2010!! WOO!!!!

So yesterday I meant to post witty commentary about the new year that no one will ever read but I've been lazy. Not a good way to start off 2010 (pronounced twenty-ten, btw) but it'll still be better than whatever this past year was...

...2009, you say? Ha ha, silly people. 2009 never happened! You know how I know? Because I don't remember anything about it! If I can't remember it, it didn't happen. Must...dance away...shame...*turns on blaring salsa music* DANCE, FOOLS!!! DANCE TO FORGET!!!

...*breathes*

Alright, so for posterity's sake, I've decided to catalogue and "publicize" (hah) my resolutions, along with how likely it will be for me to follow through on these. I've made several. So, without further ado, here's how I plan to make my life better than the past year (which didn't happen)...

RESOLUTION THE FIRST: Find a part time job
So working on the set of Law and Order: La Raza for six months now is all well and good, but the fact of the matter is that I'm still an all-too-willing collectivist slave an unpaid volunteer. The impetus behind getting a paying job faded once I realized I wouldn't be in El Chuco long enough to sign a lease on an apartment, and my parents are willing to give me money for booze and strippers and small arms for "incidentals." Still, it would be nice to have some money of my own to mess around with, especially since I'd like to go back to North Africa this summer. Ideal job: clothing store or Barnes and Noble. Something away from food.

Probability of success: moderate.

RESOLUTION THE SECOND: Losing 12 to 15 pounds by March 1
Okay, so everyone who knows me knows I've been trying to lose weight since God knows when, but the thing was, I wasn't *really* trying. Now, I have a plan involving how many calories I may consume daily. Also, fast food has been banished to Fridays, I plan on going to the gym on a daily basis by mid-January and then going twice a day on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays by February. I've got a PLAN. Currently, I weight 181. Ideally, I'd like to be down somewhere around 167 to 169.

Probability of success: again, moderate. I probably won't succeed in every part of the plan, but by March 1, I expect to have lost *some* weight. If not, ima be pissed.

RESOLUTION THE THIRD: Learn one chapter from Build Your Arabic Vocabulary a week until I learn all the words by May 1
Yep, another resolution with a deadline. I've been lazy in keeping up my Arabic, and the Syrian owner of the Sunglass Hut at Cielo Vista seemed a little wary when I came up to him with a fresh buzzcut and tried to chat him up. So I've decided to learn a chapter of vocab every week, beginning with food, until I have memoried all 1,000 words. To be fair, I already know a lot of them.

Probability of success: Well, depends. If I stick with it, it's certainly do-able. (As are all these, I guess...)


RESOLUTION THE FOURTH: Memorize all eight SparkCharts related to law before May 31
Basically, I found these charts at Barnes and Noble that outline everything I'm going to be learning my first semester of law school. Since on occasion I can be a notorious half-ass, I figure I'll get a head-start on my legal studies, lest I find myself ready to snap psychologically encapsulated by the crushing sense of quiet desperation small-town charm of Waco my first semester.

Probability of success: Eh, no biggie. I don't really *have* to, it would just lessen the pain of the inevitable mind-meld that is law school

RESOLUTION THE FIFTH: Take a multivitamin supplement
Let's face it -- I eat crap everyday. I'm the furthest thing from a vegan you'll ever find. I don't even come *close* to eating a balanced diet, and sadly, I probably never will. That's why I need a multivitamin. This is an incredibly easy thing to do. Sadly, it's the New Year's resolution I am least likely to follow through on because of it.

Probability of success: Very low, indeed.

L'snob? C'est moi

Quote of the Day:

"Todavia estoy debating si quiero dejar cheeseburgers pa que yo sea ripped. En este momento, creo que no. Ese pinche payaso de McDonald's me hace gordo pero feliz..." -- Me to La Diosa, re: weight loss

Oh reality checks -- how unwelcome yet necessary you are. If only alcohol could make the impact of the following statement, which is apparently shared by many coworkers, less...impactful:

"Wow, I'm really glad we're talking! You're actually really cool and friendly and fun! I mean, honestly, at first when I met you, I thought you were, like, a snob. You were all quiet. I remember one time I tried to be social, and you said like a one-word answer, and I saw you were on Facebook, and I felt all sad..."

Fantastic. I am the office douchebag. I suppose the upside of this would be confirmation of the fact that I am *not* unfriendly, uncool, and unfunny, but still. I'm the only dude in an office full of women! That's intimidating. Plus I work at a law firm, I can't just stroll in and start talking about what debauchery my friends and I engage in on the weekends! It's not like it's *that* bad, but even if it weren't subject to Bro Code exemptions, it's still not usually office-appropriate.

Whatevz. I'll start going on the charm offensive. I'm really not a withdrawn, anti-social douche! Please love me...

Also, little ego boosts of the day: even at Mulligan's on a Thursday night, I still get recognized. "Hey, you played saxophone in high school, right? You did region stuff and you were really good?" Four years later, they still haven't forgotten about me. I think that tops the time a lady at my gym recognized me as being from the church choir and went off on how good we sound. Top Gun asked, "Dude, you go to church?" Combine this with the generally positive response to my latest Facebook profile picture -- based on the tittering of women worldwide and an uptick in unsolicited friend requests because Facebook usurped my privacy and opened my page up for anyone to see YOU HATERS CHOKE ON YOUR OWN BILE!!! -- and I think I'll be able to absorb the blow of knowing I'm an alleged snob.

Micro-celebrity, thou art sweet.

What the Hell Just Happened?

CRAZY day. That's...really the best way to put it.

Deep Conversations and Hittin' Da Clubs

So I have two friends that I've known since middle school. One is my good friend "Jason." I will use his American name because it provides him with some semblance of anonymity on this blog. He is one of the few immigrants in El Paso who is not from Mexico. I will not disclose which country, but let's just say he hails from a far-off place Jack Sparrow visited in one of the Pirates of the Carribbean movies.

Yours truly is in the fetching hat

The second friend is a tall white guy, vaguely Viking-esque. After looking up "Vikings" on Wikipedia, I've decided I'll call him Ivar the Boneless, after the 9th century Danish Viking chieftain by the same name.

So the other day, Jason and I were at Whataburger, discussing the eminent extinction of the Thick 'n' Hearty Burger, a national tragedy to say the least. Earlier in the day, Ivar's sister had suggested I call him to check up on him, so as we ate, Jason and I decided to call Ivar in Austin and invite him to join our lament for a burger whose life was cut all too short. Unfortunately, Ivar didn't answer, but we left a 90-second message calling him a douchebag and telling him that he needed to head down to his nearest Whataburger before it was too late.

Flash forward to yesterday. I get a call from Ivar. Now the past few calls I've gotten from him have been along the lines of cryptically short, 30-second brag sessions updates on his life. This was no exception. He had called to tell me that he was at a conference in New York City, at a famous intersection, on an all expenses paid trip. He also proceeded to say that he'd been swamped with various all-nighters and other work.

I interrupted him. "Why didn't you take me and Jason's call?"
HIM: "Oh, well, I usually keep my phone off because I've just been so busy and..."
ME: "But Ivar, we were calling to let you know that the Thick 'n' Hearty burger was going away next month. It was urgent."
HIM: "..."
ME: "Have you ever had one?"
HIM: "Well, no. But you know what? I come into town on Tuesday evening, and I was thinking that it's been a while since I've seen the both of you, and..."
ME: "You need to have a Thick 'n' Hearty Burger, Ivar."

Long story short, we have tentative plans for a Thanksgiving Break Whataburger session. And full disclosure: I've never actually had the aforementioned burger. It looks disgusting.

On a random note, I went out clubbing/bar-hopping in the Union Plaza district twice this weekend, and I have to say, Escapade is awesome. I never knew a DJ could turn that annoying-ass Taylor Swift song about "short skirts and T-shirts and she's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers" into something you could grind to. Kudos. The music selection was a total schizo assortment of reggaeton, dirty hip-hop, rock and roll, and old school Chicken Dance crap. It was fantastic.

Highlight of the night: drunk guy arguing with other guys in Spanish while waiting for parking garage elevator. Drunk guy gets in elevator, other guys stay behind. Drunk guy demands to know why other guys aren't getting into elevator. Guy shouts out "Culos pa'rriba!" Everyone laughs. Drunk guy looks like a jackass. Doors close. I love El Paso.

¿Que Onda, Mundo?

If you’re reading this, chances are you already know who I am.

If you don’t know who I am, you lead a sad, empty life. It’s okay, though. I don't judge. Much.

My name is Kirk. I was born, raised, and currently live in El Chuco. As a Chucoite, no matter how hard you try, it never seems like you can leave. You talk about making it big and how you're going to strike out to L.A. or Washington or New York. And sometimes, a few of us do manage to get away for a while. But even if you make it all the way to Africa like I did, you still somehow find yourself back at Chico's Tacos at 3 p.m. on a Thursday, eating soggy flautas floating in cheese water. Sure, you swore that you'd never go back to Chico's because they kicked those gay guys out that one time, but your friend refuses to eat anywhere else, so you really don't have a choice except to sit back and eat your double order with fries, like it or not.

That's a metaphor.

In a lot of ways, I’m a cliché hipster twenty-something. I’m unemployed. I have a liberal arts degree. I live with my parents. I’m indecisive. My life revolves around writing polemical liberal slogans into my Facebook statuses in hopes that I can goad people into fighting each other. I volunteer for a non-profit that helps immigrants. I use a messenger bag. Irony is my nicotine. In fact, that only proof I have that I’m still partially human and not a complete hipster is the shame I feel when I go to Starbucks and order a “Grahn-day mocha frappachino light.”

I even have a cliché twenty-something dirtbag goatee. To my credit, I wear it well. It makes me look ethnically ambiguous. When people ask what I am, I usually just say Lebanese. No one questions it because they don’t want to seem like racists. I also say that I’m 24. Actually, people usually just assume I’m 24 because I look old. If I tell people the truth – that I’m really just another barely legal Mexican half-breed who barely got his drinking privileges two months ago – they don’t believe me.

I went to college in the Dallas area. It's a long story, but they didn't believe I was Mexican over there, either. That worked to my advantage, though. Some people in my Spanish lit class spent an entire semester thinking that I was a full-blood Spaniard just because I could speak fluid Spanish and I wasn’t brown. If I’d known that little nugget sooner, I would have introduced myself the first day by saying that my favorite hobbies were killing Aztecs and eating tapas.

But it would have been wasted on them. Not because they wouldn’t have caught the cultural references (although they probably wouldn’t have). Rather, I think they would have heard “Yo soy” and thought it was some sort of Japanese company that sells fake milk. I didn’t go to what you would call a “good university.”

That's all you get from me for right now. This awkward introduction is over.