A Man in a Box

Alice in Chains sings a song called "Man in a Box." It's a pretty vulgar, coarse description of a dead guy considering the world from his supine repose inside a coffin. I found myself contemplating the world last weekend from inside my own box. It wasn't dirty and debased as the Heavy Metal anthem illustrated. It was bright and brilliant, it was sanitized and crisp, it was a tanning bed.

When my wife raised the idea of 'fake baking' I thought: "I've never been tanning...might as well check it off the bucket list." So on Friday we went to Color Me Tan, a charming little establishment just a few blocks from our house that promises to save us all from worrying about "the weather or messy sand." (two things I spend way too much time worrying about, I assure you)

If you've never been tanning, let me share the basic spirit of the experience with you: it's terrifying. You go into a little room, take off all your clothes, douse yourself in orange-cremscicle-smelling lotion and turn into a human hot-pocket. Once you lay down on the tanning bed, bathed in the most unnaturally imposing light imaginable, you have to close the top of the bed over yourself in order to get the full effect. For someone with even the most mild clostrophobia, this is somewhat of an intimidating feat. Once you've the lid is closed, the top of the bed (complete with a series of mind-numbing flourescant lights) is just a few inches from your nose. If you listen carefully, you can actually hear your skin cells silently calling out "Why have you forsaken us?"

After a few minutes my breathing stabilized. I had on my neato little goggles to protect my eyes (Holly took the pink ones so I got the manlier green) and was trying to fight my natural habit of resting my hands on my chest--a bad idea when looking to avoid giving yourself a racing stripe.

As a beginner, I had seven minutes of baking time so I only had brief period for reverie. My mind began to consider the rather base situation I was in: naked on my back in a tight capsule. I couldn't help but have a little "pre-ja vú" (a term I just invented to describe deja-vú before the event has happened at all) that I'd probably again be in a situation a lot like this, but under less...living...circumstances.

I thought about the great scene from the movie Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead (originally a fantastic play by Tom Stoppard that was made into an equally fantastic movie starring Gary Oldman and Tom Roth). In the scene, which I really hope you'll click on the link and watch, Oldman considers the future of eternity in a box. His logic is air tight in its comedic candor (I'll let you watch rather than do it a disservice in the retelling) and he quickly arrives at the line that I think is central to my tanning bed encapsulation: "Life in a box is better than no life at all."

So here's where I try to close out the rather broad metaphor I've gotten myself entrapped in here. We all live in little boxes to some degree. Some are our own creation and others have been constructed around us. Life on the outside might be much better; it could be drastically worse. There's really no way of knowing without opening the lid. Leave death in a box to playwrights and poets. When you open your eyes to the inside of a lid, do you want to see what's on the other side?

I enjoyed my tanning experience. I don't really think that I look any tanner and am not sure how soon I'll do it again. I'm glad, though, that I got a little time to consider the world. Life in a tanning bed, after all, is better than no life at all.

A Player at the Masters

Forgive me, but I'm in the post-major-championship-euphoria of the typical golf fan. I love golf in general: I've drilled myself into the ground with frustration trying to play it, I search online for all the random merchandise connected with it and I completely buy into all the "honorable" hype about one of the world's oldest past times.

On a typical weekend, though, there's little chance that you'll find me sitting down to watch a golf tournament. They are really fun in person, and I've even spent the day with my father marshaling at one and had a great time, but it's a little tedious watching a series of mid-level golfers shoot 40 under par while the best players in the world practice at their home courses and look forward to the next major; this is what tournaments like the Greater Milwaukee Open or Hartford's Travelers Championship tend to be like.

Then the majors come around. When the Masters, US Open, British Open (challenging because of the time change) and PGA Championship are being played, I could watch every second of coverage and recap and not feel a moment of impatience. The best players on the biggest stage, every one of whom would leave every bit of themselves on the course in order to win (we all remember Tiger's pained steps around last year's US Open course).

This Masters' weekend was fantastic. Sure, there were a few things we might have liked to change. If Disney producers had been writing the script, Mickleson and Woods would've played in the final playoff with Kenny Perry (or some other likable underdog). Of course, Perry (or whatever amiable anti-hero was put in his place) would triumph and earn the respect of his superstar competitors and the undying love of the fan galleries.

That didn't happen, but we did have some great drama. Tiger and Phil did make an incredible charge; watching their round was four hours of tedious excitement. Each man clearly wanted to make something happen with every single shot and in many cases they did. Once their round ended, the air did seem to deflate from the course, but that doesn't take an ounce away from how great the finish actually was. The playoff featured three lovable also-rans (Cabrera was the 2007 US Open Champion, but most non-golf fans wouldn't be able to pick him out of a police line-up).

Cabrera won, robbing us of the "oldest player to win a major" storyline offered by Kenny Perry and the "baby face wins first major" possibility of Chad Campbell. Though it wasn't the best soundbite, his victory was impressive. He hit his ball off a tree on the first playoff hole and rallied to win. I have a lot of personal experience hitting trees on golf courses. I can't remember a time when I've ever rebounded from such an event to make par and would've deflated like a leaky blimp if I'd done it on the 19th hole at the Masters on Sunday.

So hats off to Cabrera. But for me, the moment of the week was actually on Friday afternoon. Gary Player, who won the tournament three times and played in it more than FIFTY, walked up the 18th hole for the last time. The 74 year old South African was 14 strokes above the cut line and wouldn't be playing in the weekend excitement.

As he approached the final green for the last time, Player was amiably chatting with playing partner Stephen Ames. Ames is hardly a superstar, but finished in the top 20 at the tournament and has a name a golf fan would recognize. He and the legend were laughing together as they came within 30 yards of the green, when a magical thing happened: Ames patted Player on the back and stopped walking.

I know that the whole "golf-as-honorable-exercise" thing can get a little nauseating--Jim Nance always overdoes it when he covers the Masters--but you've just got to love a moment like this. There were no stage directions, ceremonies or tv time outs, just the simple gesture of a young player towards the Player, who was allowed to take the magical walk all by himself.

As he entered the green, there was no doubt to whom the standing ovation of the immense 18th green gallery was directed. Gary Player, a humble and spiritual man, briefly got to his knees and clasped his hands together before finishing his round and his Masters Career.

I'll take my lesson from Ames for the week. Let's all take a moment to find a way to honor those around us. There may not be cheering galleries or half-century long championship careers to celebrate, but it's a great gesture to let the other guy walk onto the green alone.

The Writing on the Bathroom Wall

There's a story from the book of Daniel. It's got all the great action and drama that you'd expect from Biblical verse: idolatry, doubt, disembodied fingers writing on the wall of a banquet hall, stupefied scholars and a single wise mind.

When I discussed this blog post with my wife, Holly, she offered this parable as the right inspiration for a title: I wanted to write about bathroom graffiti at William and Mary and this was the story of "writing on the wall" in a "throne room." What could be better? What could be more snarky than that?

I try to do my research, so I looked into the verse and considered the events: a banquet of worship to false idols, a warning from God that no trusted adviser could interpret and the incisive mind of Daniel, whose faithful servitude gave him the single clarity to understand the message.

It may seem a stretch to relate this tale back to the scribblings of undergraduates as they stand at a urinal. It may even seem insulting or blasphemous. I promise you now that is not my intent. The message of the story for me is that we should read the writing on the wall regardless of the fingers that wrote it--and whether or not they were still connected to their body.

I've been a grad student at William and Mary for almost two years, and have stood in the bathroom and stared at the wall many times. With each visit, my anticipation grows as each bit of penned graffiti comes into view. Apparently, some of my invisible schoolmates take quite a shine to sharing their thoughts while doing their business: clearing their mind as they clear their body. I don't know any of them personally, but we've got our own little relationship through the medium of painted cinder block.

Most of these posts are either vulgar or inane, but they're all pretty entertaining. One writer declared how a fictional character performed a certain unmentionable act, then two more edited the sentence for grammar (the description of her performance developed from "real good" to "very well" to "adequate"). Another discussion began with the seminal question "Why does everyone pee with a pen?" After several rounds, the final answer seemed so simply beautiful: "Because it's so difficult to write with a penis."

These little discussions usually center around the things that would interest typical college kids. Cynical expressions of life meaning or the value of a good Saturday night. One artist wrote, cryptically: "I am the way, but I cannot show you the way," he apparently thinks he's invisible. Another offered some uplifting encouragement: "The future of the world is in your hands," an interesting thought considering the environment.

Last week, a new post appeared: "Trust Jesus." There was an immediate response: "Trust me." If I were the type of person who peed with a pen, I would've been tempted to continue: "Trust something." I suppose I'm letting my inner grafiti artist/collegiate metaphysicist get drawn into the whole game.

Our whole society screams out to be heard, to be listened to, to make a dent. Some do it on bathroom walls, others in tweets or blogs, some write songs or poems while the rest of us tune in and hope for enlightenment. I don't know why this is such a necessary human trait, why we all yearn to believe that what's inside of us will be valuable to someone else. Like the wise man said:

"Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia; dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth."

In the story of Daniel's wisdom, the hand appeared and wrote what needed to be said. The next time you find yourself with the future of the world in your hands and a few moments of peace, take a chance to read the writing on the wall.

Smoke and (Rearview) Mirrors

Close your eyes and imagine:

You pull up to a stop light after exiting the highway. You're the third car in line, and you're listening to the latest Josh Groban smash hit on the radio. As you wait for the light to change, you notice some smoke filtering out of the sides of your hood and blowing backwards across your car.

That's all we need for imagining right now, thank you. So what do you do? Pull over? Call your mechanic/spouse/parent/friend and ask for help? Flag down another motorist? Walk home?

Those options sound sensible, but only if you are not the third owner of a 1991 Honda Accord with 200,000 miles on it. This is the category into which I fall, so I take a more subtle approach. I just turn off the car. I turn it off and wait for the light to change, then I turn it back on and drive away.

I want to assure the concerned of you that I know that the car is not in danger of exploding or catching fire and that the smoke comes from some oil burnoff that happens when the engine is hot and the car is not moving. I keep a close eye on the oil level and the engine heat. So, in advance, thank you for your concern.

Plus, I don't really have many options. I've poured more maintenence money into the car than I can rightfully justify anymore. The time is obviously right for a new car, but the time would be more right when I'm out of graduate school and have a paying job. So, for now let's avoid the obvious and focus on this car and what it means.

I bought the car for $100 from my brother Mark, who bought it for a lot more from my grandfather John Friswell. I actually remember sitting in Papa's garage when the car was new; I was in the driver's seat and pretending that I was a tv detective driving to solve a caper. It's been in the family for 18 years (I tried to register it to vote in the last election, but I couldn't find a birth certificate) and has served us all in a slightly different capacity.

It's carried my grandparents to the A&P to buy us little apple pies and whatever else was on sale. It took my brother to and from work at Acorn Acres Campground and withstood a smiley-face sticker attack from my neice and nephews (most of these still gaze at you from odd angles around the car). For four years now it's guided me around the streets of Washington, DC and Hampton Roads and everywhere in between.

So now it smokes at stoplights and is clearly nearing that parking garage in the sky. Yet everyday it starts. Everyday it carries me safely home...and sometimes the radio even works. What would life be like if there were more things around us like this car? Beaten and tired, it fights every day to stay at highway speeds; it struggles against inevitability to serve its purpose.

It's been a tough year. We're all beaten and tired and waiting for a chance when we can stop to investigate what's under our own hoods. Jobs are being lost, savings disappearing and hopes are faint. And I don't want to be a downer, but someday we'll all be smoking at the proverbial stoplight. Let's take a moment to think now, not just about how we'll carry ourselves then, but about how we plan on travelling all of the miles in between.

Life is about more than smoke and mirrors, and we've got to keep our engines running.

The Job Soul Search

(This post is dedicated to my friend Megan Good. Who first came up with the pun about "Airing" my thoughts and was also present for the "April's Fool" story before I callously chose to omit her from the retelling. Megood, you deserve better.)

Right now, I am a second year graduate student who is furiously sending out job applications. For some of these vacancies I'm overqualified, for some I'm not sure I even want to work in the field, for others I've never even heard of the agency/company to which I'm sending my information. Well, for those of you (un)comfortably in the working world, I will reassure you that this is now a bit of a harrowing process. A friend of mine actually admitted being jealous of my two rejection emails, because at least I was hearing something back from potential employers.

Through all of this, it's all too easy to lose sight of what is really important. Why we go to work and care about where we go to do it. I was pondering this concept today, and I remembered an old cliché rationalization that was popular when I was an undergrad: "I just want to help people."

I can be cynical, so I always translated this response as "I want to make a lot of money, but I'm too socially-aware to say that out loud."

The honest truth, though, is that this is a valid response. We go to work because we want to help people: to help ourselves, to help our families, to help our clients/customers/coworkers. We may not all be handing out blankets to hurricane refugees, but we're helping. As I thought this, I remembered a story from my bar tending days that I hadn't thought of for a while:

I made friends with two of my Saturday Regulars when I was working at Capital City Brewing Company. They were a really cool, young couple who came in for drinks and nachos (with a whole bunch of stuff on the side, I used to remember it all but now I've forgotten) most Saturday nights. This was usually not a terribly busy night for me so we always got a chance to talk and became quite friendly. I even invited them to my wedding and they came (and bought Holly the pasta maker that had been discontinued since we'd registered for it).

One night, as they sat down, Emily (name definitely changed) ordered a ginger ale. In the months I'd known them, she'd never had anything weaker than our lightest beer so I was certainly surprised by her temperance. I gave her an "am I dreaming?" look and she blushed.

"Well, we haven't told anyone yet, but I guess you should know...I'm pregnant."

I was very excited for them because I knew this was something they'd been working towards for a while. I was also quite flattered that I, their Saturday barkeep, knew about their bundle of joy before their parents and family members. The rest of the night progressed as normally as a Saturday night at a bar can.

Two weeks later, Tom (name also changed) stopped by the bar alone during a busy Thursday happy hour. He stood behind the full bar, among a mass of young professionals, and sipped a couple of pale ales while watching TV. I was busy and didn't have much time to chat, but as he paid his tab he caught my attention.

"Brett, so you know, when Emily and I are in here again, don't raise your eyebrow if she orders a drink...we lost the baby."

Such is the danger of knowledge I suppose. I got to be a part of their joy, and I was now a part of their loss.

Two days later, they appeared for their typical Saturday ritual. They sat at the bar for a few hours and each enjoyed a few beers and several different appetizers. It was a slower night so I spent time chatting and joking with them. I tried to make it a normal night at the bar, let them get out from whatever cloud was hanging over their heads.

When the time came to pay the check, they found they'd gotten the best deal in the history of the DC bar scene. They spent about three hours in the bar and had only a happy hour nachos and a diet coke to pay for on their bill. I'd done everything I knew how: comped items, used my own meal allowance and even thrown some money from my tip jar (Sorry Benni, I know we pooled our tips but I always made more anyway) in to cover the cost.

I dropped the check with their credit card receipt to sign and went about my business. I really didn't want to make a big deal out of it and had other things I should've been doing anyway (trying to make back all the money I'd lost the bar). As I was standing at the service bar and Tom was putting his coat on and Emily approached me alone.

"Brett, I just wanted to thank you for making this week a little bit better."

I appreciated her thanks and they went on her way. That story has always stuck with me. I was just a bar tender, a guy who worked late nights and knew how to make a good Cosmopolitan, but I know that in that moment I got to make someone's life a little better. I got to "help someone." I was Sam Malone but got to pretend--for a second--to be Mother Teresa.

Though I've lost touch with them I still keep up on the growth of their family through the miracle of Facebook. I don't know if they still visit my old bar but I'm sure that wherever they're going they've found some other bartender to pour their beer and put their guacamole on the side.

They now have a beautiful son.

So, now, I'm going to keep looking for jobs. There's probably not a "dream job" out there right now and I don't exactly know where I'm going to fall. I promise, though, that wherever I land I will never again commit the sin of believing that there is any job in which I can't help someone: no work that is invalid.

April's Fool

I am not much of a trickster. My mind, when I press it into this mode, tends to fall immediately to the obvious and overused options that I really don't think anyone would find amusing. So no, I did not post on Facebook that my wife was pregnant or that I won the lottery (if you're reading this and you did that, then I think it was a very funny and clever little trick).

However, I do tend to fall into the ploys of others rather quickly. Yesterday (April Fool's day--which actually developed from an interesting history, you should look it up) I played Bozo to both Google's "Auto Pilot" and Pardon the Interruption's story about Rick Pitino muscling John Calipari out of his new job as basketball coach at Kentucky. Apparently I really trust media outlets and internet search engines.

Being April's Fool is humbling, but I've found that when I pay a little attention I actually get a chance to learn something:

I was at my friend Stefanie's house yesterday when she came home from Happy Hour. As she walked in the door, my other friend Kaitlin--with whom Stefanie had been out--also called my cellphone. Both were eager to share this extraordinary event that had happened at Williamsburg Steakhouse and great Happy Hour spot Opus 9.

So, I listened in stereo as each related the tale of a mirror behind the bar crashing down from its moorings. As it fell, it spewed glass in every direction and took many of the liquor bottles sitting on their shelves to an early doom. Sitting about ten feet away, both Stefanie and Kaitlin were apparently in the shooting gallery of glass shards created by the collapse and had to take action to avoid greivous harm. (In defense of the restaurant, I should point out that I've been there twice and have not yet had to fight for my life.)

As you can imagine, this was quite a jarring experience for them and they were very eager to share the story. And I was as caring, concerned and compassionate of a friend as I could be:

"Baloney!" (Okay, so I didn't say baloney, but I told blogger that there wouldn't be adult content on the blog.)

I'm sure you can imagine that, having already been duped twice on such an auspicious day, I was not going to let my guard down and fall victim to what was obviously such a simple minded ploy. I was smarter than that!

Not only was I smarter, but I was willing to go the extra mile to revel in my victory of un-gullibility. So I had Stefanie get me the number for Opus 9 and I called. A very nice sounding gentleman answered the phone (I've changed his name to protect his identity):

Very Nice Sounding Gentleman: "Thank you for calling Opus 9, this is Dmitri."

Me: "Good evening, Dmitri. I am sorry to take up your time, but two of my friends were just in your dining establishment and came home with a story that, frankly, I have red-flagged as a blatant--and rather simplistic--April Fool's prank. Did you have an incident tonight involving a large falling mirror and an explosion of liquor bottles? Again, sorry for wasting your time with this."

Very Nice Sounding Gentleman: "Honestly, I wish I could say that they were trying to play a trick on you. Unfortunately, we did have one of our large mirrors decide to attack the back of the bar."

Me: "Dmitri, I can now see that you are a part of this prank. And frankly I'm disappointed. Good day."

Okay, so I'm willing to be the big person and--even though I'm still considering going by the restaurant and seeing this with my own eyes--admit that I was wrong. My friends were telling the truth and instead of sharing in the dazzling fright they must have had, I chose to skeptically deny the possibility that it was true. April Fools made me a failure as a friend. I'm so disappointed.

Don't worry, I will not allow this disappointment to ruin me. Instead, I've sought deeper meaning from this experience. April Fool's is a day when we try to play light-hearted tricks on each other for no other reason than to pass the time. I'm an April Fool, not just because I fell for two tricks but because I doubted a truth.

In life, I'm probably going to fall for many more tricks (some not so light-hearted as yesterday's) and deny many more truths (some far more important than whether a mirror fell). I hope that I can discover my errors with relative ease, but that probably won't be the case. All I can do is own my mistakes and try to chuckle about the oddities of the world and incompleteness of my own knowledge.

In the end, we're all April's Fools.