Being haunted by unfinished and/or unstarted projects... I know it well. Just when I'm feeling super shitty waking up drunk/hungover on a Sunday(Monday, Tuesday...) morning I'm typically greeted with the sight of an unused spray can, a never-accomplished to-do list, my guitar, my dog doing the pee-pee dance- and it floods me with guilt.
I used to call this battle of will & productivity vs constant partying my Quarter Life Crisis (QLC) (yay acronyms!) but it's been hanging 'round for years and is working on becoming a perma-anxiety. For the sake of this post let's divide this generation into 2 groups: A.) the selfish, grubbing trust funded kids who's drives for fame & money for fame & money's sake and B.) kids who live in constant fear that they are missing an opportunity to make something awesome for awesome's sake and who's drive for everything is to be more well-rounded.
I'd say I, and most people I hang with, are very much type B. Guilt wracks us. Are we not taking every shot at making and doing something amazing? Are we giving enough time and energy into the 5 thousand things we like doing? A friend of mine always tells me she wants to be me when she grows up because I dream big and go at every task like a line-backer. It's flattering and awkward.
She pointed out a recent incidence: Three weeks ago I started chewing gum for the first time in my life. Why? Because I hate gum, it fucking grosses me out. But I've always wanted to blow bubbles. So I decided to start. I made a pal teach me on the train on the way to the airport. What better time and place to practice such a task? I launched about 6 pieces onto other passengers before we even got to our terminal. The thought of a grown girl spitting trident every few minutes at rush hour commuters was pretty funny and helped ease the frustration of not getting it . They, however, weren't nearly as amused.
It's been 3 weeks and though I still think gum is fucking gross I am getting pretty fucking good at bubbles.
Yesterday a buddy of mine drove me, my electronics, and my unmentionables up to Harlem, where I'm crashing for a month. He's a huge, bearded ju-jitsu fighter. And he and I practiced blowing giant bubbles all the way up FDR drive listening to All Else Failed and Desmond Dekker. This too, I thought very, very funny. And this time, so did the other commuters. A few car loads of latino kids couldn't help pointing and laughing. We smiled, waved, picked the gum out of our hair, put it back in our mouths and started over. And I'm happy to say that if it was a contest, I would have totally out blown him. (There has got to be a better way to say that...)
I think when I can consistently blow the bubble-inside-a-bubble I can quit. Or maybe if I enter some sort of elementary school bubble gum bubble contest and win. (Are there such contests? Are there trophies or cash prizes?? I would settle for playground bragging rights.)
Seriously though, gum is so gross, how do people chew it all the time? It's, like, one polymer away from being actual plastic. Minty fresh plastic.
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