Wednesday, October 21, 2009

FML. MLIA. Texts From Last Night.


I always get a good laugh from going to websites like http://www.fmylife.com/, http://www.mylifeisaverage.com/, & http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/. So with those in mind, I thought I'd start sharing some funny true moments from my own life that could easily go on websites such as these. This will be the first of many. Enjoy.

This weekend in Dallas I went to the OU/Texas game in Dallas. I went to the Widespread Panic & Allman brothers concert Friday night with my dad first, stayed at my sister's afterwards, and got up at 7am Saturday to meet up with some friends at their hotel and go to the game with them. I started drinking whiskey and coke when I got there around 8, and we decided to take the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) train from Garland to Fair park to go to the game rather than driving and parking etc. We got on the train around 9:15 (the game started at 11) and proceeded to head towards downtown. Now remind you I had finished 2 whiskey drinks already by this point and made a third to take on the train with me (in a to go cup of course). The train ride started off nicely, not very crowded, a few OU fans I could talk smack to, a lot of good friends and good laughs, and good whiskey.

When we got downtown we had to switch trains from a blue line to a green line to get to Fair Park and the Cotton Bowl. I had finished my third whiskey by this time, and suddenly had the urge to use the bathroom. Looking at the map on the train, I saw that we were merely 3 miles from Fair park, so I decided to just tough it out and get on the green line and try my best to hold it. This was about 9:45. Around 10 I realized that I was going to need to find somewhere to release the whiskey inside of me or else I was going to cause long term damage. A friend with us had met her parents at the train station (they were from Dallas) and thats when her dad informed me that the train had to go down to American Airlines center and turn around before it started heading towards Fair Park. A little concerned, but also a little buzzed, I said okay I can make it. After 5 or 6 more stops (all with more and more people boarding the train) I realized I was in real trouble. If I got off at any stop I would not be able to get on the train again because it was at absolute capacity, and because so many people had decided to take the ironically named DART, it was becoming overloaded with passengers and slowing down the entire train route. I managed to keep a positive attitude about the situation but I was in significant pain.

After what seemed like days, we managed to be 1 stop away from Fair Park (about 1 mile from the entrance to the state fair and the Cotton Bowl). I could no longer tolerate the situation and had to exit the train. This was at 11:30. Mind you the game started at 11, we got on the train at 9, and I had been drinking since 8. I found the nearest Starbucks and just barely made it to the bathroom. Apparently I wasn't the only one having this problem, as someone barged in behind me and proceeded to relieve himself in the sink since there was only one toilet in the facility. With that problem solved, I then had to jog, with a slight buzz, and not a direct idea of just where fair park was, the mile to the game. By the time I finally got into the game, got a coke (to pour more whiskey in from my flask), and got to my seat, the time was now noon and I had missed the entire first quarter save the last 33 seconds. Even after all that I manage to keep my spirits high, have 2 more whiskey and cokes, and watch UT take care of business and beat the Sooners. Happy days right? Wrong. This is where the story really takes a turn for the worse.

After the game, everyone who rode the DART was forced to wait in one of the longest lines I have ever seen in order to board the trains again out front of the fair grounds and take them to other locations. So our group had the bright idea of walking back to the train station I had gotten off at (a mile away for those who forgot) and board the train there. So after gathering everyone up and making the half an hour treck to the Baylor Medical Center Station, we managed to board a train. We knew this train was heading back to Fair Park but assumed since we were already on it that there would be no issues and we would remain in our seats as the other OU and Texas fans boarded. But how wrong we were.

When we arrived at Fair park, we were forced off the train because they were making room for all the fans that had waited in line to board the trains inside the fair. Very tired, pissed off, frustrated, annoyed, etc. We finally managed to get a cab and take it back to our hotel (a 40 dollar cab ride thanks to how far our hotel was from the game) at 7pm. The game had been over since before 4.

So lets recap what we learned from this experience:
1.) Never take Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) ever. Under any circumstances.
2.) Drinking with breakfast could and probably will lead to bladder problems later in life.
3.) Trying to outsmart the system only works when the system in place works, which obviously the DART did not.
4.) F My Life and My Life Is Average

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Diary

"When you don't share your problems, you resent hearing the problems of other people."

"This is your life... and it's ending one minute at a time."

So I run away from the truth, trying to escape the reality that is my life. The truth is maybe I am a victim of circtumstance, but that doesn't change the fact that this place is a prison. I feel suffocated by it, knowing that no matter how far away I go I always have to come back. That there is always something anchoring me down here in this sea of settling. The same people, the same parties, the same drama, the same meaningless trite things that allow me to fall into a pit of mediocrity. It's not that I think I am better than anyone else, it's that I think I'm better than myself. That I should be more. That my life has gone down a path I wasn't allowed to choose. To quote Chuck Palahniuk like I did above:

"Drugs or overeating or alcohol or sex, it was all just another way to find peace. To escape what we know. Our education. Our bite of the apple."

Maybe the cynicism is just a cover up to hide my own insecurities, maybe the realism is just a bitter kid from a broken home who has been let down too many times. Maybe I'm too young to know any better. Maybe it's just late and I should go to bed.

"Everything you do shows your hand. Everything is a self-portrait. Everything is a diary."

CHOKE

Some Themes and quotes in the novel CHOKE by Chuck Palahniuk


CHOKE

Why I do this is to put adventure back into people's lives.
Why I do this is to create heroes. Put people to rest.
"Charity" isn't the right word, but it's the first word that comes to mind.
By choking, you become a legend about themselves that these people will cherish and repeat until they die. They'll think they gave you life.
You might be the one good deed, the deathbed memory that justifies their whole existance.

The question is always: So what do you feel like choking on tonight?
The miserable truth is, every night I still have to pick through the telephone directory and find a good place to almost die.
The cry part, where I'm hugged in somebody's arms, gasping and crying, that part just gets easier and easier.
More and more, the hardest part of crying is when I can't stop.



ADDICTION

For sure, instead of wanting to believe something different about God's love, the losers I work with want to find salvation through compulsive behaviors.

Every addiction, she said, was just a way to treat this same problem. Drugs or overeating or alcohol or sex, it was all just another way to find peace. To escape what we know. Our education, our bite of the apple.

I admire addicts. In a world where everybody is waiting for some blind, random disaster or some sudden disease, the addict has the comfort of knowing what will most likely wait for him down the road. He's taken some control over his ultimate fate, and his addiction keeps the cause of his death from being a total surprise.



SELF-AWARENESS

Anymore when I go to visit my mom, I don't even pretend to be myself.
Hell, I don't even pretend to know myself very well.
I am Fred Hastings, the court-appointed public defender.
See also: Mr. Benning, who defended her on the little charge of kidnapping.
See also: Thomas Welton, who plea-bargained her sentence down to six months.

More and more, it feels like I'm doing a really bad impersonation of myself.



IGNORANCE

Then she turns on the television, some soap opera, you know, real people pretending to be fake people with made-up problems being watched by real people to forget their problems.

It's pathetic how we can't live with the things we can't understand. How we need everything labeled and explained and deconstructed. Even if it's for sure unexplainable. Even god.

After you find out all the things that can go wrong, your life becomes less about living and more about waiting.



WOMEN

I mean, I'm just tired of being wrong all the time just because I'm a guy.
I mean, how many times can everybody tell you that you're the opressive, prejudiced enemy before you give up and become the enemy. I mean, a male chauvinist pig isn't born, he's made, and more and more of them are being made by women.
After long enough, you just roll over and accept the fact that you're a sexist, bigored, insensitive, crude, cretinist cretin. Women are right. You're wrong. You get used to the idea. You live down to expectations.
Even if the shoe doesn't fit, you'll shrink into it.
I mean, in a world without God, aren't mothers the new god? The last sacred unassailable position. Isn't motherhood the perfect magical miracle? But a miracle that's impossile for men.
And maybe men say they're glad not to give birth, all the pain and blood, but really that's just so much sour grapes.
For sure, men can't do anything near as incredible. Upper body strength, abstract thought, phalluses--any advantages men appear to have are pretty token.
You can't even hammer a nail with a phallus. Women are already born so far ahead ability-wise.
The day men can give birth, that's when we can start talking about equal
rights.



LIFE LESSONS

We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are. Sane or insane. Saints or sex addicts. Heros or victims. Letting history tell us how good or bad we are.
Letting our past decide our future.
Or we can decide for ourselves.

Even after all the rushing around, where we've ended up is in the middle of no where in the middle of the night.
And maybe knowing isn't the point.
Where we're standing right now, in the ruins in the dark,
what we are building could be anything.


There are the things people tell you when they won't tell you the truth.

What we say when we can't tell the truth. What anything means anymore, I don't know.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Losing My Blog Virginity

My first blog is actually a note I wrote on Facebook. Just some things I've been dealing with and my personal feelings on certain situations. More to come later. Enjoy:

Lately I've been going through some tough times, and every person you can imagine has been trying to offer different pieces of advice based on their own personal experiences. Well, I appreciate people who care enough to try and help. But this isn't their experience. It's mine. This is my life. And everyone has had things happen to them in their pasts that shaped them differently and teach them to react to certain situations differently. Well my life is no different. I have been through some really difficult things, I have been let down time and time again, but these are my thoughts, beliefs, and I act accordingly based on my life experiences in order to cope whatever way I can. People find comfort in religion, in exercise, work, drugs and alcohol, so many different things to try and numb pain or make it go away. Some of these are better than others, but the point that most people are missing is that sometimes pain is a good thing. Its going through painful times that you learn who you can rely on, how strong you are as a person, and what route your life is suppose to take. Everyone looking in trying to give advice are going through their own set of problems, their lives are completely different from yours. Married people helping friends go through divorce, people who just had a baby helping a friend cope with a death in the family, every circumstance is different. Not saying they can't help, but ultimately they are not you and they are not going through what you are. They have their lives, so you should live yours the way YOU want to. Taking risks and chances are a part of life, and its not about knowing or being sure. Knowing isn't what drives us, what motivates us, it's the journey that is important. It's easy to run away. Especially when you are scared. But sometimes its better not to take the easy way out. I'm not one to preach, or to even try to pretend like I know whats out there in this world and beyond, but the one thing I have found in my short 22 years is that self-reliance is the most important strength anyone can have. Everyone is human, the people you put the most faith and trust into will ultimately let you down. Its a part of life. Its how you choose to react to these situations that define you as a person. That teach you character, and shape you as an individual. Everyone makes mistakes, including me, but ultimately the only thing you can control is your own actions. So many people out there try all the time to control situations that simply are impossible to contain, to do too much, care too much, try too hard, love too deeply. Well I've been guilty of all these things, but I am who I am because of them and I am happy with the person I have been, am, and who I am becoming. Sure I'm skeptical about a lot of things, sometimes a self-proclaimed cynic and for sure a realist, but that doesn't mean I'm not a good person capable of doing selfless things and caring about others more than I do myself. The thing thats important to remember is that the only thing you can control is your own actions. So live in a way that you can look back on and have no regrets. And I have none. I've been myself through every high and low, and that will never change. Being true to yourself is the only way you'll ever get through this crazy life with a little bit of sanity. If there is such a thing.