everything is fine

"Eh," I said. "I wouldn't." He whipped around in his seat to glare at me. "Seriously, dude?" I shrugged. "I don't know, man." I said. "I'm not into that. She's not my type." He tossed his hands up. "What," he asked. "She's hot?" I sighed. I've never really enjoyed those conversations. Not with the company I held, I suppose, but also in general. It feels out of place. Improper, I guess. But maybe not that. Maybe just frustrating, trying to make your point. "No," I said. "She's just..." "She's not your type?" His girlfriend chimed in. He laughed. "Oh, I have a type?" I asked. "Yeah," he said. "It's girls who are actually guys." "Yeah," she said. "I know your type. Blonde, tall, way too skinny. Artsy or indie, kind of punk-ish. Into music you don't like. Unfriendly." I fought back the...

A cynic is just a frustrated optimist . That was the fortune out of the fortune cookie. "How appropriate," they said. "You would be the one to get that." I stuffed it into my pocket because, really, it was an appropriate fortune. I don't even like fortune cookies. They don't taste good. The only reason I get them is to read the fortune. I couldn't care less about the disgusting shit it comes wrapped in. Quite clearly, I remember reading a book wherein a character was described as cynical. That actually happened on multiple occasions. I never knew what being cynical entailed. Being so young, I couldn't decipher the dictionary definition. And my mother never had a solid way of explaining it to me. People who see the bad in everything, I think. It's funny to see how cliques form between people as quickly as they do. Even in elementary school. Little group of best friends. Anthony and Luke and Joe and Jimmy. How they've all grown u...

I went to a wedding the other day. The second wedding I've been to in less than a year. The second time I've been an usher. The second tie I've been gifted. An interesting thing to watch, I guess. My collection of ties has really exploded in the last couple of weeks. Black, silver, purple, red. Slytherin. Not bad. But weddings really aren't my scene. Before the whole thing kicked off, I found myself sitting in a coffee shop with an old friend. Or what used to be an old friend. "I can't imagine it," she said. She didn't look up from her notebook. "I know people in their late twenties who still don't know what to do with themselves. I just can't ever see myself getting married." She glanced up. "You aren't planning on getting married, are you?" I took a sip of my drink. "No." "Okay, good." She said. "I just had to make sure. Getting married at our age is an awful idea. It won...

I have awful body image. I shouldn't, really, but I can't help it. My grandparents used to tell me about what a chubby little baby I was. "You used to be a real chubby baby," they say. "But look at you! You've shot up and slimmed up!" For years they've been telling me things like that. "You and your cousin both used to be chubby babies." They say. "But you got real slim." And I'm terrified of the day my metabolism slows down. Or the day I look in the mirror and can't see my ribs anymore. I don't ever want to gain weight. Or flab. Or pudge. I just want to be skinny as hell, safely below 150 pounds. It bothers people, I think. They think it's just part of the whole being an asshole thing. But no. It's legitimate vanity and narcissism. I was crossing the street the other day trying to get to the bank. A girl walked up to me, trying to hand out books of coupons for businesses around campus. "Would you like so...

I've had this lunch box, this one lunch box, since I was about five years old. I remember because the lunch box I had before it was a garish plastic box with dial latches that never properly shut. Everything would always spill out of it, and a Power Rangers thermos can only take so much abuse. Finally, my mom took me to get a replacement: a red Jurassic Park lunch box. The perfect size for the Power Rangers thermos and a sturdy plastic latch. For the briefest of moments, there was a substitute: a soft red Jurassic Park III lunch box. Well, sack, I suppose. Traded a Tyrannosaurus for a Velociraptor. That didn't last long. Sixteen years later, I'm still bringing that lunch box to work for lunch. Sentimental, I guess. It's just easy to get attached to things. Meaningless trinkets, especially. Not meaningless, really, since they get assigned meaning. A lunch box. A scarf. A magnet. A bracelet. A dreamcatcher. A cup. A pen. It's kind of nice to notice those things. It...

I spent the last few days playing The Sims 3 . And when I say playing, I mean in marathon doses. To the exclusion of a great many things. Like eating and sleeping. Work, almost. I built worlds. Homes, people. Lineages rose and fell. Relationships grew and withered. Loves were endured and hardships were enjoyed. I made people I knew. I made myself. And then, one Sim-day, my Sim grew up. And then the game told me to get my Sim's life in order because soon it would be too late to fulfill all of my Sim's life wishes. And so I stopped playing The Sims 3 . In an entirely unrelated conversation, a friend asked me if I ever wanted to be an astronaut as a kid. I still want to be an astronaut . I'm going to go to space. And to all the continents. And I'm going to summit Everest. And I'm going to be a doctor. And work at the CIA. And write a book. And make a successful band. And write a movie. I refuse to outgrow the dreams I had when I was a kid. Time's running out, and I...

"Is there an Apple store around here?" The old man asked. "I need to get a charger for my Kindle. I want to read a book." I continued sifting through the displays. I wasn't really paying attention to what I was doing anymore. "Uh," the young man said. "I think there's another computer store somewhere. Maybe on campus or something." He sounded bored. Tired, uninterested. "Is it an Apple store?" The old man asked. I tried not to get involved. Just not very hard. "The Campus Computer Store." I said, walking toward them. "I'm headed that way right now if you'd like to come with me, sir." The old man looked at me and smiled. "Alright then, let's go." I looked at the young man. "Thanks." He said. And so we walked out of the Co-op and waited to cross the street. "So much has changed here," he said. He looked at all the colorful signs and shops around him. I looked at the ...

I saw a peregrine falcon the other day. An actual peregrine falcon. All those years of watching Kratt's Creatures and Zaboomafoo finally paid off. Except, apparently, Zaboomafoo was a show for little kids. Which did not bother me in the slightest. But it sat there on the tree branch, watching me over its shoulder. I stopped and stepped off the sidewalk and sat down on the slope. And we sat together for a while. He looked around, occasionally, as I wrote in my journal. We sat in silence for maybe half an hour. I looked at him, he looked at me, and the creek bubbled in the background. The sun drifted lazily toward the horizon when the falcon hunched his shoulders. He froze for a moment before exploding off the branch. He shot through the foliage, not brushing against anything, toward a building on the opposite bank. In the air, he snatched a smaller bird away from its nest and spun around. He swooped back through the dense branches and glided across the road, mere inches of...