What You Don't Remember From College

It was late. A Thursday, which meant the campus was drunk, with the exception of us unfortunate bastards who had Friday morning exams. I didn’t come up with Holy Cross’ catch phrase – a drinking school with an intelligence problem – but I’ll be damned if my roommate and I didn’t epitomize it.

He woke me up, stumbling in at four in the morning. There was a long hallway between our beds and the door and he slumped into it the whole walk in, more weight on the wall than his feet, his waist tilted at a forty five degree angle.

I didn’t know what about and Sleever wasn’t in any fit state to articulate why, but boy was he belligerent. And pissed. With me of all people.

But he had more pressing issues. From the way he toppled over into his desk, you’d have the wall he was leaning had ended abruptly. Evidently he hadn’t seen it coming. This got me out of bed. I’d been laughing to myself listening to him drunkenly cuss me out under his breath beforehand, but now I couldn’t contain myself.

While I won’t ever be sure what exactly Sleever was saying as I dragged him into bed, I’m pretty sure it was, “You fucking bastard, what did you do with the fuck wall?” And that’s not a typo.

He quietly cursed me out to sleep, “fucking you, fuck you man. I swear I’d beat your fucking ass if you weren’t such a bitch.” And I mean until he fell asleep – I couldn’t stop laughing. It wasn’t until my econometrics exam in the morning I found out why. One of the guys living next door to us was in the class with me. He was a little weird, but mostly just nerdy. I mean that in the conventional pejorative sense. Poor social skills, smelly, and a bit of a shut-in – not the new age bullshit term it’s become. He was a nice kid all the same, I liked him.

“What the fuck happened last night?” he asked me.

“I dunno what you’re talking about man.” I didn’t think Sleever had been that loud.

“Your roommate started banging on my door at four in the morning, screaming about how you changed the locks and how he was going to kill you. I kept yelling back that it wasn’t his room but he wasn’t listening. I thought he was going to break the door down until he fell over trying to kick it. I almost had to call public safety. It went on for five minutes, you seriously didn’t hear it?”

So that explains that.

How to write a book

Before diving in, here's a quick disclaimer -- I can't offer any insight into how to make your book successful. Try sleeping with an agent, and once that's done murder your publisher. That should get everyone's attention nicely. Although if you're ready to go to that extreme, do everyone a favor and make sure either E. L. James or Stephanie Meyer are your "publisher..."

Preferably both of them, if you can.

But back to the point. I've just illustrated the first and only likely reason you'll never finish your novel. Distractions. Well either that or you'll never get to writing at all. Even so, why will that be? Distractions.

Writing isn't that much fun and there will always be a host of activities you'll rather be doing. More specifically these distractions will fall into three realms: the internet, the television, and the thing you have between your legs. Regardless, it's all procrastination and all averted by ORGANIZATION AND ROUTINE. Those are the most important skills an author can develop... aside from the ability to actually write or tell a story.

My point is, there is no romance to the writing process. Life is not a montage -- the details cannot be ignored or brushed aside. "Writing" is work, for many a job, and the objective of work and a job aren't to entertain or amuse yourself but to produce something.

So find your time, know what you will accomplish within it, and have no tolerance for distraction during it. Unplug your router, lock your door, put your earbuds in, and write.

It's easy enough said, much harder done.

An Exercise in Abstract Prediction

I heard a joke the other day. It comes by way of u/themanster604 on reddit, who heard it from a professor, who in turn, probably found the thing in a chain-email from his grandmother. 

(Yes, the premise actually is "A maniac murders teens when they 

refuse to forward chain mail." So. Yeah. Gotta look out for that one)

At any rate, the joke goes:

“A physicist, a chemist, and a statistician are called to see their dean. As they arrive the dean leaves his office. On their own, the professors are alarmed to discover there is a fire in the wastebasket. 

The physicist says, 'I know what to do! We must cool down the materials until their temperature is lower than the ignition temperature and then the fire will go out.' 

The chemist says, 'No! No! I know what to do! We must cut off the supply of oxygen so that the fire will go out due to lack of one of the reactants.' 

While the physicist and chemist debate what course to take, they both are further alarmed when the statistician starts running around the room setting other fires. They both scream, 'What are you doing?'

He replies, ‘Trying to get an adequate sample size.’”

Now this got me thinking. Clearly we've reached the punchline. But likewise, it's obvious the scene hasn't ended. It's not as if the physicist and chemist would both cock their heads at such an explanation, shrug, and carry about their business. And what of the dean whose office is getting torched by a pair of idiots and a would-be arsonist. 

We can assume from what we've heard that neither the chemist nor the physicist intends to put these fires out, and further, we know they know how to. They've already offered two effective solutions. So that means the fire grows, someone was probably hurt in it -- more than likely a lot of someones, too, especially if you assume the building also held lecture halls, and it was all highly preventable. That's textbook negligence. So do these men end up in jail? Or do they flee?

The former seems safer to assume. 

Now these three professors are sitting in prison and their students are going uneducated -- though all things considered, were these really the sort of men you wanted your kids educated by? -- the dean's up to his noise with more problems than Dumbledore had at Hogwarts once Voldemort returned, he doesn't even have an office to solve them in, and nobody can adequately explained why any of it happened nor predict what's to follow.

(Paterno: death eater, or yet another victim of the imperius curse?) 

This happens a lot in our humor but it's not an isolated phenomena. We've become a headline society, subjugating additional, important information to obscurity -- if not outright omission. What's worse is many seem content not pursue these omissions.

It's not entirely bad. We consume more information and parse it faster in such a fashion. But I do hope I illustrated that what's left out can sometimes be more fun.

Just kidding. The real lesson is that we need to stop trying to teach each other say many fucking lessons.

The Bright Side of Living in a Surveillance State

Considering pretty much everything the NSA has told us so far has proved to be, if not flat out lies, then at least new and unusual applications of the truth, only an idiot would believe there isn’t more they’re hiding. And let's be honest, it's probably worse than what we've heard so far.

We can rebel against it if we like, but where to even begin? Start sending dickpics with terroristic captions? Battle their invasion of our privacy with an invasion of their eyeballs? They might enjoy that. Overload their systems?

(His penis: a trailblazer for change)

Enough bloggers have knotted their panties over this that I doubt anyone needs to hear more of that. Instead, let me suggest that we're looking at this from the wrong direction. Everything has a bright side and in the same light, living in a surveillance state can't be all bad. It just takes a little bit of introspection and rationalization to find that silver lining.

At the rate the NSA’s data is disseminating it’ll be only a matter of months, if not weeks, before even you’re technologically illiterate grandmother has access to it. And while I don’t necessarily want her knowing what kind of porn I’ve been watching, I can take some solace digging into everyone else’s private lives.

(Somehow I didn't have the foresight to realize googling 

"grandma looking at porn" would return troubling results)

Let's be honest though -- I'm too self involved to really care what most of my friends are doing with their freetime. Frankly, I know them well enough to know it's not that interesting. And I'm sure most everyone will agre with me. That said, there’s no telling how much else the NSA knows about. I think the only logical conclusion is everything. So here’s a few things I think everyone can look forward to learning from them.

(alley property bitch)

1: What ended up happening to the rhubarb lady?

(maybe)

(probably)

(...hopefully)

2: Is that guy gay like everyone says he is?

3: And when are we gonna see some honest politicians?

Car Watching

There's a particularly breed you encounter while stuck in traffic. Though to be fair, it's not so much that you only encounter them, rather they're the only ones your notice. I'm sure there's a whole world of normal, polite people attempting to move from point A to point B on the road, but when you're stationary in your car, for all intents and purposes, they might as well not exist.

But here are a few of the folks that do:

1: The Creepy Stare.

You're not sure which of you looked first, but now you can't stop looking and, evidently, neither can they. It's not because they're attractive or interesting, or for that matter even the gender you typically like to fuck, but something drew you to them. Maybe it's a universal imperative. Maybe your brain just likes to watch you squirm. Either way, morbid curiosity keeps you glancing.

2: The DJ.

While it's not entirely clear whether it's his musical tastes he's trying to show off, or just that his hearing has deteriorated so far he's needed to install the sort of speakers you only see in the military and on pimp my ride, doesn't matter. You won't fail to notice him. Typically blasting a rapper you've never heard of, he might as well be running the Jaws theme on loop because his approach is little other than a clue to hop in the emergency lane and try to get some peace and quiet.

3: Black People.

It's not that your racist. You're definitely not racist. You've got like three black friends. But you definitely noticed those guys two lanes over weren't white. Maybe they were just hispanic and tan. And it's a pretty nice car. There's nothing to worry about. But now you're wondering why you noticed them and why you'd think any of that and worrying whether that doesn't make you racist. Wait. Who locked the doors, rolled the windows up, and turned the music down?

A Blackhawks Fan's Prayer

Our father, who tomorrow is in Boston, Lord Stanley is your name.

Let the Blackhawk's will be done, so the series will be won, in the Madhouse or T.D. Garden.

Give us tomorrow our Stanley cup, and forgive us our turnovers,
As we forgive those who cross check Jonathan Toews in the head.

Lead us not into elimination, and deliver our shots past Tuuka Rask.

Our name is the Chicago Blackhawks,

Amen.

Air Travel: Regression Analysis

For me, air travel represents more a psychological journey than a physical one. On the good days it’s just a quick deconstruction and I fall asleep hoping I won’t wake up with particularly difficult to explain morning wood, considering I’m sitting next to a child and her grandmother... and that it's actually the evening. 

The bad ones go something more like:

A thirty minute delay at the gate: "I'm fine."

An hour delay on the plane, at the gate, before taxiing: "I'm annoyed."

A forty five minute taxi before we take off: "I'm irritated."

An emergency stop in Buffalo because some woman needed a Xanax: "No, a complimentary cookie just is not cheering me up any longer."

An hour wait in Buffalo because we can't take off without emergency, medicinal oxygen canisters Mrs. Panic attack wasted which evidently they don't stock in airports, only on airplanes: "I swear if you breathe at me wrong I will cut your face off with this plastic knife."

Finding myself locked out of the house at 2:30 am when I should've been home eight hours ago: "Screw it, I'm ringing this doorbell 100 times like I'm seven years old."

And it’s around then you realize you’ve regressed from an adult to a collegiate to a highschooler to a tween to a homicidal lunatic -- which I’ll add is the wild card that can sneak in at any point of your trip and eschew the significance of the experience -- all the way to a juvenile delinquent.

Which I guess is all a roundabout way of saying, "Fuck you, American Airlines."