So Hannah Montana is kinda like cupid?

June 22, 2008 - Sunday

Some things I did today:

-Bought a bike helmet that may or may not have a Disney character on it. And I like it.
-Threw out the gazpacho I made. Maybe cold soup isn't such a good idea.
-Told a big dude to cool it at the gym when he impatiently asked me after every set if I was done with my machine...it's Sunday man!

At one point I would have felt bad or said I was sorry about these things. No thanks. Not anymore.

I'm not sure if I grew up apologizing for everything I did or if it is a habit I picked up along the way, but I've decided to stop. Partially because I know a few people who do it and it makes me uncomfortable. But mostly because I think it's a bad idea to be sorry all of the time.

Sometimes we're not sure what we're apologizing for, which is just plain stupid. Other times we're not sorry and that makes us liars as well. And it takes away from the times when we truly are sorry because people don't know whether we said it out of habit or if we actually mean it.
Whatever the case, it's something that's nice to be free of and it makes me wonder what other little habits we all have that put more weight on us than we realize.

Would you be suprised if Christina Aguilera was on my list?

June 19, 2008 - Thursday

So a friend of mine tells me the other day he dislikes the idea of ranking things. I agree and chime in how I like the phrase "in no particular order."
But really, isn't the list with no particular order an order in itself? If I asked you to list the 10 albums that most influenced you, wouldn't the first album that came to your head be the most influential?
Ah, but what about the one that comes around the time you get to number seven and it comes to in a flash and you say, "I can't believe I almost forgot about that album!"?
So is it really about your gut feeling or is it after careful consideration? I find that the latter breeds doubt in your decision-making. But what if you don't trust your stomach?

We experience minor earthquakes every day

May 6, 2008 - Tuesday

No Country for Old Men is a tough book to read. You can cut the tension with a knife. And sometimes I get lost in the dialogue. So when the guy next to me on the bus decided to turn on his speaker phone to jam out to some awful pop/hip-hop song (and if I say it's bad, it must be terrible), I got a little irritated.

Normally in a situation like this I would sigh to myself, pull out my iPod and turn it up as loud as I could to try to drown it all out. But today was different. I turned to him and asked, "Could you turn that down please?" After asking me to repeat myself in a threatening manner he said "It's a free f*ucking country. Go back to reading your book." I started to tell him to stop being so rude when a few other passengers joined my side and the driver told him to turn it off. Sweet!

I've started looking at things I have been doing a little differently. I'm asking more questions, whether it be for a raise at work or directions on a new bus. I remember my dad saying more than once that my generation has a problem with that. We'll just sit back and wait to find out rather than ask. It's been true for me. What a waste of time and worry!

Asking for help is essential when waiting tables. While training I used to stress the importance of this on every shift. Why haven't I applied this in broader strokes?

With these and other small revelations happening almost every day, I wonder why I have spent so much time contemplating something that is hundreds of days (and perhaps hundreds of epiphanies) away. So my next big move is to consider things that are more immediate and let more seismic, albeit simple, events happen within my faults.