cxix

“If suffering brought wisdom, the dentist’s office would be full of luminous ideas.”

-Mason Cooley


            This is definitely not how I expected to be spending one of the first mornings of my much-needed spring break: lying on a quasi-operating table, having the rubber-gloved hands of some annoying stranger probe my mouth as she concurrently makes fun of my intruding gum line.

            “Have you been brushing and flossing regularly?” the dentist’s assistant asks me loudly.

            “Of course,” I oh-so-casually reply. Or, at least, as oh-so-casually as I can reply while my mouth is being forced open, suction tubes running the line of my bottom jaw.

            And that above exchange is the foremost reason why I absolutely hate going to the dentist’s office: it is the only place in the world where someone can catch me lying to their face. She can totally see, from her high-stooled perch, that my teeth aren’t pearly white and that my gums are incredibly sensitive. She knows that the garbled sentences coming out of my never-flossed mouth are just straight up lies, murmured only because I do not want to have a conversation with her. Which is completely true, mind you.

            But it’s too far late for that.

            “What school do you go to now?” she begins, asking for the fourth time this morning, “Oh yes, that’s right. My son almost went there but he went to community college instead for two years and then transferred out. We always joked that…”

           

            Her poor tries at an oft-rehearsed stand-up comedy routine are quickly tuned out, providing only a shrill soundtrack to the next half-hour, and I slowly stop paying attention to my surroundings.

            But after only a few minutes, her voice again returns to my consciousness: “But how have you been? How have your first few months of college been going?”

            She has thankfully stopped talking about her simply hilarious family anecdotes for a brief moment and, instead, turned the tables on me. Of course, I don’t answer, if not because I don’t care, but the main reason that I physically cannot. There is no possible way to respond to her, as whatever minty chemicals she’s currently shoving into my mouth have made sure of. But if I could, I’m sure it would go something like this:

            “My life is going just great, I can assure you, even up to this moment, as you scrape my teeth of food residue and pump my mouth full of banana-flavored fluoride. But, if we’re going to be honest here, I haven’t had much time to myself in the weeks leading up to break, to write or to think or to pray. Not because I’ve been studying, of course, but because of just all this damn stuff I need to do. And my life, whether it be academic or religious or social, is suffering because of it.

            “All of my friends have come back from school with all these party stories and hook-up trophies and relationship statuses and, in that regard, I have nothing to show. If anything, the only thing I have worth bragging about is my once-a-month “Brandon Time”, when I spend a Friday evening alone in my dorm watching a movie and eating ice cream without a shirt on, instead of going out to a party or to hang out with friends. It’s hardly the most enamoring college story, but it’s a college story nonetheless.

            “And now Freshman year is almost over. I can honestly say that I would have done absolutely nothing differently, besides study a little bit more. Wow, that’s a really refreshing personal realization. Thank you so much for listening to me and letting me get that all off of my chest.”

            I open my eyes (I guess they had been closed this entire time) and glance around my surroundings. She is still talking, blissfully unaware of whatever chat we, imaginarily, had:

            “…and he was singing the Beta fight song! Ninety-one years old and his mind is in better shape than mine! I can’t even remember what I had for lunch yesterday.”

            And, just like that, she stops without another word or a warning, adjusts the chair, hands me a bag with a new toothbrush, and tells me I can go. My tongue traces over the smooth ridges of my teeth as I half-grin to say good-bye, feeling a little more confident in both my life and my smile. Thirty minutes was all it took to restore the whiteness of my teeth and the “spring in my step”.

            Maybe the dentist’s office isn’t so bad, after all.

cxviii

“Baby it’s cold outside…”

-Jessica Simpson, Zooey Deschanel, Dean Martin

            I’ll be quite honest here: the list of things that I don’t like far surpasses the things I do. And one of the things that tops that very long, very detailed list (above, even, animals and surprises and mayonnaise) is cold weather.

            That’s not to say that I am a huge fan of the heat, either; I can pretty much find a general complaint with whatever the temperature is outside. But what really gets to me is the sub-freezing temperatures and the biting winds and the slippery sidewalks.

            And, just my luck, that’s exactly the weather that we’ve been having in BIGCOLLEGETOWN this week.

            It’s not even the good kind of cold weather, where you get extended periods off of an icy school, for the sole reason to stay at home, avoid the outside world, and drink some hot cocoa. No, it’s been the “walk outside with three jackets on, go to all of your classes, have the gears of your bike freeze over twice, and then get sick” kind of cold weather.

            And so, my throat still hurting and my fever still semi-raging, I casually present what I have learned the past two-or-so weeks through this cold weather, or, keeping with tradition, as I would like to call it:

            Brandon Wainerdi’s One-Hundreth-and-Eighteenth Irrefutable Law of Life and Love in General: If the weather outside is below forty degrees, don’t even bother getting out of bed. It will only get worse because…:

                                                           

·      Addendum 118.1: There’s no manly way to tie a scarf: While I’m sure, buried in the hallows of Wikipedia or Youtube, there is some manner of a less, shall we say, feminine way to carry a scarf around your neck, I have yet to discover it. And, while the atrocious burgundy and beige knitted monstrosity may be the only thing standing between me and serious bout of lower-chin frostbite, I will definitely not be looking my best with it as an accessory.

·      Addendum 118.2: It’s incredibly difficult to lock/unlock your bike with big, puffy ski gloves: As I discovered huddled above my bike one frozen morning, you end up having to decide between the safety of your five-year-old bike and if you want to keep your five fingers.

·      Addendum 118.3: Beach Boys songs make everything worse: To be short: hearing “Surfin’ Safari” or “California Girls” while it is sleeting on your head is guaranteed to make you want to scream.

·      Addendum 118.4: I am, apparently, unrecognizable with a beanie on: This quasi-compliment was given to me numerous times throughout these past couple of weeks. Why is it a compliment? Because, for one, I hate my beanie, and two, that means I can officially be a master of disguise or a spy.

·      Addendum 118.5: Girls look deceptively cuter with their “winter gear” on: This really should be the first bullet because it is definitely the most upsetting. Let’s just say that with all that bundling up, the line between a “good-looking, in-shape” co-ed and a “bad-looking, out-of-shape” co-ed becomes seriously blurred. Gross.

·      Addendum 118.6: It takes exactly thirty-two seconds in the cold for my face to become all red and stiff: Self-explanatory. And painful.

·      Addendum 118.7: It is impossible to bike around campus without wanting to start crying: Comparatively, it is much much colder on a bicycle, with the wind blowing harder as you skim across the frozen-over roads. Every inch of your exposed body wants to scream. Sometimes it gets so bad that I just feel like crashing into a bush and then curling up into a ball, huddling pitifully for warmth.

            The weather forecast predicts that, this week, the temperatures are only going to drop more. So I'd like to make my own forecast: I am personally predicting that I won’t be getting out of bed. You know where to find me, then: buried under blankets and sheets, Beach Boys blaring, and my hideous scarf hanging above my dresser.

cxvii

“A kitten is chiefly remarkable for rushing about like mad at nothing whatever, and generally stopping before it gets there.”

-Agnes Repplier

            Thanks to a brief moment of clarity earlier this morning, I realized one of the irrevocable, impossible, irreversible truths of the universe: it impossible to run with a backpack on without looking like a complete idiot.

            Unfortunately, I’ve had to learn that the hard way. Since I only have twenty minutes in between my two earliest classes to get from one far end of campus to the absolute other, lugging my books always ends up as a sprint to the Harrington Education Center finish. And it never ends prettily.

            I suppose I must be a funny sight to see to the hundreds of casual, sunglassed observers that I race by: my two-year-old backpack swinging from side-to-side in an awkward half-pendulum around my body. It definitely also doesn’t help that I haven’t actually exercised since the beginning of the school year, my face red from both the cold and, more than likely, just sheer exhaustion. And, invariably, I arrive to Economics with a guaranteed half-a-minute left before class starts, wheezing, drawing the attention of the two-hundred other people already in their desks, as I make my way to the very front of the class. It’s a great way to start the day, to be sure.

            My mother called me this evening, begging me to switch my class to another day set, effectively forcing me to admit defeat to the scheduling gods. But I will not let my backpack and my schedule determine how I live my life, no matter how often my backpack causes my shirt to ride up my back (very often) and no matter how tired the 1.3 mile trek makes me (very very tired.)

            Luckily, my long-suffering bike is now fixed. So this week is looking up already.

cxvi

“Knowing is not enough…you must apply. Willing is not enough…you must do.”

-Bruce Lee

            Today I am tired. Weird.

            It’s weird because, normally, I am bounded with energy, staying up until the tiniest cracks of dawn. Normally I find myself spastically dancing with my reflection, barefoot on cold linoleum tile floors. Normally my contacts dry from my eyes being awake for so long, soaking in all that is around me and barely blinking from the vigorousness of the day.

            And so, with the first day of a strict new course schedule, of me racing across the campus, avoiding puddles and stares, of me never having laughed so hard or felt so tired, almost officially under my belt, my energy has disappeared. When I threw my blue-jeaned self onto my familiar narrow bed an hour ago, I wasn’t expecting to not be able to have gotten up since. But inactivity has its merits; my fingers have been hitting the wearing letters of my laptop’s keyboard with increasing speed and a list of WILLSANDWONTS appearing on my monitor, to start off the new school year right. So:

            What I will do this semester:

I will study. Sometimes.

I will go to bed earlier.

I will actually exercise.

I will memorize the entirety of the “Forever” rap.

I will organize my iTunes Library.

I will actually pay attention in (most of) my classes.

I will finish the books I have started.

            What I won’t do this semester:

I won’t cry anymore while I read George W. Bush’s memoirs.

I won’t wear any clothes, as is appropriate.

I won’t swear.

I won’t forget my headphones in other people’s cars.

I won’t download discographies of one-hit-wonder bands.

I won’t write haikus.

I won’t pretend I understand football.

            But for tonight, there will be no more running or dancing, my contacts in their chemical case. So there is now time to sleep.

            I will.

cxv

"A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet."

-Orson Welles

            It’s not very healthy to be nostalgic.

            But, health be damned, because that’s exactly what I’ve been the past week or so, pouring over old yearbooks and the photos that are falling off of my wall. Most of my friends have already gone back to their respective colleges, forcing me to spend my days either focusing on the past or sitting cross-legged in front of my laptop, watching the "classic" movies that I have only pretended to see before.

            There was still snow residue on the ground today, the weather too cold and dreary for me to be putting my pants on, let alone for me to go outside, which is exactly what my little brother wanted me to do. I had to try and argue with him the importance of staying in and culturing oneself with the untarnishable, perfectineveryway Netflix queue. He quickly saw the value and recommended Paranormal Activity.

            I can’t normally bring myself to watch horror movies and today would, again, be no exception to that rule.  I already have way too much stuff in my life that I am worried about, that I am scared of, for me to be frightened by a man in a mask jumping out and spraying blood all over the 13” LCD screen of my MacBook.  And, whether it is the future or relationships or grades or doing laundry, movies have always been the best way for me to forget, for at least an hour-and-a-half.

            And so I would have to argue that a full Netflix queue is one of the purest forms of beauty on this earth, letting my afternoons be filled with, consecutively, The Shawshank Redemption, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Pulp Fiction. Over the past few months, though, I have found myself becoming less and less involved with the characters and the plot of films and more and more focused on the technical side, on what I can find wrong with the film. It’s not a very good trait to have. And so, if you combine heavy bouts of nostalgia and a developing movie snobbery, along with the (apparently) extraordinarily egotistical persona that I put off, I’m slowly becoming a person that’s not so much fun to be around.

            Excellent.

cxiv

“A world in white gets underway/

I want to be with you/

Be with you night and day/

Nothing changes on New Year's Day.”

-Bono, humanitarian and Certified Badass

            I’m really not a big fan of these society-mandated “NEWYEARSRESOLUTIONS,” if only for the fact that I can’t seem to stick to them for more than two months after their hurried initiation. Attribute it to my two-year-old attention span or my consistent belief that I am already perfect and need to change nothing about myself if you must, but making secret little promises to work out or make better grades has never really appealed to me.

            I guess I’m just very comfortable with my life as it already is: collecting over-priced comic books, making inappropriate jokes, eating unhealthy quantities of equally unhealthy food. I could have relatively easily predicted my life at the end of last year’s bitterly cold December, with me still obsessed with Star Wars, still singing to the steering wheel along with the radio, and still writing crammed little pieces of poetry into crammed little notebooks.

            This all being said, there are a few things that I would like to accomplish in the next twelve months. And so I would like to introduce:

            Brandon Wainerdi’s One-Hundreth-and-Fourteenth Irrefutable Law of Life and Love in General: A new year can inspire both hope in the future, and disappointment in the past. Unless you are me, in which case you just are excited to be alive, and don’t even believe in the Gregorian calendar. That being said, this next “year” I swear I will:

                                                                       

·      1. Figure out where I stand politically: I assume that I am conservative, if only for the fact that I grew up that way. But I need to figure out why I believe what I do, having not paid enough (or any) attention in Government class (apologies to my wonderful teacher.) I hope to all that is holy that I’m not liberal.

·      2. Write a book: Why the hell not?

·      3. Continue to play with toys: I have copied this resolution from a scrap of paragraph in my writing journal. This really means that I will be “buying toys in mint condition and never opening them, storing them in my closet back home where they will slowly collect dust in a sad state of semi-existence.”

·      4. Actually learning how to play guitar and harmonica: No more of this basic chord crap. Now that I know how to relatively play these instruments, I might as well get good at it.

·      5. Read more: I still haven’t finished the book that I started on the first day of the semester. As a self-proclaimed “avid reader”, I really don’t do any reading at all. My latest discovery is historical memoirs, so hopefully that both helps me boost my daily literary patterns, and helps me figure out 1.

·      6. Stop cursing: Nah...fuck it.

·      7. Stop drinking so much Mountain Dew: More generally, eating healthier because, let’s be honest, relying on Easy-Mac, Oreos, and Gatorade as my three main sources of sustenance won’t be doing miracles for my physique in the long run.

            This year I am most thankful for both the friends I have made in BIGCOLLEGETOWN and the friends that I have held onto and gotten even closer to here back home. Every year, I find myself looking back and realizing how much I’ve matured and grown as a person, which I can only attribute to the influence of those around me. And, whether other people can tell or not, I have been improving in leaps and bounds throughout the past few years. But I can mature only up to a point: everything past acting like a ten-year-old is no fun at all.

            So now let’s take this 365 days of white to see if my inner ten-year-old let’s me actually finish these seven NEWYEARSRESOLUTIONS.

cxiii

“Patience is the ability to count down before you blast off.”

-Website that popped up when I typed in “Counting Down Quotes” on Google

            It is 12:15, the first fifteen minutes of the last month of the year and I am counting down to the end of the school week, to the end of finals and the long semester, to the end of 2010.

            I am counting down to the end of the year, and looking very much forward to the beginning of the next one.