|
Sometimes you just have days where something quirky happens that just sticks with you. A couple weeks ago, I had one of those days.
First of all, I should start by noting that one of the most important items I own, my digital camera, is it's own story. Being one of the four items that I make sure that I have on me at all times, my digital camera is important to me. I forget about things that I've done until my screensaver randomly displays a picture of the event, and I say, "Oh yea I did that." If I need toothpaste, I take a picture of my teeth so I'll remember. If I'm really drunk and exploring, I take pictures behind me so I remember how to get back. I am a man who uses his camera.
Early after I bought my camera, it started getting jammed or some shit. I have no pictures of my trip to North Carolina, or the second half of our week in Seaside, because my damn camera stopped working. Anyway, I just have to return the camera to get a new one. It's an errand, but it's worth it. The first time I returned it, it was like a month old, and I forgot to give them back the battery and charger for it, but got a new camera.
Second time, well wouldn't you know it, I forgot again!
They give you a receipt everytime, and it's good for a new 90 days. Now I just go back every 90 days and I get a brand new camera, no dings or broken screens, no fear of lens failure. My last 400 dollar digial camera/ video recorder/ mp3 player/ voice recorder was an impulse buy because I forgot to cash a couple paychecks, so all of a sudden I had like 450 dollars at my disposal. That fucker's screen broke a month and a half after I got it, and then I had to listen to a thousand curious friends who just couldn't stop asking me,
"Oh uh… you didn't get the warrantee with that?"
To which I'd politely reply,
"No, it was an extra 75 bucks that I didn't have. So no, I didn't get the warrantee...you asshole."
So this time, I made my own warrantee- every 90 days I go to a Target, tell them that my camera is broken, and get a brand new one. Sure, who needs another errand, but I constantly have a brand new camera in my pocket, to which I have multiples of the accessories. Also, as the technology declines, Target pretty much pays me. If the camera goes on sale, I get the difference in cash.
Is it illegal, what I'm doing? I have no idea.
Is it immoral? Fuck no. Target has enough money so that they can make a return policy that lenient, and nobody at Target gets paid any less.
Is it worth it? Oh fo sho.
So anyway, my receipt was about to expire, so I called up my Dad who had the day off and was looking for something to do. We went to a Target near here, but they didn't have my camera in stock because it just went on sale and they are all sold. It's cool though, I expected this. I've returned cameras in Rockaway, Manalapan, somewhere near New Brunswick, and even in some Target in a town called Clifton Park, in upstate New York. I've been to Target: Saratoga Springs, Target: Bridgewater, and now I was at Target: Middletown, who was now sending us to a new Target: Staten Island.
I have always been curious about Staten Island, one of the two boroughs I've never been to, and easily the one I know least about. As my Dad explained it, and as I soon found out, "Ain't nothing there." This story being long enough already, bottom line is I got a brand new camera for a box which I claimed held my camera. Don't worry, it did hold my beat up camera with a slightly damaged screen and a finicky lens, but the lady didn't care enough to look. I swear, I could return a box with a brick in it and no one would ever find out.
To Target, the most important part of the camera is the box.
I left Staten Island 20 minutes after I got there and learned nothing about it, but I did gain the knowledge that Staten Island is New York City in name only. Oh, and Target gave me another 30 bucks, making the money I had to buy Christmas presents with a total of 30 bucks.
Anyway, after my Dad and I left Staten Island, we found ourselves in my Dad's childhood home of beautiful Edison, New Jersey. I always love hearing my Dad's stories, they are usually good. We passed a ditch in the middle of a jughandle, and my Dad told me about how he used to play in a creek that used to be there.
He was like 10 or something, and he and his friend went to catch crayfish in this creek. They saw some older kids, like 15 or 16, also catching crayfish. He didn't wanna invade their space or whatever, so he just caught crayfish a little ways downstream. He heard the kids talking about this one humungous crayfish, marveling in this animal's presumably impressive size. He heard one kid say " Wow, look at that size of that bastard!"
Later on, he came home to his strict Polish household, and my grandma asked,
"What were you doing today?"
to which he replied, "Catching bastards."
SMACK!
"What did you say?"
"What'd you hit me for?!? I just said I was catching bastards!"
SMACK!
"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?"
Eventually she figured it out, but that day my dad learned not to repeat everything he heard.
So then my Dad and I went to a china buffet, a guilty pleasure of my family, or maybe just me and him. Anyway, for whatever reason, I got full off the first plate. I quickly realized that Chinese food is only good if you are too hungry to think about what it is. "I'm hungry, I'm drunk, just gimme," or not at all. As i stared at my plate of chopped up whatever in a mystery brown sauce, I realized that most chinese food is a combination of the following:
1) unidentifiable meat that looks a lot like expensive catfood
2) sometimes identifiable vegetables
3) something that is almost pasta but not quite
4) unidentifiable brown liquid
I got to the point past hunger where I was eating just to eat. I decided to try everything weird. I mean, leave it to the Chinese to fry bananas. It was like eating a banana, only worse and it didn't even give me that "I'm eating fruit so I'm healthy" feeling either. I unexcitedly bit into some gross bread dumpling with poop-filling, that I was clearly just eating to be fearless in my own mind. I told my Dad, "this makes me feel like I'm biting a fart." I got up to get dessert, and wound up just getting mangos, which I haven't eaten since at Matt Warner's house in like 7th grade. When I got back to the table, my Dad (and this is why I love him) told me that he agreed with me, that fart dumpling really does taste like you are biting a fart. If you told me that your food tasted like fart, I'd probably get curious enough to try it too. I'm not sure if I'm proud of that trait, but I'm at least glad that comes from somewhere.
It came time for fortune cookies. Fortune cookie fortunes are one of the things that I have no idea why I collect. I have every fortune that I can ever remember getting, and I have no idea why. It's not like I go back and read them later. Also, I always read the fortune first, then eat the cookie, even though I don't particularly like the cookie's taste. I don't know why I do this, but I always do it. I guess I always read the fortune first because of Spaceballs, but I have no idea why I always eat the worst cookie every invented. Even if I'm really full, I eat this contorted wafer that is a cookie only by the loosest definitions of the word. I think that I actually believe that the fortune won't come true unless I eat that damn thing.
Today though, on a day that felt peculiar from the wake up, I got a cookie so old and burnt that, for the first time that I can remember, I didn't eat it. I cracked it and took out the end-all be-all of fortune cookie fortunes. After reading it, I took one bite and then couldnt finish the burnt cookie. I would have been sick if I ate that cookie.
This fortune made me say, "Shit. I just won."
It reads ":) You will be successful in everything. :)"
I had to read it twice.
:)You will be successful in everything:)
I felt calm. I was done looking. I found the alpha fortune, fortune number one, the Charizard of fortunes. The Mega-Millions, changes your life forever, lottery of fortunes.
After I read that, I was just like, "Now what the fuck do I need fortunes for?"
...endgame. I won, I found the motherfortune. The holy grail. The skeleton key- it works in every situation.
"Oh, what's your fortune say? 'You will be successful in fishing?' BOOM! Got it covered! Mine says 'everything.'"
I was a little bit nervous about the fact that I didn't eat the cookie. I decided that I would test the fortune on my Video 1 final. If I was successful in that, then I guess the fortune came true.
The Project:
The final could be anything you wanted, but it was supposed to be an installation piece, like a piece of video art that you would see in a gallery. I decided to take an overly-ambitious approach, which was a mistake. The initial idea was to have one DVD that you could choose 3 videos that would play at the same time. It eventually became 3 DVD's on 3 separate televisions, because the DVD programming would be next to impossible to figure out in order to get it all on one TV. Then it became 4 TV's, because I needed the original three, plus one that would display directions.
The Directions:
My idea was to let the viewer create his or her own dance party. On the bottom TV, the viewer would pick a set of dancing legs. On the middle TV, you'd pick a dancing torso, and on the top TV, a dancing head. To each set of dancing legs, there would be a bass line assigned, like a beat. Each middle would have a middle sound, for instance- a guitar. Each head would have a high-pitched sound, like those high-pitched techno sounds. So the final product, after picking a set of legs, a torso, and a head, would be a dancer and a song that the viewer created. Easier said than done.
The Set Up:
During the next week and a half I worked a great deal and slept very little. Every aspect of the project created new problems- the right music wouldn't play during filming, my hard drive chose to not be compatible with anything, I didn't ever seem to have the wires that I needed, people couldn't make it to the filming, I couldn't program the DVD the right way, and so on. The project was due at 8 am, and at about 6 am I was done with the most immaculate DVD's you've ever seen. Every menu was animated, there was hidden stuff, navigation was perfect, and everything was uniform between the 4 DVD's. All I needed was to just burn the 4 DVD's. I guess because the DVD's I designed were so complicated, they each took an hour and a half to burn. I had enough time to burn 1 of the 4. For about 10 minutes, I just sat on my bed staring into space, feeling terrible, thinking, "I just worked continuously for the last week and a half, and I have absolutely nothing to show for it."
So at about 7:30 am I ran around my dorm waking people up, asking if I could borrow their laptops. I also had to disassemble my big metal shelves, so that I could put the laptops above each other. I put this all into my dear friend Courtney's car, which already had 3 TV's in it, which I loaded the night before.
 The most ghetto green screen- 5 green table clothes from Closeout Corner. This is how we green screen on the streetz.
The Presentation:
I got to school and found out that someone stole the TV that I had reserved, which wasn't a problem because I had 3 TV's in the back of Courtney's car that I wasn't using. It took me about 45 minutes to set everything up, including putting all the video onto the three laptops. All of a sudden it was my turn to present my project to the class, and I honestly had no idea if it was even gonna work. I held my breath as I pressed play on the three laptops and the one TV. A week and a half's worth of stress rolled off my shoulders as I watched everything playing at once. Holy crap, everything worked. The fortune cookie must be right, because if I was successful in this, I'll be successful in everything.
The Aftermath:
My class and my teacher were really impressed with my project, and I wound up getting an A in the class.
Plus, I taught myself:
1) how to make techno beats with a computer
2) advanced DVD programming
3) how to green screen
4) that with enough alcohol, you can get anyone to do anything in front of a camera
 Kevin Gilligan and The Skunnel. Special thanks to him for getting the dancing started.
Also I learned that in video, nothing is ever as simple as it is in your head. Half of video is thinking up cool stuff, the other half is getting your idea out of your mind and translating into something that other people can see.
Oh, and by the way, the headache didn't end after my project was presented. I had just assumed that Courtney would be able to drive me back home with all my crap, but assuming makes an ass out of u and ming, so don't do it, or something. She let me know that she couldn't drive me back, and so I found myself in downtown New Brunswick with three laptops that weren't mine, a huge metal shelving unit, and my roommate's bigass TV, not to mention the fact that Courtney still had 2 TV's in the back of her car. I reaaaaaally didn't want to carry all that onto an EE or F bus, so I called everyone at school with a car. Luckily for me, I woke up Andrew and he helped me out.
I still have one of the TV's that I borrowed in my dorm room. It'll stay there until Jesse decides that he wants it back.
The Conclusion:
Overall, all the extra work was worth it. I didn't need to spend as much time on this project as I did- it was obvious that everyone else did a fraction of the amount of work that I did. For the amount of time I spent on it, it should have been much better, it's just that the project involved a lot of stuff that I'd never done before. The whole thing was just overly ambitious, but just by looking at the final product, you wouldn't really get how much work I put into it. That's disappointing. Plus, I thought that the project was going to be on display for a while, but it was only displayed for our class. I thought a lot of people were going to see it, but only like 25 people actually saw the finished product. That's also disappointing. Whatever though, I'm better for it, I learned a lot, and I got an A, so I can't complain. Thank you to everyone that helped me out, everyone that danced, Chris Andrew and Courtney for letting me throw a party in their house, and Jesse Toots Dweck Jonathan and JimCoe for letting me borrow their laptops and tv's.
 |
|
This past weekend, I went home to Roxbury, and something happened. It started with chemicals entering my mouth, ended with the cops searching for "The Kid in the Green Polo," and all that remains is a really funny story.
My mom's been asking me to come home for a couple weeks now, guilt tripping me at a level that only someone that misses you can achieve. I saw that my friend Ava was having a birthday party, so I decided that it wouldn't be the worst thing if I went home. Only after I had told my mom that I was going home did I realize that I would be missing Richie's birthday at JMU, but I felt bad about bailing on my mom. Let me tell you, somewhere around 6:00 AM on sunday morning I was wishing that I had just gone to JMU.
I got to the party on saturday night at about 10:30 PM. It was held at Ava's new house which I had never been to. I took it easy- I did a little drinking, I did a little mingling, and at around midnight I was in a good place.
That was until The Satan came home. Ava's little sister Maria has been involved with a nice young man named Jerry. Maria and I are very good friends, and Jerry has always been nice to me despite the fact that I've been hanging out with his girlfriend alone for as long as they've gone out. I've hung out with him a little, but I had never really became friends with him. So when he came to Ava's from work at around midnight, deciding that he needed to catch up and that I should join him in a shot, I had a hard time saying no. When he asked me to take another one with him, I said no but took it anyway. We played beer pong until the beer ran out, then played malt liquor pong. I'll say that at this point I was drunk.
At about this time, a lot of strangers showed up, so a few of us helped Ava regulate. We were trying to kick people out, when this kid (who had been having trouble speaking all night because he was so drunk) started puking all over everything. Jerry, myself, and some other strapping lads helped the puker's friends get the puker out of the house and home somehow. With the puke-splattered basement now containing only people sleeping over, it was then that the night took a turn for the drunker.
Outside, after the kid who hurled was safe on the floor of his friend's minivan, Jerry noticed a box. Wouldn't ya know it, that box was full of 40's and duct tape. Seeing it as a sign from God, Jerry quickly taped a 40 to everyone's hand that was there, saving one for his friend Neil. As if I had a choice, I allowed a 40 ounce bottle of malt liquor to be taped to my right hand.
Richie has noticed that everytime he drinks 40's, he makes bad decisions. Considering that the last time I drank 40's led me to be searched, cuffed, and fined for "public nuisance" by the Seaside Police Department, I'd have a hard time trying to refute that. I've had my fair share of 40 stories, but something inside me that night wanted one more.
Trying to achieve alpha male status, I quickly chugged my 40. I cheated a little because I let Ava and Maria have some.
Thinking I'm something special, I take pictures of Jerry and his friend Jamal finish before the alcohol renders me useless. But once the alcohol kicked in, I became a sloppy, slurred, slob of a souse. Maria's mom showed be a room in which I could sleep all alone, and I thought, "Wow, this is awesome. I just want to stay here." I plopped down face first onto the box spring that I expected to be a mattress, and I fell asleep.
When I woke up, I was standing in the kitchen of a house 4 houses down, and the woman who lived there would NOT stop screaming.
At first, as I was coming to, I heard myself arguing with the woman. Here I am, standing in a kitchen, empty except for its nightgown- clad homeowner, and I try to convince her that SHE'S wrong, that I'm where I'm supposed to be, and that she should stop screaming.
I remember thinking that the screaming woman was trying to kick me out of the party, so I started telling her about how close I was to the family, saying, "No it's cool, I'm allowed to be here, I'm like family." I can see now why the woman didn't believe me.
I babbled about how I was good friends with Maria, and I remember her saying something like "You don't even know where you ARE right now!" She must have thought I was on some really hardcore drugs or something. I wasn't- I guess I was just drunken sleepwalking.
I remember maybe 45 seconds of holding the most awkward conversation I've ever had before I woke up. I looked around at the almost empty house, then at its only inhabitant, and quickly realized that I was the one who was mistaken- a very hard realization to make. Without saying a word, I bolted out of the house and tried to find Ava's house.
I snuck back into a house which I prayed was Ava's to get my keys. Seeing people passed out all over the floors, I realized that I had gotten it right this time. I got my keys and sweatshirt and ran out of the house.
I thought about the woman. Imagine that it's 6am and you're asleep, but you wake up to the sound of your back door opening. Scared out of your wits, you muster the courage to get out of bed and see who is in your house. You find a floppy-haired kid with a beard and a green polo doing his best impression of a zombie, and you try to kick him out of your house. You are then told by the intruder that he belongs in your home, that he's like family, and that you should shut up. Then all of a sudden, his eyes open and he bolts out of your house.
You'd call the cops, right?
Me too. Knowing that she was probably describing me to the Roxbury Police at that moment, I ran to my car and drove very slowly home. Later on, I found out that the police had indeed been called and sent to Ava's house. I am told that the police then searched the Ryerson's house, to the bewilderment of the Ryersons. They said that they knew that there had been underage drinking going on, but that they didn't care. They had come with the sole intention of finding, and arresting, the Kid in the Green Polo.
By then, however, the Kid was already home, and his Green Polo was already in the wash.
 |
|
sometimes i have these dreams about lou. nothing spectacular, usually they are just me, him and a bunch of other people hanging out or getting something to eat.
at first it would be awkward because i knew he was dead but i didnt know if he knew. i thought it rude to tell him.
after a couple dreams though, i hinted at it but realized that lou knew he wasn't alive. He'd hint back that i was the real fool because i was dreaming and not realizing it. last night i had a dream where i saw him, realized i was dreaming, and just went with it.
it's nice to see him acting like himself. it's nice to see his face, even if i know it's not real. it's almost like he knows i miss him and he misses me too, so he shows up randomly like he used to. it's almost like he's not completely gone.
happy birthday louburger,
you monsterous devil
i know that some other people have had similar dreams. Nathanael and Lima both told me that they had dreams like this. You know lou is dead but you don't know if it's ok to talk about. You half expect him to flip out.
jackie and Southparkfan1735 both had dreams like this:
beach o blonde (12:41:10 PM): you know whats weird
beach o blonde (12:41:14 PM): is i have dreams like that alot too
beach o blonde (12:41:17 PM): but its just a small group
beach o blonde (12:41:34 PM): it would be like me and you are in every one and then lou and then like3 or 4 other people which are alays different.
beach o blonde (12:42:17 PM): and we will be hanging out, and ill just look at him and say to myself how is it im seeing him, and i wonder if he knows hes dead
beach o blonde (12:42:24 PM): and i wouldnt say anything either, i would just go with it
beach o blonde (12:42:27 PM): but while going with it
beach o blonde (12:42:38 PM): i would be so worried that he would just go away in the middle of us all hanging out
beach o blonde (12:42:45 PM): and we wouldnt be bale to see him anymore
beach o blonde (12:42:58 PM): very weird that we have similar dreams like that.
beach o blonde is away at 12:46:57 PM.
davey the gnome (2:23:32 PM): i guess it's normal. lima and nate have those same dreams
and:
SouthParkFan1735 (3:28:09 PM): bro idk u but i knew low and i had the same dream were we new he was dead in my dream
SouthParkFan1735 (3:28:12 PM): but we still chilled
SouthParkFan1735 (3:28:16 PM): it was weird as hell
if you have had a similar dream, or just someother crazy thought, leave a comment. this shit doesn't go away, we are all still grieving. it's good to know what everyone else is thinking. |
|
Sorry for being so remiss. Been busy, ya know? Working a lot (yet I still owe money all around town) plus I've had an internship in New Brunswick every week helping run the New Jersey International Film Festival. I also spent a week in Seaside with my bros, and a week in North Carolina with my family. I've been pretty busy this summer, I've only slept in my own bed like 5 or 6 times, because when I do sleep at home, usually my bed is full of bags that are either being packed or unpacked, so I just opt to sleep on the couch instead of moving the clutter.
I've still been writing this summer though. I've started a semi-big project. They are a series of stories about a boy who wasn't thinking. Each story ends with the boy in a predicament of some kind, either legal, lethal, etc. I'll put them up on here when they are finished. Some of them might sound somewhat familiar.
Also, Richie and I have started writing some things to film later. How much later, we'll have to see. We've got an idea to make a short sitcom-like thing that we can put on the internet so that y'all can view it on a weekly basis. Kinda like an Entourage thing, but on your computer, poorly written, and with episodes only like 5 minutes long. I don't see this happening any time soon, I'm thinking more like after college, when Richie and I won't have jobs, so we'll have a lot of time on our hands. Plus, if we write all the way through college, we'll have a good chunk of writing to start filming after college. Idk, it's an idea.
Additionally, I've started a journal. I know what you are thinking, "You already have a journal, I'm reading it now." Yes, but now I've started a deadjournal, because there are some things that I don't want the world to know. I know what you are thinking, "Why are you telling me this, Dave? I care very little." Well child, that's another reason for a written-down non-electronic journal-in-a-notebook. Some things that I want to write about are only interesting to me.
HOWEVER, some things are interesting to everyone. The story that is about to be unraveled to you is one such story. It begins with me going to Kevin Gilligan's house to watch Entourage. After Entourage was Lucky Louie, which we awkwardly watched with Kevin's mom. She did not like the line, "Sometimes when I fuck you, I think about you blowin' me. I feel bad because it's like I'm cheating on your pussy with your mouth." Or the fact that they called God a big cunt.
Later, we went to Kevin Grandstaff's house. En route, we were talking about Hermione. Kevin and I both agree that in the latest Harry Potter, especially when she gets dressed up to go to the Yule Ball, that Hermione is hot. Because she's so young, it's more accurate to say that you can tell that she's going to be hot, but even now, she's kinda hot. I pointed out that Hermione is the kind of hot that kinda makes you feel bad for thinking that she's hot. She's so young that it's wrong to say she's hot. BUT THAT JUST MAKES HER SO MUCH HOTTER.
As Kevin was agreeing, we pulled up to Grandstaff's house. We walked right in, because earlier, Grandstaff had told Gilligan on the phone just to come down to the basement. Gilligan and I walked down the stairs to the basement. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he stopped dead in his tracks. I looked to see what he was looking at, and quickly I saw what had spooked him. Grandstaff was lying on his stomach on the couch, with Kayley, a friend from TCNJ, straddling his back, rubbing his shoulders. Grandstaff had his pants down, and on his exposed ass, he wore a black man thong.
Gilligan and I just stared for a little while, our faces showcasing a look of shocked awe, as Grandstaff and Kayley stared back. Eventually, Gilligan and I turned around and walked back up the stairs, while I said, "We can just come back another time."
Supposedly, it was all just a joke. To this day, I'm not sure if I buy it.
Later on in the night, Richie showed up, and Kayley told us a very funny story, a story that was made to be passed on. This story sounds made up, but it in fact happened to Kayley's friend. It's a story so rich that I decided to come out of hibernation to share it with you.
Enjoy.
A boy that Kayley knows has a job in New York City this summer, and he takes public transportation into the city. One week, his boss went on vacation. He asked the boy to look after his dog while he was away. So the boy rode the subway to the boss's apartment, where he fed and walked this dog. The dog, the breed of which Kayley did not know, was a large dog, so picture a German Shepard, Golden Retriever sized dog. The next day, the boy rode the subway to his boss's apartment again. When he got into the apartment, he found the dog, only this time the dog was dead. Not knowing what to do, he called his boss and delivered the bad news. Luckily, the dog was old, and presumably died of natural causes, so the boss wasn't mad at the boy.
However, the story doesn't end there. Do not forget that the boss was away on vacation and had a dog corpse lying on the floor of his apartment, which the boy would have to dispose of. The boss called a pet cemetery and made the arrangements, but the boy had to bring the body there. As he boy rode public transportation, he had to take the subway there. As you can't just have a dog corpse on your lap on the subway, the boy had to think.
He decided to put the dog in a garbage back, and then put that garbage bag into a duffle bag. Remember that this is a big dog, so the duffel bag was heavy. Imagine carrying 75 pounds of dead weight in a duffle bag. He stumbled around, obviously struggling. Surprisingly, people were ready to help. One man offered to help the boy carry the bag.
The two each held a handle and carried the bag together. After a little while, the guy goes, "Geez, this is really heavy. What do you have in here, kid?"
Realizing that it is socially unacceptable to carry around dead dogs in duffle bags on hot summer days in the city, he decided that he had to lie. Not only would it freak the man out if he learned that he had been carrying a dead dog this whole time, but he would most likely decide not to continue helping. Surely, the boy's only option was to lie.
"Uh, it's stereo equipment," the boy lied.
And with that, the man scooped up the duffle bag with the dead dog inside and took off with it, stealing the worse stereo ever made.
Instant Karma.
This is probably what it looked like. I don't know why I pictured him looking like Ron Jeremy, but I did. Also, he's apparently incredibly strong. I don't know how the guy ran away with this huge dog, and neither did Kayley. I guess we'll never know.
|
|
It's been close to a month ago that Lou died, and my feelings are still very confusing.
My moods have been up and down at both extremes depending on how aware I am about the fact that Lou is really gone. Most of the time I am just silly and jolly, enjoying life as I should be, but every once in a while I get solemn and quiet, or irritable. Sometimes something reminds me of Lou, sometimes it just hits me unannounced, but a couple times a day I'll stop what I am doing or thinking about because I realize that Lou is really gone. This is real. I'm still half expecting to see him this summer, because part of my brain won't accept what is too painful to accept. I mean, I know that he's gone, but most of the time, it doesn't feel like he's gone.
Overall I'd say that we did pretty well. When something like this happens, life is put on hold. This was a huge blow to a lot of us, and while I don't know that everyone is dealing with it well, the people that I have seen have been coping pretty well, or at least as well as anyone could. It seems to me that everyone I saw dealt with it in the best way that I can think of- together. I know that for me personally, I wouldn't have gotten through it as smoothly as I did if it hadn't been for the constant support I got from my family, friends, and even just acquaintances. It's surprising and inspiring to see how many people, even those that I never knew that well or haven't seen for a long time, reached out to me. In one day I probably saw 50 people that I haven't seen since my days at St. Mike's, and they all offered their support. So many people told me that if I needed to talk, they would listen. Obviously I couldn't cry on all of their shoulders- and they probably knew that- but just knowing that the offer was out there helped me tremendously, as I'm sure it did for Lou's family and other close friends.
The night that it happened, I wrote that it hadn't sunk in yet, and that it would hit me eventually, probably at the wake, "like a shotgun blast to the face." I was right- as soon as I got inside the funeral home, the little man inside my head said, "Oh crap, they weren't joking- this is real!" and then ordered the little men inside my eyes to turn on the faucets. I cried like a baby- or more accurately, like a 19 year old that had needed to cry for 3 days but couldn't remember how to.
This is what happened since I last posted-
As soon as I wrote the post, and put it up, I encouraged everyone to post a comment. The comment could be about anything that you felt needed to be said- a goodbye, support for others, a good Lou story- and could be anonymous if you wanted. I went to most of my classes that week, but before and after every class I would check the site to see how many people left a comment. It got into the 30's and I was ecstatic that people were writing something and helping each other out. The number didn't stop there though, it kept climbing. The website made me feel so much better- so much better, and in such a way, that I find myself unable to describe it with words. I was, and am, so excited that people were so responsive. As I've stated, I was unable to cry for a while- in fact I counted every tear that I was able to squeeze out. Before the wake, the total was 8 tears, and most of them were because of you guys, the people who commented on the site. You helped me, and many others, start to grieve. I honestly don't know of a proper way to thank all of you.
The total number of comments, upon writing this, is 134 comments. 134 people took the time to write something nice about Lou, offer support, or share a story about Lou. Because Lou made every situation fun and memorable, even people who barely knew him had a story about him. It was just such a beautiful thing to see how many people he touched. It just says a lot for a person to feel the need to write something, which is an indication that a lot of other people barely knew Lou but have some memory of him. Honestly, the stories that some people told made me feel really good. They were a good insight as to Lou's undeniable character- he was chock full of that. They made me laugh when all I wanted to do was cry, yet the laughter seemed appropriate. I've witnessed a few deaths before, and although this one was the most painful for me, I laughed more during while grieving over Lou than I could have ever thought possible to laugh while grieving. I know this would make Lou feel pretty good.
So all during the week I had the website to make me feel better, as I would keep checking, and there would be more and more comments. I tried to go to all of my classes, but I wound up sleeping through my chem lecture and recitation, during which I had a quiz. I woke up and realized that I probably wasn't going to even make the end of the recitation, so I wrote my TA an email. I said that because of a friend's death, I found myself unable to go to classes. Lou has helped me get out of doing work many times in the past. I used to cut French class freshman year because it was awful, but I didn't know anyone in that period lunch. Lou told me I could go to his art class, and told his teacher some story about why it was ok that I was there everyday. If you were lucky enough to take architecture 1 in 2001-02, my freshman year, then you owe Lou a debt of gratitude. Everyone had their own computer in that class, but very limited opportunities to have fun with them. The computers had no games on them, and blocked access to almost all of the internet, except for architecture-related websites. We'd go on to some site, and Mr. Backer would have to come over to us and type in the password so that we could go to the site. He had to do this for every site we went to, and would make sure that the site had absolutely no potential of supplying the student with fun and/or merriment. Lou, the little rascal that he was, found out the password for the internet, and supplied it to every student in his class, and told me, and I told it to everyone in my class. Mr. Backer, when he typed, would press each letter with his pointer finger, and not look at the screen. Lou, seeing this as a sign of weakness, pounced on the opportunity of a lifetime. He opened up Word, and the internet, and had Mr. Backer type in the password. Right before Mr. Backer pressed the keys, Lou switched it to Word, so that Backer typed the password into Word. Then Lou quickly switched it back, Mr. Backer looked up, and Lou just said, "Oh wait, it didn't go in." Backer typed it in again and went on his merry way, none the wiser to Lou's dastardly scheme. After about a week, everyone that had a class in that room knew the password to the internet. We all would download emulators for nintendo and super nintendo, or elasto-mania, or kazaa, or slimeball. Because Mr. Backer said he was retiring (he was a broken man), he didn't care enough to stop us. We all used that class as a study hall to prepare for other classes, a chance to catch up on sleep, or a place where we could play computer games. When finals time came around, Mr. Backer tried to get us by having an actual exam, with real architectural questions. I don't know how he did it, but Lou found out all the answers to the exam beforehand, and gave me a copy, which I again distributed. It was the best class I've ever had- I'm sure I'm not alone in this- and we owed it all to Lou.
So anyway, Lou got the chance to get me out of one more quiz. If it were anyone else, I might have thought that it was disrespectful, but if you think that Lou would have minded, then you never knew Lou. I can hear him laughing from here.
I went home friday afternoon after a sociology exam, and immediately put on my suit and headed to the wake. On the way, I started getting anxious, because I realized that this was bigtime. On the way there, the first song that came on was Sufjan Stevens- The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us! As soon as I heard the ending, I started to get emotional. I put the song on repeat and listened to it all the way there.
It goes-
I can't explain the state that I'm in
The state of my heart, he was my best friend
Into the car, from the back seat
Oh admiration in falling asleep
All of my powers, day after day
I can tell you, we swaggered and swayed
Deep in the tower, the prairies below
I can tell you, the telling gets old
Terrible sting and terrible storm
I can tell you the day we were born
My friend is gone, he ran away
I can tell you, I love him each day
Though we have sparred, wrestled and raged
I can tell you I love him each day
The song is about a fond memory that the writer had with his friend that died. I guess his friend got bit by a wasp 7 times while the two were swimming. I couldn't help but remember all the fond memories I've had with Lou. Getting bit by a wasp 7 times sounds like one of those weird injuries Lou would get. I think that when something like this happens, there is always a song that really gets you. this is the first song that really got me, the first one that really hit me hard.
I got to the wake about 20 minutes after it started, and there wasn't a parking space in site. I had to park all the way down the road; it had to be about a half-mile. Walking down this road in my suit, just staring at the ground as I walked, anticipating the inevitable breakdown that was to come. That was the longest walk of my life.
I walked up to the funeral home and saw a bunch of guys, I think Dan Braico was there and his brother, and some others. I said hi to them, and tried to make small talk before going inside, and I already felt it coming on. I was trying to hold back the tears, but I could tell that in a few minutes, that fight would be futile. It would be the equivalent of trying to prevent a train from leaving the station by standing in front of it and pushing.
I walked inside and saw a whole lot of people looking at me. I could only focus on Nate, Lima, and Keeshy, and walked straight over to them. I knew that Lou's mom and dad were somewhere in the room, but I dreaded seeing them. I could feel the tears swelling, making my vision cloudy. The conductor yelled "all aboard" and blew the whistle- the train was seconds from leaving, but I was still on the tracks in front of it trying to hold it back.
I realized that I had to go see his mom- she had been like a second mother to me for a long time. For a while I spent more time at Lou's house than at my own, and his mom was always around hanging out with us. I've played board games with her, talked with her, played with the pets with her, cleaned her car for money, woke her up at 3am when I couldn't sleep because of a headache, talked with her, gotten stitches with her, and eaten many meals cooked by her, including pork butt. She even chased me down in her car, in her pajamas, in the middle of the night when I got into a fight with Lou and Alex and decided to walk home. Over the years I've probably given her as many heart attacks as Lou did, and I guess I didn't realize how grateful I was until that moment, when I was trying to find her.
I got halfway down the aisle when I heard someone say my name. I wasn't ready for this- it was Lou's grandma, looking up at me with eyes full of pain, but wearing a gentle smile as only a grandmother could. She lived with Lou when I started going over there when I was little, and she moved out probably around 8th or 9th grade, maybe. She had been like another grandma in the same way that Christine was like another mother; I never knew what to call her, because it wasn't practical to always say "Lou's grandma" or "your grandma," so I would often just call her "grandma." I don't know why, I guess because she moved out so long ago, I just completely forgot to think about how she must be feeling.
She probably said something to me, and I probably said something back. The emotions I was feeling were so powerful that I can't even remember what happened, because I don't think I even knew what was happening then. The train left the station, the rocket took off, the dam broke, and the next thing I knew, I was sobbing all over Lou's grandma. The tears I had held back for the past 3 days all came out at once, and before I realized it, I had completely soaked through the shoulderpad of her blouse like a sponge.
I don't know how long I cried on her, probably a few minutes, but immediately after I felt partly relieved, as if someone took some of my belongings out of the emotional baggage I was carrying around.
I finally got up to Khristine- the moment I had been dreading for days now. I don't remember if anything was said, all I remember is that when she saw me she just grabbed me, because she knew that I must be going through a lot of pain. That's so like her- she wasn't even thinking about the unimaginable pain she must be feeling, all she could think about was how I must be feeling. THAT is why she was my second mother. She just grabbed me and let me cry on her, crying a little on me too. Again, I felt so much better afterwards, as if more weight was lifted. I thought that seeing her for the first time was going to be painful, but instead it was relieving. She made it so easy for me.
I then moved on to Lou's dad. Lou's dad lived really far away from me, so I had only gone over his house a few times, where I was served hot dogs on moldy buns. I never really got the pleasure of becoming close with Lou's dad, although he's always been very nice to me, and the few times that I did hang out with him I enjoyed. He was always so intimidating, because he was this huge hulking man that would sit outside my house in his huge black truck, honking his horn. I'd always be like "Hurry up, Lou, you're dad's outside! Go go go!" because Lou's dad was so intimidating. Now, this huge, once scary man was grabbing me and crying on my shoulder. This huge muscular symbol of strength was leaning on me, crying on my shoulder, using me- a little boy- as support. I lost it- any other tears that I needed to get out came out at once. I felt like I was completely depleting my body of all liquid, as I needed to get a drink afterwards. I cried a lot, because it truly hit home- there was only reason that this huge hulking man would cry like this; it was true- Lou was dead. The remainder of the emotional weight that I was carrying around was lifted off of me at that moment- as this grizzly bear of a man now seemed to be more of a teddy bear.
I spent the rest of the wakes giving out hugs to all the people who I cared about, sprinkling a few tears on some of their shoulders. I saw a lot of people that I hadn't seen in a while, especially those that I used to be very close with but had now somehow lost touch. A lot of the time, however, was spent with my closest friends who were suffering the same devastation. I spent equal time supporting my friends and being supported by them. The wake was the most emotional night of my life. Although the night was underlined by an overwhelming pain, there was a strong sense of comradery- the feeling that although we were experiencing something awful, we could get through it together.
We went to Kristine's that night for a while, and then I went home, where I slept like baby.
The next morning, I got up and went to the funeral home at 7:30am for a memorial service. I played the same Sufjan Stevens song while driving down 206. The fog that morning was one of the thickest and most eerie fogs of my life. It seemed that the day was destined to be bleak.
I got to the funeral home where I and 7 others got to say a few words to those closest to Lou. Nathanael, Richie, Doug, Joe D, Alex Kent, Keesh, Lima, and I talked about what Lou meant to us, said how we feel, and offered stories, memories, and our support. The night before, I tried to write down a little something to say so that I wouldn't get up there and start rambling. I wound up writing 8 notebook pages. We were pressed for time, so I only got to say very little.
I talked about how we became friends because of a playdate our parents set up (thank you, by the way). Lou kicked a football at his mom's window and we ran away. We caused trouble together ever since.
I said how we became like brothers, but eventually drifted apart, but regardless of if I hadn't seen him in 2 months or 2 days, whenever we saw each other we were right back to where we left off- the friendship didn't diminish as we saw less of each other. Just recently, in the 4 or 5 months before his death, Lou and I started hanging out somewhat regularly, whenever I was home. Before that, however, I would only see him randomly- I'd get an unexpected call, "I got a new car, wanna see it?" or "Hey Dave, I'm at a party near your house, you should stop by." It's just weird to think that I'm never going to get another random phone call.
I didn't say all that, but I did end it with this-
"It's gonna be hard these next few days, and whenever we think of Lou, we're gonna cry, but whenever it sinks in, in a month or a year, remember him not as the kid who died tragically at 18, remember him as the funny kid with big ears, who'd eat a jar full of olives instead of dinner. Remember him as the kid who cracked his liver and got a splinter in his butt. I know i'll remember him as the guy who would let me sleep in his bed while he slept on the floor, the kid who'd give me the good pair of gloves when I was over in the winter and didn't have a pair of my own. I'll remember him as the kid who lit a model rocket engine off in his room. I'll remember him as the kid who would do anything for you, and could make every situation memorable and fun. And I encourage you all to do the same."
Then we went to the funeral, where Richie, Doug, Nathanael, Alex Kent, Keeshy, Lima, and I were pallbearers. It was pretty emotional. There is no experience quite like being a pallbearer for your best friend, or at least none that I've experienced. There is no greater friend than one that will carry your corpse to your funeral. The experience of feeling Lou's weight on my arm, sharing this weight with my closest friends... the experience of supporting my best friend's body that could not support itself... the experience of looking across the casket and realizing these, my best friends, were in the same boat with me... well, it was the most gut-wrenchingly beautiful experience of my life. The coffin that we carried together, as one unit, symbolized the pain that we carried together. Amidst the pain, the guilt, the helplessness, the desperation, and the confusion, were feelings of comradery, love, appreciation, and pride. I was proud of us that day.
Fuck, I wish that when it's my time, I have a group of friends carrying me like the ones that carried Lou. I am so thankful that Lou's family gave me and my friends the honor of being a pallbearer. I would have carried that casket forever.
Although the experience was, like I said, the most gut-wrenchingly beautiful experience that I've ever had, it was also the most painful. I tried to hold back the tears for the most part. After we carried the coffin up the stairs of St. Michael's, we waited in the doorway for a little while, before bringing the coffin to the middle of the church. Alex Kent saw me trying to hold back the tears, and I watched him reach across Lou's casket to grab my hand; it's an image that I'll remember for the rest of my life.
During the mass, the coffin was right in front of us, literally less than a foot away- close enough to touch. We had no choice but to stare at it the whole time- it was impossible to look past. Because of the way it pulled my eyes toward it, and the way seemingly blocked out everything beyond it, it might as well have been a brick wall.
While staring at it, I wrote a poem in my head, or at least parts of a poem:
Your dad asked me to do a reading; I said I couldn't get through it.
The Priest asked the church; my dad said he'd do it.
He said that he realized that you weren't his son,
But he said when you left, it felt like his own had gone.
Other peoples' tears stain my shoulders, my own stain my sleeve.
They just won't stop pouring out, now that I believe.
I know as each tear lands on my suit, the fabric will soften,
But I can't hold them in while I stare at your coffin.
I still half expect to see you jump out of it,
Walk up to the altar, and over to the pulpit,
Where you'd say, "Haha suckers! I totally got you!"
You gotta admit- it'd be something you'd do.
Excuse me for laughing, but that'd just be classic Lou.
By the way, if you did it, I wouldn't be mad at you.
(Please!)
Later, my Dad had this to say:
"Just something about seeing 18 and 19 year-old kids acting as pallbearers just chills me to my very core. You guys haven't even voted or taken your first legal sip of alcohol, but you are acting as pallbearers. It just isn't right- you guys are too young. He was too young."
After the funeral, Lou's dad took us all out to lunch. It was there that I realized that Lou's dad is exactly like Lou. I'm gonna make it a point to hangout with Lou's dad more often. By now, the fog had lifted to reveal a beautiful sunny day. The weather that day seemed appropriate, in fact it served as a symbol for the grieving process as a whole. In the morning, it seemed too thick to see through, too bleak for there to be hope. As the day went on however, and as the grieving process went on, the fog slowly began to lift, and everything was sunny again, though there was of course an undeniable sadness. What I'm trying to say is that when we all started to grieve, it was so overwhelming that we thought there would be nothing but this pain ever again. But as we went on, we started to see that life is going to go on, this will all but pass, and we will again be happy. However, just as there was an understood sadness that underlined that beautifully sunny day, there will always be a sadness that underlines our beautifully sunny lives. There will never be anything to fill the hole in our lives that Lou's death created, but life will go on, and we will be happy again, just as Lou would want.
After the lunch, all of us went back to the funeral home and got the huge assortment of flowers that friends and family had bought, and we took them to the crash site. On any other day I would have thought that Dave Gorgia's truck- cruising down 80 with a truckbed full of flowers- was a beautiful site. Ordinarily, I also would have thought that the flowers that I crammed in the back of my jeep were beautiful, along with the petals that littered my seats and floor- the petals that I just didn't have the heart to take out of my car. And under normal circumstances, just seeing the guys in their suits on a hot day, laying down flowers as Route 80 traffic whizzed by, would have reminded me of something out of a movie. However, this was no ordinary day, nothing about this was ordinary, and these were certainly not normal circumstances; this did not feel beautiful or artistic, but empty and painfully hollow. It felt surreal. It felt like it wasn't actually happening. It felt like a dream, but a dream that you are eager to wake up from.
Lou's mom seems to have constant visitors at her house. I was over there a couple nights ago, talking to Kristine and Chris (her boyfriend), Nate, Lima, Paxos, Lou's Dad and his family, including his wife Cheryl, and Lou's half-siblings Alyssa and Cole.
For the first time, I got to spend time with Lou's little brother Cole. That kid is so cute and so fun. While his older sister slept (it was like 11:00 pm), Cole ran around with a toy, full of energy. He kept climbing this big tower for the cats, and Lou's dad kept having to pull him off. The fun, thrill-seeking attitude that Cole seems to have already reminds me so much of Lou. My first meeting with Cole, after the death of his brother, seemed to be in some dark and eerie way, a rebirth of Lou. The presence of Lou's fun-loving, thrill-seeking spirit lives on in my life through his little brother.
The next weekend I went back home and hung out at his mom's again. Then Nate and I went to Lou's grave and we poured out a 40 for our dead homie. It may sound weird or goofy, but considering our relationship to Lou, it was fitting. Also, the last time I saw Lou was at Nate's, where we did Edward 40 hands, and Lou threw up. That was the funniest thing I think I've ever seen, because he couldn't clean it up because he had 40's attached to his hands. Actually, the last time I ever saw him was as we were leaving Nate's the next morning. The night before we went looking for model rocket engines to set off, just like we used to in the old days (Rocket Car, Flaming Furby, and the time Lou set on off in his room and burned a hole through his carpet, and almost his hand) but we couldn't find any, as all the hobby stores were closed. So instead, we just got drunk. The next morning, we left Nate's at the same time, and I was following Lou down 46, when he suddenly made a left turn into Kenvil hobbies, I assume to pick up some engines. The last image I have of Lou is him waving goodbye to me from inside his car, with a goofy grin on his face. All things considered, I think that that is overwhelmingly fitting.
Every once in a while, I realize that Lou is really gone. I'm thinking that this is gonna happen a lot. It's pretty emotional, but like I've said before, I can't help but smile when I think of Lou, even though I miss him. I'm trying to stay positive, and I've been doing a good job. I think Lou would be pretty happy about that.
If you believe in it, pray for Lou, pray for his family, pray for his friends, and pray for yourself. I'm not sure what I believe in personally, and I don't think that anyone can say for sure that God does or does not exist, but certainly there is no harm in praying. Lou's family is in for a rough time, so any support, even just prayers, I'm sure will help. And as always, leave a comment, tell me how you're doing.
(talking about George Washington Carver) "...he never made it to George Washington, but he came close. That's what's important."
-Lou |
|
If you haven't heard already, Lou Bizzarro died tonight, another victim of drunk driving. I hear it was around 8:00pm on Tuesday, April 11th, 2006. If everything I've heard is true, he was in the passenger seat of Eavan Jenkin's car when it flipped off of Route 80 into a tree. Last I heard, she was in the hospital, assumedly in pretty bad shape, but I heard she was going to survive. Lou, however, died on impact.
[For a more official account, read what the Daily Record has to say, and also read Lou's obituary ]
Or read the 4/13/06 front page article that the Daily Record ran.
Also, the Star Ledger finally got on top of it
And this, the latest article in the Daily Record
The wake is on friday, from 2-4pm, and again from 7-9pm. It's at William J. Leber Funeral Home, in Chester, right off 206 [(908) 879-3090]
The funeral is on saturday at 9 am, at St. Michael's in netcong, before lou is laid to rest in the pleasant hill cemetary in chester. It has to be a short mass, only about half an hour, so we are meeting beforehand at the funeral home in chester, at 8am.
Also- i strongly encourage you to leave a comment. Write about how you are feeling, what you loved about lou, your favorite lou story (we've all got some), or anything else you want to say. put your name at the bottom, or leave it anonymous.
we'll get through this together.
when i heard that lou died, i didn't believe it. i had gotten a call from dan braico, who said that he didn't know if it was definitely true or not, it was just something he had heard. i knew it was either a really tasteless joke, or it was just that they pulled another body out of that car, that looked like lou. Somewhere, somehow, the facts were screwed up. Everybody had it wrong. I didn't know exactly what was wrong- all I knew was that lou wasn't dead. It wasn't true.
eventually i realized that it was true. I called a dazed nathanael who was on his way to lou's mother's house, who confirmed- "it's definitely true." i waited for it to sink in, but it wasn't happening. i tried to make myself sad. it just wouldn't hit me- that this kid who has been like a brother to me since 1st grade, this kid that lived down the hill from me, this kid who always made me have fun, this kid that was my longest running friendship- was dead. i dont know if i fully understand yet. i'm sure it'll hit me like a shotgun blast to the face eventually. probably at the wake.
i spent a long time calling a lot of people, just to let them know that i loved them. i know lou knew that i loved him, he must have. still, it would have been nice if it had been said.
while i was calling everyone, a lot of them were crying. i asked myself, "why are you not crying? this kid was, at one point, not only your best friend, but really your only true friend. you graduated st. mike's with him, and went into roxbury high school knowing only a few kids besides him, and none of them well. your best friend is dead and you aren't even crying. what the hell is wrong with you?!?" i realized that i had begun shouting in an empty parking lot. i continued anyway, "you're never going to skateboard with him, or light fireworks with him, or make movies with him, or watch him play runescape for hours, or play red alert with him, or jump off things or play nintendo or teach his dog tricks or laugh through a movie or build jumps in his backyard, or any of the other things you've enjoyed doing with him for the past 13 years that you've known him. you'll never hear that ridiculously infectious laugh of his again, and you can't even cry."
everytime i started to feel the tears welling up, i made some kind of joke and supressed it. i started getting frustrated, uneasy, and nauseous, from the fact that i couldn't cry, or wouldn't let myself cry. i really wanted to cry, i needed to cry, but i couldn't. the urge kept coming back but then going away, like a sneeze that just wouldn't come out.
maybe it was just that i didn't realize that my friend was really gone forever. i'm still not sure if i do.
then i called richie. richie and i talked for a long time about all the things that we used to do with lou. i laughed- not an uncomfortable chuckle, but a deep, meaningful belly laugh- repeatedly, while i recounted these ridiculous stories of stuff we'd done with lou. The time lou set a model rocket engine off in his room and burned a hole through the carpet... when we tied lou up to the exercise machine, when john covered lou with everything in my house, when lou got drunk and watched himself get written on, when me and lou drank at nathanael's and then saw the second matrix with everyone, and me and lou laughed through it all and everyone got mad at us, or when we saw elf and no one in the theater could here the movie because lou was just laughing sooo hard, or when i shaved part of lou's eyebrow off while he was sleeping, or when he pelted me in the face with a toilet paper roll while i was sleeping...
just believe me when i tell you that you don't want me to continue. after i talked to richie, i talked to keeshy for a while about all other random memories of lou. i seriously have hundreds, and i'd write them all down, but they wouldn't be meaningful for anyone but me and lou.
the point is, every time i thought about lou, i laughed. i didn't cry because i'd never have those moments again- those moments could never be recreated. i laughed because everything i've ever done with lou was fun. he was the most fun person i've ever known- believe it or not i've actually thought about that before he died. i've often thought about how, if i could pick one person to hang out with, like if i could take one kid on vacation, i would pick lou. i realized this first i think in 7th or 8th grade. during this time, me and lou would have our silly, meaningless arguments. lou would get annoying, and i would annoy him. lou and i had squabble after squabble, but always made up in the end. one of us would make a joke about a penis, or we'd say something stupid, or funny, or whatever, and immediately the conflict was resolved. more importantly, however, is the fact that i'm confident to say i've never had more fun with one single person than the fun i've had with lou bizzarro.
that's the thing to remember- lou was fun. lou was the epitome of fun. if you got to know him, you'd love him even if he pissed you off. some people didn't like him, or maybe were just annoyed by him at times, but he didn't care. he'd have fun in any situation, regardless of what other people thought. i've noticed that i am caring more and more about other people's opinions, so i really am awed by a person that can just flat out not care about what other people think of him. i wish i could have been more like lou in that respect. he was sometimes obnoxious, sometimes crass, sometimes rude, and sometimes cocky, but through it all he was having fun. he lived in the moment, took risks, and lived everyday like it was his last.
the more i started remembering the fun that lou and i had, the less uneasy, frustrated, and nauseous i became. i started to realize that it was ok that i wasn't crying. i looked back at my life with lou and laughed because lou was so much fun, and he lived his life the way he wanted to. lou was one of those kids that said,"i don't want people crying at my funeral, i want a huge fuckin party, with everybody gettin' drunk and shit." it's something i've heard him say a couple times, but it's not something i ever really took to heart. you don't really imagine a friend's funeral, or at least not realistically. no one really thinks their friend is gonna die. but regardless, the fact that he has said that makes me feel better about the fact that i'm not crying right now.
whenever someone has said that they want their funerals to be a party, i've never beleived them, and i didnt believe lou when he said it. for some reason though, now, right before i'm going to have to go to lou's wake and funeral, i believe him. lou lived his life for fun. he was all about it. i honestly don't think he'd want everyone to be crying the whole time. lou was all about the party, and i honestly believe that he'd want the last event he'll ever attend to be a fun one.
it's a nice thought, but of course it won't be fun. everyone's gonna fucking lose it at the wake and funeral. i'm gonna be a fucking wreck.
either way, i feel much better about the fact that i couldn't cry tonight, and that instead, on the night that lou bizzarro died, i spent most of my night laughing. louburger would rather be laughed with than cried over.
i'd like to end tonight by showing this picture of lou scowling. in my attempts to make myself cry, i decided to look at some old pictures of lou. i got to the last one, seen above, and at first was kinda like, "that's not a good picture of lou." until i saw the caption. the caption that i wrote back in the day when i put this picture online, read "cheer up, grumpy pants. lifes too short to waste on scowls."
immediately, this made me laugh. I was preaching to the choir on that one. in fact, it is what started this epiphany that it's ok to not cry, because lou probably would rather me laugh and reminisce anyway.
while it's never been more obvious that "life is too short to waste on scowls," the idea has never been better understood than by lou bizzarro.
I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight, but whenever i do fall asleep, i'll rest easy, knowing that Lou Bizzarro died happy. After all, he spent his entire life happy. |
|
i know, i haven't been posting. i've been remiss in my updates, even with webshots. i know.
just recently, i watched my little brother's rec basketball team play another team, whose members include shawn kelly and dan balinski. it was funny watching alex play with these two other kids because he has played on a basketball team with them since first grade. now he's in tenth grade, so there has been a lot of grades when he was on their team. a couple times they wound up passing to each other just out of habit. fun to watch indeed.
but i digress-
the point of the story is that after the game, dan balinski came up to me, and after i good-gamed him, he said "dave, you really need to update your website."
danny b has lived across the street from me longer than i can remember, probably as many years as he's been alive. i've grown up next to him, and i have seen what he has done to people. do not fuck with dan balinski. i'm trying to tell you, the man is dangerous. that area next to his house- he wasn't really just digging to build bike jumps, he was burying motherfuckers that crossed him. bottomline, if danny b wants something done, you goddamn better do it, or dan will build a gazebo on top of your unmarked grave. it's happened too many times before.
i guess that the reason for me being so remiss in my posting and my pictures is that i don't have as much free time as i used to, and when i do, i always have assignments looming over my head. "alright i have a couple hours before my next class, i could update, but i do have the expos paper to do, i should work on that. oh hey, i wonder what's on tv." plus, the fact that right outside my room is 3 other rooms full of very good friends is not conducive for the "sitting around with nothing to do, hey maybe i'll update" posting strategy. at home, i'd just be bored and say, "hey i'll write something," but here i don't get bored as easily, because i am surrounded by my best friends who always wanna do stuff, plus i always have shit i'm supposed to write. Writing about my feelings and experiences isn't easily justifiable when you have other stuff to write that will determine whether or not you can come back to college next semester.
hey let's talk about that - my academic progress. i am making my family proud by following in my older brother's footsteps. Ladies and Gentlemen, that's right, i am on academic probation. to be completely honest, i am not sure as to my exact gpa, but it is below 2.0.
before you gasp in horror and judge me as a bum, allow me to defend myself.
 first of all, let's put things into perspective. dan, in his first semester, got a 0.78 gpa, which is to say, appalling. hey i just looked up my gpa and it is 1.833. that is 2.35 times better than dan's. so, following that logic, alex will get 2.35 times better than my gpa his first semester, which is a 4.31. that would be the best gpa in any college probably ever. so what i'm saying is that by me getting a 1.833, i am ENSURING that my little brother will have an imaginarily high gpa. it's fate, and you can't argue with fate. fate's on the debate team.
I don't think i need to tell you which one fate is, but she's the one on the left in the track suit. she'll fuck your day up.just look at her, she's vicious.
all kidding aside, i realize that i didn't do too well in school, but it's not as bad as it seems. let me explain-
i didn't do badly throughout the whole last semester, except for maybe in calc. I was fine for the first half of the semester, but then things got hard. The wheels just fell off. ya see, i took chemistry and calc as a senior in high school, and then again as a freshman in college, so naturally i thought i would be able to p3wn in it, as i already learned it. IRONICALLY those two classes are the root causes for my current status of being probated academically. in chemistry i was doing very well, although i often skipped lecture, and fell asleep in literally every class that was not a test. i pretty much only went in case there was a pop quiz (i only missed like 1). also, i didnt really do the online homework, or any of the lecture homework. however, i fucked shit up on the tests. i got a 97 on the first one, and the second exam and the final were only slightly less impressive. unfortunately, there are THREE hourly exams and then the final. i only took two, because i slept through the third one. i had an A in the class, but i missed a 200 point test. therefore, i consider myself a bad ass because i missed 200 points and still got a C in the class. (do bad asses brag about grades?) my recitation teacher was impressed, and you should be too.
expos i got a C+ too, which isn't too great, but before i even took that class i pretty much knew i wasn't gonna do well. I knew it was a demanding class, and frankly i knew ahead of time that i wasn't going to put much effort into it. compared to other kids in my class, a C+ isn't too bad overall, i could have gotten a C or failed, as many kids did. i could have also read the readings earlier so that i could have participated in conversations about it, generated a better understanding which could have helped my form a better project and thusly a better paper.... but i wouldn't have respected myself. to try that hard in that class could have only resulted in a change of personal character. looking at it from this view, you'll see that it was either my integrity or my grade, in which case i made the right decision. for this reason, i don't consider my expos grade as a bad grade. in fact, i dont consider it at all. let's pretend we never spoke of it, and move on.
CALCULUS, the devil's arithmatic. Dan never took it in high school and failed it twice in college. i passed it once in high school and then failed it once in college, so as far as the szarejko's go, i'm making progress. thanks for setting the bar low, big bro. seriously though, i'm going to have to take calc again, and if i do well, the F i earned the first time in calculus will be erased, and my new grade will be put in, which will reconfigure my GPA. so if next year i take calc again and get an A, then it's like i got an A for not only the first semester of sophmore year, but the first semester of freshman year, when i originally failed it. It's called repeat forgive or something. so basically, once i get an A in calc next time (which probably wont happen- i'll probably fail again, which will be ok, because it would mean 2 fails and one pass in calc overall, which is still better than just 2 fails) my GPA from last semester will be respectable, and this conversation will be null and void. at least that's the plan
ok, now before you judge me, allow me one last time to make excuses for myself. last semester, and this one too, i guess, i've suffered from insomnia and mild depression. i'm taking pills to help regulate my sleep, and i've been getting back on track. this whole semester i've been sleeping well, until last week, which is another story altogether.
all last semester i would lie in bed for hours, until i eventually got up out of frustration, or got up to watch the sun come up. it was extremely frustrating, plus i would be tired all day. i often would sleep all day, missing classes, or i would go to classes and fall asleep. as the problem got worse, my grades got worse. most of my classes weren't too hard to keep myself on track, but calc just required too much effort and time.it was just too freaking hard to pass without doing the work. because it was my earliest class, i couldnt keep my eyes open. the work just kinda seemed too intimidating to attempt, because i just didnt have the time or energy. most of my daytime hours were spent struggling to stay awake, while my night time hours were spent struggling to go to sleep. the time in between was just enough to do homework for other classes, the classes that were rationally feasible to pass. i just gave up on calc more and more as time when on.
what was weirdest about my insomnia was the fact that i could be tired all day, but i could force myself to not fall asleep, and not take naps. once night time rolled around, though, i was too awake to sleep. even if i was tired, i would lie in bed unable to sleep. logically you would think that if you were tired all day, but fought it, you'd be tired at night, but no. this is one of what my doctor called, "symptoms of depression." i think that the insomnia was probably caused by the mild depression i had last semester. often, when you are depressed, you just want to stay inside and sleep all day.
that is often what i would do, or at least what i always wanted to do. i just wanted to sleep all day. when i would sleep all day, i'd realize that i hadn't eaten in like a day, yet i wouldn't be hungry. all the other stuff that goes along with depression would be there too, like the feeling sorry for yourself, sense of worthlessness and guilt, and the rest of that good stuff.
i keep referring to it as "mild depression," because that is what it was. most of the time i was happy. i was in this new place with new friends whom i really liked. a lot of the time i would be kept busy, and if i wasn't i could just find someone to go do something with. everyone was new and on the same boat - everyone wanted to be friends with everybody. it was awesome and i was enjoying it to the fullest. i've always loved turning strangers into friends, and i was in a place where i was surrounded by strangers who wanted to be friends. most of the time, i was truly happy. Almost always, in fact.
However, there would be long depressive episodes, where I just could get into a bad mood one day and it would just get worse and worse. eventually, i would just sit in my room watching tv or sleeping. i just wanted to stay in my room and do nothing. chris would go to work and i'd just watch tv with the door closed. i'd just sit and think about how badly i was doing in school, even though i didnt care enough to fix it. i would think about how i had no future, as surely this whole wanting to be a doctor thing wasn't going to work out, and i felt a tremendous guilt for letting down my parents, my family, myself, my teachers, my friends, or anyone who wanted to see me do well or be sucessful or be happy or whatever. i'd spend entire days without eating because i just never got hungry. it was about time for a revelation.
the revelation happened during winter break. I was driving home from the mall and 80 was backed up, so i went another way through jefferson. i'd been in the car when people had gone this way, but i'd never navigated it myself. I assumed that i'd be able to find the way. pretty much right away i made a wrong turn, and had to turn around. then another wrong turn, and another and another. all the cars on the road seemed to be around my car, i felt hot, and frustrated. I screamed all the way home because of my frustration, but nothing seemed to make me feel better. i started hitting my steering wheel, screaming every bad word i knew, and hitting the little compartment in between the two front seats of my jeep. I just kept getting more and more frustrated, and making more wrong turns. I saw a sign that said "mount arlington next right" but i still missed the turn. a little further down, there was another sign that told me where i wanted to go, but i missed that too. at this point, i'm screaming and hitting everything in my car, flipping the fuck out because i couldn't do this simple task of navigating home from two towns over, even when there are signs.
i punched my windshield from the inside and shattered it.
it wasnt the actual action of punching or screaming that i needed. it wasn't that i got all fired up, and my adrenaline caused me to have to actually hit something. i needed to break something, i needed to destroy. i couldn't control my own life, so i needed to control something else. what better control can one have than destruction?
as soon as i my fist started traveling towards the window, part of me realized what was gonna happen, and tried to pull back. part of me still wanted to punch it though. that part of me felt good for about 3 millionths of a second, until i realized that i had just broken my windshield because i couldnt control myself. i'm not the only one that uses my jeep, people in my family rely on it, my older brother drives it to work everyday. i just put this car out of commission, and i did it intentionally.
that 3 millionths of a second that part of me felt good for destroying cost me 300 bucks (a hundred bucks per milliont of a second), a night at mark's that i was looking forward to, a whole lot of yelling by my parents, and a complete emotional breakdown. i realized that i was stressed out of my mind, and i felt like i was going crazy. i didnt know why i got so frustrated, but it wasn't the first time that something like this has happened- i was getting more and more frustrated more and more often. i was getting episodes of depression increasingly frequently as well. this incident just was over the top, and there was no hiding it. no one needs to know if you feel worthless, but there was no hiding a punched-in windshield.
so i started going to see a doctor... uhh... a shrink. long story short, i have ADD. i have ADD, i've always had ADD, and up until now i was just smart enough to do well in school without studying or... what do they call it? oh, doing work. last semester i couldn't pass calc because i couldn't pay attention long enough to do all the work, and i couldnt really pay attention in class. usually high school classes go slow enough that i can realize, "oh hey, i haven't been paying attention for the last 15 minutes" but be able to figure it out. this college course moved so fast that once i missed something, i couldnt figure anything out, so i'd just sit there confused until i fell asleep.
that thing about missing the chem exam- that's what i told people, but it's a lie. i didn't sleep through it, i never knew about it. or maybe i did, maybe someone told me, but it just never sunk in. that happens a lot, it's happened my whole life - people tell me things, i listen to them, but it never sinks in. i hear the words but don't comprehend the meaning. i used to ask people to repeat themselves over and over and over, but people started getting mad because they thought i just didn't care enough to pay attention. i honestly would try to, but sometimes i just couldn't. eventually i just got embarrassed of always saying "what?" to people, so just just let it go. sometimes people say that they told me something, and i'll argue with them that they didn't, but they are probably right, i've got no way of knowing.
anyway, my therapist speculates, and i agree, that the ADD was causing me to feel those symptoms of depression. i wasn't cutting it in school, and for simple reasons, like forgetting to do assignments and stuff. it was becoming increasingly obvious that i couldn't be a doctor as planned. i had no direction in life, and was feeling shitty about it. plus, i'm not too happy about the fact that i'm becoming an adult. i'm staring down the barrel of a loaded gun right now- a career that i'm gonna work for until i'm too feeble to continue. i'm trying too hard to hold on to the shards of childhood i have left. i'm fighting with father time and losing- and that guy is old as balls.
sometimes i feel like i'm trying too hard to hold on to childhood, too reluctant to enter adulthood. it's a problem i have- i try too hard to hold on to things i find beautiful. It's the same reason that i don't put on my headlights until it is past dusk, too dark to see. or the reason that during the late summer, early fall i don't wear a jacket, although it is uncomfortably cold. I don't want to acknowledge that the daylight has ended, or that summer has ended.
so all the ADD, depression, confusion about the future, and holding onto the past probably made a lot of stress, which took itself out as insomnia and ridiculous hulk-like emotional explosions that resulted in damaged property.
i only told a few people about the ADD thing, because i was embarrassed. i'm still embarrassed, but whatever, it's me i guess, so there is no getting away from it. i've always found that it is just better to lay everything out on the table and be honest, so i guess i'm gonna go with that. it just makes me feel stupid. i used to make fun of the kids on my soccer team because they were all retards. i used to tell people that the reason my soccer team sucked was because almost the entire defense had ADD, which was true. there were kids that just wouldn't do what they were supposed to because they were too busy staring at the sky, or their untied shoes, or the lines on their palms. sometimes they were just staring into space, drooling. now i'm one of those drooling retards staring at the sky.
when i was in third grade, and i got glasses, i couldn't accept that i was one of those kids with glasses. when i got braces, i couldn't believe that i was one of those kids with braces. when i got add, i couldn't accept that I was one of those kids who couldn't hold a conversation because they were off thinking of something else.
but like everything that you expect to be awful, It's really not that bad. i'm the same person i've always been. i used to climb up to my roof and just think for hours. i'd come down hours later, not even realizing how long i'd been up there. i've always stopped to smell the roses, or admire the way a tree splits, and then splits again and again and again to form branches. anyone who's seen my webshots knows i have an unhealthy obsession with pretty skies. i guess all that admiring and thinking just has a name now. plus, it gives me an excuse for all my failures.
so nowadays i'm doing better, i'd say. up until recently i had been sleeping well, going to bed and waking up regularly, only seeing a sunrise if i had woken up early. i've been keeping on track with my classes better, missing less appointments or assignments, and feeling better too. my shrink gave me some pills that are helping, otherwise she's been kinda useless. nice lady, but the sessions aren't really what i expected. i pretty much just tell her how the pills are doing and then leave- all the actual therapy i've been doing myself, or an with an unsuspecting friend. sometimes someone will say something that gets me started, and then i just talk their ear off about something that's been bothering me for awhile. it helps, so thanks. really pretty much every improvement has been due to me figuring shit out. i've been thinking, just as always, and i'm starting to get everything in line. of course i dont have everything figured out. all i needed was to figure my shit out. but im making progress. when i feel myself starting to get depressed, i get up and make myself go talk to people, because i can't just sit in my room alone. i need to keep myself constantly busy- i can't be left to my own devices, not for too long. i'm still stopping to smell the roses though, i don't think that's going to change.
I guess it is just that right now i'm at a particularly confusing part of my life, and i'm not sure what i should do. I dont know if i'm a kid or not, i don't know if i feel like getting serious yet, and i don't know what to do with my life. the important part is that there is a problem, but i'm figuring it out.
as for the whole growing up thing... well i guess there is really nothing i can do about it. i am growing up. i am not a kid anymore. i've got one year left to be a teenager. i am going to start my career soon, even though i dont really know what it's gonna be. i barely even know what i want it to be. i'm changing, my style is changing, even my taste is changing. i ate a cereal the other day that was TOO SWEET for me. i fucking used to eat spoonfuls of sugar as a snack, and i can't take a cereal? i'm eating less, and more healthy. ice cream is available to me at almost all times, for free, but i get it like once a month. i eat carrot cake, and sometimes think it's too sweet. it has the word carrot in the title for christ's sake. years ago i wouldn't touch it just because it has the word carrot in the name, and now it's too sweet. i'm getting more and more goal-oriented, and i feel guilty when i just sit around and do nothing productive. i watch less than 2 hours of tv a day. i remember when my mom used to try to limit me to 2 hours a day, but failed miserably. i used to sneak in like 6 hours a day without trying. sometimes i'd spend the whole day watching tv. i read and do crosswords- two of my grandparents' greatest pastimes. pretty soon i'll be playing golf and knitting.
so yea, i'm growing up. it's true, there is no denying it, there is no fighting it. but that doesn't mean that i have to relinquish all ties to childhood. i can still act irresponsibly from time to time. i can still climb trees, and i still want to. i still like to go out and explore new places. i can still doodle in class, throw water balloons, have snowball fights, go sledding, invent games, write bad poetry, get my clothes dirty, pretend i'm a vampire with my cousins, act like an asshole when i know people are watching, skateboard badly, light off fireworks, play pranks, and take risks. and i'm gonna. i have friends that aren't afraid to act like kids. that's somethign i need, and i appreciate. just recently, i had a birthday, and some of my friends got me sockem boppers. i'm 19 years old, and i'm still getting toys on my birthday. i couldn't ask for more. if i can congratulate myself on one thing, i'd say that i have an uncanny ability to surround myself with positive people.
So, danny b, i apologize that i haven't written anything funny in a long time. funny things are happening to me, and they are being remembered. i'll have tons of stories from this year, but just not typed up. i honestly wish that i could return this site to its once and former glory, and i'm sure i will. however, there comes a time in every man's life where he just needs to back up for a second and just figure shit out. considering that i spent most of my life dreaming of becoming a doctor, priding myself that i wouldn't be one of those college kids who can't figure out what to do with their life, and just realizing that i can't and don't want to do that... well i'm thinking this is one of those times. additionally, if you add in a little dash of mental illnesses... well, there just isn't enough time in the day to entertain kids online.
If i were to say that i've learned anything from this whole bit, and what i wish that you could perhaps walk away with, i'd say that:
1) Dan Balinski is dangerous.
2) I haven't been posting because i've got other stuff on my mind.
3) Just because you think you got everything figured out, doesn't mean you do
4) You are getting older and there is nothing you can do about it. However, that doesn't mean that you can't still rock out.
5) If you were thinking about punching your windshield, let me advise against it. They break easier and cost more than you might think.
6) It's ok if you have mistakes as long as you work to fix them
7) I hold onto beauty for too long.
8) Don't make fun of kids on your soccer team, because God will make you retarded.
also, i would like to take this opportunity to thank chuckie cummings for instructing his sister to bake funfetti cupcakes with funfetti frosting for me for my birthday. thanks for having my back. and uh, her too for baking them, i guess. |
|
College is the place when you become the adult that you have to be the rest of your life. I
now know why. there is so much vice here that one must decide which path to take. there is
the path of heavy studying, going to classes, exercising, and saying "no" to a lot of things
that will make you feel good for the moment. on the other end of the spectrum, there is the
path of inhaling, drinking, eating, snorting, and fucking everything in site. it is a lot
easier to say "yes" to the people asking you if you want to get high or drunk on school
nights, getting loaded, and sleeping through your classes the next morning.
if you go to college, i dont know if your school is like mine. i go to school in the
boogie-down brunz, and there are alcohol and drugs everywhere you turn. the RA's here pretty
much told us that they don't care if we drink or do drugs. they said you aren't supposed to,
and there is no drinking in the dorm. they said that if you puke, they have to send you to
the hospital. then they said that they were full of shit, and in order to catch you you have
to do something really stupid.
back in the bury, it's hard to get drunk, get laid, etc. you have to really want to. you
have to pay money, know people, or know what you are doing. you have to work for it.
in new brunswick, it's harder to not get drunk. you have to want to. you have to say no, you
have to choose to take the harder route and not give in to peer pressure. you have to work
for it.
home for me is on the 5th floor of an 8-story cinder block known as Clothier. the building
was founded on the premise that those that reside there must spend more time ruining their
mind with chemicals than enhancing it with study. my home is a den of sin and vice. at any
given time the lobby and grounds surrounding this great structure will smell strongly of
marijuana, while the bathroom will reek of vomit. it is in my professional opinion that the
floor, walls, and ceiling of our bathroom have been puked on so much that the scent will
never completely be eradicated. it is currently 5 pm on a monday and someone has already
puked in the fifth floor lowside bathroom. congratulations everyone on clothier 5, we've hit
a new low.
as you might have noticed, this post took some time to write. not so much because i put a lot
of thought into it, but more because i've been busy with school, street fighter, ultimate,
midnight soccer, and tons of other silly little things that my friends and i thought would
be good ideas at the time.
during this time i've gone up and down on the subject of getting messed up. at first, i saw
the overabundance of alcohol as a blessing, as i am used to perceiving alcohol as being used
only on special occaisons, like parties and stuff. for the first time, alcohol (along with a
myriad of other illegal substances) was readily available. i just measured it out, and in
order to purchase or mooch some kind of mind-altering chemical, i would need to walk a mere
7 steps out of my room. most of the time i would just sit in my room and someone would come
in and ask if i wanted to go share in a blunt they just rolled. something about long hair
makes everyone think that you are a stoner. after months of telling people that i didnt
smoke pot people were still asking me. a cinder block of sin and vice.
at first i partook in drinking more than i did at home, just because the thought was, "hey,
here is free alcohol, i might as well drink it." but this isn't roxbury, and getting fucked
up isn't hard to do. anyone who has had a successful career in motherload will get the
following analogy: alcohol to me was like goldium, and the first 500 feet were like roxbury.
during the first 500 feet, seeing and mining goldium are an occaison. you get excited when
you see goldium, the most valuable of the minerals. but then you dig deeper and deeper and
you see goldium everywhere. at first you start going crazy, because you just think that
goldium is the best thing ever, so you just get as much as u can find. but then you start
to discover platinum, einsteinium, emeralds, rubies, diamonds, buried treasure, dinosaur
bones, martian bones, religious artifacts. suddenly, deep within the earth's core (college)
you realize that gold isn't really that awesome. it's everywhere, and you start to disregard
it as if it were ironium, bronzium, or silverium. now you have bigger fish to fry, more
meaningful things than ore. now you have to fight satan.
so i guess you could say that at first alcohol was important, because my way of thinking was
that if there was alcohol, i might as well drink it because who knows how long it's gonna be
there. this must be a special occaison. but then it turned out that if u know certain
people, every night is this type of occaison. it got to be overkill. getting fucked up on
anything just kinda makes you happy and goofy for a little bit, but i can be happy and goofy
sober. put me with good people and i'll be happy.
im not saying that i'm giving up getting messed up. all im saying is that it has lost its
allure. i no longer feel like it will definately make a night better. it's something to do,
but so is playing parcheesi.
this girl leah that i worked at crackerbarrel with warned me about this. she went to
rutgers, and said three memorable things:
1. "you are going to rutgers? expos sucks."
2. "oh, clothier, that's the party dorm. be careful of that. kids get to college and don't
know what to do with all the freedom. they start eating badly, they drink and do drugs
everynight, and they have a lot of sex. just don't know what to do with themselves."
3. the third is a conversation held between leah and kelly, another cashier:
kelly - i had a really weird dream last night...
leah- i had a really weird dream once. the devil tried to impregnate me
kelly- leah... that's really weird. i wouldn't tell people about that dream, they might
think you are crazy.
leah- it wasn't a dream. it was real. he tried to impregnate me but i stopped him.
(crickets chirping)
she's not joking. she really beleives that satan himself tried to pork her. oh, i forgot to
mention. leah is FUCKING OUT OF HER MIND
idk why all of a sudden i realized that getting messed up wasn't as fun as i always thought.
i didnt really drink that much, just more than i was used to. i think it was when my good
friend jeff got so drunk one night that he got leprosy -
this his him looking at his door that is leaning up against my door. chris removed it while
i distracted him. he was in his room watching tv as chris and i pretended to talk to him while stealing his stuff, including his door
this is where i think he got it, because there is leprosy all over the walls and stuff.
apart from getting leprosy when you get drunk, you take stupid pictures with your mouth open
sometimes when you drink this happens:
emilio passed out on the concrete after an embarrassing display of his soccer abilities. it
was like 2 am and freezing out, one lovely november tuesday.
and sometimes even this:
i have more updates started, but i figured i'll just put this up instead of putting up like
3 different updates at once. idk why i started doing that, but i think im gonna stop. one
topic at a time. maybe this way i'll update more than once every 3 months
"listen, all i'm saying is that if you still want to smoke pot, be prepared to spend a lot of time laughing with your friends. think about it."
-mr. jellinek
strangers with candy
[watch in on my brother's site] |
|
i just said goodbye to a great friend today. not "said goodbye" like he died or anything, "said
goodbye" like actually saying the words goodbye. my friend went to college, just as i will
have to do in just a few short days.
i've often thought about how much i hate growing up, and how i have wrestled with time,
thinking that maybe if i act immaturely, i can stop time's effect on me. i've put up a good
fight, but today it is clearer than ever that everyone gets older and they are helpless to
fight it. there is no neverland, there is no fountain of life. father time is an old man,
but he has old man strength, and he can still kick your ass. if you are a kid, you'll become
a boring adult in a matter of years, and you probably won't want to do any of the fun things
you do now. you are doomed to become your future self. nothing gold can stay.
the only thing you can do is live the best you can now, and make memories, because memories
will last forever, even if you don't.
i guess that's the best advice I can give you. live the best you can, have the most fun you
can. we are all getting closer to the day we die. we are all deteriorating. we are all
dying.
over the last four years, i've had a lot of experiences. these experiences made me grow up,
and taught me fundamental truths about life. after i learned one of these truths, i wrote it
down. i've compiled a list of the things i've written down, plus other things i could think
of.
this is just some advice i can try to give people in situations similar to
myself. this is everything i know.
this is also for kids younger than me. if you are in highschool, here is everything you
need to know to get through easier.
things i have learned:
don't take yourself too seriously. don't put anything off, you'll end up like me. if you
sense yourself falling into a bad habit, get yourself to stop immediately. don't wear too
much cologne, just a puff and walk into it. No one will ever love you like your parents,
even when it seems like they hate you. always err on the side of subtlety. if you write on
the math worksheet, you'll just make stupid mistakes, just take the time to rewrite it in
your notebook. you'll never get a girl by throwing yourself at her feet. if you feel like
dressing up, go ahead and look good, but just realize that looks aren't everything, and
comfort is important. don't argue the whole period over one point on a test, even if you are
right- its rude and there are more important things to life. NEVER let good friends slip
away, even if you have to suck up your pride. if you have a job, your free time will feel
remarkable. Never eat or masturbate just because you are bored. try not to brag, but if you
have to, do it to your parents. I read something that said that eating asparagus makes your
semen taste like skunk, so idk, just fyi. if you think someone hates you, give them space so
they cool down, but not for more than a couple days. never ask what hotdogs are made of.
being happy for no reason is the best kind of happy. If a girl doesn't like you, don't get
mad at her. You don't need other people to be happy. Don't jerk off in the shower, just
clean it and you're done. don't direct when writing a screenplay. never let words offend
you, they are just different ways to move your voicebox and mouth. never dare to try. just
think a little bit. shower everyday. breaking up isn't the end of the world. don't fart in
front of girls- it's not funny. you are utterly alone in this world, but that isn't
necessarily a bad thing. you are getting closer and closer to your death, so make the most
of it. high school is only four years. don't stare at people when they eat. never tell
people what grosses you out, because they'll never stop grossing you out with it. if you are
really upset with someone, don't be fake about it, because the sooner you tell them that you
are pissed is the sooner you resolve it. just be upfront. being caddy ruins it for yourself
and people around you. never watch a PETA video, they'll make you feel bad about yourself,
even if you aren't doing anything wrong. smoking makes you seem dirty, because smokers reek.
the driving test is nothing to worry about- just make sure that you can parallel park and
that you're lights aren't broken. act like a dork- you have the rest of your life to be a
mature adult, and this is the only time can get away with it. the upstairs door in the
stairwell by the main lobby doesn't open all the way so be careful. mr huynh tells the best
jokes. wear pajama pants if you want to wear pajama pants. there are more important things
than chicks- if one doesn't like you, it doesn't mean that you are a loser. if you can eat a
piece of pizza while you are waiting on line to pay, then you don't have to pay for it.
legwarmers will always look stupid. if you are a couple minutes late to school but you don't
think your teacher will mind, just keep your head down and don't make eye contact with the
people telling you to sign in. if you ride the mount arlington bus, you don't have time to
go to your locker after ninth period. you can do whatever you want if you say that you are
"for the paper." if you are loud and obnoxious, people will notice, and probably be annoyed,
but at least you're having fun. always have a good relationship with your siblings, and if
you don't, work on it-they are probably pretty awesome, and at very least you can badmouth
your parents together. just because a girl is beautiful doesn't mean she's superficial.
don't try too hard to be original - as long as you are comfortable with yourself, you don't
need anything else. dancing isn't hard, just go do it, - the only people that look stupid
doing it are the ones thinking "god i hope i dont look stupid doing this." write what you
know. if you get raped, it's not your fault, even if you're drunk. never be afraid to dive
right in. girls don't pee out of the same hole that weiners go in, and if a girl is over,
make sure that there is toilet paper, because girls use toilet paper for both number 1 and
number 2, and you're not an idiot if you didn't know that. jealousy is the stupidest emotion
ever invented. sports help you make friends, but it isn't all there is to high school. don't
spend too much time talking to people online, get out of the house. scrubs is one of the
best shows on television. the hallways are like roads - walk on the right side. if you don't
try hard in school, when it comes to be time to go to college, you're going to be pissed at
yourself. never stop on the corner of m and r hall, or anywhere in b hall, because chances
are you are causing a traffic jam. be proud of everything about yourself, even your flaws.
you are only as special as you feel. there is always someone out there that will listen. you
don't know more than your teacher, unless you have Mrs. La Rosa. get a job at a place that
you think might go out of business soon. buddy's ice cream has flies in it. the only sinks
in the boys locker room that work are the first and last ones. throwing water balloons from
a moving vehicle is a felony. never hit and run, because if you get caught it suuuuucks.
keep a taco bell cup and a frisbee in you're car at all times. principals have their
reasons, and swanson is doing a good job and is a nice guy - if you have a problem with
something he's done, he will always listen and defend himself. quirky girls are hot. if the
school newspaper causes a controversy, capitalize- t-shirts are a good way to make a quick
buck. the transition project is an awesome club. go to sports games. ladies looooove a guy
in suspenders. a night is only as fun as you make it. if you go to school messed up, you
have a problem. the dvd version of wet hot american summer is one of the best movies ever
made, but the comedy central version is the worst movie ever made. always look out for
yourself, because no one else will. be upfront with your parents with almost everything,
even the stuff they don't want to hear- they were your age once too, and if you just sit and
talk with them about something, a lot of the time they'll wind up being cool with it.tapping
your foot, shaking your leg, etc. makes people think that you are nervous, even if you
aren't, so just sit still for interviews (college, work, etc.) bathroom humor is only good
in moderation. consistently being late makes people think that you are irresponsible - set
your clock a little fast. be a good role model. never sniff a girl's underwear, because you
can't be sure if anyone is looking. don't make jokes about rape unless you are absolutley
sure that everyone in earshot has never been raped. never stop liking a band just because
they got popular - never let others change your opinions. just believe them when they tell
you that breakfast is important. you don't know everything about everything. It's not the
end of the world if you don't go out every night. all you have is all you need. suround
yourself with positive people. it's never too late to change. shampoo AND condition,
conditioning makes the hair silky soft. there are worse things than an insult. don't make
jokes if you're not funny - i'm sure you have other talents. making other people feel bad is
pointless. don't ever let it come down to the point where you need to be fucked up to have
fun- the best times are the ones you can remember. don't use contractions or "you" in a
formal essay. if you see a funny movie, quoting it over and over and over only makes it not
funny anymore. don't do things that you aren't ready for. if you are in the library at the
same time that mrs. fallone is, you will get yelled at no matter what you are doing. when
doing project adventure, make sure holly isn't your teacher, or you'll hit a tree and die.
girls should never go in a guys team room. NEVER take naked pictures (except for green
shoes) of yourself and send them to someone over the internet. if you feel sick but your
teacher won't let you go to the bathroom, if you need to, just run out- it's better to be
the kid who ran out of class to take a shit than the kid that shat all over the hallways.
what ever happened to fights at the wall? a concert in the gym will never work (winter
madness sucked). never forget to say thank you. never stop yourself from going out with a
girl that you think other people look down on. always make eye contact- there is nothing
more annoying than a person who looks up when they talk to you, looking down makes you seem
scared, and looking to the side makes you seem bored or preoccupied. never use a condom-
you can't feel shit.
at times it may seem like the whole world is against you, but trust me, they're not. If it
comes down to it, feel good knowing that I love you.
|
Shit stories.
The words alone are not funny. The funny part comes in because you relate it to an event in
your life or your friend's life. Try as we might to forget them, we all have shit stories.
Many times atop the mighty porcelain throne have I thought about the whole process of
pooping. Everybody does it, animals do it, people were MADE to do it. However, I've often
thought about how.... imperfect the system is. I beleive that God created man, and I
therefore believe that God created the process of pooping. But surely, this all-knowing,
all-powerful being could have thought of a better way to eliminate undigested material.
Right?
I mean, poop is gross. It is probably the grossest thing I can think off. I don't often use
potty humor, not only because it is cheap, but also because it is in bad taste and often
disgusting. Sitting down and squeezing out, between your buttcheeks, a lump of undigested
material, and bacteria, and all the other stuff your body doesn't need has always hit me as
just a tad too disgusting to make sense. Yea it's natural and all, but couldn't God have
thought of a better way to expel particles? To me, something about pooping never added up.
Recently, because of an incident I had with one Michael Crowley, I had a moment of clarity
on the subject of pooping. It all made sense to me.
The reason we all poop is BECAUSE it is gross.
Pooping, especially diarrhea, is gross. Therefore, it is embarrassing. I don't even like to
admit that I poop, even though, as I haven't exploded yet, it is obvious that I do. You see,
embarrassment leads to funny stores. Pooping leads to funny stories.
That is right, you read me correctly. I believe that God created pooping so that we can have
funny shit stories. Shit stories, especially ones about your friends, brighten up the world.
I have a feeling that God liked the thought of brightening the world. Telling stories about
your friends almost shitting themselves makes you and the listener laugh and feel good. I'll
show you. I'll tell you the very shit story that inspired my poop epiphany. Even better,
WE'LL show you:
DAVEMike and I found ourselves on one
particularly beautiful summer day. What made it even more beautiful was that I had off from
work. as days away from the barrel are few and far between, i was anxious to make the most
of it. Realizing that the only days i had spent at the Jersey shore were during senior
shore, what needed to be done was obvious. I quickly put up and away message, the best way
to communicate to all my friends at once (other than writing in this journal.)
Mike saw the away message that stated that I wanted to go to the shore, and immediately
responded. the desire was inside mike as well. I didn't really want to go with him, but then
he said that his brother had a house down the shore. i decided that i wouldn't mind using
him for his brother's house. "what's the worst that could happen?" i asked myself. that
naive, innocent question was soon answered.
MIKE:The next morning im feeling great and me
and dave go to church followed by a lil flagels how ya doin. I get the usual sausage, egg,
and chee. Im feelin pretty sassy, so I opt for double chocolate muff as well. I don't
think we got to 206 before the sammich was gone. I immediately inhale the muffin. I'm
talking so fast I couldn't even taste it.
first of all, who goes to flanders bagels and gets a muffin? anyway, i watched mike
practically inhale his sandwich; he probably ate it in four bites, tops. then, after
finishing his girly little muffin, he looks over at me and says, "dude, that muffin is
tearing apart my insides."
i took a second to think about whether or not that was the stupidest thing i've ever heard.
i remembered alex kaplan saying, "my grandma used to tell me stories, but then she died, and
now we don't talk very much anymore," (SEE BELOW) and decided that it wasn't. still, i had
to question:
DAVE:"what do u mean, the MUFFIN is tearing apart your insides? i just
watched you scarf down an entire sausage egg and cheese sandwich in less than a minute."
MIKE:"idk dude, i think it wasn't cooked all the way
through or something. plus, last night i had 3 huge sausages that my dad cooked, 2 cans of
tuna, plus a cheeseburger, and then we had some fish sandwiches from the fish he caught.
then, at like midnight we went out to cluck u and i had about 10 hot wetbites."
DAVE:"yea, you're right, the muffin probably did it..."
so at this point, I feel a lil rumbling, but nothin to worry bout. As
the ride progresses I get more and more uncomfortable and it shows on my face. I'm thinking
to myself ok pressures building. I have to shit, but ya know what ive held shits b4 no
problem, right? WRONG!
somewhere along 287 i remember that i never got gas as i had planned, so i had to stop. this
is apparently what mike had been fantasizing that i'd say, because he actually orgasmed
before i even finished the sentence.
yea, we were on 287 when the voice of God said "OH shit, I need gas"
Praise the lord because I gotta go now and a gas station sounds fantastic. So we get off at
the next exit. As soon as we exit 287 the pressure gets worse.
now, this is the point where i start getting nervous. before, i thought mike was just
kidding, and yea maybe he had to shit or whatever, but surely he could wait 30 minutes until
we get to manasquan.
as soon as we get off the exit he starts holding his stomach and saying "dude this is
getting bad"
naturally, there aint a gas station in sight, so i start following random roads. i know that
i'm never gonna find 287 again, but at this point, i'm not concerned. right now all im
thinking about is "if mike shits in my car, i might as well drive if off a cliff because i'm
not getting back into it."
i'm making turns without even thinking. i'm not even trying to remember road names and what
way i'm turning. we get to a neighborhood and mike was about 5 seconds from asking a guy
mowing his lawn if it would be ok if mike went in and shat in the guy's house. we spotted a
highway and went there instead.
I'm really startin to complain now and daves getting nervous that im
gunna make doodie in his car, which he had good reason to be. I begin to figit in my seat
and make weird faces as I concentrate on breathing. So finally we get to the highway and we
see several gas stations.
However, we started patting each other on the back a lil too
quickly. Separating us from the beautiful toilets was about 4 lanes and a concrete median.
I think that maybe theres a u-turn at the next exit. WRONG! now we r driving away from the
gas stations and I am sitting sideways bracing myself. Keep in mind ive never had a
situation where I had to shit this bad, ive never had to like poop in woods or anything like
that. I mean I am bad right now, I have a limit and it was passed 20 minutes ago. So on
the exit ramp I see trees.
"Dave, just pull over dude im gunna go in these trees."
Daves asks me if im sure and I say yes followed by a quick "what the fuck is that!?"
Going to church that morning paid off, because beyond those trees was the greatest sight ive
ever seen - The Bridgewater mall.
i speed right up to the door and say,
"don't even wait for me to stop, just get the fuck out of my car."
mike jumps out and i park the car and follow, getting out my camera. after all, now that
he's out of my car, his discomfort is funny to me. when he was in my car i was petrified
that he wouldn't have enough sphinctoral fortitude, but now that he's out of the danger
zone, i'm free to laugh and take pictures.
i'm following mike, and i hear him bark at some bearded homeless-looking man that was
sitting right outside the doors to the mall,
"Aaah, where's the bathroom!?!?!"
the hobo says not a word, but points to the mall. oh, ok, there is a bathroom somewhere inside the mall. thank you, kind sir.
mike is now trying his best to run fast, but as he needs to keep his cheeks clenched, the
action comes out more as a waddle-jog.
I see decent lookin girl by the escalator (atleast I believe she was
decent looking
.. I was wasn't really thinking bout that if u know what I mean) (she
was hot)
She sees that im running so she probably a lil confused and suddenly I
blurt out in stride "Where's The Bathroom!"she pointed to the doorway. That's when I really
took off.
I created a bird's nest in record time and went to work. I had one of the explosive,
echoing, just all out powerful shits. I took my time on the pot, basking in the glory.
When I felt I had finished I did what everyone does.. stand up and look to see what you've
accomplished.
I forgot however that these were nice bathrooms and when I stood up I heard the flush. Damn
automatic flushing toilets right to hell! I was forever disappointed by that.
(he actually was very disappointed. when we got back in the car he told me that, as if i
cared.)
Now that I'm relieved I walk out of the bathroom with a pleasant smile
on my face and who do I see but the young lady who guided me to the bathroom. She was
headed for the ladies room and I still didn't get a good look because I was trying to hide
my face from her.
So then I exited the bathroom plaza and saw dave sitting there waitin for me. With a huge
smile on my face I went to shake his hand I guess to congratulate him on a shit well done.
He hesitated at first but I assured him that I washed.but notice I didn't say anything bout
that in the story. Ehhhhhhhhhhhhh I don't know!
just for the record, I always hesitate before making any kind of contact with mike, even
with freshly washed hands. God only knows what kind of diseases you can catch just by
touching that kid.
i've always made it a point to surround myself with people that make me laugh. i have a
friend named rj, and apparently he does that too.
usually, people make jokes, and i either laugh or don't laugh, according to if the remark is
funny or clever, and if I like the person who said it. that's usually it. end of process.
rj, however, has taken this process a step further. rj listens, reacts, and then writes
down the funny things he hears
the man is a visionary
throughout the 2004-2005 schoolyear, the senior year for rj and myself, rj wrote down many
one-line quotes that made him giggle, or chuckle, or cackle, or go "tee-hee" (which he does
more than you think). he compiled a list on the backs of his notebooks, and i took great
pleasure in reading them during tv and film. i awaited new quotes, and craved them like
heroin. but unlike heroin, each fix felt better, not worse.
i asked rj to give me his list of quotes sometime during the year, and eventually he got
around to it. these quotes would have been a nice recap to the year, and would have been
much more pertenent at the beginning of the summer, and not at the end. when have i ever
done anything on time? i obviously don't respect you or your needs. just be thankful i'm
sharing them with you at all.
“And what really helped me out and gave me a sense of closure was that he went to college
and worked at a convenience store and was shot and killed…”
-Mr. Sheneck
“Yo my shit is so far up my ass right now.”
-Brett Grobarz
“Are you telling me if your life was on the line you wouldn’t eat a dead fetus?”
-Girls in hallway
“You guys did good on the project, areas to improve: Josh”
-Ms. Dome
“Aww you’re learning disabled”
-Mrs. Falone (to Chris Clements)
”Why did all the Civil War Battled happen at National Parks?”
-Dara Colosordo
”I’m gonna rape you and eat the fetus in the second trimester”
-Juan Carlos
”Your head looks like a penis and your arms look like balls.”
-Ryan Adams
“She embodies everything I hate about humans.”
-Chris Clements
”There’s only 312 Fucking pages in the book, you should be able to find the answer.”
-Juan Carlos
“I just dominated the nurse’s bathroom”
-Matt Ziatyk
“I hit her and I make her not tell anyone.”
-Chris Clements
“You’ll piss in the morning and it will be just like a penis load full”
-Steve Clarke
“Fucking Villa Walsh”
-Dirk Kelly
“He probably wasted it on some fucking ‘don’t knock the hustle’ t shirt”
-Jackie Slane in regards to Darren Chan
“There was a huge orgy and all the actors from the silent films were there, I mean everyone
was there…Fatty Arbukle…”
-Mr. Cooper
“I’d defiantly kill her, cuz she’s gonna kill me, ya know what I mean?”
-Jihad Castro
“Everything started in California except Mardi Gras. That started in France, New Orleans.”
-Matt Urgo
“Kill a dog if you're curious" -RJ Canning
"A dog? Kill a homeless person” -Dave Szarejko
”I made out with my cousin before, but she was distant.”
-Unknown – Jared Gunther???
”I’d take the cock over cutting weight”
-Steve Clarke
“My grandmother used to tell me stroeis, then she died, and we don’t really talk anymore”
-Alex Kaplan
“What is frontal nudity? How is it different from brests?”
-Matt Urgo
“Do that thing you do, whats it called? Conversation?”
-Ryan Adams
“Probably some bitch I fucked that wants my cock now”
-Jarod Weber
“Your dad’s gay?...I don’t know my mom says he is”
-Jonathon Vega
“I got a tarot card reading once and now I’m on birth control”
-Heather Grady
“Eukee The Jumpy Jumpy Elephant: A heart warming story of a young elephant’s struggle with
attention deficit disorder.”
-A book lol
“Dirty, sweaty, smelly sex…sex smells man”
-Juan Carlos
“She’ll just give me another one of her mediocre blowjobs”
-Unnamed
“I don’t know if you have the constitutional right to an erection”
-Ms. Dome
“So I got her a big black dildo for her baby shower”
-Ryan Elko
“You didn’t say 'make me scream', you said 'knock me up.'”
-Dave Szarejko
to the class of 2005, I love you dearly. good luck in whatever you do, and if I never see
you again, just feel good knowing that I didn't hate you. be careful in college, because
herpes is for life. also, don't over eat, because your metabolism is slowing, and all you
can eat mess halls are a killer. so watch out for the freshman 15, because, this may sound
shallow, but I don't like fatties.
there's a fine line between hipchecking and stuntin'"
-darren chan |
|
what's happened since the last time we spoke?
well... may and june
before you jump down my throat for being remiss in my posting, let's take a moment to remember what posting is all about. I use this website for two reasons:
1) to tell a large group of people the same thing
2) to relive and record interesting snipits of my life, including but not limited to: stories, funfacts, feelings, awful jokes, and impressions.
so basically, my life hasn't been all that interesting in the past 2 months. the reason is because of you fuckers. maybe if you did something worthwhile that made me laugh, or done anything exciting that put me in an interesting postition, i'd tell you buttholes about it. but you haven't, because you are worthless. so before you yell at me for not posting for a while, look at yourself in the mirror, realize that there is no reason for you to be around anymore, and then act accordingly. hang your heads in shame, and then huggaditon.
lets get to that reason number 1:
tellin a lot of people the same thing
lemme tell you about a mystery that's been bugging me for a while. actually it bugged me for a day and then i forgot about it, but just remembered it right now.
i was in the locker room, late as always. i opened my gym locker and found my shorts hung up, which is weird because i dont hang up my shorts, and i also found a ring, which is weird because i can't pull off wearing jewelery.
so if anyone lost a ring in my gym locker, i found it.
ever since my little brother's dare shirt got stolen from my locker sophmore year (i put it in those long lockers. i found it strange that no one claimed those big lockers. of course, it was only after it got stolen that i found out that you can just pull really hard on the lock and those lockers open), i dont give out my locker combination to people, i have only given it out to kevin gilligan, a trusted friend. i already asked him and he doesn't recognize the ring.
before you say it, no the ring didn't fall through a hole into my locker. there are no holes large enough for the ring to fit through, and even if there was, keep in mind that someone hung up my gym shorts, which i really never do. someone was in there, and i want to know who. i want to know who RIGHT NOW!
naturally, I did the only thing a natural born killa would do in this situation. i wrote a threatening, but polite note, and signed it with hugs and kisses.
reason i post #2
snipits and stories
i started working at crackerbarrel since we last spoke. after my first day, i worked 7 days in a row. this is van heusen all over again. I won't be surprised if I start working 40 hour weeks again.
[:EDITOR'S NOTE:] after writing this, I found out that in the
next 11 days, I'm working 80 hours. that's more than full-time.
that would be great if I asked for hours, like if I really needed the
money. now, I do need money, but I specifically asked for time off,
because of graduation parties and what not. plus, nathanael is going
away and I'd like to see him before he leaves, which will be hard now.
i make 8.40 an hour which isn't bad. everything else about the job sucks though. the actual job isn't too bad - the responsibilities of the cashier are not hard - a trained monkey could probably do it. granted, he'd have to be a pretty smart monkey, that could fake a smile... but i'm in a hopeful mood, and dammit i think he could do it. say what you will about him, but that monkey's got a good head on his shoulders, and i believe in him.
the bad part of the job starts when you take the crackerbarrel building and put people inside of it. most customers aren't too bad at first, but after a week, work drives you mad. the same routine everyday, coming in right after school, or waking up on a saturday or sunday and staying all day there instead of enjoying the sun, and then getting home just in time to get yelled at by your parents for something stupid, then sleeping so you can muster up the energy to face it all again the next day. your days are lost. while you are there, time takes twice as long. you check the clock every five minutes, hoping that maybe this time you blacked out and it's an hour later. you put off checking the clock so that you can be excited the next time you look, but eventually you have a moment of weakness. you say, "i've been good, i haven't checked the clock in like half an hour," so you check the clock, but when you do it's still only five minutes later.
you listen to your fake "cheerful" voice, the one that is an octave higher than your normal one, the one you only use when you want to sound sincere and pleasant when what you are really thinking is "i wish i was herpes so i could jump inside you and make your genitals rot for the rest of your miserable life," or something equally viscous. you start hating that voice. you hear yourself over the loudspeaker, paging a manager, using your fake voice. you begin to hate all your voices. you begin to hate anything you can find, because you are shallow enough that it makes you feel better.
you begin to hate all the fat mothers who buy candy and you can just tell that it's for them and not their kids. you hate the rich snobs that will pay for something under 10 bucks with a 100 dollar bill. you also hate the strippers that pay with 20 dollars worth of singles. or worse, fucking quarters. you hate anyone that gives you attitude for not counting the change back fast enough. you hate the cashier next to you that won't ever pick up the fucking phone, so you have to answer EVERY call with that goddamn fake voice. you hate anyone on the phone ever in the history cracker barrel, fuck it, in the history of phones. you hate the idiotic conversations that people force upon you, about their trip or their kids or some aspect of their stupid life that you don't care about. you hate the little phrases you hear yourself say over and over and over: "thank you for calling cracker barrel mount arlington, this is dave speakin, how may I help you?" "how was your meal?" "you just need to sign this" "alright here is your receipt. have a nice night."
you can't stand the sight of another fatass who buys a shitload of candy and almost bites your finger because he or she starts gobbling it down before you are even done bagging it. you want to ask them, "i bet you have self-esteem problems, don't you?"
you hate every fat, lonely woman who comes in and buys tons of stuff for her cats, and then orders the fattest thing on the menu, and buys a lot of candy on the way out. one look at her says she's unhappy but too weak to do anything about it. leave without those malted milk balls, order just a salad, go home and work out. then maybe you won't need tons of cats that you use to keep yourself company because guys "just don't seem to like" your "good personality" and enormous ass.
you see tons of what you assume must be the most worthless and impractical items ever manufactured, and you wonder "who in their right mind would ever buy this garbage? does anyone need a beanie baby of garfield to sit on a shelf and collect dust? why buy a 7 dollar pen that barely even writes, just because the american flag-shaped end lights up when you write?" then, as if they were reading your mind, people seem to buy nothing but those exact worthless items, just to piss you off.
you hate every bum who comes in with a credit card that gets declined, but refuses to believe it. "run it through again," they say, "damn machine must be broked." face it, jerkoff. you are either poor or spend money irresponsibly, because you don't have any money. stop holding up the line.
you hate everything that has an american flag on it. all the patriotic cd's, filled to the brim with propaganda, the president doll that "really sounds like FDR," but is of him standing up because whoever made it doesn't want to depict the former president as physically frail. you hate the disgusting t-shirts that look like shit, but people buy because there is a bald eagle on it. you might as well wear a shirt that says "i'll believe whatever you tell me to, as long as toby keith sings to me about it."
you want to tell every little kid that the money they are buying their candy with came from their mom, not the tooth fairy, just to watch them get crushed. you wanna say that it's a real dick move anyway, to buy shit that's gonna rot your teeth with the money they got from the tooth fairy.
you hate all the happy, cheerful voices. you want the people around you to be pissed off too.misery loves company.
the first day, I gave someone back their change, and they asked me to repeat what i said. they were right, because sometimes i kinda mumble and slur words. so I made it a point to be as clear as possible from then on, just so I would have to talk to people less.
twice in one day I had a customer yell at me for the way I said how much change I was giving back. instead of saying "nine seventeen" as I was handing them $9.17 back, a couple times I said "nine dollars and seventeen cents is your change." I figured, "can't be any clearer than that." TWICE IN ONE DAY, someone got on my case about it. the first time, a lady looked at me, scrunched up her brow, and with mouth agape said, " what?!?!" I repeated, "Nine dollars and seventeen cents is your change." even though I said it clearly and loudly the first time. the lady looked at her friend, looked back at me, and in a tone of voice that said "you should know this, fucker" she said, "just say 'nine seventeen.'" the second time, another lady, a different lady, after I said "twenty-six dollars and eleven cents is your change," mumbled under her breath "coulda just said 'twenty-six eleven...'"
I was apalled that one person could be such a douchebag, but two on the same night just freaked me out. are people in that severe of a hurry that they don't have time for me to say "____dollars, and ____cents is your change" ? am I to believe that we, as a society, are above sentences, and now should communicate by barking sets of numbers? if those ladies were really in a rush, why would they have wasted their time telling me that I said change wrong? why is it my job to deal with assholes?
on my first day, I was told to wait in the break room for my trainer. breaks used to be pretty fun at van heusen, so I was looking forward to it. I used to be able to leave and get something to eat, or just sit in my car. when I found out that you get paid for breaks, I was pretty excited, as at van heusen you had to clock out.
I expected to find a bunch of potential friends in the break room - people I could bond with, and say hi to during the day to make the day more fun. what I found was quite contrary. as I entered the room, a wave of despair rushed over me like paul d entering 124. I could feel the negative energy grab the sides of my mouth and force them to a frown. this place was not a place for friendship and shenanigans, this was a place for crushed spirits and low morale. not a single person there had their head up - all heads were pointed down, staring intently at the floor. I now know that these people weren't just staring, they were hoping that the floor underneath them would open up and swallow them whole, hurling them to eternal hellfire - and sweet relief.
these people were the most bitter, down-trodden, broken human beings I've seen in a long time.
at first, I thought, "I've never seen so many unhappy mothers..."
and I wondered what could make so many people so pissed off.
my trainer finally came to get me. at first I thought that things would get better, because my trainer was pretty young and pretty good looking. unfortunately, that hope would soon be obliterated, just as all hope is at crackerbarrel. my trainer did not make things better. my trainer turned out to be mean. she is the type of person that you can just tell was the most popular, hottest girl in high school, because she's still pretty hot. however, she's mean now because she is bitter that people aren't bending over backwards for her like they used to. in high school and college she could be a bitch and get away with it because she was unbelievably hot. people would do anything for her. but now, people are doing less, and she now realizes that she had the good life in high school and college, but all her pretty looks don't mean shit in the real world. or at least that's what I got from spending some time with her.
the next few days I learned not to touch kids, to speak loudly to old people because it is hard for them to hear you over the death rattle, and that not all people in wheelchairs are retarded.
my first day on the floor granted me the answer to the query, "what could make so many people so pissed off?"
after about 4 hours my spirit was just about crushed. after putting up with all the annoyances listed above, while having a manager who you can just tell doesn't like you looking over your shoulder, a break seems like a perfect time to sulk.
"i'll drown my tears in a burger," I thought. easier said than done.
in order to get an employee meal, you have to find a waitress that is also a trainer. they write you a ticket, and then a manager has to sign it. then you take it to a cashier and pay for it, and go back to the back of house, get a manager to sign again, hang your ticket, wait 20 minutes for the cooks to cook it, get your meal, go to the fantastically happy break room full of friends, and enjoy.
what really happens when you try to get your first meal, is you walk in the back and try to figure out who is a trainer. you know the answer is simple so you are afraid to ask. you find a waiter who was nice to you earlier and you ask "are you a trainer?" only to hear "(scoff) do I look like a trainer?" as he walks away. you think, "well, you have a strong jaw and beautiful eyes, so yea you kinda actually I don't know what a trainer looks like." you try to ask another waiter but wind up just standing around in everyone's way looking dumb. your manager comes by and you say "how do i know who is a trainer?" to which you hear "the ones with the maroon aprons. i swear to god, kid, i'm not gonna tell you that again." and you think "you never fucking told me that, you arrogant fuck." and you hope to heaven that you only thought that and didn't say it. he walks away so you assume that you are in the clear.
you find a maroon-clad waitress, and you ask (in that fake, high-pitched bitch voice), "um, can you write me a ticket?" she replies (in that fake, mocking high-pitched bitch voice), "um, can you get out of my way?"
you start to curl up in the fetal position, as waiters and waitresses step over you. you puke a little in your mouth but then swallow it because you know if you make a mess you'll get yelled at. you wonder why no one respects you, and then you remember that you are curled up in the fetal position in the kitchen of a restaurant, swallowing your own vomit.
you get up and try it again. although the waitress is pissed off that you could have the audacity to ask her to do her job, she writes you a ticket, tells you to suck a dick (not aloud... but you can just tell by the way she looks at you that she's thinking it) and she storms off. you find your manager, leaning against the wall by himself, and you ask him to initial it. you just ask for two little letters, but he says that he doesn't have time right now.
you find another manager, who you can tell is SCREAMING "SUCK A DICK!" in his mind, but he initials your ticket. you wait on line with all the fatties buying crap they don't need, and of course you picked the line with the lady that wants to argue about like two cents or some shit.
eventually, she leaves, you pay, and ask the manager "who didn't have time" and "isn't gonna tell me again" to sign it. he is standing right next to the cashier that you just paid for you meal, and he says he doesn't have time. again.
you scream vulgar, ugly words at him in your mind, not even caring if they were out loud or not. you walk off politely, but in your mind you picture yourself storming off with your middle finger over your shoulder. you find that other manager, the slightly less mean one. same routine, suckadick, he signs, you hang your ticket. the grill cook takes your ticket off, looks at it, gives you the evil eyes, and then rehangs it. you don't know what that means, but you don't feel like dying right now so you walk away, to the break room.
after 20 more minutes of the fetal position in the break room, your manager that doesn't have the time to write two letters on a piece of paper comes to check on you, in hopes to find you doing something wrong, so he can yell at you and feel like a big man. he tells you very loudly that while you are waiting for your meal to cook, you are supposed to be working. you start to tell him that you needed some alone time, but realize that that probably won't help anything. anyway, your burger is done.
time to enjoy, right?
you would enjoy it if it was enjoyable, but as it has to do with crackerbarrel, it is in fact, quite unenjoyable. it sucks. it's disgustingly greasy, you can't hold on to it, it's falling apart, and it doesn't even taste good. you wonder if the cooks make all the food like this, or if they just make employee meals this shitty. maybe just yours because they don't respect you. you eat the disgusting burger anyway, but you begin to feel silly for thinking that anything here could make you feel good.
after finishing, you stare at the floor for a little while, riddled with disappointment. you realize that it didn't take long for the evils to break you, and you start questioning whether you are going anywhere in life. you realize why all your co-workers are middle-aged and unhappy. they work and crackerbarrel and always will. if they are lucky, they'll get another star on their apron. you start accepting this as your fate.
a kid walks in with the same woman that trained you. he finds you staring at the floor, hoping that it will swallow you up whole. he asks, "what's the matter?"
all you say is, "this is your first day, isn't it?" and you walk away.
i work too much, and it's obvious because even when im home, even when i'm asleep, i'm at work. let me explain in a aim conversation i had with renee tybus.
davey the gnome (10:18:35 PM): i didnt sleep last
night because fat people were coming up to
my bed an asking me to ring them out
davey the gnome (10:18:44 PM): and i kept
forgetting that i wasn't in crackerbarrel
Sweetepie987 (10:19:10 PM): omg wow
davey the gnome (10:19:23 PM): so i'd start ringing
them up but then realize they weren't real,
and then i would stop halfway through and
be like "you are a hallucination. sorry but i
can't help you"
davey the gnome (10:19:44 PM): i started yelling
"this is my personal bed, ok, so everyone go
away
Sweetepie987 (10:19:45 PM): holy christ! yea that's
pretty bad!
davey the gnome (10:20:07 PM): i turned on the light
a couple times, and said "when i get back to
sleep, no funny stuff. seriously, this is my
home"
Sweetepie987 (10:20:20 PM): that's really scary dave
davey the gnome (10:20:21 PM): but i wasn't really
sure if i was supposed to ring them up or not
davey the gnome (10:21:00 PM): like is being a
cashier in crackerbarrel like being a doctor
or a fireman, you are always a doctor or a
fireman, even when u are trying to sleep
davey the gnome (10:21:14 PM): i tried to fool them
by saying that i wasn't on call tonight
davey the gnome (10:21:18 PM): but they just kept
coming
Sweetepie987 (10:21:21 PM): hahahaha!
davey the gnome (10:21:41 PM): and i kept ringing
them up and stopping half way through
because i'd be like "waaaaaait a second!"
Sweetepie987 (10:21:55 PM): did your mom or dad hear
any of this or you just remember?
davey the gnome (10:22:05 PM): i just remember
davey the gnome (10:22:14 PM): my room is far
away from theirs
davey the gnome (10:22:20 PM): i was awake
davey the gnome (10:22:23 PM): but asleep
davey the gnome (10:22:26 PM): idk
davey the gnome (10:22:38 PM): it was weird, its
not the first time it's happened, but it was
the worst
davey the gnome (10:23:19 PM): it got so bad that
my manager came out and was like "dave,
i'm taking your cash drawer, because u keep
ringing up half of people's orders and then
telling them to fuck off. now there is a line
and its all your fault. please go home"
davey the gnome (10:24:03 PM): and i kept telling
people that i could help them, but then
stopping halfway through because i realized i
had no money
davey the gnome (10:24:08 PM): and i kept doing
that
davey the gnome (10:24:18 PM): and i kept moving
around my house
davey the gnome (10:24:28 PM): i went to my living
room, my family room couch
davey the gnome (10:24:32 PM): family room floor
davey the gnome (10:24:49 PM): and they kept
following me, along with the counter and the
register
davey the gnome (10:25:39 PM): idk i guess i
thought that my manager brian was trying to
trick me into getting fired, and everyone
really wanted me to keep ringing people up
Sweetepie987 (10:26:08 PM): dave seriously...that's
scary
davey the gnome (10:26:41 PM): because i thought
that being a cashier was so important that
everyone needs you to do your job, even at 3
am.
davey the gnome (10:26:52 PM): even though
crackerbarrel closes at 10 and opens at 6 am
davey the gnome (10:27:03 PM): and i knew that
then but couldnt figure it out
Sweetepie987 (10:27:10 PM): yea that's def scary
davey the gnome (10:27:21 PM): i couldnt tell if my
bed was a place of business or not
davey the gnome (10:27:26 PM): was it my bed or
crackerbarrels bed?
davey the gnome (10:27:52 PM): and so i kept
changing spots in my house and ringing
people up until i realized i had no money
davey the gnome (10:27:56 PM): and brian came out
again
davey the gnome (10:28:26 PM): and said "listen kid,
you know that this isn't real, so just think it
out and get rid of these people
davey the gnome (10:28:33 PM): you are in your
bed, alone. i'm not here.
davey the gnome (10:28:48 PM): i'm not real, dave.
get rid of me. i know u are smart enough."
davey the gnome (10:29:02 PM): and eventually i did
get rid of everyone but i couldnt fall asleep
again
davey the gnome (10:29:11 PM): so i stayed up all
night
davey the gnome (10:29:16 PM): staring at the
ceiling
davey the gnome (10:29:47 PM): every once in a
while some fat customer would lie next to
me and stare at the ceiling but i just tried to
ignore them, even though the whole bed
moved
davey the gnome (10:30:24 PM): dad came in at 620
to "wake me up" but i was already up
davey the gnome (10:30:26 PM): and thats my story
Sweetepie987 (10:30:58 PM): eck that's really bad
davey the gnome (10:31:16 PM): yea but as long as it
doesnt happen again tonight i'll be ok
davey the gnome (10:31:31 PM): today i napped a
little, and iwas in crackerbarrel but no one
talked to me
Sweetepie987 (10:31:33 PM): tell them to come bother
me!
davey the gnome (10:31:44 PM): why would u wish
that upon yourself?
Sweetepie987 (10:31:58 PM): b/c you should get some
sleep!
Sweetepie987 (10:32:02 PM): and i love people
davey the gnome (10:32:35 PM): they were all fat
and annoying. i dont think u want them in
your room, staring at your dangly-bits
Sweetepie987 (10:32:55 PM): dangly bits?
davey the gnome (10:32:59 PM): not that u have
dangly-bits but still
Sweetepie987 (10:33:50 PM): may i ask what they are
davey the gnome (10:34:04 PM): the things that guys
have that dangle
davey the gnome (10:34:34 PM): people were
staring at my gonads because i just sleep in
boxers. it was embarrassing. i didn't know
those people.
Sweetepie987 (10:34:57 PM): i could see that being
uncomfortable
davey the gnome (10:36:02 PM): well yea, along
with having to work, being yelled at,
sweating profusely, and wanting to go home
but not knowing how, because deep down u
know that you ARE home
davey the gnome (10:36:11 PM): yea, pretty
uncomfortable
Sweetepie987 (10:36:19 PM): that's scary
of course, it's my naive notion that nothing is completely bad, and that everything has a silver lining. one good thing is that my co-workers are bitches. now, the average man would think that that is a bad thing. yes, it's not great, but at least that means i won't feel bad being a dick to them.
for instance, at work, when i'm bored or frustrated, i fart on people. usually, i am very strict about my "no farting in front of girls" policy. when i do fart in front of girls, it's almost always accidental, and usually awkward and embarrassing for me. if i try to play it up like i meant to do it, it's just because i'm embarrassed that i didn't possess enough sphinctoral fortitude.
however, at work is another story. crackerbarrel pushes you to the limit, and personal policies don't mean shit.
i make a game out of it. because i hate some of my fellow cashiers so much, i like figuring out which way they will walk and farting in their path. when they walk behind me, i let out a bomb, just to watch their face. they know it was me, and i don't care. i like to watch their face turn sour, and then confused, as they contemplate saying something to me. they never do, because everyone has manners except me.
or, i like to crop dust. if you don't know what crop dusting is, it is a term used to describe the act of farting while walking. this way, you can cover an area with your ass air, much like a plane would cover an area with pesticide. i use this technique to attack multiple victims at a time.
i don't always rely on farting to pass the time. i have an endless supply of things i like to do to keep myself interested. i threw a foam pig around the gift shop for an hour because i was the only one there. i'd knock stuff over and then not pick it up, too. and i didn't even care about the cameras. whateva, born tough.
prom and graduation happened.... and idk they were good i guess. there are no stories that go along with the two events though, so there is not really anything to write about. both were kinda dissappointing, because neither were magical. they were just things that happened. just another day.
it's not like either were bad. i mean, i had fun at both, but idk, i just expected so much.
senior prom is supposed to be one of the best nights of your life. it's not like i was expecting to get laid or anything. i could have taken some slut i didn't care about to prom if i wanted to get my proverbial "cherry" busted. sex is not what i was expecting to make the night magical. just for some reason, i had it in my head that prom night would be some amazing night that would give closure to my entire high school existence. the geeks would be prom king and queen, the good guy would FINALLY get the girl, and the bully would be punched out by some geek. none of that happened.
as it turned out, the night did not tie up loose ends, it just created more. this would be the last time my class would get together to have fun, and yet i felt no bond between me and the other people on the dance floor.
i discovered that night that i don't know most of the people in my class. i tried to find people to dance with, but had an extremely hard time finding people that i was even remotely friendly with. most people i had never seen before, seen but never talked to, or hadn't talked to all year. i spent a lot of the night moving from spot to spot on the dance floor, trying to find someone i knew. if i found a friend, i'd go over and start dancing by them, but then realizing that i wasn't dancing with my friend. i was dancing with myself, near a friend. i'd move and try to find another friend, but i'd find nothing but unfamiliar faces. i'd try to dance by myself, realize it wasn't any fun, get frustrated, and walk back to my seat.
graduation was supposed to be magical too, the final shot in every teen movie. again, it was just another night. it wasn't magical, it was hot and uncomfortable. it wasn't touching, it was boring. people were sweating, not crying. it was just another night.
also, the senior art show happened, and that is my invitation above. it went very well, and will therefore be an annual thing. i'm proud to say that i was one of the first.
"my mom seems to think that midgets have retard strength, but they don't. midgets are the fuckin easiest people to beat up."
- tommy tough nuts |
|
It started with cake.
upon boarding the Norwegian Dawn, we found our room - our home for the next week. there we found our bags, and also a couple bags of our friends who were staying in another room. one of these bags belonged to richie arvidson, our comrade. in addition to the bags, we found streamers, balloons, and posters that said "happy birthday," and a cake bearing the inscription "bon voyage"
puzzled, we looked for an explanation. it was nathanael who said, "oh, this must be like richie's early birthday present." it would not be out of the question for richie's parents to take him on a cruise for a birthday present 5 months early.
now, you have to put yourself in the moment here. nathanael putnam, alex lima, john keane and myself are in a room with richie's birthday cake, while richie is on his way. the four of us are troublemakers - it's just our way. additionally, we have a history of throwing cake, usually at richie. it didn't take us long to decide that the only right thing to do is to wait for richie to get his bag, and to pelt him in the face with this baked good that was so perfectly placed in our possession.
the plan was drawn up in a matter of seconds. the rubber mat thing that they give you to put your luggage on would be put by the door inside our room - where the deed would be done. we'd move richie's bag from outside our room (where it currently was) into the inside of our room so he'd have to go in. i'd hold the door open for richie, allowing him to pass me, so that i would be behind him to
a) make sure he can't get away and
b) ensure the safety of anyone who may have come with richie and the safety of any passerbys
i spotted richie down the hall, alerted nathanael and lima (the cake throwers) and let richie pass by me into our room.
SPLAT
richie got it right in the face, as we all yelled "happy birthday!" the cake was all over richie, hardly at all on me, and only on the rubber mat. the plan had been a sucess.
with a smile on my face and my heart pounding, i watched richie, covered in cake, turning around with a huge piece of cake that had stuck to his shoulder. it was probably 3/4 of the cake. time seemed to slow as i watched richie in slow motion turn around with 75% of a cake in his hands and a devilish smirk on his face. i saw him push the cake towards me to squish it in my face. THIS WAS NOT PART OF THE PLAN! RICHIE WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO RETURN FIRE!
i thought "oh shit, our cabin is gonna be completely covered in cake" and i threw my hands up to block the oncoming onslaught. i yelled "NOOOOOO!!!!!" as the cake hit my open hand and squished through my fingers. richie had thrust this cake at me so hard that the second it hit my hand, the cake EXPLODED! i am not talking about cake just getting all over. i am talking about a cake that was completely decimated, along with our cabin. and as i was staring in the doorway, the cake had traveled down the hall too.
i thought to myself, "oh my dear lord, that got soooo out of hand soooo fast." there were people in the hallway that witnessed the whole thing, as they looked to our door as soon as the 4 of us yelled "happy birthday." one of those people was our cleaning guy. that's awkward.
i looked around. i was a cake-splattered person in a cake-splattered hallway full of people that have to use that hallway every day. i heard kevin gilligan go, "holy crap i was sooo not involved"
there was cake not only on me and richie, but on our closet, in our bathroom, ground into the carpet from the threshold to the beds. it was on the ceilings of our room and the hall. it was on our doorframe, on our door, on our walls, on the hallway walls, on our bags, up and down the hallway from people walking. it was on neighbor's doors, smeared across pictures hanging up in the hallway, and a little bit was on the rubber mat too.
it was silent in our hallway as people just stared at me and i tried to avoid eye contact with anyone. i heard the cleaning guy mutter, "oh what is this shit?!" as korean men and women passed yelling "ANI-MAL! you ANI-MALS! ANI-MALS!"
everyone on our floor hated us. they all would have realized that we are assholes sooner or later, so i'm glad we got it out of the way now.
after that, we got cleaned up, cleaned our room for a little bit, then let our cleaning guy finish up, giving him a monsterous tip. we went up to the deck by the pool to see what we could find. what we found was a party. we looked around at the dancing people, grabbed ourselves a beer, and watched as we went under the brooklyn bridge and passed the statue of liberty. we clinked our beers together and realized that we were in for the best week ever.
we met up with everyone else, and went to explore the ship. we got to the front of the ship and saw deck after deck of places to tan. with adrenaline rushing, and a hole 2 beers in my system, i started climbing the fences and jumping from deck to deck. i'm not sure why i did it - there really was no reason to. however, i was in the moment, and i jump off of stuff all the time and have only suffered minor injuries. (actually re-reading that sentence made me realize that it's totally a lie - i've broken like 3 bones because i've jumped off things either on foot or on a skateboard) so i didn't think, i just did it. i jumped off probably 4 decks, and jumped to the last one, the one furtherest forward. for some reason, when I landed on that one, it hurt. something inside my heel kinda squished. i limped the entire cruise and am still kinda limping because i felt the urge to jump off decks for no reason, after being there for like 2 hours.
that night was like all the nights aboard the dawn- awesome. the routine was to do a couple shots of smuggled alcohol before dinner, then eat with a buzz, and drink beer for the rest of the night. as we were in international waters, the drinking age was 18. anyone that was 18 and had parental consent was allowed to have beer and wine. i was allowed to drink on the boat- it's a good think i didn't go overboard.
pun intended.
the nights were spent between restaurants, the casino, going from bar to bar, and dancing/mingling at spinnaker's lounge
eating:
the food was good because it was free. most places required reservations, like the japanese place, the steakhouse, the SALSA BAR and the red lobster-like place. because it is all free, you can order as much as you want. the first night i had 2 filet mignons and 2 lobster tails, and no one could stop me. i also met a waitress named charo and flirted with her like it was my job. if you ask her, she'd probably say that we were going out... but i'm just hittin' that.
also, there was a buffet that varied from decent to awful, and a little cafe thing that was open all night, and was perfect for the 3 am drunk munchies.
casino:
also because were in international waters, it was 18 to gamble. the first time i went, i said "ok, i'm not good at anything, especially not games. i'm gonna put down 30 bucks and if i lose, well at least i can say that i gambled." i went to blackjack, where everyone else was. i played for like an hour, or hour and a half (actually i have no idea how long i was there) and i wound up winning 265 dollars. i tried going back 3 times (sober) and i wound up losing. for some reason, when i was drunk the first time i could just tell what was coming next. i knew to only bet 1 because a bad hand was coming up. and i knew when i was gonna win so i'd make big bets. the most i ever lost was 2 chips at a time. it was weird. weird in a good way.
bar-hopping:
this is because you are only allowed one beer at time, and if they the bartender recognizes you and says that they just served you one, they can refuse to give you another. this made buying booze for other people tricky, but still possible.
spinnaker's
was the main place to be for the kids, even though it was 18 and older technically. it was a place full of dancing and mingling with all the kids on the cruise. today, i woke up in calc class and said to myself, "i think i'll go to spinnaker's tonight." when i realized i couldn't, i was hit with a rush of sadness.
originally, i thought that a lot of kids would be thinking the same thing as us. senior year spring break - let's go on a cruise. i honestly anticipated meeting a lot of fellow seniors on the cruise. the cruise was jam-packed with seniors. however, they were senior citizens, not seniors in high school. and that was never more apparent then when you walked around the deck by the pool, looking at all the people tanning in their bathing suits. looking around, you tend to start thinking to yourself, "wow, these people have NO RIGHT to wear bathing suits." saggy titties, spider veins, fat guts and liver spots all over. old people are gross.
there were probably like 60 kids there that looked like teenagers, but most of them were either with there familys, ugly, or complete douchebags. there was a large group of hippie children that hung out in the same hallway playing guitar. why would you go on a cruise to sit inside listening to some kid playing bad guitar? it made me want to smack them, rip off their grateful dead shirts, make them shower. fuckin hippies.
there were probably only about 15 kids our age that we hung out with, and most of them were from berkeley heights. they were a good lesson of quality over quantity though. there may have been a lot less kids than i expected, but they were some of the coolest kids i've ever met.
what else happened?
well, one night, kevin richie bianca sarah and ashley had a toga party. it started with them just drinking in their room, but eventually turned into a bunch of wily kids running around in bedsheets yelling. everywhere they went people would chant "toga! toga!" they ran through the casino and the pub, adorned in skimpy robes. in the pub they got videotaped and were on the morning show, which im sure most of us missed. then they found me and we partied the night away. half the time i was laughing, half the time i was covering my ears because they were yelling sooooo loudly, doing all sorts of mascot dances and whatnot.
for the rest of the cruise people would chant "toga! toga!" at them. i couldn't go anywhere with the kids without hearing people chanting. effin celebrities.
also, on wednesday we traveled to Great Stirrup Cay, NCL's private island in the bahamas. it started with danielle not being able to find her mom who had her ticket, so i stayed behind on the ship and looked for her with danielle. i went to the island later than all my friends. i got there by myself and tried to find everyone. i looked in all the large groups of people, but my friends were nowhere to be seen
so i found a dirt path that lead into the woods and said "maybe my friends are over here"
i came to a 3 way fork, and saw jungle on the left, jungle ahead, and jungle with a gate on the right. i went through the gate.
then i saw all this garbage all over and thought, "ehhhh, maybe this isnt the right way to find my friends"
i got to here and thought "yay! civilization!" i was hot and i hadn't applied sunscreen yet, and was already slightly burned. i needed to find people fast. but then some guy carrying a barrel of what i can only assume was moonshine came out and yelled at me. he said "you can't be here! turn around" and i thought "what the eff? how the hell am i supposed to know?"
then i saw this and was like "oh, that's how i'm supposed to know"
i later found all my friends, who were snorkeling. their underwaterness made it difficult to see them when i looked for them originally. i applied sunscreen but got burned anyway. i spent the day snorkeling, swimming with my buds, and playing volleyball with those same buds, a girl named aubree and a boy with long hair in a wetsuit. i skinned my knee diving for the ball because ashley and i were going all out. my scab keeps opening and bleeding. it sucks.
later, i popped in some tunes and just drank it all in
that night, i did some spiderman-like climbing and climbed to the top of the aft of the ship, where i took a picture with a windsock. i climbed on the huge blue thing on the top of the back of the boat too (by the big ncl sign), but it was hot so i didnt climb all the way up.
it was awesome.
the next day we went to miami. we got to south beach and realized that richie had a gross blister on the top of his ear. everyone puked in their mouths a little bit, and then i took a picture.
we walked around south beach and ate at johnny rocket's. all the girls in south beach have huge boobs and little covering them. but like pope john paul II always said, "if you got it, flaunt it."
richie went to the bathroom, but came back immediately to show me this posted on the door.
he had to pee and was very distraught.
he wound up going anyway.
later, he said to me that he read the "use at your own risk" part and immediately pictured a bathroom monster in there that would eat you if you peed.
following lunch, we went to a place to rent scooters, and i had to go back to the beach to get my license. there, i met this man:
i am ok with the fact that his ass is hanging out. i dont like it, it kinda grosses me out... but i accept it. all i want to know is why. seriously. why stand there, looking at the ocean, just mooning everyone? these people have no shame.
we rented bikes and drove around south beach like a bunch of badasses (except for ashley and sarah who gave up after 5 minutes because they couldn't figure it out and drove into a parked van)
it felt like we were in vice city. then john road on the sidewalk and hit a bunch of pedestrians and got 2 stars, and kevin took out flamethrower and went on a kill frenzy, and it really felt like vice city.
nathanael's brakes didn't work right, so going around a turn he fell doing like 20, nailing his chin on the pavement, and shaving off some goatee. he also skinned his knees. then some guy in a car told him to fuck off as he was lying in the middle of the road. nathanael jumped up and give him the finger. if i were nathanael i would have been lying on the ground for a half hour crying. if it were richie he'd be there all day just lying in the street while we all beat up his bike to make him feel better (its happened before.) i still can't believe how fast nathanael got up. that kid is tough as nails
after nathanael fell, it occured to us how unsafe this really is. the bikes were not in the best condition, they were rented from some sleazy guy in a seedy alley, they went really fast (john and i were going like 60) and we didnt have helmets. plus, we were in motherfucking miami, and had no idea where we were going. but you know what? it was so much fun, i'd do it again in a second, and i can say that i rode scooters around south beach and you can't.
on the way back, bianca popped richie's blister. i dry heaved.
RICHIE YOU ARE GROSS
and nathanael lost his pass so had to be escorted back onto the boat by armed guards. later on that night he got sick. it was the closest thing to a bad day that anyone had.
that night we went back to miami, this time to bayside
i was drunk and i bought a lot of shit for my friends that i thought was funny at the time but is actually NOT FUNNY. i get funny and not funny confused sometimes. i still haven't given the people their presents yet because ooooh man they are going to hate them.
And that's when things got out of control.
thursday was miami, and then friday and saturday was supposed to be completely at sea, with us docking at 5 am on sunday. now originally, we were supposed to go to nassau in the bahamas, but shit got fucked. i've heard a couple rumors, including one about a motorcycle show in nyc... but the majority of people seem to think that the reason we never went to nassau was because of one man with a bad toupee. donald trump
word on the seas is that donald trump wanted to film an episode of the apprentice aboard norwegian cruise line's largest and most awesome ship - the dawn. to do this we had to be docked earlier than usual. this is the reason that we didn't go to nassau, and also the reason that we were in the location that we were in- in the middle of a storm. had we gone to nassau supposedly we would have missed it.
now at first i thought "damn people start weird rumors" because i had heard like 4 different reasons that we were not going to nassau... and each was different. but i am starting to believe this donald trump business, because as time went on, this was the only rumor i heard- the other ones just stopped being said. also, my chemistry teacher said that she heard on the radio that a family from mt arlington (the mckay's) were sueing ncl because they put us in danger because of some reality tv show. also, it make sense that ncl would have tried to force us through the storm, because they obviously really wanted to get back in time. bad enough to risk going through a huge ass storm. i read in the paper that they are going through a federal investigation, so hopefully we'll get even more reimbursment.
now, i know everyone heard the whiny bitches on the news talking about how they thought they were gonna die. i'll tell you all what i've been telling everyone that i see. the first day i got back i told the same story and answered the same questions in all of 9 periods, even standing in front of the class in 5 of my classes.
No, it was not as bad as you saw on the news.... but keep in mind that i was drunk. yea there was a lot of damage to the ship, but that didn't bother me. i'm sure however, that if i were on the tenth floor where the 2 windows broke, i'd be singing a different tune. these people had water pouring in, flooding their cabin. in the front of the ship, some of decks 9 and 10 were evacuated. earlier, some of deck 8 was evacuated because of a break in a pipe or something. so yes, there were people sleeping in the lobbies, but as i was not one of them, i don't really care.
the papers and the tv shows aren't lying. those things happened. people were crying and they probably thought they were going to die. i'm not saying that these things you saw and read were lies, i'm just saying that the whole ship wasn't like that.
friday the boat rocked all day, so i guess ncl wanted to save themselves from a riot and declared that it was and open bar. as someone much more clever/gay said - it was beer o'clock and the waves were buyin. so instead of throwing on my lifejacket and trying to put my head between my knees like all the pussies, i did what any self-respecting teenager would do. i got blitzed.
the first beer of open bar that i got was served to me in a fucking glass. let it be clear that i had purchased several, and i mean SEVERAL beers prior to this, and NOT ONE of them was served in a glass. then all of a sudden the bartenders serve me beer in a open glass filled to the brim while we are traveling through a tempest, and the boat is rocking like a seesaw. sober people were stumbling like drunkards, and bottles were falling off walls of bars all over the ship. i got the beer in the casino, just after a poker table tipped over and FELL ON SOME LADY. if your tables are falling over, why give me a beer in an open cup, filled to the brim? it's an accident waiting to happen
so the only real ways that the huge storm that almost killed me actually affected me are as follows:
1) free beer
2) broken shit everywhere
3) puke stains on carpets all over
4) the distinct and overwhelming scent of vomit in EVERY SINGLE elevator
5) crying people that are fun to laugh at
i dont really mind broken shit, but smelling vomit isn't that great. but considering that throughout the 3 nights that we had open bars (friday saturday and sunday) i probably consumed over 300 dollars in beer, it was worth it. gimme 300 dollars and i'll sniff all the puke you want.
i mentioned broken shit, and here is a taste. this is in charleston, where we docked on saturday to fix the windows. ahead of us is another norwegian boat, possibly also in charleston for the same reasons we were. seen on the lower deck are 2 crew hot tubs that got ripped up. there used to be a blue middle in them, but they got lifted out by the wind and blow out to sea. also, the deck above that has a broken handrail.
saturday poolside- rhythm explosion, the reggae band (and best band ever) played "rock the boat."
rock the boat (don't rock the boat baby)
rock the boat (don't tip the boat over)
which is funny because the night before, the boat almost tipped over.
and the lady with the piano in gatsby's was playing the theme from titanic. later on they played titanic in the movie theater. titanic is never a good movie to play on a huge cruise ship, especially not after something like that. classy move, ncl
later on saturday, after 300 people got off the ship at charleston, we were watching the tv that was in our room. on cnn some crazy bitch was talking about how she called her daughter or something to say that she might not be coming home... or maybe that was in the paper. either way the lady was talking about how she thought she was gonna die, how she was insulted that it was open bar ("they wanted us DRUNK!"), and how it was the trip from hell, and how she was so glad that it was over.
nathanael, john, lima and i just look at each other and screamed, "we're still on that ship!"
we laughed, clinked our beers together, and had the best night of our lives.
it wasn't really rocky after that.
we found out that we would be getting back on monday, a day late, and would miss a day of school. the rest of the trip was spent drinking free alcohol and hanging out with cool people
jessie laura moira francheska john julia nicole massimo sean tyler amanda george kevin and dan
and of course
lima john nathanael richie mark kevin keesh bianca sarah and ashley
thank you for the best 8 days of my life.
 |
|
YEA MOTHAFUCKA IT'S SPRINGTIME!
these couple of weeks are my favorite time of year. I'm talking early spring, right after the last snowfall, before allergy season. the first warm day of the year is always my happiest. it is a time when you can go outside without a coat and see for miles because the leaves haven't grown back yet. there is nothing better than driving the whole way home with the windows open, even though it's just a little bit too cold to be comfortable - just because you want so badly for it to be spring.
enough gay shit, let's tell a story
ok so we are at the boys lacrosse game vs. chatham. its me, chris, alan szarejko, alkesh, and a poopload of other cats. chris has to go to work at 5 to cover for dan gregory who plays jv lax. chris goes to leave, but finds himself blocked in. he was close to the fence, near the football field in the side parking lot. the diagram shows better than i can explain:
so he comes back to the parents to figure out who is the moron, and it turns out that its a chatham mom who is parked in the aisle. he tells her his situation, and that he is due at work, and she is like, "oh, well mrs. taylor parked behind me, so i'm blocked in. i can give you her name, it's mrs. taylor. she's right over there, doing the stats. so, sorry, but i can't do anything about it."
frustrated, chris walked away. he isn't going to stop this mrs. taylor person from doing the stats in the middle of the game, and even if he did, there was someone behind her that would have to move. these two people didnt do anything wrong- they parked in the parking spaces. the stupid chatham lady is the one who should be inconvenienced. chris called work and explained the situation.
the game started off badly, as chatham put goal after goal past us. our boys, NAY, OUR MEN didn't give up though - it's not in our blood. the roxbury varsity lacrosse team started fighting back. off to our right, some doofus with a monopod snapped digital stills. to our left, the rich women of chatham sat with their faces so severely botoxed that they were stuck in permanent smiles. they passed around a baby, and took turns sticking their corpse-like countenances right in the baby's face. i can only imagine his fright as the infant endured tight, unmoving face after tight, unmoving face. dear god, please don't let this experience be the first memory of this child's life.
Tensions ran high that afternoon, especially the tensions of one chris clements. roxbury brought it to within one, quite a feat against this chatham team. some stuff happened, and then number 37 did something bad (idk i wasn't really paying attention) and he got a penalty. we all started yelling at him (including me, even though i didnt even know what happened) and then chris yells at the top of his lungs, "WHOEVER IS THE LEGAL GUARDIAN FOR NUMBER 37 SHOULD BE ASHAMED THAT HE IS YOUR SON." everyone laughed, although the laughs we laughed had just the slightest hint of nervousness, because none of us were sure if that was over the line or not. considering we were right next to the parents, we thought, "uh oh, that might mean trouble"
sure enough, a chatham mother (whose face was stretched as tight as spandex pants on a fat lady) came over to complain. the following is the conversation that took place, as best as i can remember it:
chatham lady: listen, i dont mind positive cheering, but i don't like all that negative SHIT
Chris: oh yea? well i dont like.... that you don't like that (he later explained that he was going to say "oh yea? well i don't like your FACE" but controlled himself)
chatham lady: it's bad sportsmanship
Chris: you know what's bad sportsmanship? blocking my car in so i can't go to work
chatham lady: i can't control that
Chris: i know you can't control that
chatham lady (angry): just DONT say anything BAD!
Chris: I'LL SAY WHATEVER I WANT TO SAY!
(chatham lady starts walking away)
Chris: HEY THEY DID A NICE JOB ON YOUR FOREHEAD! BARELY ANY WRINKLES!
meanwhile there are parents everywhere, including on the bench on which we were sitting.
i just put my head down and shook my head, chuckling. chris looks at me and goes
chris: what?
me: you were so out of line
chris: SHE'S out of line. she's trying to take away my personal rights!
me: i dunno, that was still pretty out of line
chris: but........ she said shit...
we lost the game, but walked away smiling
in other news, scavenger hunt is coming up soon. get on a team if you got a pair.
leave a message below
also, i like making people jealous, and i have a lot to envy. newest reason for you to wish that you were me:
i am going on a cruise. i leave sunday, april 10th, 2005 and come back the following sunday. it goes to florida and to the bahamas, was very inexpensive, and is going to rock. furthermore, i will be going with a buncha my pals, including richie arvidson, kevin gilligan, nathanael putnam, alkesh trivedi, john keane, alex lima, mark solis, bianca sheldon, sarah cummings, and ashley cryan. also in attendance will be richie's sister danielle and mrs. arvidson.
jealous yet? if not : once we hit international waters, the drinking age is 18, which i am over.
i feel bad for anyone who isn't on that list. even if you are going somewhere, the party is gonna be with us. sorry.
(i don't really get to gloat very often, because i have virtually no talents, i dont often compete in anything and when i do i am consistently in last place, and nobody really likes me. so when i do get the opportunity to gloat, i kinda just run with it. so sorry if i made you feel bad about me going on a cruise to awesometown and you staying in jersey.)
give me a text during the week
this post is kinda light on content, so i'll throw in a buncha random stuff that i have done but never put up
this is supposed to be jackie slane. i drew this a while ago in paint and i never put it up because it doesn't really look like jackie and i'm not very happy with it. it took me a long time to do it though, so i guess it would be a waste to not put up
also, dana tedesco and jackie kinda went ape shit about uncle jesse for a while. they said that he was awesome and that joey gladstone was gay. so i seached around the internet and found this. it's a real picture.
i never really finished it because it got boring and the whole uncle jesse thing kinda died out when everyone realized that joey was the best uncle.
also, i have no idea why i made this, but it probably stemmed from some conversation i had with julie about her peeing and taking pictures of it? idk, i was pretty surprised when i saw it because i dont really remember doing it and its so unnecessary and lewd. idk, don't ask. let's not talk about it ever again.
and i only showed a few people the mark of sneed during sneedmania
alright dudes, i gotta go. rock the stax is tonight and i dont wanna miss mAlice in Wonderland!
(i love how malice in wonderland is so bad that just saying their name is a punchline. if you haven't heard them, i have a demo. it is so bad that you will honestly lose the little respect that you had for any member of that band. it isn't even funny bad. it's just the kind of bad that makes you not want to listen to them anymore.)
"My grandmother used to tell me stories all the time, but then she died, and now we don't talk that much anymore."
-alex kaplan (care of rj canning) |
|
Hi.
It has been a while since my last post, which means that I have to now sloppily throw an update together, just so people know that I am still alive. i AM still alive.
here are some pictures that have slightly amusing stories that go with them.
 this is what the parking lot looks like at 7:27 AM on a day that we have a 90 minute delay. it was just me and mr. huynh in the parking lot, and i figured that "alright, if my calculus teacher made the same mistake as i did, i'm not THAT retarded." however, i am THAT retarded, because he got there early on purpose. he made fun of me the entire week.
 this is a picture of me with a scraped arm. today, i look at that same arm and see not only a scrape, but a bruise and swelling. the aforementioned scrape happened in the m hall/b hall staircase. sarah cummings was in front of me, and some other people were there, including renee tybus, jon palacio, and i think alkesh. because i have no respect for anything, and because i don't know what is funny and not funny, i decide to kick sarah in the butt, as we all descend the stairs. my right foot makes contact with her toosh, and my weight is supported by my left. all of a sudden, my weight-bearing left foot slips. i fall upon the stairs, and my right arm (pictured) attempts to break my fall. mind you, i am on stairs, and gravity is in full affect, so i begin to slide down the stairs. i hear "whumpwhumpwhumpwhumpwhump" as my right arm bashes against every stair. i think in my head "wow i've been sliding for a long time." suddenly, i stop sliding, and hear my peers laughing at my misfortune. their laughs are quiet and controlled - the laugh of a person who is trying desperately to not laugh, trying desperately to put on a "concerned" face. i jump up and state, "WOW! that is karma! i really deserved that. there was no reason to kick sarah, serves me right."
i said that for the mere reason of focusing on something else other than, "holy shit my arm hurts."
 MARCH 11th, 2005 - Dave Szarejko turns 18. i got a buncha cool stuff that you dont care about. everyone knew it was my birthday because i carried around a jungle book balloon all day, care of maria ryerson. also, sarah made me a dinosaur cake, which was simply off da chainz. i walked into study with said dinosaur cake, and all the ladies and the fellas were like "wow, that is some cake." one of those ladies was a librarian, and she decided that she would have a piece of that cake, or die trying.
this mystery lady, this unknown lanier, this enigmatic librarian came up to me and wished me a happy birthday. she then invited me and my entourage to the BACK VIP LOUNGE in the library. we walked through a door that i'd never been through, and saw a vast network of librarian rooms, nooks, and cranies, that i never knew existed. we walked through the cavern-like rooms until we got to a room with a big table. there, the librarian offered us a place to enjoy the t-rex, santa plates and napkins, cups, and a bottle of iced motherfuckin tea. you can't mix cake and iced tea with ashley cryan, richie avidson, sarah cummings, jackie slane, and myself, and expect that you won't get a party.
in the back room, the VIP lounge, the champagne room, if you will, we munched on my birthday cake and slurped down the tea. quickly i realized that this was the best period of school that i'd ever had. some of my closest friends were here, in the champagne room, eating cake and drinking tea, rehashing old memories, and begging richie to make something sexy - all in my honor. it was the best birthday party i've ever had, and it was completely spontaneous. it is not often that strangers come up to you and say "happy birthday, feel like having a birthday party in the library VIP lounge with your best friends while your peers are in class? i'll bring the drinks."
alright, i think i've made you sufficiently jealous. that lady kept walking in while we were eating, so we offered her a piece and she was all like "why, um, i guess, sure, i mean, if u have extra i supposed i could have just a little sliver. no, not that small of a sliver, make it bigger." as if she wasn't just nice to her so we would share the cake.
school was the best day ever that day, and afterwards darren chan got a buncha people to go to lung yung in my honor, but then wound up not being able to go (we missed you.) the chinese was nothing short of delicious. after that, richie, alkesh and i went to the driving range, hit forty balls, and then ran around the driving range picking up balls and then hitting them, because no one was there.
later that night, maria and i went to best buy to exchange/purchase some awesome dvd's, and i broke a chair. after watching some freaks and geeks, mr. bean, and other stuff, we found ourselves at buddy's- a constant in all good nights (and bad ones.)
chris got off work, and we walked outside to find the most beautiful snow ever. the flakes were the size of quarters, and floated down ever so gracefully from the heavens. normally, after buddy's, we might have bid each other goodnight, gone to our cars, and gone home, but something was different. something made us linger around, not eager to get into our cars. something was in the air that night- and that thing was snow.
it didn't take long for someone to throw a snowball. the snow was perfect for packing - one could simply reach down and scoop up a snowball. chris threw a snowball at grandstaff. grandstaff threw it back and almost hit me. i threw one back at kevin. miller threw one at me. the teams were set, and the command was given to fire at will.
horrified onlookers looked on as blood was spilled in the buddy's parking lot. 100 mile per hour balls of frozen water zoomed past my head from all directions, as i weaved in and out of cars to get a good position on the charlie. tiffany reilly picked up some snowballs and tried to throw them at my head, but her jello-like arm was too weak, and her snowballs plopped about a foot and a half away from where she was standing. annoyed that human beings could be made so pathetic, i threw a snowball at her face and knocked her unconscious, her crimson blood spewing from her skull, dying the brilliantly white snow a dull, deep red.
chris miller had to go home to change his tampon, but luckily dan maxwell, pictured above, arrived and took his place. along with him was courtney inge, who kinda just threw snowballs at everyone. i actually did hit her in the face, and i felt terrible. tiffany reilly was still bloodied and bashed, unconsciously bleeding into the snow a few feet away.
once we spilled so much blood that we became dizzy, we decided to just be friends, and live a life of peace. so then we made snowmen and hit them with our cars.
like that scene in stand by me, all of our friends dissappeared one by one, until it was just me and maria. we realized that the snow on the ground made driving dangerous. then we laughed in danger's face and did donuts in the parking lot until the night closed in.
the following night, dan maxwell, pictured above, invited chris, courtney, and i to see his band play at a basement show in chatham. dan and his guitarist both mashed too hard and broke like 17 strings between the two of them, but his band, novelty tag, was phenominal none the less.
the people in chatham were pretty nice. i met my doppleganger (this kid dan looked very similar to me, had the same hair and same interests, and was born on the same day as me.) also, chris drank douche.
for some reason, they had a disposable douche on the table, and we were joking with it the whole night. everyone was making a big deal about how they tricked a drunk kid to drink a shot of it last week. then some drunk whore sprayed me with it, and i was like "ah! i'm covered in douche!" Then, i turned my head for some reason, and when i looked back, i saw chris holding the douche above my drink. i asked him if he squirted any in, and of course he said no, and that he had put it up like he was gonna but then didn't. everyone agreed. i believed him, but inspected the drink anyway. i found a clear, vinegary liquid on the top of the can, and realized that chris was an asshole, and almost got me to drink douche. then courtney said that she'd give me 5 bucks to drink some. seemingly fed up that people were making such a big deal about unused douche, chris said "thats such a bad deal, i'd drink douche for free." and then he fucking did it.
needless to say, his face was priceless when he squirted the crustyvagina cleaner into his mouth and swallowed it. he said it was a lot worse than he expected, because he thought it was just water and vinegar. however, its water and vinegar AND its sorbic acid AND octoxynol 9, whatever the fuck that is.
whatever, how many people can say that they drank douche? chris is in the rare doucedrinking club, and chris is big on rare clubs.
parties are much different for drunk people than they are for sober people. drunk people's main concern involves more beer, having fun, and hooking up. sober people's main concern is laughing at drunk people.
 
at the beginning of the night, this girl was telling me about last time she was here, and how she was so drunk that she put this huge head thing on and made and ass out of herself. i was like "yea, you should do that again" but she promised me that she'd never be drunk enough to do that again. you don't even need me to tell you this, but at the end of the night i asked her to put it on, and she did, after stumbling around and drooling on herself a little.
sunday- chris, kevin, and i went to new brunswick to see atx play at the battle of the bands. the directions chris got online sucked, so we asked a lady that worked at office depot, and she fuckin LIED to our faces. we went 20 miles out of our way, and got lost in linden because we went north when we should have gone south, when my gut instinct said to go south. on the way out, chris even said "we should talk to someone else, just to get a second opinion." then he asked a cardboard cut out of a nascar driver that was standing in the doorway. we stood around for a second, because we knew we should ask someone else that wasn't made of cardboard, but that would involve going back into the store and walking around and finding someone - a lot of work. so then, chris FOR NO REASON, stabs the cardboard cut out with his keys, and yells "yo EFF YA BRAIN." and runs away, saying that we gotta get outta there - he had just killed a man.
we found ourselves saying "eff ya brain" all day. it's fun to say. try it.
i documented the experience here. you can also see pictures of my beautiful daughter, maconjay jones. we are all very proud of her. she's quite a handful but she's the best thing that's ever happened to me.
also, for whatever reason, i was looking at maria upside-down, and realized that upside-down faces can look like regular faces if u have some imagination. the eyes are like regular eyes, and the eyebrows are like a mustache. i drew on my face that night, and then went back and digitally drew on maria's face:
 
Also, scavenger hunt 3 is currently being masterminded by RJ Canning, Chris Clements, Darren Chan, and myself. the hunt will be the biggest yet, as it will require the use of a car, and will take place in the roxbury area and its neighboring cities, and will take up an entire day. some challenges require spending money (such as buying a crave case and having only 2 people finishing it.) the teams will be of 4 people, and video cameras are REQUIRED. if you show up without a camera, there is nothing anyone can do. also, there will be an entrance fee that will be split up among the winners, but dont worry, darren and i are not allowed to touch the money. get back to one of us four, or leave a comment on here if u are interested. |
|
1. dave the gnome
an obsession with midgets. a fascination with small extremities and knub like apendages. Also affiliated with the scent of cabbage.
"I went to the circus last night, and was overcome by a sense of davey the gnome"
a couple of my friends started calling haircuts "shape ups," and now it takes me a while to remember the word "haircut."
example
"oh, hey kevin. i like the shape.... i mean i like the ..... um. i like the way that your hair is cut. what do they call that, when u get your hair cut? you get a.... not a shape up, but a.... "
-"you mean a haircut?"
"yea, those. nice haircut."
eff you chris, and eff you andrew.
damn.... this past week has been fantastic. that long weekend was pretty much the best ever. then tuesday was the best day ever because i laughed a lot in school, and then went to THREE basketball games with maria. the bleachers make your butt feel both tender and sore after 10 minutes, and numb after 20, so everyone respect our dedication. wednesday and today not much happened, but still they were awesome days. this past week i've been just happy for no real reason, and i think we can all agree that that is QUITE good.
once in a while u have those really good days that seem to come from nowhere, and happen for no reason. the same bad stuff happens, but for some reason it doesn't get to you. suddenly, when people cut you off, you don't yell, "get your head out of your ass, fartmouth!" Instead, you just kinda smile and say, "oh, you."
idk what it is, the same stuff is happening, but days have been more fun. i still don't really get what dr. upton is talking about, gym is gay, spencer is still creepy, and calc is still boring.
speaking of spencer, that chunky little tub of chub is just too cute to not draw
i tried to make his words all childishly written, because that is how he talks - like he is a child... with down syndrome.
also idk why i gave him black hair, but im too lazy to fix it now so deal with it.
also, i drew mr. huynh, because he got really mad at me. before it happened, i couldn't imagine what mr huynh would look like angry. after "the incident," it still seems unnatural. i still can't believe how angry he got. and ya know, a brotha didn't even do nuttin.
it's not a funny story, but i'll tell it anyway. first off, i fell asleep in class, so idk maybe that made him angry, but it shouldn't have and here's why. i used to fall asleep nearly every day, 3 times a week at the minimum, but usually every day. mr huynh then asked me if i could do him a favor and only sleep once a week, so i said that i would try. however, after midterms, i didn't fall asleep at all. i dazed off a couple times, but never any legitimate sleep. yesterday was the first time since midterms, which isn't too bad if you ask me
alright, so i wake up and everyone is quiet. after i wipe the drool from my cheek, i figure out that i am in calc class. my ass and left leg are numb, like the pins and needles kind of numb. i have red marks all over my arms and hands, and probably my face. i proudly show my classmates my red marks. no one cares.
i look around and see people looking at a worksheet, and shuffle through my notebook, looking for it. renee, seeing that i can't find it, states that we received the paper yesterday. i think, "i should have this paper, for i was here yesterday." i still can't find it, so i ask mr, huynh, in the sweetest voice as can be, "mr. huynh, dear friend, may i please have a worksheet, for i am afraid that in my negligence i misplaced it." or something like that
my huynh looks at me and says nothing. i look around, idk some more stuff happens, and i ask again. still nothing. i say something to renee and danielle, some jokes are exchanged, and some time passes- let's say 2 minutes.
i still don't have a worksheet, so i say, "seriously, mr huynh, i need a worksheet."
i don't remember exactly what he said next, probably because i never understood it, but he said something like, "dave, stop asking me that question. you ask me over and over if you ask me again i kick you out of class."
as usual, i have no idea if he is joking or not, so i kinda just laugh, uncomfortable as ever.
i look over at him at the overhead that he loves so much, and he is looking up at me, staring with those beady eyes. like a teller of a scary story with a flashlight under his chin, the light from the projector beams up at his face , making mr. huynh look intimidating. this is the first time in his life that mr. huynh is associated with the word "intimidating." he stares at me intently.
after hearing my laughter, mr huynh says, "what? you think this is a joke? you don't think i can kick you out?"
i realize that he is not, in fact, joking, so i poop my pants a little bit. i stumble to find an apology, stuttering like a LITTLE BITCH. i manage to stutter out something like, "uh, n-no i know that you c-can, i didn't realize i was being disrespectful. im im im im sorry." i poop my pants a little more, tears come pouring out like a faucet, and i snot all over my face. i feel like im dying.
so anyway, they continue with their worksheet, and i STILL don't have one, but im too busy crying and pooping myself to care.
i told u it wasn't a good story. here is the picture
also we did a project for english about what our utopia would be, and my groups would be a society where we wouldn't have to do anything, monkeys would just do all the work. it was probably the stupidest thing i've ever had my name attached to but i got to photoshop a chimp with drinks so whatever.
alright, here are some videos i took. if your computer doesn't play them, idk what to tell you, because i've tried to figure it out, realized that i can't even figure out shoelaces (hence the velcro) and then gave up. i suggest finding someone whose computer plays them, and being real nice to them.
ashley singing- at one of the mad chillens, ashley got retarded and started singing the barney song. so i made her sing it again because it was just so cute, in a sloppy way.
the lion dances- Also, I posted pictures of my trip to chinatown and the gates (where i saw the mothereffin artists) but i also took a video. the sound does not do it justice, and when you are actually there it is way cooler - an experience too amazing to be video taped. but here it is anyway. i almost get trampled by a lion, as i am just a little lost white boy in chinatown.
in tv and film, we get a paper that says that disney's fantasia was made in 1940, and dumbo was made in 1941. after reading it, matt urgo asks "which came first?" so i do one of my fabulous impressions:
"DUH... mr. cooper, which comes first, 1940 or 1941? how does time work?"
the, later on, mr. cooper said that everything starts in hollywood (clearly talking about movies, and trends in the film industry) and matt goes "dur, except for mardi gras. that started in new orleans, france." |
|
Today we got our sheets for senior class personalities.
like everything i do, i am putting a lot of thought into this, and would like to share with you my picks so far. i'm not done, and everything is subject to change, but i figured i'd post this with the sole purpose of swaying your opinions to match my own, so that my friends win everything.
actually, in all seriousness, i didn't do this because of personal attachment, these are my honest opinions. don't come up to me and be like, "why wasn't I on your list?" because i'll have to say to you, "because you're ugly and i only like pretty people." like alicia pyrillis
Category |
Girls |
Boys |
Most Talkative |
|
Josh Lehrer |
Most Popular |
Danielle Rosatelli |
Mark Solis |
Class Flirts |
|
Dan Braico |
Funniest Laugh |
Bianca Sheldon |
RJ Canning |
Coolest Car |
AC Slater Holmes |
Kevin Gilligan |
Did Most for RHS |
|
|
Quietest |
|
Greg Najda |
Nicest Personality |
Sarah Cummings |
Kevin Grandstaff |
Most Musical |
|
|
Most Athletic |
|
Mike Cancilleri |
Nicest Smile |
Stephy Brosko |
Doug Kitchin |
Best Looking |
|
|
Class Personalities |
Jackie Slane |
Chris Clements |
Friendliest |
Ashley Cryan |
|
Most Artistic |
Megan Doran or
Ryann Harris |
Ryan Jouas |
Most Dramatic |
Dari Matilsky |
Mike Turley |
Class Couple |
Patricia Whatever |
Alicia Pyrillis |
Most Likely to Succeed |
|
Darren Chan |
Most School Spirit |
|
|
Best Dressed |
|
Scott Daniels |
Nicest Eyes |
Grace Crowley |
Mike Crowley |
Most Scholastic |
Dana Harrington |
|
Most Original |
Courtney Inge or
Veronica Doriety |
|
Best All Around |
Heather Grady |
Richie Arvidson |
Now to defend myself:
Most Talkative everyone that has spoken to josh lehrer knows that he would go on forever if you let him
Most Popular this is a hard thing to judge but I think that mostly everyone knows Mark and Danielle. they have always been very nice to me, so I'll assume that they are nice to all, and therefore are liked by all.
Class Flirts Dan Braico will flirt with anything that walks, and he's good at it. he practically swept Ms. Larosa off her feet, and we all know that Ms. Larosa is a tough catch.
Funniest LaughBianca has probably the most memorable laugh that i can think of.
RJ was the only guy whose laugh i could remember. maybe i'm just putting him down because he is one of the few people who i can make laugh
Coolest CarAprilcrystalhelenholmes has a 60,000 dollar car or something. i dont know jack shit about cars, but the fact that someone would waste sixty thousand dollars on a car for a 17-year-old, and trust it in the parking lot not to get hit or keyed makes me just go, "alright holmes family, you win. april crystal can have coolest car."
kevin has a pretty car too. one of john hosking's cars is really nice too it think, he said it has 405 horsepower, which i guess sounds impressive. he doesn't drive it to school though so kevin wins.
Did most for RHS i dont really know anyone who has done anything for rhs. someone said losey, but i am not so sure. she might be working hard for all i know, but i haven't seen results yet so i'm not impressed. no offense or anything. if you dont like what i have said, losey, then bring it. i will thumb wrestle you into submission
Quietest I onlye hear Greg Najda speak when he's discussing electron configuration and garbage like that in chem. the only other time i have heard his voice is when he told me to tell my study hall teacher that he was gonna be late. i didn't even know he was in my study hall, and i had to describe him and do an impression of him to my study hall teacher so she would know who i was talking about, because i was too embarrassed to ask him his name because he knew mine. man, if that doesn't make you feel like a jerk.
Nicest Personality some may say, "of course you put Sarah on here because you two are friends." but not so, child. not so. i don't think that she has a great personality because she is my friend, she is my friend because i think she has a great perssonality. she is bubbly, quirky, funny, friendly, and fun to be with. time with sarah cummings is time well spent.
kevin grandstaff is not only a stud, not only a fan of this website, not only nice, but funny as well. between writing songs, dunking basketballs, and doing backflips, there is not much that this guy can't do. and the whole time, this mofo has a smile on his face
Most Musical i don't travel down "that hallway," so i don't really know anything about the weirdos down there. someone talented help me out with this one
Most Athletic canci plays football, wrestling, and lacrosse, and is exceptional at all three. doug says that mike works really hard at all three, and might play all 3 in college, so mike wins.
Nicest Smile Stephy is a hottie bo-bottie, and i think i have like 2 or 3 pictures that talk about doug kitchin's golden smile. his smile is pretty much the only good thing about him, so just let him win this to make him feel good about himself.
Best Looking as far as i'm concerned i should win for both girls and guys here, because i'm definitely the hottest guy out there, and if put myself in drag, i'm the hottest girl out there too. unfortunately, i decided not to put myself on my own sheet because everyone would be like "oh yea, dave should win everything because he's probably the best human being ever invented"
Class Personalities someone said that julie brady and i should win this, but im annoying. julie brady however, is chock full of personality, and would make a good fit here too. however, there is no funniest category, so i used this as funniest. in my opinion, jackie is just a smidge funnier than julie, but then again jackie is one of my best friends. alls i knows is that when jackie is present, there are very few times that i'm not laughing so hard that i make skid marks (just a little... don't judge me.)
Chris Clements is probably the funniest kid i've ever met. his quick wit and intelligent jokes are matched by no one, and they more than make up for all the times he says some variation of "fat tuggins"
friendliest Ashley Cryan is one of the sweetest girls ever manufactured. she'll give you a smile and a wave even if you had just previously punched her in her mouth. other people that have showed me kindness for no reason include Renee Tybus and Grace Crowley, which are honorable mentions.
Most Artistic Ryan Jouas is, without rival, the best male art student. however, the choice is a little harder in the female department.
it is hard to distinguish the best artist out of Veronica Doriety, Ryann Harris, Megan Doran, Melody Idakaar, Randi Markovits, and even Christina Buonomo. These girls are all good in their own way, but i narrowed it down to Megan and Ryann. Megan works more, as she is in the art room almost the whole day, but Ryann seems to be more knowledgable about art, and can better tell you why something is good or bad.
Most Dramatic again, this is hard for me to do because i don't give a shit about drama, but i think mike and dari were in the play or something, right? if you consider drama to be the other way, like a drama queen kinda thing, its a whole new game. however, interpretting "most dramatic" that way is kinda like saying "biggest whiners" and is negative, so lets just go with who's in drama
Class Couple alicia and patricia are often joked about as being the class couple, because they are lesbians, but it actually must be hard for them to stay together, considering all the shit people put them through. What is worse for them, is that they aren't even the hot kind of lesbians that makes my computer slow because i have way too many videos of.
the only other options that i have heard of are kara winans and whoever is going out with kara winans, and mike silo and whoever he is going out with. i dont know these people. i don't even know who mike silo is. fuck mike silo, give it to the gross dykes.
Most likely to succeed darren chan is very smart, but also has people skills, which is important to success. he wants to own a parking garage in new york city when he grows up. i don't think u need to go to columbia for that, darren. save your money
Most School Spirit most people i talk to don't like rhs
Best Dressed i dont really pay attention to clothing, but scott wears women's pants. i like to see innovation.
Nicest Eyes it would be very cute if the twins won this. mike and grace both have nice eyes. i could go into further detail about how nice grace's eyes are, but talking about mike's eyes makes me uncomfortable, so let's just leave it at "mike and grace both have nice eyes"
Most Scholasticwhen i used to have classes with Dana, she was very organized and studious, and i think she's like top 2 or 3 at least in rankings. idk what guy is studious though. i thought james marconi but he's in my calc class and isn't as nerdy as he used to be, and andrew adams falls asleep a lot, so idk.
Most Originalpeople interpret this as being "different clothes" which isn't really right. there was already a category for clothes. i've heard people talking about this category, and someone was like, "no... scott daniels is more original because he wears women's pants." and someone else said, "his clothes aren't original, they are just different from people in our school. he just wears metal stuff." whatever the arguement is, originality is about the way you think, not about the way you dress.
with that said, veronica and courtney are both unconventional thinkers. sometimes you can't kind of predict was most people will say next, but that doesn't happen with these two, because they are different and unconventional people - they might not necessarily stand out physically in a crowd, but their ideas and personalities do, because they are original.
Best All Around Heather Grady is incredibly hot, and thus has a right to be a bitch. if she was a bitch it would be totally acceptable. However, she's nice, and is friends with everyone, even the nerds. But it doesn't end there. Heather is not only nicer than she should be, she is also incredibly fun to be with. unless she is having a bad day because she ruined another car or something, heather will brighten your day as only she could. In addition, HG is incredibly smart, organized, and outgoing, and is sure to go far, possibly a candidate for must likely to succeed as well. heather grady is the total package.
Richie on the other hand, isn't beautiful, at least not on the outside. once you get past his hideously hairy exterior, you find an obscure, confusing man. this unshaven beast will make you happy to be alive even on his rare bad days. i will give one hundred dollars to anyone that can spend time with richie and not laugh. richie makes bad days good. Richie can take any object, movable or stationary, and simply by rubbing up against it, can make it sexy. richie has a lot of money, but spends a lot on his friends because he is generous. richie is nice to everyone, and is loved by all. all of the annoying things that people do, like talking behind peoples backs, richie doesn't do. richie can laugh off any insult. richie doesn't even need to shower, use deodorant, or brush his teeth, because he is intrinsically clean. richie can bend steel with his hands and his teeth. richie can handle any situation. richie can clean any mess. richie is immune to fire. richie has had all of his shots. richie can make people ejaculate by focusing on their genitals. richie was the first man in space- the monkey that the US shot up was really him, because he hadn't shaved in a week. richie built his own house. richie invented the lightbulb and edison took credit. richie's immune system can beat up your immune system. richie is best all around
Disagree? leave me a comment (make sure you leave your name somewhere) and tell me who you think deserves to win what, and why. i'm sure there are just people that i haven't thought of |
|
Have you ever gotten to a point when you realize that everyone around you wants to grow up, but you just want things to stay the same?
It seems to me that most of my comrades can't wait to go to college, and I'm the only fella who wants to stay in Roxbury. I'm in no way saying that i want to be one of those seniors from last year that sit in the Buddy's parking lot every night revving their engines, all I'm saying is that I'm not ready to move on.
Most people believe that Roxbury is a boring place to live. I don't entirely disagree with that statement, because there are many nights when it is hard to find something to do. However, most people don't realize that a night is only as fun as you make it. Fun is not determined by what you do, but how you do it. I have spent many a night standing in a parking lot with a bunch of my friends, having the time of my life, while everyone else goes, "This is gay, roxbury is gay. nothing ever happens." Nothing ever happens unless you make it- in my eyes, all you need to have fun is a parking lot, good tunes and good friends. Spending a night dancing in a parking lot is a good night for me, and it could be for everyone else if they would just accept the fact that there is nothing else better going on, and even if there is, you're not there, so make the most of what you have.
I don't mean to preach, I'm simply saying this to justify my point. I don't want to grow up. those people with a pipe in their respective anus would call me immature, but i don't listen to them- they are just upset that the pipes make their farts echo and have a hollow sound.
I don't understand why everyone is in a rush to grow up. Kids are starting earlier at things that are usually reserved for adults. Kids nowadays start boozing earlier, boning earlier, even drinking coffee earlier. I spoke with this sophmore named albert, who is the man. I asked him how sophmore year was, and he said good, but he is already looking forward to senior year. I would gladly trade places with him. High school so far has been incredibly fun, and now that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, I wish I could go back again. I seem to be alone in this. It's like everyone got old and I'm the only kid who still wants to play in the sandbox.
Also, my english class recently read "Cyrano de Bergerac," the story that the steve martin movie "Roxane" was based on. I think we've all felt like Cyrano at one time or another, and we all know that I'm in love with myself, so I made "Davano de Bergerac." I think I'm so clever.
OH, AND TODAY WAS ALEX SZAREJKO'S 15th BIRTHDAY. WISH HIM A LATE HAPPY BIRTHDAY IN THE HALLWAY, EVEN IF ESPECIALLY IF YOU DON'T KNOW HIM. he's the kid that looks like an older version of this. my older brother put this up on his site last year, so ignore that it says "14".
Now for the reason you probably came here
"dan braico" by chris clements
i sent this video to a couple people, and i've been hearing people talking about it so i'm guessing that it got circulated to some degree.
richie and i showed the history video that nate, richie, keesh, doug and i made last year to our web page design class. this video was also on the cd, and accidentally automatically played after our history video ended. i thought about stopping it but figured, "eh what the hell," so 25 kids and mrs. larosa saw this video. one of those kids was dan braico
its from a while ago, around christmas time because if you look in the background chris has a tree up. im not sure if it was a year ago or two years ago though.
there isn't much of a story behind it- after a night of either waterballooning or exploring someting abandoned, i was at chris's house and he started telling me about how dan braico said that earlier in the day, that retarded asian girl pushed him and he really wanted to push her back. before you judge him, you all know that you also hate that retard girl.
so anyway, chris made this up as he was going (music AND lyrics) and i filmeded it. he's very talented.
dan actually thought that this was really funny. he's a good guy.
[[DISCLAIMER]] what you just saw is entirely fictious. to my knowledge, dan braico never actually took jenna or the retard girl down into his bedchamber and hit them until they had sex with him. he also never kidnapped the retard girl and jenna and sailed away with them, as far as i know.
george dunk
also, kevin grandstaff does a great impression of george, the very nice bum that is always at buddies. this is what george would look like if he could dunk
enjoy
"phew, it's colder than a dead piece of vagina out there"
- michael ian black [stella] |
|
This story begins with christmas.
actually i guess it begins with a certain drunk someone and a certain pair of pants ripping on a certain ping pong table. you've heard that story before.
before christmas, i told my mom that i wanted a pair of dark khaki, 36x34 flat front docker style pants. i opened up boxes of dockers on christmas, but they were all black or blue, even one olive, but none khaki. i still had a few presents left to open, and i said "as long as i get a pair of dark khaki pants i'll be overjoyed." it was then that my mom dropped a bomb:
"ooo," she said, "you said that you didn't want light pants, and i thought that khaki would be too bright."
my heart dropped. i wasn't getting the pants i wanted.
i was disappointed, but i continued opening. finally, i found the jackpot. there they were. mom my was joking. a pair of flat front non-pleated dark khaki 36x34 pants, but they weren't dockers, they were one better. they were of some weird material that felt somewhat fuzzy to the touch, but it was a subtle fuzzy. almost like suade. my mom said that she took a risk in buying them, as she didn't know if i would like them. she said that they were kinda weird, so she thought that i might like them. i did. finally, something to replace the pair of pants i had ripped on the ping pong table, and the other pair or dark khakis that i ripped a hole in the knee, both that i loved so dearly.
i decided that i would wear my new favorite pants to atlantic city, as the arvidson's were so gracious to ask me to go with them to celebrate new year's. as i entered the arvidson's house, i looked down upon myself and decided, "damn, i look good."
we got into our cars to leave. T minus 30 seconds, i realized that we needed some party hats, so i ran over to richie's car and got hats. we left the arvidson abode in search of whatever atlantic city had to offer us.
As soon as chris pulled out onto howard, leaving mcgregor drive in the rear view, it hit us. this would be the time of our lives
on the ride there, we laughed, we sang, drivers were rude to us, and we were rude right back. never a dull moment, except when i attempted suicide.
about 10 minutes before we got there, chris said that he felt like he was coming home from something fun, instead of going to something fun. maybe we had just had a blast in the car. maybe it was because he had just gotten home that day from 10 days in australia. who knows.
we arrived. the kids got the room set up and grew accustomed to their new surroundings, while the adults couldn't wait to gamble. we were there for maybe 15 minutes, steve and danielle's bags weren't even in their room yet, when we got word that mrs. arvidson had put 40 bucks into a machine and won 4000. she came up to the room and handed richie 300 dollars, and said "dinner's on me tonight, guys."
richie explained, "it's not even like a hobby for my mom anymore, it's like a job. she goes in, knows exactly what to do, and winds up winning all the time."
we graciously took the 300 bucks, even though i thought "300 bucks for 11 kids? that seems like a little much." little did i realize that places in atlantic city are 30 bucks to eat, and as much money as mrs. arvidson gave us, atlantic city demanded more. ac is a beast that only few can tame, and mrs. arvidson is one of the few.
everyone but got dressed up except me, as it is hard for me to shake the scummy look. the ladies decided to take pictures outside of the hotel room. then the ladies decided to take pictures at a big painting on the wall. then the ladies decided to take pictures with EVERYTHING ELSE THEY COULD FIND, so naturally i was a complete asshole and made fun of them, whether they realized it at the time or not.
 |
 |
jesus fucking christ!! is that a fake fuckin tree?!!?!? get one of me with the fake fuckin tree!
|
holy crap get me with the lion, i don't care if i make a scene |
after a little walking around, and a lot of nathanael being told that they are reservation only, and that they wouldn't put us on the list even if nathanael gave the bouncers sexual favors, we found a place. it was a buffet that was 30 bucks to get in, but it was worth every penny that mrs. arvidson spent.
our waitress who was a little creepy and didn't know how to use a digital camera.
after dinner we all headed back to our room, while nathanael went back and blew all the bouncers at all the restaurants that we couldn't get into. just for the hell of it i guess.
on the way back to the room, we were all fed and content, joking around, carefree as can be. a passerby, upon seeing my scantily-clad female companions, said something like "damn, where da bachelore party at?" one of the girls said something like "that guy thought we were strippers," and i said something to the tune of "yea, because you are all dressed like skanks." we were in a crowd, and jackie pushed me, so i fell to the ground. with tears in my eyes, i asked her why she pushed me so that all could here. as i got up, her reply was simply another push, and back to the ground i fell. this time, still sobbing, i repeated my query, " why did you just push me?" i got up and received another shove. "why, jackie, why did you push me?!?"
later, someone whipped me with the mardi gras beads that we had received at the buffet, and i again fell to the ground. this time, i saw no looks from the passerbys, heard no giggles from my entourage, and felt not even the subtle pain of falling from my usual height of 6'1". All i was aware of, as time slowed down, was the hole that had just formed in the crotch of my pants.
I rose. not looking at anyone, i took a step. I heard the stitches pull apart from my pants, felt the seam separate, as though the thread used were my own heartstrings, and the fall had ripped a hole in the very fabric of my being. an irrepairable laceration of my soul had just begun, and was only about to get worse.
as i took those first awkward steps, although i felt the hole getting bigger, i didn't believe it. if i just kept walking i'd look down and see that it was all in my head. i looked down and saw what could not be ignored. my pants were ripped. it felt like a friend had died.
i announced my misfortune, and showed my friends. i felt the hole with my hands. perhaps it was out of frustration, perhaps it was out of confusion, or perhaps i just wanted a laugh, but i then ripped my pants the rest of the way up, exposing my glorious rump for all to see. everyone in rhs has already seen in... twice. why not let everyone in ac see what they missed out on?
we got back to the room, i hung up my pants, and we started drinking. i thought maybe i could drown my sorrows in a brewski. i was drinking to forget
it worked, and i had a blast. it was the best new year's rockin eve to date.
jackie and andrew wrestled for what must have been an hour. The dark red spot on the floor on the right is jackie's blood. andrew drew blood and jackie passed out. she awoke later in a pool of her own blood. she must have lost about a liter of blood... because look at all that.
after a little while of doing nothing in particular, chris, jackie, ashlee and i grew bored. we went for a walk. for some reason, jackie and ashlee went into another elevator. chris and i went to the lobby where we'd assume they'd go, but they never did. chris and i wound up just staying in the lobby, dancing our asses off to whatever the pumped through the loud speaker. we wished everyone that passed a happy new year, and talked to a bunch of people.
scene: chris and i are dancing in the lobby of the Resorts hotel in atlantic city at 3 o'clock new year's morning.
drunk guy appears stage left.
drunk guy- are you two brothers?
me- bozos? yea, we're bozos. biiiig bozos. bozo, comma the clown. no, i mean, clown comma bozo? that's what our names would be like in the dictionary. fuck! no the phone book.
drunk guy- oh geez (gives me a look that said "holy crap you are drunk" and then exits stage right)
me (to chris) - what was that guy's problem?
chris- he asked if we were brothers, not bozos
me- oh. well he was drunk.
chris- i think anyone walking through this lobby at 3 in the morning is probably drunk.
me- yea, present company included.
chris and i start dancing again. lights fade to black as the curtain closes
after about 10 minutes we went back up to the room to hydrate, and to see if ashlee and jackie were in the room. They were, and they informed us that they never went to the lobby, they just rode in the elevator for a while. chris and i let them know what we had just done, and asked if they wanted to join. Always looking for a good time, the girls accepted, and back down the elevator we went.
we danced into the night. our dance was a dance of passion. chris said that he heard a guy call security, so we decided to move the party elsewhere. besides, we spread enough cheer for one place. it's best to spread it out.
we walked through the casino, and a security guard told us that we couldn't be there, and we said that we were just cutting through. she then led us four kids through the casino, as we yelled out, "i can't believe they caught us gambling! i'm only 17! i just lost my college tuition!" bored in a strange place? why not make a scene?
although the security guard led us to the door to get out of the casino, and was absolutely no help, we eventually found the indoor bridge thing that connects the taj mahal casino, and the resorts casino. chris pointed out that in the bridge thing, it was neither the taj mahal, nor the resorts, so he quickly claimed it.
we decided to stay in that glass bridge, extending over the road, and start a new life.
no one knows how it started, but someone must have started tapping. from there, another person tapped. then another person added a beat, and another. from there the harmless tapping transformed into a symphony of stomps, slaps, bangs and claps. i climbed up on the heater and started stomping, while chris banged on a garbage can. i started singing a tune that would melt your face if you heard it. ashlee, jackie, chris and i put on the show of all shows for anyone whom God loved enough to make walk by. the select few saw the best show in atlantic city, better than a combination of tom jones, snoop dogg, and that guy from the dr. pepper commercials with b2k.. smokey robinson maybe?
i said, "guys, you realize that we're never gonna have a moment like this? performing for strangers in a bridge at 4 am in atlantic city on new year's morning with your good friends. cherish this"
i dubbed the band "ace of base"
some asian couple watched us for way too long... they were borderline creepy. also, we performed for these 3 tough kids, and one started talking to us. then, two other tough kids came in. one said, "you fuckin pussies, imma knock your head off" to the first group. i was scared, but then i realized that they were friends, even though the one kid was obviously belligerently drunk.
then the one kid that we were talking to turned around and asked us if we wanted to smoke blunts with them. i answered that we, in fact, did not want to.
then, the belligerent one said to me, "yo i ain't talking shit to you." and i said,
"yea i know." and he said something like,
"you talking shit to me? i'll knock yo head off yo shoulders." and i said something like,
"no, i'm not." and he said,
"you wanna talk shit? i'll kick the shit out of you." and i was like
"no... uh.. sorry? i didn't mean to talk shit to you."
the less drunk tough guys were just like "don't listen to him."
they walked away, i changed my diaper.
after that we went back to the room and regretfully fell asleep.
the next morning, we awoke to find out that mrs. arvidson had won 6000 more. breakfast and lunch were on her, as she is generous in nature. hell, she took 11 kids to atlantic city and it cost us just 10 bucks. make friends with rich people, even if you don't like them
we broke our fasts, and decided to feed the less fortunate. we threw chips and shit out the window and watched the seagulls catch it in mid-air, or miss it but then dive bomb to catch it. the gray seagulls were more interested in fighting the other seagulls for food, when they could just wait their turn. effin jerkweeds.
i got the seagull to eat the chips right out of my hand. it was such a rush. i got 10 of them to do that... and yes i counted. you are just jealous that you've never felt the soft touch of a seagulls wings brush against your arm, as its razor-sharp beak rips a chip out of your hand, all while fighting away gray gulls with its sword-like talons.
we decided to go for a walk on the beach, as it was the most beautiful day ever. idk how it felt in roxbury, but in ac it was like a spring day. so warm that we WENT TO A NJ BEACH IN JANUARY.
 |
 |
i decided to take a picture with some guy as i walked past him, but all i got was his bald spot. |
the girls climb out on the pipe thing for a photo-op |
funny story about that pipe thing...
after the girls took their picture on it, we decided to climb out on it. we took careful step after careful step, as the ice-cold water crashed against us. my feet were numb- this water was freezing. we climbed out further and further; we could no longer see the bottom. the pipe started to get harder to walk on, as the green fuzzy stuff that had started to grow on it was slippery. as i walked a little further, i started to slip on it. i liked to have my feet directly on top of the pipe, but they started to slip, one down one side, the other foot down the other side. i had to squeeze my feet together to not slip and straddle the pipe, crushing my testicles. i start to think, "someone is gonna fall in.. it's probably gonna be me." just as i am beginning to regain control, richie grabs my shoulders. i yell "i'm slipping, don't hold on to me!" and i get control and walk forward some more. i take two more steps and hear bianca giggling uncontrollably. i turn around to see richie, completely soaked. he fell in and had just pulled himself up. if only i had allowed richie to hold on for that much longer, he might have not been soaked and freezing. or maybe we both would have fallen in and this story would be completely not funny to me. but alas, only richie fell in, as only he could. only nate keesh and i made it to the end unscathed.
richie walking in the lobby, sopping wet.
we then went to the pool and played marco polo. then we went to the jacuzzi and sauna, and started a beatbox band in there. we thought that no one could hear us, but they went outside of it and i screamed from inside, and they found out that anything you say in there you can hear from outside. i asked the two old ladies that were right outside the sauna if they could hear us singing in there, and they were both like "oh yea!" we thought it was cool, until we realized that we had also chanted "BEER! BEER! BEER! BEER!"
we went back to the room, realized that only nathanael had a key to the room, and sat out in the hall. then nate came and it was all alright. we showered, ordered lunch, and watched Saw.
after that, we cleaned up and went home, knowing that the experiences had would stay with us forever.
now, i look down at the pants that i am wearing, the pair that i have just dubbed as my new favorite, and i wonder... by calling them my favorite, am i honoring them? or sentencing them to death?
[****editor's note- the day after writing this post, i ripped the other pair of pants that i got on christmas that are the same as the pair i ripped in AC, just a different color. i ripped them in the same spot. then, today, i got red paint on the butt of my favorite pair of pants, the ones written about above. i wondered how long it would take me to ruin them, and it took 2 days.
so for those counting, that is 5 pairs of pants recently ruined.
1. blue pants ripped on richie's ping pong table that i forgot were ripped and wore to school... twice.
2. favorite khakis with the ripped knee that i still wear on occaison because i can't let go
3. new favorite khakis ripped in atlantic city
4. second favorite that are just like #3 but in black that i ripped in school right after posting
5. newest favorite olive khakis that i was wearing when i sat in paint today.
i think God wants me to not wear pants. and i think that i, along with all the ladies out there, agree with him. ] |
|
how was everyone's christmas? good? well that's good. how was my christmas? oh, it was great, thanks for asking. so whadja get? oh yea? i got some cool stuff too... like a photoprinter, some sweet dvd's, and a poopload of pants, which is good because i usually wear the same 3 pairs everyday. but that stays between you and me.
it was kinda funny, because on christmas a commercial came on for a photoprinter, and i was like "hey uncle mike, i got one of those for christmas." i guess it was kinda bragging.
well anyway he's like, oh yea, conor (his son) got one too. and he got a matching digital camera. and he got an mp3 player that also plays tv shows. and we're also getting him an xbox. and keira and i both got ipods." that's when i remembered that you should never brag to rich people. even just now i called richie and said, "if you're not doing anything you can come over and watch garden state tonight, my brother just got it for me." and he replies with something like " oh yea, i got that too. and anchorman. oh and also i'm very wealthy and you aren't." or something like that.
wanna see some pictures? if not, you can just scroll past them until you get to some more boring text.
christmas tree shopping
| |
 . |
recently, st. paul's abby was taken over by japs.
the one in the red hat is none other than david park.i shit you not |
|
you could never get free brown crap when
the monks owned st. paul's abbey |
 |
my dad pays the man
while my brothers can't find the car.
(its right behind you, stupids.
|
|
 |
my dad tells me to help fasten the tree to the car
so i do.
|
 |
 |
that is a damn fine tree
time to eat at a whole in the wall. who wants gyros?
|
|
the tree was put up later that night. then it fell down even later that night. my dad put 4 liters of water in the base. imagine just dumping four liters of water into your carpet and trying to suck it up with paper towels. because that is what we did. the tree was then put up again and tied to the wall with fishing line. no one knew. my carpet is bone dry now.
i went christmas shopping with jackie, but we kinda shopped for ourselves
 |
jackie tried on a killer snowsuit.she later went back and bought it.
i ran fast on a treadmill.
i didn't buy it because i'm already very fit. |
 |
WHAT ELSE HAPPENED?
andrew fell asleep and jackie was weird.
 |
i think this is cool.
i went to granstaff's house and watched freaks and geeks. great show. |
 |
van heusen died on the 24th of december, year of our lord 2004.not the actual phillip van heusen, because i think he started the company in like the 1800's so he's long dead. i'm talking about my store, the van heusen in succasunna. we are officially closed for business, now we just have to take the store apart.
today i got paid for a four-and-a-half hour nap. tomorrow i'm working the 9-5 again. and i might be able to sleep the whole time. envy me.
"this coffee tastes like mud."
-"funny, it was ground this morning,"
-my dad talking to himself |
|
the past two days have been the wickedest
yesterday the peer leaders met with the freshman, which i always enjoy because my group is awesome. then after we met with them, mike, erica p, eric weaver, joelle and myself met with some lady from princeton and we talked about what we are doing with the project and blahblahblahWE GOT SAMMICHES! they were 3 inch wraps from the cheeseblock and i ate 10. Ladies and Gentlejerks, that is 30 inches of sammichy goodness. it' ok to be impressed.
peer leadership is the sweetest club. we get out of school all the time. we got out of 6th and 7th period, then ate sammiches, cookies, jellybeans and drank soda all of 8th and 9th periods. instead of calc and web page i got sammiches in the principle conference room. it's also ok to envy.
then today was fire drills to the max. by the third fire drill, swanson was just like "we're going outside again, grab your jackets."
as he uttered the last consonants of "jackets," everyone in my lunch room jumped up, screamed in joy, and ran out. it was chaos. swanson tried to grab some of the kids, and wound up getting darren chan in a choke hold and saying "that was really fucked up." (he really did curse) not even exaggerating. the man must probably frustrated though. i mean, his school is going down the shitter.
so anyways, we go outside for the 3rd time that day, this time properly clothed. actually, i was still wearing the sweatshirt that i was wearing all day. the one i just took for the cold car ride to school, the one i promised myself i would take off as soon as i got to school, but just left it on like everyday. so i was properly clothed during the first 2 fire drills too. sometimes, it pays to be scummy.
mike, darren, my little brother alex and i go to my car and listen to phat tunes with the heat on. i then decide that i want a picture of all the kids in the parking lot, so i climb on top of the roof to my jeep, as i've done a thousand times in the past. i take the following pictures.
i know it is choppy but shut up
so anyway, im taking the pictures and i start hearing "DAVE!" and "YEA szarejko!" and i thought nothing of it. it must just be my normal group of adoring fans. after all, i'm very popular. then i notice that people are starting to congregate around me as if i'm going to do something. like a speech or something?
"oh my god! a kid on a car! let's go see if he's doing stuff!"
then mike crowley starts noticing the mass of people who are looking to me for entertainment as if i were some puppet on a stage, and he starts yelling "do it dave! dooooo it!" knowing full well that there was nothing that was going to be done. im taking video of the parking lot, and i hear mike go "doo it! oh wait, dave they're yelling at you dude." and mrs falvey comes over and starts yelling at me. she said something like "how could you? i can't beleive you would do that! what were you thinking?!?!" and i'm just looking at her like "what does she think that i did?" and i go "i'm not inciting a riot, i'm taking a picture." and she goes "i don't give a crap! you shouldn't have done that!"
apparently standing on your car is right up there with rape and murder.
so all and all, i guess that fire drills are only awesome to students, as the faculty flips a shit. sometimes they flip two or three shits.
Click here to watch the video
oh hey, by the way i got a camera. it takes pictures, video like the one above, it's a digital voice recorder, can record tv shows and watch them on the screen, and is also an mp3 player. i predict that everyone in roxbury is gonna get the same exact one. or maybe just brett grobarz will.
so who wants to hear a story that makes me look stupid?
alright so one night we were at richie's and i was less than sober. i was leaning on the ping pong table when i got up and heard a tearing noise. i looked at my toosh and saw a big hole in my pants. i yelled, "oh man! i love these pants! when i realize that i ruined them tomorrow im gonna be so upset but i don't care right now!" and that was that.
anyway, my mom washed the pants and hung them up on a hanger, and i was like "hey i like those pants, im totally gonna wear the suckers" and i did, hole and all (forgetting about the hole). I get into school and my english class giggles at the site of my voluptuous bottom. someone tells me that i have a hole in my pants, i go "oh yea i was blitzed and tore them on the ping pong table at richies! oh man that sucks, i love these pants."
a normal person would probably be embarrassed about their ass hanging out, but i have no shame and a lot of laziness, so i wore the pants until 6th period - gym class. after gym i thought it would be stupid to change back into ripped pants, so i kept on the shorts and had a great day. i get home and threw the pants in the corner.
im so dumb, right? for wearing ripped pants? yea well keep reading.
so a month later i find this pair of blue pants that i love. in my groggy morning state i think "hey i haven't worn these pants for a while" so i wear them. i get to english and renee blurts out "you know you wore the ripped pants again, right?"
no, actually i didn't. so that's why i haven't worn them in a while.
alright so i have to walk through the halls with my left cheek exposed again. however, now i was in health so i didn't change for gym, so i left the pants on all day. 9th period comes around, and because its web page design, which isn't much of a class, i decide to rip my pants to shreds. i dont wanna forget about them and wear them again, so lets ruin them. anyway i ripped them up to my cheeks and my entire left leg was exposed. I've Never Seen So Many Hard Nipples
whatever. it's like my mom always says : "If you got it, flaunt it, kid. IF YOU GOT IT, FLAUNT IT."
one more thing to make myself look bad:
i realized, after i woke up, that i had to get to school early today so i didn't shower. it is amazing how many people will touch your hair when you know that it's gross. usually no one touches my hair. if anyone ever does, it's usually brock. today im thinking it was around 7 people. one person was petting me for like 10 minutes. i could have told her that my hair may be gross, but it felt good so i just let her keep on doin' it. i guess if she didn't notice it couldn't have been that bad. man.... i shower everyday, but the ONE day i don't, everyone decides to touch my hair. sucks to be you, jerks!
Mederos- "what are the three types of abuse?"
Fat Trotts (matt trotta)- "physical, emotional, and marshmallow"
(i laughed for a whole period at this. bivo said it wasn't that funny) |
|
i guess i lied.
for a while there i didn't think i was gonna do this anymore, and i still don't know how long i'm gonna do this. the only thing i can say for sure is that i'm doing at least one more post - this one. maybe i'll continue, maybe i'll break your heart again. i do what i want, when i want
this weekend i went to a wedding, and i saw a cousin of mine that i haven't seen in a very long time (hey beth!). she said that she reads this site with her boyfriend and they crack up. it made me think of all the times someone has said to me "i read your site and couldn't stop laughing." and i remembered courtney saying that her and her brother read it together sometimes, continuously laughing, of course, because i am ultra-funny. and i think it was RJ that said that he read one of my posts with his mom and they were laughing. i can't help it. DAVE SZAREJKO BRINGS PEOPLE TOGETHER. plus, all the people that i didnt know that only talk to me because they met me through this site, (my AIM sn is daveythegnome) and plus all the people that i still dont know that read this, or have at one point. if i can make one person laugh for a second, it'll be worth my time.
(THIS IS THE PART YOU SKIP IF YOU ARE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE THAT JUST SKIM PAST THE BORING PARTS)It was just that for a while there i was kinda in a bad place. we've all visited there at least once. you kinda zone out and let the days pass by without really noticing or even caring. things can suck sometimes, and you may often find yourself in a hole, but as long as you can construct a ladder from your own hair and fingernails then you'll be fine.
...and that's just what i did.
what's that you say? "i'm a little baby"? ok, fair enough, you win, i am. but i bet i can pogo stick longer than you. maybe we'll go no hands for sudden death.
as to the reason for my notreallydepressionjustsortafeelingcrappyforawhile thing, chris and i are making a movie. although the movie is not completely my life, there are parallels, and once you see it you may be like "oh, this part reminds me of when dave was sad for awhile." it should explain things kinda.
thats what i really wanted to talk to you about. the movie.
as previously stated, chris clements and i are currently writing the script for what we hope to be a feature-length film. i am confident that chris and i can write a very good script and screenplay (as long as we don't direct while writing) and im sure we can film a good movie, even though the camera situation isn't the best. i also know that chris and i can promote the movie well enough that each of you suckas will see it and giggle with glee. HOWEVER, i know that chris and i are not the best actors, and idk, people tell me that acting is somewhat important or something? so if anyone would like to act in a movie, leave me a comment only classically trained actors/actresses need apply. but seriously, fyi you guys (for your information) this is not an excuse to get out of your regular activities. this is a chance to do some good musical theatre. so be prepared, be enthusiastic, and leave your bullshit attitude and baggage at the door, because we dont need it!
and i'm just speaking from experience here, but if you can't carry a tune, don't come into the audition environment and waste our time. we're serious
actually, im not serious, that was from wet hot american summer, and its not a musical, but we do need good actors and actresses. even if u aren't classically trained, and haven't done shakespeare off broadway like the rest of us, and you still want to help, we need all the help we can get. if you are terribly untalented, we'll just make u wear all black and you can be stage crew with all the other shmucks. yes, i said it. I WENT THERE, jessica schwartz.
other than that, i'm working a buttload. and judging by the largeness and plumpness of my buttocks, a butt load is a LOT.
Van Heusen, Roxbury Mall, same side as Buddy's. visit me, or just walk by it when u are walking from the movies to buddy's, and look in through the glass and oogle me. please oogle?
i'm a manager now (PLEEEEEASE BE IMPRESSED) so a lot of the time (especially fridays after school and sundays) i am the big cheese in the store, and all the little associates look up to me, and not just because i'm 6'1" and way taller than them. this also means that visiting me would be perfect on a friday. u can come in and watch me count registers, and be fascinated by my form. plus, i sweep like none other.
i originally got the job because i thought no one goes in there because.....seriously who shops at van heusen? and i was right. the store was always empty, most i would have to do was fold a few shirts and maybe measure an old man's neck size (and i loved that because i got to get really close to that flab of skin hanging from their chin area to their neck, like a turkey gobbler thing. old man gobblers fascinate me.) anyway, they decided to promote me, and i was like "k" because who doesn't like money? the greatest feeling in the world is going to a gas station and telling brian ringwood to FILL THE TANK, instead of getting gas in the usual $5 incriments, or whatever change i could scrounge up. anyway, more money so yay. at the same time, we were going out of business, which means huge severence check at the end (over 800 bucks as a bonus if i stay till christmas) so more money so yay. unfortunately, the promotion means more responsibility, so boo. plus, the sales (right now 50% to 60% off, soon to be 75%) bring in tons of people, so more work, so boo. so this job that i thought was gonna be easy is now kinda not fun, except when im the big cheese because i dont make anyone do work.
fortunately for me, after i lose my job, i may qualify for unemployment. that's right, i will actually be getting paid for doing nothing. some call it being a slacker, some call it taking advantage of the system, i call it the american dream. you are so jealous i can smell it. its very pungent, and not in a good way.
this is probably about as long as a post should be without pictures. oh and about that, i'm getting a camera soon, as my last one was misplaced the night of the scavenger hunt 2. as if enough things didn't go wrong that night. yea so i'll have goofy pictures up again of all my beautiful friends, so ladies, relax, maybe look at some oldies here.
PS, ATX's album dropped, and i've kept it firmly in my cd player for nearly 2 weeks i'd say, and i listen to it every time i drive. pick it up, it's excellent. talk to mickey sanchez, i beleive he is in 4th lunch, or even talk to me if u don't see one of them and i'll get one for you. its well worth the $5.
some skank in M hall: "i can't afford birth control anymore! i'm so FUCKED!"
me: "Yea! in more than one way!" |
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
daveythegnome's journal
