Date:	2006-01-02 17:08
Subject:	No money? No problem.
Security:	Public
Mood:	content
Music:	John Scofield - A Go-Go

Yeah, I realize I haven't written in this thing in ages, but I was working in retail during xmas and it robbed me of any available energy. Now, I'm unemployed and loving it. I'm enjoying my new computer, listening to music, and laughing at my brother yelling at his new video games. Going back to school this month. I'm paying the bill as soon as my check goes through from last week and I should be all set. I'm thinking I'm going to go back into hotels, but we'll see. Right now I'm just glad to have minimal responsibility.

I got a call from Gina who was referred to me by my friend Chris. This was this past thursday. We planned a lesson for her 8 year old kid George for today at noon.

Gina told me that George was interested in guitar. I told her that I wasn't a guitar player at all and it's a different sound altogether. George just might not be interested. It turns out that Gina couldn't say no to a free lesson though, and I wasn't about to charge her if George didn't dig it right off the bat. So, I figure I would have to sell George on the idea of playing bass.

I loaded up and went over to George's place. I brought all the gear he would be playing with first so he could get a little comfortable. Before I handed him the bass I asked him about some things.

"Okay George, I know you're interested in guitar. What I'm going to hand you here is going to look a lot like a guitar, but it's a bass."

We then talked about the parts of it and what makes it a bass in relation to a guitar. (thicker strings, skinnier neck, deeper sound.) He named most of these. George is a bright kid, but I could tell he wasn't sure how to distinguish the bass sound from the rest of the music, so I asked him...

"George, have you ever been playing outside and a car drives by that has their music up really loud?"

"Yeah"

"Ok, when that car hits the end of your block you can't hear the music so well right? All you can hear is a 'vvvvvvmmmmmmmbbbbb, vvvvvmmmmmmbbbb' kind of noise, right?"

"Yeah"

"Well, that noise is a bass. That's why it's so cool. It's what shakes the house when you play it too loud. It's the only instrument you can still hear from down the block because it's so low. That's why I think it's so cool."

At this point, George's face lights up and he has a huge smile I underestimate. I just don't think it couldn't get any bigger. That is, until I hand him the bass in my hand and say, "Play with that while I get set up so we can start." George was fucking beaming.

I taught George how to tune, hold, and pluck his bass. We even got to positioning and George picked up everything very quickly. We finished up what was supposed to be a half hour lesson from noon and it was closing in on 1pm. We had to stop cause I was having too much fun and George's fingers started to hurt. So, Gina came back in and we started talking about all the business.

George was down. He had a great time. They asked me about rental equipment and I told them that George is my only student right now so he can borrow my gear. She asked me to show George something on bass that he would be able to play someday so I remember George saying liked the Beatles and Green Day. All I had was the Green Day bass line from an old tune. He didn't recognize it, but he was still excited. I started playing everything I thought he might recognize and his face lit up every time whether or not he's hurt of it.

I asked him if he's knows who the bassist is in the Beatles. He wasn't quite sure so I told him it was Paul McCartney. He's like, "Oh yeah, Paul, Ringo, John, and George." I was like 'Whoa, dood, you're fucking 8'. Who knows that shit when they're 8. George was immediately adopted as my friend. Such a cool kid.

I left their place ridiculously happy. I told Gina that the first lesson was free because I wanted George to try it out and see how he liked it. If it's not his thing then no harm. She ended up paying me anyway. I'm sketchy on my work schedule cause I haven't started my job yet so I couldn't give her a definite answer on when I could come back, but the bottom line is, I am coming back. I get to see George on a weekly basis. This can only mean great things.

Hey, sXe is no drugs no alcohol. Who brought in this sex thing and why is it so prominent in conversations as of late? I'm not advocating promiscuity, but I don't have sex with a new person every weekend either and when I do I am safe about it. At the same time, I'm not thinking about how 'edge' I'm being when I'm with someone. It confuses me because it has more to do with instincts than it does with addiction. I never saw the connection and I still don't. You, as a human, are instinctively driven to have sex. It's not necessarily a choice. Drugs and alcohol are a choice and we have all chosen to stay away from those. Whatever, it's up to you.

I guess the part that bothers me is that sXe seems to be straying from what it was defined as originally. That is - no drugs and no alcohol for the rest of your life. Simple. I have had no trouble adhering to this for over a decade now. The problem I have is that other people that are sXe don't end up representing this lifestyle in its simplest form. Not that the sex issue is the worst addition to it. I guess I'm talking about other things.

Does anyone remember that one talk show 'Ro'? I remember they brought a whole bunch of Courage Crew kids on there. They brought the most angry kids up on stage to explain straightedge and what it's supposed to mean. I remember they asked if they would beat some kid up at a show if they saw him smoking a cigarette and they said yes. I immediately got super upset because these cats were representing my lifestyle and I was helpless to convince people that this wasn't the way it was. Not everyone beats people up for fucking up their own life. I made a choice not to do those things and sometimes I do feel I'm better than them, but it doesn't make me so. Not everyone is vegetarian or vegan. Not everyone is hardline. Keep it simple. Your definition for sXe is not universal and please don't advertise it as such.

Yes, I am saying that porn stars can be edge.

- I saw a Hank Rollins spoken word for the first time last monday. It was probably the greatest thing I got for free ever. I was later to find that it cost me many guilt trips. Stupid girls.

- I had my first series of interviews at a new job last thursday. I have a second series this thursday, but I don't know where just yet. I'm supposed to get a call sometime this week. If all goes well, I could be quitting my job as soon as friday.

- Dre's back, and it's pretty great. More hangouts are in order, but she's still got a paper and whatnot.

- Girls are retarded. Not so much an update, more like a reminder.

- JQ and I are jamming again. We should be getting together with a drummer sometime in the coming weeks. We're taking more of a laid back approach to it so we don't get our hearts torn out of our chests this time around. Whatever happens, happens.

- I jammed with this jock rock band. They sounded like they were straight from penny road pub with their blues tinged 3 dollar rock. I wasn't into it, but I got to see how the other half lived. Damn rich larries, I wish I could afford half the equipment these doods had. Then again, I wouldn't pay that much to suck. Nice guys though.

- my basement is cleaned finally. My friend, Jill, and I tackled the whole thing in one night and knocked it out. You may not think this is an incredible task, but then you probably haven't seen the 'before' picture. It's nice to have a little room to maneuver down there.

- I played hi-ball on friday night and my ankle hasn't been right since. pro- I sit on a chair all day at work. con- it fucking hurts sometimes and feels strange and squishy most of the time.

- I listen to Dredg all the time. It's silly good.

Back from Alaska and I feel priviledged to report that the Inside Passage doesn't fuck around. The room we had was equipped with a balcony. It was one of four things that I woke up to every morning/afternoon: mountains, dense fog, oceans, or fucking glaciers. After checking out that business, I was welcome to eat as much food as the gut can handle and not be bothered to pay a dime. This situation was new to me so I took full advantage of it. I think it was something like soaking in a good dream before your alarm clock goes off. I've cut out red meat and kept the dairy to a minimum to counter my raging case of gut swell.



Mentionables - in no particular order:

-Airplane rides are still cool to me. Around hour three I still end up feeling like it's a bus ride, but then I take a look out the window.

-Victoria may be one of the greatest towns I've ever been to. They had street performers or musicians on every block. I found one of the best grilled cheese sandwiches I've ever had at a place called Serious Coffee. There was gardens and architecture that would knock you on your pooper. There was a hotel that was nearly covered in vines 12 monkeys-style. It had been a week since I had seen a female my age, but I must say they have a fine collection of girls that hold themselves together well. I sure did ask about 7 girls for the time even though I already knew it. We only had about four hours in the town and I walked the entire downtown area three times over. I contemplated spending a few years there.

-Went to Juneau, Alaska. It's the capitol if you didn't know. If you want an idea of how much untouched natural area there is in Alaska, then you should head over that way. This town was enveloped in mountains so the only way in or out was by plane or boat. This is where we went whale watching. There were killers, orca, humpbacks, bald eagles, seals, and more rare birds than you can fit in your fannypack. I couldn't take in all that I was seeing. That seemed to be the problem with almost every stop on the cruise. There just wasn't enough time to enjoy everything I knew would be amazing.

-Skagway, Alaska - I bought a lot of crap. This is one of the smallest towns I've ever seen. They had a burlesque show that I meant to see, but I ended up staring at a mountain too long and I missed the curtain. I bought some jade dice and a knife there for myself. Also if you're itchin' for some crap, then you may want to hit me up. I have a lot.

-Ketchikan, Alaska - We didn't really get to see this town because we went straight to the fishing boats. Our local fisherman was named Ben. His boat - Ben Fishin'. His boat made me think of how I would most likely decorate my holding cell at the state pen if it just so happened to be on water. It was all a cold stainless steel where you can see the welding marks. Everything looked like crap except for the super high-tech fishing equipment. This motherfucker was bare bones about everything except his passion. You couldn't tell from meeting him though. Ben was one of the more mellow cats I ran into on my journey. He's one of those guys that always seems like he's a little stoned. It scared the everlovin' shit out of me when he pounced on the first bobbing rod, handed it to me, and jumped on the fucking roof for the net. It was most definitley my fault for assuming he'd never move that fast. We each caught a fish. Ryan had the biggest. They're coming, smoked and frozen, in the mail sometime this weekend.

- We saw a magician on the cruise. I have no clue how those bitches do what they do. He unfolded a 2 foot cube so a girl could fit in there and then folded it back up into a 2 foot cube. The bitch about that was that the cube was on a moving table with wheels. He turned it around twice. I don't know where that chick went.

-There was a comedian on the cruise. I think he was short on material cause he kept running after anyone that tried to leave the club he was playing which was fucking hilarious anyway. There was a second night where he appointed 3 dancers for the show. A 60 year old man, a dood in a disco getup with chops and a fro, and some nerd larry with thick rimmed glasses and a bow tie on. See, every two minutes the foghorn would go off. These three doods would prance across the stage and back whenever they heard it. It got pretty ridiculous. The 7th or 8th time in the comedian came back to the mic after the dancing. He shook his head and just said, "This is so stupid." Fucking funny every time.

-I ate lobster and escargot for free. Lobster = good. Escargot = always overrated.

-Glacier Bay - Holy shit. At this point, I had been overloaded with all the natural beauty. This was ridiculous. I know you're thinking 'it's just fucking ice'. Well, you're right. It is ice. But it's ice that's larger than a house or the building you're living in downtown and it's falling apart in front of me. I just kept thinking about buildings that were that large that people spent so much time to put together and this thing just is.

- You can never beat having access to one of six hot tubs 20 out of the 24 hours of the day. Check.

- Snack shop is 24 hours. I had an apple every time I walked by. It's fucking free.



Like I said, hard to take it all in. I probably can't remember it all right now, but I had to get it down before I forgot any more of it. If you ever have the means, just go. You can always get money back and pay off your debts later. Your job can wait. You can get another one. Don't let your routine suck stories and experiences like these out of your life.

I leave for my first real vacation in over three years within the next 24 hours. If you need to get a hold of me within the next week you ought to call me now cause it's food, swimming, fishing, gambling, and whatever until I get back. (Please take note: 'phone calls' were not on the list.). See you larries on the flipside.

I would like to think that I'm not the only one getting annoyed with all the armed forces advertising going on right now. What this says to me is "Sign up and we'll take a few years off your life or just end it for you altogether, for free!!". It seems as though everyone's job has gotten considerably worse and the job market is a real sunuvabitch. It makes me wonder if shit's just been made tougher so people run out of choices and end up listening to these advertisements.

I don't want anyone to die because of this war, but I can't very well make myself think anything more than 'that is terrible' whenever I hear about other people dying over there. I can't necessarily apply myself to the 'Support our troops' attitude that's become taboo and unpatriotic to contest. I don't want any more people to lose their moms, dads, brothers, or sisters and that's it. If I were to support something and put my name on it, that would be it. It'd be great to have a promise from the government that everyone gets to keep their relatives until old age takes them, or at least the government won't take part in their death.

My diagnosis: our country's been stricken with a disease called 'stupid'. It's too bad everyone's comfortable with being taken advantage of. I'm done with it.

I have a friend from my old work in the Marines and I always wonder about him. My cousin just got married to his girlfriend. He also just finished training in the Navy. He's going to Afghanistan when he should be building with his wife. You go ahead with supporting the troops. I'm just worried about Angelo and Luke getting home.

My beard starts today as well. Awesome.

Wow, I found out I'm an asshole last night. Jillian named me the one to take her virginity. I felt it a lot of responsibility and I begged her to think it over and make sure she's positive this is what she wants. It's not exactly like me to avoid sex when it's offered. After further review, she was still into it. So, we've sort of taken care of this a few times even though she'll tell you that none of them count.

Earlier this week I summed up our relationship and why we actually get together. I'm never terribly excited to drive all the way down there. I realized that our relationship is based on sex and lust. This doesn't work. Maybe I should have said something before we got together in a hotel room last night. We fooled around and she mentioned the same thing about our relationship being based on sex and I had thought that we came to the same conclusion. I told her I agreed. She said she was just kidding. It turns out I'm an asshole. There you have it.

So, the combination of fooling around and talking about this new discovery left me with just an hour of sleep and I'm hating life right nwo at work. I don't like cleaning and I'm doing a damn fine job of ignoring my work ethic today. See, I'm on the internerd. Rock!!! I have to go home...or to lunch. Just not work.

I went after a girl I thought I didn't deserve, and apparently I was right. I knew I would be punching myself in the face if I hadn't tried, so I did.

This is the kind of mindset we continuously entertain. You've been warned:

QrockingQ: vag-slime-a
GregofCHI: Rock to the Zep!! Bitch!! rat balls!!
QrockingQ: Buzz-bang the bandaged bitch, stick it in her elbow-socket.
GregofCHI: Fish on my flow chart. Not without your dog nodding. Get out of my country. My visa is in mom.
QrockingQ: Gilded gills got googled dot com your god. Laziest breeds of canine jagged teeth got their tails between your legs. Hold the strongpoint, our castle is razor wire and broken brick. My passport fell into the moat, soggy boat of joy.
GregofCHI: It's not my key chain, follow that cobblestone. I have clothespins without bean fritters. You can take your lost stick figures and pulverize wood shavings with my smell. She crimped her hair, but can't remember the mayonnaise. Not on my watch.
QrockingQ: Nasal penetration. Craggy anal esophogus...acid re-fucks burning buttock throat. I sanded off my body hair, and plucked out my chromosones with tweezers. Mustard is the ultimate compliment.
GregofCHI: No, these tumblebugs are short on their motor skills. Flip your phone open so you can shift that tear. My spine may be wireless, but ducks only echo after a good meal. If it were my beef express, I'd be a bit more carful.
QrockingQ: moto food hunting now into the super-mario-bucket. I mean...this is totally ridiculous, I've gotta go buy food now. hahaha piece
GregofCHI: Later.

I can't keep up with life right now. Too much.

My job is starting to kill me and it's only because every time I fix one thing, two things break. Oh yeah, it might have something to do with corporate coming through the joint every week and driving everyone fucking crazy. Maybe it has something to do with my boss going nutz cause he's got a pile of shit to run and there's only a few people helping him do it. I have to beat off twice after work in order to calm the hell down and mellow. Corporate's coming down on Mike because he gave me a 30% raise. It may seem like a lot, but when you're considering that I have three times the responsibility it suits the situation just fine. They might actually just take the raise away. Mike's holding out for me which is an awesome thing to do. I wish they'd make more humans like him.

Dre's back. Damn good thing too. There's nothing like a little Dre time to cool me over just as I'm about to start stabbing.

Steve and Betsy had a fantastic wedding and I managed to hold my pee until we were finished with the talking part. The tux was dope. I only slow danced. I took Jill, but I didn't get to hang with her much because of all the crap I had to take care of. Luckily, I have awesome friends that took care of her and made her feel comfortable when I wasn't able to. Through Ashes (featuring a younger Sagala) played 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love' by Queen and we slayed 'em. It was great to see Steve so happy.

Time for dinner. Bye.

- dumped Jill. Possible reasons include:
1. Afraid of commitment
2. Didn't like her enough to tie myself down for the whole summer
3. Felt I should be excited about a relationship rather than feel hesitant
4. She lives over an hour away and the only way I'd see her is if I drove down there.
5. I still enjoy being single

- the new job is way hard, but is getting easier.

- the raise I got for the job was a dollar more than they told me it was going to be (SWEET!)

- going to Great America today with Melanie, whom I have an incredible crush on

- going to a bachelor party tonight for The Worst. This will be my first ever. Drinks and treats at a bar then we're off to the boat and I can actually afford to gamble.

- way excited to see Dre this coming week. I miss her like whoa.

- went to a demolition derby/crappy race car race last night with Melanie. That was incredible. 10 bux to watch cars get destroyed for 3 hours. I almost saw two hillbilly fights there.

Date:	2005-05-29 06:30
Subject:	Good lord...
Security:	Public
Mood:	chipper
Music:	Rush!!!

I've had a helluva week. Updates all around.

Jillian and I had 'the talk' last week so now I have a girlfriend for the first time in a long time. I'm still not quite sure how I feel about it. I'm sure this will sound insensitive, but I committed to her for two reasons: I can't find anything wrong with her yet, and I'm attempting to overcome my reservations on the whole relationship thing. I feel bad because I like her, but I am not necessarily excited about the relationship yet. I'm assuming that's either due to my hesitation, or the fact that she lives on the south side and it's a real sonuvabitch to go see her all the time. But she's mad cute, a freak, as nice as they come, and she's down for anything. We have fun together.

I acquired a new position at my work. I got a raise and a promotion. I'm now 'Director of Engineering'. Here's the thing...I don't know what I'm doing. I need to order things so we have them and I know what other things need to get fixed, but I just don't know who to call for either of those things. The great thing is, the guy that got fired before me was so terrible that I can't really do anything but a good job as long as I put a little effort into it. I'm meeting up with a director from another club this week to clarify some of this shit. It's definitely more work. At least I'm going to be working all the time. The raise is pretty sweet. It allows me to start looking for my own place. I'm thinking I want to live in the city and probably by myself. It's just fun to look at this point though.

More of my tattoo is done. It's actually starting to look like something. It was itching like a bitch yesterday. I still have a few more sessions on it, but it's coming along.

Team Evil's coming along nicely. People are actually excited about it. I'm having a little trouble keeping them that way, but I don't think it'll come easy until I have something to be excited about.

I need a computer badly

I got a massage from a hot polish girl the other night

I'm switching phone companies because Sprint doesn't offer a phone where I can record my own ringer. I'm tired of those larries anyway. Unless they give me my service for like half the price.

I got a haircut from a hot russian mom the other night

I jammed with Mendola for the first time ever and it was great. If all goes well with this group we'll be a comfortable mix between Isis and Sigur Ros. This is what I hope anyway. If that doesn't work out I have no problem with being another insaniac band. These guys have a damn hard time playing slow though. They dug my riffs and had some really good ones of their own.

Chris Faller, the drummer that quit Ellora a week after our first show, decided to write and ask me for the PA back that he left at my place. Well, actually he put a little sugar in it and said that he would really like to go out and 'grab a coffee, talk a bit'. Jagoff. I may be gullible at times, but you'd have to have ADD to miss that BS, QT. BFF 4-ever!!! Sorry, got a little carried away with those anagrams. For real though, how can you be such a moron to assume that I don't realize that all you want is the PA. This promises to be fun. That dood owes me about 120 bux for the stickers we were never able to use and the CD's that don't fucking matter now. If he tries to bullshit me any more, I'm charging him a fee. BS IRS fee #23498.

Rush is on the Muzak. I will choose free will!!!

...and put the onlookers and innocent bystanders in a trance.

So, I went to the worst wedding I've ever been to last night. My cousin, Geoff, was getting married. The chick doing the service kept making bad jokes. She made a star wars reference to send them off. It was a real stretch. Check it out:

"Well, I know in Star Wars they say 'May the force be with you'. Well, I'm going to say - May the source be with you." - the 'source' meaning J. Christ. Fucking terrible.

One thing I've always had a problem with as far as weddings and funerals go is the constant mention of Jesus and all that bullshit. Not that it's bullshit for everyone and I can respect other people's religions, but it just doesn't make sense to me to lose focus of the event at hand to worship JC a little more. Way to suck all the attention, JC.

So, the reception was garbage too. They were two people short for the night at the banquet hall and decided that they weren't going to bust ass for anyone. We finally got our soup about an hour after we got there. Then salad. THEN bread bowl - what? We got our meals about 15 minutes after everyone else got theirs. When my brother asked for a vegetarian dish the guy told him, "Well, it's too late now." I was about to pile drive this dood. Like, I can understand being grumpy because you got shafted because people didn't show up, but you don't take it out on the customer. We had to hound this other chick to get him some pasta and vegetables. Bullshit. I had to get up this morning so I left early.

I'm getting over a cold right now and I think I have the same chunk of snot hanging out in the back of my throat. Can you believe I was sick on my birthday? Fuckin' sucks. That's like the third time in my life that I've been sick on that day. Pops got me a PSP and my brother got me Tony Hawk. I can now play Tony Hawk where ever I go. I got a season pass to Great America and a blender from my moms last night at the wedding. She got me some industrial blender that's fucking huge. I can make all ya'll a smoothie.

Went on another date last Saturday with Jillian. Things went pretty good. She's totally a sweet girl, but much more reserved than I am. It sounds sick, but I'm always looking for something bad. If this works out, it would most likely end up with her being the more submissive of the two of us. I'm not really used to that. I wonder if I've always been the submissive one in relationships because I'm lazy or if it's just my nature.

Anyway, Jillian and I went to go see the movie Crash. Man, did that movie kick my ass. You hate and like every character in the movie. It's weird. All about racism post-9/11. Tugs the heart strings yo.

After that, we went to TGI friday's and had some food and talked for a long while. We kept trying to play the question game, but it didn't work out so well. There were some good conversations and some lags. We ended up making out in my car on her block though. She meant to be home at 1am and didn't get back till about quarter to 2. Sweet.

Work is so busy I can't even think of what to talk about next.

I might be tired and grumpy this morning, but I don't think anyone I know would treat me this way.

My real boss, Mike - the cat that runs operations for the country club, has gone for a couple weeks down to Kentucky to work the Derby down there. This leaves my other boss, Bob - the dood that runs sales for the club, to run everything while he's out.

Bob's losing his goddamn mind. He doesn't want to deal with anything. More likely, he doesn't know how to deal with anything. He worked for Spiegel before this and it was to put together the catalog for the company. I'm not even sure he's been in a service job before. So, he may be good at sales, but he doesn't know thing 1 about operations. I could run the club better than he is right now, and I can be a real idiot sometimes.

Anyway, Bob has this habit of making every human around him nervous. He's always taking hard strides everywhere he goes and he'll be real jittery all day. He'll blow up for no reason. Just silly shit that's not becoming of a service job. You've got to chill the fuck out or people will feel threatened.

So, I'm working the desk down here and Bob comes down all frantically. He always asks me where someone is like I'm supposed to know what the hell he's talking about. He'll pull this one out of his ass...

"Seen 'em?"

"Who?"

"Mike?"

I've pulled asshole styles before and just answered with "Good morning" like you're supposed to do anyway. So, this morning Bob was looking for Gerry, the maintenance director guy. It went a little like this...

"Seen Gerry?"

"He's here"

"Huh?"

a little louder - "He's here"

"Huh?"

I counted that he said "Huh?" to me like five times before I gave him a look like he should quit acting like an ass. I admit I'm soft spoken a lot of the time, but if I want to get an answer to you I'll yell. I was nearly at yelling volume. I'm just tired of that level of disrespect. The subtle, yet brutally obvious exercise in demonstrating one's seniority in the workplace.

The bottom line is, it's a job. There's more than one of them. This cat has seniority over me only because he's lived a lot longer. Even then, there's going to be jobs that I can do better than him. I could say I feel satisfied knowing that he's being a moron by pulling this 'I'm your boss and you can't do anything about this' garbage. But I can't be satisfied with just that. I don't feel like looking for another job if I don't have to, but I don't want to deal with that kind of shit either as insignificant as it may be.

I guess what I'm after in this situation, what my goal may be, is to somehow humble this man and to force him to treat people how they should be treated. I'm thinking about some fight club type shit. Like getting a bunch of hooligans to form a line leading to him on the floor getting beat with a wooden bat. Then, before every time he gets a hit with the bat the hooligan will tell him what dead end job he just put his notice in for. Like, "I flipped burgers at Wendy's" *SLUG* "I shoveled debris at wreck sites" *SLUG* "I stuffed envelopes in a dank mailroom" *SLUG*. All I need him to realize that his experience doesn't mean shit unless he's applying for another job. It has no bearing when interacting in a normal, human situation. My point is, the only reason he pulled that shit is because his position in the company leads him to believe he can. It was like dealing with a fucking spoiled 12 year old.

Dropkick Murphys in the morning. I feel much better about facing this ten hour day now.

Man, I sure did have the best weekend of my life. I haven't been in a bad mood since it ended. It's going to be hard to document the entire three days of goodness because I'm at work right about now, but I'm going to try in fear of forgetting it later.

-Friday-

Not much happened on friday. I worked and got off at about 7 at night. I was going to hook up with this girl, Carrie, from work right after I got off, but as I was walking out the front door to give her a call she was walking in to play tennis. She said she'd be at least another hour and a half before she could hang out again. Well, I didn't want to be at work anymore and since I didn't have headquarters down in that area other than that I told her I'd give her a call later and I might come back down. When I got back, all I did was listen to records and play bass in my room. I called Carrie to let her know I wouldn't be back and just passed out kinda early.

-Saturday-

I had plans to hook up with Natalie. She was already down in the city visiting her boyfriend from the night before and he was off to work in the middle of the day so I told her I'd be down there soon after I was done sleeping in to hang out. She gets stuck sitting at his house if he goes to work. I drove down there at about 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Natalie met me at the starbucks on Irving and took me to this sweet mexican joint. I'm going to call this place a 'shack' and do not take it as an exaggeration. It was a brick shack between two driveways that I will never be able to find again on my own. The joint was packed when we got in there. 15 people including us tried to pack into this joint. None of those larries speak english there so I'm glad that I had Natalie with me. My Spanish is a little crappy, but I might've been able to make it through ordering.

These were the very best tacos I've ever had. I can only imagine if I had actually gotten cheese on them. All it consisted of were tortillas, steak, and parsley. Oh, I also washed them down with the best horchata I've ever had in my life as well. I bought four tacos thinking that they were kinda small, but they were filling. I still ate them all cause they were too good not to eat hot. I was stuffed though. That was good cause I sure did have a rock concert to go to. Anthrax!!! With Joey!!!

I hung out a bit more with Natalie. She was griping about her boyfriend not having any ambition and the usual bullshit. She always makes me laugh with this stuff because of how angry she gets about her situation. Not that I'm laughing at her misfortune. It's just the way she handles herself with said misfortune that makes me laugh. We walked around Buckingham Fountain talking a few times and she dropped me off at the House of Blues for the rock and roll show of my life.

I got down at the HOB a little early and I met up with my brother, Shane, Steve, Stix, and Rey. Having Ryan, Shane, and Steve there was a lot like all the old metal shows we used to go to together. I was about to find out that the entire night was going to be a fucking time warp to '92.

We were waiting on Rey out front for a little while after I met up with everyone and we encountered some sweet fat metal kids that were so high from the fact that they're seeing Anthrax that they had little to no regard for their own well being when trekking towards the venue. Imagine 300+ pound guys with sleeveless rock shirts and shades on taking smooth, confident strides while holding up their hand as if traffic should stop because Anthrax playing live takes precedence over all other events...in anyone's life...EVER. Fucking awesome.

We got inside and I have to say that it was oddly comfortable for a sold out show. I thought it would be shoulder to shoulder rock doods with no shirts and sweating before they even did anything. Not the case. Plenty of room to move. We saw Grimes, Clint, and some other cats that I didn't know so well and hung out a bit before the opening band went on. Steve and Shane checked out the beer stand while I checked out the merch. I sure did get out of the way. There was this sweet tour shirt that had the cover of Among The Living on the front and the tour business on the back. I haven't been able to wear it yet for reasons I have yet to disclose, but I look forward to it.

The opening band was garbage. Shane and Ryan both made separate comments on the fact that we could go up there on stage and pull off a better set than these guys were trying to do right now. It was just some weak mosh metal and no one felt like dealing with it because it just seemed to make it a longer wait for what we were really there for. I don't know how they landed that job, and I don't understand why you'd take that job. I would say it's good advertising, but for a show like this no one cares about you. I mean, I can't remember their fucking name now. So, if I liked them I wouldn't be able to do anything about it. Anthrax destroyed all and I can't understand how you would expect to be remembered after such an ass kicking. I mean, it sounded as though they stole old Roundhouse and Payback demos and made the breakdowns shittier. Nice band/head.

Anthrax didn't go on right when the lights went out. They brought this screen down and went through a short history of the band which was a bit long. For one, the whole video had to be at least twenty minutes long. For two - The first time through the video it started to skip and stutter, then they had to start it from the beginning again. For the most part, it was funny. They showed the band when they were starting out and they all had ridiculous hair and looked very filthy. They showed some of the bits from their 'Behind The Music' thing. One of which made me laugh because Danny Spitz, the guitarist, was talking. That dood just looks funny. First of all, he's googly and talks with a lisp. Second of all, he was trying to be completely serious. I couldn't take it. There was another part where they were showing videos of them recording 'Persistence of Time'. Half of them had tour beard/hair and were doing the singing parts for the record which are kind funny to hear by themselves. It was long, but entertaining.

So, the screen went up, the lights came on, and Anthrax walked out with a skinny Joey Belladonna walking out with a big smile on his face. Scott Ian still had the ridiculous getup with the filthy beard he's had for the last decade or so. Frank Bello still looks tough as shit and rocks the hardest in the band by far. Charlie Benante still looks like a failed New Kids On The Block member forced to be in a rock band. Danny Spitz continues to look ridiculous. He had orthopedic glasses that had this super shiny rimmed glasses that made him look like he was going skiing after the show. His hair looked like a bad wig, but I don't think he's balding. I think he felt the short man complex towards the middle of the set cause he decided it was time to take off his shirt and flex. That dood is a fucking hilarious googly.

So all I remember at the beginning of the set was that they played three great songs to start off and then Joey said hi. Joey was so on that night. I couldn't believe how good he sounded even after being out of the band for 13 years. I mean, I know he has his own project, but it doesn't seem like it keeps him so busy that he would be in practice as far as his voice goes. I was impressed. Oh yeah, Joey sure did bring his half stick to rock out with. They played I'm The Man, which was hilarious as well, but a lot of fun. Man, that was a great set.

Anthrax was only the better half of the best show ever. That thing I said about being warped back to '92? Yeah, well, it sure did rear its head once the mosh got started. If a kid fell, then four people crowded him to pull him back up just to make sure he didn't get hurt. If someone needed to tie their shoes, then there were people making a fence around them so no one from the mosh fell on them. If you don't know, this kind of shit just doesn't happen anymore. I was fucking loving this. I stayed in the mosh the entire time. I know this may sound retarded, but it felt like home.

So, here I am, moshing away, singing along, and soaking the insides of my clothes with my sweat. Suddenly, I notice some dood in a two-piece suit wearing a t-shirt underneath it and he just doesn't look like he should be there. The vibe is very positive there so I didn't think he was going to get his ass kicked or anything, but he did look out of place. He ventured across to my side of the rim and started pushing cats around in front of me and that's when I realized...

It was fucking Keanu Reeves moshing for Anthrax in a two-piece.

Since seeing a lot of his movies ended up giving me this feeling that we were familiar for some reason - and the fact that everyone was in such a good mood from rocking out with Anthrax, including me - I gave the guy a huge hug and told him that it was great to see him there. I guess Keanu's friends with Anthrax and since he was shooting a movie in Chicago he stopped by to pay respect. Stix attempted to make friends with him. Actually, they were good buddies for that night at least. They had their arms around each other and were singing N.F.L. together. Stix asked him to hang out with us after the show, but Keanu pulled old styles and said he had to work in the morning. Towards the end of the show, when it was dying down, we looked over to the left of us and we see Brian Posehn from Mr. Show. We motioned for him to come into the mosh pit, but he just gave us bangface and metal horns which was awesome as well. I went over to him after the show ended and shook his hand. We found out that the dood actually flew all the way out from Cali just to check out the show. Both these cats were much cooler in my book. Did I mention that Keanu was in the mosh with us for the entire set? I think he was sauced up, but it was hilarious.

All four of us were glowing after this show. Stix was yelling "NFL!!" at people as we walked back to the parking garage. We couldn't shut the hell up about how awesome the show was. We all agreed that it had to be in the top five shows we've ever seen if it's not #1. Definitely the highlight of the weekend.

We drove back to Pine Grove in Rosemont and I hooked up with some sweet pancakes and a cheese and mushroom omelette. We continued to reflect on how incredible the show was. We went over to Shane's new place and hung out a bit longer, but there wasn't very much room yet since they just finished moving in that day. Stix came by my house for a little while and then I drove him home.

Either I was too excited or I just didn't feel like sleeping yet, but I ended up staying awake pretty late and calling people I thought might be up. I called Amy, whom is my ex as of 7 years ago and I just started talking to again and this is whole new post that I should probably take care of, and I talked to her for a little while. The conversation went into the gutter at some point, and I invited her over. This part kind of travels into...

-Sunday-

Amy came over, we hung out and talked for a while. We listened to music. Just relaxing. She asked me to rub her neck. I rubbed her neck. She rubbed mine. She started kissing it. Then, as they say, one thing led to another. Let's just say she put me in a very comfortable sleep and has a great way of waking me up. It was a great time. I felt a little bad later on. I completely avoided the 'what does this mean' conversation with her on the morning after. It sounds a little selfish, but things were going too good and I didn't want to break the streak I had with a potentially grumpy conversation. I knew I'd take care of it, I just didn't want to do it right then.

Playing with Amy made me late to call Frank. I was supposed to get tattooed on Sunday at 1 and 2pm is about when I called him. Frank seemed to be in good spirits all day. The only time he started to get even a little bit grumpy was when we started talking about politics. I think he just let himself get too into it. He didn't even get upset when I was like 3 hours later than when I meant to be at his place.

I sat down and got tattooed for about 3 1/2 hours. He laid some paper towels down on the kitchen table and sat me in one of the chairs. There were a couple breaks. It wasn't that bad. It's itchy and painful when I sleep now, but the actual tattooing wasn't as bad as Frank normally is. That dood can kick my ass if he feels like it. I got to watch Saving Silverman while getting tattooed in his living room. I also got to watch Vivian lose her mind playing with her family. It was hilarious. She wasn't phased by the tattooing one bit and Frank said she never has been. Fucking hilarious kid. Frank and I were both planning on going to yet another show that evening so we had to bolt out at a certain time.

There was a local hardcore show at the Abbey Pub on sunday. I've never been to that venue before I don't think. If I had, it was like once before. It was pretty cool as far as the area goes, but the sound was pretty bad. It was Undo Tomorrow, Fran from The Fireside's rock band, Over & Over, Blood In Blood Out, and The Killer. All the bands played well despite the hindering sound system. Stix started air-banging his guitar like it was a fertile young lass. Gross.

The great things about this show is that a lot of my peoples came out for it and it was great to see everyone. I got to hang with R. Rogers for a bit. He told me that he might work back at our old job, the Wingate. They're going to match his pay and give him the weekends off if the Dani makes it so. Good for him. I talked with Grace about getting a cleaning so I'll be stopping by her work sometime soon too. There's was plenty o' mosh and good times to be had.

We had to duck out a bit early cause my brother promised to meet up with Ed Satan at around 12:30 back at our house to watch Family guy. Hooked up with Ed, watched a fantastic comeback episode of Family Guy (I'm so glad it's back!). They finished up the episode with the greased-up deaf guy screaming 'Good to be back Amawica!'. I went to bed at a decent hour (by my standards).

-Monday- THREE DAY WEEKEND!!!

So, I agreed to go out with this girl from MySpace named Jillian. This date made me realize how much of a cynic I am. I didn't think anything of this situation. I thought it was going to be a crap date and didn't expect much at all. So, I went in there all relaxed because I thought the date was going to start and end within a couple hours. In fact, I planned on it. I made plans to hook up with this other girl and her friend to play hi-ball with me and my brother. That's another story.

So, Jillian lives on the south side of Chicago at like 95th and Damen. That's far. It took me about an hour to get down that way, but it was a smooth ride. Not much traffic at all. I pulled up to her house and no one answered. I went back to my car to get my phone, called her, and walked back up as she was walking out.

Wow, this girl was beautiful. She was a very tall model-type girl. With her heels, she was taller than I was. That was kinda hot to me cause there aren't many girls that are taller than I am. I immediately got nervous. The great part about it was she was nervous too. That helped. Whenever I encounter a girl this cute I have to assume she's an asshole. Not so.

I held off on eating so we could go somewhere together. I asked what she was in the mood for and she said we should definitely go to Top Notch. I'm pretty easy going and I've never tried that before so we went there. I thought it was going to be like a sit-down restaurant or something. This girl led me to a greasy burger place. How cool is that? Let me explain why I think this is so cool. The girl comes out of her house looking like a million bucks, but it only takes 7 bucks to feed the both of us. She had passes to the Field Museum so we went there. The most expensive thing for the whole date was the parking there. We walked around all nervous and talking about different things. We were checking out all the Egyptian stuff. I bought her a plastic mold of a T-Rex. I got myself a Stegasaurus. I had a first date, I had fun, we're going out again, alert the press.

After I dropped her off I was driving back at around 5:30 on a monday so I thought I was going to hit an ass load of traffic, but I actually made it home faster than I made it to her place. I got a text message just before I got back on 290 asking me what I thought and also that she meant to kiss me when I walked her to her door. Kickass!! I told her to just attack me next time and that I had a great time. We're getting together again this saturday me thinks. This should be a real date this time.

I had to rush back to my house because my brother was waiting on me to play hi-ball, and I was hooking up with Melanie. Melanie's another girl I have a crush on, but that's potentially more dangerous because she's dated a friend of mine in the past. I'm just having a great time hanging out with her now though. She rules and we have the same sense of humor so it's always a good time. She's always down for doing stuff too. Everyone's always into drinking or whatever and she always wants to just hang. The chick's cool.

Anyway, we got together and Melanie brought her friend, Bri. We had a foursome so off we were to Do It All Sports. We paid our ten bucks. Bri and Melanie didn't believe that it was going to be that rough so they came in their jeans. Me and my brother came all prepared and were wearing basketball shorts and t-shirts. Everyone was pretty out of shape. I felt good that I lasted so long. At least I'm not that bad. It was only about a half hour before we retired to the free video games to relax.

When the hour was up we went back to my house to watch Family Guy yet again, and to play Mario Party since we had four people. Hilarity ensued. The girls left cause they're responsible. My brother and I went out to Meijer to do my grocery shopping while I had a load in the washer. I'm trying to buy more vegetables, but I just don't know how to cook so well. I got me some portabello mushrooms that I actually did a great job on yesterday. I put some garlic on it and some provolone over that on toasted bread. I think I just needed to cook it a little longer, but it was great.

Yesterday was a good day too, but I was working so there wasn't much to tell about that. Mushroom sandwich was good. I stayed up late and I'm paying for it today.

I have three PB&J's in the fridge right now and I've been writing this all morning. I sure hope that this computer doesn't erase this post. I need to remember this weekend. Too fucking cool. If you've read this far, this is why I love you. I'm in a great mood so if you ever wanted anything from me, now is the time to ask me.

So, it's been a little while. I've had a lot on my brain and not so much time to deal with it. Dre came in and I wanted to talk to her for a bit, but she had to make her rounds and I understand that. I just needed a little clarity and I'm not exactly sure anyone can give me that at this point.

As a matter of fact, there's more going on right now that's clouding my mind than there is breaking the fog. For starters, how come my ex of a relationship that ended 7 years ago decides to contact me out of the blue? It doesn't quite compute. I'm wondering if there's a motive or something. This is another story altogether.

What it's boiling down to is I feel as though I need to get going on music which means going back to school, finding an established band, or just going into the union and starting to do session work. Either that, or I need to start concentrating on just working for a living for the rest of my life. I really want kids is what it comes down to. I'm saving up money for crap and I want it to go towards something important. This is really hard cause I'm writing and my mind's going a mile a minute now that I've opened this can o' worms. Whatever, this isn't helping.

So yeah, my ex-girlfiend, Amy, found me on MySpace a little over a week ago. Just seeing a picture of her was fucking tripped out because it has been 7 years since I or any one of my friends has heard or seen anything about her. She just dropped off the face of the earth. I forgot what she looked like. We exchanged messages on there for a little while and day before last I ended up meeting with her at IHOP. We talked for like four hours and I had a really good time. She looked different, but then there were times where she would look at me a certain way or smile and somehow it catapulted me back in time for that very moment. We resolved a lot of things and talked about other things. I don't look at that relationship as negatively as I did before because of that night. She made me remember things that happened between us. I think I may have chosen to forget a lot of these things because I need to feel hate and/or resentment towards a person if I'm to get over a relationship. I may have just dwelled on the bad things so much that I ended up forgetting all this good stuff. I don't know what to make of this whole thing just yet.

I may have a date tomorrow night and maybe another one on monday. Things are looking up on the romantical front, but I always get stood up. The odds look pretty good for the weekend though. It would be ridiculous if both of these girls stood me up. Well, girls are pretty fucking ridiculous.

I'm going to see Anthrax on saturday with my brother, Shane, Rey, Grimes, and Steve. This is going to be one of the best shows ever. I can't help but to hype it up for myself. I know it's going to be great in one way or another. Joey with the old crew is going to own. I can't wait to see this shit. Grimes and Shane have made a pact to mosh throughout the entire set. They're lives depend on it.

I'm finally progressing on the tattoo I've had for about a year. Frank got laid off over at Rhino's so it's not as easy for some reason. I finally got him to schedule something with me for this sunday. Man, am I excited.

So, I'm getting into this girl Melanie a lot. I've been hangin' out with her every so often and I always have a great time with her. Here's the rub: she's dated a friend of mine before. Like, they're broken up, she's single now and so is he. I mentioned it to JQ and he told me that he didn't think it was a good idea because he was worried about his circle of friends and the comfort level. I dunno dood. I'm at a point where I don't want to deny myself something because of something as miniscule as that. I mean, I'm not a complete asshole. I would talk it over with him and try to make him understand, but I don't think I could deny myself a good time with this girl if he didn't like the sound of it. It's been a long fucking time since I've been around someone that I was interested in dating for real. I just don't want to deny myself that chance. Maybe I'm being selfish, but fuck it. I've been nice for years upon years and I've dealt with being the odd man out for the majority of the time. Sue me for wanting something for myself.

There's a good chance that I'm feeling isolated and grumpy because I'm reading Get In The Van by Rollins. It's a tour journal. It's all about being alone and pissed on tour and I'm really connecting with it. These are all valid issues in my life right now. I'm just questioning whether or not I'm tackling them a little more intensely than I would under circumstances that didn't involve me being so in tune with this book. I heart Rollins. What a guy.

Date:	2005-04-19 19:24
Subject:	I know the weather's beautiful, but...
Security:	Public
Mood:	confused

It's fucking killing me! I've been stuck at work so much this entire weekend. The desk I work at is located in the basement of the club. I shouldn't say that. It's like the lower level of the club, but from where I'm standing it's a lot like a basement. There is no air coming through, no windows to see out of, and the action is always somewhere else.

My mind is just not on work right now. I keep just wishing I could take off to the beach or go biking, or sit in my driveway and listen to music. I don't care. Dood, I sat in my driveway for like three hours in a sweet lawn chair and just listened to music. So nice.

I do have a couple days off after today so that's good news. I just keep trying to look forward to that. ...Oh, well, it doesn't matter that I have the next few days off cause I just found out it's going to be fucking raining on my days off anyway. I swear some bitch has it out for me.

It feels as though the wind's being taken out of me. Like life's giving me an ultimatum right now. I'm down to my last ounce of potential and I need to figure out where to spend it. The options that I have aren't cut and dry. There are no absolutes. I want everything, but I can't have it.

What I do know is that I need a major change. If I'm going to be consumed by my job I want there to be some motive behind forfeiting most of my time and a part of my soul. The money isn't reason enough. I can live on less than what I make. I couldn't say what the fuck I'm saving cash for. I just have some more than I used to. You might be thinking that I'm never satisfied with what I have. Well, god damn right. What I have is what I don't want right now, and now that I think of it, I'm not sure I want to have this later either.

This whole thing is strange because no one's telling me to do anything one way or the other. No one's coming down on me for wasting my life or supporting my decisions thus far. This conflict has overtaken my thoughts these past few days.

I've been at work the past few days.

To be so consumed in thought that it's almost like having a conversation with yourself can be dangerous to other humans. I've been thinking some very angry and/or evil thoughts whenever someone decides it's time to interrupt me. Things like silently demanding that a fairly attractive mother of three had
better lose the clothes and attack me mighty quick if she thinks it's funny to bother me with her bullshit. At least it would get my mind off of all my crap for ten minutes if I got laid. They don't even have to interrupt me to piss me off right now. I find contempt in the fact that they're indoors by choice on such a nice day and they won't take advantage of such things in my stead. Go have a fucking BBQ. Piss in the lake. Feed some birds. Sit in lawn chairs and yell at kids walking by. I'd feel better about being stuck inside if you a-holes weren't taking it for granted. Yeah, I'm jealous. Fuck you, you should be outside.

There's currently an ache in my body that's familiar, but it usually goes away within the first twenty minutes of waking up. It has yet to go away and it's going on two hours since I've woken up. It's that ache that's telling me that I shouldn't be active and my bones still need some rest.

I went out for a bike ride with Brian last night. It was my house - to Arlington Lake - around once - then to Randhurst Theater to see Sin City - then back. I didn't realize it was going to be bad news until I tried to walk downstairs into the basement and my muscles couldn't hold my bulk on the way down. I knew I was either going to be exhausted or sore in the morning. I'm both.

Sin City was a really great movie. A lot of great lines and like six stories tied into one movie. It was put together incredibly too. The cheesy description would be to say it reminds me of those iPod commercials but with a lot more killing. It was put together just like a black and white comic book. Some color here and there to accent things, but overall just really raw and dark. Let's put it this way, they made it look as though Elijah Wood was fucking demented. It kicked my ass and I probably need to see it again.

Nap time