friday evening was the 12th anniversary party for the radio show. it was at dean’s downtown on main street. the turnout was pretty good, and i think overall it was good. while there, groovehouse mentioned some guys were going to be spinning old country vinyl at leon’s lounge that night. i thought that would be cool, but unfortunately i had committed to doing something for work at midnight so i wasn’t able to check it out. groove also told me someone had bought mary jane’s on washington and although they are remodeling the inside, outside on monday night someone spins old country. i might have to check into that.
saturday i slept in. as usual. after getting up i hopped in my pickup and went by the houston shoe hospital and picked up my boots, which appear to be fixed. i then stopped by goode company bbq. (i was so close…how could i not?) i was going to drop by the men’s wearhouse to get fitted for my monkey suit for my brother’s wedding, but it started dropping buckets of water from the sky so i headed back home. i field stripped and cleaned my kel-tec .380 and my new kimber, then i headed to top gun. i put about 150 rounds through my kimber. it’s a 3″ barrel and an aluminum frame, so i was a bit worried about kick — but it wasn’t bad. if you don’t recall, my kel-tec had some problems last time at the range, so i was hoping my cleaning would help. i put most of a box of remington through it no problems, but when i switched to winchester it jammed within a few shots. because of this, i’m thinking perhaps my kel-tec doesn’t like the blunt tips on winchester fmj. which makes me wonder how it’d handle hollow points. i might have to fire a box through it to see. i had my (newer) walther ppk/s so i fired the box of winchester fmj through it, no problems.
i came home, then around 10pm i headed to the continental club to see steven reynolds and the Texas two and the octanes. i don’t recall seeing steven reynolds and the Texas two before, but their myspace page made me cautiously interested. when i got there, a three-piece punk band was doing a punk rockabilly song. then they switched to just punk. it was kind of odd for the small crowd there. the funniest thing was the lead singer was the guy with the bright red mohawk i see driving around the montrose/westhheimer area all the time. turns out he’s the lead singer and guitar player for the hates, a punk band that has been around in houston since the late 70’s. weird. i know this from talking to jay, whom i happened to notice at the bar after i’d settled in. steven reynolds’ set was okay. i liked the music alright, but it generally seemed to be lacking in presence, at least to me. between reynolds’ and the octanes’ sets i headed next door to tacos-a-go-go and got a couple of tacos (one barbacoa and one chicken fajita, both on flour tortillas). i recommend either. i hopped back over to the continental club to catch the octanes and got a lone star to wash down the tacos. i left part way through the octanes set — partially because i was tired, partially because i wasn’t real into it, and partially because of the two drunk couples acting stupid and making out and blocking my view.
today i got up and went to church. the message was about being a christian at work. bill based it on the text from titus about how bond servants should behave. i generally agree with what he said, but i’m not very good about having that mindset. not that i’m a horrible employee who sows dissent or strife or whatever, but i’m not the model employee either.
and now once again i’m going to talk about not feeling like i belong. and yes, i understand it is as much up to me as anyone else to make myself a part of anything. i’m not faulting the church, or bill, or anyone in particular. i’m just saying i don’t really feel like i’m part of a community. i feel like a guy who goes to the service, might or might not talk to a few people, then goes home. but this is generally how i’ve felt about my social status throughout most of my life. i’m an introvert, i’m not an initiator, but i’m not emotionally built to be a complete loner. i need friendships and activities on my own terms and timelines (meaning i need personal space and alone time as well), but i do need them. sometimes my feeling isolated leads me to want to completely sever all ties to anyone and embrace complete isolation. even to the point of quitting my job. but i know that couldn’t end well. even if the failure of my marriage and the continuous betrayal by my best friend crushed my spirit and psyche, i have to continue trying to lead some semblance of a functional life or any hopes or dreams i have for the future will disappear, and with it me.
in that vein, today is the two year anniversary of my official, legal divorce. it’s significant only as a stamp of status though, since my marriage had been over for pretty much two years before that. at least that’s how i interpret your wife living in another state with the guy she had an affair with…but maybe that’s just me.
fortunately, the status of this day as the day of my legal divorce can be overshadowed by this being the one year anniversary of the date i legally took ownership of my 1965 ford f-100. i still need to do a lot of work to it, but it’s a very cool vehicle nevertheless. now if only anyone else cared as much as i do. 🙂
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failure is not an option. it's a requirement.
That guy with the mohawk is a retired city worker if it’s the guy that rides around on the scooter. I can’t think of his name right now. I knew him because he was at the scooter shop almost as much as I was.
I don’t think you talking more with people at church will make you feel more like you “belong” there. I’m pretty talkative and can generally talk to people with whom I feel like are very different from me and even enjoy the conversation. However, most of my church experiences involve me having “church friends” who I would probably never having anything to do with if we weren’t both Christians.
Not that I’m saying you should follow up on your plan of becoming a manifesto writer. 🙂 I do feel like you are an important part of my group of real friends (what I really mean is, friends who I feel like I truly relate to on some level) and I’m glad to know there are people in this world that I CAN relate to. Ash
kevin: ha. i forgot to mention the scooter! that was one of the key pieces of information related to why i wanted to mention it! he’s got a big bright red mohawk and rides around on a scooter. christian, from the hates (www.thehates.com).
ash: well, the only thing is, i feel like this church — being an emerging movement church — gives me a better opportunity of finding more like-minded people. i also thought that about ecclesia and it crushed my spirit, true, but i think kaleo has a chance. it just hasn’t really felt like i’m part of a community, which is a big deal to the emerging churches, and i’d like to feel that way.
i know there are other people who want to be a part of a church community, but don’t feel like they belong in normal american church culture. it’s just a matter of me finding some more. it’s happened in the past for me a few times, hopefully it will happen again. (not that i don’t know any these days, i’d just like to have at least a few more and feel like i’m part of some kind of greater community or culture.)
meeting and becoming friends with you was probably the high point for me, as those things go. i would have put tamara right up there as well, but she pretty effectively destroyed that connection.