The Fortune-ate Ones

Fortune cookies.

Sometimes these little slips of paper can contain the sign you’ve been looking for and act as that sweet banner of hope encased in an even sweeter crunchy cookie…

And sometimes they just don’t.

Lately I’ve been spending nights and weekends in my sister’s dining room trying to figure my life out and get work done before my job ends. She’s usually doing work either across the table from me or at the counter in the room next door but we typically break for food at some point and a few times now that’s been a trip to Panda Express.

The first time we went there, just after the start of the new year, I was feeling hopeful about 2017. I was ready to shift gears and start carving my way through the waves of my life instead of sailing along with the currents that came for me. The hurricane of 2016 had ended and 2017 was already off to a pretty good start. Things were lookin’ up, my friends and I wanted to believe that they would stay that way.

[Crack open fortune cookie number one.]

And guys… come they did.

Life was great. Things were great. The best things had come to me and everything was wonderful. 2017 was on an official upswing and it was spectacular. Everything I had been nervous about had worked out. Everything I had been worried about, all the things that could have easily been the catalyst for an epic downfall, all of it had worked out so much better than I ever could have hoped it would. And to top all of that off…

…she kissed me.

For the first time, she kissed me. And things didn’t fall apart like I thought they would. Things were better than good. They were perfect.

And then things kind of weren’t… but I refused to be daunted. I was not about to let a few dark clouds heavy with the threat of a torrential downpour scare me into veering off course and away from where I was ready to take my year. Things were going to work out and things were going to be good and I was going to get my work done and I was going to be okay and my sister and I were going back to Panda Express! (Not because of all of that or because I needed a new sign but because we were hungry and there’s one relatively close to her house.)

[Nervously, albeit still quite hopefully, crack open fortune cookie number two.]

Vague… I know…

What kind of changes? BIG changes could be good or bad. BIG wonderful changes? BIG horrible changes? BIG changes in my favor…? What does this mean?? I didn’t know. This red ink on a slip of white paper I had just pulled out of a prepackaged cookie created in some factory and shipped to the fast food chain I had just gotten food from certainly didn’t know. But I was hopeful that the changes, however rough they may be, would be for the best because all I could take from this cookie was that big changes were definitely ahead.

Changes are always ahead. Of that, you can always be certain.

Fast forward (I want to say a few weeks but all of this happened THIS month – Cheese is priced, guys. It is still only January) some vague amount of time, probably a week or so… and I wrote my last post. If you haven’t read it, you should because it’s honestly what really drives this next one home because YESTERDAY! Less than 24 hours after I had written all of that, we were back at Panda Express to grab dinner before getting back to work.

I know, it sounds like I have a problem and I really need to stop going there but to tell you the truth, those are the only three times I have ever been to that place and it’s mainly just because I love rice… I could love worse things. Some people love heroin.

ANYWAY! We went back to Panda Express. And this time I don’t know what I was expecting this cookie to contain or what I was hoping that it would say and I honestly, I wasn’t feeling particularly like it would contain anything I needed to read but when my sister turned to me and asked me what mine said, I can tell you that I wasn’t expecting to bust it open and read this..

[Bust open the third cookie to pull out the slip of paper and read aloud]

and as soon as the words left my mouth all expression just fell off my face and my sister voiced my thoughts exactly as she laughed and just sarcastically said,

“Well thanks, fortune cookie.”

So there you have it, friends. My prospective fortunes for the new year have been predicted by the fortune cookies of Panda Express and it appears that my 2017 will be full of good things and big changes BUT! If I can befriend myself, it won’t be full of loneliness. If you stay tuned, maybe one day I’ll write a blog about how to be your own best friend.

Plot Twist

Have you ever fallen in love with someone?

Did you ever become their drunken mistake?

Did that someone also happen to be your roommate?

 

I know it’s been a while. The last time I was on here I was talking about how afraid I was of being alone… ironically enough, it was only a few months after that post that I met my best friend.

That was almost three years ago… Jeez, my last post was almost three years ago… I had completely forgotten I had even written that post and to be honest rereading it when I logged in to post this is a little bit heartbreaking because of how much has happened in that time.

A few months after that post, in early June of that year, I met someone who turned all of that around. It wasn’t like finding a flashlight in the dark, it was like finding that sliver of light shining in from the outside of a cold, dark cave and finally discovering the way out into the sun.

Guys, I was broken when I met her. We went to the same college and moved back to campus early for band camp so since no one else was there and our campus is in a sketch area, we would stay in each other’s dorms at night and I’d have panic attacks so bad that she’d wake up to me hyperventilating but she never saw me as broken… the panic receded when I was with her. Even in her sleep she could tell when I wasn’t okay and she’d roll over and put her arm around me.

Anyway, she became my best friend and broke down more of my walls than anyone else ever has that year. Once the spring semester ended, we got an apartment off campus and she’s been my roommate ever since. A lot has happened in the past three years though. I apologize for not keeping you all posted, but honestly, the reason I’d been gone so long is because I was happy… I had someone… and I was incredibly busy (side note: this past May I GRADUATED!!! BSE in Mechanical Engineering! What up!). And then it was just a combination of being really busy and also sometimes really sad.

Well okay, I kind of stay busy on purpose when I’m sad. Life’s been rough guys. Amazing, and wonderful, and exciting, and terrifying, and at times tragic, and hard, and rough, and devastating, and… life. It’s been life.

There’s so much I could say right now and maybe one day I’ll tell you all the stories of these past three years but right now I’m still processing and I think that’s why I’m here… I just had my heart shattered harder than it’s ever been broken before. My roommate was my best friend and after that night we were perfect for all of about 36 hours and then she just left. And then she came back with her boyfriend to pack up her things and she’s moving out but only comes by when she knows I’m not there and I can’t even afford to live in that apartment by myself and the job I have ends in 19 days and I don’t know what to do or where to go or even who to talk to because no one knows about any of that. In case I’ve never explicitly said, I’m not actually a guy and on top of that I’m a Roman Catholic middle school youth minister and the night that happened I was coordinating a retreat for a bunch of high school kids and if you are reading this and you’re Catholic and you think that’s wrong or that I’m a hypocrite or that I’m whatever else you want to say, you know what?

Go ahead.

Judge me.

Without knowing anything I’ve thought about this or how I feel about this or how I’m doing with any of this, go ahead and cast your judgement. But for those of you who feel so inclined to tell me what Jesus thinks, go check out Luke 6:37-38 or even Matthew 7:1-5 and remember what He said.

But thoughts of overly opinionated assholes aside, I think I may be coming back to the blog guys… I mean let’s be honest, never has a blog been so aptly named than now. In the words I posted on my about page like 5 years ago…

Explore the world, get lost, find your way.

Sometimes you need to lose yourself to find out who you are. Sometimes you need to Reset and Live.

Thanks for reading this, my friends. Sometimes the words I can’t say, I just have to type… At the very least just to get them out of my own head and let me just say that from the station of my mind, I really needed this thought train to gtfo already.

But EJ, if you’re reading this, surprise..!. please don’t question our friendship or wonder why I didn’t tell you first because posting this may or may not be the only way that I really knew how to bring myself to do that…

The Liebster Award

I think I’ll start with a big Thanks! to Christine for the nomination!

Per instruction, I will now answer the questions I was given (which by the way, are pretty on point):

1. If you could have your dream breakfast tomorrow morning, what would it be and with who (living or dead)?

Honestly, I think it would be the pancakes and bacon breakfast with scrambled eggs,  potatoes and a glass of chocolate milk with my missionary family.  It sounds generic, but we made sure we had the best pancake toppings out there for camp and I loved the people I ate breakfast with those mornings. It was always so relaxing to just take a break from working and just eat and talk and be together for a while. I love those guys.

2. Is the reason you started your blog the same reason you maintain it?

Yes, yes it is actually.

3. What do you think is important to understanding you, but you haven’t said on your blog?

I have a thing for fixing things and I get incredibly frazzled when I want to fix things but certain situations are out of my control. I think it actually shows in some of the topics I write about.

4. Make a rhyming sentence or haiku describing your essence. Think intelligent soulful marketing statement.

Ohhhh, the haiku is back! (I used to post them for no reason back in the day if you’re a newer follower who hasn’t explored the archives)

You need me? I’m there.
Just remember one small thing,
I will need you too.

5. What last made you laugh uncontrollably or until your chest hurt?

My band director tried to be really intense and angrily shout instructions at us but his voice cracked.

6. If you could only have 2 books on your nightstand for the foreseeable near future, what would they be? This can include books you’ve been trying to make time to read but still haven’t gotten to yet.

My bible and Confessions of Saint Augustine

7. What do you find to be the most creative part of your daily life, or how do you express yourself when you can?

I build/make things and come up to crafty solutions when my friends are in a pinch.

8. If you had to self-identify as either Batman, Robin, Catwoman or one of the many undeniably great villains they’ve faced based on their powers, which would it be?

Robin

9. What’s your favorite part about blogging and your readership?

That it’s anonymous (for the most part) and that I can write whatever I want with no fear of people I’m not super fond of judging me for it.

10. Happy childhood memory you hold dear.

As a kid, I was really shy. I went to a school for two years and then moved to a new school in first grade. The first day, I cried because I didn’t know anyone. But I only knew the friends I had in my class… So first day of second grade, none of them were in my class so I cried. It sucked because I had to leave class once a week to go to a different class because I was really smart and we had a special class you had to be selected and tested for that was more challenging then normal class. So other kids thought I was weird and smart and I missed EVERYTHING when I missed that one day of class each week so I never understood the inside jokes my class had. Halfway through 2nd grade, I had to move to a new school on the other side of the country. BUT (drum roll for why this is a happy childhood memory…) I almost cried, verge of tears, and then I realized I’d only be there a few months because I was going back to my old school the next year. SO! My solution… I decided to not be shy and was completely and utterly myself.

and guys…

Everyone wanted to be my friend. I was the coolest kid in my class.

Score.

I’ll be posting my nominations for liebster awards momentarily! Have a nice day!

 

Tonight’s epiphany

 

Thanks to two of my awesome friends, I’ve realized something:

“I never want to lose you.”

means more to me than

“I will never leave you”

or

“I will always be here for you”

ever will.

Thanks, guys. ❤

Story Time!

A little while ago, I walked past my half-packed duffle bag and thought of a story. Now, I don’t know if I’ve told this story before, but if I have, there are a lot of new followers since then so it’ll be new to most of you!

Years ago, I had two best friends. They had been my friends since I was probably five years old and one day, one of those friends and I decided that we wanted to camp out in my backyard.

So one night,

we threw on our jammies and took a last minute bathroom break,

grabbed sleeping bags, pillows, and an extra blanket,

found a flashlight, some food, and some water

And we camped. We thought we were so cool because we were camping out alone without our parents and we could never really go do that, we were kids, I think we were sixth graders, so the backyard was as close as we were gonna get and we were a couple of badasses in a tent in the suburbs!

Well this was one of those two man tents that has two door flaps back to back. You can zip up the main, solid, outermost flap to basically seal the tent or you can zip up the inner flap which is just a bug screen for nice daytime usage. You can also seal both but we decided to just close the bug screen because it was the middle of the summer and it got hot outside. There weren’t a whole lot of trees around so it’s not like we had much shade… and while it was cold at night, once the sun came up, we were basically in a little toaster if we shut the whole thing so the screen was it!

I also have an older sister and we thought that she might try pulling some kind of prank on us while we slept so we came prepared! We brought with us, a small clip and a hair tie so that we could “lock” the tent! We shut the screen and tied the little dual zipper situation that let’s you open it different ways together so that it could not be opened from the outside! Because we’re smart and we didn’t want her pulling any kind of shenanigans over on us.

Well, late into the evening, we ate all our snacks, drank all our water, and told all our scary stories and we were getting pretty tired so we decided to turn in for the night. We wrapped ourselves up in our sleeping bags and nodded off.

However,early, early morning, roughly 5am, I dreamt that it was raining on our little camping excursion and it was such a strange dream to me because it was raining inside the tent. And it was such a vivid dream that I could actually feel the cold rain droplets hitting my face as I slept… Only I wasn’t asleep. I had woken up into that half dream state where you don’t know what’s going on for a second and I looked over at my friend and she looked just as confused as I was but simultaneously, we came to the same conclusion and a look of pure “OH CRAP!” washed over our faces as we realized that my mom had forgotten to turn off the preset sprinkler system and our tent was pitched directly in front of the only non-oscillating sprinkler head in my entire backyard!

“THE SPRINKLERS!”

Was all that either of us could say at first and then “CLOSE THE TENT!!!” was shout by one of us but we had “locked” the tent so well, that we could not get the screen to unzip and we the flap that sealed the tent from this sort of situation was on the outside! The base of our tent designed to keep rain out when actually exposed to the elements was rapidly filling with water and our sleeping bags and blankets were now icy sponges just swollen with the frigid sprinkler water. My friend frantically fiddled with the makeshift locking mechanism we had so recently thought was a fantastic idea but, like all small knots, only one person could work with it at a time so I was still curled up in my sopping wet sleeping bag screaming at her from my corner as I attempted to dodge the water jetting into our faces from only a good 7 inches away.

Finally, she freed the zippers and ripped the tent open to shut the main flap and at this point, this particular sprinkler station had run its course and the small black head of death sunk slowly back into the ground. We grabbed the wet sleeping bags and pillows and blanket and wrung out some water into the grass, tried to dry the inside of the tent a little and then took the defeated walk back to my house…

But the night was not over yet.

Out of habit, my family had locked the door.

We were soaking wet.

It was freezing.

And we were locked out of my house.

Slowly, we set the watery blankets down in the garage and went back to the tent… It was still a little damp, but so were we and we just crawled inside it, zipped it up and tried to fall back to sleep until someone woke up and let us in. As we sit there in silence, the next station of sprinklers turns on but this one is a little farther away. The water doesn’t hit us inside the tent, but periodically the stream would swing around and pelt the side of the tent with a loud thumping as bullets of water riddled the thin wall by our heads.

I will never forget that night.

Even now, I’m no longer close with that friend, but occasionally, we see each other in passing, think about that night and laugh. It was ridiculous. I thought of this story because I’m about to leave for three months to serve as a summer missionary at a catholic camp for middle school kids and it just sort of popped into my head as I packed my bag.

We’re not staying in tents though.

And even if we do, it will be nowhere near an irrigation system of any kind. Other than an actual body of water.

But speaking of the leaving for three months, there may be a long pause in my posts. I want to get back into posting regularly but that might not be until I return because while I’m gone, I will not have a computer… or a whole lot of internet for that matter…

But I will be back!

Somethin’ smells like SUMMER!

Exams completed…

Final Grades posted…

Full Terms ended…

Sounds like the sweet beginning of that wonderful time of year… summer.

So in honor of this special season that leaves kids just a little bit happier, young adults just a little bit less stressed, and the working class still hittin’ the daily grind… I thought I’d pay a tribute to one of the biggest issues for a lot of people right now…

Tanning.

I’d like to think there are four main types of tanners. Mainly because that’s the first number that came to mind when I decided to write this, mind you, I’m a little sleep deprived right now…

The first type?

The amateurs… The fail tans… The “yes, I did remember to put on sunscreen!” or as most people call it,

THE SUNBURN

Depending on severity of the burn, the awkwardness of the tan lines, the discomfort of the location, or simply the hilarity of how it happened, the sunburn is like the reset button of the tanning process and it can be a painful start to any good time. It may also take a long time to heal, but let’s be real here.
The sunburn has hit us all in one way or another and we’ve all enjoyed a laugh at the expense of some unfortunate victim at some point in our lives…

THE SPRAY TAN

Whether you claim it from the get-go and apply that tan like it’s your job or you deny it from the start and never admit it’s not really your tan, the spray tan is like a cheat code to sun exposure. All the fun of a normal tan only without all the harmful UV rays, bad tan lines, risk of sunburn, and actual exposure to real sunlight and the outdoors as a whole…

If your spray tan looks legitimate, I give you props and congratulate you on sporting that lovely tan even in the midst of the coldest and cloudiest winter… You fooled us! We had no idea you weren’t really soakin’ up vitamin D that whole time.

If your spray tan is obvious due to your new skin tone landing you a job at the Wonka Factory, I am so sorry… but hey, at least you can drown your sorrows in an entire river of chocolate as you wait for that carrot-tone tan to fade back to pasty perfection!

THE NATURAL SKIN TONE

This is the tan which is acquired from normal sun exposure and frequent participation in outdoor activities. This is the tan that just happens upon your body naturally reacting to sunlight. This is where I am, in case you were wondering.

THE “WAIT A MINUTE… YOU’RE NOT REALLY BLACK…”

we all know that one person who just can’t stop tanning.

if you do not know a person like that,

you may be at risk for skin cancer…

HAVE A GREAT SUMMER, EVERYBODY!

The big ONE-FIFTY-ONE!

It may be about one hundred shy of a quarter of a thousand, but hey! I just reached 151 followers! So thank you, Michael Armstrong! You, sir, are awesome and I appreciate you for clicking that follow button.

However, that is not the only blogger I would like to thank. I would also like to thank the 150 people who came before him and decided to stay. You guys are the best! *sniffle* :,)

No but really. I would say all I ever wanted for this blog was for it to be read and appreciated and identified with and loved, but I was born in the 90’s. While the first three of those are true, the fourth may be a little questionable. But only because of something that happened when I was a kid…

STORY TIME!

When I was maybe seven years old, my parents fought a lot and one day I was in California visiting family and things were a little sad in my life… but then my cousin gave me something I will never forget.

My very first pokemon game made for the original gameboy. Not even the gameboy color, no. This was when it came in only one color: various shades of green with wild, horribly pixelated, pokemon appearing before me as my eager thumbs maneuvered the tall grass and dark caves in a quest to catch ’em all!

I did not catch ’em all…

But this story has a point. Thanks to my trust/commitment issues AND my introduction to pokemon at an early age, it wasn’t love that I so desired…

This picture actually explains a lot and quite possible sums up my entire existence in a single image. Thanks again for following my blog. I may never catch ’em all now that the creators decided that the original 151 just weren’t enough for the world and had to go up their game with all these new guys popping up like some Nintendo Darwin’s Theory of Pokemon Evolution shenanigan…

But I have caught 151 followers. And yes, technically there were 151 original pokemon but people often mistake there only being 150 because they forget about Mew. And the correlation between pokemon and this post was just a happy coincidence that I didn’t even realize until I wrote the last paragraph.

My intended story was actually going to be, “Today I was attempting to tan in my backyard and some random helicopter decided to fly over and although it is ‘only awkward if you make it awkward,’ that helicopter was throwing out so much awkward that it was actually managing to shake the trees around me.”

And then I remembered that picture… Remember me saying I was diagnosed with ADHD a while back? I think I get it now…

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

I know I’ve been a little M.I.A. lately, but I’ve been trying to post something every now and then just to keep it going even when it’s just a quote I happen to come across during the day…

Seeing as it’s officially a new year, I feel like I should honor the occasion by giving you a little rundown of this past year in order to pay tribute to 2012.

The problem with that?

Where do I even start?

Last year was insane! It was amazing and fantastic, tragic and heartbreaking, it was terrifying and it was exciting! It was full of old friends and new faces, I tried new things and hit up new places I didn’t mean for that to rhyme, but I’m just going to go with it because I haven’t been poetic in a while… Anyway… It was probably the most memorable year of my life. So much happened. If I could say nothing else, the best way to say it would be simply that 2012 kept me on my toes. From the way it started to the way it ended, it was… intense. I loved it and hated it and everything else in between.

I can’t even single out any particular memory from last year that I could share with you as an example because, well, this year just felt so much longer than any other. It’s only been one year. Granted it was a leap year, but that extra 24 hours wasn’t exactly a big contribution to my perception of time.

In 366 days,

I pulled entirely too many all nighters

I fed calves before sunrise

I danced in public like no one was watching

I broke the rules

I graduated

I chose laziness over productivity

I started college

I found out I have ADHD

I experienced why medications have warning labels

I made new friends

I pulled pranks

I was forced out of my comfort zone

I got a job

I skipped class for a funeral

I gained an entirely new appreciation for the friends who are my family

I won

I lost

I got hurt

I laughed

I cried

I was completely and utterly myself

and so much more.

My year was like any other year but I chose to make it memorable and it came at me like a herd of wildebeest. It was practically that scene in the Lion King where Simba’s out there chillin and suddenly, STAMPEDE!  AHHH!!! and then the movie completely changes gears and Mufasa dies and he runs away and makes two awesome friends that teach him their very relaxed life philosophy and then his past catches up to him in the form of his childhood friend and he is forced to face his demons and take on his uncle and his band of henchmen/minions/loyal followers that are really quite intense in their musical number in a fiery battle which brings the movie full circle back to that stampede scene before the happily ever after resolution that sets up for the never-as-good-as-the-original sequel. I would have said spoiler alert but honestly, it is the lion king. If you don’t know that happens I am ashamed of your life and I have a new years resolution for you: come out from the rock you live under.  Just kidding, but seriously I mean it’s made it to broadway… if that doesn’t say, “It’s a classic” then the fact that it is actually one of the movies on the patented “WALT DISNEY CLASSICS” list should really clear that up a little… Sorry about that random rant, back to 2013!

That could set up for a back to the future rant, but i’ll leave that one for some other time. Maybe.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the last year as much as I did and if it didn’t meet your expectations, I wish you the best of luck to turn that around in these next 365 days.

Good luck!

I’m Back!!

Sorry for the absence but between getting settled into my dorm room, falling into a groove with all my classes, meeting and bonding with the people on my hall, and as of last night: Bingo night, Steak n Shake, movie night and babysitting drunk hallmates while they have no idea where their room key is and their roommate is gone for the weekend… I haven’t had much time for updating you guys on everything.

But it is actually going really well and I think I could actually love it here.

Once I seriously get settled in I should start posting a little more often… or at least a little more routinely. Maybe I’ll choose a day to update it, but either way it will probably start getting updated sometime in the mornings. Pretty much the bulk of my free time happens before 10:30am haha

Well week one is basically done so I hope you guys had a week as awesome as mine!

Maybe I’ll post some stories later to let you know what’s been going down.

One more day.

Sorry I’ve been a little MIA lately…

Things have been about 50 Shades of Cray-zy.

I only say that because I’m sorry if you think that book is amazing, but personally I think it’s a printed porno. Ladies are too classy to watch porn. So they read it.

Anyway, things have been heating up around here because I have been working on packing up the essentials of my life because in about a day I will be moving into my dorm room to start my freshman year as a college student! SO EXCITED!! and so ready to get out of this house! But I think my subconscious is a little more nervous than the rest of me. As eager as I am to get out of this town I’ve been having the craziest dreams and I have this weird rash thing that keeps popping up whenever important college things have to be finished… gross. and irritating. For a while my mom thought it was an allergic reaction to something so I was kind of hocked up on Benadryl for a bit haha

Still, my kitchen currently looks like a loading dock and I’ll pack up the van in the tomorrow and then come Saturday my life is all about engineering, dorm life, and community bathrooms. Shower, I think I’ll miss you most of all.

On a completely unrelated note, I think I’m going to delete my twitter account. Actually I don’t think. I am. In a few minutes it will be down. It was short lived, but I can’t have that many things to update. I’m rarely on facebook as it is and I’m lucky if I can remember to blog regularly.

Right now, I’m procrastinating from cleaning my house and watching A Very Potter Musical on YouTube while I do laundry. My sister told me about it and if you’re a Harry Potter fan you should seriously check it out. Some of these lines crack me up haha.

Anyway, that’s what’s been goin down since the last time I gave you an update. Hope you guys are doing well and enjoying the ups of life while fighting through the downs. Life’s too short to dwell on the sad days! Moods are contagious so go spread a good one.