pipes and starbucks and the coming of the internalization of pat

Beardyface and I are sitting outside on this gorgeous night, smoking pipes and being generally awesome. I know you agree. He's reading An Introduction to Theories of Learning, and I'm doing this.

So, I didn't notice until I started writing this, but I really do look like my dad in this picture. He was much more tan than I, but other than that. Also, the way my glasses are down a little bit looks like his reading glasses, so...there's that.

So I come to this Starbucks all the time. I used to study here two or three nights a week while I was in radiography school. There are these two people that are ALWAYS. HERE. One is a middle aged black gentleman who kinda looks like Kenan Thompson doing Herman Cain, only completely bald, and a thicker mustache. He comes here to watch videos on his laptop and read the newspaper. I cannot think of a single night that I've been here that this guy has not been here. The other is this early-60's white lady that, quite frankly, looks like Mortianna from Prince of Thieves, only just chilling with coffee and newspapers and this white plastic bad she always carries around, not all freaking out about a painted man that haunts her dreams. (Love that movie. LOVE Alan Rickman.)

These two skeevers, as I've unfairly labeled them in the past, cause me to think. I mean, honestly, I come here all the time, too. I used to come here all the time to study. Now, not so much. I mean, I come for the free wi-fi, and the awesome chai, and the feeling like I'm not alone, but I guess because I know my reasons, then I know I'm not a skeever. And they aren't skeevers either. The baristas speak very highly of both of them, and I'm sure they are charming people, but I never do what Rick Springfield tells me not to do.

Being that I'm getting older, and also being in love (oh YEAH, I should post about that sometime!) has caused (have caused? had causeded? has causededed?) me to being being more introspective, which I have wanted to happen to me for a long time. See, my brain, for all of my life, has been a jumbled mush of useless trivia (awesome), movie and tv references (awesome), random images from my past (uh...okay), all the arguments I've ever been in (except in my head I win them), girls, comic books, the internet, money, and sometimes Jesus. This has frustrated me to no end, and has complicated my spiritual life and thought life dramatically. I want so badly to delve into the spiritual mysteries, to be able to sit down with a book that doesn't sword fights or car chases or boobs, or a text book for that matter, or to sit with a friend and talk about real life and not drift off into la-la land. I've long thought I have A.D.D. (still haven't talked to my doc about that yet), but I know that when I've done well with my eating habits and my running, that I feel a lot better and have more energy, so I'm not going to buy into the myth until I've gone hardbody and still can't concentrate.

But. I have started internalizing a little more. Started digging into the whys and hows of my life, growing a little bit. Becoming a little less angry. Not reacting to things the way old Pat would have. I even got a planner. I dunno. I guess that's growing up. Growing up is not as whack as I once believed. I'm just going to start working on clearing out all the garbage a little bit (not so much of that stuff 'in' anymore), and quieting myself a little more, and we'll see what happens.

True life. Word is bond.

Sup.