Why I'm a fan...

I've often felt that John Mayer echoes the thoughts in my mind. His seems to speak the things I want to say, and does it much more eloquently than I could. His songs hit home no matter which phase of life I've been in....but this time it's a blog post that made me want to let out a resounding AMEN! The text is below.
Love it.


Thursday, March 27, 2008

FROM THE HEART....

I need to write this.

I've been traveling alone in Japan for the better part of three weeks now, and It's been so remarkable an experience for me that I can't book a ticket home yet. I haven't spoken very much out loud these days, but I've been thinking to myself in what feels like surround sound. I can see so many things clearly, and feel so connected to myself and the world around me that I need to share the perspective with you.

I'm already aware that when I sing, say or write anything, 50 percent of the response will be in support of it and the other 50 will want to discount it. This blog, though, is directed to 100 percent of people reading it. If my blog truly does have any cultural effect, then it should be used for more than just pictures of sneakers and funny youtube videos. (If you don't think my blog has any effect, than you can't by definition be reading this right now and therefore don't have to respond to it in any way. Isn't that tidy?)

What I'm about to write isn't about fame or success or celebrity or the media. That's my business.

This is about us all.

This is about a level of self consciousness so high in my generation, that it's actually toxic.

This is about the girl in her bedroom who poses in front of the camera she's awkwardly holding in her outstretched hand. She'll take a hundred photos until coming up with one she's happy with, which inevitably looks nothing like her, and after she's done poring over images of herself, will post one on her myspace page and then write something like " I don't give a f*ck what you think about me."

This is about the person trying out for American Idol, who while going off about how confident they are that they were born ready to sing in front of the world, are trembling so badly they can hardly breathe.

This is about me, the guy who walks through a throng of photographers into a restaurant like he's Paul Newman, but who leaves a "reject" pile of clothes in his closet so high that his cleaning lady can't figure out how one man can step into so many pairs of pants in a week.

This is about a young guy who maintains a celebrity blog that subsists on tearing other people down but who has wrestled with a lifelong battle for acceptance as a gay man.

This is about us all. Every one of us. Who all seem to know deep down that it's incredibly hard to be alive and interact with the world around us but will try and cover it up at any cost. For as badass and unaffected as we try to come off, we're all just one sentence away from being brought to the edge of tears, if only it was worded right. And I don't want to act immune to that anymore. I took the biggest detour from myself over the past year, since I decided that I wasn't going to care about what people thought about me. I got to the point where I had so much padding on that, sure, I couldn't feel the negativity, but that's because I couldn't feel much of anything. And I think I'm done with that.

I'm not the first person to admit we're all self conscious, Kanye was. But what I want to do is to shed a little light on why we're all in the same boat, no matter the shape of the life we lead: because every one of us were told since birth that we were special. We were spoken to by name through a television. We were promised we could be anything that we wanted to be, if only we believed it and then, faster than we saw coming, we were set loose into the world to shake hands with the millions of other people who were told the exact same thing.

And really? Really? It turns out we're just not all that special, when you break it down. Beautifully unspectacular, actually. And that truth is going to catch up with us whether we want to run from it or not. The paparazzo following me to the gym ain't gonna be Herb Ritts and the guy he's following ain't gonna be Bob Dylan. It's just a matter of how old you are once you embrace that fact. And for me, 30 sounds about right.

What now, then? I can only really say for myself: Enjoy who I am, the talents and the liabilities. Stop acting careless. In fact, care more. Be vulnerable but stay away from where it hurts. Read. See more shows. Of any kind. Rock shows, art shows, boat shows. Create more art. Wear hoodies to dinner. Carry a notebook and hand it to people when they passionately recommend something and ask them to write it down for me.

Root for others.

Give more and expect the same in return, but over time.

Act nervous when I'm nervous, puzzled when I don't know what the hell to do, and smile when it all goes my way. And never in any other order than that.

And when it's all over, whether at the end of this fabulous career or of this life, which I hope takes place at the same time, I should look back and say that I had it good and I made the most of it while I was able. And so should you.

I'm going quiet now.

John

Port Royal

I have found a new vacation spot! Well, Gramma Rowe found it, but this year I got to join her, along with Aunt Linda, Laura, Aunt Martha & George in their annual spring break trip to Port Royal!! It's located between Port Aransas and Corpus Christi and is right on the beach! The resort is a bunch of privately owned condos that owners rent out to vacationers year round. Gramma Rowe hooked us up with a penthouse that overlooked the whole resort....and ocean!! Here's a few highlights from the trip. I hope I can join again next year, it was a blast!
p.s. sorry about the pictures, they're a bit grainy! We had a blast feeding the gulls! We first fed them on the ferry that takes you from the mainland to Mustang Island, then took a snack to the beach each day to feed our flying friends! They loved Laura and George! Here's how I felt about 100 seagulls flying 2 feet above my head:

Laura, Linda and I went down the road one day to a place that does horse rides on the beach! Probably my favorite part of the trip! I rode a 20 year old horse named Bay Phillie....she has been doing the beach trails since she was 3 so it was no surprise that she was, well tame. She didn't love going deep into the ocean like Laura's horse, and she was in no hurry...so it was a relaxing ride!Laura's horse was a teenager named Cream Soda, and it loved her, and just like her, enjoyed trotting and getting in the water! After the ride we got to pet some horses sitting around the area. It was so fun!!!
One afternoon we went to the port and got fresh shrimp off of a shrimpin boat! Then we fed the shrimp heads to the seagulls and pelicans! You can see here how we just had to hold our hands out and the birds would swoop down and get the heads!

A nightly activity was going down to the beach and hunting for ghost crabs. Ghost crabs are the same color as the sand and only come out at night, so we had to look for the holes they dig and then hope that a crab was nearby. At first I thought this was a bit too much like snipe hunting because I couldn't find a single ghost crab! However, we finally found a few and got this picture of it! We also saw lots of jelly fish during the week and took a few pictures of them!

Ghost Crab!

Jelly fishes. The clear one was alive, the blue one dead...hence the flower.

Laura and I had a blast 'wave-bustin' and swimming! Below is the view from our room. The pool had 4 tiers separated by waterfalls, had 2 swim up bars, and 3 hot tubs! It used to be the biggest pool in Texas until a few years ago! And yes, past the pools, and over the dunes is the ocean!!! The most perfect view that had it all!!

Thanks for such a great vacation Gramma Rowe!! And thanks to Linda and Laura for letting me hitch a ride! Aunt Martha and George- it was so fun hanging out with you! Come back soon!!!

Moooo-ving!

I know some of you are thinking, didn't you just move into an apartment? Yes I did. After 2 months I decided I'd had enough of apartment life and I was on the prowl for my next place. After a month or so of looking, thinking, and number crunching, I've made my choice!!

Yes, I know it's just a field....but as of tomorrow it will be MY field!! And it will have the cutest most perfect, most funnest little house on it! My field is at the end of a cul-de-sac and it's oversized compared to my future neighbor's fields. I won't have any back neighbors, and the back is a stone wall with trees and someday Fry Road behind it. Luckily the power line pole will NOT be in my yard, and I'll have plenty of room for Emma to come visit! When it's finished it'll look something more like this:

Except I'll have a driveway, and the house will be flipped so the garage is on the right side. It has 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. My bedroom is on the back with big windows, a walk in closet, and bathroom with 2 sinks, and a separate shower and tub! The front room will be my piano room/Christmas tree display area in December. The living room and kitchen are very open and connected by archways. The garage leads into the laundry room past the 2 other bedrooms and bathroom, into the kitchen. The back patio is covered and I plan on grilling chicken only on my yet to be purchased 'barbie'. You can click on this link, which will play a slideshow of pictures that were taken of the model home which is the same as mine. http://www.drhorton.com/corp/GetCommunity.do?dv=X7&pr=43595

Here's the floorplan:

It will probably get started in 4-5 weeks and should be complete in 5 months!! More to come in a few weeks after I go to the design center and pick out all my upgrades!
Sic 'em new house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Brother of the year?!?

Dear Bradley,

I've made 3 posts in the time it has taken you to do half of yours....you're going to have to do better if you want to attain that brother of the year title. Cheese!!!

Picture worth a thousand words...

Need I say more about why this is one of my favorite places on earth?

Fieldtrip!!!!!!!!!!!

This past Thursday Laura got to miss school, and I took a day off work so we could go see Walking with the Dinosaurs at the Toyota Center. If you haven't heard of this show, you should check out the website and even try to catch the 'making of' special that runs on Discovery Channel. Check out:

www.dinosaurlive.com
Walking with Dinosaurs was a BBC tv series where animated dinosaurs were created to look really real and the show would show them in their natural habitat and teach you about their lifestyles, food choices, enemies etc. Last year some people decided that they wanted to make this tv show a real life experience and make the dinosaurs lifesize. So, they spent a year making the dinos, and now the show is touring the states and we wanted to see it. The history part of the show was interesting, we got some laughs from the evolutionish theories that dinosaurs live on in the creature we know as the bird....but it was really fun when the dinosaurs fought!
Here's a few pictures from the show. I had so much fun and really enjoyed getting to spend time with Laura. I love that girl! So Laura, thanks for playing hooky and coming with me! And Linda, thanks for saying she could :)

On the way to our seats. We brought our moms along for the fun!
Memorial Hermann sponsors the Rockets, who play at the Toyota Center where the show was put on....so we had to take a proud picture with our Life Flight helicopter! Momma and baby T-Rex. You can see how big they are compared to the show's human narrator who is there on the arena floor.
Our best T-Rex faces, along with some baby T-Rex arms.