Drowning is my third favorite way to die. But, they are all good.

I have finally moved.
The apartment is really, well, empty. And big. I can't belive we had that much space.

The new place is alright. I have a much smaller room, two roomates and no internet thus far. I'm on TAD's computer next door. It's not the same. I'm trying to break my addiction to the internet but at the same time I'm fiending for it hard. I need all the useless information it has to offer, I need to check my gmail a thousand times a day.

Jane and I went to the Magnolia last night. A Scanner Darkly was great. I've never read much Philip K. Dick, a short story here or there, But I really liked the way Richard Linklatter filmed it. It was hilarious. I'm glad that cast Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson as junkies. Junkies playing junkies, blurring the lines of reality once more.

Draped across the armchair in front of the stove, in the opposite corner of the room, Mr. Farthingale spied his robe.

Who needs a house out in Hackensack? Is that what you get with your money?
- She pulled the vinyl stars from the wall as if pulling the light out of the night sky. I need more boxes.

Rock and Roll Hoochie Coo- The new house is well....it's a House of Rock and Roll. Not the HORR bar out in El Paso, but a real house, with people living there. I plan on spending most of my time recording many of the projects I have seeme do surround myself with. People at Borders always ask me when I have time to sleep, and the general answer is always when I get a chance.
New York State of Mind- Our trip to New York is coming up quicker than I can think. There's just a few things I want to see piled on top of the general things(Empire State Building, MOMA). I'd like to go to CBGB's, McSweeney's, and Central Park. At least a little bit of it. Last time I was there we just kind of, well,looked at it from across the way. It looked nice.

What's with all the Billy Joel?

My dog didn't bark but sniffed their crotches; maybe they had been somewhere interesting.

Work is the grand cure of all the maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind- Sometimes I sit and wonder what a "normal" job is. I think I had one, once upon a time ago. I've been working in and around the MHMR field for going on seven years soon. Explaining it to people I see their reactions as a mix of horror and fear, or the ladle out the praise: You're such a good person. I could never do what you do. Yes. Yes you can. You just have to really have to drop preconceived norms and go with it.

It was a dark and stormy night, and all you could make out was a lighthouse along side the road- The joke that has been forbidden has risen again. I had a request for the lighthouse joke twice today. Once by a customer who had only overheard the middle part.Actually, I'm getting sick of it. But I have a new joke now. A better, more powerful one.

Um, so, are you like in a band?- Someone asked me that today while eyeing my tattoos. I should have told them I was something more ordinary, like a Snakecharmer. Because that's what's right underneath "being a member of a band" on the job scale. Yes, I'm in a band. And yes, we play these two shows this month:
July 15th @ RGRS in Denton:

Las Munequitas de Muerte
1) Man Factory
2) The Pebble that Saved the World
3) Blackheart Society
4) Art Howe

July 31@ J&J's Pizza in Denton:
The Pebble That Saved The World
Sarah Reddington
Fire Don't Care
No City

a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality

I took an apartment near the state university, where I discovered both crystal methamphetamine and conceptual art.

I learned yesterday at work that all the Life Saver Training that I go through ever single year (for five years now) won't help me save someone drowning. Please, don't ask me to help you if you drown becuase I'll probably take your temp and and try to expell a meatball lodge in your throat.

-All Roads Lead Back to Tucson- Tonight I'll be at The Gypsy Tea Room to see Roger Clyne and The Peacemakers nee The Refeshments. I'm really excited, I had to miss the last show (I still feel bad Carina) so this one I've definately got to make up for it. Plus they have a new EP out.....I just checked the website. ONLY available Itunes. Damn it all.


-Pop music is about saying "fuck me". Rock and roll is about saying "fuck you- Another show at J&J's on Saturday. Velma Loves Daphne. Maaster Gaiden. The Pebble That Saved The World. Druids On Parade. A bunch of Dallas bands. It should be fun, but we're not playing any more shows until the tour. Brian, Jacob and I recorded the first two songs for Wizards vs. Dragons last night. Look for a show soon.

They took my mother’s stomach out about six months ago.

I just got back from Bowie. Don't bother looking it up, it's a horrible little place full of potholes and burned out houses. I imagine that's what people who reside in other states think of when they think of Texas. Just a bunch of meth labs and horses.

My mom called me today and informed me that one of my friends had drowned in the resevoir back home this morning. Seth's Company was called out with a team of divers to look for the body. I don't know when the funeral services are going to be. Seth has stayed home the rest of the day and isn't taking any phone calls. Not even mine. Dereck called me not too long after I hung up with my mom. He was pretty upset as well. He was worried about Seth (which is very odd) and plans on driving up there tonight. I wish I could do the same. Seth is young, too young to really be seeing stuff like that.
But then I think.
I was just a little bit older whenever I had to face something like that. They can give you all the leave they have available, try to sign you up with counselors and preachers and other people but it doesn't make any sense. They weren't there. I think it's best to let Seth just work it out and figure things out on his own.

The original darkness was still there in the stories, and it was still very dark indeed.

The weekend has been long. Work was good, nay, great and I got some sleep in.

Secret Headquarters Not So Secretive- There were quite a lot of people at the show, which is alway surprising. Jacob's voice is pretty much gone, it's all the Scientist's Blood (a concotion of alcohol, energy drink and fruit punch that Camella always makes for us) and too many unfiltered cigarettes. There was much merriment and mirth to be had by all.

Go Away!- Greg and Tina's going away party fell a little flat. Set to a background of traditional Irish music Jane and I sauntered inside and out, trying to find our place amongst so many familar faces. Needless to say we left early. Mike D now resembles someone that I could totally see living in Florida.

Of Mythology and Men of Tomorrow- My parents are having a grand garage sale coming up soon, and that means that much of my life pre-Denton is either to be trashed or sold. Since I'm not there to intervene, my parents judgement presides. The only thing I really wanted to keep was my comic books (boxes and boxes) and my Norse mythology books. All of fifth and sixth grade I was enamored with the destructive gods and drunk vikings. Hopefully these treasures will be back with me soon.

Work work and work. I need more time to do things. The curse of adulthood and responsibilities.

"To take upon us the mystery of things"—what King Lear so wistfully says for himself and for Cordelia.

I don't have much to say.
Here:

- Learned that a co-worker, Jeff in the Cafe, has written a rather lengthy and extensive Sci-fi novel and is having it published soon. I sort of drowned in my own self pity there during our hour together at lunch. Oh yeah, he's 18, fresh out of High School. I asked him where he found the time to write it: "I don't know. I can't sleep sometimes, and I thought it'd be cool to write a novel." Congrats Jeff for the reality check.

- Camella is sick. She's getting better but for some reason it bothers me when she's sick. I wish I could bring her soup or something, but I have built a reputation of being the guy to not bring soup, so the idea is moot.

-Someone in Philadelphia is angry with me, and I don't care.

- The show with The Tah-Dah's is coming up quick (tomorrow). Come if you read this. This means you all from Arlington to Dallas. You get to see the full band, all five of us now. Brian and I joke about having some gospel back up singers, but under the joking facade I did a mental check to see if I knew any gospel singers. I've got plans, baby.

I hope the weekend finds you well. And those afternoons you spend flipping through cable channels you should be thinking of something else. Go solve a problem or something.

It’s a choice between sleep and breakfast, and I go with sleep.

A very sinister day. All day I've had those dark rain clouds that you see in cartoons following me around.
"You sound like Eyeore today."- Chrissy (as told through a mouthful of bagel.)

I got a message from my parents asking me when I'm going to get my life together, just a random call that leads me to doom. I guess my life isn't together for them enough. All day I'm walking around until lunch hits, and as I sit in the breakroom eating my daily sandwich (from home) David Byrne a la The Talking Heads comes over the radio- I guess it's healthy, I guess the air is clean./I guess those people have fun with their neighbors and friends/Look at that kitchen and all of that food/Look at them eat it' guess it tastes real good.
I never have ever wanted to buy tiles for a kitchen. I've never wondered if I should buy a brass knocker or a silver one for my front door. I've never thought about actually owning and maintaing a working lawn mower. These things that my dad, my brothers, my mother, everyone I ever grew up with worry about on a daily basis, and I can't connect to any of it. I don't think I'm totally cut out to be that type of person, someone that has a mortgage. My brother wants to have children. He sent me an e-mail last week asking about parenting books at Borders for his lady fair (I actually have forgotten her name.....). I just think in my mind that I'll carry them to the register and buy them and get suspicious glances from people wondering what kind of father I would be. I don't want to deal with that.

In lighter news.....The Pebble That Saved The World/ The Tah-Dah's show is coming up this Saturday at SHQ in Denton TX. We're playing with a full band now, I hope it sounds well. Well enough so I can quit my dayjob and live on the coast and try pilates and Scientology, and yell at PA's about my panini not being grilled enough.

XBI UVZ IHM VZUWCKF RBCO RCRAZ DHQ?

I"m sitting in the industrious bustling heart and soul of Irving right now, right off of McArthur Blvd. By "industrious" and "bustling" of course I mean drive thrus by the mile and enough brown zarfs to house all the homeless in Downtown Dallas. I started the day with my parents at Baylor Medical so my Dad can go through yet another harrowing back surgery. It's his sixth in three years. Two a year so far. Next time my Mom's not even coming, she's going to put him on a plane and send him my way. Work was a bunch of "first you box it, then you ship it, smartass" with a few perks in the day. We all played a game where when the customer would buy a book we'd recommend something completely unrelated to see if they would buy it just going on our word. I'd say at least 40% of the time it worked. I suggested David Sedaris as summer reading for at least two young girls, and helped a rather obese man wearing a ballcap that said, "You Want It, You Got It!" with an armload of self motivation books. I guess you can jumpstart your life at any time, and ballcap picked today. He left the store with the armload plus a Feng Shui for Dummies that Holly suggested (In order for him to get fenf shui-d).
Other than that there's not too much going on. Everyone is gearing up for the Mav's game tonight, but I'm just going to forget about it. I have Mav fever but only a mild case.

आपनॊ गूरॊ गूरॊ,दोसरा के गूरॊ समाठॊ लॆ कॆ हूरॊ

With this invitation of a new job into my life, it also brings tiredness, irratability, lack of conscious thought, loss of appetite,a general malaise. That all sounds like something on the back of a some stomach ache medication that you find at CVS.

I finished J-Pod on Saturday. What a great book to end on a Saturday afternoon. I really enjoyed it although fans across the internet from rec.arts.books.reviews to microserfs are complaining. I wonder if when the reviews came in for Nabakov's Look at the Harlequins! came in people were saying he was over and spent?

I also read Nic Kelman's first novel, Girls. I thought the etymology of cunt and filling it with quotes from The Illiad and The Odyssey was interesting. He changed voices throughout the book, but the main stream of thought that flowed through the entire thing was the validation of men in power, how they can't see themselves in a position of power until someone else recognizes it. The thing is that the validation is through young girls. These men can't see themselves as what they've become unless some young hot thing recognizes. I guess it can be seen as the ultimate form of validation. It makes me wonder if this is also how Kelman feels, if this is his form of validation. I felt a little lukewarm about it, I don't know if I fully believe that every man in a position of power is like that. It's the same as Hostel, the I'm-so-powerful-and-I've-done-everything-exciting-except-for-holding-someones-life-in-my-hands
kind of idea.

Next week I'm going to start reading Max Barry's Company. I've read what a Canadian thinks about the American workplace, now I want a Australian's view on things.

In the aftermath of this debacle, though I kept it to myself, I felt bewildered, depressed, and, to be honest, terrified.

I sat down with Malcolm Gladwell's latest, The Tipping Point. I've been wanting to read it since the hype created around it (The Roots' last album, M. Chabon's reference to it, et al). It covers why life is an epidemic, the Tipping Point is life at a critical mass. Too much life. It's weird to think there can be too much life. Life is infectious, but not in the negative way people look at that word. They see infect and it's already, OMG. No, infectious in a way that life is just speeding up, like looking at a line graph and watching the life of the world (considering humans) travel along a solid line and then suddenly shoot upward. epidemiologists coined the word and now every business uses the term Tipping Point in everyday life.

Listening to the new Tunng album, This Is...Tunng: Mother's Daughter and Other Songs it's really good if you like electronic folk (?)

Greg, the bartender, had made them just right, with a dash of angostura bitters and a sugared lemon wedge rather than an olive.

Right now Jane is gluing red and pink Origami cranes to a branch painted yellow, it looks awesome. She's crafty, and not in that old Beastie Boys I-want-the-girl-but-she-is-too-crafty-and-cunning way, but she has excelled at the art of arts and crafts.
Work at Borders today flew by. I've learned that you could probably get anything published on any topic, and Borders will carry it. Medieval Archery Quarterly? got it. Swimmning with your Dog? Got it. Twice. Pilates for Babies? Yeah, someone has it on order.

I bought J-Pod today. I didn't buy it when it immediately hit the shelf, I waited and stewed, I almost read Microserfs again. I remember the first time I bought one of his books, from Carina. It was Life After God, and I read it the same day and twice the next week.

I didn't know that what I was feeling was a prefigurative pang of mourning for the next five years of my creative life.

Don't you hate it when you feel as if you are on the cusp of something that will define your life? I do. Boy do I do.
The week has brought W-2 forms, coffee breaks, sore legs. The kind of thing that normal people go through, which throws abnormal people (me) into a state of shock. Borders is a great place to work, it's fun, not very challenging and I get to be surrounded by tons of books and DVD's. Books and DVD's mind you, that cost a much less than some ordinary Joe off the street would pay for. Ah, the benefits of retail.
I really love Chris Onstad's blog. He captures the feelings of so many generic male adults it's not even funny, but to the point where we have to nervously laugh at ourselves. (Check it out.) He created Achewood which is also amazing.
I've been to 2 out of 3 Amy/Lisa/Ryan/Soto(?) going away parties. I do love Amy. I'm going to miss her. I'm going to miss game night. The parties are all going well, much hoopla they deserve. Their exit is grand. I hope to have the same for everyone leaving this year.
I got a mad case of Joe Jackson's hit single at the party tonight, perhaps I'm not being the dashing inamorato that I could be, but I try so very hard. So very very hard.

In fact, the amount of alcohol that I manage to get through in a week of not drinking would keep some people going for a year.

I haven't updated in a bit.

I spent Mother's Day weekend in Arkansas with my great-grandparents and my grandmother. They have a house out there, way back in the woods miles from everything. It's nice and quiet out there, too many trees. My grandfather apparently hated it, saying that you had to lie on your back to tell what time of day it was. I spent the weekend listening to my great-grandmother read poetry and learning some more Tsalagi from my great-grandfather. My brothers, Dereck and Seth, aren't interested in that stuff at all, he was happy at least someone was. It wasn't a brutal drive, three hours to the border, another hour inside Arkansas.

I started reading James Frey's A Million Little Pieces. It's interesting, I just keep in the back of my mind much of it's embellished, but at the same time I really don't care. Whatever he wrote is his dominion. I don't agree with the methods he used to sell it, but that aside, it's just a book. I'm a little sick of the whole drugs/girls/depression/self-realization
type books though, I think this'll be my last for a long while.

There's a major scene in the book where he has his mouth operated on, teeth pulled. My heart goes out to Jane right now for her toothache. I hate Dentists, I loathe their profession. I think you have to be really sadistic to become a dentist. There's to many machines and tools, that chair is a bit too bondage for me.

A day wasted on others is not wasted on one's self.

Sometimes life feels like a house of cards, made with those really cheap flimsy cards that tend to crease and bend at the slightest whim.

Tonight was a meeting of the Denton Dickens Fellowship where the Dickensians of Denton came to hobnob with one another upon all things Charles Dickens. Jane had placed in the essay competition and presented it in her venerable fashion that she so commands. It was good, Dr. Vann had not aged exceedingly and they had cookies.

Last final tomorrow, Government, and I can honestly say I'm finished with the semester. I don't want to think about it, hear about it, read about it. The grades will come in and they will go right back out. I'm in no mood or have the headspace to think about school right now. All I can think about is the duality of life, my life, and how I'm not sure which side best suits me. Either way I know that I'm going to long for the other. Oh treacherous life. Honestly, I think I listen to too much Springsteen. The Boss has filled my head with ideas of independence and bravery that I just can't seem to shake.

A day wasted on others is not wasted on one's self.

Sometimes life feels like a house of cards, made with those really cheap flimsy cards that tend to crease and bend at the slightest whim.

Tonight was a meeting of the Denton Dickens Fellowship where the Dickensians of Denton came to hobnob with one another upon all things Charles Dickens. Jane had placed in the essay competition and presented it in her venerable fashion that she so commands. It was good, Dr. Vann had not aged exceedingly and they had cookies.

Last final tomorrow, Government, and I can honestly say I'm finished with the semester. I don't want to think about it, hear about it, read about it. The grades will come in and they will go right back out. I'm in no mood or have the headspace to think about school right now. All I can think about is the duality of life, my life, and how I'm not sure which side best suits me. Either way I know that I'm going to long for the other. Oh treacherous life. Honestly, I think I listen to too much Springsteen. The Boss has filled my head with ideas of independence and bravery that I just can't seem to shake.

I sometimes think it all lives in me—everything I’ve seen and experienced, all the people I’ve known.

Mother's Day. It's coming up real quick and I've been charged with buying the greatest musical gift of all: Windchimes.
For the past four years, every Mother's Day, Birthday, I think even a couple of Christmas mornings, my dear old Mom has gotten a cross from me and Dereck. She has a wall of them (wall 'o crosses)in our home right above our antiquated jukebox. I think she just finally got wore out of the same thing over and over, yet I still get a package of socks. Life's funny like that, but I still appreciate it.

Twin Peaks. Matin Jane and I watched the first two episodes of the first season last night. I forgot how much that show disturbed and intrigued me. I've been on this early 90's T.V. trip lately (a la Northern Exposure). Now If I could only find the first season of Thirty-something and Coach, I'd been in heaven.

Finals. Writing papers for Baird on Bob Dylan and for Armintor on Historical Fiction. Two things I'm lukewarm about, but I shall prevail.

Manos Hands of Fate. Jane bought it for me.

One evening after dark a young man prowled among these crumbling red mansions, ringing their bells.

He tried walking ahead, through the trees, the shrubs, trying to stay just around the bend so he could hear them but not see them. The road was close, too close, he could hear snippets of radio as it faded out underneath the hum of rubber and gravel. He felt he could never really be alone anymore, even there with the cicadas, lizards, the deep blue shadows and hollows. He was just going to be trapped there, between the road and the trees, never really living but able to see the slow decline of both.

I've been watching a lot of Northern Exposure lately (thanks Amy). I've been in this mindset of 'disconnecting' myself from all the things that have pervaded my life, mainly, technology. The threat of technology on my existence. I quit Myspace, yeah, a small feat, a ripple in the water. Nothing big. I never post on LJ, I don't have a facebook and Friendster is absolutely gone. I have my e-mail accounts and of course, this blog. I still run the band myspace so I technically still exist in that electronic spiderweb of comments and online stalking. I need to turn it over to Camella or Jacob, but the only other person I trust with it is Jane (and also the most computer savvy out of everyone). Maybe someday I'll be able to find a balance between this place and my real life. Jane says I'd just be giving up one vice for another.

New guitarist update: Bryan Harvey from Last Of The Interceptors has become our new guitarist. He also recorded our very first EP a year ago in his studio, and now he's an official member.

The mermaid girl rode the F train standing up, one glittery hand wrapped around a steel pole at the end of the car.

I don't really think about any of the time I spent living in Big Lake when I was younger. Big Lake, Texas. It was named during a wild rain storm that filled a huge land depression in which dried up not too long after. They got stuck with a name and nothing to really show for it, forcing a lot of people to move away. We moved there in the eighties. We lived there for quite a while, I went to school there for several years, Seth was born in San Angelo. I thought we'd live there forever, and I was happy about it. My dad was offered a job eventually and it was to two different places: Big Spring, TX to continue working for Champion Technologies or to Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa. Apparently we chose the former.
Having to move was really traumatic for me, becuase my world was confined to those streets and my only friend Chad who had a treehouse in a land that practically had no trees. This not only just made him my friend, but the most popular kid in fifth grade and I was his best friend. I had commodity. Value. My parents taking that away has pretty much left a permanent scar on me. Still, I miss Chad, and that treehouse.
We moved without any fanfare or sobbing, we just left one morning and the next week I was in a new school in a different town with different kids who all seemed smaller than me and all had acne. Where had my youth gone? I spent the next few years wearing my jacket year round and drawing Wolverine and Spiderman on every available space I had. I was pretty good, except I couldn't draw hands. Still can't. All those drawing so Cyclops and Storm and Venom, they all have their hands clasped behind their backs in the most unassuming attack position.
It was after a stint in the seventh grade and failing a class I can't recall (probably something to do with Science, as my Dad, Super-Chemist, shakes his head) I ended up in Summer School. I was lumped in with fifth, six, seventh and eighth graders so that made me older yet without the air of an eighth grader, who all seem to wear their pants a little longer.
I guess this is leading up to my introduction into wanting to be a writer. We had a class loosely based around English fundamentals (i before e and whatnot) that offered a "creative writing group". I joined becuase I just wanted to sit closer to the window so I could watch the birds(!). We had to write a short story based on something historical, my foray into historic fiction. Everyone wrote about WWII or something like that. I wrote about Mt. Vesuvius and a pottery maker that thought he could make it by hiding in one of his big vases. I'll spoil the ending for you, he didn't make it.
Well, my teacher read it, and then for some reason shared it with the other summer faculty while probably smoking outside or considering a career change. They all liked it, so much that I had to read it aloud to them. What fun! The teacher, a humdrum Mrs. Bost with apples and rulers on her vest, typed it out and gave a copy to my parents who promptly put it away somewhere without glancing at it. I think then I knew I wanted to dedicate more time to writing. I'm not going to be cheesy and say I want to be a writer so my parents notice me, that's only 96% of it. I just want to do it. I feel compelled to do it, a hidden force pushing me. I remember writing that, and everyone noticing that it was good, typed up good, and that didn't make me wear my jacket as much, or draw comics alone in my room as much.

Although I still don't take my jacket off while in class and I still want to draw superheroes when I see fresh white sheets of paper, I still want someone else to type for me.