Luke Grown Up

I sit before the computer a bruised man. My heart aches and the word “Please” has become my internal mantra for the day.

This entry is not about love lost or even anything mundane or trivial. Indeed, this is a big deal, but at this point, I don’t feel much like discussing it. I shall distract you and myself by telling you about my grown-up life.

Much has changed since August. I have moved into my new apartment with my new roommate. Both are better, though the apartment is a tad smaller. The day before I moved in I called Comcast to get our Internet and cable set up, and our appointment was somewhere near September 10th.  This was a bad news story for us. Luckily, my roommate (Bill) has a girlfriend that lives in an apartment complex right nearby, and she told him that Comcast was poaching around the complex in their trucks, so Bill went over and asked them if they could come to our place - they said yes, and the next day we had HD cable with a DVR and a wicked fast Internet connection - observed speeds up to 3 Mb/s down. That is the fastest connection I’ve ever had, so I was pumped. I was also able to finally get my Media Center PC up and running thanks to Ed (my roommate from last year) and a lot of tinkering. It is awesome. Our place came with almost all the furniture, so we had to buy very little, and it made life so easy. I have a meal plan, so I can eat at the DC 6 times a week, which is clutch. This way I don’t even have to make dinner anymore-  I just gorge myself at the cafeterias on campus.

Class is going well. Both are worlds easier than Organic Chem, so I’m happy.

And jobs! Oh jobs. I am working for IT at my school 20 hours a week. I still work at that electronics store, but I’m done. As in, I have shifts this week that I’m not showing up for, nor calling in about. Now, I know this is a bad idea on several fronts, I’m burning my bridges and so forth, but honestly, I don’t give a shit. The job sucks, and I was only there for a few months, and I wouldn’t want to put that on my resume anyway - “HEY I SOLD COMPUTERS AND SHITTY WARRANTEES FOR A WHOLE SUMMER”. Besides, they were completely inflexible when it came to hours - I had to change my availability THREE TIMES because I wasn’t available to work enough on the weekends (first I was just doing Sunday, then Friday/Sunday, then all three, which is absurd), and they wanted me to work 24 hours over the course of the weekend. Not wanting to kill myself with stress or the inevitable gun I’d buy at the nearby Dick’s Sporting Goods, I decided to be very passive and just stop showing up. I have never done this before in my life, and I think now is the best time ever to do it. With all the management floating around in there, who gives a shit anyway?

Well, that certainly took my mind off things for a little while. I shall be working Monday through Thursday, so you can probably expect some entries in the near future. Maybe even more than one a day.

To those that read this blog regularly (or semi-regularly), I hope you don’t think that I am a whiner. I think I’m dealing pretty well with most things now, so I think I’ll be ok. There is only one major thing in my life that is bothering me immensely at the moment, but I do believe it will be sorted out soon. I can only hope.

Please.

Someday I hope to have children. Among the one or two I plan to have, I want to have a boy. Obviously I would love a girl too, but sometimes a guy just wants a little guy running around. I’ve had a lot of time to think these past months, and it’s given me time to formulate some of the points I would like to tell him. Most of these could be told to a girl too, but I think if I were to tell these to my boy, he would respect them, especially if I told him at a young enough age. So let me start.

Son, when you get older, you won’t have me looking out for you all the time. You’re going to be an independent, successful young man. However, there are things that could stand in your way. I want you to learn from my experience. Some of these points may seem more trivial than others, but I can tell you that they are all important in some way.

1. Always shave the mustache first. Whether you’re using a manual razor and you’re low on time, or you’re using an electric razor and the battery dies, you will at least have a symmetrical partial-shave. While it is tempting to leave the mustache for last, this is always a bad idea - the mustache will make you look like a child molester, and you’ll be stuck with that look for at least the rest of the day. Believe me.
2. If you’re at a mall, avoid the food court at or before 5 PM. It will be filled with nothing but fat people.
3. Read. Not just magazines or the backs of cereal boxes - actual books. Literature is extra points. Your brain will thank you, and to be honest, it’s usually better than reruns of Charles In Charge.
4. Work your ass off, wherever you are. Jobs and school are important, and working hard at both will guarantee you that you will do better and better things as time goes on.
5. Stay away from rap music. It’s bad for your worldview.
6. You’re not Irish, don’t pretend you are. Your mom may be half-Irish, so that makes you at most a quarter Irish. Your heritage is richer and worth more than poisoning your liver night after night and listening to Dropkick Murphys and rationalizing it by saying, “It’s ok, I’m Irish. This is what the Irish do.” Have some pride for yourself and don’t base your identity around stereotypes of your partial nationality.
7. Don’t waste time with shitty women. It’s bound to happen someday, but after your first block of time with one, learn from it. Recognize that you squandered your energy on something that was not worth it, and move on.
8. Don’t ever buy reality television shows on DVD. Just don’t do it.

Boy, I hope you learn from the follies of your old man. I don’t expect you to understand the implications of each of these points immediately, but in time the truths will reveal themselves. I also recognize that if you’re anything like me, you’ll forego all of this advice and do it all on your own. While it is satisfying to do it all and learn on your own, let me put it to you this way. Mankind has been making mistakes for tens of thousands of years. The only way we have the technologies and novelties we have today is because people learned from those fuck-ups. So don’t be stubborn - read this list, take these points to heart, and think everyday. This is by no means a hard-and-fast set of rules that will govern everything, but this will at least get you started.

I love you, son.