Originally written April 18, 2006

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission is encouraging alcoholism.

No, I don’t think it’s in their mission statement, and I doubt they train officers to be so good at it. The TABC wants you to drink alone.

Cracking down on public intoxication in order to cut down on the number of driving while intoxicated offenses, the TABC has been monitoring patrons and bar owners with undercover officers. When Frank the Tank starts getting rowdy, the TABC officers conduct a sobriety test that will either land Frankie charges and a night in jail or prove once and for all that sucking on a penny works.

The problem with this system is how the officers determine who to test and when someone has actually become intoxicated enough to warrant charges. The law only defines a person as intoxicated when the individual is a danger to either himself or to others. Obviously, this leaves some room for interpretation. In some cases, the TABC has been accused of being too strict and cracking down unnecessarily.

What option does a law-abiding citizen have anymore to delve into the sauce?

Bars are out. Since most families would look down upon drunkards frequenting the local restaurants, we are left with house parties. Of course, since we can’t drive home intoxicated, by house parties, I am referring to alcoholic sleepovers.

Barring these slumber parties, unless your friends all live within walking distance, drinking at home usually means drinking alone. Through this rough syllogism then, the TABC is forcing us all to drink at home alone when we want to indulge. I don’t know if this sets off any bells and whistles for anyone else, but drinking alone is a fireworks show of a sign that alcohol is doing you dirty.

There are better ways to protect people on the road than random screenings at bars. The TABC tests people that already have designated drivers or those patrons that are planning to call a taxi all the same. Texas will become the only state that doesn’t allow people to drink in bars. If a guy wakes up from his stupor on the bar and tries to walk out to his car, I understand the TABC intervening to test him, but there is no reason to pull people out of the actual establishment and ruin their night. The person questioned by the TABC could have a perfectly responsible arrangement made for the night before drinking.

For now, TABC has ceased undercover operations until pressure from legislature and public sources has been settled. In the meantime, we can all enjoy the bars. If they do get the go ahead to continue in the future, I guess we should all look into 12-step programs unless MySpace starts serving alcohol.

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“Ponder an aneurysm.”

My eighth grade art teacher killed our lunchtime sugar highs when he said it. He went on to explain what an aneurysm was–a burst blood vessel that can strike anyone dead at anytime–as only the most optimistic artist could. An interesting way to say Carpe diem, but it’s true. What does it really mean to ponder an aneurysm? The lesson is simple–and highly lucrative.

In Alta, Calif., 32-year-old Jason Chellew was simply sitting at home on Friday, April 24, when a giant sinkhole opened up in his floor and swallowed him beneath the foundation. Sure, you could blame recent California rainfall and a possible underground mine shaft, but Chellew’s death leads some to think they should not sit at home at night–and others to ponder an aneurysm.

Death can creep up on us at anytime, and we don’t ever think about the unusual ways that we can find ourselves face-to-face with the darkly dressed dude. Writer Sherwood Anderson died of peritonitis after swallowing a toothpick at a cocktail party–that’ll kill your buzz. Attila the Hun died of a nosebleed on his wedding night. Note to self: Pack tissues and an emergency cell phone.

Like something out of the ever-accident-prone plot of Final Destination, Tennessee Williams choked to death on a nose spray bottle cap. On that same note, a helicopter blade decapitated horror filmmaker Michael Findlay. It makes you want to pull a Howard Hughes and start walking around in tissue boxes, but that’s life–or death.

Aeschylus, a Greek dramatist–but what else could you be with a name like that–died when a vulture mistook his bald dome for a stone and dropped a tortoise on it. I thought I was unlucky when birds targeted me with poopage. Aeschylus’ good pal 200 years later, Greek philosopher Chrysippus, died of laughter after seeing a donkey eating figs–a comedy routine so funny it’s outlawed in all 50 states. It’s no donkey show.

No one is safe from an unexpected death. King Bela I of Hungary died when his throne collapsed–think twice before ye sit high and mighty.

Were any of them pondering an aneurysm? Not likely.

Before you rush off to work, class or the couch for a very noteworthy afternoon of sitting, ponder an aneurysm. We never really know when our time will be up, and, depending upon your beliefs, you may never get the chance to live again. You don’t have to live in fear, but instead, embrace the fact that every moment is precious. As Brad Pitt so profoundly states as Achilles in Troy, our lives are made more beautiful and great by the fact that each moment, sight, or sound could our last.

It’s like the age old counselor question that the characters of Office Space ask each other: what would you do if you had a million dollars? Quite often, we get so caught up in our own lives and short-term goals that we forget our desires to see Stonehenge, visit the monks of Tibet, or pray in the Sistine Chapel. Ponder an aneurysm, and these goals can no longer be put off. Procrastinators beware!

Friends have told me that I take Carpe diem too much to heart by living the plenty-of-time-to-sleep-when-I-die lifestyle, but it makes sense when you ponder an aneurysm. Maybe my art teacher practiced a little tough love, but his message was only in our best interest. When you take “ponder an aneurysm” to heart, the phrase has the power to transform you as it did me–from a chattering middle schooler to a conscious dream seeker.

Death’s jokes always have bad comedic timing, so make sure you don’t live on his watch. Start each day by pondering an aneurysm.

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Written April 18, 2006. A news article on this same subject can be found here in The Daily Texan

I can’t wake up to my alarm clock anymore.

For five years, my Sony alarm clock served me well and woke me before every 8 a.m. class and exam–but no more. Ted at RadioShack assures me that the one I bought last week is the loudest one they sell–my housemates agree. Maybe I grew accustomed to the dependable beeping tone of my previous alarm clock. Maybe the alarm got quieter in its golden years. Maybe my former alarm clock simply sounds identical to the reversing construction equipment.

West Campus has turned into a block party for construction crews now that new zoning has allowed land owners to build high-rise apartments in the area. Developers pay more each day for land, and apartments go up faster than Starbucks locations.

It started with the Texan–a six-story mammoth of “luxury apartments” across the street that now blocks out the sun. A few months later, the Sterling complex showed up uninvited right next door to me. On that fateful day, I awoke to a cement breaker destroying what had been a parking lot next to us. Just to dispel any thought of efficiency about this cement breaker, it consists of a giant chisel-like column that a crane carries into the sky and drops onto the parking lot repeatedly to shatter it into pieces. From my second story bedroom, my entire world rattled each time it dropped. I expected my rent house, already passed its prime aesthetically and structurally, to collapse like a house of cards.

Along with construction came the beeping–construction crews must always drive their equipment in reverse.

At first, it tortured my housemates and me. We woke up and bickered about it as if the crews could hear us through our windows in the mornings and smothered our heads in pillows.

Several weeks later, the beeping, the banging and the sawing all became only background. We slept through it without tossing or turning. My previous alarm–may it rest in peace–lost its effectiveness and so did the beeps reminding us to change the batteries in our fire alarm.

Just as we had started to get used to the noise, the workers captured our backyard fence in the rubble. Without a fence, new sounds join the list of grievances. I went to the bathroom and heard voices outside–workers ducking under our external stairs to dodge the rain. The repetitive clang that woke me one Saturday–workers playing our horseshoes game in the backyard, or what used to be our backyard. When the construction workers finally put up a Rent-a-Fence, it cut our yard in half so that they could fit their gravel truck through.

I sometimes wake up at 9 a.m. to “La Cucaracha” on the horn of the taco dealer giving the construction workers their morning fix. She comes back at noon—so does the horn, and a gauntlet of workers sits on the railroad ties on both sides of our front walkway. When I leave for classes, I always want to run down the line and get high-fives like the announced starter for the Dallas Mavericks.

Even at night, the constant rustling of the paper attached to the siding they are putting up on Sterling eerily reminds us that out in the darkness, IT is waiting. Creepy. If only I could measure the decibel level to see if it warranted a noise complaint.

Now I realize that this construction is inevitable. Construction itself is not the problem, but the sheer amount of construction–on all sides of my current residence and many other locations throughout West Campus–makes it a disturbance to Austin’s “weird” community. With developers salivating to build apartments, land rates are skyrocketing and construction crews are matching the student population in West Campus. The Kappa Alpha Order’s second house sold for $4 million just so developers could tear it down. The location, far from the UT campus, is less valuable than most.

It is our own fault as West Campus residents. We encourage this rapid rush to build since every apartment that claims to be “the next big thing” with the best “luxury apartments” always fills up despite insane rent prices–that is, until the next one is built.

Almost three years ago, the talk of the apartment search community was the Villas on Guadalupe. Students signed pre-leases to live in the Villas almost a year in advance. Rent was higher than Snoop Dogg at about $1,000 a month per bedroom, and although some complained, they paid it.

The Texan put an end to that. With rent higher than the Villas, the Texan was full for this current school year before it even had walls while the Villas marketing team visited student organization meetings all last year searching for more tenants and dropped rent to somewhat sane numbers. The management was certainly probably caught off guard by how quickly the Villas aged in the life cycle of West Campus housing.

We all need to wise up. Whether the problem is the developers’ craze for new apartments or UT students’ desire to fill them, we will soon be competing to live in the highest ivory tower of West Campus. The residents, including myself, need to band together during this time of change and demand better treatment and lower rent prices. If none of us jump on the boat to live in the next mammoth dwelling, then the apartment companies will eventually have to come to their senses and drop pricing. On that same note, if we stop filling every apartment that goes up and providing an insane profit for the developers, maybe apartments won’t keep shooting up like weeds. Years from now, the greed of developers is sure to leave West Campus buried in a graveyard of old structures and faded dreams.

However, we have no neighborhood association. Every rogue element of West Campus has to fend for itself, and there is no stage for me to jump on, no soap box for me to occupy.

My advice: Ask for Ted and buy this new RadioShack alarm clock for $12.99. It’s going to be a loud next few years in West Campus, and unfortunately, all we can do is bunker down for the ride.

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