Burning Bridges

I've been pretty bitter lately. This blog isn't going to be an attempt at a humorous anecdote, not today. It's going to be me complaining about how people can be pretty crappy sometimes and not even realize it.

I have about 4 people I still consider really close to me. They're "good friends", most of the time. But lately, they've been dropping the ball a little bit. I'm going to talk about two friends in particular in this blog, which may or may not make things awkward between us. I know these people read my blogs, so I'm certain they'll know it's about them. To protect their identity, however, I'm going to call the first person Ted.

Ted and I are good friends, let me start off by saying that. He and I made plans to hang out last week after he got off work. He called me after work and said he couldn't hang out because he was having stomach problems and couldn't make it. That's completely fine. I get that. I'm not going to sit at home with my boxers in a knot over him not coming over for that reason. What kind of friend would I be?

I gave him a few days, thinking when he felt better, he'd reschedule. I didn't really hear from him for about 3 days, so I decided to give him a call on the 4th night. I was having some drinks with a friend, and decided maybe he'd like to join. Ted told me that he'd pass because he needed to take a break from drinking. Then I thought to myself, "Wait a minute... I thought you were sick?"

I let it go though. I don't doubt Ted was sick, but I figure if he's too sick to do anything at all with me, he's probably too sick to drink with a bunch of friends somewhere else. But hey, whatever.

Then 2 days later, on Monday, we had made plans to go to lunch that afternoon, when all of the sudden something came up and he had to put it off until Friday (not to mention, the restaurant we were going to go to is always closed on Mondays. We forgot.) So I thought it was a goof on both of our parts, and I guess I thought it didn't matter much that something came up with him. I did however ask him to hang out that night, but again, he already had other plans that night.

Ted is taking a few winter classes up at the college, so I figured he'd be busy all week with that and work so I decided not to bother him too much about hanging out. I figured since he's sort of ditched me at least 3 times now, he'd probably get a hold of me when he had some free time. I talked to him last night, and he told me we were still on for lunch today and that he would call me and wake me up in the morning so we could go.

1:47 pm rolls around and I finally wake up (I sleep late when I don't have school. Sue me), and I realized he never called. I sent Ted a text message just saying "...nice." to which he replied "what? and did you still want to go to lunch today?" I brushed it off and told him about a weird dream I had about him (which did happen), and that I was still up for lunch. He definitely forgot we were supposed to go to lunch today. Either that, or he figured if I didn't say something the day of (even though he said he'd wake me up), that it didn't count anymore. Apparently that means I don't want to go anymore.

When we finally got to lunch, he let it slip that he's basically been drinking with other people all week. Frankly, I'm sick of being lied to and forgiving when people think I'm an idiot and don't know what they're doing, especially when they're terrible at covering it up. I don't think he does these things on purpose per say, but I definitely think maybe he should take into consideration about how I'm feeling when he'd rather get drunk somewhere else than hang out with me like he was supposed to at least a week ago.

I'm sick to death of all these mind games you have to play with some people just to hang out with them. It's ridiculous. I shouldn't have to constantly remind a person that we have plans that night, and I certainly shouldn't be the one always asking to do things.

Furthermore, I shouldn't have to sit around and wait for someone's indecisive "maybe" to turn into a yes or the more probable answer, no.

I have another friend, who we'll call Kirra. Kirra, since we've been friends, has developed a rather severe case of OCD. Anything from germs and dust to pet hair bothers her. She won't go in anyone's house who has pets. It makes her skin crawl apparently. Therefore, since I have pets, whenever she's visiting, it's extremely hard for her to hang out with me now, but she seems to try. We managed to hang out twice since she's been back up here for Christmas from her collage a state or two away. She's had 3 weeks up here, and we were only able to hang out twice. Granted, that doubled the amount of time we hung out last time she visited for Thanksgiving, it still seemed like it wasn't enough.

Kirra and I had talked about her OCD and how she hated having it. She missed hanging out with me, and I her. She said she was going to suck it up and have me over as often as possible when she was home. Apparently that was a lie. Of course, she'll probably never admit that it was her OCD. Everyone's favorite excuse to not hang out apparently is their busy and hectic lifestyles. I don't buy it, not for a second. When you have no job, and nothing to do but hang out with your family for 3 weeks, I'd like to believe you'd have at least more than 2 days that you can hang out. I know Kirra said she's try and suck it up. As difficult as it can be though, I'd like to believe that she could have tried a little harder.

When she visited on Thanksgiving, after we hung out that one time, she literally ignored every text message and IM I sent her asking what was up for the next 2 weeks she was visiting, until she went home. That's why this time she felt really bad and wanted to hang out more. I guess I wasn't so lucky.

I probably should take this issue up with these people directly. I really should, but I can't. I'm not sure how they would take it. I just want to them to know that I'm on to them, and I know what they're doing to me and why they're doing it. I don't buy for a second that either one of them is actually too busy to hang out with me. If they really wanted to, they'd make time. I know these people care for me, they're my best friends, and I care for them too. I just think that for some reason or another they think they can pull a fast one on me and get away with it (sometimes over and over), but they really can't. I know them too well and have for too long.

Ted and Kirra, I want you guys to know, that when you read this (and I know you will), is that I forgive you guys, and I want to move on. I just wanted you guys to know that I know, without actually telling you directly. You don't ever have to bring it up, just know that I know, and try to be a better friend once in awhile. Quit with the silly mind games and for god's sake, Kirra, give me a straight answer. If you don't want to do something because you're OCD is acting up, fine, but don't give me a bunch of "maybe"s and expect everything to work itself out. I definitely think that everyone out of high school should be done toying people around, believing they can out smart anyone they want into thinking whatever. People aren't that dumb guys, they just play the game and go along with it to avoid confrontation. I'm done with that. Time to grow up, everyone.

I promise after writing this that I'm going to be even more straight forward when it comes to dealing with people. I won't try to manipulate people into thinking I'm doing one thing so I can hang with someone else, and I'm certainly going to deal with my problems even more directly than I was before. And I know what you readers are thinking, " Wow! That's pretty big talk for someone who just wrote a ridiculously long blog indirectly confronting all his problems!" I have no problem talking to either one of these guys about what's bugging me. I'd like to think I'm close enough to them so that I could tell either of them anything. However, both of these people were doing similar things to me, and I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone and just let them both know what was up while protecting their identity from everyone and each other.

No hard feelings, Ted or Kirra. I just want things to change.

Back Issue #1: Nuts In My Mouth

Originally posted May 30th, 2008 on MySpace.

My Mom likes to bake when she has time. Why, just the other day, my Mom decided she'd make some muffins from a recipe she had. It was some sort of banana-nut muffins, that contained of, you guessed it, bananas and nuts. It also had coffee grounds in it, which I thought was kind of weird, but that was the least of my concerns.

Personally, I think nuts ruin any dessert. Peanut butter is a different story all together. But nuts, as a whole that are not "butter-fied" in desserts make me want to gag.

So there I was, cutting this freshly baked, moist, muffin. It had a sweet maple syrup smell to it because of the brown sugar which was mixed with the delicious aroma of bananas. So I took the knife and carefully spread the butter on it. Just as I finished that, I picked up half of the muffin and began to bite down. The richness of the butter (yeah, or margarine) and the deliciousness of the muffin combined in my mouth, producing a wonderful taste. I continued to bite down, when all of the sudden...

*HARD THING*

It was an almond. It totally interrupted the blissful taste of the muffin itself with a bland crunchy thing that is almost like adding negative taste to the muffin. It was appalling. Just when I was starting to enjoy the moistness of the muffin, I'd bite into another one! It was awful.

I was under the impression that my Mom knew that I hate nuts in stuff like that. If I'm bored and kinda hungry, and we have some peanuts around the house, I'll eat them or whatever. That's fine. But I definitely think you shouldn't surprise people with them. Don't be all, "Hey! Here's an awesomely delicious and moist muffin! Enjoy!" then turn away and stick a finger in each ear as if the nuts in the muffin were a bomb about to explode in my face. She didn't do that, but she might as well have. I'd rather my head explode than eat another muffin with nuts in it. I also wish I was allergic to nuts. And I mean like, deathly allergic. So that way my mom would go out of her way NOT to include nuts in stuff. But I only wish I was allergic to the whole nut. I can give up my occasional peanut snack, but I cannot live without Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. ABSOLUTELY CANNOT!

Anyway, to sum all that up. Nuts ruin desserts. They taste gross in muffins, and in brownies, and don't even get me started on nut-riddled ice cream.

Back Issue #0: Prologue

I've decided I'm going to post some of my more memorable blogs from MySpace on here. Some of the older blogs I've written on there were generally well received, some more than others. I have some favorites and some that I know people close to me liked. In anycase, any blog that starts with "Back Issue#___:" is an older blog. I hope you guys enjoy reading them as much as I did writing them.

On a side note, I might edit some of them before I post them onto here.

And another side note, if you want to view my MySpace and my older blogs that I might not post, check it out here: . If you add me to friends, in the message, please include that you found me through my blog. Sometimes I get random creepers that add me to friends and I usually just ignore them. So yeah, thanks ahead of time.

I Smell Like Cheese...

And you know what? That's probably one of (if not) the absolute worst thing you could ever smell like. Especially if it's an identifiable cheese, like blue cheese, or brie or something that smells like feet. Or worse yet, rotten cheese.

I don't smell like that though, oh no. Nothing that bad, I promise. I smell like taco cheese. I basically decided to stay up all night (since I got up at 5:00 pm yesterday, it wasn't all that hard), and I got hungry around 8:30 am the next day, so I decided a grilled cheese would be a good choice for a breakfast of sorts. So I made that.

Then I had a flashback to another morning I stayed up really late. I had been watching HSN. At the time they were selling non-stick pans. They demonstrated how "non-stick" they are by melting and burning cheese on it and showing it just peeled right off. And then that giddy idiot in the television uttered(*) these fateful words, "And you know what?! This would make a great snack! I do it all the time!"

It was a matter of months before I was actually able to muster up the guts to risk messing up one of my mom's not-so-anti-stick-pans because they're so GD old. But I did it. I made myself that grilled cheese today with some cheddar cheese, and then took a quarter of a bag of taco cheese and melted it on the skillet.

It was going pretty well until it started to stick to the pan like a sweaty ass on leather. And then I realized that I used too much cheese. Cheese, and everyone else probably realizes, is slightly greasy, so there was a large amount I had to manage on the pan. I did however keep rotating it, all the while grease is getting everywhere and the cheese is starting to smoke. And then the cheese fumes fused to my being, and now I smell like cheese.

I don't think I'll be able to get rid of the smell or greasy skin for awhile.

Update: I definitely ate too much cheese. I'm going to be bound up for like 4 weeks, I swear.


Footnotes:
(*)= I had to look this up to make sure I wasn't referring to the teat of a cow.

A wedding that ended in bloodshed! (Run for your lives!)

I went to my first wedding today. It was quite the month of religious ceremonies for me. First a wake, and now a wedding. Talk about opposite sides of the spectrum. In any case, today was pretty fun, I'm not going to lie.

The ceremony itself was nice. The bride and groom were friends of mine, and it was nice to see them so happy together. The reception afterward was especially fun because I sat with everyone I was friends with at a table by ourselves... we didn't have to deal with any old religious fanatics judging our sometimes crude conversations.

One point stands out in particular. All this week I've been getting bloody noses due to the cold, dry weather. It's pretty sickening. It mostly happens in the shower, after all, who doesn't enjoy a good snot rocket after first waking up?

So anyway, there I was sitting between my friends Kayla and Meagan when all of the sudden, I felt that familiar movement in my nose. The dam built in the red sea, for the purpose of this nose bleed metaphor, broke and began to unleash out my nostril. Having the amazing reflexes that I do (hey! Don't laugh. I got a Wii Fit for Christmas! I'm on my way to actually being (a little) fit!), I caught the blood on my hand before it could get all over my new shirt I got for the wedding. I quickly told anyone who happened to be listening (fun fact: no one), that I'd be right back. I bolted out of the reception hall trying to not be noticed, all the while my hand was further being covered with blood.

I finally made it out of the main room when I had to turn left, go down a hallway, then straight into the men's room to stop the bleeding. But before I could make it down the hall, I saw 2 women who were guests at the wedding. They were walking side by side in a manner that suggested they had been dancing for hours and their heels were starting to hurt them. Ladies, don't wear platforms to a goddamn wedding. In any case, since they were walking side by side, I had no way of getting around them. And they were going incredibly slow. I could've politely said, "Excuse me!" or something, but that would've drawn their attention to me, much less my now blood covered hand over my half bloody face. So I stood there, walking slowly to sort of trail behind them to stay unnoticed. It was tough, but I don't think they saw me, or my nose at the very least.

Finally I made it in the bathroom. I spashed some water on my face to get some of the blood off, but that was a bad idea. Instead of getting rid of the blood, the blood continued to come out of my nose and fill in ever wet spot on my face. It got a lot worse. I then grabbed some paper towel and got it all off. Then, after feeling like everyone was staring at me, I went in a stall to jam some toilet paper up my nose until it stopped.

After about 10 minutes, it stopped. When I went back to my table, no one seemed to notice where I went or why I did. Apparently I have a very noticeable, vibrant presence.

Oh my god! I have 26 ears!

Or at least I must with the amount of headphones I have. Here's a knowledge bomb for you, I have 13 pairs of headphones. I'm not going to lie, I basically just realized this. Why on Earth is that necessary? Why do I need so many? Hell if I know. Too bad there isn't that one perfect pair. Maybe that's what I'm in constant search for? Who knows... the point is, I have too many. In any case, here's a list of the headphones/headsets I have and my "reasons" for having them (and the ones I have listed, broken or not, are still in my possession and have not been thrown out).

1. Apple Ear Buds - I bought an Ipod Nano.

2. Apple Ear Buds - I bought an Ipod (32 gigs).

3. Apple Ear Buds - I bought an Ipod Classic (160 Gigs).

4. Cell phone headset - Came with a cell phone I used to have ages ago. (These are MIA.)

5. Official Xbox headset - Came with my Xbox 360.

6. Unofficial Xbox 360 headset - The official ones broke.

7. Bluetooth headset - I wanted to be one of those cool people that tricks everyone into thinking they're talking to them, when in reality they're on the phone. Unfortunately, I, at once point in my life, thought that was a cool thing to do.

8. Uncomfortable ear buds - This particular pair I bought because I wanted ear buds. This was before I had the Ipod ones that were of equal or lesser value. These were my first set of ear buds and they came in a neat storage case.

9. In-ear ear buds - These I bought as an upgrade from my uncomfortable Ipod ones that stretch out your ear lobe. This pair also had an adjustable volume dial on the cord, which was nifty.

10. In-ear ear buds with wrap-around ear attachment (so they'll stay on during all that rigorous jogging that I don't do) - The main reason I bought these is because I ended up losing the rubber piece that fit in my ear for my #9 pair.

11. Working Headset with microphone - These I took from my father's to try to use for some online gaming that required you to use a voice-chat program. They didn't work out.

12. Non-working headset - This headset is especially old. This one also has a mic. I'm not really sure why I originally bought this pair, but I did. I definitely wanted to do some voice chatting of some sort. The mic is a bit faulty because you get some weird static if you move or adjust it sometimes. These were the reason I grabbed pair #11 from my Dad's.

13. My awesome headphones - These headphones are like, hardcore-DJ headphones. These I bought for some hardcore internet gaming/movie watching or music listening to on my Ipod. They have amazing sound. And since I wasn't able to find a good set of headphones with a mic that worked, I now use #12 and these at the same time. It take a bit of adjusting, but after a little bit of work, I can comfortably use 2 sets of headphones at once.


And there you have it ladies and gents, a list of all the horrible things I spend my money on. Now that I have this all hammered out, I just need to figure out where I put headphones #4...

Icey You Baby! Washin' Those Hands!

So I was in Kmart the other day eating dinner at the Little Caesars in there and studying for my history final. My friend Beth works there so I got one hell of a discount on a large soda and a large order of cheesy bread. I think it was just over $4 if I'm not mistaken. I owe you one, Beth.

Anyway, so after I ordered my food, I turned around from the register and walked down the aisle immediately behind me. I walked past the soda machine to my right and 2 tables on my left before I sat at the third table, facing the register so I could still see Beth but I was far enough away to probably not bother her. There was a mother and a daughter sitting at the second table in the aisle, the mother facing me and the daughter facing the register. The daughter was really short so every time I looked up, there was a good chance I'd make eye contact with her mom if the daughter was at all leaning to the side or forwards. It was kind of awkward when we would make eye contact. I felt like she thought I was checking her or her daughter out. She seemed almost creeped out.

In any case, there I was thoroughly enjoying my cheesy bread, drinking my Diet Coke, when this whale of a woman with an oxygen tank (bad blowhole?), wheeled up in an electric wheelchair because whales, after all, can't walk on their own. She must've consumed all of the plankton in the ocean, because obviously she was getting food at Little Caesars. She ordered a pizza and a soda with her friend (who was probably secretly a dolphin), and went over to the soda machine to fill up their cups.

Now I was watching them the entire time because I didn't want to get grease on the flash cards I was using, so I figured I might as well stare at them. Whatever. Anwyay, after they filled their cups, Shamu was like, "Hang on, I just want to get some ice," which puzzled me, because she no longer had her cup. She lunged forward a little to better reach the ice button then put her other hand under where the ice came out, which kind of grossed me out because she touched the rim of where the ice came out. Who nows what she touched? Apparently I wasn't the only one concerned with that. She then took the ice that was dispensed and began to commence wriggling them through her fingers, using them like a bar of soap, letting her dirty finger debris fall saturated into the drip tray. I wanted to puke.

Now, for those of you who don't know me, when caught off guard, I wear my emotions on my face pretty badly. I was caught off guard, to say the least. My jaw dropped, my eyes widened with a look of disbelief, and I'm sure a few wrinkles appeared in my forehead. So I looked away and I made direct eye contact with the mother for what felt like an eternity. I had enough time to think the following to myself,

"I can't believe that lady just did that!
I that lady must be grossed out too!
That lady doesn't appear to be as grossed out.
I don't think she saw it at all.
Oh my god, I'm making a face a her."

It was pretty horrible. I looked away as soon as I realized this. I didn't look up after that until she left. After she left, my friend Beth decided she'd be awesome and stack the pizza boxes she finished folding, as high as they'd go. She failed. I had to get out my phone for that one: