On the Existence of God

"Trying to determine whether God exists from what you learn in college is like trying to perform brain surgery with a sharpened rock. Call me when you get to grad school."

Me, to a friend who says that college has made her start turning into an atheist

Life's Funny -- But Not Funny Ha Ha

Life sucks a little bit right now. I've been in and out of my "moods" and I've been thinking too much. For instance, yesterday I was thinking that I wished money didn't matter, so that I could go to law school in California instead of spending another three years in the middle of nowhere.

Then today, after walking into the UTEP Recital Hall for the dress rehearsal of a friend's senior concert, I realized that if money didn't matter, I wouldn't be going to law school in the first place.

When do we become too rational for our own good?

Couples Therapy With America

I’m starting to feel like I’m in a loveless marriage.

I want to like Obama. I really, really do. He’s nice, sweet, smart, well-dressed, and the last guy we were with was totally abusive. But sometimes – I wish he would mispronounce "nuclear." Sometimes I wish he’d grin mischievously and lie to me. And sometimes, I wish he’d do something spontaneous, like invade something, just to make us feel good for a few fleeting months.

Speaking of, you know what I don’t understand?

We invaded a country with HUGE oil reserves. And we invaded a country with VAST heroin fields.

So how did both those wars end up sucking SO BADLY? Those should have been the best wars ever!

Next time I say we invade a country with ponies. Or puppies.

Finding the Middle

I have an all-or-nothing personality. My task at this point in my life is to try and find a middle ground.

People don’t like middle grounds. We like conflict and gladiatorial bloodshed. Hell. I like conflict and gladiatorial bloodshed. But trying to point out that this is not Rome and that we cannot turn everything into Russell Crowe fighting a guy in a scary mask does not go over well with anyone, myself included. Even trying to stay neutral causes conflict. Trying to make judicious decisions, or even arguing that the world we live in is not concrete but fluid, gets you labeled as an untrustworthy fence-sitter.

Maybe I am. But to be fair, it’s not easy. Here’s what I’ve ascertained so far, sitting on my pickets.

I should probably be an atheist, but I believe in God nonetheless. I’m incredibly cynical and jaded when it comes to romance, but if my iPod were played in public all lactose intolerant persons in the near vicinity would drop dead to the ground, choked to death by cheesy Spanish love songs and the angry eminations of their own treacherous intestines.

I am both the cause of much chaos and the solution to it. Depending on the situation, I can be yin or yang, leaving me to wonder if I am a boring person with a wild side or a wild person with a boring streak. In the words of James Hilton, all things in moderation – even moderation. Dull situations turn me into the ladle that stirs the pot of excitement, but during exciting times, I am the sole voice of restraint. Perhaps one day when those sides of me balance into quiescence, I will be the ladle of restraint among my friends and neighbors in Shangri La, prodding shy cattle forward and rapping the knuckles of unrighteous.

I have a knack for thinking only of myself, of being shortsighted and egotistic, reducing my world to something "manageable." Yet under the right circumstances, I can be nuturing, protective, concerned, patrician to the point of mothering people into eating more tacos when they are clearly full. I’m told I’d be a good shrink or a good mob boss.

I am a reactionary rubber band prone to snapping clear across to the other side of the room in a fit of devil’s advocacy. I hide things in plain sight, and I tend to distrust gut feelings, both because they are uninformed and because I have IBS, so the only feelings in my gut are painful ones. I have good instincts, though. I just usually disregard them. I turned 21 a few months ago, but most people think I’m at least five years older. And married for some reason. Trying to act younger just exacerbates people’s perceptions.

I am no closer to finding the middle than when I started writing this. Maybe if I throw more rocks into the Yin-Yang pond analogy posited by Wikipedia, I can watch the ripples even out and then figure it out.

Philosophy and introspection blow.

Groans, Koans, and Vulpine Conceits

There are two simple joys in life.

The first is showing up people who radically underestimate your abilities.

The second is telling haters that you're considering turning down something they can't possibly get when it's been basically thrown into your lap. It messes with their head. Their incredulity at your Zen-like apathy will drive them nuts. All of a sudden, every word you say becomes enigmatic and your nonchalance morphs into ethereal mystique as they try to figure out if you're crazy.

Yeah. Crazy like a FOX.

May God forgive me for taking pleasure in these simple things. But justice is sweeeeet...

Afkaari

Some disembodied meditations before I hit the sack:

* It really doesn't take a lot for me to get going on some radical, sanctimonious, quasi-socialist rant. And that scares me, because I'm supposed to be a cynical, unfeeling hipster. I mean, for God's sake, I have a goatee. If I'm NOT cynical, that that just means I'm a few darbouka lessons away from being an unwashed, barefoot hippie. And I hate hippies!

* ...okay. I secretly want to learn to play darbouka.

*With douchy inflection* The rhythms and I sojurn through the thirsty desert.
*Drum sounds* FLAK-A-WAH!

*My main tactic in arguments involves making people feel completely ashamed of what they actually believe in. As I explained to my brother Nick, "when people get up on stage and start doing their monkey dance, get up in the audience and do the monkey dance, too. When they see how ridiculous it looks, they'll sit down out of shame."

* I hate it when you talk to people with messed up lives who spout off complete bullshit and then suddenly drop unsettling nuggets of Truth (capital T). And when you put all those unsettling Truth-nuggets together in Oujia board formation, it spells out: GET A GIRLFRIEND. OR AT LEAST SOME SORT OF SIGNIFICANT OTHER FIGURE.

* To the cholos/drug dealers down the street who choose to repeatedly drive past our house at midnight on weeknights -- SHUT THE FUCK UP! And buy a damn muffler. Your "pimp" ride sounds like a Vespa with swine flu.