| My trip to the DMV |
[13 Jun 2008|12:19pm] |
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A Slightly fictionalized short story on heartbreak, drugs, and a trip to the DMV!
“AY! Sup brother? You got one of them cigarettes I can borrow?” The man asked me. “I’m sorry? What?” I asked. He looked like danger. Like the kind of person my parents would have asked me to avoid eye contact with. I can almost hear my mom saying, “walk on the other side of the street when you come across someone who looks like that.” And I would have, except this guy was acting like he knew me. “Do I know you?” I asked. “Shit that stuff worked some mother fuckin’ wonders! It’s me! Metric system?” “I’m sorry, you must have me confused with someone else. I’m just here to get my license renewed.” “Shit man, that shit worked some mother fuckin wonders! You really don’t remember me? It’s me. Charlie!” “I don’t.” I said. I handed the man a cigarette and walked into the DMV as fast as I could. I would be highly embarrassed if I were to get mugged by someone who looks like an escaped convict in broad daylight. I walked into the building and saw long lines of angry people standing and waiting. And while there were all races, all ages, all classes of income standing in one room, what I quickly realized is that everyone at the DMV looks like an escaped convict. “Brother, have I got a story for you.” Charlie said, as he walked through the door and threw his arm over my shoulder. “I do know you from somewhere don’t I?” I asked. “Brother, you should never want to forget anything. That’s how you get through life.” That’s lesson number one of- well, I’ve lost count for the week. But believe me when I say the number is very high. And it all started with a conversation between myself, and a girl while walking down the street: “I want a dog.” She said. There was a wild excitement in her eyes, the likes which I had rarely seen. “A dog?” I asked. “Let’s get a puppy! Can we get a puppy?” “I don’t really want a puppy.” “Then give me my space.” “What?” “Leave me alone!” “What are you?” “You’re right, we should break up.” “Break up? What? Two seconds ago you wanted to get a dog together!” “Let’s be friends.” “What are you talking about?” “I’m seeing someone else.” “Now? Who? What? We’ve been together for the last three days. When have you had time to… you wanted to get a puppy together, now we’re broken up? Now you’re seeing someone else? What the hell just happened?” “Please, get over it. We’ve been broken up now for awhile.” “For awhile? Are we having the same conversation?” And she left me there, standing on the side of the road, with my dreams dashed at my feet, my heart in my hands, and my soul being shit upon by the imaginary puppy we never bought.
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| The Offences of a Tweener |
[17 Feb 2008|04:02pm] |
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I don’t wear cologne. In fact up until a year ago I’d never worn cologne. I never saw the need for it. Who wears cologne? What’s the point? I shower. I wear deodorant. I don’t smell bad. Why would I want to smell like Eternity or Tom Ford? Tom Ford smells like Tom Ford, and Eternity sounds like it might smell of mummy’s feet. Still, according to a couple of my friends- this would not stand. Two years ago my friends drug me around the mall and sprayed me with every sweet, sweet fragrance they could find. We went to Sephora, and Perfumania, then back to Sephora, then we walked around the mall to air out, then we went back to Perfumania. At the end of the excursion I ended up with two bottles of cologne, and for one straight year I proudly wore one or the other- until both were gone. I thought about restocking- but never did. I did, however start wearing some lotion (I have dry skin- don’t judge) that happened to have (or so the bottle says) calming effects, and it also smells nice. “You smell good! I love the way you smell.” My girlfriend would say, as she buried her nose into my neck, inhaling sharply. This would be right after I started wearing the lotion. I love that lotion. I don’t know if I really feel calmer wearing it- but I like the fact that my girlfriend likes to smell me- and in order to smell me she has to get close to me, and anything that gets a lady (my girlfriend in particular) to get close to me is aces in my book. Unfortunately we’ve been working a lot of opposite schedules as of late. Things have been popping up, responsibilities have taken precedent, and we haven’t had many opportunities to spend some time together. And just as things seemed to be clearing up- paving the way for us to finally spend some quality time together- we got sick. It was a lot of me bringing her soup and orange juice and her telling me to stay away, cause she didn’t want to get me sick. Except I did get a bit sick, and I started to wonder, “Will there ever be a time when the two of us can make time to go out to dinner- and have the evening end up with her laying in my bed, instead of me crouched over my toilet?” I woke up Friday morning chipper, I felt great. My girlfriend was leaving town for the weekend, and this would be my last time to see her before she left. We were both coming off our illnesses, the sun was shining, birds were chirping, “and nothing’s going to stop me from planting a big ol’ kiss on my girl!” I thought as I hopped out of bed. It was like something out of a movie- the happy music started playing- Mr. Blue Sky by ELO- and I tapped my toes while brushing my teeth. I sang along while lathering up in the shower. I air guitared while applying my calming lotion. Deer and rabbits and birds followed me and along to the song as I walked to my car. Today was going to be the day when everything was finally better. “Oh my God you smell.” She said, and not in a good way. “What?” “What did you put on this morning?” “Nothing different. Just that lotion.” “Lotion?” “You like the smell. You’ve always liked the smell.” “Maybe it’s because I’m still a little sick, but you’re kind of making my stomach churn.” “Making your stomach churn?” “Yeah, I can’t stand next to you.” “But…” “I’m sure if I weren’t sick I’d love it.” “But…” The deer and birds and rabbits that had followed me to work, singing all the way, now looked as if they had walked in on their parents having a fight about money. They looked up and down and left and right trying to avoid eye contact with the scene that was taking place in front of them. “I’m going to go over to that field and eat some grass.” The deer said to the rabbits. “Yeah, we’ll follow you.” The rabbits and birds replied. “No wait guys! We were going to sing that song!” I called out to them, but they had already left. “They probably couldn’t stand the way you smell either.” My girlfriend said. “Ha-ha.” “Seriously, how much of that stuff did you put on?” “No more than usual.” “How much is that.” “Well, some on my arms- it comes in this pump bottle so that was, let’s see, six pumps for each arm, then some on my neck, five pumps there, on my face, five more pumps, then some more on my hands, let’s say another six pumps, then I pat the excess on my clothes, then…” I started to realize in my overzealous excitement to start the day that I may have over fragranced. That maybe I was a walking calming lotion- but in this case I wasn’t calming anything- but instead churning olfactory senses and stomachs. I had visions of those 15-year-old boys who wore too much cologne. The kind of boys that spray cologne on their chests, necks, arms, legs, crotch (cause everyone knows if your crotch smells like cologne- you’re going to have sex that day), and then spray a bunch in the air, creating a three feet cloud of cologne in which they spin, so those little cologne particles will attach to every single surface on their clothing. They are the boys who are cursed with acne because they’re pores are clogged with cologne. They are the kind of boys you can smell fifteen minutes before they arrive on the scene. They were the kind of boys who know nothing of subtlety- they were clothes that are too nice for the occasion, and slick their hair way too much. And for that morning, I was one of those boys. “Oh man.” I said, “I put too much on.” “You think?” “I’m sorry.” I tried my best to keep a five-foot radius (the odor radius) away from my girlfriend, which made me sad, as today was going to be the day, the first day in a long time, when we would properly kiss one another. The deer and rabbits and birds were going to sing while we kissed, but they had long since gone back to their burrows. The workday ended, and she climbed into her car, ready to drive off for a weekend getaway. I walked her to her car, carrying her bag of things. I told her to be careful, and then wonderful person that she is- she kissed me properly. Sure there was no music being sung by birds or deer or rabbits- but it really didn’t matter. There was music in the air, and apparently a smell to go along with it.
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| Lent! |
[15 Feb 2008|12:53am] |
I've given something up for Lent...
Oh there's a story behind this...
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| Writer's Strike Part II |
[14 Jan 2008|01:01am] |
So, now that the Writer's Strike has ruined the Golden Globe awards, I finally present the second half of the season of "24 as written by Jeff Hernandez!"
(On a side note- it's not easy writing a tv show by yourself... so sorry if you see typos or there's something that doesn't make sense... just think of it as a regular season of 24).
Previously on 24… Jack slept. A bad guy named Wendell Wordsworth bought Plutonium from a ex-soviet spy named Vlad. Jack went grocery shopping and met a woman. Jack got called into CTU.
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| Writer's Strike! |
[19 Nov 2007|03:50pm] |
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So, there's a writer's guild strike going on in the entertainment industry. I love television, and this will start to effect me very soon, as networks are starting to run out of shows that are already in the can. Some shows have already been torn asunder! 24 (which hadn't even started shooting yet) has cancelled their entire season.
I refuse to watch reality television, which is what the networks will obviously resort to. What can I do to help us all in this time of lack of original written television?
JEFF HERNANDEZ PRESENTS 24- the 7th season. Part one-
(Please remember each hour represents an episode)
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| Haiku You! |
[16 Oct 2007|01:05pm] |
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I decided as a fun little experiment to just sit around and write a handful of Haikus last night before going to sleep. This is what I came up with.... Oh and hold onto your hats... this is deep powerful stuff... change your life wicked.
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| Macbeth |
[09 Oct 2007|07:55pm] |
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I have a goodreads account.
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/249420
I review books there. I recently wrote a review for Macbeth, which I was sort of was forced to read (not by anyone but myself), but it turns out my fully written review on goodreads was too long. You're only allowed 4,000 characters, and I had some thousand characters too many.
So here I'd like to post the full story:
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| Notes on the DTR |
[25 Aug 2007|11:45pm] |
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Random thoughts on the DTR, which I didn't even know was a thing...
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| My Type of Girl |
[08 Jun 2007|06:50pm] |
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There wasn’t much movement back in the early days. My leg had just been casted in a hot pink fiberglass cast just below my right knee, all the way down to the ends of my toes. I couldn’t put any weight on my leg. I had crutches, but they made my arms oh so tired and sore, so back then there were only two things I could do. 1) Lay on the couch. 2) Lay on the bed. Luckily I had a friend with at least five dollars, a friend who bought me the magazine, “Psychology Today.” “If anybody needs it…” She said. Ha-ha. I perused the magazine, passed over the articles about how being an optimist can help your health (I give that a big “W” as in “WHATEVER!”), the article about how divorced parents try to brain wash their children, and the article on how and when to shed your office persona, and went straight to the cover article, THE HIDDEN LAWS OF SEXUAL CHEMISTRY, cause really there are only a couple of things I’m interested in at this juncture of my life, and one of them is good grilled food. The other is sex. THE LAWS OF CHEMISTRY: Whom you are most attracted to reflects the biology of your brain as much as the heat of your heart. It may not have to do with us- it’s all about the kids, by Helen Fisher, Ph.D. Now there’s a title for an article. The article was three pages long, and was chock full of mumbo jumbo (read: overly wordy) smart talk that essentially boiled down to this: people can be classified into one of four personality characteristics, (Plato called them the Artist, the Guardian, the Idealist, and the Rational) Helen Fisher calls them the Builder, the Director, the Explorer, the Negotiator. And people with certain dominant personality traits will, on almost a subconscious level, choose to relationship with people who have a completely opposite dominant personality trait simply because that sort of balance will help produce a more well-rounded offspring (I.E. Explorers hook up with Builders because a Builder provides a stable environment, while an Explorer provides spontaneity). A sort of opposite attract, but for a physiological reason. That’s swell, but that’s not really what I was interested in (I can’t think about producing well rounded offspring… that’s way too big for me right now. I have no idea what I want for supper most nights, that’s as big as I can get. Plus, I find that I can barely talk to girls, much less bed them… choosing a mate for reasons of producing a well rounded kid? Come on!) Still, I guess it was an interesting article, but reading the article was just precursor to what I really wanted to get at, the quiz. I freaking love quizzes. Yes, Quizilla, I do want to know which European city I am. Why sure Blogthings, I would love to know what color Power Ranger I would be. What’s that Cosmo? What’s his favorite sexual position? Let’s take the quiz and find out! The quiz out of Psychology Today was a bit more high-browed, asking to which degree I agreed or disagreed with statements such as. “I get uncomfortable when I see someone standing alone at a party.” (To which I thought, “Is there a mirrored wall I’m looking at?” I’m never uncomfortable being alone.) All which lead to me discovering what personality type I am. The adventurous Explorer? The steady Builder? The decisive Director? The personable Negotiator? Which one would I be? Oh the suspense! I am a builder (I scored a 12 in Builder, which edged out Director, Explorer, and Negotiator by one whole point. If I maybe thought about my answers a little differently it’s entirely possible I could have been an Explorer). “Those in whom serotonin pathways ma be dominant I call builders; these men and women tend to be social, popular, cautious (but not fearful), rule following, conventional, and often religious and spiritual. “ Is what the magazine said about Builders, which I guess sort of sounds like me, with the exception of that whole religious thing, and conventional sounds so banal. Yeck. Okay, so if I’m a Builder, that means, according to Dr. Fisher, that an Explorer (From the article: These men and women tend to be risk taking, novelty seeking, impulsive, creative, and curious) .will be looking out for me. So, now, who my dear friends is out there, available, that is novelty seeking, impulsive, creative, and curious? I can only come up with one answer.
 That’s right. Erin Esurance. Oh sure, she’s a cartoon you say. But if she isn’t creative and impulsive, then I don’t know what those words mean. And she totally needs someone who is stable, social, and popular while trying to save people time and money. Plus, if I hook up with Erin Esurance I bet I could get into all kinds of car wrecks and never have my insurance premiums go up, and I wouldn’t have to quote, buy, or print anything ever again! Somebody find me a phonebook!
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| A week ago |
[02 Jun 2007|11:12am] |
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I broke my ankle on Saturday, May 19th.
I got a pretty hot pink cast wrapped around my leg on Monday, May 21st.
I got stuffed into an SUV and driven from Dallas, Texas, to Corpus Christi, TX (8 hour drive) on Saturday, May 26th.
My dad decided he wanted to take a family trip, like back in the old days, before all the death and destruction. He didn't count on me breaking my ankle. I didn't count on my agreeing to still go, but I went.
These are the highlights.
My dad decided that since it was Memorial Day weekend it would be apropos to take the radar detector. Unfortunately the car we were in had super treated dashboards, meaning dad couldn't affix the radar detector to the dash. He instead decided it would be a good idea to use two-sided tape to afix the radar detector to the windshield. This good idea lasted about 30 minutes before gravity took it's toll. The detector fell off the windshield causeing my dad fo flinch.
I was sitting in the back seat at the time, with my broken leg propped on the console up between the two front seats.
The radar detector fell on my foot. Then dad flinched, and his elbow hit my foot too. Both hits hurt. I yelled and bit my hand so as not to curse. I drew a bit of blood.
We got to the hotel. My legs were a bit numb. It turns out our hotel room was on the second floor. There was no elevator in this hotel. I stood there on my crutches, looking up the flight of stairs. I tried to crutch up them, but didn't have the dexterity to do so. So I had to sit down, and scooch up the stairs. This was a bit humiliating.
Still I didn't complain, as I knew that there was no way I was going to actually vacation on my vacation. I can't crutch on the beach, I can't crutch on the naval ship that would be open for tours, I can stay in the hotel room with my leg propped up watching television, which is what I was doing at home.
My dad and his girlfriend complained to management, and eventually I got relocated to a room downstairs.
I shared a room with my brother. My brother and I haven't slept in the same room in over 20 years. He snores. I'm told I snore too. But my snoring wasn't what kept me awake at night. It was mostly his. He also goes to sleep much earlier than I do. I guess I've been single too long. I have no idea what it's like sharing a space with someone.
The next day the family got up early, took showers, and went off to go site seeing. They invited me along, but I knew that would be a bad idea. It was the first good decision I had made in three weeks. They went to the aquarium, the naval ship, the beach. I stayed in my hotel room and watched Man Vs. Wild on the Discovery Channel. I got to see host Bear Grylls bite the head off a live snake so he could eat. Bear Grylls kicks Les Stroud's (Surviorman) ass.
I was happy not to be out crutching around in tiny places. But I was a little sad when they came back showing me all the little trinkets they bought at overpriced giftshops.
The whole reason for the trip was to visit an uncle I hadn't seen in 10 years. We visited him for an hour then left to go eat.
The drive back was just as long as the drive out. My brother brought his camera along for the ride, and kept taking pictures. Truthfully, I don't like having my picture taken. We did get to stop at the Dr. Pepper Museum in Waco (I bought some Dr. Pepper). And we stopped at the Hilsboro outlet malls where I finally bought some shorts so I don't have to force my casted leg through pants and jeans. So... yay I guess.
I went back to work on May 30th. It was hard.
I got punched in the gut on May 31st.
I've been in a sad funk ever since.
Tomorrow will be better, hopefully.
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| Broken Ankle Diaries |
[25 May 2007|12:06pm] |
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"So, how are you? How was your day?"
"Same old, same old."
Man, who knew the same old same old could be so boring. Way more boring than what same old, same old used to be. It used to mean I'd get up, maybe work out, go to work, suffer through the slings and arrows of my daily grind, come home, watch some television, maybe read, maybe MAYBE do some writing, and go to bed.
Now it means wake up, stare at the ceiling, hop to the bathroom on one leg. Brush my teeth. Hop to the computer room to see if anyone has e-mailed me in the last three hours. Hop back to bed to go back to either pick up a magazine, a book, watch some television, or most likely of all, go back to sleep.
I've broken my ankle. I can't walk on it (No weight bearing, as the doctor says) for another week, which means I have to crutch myself around. I can't drive anywhere (right ankle), and the nurse said that I'm officially an impaired driver now, which means if I get pulled over, I could get a ticket.
So my days are pretty much restricted to the confines of my house. There's not much to do in the house, which means my days are pretty much restricted to the confines of my room.
"So, what did you do today?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"I watched some television, and slept. There's not really much more I can do than those two things."
"You know what you should do?"
"Ride a bike?"
"Can you?"
"No."
"You should Google, '10 things to do when you have a broken leg'."
"You think they'd have something like that?"
"Google has everything."
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| I done broke my ankle |
[20 May 2007|11:38pm] |
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It was a grey cloudy morning. Rain cascaded down upon us; thunder shook the ground beneath us. It was as if God himself cried, and howled and moaned at the atrocities of the world. And there we were. We four, we brave four, against the world. Saturday morning in Coppell, Texas was not like any other morning in any other suburb of any other city in Texas. This was different. Danger clung to the dust particles in the air. Reckless abandon surged through the blades of grass in the fields like electric current through copper wiring. And I found myself staring down the Russian mafia on the rain slicked basketball courts in Coppell, Texas. It all started with a phone call. “Hey, some of the guys are going to get together for a basketball game tomorrow if you’re interested.” The voice said. It was my friend from college. I was definitely interested. It had been a long time since I last played basketball. Basketball. The Golden Sport. The Game of Aristotle. America’s super real favorite past time. Hoop. Basketball. I’d sworn off basketball ten years ago. I said I would never go back, not after what happened. I would never want to relive that moment; the moment when my stunning “Lights out” performance on the court literally knocked the lights out of ten city blocks.
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| waxing nostolgic |
[17 May 2007|10:41pm] |
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I came home today, from work, in an odd mood. I was waxing nostologic, remembering the old times, and becoming a little sad, because I miss the old days. I miss going to play basketball on the weekends with a handful of friends, then going to eat Ci-Ci's pizza buffett afterward (we'd steal pizza, put it in Tupperware for later... this is in college, we were poor). I miss having friends, who would just hang out. Going out is such a production now. We have to set a time, and a place, and what movie are we going to see, and people need to be home early cause they have to work the next day. Or people have this or that which they've already comitted to, and it's just so complicated. Then it was just, "let's go." and we went. I definately miss the girls. There was always a girl I could be interested in then. There was always a chance that I could end up spending the night with someone I knew, or someone I just met. It never happened (extremely very rarely), but the opportunity was there. Now every girl I know is someone who I'm not interested in, or they're not interested in me, or they're already in a relationship, or who knows what. But life now seems so drab. I start to wonder how many opportunities for adventure, fun, love, or at the very least sex I let slip through my fingers over the last ten to fifteen years. If I had known that this is what was going to happen. That this stagnation is what I had in store for me was what was to become, then maybe I would have jumped, leapt at the chances given me. But that was then, and this is now. Oh for a handkerchief full of choroform and a time machine (that way I could travel 13 years back in time, subdue 18-year-old me, and take his place. Though everyone I knew 13 years ago would probably be a little freaked that I aged 13 year in an instant). My friend Theater Guy is coming home from China soon, and he's making a pit stop in Spain, and would like me to fly out and meet him. I have no passport (a rush job would cost me $130 ish? I think). A plane ticket would cost me $1300+. And then, well, then I'd be in Spain, which will/would be great, but how would I pay for stuff then? And this trip would be coming on the heels of a trip to Connecticuit to see a friend go off and get married. Not to mention a very cranky couple of credit cards that want loads of money from me. And that schooling I had certainly wasn't free. And I'm still paying rent. See, if this opportunity were to present itself eight, maybe nine months from now. No question I go (I will soon not be paying rent, so that's an extra $600 a month). But now, I just don't know if it's financially feasible. But damn it. Is this one of those moments? Am I going to be looking back five years from now thinking, "Spain was there, my best friend in the whole world was there, the money wasn't, but maybe it would have worked out, why didn't I take the chance and go to Spain? It's SPAIN. It's where I come from (if you trek back far enough in history). I could have drank Spanish beer. Seen a barbaric bull fight, and gotten rejected by a beautiful woman in a totally different language. But instead I worked. I shelved books, and I got rejected by the same old English speaking women." Or if I go to Spain, will I be saying, "Why did I go to Spain? I'm so broke. I wish I didn't have to sell my spleen." These are the moments I actively fear. I think about how I want to become a painter, or writer, or something, or anything, and I think, "But what have I done? How can I write or paint or anything about life when I've done so little living?" And that makes me just a bit sad, cause I'll keep trying to find a way to get to Spain, but that little feeling of doom is growing bigger, just ever so slightly bigger every time I think about it. And all this horrific rumination stemmed from a project I'm working on (a little short story action) in which I needed to cull some information from an old blog I wrote years ago. I've been scouring my old blogs looking for this one little tid-bit. I've yet to find it. But I did find this funny scenario for a sequal to the movie Dirty Pretty Things (and you thought I was going to leave you with a downer of a blog). ORIGINALLY POSTED September 4, 2003: WAIT! 2007 Jeff here: I need to clarify what 2003 Jeff is talking about. Cause I'm re-reading this, and realize that it doesn't make much sense to anyone who isn't me that's reading it. (I also embellished a touch here and there from the original posting) The problem is I haven't seen Dirty Pretty Things since September 3, 2003... so I'm gonna have to do this on memory. Dirty Pretty Things Synopsis: Bad guy sells human organs on the black market of some shitty foriegn country. Humans organs come from "donors". The "doners" donate their organs in exchange for passage to America. I THINK. All I remember is at the end of the movie the two protagonists (Seney and Okwe) end up double crossing the bad guy, they stab him, or cut out his liver or something, and Seney runs off to New York leaving her friend Okwe and the bad guy in whatever shitty country they were living in. Hopefully that helped. And now.... Dirty Pretty Jeff
So, I went and saw Dirty Pretty Things with my new movie buddy tonight. It had a very non-hollywood ending, which left me a bit underwhelmed. Even my movie buddy wasn't very happy with the ending. I told her that the writers and director left the movie to end like that so they could make a sequel... Dirty Pretty Things II: Dirtier, Prettier. I imagine there will be some differences between this movie and the next one. They'll hollywood it up. It'll be a buddy action movie. Hollywood types will step in and take over the roles played by these lesser known actors. I'm gonna spoil some stuff, so if you wanna see the movie, stop reading... DIRTY PRETTY THINGS II: DIRTIER, PRETTIER: I envision Jeremy Irons, (now playing the role of the organ harvest guy), following Seney (played by Katie Holmes in the sequal) back to NYC, which is where we assume she went at the end of the first movie. He (Jeremy Irons) is there to exact revenge for what she (Katie Homes) and Okwe (now played by Wesley Snipes) did to him at the end of the first movie. He (Jeremy Irons) survived having his liver cut out, but there were complications... and now he has a giant laser gun for a left hand, and attack robot dogs. Seney (Katie Holmes) has to call Okwe for help with Jeremy Irons and his laser gun hand, and his attack robot dogs. Okwe quickly travels to NYC to kick some ass. He brings along his friend The Mortician, (who was played by some guy named Benidict Wong in the original movie, but I'm thinking Jackie Chan will fill in nicely in with the new action themed sequal). So Wesley and Jackie and Katie are all in NYC fighting a crazed Jeremey Irons with a laser gun for a hand, and his robot dogs. There will be cussing, and fighting and explosions, and more organ harvesting, except the organs will be replaced with bombs, and more explosions, and kissing and screwing, and not one ounce of expostion, which is what the entire first movie was... talk talk talk. It will probably end with Wesley Snipes kicking Jeremy Irons down a smoke stack and saying something like, "Smoking will kill you." And then the smoke stack will blow up. That's what people want to see... that's what I want to see... that and tits.
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| There's a new Jeff in town |
[15 May 2007|10:03pm] |
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“Seriously dude, I think you should get out there and just see. I mean, what can it hurt?” He asks. I try to ignore him. “I mean look at her. She’s cute!” Again, I ignore him. “Seriously tell me you wouldn’t date her.” He says.
”I wouldn’t date her.” “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU!!” He yells. There is nothing wrong with me. Well, at least, that’s how I feel. These are how all of our conversations go. They can happen any time, anywhere. This particular conversation is happening while surfing the web through MySpace profiles and internet dating service sites. “Look you just need to get out there. I mean, they can’t be all that bad. Can they? Seriously, I mean seriously. Have you even tried it? Because you don’t know what it’s like unless you’ve tried it. Am I right? You should just do it. Just sign up for the online dating. It can’t be that bad. What have you got to lose? It’s not like you’re doing anything now. I mean seriously dude. Seriously.” He likes to use the word “seriously”, a lot. Which is almost ironic because I rarely take these conversations seriously. The: you need to get out in the world and date people, and you should do this via internet dating, so stop being chicken shit and sing up for E-Harmony or something! The reason I don’t take these conversations seriously is because way back in 2002 I did sign up for an online dating sight. Yahoo personals. I met some people, none of whom I talk to anymore. I went on some dates. None of which were particularly memorable. I’m not in any hurry to duplicate the experience.
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| A Day at the Ballpark |
[15 May 2007|12:47pm] |
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I went to the Texas Rangers, Los Angeles Angels baseball game yesterday. It was the first weekday day game I’d ever been to, I was with two of my best friends, and it was everything I wished and hoped for. I got to see a grand slam (the Angels). Two home runs (Rangers- that came way too late in the game, still, there was fireworks, even in the middle of the day). I got to see Sammy Sosa and Mark Teixeira do absolutely earn loads of money for very little effort. I got to see the giant tarps dragged across the infield cause of a short rain storm. I had several $6 beers and hotdogs. The three of us friends debated the merits of the clock spotting method (I’m not sure what that’s really called, but an example would be, “Boogie at 10:00!”). “What if you’re facing the person, and you say, ‘crazy looking person 6:00.’ Do you mean your six, and the other person’s twelve? Or vice versa?” “I think you always say your own clock, unless you specifically say, ‘your six’.” This debate came to a head when we started talking about the Knights of the Round Table. How hard would it be to tell directional time to a group of people who were sitting in a circle to begin with? I got a little upset with my friend who was text messaging through the seventh inning stretch (well, really it was off and on from about the bottom of the fifth through the seventh inning stretch. “I hope they show you on the big screen!” I said. “You sound like my mom.” Was their retort). And finally we got to see one grown man grope another grown man. Man A was trying to get back to his seat (carrying food). He scooted by man B who was sitting on the end of the row. As man A was passing man B, man B decided to place his hand on Man A’s torso, I guess to help keep him stabilized? Man A and Man B did not know each other. Man A also had shingle mouth… there was something crazy odd looking growing out of the side of his mouth. If I were Man B, I wouldn’t have touched Man A with a ten-foot pole. Still I guess all’s fair in love and sports watching. By the end of the day, we were all pretty tired (it was sort of hot and humid yesterday, though I can’t imagine what it’d be like watching a game in 90+ degree weather), so tired that the word “poop” became the funniest word in the world.
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| By myself. |
[12 May 2007|05:39pm] |
“You need to learn to be happy with yourself.” That’s what they say. It’s been said on television. On Oprah. On Jerry Springer. It’s been in books. Books written by John Grey, Phil McGraw, and Dr. Seuss. They say it on the radio waves that float through the air. Dr. Laura says it to thousands of drivers. They say it in movies starring Meg Ryan and Colin Firth. They say it in newspaper columns written by the Dear Abby writer. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you read it in bathroom stalls. Everywhere you go. Everywhere you look. Everywhere you hear, if you listen. Quiet. Careful. Listen. Hear it? There it is. “If you want to be happy? If you truly want to be happy, you must first learn to be happy with yourself.”
Someone said that exact thing to me the other day. We sat on a bench. The bench sat on the front patio of a nice home cooking type of eatery. We sat on the bench, looking out at the buildings brick exterior; the climbing vines climbing up the walls and pillars on the patio. We watched as people rushed through the patio, trying to catch the end of the restaurant’s lunch hours. It was almost two in the afternoon.
This is not how the conversation happened. This is a fictional account:
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| It's Still Rock-N-Roll To Me |
[02 Mar 2007|09:35pm] |
So, before I became all sick with the flu, I had a stunning realization while out galavanting on the town...
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| Well, it ain't cancer |
[01 Mar 2007|07:06pm] |
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My mom’s hair started thinning back when I was in high school. I can remember the day she asked me, "Do you think my hair is getting thinner?" And me being a 17-year-old boy said, "I don’t know." Eventually she went to the doctor to find out what the deal was. They ran some tests, and they found out that she had cancer. A year or so into her treatment I asked her if her hair had thickened back up. She said yes. "See, well, something good’s come out of this." Trying to find the tiniest of silver linings. "Believe me, I would have been more than happy to be bald if I got to choose between that and cancer." She said. There wasn’t any silver lining for her. As a family we would spend the next five years in and out of hospitals and doctors offices. I slowly developed a negative Pavlovian response to the doctor’s office. Doctors = bad illness, and perhaps, eventually death. I found this to be true of all doctors. Not that the dentist would ever tell me that I have a terminally ill disease. But the last time I went in for a regular cleaning he told me I needed to get all four of my wisdom teeth taken out and get a small cavity patched. "Seriously? All I wanted was the cleaning with that little spinning brush thing!" So yes, that is why I don’t normally go to doctors. I live in fear that I’ll go in for the routine check up, and leave with six weeks to live. (On a side note, can I tell you how awesome cancer is? I get to start taking colonoscopies a good twenty years earlier before I would normally have to because my mom had it. Genetics are awesome!) So, I’ve been feeling under the weather for the last few days. I had a fever that spiked up to near 104. I’ve got the stuffy head, the aches, the sinus pressure, the sneezing, the coughing, and the insanely sore throat, all of which lead me to the one place I usually don’t go… the doctor. So there I was, sitting in the examination room. The doctor walks in, asks me some questions, feels my neck, looks me over, then asks if I had gotten a flu shot. I never get a flu shot. "No." I say. As far as I can remember, I’ve never gotten the flu. Plus, it seem that every year there’s a shortage of flu vaccinations. So I figure that I’ll give up my flu shot to some elderly person that could actually use it. "Well, I’m going to have a nurse come in and give you a flu test. I’ll be back in about ten minutes." He says walking out the room. A flu test consists of shoving a tiny stick as far up one’s nose as possible. The force of this tiny stick shoved up my nose caused me to cough, sneeze, and made my eyes water like crazy. This does not feel good. After a few minutes the doctor walked back into the examination room and said, "Congratulations, you have the flu. Now I mean the real thing, Influenza, not just being sick. Some people say the flu and they just mean the common cold, but no, you have THE flu. Generally people that have the flu have what I like to call "road kill" look. But you’re young and healthy (two statements I generally disagree with) and so it looks like you’re taking it pretty well. I’d suggest taking it easy for the rest of the weekend, and you should be all better by Monday." "So I can’t go to work this weekend?" "No." "And it’s contagious?" "Yes." First, I’d like to apologize to all my co-workers I worked with on Tuesday. Second, I’d like to officially say to the universe, this is not how I wanted to take some time off from work. Now, I’m back home, with my eighty dollars work of prescription drugs, and soup, and orange juice, and tissues, and honey (someone once told me that honey helps to soothe a sore throat. I didn’t follow the advice then, but now I gladly take that nugget of information, as my throat feel that someone stuck razorblades back there. I’ve also taken to eating ice, and going the other direction with hot tea. What I find works the best is ice cream. Unfortunately ice cream and low-grade fevers don’t usually mix… so I need to find something else soothing, and just as tasty). The nice thing about being sick is that you’re officially given license to whimper and moan. Unfortunately I live alone (well, with my brother, but he’s my brother, the second I whimper and moan to him is the second he makes fun of me). So if you need me, I’ll be the one laying in my bed, complaining about my illness to the television.
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