I was recently talking to a friend about birthdays. I’m usually one to not care too terribly much about my birthday. I don’t like to be the center of attention or make a big deal out of nothing. But this friend of mine said she approaches birthdays in a different way. It’s more of a reflective day for her. She re-evaluates where she is in life and where she wants to be. Or to use a Bouncing Souls lyric, “Who am, who I was, and who I want to be.” I liked this notion, and based the past year, I thought I would take this approach with my upcoming birthday.
Category: Optimism
The New Auld Lang Syne
It’s the time of the year when most of the internet decides to look back on the year. When I do that one of the first things I see is the summer afternoon where I curled up on my bed, clutched my childhood stuffed animal (a mouse I call Eekers), and listened to one of my first punk rock albums: The Swingin’ Utters’ A Juvenile Product of the Working Class. I found much comfort as those songs transported me back to middle school days.
Do you remember middle school? Yeah, it was nightmare. But I still found that better than the state I was in. So when I look back on the year that was, it looks pretty miserable, and for the first time in years I am actually looking forward to the New Year’s holiday.
On The Outside
It’s that wonderful time of the year. Autumn is just around the corner and tailgate season is underway. While football is not my favorite sport, I still like it and the CSU Rams have been great to watch the past few years. This also affords me the opportunity to hang out with some friends I don’t get to see as often as I would like because things like life happens. But every other Saturday for 3 months I have a standing obligation with some decent dudes and darling dames.
Goody Two Shoes
I always thought I would quit drinking when I was much older and on the verge of complete liver failure, or in order to save a rocky marriage, or I was dead. Turns out it would happen when I’m 31 and having only slight liver issues. I don’t know where this will lead me, but hopefully it’s not full retirement from booze, but more of a small break, like a vacation or sabbatical. Yes, like a drinking sabbatical, wait I think that’s the opposite of what’s happening.
Closing Time
When I started writing this article it was going to be a piece about the joys and boringness of spending 16 some hours by yourself in a car. But that mostly turned into a boring piece about how excited I was for a new playlist I made. I had hoped to gain insight and figure out a few things while I was so alone with my thoughts. As it turned out the best thought I had was about the word “dickwad” and that ended up sounding a lot like Louis C.K.’s bit about a bag of dicks. However, what these 16 hours did provide were idea seeds. Tiny little thoughts got planted and over the next month they bloomed into actual ideas and insights. The first one to bloom bright in my flower garden of insights was closure.
For All The Unheard 