Rambling On

Eden (The fun before the Fall)

2007-03-26T20:26:00.000-07:00

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.

Summertime (it's when the living's easy) - Post Collegiate Depression Part 4

2007-01-10T19:07:00.000-08:00

So I graduated from college. I decided not to walk. Didn't want to make a big hullabaloo over a little thing like a bachelor's degree. So now that college was done it was time for me to go home. I ended up back at Kahneeta because, well, I needed the money. Life is expensive. The only thing was that it was not where I wanted to be. I wanted to be anywhere but there. I began putting in applications all over the world. Mostly just all over the country, but I put some applications in in Europe too.

All while this was going on I was doing my normal thing and doing what I could to enjoy life. Going to parties, hanging out with the friends. All in all I was really enjoying myself, even if I wasn't where I wanted to be. I just had to figure out where I wanted to be. So at one point my ex-girlfriend gave me a call and invited me to go to a wedding with her. I decided that that would be alright so I agreed to go. I guess later that night she called again, I was blacked out, and I agreed to hang out with her the Thursday before the wedding. Well that didn't happen (how could it, I don't even remember talking to her) and she got upset with me. She gave me one of those calls at like midnight where she refused to speak. Turns out I'm not very patient with people who call me up and then say nothing so I hung up on her. She proceeded to call me about 100 times over the next couple of days. Some people may think that I'm exaggerating, but I'm not; she seriously called me about every 5 minutes for the whole freaking weekend. So in the end I did not go to the wedding with her on Monday. I haven't seen her in years now, but she stills calls every couple of months, usually drunk, to ask if she can stay with me while she's in Portland. I say okay and then she doesn't come and the cycle starts all over again.

Soon after this my friend Cruz decided that he too wanted to move. He'd always wanted to live in Santa Barbara, so I told him I'd take a road trip down to Santa Barbara with him to see if I wanted to move there. Jake decided that he too would go with us on our road trip. So we went down to Santa Barbara on the 4th of July. A lot of fun is what it was. We stayed in a cheap hotel and drank an awful lot. I also met my future roommates and partied it up with them. Ah the beautiful girls of the Milpad. But more on them later.

After the trip was over my life began to get a little bit more complicated. And it all started with a trip to the Warped Tour. Well, it actually started when Jake broke up with his girlfriend Kalei a couple of months before. I'd always had a crush on her, but she was usually dating one of my friends. Makes it a little awkward to make a move. But after they broke up I decided that I would make a move. Unfortunately it was also at the time where I could finally make a move that I decided that I was moving to Santa Barbara. What happened was we got back from Santa Barbara and immediately had to go into work. So Cruz and I put in our notices that day. The next day at work I was lamenting the fact that I was going to have to miss the Warped Tour because it was happening at The Gorge. Well after work we went to a party at Kalei's house and found out that in the morning they were going to the Warped Tour in Portland (I never understood why it was so hit and miss as to whether there would be a Portland show or not, but 2004 was a hit.) So in the morning the road trip began. Jeremiah, Cruz, Jesse (Jeremiah's little brother), and I were in one car with Matt, Aften, Kalei, and I don't remember her name were in the other vehicle. We rocked some music and (due to cellular technology) kept good tabs on our fellow car. We eventually made it to the concert (I don't actually remember what the venue name is, this was before I lived in Portland remember).

While at the concert we were able to do all sorts of things. Cruz and I played ATV Offroad Fury 3 before it ever became available for sale (remember when Playstation was cool?). We also managed to smoke a joint (I had the papers, random guy without a piece had weed, together we had a good time). Flogging Molly were the best performers of the day. Atmosphere's free style was one of the worst I've ever heard, although the rest of the set was pretty good. It was cool to see NOFX too.

After the concert we decided that it'd be cool to stay in Portland for the night and go back to Madras in the morning. We were all trying to think of places to stay when it hit me, my sister lived in Hillsboro. And as an added bous she worked at a hotel (the hotel will come into play later on as well). So I gave her a call and she pulled some strings and said we could stay there at a discount. So after getting lost on the way there (Washington is the wrong way) we finally arrived in the lobby. So we checked in and went to our room. I called one bed and Jeremiah called the other. Kalei said she wanted to sleep with me (not really so much because she liked me but more because Jeremiah had been trying to date and had gotten a little overbearing about it). Next it was time to get some beer and food. So girl whose name I don't remember and I went to the store and got way more beer than we could even drink in a night. Later the other guys went out to get a ridiculous amount of food. After drinking some and gorging ourselves, as well as smoking another joint (while I was on the phone with my sister who asked me as a special favor to not do drugs at the hotel), it was time to go to bed. So we went to sleep. So Kalei and I slept in the spoon position and the only interruption was me rolling over and smacking her in the face. Also early in the morning I woke up and was extremely thirsty. I found a cup with water already in it and took a swig. It tasted awful and so I poured it out, rinsed out the cup, and got myself some proper water. In the morning Kalei was quite distressed by the fact that she couldn't find her contacts. It then dawned on me that I'd drank the saline solution and then poured her contacts down the drain. We checked out and headed back home.

So the rest of the month was a sort of blur of partying and work. Most of the partying happened at Aften's place, but there were various other parties that were memorable. Like Jake's 21st birthday at Cruz's sister's house. Everyone had a good time (except Kalei who was still dealing with getting over Jake and drank until she passed out on a couch, and Mike Meeves who had to be asked to leave for acting like an idiot). Then there was mine and Cruz's going awa party in Jeremiah's shed. I had an awesome time, so awesome in fact that I got drunk enough that I left my wallet somewhere and it was stolen. This was less than a week before I was supposed to move to Santa Barbara and find a job. A very difficult thing to do without a social security card. The night after the going away party (maybe two night's) we attended yet another party. Cruz and I decided that it was a water only affair (summer binges make you dehydrated and it's good to take a night to recover). Just after midnight Kalei asked me if I wanted to go back to Aften's place (where she had her own bed) and I of course accepted her offer. Also after midnight it was my birthday. So happy birthday to me I got with a hot girl just days before moving out of the state. I'd say it was bittersweet. I pretty much tried to spend the rest of my time in Madras hanging out with Kalei, which became awkward only on the night that I met up with Jake and I made a point of not mentioning that Kalei and I had gotten involved.

Then, two days before the end of July (and after a to Corvallis to say goodbye to Stever and Marjorie) Cruz and I set out for Santa Barbara.

Spring Term (Post Collegiate Depression Part 3)

2006-05-31T21:50:00.000-07:00

I came back from Utah in good spirit. It was my final term of college and I was ready to enjoy myself. The only problem was that I'd planned on already being graduated, and having a source of income. So I had to get a job. And i did, as a waiter at a horrible little restaurant called The headwaters or some such nonsense.

I began the term by taking 12 credits. All fun classes. I had three english classes, a ballroom dancing class, a colloquiom on the philosophy of time, and a poetry class.

I spent most of my free time over at Stever and Marjie's place drinking and smoking to my hearts content. When I wasn't there I was often at home reading and smoking weed and playing video games. There was also an awful lot of poker being played. I actually did pretty well as far as the poker was concerned, most likely because I was playing with the same people every night and it became very easy to read just what they were going to do. I still lost at times, but I won enough that whenever I wanted to play that there was someone around who owed me a buy-in.

So after i began working, it was around the third or fourth week of the term, my boss began working me a lot. I kept telling him that I was here for school and that this was just to get me spending money, but he just kept working me more and more. I would tell him in the morning that I would have to be off by 10 in order to make it to my eleven o' clock class. And then he would let the three hot girls go home and leave me alone serving the entire restaurant. After about two weeks of this I was down to seven credits (I only needed three to graduate). Yet even after I gave part of my school time away I refused to give away my friend time. At this point I knew that something had to give. I refused to drop any more classes, I enjoyed them entirely too much, and it was my last term at college so I wasn't going to give up my friends. So one I night I called and sad that I wasn't going to be in in the morning or ever again.

So I had four more weeks to kill and all sorts of free time. I spent a lot of it at the computer lab playing online poker and writing the beginning of what would become my novel. I also talked to my parents and assured them that even though I was graduating that I didn't want to walk (for reasons of cost, but also because I'm saving that for when I get my masters degree). I had the time that I needed so that I read like a madman. Things for my classes, things for fun. I had time to go on roadtrips with Dennis down to Eugene to visit Jeremiah.

I knew that the summer was coming soon, and I've haven't had a summer in recent memory, or maybe ever, that wasn't so filled with events that I was just left completely exhausted and burnt out by the end. SO I enjoyed my leisure and passed all of my classes. I said my goodbyes to everybody and I headed back home. My brother was there, he had moved home from Utah (made it so that Utah was no longer my plan). I would work at Kahneeta, but then, that's the beginning of another story.

Spring Break - My Possible Future (Post-Collegiate Depression Part 2)

2006-03-07T11:24:00.000-08:00

So I went to work at Kah-Nee-Ta for one day. I put in a sixteen hour day so that it would pay for a pretty good chunk of my trip. (My mom had convinced me to go to Utah instead of Mexico by saying that she would pay for half of the plane ticket, plus all of my friends bailed on the Mexico trip yet again.)

Marie Kay was upset because I was not going to be working at all during the next week (I was working on the Saturday that Spring Break started and was leaving on Sunday). "You're killing me Kellan," she would constantly say. Throughout our whole time working together I let her think that she had some sort of control over what I was doing. She was very upset when I shattered that assumption and let her know that all along I was doing what she wanted because it aligned with my goals. The second her wishes conflicted with my goals, well, obviously I don't work there anymore. That was the last day that I ever worked for her, even though I went back to work at Kah-Nee-Ta, but more on that later.

So after my one day of work, I was pretty annoyed because I really wasn't needed that day. It made it easier for everyone else, but it was nowhere near as busy as Marie Kay had made it sound like it would be. So I went out partying that night with my friends because it was the only night I could hang out with them during Spring Break. In the morning my Dad took me to Government Camp and passed me off to my sister. She then took me to the airport and I was on my way to Utah.

On the plane I read "The Natural" by Bernard Malamud. Let me tell you that this book is amazing. If you've ever seen the movie, well, I can't even tell you how angry watching the movie made me. Totally different ending. I mean, I understand that some things need to change because it is a different art form. But changing the ending changes the essence of the story. Anyway, just the fact that I got to read "The Natural", plus sitting next to a hottie on the charter from Portland to Seattle, made it so I love flying. Yeah for planes.

My brother picked me up at the Las Vegas airport with our buddy Mikey. Mikey had a cast on, "Let me tell you that you DO want to rent the wrist brace for snowboarding." It made for good jokes all week, especially when people would accidentally use his scratching fork. Gross, but funny.

One of my purposes for coming to visit was to see whether or not I wanted to move to Cedar City upon graduating. Let me tell you my first impression of my brother's place was the first sign that I wanted the answer to be yes. You see, as I arrived there were people drinking. "Kellan," yelled the ones who had met me before. "You have arrived at the perfect time my friend. For you see, we have just bought a case of Everclear. We proceeded to drink the night away, while my brother sat in his room and played video games. But that is best left for an entirely seperate blog that I'll probably never write.

I had an amazing week. I hung out with all the guys and there were hot girls aplenty. One was even hitting on me a whole bunch, but I was a little wierded out by the fact that she'd dated my brother. I'd probably be a lot more successful with women if I didn't let that type of stuff get to me, but the girls down there really just saw me as a drinking version of my brother. You know, just way more social and willing to do things. Plus it was a lot of fun to be hanging out with my peeps, a whole slew of jack-mormons. It was amazing how easily I fit in, or maybe not so amazing, I'm not really sure.

There was snowboarding, going out to the bar, watching movies. This was my introduction to "Boondock Saints" as well as "Firefly". Shooting beer bottles in the back yard with an air rifle and attending parties. Going to the tattoo shop - I think I remember Mikey getting something pierced, I'm assuming an ear. I love that crazy guy.

And when it was time to go home I had decided that I would be moving to Cedar City from Corvallis. What changed? Tune in next time as I finish college and head further down the path of instability.

Post-Collegiate Depression - Part 1

2006-02-22T15:30:00.000-08:00

It all started in the Winter Term of my final year of college. Because before that term I had things all figured out. I had a plan for what was going to happen to me after college. It was easy. I would graduate at the end of term, go on my spring break trip to Mexico, and then come back to a promotion at my summer job. I would work full-time (plus some) and pay off the debt that I had accrued at college.

This plan was quickly derailed in the course of one week. Plus something happened to me during the term, I'm not exactly sure when it was, although I can remember the moment. I was at Stever and Marjorie's place hanging out. I walked into the kitchen to throw a piece of trash away and it hit me. I thought of myself as a writer. That was what I wanted to do with myself. Now my summer job was waiting tables. I was set-up to be a supervisor upon graduation. Then I went to work on Valentine's day.

(A quick aside. There may have also been a girl that I really like that I went on a date with the Thursday before Valentine's Day that may have affected my wishes to move back to Central Oregon. There was only one date, but I didn't know that that was what was happening until later. And good luck getting that story out of me. Turns out I'm something of a moron.)

I went back to work at Kah-Nee-Ta for a weekend. The whole time on the way back I was complaining about how I didn't really even want to work. How I couldn't believe that I'd ever agreed to such a purely preposterous proposition (alliteration is funny). So I worked the whole weekend, I got like 24 in two days or some such nonsense. I was not enjoying myself at all while it was happening.

(Another quick aside. I loved my job at Kah-Nee-Ta. I mean I loved it so much. I was good at it, heck, I was great at it. But then, well, that's what I'm explaining isn't it.)

So towards the end of it all, it's like noon on Sunday and right after work Dennis and I were headed back over the mountain to school, I start talking about the upcoming spring break trip. You see my friends and I scheduled a spring break trip to Mexico every year and never went. So I was trying to get everyone to go this year because it was my final spring break. Some of the guys, the guys who worked at the resort all year long, said they couldn't go because the boss had them working that whole week. Later she overheard me talking to other people and she let me know that I too would be working the whole week of spring break. I let her know that I would not be doing that. Then Dennis and I returned to school.

It was at that moment when my boss, who I'd had a crush on since I'd started working there three years earlier, put my spring break at jeopardy that I decided that I would never work for her again. (I did work for her again, for one more day, to help pay for my spring break trip.) So I went back to school intent on not having my future be out at the resort. I went to the career fair, the only booth that interested me was the Peace Corps booth, and began to apply for jobs in the Corvallis area. I also spoke with my advisors about staying for one extra term (really it was just not graduating early, but now I feel like I'm bragging).

The Peace Corps thing went well until they found out I didn't have any community service hours at during my collegiate experience. It was hard to fit that in with my constant drinking and smoking, plus the homework and the working on odd weekends. Plus road trips and nights of poker. Video games and movies. I mean I could have done some, I guess, but I didn't. So it was decided that I wasn't going to the Peace Corp. (I'd be about one year in right now if I'd gone.)

Shortly after the career fair I called my boss, Marie Kay, and let her know that I would not be starting full time at the end of the term, instead I was going to stay at school for one more term and enjoy the end of my college experience. I had no plans for what I would be doing after college, when all through college I knew exactly where I was going. It was at this point that I began drifting. I just didn't know it yet.

To be continued...

My Life is Boring

2006-02-20T11:03:00.000-08:00

So I thought that I'd give a little bit of an update as to what has been going on in my life. Not that there's much news, but I find that once I start writing this type of thing that there is way more news than I could have imagined.

First big piece of news isn't really mine, it's my brother's news. He is getting married in June. Within fifteen minutes of hearing the news I'd already heard three different people (my brother, my mom, and my dad) crack jokes about how now the pressure is on for me. I don't think they're very funny.

I am still working for Wells Fargo in a shitty dead end job. It would be different if I was actually hired on by the company, but I'm still just a temp. Hopefully my employment takes a turn for the better in the near future.

Lately I have been spending a lot of time delving into the world of comic books. It's been a lot of fun, but a tad spendy. I really needed some sort of hobby though, and why not go back to one that I loved so much as a kid? Been having some ideas for my own comic bouncing around in my head. We'll see what comes of it, especially since my four year-old niece draws better than I do. My new favorite comic writer and artist is Jim Mahfood. Maybe it's just because his company is called 40 oz comics, or maybe it's that his characters drink and smoke like I do. Who knows?

My novel that I "finished" back in October has finally begun making it's rounds. So far four people have finished it and I've interrogated two of them. The other two should know that at some point I'm going to give a call and ask some odd questions. I also have a couple of other people that I'm supposed to send the book to. Hopefully I'll have it really finished before the end of the year. I already know that there needs to be some pretty significant changes.

I'm still waiting on the t-shirt that Abel said he'd make me. It's going to be a good one. He's doing it to make fun of this very blog. Oh, how exciting.

The internet is working at home again. I'm quite excited about it. Now I'll be able to actually check my e-mail on a regular basis.

And that is the update of my currently not so exciting life. But then the fun part is that I have no idea what this week will bring. Maybe something fun and exciting, or maybe me playing too much video games and reading a bunch of comics. Either way I'm sure I'll enjoy myself.

Justin - or a study in inaction

2006-02-09T15:57:00.000-08:00

I once knew a man who did nothing but burn bridges. It wasn't an active burning of bridges so much as he just refused to put out the flames once they had started. He could have, but at the same time he'd rather be alone on an island than take the effort to put out them flames.

I first met him as he was trying to reaquire a group that he could belong to. You see he had had a falling out with a group of people and refused to associate with any of them (he only had a problem with a couple of the people, but as the group tended to hang out with those two people he was left unable to hang out with any of the group anymore). I actually knew the group he'd had a falling out with but I rarely associated with them (I see them more now, not sure why).

So we began to hang out and had a pretty good time together. Did all sorts of stuff, I mean we were hanging out almost every day. Parties and bars and drugs and runs to the corner store. Movies and video games and even a camping trip. I once wrote a story about a camping trip that I took my freshman year in college. The story moves on to tell how that group of people that had such an amazing time camping eventually fell apart. I could retell that story of Crater Lake except substitute the people from freshman year for the people that I met this year. But instead I'll just concentrate on the one, the rest of them are way too depressing to talk about too much.

So you are probably asking yourself how it all fell apart. And I will tell you. It wasn't all his fault, nothing ever is, but inaction is a choice that people make and it was his inability to choose a course of action that led him away from the group. My first sign that things were not going to end well was when I first began to hang out with Pauline. It's all coming back to me that this is why I began to hang out with the group that he no longer did. I'd known them all since college, but Pauline was new to me so I started hanging out with them more often. Which meant that buddy boy, Justin, refused to come and hang out when they were around, equating to me seeing less of him. You see, he could have tried to make amends with his former friends, they wanted to reconcile with him, but he refused. He took their stoner move as a stab in the back. Admittedly they missed his birthday, which I would be super pissed about too, but not so pissed as to ostracize myself from them.

Fast forward to a few months later and we still hang out, but not quite as much. I basically come home from work every day to Jemma and Justin, with an occasional Rachelle or Roman thrown in there, sitting in my living room smoking pot. I didn't know it, none of us did (maybe we would have if our minds weren't so clouded by the smoke) but this little set-up spelled trouble. You see (just an aside here, my readership is very small, I'm guessing around three or four people will actually set eyes on this, but I'm practicing for the future so I'm actually trying to explain as much as I feel is necessary for a person who knows nothing about me and my friends to understand what the hell I'm talking. Also, thank you to you three or four readers.) Jemma was dating Abel. But Justin and her were developing a friendship. Not that there is anything wrong with that, just you should always remember when making friends with the opposite sex you have to make sure to be on the signifacant other's good side.

So what happened? Well Jemma and Abel broke up. Which meant that Jemma was no longer able to greet me at home with offerings of marijuana. Which meant that Justin was no longer around with offerings of marijuana. Which was fine. It does not bother me to come home to an empty quiet house, it just means I get to read in piece. But it meant that Justin and Jemma were now hanging out, unchaperoned, outside of our pad. This in itself is not a crime, the transgression comes later.

I actually talked with Justin a little bit after the break-up. I remember telling him to be careful after he told me he was going to continue hanging out with Jemma. You see I knew that I didn't want to even mess with that. I'd done it once before, sorry Jake, and definitely took things farther than Justin did, but when I was confronted I didn't piddle around and put off confrontation. Okay maybe a bit but I'm getting sidetracked here, not everything is about ME you know.

Abel and Justin had a talk too. Abel laid down some very simple rules for Justin. I don't actually know what the rules were, but I'm fairly certain that they wouldn't be too hard to stick to. Anyway, one night Abel and Dennis and I are drinking. We decide to invite over Adam and Casey. Abel asked me if I'd talked to Justin lately. I said it had been over a week. Abel said that he'd been trying to get ahold of him for three or four days without any sort of success.
(Here's a good time to explain a fine point in dealing with ex-boyfriend's. If you are their friend, and are hanging out with their ex-girlfriend and your friend calls, you should answer the phone. If you are unable to, too stoned, drunk, in a movie, coitus, whatever, then you should call them back. That same day. If you don't then you are guilty until proven innocent. We're not the American Justice system here, we're a bunch of confused young adults who need to do everything we can to look out for ourselves.)

So Casey and Abel have a little talk. I still don't know the details of the talk. I just know that Abel came out of that conversation with a look of rage in his eye, achilles style rage. It had a been a really long time since I'd heard him yell like that. And he hasn't done it since, I'm sure he will, because that's part of who he is. And, unfortunately, Abel called up Justin at around 1:30 in the morning and proceeded to yell most furiously at his voice mail. I tried to explain that Justin would be sleeping and it would probably be best to talk to him in the morning, but then Abel reminded me of the calls that Justin had already refused to return. So Abel yelled mean threats at Justin and declared that he was banned from stepping foot in our apartment. I would have protested if I had not already banned a couple of other people from ever stepping foot in my residence. So instead I just understood where he was coming from and went with it.

I visited Justin once after this happened. The point was for me to go and talk to him and urge him to speak with Abel so they could get the whole stupid thing behind them. But inaction was what Justin wanted to go with. He sat and watched as his bridges burned. He was now out of the group. He had Jemma and her cohort as part of his new pseudo-group, but unfortunately for him Jemma reappeared as a character at our apartment.

The really quick break-down is that Abel and Jemma broke-up. This caused Justin to be banished. Does it make any sense, no, of course it doesn't. But that's what happened. If he ever wanted to get a beer, I'd probably do it. But he sure has made it hard for me to be able to hang out with. I'm a group jumper and he is now not allowed around two of the groups. It's just too bad it had to go down like that.

Using People

2006-02-01T15:34:00.000-08:00

I've seen these survey's on the internet that people fill out. And some of them ask the question, "Have you ever used somebody?" And everybody always says "no". What type of bullshit is this. I mean, do people just not realize what they're doing as they use people? Do they lie to themselves as well as the world. Because obviously everybody uses people. So I'm letting everybody know that I use you. But that should be okay because I know that you use me too.

Por ejemplo. This weekend I am going to use Will. I've already discussed it with him and he seems okay with it. You see it is Superbowl Weekend and Will owns a big screen high definition television. I do not own such a quality piece of electronics. So, I am going to go to Will's apartment on Superbowl Sunday and watch the game. Now he lives in a small apartment with extremely limited seating, so he is going to use the fact that I have four foldable chairs. You see it is a give and take. I use him, he uses me. We both end up happy.

Now that may be a bit of a simplification, so I'll give another example. Someone breaks up with you and you're all "Woe is me, woe is me, I feel like crap and I need to do something to make myself feel better" (I actually do feel sympathy for both sides of a break-up, but that totally clashes with the tone of this piece, so let the sarcasm reign). And so you go out and find that hot little something to comfort you for a while until your self-esteem is back to its normal level where you can be okay with being single. You're totally using that person. And do you know what, that's okay, because most people let that person know. They don't usually just come right out and say, "I'm only going ot be doing this for a little while so enjoy it while you can," but they say it in code. You know, "I just went through a really tough break-up" or "I'm not quite over my ex yet." People drop those hints, and people know that it is like someone flashing a big fat warning sign saying, "At the end of this you are going to be hurt because I don't like YOU, I just like how you make me feel right now." At the same time it isn't like the "victim" isn't having a great time. The guilt free sex, the seemingly never-ending honeymoon period where your love feels like something out of a Hollywood romance. I mean, you're using the other person too.

So my point is that everybody is constantly using everyone else for their own reasons. And this is okay, and I think everybody should be conscious of the various ways that they are using people. Because it is when people become truly careless, or maybe callous, that people begin to get really hurt by being used. It's okay to call up a friend that you know doesn't mind being the designated driver, but you should probably call them other times as well. It's alright to use your friend's big screen TV, just make sure that you let them use your chairs. It;s alright to use someone to make yourself feel better, just don't be too angry when someone does it to you. And always remember the time that you're the most dangerous is when you think that you aren't using someone at all.

Marijuana

2006-01-25T11:32:00.000-08:00

Marijuana

I wrote a piece on why people drink. So I thought that I might as well write a piece on why people smoke pot. Or really why I smoke pot, because I just assume that most people do it for the same reason that I do. I'm sure that there are many reasons to smoke, but here's my attempt at an answer that encompasses the many different reasons.

The reality of life is a hard thing to deal with. Sometimes you look at your life and you weren't where you planned to be at. Things didn't work out with that girl, or I'm working a dead end job, or my grandmother is nearing the end of her mortal existence. These are things that are just hard to take. Some of them you can change, and some of them you can't. But even the things that you can change can sometimes take a lot of time. And what are you supposed to do in the interim? While you're reality becomes more and more difficult to deal with? You change your reality temporarily.

I remember an episode of "South Park" where they did an excellent job of explaining what it is that marijuana really does to you. It makes you okay with doing nothing. Not to say that this is a positive thing, because it is usually better to do something. But sometimes that is just what you need, to be alright with doing nothing.

You come home from a long day at work, customers complaining, bosses getting on your case, your monitor explodes. It can all be a little bit frustrating. And it doesn't stop until you reach the age of retirement (thanks to Bush it'll end up being like 90). So you sit down, smoke a bowl, and suddenly you don't feel frustrated anymore. You sit there content to just watch a little bit of television, read some comic books, and spend sometime in a warped reality.

Now, I make it sound as though pot is merely a coping mechanism, which is not true at all. At least not moreso than anything else. Because as the THC enters your brain causing dopamine to be released ("I'm high as a kite") and that wierd membrane develops that causes you're synapses to fire at a slightly slower rate ("I forget words") all you're doing is finding a way to take your mind off of the worries at hand. The same could be said for people that go to the movies. They sit their for two hours, or three if you like Peter Jackson, and let themselves become enveloped in an alternate reality until the credits roll. They forget about their lives for that time and it is wonderful. And people have all sorts of things that they use to escape reality, just for a small time.

So it comes down to this. Marijuana is just another way of enjoying our short time here on Earth, and also a way of dealing with the times that make existence seem unbearable.

Drinking and Freedom; my first post-collegiate essay

2006-01-16T20:20:00.000-08:00

Freedom and drinking

I am a drinker. Everybody knows this. Not everybody understands why I drink. Especially since I was such a good Mormon boy. But it has to do with freedom. Freedom is a powerful thing. Something that many people take for granted. But freedom is something that is scary, for so many reasons. But I think that the biggest reason is that it leaves us to make our own choices, our own decisions.

I come from a good Mormon family. None of my siblings drink or smoke. There has never been a drop of alcohol brought into to my parents place that wasn't brought by me (or the people that I associate with, but that kind of just me through proxy). The thing is that it isn't really a choice any of them made. Their choice was their religion. Once they decided that they wanted to stick with their religion they didn't have to make that decision. They follow the rules of the church. By making one choice they forgoe the necessity of making so many others.

I am no longer a good Mormon boy. I chose a different path. I chose to be a drinker. I chose to be a smoker. Nobody made me. Nobody even pressured me. And maybe I made that choice because as soon as I didn't have my religion to make my rules anymore I needed to have something else to help limit my possibilities.

When a relationship ends it seems to be that people tend to drink. People say that it is to drown their sorrows (which may be true but I think it's more). What has just happened is that they were just handed back their freedom. All of the sudden any girl that you meet is a potential candidate for your next girlfriend. You know that because you're relationship is over you are going to have to look at all of these different people and decide on just one. It's a pretty heavy proposition.

But you may be asking what drinking has to do with freedom at all. People drink to forget, or to have a good time, but really they drink so that they don't have to make choices. As your alcohol intake increases over the night you begin to lose inhibitions. In the beginnning they are mostly there and you act like you normally would. (I apologize but I'm going to make an attempt at a psychoanalytic reading here) As you continue on you begin to lose a sense of your ego. It shrinks, replaced by a more powerful id. Even the superego begins to take a more subservient position. It is no longer you that are making the choices for the night. You begin to merely react to what is happening around you by pure instinct. I once had a professor in college explain the id to me. He said it's that feeling you get when you look at a girl and want to just tear off her clothes and have her right there. It is only the ego, (roughly you're own sense of right and wrong), and the superego (everyone else at the party knowing that it's not alright for you to just do that right there) that stops you. Once you drink it is the id that has taken over. It is why people wake up in the morning with the feeling they would rather gnaw their arm off and run away than wake the beastly girl up. It is why you get with an ex after a night of hard drinking when you never would have when you were sober. It is why people run around downtown Portland on a spree of destruction. Because they have freed themselves of having to make decisions. Their one decision, to go out drinking tonight, decides the rest for them. The loss of inhibitions is also a loss of choice.

So freedom, and drinking, are a perfect match. We have a freedom in America, and a long history of alchol abuse. Although some of the forefathers wanted us to be a wine-drinking nation (yeah, that's right, Thomas Jefferson wanted us to be more like the French) others have had beers named after them (Samuel Adams). When people were moving west, and they had to drop weight from their wagons and carts they knew that it was preposterous to choose to lose the alcohol. They would throw out family heirlooms and priceless possessions first. Only at the last moment, when they had to, it was no longer a choice, would they get rid of the alcohol. And like any American would, instead of just throwing it out, they would have giant parties that would last until all of the alcohol had been consumed. Crazy debauchery always ensued.

So next time you go out drinking, just remember, all that you're doing is stopping yourself from dealing with the pain that comes with making decisions. And being a true American.

New Year's Eve; or Bored and On Hold

2006-01-06T10:31:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: Me and my friends do bad things. Then, after all the bad things have happened I write them down because I think they make good stories. Some people may not be happy with how they are represented here, but that's too bad because it's my story. Plus stories aren't too fun when people are careful with their words.

I awoke early that morning. I had managed to get to bed before midnight the night before; and it was a Friday too, it was almost mind-boggling to get to bed so early. But I awoke and began to be productive. I spent the early part of my day doing laundry. Boring, but clean clothes are good to have. Anyway, I was just keeping myself busy until it was time to start the preperation for the party.

Dennis showed up at about noon and was trying to rush me along, but I made him wait until I was done with laundry before we could start. I mean, people weren't really going to arrive for this shindig until at least 8 pm, so why rush me at noon? I finished my laundry, took a shower, and then got dressed in my party clothes (there'll be more on this later). After Dennis had showered and changed as well (and he was rushing me?) it was finally time to head to the liquor store.

At the liquor store there was a line that wnet all around the store, but at least this year the line stayed in side the store. We got a fifth of Jager 1/5, a half gallon of vodka, a fifth of Kahlua, a fifth of Bailey's, a half gallon of rum, a half gallon of gin, some Kahlua chocolates, four shot glasses, and a pack of cigarettes. There may have been more, and there propbably was, but that's all that I can remember. That cost us about $150.00. Not exactly chump change but hey, we needed liquor for the party.

Our next stop was a bank so I could get some cash out and give it to Dennis; he was being generous enough to put the hotel rooms on his card so I figured I should try to reimburse him as soon as possible. And then we made our way downtown in an attempt to meet up with Will. When we made it to his place we called him, but he wouldn't answer his phone, so we decided that we should go grocery shopping instead.

Now at Safeway, a store that I truly dislike but I'll leave that for another time, we began to shop for various items. First was beer and mixers, and then came the food. All in all we spent about an hour and $70.00 at Safeway. We then attempted to push the cart back to our car, but they have that fancy shopping cart theft prevention device that makes it so the cart won't roll if you try to take it across the street. I thought it was pretty lame, we had every intention of bringing the cart back when we were done with it. Instead Dennis and I had to carry a case of Pabst each, then 4 2-liter cokes, 2 2-liter tonic waters, 2 bottles of champagne, a whole bunch of food. Well, it was a pretty damn annoying trip to the car, we both had to take a break half way and readjust our bags. We had an hour until it was time to check into the hotel so we had a quick bite to eat and then decided to go check in a little early.

I wish I had a copy of the party waiver that they made Dennis sign, but I don't. It basically said that you wouldn't throw a party of more than six people to a room (that meant we were allowed to have twelve) and if you broke the rules they would kick you out and still keep your money. So we headed upstairs to check out the rooms.

A small aside: I experienced the most narcissistic moment of my entire existence when we were first walking out of the elevator towards our room. There was a mirror across the way and I was looking at myself in my suit jacket and tie and nice pants and I'd shaved that day (still had the mustache and goatee, but no annoying sideburns). All I could think was, "My God, you're a slick looking motherfucker." It was difficult for me to stop staring at myself. And I know you're gonna think that that is horrible, but hey, I did let you know that this was the peak of my narcissism. Usually I look into the mirror and try to do everything I can to get away from the image, or at least I don't care what it looks like. I think me and suits is a kind of scary combination. I'm going to have to be careful in the future.

When we entered the first room I have to admit I was a little disappointed. It was much smaller than I expected, and the two full beds took up way too much room. But then we decided to go to the other room. It was adjoining, the desk clerk had told us that they weren't, but we still had to go around to get into the room. Any disappointment that I felt from the first room was made up for when I walked into the second room. This room was on the corner of the building and was much larger. To give us even more room later on we took apart one of the double beds and placed it on top of the other one. It made for a very bouncy time, but I digress because that happened later. After checking out the rooms, and making sure that the door connecting the two rooms would stay open (thank you hotel stationary), Dennis and I began to bring up the supplies. It only took us two trips, well three because we missed the party platter but Dennis did that way later in the night. We took a while to fill up both bathroom sinks with ice and put the Jager and champagne in them. Dennis put plastic bags over the smoke detectors so that the cigarette smoke would not set them off, I thought that it was both funny and very safe, especially since a fire seemed entirely possible on this type of night.

After setting everything up Dennis took a nap and I watched Tommy Boy. I called a couple of people, and Dennis would get the occasional phone call as well. I have to say that it was a fairly boring two hour period. So I'll just skip to the part where people began to arrive.

Abel showed up with one of his friends from work, I'm not sure of his name but I think he was a Brandon. It was at this point that we moved the bed to have room for a dance floor. We broke into the booze to really get our night started. Will and Desi showed up a little bit later, Desi seemed to be a big fan of the giant bed that we had built, it seemed like she was up there for most of the night, although I do remember being in other spots as well. After this the details begin to get fuzzy, so I'll just tell it in the order I remember things rather than in chronological order because I'm too lazy to do the research.

Throughout the night there were a lot of people that showed up, as far as I remember everybody came before midnight. There was well, too many people to list, and people were constantly coming in and out of the party, but that's how parties go. Anyway, let's get to the highlights.

One girl, Jennifer, got so drunk that at one point I turned around and she was laying against one of the beds in the smaller room. Her shirt was up around her head and I think she was laughing. Later in the night her and some guy spent considerable time in the bathroom. Other people were not very happy because someone was in the other bathroom at the same time. I thought it was funny.

Arun gave Abel a call, and a mission, to drink a drink for every letter in his full name. Arun Chandra Srivastiva. 21 drinks. And Abel did it. There were a couple of times where we weren't sure whether or not he would, but he did it. He also spent the majority of his night in his boxers. He would have been full on nude, and in the middle of the hallway, if it hadn't been for Dennis. Instead everybody had to settle for watching Abel attempt a backflip, I wasn't actually there for that. His attempt did not work, and everyone said it looked like it hurt really bad but Abel said he had no back or neck pain in the morning, so go figure. He also spent a considerable amount of time wrestling his friend, I could of swore his name was Brandon. Later Brandon passed out, before midnight. He woke up with a ridiculous amount of writing on him. I'm sure he was just glad that we didn't have any permanent markers. But back to Abel. I remember at one point he was dancing with the beautiful Ann, which reminds me that I too was dancing with a beautiful girl (but more on that later). All in all I think Abel enjoyed himself, and helped everyone else to enjoy the party. One more quick note, he barely remembers the New Year happening (admittedly he was about 17 drinks deep at this point) but also because he was in the restroom skiing with Dennis and Aaron. It would of been really funny if Cream was playing in the background. Oh yah, what a party.

Hmm, now how about me. I had a great time. But as I think back on it although I enjoyed myself immensely it would be ridiculously boring to recount the things that happened to me. They're only exciting from my perspective, and not from yours. Besides, it's party of a story to be told at a later time.

Back to more highlights. How about when Morningstar (how's that for a name with some meaning) tried to fight Kalei. In retrospect that shit cracks me up. So Kalei, Jessie, and I were laying in bed talking about Christmas when all of the sudden Morningstar jumped up. "You talking shit bitch?" Dennis jumped up just as quickly and blocked her from bum rushing the bed. We were all taken aback at this. I'm still not sure what Morningstar thought she heard, but I swear to GOd that I was in the middle of talking about my family's love of boggle, and Christmas boggle tournaments, when she flipped out. Eventually Dennis kicked her out because she was just looking to cause trouble. It'll probably be a while before she comes and hangs out again.

After Morningstar had left Dennis was having problems sleeping so he decided that it'd be fun to mess with the rest of us. He basically went on for two and half hours with skeet jokes. Skizzle on your bizzle, and then he rams his phallus shaped pillow at your butt. Hide and go skeet, laying next the bed and then jumping up so he could hit us with the pillow while he yells "Skeet skeet skeet" over and over again. Skizzle on your fizzle (he kept hitting me in the back of the head, so not so much my fizzle as headizzle). He built a fort, basically threw a mattress on top of Kalei, Jessie, and I and then jumped on top of it. The craziest thing was that none of us could stop laughing. It was friggin' hilarious. After a while though, he finally quieted down and we got to sleep.

In the morning I woke up when Abel came and slapped me on the ass. Damn that hurt. It took us a while to finally clear out of the room. A bunch of us went out to breakfast at IHOP, then we went home. After breakfast I went to go buy some books (alright they were comic books). When I got home everyone was passed out in various positions around my apartment. You know it's a good night when so many people are passed out that two guys are having to share a couch.

Anyway, that was it. It's my favorite New Year's Eve party so far. But I'm sure that they'll only get better.

Happy New Year

2006-01-02T18:59:00.000-08:00

So it was a good year for me. I went to so many concerts that it'd take too long to list them all. I'm working for the banking industry instead of a hotel and got a signifacant raise in the process. I got a new roommate out of an old friend and a new friend out of an old roommate. I don't have a girlfriend, but I still got a kiss as the New Year struck. I finished writing a novel; hopefully I can say I got it published when it's time to do my recap next year. I had an inexplicably fun summer with a little bit too much partying and not enough sleeping. I've begun to follow sports again, and found an amazing columnist in Bill Simmons. I've played enough video games to make me both proud and ashamed at the same time. But what can I say except I love video games. I was introduced to some really amazing pieces of fiction. From television to movies to graphic novels and good novels of the literary sort. I've met so many new people, sometimes it ended well and sometimes it ended poorly, but mostly they didn't end at all. Got to hang out with some amazing girls, and sometimes they hurt me and sometimes I hurt them, but I savored every moment positive or not because I knew that I was experiencing life. But the most important thing to me was that I truly enjoyed the year of 2005. So thank you to every that accompanied me on that leg of life, and I'm excited to experience the next one with you all.

Friends

2005-12-12T10:52:00.000-08:00

One of the things that makes friends so special is that you get to choose them. In great contrast to your family who you don't get to choose at all. You are born into family. I bring this up because this weekend I made someone cry. The reason that she was crying is that we were once friends, but I have decided that I no longer want to be her friend. I have spoken of her before, she is the one who beat up her boyfriend. My roommates have tried to get me to make amends with her, multiple times. They kept inviting her over and hoping that it would make me forgive her.

The first time that she came over after 'the incident' I was very drunk. We were all sitting around and attempting to have a conversation. Well, all of us except for me. I would just break into rants about how she had hit him. Stuff like, "I mean, you hit him in the face. So hard that you actually chipped his tooth. Flying across the room and doing some real damage." It was pretty obvious that although everyone else had put her transgression behind them that I had not. Eventually I had to be taken aside and told that I needed to stop what I was doing. I decided that the best thing to do would be to just go to bed.

The next day I told my roommate that it would be best if she didn't come over anymore. He didn't really understand, but he said that he wouldn't bring her over anymore. And of course he did anyway.

The next time he came over I was given notice that she was coming. I was told that I wasn't allowed to be mean to her. She showed up and tried to talk to me, but I refused. I sat on the opposite end of the room from her and tried to avoid making any sort of contact at all. Eventually I decided that going to sleep would probably be the safest thing to do.

The next day I talked to my roommate and let him know that it would be best if she didn't come over anymore. I told him she had last night for free, and it was really because of him that I gave her that, but the next time she showed up she would leave in tears. He said okay, that he wouldn't bring her over anymore. And of course, he did anyway.

This time she showed and and I wasn't prepared. Nobody told me that she was on the way. I was pissed because I was about ready to go to bed when she showed up, and so she showed up, said she wanted to talk with me and I told her that I didn't want to talk to her and tried to go to bed. She followed me into my bedroom and proceeded to talk with me. We were probably in there for a good twenty to thirty minutes. All that I said was that I was done with her, that I didn't want anything to do with her anymore. She went on and on about how much it hurt that I didn't want to be her friend anymore. And how she wasn't the only one at fault in the night in question. And she cried, a lot. And I was good, I didn't laugh at her once. It was hard not to, but I didn't. And she just kept going on and on about how she really wanted to be my friend. And I just let her know that that was not going to happen. Finally she left my room and I went to bed.

I talked to my roommate one more time, I called him an ass, or a dick, or some such thing. And then I told him that this time she really needed to not come over anymore. He said that it wouldn't be a problem because he figured that she didn't want to come over anymore anyway. Then he asked why I made her cry. And I reminded him that I'd given him warning that the next time she showed up that she would leave in tears.

The whole point to me is that I get to choose my friends. I choose who I spend my time with and I try to make good decisions about that. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but once they've crossed that line there's really no coming back. Once I decide that it would be a bad idea for me to hang out with them then they're gone. It's not always easy, but that's okay, because that's life. And I know that my friends are good people who will help me.

La Migra

2005-12-09T13:12:00.000-08:00

As some people may know I used to live in Utah. It was a little place called Wendover. A border town. I lived in Utah and had a casino just down the street. Maybe four blocks away. It was kind of nice to live in a town with casinos because it was never very difficult to get a job. In fact, the town had become something of a destination for illegal immigrants. Probably because of the whole two state thing. I mean I bet it's way harder to track someone who is working in one state and living in another.

So basically the town is dependent upon the illegal immigrants and things really don't run very smoothly without it. If you've ever seen "A Day Without a Mexican" then let me tell you, I've seen a week.

He ran in yelling, "La migra, la migra." It would be the headline of the local paper that week. After that was yelled the workers cleared out. It was amazing to watch the population just disappear. Well, not entirely disappear, because I could see the fires up in the hills where everyone had gathered to hide out until immigration left the city.

School started that week. Well, I should say that the school opened up. There was a problem, though. Half of the students didn't show up for the first day. So not a lot of teaching went on because all of the teachers knew that when immigration left all of the students would be back and they'd have to teach everything all over again.

Back in the casinos business didn't stop, it just became very difficult to keep things going. It was so bad, in fact, that the CEO of the two most profitable casinos in town was not able to do any of his CEO duties but instead had to spend his time washing dishes. His thirteen year-old son, my friend, worked in the restaurant that week too.

That was a week that I don't think I'll ever forget. Once it was done everyone came back into town and things went back to how they were before, like nothing had ever happened.

Stripper story

2005-12-08T13:32:00.000-08:00

So I'm at work right now, waiting for one of the various programs I use to load. It's been having problems lately so I figured I might have enough time to try and write a little bit.

I saw Arun last night for the first time in over a year and half. It was good times. We went to a nice restaurant, Jake's, and proceeded to act like we were in a dive. Dennis began telling his stripper story, which I think I'm going to have to repeat now.

So he goes out with his buddies from back on the res. They go out to Barracuda and go dancing with the ladies. Having a good time. Then Dennis see's some of his former co-workers and offers to buy them a drink. They're acting all snobby towards him while he's being nice to them, and he's getting a little fed up when suddenly someone grabs his arm and drags him onto the dance floor. They dance and make-out and whatever, I don't really know because I wasn't there, but he made it sound really fun. Anyway, he ended up with her number and then they left the club. Well one of his buddies, Gabe, decided that he needed to go back to the club so that he could fight his ex's boyfriend. Apparently the police were called in and they tackled him. When he hit the ground he shat himself. I bet it was a pretty nasty sight. So he spent the night in jail and had to clean himself in front of a whole bunch of people. Tons of fun is what I call it.

So Dennis calls up this girl and after dealing with her Dungeons and Dragons obsessed roommate picks her up. He brings her, and his other friend Robert, to the apartment. I was sitting quietly with my arms around a girl watching Antonio Banderas cause a ridiculous amount of mayhem. They come in and Dennis asks me whether I want Robert to sleep out in the main room or in my bed. I took one look at his beyond drunk ass and decided that he was couching it. Dennis and his girl roll back into his bedroom and proceed to turn on the music very loud. Unfortunately it wasn't loud enough to drown out the incredibly loud woman he was with. In fact it was so loud that I had to deal with two different noise complaints. Robert was trying to sleep, but he tried to talk to me for a while. He kept mumbling about the west side and I really wasn't able to understand anything else he said.

Finally Robert stood up and headed towards the back. I figured it was probably a good idea for him to spend some time in the bathroom. About ten minutes later I sudddenly hear Dennis yelling at Robert to get out of the bedroom. Apparently what happened was Robert snuck into the bedroom. Once he got there he laid on the ground for a little bit, then he got bored and decided that he wanted in on the action. Apparently his way of getting action was to grab the poor girls foot.

All in all, it ended up being a funny situation. At least from my perspective.

Mundane

2005-11-29T17:33:00.000-08:00

Lost was on in only thirty-five minutes, so he knew that he needed to hurry up. He decided to take a beer with him, for the drive. He justified it by telling himself that this way he wasn't driving drunk, the alcohol wouldn't be absorbed by his body for another twenty minutes. He got into his car, an 87 Acura with horribly faded paint and more than a few dings and dents, and made his way to Brandon's house. It was raining, but it was a dry desert rain. One where you know the minute it stops that all traces are going to vanish.

As Brandon got into Brad's car their was a look of joy in his face. It was a sort of happiness that so overwhelms a person that it overflows onto the people around you. For you see our friend Brandon had met a girl. And not just any girl, but a brunette with a slender body and a face from a magazine. So our friends bantered back and forth on the drive telling each other the small bits of happening that come with living a mundane lifestyle. That isn't to say that thay these guys don't have crazy moments, because they do, it's just for the most part these guys do the same thing every day. In fact, I bet next week the same damn things are going to happen as what happens on this weeks episode of "The mundane existence".

Brandon: (Big grin on his face) How's it going there buddy?

Brad: (Face a blank slate) Oh you know, it's going pretty well.

Brandon: The how's the job at the word processing plant?

Brad: You know, it's all just pushing paperwork. Read this and then give it to some other person to read so that they they can recommend it to yet another person who in the end will end up doing nothing with it. And along the way everybody has to report what it is that they're doing with their time and filling out extra paperwork which ends up going through the same beaureucratic nonsense. (He only actually said the first sentence in this paragraph, the rest of it he just thought he said. Or maybe he did say it, and no one heard him, because Brandon has been too busy talking at the same time to hear one word of what Brad said.)

Brandon: (Starts talking during the first sentence of the last paragraph) So I met this girl today and she's amazing man. I mean I don't believe in love at first site but damn this girl might be the exception because, man, you should just see the way she looks when she looks at the stars. It's amazing man. She's this astronomy nut and she's always talking about how good we have it out here away from the city lights where we can see so many stars that they create a blanket int he sky.

Brad: What?

Brandon: Huh?

Brad: Wait what were you talking about?

Brandon: No, you were saying something there about, what was it?

Brad: Well Brandon, oddly enough I've forgotten what it was I was talking about.

Brandon: Well I don't remember either.

So I don't really know what to make of this, but I had a great time writing it. It was kind of fun to just let the style of the story drift around and see what changes that made in the direction the things was going. I mean, I started out thinking that I was going somewhere, on some journey, and instead you get to hear these two people talking about their asinine existences and eventually you get to the end and it took you nowhere.

It's been fun

2005-11-16T18:54:00.000-08:00

So the past few weeks have been pretty crazy for me. Overtime at work, although usually at the end of my eight hour shift I can't bear the thought of working any longer and go home without doing any OT, but a little bit of overtime. Then when I get off of work it seems like there's always somewhere that I need to be. It might be my sister's for baby-sitting, or a going away party, or a birthday party. But usually it's hanging out with a girl. I'm hoping that it's time for things to calm down a little bit, but maybe that's just because I'm kind of getting fed up with the girl I've been hanging out with.

So it's the girl that I went to meet the night I got my DUI. I really like her, but she's a girl who doesn't know what she wants, except that she wants attention. In fact she craves attention so much that she didn't just mess with my head, she messed with Will's too.

I met her first, through Mike, and began to develop a crush. Then the DUI thing happened. The next weekend, or maybe the weekend after (it seems to all kind of blur together) she took me out dancing with her roommate and friends. It was great, me and eight hot girls. Then I gave Will a call and he met up with us. By the end of the night I could tell he'd taken a fancy to Tana as well, so I tried to stop the problem there.

"Will, we can't both do this, so what are we gonna do?" I asked.

"We're too good of friends to let a girl come between us so let's just see what happens."

I wasn't really satisfied by his reply, but Tana had reappeared so our conference was over. Shortly after that various people expressed their opinions that this girl was nothing but trouble and not worth my time. I'm sure they expressed similar things to Will as well. Neither of us listened. So then two Thursday's ago Will, Tana, and I (triangles are a dangerous shape, very pointy - Seth Cohen) were all hanging out at his place. Somehow, it may have been the alcohol, we ended up playing Truth or Dare. We did the normal thing of humiliating each other and making each other lick or kiss various body parts and other such things. When Tana was in the restroom it was time for Will and I to powwow again.

"Alright, so we really can't continue like this," he said with a slight slur.

"I know, but what are we gonna do? We both like her," I said.

"Let's do the only thing that's fair, rock-paper-scissors for her," Will said.

So we got ready and decided that best two out of three would be the way to go when it struck me. "Wait, let's make her decide. We're playing truth or dare so we'll just ask her who she likes more," I said.

"I like it," he said. And it was decided.

So that's what we did, or what I did, because I was the one who actually made her choose, although Will did help.

"So who do you like more, Will or me?" I asked.

"Are you serious?" she asked.

"Yes, I am. You said Truth, so you have to tell the truth," I said.

"But that's not fair," she said.

"No it's not, but you have to answer," Will said.

"But it changes," she said. She was trying to be smart about it. She didn't want to lose out on the attention she was getting from us, and her choosing could obviously end some of that.

"So if it changes, then who do like more right now?" Will asked.

"Well, if I have to choose right now I'd have to say Kellan," Tana said as Will stopped running his hand across her lower back.

And that pretty much ended the game. That night Tana and I slept on Will's futon and had an extended make-out session before we passed out. So Tana and I have been hanging out a lot lately, and she's tried to hang out with Will too, but I don't really know that side of the story. All I know is that I'm in an awkward situation now. I don't really know what to do, but I'll think of something.

What fun the past couple of weeks have been.

P.S. We all played Truth or Dare the next Thursday and she had to choose who she wanted to make out with more, Will or me. She chose Will. I figure all she's really good at is being indecisive.

A Quick Update

2005-11-01T17:11:00.000-08:00

So I realize my last post may have been a bit depressing so I thought that I'd give an update on the story. The epilogue if you will.

I went into court last Tuesday ready to be sentenced. I handed my paper to the girl behind the counter and asked what court room I was supposed to be in. "Oh it's you," she said. And then took my paper and walked away. When she came back she explained that my paperwork was never filed. It meant I was free. The case is dropped, although the officer still has a year in which they can decide to actually put the paperwork through, but it is extremely rare for them to do that.

Oh, and one more thing, I finally kissed her.

Thursday the 13th

2005-10-21T17:59:00.000-07:00

"She wants to know what you're doing," Mike said. He held the cell phone away from himself.

"Well, right now I'm doing this," I said taking a drink of my Mirror Pond.

"No, I mean she wants to know if you want to hang out tonight. Now I can't do anything with her because of the elaborate lies I've told her. But you should go and hang out with her."

"You gotta girl that wants ot hang out with you tonight? Right on," Will said. "You've gotta take that opportunity."

"Yah, if you go I'll get you're beer," Mike said.He said the magic words, and they translated to free beer.

"Tell her I'll meet her at the Hillsdale Brewery," I said.

So I said goodbye to my friends and walked to my car. It was an easy drive to the brewery. I was even a little bit early. I sat in an empty booth next to a table of rowdy college students. When the waiter came by I ordered an IPA. I sat listening to the four students talk about the various girls that they were interested in and was amazed at the detail that they were willing to go into in public. After about twenty minutes Tana called. She was lost. I tried to help her out, but I wasn't really familiar with the area. But I guess maybe just staying on the line until she showed up made her feel better.

As she sat across from me I her amazing aroma overwhelmed my senses. We sat and talked about various things. Books, movies, video games, television, our friends, and whatever else we wanted to. She had a Budweiser. I had another IPA. Then we ordered the tots to share and I got a cup of soup. We continued talking about music and school and work and I got myself one more IPA. When it was getting to be about time to go she offered me the rest of her Budweiser because she didn't feel it would be very safe for her to drive after drinking an entire beer. I drank a little bit of it, but it was warm and nowhere near as satisfying as the IPA's. Then I paid the check and she took me for a drive in her 'new' car.

She drove us to her place and we decided that it was time to watch some Friends. She had the entire first season. Then she offered me a beer. I took the Budweiser Select. Being in this girl's apartment was a little bit like being in heaven.

So we sat on the couch and watched a few episodes. The whole time I was thinking about how much I wanted to kiss her. Then I would look at her and get ready to make the move and then chicken out. After about an hour of this we decided to call it a night so she gave me a ride back to the restaurant so I could pick up my car.

I got in and immediately lit a cigarette. I was more than a little frustrated with my chickenshit behavior at her place. I got lost on the way home and ended up in downtown Portland. To make things worse nature was calling and I had nowhere to answer that call. I finally made my way out of Portland and towards Beaverton. I wanted to get home fast.

As I was going about seventy-five miles per hour on Sunset Highway I saw a cop with a radar gun standing outside of their car. I decided that under the circumstances the best course of action would be to pull off at the nearest exit so that I could avoid a traffic ticket. I made my way home considering stopping at the corner store for cigarettes, but my bladder had too strong a hold on me for my nicotine addiction to matter.

When I pulled into my parking lot I saw police lights flashing in my rear view mirror. I pulled into a parking space and stepped out of the car.

"Get back in your car," the officer yelled.

So I got back in my and the officer came to the window. "Put your hands on the wheel," she yelled. 'Are you fucking serious,' is all that was running through my mind. "License, registration, and proof of insurance please." I quickly pulled my registration and insurance cards out of my glovebox. Then I reached my wallet and handed her my license. "Was there any reason in particular that you were going so fast?"

"I really need to use the restroom," I said. I've found that usually the truth works best. I forgot that the police are the exception.

"Have you been drinking this evening?" she asked."I had a couple of beers over dinner," I said. Another police car pulled into the parking lot and the officer who was questioning went to talk to them. After a couple of minutes another lady officer came to my window. After their deliberation they decided that they would put me through a series of sobriety tests. They didn't really say whether or not I passed the tests, although I have a sneaking suspicion that no matter what happened things would have gone about how they did. The second officer told me to put my arms behind my back and she handcuffed me. They took all of my personal belongings, except for my wallet and cell phone, and put them in a paper grocery bag.

"You can just leave all that stuff in my car and I'll pick it up tomorrow," I said."No, because we're towing you're car," the officer said.

'This is unbelievable,' I thought. 'Who tows a car away from a person's own residence?'

So the officer drove me to the station and had me take an Intoxalizer test. She looked very disappointed when I blew a point oh seven. They booked me anyway and told me that I would be in jail until I was able to blow a point oh five. They also told me they were still giving me a ticket for Driving Under the Influence of Intoxicants. Ten hours later they finally let me out. I don't know why they had air conditioning in the holding cell in the middle of the fall, but it wasn't very pleasant.

Anyway, once I was out of jail it was time to call into work and find my car. I called my temp agency and let them know that I wouldn't be able to make it to work today because of my rather crappy situation. Then I went to the clerks office to get the paperwork to get my car out of impound. Apparently because I had failed to change the registration into my name they said that I was going to need to get the owner to get it out of impound. I explained that I had bought the car but just hadn't gone to the DMV to change ownership yet. They said if I brought in the title that I would be able to get the release form. So I MAXed it home and found the title and MAXed it back. It cost sixty dollars to get that stupid release form. Then I called the number of the towing place and asked them where my car was at. They told me that they were in southeast Portland. So again to the MAX. Then a half hour walk to the impound lot. When I got there they informed me that my car was not at their main lot, but at a lot in Beaverton next to Starz. I was more than a little perterbed, but what you gonna do? I called my friend Mike and asked him if he could give me a ride to Beaverton because time was beginning to run a little bit short. It was already three-thirty. So I hoofed it back to the MAX stop in way less time than it took me to get to the impound yard. Then we rode to his car. It took us about half an hour and him making fun of me a whole lot before we finally made it to the impound place in Beaverton. A hundred and seventy more dollars and the car was all mine again.

What a Thursday night.

The Book

2005-10-12T00:30:00.000-07:00

So it's done. I've actually finished it. It took me six jobs, four residences, two states, and a year and half to complete but it's finally done. I'm happy with it, although I still think it could've been better. Ninety-nine pages single-spaced. Over sixty-two thousand words. But now that it's done, what now?

What a Week

2005-10-08T15:18:00.000-07:00

So this week has actually been ridiculously entertaining. A quite drunken time with multiple run-ins with the law. Luckily I was never the subject of the investigations, but there's always next week.

So my friend, who shall remain anonymous, got beat up by his girlfriend the other night. When we picked him up at the Max after he got out of jail he was not looking very good. He told us the story once he got into the car. The thing to remember is that what started it all was a fight over Taco Bell food. That's right, two people I know had to go to jail and it all started with Taco Bell. Ridiculous. So basically they were arguing and things escalated and she slapped him in the face. A couple of times. Obviously he got angry and she stopped and then they went home. Once they were home the fight escalated yet again and she managed to jump at him and begin to choke him. At this point my friend began to take all of her things and move them towards the door so that she would just leave because things were obviously over. Well, drunk people can be a bit clumsy, or a bit angry (you have to remember I've only heard his side of the story, although I think it's pretty accurate), and he dropped one of the boxes he was moving and picture frame broke. Well she lost it at this point and flew across the room at him. Her fist connected with his mouth and she hit him with so much force that he now has a chipped tooth. She is now out on bail, last I heard she was being charged with assault, harassment, and some other stuff that won't be fun to deal with. My buddy got locked away for General Mischief. But the most important thing to remember about this story is that he got beat up by his girlfriend.

So I didn't really deal with the police for that one, but it's kept things a bit more interesting. On Wednesday, though, Abel's girlfriend, Jemma, came inside and was talking about how often she's seeing police around our apartment. About ten minutes later we get a knock on the door. We have three police officers who come and begin to question us. Apparently someone I know decided that it'd be a good idea to join the army and then go AWOL while we're fighting a war. They didn't get much information out of us, but a nice little bonus was that the police arrived while Dennis was, uh, powdering his nose? So then he comes out of the bathroom and the police officer is questioning him in the hallway and you can really tell that the stench is getting to him. Then the icing on the cake was that Dennis was wearing his "Cops Lie" t-shirt. I thought it was pretty hilarious. Although getting caught AWOL probably isn't very fun.

As far as what I actually did this week, well, mostly I just went out with friends. Drank a little bit too much. Pauline is now gone, although she said that she's coming back. Last weekend I went to watch "Serenity", I thought it was amazing even if the plot was a little weak in places. I also saw a Tech Nine concert. I was pretty much in a different world during the whole concert, and the alcohol wasn't exactly helping my situation. But then it's the third time I've seen him at the Roseland and there's not really that big a difference each time. Although I thought that this show was much better than the one in May.

Only in the Bush

2005-09-27T19:07:00.000-07:00

When I was three years old I saw God. It was no big deal. Mom said God was all around us and one day we'd see him in Heaven. I guess God couldn't wait that long and I got to see him in the park.

It was a bright day, no clouds in the sky, which I guess makes sense 'cause I'd always heard that God liked to travel on beams of light. Anyway, I was in the park playing in the sandbox. I was trying to dig my way to China, or maybe I was burying one of my sibling's toys. I don't really remember all of the details; like I said, I was three. So I was playing in the sand, minding my own business when God came out of nowhere. He picked me up and ran into the woods. I wasn't scared, though, because Mom always told me that God loves everyone, and that God especially loves me.

While he was running with me he said, "Don't worry, I'll see you again in ten years."

I wanted to ask him why he didn't have any clothes on, all of the pictures in our house had him in flowing robes and stuff, but before I could he threw me into a bush. I began crying and my mom heard me and came and found me. She asked why I'd wandered so far and why I was crying. I told her what happened but she didn't believe that it was God. I didn't understand why. She always told me that she believed in him.

When I was thirteen I saw God again. I was in the park with some of my friends. We were out in the trees. My friend Jimmy said he'd found a cool new thing to do. So a couple of us followed him and he showed us our first joint. At least it was the first one I'd ever seen. He showed us that you were supposed to smoke it, and he let us know that the coughing was actually a good thing. So he let us try it and we were coughing and complaining about how he'd just had to choose a place near a nest of skunks. He just told us that we'd begin to enjoy the smell after a while. Then all of my friends began to giggle and I couldn't tell what they were giggling about. Then I started laughing too, I made sure not to giggle like the other guys, though. Then all of a sudden some guy came and picked me up and ran off with me.

I looked at him and said, "You don't need to carry me you know, I can walk." I was glad that he had clothes on this time, but I thought the business suit looked a little wierd. He just smiled and kept on running.

"I'll see you again in ten years," he said.

Then he threw me into a bush again. It might have been the same one, I don't remember. It sure felt like the same bush.

"What a jerk," I said to myself.

Sometimes I talk to myself, like right now. Some people call me weird but I prefer unique. I decided I was gonna give him a piece of my mind the next time I saw him. I went to go find my friends and I told them what God just did to me. They just laughed at me, well, I laughed a little too. I was gonna have to ask my mom more about this whole joint thing, and especially why she'd never told me about it before. I figured she would like it too.

When I was twenty-three I saw God again. The park had been cemented over and turned into a shopping center. I was at the bar, having a good time at Jimmy's bachelor party. Drinking, strippers, it was turning out to be a lot of fun. My mom was so wrong about that. Well I went outside to smoke a cigarette. Before I could even light up, though, God had picked me up and ran off with me. I was fuming. It was time that I finally gave him a piece of my mind. Before I could, though, he spoke again.

"I'll see you again in ten years." Then he threw me into a bush again.

I saw him running off, all dressed like a cowboy and I yelled after him, "I'm gonna kick your ass the next time you throw me into a bush." It made me feel better to yell at God. Mom always said he worked in mysterious ways, but I thought that this was getting a little bit ridiculous.

Now I'm thirty-three. It's been ten years to the day since I last saw him. I found the bush he threw me into last time, and maybe both times before. I decided that rather than having him throw me into the bush that I would just wait for him there. He finally showed up and he didn't look very happy.

"What are you doing in that bush?" he asked.

"Well I figured you must've wanted me to be in this bush for some reason or another, plus it hurts whenever you throw me in, so I thought I'd save you the trouble. By the way, why are you all dressed like a Buddhist monk?"

"Get out of the Bush," he said. Mom taught me to obey God's commandments, at that had sure sounded like a command to me. As soon as I got out of that bush God picked me and ran around the block.

"Why?" I asked.

"Why what?" God asked me right back.

"Why do you keep throwing me into this bush?" I asked.

"Because it's fun," God said and ran off.

I don't know why, but I thought it was kind of funny.

Spring Break

2005-09-21T01:16:00.000-07:00

When I finished my bottle of Budweiser I let out a yell and rolled down my window so I could wait for my opportunity. It came in the form of a sign that said ‘Newport 7’. It was a perfect hit and my companions hooted and hollered as the noise of shattering glass faded and we flew forward without caring about a speed limit.

“Shit. We’re almost out of beer guys,” Simon said as he handed me another beer.

“Well we’re almost to Newport, so let’s finish what we’ve got and then we’ll pick up some more when we get there,” said Jake. “Hey, I’m sorry but what’s your name man?”

“Seth,” replied my good college buddy. We had stopped by Corvallis to pick him up earlier in the night. Jake, Simon and I had decided that on a road trip more meant merrier.

“Could you grab the wheel for a second?” Jake asked.

“Sure man,” said Seth.

He grabbed the wheel and Jake leaned out the driver’s side window. He threw his beer at a sign on the other side of the road and narrowly missed. But it didn’t matter because the bottle exploded when it collided with the ground. Simon and I began dancing in the ludicrously large back seat. I now understand why people would buy cars that people call boats. There is just something special about being able to dance in a car.

As we entered Newport Seth asked us, “So what am I picking up for you guys then?”

Jake and I started laughing. Jake said, “Actually all that you need to do is take over driving duties once we get to the store.”

Once we had parked in the Safeway parking lot Seth took Jake’s seat and us three (Madrasians, Madrasites, Madra- you know sometimes coming form a small town can be very confusing) entered the store. We walked around, seeing where the employees were in relation to the beer and the exit. We saw two people, one stocking the shelves and chatting with the other employee who didn’t seem to be doing anything productive at all. The beer was in the corner of the store that was the farthest away from the exit as possible.

“Okay guys are you ready?” Jake asked. Simon and I just nodded our heads and began to grab cases. Four cases each. One in each hand and one held above it by the crook of our arms. It took us about a minute to situate ourselves with twelve cases. Two hundred and eighty-eight beers can be a little bit tricky. “Let’s go then.” Jake broke into a run and Simon and I followed suit trailing closely behind our more athletic colleague.

Jake had made it out side and I had made it to the last check-stand before the door when suddenly one of the employees noticed what we were doing. “Hey, stop. This isn’t funny,” she yelled as the chase began. But it was too late. We had too large a head start and were able to jump into the car and yell, “Drive fucker,” before she had even made it out of the store.

“What the hell is that guys?” Seth asked as we began to speed northbound on the 101.

“That was not having to worry about running out of beer this weekend,” Jake said.

We stopped five miles down the road in a Kingdom Hall parking lot. Jake and I quickly transferred two cases worth of beer into our school bags for easy access for the rest of the trip. We would have one bag in front and one in back. Smoking cigarettes and drinking the plunder were the ways that we attempted to bring ourselves down from the adrenaline high. It didn’t work very well though. We threw our beers into the bushes, hopped into the car, and began to talk about what our next mischievous act would be on this cloudless evening.

“C’mon guys, what are we gonna do tonight?” Jake cracked his beer as he let out a yell. He then took a fresh beer from his bag and threw it under the rear right left wheel. It burst over the road like a sort of liquid grenade. It made Simon and I break into an awkward mosh to the sound of “You’re Only Going To Die For Your Arrogance”.

The car was bouncing around in a way that was testing its suspension when Simon hit me so hard that I actually fell over the front seat. Both Seth and Jake were given a hand to the back of the as my arms spread out in an effort to maintain my balance. As I realized what was happening I saw two beers fly towards the ceiling and begin to pour all over it. Then suddenly Jake’s head appeared and I saw him fumbling for what I assumed was his beer. He was raining expletives when he made a grab for the offending beverage as it easily rolled to his left and to the realm of safety. At this point I fell forward as I heard the sound of a one-ton car going through three inches of solid wood and a stop sign puncturing a hole in the roof of the car. As my face hit Seth’s feet I could hear the sound of metal bouncing along the road behind us. Jake could hear the sound of my feet hitting him in the back of the head. It seemed to knock him into taking action because he floored it as he fought to bring the road into his line of sight. One the car stopped bouncing me around I sat back upright. Between Seth and Jake. I put an arm around each of them.

“What do you guys say we drive twenty miles down the road to find a campsite? And then we’ll never speak of this horrid event ever again,” I said.

I then slid back over the seat and resumed my post behind Jake. I sat quietly sipping my beer until we reached the campsite.

Writing makes me happy.

Boring

2005-09-12T19:41:00.000-07:00

So a week goes by and I wonder if anything has actually happened to me. I mean I've started a new job, but the new job is really just like all the other jobs. I went out with my friends drinking this weekend, and that was fun, but I went out drinking with them last weekend. I feel like I've hit an unending cycle that afflicts the young adults of America. Go to work at a boring job. Come home and try to stave off boredom until you go to sleep. Then you wake up and begin again. The weekends are only slightly different in that a person gets an extended period of play before work. I don't know why I never felt this way at school. It was really the same thing, but it still always felt like I was actually doing something. By the end of a term I had accomplished something. Now at the end of the term I just have to keep working while the students are taking a break. I honestly think that graduating from college may have been the worst thing to ever happen to me.

Now I've Done It

2005-09-04T14:35:00.000-07:00

So I finally did it. I created a blog. I've become a blogger. The words almost as much fun to type as it is to say. What a strange world we've become where we now actually have people making a living off of these things. Being let into legitimate press conferences so they can go home and create an entry for their blog.

So I'm starting a new job on Wednesday. Office job with Wells Fargo. It should be interesting. Well actually it will be unbearably boring, but that's alright. When I'm bored I just end up thinking a lot. And thinking is good, usually.

Anyway. I guess we'll see how much I end up posting on this thing. Eventually I'll maybe even figure out how to post pictures.