Guys.
Guys.
Guys, guess what.
Guys.
I’m twenty years old.
I survived being a teenager and am only 60% emotionally and
mentally bruised. The big 2-0. I start the third decade of my life today. It’s kind of a big deal. And I
wanted to celebrate by doing a special blog, but because I’m a lazy and awful
person, not only will this blog be a list (which is the laziest type of article
ever, LOOKIN AT YOU BUZZFEED), but it will basically be ripping off the
birthday post of a far superior, prettier, funnier, all-around awesomer
blogger. Who happens to be a cat.
By the way, go check out Furree Katt. I’ve mentioned her
blog in a couple other posts, and she usually has a long and happy comment on
each of my posts, so my (belated) birthday gift to her is my web traffic!
All 40 of you.
Okay, now on to the blog. Since it is my 20th,
here is a list of 20 things about me. Lazy? Yes, Forced? You bet your ass. But
since I, for the most part, actually want to make this something worth reading,
these will be twenty things about me that there is at least a 90% you don’t know. And I’m counting them down
with pictures of myself throughout the years (because egos never die).
Don’t say I don’t know how to whet your appetite. Anyhoo. 20
things. LET’S DO THIS.
I love to role-play. AWRIGHT MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER. NOW.
I’m talking actual role playing. Like RPGs. And DnD. And MTG. And other various
acronyms that you probably don’t know anything about because you think you’re
too cool for us nerds. I played Runescape, Dragonquest, Final Fantasy, Kingdom
Hearts, Pokémon (those are role-playing games, shut up), and even more.
I like it because it is an opportunity to act, which, as you
should know by now, is something I like to do from time to time. It’s not
nerdy, it’s theatrical.
Let me remind you that I am still 19 at heart and I can still pretend
that nerds are beneath me.
Another thing that I particularly like about role-playing is
not only do you get the option of creating a character for you to act out, you
get to immerse yourself into a completely different universe, not unlike what
happens when you read a good book or watch a good movie. It’s interactive, and
it’s awesome. And I also have a sword. I’m pretty badass.
I hate musicals.
Okay, that sounds a bit harsh. Truth is, unless I’m in them,
musicals bore me. There are about four or five that I would be willing to watch
or even buy a copy of on DVD. The big dance numbers, the emotional epic solos,
the attempts at defying gravity or big chorus numbers are just…unappealing. Unless
I’m in them. And even then, I find myself enjoying being in straight plays a
whole lot more than a glamorous musical.
And speaking of plays...
I love Shakespeare.
I mentioned a few posts ago that it was his play A Midsummer Night’s Dream that was the
final push to get me onto the stage, and if you’ve ever talked plays with me,
you’ll know that my all-time favorite play is Hamlet, which makes sense, because it’s based off of one of my
favorite Disney movies ever…Hercules.
But it wasn’t until I acted as Dromio of Syracuse in The Comedy of Errors, which went up in
February, that I truly fell in love with the Bard’s work. It was the most fun I
have ever had onstage in a production. Ever. Plus, the language is beautiful,
it’s immersive, like role-playing (Acting? In a play? WHAAAAAAAT), and it’s
just a blast to bring something to life that’s 500 years old.
I enjoy this song unironically. I’m sorry.
Please forgive me.
16
Oh, man, this picture. Ohhhhhh man the things my mom posts
on Facebook.
It’s no secret that I love Pokémon. It’s also no secret that
I probably love it too much. And as you can see from this recently unearthed
gem, it’s not exactly a recent affair. No, see, I was around back when it was
taking the world by storm, and I was definitely caught up in that Gust attack
that was sweeping the nation. I had cards, figurines, shirts, a cake, pyjamas,
an Ash Ketchum hat, and everything.
Except for the games. It wasn’t until I was a Junior in High
School that I ever played one of the original Pokémon games that kick-started
the frenzy, and it wasn’t until September 2013 until I actually owned my own
Pokémon game.
Some number one fan I am, huh?
Oh god, more gems. This was from my tenth birthday, and back
when I still did regular kid things. See that soccer ball? Yeah, I was a soccer
player, eh, a football player? I dunno, it’s hard to sound culture when you’re
a “Muricun like myself.
Okay, fact time. I don’t like cake. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll
eat it. But since coming up to college, I’ve lost all interest in cake. I don’t
want chocolate, red velvet, none of that crap.
Except the band. The band Cake is actually pretty good. The
food cake? No so much.
In order to save face from showing you that One Direction
Song, here’s a song of a different sort. I have an immensely strong connection
to the following song, because it reminds me a lot of what I left behind when I
moved up to Michigan to start my college career. Also, fun fact: This is the
only song by a pop artist to ever make me cry, back in 10th grade
before my feelings were destroyed by the horror that were student loans.
Shut your face. I’m a man, I promise you.
I don’t actually love pugs. I actually think they're kind of dumb. I cannot explain why they keep showing up on my Facebook wall-I'm not the one posting them.
I don’t know how many times I have
to tell you people these things.
Most people find themselves at college. Many don’t until
after it’s over. I like to think I figured out my life when I was a junior in
high school. Up until my junior year, I had no idea what I was doing with myself,
no idea who I was or what I wanted. Due to a lot of events that would entail a
blog post and then some for each (including my junior prom, which is already a
post), I like to think that I figured out my trajectory pretty quickly. Here
are a few quick things that I learned/accomplished in the nine months of my
junior year of high school.
- From stage managing a production of The Children’s Hour and my big role as Hugo in Bye Bye Birdie, the portrayal of which got me a state-wide honorable mention for my acting, I learned that I could actually have a place in the theatrical world.
- Due to a huge revival of my interest in art (we’ll touch on this later), I decided that I wanted to try and make a career in the arts.
- I started this blog.
- A couple absolutely shitty relationships actively changed how I looked at love and taught me to be more cautious. It may have made it harder for me to put myself into a relationship, but curiosity (and in the ever-expanding hook-up culture, possibly chlamydia) killed the cat (and no I do not have chlamydia).
- I became close to my two friends (and duo partners in speech) Brittany and Troy, who have been more than integral at keeping my sanity in the years to come and continue to be two of my closest friends. (Fun fact, Troy is in the picture above, and Brittany is in picture 5)
- Although I already learned it, I finally accepted that not everyone was going to like me, and finally kicked the habit of trying to change that. This blog helped me out on that front a lot, actually.
- I learned a lot about literature and life from reading some pretty phenomenal books. Of Mice and Men, The Stranger, Antigone, and Siddhartha come to mind directly. I strongly recommend all four of them.
- I was directly thrown into the responsibility of having to be captain of the speech and cross country teams. Those really took most of their effect the following year, but the burden of being a leader started near the end of my junior year.
11 is my lucky number because I was wearing a #11 jersey
when I broke my collarbone playing baseball. That is a post that is coming in
the near future (and a really fun story I might add), so no sneak peeks!
My parents tend to post really embarrassing photos of me on
Facebook. This is one of them, and for the most part, I hope they stay buried
in the depths of photos added of me. This fact runs along those lines.
I am not embarrassed by photos of me, providing they are not
of me between the ages of 10 and 14. I am immensely embarrassed by the things I
said, did, and wrote when I was in junior high and I just wanna keep those
hidden, which is weird, considering how open I am to tell stories of my past.
It wasn’t that I went through that “rebellious phase” then
either. I was just unbelievably unexciting. I like to think I’ve changed, but
my whole life this semester so far has been work, class, homework, sleep, so I
really haven’t improved much.
I think 90s kids are full of shit, and that the 2000s had
just as many good things. And while the 2000s had songs like Fergalicious and
the rise of Justin Bieber, the 90s had the song Barbie Girl.
Barbie Girl.
Also I hated Space Jam when I was a kid and I still hate it
now.
My favorite animal is the capybara. I don’t really have a
good reason for this. But they make me smile.
It’s no secret that my education is important to me. I mean
look how seriously I took my graduation from high school up there! But the
importance of college is something that I’ve always had drilled into my head.
And when I first actively considered college, I wanted to be a teacher. A high
school history teacher.
Then I realized I couldn’t stand high schoolers. Soooooooo
no dice.
I tell a lot of people that they could be cool and awesome
at drawing if they’ve had fifteen years of practice like I did, but that isn’t
true. At all. In fact, during 11 to 16 years of age, I rarely, if ever, picked
up a pencil to draw. It wasn’t the cool thing to do. People were wowed that I
could draw in high school because it was something I simply hadn’t done since I
was about 10 years old and it was suddenly weird that this boring and quiet kid (I swear I was this in jr. high and the very early parts of high school) would actually have a big talent.
I went for years just trying to express the creativity in
other, less effective methods. And it sucked. I’m not going to say that I had a
case of depression, but I just wasn’t having any fun, either at school, or with
my friends, or alone.
But one day, during a class I didn’t want to pay attention
to, I had this really strange urge to draw. I don’t even know why I decided to
draw. I just drew a little cartoon on a sheet of paper. That sheet turned into
this:
and suddenly the floodgates were opened and I realized just
how amazing it was to draw again. Drawing stupid and goofy during my junior
year remains to be one of the most cathartic moments of my entire life, and I
owe it all to that first drawing on that paper. That dumb little fire-breathing
lizard is the reason I’m an illustration major.
I’m genuinely surprised you’re still reading this. This is a
long post. Props, man.
My first few unedited Facebook statuses, posted in my 9th
grade year:
- is drinking the mountain dew and wondering why the f***youtube isn't working for him. ARRRRGH! (Ooooh, censoring myself in 9th grade. Meta.)
- is feeling ever more like a nerd! Not Surprising, huh?
- is gettin' dangerous with weezer lol. (CONTEXT: There is a song by Weezer titled “Everybody Get Dangerous,” I am NOT experimenting with illicit drugs)
- · Anyone else think Led Zeppelin is totally Bombin'?
- is suffering from a pained wrist, but still nonetheless will be on a sugar high all night! (OH GOD OH GOD DOUBLE ENTENDRE WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING I DON’T THINK THIS IS ACTUALLY ABOUT MASTURBATION BUT STILL EW EW EW EW EW)
- is not the ultimate happiest right now...don't wanna talk about it.
Yeah. I was one of those
people, too. God I hate myself from back then.
This is why I cannot bring up the junior high years. I was
so awkward ugh why am I not turning 21 I need to drown my sorrows in whiskey
and chase that whiskey with jet fuel.
As you may have noticed, I did a bit of Spring Cleaning on this site! My
reasoning was not that it wasn’t adequately designed or anything, it’s actually
because it reminded me too much of Green Day’s Album, American Idiot, and I feel like a dignified 20-year old like myself
should associate himself with much higher-grade musical art.
…like the broadway musical version of American Idiot. Which has been playing on repeat for the past three
weeks.
I am awful at finishing lists.
AWWWWWWWWWW! I made an appearance. Love it!
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