Day Zero Project #60: Write a list of guidelines to live by.

"Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something" - Thomas Edison

And that quote right there says why I shouldn't even be writing this list at all. I'm not entirely sure that a person should have a set of guidelines that they live by. I think each of us should do the things that make us, and the ones around us, the most happy. What works for me, might not work for you.

But, alas, it's on my list and I should do it. So here goes...

Spend way more time reading books than watching TV. But do watch some TV. Otherwise you sound like a weird hippie, hermit who is out of touch with pop culture when you are sitting around with your friends and have no clue what anyone is talking about.

Listen to music every day. And spend some time in silence, too.

Be a good person. But be bad, too. Because sometimes being bad is just more fun. Obviously don't hurt anyone or anything. I mean it more in the sense of stay out way too late with friends drinking delicious craft beers. Or spending just a little bit more than you should on vacation. Or cheating at Monopoly in order to finish the game quicker because Monopoly takes too long and is the worst game ever invented.

Treat others how you want to be treated. Just be nice to everyone.

Hang out with friends and family as much as possible. Leaving just a little bit o' time to spend on your own, too. A little bit of alone time is a good thing. A lot of alone time makes you crazy.

Never, ever, ever sleep in a separate bed than your partner if you are both in the same house. On a business trip without my wife, fine. But just because you are upset with someone, or they snore loudly, is no reason to not be in there. Also, do not have a TV in your bedroom. Someone's quote is better than mine here: "The experts agree you should only be doing two things in your bedroom: sleeping and having sex. Bills, kids, computers, TVs ... they're all kryptonite for healthy sleep and definitely for your sex life."

Along the same lines of "Married Couple Advice": Never, ever, ever go to the bathroom in front of your partner. It's weird. Seriously. I've been with my wife for 15 years and I have never once seen her go to the bathroom. I can't 100% confirm that she even does and that's okay with me.

Get outside your comfort zone from time-to-time. That's why I even do these lists. Growing up can get a bit lame. Work, go home, eat dinner, watch some TV, sleep, repeat. That's not ideal, so go ahead and mix it up a bit!

Whatever you are into, be into it. Let's say you collect stamps. That's pretty dorky in my books, but who cares!? You like stamps, be the best darn stamp collector you can be.

Support your community. The world has enough Olive Garden's and Outback's. We both know that their food there is average at best. Go eat at a local restaurant. They'll appreciate it. The food is about 90% sure to be better. Go shop at your farmer's market. Go buy a shirt at your neighborhood boutique so that you don't have the same shirt as 800,000 other people who went to Target that week. I once went a whole year without eating at a chain restaurant. Surely every one else can skip it once a week!

And mostly, Just do whatever it is that makes you happy. It's a cliche to say it, but life is too short to do anything different. Unless you believe in Heaven, then you can be happy forever, I guess. But it's a different kind of happy up there because they don't have ice cream. So, be happy while you are here, and definitely eat as much ice cream as you can.

Day Zero Project #88: Find a poem that means something to me.

I don't like poetry. No offense, poetry. You're just not my style. I love reading but never once have I thought to myself, "Hey, I'd like to read a whole book of poetry tonight."

Perhaps I haven't given poetry a fair try. But I'm old and set in my ways now, so the days of learning to like poetry are most likely far behind me.

Due to my indifference towards the genre, I don't think that there is a poem that means something to me. And rather than just pick something randomly that sounds cool, I went with the next best thing: song lyrics that I love. After all, song lyrics could be considered a form of poetry, right?

And rather than just pick one. I did three. Because I'm multi-faceted. I have "Nerdy" by Poison the Well, which is me and my wife's song. I have "Rise Up, Rise Up" by Cursive, because that song (the whole album really) is exactly what it's like growing up in Nebraska. And, finally, I have "I See Everything" by La Dispute, because it's an important song and it makes me cry.

Poison The Well "Nerdy"

Why do your eyes paralyze me?
What makes me feel this way?
Carry me away with silence and heartbeats as rapid

Thinking about your embrace
And how it makes me feel
I just want to feel this way forever

Sleep on portraits painted as perfect as you
Why have I been given chance to fly?
When I'm not with you I feel lesser alone?
Why have I been given chance to fly, away?

I remember your face imprinted on angels
Your voice as beautiful as the sounds of waves
Crashing against my heart

Time slows down when you look at me
I'm infatuated with this, infatuated with you
I remember your face imprinted on angels

It's so hard for me to understand
Why I hadn't found you before?
Hold my hand

 

Cursive "Rise Up, Rise Up"

Dear preacher, thanks for making time for me today
Hope you don't mind if I hide behind the curtain
It's been fifteen years since my last confession
By your good book's standards, I've sinned like a champion
But that book seems a tad bit out-dated

Please forgive me, for questioning divinity
It's an ugly job, but I think I'm up for it
I'm not saying who's right
I'm just saying there's more than one way
To skin a religion
There's more than one way
To explain our existence

Reverend, sir, I don't want to seem malevolent
My teenage angst is far behind me
But father, certainly it's troubling to see
All these people kneeling, instead of dealing
With the fact that we are all we have

So, rise up! rise up!
There's no one to worship!
But plenty of life to lose!
I'm not saying "let's burn down the church"
But do you want to hear my confession?
It's my greatest sin..

Okay, here it is:
I wasted half my life on the thought that I'd live forever!
I wasn't raised, to seize the day, but to work and worship
'cause "he that liveth and believeth" supposedly never dies

Rise up! rise up!
And live a full life!
'cause when it's over, it's done
So rise up! rise up!
Dance and scream and love!

 

La Dispute "I See Everything"

Like any morning of my junior year I stumble in the classroom late but this day I see
Faces, I feel an air like a funeral, like a wake, as I sit down.
My teacher speaking, somewhat somberly, but still confident and calm.
Part eulogy, her speech, and part poem, part celebration song.
Her warmth and smile, she passes photocopies out to us of entries from a journal
Kept so long ago. She starts to read and suddenly it’s 1980.

March 5-The cancer is furious but our son is resilient,
we have all the faith we’ll get through this no matter what the end.
Treatments are violent but he keeps on smiling.
It’s amazing finding joy in the little things.

April 12-Andrew’s appetites improved and we thank God everyday.
But still it’s hard sometimes to see him in that scarecrow frame.

July 9-There’s a suffering when I look in his eyes. He’s been through so much.
We’ve all been through so much but what incredible resolve our little boy shows,
only 7, standing face to face with death.
He said it’s easy to find people who have suffered worse than him.
“Like Jesus, suffered worse than anyone,” he told me last night, “when God abandoned him.”

September 20-We’ve been playing in the yard lately and spirits are high
although his blood counts aren’t.

October 14-He feels tired all the time.

November 30-At the hospital again. It feels like home when we’re here.

December 8-He’s getting worse.

January 19-We buried our son today, our youngest child,
and while his death was ugly we must not let it scare us from God.
Abundant grace has restored him. A brand new body.
And set him free from the torture, finally rid of the cancer.
Before the moment he left he briefly wrested from death, suddenly opened his eyes, said,
“I SEE EVERYTHING. I SEE EVERYTHING.”

And I will never forget it, the peace and the comfort you displayed through a pain
that I can only imagine. The loss of a child to the torture of cancer. Help me.
Because I can only imagine how you recovered,
kept your faith and held the brightness of life inside the smile of a child you had to bury.
And I will never forget him or your steadfast faith.
No, I will never forget you. Now six or seven years later, I’m devoid of all faith.
I am empty of comfort and I am weary of waiting.
Though I’ve felt nowhere what you have, I see nothing at all.
Though I’ve felt nowhere what he did, my eyes are closed. 

Day Zero Project #62: Try a new vegetable.

Back in college when everyone goes through a hippie, "Damn the Man!" phase I became vegan, even though the amount of vegetables I ate in my entire life up to that point consisted of corn, potatoes and maybe a little bit of lettuce as long as it was mixed with other stuff so I didn't have to taste it.

Not to be deterred (and generally pig-headed in barreling towards goals that make no sense at all), I purchased the cookbook "Vegan Cooking For One" and set about learning to like vegetables by, naturally, eating only recipes in this book for a whole year.

The book that started it all!

After that year, I said to myself, "That was easy and delicious." and proceeded to be vegan up until just a few years ago when I started working fish and dairy back in my diet.

So, needless to say, trying to find a vegetable that I haven't tried before has proved slightly more difficult that I'd imagined. Every week I would get my vegetable delivery from the awesome Tampa Bay Organics and there would be no veggie I haven't seen before. Stop by Publix, same deal. Stop by the Farmer's Market, same deal. But finally, my box of veggies last week had a new squash I haven't tried before: the Delicata Squash.

It looks like this when raw:

 Then it looks like this:

 
And finally, it looks like this when cooked and stuffed with a quinoa stuffing:

And it's delicious.

And because wasting food is not a good idea, I went ahead and roasted the seeds too. They'll make a good snack and added a nice roasted/smoky flavor to the stuffing.

I also get bonus points for getting confused and thinking I needed to "Try a new fruit," which lead me to eat this weird thing:

And please don't judge the rambutan by it's cover. He's not much to look at, but he's delicious.

Day Zero Project #79: Play a Game of Racquetball

I have a motto that I like to spout off from time to time that is "It's not fun, unless you can die doing it." Do I really believe that? No. I'm having fun typing this right now and I'd like to think that my chance of dying while sitting at my keyboard is minimal. That's just not the way I want to go out.

But this motto does help explain some of the fun (stupid?) things that I do on a regular basis such as cliff diving without knowing how to swim, walking through the darkest parts of the ghetto at 2am, parallel parking or antagonizing my wife after she's repeatedly warned me that she's about to switch from her normal quiet mode into full-on ninja.

And so when I was shipped off to a Corporate Leadership Class I was doubtful that I would have much opportunity to do anything approaching dangerous. Except for public speaking. I'm pretty sure that's been known to cause a few serious health problems.

But on the second day of class I walked deep into the bowels of the Corporate HQ, past the dining hall, down four flights of stairs until I came across a tiny room. And the concept of this room is that people lock themselves in it and proceed to hit a tiny blue rubber ball at what must be about 1,000 miles per hour at each others faces. Now we are talking something a bit more my speed!

I didn't know anyone who plays racquetball? No problem. I just head upstairs and grab a couple of people with promises of the most awesome game of all time.

We don't have any gym clothes? No problem. Racquetball is meant to be played by people in khakis and polos who are running around with just their socks on.

Worried that since we are at a Corporate Class that there should be some sort of business purpose? No problem. I can think of no better way of team building that running around trying to hit co-workers with a ball that will likely leave a welt that will last for weeks.

And so it was that I found myself immersed in an ultra-business complex running around a glass box with two peers all in our business clothes having one of the more fun times that I would have all week.

It was like this...

...except we all were dressed like this.

Day Zero Project #81: Get rid of 50 things.

"Things were nothing"

- Paul Monette, "Borrowed Time"

If you have ever given me anything then there's a good chance that I've either sold it on eBay or donated it to Goodwill. I'll apologize for that now, I really did like the gift.

The problem is I have an aversion to having stuff in my home. If it wasn't for my wife I'd most likely not even have 50 things to get rid of. As is, I already go through the house at least once a year and touch almost everything we own asking "Do we really need this?"

If not, it goes into one of three piles: a donate pile, a sell pile or the trash pile. It's an effective process, really. Our current place doesn't have tons of storage but that's no big deal. Every year I manage to raise a few hundred bucks and we take a mini-vacation. It's a win-win.

That is until you need to get rid of 50 more things because the goal popped up on a list. I wasn't sure if I even had that many items to get rid of, but after some serious Spring cleaning, we managed to get rid of more than the required amount.

In the spirit of TMI, here's the stuff we got rid of. If you bought me something on this list, I loved it, I used it and now it's gone on to a new home that will appreciate it. They won't appreciate it as much as I did, but they'll love it, nonetheless. Unless you gave me Monopoly. That's a wasted gift.

1) Postcards from PostCrossing goal (recycled)
2) FujiFilm FinePix F480 Digital Camera (eBay)
3) 1st Place Trophy - not engraved (donated)
4) Casio fx-300MS Scientific Calculator (eBay)
5) Robe (Women's) (garbage)
6) Hot Stone Massage Set (Craigslist)
7) Beach Umbrella (donated)
8) Deck of collectable playing cards (eBay)
9) Fear Before hoodie (eBay)
10) 4-Track Recorder (eBay)
11) Chez Goth game (eBay)
12) Chez Guevara game (eBay)
13) Chez Cthulhu game (eBay)
14) Wedding Crashers DVD (donated)
15) Spices and Herbs book (eBay)
16) 1 Lot of magazines (eBay)
17) 3 DVDs (eBay)
18) Pier One Picture Frames (eBay)
19) Another Pier One Picture Frame (eBay)
20) Massage Chair (Craigslist)
21) Tiki Torches (garbage)
22) Nintendo Gamecube (eBay)
23) Gamecube Games x 5 (eBay)
24) Massage Oils/Lotions (garbage)
25) Massage Study Book (recycle)
26) Dress x 4 (donate)
27) Women's shirt x 7 (donate)
28) Duffle bag (donate)
29) Jeckyl and Hyde Mystery Rummy game (eBay)
30) Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time special collector's issue (donate)
31) Suit Jacket (donate)
32) Yet Another Suit Jacket (donate)
33) Boxers x 2 (garbage)
34) Jack The Ripper Mystery Rummy game (eBay)
35) Progressive Bass Guitar instruction book (donated)
36) Small beer glasses x 2 (donated)
37) A whole bunch of papers from my desk (recycled)
38) Christmas lights (donated)
39) Christmas ornaments x2 (donated)
40) Heart baking pan (donated)
41) Magic The Gathering cards (eBay)
42) Woman's clothes x 5 (garbage)
43) Wonderland board game (eBay)
44) Destiny Wasjig? puzzle (eBay)
45) Yoga DVD set (eBay)
46) Workout shorts (donate)
47) Woman's sweater (donate)
48) skirt (donate)
49) scarf (donate)
50) scrub pants (donate)
51) shorts x 2 (donate)
52) men's jeans (garbage)
53) men's shirt x 2 (garbage)
54) Woman's boots (garbage)

Day Zero Project #98: Learn how to make a paper crane.

This is a story; a story of paper cranes and friendship. I call it "Shuffleboarding with Jesus." If that sounds vaguely familiar, then kudos to you and your intimate knowledge of Kurt Vonnegut stories.

"In Heaven, shuffleboard is everything" 

                                                                 - Kurt Vonnegut "Happy Birthday, Wanda June"

In the story, everyone plays shuffleboard together. Jesus, scientists, atheists, billionaires, vegans, you name it. I'd like to think that life is best lived like that shuffleboard court in Heaven, surrounded by all sorts of people who are not the same as you, but make life a little bit more fun and interesting.

I happen to think of myself as a middle-class, near vegetarian metalhead atheist with a weak spot for kittens, Elton John and all things fried. And if I filled my time with others who are exactly as myself, where is the opportunity for growth? Where is the chance to learn a little bit more about the world?And, honestly, there are just not many people that I've met who meet that description...

And it was with this attitude that I found myself at a church group shuffleboard night at St. Pete Shuffle. Church groups are about as far from myself as you can get, but you know what? The night was great. Of course it was, there was shuffleboard. And I won.

And if I would have told myself that I'd rather not spend the night with people who don't share the same beliefs as I do then I wouldn't have found myself eating cheese pizza at midnight in a bar being taught how to make paper cranes.

If only Church would have been that cool growing up...

Mine's the one that barely looks like a crane on the left.

Day Zero Project #22/#96 - Go camping on the beach/Go camping with friends

Q: _____ is to outdoors as oil is to water.

A: Dustin

I want to love camping, I really do. There's something about the idea that of being outside without modern conveniences that appeals to me. But, in reality, you are mostly just stuck in an tent in extremely hot weather while getting eaten alive by bugs and hoping that you don't step in some sort of poisonous plant that will ensure that your only lasting memory of your trip is a scar from where you were scratching your plethora of rashes.

That said, I have a list to accomplish and when my friends called saying that they just realized that there were no people without kids going on their annual Mother's Day camping trip and that we had to fill that quota so they'd have a well-rounded group, we couldn't say no.

At least this camping trip was at Fort Desoto, which is pretty much the ideal spot for any sort of camping adventure. Just make sure to book your campsite six months in advance or you'll be like us. Which means that the morning you want to go camping you will have to go stand in line at the Camp Office at 5am. Yes, 5am, a time that, until that day, I had no actual proof even existed. And we were 14th in line.

Eventually we got our site and set up what I considered to be a first-rate campsite:

Turns out this is not a first-rate campsite. Real campers bring tables and lights and bug spray. But we are not real campers and we brought tequila and whiskey and pudding shots and plenty of beer. We might not be comfortable but we can certainly drink until we think we are.

Our view of the Gulf of Mexico

One of the appeals of Florida is the chance to see things like manatees and dolphins. We didn't see any of that. But our campsite was home to Ricky the Redneck Raccoon who skipped right over our food and headed straight for our neighbors cooler full of High Life. No one can say that Ricky doesn't know how to party.

Ricky gets drunk and chills in the trees

There's also birds. Lots of them. Here's a little known fact about me: I hate birds. They are not to be trusted.

Look at him. He's evil.

But seriously, we had a great time. Because even if the tent is 100 degrees and raccoons steal our beer and we end up with some weird plant-induced rashes, the important part is the company that we keep. And I can't think of many better ways to spend a weekend than hanging out with friends.