exegesis: $999.99

feelin: hyper

now playin': various tracks from verticality (ok i am not obsessed with the mental notes, it's just that the cd is in my cd-rom and every time i put it in it comes up in winamp.  and it's good stuff. :))

yeah so i haven't made an entry in a while.  i'm trying to make my web page look less..... shall we say... amateurish?  so i've been working on that.  and i'm trying to get this whole stats thing worked out so i can track navigation on my site.  i am watching you............... but it seems like xanga is hard to work with.  oh and also, unless you remember the url to my webpage, the only way you can access it is through my blog or thru my aol profile.  and since i'm in pa for a little while i'm not online all the time (one phone line, and in fact i am online through a trial version of aol, since my parents can't even turn a computer on, let alone use the internet... although they did manage to figure it out at one point.  it's so weird IMing your parents.  you know it's funny...*record scratch*... ok back to what i was saying...) i'll get like 2 hits a day.  i assume someone actually reads this.  well, faithful reader, get ready because this is going to be a LONG entry.

...yeah so where did we leave off? oh wow, tuesday.  jeez that was a week ago.  maybe i should make this easier on myself and do it every week.  no, the point of a weblog to me is to type when i feel like it.  and it just so happens that i didn't feel like it till now so FUCKING DEAL WITH IT!....sigh.  ok since there are so many days i missed we'll go through it day by day in excruciating detail.  feel free to skip around.

oh and i forgot to mention last time that i got a flat tire on the way to the dinner theatre last sunday.  blarg!

TUESDAY 5/14

i think i slept in.  in fact i'm sure i did.  then i drove to towson to go to NTB to get my tire fixed.  well not fixed, replaced.  the fucking thing exploded.  i guess they'll do that when you hit a curb going about 30 mph.  grr.  my credit card didn't work (dunno why, it's a check card and i had sufficient funds.)  good thing i had fricking $82 in cash on me.  i got back just in time for DINOTOPIA which i hope you all watched.  six hours well spent, all told.

that night i worked on my website a bit, and then decided we needed to get rid of some alcohol, so i brought all i had, which pretty much amounted to a small airplane drink cart (gin, vodka, bacardi, malibu, kahlúa, tequila, and jägermeister) over to 416 (the sarahs' suite).  eric (french) and his french friends arrived in a bit and eric himself was visibly buzzing.  heehee.  so i tried to catch up with him.  (don't try this at home, kids.)  anyway enough about the drinking.  i hate when people talk about it like they're so cool cause they drink.  like i am doing now.  i will desist.  i slept in the next day (for obvious reasons), but the old head was clear as a bell the next day.

WEDNESDAY 5/15

woke up around 2 (see tuesday).  went to lunch with dan and his dad.  fucked up the car trying to park it.  ok it's a pontiac bonneville.  my parents' car.  in other words, a boat.  so i was trying to parallel park on this very narrow access road, so narrow in fact that you can't turn the wheels all the way because they hit the curb.  so i cut it a little too tight coming in behind a ford explorer and put a big-ass dent in the door.  start of a great day.

had a recording session around 5, recorded my solo part to "i think i love you" (creepier than ever, i might add) and percussion to "underground".  i liked different parts of different percussion takes, but lyric doesn't want to clip and snip, so it won't be perfect, but it should come out ok.  i hope i am living up to greg's expectations for me,  for i am a lowly padawan and he is the master.  having percussion experience doesn't hurt when you're doing vocal percussion.  plus you can steal licks from drum line shows to put in songs.  paradiddle-diddle-gak-gak-cheese, and the like.  if you know what those terms mean, you are a drummer or you have misinterpreted them. :)

and speaking of padawans, that night was the big night for STAR WARS: EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES went to the 3:30 am showing at the historic senator theater.   (notice that when i talk about live theatre i use the british "re" spelling, but a movie theater is definitely the american "er".)   so we left at 2:30, a rag-tag bunch to say the least: dan (my suitemate), greg (of mental notes fame), rimas (my housemate next year), and natalia (friend from griffin/gildersleeve frosh year).  basically it was like pieces of all my groups of friends, none really interlocking all that much.  but we made the best of it.  we got there and we were talking about how cool the tickets were (they're like souvenir style, i'll scan mine when i get access to a scanner again) and i went to get mine out to discover that i didn't have it.  i had left it in my room.  arrrrrrgh.

so i had to drive all the way back down greenmount and go up to my room and grab mine and rimas' tickets (meanwhile interrupting important sarah-pete time [not what you're thinking] and breaking a few parking laws).  we got back before the previews and all was well.  in fact, i even had time to grab some popcorn and yoo-hoo.  yeah they sell yoo-hoo and other kinds of cool drinks there, and at reasonable prices.  anyway back to the movie.  you can read my review of it which i will post after this i guess.  not tonight though.  gotta get up early tomorrow.  early being 11 am.  all in all i really really liked it.

there's something surreal about entering a movie theater in the dark and coming out as the sun is rising.  that was kind of neat.  then we went out to pete's grill.  best breakfast in baltimore, and damn cheap, too.  kind of like a classier type of waffle house.  only less sketchy.  i mean it is on greenmount avenue, so it is of course a little sketchy, but you know.  (side note:  how many of you say sketchy?  that's not just a baltimore/southern-mid-atlantic thing is it?  i mean "sketchy" as in frat basement, college senior dating high school sophomore, and camaro and cigarettes.)

i believe this bleeds into:

THURSDAY 5/16

since i didn't really sleep for a while after the sun had risen.  damn hopcops fucked up my life again that morning.  well it wasn't hopcops, they're cool.  it's those damn rent-a-rent-a-cops.  as in when campus security isn't enough, rent these guys from BROADWAY SECURITY SERVICES and S.A.F.E. (which i say stands for Stupid Assholes Fucking Everything up).  you know the people.  on a HUGE power trip thinking they are keeping the peace.  excuse me, you can't come in here til i get out of my geo tracker and move this traffic cone.  damn right you're going to wait for me to haul my ass over there.  what's your name?  do you go to school here?  ok you're lucky to have me here, because otherwise people could be driving through here unobstructed and the entire city would degrade into chaos and life as we know it would end.  do you want that?  i didn't think so.  oh wait, you're a parent of a student?  how may i make your stay more enjoyable?  so basically i had to park my car like a mile away (at least 6 blocks away)  only to have to move it by 4:00.  damn the man.

heehee a bit of a rant there.  those are fun.  sarah crawford's parents were coming at 11 to help move so i figured i'd stay up.  well that didn't work.  i crashed around 9, til 2 pm.  then i wasted some time, said goodbyes to crawford, etc. and started to pack myself up.  i won't bore you with the details of packing but we started moving sarah's stuff to dave's at 3 am.  then finished at 6 am.  then i started packing my stuff.  baltimore popos almost gave me a ticket for having my car in the street so long.  screw them, man.  damn the man.  this bleeds into:

FRIDAY 5/17

after an extremely frantic morning of loading crap i finally got everything out and got checked out of the dorms by 11:30 or so and left to take sarah to the airport before realizing i had left my trumpet in the suite.  good thing pete was still there.  i dropped sarah off at bwi then proceeded to drive home to pennsylvania.  yeah.  remember how much sleep i have.  on the way i got a call from pete saying that we had forgotten to clean out the refrigerator.  haha oops.  better that they discover that sooner than later :).

driving when you're tired is not fun.  i did all the tricks that mr. ketz, my drivers' ed teacher in high school told me.  i turned on the air conditioner, so i was cold and tired.  i started singing, but i couldn't find anything on the radio to sing to, so i started doing mental notes warmups.  in spite of all this i still managed to doze (actually once in the middle of singing, if you believe that).  so i stopped periodically along the way to get the occasional pick-me-up.  oh that life were like a video game and that a bouncing bonus fruit would keep a driver awake until he found another one.

*furiously switching to present tense to create action/suspense* (that rhymes)

so i'm on interstate 83 between harrisburg and york and i stop at a wendy's to get a small frosty (those things rock) and i'm walking out the door, frosty in hand, and in front of me is a tall black man with his two boys, about 8 and 4.  now let me preface this by saying that i am not by any means a racist.  i live in baltimore, a predominantly black city.  anyway, the 8-year-old holds the door for me as i go out.  now remember that i was on no sleep.  i THINK i said "thank you" when he held the door but i'm really not sure.  so the dad goes to the kid, "i told you, you don't hold the door for people unless they say 'thank you'".  so then the kid turns to me and says "you should have said 'thank you'".  "i did say thank you", i respond.  the father then indicates that if my parents had taught me manners, i would say thank you and that blah blah blah and he goes on a short tirade half to himself and half to me, the bulk of which i don't remember, but the last word of which was SLAVERY.  iwas utterly shocked.  i had no idea how to respond, so i didn't.  i just walked to my car, got in and ate my frosty in silence.  that's right.  i was whitey aka "the man".  i was oppressing this family by somnambulating while not being properly somniloquent.  ($1000 words, get your $1000 words here!).  yeah that was really really weird.

*back to past tense*

i did make it home okay, although there were definitely times i shouldn't have been driving.  i crashed that night around 9:00 drooling and watching spongebob.  (which is the coolest show ever, by the way).

SATURDAY 5/18

i got up to drive back to baltimore for a recording session which was to be at 1 at the dmc.  around 12:45 i was at the intersection of i-695/i-83 when i got a call from lyric saying that the dmc (DoS attacks welcome, jk) would be closed for the weekend.  so i turned around and came home. 

that night we went out for wings (oh so many wings) and i went to see star wars again with brian.  seeing it again definitely cleared up a few things.  that's about it for saturday.  i am sick of driving.

my parents now have digital cable so i was properly entertained for the duration of the evening.

SUNDAY 5/19

had to leave at 9:00 to be in BALTIMORE AGAIN for the show this sunday and wait tables, etc.  the place was full of old people.  and not nice old people either.  incapacitated and poor old people.  not the biggest tippers.  this one lady with an OXYGEN TANK asked me if we sold CIGARETTES at the theatre.  my good lord, come on now!

luckily my dad came along to keep me company for the drive.  he dropped me off at the play and went to see the ncaa lacrosse quarterfinal game (hopkins vs. umass).  which as i'm told was a ridiculously awesome game.  it's funny he's all into lacrosse now, which is pretty much unheard of up here in pa.

that night i went to dunkin donuts with brian and gen, who had just returned from school.  it was kind of by default because it's the only thing open in this whole county past 10:00.  i have been drinking a lot of coffee lately.  gen has a nose stud and a belly stud.  exotic, but i don't think it makes her any more attractive.  then again i think she is very attractive to begin with so i guess she can't go very far up the scale.  but they don't detract either.  the nose stud is very subtle.  you don't notice it til you actually get a good look at her face, and then you're too distracted to care. :)  she's a heartbreaker, man.

MONDAY 5/20 (FINALLY!)

short and sweet.
i mowed grass
i played catch with alex
i went to dunkin donuts (again) with neal and brian (more coffee than the night before)  note the time of this post.
and here i am.

my gosh that was tedious.  that will teach me to update more frequently.  we're going to matt's tomorrow, so that will be some foamy fun.   i am going to bed.

end transmission.

ed: this is a very long entry but the important part is the part where i was "the man" and oppressed some black dude. he was not pleased. i just wanted to eat my frosty and leave. - 9/5/06