A Hatchet Should Be Buried, But It's Easier To Keep It In The Light

My lovely girlfriend was getting ready to go to her friend's house earlier today. Her friend is living with a former friend of ours that I blame for a lot of things. Chiefly among one of the many things I blame her for is the fact that I no longer talk to one of my best friends. Obviously I have made the conscious decision to not forgive him or her. The blame only extends so far though. The truth of the matter is that she made decisions, my best friend made decisions and I made them as well. The problem is that I feel that I have subjugated my (former) best friend to such a feeling of guilt that he is unable to even fathom ever discussing anything again with me. Certainly this is conjecture but I can only assume this is the situation. If I am wrong I will certainly state it.

Kristi said something that really resonated with me though. I asked her if she thought it would be awkward to see our former friend. She replied something to the effect of that she was an adult and saw no reason to hold a grudge. She didn't want to search out our former friend to patch things up, but was not going to be ugly to her. This make sense but I don't think I could do that. Maybe I am a petty person, but while the wounds are over a year old they still sting. I feel like I was betrayed. I am sure there is a side to their story which I don't necessarily care to hear but I am sure it is there nonetheless. I just don't think I am big enough to forgive him, or her for that matter.

Every now and then I have dreams where we are friends. It is kind of a jarring feeling when I wake up and realize that it is not the case. I want to reach out and least patch things up. Or at the very least get his side of things. But ultimately I won't do that for several reasons. First off, I frankly don't want to get screwed over any more. Secondly, I really don't want to put my trust in something like that ever again. There is one person that stuck with me through everything. I really only trust that one person now. I don't really want to dwell on the past. I feel that if things are supposed to work out then they will. Maybe I am just not as big a person as my girlfriend. Maybe I can't see past the fact that someone I believed to be best friend screwed me over. Maybe this is all an excuse to not deal with issues. The fact is that I just don't want to put my trust is something faulty again. Kristi really has been amazing to me and I try not to burden her with any of this because she has a lot of other stuff to worry about. It is not like her life is stagnant and drama-free either. But ultimately I still think about this. I even called my former friend up one night when I had a few too many drinks at the bar. He answered and then I hung up. Extremely mature on my part. This is where I am at. I am almost twenty-two years old and I avoid confrontation like it's the plague. Maybe I will grow up one day and find out I didn't miss out on anything. Maybe I will grow up one day and realize that for all of the back-stabbing that has gone on in the past four years, everything worked out all right. I hope like hell the latter is true, but I have a feeling it is the former.

Ultimately I can say the ball is in his court. It isn't though, and I know that.

Pockets Full of Canons

"Cause it's not hard to fall, and I don't want to scare her. It's not hard to fall and I don't want to lose...It's not hard to grow, when you know that you just don't know." -Cannonball by Damien Rice.*

I feel that as an English major I have been force fed the canonical texts that I am "supposed" to enjoy. The problem with this is that literature, and the enjoyment of literature, is completely subjective. Certainly I can recognize that Richardson did remarkable things towards the narrative structure of the novel in Pamela, but that doesn't mean that I enjoyed the story of the peasant girl's rise to power. This is what I learned in college. There is usually a reason that texts are included in a canon, but that doesn't mean anything to me. I hate the Scarlet Letter and yet year after year I am told it is a great work of Antebellum American Literature. I don't really care if Shelly was too influenced by her eventual husband or Lord Byron. I do care however that the recent film adaptation of "Beowulf," was a completely bastardization of a canonical text. I guess my views on the sanctity of texts are simply based on whether or not I personally enjoyed them.

After almost four years of college one thing is certain. I don't know nearly as much as I thought I did when I adopted a new home in Greeley, Colorado. I was a cocky eighteen year old.** Although I think that my attitude towards the canon of literature has not changed nearly as much as I had assumed it would. Obviously there are texts that I enjoy, or at the very least can tolerate, that I most certainly would never have stomached at eighteen. While I still don't care for the vast amounts of whaling depictions in Moby Dick I can concede that it is an entertaining tale to say the very least.

I have noticed a change from the beginning of my college career to the near finish of it. I have taken college more seriously with each progressive year. I think this might have to do with the fact that in my Junior year I started dating my girlfriend who has a much stronger work ethic than I previously possessed. Let's just say that she has rubbed off on me in many ways that have caused positive changes in my demeanor.

I now find myself on the verge of starting life in the "real world." I have to somehow apply what I have learned into a cohesive plan of payment for services. As Damien Rice has suggested I don't know, and I know that for sure. I am ready for growth. But I don't want growth for the sake of growth. I want to enjoy it. I just want to make sure that everyone is on the same page before I turn it.


*Essentially this sums up the blog in two lines
**One can assume that almost every eighteen year old is cocky to at least some extent.

Goodbye Blue Monday

"One time he got to paint a message on a five-hundred-pound bomb which was to be dropped on Hamburg, Germany. This was it." -From Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut.


I'm taking my time for the first time in my life. Usually I rush into things. Every day I give myself a to-do list. If at the end of the day I have crossed off everything on my list I can go to sleep with a clear conscience. Sometimes I put things that I am in the middle of doing in order to be able to feel that joy of crossing something else off the list. The list started as a way to remember actual things that I needed to do. Sometimes it is as simple as "wash the coffee pot." This is something I do every morning, but if I write it down and I cross it off my list I feel like I have actually done something. It is somehow quantifiable, real. It is tactile proof that I accomplished something, no matter how small or completely insignificant. In large part though, my day is quite insignificant. I write stories that no one will ever read most likely, I live in my apartment alone and talk to about two people a day.

Obviously there are things that are carried over from day-to-day that never get accomplished. Some of these I am simply unsure as to how to proceed (this usually pertains towards the current story I am working on). Some of the things are just simply things that I cannot accomplish in a single day (this usually refers to my job search), obviously I can make progress on a day-to-day basis but until I apply, interview, and accept that job I cannot cross it off the list.

The one thing that I can't cross off the list is Kristi. I just never want to be done with her. There are things along the way that I can cross off. First kiss. Engagement, etc. But the ultimate goal is open ended. Even after we get married there is life after that. I like the openness of that. A lot of guys tell me that getting engaged or married is somehow a shackle, the whole "Ball and chain," mentality. But I look at it a lot differently. There are a lot of scary things coming up. Life in general scares the crap out of me, but knowing she is by my side helps a lot.

I guess everything being on my to-do list is a way to make the future less scary. By writing down each and every event I am able to somehow tackle the inevitable. It is the same way that Vonnegut describes the bomb. By writing "Goodbye Blue Monday," they were able to somehow name the indefinable. The bomb had serious repercussions that would have very real consequences for those below, but for those dropping the bomb they were able to cope by disqualifying the seriousness of the situation with a joke. Instead of writing "Goodbye Blue Monday," I write "Take out the trash," or "Clean apartment." I am taking those little steps towards the larger goal of life. It might go off like a 500 pound bomb, but at least I will have seen it coming.

A Conversation Overheard

I live in a very small apartment. I will take almost any excuse to leave my apartment for a few hours at a time. The exception to this rule of course is social situations. I tend to stay away from unknown social situations, because I am generally a person who enjoys my personal space. There are obvious exceptions to this rule which do not necessarily entail unknown social situations. I digress.

On this particular diversion from my claustrophobic quarters I went to Borders to peruse the magazines to look for a job. I decided after hearing David Quammen speak in one of my classes today that I might look into publishing in the field of magazines. I wanted to get a visual representation of what I should look for exactly. I spent an hour looking at magazines, and listening in on two different conversations between my own conversation with my friend’s fiancé that works as a barista at the coffee shop that is attached to the store. One of the conversations I was eavesdropping on was about dam building. I am not saying that dam building isn’t an interesting subject, but it was excruciatingly boring.

A man sat on a bench in the magazine section reading what appeared to be an automotive magazine. I heard his phone ring while I perused a copy of National Geographic. His ringtone appeared to be “Cherry Pie,” by Warrant. I assumed he either was dating a stripper and wanted a song that reminded him of her the first time he met her, or he had some odd affinity with an otherwise horrible song. From here on out I will refer to the man as Rick. This could, or could not be his name. It doesn’t really matter to me, but the pronouns seem a bit impersonal for the purposes of this writing.

After listening to most of “Cherry Pie,” Rick picked up his cell phone. The conversation started out nice enough. I did not dictate the actual conversation so here is what I remember; it is not a word, for word transcription, but pretty darn close. Some embellishments I am sure have been made because of my nature. “Hey babe. How are you? I had a mocha. Just reading about Chevy Big Blocks.” But quickly it turned into something rather different. I started hearing phrases thrown about like “Well when you get off work tonight I’ve got a big surprise for you.” My curiosity was naturally peaked because maybe she was getting a trip to Hawaii or something, which would be a pretty good surprise. My hopes of an island getaway for the young lady were soon dashed when he said something to the affect of “Yeah. Let’s just say I can’t talk about it right here. I might get in trouble.” Now my mind is racing towards thoughts of a murder plot, or a bank robbery. Both of which I would find as suitable entertainment substitutes for my rather dull, and boring day. Obviously had there actually been a murder plot I would have stepped in and garnered some sort of citizen’s bravery. Rick then went on to make suggestions that were not overtly sexual but seemed to have a sexual overtone in them. Things like “Yeah, I can imagine that right now,” or “Do you like it that way?” The conversation then took a turn towards the inevitable overtly sexual content.

I felt a little awkward, but I also felt like it was my right to listen to it, because it was in the public sphere. Rick had a friend who was waiting for him in the coffee shop that he joined immediately after his conversation with his stripper girlfriend ended. I can only assume that his friend was not allowed to be privy to this information but somehow total strangers were. I guess this makes sense; maybe his stripper girlfriend was actually the wife of the friend he was meeting for coffee in Borders? I felt like I had to wait out the conversation; I had to know where it was going. It was like waiting for the end of a roller coaster. When you are waiting in line you can see where the track goes and as you get closer you can estimate what the ride is going to be like, but you don’t really know. You have to take that leap, and wait out the line, and experience it for yourself. Often times it is disappointing, but in the end you accomplished something.

The roller coaster is not only an apt metaphor for this odd conversation I had overheard but I think it holds true to my own life. I want to be a writer but often times my stories evoke something grand when I think them up in my head, or even when I am able to coerce the story to a piece of paper every now and then, but in the end I keep just wishing I had looked for a real job instead. Not because I don’t enjoy writing, but rather, that I think there are people who have done it a lot better than I have. Maybe I just need to wait out the conversations, or the stories; even if they’re uncomfortable and wait for the right thing to come along. I hope that I can peruse the magazines again and find my job waiting for me the way this awkward conversation seemed to inevitably be waiting for me, but I think it is not that easy. I will have to work, and work hard. Hopefully it will pan out and the hard work will pay off, but I won’t know unless I wait it out.