The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

Posts tagged ‘Weekly Wacko’

Weekly Wacko (21)

Bracket? I Hardly Know It!

It’s almost March Madness time, BABY! (That’s my Dick Vitale – who annoys the hell out of me, BABY!) I enjoy college basketball now, sort of. For example, last year I watched the final game between whoever and their opponent (go underdog!), BUT, I did arts and crafts while watching the game. Seriously.

I took construction paper and cut out giant numbers for a clock. Then I taped these numbers on my bathroom wall, and I gutted your simple, average school clock (the big white one with the black lettering) so that just the motor was left, and I taped that on the wall. Wha-la! Arts and crafts!

The most interested I ever was in a college basketball game I wasn’t attending (if I’m there all bets are off – I’m INTO it) was when I put 20 bucks on Boston College to beat somebody. I was in Vegas with the fam and let’s GOOOOOOO twenty bucks! BC lost. Stupid BC.

Anyhow, as a kid, I had even less interest (which is a very tiny amount of interest) in basketball. So what did I do when I was forced to fill out a bracket?

*

I lived in Leavenworth, Kansas from the 3rd to 6th grades. Most of my friends there, and it seemed like a majority of the town, were crazy for Kansas. That is, the University of Kansas Jayhawks. There was the occasional fan for Kansas State, but mostly we were in Jayhawk territory.

That’s how it goes in a state with two big schools, you’ll find something similar in Arizona where you’ve got Arizona vs Arizona State.

Because people were crazy for Kansas, and Kansas was (and is) consistently a big contender in college basketball, people talked about college basketball.

I liked playing basketball with my family, and I did the very stereotypical boy thing of practicing buzzer beater shots in our driveyway.

“5 seconds Stanley’s coming down the court! 4 seconds! Stanley passes to … Stanley … 3 seconds! … he puts UP THE SHOT! … um … HE WAS FOULED! HE WAS FOULED! I CAN’T BELIEVE HE WAS FOULED!”

I have a great imagination, which really came in handy because I was (and am) a lousy shot. You wouldn’t think someone would be fouled while doing free throw shots at the very end of the game, but in my daydreams I was. Fouled over and over and over – until I made the shot.

Anyhow, the extent of my basketball knowledge was just how bad I was at basketball.

In gym, when brackets were passed out and EVERY (seemingly) boy around me got excited, I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t confident enough to clearly show my ignorance, and it really did feel like everyone knew what this bracket meant and who these teams were. I thought the best and most logical option was to pretend I knew exactly what I was doing.

“You put Gonzaga as advancing? Brad, I don’t know … do you know something?”

Um. Gonzaga sounds like a nickname for a part on a woman’s body? So I picked that? How do I explain my reasoning, when I have no reasoning?

I put Arizona as going all the way, because that was my dad’s favorite team. I had watched basketball, and it could be enjoying (the last few minutes at least), but for the most part it didn’t hold my interests. I’d rather be DOING something.

I looked at the bracket like it was a math problem, and people weren’t actually involved.

“The sixteenth ranked team against the first ranked team … well, obviously the first ranked team … unless it’s a trick …”

I turned in my bracket having confidence I would be out soon – and hope that the gym coach (or anyone) would throw it away without studying it.

“That Brad kid is amazing! He picked every losing team in the first round!”

This year my arts and crafts project while watching the game will be to do some collages of a sort. I’m a man’s man, and don’t you forget it.

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Weekly Wacko (20)

Adventures in Studly-ness!

Recently, for the first time I went to a bar and got a girls number. And I did it with jazz hands.

I work with a group of guys who are around my age and have also just started here. This has provided us with good reason to chat at work, and we grab lunch once a week or so.

On February 5th we decided to paint the town red. Another co-worker recommended we go to a bar in downtown Houston – Rocbar. Girls who work there dress in a lovely way (read: slutty), and they have, apparently, rock music.

The three other new guys came over and we played XBOX and three of us had two beers a piece. Then we piled into a car and picked up the fifth guy (the bar recommendation guy). The five of us, piled into a sedan, were ready for an adventure.

Before we had left my apartment I used the bathroom because when I drink any liquid I get a mean case of what doctors call ‘grandpa bladder.’ It’s a burden I bear.

The bar was maybe 35 minutes away and oh my Lord you’ve got to be kidding I have to pee again. I make a comment. The driver, D, looks at me in a – ‘you’re f-ing kidding me?’ way. I’m afraid not.

In my defense we drove from my apartment to get the fifth guy, so really it’d been a good 40 minutes since I’d last peed. That’s some bladder!

*

Once at the bar we started drinking. Gulp, gulp, gulp, down goes the liquid confidence.

We went to an outside patio type area and they had big swings, like you’d have on a big front porch. I sat down and start swinging around side-to-side, because that’s fun. I got the feeling I was ‘cramping the fellas style’ so I calmed down my five year old desire to play on a swing set.

Eventually two of the five guys went off and started chatting with girls. What a concept. Myself and the remaining two stood around, talked, and did laps around the bar like it was a middle school dance (‘hahahha! oh man look J’s talking with that girl!!! Duuuude, I wonder if he’ll get her number!!!’).

The two guys would re-join us periodically and we’d talk nonsense.

*

The liquid confidence finally entered my bloodstream and my mind went from ‘well she’s very pretty and aw shucks’ to ‘ehhh why not.’ Yeah, that’s right, the charm was on full blast.

I walked up to a group of girls and basically shouted at them (I’d been drinking, it was loud in the bar, but still I feel a bit awkward about my starting this conversation by yelling in their faces). I told them I was new to Houston, I’d just moved there, and what’s the best place to eat. I said this because it was true, and I love a good place to eat.

They weren’t having it. One of the girls semi-answered me so I looped around to hear her better. She told me a boring chain restaurant recommendation (seriously, that’s boring). I could tell they weren’t enjoying me, so I moved on.

Surprisingly, I didn’t care at all.

*

I headed outside and sat down on a swing, talking to two of my friends. I noticed that across the patio a girl was sitting on a swing, doing basically what I’d been doing when I first sat down. That was all the green light I needed.

(I actually met up with the girl one time, and since then nada – so this story comes from her since I was too boozy to remember. And I’m writing this now because had I written it when she and I were still talking, I would’ve felt like this was a bit odd. I don’t know dating etiquette, but I feel like blogging about a girl you’ve just met is not kosher.)

Apparently, I walked up, hands spread out like I’m semi going for a hug, semi doing jazz hands. I said ‘hey!!!’ very happily and then bam started talking. I didn’t introduce myself. I told her I’d just moved to Houston and what’s the best part about Houston. It turned out she was from northern California (where I’d moved from).

Within five minutes of meeting her I told her about my grandpa bladder.

I also talked to her about my job (which is probably fairly boring to most people).

All in all, I was a real charmer.

I ended the conversation by telling her that my grandpa bladder was acting up, and a fella’s gotta do what a fella’s gotta do. I said let me give you my number, she said no let me give you my number. Tricky.

*

Wish me luck tomorrow night. Hopefully there will be less jazz hands.

I mean, really – who starts a conversation with jazz hands?

Copyright 2010 Brad Stanley

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Weekly Wacko (19)

My Utopia

(I wrote this today, 3/4/2010.)

I’m at work, but I’m not on work time because I’m in a lovely program where I work for the company for free, outside my 40 hours a week. Currently I’m on a telecon. The ‘major players’ are together in one room on the east coast, and someone they hadn’t seen in a while showed up so they’re all catching up. Punch me in the face. (One of the big wigs just said, “yeah they’re building us this in their free time!” I hate you.)

So I’m dreaming about what if this was true (remember, it’s a dream world, so I’m much more impressive there than in reality, to quote a Hemingway line from one of his books – “I want to be me, only much, much better. And have you love me.”):

(And I enjoy my job, but it’s fun to have my own little mental island to escape to.)

I wake up, it’s about 630, and I slip out of bed quietly so I won’t wake up the old ball and chain. My dog, a husky named possibly Fitz or Hemmy (short for Fitzgerald or Hemingway, two of my favorite authors), gets up at the sound of my getting up.

We go for a jog four mornings a week during the summertime. In the winter, we settle for a walk.

It’s May, and where we are in northern Arizona, it’s cool in the mornings. I get my running clothes on, grab the leash, and my dog and I are off to the races.

When I get back home my wife is awake. We eat cereal while watching morning news. We scoff and make fun of the obvious faux sympathy practiced by the news anchors/actors. Even though we do this every morning, it brings us easy amusement.

I say goodbye to the wife and dog – my two best friends, one of them prettier than the other (huskies are so pretty, so I can’t say for sure who will be prettier even in my utopia world).

I head to school, it’s the last week of classes and the kids are itching to be done with everything – but they have to get through finals first.

The 8th graders are even more excited than the 7th graders to be done – because they won’t just be done with school that year, they’ll be done with middle school.

I look forward to class – not because all of my students are smart, but because they all want to learn. They all have, at the very least, desire. And, the classes and I get along swimmingly.

For example, one day a 7th grade class had vowed not to speak the entire period. When they came in I started my usual small talk with them, seeing how so-and-so’s baseball game went, and how so-and-so enjoyed the movie they told me they were going to watch the night before. Nothing. The kids are giving me nothing. At some point I realize what they’ve done – the silence pact.

I decide it’s game on.

I teach the entire pre-algebra lecture without saying a word. The kids are desperate to say something, I’m desperate to say something – but hell if I’m not stubborn. Kids come up and point at things violently to demonstrate confusion. I pretend to not understand, then finally explain. Explanation 1, explanation 2, explanation 3, ahaaaaaa! The last group who hadn’t been getting it has their eyes light up – they get it now.

[I worked at a summer program, and a math teacher there told this story. Well, I made some small changes. I thought it was a great, and true, story by that teacher though.]

I am one excellent middle school math teacher.

I’m cool, but I still get them to learn. I transition between a joke and an aha faster than anyone. My students’ younger siblings have heard about me, and they can’t wait to have me despite the fact that my class isn’t easy breezy.

During lunch I check my email quickly – I’ve got one from my literary agent confirming some dates for my annual summer book tour.

I miss living near a city, but I make up for it during that trip when I get to visit quite a few cities.

The plan for that particular summer is that I’ll be driving east to Savannah, Georgia, stopping at various cities along the way. From Savannah I’ll head north, staying mostly coastal but sometimes heading inland. I read at small bookshops, big bookshops, and even a weird fans house (she makes the best cookies, but I think she’s in love with my wife). The previous summer I went westward ho, so east was the choice for that summer.

I forward the email to the old ball and chain, my sister and my mom. Each of them will be joining me at various points during the tour. My wife for the drive east. My mom and dad in the south. My sister in the north. We have big plans to make side trips for various reasons. It’ll be a long summer with a lot of miles, but I’ll get to read things I’ve read to people, and people enjoy it, which brings me extreme joy.

Along the trip I also reunite with some old friends from the places I’ve lived. It’s good catching up one-on-one, and we repeat the same stories that we’ve already heard and told. I get made fun of for the obvious origins of ‘fictional’ stories that I’ve written about in my various published (yes, published) books.

Plus, I make money, which as a guy who loves money, I love. Teachers make squat compared to my old ‘career’ as an engineer.

*

Well, there you have it, my utopia. Will that happen? It could, which is nice. But who knows if I’d enjoy a different job more than my current one. Or if I’d be a good teacher. Or if I’ll get published. Or if I’ll get a husky. Or married. Or have a wife who would be cool with me naming my dog after a womanizer like Hemingway.

But – this phone meeting is dumb, and to quote another Hemingway book (a famous line),

“Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

(Oh, and somewhere along the way I would get really good at carpentry, painting, the piano, and the guitar. Easy peasy, right?)

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