Alcohol

Too much of anything is too bad. Too much sun gets you sun burnt and dehydrated, too much water makes you drown, too much sitting makes you weak, too much chocolate makes you sick, and too much alcohol makes you stupid AND sick. As with anything, self control is needed to ensure that something doesn't turn from a good thing into a problem. (I use the term "good thing" loosely here.) Now some people, under their own personal conviction, avoid alcohol altogether, and I cannot, with good conscience, try to convince them otherwise. If they have had bad experiences or seen other people have bad experiences, then that is their prerogative. I, however, do not see a problem with alcohol...in moderation.

I think that one of the biggest problems in the United States is alcohol. It causes so many deaths and unwanted pregnancies and familial problems that the good that comes from it certainly, in my eyes, doesn't outweigh the bad. I think it's funny though, because in most European countries, the drinking age is eighteen, and in some cases, even 16. The problems that these countries have with alcohol is so much less than the problems that we have here in the United States. Because the drinking age is so high, many teens are tempted to rebel against their parents and over-indulge themselves. In these European countries, drinking is a social thing and even little children have wine with dinner. They grow up with it around them and aren't even very curious by the time they reach the ripe old age of 16--they understand what it is and the effects that it has and don't need to go crazy and wild like the teens of America who have a strong desire to taste the forbidden fruit.

Now, I am not a huge consumer of alcoholic beverages. While I myself do not consume a large amount, it doesn't mean that I haven't ever been around people who have consumed considerable quantities. I do enjoy them occasionally, but would much rather watch and study those people who are under the influence as they mill around, bumping into each other, thinking that they are the funniest people in the world. I vividly remember one time I was walking along the street, and ahead of me I saw a very intoxicated early twenty-something male who had just finished smoking his cigarette. He promptly threw it on the ground and tried three or four times to stomp it out, but without prevail because he kept stepping missing and stepping right next to it. As I was walking by I deliberately stepped on it and after a full two second hes looked up at me (he had been staring intently at it to see if he had gotten it or not) and said, "Dude... ... Thanks man." And tried to hug me. I told him he was welcome and left without collecting on my hug.

Alcohol's affect on the body is relaxing, and the more you drink, the more relaxed you feel. (That is, until your abdominal muscles are clenched for half an hour trying to expel the poison from your system) Due to this, people who are under lots of stress tend to turn to alcohol as a remedy to their pain. I think almost everyone can agree that this is unhealthy. People use alcohol as an escape from the reality which they cannot, or do not want to, deal with. Nevertheless, the problems are still there the next morning when their drunken stupor has worn off, and more often than not they have created for themselves a new set of problems.

Controlling oneself is they key. Of course, the more that has been consumed the less control one has over them self, and the more self-control that is needed. Quite the catch-22. Have I ever had too much? Perhaps, but now I know my limit and that there is no good that can come from it. I have never done anything that I regret while under the influence of alcohol, and I never intend to have so much as to impair my good judgement.

Lastly, let us discuss the different types of drunks. The loud drunks who think that they are hilarious and tell stupid jokes and stand on tables. The contemplative drunks who tell you all the amazing ideas that they have had, and always come up with conspiracy theories of why everything is the government's fault. The wild drunks who take most of their clothing off and run around making obnoxious noises and saying "Dude, we gotta go do SOMETHING..." And let's not forget the people who keep telling you that they aren't drunk, even though it is very clear that they are.

The next morning is always the funniest though. Without fail, they always tell you that they feel so horrible, and they are never going to do it again. They always do.

Stream of Consciousness 3

So I’m sitting in the library right now and I got one of their little mini laptops that you can checkout for free for two hours and oh man the penalty is harsh if you don’t turn it in on time cause its like 400 bucks but I wonder if they would really charge me if I was like a minute late or something or if they just say that to try to scare everyone so that nobody steals it or holds it for too long a time, but anyway this laptop kind of sucks because for some reason it wont connect to the internet. I don’t know if they disabled all the internet on these public laptops because people are always doing stupid things on them or if this laptop is just broken but I even tried some of the tricks I learned in my Computer Network Engineering classes and I still couldn’t fix it. Oh well I don’t feel too bad because that was my major over a year ago, but I do feel kind of bad because I probably didn’t learn as much as I should have in those classes. My waterbottle says UCSB on it even though I don’t go to UCSB. I hope I get into UCSB because that would be awesome and i want to stay in Santa Barbara because its awesome here and I know lots of people already but at the same time I think it would be an awesome experience to move somewhere else and meet lots of new people and just try new things and be a different person. Of course I’m not sure how different of a person I would be or if I would like the person I would become or if I even want to change. Well of course there are some social things that I would want to change, but would I be faking who I am if I try to change those things when I move somewhere else. I mean when you meet new people you are constantly recreating yourself but I wow Im really tired all the sudden and overwhelmed but yea I don’t want to be a fake person because thats dumb, and I don’t totally hate the person that I am but sometimes I wish I were different and had different experiences growing up and was raised differently because I would definitely have turned out different. Maybe not better but I might be satisfied. No, the grass is always greener on the other side. I probably would be wishing to be in the posistion that I am now if I had been raised differently and turned out to be a different person. Life is weird like that. Man I played this really funny role in acting class today. It was freakin hilarious and it might end up being one of the final peices that we publicly perform and I think it would be cool to perform it but there is a ton of really bad language in it and lots of inappropriate things that are said and that is part of the reason that It is funny, but I would want to invite lots of people to come see it and most of the people that I know would be super offended by all the foul language and judge me but its not my fault because i was assigned it but anyway I wish I didn’t care what they thought. If they like it then they like it and if they get all butthurt about it, it is their own fault. I will be sure to warn them that there is lots of foul language and tell them not to come if they will get offended, but I don’t really have a problem saying it because its part of a scene. I mean, I dont really talk like that all the time in real life—sure sometimes stuff slips, but I dont usually say those bad words so often—but I’m sure that I would still be judged because thats just the way most of the people that I know are and the ones that I have known a long time would be all disappointed in me and think to themselves that I am a horrible person and all of the super uptight christians would mutter amongst themselves and I wish that I didn’t care but I know that for some reason I do and I don’t know why because its not like I’m playing me while Im on the stage, I’m just saying words for entertainment that some other random person wrote down I don’t even know how many years ago but its still funny oh man this is getting to be pretty long but whatever I think I’ll just keep typing until I get bored or need to sleep before my spanish class because I still have like an hour and a quarter before I need to go but like I said I can’t even upload this directly to the internet because there is no internet on this laptop so I’ll just have to put it on my flash drive because I’m writing this in MSW2K7 right now and then put it on my computer at home and then just copy and paste it onto my blog for everyone to see but nobody to read except maybe one person every month but I bet they wont even read the whole thing cause its just going to be one big fat non-paragraphed block of text that is going to be really difficult to read. HEY YOU, if you got this far than congradulations I would give you a prize but I think its prize enough that you are getting to see into my mind. Of course maybe its rather boring and you were about to stop reading and now you are super engaged because I was referring to you but thats it I don’t think I will think about you anymore you should probably go find something better to do than read the stream of consciousness from some random dude on the internet whose thoughts are really sporatic and don’t really make much sense sense sense six senses the sixth sense was a weird movie with a twist at the end that wasnt even about sharks but about how bruce willis was murdered and you didn’t e even know he was dead until the end of the movie but if you havn’t seen it now I just ruined it for you but hey it was a pretty decent movie anyway with a really good plotline and a twist at the end but yea I just told you. Hey I’m referring to you again whoever you are. Maybe you is future me and I’m going to read this in like a year and feel really awkward and hope that nobody else saw it. Thats kind of what happens whenever I write myself letters from the future. I’ve done that lots of times at least 6 and i am always surprised to get the letter and sometimes I remember exactly what I wrote in the letter and I remember exactly where I was and what I was thinking and feeling when I wrote it and sometimes I didn’t even remember that I wrote it and its just like someone else wrote it and I read it and the past me is always like, “Hey future me, I hope you are awesome because I totally suck right now and I want to be awesome someday. I know you have totally moved on with your life from where I am in the present and I want to congradulate you on the fact that you now are filthy rich and have a really attractive girlfriend and you are really popular and you have done something with your life etc. Etc.” But I always read it and feel horrible cause none of it is true and I havn’t moved on with my life and I’m in the same spot as I was as when I wrote it and nothing has changed. And that isnt the point of the letter. Actually I’m not even sure what the point of the letter is. Yea wow that was really bad I’m a horrible person cause I just saved this for the first time. You are supposed to save every couple minutes which usually I’m pretty good about because I just press Ctrl-S and it automatically saves it but I wasn’t even thinking cause I’ve been on autopilot just typing for a while now dang I actually have typed a lot, I wish that essays were this easy. Well maybe they are for mexican girls. Haha that was a bad joke but I just inserted it right there but anyway yea I finally just saved it onto my flash drive and I’ll just go home and upload it onto my blog and then I’ll forget about it and I don’t really have anything going on tonight but I have rugby practice tomorrow but thats whatever. I guess for the past week and four days I’ve just been kind of whatever cause when I have a goal or something to try to attain at least I can focus on that but when there is no goal I don’t really know what I’m doing and there isnt really any motivation for me and I can’t just say to myself “OH MAN, THIS IS MY NEW GOAL” I have to actually want to do it from the inside cause I can’t really fake myself out; I’m too smart for that. Sometimes I use apostrophies and sometimes I don’t. It really bugs me when stuff isn’t uniform throughout a whole piece I’m pretty OCD like that but I think for this I’m not even going to spell check or grammar check it because I don’t even really care. Saved. I wonder if this is even really stream of consciousness because even though I can type really fast and really accurately relatively at least compared to most people, I still can’t type as fast as I can think and sometimes my brain goes all over all the way to a different subject and back and changes again like twice before I’m even done typing the first one out and theres no way that I can even type all that stuff quickly enough so I just ignore it. I wonder if it would work better if I were to say stuff outloud into a recorder and then type it out later but no, I don’t think that would work either because I can still think waaaaaaaay, there were lots of A’s in there, faster than I can speak. And I read somewhere a while ago that this is why people stutter and stuff is because their minds can move a lot faster than they can speak so their mouth automatically tries to catch up with their mind and I stutter sometimes but not a lot but I think thast because I deliberately, wow I couldn’t think of that word for like 5 seconds how embarassing, talk slower so that I don’t stutter, but then when Im really excited, oops, forgot the apostrophy there, everything kind of just bumbles out and people look at me funny and then it gets awkward, theres lots of doubleyews in that word really close to each other, but I don’t really care. I find it hard to care about lots of stuff these days. Good thing I finished my spanish homework earlier today cause I really don’t feel like doing it at all right now and I’m just going to keep typing for a bit more but anyway, I just feel like I don’t care. I mean, i am still going through the motions of lots of stuff because I don’t want to be stupid and ruin the rest of my life by just not giving a ratt’s butt (I restrained myself from saying ass there. Oops I just said it) so i keep doing the things that I think will help me out in the future, but I don’t really want to go to school. I mean, I think that it is something that I want to finish for my own sake just so I can prove to everyone else that I am educated, and because I want to be more intelligent because that is something that I value, even if lots of other people don’t value intelligence and just are hedonistic. I wish I was more hedonistic. Wow, I just hit 2097 words, obviously it’s more now, but thats what it was right when I finished the word “hedonistic”. I wonder if I will live to the year 2097. I doubt it, that would mean that I would live to be 100 and oh man I suck at man, um 107 years old wow that was embarassing how long it took me to do that math. I don’t really like math. I used to be pretty good at it, but I didn’t like it. Wow thats even more embarassing because I just pulled up the calculator on the computer and it was 108, not 107 but anyway I wonder what the average life span is going to be later on. Back in the day when they started social security people would die at like the age of 70 or earlier and thats why social security worked—because not lots of people were collecting on it, but now that the average life span is like...I don’t know exactly, like 80 for men and 86 for women, tons more people are collecting from it and its broke and broken brokeded. I like saying words funnily. But I wonder how long I will live to be and if I will die of old age or get cancer or some other weird illness or if something interesting will kill me like an alien apocolypse, I think I spelled that wrong, or maybe i’ll get hit by a car, or maybe something else interesting like a gorilla will escape from the zoo and be climbing on my roof and break through and accidently fall on me and crush my neck and kill me instantly. I guess I’m not really afraid to die, I mean, yea I don’t want to die yet because there are lots of things that I havn’t experienced that I want to experience, hehe, but I’m not really afraid to die. I don’t really want to die painfully though, that would totally suck. I’ve heard one of the most peaceful ways to die is hypothermia. I really hate being cold, but apparently you just get really cold, and then you get numb and can’t feel anything, and then you just fall asleep! I love sleeping. Burning would totally suck for the first minute or so and then all your nerves get so damaged you can’t feel anything, but that would still suck for like a minute, but one of the most common ways to die that I wouldn’t want would be to drown. That would just suck to be suffocating and having water in your lungs and then your body reflexively trying to breath more and just sucking more in and then you are awake the whole time and then ugh, yea I don’t want to think about it anymore. Lets think about sometimes else. Like fairies and butterflies and cinnamon. Girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice. Boys are made of snips and snails and puppydog tails (AW, poor puppies! ) and tigers are made of Dragonflies and Kaddydids, but mostly chewed up little kids. Haha, Calvin and Hobbes is so awesome. Totally best comic strip ever, followed closely by the Far Side. There are some other ones after that that I don’t hate reading, but those two are definitely my favorfite ones they are just so funny. I love funny. Funny makes me laugh. Laugh makes me feel good. When you feel good you don’t feel bad. I hate thinking about lots of stuff because remember how my mind works really fast? Well my mind works so fast that whenever I think of certain things, my mind automatically connects them to other things and then when I think about those things I feel emotionally crappy and yea uhhuh thats that. I guess phil says that I just need to make new memories to push the old ones away so that I don’t have to think about them anymore. Phils a great guy. Hes imperfect and annoying sometimes and obnoxious and overly testosterous, I don’t think thats a real word but I know what I mean, but he means well and he gives advice that he really thinks is good and I think there is truth to it, even if its hard to take. Anyway, there is so much more that I could go on about, and sometimes writing about stuff makes me feel better but right now this is making me feel worse because there is so much that I don’t understand, and wish I could understand and wish I could change, but I’m so helpless and I realize it and it makes me feel horrible but I think I’m just going to sleep now because sleeping is a good way to check out for a while.

Adults

So technically, I'm an adult. And most, if not all, of my friends are adults. Technically. Sometimes I don't feel like an adult, so I still look up to people who are older than me and more experienced in the real of life than I am. I have realized, however, that just because someone is older and more experienced than I am, doesn't mean that they are necessarily an example that I should follow.

So the other day was St. Patrick's day. Now I have nothing against St. Patrick's day, but I have never been super into it. I didn't even own a green shirt until this year, and would always get pinched because of it. I think it was because here in Santa Barbara, it isn't really a huge deal. I mean, sure, there are more people in the bars than usual, and more people walking around wearing green, but there are definitely more people ignoring the fact that it is a holiday, and continuing on with their menial lives. Nevertheless, one of my friends from out of the country had somehow convinced himself that St. Patrick's day was a huge deal, and had set his mind on celebrating it in style.

He is a couple years older than I am, and has some friends that are still older than him, and he had gotten a few of them together to go to some drinking in some bars downtown in celebration of this saint. (Ironic?)We arrived at "Joes Restaurant and Diner" to meet them, only to find that they were already a couple drinks in. There were an engaged couple that I had briefly met before, and another man that I hadn't met before. The couple was in their early thirties, and the man was 41.

Having grown up in the family that I did, I have been always surrounded by responsible, moral adults my entire life, even the adults from outside my family. These were no such adults. For the entire afternoon, all the engaged man talked about was how his fiance was extremely promiscuous while intoxicated, all the engaged woman did was try to get free drinks from other men while dancing with them and touching them, and all the other man did was talk about trying to find some coke (Not the soda) and talk about having sex with all the women in the bars that he saw that were barely half his age.

How did I feel at the end of the afternoon? Disappointed. These people who should have been responsible adults were stuck in their irresponsible teenage years, doing their hedonistic activities, and not caring what people thought of them, or the repercussions of their actions on their relationships, or how they would feel when they woke up the next morning. I hope I don't end up like that--there's got to be more than that.

Awkwardly Awesome Situations I have Had at Work

Work is one of those things that you have to do. It can be exciting sometimes, but more often than not, it is simply dreary, monotonous and boring. There are, however, some experiences to be had that can make your day. They are often awkward at the time, but looking back on them, I definitely smile at mine. All of these experiences happened while I was working at In-N-Out.

My favorite job while working at In-N-Out was always being on the handheld--the person that stands outside with the little hand-held computer and takes your orders so that you don't have to talk into a little box that is very static-y and doesn't work very well, and then the orders get taken incorrectly, and then customers get all pissed off and call your manager and report you and then nobody is happy. Anyway, one time I was working out there and this teal low-rider with this big Hispanic man in it pulls up. He had a shaved head and lots of tattoos and these super dark sunglasses on. Anyway, he rolls up and I greet him with a heart-felt "Hi, how are you doing!" He replies, "Sup bitch." I was a little bit scared. The funny thing is, I don't think he was trying to be disrespectful or anything--this was simply the way that he was acknowledging me. He then went on to order like nothing had happened.

The next situation was rather more awkward than the first one. I was working on the cash register inside, taking orders, when an old lady of approximately 70-75 years old comes hobbling in. Nothing is out of the ordinary at first, but when she finishes ordering, and putting her wallet back into her purse, she is still standing there. I smile at her and ask her if she needs anything else. She looks at me for a second, then looks at my name tag and says, "You know...Matt...You are very handsome." I was a little bit taken aback, but I smile and say "Well thank you!" She then lets out a LONG sigh and says, "Hmmmmmmm...If only I were fifty years younger." She then proceeds to sit at the bar in plain view of me, slowly eating her burger for the next half of an hour while staring at me. It was slightly awkward. I wonder if she was trying to get back at the male gender for all of the times that she got hit on as a young lady, but creepy old men.

Animal Style variations: There isn't much to say about them, but sometimes people would come in who knew that there was something special that wasn't on the menu that they wanted to order, but didn't quite know the name. I heard names like: Monkey Style, Gorilla Style, and yes, even Doggy Style were only a few of the many. I wonder what is going through these people's heads when they say this.

The final story that I have is pretty awesome. One time, I was working in the drive-through at the window where people pay for their food from their cars before continuing on to go pick it up and eat it and be happy for the rest of their day. I wasn't really paying attention, but this big huge black truck pulls up to the window. I rattle off a "Hi, how are you doing!" and take the 10 dollar bill that the man is holding out. I start reading him back his order, when in the back of my head I go, "You know this guy from somewhere." I quickly look back at him, and there is Paul Walker, looking down at me from this huge truck with a smile on his face that says, "You just realized who I am and now you are acting really weird." That's exactly what happened. Anyway, I mess up reading back his order, but somehow stumble through it, and finally get him back his change. As he's leaving, he smiles at me and says, "You have a really nice speaking voice" before driving off. IT TOTALLY MADE MY WEEKEND. Everyone was really jealous of me.

Yea, The End.

People You Don't Know

It's funny when you see someone that you don't really know, but you know that you should know. It's worse when they see you too, and they also know that they should know you, but they don't know you either. Your eyes lock, and chaos ensues. It happens to me all the time, especially with people that I have had classes with, or have worked with in the past, or people I went to high school with. This is what happens when you stay in the same town for twenty two years. I had a high school graduating class of 400+ people, some of whom I know and know me, a lot that I didn't even know existed, and most of whom I can at least recognize their face and sometimes make a reasonable guess at their name--the last group of people is the most awkward to encounter.

You can be in the store, working, or walking along the sidewalk, and you momentarily make eye contact. In the store isn't alway so bad because you can simply go to another section and avoid them if you need to, but when you are working in customer service and are constantly encountering situations like this--I'm not even going to discuss it, it can be so awkward. Anyways, when you are walking towards each other on a narrow sidewalk, it can be really bad too. They keep walking towards you and you can see their pace noticeably slow as they decide what the best thing to do is. One time I actually saw the person cross to the other side of the street as I passed, and when I turned around again a minute or so later, they had crossed back over to my side of the street and were walking along still--I didn't know that I was so unpopular. The following are the most common reactions though.

Most people pretend not to notice me. It's really funny though because they are trying so hard to act non-conspicuous that it is overly conspicuous. They are walking in a straight line, but their head is conveniently turned away at a 90 degree angle to the side, looking at a wall with plants on it, or at the street, or anywhere except where they are walking and where I am. It is really convenient for them if they are wearing sunglasses and listening to an iPod though, because this way they can be less conspicuous in their horrible acting. They just walk by you without so much as a glance, and that's that. It's really horrible when you are walking across campus though, on a set schedule, and they are on a similar schedule, so you are constantly walking by them at around the same time, always around the same locations--it's really hard for them to pretend then.

Then there are the people who nod and then just keep walking. I think that this is possibly the least awkward of all the reactions. It shows that they at least know who you are, and know that it is courteous to acknowledge people that you somewhat know, but they aren't pretending like you don't exist, and they aren't pretending that you have been best friends in the past; this is the next group of people.

These are the people who try to act like you were BFF's. They overcompensate for their awkwardness by talking up a storm and asking about people that they know both of you know, but you haven't seen since graduation day, and then they try to ask about your family, who they have never met, and ask what you are doing in regards to your life such as occupation, education and relationships. I think it's great that all of the sudden, these people who wouldn't have been caught dead being so friendly in high school, are such friendly people now. Unfortunately, most of the time you can tell that they are more concerned with their cell phone during the entire conversation, and if you were to quiz them on all the answers to the questions they just asked, they would certainly get less than I do on my math tests.

It's really bad if you know their name, but you are 100% sure that they have no clue who you are. It's difficult to know if you should pretend like you recognize them but don't really know who they are, or if you should go up to them and say their name and see their awkward reaction when they tell you that they have never seen you before in their life, or they kind of recognize you, but never really cared about you because you weren't in the same clique that they were and they have no clue what your name is.

Ok, I have a new "most awkward". These are the people that you went to elementary school with, and were actually pretty good friends and you hung out a lot and were great and then you hit Jr. High and High School and you went along your different paths, and sometimes you learned to hate each other, and sometimes you just were never placed in the same classes and then you lost contact with them--it wasn't anything personal. Then you see them, and you don't know if they are still friendly like they were in elementary school, or if the real world has jaded them and now they hate everyone, and if you try to talk to them about the great times that you had when you were little if they will give you the kind of look that my dog gives me when he is trying to take a nap and I keep waking him up by petting him.

Anyway, this girl that I had a class with a couple semesters ago just sat down next to me in the library, and she is pretending like I don't exist, so I'm just going to end the awkwardness now and go somewhere else.

Grace

I strive to live a good life, but I am imperfect--I get that. Not merely in my behaviors, but in my thoughts and desires as well. While the life that I live is imperfect, I can say that I havn't really made any decisions in my life that I regret. I mean sure--there are things that I wished never happened just cause they were awkward or embarrassing, but I have never made any choice that, after reflecting on them, have just made me feel hopless, lost, and ashamed.

I hear stories of how people's were changed by divine intervention, and I am jealous for a similar touch. Unfortunately, for that similiar touch, I need a similiar life to be touched. I don't have it. Going back to the start of the first paragraph, I know that I am imperfect and I do need grace for the imperfections that I do have, but I sometimes feel like there has been a gift given to other people that I have not tasted. The grace they have received is beautiful and bountiful, and I have but a skimpy amount.

I havn't really felt grace in my life in the amount that I hear my friends talking about, or in the stories of people whose lives have been drastically turned. I don't want to make mistakes so huge that I need this grace, but I still want to see it and feel it. With that grace given, there would come a knowledge that a loving sacrifice was made on my behalf. The fact that someone cares about me--maybe that's what I want to feel.

People tell me that I am lucky to have been raised the way that I was raised and that I beleived the things that I beleive from such a young age. But maybe they, who now have seen, are the lucky ones.

It almost feels like a curse, to not be able to taste grace.