So, I changed the look of the blog a bit. I like keeps things as clutter-free as possible, and while I was happy with how the page looked before for quite a while, I wanted to see if I could make it even cleaner. It's mostly done for the time being, though I'm still messing around with the font a bit. I'm stuck between one with serifs and one without. You might think this is trivial, but I assure you it is not.
Recently I'd been thinking a lot about my paternal grandfather and wasn't quite sure why, but then I remembered: May 21 is the day he died, back in 2001. The date sticks out in my mind because I used to wish it was my birthday. When I was little, I didn't like purple, which is the color of February's birthstone. My favorite color then was green, and May's birthstone is the emerald. The obvious conclusion I came to is that I should have been born in May. May 21 to be exact, because I have always been a fan of exactness.
I lived wishing May 21 was my birthday for a few years until we got a phone call one morning letting us know my grandfather had passed. When my little-kid brain realized it was May 21 I started feeling guilty, like I had focused on that date so much I had somehow inadvertently willed this into existence. It wasn't like his death was sudden, it was a long, slow process of prostate cancer that spread into his liver, bones, and lots of other places. It was the kind of death that was almost a relief, like at least he wasn't suffering anymore. But still. Why did I have to pick that date?
He was an old school, hard working man from West Virginia, a former moonshiner, avid gardener, and treated his grand kids like they were the pinnacle of creation. My parents both worked, so most of my childhood was spent at his house (free babysitting) playing outside, listening to his old gospel tapes, and watching The Price is Right. I find myself wondering what he'd say if he was here now. What would he think of my nervous breakdown, or my choice to pursue writing over any sort of lucrative career? He was such a practical man, I imagine we'd argue about these things, and I really wish we could. I wish he was a feeble old man in his nineties, pounding his cane into the hardwood floor and he told me I needed to think about my future, and I'd tell him that I do think about it, that I think about it all the time and that's why I have to do things this way. He wouldn't understand and I'd be upset, but not really mad because I'd know he just wants me to be okay.
Before he was too sick to move around or think clearly, he knew he wasn't going to see me reach adulthood. So he bought my high school and college graduation cards ahead of time, signed them and put them in envelopes, and gave them to my parents. They gave both of them to me when I graduated high school, but I saved the college one to open properly. Three years later, after the six hour drive from my college back home (my last one), and I opened my dresser drawer where that card had been waiting and read it. It was a religious card, as he was pretty big into god, and was signed "Grand Pa" and "Grand Ma." I felt so simultaneously loved and cheated. A person like that should still be here.
I spent this May 21 fretting over my teeth (I think I'm getting a cavity), installing my window-unit air conditioner, and watching the geese who've taken residence in the nearby pond trot out their fluffy little goslings. Overall not a bad day.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Everything is Okay, I Guess
Look at my life right now:
Yeah, that's me, sick in bed, using an inhaler. Because my body has suddenly decided that breathing is optional. I'd been having trouble taking deep breaths for a few weeks, then this terrible coughing thing started. I was losing my voice I was coughing so much. Then someone asked me just how bad I was going to let things get before going to the doctor, so I went, and they gave me this inhaler. However, they said they don't really know what's causing my problem. Now I have to go see a specialist.
The inhaler does help a little, but it pisses me off. It's like they said "Oh, here's a bandage for that gash in your side... Sure, there might be some internal hemorrhaging and broken bones, but whatever, just go with that bandage for now." Thanks guys.
I guess it always blows me away that most medical problems are treated with so little urgency. When I was in the emergency room a couple years back, in excruciating pain, I laid on the floor in the waiting room for almost an hour before anyone did anything for me. It's not like they were particularly busy, either, just not in a hurry. My (unplanned) revenge was to throw up on the nurse's station when they finally did get to me.
Nurse: How's your pain on a scale of one to ten?
Me: *barf*
Nurse: ... I'll mark that as a ten.
Then I told her to make it a nine, because I didn't want to max out my pain scale that early in life. Turns out I had a kidney stone due to dehydration. Now I live in constant fear of a repeat performance, hydrating like a beast in order to prevent it.
For now, though, I can breathe moderately well, so I'm trying to just do everything normally. Which involves things like going to work, grocery shopping, and getting my hair cut.
Well, I have to do something similar, and hopefully less absurd, to move my bangs out of my eyes. I've had this style since 2010, and I've always tipped my head down and then to my left to flick my hair back where it needs to be. With the bangs on the other side I had to do it the other direction, and I just couldn't. Seriously. My muscle memory is too strong to relearn this process. As a result, the bangs stayed on my right for about a day before I had to switch them back, or risk losing my mind completely.
So the world seems right again, or at least more right than it did yesterday.
Side note: if the FBI ever looks into my Internet search history, what I'll be most embarrassed about by far is "Justin Bieber hair flip gif".
Yeah, that's me, sick in bed, using an inhaler. Because my body has suddenly decided that breathing is optional. I'd been having trouble taking deep breaths for a few weeks, then this terrible coughing thing started. I was losing my voice I was coughing so much. Then someone asked me just how bad I was going to let things get before going to the doctor, so I went, and they gave me this inhaler. However, they said they don't really know what's causing my problem. Now I have to go see a specialist.
The inhaler does help a little, but it pisses me off. It's like they said "Oh, here's a bandage for that gash in your side... Sure, there might be some internal hemorrhaging and broken bones, but whatever, just go with that bandage for now." Thanks guys.
I guess it always blows me away that most medical problems are treated with so little urgency. When I was in the emergency room a couple years back, in excruciating pain, I laid on the floor in the waiting room for almost an hour before anyone did anything for me. It's not like they were particularly busy, either, just not in a hurry. My (unplanned) revenge was to throw up on the nurse's station when they finally did get to me.
Nurse: How's your pain on a scale of one to ten?
Me: *barf*
Nurse: ... I'll mark that as a ten.
Then I told her to make it a nine, because I didn't want to max out my pain scale that early in life. Turns out I had a kidney stone due to dehydration. Now I live in constant fear of a repeat performance, hydrating like a beast in order to prevent it.
For now, though, I can breathe moderately well, so I'm trying to just do everything normally. Which involves things like going to work, grocery shopping, and getting my hair cut.
Notice anything different there? I've mentioned my stupid cowlick before, and how it gets in the way no matter what I do with my hair. It causes a lot of problems with my bangs because it makes one little clump of them want to be separate from the rest. When I got my hair cut this last time the girl cutting said switching my part from my left to my right might help, so that's what she did. If I look a little nonplussed in that picture, it's due to my whole world having just been flipped on its head.
It might not seem like that big of a deal, but moving my bangs from one side of my head to the other pretty much altered my perception of reality. Everything felt weird, and the worst part is that I couldn't keep my hair out of my face anymore. You know that flip thing Justin Bieber used to back when he had those hilarious head-encompassing bangs?
Well, I have to do something similar, and hopefully less absurd, to move my bangs out of my eyes. I've had this style since 2010, and I've always tipped my head down and then to my left to flick my hair back where it needs to be. With the bangs on the other side I had to do it the other direction, and I just couldn't. Seriously. My muscle memory is too strong to relearn this process. As a result, the bangs stayed on my right for about a day before I had to switch them back, or risk losing my mind completely.
Side note: if the FBI ever looks into my Internet search history, what I'll be most embarrassed about by far is "Justin Bieber hair flip gif".
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
A to Z Look Back
So now that it's over, what are my thoughts on the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge?
Well, I made it through. At one point I wasn't sure if I was going to get all the entries done, and technically I suppose I didn't, since I did that one two-letter entry. The problem is that my work schedule each weekend is as follows: Friday 1:00-10:00, Saturday 1:00-10:00, Sunday 9:00-5:00. This means I get home around eleven at night all weekend, and have to get to bed pretty soon after that in order to get up on Sunday, which made the Saturday night entries kind of difficult and rushed. A couple times I wrote entries a day or so ahead of time, but more often than not I was barely getting the entries done on time.
On the plus side, I think I got a lot of things out of my system that have been stewing around for a while. I originally intended for all the posts to be upbeat, but they quickly turned into a lot of angst-ridden purging with a couple funny bits, but mostly purging. Those things needed to come out, and this exercise provided a way for me to do that. Now I feel like I'm in a better position to finally move forward with my current life plans.
I swear I'm actually going to explain what those plans are, soon. Some more things need to come together before I'm comfortable "going public" with all that.
As to whether I'd do this again next year, I doubt it. It was just too time consuming, I didn't like the pressure of having to get my entries done by a certain time (midnight), and having to write a complete piece every single day. But if I've got another load of crap I need to get off my chest by this time next year, it might be helpful.
Well, I made it through. At one point I wasn't sure if I was going to get all the entries done, and technically I suppose I didn't, since I did that one two-letter entry. The problem is that my work schedule each weekend is as follows: Friday 1:00-10:00, Saturday 1:00-10:00, Sunday 9:00-5:00. This means I get home around eleven at night all weekend, and have to get to bed pretty soon after that in order to get up on Sunday, which made the Saturday night entries kind of difficult and rushed. A couple times I wrote entries a day or so ahead of time, but more often than not I was barely getting the entries done on time.
On the plus side, I think I got a lot of things out of my system that have been stewing around for a while. I originally intended for all the posts to be upbeat, but they quickly turned into a lot of angst-ridden purging with a couple funny bits, but mostly purging. Those things needed to come out, and this exercise provided a way for me to do that. Now I feel like I'm in a better position to finally move forward with my current life plans.
I swear I'm actually going to explain what those plans are, soon. Some more things need to come together before I'm comfortable "going public" with all that.
As to whether I'd do this again next year, I doubt it. It was just too time consuming, I didn't like the pressure of having to get my entries done by a certain time (midnight), and having to write a complete piece every single day. But if I've got another load of crap I need to get off my chest by this time next year, it might be helpful.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Z is for...
"Zip-Lock" by Lit
Oh man, this was lifetimes ago. A friend and I were talking about bands like Lit, Third Eye Blind, Everclear and others, when she told me her first ever concert was Eve 6. Her mom worked nights so it was easy to sneak out, but she had a pager, and unless she got calls from her kids every so often she knew something was wrong. This meant that my friend had to keep going to a pay phone to page her mom and keep from her from getting suspicious. Picture it: Eve 6, payphones, and beepers. It was a different time.
As I said before, my first concert was Strung Out, but I had the full consent of my parents and my fourteen-year-older brother at my side. Not so rebellious.
Anyway, I got a this Lit album from one of my friends back in Jr. High, and we thought it was so cool. Everyone around us in our Christian school was listening to stuff like DC Talk, Newsboys, and this song by a band called Raze (I about lost my mind watching that music video just now. What the hell is going on there?). In an interesting parallel to my own life, I'm pretty sure she got this album from her brother, and allowed me to borrow it for a few weeks before burning me a copy. However, the copy had that weird shattery noise in the background that some bad copies get so I ended up having to buy my own.
The friend who introduced me to Lit was one of my first real friends ever. Up until that point I had been involved with kids who weren't very nice to me. I was tall for my age and kind of chubby, so I basically looked like a giant until I was thirteen compared to my classmates (in my eyes, anyway). Plus I was very shy and had a hard time making friends. I was never teased very much, but other kids could tell I would do whatever they said in order to be considered their friend. This meant I got pushed around a fair amount until around Jr. High.
Between the ages of thirteen and fourteen a lot of things happened: a lost a little bit of weight, and what weight I had shifted into more appealing places. The other kids got bigger, too, so I blended in more, and our class size increased, so I had people to talk to who didn't know me as the plus-sized pushover. This is when I met the first people I considered real friends, nice ones who didn't threaten to withdraw their friendship every time I disagreed with them or spoke my own opinion. It was pretty awesome.
I've since lost touch with some of these people, the one who gave me the Lit album being one of them, but a couple of them are still in my life today. Ten years later. In any case, I'm glad I had all of them when I did, otherwise I don't know when I would have started trusting people again.
Wow, so this really isn't about Lit much at all, sorry. But give me a break. It's the last day.
Oh man, this was lifetimes ago. A friend and I were talking about bands like Lit, Third Eye Blind, Everclear and others, when she told me her first ever concert was Eve 6. Her mom worked nights so it was easy to sneak out, but she had a pager, and unless she got calls from her kids every so often she knew something was wrong. This meant that my friend had to keep going to a pay phone to page her mom and keep from her from getting suspicious. Picture it: Eve 6, payphones, and beepers. It was a different time.
As I said before, my first concert was Strung Out, but I had the full consent of my parents and my fourteen-year-older brother at my side. Not so rebellious.
Anyway, I got a this Lit album from one of my friends back in Jr. High, and we thought it was so cool. Everyone around us in our Christian school was listening to stuff like DC Talk, Newsboys, and this song by a band called Raze (I about lost my mind watching that music video just now. What the hell is going on there?). In an interesting parallel to my own life, I'm pretty sure she got this album from her brother, and allowed me to borrow it for a few weeks before burning me a copy. However, the copy had that weird shattery noise in the background that some bad copies get so I ended up having to buy my own.
The friend who introduced me to Lit was one of my first real friends ever. Up until that point I had been involved with kids who weren't very nice to me. I was tall for my age and kind of chubby, so I basically looked like a giant until I was thirteen compared to my classmates (in my eyes, anyway). Plus I was very shy and had a hard time making friends. I was never teased very much, but other kids could tell I would do whatever they said in order to be considered their friend. This meant I got pushed around a fair amount until around Jr. High.
Between the ages of thirteen and fourteen a lot of things happened: a lost a little bit of weight, and what weight I had shifted into more appealing places. The other kids got bigger, too, so I blended in more, and our class size increased, so I had people to talk to who didn't know me as the plus-sized pushover. This is when I met the first people I considered real friends, nice ones who didn't threaten to withdraw their friendship every time I disagreed with them or spoke my own opinion. It was pretty awesome.
I've since lost touch with some of these people, the one who gave me the Lit album being one of them, but a couple of them are still in my life today. Ten years later. In any case, I'm glad I had all of them when I did, otherwise I don't know when I would have started trusting people again.
Wow, so this really isn't about Lit much at all, sorry. But give me a break. It's the last day.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Y is for...
"You're the Inspiration" by Chicago
So, when I was an undergrad this boy I liked who liked my roommate gave me a mix CD with this song on it. I said something about wanting to find some new music, and he felt the same, so we ended up trading a couple CDs with things we liked. Mine were mostly punk and ska, and his were indie acoustic such-and-such mixed with older songs like this.
When I went home for winter break, I played his CDs in my car to get to know what was on them. One night my friends and I hung out I had picked everyone up, and when it came time to drop one of them off, he cautioned the rest of us to be very quiet because his mother would otherwise get annoyed. Of course, all that did was make us louder.
This song came on right as he was getting out of the car, and as he approached his door, the chorus was playing. So I did what any good friend would do: I rolled down my windows and cranked that chorus for all it was worth. I belted out "YOU'RE THE INSPIRATION!" like the total jerk I am. Then I rolled up my windows and pulled away as quickly as possible.
Later on he said that his mother didn't hear us, either, so really, everybody won.
So, when I was an undergrad this boy I liked who liked my roommate gave me a mix CD with this song on it. I said something about wanting to find some new music, and he felt the same, so we ended up trading a couple CDs with things we liked. Mine were mostly punk and ska, and his were indie acoustic such-and-such mixed with older songs like this.
When I went home for winter break, I played his CDs in my car to get to know what was on them. One night my friends and I hung out I had picked everyone up, and when it came time to drop one of them off, he cautioned the rest of us to be very quiet because his mother would otherwise get annoyed. Of course, all that did was make us louder.
This song came on right as he was getting out of the car, and as he approached his door, the chorus was playing. So I did what any good friend would do: I rolled down my windows and cranked that chorus for all it was worth. I belted out "YOU'RE THE INSPIRATION!" like the total jerk I am. Then I rolled up my windows and pulled away as quickly as possible.
Later on he said that his mother didn't hear us, either, so really, everybody won.
Friday, April 27, 2012
X is for...
"X Girlfriend" by Zola
If you don't know what he's saying, no worries, because neither do I. Zola is a South African Kwaito artist, and I guess he's speaking some combination of Zulu and tsotsi slang? I really don't know. I just like it.
I first heard about Zola from the movie Tsotsi. If you haven't seen it, you should, it's pretty good. You know, Academy Award-winning. Whatever. Anyway, Zola plays a role in Tsotsi (the gang leader, for those who have seen it). He also performs a great deal of the music in the film. Throughout the whole movie I just kept thinking "I hope there's a soundtrack I can get my hands on." And there was. Once I had the soundtrack and knew who I was listening to, I wanted to have more.
Turns out it's kind of hard to get a hold of South African music, because I couldn't find it anywhere. I ended up getting a couple albums from this kind of shady looking website, but it turns out they were legit, and went out of their way to make sure I ended up with the product. It came all the way from South Africa, and I kept the envelope because it had some cool stamps on it, but that was back when I lived in my own place, and now that I'm back home it's buried in a box somewhere so I can't put up a picture.
Anyway, Zola is an interesting person. On one hand, he's a Kwaito superstar and humanitarian, but on the other hand, there's all these allegations swirling around that he abused some of his former girlfriends. Since it's all so far away, I don't really have my own frame of reference. All I can do is Google him and let the Internet barf up what it can. I hope he's an ok guy, because he has some of my money.
And that's it, really. X was a hard letter to pick a song for.
If you don't know what he's saying, no worries, because neither do I. Zola is a South African Kwaito artist, and I guess he's speaking some combination of Zulu and tsotsi slang? I really don't know. I just like it.
I first heard about Zola from the movie Tsotsi. If you haven't seen it, you should, it's pretty good. You know, Academy Award-winning. Whatever. Anyway, Zola plays a role in Tsotsi (the gang leader, for those who have seen it). He also performs a great deal of the music in the film. Throughout the whole movie I just kept thinking "I hope there's a soundtrack I can get my hands on." And there was. Once I had the soundtrack and knew who I was listening to, I wanted to have more.
Turns out it's kind of hard to get a hold of South African music, because I couldn't find it anywhere. I ended up getting a couple albums from this kind of shady looking website, but it turns out they were legit, and went out of their way to make sure I ended up with the product. It came all the way from South Africa, and I kept the envelope because it had some cool stamps on it, but that was back when I lived in my own place, and now that I'm back home it's buried in a box somewhere so I can't put up a picture.
Anyway, Zola is an interesting person. On one hand, he's a Kwaito superstar and humanitarian, but on the other hand, there's all these allegations swirling around that he abused some of his former girlfriends. Since it's all so far away, I don't really have my own frame of reference. All I can do is Google him and let the Internet barf up what it can. I hope he's an ok guy, because he has some of my money.
And that's it, really. X was a hard letter to pick a song for.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
W is for...
"Wrong Side of the Tracks" by Strung Out
I'm not trying to be dramatic here, but this song pretty much changed my life. My brother (the Mr. Miyagi of my musical world, as shown through these blog posts) let me borrow the Strung Out album Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues one weekend he was visiting from his place in Pittsburgh. I don't remember exactly how old I was when this happened, but up until that point I only had my family's country music and my school's "contemporary" Christian fare to listen to. Then my brother just randomly asked if I might like this sort of thing instead. And I did.
Seriously, I listened to this album over, and over, and over until he had to take it back and go home. Within two weeks I had my own copy. From there I got into Bad Religion, Against Me!, and lots of other bands on this list. This album started the whole thing. It was perfect, really. What summarizes the feelings of an angry kid growing up in the Rust Belt better than the phrase Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues?
"Wrong Side of the Tracks" is the last track on the album, and by far my favorite. I didn't understand some of the content at first, but that idea of "I can do better, I can pick myself up and try again" was something I clung to then. It's something I still cling to now. This song is definitely one of my all-time favorites.
Strung Out was also my first concert. I went with, you guessed it, my brother. There were belligerent drunks and mosh pits and girls making out for the big screen and man, I wasn't in JesusLand anymore. My brother bought me a t-shirt that was way too big, but it's awesome and I'm wearing it right now. Don't believe me? Here's the laziest proof ever:
I'm not trying to be dramatic here, but this song pretty much changed my life. My brother (the Mr. Miyagi of my musical world, as shown through these blog posts) let me borrow the Strung Out album Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues one weekend he was visiting from his place in Pittsburgh. I don't remember exactly how old I was when this happened, but up until that point I only had my family's country music and my school's "contemporary" Christian fare to listen to. Then my brother just randomly asked if I might like this sort of thing instead. And I did.
Seriously, I listened to this album over, and over, and over until he had to take it back and go home. Within two weeks I had my own copy. From there I got into Bad Religion, Against Me!, and lots of other bands on this list. This album started the whole thing. It was perfect, really. What summarizes the feelings of an angry kid growing up in the Rust Belt better than the phrase Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues?
"Wrong Side of the Tracks" is the last track on the album, and by far my favorite. I didn't understand some of the content at first, but that idea of "I can do better, I can pick myself up and try again" was something I clung to then. It's something I still cling to now. This song is definitely one of my all-time favorites.
Strung Out was also my first concert. I went with, you guessed it, my brother. There were belligerent drunks and mosh pits and girls making out for the big screen and man, I wasn't in JesusLand anymore. My brother bought me a t-shirt that was way too big, but it's awesome and I'm wearing it right now. Don't believe me? Here's the laziest proof ever:
My webcam added the date in cheesy font. I don't know why.
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