What next, big mouth billy bass?

I had an interesting thought whilst strolling through Sam's Club in search of hummus. As I was approaching a rather large center aisle display of inflatable haunted castles, and other sundry blow up devices I thought, "With the crashing economy, failing banks, and Wall Street taking a collective dump on American tax payer's chests, who is still buying this stuff?" I mean really. Who can spend 70 dollars on a life size, mechanical Dracula? Sure, it waves. Its eyes may even glow upon one entering a specified proximity. But really, I would have to think that with everything that is happening, the inflatable decoration industry must be reeling. How many more Christmases will pass us by before we never see another inflatable Santa, encased in a glowing, snow filled sphere? How long before inflatable baby Jesus, surrounded by blow up shepherds in an illuminated egg, becomes a mere relic of a prosperous past?

Please Madam Pelosi, hear our cries. We beg of you, oh wise and effective Democratic majority, turn thine ears to our pleas. Dearest President, with thy magic scepter of truth and righteousness; spare the corporations responsible for the creation of our treasured blow up novelties, and suffer not that they fall under a foreign buyer's shadow, or dwindle away in unbelief/bankruptcy.

Trivialization nation

A few things. First, I have heard a few comments from a few women over the last week or so, comparing the horror of a kidney stone to a period. As though menstrual cramps were even on a level with passing a kidney stone. Let me just say that I have never seen my sisters or any other woman, for that matter, rendered absolutely immobile for a couple of hours, writhing, panting, and screaming in pain from period cramps.

I am not a stranger to pain. A few years ago, I fell 10 feet onto a pile of rocks and landed on my wrist, causing my radius to fracture and shift out of line with the scaphoid and the lunate. Translation; I broke my wrist and it hurt like hell. That pain however, was but a drop in the bucket compared to that wretched stone's fateful journey through my ureter.

Now, I am not here to trivialize the period. I mean the blood and gore, the sickness, the Always pads with wings, the cramps...I feel bad about that, I really do. Women sort of got the short end of the stick as far as that goes. All men have to deal with is being horny practically ALWAYS (and the occasional kidney stone.) I am not here to create a big male vs female argument, about whom treads the path most difficult. All I am saying, is don't trivialize the kidney stone. It is not comparable to a period, unless every woman I have ever known has an astronomical pain threshold that I am just not comprehending. Again, my intention is not to open up Pandora's box here. I don't want a million (and by a million, I mean all 15 or 20 that probably read this blog) pist off women ripping into me and calling me insensitive to the female lunar cycle. I just doubt that cramps hurt as much as a stone. That's all I'm saying.

Spoon me, grind me

A new evil has come into my life. An insidious attack upon my pocket book, and very soul.

Spoon Me frozen yogurt.

Seriously, ruining my life. I can't get enough of it. It's located on bulldog blvd. It's like a healthy oasis, floating out amongst of sea full of fatty slop. If an oasis could float, that is. I suppose that was rather nonsensical. Oasis' exist in the desert. Not the sea. Doi. It's the yogurt poisoning, befuddling my mind.

They have 3 flavors; natural, green tea, and acai. The tea flavor taste like the normal, only mixed with dirt. Dirt, as in that sort of earthy taste that strong teas often have. All 3 are delicious to the taste, and won't add much to your gut. At 90 calories per serving, how can one not overindulge?

And therein lies the problem. Overindulgence of the aforementioned deliciousness is a rather costly venture. The smallest size with 3 toppings is a little over 3 dollars. The large, 6+ if you go with acai or green tea. But how can you not? With mango, strawberries, peaches, kiwi, watermelon, pineapple, and a plethora of other toppings, the small size is just a huge disappointment. Just enough to piss off your palate, and leave you desperately unsatisfied.

So, knowing that it is relatively healthy, I can't help but constantly crave it whenever I desire something sweet. Which is ALL the time. 3 times last week I pedaled my pitiful carcass to that place and ordered the largest one. The only downfall; that place is seriously sweet bro nation. Despite the quality music played there (The Shins, The Sounds, Kaiser Chiefs, and all manner of indie rock) Spoon Me is a constant bro fest.

Saturday night there was even a DJ. And possibly one of the worst DJ's I have ever heard. He "spun" from his ipod, with the choppiest, most random song transitions. As much as being surrounded by all manner of collar popping, aeropohollicrombie wearing, fauxhawking, douchebaggery is a rather spine crinkling experience, it makes for some entertaining people watching. Like, observing the bro with the red popped collar and cargo pants grinding his genitals all over the behind of some two bit skank in a mini skirt--priceless. Or the dude with both a pink and purple shirt on, to the end that he might have 2 collars for popping (for emergencies) gettin' his bro on, bumpin' his fitch ensconced crotch all over every platinum blond in sight. Cringes turn to smiles, then to all out laughing, as one wonders how people buy into all of that. To each his own, I suppose.

I would absolutely love to read a blog, written by a bro who was observing me.

Open for business

I have decided to make the members only blog public access. As previously stated, the flavor of the content is a bit different than this blog. I feel like most anything of quality ends up on Fish Hatchery, and the other one is sort of a spillover. So, there you have it. It was private for about a month. Now it isn't. Hooray for you. Or maybe not.

Goodbye winter. (probably not)

I have found that the worst part about working in a restaurant, are the ensuing restaurant night terrors that plague you upon sleeping. It's like work is inescapable. I go to work all day long. I come home, sluice the grill baste smell from my skin, and the sweat stank from my feet, and crawl into bed. I then pass out, and suddenly I'm back at the food hell. It's like it never ends.

The dreams are always supremely frustrating. They generally involve either an unmanageably large section, or I'm serving a table that I forget about for like an hour. Or the people whom I serve are nuts and ask for outrageous things.

Today I returned home from the most useless lunch shift I have ever worked. I decided to take a nap until I was back on at 6. I woke up sweaty (because my comforter is too hot, and my room is not yet the frozen hell that it shall shortly be as soon as this infernal state finishes fast forwarding through fall and plunges us into a premature winter.) Sweaty and pist, because I had just been yelled at by a woman ordering the gargoyle gumbo. She was upset, because I offered her a salad, and she hadn't had enough time to consider whether or not she really even wanted to consider considering a salad. At which point I woke up and groaned. Because even in my dreams, I can't escape work. Because similar scenarios really do occur. Because people who eat in restaurants are ridiculous and expect way more than for what they are actually paying.

Dance monkey, dance.

I also don't make any money at my job. This is apparently the down season. In theory, it really picks up in October, so I guess we're all just hanging in there till then. So for the last two weeks, I have just had the attitude that, "Hey, I'm getting paid to hang out." Only by keeping that idea at the forefront of my thought process, have I been able to not be pist all the time. This is a pretty big step for me. Usually I get really pist off at work when I don't make very much money, or the situation isn't going my way. It is pretty revolutionary that I am keeping a positive attitude throughout all of this. Perhaps Fish is turning over a new leaf, or swimming through a new shoal, if you will. Maybe the long winter of pessimism is finally being dissipated by the warm spring currents of positivity. Tiny green shoots of positive thought are fighting their way to break free of the frozen ground of negativity that so often plagues my life. At least usually it is humorous negativity and pessimism. Either way, perhaps things are going to look up from here (probably not.)

In fact, I made 11 dollars at lunch today, and $20.87 at dinner. And I wasn't even mad. Seriously. Put that in your "Fish is nothing but a whiny pessimist" crack pipe and smoke it.

Stonings

2:15 Sunday. I sit down on the couch to eat a bowl of Rice Krispies. The ones with the dried strawberries. 2 hours later, I'm lying on the floor outside the bathroom, curled up around a garbage can, sweaty and semi coherent, wondering what the hell just happened.

I can't say that I woke up thinking, "I hope I pass a kidney stone today, to the end that I might truly feel alive through a long bout of nearly unbearable pain. I really just wanna feel alive." I hear that emo kids cut themselves for that reason; to feel validated through the pain. When one feels nothing inside, pain reminds one that they he/she really exists, that life blood isn't futilely pumping through veins numbed by sorrow.

Well, tiny emo kids--you wanna really feel alive? Quit that cutting nonsense and brew up a kidney stone. I'll tell you this; you can't possibly feel more alive than while earnestly wishing for death. Because that minuscule hunk of calcium (or a plethora of other mineral combinations) feels like a tiny little man is wearing ice climbing cleats and playing DDR inside your kidney. And when he didn't get a perfect score, he proceeded to remove his cleats and then stab and bludgeon everyone in sight with said cleats. And by everyone, I mean every visceral organ boxed in between your lowest left rib, down past your belly button, on towards the groinal area, and then left around to the region just above the pelvis. And he's pist for about 2 hours.

In the midst of eating the second bowl of Krispies, I began to feel a sharp pain in my lower back/side region, just above the top of my pelvis. I dismissed it as back pain from spending most of the night crammed on a couch. I realized that I was sorely mistaken about 3 minutes later as I stumbled over to our hideous long/wide child birthing/kidney stone passing couch, pain erupting through my side. Not waves. Not a throb. Just constant, like a knife twisting in my flesh methodically, robotically.

Panic ensued, as I tried to frantically recall in which side dwelt the appendix, that most worthless time bomb of an organ. I called my friend in medical school. He didn't answer. I sent a rather desperate text, "For the love of God, call me," to which he responded rather quickly. He informed me that the aforementioned useless organ was located on the right side. "Oh good," I said (panted,) "I guess it's just a kidney stone (shit.)"

I tried calling both parents, to no avail. I recalled that while passing a kidney stone, the poor forsaken soul will often vomit mightily, due to the intensity of the pain involved. So I got the biggest bowl I could find in the kitchen and then staggered back to the birthing couch, panting in agony.

When one has cramps or an upset stomach, curling up in the fetal position alleviates the pain somewhat.

Not so with a stone.

Every position hurts. I tried the side, curling up, sitting down, hunching over, and all merely exacerbated the pain. Laying on my back with my knees bent was the only position that didn't augment the misery.

I called Andre. He and Jared came over to give me a blessing. When they arrived, my toes were curling in agony. Unfortunately, (for me) passing a kidney stone is a situation rife with comedic opportunity. I mean, it's like an alien is going to burst from your chest. Obviously Jared began cracking jokes, at which point I had to beg him to stop, as laughing caused the pain to multiply.

The pain slowly seemed to move from my side, into a section just above and a hair to the left of my belly button. By this point, Andre had fetched me a small garbage can in which I could empty out the 3 lbs of Rice Krispies that I had previously consumed. As I lay there, toes curling, one hand clawing the couch, the other crinkling a water bottle over and over again, panting and grunting, I could feel my stomach start to lurch. My stomach throbbed, my arms tingled. It seriously felt like a creature was going to claw its way out of my stomach, and then dance a jig on my chest. I could feel the bile begin to climb up my esophagus, and my mouth filled with anticipatory saliva. I panicked, because I knew if I threw up those Rice Krispies, I'd never be able to stomach them again. And dammit I love those things. That, and I had just purchased 5 boxes of them the night before. Plus, the thought of rolling over on my side, augmenting the pain, and retching into a garbage can for the first time in over 14 years was less than a pleasant thought. So I swallowed it back, over and over again, focusing on not letting it escape. Somehow, I succeeded.

Slowly, the pain seemed to move to my lower abdomen, just above the groin. Eventually I sent all who still remained away. There was no point in them further witnessing my pitiful, writhing state. After they left, I decided to attempt to piss the stone out. I hobbled my way into the bathroom and collapsed upon the toilet. I couldn't piss, and the pain only increased in that position, so I drug myself back into the hallway and collapsed on the floor. After 10 or 15 more minutes of increased pain, it finally began to die off, and I passed out for about 20 minutes. And there I awoke, sweaty and alone, except for the garbage can and the many micro creatures living in our filthy carpet.

26 with a kidney stone. Just kill me now.

I started drinking exorbitant amounts of water. About an hour after the episode, I finally had to urinate. I assumed I would piss it right out, and that it would be a rather agonizing experience. I have never been so nervous to let urine begin its cascading journey towards the toilet bowl.

No pain, no stone.

Throughout the rest of the day, and through a lot of Monday, I dwelt in fear of the final passing. Or that perhaps it wasn't done moving through my kidney, and I would have a gut wrenching repeat.

About 4 o'clock, I had to piss. I almost didn't strain it, as it wasn't going to be much. Upon completion, I looked down, and there he was; a tiny, black, newborn baby boy. The blessed seed of my womb, almost carelessly shot into the toilet, never to be noticed or found. How on earth could something so small cause so much pain? I didn't know a human being could be in that much pain, and not be dying. It was one of the most exciting moments of my life, holding that little guy in my hand and knowing that I wasn't just a ticking time bomb, waiting to crumple to the floor at work with another episode.

I don't know who the mother is, but once I find out, I shall avoid her like the plague.

I have a kidney stone

God help me.

Birdlings

There is a herd of quail living in my back yard. Herd is probably not the correct term. Perhaps a coven? Maybe a gaggle? Either way, they have chosen our back yard/parking lot as their place of residence. Every time I come flying around the corner of the house, like 12 quail-lings go scattering in all directions in a mad panic. They are usually hanging out under the porch awning near the grill, or under a parked car. I am waiting, just waiting for one of them to panic in the wrong direction and run under one of my spinning tires.

I also have a mental image of this one stolid quail, who just doesn't give a damn about anything. When all the rest are scampering off for the bushes, their tiny backwards knees pumping so fast they appear to be spinning, he just stands there. "Run you fools," he thinks. "As for me and my head plume, I dare that spinning tire to smash us into oblivion." And one day it will. Then all the rest of the quails will realize that, rather than being brave, he was probably just retarded.

But I'll know the truth. He was the bravest quail of them all.

Speaking of birds, I once lived in a house infested with pigeons. They would nest in our roof, and veritably wake the dead with their ungodly cooing. Damn necromantic pigeons.

Anyways, my roommates and I grew rather sick of their infernal cooing, and thus began to plot their destruction with an air-pump pellet gun. I am not a big hunter, mind you. I come from hunting loins (actually that may be false, as I am adopted, but he who bought me, raised me, and loved me as his own was/is quite a hunter) yet I have little desire to destroy animals with my own hands. This however, was a different situation. Pigeons, in case you weren't aware, pass toxic feces. Like, really toxic. Full of viruses, disease, and acids. Add in that horrible cooing, and you have the perfect avian villain. So began the great hunt.

They were always there in the morning, dumping on our roof. So out we would sneak, fire a shot, miss, and send them frantically flapping towards the heavens.

They were also always on the roof of the female's house next door. Often right on the crest. They were fair game too, as they likely haunted both roofs. One morning, after being awakened by some particularly acute cooing, I stealthily headed out side and peered at the neighbor's roof top. There perched a pigeon, at the loftiest point. I took aim, and fired. The flying devil burst into a wild frenzy of flapping, and subsequently rolled down on to a balcony. Mad flapping continued, thus causing the pigeon to flop down onto the front porch, were it lay still, in a bleeding, feathery mass. As soon as I hit it, I mostly thought "Shit," because I never truly expected to hit one after so many failed attempts. One minute I'm asleep, and then suddenly there is a bleeding pigeon on the girl's front porch. Shot through the neck, so a rather quick demise.

So I ran into the house, gathered a Wal-Mart bag, and went and picked up the vile thing, really hoping that no girl suddenly walked out to see me fetching a blood drizzling pigeon off of her porch. After that, my blood lust was pretty much satiated and I really had no desire to blast another one. And I moved like a week later. So really I just didn't care about them anymore.

The point of all this; Quail are good. Pigeons are bad. I would feel bad about slaying a quail. Not so much a pigeon.

Apparently, i like china after all

I have found that shopping for things at IKEA will make you hate China, Mexico, and Indonesia less. Whenever I am at Wal-Mart or some other similarly fine establishment, upon inspecting an item in which I am interested, I generally scoff at the fact that it was made in China, thinking "Figures. Everything here is." All of us globalization conscious get-behind-a-good-cause hipsters try to avoid shopping at such infernal, capitalistic, people exploiting, small business devouring mega stores because we feel good about buying that hand woven shirt, or those jeans that were made in the USA by people earning more than 2 dollars a day.

Well, good news if you are gay/hipster/female and you buy your furniture at IKEA, because you have to build it yourself. No exploited, tiny Asian children to worry about there.

Be forewarned; building stuff from those freaking Swedish penny pinchers BLOWS. Rather than explain anything in written words, IKEA merely provides you with many an incoherent pictorial diagram. Don't worry though; the little androgynous person at the beginning of the manual will let you know if the adventure upon which you are about to embark can be a solo journey, or if you shall require the help of another androgynous individual.

Anyhow, after building my bed and then spending an hour attempting to put together the night stand, I decided that I didn't mind exploiting the poor and destitute of foreign countries, and rather appreciated all of my Asian/Mexican handiwork. I guess it is sort of neat looking at something that you put together yourself, however I think it is even more exciting trying to imagine the squalid conditions in which, say, my dresser was constructed. What was the native tongue of the person sewing my couch cushions? Was a whip involved? Do people actually sweat heavily in sweat shops? I sweated while putting together my bed. Is it like that?

All I can say is, I was wishing throughout the entire construction process that I could just hire someone for 2 dollars to hurry and slap that thing together.

Guilty pleasures

So I spent $80 and bought the Skull Candy TI's with the fuzzy ear phones, and I pretty much love them. They don't do an incredible job blocking out back ground noise, but they sound hella good. And the fuzzyness is so comfortable. And hot. As in sexy.

So maybe I am going to reveal a rather nerdy bombshell about my life. I am embarrassed to admit this, but I have always had a rather soft spot in my heart for the science fiction/fantasy genre of literature. What I refer to as a soft spot was probably more accurately described as an obsession in high school, which has now just dwindled to the aforementioned soft spot. In high school I was all about the Elves, Dwarfs, Orcs, what have you. Wizards, magic, and murderous adventure were my literary passions. However, as I have grown older my tastes have matured. Probably due to a rather rational fear of mockery. I mean, who wants to be seen reading a fantasy book? The worst thing about them, is if you are reading one, any person can just grab it, read any given line in the book out of context, and make you feel like the biggest nerd on planet loser. "Once you summoned the 9 Rods of Dominion. Now look at you! A pitiful wretch!" Such books are rife with mock worthy material.

In my defense, I have not started a single new fantasy series since I was in high school. There was however, one series that I began when I was about 14, which continues to still be written, and therefore I still read.

My guilty pleasure.

Robert Jordan, if you must know. I started reading the Wheel of Time series as I said, at about 14. When I began, there were about 7 or 8 of them out. It has now been 12 years, and there are 11 total.

The end has not yet come.

There is however, one small hang up; the author just effing died last fall. Half way through the last book. Seriously. 11 and 1/2 bloody books, and he goes and kicks the bucket. I remember fearing this possible occurrence all throughout the 11 years I read them. I kept thinking, "This prick better not die, or my life will have been lived in vain. I shall never know the end to the life and adventures of Rand al'Thor."

Luckily for me and a few million other people, he left extensive notes before he died of a freaking RARE blood disease. Someone is going to finish it.

One time, while a missionary, Robert Jordan saved my sanity. I was in an area with the guy I was training. We had been together 4 and 1/2 months, which was a complete anomaly. This never happened. I had never been with someone for longer than 6 weeks, and this was fast approaching 6 months. When one is with someone constantly for 24 hours a day, for months and months, conversational topics get stretched pretty thin. And for those of you who may be unfamiliar with Mormon missions, you REALLY ARE TOGETHER. The only time you aren't physically with that person is during showers and pooping.

So, we began to become a little nuts. We started talking in all scriptural tones, always saying things like, "Thus saith Elder Fish," or "And so it behooveth me to..." and so on. We also started to make up crazy doctrinal theories. Just when we were about to sink into mental oblivion, I thought of one thing we hadn't explored; the fantastic world of Robert Jordan. So, over the ensuing weeks, I (having read all the books twice) related to him the entire Wheel of Time narrative, as best as I could remember. Oh the nerdery! The joy! The intrigue! Most importantly, we didn't kill each other, and we didn't completely loose our minds.

So, there you have it. Fish's dirty, embarrassing little secret. I bring this up, because the last book is due to come out in 2009, and therefore I have embarked upon the rather daunting task of rereading all 11, 600-1000 page books.

Someday they will make the movies, and then I won't have to be a closet Robert Jordan reader any longer. Tolkien's fans were liberated from shame. Can I not hope for the same?

Givin' smith's a bad wrap

A person randomly added me recently on g-chat. Once I had confirmed the addition request, I asked said person who they were. This person informed me that they had discovered my blog, and that they appreciated it. After sundry random conversation, I asked how this person had discovered my blog. They replied that the mode of discovery was a bit embarrassing. Naturally I was intrigued. So I pressed further, to which this lovely person finally spilled the beans.

My blog was discovered whilst doing an image search of the word "douche."

At which point I laughed hysterically for a few moments, trying to figure out why my blog might have surfaced under the realm of "douche." I then recalled that I had previously posted a picture if Nickelback's front man Chad Kroeger, a rather supreme douche. So, curiosity got the best of me and I decided a douche image search was in order. I believe that due to the moderate safe search mechanism, I was shielded from an insidious porn trap. I only had to sift through 4 pages of Kid Rock, Kevin Federline, Travis Barker, Dog the bounty hunter, all manner of sweet bro's, not to mention photographs of actual douching kits to find him...and then there he was; 70th picture amongst 1.38 million results. I felt pretty proud upon discovering that I had caused the creator of such musical gonorrhea to be the 70th douche to pop up on a Google image search. Booya.

So congrats Chad Kroeger; apparently the global Google denizens concur--thou art a douche.

Zombie ride (exclamation)

Once upon a time (tonight) my friends and I orchestrated a zombie bike ride throughout the land of Provo. I must say, I was a rather terrifying zombie. We began in a parking lot behind Fat Cat's. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 zombies showed up. I think most of Provo was afraid to take the plunge and dress up like a zombie for fear that they would show up as one of 2 or 3 undead riders.

Sorry Provo. You were mistaken.

We began our hellish journey by taking up an entire lane of University ave for a few blocks, and then headed east towards campus. After many zig-zaggings, screamings, swervings, and moanings, we headed down center street. Upon arriving at Los Hermanos, I suggested we do what any good zombie on a bike would do--ride really slowly past the huge windows with all of the people eating, and awkwardly stare at everyone. And of course, bang our undead stumps upon the glass, thus halting the gullet stuffing and caloric absorption for a few, fear laden moments. Or from the ensuing laughter. Or eye rolling. Possibly disgust. Whatever. Either way, I am quite certain that all the patrons of that fine establishment were not expecting to see 20 zombies drunkenly swerving their bicicular devices in front of the glass, observing their taco consumption through blackened eyes and blank stares.

Next on the agenda was the other thing one must do as a zombie biker--storm a house full of terrified villagers occupying the roof with all manner of weaponry, in a feeble attempt at thwarting the undead onslaught in their (our) quest for human bloodshed. So cliche.

Myron had his house all boarded up, and they (the living) were defending the roof with cap guns, plastic bottles, inner tubes, and whatever else. As I approached one of the windows, I got pegged in the face (eye) by a plastic bottle, which caused me to promptly crumple to the earth. I wasn't really expecting that one. Upon unsuccessfully breaking and entering the front, we shuffled our way through all manner of anti-zombie legislation (obstacles) to arrive at the back of the house--card board boxes, old tires, a wheelbarrow. Such things are difficult to maneuver around when one is mindless and mostly dead.

In the back yard, since their defenses had been exhausted around the front of the house, there was really no chance for them to stop me and my fellow rotting corpses from tearing into the dead body lying upon the picnic table. For whatever reason, this dead body was filled with about 7 cherry pies. Much better than the usual viscera that zombies are accustomed to consuming. Actually, not really, as I for the most part despise cherry pie. But whatever.

So I have decided that I thoroughly enjoy dressing like a dead person when it isn't Halloween and shocking the good people of Provo. And making them pist when they can't easily pass us on the street, and the ensuing honks and dirty looks. Followed by even dirtier looks from zombies. And clawing at the air in said pist honker's direction. Perhaps coupled with a hiss or a scream.

The only down fall of zombie ride--attempting to scour the blood and makeup from my poor, acne prone skin. That, and the subsequent acne that I shall be battling over the next several weeks. Possibly decades.

T. get in my pocket

So I gots me this friend. My longest standing friend with whom I have regular contact, in fact. On this, the most glorious 10th day of September, she turned 25, basically marking a decade of friendship. Tiffany Anne Driggs is one of my besties. Definitely my female bestie. We have been through thick and thin. She has held my hand through many a life change. I probably owe to her my sense of style, and most of my musical taste. Two years ago when my heart was shattered, she held it in the mountains while watching a scary movie. Whenever I am acting spiritually foolish, she isn't afraid to juice me. Some of the best advice I have ever received came from her blond head. In short, my future wife and her future husband are just going to have to understand--we will always be in each other's lives. Period.

When I was 15, I was as obsessed as the next kid with online chatting. I owe my ridiculously fast typing abilities to hours and hours of online chatting via AOL and yahoo. At one time, I even had an internet girlfriend. Jane1409. She was hot. So she said. Our song was "Truly Madly Deeply" by Savage Garden. She picked it, not me. Freaking losertown.

So my parents acquired the services of AOL. I met met many chat friends through that service. What my parents failed to realize, was that they were paying for every single minute I was talking to pedophiles, and I managed to rack up a rather hefty phone bill. Like, a few hundred dollars hefty. So much for AOL.

Shortly thereafter, we subscribed to some local service. My computer lacked Java capabilities, (whatever the hell that meant) and thus I could not enter chat rooms. That year I happened to go to EFY (a week long summer church youth program.) I met this guy from Cali. We kept in touch. Being a veritable chat-loser and having lost the crucial ability to meet new friends online, I asked him if hek new anybody cool with whom I could chat. He had a girl. Her name was Tiffany. She was into punk rock and SKA. I was into punk rock and SKA. It was a match made in heaven.

We basically fell in love via dial up internet. I was her punk rock Mormon dream boat, Punker71758, and she was my SKA princess. TiFfAnYsKa, to be precise. We even progressed to a telephone stage. We talked throughout the remainder of my last 2 high school years. We decided to meet. I bought a plane ticket to fly out there.

I suppose I should back track a bit. Our entire relationship was a SCAM. I told my parents that we met at EFY, hence they allowed me to purchase said ticket and weren't worried that I was flying into some pervert with a mustache's trap. She was always referred to as the "EFY girl."

So, I bought the ticket. I was destined to fly out Monday. Saturday, she calls me and lets me know that her father's heart was going to explode or some nonsense, and that I couldn't come. I was rather devestated. Mostly pist about the non-refundable $250 plane ticket.

Turns out, that was a blessing in disguise, as I was going to have my stake president's mission interview the day I returned from California, and Lucifer chose that particular week to tempt me with all manner of temptations of the flesh. So 2 teenagers cooped up together for a week with raging hormones was probably just a recipe for disaster.

A couple months later, she was randomly coming to Utah. So she decided to spend a night at my house. Again, under the false pretenses that she was "EFY girl." When I opened the door, both of us just awkwardly cracked up. It was one of the weirdest moments of my life. After a night of excitement, including a tour of everything to do in Nephi (which isn't much) including a snoogle session on the water tower, awkward tension had built. The next day, when I drove her to temple square, it had reached an awful crescendo, and we parted ways on a rather uncomfortable note. I really didn't talk to her much after that until my mission. Randomly, I wrote her an email. It was back on. I had such a ridiculous missionary crush on her. She sent me scandalous photos, which I used to make other elders jealous.

When I got home, she had just moved from Provo to Hawaii. There, we kept in contact for another year or so via occasional email. One day out of the blue, I received notice that she was going on a mission. While she was out, I wrote her ultra faithfully, and pretty much fell in love. We had this semi-scandalous email relationship while she was serving in the office, where we would write each other on pretty much a daily basis. She would send me pictures in which she thought she looked "hot." Which basically meant not uber greezy and with the extra mission weight hidden through clever poses and camera angles.

When she got home, we hung out and it was slightly awkward. I was going through a rather horrifying breakup, and my heart was dead. Then one night, my relationship was all over. I was going with some friends to watch a movie up the canyon, and I randomly called her, explaining my hour of need. She came, and we held hands in the mountains. For pretty much the first, and last time. Except for the one other time we laid on my love continent on my floor all night long after an Anchorman sesh, and tried to fall in love. Which didn't happen. As we stumbled out the door at 8 a.m. into the apartment complex courtyard, I greeted the new day (and everyone who was outside) with a rather loud, "That was aaaaammaaaaaazing."

The mountainous handhold was the end of our awkward tension, and we were besties ever after. And pretty much up until that point, my parents were still ignorant of our 8 year scam. One night, my family gathered at the ever fancy Red Lobster for a meal. I can't recall the occasion. As we sat there eating, I told my family that there was something that I had to tell them. Given the dramatic manner in which I brought it up, I am pretty sure they assumed that I was either going to drop a homosexual bomb on them, or perhaps that I had spread my seed without the bonds of wedlock.

It was neither.

I told them that my entire relationship with Tiffany had been built on a scam. She had never been to EFY. We were perverted internet lovers. My family formally embraced T a few weeks later by feeding her a Sunday dinner, and subjecting her to home movies. My father even went so far as to show her the golden restoration rifle. I had not even previously seen it.

So, here we are, 10 years later and both hella old in Provo. Many times we have attempted to fall in love, yet apparently the good Lord has other plans. It's like our freaking genitals just shut off when we are together. We just can't make it happen. But whatev. There are few people whom I love and care about like T. That, is most definitely not a scam.

Happy birthday love, and may your 26th year be full of golden rollerblading, Kukuburras, and fashionable, high waist jeans. And Fish.

Second grade, first class a-hole

It's funny how sometimes writing one thing makes you think of another. Actually, that really isn't funny or peculiar at all. I don't know why people always refer to such things as funny. Because they aren't.

The last line of the last post that you probably haven't read yet made me think of this. When I was in second grade, my teacher's name was Ms. Westenscow. On an annoying, but unrelated side note, every word that is marked as misspelled with the red squiggly lines, I must subsequently add to the dictionary, as allowing one or two of them to build up causes my spell checker to simply give up, and stop any further corrections. Annoying. Damn you Bill Gates/Universe.

Funny, I thought of that because I had to add Ms. Westenscow's name to the dictionary. So now, every time I write about her, which I am sure will be frequent, my computer will know that she is just one of the gang. Peculiar.

So, second grade. We were quietly marching with arms folded in a line on the way to the lunch room. Because that's how they teach you to be real people in Elementary school. You fold your arms and walk in lines everywhere you go. Like real people.

As we approached the lunch room, the P.E. coach/teacher/whatever you call her was passing us in the hall. Her name was Ms. Deehart. A name rife with possibility, to the teeming, clever mind of a 2nd grader. She gave her customary smiles and, "Hello students!" as she passed by. Apparently without thinking, as I was a rather cowardly child in general, I blurted out, "Hi Ms. Deefart."

Instantly, Ms. Westenscow whipped around, eyes full of wrath. Now, she was a scary woman in any normal setting. I mean, her name almost had the world "skull" in it. Naturally, she would be rather witch-ish. Logically. But to see her with her wrath kindled was very unsettling. She immediately demanded to know who had spoken the blasphemy. Obviously, nobody said anything. Like hell I was going to fess up. When nobody said anything, and surprisingly nobody ratted anyone out, she said "Shame on you. Shame-on-you." Accompanied by a rather shame projecting head shake. Then she turned around, leading the class the rest of the way into the lunch room. As though I had any shame. As though the phrase "Shame on you," had any negative social impact upon my young, careless mind. All I cared about was that I didn't get busted, and was about to eat a bean burrito and chocolate milk. She could shame me to my grave for all I cared.

Now, a decade and a half later, I feel that shame. Ms. Deefart. What a wretched little monster I was.

Peculiar.

A lone, terrified wolf

I just returned home from an loner over night camping trip in the Uintas. My original plan had been to currently be at this time (10:19 pm) nestled in a tent the last night. Torrential rain however, thwarted my plan. As I was pretending to be a legit camper, I learned several important things.

1st. Also foremost. If you are 10 minutes past Kamas and you realize that you forgot to fill up your fuel container for your camping stove, TURN BACK AROUND.
2nd. A human being can consume a fair amount of ash without any immediately noticeable ill effects.
3rd. Ash doesn't even taste THAT BAD. Really.
4th. The saying that "everything tastes good when you're camping," is at least partially erroneous. Watery Ramen does not taste good, even in the wilderness.
5th. When one must cook food in a blue tin cup next to the fire, instant oatmeal is a good culinary choice. A) because it is instant, and therefore basically cooked. B) because all of the ash and wood chips just accumulate on top, and thus are easy to pick out with a spoon. Assuming you brought a spoon.
6th. When you get to the dregs of your fire cooked Ramen meal, don't eat the dregs. They are mostly ash.
7th. Camping alone when you are a 26 year old man is still scary as hell.
8th. The little red "night vision" light on some head lamps is actually scarier than no light at all.
9th. When camping alone and sitting in your tent, that horrible little red light, combined with a squirrel suddenly going crazy right outside is about the scariest thing ever. Pretty much any noise is about the scariest thing ever.

Turns out that, just because weather has been nice for ages, doesn't mean that it won't suddenly rain all bloody day when you decide to sleep on the earth. I arrived in the dark, and thus set up my camp in the dark. This becomes a bit tricky, when one is trying to tote around a .357 mag/set up a tent at the same time. You see, when you are in the mountains alone, your mind suddenly recalls every horror movie you have ever seen, and you assume all mutants/monsters/serial killers are lurking in the bush. Member that one time you watched that laughably awful movie on the SciFi channel about zombie children? Member how you mocked the poor cinematography, the utter cheesiness throughout? Well turns out they are now in the bushes as well, and not too damn funny anymore. So mostly what I do when I camp, is think about ways I would defend myself from creatures with the aforementioned .357. Then I go to bed, and lay awake in terror until I fall asleep.

But I have a great time during the day. Really I do.

Except for this day started exceptionally early. Like, 5 am early. Sleeping was difficult. I mean, there was the terror. But also, turns out my in-the-dark-depth perception was a bit off and I pitched the tent on a hill. Unfortunately, my sleeping bag is made from a rather slippery material. Of course, so was my pad. So I spent the night constantly slidding sideways. In the end, I ended up sleeping with only really my groin area on the pad. My arms, head, and chest were usually to the left of it, while my legs were hanging off the right. Miserable indeed. Not to mention I woke up every hour like clock work, went through 15 or so minutes of fear/thrashing around trying to find some small manner of comfort upon that god-awful slippery pad.

Hours later, after creating a fire, and consuming some ash/oatmeal/3 sandwiches for breakfast, I passed out in the tent for a couple of hours. Of course, when it is light out and fear is nonexistent, I sleep like baby Zeus.

By the time I got up again, the Universe appeared to be brewing a storm. After riding my bike and almost running over 2 bull moosen, I decided to go climb Bald Mountain. I do this every year. Sort of a ritual for me. I go to the top, erect a small cairn of stones signifying things in my life I am attempting to leave in the dust, at which point I feel as though I have accomplished something significant. As I was driving to the trail head, it was raining pretty hard. I though, "Well no big deal. These are the Uintas. It rains every day for a couple of hours. Really." I sat in my car, waiting for the rains to cease. 1.5 hours later, and 2/3's of the way to the top, I realized that I had perhaps made a rather large mistake, as there happened to be sheets of rain quickly approaching my mountain. I contemplated turning around, but couldn't. This is a big moment of the year for me, you see. I need to climb this mountain and do my little symbolic nonsense. So I pressed on, with a prayer in my heart and a little faith that the storm would turn.

Apparently, my faith was not quite so strong as to turn a storm. However, the Lord saw it fit to provide me with a random bush right at the last second, into which I nestled myself, like a tiny fetus in a womb. A horrible, spiky, sappy womb. A dry womb, nonetheless. I guess really it was nothing like a womb. The storm passed. I continued on. Nearly at the top, another storm was coming in. Except from every direction really. As my faith had previously been insufficient to turn one storm, I couldn't really expect it to halt a super storm raging in from all directions. However that works. So I ran up the mountain. Right as I crested the top, it started hailing and raining like mad. I stood there, freezing with my head tilted back and my arms thrust in the air, basking in the glory of it. I then thought, "What the hell are you doing? Build your stupid cairn and get the hell off the mountain." Cairn erected, I made the cold, slippery trek down in my German shorts and Chacos (luckily I had jeans in my bag, for when I had to climb into the spiky womb. However, they were protecting my camera/journal from rain, so I enjoyed frozen thighs all the way down.)

I guess through it all, I learned this; my car is the most phenomenally gutless piece of carp ever created by the nation which spawned Yu-Gi-Oh! A Honda civic, if you must know. And that exclamation point is inherently part of the Yu-Gi-Oh! name. I didn't add it. Because I hate them. I mean, exclamation points. I don't know if I hate Yu-Gi-Oh!, but by virtue of the fact that part of its name includes an exclamation point, I just might.

The End. I leave you with a little video of myself attempting to take a picture of myself under the bush. I am really rather embarrassed to post it, as I posed up for quite a long time. I thought I set the 10 second timer. I suppose it is your treat for bearing with this ultra long post. If you didn't read the whole thing, and yet you view this video, shame on you. Shaaaammmmeee.

So shameful.

Gorillias retardacious

Today, as the 2 retarded gorillas with whom I dwell were playing Foosball (which I despise,) I heard an interesting piece of conversation. Here's the quote: Said one, "Nice job you bug butt." Said the other, "I hope a bug crawls up your butt. I hope it crawls up there and lays eggs, and then you will be a bug butt. Huh huh huh mwah huh huh."

I thought, "When did 12 year old's move into the house?" I also safely hypothesized that perhaps the mystery of who stuck their gum on the wall in the shower had been solved just then.

Creating life long enemies

I must warn you, the following may come across as "toilet humor." I generally don't pander into the whole poop/pee/fart comedy, because I feel that for the most part, those are cheap and generally unintelligent ways to get laughs. Any movie or TV show with a well placed fart will easily achieve its goal; laughter from those lacking intellect to get broader, wittier jokes (Arrested Development, R.I.P.)

So anyways the other day I was thinking about what might be the easiest way to create an irreparable enemy for life. I decided that probably taking a dump on something that somebody really likes would be the quickest way to accomplish that feat. I was thinking that, were I to lay my roommate's plasma TV flat on the ground and take a dump on the screen, we would become enemies. I can't think of anyone with whom, were they to take a dump on say, my bed, I would be able to have a meaningful relationship after the fact. They would pretty much earn a spot as a life long enemy.

Now, in my defense I did not choose to share this because I wished to receive some cheap laughs. On the contrary; I just wanted to share what I found to be a rather sound epiphany. Most people aren't hated by very many other people. How can one lead a meaningful, heroic life if one has no enemies, no arch nemesis? Why be liked by everyone? However, earning the hatred of most people usually requires some drastic, horrible event to occur. Like maybe robbings, pillagings, or killings. It doesn't have to be that way; creating enemies can be as easy as 1, 2.

I've reached a new low.

Fat and unhappy

Sometimes I quit my job, start a new job, and wish for death.

Today was the worst day of work I have experienced during the last 3 months. Which wasn't hard to beat, considering I have worked approximately 10 hours a week all summer. I was livin' the dream. So what.

I know I am gaining weight. My face is getting fat. Mostly because Carrabba's shoves all manner of delicious foods down my gullet at the end of every shift, in order that I might descripe said deliciousness to all portly patrons.

This restaurant is obcessed with being perfect in every way. Which means I must be perfect in every way. Which means an immaculate shirt, starched and creased, not a speck of facial hair, and rushing around with a "sense of urgency," even when there is clearly nothing going on that warrents said urgency.

I want to drop kick urgency in the chest, and punch captain OCD in a place which shall render him fruitless. And by captain OCD, I mean all of the asenine things that I am required under pain of death to accomplish every minute I am in that place. And by rendering him fruitless, I mean burning that place to the ground.

It's 3:54 and I'm less than coherent.

Important life decisions

I find that choosing a new toothpaste is a pretty dramatic event for me. I mean, it can be a rather life altering decision. One is essentially deciding upon the flavor and caliber of paste that shall be quite thoroughly ground into one's mouth on a multiple times per day basis. I hate the flavor of most mints, so choosing a toothpaste is like deciding which doctor I'd like to shove a finger up my anus for a rectal exam. There only exist lousy options. I have been brushing with Xlear toothpaste now for around a year, because I got like 15 tubes of it for free when I worked there. As I was pondering that life decision over the last few weeks, I decided that I didn't entirely trust that place to produce anything that would be of true benefit to my teeth. According to them, Xylotol can pretty much cure cancer and cast out devils. I'm skeptical.

So I decided I wanted to go with a more mainstream toothpaste, one which claimed to do a plethora of vital things, such as whiten my teeth and murder gingivitis. I chose Colgate. Which was a poor decision. It tastes like ass. So, every morning and night, and occasionally in between, I suffer through a rather detestable minute of teeth cleansing. It almost leaves me gagging, and I feel as though my breath is worse for it. So, in order to flush the ass-taste out of my mouth, I purchased Listerine. Whenever I fill my mouth with it and begin the painful gargling process, I curse the Universe for making Listerine burn so bloody much. As my eyes start to water, I wonder what would happen were I to accidently swallow that veritable acid. Probably either death or mutation. As I don't dare bank on mutation, they are always a nerve racking 3o seconds of tears and fear of accidental ingestion. I sure feel clean afterwards though. Like the crisp fir of an arctic wolf. Which is ultra clean, if you didn't know.

So I guess what I'm saying, is choose your toothpaste wisely. Unless you are a moderately intelligent human being, in which case you would merely buy a new flavor.

Members only

I find that I generally desire to write in some form on a daily basis. However, I do not wish to inundate this blog with all manner of pointless drivel. Therefore, I have created another blog where such drivelings shall accumulate. It will be accessible through invite only, so if you feel like you are a person who would like to have access, send me an email and I may or may not grant you entry. I may eventually just open it up publicly, but for now I'm going to do it this way, until I see exactly what form it will take. It may be rather personal. So, if you are interested, send me an email to drewfinch@gmail.com.

Poor life decisions

Yesterday, In a moment of boredom and frustration, I penned "I hate Mathis," across my chest. I immediately regretted this decision, as I realized that I don't hate Mathis even a little bit. As I was thinking about this in the shower today, I decided that that is probably how I would feel were I ever to acquire a tattoo. At one point in my life, I thought those Nor Cal nautical stars on my forearms would be pretty bitchin.' I realize now, as a wise and mature adult that I was completely wrong. One morning I would have awakened, glanced down at my forearms and thought, "Well there are 2 prominent poor life decisions." I think that any rational human being probably has similar thoughts about their tatticular choice at some point in their life.

I don't even regret making up the word "tatticular" just then.

You know how sometimes you see ridiculous old people with lots of disgusting arm/neck tats who are still dressing like someone in their 20's and it sort of makes you feel uncomfortable/sad for them? You think, "Lady, you are 57 years old. It is probably time to loose the Metallica tee, nose ring, and the mohawk." Here is what I wonder; do some people continue on a certain path of rebelliousness and ridiculousness in order to validate their tattoos? I mean, at the point when most people make the adult clothing shift from trendy to stretchy, do these people miss that boat because their tattoos dictate to them on some mental level that they must continue dressing in a way that matches said tattoos? I don't know which is more absurd--an old grandma in a cardigan with neck tats, or the punk-rock'n-roll grandma with the mohawk.

One thing is for sure--I will never tattoo "I hate Mathis" on my chest. Never ever.

Sometimes

Sometimes I have to memorize a ridiculously long menu in order to work at a place that won't let me have any facial hair. Sometimes after hours and hours of studying, possibly more than I ever studied for any college test, I shall fail to remember that meat sauce has beef, pork, carrots, and celery, or that the tiramasu is 2 layers of lady fingers soaked in expresso, amaretto, and Kahlua. Maybe I won't remember which sauce has roasted and sun dried tomatoes, garlic, anchovies, basil, mint, salt, pepper, extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Three of only aproximately 13 items I can screw up out of 75. Sometimes, while attempting to memorize an endless sea of ingredients I am reminded why I never wanted to be a Doctor/avoided anatomy like the plague.

Sometimes my heart gets broken just a little bit. Sometimes this occurres many times throughout the summer. Sometimes heartache makes memorizing difficult, and suddenly I eat 6 slices of toast and 2 cans of apple sauce. Sometimes out of nowhere only 20 people read my blog in a day, and I wonder if I've become a bore. Or redundant. Or unfunny. Sometimes I get pissed at 6 retarded apes playing fooseball down stairs, screaming like frat house goons. Sometimes, whilst in the midst of said pist sentiments, I vow to sell that fooseball table, and every other thing left here by the previous moronic tennants that they assume they can safely leave cluttered about my home. Sometimes my computer spell checker declines to function, and therefore I am left constantly wondering just how many words I am mispelling without a single red squigilly line indicating erroneous character placement.

Sometimes I wonder when things will change. Sometimes I wonder when this will end.

Sometimes the Universe is a bitch.