a new gig

So I get to school a little early today thanks to a co-worker needing to get her done just down the street. Prepared to sit back and surf the web (and maybe, MAYBE, work on my big paper due on Monday), I get there to hear that a product testing thingy needs another tester and I'd be paid twenty bucks.

So I sign up, I wait fifteen minutes, and then try food for ten minutes longer while giving my feedback...and they hand me a brand new twenty dollar bill. How sweet is that?

for those in grand rapids

Craig's List has added a page for us, if you wanna check it out (not that many have added to it).

for those in grand rapids

Craig's List now has a Grand Rapids page...though it seems not many have posted anything yet.

my space

My brother got me to join My Space this weekend, but as of yet I am lacking in the friends department. If any of you readers out there are members, befriend me so I don't look such the loser, eh? (or at least there's a picture or two of me on there if you've never seen what I look like and care to)

ahhhhhhhh..yeah, sure, uh-huh

Read this article entitled, simply, "Satan's image seen on shell of turtle that survived inferno".

Perhaps we are indeed in the end times.

...or maybe people gotta get lives. It took me looking for the damn "image" to actually see what the guy was thinking about. Then again, if people see Jesus in a frying pan, on people's x-rays, or just about anywhere (try used band-aid, post-tornadic cloud, coin drawer), then why not the devil on a turtle's back. He needs his due afterall.

the smell of the season

Spring thaw has finally come to the wintry North that is Grand Rapids, Michigan. The sounds of chirping birds fill the air, the potholes in the roads are widening at exponential rates, and the smell of spring fills the air.

The smell is a combination of freshness and dirt -- of awakening trees on the one hand; of mud and six months of dog crap thawing out all at once on the other. Disgusting as the parts might be, the whole enlivens my soul.

a new blog

I mentioned yesterday that a fried had given me a book idea. Well, I've been thinking about it since then and it be a really cool idea. So I've started another blog for the project to see if things will pan out:

The People on the Bus

Check it out if you want.

a re-affirmation of faith

At work there is a woman who is one of those church snob types. You know the type: whether you're a good person or not, whether you believe in God or not, whether you are happy or not is totally irrevelent...your goodness depends on your church attendence. The more you go, the better a human being you are; the less you go, the worse you are. If you don't go -- you are on a one-way track to the deepest, darkest, hottest, most agonizing pits of Hell.

For those on their way, she can't help but try and save. She'll scorn if you deny her efforts, but she'll try and try and try until her conscience is clear of your eternal damnation. Then you're shit.

She's started pulling this crap on a friend of mine. She hasn't gone to church in a long, long time, but she remains a very faithful person. To me, that's what matters...a personal relationship with God being infinitely more purposeful and meaningful than a public one.

In any case, it reminds me of why I stopped going to church so many years ago now. I've mentioned it before, I'm sure of it, so I won't go into it again, but suffice to say it is people like this woman and myriad other phonies that pushed me away. I got out before all of them pushed me to question whether God was just some made up cosmic superstar of which the entirity of the church was some mega fanclub. It could have happened too...it almost did while I attended the conservative christian college that I did...but I stopped associating myself with the people there too.

I, for one, have a deep personal faith in God and feel a need right now to share it with the world; not to preech, but just to say it out loud:

The Earth is the cathedral in which I worship, more beautiful than any brick and mortar creation of man;
The sounds of everyday life, of conversation, is my hymnal;
Playing children the choir and their laughter, their song;
My conscience the minister;
Love is my communion;
Every waking moment a prayer.

slap me awake

Recently I got a good slap in the face and it worked wonders to wake me up. A friend of mine who I had been crushing on for what seems forever decided that she couldn't hang out with me. At first I was pissed. It came, I thought, out of the blue -- she having told me the week before, after having a talk about things, that everything was cool. For a week I was just plain mad at her for what she had done to me...dumping me from her life after having me go through my feelings, trying to get over her so we can be friends without issue, for a long, hard several months and just as I felt I finally got the closure I so desparately needed. For two weeks I wondered if we could even be friends anymore after that -- it hurting me so much. But now, for the last week or so, I'm realizing that it was good for me.

I fell into the trap of blaming others for my problems again. It's something that I've always had trouble with, something that gets in between me and friends way too much. I'm selfish sometimes, not willing to admit my own shortcomings, instead trying to put it all on other people. I get stuck in moments that I can't get out of, and by the time I get unstuck, the proverbial shit has already hit the fan. Hell, too often the shit has to hit the fan before I even realize that it's in the room stinking it up.

I'm awake now, I think. I'm seeing the world and my life through different glasses, trying to keep them from getting too rose-colored. I want to move forward. I want to get better. I want to accomplish things and become a better person as the result. This is an improvement. Though I have been pushing myself to better myself for a few months now (having used my time out up at my dad's as a launching point), it was more of a have to than a want to. For that I am grateful for the pain and stress in my life recently. It was reawoken me to my purpose.

Heck, I even think I have a purpose all of a sudden. Imagine that.

As for the friend. We are still not hanging out, though we talk at work and she even gave me a ride home today (and a really good idea for a writing project which I'm looking into working on). I hope that we can straighten things out. I think we will...it'll just take some time apart. I miss the innocence of our friendship before my feelings got out of control and everything turned awkward and weird; I miss the laughing, the fun, the just sitting around talking and watching movies. They were good times. I just hope I haven't so screwed things up to prevent our going back.

OK, I have to get off the internets now and work on the paper which I came to the coffeeshop two and a half hours ago to work on.

and good will to all

There was excitement on the busride to work this morning.

Tammy (or Tami, or Tammi) is a mentally handicapped woman, about 50 years old, who rides the bus to Goodwill Industries every morning for class. For however long, she's been going there, working on her GED. For the past week or two there's been a look in her eyes, a glow, and it's been growing brigter everyday. Today, her jubilancy overtook her.

Listening in on her conversations with her classmate John (listening in being involuntary as loud as she speaks), I knew that she was winding down with her work there. In the past couple weeks, it seems, she has received a couple of different certificates of one sort or another, this past Monday having brought one on the bus that she had framed in some cheap black thing she presumably bought at some thrift store. She couldn't help herself to show it off. She was happy.

Although she has always been the type to talk to anyone, asking lots of questions of those (un)fortunate to sit anywhere near her, today there was no avoiding it. This Friday she is graduating and she wants the whole world to know about. She talked the busdriver's ear off, reminded John of their big day, retold me and my workmate Tom of her accomplishment at least a couple of times, and tried to let everyone else who would lend an ear know of her joy.

As we got closer to Goodwill, which is too stops past mine, the excitement only seemed to grow. What was just an almost psychotic glow on her face turned to a jitteriness, culminating in excited screams of "yippee!" and "woohoo!" (yes, those exact words) five minutes before she was to get off.

As she told everyone, she told me her plans. After graduating on Friday, she's going to get a job working in the kitchen of Ferguson Hospital (or, rather, as a food prepper not cooking as she seemed to stress). She's excited about it. Really excited about it. I gotta say, as excited as she was, I got excited for her. I think just about everyone on that bus that didn't automatically write her off as "just some retard" did. It's hard not to catch the excitement when it's that contagious.

It's a good way to start the day to see someone that excited about where their life is going. So good to see someone fid such a sense of accomplishment, especially when they're disadantaged like she is.

With that I want to wish Tammy the best of luck in all of her endeavors, it is truly uplifting to meet people like her on our travels through life. Though I may never see her again, she will be remembered in some small way as I too work to acheive and grow, hoping that I can find as much self-satisfaction and pride in whatever I may work towards. God speed, Tammy -- it was nice to cross your path.

With that I'm going add that a plug for Goodwill again. It's not just a place for inexpesive, second-hand clothes. It has a mission to help the disadvantaged become more productive in ther lives. The money they raise helps people like Tammy acheive ther goals and find the pride that I witnessed this morning. Shop there or at least donate your old clothes, it does so much for so many.

how dumb am i?

Cute girl at work...a week ago she came up to me to say she saw me at the bar the previous weekend, but wasn't sure it was me. I take that sort of thing as a sign of one thing or anoter (though I realize that it may just be friendliness). Anyway, tonight some people from work are going to the bar to do a little drinkin' and a little kareokein' and I invited her.

Well, actually, a (female) friend of mine invited her last week. That's good enough you would think. Today she came up to me and asked if we were still planning on going. "Yeah," I say, "you're still coing too, right?". She said she was hoping to. Later on in the day as we were leaving work, me kind of wanting her to go to maybe see if something could happen between us, I ask her again if she's going. If she's still awake she says. Walking out to the parking lot she gets to her car and I keep walking towards the bus stop, I turn to her from across the lot "be there or be square!"

...I am always going to be alone. I may as well get used to it.

Then again, maybe she will show up, maybe something will happen, and maybe I'll get a date one of these days. But maybe I'm just too much of an optomist sometimes.

save a life for your own use

The Republicans in Congress and the Wite House have nearly successfully dragged out the death of that poor woman in Florida yet again for their own political purposes.

This whole thing is an issue full of egos. The parents should be ashamed for dragging out their daughter's life like this. It's their insecurity they're trying to protect, no ther daughter's life. I know it's hard, I had to deny my mother treatment that would have extended her life by days...it wasn't easy, but it was for the best.

For the record, if ever I am so injured that the entire list of my physical abilities is moving uncontrollably and drooling, please please please unplug me. Please?

bush to world: "go fuck yourself"

...at least if you believe that actions speak louder than words.

Last week it was an anti-UN guy nominated to be UN envoy, now Wolfowitz to head the World Bank. Let me underscore that second one -- the mastermind of the Iraqi War, head of the neocon movement, one of the most distrusted men in the administration by our European allies, very very distrusted in the Middle East as an anti-Islam Israel supporter, head of an international body. That sounds like a way to heal wounds as Bush has said he wants to do...fan-fucking-tastic.

it's springtime

There's still snow on the ground, the temperature hasn't been above 40 in forever, there are no songbirds, or sunny days, or anything aproaching leaves on the trees...

But there's a flutter in my heart and a tingle in my drawers and that's enough for me to call it.

death to a dream

I need a vacation something fierce, but I don't think it's going to happen. What I thought might be a week or two off of work and school is looking more and more like a long weekend...not long enough to go someplace...getting the hell out of Dodge is pushed off until August (I haven't spent a night outside my county in FIVE YEARS now...talk about cabin fever). *sigh*

On the upside, what I would've spent on the plane and bed and food can be thrown at some debt...maybe opening up a little credit on a card that I finally have available credit on for the first time in well over a year. ugh.

Responsibility sucks sometimes.

Then again, I just saw a news report about an old high school in town being rennovated into condos. They're putting up a gob of tax incentives to buyers (no state or local income taxes, lowered property taxes) and a 4.5% mortgage, bringing the monthly payments of a $100,000 condo down to a little over $500 a month -- less than I pay now for rent. If they can look past my credit problems and give me a chance, I'm seriously thinking of buying.

breast wishes

Yesterday I found out that a friend of mine had a breast cancer scare. Without going into specifics, she found a lump in her breast while she was taking a shower and had to go through the hell of biopsy and waiting. Luckily, she got the results back pretty quickly and the tumor is benign, but it still was enough to scare me as she went through the story...a story she wasn't sharing with anyone while she was going through it, not wanting to scare her mother or her friends.

In any case, it was a close call. A close call in a 31-year-old.

So I want to beg and plead all my female readers to please, please, please make sure they always do a monthly exam. It could save your life.

and if you need some help... ;)

i'm drunk right now

It's been, what, months since I've had enough alcohol to feel even close to this drunk, but I do and it feels wonderful.

Bar conversatios of the evening:

1. The name of the man who jumped out of the plane over Washington with millions: D.B. Cooper

2. The name of the black guy on who's line is it anyway: Wayne Brady

3. Is that is Hootie on the Burger King commercial.

4. Lindsay Lohan?: Hot, but I wouldn't do her because I don't like big-breasted girls. (oh hell, yes I would)

5. Will I erase this blog entry when I realize how stupid-drunk it is? In theory, yes. In reality, no.

Peace out.

fly me to the moon

Life is stressful. I need a break. I may have an open week about a month from now and a couple hundred dollars to get somewhere...I just need to figure out where. Any suggestions out there? My list now is:

1. Edinbourgh
2. Dublin
3. Montreal
4. Prague (plane ticket may be too expensive)
5. Somewhere South of the border
6. Hudson Bay
7. Amsterdam

It's so hard to decide, but a week of sitting around reading, writing, people watching, and drinking (or other things if I go to Amsterdam) sounds like exactly the right salve for my achy mind.

the hardest thing...

I'm really working on improving myself. I'm trying to kick my life into gear, stop making excuses, and otherwise clearing the cobwebs from my existence. I think I am doing a fine job of that, better than I wuld have thought possible. I'm in school and will more than likely have a good (government) job in two years, I am paying my debts way down, I am living on my own, losing weight (a notch on the belt in a month!), and otherwise feeling wonderful...confident in myself even.

But people don't see it.

The human mind is such that we see what we WANT to see, hear what we WANT to hear, sense what we WANT to sense is reality. We are creatures of habit that yearn for familiarity and even when faced with change, sometimes don't sense it well enough to embrace it. Or even to admit the new face of things.

It brings me down that those in my life don't seem to understand the feelings that I feel, the changes that I have undertaken, the peace that has come over me. When what seems so blindingly obvious to me doesn't even make my friends blink an eye, it makes me wonder if what is so obvious and REAL to me really is. It leaves me very. very. confused.

feelings expressed...nerdlike

People sometimes say that I look like Clark Kent. Maybe so, but looks are as far as comparisons go...I have no secret identity.

welcome to the third millenium

I think I love my computer. I was a bit weary of getting a computer with a Celeron Processor but I've thrown as much at this thing as I ever really will this afternoon (downloading programs I want, uploading CDs -- since I have way more space than I'll need any time soon, why not? -- and surfing the web at a coffee shop...and it's taken it all. It helps that I got twice as much RAM and harddrive space than I really needed, I'm sure. I'm happy.

I'm always a little sick to my stomach when I spend so much, especially when I'm not so sure about what I'm buying. But hey, it's Toshiba and they don't make much in the way of crap. I hope.

the old in-out in-out

Well, I'm at the library again, using their interet access, but this time on my own damn computer. Yesterday morning my student loan money was deposited so last night, rather than attend the scond half of my class, I went out and bought a new notebook. Cheap as I am, I'm not getting internet access at home (maybe if cable has a deal I will eventually), so I have to rely on the air in here for my internet. It's not bad...my keyboard, my screen, my computer -- with no time limits and barely any slower (WiFi being slower than DSL or cable or however te library's computers are hooked up). So now, my friends, I should be able to post more regularly again...even if that means writing when I want and predating when I get some coverage.

Then again, fooling around last night I found that a few of my neighbors have WiFi set up...if I can manage to find a way to boost the signal, I may be able to use theirs...

holy crap

So it's been over a week since I've posted, a matter of life getting in the way more than anything else...

I started working the test scoring gig last Tuesday. Add into that having school on Monday and Thursday nights, and having three to five hours of reading and writing (and last week having a take home midterm to write on top of that) for each class, the bus ride to and from both work and school sucking up 45 minutes of my time a pop, my using my limited internet time to search for a computer to get with my loan dispursement (tomorrow hopefully), and the library's closing at 9pm, and I just don't have time to sit here and write. Toss in a little private-life crisis where things bottled up too long needed to come out (and finally did yesterday, thank God) for icing on the cake and you have the last week or two of my life. Sorry all.

Life should be settling down a bit soon, especially once I can get my computer...which will allow me to work on my own time rather than the computer lab's time.