If You Ever See Me In A Coffeeshop Obnoxiously Tapping Out Rhythms On My Computer, It's Because Otherwise I'd Be Shaking Uncontrollably From The Egregious Caffeine Intake. Now You Know.

So here I am, sitting in a Starbucks in North Raleigh. (This is about as clear and specific as saying “I’m in a building that sells waffles somewhere in Johnston County.” Probably less so actually.) It is near the end of Christmas Break, which means that the parents are back at work, the little brother is back at school, and I only see most of the other brothers when they come by for a free meal. The rest of the extended family has returned to their home streets and states, and the cousin has left for Belize. You know how it goes.

I’ve realized that while at home, I am incapable of doing anything besides watching entire seasons of 30 Rock, wasting hours playing my little brother’s computer games, and checking the fridge every 15 minutes, assuming that I’m going to find something interesting wedged in there that was not there before. Thus I am at Starbucks. And now that this huge mug of liquid caffeine is causing me to literally buzz a little bit, I will write.

(The drug culture in this country is fascinating. You can buy machines for filtering your drugs at every big store or mart worth its beans, some people carefully grind their own personal blend of drugs every morning, and there are cafes in literally every shopping center where people can sit on smarmy couches and think smarmy thoughts while a smarmy liberal arts major in an embarrassing apron prepares their drugs for them, complete with hazelnut syrup and room for cream.) 

[I’ve begun to use parenthesis as an indicator that a particular thought is an offshoot from the central topic and an acknowledgment that I am comfortable and conscious of this fact. The brackets {or whatever they’re called} are indicative of a further tangent away from the original offshoot.]

At a certain point, however, I decide that the subject of discussion has become skewed enough that it is no longer clear or worthwhile to categorize things in reference to what the supposedly “central” topic is or was. (Think of it this way:  Your train is going to New York. From somewhere. If it stops off in Philadelphia, that could be considered an offshoot. The stop makes it take longer to get to New York, but it could still be considered a point on the way to New York.  Then the train goes to Massachusetts. This delays your arrival in New York even more. (Particularly because you just briefly passed through New York, and despite your shouts at the conductor, the train didn’t stop or change course. You think he might’ve been on the toilet.) This stopover in Massachusetts delays your arrival in New York, but it is still nothing more than a brief tangent, an offshoot from your original course. Maybe not a very efficient one, but you can still see the main route you’ve been pursuing. But then the train leaves Massachusetts and before you know it you’re in Ontario and there’s a lot of mounties asking for your passport and an obscure train analogy messing with your head and you’re not even sure where you were headed originally or who you were visiting; You’re left in a Canadian jail (imagine your average Holiday Inn but with better room service) with nothing to your name but righteous indignation and a vague disconcerting feeling that you’re supposed to be somewhere else. 

At that point parentheses are no longer useful, sensical or effective.

(This says “sensical” is not a word but I’m going to keep saying it is until it shuts up, not because I know it is a word but because I know it should be.)

I am ashamed to admit that I had to find and study a map of the United States for that train analogy. Hooray Geography!

Never again will I try to blog without a huge mug of coffee by my side.

I saw The Adventures of Tintin last week! Another reason I like being at home, besides the delicious home-cooked meals and the coffee that is magically already in the coffeemaker every morning as soon as I wake up (Where does that come from???) is the ability to go out to eat and watch movies with family, AND NOT HAVE TO PAY FOR IT!

I enjoyed Tintin immensely.  I don’t know if it’s an orthodox, expected part of remembered childhood for people of my generation, but I definitely hold some kind of nostalgia for it. The father Dickson has a huge collection of Tintin comics and I attempted to read every comic I found lying around the house as a kid, be they on the kitchen table, in the basket in the bathroom, or in the cardboard box discreetly tucked under my dad’s bed. (The box is where I found especially good ones like Catwoman and Bone. [*pause* for comprehension and analysis {Bone: an independently organized series of graphical novels about three bald white cartoon brothers: Phoney Bone, Fone Bone, and Smiley Bone.} Do as you wish with this information.])

So yeah, Tintin brings back a lot of memories. On a related note I kind of like the CGI animation used more and more in movies now. It makes everything look as similar to real life as possible without making it as boring as real life. (So the people look real but they don’t actually have to follow any natural laws of gravity, physics or thermodynamics.)

Before the movie I saw a preview for The Lorax, which made me squeal and squirm in excitement for the rest of the previews and at least the first 8 minutes of the movie. (much to the chagrin of my neighbors, but it serves them right for invading my arm space. [I SAID “CHAGRIN” I DID IT THEY SAID IT'D NEVER HAPPEN BUT I DID IT! THAT CRAZY WORD SOUNDS LIKE THE NAME OF AN ALOOF AND MYSTERIOUS FRENCH ADMIRAL RESPONSIBLE FOR A LOT OF COVERT ATTACKS ON BRITISH PORTS, NOT THAT THERE WAS REALLY SUCH AN ADMIRAL WITH A NAME SIMILAR TO "CHAGRIN" BUT THE NAME "CHAGRIN" MAKES IT SEEM AS IF THERE WOULD BE SUCH A STORY BEHIND IT]… *ahem*) Despite my tendency to get extraordinarily excited about ordinary things, however, I would like to emphasize how amazing and awesome and incredible and cool and fantastic it is that there is a legitimate feature film being produced based on Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax. It will be released on March 2^nd. Thus I will celebrate my impending transition out of teenager-hood (March 5^th=20^th birthday) with a resounding return to my childhood.

Now that my caffeinated buzz is beginning to fade, I will provide you with some extracurricular reading material.

Near the beginning of this last fall semester, I applied for a position as a staff writer at Bounce magazine, which is the satire magazine at UNC-Chapel Hill. Here’s part of the application I filled out: (I’ve edited my answers to the first two questions in order to remove the boring informative material; everything besides the "blah"s were in the actual application I turned in.)

Describe your ideal position at BoUNCe. What kind of work would you enjoy doing?

My ideal position at BoUNCe would include reading, writing, editing and free meals at Noodles and Company.  Ideally.  Parties with fresh fruit would also be ideal.  Blah blah blah blah “ideal job” blah blah blah blah “interests” blah blah blah blah “ideological compatibility.” Blah.

What relevant experience, if any, do you have with magazine publication or your position of interest?

I have no real relevant experience with actual magazine publication, but blah blah blah “I have a billion majors” blah blah. I’ve been editing my own work for years, and in recent years I’ve been the go-to-guy to proofread and edit my friends’ blog posts, my brothers’ wonky Lord of the Rings fan-fiction, and my brothers’ friends’ college essays.  I read the Onion religiously, and blah blah blah blah “journalism” blah blah blah “blogblogblog” blah blah blah; “socio-political expertise” blah blah. 

You wake up in a bathtub full of ice and your kidney is missing. What do you do next?

I jump out of the tub and take off any wet clothes I might still be wearing.  Then I start limping, squinting, clutching my side, and mumbling loudly about dinosaurs.  I need to reach maximum crazy before I run out of the bathroom and subsequently through whatever humble household I happen to be entrenched in.

Aside/Explanation: Think about it – if a mildly crazy-looking injured guy in his boxers starts wandering through your house and/or neighborhood and/or local elementary school playground, then you’re going to beat the peat(synonym for crud) out of him.  But if you see a half-dead, naked, soaking wet teenager yelling about a brachiosaurus trying to make yogurt out of his head while a diplodocus looks on, then you are much more likely to just sit in your easy chair, hunker down behind your newspaper, and tremble.

Approaching maximum insanity, I swing open the door and begin to run through an oddly clean living room.  It looks and smells like my grandma’s house. I get a momentary glance at a middle-aged man playing chess who stares at me and freezes, and then I sprint-limp-shuffle out of the room.  I then run through a kitchen pretending I’m being chased by iguanodons.  The three college-aged guys cooking breakfast look very much caught off guard, and one of them spits out some curses as I dive-tumble-crawl my way to the back door. 

Once in the backyard, I take a moment to get my bearings.  Then I abandon the limp and begin to run faster.  I compensate for the loss of the limp by yelling louder and adding nautical terms and random exotic fruits into my frenzied exclamations.  After a few minutes of running I realize I have no idea where I am.  It’s going to be a long road home.