Friends or Rock? Rock!

Life has been a little crazy lately . . . 3 jobs plus grad school is really a recipe for insanity. I have the best intentions of posting regularly and then . . . well various things get in the way. For example, I had a fully formed rant that I was going to post about Buddhism and how some Western practitioners of Buddhism subscribe to a religion they don't fully understand and how that cheapens not only Buddhism but religion as a whole - the practice of religion without full knowledge of its past and present context seems irresponsible to me, but then again I'm not a devout practitioner of any religion (precisely because I would want to be a responsible and engaged practitioner). Anyway, I was really quite peeved about the whole thing after a discussion in class and I got home all ready to type away and then I got sidetracked by paying bills (how mundane!) and forgot all about my post. So it goes.

At the moment I'm faced with a dilemma of an entirely different nature though. I just realized that a rock show that I've been planning on going to for months coincides with a friend's birthday barbecue party. So what do I do? Rock show or birthday BBQ? This wouldn't even be an issue but for the fact that the BBQ is for a particularly fickle friend - a fair weather friend who has failed to be a decent friend (let alone a good friend) time and time again. Usually I would say to myself, "Be the bigger person, don't let their treatment of you influence the type of friend you are to them." But you know what, I'm tired of that. I'm tired of being the bigger person. I want to go to the rock show - the rock never lets me down! Plus its not just any rock show, it's Tapes 'n Tapes. Now, lest you're thinking that I'm a terrible friend (or perhaps even a terrible person) let me clarify that if this were any other friend or any other band I would be choosing the BBQ party without even thinking twice. That's saying a lot coming from someone like myself who is completely indecisive and often has to think of things five, six, or seven times, not just twice.