BrockLi Soup

I know I’m a few days behind, but I’ve been a few days behind for months, so deal with it.

First and foremost, I am thankful this year for Erin. I’ve only mentioned her in passing here, partly because I haven’t been blogging lately, and partly because there are, on rare occasions, things that happen in my life that I DON’T immediately tell the Internet about. We’ve been together since mid-August, and she’s made me happier than I ever thought one person could. It’s such a horrible, over-used cliche, but she IS the female version of me (except cuter) - we have the same obnoxious sense of humor, like the same music and TV shows (most importantly, Gogol Bordello and Always Sunny), and we even have the same haircut (it looks better on her). I never thought I’d find a girl like her, and I still can’t believe how lucky I am. And I love her oodles and oodles.

I’m thankful that the project from hell is over. I kind of talked about it the other day, but I feel like I cannot overstate how much this one project affected my life for the past six months. I was stressed, I didn’t have much free time, and a lot of times, I didn’t have the energy to go out and do stuff even when I DID have free time - it was unpleasant. It’s been over for a few weeks now and things are finally getting back to normal at work. And I’m thankful for the folks I work with, because they’re good people.

I’m thankful for my friends. I haven’t seen them as much as I would have liked to lately, but that’s life. I’ve been realizing more and more that I’ve got some amazing people around me here in DC. Thanks to them, I’m thankful for DC. For a long time, I wasn’t too enthralled with the city and figured I would leave before long. But, it’s grown on me, and a big part of that has been because of friends.

I’m thankful for apple cider.

I’m thankful that this year is nearly over. 2007 has had its ups and downs, but it’s mostly been downs. If everything goes according to plan, December will have a couple more ups, but aside from that I am good and ready for 2008.

I’m glad that Bush only has 423 days left in office. I’m thankful for my daily Bush countdown calendar.

I’m thankful that I was able to attend the Atheist Alliance International Conference in September, I’m thankful for the people who spoke there, and I’m thankful that I’ve been able to read several of their books. The more I read and think about religion, the more ridiculous it all seems, and the more I realize how dangerous religion really is in our society. I’m thankful that these authors are being thrust into the nation’s attention, and more people are really considering their beliefs and coming out. Religion has long enjoyed some kind of protection from criticism, and I’m thankful that we’re finally taking a good hard look at it.

I’m thankful that our country is gradually becoming more progressive, and that sooner or later, the gays will be able to marry, the churches will be nothing more than historical landmarks, the national debt will be repaid, the education system will be well-funded, and the military will be dismantled for lack of need. I’m thankful that I am an American, and as much as I may criticize our country, I know that it can be - and will be - better than it is.

This afternoon, I did a little shopping with some birthday gift cards I had lying around. I feel it bears mentioning first that one of these gift cards was for Old Navy, where I bought a couple pairs of jeans TWO SIZES smaller than the rest of the jeans I own - the first time my pant size has gone DOWN in about six years. So, you know, yay me.

Anyway, the other gift card was for Barnes & Noble. I considered a few books critical of religion: Everything You Know About God Is Wrong, Jim and Casper Go to Church, and The Year of Living Biblically, but I’ve been doing a lot of that kind of reading lately: God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, The God Delusion, and currently, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. I like to be able to take both sides of an argument and play devil’s advocate, and it’s always good to know what the enemy is up to, so I decided to get What’s So Great About Christianity. I feel dirty for supporting Dinesh D’Souza with another book sale, but at least it wasn’t my money. Chances are slim that I’ll agree with anything he has to say, but I’m willing to consider his opinions, at least. Let it never be said that I’m close-minded.

I’ll write up a review in a few weeks when I finish it.

I moved out of my parents house when I started college, two months before turning 18. At the time, my youngest brother Shaun was 11, and I wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of that house.

My youngest brother was one of the biggest reasons I wanted to leave. Not him personally, although being six years apart, we didn’t really have anything to talk about and weren’t “buddies” per se. From my perspective, I thought my parents were parenting to the lowest common denominator: I always felt like I was being treated like a much younger child, pretty much the same way they treated the 11 year-old.

In retrospect, it wasn’t really that. My parents have always called me their “trial child” - since I’m the oldest, they try things out on me, and then decide whether it worked well enough to be used on the younger two. By the time they got to Shaun, they had six years of experience under their belts, so they were a lot laid back. He gets away with a lot more than even Eric did, which was even more than I did. Every time I go home, I’m surprised by how much they’ve relaxed since I lived there.

I mention all this because I realized today that Shaun is just a couple months younger than I was when I left for college. It’s weird to think about, since I’ve only seen him a few times a year since he was 11. Sometimes I feel like I’m doing the same thing my parents did to me - treating him like he’s still a little kid, because I haven’t really been around to see him grow up into a near-adult.

Long story short: I’m really looking forward to seeing my family for Christmas. My parents have loosened up, my brothers have grown up a lot since I was last able to spend much time with either of them, and I haven’t been home since June. It’s too bad I couldn’t make it for Thanksgiving too, but whatchyagonnado.

What an ass-hat.

I feel like I’ve been a few paces behind for the past five months. I’m behind on the magazines stacked on my headboard, behind on the thousands of news items in my RSS reader, behind on the dozens of posts I have wanted to write here, behind on keeping up with friends both out of town and in, behind on e-mails that have sat in my inbox for months awaiting response. About the only thing I’ve managed to keep up on is paying the bills, and sometimes just barely.

I realized that I’ve been in my “new” apartment for a couple weeks shy of six months now. I look back on things that happened, conversations I had, and can’t believe how long ago they took place. The past five months were a frenzied blur; I was so busy with work, and then so occuppied with a new relationship, that everything else was just put on hold. For a while there, BP was coming down to visit practically every month; I don’t think I’ve seen him since I drove up to Buffalo for Bill’s wedding back in June. And speaking of Bill, I don’t think I’ve even spoken to him since I called a month after the wedding to ask about married life. Too many things took a back burner for too long, and I regret that.

Everything was pushed aside because of a major project at work - the biggest I’ve ever been involved in - that dominated my time and caused me unbelievable stress for a few months there. Sometime around late August, it calmed down a little bit, but was still a challenge. About the same time, I started spending a lot of time with Erin, so that contributed to it. That part, I certainly don’t regret; I mention it because it was easy for our relationship to fill what little room had been given up by work, and the cycle continued.

The project that caused so much distress ended November 1, and things were supposed to be smooth sailing after that. Erin and I spent the first week of the month in the San Francisco Bay area on vacation, which was fantastic, and then I attended the DC-PHP conference and spent a weekend visiting Erin’s sister in Raleigh. When I finally got back to the office, November was nearly halfway over and things were still a little hectic. I spent so long looking forward to the end of that project that I almost expected that everything would be cupcakes and puppies once it was over. I mean, there’s obviously still work to be done, but I really thought we’d be able to have some down time for a month or two to recover from the six months we had spent busting ass, but no such luck - yet.

At any rate, I feel like I need a few weeks off from everything to recuperate and catch up on everything. We spent this weekend doing almost absolutely nothing. It was wonderful and relaxing, but not nearly long enough, and I didn’t do any reading or writing or anything, so I did a lot more of the recuperating than the catch-upping. I’m hoping to have a little more downtime over the coming weeks to spend on my own stuff. If nothing else, Erin is going home for almost a week for Thanksgiving, so that will give me a chance to catch up with local friends I haven’t seen much of and maybe do some reading.

Or maybe I’ll just lie around for a few more days. That’s been pretty nice, and it’s been so long since I’ve been able to get away with it that I almost want to do it as long as I can.