Things I learned this week

I learned that buying a new mattress is a great big pain in the ass.

I learned that the mattress industry is quite probably, the most insincere and deceptive and unnecessarily difficult scam in the entire consumer world.   The things I could tell you about mattress buying. I demand the right mattress to spend one third of my life on,  but my mattress search makes me want to sleep on a futon.  It'd be easier to sleep on a futon for the rest of my life than deal with mattress buying .

I also learned that hot plates really suck.  even the cast iron, professional hot plates.  and they blow your fuses if you use them in conjunction with an electric kettle, a computer and a couple of light bulbs, and a running refrigerator.  lesson learned.

There isn't enough time in a day...when you have to wait 30 minues for water to boil.

there isn't enough time in the day...when you spend an entire afternoon trying out mattresses and end up being less certain, more confused and more depressed about which mattress is the right mattress for you. It's an important life decision!  I have to get this right! The pressure!   

I got the keys to my new studio annex on Saturday April 20th.

There is nothing quite like the smell of warm stale air in a new rental.  When you turn the key and walk past the doorway into your new unit and you catch that smell of afternoon heat, and the lingering scent of the previous tenants laundry detergent.  That's when you know you are about to begin a new life, or at least begin a new chapter in your same boring old life. 

walk around the new palce for a little bit imagining the life you're going to build for yourself.  Where the book shelves will go, which way to orientate the bed, things you'll need to buy.

In my head, for the past week, i've been overwhelmed by the millions of little things I needed to do and buy in order to make this studio liveable.  So many things.  For the first couple of days I was frozen with indecision, there was so much to do and i wanted to do it all in one day...I didn't even know where to start. So I spent a lot of time just sitting in a chair and imagining how awesome my new place was going to look as soon as i actually started to do something about it.
It's slowly but surely coming together now.

Newer Crush

Genevieve Meli of Sweet Genius fame. 

New Crush

Aubrey Plaza.

Another sunday

I like how I spend my sundays and weekends.  I woke up this morning relatively early, for me. 9am.  I'm not sure what I did for most of the morning.  I drank hot cocoa and looked out my window for some time.

 I played my guitar and learned some new songs.  while I sat on my bed strumming and singing love songs, a pretty girl jogged past my house.  

I strummed and sung for a long time.

   then I fed the mouse I caught at 4:30am last night.

     

        

         then I packed my car to go surfing even though it was overcast, ugly, rainy and the wind was blowing in the wrong direction. I packed my car, then decided to take a nap first.  so I napped for about an hour,  then I woke up and managed to drag myself to the beach.

            it was beautiful.  it was overcast, and raining hard, but the winds died down so the ocean was glassy. I had much more fun than I expected.  my new wetsuit kept me warm and toasty in the water.  the gray sky, the waves and the rain was an incredible scene. 

            who needs the sun?

          
     I guess that's it.

this may be my last sunday in this house of my childhood. if it is, it was a nice one.

I'll be moving into my own little studio annex very soon.  I am excited, not because I'll be moving out of my parents basement but because I've budgeted about 400 bucks for myself to furnish the place.  I'm thinking throw pillows up the wazoo, (tasteful) fuzzy rugs and book shelves full of books.  It's going to be an awesome little bachelor nook I'm creating for myself, yes I am.  I imagine most of my shopping will be done at Ross Stores.  I will have to decipher my way through their disparate styles and endless items that seem so vital and necessary that you buy right away.  No other store can trigger impulse purchases in me, and in most other people I suspect, the way Ross does.  And I don't even think Ross is trying particularly hard to encourage this kind of whimsical consumerism.  it's just inherent to any trip to a Ross.  I'm thinking of a home theater set up too...

"it is impossible to make a mistake"

I don't really cook anymore, I just assemble my food now.  Dinner this evening was fresh tomatoes, scrambled eggs, rosemary bread with a little olive oil drizzled on top, garnished with fresh basil and ground black pepper (not pictured: hummus)

There is a big crack in the sole of my right shoe.  It was a good shoe.  It is still a good shoe.  I literally traveled around the world in that shoe.  I get a little embarrassed now when I sit with my right foot on my left knee because everyone in the office will see that I have a big crack running across the bottom of the shoe.  I am sure everyone notices, but no one has said anything yet. I have yet to step in a puddle of water, but I'm fairly sure if i did, my foot and socks would get uncomfortably damp.  Not wet, just damp.  I could get new shoes, but there's little motivation to remedy this broken shoe situation.

 I miss those sky blue walks.

WAIT! Did i just sext with a pregnant blonde chick who is sitting home alone on St. Paddy's day weekend drinking decaf tea with honey watching NYPD Special Victims Unit and waiting for her boyfriend to come home from a night out as she discusses hypothetical porno sessions in my dark arts studio, all while she's petting puppies?  Best Saturday EVER.

I was going to go to the march, but then i got high.
I was going to show support, but i got high, but I got high...

I spent a part of this afternoon wrapping a statue.  "I'm wrapping a statue"I thought, "what a strange activity I'm doing right now."

it's been nine months since I...sang in the shower.  nine months since i ran up a tower to throw myself off to show her how her words have power.  Nine months before, I walked two miles for a slice of pizza, later Sue smiled as she lied "it's...uhh....not you...it's me."  Nine months time, stand in line for an answer.  The grand prize, at the end of nine months time is...drum roll please...another nine months, dummy!

listless guitar strumming, off beat foot tapping, tired humming. 

The Nofx show was disappointing.  I don't know what was missing last night, I didn't have fun. 

Perhaps I'm getting too old for this stuff?  But to be fair, everyone at the show was well into their twenties if not thirties.  Nofx is not for kids. 

Rice, Poke, Furikake and Doritos Cool Ranch.  Why Doritos?  Because I had a craving for them.  Why did I have a craving for Doritos?  Probably because I was a victim of a well executed online viral marketing campaign. 

Oh, how you vex me so.

oh lawdy am I old!

I just can't headbang like i used to.  I remember back in my day, I could bang from morning till night.  Punk, Metal, Hardcore..if it was rocking, i was banging.  But now?  After just one set by an opening band, my neck and back have fused into one big mass of tightness and pain

Update: and if i had known that Nofx is playing tomorrow night, satruday night, I wouldn't have banged so hard at the metal show.  I would have saved some for the Punk show.  as it is now, i'm so sore and tight, I'm not sure I can give properly at the punk show tomorrow night.

a musician sings another musicians song.

sings it better, plays it better, feels it better than the original creator.   Does the maker feel jealousy? betrayed by his own creation?  Or does he comprehend with zen like calm? Acquiesce and accept that someone has taken his song and made it better?  Where potential was only half realized, the other saw the full extent of latent potentiality and actualized it.

Does anyone ask how the song feels in all this?  Does anyone care but of their own role?

A man I know is about to fulfill his dream tomorrow evening?  He wants Witness.  I will be Witness.  I will be wittiness and tell his tale in talk of casual conversation. 

I find that the happiest moments of my life now revolve around sleeping in late on Saturday mornings.  It's hard to explain how happy i am when i am laying in bed on friday night, knowing I can sleep in and not have to worry about waking up and doing things the next day.

I've reverted to childhood.

I have realized that it is very important that I avoid real responsibility for the rest of my life.  Nothing must come between me and my lazy Saturday mornings.  Nothing.

If anything could be better than lazy Saturday afternoons, I don't want to know about it.

why does music sound so much better in the car radio?  A new song can sound so awesome and exciting in the car, but not so great when I get home and listen to it again.

 

You're alright, Miley Cyrus...you're alright.

Holla, mi viejo amigo

Attachment and desire is the cause of all suffering, somebody once said.  And it is a true statement. Win or lose, Superbowl champs or not, eventually we will all die alone.

I don't know how many more of these disappointments I can take. sigh....

It's terrifying how emotionally invested I get in a football team.  A football team for Christs sake!  Kids are starving to death in Nepal and I feel sad because my preferred group of overpaid muscular men couldn't get an oblong piece of pigskin past two arbitrary points in space more often than another group of overpaid muscular men. 

I wish I can remember who recommended "The Elementary Particles".  Was it a friend of mine?  Was it an online recommendation?   Anyway, upon this second reading, I am struck by how interesting the story is.  There were so many interesting nuggets of philosophic prose that I don't remember from my first reading.  I begin to wonder if I should re-read every single book in my collection, there must be so many good things I've forgotten, it would be great fun to rediscover them.

As much as I enjoyed The Elementary Particles, it's not a book I would lightly recommend.  Not because its not a good read, nor because it's heavy thick reading, it is in fact a light and thin novel.  I hesitate to recommend it because...I wouldn't want the person I recommend it to, to think the novel reflects who I am as a person.  Though I find myself relating, at times painfully so, with these depraved, dysfunctional fictitious (supposedly) characters, I would take the philosophies and worldviews presented within the novel with a heaping tablespoon of salt; also, I couldn't be bothered to decipher whether the author was making sense with the numerous references he made to various brands of Western intellectualism.


I am very excited about the Patriots AFC Championship game on Sunday.  I can't wait to go to sleep tonight, because the earlier I go to sleep, the sooner kickoff will come.  Like a child on christmas eve who goes to bed extra early so he can hurry up and wake up on christmas day to open presents.  The only difference is, I'm not a child, there are no gift wrapped presents under a sparkling pine scented christmas tree, and nothing in the NFL is guaranteed.   I am so nervous and anxious, I'm not sure I like being attached to a sports team.

Rat Race

even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat...

and if you lose the rat race, you end up decomposing behind my refrigerator. 

We watched storm tossed waves crash against cliffs.

We watched a little girl fly a kite.

January 5th, a saturday.

It was a Saturday.

it was rainy.
it was cloudy.
it was cold,
for hawaii.

i surfed in the ocean.
broke my surfboard.
fixed it. 

dinner was spaghetti and potato salad.
and one beer.

chores.
a thin book with neon green cover.
some guitar.

great day.

I've seen a lot of pretentious art in my time.  In fact, I consider myself a connosieur of pretentious art.  So it was to great delight and disgust that I stumbled upon this: The most pretentious, crap, ridiculous, meaningless, immature, incoherent, amateur, insulting, ugliest piece of shit shit I've ever seen: