watching comets, hating mcworld

I've been thinking about high school today. And how I missed out on things, and how that it isn't true. At all.

I wish I would have kept a journal during high school. So I could look back in time and catch a glimpse of who I was before Brennan Manning, and Bonhoeffer, and John Sanders. I try to remember. What I do recall isn't all that interesting. Friends was the ideal life. Eddie Vedder was my Rock and Roll Hero. Mallrats, Swingers and Star Wars were the greatest movies of all time. Old comic books and rural conservatism made me idealistic. I wasn't afraid of anything.

And then I turned 25. Most of the time, I think I've deen a fairly good job of not becoming an angry, cynical 20-something. Of course, I'm anti-this and pro-that. And I hate all the right things (MTV, Starbucks, fundamentalists), but secretly, I love them, and want to consume them, because I am a pig, and insatiable.

I'm not bitter, and it's only because the things that are evil, evil, evil -- the things that make America this heaving, vomitous mass -- I privately love. Like the Surreal Life and Drew Carey. And I refuse to call them guilty pleasures. Because I don't feel guilty about consuming them, and calling them pleasures is just weird, because I never use that word. It sounds like weird sex with 40 year olds. I just grossed myself out with that one.

But I like my stupid TV shows, and my Franz Ferdinand (even if they are more ubiquitous than herpes [more weird gross sex stuff, I need to stop that]). And it's nice to have these things, and still hate pretty people and politicians and Bill Gates and the whole entire world. But not to have these depressing thoughts when I first wake up, and not to feel like I'm killing babies when I eat at fascist restaurants like Taco Bell -- feels good, and it feels right, like butterflies and maple syrup. And cheese toasties, with the little bubbles popping through the top.

So I'm a corporate whore. Sue me. I still have my Jesus, and my fair trade coffee, and that one copy of Mother Jones that I never really finished. I feel okay with that, glad that I'm not a bitter, young Nick Hornby character. And everything is right with the world. Except for those dirty bastards in the DOD.

Bygones.