sunday evening musings by a guy who hates the word, "musings"

I'm currently positioned at my dining room table (an article of furniture that I can honestly say I've used a single-digit number of times for as long as I've had it), channeling Sara Bareilles on Pandora (a station that I can honestly say I stream a single-digit number of times in a given year) and burning two candles I got at Kroger that are accurately named "Pumpkin Spice" (a scent that I can honestly say I only burn when I crave a season change, which is a single-digit number every quarter).  But here's the thing:  the dining room table is where I used to do my homework.  The music that is playing on this particular stream is the music my drum teacher made me study in my spare time.  Pumpkin Spice isn't a product of some candle-maker's creativity. It's a real thing - a thing that we looked forward to smelling every October.

It doesn't matter how infrequently these three things exist in my life today; I put them together at any given time, and I am immediately sent back to Dickson, Tennessee, roughly ten years ago.

Here lately, I've been asking myself a relatively off-kilter question:  are we ever conscious of the moments in our lives that we will remember forever? 

There's this memory I have from the year 2000:  it was around 8 a.m., and my best friend Jeff's brother Daniel was driving me home after a sleepover.  The night prior, Jeff and I, along with three or four of our other good friends, spent the evening doing what typical high-school sophomores do:  smoking our first cigarettes, drinking our first beers, criticizing our first real girlfriends, etc.  Anyway, it's early  November, and we're on the road.  The sun had already broken at this point, but the dew hadn't evaporated, so everything seemed a little more dense than it actually was.  It was about 55 degrees, but all of the windows were down in the Jeep Cherokee.  Jeff lived six miles outside of our hometown, so most of the highway drive was uninhabited by anything but wildlife and these enormous trees whose roots all but kissed the street pavement.  And The Cure's "Disintegration" album was, like, blaring.

I remember being in the passenger seat, resting my head on the car's window frame - my head partially exposed to that thick, cold air.  And for as relatively ordinary as this scenario sounds, I classify this particular moment in my life as one of the first times where I felt like I was growing up, because, before then, I had never been so thankful for that thick, cold air. Or for the gigantic trees lining the street.  Or for the smell of dead leaves and coffee.  It was one of the best times of my whole life.

But if you had asked me right then if I thought I would remember it so vividly ten years later, I probably would have laughed. 

I get scared sometimes, because just like I did back then, I think that we, more often than not, take for granted these moments that sneak up on us and blossom into something spectacular.  That's why I keep my head on a swivel anytime I'm driving around sunset or in the early morning, because all the ingredients are right for that kind of moment, and I don't want to miss it.  I don't want not to have that in my memory.  The obvious irony here is that you can't really predict when those kinds of moments are going to happen, so assuming they'll ever happen is stupid.  But those of you who know me know that if I'm nothing else, I'm hopeful.

I bring all of this up for a reason:  I'm going through a case of emotional queasiness (as per usual - I'm overdue for one this year).  It's been a weird summer.  After the breakup (see the first entry where I mentioned that FakeBritishAccent cost me a relationship), I sort of went off the deep end.  I started smoking pot more.  I was driving home from the bars more often.  I incorporated hardcore dubstep into my everyday playlist.  Oh, and I experimented with Ecstasy and cocaine.  I would be wrong to blame all of that on the breakup.  Much of it was by my own design.  But sans the pot, all of that hit a hard stop after last weekend, where I, in a coke-addled tweak, screamed at one of my best friends because she was moving to California.  That was enough to send me downward.  I will never be able to apologize to her or to everyone else involved for that, and I can't begin to describe how abysmal I felt all Sunday, hangover unrelated. 

It was enough for me to begin really questioning the people who have a prominent role in my life. 

I think we have two types of friends:  1) those who we like to hang out and party with, and 2) those who embody the traits and characteristics we wish we had more of.  And I've learned this, too:  you can never, ever have too much of the second kind.  Too much of the first kind, though, and your goal in life becomes a little cloudy, because if your first kind of friends are anything like my first kind of friends, they don't have the same goals that you do.  Or worse:  they don't have any goals at all.

Anyway, I established that I was spending too much time with the unsubstantial, and I wasn't spending enough time with those who actively want to make me a better person.  And it's funny:  once that was taken care of, I realized a few other things, too.  I hadn't been to a show at Adair's in a long time, so I went last night.  I haven't read in a while, so I'm hopping back on that wagon, too.  Also, I think I'm done with one-nighters.  Those just aren't fair to anyone.

My point is this:  the memorable moments in life are much more likely to spring when you surround yourself with moments that you actually want to remember.  And that kind of thing really comes with the territory you put yourself in.  It's like nature's math equation. 

I'd like to make note of something:  this blog post is a very precise example of natural yet atypical progression of thought.  I didn't really know what I was going to write about when I sat down at this very ironically modern dining room table.  Thirty minutes later, I recanted my childhood and banished the guy who gave me coke at Teddy's Room last Saturday.  Weird.

But it's also a pretty accurate representation of why some of us must write to get by.  I don't know where all of that thought was going to go if I didn't write it down.  Thank God for the alphabet.

I'll be fine.  It's just been a weird summer.  That's all. 

yankeehotelfoxtrot,
austin

okay...

We're going to try this one more time. The last blog got a little out of control. I verbally destroyed a Hooter's waitress. I made myself look like an idiot. I had my friends at the end of their ropes with me. Oh, and did I mention that it almost cost me a relationship? Seriously. For whatever reason, I found it necessary and appropriate to tell a girl (on the second date) about FBA and about the Austin Road Trip (only those of you who followed beforehand will understand what any of that meant). She stuck around only long enough for me to realize how big of a mistake it was to publish most of that stuff online. Or to talk about it publicly.

Either way, I was a little too cavalier about the whole thing.

Allow me to start from the beginning: I'm Austin (nice to meet you). I grew up in a small Tennessee town that will forever affect the way I pronounce certain words. I live in Dallas. I went to Oklahoma State. I breathe for my friends, and I only bounce to the baddest beats.

I used to run a blog called Fake British Accent. The content ranged anywhere from my emotional temperament to my sexual misadventures. And even though I don't anticipate my subject material to change very much, it's important for me to admit that a lot has changed since I posted my last entry on Fake. For that reason, this will (albeit inadvertently) be a little more exploratory. I think.

But enough of the past.  Let's kick the routines of the present, shall we?  

For those of you who didn't follow FBA, I'm going to start by offering up an immediate piece of humiliation fodder:

I am semi-obsessed with Ellie Goulding.
Gahd, I know. Believe me, I wish I could say I hate this bitch. BUT. I. CAN'T. She's basically the British, non-Hispanic version of Selena Gomez (spoiler alert: kinda love her, too, which automatically makes me a celebrity petter-ass by default), but maybe that's the appeal. She's blonde, and she's about as ordinary-looking as any 24-year-old could possibly look. Oh, and her lyrics are repulsive. But she's British . And I think that may make all the difference.

I mean, look at her:

 

Fine, she's kind of hot.  But now imagine that a girl like that sounded like a girl like this:

That's right.  The chick from Narnia.  (AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry - I have this thing where anytime I think about girls with British accents, I automatically jump to Susan Pevensie.  Some people think that's weird, but whatever - there are people out there who are into foot sex and laser tag. We have bigger issues to deal with, World.)  

Don't judge me for liking Ellie.  Judge me for liking Narnia.  

Speaking of judging, I stumbled upon a weird paradox today that I'd like to share:

This all starts with a question:  is there anyone on earth who legitimately thinks George Lopez's shows are funny?  The guy has two shows on television today - one is a late-night talk show, and the other is a sitcom who evidently hired the screenwriters from Saved By The Bell:  The New Class.  Neither of them peak my interest in the slightest, despite my numerous attempts to actually like these shows.  It's sad, really.  

But here's the weird thing:  even though Lopez is responsible for the two unfunniest shows on TV, he's still not the unfunniest person on TV.  That title, my friends, belongs to the one guy whom we are all actively witnessing smash the American psyche into the ground with a large, black, trans-gender hammer.  That title, my friends, belongs to Tyler Perry. 

And here's the difference:

George Lopez can sometimes be subconsciously funny because he has been funny in past characters and roles.  Also, I think there are people out there who accidentally mistake him for Carlos Mencia, who is funny.  There.  Funny by association.  But more than all of that, it looks like he's having fun up there.  And for that reason alone, I'm willing to respect the work he does.

But the only person Tyler Perry gets mistaken for is Madea, who actually is Tyler Perry.  And guess what?  Neither of those two people are funny.  To be exact, Tyler Perry is actually unfunny, and Madea is fictitiously unfunny.  That's like mixing beet juice with bong resin.  And that's pretty much how I feel about TBS from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Ahh, it feels good to be doing this again.  Sorry I had to take such a weird, twisted hiatus.  I'll explain all of that later. 

But that's about all I have for now.  Sleep tight, kiddos.  We'll see each other soon enough.

yankeehotelfoxtrot,
TRR