I feel Stupid and Contagious...

There's something about wearing a Tool T-shirt, even if it does rarely leave the back of my drawer, that always brings me back to my middle school, pseudo-badass roots. And that wasn't all that reminded me today either; oddly enough, it's been a collection of things recently. Today one of my friends was hosting a prospective student, and they jokingly cut me off when I started to talk about all the classes I'd skipped. Seeing OSK's new profile picture proudly sporting a red and black graffitti A (which, by the way, is the symbol for Anarchism, for all of you who did not have the enlightening middle school experience that I did) reminded me of the days when I was just begginning to embrace the full ideology of moral relativism. Even the song playing on my laptop as I went to blog was oddly relevant.

I Used to think that I was only a pseudo-badass, but I'm starting to wonder about that. True, badassism is in the eye of the beholder, and my hallmate was probably being excessivly patronizing when she referred to me as "Oh, Juicy, you rebel you..." (because really, how bad ass can you be for blatanly disobeying a teacher on a daily basis in elementary school for snacking) But then I realized- maybe I'm more of a badass than I thought. Of all my highschool friends, I'm probably the most likely to skip a commitment (then again sleeping because I was up all night working might counteract the badass effect), engage in illegal activities/mischief, convince others to engage in illegal activities/mischief, generally have a very minimal amount of respect for authority, and moreover, not feel particularly bad about any of the consequences of my actions. Plus, I did get Ad Hoc'd (albeit under VERY unusual circumstances, again, counteracting the badass effect). Before I was never too hasty to refer to myself as a badass because I knew both that there were many far more respectably disrespectable than me, and because I am capable of being a very considerate person. But perhaps I am a little more of a badass than I thought in the sense that It's not that I lack rules to live by, I just live by my own rules.

It seems that whenever major change rolls around in my life, or I am faced with having to find a new identity for myself relative to those around me, I tend to cling to these badass roots- regardless of how legitimate they actually were. As I have found myself with increasing collegiate freedom, I find myself thinking "What would the 9th grade Juicy have done?" and "When you graduate, Will you have made yourself from from 4 years ago proud?" The reason I have for not doing a lot of things is because of the possibility that my future self will regret it, but we haven't met her yet, now have we? And who is to say that my future self is any more or less legitimate a guide in life than my former self?

While at the end of the day this resolution may end up being no different than a 30 year old buying a Harley, perhaps it might also help me never get to that point in the first place. I know that one day I will have to face the fact that I am nolonger in middleschool/highschool/college (though I can still hope that grad school and early adulthood is secretly the biggest party of them all) and confess that I have infact "matured" at least a little. (*shudder*) But until then, it's not like I'm gaining any time. It's time to put a new spin on carpe diem, bitches.

Now, about scheduling that haircut....