Things Stupid Kids Do: Episode 2, Part III (The Journey Ends)

 

Things Stupid Kids Do: Episode 2, Part I (The Journey Begins)

Things Stupid Kids Do: Episode 2, Part II (The Journey Meanders)

Let me begin this ending with the victorious cry, “WE BEAT THE TOLL!”

Ok, well, by that I mean, at least WE didn’t have to pay the toll when my parents drove up to rescue us.

Where did I leave off? Something about a blue helicopter and a plume of black smoke? Yeah…

My friend and I were still practicing how to be lazy canoers… Ok, wait…

You know what? Let’s just get this out of the way now… the fact that the river was flowing in the direction we wanted to go was actually a big selling point of this trip to begin with. We could both imagine drifting toward home while napping the miles away.

As I was saying, we were hungry and thirsty and sunburned and bug-bit and slightly mad at each other for doing this stupid trip and frustrated at how slowly we seemed to be getting it over with. Paddling didn’t seem to move us noticeably faster. At least, not faster enough to make our aching arms want to keep rowing. So, we drifted slowly down-river. There wasn’t much else to do except watch as that plume of black smoke got closer. Eventually a blue helicopter appeared and circled the dark plume of foreshadowing like moths flutter around porch lightbulbs. We weren’t really talking (probably spending the silence doing mental blame-calculations, “It was at least 51% his idea to do this.”). However, we were curious about what could be the source of all that smoke. As far as we could recall, no other billowing thick plume of black smoke had passed us by on our trip to date. We wordlessly “beached” the canoe at the closest place to observe the thick blackness rising into the sky we could find. I used quotes on “beached” because it was more like “hilled” the canoe. The right side of the river had been a nearly vertical wall of mud for a while now.

Once the canoe was “hilled” we climbed the mud-wall, and I quickly envied my friend’s decision to leave his footwear behind because my sneakers were getting caked in mud. Not the clean kind of mud, either.

We eventually reached the top of the riverbank, and it was nice and grassy with trees and shrubs in abundance. The ground sloped gently downward, away from the river toward a dirt path that seemed to roughly parallel the river. On this path we could see what looked to us like a fancy new black Cadillac limousine all aflame! Fire under the hood, flashing orange here and there underneath the car, windows either open already or popped out by the heat, and the never-ending spew of black smoke coming from the interior of the car.

Now a few things happened almost simultaneously at this point. The flaming smoking spectacle was our main focus, of course. But once we had absorbed what was going on, we kinda entered, “Huh” mode as we tried to work backwards as to why this organized crime type of vehicle would be in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere. And as some fanciful and witness relocation sorts of ideas began to form we noticed that there was a red jeep parked a ways ahead of the crime scene and a guy was just standing there watching (hopefully just) the car burn.

Seeing this fellow witness produced another “Huh” event in our minds. Apparently, our minds were loud because he suddenly jerked his head to look at us and RAN to the back door of his jeep, reached in and started to pull something out of the back seat.

I can honestly say that I am not 100% confident of what he was removing from his vehicle in such a hurry. This is because I turned to my friend and yelled “RUN!” Which we did. Why would I yell something like that? Two reasons. First, I didn’t actually know I was yelling it until after I did – so I sorta feel like I don’t need to provide a conscious reason. Second, I didn’t wait to see what the suspect was yanking out of his jeep in such a hurry, but the WAY he was removing the item was the way you would pull a rifle off of the back seat. Yes, yes, I know. It’s possible that maybe he was removing a very large French baguette, but my paranoid subconscious was in charge of interpreting the situation, not my stomach. Ok, sure, maybe it was a… what, a US flag? A US flag to wave a patriotic hello to us with? Maybe a fishing pole because he thought that two strangers who were in the wrong place at the wrong time might hog all the best fishin’ spots before he could set up? Yeah. There are plenty of things that could have emerged in his arms. I guess that I didn’t want to chance it. How embarrassing to have been shot and have my dying words be, “I thought he wanted to share a 6-ft Subway Sandwich with us…”

Now then. Where to run? Consider: Our primary getaway vehicle was a hilled canoe. If we went for the canoe, then our getaway route would have been a slowly moving open spaced river. My only real hiding spot would have been behind my friend. But how long would that be a safe place to hide from a sniper’s bullet? Instead, we abandoned our canoe and made use of our feet to continue down river. To give some cover (in case it wasn’t a flagpole the killer was drawing from his car), we slipped about halfway down the riverbank first and then moved as fast as we could downriver. There were some obstacles along our route which helped fuel our adrenaline. It felt as if we would be hearing (or feeling) rifle shots from above at any second, so we maneuvered around as many trees and fallen logs as we could to decrease any shooter’s chances for accuracy. It was pretty easy to run on the fallen wood because I was wearing sensible footwear. My friend, on the other hand, had foolishly left his shoes in the hilled canoe. I bet he envied my decision to keep them on. (Was that call-back too far removed?)

We maintained a pretty good pace until the adrenaline wore off and I started to think about how the assassin could actually have made better time following the dirt path to get ahead of us and just wait for his targets to appear. So, we changed our strategy and started to swim across the river to where we had spotted a half-destroyed bridge. It looked like it had become a popular parking spot for the local high schoolers and skunks, apparently, judging by the smell. I’m not sure (can’t remember) what swimming style my friend selected, but I went on my back facing the slowly receding riverbank, eyes locked on the top of the hill waiting to see the hunter emerge. It’s surprising how fast it can feel like you are swimming when it looks like you are barely moving.

After about 16 days of swimming, we finally made it across the river and bonus (!): BOTH of us arrived with fewer than 1 bullet holes each. With that relief slowly growing in our souls, I scrambled up the side of the collapsed overpass and casually sauntered over to the group of about five teens sitting around some giant concrete blocks. It was a long walk made longer by their quiet non-moving stares. It was handy that they were quiet because only one of my sneakers was making a squish noise when I stepped on it: Squish, - - -, squish, - - -, squish, - - - (you get the idea). I lifted a sheepish hand into a chest-high wave and said, “Hi.”

It should occur to you here that there is suddenly a lot of “I” and “me” in my narration. What happened to my friend? Let me start by saying that he was (still is) a good bit taller than me (who isn’t?) and he was very thin (but not anymore) and gangly (um..). The kids all shifted their gaze behind me, and so I turned as well to see my friend clawing his way to the roadway and then walking Frankenstein-like toward us. WTF?! Turns out his bare feet were absolutely jam-packed with splinters from the old wood we had messed with during our adrenaline race. I honestly have wondered even today (i.e., decades later) if he still finds a stray splinter in a foot now and then.

Although the kids were a bit focused on my friend, I asked if one of them could drive us to a phone (yes, it was THAT long ago). My memory is that they continued to watch my friend, never moving their eyes from him, and answered my every question without dropping their gaze. Surely that’s just a false memory.

When the adrenaline starts flowing, my paranoia gets… growing. Rather than relate our version of “the most dangerous game” (look it up if you need to), we just went with the “our canoe flipped over” story. Maybe the whole town was in on this mafia hit gone wrong? One of the guys volunteered to take us to the nearby gas-mart. So, after a brief walk, we got to his old shockless gold 1970 Lincoln Continental with rusty accents which, after three tries to start the engine, we got to bouncing and rolling for about a mile through the forest and out to a main road. We arrived at the store in no time. I don’t recall whether he took off then or followed us inside, but we straight away asked the cashier to call the police for us, which she did once we told her about our canoe mishap.

The cops showed up and what we wanted was to hurry the hell up and get into their car so we could tell them about the serial killer on the loose without letting the gas-mart cashier hear. Again, let me just defend myself and remind you that when my arousal levels are high (via caffeine or adrenaline) my paranoia levels get even higher. PLUS, you know how those things go in the horror movies?! All it was going to take was for the cashier to listen in and then jump on the gossip network and you know this is where the killer/monster finds out we are going to the police station and that’s where the horrible massacres end up happening. Really, I was just trying to keep the local constabulary safe.

The two officers (let’s call one Judge and the other Jury) stroll into the store and look at these two damp and scrawny kids (one was barefoot, remember). No doubt we were deemed harmless “city boys who don’t know a lick a shit about country goings on” a notion that we no doubt pleasured with our made-up canoe-tipping story. Judge had to ask, “Why would you be trying to canoe down that river, anyway?” We got to use our “to avoid the toll” joke yet again. Judge laughed but Jury pshawed with, “Toll ain’t that bad.” While shaking his head and not smiling ever.

Our outward appearances were probably easy-going to those watching us, but our insides were excruciating. Those of you who celebrated Christmas as youngsters might remember the night before the opening-of-gifts where you just wanted to go to bed around 6:00 pm so the next morning would come more quickly? SMART parents don’t let that happen because a 6:00 pm bedtime would mean a 2:00 am wakeup. No. Way. So, they find ways for everyone to stay up as late as possible so the parental units can HOPE to get at least a sample-sized portion of quality shuteye. Us kids had to endure the agony of every slow beat of the clock. Sometimes it felt like the clock was taking back every third second. But this was exactly how things were feeling with everyone just hanging the hell around in the store shit-chatting about the stupid college student follies.

FINALLY we were escorted to the cruiser and once inside came clean with the cops. Was I a little afraid that one or more of the police might have been in on it? Well, actually… yeah. But I was so tired and hungry and emotionally burned out that I would have been ok with whatever horrific scenario wanted to play out at this point.

We got to the station and they actually had a pretty good idea of who the guy was with the red jeep. We had at least an hour to waste before my parents were going to be able to pick us up, and during that time the police brought Mr. Redjeep in for questioning. Get this… he claimed he was just getting a shovel out of his vehicle to throw dirt onto the flaming car! YYyyyeeeaaaahhhh right! WHO drives a jeep to a burning car so he can just stand and watch it burn only to notice two people looking on and then suddenly remember about a shovel he urgently needs to grab from the back seat?!

My parents arrived, we somehow got the hilled canoe and then we went home for some dinner. All total, I doubt we got more than 20 miles down the Pemi. (I’m not so good with endings, huh?)

High Call Place Urge Phenomenon Void Jump

 

Another late evening walk with Raphael completed.

All we "caught" was a bunny in the flashlight beam on this cold-crisp-but-pleasant-nonetheless walk. But over the past few weeks we have seen many deer, a racoon, an opossum, a skunk, and quite a few other bunnies. Not to mention quite a few green glowing eyes in the woods - probably deer or racoons... but maybe they belonged to something else? We didn't want to walk through our neighbors' yards uninvited to find out.

I believe that Raphael enjoys the alone time with me - exploring the smells of the evening neighborhood, which must surely smell different from the daytime neighborhood.

While we walk, I very much enjoy looking up at the stars. Tonight was particularly nice with only a few wispy clouds to block the view. No moon to speak of, and much less light pollution compared with when we lived closer to the city.

There is something called the "High Place Phenomenon" which refers to that urge people get to jump from an overlook or viewing platform. I remember feeling that when we would go on a cruise. I would look down from over the balcony at the turquoise waves splashing past the ship when we were out at sea. It isn't the sort of impulse that becomes a compulsion, it's a feeling of "what if" that spreads slightly into something physical. A brief tingle of tension through arms to toes and through legs to fingers. It is a mixed up feeling that wavers and fades. Well, it either passively fades, or it is actively suppressed by my feelings of mortality; the rational knowing of what would happen if I did jump. That's NOT the way I want to exit this reality.

I bring this up because I feel something terribly stronger on our clear-night walks. There is another phrase used to name the "urge to jump" that, for me, better describes how I feel when I look to the stars. It is "L'appel du vide" or "the Call of the Void." People use the French version to make it sound more romantic, I guess. But I think the German isn't so bad sounding either: "der Ruf der Leere." Whatever. My destination here isn't so much about what it is called but how it feels. It is an aching yearning for something that can never be. I want to see, no, I want to VISIT the stars. Each and every one. I want to see the planets orbiting them and explore whatever is on them. Finding life would be great, but I really just want to know what's there. The weather, the formations, the atmospheres... I want to know everything. See everything. There's so much potential to experience. But it is out of reach. It might as well not even exist. All I get is to see the glass windows of the candy store all shaded over. Not even a hint of what's inside. Just knowing something is there is all I get. "No man's sky," I guess. 

This call of the void doesn't feel like the urge to jump, exactly. It doesn't fade after a moment. It squeezes me and pushes bitter sadness into my being. A strong feeling of loss for something I never even possessed. I'm not even close to being able to satisfy my desires... so I pity Michael Collins who came so close to landing on the moon, but never quite got there - and he knew he wouldn't. Nonetheless, I crave that chance - to see it all. But I never ever will. And yet, every night we walk, I look to the stars expectantly.

So nice that I can live in a world where such frivolous thoughts have the chance to carry such weight with me.

Mum + 1

What is special about today?

My mother was born on July 3, 1940. She died 21,627 days later. She never made it to age 60. She didn't quite make it to see the year 2000 and its Y2K hysteria come and go (she missed it by 106 days).

Since she left us, we've moved into three different homes and lived in two different states.

So many pets have since entered our lives. She would have loved and mourned them all.

Family vacations, get-togethers, weekly telephone calls - all missed. I think she really would have loved being able to video chat on a computer or smart-phone (if we could have persuaded her to get one). That technology wasn't really available until quite a while after she died.

Of course, she also missed the 911 attack, the Columbia tragedy, too many school shootings, a special type of imbecile "elected" as president (despite 70% of the voting population NOT having voted for him), and these past few mask-wearing years full of anti-vax and anti-mask dip-shits pushing their selfish agendas. But let's not continue down this particular road of negativity and instead just focus on today.

In fact, I should stop listing things altogether. It would be impossible to detail this loss; trying to do so only suggests that the impact of her passing can be quantified. It cannot.

My focus is really just about today. Today in particular. It is seasonably cold, but there is no snow on the ground nor is snow likely until January. There is nothing very special about today except maybe that it is the day before Christmas.

This will be the 23rd Christmas we get without my mother. She went out of her way to make the holiday special for everyone. This was certainly true for my wife and I who spent most of our holidays far from home and family. She kept us connected and close despite the miles and the cold. In 1999, when she died, she not only took Christmas with her, but all the other holidays, vacations, cook-outs, weekly phone calls… and so much more.

What makes today personally remarkable is that it puts me one day older than what my mother got.

I got "more" but it continues to feel like less.

What I've Been Doing To Usurp Young Minds

I teach college. Or, well, I am a professor in a small private university and so I occasionally speak words out loud to classrooms of assorted technologies, air, furniture, and students. Over the years (omg - so many years) I have developed an occasional habit of not listening to myself and wandering off in my mind to play video games while lecturing.

That isn't something I approve of (nor do I approve of taking naps while driving, nor letting my face show my true feelings when my wife talks about Downtown Abbey or whatever it's called). If my lectures are so boring that even I don't want to listen, we should pity the poor students sitting in the classroom! One solution I have to keep students (and <cough> me) interested is to introduce unusual (BUT ON-TASK) ideas once in a while.

Example: Making up blended words to convey concepts in Sensation and Perception such as "smeat" which is sorta what happens when you smell dog poop on your shoe... you are smelling an odor and your nose is kinda eating it, too. So smell + eat = smeat! (After all, isn't that what somebody once did when they came up with the term "transduction" - seriously... isn't it? Asking for a friend.) I did this very one today, in fact.

Example: Applying principles of Social Psychology to a lecture on how to form and maintain a cult! (A benevolent dictatorship?)

Example: Applying statistics (chi square) in the Methods in Behavioral Research class to FINALLY put to rest the debate about which is better, "over" or "under" when it comes to TP hanging with the bonus resolution to the question of TP usage (folded vs. bunched). Want to know what we found? Take the class, not all education is free!

Example: Back to Sensation and Perception, I have developed a practical application of the vocabulary word "foveate" for personal gains and benefits. NOT to be confused with orbisculate, which is when a grapefruit targets your eye with a juicy squirt. Rather, to foveate is to adjust your gaze on something, like the grapefruit, so that the image is targeted on a specific location on your retina (i.e., the fovea). 

Use "foveate" to claim the last slice of pizza, cake, pie, or lasagna (etc.) by simply saying, "Oh my gosh! Someone foveated all over this last slice... Does anyone want it?" BAM! It's likely to be yours without any fuss! 

Benefits: (1) You get that last slice on the legit (not your job to build other people's vocabulary), (2) you come across as the nice guy for letting everyone know about that disgusting sounding thing that happened to it, and (3) you are viewed as generous for first offerring the slice to others before taking it on yourself. 

Maybe this one should have been kept a secret... if everyone knows it, then it loses its power.

As I write this, we are nearing the end of a long semester of lectures through warm soggy masks. The list above needs to be built upon and I simply lack the effort right now to rehash the past few months. I will return occasionally to build the list so that there are more than four examples. Be patient... you can see that when it comes to blogging, I am a:

Prolific

  Rigorous

    Observant

      Cuddly

        Relatable

          Active

            Smart

              Tenatious

                Insightful

                  Nerdy

                    Affectionate

                      Trustworthy

                        Organized and

                          Reliable

BLOGGER!

[Poster images via FOTOR.COM a very cool site you should check out!]

False Memories of a sap.

We signed (sold) on our old house this morning.

It took us about three and a half months to move out and get it in better shape than it was when we first moved into it.

One of the last things I did was to spend some time in the attic cleaning away junk and sweeping the dust. We had originally planned to make it a studio for Cindy to do her artwork. We put in a sturdy work table, covered a large area of floor near the windows with tasteful linoleum to protect the wood from errant paint splops. But it wasn't very temperature friendly for much of the year, so eventually the attic backslid into a storage area.

To pass the time while I cleaned the attic space, I began to imagine all the wasted potential. We could have put some money and time into making it a grand member of the house. In fact (ok, get ready, here we go), we lived there for 20 years and if we had produced a daughter I would have made sure that this space was perfect for my little princess! At age 8 my daughter would have been living in either what we called the guest room, or my office - both on the second floor.

No doubt the attic would have been a dreadful mess of boxes and junk we couldn't part with. Well, I imagined a scenario where we sent her off to space-camp and then got super-busy renovating the attic in secret.

I could see exactly how I would modify the space. First off, a built-in heating and cooling unit. Next some of the walls actually have a lot of space behind them, so I was imagining built in twin beds and some book cases and/or drawers. Better lighting options. The room is actually split 70/30 by a thin wall that has a doorway which would lead to a combination dressing room closet and hideaway place for reading, sulking, or journal writing.

The walls and ceiling would need fresh coats of paint and the floors would need plush carpeting (we don't want to hear her stomping around above our heads dancing to that awful music she listens to). Furniture (desk, chairs, etc.) would be needed, plus a small goodies fridge and microwave. Curtains for both windows and subtle lighting for the stairway so she won't miss a step.

All this in about 5 days! (I would have had more energy back when I did this.)

Now the evil fun part (because it's ME after all).

My daughter would arrive home from camp all excited to be back (because she loves us) and I'd say for her to freshen up because we were going to celebrate her return with dinner at the Olive Garden (it's her favorite restaurant).

She'd stomp up the stairs (because that's the way she ALWAYS goes up or down them) to what she thought was her bedroom, only to find we had gotten rid of her stuff. Her room is now an exercise room (yeah, right - but whatever, this is MY fantasy recollection and I'm a healthier person in it).

Confused and trying not to get upset, she'd look around to see if we moved her stuff to a different room (never checking the attic because that's where the junk is stored). Nothing.

Storming back down to us sitting casually in the living room she would demand to know what happened to her stuff! She'd be loud and assertive, but not in a "let's cancel the Olive Garden" kind of display.

"Oh, that's right," we would feign a memory lapse... "Seeing as your getting older now, we figured you'd want to be moving out of that little bedroom and into a larger place of your own. But don't worry, we set up a cot in the basement if you want to stay there until you find a place." We might even have a cot made up down there to sell this to her.

Stunned, she would start to tear up and my wife would want really bad now to tell her everything, but I wouldn't let her... "Listen, I think we have some sheets for that cot in a box somewhere in the attic. Go up and see if you can find them so we can make your bed before going to dinner."

Basically soft-crying she would slunk her way one step at a time to the attic. We would listen with a slow smile as she got closer to the attic door... we'd hear the door open, then slunk, slunk, slunk, sl...

A golden moment of silence as she realizes that something has changed in the attic. A growing girly scream of excitement would spiral down to us and we'd barely hear her running around on the plush carpet as she explored her new "apartment" in the attic.

Of course we'd demand she come back downstairs WAY before she wanted to leave her new room because we have to go to dinner. And our entire dinner conversation would revolve around what she and her mother were going to do to fix up the space to make it her own. There'd be talk of sleepovers and how her best friend Jessica is going to be soooo jealous, and can she have boys up there?! (Jesus! I just got her and she's already thinking about boys?! That hurt my heart a little...)

Anyway... THESE were the things I was thinking about as I swept the dust from the unstained and now bare wooden floors. And I actually found myself smiling at the "memories" I had made of our eight year old daughter and her new bedroom. What's worse... my eyes actually were slightly watery from the emotions that little girl and her reaction gave me.

Manipulative little bitch.

Things Stupid Kids Do: Episode 2, Part II (The Journey Meanders)

It had never occurred to me that the smiles and words of encouragement I got from fellow undergraduates as I carried a heavy wooden canoe to a river in preparation for a 95 mile "day trip" might be anything but well-wishing. Within four hours of these smiles and words I knew that they were motivated by lust for the prime dormitory space that was on the verge of opening up due to the anticipated deaths of the current occupants.

FYI, a lazy river gets lazier when lazy canoe-ists enter its waters. Bugs (not the nice kind) come out for a lazy brunch (there isn't anyplace to go or hide when you are in the middle of a swarm in the middle of a canoe in the middle of a LAZY river); the lazy sun shines brightest upon the brows of the lazy people sweating lazy drops of sweat which trickle lazily down their damn lazy butt-cracks.

Why the emphasis on indolence? Turns out that four hours of laziness on a lazy river flowing lazily south is enough time to realize that we had made an enormous mistake. Hm, "mistake" isn't a good enough word. There was NO WAY that too lazy kids were going to paddle their lazy asses UP river in the humidity and heat to take-back their commitment to the canoe trip. By this time, we had defaulted into this river wedlock. Locked in. Death, Taxes, This Trip. No deposit, no return. We had traveled beyond the event horizon.

In other words, after a full day of traveling down the river, we finally beached our water craft below the Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park. We climbed the steep bank to the campground area and set up our tent in a place that was least likely to get us caught as non-paying guests of this fine resort. It felt good to have a place to sleep, and cooking up the little bit of prepared food we brought made us feel like Stanley and Livingstone or Lewis and Clark. Those cheap, crappy hot-dogs were outstanding! We dined and mused about our travels thus far. We figured we'd traveled about maybe 30-35 miles of the 95-ish total?

In actuality, it was probably less than 8 miles.

We had finished Day 01 (of 3?) in our grand adventure... ignorance of how little we had actually traveled wasn't exactly bliss; having devoured our provisions, we couldn't help but anticipate how hungry we were probably going to be by the time we got home (in maybe a day and a half?). Had we a GPS tracking device to actually tell us that we had closer to two weeks left to go, we might have panicked a little bit. So that would be bad because it could have distracted us from the class iv rapids we were going to hit mid-morning the next day.

We packed up that morning, relieved we had not been discovered by the park manager, and loaded the canoe with excited anticipation (we had little else to load, having eaten and drank nearly all our supplies). The day was cool but sunny and promised to be excellent for river travels. The water was smooth, gentle, and flowing. What else could we have asked for (except bug spray, drinking water, food, and sun screen)?

The next couple of hours were uneventful except for having to carry our canoe up a steep hill through trees and scrub then over a ridge that marked the eastern bank of the damn we had to get around. (If it hadn't been for the effort, scratches, swearing, sweating, and bruises it took to get around the damn, I wouldn't have spelled it the way I am spelling it.)

At some point as we drifted down the river post-damn, we started to notice that the water was picking up some speed... becoming rapid you might say. Then suddenly we were in it! White frothy water splashing and bouncing us left and right faster and faster usually between the boulders in the river, but sometimes toward them!

My friend sat up front, oar in the water trying to keep us from smashing on the rocks by poking at them, while also screaming navigation pointers like "LEFT!" or sometimes "RIGHT!"

My job in the back of the canoe was to try to steer the tiny craft safely between the obstacles he loudly (and with a slightly panicked tremor in his voice) identified. I couldn't see right in front of us, but I could see further ahead in the river where things were going to be getting a lot worse. There wasn't really a lot of time to think ahead because we were trying our super-duper best to stay in one piece and pointing the right way.

Then it happened. While my friend was screaming instructions, and just as we were heading into the bad spot, I pushed my old wooden oar against a boulder to keep us straight and the oar snapped. In one hand I was suddenly holding a stub of wood (handle and button) while the other hand automatically reached out to grab the blade as it bobbed up from the water. At the time, a significant part of my attention was used up by being impressed that I was able to snatch the broken bit out of the water so readily - I'm sure it looked cool. My friends repeated screaming "Right! RIght! "RIGht" RIGHt! RIGHTRIGHTRIGHTRIGHT!" refocused my attention, but I didn't actually know what to do.

Best I could come up with was to jump ship. I rolled out of the canoe and touched the riverbed pretty easily. My friend had felt the canoe tip when I jumped out and was on board with me being not on board and ended up joining me in the water when he saw the broken paddle. So we were able to physically push the canoe through most of the worst part of the rapids (sometimes having to swim) until finally a safer part of the river showed up. There was a short beach with people doing the whole white-water-rapids experience, plus some picknickers. We walked the canoe to shore and plopped down.

After a few minutes some of the professionals in the water approached us to ask if we were alright. They also offered some food and DRINKS! We accepted and wondered aloud what were were going to do now. We explained that we were on a trip from Plymouth to the Merrimack river close enough to home to be picked up by parents.

"Why?" Asked one of the younger enthusiasts. "To avoid the toll!" was the joke we added...

Mostly this is where we started to internalize exactly how f-ed up this adventure was.

What were the hints?

(1) We were hungry, and were told that our trip is probably going to take a few more days.
(2) We were thirsty, and were told that there were at least four or so more damns we were going to have to bypass. One of which for sure was going to be tough to do. (We kinda thought we did that one already, but no, that was the easiest one of them all.)
(3) We were told that these rapids were "nothing" compared to what was further down the river.
(4) The looks on the faces of the people with more experience than us... Like they wanted to memorize all of our features so they could remember us when they saw our obituaries in the news later. Or, if they ended up finding us drowned and down-river.
(5) The incredibly generous gift that they gave us! An aluminum replacement paddle! I remember asking if they were sure that they could part with it, and I was told it was just an emergency paddle. Not a very good one or one they would want to rely on because it was slightly bent. My friend and I looked it over carefully and were unable to detect even the slightest defect. That really made us feel ignorant and marked for a watery death.

This is where smarter people would have called it a day, phoned parents for a pickup, and gone on with their lives. But we were embarrassed and just wanted to get out of there. So we jumped back in our canoe and headed on down the river. Neither of us wanting to be the one to pull the plug on the adventure, but probably both wishing the other would.

After about two more hours of lazy floating, baking, and feeding small insects, the horrors of our near-death experience were forgotten like a boring dream. In fact, the trip was exactly becoming just like a boring dream. We didn't have a lot to say to each other at this point (I'm not much of a conversationalist anyway) and the river had gone pretty wide, meaning the river wasn't flowing all that fast. Most of our paddling was side to side to escape the larger swarms of biting bugs.

Then we saw something odd above the trees down the river. A giant plume of black smoke and a blue helicopter circling around it. The river was slowly bringing us to the end of our trip, which coincidentally would also be our next near-death experience.

Things Stupid Kids Do: Episode 3 (SCUBA-Doofuses)

I think that it is very important to begin with the observation that the SCUBA symbol looks quite a bit like the universal symbol for "NO" except just reversing the hues.

When I was in high school, my best friend and I were able to take SCUBA lessons. Not much more to say about that (and it is only peripherally related to this blog entry) except I remember getting to class one evening and I'd forgotten my bathing suit. So I was allowed to dip into the lost-and-found for a "loaner" suit. There was only one men's bikini extra-large suit. I went with it. So, not to put an image in your head, but… Imagine doing that trick where you peel an orange so that it is all in one piece and then sort of try to use that to cover up the mid-section of a ruler. For the entire lesson my suit kinda floated around me whilst all of my goodies bobbed and peaked around the edges of the suit. NOT a fun evening for anyone.

So, back to the main story.

As part of the SCUBA lessons, we were required to purchase some SCUBA gear: Face mask, snorkel, and fins. Because this was all based in New England, we couldn't get the little flippers you probably are thinking of (as depicted above). NO. We had to purchase fins that looked like they were normally only issued to military SEAL divers! These bad-boys were BIG and HEAVY. So heavy that we also had to purchase diving suit boots so the fins wouldn't cut up our feet. Here, this is what they looked like (along with the basic boots).

The idea was that if we had to drag-race speedboats or out-swim sharks (or just deal with the wild ocean currents of New England), these would do the trick. Look at them! They even had vents built into them; very heavy-duty.

All of the above is just so you now know why I had SCUBA boots in my possession. Otherwise, it would just seem like, for "some reason" I have what looks like part of the gimp costume from Pulp Fiction. Depending on the context, the boots could fit what you'd expect to wear as a super-hero, or, as a participant in an S&M orgy.

One of the places my friend and I would frequent was the Methuen Mall. It has since been demolished, but it was THE place for high school kids to hang out back then. One of the anchor stores there was Sears. If you passed all the way through Sears to the lawn and garden section, you came to a semi-outdoor section that featured an above-ground pool filled with temptingly swimmable water. This section could be locked off from the store via sliding doors. BUT, the pool was still technically outside (in the elements) and only out of reach off hours due to the giant (15-feet high) black metal fence in which it was enclosed.

I don't know how many times we walked past or around that pool until one day it occurred to us that we could maybe sneak back one night, jump the fence, and have ourselves a swimeroo in the Sears pool! As soon as the idea struck, we began to plan.

(1) Need to travel light in case we need to make a fast getaway. So bathing suits ONLY!

(2) Make sure there aren't any witnesses, so we should do this around 2:00 in the morning on a week-night (we picked Wednesday).

(3) Don't want to draw attention to our activities by parking our car (white 1970 Ford Pinto coupe - Google this car up folks) right next to the Sears lawn and garden area. So we will park our white car in the darkest area of the parking lot, about half a football field away. Did I mention that the car was white?

Problem: How can we get to Sears from the car and then back to the car across all that parking lot filled with pebbles and bits of glass without destroying our tender teenaged tootsies (feet)?

Solution! Wear our SCUBA boots! They will provide enough protection from small bits of debris AND they are designed (DESIGNED!) to be used in water - so we wouldn't even have to take them off!

We had our plan. Of course, because we were nerds, we did some dry rehearsals.

First we needed to find the perfect blind spot to park the white car in the parking lot.

Found it!

Next we needed to get a feel for how long it would take to run back to the white car.

Timed it out!

We were ready to go, so a date was chosen. I picked up my friend (quietly) from his home around 1:15 in the morning. Both of us in our late 70's style men's bathing suits (yeah, you should do a Google search on that, too - it will help paint the picture for what's coming up later) and black SCUBA-boots drove to the mall which was about a 30-45 minute trip.

We parked our white car in the perfect pre-selected spot. Hearts pounding, we trotted stealthily toward Sears which had somehow managed to become a full football field's distance away. Our heads were spinning around the whole time looking for any potential trouble. I remember looking back at the white car and thinking how it didn't look very well hidden in the shadows. You know, being all white and all. But despite our racing hearts, our fears of mall security (or the cops) suddenly showing up, and our white car attracting attention, everything went as smooth as butterscotch pudding right up to the Sears lawn and garden center fence.

My friend started to size up the situation and was about ready to use the terrain and the side of the building to scale the fence. I saw that his plan to get in was perfect! But this was when it occurred to me that we would also need to get back out. As I looked around the inside of the fence, I realized we would become trapped inside. Getting out would be next to impossible since getting in meant we would have to drop down from the top of the barrier. Not to mention that our hands would be wet from the pool water which would make it pretty slippery if we tried to shimmy up the fence posts to get back out in a hurry.

Basically we stood there for about ten minutes trying to figure out how we could get out of the cage before we finally just called it a night. Honestly, it was a 60-40 mix of relief and disappointment.
We never did go back. We never did get into that inviting pool. But this is where the story actually begins.

We drove back toward home (Plaistow, NH) and as was our standard method of operation, we stopped at the all-night McDonalds to fuel ourselves up with some food, and then we stopped at the gas station to fuel up the car. We were like a NASCAR pit-crew when it came to gassing up. My friend would take care of the gas cap, unlocking it (this was back when people were paranoid about fuel theft) and placing it carefully on the car roof in time for me to have paid the $2.00 we were willing to spend on gas and to put the fuel pump in the tank. Once fueled up, one of us would replace the pump and the other would replace the gas cap (careful not to lose the key) and we'd be back in the car and off in no time!

Well, this time we forgot to replace the gas cap and when we turned the corner on route 125 to head up the hill and into Plaistow, we could hear the cap scurry along the roof and leap into the darkness beside the road. There was a small gravel lot here (filled with broken glass bottles, rusty nails, dead animals, barbed wire, razor blades... well maybe I exaggerate) so we pulled over and hopped out to try to find the damn cap in the damn dark.

So paint this picture in your head: Two scrawny teens in short tight swim suits, no shirts, wearing black S&M boots, prowling around the side of the road at 3:00 in the morning. Suspicious looking much?

Of course this is when the police finally appear. Oh! Not just ANY police. No... no way-siree! This squad car has my uncle and another officer in it. They are instantly questioning my friend as he is half-ignoring them and half trolling around looking for the gas cap (he was never intimidated by authority figures like I was - in fact he had a tendency to be a tad antagonistic). As soon as I saw it was my uncle, I occurred to me to view the situation from his standpoint. Immediately I went to the car and started peeling off my boots to throw into the back seat. Those suckers are NOT easy to put on OR to take off. So now I am barefoot in this dark gravel (glass, razors, pin-cushions, etc.) lot. Yay for me!

As I am about finished with this, the other officer with my uncle shines his flashlight on my friend's stylish kicks. "What the hell do you have on your feet, son?"

That's when the other officer (my uncle) shines a light on my face and recognition dawns. After a disgusted shake of his head he shines the light up and down my friend and tells us to hurry up and find the cap, then get home.

To this day he probably thinks my friend and I were up to something pretty kinky. Not sure if he ever shared the story with my dad (probably did)… but I never heard about it.

So, what's the big deal? Well this was back during my superficially liberal days when I was secretly homophobic, but outwardly supportive of almost any lifestyle anyone wanted to live. I think I figured it was a safe position to take since I'd probably never even meet someone who was non-straight. There was a strong sense back then that my family, neighbors, etc. would never support alternative lifestyles, so I prided myself in holding such progressive views. Truth be told, if someone introduced themselves to me and openly admitted they were gay, I'd have probably done an about-face and walked smack into the side of a building without thinking just to get away. So this evening was perspective-building for me. I realized I was going to need to do a lot more self-management to be prepared for when that meeting might one day occur.

Take-away moral: Always keep your illegal-activities wardrobe and accessories separate from your law-abiding wardrobe and accessories. Or, always bring a change of clothes when you are going to do something you don't want to get caught doing.

Nun Shall Pass...

...without posting even a stupid little image...

The Adventures of Mildly Misinformed Man!

Episode I: MMM vs. Customer Service

Customer Service Operator: Hello?

MMM: Yes, hello. I would like to lodge a complaint… on behalf of JUSTICE!

CSO: Ooohhhkay…?

MMM: Last week I had one of my appendixes removed, and I never received as much ice cream as I could eat!

Episode II: MMM vs. The bank

Bank Teller: How are you today sir? Can I help you?

MMM: Indeed you can, young miss! I was just interacting with your ATM device and I noticed that you are making time travel services available to your customers and this must be stopped… for JUSTICE!

BT: I’m sorry… how’s that again?

MMM: Outside… on the ATM… the screen informed me that there were limited time travel opportunities available, and that I should talk to a teller if interested. Even if you limit the time travel opportunities there is far too much room for abuse by criminals! You must withdraw the offer… for JUSTICE!

BT: I... see... Let me get my manager...

Where do Bad Blogs go to Die?

Damn and Death to Deadlines! But here's a kitty!

I had every intention of writing my next masterpiece before the end of the month (i.e., last minute). But I woke up feeling miserable today (sore throat). So, given that I have a tendency to gravitate toward being a baby when I am sick... I just didn't FEEL like writing the next chapter of bad behavior. It's in my head and wants to be written, but not by this month's deadline. Instead, here's a photo of one of my cats doing what I plan to do in the next few minutes (in bed, not in my chair).

Things Stupid Kids Do: Episode 2, Part I (The Journey Begins)

My first year in college was a short one. During the earlier summer orientation I scheduled myself into Calculus (bringing with me barely any background in algebra from high school), Anatomy and Physiology (plus lab), General Psychology, Chemistry I (plus lab), and some other course I cannot for the life of me recall any more (I should look it up someday). As long ago as that was, I still remember one of the “helper students” looking over my schedule and remarking, “Wow, you must be really smart.” She was cute, so I was flattered by the comment and felt pretty great! But smart? No, only just barely smart enough to have that uncomfortable feeling that maybe I had created a schedule that I might later regret. Indeed, come the first semester of my college life I did not do so well and was invited to not return for a second semester.

It was embarrassing but at the same time, quite a relief. I hadn’t really wanted to go to college. My family expected it, so being a path-of-least-resistance kinda guy, I let the currents sweep me along. But by having the school drop-kick me out, I was released without ever having to go against the family expectation. Yay! Finally I could have some “real world” on my plate!

Turns out real life with only a high school education and no marketable skills can serve up a pretty tasteless plop of inedible nastiness on one’s plate. In a short time I decided to re-apply to college (a different one). Because I’d already established myself as a loser, there were no more expectations about me and what my future should hold. I was on my own. To help out with my real life experience, and in response to hearing that I was planning a return to college, my mother insisted that I start paying rent.

So I applied and was accepted into college (again) – opting to not transfer any of the mediocre grades I had received before flunking out a year ago. It was a clean slate and I was somewhat determined to make a better showing of it. So my first semester I received an A in every class but one. That class was “French I” which was “taught” by an authentic French professor. In his class I earned (get ready) a big fat F+. In my entire history of experience with colleges, I have never since heard of the plus/minus option being applied to anything less than a grade of C. Obviously then, that was not a good class for me and, in addition to what will form the crux of Part III of this blog some day, it killed my motivation to keep fighting for the A (since I would now never be able to achieve a perfect 4.00). So what would be the best major for me to get into?

My interests have always waxed toward the sciences (physics especially) but back then I was the perfect storm of stupid and lazy. I didn’t want to work hard at learning so I majored in psychology (thinking naively that it was an area built upon a foundation of common sense and furnished with intuitively obvious theories and ideas). By the time I realized my naiveté I was in too deep. But I did what I could to protect my stupidity and nurture my laziness by only putting in enough effort to get fair to good grades. After all, I was starting to consider that graduate school might be a good way to put off the “real world” a little longer. Besides, doesn’t graduate school work where you automatically graduate with the security of a nice high-paying job? It’s pretty much automatic; I think it’s something like a coupon at the bottom of your diploma that you tear off and cash in on the job you want. In case you wondered how it worked.

Not that it’s all that relevant here, but I wanted to add that the ONLY reason I ever even started to consider pursuing a doctoral degree was because I had “that professor” who made me think that, if HE was able to get a doctoral degree, then I certainly can! (I really thought he was an idiot.) So even today, although I hope to genuinely inspire students to continue on and develop their expertise, I secretly wonder if I am “that professor” to some of them.

Without giving too much of a future month’s topic away, I should mention that my best friend and I were living in an all-male dormitory called “Hall” which we lovingly (cough-cough) pronounced as Hell. Fortunately we were moved to the newest dormitory on campus (right next to the library!) the very next semester. It was a co-ed dorm in almost the strongest and most literal interpretation of “co-ed” possible. As it turns out, my future wife lived a few doors down from us. An amazing coincidence, no?

My first ever full year of college was a very long one. I didn’t get many opportunities to get home to visit and there were a lot of events that added stress and fatigue. NOT TO MENTION that winter in the northern parts of New Hampshire involves a combination of two horrible things: Snow and Cold. Correction: FUCKING snow and FUCKING cold. So when the end of the semester began to thaw its way onto campus my roommate and I decided the best way to celebrate would be to borrow a big green wooden canoe from my aunt and uncle (the Blatchfords are always and awesomely generous) and take the Pemigewasset (“Pemi”) to where it runs right into the Merrimack river and follow that pretty much all of the way home! It couldn’t have been more than about 100 miles long of a trip. Plus it was all down-river (we would never even have to row, right?!).

Here, take a look at the map. We wanted to go from the top red circle to the bottom red circle. Possibly further if we had enough daylight, but anywhere in that bottom circle would be a pretty simple pick-up point for our parents to come get us.

So it was settled! My friend and I arranged to get the canoe (with its two wooden canoe paddles) delivered to our dorm for the last day of the semester. We had a pup-tent in case the trip lasted more than a full day and we purchased our provisions: A couple bottles of Coke and a package of hot-dogs. This was going to be an awesome first-time canoe trip for the both of us!

Things that never occurred to us at the time we shoved off into the river:

1. Mosquitoes.
2. There are a bunch of dams that we will need to carry our canoe around.
3. These damn dams are embedded between steep banks and thick wooded areas with virtually no canoe-sized paths.
4. Deer ticks.
5. Just because you are going with the flow of a river does not mean that you will be making any time whatsoever. 
6. Gnats.
7. A 95 mile trip moving at 1 mile per hour will take about 4 days of constant travel unless you paddle.
8. Bugs.
9. One package of hot-dogs is not enough food for a trip that lasts longer than a half hour.
10. No-see-ums.
11. A calm lazy river can become a hysterical frenzy of white rapids very quickly.
12. People should never go on a long canoe trip down an unfamiliar river; especially if they have never been in a canoe before in their life.
13. Wooden canoe paddles are no match for rocks and rapids.
14. It is very difficult to paddle through rapids in a big green wooden canoe if you do not have a functional paddle.
15. It’s pretty easy to swallow one’s pride when you need help from more experienced adventurers.
16. People have a difficult time hiding that look on their face that says, “This is the last time anyone will ever see these boys alive again,” when they wave good bye and wish us luck.
17. You should mind your own business when you come across a burning Cadillac in the middle of the woods in the middle-of-nowhere in the middle of New Hampshire.

Bee Leaf

Of course the image above is meant to bee read as a rebus (Latin for “things”). But it occurs to me that it will really only bee successful for moderately educated/knowing people. We tend to categorize “things” at a level that relates to most people. This basic level means that if you are (like most people) only moderately knowing, then you get it. Sadly, though, like a secret we keep from our parents, very knowing people should not get it. NOT that they might not have tried… Instead, they would all bee like:

“Hm.. ok, a rebus puzzle… which of course is the Latin plural for ‘things’ but let’s see now, what does this say… Well, that’s clearly the Apis mellifera scutellata flying toward an Acer macrophyllum leaf. Apis-mellifera-scutellata-acer-macrophyllum… That doesn’t seem to mean anything sensible… Stupid rebus attempt. Pshaw!”

So that’s why I spelled it out in the title. Any-who… on with the show!

While stuck in traffic today, my moderately knowing brain wandered into thoughts about religion. It got there after reading about a Pakistani taxi driver in Pittsburgh who had been shot by a passenger (probably) as a religious hate crime somehow tying in ISIS and Muhammad. (The taxi driver appears to bee relatively ok.)

I found this incident to bee depressing on many levels. (1) Here we are in the 21st century where everyone is supposed to bee zipping around in flying cars and jet-packs, but humanity still leans on religion. (2) There are soooooo many religions with incompatible beliefs. I’ve heard religious people try to question my stance with, “Why would so many people think there is a god if there wasn’t really a god?” When really, it seems like there isn’t much of a majority in any one specific belief; so I could say “Why would so many people believe in so many different gods if there was only one true god?” (3) People ACT on their damn religious beliefs and biases with little regard for tolerance, patience, etc. (4) Worst of all, it makes my own belief-choice seem even more pathetic.

As quixotic as it may bee, my belief does not veer toward the supernatural. If it did, it would bee much easier to stay optimistic and cheerful. I think it is a lot easier to rationalize evidence as needed to maintain a supernatural belief. The classic example being to thank god for a success and blame oneself for failure. When you tend to hold non-supernatural beliefs, you lose that advantage. Evidence that is for the belief (supports it) is still great, but when evidence goes against it, well, crap. It’s as depressing as having your favorite sport’s team lose every game, every year. Yet you cling to the hope that someday… SOMEDAY, they will turn it all around.

My faith is in humans. It has to bee. (Is that whole “bee” thing getting annoying?) We are our only shot at getting it right. When has a supernatural being EVER swooped in like a super-hero to save a race? Ain’t gonna happen. We need to clean up our own rooms; make our own beds; cook our own meals; and tend after our neighbors. There’s no “mom” walking behind us to pick up after us. No maid service for the planet. Maybe we (as individuals) just don’t live long enough to appreciate that. And maybe the growing population makes us turn away from our potential, substituting instead our genetic material. “Let the kids figure it all out.” We are lazy self-indulgent bratty wasteful slobs.

I hope we figure it out (“grow up”) someday.

Things Stupid Kids Do: Episode 1 (Storming the Castle)

In psychology there is a term to describe younger adults who feel that they are special or so unique that nothing bad can or will happen to them, regardless of the behaviors in which they engage (personal fable).

I don’t recall feeling especially unique or special as an adolescent, however, I do recall that feeling of not having to worry that something bad would happen to me; At least, nothing permanently bad (illusion of invulnerability). So, yeah, realistically I knew that I could be in a car accident, but there was no real feeling that if I was in a car accident it would be painful, disfiguring, or scarring. In fact, I think I believed that no accident could be bad enough to kill me. Worst case scenario: I would end up in a coma for a few weeks, then wake up with a couple of bandages and a hungry belly.

As a result, I made some bad decisions and acted on them.

Example one: Within serious jogging distance of where I grew up, there was a park that we would go to as kids to play (swing sets, etc.). It was located on a big chunk of forested land that had walking trails around a small lake (Kenoza). What was really interesting about this place was that it had a small castle, and it was (still is) fun to say its name. The castle was called Winnekenni (“winnee-kinnee” to some, “win-a-kinnee” to others) Castle!

Being bored pre-computers teens, my friend and I found our adventures through exploration of old, run-down, out-of-the-way places. Today those of similar ilk are referred to as “Urban Explorers!” I think we can all agree that being called an urban explorer is a way cooler title than “dipshit kid looking for trouble whilst trespassing.”

For some reason, our search for adventure brought us to the castle (perhaps to reminisce about the fun we’d had there as kids). Walking around, we visited the castle itself which always seemed abandoned and mysterious to us (everyone, probably).

The castle is not a very big one. Truthfully, it would probably have better served the role of barbican than castle. But because there was no larger castle-like structure to get to through this one, it makes a nice enough mini-castle. As we walked around the building, we noticed what appeared to be a power line or electrical cable hanging down the side of the castle.

“Think there’s any power going through that line?” One of us surely asked aloud, but both were already wondering. Saying it out loud was just our way of pointing out that someone was going to have to find out if it was a live wire or not.

My friend and I had long-ago settled the “who goes first” argument by simple agreement that we would alternate. No doubt we contracted the turn-taking agreement without discussion when one of us realized that we’d just finished doing something stupid. It didn’t seem fair to hog all of the stupidity, so one of us probably had said, “I went first last time.” So from then on we kept very good track of whose turn it currently was. No more arguments. Sometimes it was no big deal to be the one to go first, other times… well, it was a bigger deal. This was one of those times where it seemed like a bigger deal.

I was happy (for now) that it was his turn to go first. He grabbed the wire and touched it against as wide a variety of surfaces as he could find – except skin. It seemed pretty safe. Both of us moved the mental “whose turn to go first” peg into my column.

While he was moving the cable and trying to get it to reach different surfaces, it was apparent that the line was pretty well attached to something up on the roof. Looking up, we could see the line disappear between two battlements (merlons).

“Think there’s anything interesting up there?”

We had been fans of the Batman tv show and had always wanted to use a bat-rope to climb a building ala Batman and Robin. Even though we knew that the scenes in the television show of the crime fighters walking up a building were created by tilting the camera sideways, it looked like it should be easy enough to do for real.

My friend had not let go of the line yet, so he gave it a whirl. Basically it turns out that wall climbing works one of only two ways: (1) You can hold fast to the line and let your legs walk up the wall a little ways, or (2) you can pull yourself up the line one hand over the other while your legs stay in one spot until they lose traction on the wall and you just hang on to the line. There is no way for the hands AND the legs to move up the wall at the same time. So, turns out it was not at all easy enough to do for real.

Fatefully, there was a conifer tree growing about five feet away from the side of the building. While the cord was not quite long enough to reach around the base of the tree, we figured we could get a lot more slack in the line if we climbed the tree while holding on to the cable. In other words, we figured that we could tie the cable around the tree and just tight-rope our way across from the tree to the roof of the castle.

It was a bitch to climb the prickly bristly sappy tree high enough to get in line with the battlement. The tree was not a lumbering one, meaning that the higher we got, the more precarious it felt. The slightest wind put a sway into the trunk that made me rethink what we were trying to do. But my friend expressed no hesitation or doubt, so I figured everything was ok to proceed (illusion of transparency: look it up).

The thick plastic insulation around the line made it too difficult to tie around the tree in the same way as we might have been able to tie a rope. Of course, even if we had a rope, we would not have the advantage of it already being secured to the castle roof-top. We had to make do with what we had. Our solution was to wrap the cable about sixty-eleven times around the tree until it didn’t seem like it could just unwrap itself once we stepped on it to cross the few feet to the battlement.

Now that the cord was secured to the tree and to whatever it was attached to on the castle roof, it was time for phase two: tight-rope walking across.

It was my turn to go first. Because my friend was taller than me, the tiny voice of reason in my head wanted to use this fact to find a way out of doing this stupid thing. He would have had a much easier time reaching out between the tree and the castle than me… so maybe he should go first again?
I made the offer and it was declined.

Fine. Eyeing the setup, I had to admit that it looked perfectly simple and relatively safe to walk across that short distance to the castle. So I took a breath and committed.

To stand on the cable, I had to climb a few thinning branches beyond where it was wrapped. Slowly. Try not to look down. One small movement at a time. Right (coward) foot on cable against the tree. Try not to look down. Left (brave) foot probing toward the castle about half way along the stretch of cable. Try not to look down. Let go of tree with my left hand. Try not to look down. Slowly and wobbly stretch my brave arm toward castle. Try not to look down. Slowly let my weight accumulate on my brave foot. Hyperventilate as suddenly my weight on the middle of the wire pulls the tree-top closer to the castle dropping me barely to shoulder height with the edge of the roof!

Ok, now what has happened here is that I am balancing on a wire that has taken the shape of the letter “V” and both of my feet are being pinched by the bottom of that letter. I am high enough up that I do not want to fall. The nearest tree branches are too spindly to trust my weight on them without cracking, so I can’t go back to the tree. So I am committed to trying to grab the edge of the battlement and pull myself up to the roof. This is where adrenaline teams up with knowing the consequences of failure.

I could not see anything beyond the edge of the castle upon which my left hand was pressed upon. My right hand was pushed against the side of the castle for balance and support. I took a leap of faith and kinda jumped up with both arms stretched as far onto the battlement as I could reach and (lucky!) fingers found the far edge of stone and I was able to grab enough of it to haul my stupid ass to the top. As my weight left the cord, the tree swung back away from me to straighten up. It looked perfectly simple and relatively safe again.

Next was my friend’s turn. He’d seen what to expect so he made it seem pretty easy coming across. Of course, he did have the advantages of being taller and having longer arms to grab the edge of the roof. Plus I was able to help him climb up.

Sitting for a minute and looking at what we had just done, I admit that my heart was still pounding and I had small scrapes here and there. But best of all, I knew it was going to be him going first when it was time to get back down. Did I mention that it was going to be night soon?

As they say, it’s the journey, not the destination. The roof of the castle was unremarkable (almost). We looked around for a better way down (nothing). We took in the view from all sides (boring). Then figured we should get down while there was still a little bit of light left (smart).

First thing before we were getting ready to head back over to the tree was to double check that the part of the cable tied to the roof was secure (and not attached to an electrical source that might kick on unexpectedly). What we discovered was that the cable had curved around a big square fixture on the roof and had barely snagged itself to keep from detaching.

In other words, if we’d flicked the cable from the ground a few times, it would probably have come loose.

In other words, if we’d bounced around on the cable while crossing to the castle, it would probably have come loose.

In other words, we were super lucky that one of us didn’t smucker ourselves on the ground.

In other words, we were stupid kids doing stupid things.

Who Lives Under the Bridge NOW?!

I have a sad, and slightly embarrassing, confession to make.

It took me about 30 years of life to finally start to see people as something more than the flesh and bone that they walked around it.

In my defense, please remember that I am an introvert and so I tend to avoid interacting with people like an introvert avoids interacting with people.

There isn’t any particular event that I recall as an educating factor, it was just a threshold amount of life, I think. Finally enough experience in the world to “see the light” as they say. It just sort of evolved. But what the hell am I talking about? Basically I attributed prejudicial characteristics to people based on visual cues.

Huh?

Let’s give examples!

When I was a teenager, I really liked to think of myself as enlightened and open minded. However, some things I could not mentally tolerate. I was put off by behaviors and characteristics of others, such as the implicit intimidation I would feel in the presence of people with tattoos (keep in mind they were neither as popular nor as artistic in my day as they are now).

I did not like to see people with their mouths just hanging open (fish mouth = stupid person).

People who wore religious icons of any sort irritated me (religion = closed minded, ignorant, and uneducated). I really had no interest in being around or interacting with them (naively believing that if I left THEM alone, they would leave ME alone).

Really really really tall people freaked me out since they violated my made-up rules of what defines a human (tall = freak of nature and not to be trusted since they could spaz out for no reason at any time… and they were bigger than me).

Fat people made me think they had a poor work ethic. I genuinely thought they were lazy people since they had so much extra time to lie around eating rather than riding bikes, playing, working, and so on (fat = lazy and part of me envied them because I wasn’t allowed to do the same).

Other miscellaneous things affected my judgment of people such as the accents they spoke with, facial hair, too long or too short hair, people who drank alcohol, people who used the wrong (or mispronounced) words (“new-que-ler” for nuclear, seriously?!), the type of job a person had, mentally unstable people (the “crazies”), whether a person had a new vs. old car, whether they did their shopping at retail stores or thrift stores, homeless people, attractiveness vs. unattractiveness, age (old people are scary… almost as scary as really really really tall people), smokers, and so on.

Of course my judgments were exponentially more negative whenever I might meet a person who combined multiple elements. Imagine my view of a really really really tall, fat, religious, smoker wearing thrift clothes!

Basically, at some point it occurred to me that (for the most part) these were things that had no direct effect on me whatsoever. So why care about that? The person behind that superficial cue or behavior has a rich history of life experiences, beliefs, ideas, humor, pain, struggle, hopes, goals, losses. JUST LIKE ME. My fortune relative to them is merely that I rarely have to see myself. I just have to live in this skin-wrapped package of slowly dying meat.

Ok, admittedly, some exceptions still exist, such as the religious people who judge and treat me a certain way while trying to “convert” me or force me to live by their rules and standards directly or by pressuring lawmakers (they can righteously fuck the fuck off please); people under the influence of alcohol bug me because I get to see smart people instantly turned into stupid people (LITERALLY). Smokers still bug me because they force me to “smoke” with them… in fact the ONLY reason I don’t want to see marijuana legalized is because I don’t want to have to smell that shit everywhere. But these exceptions are relatively rare (and hopefully becoming more rare in most cases).

So it is with fish-mouthed disbelief that I see the internet trolls who trash-talk other people for the way they act, look, feel, or believe. This isn’t a local (USA) phenomenon. Other countries gleefully like to “insult” Americans for being fat or not being able to speak multiple languages or for behaving “like Americans” in other countries.

To some extent there is benefit to critical analysis, but nowhere near a benefit that would justify the amount of energy expended on the trash-talking that is taking place in the world.

When so shallowly insulted by others, as with, “You’re as ugly as a thing that is so ugly it doesn’t have a name except the name you have been given by your parents which is shared by others who aren’t as ugly so that wouldn’t be a good name for how ugly you are!”* Isn’t the best response simply to say as blasé as possible, something like: “So?”

*FYI: Typically the trolls use insults that are either parroted mindlessly from something they heard someone else say, or, when they create their own, tend to be as eloquent as my example here.

What can the troll say to that? They will scramble around in their uncluttered head for their sharpest repartee which will likely be something like, “Well… I don’t like having to look at you!” And again, the elegantly simple response of “So?” makes the point well enough again. The effort needed to say a single word compared with the buffoon’s attempt to assemble as many of the 4-6 letter words they know into the semi-coherent vomiting sound they call “speech” is unmatched.

I used to feel that simply ignoring the trolls was the best way to go. But that can escalate the trolls’ tirades because they feed off of others’ reactions. To give them nothing makes them hungry. So instead, I feel that the best way to get rid of them is to take the “nutrition” out of one’s reaction. They can’t get anything out of “So?” except frustration. Let them expend the limits of their intellect spinning their vile and wearing their stubby fingers away on their booger-coated keyboards. The effort of responding with a single word is negligible and you come away looking and sounding classy in comparison.

One last point, though. There are some other types of trolls that I wonder about. These are the “death trolls” whose insults stray into threats of violence (rape, torture, death). I have no idea how often such threats are actually carried out compared with the rates of similar stupid but unthreatened rapes, tortures, and killings. I don’t know if “So?” is a good enough response. But I wonder? It is emasculating to make a threat of violence only to have the object of your threat appear genuinely unfazed.

Ultimately I would prefer a world where what you see is what you get. The assholes of life would be obvious and we could avoid them. We would stop making them and they would eventually die out. But really the skinny troll fat-shaming another based on looks is the only way we have to reveal who should be the most ashamed. Skinny doesn’t make you a good (or a bad) person; attractive doesn’t make you a good (or a bad) person; rich doesn’t make you a good (or a bad) person; fat doesn’t make you a bad (or a good) person; ugly doesn’t make you a bad (or a good) person; poor doesn’t make you a bad (or a good) person. My truth is, it’s what you do, how you treat others, and what you value/devalue that makes you good or bad.

Are you a bad person?

Deep Pression

-or-

TLDL

First, let me make it clear that despite some of the content of this entry, you should still read this in a cheerfully lighthearted manner. This is all crap that happened YEARS before you were born (well, I don’t really know how old you are, but this was so many years ago that it is practically before I was born). So chill, ok? Besides, some people give me crap for writing anything that isn’t at least an attempt to be humorous.

This has to do with my seeming inability to socialize well. So, my earliest memories of having to deal with groups of people involved finding a corner and disappearing in my thoughts. Mainly this was because I never seemed to know what to say. And THAT was due to memories of strange looks from people when I did say something. So maybe I was imagining it all, maybe I was hyper-sensitive, but obviously I was socially retarded. Being horribly shy meant that once I started to talk to someone, I would feel my face getting hot, which would make me feel foolish and just want to finish my sentence in any way at all (probably usually nonsensically) and go find a corner to pretend to die in.

It took a lot of observing and testing the conversational waters with a person before I could maintain a conversation beyond three sentences. I could respond alright to questions, but could never really hold up my end of a conversation. This was very stressful for me because it seemed that conversation was an incredibly important skill since everyone around me seemed to be able to do it so effortlessly and all the time.

Having accumulated enough knowledge at this late point in my life, I feel pretty confident when I say that you can probably well imagine how depressing it can be to want to have a skill but not seem to be able to acquire it. Yeah, “practice” makes perfect. Well no; not always.

What did I try to do? Well, I remember trying to memorize good bits of conversation to use on others. That only works if you say the line, look at your watch, then smile and say, “Gotta run!” Otherwise, unless you memorized multiple follow-up sentences, plus possible branching topic-points, you were screwed and would quickly become embarrassed.

My best solution was to not talk much. Just observe and try to get a “read” on what sorts of things different people seemed to like to say or hear. Then try to say short and simple, but similar things to them. Not great, but with enough data, I could get by.

Sometime during my sophomore (or maybe junior) year of high school, I remember reading a book on how to be funny. The only two tips I absorbed (and retained) was to try to build off of what someone else just said, and to use exaggeration and obvious absurdity. It took until my senior year to finally start to try some of those things out. Needless to say, you aren’t going to find any “You were a funny guy” quotes in my yearbook. Actually, I think only four people actually signed my yearbook (the lunch lady, the girl three rows back in my geometry class who thought she was signing someone else’s book, my sister, and a teacher who felt bad for me – I don’t think I ever had that teacher for a class, though).

There were only two groups I did my best with in terms of having conversations: My relatives and adult female strangers. (Uh, huh. Don’t let your mind wander any further than that my pal. I mean grandmother-types who appreciated soft-spoken, overly polite, mostly quiet boys. Adult males always seemed to want to talk about sports, hunting, cars, guns, and about thirty nine other topics I had no interest or knowledge of.)

Ok, quick time-jump, but then I have to get back to something… The sense of humor I have today is a product of graduate school. I had to learn how to talk to groups of people without throwing up first. So I had to feel like they were friendly toward me which was achieved if I could hear them laugh. So here was the problem: I never felt confident that what I was saying was sensible or even appropriate. But that was when it clicked with the humor book for me. It occurred to me that I could stop worrying about whether I was saying something stupid or inappropriate if there was a chance that people would take it as a joke. That was really freeing. Not that I instantly felt comfortable about talking in front of groups of people, but it did start the wheel rolling.

Back in high school, I remember dreading oral reports, so I watched intently the students who went before me. The worst thing they did was behave nervously: Shaking, complaining about being nervous, not looking up from their notes, or the floor, and so on. I could see that the students in the class responded to that and made it even worse! So about 95% of my energy during a report was to monitor my behavior and try to suppress those nervous indicators. Of course my reports probably sucked since only 5% was focused on what I was saying. But I figured if I could not talk well in front of others, I could at least not show that it bothered me.

So, back to grade school to early junior high. For the most part, I was pretty lonely. I did have a pretty good friend who was as much a misfit as I was so part of me felt like our friendship was built on a mutual recognition that neither of us could do any better. We shared interest in science fiction and comic books. But then he moved away. As I understand it, he enlisted and at one point tried to find me, but it was when I was away at graduate school. He didn’t give my family a way for me to contact him, so we never saw each other again. I think he now lives in Florida. I did try to contact him a few years ago (via facebook), but my message was ignored, and I gave up. My childhood wasn’t really designed to build self-esteem or confidence.

It’s at this point that I wanted to say something like, “needless to say, I was pretty depressed most of the time” but I kinda hope that that actually would need to be said. Maybe the majority of kids are not depressed and it is only a minority. But really, yeah, I was fucking super depressed. I was a loner. My days were spent sleeping and nose in a book hidden away in my bedroom. I would occasionally come out to ride my bike to the store or explore the woods, but otherwise it was just me avoiding exposure to people so I would not have to blunder my interactions with them. (Don’t ask about my love life – only one girlfriend when I was in high school and I was almost paralyzed with fear in terms of showing physical affections. Too personal, so no more details about that…)

Depression became such a core part of me that I don’t think I will ever detach from it. Surely that much sadness at so early a time of cognitive development affected my brain chemistry and mental framework such that even 30+ years later I cannot imagine not having at least a minimal but constant level of depression. It has become part of my self-identity.

I made another friend in high school and he helped me to deal with my cloak of depression and really helped to develop my sense of humor. Our humor was pain-based. (The best kind of humor, right?!) It actually made things more bearable to laugh at the things that bothered us deeply. So a personal failure became a source of jokes which made the crappy bits of life less overwhelming.

So anyway, here’s the thing. When I was at my worst in terms of being depressed, I had a major internal struggle. One part of me just wanted everything to be over with; so yeah, thoughts of suicide were there. But, the other part fell into the category that the Internet refers to as “first world problems.” I knew that so many people in the world had it so much worse off in life than I did, and what the fuck did I even have to feel depressed about?! Really? You want to end it all because you can’t talk to a random stranger?! So guilt factored heavily in any plans toward suicide. Yeah, guilt, plus I really don’t like pain and suffering. Well, specifically, my own pain and suffering. There wasn’t really a lot of options to off-one’s self back then that didn’t involve some potentially bad moments of pain and suffering. So, no. (Again, first world problems, right?)

This was probably the closest I ever got to being religious. I actually tried to pray that I just not wake up. And I have to say, those prayers not being answered did not lend credibility to any all-powerful supernatural entities existing that cared about me. So to deal with the internal struggle I made a deal with myself that I would just try to figure out some method, but not actually use it on myself. It became an intellectual Russian-Roulette challenge.

After maybe five years (junior in HS) I came across a method that would theoretically work. I can only imagine how much faster things might have moved along if only the Internet had existed back then. Anyway, I prepped the method and then decided to work backwards to see if I could determine the historical effectiveness of my method. Again, no Internet, so it was slow going. Finally learned enough to know that it would be a horrifyingly nasty, painful, and drawn-out way to go. I gave up. Intellectually I had been gradually coming to the realization that the end is inevitable anyway. If I wait long enough, my prayers will be answered.

Over the years I learned to get along better. Memorizing as much as I could in terms of interactions, personal conversational approaches, etc. until I could probably last about five minutes in a conversation with a stranger. Much longer the more I got to know a person. Thankfully I also learned the strategy of asking questions of other people (letting THEM talk was a wonderful way to avoid my foot-in-mouth disease).

Now I am ancient in years (at least it feels that way). I have learned tons of additional tricks to dealing with people. Still not comfortable with people, but I can push through it (burning a million calories doing so as I sit still and quiet in a crowd). The semi-autistic cocoon of self-absorption is my primary defense: I.e., remain unnoticed and quiet hoping everyone will pretty much leave me alone so I don’t mess anything up. If you don’t think I am capable of messing things up, get me into a social situation with strangers where I cannot escape but must interact. Things may seem normal at first, but you will be amazed at the rapidity with which my comments and behavior will unravel toward the bizarre once my repertoire of social tricks runs out. But seriously, don’t do that to me.

Wish I could end this on an up-beat note. Maybe say “It will be ok!” to someone else who is suffering as much as, or probably more than me (since I’ve learned to just live with it)… But sorry, no. It can totally suckity-suck-suck. To be honest, sometimes the best I can do to make myself feel better enough to get out of bed is to remember that it won’t last forever (life, that is). But what I can say is that the experience/feeling is not unique to you. Sure, maybe the triggers you have are different from mine. Maybe your agony does not compare to mine because you have different experiences that make it worse (but listen, I haven’t shared any of the worst parts of my life). Yet here is a “universal” concept for you to ponder: For every single one of the billions of people on the planet (except for two individuals), there is at least one person who feels better, and there is also at least one person who feels worse. And you aren’t special enough to be that one person who feels worse than every other single person on the planet.

Bottom line? Well, as shitty as you feel, it could be worse; and in fact it IS worse for many – yet they carry on. So go write a blog about it that nobody reads!