tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31437213303729556312023-09-30T17:11:58.605-07:00The Real Eric Anderson"I like you, but could you be less like you?"Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-11721563875092158032017-04-06T16:33:00.000-07:002017-04-06T20:45:18.042-07:00 Eric and the Magnets (or Eric and His Inability To Function As A Normal Human Being)<div id="yui_3_17_2_4_1491514519537_560" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; letter-spacing: 0.17000000178813934px; margin-bottom: 1.5em;">
<strong>Note: </strong>I wrote this on January 22nd and 23rd on the 3rd and 4th days of my 1000 words a day writing experiment. I just got around to editing and posting it today.</div>
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In church today I was playing with some magnets that my wife had given me for Christmas several years earlier (2011, I believe). They are small powerful magnetic spheres called Buckyballs. Anyway, I was sorting them out while I was half listening to the sermon, and I noticed that 3 of them were missing. There were supposed to be 216 and there had always been 216, but now there were only 213. I started looking around under the chairs, which had metal legs that held magnets considerably well. I couldn’t find them. I knew that they had to be somewhere in that area because when I had first counted them they were all there and that was 10 minutes prior. I got up to go to the restroom and slowly walked to the exit while searching the floor all around the chairs. I’m sure that I looked quite insane. I checked my pockets, my belt buckle, inside my shoes, the little metal loopholes on my shoes etc… I was freaking out because I loved these stupid magnets. On my way back from the restroom I slowly walked back to my seat while scanning the area and got down on my knees to pretend to pick up my planner off of the floor. I tried to discreetly run my hands under the chairs that I could reach, but I felt like people were looking so I only got to a couple of legs before I embarrassedly got up and sat back down empty-handed.</div>
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While I continued to search as best I could without drawing attention I could hear the pastor speaking about loss and recovery. Was he watching me? I don’t think so. I thought it was funny that that was what the sermon was about, but I was more upset about my missing magnets. I took a picture of the magnets arranged in such a way that you could see that some were missing and I texted it to my wife, who was teaching a children’s class. She didn’t seem to care that much. Finally, after the service ended, I got down on the floor to look. This drew more attention than I would have liked considering that I am an adult who had lost his toy. People started to ask me what I had lost and wanted to help. Several people started looking and a woman saw one of them on a chair two rows in front of me. I don’t know how that’s possible, but my brother believes that they must have been slingshotted by the pull between the magnets and the chairs. I consider myself a student of the scientific method, but I’m not technically a scientist and that sounded about as a good a theory as any. A kid on that row grabbed the magnet, said that he had the other two, and pulled them from his pocket. I thanked him and anyone else around that had helped. I left embarrassed, but grateful that I had my magnets back. I told my wife the story and that I thought it was odd that they would have not only fallen off the strand, but also launched so far away. She said that God was telling me that I shouldn’t play with toys in church. Maybe that or maybe I was supposed to physically recover something that I lost. I don’t know, I’m no good with metaphor, but for sure she shouldn’t have given a 31 year old a toy if she didn’t want him to play with it.</div>
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After the magnet incident I was standing in that same general area talking to a man that I’ve known most of my life or almost as far back as I can remember anyway. I will forever be in debt to this man for introducing me to The Princess Bride, a movie that I never would have watched because it sounded too girly, a movie that completely changed the way my brain works. We were talking about my brother’s writing and my dreams of being a writer and how following one’s passion is terrible advice to give anyone with responsibilities. I could feel my insides starting to vibrate, a feeling I get when the nervousness of interacting with another adult human being starts to overwhelm me. I knew that if I didn’t get this under control my lower jaw would join in with the rest of my vibrating insides and it would give away that there was something badly wrong with me. I started to regulate my breathing to try to at least slow the vibrations down. I knew this conversation was almost over since everyone was hungry because church had already run late, not later than usual particularly, but later than it’s supposed to in theory. I guess we’re all used to that by now though.</div>
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While we were still talking and I was attempting to regulate my insides another man came up to join in the conversation. I will forever be in debt to him for introducing me to the Terminator movies (the only 2 that count), while I probably would have seen them eventually I don’t think I would have been able to see Terminator 2 unspoiled later in life, these movies also bent my brain. He was the one who had initially joined in the search for my lost magnets and probably the only reason I got them back considering I wasn’t going to search as extensively for them as he did or, for any reason ever, ask for help. He’s another man that I’ve known for most of my life, but not quite as long as I’ve known the first man. Both of these men are old enough to be my father, but are younger than my actual father. We all stood there and talked about the job searches we were doing and what our little town had to offer. I started to calm down some and I managed to keep the vibrations confined to my chest. I continued the regulated breathing and offered any insights I had whenever I felt like they were useful or I had been quiet for far too long. This was working. I was having a grown up conversation with other grown men like grown ups do. I was taking it easy, breathing normally, and most importantly not outwardly vibrating like a mental patient. Then a woman walked up and said she needed to ask me something.</div>
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I’ve known this woman for about 19 years, but not really known her at all. She’s been around for the 19-ish years. She married a person that I’ve known most of my life, probably longer than the first 2 men I was talking to. We are probably close to the same age, I think she’s a couple of years older than me, I’m not really sure about that though. I know her husband is a couple of years older. This is only relevant because it’s a weird thought that popped into my head. She asked the second man I was talking to, who is also a church elder, to stay and then asked me if I wanted to be the person at the church that puts the song lyrics on the screens people read song lyrics off of. I think there was more to the job than that. Something about scheduling and texting people, but the scariest part, by far, was the lyrics on the screen thing. She asked me to pray about it, and talk to my wife. At this point they were both looking at me, and I was fully vibrating including chin quivers. I’m sure it was a combination of embarrassment from the lost toy, the nervousness of the conversation I was just having, and me being extremely terrified of the social anxiety and flop sweat that would surely come from me not getting the right lyrics on the screen fast enough while people were trying to praise Jesus.</div>
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They were not standing there to be distracted by my ineptitude though. So, I clenched my teeth as hard as I could to stop the quivering and looked at them while they were talking to me. She said that she had heard I was good with computers. I’m not, I’m good at Googling how to do what I need to do and it gives people the illusion that I know what the crap I am doing. I know many people that are far better at computers. The elder told me that he remembers me having an ear for music, which is sort of true, but it’s completely untrained, unpracticed, and somehow having the ear for music doesn’t mean I have an ear for lyrics. The lyrics seemed like the most important factor here. While I was listening to them, trying to take turns looking into each of their eyes in a normal and non robotic way, and clenching my teeth I was hoping that they didn’t think I was angry with them. I don’t know if the muscles tightening in my face were visible, but I do know that they were starting to hurt a bit.</div>
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I was standing, listening, clenching, and nodding all while the vibrations in my chest were dialed up to 11 as a thought popped into my head. Back before we had computers and screens all over the church we had one projector, one pull down screen, a couple of crates of slides, and Nancy Lynch. I don’t think anyone can do this job as well as she did in my memory. Nancy Lynch was my mother’s best friend and essentially my second mother. When we were growing up if we weren’t at home we were probably over at her house and if my mother wasn’t bringing us home from school Nancy was. Nancy had all the authority to give us any advice she thought we needed and to scold us if we were acting like idiots. She took that responsibility seriously from when I met her at 5 years old to the day I graduated from high school. After that I didn’t see her quite as much and our relationship changed from mother/son to friendly acquaintance, but I never forgot and she’s always had a special place in my memories. We lost Nancy a little over a year ago and I’m sad about that, but I didn’t have time to be sad right now because these people were still looking at me and I was still shaking.</div>
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I told her that I felt that my skills had probably been exaggerated, but I would be willing to help with anything that they think I can help with. She said that she was sure I would be fine and that I should go pray and talk to my wife and that it was okay to say no, that there was not any obligation. That was my morning.</div>
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Eric Anderson</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com2Mineral Wells, TX 76067, USA32.8084298 -98.11289629999998932.3813598 -98.758343299999993 33.2354998 -97.467449299999984tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-74052233571988781142017-04-05T17:52:00.000-07:002017-04-06T09:10:29.395-07:00Eric and the Lawsuit<div id="yui_3_17_2_4_1491494809156_550" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; letter-spacing: 0.17000000178813934px; margin-bottom: 1.5em;">
So, I was sued yesterday. Well, actually my wife and I were both sued separately for the same thing, and it wasn’t yesterday it was March 7. She was served two sets of paperwork yesterday for both of us. That’s a pretty weird feeling. I mean, it’s a terrible feeling, but it’s kind of the top of a pretty terrible pile of terrible feelings. It’s kind of hard to explain, but we have had several years of bad things happen that are mostly our fault and have all had pretty decent silver linings so far. Starting with the completely unplanned pregnancy of our 3rd child to yesterday we haven’t had the best luck (I don’t believe in luck, but it seemed like the best term to get my point across), but we have been blessed enough to be able to keep moving forward.</div>
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Getting served papers is a surefire way to realize that you are an adult. I may be twice the age that it takes to be considered legally an adult, I may be married with three children, and I may have a mortgage, but when someone shows up at your door asking your name and handing you legal looking papers you will know that you have made it to adulthood. </div>
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Basically, we borrowed money from a company that loans money to people that need money. You don’t need to lecture me on how big of a mistake that is, I know. I knew when I borrowed the money as it was far from the first time that we had done it. We have borrowed a lot of money from a lot of different institutions over the years. This wasn’t even the first time we had borrowed from this specific business. We had always paid back the money we borrowed along with the astronomically high interest. High interest is just something that you have to put up with when you go to these places. When we borrowed this money, the largest sum we had ever borrowed from anyone, we had absolutely every intention of paying it back too.</div>
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In the summer of 2014 we had our amazing surprise baby and we bought a house. All of the expenses involved in buying a house added up more than we ever knew possible (this doesn’t even take into account the new amount of money spent on daycare and diapers). I can’t say how my wife feels about it now, but if I had known how much of a hassle it would be to buy a house I would have kept renting. I do love my house and I love owning a house, but I don’t like hassle or stress (I know that no reasonable person does, but I like it less than most people do [I can’t really prove that because I haven’t met most of the people* ])</div>
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Anyway, we needed some money after all of this and took out a loan. We made payments on it for a few months, but then our plant slowed way down and eventually closed completely 14 months later. Unfortunately, my wife and I both worked at the same place so that was kind of sucky. I told the people about this situation and they said they wanted to work with us, but we didn’t really have any money so that was hard for them to understand. They asked if I could borrow some money from friends or relatives. If that had been the case we would never have borrowed money from them in the first place. I haven’t quite figured out the silver lining to this situation yet, but I’m sure it’ll show up eventually. I doubt it will be as good as having a whole new person and a house, but here’s hoping.</div>
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It may surprise you to learn that I’m not a lawyer. So, I looked into my options on how to handle this thing and they don’t seem great or easy. I have to file and answer to the citation within a certain number of days. I don’t know what an answer is because there isn’t really a question on the citation. I think it’s just a response to it though. I don’t know what to say other than “hey, you got me”. If I do nothing the court will probably do something called a default judgement. I think that just means that I will really owe them the money that I already owe them. The internet has led me to believe that they aren’t allowed to garnish my wages in Texas, so there’s a plus I never knew about. I have every intention of paying all of the money back that I owe whenever I am financially stable with a steady income, but that’s not today. I feel bad about it, but I don’t know what else I can do.</div>
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I am generally a negative person. It’s my default setting. I don’t necessarily like that about myself, but I think it helps me see through more bullshit that most happy people (I’m open to that just being a justification I made up for my terrible mood). I guess it’s not the best way to live a life and it certainly takes its toll. In the last year and a half my attitude has begun to slowly change (emphasis on slowly) towards being more positive. I like to think it’s because I started going to church, but I think the change started a few months before that. I could point out that I lost a lot of stress when I was fired (laid off, whatever, same result) from my job, but that gave me all new stresses. I suppose the new stresses were probably slightly lower than the old stresses, but I also lost a sense of purpose. So, maybe that’s not it. I have also spent almost all day every day with my two smallest children. That’s a whole different kind of stress, but also makes me feel a little happy. I don’t know. Maybe God was working on me before I started going back to church, maybe.</div>
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As nice as all of that is though there has been a tremendous amount of negativity. Last year was difficult for me for multiple reasons that I don’t need to get into. The point is that, and I don’t have specificexamples for this, every time I feel even slightly productive something bad happens to me that gets me down for longer than anything should get anyone down. Yesterday was no exception, but I decided not to let it win and I am writing this thing right now to prove to it that it won’t win this time. I’m sorry if this was too negative or boring. I hate it when people whine about bad things that happen to them even though it’s clearly their fault. I don’t want you to feel that way about me or this. I know that I messed up and I am accepting responsibility. I just wanted to write about a thing that happened to me and how I felt about it. Thanks for reading</div>
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Eric Anderson</div>
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P.S. This is not the thing I mentioned that I was “working on” in the last post. Sorry, again.</div>
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* This joke has been stolen and paraphrased from the excellent Sandra Bullock/Hugh Grant rom-com Two Weeks Notice.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com1Mineral Wells, TX 76067, USA32.8084298 -98.11289629999998932.3813598 -98.758343299999993 33.2354998 -97.467449299999984tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-65605094133157625802017-03-18T00:35:00.000-07:002017-03-18T07:30:37.749-07:00Eric and The "Fast" Part III<div id="yui_3_17_2_4_1489845781917_531" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; letter-spacing: 0.17000000178813934px; margin-bottom: 1.5em;">
This post isn’t really going to be about the fast I was just on, but instead about the <strong><a href="http://realericanderson.blogspot.com/2017/03/eric-and-fast-part-i.html" target="_blank">incident</a></strong> that happened while I was on the fast and possibly even because of it. So, if you skipped Part II, welcome back. If you stuck it through and read all that other crap, thank you. If you already read this and circled back you wouldn’t be reading this again, so never-mind. Either way here’s what I think about the verse I heard. I am no stranger to having conversations with myself. I have them all of the time and have for as long as I can remember. One of the main reasons that I love listening to podcasts and having tv on in the background so much is because it drowns out the voices, but if there’s a chance that some of the time one of the voices I’m talking to isn’t me and is actually God I’m going to have to reevaluate the way I carry on up there in my brain. The conversations can get pretty irreverent. Okay, so for recap purposes, here’s the verse again:</div>
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<strong id="yui_3_17_2_4_1489845781917_544">“Turn at my rebuke; Surely I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you.” - Proverbs 1:23 NKJV</strong></div>
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Okay, so I didn’t know the meaning of rebuke exactly, I had a vague idea about what pouring out the spirit meant, but the last line really struck me. I was surprised that this random verse that I thought I had just pulled from out of thin air indicated so clearly that I couldn’t have just done that. It had to be God, right? That blew my mind a little so I started looking into what the whole verse was trying to say. Basically, I have to stop doing something wrong and repent before God will pour out His spirit and make His words known to me. There are so many things that I do that are wrong that I don’t even know where to begin, but I’m told that if I ask Him He will convict me. That sounds so much easier than it is for me.</div>
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<strong>“He is going to reveal Himself to you personally in such a way that the only explanation will be it was supernatural.” - Valerie Light 10-18-16</strong></div>
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That’s a small section of a word that Valerie, a woman that I go to church with and have known most of my life, gave me back in October. The rest of it was about writing and I do want to get into that in a later post that I’ve been working on, but that line especially has been with me since the day she gave me the word. It’s had me excited, nervous, and slightly more aware than usual all at the same time. I’ve been on the lookout for it and I have to admit that I thought it would be bigger than a few words spoken to me about a bible verse, but maybe I’ve been looking for it wrong. I don’t want to discount this as not being the big deal that it is, but I was hoping for something a little less ambiguous. I like clear instruction, but I also like to analyze everything to death so maybe if I think about it this was actually perfect for me.</div>
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I looked at the verse again and questioned why the “my”s weren’t capitalized. Was it even God that was speaking? I went up to verse 20, the beginning of the section my verse was in, and it appeared that it was Wisdom who was speaking. I didn’t even know where to begin to understand what that meant. I asked the only biblical scholar that answers my random texts, my mother, who was speaking. She said that Solomon probably wrote it, and he was using God’s words, and it’s some kind of poetry or metaphor. My brain doesn’t do metaphor so well because I’m a fairly literal person. I kind of hate that about myself, but only because it makes things like this harder to understand. If all of what she said was correct then it was God that was speaking, but using the name Wisdom. That still meant I had to take it seriously and change something about myself, but I knew that before I read the verse. I went back to verse 23 and read beyond it:</div>
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<strong>“Because I called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded, because you disdained all my counsel, and would have none of my rebuke, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your terror comes, when your terror come like a storm, and your destruction come like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently, but the will not find me.” - Proverbs 1:24-28 NKJV</strong></div>
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I will admit that while that would be pretty terrifying on a regular day, on the second day of self induced “starvation” it freaked me right out. I haven’t been able to unpack what all of that meant yet and maybe it wasn’t meant for me right now, but maybe it was. Maybe my initial reaction to the first verse was the right one though. Maybe the last line jumped out at me because God wanted me to read that line and nothing else. Maybe it jumped out at me because it was the only line I could easily understand. I have always been extremely skeptical and dubious of things that regular people are quick to call God, but this one is harder for me to dismiss. <strong>“I will make my words known to you”. </strong>That was pretty cool. I’m not discounting the rest of the verse though. That first part is just harder to deal with right now.</div>
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Just for the sake of argument and to make this post even longer let’s say that I was meant to continue reading past that verse. <strong>“Because I called and you refused”. </strong> I have had a feeling that I was called to be a writer. I’ve had this feeling somewhat corroborated randomly by other people that don’t even really know what’s going on with me, and some that do. It’s kind of a calming feeling, but also terrifies me at the same time. It’s calming because I want it to be true so badly that it hurts sometimes, and hearing that it is true makes me happy. It’s terrifying because my want is so strong I worry that it is clouding my own personal judgement. It’s overwhelming, and I’ve mostly ignored the call because of the fear, but <strong>“refused”</strong> seems a little extreme. I mean, I know I’ve only posted 6 things in the last year so I could see how that could be viewed as refusal. I’ve been working on a post about my calling for about 10 months, but I haven’t written much of it yet. It’s always the next thing I’m planning on doing right after I rewatch Parks and Recreation* for the 2nd time.</div>
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<strong>“Father,</strong></div>
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<strong>Give me wisdom</strong></div>
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<strong>To develop strategies</strong></div>
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<strong>To walk in victory</strong></div>
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<strong>For Your glory.”</strong></div>
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<strong>Anthony White 2-14-11</strong></div>
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That prayer is written inside almost every notebook that I actively use, on two different post-its stuck to my monitor, and occasionally it’s my phone’s wallpaper. I was instructed to say it every day for the rest of my life and occasionally I even remember to do that.</div>
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I may have started or at least stayed on the fast for the wrong reasons, but something interesting did come from it. It may have raised more questions for me than it answered, but I think that could be a good thing. I will try to stay on track and get to the bottom of this. I am planning on finally writing my feelings about this thing I believe that I was called to do, and I hope I will be able to post something next week. I know that statistically speaking this will probably be my last post until sometime around September though. I hope that I can break that trend. I have 10 months of scattered thoughts and notes that I need to compile. I will pray the above prayer and also ask God to help me get every thought into the post that He wants to be there and that it will make some kind of sense to someone when I’m finished.</div>
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Eric Anderson</div>
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*insert your favorite sitcom here. I’ve probably watched it at least once if not three times.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com2Mineral Wells, TX, USA32.8084605 -98.112822332.701718 -98.2741838 32.915203000000005 -97.9514608tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-78169556141464915212017-03-15T01:14:00.000-07:002017-03-15T01:14:02.208-07:00Eric and The "Fast" Part II<div id="yui_3_17_2_4_1489558656930_557" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; letter-spacing: 0.17000000178813934px; margin-bottom: 1.5em;">
I think I might have heard God tell me to look up a specific Bible verse that I didn’t understand the first two-thirds of and ended with the text <strong>“I will make my words known to you”</strong>, but let me tell you about how my three day fast went before I write about it. Does that sound fair? No? I guess you could skip to Part III (whenever I get around to posting that), but only if you promise to come back and read this one. I’m just kidding, do whatever you want.</div>
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Day one was actually an easy day where most of my hunger was psychological. I know that there was real hunger there too, but really it was me “forgetting” that I was on a fast and thinking of things that I could grab and eat quickly. I managed to remember before it was too late, but I almost got some gum. I was dizzy, sort of hazy, and had a mild dull ache in my skull towards the end of the day. I would describe it as being in a daydream like state where I had trouble focusing on where I was or what I was doing, which would have been fine had I not been trying to wrangle 2 small active children and a medium sized instigating child at church. I managed to make it home alive with all of the kids in a similar state to when they left, but it was tiring. I slept fairly well with the previously mentioned caffeine withdrawal induced headache waking me occasionally at odd hours of the morning.</div>
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Day two was much more difficult because on top of the hunger there was an excruciating headache, though it was only bad until around noon. It persisted throughout the day, but grew milder towards bed time. I fell asleep more easily on day two, but was awaked with an extreme calf and ankle pain around 3:00 am. I managed to ignore it and fall back asleep for the rest of the night.</div>
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I woke up on day three without a headache or cravings for food. I thought that everything would be great that whole day because I was lead to believe that day three was about my body’s acceptance and new found clarity. I was quite hopeful that I would continue without hunger and see the world through a whole new light. That is not what happened for me. After I drank my first bottle of water something awakened in my stomach that let me know that what I was doing was absolutely unacceptable. I was so hungry for the rest of the day that I started counting the hours before it was time for me to go to sleep and finally let it all be over. I don’t even want to tell you what this fast did to my bowels, and you certainly don’t want to read it. I had considered, on day two, extending my fast through Saturday night because that’s when it was actually supposed to end, but there was just no way. I am a weak weak man.</div>
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I want anyone that is considering doing this to know that it is probably different for every person, but for me day three was torture. I was weak, I was tired, but I was not sleepy. It felt like I had downed a six pack of red bull. I was jittery, and I thought was starving. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me and, again, I am not bragging about what I did. This was a thing that I’ve always wanted to try, and I’m glad that I did it. I think I will probably try it again at some point, but not soon. Hopefully next time I will have the willpower to pray more and watch tv less. My default when anything is wrong with me is to watch tv, it is my comfort food, well, that and actual food.</div>
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Saturday morning I was awakened at 3:50 AM with a tension headache, a warm tingly sensation all over my skin, achy muscles, and anxiety about what was happening me. My first thought was a blood pressure problem. So, after I laid there for 20 minutes or so trying to go back to sleep I got up to check my blood pressure. It was actually lower than when I went to bed Friday night and well within my normal range. There was no way I could go back to sleep so I watched tv until 5:00 am when I finally ate breakfast, drank some tea, and took a bunch of vitamins. I ate too much, but I didn’t get sick. I just know it was way too many calories, too many to admit here anyway. I know that’s the first mistake most people make coming off of a fast, but, again, I am a weak weak man.</div>
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Eric Anderson</div>
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To be continued…</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com0Mineral Wells, TX, USA32.8084605 -98.112822332.701718 -98.2741838 32.915203000000005 -97.9514608tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-2243727527950331742017-03-12T09:14:00.000-07:002017-03-14T23:24:42.379-07:00Eric and The "Fast" Part I<div id="yui_3_17_2_15_1489550356444_540" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; letter-spacing: 0.17000000178813934px; margin-bottom: 1.5em;">
March 9, 2017</div>
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I feel terrible. I’m on the second day of a fast, and I’ve never really fasted before unless you count a couple of small ones that I did for some cleanses I tried out when I was younger. I didn’t succeed at those beyond the first day though. So, right now I am further than I’ve been before. I don’t know what I’m doing. When I was a kid my parents would fast all of the time, or it seemed like a lot to me anyway. I’ve never understood the point exactly, but I think it has something to do with proving to God that you’re serious about whatever you’re fasting and praying for. I’m open to being completely wrong about that and pretty much anything else for that matter. I welcome your input.</div>
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I have wanted to do a fast or start a regular fasting schedule for years for health reasons. I read a study (ok, an article about a study, have you ever tried to read a study?) several years ago about some people who fasted once a week that were healthier than us normal folk. So, when our speaker last Sunday said that she was going to start fasting on Wednesday the 8th of March through Friday the 10th <strong>(NOTE: it turns out that I got the dates wrong and started and ended earlier than I was supposed to)</strong> and praying for our country’s leadership I figured that would be a good time to start. While I’m not nearly as happy with the people in power as she is, I do believe that it is my job as a Christian to pray for them. When I really think about it and get passed all of the nonsense, personal feelings, and negative emotions that I have I know that-while it would be a complete surprise to me-I do want them to succeed because they are leading my country, and I want us to succeed.</div>
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It’s important to me that you understand I am not bragging about this thing that I’m doing. I don’t even think that I’m doing it right. The first day I didn’t do anything truly spiritual. I prayed a couple of vague prayers, and spent the rest of the day pretty busy with my kids and occasionally watching TV. I went to church, but I mostly just felt kind of dizzy and disconnected even though I did enjoy being there. </div>
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The main thing that’s keeping me at this is my fear of death and/or disappointing myself. After she announced that she would be fasting and that we were welcome to join I started researching the health benefits of fasting. I discovered that there are many benefits, and also, many medical doctors say it’s terrible because no one can ever agree on anything ever. The one benefit that was most important to me was the lowering of blood pressure. I have been trying to figure out how to get off of blood pressure medicine for months, but I’ve been too scared to do it without my doctor, and I know that my doctor would never allow it because of my extreme obesity.</div>
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I bought a home blood pressure monitor about a month ago and tried to go a day without my medication, but I felt terrible and became too scared to continue even though my numbers were normal. Part of the reason I switched to a plant-based diet (veganism, sort of, mostly) was to get off of medication, but soon after I discovered a whole new world of vegan junk food that I was too weak to avoid.</div>
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So, here I am on the second day of my fast with a fairly large headache, which is mostly attributed to the lack of caffeine from when I stopped drinking my usual 8 cups of tea (I’m fairly certain that’s the cause). I haven't had anything but water since Wednesday night, including vitamins, supplements, and medication, but I checked my blood pressure this morning and it averaged 121/72. I don’t know a lot about blood pressure numbers, but I know that one is around normal. Normal enough for me not to be terrified anyway.</div>
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So, does fasting to get closer to God work if you are benefitting from it in other areas? I don’t know. I asked someone and googled some things and it seems that the reason in your heart is the one that God goes with. I’m not entirely sure what my heart is feeling, but I do know that I have spent the last 10 months trying to get closer to God, while not really trying as hard as I could or should. I started going to church again, I started tithing again, I pray more than I used to, I regularly think about what God wants from me, but I still sin on an extremely regular basis. I’m not proud of that, and I would get into some of my more evil sins, but I think it might hurt people that I’m close to. I don’t mind sharing though because while I am ashamed of my sins I have no actual shame.</div>
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This morning I sat down to read some more of The Shack. I’ve only read 2 chapters (earlier this week), but I’ve had the book for 4 years and many many people have suggested that I read it. One person even, some might say quite foolishly, went to the extreme of loaning me her copy. I had a headache and felt dizzy, but I wanted to finish the book. As I sat down to read it I heard in my head a faint voice say “wrong book”. I don’t know if the voice was God, it sounded an awful lot like my own inner voice, but I knew immediately what the voice meant. I am a Christian, but I have never read the Bible all of the way through, still not bragging. It’s very hard for me to focus, and anytime I’ve ever started I’ve given up pretty quickly.</div>
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I silently said to the voice “but the other book is so big how would I know where to start?”. The voice answered “I’ll show you”. Then I heard “Proverbs”. Ok, that’s not something that usually happens to me, but I was pretty sure it was just me antagonizing myself. I do that frequently. I will constantly ask God a question then “He?” answers with what I think He would say or what I want Him to say, but usually it’s the harder answer so it’s mostly what I <em>think</em> He would say. I assume that He is disappointed in me and if I’m asking Him what I should do I always get the harder choice back immediately.</div>
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So, I sat there for a minute considering whether or not I should open the Bible or go back to my friend’s copy of the book. I decided “why not? I’ll check the Bible and hope that I will get more clarification than just Proverbs.” I opened the app on my phone and asked again where in the Bible I should go. I heard Proverbs again and selected the book. I asked what chapter. I heard “1”. Really? 1? This had to be me messing with me, right? I asked again and heard “1:23”. Okay, I pressed 1 and prayed that there was a 23. There was. <strong>“Turn at my rebuke; Surely I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you.” - Proverbs 1:23 NKJV. </strong></div>
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March 11, 2017</div>
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Ok, I wrote everything above on Thursday after making my children peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I only had about a 20 minute window of being left alone to write it and I never revisited, sorry. Also, if you have never been on a fast and smelled bread that you weren’t going to be able to eat then you don’t know real psychological torture <strong>(NOTE: I am joking, of course, my life has been very blessed, I have nothing bad enough to complain about ever, and real psychological torture is much worse than anything that I have ever experienced)</strong>. I’ve gone on far too long here though so I will visit the rest of the fast and the Bible verse(s) in the next post. I promise. Thank you for reading.<br />
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Eric Anderson<br />
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To be continued...</div>
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P.S. This particular fast I was on was based on Esther’s fast. She asked her women to fast with her for 3 days before she went before the king to try to save her people. This could have gotten her killed, but she did it anyway. <strong>Spoiler Alert: God helped her succeed in a pretty big way.</strong></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com0Mineral Wells, TX, USA32.8084605 -98.112822332.701718 -98.2741838 32.915203000000005 -97.9514608tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-44559331695378248302017-01-26T11:16:00.000-08:002017-03-14T21:49:34.451-07:00Eric and the 1000 Words - Day 6<div id="yui_3_17_2_14_1489550356444_538" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; letter-spacing: 0.17000000178813934px; margin-bottom: 1.5em;">
This is my sixth day in a row to write 1000 words. That’s a little presumptive of me considering that I’m currently trying to write my sixth 1000 words, but I’m going to presume success based on the last five days of being successful. I kind of hate this, especially when I remember that better writers set their word counts per day at much higher. I used to have a morning routine that involved searching facebook, reddit, facebook, reddit, and then facebook again for over an hour. Now I wake up, and check my email then I’m just bored. I’m too tired to write though. My brain isn’t fully functional this early in the morning (I know that 7 isn’t early, but my brain hasn’t figured that out). I don’t actually know in advance when my brain will be fully functional. It doesn’t seem to have a set schedule, and when it does come to me I’m usually busy doing something else. I guess this process is me trying to train my brain to do what I want when I’m ready for it, but it’s been a fight. There are posts that I want to write, but I just don’t feel the mood that I think I need to be in to write them properly. In order to avoid writing what I think I should be writing, but also meet this arbitrary requirement of writing 1000 words every day before I’m allowed to take a break, I have written about my last job (in the most boring chronological order), my last Sunday at church, a disclaimer about reading my blog, and some childhood events to help convince you that I have a mental disorder. So, I guess, here’s a story for you:</div>
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In September of 2013, the day after my birthday, I posted a note on facebook thanking everyone for their birthday wishes and made a declaration that this was my Jesus year. I know that’s kind of a weird or stupid thing to say, but to me that just meant that I was now 33 years old and I was going to do something big, obviously not as big as Jesus, but big for me. I felt like my whole life had been building up to something, and I was finally going to make it happen. I was excited. I wrote the declaration to try to motivate myself to continue, and so that anyone that read it could hold me accountable if I didn’t, not that I really believed that they would. Then I spent a month feeling pretty happy about it, and trying to figure out what I could write or what was the best plan of action to see this through. Every day that I didn’t do anything I grew a little more skeptical that I would ever do anything, but I kept forgiving myself because I still had plenty of time. I came up with a story idea and thought about it a little every day, but as November approached I didn’t want to start writing anything because maybe this would finally be the year that I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). NaNoWriMo is a competition to write a 50,000 word fiction novel during the month of November. That’s 1,667 words per day. The novel isn’t supposed to be edited, and the only way to win is to turn in 50,000 consecutive original words. That’s it. Everyone that completes that task is a winner. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do every year since I heard about it in 2010. I’ve never done it.</div>
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In the middle of October, while I was feeling pretty happy about the plan I had for my life, my wife worriedly announced that she thought she might be pregnant. I started to feel some pretty intense anxiety and disbelief when she told me because she wasn’t supposed to be able to do that. She had had a tubal ligation in early 2012 about 6 months after our son was born. I didn’t even want to buy a test because I thought it was impossible for her to be pregnant. She bought a couple of pregnancy tests anyway and it turned out that she was, indeed, pregnant. This was some pretty depressing news for both of us. We had a plan. We had one of each, and we were finished. We were not prepared for this. We both had good jobs, but the hours had been cut way back, and there had been layoffs at the factory where we worked. We had good insurance though, and we were going to figure out how to make this work. We lived in a tiny two bedroom rental house where our 7 year old daughter, and 2 year old son were already sharing a room.</div>
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When we tried to go back to the doctor who had done the surgery, she wouldn’t see us because we owed some money from the last kid she delivered. Something had happened with our insurance where the policy changed 17 days before he was born, and we owed money that we weren’t expecting to owe. My wife had already quit her job (she took 11 months off with him) so we couldn’t pay her. I understand that she was running a business, but considering that she was the one that made a mistake, and now we have a whole new person because of it she could have taken the time to at least talk to us. A lot of the “lawyers” that I worked with thought that we should sue her (everyone that you work with is a lawyer or doctor depending on what advice they think you need at the time). I actually really considered looking into suing. Mostly because I didn’t know how we were ever going to manage taking care of another baby. Day care is pretty expensive. After not much thought though, I decided to drop the whole idea because my mother always told me that suing people is a sin. I don’t know if that’s true, but it just didn’t feel right and probably would have been a lot of work to get done. Plus, I didn’t want my new daughter to ever think that we won money because we didn’t want her. </div>
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That’s something that I try to make clear anytime I tell this to anyone. We did not expect her, and we did not in any way plan for her, but we absolutely wanted her. She is a joy. She’s one of the funniest most intelligent people that I have ever met. She makes me laugh every single day. We would probably never know that we were missing anything if we didn’t have her, but we would be missing something, something good.</div>
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We spent most of 2014 stretching our finances and living with as little as we possibly could preparing for our new child (we could have lived with less, but we didn’t know that). We knew that we were going to need more room so I contacted a realtor. My wife had always wanted to own a home, but I was resistant because I didn’t want to admit that I was going to live here forever. We found a home about 3 months before she was born, but we didn’t move in until 2 months after she was born (maybe someday I’ll write about the joys of trying to buy a house, maybe tomorrow, who knows?). We moved in 4 days before my 34th birthday. So, I guess the big thing that I was going to do during that year wasn’t writing, but instead, laying down roots and building my family. It was pretty ridiculous of me to bring up Jesus when I never even asked for HIs help, but looking back on the whole thing it’s pretty clear that He was giving it to us any way. It’s taken 36 years, but Mineral Wells has actually kind of grown on me, only kind of though. I went a little over my word count this time.</div>
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Eric Anderson</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com0Mineral Wells, TX, USA32.8084605 -98.112822332.701718 -98.2741838 32.915203000000005 -97.9514608tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-49066630787094194372017-01-20T10:51:00.000-08:002017-03-14T21:47:17.070-07:00Eric and the 1000 Words<div id="yui_3_17_2_13_1489550356444_530" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; letter-spacing: 0.17000000178813934px; margin-bottom: 1.5em;">
This is what it has come to. I’m punishing myself, at the very least, I’m withholding joy from myself until I accomplish something. I have filled my life with distractions. Facebook, reddit, podcasts, tv, video games, and pretty much any other projects the happen to pop into my head that aren’t actually productive. As long as it isn’t writing I will throw myself headlong right into it. I don’t know why I need to escape from my brain, but I do. I have been aware of this need for several years; I’ve even written about it before, but that was a long time ago. I obviously haven’t learned how to prevent myself from falling into that trap so I’ve come up with a plan.</div>
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I am not going to allow myself to look at the internet (unless it’s specifically for research or a job search for that matter), play any video games, watch tv, or listen to podcasts until I have written 1000 words every day. I will allow myself to listen to music, read, play with my children, etc… These distractions are important to my soul. This might be overly ambitious for someone who hasn’t written more than a total of 3 paragraphs in the last 8 months, but it’s the kind of drastic measure that I need right now.</div>
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This is the first 1000 words, and it’s harder than I thought it would be. I should have expected this though, considering I spent 45 minutes staring at my computer screen last night. I only wrote three sentences. I have a pretty big piece planned. I’ve been working on it for most of the last 8 months, but I’ve only been working on it in my head. I’ve written it and re written it over and over and never put any of it down on paper (screen?). I don’t know why it’s so easy for me to compose these words when I’m busy doing other things with my hands, but then I draw a complete blank when I’m confronted with the keyboard and screen. I think I’ve been building pressure over the last year and now I’m at a point where I’m terrified to fail. I believe that this is my last best hope for happiness. If I can’t write, If I’m not a writer then what am I and why have I been lying to myself for all of these years.</div>
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I didn’t want this post to be about writing. I have a lot of ideas about myself that are tied to me being a writer, but I wanted that to be in the bigger piece that I was talking about earlier. If you’ve read this far and you are bored I’m sorry. I knew that this first post was going to suck, and I pretty much set out with the plan of it sucking. I needed to lower the bar for myself and prove that I could, at least, suck for 1000 words. I promise that I won’t be posting every 1000 words that I write, but i’m putting this up to show where my head is. I guess I can tell you what my life has been like for the last year.</div>
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The plant that my wife and I worked for closed down on December 17, 2015. We had both worked there for several years. Neither of us particularly liked our jobs because it conflicted with our personal politics, but we liked the people and we were pretty good at what we did. I guess that last part is a matter of opinion, but we were good enough for them to keep us around until the day they closed the doors. We both spent the next six months on unemployment searching for a new place to pay us to live. She was hired the week before her unemployment ran out, and I have been staying at home taking care of the kids while draining my 401k. It’s been stressful, but not as stressful as you would think. Don’t get me wrong, I have a new found respect for anyone that stays at home to take care of children. They are a nightmare, but I thought I would be more stressed about not knowing where my next paycheck was going to come from. Sometimes I think the lack of stress is from a deep depression that I can’t pull myself out of, and sometimes I think it’s God telling me that everything is going to be okay.</div>
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I know that I am depressed and anytime I even think about writing I talk myself out of it by pointing out that everything I write is narcissistic nonsense that no sane person would give a crap about. I also know that since I started going to church again back in April 2016 I have felt a shift in my attitude. At first I was angry every single week. I was angry at God, at the people, at myself, and just angry at the situation. I only started going because my mom asked that we all come on Mother’s day, and I didn’t want everyone to think that was the reason so we started going 2 weeks before that day. Something convinced me that I needed to be there. I told myself it was for my kids, but it was just as much for me and my wife. Every week I left the service pissed off at something someone said or did. I don’t know why, but my politics seem to greatly differ from the leadership's politics. That hasn’t changed but I am less offended by it now than I was then. My anger began to subside and I would alternate between feeling motivated one week and pissed off again the next week. Now I’m only angry a fourth of the time.</div>
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I’ve also felt myself forgive things that I thought were unforgivable, by me anyway, but I’ll have to talk about that later because that’s been my 1000 words.</div>
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Eric Anderson</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com0Mineral Wells, TX, USA32.8084605 -98.112822332.701718 -98.2741838 32.915203000000005 -97.9514608tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-50178464505022299902016-05-19T14:12:00.000-07:002017-03-14T22:02:13.317-07:00Eric and the Plant-Based Diet Part II<div id="yui_3_17_2_1_1489550356444_43277">
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I really didn’t like being on Lipitor. I don’t know if it was in my head because of all the horrible reports about it that I had read online, or if it actually made me feel awful, but, either way, I wanted off of it. I went back to my doctor in June of 2014 and begged her to let me stop taking it. I told her that there was no way anymore cholesterol was going to enter my body because I was done with 98% of animals and their by-products. She said something about my body producing its’ own cholesterol, which I am sure is true, but I was doubtful that it would be an issue. However, I am not a doctor because I didn’t go to medical school because I am lazy and because people are gross (ok, I’m done stating obvious things). She finally agreed to compromise with me, and let me take the medication every other day. I don’t know why I let my doctors have so much power over me, but it’s probably because they are actually doctors, and they have the advantage of having been trained to make me doubt myself and Google—also, probably in medical stuff too. So, again, I don’t know if it was all in my head or if was real, but I felt better. I was on the lowest possible dose of Lipitor, and I was now only taking it every other day.</div>
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I spent most of the rest of 2014 working, watching tv, playing video games, listening to podcasts, dealing with our new surprise, adorable, yet medically improbable child, and trying to discover every type of junk food on the planet that was, as Peta calls it, <a href="http://www.peta.org/living/food/accidentally-vegan/" style="color: #3300ff; text-decoration: none; transition: color 100ms ease-in-out, border-color 100ms ease-in-out;" target="_blank">accidentally vegan</a>. There is a ridiculously large amount accidentally and intentionally vegan junk food out there. Now, it’s not very healthy and sort of defeats the purpose of why I started this diet in the first place, but you can be a vegan, and never eat a singe vegetable for the rest of your life. There’s also a ton of meat and cheese “substitutes” that certain desperate people will tell you are very close to the real thing. I disagree with those people, for the most part. I haven’t really had anything by itself that made me think it was meat, but when it’s mixed in with other things it can be hard for my brain to distinguish the difference. As far as the “cheese” goes though, I haven’t found anything close, and, besides ice cream, that’s the thing I miss the most.</div>
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When I started this diet I really believed that the lack of unhealthy choices would force me to lose weight. The more research I did, and the more online communities I joined, the more I learned that there is going to have to be more self control on my part than I originally had hoped. Some people, myself included, might have thought that just abstaining from all animal products completely would be all of the self control that one could muster. I can’t tell you how many stories I have read where the person went vegan, and lost all the pounds without even trying. I guess my life doesn’t work that way. So, that year and all of the next my weight hovered around 380 lbs with about a 5-10 lb fluctuation here and there. I’m pretty disappointed in myself being the only overweight “vegan” that I know—I only know one other vegan, my wife, and she didn’t convert until September of 2015.</div>
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My doctor sent me a letter in September of 2014 informing me that she was leaving her practice to go work on a new specialty or something. I have tried really hard not to take that personally. This was actually pretty good news for me because I really hated driving an hour and a half away to sit in a waiting room for another hour waiting to see a special doctor that I had only chosen because I thought that she could magically cure the headaches I was having 5 years ago (she didn’t, but she did try, I still like her). There was no way I would ever work up the courage to leave her, but I certainly did complain a lot to everyone else. I got a new doctor in early 2015 and she is a super cool lady. It took me a few months, and some blood work, but she let me quit taking Lipitor at the end of 2015. She is awesome and my new goal is working on her letting me get off of the blood pressure meds, but that’s going to take some doing.</div>
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After we lost our jobs in December of 2015 I gained 17.8 lbs, like an idiot. It sucks because when they announced to the plant in August that they were going to shut it down I made a mental note to myself that I needed to cut out all of the bad foods, count every calorie, start exercising, and write again. I did exactly zero of those things in that 5 month period. I don’t know why I’m so self destructive. I am now currently doing 2 1/2 of those things regularly. So, that’s something, right?</div>
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In March I made several changes to my diet. I cut out all processed food that had either, oil or sugar in the top 5 ingredients (that’s the 1/2 in 2 1/2), I started counting every single calorie that I consume (which is way more work than it should be, but it’s a real eye opener too)(that’s 1 of 2 1/2), and I stopped eating any food 3 hours before I go to bed (I’ve read that this does absolutely nothing for weight loss, but I feel better in the morning when I go to sleep hungry. That’s probably just in my head, right?). Also, and this isn’t diet related, but I have obviously, finally started writing again (that’s 2 of 2 1/2). As of this morning I weight 367.6 lbs which means that I have lost 30.2 in the last 2 1/2 months. That sounds better than it is because the first few pounds were much easier to lose, and now I am at approximately .1 lb lost a day on average. So, here I am, on a plant-based diet, counting all the calories, and losing weight at a glacially slow pace, but at least I’m writing, something, and I don’t have to take Lipitor anymore.</div>
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Eric Anderson</div>
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P.S. To be continued again…</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com0Mineral Wells, TX, USA32.8084605 -98.112822332.701718 -98.2741838 32.915203000000005 -97.9514608tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-80676702468527764412016-05-18T14:29:00.000-07:002017-03-14T21:41:46.212-07:00Eric and the Plant-Based Diet Part I<div id="yui_3_17_2_10_1489550356444_531" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; letter-spacing: 0.17000000178813934px; margin-bottom: 1.5em;">
In early September of 2013 I went to my doctor for a routine blood pressure check up. She told me that I had borderline high cholesterol, and if I didn’t cut back on the meat she would have to put me on medication. I said “sure doc, no problem”, and I left. Then I spent the next 3 months eating nothing but ground beef, sausage and piles and piles of cheese (there was probably other stuff in there too, but that’s not relevant to this story). Sure, I hated the idea of being on any more medication, specifically that medication (I had read a few things about it that I didn’t like), but meat is delicious. She had scheduled me to get more blood work in mid November so I just crossed my fingers and hoped my gluttonous behavior didn’t come back to bite my ass. Two days later I got a call from the nurse. “She wrote you a prescription for Lipitor and I already called it in to the pharmacy” she told me. “But…” I said “…I don’t want to be on Lipitor”. She told me that she was sorry and I decided I was going to become a vegan, maybe, probably, after Christmas (what’s the rush? I’m already on medication).</div>
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A year or so earlier my boss had watched a documentary called Forks Over Knives about plant-based diets (sneaky vegan phrasing). He decided to compromise and he just became a vegetarian, mostly, for a good deal of time. At work we all gave him a lot of crap for his refusal to eat that oh so delicious animal flesh, but it didn’t phase him because he was concerned about his cholesterol. His son and daughter-in-law were already full on vegan, but more for ethical reasons than health concerns, although, I’m sure that’s an added benefit. I thought the idea of not eating meat was absolutely ludicrous. God gave us the animals, right? Man was not meant to eat carrots, right? That’s what I was always taught anyway.</div>
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I made it through Christmas and told my wife that I was going Vegan on New Year’s Day. I didn’t really know much about veganism other than the abstaining from animals and their by-products part, but I was determined to do whatever it would take to get off of this awful medication. I don’t really know how she felt about it when I told her. She seemed mostly ok with the idea, but she was also used to all of the crazy new diets that I had tried over the years. I imagine that she thought that this was probably another fad that I would give up on after 3 months or maybe sooner. We had a week to prepare. We already had the essentials for survival. My bread was vegan so I could live off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but I also found a vegan protein powder, and we bought almond “milk”, quinoa, and a couple vegetables. On New Year’s morning we got up and watched Forks Over Knives first thing (I had never seen it before) to give ourselves the motivation that we would need to see this thing through. After that my wife told me that she would be a vegetarian, but veganism was a step too far, and she certainly wasn’t going to push it on the kids. I was mostly okay with that because this is about me and my cholesterol, but I knew it would be harder with that stuff in the house.</div>
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I went back to my doctor in the second week of January and declared that I no longer needed to take cholesterol medication because I was no longer eating anything with cholesterol. She told me that my cholesterol levels were better, but that was probably because of the medication and not because of my insane diet choices (she was concerned that veganism was going to make me a diabetic). She decided that I should stay on the medication a while longer. She was also concerned that I had gained weight although that wasn’t the case at all, this time. You see, there was a problem with the scale in the examination room that I normally used. The scale always said that I weighed quite a bit less than I knew that I actually weighed, but I didn’t want to argue and over the last couple of years it had become way too awkward for me to say anything. It just happened that on this day they decided to put me in an examination room where the scale actually worked for my enormous size. I explained all of this to her, which was rather embarrassing for me, but I had to defend myself. She was skeptical to say the least.</div>
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On January 1, 2014, when I started my plant-based diet, I was the heaviest that I have ever been in my life. I don’t know exactly how heavy I was because there were no scales in my house that could actually tell me, but I know I was pretty heavy. I couldn’t weigh myself until I got to the large shipping scale at work on the 6th. I was 425 lbs by that point. Based on how quickly I was losing weight during that first 3 months of my new diet I figure that I was at least 435 lbs. I got down to about 380 lbs, and then I just stopped losing weight. I don’t know if it’s because I discovered that Fritos, Oreos, and many items at Taco Bell are Vegan or if I just… hmmm, no, that’s probably it.</div>
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Eric Anderson</div>
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P.S. to be continued…</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com0Mineral Wells, TX, USA32.8084605 -98.112822332.701718 -98.2741838 32.915203000000005 -97.9514608tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-44401370756344715122016-05-13T08:00:00.000-07:002017-03-14T21:39:42.857-07:00Eric and the Velleity<div id="yui_3_17_2_4_1489550356444_522" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; letter-spacing: 0.17000000178813934px; margin-bottom: 1.5em;">
<strong id="yui_3_17_2_4_1489550356444_521">“I need to make a change in my life, in my way of thinking, I need to either pursue this thing full on, whether it be good or bad, or just give it up and be happy with my lot in life.” - Eric Anderson February 22, 2012 at 9:19 AM (4 years 2 months 19 days 21 hours 41 minutes 0 seconds ago)</strong></div>
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When I posted that, 133,224,060 seconds ago, I didn’t realize that there was a third option. I had no idea that I would give up writing completely and also be miserable and unfulfilled creatively the entire time. 2,220,401 minutes ago, I thought that I was motivating myself to dedicate more time to this thing that I have almost always wanted to do with my life. When I posted the last thing that I would write on the internet for 37,006.6 hours, other than a few insignificant tweets or facebook updates, I thought it was a new beginning and not an ending. As those 1,541.9 days, 220.6 weeks, 50.6 months, and 4.2 years went by, I did not go a single one without thinking about starting to write again, but I guess that was a wish not strong enough to lead myself to action (Velleity).</div>
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Whenever I think about why I quit writing I can’t really narrow it down to a specific reason. I was depressed, angry, terrified, and I just didn’t feel great about things in general. I was unhappy and stressed out at work, I was fighting with pretty much anyone that pissed me off, and I was too lazy to get up and make myself do it. I thought my writing was too whiney and sad to share with the world, which it was. I just re-read, re-edited, and took notes on all 37 of my old posts, and there was a lot of crying in there. I have known all along that I need to be doing this though, because it is my therapy, and my brain isn’t going to get better unless I start working out my issues (on the internet, for the world to read).</div>
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In early 2012 I started working every day of the week. This continued for the entire year and took up 95% of the Sundays in it. I decided to use that as an excuse to stop going to church. I didn’t want to go anyway so that worked out, but I could have gotten off of work early enough to make it. The day after Christmas of 2011 I wrote something about a person I had been fighting with since September on my health blog (I was trying to track weight loss and other health issues, probably stress, but it was super boring mostly). Even though everything I wrote was 100% factual, in my opinion, it hurt some feelings and turned into a thing. We argued about it for over a week, other people got involved, it was dumb, and it just upset me so much that I didn’t want to go back to church. There were several people involved that I just didn’t want to see there. I kept writing for a couple of months after that though.</div>
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I spent an inexcusable portion of 2012 illogically concerned that the world might end before the year was over. If destruction wasn't reigned down by the Mayan demon death dragon (or whatever was supposed to happen) then it was surely coming from the crazies that believed in that nonsense. I knew it was irrational at the time, and I know it even better now, 3 1/2 years later. I probably shouldn’t admit that even a small part of me was terrified. As soon as 2012 was over, and the planet not destroyed, so were the 72 plus hour work weeks, and all that sweet sweet overtime pay (We only thought we were broke before that time).</div>
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Then, 2013 started with a layoff at the plant and a major cut back on hours for those of us that were “fortunate” enough to stay. The next three years were filled with rumors of layoffs, hour cut backs, slight hour increases, more hour cut backs, actual layoffs and finally a notice of plant closure last August (2015). It was both a relief to finally know our fate and terrifying to not really know it at all (I am still unemployed along with my wife, who also worked at the plant). We finally closed it down in December and the 4 1/2 months leading up to that day were some of the hardest of my life. During all of that time I still didn’t go back to church. It was much easier to just continue not going after I didn’t go for a year already, and I was (am) still angry.</div>
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In that past four years things haven’t really been bad for me. We have been very fortunate. I mean, sure, every time someone tells me what’s on the news I get depressed, angry or terrified all over again, but there have been plenty of good things that happened too. I started a plant based diet (98% vegan, but I’ll get into that later), we had a surprise 99% impossible child (she’s the 1%, but not in the way that normally means), we bought a house that we love, I lost a job that I didn’t even really like (now, I am still unemployed, but maybe it was still a good thing and I should be looking at it as an opportunity), I still have a beautiful wife, and, now, three adorable children.</div>
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Since I quit officially writing, my brain has been sneakily getting me to write other places that might not have been entirely appropriate. I wrote extra long meeting notes and speeches to my employees that I never actually gave. I wrote long angry letters to companies that pissed me off, city officials that pissed me off, and to my HR rep about coworkers that pissed me off. Apparently, when I am angry or fired up about something my grasp of the english language multiplies tenfold. Also, it is apparent that I have anger issues that I need to work out.</div>
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So, now, 2016 is here. Four years is a good length of time for me. I got married to my wife after not seeing her for four years, and that has turned out pretty great. I started going to church again almost 3 weeks ago (I’m not any less bitter or angry, but I need to try to let that stuff go). I decided that I was going to start writing months ago, and I have spent that time doing everything I can to avoid actually doing it. I both love and hate writing. It gives me a headache, but it makes me feel better after it’s done. My brother texted me back in January or February that he wanted to start blogging in addition to his short stories. I half jokingly suggested that we should start a website together. He seemed excited about the idea, and then it was too late for me to change my mind. So, here I am, with a new website, and a journal full of private thoughts that I, for whatever reason, feel I should share with the world. I have to whine here to, hopefully, avoid whining so much in my real life interactions. I would say that it isn’t for you, and you don’t have to read it, but I will be checking the site metrics at least 42 times a day to see if you are. That’s not really your problem though, is it?</div>
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Eric Anderson</div>
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P.S. All the time math was done by <a href="http://www.mathcats.com/explore/elapsedtime.html" style="color: #3300ff; text-decoration: none; transition: color 100ms ease-in-out, border-color 100ms ease-in-out;" target="_blank">this guy</a>. Thank you math cats.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com0Mineral Wells, TX, USA32.8084605 -98.112822332.701718 -98.2741838 32.915203000000005 -97.9514608tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-71523288816897496382012-02-22T09:19:00.000-08:002012-02-22T09:19:05.654-08:00Eric and The Career Choice<br />
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If I was truly committed to this
writing thing I would stop watching television, stop playing stupid waste of
time nonsense video games (anything that ends with the suffix –ville) and focus
on reading and writing and exercising my brain (and it probably wouldn’t hurt
me to exercise my body as well), but I can’t.
Television is so easy and awesome and I don’t want to miss anything
(plus it is probably the only thing my wife and I have in common). Reading is hard (everything distracts me). Writing is hard (much harder than I thought
it would be). I’m never inspired at
convenient times either. I’ve discovered
about myself that just getting the basic ideas down isn’t always enough for me
later because I’m not in that same mood when I actually sit down to write. How does anyone with a job, family, Xbox, and
television addiction ever become a writer?
These are all things that I should have gotten around to after I became
successful enough to have a quiet place to spend my day writing and not being
pestered by employees (at home on my cell phone), coworkers (also, at home on
my cell phone), wife, kids, other family members, TV, and pretty much life in
general. It’s too late for all of that now, though.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Sometimes I look at my kids and
they say (the big one) or do (the little one) amazing things and all I can
think is that they are leaching my talent away from me. That’s probably not how it works though, it
is? They’re just young and they have
that thing that I used to have, what’s it called? Oh yeah, imagination. I guess you just lose that over time as you “grow
up” to become an “adult” or whatever. I
don’t want to be an adult; I don’t want to be mature and responsible. I want to have those sparks of weird
creativity that I used to have without overanalyzing everything. I don’t want to think about whether it’s been
done before, if it makes sense, or even if it’s entertaining to anyone besides
me. I feel like my psyche is slipping
away from me. I feel like every day I’m
fighting my way back from the precipice of full on depression.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I need to make a change in my life,
in my way of thinking, I need to either pursue this thing full on, whether it
be good or bad, do it or just give it up and be happy with my lot in life. I watch these people come to work and they
are excited. They’re excited to have a job, excited to be a valued member of
this place and society in general, excited to see their coworkers, and excited
to just talk about their weekends and whatever’s going on with them outside of
here. I want that. I want to just be happy and be the best
whatever I do here possible, but there’s this idea that’s holding me back. This tiny flicker in the back of my brain
that says that I’m better than this, that I’m better than this place, that I absolutely
should not settle on this, but that tiny flicker hasn’t gotten me anything but
a deep depression so I need to shut it up.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This was not something I intended
to write when I woke up this morning and I don’t have a conclusion at this
point. Sorry<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Eric Anderson<o:p></o:p></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-23721739249091565882012-01-10T17:50:00.000-08:002012-01-10T17:50:04.167-08:00Eric and The ADD (or Eric and his Damaged Brain Part III or II)<br />
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I found
out that I had ADD when I was 17 (I know, we were a little behind on that); the
reason that it took so long is because I lack the hyperactivity usually
associated with the ADD. My mom started
reading a lot of books on the subject because she’s a school teacher (maybe
that’s why she’s too busy to read my blog).
She started paying closer attention to me and my little brother’s
behavior and decided that she should take us to a psychiatrist to get tested (I
say tested, we only talked to a dude and he handed us some drugs). For the past 14 years I’ve heard all the
arguments about how ADD is bullshit and Dr.’s and pharmaceutical companies are
just trying to make money and lazy parents are just trying to drug their
children into being quiet. Those people
piss me off and I want to punch them in the throat (but I would never do that
because I’m a nonviolent person). I will
concede that I do believe that it is an overly diagnosed disorder and maybe
closer attention needs to be paid to those children to make sure they are
getting what is best for them. My
argument for those people however is “do you have it?””do you know what it’s
like to live in a brain where it is nearly impossible to focus on something
that doesn’t interest you even if your livelihood and your family’s livelihood depend
on it?” “No?” “Then shut up!” (sorry about that, I just got really angry for a
moment there) sure, doctors are liars
and pharmaceutical companies are evil but when I took Ritalin all I could do
was focus on the task at hand, but it affected my creativity so there was a
trade off. That didn’t really matter
though because I wasn’t doing anything creative with my life and I needed to do
my damn homework.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Here
are some symptoms of ADD that I displayed and continue to display; some of them
are more obvious than others. Unable to
focus (let’s call that one obvious), and here’s a list I found online at <a href="http://helpguide.org/mental/adhd_add_adult_symptoms.htm">http://helpguide.org/mental/adhd_add_adult_symptoms.htm</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> (I</span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: #0070c0; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"> added the notes</span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">)</span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: Verdana;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">“zoning
out” without realizing it, even in the middle of a conversation. </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(this happens to me a lot, but I usually
realize it and just can’t help myself)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 38.4pt; margin-right: 12.0pt; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">extreme
distractibility; wandering attention makes it hard to stay on track. </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(Duh!)</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: Verdana;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">difficulty
paying attention or focusing; such as when reading or listening to others. </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(I’m sure everyone has this problem, right? Do
you know how hard it is to read the same thing 37 times in a row and not retain
any of it? I’m sure you do. And do you
know how hard it is to listen to the preacher on Sunday morning without losing
track of whatever it is he’s talking about? You do, right?)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 38.4pt; margin-right: 12.0pt; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">struggling
to complete tasks, even ones that seem simple. </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(If a task is boring then yes it’s really hard to complete,
problem is that everything is boring to me, even things that interest me tend
to lose my attention about half way through or sooner)</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 38.4pt; margin-right: 12.0pt; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">tendency
to overlook details, leading to errors or incomplete work. </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(Yes, it’s because I get tired of reading
something about a quarter of the way through and generally just say “screw it,
it’s good enough”)</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 38.4pt; margin-right: 12.0pt; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">6.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">poor
listening skills; hard time remembering conversations and following directions.
</span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(I actually have a pretty
awesome long term memory, but following directions can be difficult for me)</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: Verdana;">7.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">poor
organizational skills (home, office, desk, or car is extremely messy and
cluttered) </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(Holy
Crap! Ask my boss, teachers, mother, wife etc… I can’t organize anything, over the
past 2 years I have purchase no less than 16 organizational apps for my phone
that I never use. I buy folders, file
cabinets, binders, whatever the stacking trays on my desk are called,
calendars, and nothing works…at all…ever…seriously!!!!!)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 38.4pt; margin-right: 12.0pt; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">8.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">tendency
to procrastinate </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(I just
fell out of my chair laughing, I can’t even begin to explain how bad a problem
procrastination is for me so I won’t try until later)</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">9.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">trouble
starting and finishing projects </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(are
the people who wrote this list reading my journal)</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 38.4pt; margin-right: 12.0pt; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">10.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">chronic
lateness </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(I am
actually quite good at forcing myself to be on time for things by using
external motivators [being fired is the main one], but I’m late for everything
else. I worked at Braum’s for 4 years
and I was late every day for that whole time [I wonder why they fired me?]
because they didn’t enforce the attendance like my current job does and I’ve
never been on time to church)</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">11.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">frequently
forgetting appointments, commitments, and deadlines </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(No, yes, and definitely)</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 38.4pt; margin-right: 12.0pt; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">12.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">constantly
losing or misplacing things (keys, wallet, phone, documents, bills) </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(I have handled this problem by keeping all of
my important items in the same place every day so that when I wake up in the
morning I can just grab everything I need for work and go. I used to just throw things places and would
forget them every day)</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 38.4pt; margin-right: 12.0pt; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">13.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">underestimating
the time it will take you to complete tasks </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(YES)</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 38.4pt; margin-right: 12.0pt; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">14.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">frequently
interrupt others or talk over them</span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> (I don’t do this so much on account of the social anxiety and
fear of humans)</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 38.4pt; margin-right: 12.0pt; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">15.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">have poor
self-control </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(I’m
350 lbs. and in debt up to my eyeballs, what do you think?)</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: Verdana;">16.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">blurt out
thoughts that are rude or inappropriate without thinking </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(this is the thing that gets me in more
trouble than I care to admit)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">17.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">have
addictive tendencies </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(I’m
going to have to point back at the 350lbs thing)</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 38.4pt; margin-right: 12.0pt; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: Verdana;">18.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">act
recklessly or spontaneously without regard for consequences </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(That really just depends on my mood, but if I
get overly excited of upset I have been known to make an ass of myself)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: Verdana;">19.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">have
trouble behaving in socially appropriate ways (such as sitting still during a
long meeting) </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(I’m
pretty okay with sitting still and pretending to pay attention, I’m just not
paying attention at all, no matter how hard I try to focus my mind will always
drift [and holy crap is it embarrassing when they ask me a question and I have
no idea what they are talking about])<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 38.4pt; margin-right: 12.0pt; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">20.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">sense of
underachievement </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(CHECK!)</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 38.4pt; margin-right: 12.0pt; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">21.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">doesn’t
deal well with frustration </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(does
anybody? Because I don’t…not at all)</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">22.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">easily
flustered and stressed out </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(Of
Course)</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: 3.75pt; margin-left: 38.4pt; margin-right: 12.0pt; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">23.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">irritability
or mood swings </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(Ask my
wife, parents, coworkers, bosses, employees, teachers, and anyone else who has
had the pleasure of meeting me)</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">24.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">trouble
staying motivated </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(Are
these symptoms getting repetitive?)(Motivation is the thing that I lack the
most)</span></b><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: Verdana;">25.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">hypersensitivity
to criticism </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(I don’t
know if I can accurately explain how on the nose that is)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: Verdana;">26.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">short,
often explosive, temper </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(I
think I’ve gotten better about this one, I feel like I’m more in control of my
temper than I used to be, but I do relate to this one)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="background: white; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: 3.75pt; margin-left: 38.4pt; margin-right: 12.0pt; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family: Verdana;">27.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">low
self-esteem and sense of insecurity </span></b><b><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">(my self-esteem is lower and I’m more insecure than a teenage
girl)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Okay,
that exercise might have seemed kind of pointless and a little too repetitive
but I needed to explain what it’s like in my brain (also, I should mention and
I don’t know why but I added the numbers so if you going looking for the list
on the hyperlink I provided it will look differently but the info is all there
plus some that helps explain some myths about adult ADD…which is a real thing). I understand that everyone reading this will
probably relate to some of these symptoms some of the time, but I feel most of
them the majority of the time and it sucks…or does it. I mentioned that I’ve been on drugs for this
and they helped me immensely to fit into society the way that I am supposed to
fit, but they also killed my daydreaming and creativity. My creativity seems to me to be a different
than the useful kind that helps you to design building (my middle brother), or
make art (also my middle brother), it just makes me see the world in a funnier
way that is entertaining to me and a few other people I’ve been friends with
over the years, but is almost impossible to do anything with that will help me
contribute to society. So I have to get
a job and try to blend with the normies (is that how you would spell
that?). I want to do something with this
writing thing but it’s hard with all of the distractions in my life (wife,
kids, employees, etc…). It is almost
impossible for me to write at home without the radio blasting so that I can
pretend that I’m the only one here.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The
point that I’m trying to get to, and failing miserably, is that I don’t
necessarily think that this ADD is a bad thing.
I believe that maybe God made me this way on purpose and I need to find
a way to make it work within this society that we live in or I don’t know screw
those guys I guess, except those guys have the money that I need to survive so
I take that back. I did a lot of research (by a lot I mean I half read a few
articles on the internet and tried to remember what the doctors and my mom told
me when I was younger) for this post, I’ve been planning it for months. I’m not happy with how it turned out entirely
but I can’t keep messing with it because I need to move on.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of
the symptoms that I don’t think it mentioned is my inability to let anything go
no matter how small or stupid it is or how little the rest of the planet cares
about it. That might be a symptom of my
undiagnosed autism/ Asperger’s but I guess that’s a whole other post or not we’ll
see. During my research I read a study
that said that sometimes people are diagnosed with ADD when they are actually
mentally retarded so that’s something I might want to look into considering in
my early years of elementary school I took an achievement test that actually
said I was retarded (I’ve since taken many many more tests that disagree, but
that thoughts always been in the back of my possibly retarded brain)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Eric Anderson<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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P.S. In case you don’t want to visit that website here’s
something I found interesting for all of the haters out there<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; border: none; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 1.5pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid #B9C7DE .75pt; mso-outline-level: 3; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: #3c5cae; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">You don’t have to be hyperactive to have ADD / ADHD<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Adults
with ADD/ADHD are much less likely to be hyperactive than their younger
counterparts. Only a small slice of adults with ADD/ADHD, in fact, suffer from
prominent symptoms of hyperactivity. Remember that names can be deceiving and
you may very well have ADD/ADHD if you have one or more of the symptoms
above—even if you lack hyperactivity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: 1.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 2.25pt; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">
<b><span style="color: #3c5cae; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Myths and Facts about
ADD / ADHD in Adults<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
</div>
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<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">MYTH:
ADD/ADHD is just a lack of willpower. Persons with ADD/ADHD focus well on
things that interest them; they could focus on any other tasks if they really
wanted to.</span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">FACT:</span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> ADD/ADHD
looks very much like a willpower problem, but it isn’t. It’s essentially a
chemical problem in the management systems of the brain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #DEE7F7; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: 1.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">MYTH:
Everybody has the symptoms of ADD/ADHD, and anyone with adequate intelligence
can overcome these difficulties</span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">FACT:</span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> ADD/ADHD
affects persons of all levels of intelligence. And although everyone sometimes
has symptoms of ADD/ADHD, only those with chronic impairments from these
symptoms warrant an ADD/ADHD diagnosis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #DEE7F7; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: 1.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">MYTH:
Someone can’t have ADD/ADHD and also have depression, anxiety, or other
psychiatric problems.</span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">FACT:</span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> A
person with ADD/ADHD is six times more likely to have another psychiatric or
learning disorder than most other people. ADD/ADHD usually overlaps with other
disorders.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #DEE7F7; line-height: 12.0pt; margin-bottom: 1.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">MYTH:
Unless you have been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD as a child, you can’t have it as
an adult.</span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">FACT</span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">: Many
adults struggle all their lives with unrecognized ADD/ADHD impairments. They
haven’t received help because they assumed that their chronic difficulties,
like depression or anxiety, were caused by other impairments that did not
respond to usual treatment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Source:<i> Dr.
Thomas E. Brown,</i> <i>Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in
Children and Adults</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
</div>
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P.P.S. this is the end of my damaged brain trilogy or the
beginning because I don’t know what order you read them in. I hope you have been enlightened or at least
entertained and if not then what am I supposed to do about it?</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-80514907147929669212012-01-09T05:53:00.001-08:002012-01-09T05:54:13.904-08:00Eric and The Company of Men<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
People keep telling me that I need to spend more
time with men and that I need positive male influences to teach me how to be
better at being a Godly man who is the spiritual leader of his family and all
that. Here’s the thing, I don’t like men
very much of all the people that piss me off in the world most of them are
men. And it’s probably because of where
I live there aren’t the right kind of men around for me to hang out with but
that’s just how I see things in this small horrible town that I live in. I don’t have anything in common with men, I
don’t like cars, Nascar, wrestling, sports, shooting harmless animals (not that
I have a problem with that, because God know I’ll eat the hell out of a steak,
it’s just not the environment I like to be in).
I don’t like racism (this is Texas so it’s everywhere), I mentioned that
I don’t like sports before (shocker) but let’s talk about the biggest sport for
a second. I hate football; it is the
stupidest thing that has ever been invented in the history of things. Except for maybe war and Howard the Duck (don’t
act like you don’t remember).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Do
you know how dumb it is to intentionally run into another running person who is
running towards you? That can’t be good for anything inside of you. Children should not be allowed to play it,
with all of the studies out there now (by now I mean that this is a fairly
recent discovery, see the P.P.P.S.) that talk about the long term side effects
to getting hit in the head when you’re a child playing football, the parents
and school administrators and coaches should all be arrested for child abuse
(okay, maybe not arrested, but at least sternly talked to). I don’t mine full grown adults killing
themselves for millions of dollars out on a nationally televised football field
(they deserve what they get), but the fact that it is still legal to let our
children do these things to themselves and the fact that we encourage it so
much is truly horrible. We lift these
young impressionable minds up to be “heroes” and we treat them like they are “soldiers”
out on a battlefield just because they can run around on a field and hurt one
another while we pretty much ignore the kids who like to read, learn and be
artistic in any way at all. Not only do
we ignore these children we let the football players beat them up and pick on
them constantly (high school was hard for me).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Now
I know that the argument will be that everything is bad for something and that
is true. There are tons and tons of
extremely dangerous retarded things that we all do on a regular basis, but this
one just doesn’t make any sense. Breaking
bones is one thing but our brains are crazy fragile and this is dumb. I keep seeing things about how our body is a
temple and that the good Christian thing to do is take care of it (I’m
obviously the worst about this because I’ve absolutely destroyed my temple, but
that doesn’t make giving yourself a concussion okay) Why can’t they just play soccer? You don’t even want to hear what I have to
say about the funding issues. So I’ll
stay away from that as it’s not the point of this particular rant.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now that that’s been said, let’s talk about the things I
do like: most nerdy stuff, video games, science (although I’m not that good at
it), technology, music, photography, movies, TV, books, comics, comedy, etc…
mostly things that most men, at least around here, don’t give a rat’s ass
about. I don’t know how to relate with
other men. Every time I see a guy I don’t
really know that well they’ll ask “so where you workin’ now?” as if that’s the
most important thing in my life. I don’t
want to talk about my job I want to talk about the new batman or star trek
movie. I want to talk about the newest
death cab for cutie album or how the scientist over at CERN might finally find
the Higgs-Boson this year (again, something that’s very hard for me to
understand but fascinates me none the less).
I want to talk about the walking dead or how the series finale of lost
disappointed me more than I let on but it didn’t sour me on the whole series
(and after weeks of reviewing it over and over in my head I grew to appreciate
it) because it was truly one of the greatest most think inducing television
shows that I’ve ever seen in my entire life (nothing ever made my brain try so
hard to figure out what the crap was going on like lost did). I want to talk
about how portal 2 has changed the way that I look at the world of gaming and
how it’s the awesomest and funniest thing that I have ever experienced in my
life. I want to talk about battlestar galactica or doctor
who or the elder scrolls, but I think you’re getting the point. There are too many references to cram into
this thing. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Basically, I don’t get men and men don’t get me and I’m
totally okay with that it just makes it hard for me to have any positive role
models in my life.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Eric Anderson<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
P.S. I’m sorry that I hate
football (I’m not really sorry that I hate football)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
P.P.S. I’m sorry that I
lied in the P.S.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
P.P.P.S. in case you think
that I’m making this stuff up here’s one of a million things talking about it <a href="http://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20100830/sports-related-concussions-on-the-rise-in-kids">http://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20100830/sports-related-concussions-on-the-rise-in-kids</a>
and you can google the rest.<o:p></o:p></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-75113566471295629712011-11-15T12:47:00.001-08:002011-11-15T12:48:07.432-08:00Eric and The Social Anxiety (or Eric and his Damaged Brain Part II or I)<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> You’re
walking towards a door. You reach the door, extend your hand, grab the handle
and open it. You stop and look around to
see if anyone else is coming. You see
someone walking in your direction. It’s
time for that split second calculation to determine whether or not they are
close enough for you to have to hold open the door or if it would be socially
acceptable for you to walk in and forget about it. You decide they’re too close and hold the
door for them. They’re still coming,
this is taking forever, and maybe you’ve miscalculated their distance, now you
look like an idiot holding the door for someone who was probably a block
away. They reach you and walk right passed. They weren’t even going in, now you feel
completely retarded. You look around
again, “did anyone else see that?”
“Shake it off” you tell yourself, “just walk in and forget that ever
happened, nobody cares but you”, but you never believe yourself. If this has never happened to you and you
can’t relate in any way then go back and replace all the “you” and “you’ve”s
with “I” and “I’ve”s. This is just an
example from the craziness in my brain that happens more often than I care to
admit. I’ve got thousands more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> I’ve
touched on my social anxiety before but I figure it’s time to dive right into
that scary place and maybe try to figure out what the hell is wrong with me or
at least explain the weird hell that is my life. I will often find myself standing and
watching as other people are working. “I
should help these people, why am I just standing here being worthless?” I ask
myself. I’ll try to determine the best
way to help and I’ll grab something or try to move out of the way, but it’s
usually the wrong thing to grab or the wrong way to move. These are basic things that most men are born
with, but for some reason I can’t function as a team. My solution is usually to withdraw and just
try to be quiet and stand in the corner until it’s time for me to do something
or I’ll just leave.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m extremely awkward
around people I don’t know, people I haven’t seen in a while, people who check
out at the grocery store (or any store for that matter), people I do know but
I’m scared of because I can’t really tell where they are coming from, people I
work with, people I go to church with, etc. (this would have been shorter if I
had just said “people.”). I use humor to
highlight things that make me uncomfortable, if often comes off as insensitive
and generally offends at least half of the people involved. I don’t have any idea how to do small talk (I
hate sports, wrestling, nascar [notice how I didn’t call nascar a sport?], the
weather, etc…) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My coping method for
awkwardness is self-deprecating humor. I
will usually say the funniest thing that pops into my head no matter how it
will affect my social standing because if I can get someone to laugh it will
hopefully diffuse the tension. I usually
just end up looking like an ass (note: it’s not a good idea to joke around with
your bosses about how lazy you are, even if it is the most hilarious thing you’ve
ever said).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This weirdness is
something that I’ve lived with as long as I can remember and even though I am
more able to push deep down inside than I used to be it’s still very much part
of me and anyone who knows me will probably tell you that I’m not fooling
anyone with this normal act (this sentence is far too long).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Eric Anderson<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">P.S. “He was such an understanding child, he always
listened when you explained to him in a rational logical way what you were
doing and why you were doing it even though he couldn’t possibly understand any
of the words you were saying as he was only 4 months old” is not something that
we will ever say about our son. I love
you, Charlotte, even if you do sound like a crazy person.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-86914636871315812812011-11-05T17:59:00.000-07:002011-11-14T04:31:33.129-08:00Eric and his Typical Sunday Morning (or Eric and his Damaged Brain Part I or III)<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m sitting
in church looking around at all the people praising God. I hear the music and the singing; I see the
dancing and flags waving around. I tell
myself to focus. I’m here to praise
too. I start singing “…I want to dance…”
hmmm, wait a second that’s not true. I
don’t want to dance, I don’t want to shout, and I certainly don’t want to
run…anywhere. Is God going to be angry
with me if I don’t really mean these lyrics?
I don’t want to be making any half-hearted promises through song. I don’t want to lie about how I really feel
through song either. “Okay, stop being
distracted…focus…I’m here for a reason”.
I clear my head and try to visualize God. I see bright clouds. I’m singing about how Holy He is and how He’s
going to take care of me. I get distracted
by some random thought about a video game or a TV show or work or a video game
based on a TV show about work (I don’t think such a thing exists…yet). “Focus”!
I can’t, my brain is malfunctioning.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I look
around again. Some people are lying on their face, some are kneeling, some are
shouting and some are wailing (who am I, Dr. Seuss?). People are speaking in tongues, I realize
that the music is still playing but no one has sung anything in what seems like
30 minutes. Something is happening with these
people and I don’t get it. I don’t feel
anything…at all. Well, accept for the
fear that there is something bad wrong with me.
I ask God for help, but do I really mean it? I might be dead inside. “Okay, focus, close your eyes, visualize the
bright clouds, and maybe throw a throne up there for good measure”. I don’t want to lose control and fall on my
face, or shout, or wail, or dance, or laugh, or speak in tongues unless it’s
real. I don’t want to fake it. If it happens to me then great, but I’m not
going to pretend. Is this really happening
to all of these people? Are they faking
it? Am I just broken? (Yes, maybe, and probably)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Okay,
praise and worship is over, it’s time for announcements and to pray for tithes
and offerings. “Finally, something I
don’t feel so guilty about” (I started tithing again about a month ago), “oh
but wait, what about all that time I wasn’t tithing, and what about the part
where I’m supposed to be a cheerful giver?”
I’m trying to give cheerfully, but that’s really hard. I tell myself it’s not my money, it’s God’s
money and I’m just giving it back to Him.
I don’t have a problem with doing this out of obedience, but I’m rarely
cheerful about anything I do, and in fact I’m really not sure what that even
means. Okay, prayer time is over. It’s time
for the sermon.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The speaker
gives us a verse and I pull out my iPhone.
At first I go to my Olive Tree NKJV app and read along, and then I get
bored and play Angry Birds or Plants vs. Zombies. I can multitask; I can hear what the speaker
is saying…mostly. “Focus!” I turn off
the games and go back to the bible, and then I get bored and check Facebook. “Oh
look, other people in church are posting right now” but they’re usually posting
bible verses so they’re still better than me.
Check words w/ friends and play any pending turns I have. The speaker says that God loves us and all
that, but before He will bless us we have to stop doing bad things. “Hmmm, what bad things do I have to stop
doing?” “I guess, all of them” since all
sin is at the same level and all. This is
really hard. Am I overthinking this, am
I underthinking it? Is underthinking even a word? Microsoft says no, whatever<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Basically,
this is how my church life has gone for the last 20+ years, except replace
iPhone with daydreaming. I’ve never
really been able to participate in what’s going on in my church and I’ve always
felt like more of a spectator. This is
100% my fault, over the years they have tried to include me in their jubilee
and I just haven’t felt it. I feel like they
have mostly given up on me at this point (and by “they” I mean the leadership). I’m open to something happening but I don’t
want to force it or pretend that it’s there when it’s not. Maybe I need to find a new church, I don’t
know if that would help. Well, now I’ve
gone and depressed myself…again. Oops<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Eric Anderson<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
P.S. I don’t want
“saying nice things about my wife” to become gimmicky and therefore
meaningless, so I’ll probably stop doing that so much. I do love her though<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
P.P.S. This was supposed to be the third part of a trilogy,
I guess now it’s the first, I don’t know how that happened<o:p></o:p></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-41914083898088314932011-10-20T15:12:00.000-07:002011-10-20T15:12:09.172-07:00Eric and The Nonsense<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span> </span>This week
started out so well; I was in a great mood which was probably not readily apparent
to anyone else around me, but I could feel it and that’s all that matters.<span> </span>This great week turned to suck yesterday and I’m
not entirely clear on why.<span> </span>I’m an
emotional wreck and I don’t know what’s wrong with me.<span> </span>Maybe I’m pregnant, oh wait that’s not
possible, I’m on the pill.<span> </span>I feel like I
need to curl up in a ball and cry.<span> </span>That’s
not very manly is it? <span> </span>But I suppose
neither is being pregnant.<span> </span>I’m listening
to Ben Folds on repeat because for some reason depressing music always makes me
happy in a weird depressing sort of way (don’t worry, I didn’t understand what I
just wrote either).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span> </span>On Sunday I
was sitting in church thinking about how I’ve already written everything I know
and that I probably won’t ever write any fiction because every idea I’ve ever
had has already been done (and done better than I would do it at that).<span> </span>Then I started thinking of some new ideas I could
write about (nonfiction of course).<span> </span>I
came up with a bunch of topics like social anxiety, ADD, tithing, visions,
prophecies, office supplies, OCDs and music.<span>
</span>I was very excited about writing.<span>
</span>I started taking short notes on the topics so that I wouldn’t forget
them like usual.<span> </span>I guess writing them
down is like letting them go from my brain, because I lost the urge to flesh
them out.<span> </span>Then Monday that hilarious
embarrassing thing happened to me and I was inspired to write.<span> </span>That was the funniest thing I think I’ve ever
written so I should probably quit now while I’m ahead (unless you count this,
which in my opinion puts me back down a few points)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span> </span>It’s not
cool to be concerned with how many people read your stuff or how many page
views you get, but I never claimed to be cool.<span>
</span>I probably check this site at least 20 times a day.<span> </span>I know it’s sad and I try not to think about
who might read this when I’m writing it because again it is for me, but I still
care and that’s not cool.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span> </span>Okay, the
point is that I want to be a writer but I’m a neurotic mess and also for some
reason my week turned to suck all because my computer and iTunes don’t seem to
get along with each other and it lost all of my music and apps even though they
are still there.<span> </span>I need a Mac.<span> </span>I’m going to try to start working on those
other posts even if I don’t feel like it. Bye<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Eric Anderson<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
P.S. If anyone wants to buy a kidney from me so that I can
afford a Mac let me know.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
P.P.S.<span> </span>If it takes
more muscles to frown than it does to smile then why does smiling hurt my face
so much?</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-86474618291874719172011-10-17T17:31:00.001-07:002011-10-17T17:31:54.465-07:00Eric and The Ripped Pants²<br />
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>It’s
Monday, and I know it’s quite a cliché to hate on Mondays but there’s a reason
for that hatred (not that I’m all that fond of Tuesday through Saturday either).<span> </span>It never fails that I’ll stay up late on
Sunday night watching television, something horrible that probably grates on my
soul (last night was the season premiere of The Walking Dead [I guess it
depends on where you fall on whether or not zombies are evil if you think
that’s horrible] the week before it was Dexter and I don’t even think I should
mention how many Sunday nights were taken up with True Blood).<span> </span>Sunday, is the only day of the week that I
get to sleep in, and by sleep in I mean 8:00am because I have church obviously,
so I’m not that tired at my normal bedtime.<span>
</span>This always gets me on Monday morning but I never learn.<span> </span>That alarm on my iPhone goes off at 5:25am
and I groggily fall to my feet and stumble around the house trying to get ready
in about 15 minutes (so yeah it’s a bit rushed, and it’s better than coffee to
snap you out of that stupor).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>Today
has been extra special though because I was in my office talking to the safety
manager about something work related (I’m sure), and I sat down and felt
something tear.<span> </span>I panicked, “maybe, it
was my shirt, I could have sat on it” I thought “could have been the
chair?”<span> </span>“Just sit here and pretend like
everything’s okay”.<span> </span>So I slowly reached
down and felt the back of myself and there it was, a tear from the top of my
pants down to my upper right thigh.<span> </span>This
is awesome; I looked at the clock, 10 minutes to go until the regular Monday
production meeting.<span> </span>“They won’t care if
I’m not there this once, right?”<span> </span>I
called my wife and asked her to go to the store and buy me a pair of pants and
bring them to me, why do I need her to buy me a pair of pants? You ask.<span> </span>Well, I only buy one pair of pants at a time
because I’m always planning on losing weight and then I won’t need those pants
anymore.<span> </span>It is a motivational tool that
I have used for the last seven years and it has not worked even once.<span> </span>It is the very definition of insanity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>I
called my boss to let him know that I wouldn’t be making the meeting and told
him that I didn’t want to tell him why because he would make fun of me.<span> </span>He assured me he was going to make fun of me
anyway so I told him and he laughed and I laughed and it’s all great.<span> </span>Charlotte showed up in less than 20 minutes
with a brand new pair of pants (so at least I know I have an awesome wife who
loves me even when my ass is so big it tears my clothing like a cartoon
character).<span> </span>The worst part of this whole
thing is that it’s not the first time that I’ve ripped my pants; it’s not even
the first time this year. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>Back
in June I was an usher at my brother’s wedding.<span>
</span>We were leaving the YWCA after setting up for the reception and I sat
down in the car and I felt the tear.<span> </span>The
wedding was going to start in an hour, we were ten minutes away and I didn’t
have any other pants.<span> </span>We drove to the
nearest store, Charlotte ran into a Target, Ross, and Marshall’s, there was
nothing suitable in any of the stores and time was running out.<span> </span>I was live tweeting this entire event (it’s
how I’ve learned to own embarrassing situations).<span> </span>We drove from that shopping center to a Men’s
Wearhouse two blocks from the chapel.<span>
</span>Charlotte ran in and gave the guy my size, he said it would be $135 (What!?
For pants?!) and he would need me to come inside so he could measure me for
hemming purposes.<span> </span>There was no way I was
getting out of the car and walking across the parking lot with a giant hole in
my pants, especially since I was going commando (What? They don’t seem to make
underwear in my size).<span> </span>Besides, we only
had 25 minutes until the wedding was going to start and I was supposed to be
seating people already.<span> </span>She told him to
just hem them the most generic way possible and paid him the insane price
(don’t feel too bad for us though, my parents paid us back for the pants plus
some).<span> </span>We got the pants and rushed to
the wedding with about 5 minutes to spare.<span>
</span>There’s probably a lesson in these stories somewhere.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>This
is either a sign that I should lose some weight or that the small slave
children who make the pants should take some more sewing lessons (there, right
there, that’s where I crossed the line).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Eric Anderson<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">P.S.<span> </span>I would
like to thank my wife for going out of her way on many many occasions for me
and my neediness.<span> </span>I love you Charlotte
and thank you for everything<o:p></o:p></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-13136223548861514832011-10-12T04:32:00.000-07:002011-10-12T06:30:01.468-07:00Eric and The Smarty-Pants Phone*<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> I love my iPhone, everything about
it just works and it works easily. It is
absolutely the awesomest thing I own.
Maybe I love it a little too much.
It’s just a phone, right? Is
it? Or is it a pocket computer/ video
game system/television/internet browser/camera/library/everything I’ve been
obsessed with since the first time I picked up a TI-64 controller(I don’t know,
I think it was an off brand Commodore) to the first time I pulled up Google and
it dared me to ask it anything. It has everything that I've ever wanted to do in or with my life a finger swipe away. It is
the sum total of all human knowledge in your pocket. I don’t ever have to not know anything (with
the exception of the great mysteries of the universe) ever again. That being said, the iPhone has simultaneously
made my life easier and ruined it at the same time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> I am so distracted by that thing that
I have trouble focusing on anything else.
I feel it in my pocket calling me like “my precious”. At work it’s in my hands, I’ll put it down,
work and without even realizing it it’s back in my hands and I don’t know how it
got there. Watching television at home I’ll
pick it up every 2 minutes to check Facebook or play Words with friends (I think
I’ve finally kicked my Farmville habit).
At church when I’m supposed to be listening I’ll be checking my favorite
technology sites to see if there are more cool things to look forward in the
next version of my obsession. I’ll use
the excuse that my bible is on the phone so I need to have it out to check the
verses. Now it’s time for the hard
questions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Does this qualify as an idol in my
life? Probably, right? Definitely?
So let’s say that it does for sure.
What should I do about it? Should
I get rid of it? Should I abandon all
technology because everything I learn about the awesome things that science has
discovered and made for us makes me tingly all over? Is there a way to step back without being as
extreme as too severe the connection? I
don’t have my phone this week, because I shipped it back to apple to get credit
towards the new iPhone that’s coming out on Friday. I feel like I have phantom limb
syndrome. I feel a vibration in my pocket
and I keep checking to see if I have a missed phone call or text and nothing is
there. There’s no vibration I’m just a
psychopath. For the first time I feel
sorry for Gollum. Maybe if they had just
given him an iPhone he would have forgotten about that stupid ring.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Eric
Anderson<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">*My boss
calls it a smarty-pants phone because he resents technology for some reason.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">P.S. My wife has gotten no more than 2-3 hours of
sleep at one time in about 2 ¾ months, but she still wakes up every morning
to make me breakfast and lunch. It’s
been a really hard few months for her and she might be on the edge of
insanity. I want her to know that I appreciate
her sacrifice for our son and that everything will be better sooner than later. I love you Charlotte and it’s going to be
okay.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-14773614308404661592011-10-11T05:06:00.000-07:002011-10-11T05:06:01.111-07:00Eric and The Crisis of Faith<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">♪♫
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I am a C </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">♪♫</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">♪♫</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> I am a C-h </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">♪♫</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">♪♫</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> I am a C-h-r-i-s-t-i-a-n </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">♪♫</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">♪♫</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> And I have C-h-r-i-s-t in my
H-e-a-r-t </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">♪♫</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">♪♫</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> And I will L-i-v-e-E-t-e-r-n-a-l-l-y
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">♪♫<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>Who
would choose hell over heaven if they were presented with proof of that
choice?<span> </span>I don’t think anyone would, but
it’s not exactly laid out for us that easy. Sure I don’t have any excuse, I was
raised in a Christian family and went to a Christian school and church every
Sunday and it’s all been hammered into me.<span>
</span>What about the people who were raised in another religion? What about
the people who were raised in no religion at all?<span> </span>How do I tell someone that their god is false
and my God is the one true God? They’ll look at me and say “Nuh-Uh”.<span> </span>The faith part of this whole thing is the
hardest part for me to wrap my head around.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>God
created all of us and He loves all of us and He wants all of us with Him in
heaven so why make it so hard?<span> </span>Why not
just lay it out there for everyone with empirical evidence and just say “here
it is, make your choice”.<span> </span>Who am I to
question God?<span> </span>Nobody, I just get hung up
on these things and I get mad at myself for thinking them because I feel like they’re
blasphemous.<span> </span>I want to be a good soldier
in this war, I want to fall in line behind everyone else and fight for this
thing that I believe in, but I just get stuck.<span>
</span>I’ve had this thought for as long as I can remember. <span> </span>I’ve always been too afraid to say it out loud
because I really don’t want to make Him angry with me, but I just have to get
this out there to see if I’m the only one who feels this way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>My
mom keeps telling me to make sure I include God in all of my decisions.<span> </span>I don’t have any idea how to do that.<span> </span>She says seek Him first (I know that’s in the
bible too), but I don’t know how.<span> </span>I know
this sounds ridiculous, but I rarely ever pray anymore.<span> </span>When I do it’s usually to ask for God to
protect me or my family, but I never consult God on my decisions.<span> </span>I think I used to, but I just never heard
anything back.<span> </span>Hearing the voice of God
is so hard for me and I don’t understand why.<span>
</span>It seems so easy for all of the people at church and the rest of my
family.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>My
daughter asked me last night what hell was and if they make you eat weird stuff
there.<span> </span>I told her it’s a hot horrible
place with no water and no one wants to go there.<span> </span>She agreed that she didn’t want to go
there.<span> </span>I know that was probably the time
I should have pushed her to accept Jesus into her heart, but I feel like such a
hypocrite when I even begin to speak about such things.<span> </span>I’m failing her as a spiritual leader.<span> </span>I’m failing God as the spiritual head of my
household.<span> </span>The main reason we want to
keep Amira in Christian school is because we both know that we’re not equipped
to teach her the things she’s supposed to already know about God.<span> </span>I know it’s sad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>I
started tithing again two weeks ago, and it has been hard, but I know that it’s
what I’m supposed to do.<span> </span>I can’t just
choose to believe the parts of the bible that are convenient right?<span> </span>I know these questions are hard and I don’t
want to be the reason anyone else questions their faith.<span> </span>I just want to know how to believe without
question.<span> </span>I know that I’m at a low point
in my life and that it’s probably time that I fall on my face and ask God for
help but I just haven’t felt compelled to do it.<span> </span>What I mean is that I don’t want to fake
it.<span> </span>If it happens then great but I don’t
want to pretend something is there that isn’t there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>I
don’t know.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Eric Anderson<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-91885439711741671812011-10-09T15:22:00.001-07:002011-10-09T15:41:53.675-07:00Eric and The Coinkydinks?<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve
locked my keys in my car (actually it was my mom’s mini-van) three times in my
life that I can remember. The first time
I was with my girlfriend (my wife now) at the restaurant her mother worked at
and my dad had to drive 15 miles down to Santo to open the door for me. The other two times were kind of weird
though. The second time I was at work (Braum’s)
in Weatherford waiting for my shift to start.
I was in college at the time and I was finished with my classes for that
day, but didn’t want to drive all the way back to Mineral Wells (about 30
minutes away). I locked my car with the
key inside along with my uniform and well, that sucked. It just so happened though that my manager
had a locksmith out there working on the safe and while he was there he opened
the door for me at no charge(I gave him a free ice cream cone though, please
don’t tell Mr. Braum). I guess it was
probably just a coincidence, right? The
third time was also in Weatherford, I
was on my way to fort worth to get fitted for a tuxedo for my wedding and I
stopped at the post office for something(can’t remember what though). I left the key sitting right on the console
island thing in between the front seats (what the hell?!?!). So I’m standing there cussing at myself and I
look up and see a locksmith truck sitting two cars over. I called the number on the side of the truck
and the guy answered from inside the post office (cell phones are a beautiful
thing). He came out and unlocked the
car, also for free. I know that if I had
had to call these guys out to me it would have cost at least $30 and even
though they were already there they had every right to charge me anyway. They didn’t though and for that they are
awesome in my book (I mean if I had a book).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I know a
lot of people who might try to read more into this than what is probably there. How are we supposed to know when it’s just
coincidence or when it’s actually God helping out? When we interpret every good thing that
happens to us as God the outside world looks at us like we are irrational
illogical weirdoes. I believe that God
is there watching, but maybe sometimes people just use their God given free
will to decide to do good things just because they are the right things to do.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve
always felt like I was somehow being watched out for and I’ve had an overall
feeling that everything was going to turn out okay. I know I’ve had a very blessed life as far as
good parents, friends, family, school, and even jobs are concerned. Every now and then I’ll do something out of
the ordinary for me (I am a creature of habit) and something good will come
from it. It’s usually something small
but it’s always enough for me to stop and take notice. I’ll run it through my head and question why I
broke my routine and if the reward was because of that or would it have
happened anyway. I can’t really think of
any specific example of this occurring right now but I know it has happened to
me many many times throughout my life. These
random feelings that everything is going to be alright have come to me less and
less over the years and they almost completely went away when my daughter was
born. That’s when I got scared (I’ve
always been scared, but this was more than ever before). Do you know how many things can go wrong with
a child? I’m going to say approximately somewhere between 1 and 100 billion
different things. When Amira was about 2
she was standing at the window of our trailer holding onto the windowsill and
the open window closed on her fingers.
Now this is not a regular wooden window frame that would have smashed
her fingers. It was a metal frame inside
of a metal track so that it would seal.
It probably should have chopped her tiny fingers off. It didn’t, she was fine. I, on the other hand, was hysterical. I called my mom freaking out and she and Nancy
came over to see how she was and there didn’t seem to be any permanent
damage. Maybe that was a miracle and
maybe I just overestimated the strength of the window. Who knows?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My
point is that there are a million different things that happen to all of us
every day and I just don’t know how I’m supposed to interpret them. I like the feeling that everything is going
to be alright but lately it’s been replaced with a hopelessness that everything
is going to end. Which is a happy
thought for some of you so there you go.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Eric Anderson<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-41106766999521903562011-10-07T16:32:00.001-07:002011-10-07T16:32:43.401-07:00Eric and The Pointless Memories<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I remember when our church
split, I was eight or nine.<span> </span>We had gone
to Mineral Wells Christian Fellowship for most of what I can remember of my
early childhood.<span> </span>I remember the split
was exciting, weird, and maybe a little scary, but mostly just confusing.<span> </span>I didn’t understand, those were our friends,
we had spent every Sunday, Wednesday, holiday, special event, and whatever
other excuse to gather we had together and now we didn’t associate with them
anymore.<span> </span>I know that my mom tried to
explain it to me maybe she sugar-coated it a bit, and maybe she didn’t but I still
don’t know why we left, other than a difference of opinions and/or beliefs.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span> </span>When
we left we went to a few different churches, we would meet at the days inn and I
think we might have even gone to a few people’s houses, but we finally found a
building.<span> </span>We didn’t have a pastor for a
long time, the elders or whoever wanted to, I guess, would take turns preaching.<span> </span>I remember when the Well of Life kids (that’s
our church’s name) went to S.M.A.K. (Summer Musical Activities for Kids) at the
First Baptist Church.<span> </span>One of the
teachers was talking to us about asking our pastor something and I think it was
Shawn Lynch who said “we like have 5 preachers”.<span> </span>All of us laughed except for the teacher who
looked at us like we were lost souls.<span> </span>It
was a strange time period for me and probably them too, but this isn’t about
that this is about the MWCF.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span> </span>I
have a lot of memories from MWCF that for some reason have come up since the
elder at our church announced that he was going back(it doesn’t go by the same
name anymore but as far as I know it’s the same leadership) after 22 years.<span> </span>He said God told him to do it so I suppose it’s
for the best but it doesn’t make me any less sad.<span> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I remember almost burning the
field behind the building down with a magnifying glass (I got in some trouble
for that).<span> </span>I remember passing the
communion grape juice around in one cup and sharing with everyone (blech!). I
remember Charlie Steen standing in front of the church with his family crying
about having to move away (I don’t remember anything else at all about that guy
or his family).<span> </span>I remember a camping
trip where one of the elders told me that the fish were sleeping so I needed to
throw rocks to wake them up (hilarious, kids are so dumb).<span> </span>I remember being scared by “The Never-Ending
Story” (stupid giant turtle).<span> </span>I remember
spending the night at one of the family’s houses with a babysitter watching us
while all of the parents were out of town for a church related conference.<span> </span>I was crying so the babysitter told me that
if I stopped my mother would bring me back a present.<span> </span>I stopped crying but there was no present.<span> </span>I asked my mom at church the next morning and
she had no idea what I was talking about.<span>
</span>I remember my mom announcing that she was pregnant when she raised her
hand with a prayer request.<span> </span>Jay Cawthon
said it was too late for prayer, and everyone laughed.<span> </span>There was some kind of anomaly on the sonogram,
but I guess it all worked out because my brother is 22 now and he seems mostly healthy
(mostly).<span> </span>I remember Nancy Lynch holding
Cory and my mom talking to her about me and Shawn possibly being friends
because we were close to the same age, but Shawn and I never really
clicked.<span> </span>We got along fine and I liked
him we just had different interests for the most part.<span> </span>I always got along better with Cory anyway.<span> </span>I remember us driving up on a car accident on
the way to church one night and it was the Cawthon’s car (it was scary but they’re
alright).<span> </span>I remember every fall we had a
harvest festival at the pastor’s house and I remember popping fireworks there
on the fourth of July.<span> </span>I remember eating
too many potato chips while watching “Mary Poppins” at their house and throwing
up all over their living room floor.<span>
</span>These were mostly good times I had as a child.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
I don’t know why these specific
memories are the ones that always pop into my head when I think about that
church, and I know that this is a boring read with no real point. Sorry<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Eric Anderson<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
P.S. One or more or all of these memories may be
incorrect as I have slept many times since they occurred.<span> </span>If you find any errors in the history I have
presented please keep them to yourself. Thank you<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
P.P.S. My wife makes beautiful children.<span> </span>I love you Charlotte <o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-11267437657137151662011-09-30T17:19:00.001-07:002011-09-30T17:19:14.862-07:00Eric and The Tithe<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span> </span>I
stopped tithing in May.<span> </span>Not out of greed
so much as just wanting to not have my car repossessed.<span> </span>I guess that’s a little greedy.<span> </span>I’m not innocent in all of this I could be a
lot more fiscally responsible.<span> </span>Now that
my wife has quit her job to raise the newest child we are even more broke than I
thought we were 4 months ago.<span> </span>I know
that I should be tithing, but we’ve kind of dug ourselves into a deep deep hole
of contracts and obligations and then there’s the private school.<span> </span>Shouldn’t that count as tithing?<span> </span>I mean, the church owns the school. So I should
get some points for that. No?<span> </span>I didn’t
really think so, but I thought I would try anyway.<span> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span> </span>I’ve
heard a lot of people say that tithing is more important than eating (okay, not
a lot of people, but my mother says that…a lot).<span> </span>I want to tithe, I feel guilty for going to
church and not tithing.<span> </span>I feel like I
just decided to ignore that part of the bible because it’s really
inconvenient.<span> </span>I don’t want to ignore it.<span> </span>The pastor always says that we need to prove
that we are able to handle a small amount before we can be trusted with a
larger amount.<span> </span>If we had a larger amount
we could pay all of our bills and tithing would be easy.<span> </span>I don’t know, I guess it’s about faith and
trusting in God and all of that stuff.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span> </span>I am
going to tithe on Sunday and if they try to take my car I’m sure my parents
will help me out.<span> </span>I guess it’s easier to
have faith with a safety net.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Eric Anderson<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
P.S. My wife is an awesome lawn mower person. I love you
Charlotte<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-48015454368415520442011-09-30T16:44:00.000-07:002011-10-08T04:44:29.855-07:00Eric and The Iniquities?<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dear <strike>Blog</strike> Journal,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My mom
doesn’t read you. Sorry, she has a growing fear of technology and really she’s
not a fan. It’s okay though, she has
people who do read you and report back to her any salient points or
particularly juicy bits. So here goes. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Over
the past few weeks I’ve had at least two different people talk to me about
iniquities. I was told that they are
something that has been passed down from my
parents/grandparents/great-grandparents/etc…
So first I decided to find out what iniquities are. Now I’m not a complete idiot, I know that
over the years I’ve heard the word used and taking it in the context in which
it was presented I am aware that they are bad. Just for fun let’s look it up in
the dictionary... okay, Webster’s says that it is “a wicked act or thing: SIN”
or “gross injustice: WICKEDNESS”. Hmmmm,
okay, maybe I should find a different dictionary…okay, I’m back. Google listed a whole bunch of sites that
talked about curses and being passed down through bloodlines. I’m not going to try to pretend to understand
what this is all about. I can tell you some negative traits I got from my
parents though.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From my
mom, I got the aversion to saying I’m sorry and constantly thinking that people
don’t like me or are just mad at me. To
be fair she has been doing a lot better with these things and I have been
trying to work on myself. I will lose
sleep sometimes worrying if someone likes me or not based on comments they may
have said or didn’t say, but didn’t say it in a certain way. It’s hard to apologize to people, because it
usually means that you were wrong and I don’t like to be wrong. I find it’s much easier to pretend like
nothing ever happened and just change the subject and move on. I’m working on that one too (especially at
work).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From my
dad, I got awkward social skills, A.D.D., being compulsive with money, a short
temper, and no idea how to raise or relate to children. These are things that I have no idea how to
fix. I will say that my dad’s social
skills are much better than mine, I hardly ever see him lose his temper
anymore, he is much much better with his money now and well the kids thing
still seems to be a problem. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I love
both of my parents and I know that they tried their hardest to raise me better
than I turned out. I also know that I did get some positive attributes from
them as well (I don’t really know what any of them are off hand, but that’s not
really what this journal is about). Apparently, if this iniquities thing is
what I think I understand it to be, it’s not their fault. I guess that sounds like an easy way to look
at. Nothing is our fault or our parents
fault or their parents fault or… I’m
sure that’s not what they meant when they told me about iniquities. We have to accept some personal responsibility.
Right?<br />
<br />
Love Always,<br />
Eric<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
P.S. My wife is way
better at breast feeding than I am. I
love you Charlotte<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-76458545255278995202011-09-26T20:00:00.000-07:002011-09-26T20:01:14.987-07:00Eric and The Obviousness<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="apple-style-span"> Journal? Seriously? How can someone
who loves words as much as I do not think of "journal"? What the hell? Am I retarded? I’ve been
bitching to myself about how much I hate the word “blog” (even though I post
this on blogger and the website is something
something dot blogspot dot something).
Journal is perfect and that’s what I am calling this thing from now on.
Thank you Danni you are awesome at pointing out obvious things to your idiot
cousin. Everyone else, enjoy reading my
journal.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><br /></span><br />
<span class="apple-style-span">Eric Anderson<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span">P.S. my wife is kickass at making the
bed. I love you Charlotte</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3143721330372955631.post-1776787342491026482011-09-26T17:29:00.000-07:002011-09-26T17:29:38.478-07:00Eric and The Apology<br />
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<span> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m sorry if I have made anyone
feel badly for me because of all the negative whininess in my posts.<span> </span>I promise that I am not writing these
horrible things about myself to make you feel sorry for me.<span> </span>The reason for this blog is twofold (who uses
words like that?). One, I need practice writing because it’s something that I have
inside of me, something that has been trying to get out for years but my lazy
fat fingers won’t cooperate. Two, it’s been like therapy for me to get these
thoughts out and written down in one place.<span>
</span>It frees up my brain to come up with more whiney nonsense (I’m hoping I’m
almost out of that stuff) (probably not).<span>
</span>I have gotten a lot of really good advice lately that a wiser person
would actually take (not that I won’t take it, it just might be a while).<span> </span>I want everyone to know that I appreciate all
of the kind words and the reassurances that I’m not a completely broken awful
human being.<span> </span>I’m probably not going to
stop writing dark negative things about myself anytime soon because that’s just
the way my self-deprecating brain works.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have never in my life had an
actual suicidal thought beyond wondering what it would feel like if I did
something that would probably kill me.<span> </span>I’m
just bringing this up in case that’s where the concern is coming from.<span> </span>I love being alive and I have a deep deep
fear of not being alive.<span> </span>I used to
daydream about what it would be like if there was no universe at all and it
would hurt inside.<span> </span>There would be
nothing. No before, no after, no now, no anything.<span> </span>Okay, that was dark.<span> </span>Let’s get back to the point.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Apparently, there are a lot of you
out there who do actually love your jobs. That is beyond my comprehension.<span> </span>I’m willing to admit I was wrong about this
but I’m not going to pretend to understand how you can love having your soul
crushed by the man (hyperbole).<span> </span>I just
have a longing inside of me to be somewhere else. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Over the years I have had friends
who did get my sense of humor and did enjoy spending time with me although it was
mostly at school or work.<span> </span>Jake, I looked
forward to working with you too. It was a hard time for me when you left the
soul crushingness that is braum’s to work for what I can only assume was just
as bad at wal*mart.<span> </span>I completely
understood the need to get the hell out of there though.<span> </span>Maybe the people I work with now are just too
conservative republican (this is a joke for Amy, the only funny republican I know)
to get me.<span> </span>Also a lot of them are from a
different culture and they think I’m nuts.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So yes I love that you are all
reading my blog and I really hope you like it, but I’m not trying to “fish for
compliments” or reassurances of my normalcy.<span>
</span>I do appreciate all of the comments.<span>
</span>Does anyone have any tips for my writing style (I know it could be
organized structurally and a reread for errors wouldn’t kill me)?<span> </span>I want to get better at this, that’s why I’m
forcing myself to do it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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My apology is to you the reader for
making you feel badly for me and my sanity.<span>
</span>Sometimes I write these things when I’m not in the best place
psychologically.<span> </span>I’m sorry<o:p></o:p></div>
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Eric Anderson<o:p></o:p></div>
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P.S. my wife wants me to write more nice things about her. So,
hmmm…well that’s not appropriate.<span> </span>That either…ummmm…she…no…okay,
got it.<span> </span>She makes awesome breakfast burritos
(hint hint). Ha-ha, I love you Charlotte.<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11555486880067264556noreply@blogger.com2