Laundry Lament

I have an irrational fear of doing laundry. To be clear, this is completely separate from my complete and utter revulsion towards doing laundry. I will discuss both here.

I initially use the term "irrational" to describe my fear of laundry because I don't think society would deem any fear of laundry rational. However, seeing as I have no desire to appease society any time soon, I submit it is a reasonable apprehension.

The following are my justifications:

1) I am horrified of a hidden red sock turning all my white stuff pink. First of all, let me just say that the chemistry behind what causes this to happen completely eludes me. I often wash completely white items with items that are mostly white but also contain colors, and no problems result. How can a completely red item ruin an entire wardrobe, but a red stripe on a white shirt be harmless? Surely they don't make different reds for different articles of clothing with this problem in mind! Thus I'm fairly certain this disaster never happens in real life. Plus, who owns red socks? And of those who do, who wears them?? However, seeing as this debacle occurs in the movies all the time, it must be real. The thought of at once losing about half of all the clothing I own scares my socks off, so to speak. Really, you'd pretty much have to go shopping immediately - white is the principle color of most clothing essentials! I daresay that every single person puts on at least one white article every morning when they get dressed, whether it be underwear or over-wear. What if you lost all of that in one fell swoop?! It's a frightening scenario that's solution of possibly temporarily sporting pink undies is one I'm not prepared to cope with.

2) Unlike unwelcome pink undies, shrinkage is a more bona fide concern when doing laundry. I often stand staring at the dial on the washing machine for minutes on end, trying to determine if the cold water option I am about to select to avoid shrinkage (this is confusing in and of itself, as the other kind of shrinkage only happens in cold water...) is really going to clean anything. There's no feeling much worse than trying on a great shirt at the store, finding it fits perfectly, purchasing it, wearing it one time, then pulling it out of the wash a child's small. And by the way, whenever an employee tells you it won't shrink, that's a lie. It will. No matter if it's 100% cotton, 50% polyester, 20% silk, 28% hydrogen, 17% oxygen, WHATEVER. There is always a washing condition out there that has the capability to shrink.

3) The diversity of washing instructions you find on clothing are so assorted that if everyone really followed them order by order, they would be forced to wash all of their items individually per different washer/dryer conditions. However, I can't help but worry when my favorite "tumble dry low" - labelled jeans are being violently tossed about in the regular cycle. When they come out unharmed, I find myself wanting to whisper to them, "I'm sorry. I will always wear you."

Resulting only from the hygienic need to have clean clothes, I am regularly capable of getting over these trepidations. Unfortunately, thoughts of fear are soon replaced by thoughts of "g- dammit.... I need to do laundry today."

The following are a few of many laundry-day annoyances:

1) More annoying than the act of washing clothes itself is putting them away after they're clean. It seems such an unnecessarily monotonous and recurring event...There must be conversations on laundry day between the tacky gift-items in your closet that you have never worn: a striped turtleneck says to a size xl turquoise t-shirt with "Mexico" plastered on the front,
               
                       "Hey, check this out. That blue Tommy Hilfiger polo shirt is back again."
                       "Again?
                       "Again. Where do you think he goes every week?"
                       "I don't know, but he always smells good when he comes back."
                 
Every once awhile, when I'm feeling particularly lazy, a pile of clean clothes travels around my room over several consecutive days. It stays on my bed until I need to sleep, then on my desk chair until I need to sit, then ends up on the floor before making it into my closet when I finally convince myself those clothes are on the brink of being dirtier now than they were when they went into the wash. I also seem to always be teetering on the edge of not owning enough hangars to occupy everything I want to hang up. I currently have a pile of "probably will never wear" clothes stowed away in a drawer, because in order to produce more hangars for important items I had to make sacrifices. Most likely, my collection of demoted clothing will grow before I ever purchase more hangars, partly because I have no idea where to buy hangars, but mostly because it just seems silly to spend money on such a thing.

2) Everyone has experienced the disappearing sock. Some like me hold on to a disturbingly large collection of singles, emptily hoping that their matches will someday reappear. How such a commonplace occurrence can remain such a mystery is fascinating. There has to be a sock colony somewhere, where runaways gather to recount their tales of escape, and where they hope to find a new partner who will forever wrap up in a ball with them, never to be forced onto a stinky foot again.

3) On laundry day, I usually dress like a hobo. This is because, to make sure I only have to do laundry once and only once a week, I refuse to dirty clothing that I might feel like wearing later that week. In fact, I have a laundry day outfit, consisting of a pair of shorts and shirt I would never wear in public. And when my laundry day outfit gets so greasy I have no other choice but to wash it along with the rest? Well, let's just say I make sure my roommate is out of the house on that day. Everyone has one outfit they can never take off...

My laundry cycle usually ends up coming full circle on Sundays, after frantically scrounging around my clean underwear drawer to no avail. It's then that I know I'm going to have to spend my day dejectedly wandering back and forth between laundry room and bedroom, lugging piles of clean and dirty clothing, wondering what's the worst that could happen if I delayed these activities past the wearing of my last clean pair of underwear...damn my hygienic ways.

LDM part 3: handshake horror

I need to know. I need to know who the first person was to deviate. I need to know so I can write them an angry letter. We had a perfectly easy, acceptable, traditional custom in place - you put your hand around someone else's, look them in the eye, and shake. Everyone knew it, everyone did it - it was conventional. Now: utter complexity. What the hell? Why not leave good enough alone!

Thanks to - someone - the hand shake is now another daily source of anxiety. I know I have to look terrified when someone approaches me for a greeting. My brain is completely consumed with trying to predict what kind of hand gymnastics I will need to perform. Will it be the fist bump? Will I extend an open hand only to attempt awkwardly slamming it closed at the last second when I realize the desire for knuckle-to-knuckle contact? Maybe I won't be able to close in time, and I will get a soft punch to the palm. Now I'm firmly grasping someone else's closed fist. That's embarrassing for me. But really, it should be embarrassing for them. Shake my hand like a normal person. If I wanted to punch you it wouldn't be softly and I surely wouldn't aim for your fist.

Then there's the high-five shake n' bump. You wind your arm back like you are going for a high-five, and when contact is made you slide your hand back before recoiling for a fist bump to end the maneuver. Most of the time, I'm again embarrassed as I grab the hand that is trying to slide away. How can I be blamed when I want to just shake someone's hand, then go on with my life? It's really not my fault you're still standing there knuckles out. The handshake isn't a multi-component system. I don't know how many times I've left a lonely fist in the dust, but guess what, I don't feel bad about it.

The newest trend is to is to do the high-five wind up, but instead of hand to hand contact it is a finger to finger grasping maneuver followed by a quick up-and-down pump and rapid pull-back. Yeah that makes sense. Something meant to be so inherently simple should not be so hard to describe. Herein lies the problem.

And then, of course, only slightly related but universally experienced is that delightfully graceful moment when one party expects a hug, and the other expects a shake. This screws up the rest of the interaction between the two, because one is now feeling under-appreciated, the other under-exuberant. How can the relationship go on? Seeing as hugging is just as conventional as shaking, I can't fathom any solutions, except establishing more clear relationship bounds with a person before ever attempting to greet them.

I'm realizing something interesting now, after writing all this. It seems that those who have experienced the phenomena I have (so very excruciatingly) detailed are part of a specific demographic. First of all, they are sex-limited. No, I'm not suggesting they need to go on more dates (or am I?), but that these hand shake alterations seem to be exclusively male-derived and practiced. The reason this baffles me is quite simple, but in the spirit of this post, I'll present it in a very complicated way: ask yourself which of the sexes is generally more complex, generating irrelevant and unnecessary figments often resulting in over-complication of downright simplicity. After thinking long and hard, see if your answer corresponds to the sex that has invented handshake horror. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, depending on where your biases lie. But if it doesn't, you are correct.

These nonsensical greeting exercises also seem to be limited to younger generations. This gives me hope that whoever started the trends is still alive and out there somewhere, somewhere where postage can deliver my angry letters. I haven't seen too many grandpas running around fist bumping people, although I have started to notice some of these trends showing up in older communities. Literally everyone is starting to catch on, and it's horrible.

It's ridiculous that I am able to write so much about this LDM, so I am going to stop. I'll conclude with something that pertains to the ladies, since they didn't get much love in this post: if your gynecologist ever goes for a fist bump, get the hell out of there.

Sorry mom.

The best pie is humble

I consider myself a casual musician. I enjoy this role immensely, because I love music, and I love creating it. Plain and simple.

I am constantly inspired by people who are better than me. Here are some of those people, and a short description of why they are better.

                            As far as technicality goes, this guy is king. I dare you to try and find a mistake 

                            in this song. You won't, because Antoine Dufour does not make them. There must 

                            be something magical in that bandanna that makes him better than me.

                          Kyle Landry is just your average youtube phenom. He has uploaded 314 piano
                          videos, which is 313 more than I have. Does that make him 313x better than me?
                          At least. Don't let the fact he dresses like a homeless person fool you - this guy is
                          good.

                          Not only is South Korea's Sungha Jung better than me now (as a 15 year old), 
                          but he has been better than me for awhile now. This young tyke already has two
                          full-length albums, has composed more than 20 original pieces, and tours
                          internationally.

                           Tommy Emmanuel's abilities are beyond description. He is is arguably 
                           the best acoustic guitarist in the world. At least I can feel good about
                           the fact that he is better than every other person too, not just me.
                           

                         Another man who gained his fame via youtube, Ronald Jenkees is a creative
                         maniac. Of course, it isn't hard these days to make music electronically, but
                         when someone does it like this they deserve credit. Ronald is better than me 
                         on keys, as well as on hat styles.

                         This is Andy Mckee, playing a Don Ross song. These men are both much 
                         better than me, and incidentally they both look eerily similar to my third 
                         grade bus driver. It's beyond the point, but necessary.

LDM part 2: awkward automobiles

Equal to airplanes and elevators in LDM frequency are automobiles. One circumstance in particular is a constant source of Larry David-esque neurosis - it's the "see ya there" trip.

You're finishing a nice meal at a restaurant with friends. After great dinner conversation, you and your satisfied companions decide to continue the night's festivities at your home. After invariably arguing over who gets to pay the tab, and even more invariably waiting for one of the men (defecating) or women ("freshening up," but really defecating) to use the restroom, you all walk out to the parking lot. You get in your car, they get in theirs. "See ya there!"

Five minutes later, you pull up to a red light, aware that arriving at the same red light in the adjoining lane is the other driver. You now face an interesting choice. Your first instinct is to turn, look at the other driver, and gesture. Whether it's a smile, a wave, a raising of the eyebrows, or a silly squinted glare, this instinct is a mystery. It's as if you forgot you just spent the last two hours with the person you're suddenly so happy to see. Maybe driving at the same time creates a sort of camaraderie, like you felt with your childhood best friend after go-karting together on a school field trip. "Look, we're both driving! Isn't this great?!" Whatever the explanation, turning to look comes with risks. The other driver may make a conscious decision not to look, and you are left snubbed, gesturing like an idiot at no one. Or, the face looking back at you will trigger your memory, and logic, and a level of awkwardness not ever previously experienced with that person follows. Alternative to turning and looking, you can snub, pretending you don't know you've pulled up right next to the other driver. This is dangerous too, as you may cause the other driver embarrassment over a funny face or a wave unresponded to. It's really a question of who you feel more comfortable embarrassing - you or the other driver. Clearly, I choose not to look.

The awkwardness then progresses as the light turns green. Whether you're competitive by nature or not, there is always the odd dilemma of whether to pull ahead of the other person or let them. Driving side by side is a third option, though that often leads to further awkward glances, waves, and snubs, which turns hazardous while in motion. Nothing ruins a friendship like diverting one into oncoming traffic with a poorly placed gesture. What proceeds ends up being a speed-up, lag-behind cycle that, from the air, must look like the equalizer bars during a pop song.

My personal solution to all this is becoming to never, under any circumstances, pull up alongside the other driver, whether at a light or in motion. I will wait in the turn lane that is 50 cars long to avoid being first in the other lane and side by side the familiar driver. I will remain in the same lane as them at all times for the entire journey, or I will accelerate ahead at the beginning and break speed laws to maintain distance. Whatever I have to do I will do in order to ensure being surrounded by unfamiliar drivers at all times.

Until there is a universal understanding that turning and looking is frowned upon instead of smiled upon, I will be forced to continue with these maneuvers.

LDM part 1: elevator etiquette

Sometimes, I have what I like to call "Larry David moments" (LDM's). If you don't know who Larry David is, familiarize yourself:

He's also the co-creator of a little show by the name of "Seinfeld." If you've seen it, you're comfortable with the notion of LDM.

I have a feeling most of us have our own LDM's in our daily lives, but society mandates that we keep them to ourselves. Well, I say it's time to put an end to that. In said spirit, here is act 1 of what will be a multi-part series detailing the many majestic LDM's I experience on an everyday basis.

Elevator Etiquette

The elevator is a place I happen upon on a daily basis. I work on the fifth floor, which is precisely the threshold where one can rightfully say, "screw the stairs, I'm taking the elevator." In one commonly occurring instance, I find myself stuck between adhering to societal standards and responding to my inner Larry David.

This instance takes form when I hear the dreaded, "hold the door!" or when those frantic footsteps can be heard coming around the corner. Someone is trying to squeak in before the doors close - it's a squeaker. In many cases, this is not necessarily bad because there is always the chance the squeaker will be getting off at a higher destination than yourself, thus having no impact on your travels. However, the fifth floor being the top floor in my building, I immediately calculate a 3/4 chance that I will have to tolerate a premature stop on the way to my destination. Now this is certainly a minute delay, and perhaps I seem quite silly (meaner terms are welcome) for concerning myself with such a minuscule inconvenience. However, consider the following scenario: you get in a cab (optional public transport, just like an elevator, right?). Just as you're telling the driver where to take you, someone else hops in, completely ignores you, and says to the cabbie, "drop me off on the way." Just like in an elevator, it's only a short stop, and it's on the way. But how are you feeling? It doesn't seem fair, does it? You were in the cab first, your destination should be first priority. Why should the same rules not apply in an elevator? In the heat of a scenario where someone is trying to to slip in at the last second, I am always so very tempted to feign an attempt at pushing the doors open button, while really jamming the doors close button with ferocity. Not only is there a 3/4 chance my upward journey will be delayed, but if and when that 3/4 chance comes to fruition, that means a person is opting for the elevator over the stairs when only travelling 3 stories or less. This is rude AND lazy. But, the nicer, "societal" part of my brain usually wins, and I allow the squeaker to squeak. When they try and make small-talk and my responses are curt, they should know why.

Besides all that, one can achieve a certain solitude while alone in an elevator. I'm hard-pressed to imagine another place where, even if someone wanted to, they could not get to me. For a brief moment I am completely alone, unattainable, and I am also being productive because I am moving somewhere I need to go. What a great combo that is. And how easily it can be ruined by a squeaker. Just have to squeak in, don't they?   

Urinal Fly

This product is targeting the epitome of male instinct. 

It's almost unfair.

I put the x in exercise

A study that came out in 2006 shows that aerobic exercise increases brain volume in aging humans. A separate study from 2009 reports that standard aerobic exercise is just as effective as anti-depressant medication in treating patients with clinical major depression.

From these studies, I have concluded that exercise is good for you.

Believe it or not, I actually came up with this hypothesis years ago. In strides to be healthy, I decided I should start going to the gym.

A couple gym-less months later, I decided I should start going to the gym again. A few months later, I decided to start going again. This process repeated itself cyclically during a time in which I accumulated about 10 gym trips, until now when I am currently, and again, not visiting the gym.

I think there are several reasons why I can't seem to find any consistency in my gym habits:

#1  It's boring.

Maybe it's my generation's need to always be entertained, or maybe lifting a heavy metal bar up and down just isn't my idea of fun. Whatever it is, I get so incredibly bored at the gym I just want to leave. Running on a treadmill, for instance, turns into a multi-dimensional feedback loop based on the inverse of the scientific principle, "time flies when you're having fun." As boredom increases, time goes by with decreasing rate, feeding back into and further fueling the increasing boredom. This leads to an increasing incidence of looking at how many miles you've run in hopes of the end being near, which further adds to time going by slow, as dictated by the "watching paint dry" principle. Suddenly, what is actually a 15 minute run turns into what seems like an eternity.

#2  It hurts. 

The feeling that briefly yet authoritatively pulses through my body after my fourth of four sets of leg presses is a pain unlike most others. Some people claim to like it, and to that I say you're weird, because we're not supposed to like pain. Why do you think pain exists? It's our brain telling us to cut it out. If you choose to ignore that, you're ignoring evolutionary instinct and that to me just seems foolish. And it doesn't end there - some say a good workout is most often followed by a day of being sore. A workout buff  (pun intended) would say it's a great feeling, a feeling indicating a successful workout. To that I again say, you're weird, based on the same principle as above.

#3   It's easy to get distracted amidst the hilarious things that are happening around you.

It's really hard to focus on your form when the person next to you sounds like they are giving birth. When I hear a grunt, moan, snort, unnecessarily long and drawn-out exhale, etc. from someone nearby I lose all focus. If it's a really ridiculous noise I even start to laugh, which I immediately turn into the half-smile teeth clench face you make when you're lifting heavy things. I also am particularly amused by the personalities you find at gyms, most comical, obviously, being the beefcakes, or as I affectionately call them, the upside down triangles. If their tiny lower halves and gigantic upper halves aren't funny enough, they saunter around the place like hormonal gorillas, splaying their varicose upper arms outwards in a behavior I can only attribute to territorial scent marking. If you don't believe in evolution, you will have an epiphany at your local gym where the beefcakes act like some sort of ape-human intermediate.

Then there are the fashionable ones, most often females (sorry ladies, but the beefcakes are more interested in showing you their entire rib cage by tearing the arm holes of a sleeveless shirt down to the hem), who insist on showing up in about $200 worth of workout clothes, a full array of makeup, and wearing more perfume than they would at a pheromone festival. You'll always know these types at the gym, because the only thing that is more obvious than the contour of their buttocks through their fancy gym tights (that's the formal term) is the two men running on the two treadmills directly alongside hers in a room of empty ones. I guess I don't blame them, she smells good.

#4  It's often hard to tell whose sweat you're wearing when you're done.

I suppose this one is more personal, as I am a bit of a germaphobe at times. But sometimes I seem to sweat A LOT after not working out that hard..... Really, who doesn't care if they lay on a bench or mat drenched in someone else's sweat? No one. Well maybe except the beefcakes - scent acquiring has been observed in Chimpanzees who roll around in a rival male's markings. We all know no one really wipes down the equipment when they're done. The gym offers it as a formality, but they know it won't happen. What's hygiene when you're compromising your immune system by stressing every muscle in your body to the point of dystrophy for 2 hours, anyway?

My sermon in this post will be to get exercise by doing fun things, like playing sports. That's what I do, and I still have a six-pack. Fun-filled exercise makes me feel OK about drinking six beers after I'm done. If you happen to be one of those who likes working out at the gym, more power to you. Just beware of #4,  continue ignoring #2, don't get caught in the trap of #1, and you're probably the subject of #3.