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I awake with an odd feeling in my belly. It is almost like the feeling one receives after having been falling for more than a few seconds; that sense, after the initial reaction of feeling like all of one’s internal organs became gridlocked on their through the neck into the brain, that one experiences several moments into a free fall in which it no longer feels unpleasant, but sort of euphoric. It is similar to that momentary enjoyment that occurs immediately after a sneeze.

The dream that sent me crashing back to consciousness was bizarre, to be sure, but more in a “what does it mean?” sense than a “I’m afraid I’ve gone insane” way. I had been trapped in some sort of environment without any gravity, though I had no suit of any kind and I was able to breathe freely. I floated around for a few moments before I noticed that one of my back teeth was loose. This struck me as odd, because I was a grown adult and had already lost all of my baby teeth, but I tried to pull it out anyway. The more I pulled, though, the more I just did somersaults in mid air. Because there was no gravity, I could never get any leverage, so I simply pulled myself in circles over and over.

Then, at some point, I simply woke up. Nothing woke me up, there was no loud noise or anything of the sort, I just snapped out of it, which is something that rarely happens to me while I am dreaming unless it is a bad dream. This wasn’t a bad dream, though, just strange.

As a 23-year old, I have a rather uncharacteristically deep relationship with and appreciation for bowling. It is not uncharacteristic because it is bowling, as you will learn, but because such sentiment is typically reserved for the more geriatric crowd.

This, too, is not because only old people enjoy bowling; a Saturday night trip to the local lanes featuring “cosmic” or “galaxy” bowling would prove that isn’t true. (Side note: I am not sure what about disco lights, pumping 80s music and black lights constitutes a galactic or cosmic experience…I am not an astronaut, though, unlike Mel, the ponyhaired old guy behind the counter at the alley, so perhaps I shouldn’t judge).

It is the amount of my weekly dedication to bowling that is verging on senior citizen.

Myself, and 3 friends, are in a Wednesday night bowling league. We are about 30 years below the mean age of the rest of the teams. if there is nothing better to do (and there rarely is), we, also, end up at the alley for two to three games of the cosmic on the weekends.

I used to think this dedication to be somewhat pathetic, but, at our most recent league outing, I realized I was wrong. It suddenly became clear why we dedicate so much of our lives to bowling.

Bowling is the number one social activity. Period.

It offers the perfect mix of physical activity, the atmosphere for conversation and shenanigans, food and beer. The actual act of bowling offers enough of a reprise to keep things moving while you have a generally pleasant time with friends. It is not too loud where you cannot talk (a la clubs/trendy bars), and drinks are reasonably priced. And the activity is easy enough that even that even your large and nonathletic friends can participate.

While bowling chicks are something to be desired, the occasional diamond in the rough will come through, and, unlike clubs, you are at an immediate advantage because you can just look up at the scoreboard, and already know their name. A perfect entry point….

Yes, bowling has seen better days with the in-crowd, but the social opportunities it offers will always keep it right their on the cusp of being awesome.

Heroes. They are the people we look up to, the ones who seem to achieve the impossible in front of the greatest adversity. They drive us, inspire us, help define us (or at least seemingly define us, as it was frequently a college admissions essay/interview question). I would wager that much of the greatness that people achieve in this world is the result of personal heroes.

But just as they inspire us, so, too, can they break us, devastate us, when they fall.

Some disturbing news from the celebrity circle yesterday. Something I never thought would ever happen. I was scanning the news, the uppity-up at work, when I came across this. For this not wanting to click the link, here is an excerpt:

“Hollywood movie star Sylvester Stallone admits he used Human Growth Hormone, HGH, to improve the appearance of his body for his latest Rambo movie, and does not think it was wrong to do so.”

Of course there is nothing wrong with defeating evil, but if you must do so with performance enhancing drugs, something is terribly wrong. Rambo is fraud. The bad guys have won. The Soviet Union was too strong for normal American Patriotism, it needed enhancement. I don’t remember much about the cold war beyond jokes about the giant birthmark on Gorbachev’s head, but this is devastating to our victory. To think that baby-oiled, bandana wearing American patriotism is not enough to defeat the evil in the world; that illegal substances are required to relinquish evil’s grip on the world spells doom, in these young eyes, for the world and mankind’s future.

…

But wait! As we know, the darkest hour always precedes the turning point towards great light, and in my heartbreaking despair over my fallen hero, a glimpse of the sun breached the horizon offering me sanctuary and solace when I stumbled upon this. Again, for those too lazy to click (or too engrossed with this article), here is an excerpt:

“They may no longer be new. They may no longer be kids. But NKOTB just might be out to prove they still have the right stuff.

New Kids on the Block, the prototypical boy band of the 1980s and early ’90s that preceded the Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync on the pop charts and in the pages of Tiger Beat, are reportedly on track to reunite.”

Hallelujah!!! There are two shocking elements to this announcement. First, the New Kids on the Block are getting back together. Bzzzzzz! Shock number one, and what a shock it is. But, if you keep reading the article, you find out that the band made the announcement on “The band’s official Website, www.nkotb.com,”…

The New Kids on the Block have a website. Bzzzzzz! Shock number 2! No wonder so few people read Misusing Big Words. Everyone is on a site with no relevancy to anything that has occurred in the past 15 years. Like the Corn Nuts website; why would such a site exist? It has no reason, no purpose. Well…I guess it didn’t, until now with the return of my other heroes.

What a serendipitous occasion! While one hero falls into a big hole of lies and deceit, out of the hole of has-beens and irrelevancy climbs 5 heroes to take his place.

America still has a chance.

Parents are liars. Seriously. I think it’s a requirement to be a parent.

Don’t believe me? Who told you all about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy and the Labor Day Gnome? (What, you’ve never heard of the Labor Day Gnome? You know, the little fellow that comes at night and stocks your kitchen full of beer, pretzels and pork rinds for the football-filled holiday? I guess that was an original creation of my dad.)

Parents lie all the time. I don’t fault them for that—it’s part of the job, like passing the buck in a corporate job or schmoozing in a marketing job. In the job requirements under the posting for “Parent,” you’ll see all kinds of personality traits and characteristics, such as “Able to withstand loud noises for extended periods of time,” “Enjoys saying the word ‘No,’”and “Willing to work evenings, weekends and holidays, as well as basically every minute of every day.”

And at the bottom of such a list, were it to exist, would be the last, but nowhere near least important, requirement: “Capable of telling lies with conviction and finesse.”

If this seems harsh, I apologize. I’m in favor of this. I’ve met a lot of rotten kids in my day, though thankfully I never was one. If parents can exert more control over them by stringing them along with a cute little lie about a magical rabbit who poops candy on Easter, then so be it.

However, some of the common lies parents tell I just don’t agree with. With that in mind, here are some parental lies I think the world could do without:

1) Eating raw cookie dough could kill you.
Yeah yeah, I’ve heard all about big bad “salmonella,” but have your parents ever told you what it does to you? Have you ever known anyone who got “salmonella poisoning?” Of course not. As near as I can tell, the only reasons for this lie is to avoid kids getting their slobber in the cookie dough and to make sure parents have enough to make all the cookies they want to make. Based on how delicious cookie dough is, I don’t find those reasons to be substantial enough to warrant those lies.

2) Eating vegetables is good for you.
People are still spreading this falsehood around. To refute it, one must only think of the natural world. Many poisonous animals have very distinctive colors to ward off predators from eating them, thereby saving two lives. I think this is a good comparison to make with vegetables. The reason they taste so bad is because they are bad for you—so don’t eat vegetables and save two lives.

3) It’s bad to lie.
Ah! Lying to kids about how it’s bad to lie—that’s like putting someone to death for committing murder. It’s not always bad to lie. Case in point: Sam’s wife asks him how he likes her new haircut. Sam tells her the truth—that her new haircut makes her look like Sasquatch with Chihuahuas growing out of its ears—and Sam sleeps alone on the couch for a couple nights while Sam’s wife cries herself to sleep. Wouldn’t a little lie have benefited both parties?

What are your favorite parental lies?

Men are supposed to have body hair. This is a fact. People, mostly women, who argue otherwise are just wrong. You will see from the graph I copied from a very scholarly and scientific journal that the amount of body hair a man has directly correlates with his amount of manliness, up until his amount of body hair pushes him past the Sasquatch line, in which case he is inevitably more Sasquatch (and therefore, most likely difficult to photograph without appearing blurry) than he is man:

As you might assume from my staunch believing in the male body hair, I have a sufficient amount. On the graph, I would put myself around here:

I do believe, that a certain amount of kemptliness is necessary, though, based on my experiences with women, in the following places:

1. “Down There”
2. Chest Hair
3. Toe/Foot Hair
4. Armpit Hair (if necessary…you will know it is necessary if with your arms completely at your sides the hair is still visible).

(Note missing from the list is back hair. Apparently, any back hair is a negative)

It was during a recent trimming of my chest hair, that I discovered I possess super human abilities. The majority of my chest hair is normal, moderate length, but upon combing through it (not actually combing, it isn’t that thick), just below my left nipple, I found what I have dubbed “the super chest hair”. A single hair, over 4 times the length of a normal chest hair, had sprouted and made home. Attached is what I would like to introduce as evidence 1:

This “super chest hair” is just further proof, along with my left-handedness, that I am, in deed, an X-men.

I am sure I’ll want to forget what I cannot remember doing last night. That’s typically how these things play out. A mass text message apology fishes out the most memorable mishaps and outlines the more personal apologies I might owe to people (for any number of reasons). Apparently, everyone is aware of my love for sausage (of the polish and vienna variety, not any other type of sausage). That’s not too bad, but I’ll spend the rest of the weekend nervous until all of the details are filled in by co-workers on Monday.

I guess some people might call this problematic. I just call it a good time.

I am a firm believer of personal responsibility, though. That is why I am quick to find out the horrors (not whores) that I have done, own up to them, and make my amends. Inevitably, the photos will surface on Facebook, and James ‘James Malins’ Malins will be tagged in the most ridiculing of situations.

But, I will never untag those photos. No matter how bad. Not as the firm believer of personal responsibility (see previous paragraph) that I am.

As more and more people and companies use Facebook and MySpace profiles of perspective hires as resume/interview annotations, this could potentially be problematic. I don’t agree with people, though, who take issue at companies doing this. The complainers argue it is outside the work setting, or the lesser of arguments, they were drunk and it shouldn’t be held against them.

If you consciously decide to drink, and drink to the point that you do regrettable things, even if you don’t remember doing them, it’s your own damn fault. No one made you/me drink that much. Unless you were unconsciously drugged, you are always responsible for your behavior, regardless of the state you might have been in when you did it. Own up to it, and deal with it.

It is the only way you will learn.

That said, if you are going to engage in immoral or reprehensible activities, get blasted, visit strip clubs or porn shops, or sodomize farm animals in front of cameras, there is one way you can escape some blame. If people cannot prove it is you, in some sense, you are free of on-going blame (you do have to account for it initially, but there won’t be any long-winded aftermath.

This little invention will help you out.

Side note on MySpace profiles: While I never had one myself (that is one of my favorite self bragging points), if you are a MySpace owner, you will be interested to know about this.

I think we could all take a cue on how to act from Mr. Flu.

This isn’t a wise elderly gentleman I know that you haven’t met yet. Rather, I’m talking about influenza, the disease that gets passed on from person to person so well it would make Haley Joel Osment and his co-stars of the film, “Pay It Forward,” quite proud.

Here we come quickly to the central point of this post: contagious diseases, like Mr. Osment, teach us about generosity. They coach us on how to live more deeply, in a more fulfilling way, helping others and giving of ourselves constantly.

And how do we repay disease and illness? Are we ever thankful? When was the last time we said to one another “Hey, I think I got my cold from you. Thank you! Now I can pass it on to several of my healthy and deserving compatriots.”

Sickness and disease are most underrated, underappreciated, and generous of all of us. And despite adopting several different foreign children, Brangelina isn’t even as generous as disease. I think even Haley Joel Osment would agree on that.