A Few Thoughts on Showers

Today, dear readers, I'd like to invite you into my shower.

Not literally. Figuratively, not literally. Oh god. That's weird. You're weird. Stop thinking like that, that's weird. Man.

Anyway, it's clear that showers are inherently awkward. First of all - obviously - you're naked, and you're probably still half asleep. You're bound to screw something up on the way in, be it a quick stumble on the way out of bed or (as I did this morning) a wayward arm swing sending your toothpaste into your toilet. At least it was almost empty anyway.

Then, you have to stand there naked or close to it, no doubt regretting leaving your bed and its warmth, as you wait for the water to heat up. Once it's judged to be a sufficient temperature, you hop in and cringe as - guess what? - you're doused in water. You can barely see from your hair flopped over your eyes, and the damn water isn't hot enough anymore. You turn it up slightly and stand there a minute because you're still half asleep and attempting to blink into reality. If you're like me, you have music playing from your laptop and are nodding your head to "Walking On The Sun" by Smash Mouth, reenacting "Let It Go" from Frozen, or otherwise jamming to whatever song is on.

You got used to the water temperature again; better turn it up a little more again. This obviously doesn't apply to some of you, but around now is the point at which I remember that I do, in fact, have a tattoo, and that it's been there for a year - and damn, it looks cool. After some quick self-admiration and another slight temperature increase, you realize that you'd better get around to actually cleaning yourself. You drop a too-big amount of shampoo into your hand and immediately regret your carelessness. Those bottles cost like $5.95, man.

By now, the room has filled with steam and you've incrementally ventured about three-quarters of the way up the temperature dial. Regardless, you still turn it up a little more because, screw it, it's eight in the morning and if you're going to be up at this ungodly hour, you're going to turn your bathroom into a sauna. Because that's adulthood, damn it. If you don't turn your bathroom into a sauna yourself, no one else is going to do it for you.

Of course, the soaping and cleaning of oneself then commences. This in itself is an incredibly awkward thing to describe in any level of detail, and so I will not. Apologies.

So, you're probably about three songs in at this point and standing in a vision-impairing field of hazy steam. You probably should be getting out soon, but "Semi-Charmed Life" just came on and you woke up fifteen minutes early anyway, so you belt out those timeless words that you barely know or understand the meaning of. Finally, at some point around the end of the song, you regretfully turn the water off and venture out into the steam-field. You grasp for your towel and give yourself a noogie that older brothers could only dream of as you dry your hair.

Then, once you've put on boxers and gotten a bit more reacquainted with your surroundings, you stand in front of the sink and stick a vibrating plastic object in your mouth and vigorously scrub your teeth with it and some minty cleaning agent. You spit frequently and in the color of a shamrock shake during this, and some toothpaste inevitably ends up sticking to the sink, defying you in the face of the cleaning you just did the other day.

For me, the music has been going this whole time. We've generally made it into "Teenage Dream" territory on the playlist by now, and are belting it out as you walk in circles around your room getting dressed. You put a dab of shaper in your hair, tousle it around a bit, then give up and accept your mediocre hairstyle. You grab your wallet, keys and phone and are finally ready for the day - that is, until you run back inside to grab the backpack you somehow managed to forget. How did you manage to forget your backpack on your way to school?

Showers are weird, man.

2AM In Florida

It's 2AM in Naples, Florida, where I'm currently visiting my family. We're in a two-room hotel suite that I was absolutely loving until I woke up drenched in sweat about half an hour ago. After a quick midnight pee to resolve the situation (always a good solution), I quickly decided that my ocean of a bed was not where I wanted to be at the moment. So, I took to my laptop out on the kitchen counter and started furiously pressing up, left, down in a nice game of 2048.

Don't click that link, by the way. It links to the game, and it's incredibly addictive. I'm sorry.

Anyway, here I was electing to avoid my sweaty bed for at least a little while by smacking keys and making numbers add up. It took me a little while to register the time, but when I did I didn't really care about the lateness. I was up at 5AM yesterday for my flight out, and I went to bed around 7PM, so my internal clock is as wacked out right now as it can get. I decided that it couldn't hurt to smack buttons a little longer until the bed situation was rectified.

So, yeah. Not the most solid plan. That is, until, my dad was awoken by a combination of me out in the kitchen and his habit of never closing doors. He came out and found his son covered in sweat in the middle of the room, smacking keys on a laptop until the cows would inevitably come home. I explained the hopeless situation: there's no fan in my room, it's hot as hell, Maddie'd die if I open a window or something, I don't know, I'm waiting out here until it's not sweaty anymore.

My dad did something then that I had not even faintly considered previously; he turned the temperature down on the thermostat, making the air conditioning come on. Apparently, it was off prior to this, which explains quite a bit. Anyway, my dad saved my sweaty life with a couple presses of a button and swiftly retired back to his room after I sheepishly thanked him.

I guess I'll be heading back to bed now, but the lesson I'm taking from tonight is this: my dad is awesome. He's always known exactly what to do, no matter what the trouble. Of course, that may be some whitewashed retrospect, but isn't everyone's childhood a wash of white? My dad's been my idol since I was young, and I continue to work to be like him today as I enter adulthood.

You know, it's pretty easy when you're living on your own in an apartment two and a half states away to take for granted the folks that are allowing you to study to follow your career. Of course, I love my mom equally, but, as it happened, she was peacefully sleeping through the whole debacle (not that I blame her; she had some terrible travel scenarios today, and I'm glad she got her rest).

So, this post is a specific thank you to my dad for reminding me that no matter what, no matter how far I go, I'm still your son who was still scared to go to sleep without a nightlight when he was ten, and I'm still your son who can't figure out how to work a thermostat when he's twenty. I'm not sure if you'll read this, dad, but the point still stands: you're awesome, and I'll always look up to you. Thank you for making me who I am, and thank you for saving me from sweating out my body weight.

In closing, I'm totally not about that room-with-no-fan life. Not my thing at all.

Hello, World! / The Break I Needed

I had nothing to do today, so I decided to start a blog.

This idea wasn't made with any kind of plan attached. I have no idea where I'll go with this, or what I'll be talking about. But, as the late and great Benjamin Franklin once said, I'll wing it.

At present, I'm sitting alone in my apartment in Columbia, Missouri. It's a Tuesday, and it happens to be Spring Break. That said, there are very few people left in town. Due to a combination of terrible planning on my part and some unforeseen external circumstances, I've found myself alone in my apartment until I leave to see my family on Thursday. As a twenty-year-old swamped with work near the latter end of his sophomore year of college, this ended up being a godsend.

These days have been a much-needed breather in a stressful few months for me. I still did have a few responsibilities, but the solitude has been good for my focus. I'm currently in the middle of an appeals process to stay in the extremely competitive Journalism school at Mizzou (my 2.8 is a bit below the minimum GPA of 3.0), and I've finally found some time to get some serious work in on the various aspects of that process. I've also been able to catch up on reading for my classes. In particular, I've gotten really into my Philosophy text (Word & Object by William Van Orman Quine), which is always an interesting subject.

But what's really been interesting is what I've found myself getting done after my responsibilities: for the first time in almost a year, I've ended up doing a lot writing.

For the past several months, I've been in one of the longest droughts of my life when it comes to writing. It's not really a mystery as to why; I haven't been a part of any publications since I left my editor position at the Zou Feed in July, and I've had a hell of a lot to deal with academically during that time. Save for a few disparate works last semester, none of which were published anywhere, I haven't written anything outside of schoolwork (with the exception of poetry, which I'll get to later) and some extended Facebook posts.

What's strange to me is how, for the first time in my life, I felt little to no drive to write during those months. It wasn't a conscious decision to stop, nor was it premeditated. Yet it stuck for months, and once a habit is broken it's hard to start again.

That all changed about a week ago. A couple things led to this change, the first of which I'd have to identify as a writing prompt given to me by my friend Marshall. The prompt was, essentially: what if Jesus Christ was a living person and a tabloid superstar? It wasn't particularly original, nor was it especially thought provoking, but it tickled my fancy and I wrote it out within half an hour of seeing his prompt. It wasn't until I had finished that I realized that I'd just written my first creative work in years (again, excluding poetry, which I'll get to later) without even thinking about it. It was a bit of an eye-opener. Creative writing has always been a bit daunting to me, and I jumped that barrier without even thinking about it. It really made me think about my potential as a writer. There's so many things I could write about, and the realm of non-fiction is no longer a boundary for me.

The other major catalyst in my new attitude towards writing is, as I've mentioned, my no-longer-recent foray into the world of poetry. I've always written little poems and rhymes in my spare time, but I only started saving them into a collection around a year ago. It was even later still, near the beginning of the fall semester, that I consciously began to identify poetry as a hobby of mine. I've grown proud of my poems, and even joined a poetry group to share them with some friends (guys, can we please start that again?) over tea and coffee on Thursday nights.

Poetry has become, for me, a way to escape the stresses and complications of daily life in a constructive way. It's also helped me (among many other things) with my continuing battle against depression. I've become a much happier person over the past year, and poetry has been a big part of that. The ability to reflect on feelings in the form of written word is both cathartic and fulfilling.

In conclusion, I suppose the point of this entry is to say this: I love writing, and I plan to do a lot more of it. This blog will serve as both an outlet and a collection for me, simultaneously a therapy and a diary. I haven't decided how often I'll be updating it, but I'd say at least once a week is reasonable. So, get ready to be hearing a lot more of my thoughts. I hope you enjoy them!

I'd like to end with a poem I wrote recently. I think it fits well with my current feelings and position in life. Hope you like:


Glory Days

You've seen it all, the scars and tales
But not yet did you cry
You've met old Lucifer himself
And looked him in his eye
You've read your books; you've passed your tests
And now you want to prove
But life's not ready for you yet;
You've got so much to lose

You think you know the world, my friend
But there's still much to learn
The candle wouldn't see a flame
Without a wick to burn
You've come this far; now go on forth
And shine bright as you go
You're old by face but young by heart
And clever to the bone

The finish line may be in sight
But you've hardly left the start
The real world's close enough to taste
But home still has your heart
Enjoy your glory days, young man
'Cause time, it waits for none
Your story's still on chapter one
And the best is yet to come