life updates

Hi! What’s up? That was rhetorical.

FYI-  Sylvia Plath’s son committed suicide today. Extremely sad… but that guy never had a chance.

In a completely logical sequitur, I thought now would be a good time to segue back into what the original post did – talk about my life, my friends, and what’s going on. The blogosphere is the perfect place for self-indulgence of this kind: I spend time writing about me assuming that other people care… so here we go.

1.) As has been my MO for a while now, I’ve been kickin it with my buddies Gabriel Garcia Marquez and John Steinbeck – they communicate much more effectively than my roommates, so I thought I would share a couple quotes from Marquez.

“The heart’s memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good; thanks to this artifice, we manage to endure the burdens of the past.”

“…human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”

I think these are both important and relevant to my life because I could benefit from a little bit more compassion, a lot more optimism, a dash more patience, and a sliver of regular, introspective signal-calling.

2.) Within the past couple weeks, I’ve had three visitors roll through the Pagoda: Blake, my large brother, and Rachel and Christina. All three were big reminders of what I miss about Arizona and why I need to go back soon.

3.) We’re closing in on 100 days to Teren’s wedding. I’m pretty excited about it. If you haven’t looked at their website yet, check it out: www.briannaandteren.weddingwindow.com (foreshadowing: long website name to save/hoard (all of the) money). I suggested that Teren let each of his groomsmen write a piece about his friendship with the groom-to-be. Since he declined, I thought I would share with all of you, instead: “When I met Teren, he was fat, angry, and Jewish. Now he’s just Jewish… and a real one, at that. He and his dad just got a letter from Costco notifying them that the company would be monitoring the Shaffer family returns (apparently using televisions for a year or more and then upgrading isn’t what the return policy had in mind). He also reads from the Talmud every night after he comes inside from the western wall of our property…” You know, something that really lets people into the world of Teren Shaffer as I know him.

4.) Trent and Amanda are doing well- they’re almost done with their insane testing!!! Only one more to go. I’m pretty happy about this because once they have official licensing, I can be one of their first customers… a lifelong business partnership in a world that values bottom line over enduring relationships.

5.) I had popcorn this weekend and remembered why I hate it… You try to be an equal opportunity guy and buy some popcorn from the Boy Scouts because you bought cookies from the Girl Scouts. What do you get? A $6 box of kettle corn that gets stuck in your teeth and fills your body with butter, like Julia Child. Also, the options they gave me were ridiculous – so many flavors to choose from… why? The bearcub den master who thought up this scheme must have been the love child of Bertie Bott and Orville Redenbacher. Geesh.

6.) I made a deal with Jenn that we would help each other not buy anything that wasn’t necessary. You know, the weird thing aboud having a job and regular income is that you feel like you have no money and lots of money all at the same time. It’s just that your stash is spent in larger quantities at higher frequencies.

7.) Tomas and Kevin are still alive. Kevin had an interesting encounter with alcohol for his 22nd birthday and Tomas had an interesting encounter with a job- as in he got one. We’re all now employed and share stories about the people with whom we work. Our conclusion: the job market is tough, but if every employer fired the useless people, all us people willing to roll up our sleeves and work would be employed and making cash money.

8.) If you haven’t seen it already, check out the posted videos of Delta Tau Delta’s skit night performance…. why go back to amateur night when you already have Broadway? Completely blew my mind and I couldn’t be happier for a group of guys.

Takeaway lessons: keep your head out of ovens, stay away from boy scout popcorn, and never, ever trust anyone from Long Beach.