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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
