Whoa-oh, I've Been Banging My Head Against The Wall

If you write, surely you've encountered the dreaded writer's block.  Any tips?

I've tried everything!  I rubbed peanut butter on my feet and slid around with my eyes closed, a method that was dictated to me by the stoned ghost of e.e. cummings in a dream the other night.

I tried combining ideas of poor girlish storytelling with mythical creatures, and threw in some bad dialogue for good measure.  Stephanie Meyer told me that this is what she used to get rid of the writer's block she had right before she wrote her hit series.  And that failed.  I'm glad that method failed actually.

I've even tried slamming my head against beautiful works of art.  The theory, generated by Isaac Asimov to solve his very rare cases of writer's block, states that as the density of the writer's head and the density of a work of art approach equal values, inspiration is more easily transferred from the work of art into the head of the disgruntled writer via osmosis.  I tried paintings, novels, CD's, and finally realized that Isaac Asimov got all of his ideas from concussive dreams.  Allow me to elaborate via doodles:

 (Sorry about the blurriness, the post-its on the right say "You're in a concussive dream!  And I am the harp player!  RULE #1 OF THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY: 'NO DREAM SEQUENCES WITHOUT HARP MUSIC!'")

(Sorry again, the long quote on the right says "What is black, white, with a red beak and feet, and two black holes for eyes?  A penguin that manifests Evan's inability to draw!  Ha Ha Ha Ha) 

So you can see how his theory originated.  No one is going to find any piece of art that is as hard as their skull, except for a sculpture or statue.  So, when hitting something as hard as a statue, one will surely pass out in a concussive state.  Then all sorts of crazy stuff happens when our brain tries to sort it out.  And that is how Isaac Asimov came up with all of his zany sci-fi stories.  Well it worked for him.  It's not like his method gave me an entire blog post to rant or create something witty, like my blog posts usually are.

Bellybuttons?  Harp players?  Poorly illustrated penguins?  A stereo saying "UN-TISS"?  Seriously, what a stupid dream.  Most of my blog posts are about things that annoy me...and the stupidity of that dream and theory is so overwhelming.

Hey, wait a minute!  I wrote a whole blog post, with pictures and anger and everything!  Isaac Asimov cured my writer's block so well I didn't even know it was gone!

Clever guy.

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

Sometimes I get into a mood where I have nothing to write about but I know I want to write, so I'm gonna write about something.

I've decided to write about a few of my favorite things, and I guess I'll just do a list.

1.) Drinking blistering hot tea on a blistering cold day.  Hot chocolate works too.

2.)  Getting lost in conversation and forgetting that I'm writing a blog post, only to return to it a half hour later.

3.)  Family on Christmas.

4.)  Driving by myself through the country with music on.

5.)  Imagining my future spouse and places we'll go.

6.)  Wireless internet.

7.)  The phenomenon of frequencies and the capabilities in music they create.

8.)  Chicken and Dumplings

9.)  Dogs that remember you from 10 years ago even though you've only seen them sporadically since them

10.)  Drums and guitar

11.)  Led Zeppelin

12.)  Advances in living conditions that we have in America that many places do not have

13.)  Northside Diner breakfast in Chesteron, IN.  If you're ever in Chesterton, go here.

14.)  Writing fiction stories, songs, poems, and blog posts

15.)  Being different

16.)  That sore feeling after you work out and your muscles ache the next day

17.)  A good pair of slippers that are warm and cushy, especially in winter time

18.)  Songs that aren't created from a popular music template.

19.)  The phoenix rebirth that comes with time after a breakup.

20.)  The contentment of a relationship.

21.)  Praying to God like He's next to you

22.)  Corny jokes and silly movies

23.)  Spoons

24.)  Comraderie in my band.

25.)  Old friends

26.)  New friends

27.)  People I don't get along with

28.)  People I meet and feel at home with instantly

29.)  Soccer

30.)  Demerol and other pain medications when you go to the hospital

31.)  Getting punched for real, and being proud of the bruise

32.)  Slap Club.  Think Fight Club but for girls.

33.)  Making Youtube videos

34.)  Being random and sporadic and making a blog post out of it

35.)  Facebook notifications when I get online

36.)  Getting things in the mail

37.)  Trying to do car maintenance.  Emphasis on TRYING.

38.)  Knowing I'll one day be the dad that knows lots about how to fix stuff.

39.)  Looking around the room to find something else that is my favorite.

40.)  Failing, and ending this post.

Burn Me Down

Is it wee-ud to go to a graveyard just for fun?

Well, if so, that's okay.  My older posts have established that I am wee-ud.

Back in the summer, I was dating this girl, and while dating her, I came up with the idea to go to a graveyard just to look at the headstones, contemplate time and life and death, and appreciate the vast expanses of land that rarely get visited.  Romance, eh?

Well, I screwed up again, and I now have more X's than Texas.  Which...I suppose means 2 x's...hmm.

Whatever.

So I didn't do the graveyard thing with Ex-GF-003, the code name I have assigned her.  But I made newer, cooler friends that are girls and I went with them!  Erin, Katharyn, and I piled in my stylish 1998 Saturn SL-2, and drove in search of some dead real estate.

Heh, see what I did there?

Fine, it wasn't my best effort.

Well, we found some, and wandered around for awhile.  Most of the things that I said were ignored by my friends, as I was the boy and the outsider of the group, but that's okay.  I wanted some time to myself anyways to just think about everything.  Some things that occurred to me:

First, there were tons of enormous headstones, beautiful works of art to say the least.  One of the most ornate that I saw belonged to a preacher.  And that got me thinking...a preacher with a boisterous headstone?  How much money was spent on the luxurious headstones in that cemetery (and many of them contained Christian inscriptions) and how opposite is the idea of adorning ourselves with greatness from the idea of subjecting ourselves to God's love?

I mean, I'd prefer a small stone with a hand-engraven name, years, and motto perhaps, and the rest of the exuberant spending should go to something worthy.  Like people.  Poor people, loved ones, anything.  Just not into a big rock that people never look at except to think of me.  And if they know me, won't anything with my name on it remind them of me?

See?  I bet that reminded you of me.

Another thing that stood out to me was the social status of headstones in cemeteries.  Me and my dynamic duo of dames were looking at the small headstones, with our eyes to the ground.  Katharyn loves World War II, so we were looking for male deaths near 1945, who were born around 1910-1925.  Generally speaking, those men would have died in battle or from wounds in battle.  And before we realized it, the small humble markers we were perusing led us to some larger ones.  We still had more names to peruse, but we skipped over them, saying "Oooh! Look at this one!"  And we skipped right over the remaining humble headstones.  Talk about life and death being the same, huh?

We are drawn to big things, big beautiful, gaudy things, because they are tributes to our own vanity, the vanity that lives inside us like a greedy baby grabbing for food from someone else's plate.  Even in death, some are passed over because what they have to show for themselves pales in comparison to that which others have to offer.  How unfair.  I know I don't want to be remembered or attractive because I have something expensive and impressive that other people are drawn to.  I want to be magnetic because I try to be a good human being and a good Christian who lives for God and others...not because I invest my death dollars in slabs of limestone with Roman pillars cut into the sides, or a humongous two-story cross that stands above all else.

And the societal ranking goes farther.  While some settled for large headstones that stand 10 feet or higher, some families built mausoleums.  Freaking huts of stone, to hold their rotting bones.  How vain is one that they can't settle to be buried in the ground, so they build a big box with a wrought-iron door and shingles to store their husks in?  In the moment, I was drawn to these structures of the afterlife, wowed by their sense of royalty and class.  Now, I realize how wasteful and stupid it really is. 

Heck, burn me.  Just set me on fire, and spread my ashes wherever you deem fit.  My body is useless, and the only thing that matters about it is inside it as temporary housing: my soul.  My soul is secure, and when I die an Earthly death, I don't care about what is done to my body.  Feed it to a whale or a hungry pack of wolves.  Just don't spend money on a huge tomb or a gaudy headstone that says "Look at me.  I'm rich even in my death."

What's the point of putting anything on a headstone? 

One final note...the inferiority of the headstone.  It has a name, and a set of years.  I find it unfortunate that people who die end up devoid of a story on their headstone.  I'd like to think I'm more interesting than my name and birthdate/deathdate can tell.  Everyone is!  So I think we should all write a little letter describing ourselves and what we learned during life, and include a picture, and that would be sealed in glass and placed where a lame headstone would go.

Now I'm curious...what would your letter say?  And what would you look like in your picture?  If you read this, comment below with your answer.  I'd love to hear from my small band of followers!

For A Pessimist, I'm Pretty Optimistic

Whoo!  I could make this a monster post, but I believe I shall split it into two.  Or as the little Asian boy at the Chinese buffet said when we asked him to divide the check into separate meals, because mine was more expensive than the other two since I ordered a Mountain Dew, "I'll just sprit it into free..."

But really, just two posts.

The first post is a follow-up to the oh-so uplifting post about my medication.

I have found some contentment in the midst of my conditioning to be unwell without my Zoloft.  For the past two days or so, things have just been good.  I have found that a 50mg pill of Zoloft compares pitifully to 50 seconds of human contact.  The last two days have been filled with friends, old and new, and I think that is something no psychiatrist with impressive office furniture can prescribe.

Further, as I write this, I'm sitting across from my friend Jackie.  It seems silly to whine about how not having my medication messes me up when I think about Jackie.  Jackie has fought cancer and surgeries her whole life practically, since she was two years old.  I just asked her because I forgot how many, but she has had 38 surgeries.  She runs a mental inventory and confirms, yes, 38 surgeries.  She's got two more slated for the future, so soon she'll be over the hill in surgery years.

A few days ago we talked about our medications, and I pulled out my main gun, Zoloft, 50mg.  Fear me.  She then discussed her multiple medications, some of which were 8 times the concentration of mine, 400mg.  I just looked up from my keyboard and screen to chat a bit about the chemistry she is trying to accomplish, and I see her one real eye, hazel and dark, as it moves like a real eye does.  Next to it she has a fake eye, hazel and dark, but still and unmoving.  Below that fake eye, she has a metal rod that has to be adjusted every year, and when it is adjusted, it expands her jawbone.  When she was young, a surgery messed up part of her jawbone, I believe removing a section.  So the doctors are now gradually stretching out the remaining bone.

Despite all of this, Jackie is beautiful.  I don't mean like, write a love song about her beauty, but just as a human being.  The love song beauty is superficial, and too many love song beauties have no substance to them.  But human beauty is pervasive, it doesn't stop to check its hair in the mirror, it doesn't put on lipstick or indulge in any of the commonplace vanities.  She is interesting, because she is rather unique at this Christian school.  She swears relatively often, she has doubts about God, and she makes jokes about drinking and other unmentionables.  She doesn't let the fact that her past is full of gurnies and anesthesia stop her from making her future about being alive and alert.  She does have veins of sadness like me, and thus I can easily relate to her.

But anyhow, this is just an update, as I'm sure you're all very concerned about my moodswings (well, I know some good friends are, and those reading this know who they are).  I'm doing better.  I'm getting sick, but health wouldn't be appreciated if we never got sick.  I'm looking forward to getting over this because it will just help me appreciate things more in general.

People Are Strange

Continuing in the vein of how humans are weird, I have another thought for the books.

Sitting at a dinner table with some friends, who were all girls, conversation began to develop on how to be friends with a boy who makes advances at you, and to do so without leading him on.

We were talking about all sorts of covert operations, mind games, try-this's and try-that's and one girl, Becky, suggests in a comically obvious tone, "Or you could just say, 'Hey, I have no intentions other than to be your friend.'"  I agree with her and joke some and the rest of the table thinks it's too awkward to do that.

I was largely quiet for much of the conversation as I had been thinking.  I piped up after enough time of consideration and told a story similar to Erin's, the girl who brought it all up in the first place.  I met a girl recently who I didn't know at all really.   And I'll be a son of a gun, but after one good and meaningful conversation with this person, she now has a thing for me.  Or that's the term the kids use these days.

As I offered this to the Council of Estrogen, I struck upon a deeper point.  What does it even take for humans to become attracted these days?  I'm certainly no exception, as discussed in a recent post, to STD, or Sudden Truelove Disorder.  And it's ridiculous.  While I get hung up on a cute smile or a winning laugh, sometimes I find myself frustrated that people want to take something big out of a meaningful conversation.  I think the reason it bugs me is because it suggests that we have learned that meaningful conversations with people are uncommon, and something special because we don't have them often.  Thus, legitimate conversations seem like a huge deal, and that bugs me.  If meaningful sharing is grounds for romance, then you and I are meant to be, because I discuss some pretty serious stuff here.

I suppose overall it bums me out, because humans have come to think that good conversations are something to cherish.  I think they're meaningful enough to be cherished, but many times things are cherished because they're rare.  I think that's the case with this situation.  We feel attracted to those who we have deep conversations with because everyone else is so abstract and distanced from everyone else...that's sad in my opinion.  I feel like we all keep to ourselves too much.  Meaningful conversations with beautiful strangers should take place everyday.

Don't Try To Wake Me Up, Even If The Sun Really Does Come Out Tomorrow

Humans are weird.  I'm a human.  I am weird.

We're all weird for many reasons, but one reason I'm weird is because I'm so decidedly flip-floppy in my disposition.  I have enjoyed the last few days, wondering why some people can be disappointed with life.  It's full of free things.  Snow recently came to visit my college.  That is free.  The wind that bites my face and gives me a newfound appreciation for the mere existence of four walls and a roof, that's free.  Smiles from strangers, waves from friends, those are free.

Now, today, I'm stuck upon a hitch that has me thinking in the dumps.  I spent my lunch alone in a corner of the cafeteria, listening to music, ashen-faced while people moved about around me.  I didn't move, just listened to my music and sipped tenderly from the blazing hot cocoa that I made by the coffee station.  I was in there for a good two hours, just thinking about many things yet coming to no real cogent thoughts.

Sometimes I find myself wishing I could walk up to a perfect stranger and just give them a hug.  It'd be just as much about getting a hug as it would about giving.  I dont know why I think that, I think it's because I feel urged to believe that humans can not only coexist, but co-thrive.  We seem to co-thrive in every way except emotionally.  Any given room of people is full of dozens of different problems and grievances inside the hearts of those that occupy said room, and very few of the people know about each other's problems.  What's more is that they don't even look to see if anyone else is hurting like them.

I find myself losing motivation to do anything.  I have nothing to do until 4 pm, except to write a paper for the class I have at 4.  And yet here I sit, whining to the internet and 10 people.  I suppose maybe this is one step closer to the room that is my blog becoming less of a room full of strangers.

I don't mean to come across as a whiny girl who does that stuff on facebook like

"Wow, great...another WONDERFUL day...why does this always have to happen to me?"

It's in pink because it's a girl.

People that do that crap online leave it vague enough to prompt questions from their BFF's and relatives, but make it specific enough so that whoever is responsible for making them unhappy know it's all their fault.

But yeah, I don't mean to come across like that.  I guess this is my therapy, wondering things aloud.  I suppose it beats other therapies, chemical therapies.  I have one 50mg lifeline of Zoloft to last me a week.  That therapy is failing me slowly as the serotonin is re-uptaken by my synapses quicker than it should, quicker than the medication lets it when I have a steady flow of the small blue tablet.  This is why I didn't want the damn things in the first place.  They become the deciding factor in a good or bad day.  After I stop taking them, I have about 1-2 days before the high that normal people call normal disappears.

I know that God has given me this heavy case of dysthemia so that I can relate to others who have it, so that I can think like a broken person works so that I can help them and love them.  But what happens when I find myself broken?  When your car breaks you don't go find other cars to work on.  When your coffee maker doesn't work, you don't spend time making sure the refrigerator won't break down soon.  You just want to fix that which is yours, and that which is broken.

So what happens when I feel broken? How do I help others when my selfish self wants only to fix myself, but I can't, because a psychiatrist, who gives out prescription slips like golden tickets to the happy factory, decided that I too can enjoy the bliss of terminal codependency on something so tiny but so decisive.

I'm not sure how to go about ending something that has been so completely downhill.  Maybe that's what some people who get really really depressed, farther than I've ever been, think about their life.

I Wonder Why I Love You Like I Do

Class, today we're going to be talking about human attraction.  Who knows what human attraction is?

Ah, yes! Melvin?

"When a boy likes a girl even though she has cooties!"

Very good Melvin, that is correct!  Who else knows other words for it?

Go ahead Lucille.

"Smell my finger!"

(It's in pink because she's a girl)

Lucille, if you were a boy I'd applaud that creativity, but since you're a girl, I'm going to punish you.  Go make me a sandwich.  Does anyone, who is INTELLIGENT...no mayonnaise, Lucille...know another word for human attraction?

What's the word, Kemonte?

"When someone has a crush on someone!"

That is right!  Does anyone in here have any crushes or know anyone who does?

Well don't look so skeptical, little Pedro, I was just trying to get some good advice for the ladies, naw meen?

LUCILLE!  I said to cut it diagonally!

Ah, alright.  Now that I've gotten out my jest, I can approach the topic at hand.  And that is a disorder I have diagnosed myself with (don't tell my mom) known as STD.  Spontaneous Truelove Disorder.  What?  Look, I didn't name it.

I have been doing well lately in handling my STD, but sometimes the mean ol' STD comes flaring up in a flash of passion.  The gist of STD is that you become infatuated with someone who you barely know for any one of many reasons.  Reasons include, but are not limited to: Smiles, grins, smirks, grimaces, ridicule, saying "Hi", saying "Thank you" when I hold the door, averting eyes when I walk past, being single, being in a relationship, existing, being a girl, having a decent hold on the English language, laughing at my jokes, frowning at my jokes, breathing, eating, sleeping, and many, many more.

STD isn't as rare as you think.  The amount of people who have STD is just enormous.  I mean, look at me.  I'm a big walking STD case.

Stifle your laughter, STD is not funny, and you would be so unhappy if you had STD.  It hurts alot!  Inside, it hurts, to have STD.  But I have it, and there is no cure except for WMD, Woman Master Disorder, aka Marriage, which is just trading one ailment for another!

Sometimes I wonder why I was chosen to have STD.  Was it my fault?  Was it my parents' fault?  Did they not teach me how to love the right way?  Regardless, STD sucks.

But really, now that that second jest is out of the way, I wonder sometimes where the heck these thoughts come from.  "Hmm, I had a minor conversation with her.  Wonder if she prefers one huge diamond on a ring, or two slightly smaller ones?"

If I'm meant to find the right girl (don't be shocked, I don't think everyone is meant to have someone, and it's another societal norm that runs the way we live), if it's God's will, then I'll find her and my overzealousness for a cute girl will maybe be what attracts her to me.  Who knows.  It's just weird to be going through life wondering if she is the one, oh maybe she is, and hmm, she looks like she can raise a heck of a child and build a heck of a pie.  On the other hand, she looks sweet and talkative and mild, a good foil for my bitter, rambunctious kamikaze personality.

Mrs. Right, you may be out there.  If so, I miss you.  If not, I'm talking to an imaginary friend.  Awesome.

Hoy Me Voy

Mi espanol esta muy mal, y no se como usar accentos y los letros especiales de la idioma, pues ten cuidado, y sea gracioso, por favor!

Una suena que tengo es de esto: A vender mis cosas, comprar un billeto para un avion a la Republica Dominicana, a regresar a ser con mis amigos, mis hermanos y hermanas de Cristo, y vivir en un orfanato visite en mi viaje de misiones, esto verano pasado.

Con nada, seria capaces a vivir en la verdad.  Mucho de la gente alli tienen nada, pero tienen la felicidad que Americanos no tienen, con coches y barcas y casas grandes.

Penso que es muy interesante que la tiempo en un avion de Indiana a Miami es mas de la tiempo de Miami a La R.D.  Eso diganos como proximo el pais esta a los Estados Unidos.  Pero es proximo solo en millas, por que es un mundo diferente, totalmente.  En los Estados Unidos, tenemos muchos tipos de personas.  Personas males, personas bienes, personas que aparecen a ser bienes pero son malos en actualidad.  Tambien, personas que tienen no personalidades, con ojos y manos cerrados, personas que existen pero que no viven.  En la R.D., o lo aparece a yo de mi tiempo en el pais, hay dos tipos de personas. Personas males, y personas quien me darian todo de nada, por que nada es todo que tienen.  Estoy no seguro que si Dios me quiere a ir, pero si Dios quiere me ir, seria bien!

La misione que tengo para ti: Pensas de que, de todos tu ideas y suenas, cual es tu pasion en tu corazon, y lo sigues.

You May Be Right, I May Be Crazy

Nothing says good family fun like having  your mother tell you she is worried about you, because she thinks you're manic.

 

We were enjoying conversation over George's Gyros, another fine establishment of my home town.  I began to talk a bit about the things I have been posting about recently.  And amid it all, amid my passion that life can be something else, she says 

"I'm worried about you.  When you talk like this.  Like...like you're manic."

It's in pink because she is a girl.

My mom has diagnosed me countless times, and I add this theoretical death sentence to my pile of flash cards that I would use, if I were like the rest of the family, to excuse any behavior I might have on any given day.

Granted, she doesn't have answers to anything I say, just questions that imply I am incorrect.

Just so you know the basics of what we were talking about, I was discussing how I feel like God calls us to do things even when we have very little.  To not wait until we get, get, get, and then to give a little.   But to give, give, give, and maybe get a little, but if not that's not what it's about anyways.  This is of course highly illogical.  Christianity is highly illogical.  I know why scientists can't ever prove Christianity right.  It's because the frame of mind we use, which analyzes cost and benefits, gains and losses, etc., can never understand a faith that says to think with your heart and not your head.  I suppose it would harm their job security if they accepted that one can think with a heart instead of just a brain.

People may be right, and I may be crazy, but I do believe it's lunatics God's looking for.

I'm Gonna Shout It Till They Cut Out My Tongue

I made my way back to Northside Diner, the underworld of my hometown, this morning.

This time I brought a friend to the secrecy of it all, a good friend from high school, Allie.  We met at 8.

"8 o' clock?! That early?  Do you have plans for the rest of the day?"

 It's in pink because she is a girl.  And I said to her, "No, but I like getting up early for breakfast or it doesn't feel like breakfast!"

That was in normal color because I'm a boy.

So it was agreed, and I flopped like a landed fish out of bed ten minutes till 8 AM.  Hit the restroom, pet the dogs and use an annoying voice to greet them this morning, and then put on my shoes and fly out the door.  I make it to Northside Diner at 8 sharp, and she isn't there yet.  Girls...can't live with em, can't cook and clean without em.

Well she was only 1 minute late so it isn't a huge deal.  She found me in the back corner, one booth past the one I sat in for the experience that prompted my previous post about the underworld.  She heads over as I am receiving coffee from the waitress.  We take about ten minutes to order because we're too busy trying to catch up at first glance that we haven't even looked at the menu.  Or I haven't anyway.  The first time the waitress comes back for our order, I haven't even touched a menu.

If you're a true fan of me, you'll know that I ordered 'Two in the Nest' at my last visit to Northside.  I order it again, and Allie gets "Short Chicks', which is eggs, toast, and a short stack of pancakes.  If you're wondering if the blog post gets any better than talking about what was ordered, the answer is no.  Nothing cool happens, so you could just go now.  Go read a dictionary, or go cut your nails, or go pee your name on a wall.  All are exponentially more intense than the remainder of this post.

If you're still here, I applaud your lack of desire to be entertained.

Anyhow, we got to chatting about all sorts of stuff over the course of nearly three hours.  And I think the thought that has stuck with me the most is that of how I define age.  I believe it is erroneous to measure someone's age in years, but rather their inability to hope or dream anymore.  I know people my age, in years, who are old men already.

Allow me to explain.  Running in the same vein of my past posts, I will dip into hippie terms like "The System", "The Man", and "Spontaneous Cerebral Re-Unification".  That last one isn't really a hippie term, just kind of a made up word I use to describe hippies and that whole "Enlightenment via Drugs" thing.  Anyhow, on to the complaints about "The Man"!

"The System" is hard to beat, and easy to join.  By "The System", I mean society in general and the views it has of the world.  Main parameters of thought that "The System" operates within include, but are not limited to: "Things can not be changed", "Money will give you what you want", "If you can't succeed alone, you won't succeed at all", and etc.  The one that I mainly want to focus on is "Things can not be changed."  I think this is the biggest of them all because once you accept that nothing can be changed, you can accept every other societal norm of America.

Using the societal norm that I learned in public school, about how I should arrange my thoughts, I have surmised my thesis.  Ahem.

"Age is not a count of how many years one has.  Age is one of two things, either young or old, and whether you are one or the other is decided by the presence or absence of hope."

When you give up because fighting "The System" is harder than joining it, you have aged.  You are old.  And as soon as you join it, you begin saying things like "Politics will never change.  They're all about money and it's no use anymore", or "The environment has been screwed for centuries", or "Every man/woman is the same", or "Money can get someone out of anything".

Now, some of those points may not be totally untrue.  But as an individual recites them with dreary eyes and shaking head, the meaning behind the words shouts "...And it can't ever be changed!"

It's the most disheartening to see my uncles and aunts talk about how "The System" is the only way, yadda yadda, but they spent their entire youths fighting it.  When did they lose, or should I say, when did they choose to lose?

Carl and Ellie, still dreaming and hoping.

Carl devoid of hope.

I may become just like them.  I may fall in line with the rest of the drones, plug into the mainframe of "The System" and offer my small contribution to the hive mind setup.  Granted, some small acceptances of "The System" are acceptable to me.  If a situation arises where one needs money to support others, resigning one's dreams for a certain job to take that which is presented is a good choice.  But signing yourself away because humming along with the masses is easy, and maintaining your own melody is just too hard to focus on with all the dissonance, that is what it means to become old.

Like I said, I may become and old man in a year or two.  I would like to think that this isn't the case, but I'm not naieve enough to think that I am beyond surrender to "The System".  Countless flower children and activists of the sixties and seventies resigned to the norm, and they stand out as one of the most crusading generations of American history.  I may too fall into an exhausted acceptance of the system.

But I'm young now, my tongue is sharp, and my senses keen.  As a young'un, I'm going to stand as one who says that things can be changed.  They shush me frequently, but I shout louder.  And if I wasn't shouting louder in response to every person that raised a pointer finger across their pursed lips with an intense glare, it would be a big step towards becoming an old man.

I Ain't No Fool, And I Don't Take What I Don't Want

Is there any limit to what we won't eat on Thanksgiving?

That question is half-serious, because I am curious to find out if there is any limit. 

Thanksgiving is becoming gay.  Not in like "I like other holidays" sort of gay, but in the "I am stupid" sort of gay.  It has lost it's appeal.  Food?  We have a holiday about food?  It's good but come on, everything else has a purpose.  Christmas, whether or not PC America admits it, is about Jesus being born.  Easter, whether or not PC America admits it, is about Jesus being dead and resurrected.  Halloween, whether or not PC America admits it, is about candy and not whorish self-expression.  Sweetest Day, whether or not PC America admits it, is about...what the heck is Sweetest Day about anyhow?  The only good it ever did me was spending a crap ton of money on a date because it was a special day.  It's like an amateur's Valentine's Day, and it sounds like it's a day dedicated to the Swiss.  Sweetest Day is also gay, along with Thanksgiving.

And I'll tell you why it's gay.  Come on children, grab a spot on the floor by the fireplace, and I'll tell you why Thanksgiving is so gay.  What's that Timmy?  What's gay mean?  Ask your daddy.  Anyhow, moving on.

I gathered with my family at my grandparents this year, like every year. And like every year, no one was really thankful.  A cousin griped, one of my uncles, the know-it-all, whined about how everything in life is a dang conspiracy to keep people like him down (which is an attitude only a chronic victim could have), we all prayed the cookie-cutter prayer we always pray.

 

"Bless us O Lord, and these thy gifts which we are about to receive, from thy bounty, through Christ, our Lord, the Lord of Liquor and Nicotine. Amen"

That Jesus fits my family well.  And that prayer is such a joke.  In Catholic school, before and after every meal, we raced to finish that prayer like a priest raced to pull up his pants when the altar boy's parents came to pick him up from his office.

If that offends you, that sucks.  Anyhow, the prayer is begun and ended with the ritualistic "In the name of the Father, the Son, and The Holy Spirit", with a matching sign language game.  Now I know where rappers get the idea to make up dances for their songs, Catholic prayers.  It makes everyone want to listen to the song even if it sucks.  My little cousin sits across the island counter and does it all with a vacant look in his eyes, and doesn't understand any of it, but he does it because the weight of the family's disapproval is more than he can bear.  Bring it on I say, I used to bench near my body weight.

I don't finish all of my food because I am full.  On my way to scrape it, the people around me who call me family but have a history of thinking me to be a lost sheep with dirty fur, ask me things like "You aren't going to finish that?" or "That's all you're eating?", as if to say more concisely, "Aren't you thankful you impetuous little bastard?"  I prepare for the spiel about starving children in Africa.  It never comes, but I offer my rebuttal anyway.  I pose my train of thought: "I find it more a disservice to said starving children to eat things that I don't even want than it is to let it go to waste.  They can't even eat what they do want because it isn't there, and I would have the nerve to eat stuff I don't want but eat anyway just because the alternative is a trash bin and I'm too greedy to see it fall into a bag, out of my control?  I doubt starving children would enjoy seeing me stuff my face with food I was not enthusiastic about because I wasn't hungry anymore."

I am sure this child would love to watch me stuff my face with food I don't want because my belly is so full that it is the size of his torso by now.

I didn't say all of that, but much of it.  They look at me in mild confusion, because to them, thankfulness is the act of consumption.  I'm so thankful, om nom nom.  They should call Thanksgiving "America Day" because the whole thing is so superfluously consumerist and aristocratic.  I think when I have a family I may have to start celebrating it every other year, because maybe that is the reason people come to my grandma's house annually on this date and complain about who was not acting her age at the workplace, or the prick who cut them off in traffic, or the slutty girl who took their boyfriend.  I left early, and the only person who seemed to think I was leaving anything special was my Mom, but she gets like that for every family function period, so I doubt she even really feels like it's about anything real.

     And tonight I went to my grandma's house on my dad's side of the family, and it wasn't nearly as bad, but some elements of what makes Thanksgiving gay existed.  My whiny cousin of immeasurable negativism was griping about how there was no cheesy broccoli rice, even though it was given to my grandma, and all she had to do was heat it up.  She implies with this statement that my grandma is a stupid old person who couldn't follow instructions, and just threw the broccoli out, almost like "Well shucks, it's cold.  Later Mr. Cheesy Broccoli Rice."  My stepsister joined in, but was more silly about it.  I said aloud, "Man, let's focus on everything we don't have for Thanksgiving."  The cousin continued on griping, repeating exactly what she said about how all she had to do...and I repeated exactly what I said.  Let's just focus on everything we don't have for thanksgiving.  She grimaced as if I forgot that she likes to only piss and moan and never to accept that God places some things that are good around us.  Later that night, her whiny mom griped about her whiny daughter and all the problems that exist in her relationship and why she hates whiny cousin's whiny boyfriend.

For crying out loud.  Thanksgiving doesn't get any simpler in it's literal meaning.  Give thanks.  For anything.  I'm thankful for a crap-ton of stuff.  That's the second time I've said crap-ton in one post, I better chill with that one.  But really, a poo-load of stuff.  Friends, the sun, food, family, girls and their inherent beauty (both inner and outer), that God cares that I exist while many do not, that a world exists where if I want to, I can cut and run.  I'm thankful that I can go buy something to eat within ten minutes of feeling hungry, though some places exist where children murder each other with their bare, frail hands for the equivalent of a saltine cracker.  I'm thankful that gravity and the atmosphere work like they do.  I'm thankful that I can type and have hands, can speak and have a mind.  I'm thankful that cars go, dogs bark, kisses taste sweet, and rejection tastes bitter.  Those are all in no arranged order by the way.

Stuff that you look at or think about and feel wonder or amazement, that's what you are thankful for.

So what are you thankful for?  Not just the givens, like friends and family, but real stuff, real stuff that is worth taking some time to think about.  Don't even tell anyone, unless you realize one of your hidden gratitudes is to someone, just keep it in your head and use it to remind you of life being beautiful even when you have to dress it up in pounds of makeup to make it presentable. 

Hello Old Friend

  WARNING! TIME TRAVEL MAY BE HARMFUL TO THE CROTCH!  

If there is anyone out there, anyone listening, anyone reading, do me a favor.

     Pick an old friend you were once close to and re-connect with them.  People talk about time travel as if it doesn't exist.  I've not read a single book by Stephen Hawking or built a single machine worth anything, but I discovered time travel tonight talking to an old friend. 

     What about time travel to the future, you may ask?  Connect with a new friend.  We are all each others' futures.

No One Here...But Me and God

     I have come to an odd state of mind lately.  Talking to a friend from home about college, I nearly subconsciously divulged that I would love to sell my belongings, buy a van and food, and travel America helping people.  Every broken down car, hitchhiker, beggar, what have you.  Before I realized it, I was fired up and excited about what I wasn't even making preparations to do. 

     Hold the phone, you (and society) say.  What about being respectable?  What about college?  If not a prerequisite for a career, it's at least a prerequisite for social acceptance.  The friends I've shared my desire with seem to raise the eyebrows to the ceiling, wondering if it would be rude to laugh at my idea.  The bottom line is that I feel like being where I am is a lame idea.  As my good buddy Brad Kinnison said, "It feels kind of silly to be Christians in a Christian school with other Christians talking about what it means to be a Christian."  What he is getting at is this:  We can talk, or do.  The time we spend here feeling good and faithful could be spent making a difference that goes beyond having a fun time meeting new people in college or working towards a career we may not understand the appeal of.  God doesn't call people to discuss and debate, he just calls them to do.  I feel like, if God could offer his view on the topic verbally to us in conversation, he would say "Well, you can either talk about what should be done...or just do it.  No wasted time, no arguments, just action and change."

     The prophet Jeremiah is approximated by historians to be the age of 19 when he began his minsitry.  I am 19.  Society was probably telling him he needed to work in an apprenticeship or start building a flock and finding a wife.  Society is telling me I need to build credentials and a career and find a wife out of one of the many lovely women at Olivet Nazarene University.  No sarcasm in that last bit, by the way.  God told Jeremiah, "No, no.  Forget all that.  Is your faith about ME, or society?  And I know it sounds crazy and dangerous, but I will protect you."  God is asking me via the world I view around me and how I view it, "Is your faith about ME, or about this, which society and especially the Christian community try to tell you is about me?"  While I've hit that note, I'll expound.  When did it become the Christian thing to do to go to college?  I feel like if I told my parents I want to be a nomadic philanthropist (except without the years of college and expensive artwork in my house), they would think that I was running from God's call to me to be responsible, they would view me as an angel fallen from my potential, an angel who decided to sin because he didn't want to conform.  Like I can't serve Him without a college degree.  Ultimately, do I want to serve myself and society with this life, or Him?

                                    Who should I help?

    People often say they want to serve God, but then take their situation and just modify it a tiny bit to appear as service.  I do believe that we can serve God wherever we are, but too many people use their own plans and those of society as excuses to not go do something radical for God.  "I would love to do that, but, I have math homework."  God gives less that zero craps about math.  It's not a sin to not do homework or feel like college isn't for you.  Society says so, using one hand against their cheek like half of a megaphone, and using the other to try and shove God into the box known as "Societal Norms and Procedures", but I believe it is not.

     A side note, if it weren't for me feeling like I'm chatting with God right now, I wouldn't be blogging.  No one reads my posts anymore.  In the words of a song me and the band I'm in wrote, "No one here, but me and God."

     Anyhow, that's where I'm at right now.  Wanting to be more than society says is acceptable.  The real kicker is that I can't just leave and be God's worker.  I can, but I know I'll flake out.  The urge to fly the coop is not that strong yet.  There's always talk of a revolution long before someone has the guts to incite rebellion.

     It is awfully romantic to think of this as a rebellion.  The important thing to keep in mind is that I am a rebel with a cause.

That's The Way It Should Be, Like A Leaf Is To A Tree, So Fine.

     Only God, me, my mom, dad, brother, sister, grandparents, and a few friends from college know why on God's green earth, I, Evan Lane, would be awake at 5 AM.  I mean to get up, not because I hadn't gone to bed.  For those of you who don't know, it's nothing sinister as my narrative implies.  But as it stood, I was awake.  4:30 AM to be exact.  I grab Ted Dekker's Thr3e and read through to the end, I only had about 50 pages left.  I recommend it, great twists and a suspenseful story.  A bit lame in the slang he uses at times, but that's okay.  I move on to Donald Miller's Through Painted Deserts and read about 6 pages.  I am inspired by his tale of leaving everything to go on a trip to just live.  I fling myself out of bed, get dressed, and am about to fish through the cupboards for some breakfast when I remember Dunkin Donuts.  America runs on Dunkin you know.  I can understand why, their croissant breakfast sandwiches are to die for.  Or to run for.  Whatever.

     I was fresh out of cash so I decide to stop at the ATM before heading to Dunkin Donuts.  I planned to get a breakfast sandwich, coffee, and come back home to sit down and plot out a trip out West.  To the romance of the untamed world, roadside kingdoms, deserted oases, nature preserves unmatched in beauty, somber views of ghost towns that brought both sadness and happiness because like a friend who has watched a friend suffer in their last moments of life, it is known that while we wish they were still here, their presence would be dilapidated, forced, difficult.  This was my plan.  As it were, it was not God's plan.  Right across from the ATM sits a retro diner, Northside Diner.  I hadn't eaten there in ages and decided to go eat there rather than Dunkin Donuts.  The croissant sandwiches could be eaten anywhere at anytime.  I was only home on sparse occasions, and only awake in time for Northside breakfast on even sparser occasion.  I contemplate going home to get a book or newspaper to read.  I decide that I could use the time to soak in the cool atmosphere and just think.  It was one of the better decisions I'd made in awhile.

     I walk in the door to see six old men spread throughout the cafe, some in groups, some by themselves.  Those that sit alone sit far enough away to not intrude, but close enough to be able to commune and share stories when the time called for a recital.  They see me, and all seem to wonder who told the young guy that there is a life that can be lived before 12 PM.  I settle in to a booth near the back.  The seat is uncomfortable and I think about switching booths or sides but decide that I can bear the imperfection.  Further, I must bear it if I want the charm of this place.  It isn't that the place isn't a good establishment.  Only some traits are a bit ramshackle.  The food is not one of these traits, nor is the Wurlitzer jukebox that runs in perfect condition, nor are the framed hit records from different years joined by the original score sheets showing the top 30 hits from that day in that year.  If I was alone I would walk around and read each one, but it seemed that in that situation, not too many men would appreciate my jacket dropping dog hair into their coffee or eggs while I crane to read which song by Dion and the Belmonts or Diana Ross and The Supremes held the top spot.

     A nice woman comes to my table, "Coffee?"  "Yes, please.  Thank you."  I reach for a cream and two sugars.  It tastes delicious, and I peruse the menu.  Looking past Abbot and Costello, scanning just above Frank Sinatra's head, and glancing next to Elvis to realize he's on the lunch page, flip back to to the breakfast section.  Abbot and Costello suggest "Two in the Nest" a hearty dish of two eggs, potatoes and toast as you order them, and corned beef hash.  Coming in close second and third are "Two Chicks Went To Idaho", the same as "Two in the Nest" but without corned beef hash, and "Stacked Chicks", the same but with biscuits and gravy underneath it all.  I place my order and sit back soaking in the charm that our world has forgotten.  I know we haven't forgotten, and that we forcefully repressed the old.  I just prefer to think that we wouldn't forsake something so cool, so warming, on purpose.  I begin to find myself listening to the stories that surround me.

      Gripes about the nature of women, tall tales of when is best to go fishing, how crops are going, dramatic lovers who had a gunfight (I found this hilarious, shame on me), war stories of a personal medical nature (though I know some of them had real war stories too), and other assorted limericks and melodramas worked their way through the room around me.  I smiled with each, and wonder if any of them saw the weird young guy who was not only awake but sat with a queer smirk on his face while they had their day.  I was an intruder, it was clear that everyone else had undergone the necessary hours and initiations to be included as a regular.  Nonetheless, I enjoy my time as an alien.  I come in peace.  I merely enjoy observation.  I don't have any tubes or probes or cameras or forceps.  With my ears and eyes I dissect the little world inside Northside Diner, scraping away the years these men showed in their beard and sagging faces.  I see them with sweethearts, pals, Letterman's jackets.  The Wurlitzer doesn't sit quietly as it does now.  I prod around with my visual tweezers and it begins to rudely play an Elvis tune.  Upon the use of a magnifying glass, the waitress is wearing a long skirt and hair in a mature pony tail.  She wears signature 50's glasses, walks with a dignified kindness, and makes this little place her mission.  People laugh and eat and don't ever consider the fact that they will one day be what I see now.  They are young for eons, and never do they say never.  They are fighters, builders, formers of the world we know now, blazers of the trail the youth of today are straying from with machetes in hand, slicing away the vegetation of society that says "You don't walk here!  The trail is that way!  Ow!"  In a peculiar way, they are following the trail of the people they are wandering from because the past generation did the same thing, as did the one before it.  A generation cannot be called a generation of its own if it doesn't stray and head into certain doom like the past generation did.

     I realize that across the restaurant is a man named Steve DePung.  I don't know how to spell his name but this is how it is said.  Steve taught me how to shake hands.  My mom's side of the family is large and somewhat of a dynasty in my hometown.  I met Steve at the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) when some family function rented it out.  I was introduced to hi by my older cousin Mark.  Mark is a Marine, and Steve is a Marine.  I look up to Mark and Mark looks up to Steve and therefore, I look up to Steve.  I shake his hand, saying hello meekly.  His large white beard and stern frame make me shy away from eye contact and a firm grip.  He shakes my limp fish of a hand and stops.  Like a lumberjack he bellows "Hell no!  That isn't how you shake a hand.  You look the man straight in the eye, let him know you're his equal.  Firm grip.  Yeah just like that."  He walked away seeming a bit flustered, unsure of if we will survive the coming decades if youth like me are going to be at the helm.  Later that same night I met another man through my cousin Mark, and put Steve's lesson into practice.  The man seems intrigued and says, "Now that's a handshake.  You're going to be one helluva man someday."  I don't remember his name.  I think it's funny that we remember those who compliment us greatly less than we do those who chastise and teach us something that we didn't know before.  I'm glad this is the case though.

    This is the underworld of my hometown.  Boisterous youth doing pot and having sex behind their parents' back think they are the underworld.  But they're not.  The underworld is something that is forgotten, invigorating, and flagged by the rest of society as wrong.  The six men and few women working this Diner are the underworld.  I am pleased to be able to be a part of it all, if only for a few minutes.  I'm there for a half hour maybe, probably less.  As Steve gets up to leave, I follow him to the register.  After he pays he tells a man a story and in his passion almost bumps into me backwards.  He doesn't notice and I happily move aside a bit.  The man he is talking to notices and grins at me but Steve doesn't turn around.  I pay my bill, 9 dollars.  I pay with a twenty and leave the waitress the rest.  She strikes me as the waitress who cares for each customer as her own kin, and like many mothers, receives far less than she gives.  I know I can't rectify this with a ten dollar tip, but mothers scarcely want more than the occasional show of generosity.  They ought to desire more, but they're mothers and that's why they behave that way.

     I stand awkwardly and wait for Steve to say his goodbyes and follow him out.  Clear of the others, I say "Steve?"  He turns slowly and surely, and I say "Evan Lane."  I shake his hand firm and look him dead in the eye.  "You taught me how to shake hands like this."  He looks a bit puzzled and then laughs.  He doesn't remember me yet, but I'll bet he frequently corrects those who shake hands as though they are sickly.  I continue, "We met at a Ruge family function at the VFW, you know Mark Strudas obviously.  He's my older cousin, he introduced us.  I shook your hand like I was terrified and looked down and you pounced to correct me.  'Hell no!  That's not how you shake hands!  You shake it firm, look 'em dead in the eye.'"  He lets out a big cackle like only an old jolly man with more stories and scars than most other people can.  "I remember that!  Shoot, that was a while back."  I say, "You know, a lot of people have given me advice but none of it has ever been so clear and helpful as the advice you gave me that day.  He lets out a quick breath in a 'hmmm' shape, and says he was glad I told him that.  I go on, "I'm a freshman in college and I'm surprised how many grown men don't know how to shake hands.  There's obviously a lot more to a person than a handshake, but there is a lot that can be told and a lot in our perception of a man from a handshake."  He agrees.  He goes on about how he works with boy scouts at the VFW sometimes still, and I've not the slightest clue where this topic comes from.  Old people do this though, and I appreciate the awkwardness of the moment.  We chat a bit more, and I thank him again.  I  get in my car and leave behind this underworld of smiles and laughter and old friends that exists right beneath the nose of the world that says grimaces and sneers are the new way to go.

     I arrive home and my head swims with inspiration for what I'm writing right now.  I remember, and will for a long time, this trip to the underworld that warmed me inside and reminded me that there's not only a life to be lived before 12 PM, but that it is wholly superior to the life after noon.