The New Normal

  I'm well aware that the title of the blog post is the name of a probably crappy (I've never actually watched it) TV show, but I can assure you it has nothing to do with said show.  Be that as it may, the subject of "the new normal" is something that I've been thinking about for a while now.

  When I refer to "the new normal", I'm not talking about societal norms, or things that affect the world at large.  It's a personal thing.  Your personal norm is constantly evolving, and if you stop to think about it, once  you become an adult, it changes so quickly that new things are normal in the blink of an eye.  

  For instance, this past Sunday I was at my parents house with my sister celebrating Mother's Day.  After dinner, as I'm sitting in the front room, I looked at my mom and said; "It's weird that I don't live here anymore."  And really, it is.  For 20 years I lived in the same house, with the same people, and same daily routine.  And now I don't.  Now, it's not weird that I'm a 26 year old grown man that moved into his own house.  It's weird that all of the sudden this was my life and it feels like I didn't even need to do anything to make the transition.  It felt strange for maybe a week and then bang, that's life deal with it.  That's how life goes, I guess.  You kind of just jump into a thing that's already happening and you're forced to go with the flow or you're just going to make this difficult for yourself.  

  The concept of this rapid transition to normal is something that I never really thought about until I became what I call "a real grown-up".  You're a grown-up once you're past college age and are in the workforce full time.  But once you live on your own, you're a "real grown up".  You have responsibility.  I've lived on my own for just shy of a year, but if feels like it's been decades.  And that's because of how rapid new becomes normal.  I didn't have to cut the grass, weed whack, make sure my dryer vent was clear etc when I lived at home.  I could get drunk on Friday and sleep 'til noon on Saturday and it wouldn't make a lick of difference in how I viewed my weekend.  Now if I waste that much of a Saturday sleeping, I'm depressed about the lack of things I got done over the weekend.  Weird.  But that's my life now.  I'm totally fine with that, but again, it wasn't like that a short time ago, and now it is.  

  New normalcy isn't limited to the way you live your life.  As an adult, who you live your life with changes just as rapidly as how you live it.  I still see and hang out with pretty much all of my childhood/adolescent friends, but not as often.  Once you enter your mid-to late 20's, people get married and have serious girlfriends or boyfriends so that takes a big toll on your frequency of hang outs.  Couple that with work, and not sharing every similar interest and you pare down your regular hang out buds quite significantly.  Fortunately, I have interests where a sense of community and/or brotherhood is considered very important.  Through these things I've been able to make friends that are now really important to me, that a year ago I didn't even know existed.  That brings me back to the overall point.  In all aspects of adult life, things change so rapidly that you barely even notice them changing.  

  These aren't bitches or gripes.  They're observations I wanted to put down on paper.  If you read this, thanks.

What the hell happened to holidays?

  With all of the major holidays of 2012 in the no too distant past, I got to thinking about how different things are now compared to the holidays of my childhood.  Now, I'm not talking about in general how holidays are different as a child vs as an adult, but how each holiday is approached in pop culture.  Commercials, TV shows and even movies are not at all the same as they were in my holiday glory years (starting from when I can remember, so 5 or so, all the way to probably 13 or 14).  This is all going off my personal experience, so if I forget a holiday that you celebrate and you're offended, go piss up a rope.  I don't care.
  A lot of the holidays that most Americans celebrate haven't really changed that much as far as the pop culture landscape.  I should mention when I say holidays, I mean days that people actually celebrate (not just days of remembrance like MLK Day, Presidents Day etc).  Days like Valentines Day and Easter are pretty much the same.  Not a lot of pomp and circumstance but still on the radar and acknowledged by the general public.  Valentines Day is still about buying stuff for your significant other, and going out to a fancy dinner.  Easter is probably one of the more "seriously" religious holidays that Christians celebrate (at least casual Christians) and it seems to have remained that way.  Church, a nice meal and gathering with your family and that's about it.  Not too much in the way of commercials and other pop culture impact.
  The year rolls on and other holidays are observed.  Again, days like Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day are all basically the same as I remember from my childhood.  Aside from the fact that 4th of July is my favorite holiday as an adult (Booze, grilling, stuff blowing up.  What's not to love?), these have stayed the course and remained pretty much true to what I remember.
  Then, we hit the fall.  October comes and many peoples favorite adult holiday, Halloween, graces us with it's presence.  Here's where I start to get annoyed about how different things are.  People that are my age and older probably also remember how big of a deal Halloween was in our youths.  There were tons of commercials (like this gem http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1eLq_yRuFw), every TV show had a great Halloween episode and people decorated their balls off.  Now?  You get maybe a week of themed commercials and a couple of sitcoms have decent episodes that may or may not be loosely Halloween themed.  I think this has a lot to do with the fact that everyone has cable now, and there are networks specifically designed for kids and family.  Whereas when I was a kid, network TV had the responsibility of airing all the greatness of Halloween cartoons, live action comedies, everything.  In turn, the commercials reflected the content of the shows.  Just not the case anymore.     
  Halloween passes, and Thanksgiving approaches.  And other than the madness of the day after sales and the various parades, it barely even registers on the pop culture radar.  It's basically a Sunday in the middle of the week where you eat a fancier meal.  There's no longer the great autumn decorations and warm feelings of everyone starting to deal with the cold, dark winter approaching.  As soon as October is over, Christmas decorations go up.  I can't tell you how many towns I saw with garland and bows on their "Welcome To" signs on November 1st. 
  You would think that with the hyper fast decorating, Christmas would be in pop culture over drive.  But I don't think that's the case.  Sure there's still commercials and TV shows, but it's not the same as it was.  Have you ever thought about the last iconic Christmas movies that came out?  It was probably in the 90's and I couldn't even tell you what it was.  The commercials now are just rabid consumerism and sales, not the great Christmas themed commercials for every single thing that exists (watch this).  I don't know if it's because the world has become too PC for Christmas itself to be acknowledged, or people just don't give a shit about anything but buying stuff.  But I hate it. 
  A lot of this has to do with how different pop culture is now than it was even 10 years ago.  Like I mentioned earlier, everyone has cable TV now, and this has totally changed how television works.  Regular network TV doesn't have to cater to kids and family anymore. The likelihood of a 26 year old single male watching networks that do showcase good old fashioned holiday fun (ABC Family and the like) without making a conscious decision to do so, is not very high.  So I'm pretty much left to my own devices when it comes to holiday cheer. 
  The Internet, however, is one way pop culture has changed for the better for old crabby holiday enthusiasts such as myself.  I can go on YouTube any time I want and enjoy holiday treats of old, and get those warm sentimental feelings I so desire.  I wish I didn't have to seek it out on my own, but with our society being celebrity obsessed and reality TV addicted, that's just how it is.  People would rather watch a shit kicker family raise their weird daughter, or TO jump into a pool than enjoy fine seasonal and/or holiday programming.  
  I may have an overly sentimental attachment to the idea of the holidays, but it makes me happy to be around that stuff when the time is right.  I was fortunate enough to grow up with a wonderful family who spent all of our holidays together.  Whether it was my dad taking my sister and me trick-or-treating, or all the Christmas mornings tearing through gifts and giving out handmade ornaments, I have many fond memories that are fun to relive when the stress of adult holidays weighs on you.  With all these updated ways to celebrate, it's harder and harder for me to get back to those days.  There was a time, as a young adult that I hated the holidays.  But now that I've settled into adulthood, I really enjoy being able to relax and reflect during Christmas or Halloween.  These are the things I think about when I have free time.  I wonder why I don't have a girlfriend?  Give me back my holidays, goddammit.
 

College visits: A mini vacation.

  Here I sit, a 26 year old man with a rather enjoyable life.  I'm mostly glad to be a grown up, really.  Sure I complain about shit, but really the idea that I can do whatever the hell I want sure beats being 15 and at the mercy of someone with a drivers license.  However, there is one thing I really miss from the ages of 18 to 23;  visiting people at college.  It was like a mini vacation, a break in the monotony of my job and life at home.  A chance to go somewhere 3 hrs away and act like a total asshole for two nights, without having to worry about running into people that know my parents.

  The first time I went and visited someone at another college, I was actually away at school myself.  Millikin University was a short trip down ILL 72 to Champaign/Urbana, and I hopped on board with some other guys that were headed there. A lot of people I knew were at U of I and I figured it was a good chance to see some people I hadn't in a few months.  Millikin is a small school, so the first time I went to Champaign was a bit overwhelming.  Just the amount of people, how much nicer my friends dorms were, and, the fact we could actually go to bars was shocking.  I was blown away that all we had to do was pass back the same ID of person that looked nothing like us, and boom, we were in.  Drinking Red Bull and vodka, shots with stupid names, and whatever other garbage 19 year old's drink.  It was great. 

  The next place I really remember visiting was Bradley University.  This was a bit of a different experience because my good friends that went there were in a fraternity.  It's a bit of a different way to party, when you're loosely attached to people in a fraternity.  Generally their brothers treat you really well and you reap a lot of the benefits (chicks, booze, drugs etc) they do.  Bradley was more of a house party scene when we were younger, and it was still great. 

  By the time I was visiting Bradley, my brief but glorious college career had ended.  I continued going to school, but I was at home and going to community college.  With my good friend Will at my side, we started to go on as many college weekend visits as we could.  It was an escape from our totally boring lives.  Seriously, being 19 and 20 while attending school at home is fucking brutal. I can only speak for myself, but I know without Will to go to concerts, drive around and smoke cigarettes with, and tip back brews when we could get 'em, between school visits, I don't know what the fuck I would have done.  

  Things went on like this for our under age years, and they were great.  But I think once we all turned 21, college visits became even better.  You could do all the same stupid stuff, but there was no chance of getting a drinking ticket.  It was like a double bonus.  Plus, by this time everyone lived in an apartment or house, so there was even more freedom to a guy that lives with his parents.  With people in their own places, I was able to wake up earlier than all of them (I worked full time at this point, so I was used to getting up before noon) and smoke weed in the family room.  Something I certainly was not able to do at home.  

  That may have been my favorite part of college visits.  The Saturday after a night of drinking.  Everyone in their pajamas, casually drinking beers all day, sharing stories from the night before, all in preparation to do it again that night.  I remember one time a guy that lived with my friends had brought his sister, who was still in high school to visit for a Friday.  My friends and I were all partaking in the aforementioned Saturday behavior, while she was terrified in her brothers room.  She would only come out to go to the bathroom or get something to drink.  After she closed the door to her brothers room, one of my friends says; "The Asian kids from the brochure are nowhere to be found, this is real college."  This resulted in uproarious laughter and a memory I will have til I'm dead.  

  By the time my friends and I were all 22 or 23, college visits were at their peak.  Between visiting my friend Sean and all the guys he lived with at Bradley, and my 6 buddies that lived together at U of I, it was a guaranteed awesome time.  This isn't even including the schools I visited on a much less frequent basis (Iowa, Illinois State and Western Illinois).  But the Bradley and U of I visits for whatever reason, hold the most memories for me.  But that's not to say I didn't have amazing times at other schools.  

  One particular U of I party comes to mind whenever I think of the glory days of college.  A ton of people showed up.  And things were going great.  But like great college parties do, things got out of hand.  A friend who shall remain nameless decided to throw a Lay-Z-Boy into the front yard, while other friends proceeded to beat the shit out of the innocent chair.  In celebration, the guy who threw the chair, straight up Chuck Norris roundhouse kicked the front window to their own apartment.  The cops happened to driving by at that exact moment.  This lead to scattering, interrogation, but surprisingly, no tickets.  However, it wasn't all seashells and balloons.  Someone stole my favorite Bears sweatshirt and I haven't seen it since.  

  This was par for the course on a good college visit.  Something wild happening with no real consequences, thus resulting in a great story.  Once at Bradley, my friend and I and all his roommates came home after the bar, and just started hitting each other with steel chairs and and empty water cooler bottles.  We woke up the next day unscathed and full of laughs from our stupidity.  I would have to write a novel to describe the all the great times I've had at various schools, but this is just to maybe help some other later 20's people remember a time that they enjoyed.  

  Visiting people at college is something that is gone forever for me.  At least in the way that I'm describing it. But I will always remember how exciting the drives down were, and how awful (especially in the winter) the rides home could be.  The idea that you will be able to walk just about anywhere you needed to go on a party weekend has been replaced by cab rides and L stops, but dammit if I won't always remember it.



Note:  I spent many a great night at North Central College, but I don't lump that under the "college visit" category.  It was 30 minutes away and we were there so often, it was more of just an awesome thing to do on the weekends.

  

House hunting: Touching a bunch of strangers stuff.

  For the last few months, I've really been trying to find a house.  I won't bore you with the details of how completely aggravating the entire process is, and how it seems it will never end.  But, there is an aspect of it that I never really thought about until today: You more or less have a total window into how a complete stranger lives, and access to their things.

  I have looked at a lot of houses, and I can't tell you how many have been vacant, left to rot foreclosures.  It is a window into the last months of what I can only assume is a desperate home owner scrambling to get by, then just saying "FUCK IT", and start ripping out all of the cabinets.  There's generally holes in the walls, missing plumbing fixtures, animal fur all over the place, etc.  Now, there are homes taken care of by the bank and/or Realtor that are quite presentable.  But for everyone of those there are six total shit holes.  It's sad really.  At one point a family lived there, just like mine or yours.  At some point something went terribly wrong.  Maybe they were given a loan they shouldn't have been.  Maybe the breadwinner lost their job.  Whatever the case, they lost their house.  That has to be crushing.  But whatever, fuck 'em.  I'm getting a cheap house out of the deal so hooray for me.  

  What is even more strange, is looking at a house that is currently occupied.  A lot of the time they people clear out so you don't have to see them.  But even so, you're just traipsing around a total strangers house, with access to just about every aspect of their private lives.  If one was so inclined, you could basically have a dick party in a total strangers sock drawer.  If that's the sort of thing you're into.  There has to be people out there that get off on that sort of thing.  Their realtor is downstairs filling out paperwork.  Meanwhile, this guy is balls deep is some poor strangers loofah because he; "had to go check out the upstairs one last time".    Sort of a gross, but plausible thing to consider.

  One thing I did not consider, however, was how big of slobs some people selling their house would be.  I kind of assumed they wanted their houses to be as presentable as possible.  But there are some people that clearly do not give a shit.  Dirty dishes in the sink, laundry on the floor, general kitchen grossness.  You're trying to move a product you lazy asshole, make it look pretty for me.  It's just sort of shocking to me that people have that level of not giving a fuck in them.  

  A lot of the time the messiest houses have the owner on site while you look.  So you have to see the slob that is trying to make you buy their crumby house.  When the people are home, dirty house or not, looking at a house sucks.  You can't make remarks about how awful they have decorated, or really get into being a critical jagoff you need to be to look at a house.  It's really awkward.  

  Looking for a house stops being fun after about a week.  But, if you're bored and want to see how a bunch of strangers live, pretend you're in the market, and go hunting.  It's really the only legal way to dive into the deep end of a multitude of people's personal belongings.  Who knows, you might meet a cool person along the way (I haven't yet).  Or a person that you are totally convinced is a serial killer (I have).

  

  

  

Things I see on the internet that make my brain hurt.

  For every thing I find on the internet that brings me enjoyment, there are a plethora of things that make my blood boil with misplaced rage.  Anyone who has read any of my previous blogs can probably see that a lot of things in the world at large bother me more than they should.  But with that said, here are a few things I have seen on the internet machine that make my brain explode.

-In my journey through the world of internet based pornography, there's a trend I noticed that kind of blows my mind.  The women who star in these films (maybe the men too, but I doubt it) make Amazon.com wish lists of random items they would like for their fans to buy them.  AND PEOPLE FUCKING DO IT!  It's not enough that if you're at a point where you have seen their wish list, you have most likely paid money to watch them blow six dudes, but they want you to buy them a fucking sweatshirt too.  Now, I don't at all blame the women for taking advantage of getting free stuff.  Fuck, if someone wanted to buy me a bunch of new fishing rods and pairs of sneakers because they enjoyed my work, I'd take the fuck outta that.
  My main problem is trying to wrap my head around what the logic of the dudes that buy this stuff for porn stars.  They aren't going to fly to Ft. Wayne IN and fuck you, you stupid gomer.  You're being played for a sucker.  Knock it off!  You're making other dudes who watch porn look bad.  Save your money and get a classy escort.

-How have people not picked up on Facebook "like" viruses yet?  There's never anything good on the other end of a video that says; "You're never going to believe what she does next!  Click to find out!"  Also, do you really want to see a spider lay eggs in someones face?  If it looks sketchy, it probably is.

-Thirsty ass dudes on Facebook.  If you're going to take the time to come up with some thinly veiled sexual advance as a response to a girls dumb status about how she hates her job (EVERYBODY HATES THEIR FUCKING JOB), you're a mark.  Don't reward stupidity because you want to get your dick wet.  It makes the world a worse place to live.  I guess girls probably do this too, but I think they are smart enough to know how little effort they have to put in to enticing a guy to sleep with them.

-Pinterest.  I have never been on it, and I will probably never go on it, but I think it's dumb.  I find things I like the old fashioned way, BY LOOKING FOR THEM.

Things that I would like to see happen to people in commercials.

Often times while I'm watching TV I have a lot of thoughts running through my head.  Generally the thought is; "OH MY GOD I FUCKING HATE COMMERCIALS."  So, here are a few things I would like to see happen to people in commercials I don't like.

1)  There's a Jimmy Johns commercial where a guy is in an air plane that is delayed for some reason or another.  Unfortunately for him, his seat is sandwiched in between two large men, making for an uncomfortable wait.  That is the first thing wrong with this commercial, the two guys.  Who the fuck are these guys supposed to be?  They have on these ridiculous "gangster" outfits that consist of graphic hoodies and sideways hats.  What?  Why?  Why can't they just be two big dudes?  Fuck whoever wrote this commercial.  Finally, the man in the uncomfortable situation decides the best remedy for this problem is ordering a sandwich from JJ's.  So, suddenly, there is a knock at the air plane door, and lo and behold a Jimmy Johns delivery girl with the guys Beach Club.  What I would like to see happen next, is the delivery girl get tackled by a TSA agent and tazed.  Then thrown in the can because she probably broke a fuck ton of laws getting on that tarmac and opening and air plane door after it was closed or whatever. 

2)  Taco Bell has an advertisement for their new Dorito tacos, in which a young man, probably close to my age drives over 900 miles in order to try said tacos.  Fuck that guy.  He is an embarrassment to my generation of human beings.  I eat fast food as much as anyone, but I would NEVER drive more than 5 minutes to get a taco from Taco Bell.  What I would like to see happen in this commercial, is the car filled with this asshole and his friends drive off a goddamn cliff.

3)  Anyone in the AT&T commercials that says something like; "That was so 10 seconds ago..." should get hit in the head with a hammer.  Don't fucking talk to me like that.  I asked you a question.  I'm a grown ass man and I expect you to answer me like one.

4)  I hope something generally bad happens to the T Mobile girl.  I don't like her, and I don't really have a good reason.

5)  Match.com can go eat a dick too.  The people in those commercials are not using online dating.  They look far too attractive and successful.  People that use dating sites are, well, people like me.  I hope each and everyone of those beautiful people end up married and in horrible relationships, but won't get divorced because they are Catholic. 

There's so much more television vitriol running through my veins, but I'll save it for another time. This all makes me seem like an angry hateful person.  I'm mostly not that.  TV just makes me angry.  I should probably watch less.

A letter to day drinking.

Dear Day Drinking,

You're just the tops.  This past Saturday I was able to become reacquainted with you, after some time apart.  It's getting closer to the time of year where we spend most of our time together.  So I look forward to sun drenched days of shot-gunning beers with no shirt on.  I know that's when you think I'm at my best.  Remember when I turned 20, and me and my friends taught you to swim?  We had just met and you were afraid at first, but you got the hang of it in no time.  As that summer went on, we hung out more and more.  My parents accepted our friendship, as well as your bond with my other friends.  I can't wait to continue our great relationship, and listen to Cubs games, eat a ridiculous amount of meat, probably end up sending some texts/making some phone calls we regret.  But hey, what's a good friend if you can't cause a little trouble with them?  I'll have my own house this spring or summer, and I can't wait for us to hang out there.  There will be a whole new world for us to explore.  Well, I have to get going.  Can't wait to see you again.

With love,

  Derek E Self