Tangents With a Purpose!

I noticed the other day that despite the fact that we basically build our blogs off of each other's, Toninho and myself write our blogs in very different styles.  I tend to write my posts with a purpose in mind that I have previously planned on talking about, where he seems to sit down and write anything that comes to his mind.  I admire how when I read his posts I never know where it is going to do next as he always goes on entertaining tangents that sometimes I don't even know where they came from.  I don't go on tangents as often (and when I do they are usually single sentences thrown in parentheses like this one now) and maybe I should start doing that more often, just writing whatever comes to mind and only finishing my posts when I decide they are finished.  So lets go off to lovely Tangentland!

Not to be confused with tangent planes.

I was browsing my blog the other day and realized that it has been a while since I have spoken anything about my personal life, according to my label "dating" other than my one about interactions with people I haven't really posted anything that was even remotely about my personal life since my personal favorite post where I compared my relationship with being a baseball fan to a real world relationship because of Ryan Braun's positive test for PEDs.  I am happy that for one reason or another he didn't have to serve the suspension and is responding to the nay-sayers by having another fine season thus far.  But back to my personal life, my lack of writing about it has simply been because I have no current prospects and haven't for nearly a year and that saddens me.  But it is hard to meet people when you spend a few months living home alone in what Toninho and myself have referred to as a "wasteland for young adults," so since not many strangers (male or female) stumble into my bedroom I didn't meet many people over that span of time.  Then I went back to school for a month before my graduation ceremony to see my college friends again before we all go away to our respective places, and since my main focus was to give my friends proper goodbyes, I didn't concentrate on meeting new people for a month-long fling.  Then after graduation I started working the night shift at my family's shop so it would be creepy if I met anybody there since it is a family business and even if it wasn't, it's an industrial setting so anybody there is a total yuckfest.

My sentiments exactly

Since loneliness kinda sucks, I gotta find out what I am going to do going forward.  I am going to be going to a new school in the Fall, one that doesn't have a male dominated student body!  So for now I'm going to hold out and hope that people there are more compelling than the ones I've already met, but that doesn't mean there aren't people I have already met.  My sister mentioned that someone she knew that just graduated was going to the same school and doing math, but there are multiple things massively wrong with that.  First, the age difference is way too large at this point in life.  When I was just entering college I was a much different person than I am today, I wanted to do different things, had a very limited set of opinions and intelligent thoughts, was just starting what I want to call my second childhood (currently starting what is probably my third childhood) and my lifestyle was a lot most improvised since it was my first taste of independence.  Second, it is very possible that that girl would be in one of the classes that I am going to be a TA for, and that is just wrong on multiple levels that I don't even have to explain (or I've tried dating a former student before and it wasn't a great experience.)  There are other reasons but I really don't want to keep listing them and keep going on.

I know how she can get an A!

 I've also had two people tell me that the girl I went to junior prom with transferred into the school as well.  I don't know why they felt the need to tell me that since I haven't spoken to her in over 4 years, and I wonder if people are telling her that I'm doing grad school, but I think that is unlikely.  I hadn't thought of trying to rekindle that in those 4 years since I last spoke with her, but I guess it wouldn't be a terrible idea if it came about naturally.  Speaking of girls I have had vague romantic interest in over my life, when I think back on who they were there are a few that I can't recall what I saw in them which makes me feel bad because it suggest that I am not at all sentimental about the people I've met (which I am) and that I have no consistent desires in my life.  So right on cue I reach the part of the Childish Gambino album when this song plays (Editor's note: This used to be a link to the song "Heartbeat").


I think that is probably the best song on an album that I found to be surprisingly good, especially as it takes a certain type of hip hop for me to like it.  But the best part of the album is that it is made completely by Donald Glover, who I always knew of through his work with Derrick Comedy, and knew for a little bit that he was an actor on the show Community (which I've never seen) and a writer for 30 Rock (which I have watched an like a lot), but just discovered his stand-up a few months ago.  After seeing two of his stand-up specials I was convinced he is the first comic that I have really liked since Dave Chappelle.  For the most part, even though I love the craft of stand-up comedy, I have not liked any of the popular ones in recent days.  I know that he has started to get popular recently, but I hope he blows up because he is a talented individual to be able to do all these things successfully.  I would really like to try doing stand-up someday but I don't think any of the bits I have thought of so far are too funny, especially since when I try to tell people them they don't seem to laugh much more than just a chuckle, but in reality most of what stand-ups say isn't much more than a chuckle if you took them out of the pressure situation of being on a stage in front of strangers.  So since I have never had any problems talking in front of a lot of people, maybe I would be good at it.

Speak for yourself.

Since no natural tangents came to mind I'll talk about baseball, this was my response to hearing the Mariners traded Ichiro to the Yankees.  It saddens me to see him leave the team he has spent his entire MLB career with and I can only wonder what is going to become of him now, is he going to be a starter after this year?  Is he going to get 3000 hits?  Is he going to get the World Series ring he left Seattle for?  Is he going to use this change of scenery to get his OBP back above .300?  Only time can tell what is going to become of him, but this has been an entertaining baseball season, and maybe I will be able to get back to writing for Penultimate Round Pick soon to talk about some of my favorite stories of the season.  I am not very good at tangenting, I have the urge to revisit all of the topics I just talked about in a lot more detail, it is just the way I write.  So I'm going to leave it at that, expect to see me return to form next time and keep on a set topic the whole time.  Here's a video to celebrate my attempt at writing in tangents.

Interactions With People

Once again I am here trying to create a post on my fancy smartphone, this time while I'm sitting by myself on break. For some reason I am interested in writing about some strange interactions I have had with other people in my life. I have often had a habit of being a little socially awkward in front of new people and have had a long history of making terrible first impressions, in fact I've had multiple friends tell me that they hated me when they first met me but grew to like me when they actually met me. I find this to be an interesting phenomenon in my life and especially strange given the fact I am a pretty good public speaker. But anyways here are some interesting instances that come to mind.

Here's another thing I did at work!

When I was a freshman in college I lived across the hall from some lax bros. They mostly kept to themselves in the building and you would only see them either bringing some slut back or going out to smoke. But one time I saw one of them in a much different circumstance, he was pacing the hall talking on the phone. From the short bit that I heard he was complaining about the people at the school, saying most of the students are socially awkward nerds and complaining about how nobody ever seems to acknowledge other people as they walk by. I remembered this and thought that maybe I could help him feel better about the school so the next time I saw him I was sure to give him a head did and say hello, simply trying to be friendly. The damn kid ignored me completely and kept walking! What kind of douchebag complains about people ignoring each other then proceeds to ignore the kid who tries to remedy the situation. Maybe the kid really just missed ignoring people he thought he was cooler than like back in high school, no matter what his problem was he is an asshole in my book.

Not sure if that is him or not.. Same thing conceptually.

Another time I found funny was when I was in my phase of coming up with fake names and background stories to tell people, or as my friends know it, before I learned to exile Chase Robertson to the internet. I was at a party with two friends, one of which just came off of a long relationship and we were trying to cheer him up. The other friend decided to not care who he was dancing with so he started dancing with a sumo. When he noticed the gargantuan proportions of hiatus dance partner he tried to change his situation the best he could, by dishing her off on us. The recently single friend didn't see it coming so he was forced into a dance but spent the whole time giving me the most sad looks that just said "save me." Next would have been my turn but somehow I managed to get her to sit and talk as she wanted to dance with the first friend again, who I claimed to have never met before. I then proceeded to introduce myself as Patrick McGoohan (a spy fiction actor from the 60s) and said I could not dance with her due to my relationship with a girl back home in Vermont (not where I'm from at all but it wasn't a total lie as I was involved slightly with another girl at school.) My intentions hereto get everybody out of this situation with their dignity intact, but it took a strange turn when this girl started to tell me her life story, and I heard at least one story I had no interest in hearing. Eventually I found a way to get out of it myself and left the party to play Starfox.

Then there was an entire semester with a lab partner that shared my intentions of not mentioning the elephant in the room. I had only met her once before through a mutual friend, once again at a party, and even though I really didn't try to talk to her much her eyes were piercing through my for a little while. She had nice eyes so we danced and eventually started doing the most two people can do in a public area without anybody finding it lewd or offensive. The problem with this situation was that it took me until then to come to the realization that she was also the same girl one of my friends met at a party two weeks earlier and they left to enjoy each other's company. Not only that but she had been trying to get him to commit to a relationship since then and my job was likely to unknowingly get his attention. Months later we found ourselves in the same class and he only two people without a lab partner for the semester, so we partnered up and made believe we knew the other from elsewhere. In the end I got to know her and she was pretty cool, and nothing like you would think from just hearing that story. 

Fortunately I'm not that awkward

Since the last two stories have been about parties I'll switch to a decidedly different setting, the grocery store I used to work at (and blogged about last year.) One day I was minding my own business mopping up something some moron spilled when two of my friends.came over to me. I could tell by their expressions that they had something odd on their mind but nothing could have prepares me for the exchange that was to come. The first one came over and proceeded to ask if she could ask me a question, which always means something is going to happen. On my reply of yes she proceeded with her question, "can you pee with an erection?" Even I was caught off guard by that question and after a second told her my honest response and she then turned to the other friend and said "I told ya so!" And that was just a typical moment with those two.

One of many great images when your Google Image search "morning wood pee"

Since I seem to be going on too long I'll tell one more story, the story of the first class I had to teach. Granted I wasn't actually the instructor of the course but I was a teaching assistant with my own one hour block once a week. During the class I did the normal introduction and ice breakers that I was taught to do, then I went over the course syllabus but those didn't fill the time so I asked the class for general questions. One student's hand shot up almost instantly. He asked me how you get a suitemate to move out. My only response was to redirect him to the people who have the power to change housing assignments. Nevertheless of my lack of power in that situation he felt the need to tell myself and the rest of the class that his reasoning for wanting the guy to move out was that his suitemate had a habit of spending most of his days watching adult cartoons featuring characters from Naruto. I found the situation to be genuinely funny so the only thing I could do was hide behind my desk and laugh until I was straight faced enough to change the topic. Since then I've been fairly certain I can take anything a student tries to throw at me.

Most exhausting foreplay ever.. Also, right side, dude?

Welcome to my life..

2012: The Year of Seconds

It has been quite some time since I've had enough structure in my life to keep up with television shows by watching new episodes on their regular weekly showing time, but there once was a time when I was able to and here's how I remember it.  The first season or two are really exciting because the show is new and you never know how the writers are going to create new situations and how they are going to make the characters change over time.  Everything is fresh and new and surprising, in other words, those intro seasons are the reason people love television.  Around the time of the third season two things can happen, the show creates convoluted situations to keep the show alive and keep people guessing (mostly done by shows on Showtime) or they can settle into their routine and episodes become moderately predictable.  Then at some point during a season you sit down to watch a new episode and you realize that the episode seems oddly familiar, it usually should take no longer than 3 minutes to realize that they are showing a damn rerun during primetime.  Those primetime reruns were probably the most annoying thing when I watched TV rather than Netflix, I wanted a new experience, not to watch an old episode again that I probably remember too well.  Before my 1 faithful reader starts thinking I'm going to explode into a rant about primetime television, I'll bring this point together.  You see, I've reached the point in my life where I am starting to get reruns, and it is a little bit worse than on television.  It is weird because with the rumored apocalypse coming I'm pretty sure that the ratings on my life are waning and the writers are taking a few weeks off to rewrite all the scripts to put a succinct end to the story.  Either that or the writers are completely mailing it in.  Anyways, lets look at some of my reruns in this year of 2012.

Sounds like a plan!

The year started off pretty new, as you can read in some of my past posts I was unemployed and tried to start a sports blog with some friends, it was all new experiences for me even though most of them were terrible experiences.  But the time for new experiences was over when graduate school decisions came to me (yeah, I'm continuing my education, its gonna be sweet) and I had to make my decision on where I was going to spend an arbitrary amount of years depending on my program. If you read my past post about how I chose which college to attend for my undergraduate studies you know that I made a decision and later got a better deal from another school so I switched schools before attending a single class.  Well for some reason (my subconscious being an asshole) those two schools were the only ones that I applied to for graduate school.  Sure as hell when I got into both of them I was only given a financial aid package for one of them, and after a visit I decided that the program and the package was right for me so I sent my confirmation there a few weeks before my decision was needed.  Proud of myself and happy to no have had to make a difficult situation I relaxed and prepared for my new life at a new school.  But since this article is about reruns I'm sure you can guess what happens next!  My Alma Mater sent me a more attractive financial package and I was forced to rethink my decision again.  This time I actually held steady with my initial decision (I couldn't spend any more time out there, just not a nice place to live) and I'm gonna end up questioning that one just as much as with 4 years ago. It seemed at the time like an isolated incident of my life repeating itself, but I was eventually going to learn that was going to become a trend.

I know the feeling yellow ghost...

After that I returned to my apartment at school to have some final fun with my friends before the graduation ceremony, which was the obvious setting of my next rerun.  Over the course of four years I forgot how incredibly boring graduation ceremonies are, you are wearing a silly looking dress with a cardboard square on your head, it's summer and you are probably outside and the only thing you have to listen to is some guy reading names off of a list.  Luckily I knew the people I was sitting with so instead of seeming like I was sitting there for the 4 hours the ceremony lasted it was more like 3 hours and 52 minutes.  Then came the recurring situation of saying goodbye to your friends that you spent the last few years bonding with just in time to likely see them a limited number of times in the future (obviously a lot more true for college than high school but it did happen with some people in high school), which is always full of making fake plans that will never come to fruition because you don't want to get emotional in what could be your last meeting.  I know that this was a planned rerun, but it happened and was kind of a rough day.

Slightly relevant but funny nonetheless.

 The next case was when the year of reruns completely dawned on me, because the next two took place on the same day.  I spent the morning helping one of my best friends move into a new house closer to where they work, which is over an hour away and at that distance that makes visiting slightly burdensome.  This was the second one of my best friends that I had helped move to a spot that fits the slightly burdensome description (granted the first one was December 2011 but this still counts) and since they are both in different  directions I wonder how often I will ever see both of them at the same time.  I have spent most of the last seven years with those two guys, and moving them away is changing my life just as much it is theirs, except they have to become grown-ups now and I'm retaining my youth by staying in school.  Knowing this was a great time to celebrate this change in life, we spent that night having some good old fashioned fun!  Whilst having said "fun" I received a text message that I was warned about that morning.  It was a picture of a ring on what is to be my sister-in-law's finger and thus was the second time one of my brothers had gotten engaged.  The oldest of my brothers was married last summer and was 25 at the time, and the brother who had just gotten engaged and is currently 23 years old.  The "fun" I was describing earlier reflects the fact that I am 21 years old as of this writing and nowhere near a place where I will follow in the footsteps of my brothers in that category.  I've known for a while that I lead a much different life than my brothers so it's not like this happening put me in a state of "what am I doing with my life," I am proud of them all and I can't wait to give another best man speech next summer, maybe I'll have someone there this time to facepalm and ask themselves what they see in me.  

Hey bride, pull my finger!

So there's a few reruns from my life, now that I see this trend coming along this year I can't help but wonder what situations I am going to find myself in again with the half of the year that remains.  A lot of ones that come to mind aren't the most pleasant, but I think I'll enjoy them as they come and go.  I'll be sure to keep my reader up to date on all goings on in my life whether they are new episodes or reruns, until then enjoy Lawrence at his finest.