Serial for Breakfast

So, I have not written a story since probably junior high school, but am being encouraged by Amy to follow through on an idea that I had this morning on the way to work. I will be trying my hand at this, so please leave any comments you'd like as to where you think this should go. Please be kind. My ego is brittle.

Alex stared at the man. He tried his best to control his emotions, "How old do you think I am? This is a freaking PG-13 movie!"

The ticket taker, a freshman that Alex had seen around school, was clearly unprepared for this challenge and tried to cover his ass, "I'm sorry, sir. It's theater policy. I have to check your ID."

Alex should have been used to these sorts of questions. Even though Alex's 2-year-old driver's license said otherwise, people could not be blamed for mistaking him for a much younger age. Alex was about 5 foot 4 inches, shaved once a week (mostly to get the scraggly granny-hairs from his chin), and still dressed in the clothes that his mother had bought for him when he was a freshman. It was this license that satisfied the embarrassed ticket taker and granted Alex access past the velvet ropes of the theater entrance, but not before he had a chance to look over at Erin.

Erin was beautiful. Alex couldn't exactly pinpoint what it was about her that fascinated him. It could have been her amazingly deep, dark, brown eyes. It could have been the slight dimple in one of her cheeks that came when she gave a genuine smile. Or it could have been that she was never good at hiding her feelings, a characteristic which was on full display right now as her face was a bright red in embarrassment for Alex.

Well, it wasn't all for Alex. Erin could clearly do better, they both knew that. When her classmate Alex had called out of the blue earlier in the week, she felt as if a cute 3-legged puppy was whelping for some food. She couldn't possibly say no, but, at the same time, she wasn't prepared for the situation to be so blatantly called out so early in the date.

"I'm so looking forward to this movie," Alex said to Erin as she passed the ticket taker without hassle. It was an obvious attempt to move past the incident, and failed to alleviate Erin's awkwardness.

"Me too," she said sheepishly.

Sisyphus

One way to get me frustrated at work is to finish a task that in its very nature will need to be completed again very soon. I love the sense of accomplishment that comes with knowing that I will never have to do it again. So, I'm thinking of making a recurring post of jobs that I notice that exemplify the never-ending nature of work.

Today's job is something that I have thought about often. I use a public restroom every day at work at a relatively busy tourist attraction. Sometimes, when I'm going to go and sit down for a little while in there, I run into the maintenance staff member on the way out. That is a jackpot for me and, what I can only imagine, gnashing of teeth for him. I get a clean john and he gets to see his hard work soiled.

"…Because the mail never stops. It just keeps coming and coming and coming. There’s never a letup. It’s relentless. Every day it piles up more and more, but the more you get out, the more it keeps coming. And then the bar code reader breaks. And then it’s Publisher’s Clearinghouse day."
-Newman

Fickle?

"Joe, you are so fickle in many, many aspects of your life"
-Gchat conversation from yesterday

It seemed pretty innocuous at the time. I mean, the comment was made regarding how I don't like 24 anymore (for very justifiable reasons, I think). But, as I thought about it, I really am a pretty fickle person, as illustrated by things as small and insignificant as 24. It's not something that I'm proud of either. I wish I could be totally passionate about something (professionally especially), but I have a type of ADD when it comes to my interests. I will be interested in one topic for a period of 3 months and then just as quickly I will lose that interest and move on. I have started more projects/pursuits than I can possibly list here or even remember.

I think it's an inconvenient combination of intellectual laziness and curiosity. I'm fascinated by a bunch of things, but am unwilling to commit the time and energy that they deserve. I get especially disheartened when I realize that there will always be someone who's better than me at that particular issue. Someone will always know more about history than I will. Someone will always know more about economics than I will. Someone will always know more about baseball than I will. Someone will always be a better Christian than I am. Not like any of these things are that difficult to do, but still. I also have a knee-jerk negative reaction towards anything that I'm not naturally good at. If I'm not good at it right off the bat, then I'm clearly not cut out for this.

Sensing this in me a long time ago, my Dad gave me what turned into be one of my favorite books, The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn. One of the stories in there is of George "The Shotgun" Shuba, the right fielder for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1950s. Shuba had a beautiful, natural swing that resulted in hard line drives. In an interview 30 years after Shuba's retirement, Kahn called Shuba "a natural." Shuba's response is a classic:

"I swung a 44-ounce bat 600 times a night, every night, and after 60 I'd make an 'X'. Ten X's and I'd have my 600 swings... 4,200 times a week. 47,200 swings every winter. Wrists. The fastball's by you. You gotta wrist it out. Forty-seven thousand two hundred times. You call that natural?"

It has been an absolute struggle to devote myself to anything with that sort of intensity. I take some solace in the fact that I have managed to avoid fickleness (is that really a word?) in some important areas of my life. I try to be a loyal friend and I'm an apologist for my friends until the bitter end. I am committed to my girlfriend and would do almost anything for her (I would not renounce my faith, sorry baby...). I love the Lord and try to be the best witness I can be.

At the same time, I change my mind about my interests, about my non-core beliefs. I do give off the impression that I'm fickle. I continue some things that I've had interest in, but give a half-assed effort towards them at best while I totally disregard others.

I'm going to keep trying to remind myself that sure, some people are going to be better at things than me, but that's not because they're naturals. Nothing comes easy, so long as it's worth having.

Yet Another Piazza Post

I'm pretty sure that no subject has received more attention in the several incarnations of my blog than Mike Piazza. Well, Mike officially announced his retirement yesterday, ending his career as the greatest hitting catcher in baseball history and the face of the Mets franchise from the day he was traded there in 1998 to the last day of the 2005 season when it was clear that he wouldn't be re-signed.

Believe it or not, I was not always obsessed with baseball. I loved the Mets as a very little kid, but lost a lot of interest when the strike came and I moved to Yankee/Red Sox territory in fourth grade. That remained the case for a while, I actually mocked peoples' passion for sports and thought they were stupid. Man, how things change. Around 1997, I was in search for a passion, an identity, something to follow and get excited about. The Mets were an adequate team at that point, just starting to get things together, but they still were missing that star, a face for their franchise.

Enter Piazza, several playoff appearances, a World Series loss, and Joe Budd as an insane Mets fan. Piazza's bat, his class and his leadership defined the Mets and was the defining figure in my first passion as a self-conscious adult. I've been watching this tribute video on a loop since yesterday, adding to my overall melancholy mood, but in the end, I'm happy to have had been able to come of age with the Mets during the Piazza years.

Limbo

This has been a rough week/month/season for me. I decided in January to take the LSAT on June 16th and probably attend law school in the Fall of 2009. This decision, in itself, was momentous for me and I'm still coming to grips with it (if you talk to me about it, I'll still equivocate and act like it depends on the LSAT). I don't know why that is, but I think it is helping to contribute to my current frustrations.

Since I decided to take up the LSAT as my secondary occupation, I have felt a sudden lack of progress in my life and almost a letdown following a very important set of personal revelations. It's only getting worse this week as the countdown has reached T-minus one month until the big test and I've progressed only a few points since I started studying six months ago. Where is this test going to take me? Can my goals survive a disappointing test score? What do I know about being a lawyer?

This time of waiting has allowed a strong sense of self-doubt to creep back into my life. I am trying my best to stem this tide and prohibit it from seeping into my personal life, but I'm afraid that I am failing miserably at that too. It is during these times where I really wish that I believed in pre-destination. I wish that God forced us down a particular, well-lit path through a beautiful safe neighborhood. It doesn't quite work out that way, however. I feel like instead of that path, I'm standing still, in a dark room with a small distant light in the distance.

I don't believe in limbo either, but, I can now understand what it feels like to spend time there. I will keep praying for patience and for guidance and I ask for yours' as well. I have faith that, with God's help, I will get out of this rut and my path will become clearer after my test, but in the meantime, I must keep my eyes on that light and keep moving my legs towards it.