What it Feels Like to Re-Evaluate Everything You Like After Christmas

I've not had a tangible Christmas gift in years. This isn't some hippie rant about how we should just give love instead of gifts, but when you hear about someone being trampled at a Wal-Mart for like the umpteenth time, maybe it is time to give a little love.

So, retail was bad this year, boo-hoo. I wasn't all that bad this year. I drank, I ate, I pooped, I puked and I still love Christmas cookies.

I didn't depend on a Christmas bonus compiled by relatives and handed out in old shoe boxes at a family gathering. I didn't ask for a dancing Santa, a TV or a lamp that's overpriced.

I didn't ask for my family to be there to greet me at the door or fill glad containers with stuffing that I've never really liked.

I didn't ask for anything. And I didn't because it's sort of disgusting.

Before Christmas, I had a friend that wanted an engagement for the 25th. Nothing else. Good great and dandy, and engagement.

I don't think the person needing to give the engagement sees the full picture. Sure, it's engagement now and then years of Christmas freebies and foul-ups.

You hear someone say, "all I want for Christmas is you," is worse than when you hear some one say, "the n-word." They're lying and acting like they are not responsible for their actions because they can disguise it with the beginning of itself.

If I'm all you want for Christmas, doesn't that mean every Christmas and lifetime to come, or are you going to go ballistic when you don't get the puke colored drapes from World Market next year?

And I'm putting what I've accumulated in perspective. I never want anything for Christmas. It's just a day; another day with crazy cultural innuendos attached to it in the late twentieth century that causes many people to flip the fuck out.

I have many great things. I have a roof. I have a great life. I even have a pool and a computer to write on. I bought them all on different days and didn't take mind to the fact that it wasn't the 25th of December when I bought them.

Everything I have felt special when I bought it because it was. It was priced, planned, gifted and gracious in the middle of August as it was the day after Thanksgiving.

Why it's so important to have something given to you on Christmas, well, I'll never really understand.

What it Feels Like to Look Outside From the Inside and Think, "I want to do that, but I can't."

In 22 years of living, I've had four major surgeries to repair my knee, arm and clean various infections.

One month ago, I had my last major knee surgery. It doesn't hurt. It just feels the worst.

I look at the mountains I used to climb every Friday and look away quickly with a slight frown on my zitted face. Poor me, I think. Poor, poor me.

There are a few crazy parts of me that become selfish and act like I'm never going to heal. There are parts of me that act like I don't have access to the top of the line exercise equipment, physical therapists, surgeons and drugs.

Then, there are parts of me that know I'll be fine, but can't wait for that moment.

Anytime someone jogs by me on the street while talking on a cell phone, or rides a bike past me without wearing a helmet, weary of ruining some daily hairstyle, I feel like breaking their legs.

I feel like giving that person a taste of what so many people go through.

It isn't because I'm bitter. I've thought about this. I don't envy the people who can do these things, and I understand that I'm only seeing them in one context, but I know that many of these people have never experienced real pain.

How can I say that? Right. Let me explain:

I can do anything I want because I'm young, capable, educated and strong. I knew that immediately after my doctor told me I wouldn't walk for a long time when I was sixteen years old.

And I'm not turning into a motivational douche-bag either. I'll never be that preacher.

Anyway, when any person hears someone with any sort of knowledge tell them something sounding almost sadistic about their own human condition, their real human starts to come out.

I couldn't see any light, I didn't think breakfast tasted any better the next day but I did identify with a lifestyle that I never knew existed. I felt like I knew why so many of my capable human buddies wasted days on a couch in front of a screen with a controller in their hands. I felt like anyone who got the ass end of life handed to them since they were born were more capable and smart than I ever could be.

I felt like I'd been given a chance to exploit a life I never knew I had.

All those friends I have in Kenya, all those girls I lived with in Guatemala, all those kids that chased my truck in Uganda–at least, a lot of them, don't let me be too general–knew the life they had and would seize any opportunity to exploit it the way every human should.

But, a lot of the time, they can't. Don't worry. It's not because joggers talk on cell phones or people ride motorcycles without helmets. There are a billion reasons why everyone is different and a billion different forces as to why everyone isn't on top.

And everyone knows, somewhere, that they can be on top of whatever it is they need to be on top of. And it feels like looking outside from the inside and imagining what you would do if you were able to be in the mountains where you feel most human, most capable, most ingenious, most certain that you can charge your condition with the strength you didn't know you had until someone told you that you won't be doing what you love for a long time.

What it Feels like to be at the Forefront of Something

I just finished a lecture with Shailagh Murray, the Washington Post reporter who followed Obama's campaign since its conception.

That was cool.

But, interestingly enough, I learned something. Surprise. Learned.

Right now, well, if I had followers, I would be at the forefront of journalism. Maybe.

I think sometimes that I'm an alright writer. I really try to be. I'm always on top of things. I try to background most of my stuff. I keep up with the times. I know where to look for relevant information. My spelling is okay. And so is my right click finger.

And my writing makes me important. My education makes me important. It doesn't make me desirable. Not yet.

I need my idea.

She said something interesting tonight. Sheilagh said, "We are just talking about what to do; where we're going."

Amazing. Thousands of journalist were laid off today and some of the biggest news organizations in the country are just talking about what to do; where they're going.

Well, I have news too. As a student, a writer and future professional: I don't know where you're going.

How much can I really do when there's just a screen in my face and letters at my fingertips? I guess that I can do quite a bit. I'm writing right now.

To some, I'm just writing shit. I'm just rambling. This isn't art. This isn't journalism. This isn't anything but a public diary that someone has yet to look at. Just another one.

But what if someone were to look at this tomorrow, tonight, or in the next five minutes and think, "I like this." Would I change? Would I realize that my forefront idea might be working–that it might be materializing?

That would be something. I could change my whole shit repertoire to a piece full of journalistic integrity and important layout of public insight.

But, first, I need someone to read what I've written. It is shit.

It won't be for long.

What it Feels Like to Shoot a Wizard in the Face With a Potato

Wizards suck.

Not all wizards. There are a few bitchen wizards. Example: Gandalf.

A friend of mine, he's making a spud gun. It'll shoot a potato through just about anything. I'm sure you've seen the videos. Spud guns are fun.

I don't have a video. Sorry. I might soon though.

It feels great to shoot a wizard with a spud gun. Especially a king wizard. There's not much you can do to block a potato that's flying at you 156 feet per second.

Not even much a wizard can do.

What it Feels Like a Few Hours Before Major Surgery

Hungry as all sin.

There are about a trillion things that you want to do before you're rendered useless for the next six to eight weeks.

You want to hike up that mountain you've hiked up every weekend since you were in college, you want to nail that trick you'd been trying at the skate park for the last few months and you want everyone to leave you alone.

Most importantly, you feel worried. You feel worried that the world is going to pass you by again–of course you've done this before so you can reflect a little bit–and that you're going to miss a whole swath of life because you can't walk.

You dread it. You feel sorry for yourself, and you don't tell too many people. You just tell them that you're having surgery.

You think about what used to happen to folks who had surgery years ago. How much longer they spent recovering. You read stories about John Elway and how he can barley climb stairs without wincing and you kiss your knees because you know that they can still be fixed.

You think about a major world event that, conditionally, could happen. You think about how you can't be there to see it, to write about it, to talk about it in the same context as all the people you know are able too.

You think about all the movies with hospital accidents and the people in there who were just trying to recover from an injury they never asked for.

Then, again, you think about yourself. You start to think about all of the details that you never recognized before. You want to call out all the people who double space after periods because of some flaw in their educational upbringing.

You think about all the details with your diet. You don't want to eat any of the same crap that you've been cramming. You're going to be immobile. You're going to get soft. Not fat. Soft. You accept that. You accept it, and you know you have to take it lying down, but you don't let that hunker you.

You buy the good food, like you always have, and figure out how you're going to portion it. You've always eaten well; but you've always eaten a lot. When you get your once a month junk food this time, you'll probably only have one slice of that ginormous pizza.

You think about the books you're going to read and how you'll be willing to give them your undivided attention. You're not going anywhere for awhile.

You think about the people that have it a lot worse than you do, and you wonder why you need to do all of this reflecting.

You think about the people who the world rushes by everyday you're rushing with the world. You think about how you're sort of joining those ranks.

You're not going anywhere for awhile.

What it Feels Like to Not Find What You're Looking For

I have a simple request: I want to write on the wall in the shower.

Why is that so hard?

Anyway, I figured out how. This is America. I can buy it somewhere. But that's not what this is about.

When you have something in your head–you know it exist, you know you've seen it before–and you decide to begin the search for it, you really put your mind to it.

When your mind is on it, you feel great. You feel so focused. You feel like you've never been more resourceful and successful in your entire life, no matter how many times you've dreamed of something and then looked for that something.

All of your energy is pounding ideas through your brain; creative, insightful ways to execute your goal that you can't fathom in day-to-day life.

Your spirits build. You look forward to your triumphant assent to attainment and the gratification that you'll feel having gotten your prize.

You've even invented new ways of doing things that you didn't use before; that you may not use again. You picked up a phone book. You visited the one Asian imports store at the mall that no one ever visits except for rich neardy kids with money to blow on ninja weapons. You finally went into an antique store. You found a way to organize your resourcefulness with better email accounts or simple software.

You found out that other people are doing the same thing you are. They're looking for something.

But you don't find it.

It feels like the time your significant other told you they're going to leave you because they want to. It feels like that because you liken it to that.

You feel lost, hopeless and try to forget about it. You can't remember why you were looking for it in the first place. You just know that it would be a cool thing to have. You got obsessed with finding it and you forgot about the purpose of finding it.

You feel effort without a purpose. And it hurts, maybe not as much as it did when you gave in, but it hurts.

Then, you get in the shower the next morning. You look at the blank walls and you want to fill them up with words.

You invent a new way to look for that magic item. You find it.

You forget about the arc of feelings you had in your un-focused research and you feel better about yourself and your reflection.