18.

Today is my last day as a minor. It seems like an 18th birthday requires at least a certain amount of pre-planning. I mean, there has to be a lot of ways to take advantage of one’s adulthood, right? Allow me to brainstorm.

• Buy a slingshot. I wanted to get a slingshot a few years back, and was surprised to find that one had to be at least 18 to purchase one, at least at a Wal-Mart store. And, well, slingshots are pretty handy tools to have.
• Get a hotel room. Hey, I’m allowed to! I could totally go book a hotel room. And like, totally make a bunch of trips to the ice machine. Hang out at the swimming pool. Or watch HBO! Hell yeh!
• Buy pr0n. I’m not really much of a pornography guy. That said, I just might go out in search of a certain adult film entitled 1,001 Ways to Eat My Jizz, Part 3: Biscuits and Gravy Edition. No explanation required.
• Register to vote. It’s all of our responsibility.
• Buy some spraypaint. Or maybe some glue. Because I can.

Fuck. Conclusion: being an adult = being a minor plus a few small advantages, and much more accountability.

When listened to through a decent pair of cans, many classical recording become, at least for one who is homocidally irked by mouth noises, utterly unlistenable, due to the clarity with which the numerous coughs, sneezes, and assorted other odious sounds are reproduced. Digital removal, if at all possible without damaging the integrity of the recording, would be welcomed.

School.

This, my senior year of high school, has found me more involved in school-related activities than I ever have been in my career in public education (except perhaps when I was a key member of New Mark Middle School’s Science Olympiad team). And by this, I mean I am in a whopping two clubs.

The one that occupies much of my time and energy is the school newspaper, which I involved myself in out of some obligation I felt, as I hope to pursue some sort of journalism-related career. Really, this was a huge mistake. The department is just absurd and annoying, consisting mostly of insecure kids who want to create some sort of “image” for themselves by publishing stupid editorials about stuff that annoys them, like girls spending too much time doing their hair or kids wearing band shirts. The clique in charge is a bunch of those dumb-but-a-really-good-student girls, who always brag about how much of an overachiever they are and how super organized they are. An idea with any real chance of controversy, or, you know, actual value to the world, is swiftly rejected. I have held myself at a certain distance from the organization out of a desire to preserve my spirit.

The other organization I am a member of is the newly formed INDEPENDENT MUSIC CLUB. It consists of the approximately ten to fifteen Oak Park students who could considered pseudo-indie sitting around and listening to/discussing pseudo-indie music. Overall, it’s a good time, but the whole thing is as self-conscious, awkward, and slightly fake as you would expect it to be. You know how it feels when somebody you’ve recently met asks you the big, “What kind of music do you listen to?” question? It’s like that times ten.

To conclude:

Northmen’s Log: 3/10

Music club: 8/10

Moment of clarity.

Today at work, I realized that this moderately old woman I work with is the most hopeless drug addict I know.

She drinks two 2-liters of Diet Coke® a day. And she is a pack (or two) a day smoker. And I don’t want to know how much she drinks. And she is probably going to die very, very soon. (My boss always has at least one old woman holding a very distinct position for him; some sort of loud-mouthed but lovable personality to run the front of the store and connect with our working-class regulars. He works them until they die. She is number three.)

It’s really interesting how a substance can become as integral to one’s bodily equilibrium as oxygen or water after decades of regular intake, and how several industries are indefinitely solidified in our culture solely because of this dependence. It’s a dangerous thing when a corporation can make people become sick when they cease to regularly purchase their product.  People turn into dangerously predictable buying machines.

The US is a society of the addicted. To caffeine, nicotine, gasoline, food, God, money, sex. And at the other end of each is a relatively small group of people getting rich.

So I guess I hope to never become a robot or a zero on somebody’s “projected profits” figure. I will never be a member of the ruling class — nor would I want to be — but I also will never be an insect in some CEO’s antfarm.

T-Rex Café.

In this absurd world, it can be beneficial to one’s sanity to maintain a certain degree of objective distance from the more inane aspects of culture. One way I do this is though a refusal to use stupid item names at restaurants.

I went to T-REX tonight with my family. Pretty impressive place, really. Definitely a lot cooler than Rainforest Café, mostly due to liberal use of REAL FIRE! But, of course, basically every menu item has asinine tie-ins to dinosaurs, or anything vaguely prehistoric (bones, volcanoes, meteors, whatever). So the sandwich I want is called “Herbivore’s Delight.” I really am firmly opposed to using ridiculous names such as this. I typically try to find the way to order my entrée that offers the least amount of dignification to the clever bastard who thought up its name. The very few times I have been conned into purchasing something from Starbucks, I have never uttered any of that “tall” or “venti” garbage. So when it came time to order, my first instinct was to say I want the “veggie sandwich.” I was in a giving mood, however, and conceded the herbivore bit. So:

Me: I will have the herbivore sandwich.

Her: …what?

[long beat]

Her (cont’d): Ohhhh! The Herbivore’s Delight®!

Conclusion: concept restaurants with stupid names for food are annoying.

You know you have made some poor impressions when people in a social circle have created an inside expression advising another not to be like you, as in: “Hey, quit being such a Ted.” I cannot think of a harsher expression of disapproval.