Syracuse Ink: Part Three

I finally got around to actually getting the tattoo and writing it up. The ending is weak, but the rest of it is acceptable, I think. I just wanted to get it up finally.





“I’ll be with you in a minute,” Kyle says. “I just need to set up.”

I paced the lobby nervously, checking out the flash art on the wall as well. I shuffle back over to the counter and flip through Kyle’s book, then Ray’s.

There’s a young teenage boy in the lobby with his father. I wasn’t sure why he was there, but he started talking to me.

“What are you here for?” he asked.

“I’m getting a tattoo.”

“Cool. Where?”

“My left ribcage,” I answered, rubbing the area with my right hand.

“Ouch! That’s going to hurt.”

“So I hear. I’m a little nervous, but I think I’ll be okay.”

“Is it your first tattoo? Probably not the easiest to get done first.”

“No, it’s my third, though it has been a while.”

Kyle came back over to the front counter to show me the sketch one more time. “Where is this going? On your right side?”

“Left,” I corrected. “Up in here.”

The drawing had a circular shape with lines radiating from the center. The outline was like a cloud. The first time Kyle had shown me the drawing, he told me that the lines were mostly guide lines, and that many of them wouldn’t actually be in the tattoo. I was incredibly curious as to how it would turn out.

“Okay, let me make a template and then I’ll be ready.”

Placement wasn’t as hard as I’d thought it’d be. “Raise your hand over your head,” he said. He sprayed some cold liquid onto my skin for the transfer and carefully pressed the decal onto my skin. Slowly he pulled it off so as not to rip the paper and look at it and looked at it for a second. “Bring your arm down. No, that’s not gonna work,” he said as he reached for the liquid and a paper towel to rub the transfer lines off.

“This time, hold your arm out at about thirty degrees, right about here.” He moved my arm for me. Putting the decal on was a little more awkward this time because he had to work around my arm.
“Is that birthmark going to be in the way?” I asked. “I was worried about it.”

“Nah, it’s no big deal. I’ll just work around it. Check it out in the mirror. Let me know if it’s where you want it.

I walked over to the mirror and looked it over. I rotated my body and lifted my arm, making sure to get different angles. I was satisfied.

“Aight, good. What I’m going to have you do is lay down with your head this way. Lay on your side, sort of leaning away from me.” I did as I was instructed. The table was uncomfortable in that it was covered in pleather so my skin stuck to it, making it difficult to move.

Kyle made more small talk as he poured out his inks- orange, yellow, blue, black and white. “You nervous? It’s a pretty sensitive spot.”

“A little. This isn’t my first dance, though. I think I’ll be okay.”

“Oh, you’ve got one on your chest, too. Didn’t see it. That prolly wasn’t pleasant.”

“It actually wasn’t too bad. I think the ones on my arm were worse, especially the parts closer to the underside.”

“You’re kind of lucky, you don’t have much line work. That’s usually the part people say hurts the worst. You ready?”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, waiting for some sort of sharp pain. I could hear the buzzing of the machine far away as Kyle dipped it in ink and grow louder as it came closer. Kyle did the first couple lines, “How was that?”

“It was fine. I’m more uncomfortable from being cold than I am from the tattoo.”

As Kyle worked, he made more small talk- asking where I was from, what I did and what my chest said.

“You excited about this tattoo?”

“God yes. I’ve wanted it for about a year now. I came to the conclusion over the summer that I was much too specific when I went to Taylor about what I wanted. I’m not an artist, so I shouldn’t pretend to be one and know what I’m talking about. I decided that this time I was going to give you the passage and only a general idea of what I wanted (fireworks, the blue in the center, and “the only people for me are the mad ones”) and let you do your job.”

“That’s cool. I can see how it might be hard for someone to interpret the quote. Okay, line work is done. How you feeling?”

“Good,” I replied.

Kyle moved on to the shading. At first it was okay, but then it got worse. Much worse.

When people describe getting a tattoo, many say it’s like a vibration or a buzzing, or like someone is pinching you. They’re full of shit. A tattoo is made by a group of needles puncturing the skin thousands of times a minute, and that’s exactly what it feels like. How much it hurts depends entirely on the sensitivity of the area being tattooed. The lettering didn’t hurt that much except the upper part close to my arm pit.

Unfortunately, even though shading is supposed to hurt less, there was a lot of it in more sensitive areas. I concentrated on my breathing. Deep breath in right before he started, slow exhale out as he worked, deep breath in as he redid the ink. Sometimes that didn’t even help. My abs tightened and my toes curled as I focused on that whit ehot point of light behind my eyelids that was this intense pain. There were points that felt like it would be worth it to give up, to leave parts of the tattoo unfinished. Thankfully, Kyle always stopped for a second before I reached that threshold and gave me a moment to recover.

Kyle offered words of encouragement as we came closer to the end. “Almost there, guy, just a little more.” When he finished, he sprayed some sort of liquid on the tattoo to clean up the excess ink. Despite being cold on burning skin, this was not a soothing sensation. It only served to make it a cold burning sensation. I cringed as he wiped away the liquid and ink, the paper towel feeling like sandpaper.

“You’re all set. Check it out in the mirror.”

I got up slowly, keeping my arm above my head. As I approached the mirror, a large grin broke out across my face. I loved it. I had been wondering what it was going to look like and I wasn’t disappointed. “It’s awesome,” I said as I turned back to Kyle. “I really like it.” Kyle called the counter girl over and she thought it looked good too.

We both wanted pictures, me for posting, and him for his book. Once that was taken care of, he ran through aftercare and I paid him, leaving a generous tip for his work. I walked slowly out to my car, being careful not to do anything that would cause more pain. The endorphins had worn off a long time ago.

Despite the pain, and the incredibly long wait, getting this tattoo was definitely worth it.

Dear America

Congratulations. You did it.

In 2004, the rest of the world was telling us, “Don’t fuck this up.” We did anyway. The rest of the world told us again, “Don’t’ fuck this up.” We finally listened, and I’m proud to say we haven’t. Yet.

For the past eight years, the country was led on the basis of divisiveness and fear. Dissenters were locked out of the process, branded unpatriotic and un-American. The specter of terrorism was trumpeted continuously and used to begin and continue a costly and completely unnecessary war. For eight years, in the words of Matt Taibbi, we “voted against people we hated, rather than for people we liked.” And if the last eight years are any indication, that’s no way to run a country.

I am hopeful for the country for the first time in eight years. I’m hopeful that the country has turned a corner; in terms of race, but more importantly, in terms of leadership.

Some say that Barack Obama’s policy ideas are not the best and that he isn’t the best candidate. I suppose the former is open for debate, but I sincerely believe that the latter isn’t. The presidency is about leadership, and Obama has shown himself to be a great leader. He ran the most efficient campaign and demonstrated a remarkable understanding of new media and how it affects elections. Obama has inspired more people- an entire generation- than any president since JFK. One man can’t change everything, or anything. But that one man can lead us to change things. Inspiration, idealism, and hope count for something, no more so than now as we exit from a dark age of fear and ignorance.

Mr. Obama, unlike George Bush in 2004, you have won a mandate. Use it to make our country better. Push for affordable healthcare, work to regain America’s lost stature in the world, make our economy strong again, and give us reason to once again trust our government. Don’t, however, abuse this mandate. You ran on a platform of inclusion. Please follow through. Do everything in your power to ensure that your party does too. Allow Republicans to have a voice, and allow Democrats to have a choice.

Finally, Mr. Obama, don’t forget your supporters. Don’t forget the reasons we voted for you. Don’t forget the hope and idealism that inspired us. Don’t’ underestimate us; we’ll do more for you and our country than you think.

Great People Need to Stop Dying

Randy Pausch passed away from pancreatic cancer. He was 47. I didn't know the man, but I wish I did. He was an inspiration to all that knew him. I wish I had more to say, but thankfully it's easier to let his own words speak for him.

"I think it's the Duty of the Comedian to Find Out Where the Line is Drawn and Cross it Deliberately"

I remember when Princess Diana died. I saw the thousands of people lined up bawling their eyes out. I didn’t get it. I thought they were a bunch of fools mourning some lady they’d never met or had done anything for them.

Today, I’m one of millions of people mourning the death of someone they’ve never met.

George Carlin died yesterday of heart failure.

I never thought I’d cry over the death of a celebrity, but today I did.

I was first exposed to George Carlin in 7^th grade. My best friend at the time, Collin, and I were going through my dad’s record collection. We were going through albums from the Stones and the Beatles, CCR and the Eagles. We came across an album of a middle aged man sitting by himself on a stool in the middle of a blue painted room. We were intrigued by this cover, different from the others, so we pulled it out.

It was a scene out of a nostalgic 1970’s movie. Two kids lying on their stomachs, propped up on their elbows in front of a stereo speaker; except instead of listening to rock 'n' roll, we were listening to George Carlin, who was the bad ass that most rock frontmen wish they could be. We sat there listening; wondering what was going to happen. Here was a guy talking about words. We understood what he was saying, but we didn’t quite get it. We kept listening, because even then we could tell that his guy was building up to something.

“There are 400,000 words in the English language and there are 7 of them you can't say on television. What a ratio that is. 399,993 to 7. They must really be bad. They'd have to be outrageous to be separated from a group that large. All of you over here, you 7, Bad Words. That's what they told us they were, remember? "That's a bad word!" No bad words, bad thoughts, bad intentions, but no bad words. You know the 7, don't you, that you can't say on television?”

Ever the master, George Carlin let loose:

“Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits”

We just lost it. We were rolling on the floor laughing. We couldn’t stop. We couldn’t breath. We moved the needle back to listen to it again.

We were laughing so hard that my mother came in. “What’s so funny?” We showed her the record, and she flipped. “You can’t be listening to that! You’re too young to listen to that filth!” The irony isn’t lost on me, and it wasn’t then. She took the record from us. She even hid it so we couldn’t listen to it while she was at work.

But it was too late. The damage had been done. Carlin’s name, and more importantly, his attitude had been seared into my consciousness. I didn’t have much exposure to him again until 10^th grade. I rediscovered Carlin through his comedy specials in reruns on HBO. I saw the first airing of Complaints and Grievances. I even recorded it and wore out the tape from watching it too much. In college, I would fall asleep listening to recordings of his shows.

I knew he was getting old for a while. I wanted to see him live before he retired (ever the consummate entertainer, he performed until the day he died). When he came to Syracuse a couple years ago, I made it a point to see him. As much as I love the man, his material had declined in recent years. He sort of fell into the angry, bitter, cynical old man cliché. But that’s still better stand-up than 99% of comedians out there.

There was this dude in the front row that started heckling Carlin within like the first two minutes. He was starting the show with I'm a Modern Man, one of his "list" routines. The guy is interrupting him and he's all like, "Hey. Hey. HEY! Shut the fuck up motherfucker! This is a hard sketch and I need to concentrate, and I can't do that with you jawing away over there, so sit down and shut the fuck up." It was amazing.

One can see Carlin’s influence on me after talking for five minutes. His ideas on the simultaneous power and triviality of words are something I hold dear in my own heart. He didn’t suffer fools gladly or at all for that matter. His calling bullshit on authority, especially government and organized religion was always sharp and insightful. But it was his ability to make us laugh while making us think abut the absurdity of our lives that made him special. Despite his turn to bitterness and cynicism, part of him was always lighthearted, like his interest in words (because hobbies cost money). I’ll never be as smart or funny as George Carlin, but that doesn’t stop me from trying to emulate him.

The world needs more George Carlins. It’s suffered a great loss with the death of the one it had.

Joe Pesci rest his soul.

Gone Fishing

When I was a kid, I learned how to fish. My family had a lakefront campground in Canada on the Rideau Canal system. We had an old, 27-foot trailer from the 1970’s that was less than 20 feet from the shoreline. My dad was the person who taught me to fish, and everything I know about fishing, which admittedly isn’t much, I learned from him. I learned that one doesn’t need any fancy lures or poles or reels. A normal fishing pole with a hair-covered hook called a jig was just fine. The jig may or may not have had a small piece of fish on it, depending on what had been caught that day. I learned that you should hold the line between your thumb and index finger, so you could more easily tell when a fish was biting your lure. I learned that because fish are cold blooded, in the early season, spring and early summer, you should stick to shallow waters. Later, the fish move to the deeper, cooler waters. I learned that when reeling in, you couldn’t go too fast, because if you don’t have a fish yet, it will know that your lure isn’t food, and if you do have a fish, the line will snap.

I can still remember my first fishing pole. It was about three feet long, cream colored, with a brown reel. I didn’t really catch much with it; just some small, spotted rock bass and some sunfish, neither of which were kept. Whenever I did catch something worth eating, it was always thrown back because it was too small. I was always afraid that someday a fish so big would bite my line that it would just rip my tiny, little pole out of my tiny, little hands.

My dad owned a 14-foot long light green fishing boat with an 18 horsepower motor. We would use that to go to the good fishing spots on the lake. There was the spot across the lake, about 200 yards out from the boathouse S decal on the face that was good for bass fishing. There was the spot about 300 yards south of that, near a tiny peninsula with a brown house with a big satellite dish; which was good for catching perch. There was a weed bed south of our campsite in the middle of the lake. My dad would stop the boat at the edge of the weed bed. “Keep your jig outside of the weed bed,” he would tell me. “The fish will see it and come out and bite it.” There was another bed to the north, along the shore. These were good places for catching calicos, or strawberry bass. There were other kinds of fish in the lake, like northern pike and walleye, but pike were too bony to eat, and my dad didn’t feel like going through the trouble of trying to catch walleye. I was too young to know if they actually were good fishing spots or not, and even today, not knowing enough about fishing, I don’t know how good they are. We never seemed to have much trouble catching anything, so I think there were probably worse places to fish on that lake.

I’ve got many fishing stories, but most of them would probably sound like the stereotypical variety. The fish in the story would be twice and long and weigh three times as much as the fish that was actually there. Usually, my mother takes great delight in telling this story, but one has to make do with me this time.

I live about a quarter mile from the Seneca River. When crossing over the bridge, I would look down and see people standing in the water fly-fishing. “That looks fun,” I thought. So one morning, I decided to do it. I woke up and put on a pair of faded blue jeans. It was damp and chilly, so I put on a gray, hooded sweatshirt. I put on my old, dirty sneakers (I was considerate at that age). I went outside the trailer and found my tiny, faded blue life jacket (I was safe, too). Now, if one knows anything about fly-fishing, I am missing a very important piece of clothing at this point. I’m not wearing hip waders. I was six, I didn’t know any better. I walk to the shore and begin to work my way into the cold water of the lake. I get to the point where I’m waist deep in water and cast the line. My first try? Nothing. I try again. Nothing. At this point, my mother comes out. “What are you doing?” she asks.

“I’m fishing,” I reply.

“Why are you standing waist deep in water?”

“I’m fishing like they do back home.”

“You’re not in a river. And if you were, you’re not wearing hip waders.”

“What’re those?”

I was called out of the water at this point. Needless to say, I didn’t catch anything.

I haven’t been fishing in a few years, for a variety of reasons. Simply put, I’ve outgrown it. Regardless, I’ll always remember what I’ve learned and the time that I spent enjoying it.

An Addendum

It’s 12:30 on a Saturday night, and I’m out with some friends. We all go to Limerick’s in Armory Square. I’m with Adam and Alex and a bunch of other people.

One of Adam’s friends decides he needs to smoke a cigarette, so we head out back. It’s a warm nigh, befitting the summer that’s going to be coming. There’s an outdoor area set up with a few tables and chairs. More people Adam knows are sitting at one table. Near them are two women talking. They’re both older. One of them seems more sober than the other. She’s wearing dark khakis and a long sleeved black shirt. The other one is wearing a black and white striped sundress and has strawberry blonde hair.

Adam and I sit down at the table with his friends. This puts me about five feet from the drunk woman. He friend goes back inside. For some reason, probably because she’s trashed, she turns to me.

“Hey, how old are you?”

No introduction, no lead in, just that question out of the blue.

“I’m 23.” Three expressions crossed her face right in a row. The first was a sad, “I’m too old to be here,” followed by, “23, eh? I can work with that,” and finally a sly, “Let’s see if mama’s still got it.”

“So, where are you from?” she asks

“I’m from Syracuse. Well, about 20 minutes away.”

Some sort of scene is happening behind us, so everyone turns to see what it is. As I turn back, Adam looks up at me, “Dude. What the fuck?”

“Look. I dunno. She just started talking to me.” He gives me this stupid, shit eating grin. “No. Absolutely not.” He just laughs at me.

“So, what do you do?” She’s starting to get coy. It’s kind of scary.

“I’m a student.”

“Oh really? Where? I’m not trying to pick you up or anything.”

That’s exactly what she’s trying to do. I’m just being polite, while trying to make it clear from the minimalism of my answers that that’s all I’m doing. She doesn’t really get the hint. “Oswego.”

“I really like your earrings.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m glad you don’t have those big holes in your ears. Why would you do that?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask Tim over here? Hey, Tim, why do you have plugs?”

They talk for a few minutes. She’s confusing the word aesthetic with anesthetic. It’s sort of sad. Adam has also gotten up at this point and gone inside. He comes back out with the entire group that we showed up to the bar with. He leans over to me, “Dude, I had to get witnesses for this.”

”Thanks, asshole. At least she’s not talking to me, anymore.”

“So, what are you studying up at Oswego?”

God dammit, I spoke too soon. “I’m an Adolescent Education and English dual major?”

She looks at me funny. She’s so drunk she doesn’t know what those are. “So, what do you want to be when you grow up?” Ladies, if you’re ever going to cougar it up, don’t use that line. It makes us feel like we’re talking to our mother, and really, nothing is more unappealing than getting picked up by your mother.

“I’m going to be a high school English teacher.”

“Why do you want to do that?”

My God, the lady just won’t stop. I catch myself before I roll my eyes. “I like to read,” is the simplest answer I can come up with. I want this to be over as fast as possible.

“Yeah, but why?”

“So I can teach other kids to enjoy reading and when I’m grown up, I’ll have interesting people to talk to.” Okay, so that was sort of mean.

“Oh, that’s cool. I’m really not trying to pick you up.” I just shrug, smile, and shake my head. I’m 23, I’ve been blasted out of my mind before. I know how it is. “I’m just a little depressed. My friends decided to throw me a surprise 40^th birthday party.“ Adam can’t help himself. He bursts out laughing. “Let me give you some advice. Enjoy your 20’s, don’t marry young, and 20 years from now, remember this moment.” She gets up and walks away.

“You so totally should’ve hit that.”

“I’ll pass on that, thanks.”

“It would’ve been awesome. Just think of the story it could’ve been.”

“You know, I’m perfectly okay with how the story’s going now.”

“Whatever. I would’ve done it.”

“I know. But you’re drunk.”

“Shut the hell up. You and I both know that if you were drunk, you’d do it too.”

He’s got me. “Probably.”

Alex chimes in from behind me, “Dude, God must totally hate you.”

I think he’s right. Gay men on one end and 40 year old women in the throes of a midlife crisis on the other. Where the hell are all the really attractive 21-25 year olds? Seriously, it’s only fair.

Hey Now, You're an All Star

One day I was driving down 690 towards Syracuse. It was a nice summer day, mostly sunny and warm. My windows were rolled up and the AC was on. Around the Lakeland exit, there’s an older forest green sedan in the left hand lane. He’s going slower than I am. I ride his bumper for a few seconds until he moves over. I pass aggressively because at the time I actually thought it meant something. I drive past and think nothing of it.

A couple miles down the road, near the Hiawatha exit, the same car pulls up alongside me. The driver is waving his hands and gesticulating wildly, trying to get my attention. I think he’s trying to tell me there’s something wrong with my car; I have a light out or my gas cap is open. Whatever, I’ll check it out when I get where I’m going.

About a mile further is my exit, Wet Genesee Street. I pull off and the car follows me. I’m a little worried now, thinking, “Shit, I pissed off a gang member.” The driver is this big, bald black dude. There’s a red light at the bottom of th ramp. I stop and he pulls up along my right side. He motions for me to roll down my window. I figure, all right, fine, let’s see what this is all about.

I roll down my window, he looks right at me and says, “Mmm, you are gorgeous,” with the gay lisp and all.

I’m stunned. “Uh… what?”

“You are fine, sweet thang!”

I can’t even come up with words. My mouth is just hanging open.

“Do you work out?”

“I… uh… um… no,” is all I can manage to stutter. It’s a lie, but honestly, I’m so astounded I can’t even think straight.

The light turns and I book it. He follows me, screaming his number out the window and “Call me! Call me!” as I shake my head going, “No! No!”

About nine months later, I was working a temp job at an insurance company in downtown Syracuse. I’m washing my hands in the restroom and another guy walks out of one of the stalls. He’s pretty big, standing over six feet and probably close to 250 pounds. He’s in his mid 30’s, but his hair is already starting to go gray.

“Hey man, how are you?” he asks as he moves next to me to wash his hands. This is a little uncomfortable, but not technically a breach of men’s bathroom etiquette, so I respond with a simply, “Good, you?”

“You been here long? Where do you sit? I just started my customer service training.”

He seems like a nice guy, so I play along. “Just a few weeks. I’m a temp. I work over… in that general direction,” I say, pointing.

“That’s cool. I’m Mike, by the way,” he says, offering his hand. This is really pushing the boundaries, but he just washed them, so whatever. I shake his hand, “I’m Mike too.”

“Cool. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

I saw him around a lot. Well, not so much around. He came to my cubicle two or three times a week. Even when he finished his training and moved to the third floor (I was on the sixth), he’d come by on his breaks. I mostly thought nothing of it. He was just a lonely guy and for whatever reason, he’d chosen me to be his work friend.

It wasn’t until he gave me his number and said we should hang out that I began to think something was up. I just nodded my head and said, “Maybe.” I threw his number away as soon as he left. He came to my cubicle on a Monday, “Hey, how come you didn’t call me?”

“Oh. Uh… I must’ve lost your number.”

“That’s too bad. You could’ve come over, I would’ve cooked us dinner. We could’ve relaxed and had a good time.”

That totally set off alarms in my head. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Here’s my number again. Call me sometime.”

“Okay, I will.” I’m such an asshole. I wouldn’t, and I promptly lost his number in the trash again.

I got laid off a few weeks later, so I never knew for certain if he was trying to hook up with me. He apparently came out to a friend of mine that worked in the same building, so my guess is probably yes.

Finally, there was a night in Armory Square. I was out with some friends, and we were drinking, because that’s what you do. We started at Syracuse Suds. I had had two long islands, so I’m pretty much in the bag. We decide to cross the street and go to Teddy’s. When we talk in, there’s a guy sitting at the table near the door. He touches my arm. Not like a sharp, “Hey dude, what’s up?” touch I might get from someone I know, but a soft, lingering, “Heeeyyy, how you doin’” touch.

Like I said, I’m pretty trashed, so I don’t recognize it as the latter. “What’re you drinking?” he asks. I look at him. It’s dark and I’m drunk, so I’m squinting. I’m trying to figure out if I know him. Did I go to school with him? Did I work with him? Is he a friend of a friend, what?

“What are you drinking?” he repeats.

And then it hits me. It happened again. It happened again.

“I, uh… I don’t know yet,” was the best answer I could come up with as I made a beeline for my friends. As I recounted what had just happened, they laughed and called me stupid. “Dude, you could’ve gotten a free drink out of it.”

This is all sort of amusing to me. I don’t think I put off the gay vibe. Most of my straight friends do, though. It’s good to know that if I ever decide to switch teams, I’m already an all star.

Look Ma, I'm in the Paper

So, there was some controversy at my high school this past week. Apparently a parent found a book (a choice of multiples, mind you) offensive and demanded it removed from the curriculum. I called shenanigans and wrote to the newspaper about it. It was printed in the Opinion section of the May 25 edition of the Post Standard. Here it is:

To the Editor:

In response to the article about "A Girls Life Online" being used n Baldwinsville schools, I commend Mr. Crobar for building a relationship with his daughter that allows her to feel comfortable askign questions, and where he is involved enough in her life to read one of her school books. The world needs more parents like him.

However, I take issue with how he handled the situation. English teachers are very sensitive to censorship and banning books. As a future English teacher, I know that Ms. Casler would have vigorously defended the book. However, English teachers are also sensitive to the delicate nature of questionable material, and I am sure Ms. Casler would have allowed his daughter to choose a different book, ahd she been approached first.

I am pleased that the school district stood behind Ms. Casler. One only has to look at a banned books list to see how many pieces of classic literature have been banned due to objectionable content.

I am sorry that he found a book warning of a very serious and real issue to today's teens objectionable. But his right to decide what is inappropriate ends with his daughter.

Mike Edinger
Baldwinsville

There is very little in this world that gets me more riled up than issues of censorship. It's so bad that I can hardly articulate the sheer rage I feel when I witness it happening. I'm amazed that I was able to write that letter to begin with, let alone do so without a massive amount of F-bombs and calling people all sorts of names. That's a good idea for a future project- a manifesto of my opinions of censorship. Until then, I leave you with this: if you find something offensive, don't read it. But don't tell me that I can't.

Everything I Ever Wanted to Tell You, But Was too Afraid to Ask

What am I? Like, do I have a chance? Did I ever have a chance? Do you have feelings for me? What’s going on? I know you said you didn’t want to lead me on, and I don’t think you have, since that sort of implies intention. But you have been sending mixed signals.

This sounds like I’m mad. I’m not. I’m confused. It seems like there’s this elephant in the room and we keep dancing around it (yay for mixed metaphors). And I wanted to use it to segue into how I feel about you.

I think you’re amazing. I think you’re absolutely beautiful. But more than that, you’re smart, you’re funny, you’re caring, you’re dedicated, and yes, you’re strong and independent. And all of this makes me absolutely crazy about you. I’m totally into you. I want to know everything about you. I’m genuinely interested in everything you have to say and what you’re thinking. I want to know what gets you excited and passionate, so I can be that way too.

I love hanging out with you. I love just being around you. The best time that I’ve had with you? Those fifteen minutes you feel asleep in my arms. Remember how I stopped talking the other night? That’s because I just wanted to be quiet and let the moment last as long as possible. I wasn’t lying when I said I was perfectly okay standing there holding you all night while you slept. Every time I see you, I just want to wrap my arms around you and pull you close and hold you tight. And it’s the thought of doing it again that helps me fall asleep at night (that’s not creepy, is it?).

I love kissing you. You’re so soft and tender. I’m gentle because I don’t want to put you off, and I’m glad that you like that. The world really does spin, and I get all light headed. I always feel like I’m walking on air right after. It’s such a wonderful experience.

I love the time I spend with you. I love our conversations (seriously, sexy raspberries? Sign me up). I love how you ask me if I’m sure I’m not gay (No, I’m not. Really. I'm pretty sure reading this will convince you). I love it when you laugh at my god awful mispronunciations. I love your smile and your little dimples that come with it. I love the thing you do with your tongue when you’re giving me a hard time. I love it when you laugh; I think that’s why I try so hard to make you do it.

The other night, I realized how much I care about you. When you started telling me what happened, my thoughts were, "Oh no. Don't let this end badly." And, reletively speaking, it didn't. But I said I was up for 45 minutes after you were. That's the truth. I was shaking. I was so concerned about how you were. I wanted to make sure you were okay (I know you said you were okay, but still). I started off concerned, and I stayed that way. Then I was angry. I was furious. My hands literally were shaking with rage. You don't need protection, but the lengths I would have gone through to ensure your safety know no bounds.

I’m sad that I didn’t get to make you dinner, though (or glad, depending on how well or poorly it might’ve turned out). I wish we could’ve gone on a couple of walks and watch the sunsets over the lake. I think we both would’ve enjoyed them.

God, I feel like such a dork for telling you all of this stuff over AIM and through a blog. I really wanted to do this face to face, but I totally chickened out. But it’s probably better because I don’t know if I would’ve had the balls to say this to you. At least, not without some liquid courage, but then you might not have taken me seriously. And I’m sorry for just dumping all of this on you; it’s selfish and totally unfair to you. I just like you so much it hurts sometimes (it’s not you, or your fault, I promise, so don’t feel bad). The best parts of my day are when I’m with you or talking with you; or when I’m able to be distracted by something enough so that I’m can actually stop thinking about you, which, honestly, doesn’t happen much. And I know it’s totally selfish to say all of these things, but I don’t know if I could live with myself having not told you.

I hope this doesn’t ruin our friendship. More than anything, I like talking to you. I don’t know if you ever picked up on this, but for me, it’s go hard or go home. I hope that at the very least, we can be friends and talk and have fun. But it’s part of my nature to just put every thing on the table and let the pieces fall where they may.

That Great Conciousness of Life

One of my favorite books is On the Road, not so much because I think it’s well written (it’s all right. It’s not Gatsby or Invisible Man, but it’s better than anything I can come up with, and damn it if the mad ones and roman candles sentence doesn’t get me every time), but mostly for what it stands for.

I have a love affair with freedom, adventuring, the road, and the experiences picked up along the way. In fact, the experience or the stories I create and learn are the only reason I do anything. It’s something I have a hard time explaining to people.

I was going to take a road trip this summer to Washington. State, not D.C. The map above is the route I was going to take. I was going to see Rushmore. I was going to stop in the middle of American, with no lights and a clear sky, and stare at the stars. All of them, not the miniscule numbers I see in Syracuse, let alone a place like New York City. I was going to be made tiny in the vast expanse of flatness that is the Plains states. I was going to be awed at he majesty of the Rockies, especially as I watched sunrises and sunsets. And I was going to bring a camera, a video recorder, and friends. Most importantly, I was going to bring a pen. I was going to share it with whoever was willing ot listen, because that’s what life is about, making those connections and sharing those experiences.

I was going to stand on the shore of the Pacific Ocean and say to myself, “So this is wht Lewis and Clark felt like two hundred years ago.” And then I was going ot realize it was nothing like that they felt as they didn’t have cars and roads and everything they could ever need a mere convenience store away. What they would have had is a pure, unaltered Pacific coastline, clear water and clear skies. They would have had the experience eof true adventuring that exists so rarely in the world today- the knowledge of not knowing at all what’s at the top of the next hill or beyond the next bend in the river.

“Why don’t you just fly there?” was the question I was asked the most. Nobody understood when I told them it wasn’t about getting to Portland. It was about the experiences along the way. It’s never about the destination, it’s about the journey. It’s about seeing the things above, sharing the experiences with somebody, and the people met along the way. “I don’t see why you want to drive to Washington,” they’d say. To which I could only respond, “Why not?”

But that plan fell through, so I’m going to have to put off those experiences. But I’ve come to realize I had the wrong idea.

These guys, however, had the right idea. Except the 106 hours part. Fuck that. Give me six months. And you know what? I can drive to Alaska, I’ll go there too. But you know who has an even better idea? This guy. Oh, the things he’s seen and the people’s he’s met. That’s what I want. I want to learn other people’s stories while making my own. There is nothing nobler in the world.

Kerouac and McCandless knew what it was all about. Just get up and go, and chronicle the story.

Sprawl

“Sprawl!”
There was a chorus of thumps and thuds as 25 bodies hit the floor.
Welcome to wrestling practice.

Wrestling practice took place in the aptly named wrestling room. The wrestling room was tiny, maybe 30 feet by 30 feet. The floor was padded with red wrestling mats, on which were the starting circles. There were nine circles in three rows of three. The walls were padded as well in case anyone was driven into them. The door was open and the room was cool, but only for a short while. As soon as practice started, the door was shut, the heat turned up, and the room got very, very hot, very, very fast.

Some of the wrestlers wore practice singlets similar to the uniform that they would wear in an actual match. I didn’t. Instead, I wore the red nylon shorts with “B’ville Wrestling” stitched into the right leg. I wore a gray t-shirt with two wrestlers in the referee position on the front with the words Baldwinsville Wrestling in red print. Both of these were holdovers from my two years on the modified wrestling team in 7^th and 8^th grade. I wore a kneepad on my right knee because it was my shooting leg and it was susceptible to mat burn. I wore black wrestling shoes with a smooth bottom, similar to dance shoes. Street shoes could stick on the mat, injuring a wrestler or damaging the mat.

Drills started with the drop step drill. I started in the traditional wrestler’s stance- strong foot slightly forward, knees bent, back straight and head forward. I would push off my rear foot, dropping down to my strong knee. My rear leg would slide forward and become the forward leg. The end position was almost like being knighted, except I was down on my right knee. I started at one end of the room and go all the way across the room, turn around, and do it all the way back. Five times each way. This is how I was supposed to shoot in for my takedowns. This was convenient because after the drop step drill were the takedown drills.

For takedown drills, I partnered up with my friend Josh since we were about the same size. I was 5’7” and 120 pounds while he was 5’9” and 125 pounds. The drop step allowed me to shoot in deep and have a solid grip for whatever takedown I was practicing. There was the double leg takedown, which is exactly what the name implies. I would grab both legs and sweep my opponent off his feet, using my head as a pivot point to turn him to one side. There was the single leg takedown, which was just like its double leg brother. There was the fireman’s carry, where I would grab my opponent’s arm as I shot in. I would grab the same leg as the arm and pick him up on my shoulders, like a fireman, and roll him back wards, scoring the takedown.

Now I was sweating heavily. My breathing was heavy and my heart was going fast. Making matters worse was the fact that my partner was supposed to resist my takedowns. Takedowns became a lot more difficult when there was 125 pounds falling onto my shoulders. Back and forth we went, sometimes getting the takedown, sometimes not.

Takedowns took a lot of energy, but escaping and reversals took a lot more. I would start on the bottom, Josh on top. When the whistle blew, it was my job to get away or reverse him and get on top. His job was to make sure I didn’t. More often than not, it was a race to see whether or not I could sit through before he would drive into me, putting me on my stomach. Once one of those invents happened, we stopped and started over.

I was hot and wet, and I was tired beyond belief. Practice wasn’t over yet. All I got was a two-minute water break. I staggered out of the room with some other wrestlers into the hallway. I stood against the wall and allowed myself to slide down to the floor. The air was several degrees cooler there than inside the wrestling room. “All right ladies! Back in the room,” yelled Coach Porillo.

Free wrestling was about to start. If there was a meet the next day, this was when it was determined would wrestle in contested weight classes. It was just like a real wrestling match. There were three, three-minute rounds. The first round, both wrestlers were standing. Both wrestlers would try for the takedown and then the pin. In the second round, one wrestler was on the bottom, the other on top. The third round was the same as the second, except the positions were reversed. If at any point there was a pin, both wrestlers started over in whatever position they were in at the beginning of the round.

The matches were like running as fast as I could for nine minutes. They just sucked the energy right out of me. Sometimes, there were two matches and I could barely move.

But that wasn’t the end of practice. Oh no, I still had to endure the cardio portion of practice. This was essentially 20 minutes of hell. I had been pushing myself for over an hour and a half. Practice pushed me to my limit, and cardio blew me right through it.

Cardio started off with me in wrestler’s stance. “Go,” shouted Coach Porillo. I started sprinting in place. There was pattering all around the room as all the other wrestlers did the same. It took about five seconds for my lungs and leg muscles to start burning. “Sprawl,” yelled the coach. I shot my legs back and fell to my stomach, landing with a thud. There were thuds and thumps all around. Sprawling was how I defended against a takedown. I shot back up in an instant, returning to sprinting in place. A few seconds later, “Sprawl!” I threw myself to the ground then back up again. “Sprawl!” Down and back up. Sweat was running down my face. It was dripping off strands of my hair. “Sprawl! Sprawl! Sprawl,” the coach yelled out one after the other, barely letting me get to my feet before sending me back down to my stomach. “Sprawl! Down!” This was another part of hell. I had to do ten push-ups whenever the coach decided that he hated us. Every time the coach called “down” I yelled back with the appropriate number. I was soon back up and running in place. “Sprawl! Down!” I did ten more push-ups. “Hold it!” I had to hold the down position of the push-up. Push-ups were difficult when I couldn’t feel my arms any more, and holding the down position was even harder.

This went on for ten minutes. Practice still wasn’t over yet. Right outside the door to the wrestling room was a stairwell. There was a flight of stairs going up three floors, with 18 steps between each floor. I remember this because counting stairs was the only way I could keep going. The cooler air did nothing to stop the burning in my lungs, and every breath couldn’t possibly be deep enough. My legs were on fire, but running didn’t take me any further from the flames. I would get tunnel vision, and count the steps one by one. Cancer patients are told to take it one day at a time. I took stairs as one step at a time. At the beginning, I would look forward to the down step, but it didn’t take long for me to hate those as well and yearn for the moment when the coach would yell out, “one more time, ladies! One more time and you’re done!”

At any point during all of this, I could’ve stopped. I could’ve not tried so hard for the take down, or for the escape. I could’ve let my partner pin me for a few seconds of respite. I could’ve not sprinted as hard in the wrestling room, or done the push-ups a little bit slower so that I didn’t actually do ten. I could’ve collapsed when I was holding the down position using exhaustion as an excuse, and nobody would’ve thought twice. I could’ve taken the stairs slower. I could’ve not pushed myself so hard.

But really, I couldn’t. Pushing myself that hard was all on me. I had to prove to myself that I could do it. That’s what I loved about wrestling. Despite the fact that I was on the wrestling team, wrestling was an individual sport. When I was out on the mat, there was me and the other guy. I didn’t have a guy in right field to make a spectacular diving catch to save my no-hitter. There wasn’t a wide receiver I could blame for dropping a pass right to the numbers. There wasn’t someone relying on me to be perfect. It was up to me and me alone to go out there on the mat and put up the ‘W.’ This independence allowed someone like me to go out and compete with a sort of wild abandon. I’d leave everything on the mat, and it was either good enough or it wasn’t. There was a beautiful simplicity in competing in wrestling.

Grappling Tales

My lower back hurts. My right collar bone and shoulder hurt. Now that I think about it, my upper back and neck hurt too. At least the pizza from Pizza Boli was good. It damn better have, for how long we spent driving around looking for the place and how it burned the roof of my mouth. I don’t know what was wrong with my idea of stopping at some random fast food joint and getting the hell out of here. If it sounds like I’m pissy, I am. It was a shitty day.

God dammit, I’m cold now. Not like “brrr” cold, but cold as in all the benefits of being warmed up- elevated heart rate, loose and relaxed muscles, and metabolizing a constant source of energy rather than blood sugar- are gone. Instead, I’m stiff and nervous. Wonderful combination.

They just called my name. I’m “in the hole” on mat two. Two more matches and I’m up. I take my scorecard over to the mat table. “Am I white or blue?” The guy running the table looks up, “uh… just stay white,” he replies, sounding annoyed.

I start twisting my torso back and forth and doing arm circles in a fruitless attempt to get my blood pumping again. The two matches ahead of me finish far too quickly, both by ippon. I take a final deep breath and bow before stepping nervously onto the mat. The mat is really soft, but it’s so ghetto. It’s made up of two inch think, two feet by six feet pieces of Styrofoam. The match areas are large, single pieces of beige canvas duct taped to the styrofoam.

I’m standing at the edge of the canvas, waiting for my opponent. I tap the mat twice with my toes as I shift my weight back and forth. Lean to the left. Tap tap. Lean to the right. Tap tap. It used to be a sign of confidence for me, like a bull pawing at the dirt as he gets ready to charge. Now it’s just a nervous habit.

My opponent finally comes jogging up t his side of the mat. He’s got short blond hair and a goatee. He looks like a frat boy. A bigger than me, stronger than me, frat boy.

We bow to each other, as per etiquette. “Hajime!” snaps the head referee. We move towards each other, looking for grips and slapping each other’s hands away. My hand darts in and gets a solid grip on his lapel. I get stuffed as I step in for ippon-seoi-naga, or a shoulder throw. I manage to step out of his counter, but I fall to me knees. His body weight comes crashing down on my shoulders as he sprawls when I reach for a leg. I drive forward and duck under his arm. He falls to his stomach, puts his hands on his ears and sucks his elbows in underneath his body. I take his back. This is where I want to be.

That’s the first rule of fighting- take the fight to where you have the biggest advantage. For me, against just about anybody in the tournament, that’s probably on the ground. The only problem with that is there’s a heavy bias against groundwork in judo. I have to be clearly advancing my position or the referee will stand us back up. It’s difficult to do that if my opponent just turtles up every time we go to the floor. Even my takedowns aren’t well suited for judo. They are more about dragging the opponent to the floor than planting them firmly on their back. My wrestling and juijitsu are heads and shoulders above my judo, but with this being a judo tournament, that fact is mostly irrelevant.

As if to prove this point, the referee stands us up and we start over. Almost immediately, I shoot in deep for a double leg. It’s a beautiful, textbook example. It’d be two points in a wrestling match and as many as six in a submission grappling match. What’s it good for here? Not a damn thing. I sink my hooks in and start working a choke. His chin is tucked too close to his chest; I’m not going to be able to get it. I manage to snake my arms around his and go for a kimura. He sucks his arm back underneath him. I slide further up his shoulder, leaving myself open for a reversal, hoping that he’ll do something and maybe I can find an opening. He doesn’t and I don’t. We get stood up again.

This time, I drag him forward and down and get a front headlock in. I scoop in an arm, lock in an anaconda choke, and roll him over. I know it’s tight because I can hear his coach screaming to get out of it. It apparently wasn’t in deep enough. After a few second of him not tapping, the ref stops us.

Judo, and the grappling arts in general are a lot like physics. To advance to a more dominant position takes a lot more energy than maintaining it. Standing position is like sitting in an idle car. Taking the opponent down and achieving dominant position is like accelerating to sixty. Once I’m there, I can just Newton’s first law do most of the work. Of course, his turtling up every time the match hits the floor is like that annoying traffic light that I can never seem to catch. One can imagine how I was feeling after getting stood up a couple more times.

I’m sucking in air like I can’t get enough of it. Me knees are weak and shaking. My arms are heavy and hard to move. I’m moving slow and stuff instead of quick and fluid. I can’t react fast enough, or hardly at all really, when he steps in for O-goshi. All I can do is twist my body enough so that he doesn’t score ippon. It isn’t enough to stop him from rolling me on my back anyways and pinning me with kesa-gatame. There’s only 17 left, but there’s no saved by the bell rule in judo. I try and roll him, but he just shoots his legs out and I can’t deal with leverage like that. After 25 seconds, he gets ippon. It’s irrelevant, he would have won on points anyways if I had gotten out.

Now I’m feeling light headed. There are spots flashing in front of my eyes. My throat is thick with mucous and saliva. I feel like I have to vomit. My lungs are burning. I’m having a hard time feeling my right arm. I hope it’s just exhaustion and not an aggravation of a previous injury. I need water, badly. All the water fountains have been turned off, and I have no cash for the concession stand.

I sit against the painted cinder block wall as I wait for these feelings to pass. I stand up and join the rest of the team after about fifteen minutes. We spend the time between our matches watching the other ones. There are a lot of solid throws, all of which we cheer. I notice a lot of players just balling up on the ground and others getting a little frustrated like I was, so I smile with glee every time I see someone win by choke or submission.

My name is called again. I’m three deep in the hole this time. Four other matches should be plenty of time to get warmed up a little. Once again, my opponent is bigger and heavier than I am. At least he’s my height this time instead of two or three inches taller.

This match gets right down to business. My opponent is standing across the mat. No waiting this time.

I secure the first takedown. It was a modified double leg that put him firmly on his back. I’m surprised it wasn’t ippon. I’m fighting for side control so I can get a pin. I have kate-garume for about ten seconds before he wraps my leg into half guard. This guy has no problem fighting from his back. Under any other set of rules, this would be fun; a real give and take ground battle, I think. Instead, we are stood up.

He doesn’t really get the next takedown, but he does end up in control at the end of it. I have him securely in my closed guard. I’m worried about opening up because of his strength. He could pass my guard easily. I’m about to throw my legs up and try for a triangle, from which I could work a choke, an arm lock, or a sweep, but the referee calls a stop.

The next go-round, I get sloppy. He steps in for an uchi-mata, a sort of hip throw. A lot of times in practice I’ll give up throws because I’m more comfortable off my back that I am on my feet. I did the same thing here and he lands a solid throw, putting me squarely on my back. Ippon is called. I congratulate him on his throw, shake his hand, and walk off the mat.

I should probably try and drop down to the next lowest weight division. Being in the bottom half of my current one isn’t working very well. I should also work on my conditioning, too. Getting gassed, even with everything I was doing, shouldn’t be happening in a four minute round. I should really work on my throws. If I’m going to be competing, I might as well work towards competing well under the given rules. Of course, maybe I should really just find events that have rules more suited to my style.

God I Suck at Life

Dear Girls,

Just knock it off. Just stop. Stop being awesome and amazing and emotionally unavailable. It’s not good for me. Stop making me unable to focus. Stop making me unable to eat. Stop making me unable to sleep. And seriously, just stop making me think about you for nearly every waking moment. All right? Just stop.

Look, I know this is mostly my fault. But I can’t help it. Go hard or go home and all. Too bad the ground hurts like hell when I fall. God, I’m such a hopeless romantic. Emphasis on the hopeless.

The Hell am I supposed to do? It took me a long time to figure out what to look for and what I wanted. You have any idea how hard it is to find a smart, funny, fun, caring, dedicated, strong, and independent girl? It’s hard. And the worst part? You’re always taken.

Well, that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that I can’t really say anything. It’s not fair to you for me to be like, “I really like you. Let’s see where it takes us.” The real worst part about it is that I’m almost positive that there is something there.

Dear Prospective Future Employers

Dear Prospective Future Employers,

You may have heard of a man named Chez Pazienza. He’s a blogger from New York City who used to work for CNN. I say used to because he was fired. For blogging. Apparently, CNN had a problem with him expressing his opinion.

Or, you may have heard of Avery Doninger, a student in Connecticut who was forced off the student council after calling administrators “douche bags,” in a blog she wrote outside of school that wasn’t hosted on school servers. I can only hope that the irony of that isn’t lost on anyone. For the record, she won re-election from write in ballots, but was not allowed to serve.

I’m also reminded of a blog post following this past year’s NCTE conference where a school district heavily suggested that its employees don’t post or create blogs so that they can’t get into trouble with conduct unbecoming charges.

Recently, I was placed in a high school where there could be a high likelihood of me running into a student that I see fairly often in my own private life. When this student discovered that my practicum placement was at his school, he told me not to talk to him or embarrass him. I gave him a hard time about it outside of the school, but he had nothing to worry about. Even if I had ever seen him, I would have more than likely not acknowledged him unless I was acknowledged first. When I am in a school environment, I act professionally.

What do all of these things have to do with each other? This is an important point, so I am going to make it obvious:

Once I walk out the door, I am no longer yoked to you. Once I walk out that door, I am no longer Mike Edinger, Employee; I am Mike Edinger, Private Person.

I’m going to show up on time. In fact, I’m certain that I will quite often show up early and even stay late. I’m going to show up clean-shaven with professional clothes. I’m going to do my job to the best of my ability. I’m going to take criticism and lessons in order to be able to become better at my job.

But my time is exactly that: my time. And what I do with it is of absolutely no fucking concern of yours.

So here’s how it’s going to work. For those one hundred twenty-eight hours a week I am not working, you have no control over my life whatsoever. I’m going to express whatever opinions I have in whatever manner I see fit. I’m going to enjoy my hobbies and interests without fear of how I am perceived because it’s taking place in a completely different sphere of my life. I’m going to hang out with my friends; pictures are going to be taken. Some of those pictures might even end up on Facebook or MySpace. In some of them, I might even be holding an alcoholic beverage. That’s perfectly fine. You know why? Because I’m twenty one fucking years old, and so are my friends. It’s legal. I’m not going to be punished for doing something that isn’t illegal.

In exchange, I’m willing to be one of the smartest, hardest working people you’ll ever hire.

However, if you’ve got a problem with any of this, well, I assure you, the loss is much bigger for you than it is for me.

Sincerely,

Mike Edinger, Free Person

Once again, major props to xkcd.com, and of course the above mentioned (and numerous, nameless others), who've inspired me.

The Best Thing About Being in English Education...

Is that I get to write a lot, which makes it really easy to have stuff to post. This is my literacy autobiography that I turned in for LIT313- Literacy Assessment and Intervention. It sounds really boring, but the class is really fun, and I think I did something pretty interesting with the autobiography.

I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost nine o'clock. I could leave soon. I walked over to the shoe rack near the door and grabbed my sneakers. They were getting pretty beat up and worn out. I'd be getting a new pair in a couple of months when school was about to start again. I tied the white laces that had long since been turned brown by dirt, dust, and grass stains.

I looked around the house for any stray books I might have forgotten. There were two in the living room. I managed to stuff them into my bulging backpack and zip it shut, the seams screaming and holding on for dear life. I lifted the bag onto my shoulders with a grunt. I was ready to begin my trek.

That bag was always heavy. It must've weighed at least twenty pounds. That might not seem like a lot, but when you realize that twenty pounds was a full fifth of my 100 pound, fourth grade body weight; it gets put into perspective real quick. It's a burden I carried with pride.

Every week I would make a trip to the library. I had to walk because my babysitter couldn't drive. I was fine with that; I generally enjoyed the walk. I began the journey around nine or ten in the morning. The backpack seemed lighter then. Maybe it was because the temperature and humidity hadn't spiked yet.

Nelly, my babysitter, would help me cross the street right in front of her house. There were no sidewalks for the first block and a half, so I had to be careful. I stood as far right as possible, walking on the grass of front lawns when I could, and the dusty gravel shoulder when I couldn't. I picked up the sidewalk as I entered the well ordered residential outskirts of downtown Baldwinsville. I lost the sidewalk again as I passed the Moose Lodge and the decrepit, crumbling train station. I smelled seafood and hamburger grease as I passed the seafood restaurant and then the Burger King. There was the run down dive bar, Mickey's Tavern. After the Sunoco gas station was the beat up Gould's Pumps warehouse. Next to the warehouse was the cleaner, white brick Gould's Pumps office building where my father worked. I hung a right at the dark brown Baldwinsville Commons office building. A block up the street was the long rectangular building that was the Baldwinsville Public Library.

I made that trip every week. I loved to read. It wasn't until recently that I began to realize what really drove me to take that literal walk, and later, many figurative ones. For me, it's always been about the stories. Stories do so much for me. They entertain me. They educate me. They let me connect to people.

My earliest memory of stories is with my mother. When I was a toddler, she told me the stories of Little Ludwig and his dog named Bow Wow. These were characters that were used by her father when she was growing up. There was never a set story, she would jus think of something when I climbed up on her lap and said, both adorable and annoying at the same time, "Mommy, mommy, tell me a story!"

And she did, every time, without fail. Ludwig and Bow Wow went to London and saw Big Ben. They saw the pyramids in Egypt. They dug a hole straight through to China, a feat that I would try (and fail) to replicate. There were many other adventures, great and small, that I can't remember from so long ago.

I was also able to get closer with my father. Every week, on the walk back to Nelly's house, I would stop in and see my dad. We'd sit in the lobby of the Guild's Pumps building and he'd listen to me talk about the books I picked out. Looking back, I feel bad about making him listen to me ramble on about books he had no interest in. His patience was an encouragement, though. A few years later, when I began my science fiction kick, I would raid his book collection. Anne McCaffery and Piers Anthony were my favorites from his bookshelf. The favor was returned a few years later when he lost his job and suddenly had a surplus of free time to raid mine. I turned him on to Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind. I'm a little disappointed I couldn't do the same with Tim O'Brien and Hunter S. Thompson (yeah, right), but c'est la vie.

Of course, other people's stories were only good enough for so long, and reading is only one half of literacy. For a long time, I was only interested in stories from other people. It didn't occur to me that I had my own stories to tell that other people might find interesting or useful. Not only has writing allowed me to share my stories, it's given me another avenue to connect with other people.

My hobbies, more than most other hobbies I think, are very community oriented. The biggest one is probably a game called Magic: the Gathering. It's a strategic collectable card game that is dynamic and ever changing. There are players all over the country, the world even, and we communicate primarily through internet message boards. That alone opens up many doors for literacy. Not only do I need to know how to read and write, on top of needing to know how to work the bulletin board software. All of this in addition to being literate of the rules of the game and the every changing trends within the game.

Of course, the game being so community oriented, there's much more to be written about than just strategy and ideas. There is a lot of writing to be done for and about the community. Many of us have traveled hundred of miles to meet and play against each other. There's really no other reason for doing that than being able to say, "Yeah, I drove to D.C. and met up with the Elgins and the Hatfields and had a blast," or, "Dude, it was so awesome going to Portland and meeting up with Bardo and Pinder." We do it for the story, because it is the story and the journey that brings us together. Someone has to record the story; it encourages more and bigger adventures to take place.

There is a genre of writing that's fairly unique to this hobby called the tournament report. It is part box score, part fishing tale, and part bar story. Most tournament reports are just the facts of what happened to the writer in the tournament. The good report writers describe what they learned about the game and their deck. What the great writers, and what I try to do, is write about what we've learned about ourselves and the community. The great writers chronicle the happenings of the event that take place away from the game itself; it is in those moments that connections are forged.

It was through these that I really began writing. Writing allows me to look inside myself and learn something new. I don't flatter myself and think my story is all that important on a large scale, but I like to share it anyway. I write for myself, but I post it regardless. If anyone can take anything from what I write, then I am flattered. It means I was doing something right.

Books have taken me all over the world- this one and others. They've taken me to the past, and through them I have seen the future. I've sailed around the world and across the galaxy. Writing has served as the impetus to create my own stories and to tell them. Both reading and writing have allowed me to interact with numerous people on a meaningful level. Literacy for me has been a journey. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that the journey is what is important. The journey is where the story is. As I stand on the verge of a great adventure, both literal and metaphorical, I can still feel that backpack. It's not getting heavier, but it is getting fuller. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Adolescence

This is a story that I've told maybe three people. Also, for the record, the fact that tomorrow is Valentine's Day is completely coincidental.

Adolescence is a period of extremes. At no other point are the peaks and valleys of life so apparent. We run the gamut of emotions every day. We go from fearless to insecure and back again at the drop of a hat. We are convinced of our immortality, only to face our own fallibility at every turn. Living through adolescence is like running the gauntlet, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. We learn and grow through adversity, and as a result, we change and learn about ourselves the most during adolescence.

There is one event in particular that has had such a profound effect on me. I think it is safe to say that no other event before or since has had a bigger impact on me. It greatly influenced how I view life and myself. It occurred when I was sixteen. The ages 13-15 weren’t all that remarkable for me. Looking back, I don’t think I changed all that much until the later half of my sophomore year in high school. I could write about what I was like in seventh grade; that I was a lot like I was in fifth grade, and that by ninth grade, very little had changed. But that wouldn’t make for a very interesting story, now would it?

When I was a junior in high school, I had a part time job at Burger King. It was there that I met a girl named Julie. Through work, we became friends. More accurately, I became her friend. She was going through a rough patch, and I was there. I would listen to her and talk to her.

I was never particularly attracted to her. She was a few years older than me, and also had a kid. She wasn’t too bright, and was probably doomed to a dead end, lower class existence. She was, however, quite attracted to me. I tried to ignore it and act as if it was nothing.

During spring break of that year, I was planning on getting a new piercing. I asked her to come with me for moral support. At the time, my parents were very conservative when it came to body modification and had threatened to kick me out if I got another piercing. I wanted someone with me to make sure I went through with it.

Afterwards, we were at her apartment. I know I’m not the first person this has happened to, and I know that I won’t be the last, but one thing led to another, and we end up having sex. A very big, very important detail: It was my first time. I had no idea how it happened, and today, almost five years later, I still don’t know. I’m sure you can tell where things are going from here.

We “dated” for about a month. I use that in a very loose sense of the word. I never should have let it happen, or to allow her to get the impression that how I felt about her changed.

A few days after we broke up, she tells me she’s back with her ex-boyfriend. I don’t really care, but I remember her telling me that he wasn’t the nicest guy, and remind her of this. She just shrugged and said it was okay because he was going to buy her a new living room set. It was at this point that I said one of the dumber things I’ve ever said in my life, “Wow. You do realize that kind of like prostitution, right?” Definitely not the smartest thing I could have said.

Things exploded. I don’t remember what else was said that night, but there was a huge, loud argument. I saw her in a completely different light.

Suddenly, instead of having an ambivalent attitude towards the whole thing, I became disgusted. I was revolted, not only at her, but also at myself. I didn’t understand how I could do something so incredibly stupid.

Through conversations with her friends and co-workers, I became well aware that she was promiscuous, to put it nicely. It didn’t actually hit me until a friend asked me, “Is she clean?” It was like a punch to the gut. All of a sudden, I was thinking about all the bad things that could happen. I started to think about all the negative effects on not only my life, but on the life of any person I chose to be with in the future. As teenagers, we really do think we’re invulnerable and invincible. Sure, we give lip service to the idea that bad things can happen, but we don’t really think, “Bad things can happen to me.” I was incredibly lucky; bad things didn’t happen to me this time, at least not on a physical level.

Mentally, I was a mess. Words simply cannot describe how terrible I was feeling. Without trying to sound incredibly arrogant, I am a smart person. I generally don’t make stupid decisions or mistakes. Yet here I was faced with an enormous error in judgment. I was slapped in the face by the reality that I was fallible, that I could make mistakes, and more importantly, that my decisions have consequences.

It took me a long time to get over this. For probably well over a year, I would have given anything to take it back. Before this, I had never known was true regret was. Now I did, and it felt awful. True regret is a pit in your stomach, a crawling in your chest, and it keeps you awake at night.

Lest you think it was only negative things that resulted from this, I should explain how I finally got over it. What allowed me to come to grips with everything was acceptance of what happened. I eventually came to accept the fact that I couldn’t change what happened. I can’t change the past, and if I could, I wouldn’t. Those events shape who I am today, and I won’t change that. It is for this very reason that I no longer regret that or anything I’ve done.