Disclaimer...

Disclaimer: this post is for the faithful readers and those who need to get a life instead of reading this…please don’t start reading without the intent of finishing it. It would be like not watching the end of the Sixth Sense and wondering why Bruce Willis wore the same clothes throughout the whole movie or even not finishing Robin Williams’ What Dreams May Come because what dreams may come!?

Let me set the atmosphere in which I am typing. It is 3:32 AM on Tuesday, February 10, 2009. I am sitting in bed with my little TV tuned to the Food Network. Marc Summers is explaining Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup. It’s kind of an interesting thing to have Marc Summers hosting Unwrapped. It feels out of place like my DVD copy of You’ve Got Mail or Al Borland on Family Feud or Drew Carey on the Price is Right.
I remember mornings as a kid at my aunt’s house while she sewed clothes for the Man and she watched her soaps and her Price is Right. My favorite part of the show was the Final Showcase because it meant I was 10 minutes away from getting to play Sega Genesis.

The ambiance—I have iTunes in the background and it’s on movie score mode and I am listening to the iconic theme from Rudy. I am also chewing on BubbleTape which boasts over 6 feet of bubble gum. I’m pretty sure I’ve been working on this box for a year now so maybe the fun never ends…or was that Fruit by the Foot.

I haven’t blogged for a long time because I have been busy failing classes and being emotionally unavailable…it’s quite the common staple of my life.

I did get a chance to go down to see my folks which is a rare occasion for me. The last time I saw them was in April 2008. I figured it was time to drive down. I knew my mom was leaving for a trip back to ‘Nam so I figured a surprise was in order. Turns out, my mom was surprised which then turned into this emotion of letdown when she asked why I didn’t drive my little sister down too. Well, truth be told, the drive was a cathartic one and I wanted it to be free of distractions and diaper changes. But I think I am getting the hang of dealing with my mom now: I verbally mention that I heard whatever it was that she said and that I refuse to acknowledge it. It sounds pretty mature for a 25 year old who still talks about the future in terms of “when I grow up.” Case in point: I was showing my parents the wonders of Facebook and pointed to my current roommate who shares my first name, birthday, birth year, birth LA County…the only thing we don’t share is that my conception was immaculate while his was pretty run of the mill mundane…my mom asked if he served his mission when I did. I told her that he finished his second semester before leaving even though we were the same age. Without a beat my mom responded with, “Oh, he must care more about his education.”

Me: “I’m going to pretend like I didn’t hear that.”

Mom: “You heard me.”

Me: “So…I hear you and dad are sleeping in the same room again, how’s that going?”

Okay…that last part didn’t happen but two can play at this game of shocking statements though I think I was a little more childish…just a little.
Another aunt is on my mom’s mindset too as she encourages her bright little son who is starting high school this year, “You should be like your cousin and be smart and good…except for the Church thing.”

I’m feeling like unto a pimp so I’m going to go ahead and brush my shoulders off.
So alas! Why am I up at this hour when normal people sleep and dream of sugarplum fairies and relationships that can never be?

Simple: I have a lot on my mind. Most of the time I don’t feel the weight of it all, that is until the night comes like an uninvited house guest. The apartment is quiet and if you go out into the hallway, you can hear the creaks of my roommate turning over in bed. The light from the car dealership next door floods the living room with a pale shade of something in-between yellow and halogen. I still have a hard time waking up to use the bathroom or to get a drink of water. I have been scarred as a kid by watching Fire in the Sky when the power suddenly went out one summer day.

It’s true.

Aliens still scare me.

It feels out of sync with being 25.

My birthday was uneventful back in the end of December. My older brother called me to wish me a happy birthday. It’s hard for him to forget since it’s his birthday too. I remember resenting when people gave gifts for me and my brother to share. Yet, as I am getting older, the fact that I share something commonplace like a birthday with my older brother makes me feel more connected than I’ve felt before…
School started up in January and I’m going to give you the breakdown: my last semester was plagued with all sorts of letters from the alphabet that denoted certain rankings that most had never seen which I guess is a blessing for those people. Truth be told, I was rather shocked to see that my cumulative was still above a 2.0. It’s a mixed blessing like getting the flu and getting to skip out on Church.

Segue: the trip to CA was kind of a stress reliever because I knew Lady and I were done for good. It took me about 8 hours to drive down but the drive back was horrendous. I left San Bernardino at about 7:30pm and did not arrive in Provo until 8:00am the next morning.

Conditions were bad: I had loaded up my iPod with road trip tunes which consisted of a fair number of Rascal Flatts albums…so I was treated to songs about movin’ on, words I couldn’t say, things I couldn’t do to make her love me…it was hell…compounded by the road conditions. I checked the weather for the El Cajon pass but it wasn’t there that I encountered snow. I passed through St. George and when I hit Cedar City, it was snowing hard the whole time with somewhat plowed roads and a small little Accord with front wheel drive trying to make it up and down mountain passes at anywhere between 20 – 40 mph.

The madness of the road conditions and my poorly chosen road trip mix ensured that I would last about an hour before I would go crazy (not the cool kind like Freakazoid). So, happily, I turned on the Avenue Q soundtrack and sang along with it for 12 hours. Now here was a playlist that I could belt out my bass-y/baritone-y voice to: What Do You Do With A B.A. In English?; It Sucks To Be Me; Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist; Purpose; For Now; Fantasies Come True; and I Wish I Could Go Back To College. I kept the lyrics pretty true to the soundtrack but did switch B. A. in English to a B. S. in Pysch. Oh and you better believe I know the words to It Sucks To Be Me.

When I finally got back to Provo, I tried to nap but that didn’t work out so well. At about noon, my older brother called me to let me know that my grandpa (my dad’s dad) had passed away that morning sometime as I was maneuvering my car down the icy slopes of Southern Utah.

It was hard to process. About a year ago, I wrote an essay about my grandpa and how I didn’t even know who he was. Yet, oddly enough, as I’ve grown closer to my family, I’ve gotten a better idea of the man my grandfather was because it is who my dad is…and when it boils down to it…it’s who I am.

I met him once when I went back to ‘Nam. I think I was 12 or so and I don’t remember much. I do know that he looks a lot like my dad. Grandpa yelled at me once because it was raining and my little sister and I decided to go play on the roof. Unbeknownst to me, they still collected rain water for drinking and cooking. And unbeknownst to my family, the water had been contaminated with my tomfoolery.
I miss grandpa because I know dad misses him and as much as I hate to say this, I am grateful that I could share in the pain of my family.

School has been push aside like a helping of healthy salad—I didn’t even pick out the bacon bits.

I’m spiraling out of control and the damage has been done. Not to sound cocky but when I screw up…I make sure there’s no room for interpretation of whether I screwed up or not. It’s how I roll. It’s also how I will roll all the way back home from the market little piggy style.

Am I burnt out? Disillusioned? Overall ornery because I’m not where I want to be right now in life? Would you judge me if I combined all of that into a singular word that sums it all up: poopies. Yep, I’ve got the poopies. I don’t think it’s contagious…it’s more disturbing than anything else as my roommates come home day after day to see me still in bed or playing Left 4 Dead to no end. In my defense though, Left 4 Dead is pretty freakin’ awesome…for the number 4, they use a hand that has a thumb bitten off and that makes me giddy.
Left 4 Dead is Skynet.

I threw that out there to see if anyone was going to follow me but let me reiterate: Left 4 Dead is Skynet. Yes, the same Skynet that becomes self-aware in the Terminator series and tries to wipe off the human skid mark that is our existence on this planet. It’s quite the conclusion but hear me out: Left 4 Dead is a game that learns. It analyzes how well you are doing in your group and adjusts the difficulty which sounds run of the mill unless I explain that difficulty means hordes upon hordes of zombies coming after you. It’s learning. It also never respawns zombies in the same place like a Terminator. Fortunately, Batman is going to be battling the Terminators this summer which makes me feel very safe inside—Skynet, the Joker, Pulitzer and Hearst…I’m okay with Christian Bale on my side.

The time is now ten till 5am in the morn’. I keep telling myself that the only way I am going to make it to school is that if I don’t sleep tonight. The reasoning is skewed like my forever broken left pinkie but it’s going to work.

My living room has recently undergone a facelift. A roommate who just got married crowded the living room with a love sac aka an Ohana Bag (“Ohana means family and family means no one gets left behind or forgotten”…oh Lilo, you are so wise) but let’s face it, am I the only one that thinks scrotum when people talk about love sacs? Well, roommate moved out and another roommate bought the wretched thing. Now I don’t have problems with bean bags that remind me of scrotums but other roommate kind of makes his nest in the love sac…like crabs. There’s a lot of trash around: candy bar wrappers, paper with accounting jibber jabber, someone has been leaving their bitten off finger nails around said place. Well, it’s been moved into the dining room now and I am glad to have my living room back.

It’s preppin’ time for the Orem City volleyball league. If you recall, we didn’t win any games last time which is going to change! Or not. It’s hard to say at this point but I picked out a really cool team name: Dunder Mifflin.

I’m conflicted. I am at this crux of life, this epoch, if you will, and I feel like I am face with decisions that are in no way easy for the faint of heart or those with heart conditions or those who maybe come pregnant…Plan A or Plan B.
Plan B is winning…in fact, right now as I’m typing this…I think Plan B has already won. Maybe one of life most toughester thing is to make a decision based wholly on perspective. Maybe that’s easy for some—they know what they want when they pull up to Wendy’s drive thru…but I don’t…I’ve tried the Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger before and I still like it…so I think I’ll get it again.

At any rate, I hope that those who read these can send some good vibrations my way.
I am afraid and I know the source of fear, but that does not make this easier in any way.

It makes it harder…

It brings me to tears…almost.