Chicken Soup

Just when I was pressed for something to blog about, I had a really weird night at work. First, as a side note, I may have complained about this guy I work with every week sucking, and it makes bussing hard for me. I didn't tell any bosses because I would feel extremely bad if he got demoted or something because I complained about him being slow. And I didn't have the heart to say, "Hey, you're really slow. And a lot of the things that you do, you don't have to do yet. It can wait while we have tables." But, somehow, something clicked, and he's normal now. I dunno if someone said something to him or what, but not only do I like him as a person, but it's cool working with him now. And I say this because sometimes, you don't have to be a dick. You can just let someone figure something out for themselves. And now, he doesn't think I'm an asshole for telling him he sucks, and he still has his good shifts. Pacifism is not always that bad.
Anyway, tonight I was working with the aforementioned guy, Trevor. It was a normal Sunday, kinda slow, he was going to bus a table, I was following a few steps behind him. I round the corner of the bus station, and there's Trevor, giving the Heimlich maneuver to this girl. And there is the girl's boyfriend, I guess he didn't know what to do, because he was standing there, with his hand on the girl's arm, like giving moral support. What do you do when a loved one is kind of in danger of dying, and you don't know how to help? So Trevor is giving her a few heave-hos and realizes it's not working. I'm watching what's happening, but not interfering, and when he stops giving the Heimlich, he looks at me and says, "She's choking." He is always calm, and kind of monotone, even though he's about my age. So I guessed it was my turn to give it a shot, and stepped up, mounting this strange girl as she choked on a tortilla chip, standing over her table. While I was standing there, kind of recalling what to do from CPR classes in high school, I remembered the diaphragm has to be pushed. So I guessed where it was, gave her a good tug in the belly, and she made a weird sound like I hurt her, so I stopped. But then she started breathing, so all I said was, "All good?" And I kind of heard silence, and that was good enough for me. She sat down, and I kept working. It was then that I realized how much of an adrenaline rush I had gotten, because I was all jittery. But I was acting overly calm through the whole thing.
Another weird thing was that I wanted to go over to her, and be like, "Man, that was nuts!" But I felt like she would be embarrassed, and I didn't wanna seem like I was fishing for compliments and thank-yous. But I also felt weird not talking to her because I just shoved my fist into her belly from behind. Kind of an intimate maneuver, the Heimlich. And I got enough atta-boys from everyone at work, so I felt good that I helped someone out.
And another side note about work. There's a guy that works there as a manager sometimes, and sometimes as a server, and he's very unfriendly. He has a very deep voice, and looks, to me, like he could be a drug lord that kills little blond American girls and stuffs their bodies with drugs to smuggle across the border. He never initiates a hello to me, never tells me I'm doing a good job. And the only thing he tells me to do is make sure the bus station is swept up, and to check the bathroom. He's an over-payed babysitter. And then tonight, when all this happened, he came over to see if everything was ok, the girl was ordering food, and everything was normal. I assume that he was worried about that girl getting mad at us for choking on our food and suing us or something. But even when I gave a girl the Heimlich maneuver, he didn't say one thing to me. Nothing. Fucking asshole.

Just Another Rant

One of my readers (evidently the most consistent one) expressed that she felt that I complained about my life and wanted to live in a remote part of town because my life sucks. She was drunk, so maybe that skewed her expression of her thoughts, maybe it didn't. Or maybe that's what everyone thinks. I'll address that issue as such: at first, I thought that was ridiculous. I talk about things in this blog that bother me all the time, I think they're the most interesting things to write about. And I also wrote about moving to a farmer town because the idea of it sounds cool, just living off of what I produce myself, and living with genuinely nice people and just having a really simple life. I thought I mentioned this, maybe I didn't. I didn't double check before I wrote this, and I won't before I post this entry. I will say this though: ideally, living in a rural town and farming sounds cool. But it would probably suck. Which is why I think most people live in cities, and most people on TV in rural towns talk about getting the fuck out of whatever town they're in as an unattainable dream. But I was talking to Grant the other day (I dunno about what exactly), and he told me to look up interviews with Noam Chomsky, an author and linguistics professor at MIT. I did, and I actually found out why living in a rural town sounds cool, ideally.
In America, we know we are awesome. We live in, if not the best, one of the best countries in the world. But most of us know that comes at a price. Many would say that price is the lives lost that our soldiers bravely give defending it. Many would say it's the governmental/societal/natural/whatever douchey reason-oppression that keeps the poor poor and the rich rich. In my opinion, it's probably a mixture of both. But most of us are middle class, most of us are happy, and majority usually rules in a democracy, so whatever works, let's do it. And bear with me, here's my point. After watching Chomsky's interviews, it wasn't exactly eye-opening because I know that the US government, like most governments, does fucked up shit. But just hearing him cite instances where it definitely happened, and remembering, not realizing, that fucked up shit is a part of the world, I then realized that I would like to live in a rural town because I would ideally like to run away from fucked up shit. I don't want to remember that wars exist and they're part of life. And I want life to be simpler. And I want to live in a town where most people aren't douche bags, but if there are douche bags, you know exactly who they are and it's easy to avoid them. But sadly, there's a word for things you think about that sound really good in theory, but probably won't work out in real life, and that is ideal. So I have to find a way to live happily among fucked up shit and douche bags.
On a different note, I found out a while ago, I dunno how long, that my cousin, Jessica, was going to get married. I remember meeting her only once because her dad (my uncle Allen) and my grandpa don't talk, apparently because of some family feud regarding a restaurant they owned. So on top of being X miles away from them, there's family stuff involved, and I never see Allen and his kids.
So I'm on facebook tonight and on my news feed, I see one of my friends changed her profile picture and her name is Jessica Wathen. And I'm like, who the fuck is Jessica Wathen? Oh, my cousin...who apparently got married. Cool.
What the fuck is that shit? Fuck family feuds, they're stupid. I want to know what's going on with my family. I found out I have a relative-in-law by facebook pictures? Sad. Also, I don't even know how to pronounce my cousin's last name. Is it Wah-then or Way-then? Who the fuck knows, I don't talk to my family.

We're All Just Floatin' Around, All Accidental Like.

I watched Forrest Gump last night for the first time since I was a little kid. And sorry I'm 15 years too late in saying it, but that movie is awesome. I love when Forrest will say something to someone he's talking to at the bus stop, and then someone will say what he just said, like in the re-living of his life. Made me chuckle every time.
But the last part of the movie was really memorable, when he was talking to Jenny at her grave. And he says, paraphrasing, going through life is a combination of destiny and floatin' around, all accidental like. And he talks about all the beautiful things he saw when he was running through America, and in Vietnam and stuff. It really made me appreciate everyone I have. And for some reason the thought of me just floating around in the world and happening upon such beautiful people is really cool to me. And now that I think of it, I can remember most of the times I met all the people I care about, and it kind of seems like I just ran into them, in retrospect. Like we all floated up to each other at some point and after that, it just seemed natural we wouldn't float away.
On the other side of the spectrum, too, I float by tons of people at school and have no problem floating by those people. I love my friends, is what I'm getting at.
One more thing I thought about after watching Forrest Gump is that I want to move to the South eventually. That movie made it look really pretty to me. And I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this already in an earlier blog post, but the movie made me want to see more natural beauty. Instead of backpacking around Europe when I graduate college, I think I want to just drive through every state in the US and see all the natural beauty I can see. And probably drink at a lot of different bars and eat a bunch of weird food.

School

So, so far I kind of like school. Pretty abnormal for me. But it's early in the year, everything is easy, and it's not as hot. And I've grown some nuts and started getting to school early enough to find parking to I'm not complaining about parking in an adjacent neighborhood to Grossmont before school. Which is fucking retarded. I hope you guys don't get tired of me saying everything's fucking retarded. I just wish that the school system would only allow as many students to add classes as there are parking spots.
Anyway, here's why I like school right now. All my teachers are guys, for one. Call me a chauvinist, but I tend to like male teachers better than female ones. I can probably just relate to them more. My favorite class is beginning acting at Grossmont. Obviously because it's super easy. We play games, basically, to get us warmed up and ready to express ourselves. And during these exercises the teacher sometimes gets kind of weird, and "acting-teachery." Example: first day I went to class (I missed the first day, I slept through it), we did relaxation exercises where we were able to "feel every part of our body" and "think about the tool with which we would channel characters." I'm paraphrasing, but my teacher said things very close along those lines. When I was lying down on the carpet, making raspberry sounds (blowing air out of my relaxed lips so they made an obnoxious fart sound. Yeah, super relaxing), I thought wow, this is fucking retarded. But hey, it beats the shit out of stats or bio. And then we started doing small scenes with assigned partners. And doing them and watching them was really fun. I've already talked to more people in that class than I have in all my college classes combined. And don't get me wrong, a lot of these kids are fucking weird. And annoying. But fuck it, I'm weird. And a change of pace is always appreciated.
All my other classes are pretty run-of-the-mill. Only thing cool about them is that my 2 classes at state are taught by really nerdy guys. And really nerdy guys are funny. Usually. In this case, they're cool. And I will only have to buy 1, maybe 2 books for this semester, so I'm super psyched. So here's to the new semester. I will miss Summer break and everyone that makes breaks so Goddamn fun.

Watched The Other Guys Tonight

The movie was really weird. It was an over-the-top action comedy and it was very funny at times but also had some times where I really wasn't feeling the movie. I left the movie, though, still thinking Will Ferrell is hilarious. Some people were saying he kinda lost it. I disagree. Wait for that movie to come out on video and you'll see (I dunno if it's worth 10 bucks. I liked it, just not 10 bucks liked it). Weirdest part was the credits just running some figures and numbers at you about how much corporate greed has grown in the last decade or 2. Seriously, the credits had statistics in it about how much money CEO's make now and how much they used to make. And the disparity between the average worker's salary and a CEO's. Which I found very interesting and tought-provoking, but after watching a movie where 3 guys comically commit suicide and homeless people have several orgies in a prius, you'd imagine me being perplexed. Funny movie though, don't get me wrong.

So here's what I'm thinking. I think that the big people in this world are too big. There are companies that are too big to go out of business. They literally have so much fucking money that if they failed, so would our economy. And there are people that head those corporations. I wanna know how that guy sleeps at night because it must be very good sleep. I would totally buy a memory foam mattress if I could afford it, those things are awesome. I don't really know where I'm going with this subject, other than saying it's retarded how rich some people get. I can't imagine having so much money that I literally could not spend it all. Makes me want to do something really drastic and revolutionary but I realize that the system works for a lot of people and I have no idea if there's a system that would work better. And I just don't want to turn into a tree-hugging faggot.

One more thought. One night, like a week ago or something I had a dream where I was lucid, like I knew I was dreaming, and I had a thought along the lines of, "in Inception, they did this, so I should do this too!" And I don't remember what I did. But I do remember having water thrown at me and then I caught it because I was like, I'm dreaming, I can do anything. So I fashioned the water into a sword and fought something. I'm pretty sure it was a creature of some kind who was also throwing fish or some kind of giant bugs at me. Which is funny now that I think about it again, because in the dream I caught them and just tossed them to the side, but in real life I would get grossed out and just try to dodge them because I hate bugs and I hate the smell and feel of fish.

This Was A While Ago But I'm Writing More Often. At Least For Now.

So a while ago I went to the shooting range with my dad and little brother. He is 13 now. He's going into high school this coming semester because he skipped 1st grade, he's young for a high schooler. Not only that, I'm pretty sure he is immature for his grade. I really don't know much about him. The other day I asked him what was going on in his life and he basically said nothing. And I said, and I'm paraphrasing, "You don't wanna tell me about your life? I'm your brother and I barely know you." To which he said, in his fucking annoying little sarcastic drawling voice, "Okay..." I don't blame older generations for thinking that newer ones are losing feelings for family and the good things in life. Families used to gather around radios and listen to broadcasts together, that sounds disgusting to me. And now I want to talk about my brother's life with him and he just shrugs me off. Me not knowing about his life has no gravity for him. Fuck it he can have his own life then.

Anyway. I went to the shooting range with my dad and brother, because my dad wants to get some kind of security guard certification where he can carry a gun on duty, it pays more I assume. so we go to P2K (Project 2o00) on Willow Glen or Dehesa, whatever the street. And that place is kind of eye opening. I walked in there, took a really easy test and I was certified to shoot a gun. No class, no training, no questions to see if I'm insane or not.
So we go into the range and shoot my dad's hand guns. My brother shoots one round and says he doesn't like the gun exploding in his face. So he sits the rest of the shooting out. We even try to coax him that the other hand gun that he didn't shoot was less smoky and easier to handle. He insisted that if it exploded in his face, he wasn't going to shoot a gun. And who can argue that a real-life hand gun wouldn't explode in his face?
What I was thinking about was this. I think we should have a little bit more strict gun control laws in this country. I'm all for protecting the Constitution. Our country was founded in great thanks to militia with muskets. We are entitled to weapons in our home, and we have a document that backs that up. But some of the guns I saw in the shooting range gun shop shouldn't be outside of military or high-level police hands. Some of these guns were meant to kill many people at one time. Like in a military sense. Now, if we were to justify the Constitution in the sense that I just defended it, we could say that the better the guns we have in gun shops, the better our militia would be. If we were invaded, I'm pretty sure our weapons would be just as good as any military's. That's no exaggeration. But I think we need to think within reason. We already have a really good military. Our need for a militia is very small. We don't need giant assault rifles or shotguns.
Here is the worst-case scenario I thought up that could happen because of our poor gun control. I go in the gun shop and rent one of those giant guns. I'm not sure that I can necessarily, but I'm pretty sure I could, just to shoot it. I could go shoot a couple rounds, then kill everyone in the range and go on a rampage on Rancho. I'm not saying I would, I love Rancho. But who's to say a looney wouldn't roll into Rancho? Just saying. Gun control.
Also, good for the gays for Prop 8 being overturned. Go get married.

I Dunno, I Think About Weird Stuff.

I was thinking about the fate of humanity a lot lately. That and death. And the meaning of life. And the more I think about it, I kind of wish I was religious because I would be a lot less cynical about things. I believe in the idea that we all just exist and we are here for worldly pleasures. But we have really advanced cerebral thought so we have guilt complexes about indulging in worldly pleasures and stuff. And we wonder if this is all life is. I'm fine with that though, I guess. A lot of worldly pleasures are great. Feeling love is great, family is great (usually), and having a good time with your best friends is great. This is what I live for. Recently though, there are some other things I want to start living for.
I want to play sports again. And I'm less than ambitious and less than in shape, so doing this competitively may not pan out. Not only that, I work 30 hours a week and will be going to school again (not something I like living for), so this could just be one of those things I'll grow up saying I wish I pursued more adamantly.
The other thing is I want to see every beautiful place I possibly can. I have come to notice more often how pretty San Diego is. Even East County. Call me biased, but the scenery of Rancho San Diego can be really nice. It used to be just a big rural horse ranch, cowboys must have come out here to get away from it all in the majestic mountain scenery and have sex with each other in their tents.
Point is, I want to see what the world has to offer. I don't really care about making lots of money but if it means I have to do that to see the beauty of the world, I will. And I'll probably have to have some money if I'm going to have sex with women. Because God knows I won't get any making blog posts like this one.

Complete side note I wanted to blog about. If you are at a restaurant and you have something in your teeth, good for you for having a little floss stick with which you can hold a piece of plastic and floss your teeth with ease. But please, go to the bathroom and use it. I'm sure the people at your table would appreciate that too. And lastly, if you fail to excuse yourself from the table to get the shit out of your teeth, have the decency to throw your floss stick away yourself after using it. Bus boys at Old Town Mexican Cafe might just be bus boys but we also know a trashy fuck when we see their trashy remains left on their table. I've worked there a whole month and a half and I've found 2 floss sticks. Come on guys.