mostly because i haven't done one of these in a while. . .


1. First Name: riqui

2. Were you named after anyone? my dad and my mom

3. Do you wish on stars? nah

4. When did you last cry? last i remember was february, but i'm pretty sure it's been more recent than that

5. Do you like your handwriting? tons

6. What is your favorite lunch meat? turkey

7. What is your birth date? august 3, 1980

8. What is your most embarrassing CD? dunno, probly something by amy grant from when i was like in seventh or eighth grade

9. If you were another person, would YOU be friends with you? no doubt

10. Are you a daredevil? not in the adrenaline junkie sense necessarily

11. Have you ever told a secret you swore not to tell? not that i recall

12. Do looks matter? there's no way around it

13. How do you release anger? writing, talking to one of a handful of friends

14. Where is your second home? where i live now

15. Do you trust others easily? not as much as i used to

16. What was your favorite toy as a child? probly my baseball glove, tho i'm not sure it's a toy

17. What class in high school do you think was totally useless? probly chemistry

18. Do you have a journal? http://postmodernnightmare.blogspot.com

19. Do you use sarcasm a lot? probly more often than i should

20. Favorite movie(s)? the princess bride, tombstone

22. What are your nicknames? riqui, riq, rickwall, don ricardo, tons of others from way back

23. Would you bungee jump? nah

24. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? not generally

26. Do you think that you are strong? i am a freakin hoss

27. What's your favorite ice cream flavor? blue bell cookies and cream

28. Shoe Size? 9

29. What are your favorite colors? blue, brown, grey

30. What is your least favorite thing about yourself? depends on the day

31. Who do you miss most? good gravy, everyone

32. Do you want everyone you send this to send it back? or comment i guess

33. What color pants are you wearing? blue

34. What are you listening to right now? "motel room" and "the opposite's true" by bill mallonee

35. Last thing you ate? a chocolate chip cookie

36. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? burnt orange

37. What is the weather like right now? breezy

38. Last person you talked to on the phone? name witheld

39. The first thing you notice about the opposite sex? eyes and shoulders

40. Do you like the person who sent this to you? indeed

41. How Are You Today? fabulous, glowing according to kacey

42. Favorite Drink? water

43. Favorite Sport? soccer, boxing, baseball

44. Hair Color? dark brown/black

45. Eye Color? brown

46. Do you wear contacts? nah

48. Favorite Food? bbq & potato salad

49. Last Movie You Watched? the boondock saints

50. Favorite Day of the Year? one in october

51. Scary Movies OR Happy Endings? happy endings

52. Summer OR Winter? winter

53. Hugs OR Kisses? both

55. What Is Your Favorite Dessert? chocolate chip cookies

56. Who Is Most Likely To Respond? dunno

57. Who Is Least Likely To Respond? dunno

58. Living Arrangements? one bedroom apt

59. What Book(s) Are You Reading? the divine conspiracy dallas willard

60. What's On Your Mouse Pad? tigger

62. What Did You Watch Last night on TV? like five minutes of the cowboy game

63. Favorite Smells? vanilla, girl

64. Rolling Stones or Beatles? do i have to?

65. Do you believe in Evolution or Creationism? does believing in one preclude believing in the other?

66. What's the furthest you've been from home? guanajuato, gto mexico; portland,oregon. i dunno which one is further and i'm too lazy to look em up.

is it weird that i put on my pajamas when i get out of bed?

i did a roundoff today, i couldn't even do one when i was a cheerleader.

last week i thought i sucked at life, i've backed off a little on that, but the jury's still out.

feeling: not bad
thinking of: some girl probly
music: "shifting sand" caedmon's call

i'm out of salsa.

this is just miserable.

feeling: stunned
thinking of: the horns
music: "texas fight"

quick hits. . .

*omg, yesterday was definitely a day where i wished i lived in texas again, if only to have seen that game. sucks that it wasn't on tv here, we got the cubs and pirates instead. anyways ten left, they need to finish three better than the A's in those ten and one better than the angels to win the division outright. if there's a tie, the one-game playoff is at the temple and if they make it into the playoffs, and if they play a playoff game the weekend i'm in dallas, you better believe i'll club everyone in my way to get through the doors of the place.

*i got invited to someone's house for dinner last night, i'd known about it for weeks and completely forgot about it until i got a call asking me if i'd forgotten. i was talking to laura when it happened, and i felt like a dork for having forgotten and for having to bail on her so quickly.

*i'm having trouble sleeping lately, it's not like i'm lying awake for hours unable to fall asleep, the trouble is that i can't seem to stay asleep, i'm waking up like four and a half or five hours after going to sleep and not really being able to get back there.

*bone called, he told me about the time he made jay barnard cry. jay was a pretty alright guy, but he had that one coming.

*i got an email from dunx yesterday, he said no one wants to hire mathematicians these days, i could have told him the very same thing any number of weeks or months ago when knowing that might have been useful. hehe, i love you dunx.

*no countdown or anything, but in two weeks i'll be in dallas.

*on my way home last night, i stopped to see kris at work, i was gonna just leave a card on her winshield, but i figured that it'd be stupid for me to go over there and not see her. i was right.

feeling: refreshed
thinking of: yesterday
music: "story of my life" social distortion

life is good. i promise.

i hate, and i mean hate being tired, the only thing that would come close to rivaling the hatred i have for being tired is being rushed, which would seem to make sense since one seems to be rooted in the other. anyways, and i figure you could guess i was gonna head this way, but i'm really tired. what's worse is that i realize the irony of writing, ostensibly to vent, about being tired when it's sometime after midnight and the only thing i should really be doing is looking at the back of my eyelids.

so there's been a lot going on, i think i realized in college that having way more to do than time in which to do it was never nearly as bad as having a ton to do, but having just enough time to get it all done. at least when you knew you had too much, you knew there was no way it'd all get done anyway, so there was less pressure. that's not been the case at all, there's been a ton to do, like enough to fill up days and nights, but not enough to really be able to say "screw all this."

like i said though, everything's good. i wrote dunx an email this morning after he IMed me when i was working out, it was good to hear from him and i feel like a peckerhead for not being in better touch with him, he's definitely a guy i'd consider one of my best friends, so it was refreshing. link called and i talked to him a bit, and then lauren called, and it'd been a while since i'd talked to her too, so it was definitely great to reconnect with her. tomorrow's my day off, so i'm hoping to decompress some, i think there's been three nights in the last week and a half or two where i've gotten to be home the whole night which is just nuts, especially since not all of it's been anything i've had any significant desire to do.

i'd talk about desire, but neither of us wants that.

feeling: sleepy
thinking of: sleep
music: "find me" margaret becker

party like its. . .

if the rangers

win their next two to sweep the A's

go no worse than 8-2 in their final 10 after that.

and the A's go no better than 5-5

plus the angels go no better than 7-5 in their last 12

then the rangers win the division

and make the playoffs for the first time since 1999.

feeling: alright
thinking of: october, still
music: "let me go" rancid

i was trying really hard.

i've been in a weird mood lately, or moods, just sort of fluctuating between pretty good and just sort of deflated with a few really sweet moments mixed in. anyways, i was trying really hard to write about it, but nothing i was saying at all seemed to capture adequately what i wanted to convey, so i've got an entry drafted that's sort of a stream of consciousness rambling that i may or may not post in the next few days or so, i ain't sure.

mostly i think it's a function of me being just really really tired lately. i haven't had a vacation since december, and even though it was relaxing and i got to see my family, dunx and brad, bone, laura, it was december and it was the holidays and i was on the living room couch in my dad's house which is really the last place i think i'd want to go to relax, so it wasn't really a vacation as much as it was a field trip with a few really refreshing encounters mixed in. there's that and there's been a pretty non-stop stream of ridiculousness since i'd say about march, but if you pressed me i could likely chase it down further than that.

so anyways i'm really thankful for friends, mostly because they've really kept me going here lately, which leads to another puzzlement in and of itself, mostly because i've felt lately i've like been kind of distant from people, even though when i think a bit harder about it, that's not really the case at all. lisa called wednesday morning, i've talked to bone a few times this week, link got the package i sent him and i've gotten to talk to him quite a bit and i got to talk to laura on sunday morning which was just totally ridiculously great.

even better than that is the feeling of being known, if that makes any sense. i really have a deep apprecation of when people can perceive things in me that i might only marginally be aware of, and there's a couple of times i've gotten that feeling this week. like yesterday when i went to the gym, i was talking with kacey just sort of about the same stuff i'm writing about here, how i've been feeling sorta worn out and almost immediately he said that he'd noticed it and that he could see it in my eyes. anybody that knows me knows that i really have a distaste for the random "what's wrong?" or "what's the matter?" and what i thought was so cool was that it seemed like he figured that i'd talk when i felt like i wanted to as opposed to trying to dive right in and wanting to fix all my problems.

the other one would almost seem to be contradictory, but i called kris on tuesday nite, usually she calls me, but i didn't know if she was working or not or when she was planning to go to bed, and it was getting late and i defintely didn't want to miss her. later on she asked me if everything was ok with me because i hadn't waited for her. i guess more than anything i thought that was really sweet because it required some thought, i'm huge on thoughtfulness, it wasn't one of those deals where i've got a different expression on my face for a few minutes which prompts someone to ask a really stupid question, she picked up on something i don't figure many people would have and to me that said a lot.

so anyways, i'm ok, i've grown up too fast, and i'm too busy, but i'll be ok.

feeling: better
thinking of: october, again
music: "life on other planets" bill mallonee

punk rock died the day the first kid said "punk ain't dead"
and sure it is kid, hey winter's cuttin bait, california dreamin won't abate

put your baseball cap on right dude, your momma didn't raise no fool

and skip a few doses of your prozac
find some public pool and lie out there in the sun for hours on your back
and grow your hair long, free weights will get you strong
and as you turn the page
you willl notice her, her coming of age

cause you're both new and clean
cause she's the brown girl
with the smell of chlorine

and cut the hang noose of your internet
you try and squelch control
mom and dad's last night knock-down drag out argument
yeah it makes you bad and it's sad and it makes you pretty mad
but really kid you've not been had

yeah we grow up too fast in this millenium
and that girl could use a friend

cause you're both new and clean
cause she's the brown girl
with the smell of chlorine

so turn off your "it's so boring out in my little suburbs"
kid your dead ends are no deader than anyone who's gone before you
but summer's your time of dreamin
kid don't you ever give up dreamin
yeah she might wear your ring and show you secret things.

cause you're both new and clean
cause she's the brown girl
with the smell of chlorine

--"punk rock's dead" bill mallonee

second of two continued from, umm. . .

so i'm about to be finished complaining. i promise.

really.

anyways, i figure i left off about the time that i got the letter from the california highway patrol, that'd be the actual real life CHiPs for those of you who are fans of the fine work of erik estrada, or maybe just the handful of you who watched way too much channel 27 during the day whenever you didn't have to go to school. now why they sent me the letter instead of calling, i'll never know, well i do precisely why they did it that way, but i'm trying really hard lately not to be cynical. in any case, the letter said that squeaky'd been recovered on the 31st, the day after i'd reported him being stolen, i get the letter like three days later. now if they'd called, the day it'd been recovered, i could have made plans to get the car the next day, but since they sent a letter, i was on the hook for the impound fees for all the days that it had been in storage.

i'd pretty much resigned myself to being screwed as far as that goes, i mean i did want my car back, what with all the sentimental value and maybe since i've got another one, i could sell one or the other to get back at least some of the money i'd spent on cars or things closely related, which i'd figure is between $1700 and $1800, so not getting it out wasn't really worth the lack of effort it would have required, if that makes any sense. saturday rolls around and so i go to get the car, it's in south gate which is like fifteen or twenty minutes from here, and like i was saying, i was all prepared to get it, pay all the money and everything like that, so i get there, take care of everything, and when i finally get around to going to the yard to actually take the car out, the left front tire is nearly flat, the lights were on and so the battery was dead, and it was out of gas, so jumping it, at least at that point, would have been futile.

for some reason, all that stuff made me more pissed than having to go and pay $265 just to get it out of impound seemed to. what i figured was that it wasn't a matter of sheer quantity, i'm not really an empiricist, so i'm not really into quantifying or measuring things like that, but i don't feel like there's any real doubt that the overall expense of money is a more stressful thing to deal with than simply having to deal with a used up battery a flat tire and an empty gas tank.

so the next day was no great shakes either, i was talking to k, who i've gotten to know really well here lately, and in conversation with her i sort of realized that what bugged so much was just that by that time everything had seemed to pile up on top of itself. talking to her was good though, she'd sort of walked me through that week and was in a pretty similar mood to me, and i know we both felt better after talking. it was the end of a week that was just devastatingly draining and i think that night mostly we just sort of commiserated.

oh, and i've started biting my fingernails again, but i said i'd be finished complaining, happier stuff to come.

feeling: release
thinking of: my bed
music: "variations on a theme" the juliana theory

first of two

good gravy.

you ever had one of those weeks? you know one of those weeks, the kind that make you sorta glad that you've given up carrying a bat for no good reason, if only for to avoid being held responsible for any property you might destroy in a fit of (unquestionably justified) rage.

you've never carried a bat for no good reason? well, i don't guess that's important then. moving on.

so i wake up monday morning, and i wrote a lil bit about it monday night, i've got my stuff, dressed and ready for work, stroll out to the parking lot and see that my car's gone, gone for the second time in the space of a month. you know how i am, i don't get shook up by very much at all, so the first time it happened, it was frustrating, but i didn't get all that tore up about it. i was writing about it a couple weeks ago, and i think i got more irritated by the whole thing as time wore on, mostly because i think as time passed, more stuff came up and the little frustrations piled up on each other.

i guess that's where i was at on monday morning, cause when i walked out and saw my empty parking space, i felt totally like i'd had the wind knocked outta my sails. i figure that was on account of me having spent like five hundred bucks to get it back before. in any case, i go back upstairs to my apartment, call work and tell them that i wouldn't be going in that day.

true enough, i didn't go to work that day, of course i had to call the police and do another stolen vehicle report, what was funniest about that was since the car had been stolen just a month before, when i called to report it and gave the sherriff's department all the info, the guy on the phone told me that anaheim PD had it, which was true about three weeks ago because they were the ones who'd recovered it the first time it'd gotten stolen, and so i told the guy, "no, dude, it got stolen again and he was like "man, that sucks." so anyway, i had to wait around for them to come so i could fill out the report, after that, i did some work here at home, but mostly just sat around waiting for the cowboy game to come on, and trying to get mentally prepared to walk to work the next day and figure out other ways to get myself places, since i knew walking would wear itself out in a pretty severe hurry.

a couple days pass and i end up buying a saturn from this family in my church who'd been trying to sell it for quite a while, they'd heard about everything, so i ended up getting a pretty sweet deal from them, so i was happy to have a car again. i'm starting to feel a bit less drained by the whole thing, almost peaceful, so of course you know that stuff would have to complicate itself again, because the next day i get a letter saying that my car had been recovered, which wasn't so bad in and of itself.

there was also the $265 that it was gonna cost me to get it out of impound.

feeling: spent
thinking of: buying a gun
music: "fall to pieces" pasty cline

yeah i remember the dark clouds
raining dust for days on end
blew all the earth out to california
and just left us here with the wind
in desperate times you know everybody's part
but it's your own lines you're like to forget
'til what you were meets what you've now become
grins and says "hey, haven't we met"

lost my firstborn that winter
and my wife on the first day of spring
and so i poured my sweat into the earth
yeah to see what that harvest would bring
and i remember howling fury
just like a plague of locusts
egypt's punishment for sins of pride
is that now what has come over us

how much of this was meant to be
how much the work of the devil
how far can one man's eyes really see
in these days of toil and trouble

honey we're all resplendent
yeah honey we are all thrift store
i'm like a wino with a twenty dollar bill
yeah forever and eternally yours
i can make you promises
if you don't expect too much
yes and i will run the distance
if you'll please please excuse my crutch

how much of this is failing flesh
how much the course of retribution
my my how loudly we plead our innocence
long after we've made our contribution

--"resplendent" bill mallonee

i needed a ride to work

and, and, AND

she brought me breakfast.

feeling: exhausted
thinking of: sleep
music: "when she begins" social distortion