Monday, March 26, 2007

Eden (The fun before the Fall)

So on the way to Santa Barbara Cruz wanted to stop by the town he grew up in. I have to say that Hollister was a very different place than what I was used to. While we were there I saw someone who was growing pot in his own backyard. I was also at a party (at the place that I was staying) when the homeowner decided it would be a good idea to show me his piece (and not like "oh that's a cool pipe" piece, more like "holy shit is he really just waving that gun around?" piece). Good times. Also Cruz and his buddy got into an altercation at one of the fast food joints down the street (I think it was a DQ). But anyway, after two days in Hollister it was time to get to Santa Barbara so we could move into our new place with our two beautiful new roommates.

After moving in Cruz and I basically sat inside for the next couple of days (much to the chagrine of the roommates we were replacing). What can I say except that I was tired and wanted to read (I read like I was in college, I actually read even more than when I was in college I was going through thousand page novels in a day and a half. I also got into the habit of spending a lot of money. Partially because Cruz had none, and partially because I wanted to live it up in a new place. (In hindsight my biggest mistake was moving with someone who wasn't even twenty-one when I was already twenty-two. I'm kind of a shy guy, at least until I get to know people. Never been good about introducing myself, so bars were kind of lame for me. Well, really my biggest mistake was moving with Cruz, or maybe moving at all. Ah, never mind.) So I would go and buy a couple 20 packs of Bud Light (it's what the ladies liked) and we would have a grand old time. Also since I'd lost my social security card and was waiting for it to come in the mail I wasn't able to really get the ball rolling on getting a job. So lots of drinking, some pot smoking and lots of reading were how things started. Finally Cruz landed himself a job before I did. I was not happy about this. And then I learned about temp agencies. I went in on a Friday and had a job on Monday for AIG (you'll see their commercials on TV). And thus began my life in cubicles (although really my first cubicle job was when I was 14 and my brother and I worked in the accounting department at the Rainbow Casino in Wendover). I also worked on my book quite a bit. I would write while I was on the bus going to and from work and would even take quick breaks to jot down ideas or fragments of conversations that would come to me while doing whatever I was doing there.

About midway through August, and about a week after I started my new job, Kalei and Aften came down to visit. It was a great time, for the most part. You see I had already begun to regret my decision to move down to California and be so far away from friends, family, and my romantic interest (that trepidation actually began with the aforementioned gun waving scene.) So it was a magical week where we went into the California ocean. I took a day off of work so that I could take everyone to six flags. We walked up and down State Street just seeing the sites. A Ben Harper concert happened on one of the last nights (I loved living across the street from the Santa Barbara bowl, except the night that Rod Stewart came to town, but I bet my Aunt Debbie would be jealous.) It was just a great time with that feeling of new love filling me. Of course once the girls had gone things began to get a little bit harder. (I put my beginning of depression somewhere in the beginning of September, although it happened kind of gradually so it's hard to tell.)

So Kalei and I would talk on the phone at least once a night. Also I started smoking again after almost a year and a half of being nicotine free (alright, I had a couple of cigars and smoked a hookah in that time, but that was pleasure smoking, not addiction smoking.) I spent my free time writing and reading. I started a journal (which I kept diligently through the rest of my depression and then it kind of fell off, but it kind of coincided with the fact that I began to have a social life again, but I'm getting ahead of myself again.) I worked a lot, got to go swimming with the dolphins. Went to a Pepper concert (I would end up going to three in a one year span) all alone. It was really the only bar experience that I had. I went and then I had a beer. And then I was feeling poor so I decided to have an AMF. And it was the stiffest AMF I've ever had in my life. I was tore up by the time I finished that sucker. I called all sorts of people while I was there so that they could enjoy the concert too. Ah, I forgot to mention how much online poker I was playing. But when I got home I played a $30 buy-in game and and ended up winning over a hundred bucks (it was six players and the winnings were split between the top two people.) Anyway, despite the concert experience the thought of moving back to Oregon kept becoming more and more of a thing that I thought I should do as the month went on. So by the end of the month I had decided to move back to Oregon.

Kalei came up for her birthday at the end of September. I'd already decided that I was moving back, but not until the end of October. This trip wasn't quite as great (not so much because of Kalei but because I was spiraling into deeper depression by the day.) By the time Kalei left I was fairly despondent. I called in to work after she left. And then went to work for the next couple of days. And then I decided that I just couldn't take it anymore. But maybe I should backtrack a bit. After one month of working at AIG they decided that they wanted to hire me on as a full employee rather than a temp. I was reluctant but decided that it was for the best. It was about three weeks later when I decided that I just couldn't take it anymore and left in the middle of my shift never to return. Crazily enough they paid me my full two weeks pay (I'd only worked for four days.) And then the rest of October will be dealt with later because it leads into my return to Oregon. But one final thing. A little bit before Kalei came the second time it was my roommate Bella's birthday. We decided that we were going to do mud wrestling. So both of my roommates (Bella I had a crush on and Leslie was way hot) and me and Cruz got all mudded up that night. Even after showering I still had mud on me. But anyway, more next time as I return to the northwest and feel my sanity begin to slip away.