This year we give thanks to, wait.. no. Nevermind.

It's Tuesday, November 25. In two days we celebrate a holiday that revolves around the farce that Native Americans and European settlers got along and passed around the mashed potatoes and the cup of brotherhood. We are also expected to eat excessively and pass out on family member's sofas/chairs/recliners/etc. Somewhere along the way, the actual meaning of thanksgiving has been forgotten (which I've always considered it to be full of it anyway as the Native Americans taught the settlers how to do all these things and then they are repaid with the stealing of their land, disease, raping and pillaging. How lovely.) Last Thursday on a friend's radio show, I got strong armed into telling what I was thankful for. I didn't want to do it. What was I going to say? "I am thankful for my family... Oh wait, most of them are dead." This year, I stand as the oldest living male on my mother's side of the family. Eleven years ago, it was my great-grandfather. It's me, my first cousin, and my grandmother. THAT'S IT. Granted, my grandmother has a sister who has a huge pile of family members, but it wasn't that long ago that there were as many of us running around as there are of them. They've invited the tiny remnants of our family to their house for thanksgiving. I said I would go, but only after they begged and begged and begged for me to. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't have gone. I still don't want to go. I can't just go to a place and enjoy myself. I spend the entire thinking about who isn't there and who I'll never be able to spend a holiday with again. The only consolation will be knowing that I'll be able to get away from the high school dramatic bullshit of Jacksonville for four or five days. I guess that's something to be thankful for.

This thousand miles is far, far from over

I thought once I got past this road block, it would be easy sailing. I should've known better, my brain even told me better, but common sense said otherwise. Since finally being able to move on, I've actually begun to care a little bit more about myself. I brought a bunch of things from my house to decorate my room so it wouldn't be so drab and depressing from the blankness of it all. I've got boxes to organize things (a shelf wouldn't fit in the car). This is no big deal by any stretch of the imagination, but considering where I was it is. My dad has always said that a thousand mile journey begins with a single step. (Amazing considering he like, NEVER gives any advice that is meaningful.) I'd say I'm probably 100 ft down the road from where I began. Am I over my mother? Of course not. I never will be. But I'm not letting it control my life and ruin everyone else's. That's not the biggest of my problems anymore. I had issues before she ever got sick. For example:

Trust: I have a hard time trusting anyone. And I mean anyone. Family, friends, etc. In 23 years of life nobody has ever given me a reason to trust them, and therefore it's hard for me to arbitrarily trust someone new who comes along that others deem trustworthy. It's nothing against anyone. It's just something I need to get out of my system.

Short Temper: I yell. I yell a lot. Most people don't know this about me but I go from calm and placid to straight to the throat. Most people have steps in between this, but for some reason God forgot to install this feature along with the OnStar. I'm not a physical person. I haven't gotten into a fight since I was in the fifth grade. Seriously. But I seem to have mastered the art of psychological warfare (once again, a gift from my father.) this is nothing I am proud of. It just happens. It flares up and people get hurt. Kind of like Chuck Norris walking down the sidewalk with an erection. There are no survivors. I think, and I could be wrong about this, but I think my short temper stems from the fact that I got blamed for everything. EVERYTHING. Automatically I was the first one accused for doing something bad. And of course, I'd tell the truth. The schools always stressed that if you told the truth and admitted your wrongdoings, things would go easier for you. The few times that it was my fault, I would. And I did. And I got crucified for it while my cohorts lied through their teeth and got off Scot free (which for the record, Scotsman never got off "scot free" so I don't know who the hell came up with that.) And so I began down a dark path of lying and deception and manipulation in order to get that Scot-free feeling™. And that probably explains why my temper is so short. When you've spent most of your life being blamed for shit you didn't do, you'd probably go straight for the throat too. It saves time. It also ruins friendships. I need to add those steps inbetween into my system if I ever intend on reproducing.

Insecurity: I don't really know where this came from. I'm sure it's tacked onto self-esteem issues. It's really hurt me and others in the past, and it really hasn't gotten much better. I can hide it better, but it's still there.

Jealousy: It's there too. It also stems from self-esteem. Let's just keep the details to self-esteem

Low Self-Esteem: Much like trust, nobody's really ever given me a reason to have high self-esteem. Family wise or otherwise. When your father tells you in the middle of the grocery store, "Fine! Die of a damn heart attack see if I care!" just for begging for a microwavable can of Dinty Moore beef stew to take to your first grade lunch... You see where this is going. That's only one of a long line of many similiar incidents. Never being told you do anything right. No good jobs, only "it would've been better had you done this." An "attaboy" would've been nice every now and then. Some encouragement. Getting pissed off at a four year old because he couldn't figure out the math flash cards is not encouraging. That shit hurts. Even now. And it's affected who I am to the point that I see myself hurting other people in the same way. Being patronizing to people because people made fun of me being smarter than them when growing up. They don't understand something I say and suddenly I'M the dumbass. So I began to make people feel stupid for not understanding what I was talking about. Is that mean? Yeah, it is. Do I still do it? Yeah, I do. At this point in my life, do I care? A little bit more than I did, but no. Not really.

My flaws while growing up were only accentuated by my being spoiled by my mother and being put into a homeschool program, which only made the social awkwardity worse. Do I blame her for what she did? No, I don't. It made me smarter because you didn't have to deal with the bureaucratic bullshit. But at the same time it made me less adaptable into society once it was time to push me out of the nest. Which in all sincerity never came. Because of being babied for so long, even at 22 (at the time), my mother's death was comparable to a small child being orphaned. Seriously. I am not a very mature person. I realize that. I'm trying to change that. And I think I've made considerable progress. Am I there yet? Not in the least. But I tend to believe that I'm more mature than my father (which is sad considering he's 65.) The question of Nature versus Nurture is very clear. It's just as much one as it is the other. People have the natural predisposition to behave a certain way, but there are different ways of triggering it. Is it fate? You can call it that if you want. But the sad truth is that more often than not, the sins of the father are in fact the sins of the son. The question is, can you wash away your inherited sins before your son has to bear that cross?

That's what I'm trying to figure out.

ALL BARK AND NO BITE (AN OBSERVATION)

(Disclaimer: This is not intended to go out and get people to start brawls and riots and etc. This is purely an observation and hopefully will get people to look at themselves and reflect on past, present, and future actions.)

Look, I've been here since fall of 2004, and one thing that I have noticed is that a heaping portion of smack-talking has been dished out to people more times that the "park in the red, not the blue nor the white" song we learned in Orientation. someone has a beef against someone, so they start with the "I'm gonna beat his ass" song and dance, and then the other one gets wind and is all like "Bring it on, bitch!" and it goes back and forth with other people playing as the messengers. Before it's all said and done, nothing happens and both parties act like nothing happened. Of course, the outsides still hear the same shit coming from both sides for ages afterwards, but none of them ever come to fruition and are nothing more than brain farts.

I am no advocate of violence of any sort, but I am also no advocate for bullshitting people and not having anything to back it up with. Don't talk smack around me about anyone whether they are your friend or not (or whatever they are) don't expect me to NOT tell the other person involved if they are my friend (because bullshit or not, any threat of bodily harm should not be taken lightly.) and most importantly, don't pussy out of it. That's what I hate more than everything. Every single solitary time I've heard an "I'm gonna put him in the morgue" rant, neither side ever follows through with it but they continue with the same childish bullshit in order to make themselves look like they're fucking badasses. 

The bottom line: the "fucking badasses" are the ones who never actually follow through with the threats because that is their primary form of attack. If they really actually followed through with it, they wouldn't find the need to boast about it. The ones who say nothing about it are the ones who will not say a word about beating someone's ass. When they see fit to do it, they will just do it, and they won't warn a soul about doing it beforehand. 

And in closing, I would like to say that in my bloodthirsty mind, I'm still waiting for that fucking fight to break out. which it never has, and probably never will. Because nobody seems to have the balls to actually take the first swing. And it's probably for the best that they don't.

Get your head out of your ass so you won't have such a shitty outlook on life.

So, I've come to a realization. I'm an idiot. I like to call it The Moormann Syndrome. Basically, in laymans terms, you get treated so nicely that your brain makes you think that there is an attraction. This happened to her with me, and it's possible that it happened to me with the girl I've mentioned in two of my last blogs. Maybe I'm wrong. In the long run, I hope I am. But she's hurt me. Hurt me in ways I never thought imaginable. Why? Well, partially it's my own fault for really not knowing what I want, but at the same time, she should actually listen to the general consensus and and not find out the hard way that someone is bad news. My father always said "A fool learns from their own mistakes, but a smart person can learn from other people's mistakes. Gomer Pyle's grandmother also said "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me." Speaking of Jim Nabors... There is this girl that is from Sylacauga that I used to work for on the campus newspaper. We got along well and joked and etc., and kind of hit it off, but never really went from there. Well, I turned on facebook tonight and she expressed interest in me. I was like "hell yeah". so hopefully that will work out. So Thad, you can find love too. Or, at least a DUB.

I guess things happen that way

I think I'm falling for that waitress I posted about before... Talk about ironic.

It was bound to happen.

I am living on my own... again... this time in a rental house about three blocks from where I spent my summer months. If I am to get one of the four available positions in the Communication Department, then I'm going to need to be able to be here five days a week otherwise the money I'll be making will just be burnt up in the gas tank. I'm living with three other guys in a run-down old house. Yes, it's a rat trap, but it's cheap and I really have no other choice until something better might possibly open up. I need to be able to get on my feet financially, at least to the point where I can keep gas in the car and if I want to treat myself to someone nice every once in a while, I can. Of course, the bills and rent go without saying. My mother wanted me to be financially secure. Unfortunately she didn't get a chance to help me get started in the right direction. I'm having to learn all of this on my own. It's sink or swim. Oh well.

I like my roommates alright. Justice is my closest friend though, and it was my initial idea for him to move in here. He's been out of touch for a few days however. Maybe he'll come around today. The lease needs to be signed and he needs to be present. Al is good people too. Always interesting to talk to. Sometimes he has bizarre times to decide to hold conversations and is a little bit pushy, but he is good people. John, the final roommate, is rather bizarre. I like him alright too, but as weird as I am, he seems to get on my nerves. I've found myself even going off on him after a while. It gets so frustrating. I just want my privacy at times and he refuses me that. If the door is closed, either knock or come back later. I don't want to have to deal with people. Don't just enter arbitrarily. That pisses me off. And if I'm off my meds for a few days, I might want to kill you.

Anyway... I think it'll be an alright living situation. I just need to be close to where I'll be working and I don't really need that much stuff in my room. It'll be just about like when I was living at Wesley, but at least I'm not surrounded by stuck-up cookie cutter assholes who think they're running a country club and not a christian organization.

I guess that's all for now. toodles.

Alrighty then...

I had a Waffle House waitress propose to me last night. It was interesting.

"Burton, will you marry me? Adopt my two kids and help me raise them."

"Maybe later."

I just thought I would share that. I don't really have much else to say tonight.