Finishing this post and clicking publish will be an accomplishment of sorts.

You see, as I begin to take a hard look at things, I begin to realize that I’ve never finished anything. This may not be that much of a revelation, coming from the 25-year old undergraduate student. Stay with me, as I do intend to get to something ranging from vaguely interesting to awkwardly insightful.

When I was 18, I got a job working at Office Depot. It was alright at first. The people I worked with were cool, and I made a few life-long friends. But I got sick of it after almost two years. The customers were annoying, and the managers were worse. So I found another job and quit there.

During that time, I had gone off to start my freshman year of college at Trinity University. I stayed there for a year. In hindsight, I know exactly what I did wrong. I was afraid to try my hardest and find out that it wasn’t good enough. So I clung to whatever I could in order to keep myself from digging in and putting everything I had into that experience. As a result, I did not enjoy my time there very much. So I quit.

After Trinity, I started taking classes at Tarrant County College. I considered myself entirely too brilliant for that school. Truth be told, I could have been. But I didn’t go to class. I didn’t have any idea where I was going, so I just decided to not go anywhere. So I quit.

Let’s go the other direction: 5th grade, Mary Moore Elementary. I decided I wanted to play football. I found out that football was very different from baseball. Baseball was fun. Everybody got to play, and if you had some hand-eye coordination and natural athleticism, you would be pretty good. Once or twice a week, you would have a game, get to hit a few times, get dirty, play the field, and have a Dr. Pepper afterwards. It was fun. Football was not ever designed to be fun. At least that is the idea that has gotten into the heads of every school football coach in the world. It’s screaming at, cursing at, degrading, and just generally delighting in the misery of children. They ran us for miles, and for what reason? We would never be asked to run for miles in a game. There was one practice I recall vividly, during which we were required to keep running more as punishment for the fat kid’s inability to keep up. After awhile, the coaches found the fat kid’s breaking point, and he refused to run any further. So naturally the rest of us were required to run even further. All for what? There were too many kids for them to evaluate our talents, so they just stuck everyone in a position that they looked like. Fat kids looked like offensive linemen, and tall kids looked like wide receivers, and skinny kids looked like runningbacks. The coaches’ sons looked like quarterbacks. I apparently looked like a defensive lineman, probably because the helmet they gave me was too big, and sat angled on my head so that my face mask was always in my eyes and I couldn’t see where I was running. I detested tackling, and my only real skills were that I could catch the ball and block a little bit. Tight end seemed like a great fit, but I suppose that would have required buying a helmet that fit my head, so they put me, an average sized kid that didn’t like to tackle, at defensive tackle to get pushed around by the fat kids from the other team. I was incredibly relieved when the season ended, and it never even occurred to me to play again the next year. I was shocked when the coaches were calling me the next season to ask why I wasn’t at practice. “I don’t want to be on the team,” I told them. “I just want to play football for fun.” So I quit.

I’ve worked for nine different companies in the past seven years. I had multiple stints with two of those companies, so you could say I’ve switched jobs eleven times in those same seven years. I’ve started 4 books this summer that I haven’t finished. On Monday I start classes at my third college. Don’t even get me started on relationships. I’ve broken up with people because I wanted to quit the relationship, and then gotten back with them because I wanted to quit the break-up process.

So I’ve come all this way in this blog to illustrate this painful admission: I’m a quitter. There’s no denying it anymore. Some of my decisions to quit have worked out, however misguided they were at the time. I’ve bailed out, copped out, half-assed, given up, or just plain ran away to avoid a terrifying question- what if I finally gave my all at something, just left if all out there and tried with everything I had, and it still isn’t good enough? So I never tried to finish anything in my life. So I quit. I should mention that this sentiment is not unique or even rare. I think most people experience this at some point. That’s why when asked what I would ask for if I got one wish, I now say that I would wish for an unshakable work ethic. Because now I understand, that if I could just put everything I have into everything I do- that maybe I won’t get everything I want in life, but at least I’ll be able to look back and say I gave it my all, and who cares if it just wasn’t good enough. At least I’ll be able to say I had the balls to stand up and say, “Here’s the absolute best I have, and if it’s not good enough, world, then go fuck yourself.”¹

So as I’ve mentioned, I start at UTA on Monday. It’s a chance to start fresh, challenge myself, and finally try my hardest at something. It’s a chance to see how far I can go, or to see how hard I can fall. It may have taken awhile, but now I understand that it’s not about succeeding, it’s about whether or not you’ve got it in you to try. And when it’s all over with, I might be a lot of things, but hopefully I won’t be a quitter anymore.

May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance.

Matt

¹ I know that cursing is not elegant, creative, or classy, but sometimes life isn’t elegant, creative, or classy. Sometimes life is just a worn-out cliche, a stupid trend, or an unimaginitive f-bomb.

As was my hope, the Rangers rebounded from Friday night’s heartbreaking loss to the Red Sox. They could have slumped their shoulders and limped through the rest of the series, but instead they kept their heads up and played 18 innings of just beautiful baseball to win the series and take the lead in the wild card standings. I think Michael Young’s postgame comments on Friday night may have set the tone for the rest of the team, and another chapter in this story has been written. They can’t celebrate this one for long, because there’s still 46 more of these to go.

Have you ever gotten the feeling- maybe just an inkling- that you’ve just experienced a moment that you will remember years later as a turning point, or at least an event of some significance?

I experienced such a moment tonight. I watched the events of tonight’s Rangers- Red Sox game unfold, and I’m left feeling the way I have felt so many times after a Rangers game- heartbroken. I feel like a girl who keeps going back to the abusive boyfriend. I just keep going back to the Rangers time and time again, and somehow every single time, it still shocks me when they rip my heart out and step on it.

We had the Red Sox on the ropes. Down 1/2 a game to them in the wild card standings, we led 4-2 going into the 9th and brought Frankie Francisco in to close it out. He promptly gave up one run to make it 4-3. With one out and runners on 1st and 2nd, Boston pulls their catcher Jason Varitek in favor of a pitch runner, their pitcher Clay Buchholz. A gutsy move by Terry Francona, one that says simply, “Next inning be damned, there is no next inning if we don’t get this run across.” The kind of move that Ron Washington would never make, because he always seems to save something for the next inning at the expense of actually reaching the next inning. It would also end up being a bad move.

Dustin Pedroia rips the ball- just flat out kills it- to left field, just over the glove of a leaping David Murphy. Both Murphy and the ball bounce off the springy screen on the left field wall, and Murphy deftly snags the ball bare-handed out of thin air. He launches a throw into the infield, overthrowing the cut-off man. Michael Young is there to back up, and is shocked to see Buchholz halfway between 3rd and home. A position player, who runs the bases everyday, probably scores on this play, even if he was a bit slower. Buchholz hesitated when it appeared Murphy had a chance to catch the ball, and it cost him enough time that Michael Young was able to whirl around and fire a perfect strike to Taylor Teagarden. As the throw came in to the exact spot where Teagarden was holding his glove, Derek Jeter’s “flip” in the playoffs came to mind. Young- having driven in 3 of the Ranger’s 4 runs in the game, having gone to the mound to give Frankie a pep talk after he gave up the first run, and having shown the same kind of instincts that made Derek Jeter a champion- made a perfect throw, and Teagarden tagged out Buchholz to preserve the one-run lead, and get the Rangers within an out of reclaiming the lead in the wild card race. The script was starting to be written, with Young in the starring role carrying the team on his back to a playoff berth.

Given the situation, it may have been the greatest baseball play I have ever seen.

And then it happened. The catastrophic moment. One strike away from picking up the biggest win of the season, and doing so in such thrilling fashion as to bolster the team’s spirit, Frank Francisco serves up a double to right, scoring the tying and go ahead runs. 5-4 Sox. Then he gave up a single. 6-4 Sox. Then to the plate walked J.D. Drew, a player known across the league as a guy that plays for a paycheck, that has immense talent and no heart, that is perfectly content to play at 70% effort, settle for being a good player when he could be great, and take his millions of dollars and have a nice life. He clobbers the next pitch from Frankie into home run porch. 8-4 Sox.

I said to my Dad after the play at the plate to preserve the lead: “That is the kind of play that can define a season.”

I say to myself as the tv cameras show me the dejected faces of the Texas Rangers: “That was the kind of inning that can end a season.”

The last few seasons have had these moments for the Rangers- the catastrophic moment.

2004- After shocking the league to stay in contention for the A.L. West all year, the Rangers collapse after two moments.

1. Not sure when in the season this happened, but RP Ricardo Rodriguez, whose delivery included a fall off of the mound that left him almost with his back to the plate, took a line drive to the back of his left elbow. I have heard people say that you could hear his elbow crack in the stadium. He horribly fractured his arm, was out for the season, and was lucky to ever pitch again. The strength of that Ranger team, the bullpen got a little weaker.

2. On September 13, the Rangers were playing the A’s in Oakland, whom they had been chasing all year. A rowdy Oakland fan begins to heckle Rangers relief pitcher Doug Brocail, reportedly making ruthless comments in reference to Brocail’s stillborn child. A scuffle ensues, with Brocail having to be forcibly restrained, and Frank Francisco threw a folding chair into the stands, hitting the heckler’s wife in the face. She deserved it for being married to that guy, but nonetheless Francisco was suspended for the remainder of the season, but not before he was arrested and charged with assault. The 7-6 loss that night was the end for the Rangers, they never threatened 1st place after that.

2005- Hanging around at just a game over .500 in a bad A.L. West, the Rangers embarked on a 13-game road trip through Boston, New York, Cleveland, and Tampa Bay. They get swept by the Red Sox and Yankees, take one out of three against the Indians, and then get swept by Tampa to complete a 1-12 road trip during which they gave up 96 runs. The catastrophic moment came in the form of a 16-5 loss to finish the Boston series with their “ace” Kenny Rogers on the mound.

2006- January 6- The Rangers trade 1B Adrian Gonzalez and SP Chris Young for SP Adam Eaton and RP Akinori Otsuka. Season over before it began.

2007- April 18- Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox throws a no-hitter against the Rangers. The Rangers get one baserunner in the game, with a walk from Sammy Sosa in the 5th. Sosa then got picked off, so Buehrle faced the minimum 27 batters. The Rangers would go on to lose 20 games in May, and never even sniffed first place. The 25-man roster included Brad WilKerson and Jerry Hairston, Jr. We never stood a chance.

2008- In April, the Rangers have a stretch where they go 2-12, getting swept by the Blue Jays, Angels, Red Sox, and Tigers. The Tigers beat the Rangers 19-6 in the second game of that three-game series. The Rangers would rally later in the season to come back to .500 and save Ron Washington’s job (for better or worse), but the abysmal start to the season was too much to overcome, and the Rangers, though taking 2nd place in the West, finished 21 games back of the Angels.

2008 honorable mention- In June, the Rangers release arguably their best pitcher, Sidney Ponson, for basically just being a classless moron. Sound familiar, Vicente Padilla?

The 2009 Rangers have taken us all for a great ride. They were supposed to contend in 2010, and have surprised us by playing great baseball all year long. They did the right thing in standing pat at the trade deadline, as we have seen some real promise from Derek Holland and Neftali Feliz this year. It’s like the one great shot you make in a round of golf. You spend all day shanking the ball, grounding your club into the grass, and just generally having a bad time out there, until you hit that one perfect shot, and you’re convinced that if you come back again in a few weeks, you might make every shot like you did that one. And so next year I’ll be back again, to see if Neftali and Holland will become legitimate aces, and to see if Julio Borbon is a star center fielder, and to see if the Rangers can get over the hump in 2010.

Or maybe, tonight wasn’t the catastrophic moment. Maybe this team shows its resiliency yet again, and comes back to win the series 2-1 against the Sox and take back the Wild Card spot. Maybe down the road we sweep the Angels and take the West. Only time will tell. But if I have witnessed the demise of the 2009 Texas Rangers tonight, then at least I can say it’s been one hell of a ride, and I’m already hooked for next year.

As I’ve learned from the United States government, people love it when you declare war on a thing.

With that in mind, I’ve decided today to declare war on the messes in my life.

Phase one: bedroom.

We all start and end each day in our rooms. Whether it be our bedroom, hotel room while on a vacation or business trip, or the tent during a camping trip, our days start and end according to the condition of the room we call home. Currently, my room is literally¹ a pigsty. I find that having a dirty room affects the way I sleep. I get to sleep quicker when my room is clean, and I find it much easier to get out of bed in the morning when I have carpet to walk on instead of dirty clothes. The cleaning process helps me reorganize things according to importance. I rediscover projects that I have given up on which should be attempted once more. I find those projects buried under the ridiculous things that have taken priority status in my life, so cleaning up helps me evaluate how I’m using my time.

Hopefully I can complete phase one today in time for the start of Summer II tomorrow. It’s funny how the start of a new semester always brings things into focus for me. Stay tuned in the next few days for phase two.

May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance.

¹Figuratively.

I just read over some blogs to analyze my writing skills. I’ve changed my major to English, so writing is a skill that I need to continue to develop. So far I’ve noticed that I tend to repeat myself a little bit, sometimes in efforts to use parallel structure, but sometimes I just state the same idea twice because I lack the ability to choose words powerful enough to express that idea in just one pass.  Also, I occasionally get lazy with my diction. For example, I sometimes use the word “where” in reference to a time instead of a location, i.e. “a moment where such and such happens” should really read “a moment when such and such happens.” So my writing is a work in progress. If there are any other mistakes you notice, just keep them to yourself and perhaps I’ll catch them later.

That is all.

Come along and hear a gripping tale about a man with a cell phone bill.

One day last month, I went into work the day my cell phone bill was due. I needed $35 that day to pay the rest of my phone bill, or my service would be “interrupted.” So I clocked in at work and thought about how all I needed was $35 that day and I’d be alright. It was a slow day, so I knew that over $100 was highly unlikely, $50 would be reasonable, and $75 would be a very good day.

$35 to pay my phone bill. $20 for gas would be nice, although I had enough gas to last me a few more days so I could get that on the next shift. If I made another $10 I could splurge and get Chipotle for dinner that night instead of a tv dinner or PBJ at the house. So all through the shift I thought about making $65. If I made $65 that day, all would be right with the world, at least for a day.

When I counted my tips that day and took out the appropriate amount for tipout, I looked in my hands and saw that I had $67 that I didn’t have when I walked in.

I share this experience to make two points.

The first is this: for much of my adult life, I have carried on each day with no goal in mind. I believe that this way of life is in some conflict with, if not completely contrary to, human nature. It also robs me of efficiency and productivity, because as I’ve illustrated in the preceding example, I work much better with a goal to achieve or a deadline to beat.

The second is this: No matter how desperate things get, no matter how much I struggle, somehow I always get by.

When I need $65, I somehow come up with $67. When I needed a 98 on a final to make an A in Economics a few semester ago, I made a 100. When I come up a buck short, I find a five on the street.

Some call this luck, karma, fate, or the power of positive thinking. I call it God. Not in the sense that God takes care of me because he loves me more than the people who come up a buck short and don’t find a five, but in the sense that sometimes, if you really look closely enough, this world does make sense. It wouldn’t happen without hard work and perhaps a modicum of ingenuity, but I don’t believe that those two qualities are enough alone.

I’m living day-to-day right now, and to be perfectly honest, I’m barely getting by. It’s terrifying. I actually envy the people who live paycheck to paycheck. But in a few short months I won’t have to live like this anymore¹ and making it another few months until that relief comes might be the goal I need to keep hanging on.

With that said, I also have a long-term destination more firmly set in my mind than ever before, and I’m excited for what the future holds.

May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance.
¹ Financial aid at UTA came through in a big way. Prayer answered? I like to think so.

That title is meant to be read in a Jerry Seinfeld voice. I just wanted to share a few observations that have been plaguing my already busy mind.

First off, gas pump technology has advanced since I started driving. The case used to be, before the days of prepay, that you’d pump your gas, and if you wanted to hit an even dollar amount, you’d have to slow down before you hit that dollar amount and stop it. Sometimes you’d be at $19.99 and you’d give it one tiny squeeze and end up at $20.01. This is where you get the Jerry Seinfeld “perfect pump” commercial. Nowadays, you always have to prepay, so you give the cashier $20, and the computer tells the gas pump to stop when you get to 20. In addition to this convenience, the pump also slows down to a drip at about $19.60. This bothers me. First of all, that’s way too long of slow gas pump. If it’s really necessary to slow down the pump, do it at $19.90 or $19.95. I don’t need to take 3 minutes to pump the last 40 cents worth. But more importantly, we don’t need both the slow approach and the automatic stop. We just need one. We needed the slow approach in the days before the automatic stop to keep us from going to $20.01. But now that the automatic stop is here, the slow approach is completely unnecessary, and I hate it and think it should die.

Now onto another phenomenon of the 21st century, the touchless public restroom. You know what I’m talking about. Urinals and toilets where you just walk away and they flush automatically. Sinks, soap dispenser, and hand dryers that have a censor that makes them turn on when your hands are in the proper position. This is all very good technology for a quasi-germophobe like myself or Jerry Seinfeld. But here’s my problem with the touchless bathroom. If one thing is not touchless, then it ruins the whole idea. I used a bathroom recently, I can’t remember where, that had touchless urinals, soap dispensers, and hand dryers. So you wash your hands but then after you’re done, you have to touch the faucet if you don’t want to flood the place, thus contaminating your germ free hands, because people put their hands on the faucet before they wash their hands. Also, these restrooms should also have an automatic door, because everyone touches the door handle, so touching that as you leave also undoes your meticulous hand washing.

So a note to the powerful people who make these types of decisions: regarding gas pumps, eliminate the slow approach, as it is superfluous. Regarding public restrooms, let’s go all or nothing with the touchless idea. And automatic doors. I don’t care if the restrooms are closed for installation of the automatic doors for awhile, let’s get it done.

May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance.

Last night I went to 5:00 mass at a church near my house, one I had never been to before. One of the many things I like about the Catholic church is that each mass is pretty much the same. The readings change each Sunday, the songs may get rotated in and out, and the sermons obviously change, but most of the mass is the same every week. And each time you can get something new out of it. I’ll come back to that in just a minute.

The mass generally contains two parts: the Liturgy of the Word, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. During the Liturgy of the Eucharist, which is a time of preparation to receive Christ through the Eucharist, we pray the Lord’s Prayer, and then after that we share a sign of peace. The priest says “peace be with you” to us, to which we reply, “and also with you,” and then the priest invites us to share with one another “a sign of peace.” At this time people hug and kiss loved ones, tell them “peace be with you” and then usually turn to those sitting nearby and shake hands and say peace be with you.

Now here’s what struck me last night as I shook hands with strangers and offered them a sign of peace: It’s a rare moment. In Velvet Elvis, Rob Bell talks about these moments where the ground is holy, where God is so evidently present. And it struck me how rare the moment is in our lives when we reach out to people we’ve never met and may never see again. There’s no agenda, nothing we need from them. We just want them to have peace. No idea who they are. No idea what they’re going through. We just reach out… peace be with you… and smile.

I was driving home from school on Friday around 10am. I had nowhere important to be for several hours, so I was calm and enjoying listening to a little music and rolling down the windows to let the great weather in. A car came up in the next lane, and its driver was clearly in a hurry and frustrated. He was leaning forward a little, face tensed up, knuckles white from clenching the steering wheel. I could almost feel the heat coming off his red face as I watched him yell at nobody in particular from the “privacy” of his car. Something happens to us when we get behind the wheel; we extend our personal space to the entire lane, and we extend our inner monologue to the entire inside of our car. And I could see his inner monologue spilling violently out of his entire being from the next lane over. The rage was palpable.

He couldn’t see how temporary and unnecessary his anger was. From the outside, it looked ridiculous to get so mad over a little traffic, but in the moment, in the throes of a temper tantrum, there is nothing but consuming hate. Complete strangers. He didn’t know who they were, and he didn’t know what they were going through. He just wanted bad things to happen to them.

As I shook hands with strangers on Saturday and offered them a sign of peace, I thought of the man in the black Chevy, and I wondered what the odds were that he would be in that same church. I wish I could have seen him again. I wish I could have reached out to him, shook his hand, and said peace be with you.

May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance.

Be warned, there is not exactly a ton of substance to this post, but click through if you’re bored enough.

I thought about dragging out this spirited debate, but I decided to give it up, because I don’t want to spend the next few days looking up words in a thesaurus to attempt to stay on the same intellectual plane as El Señor Jimbo. I may not have won this “battle” but at least when I went down, I took the word obsequious with me. The O’s just aren’t going to be the same. By the way, I can’t believe “garishly” didn’t make the G entry.

On another note, congratulations Lent, you have made me hate baked potatoes. On the plus side, I’ve been able to try a few different options, and I haven’t overdone cheese enchiladas yet. I’m sure I will soon. I had a difficult moment Tuesday night when I had to work on my normal day off, and to add insults to injury they made me close, and made me train that night. So with training comes the much appreciated free training meal, but the vegetarian options at my restaurant are limited, to be generous. Okay, they’re nonexistent. Consequently, I was able to arrange with the manager to get my free training meal on Sunday when I am free to order myself a steak.

Also, I have been strongly considering allowing for fish in my diet. Is this a cop-out? I don’t feel like avoiding meat is really that hard if you’re allowed to eat fish. It has been suggested to me that “real” vegetarians eat fish all the time. I’m not sure about that, but I might allow this into my diet.

As baseball is concerned, the Rangers’ pitching staff is all hurt again. Why does this happen every spring? Brandon McCarthy, Brendan Donnelly, Kris Benson, Joaquin Benoit, A.J. Murray, Willy Eyre, and John Bannister have all missed time, not to mention Jason Jennings and Kason Gabbard still yet to completely come back from surgeries last year. All reports are to watch out for Thomas Diamond this year, and I think it would be great to see him either make the team in the Spring or get called up sometime this year. He is the last of the highly praised “DVD” group of pitching prospects and it would be nice if we got something out of that group.

Also, it’s time to give John Daniels some credit… if you read all the way through here, most notably the last 3 paragraphs, you’ll find that regardless of whether or not it was a good idea to trade Mark Teixeira, at least we got a great return for him. Nice one J.D.

This blog was attacked recently by an intellectual terrorist calling himself “the Jimbomber.” His uppance shall come.

This was the attack:

Goodness, semi-stream of consciousness writing is a bit easier than preparing something witty and smart.

While it may seem like an innocent, self-deprecating comment, it is in fact an attack on my own methods of self-expression and therefore an attack on
the first amendment. Said the Jimbomber, and I’m paraphrasing here, “I hate America, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, and I love Al Qaeda and Satan.” Well in the words of Peter Griffin and the lesser known Voltaire, while I disapprove of what you say sir, I will defend to the death your right to say it.¹

This post was meant to be a lengthy and ridiculous diatribe about how offended I am, but I’m on no sleep here² and I’ve run out of steam. And it’s surprisingly difficult to feign outrage for very long. Please note the category under which this post has been filed.

May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance.
¹ A quick google search tells me that this quote that I thought was from Voltaire was actually written by Evelyn Beatrice Hall as an illustration of Voltaire’s philosophy. ¡Que interesante!

² Seinfeld anyone?