and these days, i wish i was six again. or make me a red cape, i wanna be superman....

way #57 to avoid dissertating: shop!

that's right, i came into some money this week (read: my roommate paid me back), so i decided to hit up the mall. there were several reasons for this trip, which are best described by the items i bought. (see list below)

--jeans (two pairs, american eagle) -- i don't remember the last time i bought a new pair of jeans. i'm a big thrift store-er, so this was sort of a return the the bourgeois establishment for me. the reason i needed new jeans is, if everyone doesn't already know, i've lost twenty-five pounds this year and am back to my thirty-three inch waist. i was up to thirty-six for a while, and as a result, i have about eight pairs of pants that fit somewhat awkwardly. but i'm cheap, so i'm going to keep wearing them despite the awkwardness. the weight loss is also good news for my poor, exhausted belt, which i've worn almost everyday since i was seventeen. (did i mention i'm cheap?)

--shirts (two polo and one short sleeve button-down, pacific sunwear) -- i think i might just be growing up. i hope it's not true, but the three collared shirts i bought would indicate that i am. maybe it's just waco's lack of good resale shops, but my tastes have started to stray from my typical salvation army garb. now i'm thinking, "it would be nice to have a collared shirt to wear just to look nice," "i don't want to look like these punk undergraduates anymore," and "i wonder what time luby's closes." i'm kidding on the last one, but i'm getting to that point.

--electronics (wireless mouse and ps2 controller, radio shack) -- this may well have been the first time i've ever bought anything at radio shack. the only other time i remember even going to one was in fifth grade when my dad and i bought supplies for my groundbreaking science fair project on circuits. (it had switches and light bulbs and everything!) to go along with the getting old theme, the thing i was most concerned about when making these purchases was the warrantee on them. i think this is mainly because i was buying them at radio shack though.

my own little world is what i deserve, because i am the only child there is--the king of it all, the belle of the ball....

i am truman burbank. i am the star of a show devoted to my day-to-day activities, and people outside my reach cheer for and love me. producers plan events for me, obstacles for me to overcome, people for me to encounter, and character arcs for me to follow. once i leave a room, the people in that room cease to exist. i am on a stage, being pulled this way and that by external forces who hold an agenda for my particular life.

this has to be true. otherwise, that would mean everyone else has bad luck, strange encounters, and joy comparable to my own. no, the cars driving in front, behind, and to the side of me are piloted by persons with lives far less complex than my own. i am the only one who can comprehend the things that are happening to me; everyone else might have disruptions in their small lives, but not like mine.

this is what i think half the time. but then i realize that 1) my life is far too boring to be good television programming, and 2) i'm really just selfish. i'm guessing that these thoughts are almost universal, and that's why a) the truman show is such a great movie, and b) the world sucks an unhealthy percent of the time. and it's not the "do what's best for me" selfishness that gets me--i'm a capitalist and believe in adam smith's "invisble hand," to a degree. it's the "i am the only one who has a self" selfishness that kills me. after working as a waiter for a summer, a college teacher for two years, and just being alive for twenty-six years, i've seen (and displayed) this selfishness in its highest forms. not recognizing others as fully-formed people who love, hate, laugh, cry, help, and hurt is the greatest selfishness and shallowness, and i wish i was the one guilty of this practice.

i don't wanna be anything other than me....

so i've resorted to stealing other people's material for this thing. check out a happy cricket's world on the left to see the original. (her version of someone else's original?) without further ado and in no particular order....

seven things i plan to do before i die:
1. learn heelside
2. get a real job
3. get me a girlfriend
4. become a morning person
5. develop a more sophisticated palate
6. figure out this theology business
7. find a cure for my social anxiety disorder

seven things i can do:
1. write me some sas code
2. down a gut pak in record time
3. look busy for hours at a time
4. be bored for hours at a time
5. procrastinate
6. hit a racquetball
7. help friends

seven things i can't do:
1. talk to strangers
2. tolerate stupidity
3. sing
4. have self control
5. calculate square roots in my head
6. beat coworkers' high scores on yahoo! games
7. let people be mad at me

seven things that attract me to the opposite sex:
1. intelligence
2. demeanor
3. sense of humor
4. preferring a night at home with good friends over a night out with strangers
5. grace
6. musical ability
7. um, like, hotness?

seven things i say most:
1. that's ridiculous
2. nice
3. yo
4. uh huh
5. i suppose
6. outrageous
7. ewhwhh

seven celebrity crushes:
1. shana hiatt
2. kelly monaco
3. elisha cuthbert
4. jennifer aniston
5. sarah chalke
6. jenna fischer
7. kate beckinsale

seven people i want to take this quiz:
1. the theoblogian
2. bumblelion's mom
3. rei
4. friend #2
5. the espn lssp
6. gen x runner
7. r-deuce in austin

we're going down, down in an earlier round, and sugar we're going down swinging.....

here are my thoughts as i sit in the phoenix airport....

--wow, that must be a pretty big blizzard between here and austin to delay my flight for two and a half hours.

--how is it that an airport starbucks can be so much worse than a regular starbucks?

--pasta tastes good.

--does the guy next to me find that throwing back bloody marys on a flight makes make his technology today magazine any more interesting?

--can my ipod retain its charge until i reach my destination? i'm betting the under....

--what would the waiting area's reaction be if i clotheslined one of the little monsters running around--disgust or applause?

--at home, i can feel so shallow it hurts even to think about it. in vegas, on the other hand, i feel like the frickin' mariana trench.

--why is water so interesting to watch?

--i don't understand why the people at my poker table didn't believe me when i told them texas is the best place on earth.

--i've heard all but an audible voice from god telling me not to play blackjack anymore, but i'm not listening.

--why didn't she email me back?

--dessert tastes good.

--where is the primitive radio gods guy today?

--staying up all night makes me a lot funner.

--how long could i survive on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches alone?

--last night i sat across from a guy who may well have been the love child of al pacino and timothy hutton.

--free sandwiches at five in the morning taste good.

--do i need to clean up this mess i made, or will someone come along and do it for me? and will they bring any wet naps with them?

--people fly to omaha?

--that couple will have really tall children.

--highlights of the trip: riding in a limo, the capriotti's sandwich (i ate stuffing and cranberry sauce!), drawing out a full house on someone, seeing vegas in the daytime, second city, good friends.

--lowlights of the trip: losing all my money in the first twenty-four hours, bad plays, bad cards, bad luck, aces cracked by jack deuce off, kings running into aces, and missing big brother.

gold teeth and a curse for this town were all in my mouth, only i don't know how they got out, dear....

my friends are not always friend-ly. at church on sunday, one of them made me revisit the scene of my aforementioned paint/"haiti" debacle. the paint stain was indeed still there...fortunately katie was not. i still grimace when i think about the whole thing. so, in honor of that night, here are the top two most embarrassing first meetings with girls i mentioned.

setting 1: summer 2000, working at structure in the mall. i'd had a crush on one of the girls working at express, but knew nothing about her, not even her name. i was quite content just looking at her through the breezeway connecting our stores, as, once again, i'm completely shallow. this process of her walking by and me looking at her had been going on all summer. and then it happens. tax free weekend. the entire mall is packed full of parents and their rotten children who unfold every shirt they can, sans intent to buy or regard for the employee holding a folding board standing next to said shirt. anyway, all employees are present, and i'm very happy that i am in the back room folding all day, thereby avoiding the chaos on the floor. this back room is common to both structure and express. so, as i'm folding, the girl walks in to get something from stock. she looks at me and says, "pretty crazy out there, eh?" i look at her, open my mouth to respond something like "yes, please, thank you," but i can't even manage that. so i do the next best thing and give her...a thumbs up. total choke. my chest still hurts when i think about it. i don't think i ever saw that girl again.

setting 2: spring 2004, hanging out at a friend's clothing shop. she has a friend in the store whom i'd never met. she introduces us and we chit chat about our lives and things. it's going well, i suppose-- i'm not trying to hit on her or anything, just get to know her. there is a lull, and my friend tells me that this person is going to nursing school. this interjection catches me off guard for some reason, and i have no real response to it. so, being the quick thinker i am, i give her...a thumbs up. actually that's a lie, but it might be better than what i really said. "nursing school...i like nurses." painful right? well hang on. i had no idea why i had said this and quickly realized it was not an appropriate response. so, to cover for this faux pas, i say, "nurses are good." this did not make me feel any better about the situation. i don't think i ever saw that girl again.

as i'm talking, my words slip to the floor....

so yesterday was graduation, and i attended about twenty minutes of the ceremony. to my knowledge, i only knew one person walking across the stage: friend #2. (i wouldn't be surprised if one of the monsters from any of the classes i taught walked yesterday as well, though i also wouldn't be surprised if none of them ever graduated.) two thoughts arose from these twenty minutes. first, is this important? is college a big deal? if some of the kids i taught were indeed able to wipe the drool off their chins and walk across this stage, is a diploma really worth anything? now, i know friend #2 deserves her degree...she (apparently) sets the bar for everyone in her classes. but these other people?

here's some sociology for yall. in my intro class, i talk about "credential inflation"--basically the idea that the more college degrees are handed out, the less they really mean. so, in order to stand out from college graduates, more people head off to get masters degrees. as more people get masters degrees, those who want to stand out have to get phds. in the process, the lower degrees lose value. so, for better or worse, the college degree is quickly becoming the high school diploma of fifty or so years ago. and colleges know this. is my university difficult? if pushed, i would probably say no. but i'll have a diploma (or three) from it, and hopefully that will get me in the door of a good company.

my second thought was, what's the point of graduation? this event with twenty-somethings wearing dark robes and particularly unstylish hats walking across a stage and accepting a certificate no doubt holds a great deal of symbolism and bears deep historical roots. but is it necessary? how many of these graduates would be terribly upset if they were instead able to sleep in, walk to their mailbox later in the week, and find their green diploma tube waiting for them there? would their families be any less proud or celebratory?

i too am guilty of sitting through a graduation (or three) of my own, and i have no idea why. i get no sense of accomplishment or completion out of it. am i supposed to feel different? smarter? grown up? prideful? i tend to feel the same way about most ceremonies though (weddings, awards, etc.). i attend them and am happy for the people involved, hoping that they experience the feelings i just mentioned and more. but for me, forget the pomp and circumstance and take me out for a mudslide (or three).

i like the monkey game, but i don't want to be the monkey....

it's one of those days. not really a case of the mondays (or thursdays, as it were), just one of those days where you don't feel like doing anything. not working, not sleeping, not talking, not being alone. so, as i sit here in my office, i stare blankly at the computer screen, refill my water bottle when it gets anywhere close to empty, count the minutes until imdb updates, highlight acquaintances on my buddy list and debate sending them a message, watch the equalizer bars on my windows media player dance to whatever cd is playing (today: citizen cope. thanks bunkers!), throw the koosh ball with any willing bystander, continually click the "next blog>>" button, give my coworkers strange looks, shoot some nerf hoops, pray that my phone won't ring, and apparently record it all for you people. this is not everyday, mind you. when i have work to do, i generally do it quite expeditiously. this "set your own schedule" stuff though...it's for the birds.

the hands kept spinning around the face, but the earth stopped cold at dawn....

i was one of the first people inside best buy this morning. this is not uncommon for me, as i have spent the past three days-after-thanksgiving standing in line outside best buy at three in the morning waiting for the ridiculous sale to start at six. there was no sale today, but the anticipation was still there. for today, you see, was the release of hootie and the blowfish's fifth album of new, original material. this is not meant as a joke. nor is this another self-deprecating post. i'm not ashamed to say it--i still love me some hootie. the first two albums were incredible...both are still in heavy rotation on my ipod. the third album also was quite good, but a few tracks did not make the mp3 cut. next came an album of covers, and several of those songs made the cut. earlier this year came the greatest hits cd, otherwise known as cracked rear view 2. (wait, you say there was an album between those two? i don't believe it. i must have blocked it out or something. maybe my brother remembers....) i'm still listening to the new album, and it sounds pretty good so far. i'll let you know....

all this talk of hootie-loving segues right into a discussion i was having with a friend earlier today about this question--how much do you like yourself? i figure there are two different ways to measure this. you could either a) calculate the percentage of time you like yourself, or b) determine the amount of your personality you like. this really boils down to an actions versus thoughts debate i suppose. now, based on previous entries in this blog, one might think i would rate myself fairly low on either scale. i, however, am completely arrogant and would estimate 82% and 89%, respectively. i think and do some really dumb and embarrassing things, but my intentions are generally good. i don't know if these numbers are relatively high or low, so i'd love to know what my readers think. that's right, an interactive exercise! so, for my four readers, get out your ti-85s and let me kow what you think....

now i see the long, the short, the middle, and what's in between--i could spit on a stranger....

i am jack's lowered self esteem. tonight i thought i'd be a good person and help with some renovations around my church. this was not a good idea. background...i've been going to this church for the past seven years and have been what us sociologists call a "free rider": i consume religious goods and offer no payment in return. i'll donate clothes to the garage sales or cut them a check every once in a while, but i've never really been involved. so tonight my goal was to make up for those seven years. unfortunately, i should not be allowed outside my apartment.

it started out well enough...went for a run to put myself in good spirits, talked a friend into coming with me, put on my painting shorts and headed over. they immediately put us on roller duty. by the way, i'm by no means a painter. or a hammerer. or a sawer. but i try to look as competent as possible and go about my rolling. i end up painting next to the pastor of the church, and we chit chat uncomfortably for a bit before i spill nearly the entire tray of paint on the floor. i have no idea how to clean paint off a floor, so, long story short, my presence will always be remembered in the church by the enormous blue stain in the middle of said floor.

at this point i just want to go home. so i head to the sink to rinse out my roller and start talking to the girl next to whom i'd been painting. i ask her name like i figure a normal person would, and i swear she says "haiti." now, this is not a common name, so i ask her to repeat it. "haiti," she says. "haiti?" i ask, trying to confirm. "um, yeah. like K and T," she responds. "katie," i say, "i've, um, never heard that name before." sadly, this is not remotely close to my top two most embarrassing first encounters with a girl, but we'll save those for another time....

i'm not so sure what i was dreaming about, but i'm sure that it was better than this....

things i'm terrible at:

poker--i used to think i was good, but apparently i'm not. i used to think other people were luckier than me, but apparently they're just better. (and i don't believe in consistent luck.) i used to think that i was on a bad streak and that i was due, but apparently i'm doomed to a fate of one cent/two cent omaha hi/lo online. i asked my roommate to evaluate my style of play to help me prepare for my upcoming vegas trip. he told me i play too "by the book," as one might expect from a "practical" and "resaonable" person. this is true, in that i get very scared when i'm a 47% to 53% underdog and become embarrassingly frustrated when someone makes a terrible play (not "by the book") that beats me. i'm the first one to say poker is a flawed game, so hopefully that's why this "by the book" player consistently loses.

talking to people--my friends are well-acquainted with my self-diagnosed social anxiety disorder (SAD). most tell me i'm delusional (which, surprisingly, doesn't make me feel better), but i still believe it. i can't handle meeting new people...i throw in an absurd amount of "uh huh"s and "wow"s hoping they'll figure out how uncomfortable i am. but most do not. and i'm a conversational counterpuncher, meaning i'm not one to start up conversations or initiate new topics, but i'm happy to respond. this is probably the part of my personality that bugs me the most.

over analyzing--i don't understand how everyone isn't an over analyzer. but if everyone was, it would just be called "analyzing," and things would be easier for us over analyzers. we go into a situation assuming everyone is being as careful with every word and action as we are. then, based on that assumption, we tear apart every word and action we've just heard and seen. but the whole process falls apart when the party being analyzed is not an over analyzer. these people do not pay attention to that single word in an email that might change the tone of the entire thing. "uh oh, she wrote 'remiss' instead of 'negligent.' she must hate me." they don't make sure to mention the insignificant things that are so significant. "uh oh, she didn't talk about my new shoelaces. she must hate me." these things (read: i) make my life quite difficult.

you and me were meant to be walking free in harmony....

some days, coming home to maddy is the only thing that will make me feel good about humanity. this is somewhat ironic, as maddy is my roommate's dog. i'm sure everyone knows the feeling. i had a great night tonight...some light-hearted cards (i won! finally...and i don't even care that there was no money involved), a fantastic dinner with good friends, and then some more cards. but, as i was dropping my don't-call-me-friend-#2 friend off at her car, the mood all changed. we were going down a one way parking lot aisle. as we approach her car, i see headlights coming toward me. this is odd, as highlights are generally on the front of a car, and a car's front should not be pointed toward me. now, i've had a mudslide tonight, so i look around and confirm that i am indeed heading the correct way. this car, however, has now stopped, and people are loitering around it. do i honk? yell at them? yell at them with my wondows rolled up? just sit there? i of course chose the last option, being the overly polite and generally afraid person i am. the loiterers get in the car, and i pull over a touch to my right so they can pass. as they do so, someone in the backseat rolls his wondow down, sticks his head out, and yells, "get out of the way, bitch!" (i'll leave any discussion of this person's sobriety and physical attributes to the reader.) i'm unsure of how to take this remark. is this person actually mad at me? did i do something wrong? could i have misheard what was actually a heartfelt apology? it's just sad to me that with one sentence, someone could change the way that i'll remember this night. what should be remembered for a going away dinner for one of my favorite people in the world will instead always be thought of with a tinge of anger because of an act of random verbal violence.

halos and helicopters, everything's over my head....

several things....

first, thanks to bunkers for the suggestion! however, these three things i know to be true: 1)mario is nothing if not fair, 2) green shells can be quite deadly when used properly, and 3) i own you in dr. mario. thanks for writing!

second, i got screwed at panera AGAIN. i tried to get my sandwich tonight and again they were sold out. one might think that when they run out on a wedensday, they would think, "hey, what do we do if we run out on thursday?" and make the proper adjustments in turkey allotment and the number of tomatoes drying in the sun. but no. the manager even remembered me from yesterday and told me it takes a week to make the adjustments. i guess cutting through all the red tape at a BREAD STORE can be a real hassle. so again i ate my girly meal, and it was delicious.

third, i covered a couple of intro classes for a professor on monday. my task was simple enough: let the monsters watch an extra credit movie for the period. simple right? well, the short answer is yes. but the film was a pbs documentary on women's suffrage! now, believe me, i'm ecstatic that girls get to vote and all, but sitting through that twice in three hours is like watching a double feature of phenomenon and city of angels...torturous. so, halfway through the second class, kids start walking out and talking over the movie. i ask the class, "does anyone want to finish this?" in unison, "no!" so, being that it was only for extra credit, i tell the kids they can leave. the next day, i get a call from the teacher saying that several of the kids called her to complain that i told them to leave and they couldn't finish the movie! who does this? argh...my frustration was in full force that day....

finally, everyone (read: mom) will be happy to know that i worked on my dissertation today! hopefully i can string a couple of days like this together and actually get something done. i think this blog is actually helping with my writer's (reader's?) block. but maybe i've just reached a level of boredom that makes even dissertating seem like a viable option.

it's so nice to see you. can we sit and talk for a while? i have searched forever, i can't imagine anything better....

the end is near. it would seem that this blog is nearing its inevitable end, as i have nothing to write about. today i reworked a data set in sas, concatenated some variables and deconcatenated others, had a two hour lunch with a friend in need, and helped another friend move. it wasn't a bad day or anything, but nothing popped up that i felt needed to be discussed in this space. in fact, the only reason i'm posting anything is so my mom won't be disappointed when she wakes up (hi mom!). so, if anyone has any ideas of something to write on, something they'd like me to write on, or any questions for me to answer, let me know and i'll do my best to make it happen.

i guess i could write a little on my lunch today. panera apparently was sold out of the one thing i eat there (smokehouse turkey panini, with the sun-dried tomatoes scraped off), so i had a bowl of soup and a fruit cup...probably the girliest meal i've ever had. my friend and i sat down to talk about where her life might be going in the next couple of years. now i've never been much of a giver of advice; i've always considered myself a listener and nodder. don't get me wrong, during this lunch i did a lot of listening and nodding, but it felt good to be able to give (i think) constructive advice or at least ideas to think about. i usually have trouble with these things, because i tend to tell people what they want to hear. but this is a person for whom i have the utmost respect. she's in the top three smartest people i know, and when i first met her i probably would have had a crush on her if she weren't married. i knew that she would see right through me placating her, and i think we had a pretty good talk. we reached no great solutions, but i felt good that i was able to speak honestly and so could she. i felt like a grownup for one of the few times in my life.

i'm old school like happy shopper....

a few businesses i could single-handedly keep in business (in no particular order):

kellogg's-i can't imagine that anyone has eaten more frosted flakes by the age of twenty-six than i have. it's not physically possible. let's say i've eaten an average of eight bowls a week (conservatively). i've been alive approximately 1,366 weeks. that's 10,928 bowls of flippin' frosted flakes! mmmm...10,928 bowls of frosted flakes....

quizno's-it's weird having the quizno's employees not even ask me what i want anymore. i guess after so many honey bacon clubs with no lettuce, tomato, or onions they start to get the picture. the manager even gives me a discount. i love quizno's....

cathay house-again, they know me. i go there weekly or more with my friend who has become known as friend #2, or the one with the compliments. when #2 left the country for a month, the owner of cathay seemed genuinely concerned for my well-being (or her tip?).

glaxosmithkline-i love these guys. advair changed my life. no longer do i tote around a blue or white or yellow inhaler. no longer do i have to miss the campfire and ghost stories to strap into my breathing machine. no longer am i the only kid in school with a doctor's note allowing him to carry a backpack. when i lived in north carolina, i was three minutes away from the headquarters and the ten foot tall advair statue in front of it. my biggest regret of my time there is not getting a picture of me hugging it.

hollywood jewell-the movie theater here in town. over the past four years, i've seen over two hundred movies at the theater. that's a lot for someone not being paid to write reviews or run some sort of entertainment website. the ticket tearer now shakes my hand and asks how i've been doing.

missing monkeys found shaved....

i hate stupid people. tonight i almost posted several paragraphs on that exact topic, but, after wriitng half of it, i decided against it. first of all, i don't really hate stupid people. second, it would have been pointless to post. i like to think that i'm putting some good ideas out there and some grins on faces. that post would have been all about me tearing into some poor undergrad girl, and that's not productive. (although the tarantino-like fantasy sequence i described in it was pretty funny, i thought.) i embrace my frustration...for better or worse, it's a part of who i am. but after my lips unpurse and my fists unclinch, i have to let it go.

and i'd guess that same girl would think me quite stupid for having played dr. mario on my n64 for seven hours yesterday. i can't blame her for that, but it's clear that she has never played dr. mario the way it is intended to be played. actually, i have no real defense for myself...that's a little sad. i could have been dissertating, or running, or teaching a child how to read. but i chose to match up blue, red, and yellow pills to the point where i could see them when i closed my eyes. not good rusty, not good.