Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

Twenty bucks says there's typos.  Oh well.   While I most likely had every intention of brain dumping about my recent trek down Insanity 95, reading a piece on rituals made me think about things.  Particularly, my mind has been swirling around what rituals actually are and what they mean.  Rituals, in and of themselves, are strange beasts of memory, burden, and daily life I presume.  Yet, do all rituals look alike and do they all provide a sense of spiritual release, connection, and solace?  Doubtful, as I would say the face of the ritual changes with time and place.  My drives from NY to DC, always along I-95, change for meaning and purpose.  Yet, the trip never alters.  My parents live three plus hours south of DC, along the dreaded I-95, college friends live in Richmond and DC.  The bulk of my trips have landed me in DC, and they have not always been filled with the laughter and cheap beer that old college buddies bring.  Ho...

These days I'm contemplating the image of the solider verses the veteran.  Fun stuff, for the nerd in me.  Particularly, I'm looking at The American Legion Magazine , and mixed within these pages of patriotic valor and dutiful honor advertisements abound.  That is no surprise. Yet, a continual theme has arisen.  Advertisements for girdles, corrective footwear, and dentures abound.  The dentures  . . . a simple black and white photo of false teeth seems to jump off the page to startle and haunt me.  Gah. I think I was four or five when my Mom's Dad came to visit us in Washington State.  Visits with grandparents are just that: filled with presents, sweets, and good stuff.  Yet, Grandpa left his dentures in a glass on the back of the toilet (or maybe the bathroom sink).  I did not know he had dentures.  See where this one is going? I came running from the toilet with my curls flying screaming about monster teeth.  Good times....

Not long ago I made mention that I wasn't sure if I would want to have a beer with "the girl in Birks" who moved here in 2000.  Wild eyed with untamed hair in shades of auburn with blondish highlights, her peasant blouses with tattered jeans, and tanks with long hippie skirts, leather knapsack on her shoulder and gypsy scarf around her neck spoke of her age more than anything else.  In college she had read Jack Kerouac's On The Road no less than twenty-five times; always scenting the air with clove cigarettes and littering the desk floor, and any flat surface with beer bottles.  Sadly, or maybe aptly, they were not uber cool micro-brews.  Back then Miller and Bud Light called to her on Kentucky nights.  One of the roommates--Mere--"borrowed" the cherished book, but that should really read she "lost" the novel in the forlorn flat surface with papers, clothes, and trinkets.  Most just call it a desk.  Shortly before graduation the mysterious flat...

I hear that aside from the joys of child rearing a key reason to have them is so you have someone to take care of you in your old age.  Well, I do not have tricycle motors, teenaged anger machines, or any variation of the mix.  BUT, I do have other people's children.  Yes, you read that right.  My friends know that their kids will be saddled with me, and in return for all of the good humor and advice I bestowed their way they get to make sure my old, decrepit, and insane ass is comfortable. Like today, for instance, my friend Chris left a lovely Facebook wall post of her pre-teen.  What did she say? "Love you love you love you!  Please clean up your room and don't forget to walk the dogs when you get home . . . also, please take the two packages of ground meat out of the fridge (bottom shelf) and put in the sink to finish thawing.  And don't forget to call me when you get home!"  Very sweet, right? Good, responsible parenting. What did I say? ...

Sometimes this life with Lupus can make you feel alone.  Very alone.  The days and nights of aches, the unpretty designs on your face, the rashes on every stretch of skin, the intestinal woes, the overwhelming exhaustion where blinking is an effort and keeping the eyes open even more while making sleep impossible . . . the list goes on and on.  I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy, or even my most detestable ex, but understanding is fleeting with this thing dubbed Lupus.  The beautiful disaster that we are makes some of us slinker away with shame and guilt, manage life with a calculated formula of energy exertion and inevitable pain recourse, or attempt to clip the butterfly's wings and fly anyway we can.  Others, others use it as a crutch.  I'll remain silent, as we all have our battles to fight and reasons for our existence.  I, as we already know, do not fall within the predatory lines of pity and self-loathing.  Okay, I have self-loathing...

Amongst the raindrops and puddles wider than my height, I plunged for an afternoon engagement . . . oh, it was the sexiest kind . . . a hot, steamy, rekindle with the New York Public Library.  So sexy indeed.  So, up I traipse getting there to realize I've lost my access card.  But that's okay.  I'm a bonafide city resident so I got a library card, after a gem of a librarian let me pull up an online bank statement for a current address.  Seriously, do you see where this is going? After climbing the stairs of ascension, to room 308, I requested my requested off-site material now on-site via an email request that I verified via a digital image on my phone.  I then schlepped a shit load of American Legion magazines to a table for the latest book I'm muddling on.  For the next two hours--since final grade insanity got me there late, and the rain played its too long game of showering me and the city--I plunged through 12 issues from 1960.  Among ot...

Ions ago, in the mysterious and often booze laden days of undergrad, a tradition was started.  A simple tradition, but one that I have held stead fast to in the years since.  Every year on Kentucky Derby Day I consume Chinese food and bourbon.  Kentucky bourbon, Makers Mark, to be more pointed.  You might balk, but you should remember that grease and bourbon are a food group.  I assure you that the US Surgeon General is aware of this food group but has just fallen short of making it an official category of edible consumption.  None-the-less, in my yearly tradition--which I'm not sure if the roommates even remember or bother with anymore, I ate greasy Chinese and drank Makers.  The flavors along my mouth's taste buds are a subject for another day, but the act of consuming a memory, partaking in a self-imposed tradition, and partaking in a brief moment of sports for which I never watch and have no desire to engage (meaning little outside of my realm of e...