Baggage

I'm currently in the process of planning my high school class' 20-year reunion.  I haven't kept in touch with most of my classmates, other than one close friend who I talk or text with several times a week, but it was a good group of people and I have generally good memories of the people in the class of 1995. But still, I have to admit that while I got along with everyone and my class didn't have anyone at all in it that I would say was a bully, the process has still brought back a fair amount of high-school anxiety that I didn't need in my life, particularly now, with my once-mighty hairline several inches receded and my waistline considerably expanded from those actually not-so glorious days.

Although I do think fondly back on my class, the whole process has made me realize just how many grudges and how much resentment I do have going back all they way to high school and beyond.  One of the things I liked about my graduating class, and really treasured about my senior year, was that it was really the only time I remember from first grade through 12th where I felt like I was free from bullying.  I remember one day, driving home from school after senior play practice (in which I had a lead) on a sunny fall day in my fun little car and thinking "life is really good."

In hindsight, even in those other years, I guess nothing that most people would think seemed too bad happened to me.  I got in some fights in middle school, and one of the same kids who picked on me for years in my church's youth group pushed me, without provocation I might add, into a bush in 6th grad and cut my face up quite badly.

But while the physical violence of my youth was pretty minimal, I was constantly mocked for my small stature, a high-pitched and squeaky voice (especially in 9th and 10th grade, when it started to change to its currently slightly less high and squeaky adult pitch and my voice would just crack all the time);, and my relative lack of athleticism.  Those were days in which I had zero self-confidence and I really dreaded going to school every goddamn day.

Back in December, the high-school friend that I still talk to and I went to my school's annual alumni breakfast.  Immediately after RSVPing, we both had second thoughts based on who we might encounter there.  There was only one of my old bullies that I thought might be likely to attend, and I told my friend basically "This guy made 9th and 10th grade hell for me.  If he's there, I have to say something and I'm not going to be able to be civil." I've seen this guy's picture on a FB group page for my high school, and I admit I looked him up.  He's gained a lot more weight than I have, but some of mine is muscle.  I think I could take him now, if it came to that.   I have to admit, I think part of me even hoped he would be there, because I was going to really make him feel like shit about how he acted back then. Back in high school, I wanted nothing more than revenge, and 19 years later, that still sounded great. 

Of course, he wasn't there, and my friend and I had a perfectly pleasant and uneventful breakfast at a table by ourselves in the school gym.

But I've thought about my less happy school days over the past few months as I've been planning the reunion, and I really can't think of why those days haunt me so.  

A few nights ago, during a bout with insomnia, I realized that while I have DESPISED these guys for over 20 years, they wouldn't even remember me -- not a chance -- and that every time I thought of one of them, I was still giving them power over me.  That went for the guys who picked on me every day in high school, the person I mentioned above in elementary school and later church youth group, the boss from my first job right out of college who set my career back with an undeservedly negative review (I know that this sounds like sour grapes.  I assure you that it is not, but this post is already too long for that story.) and a list of others too numerous to describe.

It also became apparent that there's just no reason for these grudges, anymore.  Life is good.  I have a wonderful wife.  I have a great job, or at least a job that I'm great at.  My family and friends love me. Cats are drawn to me for some reason.  I'm not the same person I was back then, and maybe my tormentors are not, either.

I decided, finally, after 20+ years in some of these cases, to forgive, and to let go of all my old anger.  And I felt ten pounds lighter the next morning. 

And the Crowd Goes Wild!

Today, I started my Wellfit Infury Prevention Program, a sort of post-physical therapy supervised workout program that is a lot easier on the wallet than continued PT. ($45/month rather than a $50/session copay).  That's another post in and of itself.  But, because my therapist shares a name with an NBA Hall-of-Famer, I'm inspired to do what I like to do best on this blog:  tell long, rambling, pointless stories.

I was not a terrible basketball player in my youth.  At least, that's what I told myself.  I had a 3-year career as a shooting guard and small forward in 5th, 6th, and 7th grade at St. John.  I wasn't a good scorer.  I think I scored a total of 19 points in those 3 years, but I was good passer and rebounder, and I really did work hard in practice. In 5th and 6th grade, I played on the Jr. Boys team and in 7th grade moved up to Sr. Boys.  We played the local public schools and got routinely annihilated, going winless in my 5th and 6th grade years.  

In 7th grade, the shrinking parochial school only had one team for 5th through 8th graders (there were no 8th graders on the team, so my 7th-grade friends and I were the veteran leadership of the team.  Ha!)  We also bumped down a league, so we were playing the bigger public schools' "B teams".  We still lost more than we won that year, but we were competitive and it was a lot more fun than getting destroyed game after game.  I still remember our first close game.  We pulled out a nice lead against one of the local Catholic middle schools (their "A" team, too, I think), when our coach put the 5th-graders in to get them some playing time.  And they blew the game!  I understand that in youth sports it should be more about participation than winning, but most of us hadn't won a game our whole careers!

After 7th grade, I switched schools to a larger (graduated with a class of...65!) christian school.  I went out for the basketball team in 8th grade, got cut, and didn't try out in 9th grade, but I continued to ball with my neighborhood and school friends.

Meanwhile, in 10th grade I was in a sports club that would go over once a week to play basketball, touch football, or soccer at the local park.  I stuck to hoops, and playing among my friends I did very, very well in all phases of the game.  Indeed, often the court was covered in goose crap, meaning there were like 100 extra defenders on the court, and I'd still play very well.

With encouragement from my friends, I got the idea to try out for the JV team.  Luckily for me, there were few enough returners from the previous year that they really weren't making cuts.  So, my career was resurrected.  I worked my butt off in practice, and I think I genuinely improved a lot. One time, I even think I scraped the bottom most molecules of the rim with my fingertips.  

I liked being on the team, enjoying the early dismissals for road games and the camaraderie as we rode the team bus to opposing schools, blasting hair metal or 90s rap music to inspire us, and watching most of the game from the bench.   I didn't get a lot of playing time, but I don't think I embarrassed myself or the school when I was in there.  I was realistic, knowing I was one of the last two guys off the bench, but only once did my lack of playing time really, really bother me...

We were down at least 40 points late in the 4th quarter at Littlestown, a public school in Adams County, but I had still not gotten in the game.  With about 5 minutes left, our coach stormed off the bench to go help the varsity coach, his brother, prepare his guys for their game.  The assistant coach called me over at the next time out and says "Brian and (other last guy off the bench), I don't care what happens, just go out there and try your best."  I always appreciated that.  I quickly got the ball and got fouled.  I was only about a 60% free-throw shooter, if that even, and I missed my 1 and 1.

But I got another chance on the next possession. I grabbed a long rebound and had an open jumper just inside the corner of the foul line.  I released the ball, and to this day I can still picture the perfect arc and see the rotation of the ball...

...as it soared completely over the backboard for a very embarrassing air-ball.  With only a few minutes left in the game, the gym was filling up for the varsity, and so quite a big crowd had a great laugh at my expense.  I was not so amused, but I did follow it up with another rebound and a made shot from the same place on a later possession.  When the coach heard that I got two rebounds and scored, he seemed pretty impressed.  I belive the final score was 60-12, so I was by default one of the leading scorers.

I didn't play the next year, when I probably would have been warming the JV bench again as a Junior. However, I think I still continued to get better playing against other JV and varsity guys at weekly church youth group meetings  through the rest of high school, and I even played pretty well in intramurals my freshman year of college. After that my mad skills started to decline via rust, but I'll always have that memory of the ball soaring over the backboard.  

I've Been Bitten by More Animals than You

I can't run, and I've been sick all week, so the usual subject matter of this blog has been a complete washout. Therefore, it's story time...

I believe everyone has a gift. Maybe yours is running, or being really good at cooking, or perhaps Parchesi. Whatever. My gift is a singular talent for getting bit by animals.

The crown jewel of my own personal When Animals Attack is that I've been bitten by a poisonous snake. It was the summer before 2nd grade, and I was at a YMCA day camp, not far from where I currently live, actually. Amidst all the swimming, and archery, and arts & crafts that we did, we were also supposed to learn. My group was out on a nature walk, and I got to see nature a little bit too closely. We were walking roughly in single file on a path in the woods, and I was the last one in the group. I felt something prick my left ankle. I looked back, expecting to see a twig that had popped up as I stepped on it. Instead:


Needless to say, I did not respond in a calm, rational manner. I ran to the head of the group, where the counselor was leading us, all the while screaming "I'VE BEEN BITTEN BY A SNAKE!!!" Of course, freaking out raises your heart rate and spreads the poison faster, so this was actually the worst thing I could do. The counselor doubted my tale of woe. "It was probably a rabbit." Really? I was terrible at archery; I was not the best at basketball; and my arts & crafts were less than stellar, but even at that young age I could tell a snake from a rabbit with 100% accuracy, and I assured him that it was not a damn rabbit. I don't recall whether he looked, or others went back a few minutes later, but eventually they found the snake still lying in the path, stepped on by every kid in the group, no doubt.

If you consult A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of Eastern and Central North America (Second Edition) entry for "Northern Copperhead", you'll see that I was supremely unlucky.

These snakes are generally quiet, almost lethargic, preferring to lie motionless or to make a slow retreat when encountered. When sufficiently agitated, however, they can strike vigorously and may vibrate their tails rapidly.

Meanwhile, I was taken to see the camp nurse, and she tried to suck the poison out of my leg with a needle, to no avail. 911 was called and I ended up in the ER. Copperhead bites are relatively minor, seldom requiring antivenom. However, because I was eight years old and really, really small for my age, this was a big deal. My leg swelled up to roughly the size of a basketball, and every day the doctors marked how high the swelling had progressed. A plastic surgeon was called in, and I guess there was at least a chance I could lose the leg. And since I was the first victim of a poisonous snake in York County in 20 years, they had to bring antivenom in from California.

At any rate, however, I recovered, even had a mention in the newspaper, and went on to live a productive life of getting bit by other animals...

I've also been attacked by a chicken. This isn't nearly as fun a story, and my memories of it are a lot hazier. I was at a friends house, and his family had a small farm with a couple horses, goats, and chickens. One of the chickens was rather ill-tempered. In reality, I'm sure the chicken was fine, and it was just that my friend and I liked to play and build hay forts in what the chicken considered its territory. And of course, that's what happened. We startled the chicken, it freaked out, flew at me, and pecked me in the stomach. No hospitalization was required this time, since it wasn't a venomous chicken.


I suspect more people are bitten by mammals than by birds or reptiles. Don't worry, I've got that covered. I've been bitten by dogs and cats (I'm bitten by cats almost every day), but where I probably have the drop on you is that I've also been bitten by rats.

It's not as gross and scary as it sounds. During my senior year at college, I was a lab assistant in the psychology department, and one of my responsibilities was to care for the department's rats and assist the freshman in their behavioral science lab, in which they were supposed to train a rat to press a bar in exchange for water. I had a very friendly and well-trained rat of my own, named "Skinner."



Each rat lived by itself in a small, plastic cage for the duration of the semester. After the semester was over, we tried to find them homes. However, three were not adopted by the time the next semester's rats arrived. Those three lived together in a big wire-mesh cage and chased each other around all day. On a few occasions, I was careless as I reached into retrieve the rats from the cage, and had my other hand on the cage as I opened the door. This would always result in rats biting my fingertips, which was quite painful. Overall, it wasn't a bad job. I learned a lot about statistics and got to collect and analyze data for sensory psychology experiments, too. But I've been bitten by rats and most people haven't.

Still, the grandest prize of them all has eluded me. My wife has been bitten by a tiger and I have not. Sure, it was a cute baby tiger, hardly larger than our cats, that was playing at our feet and nipped her leg as we held and were photographed with another cute baby tiger at the Natural Bridge Zoo. Still, that does not change the fact that she was bitten by a tiger. It should have been me. It should have been me.

Up All Night

I'm not planning on running again until Wednesday night, so I'm going way off-topic here.

(Up All Night digital single artwork by David Choe -- from the Blink-182 facebook page.)

Blink-182 has been part of my life since May 1999. I still remember the day I walked into the record store at the West Manchester Mall with a $20 in my pocket, likely a graduation gift, and not only no idea what to buy, but no idea of where I what I was doing in life. "What's My Age Again?" was playing in the store, and it just seemed right.

Let's flash back. Job prospects were looking sketchy, to see the least. I hadn't been offered either of the jobs that I thought were my best chances coming out of college and other than a single interview the Monday after graduation, I wasn't getting any bites.

I spent a lot of time on AOL on the computer in the spare bedroom of my parents' house, looking for jobs on this new Internet thingy and instant messaging with my other equally unlucky friends.

It wasn't all bad. When I wasn't looking for gainful employment, I had plenty of time to spend my days sleeping till noon and shooting hoops at a court near my house in the afternoon, and spending my nights going out to the dive bars of York and Harrisburg with said friends. When I did find a job, in Philadelphia, I was an underutilized (paid) intern with lots of free time to sit in my basement cubicle and chat with my underutilized intern colleagues about the Eagles, the glory days of college, and where he'd go for lunch or happy hour.

Enema of the State was the soundtrack of that Summer, and "What's My Age Again?" was its anthem. For me, it was the beginning of a shift in my musical tastes that continues to this day...not that I don't still love Van Halen and occasionally blast the Crue, Poison, and their big haired ilk.

Since then, I've purchased a previous Blink-182 album, Dude Ranch, as well as the two follow-ups to Enema, the cleverly-named Take off Your Pants and Jacket and the last record before rising tensions in the band led them to go on "indefinite hiatus" in 2005, the self-titled Blink-182. They've all been on heavy rotation on my CD players and later MP3 players since and have been a gateway drug to other punk rock bands for me. (I'm not going to get into any arguments about what's punk and what isn't. I really don't care. It's all opinion. Nor am I claiming any expertise whatsoever of that subject matter.)

In the meantime, it seemed like we'd heard the last new music from Blink-182. I enjoyed Tom DeLonge's new band, "Angels & Airwaves", and Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker in "+44", but it just wasn't the same. Two friends and I did a very strong air-guitar rendition of "What's My Age Again?", complete with inflatable guitars at one of the friend's weddings, but we were no substitute for the real thing.

Unfortunately, it took the near-death of drummer Travis Barker in a 2008 plane crash to get the three arguing band members back together, but once the three of them were back in a room together, it seemed that they quickly decided to put aside their differences and get the band back together. They made their announcement as they presented at the 2009 Emmys, when they appeared in public together for the first time in four years, and quickly confirmed it on the band's website:

Hi. We're Blink-182. This past week there've been a lot of questions about the current status of the band, and we wanted you to hear it straight from us. To put it simply, We're back. We mean, really back. Picking up where we left off and then some. In the studio writing and recording a new album. Preparing to tour the world yet again. Friendships reformed. 17 years deep in our legacy. Summer 2009. Thanks and get ready.

After their bitter breakup, would it last? So far, yes. The reunited Blink-182 indeed went on tour in Summer 2009; I had a great time seeing them live for the first time on a rainy August night at Hersheypark Stadium, and now they've finally put out their first new material since 2003.

You can listen to their new single, "Up All Night" here (from the band's official YouTube site):



I like it. It took a few listens, but I really, really like it.

The main criticism of it that I've read is that it sounds more like Angels & Airwaves than Blink-182. At first listen, I agreed. However, while it's never going to be mistaken for "What's My Age Again?" or "Dammit", or even the more serious "Adam's Song" or the more positive "All the Small Things", I do think it's the continuing evolution of what they sounded like on the last Blink-182 album. The seamless back-and-forth between the two singers is what makes it sound like Blink-182 to me, and Travis Barker is excellent on drums, as always. It grew on me as I listened to it a few times; the same was true of Blink-182.

As Blink-182 got older, their sound changed and their lyrics matured as well. Sophomoric humor and lyrics about high-school parties, breaking up with girlfriends, or the lack of such, and even an infatuation with Princess Leia comprise Dude Ranch and Enema of the State. The band was in their 20s and their listeners were high-school and college students. These themes are less common on Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (except for, of course, the album title) and largely absent from Blink-182. But even so, this is pretty dark stuff for Blink:

Everyone wants to call it all around our life with a better name.
Everyone falls and spins and gets up again with a friend who does the same.
Everyone lies and cheats their wants and needs and still believes their heart.
And everyone gets the chills, the kind that kills when the pain begins to start.

Let me get this straight, do you want me here?
As I struggle through each and every year.
And all these demons, they keep me up all night.
They keep me up all night.
They keep me up all night.

Everyone's cross to bears the crown they wear on endless holiday.
Everyone raises kids in a world that changes life to a bitter game.
Everyone works and fights, stays up all night to celebrate the day.
And everyone lives to tell the tale of how we die alone some day.

Let me get this straight, do you want me here?
As I struggle through each and every year.
And all these demons, they keep me up all night.
They keep me up all night.
They keep me up all night.
They keep me up all night.
They keep me up all night.

They're older. Their listeners are older. The world seems more serious than it did in May of 1999. This isn't quite the Blink-182 of old. But 12 years later, it just seems right.

We now return to our regularly-scheduled program. If Van Halen ever puts out a new album, I'll review it. Please don't hold your breath.