This, That and Derrida

This past weekend I enjoyed the company of someone who (unwittingly) reminded me of the scariest time of my college career.

Nope, not the time I was given a shot of Everclear (and told it was tequila), and not the time I wound up having to take two finals in the same 3 hour period, nor was it the time back in ’99 when, after consuming copious amounts of orange juice and 100-proof vodka, and with UGA down 28-0 to Auburn I decided it was time to leave early—flipping off the Auburn section and screaming drunkenly garbled obscenities at them—and it wasn’t even the time I was left in a Waffle House parking lot, drunk, a good ways away from my car.

Nope, it was the last semester of my senior year (2nd senior year officially) when it hit me that come fall, I would not be an official student anymore, after 22 years of school as a constant.

And I was scared shitless.

Now maybe I’m stretching by calling School a “routine”—certainly finger paints and blocks isn’t the same as Cognitive Dissonance, Copyediting and Derrida (today’s title brought to you by the Dennis Miller Show)—but it was a matter of not worrying about what I would do.

Ok, I’m lying a little, there was worry, and sometimes there were times where I decided to do nothing (most of those times were alcohol-induced). But the point is that for the first time I didn’t have clue 1 what I would be doing with myself. Grad school was an option on hold, which meant I had to basically “kill time” for a year. I did not know how the hell I was going to do that, and, as per above, was scared shitless.

What reminded me of that time was her statement that she would love to know what the next 5 years of her life would hold, and that some of the big, “life-altering”[1] decisions were good decisions to make. Right before (and hell, after) graduating college is an underrated scary time for folks.

The old cliché always goes “I don’t need a map to life, I like the surprises”.

That’s all well and good, but I think folks who subscribe to that particular living newsletter need to go rent Back to the Future II. Sure knowing the future may take plenty of surprises out of your life (both good and bad, to be fair), but you’d also know the outcome of all major sporting events.

If you’re not morally or for religious reasons opposed to gambling, you would be rich. And if you then knew that you got extra greedy with your earnings from picking, say the Falcons to win the Superbowl, and try and stash them, poorly, in say, the Caymans or in one of those fabulous Swiss bank accounts that I know absolutely nothing about and certainly don’t have any finances hidden away in, and then get busted by the IRS, and wind up sharing a jail cell with Martha Stewart, you can look surprised when it turns out to be not as well decorated as you thought.

And now for today's MADE-UP WORD OF THE DAY:

Phlegmboyant. Adj. Being exceptionally boastfully of one’s phlegm, proud and wheezing. From the Latin Phlegmboyonare.

(Will this be a true “Daily” feature? The magic 8ball says “maybe”)

Until then, much peace, love and clairvoyance for all y'all



[1] This is one of those clichéd adjectives that I use with much trepidation. It could be a side effect of my thinking too much, or else I’ve just read (and believed) way too much stuff on chaos theory, but I am mostly of the opinion that any decision, even tiny ones, can alter your life.