Side Note

You may see some small, twitter-esque blogs coming from this site from now till sunday.  I will be housesitting for two days, then driving across the country for two more.  

Havin' Ham, Makin' Bacon

I live (for at least three more days) with a soccer coach and a bartender.  In the grand scheme of things, compared to my profession (or lack thereof), those are pretty masculine jobs.  

So it was of little surprise to me when, in preparation for the move, I went downstairs to see what I could cook up before we left that I was given a bit of stick for cooking.  I settled upon a box of carrot cake.  Simple enough.  Add mix, three eggs, one cup water, 1/2 cup vegetable oil, bake for 40 minutes, et voila, carrot cake.

As I headed downstairs, one of my roommates was already there, fixing up a delicious meal of microwaveable beef stew.  Yum.  As I began my delicate task of shearing open the plastic bag of cake mix, he asked me "Baking again?", not with any real malice, but with a sort of internal surprise that I would subject myself to actually cooking food.   After all, I had already baked a load of brownies that turned out horrible, and about 100 chocolate chip cookies that were a real hit.   

I had just woken up, so I was feeling a bit groggy, and mumbled something about trying to use up all the food we had bought before we left, to which my roommate gave a slight chuckle before absconding with his masterpiece from Lloyds.

I had just finished greasing the pan and pouring in the mix when my second roommate and his girlfriend came down in search of some nibblies.  As they proceeded to toast single pieces of white bread, butter them, then slap on a piece of cheese, another round of inquiries followed:  "What are you cooking now?  You're a proper housewife."  I maundered that "kept man" was the term I preferred, and popped in the cake and went upstairs.  40 minutes later, the cake was done, and I enjoyed a piece.  Light, fluffy, yet with just the hint of box store normalcy that would let anyone know I had not made it from scratch.

So between these two studs, and a couple of other friends that I'm a little closer with that I don't really mind the teasing from - I've received quite a bit of ribbing for my enjoyment of cooking!  And I want to know what the big deal is!

I like to cook, and I'm a guy.  Emeril is a guy.  Mario Batalli is a guy.  Guy Fieri is a, well, guy.  And they like to cook!  Does it make me less manly to want to cook?  Is it that I cook for my girlfriend a lot?  Am I embarassing you tough jocks who don't know how to show your girl a good time?  Or maybe it's because I can't afford a Bahamas cruise for my girl (yet) as a way of showing affection?

Sorry, I had to blow some steam off.  I hate doing that.  

What's wrong with being a guy and wanting to cook?  

Of Possible Futures

Being laid off sucks.  It's boring.  I routinely watch 2-3 movies a day, and then I sleep, wake up, eat dinner, and sleep again.  Occasionally I'll go to Ashley's work, but her co-workers drive me so ridiculously insane that I often wish I had never come.  Ashley also usually wishes she hadn't brought me. 

(Side note:  Anyone good at math?  If a painting is 30"X90", and canvas costs $2.50 per square foot, how much will the 30X90 canvas cost?  I will explain this later.)

I've tried many things to fill my time.  I've looked up friends from WAAAAAY back on facebook.  All the way from middle school.  I started this blog.  I cleaned up the room. I made up a new word (see previous post) I made falafel(s) last night.  I bought the new book on David Beckham and finished it in two hours.

I'm still skull crushingly bored.

Being bored leads to a lot of introspection.  A lot of thought about how I ended up like this (laid off).  About what I want out of the rest of my life.  About how I'm going to get it.  About how the United States is going to win the next World Cup.  (OK Abe, time to lay off the oxycodone.)  How I want to be a professor, an AD, a political progressive, and a servant leader all in one.  How I want to marry Ashley and raise two or three kids.  How I have to pay off my car and student loans before some of that can happen.  At the risk of sounding totally Generation X (which, btw, I found out I am a tail end member of), adulthood, well - sucks.  Not as much as being bored though.

Yo soy tu gummy bear.  

I'm considering joining the National Guard.  Nine weeks of basic training.  Oy.  9-12 weeks of Officer School.  All, shall we say, cons.  The idea of resocialization scares me to no end.  If I have any thing left, it is who I am.  Am I will to be broken down and remolded to pay off my student loans?  To go to graduate school for free?  

On the other hand, assuming I am not internationally deployed - one weekend a month, and two weeks a year isn't that bad.  On top of an enlistment bonus.  And a steady paycheck.  And no debt (till I get a mortgage).  

Color me undecided.   

Hipberal

I am defining a new word today.  At least, I hope it's new.  Oh, that my brilliance may some day grace the sprawlings of Webster's, and that I may stand amongst my heros who define new words, i.e. Stephen Colbert (truthiness and wikiality).  Does this make me a neologist?  I hope so.  It sounds like I would have a Ph.D, and I very much like the sound of that.

My new word is Hipberal.   It is a portmanteau of Hip and Liberal, (Side note:  checked urban dictionary and found no existing definition.  Victory is mine!) and it is defined as such:  Excessive love of all Apple Products, organic food, theater, academia, engorging in giant intakes of mass media, pro gay rights, pro environmentalism, soccer, East Coast/New England living (though if you live in Southern California that's ok as well), social networking, music such as Dave Mathews Band, Phish, Oasis, and the like, and general undertakings to better ones self mentally and educationally.

I am recently laid off.  I worked for two years in the slightly unnerving world of intercollegiate athletics.  (Note:  As part of the severance agreement I signed, I am not allowed to make "derogatory" statements about the school.  Not untrue ones, but not negative ones either.  Therefore, the school will remain nameless for the time being.)  

This school helped very much to form my feelings of hipberalism.  By trying, like a parent who doesn't relate to a child very well, to make me a part of their collective of white males (with the occasional female and minority thrown in), they in fact, pushed me in the opposite direction (out the door).

The school was a fanatically conservative place, making poor decision after poor decision, watching their enrollment plummet, their bottom line evaporate, and with it, my job and salary (after September 27, 2009).  In their admissions materials, they promulgated their school as a place for those who "desired to obtain great personal wealth).  They recruited any student-athlete they could, as long as they met minimum admissions requirements, only to watch them wash out miserably as they tried to balance the school's difficult academic regimens with their athletic pursuits, while PAYING some of these kids tuition in the form of academic scholarships!  

This not only shaped my thoughts and feelings towards hipberalism, but also towards the role of athletics in education.  Athletics needs to supplement academics.  It simply cannot be the flagship for any post of higher education.  Do not mistake me:  I am fully for success of all kinds at institutions of higher learning.  I understand the possible necessity of an athletic scholarship paying the way for an underprivileged youth to go to college.  But too often, at the small school level, students pursuing these forms of help are nothing but mercenaries, searching for the best offer.  Even at the NAIA level there is a belief that these kids will go to the pros.  

I realize I am tangenting here.  Bear with me.

Schools should not be subsidizing education for the betterment of their athletic programs.  And this should be across the board, both at schools (whether it's Webber International University or Weber State) and athletic departments (where the women's soccer team has a collective 3.3 GPA while the men's basketball team hovers at a 2.1.)  Make kids pay for school!  They will value it that much more!  Increase some financial aid if they maintain or improve their grades.

This is not to say that professional sports should not be a vocation.  But instead of forcing students through schools that they ought not be attending, open up sports academies a la the IMG academy in Bradenton, Fla., where they can pursue school and their dreams of professional athletics.  Heck, have the teams run the schools in cohesion with the local education department!

But I digress.  Let's get back to hipberalism.  Why can't sports and higher education be cool?  Why must it be such a drab mess of conservative dress, speak, and thought?  I can't count the number of times I was teased for wearing a pink shirt to work.  Why do we have to use PC's when a Mac is more environmentally friendly? (and you can get them to run dual-processors, so those Windows lovers can still feel ok.)  Why do we need such rough and tumble hip hop blaring as our warmup music when we could have relaxed but upbeat techno and house? Let's not be like our past.  Let's be different.

I'm expecting a call from Colbert's producers any minute now.