This road is a never-ending and constantly winding one. If you aren't careful you'll take a turn too quickly and end up flying off a cliff or flipped over in a ditch. Life is not a pin straight interstate. Life is the scenic route.
There are moments when you'll stop on the tour you're taking to take a picture. You file the photo away in the annals of your mind, get back on the road, and drive on. There are moments you stop at a rest stop and maybe sit at a picnic table and review the photos you've taken along the way. You wonder if the scenery is the same. You wonder if the beautiful park you remember has been paved over and turned into something else.
This road of life has one flaw though. You can't go back.
Sure, you can turn around and revisit the sites. The images of your past are rarely the same, sadly. Makes and models of cars change. Houses and malls and parking lots grow where trees and fields once grew.
You should stop a moment. See if your road is speeding along too quickly. You never know when your engine will fail or stall and wouldn't it be nice to know that the mechanic that once helped fix you - is still available?
Nov 26, 2006
Nov 24, 2006
God
Sometimes God talks to me through my iPod. I know, I know - this sounds rather ridiculous, partially insane, and completely reta... well, you get the picture. But, God and I are on the same page with this, and as long as that's true, I really don't care what people think. (Why blog it then?)
God used to talk to me through my CD Changer, I had one of those super-juiced up 500 disc Sony CD Changer Jukeboxes that had all the song titles and artist names programmed into the LCD. It was very, very cool. Friends would bring CDs and pop them in to one of the empty slots... and always forget that they were in there. I got a lot of CDs that way.
The first time I had my little sing along with God was after reading the back cover of "Conversations with God". There's paragraph on the cover that reads: "...Ask Me anything. Anything. I will contrive to bring you the answer. The whole universe will I use to do this. So be on the lookout; this book is far from My only tool. You may ask a question, then put this book down. But watch. Listen. The words to the next song you hear..."
So I tested the book. I tested God.
I closed my eyes and asked... not so much asked as supplicated... "Do you really talk through everything around me? How can I be sure? How can I know it's you and not some coincidence?"
And I hit "Shuffle" on the CD changer. And around and around she went. And I closed my eyes as if opening them meant I was cheating and could somehow change the course of what would come through the speakers if I went about it with open eyes. And the following words came through the speaker... words from a song that I clearly owned the CD of yet had never, ever heard.
"Let your soul be your pilot, let your soul guide you, it will guide you well."
I did it again and again since then. Not on a daily basis... things I need to hear come from everywhere and I don't really need to ask out loud or close my eyes. I don't need to beg the heavens to read me my life in a book. I don't need to watch my life in a movie.
This morning I needed some guidance, so I left my house and walked and walked and walked. I hit shuffle on the iPod, and had a nice chat with God. The chat ended and I was on Cortland in front of the Leopard Lounge. There's this rather cool building over there, across the street from that lounge, with a cool yard that in the summer and spring reminds me of Heaven. Or my version of Heaven I should say. I find myself there quite often. At least since I moved to Wicker Park.
The song that was playing was Separate Lives. God spoke. And the words meant even more when I realized how my soul had piloted me to my destination. I looked to my left and to my complete surprise saw the sign for The Bucktown Pub.
God used to talk to me through my CD Changer, I had one of those super-juiced up 500 disc Sony CD Changer Jukeboxes that had all the song titles and artist names programmed into the LCD. It was very, very cool. Friends would bring CDs and pop them in to one of the empty slots... and always forget that they were in there. I got a lot of CDs that way.
The first time I had my little sing along with God was after reading the back cover of "Conversations with God". There's paragraph on the cover that reads: "...Ask Me anything. Anything. I will contrive to bring you the answer. The whole universe will I use to do this. So be on the lookout; this book is far from My only tool. You may ask a question, then put this book down. But watch. Listen. The words to the next song you hear..."
So I tested the book. I tested God.
I closed my eyes and asked... not so much asked as supplicated... "Do you really talk through everything around me? How can I be sure? How can I know it's you and not some coincidence?"
And I hit "Shuffle" on the CD changer. And around and around she went. And I closed my eyes as if opening them meant I was cheating and could somehow change the course of what would come through the speakers if I went about it with open eyes. And the following words came through the speaker... words from a song that I clearly owned the CD of yet had never, ever heard.
"Let your soul be your pilot, let your soul guide you, it will guide you well."
I did it again and again since then. Not on a daily basis... things I need to hear come from everywhere and I don't really need to ask out loud or close my eyes. I don't need to beg the heavens to read me my life in a book. I don't need to watch my life in a movie.
This morning I needed some guidance, so I left my house and walked and walked and walked. I hit shuffle on the iPod, and had a nice chat with God. The chat ended and I was on Cortland in front of the Leopard Lounge. There's this rather cool building over there, across the street from that lounge, with a cool yard that in the summer and spring reminds me of Heaven. Or my version of Heaven I should say. I find myself there quite often. At least since I moved to Wicker Park.
The song that was playing was Separate Lives. God spoke. And the words meant even more when I realized how my soul had piloted me to my destination. I looked to my left and to my complete surprise saw the sign for The Bucktown Pub.
Nov 22, 2006
I'm so done with Thanksgiving.
First off, I've never been one to believe in celebrating this holiday. Especially since my heritage is mostly born of what happened when the Spaniards invaded the Americas. The worst part of the holiday are my family members. If we're to celebrate it - it's not celebrating Pilgrims and Indians or whatever - but celebrating family. Family, a word that none of mine gets.
1 of them doesn't want to go to the other one's house because there is no tv. The other one doesn't want to go to the other's house because there IS a tv. They can't come to my house because I have to work.... and little do they know that the reason I DO work is to avoid them... ALL of them.
My aunt wants pork. My husband wants turkey. All I ever really end up eating is rice and salad. My cousins never get anywhere on time so we spend hours waiting for one or the other. My grandmother can't show up because now her arthritis has reached her hip and she can't sit on a plane long enough to visit for Thanksgiving. And God forbid we all pack up and head to Florida to make her happy for a holiday.
They should rename it. "A Day to Remember Why You Couldn't Wait to Grow Up and Have a Family of Your Own Day".. little did you know when you got your own family - you'd still have to deal with the extended family as well.
I ordered dinner this year from Boston Market. Whoever doesn't like it can stay at home. I'm done.
1 of them doesn't want to go to the other one's house because there is no tv. The other one doesn't want to go to the other's house because there IS a tv. They can't come to my house because I have to work.... and little do they know that the reason I DO work is to avoid them... ALL of them.
My aunt wants pork. My husband wants turkey. All I ever really end up eating is rice and salad. My cousins never get anywhere on time so we spend hours waiting for one or the other. My grandmother can't show up because now her arthritis has reached her hip and she can't sit on a plane long enough to visit for Thanksgiving. And God forbid we all pack up and head to Florida to make her happy for a holiday.
They should rename it. "A Day to Remember Why You Couldn't Wait to Grow Up and Have a Family of Your Own Day".. little did you know when you got your own family - you'd still have to deal with the extended family as well.
I ordered dinner this year from Boston Market. Whoever doesn't like it can stay at home. I'm done.
Nov 21, 2006
Idiot
Who knew that age regression was as easy as 5 gimlets? I've been drunk and stupid, but I've gotten over it pretty quickly. But last saturday, I went beyond retarded. I regressed to high school, and not just high school, but it was like everything I don't remember being in high school.
The worst part is, I don't even remember how I acted, I only have 3rd party accounts of what I said / did / acted like. It goes beyond anything I've ever remembered myself doing.
Sure, there was the time I fell off a float at the Pride parade and kissed some strange woman, puked all over Sam, and ended up an ad in countless newspapers. And of course there was the time when I was in High School in Puerto Rico that I ended up somehow on the side of the road and had to walk 14 miles back to my house, only to collapse on the front porch because Dad had locked me out.
It scares me that I've never been drunk enough to not even know what I said or if I did anything - wrong, til now.
I've promised myself that I'll never get that way again. Set limits, assign beverage sitters... tell the waiter at the beginning of the night, after 3 I'm cut off, regardless of what I say.
Lucky for me I was with a very safe bunch of people. Lucky for me THEY took care of me and regardless of whatever I said or did made sure I got home safe - made sure that whatever idiotic thing I did / said didn't go far. Lucky for me these people are true friends and can forgive anything I might have said, done, or otherwise... because clearly it's day 4 after the fact and I still can't forgive myself.
The worst part is, I don't even remember how I acted, I only have 3rd party accounts of what I said / did / acted like. It goes beyond anything I've ever remembered myself doing.
Sure, there was the time I fell off a float at the Pride parade and kissed some strange woman, puked all over Sam, and ended up an ad in countless newspapers. And of course there was the time when I was in High School in Puerto Rico that I ended up somehow on the side of the road and had to walk 14 miles back to my house, only to collapse on the front porch because Dad had locked me out.
It scares me that I've never been drunk enough to not even know what I said or if I did anything - wrong, til now.
I've promised myself that I'll never get that way again. Set limits, assign beverage sitters... tell the waiter at the beginning of the night, after 3 I'm cut off, regardless of what I say.
Lucky for me I was with a very safe bunch of people. Lucky for me THEY took care of me and regardless of whatever I said or did made sure I got home safe - made sure that whatever idiotic thing I did / said didn't go far. Lucky for me these people are true friends and can forgive anything I might have said, done, or otherwise... because clearly it's day 4 after the fact and I still can't forgive myself.
