…You don’t have to tell me

Holy smokes!  Has it actually been since November since I’ve last jotted something down?  Man.  I’m horrible!  What has happened since then?  Well, a quick recap… I celebrated my 37^th birthday with family and friends as I threw myself an ode to Kevin Smith party.  Christmas and the New Year were awesome, and the first quarter of this year was pretty ok too all things considered.  As always with my life, there are strikes and gutters (to use The Dude’s way of saying it) and I find my days to just blend into the next.  My life is a routine and I can honestly say that I love that aspect of it.  I know what’s coming each day to the next.  Some people would consider that a death sentence and would want desperately to get out of that rut, but I worked my way to comfortably get myself into the spot I’m in and I’ve been taking the time to let it all soak in.

The reason I mention myself being a creature of habit is because with the joking threat of violence on me (not seriously, my homegirl and I love each other and she just wanted to push me into a new adventure), I was talked into joining up those dreaded new aged dating apps/websites.  I’ll tell you, the idea of it at first sounds pretty fun, but then when you get into it you realize just how crazy things can get.  For example, on one of them, I am constantly bombarded with pornographic pictures for profile pics with these companies not even trying to hide the fact that it’s porn.  On another, they are a bit sneakier about their bad intentions, but I can sniff these fake profiles out from miles away.  And on the last one, that seems to be the most legitimate, even after verifying my authenticity, I find it to be a personal ghost town.  Wait; let me backtrack a little bit there.  When I boil everything down, all 3 are personal ghost towns which therefore affirms the fact that maybe I missed the calling to be a priest.  I say that half-jokingly because a lot of people have actually told me that I should or should have been a priest.  Anyway, back to the point… yeah… I don’t know what it is, but at first this social experiment brought on by one of my dear friends gave me an ego crushing that I knew was coming but didn’t want to see.  In a 100 or so mile radius, I got nothing.  I was avoided like a black plague.  I was shocked, amused, and saddened all at the same time.

I laugh about it now because it’s been a few weeks since that and still nothing, but it proved the point I had made to myself that I’m unwanted.  I don’t mean that negatively or anything so don’t try to say nice things to cheer me up or anything like that because I honestly feel ok about it all, but the truth is the truth.  The truth.  Heh.  That’s probably the biggest part of the problem there too.  I am very truthful in my profiles.  I put things there on Front Street.  I am a short, fat, traditional Catholic, INFJ introvert, nerdy, comic, musician.  That’s pretty much it in a nutshell.  Why try to say something I’m not?  I know at least being honest in saying all of it.  Not that I was a liar in the past, but I have been making it a point to be honest about everything in my life for a couple of years now.  Why hide stuff, right?  Why omit things?  I find just putting everything out there on front street in my life is the best way to go.  I know said friend told me that maybe I should spice things up or show some different side of me, or something to that effect after I said I struck out swinging, but in a moment of honesty I thought about it and said that there was no other side of me.  What you see is what you get when it comes to me.  I’m generally an even keeled dude who loves to joke around and enjoy life.  I’m serious about the things to be serious about (which is pretty much my relationship with God), but otherwise it’s jokes and taking it easy.  Why be wound up and stressed out over things, right?

So, with all that said, I’m going to take myself out on a dinner and a movie date tonight to break up my hospital cabin fever frustration (long story) and keep on doing my thing.  I’ll try and write more here, much to the chagrin of a few of my best friends, and continue down this path that God has set forth for me.  Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy St. Valentine’s Day, and Happy St. Patrick’s day to everybody out there!

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Ragrets and The End

I’ve had a lot of strange moments in my life lately.  Mainly, they have all been brought to my attention thanks to my continuing chronological journey through Star Trek.  Here’s an example.  This is going to sound morbid, but I don’t mean it this way… BUT!  Has it ever crossed your mind, or have you actually done a goodbye video in the event of your death?  What brought this about was the death of a main character in season 1 of The Next Generation. The rest of the main cast goes to the holodeck where they are greeted by a hologram of the recently deceased giving a goodbye message.  I thought this was the coolest thing ever.  Now, I have seen about 88% of the episodes of TNG, this one included, but this time around I’m really paying attention and that scene struck a chord with me.  I started to think about it and I think that would be the thing that I would want to do.  Actually, I’d make two videos.  I’d make one for the people organizing my visitation/Rosary/Funeral making sure that they dressed me up in the tie I’d like to wear, make sure that they don’t have the Requiem Mass anywhere else but my FSSP parish and offered by one of the FSSP priests, and to make sure that the people I happened to mention in the second video would be present for said video if I did blast some names out.  THEN I’d go ahead with the goodbye video.  I think that would solve a lot of problems.  Gone would be the “In according to what we believe his wishes very well may have been…” business, it would be put right there on front street what I’d want.  Now, I know funeral planning and prepaying is a thing already, but I would like to add the personal touch of a video.  Some co-workers and I talked about that today and I was hoping they wouldn’t take it that I was morbid, but thankfully they fully understood what I was saying.  It’s not a bad thing to give at least a few passing thoughts about the end of the line here on this planet.  I know the important thing is to prepare for the next life after this one, but not dwell on it too much.

That quick conversation with the co-workers of mine brought another thought to me.  Regrets.  I know that’s a big word and people have even inked “No Ragrets” on their bodies and many a song have been written about not living wondering what could have been, etc., but if I’m being honest with myself, I have to say that not only do I have general regrets, but I regret the things that I think I could have achieved in my life through no fault of my own or my family.  Let me explain.  As some of you may know, I am a HUGE fan of NASCAR, and I enjoy other forms of racing as well, but for me stock car racing is where it’s at.  With that said, every time I’ve been in the informal positions of racing, I’ve always dominated it.  My hand and foot coordination has always been on point and as my pops and sister can attest and I’ve always been a natural driver.  Sadly, west Texas isn’t the most ideal place to get a racing career off the ground.  The way I understand it anyway is that most of the drivers that are climbing up the ranks of NASCAR have invested upwards of $200,000 to just have the chance at making it.  I know my mom (rest in peace) and dad love me and would do anything for me (within reason), but I wouldn’t allow them to find ways to help me get that insane amount of money together to chase a dream.  That’s just crazy.

Another dream that comes to mind is what is still a delusion of grandeur of sorts.  I think if I had the means and the effort put forth back in the day, I think I would have made it in the music business and made a career of it.  Don’t get me wrong, some mini versions of these dreams have come to pass.  In the two bands I’ve been in, I’ve played for crowds in the hundreds (yay me, right?), I’ve played mostly all the genres of music I’ve enjoyed sans jazz and hard rock/heavy metal, and I’ve recorded two albums to date.  That’s pretty good, I’d like to think!  BUT, there’s always that dream of being discovered, signed to a major label contract, and going on tour playing 20,000 seat arenas, and writing and recording music the way I’d want to with all the time needed in the studio to make my vision a reality.  Who knows, maybe it could happen.  Getting back out there and gigging at different places and continuing to write music needs to happen first.  Heh.

Point is, I do think of these “what if” scenarios often.  Well, maybe often is not the right word because it’s not like I live in the past questioning every step I’ve taken, but there are those occasional thoughts of “Damn.  I think I’m pretty good at ____.  I should have pursued that in my youth.  *sigh* Oh well.”  Things, in the end, are meant to happen the way they happen.  I’m a firm believer in God’s plan.  He knows what’s up.  I’m at where I am in the entirety of my life with reason and purpose that He knows.  It’s not my place to question it.

All Hallows Eve

I’ve been feeling like I need to put something out on Front Street.  What I’m going to talk about in this post may very well upset some people who read it and for that I apologize in advance, as these are merely my views and opinions on the matter, but I feel that I need to let them out or else they are just going to keep eating away at me.

So, as I write this out now it’s the eve of all hallows eve.  This past weekend was the weekend for Halloween parties to go down where people dress up in their best, worst, scariest, or skimpiest to have a good time boozing it out with like-minded individuals.  Cool for them, right?  But the question I have started to ask myself as I’ve continued on my journey of faith is “Why has the bastardization of Catholic feast days and holy days of obligation continued and even gotten worse as time has passed?”  I know, I know, you’re probably reading this and are saying something along the lines of “STFU YOU IDIOT!!!!!”  But, hang out.  This is what I mean.  What are three of the biggest non-holiday celebration days here in the U.S.?  Valentine’s Days, St. Patrick’s Day, and Halloween right?  Some would argue others, but those 3 are pretty big days here to celebrate for one reason or another.  Thing is for the secularized world, Valentine’s Day is a day where you have to get hearts, roses, chocolates, a card, some stuffed animals or whatnot, and go to a restaurant and wait in a long line with the rest of the people there either trying to impress their potential significant other, or go with the flow with their significant other/spouse (heck sometimes both at separate times on the same night!).  Little do people know or more than likely care that it’s a Catholic feast day venerating a saint.  Granted, St. Valentine and his history are a bit cloudy, it’s still clear that it is a Catholic feast day of a saint and he is the patron saint of love, marriages, etc.  Of course this has been twisted around by culture over the years to what we get now.

Same goes for St. Patrick’s Day.  People know it now as a day to dress up in green, wear shamrocks, claim to be Irish, and go out and party and get drunk on green dyed beers and/or other cocktails with a large swath of people.  What it really is, however, is a Catholic feast day venerating the patron saint of Ireland who converted nearly the entire country to Christianity.  How it came to what it is now is a long and wild story, I’m sure, but it just bothers me slightly that these two big “holidays” that are celebrated here are done now for all the wrong reasons.

The same goes for Halloween.  This one is just as bothersome to me as the previous two because Halloween came out of the day of anticipation for All Saints Day and had nothing to do with candy, booze, immodest attire, and partying under the veils of black and orange lights like it’s devolved into now.

I know this blog is coming across as a “come to Jesus”/”take a knee” moment, but I’m not really trying to go for that at all.  What I’m saying in the context of referencing my points is that ever since I started going to Traditional Latin Mass at my local FSSP apostolate, Immaculate Conception Church, I have found that I have learned as much or even more about my faith than I did in the previous 34 or so years before FSSP was invited here by our bishop.  Before this, I had attended 5 Masses in the Extraordinary Form all during a Lenten Mission and was immediately drawn to it.  Thanks to my very good friend Michael, who is in the know in matters of the faith here locally, he got word of FSSP giving us a one-night only Mass at one of the seminaries here in town to gauge interest, both by FSSP and our bishop.  Needless to say, we overflowed the chapel where the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was offered and the bishop invited them to stay.  Anyway, my first Mass at Immaculate Conception was another holy day of obligation, The Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which is on December 8^th (the day before my birthday!).  The only reason I hadn’t gone sooner is because I was unaware that FSSP had been given the parish already as of that previous August.

That quick backstory about me leads me to my point.  I didn’t know my faith enough.  I wasn’t involved in the own salvation of my soul!  Did I know holy days of obligation? Did I know the history behind the aforementioned feast days?  Could I defend my faith against people who would try to convert me to protestantism (it almost worked once!), or just as bad, trash talk my faith to me expecting a defense?  Well… no, not really.  I wasn’t engaged too much.  Confessions started out as something I rarely did as a kid to something I did even less of in my teenage years.  I wasn’t even aware of what constituted a mortal sin therefore falling out of the state of grace.  It’s no surprise to me that a lot of people I grew up with going to catechism class, and confirmation class either turned protestant (a general term for anything else other than Catholic), or atheist.  Same goes with family and friends.  We weren’t being taught our faith.  That problem still goes on today with some of the things I see happening at Novus Ordo parishes (i.e. the behavior and dress… or lack thereof… of the laity, and even worse, things like yoga classes being offered at parishes!)  I feel like I’m the only one around of my peers that acknowledges the holy days of obligation, and the great feast days that people have twisted with time to where I feel like an outcast.  No matter though.  My goal here is to get myself ready at any moment to defend my faith, with my life if necessary, and to aspire to if not outright live a life of a saint and by God’s grace make it to heaven when I die.  I’m learning more and more each passing day about my faith.  It’s an ever growing, ever evolving thing in my life and for that I am grateful.

WHEW!  Well, with all that said I circle back to the timing of this blog post, Halloween.  I’m finding more and more each year that I really don’t care for it.  Bless the people’s hearts that do, as it’s a pretty intense thing for a lot of people, but ever since my late teen years and even more so now the past 3 years or so, the last day of October into the first two days of November have come to mean a completely different and deeply spiritual thing to me that does not involve ghosts (well, only one, the Holy Ghost), goblins, vampires, witches, the undead, naughty nurses/law enforcement officers, etc. It involves preparing for, first, the celebration of all of the canonized saints in heaven on November 1^st, then the praying for all of the souls that have passed on on November 2^nd.  I appreciate the invites to parties and I’m all for cosplay and stuff, but doing it around holy days of obligation and/or reverence has never really been my thing and even less now.

Thursday Thoughts

Man, it’s been a weird week!  It started off with Saturday’s Rick and Morty’s inspired road trip to Silver City, New Mexico for Szechuan sauce that ended in a big joke not just to us, but to apparently a LOT of other nerds, then it’s gone on to periods of complete rest and relaxation and now back to “holy smokes!  Let me catch a breather!” status.  It’s nothing new for me as I’m always finding myself being pulled away from wanting to barricade myself in my apartment and paying for it emotionally later on at the most inconvenient of times.

As some of you know, I tend to go through periods of time where some people wonder if I’m still alive (those that don’t follow me on social media), and I go through brief periods of time where I feel like I need to connect with the rest of humanity.  It’s rare, but it happens.  I think I’m sort of going through the latter phase right now as I have felt the need to be surrounded by my friends a bit more than usual lately.  I wish I could understand it, but I can’t.  Being around my friends has been something that I have been feeling I’ve needed lately.  Thankfully I was able to hang out with some of my closest on Saturday and Monday.  There are not very many feelings in the world that I enjoy more than having the emotional sections of my heart overwhelmed with positive loving feels like I get when I’m around the people I want to be around.  It’s better than any drug or alcoholic beverage out there, I can tell you that.

Funny though, me being an INFJ makes people think that I am some sort of social butterfly who basically has a place just so that I can sleep and keep all my stuff in.  That couldn’t be further from the truth, in all honesty.  Nothing makes me happier than being at home watching nerdy documentaries, Star Trek (I’m still on TOS as I’m watching everything again but chronologically this time), or sports all while watching whatever is going with the weather outside.  I’ve learned in the past year and a half that I really love sunsets, by the way.  Something about watching them brings me such peace and happiness that I can’t really describe it.  It’s really what I look forward to every day.  I know, I’m weird, but you already knew that.

A strange thing happened to me again yesterday that hasn’t happened in a while though.  I think that I got a slight touch of loneliness.  I KNOW!!!!  Crazy, right?!  Here I am, some sort of self-proclaimed “One Man Wolfpack”, some dude who rolls solo deep, actually feeling alone in the bad sense.  It’s strange when it comes along too.  It always shows up when I’m doing the most mundane of tasks.  Yesterday it happened while I was pre-rinsing the dishes I used for dinner.  I just happened to stare at the wall as I stood in front of my sink and realized the silence aside from the faucet running and it tripped me out.  What made it funny, though, was that shortly after that as I was taking a shower I was convinced that somebody was in my damn apartment with me.  I wish my brain would make up its damn mind.  Hahaha!  “Nobody is here!  Oh shit!  Nevermind!  Somebody is here, man!  FREAK OUT!”  I don’t know.  I wish I knew the answers to the questions of my life.  I just gotta keep on keeping on.

On that note, time to get myself hyped up for the gym after work again today!  I’m glad this is becoming a habit again.  I missed that about myself!

Until next time, my friends!

I <3 Las Vegas

This morning my world got a pretty big jolt of bad energy flow through it.  Las Vegas, what I love to call my home away from home, was the scene of what is now the worst mass shooting in the history of the United States of America last night.  I couldn’t believe what I was reading on my phone at 4:25am when I woke up and to be honest, I’m still in shock right now.  How could this happen?  I mean, I know how this could have happened, but I guess the better question is why?  The question that is swimming in my proverbial magic 8-ball of jumbled thoughts is something to the effect of “How could anybody have any sort of hatred in their heart for a fellow human being to take their lives?  At least 50 innocent lives taken and over 400 innocent people injured because of a grudge over something that at this time in the morning we just don’t know yet.”  It’s so stupid.  Hatred is just dumb.  Negativity is just dumb.  Sure I have dislikes for things that go against products and sports teams that are rivals to said things, but never in my life have I ever thought of violence against these things or the people who support them.  Hell, even counter ideologies to my beliefs, yes I get frustrated with close minded people, bigots, racists, and all others who at least try to push their conformist agenda towards, but never have I EVER thought of inflicting violence towards anybody else for simply not believing that they should live their lives according to MY rules.  I do know, however, that there are a lot of these types of people who are now and have been for a while now who have been coming out of their hiding places and spreading their ideology of hatred under the veil of racism, homophobia, and general bigotry and are being empowered to act on their hatred and to be honest, it’s scary.  It’s scary to think that something like what happened in my beloved city of Las Vegas can happen anywhere.

What can we do about it?  Ban guns?  Sure, we can.  Will that stop the negativity?  No.  People will find other ways to turn their hatred into violence and we’ll still have massive loss of life.  What we need to do first is embrace love.  Love is the thing that defeats hate.  People need to learn to love and accept their neighbor.  People are different.  They are going to have different beliefs than you do.  People are going to pray to different deities than you do.  People are going to like different music than you do.  People are going to have a different skin tone than you do.  Hell, they may even be sexually attracted to people of their same gender while you do not!  And you know what?  ALL OF THAT IS OK!  Love and acceptance.  That’s what we need.

I Missed the Exit

What a crazy week this one has been.  I’ve been feeling like I needed more introvert battery recharging than usual the whole week, which has been odd.  I haven’t had the negative feelings associated with it, however, which is a good thing.  I just have noticed that I really have been enjoying my alone time more than usual.  Maybe cherishing it is the better term because as I think and type this out that’s the word that is coming to my head as a better way to describe how I’ve felt.  I think I started realizing it Monday afternoon as I was in bed watching a movie on my phone at around 6pm.  It came to my attention that there was nobody asking me to do anything, nobody to say what a piece of crap I was for “wasting your life away” in bed.  Screw that!  I wasn’t in the mood to do anything else and I love the dark serenity my bedroom gives me.  Similar thing happened Tuesday as I got home and got right to watching a film on Vudu.

Anyway, I say all of this to tell you of a strange thing that happened to me yesterday afternoon.  I ran into a cousin of mine (2^nd or 3^rd, I can’t remember but it’s down the line) whom I haven’t seen in about 26 years.  After a bit of general small talk, dude asks me, “So, what about you, man?  Are you married?  Do you have any kids?” Internal me answered him with, “Shiiiiiiiiiiiit dude, if you would have only known the hell I’ve been through relationship wise, you’d understand.  Sweet God…” then I really answered him with “No dude.  No kids, never married.” His response was pretty funny because he immediately got this shocked look on his face and answered as such with, “NO?!  Why not?!” Again, I thought of even worse self-deflating complete lack of self-esteem and self-worth responses but instead I answered him with the short, short version of why not with, “Ah, man.  Well, all the girlfriends I’ve had were just horrible and evil and I’d rather not deal with that shit, you know?  *further stumbling of words followed here*” So, the quick conversation continued and he went on his way and I got to thinking about things, comically of course, about just how my life has turned out and why.  I made jokes about it on Snapchat when I got home and thought nothing more about it and enjoyed the rest of my afternoon.

Just this morning a co-worker of mine and I were talking about the cycle of life and how there have been studies he’s read about how our lives are generally in the shape of a U.  We start off happy as children, dislike a lot about it during adulthood, and then end up happy before we die again.  For the most part this is true for people.  That’s not to say that there are people who are generally happy and never experience that dip in demeanor, etc.  but I would say with some sense of confidence that each of us experience displeasure of some sort once we get into adulthood.  Homeboy went on to tell me a few related stories about how he’s been accompanying his girlfriend to doctor’s appointments and school functions for one of her daughters and he was having a weird time with it since, like me, he has no children of his own.  It was like he was speaking for me when he said that he feels like somewhere he messed up by being middle aged but not having kids.  There are people in our age group who have kids anywhere from elementary school all the way to college staying busy with different school functions, medical appointments, etc., and all the while he’s been just living an existence that does not involve any of it.  He, and by extension me, wonder what’s the norm?  Are we the lucky ones to not have to have dealt with or still deal with all the responsibility that goes into parenting?  Or are we the failures for not living the typical life of a late teens to early twenties human by getting married and having kids?

Personally, I have no problems with parenthood.  I’ve been with women with kids and I’ve been in situations where I was falsely identified as the father of said kid, and it didn’t bother me at all.  I found it comical, actually, but never was or will I ever say “I never want to be a dad!  I don’t want kids!”  It just hasn’t happened yet.

With that said, I’m going to keep on keeping on living this solo deep life with a very organized house, a sleeping schedule that my friends with kids and/or spouses don’t understand (they don’t understand the freedom I have), and doing the things that make me happy like barricading myself in my apartment and limiting human contact.  Hahaha!  If I somehow talk or stumble my way into a meaningful relationship, cool.  If not, that’s cool too.  I’m already too old to worry about it anyway.  Gotta keep on keepin’ on, my friends!

See you (in) September

 

Holy smokes!!!!!  Hey y’all!  It’s me!  I’m not dead!  (well, if you’re reading this on Twitter or Facebook you’d know that already)  I can’t believe it’s been since the end of July since I’ve checked in.  A lot has happened since then.  Another summer is in the books, even though it’s still in the upper 90s temp wise, I can already feel the turn of the seasons beginning.  Another opportunity for camping, hiking, and outdoor sports adventures is pretty much gone and I did very little of any of it.  Sadly.  It always happens too.  I always say AND tell myself too that “I’m going to go camping more this year, dude!”  and “Man!  We gotta go hiking like twice a month or something!” and every time I watch PGA majors I say “That’s it!  I gotta get my fat ass back on the range to make sure I can still half assed hit a golf ball!  That way I can go out to the course and play and not look like a complete asshole out there!”  Nah.  Didn’t happen this year.  And again, I find myself saying “Well, that’s another summer gone.  Damn.”  We only really get a few of them to do what we want, you know?  Sure my summers as a kid were a blast!  Full of bike riding, playing outside, and general mischief with my friends.  My summers from age 18-26 were an alcoholic blur at best, and for the past 10 years I’ve been really trying my best to take them in and enjoy everything that I can.  I know once I get older I won’t be able to do as much as I would be able to now, and I’ll probably be indoors somewhere doing other stupid things.  I know me; I’ll find a way to be dumb.  So, I try to take advantage of doing the outdoors thing while I can.  I failed this year though.  Hahahaha!

What I’ve been doing this year instead of spending time outdoors is trying to get myself to get on this self-improvement kick that I should be on.  I’m not talking about just getting my ass back to the gym, but I mean all around self-improvement.  I’m finding my days are spent trying to psyche myself up to start getting my shit together and they fade into my designated bed time and the vicious cycle repeats again.  I only really have Saturday to sleep in and wake up to the outline of light coming through my blackout curtains, but aside from that I am up early either to go to work or to go to Mass so that really messes with my need to relax and decompress, so I’m sure that has a lot to do with it.  There’s so much that I need to work on.  As I just mentioned, my time management sucks.  I also waste a lot of money on stupidity because of my time management and laziness, so I need to get that straightened out too.  Speaking of wasting money, I wanna try to cut down on my booze consumption too.  Not because I have some sort of drinking problem, but just because drinking costs a lot of money, even if you do it like I do, at home!  I guess writing this out tells me that the main problem is getting even more OCD with my time and schedule and the rest should fall into place.  It will happen, I know it will.  I’ve already started my journey down that road.

Speaking of road trips, I just came off a wild month of two road trips across the great southwest recently and the last one was very introspective.  There were conversations that were had that really made me realize just how weird I am.  This is what I mean.  As some of you know, I am damn near militant when it comes to the organization of just about everything and I LOVE to have a lot of my life planned out.  I need to know the next few steps in life before I make a move.  I’m really cautious about things.  That is probably 50% of why I still roll solo deep.  Hahahaha!  Funny thing though is that the things I let slide, I really let slide.  For example, one would think that I would listen to music either by album, or at worst by artist only right?  No.  Not only do I not do that, but I prefer to listen to music on shuffle/random.  Let those cards fall where they may.  I love the fact that a Metallica song may be followed up by Duke Ellington, then Tupac.  It’s nothing out of the ordinary to me and I actually look forward to the chaos of strange musical bedfellows.  I do the same thing with my television watching.  I cannot binge watch shows.  I just get too bored, I guess.  I usually have at least 3 or so shows on rotation in the middle of various seasons on HBO GO, Starz, and Netflix.  I can’t just devote countless hours to watching multiple episodes of one show.  I’m as eccentric with those whom I call family and friends too.  I have always hung around with people from all calls of life.  From the nerds, squares, cholos, band geeks, metalheads, and everywhere in between, I’m friends with all.  I think I’m just a living contradiction to be honest.  I say all of that to say that I really tripped out my best friend during our 20+ hours on the road to and from El Paso discovering, or rather, realizing all of these things.

So, here we are at the tail end of September.  Fall is coming up on us which means short days (thank God), colder weather, and the holidays!  I can’t believe this year is nearly over!!  Where has this year gone?  What have I actually done this year?  A lot, when I look back on it.  I explored more than I thought I would, I saw a few of my favorite cities, and I now I’m gearing up for a big milestone birthday in December.  I really can’t wait for that either.  Before we know it, 2018 will be here and we’ll start the party all over again.  Let’s get at it, peeps!

I’m Staying In

I know it’s been quite a minute since I’ve posted anything, and believe me, there has been a lot to write about.  As per usual, my schedule has prevented me from really expressing thoughts and ideas over things, but there is one event yesterday that made me take time out to stop and put thoughts to this blog.  That event was the apparent suicide of Chester Bennington.  A lot of my friends were pretty sad about it and as much as I sympathize with them my first reaction after the initial shock was anger.  I was pissed off at him for killing himself.  Suicide is the selfish act of selfish acts.  I know what I’m saying will probably upset some people and I’m sorry if it does, but I’m really pissed off at this dude for checking himself out.  If I had the chance to talk to him right now I’d tell him this, “WHAT THE FUCK, DUDE!?  Do you not give a fuck about what you just did to your wife?!  What about your 6 kids?  Do you give a fuck about what they are going to have to deal with for the rest of their lives?  What about your friends?  Your bandmates?  Don’t you think they gave a fuck?  Oh, and don’t give me that shit that I don’t understand.  I don’t need to understand, dude.  God gave you a reason to be alive.  God needed you to be there for your children and you wife.  Yes, he also gave you the choice to quit, but you had so many reasons not to!”  I truly believe that.  I’m still pissed off at just thinking about that right now and telling him that.

I just don’t understand it.  I don’t see why anybody would go as far as to attempt suicide.  Hell, I should know.  I got close.  Oddly enough, I just passed my 6 year anniversary of nearly committing suicide myself.  I know I’ve talked about it before so I won’t go on about it, but being close to checking out makes me pissed off at the people who still contemplate it.  I wish people could see what I saw to stop me from killing myself.  Family, friends, experiences (both good and bad) that I would have missed out on were just some of the things that stopped me.  In reality, the main reason was my nephew, Little Dude.  Wondering if he would ever remember me and how much I love him and would miss him was the main thing that stopped me.  So, essentially it was love that did it.  After that point in my life I’ve made it a point to tell everybody that I care about that I love them, and not because it’s a cute thing to say, but it’s because I do.  Everybody that I talk to holds a special place in my heart and I feel like God has put these people in my path for a reason.  Maybe they are helping me or maybe I am helping them, but either way are paths crossed for a reason.  The way I look at it too is that if it’s up to me, you’ve got me for life.  That’s just the way I am.  Unless I find out some deep dark secrets that you are just a scumbag piece of shit (because that’s happened before), I’m not the type of person to be a friend of convenience.  I don’t like to annul connections.

So, long story short, I’ll pray that the families of suicides find peace to move forward with their lives and I’ll put myself out there to be a person to come to talk to for those who feel that killing themselves is the only answer to their problems.  There is so much beauty in the world for all of us to embrace and enjoy to just decide to check yourself out.  Get help, fight for your lives, and fight for those who care for you more than you think they do.

Mama, I’m Staying Home

So, I was thinking the other day about just how much I love my hometown, which is also the current city I live in.  A LOT of people that grow up here hate it and as soon as humanly possible leave and never come back.  More power to ‘em, and call me a homer or whatever, but I absolutely love it here and I will proudly say that I don’t think that you can give me a good enough reason to ever leave.

I realize my love for the city every time I leave it when I go on a trip.  Most of the time I’m going west towards Phoenix and Las Vegas so the landscape and climate stay relatively the same.  There have been a handful of times, however, where I go outside of the desert and it trips me out.  Haha!  Not like I’m some kind of uneducated dude or whatever, but I just love the desert climate so much that I actually immediately begin to miss it the minute I’m away from it.  That happened just a few weeks ago, as I’ve mentioned, but the thing I didn’t mention about the trip to east-central Texas was about just how much I loved the drive back and not only because we were cracking wise and laughing hysterically in my truck to the obscene and insane jokes that we were coming up with.  I loved it because after going from flat green land, we were slowly going back into the mountainous terrain that has speckles of green, but not as much green as lower elevation and higher humidity places.  It sounds funny to say, but even seeing the outline of the Franklin Mountains is enough to put a smile on my face.  It’s even better when it’s nighttime and the star on the mountain is illuminated.  It reminds me that I’m home and all is right in the world.

What really sparked this blog entry, however, were the thoughts of friends and family about this place.  Funny and odd thing is that of all people, I think my old man hates El Paso almost the most.  I don’t understand it, but a few weeks ago when we attended a game of our AAA baseball team, the El Paso Chihuahuas, I told him that I wanted to step my game up and buy a jersey but couldn’t decide on which one, and I wanted to add to my hat collection (which currently stands at 1 for the Chihuahuas) and get the away cap that simply has a beautiful “EP” logo on it.  Right away, pops tells me “Ah man, I don’t want that one.  I don’t want anything saying anything ‘El Paso’ on it!  I hate El Paso! …”  I shrugged it off and said that I personally love my city and I was going to get that cap.  Thinking about it now and talking to a friend of mine, I’m now wondering why he didn’t stay at his last duty station in San Diego when he was in the military and did not reenlist.  Maybe I’ll ask him when he comes back into town from his crazy adventures and I get the chance to see him.

Thing about it is that he’s not alone in the circle of people in my life who feel similar.  I’d probably say at least half the people I know who live here would move away if they had the chance.  I wish I knew why.  It’s not as bad as they think it is… well in my opinion it’s not.  Sure you can argue that wages aren’t that high here, but my two responses to that is that a) neither is the cost of living. and b) if money is your main concern, you’ve got bigger problems and need to get your priorities straight anyway, dude.

So that’s about it.  I know it’s going to end up that I’m going to be the last of my friends standing here in El Paso, but you know what?  That’s cool, man.  I enjoy traveling and I enjoy seeing and spending time with my friends, so it will give me a reason to go and explore places.  I already have a long list of places on this planet that I need to go hit up as it is!  Australia, England, Scotland, Japan, and Italy come to mind internationally, and US wise, oh man… the state of New Hampshire, Maine, New York City, Boston, Charlotte (and try to not die of happiness visiting the NASCAR Hall of Fame, Hendrick Motorsports, and JR Motorsports), Daytona Beach, Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis, San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco to just name a few places.  So I have a lot of places to be, but I will ALWAYS come back home to El Paso and my dry climate, chill people, THE ABSOLUTE BEST Mexican food you will ever eat, and that star on that mountain that will always remind me of just how badass I have it here.

See y’all later!

Every Day is a Party in May

Well, man!  What a last few weeks it’s been!  As I mentioned previously, I knew it was going to be a busy month to a month and a half leading up to the band’s live album recording which we have been rehearsing for, but it has really started to hit me now at just how much time I’ve booked myself out for without any time to slow down and take a breather.  Two weekends ago I was in east-central Texas for full band rehearsals where it was crazy hot and humid one day and nice the next, then after coming back home to far west Texas to where we have low humidity weather (THANK GOD!) for a week, I had made plans to make my way out to one of the many national forests in the area where we thankfully still have low humidity weather, but I was surrounded by pine trees, warm daytime, and near freezing nighttime temperatures.  It was awesome.  Even though I was busy from around April 28^th to even today, I’m so glad I took the time this past weekend to escape to the forest for some solo deep reflection on life.

Here’s where I wanted to really expand on that thought.  It wasn’t my full intention on going camping alone.  I had actually invited one of the guys in the band that was going to be sans kids, but as I thought may happen, he wanted to use that weekend to recover from the road trip on the previous weekend.  Another friend of mine was briefly going to join me, but life circumstances changed and we mutually suggested that their participation in the camping trip be scrapped.  In a moment of honesty, as much as I would have LOVED for said friends to be with me, I was equally if not happier to be going out alone.  I couldn’t wait for the way I had things lined up in my head to go down and sure enough things pretty much went according to plan.  I was able to leave work about two hours early on Friday which gave me two extra hours to set up camp in the daylight and the 3 hour drive up to the Gila National Forest was very relaxing.  I made it to the campsite that I really wanted to go to, and in an even better situation, I was the first person there to the campsite so I was able to pick the site that I wanted.  I parked my truck and set camp and got right into dinner and relaxing.  You have no idea how badly I was waiting for that moment of total peace in the wilderness with no cell signal at all and nothing else but a few books I brought along with me, my iPod, and my thoughts to keep me company.  It was beautiful.  The sun started to set as I finished up dinner on Friday night and still nobody else showed up to the 2 available camp sites.  Once I realized that I was going to be alone, an even bigger calm came over me knowing that I’d have my thoughts to myself even though I wasn’t talking out loud to myself like some kinda crazy person, but you know what I mean.  Hahaha!  It was awesome to sit in my University of Texas (HOOK ‘EM HORNS, btw!) camping chair as I let my gaze melt into the campfire.  There was so much peace that just washed over me that it’s hard to try and put into words.  Considering that I had been only getting around 5 hours of sleep each day the previous week, I knew that I was going to get tired pretty early that night so I called it an early night to allow myself to relax.  I think I got the best sleep I’ve gotten in a few months that night.  Granted my truck woke me up once, as I was using it as an alert system for me if anybody or anything came close to camp, I slept until dawn.  When I woke up at dawn, I took the time to just relax and appreciate the fact that I was where I was desperately trying to get to for months.  That victory, albeit small, gave me the motivation to just stay in bed and I fell back to sleep for another 4 hours.  It was awesome!

Saturday was no different as far as the good feelings went.  I made myself breakfast and after cleaning up and washing dishes I got to reading one of the books I took with me.  It was awesome to read in the peace and quiet out in the forest.  With the exception of the occasional bird or insect sound, the whistling sound of the wind passing through the pine trees, and the very loud laughter of mine due to Artie Lange’s insane life stories, there was complete silence.  It was beautiful!  I knew there was going to be a chance of rain and I kept seeing potential rain clouds pass by, but I wanted to get in my hike into the wilderness in, so I put the book down, got my hiking pole, and backpack with bottles of water ready and set off on my little adventure.  I only made it an hour in before I decided to turn back because my instincts were telling me that rain was coming and sure enough within 10 minutes of me getting back to camp the rain started falling.  I’ll tell you, if you’ve never experienced it, there are fewer things more soothing than the sound of light rain hitting a camping tent that you’re sure will stay dry inside.  I laid back on my bed and kept on reading and laughing hysterically in such a state of happiness that, man, I’ll tell you… it’s been something that I have been needing for a long time.  It was awesome!  The rain lasted about 3 hours and ended before sunset, which was cool, because I was able to start grilling dinner in the daylight, start my campfire in the daylight, and not have to be that much of an annoyance with my lantern to the two other groups of campers who had shown up during my two hour hike.  I’m not going to lie, I felt pretty victorious that night as I stared away at my campfire to know that everything was right in my world right then and there.  There were no problems, no bad feelings, nothing to think about except just how much I love the simple things like what I was doing then in life.

I slept deeply and well that night in the nearly freezing temperatures and got up the next morning relaxed and proverbial batteries recharged back to full capacity as I packed up camp and made my 3 hour journey back home.

Well, the super chill and calm that has washed over the already calm and chill I always have anyway has now caused my cleaning and organizing of all my laundry, camping gear, and camping bed to be pushed to today, Tuesday, but you know what?  I kinda don’t care.  It feels good to know that things will get done eventually but it’s not a life or death thing, you know?  My solo deep camping trip also made me appreciate all that I have in my life.  I have a kick ass life; I’m not going to lie.  I have great friends, great family, and a great life altogether that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

Now, I just have to get through the rest of this week and get ready to visit my mom’s gravesite then make my way to my grandmother’s house for her delicious menudo on Mother’s Day Sunday, then get through next week before our 2^nd to last rehearsal on that Saturday, then finally our live recording on May 27^th the following weekend.  I’m ready for it now.  Bring on the good times!

Until next time!  I love you all!