Catharticism thy name is me.

Life hasn’t been going the way I planned lately. I’ve been sick virtually all summer. I went to the doctor, they gave me antibiotics, I feel a lot better--but I’m still not 100%. This is summer! I shouldn’t have walking pneumonia!

And don’t get me started on college. Well, actually, I will get started because I want to vent. My complete and total disregard for high school and grades and such has finally caught up to me to a degree.

My plan is to go to junior college for two years or possibly shorter and then transfer to the University of California, Santa Cruz. My favorite place in the world and it has one of the best college radio stations in the country, so it’s all good. That plan is still the same. I just didn’t know where I wanted to go to junior college. There’s a community college right down the road from UCSC, and you can actually make a deal where you go to that junior college, but you live in the dorms of UCSC. Or I can live at home and go to the JC right down the road. I really, really, really wanted to go the JC in Santa Cruz, live in the dorms, etc. I just researched it, and I found out I needed to get a certain GPA in high school in order to do that deal, and I didn’t get that GPA. Alas, that’s a dream that can’t be fulfilled.

Regardless, it’s not the worst thing in the world and I don’t have much of a problem with going to this JC down the road. Except, why is it so immensely difficult and convoluted to sign up for a transfer and some classes? Maybe it’s a sign of this generation, but I so much prefer doing things over the internet. It’s easier because you can do it on your own time and you don’t have to deal with other people that you don’t want to deal with. But, there are so many steps and they’re all disjointed and it’s just so fucking (pardon the language) difficult. This is when I wish I could still talk to my high school counselor. That woman would’ve helped me with this shit.

*sigh* Life’s just not working out like I had hoped right now.

Healthiness here I come...well, not quite.

I have been a hypocrite. I need to establish that. I always used to get pissed at my mom for not going to the doctor when she was ill or not going for ten years, and I would always tell her “I go for every little thing, better safe then sorry.”

Well, I haven’t been keeping up to that lately. I’ve been sick more or less for a few weeks now. Ever since right around graduation time I’ve been not quite right. I’ve had a cough for a week, and I think maybe longer then that. I’ve got so much phlegm, it’s not even funny. Although I don’t know why phlegm would ever be funny anyway.

I’ve been sort of running a fever off and on. I just haven’t been well. Yet, I’ve neglected going to the doctor. And why? Best case scenario, they tell me I have a cold, drink tea and eat lots of soup, and I’ll be fine. And I really doubt it’d be anything worse then that. Maybe the flu or bronchitis even. But still curable and easily treated.

I haven’t had much of an appetite lately, and on the rare occasion I feel hungry, I’ve been eating junk food. Which isn’t terribly outside the ordinary for me, but not smart when I’m healthy, and especially so when I’m sick.

I need to start taking care of myself. I exercise but that’s about the limit of my healthiness. Maybe completely revamping my diet would be a bit drastic right now, but I need to start somewhere and I think that somewhere is the doctor’s office.

An Ode

I consider myself to be very blessed. This could be any number of things, but today I’m talking specifically about people in my life. I’ve been blessed to have some great people enter into my life.

One of those people is a certain Nanci McCaleb Bushner. Nanci was actually the driving force behind me writing this blog.

Nanci’s truly a great friend and a wonderful person. She has got an absolutely fantastic brain. She challenges my mind and doesn’t settle for my bullshit—and trust me, there can be a lot of bullshit with me.

We make an odd matching. I suppose most strangers who see us think of us as mother and child, but that’s not really what it is. It’s far more informal. One of my biggest complaints with people by and large, is when they treat me like I’m my age. It’s rude and very condescending, and it’s an issue I’ve been dealing with my entire life. Trust me Mr./Mrs. Adult, I can keep up in a conversation with you, I’m not the cliche-d view of the teenager (basically, a zombie). I’ve been able to keep up in conversations for a long time now, but no adults seem to think that I can. They think that I’m either too stupid, too unaware, too uninterested, or they think that I simply won’t have anything to contribute to the discussion. I have a tremendous amount of respect and gratitude for adults that treat me like an equal. Nanci has always, always, always treated me like I’m an equal, and for that, I’ll always be appreciative.

We’ve covered virtually every topic known to man. From the Doors and the Beatles to God and our beliefs. We agree on most everything, and on the rare occasion we disagree, one of us will either change the other’s opinion, or understand it enough to value it.

She has got three beautiful sons, all of whom I know in some way or another, and all of them unique (and as my mom said, “very handsome”) in their own way.

I suppose the best way to sum up Nanci is this: Nanci has not necessarily had the easiest life, but she certainly has made the best of it.

To This End

I have heard two people express concerns, deep concerns, over the state of communication today. I just read a blog devoted to the subject of that person’s concern, so it finally pushed me to write this. I’ve been meaning to write my opinions on this for a while, and that was sort of a catalyst for it.

I want to open this blog with a mission statement: communication today is no better or worse then it’s ever been. Our methods of communication have changed to a degree, but I’d argue that there’s a lot more face to face conversation and a lot more phone conversation then ever before.

First, however, let’s look at the negatives of the new types of communication (or, at least, the perceived negatives): face to face conversation has been relegated to 160 characters via text or a message on Facebook. Text messaging has deadened our emotions and has lowered our ability to properly communicate.

I think I can offer something of a unique perspective on this because I’m a teenager who’s right in the thick of electronic communication, but I’m smart and aware enough to realize the positives and negatives of it.

I recently got my cell phone taken away by the school, and it is absolutely crippling not having it with me. A significant portion of my social life is gone. That being said, texting is not replacing talking, merely adding to it. If anything, in my opinion, we’re almost too social. There are some people I talk to on Facebook or over texting exclusively. These are people that I would never dream of calling, nor would I ever talk to them outside of electronic communication. If e-comm (I’m getting tired of typing that crap over and over) didn’t exist, I wouldn’t talk to these people outside school, period.

What did people do before texting and before email and before internet and such? Call other people I would assume. And spend time with them, physically, face to face. We still do that. While that may not be our main method of communication, the amount of time devoted to that has not necessarily diminished. I still love talking to people face to face, and I know that my fellow teenagers feel the same way. You might see us text during the conversation, but that rarely distracts significantly from it.

So don’t worry N (you know who you are, N) and like minded people. We’re doing fine. As long as you don’t let it replace anything, there’s no harm in e-comm. And, really don’t worry about us teenagers. We’re not letting it replace anything.

Believe it or not, but teenagers are fairly smart and aware. We may not act it, and some of us don’t know it, but we would never let texting replace face to face.

:) will never replace

I finally wrote about the wedding!

In the past four or five months, I’ve attended two things that I’ve never attended before, yet I’m sure I will again: a funeral and a wedding.

I just attended the wedding a few weeks ago. What a great, great event. And there is not a hint of sarcasm in that. I can already tell I much prefer weddings to funerals. That’s rather obvious of course.

Yet, what struck me after I left the wedding was how similar weddings and funerals are. And I don’t mean to say that the wedding I went to was very morose or that the funeral I went to was very lively or anything like that. It’s just that both “events” (I’m not sure if that’s quite the word I’m looking for, but so be it) are an expression of love. At the funeral I was at, there were so many loving words spoken about my grandfather, and at the wedding, there were a lot of loving words spoken, and love was just in the air.

I once heard this guy mention how he thought laughter and crying were very closely related, and how he thinks they’re a lot closer then they are farther apart. When you think about it, you often stop crying by laughing, and many a time, laughter will lead to tears.

It’s such a rare experience to see two people so in love, like I did a few weeks ago. And everyone was celebrating their love and celebrating their happiness. And there was no jealousy, no anger.

And at the funeral, to see a celebration of life, and what a wonderful life my grandfather led.

It’s great to see such love in this world, it truly is. Some might call it a shame that we can only express our love at such dramatic events. I call it a blessing. A blessing that that love is there and that we, as humans, are lucky enough to enjoy such a thing.

So even if I only get to witness such love on rare occasions, I’m happy to know that it’s there.


“Laugh as much as you breathe and love as long as you live.”

Ain't That A Kick in the Head?

One of my best friends, this best friend being a girl, has a mortal enemy, this enemy also being a girl. Well, my best friend, let’s call her A, told me stories about this “chick,” let’s call her C. Seeing as they are enemies, none of these stories were good stories about C.

Now, I should mention that C is relatively attractive. She’s not drop dead gorgeous, but she’s pretty. And I, a red blooded male, found her attractive. However, my loyalty has a friend was far more powerful and I didn’t consider the notion to even remotely strike up a conversation.

Did I mention that I’m male? Because I think that should earn some understanding as to why I did strike up a conversation with C. Now, now, before you protest and insult me, understand that I myself had no reason to hate C besides the fact that she was an enemy of A.

But, C’s attractive so I figure what the hell? Now, A had told me that C was quite the bitch (that was actually one of her tamer insults) but I hadn’t seen that at all. She seemed very kind.

Until I struck up a conversation with C. Man, what an incredible bitch. Seriously. I understand why A hates her.

So the moral of this story—if there is one—is that sometimes friends do get it right. The more obvious one is don’t judge a book by its cover, or something like that. Well, whatever the moral of the story is, here’s to you A. You called it right.

A Motto

Life is too important to be taken seriously.

-Oscar Wilde

I really can't put it better myself.