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Thursday, October 04, 2007

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 18:27:11 GMT

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.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 15:39:15 GMT

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-

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 14:41:14 GMT

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-

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 04:30:09 GMT

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-

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 00:54:26 GMT

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-

Monday, July 02, 2007

Mon, 02 Jul 2007 01:34:48 GMT

I sit here tonight considering many things. One is why I'm jamming to ABBA at 12:22am, although if you're going to jam to something at this hour you might consider ABBA because it's really fun.

I accepted a challenge to not have sex for 40 days and 40 nights, just like that movie. A lot of people seem to be very encouraging that this isn't something altogether undoable. I think there's this sub-section of society that is all celibate and stuff, they probably to those "ABSTAIN!!!" commercials. I usually think they're crazy. But now i'm one of them, hahaha. At least for the next month or so.

I got to a point where I just felt like sex was making my soul oily. When sex becomes something that you just do during the day...like it becomes mundane and routine, then it's time to either spice it up or take some time off and reflect on things. I chose to reflect. I think my soul just needs to rest. So i'm giving it a bubble bath, and at the end of this seemingly long time period it will be all rested and shiny.

So anyway...that's what i'm doing these days.

-aaron-

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 17:23:05 GMT

Today was exciting.

A judge called me "a very proper young man" and then bumped my court fines down. Way to go Miss Otis Finishing School!!!!

I watched the movie "Hot Fuzz" which is perhaps one of the funniest movies I've watched in a long time.

I have the day off from work.

Ah....life is....well, it's not good but it's life. The sun is out, the breeze is cool....I expect the world to blow up any minute.

-Aaron-

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Sat, 26 May 2007 15:18:53 GMT

"Why are you a Christian?"

someone asked me recently. Then they proceeded to list the many things that had happened to me since becoming a Christian which seemed to them to be the anti-everything to what Christianity was supposed to be. And if Christians themselves couldn't act like Christians toward someone who was actually seeking a spiritual growth and strengthening of faith, then why on earth would I want to be like them?

It does seem kind of illogical if you look at it that way. Christians...well, they've been HORRIBLE to me. If they're not telling me I should be ashamed of myself for who I am, or condemning me to hell, or letting me know that the craziness in my life is a direct result of my own sin...or throwing me out on the streets (twice) or just throwing me out of their congregations (three times) then they're really just doing their best to ignore the fact that I exist at all. And the more I thought about it the more I thought that there is really every excuse and justification to NOT believe in this Christ, and just put it all in the spiritual dumpster and look for other spiritual enlightenment. The basic truth is that except for a very small portion of the American church...most Christians wouldn't know Christianity if it came and bit them in the ass. They're horrible people, selfish, rude, inconsiderate, not gracious, stingy, picky, they love conditionally, they don't offer grace to the people that need it, they don't take care of the poor, they don't take care of anyone really, and they're more interested in their own advancement and self-glorification as well as the debasement of anyone who is not a Christian to make themselves feel better about the fact that they can't possibly have a good conscience about their lack of faith in their own lives. When they look at the standard human being, they realize that a regular Joe has more Christ in him than they have managed to attain in the years and years of Bible camps, Bible studies, buying every Christian CD out there, etc etc etc.

I recently did these personality tests and stuff on myself. It was pretty intense. But basically the test results were pretty raw and honest. I learned a lot about my own humanity. I realized that the things I get upset about characteristically with Christians are things that I see in myself. I hide it well, but seeing it right there in front of my face gets me angry. Selfishness, bad motivations, self-glorification, vanity, conceit and all kinds of negative character traits showed up in this test result. And at first I was like "I'm not like that, am I?" and it turns out that when I really do some soul searching I think we're all like that. To some extent or another humanity dictates that we are to build ourselves up and deny our fellow man.

Christianity isn't about building a church, or even GOING to church really. It's about denying your humanity and living this sacrificial life for your fellow person. To imitate Jesus in every way, not to pick and choose which attributes of Christ you're going to live out. So you can heal someone, so you can prophesy to people, so you can preach the Gospel of Christ, but if you can't LIVE that Gospel and in the end die for people who have denied you and hate you...then you don't get Christianity. And I think that when people present Christianity to someone it's like this "get fixed quick but we won't tell you about the misery part" because we treat Christianity like this business or something. If we can sell salvation and meet our quota then we get better houses in Heaven or we get to be closer to God or something. It's actually a HUGE bastardization of Christianity, and it's frankly disgusting.

When I look at a test result that says essentially i'm a bad person with negative characteristics, and people continually tell me the opposite of that then one of two things have happened. (1) I'm very good at hiding my true self, which just means that i'm horribly insecure about what people would think if they really knew what was there emotionally for me. Or (2) Christianity in my life....actually works. Realizing my own humanity, and all of those things, I am able to focus on other people, and build them up and actually be HAPPY that other people are being uplifted and encouraged in life that there is a better way to live than these negative things. Affecting people around me through the unconditional love of Christ in my life, whether they understand that it's that or not. Giving them the opportunity to see something different, something better and then giving them the choice to realize that it's not about me building a big church, which I've never done. And it's not about me getting people to accept Jesus as their saviour, which I've also never done. In ten years as a Christian I've led ZERO people into salvation. But my success as a Christian isn't based on that. My job is to live life like Jesus would have, and although many came to believe in Him through Him...Jesus's life was about teaching people a better way...a life of grace, mercy and unconditional love.

I'm a Christian because I want to make sure people see at least ONE person who is doing it right....if in fact i'm actually doing it right. I want people to see one person who is just real about who they are as a human being, and what Christianity has done to fuck up my life, and the fact that I keep pressing through it because my faith compels me to live in such a way that people go "what a freak, I want to be like that!!!".

So yea...go Jesus!!!

-Aaron-

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Wed, 23 May 2007 03:26:49 GMT

If anyone was wildly curious...there's some planetary alignment thing going on (if you look near the moon you can see a brigher shining star-type thing? it's a planet and it doesn't "align" except once every 400 years or so) and so it's like this massive upsurging of IGNUNCE!!!!

so if your life has suddenly taken a downhill turn or you just wake up going "what on EARTH is going on with my life right now????" then that may be the cause of it.

I for one would like that planet to move on and stay away, this is getting out of hand personally.

-Aaron-

Friday, May 18, 2007

Fri, 18 May 2007 14:36:20 GMT

I have never believed that life was meant to be boring. But sometimes things happen in succession and it makes me think that i'm on the brink of the Apocalypse or something.

A couple of days ago a co-worker called in to work. She and her husband had an argument and she let on that she was not interested in being married to him anymore but rather thought she had fallen for another guy who was his friend. I'm not saying that to judge her, these things happen all the time and it's a good idea to put things like that in the open so one can communicate through it or...if it's over...it's over. In this case, the husband hung up the phone and then killed himself.

The next day I was getting ready for work and just as I was heading out the door, my brother informed me that his wife had decided that she no longer wanted to be married and was leaving him.

Sigh...

things like this are hard for me to process. It's hard to wrap my mind around them. My idea of love is so solid, it should work the way it works in my head. I often think that when it doesn't work like that it's because of a variety of things. Love isn't something that you disrespect. It isn't a force that you can manipulate, or trick or insult. Love works because it challenges people, sharpens people, terrifies people. It makes a person grow into someone stronger, wiser, smarter, and more amazing. But if you don't flow where love is taking you then it can get very difficult, and if you don't make an effort to learn what love is trying to teach you then it will fall apart. I don't think love ever fails, but I think that sometimes we fail to honour it, and therefore end up on the bad end of it.

One marriage ended because a man killed himself. One marriage ended because the woman wanted to be single again. And I don't really understand. If you love someone...don't you fight to keep that love alive? And while there are heaps of circumstances that provoke you and instigate things around and inside you don't you fight through those as well? Isn't love something that you die over?

Sometimes, quite often in fact, I think that most people should remain single. And they should study love, and how it works and what it does. They should talk to people who have been married for years and years and years, they should talk to people who are in love, and then learn about it before they get involved. I think that especially here in America people are like "hi, I like blue." "oh my god I like blue also" "oh my God let's get married!!!" and then they do and then it ends bad.

So...if you are in love - stay in love. and if you think you might be in love, weigh it out and be honest about it because love isn't something people should trifle with, and it's not something you should lie about. It's something to be respected and honoured and enjoyed.

And for goodness sake if you're hot and interested in falling in love with me would you PLEASE call me or something!?!?!?! hehehehehe.

-Aaron-