Archive for July, 2003

Update

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2003

I worked Monday. Same guy as before. He’s moving, so we hauled furniture into his U-Haul, then down to a storage unit. NWI is playing at the Poetry Slam on Friday, as well as (maybe) the FMZ. If any of us practice. I’m in the most recent production of Lab Rats, onstage this time — as Watson. Thursday I’m going to see Laurel’s dance thingie. I was gonna bring Maggie, but I just don’t think she’d enjoy it. I’ll take her someplace else this summer — maybe to the play at the playhouse.

I’m finally finishing my pop-punk (real pop-punk, like Queers and Screeching Weasel) record from my band The Suckers. All it needs is backup vocals.

Learn to Speak English!

Friday, July 18th, 2003

I just got an e-mail that was indecipherable, except for one line — “Learn English the quick way!!!’ Strange!

Last American Hero

Friday, July 11th, 2003

This is our new Seinfeld-inspired answering machine message:

Click here

It’s only 156k. “Believe it or not, the Shorts aren’t at home….”

Update

Tuesday, July 8th, 2003

Well, we’re all set for Thursday. Laurel, Shawn, Sarah, and I are going to the Osprey game.

There are these friggin’ birds on my road. They dive-bomb me whenever I walk by. It’s really quite stupid; what better way is there to reveal your nest than to freak out whenever somebody walks by? They have an annoying call to: it’s kind of a ‘caw’, and kind of a squawk. I hate it!

So I pick up rocks, and kind of toss them into the air when they swoop at me. I don’t throw them all hardcore. If I hit one and it fell I’d feel awful. But they’re a pain in the arse, and they’re getting worse! The first year I encountered them they just kinda swooped at me above my head. Now they’re about a foot away at the troughs of their dives. They started coming at me after my junior year, before CWW. That’s when I started walking: to get my (then) new boots broken in.

I’m working someplace new tomorrow. Construction cleanup. I got awful directions, so of course I have no idea where to go. What else is new?

The family leaves on Thursday for Walla Walla and wherever else they’re going. It kind of makes me sad; I haven’t gone on vacation with them for a long time. I’m gonna be all alone! :-(

Update

Saturday, July 5th, 2003

Does anybody know how they could show South Park: Bigger, Longer, And Uncut in its entirety, uncensored, last night? That’s what I watched, and it was like, “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.” I always assumed that the premium channels could show whatever they wanted and cable

You represent... hope.
You represent… hope. You’re quite a daydreamer and can be a hopeless
romantic. You enjoy being creative and don’t mind being alone at times. You have goals, and know what you want in life… even if they area little far fetched.

What feeling do you represent?
brought to you by Quizilla

had to watch the language — at least the bad stuff. Then again, they had that one episode where they said “shut” about 175 times in a half-hour. So I dunno.

I have to work today. That’s good because I get money, but bad because I’m sore from yesterday’s adventures. Maybe I’ll take some asprin before I head off to my daily labors, eh?

Ooo! The family’s going on vacation on Thursday, and they’re leaving me Missoula Osprey tickets. I’m not a baseball fan, but there are four of them! I’ll have to find people to go. I can’t really see too many of my friends being into sports or baseball.

I really need to fix my sleeping habits. I fell asleep at midnight (during the South Park movie) and woke up at 3:30 AM, then headed for bed. Why can’t I consciously go to sleep (heh) instead of kind of drifting off wherever I am?

Oh, and I’m a wussy. Nothing new. 😉

4th of July Catastrophe

Friday, July 4th, 2003

It’s such an amazingly bright sensation when you feel overwhelming tenderness toward another. And it’s so sad when he or she is completely unaware of that tenderness.

I got up at 7:30 (AM!) today to get ready for river rafting. I left to get Aaron at 9:00; he was wearing pants and shoes. “Dude, we’re going on a river — you’re gonna get wet!” I was gonna call Laurel from Scheeb’s house but John (Aaron’s dad) and Sue (Laurel’s mom) were already on the phone, so I had no call to make, just a quick exchange of conversers. We got there at 10:00, and spent two hours (!) preparing to go. Shawn showed up, then Laurel, then John Springer, then John Wax, then Jillian, then Aaron’s sisters Meghan (I don’t have a yearbook with her in it so I have no clue if that’s right) and Mariah (again with the spelling). We set off at noon, having planned on an 11:00 departure.

Our journey was fraught with peril. On our first rapid, Springer was sucked under a snag and we have a terrifying moment of apprehension — until he came up again. Then I fell out of the raft. It was a very slow fall. So slow, in fact, that I had time to say, “Help John!” He started dumbly at me. I started falling off. “Help me ya fuck!!!” I screamed. He didn’t. Duuuuuh. So I fell in the drink and had to get out again. As I came to the place they stopped to wait for me, I fell down the bank and scraped my elbow.

Current Listening:
Tracy Chapman: “Why?”
Why do the babie starve
When there’s enough food to feed the world?
Why when there are so many of us
Are there people still alone?
Why are all the missiles called Peacekeepers
When they’re aimed to kill
Why is a woman still not safe
When she’s in her home?

But this was not the end of the mishaps. Oooooooh no. About a mile down the river we came to a snag and I fell out again. “Damn you John!!!!” The water was fast here, and I was blind. Luckily I grabbed a tree limb and fought my way out of the water. I was clinging to that branch as the stuff in the raft started floating by. The damn thing had capsized! I let the stuff all go, but when the bag with our wallets and keys floated by I made an heroic dive and caught it, swimming triumphantly to shore. We re-grouped, and somehow Laurel (who had survived the treacherous section of river and was happily paddling downstream) managed to get both my sandals (which of course flew off in the water), the cooler (with food in it!) and a whole bunch of other stuff. Really we only lost sunscreen. I did not manage to recover the missing lens from my sunglasses, though.

The rest of the trip passed pretty much without mishap. Unfortunately, it took us about five hours to go four miles. Not because the river was slow, but because we got separated frequently, so the people in the back had to wait for the slowpokes. Oh, and also because Shawn kept shooting off his filthy mouth about eating poop and stuff.

Tomorrow is another geek-fest at Aaron’s, but I don’t know if I want to go. I have to work.

So now it’s 4th of July night, and I don’t really feel like shooting off fireworks. I’m actually kind of blue. Cisco (our dog) is cowering by my feet, terrified of the noise. I’m tired but can’t sleep. I have to do something important tomorrow — if I have the guts. I have before, but it’s so damn hard, y’know.

Peace.

My Pet Spider

Thursday, July 3rd, 2003

The Leage of Extraordinairy Gentlemen looks to be a good flick. Anything with Sean “My Last Name Should Be the Final Word of a Spelling Bee” Connery is generally popcorn-worthy.

I’ve got a pet spider. Kind of. I first noticed him a week ago while I was eating lunch out of the back of Nellie. He was a big guy. Anyway, I had to tip the seats down so I could sit comfortably out of the back of the station wagon. As I was doing this, he scurried underneath the seat. At first I thought he would be pissed about his forced relocation, but I think he enjoys it.

Plus, he moved elsewhere of his own volition. Twice I’ve seen him scurrying behind the dashboard glass. I call him Norton, after Gleasom’s foil in The Honeymooners. Norton enjoys it in the car, I think. Can you imagine life forever on the road? There’s plenty of food, both in the form of candy that’s been in the ashtray for longer than my siblings have been alive to the many foolish dead insects who, in an attempt to get at that very candy, climb into the car through a window crack. Within seconds of being inside Nellie they are baked to a crisp. Norton doesn’t even have to cook.

In fact, I think he likes living in my dashboard so much that he’s been trying to ‘help out’ Nellie. I fancy that the kindly arachnid rolls back my odometer every once in a while. This is partly out of kindness to his more-than-benevolent master, but mostly because he wants said master to hold onto Nellie, lest he be sold to an oppressive overload who has an air freshener or — much worse — a bug bomb in his arsenal.

Today I got cut off in Hamilton. Norton was riding on the dashboard. I’m not sure because he’s tiny, but I think that a few of his eight legs were giving the finger.

In other news, tomorrow is the day of the river float. It looks like it’ll be pretty fun, assuming the weather holds. We’re floating from Woodside to Bell Crossing, about fifteen miles. I know for a fact that John, Shawn, Aaron, myself, and Laurel are going. There’s specualtion about whether Jillian, Meredith, Meghan, and I think Kelly are going. I have no friggin’ clue. John went to Helena today, and he’s not the best at organizing things, if you catch my drift. He’s a scatterbrain, alright?

I had a heavenly salad for lunch. Lettuce (duh!), olives, onions, cucumbers, two types of cheese — the list goes on and on! It filled me up so much that I could barely finish dinner.

I also got food for tomorrow. A thing of Coke, strawberries, grapes, Ritz, cheese (pepper jack!), hummus, and Teddy Grahams. It should be a yummy repast/snack.

Now I should go to bed. I have to get up at eight to shower and crap. I have to pick up Aaron at nine, stop by Shawn’s to see what he has in the way of river-worthy craft, and phone Laurel to make sure she actually gets up.

Thursday, July 3rd, 2003

Today is July 4, the day of American Independence. Perhaps it is not the day that our soldiers — weary, shaken, but filled with resolve — emerged victorious over the British troops, but it is the day that the thirteen colonies stood up with one voice, declaring that

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Declaring that we were fit to govern ourselves and not be shackled by chains thousands of miles long.

It is a great day. Never before had a nation been founded upon principles of freedom. Principles of free speech, in which dissent was encoraged and not frowned upon. Principles of free religion, where men and women could believe what they chose to believe and could not be persecuted simply for why they thought the world existed. Principles that made us (more or less) equal. Never before has a nation been created because of these principles. There was no economic motivation, no motivation of power, or fear, or defense. We came together to be together. And to do so freely.

And I have to wonder, watching the news, seeing this country slipping into a faceless sleep of the ignorantly oppressed, what our founding fathers would think. Yes, the image is corney, but hardly inapplicable. If they could see us shouting down others for expressing opinions, or pouring wine down the drain merely because it’s French, what would they say? Did not George Washington warn us of the evils of political parties, of divisiveness, of petty bickering?

Don’t get me wrong. This is still a great nation. How can one founded against the principles of tyranny, oppression, and inequality not be? But it is slipping. Inperceptibly, but it is slipping. And we can stop the gradual downhill slipe, if we only open our eyes. If we would only stop thinking about just ourselves and our families, and realized that there are others out there who need our help.

In short, if only we would stop bandying under our patriotic false idol, nationalism, and start uniting not only with, but for each other.