A Month of Facts about Dru: Day Fifteen

Today's true story:

Those who know me decently well know that I am a music junkie. I have no musical talent of my own, but at one point in my life, I had a fair amount of pretentious indie rock street cred. I think about the music I like to listen to and I usually buy what I like and/or know is good. As a result, over the years, I have amassed a semi-large collection of CDs. I have a staggering amount of digital music, too, but I guess I am enough of a luddite that I still prefer owning a physical manifestation of the album.

Query: What's the most embarrassing CD that you own?

For me, there are two possible and completely valid answers to this question.

The first album that immediately comes to mind is definitely Spice, the debut album from the Spice Girls. It's not so much the shame of listening to the Spice Girls' music, which I will admit can be catchy in that guilty bubblegum pop way. I have no shame with listening to cheesy teeny bopper pop music. (Well, maybe as long as it's not in public.) No, the shame comes from having paid real American dollars for the right to own the CD. That is something that is difficult to swallow. It's just one of many things that goes on my list of life's regrets.

In my defense, however, I was thirteen when I bought it. You know - completely full of raging hormones and such. (Posh Spice was my favorite back then.)

The other album that I am ashamed of owning is Weathered by Creed. We all know how much Creed sucks. No need to explain it here, I don't think.

Unlike the Spice Girls' album, I honestly have no defense for this one. Keep in mind I was eighteen years old when I bought this. EIGHTEEN! A full grown man, according to some standards. And I actually paid money for this album! Not saying I was rid of my raging hormones at this point in life, but I think it's safe to say that raging hormones did not play a role in my choice to purchase it. I really don't know what I was thinking. My mind must have been in a weird place when I bought this.

Now that I've analyzed myself, it's pretty clear that the Creed album is the most embarrassing CD that I own. There's just no excusing this one. At least with the Spice Girls, that was something I bought when I was a horny adolescent. That's a worthy excuse, right? But I have no way of rationalizing why I bought that Creed album.

I wish I could forgive myself.

A Month of Facts about Dru: Day Fourteen

Today's true story:

My earliest coherent memory is the time my dad gave me a haircut and cut into my ear.

I wasn't even two years old yet, but I still remember this fairly vividly. We were in the garage and I must have been incapable of sitting still. My dad accidentally cut my ear, and I started bleeding like crazy. I didn't cry, though, probably because I was too stupid to realize I was hurt. The thing that makes this memory stand out is how I remember my mom yelling at my dad. I remember being confused because I had no idea why my mom was so angry. She made my dad drive me to the emergency room, but about halfway there, my dad changed his mind and we went home. That's where the memory ends.

I just spent fifteen minutes trying to see if I could come up with some insightful or somehow witty commentary to go along with this brief yarn. Nope. Nothing. Guess I'm not creative enough tonight. Sorry.

Maybe next time, baby.

A Month of Facts about Dru: Day Thirteen

Today's true story:

So I had to use a sick day on Monday. Although I rested in bed most of the day, it seemed like I couldn't get very many consecutive hours of sleep. I think I went to bed on Sunday night at around 11PM and didn't fully get out of bed until Monday at 6PM. (I was up for one or two hours in the afternoon just so I could eat and read.) It's weird to constantly wake up every two or four hours. And each time I woke up it would usually be twenty minutes past the hour. Very predictable.

The strangest thing about staying in bed all day, sleeping for one, two, three, or four hours at a time? Definitely the dreams.

My dreams were fractured and repetitive, and I've already forgotten most of them because I was too lazy to write them down in my Dream Journal. Actually, that could be because I was too lazy to buy a Dream Journal in the first place. Oh, well. There was one funny dream that I remembered, which I thought would be worth sharing.

I dreamt (that's right, I used "dreamt" and not "dreamed") that I was back in high school, playing basketball with some other guys, including my buddy Ma, in the school gym during a free period near the end of the day. It was just a normal pickup game until I noticed that the girl I had a massive crush on walked into the gym with her best friend.

Knowing I had to do everything in my power to impress the girl, Ma started feeding me the ball on every possession, and he started setting good picks and letting me go iso every once in a while. I started launching threes and I was feeling it, too. I could feel myself playing harder and better than usual, turning it up a few notches. Took a heat check and knew I was on fire. I glanced back to where the girl was and of course she wasn't even looking at the game. She and her friend were staring at the ceiling talking about who knows what. After a few more minutes, they left the gym. I don't think she noticed me.

I was still on fire after she left, though. My team just destroyed the other team. That girl ended up going to the winter formal with some other dude. I won a battle, but lost the war. Ain't that a shame.

What I think makes this dream funny is that it wasn't a dream, but a memory. And I don't know if I dreamed it or if I just remembered it while trying to sleep. I haven't thought of this memory in a long time. I wonder why I thought of it on Monday.

I wonder why I can't stop thinking of it now.

A Month of Facts about Dru: Day Twelve

Today's true story:

Somehow, I got sick over the weekend. Nothing too serious. Just a cold. I've got a big sore throat and my voice sounds whack right now.

Someone just told me that maybe the one upside of being sick is that it means he gets a good, deep, restful night's sleep. I thought this was interesting because I have the complete opposite experience.

When I am sick, even if it's a minor head cold that takes like two days for my healing factor to juvenate, I don't sleep like I normally do. Normally, I go to sleep and don't wake up until it's time to wake up. Either my alarm clock wakes me up, or I just wake up automatically when I've had enough sleep. When I am sick, though, I find myself constantly waking up at all hours of the night.

I don't necessarily attribute all the waking up as effects of being sick. Like, if I have a bad cough, I don't always just wake up hacking and wheezing or anything. I just wake up and have to try to go back to sleep. Or sometimes I will have to wake up and use the bathroom, something I never have to do when I am not sick.

The reason why it's annoying to wake up over and over is because it means I have to fall back asleep. I don't think I have a diagnosable sleeping problem, but usually it takes me a while to fall asleep. Some people can fall asleep within a few minutes. When I am tired, sometimes it takes me a good twenty minutes to fall asleep. It's annoying, and waking up at 2AM, then having to fall back asleep, only to wake up again at 4AM, rankles me.

Even when I wake up just once during the night, it's a good tip-off that I am sick. This happened to me a week ago. I went to sleep one night feeling completely fine, but I woke up around 5AM. I didn't even have to swallow or anything. My first conscious thought was, "Aw, crap. I must be sick." And sure enough, I had a little sore throat.

And then I proceeded to go about my week as I normally do, only I probably didn't take as good care of myself as I should have, and now, instead of being fully healed, I am sicker than I was when I first woke up that one morning. What is the point of an early-warning system if you don't heed it? I don't know. I guess I am just a glutton for punishment. Either that, or a master of cliches. Probably both.

The point is, I am probably not as smart as I think I am. Somehow I am okay with this. If I were a bit smarter, maybe I'd have a problem.

Powerful Excerpt from A.W. Tozer's "Attributes of God"

"The nearness of God's mercy is 'as a father pitieth his children' (Psalm 103:13).

After the first World War the United States with its big heart gave vast sums of money to the dislocated orphans of Europe, but they didn't have enough to meet the need. In one of the places where they were taking in orphans, a man came in, very thin, with large, unnaturally bright eyes, thin cheeks and thin arms, leading a little girl. She also showed signs of malnutrition---eyes too large and bright, her little abdomen distended and her thin little legs and arms too small and too thin for her age.

This man led her in and said to the person in charge, 'I would like you to take in my little girl.'

And they asked him if she was his daughter.

'Yes,' he said.

'Well,' they said, 'we're awfully sorry, but our rule here is that only full orphans can receive any help. If one of the parents is living then we can't take responsibility because we just don't have enough. There are too many full orphans for us to take a half orphan.'

And he looked down at his little girl, and she looked up questioningly with big, too-bright eyes, and then he turned and said, 'Well, you know, I can't work. I'm sick. I've been abused. I have been in prison. I've been half starved, and now I'm old and I can't work. I can barely stagger around. But I brought her down for you to take care of her.'

And they said, 'We're sorry, but there's nothing we can do.'

He said, 'You mean that if I were dead, you'd take care of my little girl and feed her and she could live and have clothing and a home?'

They said, 'Yes.'

Then he reached down and pulled her little skinny body up to himself and hugged her hard and kissed her. Then he put her hand in the hand of the hand of the man at the desk, and said, 'I'll arrange that,' and walked out of the room and committed suicide...

Jesus said, 'The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him' (Mark 9:31). Peter said, 'Lord: this shall not be unto thee' (Matthew 16:22). But Jesus said, in effect, 'If I don't, you don't live.' And so He went out not to slay Himself but to put Himself where they could slay Him. Mercy was showing compassion in the only way it could at the moment, by dying. So Christ Jesus our Lord died there on that cross, for He loved us and pitied us as a father pities his children" (pp. 90-92).

So thankful to Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.

A Month of Facts about Dru: Day Eleven

Today's true story:

I have never enjoyed Halloween.

It's probably my least favorite holiday of all time. Even when I was but a child, I never celebrated it. Dressing up in a costume, going trick-or-treating - it all never appealed to me. I don't have any rational explanation as to why I never got into Halloween, but I surmise that one reason may be that I was born with an intense disdain for cosplay.

Yes, cosplay. I am not down with it. At all.

And what is Halloween if not an excuse for otherwise normal, respectable citizens to engage in copious amounts of filthy cosplay?

It's disgusting.

Cosplay - one of my most despised foes. I'd like to be able to explain why I hate it so much. It's hard to really boil it down coherently because I'm just not good enough of a writer to explain something that is completely irrational. I'll do my best to list the reasons why I hate cosplay:

1) It is abnormal, despicable behavior. I love superhero comic books more than the average person, but people just aren't meant to wear primary colors in public. And don't get me started on wearing underwear on the OUTSIDE of pants.

2) The Look At Me Factor. In my mind, one of the most unattractive qualities in a person is the desire to constantly be noticed, whether through word, deed, or appearance. I don't find it appealing when a person actively seeks the attention and/or approval of other people. Putting on a costume and trying to look like an anime character and posing for pictures just screams ATTENTION WHORE to me. Attention Whores are another one of my most hated and feared enemies, right up there with serial murderers, hardened criminals, drama queens, bullies, and seagulls (see Day Ten). I don't want anything to do with them. And in my (admittedly, extremely biased) opinion, most cosplayers fall under the Attention Whore subdivision, making them my lifelong enemies.

3) I can't think of a third reason that isn't, in some way, related to #1 or #2.

So it looks like I really only have two primary reasons for hating cosplay. But I think they're great reasons. The only time I can ever imagine myself engaging in cosplay is on my honeymoon night, and that's only if my wife begged for it. And trust me, I'd still feel dirty about it.

When I was a child, I didn't know what cosplay was. I only knew that I didn't wanna do it. I think I went trick-or-treating once, and it was a half-hearted attempt around the block before I decided I'd had enough and went home. I never worshipped candy like most other children.

This one year I also went to my school's Halloween Night event (an alternative for the school kids whose parents didn't want them celebrating a pagan holiday, seeing as how I went to a Lutheran school and all). I can't really remember too much of it, other than there was a lot of weird looking hair and stuff in the giant bobbing for apples bucket. It's hard to imagine kids today playing bobbing for apples. That's clearly a game whose time has expired. Anyway, I don't think I stayed that long. I felt awkward and ashamed of dressing up in a costume. Don't ask me what I wore, because I don't remember.

If I really wanted to analyze myself, I'd probably figure that it's all a product of growing up as an only child. As a kid, I was always reading books and that always satisfied my desire for adventures; I'd rather take my mind on an adventure than go out and go on one. Wait, maybe this still describes me as a grown man, which either means I was extremely precocious as a child, or that I'm just a big kid. I'll let you decide.

I guess it might be all right to celebrate Halloween if you are under the age of twelve. Any older than that and I will have nothing but contempt for such behavior. Adults like Halloween because it gives them an excuse to go out and party and revel in drunkeness and debauchery, but that stuff never appealed to me. Dressing up in a costume only makes it worse. I wish people would keep those kinky fetishes to themselves.

And what's up with kids getting so brazen recently? This year some kids trick-or-treated at my house. I gave them some Kit Kats, and one of them asked if he could have more. What's up with that? Why can't they just be thankful for what they did get? It's not my job to give out free candy. I didn't HAVE to open the door and give them some treats. I could have ignored them. (If they'd tried to toilet paper my house I woulda come out and kicked their lily just kidding, even I wouldn't do that. I think.) Why can't parents teach their kids to be less greedy? Sweet Christmas.

When I have a kid, I am going to try to raise him to not care about Halloween. I'm gonna teach him how to be an upstanding and moral person who worships Jesus.

Halloween. It just brings out the worst in people.

A cosplay corollary:
The only time it is acceptable to engage in cosplay is if you are at a Raiders game, like if you're in the Black Hole or something.