the self-highfive

The highfive is a greeting that is greatly under utilized and I think it’s due for a comeback. Rather than starting meetings or introductions with a handshake, wouldn’t it be more fun to highfive? No death grips to deal with, no limp hand syndrome, or excessively moist palms.

The reason I’m thinking about this is because of a conversation I had last night about a little thing I do called “the self-highfive.” Now I’m not talking about literally highfiving yourself because that would just be clapping, and there’s nothing particularly cool about that.

The self-highfive is more of a mental highfive, rather than an actual action. I like to flash back to myself when I was 16 years old and think about just that little sliver of my life. I try to imagine an exact moment, on a specific day and what I was probably wearing, what I was probably doing, how I was probably feeling. By then I was working almost everyday in the very prestigious job of Sales Floor Associate at Target. My little sister was just a baby then. My step-father was drifting in and out of sobriety. My mother was battling depression and would be in bed for weeks. My older sister was long gone. I was in an elite, private all girls high school where my hand-me-down clothes and multi-colored ’86 Pontiac Sunbird didn’t quite fit in.

When I look at that sliver of my life, I think it would have been more appropriate for that person to end up as a drug addict in some abandoned building somewhere. Day after day I only ever had one thought… just wait until I turn 18. I would think it over and over and over. It became a mantra for me.

So the self-highfive is really more of a divestiture of self. It’s the present me going back to the 16 year old me and saying, “I got us out of there girl! Highfive!”

It’s my reality check on those days when I’m frustrated by things that are so small in comparison to what the 16 year old me was dealing with. It’s also my own private internal celebration for what I have and what I’ve done. The self-highfive should be more widely embraced. Everyone needs to just take a moment, step back, and congratulate themselves.

the trick date

I should have known when I kept catching the guy from my training group checking me out that something was up. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt… maybe I’m imagining it… maybe I’m just being conceited… Or maybe I just have a booger on my face.

Tonight I learned how a guy can trick a girl into going on a date. It was creepy, yet effective.

Step 1: LIE ABOUT A GROUP EVENT. Tell the girl that the entire training group is meeting up for dinner and invite her along.

Step 2: LIE ABOUT THE REST OF THE GROUP GOING AHEAD. When the girl shows up, tell her that the rest of the group is meeting you at the restaurant. This will ensure that there’s no immediate flee from the scene.

Step 3: WEAR LOTS OF COLOGNE. Don’t be shy when it comes to the cologne, guys. You’ve reach the perfect level just when her eyes begin to water and burn.

Step 4: STAGE A FAKE PHONE CALL. Now this is the most important step in tricking someone into a date. When you arrive at the restaurant pretend you can’t find the rest of the group. And just to guarantee authenticity, stage a fake phone call to someone in the group you were “supposed” to be meeting out. Now the guy I was with didn’t even bother pressing any buttons on his cell phone but I recommend dialing something, even if it is your own voice mail. Begin to pace slightly, but not too far away from the girl (you want to ensure she hears). Talk loudly saying phrases like “You’re where?... I can’t hear you… I think your cell phone is breaking up.”

Step 5: ATTEMPT TO LOOK GENUINELY CONFUSED. Tell her you have no idea where everyone else went and that it’ll just be the two of you. Try not to smile too much… you’ve got her trapped now.

A few notes about this trick date and any date in general:
DO NOT spend the evening making fun of the place the girl is from.
DO NOT laugh on the inhale… so unattractive.

just drive

Since I sold my car a few months after arriving in Chicago, something I’ve longed to do is drive. I’m not talking the stop-and-go, congestion driving of the city. I’m talking some late night highway driving. The kind of driving that you do in the middle lane of the highway just in case you swerve due to your slight buzz. The kind of driving where the road is so straight that it looks like at any possible moment you just might drive off the edge of the earth.

I’ve been in Dallas for two days now with a rental car at my disposal to attend training for work. It’s strange to admit this but I can’t help but find myself thinking about getting out of class just to drive. I don’t know my way around Dallas, in fact this is my first time here. But even though I have no clue where I’m going or how to get back, there’s nothing better than flying down the highway with the stereo so loud it’s shaking. During these drives I’ve also rediscovered how much I miss the radio. There’s nothing more thrilling than scream-singing at the top of your lungs to songs you love or songs you guiltily know the words to. After all you can’t exactly do that on your morning walk down the street with your iPod without looking borderline insane.

So far during my trip some car driving goodies I’ve had the pleasure of slaughtering are:

• The Sign by Ace of Base


• Jeremy by Pearl Jam


• Name by Goo Goo Dolls


• Push It by Salt and Peppa

Never mind that I'm driving a 2008 Chevy Aveo.

when your past catches up to you

I haven’t spoken or seen my father in several years now and the few times I’ve happened to mention that to people their reaction is always one of two things… quiet judgment or complete incomprehension.

I stopped chasing after him a long time ago, even before our current silent standoff. I was trying to take a nap earlier and I just couldn’t stop thinking about him. I rarely think about him anymore. As I was tossing and turning trying to shake him from my thoughts, I decided to stop fighting it... I went where my mind wanted to go and started reliving something I haven’t allowed myself to think about since I was 14.

What most people don’t know is that the summer between 8th grade and my freshman year of high school, I decided I couldn’t live in my mother’s house anymore, although that’s an entirely different story. I looked to my father to save me, which perhaps is somewhat unfair since he’s never really been a major figure in my life. It would be like asking the man you buy your morning coffee from to reach out and pull you out of a world filled with alcoholism, fighting, depression and chaos. I suppose it wasn’t fair but I asked nonetheless.

I’ve always had this secret love affair with writing. I had grown used to living in a world where no one ever asked me what I thought or cared about, but I deep down I was praying that for once someone would look to me and say, “so what do you think?” Writing for me was more than a hobby or bad teenage poetry. I felt that by writing I could somehow feel even just a minor sense of importance. I wanted to believe that my thoughts somehow mattered, even if no one ever read them.

A few weeks after I moved across the country from New York to Texas, a major part of me died and I can still feel the effects of it now. People have told me that I have a wall… that I’m difficult to get to know and although it isn’t intentional, I really believe this is why…

I had just started my freshman year of high school and returned to my father’s house after a day at school. I was greeted by both my step-mother and my father with a stack of photocopied pages from a journal I had kept stashed away in the far corner of a closet in the room I was staying in.

That same afternoon I was immediately taken to see Gene, a therapist they both shared. They bombarded him with the photocopied pages from my journal and attacked every sentence I wrote. This type of reaction is something you would expect from the sudden exposure of international conspiracies or a confession from Mother Theresa that all along she was really a brothel owner pimping out young children around the world.

During this deeply humiliating moment, I was the only one in the room who was silent and Gene finally asked them to leave. He only asked me one question while they were gone. He turned to me and said, “Doesn’t this upset you?”

The truth was my father had stripped me of the one thing that ever mattered to me and I felt completely violated and raw… The truth was I wanted to scream but no longer had a voice.

About a week later I returned to New York and my father quickly turned the room I had occupied into an office.

I didn’t write again after that for 4 years.

In 3 weeks my father comes to Chicago for a conference, which is probably the only reason I’m even thinking about this.