Oops, I clicked it again

Winner, winner, chicken dinner! 

Almost never have I made a drunken Amazon purchase. 
This is true only because, for me, shopping and acquiring do not give me pleasure. When I am fully inebriated, I try to stay away from such laborious and joyless responsibilities. 
However, in the past (when drunk), I would find myself online...

...I would take to social media like it was my mountain and I, Roland Orzabal of Tears For Fears.

In other words, nothing was too embarrassing for me to post. 
It wasn't that I didn't have any shame, it's just that my shame was floating on top of a pint glass and I must have swallowed it — or something ... 

In the easiest words possible, I was a drunk — and I preferred online sharing to online shopping. 

For Example

But oh, how much easier my life could have been if only I'd retreated from playing Silver Strike and treated myself to some guilty shopping pleasures. 
Instead of just a hangover (and an overwhelming sense I need to apologize to someone) I would wake up to something more ... something new at my door. 

It could have been this:

Jack Burton figurine 

Or:

John C. McGinley trading card

Even: 

Jason Segel pillowcase

No matter what ridiculous item I drunk shopped, the consequences seem less traumatic and definitely more delightful.  I wish Danny had filled my head with the idea of this drunk decorating earlier. 

My Amazon purchases are, in truth, quite lame. 

I buy school books, shoes, household items, and toiletries through Amazon. Only once did I buy something unique ... and frankly I had to because I was so shocked it was being sold on Amazon, if you follow. 

My wish list now consists of more housewares, some video games, some books, a swatch watch, and a new liner for my dog's bed. 

Basically—lots of uninspired stuff that if I got drunk now and bought it, the psychological repercussions would be low to null. 

I did some reading and found that "buy and ship now" syndrome is occurring and is nothing to screw around with. 

I wanted to make Danny a video inspired by his suggestion, but I came down with icky strep throat and lacked the physical strength to do so by deadline. In fact, I barely have the mental faculties now to write this.

What I propose is this:

If you have been afflicted with "buy and ship now" syndrome (please) tell me your most anguishing purchase. 

You can do so anonymously as a comment on the blog. I will pick one and dedicate a video segment to it ... and who knows, maybe it will facilitate a little healing?  

❮html❯ ❮body❯ ❮p❯do you like me? ❮ul❯ ❮li❯yes❮/li❯ ❮li❯no❮/li❯ ❮li❯maybe❮/li❯ ❮/ul❯ ❮/p❯ ❮/body❯ ❮/html❯

Congratulations on Kat's second win! This makes 2 weeks in a row Put It In My Mouth has experienced 2x wins. And what incredible suggestions this week. I can't wait for the next Stiff Competition Edition. 

It is my position that the desire to communicate with others, particularly friends, was never stronger for many of us than it was in grade school.  Perhaps that is because I believe those exchanges with our friends played such an integral role in defining who we were.  And perhaps that is because I believe that defining who we were as teenagers was one of the most vital and daunting of tasks for an adolescent. 
Some of us had jobs, hobbies, or passions at an early age that helped distinguish our character—but most of us just had friends.
And those friends meant everything.  

I remember [not clearly] countless days in which my sole motivation for going to school was to see and talk to friends.  You did not need to have a lot of friends, just the ones worth talking to, listening to, and sharing everything with.  I was lucky enough to have those friends.  

If you completed your grade school career before the mass diffusion of PDA's, pagers, mobile phones, laptops, and tablets then you remember how limited that vital communication with your peers could be. 
Beyond the brief respite between classes, the sometimes desolate lunch period, or the oscillating car or bus ride—face time with friends was also limited [this is long before FaceTime®—that was shit only the Jetsons were doing].

So you pass notes! Tons and tons of fµ©$ing notes! 

Sometimes whole notebooks full of notes. You develop up an uncanny ability to fold paper into tiny shapes that no human has ever thought of [without seeing one single origami video on YouTube®, because wtf is a YouTube?]. 
The notes would get intercepted by teachers or worse. . . the boy/girl you liked. . . even though there were specific instructions written on the front in seven different shades of pastel pen,
"For Robin's Eyes ONLY"!!!!!!!!!
What, are they stupid? 

If you are like me—you consequently find yourself with boxes of these "mementos of teenage angst", as Kat fairly describes them.  If you are like my little [awesome] sister then you consequently find yourself deciding it is time to get rid of these mementos, but not before skimming them all for reminders of how completely stupid teenagers are [as she fairly describes it]. 

As a result of this behavior it would be fair to say that myself and others romanticize this note-passing period in our timeline of communication, that we are nostalgic for this tactile form of expression. 
. . .the idea that the thoughts that are in our head can literally be put into the hands of another person. . .  
Well of course thats romantic, and us romantics still participate in this behavior. . . but come on. . . we finally get to be the Jetsons!* 

I admit that adopting this sentiment about living in the digital age while holding on to my analog past happened forcibly and just a couple of years ago.  I was making a film for class and my shot list designated that Madison was to despondently flip through a photo album. This made no sense to someone (a younger peer) and it was only then that I realized. . . nobody [young] keeps photo albums and they especially don't understand the (albeit emo) habit of digging them out and obsessively pouring over them. 
So I rewrote the scene to have Madison clicking through her facebook photos and even as a romantic it was hard to capture her despondence without tangible evidence like a photo album. 

See for yourself. [shameless effort to make you watch my shameful student film]

The teenage angst that Kat wrote of in her winning suggestion, well I am sure it still exists.  But [as a romantic**] I wish to believe it has lessened.  Teenage angst is often related to the frustration of not clearly recognizing your personal identity.  Many of us suffer this for a long time and we are always susceptible to encountering such a feeling again.  
In the digital age teenagers today can construct their identity in a collage of pictures, emoticons, and snarky status updates. They can express who they are by listing the bands, movies, books, and television programs they like.  They can be cool by association by disclosing who they are with and where they are at. They can endow themselves with just about anything they want. 
Teenagers can fully contrive an identity and more significantly
they can edit it when necessary.

Am I saying that social media is the answer to teenage angst? 
No.
Certainly not [although there is nothing angsty about 5 dozen selfies].
But as powerful [and potentially harmful] that these digital tools are, perhaps they can wield some good. Suppose wrestling with your identity crisis by way of an accessible CMS could give these youths some amount of ease, if only temporary. 
Teenagers today can hoard their angsty emotions in an online archive for anyone to see, or to pour over later if they so decide. 
But if we are lucky most of them will opt into the "never have to relive this moment again" electronic communication facilitated by snapchat.
Because I'll be real, unless today's teenagers can pull off some classy John Hughes shit, I don't want to stumble upon their angsty mementos while searching for online porn. ***

In case you were wondering, my teenage angst looked a lot like this:

talk hard

Well, perhaps I just imagined it that way. 

I believe it probably looked a lot more like this: 

exactly like this



Thank you to my beautiful friend Alissa for taking the time out of her busy back to school schedule to confirm Kat's suspicion that teenagers no longer pass notes.
RIP 
Notes
then-now

* We only passed notes because we didn't have electronic devices.  
** Let's be honest. I'm very much a cynic too. 
*** I don't really feel that way. That's a little dramatic. Probably just some residual teen angst. 

Between You And Me

Friends, I would very much like (and appreciate) your help.

I am writing a new blog—inspired by all of you guys (ya’ll, depending).

I have so many unique, intelligent, and hilarious friends. I am continually inspired by you and I would like to do what you do to all good things—I would like to exploit that.

While writing from my own unique experiences is nearly unavoidable, I would like to write about topics that interest you more, that entertain you more, that engage you—because the ideas come from you. 

This would look something like this:

1. I post a request for topic ideas on facebook.
2. Within a week’s time, you provide suggestions for the blog topic.
3. During that week you are also encouraged to vote for your favorite suggestions, this can include your own suggestion.
4. At the end of the week, the suggestion with the most votes will be the topic I write about.
5. I will post the winner’s blog within the week and then ask for a new suggestion.

This idea requires me (us all) to take a leap of faith, 2 leaps actually:
1. That you, my friends, will be interested in joining me/humoring me on this journey.

2. That you, my friends, will be pleased with the results of this writing experiment.

In other words—I may fail. I may fail for you all to see.

But whose to say my failure won’t be the entertainment we are all looking for? 

And with failure comes growth—which is what I am seeking, after all. 

To demonstrate how comfortable I am failing for all of you to see, here is a short video of me doing just that. 

I initially aspired to host a video requesting your participation for this blog,
but well, 
you can see for yourself just how inadequate some of us are (me) in front of a camera.