We'll Never Forget You, Brent

Okay... this could very well likely get me into some trouble. OH WELL

To all of you Packer fans who harbor ill feelings toward Brett Favre, I have one question for you: what are you really upset about? And how on EARTH did you develop such a deep, emotional attachment to a professional quarterback you never have and never will meet?

Yes, I'm absolutely a Packer fan. In fact, last Sunday I placed a call to AT&T customer support, and the guy who took my call identified himself as so-and-so out of St. Louis, and I came thisclose to asking him if he was a football fan. But I kind of wanted him to fix my internet, and I am really not that kind of fan. What kind of fan AM I then? How about a passive, laid-back, nostalgic fan. The girl in packer pajamas having a beer on the couch on a Sunday afternoon. I get riled up ("go... go... go go go GO GO GO AHHHHHH!!!!!!) and I may have shead a tear or two, but I will NEVER buy green and gold face paint and even though I have never been to a game, I'd be lying if I said I'd sit in negative-thirty-two-degree conditions to catch the very last play (even though 50% of my genetic make-up comes from somebody who has).

ACTUALLY, Remember in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire when Harry attends the Quiddich Cup with the Weasleys? Everybody WANTS Ireland to win, but they are also fans of Viktor Krum of the other team, and want him to do equally well.

So everybody is rooting for Ireland as a team and Krum as an individual and sure enough, Ireland wins, but Krum catches the snitch. That is what I hope happens tonight. The Packers definitely need to win, no doubt about it. But I do wish Favre a good game - he is a talented athlete and should be celebrated for that.

But I digress.

Favre haters: what's wrong? Is it abandonment issues? Anger issues? Was your high school quarterback just so dreamy your perspective is skewed into projecting your juvenille crush onto Favre? Are you so isolated from social behaviors you have to create a false sense of community with people you will never ever know? You have never been in love with Favre, nor do you dislike him as much as you let on, so what is REALLY going on???

I do not mean this rhetorically, I really mean it, what is the issue really about???

Slacker for LIFE!

Two things happened in the last week: facebook ceased to be "blocked" by the computers at work and I am finally online at home. This is going to make me sound seriously uncool, but I will risk it - I really missed facebook. And yes, you can bet your ass I busted in there like a kid in a freakin' candy store. If there ever was such a thing as spamming your own stupid self, then I did it. And then I replied to it two seconds later.

I feel so much better now that I've gotten that off my chest. I'm not afraid of looking totally lame. I like to stay in. I go to bed early. I kill time being your least hip facebook friend. No longer do I elusively NOT post shit, offering the suggestion that I have something better going on most of the time. I don't, and I really never have. Half my FAMILY is on facebook, and my mom still refuses to participate. So I guess that makes even my MOM cooler than me... I won't sweat it.

And then what do I do when I'm not oversharing all over my stupid facebook? Oh, just finding that most of my old high school classmates have kids. KIDS! And pretty much everybody who doesn't have a kid yet is in graduate school and the rest of them own homes.

That's okay, too. I have become insanely comfortable with my lack of ambition, and I'm not ashamed of the fact that I do not volunteer my time, donate to charities, or even care to seek employment that requires my degree. Take a second and look a few inches to your right ---> I may have zero dollars in my google ad account, but at least I don't have to do anything. Sure, at first I had a total and-what-the-hell-am-I-doing moment... but there is just no sense in keeping score be it through GPA, income, number of healthy offspring or anything else that ranks highly in your value system. I would hope my old buddies feel the same way, but maybe I arrived at that conclusion because being a slacker for life means having GOBS of free time, and that means you get to sit around and justify slackerdom.

As long as I'm laying it on nice and THICK now, I might go so far as to call myself a "late bloomer." There is no sense in denying that trust funds are on the way, and I have thought long and hard about going back to school and actually applying myself a little this time around... Education - and I mean learning, not coming into good-enough grades through pre-existing knowledge and dumb luck - EDUCATION is truly an investment, an incredibly appropriate one, at that. I know I have it in me; some of my college classes were so interesting they compelled me to crack a few spines. Yes, most of my grades are wholly undeserved, but I can still say I have read an entire psychology textbook cover-to-cover AND I really don't have any qualms taking credit for five straight-A semesters of Russian (though I have to admit, the language somehow came easily to me).

So... what I do know is that there is no point in trying to plan out every step of your life, because sometimes the unexpected "problems" that crop up wind up totally necessary detours. There's nothing wrong with setting goals - graduating at the top of your class from Harvard medical school, or simply NOT overdrafting my account for the duration of tomorrow through my next paycheck, whatever. I may be a slacker, but I certainly haven't given up on myself.