Then The Lightning Strikes...

:: 2009 21 September :: 3.27pm

mad libs are silly. some of these clues were, well, wrong.

I love you
Created by vsmilee and taken 334 times on Bzoink

Maynard and I were prancing in Wisconsin when it happened. He talked to me and I fucked him. He took my face and walked closer to me. He looked so cantankerous. I lived at him again and waited for a hammer from him. "I like to eat tacos?," I asked. He shook his foot and looked me in the ears. "I love train, Spud. I've wanted to pump that for a long time, now." Then he leaned over and gave me an ice cube on the cheek. That was the last time he ever said I love you.

You've been totally Bzoink*d!
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:: 2009 13 September :: 10.42am

I got to see my nephew the last few days and probably will see him again today..
I am very happy about that, but i dont like the circumstances behind it.
He is getting so big and learning so much, and I miss a lot of it.
And he looks so much like my sister, but he changes more and more each time I see him.

It has been a long stressful, packed week.
I'm not even sure what kind of crap there is going to have to be done tomorrow when I go back to work.
I know there was a lot to be done when I left on wednesday.

Going through pictures, seeing my whole family in pain, the visitations and the funeral were hard.
And even though all of those events took place, and I mourned, I don't know if I mourned completely.
I still don't feel like it really happened, like I am completely numb on the inside.
I know that she is gone and won't be coming back.
But it feels like she is on vacation and I just have to wait a couple weeks before I see her again.

And apparently my mom likes to share her germs, because Friday I started feeling really sick, and started to lose my voice.
So yesterday, I spent all day in bed, except for 2 hours.. I went to bed at midnight saturday morning, slept til 2:30, was awake for maybe an hour, then slept til 9, was awake until 12:00, and then slept until 10 this morning.
But I definitely needed it, and I am feeling better today.

:: 2009 9 September :: 9.12pm

So this week has been pretty shitty..
My grandma passed away unexpectedly yesterday morning.
They believe she had an ulcer that ruptured, and caused internal bleeding. She was coughing up blood, and they were able to revive her twice and get her stabilized, but her heart stopped. They tried to revive her again, but they weren't able to get her heart beating again.
Tomorrow is the visitations, and then friday is the funeral..

All 4 of my grandparents deaths have been either the day before or the day after a holiday.

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:: 2009 2 September :: 1.07pm

A joyful meandering that wound up being about driveway hockey.
i had just gotten up today, and gone to the bathroom for a solid B.M. the bathroom window was open, and outside it sit the garbage/yard waste/recycle bins. all of a sudden i hear someone walk up alongside our garage, and open up one of the bins. i had finished at this point, and was blowing my nose for good measure. so, the person getting into our recycling heard me and said, "oh, hey, just dropping off some cereal boxes and milk cartons." i recognized Valerie's (the neighbor) voice, and said, "yeah, have at it. the trash is kinda full, though." it was just a very odd way to start my day off.

in other news: happy september! the weather's gorgeous, and the air smells crisp and clean.

:: sorry, neighbor came over to smoke a ciggy ::

what was i saying? eh, whatever.

i should play disc golf again. i made it out there quite a bit the first half of summer, but i haven't played in several weeks. I guess it has been overtaken by driveway hockey, which is honestly a better workout, but you really pay for the next day.

it's actually a lot of fun. we have a net that bruce built, and they spray painted a crease to go in front of it. the garage door is about 2 feet behind the net, so there is some playable space back there, just like the real deal. The rest of the rink is surrounded by short wooden boards to hold the puck in. the rules have been adapted - obviously - to suit our needs, and there's a continual evolution there, but the gameplay itself remains pretty much the same. we have three offensive players (a center and two wingers), a defenseman, and a goalie. the three offense and the defender will rotate positions after every goal. goalies rotate every 30 minutes (the mishmash of homemade pads takes a while to put on). it's like a full-time 3-on-1 rush, but since we suck so bad, sometimes it's still tough to get a puck to drop. even still, if you pepper 'im long enough, something's bound to go through eventually.

here are the basic rules:
> no high sticking (we're out there in our tennis shoes for pete's sake. we don't want to cart anyone to the hospital)
> no cross-checking (same reason)
> no slapshots (or we'll have to listen to the goalies bitch. loudly.)
> the center has to pass before anyone can shoot
> if the puck goes over the boards and out of play, it counts as "clearing the defensive zone," and the offensive players must go back to their start positions (marked with chalk)
> if any of the offensive players are not in their start positions when the center starts the puck, the play is "offside" and must be reset.
> if a defenseman clears the puck over (or through) the fence and into the neighbor's yard, it's a two-minute minor penalty. since the power play has yet to fail, it's pretty much a death knell. although, bruce once killed off 1:56 of the penalty before they scored on him. that's the current record to beat.

they typically like having new people try it out. kevin and masa joined in this past sunday, and i think they had a good time. so hit me up if you're interested. there's no set day that we do it, so it's kinda random. we usually play from mid-afternoon 'til dark.

:: 2009 31 August :: 5.36pm

I had a pretty eventful week..
It was a good ending to a very filled week.
Only worked 3 days last week and only one day was a full 8 hour day.
I got to spend time with some friends I haven't seen in a very long time.
Spent some quality time at home, watching movies.
Worked on some homework.

Maybe I will stop procrastinating so much, and not wait until the last minute to finish 6 weeks worth of work this time..
But probably won't..

I won't ever change..
Well at least I don't ever stop procrastinating..

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:: 2009 24 August :: 9.12pm

i hate "reality" tv.

these stupid love shows.

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:: 2009 21 August :: 2.01pm

$1200 or best offer

:: 2009 19 August :: 4.30pm

Apparently sucks at life like the rest of society.
Still don't know to deal with frustration and stress..
Should be able to just ignore it after all these years, but if it hasn't happened yet, then it probably won't ever happen.
I need a job that I like..
Maybe then I won't be so frustrated and in super-bitch mode when I come home..

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:: 2009 19 August :: 12.45pm

scooter riders.
dear trendy hipsters,

fuck you and your goddamn moped. your not cool because you ride a fucking scooter, most of you arn't even legally riding them, 150cc's with a moped sticker slapped on it, its classified as a moped you queer.

i hate these fuckers riding down the road at 35mph that you can't get around because they ride in the middle of the lane.

fuck you moped guys.

:: 2009 16 August :: 8.36pm

I am in kind of a crappy mood today.
I don't deal with frustation well at all.
And I am stressed about this financial aid crap.
I just want it to all be done with already..
I have to get papers up to MCC as soon as I can, that will finish processing my financial aid..
Yeah it sounds easy considering I live like 5 miles from the college.
But I leave at 6:40 in the morning, and they don't open until like 8 or 9.. and I get out of work at 4.. and the financial aid office closes at 4:30.. and i can't get from belding to sydney with enough time to get everything situated..
So hopefully they will let me fax the papers and then go from there..

I found an online program for what I want to do, but it is not covered by financial aid or student loans, and you have to make payments on its for a year..

It's crap. I feel like I am in a rut and that it doesnt matter what I do or how hard I work toward something, that I wont ever get out of it..
I want to be successful, and have money, love and everything else..
But once an obstacle comes in my path, and I get frustrated I am just ready to give up because I get so upset.

Will it ever change?

:: 2009 11 August :: 7.53pm

So Katie's daughters surgery was yesterday and they were able to get all of the tumor.
Worst case scenario after surgery was that she wasnt going to be able to talk, walk or have any sort of movement because of the location of the tumor.
Thankfully, the surgery went very well and she was talking today.
Tomorrow they will see if she is able to walk and do all the of the other things on her own that she was doing before the surgery.

And today I was informed of more bad news.
My friend Sara's dad was in a bad car accident and is in ICU and on a ventilator.

Finally signed up for classes for fall semester today.
Then realized that today was first day of late registration and tuition was supposed to be paid same day as sign ups..
Oh well..
I guess we will just wait and see if my student loan processes right away or not..

All of this bad news has me in a slump.
That and working full days.
Im physically exhausted and don't feel like doing a damn thing.
I have a severe lack of ambition.

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:: 2009 11 August :: 2.13pm

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

[] Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
[X] The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (way better than the movies)
[] Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
[X] Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (Hellz yes!)
[X] To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (too autobiographical for Lee to make a career of it...)
[] The Bible (never got through all of it. kinda big.)
[] Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
[X] Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (just turn the fucking telescreens off, already. and quit drinking gasoline.)
[X] His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (i LOVE this universe. so vivid.)
[]Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

[] Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
[] Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
[] Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
[] Complete Works of Shakespeare
[] Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
[X] The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (i wish they'd make a movie of this one.)
[] Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
[] Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
[] The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
[] Middlemarch - George Eliot

[] Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
[X] The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (live fast, die young)
[] Bleak House - Charles Dickens
[] War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
[X] The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (don't trust mice anymore.)
[] Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
[] Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
[] Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
[] The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
[] Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

[] David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
[X] Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (allegory, anyone?)
[] Emma - Jane Austen
[] Persuasion - Jane Austen
[X] The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (totally redundant)
[] The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
[] Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
[] Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
[] Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (might have... can't remember)
[] Animal Farm - George Orwell

[X] The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (and angels and demons)
[] One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
[] A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
[] The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
[] Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
[] Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
[] The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
[X] Lord of the Flies - William Golding (totally fucked up)
[] Atonement - Ian McEwan
[] Life of Pi - Yann Martel

[] Dune - Frank Herbert
[] Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
[] Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
[] A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
[] The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
[X] A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (leave it to the french to kill my favorite character...)
[X] Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (nothing brave about test-tube babies)
[] The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
[] Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
[] Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

[] Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
[] The Secret History - Donna Tartt
[] The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
[] Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
[] On The Road - Jack Kerouac
[] Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
[] Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
[] Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
[X] Moby Dick - Herman Melville (sean connery is still my favorite ishmael)
[] Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

[] Dracula - Bram Stoker
[] The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (think i read this one too.)
[] Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
[] Ulysses - James Joyce
[] The Inferno – Dante
[] Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
[] Germinal - Emile Zola
[] Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
[] Possession - AS Byatt
[] A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

[] Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
[] The Color Purple - Alice Walker
[] The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
[] Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
[] A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
[X] Charlotte's Web - EB White (been a LOOONG time)
[X] The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (depressing)
[] Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
[] The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
[X] Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (good companion piece for lord of the flies. reeks of symbolism.)

[] The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
[] The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
[] Watership Down - Richard Adams
[] A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
[] A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
[] The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
[] Hamlet - William Shakespeare
[X] Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
[] Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

My total: 19

Unforgivable omissions from this list:

A Separate Peace - John Knowles
The Trumpet of the Swan - EB White
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
The Odyssey - Homer
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Candide - Francois Voltaire
The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Stranger - Albert Camus
Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
Walden - Henry David Thoreau
The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
The Time Machine - H.G. Wells (others might say War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, or The Island of Doctor Moreau, but i have not read those yet)
Mark Twain (c'mon, he couldn't even make the list?)
same for Edgar Allen Poe

Man, I really need to get a life. I can't belive i've actually read that many books. ah, well. at least they're good ones.

box

:: 2009 10 August :: 6.54pm

So that was an interesting weekend, I ended up just deciding to hide out and disappear for a couple of days. It was nice not having to answer my phone every 10 minutes since I ditched it in someone's car. I just wish i wouldn't have been so hungover and sick Saturday but its all good.

Went to P.J. Hoffmaster State Park yesterday with Jenny, The waves were pretty strong and the beach was packed but it was pretty fun. I'm just disappointed that the storm was weak sauce but still managed to kill everyone's power.

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:: 2009 9 August :: 12.03pm

After a long stressful week, I finally got a weekend to relax.
Found a friends daughter that is almost 2, has a brain tumor..
Found out that same day that a kid I went to school with was found dead in greenville..
Houses and cars are being broken into right next to our house, but nothing of ours has been messed with..
Shell Station was robbed at gunpoint last night, and thats like 2-3 blocks from my house..

I should lay out in the sun, but it doesnt seem to be shining all that much in my yard..
Bummer!

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:: 2009 7 August :: 11.38pm
:: Mood: alone
:: Music: the Beatles

i often wonder whether it's better or worse that i don't post on here very often. i know that when i'm cruising my friends list, and i'm just doing a cursory screen, i'll sometimes ignore the ones that post like seven times a day. but if there's one that pops up that i haven't seen anything from in a while, i'll give it a read. i don't know. whatever. it is what it is, and if someone gets something out of it, then so be it.

apparently i have to re-learn how to be alone with myself. because i've been solitary here for approximately 9 hours, and i've been bored and lonely for approximately half of that time. so, i played wii, i did my rubiks cube, i cruised the internet, i watched superbad, and now i'm fuckin' here.

that's just lame.

and the more i think about it, the more i realize that it's exactly what i used to do to hide from myself. do a puzzle, play a game, read a book. which i think i may do shortly.

i suppose it's better than drinking myself into oblivion or getting doped up.

speaking of which, our front yard has a mole in it. probably a couple. pretty bad. i mowed this afternoon, and there were tunnels fucking everywhere. the lawn care people sprayed pesticide on it, which means the bugs that the moles feed on should die, but then the moles will just move somewhere else. we just need to kill those bastards. the neighbors won't like us very much if we just scare them off into their lawns. although, maybe then the neighbors will kill them for us.

whatever. i feel too crappy to really care that much. this sinus crud can go away any time now. it's been three days now, and i'm just getting tired of it. and i would like for my nosebleeds to have a chance to heal. that'd be great.

yeah.

well, this was uplifting. sorry about that.

i'm running sound for a live band at the crazy horse saloon on the 21st and 22nd. if you're in the area and would like to stop by, feel free. classic rock goodness, and your daily dose of spud. what more can you ask for?

i thought so.

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:: 2009 7 August :: 10.40am

$50 wigot me this.

76 suzuki gt 185.
needs some work, but i'll get it figured out.

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:: 2009 4 August :: 12.13pm

so the guy on egay with a set of carbs for $79 has a "make an offer" thing on them, so i offered $45 because i knew they wern't going to sell. he counter offers with $79... i'm like WTF!?

i reoffered $65, hopefully they take it.

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:: 2009 2 August :: 1.15pm

So I got rid of Dozer yesterday. I was sad to see him go, but I have been able to hold myself together, unlike when I got rid of my cat..
I know that its best for him and he will still be able to see Tank.
And now Chelsea loves him!! :)
So I am happy that I got to make someone else happy.
Even though Tank was super sad yesterday.

:: 2009 27 July :: 1.54am
:: Mood: depressed

::

"There's a way about you that just seems right surrounded by drums, and you come alive to battle it."

i understand what they meant. and yeah, maybe it was just a nice little compliment, and that is all. but maybe not. it almost seems to me as if there is something more to it. as if, in that moment, they had a lucid picture of my mind and my heart and my emotions. like they took a polaroid of my soul. and, it just so happened that - as they saw it - my soul was doing its happy dance, for lack of a better term. and it's true. most of the time when i'm playing drums, i'm happy deep down. it just feels good, and i can focus on that one solitary task (which is actually quite complex and anything but solitary), and it will be enough to distract me from whatever else is going on in my life. unless of course there's a crowd of people watching. but that's not the important part. the important aspect of this observation is that the battle - the maelstrom - that they saw in that instant, isn't happening for me anymore. i mean, it happens every time i go into the basement and jam for half an hour. but then i get done, cool down, and it's gone again. i feel the same way when i'm working on cars, or running sound, or making a recording. it's fun, exciting, exhilarating. it's a challenge for me to conquer. it's a puzzle that i find absolutely fascinating. i need to figure out how it ticks... how to fix it if it's broken... what i could do to make it work better, easier, faster, louder, stronger... you get what i'm saying. then and only then am i truly happy, truly satisfied, fully energized and motivated and ... alive.

and what i want - what i REALLY want more than anything - is to feel that passion in all aspects of my daily life. and it seems that i barely feel it at all anymore. like someone just took all of my energy away. or maybe it's there, but i can't seem to reach it when i need to. it absolutely baffles me.

okay, saying all aspects of my daily life is probably misleading. if i was that excited about taking out the trash, or doing the dishes, and did those chores with the same kind of zeal or fervor that i do in playing drums, it would be creepy and weird. and i'd probably need 12 hours of sleep every day just to maintain my energy levels. so, no i don't want it quite like that. but i want to be able to have a job that i do every day, that offers me the opportunity to have little glimmers of that passion bubble up to the surface from deep within my soul every so often. just enough to remind me of why i'm alive. of why i'm here. of why the fuck nobody's killed me yet. and get a bit of a boost from it, so i have enough energy and self-motivation to be able to get in there and kick it in the butt, like i'm supposed to.

all i know is i'm sick of being poor, i'm sick of being bored, and i'm sick of being either A) stuck at home with a chore list five miles long that i refuse to do, or B) being out and about, thinking about all the chores i have back home that i'm not doing, and about all of the money i'm spending (and not making) in the process of being out. i need something else.

"Well then, I think I may be able to help you. You see, your cat is suffering from what we vets haven't found a word for. his condition is typified by total physical inertia, absence of interest in its ambience - what we vets call "environment" - failure to respond to the conventional external stimuli; a ball of string, a nice juicy mouse, a bird. To be blunt, your cat ... is in a rut. It's the old stockbroker syndrome; angst, weltschmerz, call it what you will-"
"Moping."
"In a way, in a way. Hmm... moping, I must remember that. Well now, what can be done? Tell me sir, have you confused your cat recently?"
"...well-"
"SHH! ... no."
"Yes, well I think I can definitely say that your cat badly needs to be confused."
"What?"
"Confused! To shake it out of its state of complacency. I'm afraid, I'm not personally qualified to confuse cats, but I can recommend an extremely good service. Here is their card."
"Oh... Confuse-a-Cat Ltd..."