Of Packing And Responsibility

I’ve started packing for my return trip to the United States. I hate putting off packing my luggage until the night before, so I try to gradually fill up my bags over the course of a week instead. So far, I’ve only tossed a few t-shirts and socks into my bag, becasue I’m absolutely terrified about how I’m going to fit everything I have here into two green suitcases. I’ve resigned myself to paying the overweight bag fee, as I see no way I can make my bags weigh less than 50 pounds with all the books and assorted knick-knacks I have. The amount of two pence coins on my desk alone might put me over the limit.

As expected, I experience twinges of melencholy while packing smaller things into slightly bigger things. I remember being so excited and happy to be folding my shirts and placing them into the bags back in June. I don’t get nearly the same thrill now, throwing my crumpled clothes into those same bags. Contrary to how it sometimes sounds, I don’t want to go back to America. Not yet anyway. Packing just reminds me I only have a week of vinegar-doused chips and way outs and efficient public transportation left. The thought that, yes, when I do finally step foot back on American soil my money won’t be worth roughly the same value as Skittles helps a little, but even a greater appreciation for the horrid, horrid U.S. dollar can’t drive away the going-away blues.

Part of me doesn’t want to board that plane bound for Cleveland and a three hour layover because all my problems seem to be based in America. The only times I’ve felt significantly down at Sussex (and those instances happened rarely, I’m happy to say) stemmed from stuff happening back in the United States. The only significant problems England hurled at me were stupidly high prices and vicious seagulls with a taste for strawberry cereal bars I happened to be holding in my hand. Every other hurdle came made in the U.S.A.

One of those problems, the particularly morbid muse for today’s rumination, seemingly spiralled a bit out of control this weekend. My sublet situation went ugly a while ago, but became a bit more urgent this weekend. To avoid needless exposition, I’ll avoid the heavy background – this fake subletter ended up inflicting massive damage to one person’s bank account, and we haven’t paid rent in two months as a result. All of this sort of reached a critical level this weekend, and I got bowled over by it.

I’m not worried about the financial aspect of this – even though I just paid roughly $8 for a packet of cookies and milk. That will all eventually be figured off, and at the worst I’ll just need to work a few extra hours at my work study job in 2009. What gets to me is the responsible aspect of it. More specifically, my apparrent lack of responsibility.

A lot of these tribulations could have been avoided if I’d been more on top of the entire process, and now I need to cough up a lot of cash and deal with all sorts of paperwork. I always thought I was mildly responsible, no master at it, but good enough to not cause any disasters outside of leaving tinfoil in the microwave. Yet this whole incident has shaken me, and made me feel I lot less confident in my ability to maintain anything. I tie “responsibility” with the idea of entering the real of grown-ups – an idea that tends to leave me feeling like I’ve seen my own ghost. I really want to be good at life after college, but always fear I’m going to fail spectacularly at it, jobless and alone. I don’t want to end up like a Judd Apatow film. But stuff like this subletter business shows I may not be all that good at this responsibility stuff yet.

That makes the thought of leaving England even harder. I’m basically on a vacation where I spend a few hours listening to a guy talk about British colonization of Africa and it rains a little more than it should in a holiday location. I have zero major responsibilities here outside of “don’t die” and “don’t cause an international incident.” I can’t run from the inevitable, but who wouldn’t prefer endless vacation to the tedium of everyday life? That idea in itself is beyond immature, but one that’s tough to ignore when I’m actually living it at the moment.

But as much as the idea of being a homeless man in Brighton intrigues me, going home to where the weather is constantly warm and the responsibility is plentiful is probably the best thing. As much as I would love to roam around Europe living off my plethora of two pence coins, being forced to condition my responsibility skills is for the best. And I know they will get a good workout, since I’m being thrown into the “real world” for three months in Fort Lauderdale. At least I’m excited about that particular bout with responsibility.

So while I may not be thrilled at the prospect of beginning my packing with a whole week to go, it’s just something I have to face and accept. But I sure as hell am not packing these two-pence coins.

Burning Out A Bit

I’m not the best when it comes to going out. I only occasionally overdue the drinking, and rarely go to far where I get sick. My flaw comes from just not being as energized for a night on the town as other people. I tend to treat going out like a 9-to-5 job, just something I have to do since I’m young and in college. Not to say I don’t enjoy it, but I crash back to earth a lot faster than other people. The central conflict comes from drinking, an activity that the more I indulge in the sadder I become. I can start a night out super happy, but after a few drinks I can adopt the same life outlook as an orphan. Some people get really hyper or outgoing when they drink – I usually get near-silent and take on the same facial expressions as Robert Smith.

England demands a hearty appreciation for drinking. At least in America, a lot of people say they just want to drink for fun. The English expect to be plastered, and anything less than near-comatose might be frowned upon. Pub culture really does take centerstage in England. I’m getting a little worn out by it.

Most students at Sussex have much better night-out stamina than me. They can go out every night and get sloshed, yet never really slow down except to puke in front of a supermarket. People routinely get back at 6:30 in the morning and go to class three hours later as if they’d slept for eight hours. Most impressively to me, they never stop having fun while going out. I routinely wish I had this ability. I start drifting off waiting for the 3 a.m. bus back to campus.

The last few nights have really burnt me out. This weekend has been dubbed “Birthday Weekend” because about four people (myself included) celebrated their births this week. Partying has become the focus, as a result. I’ve gone out in some form every night this week (minus Thursday), from concerts to pubs to late-night clubs. It has been fun, but all this adventure grinds me down over time. I’m feeling it fully at the moment.

Tonight, we ate dinner and then pub-hopped for four hours. We went to all of the birthday-person’s favorite spots, and sampled something from every spot. Some of my friends don’t view drinking as an activity as much as a competition. They’ve become keen to the English idea of a night out isn’t a success unless you are drunk. The focus becomes drinking as much as humanely possible while still being able to walk back to the bus stop. And, it’s all fine.

It gets annoying when I decide not to follow along. If some people order double-shots but I opt for a single shot, I’m “criticized” (used very loosely). If they want to get a shot but I decide to sit this round out, they ask “what’s wrong with you?” I’m playfully called “weird,” but since I’ve usually had enough to drink to start feeling a little tipsy and a littledown, these jokes sting. I start doubting myself more than usual. My night becomes a bit more sluggish.

This isn’t a new development. This has been happening since the start of the program, and hasn’t gotten worse. And it isn’t like I’ve never had to deal with this stuff before – the whole drinking business has been the most confusing, crushing and (worst of all) consistent problem I’ve dealt with at Northwestern, and I still haven’t figured out how to handle it, and I’m about to graduate. But I deal with drinking and the ignorant pressure that comes with it – at Northwestern and at Sussex – the same way. I ignore what people say, and just try to stay positive.

I don’t know why it has been getting to me this week. If you cut a tree long enough, it falls. If I go out too much, I break. And could potentially fall down, but that’s another story. This action-packed week has drained me, and I’ve been splitting because of it.

Yet it feel wrong to pin these waves of grief on just going into Brighton. I now have less than a week left in England. I’m both excited to go home, but also fully aware of how much I have to deal with when I land back in the U.S. I’ve been avoiding a lot of issues, running the gamuet from financial woes to the tired-but-true emotional dingers, and I soon will have to deal with them. I’m not looking forward to it in the slightest. Plus, I’m leaving a lot of great people who have helped make this summer very enjoyable, even if they take drinking a little to seriously. I’d prefer to put off the goodbyes a little longer, but no amount of pubbing can stop that.

I’m glad I’m at least burning out at the very end instead of the middle. But I’m overjoyed to be spending all day Sunday staying inside my dorm and working on a paper about the Suez crisis. The last few days drained me, and I know the coming week will feature a lot of going out amplified by the suddenly-vanished time. I expect to be wiped out completely by the time I leave Gatwick Airport Saturday.

At least I can sleep on the plane.

Day Off

I’m going to relax today, and not write anything else this rainy Saturday. And maybe I’ll start researching my final history paper, about the Suez Crisis. Yay!

Brace yourself for my final week in England, and expect several sappy introspective posts over the next seven days. Because you never see those around these parts.

A Friday In London

I did the impossible and woke up at 9 in the morning today, in order to spend most of Friday in London. After a slight scare that we had completely missed our train and we would have to spend the day buying souveniers in downtown Brighton, we made it to London Victoria station at about noon and spent a fair amount of time exploring the city via crammed-together Tube trains. Since I’m going out to “indie dance night” at a local club and I need to be at least semi-presentable, here are a few random thoughts from today.

- Piccadilly Circus isn’t remotely a circus – it’s a rip-off of Times Square, complete with giant LCD screens showing news and soap commercials, and an overpriced T.G.I. Fridays.

- Speaking of too-expensive American eateries, I ate at Planet Hollywood for lunch today. Somehow, Planet Hollywood offerred the most American food I’ve had yet in England – the bacon was crispy, the fries weren’t soggy and sopped in vinegar, and they poured my Diet Coke in a glass. Plus, I got to see the sword one of the bad guys used in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

- The Olympics started today! And…I don’t really care. The Olympics have never really been a big deal to me, except for the basketball which is always a treat to watch. But we stumbled upon London’s Chinatown, and they had set up a big TV in the middle of the street showing the opening ceremonies. It was a really cool sight, with a large number of locals coming out to watch in the middle of a street decked out in banners and flags. The only weird part was only about two people cheered when the United Kingdom came on screen. Then the Virgin Islands walked out and we left.

- London souveneir shops make even the tackiest American stand selling “I Went To Pismo Beach and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt” t-shirts look like Urban Outfitters. So. Much. Crap.

- The Tube is hands down the best public transport I’ve experienced in my life. Combine the coziness of the D.C. system with the options of the New York subway, and picture trains coming every three minutes, at most. So easy and simple, why can’t the El be like this?

- I decided a while ago that, now that I sorta-like soccer, I might try to adopt an English Premeir League team and root for them. But I didn’t want to dive into tihs, I wanted to wait until the stars align and the English team I should support became clear. Well, I’m pretty sure I ignored my original plan, as I’ve decided to back north London squad Arsenal. I visited their stadium today, and was pretty impressed. Picking Arsenal treads dangerously close to being a bandwagon pick – they are one of the top teams in a league where only four teams usually compete for the championship, they have a massive fan base and are copared frequently to the Boston Red Sox (but all the fans I saw were far cooler than most Boston Red Sox bandwagon people). But London’s the one English city outside Brighton I really visit, and I’m a big fan of Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, so Arsenal make about as much sense as any other team. What sealed the deal was the awesome t-shirt I bought at the stadium – it fits super well. A terrible reason to back a club, but still better than the time I wanted Tampa Bay to beat Oakland in the Super Bowl because “Rich Gannon is too old.”

- Another sign British newspapers exist in some strange dimension – they have a lot of afternoon editions out here.

- Finally saw Wall-E tonight. If you know me at all, you’ll know exactly how this movie made me feel. Hint: Already wanting to see it again.

Time to listen to Klaxons for four hours.

The Harry Potter Problem

I like to believe people don’t obsess about the Harry Potter book series as much as I’m told they do. I have no problem with Harry Potter fans or even the series itself (I bought every single book the day it was released, and read through them as if finishing them would save my life). I even understand being a huge fan of the series, knowing every obscure detail and spell name while listening to the Chamber of Secrets soundtrack, all the time bragging to your friends about how the “Which Hogwarts House Would YOU Be In” application put you in Gryffindor. You can have your Harry Potter to obsess over, I’ll have Pee-Wee’s Playhouse and this video.

Alas, the type of Potter-people I hoped only existed on Internet message boards do exist in real life. And, like Catholics to Vatican City, they flock to England. These fans mention Harry Potter whenever something in the world reminds them of anything in J.K. Rowling’s bajillion-dollar-making universe (“oh my god, this chip store looks just like Gringotts bank!” They try to convince everyone around them to sign up for a “Harry Potter Tour,” a guided venture taking you to various locations seen in the Harry Potter film, giving fans a chance to see a field where Daniel Radcliffe once scampered through, all for the low cost of about $200. They are always girls.

The British have no problem celebrating the Harry Potter books, but start calling them “wizards” and asking where Platform 9 and 3/4s is, and the nicer ones will laugh at you. The meaner ones will condemn you. The drunk ones will throw you through glass panelling. It’s akin to assumming every American is an obese Republican who enjoys the comedy of Larry the Cable Guy, but worse because a lot of Americans are actually like that. No British people play Quidditch or determine their fate by putting on a magical hat.

I’ve been told the Scottish enjoy the wizardy attention, though, so head on up to Glasgow and go crazy asking “where does Hagrid live?”

It’s weird, seeing so many girls going absolutely bonkers because they are in the same country as their favorite fictional wizard (and I can’t emphasize how many gals are like this – nearly every other girl I know at Sussex spazzes out when they see a kid who looks kind of like Ron Weasley). But England has this strange ability of producing media that sends Americans into tizzies. I’ve seen a lot of people (again, girls) start reminiscing about Love, Actually when they pass by Heathrow Airport (I recall a time when I tore a Love, Actually poster into a thousand little pieces). And think of all those nerds in America who can recite Monty Python and the Holy Grail verbatum. If I hear “it’s only a flesh wound” one more time…

As annoying as it can get, it does make me wonder if America’s given the English any media that absolutely sends people’s heads spinning when they think about it or go to America. We have a stranglehold on cinema and television over here (U.S.A.! U.S.A.!) but nobody goes bonkers over a specific flick or show. Rap music is everywhere, but it’s just something enjoyable to listen to, not a phenomenon prompting people to fly out to Compton to see where N.W.A. wrote “Fuck the Police.” I see more Lupin the Third t-shirts than anything American-made here, and I thought Lupin the Third came out twenty years ago. Nope, turns out it was 40 years ago, but still somehow every British teenager has a t-shirt sporting some Lupin the Third character on it.

As much as I wish they didn’t squel everytime they saw an old-looking building kinda resembling part of Hogwarts, I guess it’s cool fans can feel closer to Harry Potter just by being in the country he lived in. And their could be worse Anglo things to be enamored with, like Amy Winehouse or pub culture (every fratty dude here at Sussex loves it, that’s for sure). So, I’ll just let them have their joy and assume I’d do the same if I saw the studio where Radiohead recorded “Fake Plastic Trees.”

But seriously girls, not every man with a white beard is Dumbeldore. Seriously.

All My Heroes Suck

I messed up big time when I chose the heroes of my youth. While all the other kids labeled Michael Jordan or Shaqille O’Neal or Harry Potter as their hero, I went with a dynamic duo that, at the time, looked fine enough. Little did I know my childhood choices for worship would end up being terrible, terrible role models.

One role model was Chris Benoit, professional wrestler and Canadian. While all the other professional wrestlers wore stupid spandex and acted in a manner more suitable for the Castro District than a wrestling ring (remember, I was naive enough to watch professional wrestling at all), Chris Benoit was no-nonsense, no gimmick. His hard-working attitude and ability to hurt people appealled to the young me. I bought his action figure, I watched all his matches, I dressed up for him as Halloween once. I think no pictures exist, thank God.

And then Chris Benoit went and murdered his entire family and offed himself last year. Turns out I’d been rooting for a sociopath the whole time. I think I’d have been a little better off worshipping Gary Condit.

My other childhood here was Brett Favre, quarterback for my beloved Green Bay Packers. He was the first real athlete I ever developed an appreciation for. He was one of the top quarterbacks in the league. He never missed a game, especially impressive since he played a game revolving around huge men smashing into each other. He just seemed…cool.

I idolized Brett Favre. Wore his jersey for unhealthy lengths of time, hunted out every article mentioning his name, hanging posters up in my room. I thought he was perfect. When it was revealed he was addicted to painkillers, I didn’t shun him or turn against him because McGruff told me drugs were bad. It showed me even rich athletes have problems. When he started sucking, I didn’t suddenly hate him. I stuck with him. And he sucked a lot.

Every kid who becomes entranced by professional sports has a player like this. The one athlete they become completely bowled over by, an individual so awesome in the kid’s eye they take on larger-than-life status for simply throwing/hitting/touching a ball. It’s a weird fandom, almost cultish. I think it’s kind of like how every NSYNC fan had a favorite “singer,” and devoted themselves to said member. Except that’s just stupid.

So, imagine how I’ve felt for the past month watching all this Brett Favre drama unfold. For those who snub ESPN for less important endeavors like NBC sitcoms or the presidential election, Brett Favre retired this spring. Green Bay fans felt sad, but proud he retired a Packer. A few months pass, no problems. And then Favre decides he wants to play again. Problem is, the Packers have moved on, they weren’t really looking to take him back. Favre’s resillient, he wants to play. ESPN gets involved, and now it’s out of control. Drama, drama, drama. With no ESPN over here and all the sports channels devoting hours of coverage to darts, I followed this story exclusively online. I wanted to bash my head in with the keyboard every day.

Today, the drama ended, as Green Bay traded Favre to the New York Jets. I’m pretty numb to the news – I’m both aware it’s a stupid trade between franchises in a professional football league and not important in the grand scheme of things. But it still sucks that he’s playing for another team and won’t retire in the uniform I always saw him in. All hero-worship contains an element of ignoring reality, so I just find it impossible to picture him wearing another jersey. But said jersey is already on sale at NFL.com.

Even though he didn’t kill anyone, I’ve lost a fair amount for Brett Favre over the past month. I admire his desire to do what he loves, that’s cool…but he didn’t have to be such a big baby about it. Somebody can’t announce “hey guys, I’m done” and then backpeddle a month later, expecting to be welcomed back with open arms. People move on, they make plans and a person can’t just barge in and expect everything to go back to how it was. But Brett Favre did, and he whined and whined and talked to Gretta Van Sustren and just didn’t come off as the tough, “I can take whatever” guy I’d painted as a hero in my mind. Be strong, adapt to the situation, don’t dwell on it, don’t throw the ball to Bubba Franks. Those are the lessons I learned from Brett Favre, and now he seems to have forgotten most of them.

So yeah, I’m out of childhood heroes unless the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles count. And they released a shitty movie, so looks like I’m out of luck. Sigh.

Birthday/London/All My Friends/Pizza

Being born in the summer creates an interesting climate where birthdays always seems so barren. I always celebrate my birth when everyone else (and this holds doubly true for college) isn’t around, meaning my birthdays never seem that…memorable in my head. They come, they go, I move on with my summer life and eagerly await the start of school.

My 21st birthday ended up being the most separated birthday I’ve ever had in my life. Even when August 6 rolled around in previous years, I at least had family and a smatterring of close friends to celebrate with. Wednesday, none of that. My history class held a field trip into London, and the British ticketing system dictates that we need to travel in groups of four to save the most money.

So, I spent my 21st birthday surrounded by strangers from my class I had barely said anything to previous to this trip. It was weird, but ultimately in a good way.

Thankfully, the three other people in my group all ended up being very enjoyable people. Sure, they wanted to go into London at the abysmal hour of 10 a.m. (I still haven’t figured out the “getting up early” thing), but besides that qualm, they all ended up being nice company. They even wished me a happy birthday, even though they had just Facebook friended me about 18 hours prior. Very sweet gesture, even if I forgot their names frequently throughout the day.

Even though they were relaxed and pleasant people, the majority of the day was spent in awkward silence, nobody really having enough to say beyond “our class sure is boring!” and “that exhibit sure was boring!” to equal a full day’s worth of talk. So, I spent most of Wednesday in silent thought, adding an occassional joke or “yeah, definitely” to the conversation when the situation called for it. I played a sort of existentially-wondering Ed McMahon.

What did I think about? The usual topics of human thinking…how I got to where I am, the mistakes I had made along the way, the people. Just general musings I sometimes try to ignore. I had more than enough time to play with these thoughts Wednesday, and didn’t shy away from it. Didn’t help that the dominat song on my computer the last few days has been Modest Mouse’s “Interstae 8.”

The strange part was I sort of enjoyed it. Most birthdays are filled with distractions, activities and gifts meant to garner my undivided attention. Today, I had nothing to worry about for the majority of the day. I sat on the Tube or walked through the cold halls of the Tate museum just…thinking. It has been awhile since I’ve honestly assessed where I’m at and how exactly I got here, but I ended up catching up on the soul-seeking Wednesday, on my birthday. It felt strangely appropriate, and slightly epic given the settings, particularly on old stone bridges facing the Thames River. Conrad couldn’t have written better introspection.

The personal reflection never really hit anything specific…does it ever?…and eventually I found some worthy distractions to remind me I was celebrating my birthday, not writing a treatsie on the human condition. After a rather bland trip to the Tate museum, my four-person group decided to go to Harrods, a massive five-story department store featuring an HMV electronics store and a floor devoted to the country of Dubai. I should have seen this trip was really a female trap – Harrods contains two entire stories devoted to ladie’s clothing, leaving my browsing options to “electronics” to “rare stones,” so about 1/96th of the entire store.

They did have a Krispy Kreme, so props to that.

After about an hour-and-a-half of roaming the labryinth that was Harrods (specifically, the sprawling furniture section, a maze of oak beds and chairs I couldn’t quite escape), we trekked toward the train station, and made the journey back to Brighton. After an hour complete with kids playing “I Spy” and squeky tray tables reminiscent of gears grinding to a halt, we made it home.

I said goodbye to my class friends, and part two of my birthday began.

I planned on meeting up with some friends from Sussex for a night of debauchery (I am 21, after all) once I arrived at Brighton Station. My friends needed a little extra time to get ready (about an hour), but I had prepared for this hurdle by purchasing a copy of Esquire at Harrods. I killed the empty time by reading an article about school shootings. Really cheery stuff.

Eventually, my friends (three girls) made it to Brighton, and I met them at the Tavern, our pub-de-facto. I had to trudge through a pounding rainstorm to get there, but by copy of Esquire made a decent-enough umbrella. I arrived at the pub, and immediately earned the award of free liquor. All was right, at least in a boozy way where nothing is meant to be remembered.

After a couple of hours and one embarassing sign (“kiss me, it’s my birthday,” which achieved nothing it set out to do) later, the girls decided to go home. They had class at 8:30, after all, a concept slightly less pleasant than water boarding to me. I watched them board the number 25 bus to Sussex, and waved goodbye.

I had an ace in the hole.

Another friend, a guy, had spent his evening in London willfully watching a production of Wicked (his masculinity still seems to be intact). His chartered bus arrived extra late at Brighton Station, around 12:30, and he was up for more revelry. The two of us went to Oxygen Bar, a bar bathed primarly in blue lights and old sofas, to drink some more. It felt like a Bukowski novel at this point.

We decided to cap my birthday at The Coalition, a “hip” club on the Brighton beach front. Luck on our side, we stumbled into “free admission night” and, more impressively, “NME Night.” As much as I hate NME’s shoddy music journalism and general ability to suck, the magazine chose to sponsor a pretty solid night of music. Any DJ set featuring The Futureheads “Hounds of Love” next to Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” next to a DJ Shadow track deserves some points. I danced like a lunatic, losing it to every Strokes song and even the bad Arctic Monkey’s tracks.

And then it got sort of sentimental.

The last song of the night ended up being LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends.” Even though I’m a surprisingly emotional person (I read an article about Mr. Rogers the other day, and that had me crying on the inside), only a few songs eek genuine emotion out of me. Plenty of tunes make me feel happy or sad or angry or scared or whatever, but few get me to outwardly act that way. But “All My Friends”… this songs been tearing me up since the end of sophomore year. It packs an emotional wallop rivaled by few others, and only gains more ooomph with time.

So the DJ spins “All My Friends” as the final tune of the night. And, damn, I’ve never really responded to a pre-programmed song like this before. I’ve screamed out all the words to “Gold Digger” before, but this song made me shout every single lyric in a way never seen before, all while vibrating and thrusting my arms forward like I was stabbing at some imaginary control panel. For seven minutes, I completely spazzed.

And, in those seven minutes, I thought about all I had, especially all the people who had made any impact on my life. And how incredibly thankful I was for all of them, every last one. I see a lot of emotional repression in music writing nowadays, writers refusing to acknowlege the emotional heft a song can unleash. I think that’s dumb. One reason I love music is the inner-emotions a single song can stir up. Wednesday, on an elevated platform in a dark club full of British hipsters, one song ended up encompassing all of the thoughts I’d analyzed throughout the day and reminding me of the people in my life. I can’t really explain why…certain moments just make us feel truly alive, and this was one of them. All courtesy of Brooklyn hipsters. I wish it didn’t end.

Afterwards, we ordered four cheese pizza at a 24-hour restuarant and fielded questions from a curious British citizen about the porn industry. It was a strange, but ultimately great, birthday.

(And, yes, this post comes courtesy of Inebriated Patrick, hence all the vague wonderings and general sense of meandering. I’m 21, what do you expect?)

I’m Officially 21…

…in England. Still have until 8 a.m. here before I’m technically 21 in California, but hey, let a guy get excited.

I spent tonight watching a pretty awesome Mae Shi concert (they had a rainbow parachute, like in 1st grade P.E.) and eating Burger King. I turned 21 on a double decker bus while the person in front of me yacked up their brains.

Good times.

The Birthday Post

In about 24 hours, I celebrate the last birthday of any real significance in my life. Besides maybe turning 13 or 18, 21 is the most anticipated and most reveled year of life. Some people make a big deal out of “the big 5-0,” but those celebrations often carry the ominous undertone of “well, you’ve used up half of your life, if you are lucky!”

Twenty-one signifies something a bit more safe but also a bit more terrifying – it’s the awkward age where you transition from youth to adulthood, where everything gets treated like a neverending party but the spectre of seriousness looms large. And you can buy booze and gamble, but that sorta ties into the other point.

I’m not making much of a big deal about turning 21. Wednesday, for me, consists of going to the gym and then heading off to London for a class field trip to a museum. If anything, becoming a 21-year-old just serves as a convenient excuse for me to see The Mae Shi Tuesday night instead of watching Ghandi for class. Wednesday is just another day, in my mind.

I’ve never really been big on birthdays, at least the idea of birthdays. The appeal of growing older wears thin around the teens, when the scourges puberty, high school and driver’s ed teach you getting older becomes less pleasant with every new wall calendar. At least that’s when I started feeling that way…21 only stands out because I can buy booze whenever I feel like it. And I could already do that in England, so I sacraficed that experience already.

I don’t really know how to view 21, if there really is any angle to look at it from other than as simply a number. I could associate 21 with the impending doom of graduating college and being tossed into the “real world.” But I’ve been panicking about that when I was 18, and 19, and 20. I probably won’t stop flipping out about it until I’m 30, with any luck. I could turn 21 into an odd sort of marker in my life, a bookmark separating the first section of my story off from whatever comes next. But since the human mind tends to focus on the misses and mistakes of the past instead of the multitude of good events, it would end up reading like Jimmy Eat World lyrics. I could just blur 21 out with alcohol, but I have a feeling that wouldn’t end well.

So 21 seems, at the moment, a very strange age. The only concrete thought I can summon about it is that 21 really is a transitory age – not quite a college graduate but no longer a careless college kid. Twenty-one makes me feel very…indifferent. I’m not freaking out about growing another year older, but I’m not particularly excited about it either. I guess this is how birthdays are suppossed to feel from now on.

Though I feel ennui towards the actual aging part of the birthday, it’s softened a bit by the part I still enjoy greatly and always secretly anticipate – the actual celebration part. And I’m not just talking about presents and checks (though both are very welcome, thank you very much). Birthdays are great and still awesome regardless of how many candles sit in the cake because they help you see what direction your life has gone in the past year, and reminds you of all the valuable people around you.

Birthday parties, besides being the one place where wailing on a giant Waldo pinata with a bat is socially acceptable, function as a way to see who is important in your life. As you get older, parties get replaced with more adventerous fair, like trips to the mini-golf course or a baseball game. And now, drunken revelry is the best outlet for age increase (obviously, the 21st birthday being the suddsiest of them all). Even when someone can’t physically attend a get-together, they can mail a card, send an e-mail or write on the birthday person’s Facebook wall, a small technologic triumph that means so much. In a decade where websites spring up soley to “snark out” celebrities and people get attacked for the stupidest things, it’s still amazing to me that people actually go out of their way to devote an entire day of celebration to another person for just being alive.

Being a thousand miles off from home this birthday (a first I never really thought about), I now appreciate small gestures. The Facebook wall stands out; I love sorting through all the posts and messages that flood in on August 6, and taking inventory on how this year’s batch of well-wishers compare to last year’s. It’s weird seeing how much can change in a year, how some names vanish completely and people you just met last week suddenly appear. And it’s great seeing names year after year. My favorite was a message I got pre-freshman year from someone I’d never met, living in the same dorm as me, wishing me a happy birthday and being excited for school and hoping we could hang out. And of course, that person is now one of my closest friends. Small things like that blow my mind.

What I’m trying to say with this rambling, disjointed entry is that, regardless of how indifferent or even scared I am of getting older, I still get excited for this every year. And that I am greatful for everyone of the people who have stepped into my life, who don’t think twice about writing “happy birthday” on a fictional wall existing only on the Internet.

So, thank you all.

My English Facebook Friend

So far during my stay in England, I have failed to make one English friend. But I didn’t really expect to – I’m living in a dorm full of American students on a campus where all the English students are on vacation. And I find something inherently creepy about making friends with teachers, so that option was off. But what does surprise me is I have failed to make a single English Facebook friend. Gaining a Facebook friend is as simple as seeing someone on the street, saying “hi,” somehow knowing this random person’s name and entering it into the search box. Bam! New friend, preferably one who lives in England. But I’ve bombed at this simple task thus far.

Until last night, when I confirmed my first British Facebook friend. And, oh, how I wish it could be anyone else in the country.

I recieved a notification last night informing me I had a new friend request. I looked at the name. I had never heard of this person before. I looked at his school – the University of Brighton, Sussex’s psuedo rival, primarily because the two universities sit five minutes apart. I know nobody from the University of Brighton. Confused, I clicked the mystery man’s name, and looked at his profile. After a few seconds, the profile picture registered in my mind.

This guy’s the bartender from town we always see. And he has friended me online.

The first pub I ever went to was a nice little place next to a hotel in downtown Brighton called the Tavern. It reminded me of the room those dogs always play poker in, except no smoke. A group of us went, and one of the girls in our group noted how “hot” one of the bartenders was. After a few drinks, said girl started actually talking with said “hot” bartender. By the end of the night, she actually nabbed a photo with the bartender. He looked rather uncomfortable throughout the whole affair.

Our friend wasn’t content with a single photo with the “hot” bartender.” She started dragging us to the Tavern on nearly every trip into Brighton. Some nights, the “hot” bartender wouldn’t be working, leaving our friend sad and us aggravated that we were at the exact same pub for the fourth night in a row. But on other nights, the “hot” bartender would have a shift, and she would be all giggly with joy and begin chatting to him. We were still agitated.

Eventually, after roughly a billion trips to the Tavern, he seemed to not see us as creepy stalkers (even if I still thought we were). He talked to us, made jokes with us and, most prominently, tried to convince us to buy alcohol from him. His pitches often worked on our enamored friend, so good for him. He did give us useful club advice (“that place is shit, that place is OK”) and a free shot every once in awhile. But I never talked much to him, as my friend was to busy holding his attention.

And yet he’s now my only authentic English Facebook friend. A guy who I’ve only exchanged the words “one Jack and coke, please” with. Strange, but I’ll take what I can get.

On the plus side, Facebook reveals he’s in a relationship. So at least my wide-eyed friend can stop living in denial, and maybe go to a new pub now.