I Want There to Be

Me: I don't know if it's all true or not, but Roni basically said I fucked it up when I mentioned my ex visiting in July and that was the icing on the cake.

Ex: She asked me one night something or other about what happened, but because I was mad and being a smartass at the time, my response to her was, "Well, it's okay, [she]'s going to visit him in July and they can get back together and it'll all work out how it was supposed to."

I love reading stories with situational irony in them. I hate when it actually happens.

For those of you who are STUPID, I am presently single. If any rich, deathly ill old women who would be happy to will me all their money are available, give me a call.

And those of you going, "You deserve to have lost her because you were ______" (insert word such as lusting, cheating, etc). NO. You fucking RETARD. I was CRUSHED when my then-girlfriend said that.

Yeah, so I'm cleaning out my inbox at five in the morning, trying to make some space. Reading through the mountain of going to break up, going to break up, breaking up, still breaking up, broken up, let's be friends, still broken up, you don't suck I just don't want you, post broken up letters.

From like eighth grade on.

On the upside, my German teacher has taken classtime to compliment my pronunciation twice now, and considering we have a Swedish kid in the class, that made my day both times. A Jewish kid from down the hall was looking at some Hebrew I wrote on my whiteboard, not knowing I wrote it, and was talking to some other guy. He said, "That is truly beautiful Hebrew," and took a picture of it on his camera phone to send to a friend.

Sadly, that's all that I have to fill me. It's that time of year that everyone's looking for someone. Yesterday was my ex's birthday, which of course I spent all day (ahem, the whole week, you know) thinkging about her as a result of. Then I find myself reading all of these old things, having all these old memories. And I know how much she's into the next guy already, and it makes me think of all the other people who fall under the "x-list" and how they so quickly jumped to the next person.

At least this one was courteous enough to wait until I was really gone though. If you're reading, thank you for not cheating me. You're the first and only to truly stay faithful to the end. I will never forget that bit of merciful kindness.

It's also Yom Kippur. I decided I was going to celebrate it this year. I didn't know what time the temple services started, so I didn't go. Then I was going to eat before sundown (when the fast begins) but the cafe was closed. So I ate a couple fruit rollups because that's all I had. I knew I'd be famished the next day. I found some Ramen, but the sun was already down. I ate it anyway, then felt really guilty because I was such a lameo I couldn't go one day without eating. My goal had been to get something on my stomach before it started, but I figure the fast is only symbolic anyway.

Not eating doesn't mean I'm any closer to knowing what I really believe in. I really want there to be some sort of god. No different than Christians want there to be a messiah and Nihilists want there to be nothing, I suppose.

I want hope.

I'm tired of everything going wrong no matter how hard I try or how much I love or how much I believe. It seems everyone turns away in the end, and that only makes me fearful of my actions around those who haven't.

But really, I have my priorities all wrong. The ones that haven't are the ones I should let affect me the most. I constantly find myself saddened because of those who have. I think that's natural though. Any time someone turns away from you, you're going to feel it.

I feel it.

Isn't that what I wanted? I went to therapy, an institution, wrote countless little squiggles about how devoid I was of feeling and how much I wished I could feel human things. I realize that I have always been able to feel, I was simply only feeling the negative ones.

Anger, sadness, hate, love, apathy, disgust.

Wait, love? Yeah. I shouldn't list it as negative, it's taught me so much and I've gained so much from it. But it has only lead to much, much more pain.

Not, I must say, counting camaraderie. The other kind of love. The intense love where another person becomes your heart, and without that person your blood stops flowing. You become numb and die.

I was burned at work the other day. Burns, unlike any other wounds, have totally predictable behaviour. After you are hurt, it still feels like you're being burned. It can hurt to the touch, or even to think about it. It will swell and become worse and continue to be painful. Eventually, after a long while, the swelling will go down and the injured skin will fade to a red marking. The marking will fade in time, too. Perhaps there will be a scar, but in time even it will fade a little.

I have a bad history of fire in more than one way.

I have a worse history of trying to throw a phoenix from my ashes, only to have it doused again. Why do I continue to try? Why don't I just let them bury my ashes?

What reason do I have to try? There's nothing waiting for me at the end of my efforts.

For All We Call Mizzou

The vast majority of people reading this aren't even in the same state as me. Most of them haven't even passed through. So for them, I have a shitty chain letter that was forwarded to me a while back. For those who do or have lived here, I'm sure you'll agree that this basically hits the nail on the head. Comments in brackets.

You Know You Grew Up In Missouri if:
1. You've never met any celebrities. [I haven't met a single one. I've seen them and been in their presence, sure. Richard Kruspe sweat on me while he was headbanging. That's about as close as I've been]

2. Everyone you know has been on a "float trip." [The comedy of this statement is held in the fact that we don't even say, "What's a float trip?" We just sort of say, "Yeah...?"]

3. "Vacation" means driving to Silver Dollar City, Worlds of Fun or Six Flags. [This is true. Almost every alleged vacation I've been on has been to Six Flags. A girl asked me to go on vacay with her. Three guesses whether it was to Six Flags or not. I've been there so many times that even not having been there for years, I could walk in right now and I'd still know the entire layout by heart. I didn't even go as much as most people do. I've never been to Worlds of Fun and have only been to Silver Dollar City once. The writer forgot to include the St. Louis Science Center and Zoo, which every class up to the fifth grade or beyond goes to at least once a year]

4. You've seen all the biggest bands...ten years AFTER they were popular. [And even then, you have to drive to St. Louis to see them. Not even country singers come here]

5. You measure distance in minutes rather than miles. ["How far is it to A's house?" "'Bout ten minutes."]

6. Down South to you means Arkansas. [I personally consider Springfield to be about the cutoff, however that's pretty close to Arkansas. Technically, it should be around the Kansas City-Columbia-St. Louis line according to Civil War history]

7. The phrase, "I'm going to the lake this weekend," only means one thing. [One thing, and it's not in reference to anything sexual. I hate fishing]

8. You know several people who have hit deer. [It's so common that the response to "B hit a deer," isn't "Holy crap is he okay?" It's just, "Oh? What road? Yeah, there's lots ov'em out ther. How's th' car?"]

9. The local ciniplex can't show more than five movies at a time. [That sounds about right. I think my hometown could show six to eight, but never anything too sexual or violent or the Baptists would throw a bitchfit]

10. Your school classes were canceled because of cold. [Although due to the intensity of weather here, to constitute a snow day you basically have to have a frozen road that results in fatality BEFORE 5am or a lazy superintendent who doesn't want to get out of bed, either]

11. Your school classes were canceled because of heat. [It's not common, but it happens. Normally those are just half days and we still have to sit in 100 degree (~38C) rooms anyway.

12. You know what "Party Cove" is. [My hometown has the "Pirate's Cove" to play on the local mascot, the pirate. Cute. Dumbasses]

13. You instinctively ask someone you've just met, "What high school did you go to?" [I've heard this so many times out of university students who aren't even freshies that it's ridiculous. It's more if you're from St. L or KC that the question follows]

14. You've had to switch from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day. [Sometimes in the same errand run. Weather here is literally the most sporadic on earth. Meteorologists love us]

15. You think ethanol "sure does make mah truck run a lot better." [Well...it does make mah truck run a lot better]

16. You know what's knee-high by the Fourth of July. [I've heard the saying a lot but I can't recall it right now because I think it's probably some racist crap I've blocked out. Maybe it's not, but "it's probably some racist crap" is a fair assumption considering the location]

17. You see people wear straw hats at funerals. [I've only been to two funerals, and one was Catholic, which doesn't really count as Missourian. I'm sure I'll see it someday]

18. You see a car running in the parking lot at the grocery store with no one in it, no matter what time of the year. [Mostly gas stations, but this is stupidly not a lie. Even city maintenance and ambulances and stuff have been out there running before]

19. You know in your heart that Mizzou can beat Nebraska in football (But NEVER Oklahoma!). [I couldn't give less of a shit if I tried, however it's always a big turnout for those games. Parties all the hell all over east campus]

20. You end your sentences with an unnecessary preposition, e.g. "Where's my coat at?" [I used to, and you hear it more often than not if you listen for it. We also say things like "how come?" instead of "why" and call turn signals "blinkers." Hazard lights are sometimes called (I even saw this posted on parking signs more than once) "flashers"]

21. All the festivals across the state are named after a fruit, vegetable, or grain. [When they run out of fruits, vegetables, and grains, they just start saying "county fair," although I believe there might be a "Twilight Festival"]

22. You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked. [The motion detecting lights, too. I know many people who have these but leave "the side door open in case oneaya gits locked out"]

23. You think of the major four food groups as beef, pork, beer, and jello-salad-with-marshmallows. [Mmm... jello salad with marshmallows ...mmmm]

24. You carry jumper cables in your car and know that everyone else should, too. [Seriously, if you don't have cables and don't know how to jump a car, how can you possibly be prepared to enter the working world? And you call rednecks stupid]

25. You went to skating parties as a kid. [Yes! I wish people still had skating parties. Once for Passover I had a bunch of people over and we played hockey, but that's the closest it's been for a long while. I miss skating parties]

26. You only own three spices: salt, pepper, and ketchup. [They forgot Tobasco, red pepper, and chili powder]

27. You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit. [Or under a poncho, depending on how crappy the weather is that year]

28. You think sexy lingerie is tube socks and a flannel nightie. [It's not what you put on, it's how you take it off. Remember that]

29. The local paper covers national and international headlines on one page, but requires six pages for sports. [Namely, high school football and/or wrestling]

30. You think I-44 is spelled and pronounced "farty-far" (St. Louis residents only). [St. Louis can burn. I've never been there long enough to experience this]

31. You'll pay for your kids to go to college unless they want to go to KU. [Or try this...I won't pay for my kids to go to college at all! Heh, sike, I'll help them out, but I won't be rich monitarily until I'm a grandparent.]

32. You think that deer season is a national holiday. [I don't hunt, but deer season is kind of spoken about as if it were going on everywhere]

33. You know that Concordia is halfway between Kansas City and Columbia, and Columbia is halfway between St. Louis and Kansas City, and Columbia is halfway between Hannibal and Springfield, and the Warrenton Outlet Mall is halfway between Columbia and St. Louis. [This is true. Every Missourian knows this and other halfways not listed here. Probably the easiest way to find out if someone claiming to be from here really was or not, if anyone would ever be stupid enough to lie about that of all things]

34. You can't think of anything better than sittin' on the porch in the middle of the summer during a thunderstorm. [Yes I can. Sittin' on the porch in the middle of the summer during a lightning storm drinking beer. Possibly eating Taco Bell or the like. I think that's what they really meant, though]

35. You know which leaves make good toilet paper. [My first thought was, "It's not that hard to tell," but then I thought, "Well, I guess when you're surrounded by forest since you were six, it's not. My uncle defied this by wiping his ass with poisoned ivy once. Uncles exist for comedic bodily humour, though]

36. You've said, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity." [I refrain from saying this because it's basically the Missourian catchphrase. Heat causes humidity, dipshits. However sometimes...sometimes it IS the humidity. During the summer some moron will say this at least once a day if you but think of the weather]

37. You know all four seasons: almost summer, summer, still summer, and football. [More like...windy, hell, freezing, and frozen]

38. You know if another Missourian is from the Bootheel, Ozarks, Eastern, Middle, or Western Missouri as soon as he opens his mouth. [This is untrue. All you have to do is look at them]

39. You know that Harry S. Truman, Walt Disney and Mark Twain are all from Missouri. [And hate them all because of that fact alone]

40. You failed geography in school because you thought Cuba, Versailles, California, Nevada, Houston, Cabool, Florida, Louisiana, Springfield, and Mexico were all cities in Missouri (and they are!). [Along with about fifty other cities with ripped off names, like London and Paris. All of these towns are potholes except for Springfield and all of the people from them suck including Springfield]

41. You think a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor. [Or backhoe, or mobile home, or grain thrasher thingy]

42. You know what "HOME OF THE THROWED ROLL" means!!! [I LOVE that place. That was the coolest trip I've taken in this state and probably the only good vacation one can take here]

44. You read this list, and did't see anything abnormal about it. [Your MOM is abnormal! Oooooohhhh]