Guilt

Facebook will now not only request friends, but they will also guilt you into thinking you are neglecting your current ones. See example A.

A Little Self-Conscious

Maybe my favorite thing about Arizona is the weather. I love that it is warm all of the time, and I love that right now I can drive with my windows down all day during almost all of the fall/winter months. For guys this raises a little bit of a dilemma though. See, I enjoy a lot of music. I know it shouldn't matter, but I am not always okay with everyone else knowing what I am listening to. For example: most love songs, anything performed by a girl, or anything more than thirty years old. I know it shouldn't matter but it does. So until I find a good solution to this or get over my image problems, I'll just keep rolling up my windows or turning down my music at stoplights. Or anytime anyone is driving close to me.

Time

There's something interesting about time.
It has this unique ability to form connections.

In the book The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell it discusses the idea that very few friends actually became friends because of common interests. They became friends because of proximity; they just spent a lot of time together.

In the case of me and my friend Bryan, that is very much true. We hated each other. The first time that I remember meeting him I got mad cause he was joking around and grabbed the Mountain Dew out of my locker. Well the next day he tried to fight me. I snuck out of it. Whew. A year later I joined the football team, something that put us feet away from each other for two or three hours a day. He is now the closest thing I have to a brother.

In dating this is often the case as well. You spend time around someone, you learn to appreciate the good and bad about them, and suddenly you feel a little empty when this person is no longer around. As Billy Ocean says, "you wake up and suddenly you're in love."

Even though romantic feelings never had time to properly develop, I spent some time in Van Horn, Texas, this summer. With the exception of my motel, I spent more time in the city park than anywhere else. Though it is blocked by a bush, there is a nice bench in this park. It is there that I read most of Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink.



Even though I wasn't there under the best circumstances, I'm glad that I got to spend some time in Van Horn. I know that the next time I drive east past El Paso I'll be happy to see the Van Horn sign. I might even get off and take a reading break there on my bench.

It's So Much Better Toasted

Toasting my bread today for the second time after it came out only slightly warm, I thought, "I hate toasters." The thing is, it was a great idea. For some reason though they are the most inconsistent pieces of culinary equipment ever commercially produced. It seems they always toast the bread not nearly enough. Unless of course you turn the knob a fraction of an inch clockwise. Then you will have the charred remains of your slice of bread that only my mother, grandfather, or Teri Hatcher would eat.

How much does it cost to get a good toaster? I bought one for $7 once at Walmart and I held a grudge against them for months. I think I actually should have been paid to use such garbage. My sister has one that was probably $40 and performs only slightly better. My parents have yet a more expensive one, which approaches the tipping point of a toaster worth owning. I decided to do a little research and I found out exactly how much you need to spend to get a decent toaster.



Now you need to link here to read about it.

I know, right? That's how you'll know when I make it one day friends. I will have that beautiful $379.95 toaster sitting in my kitchen. We could even talk about it over toast and jam if you come visit me.

My Love For California . . .

... well isn't really there. I can't actually tell you how much I enjoy any joke made about my neighboring state. So thanks Craig.

Dating Disclaimers

When it comes to dating I think that I'm open to different types of girls. I don't feel like I judge too harshly. That is with the exception of three things: lower back tattoos, the SAW movies, and country music.

1) I hate lower back tattoos. I think it is incredibly trashy. This will almost surely eliminate all chances of me dating a girl.
2) I think the SAW movies are disgusting. I know our world is a little bad, but I am still a little amazed that the movie has made enough money to now be coming out with the SIXTH in the series. Gross. I instantly think less of someone that has watched one of them.
3) I love country music. And not liking it is HUGE. This might actually be the most important.

Anyways. That's my thought for the day.

They're Still Dirty

No, not my parents. Even though they kinda are. No, I'm talking about my shirts. Tyler and Ariana thought that the shirts that I had in my laundry basket were clean. So they just hung them up. Whew.

Haircuts and Hangers

Over the course of my life there have two major sources of contention in my household: hair and clothes. Given most of these resulted between my mom and sister, we have all learned to tread lightly when approaching these subjects. For this reason my father almost never does laundry. It's not that he wouldn't like to do it to help my mom (he is a pretty good husband), but he does it wrong. He's colorblind and just tends to do it wrong. He just has to fill in elsewhere. This is why I almost always do my own laundry and cut my own hair. I am terrified that I am going to have someone give me a bad haircut and then I will be mad at them. I can't handle that pressure.

Changing gears a little, I am a little anal retentive about some things. This has substantially decreased over the years, but it's still there. It directs an awful lot of what I do on a day to day basis. One of those things is my closet. I hate that in so many closets there are fifty different shapes and colors of hangers. I have one. Black. Just black. I will throw away anything else that sneaks it's way in.

And the last thing, I decided a little while ago that I wouldn't wash any of my shirts until I wore everything that I have hanging up in my closet. It has been not quite two months I think, but yesterday was the last day, I wore the last one.

Yesterday was also my birthday, I am now twenty-five. It was a good enough birthday, and I came home early to catch Ariana and Tyler in my room (luckily they were behaving...). They left me some M&M's in my room and stuff. I thought that that was all until I walked into my closet this morning. All of my shirts were washed and hanging up.

Now I know I should be thinking, "That's so nice of them," which did go through my head, but what I really am thinking is, "Did you dry all of my t-shirts?" I am terrified that all my shirts shrunk. I know they didn't have time to hang dry them, and none of those shirts had ever seen a dryer previously. It is almost more than I can do to not think about it. And they are now all on pink hangers. Which I can switch.

Anyways I feel bad cause I know I should be grateful and I know they were trying to be nice. But it is almost too much for me to even look into my closet right now. I am just a little worried...

They've Gone Country...Dancing

Mesa, Arizona doesn't actually have anything close to a Honky Tonk. Especially not anything as cool as Billy Bob's in Ft Worth. They do have quite a few people my age that do attempt to country dance though.

Last night I went for my third time. I have gone about every six months since I found out about this, and I haven't enjoyed it very much. There is a girl that really wanted me to go with her last week (I didn't), but this week I decided I would give it another go. I have to say, I really enjoyed it. A few of the really good dancers took some time and showed us some fun things we could do. I even flipped a few girls. One of the girls had to spin around in a half circle leaning back, with me holding her up by only her neck. I'm pretty sure she tripped (I really don't think this was my fault), and fell about a foot to the ground. She was fine, she didn't hit her head or get hurt or anything, but I still felt bad for it. And of course everyone thought it was my fault. Oh well. I still had way more fun than I ever had before. Maybe week I will even go again.