The Most Useless Conversation I Ever Had

Late in my senior year of college, I found myself quite characteristically drunk and socializing at a friend’s party. I was talking with a fellow student, a Bio major if memory serves, when I mentioned my intent to pursue writing as a career. His eyes lit upon hearing this, not out of shared interest but out of recognition that I wasn’t the only person he knew with this passion.

“You have to meet my friend” he exclaimed, unable to control himself. “He’s a writer too, and one of the funniest guys I know.”

Now I’ve long known that I have somewhat of a knack for this–that is to say, the art of combining words into cogent thoughts and phrases. I’m always on the lookout for others with this talent, telling myself it’s a search for kindred spirits, but knowing all the while it’s merely scoping out the competition.

Whenever I go into these meetings, it’s with the hopes that I’ll connect with this other writer in a transcendent, almost romantic way. I wonder if we’ll enjoy the same styles and share interest in genre or syntax. We could become writer-buddies, sharing projects and creating worlds we’d never have imagined on our own.

Ultimately this is never the case for two reasons:  One, I truly believe that every writer’s words are his own, and for that reason I’ll never find my perfect match in text. Two, I’m far too stubborn and selfish a writer to cooperate amicably.

Nevertheless, I went into this meeting at the party with the same high hopes as always. The Bio major had left, but he quickly returned with his friend. Like a seasoned matchmaker, he gave us a wink and an, “I’ll leave you two alone.”

Now despite  compatibility as writers having no connection with physical appearance, I was immediately disappointed by what I saw. This gentleman was obese, with a bushy beard, a shamrock t-shirt, and a “cabbie” hat. He drank beer from a Guinness glass that, judging by the complete absence of glassware anywhere else in the party, I was left to deduce he’d probably brought from home. Far be it from me to judge someone for celebrating heritage–hell, I was vice president of the Irish club and I’m less than a quarter Irish–but when someone’s entire image is defined by stereotype, that person is doing nothing but damage. Worse, I got the impression that if an orange-tanned, muscled guido had walked through the door, this guy would have scoffed unironically, convinced of his moral superiority.

He drank deeply before asking me what I wrote. I told him it was screenplays, mostly. “Oh yeah?” he asked, taking another swig, “What style?”

“Comedy,” I said, surprised by his look of exasperation as I did so. He was rolling his eyes.

“I know, but what kind?”

I’ll admit I was profoundly confused by the question. To me, comedy just is. Sure, every comedian has his or her voice, but it always comes back to finding humor in something and using that to make others laugh. Unsure of how to respond, I started listing some of my favorite movies, the ones I find to be particularly poignant and inspiring.

“That’s white-cover comedy,” he said with a sneer. “You really should find your own thing.”

I really didn’t like the judgmental tone he was giving me, nor did I like his use of the term “white-cover comedy” as something only I was stupid enough to not know. My research later that night, as well as numerous times since, has failed to provide any information or consensus toward the meaning of “white-cover comedy”. I tend to think he just made it up.

After a long pause, I tried to save the scraps of conversation that laid bleeding and burning on the floor between us. “So, are you a student here?” I asked.

“No.”

“Oh, where do you go to school?” I was thinking maybe he went to one of the nearby universities or, at worst, a local community college. Come to think of it, that Bio major never said anything about it…

“I’m not in school.”

“Really? Then why should I give a flying fuck what you think about my comedy?” Only instead of screaming it, I just wished it. Here I was, talking to a poorly groomed pile of flesh who was making it hard for me to decide which would turn up a lower number: his IQ, or his life expectancy. If nothing else, I tend to believe college parties should be reserved for those with at least the intention of being in college.

“Well, good luck,” he said as he walked away. I watched him return to his group of friends and continue drinking without saying much. And yet, for as uninteresting and unfunny as he was, I remember him to this day. He became a hallmark to me, an icon of a bar set so low that I can always say, “Well, at least I’m not that kid.”

Michael Phelps: A Love Story

From the diary of Steve, the guy who ruined Michael Phelps’ life:

August 17th, 2008–

USA! USA! We did it, baby! EIGHT golds for Phelps! This is the happiest moment of my life, aside from losing my virginity in the back of my dad’s old Pontiac when I was 16.

I can’t wait to get back to school, SENIORS ‘09 BABY! Me and my bros totally gotta play this new drinking game I came up with–a beer for every gold medal Phelps won. Get it? 8 Beers! Or if we really want to get wrecked, a beer for every Olympic Medal he’s won (16!).

From the diary of Melissa, his (future) girlfriend:

August 14th, 2008–

Swimming is like, my new favorite sport. This Michael Phelps is so hot, I’m totally putting his picture up in my dorm this semester. Omg I heard he eats like 10,000 calories a day. If I did that I’d get soooo fat! Haha but it sounds like fun!

From the diary of Steve:

September 5th, 2008–

I met the girl of my dreams today. She’s smoking hot, we totally have the same interests in music (Jack Johnson and Sublime, baby!), and I walk in her room and who do I see a life-sized poster of on the wall? MICHAEL PHUCKING PHELPS! God, I think I’m in love.

From the diary of Melissa:

September 20th, 2008–

There’s this guy Steve from my Calc class, I swear to God he won’t leave me alone. Yeah, he’s pretty cool, but he tries waaaaay too hard. He like, still wears a sideways hat and sunglasses and stuff. SO lame.

And I mean, yeah, I went to a party with him, and yeah we hooked up that night. And the next night. And all last week. But that doesn’t mean we’re dating, right? Now he keeps calling and texting all the time like, “c u l8r baib” and “one tree hill 2nite?” But I guess he’s the best I can do right now.

From the diary of Joey, the kid whose bong Phelps hit:

November 2008–

Last night was EPIC. I threw the craziest party this campus has ever seen. Michael Phelps, that mad good Olympic swimmer guy–he SHOWED UP at MY party! Dude, I got ripped with MICHAEL PHELPS! I pulled out my bong, the big one, which I like to call it Barney Rubble because when you hit it sends you back to the STONE AGE, and Michael Phelps was all like “Yeah man, pass it here!” I swear, man, I’m never washing this thing again!

Yo, Mike, can I call you Mike? We gotta hang out again. Hit me up on Facebook!

From the diary of Michael Phelps:

November, 2008–

God, I was so hung over this morning. How did I end up in South Carolina? Damn. I woke up next to some girl, I think her name was Alyssa, or Tina, or Tricia. I don’t really remember, it was a crazy night. Shit, Phelps, get yourself together.

Thank God this backwards-ass campus had a pool I could swim in. The guy tried being all like, “Where’s your campus ID?” and I was like “Here” and I showed them my 14 gold medals, which I carry around in case something like that happens. Then I punched him in the face, because I’m the goddamn Michael Phelps.

I really hope I remembered to wrap it up this time. I really hate that awkward phone call, telling her she should get tested, trying to convince her I don’t sleep around and the herpes came from sitting on a dirty bench at a shady redneck swim meet.

From the diary of Melissa:

November, 2008–

Last night was AMAZING. Michael Phelps is all I thought he could be, and more. I wonder how he swims so fast carrying all that extra weight around, I swear it was like he had a third leg, I can barely walk today (even though it was totally worth it). Maybe he spins it around and uses it like a propeller…holy shit maybe he uses it like a propeller! I figured out his secret! I promise I won’t tell anyone, Michael, but between you and me, my baby dick boyfriend Steve won’t be winning any gold medals with me any time soon.

From the diary of Steve:

November, 2008–

I haven’t heard from Melissa in a few days, ever since we went to that party. Phelps was there, that was pretty sweet, but all my boys were acting like total dickcocks, trying to impress Phelps. Okay, he won 8 gold medals, so what? What about the gold medal he won in being ugly? No one talks about that.

Nah, I’m sorry Phelps. I didn’t mean it. I’m just mad because ‘lissa (that’s what I call her now, she loves it) ran off and I went home alone.

From the diary of Melissa:

December, 2008–

I was hanging out with Steve today and he wouldn’t stop calling me ‘lissa (which I HATE) or playing that same stupid fucking Sublime CD, it was driving me crazy! Finally I just snapped and I started yelling and then I told him about Michael Phelps, and he flipped out.

God, Steve is such a baby! We weren’t even dating that long, and it’s not like I’ve never walked in on him beating off to that girl who plays Hermione in the Harry Potter movies. Then he started crying so I told him it was over, I need to be single for a while. Besides, I want to keep my options open if Michael ever comes back to  party again (and Joey says he totally will).

From the diary of Steve:

January, 2009–

I moved back to campus today. God, that was the worst winter break ever. My parents kept asking about you-know-who, the lying, two-timing cheating bitch whore whose name I won’t even say. “When are we gonna meet her? How come she didn’t come for Christmas?” God, Mom, sometimes you make me wish the airbags hadn’t gone off when you drove home drunk that time. 

I was cleaning up some stuff in my room when I found her camera. She must’ve left it here. I was gonna throw it away but I was looking through the pictures and I found some from that night. THE night. The worst night of my life. And look what we have here–Phelps hitting a bong. I wonder how much this is worth…

From the diary of an unnamed media mogul:

January 2009–

Just checked my inbox–what’s this? Michael Phelps hitting a bong?! This is huge! This is incredible! We need to be the first to break this story, now now now! This is the kind of thing I only see in my wet dreams, seriously. We need to milk this for all it’s worth, maybe then the American people won’t realize how tremendously underprepared we are to tackle issues like the economy, Iraq, or the genocide in Sudan.

Now all we need is another pro baseball player to admit he used steroids and it’ll be like Christmas in here!

From the diary of the District Attorney:

January 2009–

We’ve got him now! That Phelps kid thinks he can come here, to my county, and get away with smoking dope? Doesn’t he watch the tv? Crack kills, and marijuana is a gateway drug, the gateway to crack! There’s no way he’s getting away with this one, he’s getting CHARGED and he will do JAIL TIME. I’ll be on the news, and they’ll write whole volumes of legal books about me–the district attorney who brought down the winningest man in Olympic history.

From the diary of Joey

February, 2009–

My parents just bailed me out after 8 hours of questioning. They’re charging me with all sorts of drug crimes, they said I could go to jail if I didn’t help with the investigation. They took Barney Rubble as evidence and they’re probably gonna do DNA tests, I wish I had washed that bong!

I’m sorry Michael Phelps, I’m sorry I told them everything! I was scared! They were threatening me, they coerced me! We’re still bros, right? We’re still gonna hang out, right? Mike?

From the diary of Steve:

February 2009–

How do you like me now, Melissa? I’m swimming in money. SWIMMING in it. I can finally take you on that cruise you wanted to go on, give you that diamond necklace (but only if you let me give you a pearl necklace too). But you know what? I’m not taking you anywhere, or giving you anything. You don’t deserve it. You broke my heart. How do you like your boy Michael Phelps now, huh? I’m the one who brought him down. It was me. I brought you John the Baptist’s head on a platter, only bigger, like Jesus, like Jesus’s head on a platter. They put his head on a platter, right? Whatever.

I hope you learned a lesson or two, Phelps: you leave dudes’ girlfriends alone, and you never fuck with me. 

Compensating for Cockroaches

You know, I really don’t find it necessary to drive excessively fast. Sure, 10 over the limit is just a fact of life, but I tend not to push it any further than that. Even when I’m running really late for something, I’ll still drive carefully because I realize that unless I drive at a superhuman speed, most times it doesn’t make that much of a difference.

I’ll admit, I’m not good with punctuality. I tell people it runs in my genes, because frankly, I’m too lazy to take responsibility for something as silly as not being somewhere at a precise moment. There’s three exceptions to the rule: first, work. Obviously if I have a paid obligation to be somewhere on time, I’ll do it. Second, movies/theater. If I have to have my ass in a padded seat facing a show by a certain time, I’ll be not only punctual, but early. I hate walking into movies or plays late. Third, if I have a long trip ahead of me, or a route I’m not as familiar with, I’ll make sure to tackle it as soon as I can.

That said, if I know I’m gonna be unavoidably late most of the time, there’s no point in getting there 17 minutes late instead of 19. I really don’t have anything to prove by driving fast. I’m not an exceptionally competitive person, and that’s what speeding seems to be. In this competion, however, there’s only losers.

In Australia, they recently launched an ad campaign implying that men who speed are compensating for small penises. Coincidentally, that’s what I think every time a car tears past me when I’m already doing 70 or 75. Now mind you, by the small-penis logic, I should be setting my cruise control at 110. The thing is, I don’t feel the need to compensate. I know I have a reasonably small penis and I’m okay with it. I’m stuck with what I was given and no amount of excessive velocity will change that. Maybe these guys are hoping they’ll get into a fiery wreck and die, being reincarnated as someone with a larger penis, I don’t know. My understanding of karma is limited, but I’m still pretty sure it doesn’t work like that. I think anyone who drives like a maniac in hopes of crashing their car and coming back to life with a larger penis should instead be reincarnated as one of those cockroaches that gets turned into a zombie by a wasp’s sting and has her larva eat it alive from the inside out. But then again, that’s just me.

By the way, look up the zombie-cockroach-wasp thing if you don’t believe me.

I See But I Don’t See

I saw an episode of “Untold Stories of the E.R.” one time where a dirty, homeless woman came into the hospital screaming “I’ve got worms in me!” Sure enough, the doctors found some sort of divot in her body filled with earthworms. She had names for them. It’s really a stretch to make this segue, but I’m gonna try: Some days I feel like that woman, except replace the “m” in “worms” with a “d”. Words. I have words in me.

The first time I can remember being like this was the fifth grade. One day, out of the clear blue sky, I felt compelled to write a poem. I’d written poems before for assignments, and I’m sure I’d written some for fun as well, but on this particular day, everything changed. It wasn’t that I wanted to write a poem, it was that I needed to. My head was pounding and overflowing with something that could only be expressed when put onto paper. I tore into the page, with the fervor and relief of a mad scientist who had just perfected reanimation. It’s ALIVE!

When I was finished, I handed the paper to my teacher and asked her to read it. I refused to show anyone else in the class—this matter was of too much importance and the only opinion I trusted was of the person who was getting paid to be there. I don’t remember much of the poem, except that it was rather terrible. It started with the line “I see but I don’t see”. I went through hearing, smell, and taste in the same fashion. “But I feel” I wrote, extolling at great lengths what I felt, and how I felt, and why feeling is more important than all the other senses combined.

There are two major aspects of myself that I can trace back to that moment in my life: first, there’s the fact that I am above all guided by my heart. Every action I take in my life is a direct result of what I feel, and what those feelings ask of me. Secondly, I discovered that I have words in me. Like a clock that can’t turn off, my mind is always ticking. I’m full of funny phrases or witty quips or stories that no one wants to hear but I can’t help telling them anyway. I have such an appreciation for diction and syntax, and I can’t help but indulge in a healthy dose of hyperbole. I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to, and I can’t say I’ve ever had the desire. It would be unfair to go as far as to call them “voices” in my head, but when describing it to a friend once, she said “You have a Muse.”  I was dumbfounded for a moment when she said this, but thinking about, I agreed. “You’re right,” I said, “I do have a  Muse.”

I remember reading a news story about a musical prodigy. They think he might be the next Beethoven, even though he’s still just a teenager. He plays the cello and can compose an entire symphony in like an hour, or something ridiculous like that. In the article, he was talking about how there’s always music going on inside his head, and if he hadn’t learned how to compose it on paper, it probably would have driven him crazy.

Now I would hardly call myself a genius or a prodigy, even though the words do have a nice ring. At the same time, I can understand what this kid goes through. Maybe my brain isn’t deafened with words the way his is with music, but I can always find them when I need them and, more often than not, even when I don’t. Sometimes I’ll blurt them out or just write them on a page and store them away for years at a time. Regardless, I have words in me, and they’re not going anywhere anytime soon. I kind of like it like that.

Boston

The first time I shaved wasn’t one of those “man” moments. There was no pipe gently smoking from the corner of my father’s mouth. Similarly, shaving was never a spectator sport to me; if I was watching TV in the other room, I wouldn’t come a-runnin’ to my Pa when I heard the can of Edge spewing its lather. Instead, shaving was one of those unceremonious events characterized by a heavy amount of trial-and-error. My dad had given me some pointers, handed me the razor, and told me to have at it.

I must have been a freshman in high school the first time I shaved, maybe even a sophomore. I’ve never been one of those hairy kids that hits puberty and has to shave three times a day (and apply deodorant twice as much). Even now, shaving every other day is pushing it. I could hold off for a week and have nothing more than my features accented with some gentle scruff. The longest I’ve gone without shaving since I started was just shy of a month, and I was still a far cry from anything resembling a beard. Maybe it was in the beard family—a distant cousin, an illegitimate black sheep twice removed—but it was nothing to be proud of. Besides, it poked and itched and irritated my face like it was made of sandpaper.

Shaving definitely takes a backseat to sleep on the priority checklist, and it’s become such a hassle that if I forget about having to shave when I set my alarm, I’ll probably be running late the next morning. For as little as I care about it, however, there was a time in my life when it was something to be coveted:

I can remember being on a school field trip to Boston when I was in the eighth grade. The trip was three days and two nights, and we all felt like little grownups with our suitcases and travel toothbrushes. Our parents had given us money for meals and souvenirs, but we all spent it on junk food and trinkets that wouldn’t even last the bus ride home. Outdoor vendors set their sights on school-trip tourist suckers like us from a mile away, and as kids, we played right into their hands.

Back in the hotel room, two of my roommates were comparing shaving techniques as if they were seasoned pros. They talked about how they “needed to” shave on a near-daily basis. I didn’t really bother telling them that no, they didn’t, and what they were doing wasn’t shaving so much as scraping away at their pimply flesh.

One of my roommates was showing off the can of shave gel he’d brought. It was a travel-size can, but he was bragging about the amount of pressure he could get from it, as if that were some sort of quality indicator. He stood in the middle of the room and held up the can, easily shooting onto the far wall. We were all impressed because, as early-pubescent teens, this feature seemed remarkably useful. Hell, practical even. My roommate might as well have been writing the words “limitless potential” as he sprayed.

I was the last to take my turn. As I pressed the button, nothing happened. That was strange, because the can still felt more than half-full. I pressed again, harder. I expected a gentle arc across the room, and I was again disappointed. After probably ten seconds holding the button, I looked to my left and noticed something over the TV. It seems the nozzle was pointed not in front of me, but to the side, and it had sprayed all over the wall directly to my left. The shape was large and green, cartoonishly ominous, like the floating head of the Wizard of Oz.

My roommates were furious with my gross incompetence, and the shaver who hadn’t brought the can put me into a headlock. Just as I was celebrating minimum supervision with excessive swearing, he was celebrating by pounding someone any time he got the chance. I ran into him at a bar last night; he’s now fighting for the UFC or the IFC or one of those shows where guys in octagonal cages beat the everloving piss out of each other.

After the mess was cleaned and I had been tackled onto the carpet a few more times, the shaving cream incident was forgotten, and it would be a while longer before I took that step into manhood. In the meantime, we cursed and smacked each other while playing GoldenEye on the Nintendo 64 the shavers had smuggled onto the trip.

Beak-to-Beak

If there’s one ad campaign in the last few years that has really bothered me, it’s Mazda’s “Zoom Zoom”. I guess I just don’t get it, but there has to be a more rational explanation than that. Something about the whole thing just bothers me, almost as much as the reggaeton iO digital cable ad does (the one with the mermaids saying “FOUR FOUR FOUR EIGHT!”).

For starters, there’s that creepy little Mazda kid. Every time a car passes, he shows up to say “Zoom Zoom”, with a strange smirk on his face and dressed as if he’s just come from his mother’s funeral. Then it usually cuts to some overhead shot of the road, but the road has changed to spell the words “Zoom Zoom” when looked at from a god’s-eye view. And at some point in the commercial—whether toward the end or near the beginning—they start singing the song where it repeats “Yah zoom zoom zoom” over and over. The thing that bothers me most about that is the fact that there’s clearly an attempt by the advertiser to capitalize on some vague tribal nature of the chant. They make it sound as if “Zoom Zoom” is some sort of cultural thing shared only by native Africans and Mazda drivers. “Zoom Zoom” starts sounding like a status symbol and less like a childish way to say “This car can go fast.”

To make matters worse, they equip all new Mazdas with “Zoom Zoom” decals on the back window, as if the world needed any more proof that you’re a douchebag. It’s almost as bad as the Hummer I was stuck behind on my commute home the other day with a license plate that read “NO MPG”. As with the Hummer, any time I see a car with “Zoom Zoom” on the back window (my Dad’s excluded), I feel compelled toward an intentional rear-end.

Such was the case as I waited in the KFC drive-through this evening. I know that there should be no complaints, considering that I was not only buying Kentucky Fried Chicken, but was too lazy to get out of my car for it. Nonetheless, I was focused on the hilarious juxtaposition of the minivan in front of me and the employee smoking a cigarette against the wall. Although she was no more than eight feet from the minivan, neither party seemed to acknowledge the fact that they were operating both ends of the drive-through call box. I watched as she spoke into her headset, the words coming from her mouth and the compressed, difficult-to-understand speaker all at the same time. Ironically enough, the minivan had a bumper sticker that was simply two penguins facing each other and almost touching beak-to-beak. I saw the man and the KFC employee in a very similar situation and thought, “Is this what America has become?”

…Until I saw the “Zoom Zoom” sticker on the back of the van and got that damn jingle stuck in my head.

Save The World, Lose The Girl

Since I getting my wrists tattooed yesterday, I’ve been staring at them with narcissistic intent. Even as I sat through the 9:40 showing of Pineapple Express, a movie groundbreaking in its mediocrity, I was more concerned with whether or not I needed to apply more ointment. I find it strangely ironic that a tattoo—long considered to be a symbol of courageous recklessness—must be watched and babied in order to look its best.

A lot of people have asked me about why I got “Save The World” tattooed on my left wrist and “Lose The Girl” tattooed on my right. First things first, Save The World, Lose The Girl was the title of Midtown’s first full-length album. While not the most groundbreaking album ever released, it was if nothing else a personal leap for me. I heard about Midtown while bickering with a schoolmate; I was wearing a P.O.D. shirt and he a Midtown shirt, and when he attacked the quality of P.O.D.’s music, I retaliated with a slur against Midtown. “Have you ever even listened to Midtown?” he asked. I admitted I hadn’t. “Well,” he said, “go home and listen to them, and if you still think they suck, we can argue some more.” I came home from school, downloaded the song “Such a Person”, and have been hooked ever since.

Of all the music I listen to now, Midtown is the one band I’ve consistently followed the longest. In retrospect, it’s clear that Save The World, Lose The Girl is more or less directly responsible for introducing me to both “underground” music and the “emo” scene (I use quotes around both words because I don’t feel like getting into semantics about proper definitions). Having “Save The World, Lose The Girl” as a tattoo is no different in meaning than if I had gotten a G clef or connected eighth notes. It represents to me the impact that music has had on my life, as well as a reminder of the things that I’ve done and the people I’ve met through music.

Beyond that, I’ve always liked the idea of “Save The World, Lose The Girl”. It’s almost a really interesting way to say “Nice guys finish last”, but I think it even goes deeper than that. A friend’s boyfriend informed me a while ago that before it was a Midtown album, this had been a quote from Spider-Man. To me, that makes perfect sense. As opposed to other superheroes, I always kind of felt for Spider-Man. Here he was, out fighting crime, while Mary Jane sits alone at the restaurant, waiting for Peter. I guess I just really connect with the thought that you can do so much for others, be a savior to the masses, and still lack the one thing you wanted most.

In all my narcissism, I’ve been staring at the right wrist more than the left. Even though my left is my dominant wrist, which serves this tattoo quite well, I find myself drawn to weaker side. See, I never had a tough time with the whole “Save The World” part. I’ve always been compelled to do what’s right, even if it’s not the easiest road. Honesty is the best policy, even though it doesn’t always come with the least consequences. The fascinating thing to me is “Lose The Girl”. I don’t see it as a suggestion; “lose” is not being used in the kick-her-to-the-curb context. Instead, I just feel like it’s a recognition that worse than not getting what you want, sometimes you have to flat-out sacrifice it. I’d like to believe that I would do what’s right—save the world—even if it meant giving up my chance at the sheer joy I’d have to watch on the faces of those around me, the ones that I saved.

And so I put it on my wrists, the text facing inward. Even though I’m still getting used to the concept of forever, as in “This will be on your body forever“, I wear it as a reminder of what’s important, and the hurt you have to put yourself through to become the person the world has always needed you to be.

A Tattoo For a Tree

There’s a picture of me floating around out there—by floating around I mean I have a copy of it and it’s on my ex-girlfriend’s Photobucket—carving initials into a tree. It was taken freshman year, when the relationship was very new. I was thinner and prettier back then; to look at it now is to stare into the face of a stranger who bears a slight brotherly resemblance.

It must have been taken sometime after Thanksgiving, because my hair is short. It seems to be an unwritten rule of college that Thanksgiving break is the weekend for guys to get a haircut, probably because that’s when they can strong-arm (read: “beg”) their parents into ponying up the money. You barely recognize your friends making their way to campus come Sunday night, and then you remember that your head, too, was keeping warmer a few days back.

I still remember that, despite my look of calm determination, I was freezing cold. My hands were white and nearly shaking as I dug into the bark. I had tried a small knife at first and, failing that, had used my roommate’s large flathead screwdriver. I returned to the room and said, “Jim, I need to borrow your screwdriver.” He responded with a simple “Okay” and handed it to me unflinchingly and without looking up from his computer. As I walked from the room, I wished that he asked more questions from time to time.

My hands were so chilled that I didn’t do a great job on the initials. We said we would go back in the spring to touch it up, but it was just one of those things that kept getting pushed further and further away until it didn’t happen. Even just going to visit our initials at the tree was something we never made time for and, ultimately, the jacket I wore when the picture was taken outlasted the relationship. Like our initials in the tree, I waited for time to slowly smooth the jagged edges.

They say it’s not good to carve things into bark, that it’s bad for the trees. The tree never really heals. Sure, eventually some bark encroaches the area, but ultimately the scar of your damage remains. It’s funny that so many couples carve their initials into trees such as we did, because what is a relationship except a scar you willingly give yourself? Like the tattoo you inflict upon the tree, your relationship is a badge that you wear, cling to, an announcement for the world that you’re happy and in love. Just as you have to cut through the bark for the words to show, so must you lower your guard and let that other person into your life. Similarly, just as it’s dangerous to strip the defenses from the tree, allowing diseases or parasites to destroy it from the inside, so can the vulnerability of relationships breed contempt, poison the love.

But sometimes the only way to let go is to lay down your guard and know that you have everything to lose. Have you ever felt the wind blow over a fresh cut on your skin? Even though you know the wind brings change, for a moment you feel hurt and open and free, and the wind swims right down into your very bones. I wonder if trees can feel it too.

The Kiss

It seems to me that there’s an awful lot of emphasis placed on firsts. Naturally there’s the competitive firsts-the first place runner in a race or the first person to climb to the top of a mountain. Similarly there’s the personal firsts, the monumental, once-in-a-lifetime moments that grace or haunt our memories for eternity. No matter how trivial, no matter how many times they might be repeated, our actions are always compared to and defined by the first.

I’m bad at first kisses. Now, it’s not that I’m a bad kisser. In fact I’m quite the opposite, but I’ll have to take it on report, because I can’t say I’ve ever been found in a situation where kissing myself was a likelihood. Still, I think you can tell a lot about a person by the way they kiss: for example, my kisses begin politely and grow in passion and intensity, allowing the person I’m kissing to take control if she should so choose. My kisses are neat—the only difference from my demeanor—and suggest a level of tidiness that my bedroom and my car fail to deliver.

I think the reason I’m bad at first kisses is that I’m too polite. I’m not a pushy guy, and I’d sooner sacrifice a goodnight kiss on the first date for the guarantee of a second date. I’m not the kind of person who ever feels comfortable just “making a move”. Every first kiss since I got out of my long-term relationship has been preceded by a tremendously awkward conversation of the events to follow. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I need a signed permission slip, but hey, at least then I’d be free of nagging doubts.

Maybe it’s because I never had a great demonstration of a first kiss. I remember being curiously fascinated by my classmates’ French kisses when I was in middle school-seeing them with mouths and tongues agape while saliva frothed and pooled at the corners of their lips. I was horrified and intrigued, yearning to take the lead in a race among my friends toward this elevated level of human interaction. It wouldn’t happen for another four years, past the age that many of my friends had lost their virginities, much less kissed someone.

There was nothing terrible about my first kiss, but like many to come, it was stilted and nerve-wracking. I was just out of a two-month high school “relationship” where my girlfriend and I talked regularly on the phone but she balked at any discussion of spending time face-to-face. She claimed she wanted the honor (or call it what you will) of my first kiss, and yet she refused to allow it possibility. The week we broke up, I decided to see a friend with whom there was a minute amount of interest. For me, the goal was getting past this stumbling block.

It was a pleasant kiss, but like most of my others was preceded with a conversation that explicitly discussed the coming attractions. In this particular instance, my friend said she knew I’d never kissed anyone before and suggested that perhaps she could be my first. With permission granted, I leaned in, only for her to keep talking. I don’t even recall what she said, because I was so flabbergasted by it all.

And then it happened. The talking ceased and we kissed, on the couch in her basement while Bon Jovi’s “Bed of Roses” played on repeat from her computer across the room. It was an attempt at romance—like a screenplay that’s had coffee spilled all over it, but the director thinks he can salvage it from memory. “They talk about it first, then ‘Bed of Roses’ starts playing on repeat and they kiss for a few minutes until her mom walks in on them.”

No wonder I lack confidence.

The Lawnmower Man

I was on my depressingly long drive home from work yesterday and I saw something that concerned me. Well I mean, possibly concerned me. It confused me quite a bit too. It was just before the woods clear for Camp Zehnder, my favorite part of the trip because of the herd of deer I occasionally see grazing there, and just after Pine Grove Day Camp, which used to be my favorite part of the trip until they put up a tall fence around the property, no longer allowing me to vicariously live out my unrealized dreams of a childhood camp experience.

There’s a stoplight now at the intersection between Pine Grove and Zehnder, and it was while paused here briefly that I saw it: a father holding his daughter at his hip. Now normally, I probably wouldn’t think anything of it. Sure, holding the child against the hip is more the seasoned stay-at-home-Mom’s posture, but I’m sure there’s plenty of Dads out there who can do it. I support equal rights in parenting, but in this case, there were three things that struck me about it:

• The father seemed pretty inept at holding the kid.
• The kid seemed way too old and too big for such treatment.
• The father was holding the kid off the side of a riding lawnmower.

The look on the father’s face seemed completely oblivious of the gravity of the situation (as well as the one working against his daughter’s safety). It was as though he’d come home from the supermarket and had forgotten to put his bulk-size bag of dog food in the pantry before deciding the lawn needed a trim.

I spent the rest of the ride home trying to decipher what I’d seen. At first I assumed it was just a horribly misguided attempt at letting the kid ride along with Daddy while he mowed. Then I thought that, given the circumstances and the fact that he was operating a machine with the express intent of dismembering whatever is left underfoot, wouldn’t it have made more sense to take the less cavalier route and just let her sit on his lap? He could have even let her pretend to steer, in a John-Deere-Meets-Norman-Rockwell kind of moment–a series of paintings that would have started by showing the prologue, the daughter sweating and frustrated as she fails to move a push lawnmower comically larger than her own frame while her father watches with pipe in mouth, and ending with the daughter straddling the father’s knee on the riding mower, the larger set of hands on the steering wheel guiding the smaller.

Now that I was armed with the certainty that what I’d seen was not, in fact, wholesome Americana, I came to the only realization I could: clearly this was some sort of punishment. The look on the kid’s face was of extreme unenthusiasm; had I not seen small movements and shifts of weight, I would have chalked the whole thing up to a strange man mowing his yard with a child-size dummy at his side. Instead, this seemed to me a discipline with waning effects and a father running out of ideas. Sure, when she was a little younger and had misbehaved–perhaps refused her vegetables, or failed to clean her room–her father might have been able to threaten her. “If you don’t finish your homework right now Daddy is gonna get the MOWER!” She’d have grappled at her father’s pant legs, crying and pleading. This repeated until one day, in the throes of a particularly strong tantrum, she actually tested his will. He forced her to dangle off the side of the mower while she thrashed and squirmed, kicked and screamed. After a few hours, when the tears had dried and her swollen eyes had returned to normal size, she realized hey, it wasn’t so bad. Now, as time has gone by, the mower has become increasingly ineffectual and, even though she promises to never disobey again, she knows that sooner or later she’ll be too big to dangle.

I feel bad for anyone who saw the title of this post and thought it was about the movie, The Lawnmower Man. Really, it’s about a man so inadequate that as he cuts the grass, he wonders which is dangling more precariously: his skills as a father or his daughter, off the side of his riding mower?