My Morning Coffee

  People are always shocked when they hear of the times that I go to bed every night. For those that don’t know, get your AED’s ready. I usually go to bed at an average time of 3 a.m. every night. Now I don't spend these nights just sitting there staring at the ceiling as I try and wander off into a dream world. I don't do this because I'm probably already in a dream world. My mind wanders like a stray finch and why would anyone want to fall asleep without knowing where something like that would land?

 When friends see me they’ll come up to me and ask “So, what time did you go to bed last night? or “Oh yeah that’s right you never sleep! What’s that like?” and when people find out for the first time they respond with... “What! Are you serious!? You’re not serious! I’m in bed for five hours by then!” That’s insane!” 

  To most, yes this is insane. But to me it’s normal. I’ve been doing it ever since I got into high school. I pulled my first all night-er when I was in 4th grade, it was the night before Valentines Day. There would be days where I’d go to school on two hours of sleep, if that. Was that smart? Absolutely not but I spent the night before watching YouTube videos on everything known to man. From cats to dancing, from video blogs to independent singing. Anything that came up in my head, I’d watch and it was in my system like a white blood cell.  People always ask me for a reason and I usually answer with “I stay up until my body tells me I can’t anymore.” It’s just easier than tossing and turning for an hour and just wasting time, something I HATE to do. But I think I’m finally starting to realize why I stay up so late, my brain functions better when the stars come up. Maybe it’s because everyone else’s brains are shut off for the night and the amount of thoughts have dwindled. For when this happens, my brain takes advantage. 

                           (Fun Fact: my last two blogs have been written or finished after midnight.)

   I’m always asked why I forget stuff a lot also. I have terrible short term memory, but if you ask me who stole the sniffy markers in kindergarten I know 100% that it was that boy, John Jaser and I’ll fight that to my grave! (For all of you who will now go on Facebook to find him, he’s not on there. Unfortunately) 

   But no, the reason my short term memory is so bad is because throughout the day millions of things pop in my head. That’s not an exaggeration. From frogs riding unicycles to wondering who J.D. Salinger idolized as a kid. So many things just rifle through my head and while I write this I’m thinking about how long it took Lupe Fiasco to write ’The show goes on’.

   My brain never stops and if I take a second to day dream it will turn into ten minutes of just staring and then a diminutive smile as I see a wombat run across a hard wood floor. I’m not normal and I like to flaunt that to everyone I meet, some see it and find it amusing, others see it as deranged and they shy from me, too bad. I absolutely love it and I find it hilarious how I work and if you ask me why I’m so crazy, I’ve probably already envisioned you eating spaghetti with a spoon. 

   But back to my point. The reason I stay up so late is because I love seeing what I can envision, what I can write, what I can find online to read about, what I can find that I’ve never been able to find before. It fascinates me. It’s challenges me and I wouldn’t want it any other way. When I woke up today, I had no clue I’d be writing another blog at midnight. On the way home from South Carolina, I had no idea I’d be writing that blog about college. However, like a rock hitting a windshield *BOOM*  it hits and cracks and my fingers move faster than Usain Bolt in a final heat. 

    If I sit in my bed and say “I’m going to write tonight.” I’ll end up writing short stories about my day and just inserting pictures of cats memes. But if I’m searching Spotify for new songs (Currently really into “The Format” check them out) or just surfing the web, then this happens. A long blog full of paragraphs that I try and get you to read more and more until you hit the final period. 

   My imagination as a kid was always wild and I would live for the words “Ok kids, today you have to write a creative story!” and by the time I was handed my paper, I’d have 4 complete story ideas. From start to finish. My biggest problem would be to choose just one at that time. I still love creating stories like that, and one of my favorite things to do to my friends is to tell them stories about myself that I know are incredibly erroneous but because of the detail I add in them, my friends are always stuck there wondering if the stories are true.

   This is my Red Bull, this is my morning coffee, this is the extra kick it takes to keep me up for a while. Nothing makes me happier than just sitting on my bed and just day dreaming until my body finally says "Okay, time to go. Same time tomorrow?"  The world is a much better place when you can step outside of it for a bit. 

   Now it's time for me to retreat back into the roaring seas of pillows and sheets because James Grahn and I are hitting the town tomorrow at 7am to de-leave people’s lawns. 

   It is now 2 a.m. and here is the final period. 

  

Spontaneity is beautiful

    You don’t go to College?

    Why Not? Everyone else does! 

    Well what are you going to do?

    You’re Twenty years old, you have got to have figured it out by now, right?

 Everyone else has! Oh you haven’t…well you better find out quick before it’s too late, you know, you’re already Twenty! Times a ticking! I've heard it from everyone. Relatives, Girls, Friends, people who have just met me. Everyone. 

 
 You know right from the start when something just isn't right for you as a person. I’m twenty. I love traveling, sports, Wombats, and most importantly I love writing. I don’t go to school and I work at the YMCA. Not the path that many opt for and not the path that I thought I would take. But I’m not complaining and not a day goes by where I think I took the wrong turn. I don't think I did any wrong in the selection of how I'd live my post high school life. Hell I'm still on the same pedestal as you College kids for now. So what do I have to worry? Nothing. If I died tomorrow a lot of people may say "Wow he really didn't do anything with his life. But the way I look at it, I've done a lot more than most people may have seen. I chose this way and I'm sticking to it. 

 Let's take a look at a made up schedule of "What I'm missing out on"

•  Monday: Class all day (Actually listening) & doing    

                           homework due last Thursday.

•  Tuesday: Class all day (Playing the helicopter game the whole class) &                               

                            doing your homework due tomorrow.

•  Wednesday: Class all day (Actually listening and being so confused) &  

                                 studying that turns into cat videos on YouTube all night.

    

•  Thursday:  No classes, screw homework…SHOTS!

•   Friday:  2 classes (Eh I’ll go to one, eh what’s another skip going to do?                            

                          DAY OFF!), still doing homework that was due Tuesday.

•  Saturday: Get absolutely shit bombed to drown out your terrible school      

                            week and sleep with someone you don’t know. 

     

•  Sunday: Wake up so hungover, next to a salt shaker and find out your                            

                          whole hand is stuck inside a Dubra handle. Attempt to finish
                          all your overdue work.

 That's not the life for me. I'm not one for tests. I write, I watch sports and I live day by day. 

                    

    The way I look at it, I’m living my retirement right now. Everyone goes to college to get a job, to work that job and get money so that by the time they are 65 they can quit their job and just sit on the couch and yell at their wife/husband if they still have one. What can you do then? You just studied and worked your entire life away to get to here…watching the Patriots play and eating a hot dog and LIVING THE LIFE! WAITED MY WHOLE LIFE FOR THIS MOMENT! YEAH! And why do they do that? Because that's what they were told to do. That's what others instructed them to do. They followed somebody else on how to live their own life.

  

   No thanks, I’m good. If I’m going to work my whole life away, it can wait for now. I’m going to live my retirement now at the age of Twenty. Want to go to a Twins game at Yankee Stadium on a Tuesday night? I’m in. Want to go to South Carolina for Thanksgiving? I'm in. Hey, want to go to Oregon mid week and stay until Monday? Yeah, I do. I like the life I live, I like being able to control where and what I do, I don’t live by an extreme schedule. I don’t have to wake up everyday at a certain time to go into a classroom with a bunch of miserable people who don’t want to be there. Instead I go onto a bus everyday with a sixty-six year old Vietnam vet, I get to hear his stories about war, his family, how he feels about driving everywhere everyday and a ton of other tid bits and stories and I love it. Then I head to a school with a bunch of 5-11 year olds who eat snacks, draw and play capture the flag in the gym. They have no clue what the real world has in store for them, but then again, do any of us? Once Six p.m. comes I’m free. I have the whole night ahead of me for whatever I want to do. If I want to go home and sleep, it doesn’t screw anything up. If I want to go out, no one is stopping me. If I want to just play Xbox all night, I may do just so. 

 You see everyone goes around everyday like “Freedom!! Slavery is dead!!!” Yet you follow orders from people who are “higher up” about what you should do so that maybe if you’re lucky you can teach future kids the same concept. It’s just a never ending cycle of controlling. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m no rebel nor am I advising you to be one. I follow rules and it’s right to follow rules, I just don’t believe you should follow someone else’s opinion on how you should prepare to live the rest of your life. But then again I guess that last sentence just contradicted this whole story/blog/whatever you want to call it. 

   

Now 90% of my friends go to College and they’ll go on to be Teachers and Physical Trainers and Nurses and all that good stuff and it will be awesome. It will be worth it to them when that time comes and they succeed and that’s great. But they know that’s where the road starts to wind down. You have seen your entire journey since the day you got that acceptance letter.

I was never one for following a syllabus, I think being spontaneous is the best thing you can be besides being funny. You never know what’s to come when you’re spontaneous. Go to a college party in a green spandex suit and 5 years later you’re still friends with the kids that live in that house. See an inflatable snowman and tackle it although you have a fractured wrist. Why? Because you just wanted to give your friends a good laugh. You see, spontaneity is beautiful thing because you can be on your way to a Yankee game, take a turn for no reason at all and find yourself looking at the Twin Towers on September 9th 2001. Spontaneous decisions are the stories you find yourself talking about for the rest of your life, so why not tally them up?

Now all of you in College may be reading this saying “Wow I can’t believe this whole thing, this so ignorant to say about my lifestyle!” and I’m saying the same exact thing.