A veces bebo demasiado Mountain Dew

The title means “Sometimes I drink too much Mountain Dew” that summarizes my weekend with friends from home. I drank mountain dew, got really hyper (or at least not tired) and then hit a crash after the sugar left my immediate bloodsteam. Let’s just say I got tired alot. It was wicked sunny on Saturday and thus I enjoyed myself no end. Thus I’ll tell you about it.

We started off Saturday with going to the Friends of the Seattle Public Library Booksale. I purchased 11 books for 9$. I got some Plato, bonhoeffer, and a little Henry David Thoreau. Note a fact: I still haven’t read all the books I want to that I have at home…and I just bought 11 more. Still, great deal…but really…Somewhat of an unnecessary purchase. The sale was in Magnuson Park, which is over in the Laurelhurst area. It used to be a military base. Currently it’s a public park that rocks. There’s a huge warehouse where the books were sold. I looked for awhile and then realized the books I had were worth 11$ as opposed to the 9 $ I had in my wallet. I had to go to great lengths to explain to the woman who was in charge of making me pay that I didn’t want 2 of the books I had so that I could afford them. She kept saying “You have 11$ worth of books and there’s only 9$ here.” I kept responding with “Yes ma’am, but I really only want 9$ worth of books. So you can keep these two.” It was about a 4-5 minute process. Sigh.

I was wearing this shirt that is bright orange and says: ORPHAN. I’m not an orphan, I bought the shirt for Acting on AIDS week. However, I don’t plan on getting rid of a perfectly good shirt now that it’s over. All this said. It gives me a good amount of grief. One time I was wearing it at home once and my dad got a really offended look on his face and said “You’re not an orphan!” I explained the purpose of the shirt and he understood. I had to do that with about 8 people on Saturday. “Are you an orphan?” they ask. “No I’m not, ” I reply and then launch into an explanation of why I own the shirt. It’s alot of trouble just to be clothed. Someday I might just say “Yes, I am.” to save myself the trouble of explaining the shirt.

After the booksale we went to the U District and hung out with my friend Johannah from High School. She’s awesome. She is one of those people that I’ve been able to stay friends with over the years and I am grateful for it. She helped us score 3$ breakfast at her sorority. High fives to her. We then proceeded to hang out with her the whole day. We spent some time in the Quad at UW. Let me say, if you’ve never been to the Quad during Spring quarter when all the Cherry blossoms are out…YOU ARE MISSING OUT. Frikkin’ amazing. almost 80 Degree weather with green grass, people to watch, and cherry blossoms on huge trees surrounding you. Cool stuff.

Then we went to our friend Joel’s house for a BBQ lunch and then after that headed over to Carkeek park. It was my first time there and as such I tell you that Carkeek park is awesome. There’s a beach, a nice grassy area, a bridge that goes over the railroad (from which you can watch the train). Seriously, a great place. Afterwards we went to Teriyaki and hung out. It was a big day.

I noticed something interesting about what happens when I hang out with my friends from Bellingham. First off, I always have fun. They’re great to be around. Secondly, I am always tired. I think this happens for several reasons: 1) There are 4 people in my room. The heat quadruples and I am left playing a never ending game of “let’s open and shut the window in response to heat/noise from outside”. So I don’t sleep much. 2) They all get up early. Sometimes it’s like sleeping in a room with campers. They wake up irritatingly early and then want to do things. I take a long time to be happy about being awake. If I’m woken up by people talking in my room I change into a grumpy bear-like version of myself who curses at open windows that make noise and is generally unpleaseant. My friends have decided to call this version of me “Sleepy Carl”…I’m glad they don’t hate me for being angry in the morning.

When my friends from home and I hang out with girls I sometimes find myself feeling insufficient. I have really funny, musically talented friends. In their company I usually take a more reserved role. I don’t constantly try to climb trees or chase squirrels, nor do I play guitar and sing songs that I write. I just hang around them and enjoy their company. Don’t get me wrong. I love spending time with them, but I just find myself quieter and more unsuccesful with women (not that I’m really successful now…) when I’m around them. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the girls we hang around are always the ones from home who are/have been more into them than me. That’s fair. I’m not offended. Though, I do at some point start to feel a bit dejected and lonely in these particular situations.

Thinking about that, I guess in general I wait for girls to be attracted to who I am…sometimes they are, other times I think that the things I enjoy are of a less obvious attractiveness to the women I know. You may have noticed. I like to think about philosphical things and stuff like that. Sure, I’m pretty whitty sometimes. But I dunno how much that really matters. Sometimes I think that girls want the sort of guy who plays guitar and can talk about LOST. I don’t think I’ll ever be that guy. Maybe that guy isn’t what girls want, but they’re still not doing a good job of proving it to me. Or perhaps I’m just not looking in the right places.

I find that even though I learn things in life (for example: I am not defined by how girls are or are not attracted to me) It’s hard to keep those things in the forefront of my mind. I think that in this sense, once we learn something we have to keep fighting to make ourselves grasp that thing we learned. To me at least, this takes effort. I wish it didn’t. I want it all to happen at once. But life doesn’t happen like that. It’s a biggish sort of process. Even with the things we’ve already “learned”.

Wait just a second. I just spent the last few minutes essentially whining about my life. Well, balls. I don’t have any reasons to complain. Am I saved by Jesus? Yes. Do I have friends? Yes. Does my family love me? Yes. Am I in college? Yes. Overall, life is good. I think the rain outside makes it easier to get down about my life, which is in fact…very good.

I’m at work in the ASSP Office right now…one of the tabs in between the bus passes says “3 sucks” Hmmm…I think that’s funny. Maybe bus pass number three really does suck. I really like it when things of a completely random and unimportant nature are criticized. For example I like to have extremely strong opinions about things like mayonnaise. It is the devil! I hate mayonnaise (except in turkey sandwiches after thanksgiving). See? That’s what I mean. It’s fun. But seriously, you shouldn’t eat mayonnaise anymore…unless you do it once a year. It’s one of the 2 worst condiments ever.