![Farewell Pillsbury… Part 2: Just Kidding. (Insert embarrassed smile here!)]()
by Richard Timothy | Mar 29, 2010 | Confessed Confidentially, I Think There's a Point, It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking
Well bugger… again… Soooo you know when lose something. There is a standard process that you experience. I think it’s the 7 or 8 steps for handling loss. Yes, 7 or 8, the eighth step may or may not happen. It’s always a toss up really. It just turns out that in my case, this time, I did get to experience all 8 steps.
The process breaks down as such:
- Vague unsettling: This feeling is initial feeling that something isn’t quite right, but you can’t exactly put your finger on what it is.
- Subtle realization: This step is when you begin realizing that what something you had seen a few days ago might not be where you thought it was.
- Specific local searching: This step is when you perform a very thorough search in the area you last thought you saw the missing item.
- Panicked searching: This step involves rampant random searching where you stop looking where you know the missing item was a day or so ago and begin searching in irrational and random locations. Locations like under the car seat, then in the bathroom, then under your bed, and then in your freezer. And between each new odd search spot you go back to the original location you remember the item being and search that entire room again, you know, just in case. My “just in case” rationale was that my notebook entered a time warp and if I kept going back at random intervals it might suddenly reappear.
- Grumpy pouting: This is when you realize what losing the item means to you, both emotionally and, in my case, literaturally. Long fits of profanity, both loud and whispered are commonly associated with this step.
- Slow paced random searching: This is after the panic passes and then for the next day or so you still randomly look around and keep your eyes open for the missing item, but it’s not going to disrupt your day or cause you to miss sitting down and enjoying an episode of The Big Bang Theory or The IT Crowd. Note: The time warp ideology still applies so you do still continue to look where you last saw in it, you know… just in case.
- Acceptance: This is the step where you blog to everyone that you lost your notebook, but it’s ok because such is life and on a groovy note, you get to go shopping for a new notebook.
And then in my case (yes, you nailed it Cathy) there is the one more step:
- I call it the “What the… SonofaBi… YEAH! Hehe, opps… Just kidding everyone.” step.
It was in my backpack the whole time! And I looked there at least five… teen times. You know that Pac-man book hiding fluke that happens to humans all over the world on a regular basis so it’s really not that much of a fluke, but we all call it a fluke anyway? Yeah, that’s what happened. I have a green notebook in backpack that is slightly larger than the Pillsbury Doughboy notebook. Well, the Pillsbury notebook got flipped around and ended up sliding up into the green notebook. So every time I looked in the backpack I could only see the green notebook. I never pulled the green notebook out of my backpack, but this was because there was not second notebook to be seen on either side of it.
Yeah, so opps. I guess I could feel a little silly for dedicating Friday’s post to the loss of my little notebook, but I really see no point. It just makes me laugh more than anything. Besides I take comfort knowing that it’s something that everyone has done. It’s one of those random common experiences that bring us together as a species that no one really thinks about as an experience that brings us all together. Or to put it a little more plainly it’s one of those, “Hey look! I’m just like you.” experiences.
So thanks for the support you gave when I had lost my notebook forever. And thanks for laughing at… I mean with me now that it has been returned. (I’m still not ruling out that some random time warp had something to do with it though.)
Any of you care to share your “It’s lost forever… opps… found it!” story?
Image Sources:
Google Images, key words: lost and found.
![Farewell Pillsbury… Part 2: Just Kidding. (Insert embarrassed smile here!)]()
by Richard Timothy | Mar 24, 2010 | Confessed Confidentially, I Think There's a Point, It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking, When I Was a Kid
There are a few things that I have been quite good at most of my life. Not necessarily due to practice, but due to the exact opposite of that. Being pasty and on the verge of bio-luminescence when the lights go down due to my lack of exposure with the sun on a regular basis is one of those things I have excelled at most my life. It’s true I usually had to put on sunglasses just to take a shower. Ok not really, but I did think about it once or twice.
While growing up in rural Wyoming, which for the record is the only type of Wyoming there is, there were a number of peers of the farming persuasion who, much like the people of San Francisco, would be outside without their shirts on catching some rays at the first sign of any actually sunshine. It’s true. I spend a summer in San Francisco and the second the sun comes out, people start appearing all over outside. They are in swimming suits laying down on any open spot of grass they can find, catching some sunshine and working on their laptops. This usually lasts about 10 to 30 minutes tops and then as the sun ducks behind the local clouds everyone puts their cloths back on and go back inside to their desks. You do get use to this, but the first time you experience this phenomenon, it does give the first time viewer a “what the f…unny randomness just happened” moment of contemplation.
All that being said I’ve never been big of my inclusion of the “run around shirtless” genre of social activities. When the sun is involved my shirtless activity has almost always resulted in me becoming the same hue of a thirteen year old boy on his first date who has just accidentally farted loudly sitting next to his date while sneezing softly into a napkin. That is a very special kind of red that take years to recover from, and I believe requires you to never see that date ever again. The sun has a way of ensuring my skin remains that color for a pain filled week or two.
With that, let’s jump back a few years. In 7th grade, I did what your average 7th grade boy does when the opportunity arises. I tried out for sports. My father had been a basketball hero when he was a lad and at 13 there is a desired emulation that often happens where you think that if you should try doing what your father did then he was your age. The desired outcome consisted of him being proud of you and you being proud that he was proud. So I tried out for the team. It was open to anyone that wanted to give it a go, and a go I gave.
Tryouts consisted of played a few rounds of basketball while the coach watched you play. After watching you play for a total of maybe 10 minutes, the coach would tell you to get off the court so someone else could give trying out a go. At the end of the day, before you would rush to catch the bus home, you would check the roster to see if you had made the team. Yeah, I never made the team, but there were a few reasons for this.
Reason 1
Difficulty concentrating on the game. I think I would have been a little more clearheaded had I not been on the team required to be “skins.” Instead of giving us different colored tops we could put on over your shirts we would play shirts vs. skins, or shirtless, or half nude… awkwardly breezy comes to mind as well. Being on the skin team meant that I was you run up and down a basketball court half naked. The uncomfortable awkwardness came from knowing that the cute girls I fancied were in the bleachers watching all of the boys trying out for the team.
This translated to the cute girls looking at my goofy assed clumsy 13 year old body. I felt like a piece of meat on parade. But I wasn’t a piece of prime rib, or t-bone, or Alaskan Salmon, or even a marinated chicken breast. No, I felt like a slice of that prepackaged bologna with those weird different colored specks of gum drops, or whatever the hell those things were. Ok so it was sliced pickle and pimento loaf, but as a kid, it was gummy bear bologna and it was creepy. I mean sure, it was always fascinating to look at for about 10 seconds. Then it’s eeriness becomes too much and you leave it there in the cooler, scaring small children that wanted regular bologna and ended up grabbing the gummy bologna instead by accident.
This meant that I spent most of the 10 minutes trying to hide my half nakedness behind the other kids. This failed for a few reasons, but mainly because I was the tallest kid on the court and I was about the same color as the florescent lights in the ceiling.
Reason 2
I suppose the main and most obvious reason was that I just wasn’t any good at the game. I mean I wanted to be. But when it take four tries for you to make a basked while standing right next to it and you keep getting your own rebounds because you are taller than the others around you, it’s a little obvious where your skill level lies. I did enjoyed playing the game outside with my friends for the three months out of the year that it was warm enough to play basketball outside. Although this consisted mostly of playing HORSE or PIG, or other games that required us to be polite and take turns and not get in each other’s face. When it came to skill in the game, I was about as useful as mop at a sneezing competition… actually that would be quite useful. No, how about a mop IN a sneezing competition. Yeah, that analogy works much better.
Reason 3
There was something else that happened during those 10 minutes of play. It was the realization that I didn’t want to play basketball. There is something so incredibly dreary about the sportsmanship you experience on the court, field, ice, or whatever. There are some people that are amazing sportsmanshipy kinds of sportsmen. Win or lose they are about the game first and foremost. If they win, grand. If they don’t, at least it was a good game. My experience is that this is a rare breed of sportsmen, women… people. In my tiny experience in playing sports and watching sports, what I noticed about sportsmanship is that is that 9 times out of 10 there isn’t much, if any.
People turn into mean angry frumpy little bitches… and I was no different. I didn’t like getting angry at people for stealing the ball away from me, or for blocking my shot. Nor did I enjoy having people get angry at me when I did the same thing to them. I didn’t agree with the coach congratulating me with a “good foul” cheer when I’d do something to negatively affect another player. At 13 I saw sports responsible for causing more damage than good. So, I banned me from them. I think I tried again in 8th grade just to make sure. Turns out I was sure, and I haven’t looked back since.
I’ve have dabbled a bit here and there over the years. I played soccer for two summers and I played late night volley ball on tennis courts. I also became mildly competent at pool my first year in college and could endure a volley or two of ping pong with someone who actually played ping pong. I even got an A in my bowling class. If you do love sports, well done! I say go with it, enjoy it as much as you can as long and you can. I’ll even politely listen while you talk about it. Just know that I couldn’t care less. As for me, all in all I’m Zen sporting reject. I reject them and they reject me, and ever since we came to that understanding, we’ve gotten along just great.
What are your sporting stories?
Image Sources:
Google Images, key words: pasty white guy, youth basketball, pickle and pimento loaf, and poor sportsmanship.
![Farewell Pillsbury… Part 2: Just Kidding. (Insert embarrassed smile here!)]()
by Richard Timothy | Mar 11, 2010 | I Think There's a Point, It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, My List of Things that Don't Suck, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking, When I Was a Kid
Whenever I begin telling people about my beer journal I get the look. It’s not a standard look, hence why it’s “the look” instead of “a look”. It’s the look that the face unconsciously creates when people hear something that processes a bit confusingly. Only a bit though. The look is a mixture of partial understanding, but at the exact same time the other word(s) create the confusion. I suppose you could call it the “I almost get… I think… what?” look. I’m not sure it’s the type of thing you can practice either, which I like the thought of. It adds to the authenticity of those moments when a do receive the look. Of course there is always the chance that the person listening to me will just get angry because I said something that perplexes them, so instead of the look, they’ll just call me a dirty name and walk away.
To those of you who may not know, I am not a beer drinker. I’ve never even tasted the stuff. I just have no real interest in doing so at this point in my life. Part of the added confusion to this story is that during the time I was creating my beer journal it was during a period in my life when I had yet to taste alcohol in any form other than cough syrup, which usually made me gag and want to expunge all the contents of my stomach. So, likewise, when I started my beer journal it was a touch baffling to those around me.
So what exactly is a beer journal? It’s a documented event wrapped in glass and fill with beer. Here’s how it worked. I was living in Logan Utah at the time, doing that college thing and having a grand time hanging out with friends old and new. Most of these friends were big fans of beer consumption, and in homage to this practice they would create a celebration on almost any given evening so that groups of people could gather together to assist the consumption of this elixir. Yeah, so I went to a lot of parties and drove a lot of people home. Then on April 12, 1999 it just happened. I picked up a beer, two in fact, and stuck them in my pocket to commemorate the evening.
It was for my friend Brandon’s 25th birthday. His wife Jules, girlfriend at the time, had planned a surprise party for him. I went over and played some poker with them for about an hour and then we headed over the Ibis, the coffee shop Jules and I worked at, saying we had a quick meeting and then would be heading to the bar. When we got there the place was filled with friends and beer. Not just any beer, but special ordered beer that Brandon had much love for… Henry Weinhard’s Hazelnut Stout and Blackberry Wheat. So I took one of each, one for the poker night, and one for the surprise party. When I got home I took them out of my jacket pockets placed them on my dresser. And that is how it all started.
Over the months, I when I would go to parties, I would always take a beer home with me. It was always unopened and always a different beer. To those of you concerned that I was breaking party etiquette, it’s not like I was stealing beer. People knew what I was doing. I let them know all about it. And yes even though they gave me “the look” when I told them they always supported me and even started to make sure they would set one beer aside just for me. Granted, to help with this exchange, I always made sure I brought a six pack for people to enjoy. A six to one exchange rate is a pretty good deal, especially if that exchange is beer.
After the first twenty to thirty beer I collected, it was becoming a little difficult keep them all straight. So I invested in some little label stickers and started documenting each beer with the date and event. There was the Moosehead Beer for the Cinco de Mayo / Farewell Liz party… because nothing says Cinco de Mayo quite like a Canadian lager. There was my Icehouse beer, the only can I acquired for my journal, which Jules and Brandon gave to me as my get well beer when I threw out my back and was stuck in bed for about a week.
There was the bottle of Blue Moon for the night I said goodbye to my friend Jasamyn, who was moving to San Francisco. There was the Uinta India Pale Ale for Kyle’s 25th birthday and the Fischer LaBelle for my sister Fee’s 23rd birthday. The Guinness Extra Stout was for my first Eddie Izzard party and the bottle of Melbourne Bros Strawberry for the evening I went to see Tori Amos in concert.
Yes, there were beer signifying more birthdays, move farewells, and even some for reunions of old friends and family. There was the “Be thankful for Friends” party, which was remembered with a bottle of Moretti Birra Friulana. There was a beer for the occasional first date and one for the goodbye to an ended love. There was even the Pilsner Urquell for my first day going back to college. And…
And then it just stopped. Not the parties, just the bottled reminder of them. There were a few reasons for this. The first was the storage of the thing. I was quickly running out of space. My dresser was covered with full bottles of beer, as was my window sill. A beer journal begins taking up a lot of space after 7 months. The practicality was no longer there either. At some point in my life I would be moving and if things kept up, the thought of moving hundreds of full bottles of journal beer seemed like a task that I really had no desire to be a part of. I think the novelty was done as well. I have experienced many grand celebrations and a few unpleasant evenings, it was time to process and remember in a different way. So, I bought a camera. The beer journal ended January 20th, 2000… wow just over 10 years ago. Maybe I should go get a beer to commemorate my 10 year anniversary of my beer journal… hmmm. When the journal ended I had around 60 or different bottles of beer, and one can, compiling my beer journal. Oh, one more thing, trying to keep the dust off of all those bottles was becoming a chore that I never really wanted in the first place.
Then came the question, “What the hell do I do with all this beer?” Correct! You drink it! Well, not me personally, but I had an evening, a sort of celebration. I invited an armful of close friends, who drank beer, this was key, and with three or four coolers of ice we chilled all the beer and I played MC. People would grab a beer and show me the label. I’d then tell them the story about the evening that the beer was a journal entry for. Then we would either toast the remembered celebration, or give one last goodbye to those that I had said farewell to.
Near the end of the evening, all the attendees, well those who could still speak coherently and mostly stand, told me it was the most amazing and brewfully tasty party they had ever experienced. I’d like to think my stories helped them come to that conclusion, but I have no misconceptions. I know and you know it was predominantly, say 99.999998%, the 60 different types of beer they helped consume through the evening. Alcohol is amazingly resourceful in that regard. Still, it was a great night for me as well. By morning all beer had been opened and most of the bottles were empty. I think Rob was the one who said that the hangover was worth it and he’d gladly do it again if I ever made another beer journal then needed to be let go.
I’m not sure I’d recommend this practice… well repeatedly anyway. For me… I think it was worth the experience at least once. Who knows it might even be more worthwhile if you are actually a beer drinker. Although, I’m not sure how effective an evening of storytelling and letting go would be if the storyteller became schnookered during the process. Yes schnookered. This is a technical term meaning epically inebriated, plus… it’s a lot more fun to say than “really, really drunk”.
If you happen to be a sad drunk it might be a little rough on your friends when you you get to the beer that you picked up as a journal entry for your favorite teams playoff finals cup bowl game and they ended up losing. Causing you to get all emotional while drinking that beer and telling everyone it tasted of tears and failure. Then while cradling the empty bottle in your arms you start weeping. Remember the celebration of the beer journal should be a positive thing. If you only get beer entries for the bad things that happen I recommend stopping the beer journal before you even start. Then again, if you decide to give it a go, it then becomes all about your and your journey, so who knows, maybe it will help. Good luck to any of you that decide to give this a try. Feel free to send any questions you may have about it.
As for you, any of you have your own odd type of journaling? What are your thoughts on the beer journal?
Image Sources:
Google Images, key words: bottled beer, beer in ice, Tori Amos in concert, telling story, and birthday party.
by Richard Timothy | Feb 25, 2010 | I Think There's a Point, It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, Life Characters, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking
One of things that always gets me smiling is when I reminisce with myself about old friends… sometimes, when I’m lucky, others are there to hear the stories about these characters from my past. These stories are about people who have come into and gone out of my life. They are the “time and place” people of my life. They were there for a time and will always have a place in my mind that I get to share with others from time to time. I think we all have people like this in our lives. So what better way than to pay homage than to share some of things about them that always made me smirk.
Nobody is one of the first ones that comes to mind. Then again, he usually is when the topic of unusual friends begins being shared with current friends. Nobody was a regular at Caffe Ibis, the coffee shop I worked at when I was going to the university in Logan, Utah. I was working in the deli section of the place, which was brilliant because of the creative license we always had to make some random lunch special from scratch each morning. One of my favorite parts was writing the story behind the special on the special of the day board. A bit of a shocker I know. We were a “conscious” deli, using local growers when we could and always using organic products whenever possible. The coffee was more “conscious” than the food. The owners specialized in triple certified organic coffee, which for coffee connoisseurs means something. They roasted the beans right in the back. (Incert deity of your choice here)! That place stunk, especially during those roasting times. Then again you know my feelings about coffee aromas so it does make some sense.
Being a local and alternative coffee shop and cafe we attracted a particular type of clientele. I mean we attracted all types of people, but we became a hangout for the local hippie kids. So much so, that on more than one occasion we found a particular type of plant growing next to the trees in the growing pots that were outside on the sidewalk.
Is all this necessary? I don’t know. But it does give you the setting for when I first met Nobody. He came in for some hummus, pita bread, and a cup of joe. My friend Kyle, and co-worker, already knew him.
“Hey Nobody.”
“Hey Kyle. Hey new guy.”
“This is Rich.”
I smiled, thinking to myself, “Nobody? Kyle just called him Nobody. I nodded at him. “I’ll be it’s just a nickname. All the little hippie kids have nicknames. Hell, I’ll bet I only know real name of maybe three of these guys.” I then walked into the back were I could not be seen and asked Kyle to come with me for a quick minute.
“Nobody? Really? It’s a nickname right?”
Kyle smiled, “Nope.”
“Soo?”
… more smile.
“There’s a story there isn’t there?”
“Yep.”
“And you’re not telling me?”
“It’s his story.”
I called Kyle a few choice expletives, because that’s how civilized boys in there 20’s expressed appreciation to their best friends in the… always I think. Come to think of it I still do that with my brother Mike all the time. Every time we see each other he’ll yell out, “Rich!” Causing me to reply with my own cry, “Mike!” Then in unison, we yell out together, “YooouuuUU BASTARD!” And then clamp hands in a solid handshake. Granted, whenever we do this and our mom is around she always yells, “Stop it!” Every time we get to the bastard part. This always reminds us to tell her, “No offence meant mom.” And then our dad starts laughing.
Over the next few weeks I got better acquainted with Nobody. He had been in Alaska working and was back for a while deciding what he wanted to do next. He became one of these reliable work friends. They type of person that comes in a few times a week to say hello, strike up a conversation, and then go in his merry way once things started getting busy and the prospect of an active conversation became filled with the lunch hour rush. I think the official term of this is “a regular.” I did see him at the occasional party, but we never really hung out other than at work.
It was the day he came in with his new driver’s license beaming with pride, because it said Nobody ion it. So I finally asked, the two big questions, how and why? He replied, “I have scruples and I am my word, even when it’s a result of a bad conversation as a result of a very very drunken evening.”
I gave him a glass of orange juice to help with the scruples, and waited for his next sentence. I half expected it to be, “…besides it seemed like a good idea at the time.” But it wasn’t. As he unfolded his story he explained that he had made a promise, and was one to keep his promises. He and a friend were having an intensely inebriated evening and the topic of name changes came up. They started laughing at how funny it would be if one of them were to legally change their name to Nobody. Nobody volunteered that if his friend would pay for all of the costs to get it done then he would do it. The friend agreed, and make Nobody promise to do it. He promised and both agreed that it was the most brilliant idea they ever had.
The expected course of these types of conversations is, because they are incredibly common once copious amounts of liquor are involved, to be instantly dissolved once you wake up with a pounding headache and the short lived pledge that you will never drink again. In Nobody’s case, the next morning only strengthened the friends resolve that this was one of the most brilliant ideas they ever had. Some paper work, some fees, and a lovely little sit down with a judge resulted in Jonas becoming Nobody. The judge said he had to keep his last name, but that was something about my time in Logan, I made a lot of friends, but I’ll be buggered if I ever knew any of their last names. I had all their first names down, but last names… no bloody clue.
“Not everyone can do the Nobody thing.” he once told me. His parents still call him Jonas, as do a few old friends, but to me he was Nobody. It was oddly fitting. Not to mention the endless hours of personal appreciation I would get telling people I spend the afternoon talking with Nobody. Or saying I saw Nobody at last nights party. If felt like I was on the verge of starting an Abbot and Costello skit at any given moment when Nobody was in the equation.
He had this brilliant story that he would share about Broody Smooth. A local he met working in Alaska during the fishing season. Actually, I’ll share that with you tomorrow. It’s… it’s the story of Broody Smooth, there’s no other way to put it.
Nobody ended up going back to Alaska, and I lost track of him at that point. Still one of the first stories I love to share with new friends is the time I spent in Logan Utah becoming friends with Nobody.
Any of you have friends who have changed their names?
Image Source:
Google Images, key words: name is nobody, hippies, glass of oj, and who’s on first.
![Farewell Pillsbury… Part 2: Just Kidding. (Insert embarrassed smile here!)]()
by Richard Timothy | Feb 18, 2010 | I Think There's a Point, It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking
The title might be a little misleading, but I does crack me up a little. I have tried three different times to start this post… on a plus note I now have three new posts already started. I mostly just wanted to introduce this filler post. You know, one of those, “oh I’ve this is a bit different that the usual stuff, but I still wanted to share something with all of you today. I am working on something a bit bigger that’s taking a bit more of my time at the moment, but I don’t want to say what it is just yet.” kind of posts.
Ah bugger, sort of gave that one away didn’t I?
That being said, it’s now time to use our cute little fuzzy feline friends for the purpose of our own fun fill amusement. I’ll bet PETA would have a word or two for me as a result of that. Which I’d have to explain that they took it out of context and I many put it that way because I wanted to see how many f words I could fit in a sentence without making particularly obvious. I’m just sharing random “cute” photos that I didn’t even take, showing a kind of cute visual dialogue about an evening full of drinking with your mates.
The idea for this is bit below is borrowed, and in some cases a direct copy and paste image wise, from a random e-mail a friend sent me a year or so ago. I don’t know the original source, so I apologize for the lack of origin reference. Still, it does make me smile a bit.
Please note that no cats were pissed, hammered, sloshed, ripped, three sheets, snookered, wasted, blitzed, or any other words used to describe the state of inebriation for the purpose of this post.
A night out with your mates…
Step 1: Drink two beer… check.
Step 2: Drink three glasses of wine… check.
Step 3: Consume four kamikazes, without using a straw… check.
Step 4: Shared pitcher of margarita with your mates… check.
Step 5: Down one shot of Jagermeister, and then one more just to make sure you took the first one… check.
Step 6: Spend the rest of night with your very own bottle of Jack Daniel’s… check.
Step 7: Look in the mirror the next morning after spending an evening consuming two beers, three glasses of wine, four kamikazes, a shared pitcher of margarita, two shots of Jagermeister, and a bottle of Jack with people who are supposed to be your friends….
…BASTARDS!
Any thoughts on this one?
Image Sources:
Google Images, key words: cats, funny cats, and drunk cats.
![Farewell Pillsbury… Part 2: Just Kidding. (Insert embarrassed smile here!)]()
by Richard Timothy | Feb 12, 2010 | Confessed Confidentially, I Think There's a Point, It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, Lightbulbs and Soapboxes, My List of Things that Don't Suck, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking
I’ve started creating a list of things I think I’d be willing to try that I’m typically in opposition to. Things that fall under the “doing it for the experience” chapter of life that I think everyone keeps track of, even if it is just a mental note in the imaginary book of our life. I’m not sure this chapter is ever included in biographies, but I think if they did include it, it would definitely add to any books overall readability.
I don’t consider this the same as that list people make as a “to do” list before moving on, powering down, challenging Death, passing into nothingness, or getting your wings, depending on which mythos caters to your needs best in the dying department. Apparently this list always has a connection with buckets, or something.
The basic concept of those types of lists seems to have an arch nemesis quality about them. They are commonly filled with the extremes of life, or as American marketing felt was the necessary approach X-TREMEs of life. These are often things that might put you closer to death than you were at before you started the list. Things like bungee jumping off a bridge… with no bungee cord. You know, things like that.
The list I am talking is a lot of the time about the impulse of the moment, and after saying that I can see how making this list is a bit counter productive in regards to the impulse factor. The thing is, the list is not always for future tense experiences. Instead of it being filled with things you will do, it’s also for the things you have done. So the list is not always full of positive experiences. Some of the experiences were just, well, for experience.
Going to my first and only professional bouncy ball sporting event, which oddly when put like that covers far more sporting “things” than I initially thought… basket ball, my first and only professional basketball game. It was years ago and the tickets were my tip for ordering a pizza. It was the damnedist thing. It was a snow packed afternoon and I didn’t want to cook so I ordered a pizza and when it finally arrived the first thing the delivery man asked me was if I had any plans for next Thursday night.
This caught me a bit off guard. I told him I thought he was cute and was sure he was a lovely person, but he really wasn’t my type. His eyes opened uncomfortably wide while he replayed the whole conversation back in his mind. It reminded me of a baby’s face when it is being tossed in the air. During that freefall phase, there is always that “why the hell are you doing this to me” look of horror. 
It isn’t until they are caught they start smiling and giggling again… or crying. I’ve seen plenty as well. The delivery boy did not cry, instead he caught himself. When he realized what he had said he smiled, and explained that I had won two tickets to a Jazz game, who is only professional sports team that Utah has, I think.
My first impulse was to sell them. Then I started thinking. Perhaps going to a live game would give me some additional perspective to help me better understand the personal mystery that is sports. I asked a friend to go with who was actually a fan of the team and the sport, thinking it might help. It didn’t… well it did in the sense that he could tell me what color of team jersey I should be cheering for based on our proximity to the surrounding fans and who they were cheering for. As for sport appreciation, I still don’t get it, but I went damn it. I did it for the experience.
Sky diving in bowling shoes was another one of these things to add to my experience list. I dug that one though. I went with my two little sisters. It was Steph’s 18th birthday present to herself. It was good, good day. Trying wine for the first time during my first trip to Italy was another experience for the list that just sort of stuck, which should help explain my affinity for Italian wines. It was in the town of Manarola, in Cinque Terre. Sigh, I love that place. Spending a summer in San Francisco turned out to be one of those “seemed like a good idea at the time” experiences, which landed on the “did it for the experience” list with one of those “disastrous experience” asterisks placed right at the beginning, in bold.
Who knows maybe some day I’ll post about each one of these little experiences, but it would probably be a result of a “did it for the experience” for blogging while inebriated.
Things that I’ve recently thought of that I’d probably throw on the list are:
- Sampling a pint of Guinness in a pub in England or Ireland. Having never tried beer in any country, and really having no desire to try any, sampling some Guinness in a pub setting has doable element to it. Sample being the clarifying word in that. Sorry, but I’m afraid I cannot commit to anything more than a sampling at this point.
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Go to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field and eat a ball park frank. I really don’t care about seeing them play, but I’d like to put the eating a frank at Wrigley Field on my list, and I don’t eat hot dogs. I’ve haven’t since I learned with they were made of some 20+ years ago.
- Drinking a correctly made cup of tea is something that made my list of required experiences ever since two days ago when I came across that section in The Salmon of Doubt, and just might just happen this weekend.
- Sitting in a tub of jell-o might belong on my list. Sure it sounds wrong on multiple levels, but if it goes bad I imagine the worst that would happen is that it could result in an international campaign of “shit you should never do”. Ohhh…
- Create an international campaign for “shit you should never do”.
- And… spend more than 15 minutes creating my things to get to for my “did it for the experience” list.
The nice thing about these lists, they are always a work in progress. Although, don’t confuse this with an excuse or justification list. If your actions result in emotionally or physically hurting another person and you try to claim you did if for the experience… no! Piercing your naughty bits is something one might do for the experience. Hurting someone for the experience defines you as a douche and places you right below that ring of nasty growth that forms in the toilet if you stop cleaning it for s few weeks on the list of brainless life forms.
How about you? What is something you’d put on your “for the experience” list?
Image Sources:
Google Images, key words: to do list, Utah Jazz, Manarola Cinque Terre, and Wrigley Field.
Well bugger… again… Soooo you know when lose something. There is a standard process that you experience. I think it’s the 7 or 8 steps for handling loss. Yes, 7 or 8, the eighth step may or may not happen. It’s always a toss up really. It just turns out that in my case, this time, I did get to experience all 8 steps.
Yeah, so opps. I guess I could feel a little silly for dedicating Friday’s post to the loss of my little notebook, but I really see no point. It just makes me laugh more than anything. Besides I take comfort knowing that it’s something that everyone has done. It’s one of those random common experiences that bring us together as a species that no one really thinks about as an experience that brings us all together. Or to put it a little more plainly it’s one of those, “Hey look! I’m just like you.” experiences.
