Jesus H. Christ

I cruised down some back roads today. Class let out early and I was off: it was like planets aligning. I went out to my mother's after class, and we drove out to a junk store. I bought a briefcase and a lantern. Afterwards we had lunch and I started back to town.

I plan on making something for a friend out of the case. The lantern is for another project.

Back in town I hung around the main campus, went to the library. Borrowed the Butterfly and the Bell Jar and The Possession by Albert Camus. I just recently finished The First Man and O Pioneers! by Willa Cather. Currently reading Naked Lunch by Burroghs. I'm an addict, and this weekend will only compound the enabling. That's right, the book sale I've been rubbing my palms for is finally upon us. I'm thinking of getting there ridiculously early and waiting in line, then making a beeline straight for the DVDs and then the Classics.

Astronautilis' address:
Andy Bothwell
1827 S. Weller
Seattle, WA 98144

I have a feeling this supposed ultra-productive day off is going to be very NON-productive.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=47279364&MyToken=2935282b-c191-4773-b70c-04eceb4cfaae

That is all.

I've been addicted to Call of Duty: World at War for a little bit. Especially the online deathmatch. What's worse is I've finally begun to get better at it. I guess there are worse things. At least this hobby keeps me from spending money and safe at home.

I went to see Halloween II after work tonight. So many movies have been coming out that I wanted to see while I was broke, now I feel like the clock is ticking before I'll have to wait for them to come out on video, when I'll probably have forgotten about them by that time. Funny People is already out of theaters and scarcely crosses my mind.
Anywho, Halloween was ok. Rob Zombie took a little meander into his more creative side; like House of 10,000 Corpses, versus Devil's Rejects. It felt like there was something missing though. I know one thing I missed from both of his Myers' movies: the gift he has for small pointless dialogue scenes he puts in his other movies. Take Devil's Rejects, again: the conversation about the chick in the traveling band riding the mechanical bull in the tube-top. Or the one about fucking the chickens between the brothel owner and the redneck. There was a little of that flavor in the first Halloween, what with the security guard's banter and later the trucker on the john talking about a big beef burrito talking back at him. It's that detailed patchwork that makes the whole project more colorful.

On a side note, I saw a trailer for some animated film of Zombie's on Hulu... not impressed.

After the movie I stepped into Walmart and saw the skankiest ho I think I've seen in a long while. Part of me wanted to stare, but more of me didn't, less she thought I was admiring her instead of indulging in grotesque curiosity.

I'm just about finished with Catch-22, I'm on the last chapter. It's fucking long. If it wasn't so amazingly written, I'd have set it down over a week ago. It's one of those books that drive me crazy in alot of ways, and then socks me square in the jaw with something amazing. Alot of the dialogue is incredibly frustrating. Many of the characters make me want to hit them with something blunt. But at the same time, I'm always eager to get back to the story. It's books like this that convince me that I'll never be a writer.

I went to the wedding and came back in one piece. I've been slack on the updating, I know. However, I've opened up a new notebook or two, and I've been trying to read as much as I was AND work more than I have been plus doing my homework like a good little schoolboy. What I'm saying is that I'm spreading myself thin, and cheesy online unpopular blogs get the short end of the stick I guess. Maybe someday I will bore you with the tale of my 16 hour odyssey in Georgia on the return leg.

I recieved some emails from Jennifer today. She's having a boy. I think I would be happy either way, but I groan when I remember what she decided to name it, were it male. Braxton. Bleh; how Eastern Tennessee Baptist. Makes me think of Toni Braxton.







Maybe one of you chicks know what those things are. They all like petri dishes to me.

Oh yeah, many 'a picture from the wedding. All posted to FB. Here's a link.

I went to school today. It's been four years. Allison the roommate asked me if I felt nervous. No. I wish I was taking more than one class at a time.

I worked later in the afternoon. I've been trying to rekindle my work ethic and not slack nearly as much. My routine was getting more and more ridiculous. So I've been dutifully at task these past few days. I even worked overtime. The result has been that The Plague is taking forever to get through.

My sister's wedding is this weekend. I leave on Thursday, via ye olde Greyhound. I've picked out and memorized my toast quote:

Doubt thou that the stars are fire,
Doubt the sun doth move,
Doubt Truth to be a liar,
But never doubt thy love.

( ...+3... )

prettybooks

This week has been dragging on. I've been kind of down for the last couple days, but I think I feel better now knowing that I am paid tomorrow. Two weeks is a long time to wait in the poor house.

I've been killing alot of time this week. It seems like that's all I ever do. My roommate Alex has addicted me to Call of Duty: World At War. I see Nazis every time I close my eyes. At work I've been doing less and less. I started reading Dubliners and stopped with three stories left. Joyce just doesn't do it for me. Now I'm on The Plague by Albert Camus. I really just can't get enough of him. I plan on reading the Fall sometime soon, though I think I'm going to go for the Catch-22 and the Jungle Book next.

I'm watching Shakespeare Retold, a series of films made for BBC, modern takes on Shakespeare. Much Ado About Nothing was good, Hamlet is a little weird. I don't think I like it, save for the "3 Witches," depicted as 3 garbage men.

School starts on Monday. Strange feeling.

Noooooo! That was totally my idea.

School starts on the 24th. I go to the wedding on the 28th, come back on the 1st. I'm going to miss a day of school. That's all that's really going on right now, I didn't even really need to type it up. It's everyone else that seems to have a problem remembering it.

I fucked my bank account up. It sat there with $11 for about a week and I thought I had just dodged the bullet by catching it there, but then on Monday I got a call and checked the online banking to see that two transactions came out of the ether and fucked me. Two $38 NSF fees. So now it's sitting at about -$90. I started going to the plasma place again after that. And today I made an extra $10 for delivering some of the roommates' furniture she sold on Craigslist. I've always wanted a pickup for this exact reason. Not making money per se, but for the fact that I always need to haul shit somewhere.

Other than that, nothing going on. Laying low because of the cash situation. I've been reading so much that it's become an addiction. Today I was faced with not having something to read at work and had to borrow something from the roommates' shelf. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglass Addams. He has a good writing style, I'll give him that. Previously, I read A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess and Hot Water Music by Charles Bukowski. Both really good. The former is written in a very convoluted slang that takes a while to decipher. The latter is a collection of short stories, vignettes if you will. All very autobiographical, I know from watching a documentary on Bukowski. Modest Mouse was right, he was an asshole.

I don't remember what I read before those two, but it might have been Exile and the Kingdom, by Albert Camus, which I think I previously mentioned.

What an exhausting weekend. Yesterday was the worst day I think I've had in a long time. I was all excited about having the truck back on Friday, and I woke early to drive to work for the 7am morning shift. And the truck wouldn't start. Then it would start, but I couldn't get it to keep running. I made it about 2 miles before turning back. After waking my roommate up, I only ended up being eight minutes late, but I was already starting my day livid.
At work there was unbelievable bullshit awaiting me. I've described it to people so many times already I don't care to go into the particulars; it will only serve to get me worked up again. Let's just summarize by saying too many stupid people are put into positions where they have the power to make decisions.
After work and after being literally angry all day long, I worked hard to relax. I took Bleu the dog out to a dirt path I had seen skewing off the main road nearby, which cut through the woods and opened up onto a nature reserve trail. It could have been lovely, if not for the suffocating heat & humidity, and the roving swarms of mosquitos. I couldn't pause for a moment without having them slowly floating out of the ether on all sides. Annoying as it was, the walk served its purpose and the dog and I spent all our energy.
Back at home, I decided to tackle the car thing and see if it was something easily fixable. I had one desperate hope, that what the mechanic had said about the gas gauge being off were really true, and the car was just simply out of fuel. That would mean that the gauge was not a quarter of a tank off, as he had guessed, but a half tank. So I got a gas can and put some premium in there. And my luck finally changed. It worked. So I quickly drove it down to the station and filled it up the rest of the way. A huge load off my mind, though one thing worries me: it only took about 5 gallons. I looked online, and it's supposed to have a 14.5 gallon tank...

Today was a better day. Less stressful. Friday was awesome, btw. I was paid, so I went and got my textbook for class, I got the truck back, I stocked up on groceries, and I got some things for my various house projects. I'm taking my time with most of the decorating. Stay tuned, however, for 'Ceiling Leaves: version 2.0.'

I woke up with one phrase on my lips: "Fuckin' astronauts."

I was dreaming something about a theater in which people were allowed to come in after hours and put in DVDs. I was the only one in there at that hour, and I was watching some movies and lying half-asleep on the seats. Then this fucking troop of astronaut trainees come in wearing their space suits, sans-helmet, some in yellow and some in white. Their instructors stood up front and immeadiatly turned off the movie I was still watching and put in their training videos. I jumped up from my makeshift bed and started raising hell. The details are fuzzy, but I remember storming out furiously, calling them "worthless astronaut pieces of shit" on the way out. Out in the parking lot was my truck (which I've yet to drive) parked where I had left it, but now it was surrounded by black duffle bags arranged as though the astronauts had formed ranks before going inside and set them down at their sides. On my truck was written annoying little messages in a thin layer of dust, which only furthered my hatred of those tang-sucking little bitches, so I grabbed a bunch of the black bags near the truck, threw them in the back, and drove off- making certain to run over as many of the other bags on my way out as I could.

There was another dream before that was just as strange and emotional, but now I can't remember it.

I rated my former apartment online. Here's what I had to say:

"Let's start with the short list of plusses: Ample parking, great location, water and gas included in rent.
The cons: The rent is far too high for what you're getting. The plumbing is regularly faulty, the facilities and exteriors are always dirty, the maintenance never fixes anything unless it is an emergency. Some units have laundry machines, the rest have to use the filthy laundry room wherein most machines don't work and frequently are robbed for change and clothes. The leasing agent(s) are helpful, but the owner is completely uninterested in helping any of the tenants and threatens with legal action whenever convenient, to intimidate young unexperienced college students. Bottom line, you can find bigger, better apartments in Gainesville for less money."

http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/FL-Gainesville-Country-Village-Apartments-961413.html

I tried to be as non-specific to my own problems as possible. I should have had less scruples, since the apartment complex obviously went onto the site a couple times and rated themselves as awesome.

I think that I like Press Secretary Gibbs. I like how you can see in his face when he thinks things are ridiculous. Like he's laughing inside.

I awoke this morning to my phone ringing. They wanted me to come in early, but I didn't get there until about 9:30. Work went more quickly than I imagined. I finished the last book that I bought at the library sale back in April. Exile and the Kingdom, by Albert Camus. It was worthy of the Nobel Prize of 1957. I want to get some more from him sometime.

Getting eight hours meant leaving at 6, which turns out to be the most awesome time to leave work. I rode the bus home, went out for a run for the first time in a long, long time*, and watched Jeopardy! and the Daily Show with my dinner. And now I have the rest of the evening to relax. Pretty amazing.

*- Ladies, I know what you're going to say; how you love my ever growing pot. But I have a wedding to go to at the end of the month.

Everytime I come out to my Mom's for a relaxing weekend in the countryside, there is absolutely nothing worth watching on satellite TV. It makes me glad I'm not paying for this in my own home.

I helped my mother mow her lawn today. I'm not sure if it's a kid thing, or just a guy thing- but whenever I go to any of my relatives' houses I'm obligated to do some kind of chore. Fix a computer, mow a lawn, mount *something*... This weekend was the lawn. I took advantage of the situation and brought out some of the furniture I plan on refurbishing. I sanded the hell out of it and made it more sturdy. I'm still mulling over how I'm going to repaint it.

There was a glorious downpour this afternoon. The weather is in it's regular cycle for this part of the country, so it happens often. It's a different experience out here than in the city, though.

( Oh yeah. More pictures to... y'know. )

I'm taking the day off. Not from work, but from all the other shit. Just doing nothing the rest of the day.

I turned in the keys to the old apartment today. Completely moved in to the new one, though not unpacked. I'm holding off on unfurling my boughs on the place until I fix some things. Sanding, painting, repairing. Then I can work on filling shelves and covering walls. The walkthrough went ok at the old place. I thought it looked pretty damned good, but she still put it down for a cleaning. My mother had stayed over yesterday and volunteered to deep clean the whole place. She did way better than I would have on my own.

I've been helping my roommates clean their place so that they can turn over tomorrow. They had alot more work, and it's going to look way, way worse than mine.

Also, today, I went and got a driver's license. I haven't had one in four or five years. In Florida, anyway. I also got insurance (which I seldom had while licensed), and bought a tag for the truck. So I can legally drive down the road. It's a weird feeling- a brave new world for me. I can pass a cop and not quickly worry if he might have spotted me and thought anything was suspicious.

So everything's coming together. Only thing to do now is bide my time and live a little frugal until my next paycheck, 'cause I'm broke as a joke.

There's just not enough time today. I spent a good portion of yesterday editing the 60-some pictures I took over the fourth of july weekend and my trip in Mississippi, and now I'm anxious to upload them and send the .zip files to my relatives and such, but the Internet is working against me, in cohorts with time.

So I'll do installments. Probably better anyway, because I don't think anyone in the world is that interested in looking at all of my pictures in one sitting.

( Without further ado, Katrina Update 2009: )

I think I found a truck to fit my needs. A tiny Mazda pickup, $900. I'm consulting the bank about a tiny loan.

I'm at SFC. Got a spiffy new student ID and talked to the Brain Bowl guy. I'm totally going to fuck his world up when I get in there.

Reading update: I can't believe I haven't said anything since I started Ovid.

Well, I quit Ovid's Metamorphoses halfway through. It was just taking too long and I wasn't really absorbing much. I read Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson instead. It was damned good. I never read it as a boy. I'm certainly going to read it to my children, though. I just have to explain all the mariner lingo. I then started the Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (I deviated from my Book Sale stack and bought a couple things from Amazon). I was only begun on this when I went on my trip, and paused to read Pygmy by Chuck Palaniuk (also from Amazon) while on the bus. Chuck's book was ok. My passion for him is cooling as he continues this downward spiral into shock-fiction muck. The language was really difficult, as I mentioned before, but you get used to it. The story was an awesome concept, but in the end it was predictable (something rare for Chuck's books). I just finished the Sound and the Fury a couple days ago. I liked it, and I think that I'm falling in love with Faulkner. It was very challenging to read; the narrative is quite disjointed and confusing. My favorite part was the last section, where it was all third-person omniscient and in Faulkner's own voice, not muddled by thick accents and racing thoughts. As I Lay Dying was better, however.

Currently, I'm reading Blindness by Jose Saramago. I previously mentioned that it was translated from the Spanish, and I was wrong. It was in Portuguese. So far it's good, though I wish I hadn't seen the movie first. Now I can't help but think of the actors, instead of formulating my own mental pictures of the characters.

As for movies, I haven't gone to theater in a while. There's nothing I really want to see outside of Bruno, and even that I'm not too excited about. I hear it's like a gay porno. I did see the Wackness and Synedoche New York from Blockbuster. Oh, and S. Darko. The Wackness wasn't as funny as I had the impression it would be from the previews, except for the ninties references. Synedoche (I know it's misspelled) was good but long. S. Darko was... I dunno. I don't think that the makers of Donnie Darko should have signed off on it. It was kind of pointless; the plot was weak, and really only served as filler between obvious throwbacks to the original. "They made me do it," "She can do anything she wants," the Frank the Bunny mask. Pointless. I like the girl that played Sam, though (the same girl from Donnie). I think she's a good actress, just given a shitty script.