unplug

This is harder than I thought. School, work, everything in between. It all seems so hopeless at times; an endless race to meet other people's expectations, when I have none of my own. Actually, whenever I have expectations or aspirations, they're of the ego-feeding variety, when the ominous truth is that I will live and die unknown. It's funny that word came up, "unknown." In elementary school, I entered the school spelling bee and was tangled up on that word. U-N-K-O-W-N. That was the first immensely humiliating experience I can remember. It was almost traumatic, because I can never spell, "unknown" without second-guessing my ability to spell it correctly, especially considering I pride myself in my competence of the English language. Life is a humbling experience, a tormenting cycle of my consistent failures. It's always one poor decision here, a hasty transaction there, and the inevitable encounter with a great girl that either has a boyfriend (or girlfriend) or just. doesn't. want. me. However, what business do I have being content? I don't deserve such reward, nor would I appreciate it. I can barely tolerate routine, whether it be the daily grind, or saying, "I love you," at the end of a phone call. It's true, familiarity, predictability, breeds contempt. I need a permanent vacation.

Agenda- Requiem of 2006

Thanksgiving break: November 23-26th

Winter break: December 25th-January 26th

Next time I am for certain returning to San Diego: New Years

It is within any of these given time frames that I intend to take at least one drive to Southern California for a sabbatical. Possible destinations include San Diego, Chula Vista, National City, Pacific Beach, Irvine, Fullerton, and Mammoth Mountain. Although, the Thanksgiving break may not be such a great opportunity considering that the Nintendo Wii will have just been released less than a week prior. I may just have to camp it out at home and play the Wii until I gain insomnia.

Flip the switch.

Here we go. In one fell swoop (although it was technically a two month transition) I went from unemployed for over a year, surviving on a dwindling severance pay and expanding credit card debt as well as being a washed up community college super junior art major to being handed a flexible job at an art supply store, transferring to a university with a sufficient art program, and inheriting a job as the lab assistant for said university's graphic design department computer labs. It's not as overwhelming as I think it is, but the drastic change in behavior has been the oddest thing to cope with. At the height of this summer, I slept to nearly dawn and woke up at around noon. Just in time to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation on SpikeTv and shower before heading to Utrecht for work. Now I have to wake up at around seven in the morning to get to school, which is then followed immediately by work. The time I spend at home to myself has become rare opportunities for rest. As it stands, I spend at least one hour on the road every day to get to school and/or work. School every weekday, work every day. On top of that, I'm still a washed up artist, now I get to look forward to being a burnt out art student. Therefore, I have decided to reverse just about every routine, habit , and usual facet of mine. I can no longer allot time for art other than that which is relevant to my classes. I can no longer live nocturnally and prowl after dusk. I can no longer waste my life. I can no longer neglect my priorities.

Game Over. You Lose.

Continue?

Satisfying Dialogue.

Her: Do you have t-squares bigger than this?
Me: Yeah, over here.
Her: Ohhh, okay. Twelve dollars?? Thats too much.
Me: Huh? T-squares aren't cheap.
Her: Oh, no, I mean I can't be spending that much. I already spent $26 on lunch today.
Me: Daaamn. You didn't spend $26 on lunch for yourself, did you?
Her: Yeah! And it sucks because it wasn't even happy hour!
Me: Where?
Her: Tokyo Fros.
Me: I suppose thats alright, now is one of the last chances to get smashed in the semester before midterms hit.
Her: Oh, I wasn't smashed. I just had a couple of beers.

Testes the size of a Jupiter moon.

At the height of this afternoon, in the swirling commotion of the bustling University Union at Sac State, I plugged in headphones, wacom tablet mouse, opened the CD tray and popped in a disc into my laptop. I played Diablo 2 while sharing a table with an older lady and hot girls studied and everyone else stressed out. Bowazon, bitches.

Crushed: a revelation that I am lacking.

The first week of school is almost over. It is sensory overload out here. I am burnt out. The walkway in front of Mariposa and Kadema is teeming with so many beautiful women that my eyes have worn themselves out over the course of two days. Even worse, is that most of these gorgeous girls come into Utrecht right afterward. I've been missing out on this kind of attraction for far too long. It's hard coping with my dumbfounded awe. Although, I think working at Utrecht is helping; working retail forces me to interact with strangers, smiling, and saying, "Hello" and, "Have a good day" constantly is putting me into a social mode I have not experienced in ages. This combined first week and work at Utrecht has got me. I quickly fell in love on Wednesday. She walked in at the height of our back-to-school sale rush, a 5'6" blonde muse in a green sundress. I said hi, and eagerly attempted to aid Her shopping spree. She told me She'd figure things out because Her syllabus had a course materials list. I paced the floor helping other cute girls. Most of the girls would concede that they needed my help, and I gladly did. Whenever I finished assisting a customer, I would pace around, and ask Her again if She would like my help. More customers began to suffocate the store; both registers were in non-stop point of sale for Christine and Malia. In time, some of my classmates for Drawing came in, and I practically shopped for one of them. I asked Her again if she was doing alright and finding her materials. She declined my help once more. A cute girl from my Color class asked me where some of the acrylics we needed were, and I grabbed them for her. I asked Her once more, and was again declined. It was then the closing hour, and I checked up on Her. She finally said She was ready for my help. After picking out items for Her, we began to chat, and I was soon enraptured by Her. Her raspy voice, Her sass and spunk. I couldn't get enough, although our time was getting short. Inevitably, I was unable to work up the courage to even ask Her name. I'm sure She would've given it to me, at the very least. My only hope is that one day this semester I can bump into Her in front of Mariposa Hall.

RESTART.

I thought it was game over, but its now back to square one. Although this square one isn't exactly starting from scratch or with a cleaned slate. Figuratively speaking, I died about a year ago, but I've just been reincarnated, back for redemption. ROD vs. EDUCATION 2. This is the main even title bout rematch, and I'm hungering for blood. Here we go again.

Every now and then, I get a flaring pain in my right wrist. This has nothing to do with your perception of me masturbating too much, because my wrist is all jacked from some unknown injury I must have had. I suspect it was one of the times I bit it real bad while snowboarding a while back, because a bit of the tibia or fibia juts out of the outside of my wrist. Normally, it just makes push-ups and any kind of flat palm pushing a pain, but now.. the flares are happening much more frequently. It's been a week and a day or so between what I'm thinking is an inflamed wrist tendon. Maybe theres a pattern here, because it's been a week between nights of being tanked. It sucks.

Such contradictions in life. I seem to be extremely unlucky. Yet, I am extremely fortunate. I guess thats the compromise. As hard as I may try to prevail, I never really do. And as much as I act as a failure, I am able to keep it together. Even a simple gesture of affection gets me nowhere, and risking my life driving drunk turns out to be a success. I think I'm going to have to do all the bad things more often since I get better results.

Disclaimer:
I am full of bullshit, a hypocrite. No person on this planet should be able to claim otherwise. Whatever I've said in the past, does not fully correspond to who I am now; I am a wholly different lump of perspective in this here-and-now than in the then-and-gone.