Things I Have Learned

Things I have learned thus far on my trip out east:

Driving 14 hours in a day is not too bad.
Getting up at 6am and driving another 5 hours the next day is terrible.

Travel Plans

So, dear reader(s), tomorrow, I start out on my epic jaunt to and then around the eastern seaboard, which won’t really end until I settle down in Saratoga Springs, NY on the 5th of June. Until then, I’ll be bouncing around from Des Moines to upstate New York, to NYC, to Boston, back upstate, back to the city, and finally back upstate again. All this should provide ample blog fodder – however, posts may be few and far between. I’m going to make every attempt to update my twitter (you can follow me by going to twitter.com/matthewavery) as often as possible, and I’ll post any pictures that I happen to take either to my blog, or to my Picassa album. So sit back, relax, and let the magic happen. In the words of Max Plenke, shit is about to get super real.

Musings...

Today, I graduated from college. I’ve been sitting in front of a blank document for the past half hour thinking about what I want to say about this occasion in my life. On one hand, it’s exciting, in a way, to finally have achieved the payoff of all my hard work: magna cum laude, university honors, two degrees…blah.blah.blah. On the other hand, what do all those titles really mean? That I’m more educated, sure. More employable? Maybe. Smarter? Not necessarily.

A lot of people have asked my why I didn’t attend any of the graduation ceremonies, and I haven’t really had a good answer. I think it has something to do with the fact that the culmination of my education isn’t going to be found sitting in an arena with nine hundred other assholes waiting to hear my name. It’s not about those two pieces of paper. I don’t need a “moment” of recognition; if I haven’t been recognized during the past four years, then I don’t deserve to be recognized at graduation either. Plus I really don’t want anybody else’s recognition. I know what I’ve done. I’ve worked really fucking hard in college, at times to the detriment of my fun level and my social life – that’s it.

The funny part is that despite all of this (or possibly because of it), I’m still unemployed at the end of July. But that isn’t what matters. What matters it that right now, I’m doing what I love, I have friends I love, and at least for the next two months, I get to live rent free on the east coast. After that is the real test of my education, the real graduation: if I can still make something cohesive out of my life, then maybe it was all worth while.

Twitter

In a moment of weakness, I finally gave in and got a Twitter account. As of right now, having had it for less than 24 hours, I’m still not exactly sure what purpose it serves, and/or in what way(s) it’s supposed to further the quality of my life. All I can figure out thus far is that it seems to work by making you believe that other people not only have the capacity to be entertained by, but are genuinely interested in something you might be able to say in 140 characters or less – basically it makes you think your own voice and opinions matter to others. Which by and large is not true.

Be that as it may, you can become a follower (by far and away my favorite relationship format of all the social network sites) by searching Matthew Avery. My guess is that one of two things will happen to my Twitter – either I will stop updating it after about next Tuesday, or it will become something akin to an extension of my blog – vulgar, offensive, and borderline retarded. I’m really excited to see where this goes…

A Show I Designed Got Reviewed!

Holy shit, a show I designed actually got a review in the paper, and a pretty good one at that. To be fair, the review didn't really focus (at all) on the lighting, but still, it's nice to hear good things. You can read the full text of the article here.

Complex Narrative

Today, I used the phrase “complex narrative” as a descriptor of a piece of literature I was analyzing for an English paper. In seriousness. I hate myself.

“Complex narrative” is one of those phrases like “postmodern” that doesn’t actually mean anything – people just toss it around to make their speech or writing sound more intelligent and high handed. It’s like when people use the word vocabulary to refer to something other than one’s command of the words of one’s native language. Or refer to a play or a book as “organic.” It’s just dickery and everyone knows it, but for some reason they choose to ignore it. No longer. I’m calling myself and everyone else out. Don’t be a tool. Use words that mean something in a context outside of an upper division English/philosophy/lit theory class in private school.

$100 Haircut

In a stunning conspiracy designed to rid me of my money, I received a $76 dollar speeding ticket on the way to get my hair cut on Friday. This happened for two reasons. First, Google maps lied to me about where the salon was, saying that I needed to drive about 3 miles past where I actually needed to go. When the street I was driving on abruptly ended, I figured that I had been scammed, but I decided to push on anyway. I made the executive decision to turn right at a T intersection, which led me directly past a police officer who was apparently lying in wait like an alligator in a swamp (and behind a line of trees, I might add) for unsuspecting wayfarers to happen by. Cowardice. Secondly – and I actually went back to check this – there was no posted speed limit sign until about a quarter mile AFTER where I got pulled over.

So after Officer Squarenuts had the audacity to write me a ticket when I was clearly lost, (both my license and my tags are from Wisconsin) where there was no posted speed limit sign, he also had the nerve to give me a written warning for not having proof of insurance in my car. Fuck the police.

On the other hand, considering how flagrantly I disobey the speed limit every time I get behind the wheel, I should probably be happy that it’s taken me this long to get a ticket. This is my first citiation, despite having been pulled over two other times (for 14mph and 15mph over the limit, respectively). Also, at 10 over, this was the slowest I’ve ever been picked up for speeding. I have to feel like it almost wasn’t worth the officer’s time. Cops in suburban Iowa really must not have anything better to do. But really, if I can get away with paying a $76 debt to society every 5 or 6 years, I can’t really be that mad…

Lessons you can learn from my mistakes:
-Apparently it’s a law in Iowa that you must have current proof of insurance in your vehicle.
-Apparently, it’s also a law in Iowa that you have to intuit the speed limit, based only upon instinct, excellent theorizing, and guesswork.
-Never trust Google maps.
-The police are mean, sneaky bastards.