New Year's Eve Super Fun Time

I don't get that into New Year's Eve. Too much pressure to have the night of your life. The worst place to find yourself on New Year's is one of those bars that charges a $100 cover at 8pm and then offers an open bar until last man standing. People destroy themselves in the only way an open bar allows. I don't blame them; they paid $100 to get in so they better get their money's worth. It's better to go to those bars after midnight when everyone who was inside has moved outside to throw up on the sidewalk. Last year I walked between bars at about 12:30, and the city garbage cans were so crowded with vomiters that people had to taken to the streets in groups of three or four. Maybe this year I'll celebrate New Year's on Friday night instead of Thursday so I can avoid the crowds. It would also give me an opportunity to do something I've always wanted: A daring New Year's Eve jewel heist that I get away with since everyone but me is champagne drunk.

Impending Blue Moon

The difference between the solar year and the lunar year is about 11 days. The sun rises 365 times in a solar year, and the full moon rises 12 times (plus about 11 days) per the earth's rotation around the sun. The accumulation of these days over the course of a few solar years results in an extra full moon thrown into the year. This is what's known as the "blue moon," and we're getting one on New Year's Eve this year. The last time a blue moon came around I was in Minneapolis and walked home in flip-flops from the middle of downtown while my friends stood around trying to get a cab. I'm pretty sure I kept walking farther away from people hoping to get a jump on an available cab, and then I must have just decided to walk the rest of the way home since I was already several blocks from downtown. I woke up the next morning to a voicemail inbox crammed with questions of my whereabouts and personal safety decision making skills. If there's ever a night where this kind of behavior is acceptable, it's a New Year's Eve Blue Moon. Plan accordingly.

Book Dumping

Moving from grade school to middle school was traumatic for a lot of us. We were going from sitting in one classroom all day to switching classrooms every period. Most of us were worried that we'd get lost walking among the classrooms in the labyrinthine 'East Wing' of our school. Maps were hand drawn, photocopied, and passed out to students. The greater fear than getting lost, however, was getting your books dumped. This would happen at one of the two 'crash corners' where masses of students would intersect while hurrying between classrooms, and one of the older middle schoolers would reach over and knock your books out of your hands. It was a virtual yard sale of text books, notebooks, and loose leaf paper covered with careful cursive. I remembered it the other day when I saw some kid standing on the sidewalk next to a pile of books he'd just dropped into the snow. In middle school you'd either kick the kid's books or help him pick them up, but I wish I'd honked my car horn and yelled, "Welcome to middle school!"

Bags and Bags of Lights

During high school, someone in my parents' neighborhood had the bright idea that everyone should line their sidewalks with candle-lit white paper bags for one night. We congregated in one of our neighbor's cold garages on a December afternoon, and spent about an hour shoveling sand into each bag and dropping in a candle. Then on New Year's Eve everyone stumbled outside, setup their candles, and spent several frustrating minutes trying to light candles in the bottom of paper bags. I guess it looked kind of cool, but it was so cold no one wanted to walk around outside, and driving the circuit would take about 20 seconds. Plus the street lights kind of took away from the effect, so you ended up just looking out your front window at the few bag lights on your property line. The only really enjoyable part was when one of the bags would catch on fire and burn to the ground. We gave up on the project after one year and no one ever complained.

How to Load a Gun

In 6th grade each student had to present a "How to" speech to our class. Our teacher was always doing projects like this. Back then I thought he was trying to prepare us for the rigors of the upcoming middle school life, but now I know that he was lazy so he'd create projects that would take enormous amounts of class time and leave him with no take-home work. Once we even spent two weeks making collages and then another two weeks individually explaining our collages to the class. Mine had a lot of white space because, "people don't know a lot about me," (negative points for that). For our How-to speech, since this was 6th grade in Wisconsin, every boy wanted to do something along the lines of How to Load a Gun. He denied this topic, so I used my fallback of How to Make an Orange Julius. The coolest one he approved was How to Put an Arrowhead on an Arrow. That was the only one I paid attention to, and though today I have no idea how to make an Orange Julius, I could still put an arrowhead on an arrow.

Stealing Schooners

I lived down the street far a bar called Sportsman's that would sell you beer in glass pitchers and oversized goblet-style mugs called schooners. If you could make it past the front door with a pitcher full of beer in one hand and a schooner in the other, you'd almost always make a clean getaway. The bouncer would only chase you as far as the door, then he'd shake his head and say something like, "Oh man, they're long gone." My brother-in-law was telling me they had the same problem at a bar in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, so they made people leave their IDs at the bar to get a schooner. Getting a new drivers license in Wisconsin costs about $10 and is as easy as dropping by the DMV during a slow time, so the bar was still losing beer mugs out the door. I'm not sure why they didn't hand the IDs over to the police, but maybe it's because their next plan worked so well. If you wanted a schooner, you'd have to leave one of your shoes at the bar. You'd walk into this place and half the people would be walking around wearing only one shoe.

Red Ryder

My all-time favorite Christmas gift was a Red Ryder bb gun. I nearly shot my eye out several times when bb's ricocheted off rocks whizzed past my ear. It occurred to me yesterday that instead of worrying about losing an eye, I could have simply worn eye protection. Ski or swim goggles would likely be sufficient since bb's don't come out of that thing with too much velocity. Swim goggles would also probably obscure your vision a bit, so you would want to make sure whatever you're shooting at wasn't moving. Over the holiday, I've been digging around in my parents' attic for a few minutes each day trying to find that thing, but haven't had any luck. The empty beer cans in the garage and my eyes are safe, for now at least.

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

My psychology friend Chris was going down a list of conventional wisdoms about human emotions and asking whether or not I thought they were true. The only one I remember is "Once bitten, twice shy." Studies had supplied this one with a scientific background, and I believe it's true. To this day I feel uncomfortable leaving my stuff in a gym locker room without using a lock. During my Guppy swim lessons at the local YMCA in 4th grade, I didn't have much to leave in my locker except some clothes and my shoes. That didn't stop me from becoming the victim of one of the strangest thefts on record at the local Y. Someone stole the insoles out of my size-5 Nike Bo Jackson Cross Trainers. The shoes never fit quite right after that, but the bigger victim is my sense of well-being when leaving things in lockers. The climbing gym I go to now is the only place in the city where people leave their bikes and lockers unlocked, but you'll always be able to tell which bike is mine in the rack since it's the only one was a Kryptonite U-lock around the frame.

Garbology

There was a special in 60 Minutes or one of those other newsmagazine TV shows several years ago about a profession called Garbology. It's part archaeology and part cultural anthropology. People go to landfills and dig through trash bags to study our habits based on what we throw away. Occasionally when I throw something out I'll think, "I hope a garbologist doesn't go through this bag." They would think I'm pretty pathetic from this Chris O'Donnell movie and a half-filled out journal. The only thing worse than a garbologist going through my embarrassing garbage would be if 60 Minutes did another report on the profession and they opened my trash bag on TV.

Cliff Jumping

People used to jump off the cliffs and into the river near my old house. A couple people died because they were knocked unconscious when they hit the water and they drowned, so the park rangers began enforcing an obscure zoning ordinance that effectively banned cliff jumping. I was standing at the top of the cliff one afternoon, and a ranger was there letting people jump even though he wasn't supposed to. Then his cohort ranger showed up and shut us down. Some other guy who was jumping off the cliff lamented about, "The couple people who ruined it for all of us." I agreed with him at first, but then the ranger made a good point. He said the people who jumped off and died probably wouldn't have jumped if they'd known they were going to die. Good point. Better point I thought of later? "If everyone you knew was jumping off a cliff, would you do it, too?" Well, I guess for a bit, but then I'd come to my senses and stop.

Laughing Out Loud

At my old job everyone in my department chatted online even though we all sat right next to each other. It seems stupid, but it's less disruptive to your work to type out a few words instead of calling over cubicle walls. One of my coworkers was right in my line of sight, and I could see his profile, though he would have had to turn around to see me. Sometimes while chatting, I'd say something a little funny and he'd type LOL, meaning 'laughing out loud.' The thing is, I was able to actually see him, and he'd be sitting there with the same blank look on his face and definitely not laughing out loud. As a result, I don't feel like typing LOL is adequate to let people know when I'm actually laughing out loud, so now if something really makes me laugh out loud, I resort to telling people the old fashioned way. I say, "That made me laugh out loud," or if they're in the same room I'll just laugh out loud.

The Kid Named Skyler

Skyler lived in the same dorm as our friend Travis. We met him one night when he was passed out drunk on Travis's floor. This was fortuitous as every single time we saw him after that he was also extremely drunk. We lost touch with Skyler for several years, and then in 2006 we began seeing him whenever we went out. We avoided him at first, but we saw him with such frequency that it became something of a phenomenon. We began to relish seeing the young man. I'd receive text messages from friends who ran into him while I was lying in bed on a weeknight, and we'd exchange Skyer sighting stories when we'd meet up. A couple years ago I moved halfway across the country, and left my Skyler sightings and lot of other fun times in the Midwest. Then last night I was walking down the street on the lookout for an available cab. I saw one and tried to hail it, but it stopped for another guy who was a few steps closer. He turned around, and I had my first Skyler sighting in three years.

Dog vs. Human Food

Dog food makers have managed to make treats that dogs find so tasty they'll risk getting it caught in their throats by eating the entire treat at once. Some of the treats even clean the animal's teeth during consumption, and they're also very healthy for dogs. Human food makers have been at it for a much longer time, but for me they still haven't nailed it. There's no insanely scrumptious food that's healthy and cleans your teeth while eating. You might argue that dogs will also eat raw meat, grass, or (its own) feces, but I'd point out that humans eat sushi, wheatgrass juice, and Arbys. Get on it food makers. I want compact feedbag food that I can gorge down and get all the nutrients I need. Also, I'm tired of waiting for meals in a pill, flying cars, and monkey butlers.

Sleep Clinic Rules

My doctor says that the quality of my sleep is improved when I lay on my side, so he suggested that I sew a tennis ball to the back of a shirt that I can wear to bed so that I won't roll on my back in the middle of the night. A friend of mine once spent an entire night sleeping on a large hard plastic Bart Simpson doll, and he never bothered rolling of it. Alcohol may have played a factor in that night, though. I'm spending another night at the sleep clinic tonight. They monitor your breathing levels and make sure you're getting healthy sleep. Before you go in for the overnight visit, they give you a long questionnaire about your sleeping habits. Part of it asks how much alcohol you drink per day, so I said I almost always have at least one drink per day, often two, and usually more on weekend nights. My doctor told me that I should have a couple beers before heading into the clinic for the overnight so they could get test results consistent with my normal sleeping habits. That's my favorite part of the sleep clinic--being able to drink in a bar on the way there and tell people I'm under doctor's orders to have another one.

Sprayed with Acid

Freshman year we were meeting some girls on the other side of campus who arrived late and angry. "We were sprayed with acid!" they shouted. "Whoa, whoa, this is going to be a good story," I thought. The two women were heading across the bridge when a guy on a bike with a water gun rolled past and blasted them with a shot. They said that it burned and there were afraid it was acid. I told them it was likely water, possibly urine, but definitely not acid. The most shocking thing about their story was that two adult women could jump to the conclusion that there were maniacs wheeling around on bikes carrying water guns loaded with acid. Where would someone get that acid, and why would they ride around campus on a bike toting a water gun full of it? In retrospect, it's more likely that it was loaded with some alcoholic concoction, and the cyclist was simply trying to do the women a favor since they were obviously walking to a party.

Hair Dryers and Saving the Environment

I've owned one hair dryer in my life. I found this hairdryer in a closet on the day we decided to hang plastic sheeting over our windows to cut down on cold drafts and save money on the heating bill. This is that sheeting you stretch over your windows and apply with two-sided tape and then blast with a hair dryer to tighten up. There's something so satisfying about using a hair dryer to take the wrinkles out of a big sheet of window-covering plastic. It's like waving a magic wand that makes all the little problems disappear. It's this kind of environment-saving that's so easy and rewarding to do. The only problem is that you have to cut holes in the sheeting to let smoke out when a pizza catches fire in the oven. In fact, it was in a pizza fire that we later lost the only hair dryer I'd ever owned. It was sitting on top of the oven and looked okay, but when we picked it up the barrel folded over like it was made from melted cheese. It's likely that melting hair dryers is bad for the environment, but I like to think we did some good anyway.

Literally Passing the Buck

Someone gave me a Susan B. Anthony coin with my change when I paid for lunch today. It's the original $1 coin, before they came out with the Sacajawea coin. The moment you get one of these coins you can't wait to pass if off to the next person. You can't really turn down a Susan B. Anthony coin since it seems so petty to argue over $1, and it's even harder if you work in retail since there's no space in the cash register for your $1 coins. I wish I could get behind the dollar coin since it lasts so much longer than the paper $1 bill. I'd like to see America go Euro-style and release $1 and $2 coins and then eliminate the paper dollar. I've heard people argue that this will never happen because women working in strip clubs rely on paper $1 bills for their income, but I don't buy that argument. First of all, the stripper lobby is not something very well organized in Washington, and I'm sure strip clubs could come up with some kind of voucher or ticket system, similar to the kind you see at state fairs. No, I think people oppose it on the grounds that they simply prefer to avoid change.

Needing Glasses

I'm lucky enough to not need glasses. This makes it a little difficult for me to understand what people are going through when they're struggling with vision issues. For example, I've been to movies or ball games with friends when they realize they forgot to bring their glass, but I'm not sure to what extent their watching abilities are hindered. My girlfriend and I were long-distance for awhile, and during an early AM drive to the airport we left in a hurry and she didn't bring her glasses. I didn't think much of it, even after we cut across a few lanes on the highway. She was cutting corners like we were on an Indy car racetrack, but since it was 4am there was almost no traffic and it seemed safe. I thought she was just in a huge rush to get me to the airport. Then we passed a monstrous football stadium that was named after a local friend chicken chain called Bojangles, and she said, "Whoa, look at the size of that Bojangles." The rest of the drive I called out the names of streets, exits, and let her know when we drifted between lanes.

Why I Haven't Been to Ibiza

My first interview for a salaried job after graduation was for the role of Word Magician at a software company. I knew nothing about computers, software, or what to expect from a company that had job titles like "Word Magician." The interview was in Madison, Wisconsin, and I drove to it with a friend who was also going to an interview at an engineering firm. We agreed that if we both received job offers, we'd ask to start a month out and then go to Ibiza for a couple weeks. In hindsight, I probably should never favorably compare myself to Shakespeare during an interview for a writing job. Neither of us were offered roles in the respective companies, and I still have never been to Ibiza.

Hunter's Safety Class

Hunter's Safety classes were part of the curriculum at the knockoff Boy Scout group I went to as a child. At The Brigade we would meet in a large auditorium to watch the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources film about Hunter Safety each week, then we'd play some floor hockey before branching off into small groups to talk about the informative film we'd watched. There was a group of reoccurring cast member in the Wisconsin DNR Hunter Safety films that would always behave in unsafe ways, and we were always tasked with pointing out all their mistakes during our small group meeting. They did things like shot each other and tied dead deer to the hoods of their cars before taking victory laps through town. The things I remember most about them were their bumper stickers. In the deer hunting safety video they had one that said, "If It's Brown, It's Down," and in the duck hunting video their bumper sticker said, "If It Flies, It Dies." Once you're outside of a hunting context, I think it's likely you'd get beat up for having these stickers on your vehicle.

If It Makes You Happy

You know what song isn't as terrible as it should be? "If It Makes You Happy," by Sheryl Crow. I hear it about once a year in a grocery store or bowling alley and find myself tapping my foot or humming along. I really shouldn't like it since it's by the same woman who sang, "The First Cut is the Deepest" and loads of other songs that send me towards the exit. "If It Makes You Happy" sets off an internal struggle I'd rather not face. It really shouldn't be so terrible to like one song by a musician who I dislike on every other measurable level. Nothing else is like that. I can enjoy a restaurant as long as there's one thing on the menu I like, and I can watch a sports team with tons of players I hate if I like just one of them. I suppose it's because we attach more importance to the kind of music we like when identifying our personalities and pop-culture alliances, and that's why good songs by terrible musicians are such guilty pleasures.

Gym Teacher

For some reason my 3rd grade gym teacher always selected me to be a ref instead of a participant in sports. He'd divide out class into four groups of five students to play two games of basketball, and he'd ref one and toss me a whistle and say, "Here Rocky, you ref the other one." This baffled me since I didn't know the rules of basketball. I'd blow the whistle, everyone would look at me, and then I'd invent a foul and give the ball to the other team. No-handsies-to-the-face, or something like that. The gym teacher displayed questionable judgment in his private life as well. After two years of us seeing him with pure white hair, he arrived at class with a suave brown color. I'm pretty sure he assumed that kids wouldn't notice things like that, but here I am 21 years later writing about it. Our class erupted into such a ruckus upon seeing his hair that our regular teacher had to come in and calm us down. That poor guy was probably getting it all day.

Technology Issues

Sometimes when you're on a small jet that's not full, the stewardess will tell everyone that they need to change seats to evenly distribute weight. Also, sometimes you'll arrive 20 minutes early on a two-hour flight because you had a tailwind. I find these things troubling. The fact that a machine screaming through the air at 500mph arrives 20% early because you had a tailwind, and that this machine would face problems if too many big guys sit up front should not be the case. It would be like getting into a time machine and asking everyone if they could stick their feet out to slow it down when you approached the year you want.

Spoken Too Soon

A new strip club opened in a windowless corrugated steel shack in the neighborhood, and my friend's pregnant wife commented on how small the place looked for how many jacked-up trucks were parked in its lot. "It's a lot bigger on the inside," my friend said. He then backpedaled into some story about his bother going there as quickly as he could talk. I nearly had a similar gaff today when trying to text my roommate that our landlord was "busting my balls" about us moving out early. I was thinking my landlord's name the whole time, so I scrolled to his name in my phone and starting tapping in the message. I managed to catch myself before sending it to him while he fixed my shower in the next room, but I suppose that sending it would have been a really great passive-aggressive way to get him off my case.

Bargain Hunting

I spent a lot of time on Craigslist when I was back in the Midwest over the holiday. My plan was to find a vintage bike on the cheap and then ship it back home. Old bikes are ridiculously overpriced here, so even if I ended up never riding the bike, I'd be able to unload it without much trouble. My problem with Craigslist, besides the people who waste your time with endless e-mails chains of questions, is that I will never pay full price. It's an affront to my skills as a negotiator to come in and pay the asking price, even if it's entirely reasonable. I didn't find a vintage bike, but I did find a Park Tools truing stand (a big bike tool for straightening wheels) for only $50. I promptly e-mailed the guy and offered him $40, then we spent two days haggling before we agreed on $45. We setup a time the next day for me to pick it up, but on my day off a new buyer swooped in and paid the full asking price. I may have lost out on a great deal for something I actually wanted, but at least I know I'm a much shrewder bargainer than money bags who came in and paid full price.

College Prep

Either my second grade teacher Mrs. Sparks had a gift for sparkling non-sequitur statements, or I zoned out in class a lot and only regained consciousness when she said something really off the wall. She yelled about not sharing cans of soda one afternoon during math, but it was her talk on college that stuck with me the most. One day she responded to a classmate's question about higher education with a discourse on the college experience. She said, "You'll do crazy things in college. Drink gallons of water for no reason at all; drink water with goldfish in it." She went onto something about staying up all night, but I'd fixated on the goldfish in the future of my education. If her intention was to paint college as a place where there would be a free exchange of ideas, I'm afraid she failed. But if she was trying to say in a kid-friendly way that we'd do a lot of partying, she nailed it.

I Was Just Thinking About That

The movie Ghostbusters was on TV last night, and I thought to myself, "That's funny, I was just thinking about Ghostbusters yesterday." Then I realized that I probably think about Ghostbusters for a moment every day. And that made me start thinking about all the other needless stuff that clogs my brain during my waking hours. Not things that I ponder or really care about, but bits of pop culture that jump into my brain. It's not something you actively try to do. The thoughts are like a truck driving by, you're powerless to stop it but you barely notice and don't really care. I'm sure there are loads of things like this for me, but besides Ghostbusters, I can't really think of anything.

Drysuits and Lake Swimming

We were bobbing in the waves on a small boat in the lake a few summers ago and decided to jump in for a swim. I was wearing the only clean clothes I had along after a weekend of bar tours and standing in lines for burritos at 2:30am. My friend bought a drysuit only a couple weeks earlier, and I'd always been curious to try one out, so I pulled it on and jumped in with everyone else. The thing was a bit baggy with a lot of dead air space, and when I hit the water feet first, it pushed the drysuit against my skin and all the air upwards. I floated like a bloated starfish, about a third of my body still above water. My friend opened the neck to let the air out, and in a few moments I was swimming along like everyone else. If you've never worn a drysuit, the water temperature comes through fairly well, and after a few minutes you almost forget you're wearing it. I'd drank a couple beers and kind of had to go to the bathroom. For a second I thought, "Perfect, I'll pee in the lake while swimming and no one will know." Thankfully I stopped myself in a momentary panic right before getting started.

Cleanliness and Restroom Inequality

The men's room in the climbing gym I go to is filthy. I found out a couple months ago that the guys who started the gym were all in a frat together just last year, so they're probably used to the accommodations. Most of the staff is trading work for climbing memberships, so they don't concentrate much or their time on bathroom cleanliness. I was complaining about the inch of water in the men's room and lack of soap and paper towels, and a female friend said the ladies' room is pretty nice. At first I thought this showed some class, but then I realized that they probably clean the restrooms both once a week, and since there are about five times as many men at the gym as women, the women's room becomes less of a pigsty.

Dogs and Sweaters

It's rare that a non-crazy stranger will approach me and start a conversation while I'm walking around the city. It might be because I'm pretty tall and big and look a little intimidating, or it might be that I talk to myself a lot so they think I'm nuts. A few months ago, I watched a tiny dog for a few days. Walking a small dog by yourself invites women to approach you and start conversations--everyone knows this. The issue is that they actually start the conversation with your dog and will remember the dog and its name but never yours. The other night I accidentally discovered something even more effective than a petite dog if you're trying to make yourself approachable. My friends were cleaning out their parents' house and unearthed a small truckload of sweaters from the 70s and 80s. I chose a pink sweater with fringes for myself, and the rest suited up in a mess of multi-color wool blends and we headed out for the night. It was as if I'd discovered a new cologne that made humans flock to me. You pull on an ugly sweater and it's an invitation to the world to begin a conversation with you. And the best part is that sweater care is less of a drain on your finances and time than small dog care.

Early Bald Spots

I met a woman a long time ago who had a small bald patch at the top of her head. It was high school, and a bit premature for even men with insane amounts of testosterone to start going bald. Her hair wasn't exactly bald to the skin, but she had a small short patch right where male pattern baldness begins. The girl was also about four-and-a-half feet tall, so the top of her head was visible to most people. I hung out with her in high school at a local coffee shop, and at that age you didn't worry about timing or feelings when asking someone about their bald spot. Fortunately she was very open about it. It turns out that she'd had a bad haircut about two years earlier, and she'd tried to fix it but accidentally cut her hair too short in that spot. At that length it would only stick straight up, so every couple weeks she trimmed it back to the point where it still sticks straight up, but it's at the same length as the rest of her hair. Whenever I think back to her and those people I hung out with at the coffee shop, I still wonder if she's trimming her bald patch back every couple weeks.