Three Wrongs

On the way to work a couple weeks ago, I attempted to bypass the congestion on a certain highway by switching lanes, passing all the people who were waiting patiently for the exit I needed to take. When the exit approached, I slowed down and signaled to merge back in, only to be met with a cacophony of angry honking from a green Prius. It was evident that I was Tuesday morning's villain and I chuckled at my greed while I took the wrong exit and backtracked my way to work.

Having learned my lesson, I stayed in the correct, congested exit lane on my way back from work the very same day. As I slowly neared the exit, a red pickup truck quickly passed me on the left and recklessly merged into my lane without any indication. He had committed the exact sin I received a symphony of car horns for just nine hours prior. While a part of me naturally congratulated the red pickup truck for getting away with it, another part felt cheated that I was stigmatized when I was the culprit and then wronged when I was the victim.

Last week, I visited a friend to celebrate somewhat of a milestone in her academic career. What I didn't know was that she also invited a friend who despises me to an [almost] hilarious extent. Not only did she not say hello or goodbye to me, the only time this girl acknowledged my presence was when she was telling my friend (who is very polite) to not apologize to me for driving two hours North to visit her.

Situations like these are sort of bewildering to me. What are you supposed to do when someone is this visibly disrespectful to you? I wanted to scold her for treating me so coldly. I also wanted to just turn away from her and say "I don't care about assholes who hold on to grudges for five years out of high school." There were so many instances during last week's reunion where I just wanted to react. I wanted to make her aware that she was being rude to me, just like how a green Prius gave me a 120 decibel indication of his anger on Tuesday morning.

The reason why I didn't was because the way I saw it, I didn't feel entitled enough to do it. While I thought that the red pickup truck was inconsiderate, I didn't exactly love the sound of the green Prius's car horn. If I were to react negatively to her rudeness, I would just be that annoying guy behind her honking away at a red truck that would just get away with it. On the flip side, my high school actions may have made me as guilty the red car, where I should at least consider my culpability and not need a green Prius to tell me better. Either way, I didn't want to be the guy who was wronging her or the guy that was telling her she was wrong.

I guess it's this reoccurring dilemma that has defined many of my decisions in the past few weeks. It's why I took the long route to work when a green Prius honked at me, why I didn't bother reacting to a red truck that cut me off and why I smiled and waved goodbye to the cold shoulder of an acquaintance that hates me.

Have a nice day,
-Matthew

Today's Horrendous, Irredeemable Atrocity

It's been a long time since I've felt the weariness that appends an eight-hour work day. Sometimes, the post-work stupor is so intense that I do terrible, unthinkable things. I've been known to be a pretty oblivious and inconsiderate person, but today I did something that made me feel so guilty, I literally ran out of the house.

After I arrived home following an intense battle with 5:00 rush hour, I voraciously gorged myself with some un-microwaved leftovers. They were pretty spicy leftovers, so right after I finished, I briskly moved to the fridge past my roommate and grabbed a carton of milk. After realizing there were only a few sips left, I quickly guzzled it down without noticing the strange stares my roommate was beaming in my direction.

"REALLY!?!?!?!?"

Shocked, I looked up to see my fuming roommate, then at the chocolate ice cream in front of him and then at the blender next to the ice cream.

I had unknowingly choc-blocked my roommate.

Friends who I've been close with in the past year know that I am OBSESSED with milkshakes. To me, what I had done was a sin so egregious it should have been payable with death. Immediately after I recognized my treachery, I loudly apologized and sped over to the closest store to buy a new gallon.

And that's why you never leave the jalapeños in your Vietnamese sandwich overnight!

Have a nice day,
-Matthew

Dreaming in Slow Motion

In an attempt to look and act more like Bruce Lee, I took martial arts lessons for a few years when I was still a kid. It was a huge mistake. I quickly started to hate Karate because we would do boring repetitive tasks (like running and horse stance-ing) instead of the awesome spin kicks you see in Enter the Dragon. Plus, I was discouraged by the fact that I didn't get a six-pack within a few days (blame that on my pizza- and taco-eating habits [see last post]).

Despite disliking Karate, I actually really enjoyed the errands my mom and I would do after lessons. These trips weren't glamorous at all, but they held a certain intimacy I have never been able to emulate since I've grown up. We would visit Lucky's (the grocery store now known as Albertsons), maybe stop by at the nearby Mexican restaurant for a bean burrito and walk along a pier that overlooked the local lagoon, all while holding hands. We would then drive home and listen to the SPECTACULAR 90's pop music available on radio (This one was my favorite). If we arrived home before a song ended, we stayed in the car and let the song finish before lugging our groceries inside.

While I still love grocery shopping and Mexican food, I stopped waiting for my favorite songs to end after I started driving myself. Since I've grown up, I have a lot of responsibilities now that constantly tug at my sense of urgency, which pesters me whenever I waste a productive moment. That said, this past month I talked to a few friends that made a few interesting remarks that made me reconsider my extinct habit.

My piano teacher (who is a very busy and extremely forward-minded person) was mentioning that one of the main criticisms her own teacher had of her was that she rarely lived in the present. All of my teacher's present activities were predestined by her own plans and conducted with the future in mind. Her teacher noted the fallacy in performing music, an art form that frequently dwells on what is immediate, while lost in thoughts of future endeavors.

I'd say the majority of people I know don't like taking the bus home, so I generally offer my friends rides. One of them, however, declined a couple times and said she could just take the bus. When I asked her why she preferred a slower method of transportation than the one I offered, she said, "I don't understand why people hate bus so much. I like bus," (she's an immigrant, so don't blame me for bad grammar). That was her simple reasoning for not accepting a ride. "I like bus."

I guess what my teacher's teacher was trying to say, what my friend demonstrates with her ride-boycotting and what my mom showed me when we were finishing our songs is that there is a lot beauty in moments of care-free inefficiency. Basically, good music only comes when you're not constantly staring at your planner; it's nice to take public transit, even though its longer, when you're not in a hurry; there's no harm in letting some raw chicken sit in your car for a few more minutes if you're enjoying some cheesy 90's pop songs.

Today, as I arrived home after a performance that marked the end of a long week of rehearsals and other performances, one of my favorite songs started to play. My hand was on my keys about to shut off the radio when I remembered what my friends said and what my mom did. I uncomfortably released my grip and rested my head. I felt relaxed as I slowly drowned in the song.

"You think I'm pretty without any makeup on..."

Have a nice day,
-Matthew

Friday by Numbers and SPEED RACER

1. 5th: Iteration of "the Fast and the Furious" franchise I watched.

2. 12: Time I woke up (post meridian). Also the cost (in dollars) for my movie ticket.

3. 4 1/2: How long it took me to donate blood (in minutes).

4. 85+: SPF (Sun Protection Factor) sunblock I used.

5. 2.50: Cost (in dollars) of Saba sushi (Mackerel, six pieces).

6. 10: Number of tacos I received from Taco Bell when I ordered a 12 taco party pack.

If there was a theme for this past week, it would be speed. Obviously, watching Fast Five was a pretty swift (and furious if I may add) way to end my week. Most notably, however, I donated blood in a record time today which shocked the nurse who was "sticking me" (her words, not mine). She scolded me for it, saying something about how donating blood too quickly could be unsafe. What does a registered nurse know about donating blood? MY BLOOD DOES NOT PLAY GAMES, LADY. In any case, I forgave her because she let me take some Cheez-Its home along with some blood donation stickers and an ugly "blood bash" t-shirt.

A couple of kids I tutor were also smitten with the speed demon this past week. They were attempting to blaze through their math homework with no regard for the careful logic math requires. Problem after problem, I had to explain to each of them that it was their obsession with speed, not their lack of knowledge, that was causing them to make repeated errors. It was a pretty frustrating week for tutoring.

That said, I value those struggling students more than my gifted ones (to some extent) because I was am certainly one of those people who haphazardly attempts to finish tasks with little attention for quality. My dad's criticized me on multiple occasions about how I try to do everything as fast as I can without any logical motive or destination. Gosh, I still remember all the times I'd try to eat my pizza faster than the rest of my family just for competition's sake (Papa Murphy was probably shaking his head in disapproval). It was fun I suppose, but it probably wasn't worth all the coughing fits I had from the pizza crusts I stuffed down my throat.

Dealing with reflections of my past self is difficult and sometimes aggravating, but I'm pleased that it forces me to consider whether I've actually progressed at all since I was trying to sprint past my math problems and beat my family at nonexistent pizza-eating contests. Perhaps four and a half minutes is a blood-donating record I shouldn't break.

Have a nice day,
-Matthew

No Leo, No Juno

Though I forget the vast majority of my dreams, the strange anxiousness that lingers after sleeping indicates that I have really weird ones. Sometimes, they're so bizarre that I manage to remember them so I can forever be tormented by their strangeness. Today while napping in my incredibly uncomfortable car, I had one of those dreams. Here's a few of the things that happened while I was sleeping:

-Tokyo-chan, the band I played with for a Japanese benefit concert, was having a photoshoot with the self timer of a point-and-shoot camera (even in my dreams we're a ghetto band...). For some reason, I was doing some weird dance pose for the camera and my head was disproportionally big. I was very self-conscious of my head and wanted to un-tag myself from the facebook album that was going to be made.

-A mystery man (in the dream, I literally saw a question mark wherever he was) was somehow hypnotically suggesting things to me and a group of people. When I told a friend that I was being hypnotized, he claimed that he had been manipulating me since the day we met. This was VERY inception-esque.

-Probably the most memorable part of this dream was watching some scenes from a video game I've been playing (which pretty much tells me I've been playing too much). Anyway, the story in my dream (which completely differs from that of the actual game) was about how the main character just received a cushy job in the army and when he was going to an office to accept the position, he found himself having to save the girl he loved from some unexplained peril. After the incident, she somehow disappeared and the hero rushed to the office only to find that the job he was pursuing was taken by another applicant while he was off do-gooding. A pretty sad story isn't it?

-Ryoko, a woman who hangs around the music department, randomly went in my car and expected me to give her a ride. When I told her that I wasn't driving anywhere, she started singing. [Actually, this is not weird at all. This situation is completely believable]

These may seem like pretty normal situations, but realize this all happened in the same dream. Somehow when I was dreaming, all these things connected with each other; the part about how I was being hypnotized was somehow related to my band's photoshoot and the stuff Ryoko was singing to me. I'm not going to go about psychoanalyzing my weird crackpot dreams, but man... Carl Jung would have loved this.

Have a nice day,
-Matthew

Almost Empty

Three years ago during a tough time, I bought a pack of cigarettes. They were cheap menthols that seasoned smokers scoff at and newbies choke on, but when the consciousness of my mind was bleak and the air around me was heavy, each one gave me about five minutes of smokey, self-detrimental solace. Truly, they were a guilty pleasure proscribed to only the darkest, gloomiest days in my life. Today, I have two leftover.

Clearly, the fact that I still have some leftovers despite such a long ownership indicates that I am a VERY occasional smoker. If anyone reads this and is worried in the slightest bit, please realize this is a pack/3+ years "habit" and I highly doubt it will ever result in anything remotely resembling those terrifying smoking PSA's.

Anyway, this pack, though seldomly excavated from the CVS bag it came from, has seen a lot of things in my life. Three years ago when I first purchased them, I smoked a couple after I was rejected by a girl I liked. Last year, I had one or two after a demoralizing conversation with my mom. I smoked on several different occasions when certain friends did not hold their promises as well as I had hoped and, most recently, I had two when I came to the realization that I was chasing after the wrong girl (see last post [LAUGH OUT LOUD]). The rest I infrequently used whenever I faced torturous bouts of loneliness.

I'm not going to say cigarettes are great or that they're even good. When I have to taste of my extremely stale cigarettes I usually wince and cough for a bit before I take a second drag. I will say, however, that they dull down the pain a little and, in my experience, help you swallow the bitter, nasty truth of your situation one breath at a time. I don't like getting stuck in my depression. An occasional disgusting cigarette helps me cope a little with the uncomfortable steps I have to take to climb out of my sadness. I'll do my best to keep my last two for as long as possible. FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS!

Have a nice day,
-Matthew

One I Love

A few nights ago, I was really smitten by a girl and construed a lot of her actions as signs that she may have felt something as well. Today, I was thinking about all those signs and realized that all of them could have actually been just circumstantial or explained for different reasons. All those times we locked our eyes could have easily been because my hair looked odd (which it did) or because my jokes were uproariously hilarious (which they weren't).

I feel there are a lot of times where I can't really trust my own viewpoint. I feel that so much of what I perceive is subjective and I lack the discernment to determine what I should take home from my surrounding events. It's as if my mind naturally gravitates towards insincere fantasies that break like glass and reveal a terrible disfigured reality. Clearly, I was so entranced by that girl's presence that I would only allow myself to believe in what I wanted. Now, that I'm finally considering alternate explanations, I just want to run back to my precious mirage and just hope it's all true.

I just had dinner with my dad, and he was sort of reprimanding me for not figuring out my future. He told me bluntly that if I just kept dreaming without executing any plans, I would get nothing done. And I think he's right. I've been fooling myself about the future for quite some time now, and I guess I had better get out of the illusion that I can be a rock star no matter how much my mind convinces me it's a feasible occupation.

After dinner, he told me that he didn't like the fact that he had to pressure his kids into independence, but he knew he had to do it for the greater good. I can't really trust my intuition when considering that girl I was mentioning above, but I know I can believe my dad's benevolent intentions. That said, I still have a crush on that girl cause she's SMOKING HOT.

Have a nice day,
-Matthew