Seth Cockfield LOL

Religion never really worked on me because I never paid well enough attention. I attribute that to the copious amounts of sugar and caffeine I’ve been fed since I was a baby. 

In what would have to be my first memory, I am drinking cold cafe au lait out of a Fred Flintstone bottle at about age three. Sure, I have that memory, most probably because I love coffee so much (same reason I remember my first Radiohead concert), but, over time, applying any kind of religious mumbo jumbo without real world results to validate it proved too difficult. My brain had the retention power of mashed potatoes. I simply didn’t see any reason to believe in God except that everyone I knew did. That was it and it wasn’t enough.

Lesson learned, religious parents: Take care of your child’s brain if you intend to wash it. 

As a fan of Jon Stewart, and as a liberal myself, I can tell you, he’s not an activist. If he wasn’t so funny and on-point, no one would pay attention to him. He doesn’t make “liberal” points, he just puts a mirror to the absurd news channels, and they hate it. It just so happens that one of the most absurd is Fox News. Just because Fox News is a terrible right-wing propaganda machine and he calls them out on it, doesn’t make Jon Stewart a liberal activist. Meanwhile, Fox still claims to be fair and balanced. If they really were, they wouldn’t be all butt-hurt about Jon Stewart.

animalsbeingdicks:

Ted thought little Jimmy needed a bath.

I guarantee you this kid deserved it. Dogs just know.

One day, I found this at a thrift store:

It’s a video that Kellogg’s offered for a handful of Pop-Tart UPC’s. It opens with Paula Poundstone doing roughly twenty minutes of mostly Pop-Tart material. She is talking about Pop-Tarts, while holding a box of Pop-Tarts in her hand, and on the brick wall behind her is an extremely large and distracting Pop-Tart sign. She opted out of dressing like a Pop-Tart, instead wearing what looks like what a nine-year-old would wear to a job interview.

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Sometimes I think I might be a complete idiot. Or Autistic.

I don’t know what I thought I was going to be when I was a teenager. My main goal was to “defy statistics”. I wanted to stand out because of what I didn’t do and what I didn’t believe in. I hated the idea of being just like anyone else. Non-conformity isn’t really enlightening if all it leads to is loneliness.

Since I didn’t have any solid friendships growing up (I envied any child character on TV who had a “best friend” that was always there to talk to), I got into a lot of heated arguments with people I was supposed to be making friends with. It had been my way for so long (meaning just me) that I didn’t know how to relate to anybody. I was my own worst enemy and I thought about suicide all the time. Not committing it, but what life would be like without me. The scariest thing I concluded from all that contemplation, and what actually saved my life, was that before I left this Earth, I wanted to fill the void that was my life with something more positive. 

Big problem: positive is a relative term. 

Rosie never sent me anything in the mail, save for once, I just learned to lower my expectations when it came to regular correspondence. Yeah, most people wouldn’t put up with that shit, but I did. I put up with a lot of her shit because I was taught that it was necessary to put up with a lot of shit in order to make things work. What I apparently hadn’t learned is that there are other steps as well. 

One time, she sent me a letter. This was at some point after she moved back home. We both fled to Austin, see, and things didn’t go well enough for her to stay. She missed New Orleans, and so, after eight months or so, she moved back.

I liked receiving mail. I liked having a girlfriend. Is it wrong that I wanted to receive mail from my girlfriend? Who doesn’t love that? Besides, I sent her stuff on a regular fucking basis. Not constantly, don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not overzealous about it. We’re talking every four months or so, I’d send her a little something. Lyrics to a song that meant something to me (in my head, us), a letter, a single picture, a mixtape. TAPE. 2008 and I’m making her tapes. I really loved trying to love this girl. 

The letter I finally squeezed out of her was two pages long and read like an overly-wordy graduation thank-you note. No passion, no affection, no mention of a want to be with me, or any nod to our future. Just pleasantries. After waiting that long, pleasantries had never felt so unpleasant.

I had no business still chasing Rosie. I spent valuable energy that would have been better spent on forwarding my career, snagging stage time, meeting new people, writing; hustling.

The awful truth was that I hadn’t learned the important lessons one gains from a good utter failure. I didn’t recognize failure staring me right in the eyes, making faces and mocking me. I ignored its mockery like I ignored the morning alarm clock or the class bell. Failure’s taunts only backfired. Then, in an ironic yet expected twist, it fired right back at me. 

The relationship will eventually begin to work and everything is working as long as it’s not not working.

Willful idiocy. I wasn’t anywhere near ready to admit that I was cooking on a cold burner. All the ingredients were there, time will take care of the rest.

With a little bit of help from willful idiocy, it sure did.