Future Goal

I don't believe in having more than 1-3 personal long term goals at a time. I think more than that is hard to manage. I think some can do 5 but that would suck the life from you. Long term goals take a while to build upon, obviously. Working on more than 3 at a time, even incrementally seems like a lot to manage in the grand scheme of other things you have to manage in life.

My first two goals are career related and therefore not worth mentioning for the purposes of this post. What I'm really here to talk about is my third personal goal:

One day, I want to be able to just make off-color, vulgar and non-sequitur remarks with complete immunity without the help of advanced neurologic disease.

Why? Well why the hell not? Why wait till we are old or senile to be able to take pleasure in saying whatever we want? I want to be able to look people in the eyes and gauge their reaction as I casually stroll into a room and casually remark that "it smells like buttsex and wet crackers in here." I don't care if it's true. I just want to watch the shock of someones face as they grapple with that self-induced sensory assault. Memories will be pulled to remember what wet crackers smell like and what buttsex might smell like. They will be forced to wonder if I'm pulling that comment from personal experience or if I'm just being a horrible human being. Forever after that, they will associate whatever smell I commented on with those words. Many will object. Acquaintances will be lost. Friends and family will be offended.

I find so many people saying things like "I wish I could just say whatever I wanted like my grandma with Alzheimers" (or completely lucid old grandma who just doesn't give a shit). But why wait till you're that old? Why not start sooner? I wouldn't start now. I'm young enough still that if I say things like "When I close my eyes, I see celebrities from the 80's entirely composed of colorful polygons chasing cats in groundless, dark void" that it would be considered creepy. It would probably buy me a one way ticket to a psychiatric unit. Now if I said something like that in my late 50's or 60's before such diseases start to set in, it's just an eyeball roll or one of those things people just say "Oh that's just Johnny for ya." I'm too old for it to be mistaken for me hitting on people in a creepy way. But not old enough that people are wondering if I have mounds of plaque in my brain.

The trick would be to start this trend in my early 40's. I would say a few off remarks a year. Nothing too crazy. Just 2-6 per year. Then let it just gradually build to the point that it just becomes my baseline in my 50's and 60's. People who know me won't notice the transition. People who don't know me will be utterly disgusted and weirded out. But they won't be able to do anything about it except verbally protest my insane language. Perhaps others will choose to shut me out with body language. Others will just walk away. Their forms of protest will fall on to my deaf ears. I won't care by that time. They can just bite me.

I won't be totally uncivil. I won't walk into a fancy party and ask people if fornicating with rabid badgers in public should be made illegal or made into a civil rights crusade. I'll know when to pull my punches. After all, I'll still be working presumably at that time. I can't risk my career. In the workplace, my comments might be less vulgar. But they would still be off. In public, I might be tempted to ask a gas station attendant if they had ever heard of scalp herpes and if it smells like incest. Just something weird enough to raise eyebrows but harmless enough that I can't get in real trouble.


Just 20 more years and I can start on it.


*sigh*


Just 30 more long years till I can start living in the world I want to live in. A world where I can say whatever I want with impunity.

Dreams and Wishes

Some things in life are just dreams and wishes. I'm not talking about hoping for that million dollars in a contest or to be randomly approached by a strange man who introduces himself as "The Doctor." I'm talking about unrealistic views about yourself for the dreams you wish to accomplish.

As we speak, I'm flanked by two people who apparently aren't open to realizing who they are. To my right, some overweight asshole in his 40's is asking strangers which school has the better basketball team so he can transfer there and play on the team. I try not to be judgmental, but correct me if I'm wrong, but college basketball traditionally lets players on the team if they are in shape and usually young. I don't know too many fat people on college basketball players who are young little alone fat people who are old.

To my left is some girl who is telling everyone in earshot that the reason why her and her friend are not friends anymore is because her friend "loved her too much." And that "this always happens." People just seem to "love her too much," which causes tension in their friendships because she can't understand why everyone loves her so much. Talk about hiding from yourself. I've seen this person a handful of times and have had the unfortunate privilege of listening to her talk on all occasions. Again, I try not to be judgmental but I can safely guess that this is not the problem with her friendships. It is more likely that she is a self-centered piece of crap who wishes people would love her unconditionally and love her so much that it hurts. I'm guessing no one lives up to that ridiculous standard.

It's infuriating to listen to this. Some things are just dreams and wishes. Sometimes you have to look in the mirror and realize that some things are not as possible as you once thought.

Follow the Leader

It's kind of weird going through my A-EMT certification course. It's good information to know and review again. But it reminds me most of how far I've come. I remember taking my EMT-Basic class 8 years ago and being scared shitless. Especially during the part where they forced you to take command of a trauma or code scenarios. I hated those times. I hated being the leader. I feared it. It scared me.

I wasn't confident enough to run it myself. Not without help. How could I possibly do this? How does anyone do this on their own? You can't know everything. This is hard. I remember sweating bullets the entire time doing my scenarios. I often failed them and forgot minor things. People in my groups were always frustrated by my lack of leadership. I stuttered a lot. The people in my group weren't allowed to help. I could see the looks on their faces every time I missed something or said something wrong. A few times, people who were better at this than I was pushed me aside and took control. I admired those people and hated myself for not being more like them. How could they possibly be a leader? Why am I so weak and timid?

Flash forward 8 years later and I find myself in the leader position very comfortably when it comes to my job. In the certification class, I'm frustrated when I'm not in command. The people around me are inexperienced. Some are comfortable with taking control while some were like me. Scared to take control, afraid to screw it up. I never thought I would be one of those people. I never envisioned myself being able to be in control and to lead others in a medical emergency. I must seem like an asshole to the people who are timid just as I thought the people who were the leaders were assholes just because of my inability to be like them.

I've come a long way. I never would have thought I would be good at this job or be a leader at it. It sounds boastful and I don't mean it to be. I've just always been timid. I've never been the type to jump into leadership roles, especially if the stakes were high. Strangely, I can't imagine it any other way. Maybe it's because I'm passionate about medicine that it allows me to be this way. I'm not like this in any other aspect of my life.


I don't think anyone would actually call me a leader. I don't think people would say they would follow me into battle or take orders from me in bigger scenarios. I guess it's just fascinating to think of the people we become in certain aspects of our life. I just never thought leadership would be an aspect I would ever be apart of.

Love at First Sight

The whole concept of "love at first sight" is completely foreign to me. Well, I guess that would be a lie to some degree now that I think about it. I have found myself falling in love with several shallow material objects throughout my life. I have personally fallen in love with cars, drums, guitars, foods, coffee mugs, shirts, this tablet that I'm writing this post on and other such things. I see some of these objects and suddenly I can see myself spending the rest of my life with them. An example would be that I almost bought a gun a couple of months ago based on love at first sight. There I was, a man and a deadly firearm, deadlocked in a gaze. I knew it was wrong. I knew I couldn't afford it. But it felt so right. I had some money saved away. I could have it, right? Sure I could. Times would be tough at first but we would work it out. We'd still go out to the desert when we could to go shooting. I'd keep it clean and make sure it was properly lubed at all times. There would never be a day of regret for me and my shotgun. Our love would be like rain.

Aside from those beautiful love stories, I have never understood love at first sight between two [real] people. I'm not going to say the concept is impossible. Just highly improbable. For the record, I don't claim to be an expert on love in any way. I'm about as loveable as a whiskey soaked baseball glove left out in the sun of an abandoned town. I'm hard and crusty and probably have a family of rats living in me somewhere. Plus I love a very select few people. So needless to say, my expertise based on experience is sorely lacking. But looking at the concept of "love at first sight" from a purely objective and logical standpoint has given me some insight. And that insight tells me that it doesn't make any fucking sense.

Love at first sight is a nice concept from the outside. It completely eliminates the uncertainty of dating, getting to know one another, or if the person is right for you based on similar interest. There is no guessing with this concept. All of that work is done for you. You don't have to worry if they won't like your sense of humor, your parents, or your utterly disgusting habits (and believe me, all of you sloppy assholes have plenty of disgusting habits). All of that uncertainty has been taken care of because you saw that person and just knew all of that was a nonfactor. To cap it off, the person you're falling in love with at first sight is probably pleasing to your eyeballs. Yeah, they are probably really good looking. They are great to look it. It feels good to look at them and be near them because they aren't offending any of your five senses. You'll be hard pressed to find a chick-flick where the love at first sight concept works with an attractive person falling in love with someone who looks utterly disgusting. You might be tempted to bring up the movie Shallow Hal but you'd be incorrect for doing so since Jack Black isn't a heart throb and he was metaphorically falling in love with her personality. Not the same. As superficial as it may seem, looks matter to some degree. In fact, studies show that people who fall in love tend to fall in love with someone who is of about the same level of attractiveness as they are. Which makes sense. Ugly people tend to date ugly people. The slobby homeless guy isn't pulling in supermodel material. Probably not even middle class average material. That homeless guy is going to be with some other toothless homeless chick most likely. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. The point is, if love at first sight were a thing, it probably wouldn't discriminate on looks. You would have an innate ability to detect personality as well. But since that isn't the case, you probably just fell in love with how attractive they were to you.

Now the people who have love at first sight stories are the lower end of probability. Like I said, it's not impossible but improbable. It does happen, just not often and on complete luck. You just happen to fall in love with someone who also believes in the concept who in turn falls in love with you. It's just not likely. It happens. But it's coincidence, not cosmic fate since the universe doesn't give a shit one way or the other if you're together or not. Planets still rotate, stars still explode, and Michael Bay keeps making bad movies. The world and the universe gets along just fine whether or not you're together. It just happens that of all the billions of people, you happened to fall in love with someone who believes in the same concept within your zip code most likely. Don't confuse that statement with "It's fate" or "That makes it more special." It just seems to me that people who believe in that concept are more apt to wanting to believing that because it takes out all the guesswork and potential heartache. If you sift through it long enough, you find someone who believes the same. It's easy to let fate take the wheel because you don't have to do any work if the concept works for you.

Conversely, those same assholes don't get to complain that they can't find anyone nice or anyone they can instantly fall in love with. If they don't want to put in the work to getting to know someone because of fear or laziness and just want to wait for it to be love at first sight, then strap in.

It's going to be a long wait for you.

5th Grade Sarcasm: A Flashback

Growing up I had parents who were ninjas when it came to the use of sarcasm and humor. They always appeared to be funny without error. My dad tended to be more dry and crude with his delivery. My mom was a fan of using word play and cunning observations about people and situations. As my role models for sarcastic humor, I feel like I inherited a pretty even combination of both aspects.

Studies show kids can start detecting sarcasm around 6-8 years old and start understanding and using sarcasm between 10-12 years old. As a child, I was an early bloomer in using sarcasm. I'm not sure if that had more to do with genetics, environment or occasionally falling in with the crowd of the smart ass bad kids. 

A shining of example of my budding understanding of sarcasm was in the 5th grade. It was the end of the school year. My elementary school did pioneer themed activities for the last few weeks where you dressed as old-timey 19th century folk. Other activities involved playing old games that the pioneers would have had, making your own butter, and making your own toys. It was fun for the most part, but there was a lot of unfun labor involved. Now I get they were trying to show what it was like to live like a pioneer back then. But holding the attention of four 5th grade classes combined is impossible. A school gym full of hyper 11 year olds is no place to show kids how to make their own butter over the course of 3 days (Which was just shaking buttermilk and a handful of marbles in a jar for hours.) At one point, we had to make our own toy. The toy of choice was the Jacob's ladder. If you're not familiar with the toy, here is a picture. You're probably familiar with it. 

Basically you fold it up, hold it at one end and the unfolds in kind of a fun way. To accomplish this, they gave us all 12 blocks of wood that were intentionally 2 inches too big. So we had to sand them all down by hand symmetrically. If you're not familiar with the process of sanding something by hand with a strip of sandpaper, I recommend you find out. You'll be bored and frustrated in the first 30 seconds. Now force this process onto an 11 year old and see how long it takes them to complain of boredom. (I'm guessing that number would now be measured in nanoseconds with all the cell phones and tablets and what not rotting attention spans.) As me and a few friends started the project, we very quickly jumped to the conclusion that this was fucking stupid. Sanding? At school? How was manual labor supposed to be fun? I remember very distinctly being surrounded by the bad kids that I admired. I wished I was more like them. I wanted to be their friend and impress them. But I was historically very shy so I rarely said much. But that day I was feeling particularly daring. I had people to impress. I started to loudly remark "Wow, this is a blast! I sure do like sanding wood. I hope there is more sanding to do this week." It caused all the kids around me to laugh and start copying the phrase "this is a blast!" The teachers were less than thrilled with my grasp of sarcasm. They were even less thrilled to see that the concept had started to spread through the kids faster than herpes at a whorehouse. Soon all the kids were sarcastically remarking how much fun they were having. I'm guessing not all of them grasped why it was irritating to the teachers or funny to us. Some were just copying just to copy. 

I was on a roll and wasn't about to stop. I took it a little bit further by remarking how I wished I could sand at home and not just at school. I childishly snickered that I wanted to be a professional sander when I grew up. Kids laughed. I laughed. For about 5 minutes I was funny, seemingly outgoing and popular. But like any good dictatorship knows, if you take out the leader of any revolution it will quell the rebellion. The teachers quickly singled me out as the cause of the sarcastic uprising and took me to another room. I panicked. It was the first time I had ever gotten in trouble like this. My teacher lectured me heavily about being disappointed since I had never gotten in trouble before. I held back the tears and apologized for my insolence. 

My teacher forgave me and allowed me to return to my classmates. As I returned, the other kids looked eager for my return. Perhaps they were hoping I would lead them to a new era of smart ass comments that went beyond the words "booger" and "poop". But alas, I was subdued and defeated. Once my peers figured out that my spirit had been broken to speak out again, we all went back to quietly sanding.

Shitember

September always blows. There are no good sides to September. Sure, you could argue for the mild weather or the Labor Day holiday. But doing so is just lying to yourself.

Admit it. You hate September as much as anything else. Perhaps with prejudice or even a passionate dislike.

We all know that deep down inside September is a marker for change. Whether it's school, weather,or work, something about September is forcing you to change a routine that you have grown accustomed to.

I'm here to tell you right now that Shitember does not care about you. The only thing Shitember cares about is Shitember getting through its 30 days of hateful transition. It even mocks you as you make transitions. It will have fluctuating weather. Some days it will be a wonderful pre-autumn day. Other days it will get ball blisteringly cold just to remind you that the cold weather is coming near. Perhaps rain or snow will be present just so Shitember can laugh at your painfully rusty driving skills.

School is back in session for either yourself or your kids. You can tell yourself this is a good thing. But again, Shitember has other plans. Your semester will be easy at first because it's the beginning. But before you know, you're getting raped by tests and assignments. You might tell yourself that your kids being away is a good thing. But then they come back with all kinds of paperwork to sign and a syllabus detailing what your kids are learning. A reminder that your kids are getting older and more advanced in their thinking. A reminder that you're getting older. This is good right?

Wrong.

You're living a lie.


September blows and you just need to accept it and start looking forward to October. Or if you're like me, you start looking forward to next June.


Ah yes. That next June will be sweet when it comes back around in 9 months.

Just you wait.