Bachelor Pad

Because my parents have gone up to the cabin for the holiday weekend, I came home today to an empty house. Threw open all the windows to the backyard, put an Mp3 CD in the stereo, and jumped right into the pool, basking in the glory of having the place all to myself. The combination of the weather (high-80s), the current state of my existence, and the anticipation of a great weekend has put me in the best mood.

Starting this evening, I'll have four nights with 606 Walnut Dr. as my personal castle. What I'll do during that period is a mystery. If I were still a youngster - that is, a high school or college student - there is no doubt that I'd throw a huge party and invite all of my friends, past and present. Sure, the place would end up a mess, but a stain or two on the ceiling of the kitchen is usually a small price to pay for such good fun.

Times have changed from those wild days, though. Right now, I've got something a bit more intimate in mind.

Vacation from my vacation

Going camping in Yosemite for the next few days. So, unless you have access to homing pigeons, I shall be unreachable during that time. Please go on about your business until I return.

Oh, and godspeed, Dan. Despite the fact that you used to play poker while I toiled away over the stove for your benefit and couldn't navigate from Pizza My Heart to our apartment if you had a map, it's been a blast. Don't forget about the little people once you have sole control of Colombia's economy.

A Question

Ever feel like life is too good?

I do. Right now, actually. It's a great sensation, but also fairly unnerving. Everything is going so well that I just know that it can't last. It's as if there is an analyst in my head advising caution about the impending collapse of the market. He reminds me, wisely, that what goes up must come down.

The question is, then, how long can this artificial elevation sustain itself?

I hope the answer is a long long time.

Validation

I can vaguely remember a time long, long ago in a high school far, far away when I used to get straight A's. For this studious teenager, anything lower than an A- was not an option. Not even a single B+ had disgraced my academic record. And, if youthful idealism had anything to say about it, things were going to remain that way.

But then AP History came along right when I discovered alcohol and peer pressure, a time which sparked the dawn of a new era of misbehavior. Bent on challenging both authority and the status quo, I decided that this was to be the first class in which I didn't get an A or an A-.

Although fueled by rebellious attitude, I remember worrying about the consequences. What exactly is going to happen when I open that envelope to reveal a monolithic B standing in stark contrast to a collection of As? Would my world as I knew it come to an abrupt but spectacular end? Or, worse yet, would my parents, in a fit of rage at my academic failure, commit the adolescent version of infanticide?

Of course, neither happened. Despite my expectations, the Earth didn't even crack. An adverse reaction from my parents was equally nonexistent. Moreover, internally, I felt the same as if I had received any other grade, even an A. From then on and throughout college, perfect grades became less important to me, and, consequently, a few more B's intruded upon my heretofore untarnished record. My grades remained fairly high and I still worked damn hard to get that science degree, but the magical A had lost much of its luster, and therefore, I no longer coveted it.

Needless to say, I didn't graduate magna cum laude or summa cum laude, or anything cum laude, for that matter. Nevertheless, my undergraduate experience did not suffer. I managed to extract exactly what I needed from college. At the very least, it was enough to land a job and a spot at a prestigious graduate school.

Here in law school, where grades, rankings, achievements, and extracurricular activities are so prominent, so extensively scrutinized, and so often the topic of conversation, grades have once again taken on heightened importance. And because of the mandatory curve, getting an A is quite a bit more difficult than college -- only about 10 students in each class of 120 are awarded one -- which only adds to the tension.

Thus far, my grades have been a little bit above average, not spectacular from any perspective. This can be easily explained, however, by the following: NYU law is full of insanely bright, over-motivated over-achievers, some of whom use all of their free time for studying. I do not; I'm in New York not only to learn law, but also to experience the city, so sometimes it makes more sense for me (and yields more satisfaction) to go to dinner at a new restaurant or go out to a bar or club rather than stay in and toil away at Civil Procedure.

But finally, the tides have turned (ever so slightly) with the posting of our grades for Criminal Law. At long last I've achieved the academic validation that I was hungering for. The powers that be at NYU Law School -- finally -- recognized my efforts and rewarded them properly. Which just goes to show you that the path to academic glory does not necessarily involve locking oneself in that dungeon of a library for the entire semester. Though, I'm sure that helps.

In the waiting line

At the end of this week, I'll once again be stepping off an airplane into the artificially cooled terminal of the Las Vegas airport. This is probably the 6th or 7th time I've purchased tickets to visit the desert oasis, and each journey proves to be more eventful, more physically draining, and, ultimately, more enjoyable than the last. The latter applies with extra force to the time we decided to drive to Vegas at midnight on a Sunday in lieu of seeing a movie. If nothing else, the ratio of cleaning person to vacationer ought to be far lower this time.

Beyond the fraternizing, the mass consumption of food and alcohol, and the mischief of a Vegas reunion with my fellow Pomona alumni, one aspect of these trips that I've grown to cherish is the anticipation of it all. Like a soldier about to enter a battlefield where there is a slight chance of being fatally wounded or perhaps maimed, I sense excitment and anxiety building as my body and mind prepare for what ought to be a pleasant but otherwise exhausting four days. If the past is any indication, my inner monologue will soon be consumed with countless questions: where we will eat on Saturday? What bar we will make our venue of choice on Friday? How can I make sure we never go to the Hard Rock again? Will I spend more nights sleeping on the floor or in a bed? Should I be worried about spontaneous combustion in the 115 degree dry heat of the Strip?

Shortly, I'll have intimate knowledge of the answers to all of these questions and many more. But for now, I'm content to ponder the possibilities and revel in the anticipation of what will undoubtedly turn out to be a memorable vacation.

Things never change

Yesterday, I bumped into one of my old high school friends at the gym. Thankfully, the reunion lacked the awkwardness that so many of the "hey, I haven't seen you in a long time" conversations are plagued with. Other than just catching up, we spoke about what the rest of the old high school crew are doing with their lives -- ordinarily an interesting subject because the stories often resemble the best the tabloids can come up with. This time, however, the conversation focused more on the realities of getting older rather than the misbehaviors of growing up.

According to him, most of the guys seem to have either purchased a house or condo, or are on the verge of doing so. While I'm impressed with the maturity evident in such a move, it depresses me that most of these people don't plan to live anywhere else but here. Now don't get me wrong; Solano County is a great place to settle down. But for people our age -- mid to late 20s -- the area offers little in the way of entertainment (as I've repeatedly emphasized). Some of the guys, including my good friend Scotland, are moving to Sacramento, which certainly provides more of a big city-type experience, but that's only when you compare it to Fairfield. I guess one explanation could be that some of us suffer from wanderlust more than others. Or perhaps they've grown up and I have yet to do so.

Although I believe that to some extent they are missing out by not living somewhere else, at the same time I am somewhat envious of the bonds that they've cultivated over so many uninterrupted years. Living and hanging out with the same group of people for the large majority of your collective existence makes for some damn good friends. These guys know each other like the back of their hands and, as a result, never cease having fun.

For instance, their newest joint venture was the purchase of a Humboldt County school bus -- yes, a gigantic, yellow traditional school bus. If everything goes as planned, the bus is destined to give up its usual role -- ferrying kids to school -- and become a "party bus" -- ferrying adults to parties. So far, they've removed the back half of the seats, leaving about 6 rows, and fitted couches in the empty space. A Keg-erator is next on the list. What the future holds for this bus remains to be seen, but you can be certain that it will involve an unprecedented drinking and driving penalty.

The Best Dog Ever

The bond between man and dog never ceases to amaze me. Sadly enough, sometimes it's better to put an animal (or a human for that matter) out of its misery rather than artificially sustain its life out of some selfish motivation to prevent heartache or some misguided desire to prevent the inevitable.


RIP Kit aka Kitty aka Meebos aka The Wonder Dog

It is frustrating to erase advice that was certain to change lives

Yesterday, along with the mundane post about living in the wildnerness, I also wrote a dictionary-length commentary about the bouts of depression that seem to be spreading like wildfire (pun intended). Both Sylvie and Rodion spoke at length recently on their blogs about this very subject. Unfortunately, I boneheadedly erased all the words that were dedicated to this more intriguing subject, so you readers received only a post about some trees.

Basically, in 10,000 words or less, I attempted to say something straddling the border between sympathetic and insightful. You might think it is suspiciously convenient that such an uncharacteristic post was lost before you could scrutinize it, but I swear the explanation I've offered is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

The post -- a truly remarkable achievement in internet publishing -- went something like this: everyone gets depressed at some point or another, and, when that happens, we tend to isolate ourselves from those who care to help. Usually, we think that it's impossible for anyone else understand our mental anguish; we think that no one else has ever felt pain of such magnitude; and we convince ourselves that everyone we know is living a rosey existence which only on a rare occassion dips to a level of "moderately unhappy".

Then, when other people can describe with precision the depression and sorrow that we are feeling at the moment, we react with astonishment. We think, "How could this other individual possibly know what I'm faced with? How could they see inside me with such clarity?" But the truth is, we shouldn't be amazed when this happens because even though the emotional low is the byproduct of a situation that is both personal and unique, we, as human beings, are only equipped to experience our emotions in a limited set of ways. In other words, there are only so many mental configurations that can come to fruition in the average person's mind (psychopaths and vegans are an exception to this proposition). Also, the scenarios that cause depression -- e.g., cheating, break-ups, periods of uncertainty as to what life holds in the future -- tend to play themselves out with regularity throughout all of our lives.

So, often the best thing to do when you are feeling down is to seek refuge amongst friends -- friends who in all likelihood have experienced something similar or downright identical to what is ailing you and who can offer support when it's needed. Those friends can help you realize that the pain is but a temporary glimpse of the frailty of the human condition that every human being goes through at one time or another. What I mean to say with all this blathering (I swear the original version read like a self-help masterpiece) is that, despite what you may think, you are definitely not alone.

This message has been brought to you by the Coalition for Sappy Positive Reinforcement.

PS - I'm feeling great.