State of the Union
One year ago, I was sitting in the exact spot that I'm sitting in now, and I decided that I had wasted enough time checking other people's blogs and away messages and profiles, and that I would just start my own and see how many other people's time I could waste. I began writing believing that shut me up would have a short life and then spend the rest of eternity in the internet junkyard, whatever and wherever that is. Turns out, people - including myself - have a lot more time to kill than I had ever thought possible.
My first entry was about the Red Sox. It was a rant. I went off on everyone in the Sox organization, every player I found to be under-performing. I said Nomar was a crybaby and a sulker. I said that Francona could be the owner of a "Life is Good" t-shirt with a picture of the world blowing up on the back. The next entry I wrote was about clowns, and how people often feared them, and even though people thought a fear of clowns was silly, that there are many clowns in history who have been psychopaths. For my third entry, I wrote about laughing at my sister who fell tap-dancing in the living room.
For some reason, people read this junk.
Over the past year, I've written about basically everything that's happened to me, only I've written the events like stories rather than daily journal accounts. Nobody cares that I got some law school applications or that I went to the gym, but I've found that people might be more interested if it's that I got the law school applications to buy some Puma sneakers, which turned out to be out of stock anyway and rendered my entire breakdown unnecessary, or if it's that when I went to the gym I unintentionally insulted the Blind. In the end, I think what makes any of this interesting - if it's interesting at all - is that it's not about what happens to anybody, it's about why or how it all happens.
People have said to me in the past year that they would write this stuff themselves, but nothing interesting ever happens to them. I say that's impossible. Everyone has some crazy stories about growing up, even if they don't involve playing poor people or crappy cars (some children, apparently, have souls). Everyone has a crazy relative or ten. Most people have a favorite sports team or hobby that they can rant about, though I admit that having the Sox in the postseason and then having them win it all was pretty good for business, and, incidentally, for MY LIFE. And last, and possibly most important, I truly believe that there are just too many morons out there for these encounters to happen only to me.
I ran into a sticky situation when my dad started reading. At first, I didn't really care that much. And then I made a pretty crude joke, and I got a phone call. My dad basically told me I could be fired and completely fucked for life if I didn't take that entry down. I followed his advice because I didn't want to listen to him about it anymore, but also because he was right. The only thing is, my dad takes every single opportunity to remind me that I once wrote this joke and how bad it was and how it almost cost me my job (even though "almost" is a bit much there) and how lucky I am that he was reading it and saw it and yay my father is a hero blah blah blah. At least, that's what it sounds like to me. That was my big brush with censorship.
In the end, my father was the only person who heeded the title of all of this. He tried, and almost succeeded. It reminds me of this time, years and years ago, when I was in the sixth or seventh grade maybe. I was riding in the car with just my father to Borders bookstore, and I was telling him some story or some random thought I'd had. I had been talking for a while probably, and all of a sudden, my father looked at me and asked, "Do you ever stop talking?"
Umm, guess not.
My first entry was about the Red Sox. It was a rant. I went off on everyone in the Sox organization, every player I found to be under-performing. I said Nomar was a crybaby and a sulker. I said that Francona could be the owner of a "Life is Good" t-shirt with a picture of the world blowing up on the back. The next entry I wrote was about clowns, and how people often feared them, and even though people thought a fear of clowns was silly, that there are many clowns in history who have been psychopaths. For my third entry, I wrote about laughing at my sister who fell tap-dancing in the living room.
For some reason, people read this junk.
Over the past year, I've written about basically everything that's happened to me, only I've written the events like stories rather than daily journal accounts. Nobody cares that I got some law school applications or that I went to the gym, but I've found that people might be more interested if it's that I got the law school applications to buy some Puma sneakers, which turned out to be out of stock anyway and rendered my entire breakdown unnecessary, or if it's that when I went to the gym I unintentionally insulted the Blind. In the end, I think what makes any of this interesting - if it's interesting at all - is that it's not about what happens to anybody, it's about why or how it all happens.
People have said to me in the past year that they would write this stuff themselves, but nothing interesting ever happens to them. I say that's impossible. Everyone has some crazy stories about growing up, even if they don't involve playing poor people or crappy cars (some children, apparently, have souls). Everyone has a crazy relative or ten. Most people have a favorite sports team or hobby that they can rant about, though I admit that having the Sox in the postseason and then having them win it all was pretty good for business, and, incidentally, for MY LIFE. And last, and possibly most important, I truly believe that there are just too many morons out there for these encounters to happen only to me.
I ran into a sticky situation when my dad started reading. At first, I didn't really care that much. And then I made a pretty crude joke, and I got a phone call. My dad basically told me I could be fired and completely fucked for life if I didn't take that entry down. I followed his advice because I didn't want to listen to him about it anymore, but also because he was right. The only thing is, my dad takes every single opportunity to remind me that I once wrote this joke and how bad it was and how it almost cost me my job (even though "almost" is a bit much there) and how lucky I am that he was reading it and saw it and yay my father is a hero blah blah blah. At least, that's what it sounds like to me. That was my big brush with censorship.
In the end, my father was the only person who heeded the title of all of this. He tried, and almost succeeded. It reminds me of this time, years and years ago, when I was in the sixth or seventh grade maybe. I was riding in the car with just my father to Borders bookstore, and I was telling him some story or some random thought I'd had. I had been talking for a while probably, and all of a sudden, my father looked at me and asked, "Do you ever stop talking?"
Umm, guess not.
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