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!