Thursday, April 21, 2011

Neil

Fuck.


I was positive I was ready for that. But I actually wasn't. Well, I expected it. But I wasn't prepared. I knew it was coming. I was just hoping it was going to be after I saw him. Two more weeks, and I would've been by the kid's side.


I was alright when I found out. Then I was wreck. Then I was alright again, and then I broke down again. Eleven I'm-here-for-you's, three conversations about life, fourteen amazing hugs, two skipped classes, one on-the-house-coffee from Ryan, and a shitton of thinking later, I think I'm alright again. I think I'll stay alright for a while. He had one hell of a tough life, and he was in a lot of pain before he went. If anyone deserves to know what it feels like to be without suffering, it's him. I have complete faith in the fact that he's being taken care of now.


I think I'll still drive up to the Peg this summer. Just to see his friends and where he lived. I'm praying for them, too. I can't imagine how rough it must be for them. Those guys are like one huge [ridiculously insane] family. I've never seen guys take care of each other like that.


I already miss him a whole lot. He did way more for me than he realized. We're both different people because of each other, and I'm so glad he was clean when he went. He was going to be twenty in May, and I guess he didn't get too fair of a shot at life, but at least he never held back from anything. That kid had bigger balls than anyone I've ever met in my entire life.


2/23/2011 12:06:32 AM
scoty_boy911@hotmail.com: But I wanted to say to you
scoty_boy911@hotmail.com: That I love you so so so much
scoty_boy911@hotmail.com: And thanks for making me do the things I didn't want to do
scoty_boy911@hotmail.com: And all that mushy crap


4/19/2011 <3 Neil Driedger, I love you, I miss you, rest in peace.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

PostSecret


PostSecret's insane sometimes; this is the epitome of what I'm feeling about this whole thing. I know for a fact that he'll be alright--or rather, that he won't be alright, but I'll be alright with it. I just need to see him first, and the last thing I want is to run out of time. May really just can't come soon enough. 

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Element

So this morning I was in an exceptionally shitty mood. I was talking to this guy, and he said if I gave him a topic for discussion, he'd do his best to make me feel better. Turns out Google's good for fixing everything. Yeah, even failed attempts at a conversation. It's got a "conversation generator," and the first question (statement) to pop up was, "Describe your element." 


The other day I was sitting in someone's dorm room in my pajamas with my glasses, a book, my guitar, and a cup of coffee. I was entirely comfortable, entirely relaxed, and entirely in my element.  


I've been trying to pay close attention to what kinds of situations and people put me at ease, and what kinds of situations and people give me the overwhelming urge to tranquilize someone in the jugular. The more I think about it, the more the concept of "element" intrigues me. Some people are so shit-scared of doing the things that I do every single day, and other people are so comfortable doing the things that I'd never, ever try--mostly for fear of getting so nervous I throw up everywhere. What a classy paragraph. 


I asked roughly three hundred people the following question: 
When are you entirely in your element? As in, what kind of situation puts you in a mindset of absolute comfortability? When are you most productive, or most inspired?


Below are the funniest, most honest, most generic, most well-thought-out answers I got. 
  • "When I and everyone else are about 4 days into extreme exhaustion, like when I work a festival or a whole 2 week install. And I get my most deliriously hilarious, and no one else can stop me from making jokes about Rape Hitler."
  • "Pwning noobs."
  • "When I'm with [my boyfriend] in his room and I'm doing work while he plays games. And I eat his truffles and read."
  • "When I'm naked... Or do you want a serious answer? Joking aside, when I'm with other people, in good company."
  • "When I'm alone after someone said something really stupid. Then my mind works in a rational way and I can think of come-backs I should've said."
  • "When I'm well-rested and well-fed."
  • "I would say on my walks, especially by the lake or on a beach. Very at peace and things just seem clearer."
  • "When I'm with people who I can say anything to without being judged."
  • "I am not really sure. It just kind of happens every once in a while. Sometimes it's when I am high or on drugs, but more times it is just at some point this feeling comes over me and I just feel like I am in a thrill of ecstasy and I just produce something I feel really good about. Most times it is stimulated by music. Not anything in particular, just what I seem to be feeling the most at that moment."
  • "When I'm going 150 miles per hour."
  • "While I'm getting some."
  • "When I've got hard dance music on and I'm smoking a joint, honestly."
  • "While I'm at band practice."
  • "When I'm writing, especially if it's outside in the garden with some classic punk music playing. And it's sunny. Sunny, but not hot."
  • "Honestly, I'm kind of weird. Adrenalin makes me like, really calm. And focused. So situations that other people find stressful. Things that should get my heart going, but they just don't."
  • "Err... Guitar?"
  • "When I'm in my mother's basement, living off fish sticks and cream soda. My path is kind of gritty, you see."
  • "When I'm alone. And I mean alone alone. No one within a 2-mile radius." 
  • "At church. Not even lying."
  • "Why are you even asking? Fucking while stoned."
  • "While cycling. Or while having a bath. After cycling."
  • "In my element while watching Baywatch. The Hoff inspires me. And most productive while naked."
  • "Fire. Earth. Wind. Water. Captain Planet. The power is yours."
  • "On a stage, with good musicians, and a decent bass-rig, keyboard setup, or drum kit for me to jam with."
  • "When you're at the movie theater, because movies inspire everyone. And it's just you, focusing on the movie. It reflects something going on in your life, and it just causes an epiphany." 
  • "Marching band. Nuff said."
  • "When I'm not hearing anything. My brain works faster."
  • "When I feel liked, or appreciated, or admired."
  • "I'm entirely in my element when I'm in the shower. Because I'm just completely relaxed and I come up with my best ideas. Because I'm just clean and I can focus on nothing else but whatever I choose to. If that makes any sense."
  • "At the cottage by the lake, no worries, no work. Beers, good cooked food, a fire pit or BBQ... That's when I'm in my element and most comfortable. However, highly unproductive."
  • "When I drink shittons of energy drinks."
  • "What kind of gay-ass question is that?"
  • "When I'm in an airplane."
  • "In the water. Probably the sea."
  • "Acting. Pretending to be someone who's not me at all."
  • "At night. Maybe two AM. Doing music-producer stuff."
  • "When I'm in a small group of friends. Or when I'm drawing or just a little bit high."
  • "When I'm not doing anything."
  • "With my family."
  • "When I'm not Donnie. Definitely not productive. Inspired."
  • "When I'm taking an exam for a subject that I'm fucking boss at."
  • "When I'm shooting motherfuckers like it's cool."
  • "When I'm talking about a book with someone who's read it too."
  • "When I fap. Fapfapfapfap."
  • "I guess a situation of absolute comfortability would be when I'm laying down at night, right before I go to sleep. That's generally when I try to summarize the days events, interesting or not. As for when I'm most inspired, that really only comes with me being interested in a girl."
  • "When I have limited time to do something, and everyone's telling me I'm screwed. Then I get it done just to prove those bastards wrong."

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Happystuffs

  • Laughing fits that make your stomach hurt like a bitch.
  • Exceptionally generic college activities (i.e. getting a grill, putting it in the middle of the quad, and sitting around it with lawn chairs, a guitar, and disproportionate levels of cheap fruit punch and vodka). 
  • Digressing to really pointless conversational topics that ignore the weight of reality, make me feel like a fucking moron when I laugh alone in public, and ultimately remind me of the way we were before you got sick. 
  •  The realization that you've been somewhere for nine months and you've already met six people that mean everything to you. 
  • Falling into a routine again.
  • Coffee and shitty wifi radio and daily verbal abuse. 
  • Having parents and a brother who continually save your ass. And text you to say they miss you. 
  • When people's habits start to rub off on you, and yours on them, so much so that they know when you're going to say something vulgar before you even think of it. 
  • The realization that, even though you've felt like you've been static for the past year, you've actually made a lot of progress.
  • Having things and changes to look forward to.
  • Coming to terms with the fact that you practically have two separate lives and you'll never be able to combine them, but it's probably better off that way. 
  • Stumbleupon. Crafttime. The Beatles. 
  • Improvement with empathy and controlling your mood at any given moment. 
  • People who like doing nothing just as much as you do. 
  • Writing on your arm in sharpie and waking up with it smooshed (backwards) onto your face. 

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Tendencies

So I've got a bunch of these things I do. They're not sensible and they're not efficient, and yet I do the exact same thing every time I'm presented with the given situation. I guess I want to know if other people have the same tendencies.


1. Whenever something breaks, I get some tacky glue. I apply some tacky glue. I connect the two parts with the tacky glue. I spend about thirty seconds applying pressure, and then I put it down. I stare at it for thirty more seconds. I pick up the object, and, even though I'm damn well positive the glue is not dry, I decide to make sure. I twist the broken part to see if the glue has taken hold. It hasn't. It breaks again. I glue it again. I repeat the process until I decide that the object is not worth fixing anyway.


2. I turn on the TV. The default channel is something stupid, and I don't want to be watching it. I desperately start looking for something else to watch, and when I find something, I change the channel. I immediately feel an empty spot inside of me, as though I'm missing something that's happening on the channel I just switched from.


3. It's August, about ninety seven degrees in my house, and it's too hot to breathe. I'd kill to be able to shed my skin, because that's how goddamn hot it is. Blanket is necessary for sleeping.


4. Earliest class at ten. I never have any intention of getting up any earlier than nine fifteen. I feel the need to set an alarm to go off an hour and a half prior.


5. When I'm waiting for a program to load, I feel the need to click and drag on my desktop so my mouse makes box shapes, even though I know it's making the computer load slower.


6. Whenever I can't sleep, I look at the clock and try to calculate exactly how much sleep I'll get if I fall asleep exactly at that second. The math takes me about two minutes, and then I find that I'm dissatisfied with the answer, and then I get worked up, and then I'm not tired anymore.


7. It's 2:30 on a Sunday afternoon, and I have a shitton of homework to do. Except I'm on Stumbleupon, so I decide I'll start my homework at 3:00. Next time I look at the clock, it's 3:02. Since I missed 3:00, the most efficient thing to do is to change the deadline to 3:30, because I can't start unless it's at the time I said it was going to be.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Words I Cannot Stand

I figure my first post on here should be something that says a whole lot about the kind of person I am. After reflecting upon the two most important aspects of my life,
1. I aspire to write
2. I am a New Yorker
I figured I should write about something that corresponds with the aforementioned attributes. See below.
1. Something pertaining to vocabulary
2. Something that allows room for excessive complaining
I've compiled a list of words that bother the crap out of me; I'm going to try my hardest to explain why they bother the crap out of me.  


1. Junk: Not only is this word particularly vague and does positively nothing as far evoking any imagery whatsoever (except maybe your creepy neighbor's crawl-space filled with useless shit) it just sounds gross. It sounds like when you buy a carton of Ben and Jerry's that's way too big for one person, so you take it in and out of the freezer until it thaws and freezes sixteen times over; then it gets all rubbery and sticks to your throat and tastes like used erasers. 


2. Moist: This might be one of the worst words in the English language. Nothing "moist" is ever good. Ever. When people and companies try to market things using the word "moist" (bakeries, cake mixes, Paula Dean) it is the biggest turn-off ever. Flooded basements are moist. Sponges underneath the sink are moist. A lax bro's gym clothes are moist. Happy things like cupcakes and cookies should not be moist. 


3. Loaf: First off, no serious word should ever end in F. Barf. Dwarf. Goof. No. People try to disguise this word in phrases so it doesn't sound awkward. "Loaf of bread," or "Loaf pan," but go ahead and say it on its own. Yeah, that's what I thought. The Free Dictionary defines this word as: A shaped, usually rounded or oblong, mass of food. Oblong Mass of food. That's disgusting. Foods should be round (crabcakes) or square (Ellios pizza) or blob-shaped (mashed potatoes). Never, ever, should a food be described as "oblong." The definition then goes on to say that the phrase "Loaf of bread" originally started as "loaf-mass" and there was a dude (otherwise referred to as "keeper of bread") who was called a "loaf-ward." I feel like if someone walked up to me, pointed in my face, and said, "you're a loaf-ward," I'd be more offended than if he used the most vulgar, unspeakable, tasteless insult he could think of. 


4. Stinky: This is a "mom word." Moms use it when they're trying to sensor themselves around their kids. Rather than saying, "That blows really hard," or "that smells like crap," or "that is the worst quality hamburger I've ever unfortunately ordered off a drive-through menu," they say, "that's stinky." Personally, I just think it sounds stupid. People shouldn't say this word unless they're six years old or they've recently popped out a bunch of toddlers. 


5. Meow: Technically, I guess this is more of an onomatopoeia than anything else. Still, it really shouldn't be used unless you are speaking specifically about a noise that a cat has made. Example: "This morning I woke up to my cat making meow-noises." Never should this word be used as filler in a conversation. If you don't have anything to say, I'd rather you just type, "lol." Or, you know, don't say anything at all. Maybe the conversation is supposed to end there. Never try to get my attention by saying "meow" to me. You are a human being. If you want my attention, try, "Hey, Maria," or "You there," or "Look over here." Don't rawr at me, either. 


6. Obnoxious: This word has its place. There are times when it should be used. When there is a couple in a restaurant whose baby has been crying for ten minutes and no one has done a thing about it, or when a group of girls feels the need to be louder than the rest of the cafeteria because every word that exits their mouths is the funniest thing ever, then obnoxious is the appropriate terminology. However, this word cannot be interchangeable with every adjective ever. Not everything can be obnoxious. Try a thesaurus. How about abhorrent, grating, loathsome, displeasing, cursive, offensive; the possibilities are endless. 


7. Hummus: A dip made of mashed chickpeas. I've heard it's good. I've never tried it. Probably because it's called Hummus. It sounds like the name of a plague. Or, better yet, an STD. "I went to this insane party last night, bro. I don't really remember what happened, but I think a chick gave me Hummus. Yep. That's right. I got the Hums."


8. Really: I'm not talking about when people use this as an adverb. Or as an intensifier, or in place of the phrase, "In fact." I'm talking about when this is someone's solitary reaction. When someone responds with nothing more than, "Really? Really!?" I'm not going to lie. I've been guilty of this myself; sometimes people are just so stupid that you can't wrap your head around it. But when you're in a situation where A) one's intentions are more than clear, and B) the reality of the situation is not questionable at all, please do not use the response, "Really?" I was once standing idly in the mall's food court, and a fight broke out between two boys. Boy 1 decked Boy 2 directly in the face, and Boy 2's response was, "Really? Really!?" Yes, fucking really. To me, that says, "The certainty of what you've just done hasn't yet sunk in. In order to further your point, by all means, please, punch my face again." 


9. Personally: I had this chick in one of my classes who began every comment with, "Well, like... Personally, for me..." Unnecessary. We know it's your personal opinion. It's coming from your goddamn mouth. I don't know of anyone whose opinion is not personal. On a separate note, if you're starting a sentence with, "Don't take this personally, but," odds are you already know that what's coming out of your mouth will be categorized as offensive. You also know that the receiver of your comment will in fact take it personally, and will A) break down over their self-esteem and you'll be forced to console them, or B) purposely fire back with something that you'll take personally, and they'll introduce it with, "Don't take this personally, but." Then it'll be a never-ending cycle of politely-introduced insults, and you'll both want to kill yourselves. 


10. Rack, Cleavage, Shaft, Screw: I've grouped these words together because they're all words that should not be used as everyday G-rated terms. I don't care if you're talking about a rack of CDs, the splitting of crystalline materials, the narrow part of a spear, or a metal fastener. I have the maturity level of a thirteen year old boy. I will laugh, no matter the context. If these words had only one single connotation, I wouldn't feel like an immature perv every time they came up in conversation during family dinners. 


I've reached a generic I'm-listing-stuff number, and I think I'll stop here. Instead I'll apologize for the opposition between this layout and this blog post (Your initial reaction: dull colors and outlines of birds, she'll probably say something brooding and insightful and annoyingly vague, like "Do not stand at my grave! I breathe my last breath for you! This blog in reality: Woops. Nope, that's bullshit) and then I'll be on my way. Thanks for reading.