For about the past week non-work hours have been occupied mostly by:

To schedule a screening: you know my name.  Look up the number.  Cheers.

Broken, Broken..

As luck would have it the day after I posted a love fest about the tandem bicycle the front tire went flat while I was at work and I had to walk it home. I still haven't got it fixed yet because I'm lazy. Most all of last week I took the bus, finagled rides , and at times threw a thumb out to get from point A to B and it seems like it's going to be the same kind of week this time around because I don't see myself finding much time to make it to the bike shop in Lahaina until the weekend. Full disclosure: The front tire has a couple of broken spokes on it so I don't want to ride it again until the spokes are fixed and the rim is trued. I'm more than capable of patching a bicycle tube and have all of the necessary tools to perform that particular task...but I have no reason to fix the tube until after the rim is fixed and I don't see myself having time to get the rim down to Lahaina until Saturday because I work during the day all week. Fooey. I walked home from work today. That was a pretty nice time. The sun was setting as I was walking so it wasn't too hot and the view is always nice. Even today, when it was quite voggy and hazy.

When the winds are out of the south/east the volcanic emissions from the Big Island volcanoes blow up and the air gets pretty shitty. It's not fun to breathe and the air is heavy. It was like that all of last week and it's supposed to keep up until Wednesday or Thursday. This makes me unhappy. My forehead leaks a lot when the days are like this. It's also pretty shitty to sleep because there are no cool, north/west trade winds blowing. It's not all fun and games.

I might jog down to work tomorrow. You know: keep the body guessing. F, I need to get that rim fixed......

My iPod has decided not to work anymore, too. The clickwheel will no longer function. So, I can charge it. But I cannot use it. Steve Jobs can go choke on a pretzel. I treated that thing like royalty and it's only four years old or so...yet now I have to buy a shitty new nano that's got some stupid ass touchscreen that I'll probably break within six months. Fuck apple. They need to know when they have good things, like simple, metal-encased iPod nanos, they should KEEP MAKING THOSE. F technology, maaaaaaan.

A new iPod isn't high on my priority list right now, however, because student loans were paid just a minute ago and I just scooped some BONNAROO tickets on Saturday and rent is due next week so my discretionary spending account isn't quite as large as it usually is. When the rent comes due each month I just cut a check...but my roommates are usually a bunch of delinquents there's at least one or more each month who won't pay without threats of broken legs. Suck on eggs, fellas. It all works itself out in the end; I'm just much more comfortable KNOWING I can pay rent than hoping they'll each actually come through on the first of the month, like, you know, normal, decent people do. I live with rapscallions, I tell ya..

Besides, what better way to kick off March than by buying a new iPod. yipee.................fudge.

Cheers.

Something to get you giggly prior to your weekends..

Genius.  Pure, unadulterated genius.  I run into a lot of people who don't know Adam Sandler comedy.  A couple of people recently, when we started playing this, were like, "wait...where's the video?  It's just guys talking?"  Yes.  Have some god damn imagination.  Not everything has to be shitty and overdone like Bedtime Stories.  If there was a video I hope it would have a shitty mascot costume like the penguin in Billy Madison or Chubb's shitty fake wooden hand in Happy Gilmore.  You know, real comedy.  

--

On a somewhat tangented course, but trust me, I'll bring it back around, this goes out to loyal reader M.Closson: If Bonnaroo isn't in the cards we'll just have to find some more music to hit up this summer.  Mountain Jam, maybe?  Or just another show.  Hell, we could just head out to the ragoo festival on Peaks.  See what I did there?  It's funny, you know, because it's bigger than a normal sized hat.  It's an oversized hat. Cheers.

Bicycle Deux..

My old cruiser broke down a couple few weeks ago. That's happened since I fell off the blogging wagon, sorry for bringing you folks late to the party. I broke a spoke on my back rim and the tire started to rub on the frame. I didn't take much notice of this because the thing was a piece of shit anyway so I figured a little rub wouldn't make it much harder to ride that it already was. This small rub, however, continued to get worse over the next couple of days and the next thing I knew I was riding to work one afternoon and I kept hearing ::PING:: ::PING:: ::PING:: with my headphones blasting and my back tire got all shaky shaky and I stopped to find that had snapped almost all of the spokes off of one side of my rim. Shucks. I still managed to get to work without incident but there was absolutely no way I was riding it home. I started leather tramping home pushing my baby blue (never leave a fallen soldier behind, I say..) when, luckily, a friend with an SUV saw me walking and looped around and brought me home. YAY!

I still haven't got a new rim yet. This isn't to say I've been walking and hitchhiking and taking the bus everywhere. Actually, I've never stopped two-wheeling. First I hopped on J.Mac's bicycle for a couple few days (probably more like two weeks but days run together and I haven't really been paying attention..) until another one of my roommates finally got around to finding a job and he needed it to get to work. So, now I ride this gem:

Badass, right? One of the bartenders at Hula mentioned he had a tandem bike that he used to ride with his wife and J.Mac and I decided it would make for a hell of a goof off day to cruise that thing around all banged up on a day off. And it was a hell of a good day when we got around to it about a month ago outside of the fact I got a little squirrely on the handlebars and almost led us into a head on wreck on the highway when we were going about 20mph, but that's neither here nor there because we're still alive and kicking..........

We've had it ever since and the guy said when we borrowed it I could keep it for as long as I wanted, so when I gave up Jon's bike I just hopped on that thing and haven't looked back. The looks I get are priceless. You don't see a lot of tandems out here, and you certainly don't see a lot of people riding a tandem solo. Loner, you may say? Tell me something I don't know.

This just adds to my mystique. Now not only am I known by some as “the guy who's always riding his bike,” I've become “that idiot alone on the tandem bicycle.” Fitting, I'd say. The things a hell of a lot nicer to ride than the old cruiser I have. The guy had the frame sent from the mainland and then more or less tricked it out once he got it here a few years ago. It's got a climbing gear on it so hills are a breeze and it's a heavy ass road bike so once I drop her into the high gear I absolutely crank. He even had clipless pedals for it; that's some serious shit. Hell, it's even lighter than that blue piece of shit, if you can believe it. I'd say upgrade, both mechanically and goofily.

Chances are good the blue bird is headed for a dumpster and the Trek Double Track T-100 will be my mode of transportation for the next couple of months. I make due with what I have...............Cheers.

Happy Valentine's Day..

Haha.  Cheers.

Deja 'Roo?!

Deja 'Roo?

Bonnaroo's lineup gets announced Tuesday, the 15^th. I'm excited. Yep, I'm thinking of heading down again. Just after the first of the year there was some pretty serious talk of heading to Coachella this year. J.Mac was down and a few other folks we know out here, so it definitely would have been a blast going with a big old Maui posse. It's the same sort of festival as Bonnaroo just it's three days in California in April instead of four days in Tennessee in June. Lot of bands, lot of hoopla, lot of silliness, little bit of ballyhoo. Plenty of goodness all around.

I was gathering up steam to go until I saw the dates and realized that it's the same weekend my folks are flying to visit me. So needless to say I removed myself from the Coachella plans pretty quickly but all the festival talk brought Bonnaroo back into my thoughts. This is Bonnaroo's 10^th Anniversary so I'm hopeful the lineup will be stacked with artists from years past. If that's the case here's your first announcement that I'm recruiting people to make the pilgrimage. I believe any true music lover should go at least once in their life. So, if you love music, start thinking about the trip. You don't have to live in Maine. Last time around stops were made in MA, NY, VA, and TN. I'd love to add DC and other random northeast cities to the wake of destruction if this comes to fruition. There are a couple of routes to go. Firstly is, obviously, I don't have a car. So if I'm still carless in June my ability to travel would be based on whether I had a ride down. Hence preliminary planning beginning...now.

I would like to find two companions, or four-five. Not so keen on three because three more people, four total, would be tricky for a long drive freighted with gear in a sedan. Five or six (more ideal than five..) total people would provide two three person vehicles. As well as plenty of people to mix and match when not everyone wants to go to the same show. There's a lot of different shit going on all day and all night so the more the merrier. But, yeah, I'm just throwing it out there. It doesn't need to be a ten day trip this time around, either. I know I've (probably..) got places to stay in Boston, NY, DC, and NC so breaking up the drive shouldn't be a problem. But after a one year layoff and no music to speak of out here I'm fired up to get my Jesus-feet hippy dancing again.

Dates are June 9-12. Check Bonnaroo.com Tuesday for the lineup announcement. But if this sounds of any interest to you then let's get some dialogue going. You know my name. Look up the number.

–

Lost a couple of pretty cool points in the middle of that post.

Number one is the fact my folks are coming out to visit. They're finally taking a vacation for their April vacation and I couldn't be happier for them. And, to make it better, they're coming to visit ME. Little, old ME. I'm excited to drink beer with them on the beach and sit at various bars on the westside of Maui. I think they'll enjoy themselves just fine out here. Love ya, Ma and Pa.

Letter B is the fact that, more or less, I plan to be back in Maine this summer. Yes, my time on the Valley Isle is coming to a close, at least for this time around. I want to spend a summer in Maine.

I know what some of you are thinking, and, yes, I've already spent 25 summers in Maine. But for about the last ten I've been an idiot and worked all summer. Work...isn't that fun. So, I want to use Maine as my home base for hiking and traveling and other happy horseshit that I should have been doing more of since I became a teenager, then an adult. I sprung this idea on my folks on Skip's birthday. “Happy Birthday, Dad. I want to move home! Surprise!!” Haha, I'm a terrible son.

No one out here really knows I'm pretty set on leaving. So if you live out here and work at Hula Grill...shhhhhhhhh. Management will know of my intentions next week during my one-year review. So you only need to be quiet for a few days. I know this is risky and all because I work at Hula High School but I can't talk about Bonnaroo seriously without it being mentioned...Bonnaroo isn't just a pipe dream: it can actually happen quite easily. So, get pumped and let's get an eclectic group together and let's make friends. If you have a car going down with an extra seat then let me know. I'd love to roll with. I'm just pretty sure I want to get there this year. If the lineup is worth it, that is.

–

Full disclosure: I wasn't planning on writing tonight. I went to bed before 7pm. Literally called it quits and went to bed at 6:42pm HST. I turned off the lights, put on some tunes, and closed my eyes. But I couldn't...quite...fall asleep. I got into a pretty serious text conversation and then Samm-O called and we hadn't talked in a couple of weeks so we chewed the fat for a bunch of minutes and next thing I knew I was wide awake and it was eight o'clock. Out of my room I came and on the TV went and Adam Sandler's Bedtime Stories was on. And I can honestly say I've never seen a worse movie than Bedtime Stories. I really feel like Adam Sandler signed on before the script was even written and then the writer said,” Fuck it. I can write whatever I want and people will still go see this.” I leave more plot on my toilet paper in the morning than this movie had. But, I did watch the whole thing. And the closing credits ran with Journey's “Don't Stop Believing.” And that was silly to me. Very very silly, but in a way fitting for the day.

Then, of course, I wasn't tired. But now it's eleven o'clock and I'm tired and I've written and I can still get to bed at a reasonable hour. It's amazing what I can get accomplished when I only work for two hours and forty five minutes. You can't find that many places on the mainland............Cheers.

..long, strange trip..

I'm fairly certain it's been close to a month since I last posted and much longer than that since I posted anything of actual consequence. I don't count youtube videos as consequential posts, no matter how good the songs are. O well. I'm back today, at least for the day. Lack of posting hasn't been because I haven't been doing anything, nor has it been because I was doing too much. Posting wasn't delayed because I was sick, nor was it delayed because my computer malfunctioned. More or less, I didn't post because I was lazy and/or I haven't felt a strong desire to post in quite some time. There are still plenty of times throughout almost every day when something silly occurs or a silly thought rolls through my head that causes me to think “O, I should remember that and write about it later..” only to never bother getting back to it. I have entire sheets of paper covered with scribbled notes from the new year with nothing to show from it other than sheets of paper covered with scribbled notes.

But today is not a day for thoughts derived from notes. At least not yet.

Well, okay, let me start with the notes. While no posts came from the note-taking as of yet many of these notes helped me in other areas. One area in particular: sleep. I keep a little notepad by my bed because before I fall asleep a lot of random thoughts from the previous days and thoughts for upcoming days roll through my head. I don't know if this happens to other people but it happens to me every night, well, with the exception of nights I get obscenely drunk and just pass out. Anyways, I get these thoughts that I don't want to forget. Something as simple as an item for a grocery list or a phone call to make or an email to write or a song to listen to the following day. But if I don't write this tidbit down I'll become a nervous wreck and worry about forgetting it, like it would be the end of the world if I forgot oatmeal at the store and had to go back. But I can't stop doing this. I've been like this for awhile. It's annoying.

But, yeah, so let me get you up to speed. I've been working a lot lately. I started food running, which means instead of wiping down dirty tables all day I take food from the areas where the cooks create Hula Grill's delicious menu items and then drop it off to hungry tables all day. I've been doing this for about six weeks now, I guess. Generally I'm a busser by day and a food runner by night. But I don't think anyone reads this for day-by-day updates on my life. F work. I go to the beach a lot. I'm tan. That's all fine and well and the same it's been for over a year.

Oh, that's new. I've lived on Maui for over a year. I jumped ship from the 207 in early February, sometime between the 3^rd and the 5^th...but I forget the exact day I left. That's pretty impressive, right? It's been a hell of an extended vacation, I'll tell you that much. 

Next week for my one year anniversary at Hula I get a free dinner for two. I'd like to find someone who doesn't drink to go with so I could get a free bottle of wine to drink to my face. “Yes, I'll have the Whipping Post pinot noir.” “Excellent choice, Matt. Two glasses?” “Nah. It's just for me. I can just sip on it from the bottle.” I love the way my mind works, the no glass thought just popped in my head right now after I typed “wine...to my face.” I HAVE TO DO THAT NOW.

Whoever's left reads this for the goofy stuff that pops up (LIKE DRINKING WINE FROM A BOTTLE AT A MODERATELY-CLASSY RESTAURANT, but let me continue..) in my life and in my head..

Like, for instance, I'm now more or less obsessed with the Animal Planet. It used to be the Food Network back in college (Giada still holds a place in my heart, though if I had it my way I'd let her hold something else. BAM.), then both the History and Discovery channels could keep me entertained for hours on end. But this was mainly because I didn't get the Animal Planet back in Maine. But let me tell you: find a time when Animal Planet is airing three or four consecutive episodes of Planet Earth, the BBC documentary. That show might be the coolest thing ever on television. It just makes you realize how easy we have it and how trivial our daily lives really are. Penguins live in -100 temps and don't eat for four months straight. Food in general for that matter. If most animals don't kill...KILL...their own food...WITH THEIR TEETH...they die. And people get pissed off when their steak isn't cooked to their desired temperature. WHAT THE FUCK. We're a silly species. Actually, let me find a different example, overcooked steak is the pits. People get mad when, well, shit, I can't think of anything. But people are damn finiky about their food and so many of us, at least in “civilized” cultures, don't lift a god damn finger to grow or raise or prepare their own food. I can't talk, either. I like my chili from a can, just like everyone should. But I sure as shit don't bitch about it. I KNOW everything I bitch and moan about is just nonsense. YET I STILL DO IT. I'M NO BETTER. I'M SORRY. 

But yeah, watch Planet Earth. It's unreal. Animal Planet has shitty reality shows, too. Don't watch those. I never have. 

 K. I guess I'm not obsessed with Animal Planet. Just Planet Earth.

Alright, this is getting dumb. How about this:

So when white folks came over to colonize the islands the first to arrive were missionaries, who were, more or less, successful in converting a lot of locals to Christianity. So nowadays there's a lot of God-talk out here. There's even a New Testament written in Hawaiian pigdin that tells the story of “da spesho Jesus told by Jesus' guys (apostles..). I have a copy. I'm pretty glad I was able to acquire one. But that's not the point of this story. The point is one of the musicians who plays at Hula and I get along pretty well so we'll always make small talk either before or after his set, but when he's going to leave he always says, “God Bless” to me. This has been happening for well over six months and it still throws me for a curve every day. I NEVER know how to respond, because I'm not religious (I realize I'm going to hell for saying this. Whatever.). I appreciate his thought, but I can't say, “You too,” because I don't believe so my act could, in turn, hex him because I'm sending him lies. I'd never want to do this to anyone, so I just tell him, “Thanks, man.” But EVERY time he says “God Bless” to me this goes through my head. And once he leaves, I giggle to myself because I tend to giggle when I'm uncomfortable. This has no reason to cause me discomfort, but it does. Woe is me.

--

I really need to write more. I wouldn't sound anywhere near as ridiculous if these were spaced out with fillers in between over a couple week span. You're getting only meat and potatoes right now. Hope you're still bearing with me........

--

For Christmas I bought myself some books. I already had too many books out here, many that I haven't even read yet, but I wanted more books so I bought myself some more books. I'm greedy with books. I hope down the road when I have a house I can have a room for all of my books that I've read which I can send people into to show just how smaht I am, as everyone with a room just for their books must be pretty smucking faht.

Anyways, I bought a book called Creating Short Fiction because I wanted to get my feet wet in short story writing. You know, beginning, middle, end. Protagonist. Rising Action. Climax. Conclusion. All of that happy horseshit. Writing a good short story is one of the many things I'd like to do before I die. Things like creating a claymation stop motion movie, hike the AT, drive across country with no time table, go all Thoureau-on-steroids and grow my own food and kill chickens and rabbits and build a greenhouse and have a root cellar and make my own compost...k, that one's pretty elaborate but you get the idea. I have a lot of hair-brained ideas that I become infatuated with for a day or a week or a month and then go dormant for many months or years only to come back sporadically when I get bored and think, “Alright, what's next?!” But now I've added “write a good short story” to the list and to start I bought the book. This came in the mail a couple of days before Christmas. I didn't wait to open it. I read the introduction while I was on the toilet that evening. Know what page I'm on now” Three. Guess I've got a lot more work to do.

But this is what I mean when I haven't really been doing ANYTHING while I've not been blogging. I haven't been reading a lot. I haven't even been watching a lot of TV. I guess I've just kind of been working a lot, and at the end of most work days I haven't felt like writing. And there's always tomorrow. And like my Grandpa always said: Anything that can be put off until tomorrow can be put off until the day after tomorrow. Love you & miss you, Grandpa.

--

This came full circle, I think? I'll close on that. I miss Maine, too, and everyone who should be cared about there. Cheers (hopefully I'm back on track now...Shit, this was a pretty weird post..).

Give me my money back, maaaaaaan..

I did my taxes yesterday. Well, my federal taxes. The ones that matter. I wasn't really sure how much I was going to get back this year, or if I was going to get any back at all for that matter so it became a good day when I got far enough into things to see I was going to get a little bit of coin back. Yay for me. It's exciting, you know, because it's my money I'm getting back.

I also discovered I did my taxes one day earlier last year than this year.  I always do my taxes fairly early.  It's pretty easy with turbotax.  And free.  If I actually had to buy turbotax I'd suck it up and do them by hand.  But it's free so I don't, and I get handy little .pdf's for record keeping.  YIPPEEEEEEEE.

Last year I did them early because I needed a little extra dough to line my pockets when I came out here. My tax return was, more or less, what got me started out here with first month's rent, security deposit, and incidentals like filling my belly with overpriced food and grog (I had other money, but why spend that right away.......). This was well back, when I was out here strictly to have a good time with no plan of staying for the long term (Long term being more than a couple of months..). Once the job started it took a couple more months for me to realize I was burning through money like you read about and that I needed to do a little bit of budgeting to allow myself to save a bit. Yes, I enjoy saving money. I'm a delayed gratification kind of a guy.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this savings account but it helps me sleep at night knowing I have it. Actually, recently until I actually completed my taxes this savings account didn't help me sleep; it kept me awake. A lot of my “budgets” get crafted while I'm unable to fall asleep at night. This results in me coming up with silly ideas and then rough figures to go along with the silly ideas and then these rough figures get plugged into the calculator in my phone so I can determine how things add up. Last night I had some concrete numbers so I didn't have to fudge numbers a few times to get a ballpark estimate. 

 Yes, I am, in fact, an anal retentive loser. But I enjoy knowing where my monies end up so I'll take the good with the bad. One in the hand is worth two in the bush and all that nonsense.  Don't tell me otherwise.

--

I've been trying to update my resume so I can be ready to send it out if a job that interests me catches my eye but I've hit a bit of a snag. I'm finding it quite difficult to explain what I actually do for work in ways besides “I clean up dirty tables for a living.” Some one give me some advice, please. 

 Cheers.

More to come asap..

........hopefully..................

Cheers.

Winter doldrums..

Aloha. It's been quite some time. I don't even know how long. I know I've written once this month. I included quite a few words but I don't think I really said very much. That's kind of how I've been feeling lately. I've got quite a bit running running running through my head but there seems to be some broken connections between my brain and my fingers/mouth/whatever because I yet to be able to express how, exactly, I feel. Discombobulated. So, instead of writing I haven't been doing very much. I read Fight Club last week. Excellent read. I don't think that helped to clear my head as the entire storyline is about a pretty mixed up guy. I haven't had insomnia recently so I don't think I have to worry about developing a split personality just yet, which is a good thing. I recommend reading it if you're looking for a new read. It's much better than the movie, though I did enjoy the movie, too. Had I been better informed and more into reading ten years ago I would have liked to have read the book first, but that's neither here nor there now as the past cannot be changed. Down the road I'm sure I'll read more books by the author, Chuck Palahniuk, though right now I have many books in my possession I haven't yet read so I'd rather tackle those than buy more books. Eventually I'd like to read enough books I already have so I can send some back to my folks' place, but I've been saying that since I got here and it hasn't happened yet. I've traded some books when I've been back but I know there's absolutely no way all of the books I have now will fit into the bags I'll be carrying whenever I depart from here. But I'm confident things will shake out just fine whenever things actually have to shake out.

--

I think the new year has a way of messing with me in such a way that I get thrown into a bit of a funk. I've never really considered this before. When I was coaching the new year was daunting because it meant many, many consecutive six day work weeks as the new year brought the start of indoor meets which rolled immediately into outdoor meets. Last year I was fairly miserable around the new year because I didn't really have much of a plan for what was “next” in my life. I was living at home. It was cold and snowy. I wasn't working as the roofing season had come to a conclusion shortly after snowfall in the middle of December. Let's just say I had plenty of time to be miserable and not leave the house. I'm fairly certain this year's new year funk was a carry-over from not being home for the holidays, coupled with a little bit of an itch for a change. I'm quite happy here, but at the same time I'm getting that restless feeling and this time I'm feeling a desire to find a career path that could be for the long term. I have no idea what this could be, exactly, though I do have some potential avenues I've already discussed and others I plan to explore sometime in the not so distant future. This is by no means a rush to change, but I do feel a need to take a small step forward in the stages of change I learned so much about in my undergrad psychology classes.

This concerns the few of you still reading because I'd appreciate any input you may have for me. What, if anything, should I do next? Am I a fool for considering departing this beautiful island after barely a year? Do you know of a job that may interest me that you could help me obtain (Heh, heh..)? I'm all ears. This could be a very fleeting thought and by the end of this week I could be very well calling myself a fool for thinking this way, but at the same time I'm finding motivation right now so it certainly can't hurt to look around a bit. And, hell, I could have purchased one hundred and seventy thousand junior bacon cheeseburgers for the price of my undergraduate degree, so the least they can do is help me out in my job search, right?

Have a great start to your weeks, folks. My goal is to not lose all ambition by this afternoon. I'm out of salad so that should help things. Cheers.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Oh, that was last week?  Some start to the new year writing wise, huh...............

I've locked myself in my room and now I'll write. I've got no internet access in here; I can only get a signal when I'm sitting at our table in the kitchen and I don't really enjoy sitting there. The chairs aren't that comfortable. Rigid, firm. Not squishy. I don't feel like the chairs contribute to detailed writing because the whole time I'm sitting there writing all I'm thinking about is getting out of the chair and getting to sit some place more comfortable. So, generally, I open up my computer, turn it on, enter my password (yes, I password protect my computer. Old college habit, though I don't know why I did it there, either. I don't possess any classified information.), connect to the internet and then open up a new window so I can open up Blogger and then a new post. Well, this isn't entirely true. Once I open a new window I always check my mail first. Always. Then I stay logged in and check my work schedule. Always. Then I log into the facebook. Always. Then I go to ESPN and check the headlines. Most of the time. THEN I open up Blogger and click on “New Post.” I am a creature of habit. It may seem annoying but I find comfort in repetition. I always use tabs, too. Never multiple windows. Multiple windows are so 1999. Whoever came up with the code that allows for multiple tabs in the same internet browser window deserves a pat on the back and a firm handshake. Preferably at about the same time. Handshake, then pat on the back. No, firm handshake, THEN the elbow grab while the shake is going on, for emphasis, you know. Then, post-shake, an appropriate pat on the back. Not a gentle and caressing pat. Not a pre-stage Heimlich-manuver pat. Just an appropriate pat. A “You deserve a pat on the back so I'm going to give you a pat on the back, and thus the regognition you so deserve” pat. Yeah, that sounds nice.

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So, yeah. I've been struggling with motivation to write. Not ideas. There's always plenty of topics, however trivial they may seem or turn out to be. I mean, shit, I haven't even written about New Years yet. It wasn't that spectacular. Worked until about ten thirty. Met J.Mac and out 4^th roommate, Curtis from Cape Cod, a little after that and drank beer on the side of the road while we attempted to hitch hike to a party. Shortly after midnight we succeeded in procuring a ride up the hill “(Well, two rides, but they were pretty close together so it counts as one ride, I think. Went to a pretty silly party that was going strong when we got in. Lot of house music. Kind of a weird scene. Curtis described it as a “weird, like silly, like gay ecstasy party.” Homophobic slurs aside, it was a pretty goofy scene where, presumably, quite a few people were rolling. It was a house party with 30 or 40 guests, a DJ complete with light show, smoke machine, and video, and no sign of the owner of the house anywhere to be found. And a guy dressed like the bunny from Donnie Darko and another guy that had on a light up t-shirt with LCD lights in the shape of the MTV logo, only his shirt actually said Mr. DJ or something stupid and he had on a teletubby head. Yeah, needless to say we didn't have the right drugs to really settle into that scene so we walked back down the hill after a little bit of time passed and caught a ride home. Happy New Year, indeed.

However, the house party, when the drugs and the DJ and everything expensive was removed, did kind of remind me a little bit of some of the parties that used to develop at Camp's house. There would be a whole gaggle from many walks of life who all ended up there because, well, sometimes there's only one party in town and that party usually formulated itself at Camp's house. With Nate Dogg on the CD player. Always Nate Dogg, always Music & Me, always played at least six times over the course of the night. “Ring the Alarm” will always put a smile on my face for this particular reason, and will always remain on my iPod just for that particular reason.  I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS SONG ALL NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!

 No one at the time really knew the words.  Some nights it was "Bring Me Along."  Other nights it was "Leave Me Alone."  Then again, maybe it was just the booze talking.  Ah, memories.

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Speaking of iPod it's becoming more and more difficult to squeeze more music on there. Most nights I'll listen to my entire iTunes library on random, which is fairly extensive, and see where things end up. Once I find something I'm into for that particular evening I usually take it off random and just continue listening, but usually after this I remember how good something was and then want to hear more. Thus, it needs to find a way on my iPod. I've only got a 4gig nano (This last phrase sounded incredibly ridiculous to me as I wrote it because if someone told me ten years ago I'd be able to walk around with just about 1000 songs in my pocket I would have laughed in their face. But ten years later 1000 songs is tiny and I've become conditioned to MORE MORE MORE. They make players the size of fingernail clippers that hold 1000 songs. Nuttiness..) so while 1000 songs is quite a bit of music I enjoy having whole albums within an ear's reach, not just a song or two. Adding a song is easy, but finding an hour's worth of songs, or axing a whole album already on there causes me quite a bit of mental distress. I pride myself on keeping a diverse and polished iPod library and I enjoy EVERYTHING I keep on my iPod. There's a time and a place for everything so it's quite a challenge balancing my whims and interests of today with what I may be feeling tomorrow. And, really, everything that's been on my iPod for awhile started as a recently added, heavily debated item. Some albums are old, comfortable choices I've been listening to for years and will stay on because I enjoy sleeping to or running and/or riding to. Newbies need to find their niche. Yes, I do put this much thought into things. Today I wanted to add The Downward Spiral (I'm on a NIN kick, sue me..) so I removed ten (or so..) random country songs to start THEN subbed out my Beatles 1967-70 collection for Sgt. Peppers, Magical Mystery Tour, The Downward Spiral, and three random tracks (two Beatles, one NIN). I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, I really enjoy the 28 song Beatles two disc collection, but we'll see how it goes for the next couple days. And yes, this decision took me well over an hour to formulate. Good thing I have most the day off.

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I suppose people could say I've been kind of selfish by taking some time for myself to start the new year. Until yesterday I didn't use my phone very much all week. Then yesterday not many folks were around when I attempted to return phone calls so I feel like I've been beaten at my own game of phone call screening and non-replied to texts. Karma is a motherfucker.  If you were someone I didn't respond to and then you didn't respond to me let me be first to apologize and say we're even.

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That'll have to do for today. Welcome back, me. Cheers.