I had been mulling at work over the fact that since I moved to Central Texas in January I've made one friend.  The people around here aren't really interesting.  Maybe it's because the city isn't interesting and the people take that on in their personalities, but I find more uninteresting qualities about everyone here than I can overlook.

This is especially true at work, where I have like three people that I can stand to actually talk to.  I try not to be mean about it, and I'm certainly not mean to them; if they need help I help them and I'm polite and talk to them when they address me and stuff.  But mostly I just don't feel that anyone around here is interesting.  It makes me miss my friends and I can't wait to leave here at the end of December.

Yesterday I was waiting for everyone to hand me their checkouts (oh, I'm a head wait at the Outback Steakhouse here) and one of our key managers sat down to chit chat with me.  He's one of three gay guys that work at our store.  Myself, him and another guy.  We don't really interact with one another...and after I dismissed the idea of being a friend of gay guy #3, I just didn't really invest in a lot of time trying to figure out if I would like gay guy #2.  That was totally my mistake.  We got to talking and it was like this door opened up for me and everything that I had wanted to talk about with people that I couldn't was right there on the table.  He was so interesting and nothing I said made me feel that he thought I was crazy or wierd or whatever.  It was a genuinely good conversation and I really liked it.

Sometimes I judge people and I think that when I do that it's based on something accurate but often times I don't give people a chance to show me other sides of their personalities.  I think in some ways I've been really jaded by stupidity in other people.  And because of that stupidity, when I get vulnerable with people I often get some really bad results, so I just decided to stop doing it.  That conversation restored my faith in people a little...it was good to just talk.

I guess "don't judge a book by its cover" does apply here.

Did I miss the memo that the public library is a cruising spot?

Granted, the guys looking for sex there are mostly guys who are there because they're working off some community service or something, or they're ex-cons or whatever and it's not like I would hook up with an ex-con. 

Hehehehe, but if I DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID hook up with an ex-con from the public library I might have had a great time doing it and he MIGHT have been really hot and I might have gone back to the public library to pick him up again.

hehehe, I might have...if I did that sort of thing.  *wink wink*

-Aaron-

It always seems like when life is going to finally go somewhere good financially, that something erupts and explodes and I'm back in the red again.  I don't know if there is a financial curse on my life or something but it's really upsetting.

Last year I had a surcharge put on my driver's license, but the letter they sent out went to an address I don't live at, so I never knew about it.  This resulted in me going to jail for a couple of days this year when I was pulled over for an outdated sticker, and then I realized my license had been suspended.  I took care of the surcharge and the court costs and stuff and I was supposed to have everything paid off by Sept 12th.

Well it isn't like I make THAT much money at Outback Steakhouse.  I can pay rent and save money, but to get my bank account past $400 has been a task and a half, let me tell you.  And it isn't that I can't save up that much money - it isn't that much when you think about it.  But like I said, as soon as I get some kind of money in my account something explodes.  My car breaks, I go to jail, or any number of things.

Today I got a letter in the mail that said that the original surcharge of $260 is a recurring surcharge that happens every year for the next three years.  That was something they neglected to tell me when I paid the original surcharge, and nowhere on the paper does it say that the charge is a recurring idea.  I talked to some people at the Municipal Court today and they said that there was nothing they could do about it and I would be expected to pay the surcharge by Sept 8th. 

I can't wait to move out of Texas.

-Aaron-

Just in case you were wondering...

...Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was AWESOME!!!  I won't spoil it at this moment, but suffice it to say go watch it like you would any other movie.  It's impossible to put every single detail of a book like this into a movie, so they basically cram a lot of little storylines together around the big one.  And I think they did a fair job of it, given that a lot of the lines from the book are actually in the movie.

Doloris Umbridge is played by this FANTASTIC actress who really captured her character.  You really hate her, which I think is great.

And I didn't even catch this anywhere but did you know Helena Bonham Carter is Bellatrix Lestrange?  Did I just totally miss that!?!?!?!  She's crazy, I love her in this movie.

And lastly...the final battle scene where Harry and Dumbledore's Army, the Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore, Voldemort and the Death Eaters are all fighting...that's FREAKIN' AWESOME graphics and acting.  I loved this movie and certainly plan on seeing it again and buying it when it comes out.

Can't wait for the new book.

-Aaron-

There's been an abnormal amount of "remember me?" messages coming through to me lately.  Through myspace, or facebook or whatever I'm running into more than a few people who were in my life at one point or another.  Mostly it's people from the church that asked me to leave, and they're like "hey how's it going what have you been up to?"

Which...most of me is excited to hear from them.  I've been through all the emotions that came with being ejected from a church and being basically abandoned by every single person who promised never to do something like that.  "Friends" if you will.  People who said "God told me that you and I are going to be friends for the rest of eternity" were the first ones to say "God told me that you are living in sin and I can't be around you anymore" so it basically burned pretty bad and I had a looooooooooooooooooooot of emotion to work through.

Hearing from these guys and girls (the majority of which weren't the people who said those things, but nevertheless vanished after I was asked to leave) brings up a few emotions, but it's not as bad as I thought it might be.  It's one thing to wonder what it's going to be like when I meet that one guy who I've written about a couple of times (the one who asked me to minister to his brother and I slept with him instead....sigh.) but having people who were a part of me leaving church suddenly show up and be excited to see me is a little wierd.  It's almost like "well that was horrible that we asked you to leave but you know it's been so long so let's just hang out!!!"

People like that make you want to punch them in the face for all the oblivious life they live.  But is it really worth trying to convince someone that the entire situation was wrong, and their participation in it hurt?  Or is it easier to just let them live in whatever world they have been living in and just see what comes of it?  I always imagine that if you don't learn something from a situation then you're doomed to repeat that situation until you do.  And more than a few people have cringed when I suddenly make a return appearance in their lives.  Not that I seek people out, you see, but life has a way of tying up loose ends for you...or at least giving you the opportunity to do so.

In my quest to renew my own faith and dive deeper into my spirituality, I knew that re-encounters like this would happen and I figured the possibility that those people learned something was probably very small.  But that really isn't the point, I'm learning.  We are only responsible for the things which we ourselves do.  Did they learn something? really isn't the question.  Did I learn something?  That is the big question.  And if I can look at these people who caused so much hurt and did so much damage to me and my faith...inevitably causing me to feel much closer and stronger to my faith in the end...if I can look at them and love them, then I've learned something.  Whatever they've learned isn't up to me...that's up to them and their commitment to their faith.

So my responsibility is to forgive and to endure whatever must be endured, learn what needs to be learned, and apply those things to my life when situations like that happen...or re-happen.

Whoever thought Christianity was going to be fun was RIDICULOUSLY wrong. 

-Aaron-