You have to watch this

Original from Youtube - http://youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4 YOUTUBE DESCRIPTION: Sometimes, a hug is all what we need. Free hugs is a real life controversial story of Juan Mann, A man whos sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten up their lives. In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs campaign became phenomenal. As this symbol of human hope spread accross the city, police and officials ordered the Free Hugs campaign BANNED. What we then witness is the true spirit of humanity come together in what can only be described as awe inspiring. In the Spirit of the free hugs campaign, PASS THIS TO A FRIEND and HUG A STRANGER! After all, If you can reach just one person... Music by Sick Puppies. (Visit http://sickpuppies.net or http://myspace.com/sickpuppies for the music) ------------------------------ ------------------- PS. The response to this video has been nothing short of overwhelming and touching. Hugs to every single one of you who messaged. There has been thousands of emails from all over the world by people seeking to participate in the Free Hugs campaign and asking for permission. You do not need permission. This is the peoples movement, this is *your* movement. With nothing but your bare hands you can make THE difference. Imagine all the people.

Ranting and some fun

Okay, it's been quite the hiatus, and I could make excuses but I won't. At any rate, here are a few things:

• This whole Mark Foley scandal bothers me. The acts that he committed are disgusting and disappointing, but what's really pissing me off is how everyone in the Republican leadership is playing like they're one of the three stooges. I don't care that they're the Republican Party, the party of supposed "moral values" and "not gayness." They should be held accountable. And I'm not being biased based on what I see as a gross hypocrisy - if this was a member of the Democratic party, I would be just as pissed, just as disgusted, and I would want to hold them just as accountable.
• There ain't nothin' like passing the buck, is there? From an AP Story discussing Rep. Ray LaHood (R-IL) and how the page program should be stopped for a while:

Meanwhile, LaHood, who also is from Illinois, said that it's not the speaker who should go and said the page program should be shut down, at least temporarily.

He questioned an "antiquated" congressional page system that brings 15-and 16-year-olds to the Capitol and has resulted in scandals in the past.

"Some members betray their trust by taking advantage of them. We should not subject young men and women to this kind of activity, this kind of vulnerability," LaHood said in a CNN interview. He said the program should be shut down until problems can be resolved.

OR, how about this theory (which seems to me like the obvious and logical choice): WE STOP ELECTING PEDERASTS TO CONGRESS. Yeah, it's such an "antiquated" system, that gives kids the opportunity to work on Capitol Hill and see firsthand how their government works. We need to start requiring responsibility and accountability from our elected officials, not just on this issue but on every one, and if everyone but Mark Foley gets away scot-free in this one, I'ma be real disappointed. Sickening, no?

• In non-ranting news, Check this out. Especially if you like movies. And especially if you have some time to waste.

Things I'd like to (someday) do

Lately, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about different things that I’d like to do during my lifetime, hobbies I’d like to explore, places I’d like to go, etc (provided that money, physical fitness, whatever isn’t a factor).  Mainly because I’m on the verge of graduating from college and moving on to other things (still looking at grad schools and such), but for some reason, amidst the hustle and flow of my everyday life, my mind keeps coming back to a few things that I’d like to do:

Climb Mt. Everest.  Yeah, I know I’m not the most fit person and I have no climbing/rappelling/mountain experience, but it’s not like I’m grotesquely incapable of doing this if I train and put everything into it (I’ve always had big dreams).  Sure, this probably won’t happen for a while (I’d first need to amass $65,000-$100,000 for the climb alone), but I think that it would be the most amazing thing to stand at the highest point in the world and look out over it, and just think about the magnificence of where you are.  I love moments where you are speechless and completely taken by the awesome power of everything and life in general.

Run a Marathon.  (Athena, I’m sure you have something to say on this one).  Running seems to be my new hobby of choice, and I think it’s because I’ve always like pushing boundaries and limits (my own as well as others).  I grew up a pudgy kid with bad asthma and weak lungs who couldn’t really do much physical activity, and who would want to anyways?  Not me.  But lately I’ve joined a gym and started working out, and I’m really enjoying it.  I can’t run far yet, but I’ve improved significantly, and I’ve found that I really get excited by the mental discipline and head games that I get to play while I’m doing it.  I particularly like running until I can’t run any more, and then making myself run for a few more minutes, or another quarter of a mile, or whichever other milestone I arbitrarily set for myself.  I know that I’ve got a long way to go, but like I said before, I like to dream big, and I think that if I keep up with it, that I might just be able to pull it off and squeak one out.  Probably not for a while, though.

Stand in the Oval Office.  It’d be sweet.  ‘Nuff said.

Have a building at Mount Union named after me.  This might be the influence of Vi Bica-Ross, who provides my scholarship and who’ve I’ve developed a pretty decent relationship with over the past few years, and it might be the influence of the many people I’ve heard talk at luncheons, dinners, ceremonies, etc. who talk about “how great it is to give something back.”  Maybe it’s the trustees, who I’ve gotten to know and who do give back, often generously.  I know it’s not perfect, but MUC has treated me pretty well, and, if I end up making my first million (any suggestions?), I’d like to do something instead of blow it on TV’s and motorcycles.  Seems like a pretty good choice.

I’m sure there are more, and if I think of them, I’ll be sure to let you know.

Return of the Jedi

So I've been on something of a blogger hiatus for the last, oh, 2 months or so. Completely ridiculous and completely unjustifiable. I could argue that the end of the semester kept me too busy to write and update regularly. This is flawed for two major reasons:

• I've been out of school for two fucking months now, and have spent most of my time watching movies, sitting at work watching movies, or doing otherwise meaningless things to keep me occupied.

• I wasn't really all that busy at the end of the semester. Sure I had the usual batch of odd (and often annoying) final papers and finals, but I really didn't study that much, and spent most of the end of the semester smoking or playing video games.

I could also argue that I haven't had anything to say. This, also isn't true. I'm always thinking of shit that I think I might have something to say about (and swear that I'll remember it later), but usually I don't and when I do decide I want to write something, I can't think of shit and so type out some meaningless verbal diarrhea that is totally uninteresting and falls subject to the axe of the 'delete' key.

With that said, remind me to write posts on the following, which have been brewing in my head and which I need to put down before I forget about them:

• Why the wrong people are in politics OR why Jon Stewart should be.
• Things that I would like to do during my lifetime (not to be confused with my life's goals)
• A new (or maybe not, since I haven't done any research at all to see if it already exists) theory of education
• Maybe I'll write about the Dave Matthews Band Concert I'm set to leave for in about an hour.
  
• Maybe some other things, if you're lucky.

I'm back, bitches.

Thoughts while watching commercials

Is it just me, or does it say something about our culture that we’ll put some greasy, disgusting, pre-wrapped heart attack from McDonalds into our system without thinking, but we want to keep our toilet bowls clean enough to eat off of?

Another thing:  Scrubbing Bubbles’ slogan seems to be “We work hard, so you don’t have to!®”  I think this shows how deep down the laziness of our culture really goes.  And we wonder why nobody wants to do anything anymore.

Sickening times, indeed…

A Christmas Morning post near the end of March

I don’t know how many of you follow the PostSecret Project. I believe it’s fairly well-known, although I stumbled upon it by accident and haven’t really talked to anyone else who’s heard about it, but I will, as best I can, briefly summarize what it’s about. The basic premise is that PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people (anonymously) design a postcard telling some secret that they’ve held deep down and never told anyone, and then mail it to a P.O. box where they are collected and displayed. Each Sunday, a new set of postcards is displayed on the website (linked to above). Each Sunday, I check it, and almost always without fail, there is at least one postcard that really moves me, and one postcard which I really feel like I connect with. I checked it today to see the new batch, and saw this one, which really struck a chord with me:





I’ve been feeling this way for several Christmases, but really never was completely conscious of it until the last one. In the olden days, I’d be up before the sun, alarms set for 6:30 A.M., upstairs in the living room checking out the presents and rooting through the stockings (mom and dad told us we could open the presents in the stockings without having to wait for them to wake up). I was always the first one up, so I’d check everything out before I went to wake up my brother and sister, and we’d all sit around, shaking and looking at boxes, playing the guessing game. Mom and dad said that we weren’t allowed to wake them up before 8, but we were always in their bedroom pestering at 7:30, and by 7:45 they’d given in. Then we’d give in. Mom and dad would sit with their coffee, telling us which one to open, always saving the most tantalizing one for last. We’d throw paper all over, not caring about the mess, and each present always managed to be more exciting than the last. When we were all done, we’d lay out the loot, and we couldn’t contain our excitement as we tried to figure out which toy to play with first, which CD to listen to, which movie to watch, which candy to eat. It was always a day of choices and priorities, love and family, fun and excitement…

…And now, I wake up around 11, when my brother wakes me up. I tell him I’m sleeping and I’ll be up in a little bit, but he insists, and so I grudgingly roll out of bed, put on a shirt and some pajama pants, and go upstairs. Mom and dad, Taylor and Carly, are already up, waiting for me. I try to be excited. I open gifts, one by one, grateful for the thought and love, but really, it just seems like just another day where everything is closed and my mom makes a fancy dinner, and I have some new stuff to temporarily entertain me… for a little bit, at least. Though it never takes long for the fun to wear off.

And so I ask myself what happened? Is this a natural part of “growing up,” as it were? Have I lost something? If so, can I get it back? And if so, how? I’ve been told that Christmas morning will be exciting again when I have kids. Maybe so, but I feel that it’s one of those moments that should always be magical, that should always be exciting…. Back to the days when I believed in Santa and left carrots and glitter out in the snow for the reindeer, the days when my uncles would give us updates on where Santa had been sighted throughout Christmas eve, when every red light in the sky was Rudolf’s nose, when the sun waited for me and my parents pretended to be annoyed and Grandma made more cookies than we could imagine. Back to the days when magic and excitement still existed, and I believed in them both.

Coasting?

Emily has an interesting post about whether or not MUC has prepared us for what we want to do, and about how, to paraphrase and oversimplify, it hasn’t because she hasn’t felt challenged in many classes.  I feel the same way and actually have recently been thinking and talking to certain professors about how much this bothers me.  I was talking to Rodney during some downtime at the Writing Centers Conference about how easy it’s been to really just coast through most of my classes and pull off A’s without really doing much work other than what it’ll take to slide by.  Sure, this is mostly my fault, and I’m willing to accept all due responsibility for my failure to step up and perform, but I can’t help but think that professors are at least a little bit to blame for making my coasting possible… Which brings me to where I am today.

Rodney and I have been putting together an AS200 directed study, where we look at some of the major literary movements in 20th century America, and then read a lot of contemporary stuff, in search of how we’ve formed “The American Cultural Identity” and looking at different perspectives on American culture.  We’ve been talking a lot about the reading list for the course, and we’re putting a lot of really interesting and fun stuff in there.  We’re going to do Hunter Thompson (of course).  I want to read Fight Club and American Psycho as well, and Rodney wants to do Pynchon.  I also want to do some Vonnegut and Capote.  (If anyone has any other ideas for interesting things to read, feel free to let me know).  Anyways, as we’ve been talking about this, I flat out told him that I didn’t want this to be a course that I can just coast through, and I want this to be a course where I have to read and I have to be prepared and I have to work my ass off.  I want to have good discussions, and I think that as long as I’m continually challenged, I’ll be able to learn far more than most of the other classes I’ve taken.

This brings me to one of the things that I’ll always love about MUC… that as a student, I can develop personal relationships with faculty members and that they do care about my learning and are willing to take on additional work and courses to help me out.  It’s a very personal, very individualized education, and I think that I’ll forever be grateful for that.

Here comes the sun.

You know, for the first time in quite a while, I’m excited again, for several reasons:

• I started playing bass again.  I used to play a lot and while I never took formal lessons, and didn’t really understand musical theory (which I still don’t), I was pretty decent.  I brought my bass and amp back on Saturday night, and have been playing quite a bit recently.  I forgot how much I loved it.


• I found a freakin’ sweet Internet Radio station (Pig Radio) that I’ve been listening to pretty much nonstop.  They play a lot of cool alternative/independent/underground/electronic music, and it’s freakin’ sweet.  I suggest checking it out if you’re a music fan… I put a link on my link bar.


• I’m actually getting excited about academics again.  Granted, this semester is still boring the hell out of me, with the exception of a few classes (20th Century Drama, Acting II), but as I’m looking ahead to next semester, I’m starting to really get excited about learning about things in which I’m interested.  I decided I’m going to go for an American Studies major, since my writing major is pretty much done and I’ve started seriously thinking about going to grad school for American Studies.  I’ve already taken a bunch of classes that will count for the major, and so I’d only need a few more.  I met with Dr. Recchiuti today to talk about it, and he was really excited as well.  Only problem now is that AS200 is up in the air, and he doesn’t know when it will be offered again, so I’m trying to see if I can develop an independent study that I can substitute for AS200.  I think that my focus for AS is going to be the different things that shape the American Identity (more specifically literature, politics, and history), and so the Independent study I’m hoping to be able to do will look at various American literary movements within the context of the historical and political climate in which they happened and examine how they’ve all worked to create and shape the identity we have today.  Rodney said he’d be interested in doing it with me, so that’s exciting too.


• I had an amazing spring break.  I did absolutely nothing, and it was fantastic.  I stayed here at my house in Alliance with one of my other housemates, and we just chilled out and relaxed the whole week.  I thought it would be boring and slow, but it was just really nice to do whatever we wanted, and to have practically the whole campus to ourselves.


• Since I’m on the Schooler Lecture Search Committee, I get to greet and escort Tim Russert around when he’s on campus next week.  That’s a pretty sweet deal, I think.


• The weather a few days ago was absolutely beautiful.  Spring is certainly on the way.

Things certainly appear to be on the up.

Notes on theatre

So now that the show is over, I think I might actually have some time to start writing in this thing again.  So I figured it’d be natural to write about the show.  

Doing theatre can, at times, be terribly taxing, but in all honesty I don’t know what I’d do without it.  I’ve been, with the exception of winter break, in steady rehearsals pretty much straight from October until now.  We started readthroughs for Much Ado the day after we closed Nuts, so there was nary a break between the two.

A cast is always an interesting thing.  In a lot of ways, it really is a lot closer than a group of coworkers or colleagues, and in some ways it’s closer than most groups of friends… and really, that makes perfect sense.  To be in a cast and to perform with a group of people, regardless of how well you know them before you start, involves and requires a certain great amount of trust.  You have to trust those who perform with you to do the moves they’re supposed to, to do their lines, to make their cues, and to not just go batshit crazy and leave you there to cover an unexpected situation on the spot.  Because of the trust issue, casts generally become close.  They are their own self-contained community, which will exist only until closing night, and then it will be dissolved again.

I think that’s one of the reasons I really enjoy theatre as much as I do… sure, I like the opportunities for expressiveness and I like the attention and I like performing… but I think more than that, I love being a part of something entirely unique, being a creative cog in some great creative machine that exists only temporarily, that was assembled to do a show and will, when the curtain goes down for the last time, be dissolved and will never exist again.  Though they’ve been rehearsed over and over, each show is different in often minor, unnoticeable ways – somebody moves differently or puts a different emphasis on a word or line – but when all is said and done, each show is completely unique in its own right.  And I think that when all is said and done, that’s what I love most about theatre – you are a part of something, something that will never be reproduced or recreated, and when the curtain closes, the house empties, the set is struck and the costumes are hung up for the last time, all that you have left are your individual memories of what once was.

So what did I learn from 2005?

I was cleaning off my desktop today when I came upon this list of things I learned from 2005, which I originally meant to post on New Year’s Eve.  Whoops.  Anyways, here it is:


Things I’ve learned from 2005:

• Life goes on, and you move forward, regardless of how much you think you’re at a standstill.

• Regardless of what you think, you’re probably wrong.

• Friends come and go.

• Regardless of how early I leave for something, I’ll probably still be late.

• No matter how hard I try, my hair will always be messy.

• Maybe I’ll never come to terms with religion.

• No matter how much I try to be organized, something usually goes wrong.

• No matter how much I try to believe otherwise, I need the other people in my life.

• Food is always better when someone else is footing the bill.

• As you get older, you actually start hoping for socks and underwear for Christmas.

…so that’s it… I’m sure I learned some other things from 2005, but these are the important ones.  For now.

Fun with iTunes lists

Keep in mind, I’ve only been using iTunes for about 2 months.  Here goes:

Top 15 Most Played:
Duncan Sheik – For You
Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds – The Christmas Song
Dashboard Confessional – Ender Will Save Us All
The Clarks – Cigarette
Coldplay – Swallowed in the Sea
Dashboard Confessional – Screaming Infidelities
The O’Jays – Love Train
Beck – Nicotine and Gravy
Boxcar Racer – There Is
The Elected – Sun, Sun, Sun
Everclear – Everything to Everyone
James Blunt – You’re Beautiful
Tom Waits – I Hope That I Don’t Fall in Love With You
Tom Waits – So It Goes
Tom Waits – Semi Suite



Top 15 Recently Played:
Duncan Sheik – For You
Everclear – Otis Redding
Everclear – Summerland
Neil Young – Cowgirl in the Sand
Coldplay – Swallowed In the Sea
Stone Temple Pilots – Hello, It’s Late
Dave Matthews Band – Stay (Wasting Time)
Dave Matthews Band – Rapunzel
U2 – Stay (Faraway, So Close)
Coldplay – Everything’s Not Lost
Tom Waits – Little Trip to Heaven
Dave Matthews Band – Pig
Jack Johnson – Banana Pancakes
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young – Ohio
Beck – Loser


…yep, so that’s what I’ve been listening to.

Who would you take a bullet for?

I was talking with some of my housemates tonight, and I asked them who in their lives they would take a bullet for willingly.  I’d like to think that I’d take a bullet for anyone, and there are a lot of people that I would take a bullet for, hoping that if they were put in the same situation that they’d do the same for me, but several people in my life came to mind as people that I would, completely willingly, take a bullet for.

My mom and dad.  They’ve done more for me than I’ll ever be able to thank and repay them for.  They put up with a lot of shit from me while I was growing up and going through some weird phases, and they tolerated it, letting me be myself and go through it.  I have specific memories of both of my parents, which in my mind stand out as moments that show true parental love.  Like my dad when I was 3 or so years old.  He’d come home from work and take a shower, and then lay on the couch and read the newspaper.  I’d lay on his belly while he read, and he’d play games with me.  “Andrew, find me a ‘p’,” he’d say, and I’d scour the page until I found a ‘p’.  “Find me an ‘f’” and I’d scour the page until I found a word with an ‘f’.  After I’d learned the whole alphabet, he taught me how to put the letters into words.  “Okay, find a ‘the’,” and I’d look through the sentences until I found one.  “Find a ‘bus’”.  Then the words got harder.  “Find a fence.”  Then he taught me to put the words into sentences.  Then I started reading my own books, and by 1st grade, I had a 6th grade reading level.  I devoured everything I could get my hands on… novels, readers, pamphlets, shampoo bottles… it didn’t matter.  I really believe that I owe all of this to my dad, and I wouldn’t be where I am without him.

My memories of my mom are a little different.  I used to be sick a lot as a kid, and my mom took care of me, although I never really realized what she put herself through to do that.  The most beautiful thing about the situation is that she didn’t even think twice about the sacrifice.  That’s the love of a parent for a child.  I have two specific memories of my mom doing this.  One time, I was really sick.  I don’t know what exactly I had, but I was running a really high fever, freezing and sweating and burning up at the same time.  I was barely conscious, partly from whatever I was sick with, partly from the fever, and partly from the medicine, but what I remember is my mom staying up with me, and putting washcloths soaked in ice water across my forehead and chest, trying to get the fever down.  When I was a Senior in High School, I was hospitalized, and my mom sat up with me then.  I was like, “Okay, mom, I’m 18 years old, you can really go.  I’ll just hang out and watch TV and get some reading done, you don’t really have to stay.”  But she did. “Yeah, I know… I’ll stay a little bit longer though,” she said.  She knew I was okay by myself, but she wanted to stay.  She knew I’d be alright, but I’m sure she probably didn’t sleep well that night.  That’s fuckin’ love.

My brother.  My brother was my first best friend, the first person who I ever got into deliberate trouble with, the first person who I ever got into deliberate fights with, the first person I went exploring with, and my constant companion for a huge part of my life.  Any of the other people in my life that I consider brothers, I view through my relationship with Tay.  I think that in a lot of ways, he’s the most caring, loving, and gracious person that I know, and it’s unfortunate that these traits are overshadowed by some of his others.  He’s always been there to back me up, regardless of what I was doing, and I’m pretty sure he always will be.

My sister.  My sister and I used to fight all the time, because we didn’t understand each other.  I thought she was just a stupid, spoiled bitch who made far too many wrong decisions and I thought that by criticizing her, I’d get her to stop and change.  That didn’t work… it just made me an asshole.  I was far too willing to rip her apart and criticize her for what I thought were her bad qualities, while not being there to support her for her good ones.  The moment I realized that was really a turning point in my life, and I think that now we really do understand each other, and because of that, we get along really, really well.  I see a lot of myself reflected in her, and vice-versa… maybe I did have at least some positive influence on her growing up ;)


Jesse.  Jesse and I have been best friends since 4th grade.  He’s one of only 2 people outside of my immediate family that I consider to be a brother, and one of 2 that I know that we have fun together, regardless of what we’re doing.  Jesse and I could be sitting in an empty basement with nothing on the walls or floors, and after a while of just sitting there in silence, one of us would say, “So… you wanna fight or something?”  And then we’d wrestle or beat each other up, just for the hell of it, and it’d be fun.  Jesse’s always told me things as they were, never putting up with my shit and keeping my feet on the ground.  That’s one of the many things that sets him apart from everyone else in my life.  I’ve known him for 12 years, and some of the greatest times of my life so far have been with him.  In 12 years, we’ve never faltered in our loyalty to each other, and I’d take a fuckin’ bullet for him in a heartbeat.

Joe.  Joe is the other person in my life that I consider to be a brother, even though we’re not related.  Joe is also the other person I know who we have a blast regardless of what we’re doing or if we’re doing nothing at all.  If Joe and I were in an empty basement, we’d sit there for a while and then try to name everyone we’ve ever been attracted to for as far back as we can remember.  Then we’d quote some random videos or cartoons or a Seinfeld episode.  Joe is a fuckin’ great guy, and he and I have a really good understanding of each other, in my opinion, which is what really drives our friendship.  He and I work well together, because we balance each other out.  I think that just one of us is too much, but when we’re together, we even out and make a pretty dynamic pair.  Neither of us feels like we have to be in control of the spotlight, and we each play to the other’s strengths.  I feel like I’m close to a lot of people in the house, but Joe and I have become like brothers over the past 5 months.

There are a few other people in my life that I would gladly take a bullet for… Bill, Nikki and Jen all come to mind, because they’ve helped me through a hell of a lot, especially over the past year… but more importantly than that, they’ve been there for me since I’ve known them, and I couldn’t ask for more.

I’m sure there’s at least someone that I’m leaving out, so if it’s you, don’t be offended.  I’m pretty sure that the people in my life who mean a lot to me know it.  I try to let them know how much I appreciate them as much as I can.

Semi-Charmed Life

Kelly had a post a few days ago detailing a certain song that, every time it’s listened to, takes him back to a specific moment in time, a specific memory where everything is once again as vivid as it was at that one point.  I think we all have those kinds of songs… I know that I, for one, have several.  Maybe I’ll write about more later, because it’s kind of fun.  Anyways, I wrote this one night after reading his post.  It’s kind of rambly, and I considered editing it to make it more… coherent… but decided against it.  The song is “Semi-Charmed Life” by Third Eye Blind, and this is what it makes me remember:


In a beat up station-wagon that my mom was driving at the time.  We were going to visit my grandma in her trailor in Enon Valley.  We had turned in to her driveway and were going around the bend near Shirleen’s house.  White front porch and red bricks.  Emily playing in the pool.  It must have been a Saturday because Saturday Night Dance Party on B94 (while it still was B94) was the show that was playing it.  It must have been late July or Early August because the air was sticky with humidity.  You sweated a thick, sticky sweat.  Getting big Tractor tires and rolling in them, head over heels, down the hill near Shirleen’s barn with Josh and Doug and usually Tay.  Doug was a good kid.  I’m seeing a past point on the soundtrack to my life, and Third eye Blind is part of that soundtrack.  This song represents this era, this mood, this feeling, this set of hopes and dreams and desires during this one specific moment.  This song represents this belief in an infinite future – one where Josh grows up and Doug doesn’t die and Grandma doesn’t get cancer.  

What if, in a one to million shot, I got life exactly right and got to live a life that is 100% perfect.  I don’t think that ever happens, but I guess we make the best of whatever we can.

Ten Weird Habits

Kelly has an interesting post about his weird but strange habits. It was fun, and I figured I’d write about mine. So here goes… my weird habits:

• I have a weird thing about time. I hate showing up early to things. I hate being late too. I come up with a time that I’m going to leave for something, and then I stick to it, and will not leave before that time. If I have a 10:00 class, for some reason I can’t leave more than 5 minutes before, which in this case would be 09:55. I can leave at any point after 09:55, but never, never before… which might explain why I’m always late. If I happen to have some reason to go to class early, like if I need to talk to somebody, I can waive the time thing.


• I have to have at least two alarm clocks set. One plugged in, and the other powered by a battery. And I check them – obsessively – to make sure they’re set for A.M. and that the alarm is on. It’s not uncommon for me to get out of bed and walk across the room 3 or 4 times before I actually fall asleep, even though I know that they’re set right.


• I used to have to set my alarm clocks to weird times, like 09:37 instead of an even time like 09:35 or 09:40. I stopped doing that because I can’t get up on an odd time, and so I’d get back in bed until 09:40, usually falling back asleep.


• In the cafeteria, I can’t get all of my stuff on the tray at the same time. I’ll get my tray and silverware, go through the main line and get whatever they have there. Then go to see if they have any soup that I want. Then I have to go and put my tray down on the table, making sure that I’m sitting facing the entrance and can see everyone coming in. Then I go and get my lime drinks (although it’s been coke of late) – usually 3, but on occasion 4 – and take them back to the table. Then I’ll go and check out the fruit and vegetable thing, if I think I’ll want any.


• If I get a cup of coffee at a restaurant, I always wipe off the rim with a napkin, and then put the coffee on top of it. After I take a drink, if there’s a driblet of coffee on the outside, I have to wipe it off.


• It really bothers me when the head of my toothbrush touches any kind of flat surface, like a sink or countertop. When I’m brushing my teeth and I have to put my toothbrush down, I always put it so that the head hangs over the surface in question and thus, doesn’t touch anything. If I really don’t trust the surface, I’ll put the toothbrush in my pocket or the waistband of my boxers until I have a free hand.


• I like to put the full time (06:30 instead of 6:30). I like “okay” instead of “OK” or “ok.”


• I hate sleeping in complete darkness. I always like to have some kind of dim light source so I can see the floors if I happen to wake up during the night, although I rarely do.


• When I’m going to stop doing something (eating, playing a game, etc.), I often have to tell myself how much more I’m going to do and then quit when I get to that number. For example, if I’m eating something and not planning on finishing it, I tell myself that I’ll take 3 more bites, and then quit. If I’m playing minesweeper or solitaire, I have to set a number of how many more games I’ll play. Usually, I’ll couple this with another condition (“I’ll play 6 more games or until 11:45, whichever comes first)”


• I have to pause or stop my itunes when I leave the room, even if it’s only for a few seconds. I like to pick up a song exactly where I left off, and I don’t want to miss any songs that might play in the meantime.

That’s all for now. If I think of any other good ones, I’ll post them.

Detached

For my acting class, we had to do a non-verbal self-presentation that was representative of who and where we are at this stage in our lives.  We had to do this using some kind of general action demonstrating some kind of general metaphor.  It took me a while to come up with something, and I changed my mind several times before finally settling on me walking around the room, looking at different things and starting down several paths before stopping, shooting a bored look, and walking back.  Then I mimed going to sleep, waking up, and going through my “getting ready for school” routine, i.e., brushing my teeth, putting in my contacts, and putting on my clothes.

People generally got it right when they tried to explain what I was doing.  There were a few specific things they missed or mis-assumed, but for the most part, they got it right.

Right now, I’m not sure what I want to do.  With my life.  With my self.  With my days.  It seems like each week, I change my mind about what I want to do as a career, whether I want to go to grad school, for what, where I want to live in a year and a half, and everything else.  I came here so sure that I wanted to teach English and do High School theatre and live close to home and make a big change in the education system and cause a huge splash sending huge ripples through the world.  And now, I’m not sure.

I’ve started down so many paths, even over the last year, and each time, I turn back and come back to the clearing, looking around for which one to choose next, for which one will be the right one, and for which one will bring some goddamned meaning to my life and give me some kind of purpose for being here.

And now I’m back in the clearing.

For a while, I’ve felt this general sense of detachment from anything and everything.  I don’t feel attached, emotionally, physically, mentally, to anything, and that bothers me.  I don’t feel emotionally attached to any one person.  I don’t feel attachment to things.  I don’t feel attachment to hobbies.  Even the things that I generally love, like writing and theatre and Senate, I don’t feel really attached to right now, and it’s sucking the goddamn passion from the things that made me who I am.  It’s like, to use attachment literally, I’m floating and looking for something – regardless of what it is - to weight me down so I can at least see things more clearly.

And so, since I’m not attached to anything, I go through routines – something, I might add, I swore never to do.
Heidegger and Sartre’s idea of human existence was that human nature was divided in two:  a side that exists to fulfill our basic needs and desires, and a conscious, reflective side that is constantly working to achieve some grand vision of what our lives are adding up to.  We’re always reflecting on our aspirations, what we could be, what we could do, and what we could have, regardless of what we do.  We’re always seeking something else, something better, something different.  Where I am right now, all of this makes unbelievably lucid sense.

I guess I just feel like I need to commit myself to something, whether it’s writing, theatre, politics, Senate, or, God forbid, even a person.  Maybe that’ll bring some kind of clarity, even if it is temporary.  Because living in this constant floating tension is just draining me.

Reflections on MLK day

Well, today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and after attending some of the various speakers that Mount Union had on campus, I got to thinking about him and what he did.

Martin Luther King Jr. died for what he believed in.  So did Malcolm X.  So did Nathan Hale, excuted by the British during the American Revolution, but not before uttering from the gallows the now famous line, “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”  This line, upon research, was inspired from the play Cato by Joseph Addison.  The line from the play reads “How beautiful is death, when earn’d by virtue! / Who would not be that youth?  What pity is it / That we can die but once to serve our country.”

How beautiful is death, when earn’d by virtue.

All of this got me to thinking.  These men are famous because they died for something.  They died, whether by execution or assassination, for causes which they believed in so passionately that they were prepared to give their lives for them.  And here I am, 21 years old, and I don’t really feel like I have anything I’m willing to die for.  Maybe that’s good, and maybe that’s tragic… I don’t really know.

I guess that the underlying problem here is that I think that I would be willing to fight and die for America’s ideals – the principles and ideas upon which this country was founded.  The principles of freedom and liberty.  The principle of opportunity.  The principle that anyone can start with nothing and make something out of it.  Can make a life.  Can make a family.  Can make a fortune, if that’s what they want.  Unfortunately, I think that we’ve gotten too far from those ideals.

I love my country, and I am proud to be an American, but not in that redneck-country music-gun toting-warmongering-put 10 flags in front of my house kind of way.  I’m proud to be an American because of what America is supposed to stand for.  I’m proud to be an American in a “Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” kind of way.  I’m proud to be an American in a “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” kind of way.  And I’m proud to be an American in a “Give me liberty or give me death” kind of way.

So what happened here?  Looking back on these words, the current state of things is fucking depressing.  I do love my country, but I’m not completely sure that I’m ready and willing to die for it as it is.  I don’t want to die for a country where the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer and the middle class doesn’t give enough shits to do anything about it.  I don’t want to die for a country where people are all too willing to defend their own stupid freakin’ rights while at the same time being all too willing to take them away from others.  I don’t want to die for a country where the government primarily serves itself, rather than the people who depend on it for their opportunity.

I guess the point of all of this is that I want to live in a country where I love it so much that I am willing to fight and die for it.

One of the most oft-quoted lines from Ghandi is that “You must be the change you wish to see in the world,” and I used to believe so passionately that one person – any person – could be and make that kind of change.  But I’m not so sure anymore.  Martin Luther King Jr. certainly did it.  Can I?

I like to believe so.

Blogger copycatting while waiting to go get some food

• Four jobs you've had in your life:
  
• Maintenance Man, Supportive Services Inc.
  
• Sales Associate/Paper & Chemicals stock boy/general indentured help, Wal-Mart
  
• Mental Health Associate II, Supportive Services Inc.
  
• Assistant to Mount Union’s English Department


• Four movies you could watch over and over:
• The Royal Tenenbaums
  
• Garden State
  
• High Fidelity
  
• The Shawshank Redemption


• Four places you've lived:
  
• Beaver Falls, PA
  
• Alliance, OH
  
• In Jesse’s Basement (practically)


• Four TV shows you love to watch:
• Lost
  
• The West Wing
  
• Iron Chef America
  
• Seinfeld


• Four places you've been on vacation:
  
• Ocean City, MD
• Gettysburg, PA
• Geneva-on-the-lake, OH
• Washington DC


• Four websites you visit daily:
  
• My Yahoo!
• DailyKos
• Facebook
• Regnyouth


• Four of your favorite foods:
• Lasagna
• Fettucini Alfredo
• Mozzarella Sticks
• Pomegranites


• Four places you'd rather be:
  
• Italy
• NYC
• Someplace warm
• Somewhere with food


• Four albums you can't live without: At the moment:
  
• Duncan Sheik – Daylight
• Dave Matthews Band – Listener Supported
• Coldplay – X&Y
• Beck – Mutations


• Four people tagged next: Don’t know enough people who blog/care.

News in light of The West Wing

As involved and interested as I am in politics, it’s kind of surprising that I had never gotten into The West Wing until the past Christmas break.  I bought the Season 1 DVD set for my mom, and started watching it after I finished the full first season of Lost (another show which I’ll hopefully write about soon).

One of the things that I particularly like about The West Wing, other than its brilliant writing and liberal politics, which are often blatant but sometimes subtle, is how it shows, with much realism, the inner workings of the White House.  Sure, it’s TV and some of the issues are sensationalized.  That’s to be expected.  But a lot of it is true.

That’s why, when reading the news for today and seeing the headline “Laura Bush Backs Domestic Spying Program” I (a) wasn’t surprised and (b) thought immediately of an episode from Season 1 of the West Wing where the first lady leaks her preference for an appointment to the Federal Reserve Board, causing a shitstorm of havoc for the White House Staffers who have to deal with it.

One of the greatest things about The West Wing is that it shows exactly how the White House works in our state of modern politics.  The importance isn’t really on what or how a decision is made, but rather that everyone lines up behind that decision, whether they agree or not.

Granted, there has been fire from both sides over the Domestic Spying issue.  Sen. Specter has recently come out expressing his skepticism, and he’s joining a number of other high-profile Republicans (including, interestingly enough, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, one of the more conservative members of Congress) who are questioning the legality of the program.  But imagine if Laura Bush, or any of the top White House Aides to the President came out with anything less than full support.  It’d shake up and tear everything down, and the administration would likely fall apart.

Of course, this also points out a big weakness in our system as it is: that independent thought takes a back seat to following in line.  

The words of Ben Franklin ring eerily true in these times:  “They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.”

Will people get what they deserve?  Or will things make a change for the better?  Only time will tell, I guess.

Judicial Confirmation in 2046

In 30 or 40 years, during Judicial Confirmation Hearings, do you think that the opposition party will acquire/produce/ask questions about information on MySpace/Facebook/Blogger/LiveJournal etc. pages written during High School/College/younger days?

What about campaigns for public office?

Will candidates/nominees be expected to explain/defend/deny that stuff?

Will it influence voters?


"Mr. Ricci, I see that during your Junior year of College, you listed "hookahs" among your Facebook interests. Can you please explain?"

"Mr. Ricci, during college you were a member of the following Facebook groups: Ambidextrous Masturbators, If You Like it Kinky, The Clit Trust, Hot For Republicans, Want to Get Stober, and Chuck Norris is a Bad Ass. Please explain how a man of your low moral standards can even think that he represents the American People. I mean... Chuck Norris? You can't be serious."


Ah, who knows?