I’M OLD!!!!!!

I can’t believe it, but it’s finally happened.  I’ve finally gotten old.  I know, it sounds crazy to say and for some even worse to admit, but I’ve officially become old.  I can’t tell you exactly when it happened, to be honest, and maybe that’s also a sign of old age, but it has.  I’ll explain here briefly.

During this last camping trip a couple of weeks ago, I found that I really had no energy to go hike or explore the camping area.  Granted, it was raining just about half or more than half the time we were there and I just didn’t want to bother with wet clothes, etc, I was just really too tired to do anything anyway.  I just wanted to sit and relax.  What the hell, right?  Another thing, I’ve become one of those people to refer to people between the ages of 18-25 as kids.  Legally, they are adults, but let’s face it; most of them don’t know a thing about life.  No offense to those who read this who are in this age group.  I was there in that age group 13 years ago, but looking back, until I reached around the age of 26 or so, I still really didn’t get it.  I thought that I understood, but looking back I know I didn’t.  Lastly, two of my favorite films have helped shed light that yes, in fact, I am now old.  Those two films are Hot Tub Time Machine and Grandma’s Boy.  Fine American cinema, as you probably already know!  L O L!!!!  But for as raunchy and silly of comedies that they are, they both deal with “people of a certain age” which is really anything older than 29 and living life after that stage.  For example, in Hot Tub Time Machine, the group of friends travel through time in a hot tub (hence the name of the film.  Clever, right?!), yet until one of them sees their reflection in the mirror they all think that they are living life as guys in their late 30s/early 40s.  When they still don’t know they are young again (spoilers) they all notice the fact they feel great and full of energy, etc.  It’s a hilarious film, well to me it is, and even though that one scene when they say that they feel great, fantastic, etc. I laughed then but it really didn’t register until recently that when you get older you start to feel it.  I look at it now with different eyes and wish that I could have those youthful feelings again too.

Yesterday, while preparing dinner, I decided to put on Grandma’s Boy just to have background noise for me to laugh to.  That silly movie is still funny to me, but for the first time yesterday it made me feel old.  I didn’t feel old because I understood all the video game references in it or that I was in my mid 20s when that movie came out and it felt relevant to me… no, I felt old because the main character gets teased for being 35 and working as a video game tester with a bunch of 18-25 year old kids.  All of a sudden I went from laughing at some of the insults to saying “Holy SMOKES!  I’m freakin’ older than this dude is in the movie!  I’m 3 months shy of 38!!  This dude was only 35 and they were just calling him “old man”!  No way!!!”  Well, even that that said, I finished out the movie and still laughed, but it really had me thinking the whole time if that’s what kids think of me.

I don’t feel like I’m elderly yet though!  Let me make that clear!  I still have some youthful energy in me, but young?  Those days have passed my friends.  I had my moment in the sun.  I think I missed it, actually, but apparently it was there.  I’ve become a man who really doesn’t fit in.  I’m not young by any means, but at the same time I’m not old either.  What a weird phase to have entered into.

¿Who Dis?

This past week, for some reason, I surpassed the 100 follower mark.  Insane, right?!  I thank each and every one of you for following me, by the way!  In honor of that, and also in honor of a recent discovery and mutual follow and their “About Me” blog post, I thought I should do one of my own!  Just in case y’all are reading this through WordPress’ Following<Reader section of their website and that “About Me” section just isn’t really there.

Oh, still reading!  Whew!  Cool!  Well, hi there!  My name is David.  At least, that’s the handle my loving parents glossed me with.  For about the past 10 years, most people have known me by my band name, Clone.  Yep, I’m one of those imaginary rockstar dudes.  Even worse, I’m a drummer!  I know, the old joke is that drummers really aren’t musicians.  I get it, I get it.  Haha!  In any event, yes, I am a drummer in a band with my most of my best friends and our name is Searchlight Needles.  Look us up!  You’ll find our first album is up on all your favorite digital music outlets.  I’ve been a drummer nearly all my life.  Some of my favorite memories as a child were playing drums on my couch with flyswatters.  I’d be drumming along to 80’s hair metal, because that’s what I really loved back in my youth.  Well, I take that back.  I’ve loved all styles of music since I was young, if you want me to be honest.  That’s one thing that I can tell you right off the bat.  Music is my life.  I was raised on The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Grupo Mazz, Selena, Emilio Navaira, “King” George Strait, Reba McIntyre, The Judds, The Latin Breed, and Led Zeppelin just to name a few artists my parents exposed me to.  From there, my godfather (who is a badass, by the way.  I miss that dude and I need to really reconnect with him), dropped by the house one day when I was about 6 and brought me a stereo system.  It was one of those receiver deals with two separate speakers.  Not a boom box, this thing was legit!  Naturally, I just wanted to hear whatever songs the radio had for me.   Well, not too long after, I found it.   Mötley Crüe had a new single out titled “Girls, Girls, Girls” and I was in love.  From then on, it was a love affair with heavy metal music that continues to this day.  I got into the aforementioned Mötley Crüe, Ratt, Poison, Bon Jovi, Cinderella, and the list goes on.  Yes, Glam Metal!  It ruled!!!  That’s why I love the band Steel Panther so much too.  But that’s another story.

Where was I?  Oh yes, me.  So, yes.  Not only am I a musician, er drummer.  Whatever.  I’m also just your regular ol’ dude who is passionate about many other things aside from music.  One thing people will tell you about me who know me in the real world is that I’m passionate about the relationships I keep.  I love my friends and family.  Without them, I’d be nothing.  Most of them put up with my stupid qwerks, my crazy moods, and my tendency to find the joke in anything.  If I’m talking to you and I haven’t made at least 1 joke in about 5 minutes, you know something’s wrong with me.  I can have my serious moments too.  Take religion, for example.  That’s one thing I’m serious about.  I’ve blogged plenty about it, so take a look around at my previous posts and find out about that journey.  I think it’s kinda cool.

I suppose I should mention this too.  In an odd turn of events in my life, I’ve also never been married nor do I have any children.  I think that topic in today’s society deserves a blog all of its own, but yeah, I’m a regular guy living his life out solo deep.  To be honest, I always imagined myself being married and having kids as a kid myself.  I was always waiting for it to happen, as stupid as that sounds.  I think it actually gives me a nice prospective on life, though.  I’ve found the blessings in it all, so it’s not all that bad.

That’s really all I can think of about me that can’t be explored further here on my blog.  I’ve actually been blogging here on WordPress since November 5, 2011! I’m coming up on 7 years here!  94 posts (including this one) and counting!  Well, I actually had more, but I deleted some that no long had relevance in my life/didn’t represent me well.  I’m sure you’ll find something interesting about me in those other 93 posts!

So, thank you again for following me!  You keep reading, and I’ll keep on writing!

…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!

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!

Peace out 2016, Holler at me 2017

This is it.  We made it, y’all.  2016 and its crazy ass has finally come to an end.  Globally, I must say we had a pretty bad year.  Lots of terrorist acts, lots of war, and lot of death of people who are known by a lot of other people came to pass this year.  I know a lot of people are upset about it and have been taking note about how bad it’s been for us as a whole.  I tend to agree with them, but in what has been my nature more strongly for the past 5.5 years, I tend to focus on the positives.  I had a lot of positive things happen in my life this year.  In January, I made the decision to not live with anxiety and a too large of amount of stress for me to handle and the positive outcomes came from there.  I did fail, however, to get started on my weight loss goals but that’s to come later.

More great things came this year.  Most notably, I cut half the commute from my drive to both work and my parish and moved to central El Paso and even though I didn’t have any reservations about it, I had no idea at how awesome it would turn out to be.   Everything that I need or like is minutes away and the peace and quiet I get now is an even bigger Godsend.   Another great thing that came about from my change mid-year was that a true nature I’ve always had really flourished like a wildfire.  That true nature I speak of is my introvert nature.  I’ve always had it, but it wasn’t until I was truly on my own that it just consumed me.  I have honestly never been as happy in my life as I am now.  It’s the greatest thing ever.  Now, I have nobody to put a fake act on for, nobody to try to conform to, etc.  I can truly be me now and me is that dude who would rather be left alone, hates and honestly feels sick down to my bones to be in a crowd of strangers for more than a few minutes, who loves to spend time with only a select group of friends, and who finds comfort in music, movies, and the general arts of all kinds.  Granted, the last thing is something that more than just introverts to, I find that I don’t have to feel weird about my musical tastes because I’m liberated to be who I want to be without judgement.

With that all said, my very positive personal life changes has brought about resentment and probably a loss of friendships along the way with it too, but if you want me to be completely honest, I’ll say that if people can’t accept who I am, who I aspire to be, and what I stand for personally, then they don’t need to be in my life.  Simple as that.  I am sick and tired of being surrounded by negativity.  Again, for the past 5 years, I’ve done my best at always living looking at the positive in things and people and I have completely stopped dwelling in the bad in people and in things.  Sure, I’m aware they exist, but I refuse to let it consume me.  I also never have held grudges, but even more so now I forget and forgive as Jesus told Peter in Matthew Chapter 18 verse 21,

“21 Then Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”

I’m always going to be the same funny, happy, comedic (even horribly punny and cheesy), stupid moron.  I have no time to say out loud or to myself “remember what this jerk did to me?  F that person!”  Nah, that’s stupid.  I refuse to waste my life that way.

So, Sunday morning will bring on 2017 and the renewal of hopes and dreams for everybody, myself included.  I’ve never been one to do New Year’s resolutions, but I will say this.  I’m going to put my plans in motion to get myself in a better physical shape than round.  (LOL!) and I will continue to be the person I am regardless of the consequences of the judgements of others.  I’m going to be me and do what makes me happy.  That’s pretty much stay home, stay focused on my weight loss, laugh a lot more, spend time with the friends and family that accept me for who I am and don’t want to change me, watch more awesome movies, listen to great music, and hopefully make awesome music too.  I have plenty of room for those who want to join me, but if you don’t want to or want to get off the ride; I’m not going to stop you either.  In the words of “King” George Strait, “I ain’t here for a long time; I’m here for a good time.”