Swim Goggles with Displays Inside - Awesome innovation. I have to learn to swim, first.
Oh, indeed firsts are what make our lives. Nobody really remembers the second man who walked on the moon or the second place in elections. Who wants to be Vice President, or get the silver medal? Lance Armstrong isn’t saying “I’m going to get second in my last Tour de France.”
Anyhow, that’s why I decided to sketch a couple of the firsts in my life.
Last year. My birthday. My first real stadium concert. I had been to Switchfoot at the Quest before, but this was t he first real one. I was embarassingly old for this to be my first time, but so it went. I sang my lungs out to Dashboard Confessional at the Target Center, learned how to push my way up through the crowds, and how to combat mosh pits. It was the best thirty dollars I ever spent, and the first time I ever got soaked by Ticketmaster fees.
Three weeks ago. Westbound I94. I’m grooving out to a song in the passenger seat and up pulls a gray 2004 Mustang Cobra convertible, and this black guy in sunglasses looks over, one hand on his steering wheel, big grin on his face, and gives me the “that’s right” nod. He hits the accelerator and is gone. And that’s the first time I got props from a black guy: awesome.
9th (?) grade. Trip to Chicago. First time I bought and wore cologne. Gap had a fragrance at the time that came in this cubic bottle: smelled nice, and had a reasonable price tag for a little unemployed kid. I grabbed it during a frenzy of packing the day before we left on the coach bus. See, there was a girl in that trip that I had a big crush on. There was going to be a dance. Ever the reasonable person, I never thought about how to make decent conversation with her, simply that I had better smell decent if I was ever going to be close to her. The dance never really occurred the way I thought it would. Sweet smelling yet nerveless, I never got the chance to talk with her, much less dance. There was one deadly strike against me: she knew I liked her. So we come to my first rejection; I asked her if she wanted to “do something sometime.” The answer was “no, thanks.”
A recent first. “Cooked” dinner for a girl for the first time. The girl’s name is Mykala. Yes, she did a lot of the work - we were in her kitchen and I needed to find my way about. Soon, I will cook a meal for her without assistance - this will be glorious. As for the meal, we made salmon with a potato chip sort of crusting, risoto, and green beans. Cooking went off without a hitch (unless you count the recipe that we, err Mykala, made up for green beans, involving margarine and salt … turned out well, thank you).
I’m going for my first “cooked a good meal without her having to do any work” next.
In the gym at 5:30am before work, I had a flashback to a decade ago in my life. Our fourth grade teacher’s name was Mr. Bowman. He was a tall man but, looking back, it seems he was prematurely aged by the Vietnam War, he walked with the posture of someone who can stand just fine but has been worn down by trauma. It was obvious, though, that his dry yet hilarious sense of humor preceded the war he experienced, and he connected with us in a more mature way than many of my high school teachers.
Mr. Bowman was the first person to teach my about photography, bringing a camera to school one day and showing us we could freeze motion if the shutter was fast enough and the ISO was right. He taught us how straight lines could curve, the importance of art in our lives, and that a good dose of fresh air was more important than another 15 minutes of studying. He let us work at our own pace, putting up on the board what needed to be done for the day, and letting us get to it at our own cadence.
I did a double take, seeing him walking around Lifetime Fitness that early morning. Indeed, when I looked up again he was gone, vanished in the same way a memory fleets from the conscious mind. I looked around a bit more and saw him once more and half-entertained going to re-introduce myself. I am, though, a shy sort, but I know what I would say if I had talked to him before he blended back into the recesses: “Thank you for shaping who I am, and giving me a vision of who I want to be.”
And just like that, he was gone.
A bit over a week ago, I intentionally skipped my first workout in 4 years. There were a couple of times during that time when I was forced to not work out - I had my wisdom teeth out once, went on two trips, but that accounted for few and far between misses of my every-other-day schedule. In fact, I do not think I missed one workout in the past 18 months. Don’t mistake that statement as laced with any notes of pride - I learned hard lessons throughout that time, hurt people, alienated others, and battled in general to balance all parts of my life. My brain was in such a rut that it thought there would be some collapse if it didn’t get a a bi-daily endorphine rush associated with 1.5-2 hours of intense weightlifting.
This recent step of missing a day was meant to show me that my body wouldn’t end if I did miss one day. The physical effects I experienced were interesting: my appetite decreased less than anticipated, while I had an unanticipated increase in nervous energy. I think when the time does come to make an unplanned change to my workout schedule (eg: something comes up that is obviously more important than working out), I will have to try to mentally steel myself to these effects.
Maybe you’ve been addicted to something, this is a first for me. Just as the smoker who asks “how is this hurting me right now,” I spent many months growing in my understanding of why having one’s priorities straight is important. Not that I am entirely there, but I feel like I am moving in the right direction.
Unfortunately, the physical effects of working out are rather positive, it’s the social ones that can be subtly damaging; can cause you to wake up one morning and realize your once firm foundations of loved ones have been eroded by your absence and over scheduling.
So no, this is not some paradigm shift where I begin eating McDonald’s everyday and not moving from my chair. Just as the damage is subtle, so is the fix. There will be, for that reason, more posts on the topic.
My advice to anyone who is addicted? Just don’t do it. Take all the energy you devote to feeding your addiction and channel it into turning things around. You didn’t take no for an answer when you were addicted, don’t take no for an answer when you are quitting.
You may or may not remember that one person in high school who was so involved with a single topic that any social interaction was painfully difficult. So it is with one person I know, who is in fact not in high school, but is St. Thomas’ chemistry stockroom manager. Problem is, she is not just antisocial, but extraordinarily passive aggressive. Her ability to wilt a freshman chemistry student after they request a reflux condenser without knowing the joint size is only rivalled by her ability to aggravate someone who knows what they want but is cut off by her ridiculous superiority complex.
Research, Day 2:
I walk up to the stockroom counter and ask, “Can I have one of those metal stirring rods?” I’m met with the immediate retort, “They’re called magnetic stir bars and you have to check them out.”
Research, Day 8:
I’m second in line and watch as a senior tries to obtain some water hoses.
Senior: “Can I get some water hoses?”
Melva Cain: “There is no such thing as a water hose.”
S: “Ok, the yellow rubber hoses?”
MC: “You mean the nitrile hose?”
S: “Yes, that.”
MC: “Oh, well someone waltzed out of here with those boxes earlier, didn’t you look for them?”
S: “I thought they returned them …”
MC: “…”
S: “So, I mean, all I have to do is hook up some hose to run water through.”
MC: (Gets a box on the floor) “So this will work?”
S: “Yeah … thanks.”
Me: ?!
Research, Day 12:
Me: “Can I have a magnetic stir bar about so long?”
MC: “You mean the one inch stir bar, that’s what you mean, right?”
Research, Day 14:
Me: “Can I get an eighth inch magnetic stir bar?”
MC: “Those don’t exist, here’s a one quarter inch one.”
Somewhere between those dates, our lab manager (not to be confused with Melva, who is the stockroom manager) came to talk to the professor who is leading the research,
Nate: “Uh, Melva says she won’t buy any more ethanol.”
Doc: “What?”
N: “Yeah, she says we’re using too much and we can’t afford it, which is completely untrue.”
D: sigh
So continues the saga with Citizen Cain, stockroom manager sitting atop some well organized yet impossible to gain access to heap of chemicals and equipment.
These have reseeded themselves from a pot we had in the backyard 14 years ago, when my grandma passed away.
They remind us of her.
The driveway had just gotten a hydrophobic coating on it.
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