack of discipline. Maybe I'm just too tired, or maybe I'm just working too hard. One way or the other, though, I'm falling so behind on everything at home. Normally the fallback excuse is something along the lines of "I'm too busy to do that now." Unfortunately, I've had the last three (3!) nights off and I haven't done anything but play video games, watch half a season of Scrubs, and generally waste time. Sometimes this sort of thing makes me (honestly) wonder if there's something wrong with me.

Hyperadder

I think now is a good time to continue with the same thought I was ruminating on in the last post. I don't really care that much about dating, really. I came to a conclusion just now that I have less balance in my life now than I ever have, even though I've been pretty insistent (mostly to myself) that I do. All I want right now is more of everything; more music to play, more money to spend, more people around, more time to enjoy everything, and so on. There's a part of me that wonders why, considering the fact that as it is I'm feeling like there's less time than ever to make everything happen. How would I fit any more in? I guess that brings me to the next point, and it's really the last thought I have for the night: What is it that I am doing, and why is it making me so frustrated and so unsatisfied?

"I guess I have a lot of pondering to do."
-Derek Zoolander, ca 2001 / Me, ca 2007

Seamule

Since the last post was originally started, about two weeks ago, I've gone to the first of the Good Male Friend Weddings of 2007. Dave's will be the second. And another bachelor party yesterday for Jason, whose will be the third, completing the trifecta. These weddings are having a profoundly negative effect on my checking account balance. Anyway, that's not really the point of tonight's post. Tonight's post is about something completely different.

Pleased To Meet You

Since tonight was such a perfect night, I decided I'd take a walk outside. It was a good idea. I drove into Uptown Minneapolis, parked the car, and started moving north up Hennepin Avenue. Having gone most of the day without eating, I decided a quick casual dinner was probably in order, so I ended up at Chipotle and grabbed a burrito, which I sat outside to eat. While I was sitting there, a couple of girls came and sat down at a table about 20 feet from mine, and I noticed that the one facing me was a particularly striking young lady, and that sent my mind spinning on a tangent.

I've noticed that I can go Uptown (or just about anywhere else) just about any night of the week and I'll probably see at least one attractive woman who is probably the very type of girl I'd date. Unfortunately, I've also noticed that over the last couple of years, I've actually met fewer and fewer of these women, and that's probably starting to taint the way I look at things. It seems that now when I see someone who looks really nice, I find myself wanting her to come up to me and start a conversation. Like that's ever going to happen. And I also find myself wanting her to be the one perfect person who keeps me from ever getting preoccupied about this sort of thing again, something that would be a lot less likely if things worked out. Unfortunately, I'll never be more aggressive about dating or talking to strangers and I don't want to lower my standards either, but I'm not likely to meet that type of woman at a bar while I'm out playing, so that doesn't leave me with a ton of options should I ever find myself really wanting a date.

Sometimes I wonder why I even complain about this sort of thing, given the fact that I don't really have time to date anyone in the first place. And it all seems even sillier considering how I have a lot of ideas of different things I'd do with someone in a dating situation, but most of them revolve around sitting around somewhere, talking. These days I'm starting to think the less I talk, the better I'll do. I'm losing a little faith in my ability to interest people, although I've seen evidence go both ways on that one now.

Perhaps I should just stop thinking about it and see what happens. Admittedly, there will be a Missed Connection going up on Craigslist. This isn't my MO, but how often do I spot an attractive woman in Uptown who I'd like to meet? Isn't that what all of these posts are? I sure think so.

Powercrocodile

Here's To Turning Over A New Leaf
What feels worse than turning a life corner unexpectedly? Not much, if you ask me. Late teens and early twenties tend to be a bit turbulent when it comes to life definition. Every year, the situation must be re-evaluated, and usually every year it's quite different than the one preceding. However, I turned 24 this year. I have decided this means I'm categorically in my mid-twenties. It's not supposed to continue to churn like this. Unfortunately, I can't be that naive, because we all know life doesn't stop changing after 23, and come to think of it, it's a much longer period on the horizon but it's also probably far more unlike anything before it. Last year was the year of the college graduation, and the "real" job. This is the year of the wedding and the first promotion. Next year might be the year of the baby and perhaps the second "real" job. Of course, unless it's career-related, it probably won't apply to me any time soon. But that doesn't slow down anyone else I know, and thus I've found myself the recipient of an inordinate number of wedding invitations.

The Bachelor Party

Dave is getting married. Dave graduated college on time (that is, one year earlier than I did, although we're the same age), but did not have the greatest of luck in finding a first job. He went back to our hometown and got some temporary work at a prominent retail electronics store while his girlfriend worked on finishing her last year of college back at the school where they met. One weekend, Dave decided to come visit me. One night, after some pretty superlative drinking, Dave told me he was thinking about proposing to Nicole, his girlfriend. I immediately threatened to punch him. Needless to say, Dave eventually proposed anyway, and I did not punch him, and now Dave is getting married.

Dave's bachelor party was this weekend. I'm not going to go into details, because that's not the point of this story, but I drove all the way back the six or seven hours to my hometown for it. As I got on the road, I realized I was only going to be gone for a total of two and a half, maybe three days. It felt like it was going to be at least two weeks, and it felt like I was leaving a lot of unresolved messes behind. Truth be told, I was. Not much that I can think of surpasses the feeling of knowing you have the next six hours to yourself in a car, with a loaded iPod and infinite night-time.

Long story short, I felt like I was in a movie about having some really profound experience returning to a place I once called home, and all that really happened was I drove for a very, very long time by myself. It wasn't bad, it wasn't some particularly trenchant or even interesting experience, but there was a lot to write about and then I left this post unfinished in draft form and would now like to write about something else instead. Sorry.

Phase II

Phase II might never end. And it might never have started. It can be very difficult to tell sometimes, but I know this much: after moving into the place, I needed to take a little time setting up shop and making this truly my home. I've done a good job of it, and Bryant Avenue espouses all that I love about Minneapolis, because it's close to the geographical fixtures that make the city what it is, and because it's the street that, when I turn onto it, feels like coming down the street on which I grew up, except that I'm having this peculiarly prescient awareness of a feeling of home that technically doesn't exist yet. I've only been at this address for a couple of months, so it can't be that familiar yet.

At any rate, Phase II was the cleansing phase. It was settling into my life without anyone else there to define it. It was hibernation. It was bliss. That's really all I need to say about that. And that actually allows me a pretty good point to take this story wherever I feel like taking it, and I suppose accordingly, the only logical place to take it is onward, so off we go.

***

We're just going to ignore the fact that I haven't put any new paint on this canvas for an unreasonably long time. I'm busy, and that's pretty much always a given, but how long does it really take to stop for a moment and gather one's sanity? Not so long that it should be omitted from the routine. Then again, by the same logic, we'd all be eating and sleeping regularly, too, but I most certainly don't do that either. At any rate, I get this odd feeling that I've already said this here, but I choose to make my New Year's resolutions at peculiar times of the year, like for example, the end of May. And right now I resolve to use this space for something a little more constructive than I have in the past. This means two things: one, more frequent posting. If I can, I might renege on that one. But two, I need to use this as more than means for ruminating my thoughts on being lonely or sad or I guess anything else that Chris Carrabba would write about. My life isn't perfect, as nobody's is, but I really can't complain either.

To usher in the new era, it's time for a new post-naming convention. I have a plugin on my browser called Firesomething that changes the word "Firefox" on the title bar of the application window to something else, randomly compounding two unrelated words.

They Say History Repeats Itself

After another long chapter break, or intermission, or maybe just downright loss of interest, I find myself back here again, at the middle of my story. And back at the beginning, somewhere that I never really left in the first place. It's very much like a merry-go-round. The more momentum I get going in one direction, the faster I find myself back where I started. And it just goes; around, and around, and around. So here I am, at the middle of the story, having taken the opportunity other night to look back a bit and see just where exactly it was I was coming from anyway. There's a part of me that is really thankful they didn't design cars to emulate life, because while we'd be spending our time looking out the back window trying to watch the sun set or figure out who it was that just drove past us in the other direction, we'd be crashing into things left and right. Come to think of it, that is not an analogy I have ever pondered before, but I feel like it's actually quite appropriate. My life is like a car with no windshield. What nobody told me, though, is that it's a slot car, and it's driving on a circular track. See also: merry-go-round. See also: algorithm. See also: continuum.

So, I took some time to peek through this metaphorical back window and revisit a few snapshots of the last year or so. I suppose I completely forget I'm telling this story sometimes, for months at a time (and the last six months were no exception), only to return to find that everything is different now, even though nothing has really changed.

***

Burnsville, Minnesota, is the quintessential suburb. If you live there, chances are you are probably one of three people: 1) a high-school mallrat; 2) a soccer mom or a hockey dad; or 3) somewhere in between without enough good sense to get out. Burnsville was purgatory. Being an upwardly mobile twenty-something in the middle of this wasteland made me feel like I was the only person on earth who still had a pulse. Luckily, I figured I would only have to stay until I could afford to move into my own place elsewhere. Unluckily, I found out pretty quickly that doing so wasn't something I would really be able to unless it was to another suburb just as desolate. At that point, I figured I would just melt into my surroundings until I became a part of the background much like an ice cube in a bucket of hot water. Perhaps I could fake it, and perhaps I could just learn to enjoy a trip to the mall or a chat with the neighbor about sports or their kids' athletic achievements. Perhaps it could be zen after all?

I spent a little over five months in Burnsville, Minnesota. During that period of time, I had to be Suburban. I had to think Suburban, I had to commute Suburban, I had to eat Suburban, I had to sleep Suburban, and I had to brush my teeth Suburban. I lived on a Suburban street in a Suburban neighborhood, and... well, I think I've sufficiently made my point. I couldn't pretend that it was in no way enriching, because being that isolated from the true human condition leaves you feeling pretty isolated from your own thoughts, and that starts a chain reaction of conscious redefinition of the self. Don't get me wrong - I was always the same guy. I still liked to gorge myself on ice cream even though I'm lactose intolerant. I continued to take my daily shower at night. I still had a lot of words to say. I complained a lot, but I found some distractions to allow my mind to wander back to its usual playgrounds every so often, and that was pleasant. Still, at the end of every day I went to bed alone. And by alone, I don't mean that I was the only person in my bed, but really that I was the only person in the universe.

***

So here we are, and we've come full circle. I'm a creature of eternal habits, so I suppose it should be unsurprising that one of my usual revelations (which, by the way, miraculously never feels any less significant, although I have it ALL the time) came back to me and hit me on the forehead. I made the mistake of writing a song with some pretty definite thoughts on being alone, and I feel like I have to hold myself to it, even though I highly suspect that at the time I wrote it, I was plagiarizing the the emotion. And that's fine, I bet 99% of all songs have disingenuous lyrics in them somewhere. But here was my anthem all the same: "I'm not lonely, I'm just alone." Truth be told, there's no such thing as either. Thing is, you don't have to be alone to be lonely, and when that happens, it is generally a much bigger issue. Sadly, that's where the last few months have found me. I used to get this feeling when I was with my ex-girlfriend, and I made the mistake of telling her so one night when I was particularly dissatisfied with our relationship. She probably lost her faith in everything I said from that point onward right then and there, because every time she laid down next to me, she figured I was right alongside her, when in reality I might as well have been on the far side of Jupiter's fourth moon. To make matters worse, the last few months, I only felt the pangs of loneliness while I was around other people.

Realizing you're getting lonely in the presence of your closest friends truly obviates a couple things for you. One, they're obviously not that close. Two, you really need to shake things up. At least, this was the conclusion I came to, so I set about to implement my plan in a two of phases. The first phase was a cleansing phase. I figured I'd just do my own thing, which was playing as much music as possible (though that's proven to be ineffective at just about everything except prolonging the time period before I solve my problems). Unfortunately, I ran out of gigs and I just couldn't manage to light a single spark. I think this was a blessing in disguise, however, because it afforded me the unique opportunity to get back in touch with myself a little, and I decided to buy a condo, which allowed me to move back into the city of Minneapolis, even though living in a building with other people wasn't really what I wanted to do. So I left my temporary landing pad in Burnsville, and here I am. In my new robot home. Again. And -- and I'm being totally honest here -- I'm finally starting to feel like I'm home.

... to be continued (The Second Phase) ...