Stealing Thunder

Yesterday it was 70 degrees outside and sunny all day. Today there is nearly 8 inches of bright white snow covering everything in sight.

It's been a while since I've had to go and look for the snow shovel out in the garage. It took me back perhaps oddly to when I was younger and the many times Tom and I would be stuck shoveling snow. Not only our walk, but also all the walks of the widows and elderly around. We only had a couple of shovels so it was always best to get to the shovels first or you would be stuck with the undesirable one. There was a bent up, green, metal shovel that I despised, and a plastic orange shovel with a large scoop. I liked the orange one because it didn't make such a horrible noise as the metal one would as it scraped the concrete. Also it could scoop more snow than I could comfortably hold in a single scoop. It made quick work of most walks, but it couldn't get the ice and snow that would always be frozen and packed tight against the concrete. For that job the metal shovel was the best.

There's probably some life lessons learned in the midst of shoveling walks, helping elderly people, working alongside your brother, and even in the shovels themselves, but all I am thinking is there better be some hot chocolate left when I get in or this shovel is going to be soon entered into evidence.

Burning Down the Diner

It was too hard to sleep so I stayed up watching a documentary on the evolution of machine guns and listened to the sound of the furnace sending hot air through the house. I wonder if the images flashing on screen would be different if they were viewed by eyes that weren't bloodshot.

When We Talk to the Stars

Sometimes there are days that almost seem designed by a calculating determined foe, to wreck havoc on our fragile lives and carefully laid out plans. The dreams we long to see fulfilled and replay again and again each night before falling into sleep are carefully monitored for a day when they can be meticulously unravelled. On days such as these it is difficult to see hope through the defeat. It is difficult to believe that things will, and most often do turn out just fine. These are the days when we talk to the stars, wishing, hoping for things to turn out. Nights like this drive us to greatness as we seek refuge from the pain. These are the nights when we talk to the stars.

Washed up on the Shore

We are all strangers with short attention spans and even shorter memories. Celebrating the accomplishments of others while fearing too much to accomplish anything of our own. Eager to sidestep the pressures of making a history worth being recorded. The blank slates and endless potential of our youth slowly crack and evaporate until we are left with a mist of regrets and unfulfilled dreams. No man can know what it feels like to be another man. We can only sympathize with a sense of wonder that others seem to experience and feel as we do.
Take a step forward into the unknown. Live for yourself, it might be your last chance.

Dashed to Pieces

Bland white tables filled the empty space of the Sabin cafeteria. The dirty, tiled floors were always streaked with stains by this time of day, left from the kids that had first lunch. The janitors never cleaned the cafeteria until after the second lunch group had finished and staggered back to class. Even then, it was rarely the janitors that cleaned the dirty tables or mopped the food splattered floor. There were several assistant principals at Sabin Middle School, four to be exact. They each were in charge of a part of the alphabet, or rather the kids who had the first initial in their last name fall under that part of the alphabet. The four assistant principals, along with the office councilors, the janitors, and the almighty principal himself, would stand watch over the lunch groups like giant sentinels. They were always watching and waiting, waiting to catch any troublemaker that dared to let himself be seen. It was a deadly game of cat and mouse, with the loser cleaning tables in the cafeteria after lunch. If this demeaning task wasn't enough, the unfortunate soul was left with the further dishonor of a slow walk down the deserted halls and an embarrassing late entrance back into class.

At lunch there were no assigned tables, but for the most part everyone sat in the same place everyday. The tables tended to be divided into groups, with everyone sticking to their own group. Overall the lunchroom was relatively peaceful. It was at one of these tables, in one of these groups that I spent my lunch hour together with my friends. Collin, Travis, Jason, my best friend Chris and I all sat together everyday at lunch. Together we would spend our short break in the middle of the day telling jokes and stories, playing practical jokes and making plans. On more than one occasion one of us would be caught by a watchful janitor and sentenced to table cleaning duties. There were even a few occasions when we were all unfortunate enough to be held after wiping tables at the same time. And so it was during our time at Sabin, the lunch hour became a time to look forward to during the long days of school.

We always sat at the back of the cafeteria, near the underachievers. It was always in the back of the lunchroom that anything exciting would happen, the kind of things that would get you assigned cleanup duties. Oddly it was always the front of the cafeteria that the cafeteria monitors would stand watching. Of course if they stood in the back then we would all just move to the front, turning the front into the back.

Nearly everyday, someone from our group was cleaning up after lunch. If it wasn't us, then it was someone there because of us. We weren't too cautious, and we enjoyed the notoriety too much. We were all well known to our teachers and councilors, as well as to the principal and his many assistants. We weren't bad kids, just mischevious. Our teachers knew this so they didn't give us too hard a time, just cleaning duties and an occasional detention if the laws of justice so demanded.

The janitors at Sabin were a motley lot, best described as having an uncanny resemblance to pirates and sheep herders. They had a rough and untamed appearance, as well as the manners and choice of words of the seamen of old. They were men who had dedicated themselves to the life of the mop, along with repairing, cleaning, and obeying their captain's orders. Although these tasks were surely in their job description, these modern day rascals were never to be seen engaged in any of these tasks. Instead they were constantly barking orders at children and taking disciplinary action one would expect of an authority figure. They patrolled the halls like police officers walking a beat in a prized part of town. It was in this atmosphere that the tradition began of having the troublemakers scrub the tables after lunch. And, if not enough miscreants were found, it was a common practice to just grab randomly any kids that were around and have them stay after to clean the tables, even if they had done no wrong.

cRACK KILLS

Blah blah geneology. ~Laura

Prank texting people is fun.

Caution Wet Paint

I've been working for almost two weeks on an awesome final project for my Book Arts class. It is a concept book filled almost to overflowing with only the best, most well thought-out content humanly possible under the constrictions of the available technological advancements and current weather. I have spent hours and hours carefully painting each and every page into what I would easily describe as a masterpiece. Having finished the difficult task of painting some thirty pages of bland off-white paper into epic conceptual art, I moved on to the next step. I took out my needle and selected a killer soundtrack, not to sew to like some nursing home convict, but rather to bind together all the pages of my book in a process that all the cool kids are calling "book binding." I agree, the term should be cooler but cool kids really don't have time to waste on thinking up terrific names, they are much too busy being cool.

After binding the pages I glued the whole thing together in a sloppy mess of glue that would have made a preschooler proud. After the entire book was completed, I went about pressing it. This smooshes everything down and makes it all tight and compressed. It is an important step in the process. A step that will forever live in infamy. As if a child's first steps were off a waterfall into a pit filled with lava and alligators in lava resistant suits, but not suits that look like spacemen or chemical spill cleanup crews, but rather nice suits like an Italian Prime Minister would wear to a celebrity wedding.

I came to check on my book after hours of pressing only to find that the pressure had been too much, just as every teen in a social outing being dared to do a backflip off the roof to land in a kiddie pool filled with marbles and empty coke bottles fully understands, with too much pressure... bad things happen. The amazing paintings on each page of my book were sticking together. The paint on each page had somehow fused to the paint on the opposite side under the pressure. I tried to slowly and carefully peel apart the layers salvaging my work. Luckily many of the pages came apart again with minimal damage, but several of the pages had made too many new friends on the other side and refused to return without leaving something behind for their new friends to remember them by. It is a tragic tale, one that needs a happy ending. The good news, Brad Pitt is playing the main character in this story's big screen adaptation. Happy- The End.

It's Time For an Intervention, a Mechanical One.

Homework sucks the precious, gold-star-rated life out of me. That is what I recently decided through the help of a good psychic who charges by the second, and a goofy team of misfit kids that drive around in a van solving mysteries with their pet hound. I have also decided that it's never too late to regret a bad decision to live near the train tracks. I always thought trains were kind of fun, they had neat names and went out of their way to be nice to people and teach life lessons. Imagine my surprise to discover that trains were in fact bullies that like to rattle my books off the shelves and spill glasses of milk off my table, or to blare their horns so loudly that my ears bleed while I am listening to music full blast already on my headphones. This morning I finally finished my homework in time to curse the sun for already being up, and to then curse the Greek god in charge of the sun, I forget which one that is... Apollo? Curse you Apollo! Even if you are in a different department, or Roman, curse you regardless!

It was 6, and I had a few hours to sleep before class. I had only just reached the sweet oblivion of Dreamland, or Dreamville if you're from the South, or off to Never Neverland if your a Metallica fan, when I heard the horrible sound of a man running over a fully grown horse with a lawn mower! At least that is what it sounded like in my semiconscious state. I was both relieved and appalled to discover that it was just some guys in orange vests operating an industrial sized wood chipper inches away from my bedroom window. No big deal, I don't mind the sound of grinding and crunching tree branches at 8 in the morning. It's not like the sound made my brain wish it wore shoes so it could unlace its shoelaces and hang itself in it's cell. I have to hand it to those guys, their wood chipper was quite impressive. I'm not sure if it was just the proximity, but the noise that thing made put the trains to shame. I would give them a well crafted trophy over a nice pancake breakfast if I wasn't so busy looking for a comedically sized wrench to throw in the middle of their gut-wrenching plans. I couldn't find anything comedic enough so I just decided the best solution was to burn this entire building down. I hadn't even finished getting all the petrol from the shed when I realized I was late for class. Lucky for me man invented the wheel, discovered fire, and clocked out the hours of a day. Curse you man, you're worse than Apollo!

My Fair Pony, A Story to Sleep To

This semester I am taking Book Arts, it is a secretive class, rarely heard of, and held only in the early morning twice a week. This is a class I often find myself canceling plans with my dear old friend sleep for. The projects for this class are surprise, making books. Two books for each session of the class. That doesn't sound too overwhelming, but considering that the complexity of each book has dramatically increased each time, and then the other coursework from my multitude of classes and there is an intense pileup of homework several times a week. These nights where all the possible assignments to ever emerge from various instructors consciousnesses converge on my modest evening, I find myself working way into the wee hours of the morning. This is deeply disconcerting considering the early nature of the secretive book arts class. Nearly every eve of book arts, I find myself finally finishing my books only hours or often less, before the class is scheduled to start.

Last night, for the second time this semester I found myself in a very similar situation. I was working on a book due in class that same morning, and as the night progressed and I came closer and closer to the completion of my book, the sun also came closer and closer to rising. Then the sun would rise and the birds would chirp. The sky would grow lighter and lighter until I would look over at the clock on the microwave which would without fail say 1:27. What?! Stupid roommate not cancelling the time off when finished using the microwave! After accomplishing what a four year old could, excuse me, I mean after clearing the time from the microwave so that the clock would appear, I would discover that I had approximately a half an hour before my class was to begin.

I recently read that people that suffer from insomnia, sleep deprevation, or just good old fashioned all-nighters are more likely to suffer heart attacks, and inevitable death. This is fairly common knowledge, at least that staying up late is bad for your health, especially when followed by geting up early. Not to mention the added stress from all the assignments and the complexity of the projects. I can hardly imagine the advice a trained health professional would give me. Probably something about avoiding plague riddled rodents and washing my hands after using the restroom.

Back to the real story at hand. Upon realizing that I had stayed up the entire evening working on my project, and still not yet completed it with class looming on the 30-minute horizon, what did I do you ask? I skipped class that's what. Why bother going to not turn in an assignment I was supposed to have finished, then to sit and view the completed assignments of my more responsible peers, and to top off the experience throw in a lecture from a fine arts professor with an axe to grind and nothing left to lose!?

There is no real moral to this story, as there often isn't in real life. Actually there is a moral, Sleeping in is worth fighting for.

I Dub Thee, Sir Tanlee

I was havin an interesting conversation the other day about why it was that probably every woman on the planet Earth wanted to marry The Rock. After just watching the Rock in a new movie I thought to myself, "Why wouldn't you want to marry the Rock." I would not be surprised to find with the use of several highly recommended private investigators and a clipboard carrying scientist or two, that all men in fact wished secretly (and others not so secretly) that they were the Rock. Perhaps surprisingly at the end of this conversation I was asked if I wished I was the Rock. I had to answer honestly, "No. If I could be anyone I would want to be Dave Grohl."

Obviously Dave Grohl is the only choice when such a question is put forward. How could you possibly even consider anyone else. Grohl is legendary, even choosing to ignore in the decision making process that he was a member of Nirvana. I won't go into the details of why I believe Mr. Grohl is the ultimate incarnation of a rock star, worthy of praise and emulation. Suffice it to say he is one cool dude and I would most certainly salute the man if for some strange reason we crossed paths on the street.

Speaking of Dave Grohl and throwing Monkey Wrenches into otherwise carefully laid plans...

It was a cool, fall evening with leaves breaking free from the trees with each pull of the wind as it would gust along on its journey to everywhere and nowhere all at once. An aged, yellow schoolbus rattled down the dark road as the moon graced the world with a portion of its presence. The windows of the bus rattled as if ready to fall out every time there was a bump in the road or crack in the pavement. The seats were filled with anxious children pawing at the ratty green seats they occupied in pairs. They had been travelling for what seemed a very long time, and the end was even further away. It would still be several hours before the bus would pull into the empty parking lot of the high school and open its raspy, hinged door releasing its weary passengers back into the world. The freedom of fresh air and a warm bed waiting at home were still too far away to focus on now. Doing so would only make the trip drag on. Most of the students in the bus were fortunate enough to be sitting with friends, talking about all of the completely unimportant things that are life engulfing when a teenager. I was no exception, sitting next to a good friend talking about skateboarding and sales at Hot Topic. I found myself looking out the window staring into the blurring background of a world I was somehow once attached to but now seemed to be speeding through. My friend then offered me one earbud of a pair, a clear sacrifice on a trip covering such great distances. I placed the bud up to my ear, the jumbled noise becoming more comprehensible as I drew it closer until it became the indisputable sound of the Foo Fighter's "Monkey Wrench." The sound seemed to bring warmth with the pulse of the music. I had been given a dose of the ultimate drug when trapped in an uncomfortable situation- music.

After a while of listening to music and passing the time with our spirits elevated we turned to an honored American tradition, that of the Dare. My friend dared me to eat a few "After Coffee Mints." These mints are considered very potent and one is advertised to cure bad breath for weeks. While the science behind such a boast may seem fundamentally flawed, the strength of these particular mints was indeed potent. Hence the dare to eat not one, but several of these powerful mints. I readily accepted the challenge, not only as a way to merely pass the time, but further driven by the various implications of declining a dare challenge upon my reputation.

The tiny white and blue speckled orbs fell into the palm of my hand from the metal container, radiating like the stars somewhere above currently sheilded by the gross, green paint covered metal that served as the roof of the bus. I tossed the mints into my mouth and they quickly began to dissolve and spread a strong icy mint flavor across the expanse of my mouth. My tongue tingled before taking an extended vacation from the overkill and intensity of the mints. It was hardly an enjoyable experience, though not terribly uncomfortable, especially when considering the gratification and respect that follows the successful completion of a dare. However, like all challenges and dares, when one is completed another is sure to follow and to build upon the difficulty of those that came before. Such was the inevitable case on this long bus ride home. The second and final dare, to eat 100 of the potent death mints. This was an olympic sized challenge presented me. Already feeling confident after my earlier success I agreed to the undertaking. If I was to be remembered for something, it would be for completing a challenge few would dare to attempt. I took the remaining mints from the container, and after counting them up returned the two extra back to await breath freshening duties on another day. I decided the best way to accomplish my goal would be to try and swallow them all at once, rather than to take them a mint at a time.

I looked down at my hand, covered with snow globe impersonators, then looked forward at my uncertain future. With that I threw the deadly tablets into my already numb mouth. I attempted to swallow them all, but it was an impossible task with my mouth so full. The longer the mints remained there, the more uncomfortable it became. I swallowed the rest of the mints with relative ease, and found myself surprised by how easy the process had been. I had expected much more discomfort, or death. If I was somehow disappointed by the apparent lack of challenge, I need have only waited for fortune was about to change. Within minutes I felt a glacial tremor from my stomach much like what I suspect killed the dinosaurs. If my stomach had feelings, which I am convinced that it did, it was most displeased at my failure to rationally predict this outcome and decline the childish challenge before coming face to face with this predicament. I rode the rest of the way home with pain in my stomach. Luckily the trip ended sooner rather than later, and I was able to walk it off like a champ. It was a night filled with adventure and lessons to be learned, fortunately I left without learning a thing.

Winston, You're Way Ahead of the Herd

"With great power comes a great power bill. "

"Never has someone talked about so little using so many words as our dear friend Stubby. "

There exists within certain cultures and principalities a gathering place, a place where one can expect to find lost jelly beans, any imaginable variation of crumpled papers, and of course enough lost copper coin to purchase a romance novel at a thrift store.
Naturally the laudromat is the place where people from all walks of life converge to huddle close to washing machines and share insights and ideas with the masses mixing detergents and linens.
I usually do my laundry at a common enough time, at least compared to my erratic sleep schedule. I recently had to switch laudromats due to the unthinkable decision by the owner to demolish the building in order to prepare the way for a future apartment complex.
Having been a patron now of multiple laundromats in multiple cities and states around this country, I can say that I have rarely seen a laudromat busy, or even close to full with people.

Imagine my surprise then when on my second visit to this recently adopted washing park I arrived to find that the place was completely packed with people. "Filled to capacity" a burley neck-chain clad price tag might say standing beside his carefully placed velvet ropes. Where did all these people come from? It is a 24 hour laundromat, meaning it is open 24 hours a day, and should therefore never be filled to capacity. I'm guessing that since the laundromat offers free WiFi that a portion of the congregation were just leeching off the internet service like pale white kids leech on Mountain Dew during weeklong Halo parties. The rest of the people can be explained in only a number of ways. Perhaps they were friends of friends who were coming because someone had just discovered a new way of folding sheets and athletic shorts using one hand and a butterfly knife. Others heard there was a black light dance party happening after the DJs whites hit their third spin cycle. And everyone else just saw me coming and hate my guts so they threw their clean clothes from their dressers into the mud so they could keep me from doing laundry for a day.

Double You Tee Eff

Today I walked through the library... I know what you're thinking, and stop it. Of course I go to the library on occasion.. to study. Ok, I never study in the library. I find it depressing, and I have to be on my guard constantly for the fear of being shushed by an over zealous librarian in training. While on this seldomly made trip through the library I ran across perhaps one of the most startling sights I have run across since I saw a one-armed man dressed as Y2K in March. What could possibly have caught my attention so drastically you ask? Well I ran across a young lady wearing a very offensive shirt, the likes of which I have seldomly seen before in my tragically short life. I resisted the urge to run up and slap her solidly across the face. In part, because my dear mother taught me better, and possibly because I realized I had stood standing there with my mouth agape long enough that I had darkened the disgusting library carpet with drool, which was a little embarassing. What could be so offensive you surely are on the verge of asking, well it was simply an AFI CRASHLOVE shirt. Now before all you crashlove fans jump on me with fangs and neon colored shoes.... well don't.

I was a fan for a very long time, long enough to feel bitterly betrayed when I heard the heart breaking sounds of betrayal and spilling slushies that is Crashlove. From that day on I always felt a little embarassed to wear my AFI shirt, and I would fight back the formation of tears when I heard any of the older classic AFI I had loved for so long.

I just really couldn't and still can't believe that anyone could possibly ever enjoy that album. I mean even the robots that have replaced the band members after their abduction by aliens to play amazing music on their far-away planet are self aware enough to realize the album sucks. So why then is there someone out there not only still a fan, but so enthused by the Crashlove crash that they would willingly purchase a shirt advertising such a strange love? The answer to this is again robots. I was relieved to find the girl short circuited and exploded when I threw a bottle of water on her before leaving the library. Alien abductors, I know your game. Bring us back our beloved AFI. I'd hate to have to hire the cast of Firefly to help me hunt you down and bring shame to your overrated but advanced alien culture.

Sorry, All My Non-Militant Shirts Were Dirty

Living in a relatively small town, going to an ultra conservative private university, and it being the rural western United States, it is difficult not to stick out a little bit being one of the very few anti-establishment people around. Very quickly I realized how unshared my particular views were in the area. First came the scowls and death stares directed my way whenever I drove by blasting Rage Against the Machine at an appropriatly civil disobedient level. Then came the disapproving and disparaging remarks when all my class projects centered around important issues and events commonly ignored in the news and by most Americans. The final straw, perhaps, was the outcry against me for quoting the beloved author George Orwell, or maybe it was just the kid that ate my last strawberry yogurt. They are on the bottom shelf for a reason!

Needless to say I realized also a long time ago, that within this atmosphere I currently reside, I have in essence a target painted upon my back. For if there ever arises any anarchist styled graffiti, or arson engulfed police cruisers, or windowless store windows, the list of suspects in this small town is likely small, not to mention easily pinned on the only anti-authoritarian kid in town. So tomorrow I am packing up my wardrobe and from now on only wearing Care Bear or I (heart) NY shirts.

The lights are out on Division St.
and all the hate that rises through the cracks in the pavement
as the temperature falls,
This is where it hits the ground.

Saving Daylight Savings, for a Rainy Day

I have never been a huge fan of daylight savings, or of remembering things that occur only once or twice a year. Which would explain my dislike of award shows and presidential holidays. It seems clear to me that instead of changing the clocks by an hour once in a while during the year, a better proposal would be to eliminate certain hours of the day entirely. I'm only talking about a few hours of the day, but out of every day, not just for a few months at a time. The hours I would most like to see done away with would be from 6-9 a.m. It is during this early portion of the day when human beings are by far the most miserable. Wise men have often compared them to the feelings envoked when describing a bad divorce or the passing of a kidney stone. Why then do we every day subject ourselves to the pain and torment of getting up before we are ready, then slowly recovering from a zombie-like state the remainder of the morning. It is disfunctional that our institutions of learning and employment desire to torture us so by insisting that we are properly attired and available at such early hours. No one that has just awoken from an intense technicolor dream rivaling a civil war reenactment is ready to man a battle post in the army of insurance sales, or payless shoes, or biology department. The lesson in all of this is simple. Simply, don't register for classes at 7 a.m. and expect yourself to go to those classes multiple days a week when you hate getting up beofre 10. Also don't be surprised when after missing several sessions of such a class, and upon explaining to your teacher that you will be missing another session later in the week due to the fact that you would rather attend a punk rock show than his class, that you will be lectured on the importance of responsibility and attendance, and mandatory, and culpable, and other words of this nature in some sort of decipherable order. Case closed. Sleeping in is worth fighting for.