Not quite perfect

2007-04-09T11:03:00.000-05:00

This might be the best thing that's ever happened.

Happy Groundhog Day

2007-02-03T02:20:00.000-06:00

February 2, 2007.

Groundhog day.

Friday, february second.

Traditionally, february second is referred to as groundhog day, the day in which Punxsutawney Phil, the famed groundhog of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, pops his head above the ground. If he sees his shadow, then there will be six more weeks of winter. If not, spring is afoot.

Here's an interesting fact: feb. 2, groundhog day, has not landed on a friday since 2001.

So for those who still remember, those for whom 6 years is not long enough to forget, for those who will never forget, and never care to forget, i raise my glass.

Here's to the one who will never again see his own shadow.

All love,
Stephen

Season's greetings

2006-12-27T19:17:00.000-06:00

Christmas has come and gone, and we're at the beginning of that odd week between Christmas and new years. So I've begun (at my mom's 3 millionth request) to go through all the crap that I left here when I moved to college and decide what I'm keeping and what I'm getting rid of. This is like a bloody time capsule... there's objects that I didn't even remember I had, and quite a few that I have no idea why i kept them or why they had any significance to begin with. But the stuff I remember... wow, what a ride.
I have sunglasses that I bought in middle school and high school, including the ones with fat white frames that we bought at savers and strutted over to baskin robbins with. I have several old watches and necklaces, most of them crosses, and one that says 01-01-2000, be there. Hah! so dumb... Y2K!! I have my old propeller hat, my first wallet, my old chain wallet, a charm with the letter D on it that an old friend gave me to remember her by, monty python playing cards, and countless badges, pins, keychains, and even the rubik's cube that started it all, along with plenty of other random crap I used to collect. And the sad thing is... that's just a drawer full of stuff. I still have a couple of rubbermaid boxes full of high school/graduation stuff, girlfriend boxes (yes I had them, and yes I kept them... you got a problem with that?), and other random things that I decided were keepsakes.
Anyway, there's been about a thousand things racing through my brain this past few weeks that I've wanted to put on here, and I'm sure in the next couple of weeks they'll make their way, but so far this is the only thing that actually drew me to my computer. But for now, in the solace of my home in el paso, with another week of no commitments whatsoever, I'll relish in my examination and rememberance of my past, before I have to turn around and face the real world again next week.
Merry Christmas... I hope it was relaxing and pleasant for you.

2006-11-26T03:46:00.000-06:00

Maybe I... what do I know?

And now it seems that I have found nothing at all
I wanna hear your voice out loud
Slow it down, slow it down

It's funny what makes you realize that you're depressed. Not the things you'd expect.

2006-11-24T00:19:00.000-06:00

stay posted random blog browsers who don't know me... there's lots of stuff swimming around in this head... updates after the break.

Kisses,
Stephen

2006-10-29T23:58:00.000-06:00

For all the wonderful and shitty events that have happened since july, for all the happiness and sadness, for all the thoughts that I feel are too deep or too shallow to publish online, here's a new blog entry. It will stay just above the surface, because that's what most friendship is about. Most of my friends don't really care what I really think, they just want to ask how it's going, and are only satisfied to hear "good, how are you?" they're not prepared to hear the real answer, unless it happens to be "really awesome!!" which of course it's usually not. If it's any less, it's more than they bargained for, and as such I just create an awkward situation by stating how I really feel. No one wants to hear how others really feel. All they want is to freely say how they really feel, but they don't want to listen, and they'd rather not deal with the complications of true feeling and emotion. It's easier to say "you know what, I'm fine... just super." So maybe next time someone says "hey, how's it going?" I'll respond by saying "actually, not so great. I'm not sure what's gonna happen after i graduate, I have no jobs or grad schools lined up,and for some reason I have this mental block against actually searching for some sort of plan for my future, I may end up trying to open up my own bar so that I can for once be in conrol of something in my life and actually make it good, and God forbid i end up working at the same job i've had for over two years which is slowly driving me insane and beginning to encompass most of my life, not to mention the mental anguish that comes from not having any real religion, and even beginning to question the existence of God and the twisted, sadistic reasoning for even being forced to take part in such an effed up country in an even more effed up world, but otherwise, I guess I'm getting by learning all this tedious information in school that i will most likely no way ever use again once i graduate from a college where i will recieve a degree which is essentially being deemed useless in baylor's eyes as my degree which I have worked hard these past few years for is being disintegrated, only to be lost as a focus under the degree of anthropology, which completely devaluing my coursework as an undergraduate, will likely be held against me as a postgraduate, I will soon be breaking away from the security of my 5 year roomie and 5 year college and 5 year city of residence to live in an unsure place with (again) a devalued degree trying to figure out what the hell to do. but otherwise great."

But maybe I'll just say "fine, how about you?"

2006-07-14T12:55:00.000-05:00

suppose it's time to end all this foolishness.

suppose it's time to grow up.

I'm tired of making a fool of myself.

2006-07-08T17:30:00.000-05:00

3 months, not bad, eh?

Shutup, stephen...

Anyway, here's a blog for those random people who stumble across it and make me smile by leaving a random comment. I'm interesting to you guys for some reason, and it's kinda nice. I guess I'm a little narcissistic like that. Anyway, blogs about happy things just really aren't that exciting. no one wants to read about how someone had a really good day, wherein everything just went according to plan, and there were no existential quandries about life, the universe and the hereafter weighing said person down. Quite the contrary. It's fun to read (or at least write >cough<>cough< ) about the irritaiting things going on and how life pisses you off. or confuses you. either way, one will inevitably lead to the other.

So, let's get on with the bitching, shall we? Have you ever evaluated your friendships? all of them, at the same time? Have you come up with a lot less than you had hoped for? That's what this summer has been for me, in large part. Re-evaluating what my friends mean to me, and FAR more importantly, or at least more significantly, what I mean to them. And that is where it gets depressing. Because I realized that there are 5 people that I can say are truly my friends. Again, to phrase it more correctly, there are 5 people (here in waco) to whom I am a true friend. Of those, John doesn't really count because I live with him and I would hang out with him regardless, and Kelly is my girlfriend, so she has to like me. Which leaves Brian, Jeremy, and Stephen. Now, I don't want to give the wrong impression here. I'm not shooting for huge numbers of friends or anything, and these have become some of my dearest, closest friends, so I don't mean to downplay that at all. BUT... since the end of last semester, when I stopped having parties at my house, all of a sudden, those three were the only ones still seriously interested in spending time with me. And I guess it wouldn't bother me so much, because a lot of us bonded over these get-togethers for various reasons, but just about everyone else who also bonded the same way have become really close. So now that my house isn't the available friday night destination, I haven't gotten a single phone call in months from any of my "friends." I hear about all the awesome times they hang out or take trips or whatever, but "Stevezy" has no place in any of it. I'm the drink slinger, which won me brief and glorious attention, but now that's all i am to a lot of people.

Anyway, in some ways I'm happier now, hanging out with my true friends exclusively, but in other ways it's very sad for me. I really felt like I was making some great friends. And I was very happy to have such a great community of people around me.

I guess when it comes down to it, just because you feel like you've been forming close relationships with people doesn't mean they feel the same way.

So what does all this have to do with my recurrent theme of "what the hell am i gonna do with my life??" you ask? Well, quite a bit, I'd say. But I'll save that for next time.

Love and kisses,
stephen

The Everything Post

2006-04-19T19:42:00.001-05:00

Well, another page is turning, as one chapter of life closes and another one opens, and we find ourselves looking at the first steps of the next leg of the journey of our lives... Well, I don't. But a lot of my friends do. And I'm standing about a semester's length behind them shaking my head. All of a sudden, just like high school, and just like our parents warned us... college has slipped by and we barely noticed it was passing. Now we're at the end, and it's about time to move on and become real live adults.
Some people are going on to graduate school, some nearby, others far away, to reach for their masters degree, then maybe even a phd. Others are losing sleep over the mcat, their ticket to medical school and a future as a doctor. Still others are applying for jobs here and there, and are ready to begin earning their living. There are some who have decided to tie the knot, and are weighing their options for where and how to live in their newly nuptialized lives. And then there's the group I fall into. The box marked "other."
I'm sick of school, and don't want to spend any more time with it, so after december rolls around, I don't plan to switch to graduate school. I don't have any job prospects, unless you consider shoveling shit at Crickets a lucrative position. And at 22 and living on tips, marriage is not on top of my to-do list. So what is there in the world for all the me's?

So clearly I don't have a neat little answer for this question, else I wouldn't have wasted all that time typing those last few paragraphs. I would have started this post with "After I graduate, I'm ___________" But I didn't. So I'll keep looking. I'll let you know when I have any feasable prospects.

Anyone who knows me now who knew me four years ago knows that I am a much, much different person now. And add three more muches if you knew me two years before that. I'm not the nice little sheltered boy I was in high school, I've learned about the world, and I've lost a lot of faith in people. More disturbingly though, I've lost a lot of faith in faith.
In the last 6 months, it's been impossible for me to make any sort of spiritual connection to God.
In fact, I've begun to question God. Not in the safe, constructive way that I did a few years back... I've begun to question whether or not God even exists. I can't pray because it feels like an empty ritual to me now. Like I'm talkin, but there's just a dial tone on the other line. All the conversations about predestination, free will, salvation, redemption, original sin, and the meaning of life deflate when you add the possibility that God doesn't exist. Or that if he does, he doesn't care. I scoff to myself when I hear people talking about "oh, I've been so blessed this week" or how "God works in mysterious ways" and how somehow God is the reason for all the good things that happen in life, but when bad things happen, it's just life. When I ace an interview, God was helping me, but when I'm rejected, it's just life. When I narrowly miss an accident, God's hand was guiding me, but when a child is hit by someone text messaging while driving, it's a tragedy, but God is nowhere to be found. So God will "allow" a person to die when the circumstances ought to merely wound him, and yet he "saves" someone from dying in a situation that for all intents and purposes should be lethal? Is this getting through here?
I'm all about God being our big friendly father in heaven, but not on our terms.
God allows bad things, but he causes good things. That's easy to swallow. Gives you a warm feeling inside. But what about the other way around? God causes bad things, and allows good things to happen. Not a very nice God, eh? Well, a verse in the Bible says (and no, I don't know which one... if you know, feel free to post it for me) that God causes all things... good and bad.
So when those nice old conservative ladies who you just wanna punch in the face attribute everything that's even the least bit positive in the world to God, ask them what they think God had to do with all the negative things. not just big ones either. The little, obnoxious things, like the ones they point out. Like how come I never found my runaway cat? why did I get food poisoning last week? Why did I fail my test despite studying hard? Why are my friends going to Iraq? Well, what did God have to do with these things?

But I digress... I have a hard time blindly following Christianity these days. Too much reality has skewed my view of the controversial, conflicting beliefs of the church.
Oddly enough though, is my affinity for worship music. When I'm in church, that is. (You see, I work at my church, and I will continue to do so until I leave waco. For some odd reason, I feel like despite my total lack of faith, I should maybe try to hold on to something... maybe it'll be important later)Now, the david crowder band is not your classic church music. They take passionate lyrics and marry them with passionate rock music. Songs that remind me of religious retreat worship songs of old are now sung with inspired electric guitar riffs, hints of violin, and even scratching vinyl. But when I'm in church, whether it's DCB or anyone else, I get lost in worship songs. I feel like if there is a God up there, and if he does pay any attention to us, He does so during those songs. I close my eyes and sing, and feel ok, for as long as the song lasts. 'Course, often the rest of the church service just depresses me, but I cannot overlook the feeling that I get when I'm singing those songs.

Anyway, I suppose it's about time to wrap up this post. I've been thinking a lot lately about my life, and what my experiences mean to me. There are some friends I have that I feel I would not have survived without. I imagine you know who you are, whether your eyes meet with this blog or not, and I just wish I could tell you in words what you have meant to me. As for all of my friends, thank you all for liking me and putting up with me. You're all pretty awesome.

Ok, the end.

(PS... I had a nosebleed in bed this morning. I haven't had one for years. How random is that?)

The Everything Post

2006-04-19T19:42:00.000-05:00

kinky

2006-02-15T18:11:00.000-06:00

I hate politics. So it might seem strange that I've actually become an advocate of someone who's running for political office. This is the first time since I've been aware of politics that I've actually wanted to vote for someone because i want them in office, rather than almost blindly choosing between political siamese twins. Since I became interested in politics, I, like many other cynics, have constantly talked about how nice it would be to have an independent candidate who's interested in the actual betterment of the state/country. Well, i think i may have stumbled upon that. so..... here's my two cents.
Kinky Friedman seems like a real human, not a political robot, and he seems like he really is interested in improving life in texas. It takes a lot for any politician to win me over, and I think this guy did it because he's not really a politician. he's just a texan who doesn't want to live in a poorly run state. Anyway, enough of the soapbox. Check out www.kinkyfriedman.com.

As for me, I'm gonna go eat some more triscuits.

2006-01-25T21:53:00.000-06:00

If you've ever consistently attended UBC, or known someone who does, you know that Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian is kind of like required reading for UBCers. In fact, two or three years ago, when I first sat down for a talk with Kyle Lake, he strongly advised that I read it. Kelly had already read it, and told me it was incredible, and something that I really need to read. But since then, I've been sort of afraid to read it. I'm not really sure why, but best I can figure is that it's a lot easier to settle into hurting and criticism than it is to relearn humility and strive for joy. So here I've been, in the ever popular "deconstruction" phase of my religious life, perceptive to the many faults and fallacies of the religion to which i reluctantly subscribe, wary and unwilling to dedicate myself to changing the now familiar status quo. But I'm in a group with UBC... something halfway between a Bible study and a book club, with all the awkward uncomfortableness that both would bring me, where together, over the course of the semester, we read and analyze McLaren's book. I'm about halfway through the introduction right now, and I can safely say that I'm still very scared of diving into it, but there's some excitement building up too. I guess we'll see what this book really has in store for me.

2006-01-11T21:51:00.000-06:00

I almost cried tonight. I'm such a woman.

I'm blown away by how many songs/poems/paper journals I managed to scratch out between my senior year in high school and my sophomore year here. Good gravy there's a bunch. And it's all stuff I hadn't seen for a good couple years.

2006-01-04T22:16:00.000-06:00

I crave freedom.

Merry Christmas

2005-12-28T10:49:00.000-06:00

Hi guys. I hope this holiday season has been a nice break for everyone. I must say, it has been a bit refreshing to be back in old sun city, wearing flip flops and a t-shirt on Christmas like the rest of Texas. But hey, at least in the desert it's actually cold at night, so that's pretty cool. Over the break, a lot of thoughts have occured to me, and I've learned and formulated some new things. Here now is a brief list of all the things that I've learned or experienced this past week.

Christmas is most "magical" when you a) have a kid or b) are a kid. When you're 21, driving home on the 22nd of December to a 60-something degree winter, with no one younger than you at home to remind you to be excited about santa coming, and you realize that you don't feel guilty for letting old traditions slip away, Christmas leaves a lot to be desired.

I, like a large number of people in waco, am jaded when it comes to beggars. We've all had our share of stories about the car running out of gas between austin and dallas, and how every last one of them is Christian and/or has a family and would normally never do this, but just this once they need a couple bucks for food/gas/a hotel room/etc. Normally I don't mind giving these people (many of whom I've seen more than once) a dollar or two, mostly just to get them to stop telling me a story that I heard the previous afternoon. But a lot of times, I don't feel like wasting my money. So on friday, i was at a stoplight on the access road and saw this guy with a cardboard sign that just said "starving." The guy was slowly walking around, casually looking at cars, not getting too close to any of them, making them uncomfortable. He looked pathetic, and like he was really hurting. So I waved him over to my car, and gave him a few bucks. It wasn't much, like three or four, but I didn't mind giving it to him. On Saturday, I was leaving the walmart parking lot, and saw a ragged old guy sittin on the corner with a detailed sign about how he was a veteran and he needed money. He was sittin on the corner with his dog and a bunch of bags and stuff around him. I had my windows down, and heard him make a comment. I looked over at him questioningly and leaned over a little. He mumbled something else, and then said "and on Christmas eve... God" The guy was pissed that I wasn't giving him money. I was at the corner trying to turn, and this guy was trying to make me feel bad for not giving him money. It honestly pissed me off more than anything, because from the look of things, the guy on the freeway really needed some extra bucks, and this guy was sitting there taking advantage of people. But then again, that's just a surface judgement... and I'm jaded.

That leads me to another thing I've learned. Christmas is hollow. according to this guy, who may have well been a professor or kindly old gentleman at a bus stop, I ought to give him some of my money, particularly because it's christmas. One side of this is a) yes, I should, because decadence is ruining society. But the other side is the tie-in to Christmas. That guy is just abusing the fact that Christmas should mean giving and caring, just as all the beggars in waco abuse the fact that their target begging audience is predominantly Christian. 'Tis the season? Why? For what? For most, the reason for Christmas is giving and receiving gifts. It's a time to be with family. A time set aside for us to pretend like we're a caring society by spending money on expensive, unnecessary junk and giving it to people we love. We don't donate to charities or do nice things because of the example set for us by our Lord Jesus Christ. No, we do it because it's Christmas. And these days, we do it very grudgingly. I went to the mall, walmart, target, and kmart on the two days before Christmas. No one was jolly, everyone was rude and pushy and obnoxious. Even the fake, hollow Christmas spirit that the mall, kmart, target, and walmart instill in us wears off. It'd be nice to be with your family when you can, and enjoy it, not just when the holly is hung and the eggnog flows. It'd be nice to go out and find something that someone else would like and give it to them, without feeling obligated. It'd be nice for everyone to care about the actual meaning of Christmas again.

That I'm really wordy

You really can't expect the best, all you can really do is hope for it, and hope things don't go awry for a while.

It's very funny when british people say "pinche wankers"

Jarhead is a great movie. It's a very emotional, poigniant description of life in the military. I've heard that it's very moving for the fact that it's absolutely true... a perfect description of military life. And it was funny, because a lot of the movie seemed oddly, distantly familiar. I realized that it was so because I had heard stories from one of my best friends who has been in the army as long as I've been in college. I knew that it was all true when I saw him crying as we left the theater, and knowing that he had been crying for most of the movie.

The American public is a fickle, unfeeling group of neanderthals who feel the need to be entertained the way a neaderthal wants to be sexually satisfied... hard and fast. They have no use for emotion or wit or drama, they want sex, slapstick, and explosions. Yesterday as I walked out of Jarhead, the guy behind me said "well that sucked... there was no action." And there you have it.

Church hurts. Any church, every time.

Chopin polish potato vodka is, in fact, better than McCormick.

In line with the Christmas business... Merry Christmas, like "what's up" and "how's it going" has lost its meaning. It is now but a phrase that we say this time of year (or happy holidays, for those politically correct bastards who don't allow religious or potentially offensive words such as Christmas to be uttered in public... nevermind the word fuck... only Christian words are offensive) out of habit and a sense of well-wishing. But people, myself included, just say it. This has been something that I've been noticing a lot this past year... words aren't important in the english language. Sample phone conversation: "hey, what's up?" "nothing, what's goin on?" "oh, nothin, what are you doing?" "nothin, I'm just shopping for some new shoes" see all that meaningful drivel? We don't pay attention to the words in "what's up," we just hear a greeting such as "how are you" with a predetermined response. "what's up?" "nothin" "how are you?" "not too bad" "Merry christmas" "you too". I want meaning behind words. So to all my friends, I hope that this Christmas was meaningful and enjoyable, and that you had an opportunity to spend time with family and friends.

Well, again, inevitably, my blog has taken on a predominantly negative tone. In any case though, I have had a wonderful time so far over the break, and with about a week to go, I'm looking forward to some more good times to take back to waco with me. For anyone who took the time to read all this, thanks for putting up with me, like you always do, and hopefully I'll see you soon. Take care, and I hope that the end of the year brings reminders of good memories, and a sense of closure to the bad ones, and that the new year will find you in good health and good spirits.

Romeo and Juliet had the right idea with suicide

2005-10-05T11:19:00.000-05:00

The problem with people who say they just want to find someone who will love them for them is that in most cases, they've already found that person, but simply weren't satisfied with them. This is the ultimate in romantic thought. Consider this:

The man (we'll call him romeo) has fallen completely head over heels for the girl (let's call her juliet). He knows (or thinks he knows) her through and through, and loves everything about her, even her imperfections. Even those are endearing to him, because they are of his love. They have a perfect relationship, he treats her like a queen, she returns his love in full. And then it stops. Extenuating circumstances of some sort force these two to be pulled apart. It is pure agony in the mind of ol' Romeo, and as far as he can tell, Juliet's suffering the same. His one true loved, ripped away from him. Some time later... a couple weeks, several years, any time in between... he chances upon some poetry of hers. This poetry remarks of her sadness at being lonely. Romeo knows this pain all too well, and is comforted to know that Juliet misses him too. He reads on, and Juliet says that she wants nothing more in the world than to find someone who would love her for her, and someone with whom she could be happy. She made no mention of Romeo's undying love for her, but she did talk about some of her old relationships that were obviously not terribly important to her.

Any person who says they want "someone to love me for me" needs to reexamine what it is they want. More than likely, you want someone who will love you for you, but only if it's someone you decide is acceptible. No one wants a creepy stalker-type or loser ex girlfriend/boyfriend who won't stop telling you that life is miserable without you. instead of "i want someone who will love me for me", I'd love to hear people say "I want to pick the perfect person for myself, and as soon as I've decided with whom I want to spend the rest of my life, i want them to love me for me." Don't ask for something you don't want. Because what if someone does love you for all that you are, but they're not what you had in mind? How are they gonna feel? Maybe one day they'll find someone who loves them for them... but probably not... they'll probably have grown bitter and renounced love by then.

2005-06-30T02:26:00.000-05:00

Fuck Fuck Fuck

goodnight

A new beginning (again)

2005-06-26T22:43:00.000-05:00

It's sad but true that fate stays in the background most of our lives, showing up only to hand us the fuzzy end of the lollypop. The overwhelming weight of evidence proves that life stinks: If there's a fifty-fifty chance of the toast falling on the floor buttered side down, why does it do so 99 percent of the time? There's no rhyme, no reason, and absolutely no justice. It seems there's only one certainty in life- it's unfair. The diner sitting next to you at the lunch counter will always be served a sandwich that looks fresher and bigger and is surely tastier than yours, especially when both orders are identical. Tollbooth lines, barking dogs, income taxes, bad hair days, Barney, Biosphere II - does anyone need more proof of life's pungent aroma?
Only blind optimism could doubt the facts, and, as everyone knows, optimism is the belief that everything is beautiful (including what is ugly) and that everything wrong is actually right. In real life, the light at the end of the tunnel is usually an oncoming train. How else can you explain the fact that just as you are on your way to the most important job interview of your life a pigeon will inevitably leave a comfortable perch on a statue and aim directly at you? The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true. The realist understands that life's odor is often unpleasant.
The truth of the matter is that we're all bound by Murphy's Law, which states that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, especially when you least expect it. Just when you think nothing can go awry, Dame Fortune is there quietly slipping lead into her boxing gloves. One minute life is a bowl of cherries, the next you're knocked out cold. But don't take it personally. Take a look at the frustrated and grim faces around you and you'll realize that life stinks - not just yours, everyone's.

Life stinks
Andrews and McMeel, Kansas city