andy rooney, my hero

to some, I am already an old crank. to most, I am on my way to becoming an old crank. how? why? when? all too soon I'm afraid. i suppose i first realized it when the little voice in your head, your conscience, whatever, began to sound remarkably like andy rooney. who doesn't really demand so much now that i think about it, in fact, he has become the voice of reason to a certain extent.

Allow me to demonstrate. Please continue reading as if the man himself Andy Rooney were reading the following to you.

You know what bothers me these days is the way slang rapidly spreads throughout every aspect of the business world and is used by people who have no connection to how these words and phrases ever came about. The minute any slang that i hear in my social circles is repeated on a national news program such as NPR or if one of the middle-aged folk at work start to use outdated slang, i know it's over. if i hear my manager say "peace out" at the end of the day one more time, I swear it's 23 skiddoo for me. sure, i still say "word" as an affirmation, it's interchangable with "correct". is it outdated? yes. am i offending a 22 year old version of myself somewhere? probably. it's just as annoying when older people keep regurgitating the same pop culture references and slang that have been used up years ago.

I suppose that it might be the fact that by getting old, i'm increasingly out of the loop, and have to ask people what new slang means rather than begin using it from the getgo. i had to ask my younger sister what "flossing" means. it has nothing to do with your teeth.
I guess that makes me one "jive turkey".

day one

day one.

the sea was ablaze with the blue flame of portuguese man-o-war, cresting the surface in spiderweb networks for miles and miles. He walked to the end of the dock slowly, surveying the shimmering azure swells. it was getting dark earlier now, as the last days of this indian summer were passing faster and faster. every year it goes faster he thought. He shifted his weight. The dock faced west, and the sun was halfway through it's annual migration south, changing the angles of the shadows and making it so you could stare directly out across the sea from the dock without having to squint so much. The sun was about an hour from retirement for the day and he sat down and rolled up his pant leg, brushing the wet sand off of it as he folded the denim, and then rolled up the other one. The dock was one intended for use with small boats, and for children to jump off of in the summer and to fish off of in the winter. His pasty legs dangled off the dock, with his feet just inches away from the water where jellyfish swarmed ambivalently. He leaned forward to more closely examine the aquatic community and contemplated the amount of pain and slim likelihood of survival of a swim with these beautiful creatures. For a split second he thought he should jump but he then threw himself back violently. He wouldn't have jumped into the water, but felt adrenaline gush through his veins nonetheless. you'll have to go in sometime, he thought, jellyfish or no.