And the title of this specific blog post is, my friend, a scientific fact. I posted ten mini-blog posts last week, unsure what the reaction would be and uncertain whether I'd actually have the time or energy to create ten more of them (let alone twenty). I still can't promise the full twenty, but the reaction last week was positive, so I wanted to keep going. The same rules apply as those from last week:- I apologize for being selfish and self-indulgent, but a man only turns 30 once and if you don't like the approach, you're welcome to read something else!
- I wrote these when I had time throughout the week, so some of them reflect serious effort and others... well, you'll see once you read them. All of them should be somewhat interesting and only moderately offensive, though.
20. On buying a home: it’s like going to graduate school or (presumably) having a child. People can tell you how much work it’s going to be beforehand, but you have to experience it firsthand in order to fully understand it. The specific home we bought, fortunately, was in good shape when we bought it – but of course knowing that induces the agita of keeping it in good shape. For instance, I’m writing this at 9:00 am on a Saturday. I woke up at 7:00 to return the Rug Doctor (a/k/a Dr. Rug, Ph.D.) to the supermarket before the 24 hour rental period ran out, and since I was awake, after breakfast I went outside to clean the siding on the front and back of the house using Windex and paper towels. My father-in-law is coming by at 9:30 with the power washer so I can finish cleaning the rest of the outside of the house, since north-facing sides of homes tend to get moldy after a while. This is a pretty typical weekend morning (from around April to November) for me. So if you plan to give a shit about it, or unless you’re so loaded you can outsource everything, owning a house is like a part-time job. But it’s a fun part-time job; when I started my twenties, I could barely turn a screwdriver. Now I can complete basic home improvement tasks in a marginally competent manner. That, my friend, is progress.
19. It’s remarkable that I’m about to entire a decade where I’ll be working, followed by a decade where I’ll be working, followed by – if I’m fortunate enough to stay healthy and have skills that remain in demand – a decade where I’ll be working. Looking back, I’ve only really “worked” (outside of an academic context) for six years out of my life so far. The most important lessons of my career are yet to be learned, but I’ll say this: I see lots of people out there, either by necessity or (worse) by choice, living to work. I intend, to the extent possible, to work to live my life. Ain’t no wishing I spent more time in the office on my deathbed.
18. I originally planned a post on my
favorite songs of the last ten years, but that feels a little too personal to
me – a little like showing everyone who reads this my underwear drawers. Instead, I’ll do the sonic alternative of
showing you my sock drawer, by listing the musical artists I’d never heard of
ten years ago, and whose presence has markedly and positively impacted my life in
the years since then:The Killers (holy crap, Hot Fuss turns ten next year – that makes me feel older than anything else I’ve written); The Shins and their step-cousin, Broken Bells; The Black Keys; Arcade Fire; Citizen Cope; Dragonforce; The Gaslight Anthem; M83; The National; MGMT; and last but not least, a band whose music was featured prominently in my wedding reception, MuteMath.
17. And let’s not forget the classic artists who I learned to appreciate over the last ten years: Roy Orbison, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Stevie Wonder, Boz Skaggs, The Beach Boys, and Bruce Hornsby and/or the Range.
16. There are still moments where I feel like the world has changed very, very little since I was a kid. I’m writing this blurb on a work-from-home Friday in October, when the office is pretty quiet and I don’t have a ton of pressing work to do at the moment. It’s also the first full day of the Divisional Series in baseball, and Bob Costas and Jim Kaat are announcing a playoff game from the National League on the MLB Network. In addition to being objectively fantastic at capturing the buzz of a playoff environment, Costas and Kaat are my favorite-ever baseball play-by-play and analyst combination, because they remind me so much of watching playoff games – typically in the late afternoon in October, on a small TV in my bedroom when I should have been focusing on school work – when I was in middle school or high school. Though I watched both sports as a kid, I don’t watch basketball or hockey anymore. And with respect to football, John Madden retired years ago and Pat Summerall is dead. So on a perfect fall afternoon in October, being able to pop on the TV and just listen – and not really care about the Cardinals or the Pirates, but to idly sit there and absorb the conversation between these two guys who know a ton about baseball, and don’t care much about advanced statistics or what it means to be a true Yankee – at age 30 is a real treat.
15. A big part of maturity is being comfortable enough within yourself to stay at home on a Friday night, by yourself, and watch TV and drink a couple of beers. I’m not saying I’m there quite yet, I’m just saying it’s a big part of maturity.
14. I was a student at Rutgers
University ten years ago, and now, as an alumnus and football season ticket
holder, I am amazed at how far the program has come. I distinctly remember being in the Rutgers sports
radio studios as a freshman (I harbored dreams of being a sports announcer back
then), listening as an awful Rutgers team – which would eventually finish 1-11
– hung with a then-dominant University of Miami team on the road. But ultimately, the program would improve,
and now if Rutgers football doesn’t at least make it to a bowl game, that’s a
bad season. Fans have become more
serious, too; even the most casual fans at our tailgate can speak with some
clarity about the key players on the team and the matchup at hand. That’s awesome when you consider where the
program came from; a perennial laughing-stock and a Sports Illustrated
cover-dweller (for all of the wrong reasons).
It’s also a testament to Rutgers as a sprawling, decentralized,
overly-bureaucratic institution that they were able to keep their collective
head screwed on straight long enough to allow the program to be
successful. I’m actually pretty stoked
about this season, and I think we have a chance to beat Louisville this
Thursday (ED: though we did not). 13. My close friends know my cigar rule, which I (largely) follow. I smoke one cigar per month, and I make it a good one. I remain incredibly concerned that if I were to smoke cigars too frequently, I’d end up addicted to smoking – something not conducive to my ultimate long-term goal of writing forty of these fucking mini-post things ten years from now. The problem is, cigars are awesome. Seriously, if you don’t smoke them, you should start. The diversity of flavor in the universe of cigars is so wide, and the process of making cigars still so personal, that you can live your entire life taking notes on cigars and never find two that are exactly the same (even two of the same kind!). Cigars pair well with coffee, beer, and whiskey. You can have one alone or with friends, sober or while drinking. My favorite time/place for a stogie is outside on the back patio, reading a book and listening to music with the lights on in the evening. Plus, you don’t ever inhale the smoke, so you can have one and run a double-digit mile run the next day with no ill effects. In moderation, they do not increase one’s risk of getting cancer, and the only problem I have with smoking them is I have to brush my teeth twice afterward. Cigars, for the win.
12. I spent years of my twenties maligning other people’s incorrect use of Facebook. Because I was on Facebook from the very beginning, I see it as a static community perpetually for the benefit of people who are in the same phase of their lives I was in back in college. To be perfectly honest, I still don’t understand where all of everyone’s drunken pictures went (I guess they were replaced with baby pictures). Speaking of baby pictures, I will concede there is a place for them, but it isn’t Facebook (most of the time). Parents should get an Instagram account, or ask their family and close friends to join a Google Hangout – that way, people can opt into the onslaught of parent-specific nonsense. I remain a Facebook strict constructionist, and will prove it with drunken pictures of myself at my 30th birthday party. Anyway, I read somewhere that within the next 10-15 years, we are going to elect someone into a position of power in this country regardless of the publicized embarrassing or explicit photos of them from their younger days. This is the natural evolution of our society’s moral relativism, and as a moral relativist, I personally think it’s a splendid idea.
11. Speaking of my 30th birthday party, I vacillated on what I wanted to do for what seemed like months. But I’m satisfied with my final decision – a party bus for approximately 20 people to Borgata, in Atlantic City. You can find me there late Saturday night into early Sunday morning next weekend, just look for the drunk guy in a suit playing irresponsible blackjack.
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