Appetite for...Learnin'

(Cross-posted via the SmallBox blog.)

I don't wanna be that guy, but I love learning. In my mind's eye, I'm constantly walking around in tweed, sucking thoughtfully on a pipe while carefully considering matters of academia. In real life, though–it's more of a melange. A stack of New Yorker magazines a foot high lies under my lamp, overfilling my brain with media criticism, international intrigue, and thoughtful profiles.

I've been known to keep the same book checked out from the library for over a year–usually for mastering a series of recipes. As a kid, I memorized baseball statistics for random regurgitation–a trait that recurs each time I check Baseball Reference to see how many triples Robin Yount hit for as Brewer.

(126 triples despite non-aerodynamic hair.)

This year, I felt like I learned a great deal–though I always feel like my appetite for learning makes me more cognizant of the exponential growth of things I don't know. Here's a quick run-down on five of 2012's life lessons:

• To bake seriously–get a bench knife immediately. And when the retail shop hasn't heard of a bench knife, call it by its other name, "pastry scraper." Not only is it minimally cool and stainless steel, but you'll feel like a bad-ass when you utilize it to shape a perfectly round boule.

(Clean off immediately after using unless you want yer dough to turn to concrete.)

• When flying internationally, allow for more than 3 hours layover time. Airlines will sell any combination of tickets to anyone, and customs agents will look at you like the poor (and getting ready to be way-more-poor) sap that you are. Also, flying through Heathrow is a fool's errand.

• Drumming is hard. Keeping 8 songs in your head at once is even harder. The only thing that makes it easier? Practicing all the time. Despite my ungainly, quasi-proficiency, I'm convinced that becoming a "good drummer" is about as likely as shape-shifting into a giraffe. But! That doesn't mean I can't develop my own flavor...

(This is what I drum like in my head.)

• Buying a bed is totally worth it. After waking up & feeling like hot trash for a number of months (and having said I'd buy a bed for multiple years)–we finally bit the bullet late this Fall on a low-platform & firm foam memory mattress. Now, each morning I feel outstanding, and every night, I exclaim loud enough for my neighbors to hear, "This bed is @#$%^&! awesome."

(Elli & Silva post-American breakfast.)

• Couchsurfing has been restorative to my sense of & belief in humanity. Though we tried & failed to utilize it overseas, we've hosted guests here in Indianapolis. Guests that have been intelligent, charming, and way closer to old friends than wandering strangers. Best of all, they're a great antidote to the constant stream of negative media, screaming neighbors (pre-move!), and the general feeling of dissatisfaction that can wedge into your life like an invisible splinter. I hope 2013 brings a flood of similar experiences.

(Part of SmallBox's ThinkKit project.)

Random People Treating Me Like A King (or, How I Read The Prompt Wrong)

Somewhere, in the fog between reading the ThinkKit prompt this morning, turning it over in my mind all day, till it was a polished, tiny, hard pebble; somewhere, I forgot what I actually read. I had been musing on people I met in 2012–so I'll be bullheaded and write on that anyway. After all, I prefer not to think about who I'll meet in 2013, lest I make some list of artists and musicians and writers who, save for their overextended ambition and possibly oversized egos, are just altered manifestations of ourselves. They shower, drink bad coffee, and develop hangnails just like the lot of us. If I'm going to meet someone new, let them be like a seed-pod in the wind.

People that ruled this year (that I did not know were going to rule).

• Mainz Roommates: Amelia's best friend was studying on a Fulbright in Mainz...so we decided to visit and kick-off a Euro-trip. Not only was Lydia an amazing host, translator, map-reader, and traveller; her roommates let us interrupt their studious lifestyle for over a week. They gave up their bedroom(s), cooked us an amazing meal (and a hangover breakfast to boot), refused to let me buy a round of beer, didn't complain when we showered daily, talked late into a couple evenings about all aspects of life, and were remarkably quiet while I lay in a bed with the worst 36-hour flu of my life (complete with hallucinations).

• Tim in Berlin: Tim rented us the spare room in his flat. Not only was it remarkably clean & in a s super-sweet location; but he went above and beyond. He let us do laundry (and use his detergent), printed out train tickets for us, and had a binder full of cool stuff to do. Definitely one of the reasons that, as soon as we left, we were scheming how to get back to the city.

• Pieter: Ok, so I'd met Pieter before. He was an exchange student from Belgium while I was in high-school, when I still had a buzz-cut, no music or artistic sense or taste, and generally, was merely another shitstain from Kokomo sucking up valuable resources. 

We met up again over the Summer five years previous, when I was able to host him while he travelled across the States. We bonded over him introducing me to Refused (while still in high school), as well as our quasi-bohemian lifestyles that were well beyond the norm of the factory town I spent high school in.

Wanting to head back to Belgium while overseas, I reached out to see if we could visit & impede on his life for a couple days. Amelia was nervous as she had only met him for a minute or so; her nervousness was contagious, and while rhythmically swaying on a train for eight-hours, we wondered, "Will we have anything in common? Will we be in the way?" and the like.

Only ten minutes into the visit, we felt ridiculous for our case of the nerves. Not only was Pieter (and Daphne, his better half) the most humble & generous host we could've imagined (cooking us dinner...immediately! driving to Antwerp with us, buying drinks at the music-venue hop...I could go on & on), but we rarely lacked for things to talk about. And that's quite an achievement for two self-conscious Americans with niche interests and a tendency towards clamming up. Needless to say, we can't wait to host them in Indianapolis, or wherever we hang our hats.

• Couchsurfers: We hosted a 2-piece Italian band, and a brother & sister from Bordeaux this Summer. Sometimes, you need to bend over backwards for people you don't know. Extend into the universe a kindness, that, you hope will be like a perfectly thrown boomerang, and return to you in the interminable future. Thank you, Elli & Silva, Clement & Zoe, for restoring a sense of hope for the world, and humanity in general. Thanks for being literate, cultural, interesting conversationalists–––and thanks most of all for eating my food and drinking my beer. The world isn't such a large place when you meet great people through the kaleidoscopic Internet.

• Okay, this is turning into a who's-who of our trip, and I don't want to ruin my future, unborn blog entries by continuing this sappy trail of Thanks. Amelia's family in the UK (who housed us, fed us, and put up with our shenanigans & constantly wet shoes) should be mentioned, too. I believe I drunkenly murmured more than once, "If the world ends, this is where I wanna be." Not even sure where I was, but I maintain that sentence is scientific truth wherever it comes out of your lips. 

All I know is that getting along with random people, distant non-relatives, and sweaty travelers like they're old friends is one of the distinct pleasures of being human. 

(Part of SmallBox's ThinkKit project.)