Aluminum Hearts

she took me as i was
a precocious, arrogant kid
found me ever so charming
even the parts i hid
she taught me how to love
and it did make me grow
but not fully enough
to honestly let her know

her heart was an organ of fire

i was just a terrible liar

making such a beautiful thing break
will always be my biggest mistake

ten years since that night
she was the brightest light
and now i have only myself to blame
for the pain of having to carry this flame

It's been a while since I've written poetry, but this was an occasion above all others that warranted a return to the form. I love and miss you Melissa and I'm still so very sorry.

Merry Christmas

I want to wish everyone a happy and healthy Christmas. I also wanted to get this survey posted, since I had time to take it during a slow work day today. I've taken it every year the last several years and it's always interesting to look back and see what changes from year to year.


1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before? I remained completely, although not entirely by choice, celibate.
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? No, I still need to get back into shape.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? My family welcomed twin boys, Bryce and Bryant to my cousin Jennifer and her husband Dewey and they were followed in June by birth of my cousin Stephanie's little girl Ava.
4. Did anyone close to you die? Nobody that I had a personal(as in met them in person) relationship with, but there were a lot of untimely and tragic deaths this year from stars like Paul Newman, Heath Ledger, Sydney Pollack and Mitch Mitchell to a local restrauntuer Denny Young, who I didn't know well but have friends and family who close to him and know what a great and unique guy he was.
5. What countries did you visit? I did not leave the good ole US of A this year.
6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? I would like to have my living arrangement change again soon and hopefully be able to afford a new car early in the year as well.
7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? Easy, November 4th 2008. Yes We Did!
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Surviving.
9. What was your biggest failure? I spent a lot of the year writing to not have finished anything worthwhile.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Oh yeah, two kidney stone attacks this year along with that pesky neuromuscular disorder that comes out of nowhere ever so often.
11. What was the best thing you bought? A new leather jacket, which I got for an absolute steal. And I don't feel bad for buying a nice new leather jacket, even if it cost next to nothing, because I donated 6 coats/jackets of mine to a charity clothing drive. It's a fair trade-off, everything I donated was in great condition. I even convinced my mom to finally donate some of my brother's coats this year. No use in them collecting dust when they could be helping keep someone warm this winter.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? President Elect Barack Obama. Class act all the way.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Mostly my own.
14. Where did most of your money go? Gas and other ancillary things involving my vehicle maintenance and itunes of course (I might need rehab to get off it)
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Texas Longhorns Football season
16. What song will always remind you of 2008? "Paper Planes" by M.I.A.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:i. happier or sadder? sadderii. thinner or fatter? Fatter but I'm working on itiii. richer or poorer? Poorer, like most everyone else
18. What do you wish you'd done more of? work-out, get out, travel, sleep, dance
19. What do you wish you'd done less of? Self-loath, worry about work20. How will you be spending Christmas? Home with my parents and some family friends.
22. Did you fall in love in 2008? Not even close.
23. How many one-night stands? Zero24. What was your favorite TV program? Lost, Mad Men, House, The Daily Show
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? No26. What was the best book you read? 2666 by Roberto Bolano (an epic and disturbing but fascinating read)
27. What was your greatest musical discovery? Vampire Weekend, MGMT and Bon Iver
28. What did you want and get?
30. What was your favorite film of this year? The Dark Knight, but there's a lot I haven't seen that looks really great. Rachel Getting Married, Man on Wire, In Bruges and Slumdog Millionaire are also really great.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 26 and I had play rehearsal which I had the embarrassment of having to try on a pair of 36 waist costume pants that were too small! Now I'm not really a 36 waist, it must have just been the design of these very old pair of pants but still that was pretty depressing.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Being onstage performing more or finishing one of my writing projects and not have it come out as crap.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008? Probably looking ridiculous by wearing shirts that were tight for me, due to the ever expanding belly region.
34. What kept you sane? medication
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Anne Hathaway is de lovely.
36. What political issue stirred you the most? The Wars in Iraq and Afghanastan
37. Who did you miss? My little brother Travis, go ahead and etch this answer down for this question from now until the end of time
38. Who was the best new person you met? Even though I met him last year, I got to know my friend Melissa's soon to be husband Blake better this year.
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008: Hard work and persistence are not always rewards in themselves, sometimes you want and deserve more, and that usually only occurs when you don't get it.
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
"Just us kids in the parking lot/Out here givin' it all we got/We don't want to get old and die/There ain't anything we won't try" - from "Just Us Kids" by James McMurtry

Dumb & Dumber (And other comments)

+ So we've got two men making a late push for "Douche bag of the Year" award : Democratic Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who has been arrested for allegedly scheming to profit from naming President-Elect Barack Obama's now vacant Illinois Senate seat by asking for gifts, favors and cash from potential candidates. Obama has of coursed called for the Governor to step down. Which he absolutely should and then he should be prosecuted and if found guilty go to jail.

+ Next I come back to my home state of Texas where Republican Congressman Joe Barton, a ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has introduced legislation to...wait for it...wait for it...end the BCS system. Huh!? Now I am of course by no means at all a BCS apologizer or fan and I like it when I hear our newly elected President say he's in favor at making a change to a college football playoff system, but to waste time and taxpayer money on such a ludicrous piece of non-legislation is just dumbfounding. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. Found everywhere.

+ Trying to Christmas shop without a list in your hands, going on nothing but the stubbornness of believing you have it all in your head, is not a good idea and will cause a lot of unnecessary anxiety and frustration.


+ Laughter really is the best medicine. I can not begin to explain the joy of exposing...er, maybe that's the wrong word to use, the joy of introducing a young person to a comedy milestone known as "Animal House". As you watch and laugh as you have hundreds of times before and as you watch them laugh and see the look in their eyes as they realize that their entire world has just been blown away by and they will keep their promise of deleting Dane Cook as a Myspace friend and adding "Duck Soup" along with anything made by Peter Sellers or Woody Allen in the 1960s or 70s to their Netflix que.

+ I really do feel confident that Colt McCoy will be awarded the Heisman Trophy this Saturday evening at the Downtown Athletic Club in Manhattan. Sure it's going to be the closest race in the treasured history of the award, but I don't think Tim Tebow or Sam Bradford have had the X-factor that McCoy has had this year for Texas. Going into this season, there was nothing but question marks around how good this Longhorn team could possibly be. Tebow and his Gators and Bradford's Sooners are playing for the National Championship and that's pretty much where most college football pundits believed they could or should be going into this season. Of course, I'm biased in that I want Colt to win the Heisman, but that doesn't change the fact that he should and probably will win. And it's not by any means a consolation prize for not being able to play for the Big 12 or National Championship. He's coming back next year and this time around there won't be anymore question marks surround Colt or the Longhorns.


+ Welcome to the dark side CC Sabathia.

+ So there's this new game for Playstation 3, Mortal Kombat versus DC Comics Universe, and it's really quite awesome. Great characters, visuals, effects and lots of mindless violence. Here's to hoping we get ourselves a really cool Street Fighter versus Marvel Comics next year.

+ Speaking of cool shit I've been checking out with my new PS3, the special features on the gorgeous Iron Man BluRay disc are fantastic. Really love getting to see the rehearsal footage of Robert Downey, Jr. and Jeff Bridges. No FX, no costumes. Just two guys working it out. Of course The Dark Knight disc has now arrived and I'm going to need to take a few days to digest all the great stuff that has to offer other than the fact that I get to watch the best film of the year I've seen so far and further my obsession over Heath Ledger's Joker.

Week in Review

Trust me, it's not all angels in bikinis.

Monday : It's a Monday. A Monday after a Holiday weekend. It sucked as much as you would expect it to.

Tuesday : Would have been my late brother's 25th birthday. Sucked as much as you would expect it to.

Wednesday : Rented my tuxedo for a friend's upcoming wedding, in which I am an usher. It's a nice enough Tuxedo but I really need lose weight. I feel like a sea lion, especially after watching Daniel Craig in Quantum of Solace just the week before.

Thursday : Wake-up at 3am with excruciating pain, nausea and gas. It continues throughout the day and the symptoms are familiar to me. Another kidney stone attack. See the doctor and get the confirmation. Now it's time to load up on medication that makes me feel loopy and not in the good way and then just wait and see whether or I'll pass the stone or if it'll just go away.

Friday : Wake-up at 3:30am with even more excruciating pain and nausea. Still waiting and seeing. On the way to work the illness and loopiness aide in me getting into a fender bender that luckily does not cause any bodily harm to the person I rear-ended nor even any damage to their car. Me on the other hand, not so lucky. Upon impact I bumped my head on the steering wheel and got a little bit of whiplash, then I get out of the car to find my bumper and hood all twisted up. Just cosmetic damage, but something I don't need right now nonetheless.

Finally arrive at work and it's a usual busy and frantic morning, followed by a not so usual busy afternoon as I had to cover for two other co-workers who were out of the office and all of the stress, illness and other shit going on I end up snapping at a patient, who even now as I look back with hindsight had it coming because he's always been a prick and deserves to be put in his place even if it causes me to get into a lot of trouble at work.

I'm out of the door at 5pm sharp and head to dress/tech rehearsal and it goes not so well. It's a popular belief that bad dress rehearsals mean a good opening night. I've never believed that. But I'm going to have faith anyway that the show will go on and will go well.

All this and I didn't even get to watch the Victoria's Secret Lingerie Fashion Show. Not that television would do it any justice anyway, but it would be a nice distraction with the daily Murphy's Law my life seems to be right now.