Hello blogosphere, my old friend. I've come to be part of you again.

Hello blogosphere, my old friend. I've come to be part of you again.


Have you forgotten who I am? No problem. I'm someone new.


I've gotten to like microblogging better than actual blogging. If you're reading this, follow Twitter.com/Bennytheshoe. Click that link or click on the left side of the page, if you're reading this on my site. I update that a whole lot more.


I used to hate brevity. Now I love it. I'm not sure if it's a real love affair or if it's a phase, like the person you'd cling to during an identity crisis.


I also used to hate jokes. For almost ten years of my life, I avoided comedy with obvious jokes and punchlines. That means no Woody Allen. 





And a begrudging relationship with Mitch Hedberg, who I laughed at but wanted so badly to not laugh at.





In any case, I don't think brevity and jokes ever really hurt anyone, and they both make me pretty comfortable.


Surrendering to my love for jokes was like getting dumped by the person you cling to during an identity crisis. It was awesome.

This Thanksgiving, I started to feel like I really identified with the climax of 2001: A Space Odyssey, where Dave grows into a baby.

I first saw the movie when I was 12. It moved me in a way that I couldn't express. I felt like I got it without having much to say about it. This fact lead many people to tell me not to smoke weed, because, if I liked 2001 without it, my brain was already there.


I watched it at a midnight showing with my cousin in 2009. After the movie ended, I confessed to him that, even though I loved the movie in the past, I really couldn't say much about why, except that it looked and sounded cool and gives off the impression that it's full of meaning.


My cousin had a simple explanation and it was the kind of short but all-encompassing idea that my love of neverending theories had prevented me from ever coming up with. His explanation went something like this: All the space exploration business is about human progress, and when the guy turns into a baby, it's saying that we don't need to keep trying to make progress, we can just go in circles and that's fine.


So far, I've agreed with him that that's pretty much all there is to it.


My 86-year-old grandma is in a new phase of her life. She talks less than she used to. She seems incapable of hostility of any kind. She needs help getting dressed. 

She used to argue. She used to make cheesecake and cheesebread that are more delicious and mind-blowing than any other cheesecakes and cheesebreads. She used to lecture. She used to be really adept at using computers. 


When I was a teenager and she was in her seventies, she hit on Liam Neeson while asking him for his autograph. I don't remember what her exact words were, but I remember that his response was, "Ah, you don't look a bit past fifty."  

I always thought that, when she became the way she is now, I'd feel like she was gone. Like she was regressing into childhood, or another one those things you hear people say about old people. But I don't feel that. 

While I played the piano at my parents' house, my grandma stood in the corner and listened. When I was done playing John Fahey's "India-Pacific RR Blues," she said, "That sounds like an Italian wedding. And somebody said "Oh, maybe I don't!" Some years ago, she would have expressed that idea in a totally different way. I, in my 26-year-old body, would have expressed that idea in a totally different way. But not a better way. A less poetic one, maybe.

Sure, she's losing parts of her that, in my mind, make her who she is. But haven't we all lost parts of who we are? Hell, my grandma's seen me lose parts of who I was. She remembers when my cousin and I were too young to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey together. She remembers when I used to have drooling contests with him. He'd be silent, but I'd occasionally say, "Water comes out." I've lost the things that made me who I was then. So who am I to say an old person's not themselves anymore?