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Wednesday, January 26, 2005
one-up-manship
All right assholes, can we just pick a winner and go home?
1 – I didn’t ride a rollercoaster until I was 15, then I was hooked on finding the best. The best might’ve been the now deceased Steel Phantom in Kennywood, PA.
2 – Of all my high school friends, I’m the only one not married, engaged or with a kid.
3 – The most pointless junk food in the world, Hot Pockets, might also be my favorite.
4 – I think there’s a lot of jobs where the title just seems cool; like bartender, archaeologist, pilot, surfer, gambler, and I think having one of these jobs means that you can never fully hate having them.
5 – One of the coolest moments of my life was giving the Best Man toast at my oldest friend’s wedding reception. I wrote good jokes.
6 – I can vividly remember smoking Marlboro lights in the back of Steve and Joe’s red Integra when I heard Radiohead’s The Bends for the very first time.
7 – Married people scare the hell out of me.
8 – I came to love poetry thanks to a candlelit reading of “The Addict” by Anne Sexton that Andrea Monks did in my English class in 11th grade. Part of it was the poem, part of it was Andrea. I’ve always wanted to look her up and thank her gorgeous self for that inspiration. I’m also glad that was one of the few days I didn’t sleep through.
9 – I’m really confused at how friendships can grow into love between men and women, it seems like all the female friends I’ve acquired, that I definitely lost whatever little sex appeal I had when I became their friend.
10 – I’ve got the kind of screaming headache and twisting stomachache that really makes me not want to bartend tonight.
11 – I broke into the restaurant business years ago by not having a job. I sat at a strange bar drinking double Remy neats until the owner offered me a job.
12 – Where that restaurant used to stand is now a barbershop.
13 – A girlfriend once cheated on me by going down on two guys on my living-room couch at 3am, the day after Christmas, 1999. I was asleep in my room upstairs.
14 – Driving her home the next day had to be the most awkward hour of my life. Cause she knew that I knew and I had my friend in the backseat who knew too. I had to wait until NYE Y2K to break up with her over the phone from New Orleans.
15 – The last time I broke up with someone face-to-face, she clung to my leg crying as I tried to walk out the door.
16 – I’m going to hell for that one.
17 – I’ve jumped into an outdoor hotel swimming pool in February.
18 – My older brother has a house, a dog named Bruno and a girlfriend of 4 years now, I don’t think he knows that I really respect him for setting an example of how to be a grown-up.
19 – I have two scars on my left hand. One comes down along my thumbnail from opening a toy package with a very sharp knife, one comes from a broken beer bottle in one of the handful of fights I’ve ever been in.
20 – We used to mailbox and ride on the tops of our cars in my pseudo-country teenage years. If, as nerds, we weren’t going to play sports or date, vandalism seemed like a good fallback.
21 – My police record is a snore of juvenile delinquency.
22 – It took me an extra year to graduate high school. I didn’t even want to walk across the stage but did so for my folks, whose two other boys never did.
23 – It still feels wholly unnatural when people are proud of me for so very little.
24 – I don‘t want to talk about me so much as I want to tell stories. This shameful self-containment is a recipe for disaster.
25 – Crossword puzzles and talk politics are two of the few things I can do with my stepfather.
26 – Most good friendships have always started out with us talking about music.
27 – I can drink.
28 – When Bret returned from finishing his degree he accused me of stealing his job and his best friend. Both were kinda true.
29 - Growing up, we had a bamboo forest in our backyard, and living nowhere near the other kids at school, my brothers and I made tons of ninja weapons with bamboo and duct-tape.
30 – Ninjas, zombies, and robots will always be the triad of cool.
31 - I won’t lie, my friends and I played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons at 16.
32 – I have to pause the writing of this list now to go bartend our joint’s weekly Quiz-a-ma-jig and then close up with Ben.
33 - …
34 – Well that was fun, it’s 5am and I am un-drunk. Good thing I’m off tomorrow. Where were we…?
35 – Technically, I have committed statutory rape.
36 – Oh, don’t look at me like that 17 vs. 22 ain’t so bad. WHAT? Like I knew?!?
37 – Okay, I did know, here’s to you Jahna.
38 – I’ve never ridden in a hot air balloon.
39 – My uncle owns two planes, a single engine and a twin engine. I will never ride with him again after that unprovoked barrel roll.
40 – My fondest memory this past summer was riding into a small boat through the environs of North Carolina’s Outer Banks for a day on Bear Island, no one around for miles and me in a floppy hat.
41 – I am not an outdoorsy person, but in my dreams I am.
42 – There’s not a lot I feel I need, but I do need my own laptop.
43 – The winter of 1995 I spent working at a UPS Hub in Laurel, Maryland as a Sorter. Basically my job consisted of sitting at a conveyor belt and sorting packages by zip code as they were unloaded off trucks. Two months of five hour shifts and I’ve never worked so fucking hard in my life and not since.
44 – One time at a beach I buried my own head in the sand for 3 minutes.
45 – I have platonic crushes on all the servers at my job, except the one dude. They’re fantastically funny young ladies when they want to be, Anne, Beth and Lyndsi in particular.
46 – Wondering how I die in a source of constant joy to me, is that weird?
47 – I mull over the names of my children like a woman might.
48 – I spent 3 years of my “Adult” life play-testing computer games.
49 – Nothing makes you feel like a stud like working with fat, spectacled losers who live with their folks.
50 - Bon Jovi’s “Livin on a Prayer” will still make me pump my fist in the air. I think of this now because, ya know, Whoa… we’re halfway there.
51 – I haven’t had really good sex in two years, I wonder if I’m still capable of it.
52 – The house next door is being worked on, this morning I woke up to a chorus of MOTHERFUCKING CHAINSAWS.
52 – I’ve had the same cell phone number for 6 years, so I’m not buying anymore “Dude, I didn’t know how to get in touch with you…”’s
53 – I made a seat in a tree behind our house when I was 10 as a place to read in the summer, complete with cupholder.
54 – A kid down the street, Zach, once took me into his mom’s walk-in closet to show me her brick of cocaine on the top shelf. Then we went and watched Basic Instinct and sipped beers, we were 12 and 13, respectively.
55 – There was a cave down near the reservoir 2 miles behind my house that I was convinced held buried treasure, The Goonies really got to me.
56 – I worry about my younger brother.
57 – I am secretly thrilled that my ex has broken up with the guy she stopped seeing me for.
58 – Phone sex is bad for you.
59 – Bartending has got to be the easiest job in the world.
60 – There is a list of women that I never got to be with whom I plan to try again at a later date. This list is written down somewhere.
61 – The fact that a pretty someone told me that were they single they would “fuck my brains out” very recently, is just like, I don’t know, ego fuel for weeks.
62 – I can only describe my current state of self-confidence as Karma.
63 – Buddhism is cool. Don’t even try to lie.
64 – Bret’s willingness to fight, in many different ways, is admirable.
65 – Mike’s willingness to not fight is too.
66 – Tim’s willingness to make us all look slow is even more so.
67 – Seeing one of my mentors affected my Parkinson’s was just about the most… the most… devastating things I’ve witnessed.
68 – Jack of all trades, Master of whatever is a good titled to shoot for.
69 – Girls have 10,000 more fashion options than men, the best we can hope for is to not look like geeks.
70 – I Want a Girl Who Drives a 70s Muscle Car sits at the top of the stack of books in the corner of my room at all times.
71 – Probably the best way to go out is like Slim Pickens riding that atomic bomb.
72 – Or Butch and Sundance style.
73 – I’ve never gotten over wanting to own a lightsaber, jetpack, or 1958 Ford Fairlane. 74 – Roman numerals are hard to remember, but I gots em down.
75 – Everyday I buy a pack of gum, a pack of cigarettes and a Gatorade. Even if it means leaving the house when I don’t want to.
76 – I can masturbate in two minutes if necessary, just so I can go to bed.
77 – Thanks to Travis Morrison and a certain young lady, I now know all the words to Ludacris’ “(What’s Your) Fantasy)”. That memory provokes a warm-n-fuzzy.
78 – If I had my way, I take all my future long road trips by myself. Nothing feels better than crossing state line after state line all by your lonesome.
79 – It’s true, Ashlee Simpson is hell bent on killing music one note at a time. And to think we thought her sister was bad…
80 – I’ve watched more TV tonight than I have in a month, one West Wing episode and a Smallville (Josh is God and that Alicia, you know the teleporting girl, is the hottest thing ever).
81 – I don’t usually go for blondes.
82 – Seeing your friends head off in other, better directions and not saying goodbye is hard to do, but you have to.
83 – Last night, not remembering the name of Beowulf’s mead hall bugged Beth and I for hours, for we are dorks. (It was Heorot.) This after someone brought up corrolations between that epic and the movie Predator.
84 – I buy multiple pairs of the same exact jeans, Mike correctly postulated that this duplicate buying of clothing is the first sign of becoming your father.
85 – When my parents go, I will be inconsolable.
86 – I definitely never thought I’d live this long.
87 – I am amazed at the way Baltimore is growing and changing.
88 – I’ve known too many people to measure their effect on my life.
89 – I get unnecessarily fatalistic at 6am.
90 – That I can talk about food after a few months of kitchen work is really pretty cool with me. “Hmmm cumin and…. What is that?....coriander?” What the fuck!
91 – There are 85 people on my AIM buddy list, I talk to maybe 8 of them.
92 – I have not seen a picture of me in almost one year.
93 – Babies bother me when they stare at me, I think they can see all my wrongdoings.
94 – Give me some time, I can figure out anything.
95 – I wear my glasses when I want people to think I’m smart.
96 – Clothes are so very unimportant to me. You’re all lucky I wear any.
97 – Comedians have my undying love and respect, their job is the most important.
98 – Dinner for Five, living or dead : Jack Kerouac, Jon Stewart, Adolf Hitler (with translator), Chuck D, Charlie Kaufman
99 – Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, A, B, select, start has got to be the most worthless thing I have committed to memory.
100 – We’re all going to be just fine, I promise.
All right assholes, can we just pick a winner and go home?
1 – I didn’t ride a rollercoaster until I was 15, then I was hooked on finding the best. The best might’ve been the now deceased Steel Phantom in Kennywood, PA.
2 – Of all my high school friends, I’m the only one not married, engaged or with a kid.
3 – The most pointless junk food in the world, Hot Pockets, might also be my favorite.
4 – I think there’s a lot of jobs where the title just seems cool; like bartender, archaeologist, pilot, surfer, gambler, and I think having one of these jobs means that you can never fully hate having them.
5 – One of the coolest moments of my life was giving the Best Man toast at my oldest friend’s wedding reception. I wrote good jokes.
6 – I can vividly remember smoking Marlboro lights in the back of Steve and Joe’s red Integra when I heard Radiohead’s The Bends for the very first time.
7 – Married people scare the hell out of me.
8 – I came to love poetry thanks to a candlelit reading of “The Addict” by Anne Sexton that Andrea Monks did in my English class in 11th grade. Part of it was the poem, part of it was Andrea. I’ve always wanted to look her up and thank her gorgeous self for that inspiration. I’m also glad that was one of the few days I didn’t sleep through.
9 – I’m really confused at how friendships can grow into love between men and women, it seems like all the female friends I’ve acquired, that I definitely lost whatever little sex appeal I had when I became their friend.
10 – I’ve got the kind of screaming headache and twisting stomachache that really makes me not want to bartend tonight.
11 – I broke into the restaurant business years ago by not having a job. I sat at a strange bar drinking double Remy neats until the owner offered me a job.
12 – Where that restaurant used to stand is now a barbershop.
13 – A girlfriend once cheated on me by going down on two guys on my living-room couch at 3am, the day after Christmas, 1999. I was asleep in my room upstairs.
14 – Driving her home the next day had to be the most awkward hour of my life. Cause she knew that I knew and I had my friend in the backseat who knew too. I had to wait until NYE Y2K to break up with her over the phone from New Orleans.
15 – The last time I broke up with someone face-to-face, she clung to my leg crying as I tried to walk out the door.
16 – I’m going to hell for that one.
17 – I’ve jumped into an outdoor hotel swimming pool in February.
18 – My older brother has a house, a dog named Bruno and a girlfriend of 4 years now, I don’t think he knows that I really respect him for setting an example of how to be a grown-up.
19 – I have two scars on my left hand. One comes down along my thumbnail from opening a toy package with a very sharp knife, one comes from a broken beer bottle in one of the handful of fights I’ve ever been in.
20 – We used to mailbox and ride on the tops of our cars in my pseudo-country teenage years. If, as nerds, we weren’t going to play sports or date, vandalism seemed like a good fallback.
21 – My police record is a snore of juvenile delinquency.
22 – It took me an extra year to graduate high school. I didn’t even want to walk across the stage but did so for my folks, whose two other boys never did.
23 – It still feels wholly unnatural when people are proud of me for so very little.
24 – I don‘t want to talk about me so much as I want to tell stories. This shameful self-containment is a recipe for disaster.
25 – Crossword puzzles and talk politics are two of the few things I can do with my stepfather.
26 – Most good friendships have always started out with us talking about music.
27 – I can drink.
28 – When Bret returned from finishing his degree he accused me of stealing his job and his best friend. Both were kinda true.
29 - Growing up, we had a bamboo forest in our backyard, and living nowhere near the other kids at school, my brothers and I made tons of ninja weapons with bamboo and duct-tape.
30 – Ninjas, zombies, and robots will always be the triad of cool.
31 - I won’t lie, my friends and I played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons at 16.
32 – I have to pause the writing of this list now to go bartend our joint’s weekly Quiz-a-ma-jig and then close up with Ben.
33 - …
34 – Well that was fun, it’s 5am and I am un-drunk. Good thing I’m off tomorrow. Where were we…?
35 – Technically, I have committed statutory rape.
36 – Oh, don’t look at me like that 17 vs. 22 ain’t so bad. WHAT? Like I knew?!?
37 – Okay, I did know, here’s to you Jahna.
38 – I’ve never ridden in a hot air balloon.
39 – My uncle owns two planes, a single engine and a twin engine. I will never ride with him again after that unprovoked barrel roll.
40 – My fondest memory this past summer was riding into a small boat through the environs of North Carolina’s Outer Banks for a day on Bear Island, no one around for miles and me in a floppy hat.
41 – I am not an outdoorsy person, but in my dreams I am.
42 – There’s not a lot I feel I need, but I do need my own laptop.
43 – The winter of 1995 I spent working at a UPS Hub in Laurel, Maryland as a Sorter. Basically my job consisted of sitting at a conveyor belt and sorting packages by zip code as they were unloaded off trucks. Two months of five hour shifts and I’ve never worked so fucking hard in my life and not since.
44 – One time at a beach I buried my own head in the sand for 3 minutes.
45 – I have platonic crushes on all the servers at my job, except the one dude. They’re fantastically funny young ladies when they want to be, Anne, Beth and Lyndsi in particular.
46 – Wondering how I die in a source of constant joy to me, is that weird?
47 – I mull over the names of my children like a woman might.
48 – I spent 3 years of my “Adult” life play-testing computer games.
49 – Nothing makes you feel like a stud like working with fat, spectacled losers who live with their folks.
50 - Bon Jovi’s “Livin on a Prayer” will still make me pump my fist in the air. I think of this now because, ya know, Whoa… we’re halfway there.
51 – I haven’t had really good sex in two years, I wonder if I’m still capable of it.
52 – The house next door is being worked on, this morning I woke up to a chorus of MOTHERFUCKING CHAINSAWS.
52 – I’ve had the same cell phone number for 6 years, so I’m not buying anymore “Dude, I didn’t know how to get in touch with you…”’s
53 – I made a seat in a tree behind our house when I was 10 as a place to read in the summer, complete with cupholder.
54 – A kid down the street, Zach, once took me into his mom’s walk-in closet to show me her brick of cocaine on the top shelf. Then we went and watched Basic Instinct and sipped beers, we were 12 and 13, respectively.
55 – There was a cave down near the reservoir 2 miles behind my house that I was convinced held buried treasure, The Goonies really got to me.
56 – I worry about my younger brother.
57 – I am secretly thrilled that my ex has broken up with the guy she stopped seeing me for.
58 – Phone sex is bad for you.
59 – Bartending has got to be the easiest job in the world.
60 – There is a list of women that I never got to be with whom I plan to try again at a later date. This list is written down somewhere.
61 – The fact that a pretty someone told me that were they single they would “fuck my brains out” very recently, is just like, I don’t know, ego fuel for weeks.
62 – I can only describe my current state of self-confidence as Karma.
63 – Buddhism is cool. Don’t even try to lie.
64 – Bret’s willingness to fight, in many different ways, is admirable.
65 – Mike’s willingness to not fight is too.
66 – Tim’s willingness to make us all look slow is even more so.
67 – Seeing one of my mentors affected my Parkinson’s was just about the most… the most… devastating things I’ve witnessed.
68 – Jack of all trades, Master of whatever is a good titled to shoot for.
69 – Girls have 10,000 more fashion options than men, the best we can hope for is to not look like geeks.
70 – I Want a Girl Who Drives a 70s Muscle Car sits at the top of the stack of books in the corner of my room at all times.
71 – Probably the best way to go out is like Slim Pickens riding that atomic bomb.
72 – Or Butch and Sundance style.
73 – I’ve never gotten over wanting to own a lightsaber, jetpack, or 1958 Ford Fairlane. 74 – Roman numerals are hard to remember, but I gots em down.
75 – Everyday I buy a pack of gum, a pack of cigarettes and a Gatorade. Even if it means leaving the house when I don’t want to.
76 – I can masturbate in two minutes if necessary, just so I can go to bed.
77 – Thanks to Travis Morrison and a certain young lady, I now know all the words to Ludacris’ “(What’s Your) Fantasy)”. That memory provokes a warm-n-fuzzy.
78 – If I had my way, I take all my future long road trips by myself. Nothing feels better than crossing state line after state line all by your lonesome.
79 – It’s true, Ashlee Simpson is hell bent on killing music one note at a time. And to think we thought her sister was bad…
80 – I’ve watched more TV tonight than I have in a month, one West Wing episode and a Smallville (Josh is God and that Alicia, you know the teleporting girl, is the hottest thing ever).
81 – I don’t usually go for blondes.
82 – Seeing your friends head off in other, better directions and not saying goodbye is hard to do, but you have to.
83 – Last night, not remembering the name of Beowulf’s mead hall bugged Beth and I for hours, for we are dorks. (It was Heorot.) This after someone brought up corrolations between that epic and the movie Predator.
84 – I buy multiple pairs of the same exact jeans, Mike correctly postulated that this duplicate buying of clothing is the first sign of becoming your father.
85 – When my parents go, I will be inconsolable.
86 – I definitely never thought I’d live this long.
87 – I am amazed at the way Baltimore is growing and changing.
88 – I’ve known too many people to measure their effect on my life.
89 – I get unnecessarily fatalistic at 6am.
90 – That I can talk about food after a few months of kitchen work is really pretty cool with me. “Hmmm cumin and…. What is that?....coriander?” What the fuck!
91 – There are 85 people on my AIM buddy list, I talk to maybe 8 of them.
92 – I have not seen a picture of me in almost one year.
93 – Babies bother me when they stare at me, I think they can see all my wrongdoings.
94 – Give me some time, I can figure out anything.
95 – I wear my glasses when I want people to think I’m smart.
96 – Clothes are so very unimportant to me. You’re all lucky I wear any.
97 – Comedians have my undying love and respect, their job is the most important.
98 – Dinner for Five, living or dead : Jack Kerouac, Jon Stewart, Adolf Hitler (with translator), Chuck D, Charlie Kaufman
99 – Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, A, B, select, start has got to be the most worthless thing I have committed to memory.
100 – We’re all going to be just fine, I promise.
Saturday, January 22, 2005
these dreams go on when i close my eyes
Bret is inside already. He's shown his ID and been stamped and has walked in quickly to grab his first drink. I wait outside by the will-call to get the ticket I had bought at work that day.
The man snatches it quickly when I slide it under the plexi-glass. He's short and stocky, and a little bit too nerdy looking to work at a rock club in the heart of DC. DC has no heart, but if it did, it'd be here, amongst the rabble and the hipsters, at 10:15 on a Saturday night.
He examines my expired driver's license for seconds too long. I sigh deeply. "If you have to X me, I understand dude. Really, I just want to see the show."
He nods, not really hearing what I said. "Just a minute.", as he gets up from his scarred black leather office chair. "Fuck."
He comes back to the window a minute later, "Can you step around to the side door?"
"What?! Why?!"
"Sir, please.... step around to the side door."
I nod and comply, walking down the block a piece and in to the alley where I see Short-but-not-so-Cool holding open a door for me. I slide into a small, too-dark room.
"Uhhhhh, I'm not gay you know..."
He laughs, "Just have a seat, someone will be right with you.", and leaves the room.
I look around, a tall, three tiered shelf on the opposite wall from me holds overflowing file boxes. The desk in the corner has papers strewn about and a cold black door matching the one I came through closes the other side of the small room. I look down and see IDs, passports, birth certificates, dental records, pictures or small children on tri-cycles, and I notice that all these young, blonde, blue-eyed young man bear an uncanny resemblance to me. But their names, their names are not mine. They are Mr. Gergensons, Mr. Upwhymers, Mr. Schlovaks, Mr. Underhills, they are the plethora of every minor minority and they have my face, but they are not me. They could be me. They are me.
"Mr. Atwell...?", Captain Dork says as he opens the interior door and I instinctively rise.
"Right this way..."
Bret is inside already. He's shown his ID and been stamped and has walked in quickly to grab his first drink. I wait outside by the will-call to get the ticket I had bought at work that day.
The man snatches it quickly when I slide it under the plexi-glass. He's short and stocky, and a little bit too nerdy looking to work at a rock club in the heart of DC. DC has no heart, but if it did, it'd be here, amongst the rabble and the hipsters, at 10:15 on a Saturday night.
He examines my expired driver's license for seconds too long. I sigh deeply. "If you have to X me, I understand dude. Really, I just want to see the show."
He nods, not really hearing what I said. "Just a minute.", as he gets up from his scarred black leather office chair. "Fuck."
He comes back to the window a minute later, "Can you step around to the side door?"
"What?! Why?!"
"Sir, please.... step around to the side door."
I nod and comply, walking down the block a piece and in to the alley where I see Short-but-not-so-Cool holding open a door for me. I slide into a small, too-dark room.
"Uhhhhh, I'm not gay you know..."
He laughs, "Just have a seat, someone will be right with you.", and leaves the room.
I look around, a tall, three tiered shelf on the opposite wall from me holds overflowing file boxes. The desk in the corner has papers strewn about and a cold black door matching the one I came through closes the other side of the small room. I look down and see IDs, passports, birth certificates, dental records, pictures or small children on tri-cycles, and I notice that all these young, blonde, blue-eyed young man bear an uncanny resemblance to me. But their names, their names are not mine. They are Mr. Gergensons, Mr. Upwhymers, Mr. Schlovaks, Mr. Underhills, they are the plethora of every minor minority and they have my face, but they are not me. They could be me. They are me.
"Mr. Atwell...?", Captain Dork says as he opens the interior door and I instinctively rise.
"Right this way..."
Thursday, January 20, 2005
the effort towards normal
I am finding a horrible difference between my internal monologue and the concious actions of myself. That I can be so angry inside and act so incredibly diplomatic outside is a great in justice that needs to be corrected.
But how? How do you break your nice-guy cred without the threat of becoming a jerk? How is that done? Tonight I was cold to people and they asked, "What's wrong?". It's hard. It's hard to compromise an identity without assuming another.
We learned this in highschool for god's sake. We learned that assuming another identity without killing the previous completely was impossible. Under that dated set of circumstances, how do we recognize a model that doesn't involve leaving town, or changing jobs and residence. It is impossible.
So I must resign myself to not fighting a losing battle. To not change, but to reign in my kindness. Because, honestly, no one deserves my complete gratitude.
No more will I be a clown to strangers.
I am finding a horrible difference between my internal monologue and the concious actions of myself. That I can be so angry inside and act so incredibly diplomatic outside is a great in justice that needs to be corrected.
But how? How do you break your nice-guy cred without the threat of becoming a jerk? How is that done? Tonight I was cold to people and they asked, "What's wrong?". It's hard. It's hard to compromise an identity without assuming another.
We learned this in highschool for god's sake. We learned that assuming another identity without killing the previous completely was impossible. Under that dated set of circumstances, how do we recognize a model that doesn't involve leaving town, or changing jobs and residence. It is impossible.
So I must resign myself to not fighting a losing battle. To not change, but to reign in my kindness. Because, honestly, no one deserves my complete gratitude.
No more will I be a clown to strangers.
Saturday, January 15, 2005
100
Following suit with Bret and Tim, here's mine. I remember how tough doing 40 or 50 was last year, this will be even harder.
1 - My middle name Lancaster is my grandmother's maiden name. My mother started in our family that maiden names get passed to grandsons as middle names. I think I'll pass Lancaster on rather than Kassakatis though.
2 - No one ever guesses that I'm part Greek.
3 - Maker's Mark is my whiskey or choice. Whiskey is the only drink for true alkies. (or Scotch)
4 - I have a thing for old "dad shirts", long-sleeved, button-down dresws shirts with history.
5 - Since taking my job a year ago I have had nightmares every single time I sleep.
6 - I cannot nap, I'm either up or down and out.
7 - "that dog won't hunt." and "that's dirty pool, mister." are my favorite expression, both learned from my younger brother.
8 - I crush on women quite easily. "This new one's the BEST EVER!"
9 - I've smoked Camel Lights religiously since I was 16.
10 - Eggs Benedict is worth a half an hour drive at 4am.
11 - There's a picture of my favorite ex on top of the bookshelf in the front room of my house.
12 - I'll be a momma's boy my whole life.
13 - I stop by on weekends to tell my dad about my stupid, reckless life, he loves it.
14 - Out of three sons, I am the most social and gregarious.
15 - Growing up, I was intensely shy and afraid that I'd be found out to be a liar, fag, punk or bitch.
16 - I know now that's what growing up is all about.
17 - I don't do a good Harry Carey, but I do a decent Will Ferrell doing Harry Carey.
18 - I bite my fingernails.
19 - I have a zippo with a Celtic cross and an opaque blue stone in the center.
20 - I pass the same Tibetan Buddhist Cultural Center on Fayette Street once a week but never have a Sunday morning off so I can go to 10 o'clock service.
21 - Religion is not an opiate, it's a curiosity we put off until we die.
22 - People have quoted me before, but should never quote the above.
23 - I apologize more than I should.
24 - I have slept with as many people as the years I've been on earth.
25 - Last year was a rebuilding year, this year I come the fuck up.
26 - New Years Eve without kissing is intercourse without orgasm.
27 - I've never been closer to where I want to die - living in an apartment over a bar that I own.
28 - Baltimore is home, I couldn't imagine another place.
29 - I've never been past the Mississippi, not counting New Orleans, which is just on the other side.
30 - I actually COULD imagine living there.
31 - None of my friends will ever realize the impact they've had on my screwed up life.
32 - I'll listen to anything once.
33 - Over the past year my Spanish has become passable, I need to go to Mexico.
34 - I need a new hobby real bad, I've been thinking more about playing music.
35 - My facial hair is really getting out of control, I've going to have to start shaving daily. Blonde people don't do that.
36 - I'll have to shave my head at 30, my hair is secceding from the union.
37 - Being a lighting rod for negativity is something that I've mastered brilliantly.
38 - It sometims takes me 20 minutes of circling to find a place to park in my neighborhood.
39 - I don't know how a "real" relationship works, I don't think I've ever had one.
40 - I've been dumped once in 6 years.
41 - No one will ever be as notoriously bad with money as I am.
42 - People suspect I have a drug problem, when really it's just a drinking problem.
43 - That and other facts lead me to believe I'll be the great writer I am working to become.
44 - I lie all the time, I am great at it.
45 - I want to love someone who'll be my teammate in being awesome.
46 - No place on earth will ever compare to my bed.
47 - I've started collecting tacky Christian paints for my room, they are not easy to find. Right now it's Jesus holding the scared heart and black people performing a baptism in a river. 2 is a start.
48 - It's no fun being the old man who comes down to a 3am living room party full of grumbles and rockin dime slots.
49 - Soul music will never be the same as it was before 74'
50 - When I get really drunk, I'll turn on people and get real surly.
51 - People never tell me they like me until I tell them first.
52 - I've never need sex so badly in my life.
53 - When I was 12, I threw a rock at a moving car and broke the windshield, my friend Eric and I hid in a tree until my parents started yelling for me.
54 - One time I saw my old roommate Laura completely naked through a cacked door, I almost booted.
55 - My feet stink, I spend at least 10 hours a day on them.
56 - I can never get caught up on my laundry.
57 - A few weeks ago I passed out on the kitchen floor midway through a hot pocket. Jason had to kick me 4 times before I woke up.
58 - It's hard to shake the feeling that my current roommate's are cooler and young than me.
59 - I've got more beef with more people than I ever have before.
60 - The last girl I slept with now thinks I'm gay.
61 - My nickname in the kitchen at work is Sunshine, Angelo's is Meatball.
62 - I crush on the absolute wrong people.
63 - My knowledge of shooters in poor.
64 - Heather, Mark, Zarana, Dennis, Jessica, Ji, John, Todd, Hecker, Jody, Charles, Billy, Beth, Danny, Maya, Mark again, Jessi, Eddie, Jexxy, Fred, Darryl, Troy, Tim, Linda, Christina, Becca, Johnny, Anne, Jenny, Stan, Andy, Audrey; those are all the bartenders I currently know. that's a lot.
65 - I like how different my friends are, I collect friends like albums.
66 - Meathead frat boys really don't get me, I don't think that will ever change.
67 - There's no shaking an aura of Desperation, someone's gotta help you out to get rid of it.
68 - I am a single twenty-something to the cliche.
69 - Small of the back tattoos only work really well on a few girls.
70 - Vonnegut will become a legendary American writer after his death.
71 - Lucy is the name of the pillow I cuddle-crush nightly.
72 - I only go into the bar on the corner of my block to eat.
73 - Tengo mucho dolor in mi corazon por una chica.
74 - Books are better than people, cause you can just pick them up and put them down whenever you like.
75 - I have no patience for people who never try to be better.
76 - Phone sex is a poor substitue.
77 - I wonder why white women are always so FUCKING plain.
78 - Flicking a cigarette at someone's face is the best way to get the first punch.
79 - I once saw a friend of mine, Bret, get thrown over two tables and into a third, I did a shit job bandaging his chin in a grocery store parking lot that night, he has a scar.
80 - Bars are countries, and in some, there's no just way you're ever going to feel right.
81 - Half of the important things I've learned in my life were taught over a beverage, and I remember half of them.
82 - My father once spent the night with a 42 year old widow whose husband died at Pearl Harbor, he was 19.
83 - Tim is probably the brightest person I've ever met.
84 - I've never felt older or more responsible.
85 - My roommate bought me a PS2 for Christmas and I've been playing the shit out of GTA : San Andreas and Spider Man 2.
86 - The Dismemberment Plan was Saturday Night Fever, The Travis Morrison Band is Stayin Alive.
87 - "It's Tricky" by Run DMC is joy in stereo.
88 - I believe the best way to stay attractive is to constantly change your appearance.
89 - I miss my computer and it's motherload of music and porn that sits in my dad's house.
90 - Big Fish makes me cry every single time I watch it. The damn part at the end where Albert Finney groans "... the story of my life." gets me everytime. Maybe not the best movie ever, but the one I've seen most recently that had resonated so deeply with me.
91 - I'm on a mission to get a tattoo by the end of the year, I need to stop fucking around and start believing in something.
92 - Vacation in March, come hell or highwater.
93 - I hold a lot of secrets for a lot of people.
94 - Everyone in my neighborhood owns a dog, I'm not kidding, EVERYONE.
95 - There will come a day when I never walk home from a stranger's house at 6am.
96 - My car is falling apart.
97 - If this list was sop hard to write, I'm a long way off from finishing a book I start.
98 - Cocaine is a hell of a drug.
99 - I'm going to take a bit part in a stage production when the dust of my promotion settles.
100 - I never really get over wanting to be with someone, I usually just run away.
Following suit with Bret and Tim, here's mine. I remember how tough doing 40 or 50 was last year, this will be even harder.
1 - My middle name Lancaster is my grandmother's maiden name. My mother started in our family that maiden names get passed to grandsons as middle names. I think I'll pass Lancaster on rather than Kassakatis though.
2 - No one ever guesses that I'm part Greek.
3 - Maker's Mark is my whiskey or choice. Whiskey is the only drink for true alkies. (or Scotch)
4 - I have a thing for old "dad shirts", long-sleeved, button-down dresws shirts with history.
5 - Since taking my job a year ago I have had nightmares every single time I sleep.
6 - I cannot nap, I'm either up or down and out.
7 - "that dog won't hunt." and "that's dirty pool, mister." are my favorite expression, both learned from my younger brother.
8 - I crush on women quite easily. "This new one's the BEST EVER!"
9 - I've smoked Camel Lights religiously since I was 16.
10 - Eggs Benedict is worth a half an hour drive at 4am.
11 - There's a picture of my favorite ex on top of the bookshelf in the front room of my house.
12 - I'll be a momma's boy my whole life.
13 - I stop by on weekends to tell my dad about my stupid, reckless life, he loves it.
14 - Out of three sons, I am the most social and gregarious.
15 - Growing up, I was intensely shy and afraid that I'd be found out to be a liar, fag, punk or bitch.
16 - I know now that's what growing up is all about.
17 - I don't do a good Harry Carey, but I do a decent Will Ferrell doing Harry Carey.
18 - I bite my fingernails.
19 - I have a zippo with a Celtic cross and an opaque blue stone in the center.
20 - I pass the same Tibetan Buddhist Cultural Center on Fayette Street once a week but never have a Sunday morning off so I can go to 10 o'clock service.
21 - Religion is not an opiate, it's a curiosity we put off until we die.
22 - People have quoted me before, but should never quote the above.
23 - I apologize more than I should.
24 - I have slept with as many people as the years I've been on earth.
25 - Last year was a rebuilding year, this year I come the fuck up.
26 - New Years Eve without kissing is intercourse without orgasm.
27 - I've never been closer to where I want to die - living in an apartment over a bar that I own.
28 - Baltimore is home, I couldn't imagine another place.
29 - I've never been past the Mississippi, not counting New Orleans, which is just on the other side.
30 - I actually COULD imagine living there.
31 - None of my friends will ever realize the impact they've had on my screwed up life.
32 - I'll listen to anything once.
33 - Over the past year my Spanish has become passable, I need to go to Mexico.
34 - I need a new hobby real bad, I've been thinking more about playing music.
35 - My facial hair is really getting out of control, I've going to have to start shaving daily. Blonde people don't do that.
36 - I'll have to shave my head at 30, my hair is secceding from the union.
37 - Being a lighting rod for negativity is something that I've mastered brilliantly.
38 - It sometims takes me 20 minutes of circling to find a place to park in my neighborhood.
39 - I don't know how a "real" relationship works, I don't think I've ever had one.
40 - I've been dumped once in 6 years.
41 - No one will ever be as notoriously bad with money as I am.
42 - People suspect I have a drug problem, when really it's just a drinking problem.
43 - That and other facts lead me to believe I'll be the great writer I am working to become.
44 - I lie all the time, I am great at it.
45 - I want to love someone who'll be my teammate in being awesome.
46 - No place on earth will ever compare to my bed.
47 - I've started collecting tacky Christian paints for my room, they are not easy to find. Right now it's Jesus holding the scared heart and black people performing a baptism in a river. 2 is a start.
48 - It's no fun being the old man who comes down to a 3am living room party full of grumbles and rockin dime slots.
49 - Soul music will never be the same as it was before 74'
50 - When I get really drunk, I'll turn on people and get real surly.
51 - People never tell me they like me until I tell them first.
52 - I've never need sex so badly in my life.
53 - When I was 12, I threw a rock at a moving car and broke the windshield, my friend Eric and I hid in a tree until my parents started yelling for me.
54 - One time I saw my old roommate Laura completely naked through a cacked door, I almost booted.
55 - My feet stink, I spend at least 10 hours a day on them.
56 - I can never get caught up on my laundry.
57 - A few weeks ago I passed out on the kitchen floor midway through a hot pocket. Jason had to kick me 4 times before I woke up.
58 - It's hard to shake the feeling that my current roommate's are cooler and young than me.
59 - I've got more beef with more people than I ever have before.
60 - The last girl I slept with now thinks I'm gay.
61 - My nickname in the kitchen at work is Sunshine, Angelo's is Meatball.
62 - I crush on the absolute wrong people.
63 - My knowledge of shooters in poor.
64 - Heather, Mark, Zarana, Dennis, Jessica, Ji, John, Todd, Hecker, Jody, Charles, Billy, Beth, Danny, Maya, Mark again, Jessi, Eddie, Jexxy, Fred, Darryl, Troy, Tim, Linda, Christina, Becca, Johnny, Anne, Jenny, Stan, Andy, Audrey; those are all the bartenders I currently know. that's a lot.
65 - I like how different my friends are, I collect friends like albums.
66 - Meathead frat boys really don't get me, I don't think that will ever change.
67 - There's no shaking an aura of Desperation, someone's gotta help you out to get rid of it.
68 - I am a single twenty-something to the cliche.
69 - Small of the back tattoos only work really well on a few girls.
70 - Vonnegut will become a legendary American writer after his death.
71 - Lucy is the name of the pillow I cuddle-crush nightly.
72 - I only go into the bar on the corner of my block to eat.
73 - Tengo mucho dolor in mi corazon por una chica.
74 - Books are better than people, cause you can just pick them up and put them down whenever you like.
75 - I have no patience for people who never try to be better.
76 - Phone sex is a poor substitue.
77 - I wonder why white women are always so FUCKING plain.
78 - Flicking a cigarette at someone's face is the best way to get the first punch.
79 - I once saw a friend of mine, Bret, get thrown over two tables and into a third, I did a shit job bandaging his chin in a grocery store parking lot that night, he has a scar.
80 - Bars are countries, and in some, there's no just way you're ever going to feel right.
81 - Half of the important things I've learned in my life were taught over a beverage, and I remember half of them.
82 - My father once spent the night with a 42 year old widow whose husband died at Pearl Harbor, he was 19.
83 - Tim is probably the brightest person I've ever met.
84 - I've never felt older or more responsible.
85 - My roommate bought me a PS2 for Christmas and I've been playing the shit out of GTA : San Andreas and Spider Man 2.
86 - The Dismemberment Plan was Saturday Night Fever, The Travis Morrison Band is Stayin Alive.
87 - "It's Tricky" by Run DMC is joy in stereo.
88 - I believe the best way to stay attractive is to constantly change your appearance.
89 - I miss my computer and it's motherload of music and porn that sits in my dad's house.
90 - Big Fish makes me cry every single time I watch it. The damn part at the end where Albert Finney groans "... the story of my life." gets me everytime. Maybe not the best movie ever, but the one I've seen most recently that had resonated so deeply with me.
91 - I'm on a mission to get a tattoo by the end of the year, I need to stop fucking around and start believing in something.
92 - Vacation in March, come hell or highwater.
93 - I hold a lot of secrets for a lot of people.
94 - Everyone in my neighborhood owns a dog, I'm not kidding, EVERYONE.
95 - There will come a day when I never walk home from a stranger's house at 6am.
96 - My car is falling apart.
97 - If this list was sop hard to write, I'm a long way off from finishing a book I start.
98 - Cocaine is a hell of a drug.
99 - I'm going to take a bit part in a stage production when the dust of my promotion settles.
100 - I never really get over wanting to be with someone, I usually just run away.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
arrival
promotion accquired. i wanna say that we should let the good times roll, but it's gonna be a lot of work (and work off the clock) before i get down all the nuances of managing a resturant. hopefully i've gotten a head start by learning computer functions and knowing every minor detail of our menu. thanks go out to D , B and J for backing me. wish me luck.
i plan on doing a fair share of drinking/celebrating this saturday evening.
promotion accquired. i wanna say that we should let the good times roll, but it's gonna be a lot of work (and work off the clock) before i get down all the nuances of managing a resturant. hopefully i've gotten a head start by learning computer functions and knowing every minor detail of our menu. thanks go out to D , B and J for backing me. wish me luck.
i plan on doing a fair share of drinking/celebrating this saturday evening.
Friday, January 07, 2005
i can't seem to care about tsunami victims
i mean, i care in the worldwide sense of "wow, that's pretty messed up", but, really, i don't know those people. they live in a part of the world i know little about and will probably never visit.
i say this knowing how un-PC and how terribly callous it may seem, who cares. these people are not your friends, neighbors or countrymen, they're numbers. and while compassion may be the closest thing to love one can feel for a stranger, i just can't muster it.
i can't bring myself to care about people on the other side of the earth, under billions of gallons of water, who will not get any less dead by having me feel sorry for them.
i blame televison for my disaffected mentality.
i mean, i care in the worldwide sense of "wow, that's pretty messed up", but, really, i don't know those people. they live in a part of the world i know little about and will probably never visit.
i say this knowing how un-PC and how terribly callous it may seem, who cares. these people are not your friends, neighbors or countrymen, they're numbers. and while compassion may be the closest thing to love one can feel for a stranger, i just can't muster it.
i can't bring myself to care about people on the other side of the earth, under billions of gallons of water, who will not get any less dead by having me feel sorry for them.
i blame televison for my disaffected mentality.
album
permanent :joy division
literature
breakfast at tiffany's :truman capote
single
big casino :jimmy eat world
worthwhile
they're playing my songpop occulture
i kan't spell
dispositive
pitchfork media
oblivio
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