never lend books to someone you like.

it's not customary of me to give unsolicited advice, but then i'm not entirely sure anyone even reads here anymore, so i don't guess i'm really giving advice as much as reflecting, or something like that. i was thinking about this yesterday though, i was in a pretty foul mood driving home and for some reason, i got to thinking about books that i owned, but that are not, as of the present, in my possesion. in fact, without exception, they are hundreds of miles away.

not throwaway books, either, good ones, some of my best ones, in fact, my best one is among those getting the indefinite library treatment, that one, however, i'm fairly optimistic about getting back, the other ones, not so much. i guess the plus is that whenever they look at those books they'll think of me and feel bad for what theives they are for still having them, well, maybe they'll think of me.

so anyways, i say don't lend books to someone you like, because if you never get the book back from them and subequently lose touch with them you'll be forced, whether you admit it or not, in some way, to hold some sort of negativity with your association of them. not any sort of petty, childish immaturity, necessarily, more of a disappointed "man it sucks i never got that book back from her, it was a really good book." i guess how much it colors your opinion of that person is contingent upon your level of maturity. if you lend a book to someone you don't like, if and when they never get it back to you, then it sort of helps in your justification of not liking them.

i dunno why you'd lend a book to someone you didn't like though.

feeling: patience elapsing
thinking of: emily and becky, with my books
music: "i wasn't gonna call you anyway" the toasters

there's a lot to be happy about.

i got a vacation coming up, which i'm ready for, i'd say more than ready if you pushed me, but no one's here pushing me. it'll be great though. my last vacation was in march, and that was a while ago, i did take off an entire week that time though, went to chicago, it was even better than i thought it'd be. didn't take any time off over the summer, mostly because between going home at christmas and the chicago trip in march, i used up my two weeks. i had no idea it'd go by that quickly. luckily, however, one of the perks of going into my second year here is that i'll get an extra week.

stuff at home's nuts, so even though i'm sure i'll be going home around christmas, i'm not entirely sure that i'll stick around long enough to actually be there for the holiday, so i probly won't take a whole week at that time like i did last year. besides seeing my family, which pretty much goes without saying, being the holidays and all, there's a list of a few things that i have to do while i'm there; i have to see Laura, i have to get to the SM invite, i have to shoot pool at brad's w/dunx, brad and whoever else shows up, and there's the day me and bone are planning where we have lunch at pancho's, see lord of the rings, then go have dinner at cici's. i'm anticipating a grease-induced coma after that day, so you might not hear from me for a bit after that. in any case, it'll be action packed.

the cowboys won yesterday, i didn't get to see the game, but that makes two in a row for them.

feeling: puzzled
thinking of: cleaning this place up
music: "constellation" the juliana theory

"balance" is a crutch word.

i petition you for forgiveness right now, because a philosophical rant is forthcoming, which is unusual, but only when considering that it's coming on a saturday afternoon, a time of the week not known for cerebral activity. anyways, a bit of a primer is probably in order. a word becomes a crutch word when it meets two critera, 1.) it is used way too often, and 2.) it's used in a context where another word would be markedly more adequate. a crutch word is different from a buzz word, but the difference lies more in degree than in type. i've noticed that words i classify as crutch words became crutch words because they were buzz words before.

maybe, i'm going off because i think balance is a stupid word, but then maybe i think it's stupid because it's overused, and subsequently misused. most of the time i hear it used in some sort of ontological context, attempting to manage any number of intangible entities. balance has a connotation of equality, it, in fact, presupposes equality. the trouble with that is that in our lives, more often than not, seeking equality between the disparate intangible entities is not a worthwhile goal, and in fact, is not a goal that is actually sought at all. we don't want equality, we want things given appropriate priority, if everything was equal, balanced, the resulting disequilibrium would in fact cause more problems than "balance" is ostensibly supposed to solve.

on top of that, using the word in that context leads to compartmentalization. instead of seeing life as an integrated whole, we learn to see it as disparate parts, and have no problem justifying actions in one part of life that contradict values held in another, it leads to congnitive dissonance, dissonance we often justify based on the idea that the parts are disparate anyway. perhaps more problematic is the idea that balancing is a solitary act, done solely by an individual.

i've gone on long enough.

feeling: dizzy
thinking of: turning the A/C on
music: "zzyzx scarecrow" stavesacre

there are ants in my bathtub.

not many, just when i go in there in the mornings, i see two or three, but that's been the case for a little while now. i can't figure out why they're there, i've sprayed in there a few times and everything, and it doesn't seem as though there'd be anything in there to keep them coming back, i mean unless they like eating soap. i wouldn't be so puzzled if i saw them in the kitchen too, i mean they're likely to at least find some crumbs there, hanging out in my bathtub, all they get is drowned when i turn the water on.

keeping with bathroom/shower stuff, albertson's doesn't carry my brand of mousse anymore, which sucks because i have to go to walgreen's to get it now, and walgreen's is way more out of the way than albertson's is. i use condition by clairol, and i'm not at all in the mind of switching, i've used other stuff, and none of i've found to be adequate, i got pretty thick hair. i thought about calling clairol and ordering a crate of it or something like that, but that'd be weird, and i'm not sure where i'd keep it.

i can get gold bond at walgreen's too though, that's a plus.

feeling: resourceful
thinking of: bone, mid-hiatus
music: "you found me" MxPx, via the Altar Boys

i think the muse takes thursdays off too.

nice day off today, didn't do the running around that i've done on thursdays the last couple weeks, so it was nice to just more or less relax. i slept in til around ten, which for me is quite an accomplishment. most days i'm out of bed before seven, and on days off, i usually don't make it much past nine before i absolutely have to get out of bed.

i had a torta today, first one in a couple months probably. i've given up fast food and cut way, way back on junk food, but a torta's not really fast food, although i probably should have eighty-sixed the refried beans on it. the lil mexican place that i get em from though, seems to be under new ownership, as i noticed some pretty significant changes to the menu. there was lots more american food, more burgers, and even some breakfast stuff. it would seem as though they're trying to get a greasy spoon/mexican hole-in-the-wall vibe going. i'm not sure how i feel about that.

i should be used to it, growing up in texas and all.

feeling: isolated
thinking of: having a drink
music: "pump up the valuum" NOFX

i broke down, finally.

not the nervous kind, though i should probably tell that story sometime. i finally got a new wallet yesterday. people that have seen my old wallet will understand what a huge step this was. my old one was loaded with history and sentimental value, i'd had it since i was 15, it was a gift from a church in mexico, but it was worn to the point of complete and utter disrepair, on top of that, navigating it wasn't always easy, i mean with all the stuff an important guy like me carries around.

i got it at target, and i got a few other things too, ended up spending nearly fifty bucks, which is alarming, i don't recall the last time i spent that kind of money at target, and it sort of made me mindful of the fact that i've been spending money like it's going out of style lately, mostly in the last two or three weeks, it's the kind of thing where i'm afraid to look at my account statement or anything like that, even though, that's totally unreasonable, because i haven't spent *that* much money, i mean i haven't bought a car or a put a contract on anybody's life or anything like that.

i did buy a car actually, but it's likely not what you think.

feeling: extended
thinking of: my retired wallet and how to preserve it
music: "bright side of the road" van morrison

i'm breaking in new jeans.

if there's something i hate doing, it's that. right now, i've got this pair of jeans that i've had for at least a year, maybe longer, i think i got them when i was living in dallas, and i'm just now getting to where i'm earnestly breaking them in, and it sucks. you know how new jeans feel, sort of stiff, not quite like they really belong on you. i have jeans in my rotation that i've had since junior year of high school, which means that they're six, almost seven years old. jeans that are that old are so great, they're so comfortable that they feel like flannels. i can't wear them to work, because of the holes and everything, but i get chances to take em out pretty often.

what i fail to realize though, is that those jeans weren't always in the condition that they're in now. i don't remember the breaking in process, you know how it is, you think of a certain period of time, and having a desire to recall it fondly, you don't remember all the stuff that happened that really just served to piss you off or make you sad or whatever. it's like that with my jeans, i just really like the way that they are now so much that i completely discount all the time i spent wearing them before they were sufficiently comfortable, to me anyway.

good jeans are like good friends, you don't want to think about the day you'll be without them.

feeling: betrayed, lightheartedly betrayed, but betrayed nonetheless
thinking of: dog food, aka cats
music: "we have to figure it out tonight" the beatsteaks

nothing much going on today.

it's monday and that's probably more a good thing than it is a bad thing. yesterday was busy, tomorrow will be busy, and wednesdays are always busy. hopefully, today will go at a pretty relaxed pace, maybe get some reading or studying done, something like that, catch up on email, now there's an idea. i won an ebay auction yesterday, all part of a bigger project that is pretty close to being wrapped up here in the next week or so, hopefully anyways.

more music talk now, i guess. that rancid cd is really, really good, i got to listen to it driving around over the weekend and it grew on me very quickly. as far as other stuff they've done, i'd compare it to "and out come the wolves" in that it's got mostly catchy stuff, but there is some of the harder stuff that characterized their other cds, they even mixed in some organ and piano, and anytime a punk band can do that, and do it well, it's pretty sweet.

the rangers' season is, mercifully, almost over.

feeling: uneasy
thinking of: leaves
music: "arrested in shanghai" rancid

it finally happened.

i've lived in this apartment for a year and today, for the first time, i lost the remote control. it's not as simple as all that really, just losing the remote control. i have three of them, one for the cable, one for the tv, and one for the dvd/vcr. the one that's of most consequence is the cable one, it being the one that changes the channel, and that's the one that went missing. it's such an irritating thing, not the kind of thing that will ruin a day, at least not the kind of thing that should ruin a day, but the kind of thing that can drive a person (read:me) nuts. it was quite pathetic actually, i didn't even want to change the channel, i was just pissed that i couldn't find it. so i found it a few minutes ago and decided i could sit down and blog.

so anyways, today was a long day. a good day, and a fun day, but a long day, i showed up at work at around eight, went home for a lil over a half hour for lunch, came back and was summarily pressed into chauffeur duty, then i made balloon sculptures. it was all good, time well spent, very interaction intensive and i got to spend time with a lot of neat people. today was also the first day of fall, and the last day of summer. i dunno exactly what time the equinox was but it was sometime during the day so today was both. it's like that simpsons where frink is having the garage sale and he says "good morning" to marge, and "good afternoon" to homer and says that the clock struck noon in between both greetings, so technically it was correct.

anyways.

feeling: a bit drained
thinking of: driving
music: "so long sweet summer" dashboard confessional

you wouldn't think it'd be this hard.

so i've been looking for a hooded sweatshirt. not just any hooded sweatshirt, but one that has the word "california" across the front of it. finding it wasn't something i would have imagined to be terribly difficult, i mean given my current location, the state of california, it's not like i'm in siberia where even suggesting that california existed would warrant a savage beating from your fellow siberians.

in any case, i've been unable to locate one pretty much everywhere that i've looked. it's part of the impetus behind my having gone to malls on several occasions in the last three weeks or so, but the mall visits have, so far, come up empty (as far as the hoodie goes, i did net the flip-flops from thursday, however). suggest i look on the internet, and i'll smack you, i swear i will. i figured if any place should have it, it'd be the athletic website of the university of california, i mean them being the california golden bears and all, but no. never mind the fact that looking on the internet i could find hooded sweatshirts with at least a dozen other states' names emblazoned on them, arkansas, michigan, illinois, indiana, basically all the states nobody gives two craps about.

adding insult to injury today was when maria IMed me with the following message:

animalkrackers01: GUESS WHAT i was at old navy and they have sweatshirts that say TEXAS

fortuitously i had an away message up, which said:

Auto response from ricv56: for those of you who think i may be unqualified for this position, please take into account that i served two consecutive terms as mr. universe; during which i was technically in charge of the entire universe.
--ladies and gentlemen, the next governor of the state of california

maybe that's why i can't find what i'm looking for in this bass-ackwards state that i live in. i mean it only figures that a state where someone who uttered that quote figures to be the governor would someone have a dilemma like this. i'm not complaining or anything, maria even said that she'd have gotten me the texas sweatshirt if she had more than fifty cents on her, and that was really cool of her, but then i don't think that means she would have stolen it for me if she'd had more than fifty cents but less than what the thing costs, but that's probably a good thing. i'll stop now.

i did end up finding one by the way.

feeling: like a pirate, you know, with treasure
thinking of: st. mark's football
music: "debbie gibson is pregnant with my two-headed love child" mojo nixon

i read brave new world once.

that was the summer before junior year of high school, and to be perfectly honest, i really didn't enjoy readint it at all. i've never been into science fiction and that's pretty much what it was. the easiest way to describe it is in relation to 1984 by george orwell. orwell's book focused on how "big brother" will restrict the level to which people are able to carry out intelligent discourse, rendering them uncritical and non-threatening to the police state in control.

brave new world was written by aldous huxley and had the same general end as 1984. people end up as uncritical, unthinking automata, but the difference is that instead of being coerced or forced into submission by a authoritarian state, the people have put themselves in that position through their desire to be mindlessly entertained. so anyways like i said, i didn't really like the book, but for whatever reason, the book and the ideas that huxley had in it pointed me in the direction of a lot of stuff that i did enjoy reading and led me to think about what he'd written on a more applied level. in fact, i feel like reading that book started me on a process that led me to major in sociology.

so anyway, i mention all this because while i was out last night, i was thinking about some of the stuff i'd written on tuesday, stuff about morality and the complexity that colors it, the fact that it's not as black and white as a lot of people want to think that it is. that whole train of thought, at least this time, started because of a really asenine conversation that i had the night before, one that like reading brave new world i really didn't enjoy. i'd sort of been fighting with myself over what to do with that conversation, because i disagreed pretty vehemently with the person i was talking to, and whenever i do that, once the conversation's over i usually try extra hard to see if i'm wrong, think about what i would say if i were arguing the point the other person was making, but in looking at everything, i couldn't find anything to suggest that i was.

at first, i didn't want to think about the conversation at all, i felt like if i did i'd be giving it undue significance, but having thought about it in the frame of how i think about not just brave new world but other stuff that i've talked about, thought about, read, that i didn't perceive as worth the effort, and saw where stuff like that could lead me, the kind of stuff it would lead me to consider and felt like thinking about it wasn't useless or worse.

maybe i would have enjoyed the book more if i hadn't waited til the day before it was due to read it.

feeling: restrained
thinking of: what to wear
music: "the great american novel" larry norman

i have fingernails now.

i s'pose i've always had fingernails, but only in the sense that they were covering the ends of my fingers. i've been a nail-biter since about age four. i've never considered it a nervous habit, mostly because i've never been a nervous person, more or less just something i've done. i'm a bit willing to change my mind about that now, or at least relate it to stress and/or uncertainty because i'd stopped before, last year actually, but started again once i moved out here. so anyways, i've stopped again. it's been over the past couple weeks or so, i told laura i would, and she said she would too, but we haven't checked up on each other as far as it goes just yet.

i went shopping again today, i'm hoping that it's not becoming a habit, but i went down to los cerritos center today. got some flip-flops, two pair, we call 'em chanclas in messican, there was a sale, buy one pair get the second half off. cds too. new MxPx, it came out on tuesday, and the new rancid which has been out three weeks or so, i dunno what took me so long to finally get it, i got their last cd the day it came out. in any case it's been a long time coming with both those bands. i also got a dashboard cd, not the new one, the first one, it'd been on my list for a while, but i'd never gotten around to it, i guess because they've not been on my short-list until pretty recently.

chanclas, hmm, i won't need to wash socks as often.

feeling: pensive
thinking of: i'm not even sure
music: "the places you have come to fear the most" dashboard confessional

simplicity, real simplicity, lies beyond complexity.

at least that's what i learned in my very first freshman theology class. in intellectual endeavors, simplicity seems to be the goal, analysing things to their most basic units, to the point of sui generis is what is largely sought after. what i've found in talking to people about an assorted number of things is that people often mistake the simplicity that hasn't wrestled with complexity as a satisfactory simplicity, or perhaps even worse yet, stop prematurely, remaining mired in complexity.

pride creeps in and people taking themselves seriously like they do, they aren't willing to let go of the conclusions they've drawn. i've noticed that it seems to be particularly problematic as far as perceptions of morality go. instead of understanding the complexity of what makes certain actions good or bad, i.e. the condition of the heart, people are way more comfortable having a list of things that are either good or bad, good people do the good things, and people that aren't good do the bad things. that's to say nothing of what determines what is good and what's bad, because what i've observed is that the good people get to determine what's acceptable and they have a penchant for imposing those ideas on those around them.

the prevailing outlook on the part of people who seek goodness through the mere following of rules or avoidance of situations judged to be evil or unwholesome seems to be that goodness comes from self-denial. that is to say that people who are good are good, at least in part because they abstain from activity that is "bad." so what happens is that a standard of goodness isn't defined as itself, but rather it's only defined relative to what it isn't, which is bad. thomas merton had a quote that sort of describes the [somewhat] unperceived pitfall of people who think that way, saying:

merely accepted, suffering does nothing for our souls, except, perhaps, to harden them. endurance alone is no consecration. true asceticism is not a mere cult of fortitude. we can deny ourselves rigorously for the wrong reason and end up pleasing ourselves mightily with our self-denial

what we find is that when self-denial and abstention from certain activity doesn't have a foundation, it becomes an end in and of itself, as opposed to a means to the end of becoming a better person. the result is that people reduce the meaning of good to the mere absence of badness, simple yes, but it's simplicity that comes from oversimplification as opposed to wrestling with complexity.

i never want to be a good person.

feeling: irritated
thinking of: what a badass dunx is
music: "if that ain't country, i'll kiss your ass" david allan coe

feliz dia de independencia.

time for a bit of a history lesson, september 16, 1810 mexico declared its independence from spain, which signaled the end of centuries of colonial and imperial rule. present day mexico was inhabited by several indigenous tribes, the olmec, toltec, maya, teotihuacan, and aztec before the sixteenth century arrival of spanish conquistadores. the aztecs having established an expansive empire that had conquered and absorbed many of the other tribes, were the dominant group, so when the spanish showed up they decided to focus on toppling the aztec empire. many of the conquered tribes decided to aid the spanish in their efforts to defeat the aztecs, in hopes that they would be freed from their oppressive rule.

well, you know how it goes, meet the new boss, same as the old boss. life was equally, if not more miserable for the indigenous people living in the area. new diseases were brought over, and the epidemics they caused were devastating. the workload imposed by the spanish also contributed to ridiculous death among the native population. the indigenous population dwindled from twenty million to just over one million.

the presence of the spanish provided for the emergence of different people groups in the area, most notably the criollos who were the mexican-born offspring of spanish parents. because of their birthplace they were considered a class below spanish born in spain, and as such were second class citizens. even beyond the line between native spanish and the criollos, the society was highly stratified and that, coupled with the influence of recent revolutions in the united states and france, as well as the writings of the french philosophes, rousseau, montesquieu, and voltaire, provided the impetus for revolution.

the revolution was planned to begin on december 8th, but the spanish caught wind of the plan which forced the revolutionaries to either accelerate or abandon their plans for war. so on september 16th, father miguel hidalgo rang the bell at his church in the town of dolores, calling everyone around to fight for mexico's liberation from spain. the war lasted ten years and culminated with mexico's independence. father hidalgo is revered today as the father of the revolution and mexican independence.

viva mexico.

feeling: connected
thinking of: el grito
music: "mexicanos al grito de guerra" the mexican national anthem

i cut my own hair.

it goes back a while and it's mostly out of laziness. i've gone to a stylist/barber/whatever once since ninth grade, and that was because i had a formal to go to that night. the whole thing started when my wrestling coach got sick of my hair and said i was getting a haircut. i said "i know coach, i'll go this weekend." and he said "no you're getting one tonight." so after practice, not even joking, he pulls scissors out of his desk and cut my hair. he did a pretty good job, too.

so anyways, i got used to getting free haircuts, all i'd have to do is let it grow long enough to irritate coach. when i got to college, coach wasn't around to do it anymore, so i had to figure out how to do it myself. well not right away, i could usually hoodwink someone into doing it for me, usually in the bathroom or something like that. but after a while, i guess the whole thing becamse a bit tiresome, so i was left with no other option but to do it myself. i mean it was either that or actually pay for a haircut, and who really wants to do that? luckily i got hair that's not too big of a hassle, i can cut it straight across and since it's curly i don't look like a complete tool like the dumb and dumber guys who did the bowl cut thing, or if i do, no one's had the courtesy to tell me.

old man colby probly still gives his sons haircuts, and that scares me more than a little bit.

feeling: somewhat derelict
thinking of: wrestling shoes
music: "all i want is you" delirious

i's back.

good weekend, went up to the mountains, past redlands up into the san bernardino forest. the scenery was beautiful, i haven't had a chance to spend much time in places like that lately, vestiges of urban civilization were definitely present, at least in the form of smog. the price to be paid for having moutains within two hours' drive is that they hold all the pollution in. i hiked up to this point, a clearing with a view of pretty much the entire valley, and the only complaint that i might have had about the whole thing was that i wish it'd been clearer, without so much smog.

the retreat was relaxing and it was productive, but i realized that my outlook on reality is far too postmodern to be adequately understood by most of the people around me. most of the people i deal with, that is to say people that make decisions, are people with backgrounds in business, which, in a lot of ways, is about as far away as you can get from sociology, which is what my degree is in. it's almost like speaking two different languages, the things valued by everyone are so different just based on the context in which they're educated, the frames of reference so radically different.

i would be remiss if i didn't mention john ritter as well. he was a sorely underrated entertainer. i'd watch anything he did before i'd watch that useless jerry seinfeld.

feeling: relieved
thinking of: rent
music: "i need somebody" chagall guevara

squeaky got his oil changed yesterday.

for the uninitiated, squeaky is my car, a 1992 nissan sentra with 151K miles on him. since he's got that many miles on him, he's usually in need of a bit of extra maintenance whenever i go in for an oil change, and at jiffy lube, they're always more than willing to take care of it. like yesterday, he needed a radiator flush and an engine flush. i'm always a bit wary when car guys tell me that i need something on top of what i came for, but the radiator flush i knew it was probably time for, the engine flush decision was made when the guy came and showed me the sludge that came out of there. i guess it's part of the price of having a car with so many miles on it, especially since i want it to last me a while longer.

johnny cash passed away this morning, he was 71. bono said that every man knows he's a sissy compared to johnny cash. the emotion and the honesty that characterized his music drew me in like not much else had. i remember seeing his video for the nine inch nails song he covered, "hurt" i was in tears. i'm not really sure what else to say about that, but i wanted to mention it. i s'pose his words would be more adequate than mine.

I love songs about horses, railroads, land, Judgement Day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, peace, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. And Mother. And God.

that about sums it up.

feeling: busy
thinking of: weekend retreat for work, no blog tomorrow, i'll be back sunday.
music: "the man comes around" johnny cash

rafael palmeiro takes viagra every night.

or so the legend goes. can you tell there was a ranger game on here last night? i found it funny when i first heard that viagra had signed up rafael palmeiro to be their pitchman. i mean the tell-tale mark of a product's cultural significance is when it can find a marquee athlete to shill for it. viagra seeking out a current athlete for an endorsment, i thought, was curious. even the oldest active professional athletes aren't usually much older than 40 (39 in raffy's case), and viagra's target demo seems to be significantly older than that, their other most recognizable endorser is bob dole, and he's gotta be pushing four hundred, so it wouldn't seem as though an athlete would be an ideal face for an erection pill.

new links today, two of them. one is sam's livejournal. i'm not sure if she wrote about falling down the stairs at school on the first day a couple weeks ago but i'm sure if you ask her nicely she'll tell the story. she's a neat kid, one of the neatest i've met since i moved out here. the other is to [cynically] smiling, a blog written by kendall, who i have to confess to not really knowing. i've been blogging since the end of july, and started reading other blogs at about the same time. most of the random ones that i've read once, i've not read twice. kendall's was different, she writes well, and on top of that, she made me blog of the day earlier this week.

there's so much i don't know about advertising.

feeling: productive
thinking of: a mission, and the box that's almost complete
music: "someone's gonna die" blitz

it looks cloudy today.

i had an insight driving to work yesterday, at least i think it was an insight, i know i was driving to work. it had to do with the relationship between the weather and my mood, and it's mostly just speculation. i've got a reputation as a person who's got a rather buoyant personality. bone's in the past described it as "a sickeningly sunny disposition." this despite his assertion that i live(d) in the ghetto and have the "next hitler" as a brother. on top of that, i tend to have a personality that's pretty contrarian, i don't choose to be different just for the sake of being different, but i seem to relish whenever i contrast from what's around me.

so anyways, it's generally very sunny here. every day it's sunny, and i dig that, i really do. if there's one thing that i'll never complain about living in southern california, it's the general climate of the place. but i've noticed that my mood has seemed to lag a bit, and on the way to work yesterday, i got the feeling that it was because my mood seems to stand out less because of the sunny weather. grey is one of my favorite colors, i've always liked overcast days, and lately i've been looking out my window in the morning and finding myself disappointed when i'd see a clear blue sky. when i lived in chicago the sunniness of my mood stood out because the weather there was generally drearier, obviously and especially during the winter when it'd start to snow in december and you'd forget what grass looked like because you wouldn't see it again til sometime in april. in those conditions, recognizing it was easier, it was like being able to look at the stars out in the sticks, where there wasn't so much light pollution. it's funny because i don't feel like i'm any less happy than i have been in the past, i feel like it has to do with identifying old stuff, famliar stuff in a new environment.

even on cloudy days here, it's bright.

feeling: feminine
thinking of: fall
music: "bullion" millencolin

i need an asskicker.

i feel like one of the things that i miss most that i had in wheaton and in dallas is having someone that challenged me on a pretty consistent basis, someone who cracked the whip over me. don't get me wrong, i'm generally a pretty relaxed person, but i do well on my own, i'm pretty sufficiently self-motivated. however i also feel like i'm better off when i've got someone, usually someone quite a bit older than me, playing the crusty old man role.

i remember when i lived in wheaton there was a guy i'd talk to, his name was jim, and after every conversation with him, i'd leave completely amazed, totally challenged. actually one of the neat things about being there was that there was no shortage of people like that to talk to, to get counsel from. i've been removed from that and find myself really desiring it lately. when i was talking to katie last week, i was saying that i felt like i have a tons of outlets for my energy, but not as many inlets as i've been used to, at least ones close at hand.

maybe it's self-awareness.

feeling: excited
thinking of: annie, she wrote me a letter
music: "fools gold" mouthwash

i'm not sure what to write about today.

i felt like absolute trash when i woke up, that wasn't just a whole lot of fun. i've had my shower, though, so i'm in pretty good shape right now. today will be pretty busy, the morning is all tied up with stuff, hopefully the afternoon will be a bit less action packed, i'm thinking i'll probly have to run out and do an errand or two though, get some curriculum or something.

i got some really asenine email forwards over the weekend, and what was worse was that some people thought i cared enough about what they thought to click "reply all," so i could read their opinions on the state of quasi-civil religion in the united states. those emails were actaully more asenine than the forwards, and i actually saw those before the forwards, because i've got my email set up to send forwards directly into my trash folder. now all i gotta do is figure out how to filter the responses out too.

everybody talks, and people rarely say a word.

feeling: in need of a backrub
thinking of: no rest for the wicked, that's what
music: "ballad of a lonely man" mike ness

i've got a nice red color on my face.

played outside today, most of the day spent out in the sun, and like i said, it shows on my face. that's really the only place i get red, one of the perks of having bloodlines from south of the border. though if i go barefoot, the tops of my feet burn, which i've always found curious to the point of triviality, but really really irritating as well. it was a fun day though, played football at the park, something i hadn't done in a long time.

playing pick up football is one of those activities that sort of makes me feel like i'm on stage, playing a role that's not really me. when i played football in high school, they never really let me touch the ball, being a lineman and all, and since there's no real use for linemen in pickup games, i get to run, throw, and catch, so it's different. then there's the fact that i didn't really like football when i played in high school, sort of a reluctant, atypical jock i was. on gamedays i'd always write, "i hate football" on my right palm. i don't regret playing at all though, despite my seeming distaste for it, and i'm glad i played when i had the chance. what i didn't want was to not have played, get all grown up and regret that, feel like i missed out on something.

the flip side of getting to play outside and spend all day in the sun that is that it's left me way worn out, and i ended up falling asleep on the couch for the better part of the evening after that. the best naps seem to be the unexpected ones, the ones where you don't so much lay down to take a nap, but you just kinda lay down on the couch and the nap just takes you.

the flip side of that is that i probly won't be able to go to sleep for a while after i want to.

feeling: nap-alicious
thinking of: i dunno, some girl, probly
music: "find me" margaret becker

i went to the mall today.

it was great, one of those times that sort of takes you back to that period of time between eighth and tenth grade. sort of an applied memory, not quite vivid enough to be deja vu, but not so abstract that it feels like it's totally confined to your memory and imagination. today was one of those days where i was blissfully oblivious to everything, i didn't even really do much people watching, for which i'm notorious.

i did make one observation though, i noticed the hot topic. that store cracks me up. if there's any store that just contextually and ontologically has absolutely no business in a mall, it's that one. at least that's the way it seems at first. but then you think about what they're selling (corporately homogenized "counter cultural" image) and who they're selling it to (suburban teenagers), and maybe it's a perfect fit for a mall.

i'll have a porchswing and a shotgun, it won't be long now.

feeling: crochety
thinking of: abe simpson
music: "if it makes you happy" sheryl crow

i think i'm by myself in the office today.

that's not a huge deal really, "by myself" still means that the secretary is there, and that only two other people aren't there. one is on vacation this week, the other's day off is today. i'm pretty much by myself every day anyway, my office is in a different building than everyone else's. like anything else, it's got its pros and cons, the main pro is that there's no one looking over my shoulder and i have tons of flexibility, the con is that there's only a minimal amount of social interaction.

i think my jersey's coming today. i hope it does anyway. i ordered a tigres jersey earlier this week, it's the one they used from last season. i wanted to get it because they discontinued it and now they're using a really goofy looking jersey, which i totally don't like. so since it's no longer in use i figured i'd better get one before i can't find em anywhere.

i got a lancer card, i'm stoked.

feeling: a sore right hamstring
thinking of: link
music: "the f word" hank williams jr., and kid rock

i cleaned my desk today.

my cleaning habits i find curious. i'm not a neat freak, by any stretch, but i've noticed that i like to keep my messes localized. that's relaxed quite a bit now that i live by myself because i think that when i was living with other people, i always realized how irritating it was to step on something that belonged to a roommate, so i didn't want to inconvenience someone else by having to step over or on something of mine.

normally, i get really distracted when i clean up. going through stuff to get thrown out, i find stuff that's so inconsequential, but somehow peripherally interesting and i spend so much time looking at that stuff, thinking of what it reminds me of that it takes almost two hours to do something simple like clean off my desk.

i had a really good conversation with katie today, definitely the week's highlight. we talked about stuff we'd never really talked about before and went on for a while. it was good though, her perspective was really cool to get, it's definitely a friendship that's growing, which is a bit ironic since we seem to be closer now that we live across the country from each other than we were when we lived across campus from each other. i don't really do countdowns, but there's just a little over a month before i get to see her. that'll be sweet.

bone's interview went well, swimmingly it'd even seem, and now he's got a decision to make. i feel sort of torn, mostly because of the location, i'm not sure how i feel about advising him to move to iowa. in any case, him having a choice to make is better than him not having one.

stick to making tacos. . . that'll never stop being funny.

feeling: sluggish
thinking of: the vacuum cleaner
music: "today" smashing pumpkins

sound the alert, more people are disgruntled with the political process.

this time it's taco bell's fault. generally i steer clear of any political "discourse," call it a character flaw, but this is too amusing to pass up. so anyway, in california, the law provides for the recall of an executive officer after only a relatively small collection of signatures on recall petitions. you've probably heard about it, the current governor, gray davis, is a crook, so naturally it's our duty to get him out of office and elect arnold schwarzenegger.

so taco bell's got this statewide "vote" taking place in their "restaurants" where people can make their voice heard through their choices of cuisine. buy a crunchy taco and your vote goes to arnold. don't like crunchy or republicans? then get a chicken soft taco and show your support for the incumbent davis. customers are getting in on it too, as a groundswell of support for democrat cruz bustamante has led taco bell to match him with the chalupa. worth noting as well, is that the remaining 133 candidates in the election are singly represented by the grilled stuft burrito, which itself has gotten some 43% of the vote. as of tuesday morning, schwarzenegger had, through the purchases of crunchy tacos, garnered 54% of the vote, while davis had managed to collect 3%.

the "election" that taco bell's staging isn't even what's funniest about this whole thing. democrat officials are pissed because they feel that taco bell's rigged the election to favor schwarzenegger, because evidently, soft chicken tacos are twice as expensive as crunchy tacos are. their belief grows out of the price difference and the fact that crunchy tacos have traditionally sold better than soft chicken tacos. they've also accused taco bell of being in cahoots with schwarzenegger, citing his ownership of a million dollars worth of PepsiCo stock, PepsiCo being the former parent company of taco bell as well as their current exclusive beverage supplier. california democratic party chairman art torres says "taco bell should stick to making tacos, not rigging elections." i'm not sure what's funnier, taco bell's "election" and the subsequent overanalytical pissing and moaning, or the inadverent amusement that comes as a result of hearing a mexican guy admonish someone to "stick to making tacos."

this is taco bell's world, we're just paying rent.

feeling: clean
thinking of: gold bond
music: "fields of athenry" dropkick murphys

said a lil prayer for bone this morning.

he's on his way to cedar rapids today for his job interview, i hope it goes well for him, i'm pretty sure it will, he seems pretty on top of things as far as that goes. he was complaining about the weather in dallas yesterday, and made a comment that iowa didn't have the "emotionally devestating" weather that dallas does, which is just nuts. i've been feeling nostalgic for the midwest lately, but man, winters there are miserable. i mean in the heat, it's just the weather that kills people, in the cold, the weather doesn't just kill people, it drives people to kill themselves. anyways, i just hope he put his suit in a garment bag and not a stuff sack.

so anyways, this week doesn't look too busy, the day off yesterday was nice, i should probly do some laundry today. lil kids start school tomorrow, and since work is directly, and i mean directly across the street from an elementary school, it's likely to cause all kinds of space issues in the mornings when people are dropping their kids off because it's a rather narrow street with not much room for parking. there's tons of em, and i know that a lot of them only live a couple blocks away. it's gotten to the point where it's almost hard to believe that kids that age used to walk to school.

is anyone else irritated that fox is moving boston public to fridays?

feeling: alert
thinking of: clouds
music: "disconnect" sixpence

so it's been a year.

it's kind of nuts that i ended up here in the first place, when i started my senior year, southern california wasn't even on the map as far as places i thought i'd end up after graduation. the drive started a couple days earlier, left dallas around eight in the morning friday august 30th. the first day was pretty easy, no real rush, i figured on being on the road about ten hours or so, driving through the most cosmopolitan cities texas has to offer. i mean abilene, midland, odessa, el paso? that's four potential sidetrips right there. it wasn't so bad really, west texas has this charm to it that i think only texans can appreciate, so i enjoyed it. the next day was miserable, pretty much all day the desert, spent the heat of the day crossing the entire state of arizona. both nights i spent at motel 6's, friday in deming, NM and saturday in palm springs.

it was sunday morning, palm springs is about a hundred miles from long beach, and leaving there at half past seven that morning saw me roll into long beach around nine. that was a year ago, september 1, 2002. a year. i remember having my lil car packed to the gills with pretty much everything that i owned, coming out here, not knowing a soul, having a job, but no place to live, stuff like that. i feel so far removed from that now, but at the same time the memory of that is so vivid that perceiving the amount of time that's passed since then is nuts.

time fascinates me, it's so paradoxical. we always have it, yet somehow there's never enough. we curse clocks and calendars that move too slowly and then find ourselves shocked by how quickly they change. i remember reading a calvin and hobbes comic when a few years ago, calvin was talking to his dad about getting older and how people slowed down as they aged. calvin told his dad that since he'd have less and less time as he got older, he'd want to go faster instead of slower. i remember being a little kid and thinking that a year was such a long time, and how once i got to high school and college, it would seem that i could blink and miss one.

one of my professors in college explained that in a way that made a lot of sense, when you're five, a year is a whole twenty percent of your life, even at age ten, it's ten percent, no small fraction itself. as you get older, a year makes up less of a fraction of your life, so perceptually, they seem to go faster. that only explains one side of the paradox though. it seems to me that the longer you live and the more you experience, the richer, the thicker your experience with time is. being bound by time and aware of how quickly it passes puts us in a position where we have to reconcile that with trying to fit so many experiences and memories into that framework. your brain and your heart become so engrossed all that's taken place in the time that's passed, which sort of accounts for those moments where a week seems like a year.

i'm not sure abilene even had an olive garden.

feeling: calm
thinking of: FM 1382 between I-20 and US 67
music: "acquiesce" stavesacre