Fall Is Upon Us

The horrendous heat wave has (hopefully) passed for good, fellow Oklahomans. Like a fine wine, the leaves on the trees will become more appealing with age. The bold, vibrant greens will slowly transition into a mellow array of oranges, yellows, and browns. The soft, fleshy texture will leave them and they will shrivel up. Detached from their life force, dead in the gutter, trampled underfoot and scattered to the four corners of the world, the once sought after shade in the summer will litter the ground like locusts in a plague.

The waves will swirl around your feet, drawing the heat out from your body. The goosebumps raise every hair on your skin as a northern wind rushes between the cracks in your fingers. The spring showers' work is slowly undone as everything around you reverts to a lifeless state. The nurturing sunshine that made your heart blossom seems farther away than ever.

Every year, month, day, hour, minute, second, decision, expectation, distrust, and promise you have ever made has led up to the moment you're living in right now. All of the moments in the past were made up of moments just like that one happening as we speak. Every grain of knowledge inside of you floats away like a mote into the cosmos.

She paved the way for the spring rain that grew the grass and the trees. She was lurking behind the sunshine that grew your love into a beautiful flower. She is the frigid north winds that make you shudder; the waves that draw your life away have a name, and that name is Autumn. Love will writhe in defeat as the seasons change like all things do, and the dead, cold hearts will be kicked aside. They will decompose, rot, and be forgotten as they slowly amalgamate into the earth.

Time will pass. Hipsters will take pictures of their pumpkin lattes and post them to Instagram. The snow will fall and melt, and the sun will shine again. The warm rains will seep into the ground, and the forgotten, dead, and rotten love from the year before will serve one final purpose and fertilize the new grass. The leaves will bud more bountifully than the year before. The sun will beam once more, and the memories that would keep you from repeating past mistakes are thrown into the ocean, only to rise again months later as an ironic souvenir, along with the numbing waves at your feet in what you hoped would be the distant future, but inevitably happened upon like wildfire, and without remorse.

Your footprints will be left behind you in the sand as you pace mournfully, only to be washed away with the cold winter waves. The tears you cry will be blow away by the chill winds, and for a time your hope will, like all things, die, only to be reborn with the new year, blossom in the spring and summer sun, and pass on once more.

Human beings are one with nature, and our behavior mimics each other. Whether we came first or nature did I don't know, but I do know that there is always hope in the future, as well as the knowledge of futility. Like the blades of grass and the leaves on the branches, our hope will spring to life and die just as swiftly, until all things pass. This is the sorrow of all men and women. This is our curse. This is our fall.

The Moment I Turned Into Myself

Life is a series of memories that have, in one way or another, impacted one or more individuals to act in a specific manner from that point on.

I dislike preppy, clique-y girls. I tend to dress in any way I want, without regard to how others might see me. If someone has something to say, I'd prefer it to be said to my face and not behind my back. I like to speak my mind. I don't like going to buy wings from the Wing Stop by my house anymore. I have a deep-seeded hatred for gossip. All of these qualities in myself can be traced back to one specific moment in my life; one memory impacted me in such a manner that all of these things are a part of me now.

It was probably about 9th grade. My dad and I were going to go golfing, because golf is a gentleman's sport,  and we're real sirs. Because of the rules of the course, you have to wear pants or shorts with a tucked in polo, which is exactly what I was wearing. We decided to stop somewhere to get some food before we went out to the course, and I suggested wings, because we had never been there, and also because wings are delicious. So we get there, order some food, and sit down, waiting for our food to get to our table.

At this point, I notice that the only other people in the store was a group of three teenage girls. I remember  the two that were facing me kept giving me glances and all three of them were talking in a hushed manner, and of course, giggling about in their cheeky way. I got up to get a drink, and out of the corner of my eye I could see one of them looking at me and saying "what a fashion faux pas."


Now, first of all, nobody has even said "faux pas" since 1973, so I really don't understand why she felt it was an appropriate way to describe the fact that I was wearing jeans and a polo. Secondly, I was wearing jeans and a polo. People wear that all the time. I could have said the same thing about you and your Uggs and daisy dukes. That's the stupidest thing since Croc's, and Croc's are really stupid. My 1990 Camry is more stylish than you.

I didn't say anything. I didn't look at them, or even acknowledge their existence. I just sat there and quietly writhed around in my hatred for them. I've sat and thought about what I should have said to them. (The best so far is "you ugly anyways," but it's still open for discussion.) And even though I'd love to just reduce them to ruin, I think I'd probably just sit there like I did before and know in good confidence that they'll have at least one kid by 18 and be living off food stamps for the rest of their adult lives.

I don't like you, preppy, clique-y girls, with your secrecy and gossip. I will dress however I want, and I really don't care what you think, because I'm way above you.

So there you have it.

Memories, oh, such good memories...

I love my job. Sure, it has its downsides just like any other job (like standing up, moving around for 5+ hours), but it has its upsides too. The latter outweigh the former, hands down. For starters, I get paid, which is pretty spiffy. Also, within about an hour before or after a shift I get to go in and eat all the free tasty mac-n-cheese/Bavarian cream dessert pizza I want. The little uniform I have to wear with "CiCi's" plastered across the front is a little cheesy, but I get to wear jeans, a fact which I try to rub in my brothers face as often as possible.

I'm pretty new to my job, and all the cynics say I'll get tired of it, which I might, but for now, it's great. A while back, this adorable little black girl got sooooo dang excited over cinnamon rolls that she started dancing around in a circle. She reminded me of Boo off of Monsters Inc. I turned to the assistant manager and said "wow, I've never seen kids so excited about food." He looked me dead in the eye and said "I have. Every day since I started working here." How freaking cool is that? When I applied at the it's-kind-of-like-a-miniature-Incredible-Pizza buffet I didn't think about that at all. I work where I get to see a bunch of little kids have fun. I love kids. I have three nephews and two neices. They're pretty adorable, if I do say so myself. I know more than a few people that would say theirs are more cute, but you know, whatever...

Anyways, today there was a group of about fifteen 5-7ish year old looking girls who were apparently just finishing up a season of basketball. A large African American man, loud voice, awesome laugh, stood up and starting giving out little participation trophies and thanking all the kids and their parents for a great season.

I don't know if you know this about me, but when I was little I played soccer. I mean, I loved soccer. There is nothing I'd rather do than soccer now that I'm not playing it anymore. I played for about eight years, from when I was four till I was twelve. I played a season of basketball, and one season of baseball too, but neither of them could take the place of soccer.

After every season, the coach would take us all out to the Mazzio's on 31's and Garnett, where we'd play Mortal Kombat 2 on the old Atari game box and stuff our faces with pizza. Our coach, a tall (well, to me, a little 3' kid) gruff man, who I personally believe wore a hat just so he could throw it on the ground when he got angry, would stand at the end of the three or four connected tables with a box crammed with participation trophies. As he called out each of our names, he would tell us how proud of us he was for playing so great (we were the second best team in our league for about five years) and tell one of his favorite memories of us playing. I remember his smile as he passed out the trophies to each one of us. He was angry at times, like most coaches, but he was awesome, and I have a lot of respect for him now that I look back on it.

I only remember a few of the guys I played with, but I mostly remember my friend Mati. He was this crazy Indian guy, pretty tall for his age, skinny kid, and he had the funniest run ever. He'd stick his arms all the way down at his sides with his hands pointing straight out. He looked like a freak and a pansy, but nobody made fun of him because he was still faster than everyone else on the team.

Sometimes I pass by the fields we practiced at, which were across from a football stadium, next to a baseball field, and behind a middle school. They're somewhere around the Panera on 41st.

This was probably one of the greatest times of my life, and I pray that I never ever forget it. I was just wondering if maybe you guys and gals had any super fond memories like this you felt like sharing. Comment or do whatever you do. I'd love to hear what you've got to say.

Oh, and this song is the bomb-diggity. A little depressing, but still, it's the bomb-diggity.