It was then I realized I had created this specter of fear, which followed me. It was like a thick, billowing balloon that I had breathed air and shape into with my own self-doubt.

Now it reminds me of past failures that didn’t matter: getting fired from a job waiting tables, then thinking, it’s really okay that I’m not a good waiter. I can recover from that. But to not try and fail at what I knew I should do, that wasn’t okay.

Dawn has a tic that comes on with her one eyelid sometimes when she’s extra tired and beaten-down. I’ve seen the same in three of my project manager mentors: they all have the same twitch.

Now, I can squeeze a soft button and transport myself into a sea of infinite possibilities. There’s a setting where I can even just shake it. So what has happened is, I can’t put all my attention to what’s presented in the moment because there’s so many other places I could be.

How he was really a jerk at heart, but good against a tree
How the only way she could get him to act civil in restaurants
was to let him smoke out, beforehand

To make matters worse, he was a famous mountaineer in the region
so I got to hear about him from others, too

They spoke in reverent tones about the one time they got to share the back of a VW camper with him
Or, about the time they saw him on some obscure backcountry route:
How just seeing him, and talking to him had made their whole trip more special, somehow

It wasn’t the fact that it was true that she made it with him in the outdoors,
It was the fact that she was telling me about it,
and the message she was trying to send.

I wrote something recently about rejoicing in putting away the Christmas decorations, and not being too gentle about it. Today, I grabbed hold of the greens on the mantle and the hall tree, and stuffed them in the Yard Waste bin. It feels good to get it out of your home.

My mom left too, and right now she must be six or seven hours ahead of us, about to be a full nine hours, arriving in Germany around 9:30 tomorrow morning. At times I think she loves me most because I remind her of herself, and that somehow redeems her.

One of my pledge brothers was a guy called Squirrel. He was older than the rest of us, and had GEEK written all over him, but soon I realized that Squirrel had a line on all the local Erie drug connections which garnered him special interest with the fraternity (and protection from hazing).

He also had a large, Victorian home we could use for partying one weekend; this was my first exposure to acid.

The best part of it was me in a closet, having managed to get wrapped up in there amid a pile of dress socks who all started talking in different, distinct cartoon voices. My imagination will never be that pure again.

Another figure who rotated around our fraternity was a short rugby player named Grundy. He drove me home as the light was coming up in the sky, and large snowflakes landed on the windshield. When we arrived at my rental, the police were there in the driveway and fluorescent green paint was splattered all over the house and lawn. It was not my imagination; Grundy saw it too.

I loved the kid for his nervousness but still, wanted to give him a good rattling. Why go soft if the whole point was to give him experience interviewing?

“Now I know you’re early in your career, but tell me, what are some of the major highlights of your career that come to mind, and how do you think these highlights make you a good fit at Starbucks?”

I was instantly bored by the content of his answer and fixated on his physicality, how he was carrying himself, the music of his speech. He was a rich kid I was pretty sure, judging by the fact that he had worked for his parent’s high-end residential construction business on the east side, and this rich kid life had landed him here at Starbucks somehow for an interview, taking up my time, when there wasn’t even a position open, it was all fictitious, an “informational interview.”

We went around the table asking the situation-based behavioral interview questions, and then one of the other interviewers said alright, come around here to the white board and show me a marketing plan: go ahead.

The kid shot up and walked over to the white board, then paused: “What kind of marketing plan?”

“Any kind.”

He got flustered. “Well, what’s the topic? Is it a marketing plan or strategy plan?”

“You decide. Educate me.”

It was an evil thing to do, but he got through it, and then I realized at the end of the interview that it was absolutely the best thing to do.

It wasn’t always like this, thinking back. There was actually a time when it was really special to dub something for someone, and hand write the songs on a folded paper insert. This left opportunities for personalization in small details that have all but vanished now, or been replaced by more “dynamic” options, online. But it feels less intimate to me, is the problem.

I really fell in love with my records. Maybe it’s because I was like 16, and tripping out in general, hormonally-speaking, but I would go through the lyrics as if they were some secret transcript, taking it apart and matching it to the voice behind the words, then comparing it back to the photos. The music came alive to me.

Going through my iTunes library feels like going through a Rolodex, but more cumbersome. This is my own fault, for being such a crack ho about free music, and slathering on more and more free files, passed on through thumb-drives and DVDs. Now, this excess is preventing me from connecting with anything; most of my records I haven’t even listened to. And they’re not records anymore, they’re files.

There are ways to upload “mixes” for others to pull down on blogs, and probably Facebook. I am tempted to figure out how to do this because I miss making mix tapes, but it really isn’t the same. That should be okay, life goes on. Things don’t need to be (and shouldn’t stay) “the same.” I miss the loss of intimacy, though, and my kids will never know what I’m talking about.

The queen is dead, boyz

“You and Charlotte are plenty, honey.”

The doctor was matter-of-fact, swift, and at times, downright gruff in the way he handled me. It was as if he carried displeasure about his job at the core of it, and the potential “gay” quality of having to handle men’s scrotums and shafts all day, for a living. He offset the gay part by compensating with what felt like unnecessary gruffness in the way he handled me, especially with the tape.

He said, “you okay?” and I nodded, it was over.

“You’re not sterile until two negative specimens six weeks after 12 ejaculations. No sex today. Frozen corn, frozen vegetables on the groin. Every half hour, half-on, half-off. Keep your hands on your groin and your head down until the nurse comes in.”