Yes, No, Maybe So

Have you ever had a hard time making a decision? I have. In fact it is a frequent occurrence. I struggle every single night deciding what to make for dinner. I struggle when I am ordering a sandwich, burger or even a pizza (except at Little Ceaser’s… Oh “hot and readys,” you treat me so well). Yep food is one thing that I can’t seem to handle. If I am going to spend money on something I want it to be good. If I am going to make something I want it to be good. But most of the time I am in a panic attack about deciding. There are several factors which have to be addressed when ordering a meal.

1) Will it fill me up? The importance of this is obviously a concern. If I am hungry after a meal I will consider my personal efforts a waist. Especially since my “bling bling” is nowhere to be “seen seen.” One day I’ll have more money. One day I’ll eat stake.

2) Is the process of ingesting it an efficient use of my time? Ok, so you’re probably thinking, “Really Phil? Do you have to be such an engineer?” See caught you in the act. Sucker. This really isn’t as bad as it sounds. No one wants to wait an hour for a five dollar sub at subway. Well… if you do… then …. (Phil filter employed). I am finding that time is the most precious thing we have in this life. No one gets more hours in a day than anyone else, and people who spend their time well spend everything else well too. There is a catch though. I call it Catch 22.5. If you’re like me, and spend too much time worrying about time, then you’re wasting time.

3) How much cholesterol am I pumping into my blood stream right now? I try to pick and choose the times I break down and eat that 74 cent microwave pizza. College is a life altering experience, hopefully not a life ending experience.

4) How scrumtrilescent is this going to be? I would just like to take a moment and publicly thank Will Ferrell for inventing that word. I can’t eat Ramen noodles; reason being, they taste like sweat.

I think that takes care of my food thought process. This is why I consider eating a burden. Plus it is just not that high up on my priorities list. I recognize that that train of thought could be fatal, so I am trying to correct it. But still, if it weren’t necessary, I wouldn’t do it.

Velcro

So you may or may not know that I have been sporting Velcro shoes for the past two months. Explaination? Allow me.

Once upon a time in a far off magical land known as “Zone De Auto” a decree was issued by Lord Patrick of the District Management. “Hear Ye Hear Ye, Escucha ,Escucha (yeah we’re bilingual like that)! Come the dawn of the New Year all slaves of the kingdom must wear polishable shoes. Violators will be punished.”

This is where I come in. I am a very important employee at Auto Zone. I’m so good that I am employee of the month, every month, without disputation. They have limited me to working 4 days a month because of my intense skills. (You may be thinking W.T.Explative, but it is mainly because each of my hours counts as five regular ones. They just don’t have enough hours to staff me.)

When I walked in one morning I noticed this declaration. I’ll translate it for those of you who don’t speak old English. “All Autozoners will be required to wear polishable shoes by January 1st.” After finding a pen and writing “GAY” on the sign I went about my usual work. My first inclination after rage was to buy shoes at "Savers". I mean I only needed to wear them once week; no big deal. However, my mother chewed me out for even thinking about it. Something about foot patterns in the shoes and back problems... mom stuff. So after Christmas I went out shopping with her. Oh Wal-Mart, the symbol of thrifty living and shirts that say, “The Voices in My Head Don’t Like You.” As I strutted my stuff down the shoe section it dawned on me that I still hadn’t bought my work shoes. Ka-Ching!! I started to check out all five of the shoes in the men’s section when my eyes beheld… a pair of Dr.Scholl’s, old man, shuffle board, black, polishable shoes…in Velcro. Wow. In case you weren’t counting that was five adjective phrases. Words cannot express what went on in my mind at that instance. Let’s just say that I heard the sound of trumpets and couple of hallelujahs. I knew it was meant to be. When I walked over to the other side of the men’s isle I found that they had a similar pair for all of my active needs: Velcro tennis shoes. Those came as a birthday present less than ten days later after a strong hint to my mother.

Several people have asked me what is up with my sudden Velcro obsession. I don’t know. Maybe it is the sweet sound of the hook side breaking the strands on the soft fuzzy side. Perhaps it is the speed of which I am able to get in and out of my shoes without doing damage to the backs of them. Or maybe it is just a natural regression. The fashionable thing now is retro style stuff in bold colors. Maybe I am just subconsciously following that trend by wearing shoes that I wore in preschool. Last time I remember lime green, bright pink and this much purple was that awkward late 80's early 90's era. Batman, Superman and Transformer shirts are now quite popular and I wore those in my 0-5 years. Maybe Velcro is next.

Lesson's from Nobel Library #1

Hmmmm… I am writing this to escape from the pressures of school.

That is actually pretty dumb to say; most things in life don’t give pressure. A car on top of my leg would probably give me some substantial pressure. I imagine a piano on the head would cause some substantial damage to me too. But things like school work, final exams, being late, meeting new people, public speaking, trying something new (etc.) don’t apply any pressure. All the pressure comes from personal expectations and fears of not being able to meet them. (I think a nifty name for those pressures could be stress. Maybe I’ll patent that.) Even having someone else yell at you doesn’t really apply pressure; it is their attempt to apply pressure but it has to be accepted. The majority of life’s stresses seem to be self inflicted by perspective and expectation.

I don’t think that is necessarily bad though. We choose who we become by the challenges we accept and decline; the pressure we put on ourselves to overcome the challenge has a large amount to do with how we succeed. That is why “Dave the Organic Hippie” at McDonalds won’t ever go anywhere. He doesn’t care about anything as long as weed grows and Nintendo comes out with new games. However, I am slowly becoming aware that it is also important to turn the pressure down as well. It dawned on me the other day after a 17 hour study day (yeah I know). I read the instruction manual that came with me the other day and I guess my brain is in danger of rupturing past 150 "psi" ("pressure" per square inch…I am such nerd). So that is one of my goals for this semester: to chillax; even though I have a course load that could kill a water buffalo if consumed in its liquid form. Paper cuts and pressure could kill me this semester so I am trying to avoid them both.

Blogging...

B.L.O.G... I want to know who thought of that! I am realativly new to this blogging world, and I am curious. When I say "Blog" a cross between the word booger and log comes to mind. I doubt that was the original intention, but I am still pretty blown away by it's randomness. I wonder if it is an acronym for something. Our technologically hip generation seems to like those. Wikipedia tells me it is a combination of the words "Web" and "Log." CD, VCR, ATM... BLOG.
Hmmmm, Biological Lending Of Gossip... Best Left On Graze... Beat Leaves Over Gretta.
Yeah I like the acronym better. I live off of wikipedia and normally its word is law...but in this instance I am just going to ignore it. In my book BLOG is an acronym. I don't know what it stands for yet, but I'll figure it out. Let me know if you think of some good ones because I would love to know.