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backpacking
Want to embrace your wanderlust on the cheap? If you're high on adventurous spirit, but low on funds, this community can help you plan a trip to anywhere. Offering plentiful tips on how to travel light, you can post about inexpensive hotels and youth hostels if you're into urban exploration or discuss camping gear and mosquito netting for the great outdoors. Hitch your backpack, pitch your tent, and carpe diem!

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: To coincide with this journal, the way I used to simultaneously update DeadJournal and LiveJournal to reach out to more readers, I have now created an account on Blogger, under the name Stuffandwhatever. If you're on there, please 'follow' me and comment. If not, I'll still be updating here, too.


I'm sitting in Muddy Cup, a few hours after sunrise when I decided I wouldn't bother going to sleep until later tonight. I just turned my head to look outside and it's snowing for the first time of the winter. Totally not cool. On the off-chance that any of you out there would be compelled to get me something for Mythmas this year, I figured I'd exercise my long-since deceased material yearning and make a wish list!
- A fixed Kitten.
- A fixed or new tiny Acer laptop.
- Pay for my first tattoo.
- MicroKorg synthesizer.
- Selena Gomez poster.
- New sleeping bag.
- HD flat screen 40"-50".
- iPod dock.
- Natalie Dee "I don't care, okay?" t-shirt (size Large).
- Sasha Grey's porn DVD, Throat: A Cautionary Tale.
- This vegan anti-smoking t-shirt that be be purchased here (size Large).
- Boy Meets World entire series on DVD.
A lot of those are pricey and I know none of you will get me any of them. But it's fun to want things sometimes.


Yesterday, while Rain, Yoda, and I hung out here, my iTunes picked up someone else in the place's 'music' folder... 'mike's LimeWire tunes'. I clicked on it and this is what I saw:

Pretty hilarious. We loudly read off the titles and a nearby man in important-looking attire got up quickly and left. We're pretty sure he was Mike, haha.


I wish I looked exactly like Zach Galifianakis. He's so fucking handsome.

I want to have sex with girls who want to have sex with him, too.


Lucia Mazzone, a cross-eyed Scotia bitch who I haven't had a friendship with in, like, five years, has been caught talking badly about me twice in the last month now. I don't know why, but apparently while Rain, Yoda, and I were eating at Bombers the other night, she overheard enough of me talking to Rain to feel it necessary to tell her ex that I'm trying to get into her pants, since I only talk to, "girls like her," when I want to fuck them. Rain is sixteen. Even though I would love to have sex with Rain, I just do not have the balls to put myself at risk of jail time just to get laid! To suggest I'm a womanizer is even worse, since I simply do not have the confidence to try to get into anyone's pants! I fucking hate this girl. I hate scenesters from Scotia. I hate people who break edge. I hate hypocrites who say that I need to grow up when their lives still revolve around gossiping about people they haven't spoken to in years. I sent her a message today on Facebook just to say, "The fact that you still talk about me is mind-boggling. You need a life, Chichi."

In other shit-talk news, a scenester girl named Toni (at one point carrying a MySpace and AIM name of Toni Con Queso; yes, in honor of my band at the time) decided to send Jason X comments on his MySpace talking badly about Yoda and I. It started with a comment to him saying, "tell dave gunn I think his shirt is douchey." Funny thing is, she was referring to a t-shirt being worn by my brother in Jason's default that said 'VEGAN FUCKING STRAIGHTEDGE'. We really do get mistaken for one another nonstop for some reason. She followed it up with, "There was no point. I just liked pointing out the fact that wearing Vegan Straight Edge Mosh-core t-shirts is douchey and Dave Gunn and that kid aren't original at all, clearly since I can't even distinguish the difference between them." As if originality is either of our goals. It would be if either of us gave a shit what people think about us; obviously an inconceivable concept to this girl, who ironically looks like a million girls I've seen before, scened-out in their mirror self-portraits online, keeping up with every trend that comes their way, and having sex with kids who look like this (literally, she fucked that kid in the picture!), and we're the ones being called indistinguishable from one another and unoriginal?! The irony, the hypocrisy, the audacious display of total self-obliviousness. She then said, "I didn't say anything about your "lifestyle", but no one needs to go parading it around on a stupid big print t-shirt." Her problem is obviously that our lifestyle is actually worth boasting; our lifestyle requires a certain level of discipline, self-respect, political consciousness, and compassion that she could not and would not ever discover in her bubble of shopping, trends, radio music with effeminate lead singers, and skinny-boys-with-flannel-and-gauged-ears taste.
When you look like this...

There's really nothing to believe in or care about or be proud of outside of your mirror, mall, and makeup. Pathetic and laughable. It makes me smile to know she got fucked doggy-style by a boastful straightedge vegan moshcore scenester. Hypocritical cuntbag.

Trevor got the words, "SUCK IT, BITCH," tattooed above his dick. He should be put out of his misery for doing something so stupid.


Yoda keeps shitting all over me for hanging out with people, having fun, doing this, doing that. I don't know if he's jealous or if he sincerely believes that going to a party makes you no longer straightedge. There's no logic behind that at all. And Elijah is a scenester piece of shit who's vegan to be trendy, even though he's done more animal rights activism than either of us have in our entire lives. I love Yoda, but his mindless and misdirected negativity is a real downer. I wish he'd just be happy for me, or at least try to better his own situation instead of coming up with reasons to be miserable forever. :/
I can't wait to be in Albany and be around more happy, exciting, interesting, lively, supportive people!





I think I'm moving my shit into my new apartment today. So stoked. I honestly never thought I'd leave Schenectady. And I know this isn't too far, but it's a huge difference, and will serve as a stepping stone to moving once again sooner than later to an even better area, preferably out of the 518 entirely. I get my check today. Kara's letting me borrow $300 so I can pay off the deposit on this new apartment. She's the greatest. All I've eaten in the last thirty-six hours is Doritos and some pumpkin pie. I might leave soon and work my way back up to my apartment to finish packing some things.

Oh, and I miss Burgundy a lot lately. I wish I could talk to her. Oh, well.

Books:

The Machine: The Story of the 1975 Cincinatti Reds - Joe Posnanski: Posnanski has fast become one of my favorite national sportswriters, and regardless of the fact that this Reds team beat the Sox in this Series, it was still a good read overall. It's interesting to put this up against the other baseball reads I've done this past year - Posnanski clearly has a joy for this team that felt lacking from the other books I've read on teams, which made this more enjoyable than I expected.

Eyes Like Stars - Lisa Mantchev: I hesitate to call this terrible, because it is well-enough written, but the plot as it is (a magical theater of sorts) was kind of rough, and the execution even moreso. It's a YA book in most places, but it's almost too kiddish for YA and too mature for kids, so I was even more confused by that. Alas...

Eating the Dinosaur - Chuck Klosterman: Chuck Klosterman is becoming aware of his status, and I think it's affecting his writing, and not always in a good way. It's better than Downtown Owl, but it's not nearly as good as his other essay collections.

The Book of Basketball - Bill Simmons: This book is something like 700 pages about basketball. It's almost too much, and it's a definite slog at times, but Simmons is so good and he makes the subject matter so interesting that you keep pushing through to get to the next part. A great book, just don't try to read it over 3 days like I did...

The Unnameables - Ellen Booraem: A children's book about an island where only "useful" things have names, and things without names are not useful and thus discarded. A strange, but fascinating read, not really sure how else to describe it.

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma - Trenton Lee Stewart: The first Benedict book is one of my favorite children's books ever. The sequels still have not met the standard set by the original, but this was much better than the second book by a longshot to the point where I'm actively looking forward to the next volume.

The Parents We Mean to Be - Richard Weissbourd: Ann wanted to read this one, she liked it, I...well, it was okay. I don't remember much from it at this point, which I suppose should tell me something.

Superfreakonomics - Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner: Sequel to Freakonomics. More interesting article-length pieces. Not much else to say.

Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks - Ethan Gilsdorf: A timeline of one guy's nerdy history. Not a lot of interesting things for me overall, since I had already experienced a lot of this, but for Ann, it was a lot of history in a world she's only recently dabbled in.

I Can't Believe I'm Sitting Next to a Republican! - Harry Stein: This was a book of short little anecdotes from a conservative who lives in ultra-liberal Madison, Wisconsin. It really did capture the essence of being a conservative amongst a bunch of liberals in a lot of places and ways, so I appreciated the "you are not alone"-style feeling that it gave me, but it also did irritate me a bit in places, too. I think that's going to be the standard for political books for the next few years, sadly.

Packing the Courts - James MacGregor Burns: A history of the Supreme Court in regards to judicial activity and executive response. Falls into a lot of the historical traps that we take for granted, but it was still a really interesting and fun read. I recommend overall.

Going Rogue - Sarah Palin: It's hard not to read this book and not think of what a) Sarah Palin was and b) what Sarah Palin has become. The book inadvertently collects that transition perfectly - you get the entire idea of what it was that made Sarah Palin so admirable in the past and then see the trajectory that has created the disappointment that I know I feel about her on a whole now. The book is fine - it's a memoir, with all the flaws a memoir has, and I do recommend that anyone who's interested in getting some information on an important political player right now read this. With that said, though...

I think that there is a subset of people in the world who can't recover properly from being completely blindsided by those around them. I found myself thinking about my library experience last year a bit as I read about Palin being thrown curveball after curveball by the McCain campaign, by not getting support from those she felt she could count on, by not getting a fair shake from those who weren't supposed to play favorites. At some stage, things keep beating you down and beating you down, and you lose your entire inner compass.

Sarah Palin was not a radical, and was not a populist. She - and the McCain campaign - allowed the media and the opposition to radicalize her, and she apparently had to turn to populism to reach an audience that she wasn't able to otherwise, and the shoe apparently fit her quite well. Now we see Palin the radical-leaning populist, the one who clearly knows what she's talking about but loses her shit when she's faced with a combative media situation, a Palin who clearly isn't able to trust anyone new anymore. It took me a long time to recover from my lows, to the point where mental health counseling was really the only thing that could get me out of where I was at. What's Sarah Palin going to do, I don't know, but clearly she was quite affected by what she experienced, and it definitely explains how she operates today, and it's up to her to ultimately decide what Sarah Palin she wants to be, regardless of what the environment sends her way. I didn't want to be who I was becoming, so I changed - I'm wondering if we're ever going to see results like that for her.

That got long.

Movies:

Rachel Getting Married: The first 20 minutes or so felt ridiculously artsy and pretentious to a fault. Then things evened out a bit and I ended up really enjoying this movie. Anne Hathaway deserved every accolade she got for this, the performances across the board were great - just a really solid, gripping movie.

Zombieland: The awesome cameo aside, this movie was more a lesson of what it could have been than what it was. As a straight-up homage to the classic zombie movies, it was pitch-perfect. In the sense that you've already seen the best scenes in the preview (cameo excepted)?

Young@Heart: A documentary about a Northampton, MA singing troupe of elderly singers, known for doing rock and punk songs. A really sweet, fun documentary.

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus: Everything you need to know about the movie can be seen right here:

Pringles, Silent Hill, and Lara Croft doing a strip tease. What.

Edit:

Now with more cooking mama.



Apparently these are Japanese commercials. Japan, what the hell.

Germboy, out/Peace.

• 16:34 The most awesome thing in the history of awesome: i392.photobucket.com/albums/pp6/mearii87/sharkplane-1.gif #
• 20:32 Let's go Patriots! #
• 21:26 My copy of "The Singing Saw At Christmastime" has gone missing. This is not good. #
• 23:19 The Saints are the best team in the league right now. I'm not sure anyone can argue otherwise. This is stunning to watch. #

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• 09:51 Once again i'm stuck in traffiic. People in birmingham really need to learn how to drive in the rain. It's not rocket science, folks. #
• 15:36 Busy day. Trying to get everything wrapped up so that I can keep KB tomorrow, cos I'm sure she still won't be feeling well. #
• 16:35 In a sign that I am totally a sucker for good freebies, a potential vendor sent me 32MB of info on a 4GB flash drive. Will keep their info. #

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It's actually the middle of the night at my apartment as I type this in Notepad. I'm hungry and horny.


Wednesday, I woke up after 10AM to my father saying, "Dave! Wanna wake up? Let's go for a walk to the falls!" He'd been telling me about this serene path off a nearby bike trail that let to some nice woods and waterfalls and finally wanted to show me. So I went with him and we drove out by the bridge that crosses into Clifton Park from Balltown Road and walked up the bike trail. It was pretty nice out. We spent two hours there, admiring nature and talking about life, women, and the pursuit of happiness, sitting by the waterfalls that still flowed pretty heavily for the season it was. I love hanging out with my father. We're getting closer and closer these past couple of months and I wouldn't have it any other way. Later that day, I hung out with Yoda, Sam, and Rain. She brought over Left 4 Dead 2 and we all took turns playing it. I'm not typically into games on systems like XBOX 360, but shooting zombies was pretty fucking cool for a little while. She came with us to our parents' house and I put together some vegan pumpkin pie with my mother, using canned pumpkin pie mix, Silken tofu, and Pillsbury pie crust that was accidentally vegan-friendly. I was being a little too balls-busty with Rain and she wound up getting hurt feelings. I felt bad, but she was all cute and told me outside before she left and I let her know I was only fucking around. Everyone's so sensitive! And to think, I thought she could handle the rapid-fire sarcasm and ridicule.



Thanksgiving with my family was awesome. Tofurkey, homemade stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, pumpkin pie, Pepsi, and all of my family hanging out around a table for a little while. It was perfect and I was just so grateful for everything I had in that moment. I still am afterward, of course, but it was just one of those evenings where you're overwhelmed by the realization that you don't really want to be die anymore. We all hung out in the living room together afterward. We're all getting along so well right now, I hope it lasts. Kayla couldn't eat with us since she had work until 9. I felt so bad for her. She showed up when she got off and ate her food, while we watched Home Alone, one of the best holiday movies ever. My parents fell asleep so early. I was kinda bummed I wasn't able to hang out with them longer. I stayed the night there.

This weekend was one of the best weekends I've had in months. I woke up around 2 at my parents', a little bummed I still hadn't gotten a phone call from Dave Greer, who was supposed to be calling me in the 'early afternoon'. We'd been talking about getting together and trying to make some ambient Mogwai-esque music together for weeks, but he'd changed plans twice already. So I sat around online and ate Tofurkey leftovers with my hand like it were a candy bar, just like a vegan fat-ass would do. Dave eventually called and we solidified plans for meeting up at Bombers at 5:30. In the meantime, I had posted on Facebook that I wanted someone to take me to The Fantastic Mr. Fox with them and Laura had texted me that she had money, wanted to go, and that I should come over later. I was so pumped and grateful to Facebook for being a country in its own where everyone I want to know is seeing my every move and plea. I left around 5 to start walking towards Bombers since my parents couldn't give me a ride and found out that it was freezing with 30mph winds. I, of course, was in shorts with no boxers on underneath and a thing jacket. So I started walking anyways and ended up calling Dave Greer to tell him I'd be late. He offered to pick me up. He was with Julia, who's a very pleasant girl to be around, and hanging out with them was pretty awesome. We sat around at Bombers for a few hours and talked about this and that. Dave was nice enough to buy me dinner. I got a burrito just for the sake of getting a hole punched into my 'Frequent Bombers Card'. It was cool catching up and whatever. Dave Greer is twenty-four and still drug-free, so he definitely has a place in my heart until he tells me otherwise. As soon as him and Julia find a new apartment, we should be able to start collaborating musically, and hopefully we wind up making something beautiful together. I'm glad I can finally let go of my past with Chaos Con Queso and the other members of it. For too long, it was treated like an ex-girlfriend that things ended really badly with, and it's only just recently that I can stop being bitter and actually talk to the other people who played a role in its disbandment. Davey Jones came over and made a quick appearance, then walked off making some comment about how Ellie Cole got more attractive. She didn't, though. I replied, "Yeah, but you still have bigger tits than her... and probably better smelling breath."

That yuppie hipster bitch got, "I now walk into the wild," tattooed on her foot. I want to cut her entire foot off at the ankle now for making a mockery of a great man's life. I mean c'mon, there aren't any H&M outlets or ATMs in the wild and she probably wouldn't survive for more than a day outside of the upper-middle-class parents/easy job/debtless college experience and everything-handed-to-me lifestyle. Sorry for the shit-talking rant, but I take stuff like this very seriously, and her getting an Into the Wild quote on her foot is like me getting dollar signs and the McDonald's logo tattooed across my chest.

Dave dropped me off up at my apartment and I uploaded some new music and porn onto my laptop, then took a shower. The next showing of The Fantastic Mr. Fox at The Spectrum was 9PM or something, so I was really in a rush. I wasn't at the bus stop until just after 8 and the bus didn't bother showing up until a half hour later. There actually was two 55s in a row again, except this time the first one was refusing to pick people up, with 'Not In Service' blinking on the front, although there were already people on it. I texted Laura and she told me that she had some people coming over, including Blake Webber, who she knew I knew. I knew we weren't going to the movies at that point, but I still wanted to hang out with her.

When I walked up to Laura's apartment door, I knocked and no one answered. But then two people I'd never seen before walked on it and I just followed them into the living room, where there were at least fifteen people. I found Laura on the couch and sat next to her. I immediately started having a panic attack. There was an overwhelming amount of unfamiliar people and having been off my medication for several days already, I thought I was going to suffocate. I played it cool and tried to talk to Laura to calm myself down, trying to create some sort of tunnel vision toward her freckled, smiley, relaxed face. But I just couldn't. Everyone there was consuming alcohol or smoking weed. The living room was packed; the futon had Elijah and two other cute gay kids sitting on it; at the opposite end of the couch was a girl I didn't know named Ilana; sitting on chairs at the entry to the opposite room were some guys who seemed pretty masculine and full of party; at one seat was an extremely pretty girl; a loud girl sat and read through Postsecret books while packin a bong. There were 40s, bongs, and bowls just lying around, and Laura was just playing Power Rangers Rescue on N64, riding a car through a city, cleaning up toxic spills from the road and hitting cars, sending them ricocheting off of skyscrapers. She said her and Blake had been playing it all day. And that's when Blake said hi. I didn't even recognize him with his buzzed-down hair and shadowy facial hair. But he sat next to me and they both created a sandwich of familiarity that I hoped would help me survive the situation. But as the hour went by, it only got worse. Suddenly, Laura was purchasing and rolling a Dutch; clouds of marijuana smoke started floating into my face and burning my nostrils and trachea. I tried to hold my breath whenever I'd see it soaring over to me. More and more people were showing up. A pretty redhead with freckles and short hair showed up and there was this other girl who was very skinny and wearing an ass-high skirt with white socks pulled up to just the top of her thighs, so I mostly zoned out on how attractive they were, until girls in the corner were doing lines of Aderall and beer pong was initiated in the other room. I texted Yoda, telling him I was around a lot of non-straightedge things and felt very uncomfortable. He said, "You upset me often," and proceeded to talk in hardcore lyrics to me, telling me to leave. But as the night progressed, I began to talk to more people and got more relaxed in the situation. I wasn't angry at everyone doing stupid, destructive things around me; I was mostly just confused. It's so much like a layman seeing weird customs practiced in African tribes on National Geographic when I'm witnessing kids my age who are caught up in the party life. But everyone there was overall nice. No one got violent or hostile (my biggest fear and cause of paranoia around people drinking). I tried playing the Power Rangers game Laura and Blake couldn't beat. In under an hour, I had successfully did what they couldn't and finished off the last five levels, beating the game. They were pretty excited about it. I sat on a laptop, on Facebook, and then wound up playing 007: Goldeneye on N64 with that Ilana girl. It's one of my favorite games to play multi-player on. We played for, like, over an hour, while getting to know each other. She was pretty awesome. While we played, two or three drunk guys decided to join in. A kid named Jimmy wearing a leather jacket kept purposely standing in front of the screen and a few other stumbling morons tripped over the wire laying across the living room floor to the coffee table and unplugged it. Another guy got excited when he saw us playing and joined in. I never got his name, but he was pretty hilarious. We did nothing but talk shit to each other while blasting each other with automatics, lasers, and rockets. One girl showed up and could hardly stand. Ilana and I were patiently waiting for her to either knock down something electronic and expensive or to crack her skull open. After one or two falls to the floor, someone got her te hell out of there, thankfully. Before Elijah went to sleep, his iPod was playing, and the best folk music played in the background. It was an excellent soundtrack. He went to sleep upstairs before the other twenty people showed up.


Even though Laura wasn't getting high, she helped buy pot. And even though she wasn't drinking, she was playing beer pong in the other room, in a game that never seemed to end. She even went out and bought me a two-liter of Pepsi and a bag of Sour Patch Kids. She's apparently one of the most giving, laid-back people ever or something. Ilana got ready to leave and when reminded who I was exclaimed to Laura, "Oh! Is this the epic LiveJournal hitchhiker kid?!" I was flattered to hear what Laura says about me to her friends. Blake and I hung out a lot throughout the night, talking about music or video games or the environment. He told me, as best as someone half-drunk and high could, about something happening in the North-East right now called hydro-fracturing, where they're drilling for oil and fucking up rural water supplies for those who literally survive off of things like wells. He told me and eventually showed me a video of a guy turning on his sink, holding a lighter against it, and the entire thing igniting. Serious issue, I think. It was cool to learn he was so into the environment. I also found out he lives with Crohn's Disease. The pretty redhead sat in the same place all night and looked shy and angry. She was the most intimidating person there, so I never even bothered trying to speak to her, though I'm more than likely in one of the series of pictures she took with her expensive camera of the party around her. On my spot of security in the center of the living room couch, I talked on and off with drunk guys. Katherine caught me in the middle of staring at her (she's extremely pretty in the geekiest pretty girl sorta way) and made note that she liked me a lot and had a lot of respect for me because I was straightedge. I'll never understand party kids who claim to have respect for straightedge, but I'll gladly accept it. I was having so much fun. I told Yoda through text and he said, "I don't know who you are sometimes." Laura introduced me to a vegan girl named Corrina. She told me she was a 'vegan lifer' and wanted to get the human fist/paw print tattoo. It was exciting and she was really attractive. I watched one kid (I think they called him Juice) try to bump, grind, and make out with every girl he got near. It really grossed me out. Kaitlyn sat down with the kid next to me and wound up talking to me, starting off with, "So we're Facebook friends now, eh?" She asked me if I was gay for some reason, and when I said I wasn't, she asked, "What are you?" and I responded, "Uh, a person?" She got all excited and we got into a long discussion about gender, social labeling, and the psychology behind dating who we date. It was awesome. She was wearing a cute little bowl-shaped hat and always seems to be dressed up like Mary Tyler Moore. I really enjoyed talking to her, until some guy took her away from me by signaling her like a pet. She came back, though, and kept talking. I moved over to a bright red chair on wheels that looked like a barbershop seat and enjoy its comfort, talking to whoever was sitting at the futon. At that point, it was Blake, some kid named Paul who kept using Blake as a pillow and touching his chest, mostly acting like a paraplegic until he got up to dance like an idiot; easily one of the funniest things I'd witnessed all night. One kid got aggressive, puked in a bowl in the kitchen, pissed outside on the downstairs neighbor's door, and then went on about how he wanted his PS3, even though there wasn't one in the entire apartment. Laura got all riled up and kicked him out. As he was pushed out of the apartment, I turned around just in time to see his entire bare ass, which was for some reason visible. I talked to Kaitlyn some more and put on my iPod, where I played the best pop songs I had and watched Laura and her friend Kevin do choreographed dancing and sing-alonging to, shortly before he began to stumble around holding a bag of wine. There were lots of lame sing-alongs to corny pop songs had by all. Corrina sat quietly and a girl with frizzy hair and glasses whose name I never got sat next to me. A kid named Dave Frey sat with us, too, and was a pretty chilled-out kid. I was having so much fun and was so proud that I got through it instead of evacuating the situation like I was considering after an hour of being there.

Drunk crowds slowly cleared out and a few people stayed behind to pass out here and there. The sun began to rise and Blake kept putting on loud, fast music that no one but he could sing along to. Juice passed out on the couch, frizzy-haired girl passed out on a chair, Corrina fell asleep upstairs in Laura and Elijah's room. Blake Dave Frey, and I went for a stroll a few blocks away to Blake's car to get his laptop and some anti-frack signs. We then decided to put one on the lawn of City Hall. From there, we got a little lost and decided to see if a door at the bottom of some stairs would open. It did. We went all the way to the bottom of the stairs to a room with a locked door and an unidentifiable piece of machinery that was crusty and leaned against the wall. I had to piss really bad. A small square door on the wall was loosely held shut by a rusty metal wire that came right off. We opened it up out of curiosity and discovered it lead to a whole other pitch black room. So we went inside of it and pissed. Another square opening was high up on the wall inside of there, with a road block underneath it so you could climb up into it. We went inside of that, too. And from there, we wound up spending a half hour traveling through pitch-black underground passageways with only a cellphone to produce light and no idea where we were going or when it would end. We had to climb up a crusty ladder about a hundred or so feet up and then wound up jumping down a wall to a door that lead us to the inside of the locked and closed-for-Saturday Department of Legislature building. We walked around, more than likely technically a 'breaking and entering', and tried to open every door we saw. We found a janitor's closet with a stack of magazines and a weird odor. Our eyes hurt from being in darkness for so long and then re-emerging to such bright light. We went to a renovated hearing room, then kept trying doors and stairs. Most of them were locked. We got to a series of doors, all marked 'Emergency Exit Only; Alarm Will Sound' with a spinning door in between that was obviously locked. So Blake pushed on one of the emergency exit doors, causing a loud siren to start going off. We all jumped simultaneously and I instinctively ran, only to have another emergency exit door to go to. We pushed it open and ran far away from it. It was so funny and exciting. The breeze outside almost picked us all up like leaves in the street. We found our way back to Laura's and it was almost 8 in the morning at that point. We told Laura and Kaitlyn our story, then just hung around for a bit. We lit candles and sat around, before eventually deciding to go to sleep. I went to sleep in Laura's bed upstairs with her after she donated a pair of Elijah's pajamas to me. It was such a fun Friday night.


Contrary to this picture, this girl is ridiculously beautiful.

Laura and I woke up around 2. I could have kept sleeping, but figured I should seize the moment of consciousness and get the fuck up. Laura just pops up out of bed like she was never asleep in the first place. We went downstairs and hung out with Blake. Elijah eventually joined. We all teamed up and cleaned the entire apartment of all the cans, bottles, plastic red cups, and playing cards that were strewn about, while listening to Passion Pit. I talked in depth with Elijah about veganism. He said something about how he prefers vegans who don't do it for trendiness and likes when they, "Do it just because they have to, because it just makes sense." It made me happy. He's a super cool kid. He interned at PETA last summer and I talked to him a lot about it since I want to do it so bad. He told me he got to travel with PETA2 on Warped Tour and Rock the Bells and if you're good with people and PETA likes the work you're doing, they'll relocate you to D.C. to do more aggressive campaigning, where you interact with the more hostile reactions. It gave me goosebumps to even fantasize about. PETA literature changed my life and I would love so much to be a part of that process; talking to people, particularly younger people, and getting them into veganism or animal rights, all while living in beautiful Richmond, Virginia with other vegan activists and traveling with music festivals. He told me you get to meet Ingrid Newkirk, definitely a hero of mine. Just thinking about it brings me back to the state of mind I was in as a child, with my whole life ahead of me and reality not yet defined enough to limit my expectations in myself and what I'm capable of doing in my mind. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" "A writer, musician, and animal rights activist with PETA!" And that dream doesn't sound too illogical now, especially after Eli told me that he'd write my letter of recommendation, guaranteeing me acceptance since he did so well during his two months there. It's decided: that's what I will do this upcoming summer! Another vegan friend of theirs, Kayla, came over with some leftover Little Anthony's vegan pizza, topped with soy chick'n and black olives, and a heart-shaped plate of chocolate-chip cookies that were nice, soft, and yummy. Pizzas and cookies?! Fucking perfect. Then Laura made dinner: pasta mixed with fried baby spinach, stuffing made from scratch, and mashed potatoes, with vegan sugar cookies her mother delivered to her with a bunch of other food supplies (she's their little princess, of course). So much delicious food went inside of me. We watched some lame television, then decided to go three-way on Mario Party 2 for over an hour. It was awesome playing that game with more than one person for a change. We all had our moments of, "I'm gonna win!" but I wound up taking six stars and first place, then defeating Bowser and saving space from destruction. At 6:30ish, we left and walked to The Spectrum to see The Fantastic Mr. Fox. We got seats all the way in the back lefthand corner in a pretty packed room. The movie was probably the cutest film I'd ever seen. Everything made me go 'awwww' or 'hahahaha' and the animation was awesome. Wes Anderson did it again, as expected. The movie just left me tickled for hours after leaving the theater. When we got back to the apartment, we didn't do much of anything but sit around in the living room. We went upstairs and sat around in a room filled with pot smoke and bright, shining lights, while Katherine played SIMS. Then I went over to Gay David's apartment and checked it out to see if I'd really want to move in. My bedroom would be the size of my current living room, which is all I need, except in an awesome apartment with a porch in an awesome neighborhood all less than two miles from The Spectrum, Bombers, Valentine's, and Price Chopper, right across the street from Laura and Elijah. It was perfect and I told them I'd move in on the 1st; only $320 a month, all utilities included, with a $300 security deposit. Totally awesome. It was decided: I'm moving to Albany! I was so giddy about it. We went back to the apartment and Laura showed Blake and I her favorite Lifetime movie on DVD, She's Too Young, a hilarious story about a high school infected with syphilis thanks to one suave man-whore who maneuvers his way into just about every girl's pants in the school. It was so corny and ridiculous and made us laugh for an hour and a half. Adults trying to put to film what they think teenagers are doing always fails miserably. I fell asleep around 1, really early, on the futon, next to Laura. I woke up in the middle of the night after a really horrifying dream about me trying to escape assassination at the end of the world to Blake sleeping on the couch and Laura upstairs.

Blake and I woke up around 11 and hung out. He told me he was bisexual, then made sure to tell me that he would never have sex with me. It crushed my spirits a bit. We woke Laura up and then Blake and I got going. I had to be at my apartment by 1:30 to meet up with Kara and Blake had to go to his parents' house in Guilderland, so we drove there together. On the way, we stopped at a Getty on Central Ave. in Colonie. Blake had a $20 bill, gave it to the foreigner in the enclosed building and accidentally asked for $10 of gas. When he pumped and it stopped automatically at $10, he realized what he did, and then that he never even got his $10 change. So he went over and asked for either his $10 change or $10 more gas. The guy refused both and insisted he only gave him $10. So we sat there and yelled for a half hour and then called the cops. We were there for an hour and the stubborn asshole would not give the money back. The cop was no help, of course, and talked to us like we were the bad guys. Blake had to be getting back to Ithaca, so we waved our white flag and eventually got outta there. He dropped me off at home and Kara was already sitting against my door. We spent the day together, laying in bed. We watched The Bucket List, which was actually pretty good, and her pants wound up off. Newsflash: Kara has a really nice body. Like, whoa. Killer legs and whatnot. I'm so bad at not engaging in activity with her that she will make me feel guilty about later. I'm weak when it comes to girls and the attention I'd like to get from the prettier, vegan-friendly ones. I made her Zatarains rice with red beans for dinner and finished some of my Thanksgiving leftovers. She helped me start packing a little bit. I tried watching a French film with her, but she's so relaxing to be around that I dozed off during it until she had to leave at 8:30. I woke right up as soon as she left and called Trevor back, who wanted to maybe hang out. I started walking toward the bus only to see it pass by me. So I just went to my grandmother's to tell her I was moving to Albany with a gay guy.
"GAY?! You're okay with living with a gay guy?!"
"Yeah! I love gay guys. They're the best."
"I like the gays, too. I just don't like what they do."
"That's retarded."
"It makes me want to puke. As long as you don't turn gay!"
"Eh, I'll make out with some guys. I don't care."
"WHAT?!?!?!?!"
I love being blunt with my grandmother and watching her freak out about stupid shit. I mean, no matter what I do, she's going to hate it, so I might as well have some fun with it now. I sat online and Trevor picked me up. We drove around, just talking and joking around. Stopped and got some fries and soda from Wendy's together, zooming through Clifton Park, talking about girls and how psychotic they are. He told me people still talk to him about me and he sometimes gets asked, "Aren't you davegunn's boss?" Ridiculous. I picked up my refill of Lexapro finally from CVS on the way. I was going to hang out with Yoda, but he wound up at the hospital with Kayla, who was puking from a concussion she suffered the other day after being rear-ended by the car behind her at a red light. Apparently, she's okay, though. I was worried. I had Trevor just drop me off back here so I could continue packing. I went through a pile of old mix CDs and browsed them. It was pretty depressing. But I'm okay. And so excited about the months ahead. Oh, and I finally set up my voicemail on my cellphone. Leave a message!




Just watched Sash Grey give a blowjob while listening to Between the Buried and Me. Totally awesome combination. The sun's rising and I'm going to put real grip tape on my Tech Deck, then try to straighten up as much as I can. I've already decided I'm not paying these motherfuckers their last month's rent.







Actually, I'm at Muddy Cup with Rain and am about to post this. Someone just left me a Truth Box comment that says, "I can't tell you. But I wish you knew what would happen if we made some advances. Ah." Dark and ominous. So, what would happen?

++ I would like to point out that I've been reading Kara/Lee fic for less than 2 months and I already have over 40 bookmarks for this pairing in del.icio.us. That's fucking ridiculous. It took me like a year to accumulate that many bookmarks in some of my fandoms.

++ I have downloaded the last 2 eps of Season 4.5, and am planning to watch them tonight. I almost don't want to, because then the show will be over forever. But, on the plus side, now I can start reading fics for after the series is over. Even though Katee Sackhoff's website spoiled me for what happens to her character in the end, I still wanna know everything.

++ outoftime told me to stop bashing Sam, so my solution is to read Lee/Kara/Sam porn. This was my solution to the Bangel/Spuffy shipper wars too - just get all three characters to fall into bed together, and everyone's happy! somewhereapart linked me to 2 good fics to get me started: Bona Fiscalia by becisvolatile and Worth It by dianora2 (which is my favorite). Any other fic recs would be most appreciated!

++ In non-BSG news, swsa asks: Did Buffy start the whole "human AU" trend in fanfic? That's where I first remember seeing it. She also asks:

Is the reverse true for non-genre fandoms? Is there Glee fic out there where everyone's a vampire and Rachel's the Slayer? Gossip Girl fic where Blair and Serena are witches and in love?

Oh man, I don't even watch Gossip Girl but I would *so* read that fic.

++ cleolinda wrote New Moon in Fifteen Minutes. Eeeee. I still haven't seen it, but I'm hoping to tomorrow. As soon as I do, I'm all over that post.

++ In other news, for some reason that I simply cannot fathom, I'm reading the Left Behind books. I've actually just finished the 4th one, and have started the 5th. These books are the most ridiculous fucking things I have ever read and yet I CANNOT PUT THEM DOWN. It kind of hurts my brain a little. Maybe I'm a closet evangelist or something? At any rate, when I'm done with this book I'm going to do a post all about how much they suck, and yet how I still can't stop reading them. Obviously Jerry B Jenkins put some kind of Jesus crack in the page or something.

++ Finally, this icon makes me laugh way more than is probably appropriate for a silly little joke. Oh well.

nAqPa.jpg (JPEG Image, 1000x11027 pixels) - Scaled (7%)

Oh, silly politics.

So, I'm almost done with BSG Season 4.5 - I've finished discs 1-3, and disc 4 will be coming via Netflix soon. Not that I'll wait that long - I'm dling the eps now as I type - but, anyways.

Disjointed thoughts on the eps in no particular order ( Here )

I can't believe I'm almost done with the series! This is so sad.

bookfails
Planning to do your part to help boost the declining publishing industry this holiday? Better check here first. Sure, there are plenty of folks who post glowing reviews of their favorite books. But what about the epic fails? Compose and/or discuss snarky, incisive critiques on the books you despise most.

foundphotos
Ever stumble across a frayed photo in your grandmother's attic? How about a faded picture tucked in the sleeve of an old novel at a used book sale? This is the place to post them. An amazing, eclectic collection of photographs sure to delight anyone with a penchant for history or nostalgic memorabilia.

note_to_cat
Having trouble conveying the concept of accountability to your cat? Now you can share letters to your significant felines and give public witness to your declarations of love and domestic negotiations. Whether you want to publish an apology for falling short on your cat-nip obligations or you need to raise a delicate hygiene issue.

1,650 miles later we are back in the frozen tundra of Illinois. The drive down and back was relatively uneventful; wuf and I took turns and broke it down pretty evenly. Rain made the drive out of Chicagoland absolutely shitastic, and the rockslide on I-40 added a few more miles, but we ended up getting into Columbia, SC around 7 AM and immediately crashed.

Turkeyday was full of awesome and win. We stuffed ourselves to the gills. Between Thanksgiving dinner, my dad's famous tempura, and Big-T's BBQ, I absolutely kicked my diet in the junk. I'm going to have to hit the gym like it owes me money to make up for my many many indiscretions. Otherwise we helped mom take down a tree in the yard and watched lots and lots of football (including the Gamecocks rocking Clemson's world!!).

Unfortunately there were some complications. The biggest would be the fact my mom neglected to tell me that Winston passed. It hit her pretty hard and I understand why she didn't tell me. But, none the less, despite me coming to terms with the fact he was 16 years old, blind and unable to move his hind legs at this point, it was rough stomaching the news. Mom went out to pick out a headstone for Winston, we all went to the backyard and placed it over his grave. Our family went from an Akita to a Corgi after seeing one in in Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead. It was a big jump (or downgrade) coming from large breed dogs to a groundhugger. But Winston always thought big. He never held back, always went all out and was one of the most loving dogs I've ever come across. I can't say enough to do Winston justice, but please know Stinky you will be missed.

After dealing with vanishing brake fluid for the last few months, my Dad felt it was best to have my car looked at. Being the holiday, we were hard pressed to find a shop open and willing to deal with both my mystery brakes and change out my timing belt and water pump which also desperately needed to be replaced. So we found a really nice, clean shop that said they could get in the parts on Saturday and finish everything no question. Well in the middle of the USC/Clemson game on Saturday we found out there was going to be a big question: a part didn't come in so how was I going to go home? Eventually, after pricing out one way flights and rental cars, we decided that wuf and I were going to take my dad's truck back to Chitown, he was going to drive my car in the meantime and we were going to drive half way and switch cars in a few weeks. It's a bitch, but what can you do?

We left Columbia yesterday around 9 AM, taking a small coffee break at jaeger_fuchs' and tig_wolf 's beautiful place (thanks guys!), and eventually making it back home around 11:30PM to a VERY appreciative (aka: whiny as hell) Chaos. But despite all the issues and retarded amounts of driving, the trip back home was a reminder of what I am very thankful for. I have a loving family and boyfriend, all of which get along amazingly well. Six years ago I was struggling to get my parents comfortable with the fact I was gay. Now Andrew is helping pull trees down in the front yard. I am truly blessed.

Hope everyone's turkeyday was full of good food, friends, family and football :)

Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt – Oscar and the lady in pink

The name of the author sounds German, but he is French. I bought the book in Germany, but it has been translated to English. But whatever language, the message is clear, regardless where you’ve read it.

Oscar is ill, very ill. He is in a hospital, waiting to die. His parents are afraid to tell him so directly, so the only one he can confide in is a nurse he calls Granny Rose. She tells him to live the last days of his life as if a day is a decade. And Oscar listens to her and lives a whole life in a week.

The book can probably be seen as a children’s book, but it should be read by everybody. Who doesn’t know someone with cancer? Who doesn’t realise how bad this disease is? Buy this book somewhere and read it. A sad book, but also a book with a smile. Praise to the author who manages to put both into the story.

Quote: “They’re frightened of me. They can’t bring themselves to speak to me. And the less they speak to me, the more like a monster they make me feel. Why are they so scared of me?” (p. 68/69)

Number: 09-053
Title: Oscar and the lady in pink (Orig.: Oscar et la dame rose)
Author: Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt
Language: English (Orig.: French)
Year: 2002
# Pages: 88 (10705)
Category: Children’s books
ISBN: 1-84354-450-4

Before I launch into the week (and it will be a busy one) I want to take a few moments to recall one of that handful of television episodes which I can truly say "changed my life." It was on November 30, 1999 that the Angel episode "Hero" aired for the first time.

We have a better idea now why the decision was made to kill off the Doyle character, but there were many of us who experienced the feeling that something very wrong had happened, and that it was NOT meant to happen that way. That episode changed me from a mere BtVS fan and regular viewer of both shows into a FAN-atic obsessed with bringing back Doyle. For three years, until the death of Glenn Quinn made it impossible and revealed the truth that I and many other fans had been unwilling to accept, I wrote fanfic, set up websites and e-mail lists, talked and dreamed about bringing back Doyle. In the process I became acquainted with people I would never have known otherwise, including some like darlas_mom, roseveare, kattahj and georgia_pumpkin, who remain friends that I follow here at LJ (although I don't spend as much time here as I once did), five years after Angel went off the air and ten years after the event that brought us all together.

Even when we promise that we'll never move on and never give up, sometimes we must - even fans as obsessive as I was - but we are different than we would have been if we hadn't dreamed that dream. Some people let go of their dreams gracefully; I had to be forced, but even this long after, I still remember.

• 10:06 I just generated my #TweetCloud out of a year of my tweets. Top three words: time, game, night - w33.us/13k5 #
• 14:11 Someone egged my grandmother's house AND Ann's car last night. People still do that? Really?! Glad it's warm enough out to clean it up... #
• 14:36 No Patriots game? You know what that means: MEGA SHARK VS. GIANT OCTOPUS. Aww yeah. #

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