Century Mark

My last post was my 100th since starting this blog 16 months ago and this weekend left me no time and in no condition to write, but forcing myself to produce four posts per month has kept me in writing shape, so while my world of hungover is inching me closer and closer to a long, restless night's sleep, I'm using my waning time to talk about the weekend that was.

Started with a party at RAM with coworkers and my brother: Gorgeous, warm, sunny afternoon cocktails with the anticipation of a long, fun weekend ahead. There aren't many better feelings than that.

A BBQ at a friends house back in Palatine: The gang was back together, bags and frisbees were flying, food was delicious, the weather was perfect, the drinks were flowing, and we all had fun. Success.

Saturday hanging around Palatine then going out in the city: Successfully found enough people and a location for bags, had enough sun for some sunburn, and had enough time to get back for the Hawks game. Having a team in the finals for a sport creates an unbelievable buzz in the city, it needs to be experienced.

Sunday before Memorial Day Cubs game: We had perfect weather, a great group, awesome seats, (crappy game), Gruber caught a baseball tossed up during batting practice, hours of bags, laughing, and countless other shenanigans.

It was a long, exhausting, sun and friend filled Memorial Day weekend, including two Stanley Cup victories for the Hawks. I'd say if I had to take a weekend to blame for not having time to write, I couldn't have sketched it up any better.

Justified: Quick to Judge

So imagine the scenario: You've left work 45 minutes ago. The sun is toasting your car. Your socks are dripping with sweat. You've been in bumper to bumper, Chicago traffic for miles. You're still not even halfway home. Your schedule is being shifted. And above all, there is nothing you can do. Then, just as you're ready to punch through your airbag, you see a 1992 rusted Chevy Corsica flying down the shoulder going 45mph. The sun now has nothing on your heat. You nearly steam the windows you're so fired up. All you can think of is every sinful insult you've heard in your life. Every putrid put down. Every offensive onslaught. And you curse the Corsica for life, banish the driver to eternal damnation, and hope that they get caught between on-ramps, impaled into an overpass. That's the only possible solution for someone with such careless disregard for the rest of the dying public, the creeping masses.

But what if the driver of that car is on his way to the hospital where his wife has passed out while giving birth. a.) Traffic laws no longer apply; b.) He is not intentionally giving you the proverbial middle finger; c.) Are you really in a position to judge whether or not his actions are justified? There is only one thing in the world that matters to him, and nothing will stop him from getting to his family, regardless of the consequences, which, I must say, hardly include the scowls from the cars he his passing. It's his life to live. It's his head that must come to a rest at night. You were ready to throw down the shackles of death, but at the end of the day, you just don't know.

This is one, relatively drastic situation, but consider how many times you pass negative judgment on someone based on a minuscule act of inconsequential importance. It happens constantly and consistently throughout the course of every hour of every day. It's impossible to ignore. I'm in no way a saint when it comes to this. I throw out the back handed slaps to the face as often as Rick Flair. Or at least I used to. And I'm writing this now to try to change that mindset.

Like I said, at the end of the day, you just don't know. In the same way that everyone's tolerance of pain is different, and not all people may perceive the outside world in the same light, every person has a different threshold of what will cause them to act in a way that goes against your grain. There is no standard. There is no base line to follow. There are certain situations that will cause me to react in a volatile, hostile, and really damn aggressive manner. It doesn't happen very often, but they are out there, those situations. And I promise you, you do not want to be around when that time comes. Besides me, think of how many times you see an unfortunate, uncomfortable, inopportune situation, that in some way, negatively impacts your life, and your first reaction is to assign them some life fault. But, you just never know.

HEY, HEY, CHRIS!!!! But what if that speeding Corsica was just another asshole in the eternally long line of assholes walking this earth? Then so be it. But what's the harm in cutting him some slack? If you judge them as damnable, then all it does it make you more mad and peg a possibly innocent person (that you'll probably never meet) as a leper, an outcast, a social deviant. But if you think, 'wow, bet he has an emergency to get to, am I ever glad I'm not in his shoes,' well, then, it goes away. Last night, it took an extra 20 minutes to get home from work because there was a four-car accident on the expressway. Instead of my first thought being, 'thanks ya'll, now I'm late to dinner,' I forced myself to think, 'well being that person would have really put a wrench in my plans for the night.'

This this kinda bleeds into the theory of there's someone else out there that has it worse, so appreciate where you are. If you just take the time to step back and assign a justification to whatever crazed situation you are witness to, you might find the world isn't filled with bastard coated bastards with bastard filling, maybe they just need to catch a break from the person riding on their high horse. So step off your judge's platform and put down the gavel, who knows, someone might cut you some slack when things don't go according to plan.

My Dirty Little Secret

So while I was caught up watching Freaky Friday on my withering Sunday evening, I saw a commercial for ABC Family's Summer of Secrets, featuring season previews of teenage dramas revolving around lies, secrets, cover-ups, and any other less than honest activities. This is not the first time that the topic of secrets has inspired a rash of thoughts, so let's see if I can actually form them into something logical, literate, and legible.

Take some time to think about the secrets you currently keep. Things that are voluntarily kept out of the light, away from public discussion, hidden, locked, stored in a safe, and reserved for only the rarest of the rare situations. How long is your list? Did that process bring you through a rash of embarrassing, illegal, and possibly harmful thoughts, behaviors, and actions from your past?

I'm oscillating so much on this topic because I keep contradicting myself. So for the sake of writing, I'm going to have to make some generalizations that I recognize might have fragments of untruth. I apologize for this, but it helps me to be able to place my head around the idea. Since secrets can be positive, like confessing love, or conspiracy driven, like political scandals, or even beneficial, like a sweet, secret agent, you have to forget those and follow my logic. The secrets I'm referring to are the ones that make you feel guilty to keep them, that create lies and deceits to cover them up, and have the potential to ruin a positive experience if ever leaked.

Secrets have been popping up in a lot of entertainment recently, and the display of dramatic irony is key to keeping the audience guessing, or characters in the show guessing. We don't need that in our lives. Secrets and lies often parallel each other, and when the topic of under-the-rugging flirts with danger, the stakes are raised and the effect is snowballed. So something that starts as an innocent infraction, a minor case of bending the laws (legally, emotionally, personally, whatever), can fester, grow, and become an uncageable beast. Something small but dangerous requires constant suppression, guilty lies, and keeping the truth away from people that may be closest to you.

I know, I am writing in vague terms with poor examples and dizzying synonyms, but I guess this little rambling was meant to convince you to keep less secrets, be less dramatic, and leave the chaos that comes with covering the truth to the paid actors. The less you have to cover up, the more people will get to know the real you. And if the real you is something you're trying to hide, then consider making positive changes in your life so that you can leave more of it exposed.

Young Forever

While I was driving home yesterday, I saw a man, looked to be in his mid 60s. His hair was somewhere between gray and white. He was driving a small SUV. And both his hands were locked hard on the wheel. And while staring through his thick glasses, he bobbed his head, keeping the beat to a song I could only begin to imagine. There we were, driving down the same expressway, at the same time, 40 years separated, separated by clothes, cars, morals, ideals, experiences, memories, and hair color, but for a moment in time, we were the same person. The same, music blasting, head bobbing, carelessly mumbling lyrics guys, cruising along the pavement. By living in our own musically driven world, we inherently breached those same boundaries in a passing glimpse of each other lives. Did he see me and think about what his life was like when he was 24 years old? Well that I'll never know. Kinda doubt he had car stereos for him to rock out to. But I can assure you, I looked at him, and immediately wondered what kind of man I would become.

And that question didn't fall into the usual, unbelievably complex and side winding thought strand that I have been known to spit out. It came down to one, simple, elegant, perfectly precise question: When I am 65 years old, driving home after renewing my license, will I still be grooving to some song from my young years, rocking out to Disturbed on the classic rock station, moving my shoulders to Dre on the classic rap station, or simply smiling and singing to Counting Crows on the oldies station? See? Precise.

Obviously this question has an answer that won't come for 40 years, but I can tell you this, I will do everything I can to maintain the happiness and freedom of my 'youth.' I know that with every year that adds on, more responsibilities, more people depending, more expenses, more worries, stresses, illnesses, deaths, and the like, all add on too. And it is normal to be content with those transitions. I don't think it's a matter of maturity. But I hope that as I age, and when 25 becomes 35 and becomes 45, that as these numbers keep flying by like a street light from a roller coaster, I can do my best to always have a thumb on top of my younger days.

I don't anticipate this to be easy, and I know this whole idea is a little cliche, but I just don't want to grab a box from a closet one day to see my Collective Soul tape fall out and realize I haven't heard a song from the 90s in months. And I don't want to be caught up watching the new 2031 fall crop of NBC's regurgitated cop dramas without popping in my recently ordered complete series of O.C. DVDs. And I don't want to be in the theaters for the apocalyptic thriller, '2040,' without enjoying a private screening of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in my living room some time.

And I want to be able to pick up a wiffle ball bat and laugh. And I want to buy a hot wheels car for my son, and secretly just pick out the one that I'll play with when he goes to bed. And I want to be able to sing the Toys 'R' Us song like I did in my 6th grade talent show.

But most of all, when the weather is nice, assuming we still have nice weather in 20 years, and when my windows are down, assuming we still have cars with windows in 20 years, I want to throw in my mix CD from the 90s, assuming we still have CD players in 20 years, and I want to crank that sonuvabitch until the speakers are ready to explode, and for a moment, for a passing relapse in an otherwise occupied life, more import than remembering what it was like to be 24 and young, I want to be 65 and free as an escaped kite, floating away under the sun, basking in the life I have lived.