Christmas is… not almost here. Damnit.

Hah.

I’m sitting here listening to http://www.somafm.com . They have a station called “Cristmass in ‘Frisco”. It’s pretty unconventional station. They say “Not for the easily offended”. One song’s called “Get Off of My Roof”. Another was by Jingle Cats. It was a medley of Christmas songs to cats’ meows. Yikes! Now I’m listening to a reggae song to the tune of “The First Day of Christmas” but it talks about weed. “Peter Broggs Days of Christmas”. It’s cool.

Oy. I need to be studying math. I have a test on Wednesday morning which may determine a good chunk of my grade. I’ve already gottne a D and a C on two tests. If I can get a B, I’ll feel a lot better.

It’s a tangent of Murphy’s Law that any time a guy meets a truly nice girl he really likes and could get along with, she’s already taken. I met a beautiful girl at a fraternity social who was really nice, and we talked for most of the night and danced the rest. She seemed really cool and active and very excited about life. I found out through channels that she has a boyfriend, which would explain why it seemed like she didn’t want me to ask for her number. Damn… I guess the search goes on.

Interesting enough, I have this feeling I’ll be single for the rest of college. That is, without a serious girlfriend. It seems like I’m super busy and a girlfriend wouldn’t work out at all. At the same time, if I met a girl like the aforementioned one, I could consider sacraficing time to be with her. If I go on to dental school or whatever may come, I don’t think I’ll have much time to be social either. I hope that’s not the case, but we’ll see. Also, I don’t have a ton of friends back home, which is where I’d go to dental school. I’m wondering how easy it would be to make new friends at that age. Probably not tough.

Well, the plan for this summer is to relax and have as much fun as possible. I’ll probably take a class and lab of organic chemistry, hopefully teach sailing and maybe have another part time job. I want to be able to go somewhere at the beginnning and end of vacation. Also, I’d like to do some volunteer work. Maybe instead of a second job, I’ll do the Big Brother thing. That would be really cool.

Hah! Now there’s a South Park song featuring Mr. Garrison. “Merry Fuckin’ Christmas” Lol.

Oh. I’d better get to work. I’m still dwelling on what I wrote last time. If anyone is interested, maybe we could work something out where we give some homeless people some new clothes, some hot food and some other stuff rather than change. we could do it before or after break. I’d say after since they get a lot of help around Christmas. Let me know if anyone is interested.

Thanks for reading my rambling thoughts, and best wishes for the holidays, guys,
Collin

Madison Halloween 2004 Photos!

Here They ARRRRRE!

It’s Thanksgiving officially!

Yay! Family will be here in about twelve hours! Sweet!

So these holidays have been making me think, even this early into them…

According to the Salvation Army, total projected retail sales for the 2004 holiday shopping season are at $219.9 BILLION! Wow! What a great thing for our economy, eh?

Also, according to the SA, the 2002 Salvation Army Red Kettle campaign (the bell-ringers) netted $90 million.

Both seem like a lot, right? Take $90 million and multiply it times 2000. That still won’t get you close to $219.9 billion.

The average consumer in the U.S. plans on spending $702.03 on gifts this season, $406.52 of which will be on the family, according to the National Retail Federation.

I couldn’t imagine spending $703.03 on family. Not now, not in ten years! When will I make that kind of money! Even if I do, would I be that blind to what’s going on in the world? I hope not!

What the fuck!?! I walked out of Starbuck’s the other day, and a man asked me for change. I gave a split seconds thought, then took all of my change out and stuck it in his cup. That was around $.75. I paid at least $3.50 for my coffee. Anyone caught paying that much for coffee by a homeless person at LEAST owes that person their change. The state of social welfare in America is deplorable, and I feel disgusting being a part of it.

Now I’m not dumping on gift-giving, but I do find aspects of it unnerving. Like, how people go into serious debt to give their family a “good” Christmas when that really equates into giving gifts to spoiled children and bickering extended family. $700 fucking dollars! That’s not something the average American can afford on one month’s wages… I don’t think… thus the “holiday shopping” debt.

My first girlfriend and her dad were born again Christians. She liked giving and receiving gifts, but she wasn’t raised receiving big or numerous gifts from her dad. Apparently, her family thought her dad was being a dick by not giving Christmas presents, when what he was really doing was staying true to what Christmas is about: not greed. Love.

I mean, Christ! Literally! All the Christmas specials in the world can’t get the average American to figure that crap out! But I digress…

My mom is one of the most caring people I’ve known, and she never hesitates to get gifts for all the kids in the family and quite a few extended family, not to mention spending more than I (and my dad) would like spent on me. God bless her, because she’s trying to make people happy, but I wish things weren’t like this, where we give out of compulsion and guilt, rather than love.

I was a spoiled brat as a kid and didn’t necessarily get what I wanted every Christmas but rather something very close or, if it was too expensive, something that was still expensive but within my parents’ budget. Nintendo, Nintendo 64, a BMX bike, etc. These things were so stupid for me to fret over, yet I did.

Looking back, I should have concentrated on the kinder, truer things my family has done. I’ll give two examples.

Our family has a tradition of going downtown every year with some good friends (ex-neighbors). We check out the cool Dayton’s eight floor auditorium Christmas display (though I guess it’s Marshall Field’s now.) Every year, we’d see that, then sit on Santa’s lap, then eat and finally see the Holidazzle Parade (sick and luminescent as it is.)

One year, when we were waiting for the other family, my dad walked over to this guy sitting in a mall entrance outside of Dayton’s and gave the guy a $20 bill, then told him to have a merry Christmas and get some food. I was shocked and amazed.

“Wow,” I thought, “that was so selfless!”

After that, I really tried to embody what he is. I fall short often, but once in a while, I feel it.

In a more significant gesture, my family sponsored two families on two consecutive Christmases through a non-profit organization. Each year, my mom would go out and buy presents that were on the list for each boy and girl in the family as well as one thing for each of the parents that those parents said they needed as well as a luxury item they requested. A couple days before Christmas, we’d go to the store and buy everything that family put on a shopping list for a Christmas dinner (and more.) My mom would wrap up the presents.

On Christmas Eve day, we would truck all the stuff to the family downtown and bring it all to them. The kids would go nuts, and the parents would just be in awe. It was an amazing experience, and I feel like if everyone in America did this, we’d be a lot better off. Socially, America might not be crumbling; and our kids might not be spoiled-ass brats, as more and more per generation seem to be.

Oy. I said my piece. Thoughts are welcome, as always.

Two Songs

We Looked Like Giants – Death Cab For Cutie

God bless the daylight, the sugary smell of springtime
remembering when you were mine in a still suburban town

When every Thursday, I’d brave those mountain passes
and you’d skip your early classes and we’d learn how our bodies worked

God damn the black night, with all its foul temptations
I’ve become what I always hated when I was with you then

We looked like giants in the back of my grey subcompact
fumbling to make contact as the others slept inside
and together there in a shroud of frost, the mountain air
began to pass through every pane of weathered glass
and I held you closer than anyone would ever get

Remember the J.A.M.C. and reading aloud from magazines
I don’t know about you but I swear on my name they could smell it on me
But I’ve never been to good with secrets… ohh…

Oh together there in a shroud of frost, the mountain air
began to pass through every pane of weathered glass
and I held you closer…

and

Styrofoam Plates – DCFC

There’s a saltwater film on the jar of your ashes
 i threw them to sea
 but a gust blew them backwards
and the sting in my eyes
that you then inflicted
was par for the course
just as when you were living.

It’s no stretch to say you were not quite a father
but a donor of seeds
to a poor single mother that would raise us alone,
we’d never see the money
that went down your throat
through the hole in your belly.

Thirteen years old in the suburbs of denver
standing in line for Thanksgiving dinner
at the catholic chuch.
The servers wore crosses
to shield from the sufferance plauging the others.
styrofoam plates,
cafeteria tables
charity reeks of cheap wine and pity
and i’m thinking of you.
I do every year
when we count all our blessings
and wonder what we’re doing here.

You’re a disgrace to the concept of family
the priest won’t divulge that fact in his homily
and i’ll stand up and scream
if the mourning remain quiet,
you can deck out a lie in a suit but i won’t buy it.

i won’t join in the procession
that’s speaking their peace
using five dollar words
while praising his integrity
and just cause he’s gone
it doesn’t change the fact:
he was a bastard in life
thus a bastard in death.

Quotes

A quick set of quotes from, of all places, my Chandler’s planner:

Love – is anterior to Life – Posterior – to Death – Initial of Creation – and The Exponent of Earth.
-Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) US poet

The highest reward for a man’s toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes.
– John Tuskin (1819-1900) English critic, essayist and reformer

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.
– Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher

All truth passes though three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second,
it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
-Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) German philosopher

I’ll be getting a Bartlett’s Quotes book soon. Yay!

Check out www.thepbf.com for some of the funniest shit you’ll see in a long time.

Night!

Fallujah Attack

crap

Oh so sad…

I’m sitting in the library with a few damn problems. Number one on the
agenda: Kerry’s loss. One word: horrible. It’s really a shame. I don’t
think Bush is an entire idiot, but a lot of his policies are horrible,
and Kerry could have run this country better. Someone pointed out to me
that it’s not about heatedly contesting the popular vote in OH for a
month but about instilling and maintaining faith in the democratic
process in the minds of Americans. If a democracy doesn’t work for
people, society crumbles. Still, ugh…

Big names are sick: Arafat has leukemia. Rehnquist has thyroid cancer.

I can’t get into my lab to work on my beetles because I have no key for it. That sucks.

I’m listening to NPR, and it’s interesting to hear about the moral vote of ’04. Exit polls
put “moral values” as the most important reason for voting for Bush
while economy was the most important for Kerry voters. I guess the
moral values thing ties in with the absolute denial of gay marriage in
the US. I can’t really comment too much on the gay marriage thing since
I’m still not sure about it myself. I’ve only recently come to fully
respect gay people, and I’m not ready to make a decision yet. My social
feelings clash with my religion.

I’m trying to figure out what to do with my life. There are so many
options, and it’s a lot of research to get to that point where I’ll
have a couple solid decisions. Right now I’m keeping MANY options open.
Here: an armed force (civilian army position, enlisted navy or air
force,) Peace Corps (other end of the spectrum,) grad school (looking
less and less interesting,) lawschool, medical school (probably not,)
dental school (looking pretty damn interesting, but I know nothing
about applying,) and getting a real job. The most likely real job would
be something like reporter or something in agriculture or witht he
DNR.  I wouldn’t want to get into an entomology job unless it
meant I’d go beyond a lower level. That probably wouldn’t happen unless
I went to grad school, so…

I have dodgeball at 9:00, then I don’t know what I’m on to. Probably chemistry and/or math.

Love,
Collin