BrockLi Soup

Just for the record, I was humping trucks WAY before it went mainstream.

Once in a while, I start writing a post and save it so I can finish it later on. I wrote this post the afternoon of Monday, August 8 last summer, but I lost interest or forgot about it entirely before I could finish and post it. This is the original version:

Now that graduation is nearly upon me, I’ve started looking through job listings to see what’s available to me. A lot of the requirements include languages or systems I don’t know and experience I don’t have. I think about what I’ve learned in college and look for jobs with those requirements, but it occurred to me that the things I’m good at and enjoy doing weren’t learned in class. So what DID I learn in class? I’ve spent four years and thousands upon thousands of dollars; was it worth it?

I learned to share a room with someone who isn’t related to me. I learned to get along with fifty strangers that had suddenly become the closest neighbors I’ve ever had. I learned how to sleep through anything and everything, because I had to.

I learned that my most productive hours are from 10 PM to 3 AM.

I learned which classes could be skipped every other day without serious side effects.

I learned about foreign cultures, and how the daily lives of people around the world are wildly different from my own and each others’. I picked up a thing or two about philosophy. I know that I can eat three meals a day for about a dollar if Wegman’s macaroni and cheese is on sale.

I learned how to teach myself, and that I can do it better than almost anyone else. I learned how to live with no money, no car, and, for a long time, no phone.

I learned to appreciate country music after spending the first 17 years of my life hating it. I learned about dozens of new bands and musicians, and found that some of the music I was listening to before is pretty terrible.

I learned that some people get upset about things that I wouldn’t even notice. I learned that life is way too short to worry about anything that isn’t immediately threatening your well-being or that of a friend, and that laughing at life is the best way to get through it.

I re-learned the importance of reading.

I learned a lot about myself and finally got a pretty good idea of who and what I am.

I learned that finding a job is more about who you know than what you know. I learned that I don’t know everything, but I can be pretty damn convincing even when I don’t. I learned about politics.

I learned to appreciate my family; absence really does make the heart grow fonder. My brothers have grown up a lot, enough that I can actually have meaningful conversations with them both. I learned that Mom and Dad are right more often than I ever could have admitted four years ago.

I spend most of my day at work with my headphones on, letting iTunes shuffle me though a musical smorgasbord, but when a new song or album catches my attention, I tend to queue it up a couple times a day. And, since my opinions are so highly respected, I thought I’d share them with you.

Harvey Danger - Happiness Writes White (Little by Little)
I haven’t really listened to the rest of the album, but Happiness Writes White is fantastic. It sounds kind of like Flagpole Sitta and Sad Sweetheart, but a little mellower and happier.

The Fray - Over My Head, and How To Save A Life (How To Save A Life)
These two keep getting stuck in my head. They drive me a little bit crazy.

Billy Talent - This Suffering (II)
Really, most of this album is pretty good, but This Suffering is my favorite. A couple of the songs sound disjunct, like Red Flag - the slower verses explode into a furious chorus that just doesn’t fit the rest of the song. It’s a great album for the gym - the opening of Devil in A Midnight Mass is the best way to start a workout.

Ben Folds - Bitches Ain’t Shit (iTunes Exclusive, I think)
Ben Folds covering Dr. Dre seems like it would be funny for a little bit, but it’s actually a really good song.

Teddy Geiger - For You I Will (Underage Thinking)
Don’t you judge me. This song was the main plot point in the only episode of Love Monkey that I got to see (which I loved), so it sort of stuck. Plus, the little bastard is from Buffalo too, so that makes it OK, right?

Under the Influence - Mama’s Room
I got this as an iTunes single of the week. They sound like Scissor Sisters on a good day.

Flogging Molly - Black Friday Rule (Whiskey on a Sunday)
Black Friday Rule is definitely better live, especially when it runs 13 minutes. I was really looking forward to the studio version of Laura - the live version on Alive Behind the Green Door was pretty good, but I was expecting it would be even better once they cleaned up in the studio. Unfortunately, all the studio songs on the album are really mellow, but the live recordings are just as good as Green Door.

Silversun Pickups - Kissing Families (Pikul)
I have no idea where this song came from, but I came across it one day on shuffle and it blew my britches off. I even bought the music video on iTunes.

Music For One Apartment and Six Drummers
I have no idea who these guys are, but a few different blogs linked to the video a week or two ago. If you’re impatient like me, skip ahead to 1:00 - basically, they broke into someone’s apartment while they were out walking the dog, but you really don’t need to know that (’course, if you’re impatient like me, you started the video before getting this far). I put this on in the background almost every day just because it sounds so cool.

Metallica is on iTunes
I haven’t actually been listening to them lately, but as of this week, the full Metallica catalog is available on iTunes. A couple months ago I wanted a copy of the Black album, but wasn’t willing to pay $18 for it at Borders, and went home cursing Lars Ulrich. I’ll probably grab a couple albums on there when I want them, but the urge hasn’t struck yet.

That’s it for this week. Maybe I’ll do this every week or two.

(I think we both know I won’t.)

I pulled a You Too this morning. It was just like the Brian Regan bit (if you haven’t seen his Comedy Central Presents, find it right now) - when the waiter says, “Enjoy your meal,” you lamely respond with, “You too…you know, if you have a break later or something…”

Mine was almost worse. I stopped into a dentist’s office near my apartment on my way to work to find out if they were taking new patients. A nice lady there explained some insurance details, gave me their card, wished me a good day and said, “I hope we hear from you soon!”

I could feel myself saying it but it was too late and there was nothing to do. “Likewise!” I said in that cheery morning voice of mine that drives lesser mortals crazy. It would have almost made sense if I had given them my name or contact info or anything, but no, it was just foot in mouth. I left muttering to myself - “Likewise? What the hell was THAT?”

But then I remember that I could tell all of you about it and not feel so privately stupid, and for some reason that made me smile.

I spent much of the summer after my eighth grade year hanging out at graduation parties. My class only included 17 kids, but we all tried to schedule our parties on different weekends, so they ran through most of the summer.

One went later into the evening, and I remember laying on a lawn chair, looking up at the stars with four or five of my former classmates. We were pointing out the constellations we knew (well, the Big Dipper and Small Dipper, anyway) and talking about the immensity of it all. I remember saying, “You know, I feel like a real jerk saying it, but I sort of think there might not really be a God.”

That was the first time I had even considered the notion. I was raised Catholic and had just finished eight years in a Catholic school, and was about to start four more at a Catholic high school. My family was never incredibly religious, but we went to Mass every Sunday and said Grace before dinner every night and generally tried to be decent people.

The next time I questioned my faith was two or three years later. I think I was a sophomore at the time, because I told my Mom I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go through with my Confirmation the following year. She got pretty upset and insisted that I talk to our priest about it before I made a decision like that, so I just dropped it to keep her happy and didn’t think much of it for a couple more years.

In that time, I became involved in The Rock, a youth ministry group based at a church a few towns over. In order to make Confirmation, the Catholic Church requires that candidates take part in a retreat - we were one of the groups in the area that was capable of giving these retreats.

I met the group the summer after my sophomore year. My best friend Bill’s mom knew someone at the church where the group was based, and had found out that they were going to a weekend-long youth conference in Ohio. I guess they had more spots available than people, so Bill was invited to go and asked me to go with him. I had a great time when we went, and became more involved with them after I made my own Confirmation retreat with them that November. I started going to the weekly meetings and taking part in the retreats, and got to be really good friends with the core group of people that were involved. During my senior year of high school, I was also a member of another group at my school that put on retreats for the other classes (a much less involved group, but with a similar intent).

I wouldn’t admit it at the time, but even then, I had some serious doubts about my faith. However, I loved the people in the group so much that I sort of buried those doubts and pretended to be an upstanding young Catholic man capable of leading other young Catholics in their commitment to the church.

It certainly isn’t something I’m proud of now, but at the time, I had myself convinced that I really did believe it all.

I did find out later - maybe not explicitly, but I definitely got the idea - that I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. None of us were terribly religious people - our weekly meetings often lent themselves to pretty raunchy conversation and plenty of teenage-hormone-fueled innuendo. However, we all loved the group so much that we were willing to put on our “game face” and spread a little Jesus every other weekend.

Once I left for college, I stopped going to Mass and pretty much lost touch with most people from The Rock. I still talked to a few of them every now and then, but it’s been at least two years since I’ve spoken to anyone but Bill. For the first couple months, my parents would nag me about finding a church near campus or going to Mass at the interfaith center (at one point, I’d used that as a selling point for the school). It was another year or two before they stopped hounding me to go to Mass with them when I was home for Christmas or Easter. For a while, I went just to keep them happy, and still would if they insisted on it. I say Grace when I have dinner with them - “Oh good, he still remembers the words,” my Mom always comments to Dad.

I think I knew I was an Atheist even while I was involved in the two retreat groups, but never consciously admitted it. When I left for college, I left everything and everyone I knew, and basically started a new life. Most of my friends at school where Atheists (or religiously indifferent), but I think that says more about the people I hang out with than the decline of morality in Those Damn Kids These Days.

At this point, it’s difficult for me to take religion seriously. I’d like to think that I generally respect the opinions, wishes, and choices of others, but I’m not sure I do a great job of it. Honestly, the whole concept just seems ridiculous to me now. I don’t want to offend anyone, but I feel like modern science and logic preclude the existence of some higher being. Even so, I consider myself to be Agnostic - I don’t believe in a God, but I also know there’s no way to prove it one way or the other. I just couldn’t possibly convince myself to believe in something that offers no proof of its existence. The Intelligent Design campaign just baffles me - how can you accept as fact a book that was written a couple thousand years ago by a variety of unknown (or unverified) authors? One of the most common lines in those religious forwards from my parents is something like, “Why is it that we’re willing to believe everything we read in magazines, but question the Bible?” Makes me laugh every time (and seriously, I’ve seen it in a half-dozen different e-mails).

Honestly, I don’t mean to offend religious folk - to each his own, whatever makes you happy, and all that. But really, I approach religion in much the same way I approach over-zealous Star Trek fans - I just don’t buy into the fantasy, and I don’t understand why anyone else does.

About a month ago, my buddy Mace recommended Urban Tribes: Are Friends the New Family? It was incredibly interesting and I’d recommend it to anyone, particularly recent (or soon-to-be) college grads, because it’s really about people our age. The whole idea is that our generation keeps putting off the classic signs of adulthood - marriage and baby-makin’. More people are waiting longer to get hitched and have kids, if they do it at all, and many are finding that friends provide the support structure that a family normally might. I especially liked the author’s own story - his tribe is made up of about 25 people, and by the sound of it (though I don’t think he was explicit on this point), they ages range from the mid-20’s to late-30’s. This sort of social construct was incredibly uncommon (if not entirely unheard of) during the early adulthood of our parents, but today it’s happening all over, albeit in smaller numbers.

Just today, I finished Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grown-up. This one just caught my eye when I was browsing at the book store just a few days after I finished Urban Tribes. It’s a very different look at a similar trend: adults putting off adulthood and opting to indulge their inner child. It wasn’t as well-written as Tribes, but it offered an interesting perspective on things.

I mention these together because they came along at a pretty good time for me. It’s only been in the past month or two that I’ve come to grips with the fact that graduating college is not the end of life as I know it. For some reason, I’ve always had this subconscious fear that life pretty much stops after that - you get married, have some kids, and fall into a comfortable routine. That’s more or less what my parents did, and seemed to be the trend among the parents of my peers when I was a kid. I really didn’t think I’d want to live past 40, because it all seemed so boring after that.

Obviously, this isn’t necessarily the case, but I’ve never really been able to convince myself of that. I kept trying to figure out what my big project was going to be, how I was going to leave my impact on the world. With graduation looming and no great ideas jumping out at me, I sort of resigned myself to a string of crappy jobs and small apartments. It doesn’t help to look around at the people I went to school with: a couple are engineers for Google, one’s writing his first book, and another is speaking at conferences (still others from RIT, whom I didn’t know, started College Humor and a variety of other successful sites). They’re all off doing exciting and interesting stuff, and I’m trying to figure out whether I even want to be doing what I spent four years training for.

I went into college feeling like I had more time than I’d know what to do with. At the time, I was figuring on spending five years there, which seems like forever to someone who’s only 17. That time quickly dried up, and while I enjoyed it while I had it, some part of me worries that my early adulthood will pass me by just as quickly. I feel like I need to do my big, great thing - whatever that may be - as soon as possible, so that I don’t let time get away from me again.

And now that I actually put it into words, I realize that it sounds just a little insane. I’m enjoying life right now: I don’t have any masterpiece in the works, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life coding, but I have good friends, I’ve got a decent apartment, I’m not totally broke, and I’ve only been out of college for eight months. I’ve got plenty of time to waste, and if I spend all my time worrying about what’s to come, I’ll just keep on missing what’s in the here and now.

This weekend was even better than the last, and I think I’m OK with that trend.

Clerks 2 came out Friday, and we got a crew together to see it at Gallery Place. Fadó is just a couple blocks down from the theater, so after the movie, we sauntered on down there for a rowdy evening of drinking, hollering, singing along with the tunes they were playing, singing along with the tunes we were playing, and discussing the biological makeup of human genitalia (we met a biology teacher).

While there, we discussed plans to have a BBQ here Saturday evening, and I came home from the grocery store last night to find a dozen loud people in my living room. Some more folks came over, and we got to hollering back and forth with the people below us (who were also throwing a BBQ and enjoying their balcony), so we went down there and I spent some time discussing politics and sports with a couple guys from Germany.

Today was lazy as a Sunday can be. I spent some time at the gym, finished some stuff for work, and did a little reading, but mostly just lounged around. I get a wide variety of movies from Netflix and a lot of times I get them in the mail and think, “Why the hell did I rent this?” These movies are saved for Sunday afternoons like this one, unless I find a good one on TV (previously: King Arthur, Sweet Home Alabama, and Miss Congeniality 2). This week I opted for Chick Flick and Ice Cream Sunday Afternoon Extravaganza, which included How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days and some Ben & Jerry’s mint something something. It was girly and relaxing and don’t you judge me because I just might make it a weekly event. You’re welcome to join me next week for Sleepless in Seattle and Cold Stone.

It’s weird to get home from the bar after a long night out with friends and realize that less than a year ago, my weekdays typically went later than this.

Eric: research papers suck ass

Me: yup

Me: thankfully, I haven’t had to do one since high school

Me: “This is good practice!” they said.

Eric: really

Me: “You’ll have to do a lot of these in college!” they warned.

Eric: why havent you

Me: “Bullshit!” said I!

Me: And I was right and there was sunshine and puppies

Eric: oooh

Eric: puppies

Did Rupert Murdoch buy another hockey team? I just had a dream that a guy I knew in high school was playing for MySpace in the NHL. They weren’t half bad.