Editor’s note: For the sake of keeping the running time of my weekly Sunday missives as close to 5 minutes as possible, this multi-thought musing has been split up into two parts. While each part has some entertainment and/or philosophical value by itself, they truly need to be read as a whole. For your convenience, I present to you the “Full Version.”
Thought #1: This Year Is Off To A Great Start
Not to brag, but I think I finally got this “adulting” thing figured out. Maybe it was something about starting a new decade/score,1Despite what the haters might say, we don’t have to wait until 2021 for this to be true. See here: https://xkcd.com/2249/ but for me personally, 2020 got off to the best start for any new time period in my life.
In short, I had finally figured out how to get. My. Shit. Together.
Thanks to 2019, I had a decent amount of momentum in at least two key areas of my life. Career-wise, I was moving away from a life as a mediocre scientist, shifting significantly closer to being my own dang boss.
And speaking of half-assing things, my Half-Ass Keto(TM) diet had literally left me with half the ass I had at the start of 2019. On top of that, I had been pretty faithful to Planet Fitness, getting every cent out of my $10/month membership.
For the first time that I can remember, I could legit say that I was enjoying a much more fulfilled and enriched life on December 31st than I had been on January 1st.
Originally, “practicing better sleep hygiene” was all the more I was going to ask of 2020, but I was accidentally mindful for a day or two and that’s when shit really got out of hand.
For the sake of time (and to limit how long you have to listen to me #HumbleBrag), here is an abbreviated list of mature habits formed and/or personal accomplishments achieved since 01/01/2020:
- Started practicing qigong–an ancient Chinese meditative healing art–on a daily basis.
- Switched from Half-Assed Keto(TM) to a “Whole Foods Plant-Based” diet. Unfortunately I suffer from one of the worst side-effects: Vegan-Who-Simply-Will-Not-Shut-The-Hell-Up-About-Being-Vegan-itis. Also: I see that piece of meat in your mouth and I judge you with the judgement of a judgy cat.
- After seven years of living a shame-inducing life as a never-fulfilled item on my phone’s Reminders app, “Make A Will” was finally crossed off. And, in a sense of true and beautiful symmetry, we accomplished this feat on the Elder’s 7th birthday, nonetheless. After all, there is nothing like the birth of a child to motivate one to perpetually put off getting their estate in order.
- The Kansas City Chiefs finally won the Super Bowl. About ----- time.
- Asked for and received an electric toothbrush for Christmas; actually used it on a nightly basis.
- Got around to framing some fancy flower drawings we procured on our trip to Paris last spring…
- …and hung them above our TV in our living room, finally bringing some life to the previously barren wall, and also creating a bit of of much needed Zen (see photos below).
- …and more!
I intentionally chose qigong and pictures of flowers as bookends for this list. Why? Because a key theme here is that Zen breeds Zen. The more space you give your mind to think at a higher level, the better chance you have at making core life decisions in a thoughtful manner, ranging from your daily habits to your diet to the little details of the environment with which you surround yourself.
More importantly, you can have the confidence that those decisions are worth the effort–because you’ll probably need all the mental energy you can muster to spend the rest of your life pretending bacon never existed.2Actually it’s cheese that I miss the most. BY FAR.
Honestly, though, I’m finding myself going deeper into this subject than I want to right now. Yes, just when I’m on the verge of actually saying something meaningful, turns out I’m just digressing. I do want to talk about the philosophy of life decisions at some point, but alas that’s not for today.
In summary: mindfulness can be a precious cycle:3vicious cycle pun the more you give a sh!t, the more your sh!t comes together. It may have taken a half-life for me to get there, but ----- it feels good to be here.
The point of the story is don’t believe in fate–it’s your life, write your own script!
Thought #2: Who Wrote This Anyways?
I have a sneaking suspicion that my “own personal Jesus” is partially illiterate. Or at least His Non-Gendered Cosmic Parent is. When reading the story of my life, one can’t help but wonder if anyone had thought to proofread His/Her handiwork for typos before publishing it, so to speak.
I know, I know. Only 2 seconds ago I just beseeched you to “write your own script.” That beseeching notwithstanding, much of my script has already been written, so it’s not too insane to think that Act 2 will follow some of the same tropes as Act 1. Just humor me on this one.
Where was I? Oh right, I was commenting on the sloppiness of the penGodship I observe in my own life.
I can only imagine the conversation overheard at the multi-verse book club, in which a group of gods from other universes have unwittingly chosen my biography as their window into how ----- runs things in this one:
“Hey…I think G0d might have misspelled his wife’s name. Why is there an ‘o’ in there? That can’t be right.”
“Oh, yeah? Have you seen this character’s choice of names for his daughters? Who does G0d think He/She is? George R.R. Martin? You just can’t go and make up names like that!”4Don’t forget that the Younger SHOULD have had ‘Val-‘ in front of her given name…
“And our hero’s hometown is ‘Rolla’?!? Isn’t that just ‘Raleigh’ spelled phonetically? I mean, c’mon G0d, if you’re going to take ‘creative liberties’ can’t You try to at least be a wee bit creative?”
“Well, for those of you who read all the way to the end…surely he died with a noose around his neck, right? Is it just me, or does that make way more sense than…”
“…than ‘death by hangnail‘? Yeah, somebody definitely needs to find themselves a new editor.”
Welcome to my life folks. Oh, that’s right–you’ve been reading this blog, so you already know how things go around here. In that case, welcome back!
Sadly, though, it’s true. Could I ever be so fortunate as to shed this mortal coil with the dignity of a criminal? Nah, that would make too much sense.
I mean, I’ve already had one close-call that really rose to such levels of absurdity and asininity that I’m actually a little disappointed to find out that it wasn’t My Time To Go then.
The current favorite to be my method of passing? That would be getting a blood infection from a hangnail, and that’s what takes me out. That tracks a bit closer to the current arc of my life than any old chronic disease, natural disaster or car accident. Or pandemic. Yup, I’m putting my money on infected hangnail.
You may be thinking that I say this flippantly, merely for comedic effect. But I have actually sat and imagined all the ways my life could play out to its end.
And in almost every scenario I have the same two final thoughts go through my head:
“You’ve got to be ----- kidding me.”
…followed immediately by two brief words, so succinct and grossly out of character for me, uttered as I give in to the inevitable absurdity of it all:
“Of course.“
Thought #3: Pants Epidemic Tonight!
Before going any further, it would probably be helpful for you to know that there’s a song called “Dance Epidemic” by one of my favorite bands, Electric Six. Ah, now the title of this thought makes more sense, no? And for your viewing pleasure, I’ve even included a music video some fanboy made for it with footage courtesy of an old Star Trek episode. Please, take a moment to enjoy before reading on…
Now, on with the story.
First, I need to briefly remind you of my previous unsolicited life advice to “[not] believe in fate–it’s your life, write your own script!”
It seems that some cosmic force was listening, and decided that It needed to respond with Its own form of “you best know your roll, boy!”5This was one of the dumbest things that I heard repeatedly in high school. But if you went to high school with me, most certainly you’ll remember some jackass or another using this as their catchphrase. Also, the more I think about, I can’t help but wonder if that actually has incredibly racist connotations…
“J.K. Kidding! ‘Write your own script’–hah!” says 2020. “Isn’t that cute? You and your ‘plans.’ Pfft! To those of you who think you can be the captain of your own destiny ship, I say:”
Say hello to my little friend, COVID-19, all y’all control freaks and over-planners!
2020, who is turning out to be a proper asshole, if i must say so myself
How could this post go any where but to the source of our current collective trauma? My apologies if you were hoping I would be providing respite from such existential threats.
So far, I have been fortunate enough to only be affected by the corona virus in–you guessed it–asinine ways.
For example, right about the time that North Carolina’s shelter-in-place order went into effect, I was tasked with my first of many supply runs. At that point in time, the prevailing (and, as I said at the time, incredibly naive) thought was that 3-weeks’ of supplies would suffice to see a family through this ordeal. So my goal was to get that much feed for the livestock in my household, without becoming just another vector for this stupid pandemic.
In hopes of minimizing my contact with other peoples, I purposely set out on my adventure shortly after the previously 24-hour grocery stores opened at 7 in the morning.
Though the weather didn’t exactly call for it, I wore a long sleeve flannel shirt, long socks, and a pair of blue jeans–blue to compliment my blue latex gloves, of course.
I had recalled the Boss Lady pointing out that belts were an often overlooked potential source of transmission, so I thought maybe I would just forego such an accessory for the day’s expedition. Just tuck in my shirt and I would be fine, right?
Nope. Part of the problem was that, in order to prevent me accidentally being the source of contamination–remember, I spend half my week working in a large hospital–I didn’t want to wear one of my usual pairs of blue jeans. Instead, I grabbed the first pair that I could find in my jean drawer.
Well…turns out I’ve lost more weight than I realized since I had last worn those pants.
It wasn’t a minor issue of being comfortable, either. The whole time I was on the verge of a serious wardrobe malfunction. This kind of defeated the purpose of all my hygienic precautions, as I spent most of my time hitching up my pants before they fell to the ground. Touching my pants…touching grocery store items and fixtures…touching my pants…touching my pants…picking up a box of a sugary cereal…thinking the better of it and putting said box of cereal back on the shelf…touching my pants…tucking in my shirt…pushing the grocery cart…touching my pants…
And so it went. I had hitched up my britches so many dang times that by time I had returned home, I had actually ripped that belt loop completely off.
Then, as I was making multiple trips bringing in the Chlorox-wiped groceries in from the car, the Boss Lady pointed out that instead of recontaminating everything, why don’t I just go put some shorts on. And not a moment too soon! Right as I walked into our laundry room, the waistband of my jeans gave one last sigh and then gave up the ghost.
“Vwoop!” and just like that my pants were on the floor, taking my boxers with them.
So I had essentially been a mere two paces away from providing our elderly neighbors with a free all-male revue, replete with full-frontal and full-rear nudity. Thank g0d for wives with common sense ideas like “just put some ----- shorts on already,” amiright?
Thought #4: In Her Pants…
In high school, I have a random memory of overhearing one of my female classmates making the comment that she had “gained weight, but hadn’t the chance to go shopping in awhile.”
If you want an example of what kind of outside-the-box thinker I am, my first thought was, “Wow, I didn’t realize that walking around the mall was an effective weight-management technique for high school girls! It must be a more vigorous, calorie-burning exercise than I realized…”
Admittedly, this interpretation baffled me a little bit, and it took me a beat or two to realize what the two parts of her comment actually had to do with each other.
Of course, any normal person with “common sense” would have known that she meant that she hadn’t had the chance to buy clothes that fit better since her change in weight.
I’m not sure why that little pointless vignette has stuck with me all these years, but it has.
Perhaps I somehow knew that one day, years down the road, it would be just the nugget of a tale I would need to really tie a pandemic-themed blog post together.
Now here am, two decades later, and I find myself in her pants.
Wait, that clever of twist of words didn’t turn out like I had planned for it to. It’s supposed to be a play on “I find myself in her shoes.”
But instead it sounds like I’m partaking in some extra-marital coital activities. I assure that is not the case.
Anyways, with a potential apocalypse bearing down on us, a pithy thought couldn’t help but wander through mind:
What if I finally get my shit together and lose all this weight, but fail to have gone clothes-shopping in a timely manner…and then society collapses?
So while I should be focusing on finding ways to meet the basic needs of my family such as providing food, shelter, protection, clean butts, and potable water, I’ll be spending my time stuck in a post-apocalyptic world not battling existential threats like every other bougie Joe-Schmoe, but instead a much more stupid pair of enemies: sagging britches and perpetual plumber’s crack.
I can see it now: on the run from imminent danger with my family in tow and trying to navigate some rough terrain, I pause to hike up my pants. However, I’m too close to a cliff, and accidentally lose my balance…dying in the dumbest, dumbest way imaginable in the process.
Like I said earlier, there’s only one way this oh-so-slightly-off-kilter life of mine is going to end:
“You’ve got to be ----- kidding me.”
*moment of reflection as my life flashes before my eyes in the form of a series of long-winded blog posts*
“Of course.“
The point of the story is, preparing for the worst and hoping for the best is good advice, but it doesn’t exactly cover all your bases.6…are belong to us! Though seemingly improbable, don’t forget to prepare for the best case scenario, too.
If not, you might just get caught with your pants down. And the only excuse for dying that way is autoerotic asphyxiation. But I digress…
[expand title=”Bonus: The Original, Not As Good, Ending: (click to expand!)”]
The point of the story is: please send me any donations of any old suspenders or belts you can spare. Maybe–just maybe–with your help, I’ll be spared such an inevitable, ignoble and undignified death after all.
If it helps, just think of this as one of those legendary Sarah McLachlan commercials.7Image source: https://me.me/i/hi-im-sarah-mclachlan-and-im-about-to-ruin-your-f3e85959db8147a5b97cecc2f5fbcb5a You know…
[/expand]
Content created on: 17/18/25 April 2020 (Fri/Sat/Sat).
Footnotes & References:
Hey, I’m surprised. Thought you’d always be an enthusiastic meat eater. I also had pants problems. I wear slacks to work (at home) because my jeans developed a hole in them, and I didn’t get around to jeans shopping before the shelter in place started.
Yeah, I guess it goes to show we all still have a few surprises left in us. I would say that I myself was surprised most of all with that plot twist. In fact, I had meant to write a blog post earlier charting my evolution/devolution (depending on your perspective) into the “Plant-Based Whole Foods” lifestyle. So that bit of missing context probably would have softened the jarring blow delivered by the news that I’d straight-up gone vegan.
As far as the pants go…it’s reassuring to hear I’m not the only one with such “ass”-inine shelter-in-place problems.
I’ve actually had a lot of fun mentally trying to imagine all of the sitcom-worthy scenarios in which people might similarly find themselves. My favorite is the really pretty teen girl who is scheduled to get her braces removed, but the day the before her appointment, strict shelter-in-place rules go into effect, resulting in the dentist appointment being rescheduled again and again with every extension of the s-i-p order. Yada yada ya, and she finds herself living the rest of her life stuck in the apocalyptic hell of having braces til the day she days.