Last night, something happened that I’ve been thinking about since I was 11 years old: my mom’s mom died.

You may be wondering if she’s been battling an illness for the past 12 years. Nope, it was kind of sudden as far as I could tell. You’re probably also wondering why I didn’t call her my grandma, or some variation of that word, but that’s what has made this moment in my life something I’ve wondered about since 1999.

It all started in 1960 when my mom was born. Her biological mother, Faye, felt she was too young to raise a child, so my mom’s grandmother, Myrtle, (Don’t you love these old people names…) drove my mom home from the hospital. She completed adoption papers for my mom a few days later, and just like that my mom’s biological granny became her adopted mom while her biological mom became her sister legally.

All of this was kept from me when I was younger so I wouldn’t get so confused, but in 1999 when Myrtle died, my mom explained it all to me.

I had always called Faye “grandma” and had always called Myrtle “granny,” and also had a great aunt that we grandkids always called “granny Fox,” but in a year when I learned Faye was legally my aunt and granny and granny Fox died, I felt like a kid who had lost three grandparents in a single year.

But beyond that, Faye and her other daughters never had anything to do with my family except for Christmas, so I grew very resentful of my mom’s side of the family. I remember one time when I mentioned my birthday was the following week and Faye hadn’t even realized while she spent most of her time with my “cousins.”

And so it happened that I began to wonder what would happen when I learned what I heard yesterday about my aunt/grandma. Would I cry? Would it even matter to me? What emotions were going to take hold of me when I learned of her death?

It’s a morbid thought, I know, but with such a weird family history, it was something that came up in my mind countless times throughout adolescence.

And so when my mom delivered the news last night between Taylor’s volleyball match and my Wake Christian football game, I was speechless.

I had since come to terms with my grandma’s absence in my life thanks to my mom, who pointed out that within her side of the family (the portion that spent the most time with Faye) there were three teenage pregnancies out of wedlock, at least two jailbirds and exactly zero college ATTENDEES.

But with learning of Faye’s death, all I could feel was regret over the grudge I held for so many years.

I would have liked to have said goodbye, or at least to have seen her within the past five months, but it’s not so much about missed opportunities as much as I was just ashamed of adolescent Ty’s grudge against a family member.

Do you guys have any regrets concerning relatives or weird family tree stories?

The appeal for spicy foods had always eluded me, somehow.

I love to try different things, but anytime there’s a chili pepper logo or flame attached to a dish, I tend to stay away, preferring to err on the side of mild.

I just felt I had burned my tongue too many times on hot coffee to want to put it through pain on purpose, though I appreciated the flavors of hot stuff. Jalapenos sometimes would sometimes make an appearance in my diet, and sometimes I test ed myself with wings and hot sauces, but mostly just to assure myself again that spicy foods weren’t for me.

And then something happened. I was at Sammy’s for trivia one Tuesday night and Brent and Kate got the idea to order ten super-hot boneless wings. I can’t remember what Sammy’s calls their hottest…nuclear or inferno or something…I’ll find out sometime, but the idea was we would race. The first person to eat all three of their wings would eat the final, tenth wing to signify their winning of the contest.

And so I shoved hot, spicy chunks of meat down my throat as fast as possible. Of course I lost (Brent finished first, then Kate) after a lot of water and an unscheduled tearful lap around the restaurant in case I vomited, I celebrated quietly inside. I had eaten hot stuff on purpose and survived.

Then I received instructions to eat something spicy to help me get through a rough spot from Obi-Wan KelseySchnellobi. I never told him that he was insane and that I hated spicy food (mostly fearing another patriarchal tongue-lashing) and decided to push the thought of spicy food from my mind.

But it wasn’t long before peer pressure (from a very large man) had me staring down spiciness again.

I was interviewing Lamar Adams, a former Garner High standout and recent inductee into the Elon sports hall of fame, at Buffalo Brothers, a sports bar on Capital Boulevard. I had arrived late (as usual) and he had already ordered appetizers.

I got a beer (Sam Adams Summer Seasonal…ahh…) and we started talking about the NFL. Before long, there were eight jalapeno poppers in front of us and he TOLD me to eat.

I tried one and he made me eat another. Before I knew it, the waitress was asking if I needed another beer. I realized that if the spicy food continued, I would be too plastered to ask any questions.

Next came the hot wings…I was sure to eat slowly and drink even slower, but Adams had ordered 20 and was insistent that 10 of them were mine. They paled in spiciness to the Sammy’s wings and the jalapeno poppers, but it still kept me on my toes as the interview continued and I fought to appear manly before one of the Triangle’s all-time most feared defensive tackles.

So that was twice I conquered the sinister of spice, but there was another challenge to come. Outside of spicy mustard at The Flying Saucer and helping my mom with Asian Zing wings from Buffalo Wild Wings, my next heat against heat came Sunday when an old friend took me out for sushi.

I allowed her to order, since I knew nothing of sushi and only offered her distinct instructions not to order anything too spicy.

Sure enough, everything the waiter brought had spicy in its description. Spicy tuna, spicy mayo, spicy whatever…I don’t remember, but I decided to grin and bear it. Or, as Kelsey would put it, I “manned up.”

And that, my friends, was the greatest sushi experience I had ever had. The spices played off the tunas and seaweeds and whatever the hell else I ate perfectly.

It was a taste explosion, and that’s when I realized that despite of all of my liberal food explorations that had ranged from alligator to snails, I had built up one rule: nothing spicy – a rule that needed to be broken before understood that it was one meant to be broken.

With the final barrier broken, now I’m finally free to explore any foods that tickle my fancy, not matter that there’s a biohazard logo beside it. I won’t go overboard by any means, but it feels good to open up a menu with no encumbrances.

Was it the guiding force of Kelsey that led me to this awakening or just a series of peer-pressure-riddled situations? I don’t care either way, really. Just get me two glasses of water with whatever I order and let’s eat.

1. To avoid the staggered half-apologetic posting schedule of some of my closest blogging friends (I’m looking at you, Derek) I have been busy for the past week doing what I do best: thinking about writing.

I can’t begin to guess how many leads I’ve written in my head in advance of even transcribing my notes and how many Tweets, headlines, blog posts or chapters of my memoirs I’ve composed in my head only to forget them before I could chronicle them.

But beyond remembering deja vu-like phrases and strung together sentences, the biggest deterrent to me blogging over the past week has been you: the reader.

When I was at Technician, and even now at The Garner Citizen, it’s fairly easy to pick out what stories are newsworthy. Anything an average student would need/want to know belongs in the Technician and anything concerning sports in the Garner area probably deserves a mention in the Citizen’s sports pages.

And that brings me to the articles (and a video) that first dragged me into this pit of overanalysis concerning my web presence from The New York Times Magazine.

NYTMag’s most recent series of stories has been concerned with “The Way We Live Now” and has had an increased focus on social networking and how it has changed…well everything.

Here’s an excerpt from an e-mail I wrote to Daniel and Jessica concerning the articles:
“Even when we write in our personal blogs or Tweets or whatever, often we have to think twice about how others will perceive us. How many times have you done something and immediately thought, “Wow, I can’t wait to write about this on our travel blog” or began thinking about how to write it while you were still experiencing it. … If you’re constantly chronicling your present, are you ever truly experiencing it?”

And so, NYTMag gave me a writer’s block that I couldn’t shake. If I blogged, was I really benefitting myself since my posts would be tid bits about my life packaged in a way that you, the reader, may find entertaining? If I discuss the strangest class I’ve ever enrolled in (see below) in a story-telling manner am I sapping myself of my ability to appreciate it by trying to convince you to as well?

(Yes. Overanalysis. But that’s typically what I do. I search for motives and reasons and I just really like the question why…especially when I feel like I have a hunch it will lead to someone asking why not. I don’t really look for meanings in absolutely everything, but I have this divining rod within me that feels poetic justice wins out in the end. I guess I’m still convinced this life is just a novel I’m living and that each event and happening foreshadows something else. Yeah that sounds a lot like fate, but I like using lots of words to describe concepts…it’s good for the vocabulary and prevents me from falling victim to Orwell’s dreaded Newspeak).

And so I’ve decided to break down a few events I wanted to write about in shorter forms below. These are my thoughts of the past week. Enjoy:

2. So I’m a history major and at N.C. State, the jewel in the crown that is your useless History B.A. is a senior seminar known as HI 491. (Derek will remember this as well).

There are different sections and they’re all very specifically tailored to minute details in history. I wanted to take the one about the Jimmy Carter administration (My mentor’s favorite president) but ended up in one about NOLA and Katrina. Not bad, right? It’s exciting, it’s current, it’s history I lived through.

But then I received a rather disappointing letter from a former professor of mine. It was a D. I deserved it, but this did mean I needed to add a new class to graduate on time. After a few tweaks to my schedule, I was set to graduate, though I was now enrolled in a different seminar: Rule of law from a historical perspective.

Let’s recap: Need to pass difficult class. Enrolled in exciting class. Need to pass additional class. Enrolled in another class, plus a class that’s title draws me to sleep.

But then, amazingness struck! This class began when the head of the history department was talking to a colleague about blah blah blah…and then the TEAGL foundation (a derivative of Exxon-Mobil, somehow) sponsored the class.

So this is an experimental class of 11 with two professors who have some cash to burn. This means the hummus in my refrigerator was paid for by a grant. It also means the dinners we’re having later this semester (including travel) will be paid for by this grant, but that may not even be the best part.

This course, which is all about philosophy and deep-thinking overanalysis (see above for why this makes me excited), will include a final paper that may be published in a book my professors are writing about their experiment.

So I get free hummus, dinners, a degree and a chance to be published in a real academic book? Saddle up and ride!

3. I feel like this article is an essential read for anyone in any of my shoes right now. That is, in college, in your 20s, concerned about when it’s time to grow up, unsure about any career paths or goals, wondering if moving back home is a pathway toward a career goal, unsure about graduate school, Americorps, Peace Corps, the Armed Forces, considering studying abroad or taking a year off, contemplating what religion is, means or should be…pretty much any normal thought of a college student/20-something. Which is exactly what the article is about.

Take a look at it (it’s very long, though) and let me know what you think…I would like to devote a lecture to it…or at least find out if someone else was as encouraged and discouraged by it at the same time.

4. I love Ferris Bueller’s day off.

To learn a bit more about what you consider news (at least, the type of news content I can create), allow me to attempt a funneling of your comments. Post 1 was on blogging itself as I contrasted my views and experiences with that of some articles found in a recent periodical. Post 2 was a hyperlocal focus on a class I’m in. Post 3 is similar to Post 1, though I’d like to expand it in a way that focuses on how I feel like the article affects society as a whole. Post 4, well that’s just because that movie could be considered among my cinematic building blocks of life along with Anchorman.

So what do you, the reader, prefer? Wanna know what I think about me, what’s going on in my life, what I think about you and society and how much you disappoint me, or more about Ferris?

Comment away! This blogging adventure is brand-new for me, and I want you guys to come along with me.