The Menstrom Cycle

Playing hooky this afternoon and going to a baseball game.

New theme. New avatar. New underpants.

Let me know what you think.

I just remembered this list I came up with a while back.

• ‘Lil Richard
• The Everly Brothas
• The B.I.G. Bopper
• Buddy Holla
• Johnny Ca$h
• Chuck Bury

While discussing one of the best shows on television at lunch, I learned about orienteering—the skill of navigating through an unfamiliar area using a detailed map and a magnetic compass. A quick google search returned the Possum Trot Orienteering Club of Kansas City, which hosts several events each year as well as two permanent courses in the KC area. Needless to say, I’m buying a compass on my way home tonight.

What do you think… future KC tumblr meet-up?

To say I try to keep my personal life off tumblr would be an understatement. I go to great lengths to compartmentalize my life, and always have. Work stays at work; family stays in the family; my private life stays private; and the interweb stays within its own network of tubes. And like any good communist dictatorship, I like to control how information about me is disseminated, consumed, and—inevitably—misunderstood. For these reasons and more—namely, stubbornness and the need to be different—I generally shun social networking. But this isn’t a diatribe against facebook, twitter, and the like; it is about why I’m still here. On tumblr. (Besides narcissism, a short attention span, and lots of time to fill.)

There are two major appeals to tumblr, or at least that’s the way they market it. The first draws you in: it’s simple. “The easiest way to blog,” as they say. The second is what keeps you coming back: community. In essence, they’ve brought a bunch of young, like-minded people together and promoted social interaction between them. It has been nothing short of amazing to watch how things have grown from that first awkward encounter, just over a year ago, between total strangers, whose feelings ranged from not-sure-what-to-expect to scared-as-hell, to now counting many of those same people amongst my closest friends.

Somewhere between then and now, the lines blurred. My tumblr friends became real friends. My real friends became tumblr friends. My real friends became friends—of both the real and tumblr variety—with my tumblr friends. My barriers started falling; compartmentalizing became all the more difficult. And then this happened. (For those of you who are wondering, it’s going well. Really, really well.)

So, here I am. On tumblr. And every morning I wake up feeling fortunate to have the people and relationships that are a result. My worlds have collided, and I couldn’t be happier.

As many of you know, I was preparing to take my engineering licensure exams—all 16 hours of ‘em—in October. I had already begun spending my evenings and weekends studying riveting topics such as “development and splice lengths for steel reinforcing,” “torsion in concrete members,” and “the strut-and-tie method for deep beam design.” That is until I got an envelope in the mail from the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (apparently “Board of Engineers” was too banal).

I assumed I would open the envelope to find a letter with “Congratulations!” written across the top in Comic Sans explaining how to register for my exams and complimenting me on the awesomeness of my application. What I found, instead, were two sheets: one informing me my application was rejected because I was one month short of the requisite four years experience and a new, clean copy of the experience form as if to say “thanks for playing, try again.” I was crushed, dejected, and almost felt the need to post Dashboard Confessional lyrics on my tumblr (I settled for an R.E.M. song instead). In all actuality, the one month in question was seven days—the amount of time between my work anniversary date and the application deadline. I was going to have to wait another six months to take my exams/get my bonus/be promoted/feel fulfilled all because I took a whole two weeks off between graduation and starting a life in a new city. Fuck. Me.

In the weeks that followed, I eased my bitterness by bitching about the ludicrousness of the situation to everyone who would listen and telling myself things like “now you won’t have to study during football season” and… well… that was the only thing I could come up with to console myself. Now, fast-forward to today when I decided to call the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Registration (they really answered the phone like that every time I got transferred) if for no other reason than to confirm my fears and get angry again. However, a funny thing happened: they told me that I could resubmit the form in question—with the appropriate service time—and it would be reviewed at their next board meeting. Holy shit! It was that easy!?

Now I’m several weeks behind on my study plan and trying to figure out how, exactly, I’m going to make my planned Big XII farewell tour—Manhattan, Lincoln (for Texas), and Stillwater—the three weekends immediately preceding my 16 hours of hell. Also, I have to come up with the $1000 registration fee by the end of August. All of this contingent on my application actually being accepted this time, of course.

adultlifetaketwo:

Running a 5K.  Don’t like this trend.

Since I’m a sweater, I was going to bring two shirts. This might require three.

jholla:

After sneaking out of a much too stuffy engagement party on Saturday night, I had the pleasure of catching the latter part of the KC tumblr meetup.  Now I’m not sure if it was the 4 Moscow Mule’s I consumed, or the dance moves of this individual, but I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.  Like, I laughed so hard my face hurt.     

So, a big thanks to everyone for being so inviting.  I had a great time and we came in strong at 3am finish line.  I also think we terrified pretty much every person that tried to come up to the balcony at The Foundry.  Success.  

I feel this is the perfect response to Mr. Too-busy-for-the-meetup.

Kansas City: Hosting the most attractive tumblr meetups since 2009 (Evrt, notwithstanding).

is pulling out the headphone jack and cranking up my speakers.

“That way you can have room to reach underneath and play with your nuts.”