No, that's not some weird analogy to food.  Especially grains, I mean how dumb would I have to be to push that on people?  And alienate the ever-growing gluten-free population?  That'd just be silly.  What I mean is that every experience in a relationship, every single second is building your relationship to what it will be.   Each second (or hundredth of a second, or hundredth of a hundredth, or . . . ow, too much math) is making building the mountain that is your relationship.  Whether that's a romantic relationship, a strong friendship, or an extremely disappointing relationship with a Washington football team.

These mountains are built grain by grain, not boulder by boulder.  You can't just make something, or make up for  something, in one shot.  Yes, there are those milestone moments, but you built towards those.  If you try to rush it, then it will be focused strictly on the now as opposed to how sustainable the progress would be.  Basically, the harder you push it, the more you're doing it wrong.

It's October!  You know what that means.  It's time to spread the word and raise awareness and funds in support of ending an epidemic that has killed many, many women.  It's time to make sure that we put in every preventative measure possible to make sure that another woman doesn't have to suffer through it.  It's the month to show that we're being completely supportive of the entire medical, psychological, and financial parts of this horrible experience.   No one deserves it, no one asks for it, and if it were as easy as just getting in your car and going, you would have peeled out a long, long time ago and left that relationship.

I remember it like it was yesterday:  my sixth-grade orientation. There was talk about how it was going to be harder, how we needed to be more responsible, blah blah blah, get to the good stuff.   Where I grew up, we didn't get lockers until middle school.  THAT is why everyone was there; we wanted to be cool and find out where our lockers were.  And how to actually use them, though nobody admitted it because, who doesn't know how to use a locker? (Hint: everyone).

Our principal warned us not to give our locker combination to anyone.  "Your best friend now may not be your best friend in June."  That stuck with me, and the recent picture leaks of Jennifer Lawrence and other celebrities takes me back to that.  These are pictures that were supposed  to be private, but they're not anymore and never will be again.  Now with smartphones we take pictures of ourselves and send them to those we trust.  And it's fine . . . until it's not.

When we were growing up, school began in September and ended in June.  It was basically like clockwork and guaranteed.  We had a start point to hate and a goal that, while it seems like it was only getting further away, was always getting closer.  Once the end of the year came, boom!  Throw your books in the air (then get yelled at by Mom and pick them up because education is important and blah blah blah) and live your summer of playing basketball (or in my case looking like a complete idiot while shooting enough bricks to build a house) all day, flashlight tag until way past when you're supposed to be home, and sleeping in until you get yelled at for being lazy.  Go to concerts and do an absolutely terrible job of hiding that you're drinking or smoking something (and then completely deny that you EVER did anything of the sort) Or in 2014, play a video game that is about all of those things because why do it when you can pay $60 to pretend  that you're doing it?  Come on, Mom, duh.

When we get older, though, there is no set end point.  Basketball hurts, playing tag hurts, running around hurts (okay, everything hurts), going to concerts is just traffic and loud, drinking is a glass of wine, and sleeping in means waking up 15 minutes before your alarm instead of the usual 20.  This ends when your heart goes, "WTF am I doing all of this for?  I'm out."  You worked so hard and what did you end up with?  A tombstone that says, "At least I had a 401(k) to never enjoy."  Don't do that.  Go have fun.  It's summer!  If you're thinking, "Actually, summer doesn't start until June 20, Jason," Then this post is DIRECTLY aimed at you.  Lighten up, man.

It's here, it's finally here!  School's about to let out and summer is about to start.  It's time to find your gym membership card that you haven't used since January 2, clean off the grill, and pretend that there's not going to be any traffic on the way to the beach.  We have the Sun shining and the beach waiting!  It's time to forget about the cold and start enjoying the hot!

. . . until it becomes TOO hot and then we start wanting it to be cold again.  It always happens.  In the winter, we post pictures of how high the snow is and how we can't wait until summer.  Fast forward five months and we post pictures of thermometers in the triple digits and say we can't wait for winter.  We want what we don't have and we want to be where we aren't.  We don't like how things are, so if we just change our environment, then everything will be better, right?  Nope.  

"Ugh, I hate this.  I have to work 60 hours this week, and then I have to go to this party on Friday," My college roommate Tim said.

"Wait, do you want to go to the party?" His girlfriend Michelle asked.

"No, but I have  to.  Everyone's going to be so mad and disappointed if I don't go," Tim replied with exasperation, already accepting his fate and practicing his "no-seriously-I'm-so-interested-in-what-you're-saying" look.

Michelle sighed.  She had heard this pretty much every week.  Tim was a nice guy, a great guy.  I mean, why be with him if he weren't?  But this had to stop.  He had to stop trying to please everyone because he thought he was so critical to their happiness.  At first it was sweet, but now it's just annoying.

She paused, took a breath, and finally told him, "Tim, stop.  You don't have to go.  They might want you there, yeah, but the party will go on without you.  You're not that important."

Groucho Marx gave a lot to the world of comedy, but my favorite is a quote: "One morning, I shot an elephant in my pajamas.  How he got into my pajamas I'll never know."   You're probably thinking, "Was I supposed to pick up milk today?" or "What does that have to do with anything?"  

Well, first, yes and the store is closing so you should probably burn some rubber.  Second, it was Groucho's play on words showing how what we say, as clear as crystal as it may sound to us, isn't always what gets across to others.  That was just literally talking; now we have texting, Facebook statuses, Instagram comments, tweets, whatever the hell you call a message on WhatsApp, etc.  The more ways to communicate means the more ways to miscommunicate.  So, do it right and don't blame others if you do it wrong.  Which you probably are.

If there's one phrase that I can't stand hearing, then it's, "Sorry, we're out of nachos."  Seriously, Taco Bell, how are you out of nachos?  Anyway, if there's a second one, then it's, "Oh come on, he should know by now."  That one just blows my mind.

People don't know things unless they're taught.  There's no magic age where you suddenly realize, "Oh, this is how you prioritize your time effectively," or "Ah, okay, if you take the square root of the sum of the square of side A and side B, then you get the hypotenuse of a right triangle!" or "Oh, picking my nose in front of girls doesn't  get me a homecoming date."  These are things that you learn, things that you are taught either by experience or by someone teaching you.  

Age doesn't give you any more or less ability or knowledge, just more of an opportunity to be taken advantage of or squandered.  There's the age according to your birth certificate and then there's your life experience and what you've been taught.  Those two have nothing to do with each other.

Well, as today warms up to a balmy 56 degrees (literally three times warmer than it was a couple of weeks ago) and God starts using Head & Shoulders so that we don't get 8 inches of dandruff every damned morning, I start to think towards summer.  I remember back in elementary and middle school, whenever we were apparently feeling especially masochistic, we'd play Marco Polo.   For those of you who don't know the game, I'm jealous (and also unsure if you had a childhood or access to a pool).  Basically you pick the kid in your group that you all secretly hate the most would be "it."  You'd all be in the pool, and then that poor, unfortunate soul would close his eyes and call out "Marco" and everyone else would yell out "Polo" and the sucker would try to find and tag another player, who would then be it.  This would last about two rounds until everyone started cheating and stopped playing, someone swims into a wall (eyes closed + swimming = idiot), or the lifeguard whistles that it's adult swim (thank God).

Life can be like that (without the giving up part, of course).  It can be an incredibly frustrating journey in which we try to find out what the hell we're supposed to be doing with ourselves while awkwardly trying to find the best match for us academically, socially, professionally, and romantically.  Life is a game that is frustrating as hell when we're not winning but indescribably rewarding when we finally do.

"Hey Jason, we got everything that you wanted in your new car, but could only find one that had a few extras, so it'll be a little more," the salesman tells me, trying to gloss over a $500 upcharge.

"Not my fault, not my problem," I reply.  The salesman pauses for a second and looks at me like I just explained quantum physics.  Since he didn't seem to get it and didn't have the cajones to ask for an explanation, I told him.  "Listen, I told you what needed to happen for you to get the sale.  You couldn't find my car without extras?  Sucks.  I'm paying for what we agreed upon, not more just because you guys have an inventory issue."  I got the car and didn't pay a dime for the "extras" ($75 for a trunk liner?  Seriously?).   Why?  Because we're not responsible for anyone's actions or problems but our own.  Sometimes we try to take on other people's problems, and sometimes they ask us to take theirs on, but it never ends up way that we want to.  We have to learn to step back and say, "Not my fault, not my problem."