It’s Sunday morning, April 1st, 2008. Today is technically opening day for the newest season of major league baseball. For me, this is somewhat of a high holy day. I don’t know why, but as enthusiastic as I am about the sport of baseball, recently, I’ve found that I can’t, for the life of me, properly explain to non-baseball fans just why and how I love the sport so much. And yes, I can agree with baseball Nay Sayers that the modern sport has become excessively riddled with the destructive forces of gigantic egos and an abundance of money. But even including the aspects that money and ego play in the sport today, I have to be honest; baseball still satiates a basic need for competition in my life, and I’m thankful for the role that it plays therein. For me, Opening Day officially marks the beginning of Spring, and it never fails to invoke the memories of the smell of fresh cut grass, the feeling I get from the sun right before it makes me sneeze a few times, and of course, the rusty stale after-taste of a half eaten bag of barbeque sunflower seeds.
I haven’t written a column in a while, but enough people asked me this week to write one that I’m inspired to give it a real go here in my favorite coffee shop in Portland. It’s Sunday morning, and the ‘how I feel about life-meter’ is sitting pretty at the dial marked “Okay.” Not a bad way to start a day. When I first came in for my coffee this morning, I happened to notice just how ratty and disheveled my coffee stamp card has become. It’s fitting that my stamp card should match my physical appearance, but when I handed the card to the Barista for my usual stamp for my “regular coffee with one free refill,” the Barista called me out on my card’s appearance, and suggested that I should just start a new one. But I refused his offer, because my stamp card has 29 out of the 30 possible stamps marked off, and this is the sixth such card I’ve filled up since I moved here in June of 2005—and I realized that I’m proud of my weathered little friend, and I think it would be a shame to try and hide my coffee shop co-dependency issues by grabbing a new, unmarked card – I’m a seasoned coffee shop vet, and I may as well accept this.
About two weeks ago to the day I severely sprained my right ankle. I’m not sure what a severe strain is, versus a mild sprain, versus a regular old sprain, but let me say the following: The damn thing has kept me from doing every single one of my most favorite activities. For two weeks I have not rode my bike, played any basketball, and I’ve even been wary hanging out and drinking, since when I’m drunk, the pain seems to dull and the last time I went out and drank until I could ignore the pain of my sprained ankle, I woke up the next morning, sober, and in a world of pain—this was today, by the way.
In honor of April Fool’s Day, this year, I’ve decided to quit smoking cigarettes for the fourth and final time in my life. Who’s the fool now, April? Here’s a brief recap of my ‘quitting smoking stats’ for those of you who don’t know me that well. I began smoking cigarettes in 2000, at the age of 19, while on a summer trip to Europe. Upon returning to the States, I quit smoking that Fall, for one month, in a failed attempt at a birthday gift for my Father. I next quit for five months after graduating from college in 2003, and then I quit for forty-three days in spring of 2006 (Commonly referred to as the great forty-three day siege of Oh-Six.). So now it’s time for the fourth and final quit. Everyone knows that everything tremendously important happens in fours. I’ll prove it.
You have a final four in NCAA basketball (this year it was UCLA, Georgetown, Florida, and Ohio State), you have four horsemen of the apocalypse (I’m assuming that they are Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, and Rice), and of course, there is the ever-important stock market cycle theory, which runs in four-year spans. Think about it some more—college is supposed to last four years, same with high school, and even our presidential terms are four years long – I mean, I’m not looking for signs here, people, the signs are practically attacking me, so trust me, the time is right. The fourth quit will be the final quit. And if you still don’t agree with me, then just ask yourself what number the month of April is.
I just looked out of the window at this coffee shop and saw someone staring at me. Whenever this happens, I’m not sure if I should look pissed off, offended, smile back at the person in question, or if I should just pretend that I didn’t just catch them staring at me. I think I would have an easier time with these situations if I had any sort of public self-esteem. But alas, I don’t, and whenever someone is staring at me, I’m assuming it’s because they are internally recording my appearance to make fun of me in some broad and outlandish situation in which many people will be laughing at their tale of me.
I’ve often been told that if you fear that you are being made fun of behind your back, or that you think you are often being stared at (even in a bad way), that this sort of thinking makes you a narcissist. I’m not sure if this is true or not, because I don’t have time to think about it, I’m too busy being the center of the universe. But in my own defense, I’d like to point out that my so-called ‘narcissism’ doesn’t stop at a fear of strangers staring at me. No, I think I’m more heavily involved in everyone else’s life than that sort of thinking would indicate. Take the other night, for example. The other night the power went out in my new apartment complex very suddenly, around 9 p.m. My building holds at least thirty units, but I immediately assumed that I alone was responsible for the power outage; even though I’d just returned home from a friend’s house, and I wasn’t using very much electricity in my apartment. No, I’m so weird that the second the power surged; and then turned off, I assumed that I had caused the failure, and felt scared and guilty.
I’ve always been a self-blaming fatalist, and I cannot explain why. I can remember blaming myself on several occasions for actions beyond my control. For instance, on my 2000 summer trip to Europe when my friends and I returned to our hostel in Pamplona, Spain, and the second floor was on fire, I instantly began to blame myself. Our room was on the second floor, and I was utterly convinced that I had started the fire by leaving my sweat-soaked handkerchief to dry on one of the heating cones attached to the wall. My friends tried for an hour to convince me that I was in no way responsible, and was acting like a loon, but it wasn’t until an actual fire fighter told me someone on the third floor had caused the fire with a cigarette that I could breath and relax and not feel responsible. Did I mention that all of the firefighters there were smoking cigarettes as they entered and exited the building with fire hoses and extinguishers? You got to love Spain!
That story just reminded me of cigarettes. Funny, I hadn’t thought about cigarettes in almost…well, a while. Did I mention to you that I’m done with them forever? Cigarettes, I mean, I’m done with cigarettes forever. I’m so done, as a matter of fact, that I’m not even thinking about them. They are off my radar. Completely. Forever. This is going to be easy, like stealing cigarettes from a baby. I mean candy. Filtered candy.
But returning to my alleged narcissism, did I mention that it was a vehicle slamming into a converter about twelve blocks from my apartment that caused the power outage? And did I mention that this accident created a domino effect that blew out several transformers creating a fifteen by fifteen (or so) square block power outage effecting a large part of SE Portland? I bring this to attention to prove that one person can be responsible for great damage, thereby proving that I may be narcissistic, when I assume that people are staring at me and making fun of me, but I’m not crazy or “irrational” when I fear that I have caused major problems by some action of mine. I’m not narcissistic, just handsome.
But as paranoid as I am, I’ll tell you one thing: I’m fairly certain that I had nothing to do with those fifteen British sailors that were caught allegedly trespassing in Iranian waters. And speaking of that, I’d have an easier time believing that these fifteen sailors were breaking international law if Iranian President Ahmadinejad wasn’t behind these allegations. I say this because Ahmadinejad openly, and proudly denies the existence of the Holocaust. Sorry, but denying the Holocaust is probably the only action that does justify labeling someone as part of an ‘axis of evil.’ So congratulations, Ahmadinejad, you’re not just ignorant and evil, but your last name is hard to pronounce, and even harder to spell, and because of this, you have made this paragraph hard to write. You are therefore officially the charter member of my ‘modern day axis of evil.’ To combat your Holocaust denial, I’m officially denying that there was ever a kingdom called Persia, and I’m never buying one of your fancy silk rugs. I’m still fueling my car with gasoline, however, cause, uh, “old habits die hard.” Take that, Iran!
My recent ankle injury, if you recall my description of it from paragraph three, has totally reinvented my attitude towards people who can’t walk at all, and those who hobble, hop, or use a crutch or cane. I’m suddenly sympathetic to their cause. Don’t misunderstand me, it’s not that before I was against these people, or unsympathetic of their situation, it’s just that I never bothered to ‘put myself in a cripple’s shoes’ for the same reason that I don’t want to put myself in the shoes of anyone other person who is suffering. Why would I want to experience suffering, because it may make me a more tolerant person? Screw that, I’m human, and I don’t want to feel any suffering that I don’t have to.
But now that I do suffer from a condition that makes me gulp before attempting to walk up or down a flight of stairs; a condition that literally has kept me from making plans and hanging out, since I need to constantly have my foot elevated and snuggly wrapped in ice, I must say that being disabled does indeed suck, and this is so because it turns so many basic actions that most people take for granted into a struggle. I have therefore moved my “irrational fear of lower body paralysis” up from slot number 104 all the way to number 56, pushing irrational fear number 56 into slot 57. Irrational Fear number 57 is, of course, my fear that androids take over my family members’ bodies and I’m forced to kill them myself, with a gun, in order to save humanity from an android take over.
But there are irrational fears, and then there are rational precautions, and take it from me, being sure to wear appropriate braces for your nagging body parts when you exercise or partake in sports is suddenly a prudent and not pathetic or “wussy” idea to me anymore. I’m wearing braces on my ankles next time I shoot hoops, and I’m also going to ice my injuries and stretch before exercising, per most doctors’ recommendations. I’m also quitting smoking, to greatly increase my health, my bank account, and hopefully my attractiveness to all those single girls out here in Portland. Now I just have to register a gun to protect humanity from those androids, cause, uh, you know, I’m into prudence and precaution now, and I have finally seen the clear line between irrational and rational fears. I feel blessed. So in thanks for this blessing, may the Oakland Athletics win it all in 2008. Go A’s. And stay tuned for my next column, all about my irrational fears about my forthcoming trip to visit a friend in Japan (See STBY# 32, “Japanic Attack”).