Old post... finally updated.

I'm drunk.

Rent's due, and I'm drunk.

Not bad drunk, where the room won't stop swimming in circles, or where my stomach needs to meet the outside world, but a comfortable cozy drunk where the room merely sways and everyone's lovely. :)

I started this but never finished. I don't remember this day, but I think I enjoyed myself. 1/6/09

Unfinished

The city at midnight is hardly different than the city at noon. There are people on every corner. Every fourth business lining the streets- the 24 hour bodegas, the strip joints, the bars, clubs and late night coffee shops- stay staffed well into the night, their bright lights and dingy open signs mingling with the street lamps, traffic lights, and the wandering headlights from passing cars to light up the dirty streets to almost-daylight levels. The weak shadows creep across alleyways and under cars, always just one light away from disappearing. The sky is the sick navy-orange of pre-dawn, even though sunrise is hours away. Of the billions of stars stretching their glow across the great expanse of the universe like hungry fingers... none of their light reaches these gray streets.

While school teachers in Kansas sleep... while little boys in Michigan dream, and lovers in Texas spoon.... As the insomniac in Georgia closes his eyes and the drunk in Ohio passes out on his couch... The city lives. Like the squirming pulse of an anthill, the city moves as one entity of many parts, always alive and kickin. It's heartbeat is heard in the rumble of the subway, in the slap of wet sneakers on concrete. Its in the squeak of tires in traffic, and the incoherent conversations of people passing each other like a radio set between stations. The city breathes. Its breaths are deep and full and rich at times when its most busy, sunny Fridays in June and after a good day in sports. Its breath is scared and shallow sometimes, too- during thunderstorms and news bulletins about child kidnappers.

This night, an extra touch of waiting in the air makes the exhalations of the city come irregularly and hesitantly. The city doesn't know what it waits for, but it feels the rats scurry in abnormal patterns like drunk figure skaters, and feels the rumble like an upset stomach in it's pipes.

Then it happens.

A manhole on the corner of the great crossroad of the city- the heart you could say- rumbles and shakes. Reminiscent of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rerun, the manhole rises to reveal the lifter underneath. But instead of a smiling surfer reptile, from the depths of the sewage system, a giant yellow cone emerges. The cone splits down the middle, revealing it to be a gasping, hungry beak.

Fo Real

What is truth?

I googled truth and got an antismoking campaign. 

http://www.thetruth.com/

I searched for truth on photobucket and found that I didn't know, couldn't handle and wasn't good enough for the truth. 

I asked Wikipedia for the truth and the web site quoted the dictionary. 

So I asked dictionary.com and it told me truth was the true or actual state of the matter.

But I say... according to who? 

Whose deciding what the actual state of the matter really is? The people? God? Ronald McDonald? 

I think I'm becoming a bit of a sceptic. 

Rumor

Little black babies serving frat boys cheese.

Imagine.

*Sigh*

What is the world coming to? 

Personal

Man, it's been a while.

Not on purpose, of course. I think about little things that would look good on a computer screen a lot- my new obsession with conspiracy theories, (which, actually, aren't really conspiracies at ALL! We're just livin in the Matrix. For real) all the funky dreams I've been having lately (this morning, I woke up with an intense urge to go to the gym. When I got there, I realized I had a dream last night where my former boss told me to loose ten pounds. I felt a small death somewhere inside me) or deep thoughts like, 'what's the deal with reality TV', 'how do friendships change over time?', or 'man, I think about my boyfriend too much', but I seem to loose all those little ideas in quiet monologues spilled out on my man's chest, hidden under a sheet.

You really don't need a blog spot when you have your own human well to pour all your random thoughts into. 

It's great, meeting someone you connect with so fully and fearlessly. My hun and I have been together less than two months, but it seems like we know each other to the marrow and back. We're compatible, fascinating (to each other, but that's what counts), supportive and cuddly. He's changed me, for better and forever, and I've seen differences in him that make me smile. We're good for each other. 

But...

Two months. We've been dating for two months. 

I love him, I KNOW I do, and I know he would die for me. But I can't help but wonder if this is all just a honeymoon phase. If another sixty days will find us squabbling and bitter, and two months after that find me lying next to someone else.

I don't want that to happen. I feel, however, that conventional wisdom says that a fire this bright burns out fast, and we're given a short running time by the laws of the universe. There are a lot of them, and they're pretty fail-proof: what goes up, must come down, the shortest distance between two points in a straight line, everybody dies, and a relationship this new based on bein crazy about each other (no matter how good) is bound to disappoint. 

Well, either that, or we'll be married by the end of the year, a thought that doesn't comfort me any more than the future demise of this beautiful little world we've created for each other. 

I remember reading once about a couple that got married after seventeen days together. Seventeen. Less than three weeks. I think about them sometimes, not in relation to my little situation or maliciously, but just as one of those thoughts that randomly pass through you head through out the course of a day, like a theme song of a TV show from you Nickelodeon years, or the memory of your first grade teacher. I wonder what there lives are like now. If they're still together, if they have kids, what it was like meeting each other's parents or seeing each other through a major life crisis. I hope they're together, or at least happy. Everyone deserves that. 

Words of Advice

Think for yourself. Challenge authority. Listen to your body. Try anything that sounds like a good idea at the time, but be smart about it. Some things are only worth trying once, if at all. Fake it til you make it, especially confidence. You're only as awesome as you think you are. Respect and honesty are the most important parts of ANY relationship (parent/child, boy/girlfriend, customer/HEB checker) and the sooner you start to cultivate that, the happier your relationships will be. Don't be ashamed of ANY of your thoughts, and take responsibility for ALL your actions. Your parents are right. And don't get high before class. (in college) 

I got asked to bestow advice on high school students. This is what I came up with. 

School check

Brigham Young University

Rankings and Recognition for Brigham Young University

From U.S.News & World Report:

#79 - BYU's rank among best national universities

#16 - Least Debt

#26 - Great Schools Great Price

#38 - Best Undergraduate Business Program (Marriott School of Management)

#3 - Best Undergraduate Accounting Program (Marriott School)

#19 - International business program specialty (Marriott School)

From The Princeton Review:

#1 - Stone-Cold Sober Schools

#1 - Students Pray on a Regular Basis

#1 - Future Rotarians and Daughters of the American Revolution

#3 - Best College Library

#4 - Students Most Nostalgic for Ronald Reagan

From U.S.News & World Report: Graduate School Rankings

Business: #41 Overall – BYU’s Marriott School of Management

Law: #44 Overall – J. Reuben Clark Law School

Nursing: #72 Overall – BYU’s Nursing program

Social Work: #87 Overall - Graduate social work program

Engineering: #92 Overall - College of Engineering

General rankings:

#10 - In number of graduates who go on to earn PhDs (NORC at the University of Chicago)

#1 - Producer of dental school-bound students (AADSAS)

#6 - Producer of law school-bound students (LSAC)

Top 10 - Producer of medical school-bound students (AAMC)

#9 - Number of short-term study abroad programs (Institute of International Education)

#16 - Number of students in study abroad (Institute of International Education)

#1 - Yield: Accepted students who go on to enroll (U.S. News)

From The Wall Street Journal:

#1 - Master of Business Administration program among regional schools.

#2 - Business school ethics emphasis

#4 - Accounting emphasis

You see what's bold, italic and green? That's enough to make me stop lookin at this school. I already know we won't get along. NEXT!

Arkansas Baptist College

Next on my list is Arkansas Baptist College. I went to the web page and immediately left after reading the motto: "It's a GOoD thing!" See ya. 

Why are all the cheap schools so uber religious? I don't have anything against religious people, or even religious schools, but I'm not down to be converted every time I go to class. I wouldn't have any problem with going to a religious school, but universities that fly their flag so high and proud are after a certain demographic. And I am not it. 

Philander Smith College

Looks like a mostly-black school. Got nothing wrong with that- I've def got some chocolate love. According to their website, they are "a private, residential, co-educational, four-year undergraduate liberal arts college affiliated with the United Methodist church and a founding member of the United Negro College Fund (UNCF). Philander is classified as a baccalaureate (liberal arts) college by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Updated in 2007, the  College's emerging mission is to “graduate academically accomplished students who are grounded as advocates for social justice, determined to intentionally change the world for the better.”

No red flags yet for me, but I'd need to find out how their sociology program is before I rule em out.

So far I only like one school on my list, but I'd rather rule out all but one than have too many to choose from. Anyone that's ever ordered with me at a restaurant knows that I don't do well making decisions. More later.