HOH Magazine: April 2017 Issue

It's been a month, what's new? This is generally the 'know' which inquiring minds want to. But what if, even after basically 30 days of continued [thank God] living, I haven't solidly accomplished anything I wrote about wanting to accomplish last month? Well, read inside; this month's issue has a few new features, as well as a few more words going on about Reverse-Valentine's Day, even though I feel I competently covered the subject last month.

HOH Magazine: March 2017 Issue (#1!)

I have been on a break, from many a project. Things I'll "do shortly" became "get around to eventually" because I'm prioritizing being with friends these days. Creatively I'm letting myself down, but it's all the same to procrastination. Procrastination is simply (or, put simplistically) the attention paid to distractions and diversions. This is even one of those. A distracting new project that isn't much worth prioritizing, yet feels like a thing I can bang out in a day, tapping away though, as I do now, when I have a moment of inspiration, a knowledge of what exactly to put down.
(And yet this paragraph is like a week and a half old now...More inside!)

I Want To Use This Blog Again

I constructed this blog back in college – now too 5-years-ago to be comforting – because I wanted to.

My plan was to write amusing anecdotes: some true, some fiction. I ended up writing two truths and a draft, the latter of which was just published recently. Two-thirds of them are about taking the bus to school.

The other day, I had an idea. Its catalyst was that I wanted to let people know I was big on Craisins, and I thought "that's what Oprah does." I also probably had the simultaneous thought, (on a subconscious level perhaps) "that's what a blog is for." Anyway, I said the words "Hoh Magazine" out loud, and here we are: I'm remodeling my blog to be a monthly activity, where I do a post that riffs on the model I assume Oprah exhibits in her own monthly publication. I say 'assume' because I don't read it, but I gotta be correct in that if/when you have a magazine that's your own personal magazine, you'll write at least one thing in it about what's up in your life, and – since Oprah's known for having favorite things lists – what you're into at the moment.

I'm not saying I'm doing this to become the next Oprah. I'm certainly open to the idea, but that's not my plan. My plan is to use this blog again, scheduled regularly enough that I'll feel motivated to do it, but not so frequently that I should constantly miss update due-dates. Monthly is amicable.

Soo, the blog is bouncing back! I've upended the URL "nicknamedthepants" – it was always a little clunky – and since I was gonna change the title to "HOH MAGAZINE," I wanted to keep the "Rushed Into Being" phrase, as I had forgotten about it, and was delightfully surprised to see it when I returned to this edge of online. It's a little on the poetic, possibly-pretentious side, but I really find it charming and it flows off the tongue, and keyboard: better for a URL. I've alerted The New Yorker and other publications to update the URL hotlinks in articles where they reference my previous postings.

...What? Maybe they have.

– David

P.S. I'll probably mess around with the layout/colors to my liking, as well. But I've got a March entry to write, firstly.

(Header image from here)

What's The Deal??

(Originally drafted 11-1-2012...give or take)

So when my sister and I got to Spirit Halloween, the door was locked. "This surely is an error," thought I and the other people there, as a person trying to leave was locked in.

So the employee unlocks it, but tells us they're closed.

Except, I wanted to give you my money. This was not the Season Ending Scare I was expecting.

I was upset, but balanced it with a maintaining of dignity: I started walking back to the car, but floppily.

So floppily I let myself fall onto my knees in front of the store.

Now, I don't usually cause scenes, but I also don't like to embarrass myself, which I think I thought I'd do if I had simply gotten up from that childish display.

Not wanting to think I'd embarrassed myself, I went full-throttle with the bit:

Raising my arms and tilting my head to the heavens, I softly-but-projectfully yelled "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"

Got a woman also leaving to laugh, and thank me, so mission accomplished; no embarrassment. Success. In fact, more success in pleasing this stranger than a seasonal chain store did, that day.

Because of course I "cause scenes." I'm a filmmaker.

Boo-yah.

t

Some Kind Of Anthropological Scientist Drove Our Bus Today

Well, not today, but yesterday...Monday, technically, as today is Wednesday, technically.

Now don't be alarmed that my entire blog so far is dedicated to bus-related stories; I have a totally non-metro transit one coming up that I also thought of Monday and this one is short so I can write it at 1:12 in the morning instead of going to bed.

So, I was on a bus, the final bus on my way to school, and it was crowded. This is usual because on the way to the school, students tend to catch rides to school via Metro Transit. Because I got on the bus earlier, I got a window seat.

So I'm sitting on the left side of the bus, bag on my lap, man next to me, and people single-file in the aisle, holding one hand up to grab stuff, when I hear the intercom say:

"Ladies and gentlemen: close quarters.

Be aware of your pockets, wallets, purses.

Your neighbor may not be your friend."

The bus driver had said this and I quickly began to wonder to what end.

The why is clear: he was commenting on the obvious state of crowdedness in the aisle.

I ask to what end because of what I observed happen next: There was a low mumble throughout the vehicle, and I chalked this up to people saying to one another "Well I'm not a thief."

Such overt and blunt words were probably not spoken but the sentiment was there, even if no words were said. What Bus Driver had said sparked an interest in each person to socially interact with the very people they were touching. A clear goal: Don't seem criminal, had coerced these strangers to recognize one another and exchange non-verbal cues.

Well I thought this was quite fucking brilliant; the bus driver had forced people to be more willingly open with one another, turn a mundane activity into a social stew of friendly acknowledgement, and possibly make someone's neighbor their friend. What could have come off as an awkward joke inducing more awkward and suspicious andaccusingandhatingandstereotypingandblamingandjudging behavior, resulted in people being mutually social and innocent.

"I'm not a thief, you don't have to worry" Said he with his eyes,

"That's okay, I didn't think you were. I'm not either, though." Said she, with her arm.

"I'm glad my wallet is safe." He said with his neck,

"I'm glad we all feel safer now, thank you, bus Driver." Said I, looking at the aisle of comfortable people, not looking to my neighbor, for we were sitting down and it would be difficult for him to take my wallet anyway.

Fucking brilliant social experiment.

I hope that bus driver turns that shit in and gets his Ph.D.

t

So, Today I Flipped Off A Bus.

The advantages of having one class a day is that my commuting schedule is fairly simple: take one series of buses out to the school, and one set back. Now, there are two optional routes to take. One route, the "traditional" one, is to catch a half-hourly bus not even a block away from my house, then catch a bus that takes me down one solid street from St. Paul into Minneapolis. Then I get off at the library and catch a third bus to the actual school building. The second, or "back-up" route gets me to walk about three blocks to a bus that takes me to a bus stop near an off-ramp, which takes me via highway to the same library, previous mentioned. From there it's the same direction.

So today (I'm actually writing this many days after the day it happened, although I started writing it the day after, but, for the sake of the story let's keep it in recent-tense) I had to take the "back-up" route, because I think I can do in two minutes what it takes me five-to-ten minutes to do. Well, anyway.
I started walking down the long stretch of street in an attempt to reach the second bus before the first one would. The first bus normally gets to the second bus's stop a minute after the second bus is supposed to have left. I was also doing this so that instead of sitting on a bench waiting for the first bus, I could meet it at a different stop, therefore getting myself some exercise, and possibly reaching the second bus, previously mentioned as.

Well, I caught up to the first bus, which had just passed by me to reach a stop, at that stop, mentioned as previously. For some reason, the bus started to depart from the stop before I was able to get on it. This pissed me off, and, having shaken my fist at buses for doing this in the past, I decided that this time I'd flip the bird.

So I did. And I'm sure someone on the bus saw, as I was banging it by the windows, but also, I'm sure the woman and her young daughter saw it too. I regret this, but in the moment the bus was the one being the dick of the situation!

Well, not for long. The bus stopped. For me.

So here I am, socially maladjusted, having just flicked off a bus which was now waiting just for me.

So I decided to not get on, and keep running past it as if I were too cool for it. As if I could get where I was going without it.

Also I was scared.

As the traffic on the street was a bit heavy, I would surpass it, then it would surpass me. I keep running, though, out of fear that the bus driver would be proven the winner in this imaginary game which I had created and was solely responsible for; I was running for my dignity, yet without it.

But then, there I was: winning this race, almost, nearly, at the corner where the second bus stop was just feet from.

I knew that I would become vindicated, and all the shame of what I had done would dissipate.

VROOM!

Then I heard, on the street behind me, the bus, passing me as if it were the final stretch, as if the bus driver knew they could shame me as the person who gave the middle finger to a bus before a small child that I was.

But it was at that point when I decided fuck it, I'm practically anonymous!

So the bus won, but I had called it off.

Take that, bus driver!

.......Then I had to wait in the sun for about half an hour before catching the second bus. I think I was late for class.

t