Johannes Brahms!

This man flicked me off today.

At least, he looked like Toby Flenderson. I was driving on 27, and some dude I guess wanted to merge into my lane, but he wasn't signaling his intent to merge, so I didn't feel obligated to let him in in front of me when there was plenty of room behind me. So, he flipped me the bird. And I was delighted when I passed him and saw that the guy who was overly upset with me for littel to no reason was, as Daryl put it, "the guy with the sad eyes". Totally made my day.

Also, my day was even more made when I was watching Life, a good show I;m upset that I'm getting into as it has already been canceled, and one of the ads was this.


I would totally eat that, beard or no beard.

Keepin' It Unreal

I haven't forgotten the blog. For multiple days at a time, it slips my mind, and there are times when I feel like writing something, and it just doesn't happen. There have been plenty of blog worthy things, such as my new brothers of the Hawaiian shirt wearing clan at Baker Park on the fourth. There have been plenty of things going on with Ben and Justin.

Problem is, all of these things are tainted. It's been a long time since I've felt bad about how I handled something. guilt is not a feeling I like, a feeling I took great lengths to avoid. I'd like to say this thing brings out the worst in me, but maybe it just reveals who I really am. I take a malicious pleasure in being a jerk. I feel I take more pleasure in the pride of not being an ass, but one is easier than the other sometimes.

Point being, this last project I've been working on, I love it. Thing about it is, it's real. It's not something born in my head. I've, with Justin and Ben's help, documented it, and embellished it, but I've made almost nothing up. And while I like that my life is for once interesting enough to to merit something like this, in this case, a screenplay, it's all very real, and I'm having doubts as to whether I'm the protagonist of this story, or the antagonist. The wanderlust I've been feeling lately isn't because I'm a gypsy at heart. It's because once again, I'm finding myself unhappy with who I'm becoming, and I'm too afraid to fix it.

I don't really know. It's an ugly situation, one that has no easy solution, only the promise that the situation will go away at the end of the summer, at least temporarily, so I have the option to ignore it until it goes away, which is not what I want to go away.

I've been drawing though. I'm not very good, but considering how good the women in my family are, I have to at least have some talent. I don't have anything I consider good enough to put on the blog yet, but I'm trying. I've just got some stories that I envision more as graphic novels than books. Some things are said better with pictures than words, and while I doubt I'll ever be good enough to do these as a solo endeavor, I've got some characters that I want to actually see somewhere other than in my head. Some of my more recent stories have started with a simple image, my latest was what I believed to be a character from another story, whom I thought had died much younger than I saw him there, oddly, on metro. I don't know if it means anything, other than that my imagination has totally stepped out of my control, not mention my understanding.

But it's what I should be doing. Making stuff up. It's not a guilt free place, and there is still question over who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, but at least I'm still rational enough to know that while it matters to me, it only matters to me. I can maintain my self image as a decent human being. What I'm working on now, the real stuff, I'd like to leave it alone for a year or too, come back to it, and see what's changed. Once I can separate it from reality, then maybe I can finish it, guilt free. Once the people in it are characters, and not people I know.

Still, I wanted to try my hand at drawing, and I've been reading some web comics lately, paying almost as much attention to the artwork, or more importantly, the changes and improvement of the artwork, as the stories themselves. I think if I keep at it, I might produce something decent. I'll never do anything that compares to my sisters, but if I can do the cover art for at least one book, I'll be extremely happy. It's probably just another excuse to do something besides actually write these stories. I think my skill at procrastination would let me put off my own death. That is the dream, anyways.

About Time!

Not that I need it, but it's nice to know that they make a supplement now.



It was pretty awesome, walking into Wal-Mart, looking for protein powder, to see this. Not going to lie to you. It just about made the trip to Frederick worthwhile, seeing as Ben and I tried to go clothes shopping, but were unaware of the lack of Old Navy in Frederick. I don't know if the fact that we are too hopeless to shop for clothes makes us slightly better, considering it seems our friendship has reached the level of Bromance where we go clothes shopping together. In our defense, Ben apparently had some sweet deal, but a deal that necessitated spending more money than he wanted to. It wasn't gay at all. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

But jeeze, protein supplements! So confusing. I had bought some stuff that is just god awful, but for 25g of protein, it wasn't worth choking down, especially since according to the fancy graphs on the container, working out while using a placebo protein source, you will attain negative muscle growth. I'm just curious if that only applies if you think you're getting protein, but aren't, or if you just aren't getting enough, because that means that pretty much all the exercise I've done my entire life has been depleting my muscles.

But anyways, I'm nearing the end, and the other night, talking with Mike, Keely's fiance, he said he had some stuff that was 50g, double what I was rocking. Needing to investigate, Ben and I went to Wal-Mart, to shop around for protein. We found ones of course that were 50g, but in the fine print, you saw that it was for two scoops! Every single one had a different measurement and definition of a serving size. Some were one, some two, one was even four scoops. They all ended up being roughly the same, but it took us about ten minutes to figure it out. I dind't even end up getting anything, as I still need to finish my awful vanilla cream whey protein, that tastes quite a bit more like cake batter, and doesn't mix with anything, so there are just chunks of gooey protein floating in whatever you're trying to consume with it. It's awful.

Reasons not to Blog

I haven't forgotten the blog. There have been several times when I meant to post, but then something comes up. Like the other day, I totally had a post, and pictures for it. I was going to take my pictures off of my camera, but since I got a new camera, one that uses an SD card, and not the useless XD card that my old Olympus used, I hadn't bought a new card, and instead was using an old SD card I had. When I put it in my computer, I noticed there were other things on it.

Even more exciting than finding a bunch of old word files I thought I had lost, was the discovery of stuff I had written that I didn't remember at all.So rather than post, I've been reading some of my old stuff for the past several days, one of which was a story that was almost 90 pages, one that I was certain I had lost.

My only regret is not doing a better job of dating this stuff. I was telling Justin about this, and he compared me to an archaeologist, going back into my life, and trying to carbon date stuff. It's pretty true. Most of my stories, I can place their conception, roughly.

The Monkey House, it was in either my Spanish four or AP Spanish class, when we were trying to talk about fears in Spanish. I'm pretty sure it was four, because the next semester, I considered trying to write it for my graduation project, but the story wasn't old enough, but I did write a lot, and found probably all of it the other day.

My story about demi-gods that govern human life and death, I remember that was the summer after senior year, and it came about while I was running on route 27 every night, and my sense were over-tuned, and I was jumping at every shadow. I found a lot of the original ideas for that.

And a lot of stuff from Eryk Valen's story. Stuff so old I still spelled his name Eric. He's the one, the important one, the one who I have no idea how long I've known about him. I can date him back to at least seventh grade, just from certain things, but I'm sure it was before then. How much has he changed in that time. That had to be before he even had a name, let alone a proper spelling.

So, with all that old stuff, then I of course was thinking about the name, and how he got, and it has been a long time since I've learned anything new about him. I replay his story over and over, and a few things get changed, added, and omitted, but there is very rarely anything new. But for the first time in probably a year, I have something new. And also, I have dated it, and backed it up for sure. Man it annoys me that I have no idea when any of that stuff was written.

Anyways, pictures. I have some. Apart from my typical three day a week workouts with Ben and Justin, I realized I wasn't running as much, so I started running to my old neighborhood, taking a few laps back and forth across the lake, and then running back home. It's only four miles, but the swim in the middle wears me out. I was talking to my old neighbor, Valerie, today, and she said that you couldn't pay her to get in that lake. I can't really argue there. It's beautiful, but it is pretty gross. It gets worse as the summer goes on. I remember as kids, when we'd all go swimming in it, we'd all have rashes from the "ching chings" as Keely (who just got engaged, congrats Keely and Mike) dubbed them. But right now, the algae and seaweed or whatever that grows in there is almost nonexistent, at least in the small part I swim in, and it's manageable. Also, people like to keep reminding me of the snapping turtle situation in that lake, a fact that I'm aware of but don't like to be reminded of. They generally chill on the bottom, waiting for prey, so I figure if my feet don't touch the ground, I'm alright.

The lake. The pictures don't do it justice, at least not to how disgusting it is. With all the rain lately though, it's quite full, meaning it's cleaner than usual, and colder than usual, both huge pluses.

Just a picture of Jo chillaxin' on the deck, under my chaise.




This was pretty sweet storm, came on pretty suddenly. Also, left my car windows open that day. It rains, like almost everyday, and seems I would learn to roll them up, even if I plan on leaving shortly and it doesn't look like rain.

Productive

I think this pretty much sums up our day. I got a new camera today, but I was at Ben's with him and Justin, a fellow member of the blog quadratic and old friend from high school home for the summer, so I didn't have a memory card with me, so I was limited to three pictures. I felt these did an accurate job of describing our day, as the three of us sat around at Ben's house. We were actually quite productive. On what, I won't say just yet, but here is just a small preview of what is to come.



That is our other friend Colin, also a memeber of the blog quadratic:

And John Lithgow, famous actor:

The rest you can deduce for yourselves.

RDTSBWTR

Robot Dinosaurs That Shoot Beams When They Roar

Just, just click the link. It's pretty awesome. I feel that everyone should make the world safe for another ten jillion years.

Still Dancing with Groogrux King

The new Dave Matthews Band album came out today, Big Whiskey and the Groogrux king came out. I'm a pretty big DMB fan, not quite the caliber that Jo is, but they're pretty good. It's been rather easy to enjoy, since they've done a rather good job of marketing it, and I was able to catch their live performance last night a Beacon theater streaming commercial free on Hulu, and Hulu also has a bunch of stuff from them, from a documentary on the latest CD, to music videos, to live performances.

So, I bought the CD today, and I was tempted to play it in the car, but you never know if Giz is going to keep the CD's I put in her, or worse, chew them up, so waited. And I have to say, at first, I was mildly disappointed. After all the promotion, and the majority of the band agreeing that it was their best, I felt there was nothing that really compared to some of their greats like "Crash Into Me" or "Grey Street". SO I sat out in the sun for awhile and listened to it on repeat (and got a sunburn on the bottom of me feet. didn't know that could happen, and it finally began to click. It still doesn't have anything quite like the aforementioned songs, but as an album, it's really good. Not having really listened to any of their former albums as an album, together in order as they were originally, produced, I can't vouch for it being their best. It's hard to compare it to Dave's solo album, "Some Devil", which, with the exception of the title track, I am a huge fan, but him sans the band is just a different sound.

Not to mention the album art. It is fantastic. The polar bear might be my favorite, and that's just the cover. Suffice to say, it kept me rather amused for at least a whole run through.

I don't know, Jo and I enjoyed it. It was about time.

Snapper

This is my new buddy.

I went for a bike ride with my dad this morning. It was beautiful, and I haven't ridden in a while. We went to my old neighborhood first. It's always a little rough going back. It's like walking back into my childhood, only, it's not real. I can never go back. I can remember in that painful bittersweet flood that comes with every trip over there. I am one nostalgic sob.

That aside, it was a sweet ride. At some point, I lost my father, because he of course did the smart thing, and assumed I would forget the way home. I of course didn't, and

When I got back to my parents neighborhood, I came upon two girls and a barking dog in the middle of the road. The issue was my buddy the snapper. I attracted a small crowd as I attempted to get my new friend out of the road. He of course wasn't having it. One of the few things that really terrify me, and the lake was full of them. I remember one year, walking out on the ice when it was just strong enough to get out on the edge, and I looked down, and there was one about twice that size right under my feet. I always have dreams where I'm back at the lake, and most of them involve snapping turtles, usually covering the shore, just hundreds of them. Still, now, finding this guy on the road, I wasn't about to try and grab him with my bare hands, but I had no issues getting him off the road. I guess if tools hadn't been readily available, I would have sucked it up and used my hands to move him, but I'm glad it didn't come to that.

I was able to get him into one of those big plastic storage containers and get him off the street without losing a finger. I took him down to the stream where by the pond we fly kites at. Of course now, knowing he might be there, I will never walk in that pond again.

Familiar Faces

Been seeing a lot more people I used to know lately. This is an experience that can be good or bad. Particularly bad, especially when I run into people from high school at work. The best had to be a while back, when I ran into some girl I knew, who's name I don't remember, and if I cared a bit more, I might bust out the year book, but I didn't after it happened, and I don't intend to now.

Needless to say, on Thursdays, my job takes me over to the clothing side of the store, and I spend all day updating counts there. And of course, I should run into this girl while I'm researching my favorite part, lingerie.

This is awesome for me, because, for starters, I'm at a immediate disadvantage, because I didn't know her well in school, nor she me, but we recognize each other, but she has the advantage of knowing my name because I'm displaying it on my chest, whereas I've got nothing, and I can't ask her hers, because even though she probably only remembered mine because it's right there, I'd feel like a jerk for not remembering hers. And then it's just an awkward place to catch up. There's the typical "what are you up to these days", and I really don't care what she's up to, and as for me, I'm rifling through the panty wall, looking for a particular set the system thinks we have but I can't find.

This experience has prompted a change in my routine, and I now start there and get that done before the store opens.

Anyways, today was a good one. My boos came up to me while I was over in cosmetics (another great place to run into people, btw) and told me there was a guy over by the PC games who was suspected of stealing XBox games. So I have to go over and ask him if he needs help, and just sort of deter theft. And who should be the suspect but one of my old friends from engineering club, Sean something or other.

I was really good to see him actually, even if he may or may not have been stealing. I'd be interested to find out if Jesse actually saw him on the cameras or just suspected him of it, because yeah, I haven't seen the guy in like four years, but I really didn't see it. He's doing pretty well for himself, got a good job for some defense contractor, and doesn't seem like he needs to resort to stealing games, but who knows. Not me, that's for sure.

Then later, at Safeway, I ran into a guy who I generally see when I'm there, Cody, working in the bakery. I haven't been there lately, and he's one of those people who always nags me about going to school, and doing something with my life, which, I actually like him because for some reason, it doesn't bug me coming from him. And then, as soon as he saw me, he said he just saw one of my best friends from way back in kindergarten, Evan Ponton. I was about to whip out my phone and call him and see if he was still in the store, but Cody beat me to it, calling him out over the store intercom. Evan walks around the corner, a few minutes later, a confused look on his face, wondering what he could possibly be needed at the bakery for.

We talked for a bit, and I need to see him more this summer. He reminded me I need to see a lot of people this summer, as right now, I hang out with the same four people four days a week, plus, then the people from work, who I see five or six days. Really, different people are nice, change things up, you know.

Lost In Mount Airy

It's not a big town. Nor is it not a town I've spent most of my life in. Same for Ben, and he at least has a decent sense of direction. And yet, the two of managed to get lost in Mount Airy today. And not like the back woods hick part of Mount Airy. We were looking for Main Street.

Our Friend Anna is only in town for a couple of days, and she proposed the idea of hanging out, and said she would be in town for the local festival, "Spring Fling," I believe it is called. So, only coordinating with each other, Ben and I decided to go. Not able to park near Main Street itself, we parked at a park, and decided to walk through the park and some yards to hopefully get back onto Main Street, and discovered a small section of Mount Airy that may or may not even be in Mount Airy. There are several theories, more than one of them involving wormholes and time travel.

Needless to say, we found our way back into the present and Mount Airy, only to discover that Anna was leaving just as we were getting there, so we didn't even see her, and the rest of our friends, as per use, suck. So, we walked through the festival, questioned why we had even considered coming (seriously, those things are awful), and then decided to go back to the car. By then, my ribs were starting to ache pretty bad, so we again tried to take what we believed was the shortest distance between two points, and got semi lost again, again in Mount Airy.

We made it back, and then spent most of the rest of the day lounging in the sun. I had forgotten how much fun just lounging in the sun is. Yay skin cancer!

Moderately Injured

Well, I hate my right hand.

The best thing about hating my right hand, and also, the worst thing, is how much it makes me think about my left hand. My left arm, even over two years later, is still stronger than my right. When I broke my collar bone, my right arm was dead weight for more than six weeks, and when my left arm decided to pick up the slack, it never stopped. However, it's still worthless for things like, writing, eating utensils. Things it's great for in a pinch consist of shifting in a manual car, and, well, that's about all that comes to mind.

I suppose a recount of the accident is in order. And for that to happen, we have to go further back in time, to the invention of Awesome Ball.

It describes itself. It is, without a doubt, the most awesome game ever. Why, well, there are no real rules to Awesome Ball, the major reason besides lack of coordination and terrible team spirit that I never excelled or really did sports as a kid. Now mind you, there were some that that were fun, when they were made up or not played with the standard set of rules, but those are a story for another day.

Recently, my mother got one of those big exercise balls, and I amused myself with that pretty easily. Ben was over at some point, and he seemed to think he could pop one. It very quickly progressed into a challenge, one that will likely never be fulfilled. Of course, their were constraints like he couldn't use tools, and there would have to be a time limit. So, not wanting to destroy my mother's, I bought my own. This was the large, or 75 cm gray exercise ball, made by Prospirit, which ran me only a little over $10, so I wasn't going to be too out should Ben succeed.

Luckily, we planned on documenting the challenge, so when I first busted it out, it was dark, so we of course would not engage in the challenge in such poor lighting. SO instead, we proceeded to play some sort of soccer, rugby, volleyball combination game with the giant ball. And the fun was nigh infinite. We established that there would be no rules, which was later broken by the addition of the one and only rule, that you could invent any rule you wanted during play, provided it only lasted for thirty seconds.

Eventually, we took Awesome to the masses, and by masses, I mean our friends from high school. The problem I have discovered is that the more of us there are, the lazier we get. It was most fun with two people, and while it seemed like it would improve with more participants, it got worse and worse the more people we involved. Until I, in a mood inspired by the lack of energy, I just ran up to the ball after having to retrieve it for like the sixty third time, and jumped on it. It of course, being a sphere, rolled out from under me, throwing me off so I would land on my face. Stunned by this turn of events, I didn't get my hands out in time to fully break my fall, and instead, nearly broke both my hand and ribs as I landed on them.

Neither are, fortunately, just badly bruised. The whole incident did remind me that I do enjoy being insured, and now, today, after finishing all of my classes for this semester, and more than likely failing PreCalc, I am considering signing up for classes again in the fall. It's sad, because my reasons for going to school keep getting worse and worse. It went from feeling like I was supposed to, and when that didn't motivate me, I did it to get out of high school early. Then, after dropping out, incidentally because of a broken bone, to feeling like it was the responsible thing to do, when it was not at all, to doing it because everyone else thought I should, to now, for insurance.

Still though, despite the injuries, the park was great. It was good to see some of my old friends. Rusty, in particular, is always amusing, and it never gets old how dumb this kid can be. I had locked my keys in the car with the windows down just enough to reach my arm in and unlock it. Rusty of course spied that I had fruit snacks, so he of course sticks his arm in to try and reach the box. It didn't seem physically possible, but every time we thought he had wedged his arm in as far as he could, he'd jam it in a little further. You could see the red marks on his arm that marked his progress, and the distance between the first time he got stuck and where he finally reached the box was probably close to two inches.

He finally managed to grab the edge of the box, but the cardboard ripped, and the box fell over on his side. He pulled out, defeated, and then Ben pointed out that he could have easily unlocked the door from his position. He earned those fruit snacks.

I suppose I can't make fun of him to much. When we left, I was worried I would have to have someone come pick me up, because I couldn't drive myself home, and the only other person driving stick, Ben, had to take his own car. But, Rusty and I form an unstoppable team, and he operated the shifter while I worked the clutch, and despite our poor levels of communication, there were zero accidents on the way home.

But, as I stated previously, I hate my right hand, and my left hand is not much better, and I'm sick of typing, so that's all I've got for now. I promise to do something soon, but for now, I'm kind of laid up.

Public Speaking

For film, we generally have to write papers on low budget films. This time, however, he gave us an alternative; write a two page paper on a micro budget film, or write a two page screenplay of a scene in proper format. I obviously opted for the latter, though I was mildly worried in class when a couple of the guys were saying they didn't because the man grading it was a man who did not like "Dark Knight". I mean, everyone liked "Dark Knight". Yeah, It was a long movie, but it was good for the entire three hours. But that is not the point of this blost.

Anyways, I got more worried when he said that he was going to have people come up and talk about the movie we watched. I had a brief moment where I thought, having not watched a film, I would be exempt, but someone immediately brought that to his attention. Well, we would have to get up and talk about our scene.

As much as I've been thinking about Eryk Valen of late, I didn't want to write a scene that was all action. So I opted for a story that I don't even ever imagine as a movie. I haven't talked about "Calc" yet on the blog, but I think I might have mentioned Graham. I'm too lazy to look for him now. Anyways, it's coming, soon, but just without saying anything about it at all, it should be stated that it's my only story that isn't rooted in fantasy or science fiction, and it's the only one that is in first person.

So I wrote a scene from that, a scene I will be blosting on here once I clean it up a bit. I was after all, limited to two pages, so it wasn't exactly what I wanted, but I do want to blost it here, regardless of whether I envision it as a movie or not.

Back to class, where he had four people come up and talk about the low budget films they had watched. Every time he was calling people, I was of course trying not to be noticed, and it seemed to be working. Then, after the fourth, he said he'd go ahead and do someone who had written a scene. He asked those who had to raise their hands, and there were only three of us. I'm trying desperately to find that perfect mixture of not drawing attention to myself, but not trying to look too much like I don't want to do it, and not succeeding at all. I was probably doing both, I know for sure looked like I didn't want to. And of course, he looks back and forth between the other two, and then zeros in on me.

So I got up, and in front of twenty people, proceeded to tell them a very general synopsis of Calc, and describe my scene. I got a lot of technical questions, I guess, about the layout and scene length and stuff like that, and so the story itself wasn't delved into that much, but man, it was great. I'm not a great public speaker, or a speaker in general. But, well, I'm sure if I saw myself, I'd think differently, but compared to past experiences from my own viewpoint, I did rather well. I was soaked in sweat, but I actually looked at my audience, didn't fidget with my hands, and kept the stuttering to a minimum.

I was glad I had done it, even as minimal as it was, and after class, I stuck around to talk to my teacher, to thank him. He said that he picked me because he had read the other guys last week, and it was just kind of, I believe the phrase he used was "hokey pokey", and the other chick looked too excited. He said I captured the opposite look from what I was going for. I looked scared, but at the same time, needing to do it. And that was the truth of it. I mean, I got this tattoo partly as a reason to tell people, and I haven't told a soul yet, except Alfie, the guy who did the tattoo, but I was sitting there with him for almost three hours while he jammed a needle into my arm millions of times.

I wanted to tell my teacher, Adam Frey, who is a great guy, a bit more. It was just me and one other guy left, and while I'm still not comfortable, the more personal, the better. But the thing about Adam is, the guy can talk. The past two weeks, we haven't watched a single film. this is partly because the projector in the classroom barely and rarely works. In fact, after I talked, he just talked for the next hour and a half, and no one else even went. And honestly, that's fine by me. He's very interesting, and his voice is very easy for me to pay attention to. It''s preferable to watching films. I don't fall asleep as I tend to do at ten at night, when the lights are out, and I've been up since five.

So, he's an English Major, so I wanted to talk to him about writing some, and, well, I listened to him talk about writing for another half hour after class was over. So I didn't get to talk any more about my own writing as I had wanted to, but still, I said a lot more than usually do. And tomorrow is Pizza Night with the neighbors, who I'm sure will love to hear about my tattoo, and the reasoning behind it. I'll bust out some Eryk Valen and Graham then.

Farewell Scrubs

Tonight was the series finale of Scrubs, easily my favorite comedy. And now, after eight wonderful years, it is over.

My sister Kellie first introduced it to me, letting me borrow the first three seasons on DVD. Those were the best seasons, before it hit its rough patch. I watched those first three seasons a lot, as that was when I was currently not going to school, and still rocking the shattered collar bone, so I watched even more TV than usual, which is a lot.

I was thinking about it, and I've seen every episode, most of them twice, some of them probably as many as ten times. It's easier to find on TV than Seinfeld, and it never gets old. All 168 episodes. At roughly 22 minutes per episode, that's 3,696 minutes, or a little over 61 and a half hours. Almost three days, and that's just watching them all once, not including commercials. And as I think back on it, totally worth it.

There is speculation of it returning, with a different cast of interns introduced in this season. I kind of hope they don't. I suppose if the same guy, Bill Lawrence, does it, I'll probably watch it, but really they ended that show, they had a good ending to that show, and go back at all, even with a new cast, it kind of disrespects a brilliant piece of work.

Now I just have to wait for the last season to come out on DVD, and watch those 61.6 hours of hospital humor in a straight run.

Tat!

So it's done. I've been waiting, well, for a long time, but knowing for sure that it would happen, it's been about a month and a half.

I got my tattoo. And it is awesome!

By the way, I don't usually rock the sleeveless T. It's an awful look, second only to the sleeveless shirts that are ripped down to like an inch from the bottom, to show off the sides. But it is rather sore, and so I found the one shirt that I got from one of my sisters and my armpits had eaten such huge holes in the sleeves that they practically fell off.

For starters, I need to thank H, my sister, who drew the design for me. Initially unsupportive, but when I explained, she agreed, and put my idea on paper, in a medium my ideas rarely get translated too. My art is with words, not pictures, and seeing it come out as a picture, that was a great feeling. So thanks H, you're amazing.

However, you failed me initially, and your negativity was not wanted. So I need to thank Stephanie Dorsey, and also, to give her a shout out for her birthday. When Heather was initially being a Debbie Downer, I turned to a person who's support I was almost guaranteed, and who's support would actually mean something. No offense Ben, but you're support is worthless. She gave me the positive reception I wanted, and needed, and she went with me both to make the appointment and to when I actually got it done. And she kept it a secret, which is more than I can say for Heather. But Steph, she's one of my oldest friends, and it meant a lot to me.

Third, I need to thank the man who actually used a tiny fast moving needle to jam ink into skin, Alfie, of Marks Of The Spark. This guy, he is truly wonderful at what he does. His attention to detail is phenomenal, and amazingly, it turned out better than I had imagined, far better than I could have hoped for. He came highly recommended, and I recommend his to anyone looking to get a tattoo. You have to book well in advance, as I said, it took me about a month and half, but the wait was well worth it.

Marks Of The Spark

I suppose I should tell you what it is. Besides two guns and a sword. If you couldn't figure that one out, no need to read further.

Ben wants a tattoo, but he doesn't know what he wants. That just doesn't make sense to me. I had no desire whatsoever to put something that permanent on my body until I knew exactly what I wanted, and even then, it took me over a year to decide for sure to go through with it. I'm not a fan of meaningless ink. Even doing it for the sake of art, or having something that looks good, well, it had better look damn good. If there's no reason behind it, well, I just don't get it. Mine is a symbol, and more than that, it's a promise. A promise to a man named Eryk Valen, who's sword and gun's I will now bear forever on my left arm. I'm going to tell his story. And there's no backing out now. I have a permanent reminder of my purpose in life.

The farmer's tan isn't terrible yet. I suppose I'll do something about that, but I say that every year. Can't really worry about that for a week or so anyways.

Year's down the road, if I haven't told his story, the tattoo becomes not a promise, but a reminder of my failure, and I can't live with that. I'm scared, terrified, of telling this story. I'm selfish with it, and I'm afraid I won't do it justice. But that's not an excuse. I can't keep this one to myself, and if I intend to die without telling this story, better today than tomorrow. It's that important. So to you, Eryk Valen, and all of you, I will tell your stories. You just have to keep telling me yours.

Oh yeah, should note, the reaction from the folks; poor. The timing was both good in a way for me, but bad for them. Fortunately, other people's opinion of me and my actions matter little these days. That's one of the things my mother said; people would assume I'm a gun nut. The fact that that matters so much to her makes me a little sad, for her, but if people think I'm gung ho guns, more power to them. I've never even touched a gun, nor do I have any desire to do so. A lot of my characters, I want to experience what they do, but I have no need to experience anything Eryk Valen has felt. That's I guess why he's special, compared to the rest. He is in no way based off myself.

So I have the tattoo now. For starters, I will most likely tell those who helped make this happen the story to the best of my verbal abilities, I owe them that much. Eventually, I'll probably tell some of it here, and one day, I'm going to have it written all down, and it will be published, for all the world to know the story of the man who's so important to me. That is my dream, my goal, and my purpose. I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

Eryk Valen Is All Important

Done

My procrastinating finally caught up with me, as it usually does, but I think I'm pretty much done with everything I was supposed to do. So, I will be able to resume blosting on a regular basis.

I spent about two days "practicando espanol corta y tradusca". For those of you who don't speak Spanish, that is "cut and paste Spanish". Several hundred (I don't have an accurate count because I skipped any I deemed would take me more than thirty seconds, or couldn't be solved using my genius cut and paste method) activities of basic Spanish. Fortunately for me, you could just hit the submit button, and it would tell you how many you got right, what the right answers were, and more importantly, you could retry. So, since the questions didn't change, unlike my math homework, which I consequently rarely do, I simply tried on what looked easy, submitted, copied the answers, returned to the questions, pasted the answers, and bam, done. They even did me the favor of highlighting what ones I had wrong. Even still, I didn't finish. Mostly, it was those listening ones. The multiple choice was easy, and at the end, I was just looking for those to get the points, because one page where you write a paragraph and one page where you answer two true or false questions are worth the same.

But anyways, I'm done now. I didn't feel bad about cheating either, because I could have done them, and I would have gained nothing from it. I shouldn't be in only Spanish I, and I didn't even capitalize on tutoring like I was planning to. The rest of the class is about as bad as I am, only they don't know complex Spanish.

Now, the other big issue; imeem. We may or may not be at war with them. For awhile, we've known that some of the songs won't play the full thing on our blog, but ti wasn't until recently that we discovered that they had updated, and every song already on our blog would only play the 30 second demo. Unacceptable. I realize this is likely due to licensing laws and all that, and while that is all well and good, we've come to rely on it for our music, and it's rather convenient. Also, don't have an embed feature if you don't want people to embed songs on their sites. Seriously.

So, we have found a temporary alternative, that unfortunately uses imeem, but for the time being, seems to embed the whole song, no matter the song, and with any luck, they won't come back later and decide to change it.

This seems a lame come back after my near week of silence, but tomorrow's will be better, I promise you this. Just got to get back into the swing things.

Recap

Sorry about the lack of blosting. Been, busy...

The whole fam was in town, and by whole fam, I mean my sister Kellie and her two kids, and Heather and her potential husband, my potential brother-in-law. I guess it's more future than potential... I don't consider it official unless I see it happen, and the chances of that happening aren't good. As I mentioned, the whole busy thing.

I will be very glad to be done with school, and if I'm smart, I'll never go back. It's not the worst thing in the world, it's just there are a hundred other places I'd rather, be, a thousand things I'd rather be doing. I don't like to expend effort when I don't care, and that's what school is. I can be really motivated if I'm all in, but I see no reason for school. I'm actually making my final paper for my English class on how going to college isn't the best idea in the world, which makes me a little bit of a hypocrite, but that's nothing new. Also, that paper will more than likely never be finished, because before we finished it, the professor went ahead and told us what we're doing next, which just happens to be fiction.

These have nothing to do with this blost. I made Ben take these because we haven't had pictures in awhile, and I though the blog needed some color. I intended to get to what we did today on here, and I might do a part two of the recap.

No constraints other than it has to deal with fear. Taft doesn't care how long it is, whether it's really fiction or nonfiction, or a mix of both. And see, that I can, and will write, with gusto. But all the other papers we've had to write... I'm not hear to persuade anyone on anything. I don't want to illustrate a point, or compare or contrast a damn thing. I really don't want tell someone the causes and effects of a certain problem. I think that's all the papers we've done. Anyways, I'm here to tell a story. That's my purpose, I do that, and then I can die, happily. But I have no reason to write anything else. Mostly because I don't care about any of these other things.

But now of course, he told us about that last project, so I won't finish my paper that is actually critical to me passing English 101H because I'm doing the next paper that may or may not have any effect on my grade. And that's just the thing. Grades. They're so arbitrary, and it's just so depressing to see how much stock everyone else puts in them. It's not important. Passing isn't even that important. The money I wasted on these classes, even less important. None of that stuff matters unless you make it matter, and I can't find a reason to even try anymore.

Also, my film class. He just gave us another paper to do, that isn't due for two weeks. Just write a scene for a movie, or I guess television would work too, in the proper screenplay format. It has to be two pages, and deal with teenagers, but other than that, no restrictions. That I can do. That I want to do. My old neighbor, Korry, just finished or is about to graduate from Full Sale down in Florida, and I think he wants to be a director, and he's promised me a movie. Now's as good a time as any to start preparing for that. And Korry, he's someone who has benefited from College, and I'm glad he did. That's the issue I'm having with that paper, because my premise is go to school if you want to, but don't if you don't want to. It's very true, but not very conducive to writing a six page paper, especially when I'm writing important things.

I guess that film scene isn't preventing me from doing another assignment in film, but it is do in two weeks, and he's pretty lax on the whole turning things in on time thing, which is wonderful, but Rather than doing that one later, I'm putting off my whole semesters worth of Spanish homework, which is just tedious plug and chug. A whopping 714 pages of tedious plug and chug to be exact, which is due the end of this month, and we've had all semester to do, and I started yesterday. The part that gets me is how little this is helping me with Spanish.

Spanish is another one of those classes that remind of why I never wanted to go to school. Ironically, it's the class I'm doing the best in. My professor, who's name I don't even know, (my fault, admittedly, not his) isn't really a teacher, in that he doesn't really teach, or do any of the things that a teacher is supposed to do. He comes to class, but as far as teaching goes, we basically read the textbook out loud for an hour twice a week. Every once in awhile, for grammar, he shows us a PowerPoint he didn't make. And the tests, those that we have, are generic multiple choice tests he got from the book. When he's too lazy to grade the tests, he has a blog, where ten questions are listed, and students are to comment the answers at their leisure, because he let the class decide when it's due, because he runs his classroom as a Democracy.

Last Wednesday, I was in a hurry to get home because Kellie had just gotten there, so I almost skipped Spanish, but I went, and that was a mistake. We were having a test, on of the in class generic scantron ones. Fortunately, he said that as soon as you were done you could go. I was one of the first done, so I hand in my test and head for the door. He stops me, and tells me to pull up a chair because "we have to make a key". So I ended up being there longer than I would during a normal class, and in that time, of the forty questions, I managed to eliminate ten of them because the multiple choice could have multiple answers. Seriously, one of the most poorly constructed tests I have ever seen. Then, because despite the fact that he's a terrible teacher, he's a pretty cool guy, and given the rest of the class, I'd rather talk to him, so we talked for awhile, and at first, it seems that he wasn't that different from me, until it came to my attitude for school. He was surprised, saying something like "What I see doesn't match what you are." I guess that's true. Deception is my oldest game, and a game I play well. That's something I've gotten a lot at FCC. I still project the guy I was pretending to be in high school I guess, before I let the mask fall off and revealed how little I care about things that I don't see as having any point. Then I thought, no, I really am a lot like this guy. He's a teacher who tries very hard to look like he's a good teacher, when in fact, he lets the book teach his students a whole language. He gets his awful PowerPoints, which have no more information than the book, from someone else, his tests are from the book, tests in which I can eliminate a quarter of the questions because there are multiple answers, his other tests when he's too lazy to grade scantrons are done on a blog, graded by his student aides. The only difference between me and him, I'm not trying to be someone I'm not.

I'm also putting off my math homework due Monday morning. Online classes were a good idea in theory, and I'm sure for someone else, they work fine, but for someone like me, who doesn't self motivate for things like that, terrible, terrible idea. I've done exactly half of the homework assignment, leaving my grade at just under 50%. If I do this weeks, it may or may not raise my grade to a D, passing. I'd do the math, but you know, then I'd be doing math. Apparently I'm good at math, which is the funny part. I tested great back in elementary school, and somehow, got a 4 on the Calc I AP test. Now I'm failing precalc, and I only have the grade I do now because the online homework quizzes tell you the answers after you get it wrong, and if you retry the questions enough times, it starts to repeat the same numbers. I'm just kind of hoping that I get like a C on the final, and then I can get a credit, which I'm pretty certain I will never attempt to use.

I guess the point I'm making is once, I let people convince me that eventually, I would grow up and be ready for school. Either I'm never going to grow up, or I already have, and realized that I was right all along, even if for the wrong reasons. I kind of want to be a motivational speaker. Go around to high schools and tell the kids that if they don't want to go to school, they shouldn't, and even if they do, with access to the internet and a hunger for education, you can learn more than you ever could in a college, and save yourself so much money. The problem is, society is convinced that college makes you a better person, and as much as I'd like to, I can't change that. Not with my unfinished six page essay, and definitely not with my stories.

Real Men Of Genius

Today we salute you, Mr. Real Men Of Genius Ad Writer.

I was driving home from work when I heard this:

I've heard them before, but I though that I needed to salute the saluters of these great American heroes. So I checked online, and turns out, there are over a hundred of these.

Here are some of my favorites:

These men, all of them, the ones in the jingles, the guys writing these, the dude doing it, the guy in the background (Especially the guy in the background. He sells it.), they are all men deserving of respect and appreciation.

I'm pretty sure that if I ever have to a get a real job, this would be it. Advertising has reached the point where I often times won't buy products because the commercials are terrible. I guess that point is moot, because, I don't buy Bud Light, but I appreciate the work they do.

"The Monkey House" Part II: Cake, King, and Matthew Burke

So, I talked about the Monkey House, and said that that isn't it. The house itself is more the classic haunted house. Rundown falling apart old house, near the ocean, a place kids go on dares.

One of the other big influences was actual Stephen King's "Salem's Lot". The book was pretty good, for a vampire book. I enjoyed it a lot more before they really revealed the vampires, and the characters just knew there was something going on at a house much like this one, the Marston House.

An apology, about the song. It's happened before, where it only plays the thrity second clip, and you have to go to the sight to listen, and more likely than not, sign up. Not that I;m against signing up for Imeem, it's a pretty awesome site, and I'm not complaining about the service. But since Ben pointed out the first few times it has happened, I always check. So when I saw it yesterday, I tried to see if there was another version of the song, but of course, there wasn't. I briefly considered using a different song, but I wanted to use that one, not only because it was fitting, but because I was listening to a lot of Cake when I first discovered "The Monkey House". Not the actual house, but the story.

Music plays a big part in what I do, and most of my stories have a general theme, or even a soundtrack. Most songs actually have a specific seen. That song, "Palm of Your Hand", is huge, for both the story itself, and the protagonist. But I'm getting ahead of myself, I'll get back to him.

The story itself stems from mainly the feeling of that house, combined with my fixation with both water and other worlds and dimensions. The house is actually a portal of sorts, or really, it houses the door, a stained glass window that looks into the She'ar, a world between worlds, a wasteland that separates one dimension from every other.

The She'ar, and all other dimensions, and what can generally be termed as existence, and the Kaleidoscope, they aren't so important to this story. "The Monkey House" is basically an introduction to this concept, a stepping stone for more important stories.

Anyways, the basic premise is, as a boy visiting his cousins in South Carolina, on a dare, he goes into the house and upstairs, where he finds a stained glass window of a great red, four eyed snake wrapped around a sword. That part right there, I hadn't realized until now what the stained glass window was of, but of course, it makes sense now. I'm going to have to reign this post in soon, as I just got really excited. I have much work to do.

Anyways, I was talking about Cake, and mentioned the protagonist. Matthew Burke, who annoys me now because Matthew is the name of another character from another story. They might have at one point been the same character, though they're quote different now, but anyways, it's too late to change their names now. they are who they are, and so far as I know, they never meet.

That aside, Matthew is, well, I don't really like him. He is a good portion of the problem I had with my parents back in high school. Most if not all my characters suffer, and there is a part of me that idolizes that. What they gain from that experience, I want that, and for a time, I hated my life because it didn't suck. I dragged a lot of Matthews problems into my real life, and well, even now, having got past that, I can't help but say that it was wonderful. To hate that much, to be that bitter, I'm getting chills now.

I've managed to separate myself from Matthew a lot. As I said, I don't really like him all that much. Later, he redeems himself a little, but never one of my favorites, Mattie Burke.

Anyways, while in that house, he finds that window. The window is broken, and he can't help but to touch it, impaling his right hand on the broken shard. A small sliver is embedded in his hand.

The shard lays dormant in his hand for eleven years, while his life goes to hell in New Jersey. Finally, with nothing left, but only an instinctual impulse to go back to South Carolina, one of his last memories before his mother died. He hitchhikes down to that small town near the coast, full of southern hospitality, hicks, and of course, the Monkey House.

Close proximity to the rest of the window awakens the portal, allowing beings from the She'ar to come through the window, and also, giving Matthew strange powers through the shard embedded in his hand.

The portals power in Matthew's world is linked to air pressure, and as the air pressure drops as it does before a storm. beings for which I have no name for are able to pass through the window, but in this world, they need a form to inhabit. They generally possess animals living around the Monkey House, more powerful beings being able to dominate larger and larger animals. This possession also mutilates the host, it's body unable to contain the being possessing it. The first thing Matthew encounters as he's drawn to the Monkey House is a giant frog. Matthew of course kills it, and then, while trying to figure out what is going on and his place in all of it and the power flowing through the palm of his hand, he sets up guard around the house, stopping whatever comes out of the house. He eventually figures out the air pressure thing, and that adds the deadline of hurricane season.

As I said earlier, the music of Cake was a big inspiration. Of course, there is "Palm of Your Hand", having to do both with Matthew eventually having to destroy the house, as well as the shard stuck in the palm of his hand. Another one, the accompanying track for this blost, "Frank Sinatra" was big. Also, "Guitar Man" had a lot to do with a character introduced later, as well as a little with Matthew. "No Phone", as phone booths later have a lot to do with things.

I'll continue to blost about this. I haven't revisited this story and awhile, and it's doing me some good. I'll probably break it up a bit, hit you with some other going on first, not that I ever have any.

"The Monkey House" Part I: The Original Monkey House

Probably the least of the "Core Stories," I will introduce "The Monkey House".

First, a little background. My sisters know what I'm talking about already, probably better than I do. Well, definitely better than I do, as what I remember is probably mostly my own imagination at this point.

To the point, somewhere in North Carolina, near a river, where at one point, some relatives who I haven't the faintest clue how they are related to me other than the fact that they are on my mother's side, there was at some point in the past, though may or may not still be there, a house.

Yes people, a house, which my sisters and various relatives who I can't even remember what they look like, called the Monkey House. I have no idea why, but to call it anything else now just doesn't seem fitting. It wasn't even that we believed there were monkeys living there, or at least I didn't, and I'm more unaware of the story than I thought. That explanation is too simple, and quite frankly, lame, for me to except, so Kell and H, if it is, keep it to yourselves.

It wasn't really a haunted house either, but that is pretty close. Creepy yes, but haunted, no, and I don't think I ever believed it was. The house itself, well the picture I imagine now, I see a skeleton of a house, with a front put on to make it seem like a real building from a distance. But from the sides, you can clearly see that there are no walls, just the framework. Inside, the floor is covered with dead leaves, but they don't smell. They should smell, a hint of that fall air smell covered by a rank scent of death from years and years of leaves left to rot. There really aren't any rooms. There is what might have once been a bathroom, but now, there is just a toilet, standing alone, by itself. It's surprisingly clean and white, and without lifting the lid, I know there is a dead frog inside, though for whatever reason, be it just freshly dead or preserved by some foul means, it hasn't begun to decay.

There is an elevator. Really, it is just a square section of floor hooked to a wall that raises and lowers. It has no walls or ceilings, and it is clear of the leaves, as though this is the only part of the house someone bothers to clean. Very well might be. The controls, you can see them from the semicircle window on the front door, are very simple; a red arrow for up, a yellow arrow for down. They are dull now, but I know they have lights in them, and for that matter, the whole elevator has electricity running to it.

The elevator goes up to the second floor. It's the only way up, now that all that remains of what must have been a beautiful spiral staircase is the rotting remains of the first three and a half steps. The second floor, well, you can't really call it a floor, because it is just a series of crisscrossed beams. Considering the condition of the house, you wouldn't think they'd hold, but they're sturdy. Why else would the elevator still have power.

This is probably nothing like the house we actually saw. It doesn't particularly matter though, as I will likely never see it again. I'm pretty sure my relatives don't live there anymore, and the house was probably destroyed in a hurricane. And more importantly, it doesn't matter because this isn't the Monkey House I'm writing about.

No, this bizarre structure may have a place in another story, but not this time. I took the name, because as I said, I don't know why it has that name, but it fits. Also, the feeling. That feeling I remember when I saw that house. That's what it's all about.

Anyways, it's late, and this is going to be a lot longer than I originally thought, but here is the tip of the iceberg, just one of the many inspirations that is going into "The Monkey House". I'll try to finish tomorrow, or at least continue. At some point, Ben might have some pictures and stories from Chicago, but it's unlikely, since he's; A. Ben, 2. he forgot his camera, and D. he's worthless when it comes to actually posting.

(I am pretty sure I will not have any stories or pictures from Chicago, but here are some more reasonable reasons for that: I am 700 miles from Chicago, I have never been to Chicago, and I have no plans in the near future to be in Chicago.) ~Ben