Winter Musings

Ay it's past midnight, which would mean it's now the first day of November in this year of our Lord Two Thousand and Eleven. The month of Thanksgiving. It just makes me think of time gone by. A year ago this time I was living in a van in various parking lots around Breckinridge Colorado with Stephen and Erik. It was bitter cold to the point that we would go to bed in the van wrapped in four to five layers of clothing, sleeping bags, and blankets on top of those. We still woke up in the night bitter and shivering. I remember one day about two weeks into our van livin', and tempers were flaring, edges were being reached, boundaries pushed, and my solution became to not talk for an entire day. I did it too, relaying any important information to my van mates by typing on my phone and holding it up, but otherwise I was completely silent and non participatory. At times it was an annoyance to them, but they got used to it and it ended up being quite the zen day for me. All that aside I'm thinking about this stuff right now because of the change between last year and this. The van we lived in is now in the process of being sold and taken away, and as much as it may have sucked at times, living in that thing for three weeks in such an extreme environment was a trip, and an experience I wouldn't trade. It bonded the three of us in a way, there's no denying that. Colorado, last winter, actually the start of this very online scribbling endeavor, it all seems so far away. Not so much the scribbling, he says as he scribbles. The winter though, the thrill of picking up and just blowing town, taking off for somewhere you've never been because you can, and because you want to get in some world class skiing. Moving across the country, uprooting everything and packing up some cars with some close and true amigos, and hitting the road. It was all so desperately exhilarating and spontaneous, the future constantly and excitingly unpredictable, something new around every bend in ever road. So many mountains and lifts and ski runs we could have rode there for a decade and not have tracked every summit and dropped every cornice, hit every run and memorized every back alley tree shoot. I miss coming home from work at the fuckin' corporate bookstore to my roommates, all six of them, watching tv, reading, cooking, drinking, doing whatever. I miss having family dinners with Stephen and Erik and Garrett and Colleen and Amanda. I miss jamming all of us in a car to mob to Vail or Keystone or wherever we felt like riding that day. I miss packing a car full of 6 or 7 of us and rolling out to the bars in Frisco or Breck, getting way too drunk and typically starting a dance party somewhere. Well, mostly I watched, but there was more then a time or two when I would break out my dancin' shoes, and usually after enough drinks that I would feel it necessary to dance somewhere like on a table or the bar perhaps. Don't know why I'm thinking about this so much. It's not that this winter won't be great, or won't live up to last year. It's a different time. Different isn't anymore a bad thing than it is a good thing. It just is. Still. I love my friends I have now and the life I'm working on making for myself, but there will always be things I miss. I'll always remember fondly a lot of things about the good ol' 970 and the six months I spent there in '10-'11. That is all. For now.

Portrait of an Insomniac

Blah blah blah bullshit bullshit bullshit.

Ahh. Sorry had to get that out. As long as we're throwing around apologies here, I'm also sorry I haven't put anything worth reading up in a good while, and I'm sorry that it seems like half my posts start with 'sorry I haven't posted'. Bad form I know, and thanks to the three people who are still reading this. What follows is what's on my mind about my life, right now, in no particular order of importance or relevance.

So I got bronchitis a couple weeks ago. That was dumb. Hit like lightening too, completely out of nowhere. I was healthy, I went to sleep on Stephen's grandparents couch in Eugene, woke up sick. Sore throat, head feeling like somebody stole my brain during the night and replaced it with a thousand cotton balls. Stuck around too. I made it three days before going to see the trusty family physician who promptly placed me on antibiotics and remanded me to my bed until such a time when I stopped showing symptoms. Being sick is a terribly unpleasant thing, because as nice as it may be to lie on the couch all day watching Frasier and eating the occasional bowl of soup, it takes the relaxation element out when you're wracked with the cough of the damned and the paycheck reflecting of someone who hasn't worked all week.

Halloween is coming up. The cynic in me wants to say it's just a day for assholes to dress like assholes and then get drunk. Young adults I mean, not children. I've yet to see a tottering inebriated child with a bad attitude dressed like a sphincter going around soliciting candy from people. Fingers crossed for this year though. For the people in my general age bracket (21-35) it seems like every holiday gets turned into an excuse to 'get hammered' these days. Maybe it's just me, granted I haven't been drinking much in the past month or two, so that could lend to my general disdain for the drunk and disorderly. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything particular against drinking or whatnot, if you know me personally you know how true that statement is. I've just been in a place in life lately where alcohol doesn't have much of a pull on me, and as it goes, being the sober person around a bunch of drunks can be grating on the nerves. Swerving back to find my point, I am trying not to be so cynical (largely unsuccessfully) so happy halloween everybody. Don't be dicks and drive drunk.

Helicopter school. Is he gonna do it? Not? Yay? Nay? Fuck the back and forth, YES, yes, yours truly is going to enroll in school and start the journey towards becoming a professional pilot. If you were to ask me when I'd tell you "Soon...ish." I'm not in a hurry or a rush, I've got shit to take care of first, but I'll get there, and when I do it's going to change my life. More than I'm already altering it (which is quite a bit). Lots of changes and shaking up of things going on in my life lately, which in turn causes changing and shaking in my head. Rearranging your perspectives on things can be refreshing, eye opening, and at times straight up fucking terrifying. It's also frequently liberating, in ways both positive and not so much. To be free just long enough to have one's head bashed against a wall is not the type of freedom I seek. I want to make a life for myself, enough of this vagabond paycheck to paycheck lifestyle and on to bigger and better. So that's happening.

GIRLS! I love them, I really do. I want one. I'm not greedy, I don't need hundreds, or fifty, I just want one please. Where are the smart girls? The girls who won't bore me to tears within minutes of meeting them. The girls who aren't bitchy, petty, vindictive, materialistic little attention whores. Girls who have read and comprehended at least one book with more pages then pictures. Is it too much to ask for a brain and some edge simultaneously? I know I know, they're out there. You can't find them if you never look I suppose. I had one once, but instead of the faults listed above she turned out to be a dishonest deceitful little girl, her tongue full of lies and half-truths. I of course had my faults, there are things I would do differently if I could, but it wasn't all bad. In fact it wasn't even mostly bad, only at the end did everything sour and wither. The fights got worse, the mistakes unforgivable. She eventually cemented the end of our relationship somewhere in year three, the end of everything between us, by fucking my best friend, sending me reeling into my own personal full service Hell. It took me a long goddamn time to get over that, part of me hasn't yet and never will, part of me will always hate her for what she did. Part of me will always love her for what she was. I don't have the energy or emotional reserves to be passionate about that anymore though, it's a waste of my time and it's a waste of me. As flawed and incomplete a person I may be, I'm also genuine, honest, loyal, and full of love. I love my friends, I love my family, I love my dog and my snake. There's more than enough to go around, but I haven't quite nailed the part where I find somebody to share it with. Not short on time though either. It'll happen again, and I'll do it right this time.

There really aren't any points to any of this. Ramblings of a mind deprived of outlet at four in the morning, unable to sleep but able to type. Given the circumstances I'm not going to bother proof reading this at all, so there remains a decent chance I'll read it tomorrow and find things I wish I hadn't said, or I had said better. Nonetheless, like all my posts this shall remain unedited, standing as a small window into my mind for these few minutes it took me to write this.

Death and Shampoo

I was thinking about the fear of death in the shower today. It's where I do my best thinking next to when I'm driving a go-cart. Something about driving in tiny circles. When the course is closed I'll sometimes just go drive around roundabouts. Thinkin. (Not really I fucking hate roundabouts) Here's what I came up with, short and sweet. No. I do not fear death. Here's why. Because it's a mystery. They say that. Some have called it the greatest mystery. Seriously. Google that shit. 'Death; The Greatest Mystery'. I don't know what you'll get back 'cause I was too lazy to search it myself but I'm quite certain we can all agree it's a mystery. I believe we can also agree that no matter what, no matter who you are, everybody WILL at some point discover the answer to that mystery. (SPOILER: You're going to die. Drag.) It's just a given. Some people spend their entire lives in search of an answer, a clue, something that will help them solve the mystery. Early. Cause you're gonna solve it. You can stop worrying about that.

I say fuck it! I like surprises! No I'm not afraid of death. Just spiders. And sharks.

THE GENERAL: Chapter one; The Backpack

So I've got this story of a friend of mine. It's a story I've told many, many a time but never to such a potentially large audience, and well...it must be. I have this friend I lived with for a while, the General. The General and I had been friends for years and spent a lot of time together, so the inevitableness of our living together had been a long time coming. We had a nice house, inherited by his grandmother, who chainsmoked Winston's on the couch and drank coffee mugs full of bourbon that she'd refer to as 'Jesus Juice'. She died in that house not a year after moving in, and well, General and I were not ones to be choosy at the time, so we took over her lease. Eventually we had to take on roommates to pay the most basic of bills. We ended up with the General's distant cousins who turned out to be Neo-Nazi's (nice people if not misguided...and stupid as fuck), and eventually a serial fast food employee who turned out to have an extensive collection of child pornography. He hid it in a closet by the front door and one of us found it by accident one night. I'll tell you what, the Neo-Nazi beat that dirty bastard half to death before he wiggled free and ran off into the snowy winter night in just a t-shirt and boxers. He was arrested the next day on multiple felony accounts. An interesting house is what I'm telling you, and I don't think I have any arguments. Eh?

So at this particular time, I believe it was just the General and I living in this house. It was located on the outer edge of a cul-de-sac, with a spacious backyard area that led into the front yards of the other houses. One night, myself and Nobody were out at a house party, and I get a phone call. We go outside because it's loud and whoever is on the other line keeps asking me a question I can't make out. We go the driveway and I hear "This is the sherriff's department...is this J?" I look over at Nobody nervously, I fucking hate cops, bad experiences and whatnot, and I know the General has been known to call me J. "Yes, and what, may I ask, is this regarding?" I say, suddenly feeling the need to sound as classy and professional as possible at 2:30am. The female police deputy on the line proceeds to ask me if I know a General (she called him by his Christian name), I tentatively answer yes. She tells me I was first in his call log and he is causing a scene and could I come try and calm him down before things got violent.

Now let me preface this. Don't worry, it'll be quick. A few hours earlier, for reasons at this point not even the General knows,  he said 'fuck off' to Nobody and I, packed a backpack full of liquor bottles, and disappeared out the back door. We didn't see him for a couple hours, he liked to take walks, we figured he'd make it to a park or a bench and sleep it off, end up back home the next morning. You have to understand, this just isn't strange. Sometimes the world reaches a point where a man must pack a NorthFace bag full of liquor bottles and storm off into the night. It's stupid, it's dramatic, yet sometimes we need to do it. But shit, he took a lot of fucking booze this time.

Back to the present, I ask the cop more about what's going. She tells me (seriously) that they have the General CORNERED against a fence and porch, and are contemplating tazing him. Apparently he had been wandering through a neighborhood singing and ranting at the top of his lungs until the police were called. Upon their arrival the General refused to give them identification of any kind or be touched, announcing only his first name and that he was sixteen years old (he was twenty-two at the time). He had become verbally abusive to the officers, refusing to divulge any further information, especially where he lived. We got directions from the officer and as we get closer I get a bad/funny feeling in my stomach. Her directions take us to a cul de sac. The one behind my house. The General had set up his very own Alamo on the neighbors porch (they weren't home) less then fifty feet from our back deck. You should have seen the commanding officer's face when he was informed that their crazy guy lived in the house directly behind him. I thought his face was going to melt off his skull. I watched as the General threw 'smooth' game at the female officers, and swore filthy slurs upon the male cops, the highest ranking officer being the cop who patrolled our high school. He'd known the General in school, and was the only current reason he hadn't been tazed and arrested already. Eventually after threatening to attack an officer with his own, then trying to but instead tripping and falling down the porch steps, they restrained him on the concrete. He was promptly handcuffed and thrown in the back of a squad car. I should mention that Nobody and I didn't just do sit there silently during the course of these events. The police allowed us to approach and plead with the General, trying to talk him out of this obviously futile campaign, trying to stress the seriousness of his situation. He would have none of it. The powerful mixture of whiskey and vodka and rum swirling around his bloodstream had formed together to make him invincible.

It was only after the police had him cuffed and in the back of the squad car that the tough guy facade dropped for a few minutes, as the General swore he was sorry and it'd never happen again and could they please not take him to jail? Then, when the officer from high school intervenes, the General takes it upon himself to use this act of good will from the cops to his advantage(?), and proceeds to resist upon being led into the house. The guy in charge must've felt sorry for him, or was just bored, or just didn't care, but it took four officers to wrestle him into our house, down the hallway (he scratched at the walls and doorways) and into his room and onto his bed. There they smacked him around a little bit while Nobody and I looked on, and then they tried to get him to accept his violations, his tickets. But the General was asleep. The officer got mad, smacked him around some more, demanded he respond to him. The only response he got was from the sandman, and the loud snores of the General, and after a couple more hits to the torso, he angrily stuffed the tickets in the General's pocket and they all walked out the room. However as they left, Nobody and I looked back to see the General, his eyes barely open, hands raised, giving the double middle finger to the cops backs as the walked from the room, grinning ear to ear like a diabolical creature of mischief. Faking it the whole time of course, and he's lucky as hell they didn't turn around or see him. Shit. The rest of the night involved Nobody and I babysitting the General (on police orders) so he wouldn't leave the house or cause anymore trouble. At one point I left him alone for ten minutes with Nobody to smoke a cig and get some quiet. Moments later there he comes, the General, stumbling out the house and down the front path, off on some cosmic mission. Slipped right past that piece of shit Nobody. I ushered him back into the house at which point he almost broke my arm slamming it in the front door cause I wouldn't own up to being the 'prophecy'. We got him back into bed, and he eventually passed out, mumbling and kicking out at the world.

Next day I'm eating a bowl of cereal on the couch and there he comes, out of his bedroom, the hungover and shabby ass General. He's exceedingly confused because not only does he feel like hell and have no idea how he got home or what he did, he has a thousand dollars in violations tucked in his shirt pocket. I could only shrug, laugh, and go back to my cartoons. I'll tell him all about it later.

Palace Love Letters

I fucking love my roommates, and yes, this entire post is going to be about them and us and our house and how things like that make me happy. I've got mad love for all my friends, and I have several who would make and have made great roommates, but right now, I can't imagine having a better living situation with better people then I do now. We've got a little bit of everything here, a wonderful harmonious amalgamation of personalities and character traits.

I've got my buddy G Money. This is a kid I've known since he was stumbling around behind his older brother while we went out and did whatever it was that thirteen year old boys did. We never really become friends, became close, until just last summer. I was living underneath Mr. Haze and his lady at the time, in a place lovingly dubbed the cave. I resided there with E Rock, and life was good. We spent our days playing wallball, smoking, drinking, playing video games. Video games. Thats how it started. I was at the cave one day with the General and G came knocking at the door. You see, he and Texas lived just two blocks down in their own place. Being in such close proximity and sharing all the same interests, these were the times of free love, sex, drugs, rock and roll, the times that birthed the W5. However I digress. G knocked and then walked in the back door without waiting for a response, this was standard, we would have become annoyed had he just stood out there knocking like an asshole. So he came in, and ended up hanging for a few hours, smoking and playing a snowmobile game on our playstation. It was the first time I'd just solo (for the most part) kicked it and shot the shit with G Moneys. I quickly realized this was an important guy to have on your side, he already was of course, being a fixture of our friend group, but it was then that I knew we shared an innate weirdness, something a little crazy and more then a little gonzo, but that we would get along swimmingly. During that summer I became closer with all those guys, we had a lot of fun, and we were a lot of fun. Our houses were revolving doors of people stopping by for a beer, a bong hit, a casual conversation. Then came the winter. G, Mr. Haze, E Rock and I all packed up shop and bolted for Colorado. Over the next six months G and I spent a lot of time together. The way the living situation worked out we had seven people in a 3 bedroom condo, and him and I ended up in the loft. It was great, because it afforded us by far the most amount of room space, but at the same time, the loft was directly above the kitchen and living room, and was cordoned off by tapestries, which aren't exactly soundproof. So yeah, space, but also anytime anybody spoke in the entire fucking house we could hear every word. We were in on every whispered conversation, every secret passed when someone thought no one was listening, we heard it all. Late in the winter we both lost our jobs, him to a broken down car, me to bankruptcy. We spent almost every day together til he left early for Bend, just the two of us, no jobs, nothing to do but get high and play video games and talk about weird shit. A lot of bonding and such. That sealed it, the winter in Colorado cemented the relationship I have with G Money, the little brother I never got to have, my peer, somebody I respect and I know has my back no matter what happens ever. Our minds communicate in some way that if anybody else experienced it, their head would probably melt. Or explode. G and I run along the same janky fucked up wavelength, and we're riding it till we die. I always have him to talk to about shit though, no matter what it is. It's a good feeling.

Then there's Mr. Haze. I've known this curly haired fool since we were in middle school. He used to hang out at my house with his giant curly white boy fro and his Chumbawamba t-shirt, you know the one, with the smiling baby. We didn't spend a lot of time together back then, started hanging out more in high school, cruising the parkway in our shitty cars, me rocking the '79 Volvo and him in his jeep, doing ninety, dogging each others bumpers. Stupid shit, kid shit, the kind of stuff you do when you are sixteen and just given a license to drive. After high school we went our separate ways for a while, hanging out once every so often, but then I moved to LA and didn't see anybody for over two years. Came back and within a couple months had been re-inducted into this group of friends that hung out where Haze lived, over on 4th street. I spent almost every day there, it would've been three summers ago. I'm sure I became a pest at some point, but with the amount of people coming in and out of there, crashing on couches and floors and porches, at least I wasn't alone. Even then, with me there all the time, hanging around Haze and our group of friends, it wasn't really till last summer and then Colorado that everything kind of came together. We've always enjoyed each others company, but we have this rapport that was never fully formed until now. I'm not saying there were any bad elements in our Colorado house, because there weren't, I had exceptional roommates, but I came out the other side with a very tangible and noticeable upgrade in my friendship with some people. Haze is one of the nicest people I've ever met, which often nicely counteracts my predilection towards being a prick, and he's not afraid to step in and tell me I'm being an ass, even though he knows he'll probably only get a 'fuck off' for his troubles. Most of the time he's our level head (although this is most certainly not a full time job for him), he keeps G and I out of trouble as best he can, he backs us when he needs to, and defends us when we need it. He's a standup guy, and we'd all be a little better off if we were a little more like Mr. Haze in some respect. I look up to him, I'm fascinated by him, and I'm consistently curious to see what he'll do next.

You see, this tripod, this trilogy of awesome-ness, this trifecta of triumph, it's the penultimate living situation. I'm in a nice cozy house. I'm a couple minute walk/bike ride to work or downtown, I've got a front porch I spend most of my afternoons on, keeping an eye on my street. I also live with two of my closest friends in the world. People that couldn't be more different from each other when you analyze them individually, but we are all the same where it counts. We have loyalty, we have respect, and we have each other when we fall short in any arena. My favorite times this summer has been when it's just been us, at our house, usually kicking back on the porch, beers in our coozies, cigs in our mouths, good music blasting out our front windows. These are good times, and they need to be remembered and immortalized, for they will fall away just like everything does. I'm not saying it'll never be as good as it is now, cause it sure as hell better be, but it'll never be the same. This house and these people I'm living with, it's lightening in a bottle, it's a flash in a pan, I'm sure as fuck going to enjoy the ride.

For the next nine months, the Weirdie Palace reigns. 512OG.

Appetizer

It's funny, 1 month and a day ago I posted saying that it had been a month since I posted. I also believe I touched on the subject of how this is unacceptable, and blogs or writing endeavors must be maintained weekly if not daily. If I did not touch on said subjects, consider them touched. I have been without Internet this past month, and yes, it has been difficult. My phone in this day and age can do most of what my laptop can do, but there is no comfortable way to do things like upload pieces or write anything. Into a new house now, cozy little three bedroom with two of my Colorado roommates. Everything seems to be working out great, we're three pretty clean chill guys so it's a nice place to be. A lot of music, movies, smoking, drinking, hanging out on the porch. Garrett and I work a lot of mornings and get off around 3 or 4pm, which is when whichever of us is off first picks up a sixer of shitty tall boys. We sit out on the front porch and lawn, drink beers, smoke cigs, say fuck shirts, and generally mean mug anybody going by who looks like they got an ego on 'em. There's some type of mentality to establish myself (ourselves to an extent) in the neighborhood. We want to be friendly, our neighbors all seem cool and like stable put together laid back people, which is nice and fits in well with our aesthetic. Don't have much else to say at this point, and honestly, this post exists solely to exist. The WiFi just got installed today, I've got a fully functional system again, and I'm still here. I know, empty promises, but I'll make it rain with delicious literary treats for your eyes and mind grapes just keep paying attention. W5.

Status Updated

Sweet baby back bitch. It's been one month to the day since I last put up anything on here. I do have reasons though, valid ones. My laptop crashed out on me and quit charging, so I had to run it to Portland and then leave it there for a couple weeks. Only took a couple days and $10 bucks for them to fix the battery and replace the outer case (and somehow reattach my "I SKI LOVELAND" sticker), but I couldn't make it back to Ptown to pick it up. Had to wait on my sister's friend to make a delivery (thanks Sarah), got it back today, and here we are.

Been busy-ish the last couple weeks, putting in time looking for houses and apartments with Mr. Hayes and Mr. Gentry. Got a job at The Pretty Pussycat and been working there 3-5 days a week. It's been a pretty chill job so far, I've had experience working at sex shops before, but this one is tame compared to my last, more lingerie/headshop then porn and vibrators, although we do have some of that as well. The shop is nice and clean, and the clientele is a noticeable step up from 'ol Pleasure World, and I've got some seemingly cool coworkers, so it should work out nicely for the time being. Better then slaving under the corporate bullshit of somewhere like Borders thats for damn sure. It's strange, we've only been back from Colorado for a little over a month now, and yet it already seems like a dream. Thinking back to that condo, my mostly wonderful roommates, and the world-class skiing that was ten minutes in any direction, I miss it. Near the end of our winter, all I could think about was getting the fuck out of CO and back to Bend, now that I'm back I don't really want to be here either. It's a conundrum. I've got a good base of friends and people who love and respect me here, but the real pleasures and encounters are fleeting, and nothing gold can stay. Everything and everyone leaves sometime, and it's usually earlier then we want.

Helicopter school starts up in the fall, and as it gets closer I go back and forth on my commitment to it, swinging like an indecisive pendulum. It'd be something amazing, challenging, and in the end, rewarding both personally and monetarily. It also means I'd be in Bend for at least a year or two, longer if I'm working and putting myself through as I'd probably have to. I don't know yet that I want to make that decision, but at the same time, I'm 25 years old, I can't keep working for minimum wage and living paycheck to paycheck. It's getting to the point where its time to do SOMETHING, something permanent and that opens up a new world of opportunities. Right now I'm a high school grad with 'some' college under my belt and a rogues gallery of middling jobs that make up a fairly lackluster resume. I'm getting older and I'm starting to feel the pressure to 'do something' with my life more and more. I know, I'm still young, I could still wait around, travel some more, get on with 'real life' in a couple years, but I don't know that I want to put it off anymore. I want some real money, a real job I can go to where I see new things and go new places and don't hate being at work, but love it because I'm piloting expensive and incredible machines through the air on a daily basis.

So yeah. I've got many more entries partially finished, entries with points and reasons for existing and such, but I felt that a quick update on my life and status was warranted, and last I checked this was Sixth Stories, so I do what I want!

In closing I just want to put out a special shout out to my close friend and inspiration for flying helicopters, Matty Brantner. His older brother passed away two days ago, and it's been a really difficult time obviously. If you believe in God, send him some prayers, if you don't, think some positive thoughts. He's a solid guy and his family has been sucker punched by this tragedy. Wishing you well Matty and family, words don't do your loss justice, but nonetheless, I'm so sorry.

Back in the next couple of days with some more entries, they'll be coming in on the regular now that my laptop is back, so keep tuning in and reading. You know you want to.