I used to keep an account on Live Journal just a few years ago. It was perhaps the most "emo" thing I have ever done, but all my best friends did it, and if a teenager wants for anything it is to fit in with his peers. Well not everything I put on there was so terrible. So I've decided to resurrect a few dead entires ( in reverse order):
Wednesday, December 21st, 2005
3:41 pm
Some things
Some things just arn't worth the effort you need to put forth to get them, like parking spaces. I work downtown sometimes for my Dad. When I work I have to park in an eight story tall parking garage. I don't have a reserved spot so I park on the top floor where it's always empty. Sure, it makes the elevator ride and the trip up and down the parking garage a bit longer, but at least I never have to fight for a space on a lower floor or remember where I parked everday. It's something my Dad taught me to do. I'm sure that idea could be applied to a lot of other things in life, but that's all I know, really. Maybe you thought I was setting you up for something greater, that I was going to try and unveil the mysteries of life. I'd usually attempt something like that when talking like this, but it's probably just one of those things that's just not worth the effort.
Sunday, November 13th, 2005
11:43 pm
Songs come at Shower Time
A few moments ago I was all ready to hop in the shower, and by "all ready" I do mean fully naked. As I pulled back the cheap plastic shower-curtain and lifted a weary hoof over the rim of the bathtub, I was struck right behind my eyes with a song, a melody. I repeated it over and over in my mind with hopes to never forget it. I could not squander those divine notes. Sadly, it soon became apparent that throughout the impending events of the shower I would most assuredly forget my delightful tune and lose it up to the muse's ether where it would be sent back down to another lucky artist. So I painfully foresook my shower and raced over to my keyboard. I begun to translate what was in my head into physical notes. I played them again and again, but realized that this was no better than singing them in my head. So I grabbed a 1/4 cable, jammed one end into the back of my keyboard and the other into my mixer, and recorded the notes digitally. Now my song is saved forever, and when I go back to listen to it I'll always remember how sweet it was to play piano standing up naked in my room.
Monday, October 10th, 2005
1:00 am
Soap
My shower soap seems to wither away into a shameful sliver of its former self so quickly. It seems as if only days after I replace the previous sad sliver of soap, I am just about ready to replace another. It's ridiculous. There are two explanations for this.
1) The discount soap I bought is cheap and of poor quality.
2) Someone is sneaking into my room and taking showers when I'm not around.
Only one of those explanations makes any sort of sense. So with that in mind I have to say...
Whoever the fuck you are stay the hell out of my goddamn shower!
Sunday, September 4th, 2005
1:44 am
Rock Bottom
Last weekend I thought my life couldn't sink to a worse place. My greatest form of entertainment came from watching some girls play volleyball outside a third story window. We oggled them first as a joke. You know, making fun of losers who would actualy do that. Well the joke wore off. But it was still literally the best thing we could think to do. I thought that's as far as my life would sink. I thought that it was just a mild error of not planning anything to do that snagged me, that it wouldn't happen again next weekend.
So the new weekend rolls over and there arn't even any girls playing volleyball to look at from our pathetic third story window. On top of that one of my best friends leaves to visit his girlfriend, who happens to be another of my best friends. So while they bask in their love, Miguel, Ron Joy, and I commiserate on how we don't have girlfriends, how no one would like spazes like us. I mean who would date a guy who gets made fun of by a Wal-Mart employee for shaking his groove thang atop a shopping cart anyway?
That happened in the hardware aisle, later on in the dog food aisle we all realized that this moment was the lowest any of us has ever been in their lives. However, I made one frightening concession to Ron Joy.
"I don't even want to partly kill myself, so there must be a long way down to go still."
It was a joke. We all laughed. We all thought about it a little too long. Good thing we all started finding things to kill ourselves with at Wal-Mart, that lightened the mood.
As we wheeled our cart(still my private dance floor)Miguel and Ron Joy argued about trash bags, someone got called a "fag", but we eventually made our way down to the men's underwear aisle to get some undershirts. I wondered what it would take for me to get on the cover of some tight briefs with those handsome, muscular, and probably smart, talented, witty, rich and charming men. I couldn't ever be one of those guys. It was futile to even joke about it. They we better than me.
"Maybe I could get on the cover of some plain grey socks."
Miguel said, "No."
Slowly I realized that I've only delved deeper into dorkedom since I've been single. I told Ron Joy that in check out as I put the latest issue of The Weekly World News back on the rack. I was trying not to be such a spaz for a moment. I secretly confided to myself that I'd buy it another time. The best thing I did all day was make a girl laugh a little as I read the cover of the tabloid aloud before forgetting about it. "Coyotes Guard Alien Baby from Cops." It wasn't even my joke, I just said it funny. But she laughed a little to her mom, and we all left looking back at the big "W" and wondering what we lost.
This is no joke. I'm a joke.
Why do I have to think these things? I'm not even ugly or anything. I know I'm a pretty good person. So what's it about me that's missing?
Thursday, August 18th, 2005
10:27 pm
Trash Day
Phil is a pretty good name for a garbage man, in fact, that is exactly what garbage man Phil Larson thought as he jumped off the back of the garbage truck and heaved a couple full bags into the back. The smell never bothered him, even on hot days like today. Phil liked his job plenty, and he never examined it further than that. That's what Phil did, he never looked too deep, and for that he was always happy. He just smiled. He just stepped back onto the truck and started down the line to the next house.
The truck rolled slowly down the cul-de-sac, bringing some life to the quiet suburban saturday morning. Phil always liked the way the mail boxes reeled by over and over like they were stuck on an endless loop. He sometimes wished one of those mail boxes were his, but only sometimes when he got jealous. The brakes squealed as the truck came to a stop at the next house. The sound probably woke someone up inside. As he stepped off the truck, Phil exhaled a breath as heavy as the exhaust from the dirty green garbage truck.
It was a bright morning and the gleam from the black plastic bag was refelcted right into Phil's eyes. As he tossed the bag in, Phil stared into the back of the truck. The scent of rotting waste, other people's dinners, wafted up into his nose. It overwhelmed him, and he grew slightly sick for the first time ever. Phil thought to himself,
"What a goddamn mess."
Phil never thought that before, and something in him liked it.
It was a goddamn mess, and it wasn't getting any smaller. He'd come back out to the same houses each week, and the shit never ceased to pile up. He had to get away from the smell, so he quit right there. Phil walked away from the truck. He clenched his teeth to the sound of his co-workers shouting at him to come back, to stop acting nuts. But Phil never turned back. They were just dirty garbage men to him now. Then Phil wondered to himself what he was now. He had no idea, and something in him liked that.
The morning washed over Phil, who stood like a tower above the endless streching pavement of suburbia. His shadow was cast hard in front of him. His eyes were cast hard forward. The sight and sound of the garbage truck faded in the sun behind him. The smell slowly left his nostrils.
I saw this all outside my window one morning. I never saw Phil again. Who knows if anyone did. I just tossed some more shit into the garbage and forgot.
Saturday, June 25th, 2005
12:42 pm
From A Sunny Lane With Clouds For Streets
Daydream driver, you've made it back home. Put the car in park and unlock the door. Grab your umbrella because it's about to pour. Daydream driver, get your feet on the floor.
Sunday, June 5th, 2005
FORSOMECHANGE
Up, up and away
Is a place I'd like to stay
Monday, May 16th, 2005
9:06 pm
Last Night
I made a wish for the black sea to swallow me up, driving fast to the sands, angry and trying to force it all out with crying. The wet road reflections of street lights and store fronts were motion blurring in the windshield and I was singing out my guts, out of key, out the window, over the highway, all about my emptiness that’s screaming in a hail of red light. I was burning up through the ocean’s city. I was burning out, but not too late to hit the shore. I jumped out of the car and scared the rats away, wanting to stomp them into the ground to show that I’m violent, that I’m a big man. But they faded into the grey pavement, out of my reach, and I was already sucked into the sands, pulled away from the lights of the city towards the impenetrable abyss rolling with white tops. I sat just out of reach from the black sea swallowing me whole. I was done with my death wish. It had been pulled away by the lights that shone all in my body, remembered from back when I was angry and trying to cry it all out. So I made other wishes instead, bargaining for anything with the deep till I was worn down by the tide to this:
I wish I didn’t feel so empty.
3:25 am
Great Ideas
Me: They should make, like, ear snorkles so that you can hear whats going on above the water while underneath it.
Protz: That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard.
Me: Oh really? Fine, then when I make millions off my ear snorkle invention, and your crying a pool full of tears because you thought it was dumb and didn't invest, I'll be right there swimming at the bottom of the pool full of your tears, listening to you blubber like a baby, in perfect clarity, with my ear snorkles.
Protz: Damn that's cold.
While the conversation didn't go exactly like that, it is what is boils down to. I haven't had such a dumb idea in a long time. Looks like a lost side of me is coming back. That makes me a little bit happy.
Tuesday, April 19th, 2005
9:25 pm
My Head Feels Nice
Hydrocodone
Sings a song to me;
Makes me understand
The Groovy
Wednesday, April 13th, 2005
10:53 pm
Maybe Some More Wisdom
It is my goal to make the mundane magnificent. If I don't, I might as well not exist.
9:38 pm
Cleaning Up The Dorm
Two simple facts were clear, when reviewing my life over the past months.
I didn't do lot of things I told myself I would do.
I did a lot of things I never thought I would do.
There are many stories behind those facts, but really, that sums it up nicely, and this is the thought that it left me with. With everything that happened this year, all the incredibly hard times I've had, right now I would easily crawl back into this year, because, well, I know it, and it's safe. The future now, it's not. But soon I'll feel that same way about the coming months, and eventually about the coming years, that's how life works it seems.
UPDATE:
Maybe it's because I try harder than the average person to find omens and symbols in my life, but sometimes my existence seems so utterly poetic that it's humbling. As I was walking out to go get some cookies (as usual), after writing the above, I looked again unto a ledge that I notice every time I go down the steps and out of my dorm. Every time I walk past it I think the same thing, "That ledge looks like it would be cool to sit up on". But despite thinking that thought countess times, I never actually went to sit up on that ledge. But tonight was different; I was compelled to climb up and sit, for a while, on top that ledge. As I settled in (avoiding the dirt, and grime, and random sticky spots), I felt ridiculous for ever wanting to sit on a ledge so much. I must have looked a bit insane to the passing observer as well. But, after finishing feeling ridiculous, I saw it, something I had over-looked countless times, just as I had denied countless times, sitting on that ledge. It was a large eye drawn on the back wall of the hallway, wide open and staring directly into me. So plainly obvious! I could not believe how I just walked past it everyday, completely missing it. You see, I'm very fond of drawing eyes myself, so I respected the vandal who drew it immediately. In addition to respect for the artist, my habit of drawing eyes also afforded me a greater understanding of what that wide open, pencil drawn eye really meant. It was a symbol of awareness, and I was never aware of it. Despite my, at times, ballooning ego, I always managed to be humbled in the most discrete ways. It makes me want to say this:
I love you, whatever that means to whoever reads this, I love you.
Tuesday, March 1st, 2005
9:34 pm
A Fascinating Trend
I have been keeping track of the recent developments in trash bag technology for some time now. In the past few months, the tensile strength of the common household trash bag has greatly been increased. This all started with the introduction of the Glad ForceFelx bag (thank God now I can carry my 5 bowling balls in a single trash bag),and then recently moved further with Jackie Chan bringing Hefty into the game with his demonstration of the ease in which you too can combat invading ninjas, using only the new Hefty Ultra Flex bag to defend yourself.
Now some of you may have viewed trash bags in the "Costanzian toilet paper" model, which is to say you believe that trash bags have not evolved throughout history. But these new developments irrevocably prove that you are, in fact, completely wrong, and that you should never attempt to take a stance on anything you ever believed in again. That being said, I do not believe that mankind has yet witnessed the end of the great advances to be made in the field trash bag research and development. It it roughly predicted, at the current rates, that by the year 2010 trash bags will be, pound for pound, stronger than diamonds. However, this technology will most certainly be commandeered by the U.S. military to create body armor 100x stronger and more effective than current Kevlar vests and will never reach public use. However, I am still confident that mankind can only benefit from these developments; this must the harbinger of humanity's eventual evolution into beings of pure energy. I leave you with this look into the future.
The future of America's armed forces:
Pictured above: Veteran of WWII, General Vince Frankhauser, exhibits the newest break-throughs in personal protection to unwary bikers. He is ,at this moment, the safest man in America.
Thursday, February 24th, 2005
1:07 am
A Fork Dilema
So maybe no one will laugh the same at this little tidbit of my life as much as I did but here goes it.
So I'm eating dinner in the Dining Hall, which I refer to as "The Fourth Dimension". I'm just minding my own business, eating alone, trying to work off the massive amount of meals on my FSU card and keep some money in my bank account. When all of a sudden I realize that I'm very annoyed with this "dude" that happens to be eating a little ways from me. Now I study him for a few moments not exactly sure why he is so offensive to me, but then it hits me. This guy seemed to prefer the "Underhand Style" of fork usage, for those of you not in-the-know, "Underhand Style" is when instead of gripping the fork like you would a pencil, as any sane and mannered person would do, you grip it in your fist with the prongs pointed upward, then you curl your arm back and shovel food into your mouth like a slob. I just kept staring and he just kept eating his food like he was'nt the most devious beast in this "Fourth Dimension" we were in. Now if the story ended there I'd just be a complete jerk by ridiculing this simple fellow, however, it did not. Now I went to bring up my tray to send on to the good Dining Hall staff to clean, and this thought of improper fork usage was still on my mind. So as I get close to disposal area, I notice a guy in the corner with a fork in either hand piling rice into his mouth, and he looks up at me as if to say, "What are you going to do about it?" And my friends once again, I am humbled.
Sunday, October 31st, 2004
7:12 am
Halloween
In the shadows of the full moon night, behind a strange door, on an evening they call Halloween, where ghosts, witches and werewolves prowl and stalk, there sits a man at his desk. This man is writing.
“But what haunted, evil things must he be writing on a night so famed for spectral phenomena?” you may ask. “Which ghostly apparition is filling his mind to write out its’ demonic tale?”
Well I can tell you all of this, and I shall tell you that it is nothing. No. Nothing at all, is what compels his toil. And I shall take you directly into his mind and show you just what he desires to have known.
I have come to realize that I loathe Halloween. This comes from a man, who as a boy loved the holiday. He was those things that a kid should have been, Superman, and a pirate twice, then later masked as monsters, grubbing for sacks of candy, with toothy grins. As a kid I loved to walk through the neighborhood and see everyone decked out in their costumes and compare mine with theirs, or see which houses were the best decorated and which ones would try and scare me when they opened the doors. I got to see all my neighbors, who I would never meet before, and they were all so impressed with me. It was a grand ego trip, I was a celebrity with strange people welcoming me with excitement, telling me how good I looked, and giving me treats. What could have gone wrong? Well, I grew up, and it was no longer cool to dress up and go door to door asking for candy.
Now special days-holidays- gain meaning as you grow. Thanksgiving becomes so much more important, as keeping one’ family close becomes a priority and as one realizes how difficult it really is to make it in life and do it comfortably. Valentine’s Day turns from just another reason to get candy (even if you have to give people in your class cards with hearts on them to get it) to a nerve wracking day where one has to shower their lover with adoration, but if all goes well they will both be happy in the night.
Then some holidays morph and change their meaning but never lose their special qualities. As a Christian, Christmas changes from a most anticipated day for young children, filled with every bit of magic that he world contains, to a day where you get to give gifts to those you love and show them just how much they mean to you, where you can kiss that loved one under the missal toe and sing songs about Old Saint Nick.
But Halloween that orange and black night, watched over by a candy corn toothed full moon just loses every bit of magic that it ever contained as one grows up. As you stop believing in monsters, as you stop receiving satisfaction by silly pranks, you start to grow fat from that candy, and you start to wonder why such an evil day is so highly cherished.
For the past five years I have done nothing on Halloween. Let me correct that. For the last previous four years I have handed out candy to little kids for Halloween; this year I do nothing. It makes me sad, to think that I should be having a great night just because a card company tells me I should. I guess I just fall in too easily to the pressure. It would be easier if Halloween meant nothing and was just special because you got the day off. I wish Halloween were like president’s day; hardly anyone cares about its’ actual significance, they just put a flag out and stay home. I wish I could just put a pumpkin outside my door and watch T.V. happily. But I can’t I feel as if I need celebrate and since I’m not I must be a loser.
Who wants to make Halloween special for me once again?
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