Invasion of Privacy OR Out of One Construction Zone and Into Another

For those of you who don't know, my wife and I are currently living with my mother-in-law. It happened because we waited too long to look for an apartment before we got married and so we needed a place to stay till we found one. Then, we got lazy and stopped looking and now we figured we've been here for so long that we will just stay a little while longer and we should have enough money to buy a house. But I digress from the point of this blog.
My mother-in-law has a nice house. It is three stories and has 6 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. When she and my father-in-law bought the house (and were still married) the bottom floor was just one room for a basement. For reasons I won't go into, they had to convert the basement into three rooms for three kids who were going to come live with them as well as building a full bathroom as well. Naturally, such a big house is hard to keep up with. My mother-in-law has been doing her fixer-uppers to the house in phases (sound familiar?). First, she got new tile in the kitchen. Then she got new furniture for the den. Then new hardwood floors for the den. And it has continued like that for the past four or five years (though my wife and I have only been married for 6 months, we started dating a little over 5 years ago).
Tomorrow, she is replacing the windows. All of them. Its going to take the window people three days to finish. This bothers me. I really don't like construction people. I know it is wrong to feel this way but they sure don't help me change my perspective of them. At my parents house, some construction workers, after finishing the job at our house, came back in the middle of the night and stole our ATVs. So, naturally, I'm always a little hesitant around construction workers. But it goes deeper than that. Its not just that I'm worried they're going to steal my stuff. Its that I don't want them to see my bedroom. And it has nothing to do with the stuff in my bedroom either. Its that my bedroom, to me, is almost borderline sacred. Its my sanctuary. Its where I go where the rest of the world cannot. Its where I feel safe. Its a special place. And whenever a stranger goes into my bedroom, its almost like they're desecrating the place, as if it will take a few days before I can feel safe in there again. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm overreacting. All I know, is that when I have my own house, I'll do the work that needs to be done in my bedroom. Not some stranger.

Reflections on a Friendship

My friend is an idiot. He just is. He wasn't always this way. But in the last 6 years, he has substantially made wrong decisions over right ones. When he started to make a lot of bad decisions, I was the one who stood up to him to tell him he was being an idiot because no one else would. But he never listened to me. He doesn't listen to anyone. Because of who I am, I could never let someone I loved make wrong choices without me saying something (and from my viewpoint) try to help them. But as his choices got worse, so did my advice to help him which he quickly got tired of hearing. And this damaged our friendship to a point where I'm not sure it will ever be fully repaired. He's so bad now that I'm not sure I even want to be his friend anymore. I don't think I should feel partly responsible for who he is today, but I am positive that I drove him away. Perhaps if I hadn't, things would be different. But I'll never know now, and I have to live with that.

"Each one of us here today will, at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question. 'We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything is needed?' It is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or more often than not, the part we have to give...is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us...but we can still love them. We can love completely without complete understanding."
-from the movie
"A River Runs Through It"

Final Thoughts on a Road Trip

Our last day in Denver, we went to the Natural History Museum. It was absolutely packed. We saw an IMAX movie about a guy who climbs the Eiger. It was really good except for the cheesy heavy metal guitar music that was contributed by Brian May from Queen. I actually wanted to leave after the IMAX because we had been to the museum on a previous occasion, and I still remembered most of what I had seen. Stace-Ghost and her friend wanted to walk around some more though so I was out-of-luck. We went through the dinosaurs which was boring. Looking at a bunch of bones has never been too fascinating for me. We then went to the Life/Health section which was really cool except for the fact that there was so many people there. You are given a card, and you do various exercises and other small tests and at the end, you are given a print out of how healthy you are in various areas. The lines were really long for all the exercises though, and I had done it before so I let the girls do it and I went and watched a lecture about the human brain which was really enlightening (you know how people say we only use 10% of our brain? Its not true. Its just you don't use your entire brain all the time. Like right now, you're not trying to recall what peanut butter smells like. Well now you are. But you get the idea).
I came back and the girls were still in line and so I just found a bench and waited for them to be done. After they were done (they were both very healthy), we left and went to a Thai restaurant. There wasn't anything else we wanted to do in Denver so we went back to the house and stayed in for the night and played cards. I didn't want to come back. Stace-ghost didn't either.
I drove the whole way back home because Stace-ghost was scared to. We stopped in Raton because it is almost exactly halfway between Denver and Albuquerque. We decided to eat at McDonald's because we ate at Arby's last time we had passed through. It was packed. After we ordered, it took us 20 minutes to get our food. I got the chicken nuggets because that is all I ever order at McDonald's because that is all I trust there. They forgot to give me my sauce but there were so many people I didn't go up there and ask for some. Have you ever eaten nuggets without sauce? Its not very good. I was mad. I was even more mad because I had to use the bathroom and there was a line right outside the stall. I'm not very good at going to the bathroom when I'm pressured to hurry. I was mad. Being in Raton for the whole half hour we were there was the worst part of the whole trip. I floored it home cuz I just wanted to get home. I didn't want to come back, but Albuquerque is a whole hell of a lot better than Raton.

Thoughts on a Road Trip Continued

Denver is a beautiful city. If you haven't gone before, you should definitely make plans to do so. Its uncanny how clean the city is for how big it is. On our first day in Denver, Stace-Ghost and I went to the 16th street mall, which is an outside mall in downtown Denver. Even though there are only a few cool shops (Virgin Store, Nike Store) the best thing about being at the mall is just being downtown and seeing all the cool buildings and skyscrapers. We ate at the Cheesecake Factory for lunch (they do serve food other than cheesecake-to be honest, they actually had the biggest menu I have ever seen) and for dessert we split a slice of Fresh Banana Cream cheesecake, which is still the best cheesecake I've ever tasted. We then went to the Capital building and then the art museum. All of the art was amazing until we got to the contemporary art, which made me a little angry with the things they try to pass off as art (a giant ash tray with hundreds of used cigarettes and discarded cigarette boxes? Designer chairs? 4 halogen light bulbs in a box? Come on). Not all contemporary art is bad though, especially one painting called Release Your Plans that was painted in 2001 (see below).
We took the light rail home, which is kind of like a subway except it doesn't go underground and I was surprised at how clean it was for being a main source of public transportation. It wasn't without some crazies though as we quickly found out when a woman started yelling, "God Bless America! Go ahead and smile. Life ain't all that bad. You know, I died under this bridge and was reincarnated in this body so it ain't all that bad." She got off the train shortly after and everyone including myself breathed a sigh of relief when she did. But after having the day that I had, I couldn't help agreeing with the crazy lady. Life ain't all that bad.

Release Your Plans

Thoughts on a Road Trip

While we were driving to Denver, my wife and I passed many small towns on the way. Some I couldn't even call a town. Its a house or two, and then nothing for about ten miles. It got me thinking. Who lives in these small rural towns that the rest of the world will never know about? I imagine its mostly people that had already lived and grew up there. But how could you do it? There's no grocery store, no hospital, no school, no police, no form of modern entertainment. Even the houses some people live in look unimaginative and boring. Most houses I can see from the road look like a giant box. Just four walls with six windows and one door. How do they do it? Why would they want to? The luxuries of city life aside, these people are probably terribly alone and bored. It can't be healthy for a person to be away from other people for a long period of time. People are meant to live with other people. They don't even need to talk to other people, just being around others makes one realize that they are not alone, that they're normal, and that if nothing else, we are all connected in the common goal to keep living and to limit the pain that affects us while we are trying to do so.

A Promise To Blog

I know I haven't blogged in awhile but I promise I will....just not for awhile. I have two blogs I already know I'm going to write, and some more on the way. But I'm incredibly busy at the moment, and I'm going out of town this weekend. So I promise, that when I get back, you'll have a lot of blogs to read.

5 Things

5 Things I Do For Myself:

1. Play music and write songs.
2. Go out to lunch when I'm on campus and have the money.
3. Text people frequently of things of no importance.
4. Take hot and relaxing showers.
5. Play video games.

5 Things I Do For My Wife/Close Friends

1. Cover her up with the blanket when I come to bed late.
2. Take the trash out.
3. Calm her fears.
4. Ask how they are doing.
5. Try to keep everyone in a good mood when I'm around them.

5 Things I Do For Strangers:

1. Give money to people on the street.
2. Talk sense.
3. Be kind.
4. Make sure I don't smell.
5. Tip well.