Welcome back to the land where alcohol is used by all as currency. This mystical place is where six day weekends are a possibility and anything scheduled before noon is out of the question. Nights turn to mornings much later around here and any habit that would be deemed unhealthy in the real world is just the way of life. The scent of sex is much more potent, but not as potent as the haze of smoke through which we see our lives. Music is what makes the world go round and similar interests in genres make instant friends (not as instant as does a free-food event but the idea is there). We are so far separated from normal life that we practically have our own time zone. I am grateful to say that I believe I am finally over the jet-lag. Welcome back!
I have so many emotions flying through my body right now I don’t quite know how to react. My best reaction is to sleep and deal with this all with the energy that the morning shall inevitably bring.
Notes to self:
1- Live in the moment. React with your feelings and emotions- not with rational and reasoning. Kiss people you aren’t sure are the right ones to kiss… it might “not be so bad”.
2- Don’t let the hurtful words of a friend get you down.
2 pt. 2- Don’t look up “self righteous bull-shit”. You are better off not knowing what it means.
3- Don’t let these hurtful words ruin your anything- whether that be night, day, week, friendship, life.
4- Be honest. People know more than you expect them to. People know things before you know them yourself. Often it is wise to accept the unwanted advice of others.
5- Just have fun… please?
6- Don’t go to Europe on another person’s dollar (even if it is their daily salary).
Filed under: life
I’m not a professional in any area of expertise. I don’t know a lot about anything. I’d like to say that in my best moments I may know a little about a lot of things, but not a lot about any one thing in particular. It seems I often try to give the impression that I am well versed on the subjects those around me know about. When in a situation where there are people speaking of something that everyone but me seems to have a PhD in, I fake it. I pretend and go along as if I know what they are talking about. I nod and offer up the occasional and ever-so eloquent “uh-huh” acting as if I actually have a clue as to what is going on. I think, or in the very least hope, that I am not the only person who does this.
I have somewhat recently come to realize that this action of pretending to know a lot about something I know nothing of is rather dishonest. More than that, I feel as though doing this kind of stuff is tiring and a waste of time. If I am in a group of people who are informed on a subject that I am not, I no longer play along. I plainly state that I have no expertise on the topic at hand and if someone would like to fill me in I allow them to take it from there. After taking on such a truthful role, I have come to realize how childish it was of me to ever pretend to know something I didn’t simply for fear I would be deemed unworthy of my company.
You know how sometimes we catch ourselves saying the same stupid sayings over and over until they seem to no longer have their original meaning? These catchphrases are usually contagious and spread like scabies through a fraternity house. Usually by the time we realize that we are constantly uttering these sayings we also realize just how annoying they are and try to stop this habit. Perhaps unfortunately for those who spend a decent amount of time around me, I have recognized my catch phrase and I will not let it go. I hope it spreads. My saying is “I don’t know what that means.” I say it all of the time and have learned so much since I started saying it! It is phenomenal the amount information that those around you carry.
“Lindsey Lohan got arrested again for killing another orphan baby.” “What?! Another? That cute little girl from The Parent Trap back in the ‘90’s is now killing orphans? What the hell? She gets to spend time with both her British mother and American father and her twin sister; it was such a happy ending. Why is she killing people?” “You didn’t know?!??! Have you been living under a rock? It has been all over the news and radio, don’t you watch the news?” (They try to play it off like I am a bad person for not knowing she’s a murderer.) “Well, no I don’t watch the news. I get e-mails from the BBC. (I figure if any American news is worth knowing it will make its way across the Atlantic.) But did you hear about the Turkish Foreign Minister saying that he will run again for presidency. It’s been raising fears of a new showdown with secular and army critics. Apparently a pretty big deal over there.” “I don’t know what that means.”
And the motto has caught on.
“I don’t know what that means.” Try it out, you just might learn something (and hell we all know we have things that we need to be learning). While this phrase may not make you a connoisseur, which I still dream of being on any subject, it may open your eyes to quite a few things.
“Rulers make bad lovers. You better put your kingdom up for sale.”
With the passing of yet another job, signifying the end of the three month reckless bliss that we call summer, I have come to find myself reflecting on this past summer with relief and excitement – Relief because I am glad to have come out of it alive and excitement because I know that I am on the edge of something big. A lot of things are about to change and I have no idea where these changes will lead me, but I am very excited for it all to start.
While I feel as though change is the only thing that is truly constant, I also feel that there are some things about life that we can never change, no matter how hard we try. When talking things over with a friend, he told me for the millionth time that “the only consistent thing about this place is the inconsistency”, that is to say that change is imminent. In that moment I felt as though the only thing that one could count on in life is the definite change that will occur to everything with time. There was nothing that we could do but get used to change and accept it.
Later in one of our many five-hour-long conversations, he told me a story about an ex lover of his. This woman astounds me in so much that I see myself in her merely fast forwarded a decade… or two… Either way, he told me that while she was the one who broke things off with him, she continually drops hints and makes it known that she is still thinking of him. The worst part about it is his necessary ignorance to her alluring sing song. It is as if this woman is a Siren and my friend a sailor on a ship in the Odyssey. He knows that he must plug his ears if he wants to get out of this alive, but like Odysseus and I suppose all of us, he is curious to hear her melody.
After the abrupt ending to our conversation, as there never was any other ending, I started thinking about what my friend had said about change. It was then that I realized that while little and meaningless things may change, and things that we love so much will inevitably transform, it seems to me that the things we dislike are the things that will fail to vary. We will always have to approach and back away from relationships with caution when we do not wish to. We will always have to make hard decisions, work with deadlines, and do the things that we dislike the most. On the other hand, the things that we love, the friendships that we enjoy and the good times that we spend together will all change and ultimately come to an end.
While there may not be anything we can do to keep the good things from going away or to make the bad things fade, the only true thing we can do is come to peace with this and, like all else, embrace it with a smile. “Life is funny,” is something that my friend would always say after a mildly intoxicating amount of alcohol and I guess after thinking it through I’d have to agree.
Filed under: love
She asked me how I felt on existential thought
I told her that I didn’t.
She asked me how I felt on love at first sight
I told her that I didn’t.
She asked me how I felt on hope and faith and love
And I told her that I loved faith
And had hope for love
And that I had faith that love and hope could one day
Bring us together again.
She asked me if she should go
And I told her that she should.
She asked me why I’d push her away
And I told her that she should.
She asked me if she can see me again
And I told her that I don’t know if she could right then
And I wasn’t sure anybody ever could
But that I had faith that love and hope could one day
Bring us together again.
She called me in a rage
And I told her to calm down.
She called me a liar and a thief
And I told her to calm down.
She called me and told me I was wrong
And I told her that I made no promises
And that distance doesn’t always make the heart grow fonder
And now I don’t want to
Bring us together again
And I’m sorry.
Filed under: life
In a place I perhaps shouldn’t have been, I came across the trip of a lifetime. Around the world in eighty beers, a four hundred dollar drip that came with a t-shirt and your picture on the wall. Inevitable new friends, an inevitable beer belly, afternoon baseball games and evening recaps of said games- this is where I shall spend the remainder of my summer.
Last night, this how I was described: “Carries paper with her, reads non-fiction, doesn’t watch movies, drinks beer, intellectual, prefers baseball over golf, had a slinky as a child, doesn’t like shoes, cute face – winning points everywhere.” That is how I get boyfriends. But no, I won’t go dancing with you old man. Perhaps these “inevitable new friends” aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Even I have my limits.
