But let’s not forget the glory of those awkward years. Let’s not forget puberty. Let’s not forget this:

Yes, these are my middle-school ID cards. I found them in a drawer when I was home for Christmas. Please fixate not just on the sleekly combed hair in 6th grade, the silk shirt in 7th grade, and the Neck and the sweater vest in 8th grade. And these weren’t photos take on random days of me wearing random outfits: these were the outfits I chose for my student ID photo sessions.

These aren’t even my best photos. I’m saving those for the tournament.

The Tournament of Awkwardness. (somewhere, trumpets blare)

Last year I created a Tournament of Cuteness on the blog, and it was a blast. Check it out if you don’t know what it is. This year I’m pretty much doing the opposite–instead of celebrating cuteness, I want to celebrate our awkwardness.

Now, you may be asking, “Why would I let you post a photo of me at the most awkward and vulnerable time of my life, a photo that hundreds of strangers will see and vote on?”

Good question. Here’s why:

1. Although the contest is free to enter, I will be putting up a cash prize equal to the number of contestants. I will also be matching that prize for a charity of the winning contestant’s choice. So if Jane P of Omaha wins the contest out of 400 total competitors, she’ll win $400 and I’ll give an additional $400 to Jane’s favorite charity. Thus I’m hoping there is an incentive for you to not only enter the contest yourself, but also get your friends to enter, as the prize pool gets bigger for each additional person who enters.
2. Self-deprecating humor is awesome. If you’re able to laugh at yourself, you can do anything.
3. You will have the satisfaction of bringing joy to hundreds of people. You’ll be the Santa Claus of awkwardness.
4. I’m happy to link to your blog, Twitter, or Facebook page in case you’d like some free publicity. The further you go in the competition (it’s tournament-style, single elimination), the more publicity you’ll get.

Got it? Here are the rules:

1. Submissions are due on Sunday, February 12 at noon. Send one photo (any photo–it doesn’t have to be a school photo. Candid photos are fine too) to jamey.stegmaier@gmail.com with the subject line “Tournament of Awkwardness.”
2. You may only submit yourself to the contest. If your sibling or parent or best friend was way more awkward than you, get them to submit directly to me.
3. One photo per person. Don’t send me 5 photos and tell me to choose.
4. You may include a caption or description of that awkward time in your life. I’ll label photos with your first name, last initial, and age at the time the photo was taken (if you give me that information).
5. You may solicit votes from friends or family, but preferably you’ll ask them to vote for the most awkward photo. They shouldn’t necessarily vote for you just because they know you. And please don’t cheat. Someone tried to cheat in the previous tournament, and I can tell when it happens. Just vote once.

Now, I understand that this tournament may end up being a total dud. I’m happy to embarrass myself in front of the world, but perhaps most people will choose not to. So if I only get a few submissions, I promise that I’ll still post them on a blog entry in a few weeks.

So that’s it! I look forward to seeing everyone at their most awkward.

1. In our AP Government class you sat in the front row right in front of Mr. Schrieber’s overhead projector in an obvious attempt to curry favor with the old man. On a scale of 1-Anoop (a former classmate), how much do you suck up to your current boss and what’s the best result to ever come from your suck-uppyness? I don’t think anyone will ever achieve a true Anoop, but I think my score has dropped quite a bit since then. In fact, I often have to remind myself that I can’t talk to my boss like that. The best result to ever come from my suck-uppyness was signing an amazing author who was way out of our league to a fledging fiction publishing companythat I started in ’10 with a few fellow St. Louis writers (it’s a passion project on the side of my day job).
   

   My High School Graduation Photo

2. In our pre-GPS high school days you could not drive from your house to the closest Chick-Fil-A with out getting lost. Where is the coolest place where you’ve gotten lost since high school? Fortunately GPS was invented since we graduated—otherwise I’d still be driving around looking for my first apartment after college. I recently took a solo trip to Ireland, and I spent most of my time lost there. Which is not at all a bad thing when you’re exploring a new country.
3. In high school you thought you were good looking, but you were also a huge nerd. Which do you feel has held you back more in life, your good looks or your nerdiness? How would your life be different if you were just a dumb average looking dude? Good question. I’ve gone partially grey in the hair now (more Buscemi grey than Clooney grey), and I’ve only gotten nerdier. I would say my life would be almost exactly the same if I were a dumb averaging looking dude, but I’d own fewer cats.
4. You took 8 years of Japanese in high school. When you go to a Benihana, do you try to impress your date by talking to your American waiters in Japanese? Also, do you order chicken or shrimp? And have you ever learned how to make that volcano out of onions? Although I studied abroad in Kyoto my junior year and reached the level of fluency that the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test describes as “Able to date Japanese women without sounding like an idiot,” I have since forgotten almost all of my Japanese. For your second and third questions, you’re thinking of China and Australia (another island nation, but not the same as Japan).
5. In high school you spent a considerable amount of time writing love letters to freshmen girls. Do you have an outlet for writing now? I’ve spent the last year on Match.com writing e-mails to women even younger than Carter Severson (at her current age! She was a freshman I dated when I was a senior), so yes, that proud Stegmaier tradition continues. As you’ve noticed by the abundance of hyperlinks in this Q&A, I also write a daily blog.
6. In high school you joined Model UN to meet girls. As a former member of an award winning Model UN team, which award nominated NBC sitcom had a better Model UN themed episode this season “Parks and Recreation” or “Community?” I love them both, but I’m definitely going with Community here. The science works out.

What do you want your high school class to know about you now?

Here’s how I came to root for my teams (in descending order of how much I care about the teams):

NFL: San Francisco 49ers. A long time ago, I was sitting at the lunch table in fourth grade when the kid next to me asked me which team I was rooting for in the Super Bowl. I had never heard of this sporting event, so I asked what my options were. Turns out the San Francisco 49ers were playing a team called the Cincinnati Bengals. I liked the sound of a team from the faraway, exotic San Francisco, and the Bengals sounded mean, so I went with the 49ers. They won the Super Bowl, and I’ve rooted for them ever since. There were a few years when I actually rooted for the Redskins, which my extended family roots for, and the Rams, which were awesome when I came out to St. Louis for college, but a few years ago I decided to be a one-team man. The 49ers are that team, and I hope they win this weekend!

MLB: St. Louis Cardinals. Growing up, the minor league team in Richmond fed into the Atlanta Braves system, but for some reason I could never root for the Braves. So cocky and southern. So my loyalties were up for grabs when I moved out to St. Louis, and I soon found that I loved that everyone in this city roots for the Cardinals no matter how old you are. The most unassuming people know detailed statistics about the Cards. I’m not a die-hard fan, but I’ve rooted for them the past 12 years.

Soccer: I need to settle on a club team for soccer, because it’s my favorite of all sports. I’ve rooted for Manchester United for a while, and I have an awesome Man U jacket, but deep down inside, I’ve suspected for quite some time that I’m a Tottenham fan. I recently learned that they’re from London, which slightly diminishes my feelings for them (I was hoping they were from a smaller town), but we’ll see how that turns out. When it comes to national teams, I tend to root for Team USA until they play terrible soccer, which is usually about 2 minutes into the World Cup. Then my loyalties switch over to Japan or the team playing the most beautiful game.

College Football: My father went to UVa, and I went to summer camp there when I was younger, so I generally root for UVa for college football and other college sports. When I moved away from Virginia, I found myself rooting for any college team in Virginia, which doesn’t make sense at all, because UVa and Virginia Tech have a fierce rivalry. But it is what it is.

I left out college basketball,  professional basketball, and hockey–I don’t have consistent teams that I root for in those sports.

How did you originally choose your sports teams? You can include individual sports too, like tennis or golf. And yes, Trev, you may include imaginary sports that should exist.

So it got me thinking about the oddest jobs I’ve ever had. None have been too crazy. But I’ve compiled them onto a list in chronological order to see how they hold up.

1. 

   A standard referee uniform.

   Babysitter: One of those typical teenage jobs. I could act responsible, but was I really equipped for this responsibility? I remember once putting a little kid on top of a refrigerator to keep him away from other kids. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s not okay.

2. Referee: I actually loved this job. You get to run around, watch soccer, and enforce arbitrary rules. I was pretty good at this job. Reffing for teenage girls was really interesting, though. They would get really done up for the games–like, lipstick, heavy mascara, the works. Very odd. My proudest moment (not really) was giving a 12-year-old girl a red card for stopping the ball with both hands right before it was going to go into the goal. She was not the goalie. If there’s one true no-no in soccer, that’s the one, and I figured it was better she learned that from a young age.
3. Movie Theater Dude: This was awesome. It was the summer before college, and I wanted to see a lot of movies in the theater for free. Little did I know that I was also going to consume a tremendous amount of popcorn and soda for free as well. I loved working concession, partly because of the popcorn (yes, we ate it with our hands directly out of the popcorn maker) and partly because I loved doing the math in my head for people’s purchases. At times I also had to tear tickets and clean theaters (people do dirty, dirty things during movies). I once asked two young teenagers for their IDs when they went to see a PG-13 movie (I think it was Galaxy Quest–there’s some cleavage in that movie!), and another time I hunted down a grandmother for sneaking in popcorn and candy. Not on my watch, lady.
4. Church Work-Study Helper: In college, my part-time work-study job was at the church where I currently work full time. I worked with a lot of really nice people. Mostly I did data entry and bought/fixed technology for the technophile priest. I think he may have purchased the world’s first GPS device.
5. 

   Roughly how I imagined an alarm company central station would look.

   Alarm Company Central Station Operator: I thought that working at an alarm company would look like an ADT commercial. Heck no. Basically, you’re locked in a small, aging room with no windows filled with out of date computers for 8 hours a day with a sassy group of 40-something African American women. Which means that it was way better than the ADT commercials. Other than the social atmosphere, it was a pretty boring job (you just sit there responding to alarm signals) until I realized that I could read books between alarms. Also, I was a rosy-cheeked college sophomore (this was a summer job). It wasn’t until years later that I realized that a lot of the friendly things those women said to me were actually quite suggestive. Who knows who I’d be today if I had been more in tune to those comments.

6. Olive Garden Waiter: For two summers I thought I was going to open a restaurant after college, so I worked as a waiter to see how a restaurant worked. I learned a lot about serving people and customer service. I learned that a lot of tipping stereotypes are true, but I believe in giving people the same level of high service even if they fit into one of those stereotypical groups. I also ate a lot of breadsticks.
7. Crab Louie Waiter: The second summer I upgraded to work in a nicer restaurant in my hometown. It really wasn’t all that different from the Olive Garden, but the tips were a little better. It was at this job that I realized that some people make their living by waiting tables, and they get really, really mad when you get the 4-top they wanted. I was not living from paycheck to paycheck, so I often traded tables. One underrated skill set that you’ll learn if you wait tables is memorization on the fly. Not just orders, but also little requests and observations as you dash around. I still have dreams that I forgot to refill the cornbread at table 5.
8. Publishing Company Project Manager/Team Leader: For every textbook or scientific journal, there’s a publisher who finds the authors and gets them to write the book, there’s a middle man who managers all the copyeditors, typesetters, proofreaders, and authors to make the book perfect, and there’s a printer who actually prints the book. I was the middle man for 4 years. During that time I had one of the kookiest bosses I’ll ever have and also one of the best bosses. My coworkers were awesome. We ate lunch together every day and had a blast. It was the perfect first post-collegiate job.
9. Newman Center Director of Operations: This is my current job. I’m the business director for a Catholic Church on a college campus. I manage the staff, the finances, the volunteers, and the contractors. I handle communications and conflicts. And I run our large annual fundraising event. If you ever want to work with truly good-hearted people, work at a nonprofit. When there’s no corporate ladder to climb, you’d be surprised at the tenacity of the human spirit.
10. Co-Founder of Blank Slate Press: My ongoing passion project is a small fiction publishing startup here in St. Louis. I handle the application process, some of the marketing, and some editorial work. I’m in constant contact with our authors. We’re currently accepting applications for our next novelist.

How many jobs have you had? What’s the oddest one? Which one would you do if it paid $100,000/yr?

Regardless of the nomenclature, I have a challenge for everyone who reads this blog on a semi-regular basis. Specifically, those of you who read but don’t comment.

Now, hold on a second–I love you all just as much as the constant commentors. You choose to take time out of your day to read this blog when you could be reading other things like catsinyogapants.com.

But, you see, the intent of this blog is to generate conversation. That’s the sole purpose (well, that and for me to show photos of my cat to strangers).

So it would be great if you commented now and then. Not a lot, just a remark here or there when you have something to say.

If you’ve read the comments in the past, it may seem like all of the commentors know each other. We don’t. Sure, a few of my real-life friends (and my mom) comment on here every now and then, but most of these people discovered my blog somehow and stuck with it. And a lot of the traffic comes from search engines too–I honestly have no idea how many people are regular readers aside from those who comment.

Also, I’m going to pull the birthday card. I turned 31 today (I almost typed 21! Ha! I’m so old). Legally, because it’s my birthday, I can get whatever I want. Earlier today I asked a coworker to eat 6 saltines and she did it, right there on the spot. (I didn’t even have to make that up.) You get anything on your birthday.

So for today only, if you’ve commented on this blog in the past year, I’d ask you not to comment. You might intimidate the fresh blood. For all you commenting virgins, here’s some fodder for you to respond to if that helps. Hopefully one of these will incite you to respond:

• Professional baseball players should show kids how to be good sports by slapping hands after the game.
• The third Hunger Games book was a huge letdown.
• Rachel should have ended up with Joey.
• ________ is overhyped. You fill in the blank.

That should do it. Thanks for the conversation.

A few years ago there were a rash of books about people who tried to do something to the extreme for one year. I found the concept fascinating, and I read a few of them, most notably The Year of Living Biblically (a guy follows all of the rules of the Bible–as zany as many of the more obscure ones are–for one year to see how it affected him personally and spiritually).

My book idea is in the same vein. The concept is that for one year, I would act on all advice that scientists give us about living longer.

You’ve probably heard some of this advice:

• Drink a glass of red wine a day and you’ll live longer.
• Take an aspirin a day and you’ll live longer.
• Eat a few pieces of dark chocolate a day and you’ll live longer.

My ears always perk up when I hear this type of advice, especially if it’s easy to follow. And some of it goes well beyond eating a piece of chocolate. For example, there’s a small town in Italy where fatty foods comprise 41% of their diet, but bonds and support that are an integral part of this close-knit community gives its residents one of the highest life expectancy levels in the world?

The book would explore why, exactly, we want to live longer–if not forever (think vampires, religion, the fountain of youth, etc). What’s so appealing about immortality? And what about the aging of your body versus that of your mind–what do you value more? We spend so much money trying to look younger, but what is it about aging that we so despise?

So this is something I’m thinking about doing. Some of the advice I already take by coincidence (i.e., you live longer if you have a pet), but there’s quite a bit that I’d need to add into my life. And it’s not just longevity advice–there’s also mortality advice. What good is eating legumes every day if you get eaten by a grizzly bear on Day 18?

One gimmick I’d like to include in this book is that I want to take more than just the advice of scientist. I also want to take (if only temporarily) any advice that you’ve ever heard about living longer. If your crazy uncle once told you that you’ll live longer if you eat a spoonful of peanut butter upside down every day, I want to do it.

So if you have a minute, let me know any longevity advice that you’ve ever heard. That’s a very good chance I’m actually going to take this advice, and I’ll give you credit in the book. Keep in mind the distinction between being healthier and living longer. There’s a lot of overlap between the two, but I want to specifically focus on advice you’ve heard about longevity. An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but does it add a year to your life?

Thanks for your help, and have a Merry Christmas!

I'm not sure what's going on with my hair or what I'm looking at in this photo, but let's just ignore that and focus on my wonderful family.

Last night’s blog entry is one of those for which I’m particularly thankful: It’s one of those blog entries where the comments are way more interesting and insightful than the original blog entry. The goal of this blog is to generate some form of conversation, so even a single comment goes a long way in my book, not to mention such great comments as Car’s, John’s, Katie’s, and Lorena’s.

So do yourself a favor and read those comments if you have a minute. The key points that stood out were said by Lorena (“As a kid I definitely have stronger memories of DOING things and LEARNING things than of GETTING things.”) and Katie (“Out of all of the gifts I received as a child, I can probably only name 3% of them, but it seems like I remember a moment spent with family from every year.”)

It was with that sentiment in mind that I bought Christmas gifts for my family this year (see last year’s entry on Christmas gifts for a different approach).

I wanted to buy something for my parents that would give them a shared experience that they might not otherwise indulge in (I feel like that clause sets me up for some amazingly crude but funny comments…. They’re my parents, people!). And I wanted to do the same for my sister and her fiance. My brother? He’s getting a sweater. Rumor has it that he really needs a sweater.

So after much deliberation, I bought each pair a gift certificate to one of their favorite restaurants that they rarely go to. My idea was that these people don’t need more stuff, and if they really want stuff, they probably already bought it for themselves (we’re all adults here, right? If you want cookies, you buy cookies).

But I’m hoping that I’ve bought each couple a memory of a lovely evening. An evening when they can order the best dish on the menu and not think twice about it because the bill is already covered. An evening of conversation, of laughter, and hopefully at least one comical mishap. An evening they can spend connecting with one another.

That’s my gift, my wish for those I love this Christmas.

What brilliant Christmas gifts did you think of this year?

Also, if you want to give ME a gift for Christmas, go over to the Riverfront Times and–if you truly agree–nominate my blog (www.jameystegmaier.com) and my Facebook feed (facebook.com/jameystegmaier) for #7 and #20 on the 2011 Web Awards site. If I won either of those, the publicity would surely continue to expand the conversations I hope to create.

The article is about a growing number of anonymous donors at Kmart stores across the country who are paying off bills and layaway account for people who can’t afford to buy Christmas gifts for their kids.

Before I continue with what I have to say, I want to be clear: I am not in any position to tell people how to spend their money or how to define generosity. If it feels good for you to give in a way that I can’t relate to, that’s totally fine.

My first reaction as I started to read the article was: This is so cool. It’s the equivalent of the person in front of you at the toll booth paying for your toll, except the generosity of the Kmart givers specifically targeted kids. Kids who can’t help that they’re poor.

But then I read this: “Dona Bremser, an Omaha nurse, was at work when a Kmart employee called to tell her that someone had paid off the $70 balance of her layaway account, which held nearly $200 in toys for her 4-year-old son.”

Let that sink in for a minute. Here are my two points/questions:

• Why are you spending money you don’t have on things you don’t need? Isn’t that one of the major reasons why America’s economy is terrible? And why, if you walk into Kmart with a fistful of cash and are feeling generous, would you enable someone to continue to spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need?
• $200 in toys? For a 4-year-old? I’ll tell you what I wanted when I was 4 years old: a cardboard box and chocolate. If the money was being spent on clothes or necessities, I think I’d understand the vastness of that expense. But $200 on toys for a little kid who will play with them for a month and then forget about them? That’s just irresponsible.

These generous donors made Christmas miracles for these parents and kids, that I cannot deny. I just wonder if it’s responsible giving, given the irresponsibility of that parent (and countless others, I’m sure).

What do you think?

Is this why people check the weather?

The other day I was reading a report about what people do online. It’s a pretty cool infographic if you have the chance to check it out.

A lot of the results are to be expected. But one statistic caught my eye:

81% of people check the weather online.

The “online” part of that statement isn’t important to me. It’s the 81% to me. The vast majority of people actually find some utility in forecasted weather.

Honestly, this flabbergasts me. Literally the only time I check the weather is when I’m driving to and from Virginia. That means I check the weather 0.5% days of the time. The other 99.5%? I open my door and look outside. Not for the forecast. For the actual weather.

I’m trying not to judge the 81% here. I mean, if you want to rely on forecasts and predictions, I’m not stopping you. But what are you getting out of it? Even if the forecasts were correct 100% of the time, what would you do differently?

For example, say you wake up tomorrow and it’s sunny outside. Doppler forecasts have been predicted (it’s the year 2407), and you know for sure that it’s going to rain at 3:00 today. Say it’s not even an average day when you sit inside at work all day–say that you’re going on a corporate retreat at an outdoor ropes course. Are you going to change anything you do that day because you know that it’s going to rain? No. Regardless of whether or not you knew it in advance, when it starts to rain, you’ll get off the ropes course and go inside. The forecast doesn’t matter. The current weather matters.

The exception to this (and I’m open to other exceptions in the comments) is really bad weather. If there’s a winter storm coming in a few days, you might want to stock up on food.

Although, honestly, even that concept is kind of absurd to me. When was the last time you were completely unable to attain food? Compare that incredibly low number to the number of times where the weather guy has told you that there was going to be a huge blizzard, and instead you got a light dusting of snow.

I guess the other exception might be tornadoes, but unless weather forecasts can predict exactly when and where tornadoes will touch down, that information is useless. What matters is that a tornado is happening right now.

So that’s how I feel about weather reports. I’d put it in the same category as “expert” predictions in sports. Why would you spend your time reading about which team might win when you can just watch the game and find out for yourself or look at the score afterwards, when a team has actually won.

But it gets weirder.

The other day I was talking with a coworker who is potty-training his 2-year-old, and the conversation triggered a memory that I later confirmed with my parents.

When I was really little, I used to constipate myself.

You read that correctly. For some reason, whenever I had to poop, I’d hide behind a chair or bush to give myself a quiet moment to hold it all in.

One of my parents would eventually realize what I was doing, and they’d find me in my overly obvious hiding spaces. “Hey there, bud,” they’d say. “Whatcha doing back there?”

I think I knew I wasn’t doing the right thing, so I wouldn’t say much in response. But if I had answered accurately, I would have explained that I was saving my poop. Why? I don’t know. Maybe I just wasn’t ready to let go of this creation of mine.

I’ve heard that most kids have some odd potty-training story–do you have one, either for you or your kids?