Just Doing It

During Autumn 2002 I was nonstop plugged into Josh’s self-titled cd for the hour and a half train ride I spent getting home from high school. Getting off the train, I only have to walk down one block then round the corner to the graveyard that lies perpendicular to my block. The timing was so calculated. By the time I reached that corner the train I had gotten off of would be chug chug chugging pass me. That's when I would start singing because I knew my voice was no contest to the noise of the train and Josh's good vibrations. He sings an explosive duet with the Corrs in Canto Alla Vita. Lyrics go - I sing to life/to it’s tragic beauty/to pain and to strife/let that dance through me/the rise and the fall/I lived through it all.

Josh has a fan base like a boyband, but a mature one aged like wine. Not that there aren’t the Borat on Pamela types in the lot of them. When it came around that Josh would be in New York for a signing, of course I was planning to be there.

Dobbs, my then econ teacher, gives one life advice to his students. Actually, he steals it from Nike. We know the slogan, but do we think about the slogan? Just Do It. It's simple, catchy, easy to get stuck in your head. I have to laugh at that because it could be why I remember that piece of advice above the talk of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc. Well, to be fair, that's at least what I cared about above everything else.

The signing was in the winter. I'm horrible with the cold of winter. There I was at Barnes and Noble, first in line until it occurred to me that I had to buy the cd from the store first. Damn it. Dejection and a disproportion between cash to pride. Poor student circumstance - I had no cash in my pockets. 

I took the long ride home. I was empty, the house was empty, everything was empty. I went home for this? As I explained before, I got Dobbs’ voice stuck in my head. Just do it. Stop the whiny rationalizing and just do it. I grabbed my cd and left, getting to the store now at the end of the line, about to freeze my ass off the longest. All for two seconds next to this guy. But it was all worth it for the autograph he rounded off with a cute smiley face.

Not unusual, I was really removed from the school scene. And it was senior year of high school. Dobbs had a tradition of having his students sign his copy of the yearbook. That's where I gave him the shorter version of the story. He told me later it was the only indication I had gotten anything out of his class.