Humpty Dumpty

I promised one of my friends that I would write a blog post about him and have spent the past half hour or so trying to think of a way I could be honest and still maintain his prized anonymity. Here's my best shot:

My friend has overcome some "life obstacles" beyond anything I can imagine. He has had his dreams shattered without any King's men to put them back together again, literally robbed of his truest passion. Yet he has accomplished far more in the past 5 years than most do in a lifetime. Only through daring determination (daring in that I, along with most, would likely have given up), does he have this markedly different, but healthy and "normal" life. I like to think that I am a challenge-oriented person, and that in the face of adversity I would muster what strength I have to push through it. Never having been tested in such an extreme way and admittedly having run from tough situations before, I, however, am less than certain about my ability to do what my friend has done.

Some descriptions of him imply a man of mythic proportions, which contrasts sharply to his short (or at least shorter than me) stature and slim frame. In truth, he is just as human as the rest of us, maybe even a little more so given the way in which his mortality has been tested. He is not perfect; besides his poor taste in music (ok, I secretly love R. Kelly too) he has made his fair share of mistakes finding it just as difficult as I do to know and do the right thing. We don't always agree; in fact, I fight more with him than all of my other friends combined, but at the end of the day, he's still a loyal friend.

He has learned lessons most of us would rather read about in inspirational books or cheesy Disney movies than actually have to live through, yet he is constantly looking to learn more. He likes being friends with me because I am unlike his other friends; he thinks I have something to teach him. The first time he said something along those lines to me I laughed, thinking he had to be kidding. What could I possibly teach him? I divide my time pretty evenly between bars and books. Books anybody can read, and we all know I'm not learning anything useful at bars. But after he explained himself, I began to better understand his point; the two of us are very different people with entirely different life experiences. In his view, I have as much to teach him as he has to teach me (although his current focus is on teaching me how to be a thug). I'm not sure how long we'll be friends, months or years, but I've already promised to teach him how to play both chess and pinochle (yes, oddly enough I know how to play pinochle). Someday maybe he'll even teach me to say things like "throw some D's on it" without sounding so ridiculous.

Oh and my apologies for the much more serious than normal post, but so it goes.

St. Patrick's Day

Last year I celebrated St. Patrick's Day in Ireland with a few of my favorite relatives. It was amazing in every way. So this year, I didn't have very high expectations having already experienced the ultimate St. Patty's Day. I, however, was not disappointed. Friday night the weather sucked so a friend and I decided we'd start the celebrating a night early. We went to an Irish bar for dinner around 7pm and stayed there (in the same bar stools) until close 7 hours later. My usually extremely docile friend was picking fights left and right, and I somehow managed to get a guy who works at the bar kicked out (in a typical drama-free night).

March 17th began with a hangover, which was quickly cured by some NCAA basketball and cheap beer. We got to the bars by lunchtime, drank until dinnertime, then took a half-time at Wendy's. Wendy's was the perfect location for some people watching. Similarly to Halloween, it seems that girls use St. Patty's Day as an excuse to dress and act like complete sluts. Also, there was this crazy probably homeless lady with huge frizzy red hair like the Magic School Bus teacher lady who was talking to herself. No joke, she was talking dirty talk to herself for like 10 minutes. Then, she got a little fed up with her imaginary partner and began to yell at him/her telling him she wasn't a cheap whore and all she was asking for was a little common decency.

We did make it back out to the bars for the night, came home a little earlier than usual, and two of us split an entire large pizza while watching Boondock Saints (perhaps my favorite movie). Overall, fantastic weekend -- and a great one to be Irish.