it's my birthday and i'll cry if i want to

actually, it's more like "and i'll eat a ton of chinese food and poppyseed cake if i want to". and i did. and i shall. in 24 hours and 49 minutes, i'll be nineteen (19). i really didn't pay much attention to 18 when i had it- i don't smoke, don't go clubbing, don't buy porn, why would i need to be 18? i must've used it to my advantage at some point... seems that i did, but can't think what the reason was. i did register to vote, so i can have my very tiny little say in who leads our nation, as well as who gets to be a town councilman. and i'll tell you one thing- i'm not voting for anyone whose platform includes restricting growth of my town in order to keep it a "resort-like atmosphere" for the old folks. neither will i allow anyone who plans to zone for more dry cleaners or real estate offices. you can spit from one dry cleaners to the other. oh yeah, and i'm freaking SICK of walgreens and osco drugs. i hate the old people! THEY'RE the ones who need all of those stupid drugstores, THEY'RE the ones who do all of the idiotic real estate stuff, THEY'RE the ones who wear fancy-shmancy clothes that need to be dry cleaned (actually, the annoying young rich people use the dry cleaners also, so i hate them too). and THEY'RE the ones who drive like morons, causing me to be late to work on the best of days, and causing huge accidents involving going on the off ramp and such on the worse days. i swear, the old people are ruining the world for the rest of us. we need to go back to prehistoric times when there was no medicine to be heard of, and therefore no old people. the world would be WAY cooler if we just let them die.

i hope you know i'm kidding. well, exaggerating. anyway... where was i? oh yeah. i was celebrating my birthday by complaining about old people. kind of ironic, isn't it? i didn't even mean to talk about that. i just jumped out of my psyche, somewhere deep down, when i thought about the people running for town councilmen. why? because they're all old, and they all want to make my town into a resort for old people. sun city will spread and take over the world. we will all shop at walgreens, buying their crappy selection of snack foods and novelty shirts, but living mainly on prescriptions and real estate. sigh. happy birthday to me.

hast du etwas zeit fur mich? singe ich ein lied fur dich von 99 luftballoons auf ihrem weg zum horizont...

i've been trying to collect all of the stupid music from my lifetime, no matter how silly, fadlike, or downright bad they are. anything that sounds familiar that i thought was cool at the time. i know they're stupid, but for some reason i like them all the better for how ten years ago they are. they comfort me. a few are not from my lifetime at all, but are nonetheless familiar. here's a bit of what i've got so far.

99 Luftballoons (obviously)- Nena
Safety Dance- Men Without Hats
Blue Monday- both Orgy and New Order
What's Up- 4 Non Blondes
Loser- Beck
Lovefool- Cardigans
I Want You to Want Me- Cheap Trick
Linger- Cranberries
Rock the Casbah- The Clash
Mmmm Mmm- Crash Test Dummies
Friday I'm in Love- The Cure
You Spin Me Right Round- Dead or Alive
Breakfast at Tiffany's- Deep Blue Something
Come On Eileen- Dexy's Midnight Runners
Why Don't You Get a Job- Offspring
How Bizarre- OMC
I'm Too Sexy- Right Said Fred
Dragula- Rob Zombie
Rock You Like a Hurricane- Scorpions
Tainted Love- Soft Cell
Ballroom Blitz- Sweet
Shout- Tears for Fears
Free Fallin'- Tom Petty
Even Walls Fall Down- Tom Petty
Bittersweet Symphony- The Verve
Oh Yeah- Yello
She Drives Me Crazy- Fine Young Cannibals

That all would make for a great party, no?

BTW

i was carrying about 19 dollars in fives and ones at the time of the intended scamming. i lied to him when i said that i don't carry cash. i usually feel bad about deceiving people, and often blush or do something else to give away my untruth. my "i don't carry cash" was immediate, casual, and honest. i feel absolutely no guilt about it. as george said when coaching jerry seinfeld on how to beat the lie detector, "it's not a lie if you believe it." and i never carry cash when people i don't want to hand out money to are around.

scamming

i just read today's Bleat at lileks.com, and he told an interesting story- he'd gone to the mall of america to buy a duvet, and been scammed out of five bucks by some teenaged or twenty-something'd girl. he knew it, but didn't mind- hey, it's only five bucks! you can read the whole thing, worded by an actual writer (and not me),

here

. it's witty and interesting and everything that i'm not. the reason i mention it is because about a week ago a similar thing happened to me. here's my story, written by me, and not an actual writer.

i went to the mall after school one day, because i'd not been in a looooooong time, and also because i'd gotten a five dollar gift certificate in the mail to waldenbooks. it's great- you sign up for a little card that says waldenbooks on it, get endlessly annoyed by email messages that tell you all about the anime books you could be buying RIGHT NOW, and once in a while they throw you five bucks. anyway. i decided to use it before i forgot about it till after it'd expired. while i was at the mall, i got some much-needed exercise (it's amazing how hard it can be to find the ONLY store you frequent in such a not-so-big mall when you only go about once every five months), bought some overpriced lipgloss at macy's cause i really like Benefit, and that's the only place you can buy it without having to order it from the catalogue, and bought the 50th Anniversary Edition of A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein (it comes with a cd with him reading 10 count'em 10 of his poems). as i meandered around the mall trying to find my way back to dillard's, where i parked, a forty-something year old semi-homeless looking guy walked by me and said something like "hello" or "it's a nice day, isn't it?" or something like that, so i decided, "hey, i just dropped a hundred dollars on stuff i don't need, but saved five dollars, mind you... i'm in a good mood." so i said hi back, and kept walking. mistake. (the saying hi part, not the kept walking part)

as i turned my head back to where i was walking, the guy made some sort of "uh" or "oh" noise, turned around, and started talking to me. "hi, uh, i've been here a while, and uh i was downstairs and uh all the security guards know about it and uh my uh wallet uh and i need some uh money to call a cab so i can leave and uh..."

note to all men over 30 years of age: if you are unbathed, on mind-muddying drugs, very large, very wirey, very homeless, or otherwise scary looking, you DO NOT approach women under 30 and ask them for money. especially if they are alone. and even if you aren't scary looking, you still do not bother women who don't know you. it's just one of those things that you'd think even unbathed, drug-muddied homeless guys would know.

anyway. i was almost ready to panic, but i noticed that there was a security guard not to far off, so i figured i'd try to bow out gracefully, and if the guy didn't let me, i could always make a scene to grab the attention of the guard and all the people in that half of the mall. it would be fun.

i told him "i'm sorry, i don't carry cash," turned around, and left. nothing happened.

my conclusion is that homeless men, broke men, and any other kind of men soliciting money from complete strangers should stay on the medians at intersections with signs made of cardboard and/or newspapers to sell. i have given money to these people. i feel safe sticking my hand out the window while waiting for the light to turn, because i know that my doors are locked and i will drive away very soon. however, i never have, and never will, give money to any stranger who approaches me in a place of business, or even worse, in the parking lot. people sitting or standing on a sidewalk where there is a lot of foot traffic, maybe. but i prefer approaching them, and not being approached by them.

one interesting anecdote, and then i'll be done: a friend of mine was in a parking lot for the bus station (she leaves her car there, then rides the bus in to town for school, cause it's cheaper that way). she had gotten off the bus, and was heading for her car when she saw a man walking towards her. she hurried up, and got in her car. the man continued walking towards her car, and she didn't feel comfortable anymore. so she leaned on her horn. she only released when the man had turned around and left. i think she was a little rude, or obnoxious, or something, in doing that, but. that's the type of thing that happens to guys who have absolutely no social awareness. you are forewarned. if you act like a creepy suspicious guy, you will be treated as one.

yawn

i've been reading madly for several weeks now, beginning as soon as i get home in the afternoon (around 3:30) and not stopping till like midnight. and i would go on past then, if it weren't for the fact that i have to get up early in order to do the homework that i didn't do the night before. BUT. it's not like the books i'm reading are worthwhile, or even well-written. they're stinking harry potter! i hate JK Rowling. with a passion. i wouldn't mind her at all if she was just another crappy writer with no talent, but she's pulled these mildly interesting stories out of somewhere, and written them down. if there's anything more infuriating than reading a really well-written book, it's reading a poorly written book that still has an entertaining plot. i feel... unclean... like i'm watching Survivor or something. and yet i can't stop. i've even read them before! it's not like i have to know what happens, cause i already do! and it's not like i don't have anything better to read- i'm still in the middle of Twenty thousand leagues under the sea, which is great, and i still need to read Henry IV for my shakespeare class. darn you, JK Rowling. i hope Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light makes your life mildly unpleasant for years and years. and i wish you'd hurry up writing the last two books, so i can read them and get them out of my system, so i can go back to reading Real books.

arrgh, arrgh, and double arrgh

on saturday i went to the grocery store after work. i bought various stuff for making a nice dinner for myself and my parents. i also bought one peach. it looked good, and smelled good, and felt like it would be the perfect softness in a day or two. i came home and made dinner and set the peach on the counter to ripen. on sunday i looked at it, smelled it, felt it. oooh it was nice. but no! it wasn't quite perfect, and i wanted to eat it at the right moment. monday morning would be perfect. wake up around 10:30, get dressed, eat a peach, a perfect peach, and then head off to my first day of summer session. (to get ahead. i'm a good student). so i woke up this morning, got dressed, and walked out to the kitchen for my peach to meet its fate. hmm, now where did i leave it? i thought it was right next to the bag with two pears in it (pears are okay, but not for breakfast). hey mom, did you see where i left my peach? i've been waiting for it to ripen and today is the day! i can't wait to eat this peach! i haven't had one for so long! and the anticipation will make it taste that much sweeter. i picked it out specially at the store because it was so beautiful, and now i can't find it. did you move it? "..... i think dad took it to work for his lunch...."

i ate a pear for breakfast today.

and made dad feel really guilty this evening when he came home from work. that was MY PEACH, darn it! i picked it out, i bought it, i watched it ripening all weekend, and you had the unmitigated temerity to steal it right out from under my nose the day it was to be my breakfast!

tee hee

there is nothing funnier than watching british actors play american characters. they sound stupider than we do when we fake english accents!

back to work

i went to work today for the first time in almost... 2.5 months. and boy how things've changed! i only know like 6 people anymore- all the rest of the employees were hired after i left. it's not good. because when you completely replace the employees with new people all at once, things just go down the drain. i admit, the people working there before weren't the most savory coworkers, but we were like a well tuned... no, um a big happy... no... well, we were used to each other, and all were good at our jobs. despite (or perhaps because of) the drug problems. all these new people are, well, new people. and because Everyone is new, there is no one to train them how to act and how to do their jobs. so everyone sucks. it's like the blind leading the blind, or as i like to say it, 'inexperienced people training inexperienced people makes bad burritos.' it really does. anyway, i still know a couple of the people from olden days. one of them is like my favorite, even though (or perhaps because) he mocks me and tickles and pushes and stuff. it's fun to fight with him. like the brother i never had :). my favorite manager is still around, and so is my favorite schoolmate (of the many many high school graduates that work there, it's kind of sad that only three of us are in college...). so i've got some pals, and a few others that i'm comfortable with. this will have to do until i can find a better job, and even with the annoyance of these new people who are slow and inefficient, it's not that bad. i'll live with it, but i no longer see it as one of my home bases. now it's just work. which, in a way, can be a good thing. above all, it's just way better to be working than to be sitting around at home ALL SUMMER. maybe it wouldn't be if i had friends, but my few friends don't really do much, and as krista's working at that camp all summer, i can't hang with her. so working is my best option. plus, my shakespeare class starts monday! woo hoo! shakespeare! i'm really very excited about that. i can't wait! it's gonna be fun.

Griffith Park

for those of you in the LA area, planning on going to visit the Griffith Observatory, you can Forget It. we looked up the hours and stuff on its website before we left the hotel last week. apparently we overlooked the fact that it's undergoing a four year renovation, and won't be open again till 2006. we drove all the way up the hill, only to find at the very top a bunch of construction fencing and mess. and a sign saying that they're fixing it up. so we drove back down the hill feeling like fools, and went to the LA Zoo, which is also in Griffith Park. it was fun, and we got smashed pennies, and crappy plastic animals (you stick two bucks into a machine, and get to watch the plastic go into the mold, then you wait for two minutes so you don't grab molten plastic, and you open the hatch and have your very own crappy plastic lion. i highly reccommend it- they're fun, and i've gotten attached to mine). we didn't see the elephants, and the gorillas were out for the day (where were they? shopping?), but everything else was fun. we saw sea lions sleeping at the bottom of their pond thing, and wondered if they weren't dead. they weren't- we stayed and watched till they woke up and came up for air.

so even though we didn't get to see fun planetary stuff, the day was still wonderful. and again- the sun was shining, but we didn't get hot! amazing!

hello out there

does anyone actually read this? leave a comment, for i am as insecure as a lonely puppy. but not as much as those people we all knew in high school. you know who i'm talking about.

so leave a comment, and watch me dance with glee!

argh

trying to figure out enough html to be able to make my page look and work like i want it to. this is proving frustrating, since i'm too lazy to go in depth enough to understand. plus, computers really aren't my forte. i like microsoft word. that i understand. but all of these >'s and /li's just confuse me to no end.

insert title here

now that i've forgotten my blog long enough for anyone who possibly read it before to forget it as well, (did that clause make sense?) i'm back. i've been back in town for a while, thinking, "i want to tell about my fabulous week in sunny California." not that it's not sunnier here in AZ... but every time i try to make myself write anything, i get discouraged because there's so much to say, i'm lazy, and i've forgotten most of the witty, interesting things i had thought of to say about it last week. so all i'll say is this: in california, when it's hot, you can step under a tree and be instantly cool again. and lie in the grass. there is no grass in az, and shade is never cool. unless it's the shade of being inside an airconditioned building. i actually found myself being glad that i brought a sweater along. in june!

the other thing i remember that i wanted to say was this: in places like hollywood and los angeles, you know there's a lot of tourists. but think of this- there are also people (many, many people) who live there, spend years there working at the 7-11 or the video store. chew on that for a while. think of the taxi driver in paris who spends all day taking sightseers to the eiffel tower. does he goggle at its greatness anymore? did he ever? do the people who move to these cities have to check their souls at the door? because i think that would be the only way to keep from getting depressed and killing yourself after living a humdrum (i don't really mean humdrum. i mean.... regular. a life like mine.) life in a place that the rest of the world looks at with longing and wonder.

i think i should start living a larger life, in this smaller part of the world. to make up for all those people who don't.