An open letter to the dude who just asked me for money.

First, I’m sorry your brother got arrested. I really really fucking am. I understand what it feels like, all a tingle to be out late on a school night, giddily celebrating the freedom of wind rushing through your hair and flippantly breaking the most boring social laws…like drug possession and larceny…and trying to think up the story your totally gonna lay on your dad about how you are a grown up now and you can stay out as late as you fucking want and BAM, the Po Po puts those red and blues into your rear window and the night is goddamned ruined. I’ve been there comrade. And honestly, I wish I could have been “fucking awesome” and given you the ride to the gas station you so desperately needed, oh total stranger, which would only be “a mile or so dude” and happily patted your filthy head as you made your way out of my life and back to home and safety and the stickiest if ickies. But the reality of the situation is that I’m only human. I don’t trust you because you are sweating profusely, limping weirdly, and kind of smell like carpet cleaner. So long story short, I gave you my two bucks to get rid of your gold bricking ass. Please don’t act offended that it’s not a crisp new C-note. My front yard is not a place I’m normally prepared to be propositioned in the middle of the night. Also, let me suggest you buy your meth in a neighborhood that’s, well, not a fucking neighborhood asshole. And bring bus fair next time. Jerkoff.

As if I haven’t had enough loafing in my life tonight, I’ve got another drunk camped out in my backyard without permission.

There’s only room enough for one drunk in this cabana hombre and my carlo-rossi sangria jug says that rooms occupied.

The Apple Diaries. Chapter 1: It Begins

Somewhere between 2001 and today I stopped being a twelve year old. As painful a revelation as that is to me, it’s true, and it took my first week at Apple to pound that point home. I know. HARSH. But now it’s week two. I’m wiser, more comfortably dressed, and slightly less hung over. All of which are necessities. Just because I get to work at the Disney World of I.T. jobs doesn’t mean it’s all Epcot Center and the Mad Hatters Tea cups. Hell, out of 12 days total, 2 at least were totally the Hall of Presidents and both the fucking Roosevelts were out of order. I am employed though, at a job I think I could come to seriously enjoy, and my boss’s boss’s boss wears the same pair of flip flops I do everyday.

Here are some other things I’ve noticed:

Geeks are to the 2000 oughts what Hippies were to the sixties. Smelly and prolific. Axe is the new petulie. Bad Coffee is the new hash.

Apple doesn’t respect it’s customers as much as it thinks it does. Everything they sell, while uber functional and aesthetically pleasing is weirdly…kid safe. No one has ever stubbed a toe, scratched a forearm, or electrocuted themselves on any Apple merchandise ever. This unsettles me for some reason. I’m half hoping that science will find a direct link between IMacs and cancer or herpes or hangnails or ANYTHING ugly enough to balance out how hip and cute and user friendly the Apple Universe is.

I like computers. Not as much as I used to. But I still think the digital world is pretty bitchin’. I don’t Date it though. C’mon three dudes in my class, the world is a big and beautiful place and if you’d spend a little more time brushing your teeth and a little less accumulating experience points there’s a pretty good chance you could get to see some pretty cool things. Like boobies.

I’m feeling it all out though. I haven’t really given a shit about much of anything for the last year or so and, when you’ve made a lifestyle out of rolling with the punches, to finally feel like your opinions are more than humorous. I want to do well and that feeling is like a giant flashlight on the roach nests of angst I’ve got secreted away in my brain. I never really new they were there in the first place but they are scattering and hopefully the filthy things will be in my neighbor’s yard by sundown.

The strange bliss of ignorance that isn't.

My goal tonight is to be brief. QUIT LAUGHING. Seriously. So, I’ve been drinking much less lately, not because I’m interested in bettering myself, fuck that, I’m not quitter, but pretty much because I can’t fucking afford to anymore. The dudes at the liquor store down the street might have bought me buying 9 dollar whiskey the first time…You know, ‘cause it’s for a party and I don’t like the guy that much…but like the 10th time you go in there for the same quart of rotgut, they don’t just check your ID. They check your ID and write your goddamn name down. I’m to pretty to be a suspect, so I’m cooling my jets until the next paycheck. Needless to say reality has pretty much FUCKED ME UP lately and I’ve been having some trouble sleeping. Last night was pretty typical. I lie down on my pallet with my laptop watching the BBC blue planet documentary about the deep ocean. Then I watch it again. Then I watch it again. Then I watch it again and punch something. Then I think about why it is that even though I can crush ants between my fingers, one could probably fall off a building and land perfectly in one piece and walk away, but there is no ant that could squish me (on earth), and if I fall of a building I’m totally a puddle and BAM! I’m dozing off. This hour to hour and a half is when I do like 90 percent of my dreaming. But I almost never remember what about. Last night was different.
It was black, I mean pitch midnight black, and I was an airplane and Diving HARD. I could feel the wind and I could hear the sound of me approaching the ground, like the sound the coyote made in the cartoons when he fell of a cliff. And then I realized that even though I was diving almost straight down and there was all of this tension and fear in me about crashing, I wasn’t going to hit anything. Ever. There was no ground. It was just endless dark free space. And there being no bottom suddenly meant that there was no top either and I wasn’t diving anymore. I was just fucking GOING. Faster than the word could ever mean. I was moving with the momentum of GALAXIES. It would be wrong to say I was flying, or at least I was flying the way wind flies… a smaller current in an ocean of air. I looked all around me for some point of reference and there was only the lights at the tips of my wings, blinking… green…black…green…black. So I started twirling. Just spinning around randomly to make light trails around me in all that darkness, which is how I used to put myself to sleep when I was a kid accept I used glow in the dark silly putty and I would just make figure eights. I could hear passengers inside me screaming and yelling but in a roller coaster kind of way, like they were clinging for dear life in a storm of silver bags of peanuts and tiny liquor bottles, but they still had their arms up in the air, palms open.
And then I woke up. And it was still dark. And I had left my window open because of how hot it gets in my room. And above me, struggling against the rush from my ceiling fan, were fireflies. Like 5 or 6 of them. Flashing their secret messages to each other, making light trails of their own.

Langauge, firetruck, and why nachos aren't either

"Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work." ~Carl Sandburg

Though I hate to admit it, I'm a talker. In fact, if you wanted to be accurate and, well, kind of a dick, you would say that I'm my own goddamn sewing circle. I've tried to convince myself that I project a still-waters-running-deep mystique not wholly unlike say Harrison Ford, or Abraham Lincoln in his young heart throb faze, but that just ain't true. I come from a long line of tittering screechy women and along with my mother's birthing hips, I inherited the gift of gab. I have seriously sat by myself in my living room and had a fifteen minute animated conversation, completely alone, about how much I wanted a sandwich… I guess I had to talk my useless and distended body into getting up and making one as both the corpus and the mouth-hole would benefit from such a venture. I'm not exactly proud of it, but its true. So naturally, me and words have an intricate and embarrassing relationship. But I'm no longer disheartened by this fact. Actually, I've decided that me and words are about to quit fighting the urge, shed our awkward and shoegazing tete a tete, and go to the dork prom together, Pretty in Pink style. Like an 8^th graders Jansport, I'm going to strive to make my words reflect, in a slightly more specific manner, exactly who I am as a person without having to actually talk about…well…me. I thought about it, and I've zeroed in on the word AWESOME, which I use so much that I can barely type it anymore. Awesome is to my 20's what "like" was to my teens. I'm sick of saying it, but I'm no where near sick of expressing it. Robots, Space ships, time travel, barbacoa…there is so much in the world that is awesome which is also so much MORE. What do I mean by awesome? Awe inspiring… sure. very impressive… ok. Fucking Redonkuloid…hell yes…but still, there's some layer, some aura of "FUCK YEAH!" missing. It was suggested to me that the word I was looking for was NACHOS, and for a second I agreed heartily, but then I realized that I've had bad nachos, and I've never had bad awesome. 'Cause bad awesome is just lame.

I'm rambling though. Here's the deal. From now on, I will make it my mission to replace both the word and conceptual weight of awesome with FIRETRUCK. That's right, FIRETRUCK. I double dog dare anybody who reads this to give me one bad aspect of FIRETRUCK. They're huge, loud, fun to say, they save your life, and they fucking shoot water out at like ten or twelve times the speed of sound. Also, at anytime day or night, they may or may not contain a spotted dog named sparky, sparks, spark plug, or Mr. Sparkletron. I KNOW!

Having trouble understanding all this bullshit? Here's a quick primer:

The eight dollar whiskey I bought last Friday, dude, was FIRETRUCK.

When I was eleven and I got to go to space camp, THAT was FUCKING FIRETRUCK.

Ever been stuck in traffic, gotten a flat tire, AND were already late for work? Not FIRETRUCK.

The last time you were super hungry and you went and picked up nachos that were goddamn amazing? That first bite…FIRETRUCK motherfucker, FIRETRUCK.

Now you try.

today, aliens, and tomorrow...sort of.

interesting fact about yours truly: when I think I'm alone in a stairwell, I slap my heels against the steps as I decend, just because it's the closest I will ever come to tap dancing. I'm nothing special really, but for those few seconds, I'm Gregory god damn Hines. consequently, I've fallen down a lot of stairs. usually, when and if I'm found, I pretend to be drunk.
So this week has been kinda finger-banging my sense of self worth, but I'm dealing with it I guess. I'm in that stage of living in a new town where the luster has begun to slightly wear and I find myself a little bit bored with my surroundings. I have quasi-haunts now, which is good, but they all have dollar drink specials, which people keep telling me is bad. Whatever fags. Don't misunderstand me, everything thats wrong with my surroundings is obviously everything that's wrong with me and I'm not incapable of seeing that. I'd just rather believe that the world is totally screwing me in return for the super-powers that I'll develop when the aliens invade. Oh I'll fight for justice alright, you just wait and see.
SXSW is coming up soon with it's "free booze day parties" and since those are the words to my favorite song, i'm slightly a twitter with excitement, but more honestly, I just hope that I will get my sorry ass in gear and make it out "there" at least once. I probably won't. But I'll lie and tell a really good story about it. You will love it, I swear.

Thursday's waste of government resources

Last week someone installed vaguely German PUR water filters on all the sinks at work. This is good because the water in Austin is a lot like the coffee at Exxon. That is, it's more of a theory about the real thing than the thing itself, and god, what smells like pine? So I was happy about this new upgrade. But, and god I wish I could shut this off, I immediately starting analyzing the philosophy behind these devices. Mainly, that when you turn them on, significantly less fluid comes out then when they are off. I was surprised to realize that for me, that was a bit comforting. A) because it proves its working and B) it seemed like it was really filtering a lot of shit out. Like half the water is gone! My god, how did I ever live without this? Is half the water in Austin Vaseline or Bleach or blueberries (which is what the water in my house totally fucking tastes like)? Those little kraut gizmos must have some serious farfegnugen. I also secretly assume that the vast quantity of toxins, neurotoxins, fish eggs, and brine that it removes is quietly funneled back into the regular water when you turn the filter off. Just as a little fuck you to anybody who's too good or lazy or in a hurry I guess, to spend 3 seconds flipping the little switch. It also has a light on the top that shines emerald when it's in use, or as I like to say…deployed. This, sweet Christ, this was a BRILLIANT idea. Any time some one in America wants to make an old product seem new, they put a fucking light on it. Toasters, toothbrushes, shoes, it doesn't matter. If it lights up, our collective consumerist mouths hang open and, as though we had a seizure or we locked our knees for too long at choir practice and fainted, were all 19.99 plus tax poorer. I think I might go to one of the myriad body modification boutiques in this city and see if the guy who puts metal rods through peoples genitals can install a little blue light in between my eyes that lights up when I do something well. Tell a joke that's funny? BLINK BLINK BLINK. Get to work on time. BLINK BLINK BLINK. I can practically smell the cash rolling in already. Also, this idea is trademarked so don't even think about it beating me to it. BLINK BLINK BLINK.

My haunted house is an asshole

Well, if any of you know me at all then you know I work nights. It's currently 12:30ish and I've been home for about fifteen minutes. It's very windy and cold tonight and so I'm sort of huddled up in my kitchen as I write this...lets call it a Eulogy. Epitaph is more likely but fuck it, I'm an optimist. Anyways, I get home, I toss on my hoodie and pour my self a stiff post-shift night cap and step out into my back yard to smoke away the pain. The way I gain access to my back yard is a sliding glass door which comprises about 2..3rds of my kitchen's rear wall. So I'm on the porch, smoking and thinking about how it's taking scientists fucking forever to invent light sabers for real (god, I'm living for that day) and all of the sudden, as if god tripped and flipped a switch, the previously chilly but somber night EXPLODES into a howling windstorm. Trees thrash, leaves rustle, nipples harden into little pink diamonds and I'm just standing there taking it all in.
let me preface this with the fact that even though I probably don't know you very well and I certainly know your friends and family even less, I can honestly say with absolutely no doubt in my mind that I'm the most neurotic son of a bitch you have or will ever meet for the rest of your life. Even if you are an archeologist studying 2007 from the distant, beaver controlled, future and are reading this important artifact on holo-plank and snaking on a cod in the heart of the national Dam of History, I still know that my claim is true. I could give examples of this but it would be pointless. I win, hands down, fuck you (but your still pretty cute, beaver-scientist).
This is important only because it explains why, when I venture out into my yard, I always leave the glass door open at least an inch, because I know that the one time I close it, I'll be locked out. And then the heart attack or head injury or vicious bloodthirsty rabid nuclear possums come and, well, you know the rest.
But back to the scene...Me, drinking(drunk) and smoking, nipples, wind picks up, taking it in...And then things go...HORRIBLE.
I suddenly notice this AWFUL screeching noise, like the axels of trains from a quarter mile off, like a garbage truck full of linoleum being driven under an enormous damp sneaker, I just, I can't do it justice, but it was fucking loud and it made me pee a little. So, I go inside to investigate. As soon as I close the glass door it stops. This tells me what I heard was the wind whistling through my house. Ok, that's science, that's my world! I can handle that...but...where is it coming from? I take four steps into the hall and...


Wait for it....

My front door is open. Wide open. And swinging. And it's midnight. And a loud sound scared me. And my nipples, and the wind, and I'm tired and FUCK MY DOOR IS OPEN ANDITHINKILOCKEDITBUTIDONTREMEMBERFUCK.

So I'm in my kitchen. And I'm cold. And it's dark in here. and if my head was on fire and the last bucket of water on the planet was down the hall in my night filled bathroom surrounded by naked drunk chicks and Han solo asking me to fix his spyware problem on the Millennium Falcon...I'd sit here and burn down like a forgotten cigarette. The police who find me will have to snub me out on my tile floor.

I guess, in closing, I just want to say that if I have disappeared by the time you read this, please know that I don't blame you for not rushing to my house to help me make sure it's not full of murderers or foreigners or those possums I mentioned earlier, I just think you are kind of a jerk.