Much Ado About Something ... Again

It recently occurred to me that most people appear to get more and more crazy as they get older, but with the exceptions of senility and dementia I think most people stay the same and society just moves away from them over the years.

Also, I wonder if for those people who really DO go a little crazy, do they know it? Do they recognize it happening? I can so easily see myself becoming more and more obsessive and getting to a point of insanity somewhere in the not too far off future. I have shockingly little control. I mean, I have many times more control than the average person (arrogance), but I also have exponentially more to control. In other words, if they have X amount of control to exert over Y amount of whatever, I have 5X control, and Y^10 amount of stuff to control. Does that make sense? I'll do more with what I have than most people who stretch themselves to their absolute maximum. I'll do that, but I'll leave quite a bit undone, and I'll always wonder why I didn't save the world. Or maybe I'll wonder, "When will the world know that I've saved it?"

I'm looking forward to that calm that I so desperately hope comes with certainty of purpose. I mean, I'm certain that I HAVE purpose, but I don't really have any specifics. Great American Novel? Musical Revolution? Medical Breakthrough? Something much, MUCH smaller? I don't know.

I try to comfort myself with the idea that so many great people didn't become great until very late in their lives, and even then only after doing many horrible things or failing tremendously dozens of times before. I haven't really failed YET, but I see the obstacles already piling up and waiting for me. I feel at once that I have both to choose correctly the path to fortify myself (medical school? peace corps? work at a gas station?) and also to let everything just happen. I mean, I am trying my best to convince myself that this really is a matter of destiny and that I will accrue the necessary tools naturally and in that way will find the exact thing that I am to do.

I sometimes run in to other people who speak like this. People who feel such a tremendous tug towards greatness that they've stopped denying it, and stopped hiding it from everyone. Unfortunately, it's clear that most of these people will probably never achieve what they hope for. I hope that is never me. I can't really imagine much else worse.

I need to find myself living somewhere else.

ashlee

I guess my text wasn't going through for some reason. What it basically said was that the thermostat is in Louis' room, and sort of right under the vent. This means that it heats up to the established temperature way faster than the rest of the house. Because of this, we set it super high, like 77 degrees at first, but you said it was cold, so we set it higher, like 80 or so, and then we never saw you again. It will never be toasty warm in any part of the house, so I suggest you supplement with a pair of sweatpants or something if you find that it is still too cold for you.

The Spread of Walmart

http://projects.flowingdata.com/walmart/

go to that link to see a super scary video of the spread of Walmart over the years

Palestine Land Map

This map illustrates why I think the pro-Israel stance that is built in here in America is craziness. People don't seem to recognize that Israel has for a large portion of modern history maintained an aggressive stance towards Palestine and has used a tremendously powerful Air Force to batter the vastly underarmed Palestinians. Hamas gets labeled a terrorist group often, but I'm not sure that's really a fair title. Right about here is where my knowledge of the situation gets a little questionable, but I tend to think of Hamas as a dramatically overpowered group of resistance fighters, not so much terrorists. Anyways, there is also some shit that happened before 1946 (before the map) that clouds up the issue, and makes this whole thing even more complicated.

I'm just posting this because Israel is being an asshole and blasting the Gaza strip to hell (schools, hospitals, and private residences included) while retaining a closed border, which effectively makes this a "fish in a barrel" situation. Hamas claims that they have the means to withstand a ground war, but frankly, Israel doesn't even need to bother. Israel is supposed to have one of the top 5 air forces in the world. Anyways, whatever, later.

I'm cleaning out my garage

Parents bought me some plastic shelving, which is perfect. They are lightweight but heavy duty enough to hold hundreds upon hundreds of cd cases and old shirts and novelty underwear and whatever else is floating around my garage. It was important that they be lightweight so that they aren't a super bitch to move when our lease is up (my old shelving was super heavy chromed metal and it was awful to move).

I'm cleaning this garage up. It was already pretty bad, then Louis "cleaned" the house and basically just threw everything from the living room and main house randomly into the garage. So it was almost unbearably messy. Shit everywhere. I walked in and literally said, "Oh, my God. Shit everywhere. There's shit everywhere! Damnit! There's shit on the windows! Oh, my God! My house is full of shit! He shit everywhere! Look what he did! He shit all over the walls! There's shit everywhere!" Or something like that. I don't remember EXACTLY what I said. Whatever.

Anyways, so I'm cleaning that shit and finding crazy old stuff. Like pictures of me from back in the day. And of old friends. And other things. Old clothes. Magazines. Books. CDs. I miss some of my friends that I don't get to see much. I realize that there is a chance that I'll leave for Peace Corps while Leslie is off exploring the world in the way that she has chosen to do so. I found a picture of her from her prom when she wore a blue dress with black bow detail stuff and was very tan and Stevie sort of ruined the picture, but he didn't look all that bad honestly. I found pictures from Cancun of myself with my shirt off. I found pictures from Italy of me and Elizabeth and my hair looks like Anthony Kiedis' hair did a few years ago, although the picture predates that stage of his career. Prom pics with Julee and Co. Fun times. We looked good. That one picture that haunts me of me flexing in front of my dad's car after it was painted. To be back there. I hate not being able to stop looking backwards. Saying more than once that things will change is worse than never knowing that they need to in the first place.

ashley, trust me, watch this NOW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhHbrESPTOc&NR=1

Feeling kind of shitty

I'm organizing my co-workers I've decided. I just want some sort of severance plan or at least a two week notice built in to our contracts so that people aren't left stranded.

I want to get out of this place. Fucking Leslie. Fuck that guy, too. I can't remember his name.

None of my friends like RR. Or at least, none of my friends who have an opinion that I listen to like her. But fuck that, too, because she's fun to hang out with, even if she IS sort of ditzy and dumb and stuff. Maybe they don't believe me when I tell them that I hate sleeping alone or even being in my bed by myself (RR doesn't spend the night, so that still exists). My bed is cold.

It'd be nice if ANYthing were what it ought to be.

Oops

Have you ever meant to text something to Person 2 regarding Person 1 that may have been sort of embarrassing or totally out of line, but you accidentally texted it to Person 1? Yeah, my bad.

W T F and O M G

Let's start with OMG for Leslie:

From the Betty Beauty Bridal Division: http://www.bettybeauty.com/bridal.php
I think that blue is a beautiful color on you.

And now for the WTF:

This morning I woke up with a text from Roadrunner that said
"I was wondering whose number this is would you please text me back?"
So I texted and said
"This is Nathan, did I text you by accident?"
And she responds with
"oh good no you didnt. I needed to tell you something. I miss you and i have not been able to stop thinking about you since we broke up"

Blah blah blah, long story short, we're going out the weekend after this coming one. I'm not really planning anything either way. I'm just sort of curious to see what happens. Updates to come.

More and more

Some of my friends have postulated that I have an odd ability to befriend people who will need me in a significant way at some point. Some of my friends consider this a weakness. Some of my friend consider this a strength. Some of my friends probably don't think this is true anyways. I think that I do tend to meet people who are in hard places in life. Or maybe everyone has those hard places, and I just tend to be around when they go down. Whatever. The point is that I seem to always be called on during major crises. I've mentioned before that I love this about my life. It is kind of like being good at a really important job. I don't know, like being a food safety investigator who has never let an outbreak of E. Coli slip by on his watch or something. I mean, the other thing here is that people define crisis in different ways. For some, the crisis is simply whether or not to take a chance on loving someone unexpected. For others, it is whether they are going to be able to survive living with their parents any longer. For others still it is whether they will have a home and their daughter when they leave. I helped Terra move out of her mesa house and away from her raging husband. I packed up her uhaul. I drove to tucson to help unload it. I even slept there and tried to help console her. I tried to convince Heather that it was going to work out (it did). Et cetera et cetera. Et Set Terra. I wonder if it is that people who need me find me, or that people that I need find me. Or maybe that I'm just more aware of people who need help. I don't know. I think that it really comes down to whether I'm here for everyone else, or if they're here for me.