Another classic

From the g-mail inbox.

Two questions still plague me. How does Optimus Prime stay so young looking/sounding? What is his secret? More importantly, how does he know that I have always used "Bonecrusher" as my secret pet name for Kyle?

And a little update: I'll be out of town/contact/the countries (both Mexico and the U.S.!) in/for the next two weeks. So I'll be running phone silent, blog silent, and...well, that's about it actually. But I'll see lots of you in Colorado when I get back.

p.s.- Apparently Deanna decided to name Kyle "Bonecrusher," which only increases my deep affection for the both of them. But Kyle is losing to Deanna. Sorry buddy.

Yessssssss.

Andrew (<3 huge blogger crush) can always be counted on for great links.

Today is no exception.

Did you know that feminists have better romantic relationships?

It's true.

What's crazy to me is that we are actually talking about this. Of course it's true.

But it's nice to have a little proof.

So here's a blogger question: How many of you would self-identify as feminists? That is to say, how many of you agree with basic feminist beliefs? Regardless of how you identify, how do you think it impacts your views on relationships/actual relationships?

I'm genuninely curious. I hope I get some responses. I might even write up a little response of my own.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...*

This is going to be way over the heads of at least a few people who read this blog.

So this whole thing started when both Deanna and Brianne quit the facebook (which is totally fine by the way, I understand why they did it**).

I mean, it hurt a little bit that two people very close to me were just checking out of reality, but that's their choice.

But back to the issue at hand.

Being that my girlfriend had quit the facebook, and Erik's girlfriend had quit the facebook, I decided to take this once in a lifetime opportunity to marry Erik on the facebook and live happily ever after. In the "fake marriage on the internet to one of my best friends" sense of the word, of course.

So I shed a tear, changed my relationship status, and prepared to make my move on Erik. Not wanting people to rush to my side and comfort me in my fake time of need I hid the news feed story of my recent breakup.

Ok, I'll be honest. The pain was real, but it was just too soon.

Everything was going about as well as could be expected under the circumstances. But my happy life turned emotional nightmare was about to get worse. Erik was still listed as being in a relationship. (Note to Erik: She's gone man, give it up. It's time to face facts and move on. I have). This was a big problem for me, because apparently being listed as already in a relationship is enough for the staff of the facebook to deny a potential marriage request. My sense is that they are, as John McCain so eloquently put it in 2000, "agents of intolerance." Who are they to tell me that I can't marry a man already in a relationship? If there really is a war on marriage, the facebook is fighting back.***

But I digress.

I should take this time to remind you that I was still heartbroken at having just ended my relationship with Deanna,**** and was now facing the dream-crushing reality that I would not be able to marry Erik (without, you know, getting him to change his status first). In my despair, I turned for comfort to the person who I knew for certain would always give me a soft landing. I married Kyle.

And to my everlasting joy, he said yes.

The next day I opened my facebook account to find a note from a high school friend with whom I've lost touch.

"booke! whats up buddy... married now i see. is it true? congrats!"

"Uh oh," I thought, "better hide that news feed as well before this gets out of hand."

I did, and moved on with my day, comfortably certain that I had nipped that potentially embarrassing/confusing situation in the bud.

The next day I signed on again, this time to a message from a college friend.

"You look so happy together."

Look so happy together? Wait...what?

And then I scrolled up. To my profile picture. The one of Bryce and I. Smiling. Together. Where I am embracing him from behind. In tuxedos. In a church.*****

At which point I started laughing hysterically.

The end.


p.s.- Since then I have gotten two more priceless wall posts, also from an old friend:

first post: "um, did I just read on your profile you are married???? um...que paso?"

second post: "wait that is a dude, OK, so your not married... But you are in a 559 area code, i guess we have some catching up to do =)"

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

Life is great.






*Seinfeld. Still sorely missed.
**Which also doesn't make it any less fun to call them quitters.
***I'm pretty sure that's what they use the money for from selling gifts.
****Albeit only on the facebook. Hi Deanna!
*****She's right, we do look happy in that picture.

The Quarter Life: Careers

It's the Quarter Life! My partner in crime Bryce has his post up, along with the links to the old posts. Check it out.

On with the show.

If you want to hear a twentysomething rant, ask them about their job. Seriously, try it. I know very, very few people who are my age(ish) and absolutely love what they do. They're out there, but they are certainly elusive.

Intuitively, this makes a lot of sense. Most of my friends are working jobs that a) pay them A LOT of money but demand an incredible amount of their time and energy, b) pay them almost no money AND demand an incredible amount of their time and energy, but offer them the opportunity to participate in some greater good, or c) don't pay very well, aren't all that interesting, and are really just helping to support grad school/bumming/getting on their feet. It's exceedingly rare to find someone in this age bracket who is getting paid pretty well to do something that they love to do but that doesn't consume their life.

I'm sure it's possible that someone has this job, I just don't know who it is.

Can I get a blogger comment amen?

Conventional wisdom holds that in your 20's you are building your life. You are putting in your time, working your way up the food chain, still in school, or figuring out what you are going to do. Whatever. The point is, at this age we're not supposed to have satisfying careers. We're supposed to have jobs.

And that's the catch. A career and a job really aren't the same thing. What I have right now is a job. It's a job that I really like (most of the time), but it's still a job.

A career, as a opposed to a job, should be a vocation. A career should be one of those things where you say, on a regular basis, "They pay me to do this?!" Don't get me wrong, a job can be like that as well (see: Me eating delicious burritos while talking about global economics). A career, at its best, should be deeply satisfying because it should combine your greatest personal gifts and your greatest personal longings.

And something else. It should fulfill a genuine need.

And that's where I get myself into trouble.

I'm a pharisee (little p, I'm not actually Jewish, or a scholar of the law, or...you get the point). Thg point is that I love the law. I want it to protect me. To make me righteous. To make me loved.

My legalism touches all things, and career is no exception. I believe that my thinking goes something like this: God says to love others -> The world has many people who need love -> I believe in God -> I should find people in the world to love -> Someone will pay me to love people -> I should do that even if it isn't what I want most in the world -> God will love me more if I choose this path.

That logical progression is, I'll be the first to admit, pretty sick. It's especially gross when you realize what a horrible perversion of love it really is.

The other day my girlfriend (Hi Deanna!) was asking me about my dream job. What would I do if I could do anything? "Something in music," I said. "A producer or manager, A&R for a label maybe. I don't know if I'd actually enjoy doing that, but it seems like I really would." So will I pursue that? I don't really know. I think the reality is that I don't actually know what it is that I like to do. I don't know what it is that I'm all that good at. At this point, I can't even guarantee that I'm doing something because I want to rather than because I think that I should.

I'm not sure, at this point in time, that I'm capable of doing any sort of work that doesn't serve, in some way, as an idol.

And so I find myself with nothing to say. I like my job. I have no idea what my career might look like. For the first time in my life, that feels really nice.

I'm scared to see stats for Douglas

Matt Yglesias posts a really fun little toy: A website that allows you to see demographic information from any zip code in the country. For all of you haters, 80501 Longmont only has 9% of the population living below the poverty line. Which is still too high, but far below what some of you would say. Have fun.

Ouch.

Josh Marshall and company link to a report card of sorts for the Bush's time in office. It's worse than you think. Not that we didn't know all of these things already, but it really isn't pretty when his "accomplishments" are listed together.

It's also worth noting that this is not some sort of hatchet job. This is the Associated Press. Quoting former Bush campaign strategists and staffers. Only one more year...

Mommy wow...

I will be showing up in another newspaper this week, albeit the decidedly less well-known Sierra Vista Herald. Still, press is press. Haha.

This morning found me getting off the phone with a friend so that I could "strongly speak with" (read: lecture) an actual adult. You know, the kind with a mortgage and kids and stuff like that.

And then later today I ended up in a meeting, a business meeting, with a minister who knows my mom.

My life, as ever, is extremely weird.

All of this to say, I think I might actually be turning into an adult. The first year out of college you really feel like a fraud. You know that you don't go to class or eat at the dining hall, but you also haven't really proven anything. When people treat you like an adult you begin to think, "I don't actually know what I'm doing here...you probably want to ask someone else." But people keep asking you to do things. And you keep doing them. And slowly you find that you are useful and competent and responsible. More or less.

Days like today make you realize that, while not there yet, you're a lot closer than you used to be.

And strangely enough, that you like it.




I still listen to Mxpx and like my skateboard more than my car though.

Think of this as the teaser blog to a "The Quarter Life: Career" post. Coming soon to an internet near you.



The blog title was too much, wasn't it? Like I said, not grown up yet...

Has this been on the nightly news much?

Please go here and sign the online petition.

Basically, it's a petition to convince China to stop supporting the Burmese Junta by making the Chinese look bad vis-a-vis the 2008 Olympics. If you don't understand why it might be important to stop the Chinese from supporting the Burmese government, google it.

And by the way, the petition is pretty serious. It's moving towards 1 million people. And the advertisements are going to run in major newspapers.

Thanks. Have a great day.