responsibility is overrated

So I originally wrote this after my second to last semester of college. This post, probably much like most everything I write, is about growing old or the fear of such. It’s not so much about getting older and finding new things as much as it is about leaving things behind. So what’s easier…pushing or pulling??? That’s what it’s all about. At an apex, which I am now: January 20, 2007 1:51am drinking good beer, relaxed, upon finishing I will lay with my dogs and my girlfriend, an apex indeed…and so it goes.

So I finished my next to last semester of my undergraduate education yesterday. It’s now one o’clock in the afternoon and I’m on my third beer. I started thinking about all the ramifications of graduating college. This may seem kind of strange seeing as how I’m 31 and all but all the same…I realized, although I am old, that I’m pretty scared of graduation. I’m afraid of not having the “i’m a college kid” excuse for whatever I may need it for. I am excited about the prospect of making a decent wage and being able to provide for myself but the whole “career” thing seems a bit overrated. I don’t regret going back to college but I have to say I’ve been living way below the poverty line since then. I guess what I’m most apprehensive about is becoming complacent in my old age.

I’m afraid of the prospect of having to get up really fucking early everyday and go to a job for 8 hours. As promising as the “weekend warrior” moniker sounds, I like being the PARTY ANIMAL much better. I have the insight to see that I’d much rather be “frank the tank” than spending a nice saturday at home depot or bed, bath, and beyond. Not only am I afraid of becoming part of the daily grind I’m afraid of the rewards it will bring, namely money. I know I said earler that I’m looking forward to a decent wage and I would like to have money to do things like eat and have electricity and maybe even travel and get drunk. I’m now speaking of the life that potentially comes along with making money. (by the way: beer number 4: Old Milwaukee) It’s not as much that I’m afraid of the person I will become it’s that I’m more afraid of not being the person I’ve always been.

Coming from the bottom really fucking sucks when your growing up down there and it always sucks to a certain extent now matter how long your there but I just wonder what kind of buttfuck, dicksmack asshole I’d be if my life situation were different. I remember how embarassed I was when I was little when someone would ask me where my parents worked or if I was on welfare. The worst part was when my mom would send me to the store with fucking food stamps to get milk or buy a 5 cent peice of gum and use the change to buy a (then 95 cents) pack of cigarettes. When I reached my 20’s I’m not sure if it was just the trendy thing to do or I just appreciated where I came from. But I’m convinced all that bullshit gave me a certain amount of insight in life.

There was never anything I really wanted to be when I as growing up, besides a fucking heavy metal rockstar. I remember graduating from high school and really hoping to get this awesome job at a plumbing supply distribution warehouse starting out at like 6 dollars an hour. Going to Kent State was pretty much a fluke to follow a stupid girl that would later turn out to be really fucking crazy. I just got my 5th beer and realized I didn’t mean for this to be an autobiograhy so I’ll get on to my point. Just as there was never anything I wanted to be, there are now many things I don’t want to be, or I’m afraid I’ll become. I used to literally wear a blue collar and get really dirty working in a factory on big machines, I hung out with other people I worked with, we drank cheap beer, cussed alot and I even had a couch on my porch. I don’t really want to do that again but more importantly I don’t want to be a person that rolls my eyes at those people. I don’t want to be too old or too well off to go to a party and cringe at the sight of a keg of Natrual Light. I don’t want to be offended by a drunk idiot wearing a busch light box on his head. I don’t ever not want to listen to music becasue you can’t understand the what the fuck they’re saying. I don’t want to be offended by the word fuck and I don’t only want to use it when I”m really mad that a dog got into the trash outside or some idiot cuts me off on the way to work. I like the word fuck as an adjective to accentuate the crap that I talk about. I don’t ever want to really like my job only to come home miserable because of the commute home. I don’t even want to own a car. I don’t want to live in some shit hole neighborhood with a name like “eagle’s nest” or “overlook ridge”. that would fucking suck. I don’t ever want a home owner’s association to tell me I can’t have a couch on my porch or a pirate flag outside my house on memorial day. I don’t ever want to be embarassed that I used to drive a camaro or that I like Iron Maiden. I don’t ever want to feel comfortable tucking in a shirt. I don’t ever want to feel uncomfortable sitting around drinking canned union made beer and talking about how funny, hyporcritical and ironic jesus and christianity are. I don’t want to ever be afraid to dance like no one is watching and lose my voice singing along with my favorite band at some shitty dive bar. I don’t ever want to afraid of potentially getting my ass beat by making fun of how serious most people take themselves. I don’t ever want a subject to be too sensitive to talk about or make fun of. Fuck the day when I’m too good to have a keg party or have friends crash on my couch for the night. I don’t ever want to think it’s wrong for someone to steal from wal-mart. I hope I’m never too good or too proud to admit I was on every sort of public assistance possible until the day I turned 18. I’ll never be embarassed that my brother was in the cripps and had a gun when he was 13 Fuck the day when I ever again become embarassed of who I am, was or where I came from.

Despite all this, I am pretty excited about my potential field of work. It’s something that i feel I want to do and not just a job I will have. I pretty much know what I’m going to be I just am a little nervous about staying away from what I don’t want to be.

Disclaimer thingy

Just wanted to say that while writing on this post or any thing else writing anything short of a research paper for school have I been NOT under the influence of some really good beer and even better music. ( i think that means that i’m always drunk when i write, which is true).

Intro malarky

I set this thing up a long time ago but have actually never written in it, or on it whatever you call it. My name is Rob but a fortunate dream I had one night changed all that and I was able to take on the moniker of “the party animal”. Besides the scientific biological sense I don’t think I consider myself an animal and I can’t think of the last time I threw or even attended a party. But…that’s my name…and so it goes. As the name implies, I do in fact wear a beard. This is a relatively new thing for me. Being in the hospitality industry i’ve always wanted to grow a beard only because I couldn’t. Now I can and I have. In general I wouldn’t consider myself a “bearded person” but I do have one…and so it goes.
I live in Colorado. I really don’t know why or how this has happened to me. I don’t remember even thinking of what Colorado was before I moved here, but I did. I also moved to Louisiana once…and Florida. To me now, that seems fucking weird. After high school I only, honestly wanted to work in the local plumbing supply warehouse making 7 dollars and hour. I couldn’t even do that right, and now I’m in fucking Colorado…and so it goes.
So apparently this May some people from a university in northern Colorado will decide that I’ve had enough education to be a bachelor. On May 12th of this year, as my girlfriend’s family and possibly my family looks on..I will walk across a stage and someone will call out my name and hand me a scroll. In that scroll will be nothing, but a few weeks later I will, in the mail, receive a document stating that I have acheived enough to obtain a Bachelors degree in Technical Journalism. As far back as 2005 and beyond now people will have and will say “oh great so you want to be a writer eh?”. I now pause to “obtain” a new fully-filled 12oz container of beer. ……for me to be a writer could not be farther from the truth. I can’t understand what people don’t understand about the fucking word “technical”???????????? Is Journalism only newspapers? I guess many think so. As far as hardcore journalism goes I would give it to newspaper people…no pictures, no makeup…no glory. As the godfather of Newpapers, and probably all of journalism says, and what a TV newsperson NEVER would..”comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable”…Joseph Pulitzer..a long fucking time ago…and so it goes.
Lucero, which i’m listening to now and probably will forever, is the shit…and so it goes.

Now that this is really long and I”m drunk and typing becomes less a form of communications and more a puzzle I will divulge my true intentions of this random-ass….rant.

By now some will think…maybe he’s kinda good at writing..or maybe the fortunate ones..the ones that know better will think..he’s a fucking thief! Indeed I am..I have stolen something… I have stolen four little words that happen to be in succession that make something from nothing.
These four little words have changed the way I look at pretty much everything I see or read or hear. As trivial as it might sound, these are, for me, probably the four most important words in the English language.
For some strange, odd, weird, fucked up reason these four little words helped me realize the triviality of the whole fucking world…and so it goes.

It’s been quite a few years since I’ve read one of his books..probably at least 3 or 4 years. In the meantime I’ve read a few others. I’ve read 2 books by Joe Meno. His “hairstyles of the damned” seriously sounded like someone followed me around all through high school. Also that one weird guy..Chuck Palahniuk he writes some damn good stories. A lot of politics and textbooks later I finally decide on anohter of his books. It’s been years and I wonder if time will hold it’s own…and so it goes.

There are fucking brilliant people out there. But goddamnit if after years and years…fucking Kurt Vonnegut. I’m now reading one of his books written in the late 80’s. I’ve read all those other guys and was a little weary about ole’ Kurt standing up to the challenge since it’s been like 4 years since I’ve read one of his. These other guys seemed to have it going on..Or so it goes

I wasn’t sure how he would stand since starting to read younger writers more in-touch with my generation…Mr. Vonnegut would probably know more about being 31 years old in 2007 than I do..and he’s 85! I’m now reading ‘gelapagos’. Fucking genius!!!

I read “slaughterhouse 5″ about 8-9 years ago and that’s where I stole the phrase…” and so it goes”. I still think it is the four most brilliant words in English Literature. I’m not sure why but at the point I first read those lines…it changed the way I thought about everything…and so it goes.

So this is my first entry to my blog. While I won’t write often and for sure not this lengthy I have to say, If I were to ever come up with four words so definite in the English language maybe the whole writer thing would be for me. …..hopefully more to come soon. —-the party animal!