Burn On Sweet Fire

That's the title of one of the many romance novels, sitting atop one of the many piles of romance novels in the lunchroom at work. The cover of course, is a copy of a racy oil painting depicting a partially shirtless long-haired male clutching an open mouthed petite woman wearing a lacy old-timey dress. The peculiar and confusing thing about trashy romance novels is that the ending of the book is almost always given away on the cover. There is no point in reading one of these books. There is probably no point in writing these books either, but that is beside the point (If there even is a point here). My point is, piles upon piles of trashy romance novels can only mean one thing; someone at work is obviously very lonely. Somebody at work obviously doesn't have the unconscious ability to get themselves out of a rut, and probably hasn't for the past 30 years judging by the age and quantity of the books. Today happened to be the day that I unconsciously enabled my ability to unconsciously change myself, whilst driving home from work. Here's how it happened!

I'm an asshole. At least I have been lately. I'm also a really nice guy most of the time and I find myself jumping between these two phases about 6 times per year. I don't know what triggers the asshole phases. It's probably just a mechanism in defense of some wrongdoing, specific or not, that offended me just before the phase set in, or just a way to get out of a lull in action or "depressed" period. I put quotes around "depressed" to convey sarcasm. It's usually more boredom than depression. Either way, I get myself into these phases, and rarely notice the change. But as time goes by, my gut, like the innocent bystanders, starts to feel the effects of my own alter-ego. I was driving home from work earlier tonight and happened upon an illuminated church sign, you know, the kind with a clever message on the front. The one-liners seem to be just as important as the church service itself. If its not meant as an advertisement for the service, it's meant as a promotion of the church's message and is aimed the kind of person that drives more than they worship God. I am the latter.
This week's message:

Forbidden fruit causes many jams

If it weren't for the mood in my car created by the song that was playing, I probably would have thought something like "how can they never run out of those...Do they have books filled with clever church sign ideas"? But the song played on, and I started thinking about the message, and how It intertwined with one line of the song and how the two lines could be applied to my life right now.
Instead, I thought "I'm such an asshole!". The "forbidden fruit" had been eaten, and I am indeed in a little "jam".
On I drove, and on I thought.
Lately, people from my past have been casually contacting me, and I've been forced to sort through them in order to not make the same mistakes over again. There's a reason that I consider them "people from my past". The song is "fooled with the wrong guy" by Beulah and lyrics seem to fit my circumstances in an eerily literal fashion. (Although, the song sounds great under any circumstances).

The recent contacts served as the beginning of my phase shifting, the crafty church sign served as the realization of my current status, and the dark lyrics and overwhelming calm of the song that played in the car at the same time helped me realize that It was time for another change. The romance novel merely Served as a catchy title to this thread. Maybe sitting in the drivethru at McDonalds on the way home reminded me of a more simple time in my life, namely the summer after senior year when I still worked at McDonalds, practically had no job, had lots of friends who got along with eachother, many aquaintances, and all the time in the world. I could also get along with very little socialization skills. If only I could have what those church sign keepers have.
All in all, tonight's drive served as the denouement to my latest phase. I eventually got home, and being the nice guy that I am, fed the rest of my double cheeseburger to the cat. So far so good.