You take your car to work, I take my board

Each moment of your life is one you'll never get back. Sometimes the mere thought of this sets off all kinds of anxiety in my mind. Every minute, second, and hour of every day passes whether I do anything worthwhile or not. If these finite periods of time are wasted, there's no way for me to go back and make better use of them. They're gone.

There was a time in my life as recently as a few years ago when I could put things off and half-assedly go about my day in a lazy haze. I think those days are long gone. And I miss them. Right now I have more opportunities to try new things and learn new skills than I've ever had in my entire life, but sometimes when I'm tired and it's cold and rainy outside, I just want to "go back to bed and hope tomorrow's a better day."* At least once a week I think about quitting my job, quitting school, and just loafing around living with the bare essentials. But I know that's not what I want.

My job pays way too well and there are too many advantages to my education for me to turn my back on it all. I never thought my fantasy of the perfect life could be summed up in a song by Weezer or Tupac ("Surf Wax America" and "Rather Be a N-I-G-G-A, respectively). Even if I don't envision myself doing precisely what they describe in those songs, the overall idea appeals to me.

Of course that lifestyle would be fun for maybe two weeks to two months, depending on how much money you have to burn. After that, you'd be left with that same empty feeling that you had in the first place.

*Peanuts

Sofie, my dear Sofie... I'm so sorry

Last week a woman with the reaction time of a sloth caused an accident with my Honda Civic. Fortunately, the entire incident was blamed on her, as it should have been. Oh yeah, and no one was hurt. Still, I had to send my beloved car to the shop for repairs and get a rental car, courtesy of her insurance company. The news of the selected rental didn't exactly fill me with hope. After all, the Kia Optima doesn't exactly have a strong reputation.

My fears were put to rest once I started driving the vehicle. How bad can a car with only 35 thousand miles on it be anyway? This baby could accelerate like it's nobody's business. I was fighting to stay within the speed limit everywhere I went. The seats were comfy, too. But the most dramatic difference was the sound system. Never did the inadequacies of my Civic's audio become more obvious than when I turned on the radio in the Kia. Knowing that I'd never be satisfied with my sound system now, new speakers and a subwoofer leaped to the top of my priorities. Sometimes being a consumer whore isn't that bad.

I will never understand people. They're the worst.

I am not a "people person". Frequently at job interviews they ask me if I am. I always lie and say yes. To my knowledge there is no situation in which it would be appropriate to say "Nah, I'm not a people person, I hate people." Many times I do hate people, specifically when the superficiality, materialism, and selfishness of our society are laid bare before me. But even beyond that, I prefer to keep people at a distance in general.

For instance, about six months ago, I went to a gathering for young adults at a church I attend. This church has a very large congregation (+3000), but this particular event was fairly small, with less than sixty people in the room. Everyone who spoke to me was really friendly, shook my hand, and tried to get to know me. I have not been back there since then. I go to church for the sermon and worship first and foremost and I consider the people around me more of a distraction than anything.

Similarly, on my way inside the church today someone approached me. He too was extremely friendly and interested in learning about me. As we walked toward the building he told me a little about himself and introduced me to his wife. This gentleman had good intentions. After all, given that I was walking alone and the congregation was overwhelmingly white, he probably wanted to make sure I felt welcome. Still, I was a little perturbed that someone had disrupted the little world I've encased myself in. I enjoy the fair amount of anonymity a large crowd affords me.

With these sort of impulses, it's no wonder I haven't formed a decent circle of friends yet. I guess I need to break out of my shell a little more.

I still don't give a crap about Valentine's Day.

PC Load Letter?

I have been working at a new internship for a little over a month. The job is well-paying and the people I work with are great. It has decent benefits for interns (great ones for full-time employees) and a decent on-site cafeteria. It's also frustrating as hell. The problem with software development is that in order to do anything you have to learn how to use eighteen kajillion programs, all in the span of the time it takes to most people to master slicing a pizza. I thought working at my last job was tough at first, but it has nothing on this one. Every five minutes someone mentions a new acronym without bothering to tell me what it stands for or even does. "It's not working? Well, that's probably because you're not using WSKYNASYbA. Oh that stands for Web Service Kill Yourself Now And Spare Your Body the Agony."

If I AM using the right program some little property is keeping it from working right. "Oh, just go into a file called bloody[expletive].bat and change line 256 which is absolutely essential to run the program along with the other 1024 lines in that file. It's located in the directory C:/son/of/satan's butthole/apps/bin. After that the program should run just fine. Oh wait, you are using a Linux machine, right?" Ugh.

Emotions are dumb and should be hated.

Valentine's Day is approaching. Many of you are probably aware of this and becoming increasingly aware of your lack of a date. To those of you perturbed by this I say:

DON'T BUY INTO IT.

Every single year most of us endure the endless commercials and advertisements for this bullshit holiday and become depressed because we're so pathetically alone. It means nothing. This will be the 25th consecutive Valentine's Day I've spent without a significant other and while it'd be nice to have one, I simply haven't met this person. We all know relationships are complex and difficult anyway, why assign any significance to one arbitrary date and belittle ourselves for being single?

IT'S POINTLESS.

Everyone's life is filled with ups and downs. Being single isn't even necessarily a "down" if it's for good reasons. Instead of fretting over not being able to contribute to the retail and food service industry, we should be thankful. Thankful that we don't have to spend a ridiculous amount of money trying to make someone else feel special. Thankful we don't have to try to top whatever we did last year. Thankful that whatever our opinion of this lame holiday, we're not obligated to fit someone else's expectations. Thankful that we don't have to worry about our intricate plans falling apart because, at least from what I've observed, when February 14th goes well it's great, but when it doesn't it really, really sucks. I know I'm thankful, how about you?

P.S. Don't think I have anything against the couples who are enjoying their Valentine's Day together. If you have someone whose company you enjoy, more power to you. But I hate all the superficial, meaningless baggage attached to this holiday.

Inadequacy

We've all felt it. George Costanza reveled in his mediocrity after a brief flirtation with competency. "I feel like myself again. Totally insecure, completely inadequate". Unfortunately, likable as he may be, George is a fictional character and not subject to the same standards we hold ourselves to. If we were to encounter a human being like him in real life, I imagine that our society would find him so despicable that the only way to deal with such a person would be to elect or appoint him to some public office (sarcasm). For the rest of us, we have to decide if we're simply not trying hard enough or if we expect too much from ourselves.

In my case, I have to think it's a little bit of both. I'm plagued by the same sort of questions everyone else has. Am I smart enough? Why aren't I in shape? How come I'm not as rich/smart/fit/confident as s/he is? On one level, I have to remember that everyone has gifts of their own that are separate and unique. For just about every trait I envy in someone, there's another I'm glad not to have. So, in most cases, I don't envy someone's life as much as I do the best aspects of it. My own gifts and abilities should be appreciated by me, if no one else, since they've allowed me to reach this point in my life.

On the other hand, I feel a ridiculous amount of apathy towards anything in my life that isn't instantly gratifying. Right now, I can barely muster up the wherewithal to try to resolve this technical issue that's been hampering my progress at work. Conventional wisdom teaches that success in life is achieved through hard work and perseverance. How am I going to get to the Promised Land if I can't find the energy to leave Egypt?

Sometimes I look at certain people and wonder if they ever feel like this. Take my roommate. He drives a nice car, owns a house, and has a very cool and attractive girlfriend. I've never seen him lose his temper or even raise his voice that much. I wouldn't say he has an active social life, but it seems more by choice than some deficiency. Despite all this plus being a good-looking guy, he doesn't seem to be caught up in the superficial bullshit most of society heaps on us. The only conceivable vice that I've observed is that he bets on sporting events, but if it's a big problem he's doing an excellent job of hiding it.

Except for the fact that he's found someone and his better-than-average looks, I don't really envy my roommate. If I were living his life, I'd be downright bored. But he seems fine. I live with him, so you'd expect me to be subject to seeing him in his weaker moments, but I've observed nothing of the sort. Of course, no one's life is all roses with no thorns, but it certainly seems that way.

P.S. Don't worry ladies. I'll notify you the second he becomes single (if that happens).