What This Trip to Baltimore Has To Live Up To

When I was 17, I was one of 10 high school seniors from Omaha who had the opportunity to go to Baltimore for the American Academy of Achievement Conference. The idea of this yearly event is to bring together 400 high school leaders with successful people from various walks of life and allow them to interact as peers. The year I went, Colin Powell, Barbara Bush, Warren Buffett, Ron Howard, Tom Clancy, and Cal Ripken, Jr. were among the “successes” who attended.

The trip started off on a down note when our flight was delayed for over 4 hours. This would mean that we would definitely miss the opening ceremonies. I wasn’t too concerned. This gave me a chance to catch up with two of the other students going on the trip who were friends from elementary school that I had lost touch with. Ryan played on virtually all of my sports teams from 3rd-5th grade (he was better at soccer, me at basketball) and introduced me to the wonders of Sega Genesis. Madan and I were two of the three founding members of the Lothrop Elementary School Chapter of “GirlBusters”. Our mission was to keep all girls away so that we could only play with other boys at recess. Shockingly, we were very successful. Yes, I am also amazed that I didn’t turn out to be gay.

Fortunately for us, our sponsor for the trip was Warren Buffett and he would not hear of us missing the opening ceremonies. Within an hour of being notified, Buffett had arranged transportation to a private airfield where we boarded his personal plane. Instead of sitting in the middle seat of a United 747, I flew to Baltimore on a private plane seated across from Tom Osborne and his wife, Nancy. Tom Osborne is pretty famous nationally with football fans, but in Nebraska he was worshipped as a minor deity. In 1997, he could have defeated Jesus in a gubernatorial election. Talking to him for a couple of hours was one of the highlights of my young life.
Once we got to Baltimore, the amazing stories kept on coming. My roommate was the nephew of the president of Mexico. On the second night, we attended a banquet at the Aquarium complete with multiple ice sculptures. That was where one of the girls from Omaha embarrassingly gushed to Ron Howard that she loved being involved with theater at her school but didn’t do anything important…she just directed. The next day during a free period, I played a 4 on 4 pick-up game with 7 of the other high school students…including future NBA players Baron Davis, Shane Battier, and Jarron and Jason Collins. I didn’t shoot too much. On the last night, four of us were thrown out of the hotel during the closing dance for constantly running up the down escalator. One of the other people thrown out was the winner of the Miss Junior Miss Pageant.

I’m on the road back to Baltimore right now, after a fun two hour ordeal at the car rental place this morning. Emlen got a job offer this morning so she won’t be coming back to Balls4Play* (Yeah Em!) and celebrated this news by quitting her driving shift after 20 minutes (Boo Em!). We have rough plans to meet up with Truong’s brother and go to the Red Sox-Orioles game tonight.

*New S4K Name Pending Trademark

Songs I’m Listening Too - Slow Show – The National, Percussion Gun – The White Rabbits, & Orange Shirt – Discovery.

Next Stop – Baltimore (then camping somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mountains)

What I'm Doing With My Summer

Why think about that when all the golden land's ahead of you and all kinds of unforeseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you're alive to see? - Jack Kerouac, On the Road

In just over a month, I turn 30 years old. I am not remotely ready. 30 means growing up. 30 means that I can no longer check off the 18-29 box on census forms. 30 means that I can't act indignant when my friends tell me they are getting married, having a kid, or buying a house. 30 means that going to certain bars and concerts starts to become a little sad. "30 means that the half plus seven" rule makes it acceptable for me to date someone born in 1963. 30 means that I can no longer write quarter-life crisis columns and "2/5th life crisis" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Yet you, dear reader, should be very proud of me. Faced with my imminent birthday without girlfriend, money, or defined career path, I choose not to wallow. Instead, I choose adventure. Tomorrow morning, I embark on The Great American Roadtrip with four of my best friends in Boston. Emlen, Julia, Tes, Truong and I are renting a minivan and driving across the country with no clear plan other than to try and see and experience everything that we possibly can. This is one of those crazy 1 AM bar ideas that has actually come to fruition.

To add to the fun, I am going to attempt to document all of our adventures here. I'm sure I will not have the chance to write every night, but I will try to post periodic updates as often as I can. Since we don't have any kind of plan, feel free to send me texts and emails telling me why we should come to your city. Milwaukee may need a hard sell, Aaron.

I have no idea how this trip will go. Julia may run off with a fiddle player in Nashville. Truong may meet a homeless man in Albuquerque and stop to build him house with his bare hands using just the local brush. Emlen and Tes may break up and turn the van around before we reach Providence. Who knows? All I can tell you, is I cannot wait to find out.

Songs I'm Listening To Tonight: Fader - The Temper Trap, Lisztomania - Phoenix, & Quiet Little Voices - We Were Promised Jetpacks

Tomorrow's Destination: Baltimore

What Are 25 Things About Me

After reading roughly 20 of these on facebook over the last few months, I realized that I am way too egocentric not to write one myself. Hope you enjoy.

1. I love the idea of going to concerts and have fond memories of most of the concerts I’ve attended, but I always feel awkward while I’m there.

2. I absolutely love movie trailers. I just caught this one today…it is my favorite since this one. But I’m totally the market for “500 Days of Summer” though…Zooey Deschanel is my celebrity crush and Joseph Gordon-Levitt may be my favorite actor.

3. I am nostalgic about Omaha and will defend her to her many detractors, but I’m not creative enough to think of a confluence of events that could ever lead to me living there again.

4. I always have been something of a prankster. I did horrible things to my roommates in college and nearly wasn’t allowed to graduate from high school because I circulated a fictitious “Senior Superlative” list. Nothing prepared me for living with medical students, though. One morning, after a night of heavy drinking, I woke up to an itch on my back. I tried to scratch it, but for some reason my arm was heavy and I couldn’t fully move my fingers. When I finally opened my eyes, I realized the problem...my right arm was in a full plaster cast. Never did get revenge for that one.

5. I haven’t been to Las Vegas in over two years, my longest drought since I turned 21 by more than a year. Not to worry, though…I already have my tickets for a trip in May.

6. I’m in my second year of working full time with elementary school students. I love my kids, but it the single best form of birth control ever invented. Want to lower teen pregnancy numbers? Force high school students to work with 10 year olds for a month.

7. I’ve only really been in love twice, but I fall half in love easily. Fortunately, I’m fickle enough that it usually only last for a couple hours at a time.

8. I’ve had nine concussions since my sophomore year of high school. Those who know me now may find it hard to believe, but I once was pretty smart.

9. When I was in 8^th grade, I missed roughly 8 weeks of school with an illness that basically caused me to lose my balance. This resulted in me inadvertently becoming a major trend-setter at Morton Junior High. When I came back to school, I was walking with the assistance of a cane. Within a week of being back, 20 different kids were walking around the halls with canes. It certainly wasn’t that I was that cool…this was just at the height of Boyz II Men’s fame and no one realized you could bring a cane to school before I did it.

10. I am not nearly as big of a sports fan as I used to be. I still follow my teams (Astros, Rockets, Creighton basketball, Nebraska football, Reading F.C.) but I almost never watch a game anymore that doesn’t involve one of them.

11. Now I’m more of a pop culture junky. I would probably write a lot more if I didn’t feel the need to see every movie that comes out or watch every episode of any television show that is even mildly critically acclaimed.

12. I believe that “Arrested Development” is the funniest show ever made and “The Wire” is the greatest piece of art, regardless of medium. I try not to, but I look down on people who don’t like either of those shows.

13. But I also watch “Gossip Girl”. Whew…admitting that is a weight off of my chest.

14. I claim to be most attracted to brunettes, but I always end up dating blondes and redheads.

15. My favorite author is Nick Hornby. My buddy Rob was kind enough to go out of his way to get his autograph during a layover in London and give it to me as a Christmas gift. That is a little more thoughtful than the Corona I bought him.

16. I go out to eat so often, that two of my neighborhood places know my order when I walk in and have even given me food on credit. I bet you don’t have a tab at bagel place.

17. 2008 was the first year that a candidate I voted for has been elected president or to the US Senate. I think this has more to do with me moving from Nebraska and Texas to Massachusetts, than any sea change in American politics.

18. The reason I am a winning poker player is the same reason that I haven’t been as successful in other avenues of life. I don’t value money enough.

19. I have run a NCAA Tournament pool and a fantasy football league every year since I was in 6^th grade.

20. I am a total sap. I probably cried 10 times during the 3^rd season of “Friday Night Lights”.

21. My hero was my grandfather who I was named after. He was a state senator in Nebraska and told some of most amazing stories about backroom politics that you have ever heard. One reason that I will always be grateful to my ex Kiley is that she talked me into making an impromptu visit to his house when we were running late to a wedding. It was the last time I saw him before he died.

22. Neither of my parents were Catholic, but both remarried Catholics. Now they regularly attend mass and all of my half-siblings are being raised Catholic. This means I’m going to be stuck going to extra-long weddings and graduations for the foreseeable future. Thanks a lot, Mom and Dad.

23. I used to make important decisions by flipping a coin. It didn’t matter what side it came up on, because I would always find myself rooting for one outcome or the other. I used to think this was clever, until it was used as a plot device in the crappy Gretchen Mol movie “Music From Another Room”

24. I think a puppy dies every time Anne Coulter speaks.

25. Nothing has ever gotten me into as much trouble as the fact that I am not nearly as funny as I think I am.

Who Will Be Co-Starring in My Upcoming Motion Picture

One day, I'm going to accidentally do something so big that Hollywood is going to have to make one of those 3 hour biopics about me. I'm thinking, maybe Jason Statham in the lead role. Many of you have been cast before (here, here, here, and here). Below, are some new additions to the cast.

Adam -Hunter Parrish
Ananth - Kanye West (the cross-racial thing works, right?)
Ari - Hilary Swank
Ben - Neil Patrick Harris
Charlie - Russel Hornsby
Chris - Chris Klein (multiple girls offered this one up unprompted)
Corey - Michelle Kwan
Crystal - Taraji P. Henson
Dana -Isla Fisher
Emlen - Katee Sackhoff
Jon H - Chad Coleman
Kaitlin - Jenna Fischer
Katie - Ashley Tisdale (facial recognition software offered up that one...no lie)
Matt - Bradley Cooper
Max - Adrien Grenier (easiest one on the list)
Rebeca - Gabrielle Reece
Tommy - Josh Lucas (all the accent)
Tracey - Gabrielle Union (in her Bring it On days)
Truong - Joe Jonas (Tes came up with this one...blame her)

How I Became Something I Swore I Never Would

I never thought that I would ever be the type of person whose life was defined by his job. And for the first decade of my working life, I was proud to avoid that fate. Sure, it left me impoverished and more than a little directionless, but at least I wasn't that guy at parties tossing around buzzwords like "synergy", "commoditize", or "success".

In the summer of 2007, I moved up to Boston with an immigration law job similar to the one that I held in Houston. I wasn't excited about it, but I thought it would be a comfortable 9 to 5 that I could sleepwalk through as I found my way in a new city. The day before I was supposed to start, I received a call from an organization called Sports4Kids. It was one of the 25 jobs that I had applied for months earlier, and I had forgotten about it as quickly as I hit the "Submit" button on the online application. I had a vague memory of liking what I read about the organization, so I brazenly scheduled an interview for Wednesday, my third day at the law firm.

On Wednesday, I excused myself from work for a long lunch and grabbed a cab across town to the Sports4Kids office without a clue as to what to expect. I walked in wearing my best suit and was greeted by my interviewer...a woman in her early 30s wearing a t-shirt and jeans with tattoos up her arm. And she was looking at me as if I was the one who wasn't dressed appropriately for the situation! Needless to say, this would be a little different. The interview went pretty well, but the Q & A portion threw up all kinds of red flags.

Me: Where will I work?
Her: No guarantees. Somewhere at one of the Boston-area schools within a 30 mile radius. Don't worry...we'll let you know at least two days before you start.

Me: What is the salary?
Her: You will be taking a 60% pay cut.

Me: Do you offer any benefits?
Her: We might have a health plan in place by the time you start. And you get a $25 gift certificate to Applebees!

I should have laughed the interview off, but I left intrigued. I could tell my interviewer really believed in the program she was selling and her enthusiasm was infectious. Over the next few days, I became more and more excited about the prospect of leaving office life behind. When the job was offered to me a week later, I surprised myself with how quickly I accepted it.

In the 18 months since I started with Sports4Kids, the organization has taken over my life. My job requires me to wear numerous different hats every day. Depending on when someone interacts with me, they could view me as a gym teacher, a recess monitor, an after-school program director, a mentor, a tutor, or a youth sports coach. I once jokingly described my job as a life coach for ten-year-olds...except I wasn't really kidding. Anyone who works with children knows that it is something that spills over into other aspects of your life. If I'm not at my school, I'm often planning for work from home, worrying about something that happened that day, or complaining about work over drinks with my co-workers. I'm not sure that this is something that I'll be doing for the next 10 years (or even the next 10 months), but I know that it is a job that I'll never forget.

Why I Should Never Be Allowed To Text Message

You would think I would have learned by now. Always double-check who you are addressing the text message too before clicking the send button. It isn’t like I haven’t made this mistake before. Who can forget the time that I texted my 15-year old sister “come out and get drunk with me” when I meant to send it to Meaghan McEntee? Or the time I sent Michelle the text “I miss you in a dirty way.” Well I intended it to go to Michelle, but I accidentally sent it to the name below her in my phone…Mom.

This weekend, Jeff was in Vegas for is friend Ted’s bachelor party. Ted is the closest thing that Jeff has to a “baller” friend. Last time that group went to Las Vegas for a bachelor party, Jeff came back with ridiculous stories of drugs, $1000 hands of blackjack, and all types of wanton women. Not unreasonably, Friday I drunkenly texted Jeff, “accidentally kill a hooker yet?” You can make the argument that the reference was dated (a terrible 90s movie Very Bad Things) and not that funny (true), but I figured that I would get back some outrageous story in response. And I very well would have, if I had sent it to the right person.

When texting on my phone, it is usually fastest to type in a person’s initials. This almost invariably pulls up the correct name. But I do have one person in my phone that shares the same initials with Jeff…Jose, a very nice, very sweet guy who briefly worked at the same company as me. I haven’t communicated with him at all in the eight months since he was fired for some combination of being too nice and not speaking enough English. Believe it or not, he did not respond to my text. I really hope that a) he doesn’t have my phone number so he has no idea who sent the message, or b) he has since changed his number and it has been recycled for somebody else to use. I find it hilarious to think that someone out there could have just received that message at random.

By the way, I eventually did send the message to Jeff, and this was his response:

“Nope, but I did hook up with a girl in the Gold Coast (a very, very crappy casino) parking lot. She was classy.”

So are you buddy. So are you.

Why Not to Mix Alcohol and Cold Medicine After Spending Ten Hours in the Sun

Last Friday was the reason that people actually make the mistake of living in Boston. After approximately a decade of winter, the sun had come out and we had our first 70-degree day. In Texas, one is spoiled with these days in January. The people up here justify living in the Northeast by claiming that you appreciate summer that much more because of the horrid winters. This is true. But I would still much rather take it for granted.

This awesome weather happened to coincide with the last day of school before a weeklong spring break, so I was most definitely ready to celebrate. So after work, Julia, C.J., and Tes met me in Harvard Square for some patio drinks. The problem, as usual, is that all of my friends up here DRINK. If I were drinking to relax, I might sip on a beer over the course of an hour. It is a little harder to do that, though, when the two girls you are sitting next to are downing gin and tonics and straight whiskeys at a pace that would make Bukowski blush. You begin to feel that your manhood is being questioned.

After a few drinks, we change bars and go meet my roommates down the street. It is at this point that my memory begins to get fuzzy. One problem is it is only 5 o’clock. The other problem is that I am not realizing that I am impaired. Around 7:00, Tes leaves to go home. Not long after, C.J. stumbles away. At this point, Julia and I realize that we have been drinking for hours and neither of us ate lunch that day, so we decide to leave and grab a bite to eat at the Indian place across the street.

Thing start off well enough. We go in, request a table for two, and are seated by the window over looking a park in Harvard Square. We have a quiet, pleasant conversation before placing our order and choosing a bottle of wine. Or at least that is how I remember it. When our waiter comes back a few minutes later, he has a different interpretation. He says the restaurant will not be able to serve us because it is clear that we have had enough already and that we made a huge commotion when we entered the restaurant. I am now indignant, insisting that we are fine. We protest loudly for a few minutes and every table in our section is now watching the interaction. In my head, I am silently cursing Julia because I am positive that it must have been her that was too loud at the restaurant. I certainly knew that I wasn’t drunk.

It is a little embarrassing to be cut off before 8:00 PM at an upscale Indian restaurant, so I continue to protest. After a few minutes, the waiter proposes a compromise. We must assure him that neither of us is driving (we’re not) and he will serve us each a glass of wine. If it goes well, and we behave, he will give us each a second glass on the house. Satisfied and feeling victorious, I lean back in chair and wait for my wine to arrive. I relish the first sip, feeling like I truly earned this drink. I’m pretty sure I would have enjoyed the second sip too, if I hadn’t knocked my glass over spilling wine all over the table and myself. A few minutes later, I knocked my glass over a second time, spilling the remainder of my wine.

Needless to say, I didn't get my free glass of wine.

How I BeganThe Day At A MLK Celebration And Ended Up At That Same God-Awful Strip Club, Yet Convinced Myself I Was More Noble As The Day Progressed

The story starts with a 110-pound drunk girl in 3-inch heels supporting my 220-pound drunken ass as we waddled through the icy streets of Allston at 3:00 AM Sunday morning. Tes and I had just left Julia’s party, after heroically attempting to finish a keg with the help of only 16 friends (we failed). We were trying to find a cab to split that would take us back to our respective homes in Somerville. Well, we would have been splitting it, if I were carrying any money (I actually did have cash…I just was too drunk to remember that detail).

I know this little tidbit might sound like it triggered some epiphany about how I need to drink less and make better choices, but don’t worry…this isn’t that kind of a story. I’m just relaying it to illustrate how it was possible for me to still be hungover two days later on Monday morning. Thankfully, I didn’t have to go to work. However, I did have to attend a mandatory volunteer service project (now there is an oxymoron). I would be assisting in some capacity at the Mayor’s Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration at Faneuil Hall. It wasn’t that I was dreading this, exactly. I just wasn’t there for any altruistic reason. I was ready to do this “good” thing, but I was only there because I knew that it was required of me. Given my choice, I probably would have been at home, practicing my golf swing on my roommate’s Wii.

The event was fairly disorganized, but it was interesting. There were so many ministers and politicians making uncomfortable small talk that I felt like I was living in an episode of The Wire. After we finished setting up, serving lunch to old people, and cleaning up, I was free to get on with my day. A few weeks back, Dan and I had made a pact to go drinking after every service project. We had a great time getting to know Julia when we did this in December, so we figured that it should become a tradition. Even though I was dragging, I didn’t feel like this was a challenge I could back down from. We try to get everyone to join us, but only the guys (C.J., Chantha, Dan, and I) were game.

We decided to go to The Tap, a crappy Faneuil Hall area bar that at least had the good sense to realize that it was crappy and price its beer accordingly. We started out with the best intentions. Everyone was planning to have one or two beers, and head home since we all had work the following day. Of course it didn’t turn out that way. The problem with drinking with my co-workers is that we are all very competitive. So when C.J. calls out Dan and Chantha for not drinking fast enough, instead of laughing it off they respond by chugging and ordering another round. I continued to sip my first drink slowly (I could still taste Saturday’s two-day old alcohol), but realized that I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. As a round of shots was ordered, I realized that I had to complete some work before I got caught up in the quickly escalating drunkenness. The bar was nearly empty (as it should be at 6:00PM on a Monday), so I retreated to the back corner and began to call the parents’ of my basketball team. I can sympathize with Jimmy McNulty…making professional calls from a bar can be a little distracting.

By the time I had finished talking to all of the parents, things were getting slurry at the bar. Dan and C.J. were arguing about which one of them is better looking, Chantha was hitting on some girls for us, and I needed another drink so that I could stomach it all. After awhile, we started to discuss what we were going to do next. Three options were presented:

1) Go Home – I was in favor of this option, but I wasn’t ready to be the first to blink.

2) Go to the Glass Slipper – When this was suggested, I laughed and said that there was absolutely no chance that I was going to end up there.

3) The Worst Idea Ever – I am not going to say what this idea was, or even who first suggested it, but I’m just going to say that The Bay of Pigs was better thought out. New Coke had its finger closer to the pulse of the popular climate. Britney, with razor in hand, had a better understanding of the long-term ramifications.

Worst of all, it looked like people were really going to follow through with the Worst Idea Ever. Fortunately, I was with drunken people and drunks are nothing if not suggestible. I realized that no one would commit to the Glass Slipper unless we all were in, so I wholeheartedly jumped on the strip club bandwagon. I was sober, had zero desire to go, but was ready to do this “bad” thing in the interest of saving my friends from themselves.

The Glass Slipper was just as bad as I anticipated. Before we even walked in, C.J. and I had been insulted by the doorwoman (He was a “pussy” for wanting to watch hockey, I was sarcastically called a “young’un” after she checked my ID). Inside wasn’t any better. Monday day shift talent was onstage. C.J. was drunkenly introducing me as Cooper and Chantha was calling himself DeShaun. The first dancer who talked to us told us to get the hell out and go to a normal bar, after we politely turned down a private dance. Within minutes, C.J. was talking about leaving, Chantha was watching a video of his baby cousin on his phone before passing out in the booth, and Dan was sitting in a booth by himself so he wouldn’t be associated with us. It cost me $20 and two hours of my life, but it did give me something that volunteering at the MLK celebration couldn’t. I knew that I did some hard work that I should be proud of.

P.S. – Two other things happened that night that should be mentioned. While commuting from the bar to the Slipper, Dan and I got into a “fight” in the subway station. I totally dominated him and ended up messing up his finger. The fight was funny at the time, but Dan is a boxer and has a fight in a month. I hope I am not the one who knocks him out of the Golden Gloves. What happened to C.J. was much funnier. After C.J. left the club, he took the subway home on the Red Line (here’s a map, if you aren’t familiar with Boston). He got on the train at Park and planned to get off at the Quincy Adams stop at the far Southern end of the Red Line. Unfortunately, he passed out. Two hours later, he woke up and groggily realized that he was at Porter Station at the far Northern end of the line! By the time he finally did make it to the Quincy Adams stop, he had spent nearly three and a half hours on the train. He could have flown to Orlando in that much time!

Why I Miss Omaha

Before I knew him, I couldn’t stand him. When I was a senior in high school, my mom sat me down for a talk. I knew that it must be serious, because formal talks were not something that we did in my family. What made me especially nervous was the presence of my high school football coach. He and my mom had been regularly talking and periodically dating since the end of my freshman year. During this entire time, he and I never spoke about their relationship, nor was he ever in my house. It wasn’t that I was particularly upset about this arrangement, but it was definitely a subject that I avoided thinking about. Now he was in my living room. I knew what was coming before anyone said anything.

Initially, I took the news that my mom was pregnant (at 45!) pretty well. I shook my coach’s hand and promised to be there when they told my brother Jon. I think they were more worried about how he would take it. I was leaving for college in 6 months, but Jon was only a freshman and would still be attending (and playing football for) the high school where both my mom and my coach both taught. When he found out, my brother was initially upset but handled it well and soon warmed to the idea.

I went in the opposite direction. I grew angrier and angrier every day. Rarely a day went by where I didn’t say something to make my mother cry. I regularly skipped school and went from possible valedictorian to nearly failing to graduate. I almost was expelled from school for running a school-wide March Madness pool (thank goodness the principal’s son and a few teachers were involved) and for circulating a “Real” Senior Superlative survey with categories such as Best in Bed, Least Desirable, and Most Likely to Die a Virgin (I still think that was kind of funny).

I barely remember when Cole was born prematurely, just weeks before graduation. I have later been told that it was touch and go for a while, and that my mom was in very poor health, too, but I don’t even think I ever went to the hospital. After everyone came home, I continue to turn my back on the situation and all responsibilities. I spent nearly the entire summer at my girlfriend’s house. I never blamed Cole, but I certainly did not recognize him as my brother. It took a semester at college before I finally started to grow up. And once I gave Cole a chance, it was impossible not to love him. Even if we had to share a bedroom with me for that first summer!

My now ten-year-old brother Cole has grown into the greatest kid in the world. I have suspected this for a few years now, but after working at a school I am ready to say it for certain. I can’t help caring about what he cares about. This means that when he was five, I cared about helping him collecting as many different colored newspaper bags as he could (he was obsessed with collecting the weather-proof bags that newspapers came in). When he was seven, we would play miniature golf five times a week. When he was nine, I helping him expand his ridiculously large NFL and NBA jersey collection. Now it means that when I am in Omaha, I share his obsession with small school Nebraska boys’ basketball. When we play one-on-one, it isn’t Lakers vs. Celtics…it is the Elkhorn Mt. Michael Black Knights vs. the Bennington Badgers.

Our 18-year age difference leads me to look at him more paternally than I do my other siblings. And it leads me to worry and obsess. He’s a fourth-grader, and yet he hasn’t had to lose any of his innocence in the same way that many of the kids that I work with have. He still believes in Santa. He constantly worries about others (“Mom, this girl at school was being teased because she is fat…do you think it makes her sad?”) He doesn’t ever hide his emotions. I worry about what will happen to a child that is this earnest. Over Christmas break, he stopped to ask me what this gesture meant. As I laughed while trying to explain, he looked hurt that I wasn’t taking him seriously. He told me that a 6^th grader showed it to him, and he was embarrassed that he didn’t know what it meant. I still danced around an answer to his question and I was consumed with an overwhelming urge to protect him. I know little things like this are what growing up is all about, but I don’t want it to chew away at the incredible person he is.

Last year, Cole told my mom that he knew that Jon and his parents loved him, but he felt that I loved him most of all. And I’m not sure he is wrong. When he asks why I can’t live in Omaha so that we can see each other all of the time, I never know what to say. I miss my mom, some friends who still live in town, Runza, and Creighton basketball, but thinking about Cole is the only time I ever even consider moving back. When I think about the possibility of seeing Cole every day and watching him grow up, Omaha almost seems like an option. It will never happen, but my heart breaks every time I have to say goodbye to him.

What You Missed in Chicago

One of the best things about reuniting with old friends is that you immediately fall into the old patterns. Alex and Jon become the nice, funny ones, Blake and Reid join them until he gets drunk, I become uber-sarcastic, Jeff and Aaron compete to be more outrageous, Susan keeps us all together, G is all about the camaraderie, Amir shows us his new websites (I’m very, very sorry) and Kevin avoids us for as long as possible. We retell the same stories we have told a hundred times before and we laugh as if we haven’t heard them before. And we start drinking before noon every day like it’s our job.

This New Year’s Eve Party didn’t have the same number of stories as some of the past years (see Exhibits A, B, C, & D), but I’m not sure I have ever had more fun. It was as relaxing and laid-back an experience as being completely bombed for three straights can possibly be. If there is one memory that stands out in my mind from Chicago 07/08, it is drinking and playing beanbags on the roof of a Chicago building for three hours on New Year’s Eve, in a snowstorm. It is as surreal an experience as I can remember. Here are ten more memories (in chronological order) that you didn’t have to be there for to appreciate:

1) Big Life Events – Living in Boston, it is easy to avoid the fact that I am supposed to be growing up. Most of the people I hang out with remember Nirvana as an oldies band, while my roommates are all older than me yet no further advanced. In Chicago, I quickly realized that just because I’m standing still, time isn’t. I found out that one good friend is engaged, I saw another for the first time since he was married, and I’m guessing that a few more will get engaged sometime in 2008. Even Amir has a steady girlfriend. That is a far cry from hitting on college students with Dan while doing my best not to look creepy. At least Jeff was around all weekend to make me feel better about myself.

2) New Friends – One of my favorite things about my weekend was the interesting mix of people that we brought together. The Rice/Trinity/Baylor Med School meshing led to some interesting interactions. Here are two of my favorites (paraphrasing from drunken memory):

1) Anne: “Elsa, you are always flirting with random boys at bars.”

Elsa: “No, they were just flirting with me.”

Anne: “What’s your secret?”

Elsa: “I act really slutty.”

2) Aaron (drunkenly, jokingly(?), and hopefully some extreme non-sequitir): “We should just go over there and have sex with all of the Arab women.”

Amir: “And the best part is, they are the ones who get arrested for it.”

Aaron: “I think you and I are going to be friends.”

3) Garcia’s Shots and Blake’s Disregard for the Guy Code – The pure evilness of that last quote makes a little more sense when you consider what Aaron was putting himself through on New Year’s Eve Eve. After a relatively slow start to the evening at a sports bar and an Irish whiskey bar, Aaron decided to take matters into his own hands. When we arrive at the next bar, I immediately head to the rest room. By the time I get out, Aaron has already ordered a round of Irish car bombs and another round of…umm…”chaser shots”. Five minutes later, he was ordering Jager-bombs. Twenty minutes later, tequila. Then whiskey. At one point, Reid walked up to Aaron who was standing catatonically in front of another group of shots. Reid said, “What’s up, Aaron?” Aaron glares at the bartender, points at Reid, and yells, “Tell him what to do!” The bartender answers, “Take a shot???” Aaron is an overwhelming presence when he is drinking (and especially when he is buying). It got so bad that Blake couldn’t handle the thought of taking one more shot and did the unthinkable…he went and told Aaron’s wife (Susan) on him. Not long after, Susan sent Aaron home. In the vernacular of my school, Aaron was forcin’ it, Blake snitched to the principal, and Aaron got suspended.

4) Alex’s Love – The Old Faithful of any get together is Alex getting drunk and telling all of us how much he loves us, his girlfriend, his family, that drunken guy in the corner, and that advertisement over the urinal. You can tell that he hasn’t been drinking too much in Atlanta lately. First, he announced to the whole bar that he would rather have sex with his girlfriend than any girl in the bar (which is actually a nice sentiment if you think about it). Then he told two female friends of Amir that he was “not sexually attracted to (them) in any way”, but that he liked them as people. He later explained that he wanted to make them feel safe so that we could hook up with them. There are also multiple pictures of him kissing Jeff on the lips. This would be much more explainable if they weren’t taken on different nights.

5) Munoz’s Pull – Deaf girl aside, all of the rumors that I have heard coming out of Houston are that Jeff is maturing, that he is hardly going out anymore, etc. That may all be true in his day-to-day life, but Jeff on vacation certainly hasn’t changed. The night started off calm enough, but sometime during the cab ride from the sports bar to the Irish bar, Jeff got Munoz-drunk. To those of you who are uninitiated, this means his face turns purple, he stops making sense, and he approaches every girl between the ages of 16-60 that he sees. He will have absolutely no memory of anything that happens after this point. This particular time, Jeff was in particularly rare form. He couldn’t hold more than a one- sentence conversation, multiple strangers approached me to ask if my friend was ok, and Aaron (in the condition that he was described above) was actively concerned about him. The one thing I forgot to mention about being Munoz-drunk, however, is that he is a regular Energizer bunny. No matter how many drinks he has, he doesn’t fall down. He is like some Charles Bukowski/Jason Voorhies hybrid. Anyways, around 1:00 AM we decide to leave and get some food. Somehow, I end up talking to this group of girls on the street and manage to convince them to come take more shots with us at this bar that we are passing. After we drink, Jeff is talking to a brunette girl, Blake is talking to a girl who looks just like him, and G and I are talking to a blond (who obviously prefers G to me…now that is an event that will lead you to take a long look in the mirror). Anyways, not 5 minutes after meeting us, the girls asks us what is wrong with Jeff and calls him “creepy”. The next thing he knows, Jeff is waking up in bed next to this same blond. He doesn’t know her name, he doesn’t know how he did it, and neither do we (we had left him at the bar with these girls after he…rightly…assured us that he was getting somewhere). I am honestly not sure how I am going to be able to write regular columns without Jeff around for material.

6) Reid’s Broken Glasses – After a long night of New Year’s Eve Eve drinking, the night was coming to an end. The sleeping arrangements in Blake and Amir’s apartment weren’t too exciting…there were three air mattresses and one very comfortable couch. I noticed Reid was getting up from the couch to get some water, I capitalized and jumped on the couch to try to claim it for the night. Without missing a beat, Reid jumped on top of me and started humping my leg. Two seconds later, Blake jumped on Reid, quickly followed by someone jumping on Blake (Alex? Jon?). Everyone's friends have latent dispositions when they are drunk...right?While I was being violated, a pair of glasses fell on my face. Drunkenly, I thought I softly set them down on the table. Unfortunately, I underrated my drunken strength and I accidentally threw them across the room, into a wall, breaking the frame. Umm, sorry Reid.

7) The Reading – Before the New Year’s Eve Party, we all gathered in Blake and Amir’s apartment for dinner and drinks. In what may become an annual tradition, we re-read the easiest column that I never wrote. If you haven’t read it before, or have not read it in awhile, I think that it might be time that you take a look. “I appreciate you taking me seriously and valuing who I am.”

8) Blake’s New Girlfriend – At first, I wasn’t sure what to think of Blake’s new girlfriend. She was quiet (possibly because she was present during “The Reading” and I wasn’t sure how she would fit in with our group of friends. At the New Year’s Eve Party, she set my mind at ease. After a few drinks, she came up to me, skipped the small talk, and said, “Aren’t you glad you aren’t that fat girl standing by herself at the food table on New Year’s Eve?” I guess she’ll fit in just fine.

9) The Party – The party at the Wyndham was pretty amazing. Everyone was dressed to the nines, the liquor was top shelf, and I can’t remember the last time there were so many gorgeous women in one place. The party was divided into two floors. The lower floor was packed with the beautiful people of Chicago. There was a light show, girls were dancing on stage, and the dance floor was packed. The only problem was that there was a 15-minute wait for drinks. After awhile, we grew tired of this and decided to check out the scene on the upper floor. Upstairs was much emptier, the people were noticeably less attractive, and the DJ was ridiculously corny. But, there was absolutely no line for drinks. I remarked that I felt like we had moved to the JV party. Someone said, would you rather be drunk with the JV team, or sober with the varsity. Of course we stayed upstairs. I am still not sure if this is heroic or sad.

10) The Hospital Incident – When the lights came on at the Wyndham, we drunkenly began wandering the streets of Chicago in search of an after-party. It didn’t take long before we realized that we were lost. Fortunately, Blake and Amir realized that we were right next to the hospital where they work. To celebrate in the New Year and take out some frustration from the old one, Blake and Amir decided to relieve themselves on the building. When Jeff saw what was happening, his eyes lit up. After a spectacular fall on the ice, Jeff made it just in time to turn an unsuspecting Blake’s body so that he was now facing an even more surprised Amir. As Blake put it the next day, “I got to pee on my place of employment and my roommate, and I couldn’t even be blamed for it. Not a bad way to ring in the New Year!” Indeed.

Why Marcus Garvey Might Dig My Mom’s Crib

My mother’s house in Nebraska is primarily decorated in typical Midwest housewife chic. There is a tasteful couch set, conservative blinds and drapes, and numerous pictures of her three sons displayed prominently throughout the house. The one room that is a little outside of the norm is called “The Basketball Room”. The Basketball Room is a converted dining room designed to fit the needs of my hoops-obsessed 10-year-old brother Cole. The room has a 6-foot standing basketball hoop on one wall, plenty of space for vicious one-on-one games, and both a flip scoreboard and an electronic scoreboard to make sure that no one is ever confused about who is winning.

All of this seems normal to me. Heck, given the choice I would have a basketball room in my house too. What makes the room a little offbeat is the presence of an antique piano with the words “Black Power” prominently spray-painted across the top. So why is a 55-year-old Caucasian mother of three promoting a Black Panther slogan? As you can imagine, there is a story.

The piano once belonged to my great-grandmother Nannie. I don’t think that Nannie ever really played the piano, but pianos were just one of those things that people owned in the ‘40s and ‘50s. In the early ‘90s, Nannie could no longer live on her own and moved in with my grandparents. As a favor, she allowed my struggling uncle and his family to move into her old house. Due to the white flight to the suburbs in Omaha around this time, my uncle’s family soon was the only white family in the neighborhood. My uncle had a few run-ins with kids loitering in front of his house over the years. The day after one incident, my uncle came home to find the house trashed, including the spray-painting on the piano. Not long after, my uncle moved out, leaving behind everything in the house. After Nannie died, my mom went through her old house looking through all kinds of memories. One of the things she rescued was the piano.

I have asked my mom why she holds onto it, but have never really gotten a satisfactory answer. Sure, it is a heirloom left to her by her grandmother, but our family is not lacking in these. My mom is the only one in the family who plays the piano, but no more than in one week stretches every couple of years. She could easily get the spray painted portion replaced or simply cover it with a sheet, but she has never been inclined to do that. And this isn’t something she has just forgot about…it is one of the first things you see when you walk through the front door. It weighs a ton and she has had to deal with moving it two times in the last 6 years. It has taken me awhile, but I have come to accept that I’ll never know the real reason that she has such an attachment to that piano. I think she likes the mystery.

How I Have Been Spending My Time

During my last three weeks in Boston, I went to a to strip clubs a total of 5 times. A stripper actually told me, “It is nice to see you again”. This would be acceptable if:

1) I worked as a strip club bouncer/DJ;

2) I was researching a book or movie role;

3) I was over 70; or

4) I worked for vice.

As it is, none of these excuses apply to me. I just keep making the same mistakes over and over again. It has to be getting harder to believe me when I say that I hate strip clubs. But the beauty of writing columns is that I can channel my shame and hopefully learn lessons that I can share with all of you. Here are 5 things that I learned about strip clubs this month:

1) Do your research – This whole strip club odyssey started due to a guys’ night gone wrong. Dan, C.J., Lee (C.J.’s cousin), and I decided the best way to kick off the month of December was a road trip to Foxwoods. Ninety minutes in, our group was stuck for about $600. We were broke and more than a little depressed when we realized it was only 10:30, but we decided try to rally. If we couldn’t gamble anymore, we would try the other guys’ night out staple and head to a strip club. Once Lee called a club to assure it was open late enough (2:00 AM) and that the cover was low enough ($6!) we shot out of our funk and were on the road to Providence. With the low cover and the seedy location, we were expecting something spectacularly low class, but we were pleasantly surprised when we walked inside. The dancers were attractive, the place was clean, and I didn’t feel as if I would contract an STD just by sitting down. We got some drinks, and grabbed one of the few open tables. The first dancer was on the main stage dancing in her bikini. After the end of the song, she stayed on stage for a second song and continued to show off her impressive pole technique. The second song ended with her bikini still on, and a new dancer came to the stage. We looked around, horrified, and instantly realized that we had just paid a cover for a strip club where the dancers didn’t strip.

2) There is such a thing as too drunk – The following day, C.J., Dan, and I were still fuming over the failure of the previous night. After a brief flirtation with road tripping to Montreal’s famed Club SuperSexe, we decided that we would try out a local venue. We did some research (see, we learn) and found an appropriately seedy place (The Glass Slipper!) downtown. The only problem is that it was only 5:00 PM. Thinking that it would be a little sad to show up before dinner, we decided to pre-game for a little while before heading out. A “little while” turned into four beers, a few shots, and a shared 20-ounce water bottle of wine on the train. And that was before going to the bar to meet up with our friend Chantha. We eventually arrived at the strip club and were happy to find the strippers actually stripping. I would have been happier, though, if I had been sober enough to actually open my eyes. I tried to stick it out, but I wasn’t exactly enjoying myself. I guess I liked what I was watching, but probably would have gotten just as much pleasure out of going home to watch the McLaughlin Group.

3) Watch out for the magic hour – The next weekend, C.J., Dan, and I spent the early part of Friday evening drinking and talking about how much we hate strip clubs. Nothing really happens, they are a waste of money, they are actually kind of boring etc. From drinks 1-6, I firmly believe all of that. Unfortunately, between 6-9 drinks, all bets are off. This is where I tend to get into trouble. During that period, strip clubs now become bastions of male bonding, glorious Shangri-La’s of beautiful, misunderstood women waiting for the right man (re: Me) to go home with for the night. From drinks 6-9 I’m fired up, and nothing can convince me that the total failure of the previous ten strip club trips is in anyway related to how my next trip will turn out. If I can get past drink 9, I am usually only concerned with a) getting home as soon as possible; or b) hooking up with any girl who doesn’t recoil when I try to talk to her, before finally giving up and trying to get home as soon as possible.

4) Sometimes, it is just the start of the night – That same night that we were discussing how much we hated strip clubs, we ended the night at one again. Well, at least I thought we ended the night. After leaving the club, I ended up eating, watching Dan pay some guy $20 to “find us girls”, following this guy all around Chinatown for 40 minutes while listening to Dan periodically threaten him until we eventually let him lose us, meeting some girls, realizing the one I’m talking to is too drunk to stand without my help, getting offered a ride by a van full of Italian guys, catching a cab, eating again, catching another cab and arriving back at Dan’s place (a dungeon-like basement he was temporarily living in after being evicted by his previous roommates….wait for it…three Mormon girls). At the door, Dan turns around and tells me that he can’t find his keys. Thinking he is joking, I laugh. He is not joking. He calls Dani, waking her up at 4:00 in the morning and getting her to drive to pick us up so that we can crash at her place. When we get in the car, I tell Dani I love her “but not in a sexual way”. Three hours later, I wake up on Dani’s couch and try to pull myself together for a volunteer project that Dan and I have to be at by 9:00. Julia picks us up and we make a pit stop at Dunkin Donuts to try to refuel before spending the next four hours painting a community center. While in line, Dan leans back on a chair, and starts laughing hysterically. I give him an inquisitive look, until he pulls his keys out of his back pocket. He remembers putting them in his back pocket because he didn’t want to hurt the stripper when she was giving him a dance the night before. Considerate guy.

5) The right mixture can make a strip club fun – The night before I flew to Omaha for the holidays, I agreed to meet up with Julia and Dan for a few drinks in Allston. I would say that this decision was against my better judgment, but I’m not sure that I have ever shown that capacity. The night started off very quiet until Julia expressed interest in going to a strip club. Dan and I had been dragging our heels, but this idea definitely woke us up. We both paid lip service to the fact that we hated strip clubs, but it was apparent that taking a girl to her first strip club was too good of an opportunity to pass up. We decided that we needed to be much drunker before heading out. Over the next hour (and three drinks each) we bonded by discussing all manner of personal issues that wealthier people would gladly pay a therapist to listen to. Newly tight, we set out to look at some boobies. At the first club, Julia actually ran into her friend (heterosexual female) from college. In all of strip club history, how many times do you think that two straight female friends who had lost touch with each other have ended up bumping into each other at a strip club in a different city than they went to school in? 5? 10? I couldn’t get over how weird that was, although I probably should have just taken it as a sign that we need to hang out with Julia’s friends more often. After Dan “explored” the club, we decided that we would go next door to the more familiar Glass Slipper. Dan and I had another night out, but I think Julia had the most fun. She met a stripper (“We danced together!”) and even got to go backstage. It was definitely my favorite recent night out, but I’m hoping that it doesn’t lead me back there anytime soon. I don’t think what is left of my self-image can take it.