Mind Games

It’s a beautiful day outside today where I am on this planet of ours.  It’s overcast, probably with a few sprinkles of rain falling down, and cold.  It’s pretty much perfect weather to stay indoors wrapped up in blankets while drinking some sort of hot beverage.  I’ll get to doing that later on today.  In the meantime, my current workstation has allowed for something that I haven’t done much of lately which is daydream.  I wonder if anybody that ends up reading this blog daydreams as much as I do.  I’ll be honest, it’s a big part of what keeps me in such a good mood most of the time.  Now, I should say that if you come across me in the real world I won’t be with eyes glazed over staring into the far off distance, but any chance I get to sit and take a breather, you can bet I’m letting my mind think about whatever it wants to.  I think it’s a kind of stress reliever for me to be honest.  I always seem to be thinking about things that would be awesome if they happened in real life and not just to me, mind you.  I think deep down inside we all want to live in a peaceful and tranquil place, so that’s no different I suppose.  I just happen to think about it a lot.

I also let myself think about goals I set for myself or things I would like to have.  Some good things have come out of it too, actually.  I’ve planted mental seeds to get myself to go on awesome trips, get myself motivated to change eating habits and get to the gym, and even get-togethers with family and friends this way.  I guess if you haven’t noticed by those previous statements beforehand I’m not very much of an impulse action oriented dude.  I’m very calculated in all my actions, much to the annoyance of friends.  I just can’t help it most of the time.  I need to know what’s going to happen two steps ahead so that I can prepare.

So here I sit, on a break from work pretty happy because of the weather and because of the things that my brain is thinking about hoping for good things to happen.

I hope you’re having a badass day too!

Life Goals

Salutations, y’all!  I hope this Thanksgiving week (for those in the U.S.) hasn’t been all that bad to you.  As for myself?  As always, things could be better, but they could be a lot worse as well.  There’s been something on my mind lately and I think it’s about time that I share some of it.  The topic of “putting myself out there”, marriage, and the alternative being the religious life, has been circling my life again as of late.  I don’t recall myself talking too much about it previously, so I figured I might as well give my take a shot here and now.

As the people that know me or have at least talked to me outside of this digital world know, I’m a pretty quiet and reserved dude.  I really don’t talk too much because I’m of the mind that unless I really have something to say, I’m not going to talk just for the sake of talking.  On the other hand, if somebody asks me a question about a topic that I am interested in or involved in in some sort, I can go on forever talking about whatever subject that may be.

One of topics happens to be my personal relationship life, if that’s a good way to put it.  Inevitably this topic will come up at one point or another with everybody when they start to get to know me if they want to.  I get asked things like “So, you’ve never been married?” and “So, you don’t have any kids?” followed by “Do you want to get married eventually?” and/or “Do you want kids?”  In turn my answers turn into a brief history over how I’ve left myself open for said opportunities and have gotten my heart and soul destroyed in return.  All of those individual lessons and my ever-growing faith in our Lord Jesus Christ has taught me to choose a lot more wisely when it comes to that subject.  Those two reasons pretty much get in my discussions with other friends about why I refuse to just go out and try and get with any woman who will have me, or go out and do these one night stand type of deals or whatever else.  It doesn’t appeal to me at all.  Actually, to be honest, I find the idea repulsive.  I can already hear my a-hole friends getting their loving insults ready to throw my way over even stating that, but it’s true.

Of course, after that is all said, the follow up comment to that usually is “well, if you’re not going to put yourself out there and go to places and whatever, why don’t you just become a priest!?”  L O L!!!!  I’ll note that I’m laughing because the majority of my friends are protestants and have NO idea of what the priestly life entails.  Sure, it’s a very important job and a great blessing from God, but it’s not for every man.  It’s not as easy as “Well!  I couldn’t find a wife, much less even a girlfriend, so I might as well just enter the seminary!  Woo!”  A lot of thought, prayer, and most of all a calling from God is needed for a man to successfully enter a seminary and dedicate their lives completely to Christ and His church.  There are no children of your own, no marriage, nothing of the sort.  I know in my heart of hearts, God’s plan calls for that in my life eventually.  And if not that, then it calls for a solitary life as a layman and not in a religious order.  Even though many people have told me that my character is that of a priest or what they believe a priest to be, I know it’s not where I should go with my life.

With that being said, going back to the marriage thing, I don’t want to just get married for the sake of being married either.  I know everybody wants to do things right and whatnot, but I really truly believe it.  If I ever do find that woman, I want to do things the right way.  I want to abstain from committing impure acts either alone or together.  I’ve done my fair share of committing grave and mortal sins for the fun of it and it’s gotten me nowhere.  I want to base my relationship on God, the way it should be.  After all, one of the main points of marriage is to help to get your spouse to Heaven.  I  want to have that type of relationship where that’s going to be put on Front Street right off the bat.  I know our society has made a mockery of traditional family values and that moral sense of obligation that I’m talking about, but I believe it with my whole heart.  In reality, we only get one shot at it in the eyes of God as it is (that is if you get married in the Church and go into the marriage with the full intention of said sacrament) so you are right if you think that I’m going to be really selective with my criteria.

I really hope it happens, to tell you the truth.  I hope that I’ll be part of one of those families that I see every Sunday morning at Mass.  Mom, dad, and children all building a more solid relationship with God one day at a time, one prayer at a time, one Mass at a time.  That would be cool.

Well, that’s all I got for today y’all.  Have an awesome rest of the week!  And for those reading in the U.S., have a great Thanksgiving!  Get food drunk and enjoy the day!

David

What is and What Could Have Been

Sometimes I wish I had a bit more human interaction so that I can come up with topics to write about because I really do enjoy writing this blog.  But then that would mean I’d actually have to talk to strange and stranger people.  Yeah, never mind.  Heh.  That doesn’t sound like it would be any sort of fun at all.  Not to me at least.  I’m weird, I know.  I’m that weird dude that will go out to a restaurant to eat alone.  The weird dude you see at the bar keeping to himself.  That guy.  That’s me.

Anyway, with the little human interaction that I do get, mainly at work, a certain thought came up.  What would have happened if things would have turned out differently in my youth?  Specifically moving away from my hometown of Anthony, and furthermore my old man choosing a house on the east side of El Paso as opposed to the (shitty) westside.  Yeah, I said it.  Shitty westside.  I really don’t like anything about it, but that’s neither here or there.  Back to the question I posed myself, what would have happened?  I think my life would have been radically different.  I would have never met my very close friends that I have now and God only knows where I would have ended up in my life.  Not that I’m one of those people who dwells on the “what if” factor and whatnot, because I really don’t, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t give it a quick thought.

I think parts of me would have stayed the same.  I know I would have still been a percussionist, but I would have either graduated from Franklin (shuttering at the thought) if my old man had gotten the house we checked out in the westside, or if nothing would have changed and we wouldn’t have moved I would have graduated from Anthony.  Either way, I know my friends wouldn’t have changed as a few of them actually went to high schools in west El Paso anyway.  Who else would I have hung out with?  Would I have joined some rock band like I did in my real life?  I’m sure I would have.  Where would I have gone career wise too?  Maybe things would have ended up differently.

All strange things to think about, but I’m happy that things turned out the way they did.  I still keep in touch, pretty much on Facebook, with a few friends of mine from Anthony (as I lived there from birth to age 11) but I gained some pretty incredible badass friends that I met on the eastside of town.  It’s wild to think that my best friend now is some dude I met for the first time only a few short months after I had moved.  Granted we really didn’t start hanging out until years later, the fact remains that we’ve known of each other’s existence for 25 years.  My other best friends (might as well be brothers) I met only 4 years after that.  Heh, come to think of it, I’m a man who finds comfort and just stays with it.  That explains all of the failed relationships I’ve ever had and every other thing that has happened in my life.  LOL!!!!  The old motto “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” goes a long way in my book.  Sometimes I don’t see that things are completely destroyed before it’s too late and I’m stuck on cleanup duty in the aftermath.  Now, I’m not saying that I should find new friends, I just went on a quick tangent on my ex-girlfriends.  I apologize.  What I’m trying to say is that I really do love how things turned out in my life.  I’ve met the most incredible people, both in real life and online, and although I can look back and wonder how things might have been I’m very happy the way they are now.  I’m 3 weeks away to the day from 36 years old and each day that comes and goes, the happier I am with my life.

That’s it for today, y’all!  I hope you have a badass weekend!  Stay safe and take time out to be thankful for what you got!

Back to Work and Hello Holiday Season!

What a week this one is turning out to be.  I know it’s only Tuesday, but it feels like this week is going to drag out forever.  I think it’s this schedule that I’m trying my best to jump start myself back into.  When I am behaving on my gym and eating habits and schedule I run a 16 hour day from 3am to 7pm during the week.  Getting to sleep at 7pm on Sunday nights if I happen to be away from home sucks and I always have a hard time waking up to get to the gym on Monday mornings.

That’s pretty much what happened to me yesterday after this (welcomed) 3 day weekend.  I went to my dad’s house and left after watching some of the NFL post game shows to see what they were saying about my Dallas Cowboys’ win against Pittsburgh.  I knew I was running late, but I couldn’t help myself.  I wanted to hear the experts’ take on what they thought of the team.  I got home with about enough time to only lose about half an hour of sleep, but I think my brain was still in love-glow mode thanks to the awesome win AND the incredible performance Alex Bowman put up in the 88 car (GO HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS AND THE REST OF TEAM CHEVY btw!!!!!) in the NASCAR race from Avondale, Arizona.   It was a good sports weekend for your boy over here, I’ll tell you.

Anyway, I decided to take a page out of Pee-Wee Herman’s playbook from his film Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and play a trick BACK on my brain and went to sleep even earlier last night so that I wouldn’t wake up sleepy at 3am.  Well, a-hole brain got the last laugh as I woke up rested and ready to go at the crack of 2am this morning.  What the hell, right?  Instead of going back to sleep, I decided to make myself breakfast then hit up the gym afterwards.  Oddly enough, I’m not the only weirdo who goes to the gym between the hours of 3 and 4 in the morning.  There was a good amount of people there this morning at 3:30 when I got there.  I think I could have done better at the gym, but I’m not going to tell myself off quite yet.  This is a long road I’m going down and if I start complaining now, I’ll never get to my destination.  I gotta take each step at a time.

In other news, I’m still freakin’ excited about the holidays.  I can’t really tell you what the exact reason for this is, but I haven’t felt this excited about the fall/winter and the holidays that pass in them in quite some time.  I already purchased the soon-to-be-cooked meats, and I’ll get the other stuff I’m going to make myself over the upcoming weekend for next Thursday, aka Thanksgiving.  The only question is whether or not I’m going to make the 3 layer pumpkin cake (that people still talk about here at work years later) for myself (and friends and/or family who want to come have some) or not.  That being said, next Thursday should be a fun day filled with a parade, a meal, and some football all in the comforts of my home.  It’s going to be the first thanksgiving in my new place, so I think that’s why I’m looking forward to it so much.  I’m just hoping that I don’t get guilted in to having to go somewhere else.  I want to stay at home and enjoy my cooking even if it’s just for me.

Now I’m wondering how all of you are going to be spending the holidays this next month and a half.  What are some of your traditions?  I’m pretty curious to be honest.  Do y’all make a big deal out of these days?  I know I have followers from other countries, so Thanksgiving is out of the picture for you, but the religious celebrations that happen in mid-late December and the ringing in of the New Year are pretty common everywhere, right?

Wasting one’s hate

I, much like a few of my friends, am trying my best not to blog or otherwise post onto anywhere in social media about what went down here in the United States politically on Tuesday night, but I’ve recently had a discussion with one of my close friends about what we have been seeing on our Facebook feeds over the past few days concerning, how can I say this, unkind acts to certain demographics across this country.  Quite honestly, I’m not sure how to feel about that.  Some people feel that I should have a sense of outrage due to the fact that I am at least 80% Hispanic (Mexican specifically) and 20% American Indian (or Native American… however people want to call it) from my dad’s side and I’m not too sure of the native blood of my mom’s side but for sure 100% Hispanic from her.  Now, honestly I don’t know the percentage of what indigenous people from Mexico that part is coming from, but I know for a fact there is some.  Who knows if it was Incan, Mayan, or whatever else in Mexico, but in either case it’s in there.  So, I say all of that to say that I’m as minority as they come.  I was born in this beautiful state of Texas here in the United States, so even though I have a Spanish last name (yay to the Jewish people in Spain who came up with my last name!), and look pretty Mexican, I’m an American first.  Hell, I only poorly speak Spanish!  LOL!  Some people would joke I barely speak intelligible English!  Hahaha!  That’s beside the point.  I’m fluent in sarcasm, comedy, and vulgarity (in two languages even!) though!

I’m an American, and yes the President-Elect of this country has said some pretty racist things, sexist things, and every other form of bigoted thing, but the strange thing is that it doesn’t bother me.  I know, I know, this is the part where you gasp and say “DAVID!!!!!  HOW THE HELL CAN YOU SAY THAT?!?!”  Allow me to explain.  It doesn’t bother me because for whatever you want to blast out at me, I really don’t give a damn about any insults anybody that doesn’t know me throws my way.  Why should I care?  These theoretical people don’t know me, so their points are invalid as far as I’m concerned.  That’s not to say that it’s going to happen in my town because as of this latest census, El Paso is 81.3% Hispanic, and I’d like to argue even more so where I work and where I live, so the chances of any bigotry being flown my way is highly unlikely.  To my point, though, I still wouldn’t care if it did.

It’s happened before to me actually, so I feel like I have at least some experience with it.  I’ll tell you the short version of the story.  One cold, ice and snow filled early morning in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex after a night of seeing what ended up being after that night our NBA team of choice, the Dallas Mavericks, play a game against the Brooklyn Nets, drinking, and concert (we saw Quiet Company at a bar in Deep Ellum and I HIGHLY suggest giving them a listen) attending, we ended the long and icy cold night at a Whataburger.  What else are you supposed to do when you live in the southern United States where, God willing, there is a Whataburger in your area?

Mmmm… don’t even get me started with Whataburger.  That’s God’s gift to all mankind and I apologize to those who haven’t had the chance to enjoy a meal of food from there.

Anyway, I digress; my friends and I get to this Whataburger close to our friend’s house and proceed to look up at the menu to decide on what we’re going to order.  There were a few people in front of us, they order, and then we start to order.  Out of the 3 of us, I ordered last, I got my cup to fill with delicious root beer, and sat with my friends at a table.  A few minutes pass by and the people ahead of us get their meal.  Roughly 5 more minutes pass by and one of my friends gets his meal.  Another 2 minutes pass and my other friend gets his meal.  There I was thinking “hell yea!  I’m next!  I can’t wait!  These two guys are hammered drunk; I’m not by some miracle, so I can really enjoy this meal.  Cool!”  A few minutes pass by and the people that came in after we did get their meal too and I’m thinking “OK.  WTF?”  Well, 20 minutes pass by and I finally get my food.  I’m actually afraid, thinking about it now, that they probably did something to my burger because it was pretty tasteless (which never happens) and I’m sure the bastards probably spit in it.  Aside from that, there was no real reason why it took that long, aside from the fact that more than likely my skin was just a lil’ bit too tanned for the lady working the counter at the fast food joint at 2am there in north Texas.  I was the only real ethnic looking person in the joint (my friends included), so I quickly did the math and called it what it was.  What can I do, right?  No harm, no foul.  The extra time it took to get my food served to me allowed me to joke around some more with my friends and pick their intoxicated brains a bit.  The action only slightly bothered me, but I let it go just as fast.  People are going to do things like that.   If it makes them feel better about being assholes, then more power to them.  I choose to not feed that hunger for them.

I guess what I’m trying to say, in a very long winded form, is for people not to feed into the bigots, the racists, the whatever-phobic people out there’s actions if you do encounter them.  Don’t get pissed off and fire back at them.  That’s what they want.  Take note of it internally, and proceed with the rest of your activities.  And afterwards, pray for them.  Hate sucks, man.  And fighting hate with hate isn’t going to solve a damn thing.  I always go back to the beautiful words of the wrongfully accused black man in the film Harold and Kumar go to White Castle when he says, “In the end, the universe tends to unfold as it should.”  I truly believe that.

Have a great weekend, y’all!