Torn Between Two Worlds

The last few months, my life has seemingly become torn between two worlds.

On the one side, I'm growing up.

Fortunately, I'm not getting any taller because I already tower over too many nice and otherwise totally datable boys. So, when I say "growing up," I do not mean my heighth, but rather I mean that my life is somehow becoming more adult-esque.

My best friend is graduated from college, and so she's all adulty and in search of a job.

My schoolwork has become very intesne and I find myself captivated by scholarly conversations with my professors and discussing things like grad school options and future routes.
Four o'clock in the morning comes much harder than it did freshmen year.

A large portion of my best friends have paired off into couples, which totally changes the carefree dynamic of the group-hang into a much more civilized and conciencious time.

My guy best friends are walking the stage this summer, and the infamous whore island where I did all my hanging is going to meet its demise at the hands of they boys' graduation and in May.

My childhood best friend is married and thus a ghost.

I am the last of my friends to turn 21, so whenever we cook dinner at the house they all enjoy a nice glass of wine legally.

Our discussions have fallen largely to careers, and futures, and plans, and fears, and finances.

But, at the same time, in the midst of growing up, it seems that we're all trying desperately to hang onto the ridiculousness that dominated our first years together. Despite the future hanging over our group, taunting us like student loans, we're still overwelmingly addicted to laughter and good times.

So even though I'm growing up, It's like I'm not growing up at all.

Last night, I was hanging out with the two girls that make Canyon a livable place for me, Tab and Robbie. And we were playing Wii and cooking dinner, and listening to rap music, and spelling funny sentences on the fridge with word magnets, when all of a sudden, Tab pulls out the single greatest thing ever from behind her couch.

A midget.

Just kidding.

(But remind me to tell you the midget story if I ever see you in person.)

She pulled out one of those triangular prisms that attatch to the top of a delivery car.
Apparently she'd stolen it from a Pizza Hut Delivery guy on Halloween night and totally forgotten about it.

Yes! Small town Saturday night just got a lot more fun.

It was always a mystery to me how these delivery prisms stayed attatched to cars. I found out that there are four hockey puck sized magnets on the bottom corners and so it'll stay stuck pretty good.

After sticking the prism to the fridge while deciding what to do with it, we put in a call to whore island and went to beckoned my red-headed partner in all things mischevious, Dallas Bass.

So, despite the fact that my world has gotten increasingly more mature, between researching the political, spiritual and social influence of St. Augustine and the barbarianism, brute military force, and unprescendented networking of Genghis Khan, discussing grad school and plans, and watching relationships develop and change all around me, I still find time to stick a pizza hut delivery prism on a cop car every once in a while.

Canyon PD:
a church van:the mayor of Canyon's car:a CAT:

University Police Department Cop Car:

There's no rush in growing up.
But it's also foolish to resist change.

I'm torn between the two.
Sort of wanting both.

But really,
I think that no matter how old I get,
no matter how my situation changes,

no matter the circumstance,
the problem, the issue, the needs,

there's always room for a laugh.

No matter what worlds I am in,
I pray that I am always sort of a child.

Pansy Drawings

I like name tags.

They make you feel like you're tight with total strangers, when really, you're not at all.

It's nice to be able to say, "Thanks for the slurpee, Jeremy. Yes, I'll see you tomorrow morning also."

Or, "You have a nice day too, Cheryl, thank you for letting me play the rock band demo until closing time."

The other day I was at a restaurant, and the waitress' name was Pansy.

I giggled.

Because the thing was, she kind looked like she would be a pansy.

And then I thought about how marvelous the world would be if all of us wore name tags that didn't just say our utilitarian name, and instead they proclaimed our most becoming personal quality.

Hopefully in my fantasy world the waitress' name tag would've read something like "kind," or "giving," or "great at sewing," but not "pansy."

I'm not sure what mine would read.

"Smart ass," maybe.

"Chill," perhaps.

I don't know.

I'm trying to think of one quality that I have that I portray so often, that it would belong on a name tag.

What is it that I do ALL the time?

It's a lot easier for me to make my friends' name tags.

Even total strangers.

I just have to overhear part of someone's conversation on campus before I make them a mental name tag and stick it on their back.

"Douche."

"Trick."

"Tool."

"Arrogant."

"Dork."

How often do we make assumptions about people's name tags based on one moment of interaction?

What are the chances that I'm catching them on a bad day?

Maybe they're cat just got run over and so they're taking it out on the grocery store clerk by not saying please and thank you.

Ha, sometimes I stick actual name tags on some of my classmates in my drawings.

I have a tendency to doodle in the margins during lecture, which usually turns into a cartoon commentary of my peers and professor. I've given almost everyone in almost all of my classes nicknames based on one or two features about them, and I draw pictures of our class discussions and socratic seminars.

"Visor Guy," is a 40 something year old Iraq veteran who is coming back to school and often has a word bubble next to his cartoon self that is full of "$(@%"s cause he tends to be really opinionated and cussy. He was originally name tagged because of the unusually large athletic visor that he wore the first day of night class last semester. Because he is such a strong personality, and makes such ridiculous comments in class on a regular basis, he tends to be the star of my classtime cartoons.

"Dwight," is one of my peers who looks and acts remarkably like Dwight Schrute, a character from The Office. His mannerisms are that of a Pennsylvania beet farmer and paper salesmen and his wardrobe is, on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at least, 100% short sleeved polos.

"Lesbian Dwight," who is actually admittedly named despite my ignorance of her sexual orientation, looks exactly like the other Dwight from behind. Same haircut. Same shirts. Same glasses. But a lady. The reason my margins have labeled her lesbian dwight is because it took an embarrassingly long time for anyone to figure out she was, in fact a woman, and not a twin.

"Mumble Kid" sits between the Dwights, and whenever he speaks in class discussion, though I sit only two seats behind him, I cannot understand a word he is saying. All I can make out is a low groaning sound and the occasional chuckle.

"Old Lady 1" is a white-haired grad student who has a rolley backpack and sits in the front left of the room literally with her nose in the air as she questions or commentates every last detail of the lecture with unusually large and obscure words.

"Old Lady 2" is a white-haired undergrad student who also has a rolley backpack and sits in the front right of the room. While she is as opinionated and chatty as Old Lady 1, their viewpoints almost never match, and so they argue with one another until the professor jumps in to save all of us from the pointless cycle of argument.

I guess this all started in Freshmen Biology.

All this naming business, I mean.

Yes, it started with writing haikus and drawing pictures that detailed my awkward and unwanted interaction with "Determined," a football player who had that word tattooed down his tricep. Oh, and "Bossy Girl," whose name is self explanatory would also make an appearance into my notebook margins.

"Red-Shirted Kid," "Scary Girl," and "Bean Nazi" were all in my Biology Lab kid, but "Guy who helps me if I hoover" was undoubtedly the best to keep around whenever we were forced to use microscopes, or touch dead animals, analyze bacteria, or do other pointless, sciencey things.

I have a tendency to pick out a few details about a person, and they're tagged.

But as funny as my cartoon college commentaries may be concerning the futile nature of lab sciences for non-science majors, and the awkwardness that is the very definition of the History department are, it is not okay for me to solidify these ridiculous opinions about people.

Who am I to write their name tags?

The fact that I've been trying to write them without actually getting to know anyone is indicative of what my own should say:

"pompous spectator."

It's not that my cartoons are way off-base, or that my nicknames are unreasonable and completely degrading.

Nay, in fact, I'm pretty dead-on.

Actually 99% of the cartoons' word bubbles are only filled with direct quotes.

The problem is not that that the commentary is wrong.

The problem is that I impose this commentary without getting to know these people.

Love People.

Don't Write Their Name Tags.

Root Beer Pong

Part of my job as an RA in the dorm is to facilitate "programs," which are basically events for my residents. They can promote community service, or be educational, social or academic. And while I've done everything from teach my girls how to properly spray paint, to tye-dying shirts, to freerice.com competitions, to throwing an outrageous 80s prom, my specialty is in alcohol awareness programs.

Last year I put together a program for Cross and Jones Halls called "Beer Goggle Dodgeball."

We borrowed these goggles that resemble swim gear, but effectively impair ability to walk or see properly. They're usually used in demonstrations by different Police Departments, and are used for mock sobriety testing. But we just had everybody strap on a pair and play dodgeball, hence the name of the program.

It was a great tournament.

The catch was, "when you're drinking and driving, it's not a fair to everyone else on the road."

So four people would put on thebeer goggles and they'd play against this guy, Justin, and I, (who, as it happened, didn't have to wear any goggles,) and they'd lose every time.

That's because "you have a better shot at being a winner when you're sober."

Yeah.

I could totally work for a lame school board somewhere making up assembly presentations. I'm great at being cheesy. I should probably get paid for that crap.

But anyways, this year, I topped even Dodgeball.

Drum roll please:

Root Beer Pong.

Cross Hall Main Lobby.

Wednesday Feb. 17

8 PM

This program is a spoof of a drinking game commonly used with the non-root type of beer and is played customarily by American College students. We also played flip cup, and kings cup.

Aye.

The A&W was flowing, and tummy aches were had by all.

I'd say about 45 dorks ended up hanging out pretending to be drunk with our red party cups.

What they didn't know was that I had the Cops agree to come fake Bust our shindig.

At approximately 8:35 the police stormed in and cut the stereo off (which was a shame because whitesnake was serenading us with the big chorus of "Here I go Again") and yelled at everyone, and chased the few that made a break for it, and wrote us all tickets.

They interrogated us about where we got the root beer, and they arrested the 21+ year old who brought it, and did field sobriety tests for those that claimed to only be drinking water.

It was a pretty sweet bust, and then alcohol awareness presentation ensued.

They gave a 25 minute presentation about the risks and consequences of underage drinking, detailed the possible fines and outcomes of a pull over, and answered the often wondered questions about what is and isn't usable in the courtroom.

For sure the best program I've ever put on.

Seemed like everybody partied pretty hard for it being a Wednesday, but they all left pretty happy. Especially the boys that took home the Walmart gift cards for winning the pong tournament.

The irony in it all is that while the program did raise awareness of the perils of underage intoxication, it also taught a lot of BSM and Wesley kids how to play drinking games.

Oops.

Oh well.

Other than the whole being a bad influence on the devout, I'd say I'm dang good at my job.

Do Stuff You're Good at.

Do Stuff You Like.

"Pleasure in the Job

Puts Perfection in the Work."

-Aristotle

Ben Bailey

My friend Garrett Luna loves the television show Cash Cab.

Our freshmen year we would sit in Jones Hall and watch driver Ben Bailey cruise the crowded streets of New York City surprising riders with the trivia game show that took place in the back seat of his taxi cab.

If a traveler is lucky enough to climb into Bailey's yellow car, they have until their destination to win money by answering various questions correctly, but three strikes and they're out.

Quality television.

Yes, Luna Loves to watch Cash Cab.

And while I do too, I think that playing Cash Cab in my Pt. Cruiser is ten million times more awesome.

Yes, this is what we do for fun: I drive my friends, who insist on sitting in the back seat, around our town and ask them any question I can think of.

"What physical structure, torn down in 1989, separated the ideological differences between Eastern and Western Europe?"

"The Berlin Wall."

"What One-hit-wonder song was released by the band "Right Said Fred?""

"I'm Too Sexy."

"Which United States President is also known as the Father of the Bill of Rights?"

"James Maddison"

"The character 'James' on the hit sitcom How I Met Your Mother is played by what actor?"

"Wayne Bradey."

(I think you can tell by the questions I mustered on a moment's notice that I'm an entertainment-loving History Major.)

In the real Cash Cab, if you get the questions right then the interior lights up in checkers, and blinks obnoxiously.

Whenever my friends answer correctly, I recreate this sensation by flashing my brights, flipping the overhead light on and off, and yelling, "DING, DING, DING!"

In the real Cash Cab, if you get stuck on a question then you may partake in a ritual called a "Street shout out" where you may avert the question to a presumably smart-looking person walking near the cab along the crowded sidewalks of the Big Apple.

But since Canyon, Texas and New York, New York do not share similar population density patterns, we usually resort to stopping at a gas station and shouting our question to the least-stupid-looking cowboy filling up his truck with diesel on his way to the hoe-down, instead of a corporate business man walking from his important meeting with clients back to his important looking tall building with windows.

I also really enjoy making fun of grossly incorrect answers.

"No, it's not George Washington Carver, because he invented peanutbutter. Drop the Carver. It was just George Washington."

In addition to Cash Cab making us smarter, playing Cash Cab is Fun.

I love having friends that play with me.

They are the best.

They'll climb in the car, and answer my ridiculous questions.

They'll have dance parties with me, and play air instruments in abandon classrooms.

They'll go along with my bits about Pocohontas and John Smith so far as to refer to a tree as Grandmother willow.

They'll play video games with me until our eyes are watery.

They'll dress up in cloaks and throw me a Harry Potter Birthday party, despite the fact that I'm probably too old for that sort of thing.

They'll pretend to be spies with me and go on secret missions with airsoft guns.

They'll wrap everything I own in foil.

They'll talk about TV show characters with me as if they're a real part of our lives.

They'll shove couch cushions up their shirts and play sumo wrestler with me.

They'll write poems and draw pictures of our adventures.

They'll eat popsicles with me, and color with crayons, and watch cartoons.

They'll laugh with me until we cry.

But when all the laughter is done they know be better than anybody.

They'll say what needs said, in love, and they don't bail when things get sticky.

They're there in the good times, duh, but they've got my back in the bad ones too.

I sure do love them a lot.

I wonder if Ben Bailey has friends as awesome as mine.

Probably not.

Point for me.

a friend is someone

who knows the song in your heart

& can sing it back to you

when you've forgotten the words.

Chronicles of a Junkie

Of course I'd be refering to my addiction to adrenaline.

Enjoy.




And to answer a previously posed question...
I'm afraid to break my hands, so ever since childhood I've taken falls, and hits to the face. Without my left hand I wouldn't be able to paint, or draw, or have good penmanship. Without my right hand I wouldn't be able to throw a snowball, or shoot a basketball, or aim an airsoft gun. I like to use both to type papers late at night in the HELC.
I need my hands.
My face...
meh.
It's kinda useless.
So, the reason I fall the way I do, on my face, with my mouth in the dirt, is really just a matter of priorities.

You Gotta Know Your Priorities.

Why America is Fat

Last semester I decided it was time to get up off my lazy butt and start working out.

It's not that I thought I was fat or anything. I wasn't even overly concerned with health, (fact: I once attempted to tackle the entire dollar menu from Wendy's at once), but I figured I should at least sorta start to take care of myself if I don't want to be falling apart by 35.

I started running.

The first two weeks stunk.

I've always been athletic. I can nail someone with a dodgeball, I've run my fair share of flag football touchdowns, I play racketball often, and I was asked to join an intramural basketball team, but I'm not good at planned out exercise. Running for the sake of running is boring.

Remember my president's road failure?

It was tough to stick it out.

But after a while, I really did start to enjoy it.

I slowly got better at running for no reason and I would feel weird after skipping a day.

I stopped dreading going running and actually started to kinda look forward to it...

Then Thanksgiving came.

Then Thanksgiving went, and I had to write paper on top of paper on top of paper.

My procrastination I'd been saving for the entire semester prior had finally white-capped and it all came crashing down on me with all-nighters, all-dayers and delusional wanderings around the library and Microsoft Word documents.

As soon as I got my end of the semester papers all turned in, it was finals week.

Comprehensive blue-book essay exams waited for me in each class.

There's no time for running when your academic reputation is on the line.

It was an exercise of priorities to not exercise.

And after I'd skipped two weeks I went from missing it, to not missing it at all.

Everyone knows that if something is good for you, it isn't fun.

(Vegetables, Exercise, Homework, Christian boys, manual labor.)

But this semester it was time to put on my big girl running shorts and get back after it, fun or not.

Because my love for Taco Bell has heightened, my exercising must also increase.

This week I started the long process of getting back in shape.

I ran President's road a couple of times (without falling asleep in the grass alongside it) but today I was really feeling a nice bike ride.

I've got a route.

Long before I started running, I was biking.

Me and my red bicycle get along great. We've covered many miles together. Both through the metroplex, and in my college town.

Bicycle Suit Up!

I put on my speedo shorts and apologized to my bike for neglecting her for so long before beginning my route.

I started at WT campus and biked to the new high school for a nice warm up, and then I crossed over to Conor Park, and went past alsups, Calvary Baptist and the intermediate school before dropping back to the square on 5th avenue...

And I'm jamming to my ipod.

(since I'm on a bike I can get away with listening to upbeat rock music instead of scary, gangster rap music...)

So I'm singing "Indie Rock and Roll" under my breath as I'm pumping the pedals.

The bricks of the street are disappearing beneath me, and cute little houses stretch along each curb.

A little old man was scurrying along the sidewalk to get the mail, and since it was right at dusk, the sun was just starting to tuck behind low clouds and fill the air with an orange and pink aura.

What a cute little town I live in.

Quaint.

I wouldn't want to live here forever.

I don't want to live here forever.

But right now.

As I'm riding my bike around before I go home to start my homework, I'm cool with you, Canyon, Texas. We're good. I like you. You're not so bad.....

Aww look a doggy.

A doggy running towards me.

Hey, why can I see that doggy's teeth from here?

Oh, no.

No. no.

"NO! NO! NO NO! NO!"

Angry doggy.

I looked around for an owner in a panic.

No owner.

Just two punk WT students laughing at me and smoking cigarrettes on the tailgate of their pickup truck on the opposite side of the street. Thanks for being so chivalrous, you stupid cowboys.

"NO DOG! DOOOOOOOG, NO!"

I lifted my foot off of the left pedal as Lassie approached.

I could hear the angry growls, the cowboys' voices, and my own "NO"s soundly over the music, (which proved to be an odd soundtrack for this situation.)

It snapped it's sharp teeth at the frame of the bicycle and so I tried to kick it's face. I missed, but I think it only made the doggy angrier.

It didn't look like Lassie, by the way.

It looked like Shiloh, on steroids.

A big, tall version of Shiloh. Probably knee-high if I was standing next to it and not in fact hauling ass away from it on a bicycle.

So, I was on 5th and 12th...and I stood up on the bike and pedaled as hard as I could towards eastward towards 11th, but the stupid dog was all jacked up on roids and was totally keeping up with me.

LEFT! towards 4th Avenue...

Oh, no...traffic, I can't cross here without looking both ways, and I can't stop....

LEFT AGAIN!

along 4th Avenue...

He was about a yard from my back tire barking and growling and making me want to piss myself.

I stayed westbound along 4th trying to gain speed all the way to the Valero gas station that's back there somewhere, and hoping that the beast would get distracted by some other target.

Nope. Puppy only had eyes for me.

This was like the scene out of the Sandlot where Benny stole the ball back out of the yard and Hercules is chasing him all through town...

Okay, not as epic, but just as scary.

Anyways, the dog seriously gave no one in the Valero parking lot so much as a thought as he stayed behind me.

I needed to cross 9th but there was a car coming.

The driver saw me and gave the West Texas one-finger wave and I shot across the street...

The driver didn't see the dog.

How dare you feel sorry for the dog.

It was trying to make me a Monday night snack.

Besides, it totally didn't get run over by the car.

I mean, they ended up seeing the dog a second later, locked up the breaks and skidded to miss the stupid mutt, but they didn't end up hitting it.

And, no, I didn't stick around to make sure the dog got home safely because I don't care.

Instead I realized something.

Even the most quaint of places will have their problems.

Also, exercising is dangerous

and that's why America is fat.

Because if you exercise and try

to make a healthy decision

you will get chased down

by an angry Beagle-Warewolf mix.

Be Careful,

It's a Dog Eat You World Out There.

Deals with the Devil

I feel like it's well established that many Christians are morons.
Prosperity gospel preaching clowns for example. Or naive, socially awkward fundamentalists that impose their standards on people that don't know Christ. And snobby, rich, white Christians that only interact with other people of equal or greater economic value.

Obviously we're all going to fall short, time and time again, in some way or another, (hence the need for the gospel,) but it seems like if we're walking with Christ he would be slowly purging us of our stupidity.

For some reason or another that doesn't always happen.

On the whole, we Christians have issues extending the grace that we've received, and instead of presenting the world with Christ's love, we usually confront them with judgement and spiritual supremacy.

But Pat Robertson really went above and beyond the call of embarrassingly skewed logic in his recent comments regarding the disaster in Hati.

It is no wonder that our faith is a joke to the world with ignorant men like Robertson representing us in the public forum.

Anyways,
This is a Re-Post from the NPR blog. (Click the link for the original page.) That I found both insightful and entertaining.

The 'Devil' Writes Pat Robertson A Letter
By Frank James

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune published a letter from Satan to evangelist Pat Robertson, responding to his comment that Haiti's persistent troubles, including the earthquake, are due to a pact the nation made with Mephistopheles.
Actually, it wasn't Satan who wrote the letter but Lilly Coyle of Minneapolis writing in the persona of the hellish one.
I think she got it down pretty well. What say you?

Dear Pat Robertson,

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action.

But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished.

Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"?

If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll.

You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan
LILY COYLE, MINNEAPOLIS

Satan is right.

I think that America might be the one in trouble.

Uhhh Ohhh...