Honestly, it sounds like a hunting manual to me.

In my life there have been more than one but less than a few things that have completely confounded me; things that after looking into almost every option possible I still sit and obsess of what the mystery truly is. Not even the great enigma that is woman have I allowed to consume too large a portion of my time (although it has indeed, and a portion larger than I'm willing to admit). I probably wont ever fully understand them, and honestly, I'm okay with that. I love all my friends, male and female, equally (exceptions being my besties, whom I love more than average.)


I even found the elusive Kyle.


But this thing... this book that I've been assigned to read in my Christianity in Literature class (or as my poor teacher unwittingly puts on our absentee sheets, C. Lit) has been mentioned throughout my life, and I'm sensing some sort of government conspiracy. I remember distinctly three different occasions that I've inquired "what is this book about?" and for every time I asked, there's a huge blank spot in my memory.


What is this great riddle, you ask? This is truly the single most unsolvable thing since someone asked "why are these people so amazing!?" about Mumford and Sons. This conundrum is none other than the higly acclaimed book To Kill a Mockingbird.

I read the back of the book, trying to get a general idea of what this "great literary piece" was about. "The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy, Southern town and the crisis of conscious that rocked it." Wait, the crisis rocked the childhood or the sleepy town? And the story is about a childhood? I probably couldn't write two interesting paragraphs about my childhood.

"Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill a Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and creulty, love and hatred, humor and pathos." I thought this was about some kid, not a philosopher. Here, this part really gets me. "Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story." A love story... a kid love story? Maybe it's about a philosophical child's first crush. How cute!

I asked a couple of my friends what the book was about, and most of the replies went something along these lines. "It's a really interesting book. It's not about just one thing though. It's about like... everything. You know? It's an everything book. You'll just have to read it yourself."

I still was unsatisfied.

Turning to the ever-trustworthy Wikipedia, I found myself incredibly... not informed at all on a plot. "The story takes place during three years of the Great Depression  in the fictional "tired old town" of Maycomb, Alabama. The narrator, six-year-old Scout Finch, lives with her older brother Jem and their widowed father Atticus, a middle-aged lawyer. Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill who visits Maycomb to stay with his aunt for the summer." Sounds riveting. "The three children are terrified of, and fascinated by, their neighbor, the reclusive "Boo" Radley. The adults of Maycomb are hesitant to talk about Boo and, for many years, few have seen him." Hey, wait a minute, we could be getting somewhere here. Maybe a scary ghost story, or some mystery about the house? "The children feed each other's imagination with rumors about his appearance and reasons for remaining hidden, and they fantasize about how to get him out of his house. Following two summers of friendship with Dill, Scout and Jem find that someone is leaving them small gifts in a tree outside the Radley place. Several times, the mysterious Boo makes gestures of affection to the children, but, to their disappointment, never appears in person." Yup yup! I'm feelin' a juicy suspense scene where the kids break into the house to try to learn some secrets about this guy named Boo. He's even got a ghost name! BoooOOoOooooOooo Raaaaaadleeeeey.

"Atticus is appointed by the court to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who has been accused of raping a young white woman, Mayella Ewell. Although many of Maycomb's citizens disapprove, Atticus agrees to defend Tom to the best of his ability. Other children taunt Jem and Scout for Atticus' actions, calling him a "nigger-lover". Scout is tempted to stand up for her father's honor by fighting, even though he has told her not to. For his part, Atticus faces a group of men intent on lynching Tom. This danger is averted when Scout, Jem, and Dill shame the mob into dispersing by forcing them to view the situation from Atticus' and Tom's points of view." Oh, wait... what? There wasn't even a transition between these. Did they forget about the creepy guy named Boo? He's way more interesting than the judicial system! I don't know, maybe it's just me who thinks that...

Man, I just can't seem to find one steady plot for this book! I know there has to be one. My literature teacher always told me that you have to have a plot to make a good story, among other things like character development. Surely this "great American classic" has some sort of awesome plot. I must just be missing it.

Hark! What light through yonder window breaks! Finally, after hours of searching, I've found a wonderful explanation of the plot. You see, it is about Boo Radley! He's actually a pirate, who needs the assistance of the children to kill a giant robotic mockingbird. And there are pirates, and bears, and other such literary devices! I really can't stay to explain it to you, because I'm so jubilant about getting to read this book that I think I'm going to go and start it right now! Here's the full explanation of the book for you guys. As a matter of fact, if you don't feel like reading it, I bet this is in-depth enough that you can just watch it and not have to worry about reading it at all.

I'm here to talk about... men?

So I figured that the female readers out there could use a little bit of reading material that was directed more towards them, instead of just me raving about what men like. I'd write it myself except for 1: I have no idea what I'd write about, 'cause like, I'm a guy, and 2: somebody else already did it for me.

So without further a-do, I give you this wonderful article about men, and why we do what we do.

http://artofmanliness.com/2010/05/09/scarcity-luxury-and-proving-ones-manhood/

Memories, oh, such good memories...

I love my job. Sure, it has its downsides just like any other job (like standing up, moving around for 5+ hours), but it has its upsides too. The latter outweigh the former, hands down. For starters, I get paid, which is pretty spiffy. Also, within about an hour before or after a shift I get to go in and eat all the free tasty mac-n-cheese/Bavarian cream dessert pizza I want. The little uniform I have to wear with "CiCi's" plastered across the front is a little cheesy, but I get to wear jeans, a fact which I try to rub in my brothers face as often as possible.

I'm pretty new to my job, and all the cynics say I'll get tired of it, which I might, but for now, it's great. A while back, this adorable little black girl got sooooo dang excited over cinnamon rolls that she started dancing around in a circle. She reminded me of Boo off of Monsters Inc. I turned to the assistant manager and said "wow, I've never seen kids so excited about food." He looked me dead in the eye and said "I have. Every day since I started working here." How freaking cool is that? When I applied at the it's-kind-of-like-a-miniature-Incredible-Pizza buffet I didn't think about that at all. I work where I get to see a bunch of little kids have fun. I love kids. I have three nephews and two neices. They're pretty adorable, if I do say so myself. I know more than a few people that would say theirs are more cute, but you know, whatever...

Anyways, today there was a group of about fifteen 5-7ish year old looking girls who were apparently just finishing up a season of basketball. A large African American man, loud voice, awesome laugh, stood up and starting giving out little participation trophies and thanking all the kids and their parents for a great season.

I don't know if you know this about me, but when I was little I played soccer. I mean, I loved soccer. There is nothing I'd rather do than soccer now that I'm not playing it anymore. I played for about eight years, from when I was four till I was twelve. I played a season of basketball, and one season of baseball too, but neither of them could take the place of soccer.

After every season, the coach would take us all out to the Mazzio's on 31's and Garnett, where we'd play Mortal Kombat 2 on the old Atari game box and stuff our faces with pizza. Our coach, a tall (well, to me, a little 3' kid) gruff man, who I personally believe wore a hat just so he could throw it on the ground when he got angry, would stand at the end of the three or four connected tables with a box crammed with participation trophies. As he called out each of our names, he would tell us how proud of us he was for playing so great (we were the second best team in our league for about five years) and tell one of his favorite memories of us playing. I remember his smile as he passed out the trophies to each one of us. He was angry at times, like most coaches, but he was awesome, and I have a lot of respect for him now that I look back on it.

I only remember a few of the guys I played with, but I mostly remember my friend Mati. He was this crazy Indian guy, pretty tall for his age, skinny kid, and he had the funniest run ever. He'd stick his arms all the way down at his sides with his hands pointing straight out. He looked like a freak and a pansy, but nobody made fun of him because he was still faster than everyone else on the team.

Sometimes I pass by the fields we practiced at, which were across from a football stadium, next to a baseball field, and behind a middle school. They're somewhere around the Panera on 41st.

This was probably one of the greatest times of my life, and I pray that I never ever forget it. I was just wondering if maybe you guys and gals had any super fond memories like this you felt like sharing. Comment or do whatever you do. I'd love to hear what you've got to say.

Oh, and this song is the bomb-diggity. A little depressing, but still, it's the bomb-diggity.

I'm here to talk about your personality! (Follow-up for 3/2/11)

There are more than a few reasons that I'd like to take the time to write a follow-up to my somewhat controversial blog "I'm here to talk about body parts!" One is that I don't really have anything else I want to be doing, but another one is because I did receive a lot of negative feedback focused on the point that I only mentioned that men are interested in your personality and focused mainly on the anatomical aspect of it. Which is true. I was there to talk about body parts, you know...

But all that aside, and without further a-do, I bring you what I perceive to be the somewhat truth about the attraction between personalities.

It's no secret among the general population, especially among teenage girls who feel inclined to inform everyone in an extremely verbose manner how awesome their best friend is. Just a few adjectives I hear on a regular basis when listening to these lengthy descriptions are as follows: crazy, insane, hilarious, perverted, perfect, gorgeous, awesome, etc. Most of these words have something in common though. They describe a character trait, or better yet, they fit perfectly how many people would describe someone's personality.

Now, I understand that many people's besties are of the same gender as them, but even the people they simple enjoy "hangin' out with" (or whatever you kids do these days) share similar traits. For instance, I enjoy socializing with people I can have a good laugh with. People I share similar interests with. People who like the music I like, and the movies I like, and all that good jazz.

It's vital to listen to this point I'm about to make, lest you miss the point of this whole blog; your best friends and you significant others are practically the same thing. Imagine: you're a single teenager, and your snookie-wookums Alfredo, the Golden Retriever, has just passed away. Who do you run to? Your best friend. Imagine: you're a teenager in a happy relationship, and your cutsie-pootsie Henryetta, the Yorkshire Terrier, has recently moved on to a better place. Who do you go to? Your significant other. These are the people who make a difference in your life; your best friends and your "best friend" (if you catch my drift) are the people who you seek the comfort of in times of need. These people make you smile when you're down, hear you out when you're misunderstood, fix you up when you're broken, and correct you when you're wrong.

Now let us juxtapose this with my previous article, where I said that if a person is lacking in either physical attractiveness or an attractive personality (based on the man's point of view and preference), you're lacking a huge factor in compatibility. Saying otherwise be like eating straight chlorine and saying it was salt (the Angelina Jolie kind of salt I guess).

And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that similar personalities will be more likely to make a deeper, stronger connection than those that differ. I personally am a big fan of Lewis Goldberg and what he calls the "Big Five."

• Openness to experience - This category is pretty self explanatory. This person is probably that fun loving hippie you hang out with. They're into discovering new things and being creative. Cool.
• Conscientiousness - This is probably one of the hardest words to spell ever. It's a good thing that these people lean more towards being careful and precise in their work and working off a schedule. This is probably little Miss Perfect in your class, who is hyperbolically disappointed in herself when she got a 98 out of 100 on an exam, or reminds the teacher of homework assignments.
• Extraversion - This dude (or dudette. I don't discriminate) is what your parents would probably call a "social bug." Don't try calling anybody that now-a-days. Sayin' that is liable to get you punched in the mouth. But there are greater sins...
• Agreeableness - The agreeable person can be spotted in their natural habitat sitting on a couch, surrounded by a group of their friends, listening to their problems and pumping out advice like Gandhi on speed, while bungee-jumping, just because that's how Gandhi would roll if he were still around (and on speed).
• Neuroticism - You know that chill guy who sits in class balancing his chair on it's back legs, hardly studies, and still gets all the answers right? That's this guy. He's super secure in who he is, and he's cool with it, and if you've got a problem with that, well, that's just fine with him. Not anything he can do about it, 'cause he's just being himself, and people love him for it.

You notice how under absolutely none of those little bullet points, anyone is ever described as "ridiculously attractive" or "sexy?" That's cause there isn't really a direct correlation between personality and looks. You could probably argue that more attractive people are more out-going, simply because those people are more accepted by society, but as far as there being any science behind that I'm not sure.

Anyways, like I was saying, similar personalities match up better. Social people like to be around social people; chill, relaxed people enjoy chilling in a relaxed manner with other chill, relaxed people. When we as humans, a social creature, look for potential partners, we begin by doing some actual, literal looking. Visual stimulation reaches the brain and tells you whether or not you're physically attracted to the person. Physical attraction releases hormones which create a desire to be near that person and get to know them. This is where personality enters the picture; if the person you're trying to get to know better has absolutely nothing in common with you, small talk is going to be a little bit more on the "sucky" side. You probably wont enjoy being around that person if they just so happen to be the biggest melancholy Mandy on Earth, unless you have a similar personality, and likewise if you're a little bit more on the mellow, deep, somewhat depressing side of the spectrum, hanging out with that one chick Daisy who basically emanates light and giggle ferociously every fifteen seconds is going to be absolute murder to you. Looks are just as important as personality. Simple as that.

I hope this has been enlightening to all of you who thought I was a little off my rocker after reading my other post, and I hope that some of that good 'ol controversy that we all love so much will find it's way to a more reasonable conclusion.