Dusk And Summer

Well this is my end of summer report...I guess we can call it that. If I had written this exactly a week ago, it would have been a totally different story. I would have had to say that this was the most uneventful and bland summer, and that besides the bad nothing happened that I could call something good.

Well I will have to take that back. I made a new friend and after that I could look back on the things that happened over this summer that weren't all bad. I really did spend most of the first half of the summer alone. I think that for someone who has depression this is really the right way to help them, am I right? But there were a few occasions I got to see my friends and just hang out with them. I don't count school because there such a time constraint and limit on what you can do.

Anyway, I also go to go see people like Brandon, Tarin, and Heather. It was nice seeing all of them, Brandon let me stay with him and we had some great times watching the Angry Video Game Nerd. We set up and talked, went outside and just had cigars and it was like old times again. That's something I really missed and kind of felt empty without. Rickey and I just hung out and talked, I kept him up just like old times. And Heather has been supportive and has helped me through some pretty hard times and all with my brother.

I didn't get to see Prentiss as much, but I talked on the phone with him often enough that it was the same. We are always the same and I am convinced that this is how we will continue to be. Tarin I only got to see one time and it was only for a few hours. It was awkward because her new boyfriend was someone I had never met and I am sure he didn't like me. He's not the type of guy I would hang around with but I would say that none of the guys she dates are. But it was still great to see her and I got some pictures out of the deal.

Also I got a lot of writing done this summer, and insane amount. And I am glad for that because I felt like I really wasn't getting anywhere before.

But one of the things that happened this summer that came out of nowhere was Kat, we met on a forum site for Naruto and was later realized that she lived like right across from me in another subdivision. I really only spoke to her because she went to school in San Marcos and knew Stephanie Adams. But in such a short time I made friends with someone who is eerily similar to me and just so much fun to be around. Thanks for being there Kat and making this summer so much better than it is.

Sadly the one thing I promised to do this summer, beat Final Fantasy XII, hasn't happened yet, because I am a lazy person and I hate keeping promises to myself.

Fortune Cookie

I haven't written in this blog in what seems like forever. In actuality there has been real reasons for my choice not to write as much in here. Collectively over the last few weeks I have written over fifty pages of stuff that was story alone, this does not include the papers for school. And as I write this right now I have two more papers ahead of me before I can rest.

This last week has been turbulent to say the least but it ended up being one of the best weeks yet. Having someone nearby who I could hang out with and just go out and do stuff with has been comforting. That sense of not belonging and just not having a place I've felt since, oh I don't know, about September of last year seemed lifted for a while in the last place I expected that to happen. Right here in Spring.

Its hard not to think of the fortune from earlier this week in the half assed cookie in which it was housed. You will face new challenge everyone reads this kind of stuff the same. The fortune is bad news, just eat the cookie and when you bad news comes it will seem less cosmic...you won't feel like God has an out for you if the cookie didn't tell you that you had this coming

But what if the challenge isn't a bad one, even though the cookie didn't tell you the answer it sure as Hell predicted what will happen. And as a person who usually scoffs that these sorts of things. I have to say that no challenge is without at least looking at to see if its worth taking on. Few will read this blog, even fewer will understand it, even less than that I will want to understand it.

But know this, the last few months have been turmoil, uncertainty, life changing. This week I had an epiphany, an eleventh hour awakening that has set me up for the next stage of life. And to think, a little strip of paper with a line of lotto numbers on one side and a sentence on the other might just have triggered it.

Cursed Out in Class

So last night I got cursed out in a classroom. A classroom that was full of students and one teacher. Let me start out by saying I should have known that when I opened my mouth and said something I was going to start a fire. Even though what I said was something that I would think any reasonable person could agree was not offensive or controversial.

The way all of this started was with the topic of minorities in Sociology class. Now when you hear the word minority a lot of you are already thinking racially, but we talked about many kinds of minority. Another guy in the class who was white asked the question randomly about BET which as I am sure you are aware stands for Black Entertainment Tonight, I mean I think the 'T' is for tonight. I don't give a damn enough to go look.

Anyway, what he asked was 'What would happen if whites had a White Entertainment Tonight (or whatever that 'T' is for)'? Well I could tell where this was going, and after the teacher did her little explanation of how norms and culture trends I stepped in and simply said that the question that should be asked was, 'Why is there still a BET? There is nothing of quality on that station, nothing of substance, this a devoid hole. To quote myself from earlier, its a gaping goatseed anus on our TV dial.

You see, this is where you would think the argument started. But really it wasn't. The teacher bought up something else, I couldn't even hear her much, but she mentioned this neighborhood called Sienna Plantation, its a nice place, floods a lot but still nice. But this black lady cut in, over the teacher, her exact words were 'I don't see how any black person can live in a neighborhood with Plantation in the name.'

I simply said, 'It's just a word, any word is what you make of it.'

This woman started out semi-calm, 'How can you say that?' then I couldn't hear for a second, 'she said something about me not being black enough.' They teacher cut her off. Like ten seconds later she gets up out of her seat yelling and carrying on, telling me how I am an 'ungrateful fuck' then she said the dumbest thing. She asked, 'How can you say slavery is just a word?'

Did you see the word slavery anywhere in what I just typed until this point? I thought not. I tried to explain that Plantations aren't just for slaves, aren't just for blacks and that in South America they are still in use today to make coffee.

This is when she talked right over me and continued to curse, yelling and carrying on. At that point I shut down because you don't have to yell to talk. And I don't deal with crazy bitches, sorry but I have dealt with enough crazy people in my life. I don't have to hear it from one more. And anyone who flips out over the word Plantation...or even the word Nigger can go cry to someone who gives a damn, because I am tried of trying.

Eventually it calmed down, I didn't say anything back to her because she wasn't making sense and that's how crazy people are. In all honesty she's the same one who goes on and on about her good Christian crap and suddenly she can't forgive a bunch of people who died about five generations ago in the late 1800's? That's asinine if I have ever heard of anything being asinine and I dare anyone to argue with me how that opinion she brought up even makes sense.

I'll say this as quickly as I can because I am going to have to wrap this up. But the main problem with race relations is that people of the same race want to group together and blame others. Some of the most racist people I have seen are other blacks talking about whites and they think that anytime something happens to them its racially motivated. A lot of them don't seek to better themselves, they just complain about how its this other races fault they can't rise up. Well let me tell you, maybe if you read a book, got out and did something, got some culture, and I don't mean culture from a record store or a magazine, maybe if you stopped acting like anyone who doesn't have the same skin tone as you is out to get you, or like every time you do something wrong and get caught that its your race that made you get in trouble you wouldn't have such a hard time becoming a productive member of society.

And just in case anyone cared, the high school inside of Sienna Plantation is named after a black guy...

Black History Month

Yeah I know, it might seem kind of odd that I would bring this whole thing up so late in the month, its the last day. But I wanted to say something when I thought that it would be appropriate. I was in the car the other day with my sister—in—law's mother and father. We were having a discussion about something unrelated to race and her mother mentioned that she had a problem with black men marrying white women. I thought the comment was so stupid I laughed.

Why I thought it was so stupid is because we are sitting here wondering why so many problems relate back to race in today's society. I can look around where I am right now and see people of different races sitting distinctly apart from each other and having nothing to do with one another. When I know and you know that if these people over here would fuck those people over there, then they'd be all mixed and they're wouldn't be two separate groups of people staying apart. The fastest way to get rid of racism is mix the races. Remember when two Kingdoms were trying to become one what they used to do, have a prince from one marry a princess from the other.

If God didn't want races to mix he'd have made more than two sexes (already some people have found a loop hole).

Now this next thing is in response to something that I saw posted on that infinite well of useless information that is known as Myspace. Someone posted a bulletin about all of the injustice that has been done to whites in the last feel years, and I have to say that while I don't normally take a stance about issues of race, because I think most people need to let it go...I will say that some of the things I read in there were a little backwards.

Probably the only thing that really stuck out to me that I saw in this bulletin were that racial slurs only seemed to count when whites said them and that there isn't a white history month, but this is a black one. Okay for the first thing, who cares about racial slurs, my three best friends, one of them black, the other two white; one of the white ones calls me his nigger sometimes, you think I care if he does this? No! And yes I have been called that word by someone meaning it in a hurtful way, doesn't bother me. I might still hit them or something, but I just like to fight and am violent like that.

As for the black history month thing...have you looked at a history curriculum? Every month is white history month. I mean even in World History classes they usually focus on Western Europe, and when they aren't they're comparing it to that part of the world and relating things back to there. I am actually for them getting rid of Black History month and putting it into the rest of the school year according to when it happened. But that's just because I think history should be told in order and not broken up by who did it.

It's A Small World Afterall...

Well just like the title says, you would be shocked how you can go four hundred miles and find a common connection. Well first off I need to say that my first three test grades have been 84, 88, and 23/25...this I am proud of. But after getting my latest test back I was walking out of class with this girl I have been talking to some, not in that way, but she's pretty cool. Her name is Melanie.

Well Melanie was telling me she spent a semester in Florida and I asked her why, well she told me that she did and Internship with Disney. Well that is the same thing that someone else I know did, someone I don't talk to anymore, I won't name any names but...yeah.

It just seemed so strange to me that I knew two people who had done this same thing. I told her some about the fact that I knew someone who had been a part of the same program, as a matter of a fact they had even asked me if I wanted to do the same thing and I turned it down, I don't know why but I am glad I did.

This is just further proof that things aren't as disconnected as people would think.

Corruption of Innocence

If you're like me and you've been on the Internet for any amount of time, you've seen some things. Disturbing things that most human beings would cringe at, Tub Girl, Goatse, 4chan; these images or places on the Internet might not be known to all. But to those who know them they stick in your head. If you have not already seen them, I would suggest you don't, they are graphic and disgusting to the normal person. I spent a year working at an Internet forum, I built a tolerance. but it is the things like these images that let us know that the Internet is like the free market of jokes and anything else, there's a demand for everything out there, someone wants it and if you're around too long you will accidentally find it.

Now here's the thing I want to focus on specifically. Most of you know I am not a fan of porn, but the I can understand and rationalize porn. I don't need to explain the rationalization, we all know what porn is for. But the thing I cannot understand is animated porn, especially the kind where there are no people.

Someone recently reminded me that we ran across an ad for Finding Nemo porn one time, I almost clicked it just to see if they were serious. I mean no one could be turned on by that?! The only appeal of it is the shock that someone would twist up a story about fish (where one of the only female actresses in the movie wouldn't touch a guy in the first place) and make it something dirty.

I think its that people like seeing something innocent corrupted.

I mean had it been Aladdin, or Little Mermaid we would be shocked for a short while, but after so many Disney and kid movies, its just the same old thing. That won't draw the audience.

So what happens when animals, who don't even have sex in our terms, isn't enough to draw you in? Enter Cars porn. I kid you not. Now these are machines, it'd be like watching your toaster and blender go at it. Inter-appliance relations. How can the people doing this justify what they are doing? How can they think that this is not in some way feeding a sick fascination that people have with corruption?

How many men do you know who have fantasies about doing something corruptive to innocence. Let me give you a common one, and I'm not knocking having sexual fantasies, because it's not always a bad thing. But look at all of the guys who talk about women, or girls is what we should call them, in those Catholic School Girl Outfits. Believe it or not that's a corruption of innocence issue. The idea is that by wearing this outfit, the girl is portraying herself as innocent.

I think its a conquest thing. So many guys want to sleep with a girl her first time because its like going to the Moon, or like sailing uncharted waters, the first flight across the Atlantic; its just something to conquer to them. After doing it for a while there are no emotions involved, its just glorified self pleasure.

Down Points And Shades of Gray

This morning I went to a place that I hadn't even thought about in probably thirteen years. I went back to my old elementary school. You see before I moved out to Manvel, before my mother died when I was six, I lived in Spring, Texas and I went to school right where my nephew goes now.

Of course, that was all fourteen years ago. And now I fee old, fourteen years. From the moment that we stepped into the cafeteria it was kind of creepy. I mean when i think of that place everything was so huge. I was so tiny. I remember not being able to see over things, and now those same things barely reach my waist. I remember it taking forever to walk down those halls after recess but because my stride is bigger now the walk is barely even registrable as a walk.

I took my nephew this morning because of the Donuts for Dad's event that was going on at his school. His dad, my brother was out of town on account of business. Funny though, they were doing the exact same event when I was his age and my father couldn't make it, the price of having a dad as a doctor. I suppose sometimes I think that I wish I had more time with my parents, you know before I got to that age where I realized half of what they told me was bullshit and that they annoy the Hell out of me.

But I wonder what the me back then would say if he met the me now. I don't even think little kids know what to say. Their minds don't work the same, they're more abstract. And the world they observe, even though it might be the same world we observe, is a much happier place when you don't have over a decade of grief backing it up. When my mom died that was probably when I realized that bad things didn't just happen on television. And that when bad things happened they weren't resolved in thirty minutes with time enough for commercial breaks.

I used to watch a lot of Nick at Night when I was a kid, now there is a world you would want to live in,want your kids to live in. All of that wonder and hope, all of the problems ironing themselves out in one or two episodes. No grief and best of all, no shades of gray. Because the shades of gray are what really get you in life, the areas where its hard to tell right from wrong and your moral compass is going berserk.

Life, well life now, seems to just be marked by a series of down points and the areas of gray fogginess. And the trick, I've learned is to learn what down points to dodge, which ones you can't and how to take a hit. Through all of this gray fog you can't see far ahead and some things aren't always morally spelled out.