Bumbling to happiness

That thing (you) won’t shut up about.

    While there are a couple of things bugging me non-stop lately, the one that won’t get me smacked by several individuals is graduation. Yup, soon I must leave the nest to become a tree. Which, to be quite honest, is the exact opposite of what I am doing.

    I’ll spend my last day in a God awful button up and slacks, sports coat my dad bought for his college graduation, and at a restaraunt I probably will despise having to stay in those dress clothes to be in. After all my tear-filled good byes and the awkward second good byes because you ran into that person again at the bar, I will be entering the car, family and life in tow, entering my house and promptly sitting down. With nothing to look forward to doing. And that. Is. Perfect.

    My father looked at me and said: “You’re going to hear this a lot, especially from your mother, but this is your answer. When someone says: ‘What are you doing after college?’, your answer is: ‘Getting drunk off my parents for a year.’ ” And guess what? All year, that is how I have responded. And you know what? It sounds like what I need. Not what I want.

    If I got what I wanted, I’d feel cheated. What, a salary and a location that somehow keeps me in contact with my friends at home, school, family and blends the awesomeness of walking everywhere like a city with the quietness of the country? Actually, I would do that faster then I physically could and probably die before making it there, but the pont is if I survived fifty years later,my wife would look at me and go: “What happened to that spark we had?”, I will know the answer for her. I did not get to spend a year, with my family, working a dead-end job, and just generally enjoying my complete lack of purpose. This one year is going to do what over a decade of schooling never could, prepare me for my future. It is going to let me know, that life exists beyond all the hype public and private educators, family members, and authority figures have created for me. Does this mean I am going to splay about my parents house and be this disgusting pig that never leaves home? No. It just means that kind of behavior has a time limit.

“What a Gulu-Bull. (heheehe) What a Nim-Cow-Poop.”

My one constant driving force in life is to see everyone with a smile on their face. I mean literally everyone. The two attractive females on the dance floor, the wallflower standing next to me, my friends the philosophers, the printmakers and those who pre-date the previous groups; anyone whose pulse is strong enough to handle the occasional jump.

Not to say I scare people…constantly. It is one of the many tricks in my bag of bull shit, because that is all it takes to turn grievers into grinners; a glorious steaming pile of BS placed squarely on their lap by my biggest scooper. I’ll be as primal and bane or witty and charming as it requires (or whatever combination in-between), just know that if you see me, you’re not going to forget it. (Hard to do even if I wasn’t flaunting all 300 pounds and loving it.)

My random dance numbers are most popular, as I let myself groove when, as one of my grouchier friends put it: “Most appropriate.” But I can do something as simple as a cha-cha with my non-existent ass or as complex as taking my (in need of a trimming) hair and using the bangs as windshield wipers for my glasses. Whatever quirk will irk a smile from those repressed lines woven together on people’s faces that they jokingly refer to as their lips.

And while almost all of them laugh, some (probably most) just laugh at me. Not a terribly becoming trait but not one I am ashamed of at all. I here to make them laugh and smile, smile and laugh. If it means that all of this turns me into a clown so be it. After all, it’s all in good fun.

Something to Do

I sit in the deep corner of my families (at least) ten year-old couch, with upwards of five posts I could have posted over the past three weeks. Instead I have been enjoying my time laughing with family and complaining with friends leaving my awkwardly transforming Tumblr to languish, using it only to look at the pretty pictures every couple of hours. It’s not that I am bored with my occasional musings or have nothing to write about (quite the opposite); I just face terrible temptation times ten-thousand in my hometown when compared to the boring little hamlet of Oneonta, despite it’s abundance of bars and good company.

Walden, despite being a slightly dumpy place that I wish it wasn’t, holds all of my more distracting hobbies and vices: all eight years worth of my comic collection and the book shelf next to it, a fully stocked fridge at all times, 56 inch HDTV with PS3 to boot, and the best pizza I have ever had in walking distance. Much more tempting (and more importantly, easier) than exploring my thoughts in the physical dimension through the use of writing. And that doesn’t include the more sociable options though those are fewer, usually ending with a trip to Wal-Mart and Denny’s.

After all that jazz though, what’s left? Well…all of that jazz. It’s still there and it continues to pull me away from this wonderful little tool that has, if not entertained you, relaxed and enlightened me. Now, if you will excuse me, the Giants aren’t sucking and I would hate to miss that.

My sh*t grammar

 As any well-versed English student could probably tell by my writing, I have no sense of grammar. A friend told me about my horrid use of the language (at a point of which I was already aware of it) but it was nice of him to do, similarly to every professor in the past ten years that has told me the same thing through the use of red pens on my essays.

 The two problems I know I have are an overuse of commas and an inability to recognize when to use the right to/two/too, there/their/they’re and then/than. I know when to use the different forms of each, just not while I am writing. (Spellcheck can find the nearest programming error and fornicate with it until the fall of coding for all I care.)

 The commas, however, I am less sure about. And as I have asked every professor I have had in the past ten years about commas and still haven’t gotten a response as to the definitive rule about when to and not to use them, I am pretty sure my misuse is just going to continue.

 I hate this factoid about myself, especially as I want to go into a creative field. I may be trying to make my career as an artist (whether comic book, graphic, or fine, I do not know) but one of the most important things about any of those is knowing how to write. Whether I need to write for pitches and word balloons, copy and headers, or statements and titles, they all require a strong understanding of the English language: something it appears I can never ensnare.

 Despite whatever intellect and musing falls out of me when I bring out whatever courage I have to write these, I will never be able to call myself a writer. I have no professionalism about the craft. It remains a means to an end, a way to (cleverly) express myself. While this can arguably be said about my art as well, it doesn’t have explicit, socially mandated rules for all to follow. I mean, there are rules as with any craft, but if I break one or two there is guaranteed to be a niche for me somewhere. And as long as I don’t create a sailor-worthy curse and use it upon my bosses/peers/clients/people I really need to please at risk of getting paid, I will be considered professional; or at least not a total pain to work with. But the thing that would make me a total pain to work with? Using too when I meant two. I might actually screw up a comic layout, order the wrong number of prints for a poster, or confuse my targeted demographic. And where will I be after that? Alone in the trash next to all my deleted commas. 

Ee-Nay-F**k…

 My enitre interest in superheroes and comics stemmed from one thing, the Superfriends show. I’d watch it on early mornings following Looney Tunes, and always had a strong affinity for two characters, Green Lantern and Apache Chief.

 Green Lantern always had a pretty apparent draw for me as the man who could create anything he could imagine. With Toonami starting to come on in late afternoons, the urge to draw was becoming stronger in me, and while the world of anime would eventually pull me away from superheroes temporarily, Green Lantern always had a grip on my imagination.

  The reason I like Apache Chief though, was and still isn’t apparent to me. He was just an average guy who thanks to a gemstone and magic words, could become the size of my house. It’s not even that great of a power, considering the villains had the same thing in Giganta, who was stronger than him since she could go toe to toe with Wonder Woman.

  I realize now, that crappy power and constant losing maybe the reason I like him. Batman may just be a human with millions of tools in his little belt, but he was still one of the best members of the team. Apache Chief was the workhorse. Anyone of the heroes there outclassed him ten different ways. But he was there, in most of the episodes (probably for the same reason he was created, but I didn’t know that then), fighting the bad guys and losing horrible. He would always stand back up at the end of it and show up on the next episode again and again. Something I hope I picked up along the way.

Sloth the Virtue, Patience the Sin

I sat quietly in my Composition class (What other class could inspire me enough to actually publicly right random thoughts?) as we discussed some tripe essay concerning conservative values and yadda yadda; the usual issues in politics that always seemed to me that they should be handled by sociologists rather than politicians. My professsor in his attempts to prod us awake and realize the writer’s inability to write, asked us what the accepted virtues in Catholicism are. My catholic teachings disappeared immediately after CCD, so I sat back waiting for virtues to start pouring out of my more informed classmates when I heard patience as a virtue.

I chuckled. For a second I didn’t know why, as I would like to think of myself as a patient person. (At least when it matters.) But then I remembered my years of watching Full Metal Alchemist and found that Sloth was one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

These are supposed to be (and I guess are) two very different concepts. As I understand these terms in a general, popular use sense, sloth is not doing anything, or at least not doing anything worthwhile, and patience is the ability to calmly wait while doing something or waiting to do something worthwhile.

I don’t believe doing nothing is a good idea (let alone a virtue) but what do people do that is worthless? Even sitting down in front of the TV (an activity that seems to accompany the word sloth in modern day use) we get something, whether it’s a PS3 trophy or thought provoking ideas and reflections that a good television show (like Fullmetal Alchemist) can induce. How are these worthless? They bolster are self-esteem and help us create new things for ourselves and others to enjoy and enrich life which continues to perputate the experience again and again for thousands of others.

What do we do while being patient? Grab a snack from the cupboard while the video game loads, or when the commercials are on. Or, to illustrate my point with a situation where patience is asked for, what do we do when holding for customer service? Or in the doctor’s waiting room? I usually end up staring at the “hang in there poster” on the wall or wasting a dollar and 200 calories on a Twix. What you are being patient for could happen at anytime by that point. And doing something thats worthwhile takes time, time being patient doesn’t allow you to have, right?

So, if this is how modern society (or at least I) understand the terms, wouldn’t sloth be the virtue and patience the sin? Yet still I watch an entire game of football with my family on Thanksgiving weekend that gives me an uplifting attitude and an idea for the topic of my new Comp 200 essay and feel terrible about that same essay I could have started patiently writing instead of watching TV; in which I would have forced myself to massage each paragraph into a worthwhile read on some topic I dug up from my past.

This whole thing of mine could just be a matter of semantics, though. God I hate semantics. Nothing more worthless in the world than arguing semantics.

A 10 second interaction about my Facial Hair.

 I walk towards my compostion professor at the end of class yesterday, (We had discussed Se7en earlier in the week and I wanted to show him the Morgan Freeman analogue in the new Greg Rucka Punisher Comic.) when a fellow student apporached. I don’t know him all that well, but at first appearance he’s seems like the person who took Patrick Star’s pinky advice too seriously. Chin held high, an odd hot air behind every statement, and the ability to correct someone else’s answer that his audience had figured out without his interjection. The feeling some of the people reading this might have about me making these comments about some random kid from an elective.

 I always feel a twang of guilt making judgements like this about people, but as I have known for years, it’s human nature to do so. The complex character behind the first impression comes from continued shared experiences. It’s why despite what ever first impression people give off, I will maintain a somewhat charming and afflable presence. (I believe.) So, I continued to interact with the young man as we waited to talk to our good-natured professor, willing to give anyone a couple minutes of his time for a chat about a ghost of a 20 year old movie-star role.

 He fidgeted awkwardly, asking what I am waiting on the professor for. I raise the bagged and boarded comic silently, (We had discussed the comic openly in the class too, so the simple motion got the message across.) and he nods just as awkwardly. He compliments me on my facial hair, which in its orignal form was a bushy-Tony Stark goatee, but has since become more Mountain Man with a strong focus on the chin. I respond with a small thank you before he rushes over it with a comment on how I should make it into the full Skyrim/Norse Warrior beard with it’s two chin horns. Before I can laugh and comment back, he gets into the same awkward argument I have had with myself over the years about staying to chatwith the professor or leaving without expressing his newest pressing matter, though he says it out-loud like I should try to convinve him one way or the other. I try to tell him that he can talk to the professor first but he is out the door and down the hallway before I can say it.

 I go up, say my piece, tell the professor the 90’s comics a student left him years ago are probably worthless and leave for work. I try to determine the kid’s true personality, whether it’s awkward observer of his own universe or another pretentious English student found in the local cofee shop. I quickly forget trying to determine if there is a difference between the two when I realize I am about to walk into the door of the library head first and re-unite with a friend from this morning to muse on more of our peers peculiar personas, pretending I haven’t been doing so since I first drew breath this morning.