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| Stage 1: Confused and half-hearted use. You hear passing whispers about being the "mayor" and getting "badges." You become mildly curious. You finally give in and ask what it is, with more than a hint of disdain in your voice. You're about 99% sure you'll never use it. "Foursquare..." you say, "isn't that some sort of game involving cherry bombs and a bouncing ball?" Neigh, someone tells you, it's much more than that. The person promptly geeks out, yammering on about badges and points and free coffee at Starbucks. You only hear the part about coffee. One day, while playing with your phone, you come across Foursquare in the app store. You check over your shoulders, as if looking at porn, and hit install. The game begins. Stage 2. You become a point fiend. At first you only check in when your friends prompt you to, but then excitement sets in. You start to obsessively check in everywhere you can. You add your house, your mom's house, your work, your grandparents' house and that kiddy park down the street where you used to steal wifi because one of the houses in the area had an unsecured connection. At this point you think you're the Neo of foursquare - but mainly you're just pale. Your friends ask why you are always playing with your phone. A snarky explanation later, and you've revealed your newfound obsession. During this stage, you don't understand the mayorship process. You're sure that you should be the mayor of everywhere you go because you're there, "pretty much every day." Someone tells you to add a profile picture; you add a shameful shot of yourself sporting an Ed Hardy t-shirt and wait for the mayorships to start rolling in. Stage 3: You become that guy/girl. Your Facebook and Twitter friends tire of seeing your check-ins, which you've been posting to all of your social media sites at an alarming frequency. Even the spam accounts on Twitter are sick of seeing your Foursquare announcements. People begin to hope you'll unlock the "Go Play In Traffic" badge. After you have checked into and/or added every place in your routine, you hit the point plateau. Here you essentially bottom out - you've squeezed every last point out of your usual haunts, but to no avail. All your shiny newness has worn off - you're going to have to earn those points now. Your 4SQ friends call you names as they pass you on the leaderboard and troll your checkins with comments like, "What are you doing at a playground? Pedophile." Your 7 day high score goes from 487 to 73. At this point, you're the mayor of your Mom's house, the Taco Bell near your work and at least one other venue that doesn't really qualify as a real place - i.e., your bed. Stage 4: The Breakup... Stagnancy sets in. You lose your mayorship to Taco Bell (because you keep forgetting to check in during lunch) and to your Mom's house (but only because she has just discovered foursquare and has begun checking in every time she walks to the mailbox and back). Defeated, your name retires to the "Older" section of someone's Foursquare friend list, where it begins to gather digital dust. Your last checkin was most likely somewhere lame, like a bingo hall. Your friends' Facebook news feeds seem oddly empty, now that they are no longer riddled with your Foursquare announcements. Your life becomes mundane without the lure of points and badges to entice you to leave the house. You start to sit around on weekends, wearing the same clothes as the day before. You have dreams about unlocking new badges. One day, a friend comes over. While talking, he mentions your Mom. You mutter something like, "....mayor...foursquare...once," and gaze forlornly at the ground. His interest piqued, and with more than a little disdain in his voice he asks, "Foursquare? What's that?" | | |
| Dear Dad,
It's Father's Day, June 20, 2010. I'm writing this letter as a way of thanking you for everything you've done for me -- for all of us. So I'll start with what I remember.
I remember a Dad who would come home from work angry. Every day. A Dad who yelled at me, at all of us, for the smallest infraction. We were scared of you Dad. You made us all feel like we had to walk on eggshells around you. I remember the feel of that big, leather belt every time you used it on me. I remember my hands being on our wooden bunk bed while you hit me with that belt, for whatever pithy crime I had done to incite your anger. But I also remember how you pulled me up into your lap as a kid. You used to sit in that ugly orange chair in the living room and watch TV -- probably the golf channel -- and I could feel how scratchy your beard was on my face. We'd sit there and watch TV until you fell asleep, like you always did, and then I'd slide off and disappear outside with the neighbor kids.
I remember my first bike. It was black and red. I loved it. It was a "big boy bike," not like the ones the other kids in the neighborhood had. They had to start out on a smaller bike, but not me. I had a full size one speed. I remember you put those training wheels on it, the ones that looked like smaller versions of the wheels on my radio flyer wagon. You were going to teach me how to ride, but you never did. After I got that bike, you and Mom separated. It sat in the garage from then on. On TV you always see the father teaching his son how to ride a bike; but you couldn't have done that because you had a protection order that didn't allow you near us. One day while playing outside, a boy around my age who lived down the street discovered that I couldn't ride a bike, and offered to teach me. His bike wasn't new or nice like mine - it had scotch tape holding the seat together, and sometimes the handlebars moved while you were riding it. But it didn't matter. I loved that bike just as much as my own, that kid like a brother. His name was Marcese. Because of you, we became best friends. He did what you had failed to do. He didn't just teach me to ride a bike; he had been patient with me. He had taken the time to show me something that I knew was supposed to have come from you. It was one of the first of many things I remember learning to do without you.
I remember the first time you cursed at me. Or at least the first time I was old enough to care that my father could grow so impatient with his own son that he would call him a "jackass." We were hauling tree limbs at Grandma's house with the suburban. I was maybe 11 or 12. You told me to tie that yellow cable with a hook around that big tree limb, and my uncertain hands did the best I could. I had no idea how you wanted me to accomplish this task - I knew one way to tie things; the way you tie a knot in your shoes. I wasn't in Boy Scouts like those guys were; never learned how to tie knots or build a fire. You sat impatiently waiting inside the truck, shouting at me to hurry up, so I tied my specialty knot and gave you the go ahead. When you had the branch where you wanted it I tried to untie it, but the weight of the heavy limb had tightened the knot past the point where it could ever be undone. Your eyes fell on my handiwork and you tried to budge the knot, unsuccessfully. Your temper began to flare up as you uttered, "You jackass!" I remember feeling like my jaw had dropped. And maybe it did, I'm not sure anymore. I mean, I had heard you curse before, but never AT me. Never about me. I was just one more person that had arisen your anger now, just like that guy you hated at your work or someone who cut you off in traffic. But I wasn't just someone, Dad. I was your 12-year-old son. But in your eyes, it wasn't important who I was, it was important that I had ruined your towing cable. "You're going to be buying me a new one, you know," you muttered as you struggled with the knot. "You know what," you finally said, after stewing for a moment, "why don't you just go inside." And that was it. I had ruined a thing - an easily replaceble thing, but I had wronged you somehow, pushed you to a place where you didn't want me near you. In case you were wondering Dad, at 12 years old, all a son wants is to please his father. He'll do anything to accomplish this. No matter how many times you screamed at me, what curse words you could ever call me, the simple fact remains that like any son, at 12, I would have lived or died for your approval. However, that's the day you taught me to stop seeking it. It wasn't so much a matter of not being able to attain it. I didn't care about that. But I knew from that day forward that I would never need it again. This helped me more than you'll ever know. As I grew older I witnessed my male friends, whose parents were still together, continually strive and fail to meet their father's approval. I felt bad for them. Even though their Dads were at every school function, I knew that afterward they'd be looking for that pat on the back or nod of approval. I wasn't. I didn't want it - at least not from you. I learned to seek it from positive role models; my band teachers, Mr. Spath and Mr. Myer, and of course from Mom, whose unwavering support I never had to search for.
I remember when you checked yourself into the hospital. I was so confused. I didn't understand why you didn't want to come home. By this time you had long been granted visitation rights; every Sunday you were allowed to see us. Those guys were older and had jobs now, and I honestly don't know that they wanted to see you. Our routine was thus: every Sunday you picked up Clint and I for a meal of some kind and a movie. But one day Mom said you weren't coming, because you were sick. She said you were at the hospital, and that she didn't know when you were going to get out. I didn't understand. I was still young, probably 14, and I didn't know exactly what depression was. I called you and I remember crying on the phone the entire time. You told me you had to stay there, and I begged and pleaded for you to come home. Despite every time you had ever yelled at me, the cursing and so many tempers lost, I still was just a boy who wanted his father. Despite it all Dad, I still loved you and wanted to see you. I didn't know fully what was wrong with you, but I was sure that if I came to visit you in the hospital, you wouldn't want to stay there anymore. I remember hanging up the phone still sobbing, while J.R. stood there rubbing my back and telling me it was going to be alright. J.R. being the oldest, he and I had never had a lot of interaction, but because of you, he and I became closer, if only for just a moment. Later Mom told me that the reason you were in the hospital is because you wanted to get back together with her, and she had refused. I couldn't figure it out; in my mind, if Mom would just take you back, you'd come out of the hospital and everything would be okay. To me, this made it seem like it was her fault. I remember standing in the kitchen with her while she folded towels. "Mom, how come you don't want to be with Dad?" I asked her. She sighed, and then finally said to me, "Imagine if an ex-girlfriend called you up and wanted to go out again, you'd say no right?" At this point in my life I had had only three girlfriends, but I agreed, wondering what she was getting at. "Well, you guys broke up for a reason didn't you? It was because you were having problems that you knew couldn't be fixed. You wouldn't want to date that girl again, because you'd know you would have the same problems and it still wouldn't work." I thought about that a lot, and I eventually understood why Mom couldn't be with you again. She could have told me that it was because she couldn't stand you or that she wouldn't watch you destroy our family with your anger problems, but she didn't. Instead, she told me in the way a mother would tell her son when she still hopes he can have a positive opinion of his father.
One day, you came to pick Clint and I up for our first Sunday since you got out of the hospital. We were late getting out to your truck that day, and I remember how we scrambled to put clothes on and search out our shoes as fast as we could. We knew we had to hurry, because if we didn't, you would be mad. You'd yell at us and then probably be in a bad mood for the rest of the day. We weren't really prepared for what happened instead. Clint and I crammed into the small S-10 that day like we did every Sunday, excited for a day off of school, out of the house, some time with our father. Sundays had become sort of a treat for us. You were completely silent that day though. You said nothing as we backed out of the driveway, and in fact, you didn’t even start speaking until we were at least two miles from Mom’s house. That’s when you told us that we had hurt you. You guys made me wait, you told us. We had hurt your feelings, you said, because the fact that we were late getting out to the truck meant that we didn’t care about you. I could see the tears coming down your face as you said this to us. I never could help but cry whenever you did. Clint and I sat there sobbing, as you convinced your two youngest sons that we had hurt you, simply by taking too long to get ready. You said you were tired of us being late, and that you didn’t even want to spend the day with us. You turned the truck around and took us back home. I remember the thing that hurt most that day wasn’t even how cruel your accusation was. It was that as Clint and I each gave you a hug and told you we loved you, you just sat there with your hands on the steering wheel and stared straight ahead. You didn’t hug us back or even look at us, but most of all you didn’t tell us that you loved us. Clint and I went into the house in a shambles. I remember Mom opening the door and seeing her shocked face, the sound of her voice as she asked what happened. We were kids…your sons, and you had the nerve to say the things you did and then withhold your love from us like it was some sort of conditional commodity. But again, Mom was there for us; ready to repair the damage that you had done. You were on medication at the time, Mom told me, and it made you emotional and unstable. Once again she covered for you. She told us that you didn’t mean those things; that it was the medication talking. Even then, she still wanted us not to give up on you. She wanted for us to keep a space in our lives for you, and we did.
There were a lot of things you did or said that changed me. I’ve only included a few here; the incidents that stand out vividly in my mind or that drastically helped form me in some way. I didn’t write all these things to show you that you’re a bad father. I wrote them in the hopes that you’ll understand that even though you didn’t really parent me in the usual way, I still learned some things from you, good and bad. Without those things, I wouldn’t be the man I am today. If you hadn’t forgotten each of our birthday’s time and time again, yelled at us, screamed in our faces, broken our things, your things, our hearts and hopes, made us think you can change and then showed us you can’t, we wouldn’t be the kind of family we are today. You pushed us towards Mom, in a way that could never have happened otherwise. So yes, while it is Father’s Day and I do have to thank you, this day really belongs to Mom more than anything. She knew that she could never fill the spaces you should have, but she did the best she could. Mom was at every competition, concert and ceremony, cheering us on and always saying how proud she was. She talked about girls with us and even gave us “the talk.” She showed me how to use a paint brush, a hammer, nails. But you showed me some things too. Every time you yelled at us, you showed me how to stay calm. When you threw or broke things, I learned to go for a walk. Every time you lied to us or snuck around, you showed me the importance of being honest. Above all, your habitual ability to hurt and disappoint each of us – even now that we’re adults – made us a family. You gave me four brothers to lean on and your treatment of Mom helped make her strong enough to raise us. Without that, we wouldn’t have been able to survive you. So Happy Father’s Day Dad. You gave me more than you’ll ever know.
Your son,
Danny
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| I almost had to write another customer letter the other night. Shit was gonna get real. Oh, who am I kidding, I'll just write one now. Here's how it went down:
Dear Food Stampers,
Is it just me, or did all of you secretly convene at the local Tardery (your house), and decide that you were going to come to my work, make stupid decisions, and yell at me for them? To the woman who highly resembled a velociraptor; glad you dropped by the store the other night after you finished your sex change operation. Just an FYI, they forgot to remove the last of your chin hairs. Oh, and let me apologize for that little "misunderstanding" at the store. And by misunderstanding, you should know that I mean I misunderstood the fact that you're an idiot, and thought that perhaps as an adult you were able to perform such basic functions as carrying on a conversation with another person and using your words like a big girl (boy?), instead of screaming at me, "Oh, I'm calm, you haven't even seen me get beasty yet!" Beasty? Seriously? What are you, an Animorph? Get the hell out of here. Maybe next time you decide to bring your weave into the store you can write down your card number and store it in there amongst your second child and crabs. Sorry that you gave two EBT cards to Darnesha at the same time, and then in your infinite wisdom, claimed another person's card as your own. That's what happens when you can't identify which card gets you free food, and which one gets you discounts at Petco. Someone takes your shit. It's not the self-check clerk's fault that a guy then walked out with your card, or that you've been exposed to radiation so many times that, in addition to the brain damage you've so obviously incurred, your card won't swipe. God forbid you order a new one and wait the (gasp) THREE WHOLE DAYS for them to send it. I suppose if you had signed the back of your card, that may have helped too, but as I stated before, since your brain is fundamentally lacking in any and all skills that involve the sort of concentration it takes to write your own name, I'm really asking too much of you. I can't even fathom the sort of high class society you must hail from, since you had the gall to actually try to scream in the face of my pregnant U-Scan attendant. Wow. Just because your mom tried to dropkick you as you came out of the womb, while she was standing on that corner, doesn't mean it's okay for you to hold grudges against other pregnant people who actually want their children. Really, the past is the past, and even though you may not have a future outside of sweeping sidewalks and collecting plastic baggies, I urge you to shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars. In case you missed it, this is actually a metaphor that I'm using in the hope that you might try to jump off the top of a building. Crossing my fingers.
To the shrimp lady: And no, this isn't a jab at your height, although it was clear from the arrangement of your face that your parents must have tied some sort of heavy object to your head to keep you from climbing any more ugly trees....I just want to point and then laugh, and probably point some more, at how extraordinarily dumbfounded you looked today (emphasis on dumb here). I came from the opposite side of the store to help you. I was polite when I explained to you in perhaps too large of words, that not only were we down a clerk for the night, but the other clerk was on lunch and that I would get you the shrimp you wanted regardless. I did so, only to be called up to the customer service center where I should find none other than you, in your too-small-for-as-old-as-you-obviously-are clothing, waiting to bitch to a manager that little did you know, was me! The best part was perhaps that it took you a minute to figure out that it was me that helped you, because at first you weren't sure. It was like watching a baby bird take off from the nest, only to plummet to the ground below. When you realized that I was indeed, the very same person who had helped you not 60 seconds ago, the look on your face was highly indicative of your level of intelligence -- and yet still priceless. Thanks for attempting to explain to me just how you felt I should run my store, and how someone should have answered the call to seafood much sooner. And thanks so much for showing me your anything but firm grasp on the concept of time by stating that you waited at the counter for 40 minutes and that no one helped you. Firstly, 40 minutes ago, my seafood clerk was not at lunch, and was standing at the counter, waiting to help people who can actually walk and talk at the same time. And even though this category doesn't include you, he STILL would have given you the shrimp you so desired. Secondly, I saw you stumble in only 15 minutes before I helped you, as I was being mauled by the aforementioned velociraptor/he-she. I know that even though it probably would take you 15 minutes to locate the seafood counter, and then another 15-20 minutes to remember your name, address, purpose for being at the store, and the name of your special ed. teacher, you were in this case aided by the giant sign that reads, "Meat & Seafood" and which is visible from almost any point in the store. However, all your pitfalls aside, you were by no means waiting for 40 minutes. Maybe one day, when the effects of your eating lint from the dryer until you were 24 wears off --which it won't-- you can then hopefully chew and blink simultaneously, and carry out those basic tasks that the rest of us find so painfully easy. Until next the short bus drops the both of you off at my store, I bid you adieu. Sincerly,
Dan | | |
| Oh shuttle bus, thou art such a treasure to me. As I board you, I try to avoid the sticky gum plastered across your first step. I get on, searching for a seat, lost in your shuttle bus sea so much like Tom Hanks in Castaway, but without the cool beard. I wade through an ocean of backpacks and knees to find my way into a small section of your seat guarded by two girls who clearly have no intention of moving their larger than life purses so that I can sit down before you lurch off, taking me from my feet. I lay claim to the seat, angering the trolls on either side of me, as you slow once again and attempt to add just a few more passengers into your already full cabin. A small, pale, boy with one eyebrow boards, holding a clarinet, and he is faced with the dilemma of putting either his ass or crotch in my face. As you blast off once again, he loses his balance and slams his clarinet into my shins with a mumbled apology. I try to focus my attention on your window, oh shuttle bus, as everyone looks down at their feet and turns up the volume on their assorted Ipods, Zunes and the like. I wonder if perhaps you have cast some spell which forces them to avoid eye contact lest they turn to stone. You ramble along, keeping kids alive at under 25, and outside, a man on a mountain bike pedals past us, drinking a Starbucks coffee. As we near the Student Center, I gather my things and prepare for the fight to your door, people long jumping over my book bag like they are late for the 2016 Olympics. I exit, joining the chorus of hasty thanks thrown to your driver and put my backpack on, knowing I'll be back for another adventure later on that day. Fare thee well, oh shuttle bus, until next we meet. | | |
| This is me, giving up on sleep for tonight/today. I spent most of the night laying there, either having odd dreams or just plain not sleeping because I can't breathe through my accursed nose. I don't know what it was, but my brain just wouldn't shut off. That's what I get for watching Little Shop of Horrors right before bed. Tsk, tsk me. I entertained getting back out of bed when I had first lain down and typing out a quick blog entry but I couldn't do it. I figured I'd fall asleep soon. I was wrong. I was thinking about how on Facebook or Twitter you have this status that you can update, usually with something mundane for lack of room. But that desire to write more, whether it be that you post really long statuses (statii?), or just alot of really short ones, is always there. At least for me it is. I always feel like I should change my status and put something different because it's not what I want to say, or sometimes I just thought of something better to put up. I try to put thought into my status, if only because few people do. Rather than writing about how I'm "going to the store," or "doing homework," I put nonsensical things. At least that way, it's something interesting to read, even if you can't figure out what the hell I'm talking about. But again, I also do it because I want to write more than just a sentence or two, which falls out of the status category and into the blog entry slot.
In other news, here's the Downside: right now I'm taking around 13.5 credit hours -- three classes spread out over four days at three different campuses. Yeah, I know. But, it also means that I'm almost done at Metro, which will be awesome cause it means that I've reached a milestone, but sad too, because I've had a blast there and met alot of cool people. For instance, I like my Lit. class because it has a bunch of odd people in it. There is this guy in the class that just spouts his opinion constantly, and on the first day of class the teacher turns around and says to him,"Yeah, can you stop interrupting me, because it's kind of...yeah." He called on the kid later, probably more because he felt bad than that he actually wanted his opinion, and the guy was like, "No, it's fine, I don't have anything to say." The teacher is cool. He's a spacey sort of guy that dresses and looks sort of unkempt-like, wearing a purple and green sweater with khaki cargo pants and cross training shoes. Sometimes after you answer a question he'll just sort of stare at you for a minute, not saying anything, this look of deep thought across his face. Then, when he breaks out of his trance he seems like he didn't hear you, but then repeats what you said and connects it to a seemingly unrelated topic. So that's fun. My education class is alright, although nowhere near as good as the other two that I took with Nancy and Jessica. The teacher is pregnant, and she's sort of ho-hum. However, she did tell us this awesome story the other day. She said she was running along this sidewalk somewhere when she tripped and fell on her face; her son who is I think 7 or 8 said to her, "That's why we don't run, mom!" It was pretty good. I have that class with alot of the same people I had the other two with, minus the man row of course, our only defence against the very estrogen-filled classroom. Now the man row has been reduced to just me and Anthony in one row and Kyle across the way. He sits on the other side of the class because he's a double agent. (Sorry, Kyle.) The last class I'm taking is this Intermediate Algebra class at Elkhorn. I have it with the same teacher as the Beg. Accelerated class I did. Awesome teacher, who for some reasoned is disillusioned enough to think that I should be a math teacher. I transferred in late, but on the first day I came in this lady in the class (Bridget) yells, "My tutor is back! I have my tutor!" It's because she was in the other math class with me, (strangely enough we sat in the same exact spots too...) and I would always help her with her homework and suchforth. So because of the tutor comment, the other day I go to walk into class and this kid comes up to me and goes, "So...are you like, actually a student? Or are you just like, sitting in or something, cause that one lady called you her tutor..." I laughed and told him I was in fact a student, no, I don't get paid, and yes, Bridget is somewhat insane.
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