Elroy Hirsch Ran Funny
Date: April 24th, 51 days
Current Shape: lackluster
Goal: Split the difference between 25 and 40. 32:30.
Possible?
Pretend I'm Don Draper
but keep your pants on. Excerpt from a “write an ad pitch” assignment (concerning ASICS shoes) and a complete cop out to blogging original content:
……My cell phone is clean, polished, and trendy. Just like my body wash, my laptop, my four-door sedan, my razor, my overpriced suit, and every other piece of my monotonous day-to-day life…….
………Running is raw. Running is pure emotional release. Running doesn’t happen in a pair of thigh hugging polyester leggings against a monochromatic backdrop. Running happens on the coarse, abrasive streets of empty cities. Running happens on moist spring grass, through fresh puddles, and over yesterday’s lawn clippings. It’s rough around the edges, every shade of grey, and delivers the most natural, freeing feeling the world has to offer. You’re not offering a means to capture these feeling and experiences with these shoes. You’re reminding them that it’s out there – that the stresses of their daily lives can be thrown aside in an instant – and that you want to be a part of that.
The One Where I Complain
I’m tired and these library Nazis won’t serve me coffee until 10. And when they do, I’ll get a 16oz (because I’m a man) and it will be way too hot to drink. When I set it aside it’ll betray me, defy the laws of physics, and blow all of its hot load into the library air at once. There’s no point in which the coffee is just right. That little blond would have been mighty disappointed in her porridge choices had that shit gone down here. In all seriousness, she’d probably get mauled by that family of bears either way, but her tongue would have been burnt something fierce in the process.
My left calf is sore. It cramped up in the morning a couple days ago. Bascom Hill says this is significant.
I have a Stats test on Thursday and a paper due Friday. My desire to do things other than sleep will out weigh my need for sleep during the weekend. I will inevitably snap at people I like and throw objects I’d rather not throw. Though, with my new found talent in finger snapping, I shouldn’t ignore the opportunity to snap at objects and throw people.
At the end of the semester I will not understand the Sociological Theory notes I recorded an hour ago. I don’t even understand some of them now. For example, I don’t know why I wrote “He knows, asshole” in the left margin halfway down the page. And somewhere between all of the nodding off I decided that “Bourgeoisie” was much too difficult to spell and that I should just go ahead and write “The Beatles” in its place. I also recorded a lovely little poem of sorts at the top:
Charlie was a brilliant squirrel
wealthy, noble, full of guts
then he met a pretty girl
and poor Charlie lost his nuts
How to Become LEVIMILLS
*I’m about to turn this in. The prompt was simple - “How to Become…”, and the style choice was our own. Never missing an opportunity to write casually or sound like an asshole, I chose to write about myself.
How to Become Levi Mills
(A comprehensive guide for the aspiring infant)
First and foremost, you should probably just completely erase that birth thing from your memory. Seriously. The chubby, track suit wearing lady you’ll call your “Health teacher” will explain my reasoning with a haunting video when you get to the 8th grade. Question her concern with your health.
Welcome to the world. The next two years will be the best years of your life. Start crying, eating, and pooping immediately. All at once. Your servant lady will comfort you, feed you, and clean you. It’s wonderful. Don’t use this time for anything productive, you’ll spend plenty of time pretending to do that later. I can’t stress the eating enough. Everybody loves a chubby baby.
Don’t fight the servant when she forces you into a little navy tuxedo to have a strange man flash light in your face. The photos will stay four car-ride-naps away, at the house that perpetually smells like pumpkin pie, until you’re in college – when you’ll have the chance to post it as your ‘profile picture’ on a website called Facebook. On the Internet. From a computer. All things you don’t know exist.
Toddler. Stop crying and start using the room with the bath for processed cookie deposits. You’re a man now. Don’t complain about the hundreds of viewings of We Sing in Sillyville you’ll be subjected to. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger – A reward for the future flashbacks of creepy, singing children with a not-so-subtle message against racism towards rainbow colored people.
Skip most of your Pre-School days under the guise of missing the servant. Don’t miss ‘ants on a log’ days.
Enter the public elementary school ready to use every bit the wisdom of your first five years. You’ve entered social hierarchy in its most refined form. You’re shorter than most of the other heathens, but you’re fast, deathly afraid of authority, and know your numbers. You have the opportunity to establish yourself as the quiet, well behaved, athletic kid. Take it.
Most importantly – and I can’t stress this enough – get a bowl cut. Rock that bowl cut.
Gain the respect of your peers through such heroic acts as doing an above average amount of pull-ups and being the first to complete your multiplication tables. Wonder why you’ll ever actually need multiplication tables. Discover Math 24.
At this point, you may think you’re ready to take on the next challenge. You’ll hear terrible things about this “Middle School” – the worst of all being the absence of a milk break – but you’ll think you’re ready. After all, you’ve been doing long division for two years now. You’re wrong. It’s not your fault, though. There’s no way anybody could ever prepare themselves for that vulgar, awkward, torturous, hell cocoon of a three years. I can’t give you advice here. I’m sorry, but struggling through this time on your own is a necessary evil.
OK, one thing. For the love of god, lose the bowl cut.
High School. Be completely shocked that you didn’t instantly transform into Zack Morris. Be even more shocked that there’s no Kelly Kapowski. In fact, nobody here looks older than 16 in TV years. You are a slightly pudgy Sam Weir.
Sign up for football and wrestling. The former will be coached by your sophomore year English teacher. He’ll have the nerve to regularly give you congratulatory slaps on the rear and expect you to look him in the eye the next day in class. The latter will make you tear up every time you see a starving dog in a Sarah McLachlan animal cruelty commercial. Physical activity will help relieve any kind of stress that comes your way. Remember that when your Chemistry Honors teacher makes you angry enough to club a baby seal. In regards to the working out: listen to the chiropractor your senior year. Believe it or not, beating a neighboring city of 7,000’s football team won’t seem so important when you’re older. Like, three months older.
Your grades will be fine. Teachers will continue to mistake your unnecessarily wordy research paper writing for genuine effort, and your rushed, procrastinated essay techniques for creative humor. Take full advantage of this and use words you’d never use in conversation, like “perpetually”. They like that.
Apply for college because nobody else in your family did. Choose Milwaukee because it’s bigger and farther away from home than most of the alternatives. Both factors giving you the oh-so-essential ability to play Whitesnake’s, “Here I Go Again on My Own” in your head as you walk onto campus for the first time. Enjoy yourself. The academics aren’t too difficult and the extracurriculars are aplenty.
Transfer to The University of Wisconsin. You’ll want a better education and a chance to live in the same building as your best friends. Yellow didn’t really vibe with your skin tone, anyway. Apparently, you’ll also want more homework, residence at a library, and to rarely see said friends. But you’re happy being busy and busy being happy. You’re Levi Mills.
Reconsider the bowl cut.
