Fall Forward

Fall has always been my favorite season. I like the crispness in the air, the ridiculous amount of football at my disposal, the gloriousness of the changing colors, the satisfying crunch of the leaves beneath my feet, and – most importantly – the total absence of the summer cloud of mosquitoes that are constantly trying to gang up on me and carry me away to who-knows-where.

Unfortunately, fall has traditionally not been without its problems for me. You see, after factoring in the time I spend working, the earliness at which it gets dark, and the fact that I live in the suburbs – which isn’t exactly a playground for nature – the enjoyable portion of the fall season – at least in my world – usually lasts for about 3 total days. I’ll be making plans for all of the places I should visit and explore and suddenly it will be November and the Lions will be out of playoff contention yet again.

But no more! This year I’ve decided to be smart about it. Not only am I planning on taking some strategic PTO, but I’ve also made the executive decision to start the fall season early! Yes, you heard that right! As of a few days ago, I officially deemed it to now be fall! (In case you’re wondering, you do this by dramatically stretching out your arms and saying in a deep voice, “I OFFICIALLY DEEM IT TO NOW BE FALL!”) I then celebrated by breaking out one of my fall flannels, which felt incredibly good to put on. Sure, it might have still been 75 degrees outside, and I may have sweat right through it, but darn it, I was still doing fall things!! (And don’t ask about what happened when I put on one of my warm and cozy national park hoodies.)

Since then, I’ve gone on a fall color tour, where I drove around through the countryside, squinting my eyes and imagining how the trees would look if they weren’t still green. It was nothing short of magical. Also, when I walk around outside now, I make crunching noises with my mouth to simulate the sound of shoes on freshly fallen leaves. Not only does this put me in the fall mood, but it’s also quite effective at getting others nearby to give me a wide berth, which is excellent for my anti-social tendencies. (Fun fact: I’m also going to experiment with chewing on Doritoes while I walk, to see if they make a better leaf-crunching sound. I mean, fall should be delicious, too, right?)

In addition, I’m thinking about hitting up a haunted house soon, which means I’m going to have to find some random abandoned structure in the middle of nowhere and check it out at midnight, all while hoping somebody was murdered there years before whose spirit now restlessly lurks on the premises, taking delight in scaring the daylights out of anybody foolish enough to show their face. (If you want to join me in this endeavor, let me know! It’ll be fun! Probably!)

Beyond that, I have a few more ideas bouncing around in my head, but I still have to flesh them out a bit before moving forward. (Like, how easy would it be to steal a tractor so I could put on my own hay rides? And how ridiculous would it look if I potentially ended up in a low speed chase with law enforcement on the freeway while driving it? And what, exactly, is the standard prison time for grand theft tractor?) Anyway, I'll keep you all posted on these, and in the meanwhile, I'm going to do my best to keep enjoying this early fall season to its full extent! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to trying to whip up my own pumpkin spice coffee, which has really been a head-scratcher. I’ve got my coffee, my pumpkin pie filling, and my pepper, but I really don’t know what to do next. Something with a blender, I’d imagine.

Kurt Minutes (I.E. Cosmic Hiccups)

One interesting thing that I’ve noticed about growing older is that you become acutely aware of the existence of various unexplainable phenomena, things that only reveal themselves to you after years of assorted life experiences and careful observation. A good example of this is the existence of the gremlins that keep stealing my car keys and leaving them in random places where I’ll never think to look for them, such as in my dishwasher or on the roof.

Another of these natural phenomena – one in which intrigues me greatly – exists on a much grander scale, involving the very concept of space and time itself. In addition, it’s something that I’ve become quite familiar with over the duration of my professional career. In fact, it’s even been deemed “Kurt Minutes” at my current place of employment, undoubtedly because I was the person who first brought it to everybody’s attention. To briefly summarize, Kurt Minutes is when, mysteriously defying all of the laws of physics, the very fabric of time itself – yes I said time! – is somehow bent, warped, and twisted to the point where it begins to temporarily operate on a completely foreign scale, one that’s uncharted by all forms of conventional measurement.

For example, I may contact a coworker and ask if they have five minutes to go over something with me. They’ll agree, and – cognizant that time is indeed money – I’ll succinctly and clearly articulate my point and gather the necessary feedback within the allotted 300 seconds. However, if Kurt Minutes has somehow gone into effect, these 300 seconds will have mysteriously morphed into some other elapsion of time, perhaps thirty minutes, perhaps even forty-five!! Eventually, the universe will snap back to its normal state of being, and my coworker – having obviously been affected by the very rules of nature bending before their eyes – will come out of it listless, groggy, and barely articulate, to the point where they’ll only be able to say such nonsensical things as “Do you even know what a minute is?” or “Next time I'll bring a pillow!” or “You did it again! I really should kick you in the head!”

Interestingly enough, I long ago determined that I have either developed – or have always been inherently blessed with – an immunity to the aftereffects of Kurt Minutes. This means that while I can experience it like anybody else, I never feel tired or drained once time snaps back to its proper state of being. It’s truly quite fascinating, and I suppose that in the interest of science, I should probably donate a sample of my DNA to whatever university or large research conglomerate is currently studying this phenomenon, as it might prove crucial in helping to synthesize some sort of vaccine.

On a semi-amusing note, Kurt Minutes has now become sort of an inside joke with everybody I work with. Now, while I personally find this cavalier attitude to be a bit strange, I suppose it’s just a natural reaction to them being faced with something completely out of their realm of comprehension. In fact, this carefree outlook has gotten to the point where if I ask somebody for a few minutes of their time, they’ll quite often smirk and reply, “Kurt Minutes or real minutes?” This always makes for a good chuckle, and I admire their wit and candor in the face of the unknown.

Now, you may be wondering why the continual threat of Kurt Minutes hasn’t completely freaked out all of my coworkers to the point of them seeking out new forms of employment. It’s a great question, and my answer to you is as elegant as it is simple: You see, although you may not realize it, Kurt Minutes is most likely a universal phenomenon, and so it probably isn’t something that only occurs to my coworkers and I at our shared place of employment. In fact, I’m quite certain they’ve all seen it manifest itself many times outside of their daily jobs, which means that quitting would do absolutely nothing to spare them from its effects. (And, before you ask, I have considered inquiring about it with a select few of them. However, I’ve never followed through, mainly because I make it a strict policy to never question any of them about their home lives, just in case one of them turns out to be, for example, a serial killer.)

What does support my theory, however, is the fact that Kurt Minutes has occasionally happened to me outside of work, manifesting itself in a very similar way: I’ll explain something to a friend, but the short five minutes I'll take to do so is then somehow twisted and bent into a full hour or more, leaving my friend in a rather frazzled and disheveled state, to the point where it almost seems they’re regretting the various life decisions they’ve made that have led them up to that very moment! Yes, that’s how disorientating and powerful Kurt Minutes can be!!!

Now, at the risk of sounding braggadocious, I have to say that I’m completely unafraid of the fact that time and space occasionally goes through these – for lack of better words – cosmic hiccups. This is mainly because in all of my time experiencing Kurt Minutes, it’s never gotten any worse, nor has it become any more prevalent. In short, it seems to be mired in a stable sort of instability, and I’ve long ago grown used to dealing with it. Plus, my immunity to its aftereffects – whether developed or inherent – makes putting up with it quite easy, as aside from the loss of time, I never come out of it any worse for wear.

Not everybody, however, shares in my immunity, and I realize that’s quite unfortunate. However, it’s still very manageable, and if this is the first you’re hearing about Kurt Minutes, I urge you not to worry about it. It’s just something we all have to live with. Plus, to be blunt, there are much more important things we should all be focusing our energies on; for example, trying to figure out how to catch those darn gremlins that move around our car keys. Those little buggers are sneaky!!

You Play The Mando-what??

Not that long ago, I decided to take the plunge and buy a mandolin. Besides having an itchy online-shopping trigger finger, my main reason for doing so was because I’d long since peaked at the “Excruciatingly Boring” stage of guitar playing, and instead of wanting to put in the blood, sweat, and tears needed to actually get any better, I was hoping I might somehow be a virtuoso at a different instrument. (Hey, don’t judge! It’s the American dream of laziness! Heck, if the mandolin doesn’t work out, I just might purchase a trombone and see what happens!)

Now, some of you might be asking, “Just what in the heck is a mandolin?” Well, that’s a very good question, and my answer is that it’s a small, stringed instrument in the lute family that’s usually associated with bluegrass music and which looks like something you’d give to a child because a guitar is too big for them. (“There, there, Timmy, why don’t you try this one out? It’s just your size!!”) And if that isn’t a good enough description for you, I recommend you do an image search, at which point you’ll probably say, “Oh yeah, I’ve seen people play those things before, standing way in the back of the band! Who makes them, anyway? Fisher-Price?”

Dispute its diminutive stature, however, don’t sleep on the mandolin. It may be small, but Ricky “Highway 40 Blues” Skaggs plays one, along with Marty “A Bunch of Good Songs You Never Remember Off the Top of Your Head” Stuart. Heck, even Waylon “I’m Cooler Than You No Matter Who You Are” Jennings was known to pull one out on occasion, most notably on an episode of the “Dukes of Hazzard.” (It’s a great scene, by the way. Besides the mandolin magically appearing and disappearing on his person throughout the song, he’s standing by himself on the stage, yet somehow being backed by an entire band. My current theory is that they're up on the roof. Check it out!)

Now, what makes the mandolin interesting is that it has, and I’m quoting Wikipedia here, “four courses of doubled metal strings tuned in unison, thus giving it a total of eight strings.” In other words, it’s sort of like a four-stringed instrument, except each string is really two strings tuned exactly the same and set super-close to one-another. So, in order to sound a note, you have to mash down on two strings at once. This, in turn, will quickly bludgeon your fingers into a painful mush, which is the exact state they’ll remain in for the first several decades of you playing the instrument. After that, however, you’ll probably develop helpful calluses to make things easier, just in time for the arthritis to set in.

Another interesting thing about the mandolin is that since it’s so short, the strings produce a higher pitch than a guitar, which results in it being much easier to be terrible at than it’s six-stringed cousin. In short, when you screw up on the mandolin, everybody hears it, including possibly most of the next county. (This holds true even if you’re playing with 14 acoustic guitars, a drum set, and that one annoying guy who thinks he’s all that on the electric guitar.)

Still, the mandolin is cool, and for good reason. First off, since it’s so small, it’s incredibly portable, and you can easily just toss it into your car if you’re heading off to a jam. (Just ask any upright bass player how handy that would be!) Sometimes, admittedly, it does get lost between the seats along with your phone, but the tradeoff for its portability still makes it worth it. Second, Steve Earle wrote “Copperhead Road” on a mandolin, so that automatically makes it a cool instrument. Heck, now that I think of it, I really don’t need to present any more arguments as to its inherent coolness; the Steve Earle fact alone pretty much seals the deal.

Moving along, the reason I decided to write this essay isn’t so I could talk up the fact that I have – and can awkwardly strum – a mandolin. Instead, it’s so you can become more aware of the instrument and start to recognize it while watching and listening to music. In my humble opinion, it’s quite underappreciated in the grand scale of things, and I think it deserves a little more respect.

Anyway, that concludes today’s lesson on the mandolin. However, join me next week when we’ll continue with our series “Instruments I’m Horrible At Playing.” I’ll be doing a deep dive into that time in sixth-grade when I had to try and learn to play the {shudder} recorder, cumulating in my first ever solo performance, a truly memorable rendition of “Friends Are Neat.” You won’t want to miss it!

Duck Tales

Every once in a while I remember that social constructs demand a person of my age to act both mature and responsible while navigating the various twists and turns of life. Now, while I truly believe this to be mostly nonsense and tomfoolery, I can never escape the nagging doubt that if everybody were to just act how they wanted to all the time – and not how society expected them to – the world would quickly fall into chaos. (See: The government)

So, it was with this in mind that I decided to do something society would be proud of and check up on my outdoor air conditioning unit, which had just spent the long winter buried in the unforgiving snow. "Best to scope things out now and make sure everything is in working order," I maturely said to myself, "before the hot weather sets in. After all, it is the responsible thing to do."

Now, I’ll fully admit that the extent of my "check-up" was always going to be fairly limited, mainly because my best answer to the question, "How does an A/C unit work, anyway?" has always been, "I dunno, magic?" In fact, the entire operation was going to be completely binary: Either the A/C unit would still be sitting there, in which case I’d consider the check-up to be a rousing success, or it would have disappeared completely, which would not only have been baffling, but also quite amusing. I mean, who’d steal an A/C unit over the course of the winter, anyway?

Armed with a concrete plan of action, I stepped out the back door with a look of determination showing on my mature and responsible face. In fact, I’m pretty sure I even had my sleeves rolled up, just so the A/C unit – should it still be there – would know right off the bat that I meant business. Happily enough, I found my quarry squatting contentedly where I’d left it months before, apparently no worse for wear. A smug look of accomplishment spread across my mature and responsible face. "Well, mark that one off the ol’ TODO list! One up, one down! Heck, maybe I should go and check to make sure I still have an attic!"

It was then that a monster usually associated with the worst of nightmares exploded from out of nowhere and charged me, its razor sharp fangs glinting as it prepared to tear the flesh from my bones. As my eyes widened and my jaw dropped, I had but one thought: "Oh s–"

Wait! Wait! Hold it! Upon re-reading the last paragraph, I realize that I’m embellishing a bit here, purely for dramatic effect. However, since the bond between a writer and a reader is a sacred thing, I feel that I have no option but to be completely honest in my recollections. So, let me try that again:

It was at this point that a startled duck that had built its nest several feet from the A/C unit exploded into flight from out of the weeds. Not expecting anything of the sort, I was taken a bit off-guard, judging by both how high I jumped and screamed. Over the next several moments my life flashed before my eyes, all while various colorful words tumbled out of my mouth at an extraordinary rate. However, once my heart had returned to beating at a semi-normal rate, I collected myself enough to take a peek at the nest. Sure enough, in contained seven or eight eggs, and I was instantly overwhelmed with a feeling of guilt. Hoping that I hadn’t driven the mother away forever, I scurried back inside, wondering what I’d do should she never return. This led me to briefly want to write a heartfelt country music song in the vein of Cats in the Cradle, but I quickly brushed the notion aside. This was serious!! Those eggs might soon be depending on me!!!

I didn’t dare go anywhere near the nest for the rest of the day, and I instead spent my time alternating between stressing out and researching how to be a surrogate duck parent online. The next morning, hopeful that I hadn’t created a broken home, I quietly slid the patio door open and crept back outside, making sure to keep my distance while also making no noise whatsoever. I was like a ghost, a shadow in the night, my presence unknown to the entire world!!!!

Slipping through the early morning stillness, my every move discrete and calculating, I was soon able to determine that the mother had thankfully returned! However, just as I was breathing a sigh of relief, she somehow detected me and exploded from the nest yet again!! With my ears burning red, I fled back inside, my mind racing. The mother obviously had senses that far exceeded that of a normal duck! I was going to need a lot of camouflage, and that meant finding an Army surplus store, fast!!

It was then that I was reminded of the popular saying, “Work smarter, not harder.” Realizing that I was dealing with a duck of superior intellect, I came to the conclusion that trying to directly monitor the situation at ground level – regardless of how much camouflage or subterfuge I used – was never going to work. So, I began to search for an alternate solution, and soon I hit upon it.

Not long after, I was upstairs looking out the window located just behind the desk where I worked. Sure enough, if I leaned out far enough, my waist on the sill and my hands holding tightly onto the frame, I could just barely make out the nest below. Success! I now had an easy way to observe the situation as it unfolded, all while not disrupting the delicate balance of nature! (Providing, of course, that I didn't fall out of the stupid window.) Plus, I now had something to distract me while I worked, which is something that can never be understated!

This all happened about a day or so ago, and ever since then I’ve been keeping tabs on the situation from my bird’s eye view. Happily, I can report that so far the eggs have seemed safe and sound. However, I’ve yet to see the mother again, which is mildly concerning. Still, I’m hopeful that she’s just been off doing whatever it is that mother ducks do, and I’ll not be forced to take over the parenting duties. Heck, maybe she even found that Army surplus store and has been hiding there all along!

Have A Nice Trip!

My first mistake was trying to be healthy, and my last was trying not to be awkward in front of others. In between were several months of relative calm, followed by a few intense moments of sheer panic, during which time my pumping adrenaline served only to make matters much, much worse.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Like all good stories, we have to start at the beginning.

It was mid-February, and I had been noticing a substantial increase in my abdominal circumference, not to mention a substantial decrease in the number of garments I owned that didn’t cut off my circulation. Now, while certainly a disappointing turn of events, this was by no means something new; no, this was standard winter stuff, and so I already had a strategy in place to address it.

Flipping open my laptop, I was soon signed up for a half-marathon that was to take place in May. You see, committing to a public race had always been a pretty foolproof way for me to kick the winter doldrums and get active again. After all, the last thing I needed was to waddle through 13.1 miles of sheer agony while worrying about such things as severe thigh chafing.

Feeling satisfied with myself, I closed my laptop knowing that I’d taken a first step in the right direction, and from that point on I was forced to get out and run several times a week, regardless of the weather. While it wasn’t necessarily a health-and-fitness silver bullet, I was soon trending in the right direction, by which I mean I could now run more than two miles straight without having to collapse into the bushes to catch my breath.

Fast-forward to late April, where I found my training plan telling me to run 10 miles. Unfortunately, my schedule was tight that day, and so I decided to simply use the 3.2 mile loop near my house. While I’m not a huge fan of running the same loop multiple times over, it was the most efficient method for the time I had available; I’d just run the 0.3 miles for my house to the trail, do the loop 3 times, and I’d basically be at 10! Also, I’d be able to take advantage of the loop by planting a water bottle in the bushes, allowing me to hydrate every 3.2 miles. Deciding on the “Go Big or Go Home” philosophy, I grabbed a liter-sized, flimsy plastic bottle, filled it with water, and got ready to go.

As soon as I stepped outside, I realized I had an issue to contend with: running from my house to the loop with the bulky water bottle. Now, any rational person would have just walked the 0.3 miles to the loop and started there, but I am far from a rational person. Instead, I am intensely stubborn – usually for no good reason whatsoever – and since I’d already made up my mind to run from my house to the loop, that’s what I was going to do!! So, tucking the water bottle under my arm like a football, I was on my way.

Immediately, I began to feel like an idiot. The water in the bottle was sloshing back and forth loudly, and I quickly began to wonder what any passerby would think if they saw me. (“Where’s he going? The Sahara?”) I was now jogging on the sidewalk, and looking ahead, I saw a man walking towards me, probably about a quarter-mile away. Irrationally, I began to try and figure out a way around running past him. Maybe he was almost home from a walk and would soon turn off into one of the nearby houses! Or maybe a vicious dog would materialize out of the blue and begin to chase him in the opposite direction! Or maybe my best option would be to stop and casually pretend to water some random flowers until he’d passed!

It was at this point that my brain gave up completely on monitoring my immediate surroundings, which was why I never noticed that the square of sidewalk in front of me was set much higher than the one I was currently on, leaving a protruding ledge directly in my path. As a result, my toe ran squarely into it, and I suddenly found myself stumbling forward.

In retrospect, I should have accepted defeat immediately and just gotten it over with, using whatever balance I had left to launch myself on an angle into the nearby grass, where I could have enjoyed a relatively comfortable – albeit still embarrassing – landing on a soft surface. However, my brain instead went on red alert and issued the following command: “PINWHEEL YOUR ARMS AROUND FRANTICALLY IN A HIGHLY NOTICEABLE MANNER!!!!!! MAYBE YOU CAN REGAIN YOUR BALANCE!!!! GO GO GO GO GO!!!!!!”

And so I began to pinwheel my arms.

Frantically.

Jettisoning all non-essential equipment, the bottle of water went flying, and somehow I was able to stay on my feet for a few long, loping steps, desperately trying to pull out of my nosedive. During this time I was bent over at the waist, all while my arms were looping around in giant spirals that screamed, “Hey, everybody! Look over here!! I’m about to comically fall over!!!” Very flattering stuff.

Eventually, my momentum got the better of me, and suddenly I found myself horizontal with the sidewalk. For a long moment I simply hung there in mid-air, contemplating the many mistakes I’d made to get into this situation. Then, choosing against using my face as my primary stopping mechanism, I shot my arms out and used the palms of my hands to skid to an uneven stop on the sidewalk.

Have a nice trip. See you next fall.

Immediately, I was back up on my feet, pretending that nothing had happened. (“What are you looking at? My legs have always bent this way!!”) Casually, I picked up the water bottle from the grass, which was somehow still intact. Then, without even inspecting the damage I’d incurred, I went back to jogging, my ears burning red and the bottle again tucked under my arm. When I passed the man I’d seen earlier, I made sure not to make any eye contact, and he was nice enough to keep whatever mirth he was feeling to himself, although I’m quite certain at some point later on he laughed himself silly.

It wasn’t until I’d arrived at the 3.2 mile loop that I actually took stock of the situation. Luckily, it wasn’t bad. Besides a couple of skinned palms, there was no real damage except that to my pride, and I was even able to complete the 10 miles without further incident.

Now, after hearing all of this, you may find yourself asking: Why on earth would you tell such an embarrassing story? Why not just pretend it never happened, along with potentially forgoing all public interaction for several weeks, or at least until your ears finally stopped glowing red?

Well, I believe there’s an important lesson to be learned here. You see, I think we all-too-often care more than we should about how we’re perceived by others, and doing so can lead from something as innocuous as feeling awkward about carrying a bulky water bottle as you run to you suddenly hanging horizontal in mid-air, trying to pick out a landing spot that will hurt the least. Personally, it’s been an eye-opener for me, to the point where I’ve since made a resolution that I firmly intend to keep, one that I believe will lead to me enjoying a much more fulfilling life: No more trying to be healthy!!! It leads to nothing but trouble!

Now, if you excuse me, I have a pizza on the way. Ain’t nobody gonna fall down eating that!