Trying to Be Thankful

I’ve had a rough week on the thankfulness tip. I try to stick with the idea of being thankful every day… I mean I always have things to be thankful for… but bitterness has crept in this week in a big way.

I’m sincerely sick of self-righteous self-deceiving church leaders who shit on the little people… and it makes it hard to call myself a Christian. I love Jesus, but so many of the people who claim to follow him don’t even seem to try to follow His words at all.

So… I AM thankful for my friends who keep the faith and fight through the bullshit, but I AM NOT thankful for these men and women “of God” who power trip and refuse to live lives that God would be proud of. I know I fail time and time again, too, but it’s hard to believe that some of these church leaders even try to live a faithful life.

Praying for the people being oppressed by these powerful men and women who pretend to be living for Christ… there are people hurting right at this moment that I type and my heart goes out to them.

Thanks, Day 85

To be honest, today has been pissing me off. I was upset about a family situation for a big chunk of the day. I’m sick of reading stories of stupid Christians who don’t represent Jesus at all. I’m tired of being told that I can’t call a bigot a bigot, because people has religious rights. I find 90 % of social media pudding me off…

But, I’m thankful for this personal assignment. I’m thankful that I wanted to do this. Forcing myself to think on what I’m thankful for today makes me shift focus, if only for a few minutes.

I’m thankful I’m a dad and a husband. I’m thankful for my three greatest blessings. I love you, Cash, Weston, and Brookie!

Today, I’m thankful that I am remembering to be thankful!

Thanks, Day 19

Today, I’m thankful for good brakes and a guardian angel… freaking deer!

Why?

Conservative Christians can feel what they want about homosexuality being sinful or whatever, but these kind of graphics piss me off. The same people bitching about Atheists coopting the ichthus to create the Darwin fish post pictures like this on their Facebook pages…

Your opinions on sinfulness aside, all Americans deserve rights. Period.

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

This story has me really screwed up right now. In short, it’s about a dad who was pissed that his work van got taken by his son after they had a fight… so, he called the cops. The cops chased down his son and ultimately shot and killed him. Icing on the cake, the asshole cop who shot him is getting paid leave during the investigation.

I’d bet all of my money the cop ends up with no jail time and I wouldn’t at all be surprised if he even retains his job. THIS is what’s wrong with being given God-like power. You make decisions hastily because you don’t fear the consequences. Nevermind that we are taught as society to trust the police to serve and protect… nevermind that the dad was just trying (perhaps quite stupidly) to show tough love… nevermind the other details of the story… let’s just realize this: A TEENAGE BOY IS NEEDLESSLY DEAD and the man who shot him is on a paid vacation.

Ominous Threats

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine got threatened by a gang member who found out he was associated with someone from a rival gang (that consequently lives thousands of miles away). The threat was one of those “I know who you are” types in an ominous voice and then a walk away and stare down. It could be an empty threat, but it could be real. Either way, it’s extremely stupid and it pissed me off greatly.

But it also reminded me of a tough year of my life when I was in grade school. My great uncle, then in his seventies, was jumped by some mafia goons and beat up pretty bad. The exact reason isn’t really important, but suffice it to say that my uncle is a man of great ethics and his failure to take a kickback and do a favor got him in this predicament.

That next year was marred with threatening letters naming names of our family and how they’d hurt, kidnap, or kill us. My mother wouldn’t let me walk to my bus stop. It was a frightening time.

Thinking back on that time, I began to wonder if my friend was feeling the same way and why people can’t just live their lives instead of being assholes.

Honestly, I don’t have anything profound to say. I just was thinking about this and praying that the situation my friend is in is really just fake tough guy trying to be hard.

Follow Up: His Loss

I wrote about someone I had previously considered a friend and his “passive aggressive bullshit” the other day. This “friend” had ignored my texts for a week (in which, I :gasp: tell him that I had a few magazines for him and :gasp: asked if he’d be going to an event I was going to be at). When I wondered if everything was okay, I tried to message him through a social networking site instead… and… I was blocked from doing so. After asking him what was up and trying to address it, I finally decided not to let it eat me up anymore and I let him know that I was taking this as a sign that he didn’t want to be a friend. I told him that I was cool with that and would be deleting his contact and just letting it go.

Suddenly, he felt the need to respond. However, his response wasn’t about something I’d done, but moreso that my personality grated on him (honestly, I’m not fully sure what he was getting at, but I honestly don’t care). He, then, tried to back track by paying me backhanded compliments. Rather than bite, I simply told him to take care and I had nothing more to say. This led him to tell me that I was being a drama queen and that he’d “never broken up with an acquaintance before”. The drama queen thing was a petty comment but calling me an acquaintance did sting quite a bit.

Fast forward a day or so and I mistakenly stumbled upon his social media page (no, really, I wasn’t stalking him or anything, I seriously clicked on it in my history by mistake) and found this post: “Friends: quality over quantity.”

I had no intention of blogging on this anymore until I saw this… and I am blogging for one reason and one reason only… it’s to agree with what he has to say (despite the fact that it’s obviously about me).

I have never needed a lot of friends, just a few awesome ones. And to that, I have to say, I’m all set. I have friends that I know I can rely on to help with my kids, listen to me vent, pray for me, call me to pick me up, and care for me in whatever ways I need. I am blessed with those quality friends. And, I honestly believe that I am also one of those friends to many people.

I am a fierce friend. If you are one of my friends, you can expect me to defend you and your honor, you can expect me to be there when you need anything, you can expect my love and support, and you can expect that I will do all I can to be there for you.

To that I say, dear acquaintance, it’s your loss. I thought we were boys and apparently I was wrong. I feel betrayed and wronged in some way, but it won’t stop me from making new friends and caring for people… mostly because you aren’t worth me losing part of who I am because you decided to be an elitist prick.

Passive Aggressive Bullshit

So, I have this friend… or at this point I guess he’s just a “friend”… who I’ve only known for about a year. Over the past year, despite only hanging out a few times, we’ve talked a lot, mostly about music. We have, however, begun to share real thoughts on life. To me, it was a friendship that I valued as a burgeoning one, one that was growing, one that was not yet close-knit but perhaps headed that way. At the very least, this fellow had become one of my favorite people to debate music with and one of the few folks I know interested in discussing some of the quirkier interests I have (like researching motorcycle clubs and watching documentaries on racialist groups and gangs).

Over the past week, this “friend” had stopped returning my text messages, which was odd. I figured that perhaps he’d lost his phone, until yesterday. Yesterday morning, I had a question to ask him and decided to sent him a message through social media. I soon realized that he was no longer my friend or follower on any social media outlets. So, I reactivated my old Facebook account for a few minutes and sent a message. Only a few minutes after I did that, it showed me that he read it. Then I looked at my text messages to him and realized they had also been delivered, since we both had iPhones.

So, after a few messages asking if I’d upset him somehow and to let me know, he’s still ignoring me. I noticed that his wife had unfollowed/unfriended/etc. me on social media outlets, as well.

Why am I sharing this story? Because I wanted to shed light on how I feel about this type of passive aggressive action. First and foremost, I have no idea what I may have done to piss off this guy that I believed to be a friend. In order for me to make anything right, I’d need to actually know. In order for me to know, he’d have to actually tell me.

It’s okay for someone to be angry with me. It’s even okay for someone to not want to pursue a friendship and decide they no longer want to be in contact with me. However, I think being unwilling to tell someone how you feel is complete and utter bullshit. And, sadly, this situation has actually been eating me up for a day now. I care about people and don’t like hurting anyone. However, the longer this situation sits without this “friend” getting back to me, the colder my heart is going to grow towards him.

It’s not just him, though. So many people… so many “mature adults”, in fact… like to use passive aggressive means to handle their situations. Instead of confronting people who’ve upset them, they talk behind someone’s back, pretend nothing is wrong, or simply ignore someone. The Internet makes doing this even easier. Social media allows people to complain, trash talk, and vent without any “manning up” at all. Many times, people post about their friends indirectly hoping that those friends will see it and feel bad.

If this blog were my only way of handling my feelings on this, it could also fall into this category of online passive aggressiveness. However, I expressed how I feel to my “friend” before taking to WordPress… and I plan also to share this blog with him in the coming days.

In short, through this rant-y diatribe, I want to get one point across… whoever you are, you should own your actions and your feelings. If you are angry with someone, own it. If you are hurt or confused, own it. If you screwed up, own it. Otherwise, you may as well head back to the 5th grade and stop pretending you’re a responsible, mature adult.

Crying Indian Visits Philly

Philadelphia’s park system is awesome…

Sadly, I experienced that not every park, however, fits the mold of what the Fairmount Park system is supposed to look like.

Tacony Creek Park borders a few neighborhoods, some pretty nice, some not so nice. Sadly, the other day when I decided to stop for a run, the park mirrored the worst of those neighborhoods.

The trails were unkept and there was trash everywhere. Cigarettes, 40s, and liquor bottles were mixed in with trash of all shapes and sizes. The appearance of the park somehow convinced my mind that I was unsafe (perhaps I was and perhaps it was just an illusion) and after less than 10 minutes, I turned around and went back to the car.

Sad, really…

l33t n3rd h8: Sports

I get it, when you were in high school, the jocks beat you up and mocked you, but let’s grow up and move on, nerds!

I am a nerd, though I played sports growing up. In fact, my high school experience involved both the football team and several musicals/plays. I guess I may not be a true nerd, in some sense, but I am enough of one that I can speak to nerds as a peer. And, as a peer, I implore you to stop with the hatred of all things sport related.

On social media, I cannot go a day without one of my nerd friends bashing sports and it’s especially bad during major sporting events: the Superbowl, March Madness, NBA Playoffs, NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs, etc. With this in mind, due to March Madness, the hate level is high. Some is subtle, jabbing at how sports are not really THAT important. Some is less subtle, talking about how people play sports because they can’t do anything else, inferring stupidity or inferiority.

The intellectual elitism is obnoxious… and ironic, seeing as the following post is about how some video game series has the new edition coming out tomorrow and they’ll be camping out.

Lack of interest is fine. Being playfully elitist at times is fine (albeit, I know I push the envelope with my music elitism… I promise, I’m working on it… unless you listen to Nickelback), but at a certain point we all need to just grow up and move on.

Next time you want to rant about how sports suck, go back to playing your XBOX and shut it…

Respectfully Submitted,
A Fellow Nerd