It's been a while. Your not going to believe this. I think I was just all talked out. I talk a lot, about doing a lot of things. Lately I realized that there is no coorelation between talking and doing. At least not with me. If anything, when I talk about doing something, it makes me less apt to do it.
I get into an attitude of defeat. I have been making so many commitments, announcing them to the world, and then consistently giving up. It seems, that the one thing I am consistently achieving is failure. I think of something that will make my life better, I tell everyone that I am going to do it, then I feel pressured, I feel discouraged. The innitial motivation and enthusiasm that were present when I shouted my resolve from the mountain tops is gone. I have been trying to somehow talk my way into greatness.
It is at the point that I don't believe myself. I don't take myself seriously. I am onto my manipulations and my seeking for glory and praise. I'm onto me.
So in this respect, it is actually a good sign that I haven't been writing blogs lately, atleast not about my new resolutions to perform some kind of miraculous superman-phonebooth-superspeed change.
I am doing better at this now though, and this is meant to pe a positive post. Anytime I can become self aware enough to see a problem is a positive thing. I can then change it and learn and grow.
Small personal victories. Small private victories. Making promises to the Lord and not to Man, and being willing to give 100% percent to whatever commitment I am making. Anyways, I know that for now, it is much easier to be humble when I keep my commitments to myself, therefore allowing the Lord to help me much more than He can when I am boasting about something I haven't even done yet.

The Dreaded Bunny Hump

After staying up to an obnoxiously late hour, having viewed several disturbing images including a man in some kind of painters suspenders doing some unspeakable acts on an obese woman in a cage, I have come to the conclusion that I am not going to meet my future wife at 80's night. I believe it was some time between getting sandwiched in the middle of a bunch of sweaty dudes with there shirts off, and getting goosed by someone who, despite the overwhelming evidence, I can only hope was a woman, that I decided I might just be too old for this kind of thing. Maybe too old is the wrong term. Maybe I am just finally growing up? Nah. I still play with G.I Joes in the bathtub.
It is good though, to have these moments. They are Ah Ha moments and they are the forks in the road. I am not saying that 80's night is horrible or that it would ruin my life, or that I am too cool for it, I am not even saying that I didn't have fun. But more than anything it just made me sad. Immodest girls doing immodest things with guys who don't see them as girls but as objects for their own instant gratification and validation. I know because I have been there, I was one of those guys. As a disclaimer let me just say that there was probably some fairly wholesome girls there as well. To be frank, though, there is nothing wrong with dancing but I would say that it is impossible to go there and not at least see several things that make the spirit run for the hills.
I remember standing there at one point and it just clicked. This is not me. This is not who I am anymore. I had no desire to do anything with these girls except maybe help them. I wanted to tell them all to have some respect for themselves. I wanted to tell them that it didn't matter what they looked like on the outside or how big that guy in the pink tights muscles were that is dancing on you. Wow, while I'll admit that I am still in the shallow end of the pool, I think that my water just got a little bit deeper.
I can't go to a dance these days without being reminded of a bunch of frantic rabbits going around humping each other during mating season. I am sorry that was probably a little to discriptive but that is seriously what its like. It is not dancing. I admit that I don't know how to dance and I usually just wiggle my body and try to look like as much of an idiot as possible, making sure that I am always on the move so I am not pinpointed and targeting to participate in the dreaded bunny hump. I wondered what I was doing there in the first place. I would much rather be grinding handrails.
So I have moved into a new era of my life. I suppose you could cut my life into two pieces; "Pre-80's" and "Post-80's". Ahhhh. It feels good to be here. The air is sweet. There is no sweaty 18 year olds. Right. Now with the help of a deleted face book account, I can go and live my life. Or rather, atleast for the next 30 minutes, I can read Hunger Games and live the life of Katniss vicariously. That's cool too. I suppose that could be a whole nother blog, but I will say that because of Katniss, I fashioned my own bow and arrow that shoots drum sticks. Carpe Diem my friends.

I'll Meet You in the Middle.

You see that pencil sticking out of my hat? Despite the fact that it has absolutely no lead and is therefore useless, it still exonerates professionalism. This photo was taken before we really knew what we got ourselves into. I still don't really know. What I do know is this, I got a mad case of the Sheet Rash, It is physically hurting me right now to blog, and I have never felt more like a man. I mean, common, check this out....

Awww yeah. Thats some serious tool belt action right there. Seriously . Let me bring you up to date a little bit. Right now, I am in Zion, Utah. I am sheet rocking my parents house with my friend Ammon. Actually, right now I am reclining in a chair, typing, while Ammon is downstairs sitting in a bath tub, sponging himself with microwaved water, naked. There is no hot water and our blow up mattress has a hole in it. I say our, because yes, we are sharing one.

During the night, that bed transforms into the Valley of Despair.

Our blow up mattress has a slow leak. Slow enough to lull us into a false sense of security, while we drift peacefully off to sleep. Inevitably, I wake up in the night, having made forced contact with Ammon as a direct result of the Valley of Despair. The Valley of Despair is the crease that is created due to the slow leak of our Aerobed. To make matters worse, we have one pillow, granted its a body pillow but it still subtracts some of the Man Points I have earned on this journey.

Sheet rock, while helping to build homes, destroys families. It destroys relationships. Sheet rocking is the only time someone is exempt from swearing, I haven't swore but thats just because I always forget to when I get hurt.

It does feel nice to really work though, despite the injuries and the forced spooning. I think this is the hardest I've ever worked in my life and it has been wonderful to just put my head down and go. It has been good to get away and have a chance to think. The usual questions like, who am I? What am I doing with my life? And, How did they crack all of those Pistachio's?

My Mom got a huge bag of Pistachios, post-cracked and I have had a difficult time restraining myself from eating them by the handful. I have been thinking in my head how they are like the rich mans sunflower seeds when I realized that if you eat to many of em, war breaks out in your tummy and you never win that war. Ammon and my Mom have also been casualties of that war. Nevertheless, tomorrow I will no doubt go to battle yet again.

I am tired, this writing is blue and I don't know why. I have a whole schlepple of sheet rocking to do tomorrow, and I am making up words. These are all indicators that it is time for me to go to sleep. So sleep I will and tomorrow I will rise and I will rock. I will rock that sheet.