Category Archives: Personal

11.22.14
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Dear Feminism, I failed and I’m sorry

Dear Feminisim,

Yesterday I was at the post office waiting for a package. There were two other people in line with me; a woman in front of me who was about 30  dressed in sweats, and a man behind me who I would guess was about 40 and looked like he was coming from work. After about 10 minutes, the clerk finally came out and told the lady in front of me that he couldn’t find her package. He had photocopied the tracking slip and was taking down her name and phone number so that they could call her when they found the package.

He left to go have one more look in the back to see if he could find it. She apologized to the other man and me for it taking so long. I told her that it wasn’t her fault, but she said she apologized anyway. Then the man behind me chimes in, “Now that we (meaning he and I) have your number, is it alright if we call you?” She turned toward the counter, embarrassed, waiting for the clerk to come back.

I felt the words sting in my soul. What a rude thing to say. I failed, because I heard this comment and kept my mouth shut. I have written him a little letter of what I would have liked to say to him below.

Dear asshole Sir,

Fuck you. I just want to let you know that what you said is inappropriate. Asking a woman for her number that you are dating consensually is totally fine, but insinuating that you’ve taken a woman’s number when she was giving it for some other purpose is just plain wrong.

I wish that you would be deported to the moon would learn to respect women. I do not approve of what you said, and I feel like someone should correct you.

Screw you cordially, Yours cordially,

–Matt Farah

So, for this, Feminism, I apologize, and I hope that I can do better next time.

Yours cordially,

–Matt Farah

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11.08.14
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50 Shades of Pepperoni

Little Caesars Pizza Truck

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Image via jeepersmedia]

The other day, I was a Little Caesars Pizza. For those of you who have not been to a Little Caesars, imagine a crappy pizza place that’s cheap; there you go. I walked into the store and retrieved my delicious pepperoni pizza with the Crazy Crust (TM). Always get the Crazy Crust(TM).

On my way out, I spotted a woman in an ancient gold Dodge Durango happily enjoying an audio book. I soon realized that the audio book which was loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear was 50 Shades of Gray. Upon entering my car, I burst out laughing. I understand listening to this audiobook in the car, but with the windows down. REALLY?

09.27.14
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The Pizza that Bit Back

digiorno pizza

I am making a frozen pizza in the oven. I place the pizza on the rack, as I normally do, and begin playing a League of Legends When it finishes cooking, I get up and tried to pull it out of the oven using a flexible plastic cutting board, as is my standard procedure. I hit my had on the top element of the stove and burnt it in two places. I then drop the pizza onto the bottom of the oven. I quickly regrouped and rescued the pizza.
I cut the pizza and put it on my plate.

I begin to eat the pizza while playing my game. The cheese is so hot, it burns a hole in my lip. It is just finally healing today from like 5 days ago.

[image via jjsala]

01.01.14
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2014

new years

2013 in review

2013 was a successful year in terms of New Year’s Resolutions. I resolved to not shop at Walmart for an entire year. Although there were some times where this was inconvenient, I feel good about my completion of my resolution.

This was not a protest of corporations or low wages, but rather of customer service. I hate going in to Walmart and not being able to find anything or anyone to help. The items are always jumbled in their shelves. Price tags are missing. Most items are also low quality. The registers are the worst part. They have one or two registers open with huge lines and then self check out. I despise self check out, because it is so impersonal. I’d rather wait in line for a little bit and talk to a person than go through the hassle of self check out.

So, for these reasons and because I wanted a challenging resolution, I stopped shopping at Walmart. I learned that not everything is open all the time, but that’s ok. I just have to make sure I plan my life out slightly rather than going shopping at midnight. As for the “bargains” at Walmart, I find that with the Target credit or debit card’s 5% savings, prices are irrelevant.

2014 resolution

Moving on to 2014, my challenge for myself is to learn to lift free weights and do so every week of the year. If anyone has any suggestions on how to best do this, please feel free to comment or message me. I’m open to any advice.

I’ve been a runner most of my life, but I want to try lifting weights. I have many friends who swear by it, but I’ve always found it to be cumbersome and have a negative stigma.

The main thing I will have to overcome is making a habit of going to the gym and lifting the weights. I have a few friends who are willing to show me the ropes, and the internet has a wealth of instruction, but actually going up and doing the lifting will be the challenge.

The other things I will have to struggle with is not knowing what I’m doing and the negative view I have had of people who lift weights. I have a hard time when I don’t know what I’m doing.

When people say things like, “I’m going to the gym to get swol,” I just want to murder them, but to become one of these people I have to learn to accept them and their colloquialisms.

Other ponderings for 2014

I find that if I have multiple resolutions for the same year, I never accomplish any of them, hence my single New Years Resolution. I’ve spent most of the day thinking about changes I would like to see in my life in 2014. As an extrovert, this is weird for me, but I’m going with it. Other things that I want to change about my life in 2014 are:

Realize what I have control over

In 2014 I want to live under the knowledge that the only person that I can control is myself. There have been many things that I have worried about that are out of my control: traffic, issues with my co-workers, things my roommates do that annoy me, etc. I want to stop worrying about those things. I cannot control other people; I can only control myself.

In this same vein, if there’s something I can control, I should. For example, it bothers me when my apartment is not clean. Instead of waiting on my roommates to clean up their stuff, I should just clean it. It bothers me more that the apartment is not clean than that my roommates are not acting like adults.

Don’t put my value in what others think of me

This has always been a struggle of mine. I would like to find my value in myself, but I often reach for it in other’s praise. I want to be self-reliant. I want to not care what other people think of me.

Don’t wait until tomorrow

I have so many things that I push off into tomorrow Neverland that I should just deal with and not have to deal with again. There is always personal email that I mark as unread and think, I’ll deal with that eventually. I want to be the type of person who either deals with it or forgets about it.

Many times I find myself putting things off until tomorrow and they do not get done until weeks later. I want to get the things done so that I have time to do the fun things I would like to do.

These are my New Years ideas. What are yours?

10.13.13
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Commitment

I don’t know if it’s just me or all of my generation, but I feel like I can’t commit to anything in my personal life. I see people on TV all the time like the following video:

A friend of a friend was telling me about someone my age, working in the same field that I am, who dropped out of college and is making $40 an hour. I mean, I graduated college and I make $14 an hour. Why can’t I be that committed to something?

I try to commit to things, like this blog, but I end up with a half-dozen unfinished posts and no traffic. I feel like I start something and am excited about it, but never stay committed.

My grandfather seems to have this same problem. He is committed to his job as a pastor, but has so many unfinished projects in his life. He had a 90’s magenta Ford Taurus that was rear-ended and not worth fixing. He started to convert it into a mini-truck, building the parts out of wood. He called it his “truck-let,” but never finished it. There was a basement in our church that he was trying to convert into a game room. He got the ping-pong and pool tables all set up, then covered them in donated crap and never got around to sorting through the stuff, so turning game tables into just tables.

I just wish I could have half the dedication that some people do. I have committed to various things throughout the years. I tried to learn programming, but once I got an application to be barely functional, I basically gave up. I’ve tried to blog before, but just quit one day. I go on and off with my commitment to exercising.

Does anyone else feel the same way as I do?