Just Fake It

I will soon have to change the tagline for my tumblog again, since I am officially moving on from the school and place which inspired, “The slight hipster leanings of a young man reluctantly learning to change the world…”

But, before I do make that switch (and I’m not sure when I will, or quite what it will change to), I would like to make a very brief, completely facetious, argument for my being a God among men when it comes to ‘Just Faking It.’

I spent the last four or so months in a place that, for at least one quarter of the time, had high temperatures in the 100s.  Beyond that, I spent pretty much the first two months feeling alternately sorry for myself, upset at the program/courses, lonely, and pretty sure that I would never find something to make me happy.

With all that emoting, it is probably not surprising that schoolwork and engagement in classes were low on my list of priorities.  This is where my being the best faker in the world comes in.

I just got my grades back for the semester, and I have achieved straight A minuses, which is slightly better than my overall GPA in college (and for much of college, I was engaged in my classes and committed to school work).  Yes, I am tooting my own horn here, but not for the reason you would expect.  I am not trying to prove to you that I’m smart.  Rather, I’m telling you that I did all that without trying all that hard—I faked my way to straight As (and yeah, the rhyme was intentional).

There you have it.  I am the Hercules of faking achievement—less than a God, but more than a man.  I dare you to find any holes in my case!*

Next time I check in, I’ll likely have driven several thousand miles in a rented truck.

Good night, y’all.

* More realistically, my grades, given my effort level, indicate that I was right on in my early assessment of the program’s lacking rigor.  For much of the time, I felt that the students, professors and courses all had an air of amateurism about them (maybe ‘amateurism’ is too harsh, but it didn’t feel any different from undergraduate government courses, and undergraduate government students are not the best students I’ve encountered, nor are the professors in those classes always the greatest; the classes I had, and likely would have had down the line, are not challenging enough for me, as pretentious as that sounds).

Like Jeff Tweedy, I have reservations about so many things, but the decision to leave here is not one of them.  I will look back fondly on Austin as a place where I could have been, and maybe someday could be, happy.  But, as for the program—I had no need for it, and I would like the next thing I do to take me far away from the world and people I’ve glimpsed over the past year, starting in DC and continuing to the LBJ School of Public Affairs.  If I am bound for something good, or great, it do not believe it involves anything or anyone I have come across since August 2008.

Strange Times

Today, I had originally planned to drive 9 hours west to Big Bend National Park and spend a couple nights camping and hiking there.  Well, in reality, I had planned on doing the drive yesterday.  For several reasons, I did not go to Big Bend.  The reason my to-be trip was delayed until today is because I am trying to rent my apartment so I won’t be stuck paying rent for a place I’m not living, and a girl wanted to stop by and see the place yesterday.  I figured that was a priority.

I didn’t end up going at all for another, much more complicated reason, which involves my family and possibly having to drive a truck 2000 miles with my dad for the second time in 3 months.  I won’t go into many more details on that, other than to say that now I am planning on doing the truck thing before Christmas (like, this coming weekend) by myself, and then coming back after New Year’s to drive my car home.  I’m not sure if anyone said my leaving was going to be pretty, but if anyone did, he or she was surely mistaken.

So, I didn’t go to Big Bend NP.  Instead, I spent most of the morning watching War Games and American Ninja Warrior on G4 (the greatest time-wasting television station in existence).  Then I decided to go get some of my hair cut and, thereafter, go for a mountain bike ride.

I was, as usual, delayed in my leaving for the barber shop (there is a whole, long barbershop story to tell, but I’m pretty sure I will save it for use in a book-length collection of vignettes that document my trying times with haircuts), and I had to wait awhile there.  I finally made it to Walnut Creek Metropolitan Park around 4 PM, pumped up my front tire and hit the trails on my bike.

It had been kind of cool and rainy for the past few days and so, despite today’s 70 degree sun, the trails were a little wet.  This subtly affected the whole ride, but around one turn, it had a more notable impact.  I went into a left turn a little too quickly for the conditions and the bike slid out from under me.  Now, in this type of situation, I am pretty sure one is not supposed to reach out one’s arm to try to catch oneself.  That’s how things like broken wrists and separated shoulders happen.  Instead, one should just continue holding onto the handlebars and let the outside of one’s shoulder hit the ground first, and hope that the bike doesn’t hurt too much when it crashes down upon one’s lower body.

I did all the things one is not supposed to do in that situation.  But, luckily, I made it through unscathed for the most part—a few scrapes on my left leg and forearm, a moment of unfounded worry that I had injured my shoulder (it’s my perennially bad shoulder), and a cut under my thumbnail which is much less sore now than I had thought it might be.

Now that I think of it, I think there’s a reason my thumb doesn’t sting all that much.  My brain’s receiving a more overwhelming amount of pain signals from my ankle.  Now, my ankle was not affected in the slip up detailed above.  Not even the slightest bit.  My ankle was actually not hurt for all but the last five minutes of the one-hour ride.  Right around the five-minute to go mark, I turned a corner and saw a mid-sized gray dog messing around in the trees.  This dog did not like me and so barked very angrily at me and then approached the bike as I unclipped from the pedals and stopped moving.  Then he ran to my left side and bit my ankle.

As I have already mentioned to one of you, I thought very hard, while the dog was barking at me, about kicking it in the face.  But, see, the dog’s owner was 6 feet behind the dog, and in front of me, so I never could have imagined the situation elevating to the level of an attack.  But, once it did, I would have expected some acknowledgment from the owner, who was an older man wearing a kind of men’s sun hat, for lack of a better term, and carrying a walking stick, which I don’t think he was actually using for support in any way.  The man didn’t utter an apology.  Instead, he just pointed his stick at the dog, yelled at him to keep moving and that he was a bad boy, and walked right by me without so much as a glance.

When I arrived back to my car, five minutes later, I found myself incredibly angry and it took me a little while to figure out why that was so.  I have now figured it out, I think.  In the dog’s defense, he was not really trying to bite me as much as he was trying to angrily bark really, really close to my leg.  I would consider the biting incidental contact (that’s not to say that it isn’t the most painful thing on my body right now, because it is (it’s not really that bad, though)).  So, I’m not really that mad at the dog.  I don’t hate it as much as the little bitch that used to chase me down Harvard street when I had my paper route (and who once ripped my green corduroys, leading me to take the torn fabric and tie it on the zipper of my red LL Bean backpack).

But, I’m very angry at the man who owned that dog.*  I’ve ridden my bike at that park several times, and there are usually a fair number of dogs there, off-leash.  And, yes, I’ve had close encounters with some other dogs, but never in the I’m-going-to-eat-your-leg-you-filthy-human-on-wheels kind of way.  It’s always been more like the dogs’ being alarmed by my rapid approach and hesitating a few seconds before running away.  So, I don’t have a problem in general with dogs, or with people walking their dogs without a leash (in fact, I kind of wish I could do that with my own dogs).  And I realize that maybe the older man with the sun hat and walking stick has gone through some hard times.  Maybe he lost his wife and the dog is his only source of companionship nowadays.  That’s fine too.  I have no problem with an angry old man who owns a dog.  But, for the love of God, man, don’t raise the dog to be angry too!

What’s the point of a dog if you lead it to become just as miserable as you are?**

The strangest part of the whole day, however, was after I had gotten off the highway on my way home.  I stopped at a red light, directly behind the exact same Uhaul truck my father and I drove from DC to Austin in August (same Arizona license-plate number).  I’m still struggling to figure out what to make of that.

* Upon further reflection, I think I probably should have kicked the man in the face, partially for his asinine behavior toward me (who had just been bitten by his dog), but mostly for the wrongs he has committed in raising that dog.

** Also, it occurs to me now that at least part of my anger upon reaching my car was self-directed.  For someone who recognizes his passivity as an inhibitor in certain cases, and who would actually like to be more assertive from time-to-time, not saying anything to the man was a glaring misstep.  I couldn’t even get out a, “Thanks a lot, buddy!” or an “Are you fucking kidding me?”  It was a frustrating situation made worse by a weak moment on my part.  But, maybe this is a teachable moment; perhaps all is not lost!

It's Official

The last year or so of slovenly eating, sporadic exercise, and excessive television consumption has finally caught up with me.

I have certifiably fallen out of shape, complete with loss of definition in the upper arms and a budding gut.*  I already had my chubby years; and I’m not going back.  That is a stress I no longer have room for in my life.  So, as John Darnielle says, something has got to give.  And, as Dylan says, I feel a change coming on.

I think it will likely take the form of one of those pesky New Year’s resolutions that I used to cast aspersion on with unspoken vehemence.  This year it will be three-fold (in no particular order): 1.) Get back in shape (and, ultimately, into better shape than before), 2.) Replace the excessive television with reading (Proust, et. al.), and 3.) Start down the road which leads to following a dream.

Pretty uncomplicated, pretty achievable, and pretty good amount of work ahead of me.  It started today.

* I don’t expect any sympathy from this audience; I know it’s silly to complain about one’s weight when it’s not really a significant issue.  My point here is less about worrying that I’m unhealthy or on my way to obesity, and more about feeling less than myself and the person I want to be and feeling more like the person I never wanted to be again, after 8th grade or so.