AKA Abraham Bacoln

Well, I’m off to go hang out with Jim for a few hours and then officially proceed to my official (non-paid) job as one of two official Cookeville Fall Fun Fest official photographers. I’m gonna photograph the heck out of that thing.

If you’se in Cookeville AND you’re the type to check your friends’ blogs every hour or so AND you read this, come on down to the squayah and look for me. I’ll be the tall guy (officially) annoying all the children with barbeque sauce on their faces.

Art by some talented person whose name (and gender, for that matter) I do not know.

Oh, yeah, what? School? School’s fine. Classes alternate between boring and horrifying.

Salient points of my academic life right now:
1.) My Spanish instructor says I have excellent pronunciation. If only I had even a shred of vocabulary left to back it up.
2.) One (out of four) of my professors seems to remember how to pronounce my last name.

I am this close (picture fingers very close together) to shaving off my beard and getting a haircut. I feel like a caveman.

Henry: “Undigested food.”

Trey: “That’s my favorite part of everyone I know.”

I just started a complainer-tastic blog post and got about four paragraphs in before I realized I hadn’t even crossed off the top quarter of my list of things to bitch about. I had to remind myself that nobody likes to read the bitchy whiny posts.

Right?

So anyway, I started school. If you’re near TTU you’ve probably noticed the pile of dead freshmen accumulating on the South Patio. I’m trying to keep it down to one per class period now but there are so many dumb ones that sometimes I have to do a twofer.

Um um um I’m feeling …

boy, look, this post is going all bitchy too. OH WELL, C’EST LA VIE AND DAMN THE TORPEDOES.

I’m feeling overwhelmed with my life in a bit of chaos and returning to school for the first time in five years. Seems like all of my classes had homework due on the first day of class, homework we couldn’t have known about because we hadn’t attended class yet. I think I spent more hours on homework today than I did my entire sophomore year, and I’m not even done yet. I want an apartment because I’m whiny and “need my own space” and a real desk on which to do homework, but I can’t get an apartment without a job, and I feel overwhelmed with school so I want to procrastinate and wait and see just how many free hours I really have once I’m done with homework and besides I can’t get a job looking like a total dorkus which I TOTALLY DO because I’m trying to grow out my beard for Halloween and whose dumb idea was it that I go as Abraham Lincoln (Bacoln?) again anyway? but so what if I look dumb and I’m all scruffy? It’s not like I’m kissing anyone right now anyway and so I don’t have a job and I don’t have a place and I am TIRED of homework ALREADY and today was only the third day of class.

Okay.

Whew.

I think I got that out of my system.

I do, on the positive side, have a whole folder of new photographs to sort through here in a minute, and I do have some wonderful memories from a recent waffle breakfast and another great Monday Night Red Beans N’ Rice at the Thomas Boys House dinner memory, and I’m lining up a Labor Day cookout (which will entail my personal slaves parents doing all the work while I ‘entertain’, ha ha, nefarious plan, rub hands together like evil scientist, cackle madly, lightning in background) to which you’re invited if you live around here, which you probably don’t.

I … uh … I forgot what all the other positive things are, but I’m not going back to complaining, so I guess I’d best stop here, yeah?

Yeah.

Stupid freshmen.

I’ve been thinking lately. Dangerous habit, I know.

Altruism: the belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others

I am aware that you know the definition of altruism but I think the dictionary defines it far better than I ever could. It’s a good word.

Recently I had the chance to help some friends move their parents (or in-laws, depending on to which half of the relationship one is referring) into a new house. I was promised a dinner if I helped with the move, but that wasn’t why I did it.

In the tiny bit I’ve explored religions it seems that the vast majority of them revolve around one tenet: the golden rule. The more I act within the bounds of “do unto others that which you would have done unto you” the happier I find myself. This isn’t me preaching to you, merely acknowledging my realization. It’s been a long time growing and it’s something with which I still struggle but for the most part I’m able to maintain this view.

I remember many years ago reading part of one of Alison’s books regarding random acts of kindness. Some of it seemed trite and saccharine but many of the suggestions rang true. I believe that book was my first introduction to the golden rule being applied in more than a passing fashion. It was an awakening for me to realize that someone out there was intentionally doing nice things for strangers and not just applying the golden rule to life’s tougher decisions.

Helping those folks move gave me more satisfaction and uplift than I had gotten in a week. Every time I passed by, sweating and straining under the weight of a dresser, they would actively thank me for my help. Every time I was thanked I felt like a million bucks. It was no big deal on my part, I can sit here and say that I had nothing better to do and it gave me some exercise. But really? I did it because helping people makes me feel so good inside.

Upon proofreading what I’ve written I can’t help but feel that this sounds rather self-serving or even egotistical. That’s not the point but instead just to write about and remember how good it feels to help others. By writing it I have to concentrate on it, and concentration helps cement it in my mind. The dinner was good, but the emotional payoff was far better.

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In other news, to give you something to talk about in the comments, I offer the following observation: my hair is driving me crazy. I said I was going to try and grow it (and my beard) out so I could be a real Abraham Lincoln this Halloween. However, I’m in that terrible in-between stage where I can’t seem to make a look of which I approve.

Do you, gentle readers, really think it’s that important to have the Lincoln hair? Or is the beard sufficient? Maybe I don’t even want to grow a beard! I can’t decide.

What I can tell you, though, is that my hair is a royal pain and I’m thinking about cutting it short again. It’s longer than it’s been in ten years (at least) and I just can’t seem to deal with it.

But! If I got through this stage I could actually grow it out some and … I don’t know. Do something interesting with it, I suppose.

So what do you think? Those of you who have seen me lately – do you think I have a chance? Or shall I further descend into dorkdom with my disastrous coiffure? WHAT SHALL I DO?!

My all-time favorite

Originally uploaded by Kevin O’Mara.

The stuff pictured here has been a fixture in my life for as long as I can remember. For those four or so of you that don’t know, my father is the Waffle King and I am the Waffle Prince. He’s been making the best real waffles (read: non-Belgian) since I was a kid, typically on Saturday morning. It has progressed to the point that during the winters my parents host a series of waffle dinners because there are just too many folks that want to partake in those golden delicious treats.

The number one all-time most importantly perfect and necessary waffle topping is Roddenbery’s Cane Patch Syrup. For the longest time as a kid I just assumed everyone kept bottles of this around their house, but the older I get the more I realize how scarce it is. I not only couldn’t find it in Portland, OR and New Orleans, LA, I couldn’t even find approximate substitutes. There’s just nothing like it.

For those of you who are gritting your teeth at the thought of molasses on a waffle, well, stop it. Roddenbery’s isn’t molasses. I’ve had to explain that countless times through the years. It’s ‘cane syrup’ which doesn’t have its own Wikipedia entry so I guess it bears further explanation. It’s partly the sugarcane extract they use to make molasses and partly normal syrup. The upside of this is that it’s a dense, thick, rich, intricately-flavored syrup – a tiny amount of the bite of molasses and none of the wussy wateriness of Log Cabin or Aunt Jemima’s.

Unfortunately not everyone that has consumed waffles with the Waffle King or Waffle Prince has come to realize the greatness of Roddenbery’s. I realize it must be an acquired taste but it’s hard for me to remember since I started using it at such a young age. In fact, I think I drank Roddenbery’s out of my baby bottle instead of formula.

Today I sat down to a waffle breakfast and picked up a brand new bottle and was suddenly struck by how important it was to me. I could tell anyone what brand of waffle maker to buy to make good waffles (Black & Decker), I could give anyone the O’Mara Waffle Recipe … but until you buy some Roddenbery’s then you’re not really doing it right. I love the shape of the bottle, the squat little rectangle. I love the label that hasn’t ever changed, as far as I know, I love the deep blue and the bright red border. I love that thick slow pour, I love that first bite, and I had just never realized how important it was to me.

It’s impossible to find Roddenbery’s in most places, and it’s getting damn hard to find it here. I need to start ordering it direct from the factory and sending thank-you notes while I do so. These people need to know how important it is to me.

And so, apparently, do you.