oh by the way

i’m over here now.

gross.

me:  i think that tea uses an alternate route that other liquids haven’t discovered yet to get directly from my mouth to the toilet bowl

tea is the lewis and clark of the excretory system.

her:  wow, so true. so friggen true.

me:  i don’t understand

it moves so quickly

the other day

and i’ll tell you this

WARNING

it’s kind of gross

so i was driving back to cap hill from north denver

and i got off on the wrong exit on I25

so i got lost, and that 3rd cup of tea was just like “OH WHADDUP YOU LOST SON?  NO BATHROOMS IN SIGHT?  I SEE YOU DON’T HAVE A WATER BOTTLE IN YOUR CAR, YOU’VE GOT 6 MINUTES TO GET HOME FUCKER”

i felt like Keifer Southerland

her:  dude! i know! i have seriously ended up holding myself because of that shit! and stopping on the side of the road and just droppin em

me:  so i get back to the crib

hit the elevator

and i’m doing the dance

dance

dance dance dance

dance dance dance

elevator door opens up

i put the key in the lock

turn

and smash into the door

my lock broke

so i pissed all over myself.

fin.

her:  oh my god. LOL!!!!!!! oh my god!!!!

no way!!!!!!!

me:  yep.

tina fey, eat your heart out

her:  that is my worst nightmare!!!!

LMAO!!!!!

me:  my landlord had to come open my door with a fucking crowbar while i was standing there CLEARLY covered in my own urine.

her:  oh my god.

that is so fucking funny. i don’t think ill ever be able to laugh again

onwards and upwards

i moved to denver.

i made a bunch of wonderful friends.

i got rid of her.

i turned 24.

i got a new bike, because my other one got stolen.

i’ve abandoned all projects that are not political in nature.

i got a fish, his name is ghostface killah.

i live in a super-tiny studio apartment, BUT at the end of the month i’m moving into a super-classy one bedroom, yum.

jaymie and max bought me a cake with a vagina on it for my birthday

aka, a va-jay-cake

i started playing played bicycle polo once, and really liked it, but life gets in the way of fun, most of the time.

i’ve been listening to shai hulud almost exclusively; it’s not getting old, and their words and sounds have helped move me along to become a better man, rather than a bitter man.

i go out with jaymes a lot.  sometimes, we drink alcohol out of fishbowls.  sometimes we drink more than one of these.

i’ve been exploring Denver on bicycle.  i’m trying to reach a different neighborhood every week.  there are a ton of them, i’ll find out how many, and where they are, so that i’m not just stumbling upon them, like i did here.

this is self explanatory/hilarious.

also been going to lots of baseball games.  so what.

all in all; i’m really having a wonderful time in Denver.  i’m pleased that i moved here, made some amazing friends, and have been having a blast.  it doesn’t hurt that chris and max and jaymes and jessi are all here/soon to be moving here.  live is lovely.

how to control the universe with your brain.

the last two days have been incredibly strange.

yesterday, i went to a campaign finance training in arapahoe.  i learned a few things i didn’t already know about the finance laws in this state, most of it was rehash, but i’m glad i went.

when i came home, i worked until around 7. then, noticing i was out of smokes,  i proceeded to the corner store for some more.

my old friend steve, from college, facebook-ed me a few weeks ago, letting me know he was moving to boulder for a position with a crazy huge ad firm here.

i somehow convinced H to come for a short walk with me. on the way there, brad was on his bike already on his way to our house to see if we wanted to go to dave’s soccer game with him.  well, he was really inviting jessi, but she’s in texas with her mom and sister, so he asked us.  we politely declined, and he kept going along side us to the intersection where the store was.  as i was crossing the street, i noticed two kids coming toward us.  one was about my size, and had a big white t shirt on that said:

.if he only knew where this would end up.

the other kid was steve.  no shit.  that morning he had sent me another message asking what i was up to for the 4th, and a few hours later, just like that, he was crossing the damn street a block away from my house.  his friend also needed more smokes, which is why they were at the corner store.  bizarre.

this morning, my cat wanted out in a real way.

can i haz outside pwease?

she’s good, so we let her pounce around in the backyard when it’s light outside, and she knows where the food is, so she always comes back pretty quickly.  i opened up my window and she lept out of it, like she does.  about an hour had gone by, and no tika, no kitty.  so i got dressed and prepared to go searching, and the second i snapped my watch on, the last thing i do before i leave, i heard the unmistakable “meow” of tika.

then, as i was making my bed, thinking about a certain slovakian girl who is currently in washington dc, my phone rang, and it was her.

that pretty much sums it all up right there.

i’ve heard of all these things, called “the secret” and such, about just “putting your wants out into the universe, and if you want it bad enough, it will come to you”.  i’ll admit all of these things were borderline freaky, but that’s just it, borderline.  i think telling people that all they have to do is want something bad enough and it will be theirs is extremely dangerous.  it’s the lotto ticket theory of wealth creation versus the bust-your-ass-until-it-falls-off-and-you-can-afford-to-get-it-re-attached-and-then-bust-it-again theory of success.  i like the latter, better, even though the former seems easier.

but sometimes it happens.  sometimes i’ll just be sitting there, thinking about a person or a thing, and some news will be delivered to me relating to that which i was just considering.  maybe it’s a function of our superconnected world:  maybe it’s just that there are so many ways to contact each other that when an event or person is playing a large part in your life, the probability of you knowing something new about it while thinking about it is just, way higher now.

Edit: “embedding disabled by request” ruins everything, if you really care,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjKCrOWNarg

there it is.

fast forward to 8:40, this pretty much sums up what i’ve been trying to say here, and if you’ve never seen studio 60, i suggest you watch it, it’s all on hulu now.

H calls it synchronicity.

I call it coincidence.

J calls it bullshit.

K calls the shots.

L calls me about once a year.

digging in the crates…

lately i have been going back into my brain to find the music i used to listen to when life was…easier.  back in high school, kids i knew had a sort of tacit contest to see who could get into the most obscure (read: percieved-to-be-cool) music, and find the t-shirt to show it off.  i know it’s stupid, and i think we all did back then too, but still; it was a formative thing for me becoming me.  or being me then.  or whatever.  what follows is a short list of albums that i’ve recently begun listening to again, followed by a short explanation, and a track for your enjoyment.  note: i listen to weird shit.

7th Grade: PUNK RAWK YO!

.read the newspapers.

i first heard bad religion on the radio.  it might have been rob bertrand on RSU; or it might have been that i walked into a record store and saw the crossbuster logo, and my budding (since ended) atheism attracted me to them:

because i loved bad religion, i met kids who would go on to be some of my best friends.  the names don’t matter, what matters is that this music brought us all together, we’d sing along in the car, go see them at waterloo (with blink 182! in the 90s! when they were good!) i recently started listening to my two favorite bad religion records, stranger than fiction and the gray race.

8th grade, EMO!

i can’t cross her from my memory…

there was an entire year when i listened to pretty much nothing but ALL and the descendents.  they shaped the way i thought about relationships, coffee, punk rock, and personal potential.  i know it’s silly looking back now, but there was this theory of ALL

From Wikipedia, of all places:

With the release of All, the Descendents introduced to the world the driving concept behind their career’s work, from which the album derives its title, the philosophy of ALL. The song ALL was actually written at the time of the philosophy’s conception around 1980, in the midst of the song-writing fury that produced a number of the tunes from the “Fat” EP, including “I Like Food.” Stevenson co-wrote these songs with best friend/fishing buddy/Descendents “Fifth Member,” Pat McQuiston. The two came up with the concept while working a late night on the water, and fishing and coffee (Enjoy’s “Kids” and Everything Sucks’s “Coffee Mug”) remained themes for Descendents songs and spiritual aids in the quest for ALL, which they define quite conventionally as “the total extent.” The idea of ALL as a concept beyond this conventional definition is one of endless self improvement. “The total extent” is an all-encompassing greatness, the pursuit of which is endless and impossible, but which is also the source of all real happiness. Thus, “No, All!,” speaks to the fruits of this “endless quest,” and “happiness is the pursuit of ALL” is the viable credo which is often lost in the midst of the Descendents’ slightly more conventional dual-motif of off-beat humor and girls.

This was another step for me in forming my personal philosophy devoid of religion.  i had recently been bar-mitzvah-ed and quit the temple shortly after (like ya do).  there’s this old joke…

a priest, a rabbi, and an imam are struggling with a huge rat problem.  the vermin had taken over jerusalem, and nary a sage nor scholar had a clue as to how to deal with the problem.  so the three religious leaders get together to discuss strategy.  the priest says “i rounded up all the rats i could find, took them 50 miles out in the desert and left them, in the morning, they were all back”.  the imam says, “yes i still have a rat problem as well, i rounded up all the rats i could find, took them 100 miles out in the desert and left them, in the morning, they were all back”  the rabbi says “my friends, i have actually solved the rat problem!”  shocked, the priest and the imam ask “HOW in God’s good name did you manage that rabbi?”  rabbi says “i rounded up all the rats i could find, brought them to the temple, bar-mitzvahed them, and never saw them again”

10 people will get that joke, 2 will laugh at it.  i think it’s fucking hysterical.

this is already a long entry, and i like splitting up themes among several other entries, so the rest of high school will come next time.  along with SHAI HULUD, and the explanation of the NOUNxMOSH.

lauryn hill was right about everything

often, at tipping points and cliffs of change, i find myself saying the phrase “such and such was right about everything” – generally referencing a song someone wrote or a statement a notable individual made.  Alphonse Carr said “The more things change, the more they stay the same”.  If the republicans had a clue, or ever read anything…French, they’d know that they should be slinging this around now more than ever.

So, Alphonse Carr was right about everything.

i named my dodge intrepid Alphonse Carr, no joke

More recently, i’ve throught to myself, Tom Waits, Hunter S. Thompson, and Lauryn Hill were right about everything.  I think i’m going to make this a running theme for a few entries.  I’ll start with Lauryn Hill, becasue she’s the most strikingly and immedeately relevant to me at the moment.  Sometimes, I hear a song, and all i think is “yes”.  This person has put into tones and words these awful things i’m feeling in such a succinct, sensical, and beautiful way that it brings us all together in a shared experience.  How on earth can this woman have gone through the same exact thing i did?  Her words and voice are all over it, i get it, and she gets me.  However, it’s impossible for two people to feel the exact same thing, of this i’m convinced.  So, when someone even gets close, I’m very impressed.

This is all a sort of passive-aggressive way for me to scream out to the world that i’m trying to get over this as best as i can.  The wounds are still fresh, but it’s more of an old cut that keeps reopening and refuses to scab and heal fully.  When you’re in love, the whole world hates you.  When you’re alone, the whole world’s in love.  That’s just the way it goes.

Mikey Montana came over yesterday.  He’s from Jersey, and I met him on the bus one day, turns out he lives right around the corner.  Nice kid, but his live-in girl of a year and a half just left him, so he’s in a…state.  Merc, Jessi, Montana and I went to see UP (which was great, but short) last night, and before we went to the theatre we had a few drinks in my room.  Montana kept saying all this crazy shit like:

“You know I gave her a call and i was like we should go get a slice of pizza and she was like ‘no’ and i’m cool with that, she needs her space”

“You know i called her up and i was like we should just cuddle and read Nietzsche and drink hot cocoa and she was like ‘no’ and i’m cool with that, she needs her space”

“You know i called her up and i was like we should bake some muffins and watch movies starring Meg Ryan and she was like ‘no’ and i’m cool with that, she needs her space”

Merc told this story about this guy who she broke up with who was all desperate and hounding and trying like hell to get her back.  There’s a way to do it, i’m convinced, but the second you even tow the line between endearingly nostalgic and creepy the thing’s over.  Cocoa, Nietzsche, and muffins cross that fucking line, bigtime.  We tried to tell Montana to let up, but he didn’t seem interested in our advice, fine.  If i were him, i’d probably keep my ears off too.

De Nile is a powerful river.

These cowards will shiver

I’ll take aim best i can – locked a stock of arrows in the quiver

i sifted through a mountain of scripture

didn’t find the answer went home and started pounding the liquor

used the barley, hops and grain chaser like a Charlie Kaufman brain laser

it all tastes the same flavor,

in order to save paper i wrote this on old drapes in sprayer

and i hate fakers

but i’m just as bad as Montana.  instead of going psycho on the telephone and pouring my heart out to complete strangers and saying things that make my eye twitch with discomfort, i throw it all on here for the entire universe to see.  i feel like it’s less weird, because it’s kind of one way, and most have probably stopped reading by now, which is fine.  i honestly have no idea why i do this, we’re an entire generation so starved for attention that we’ll spill our guts to anyone and everyone who is willing to listen or read, even a little bit.

however, no one comes close to this colostomy bag:

so whenever you think you’ve bared a bit too much of your soul to the entire internet, remember there’s this guy…and i guess this girl too:

poor girl.  i kind of feel awful for posting this, but she deserves it.  there’s a whole internet out there full of jerks like me, and you know what, it’s not like she didn’t upload this shit to youtube with the hope of getting a ton of “OMG uR SO TALENTED PLZ TRY OUT FOR AMURIKAN ITOLZ LOL” comments.

okay, i can’t write a coherent train of thought at all.

the bottom line is this.  being emotionally dependent on another person, or anyone else, whether it be your boy or girl, your family, your boss at work, or the entire fucking internet is an incredibly stupid way to live.  trust me, i’ve been doing it virtually my entire life.

don’t let anyone else validate your successes or convince you of your failures.  own each of them.  if your own personal happiness is couched in what someone else thinks of you, you spend your entire life not doing those things you want to do, but trying to impress other people.  trust me, they’re just about as impressed with your acoustic cover of that Saves the Day song as you would be if they were the ones playing the guitar out of tune and off rhythm.  rule every moment, seize every day.  find the thing you love to do, get really fucking good at it, then find a way to make money doing it.  If other people are impressed by you, whoop-de-doo.  If not, fuck em.  Rule every moment, Seize every day.

Don’t worry about reciprocity, Lauryn.  Maybe you weren’t right about everything, but you still make my spine tingle.

NEW JERSEY FAIL

sweet lord in heaven

i love BTBAM

2 years…..

Yesterday marked the beginning of my third year in Colorado.

Matlack and I moved out here on D-Day, also his birthday, June 6th 2007, a month after I graduated from Rutgers.

I didn’t have my shit together, at all, when I first got out here.  Matlack and I were on a policy research trip all around the country (like ya do), and had no plans for what we would do for money after August.  When we got back, I started a temp position at Crocs (WORST FUCKING JOB EVER, NO JOKE), writing for a blog on what used to be Iggli, and teaching SAT classes at Kaplan in Denver.  I was able to make the rent and all that, but it took away from my time to, you know, meet people and hang around in Colorado.

I’ve climbed mountains, I’ve fallen in and out of love.

To this day, all of my friends (with the exception of Mitch, Reise, and H) I met as a result of either

a) Being friends with Sarah McCall, or

b) Meeting them as a result of moving in with them a-la craigslist.

This is in no way to disparage those friendships, they’re the best ones I’ve had in years.  Some truly remarkable people live here in little Boulder; yet I am loathe to call it my home.  As I write, I can hear the sounds of a table saw, hammers hitting chisels, Jessi yelling “owwie!” every 3-6 minutes, H playing his out of tune ukulele, and the overwhelming, uncomfortable, genuinely mysterious silence that is Matt and Kaitelyinngngnn (never cared to learn the proper spelling of her name, but I think that’s as close as I’m gonna get).

I live in a house with more people than bedrooms, and i’m 23.

I wear a suit to work.

Sometimes, I come home and there’s a tattoo being done in my living room.

Sometimes, I come home and the entire house smells like there was a skunk holocaust in the basement.

Sometimes, I come home and there is a hot water heater preventing me from going into my bedroom.

Sometimes, I come home and I can smell something burning, but we never locate the source of the scent.

But never, never do I come home to an empty, lifeless, boring house.

I’m moving to Denver in August, into my own place, just me; because I’m a big boy now.

Didn’t you hear? I wear suits to work now.

But I’m a bit anxious about the whole thing.  I’ve never in my life lived on my own, here’s the flowchart of roomates I’ve had:

Ages 1-3 – Ed and Terry

Ages 3-17 -  Ed, Terry, and Alex

Ages 17-18 – Gavin

Age 18-19 – Fafa, Egg, Rob, Greg, Carly, Bif, Twins, and some other people I don’t remember (there were 11 of us)

Age 19-20 – Sonjelle, Noah, Sean, Doug, Gavin (again), Izzy, Emily, Andrew, Daryl, Joe, Neil, Heather, Jason, some kid who lived in Jason’s room for a minute

Age 20-20.5 – In a car with Sonjelle and Noah, then in Boulder with Sarah

Age 20.5-21 – My Parents, for senior year of college

Age 21-22 – Matlack, Riker, Dave

Age 22-23 – Jessi, Greg, H, Matt, Katelisngsghlyn, Porter, LoLo,

Age 23-24 – me.

So, as you can see, I’ve never ever lived alone, not for a minute, or a day, in my life; unless you count the endless months I’ve spent in hotel rooms all over the country.

Still, someone makes your bed and cleans up after you.

Needless to say, this is a nerve-racking experience; and I don’t know if I’m ready for it.  I like coming home to relatively controlled chaos.  I like getting into fights with my roomates about “who the fuck drank all my milk” (it wasn’t me, i only drink almond milk).  I like coming home to tattoo machines whirring and that undeniable smell of incense and patchouli.

I will miss it, but this is the right thing to do.  I won’t burn my bridges, time and wildfires do a fine job all on their own.

Year 3 of the great experiment.  Most of the kids I know either have moved back in with their parents, or are in the process of doing just that.  And more power to them.  If my parents lived in Colorado, you bet your ass I’d be living with free food and free rent; and probably have a lot, a lot, a lot, of extra cash.

Hysterical.

This morning, one of my best friends called me crying hysterically. She said her mother had been in two minor car accidents in the last two days straight, and had totally lost touch with reality, and totally lost track of what was going on around her. I mean, she was completely out to lunch, and planned to stick around to see the dinner special. My friend was incredibly worried, didn’t know what was wrong with her mom, and wasn’t easily comforted. I had just downloaded an old favorite game which had been converted into an iPhone app, “Pocket Tanks”. It’s a lot like Worms, or even farther back, Fortress. To cheer her up, I asked if she wanted to play pocket tanks with me.

.is that a mortar shell in your pocket or blahblahblah.....

She thought I was making a dick joke while her mother was in the hospital.

I went out and had some meetings, and then went to a very interesting seminar of sorts.

When I talked to her later, my friend was all happy and laughing, and didn’t even mention her mom. When I asked about it, she said, “yeah so, mom accidentally took ambien instead of her thyroid medication in the morning for the last two days, whoops”.

Yeah, they sell this shit at Walgreens but marijuana is illegal. I get that you’re not supposed to take ambien during the day, but people DO IT ALL THE TIME. Xanax, valium, percocet, paxil, oxyfuckingcontin (which is exactly one carbon chain away from being Afghan quality HEROIN) and a whole host of other mind altering psychoactive drugs are available at your local pharmacy.

Guess what? Pot isn’t a gateway drug. Your family physician who is bought and sold by the pharmaceutical companies more-so than the current House Minority is the pusher, and the candy in the medicine cabinet is the real gateway drug.

We could be clever

Or we could seek pleasure

Either way, i just hope it’s t-gether

forever and ever, never let us be severed