Just Say Yes

Wow.

It's been so long. Believe it or not, I've actually logged on here a couple of times and started a post, but then I've gotten sidetracked and had to leave it. I might go through the unfinished ones and see what I can piece together, but I don't have the desire to do that right now

Long story short, the semester was crazy, and now it's over. I'm pretty happy about it. The END end is almost in sight, but I still have a couple semesters. I lucked out, though, this past year. I had an amazing class schedule, amazing roommates, money, a working car... what more can I ask for?

And then there was the persistent guy...

I guess that might actually be worth updating you on. He texted me out of the blue a couple of months ago. It coincided with my cutting off communication with THE guy, so I was willing to talk.... which led to my hanging out with him and making out... which led to my spending the night... which made this, all in all, an unexpected end-of-the-year development.

What do I feel about the persistent guy? That's a good question. It's what I'm trying to figure out right now. I'm trying to tell if the fact that I'm not completely for it is due to my being a little jaded from that first relationship. I'm generally a cautious person to begin with, and I think I'm coming across as especially aloof, disconnected. I dunno.

And then it forces the very real question of what I want in life- this can't exist in conjunction with the Church, or at least my being a student at BYU.

All the while, this cliche "The Road Not Taken"-style dialogue is playing out in my mind:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the path less traveled by, 

And that has made all the difference.

_____________________________

BUT upon arrival, I understood-

Darkness obscured the sea of faces

The diverging path, the distant wood

The bitter sting, wond'ring if it could

Have led me to brighter spaces.

Facing skyward, set to flight my prayer,

Which brought my spirit 'cross space and time.

The other path and the ending there:

Panged cries and suffocating despair.

My chosen path seemed, at once, sublime.

I am, by no means, a Robert Frost impersonator... and I'm definitely not a poet. I type this to make a point. The way we view the destination (upon arrival) is relative to the antecedent path (for lack of a better word) and our perception of what might have been.

We will, in fact, not be able to definitively know that what we've chosen is correct or the best choice among all available options. This isn't earth-shattering or even important until we are faced with a bifurcate path that will lead to very different outcomes...

Then, the question becomes real: How do I handle this one?

All Again For You

Have you ever seen the movie "War Boys" or whatever it's called?

Don't.

Sorry if this is gonna hurt your feelings, but it is kinda like a good idea filled with a whole lot of illogical events and decent acting. The acting, however, does not make up for the fact that the story just doesn't make sense in some places.

It starts off with these three guys (two white, one Mexican) who chase/harass illegal immigrants as they're trying to cross the border into Arizona or whatever. One of the white kids went off to college and then dropped out and came back. His dad is rich. His other white friend lives in a trailer and has a latina (adopted) sister. Not sure where the Mexican kid lives...

Throughout the course of the movie, you learn that the two white guys had hooked up years before (and then they hook up again... although it isn't graphic or anything). I'll be honest--they're pretty good looking. The three guys hijack a truck from the rich kid's dad's company and drive it out to the desert. It has TVs, and they're going to sell them off to make some money.

The Mexican kid hooks up with a latina who owns a restaurant. She makes him jack off under the table at the restaurant... again, not graphic.

The one kid who lives in a trailer freaks out from making out with his buddy, runs away, sits on the porch all night. His little sister comes out and starts talking to him. He tells her he kissed his friend. She asked if he was going to do it again. He said he didn't know and asked what she would think about having a brother like that. He goes back and hooks up with the kid.

They all converge upon the trailer and open it to find drugs and dead immigrants--apparently the dad was helping them cross the border for cash. Then, people start going crazy, the Mexican kid starts digging in the dirt with his hands to give them a burial......... ok....

Then the dad magically shows up (?) and pulls out a gun (?) and the son takes it and points it at him (?) then the border patrol shows up (?) and a sniper snipes the son (well, hits him in the side), and the kid goes down. The Mexican kid picks up the gun and points it at the dad... for some reason, the sniper doesn't snipe him, and then the latina sister of the one kid magically jumps out of the border patrol car and runs to the Mexican kid and takes the gun and throws it down (?)

What the hell?! Who the hell would go pick up a little girl before making a potential stop somewhere dangerous. Also, how did the maid of the rich dad find out that her nephews were on that truck and had died, and why does the sniper only shoot the first kid, and why the hell is everything suddenly so ridiculous. It was a little dumb--I'll be honest.

But there was something kinda touching about the two friends. I mean, cliche? Yes. But still.

In other news, sat by this kid in class today. He's a cowboy. Like a real one. man...

Don't know what it is about the rugged kind, but they get some mad bonus points. I think it's because my parents did not expose us to that stuff. For a long time, manual labor stuff was hired out. I mean, my parents don't have as much money as they used to, so I've done some heavy labor, but there's still something about guys in that stuff that makes them pretty dang hot.

And that's all I've got for you today.

Stereo Love

It's been a while--I know. I can't believe that time has gone by so fast... seems like every time I turn around, another week has gone by. 

But we're not here for small talk, are we?

An update on my life. Well, persistent guy has been cut out of my life. I wasn't mean, but I was frank. He was wanting something (and pushing for something) that I'm not ready for. When I made it clear that I wasn't going to budge, he kinda just disappeared.

And the original guy (we're gonna have to find a different name for him) is pretty much gone forever, too. I don't know why, but when someone comes in my life and then leaves abruptly, it changes me. With him, he entered, left, came back, left again, came back again, and left (again), and then came back. Well, do that enough times, and you've numbed me to you.

Where does that leave me? With no prospects, yes, but focused on school, work, and trying to get a job at some point in my life. And I'm trying to make good choices. Damn the gray.

I don't see myself as a bad person. Imperfect? Definitely. Very imperfect? Of course. And making good choices is frustratingly subjective, unless it's in the church. I've said it before, but I want to play by the rules while I'm here. It's tough, though. We'll see.

I'm having trouble getting this one out, so I'm gonna just post this for now and try to revisit it later. Guess I have some thinking to do. Don't get me wrong--nothing depressing here. In fact, life has been good. I really can't complain.

Yeah 3x

So I started taking medication for

A
D
H
D.

Wow. Wish I could describe it.

It's weird, you know--it's a stimulant, but it is prescribed to do exactly the opposite. Like really. Imagine yourself playing a one-man game of hot potato (so juggling?) with all of the stimuli around you in addition to a mess of unrelated thoughts in your head. That is life inside my head. It's a miracle I actually accomplish anything.

Slap me on some meds, and I can magically handle and examine one thought at a time for as long as I'd like. Really- I have never felt that way before in my life. Ever. Well, I mean I can hyper-focus, but it's usually the wrong thing at the wrong time. I've never actually made a decision to focus on something and then focused on it.

Whatever. You get the point. I just wish I would've done this like 10 years ago. Don't get me wrong: it's not like I've lived a life of underachievement and lost opportunities, but I wonder how much better I could have done with class, tests, or whatever... Aaaaaaanyways

Got a note from that missionary. Yeah. Guess I only brought up my problem with phone calls in previous posts, right? Makes my heart explode out of my chest. I hate that I get so googly-eyed.

THEN, I got a note the next day from a good friend halfway between home and school. Halfway friend? Is that like a halfway house? What exactly is a halfway house? It's settled, dude: you've got yourself a nickname... albeit a confusing one... Point is, kinda made my day after confusing missionary correspondence.

Not writing the missionary back.

Also, it's Christmas. And almost the end of the year. Maybe this is gonna be a longer post than I was expecting. A year-end reflection kinda thing? I mean, I might not be feeling it a week from now, and beggars (you) can't be choosers.

What was I doing a year ago? Well, thank goodness for this journal. I was watching Criminal Minds with my little sister and seeing that really, really good-looking guy yelling at some crazy (like stabby crazy) gay kid that there's nothing wrong with him... and then realizing that I agreed with really, really, ridiculously good-looking guy... and then realizing that I never look at a gay person and think of it as something that's wrong with them.

Then, realizing that I hold myself to a different standard, thinking that this is the only thing standing between me and a life that would make my parents, friends, family proud... selfless, right?

Haha. Right. A poor excuse to cover up the occasional (read: frequent) jolts of agony I feel for being incapable of living a life that I see as equal to those around me, acceptable in their eyes. It's really just selfish. Selfish because on some level, I'm still ashamed.

Ouch.

But why the bad stuff? I also kicked ass in school this year, survived a high-speed crash, made bank, spent some quality time with my family, finished a retaining wall, made some excellent friends, learned to cook authentic Indian food, wait-

learned you can make whipped eggnog--no shit! Just one part cream to one part eggnog. Then beat it for a long time. Haha- that's what she said. Make some drinking chocolate, top it with whipped eggnog, and sprinkle some cinnamon, and you've got yourself a drink that'll not only send the Christmas Spirit beating down your door and tracking snow through your house (all the while shouting a mixture of slurred profanities and "Merrrrrrrr Chrrstmsss"'s), but also send you into the new year with 20 extra pounds and type two diabetes.

Hands down the most amazing 2010 event thus far. Guess I've got a few days to see if anything else is gonna top that. My new meds came pretty damn close--I'll be honest.

As for the rest of it, I need to focus more on sincerity and less on outcomes, I know. We do our best to push onward and ask for forgiveness along the way because that's the most we can expect of ourselves. And in a world of inevitable interactions, collisions, human contact, I think self actualization lies somewhere around the point when we see through our own actions and outcomes to our underlying intentions. We find permission to seek and grant forgiveness for ourselves... it's a work in progress...

And you? I sincerely wish you a merry Christmas. Maybe we could all sit down to lunch sometime? Share a few hearty homo guffaws over a grilled chicken salad and an apple-tini? That was the gayest lunch I could think of...

Love Like Woe

My mom finally figured out the other night that the screaming on the answering machine was coming from the answering machine. !!! Did I tell you she used to think it was just the telemarketers calling and screaming? Hahahahahaha!

And people would call and be like, "Hello? Oh... got a worried sound on your answering machine..." Hahahaha. Telemarketers calling and screaming?!

So she finally realized it the other night and asked me, "TC, did you do something to the answering machine?" Keep in mind that I cannot tell a lie, and this isn't past-presidential-style folklore "I cannot tell a lie"about chopping cherry trees or whatever--I'm really, really awful at lying. I wish I were better.

"No?" I said, already starting to laugh. I was going upstairs to run away...

"TC, are you lying?"

I started laughing so hard that I cried and then tripped up the last of the stairs and fell in the hall.

Telemarketers? Telemarketers?!

To Clarify

This song that I'm in love with--"All I need"--it's by Mat Kearney...

That might be helpful should you find a different song under that title and wonder what the hell I'm thinking...

All I Need

This song makes me feel something--longing? Or comfort? Like something that reaches deep within and rearranges... neither creating nor destroying.

Damn you, Pandora. It's just adding to the mood. I want to be indifferent, cold, immovable. He was in the area today, so he visited--the missionary. What the hell, TC?! And why are you doing this, missionary. You left, and I thought I was free. You called. You called, again; and I prayed that it would just go away. Then you show up on the doorstep. And no matter how far I've been removed for how long, it tugs and pulls and tears off that scab I've so carefully constructed. There's something about you--I can't even tell if it's an actual physical attraction or that I just want to be where you are.

And you're not. Really. I mean, it may sound to you (the reader) like he is or could be, but you'd have to be there. It isn't a possibility. It's not a possibility.

But man, just when I think I'm strong, it shakes me to the core. I just need to remind myself that it will go away, eventually... that I'll learn to see this as what it is: a friend.

And someday, I will find someone who does the exact same thing to me as this kid does... except I'll do the same to him. It'll happen- I know it will. And it'll feel right, it'll feel comfortable.

Missionary, I'm grateful for you. I wish I didn't feel this way--really, truly wish I didn't feel this way. And you've forced me to learn and to change. You claw at the corners of my heart, though I try to cover, to hide, to harden then. And through the pain, I am reminded that I am human- that no matter how high, how long, how deep the stony wall may be, it will only ever be a feeble and failed attempt to guard the emotions that humble and humanize, that bind my soul to my body, that paint broad strokes of deep blues and purples across our landscape.

I need a change of songs. Scratch that--I need to go to bed.