The Forty Days

Forty days.  Forty adventures.  Forty open doors, and I stepped through them all.  Every day, I learned just a little something about myself, my friends, my community, and my world.

Day 1, What Am I Getting Myself Into?:  If you have to ask yourself this question, whatever it is that you are about to get yourself into, don’t do it!

Day 2, Elvis Has Not Left The Building:  A skinny, white guy in a late-era Elvis outfit looks surprisingly like Evil Knievel.

Day 3, 24 in 24:  Do not try this at home!  Or anyone else’s home.  Or for any reason whatsoever.  This was the most painful activity of them all.

Day 4, Rollin’ With The Homies:  I prefer automatic.

Day 5, Forgiveness:  I am a sinner.  But I am not beholden to my sin.

Day 6, A Day With MJ:  Betsy and I can care for an infant for an entire day without seriously injuring it!  Does this mean we’re ready for kids?  Hmmmm . . .  let me get back to you on that.

Day 7, Check Out The Hook While My DJ Revolves It:  DJ Jazzy Jeff is a mathematical genius.  Long live DJ Chicken Salad!

Day 8, Tears Of A Clown:  Freaking out a child with one’s appearance greatly reduces one’s self esteem.  Do a good deed–next time you see a clown, give him or her a big hug.

Day 9, Teaching An Old Dog A New Trick:  Iago is a very good boy, and now every time I have a piece of food in my hands, he has the overwhelming urge to shake.  I’ve created a monster!

Day 10, Rock The Vote:  City Council meetings are not only for crazy people to voice their craziness.  They’re for regular people, too.  So educate yourself about an issue and participate in this representative democracy thing we got going on here.

Day 11, Calling All Cars:  Police officers take a lot of crap.  So give them a hug too when you see them.  Unless they are chasing you.  Then run–run like the wind!

Day 12, Wind Beneath My Wings:  You may be cranky and tired, but when you hang upside down on the trapeze and someone catches you, it all fades away.

Day 13, Advice For A Nickel:  It is all about community.  The Forty Days + Mambo Berry + friends and strangers who donated small change = one dog saved for Austin Pets Alive.  By the way, the dog we saved was recently adopted!  Yay!!!!

Day 14, Rage Against The Machine?:  One day, machines will enslave the human race.  But this day, one made me a bunch of sweet, undeserved cash.  Hip hip hooray!

Day 15, Deep In The Heart Of Texas:  Fried.  Butter.  Why?

Day 16, Nana Banana:  My Nana hates Joe Biden but loves me.  She’s the best and funniest Nana in all the land.

Day 17, School Daze:  It’s easy to lose touch with the people who were instrumental in your development.  It’s hard to reconnect and express your gratitude.  As in many cases, the more difficult path is the one worth taking.

Day 18, The Masses:  Being a VIP doesn’t get you much, but at the very least it means you’re better than the thousands of non-VIPs.

Day 19, Different Strokes:  When everyone else is dancing crazily, there is no shame in dancing to the beat of your own freestyle drummer.

Day 20, No Free Lunches:  People give away a lot of free crap on craigslist that isn’t worth the effort and gas to retrieve it.  But, every once in awhile, someone gives away a sheep’s head.  Awe.  Some.

Day 21, What’s Love Got To Do With It?:  Everything.  Every.  Thing.

Day 22, The Other Woman:  Every Jewish boy should have a Bar Mitzvah and a Gun Mitzvah.  Then he will truly be a man.

Day 23, Green Day:  Ten simple things to reduce your carbon footprint.  Easy to do for a day; difficult to make a habit.

Day 24, L.O.L:  If you get enough friends to the comedy club to laugh at you, everyone else will think they’re laughing with you.  Everyone wins!

Day 25, Plan C:  Chuck E. Cheese is a shadow of its former self.  Jasper Jowls needs to be put to sleep.

Day 26, Speak No Evil:  I talk too much, don’t listen enough, and oftentimes, my words hinder that which I ought to be expressing.

Day 27, Dr. Party:  Playing in foam is fun–even if it’s in a parking lot and there are no sorority girls around.

Day 28, Help Wanted:  All non-profits need volunteers.  It’s fun, it’s necessary, and it will make you feel good about being a part of the larger community.

Day 29, Home Grown:  Jews are not really into the whole manual labor thing.  But who isn’t into fresh, organic veggies in exchange for a couple hours of good, solid work?

Day 30, Wheel In The Sky Keeps On Turning:  There are many things in this world that are “just like riding a bike.”  Unicycling is not one of those things.

Day 31, Fear Of Flying:  Don’t be a slave to your fears.  Face them head-on.

Day 32, He Said, She Said:  It is possible to live off grocery store samples for a day.  But why?  Make your mother proud and eat a proper meal.

Day 33, Fish Out Of Water:  The Texas Renaissance Festival is not about being a humorless, history-obsessed, uber-geek.  It is about sexual innuendo, dressing up in costume, and acting goofy all day long.  What’s not fun about that?

Day 34, In Memoriam:  Rest in peace, Judge William Wayne Justice.  You will be sorely missed.

Day 35, Almost Famous:  Living out my Almost Famous fantasy was every bit as fun as I thought it would be.  Hold me closer, Tiny Dancer.

Day 36, The Unknown:  There are many things blocking me from achieving my full potential.  I’m just going to try and work through those myself.  But thanks for the offer, Church of Scientology.

Day 37, Scenes From The Mall:  I enjoyed everything I did in the mall, except shopping.  And I think my mall photo shoot went about as well as possible.

Day 38, Mo’ Money:  My strategy was to buy low and sell high.  Instead, I bought high and sold low.  I guess I got confused.

Day 39, Letting Go:  Let go of all the negative energy.  Relax.  Fall.  And trust that your parachute will open.

Day 40, The Last Supper:  Thank you to everyone who helped me throughout these forty days.  One thing I learned from this experience is that success is not necessarily a solo endeavor.  It is about supportive friends and reaching out to allies within the community.  Thank you to my parents, who somehow have refrained from being embarrassed by my antics.  Most importantly, thank you to my lovely and amazing wife–for being so supportive and putting up with a crazy person for the past forty days.  This was a true test of your patience and our marriage.  Thank goodness we passed.

On a serious note, I learned that every, single day can be fresh, exciting, and adventurous.  The point of this blog has always been to demonstrate that each of us has the ability to attain an endless array of moves in life’s game.  We can all break free from habit and routine and introduce new rays of sunshine that can warm our faces and make us laugh.  But more importantly, and somewhat unexpectedly, I learned a little bit more about who I am and what I want out of this life.  I want to live the kind of life that I am proud of, full of humor and close connections, where I can look back and not be regretful of the choices I have made.  I do not want to realize that I wasted time or was not courageous enough to live the life I desired.  I want to look back with nothing but joy and gratitude for my silly, little life.  And although I am only thirty-one, I know the clock is ticking and that I have precious little time.

So, given this experience, am I still going to report to duty as an attorney at a big law firm?  In short, yes.  Not because I am too afraid or risk-averse to choose a different course, but because this is the course that my passions have led me to.  Although I love being a goofy blogger, I also love the law.  I love the fact that the law is clear and unclear, oftentimes difficult to decipher, constantly challenging me to be smarter and more clever and more creative.  I love to think about and write about the law, about broad-sweeping things like justice, the constitution, free speech, etc., and even about dull, boring things like contracts and insurance.  And most importantly, I love that every case is different, so every day is different.

But I will always remember these forty days, what they meant to me, what I learned, and the people I met and connected with.  I will always remember that habit and routine are inevitable, but new and interesting experiences are never far away.  And I will always remember that if I am not happy with my job or my life, or if I stop laughing and smiling, I have the courage and will to make the necessary changes.

And there it is.  Thank you.  Thank you to everyone who read even a single word of this ridiculous, inconsequential blog.  My heart is overwhelmed with joy that my words made anyone smile or think or feel or laugh.  And although this experience is over, I will never be too far away.  I’ll be right here, living my life anonymously, trying not to take myself too seriously, and attempting to engage in a life worth living.

As for the future of this blog, I am not going to reconstruct this into The Forty Years.  This is my last post, and I mean it.  But I do not want this blog to die.  So I need to ask a huge favor from anyone who is reading this.  Spread the word.  I want to find someone who is funemployed or unemployed and has forty days to change his/her life to take over this blog.  I want to find someone who can take the same challenge, engage in different activities, and speak with a different voice.  And when they’re finished, maybe someone else will come along.  So, dear reader, please tell everyone you know about the blog and that I am looking for the right person to pass it on to.  The site will stay up, and I can be contacted at thefortydays@yahoo.com.  Who.  Is.  Next?