A Long Day

After a sleepless night and a kind wait for my parents to depart, I was finally back to a state I had not been in over three months. I was home alone, cast off to do my own bidding in a place that I could arrange as my own temple. And so my first action of the day was to go out and seek breakfast food from a fast food place. I first thought maybe McDonalds, because I was craving their breakfast burritos, but I soon discovered something rotten about living here in subburbia, they actually close down and do not open at four in the morning. And yes, I checked a multitude of locations before finally letting the white flag rise and moving onward. I went to Einstein's instead and had a lovely bagel sandwich, though it did not replace my original want of a good breakfast burrito. The second action I attempted for the day was to start writing.

For the first time in months I have started writing again, working on a fresh story with some brand new ideas. I cannot say that I have made very much progress so far, but that is from both being captivated by other things, having other tasks at hand, and just not being very satisfied with the way my story was beginning. Already I have re-written the beginning at least five times and after re-reading what I had written a little later I am already thinking of re-writing it again. And that saddens me that I cannot find the right footing for my story, which may or may not be the most important part to where this goes. Still, what I have is better than what I had and what I want is but an arms grasp away I hope. So I will continue writing to see where this goes, and hopefully after I purge this start I will be able to more successfully continue on faster.

But that was not the long part of the day. After both the sleepless night and trying time and time again to write that beginning, I grew tired and decided to fall asleep. I do not think I have had such a deep sleep in months, for there were no worries to be placed upon me and nothing to wake me up. I slept for hours, comfortable and confidently as the deep sleep pulled me in. Stress was a thing of the past and when I awoke I was actually sore from sleeping so well. That is right, I woke-up to find that my body was actually more sore then than it had been before I sought off for my dreamy worlds. So I stretched and began the rest of my day, which at that point was at sundown.

I went to the store, something I have not done in a while, and I bought several items of food that have been missing from my parents household since my Dad resumed cooking again. I do not think he understands that if you cook with fresh vegetables and fruits you end up with a more delicious meal. Anyway, I bought several things that I thought I might need in the coming week and then returned back home. Upon getting there, my stomach growled and I felt the fit of hunger that bestows upon a young person of my age who has not eaten in over eight hours. I set forth cooking a spicy chicken recipe that I had invented rather myself and come to love. It came out perfectly and then I felt tired again. 

But before letting the dreamy worlds get the best of me, I also started my laundry. When I would wake, it would be folding time for lots of clothes. On a side note, that was the first time that I had actually proceeded to do laundry in at least a month. Sure, I changed out my pants when they started to feel dirty and I would grab at a clean shirt after every shower, but that was still the longest time I have ever gone without doing laundry before. And then I feel asleep for the second time in the day. After waking up, I folded the clothes and decided to write a blog to explain everything, which looking back feels rather empty of any actual news. Oh well. I have a feeling I will not be sleeping tonight, maybe I will write another. Better yet, maybe I will start back at working on my novel!

The Taste of Burnt

Throughout my life there have been times when I have burned my food in a toaster, on the stove, or a multitude of other ways. And although I watch the stuff I am cooking pretty closely to catch it before the food turns into a hard, blackened rock, it still happens. I do not think anyone can claim they have never burned something, so this should be quite understandable. But what I am learning is that while I burn food, I admit it and I still eat what I burned. Over the years of burning food for various reasons, I have actually come to appreciate the taste of burnt food, the taste of failure so to speak. What I am getting at is I have accepted my failure and taken it, even appreciated it. Admittedly, I will burn a bagel every now and then for that different flavor.

Yet in my lifetime, though short as the stay has been as of right now, I have started to realize that not everyone is like me when it comes to their mistakes. They burn the food and then throw it out and try again. I can understand throwing out something that you do not like, but to toss out your failure and not see the errors of your way is maddening. And maybe the whole idea of this comes from a part of me that knows there is no infinite amount of anything, that in truth everything has a quantity value to it. I cannot burn a million bagels and still feed the world, let alone my check book cannot buy a million bagels, so where do others get off thinking that they should be allowed to burn more food because they failed the first time.

I think this perspective of oh I failed I will try again without seeing if there was a mistake the first time is something we have come to just accept in America. "Oh I failed that test, I guess I'll just have to do better next time" or "Oh I burned my Poptart today, guess I'll just put another one in the toaster." It becomes a sort of pattern, an American experience per say, that you can fail in life and you do not need to live through the consequences of your failure. I think we should change that perspective. And the easiest way to go about teaching people that there is this moral dilemma between always thinking there will be more of whatever is to tell them they do not get a second chance. That you need to take your failure and see what went wrong, learn from it, enjoy the failure while it happens, and then become better from it. And instead we toss out this idea that failure is something that happened, but maybe a second time will fix it.

I would like to side note and just say I do not think this will fix all of the problems in the world, let alone all the problems in the United States. But this might be a great first-start proving ground for a lot of Americans to learn that they need to try their hardest the first time and they need to succeed. We live in a culture of people that just pitch things away the first time and do not learn from their mistakes, but we should live in a culture that examines what we have and what we want and then make the most out of what we can.

Maybe then we can all enjoy the taste of burnt. Thank you for my short political side-track today.

Jobs for Junior

The first time I heard about parents getting involved in helping their children get or keep jobs at certain companies was a small article in the newspaper. In the article, the son went into an interview and apparently blew it. The company sent him a letter a few days later saying that they did not want him for the position and they wished him the best of luck. Instead of taking it as a loss and moving on, the son called up his parents and told them about the interview. Apparently his mother actually went over to the office and started talking with the hiring personnel, asking why they did not like her little boy and what was wrong with him.

What a lunatic!