A lit fuse of explosiveness
It’s 3:21 in the afternoon on Monday, December 4, 2006. On your way home from work, you’ve spontaneously decided to take care of some business, mainly those checks you need to deposit that have been sitting in your wallet for three weeks. As you turn into the parking lot, you take the one empty space, and head through the double doors.
While you’re filling out your deposit slip at the table pushed off to the side of the main lobby, you look up as a man busts through the double doors, face blacked out, weapon in hand. The majority of the patrons have already hit the floor, but you were too late. The man with no face has restrained you, and has a firearm to your back. He’s threatening to sacrifice you should anyone move, speak, or threaten him in any way.
It was at this time that the armed guard became brave, and it was at this time that you heard a blast and felt a cold trickle run down your body.
Spontaneity adds another death to its tally.
Every day, we wake up and do the same thing. We engage in the same menial tasks, and everyday, we grow more unfulfilled. We struggle to find that happy medium, and over time, the inevitable urge to be unpredictable will grow from within. Yet, if you try to be unpredictable, you’re faced with dire consequences.
We live in a society that is run on the fuel of predictability. Without predictability, there is no electricity, there is no water, and there is no food; this equals no society. Despite this, the desire to be unpredictable will still ravish your inner being, and cloud your judgment, making you yearn for a taste of the forbidden fruit.
For some, being unpredictable means taking a different route to work, parking in a different space, or trying a different type of coffee. For others, being unpredictable means walking into a bank and taking more than your 1.2% interest rate dividend.
It is my theory that crime that is not premeditated is directly influenced by people trying to shake the paradigm of predictability.
So, you can be unpredictable and cash those checks. Or you can be unpredictable, and rob the joint.
You see, spontaneity is a lit fuse of explosiveness.
You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
The meaning of life, the universe, and everything
The answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything is of course forty-two. We’ve been led to believe from our inception that forty-two is in fact a number, but what if it truly isn’t.
Is it not possible that forty-two truly is the answer to the unanswerable questions of life, yet we are merely incapable of understanding what forty-two truly is?
So many wander idlely through life trying to find some empty meaning that describes why we exist. A few of us branch out from the age old solution of an omniscient god with an ulterior motive for his/her people, but after you get past that, where are you? Where do you run? You’re no longer living in ignorant bliss, but isn’t it ignorant bliss we seek?
If you asked individuals who had become enlightened to their surroundings, my guess is that approximately half of them would prefer to sink back into ignorant bliss, and the other half wouldn’t change a thing. There is a distinct divide between knowledge and happiness. There is an even greater distinction between wanting knowledge or wanting happiness.
In my opinion, that is truly the great question of life. Does one decide to be happy, or in the know? There is no such thing as having both. You are either truly happy, or truly knowledgeable. However, to truly be happy, you have to live in an ignorant bliss, and can one define that as truly living?
Alternately, is living with too much information truly living?
What would you choose?
Life’s five finger discount
There is nothing to fear but life itself.
Now, you may be confused, as the above phrase coincides with a popular quote by former POTUS Franklin D. Roosevelt who said something to the tune of there being nothing to fear but fear itself.
This simply isn’t true.
Fear is not to be feared, for it is only an emotion. Emotions can’t hurt you, only others, so unless you fear hurting others, fear isn’t a big issue. The true thing to fear in life is life itself. Nothing can hurt you worse, and nothing can fuck you up more than life.
Fear lasts a minute, life lasts forever.
Armed with this knowledge, one would expect to see the massive build up of haunted houses showcasing life situations. The chainsaw man has been replaced by the mortgage. The ghost/KKK member has been replaced by a stock market crash than means your company will be laying you off to cut costs. The grim reaper has been replaced with your wife of twenty-five years serving you with divorce papers over breakfast, while Pablo, the gregarious pool boy, loads his van for their midwestern adventure.
I’ve never been to a haunted house like that, but I think it would trump anything decades of horror movies have to offer. Hollywood has yet to figure out that life is the ultimate horror, because everyone must live it, and we’re not allowed by our federal government to terminate it very easily. Those who do the best in life are the people who don’t spill the popcorn and coke, and continue on like nothing ever happened.
The way to subvert the horror of life is to blend in and go unnoticed. Only until you can walk into a place and walk out with no one ever knowing you were there can you master life.
If only burglary was that easy.
Who would Jesus blame?
I’ve considered myself doomed from an early age.
Now, I didn’t necessarily label myself doomed from events that happened. I could have, but I didn’t. Instead, I was told at an early age that all hell would befall my very existance.
You see, I blame everything that is wrong with my life on myself, and one action that I did, or didn’t do for that matter, several years ago.
I was warned, mind you. The disclaimer that accompanied it was explicit and to the point. It made it perfectly clear that if I didn’t not send that letter to ten people in the next fifteen minutes that my life would be a complete and utter disaster.
Yet, I laughed at it then.
Then things started happening, and more letters started arriving. Now I was told that if I failed to forward that message to twenty people, plus ten people who spoke a foreign language, that my love life would suffer the consequences. I thought to myself, well, now I’m fucked.
I don’t even know twenty people, let alone ten more who don’t speak English.
This is where they get you. This is god’s master plan. It used to be than you could sit there and blame which ever deity you subscribed to for your problems. If I got hit by a car, it was Vishnu’s fault. If a plane crashed in my backyard because of my incredibly tall flagpole, Jesus wasn’t dying hard enough for my sins. If I inadvertantly walked off a cliff, it was because Joseph Smith put it there to be walked off of.
So, all the little bastards called a meeting in where ever it is they take residence, and came up with the ingenious plan of the chain letter.
That meant that if I got hit by a car, it was because I didn’t forward the plight of baby Jessica’s trip back down the well for revenge. If a plane crashed in my backyard because of my incredibly tall flagpole, it was because I neglected to recount the story of spiders underneath my toilet seat. Last, but not least, if I walked off a cliff, I only had myself to blame for not sending that e-mail so I could get a dollar from Microsoft.
The true question here, and the ultimate way to subvert the chain letter principle is to opening ask:
Who Would Jesus Blame?
The sedation of the shopping peregrination
Today was a snow day, and therefore I had no school today. Let me set this up for you, the roadways had maybe the slightest coating on water on them. Not ice, not snow, just good ol’ molecules of two hydrogens mixed with an oxygen. The entire metroplex, save Dallas, decided to cancel school because of the scary white stuff falling, and thus we canceled too.
So, this was nice, I slept in until noon, and then I decided I needed to go grocery shopping. This was a bad, bad, bad, bad mistake.
At the time, it didn’t occur to me that every cracked out mother in town would be dragging her kids along with her down every single aisle at Wal-mart, debating on the value of ball park franks vs. oscar meyer wieners.
I’d like to think I made it a good fifteen minutes before homicidal tendencies started arising within myself. The tuna incident, however, pushed me over the edge.
I had made it through half the food isles at Wal-mart, and I was within sight of the tuna and the soup. Lately I’ve been on a tuna kick, I like to mix it with my easy mac, and dammit, I was out of tuna. As I progressed down the isle, there were people in front of the tuna. This is fine, but when I hear their conversation, the homicidal tendencies came along full force.
You see, it was two teenage girls shopping with their mother. They were maybe 17 years old. The mother was talking about how Starkist tuna hadn’t tasted the same since the late nineties, and chicken of the sea tasted too fishy. Well, instead of picking one, they stood there, like Charlie the motherfucking Tuna was going to pop out of the selves and help them with their big decision.
He didn’t.
I also didn’t have the heart to tell them that chunk light in water isn’t fishy, and it doesn’t taste fishy unless you get albacore, but I digress.
I’ve decided that I shouldn’t grocery shop on days in which the kiddies are out of school. They fan out five wide down the aisle, and then you have to stop and let them pass, all the while they’re asking mommy why the hell can’t they have the new scuba steve doll.
Because I said so.
As I was leaving the store, and the check out girl handed me my receipt, she looked me in the eye and said, “Stay safe out there,” as if I was going off to war, and there were land mines planted next to the old person greeting people at the door. She said it with the uptmost sincereness, as if she truly believed that the world outside was unsafe and was a disaster waiting to happen.
I just nodded and smiled.
If I ran a Wal-mart, and was born into the Walton family, I’d offer valium, xanax or ativan at the door. People will have a better shopping experience, which means they will buy more, and that, in turn, means I won’t kill your five your old for demanding the plasma screen tv.
Deal?
I know it’s easy to say, but it is harder to live this way
I admit it. I’m hopelessly terrified.
I’m terrified of everything, the things I have control over, the things I don’t have control over, and the things I wish I had control over. This leads me to wonder if everyone is terrified.
In the immortal words of Ben Folds, the scariest thing you’ve ever done in your life is right around the corner. As time goes by, and I get older, I cannot help but find more and more truth in that. I suppose that it is akin to the person who obsesses over the fact that if they had woken up only a minute earlier this morning, their life could have changed this morning. It’s the whole Sliding Doors paradox.
I see how it is easy for people who believe in fate to get through life. They don’t have to worry about a thing, because everything is meant to happen for a reason, and the decisions they make are the result of a predestined path. Thus, you can do no wrong. Color me crazy, but there is just something completely unnerving about believing in something that renders you completely helpless. There is no more free will, there are no more chances, and there are no more stupid ideas, because your life has been planned out without you asking and you can’t do a fucking thing about it.
I choose not to believe in fate, because if I didn’t feel like I had control over my life, I’d been even worse off than I am now. Somewhere, deep down inside me, I need to know that I am able to cause my own fuck ups. I need to know that I am able to cause the demise of the world. Does this make me extremely paranoid, and extremely psychotic and fearful? Yes. Would I change it? Honestly, I don’t know.
I guess there is nothing more real in life than fear. Fear pushes us to do everything we hold dear. Love is built on fear, hate is built on fear, happiness is built on fear, religion is built on fear, and life is built on fear. Life is fucking scary, and on some days when the fear of becoming worthless, getting addicted to smack, and the fear of loss overwhelms you, it seems too much to take.
Sometimes I fear I will break before I escape the fear, if it can be escaped.
It is a lucious mix of word and tricks
I have this strange urge to blog, and I don’t know why.
I really don’t have anything to talk about. I’d tell you about my day, but that goes in my other blog, and I didn’t really do anything else. I have been watching the woot off all day, with nothing worth buying. I only really have my eye out for a digital pen, because why the hell take notes and then type them when this sumbitch does it for you.
My fridge is full of fruit and healthy foods, which means my flatmate is on another “I’m gonna get fucking HUGE” kick. I cannot wait until I live alone, and I don’t find Men’s Fitness/Health in the mailbox and body books laying around the apartment. I guess you cannot get a gay lover unless you are fucking HUGE. Muscle wise, I mean. I don’t know anything about gay penis likes or dislikes, but I seem to believe my stereotypical image of a gay couple are two very muscular men. I wonder if the book says to quit drinking so god damn much and eat something. There, I solved his problems, now where the hell is my money.
I’ve quit Coke again. At least I’m dealing with an addiction I can actually control, unlike the Carmex addiction. The Carmex addiction just feels so damn good, but the Coke is just kind of mediocre. Plus, I feel like I read something everyday about how Coke is going to kill me by altering my DNA and whatnot. That cannot be good for you. We’ll see how long it lasts. Maybe I should start smoking to quit Coke, then start Coking to quit smoking. Hmm. I shall stick to Diet Green Tea before smoking. Green Tea isn’t as bad for your teeth.
Although I don’t like the school, it is good to be back in Fort Worth, where the people drive fast. In Amarillo, it seemed all everyone did was go 30 in a 50mph zone. Here, everyone goes 50 in a 30mph zone, and it is beautiful. Sure we don’t really get there any faster, and it may or not be safe, depending on what so called auto expert you talk to, but eh. Certainly safer that flying on a plane with a TB positive guy.
Oh, so it’s June teh First. I’m supposed to find out damn soon what kind of financial aid package I’m being offered. Basically, what kind of package I get offered tells me if I can go to school here in the Fall. I can’t say that I would be disappointed if I couldn’t. I did kind of get tricked by the brochure envy this place offered, and arrived to become disappointed with the substance, among other things. Happy thoughts, eh.
Happy happy thoughts.
Saturday night grocery fever
So, tonight I decided to head to the grocery store. I opted for the one closest to campus, an Albertsons, because I didn’t really feel like driving to Wal-mart or Tom Thumb just to see that there were, in fact, no parking spaces. Plus, I hate crowded ass stores. I enjoy pleasant shopping experiences, especially when I don’t know what the hell I want.
I’d never been to this Albertson’s before, let alone on a Saturday night. I try to avoid the grocery store on Saturday, since that is when everyone and their dog decide they need groceries. I’d also never been to an Albertson’s across the street from a college campus on a Saturday night, and quite frankly, it wasn’t what I expected.
There were several classifications of people abound.
First, you have me. The single, unkempt male college student, aimlessly wondering around the store looking for something to eat. Said single college student is usually wearing a t-shirt and shorts, some type of sandal, and a hat. They don’t care that they’re alone on a Saturday night, and just want to be home.
Next, you have the single, unkempt female college student aimlessly wandering around the store while making every effort not to be seen grabbing food. This person usually spends a few minutes in the produce department before moving on and grabbing real food before speeding to a self-checkout. This person can be identified by the sweatpants (possibly saying something across the ass), a plain t-shirt, and flip flop sandals.
Enter the people going out for a night on the town. First, you have the female, ready to go out partying and a-boozin’ with her friends or SO. You may see this person at the flower department, buying a flower for their boyfriend after she fucked her best friend, or buying a flower for her best friend after she fucked her best friend’s boyfriend. They should be avoided at all costs, as they might fuck you too, but feel really bad about it in the morning.
Don’t forget about the pack female. You’ll never see this person alone, as they always travel in a pack of usually three or more. They will always be seen laughing and talking loudly. It is usually unknown what in fact they buy, if anything, as they usually walk around, without a cart or one of those plastic hand baskets. Avoid at all costs if you suffer from any kind of allergy or breathing difficulty, as the perfume smell is deadly.
A cultist sect of the pack female is the sorority female. These can be identified because they are all wearing the same thing, thinking the same thing, not to mention never traveling in a group less than ten. Avoid at all costs…because they’re annoying. After all, if you want to be greek, move to Greece.
Another person to watch for is the single male, usually around 30-50. This is a rightist branch of the single college male, and they usually wonder around aimlessly, thinking about the good times. They were divorced five years ago, and obviously have nothing better to do on a Saturday night. You can normally identify them by the sad look on their face, the worn pair of jeans, and the nice shoes.
I’ve saved the worst for last. That’s right… the PDA couple. This couple sticks out like a Jew standing in a full room of Nazis. These are the people that are hanging onto each other, hugging and kissing. They may or may not be actually shopping. By their actions, they’ve probably only been together for a week or two and haven’t fallen into the pit of despair that encompasses all seemingly happy relationships. Avoid these people like you’d avoid zombies, their aim is jealousy, which just ends up being annoying…unless you’re them.
Sadly, this is just a small microcosm of the people you encounter at the grocery store on a Saturday night, and it probably does not even scratch the surface. After all, this is just about 10% of the shoppers. One could make it even more fun if they started to analyze the employees, but alas…
Maybe the next time I’m stupid enough to go to the grocery store on a Saturday night.
I’m the flame, I can’t get burnt
I am in a state of nothingness.
I’d try to describe it, but it truly is a state of nothingness. I don’t know if it’s something of nothing, or just nothing. All I know is that it is nothingness. You’d be pleasantly surprised about how easy it is to make something out of nothing.
I suppose this all stemmed from staring out my window on my knees, just watching. There isn’t much to see, it’s a sixth story window looking out onto a courtyard with a lackadaisical water fountain, a few wooden benches, a few cast iron picnic tables, and quite possibly a non-functional barbeque grill.
The window itself doesn’t open up more than three or four inches. I suppose this is for liability purposes, in case some drunk idiot decides to hang out the window to double his pleasure and his fun. In that event, keep my roommate away from the windows and the double-mint gum.
There is just something about it though. Looking at each window, and wondering about their story. Wondering what they’re doing in there, and why they’re doing what they’re doing. I suppose it’s a bit nosy. I think in all reality, I only want to understand. I want to understand why people do what they do, and why people are what they are, but not in a psychological sort of way. I think modern psychology is great, but there is something about the world that it will never be able to explain, and I just want to know what that is.
There are not many people who leave their windows open. I’d say there are about 75 windows out there, and maybe ten of them allow someone to see in. There is someone watching TV catercorner from me on the third floor. I don’t know if they’ve been watching all night, or if they just got in. Maybe they’re lonely on a Saturday night, and they’re quelling the pain with cheap booze and late night infomercials. I don’t know, and in all reality, I don’t think I want to know. There is a certain mystique about not knowing. Knowing would be like ruining the magic trick, and once you know how it’s done, it’ll never be the same again.
Part of me wants to know.
Part of me doesn’t.
Alternatively, I suppose a bit of looking out the window is an attempt in which to conquer myself. I don’t know why, I know that I am completely safe, and that nothing is going to go wrong, but no matter what I do, there is an overwhelming feeling of impending disaster, and that I’m going to fall to my death. I’ve lived approximately 7,482 days, and I still have an overwhelming condition of acrophobia.
I don’t know what I am going to do next year with a fifth floor balcony. I suppose it’s a new opportunity, a new environment, and a new chance to learn.
I can’t complain with that.
