Ponderings and Panderings

Today is my last day of work until 2009. Seeing as how all the students are done with finals and have gone home, I have picked up a double shift in the hopes of working 14 hours in one day without answering a single question. Wish me luck.

I got my wisdom teeth pulled last Friday. The pain is starting to subside, but yesterday, my sixth post-operative day, was particularly bad. I think I got a dry socket in the former home of my lower-right wisdom tooth. I guess that's what happens when you decide to self-medicate with certain herbal remedies 24 hours after surgery and only swish with saltwater 4 times a day, instead of 20. Oh well, c'est la vie, it hurts much less today, the ibuprofen is working and hopefully I will not need the vicodin I brought along just in case. I think I'll be able to kick this pain by the end of the weekend. I got dis covered, SON!

The snow today makes me wonder how much GOD really hates Michigan. It's kind of ironic that the day G-Dub announces the $13.something billion loan to the auto industry, GOD decides to drop a foot of snow all over southeast Michigan. It's like GOD and the Federal Government are doing battle over who has more influence over Michigan's fate. G-Dub, "We are gonna save the Amr'kin Auto Industree with thurt-EEN billion dollers in 'mergencee fed'ral loans. Keep on truckin', Mitch'gan!" GOD, "Oh, so you're going to save the auto industry, eh? Well let's see how you like it when cars without spikes in their tires and 4-wheel drive are rendered completely useless! Bwah hah hah hah! I will DESTROY your pesky little human civilization! This is MY peninsula, bitches!!"

Or at least that's how I would envision the conversation... "Coming in 2009.... G-Dub leaves the White House and moves on to tackle the biggest project of them all. You thought the War on Terror was bad? You think Global Warming is being caused by Humans? Well get ready to have your world ROCKED.... Straight from the Heartland of Texas, George Double-U Bush brings us the ultimate fight, the coup de gras, the last-ditch effort, the WAR ON GOD!!!"

Enter press conference: G-Dub, "The Almighty has aligned himself with Al Qaeda in the effort to bring down western civilization. His repeated behavior with these so-called "natural" disasters and the increasingly unpredictable nature of the so-called Global Warming phenomenon has convinced me that God Himself is against us. But His attacks have gone on long enough. America will not tolerate these acts of agression against our values, our people, and the very notion of Freedom itself. Together we stand as a united front against the brutal and unprovoked actions of God, and together we will defeat this threat to our nation. Viva America!"

Or something... Okay, Bush probably wouldn't have said that last little bit. He probably doesn't even know Spanish. Anyways... moving on. Vicadin is awesome. Vicadin plus Ibuprofen is even more awesome. Mix in a little herbal remedies and you've found the secret recipe for destroying all feeling in your body. Last night I was in a ton of pain. My jaw was sorer than Rocko's cock after a long day's work. I had a headache the size of mount rushmore (presumably due to the epic storm front that was coming our way). I was easily irritable and quite snappy. Then I dosed myself in medication and, not 15 minutes later, I was numb to all pain, physical, mental or emotional. It felt great. Then I got a full 8 hours of sleep and this morning, lo and behold, all it took was a couple ibuprophen and the pain has been satiated for the past 4 hours! Score one for drugs and rest. Huzzah!

I've been invited to go drinking tonight with a friend and some of her friends (who I've never met before). I haven't drank any alcohol in probably about a week and a half, so I guess on one hand we could say it's due time for some boozin. Plus I got a phat paycheck today that covered all my christmas expenses and then some, so it's not exactly as if money is a huge object. But then again, I am still recovering from this operation, and alcohol in my system probably won't do much good to help with that. And I'm working at the computer lab ALL day, so maybe I won't even have the energy to go to the bar and be social. I guess we'll just have to see what happens when I get off work tonight.

While we're on the subject of alcohol, let me be clear. I am a very happy drunk. I smile, I laugh, I say yes and end up doing ridiculous things. It's good to be a happy drunk. The only concern is that I might enjoy drinking too much and end up doing it more than I should (read: become an alcoholic). It could totally happen. Sometimes when I drink I can see myself as an alcoholic. It runs in the family. I can drink beer 'till the cows come home and not feel drunk off my ass (liquor is another story entirely). Maybe drinking every night wouldn't be so bad..... No! Not going to happen! Must. Control. Drinking. Habits...

It's all good though. I won't be an alcoholic anytime soon, I've got too much ambition, self control, and other things to occupy my mind. Get back to me in 20 years and I'll let you know how it's going.

Damn! Not even noon and my goal of not answering any questions has already been broken! Damn you color printer........

Ok well, I've run out of things to rant about for the time being, so I'm just gonna go ahead and hit that publish button. Maybe you'll get one more thoughtful post before the New Year. I guess that all depends on whether or not I feel the need to say something.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night! Er, day. Er, couple of weeks.... Whatever.

Rejected.

The butterflies have been replaced by molasses.
The giddiness replaced by melancholy.
Once again, the object of my desire has found someone else.

It's not that I'm sad she chose this other guy over me. To be honest, I'm not all that surprised. They've known each other for years. They already had something going before she met me. He was there first. It makes sense. Can't leave one knot untied before starting on another.

What displeases me the most is that she preached honesty and full disclosure, yet never told me about this guy in the first place, who, obviously, was a very important part in her life. Maybe she didn't want to complicate things. She said she thought he was going to break it off anyways. But even still, it is a bit ironic, isn't it?

The strangest thing, though, has nothing to do with her. All of the emotions I feel, or should be feeling--anger, spite, self-pity, loneliness, sorrow, rejection--they are all muffled by a strong sense of "well, this happens all the time." Just one more scar on my heart. Just one more reason to not get caught up in women. I have been rejected so many times--whether it be for her reasons or mine--it just doesn't seem to hurt anymore. I know it should, but I can't help the feeling of a recurring pattern. Another one bites the dust.

Maybe the next one will be different? No. Who the fuck am I kidding? Maybe I'm just not meant to find "The One." Maybe I don't have "One." Maybe my destiny is to travel the globe, making women fall for me and then breaking their hearts. Like James Bond. Minus the secret agent bullshit.

I've always envisioned myself eventually settling down and starting a family. But if this keeps happening, I don't think I'm going to have enough of a heart left to love someone enough for that. I know it's pessimistic and maybe even a little defeatist, but seriously. How can someone with no ability to trust or be trusted ever commit themselves to someone for the rest of their life?

Once again the Human Condition has ruined my trust in humanity. Alas, if only we could be completely honest, no matter how much the truth hurts. I will never buy into that whole "I lied to protect you" mantra. Horse shit.

My heart feels like lead. There's gotta be some way, some One, who can heal my heart. I hope I find them one day...

PS, I'm not giving up on my road trip. If anything, it's going to be even MORE awesome and spectacular. Bring it on America, you ain't seen nothin' yet!

Preoccupations

I'm not going to say too much, for fear of jinxing it, but things are looking up. Something that happened within the past couple weeks has breathed new life into me. It's putting butterflies in my stomach. It's making me lightheaded musing on the possibilities. Opportunities. Changes. Everything is too up in the air to talk about it right now, but some serious life changes are in the air. Which direction they go remains to be seen...

In more concrete news, the parents are going to be out of town for New Years, so my brother and I are going to throw a party at the house. You know you wanna come. Also, I'm going to DC at the end of January for Inauguration day. It's gonna be a big awesome party/reunion that will be super-awesome-funtime. Afterwards, I plan on road tripping down to Austin and staying there for a while (length of stay remains to be seen). There's a NASCO Board Meeting in Chicago the first weekend of February, so I'll probably fly up from Austin for that and then come back afterwards. Then, depending on what happens in Austin, I may or may not continue my road trip west to California. Or I might just stay in Austin. That's more up in the air. Suffice to say, a road trip is in the cards, and it's coming up soon.

I'm too excited...... 2009 is going to be quite a year. Anyone else as excited as I am?

The Future and Karma

Tiiiiime to faaaace the chaaange (ch-ch-changes!)

Not posting in about a year leaves a lot to be said... but I'll try to keep it short. It is now August, 2008, and I have completed school, successfully helped a co-op get on its feet, and significantly improved my love life, but I still have yet to find a new job, a new location, a new life. I'm still working at the computer lab (43.5 hours a week), getting ready to move back in with my parents in about a week (whoa! coming up fast!), and sort of half-heartedly searching for a job, but I'm actually feeling pretty good about life at the moment.

Let me tell you a story about karma. The other day, I went down to BTB Cantina to grab a beer and some churros while my bro and his bud Tom scarfed down some serious burritos. When we walked in the Cantina, I noticed that the girl working the register was really cute (I had seen this girl before but never really talked to her). I was pretty high at the moment, so flirting probably wouldn't have worked out too well. But I figured hey, I'll throw a little body language at her, some intonations in my voice, see if she responds. So I try this and what do you know, I feel some positive vibes in her response! Plus she didn't card me for the beer, which is always a good sign :P

So anyways, cute girl aside, we get our food and sit down. I pull out my churros only to notice at the massive amount of cinnamon they had put on them. Cinnamon was flying everywhere! Cinnamon on my shirt, cinnamon on the floor, it was ridiculous. But oh my god it was tasty! Now I'm not sure what BTB's system is with churros. I do know that after we paid the girl working the register went in the back and when she returned she had my churros. So that would logically lead me to the conclusion that it was her who had doused my churros in that sweet sweet sugar. But then I thought to myself, why would the cute girl make churros when there are a couple hispanic guys back there who could do it just as well? And what were their reasons behind the preferential treatment? Did the girl do it cause she thought I was cute? Or did they just do it because it was a slow Monday afternoon? I never came to a conclusion on this question, as I was too high to inquire at the time...

But at any rate, the churros were delicious, and once I had completed my feast I felt the need to leave them a tip, regardless of who was responsible for this good fortune (especially considering how empty the tip jar was). I reach for my wallet and, Damn!, all I have are fives and tens! Anyone have change for a five? No... So I pondered for a while whether the $2 churros were worth a $5 tip, and just when we were about to leave I pounded the rest of my beer (Corona with lime, mmmm), which brought me the clarity to see that they totally deserved a $5 tip. So fuck it, I said, and pulled the bill out of my wallet. Unfortunately, when I went to leave the tip the girl was not around, so I had to give my thanks to the mexican guys in the back. I think they appreciated it.

I left BTB feeling pretty good about myself. I don't leave a tip there all that often, so I kinda felt like I was making up for all the times I had gone there and left the workers nothing. The rest of that evening and the next day went well, if fairly uneventful. I worked, I napped, had a conference call, chilled on the porch for a little while with some old friends, and (this is the only part important to the plot) made plans to go to the lake the next day after work.

So Wednesday rolls around, I get off work, call up my buddies and get ready to roll out to the lake. Silver Lake, to be exact. I drive out to Ben's to meet up with them, we all pile in my convertible and drive over to Max's house to pick him and some food up, and then we hit the road.

The past few days my car has been making strange, fairly loud screeching noises when I turn it on, and a slight burning smell presents itself. These occurrences typically faded away after a couple minutes of driving, but not today. Driving down Dexter road right by Knight's, my engine makes a horrible screeching sound and just goes dead. Power steering fails, the oil light comes on, I really start to smell burning rubber and shit is going down! Thank the stars though, I was going about 35 mph downhill when the car died, and right up at the corner up ahead was an auto repair shop! So I keep rolling down the hill, keeping my momentum up, and muscle the steering wheel to land me right in the middle of the auto shop parking lot. We made it without needing to get a tow! Awesome!

After a few failed attempts at jumping the car, the auto shop guys take the car in and say they'll get it fixed the next day, my buddies and I walk back to Ben's house and pile in his car, drive up to the lake (no disasters this time) and have a dandy old time. We even got to watch a house burn down across the lake! It was quite an exciting day in all. But despite the fact that this is the 4th time I've had to take my car in to get repaired in the past 8 months since I got it, I am still feeling pretty good about the whole thing. The $5 tip gave me some good karma that I was able to cash in on in my time of need.

So now I feel like I need to keep the good karma rolling, you know? To me, karma is like a steam engine. Good or bad, the karma you accrue will lead to more karmic situations down the road, so keep it going in the right direction and all will come your way. The past year has not been a particularly good year for me, and maybe it's because I haven't been good enough to my fellow peers. Well that's all changing now, and I am feeling better and better about it as the days go by.

There is so much more to write about, but I will save it for later. For now, I'm going to watch the HBO series John Adams and learn how the revolution started. Happy Friday!