and not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. *ding dong* expecting a hong, or maybe even a babbs, the last thing i expected to see at the door were little kids demanding candy. a lion, a witch and a wardrobe greeted me. no, just kidding. what kind of kid dresses up as a wardrobe? most of my house lights were off but i guess these particularly daring little tricksters came to my door anyway. as my shock wore off, i wondering what i could give these kids. did i have any prepared sweets? nope. did i have any cans of tuna? yes. but then what would i eat for the next week? did i have any candy? no......er......yes. i had four pieces of hershey's chocolate left sitting in my family room. some with almonds, some with not. i considered giving these chocolates away to reward these young industrious souls but then decided against it.



hey, the little bastards can get free candy from anywhere tonight. i have to buy my candy with cold hard cash. the spirit of christmas whisked away and the grinch smiled admirably over my shoulder as i said "sorry, i don't have any candy." where they disappointed? who the hell cares. who the hell knows. they were all wearing masks anyway. for all i know, they were midgets trying to frisk the last remaining edible items from my house. ahhhh. if only i had a little child to take around today, then i would have candy up the wazoo. instead, i'm forced to turn off most of my house lights and ignore the occasional doorbell. i considered putting an empty bowl outside, implying that i once had candy to give, but then decided against that idea. after all, if you never intended to give away any candy i feel like you should be at least be honest and hide out quietly. who the hell starts trick or treating before six o'clock anyway? dumb kids.



if only kids really did tricks for lack of treats. then irresponsible, unspirited young adults like me would be forced to give out candy. that's why you should always carry eggs. and toilet paper. to mark a "dud" house. foolish kids, they don't know anything. happy halloween all.

soliloquy

abeyance of breath

succeeds when the emptiness

of time and space collide

that tiny pinprick when

the physical repercussions

of mental ineptitude

stings hardest



flashing indicators point

right but i refuse to be incriminated

without the forethought of my fathers

upon which the monument

of hard work and a honest day’s pay

determine together

the service you collect

at the next lifetime



pity strokes in only

one

direction



the mismanagement of

succulence is borne by creative

juices that burst into being like flame

only to land upon concrete

neoprene bouncing back

to strike you

where you least expect it to

your face

two cool sites. a place to anonymously blog. a gathering of faceless blogs. ain't it great? and also, perhaps the coolest site ever. pop culture shock. all about comics, movies, and other supra cool things.



in other news. i did jack shit today. and when i say jack shit, i mean jack shit. the biggest thing i did was put in my contacts in preparation for class. but then after i showered and got all gussied up, i decided not to go. so i just skipped all my classes. haven't done that in awhile. how this is supposed to be good for me i don't know. i promised that i would sit at home and finish my class journals and do my found poem (due today incidentally) but instead i just bummed around and did nothing. it's interesting to look back on the last twelve hours and wonder exactly how the time slid by. heck, forget the past twelve hours, this kind of aimless living happens in weekly increments for me. and now it's late and i've got a pile of dishes, a mess of a room, a headache from computer games, and that fuzzy feeling you get in your eyes when you don't blink enough. maybe i should shower, so i can scrub off all the dirt i've accumulated in my busy day.

hyperbole. what are we searching for? what am i searching for? why read books, talk to people, go to fellowship, engage the mind, what is the purpose? if innocence is bliss, why not remain innocent? knowledge is power and knowing is half the power but at the end of the day, that knowledge has to have some end benefit. it's all fun and games until armageddon.



is the search for truth? too relative. is the search for happiness? too easily attainable and/or too fleeting. enlightenment? too lofty a goal. not to mention too transcendental. what is it that we/i am looking for? everything seems too trite. too common. nothing stands out as "the reason." looking for answers, looking for your niche, looking for anything at all is frustrating when you're not sure what you're looking for.



and to an extent, it's because of that frustration and innate confusion (i don't want to use that word but it's the closest thing i can think of...maybe curiousity would be better) that i'm attracted to religion. not for the religion itself--because i am not a religious person at all--but rather to see how other people cope with these questions. it's terribly interesting to see how a person arrives at conclusions about the nature of light. it's slightly awe-inspiring to see people live according to a set of unwavering beliefs. philosophy and religion are hardly separate in my mind and without academic distinctions, both are really just the search for motivation. religion has, i suppose, more justifications involved but i'll pass on pondering the specific differences for now. i realized, as i sat near the back row of a fellowship, listening to a sermon, singing songs of praise to a god that i don't believe in, that i'm walking on the same road as the religious person. we all are. but, walking in the same direction by no means guarantees walking together. or reaching the same destination.



i'm at this place in life where i'm trying to actively challenge and change things. of course, everyone is at this age. the early twenties are a transitory stage. i'm trying to push it along however. i feel the urge to re-open books that i've already closed and shelved away a long ago. i've decided to pick up an eraser and pore over and correct previously recorded thoughts. i want to challenge all my notions and make sure that i still believe in them, and not just spout things by rote and by habit. everyone should do this every once in awhile. four or five years i say. even less now, when life twists and turns so often.



and what will happen when i feel like i've done enough reconfigurating? where will i be? i won't necessarily have answers, neither will i be happier, nor will i be closer to enlightenment. but at least i'd have done something. i'll have evolved.

um, tastes like a woman. that's what some lady said to me. after walking by and asking for a hit off my mango flavored hookah. just a capper on a very chill but very life affirming weekend. lots of tv movies from the couch (crimson jihad! doucement, do it slowly.) one on one with drew, lucy and cameron. video games up the wazoo. ping pong. freaky david blaine like escaping crabs. food from home, thus allowing me to stick to my $15 weekend budget. attendance (and free food) at the best fifty-five year old birthday party i've ever seen. the married couples were playing a version of the newlywed game and all sorts of hilarious answers ensued. when you ask parental units questions like "what is the most attractive physical feature of your wife?" you don't normally expect staid chinese parents to bust you up with some semi-raunchy humor. i miss parental parties sometimes. watching parents is always a hoot. everyone's a big kid at heart i think.



lots of good conversation too. about all sorts of things. being an asian-american child, religion, poetry, politics, adamantium, the floatation properties of metal. good stuff ya'll. i wish people were paid to converse. like you give a person a quarter each time you learn something from them. then again, that would leave me broke as hell. but hey, that's not so different from now.



i'm leaving you with a snippet of a long poem by harry mathews called "histoire." which for some reason, sums up my weekend perfectly.



tina and seth met in the midst of an overcrowded militarism.

"like a drink?" he asked her. "they make great alexanders over at the marxism-leninism."

she agreed. they shared cocktails. they behaved cautiously, as in a period of pre-fascism.

afterwards he suggested dinner at a restaurant renowed for its maoism.

"ok," she said, but first she had to phone a friend about her ailing afghan, whose name was racism.

then she followed seth across town past twilit alleys of sexism.

while i was fantasy drafting, someone sent me an AIM. but in my rush to click around all my open windows, i denied their request to chat with me. (btw, there is no multi-tasking like trying to fantasy draft and organize and research everyone, all at the same time.) the thought of someone wanting to AIM me from afar, and then getting denied, bothered me. and now they are possibly banned by me. but i didn't mean it! and how do i know who they were? i'm so curious. maybe they were a fan? maybe it was some long lost friend. or just someone's new screen name. will i ever find out? if it was you, please speak up! i didn't diss you on purpose. promise. ah, the pathetic social life of sitting in front of the computer. and if you're reading this, you know what i'm talking about.



i also totally forgot about daylight savings today. obviously, nobody i hang out with has the prescence of mind to realize that we gained an hour today. i'm not sure if i'm proud of that fact or embarassed. either way, i woke up way too early to research for my draft and then sat online trying to figure out why nobody was on time. this is what happens when you have no structure in your life. embrace it.



addendum: how stupid do you have to be to make the same daylight savings mistake twice? real stupid. that's me. i went to this fellowship thing. started at six thirty. i roll up at what i think is seven ten. all late and everything. i get there. not a soul in sight. then the praise leader walks in, i introduce myself and ask "where is everybody?" he looks at me like i'm stupid (which we've already established...i am) and goes, "we don't start for another twenty minutes." *doh* but hey, at least i was on time for two things today, that's original.

so blogger was hacked. for a second, i saw my online life dripping down the drain. as i read about FTP, exposed passwords, inability to access blogger, all sorts of crazy things. my first thought was "how do i save all my stuff?" my second thought was "oh my gosh, i'm going crazy, i'm trying to save my own words for posterity. how gay am i?" luckily, i decided to just wait out the drama and cross my fingers and hope that nothing bad would happen to my corner of the blogiverse. and now, blogger is fine. patched up and ready to go. see, the close your eyes and pray theory works sometimes. not literally pray, but you know what i mean. anyway. it's good to know i was calm and clear in a panic situation. the prospect of all of blogger being comprimised did make me woozy though.



thanks to agent turbo for the timely tip. there's a big invisible medal of honor awaiting you at headquarters.

i don't want to be the filler if the void is solely yours

i don't want to be your glass of single malt whiskey

hidden in the bottom drawer

i don't want to be the bandage if the wound is not mine

-alanis morrisette, not the doctor-

a head of shattered dreams. john lackey celebrates a birthday today. born in 1978. just like me. twenty four years old. just like me. but what is he doing on his birthday? he's pitching in the world series. on his twenty fourth birthday. what did i do for my twenty fourth birthday? hell if i know. it sickens me to hear of all these teenage prodigies making millions. usually in sports. but also in the real world. i'm gonna totally ignore the kobes and garnetts of the world. i mean, they deserve to make millions of dollars. they're abnormally tall.



but for some reason, seeing some guy just a few months younger than me, starting on the mound for the world series, puts my life into proper perspective. i think i thought that i would've been a millionaire by twenty five. or was it thirty? that was maybe seven years ago, when i was young and stupid (as opposed to now, when i'm not so young and still stupid). at this rate, i'll be lucky if i can get to financial ground zero by twenty five. woe is me. well, not really. but still. twenty four. pitching for the baseball championship of the world. damn. is the grass greener on the other side or what?



funny story. well no. not funny. but true. in third grade, while talking to one of my friends in the cafeteria, i bet him that my dad had a million dollars. this being the height of my FOB-dom, i really had no clue how much a million dollars was, but i was sure my dad had it. (total tangent: strangely enough, the height of my FOB-dom coincided with the height of my popularity. which is kind of weird. i was seriously pretty cool in third grade. all my friends were the uber-cool people, thus making me cool by association. it was all downhill as my english improved however. damn america. anyhow.) this kid, the so-called friend, insisted that my dad didn't have a million dollars. of course, he was right. i had to go home, ask my dad how much a million was, and then concede the point that we probably didn't have that much. very humbling experience. but now, nearly sixteen years later, i know how much a million is, and i'm not so sure i'll see that many zeros in the near future. but hey, stranger things have happened. let's just hope it happens to me.



i'm out like the fat kid in dodge ball. (that's a nanaba saying, i'm just borrowing it)

ill communicado. i've been failing as an email buddy. i have hardly any inclination to return emails. even though i sit in front of a computer all day long. and wait anxiously for the little letter to appear at the bottom right of my screen. most of the time, it's junk mail, but sometimes, it's a real email, from a real person. but then i sit on it and wait to reply for days. and then weeks. and that'll stretch on and on.



i'm always cleaning out my inboxes too. now that i have broadband, i feel the need to constantly organize my email folders. everyone has a folder. or at least a group folder. and i toss emails into those, to save for posterity. so i can show my children. or something. if my life was as organized as my email folders, i would have conquered the world by now.



i used to be so good at emailing. long huge emails. written with sugar and spice and everything nice. i can't even remember using email in high school, but by sophomore year in college, i had some friends that i emailed every day that i'd barely met in person. which was cool. heck, some of the best things of my life have happened due to emailing. but then, ever since leaving school and going to new york, i've gone through occassional periods when i don't want to email anyone. or talk to anyone. and all these emails sit there alone and unanswered.



which is kind of okay. because everyone does it. but i read about CEOs who clear out their inboxes by answering everything ASAP. but that seems kind of drastic. wouldn't that just increase the pressure on your email buddy to reply immediately too? i mean, sometimes there's a pattern to emailing. three days, five days, one month. whatever. and if i suddenly replied as soon as possible to every email, wouldn't that just increase the amount of emails i would be writing every day? i think i can handle only a few email buddies at a time. spaced out in sporadic response times. there's the daily person, the weekly person, the long reply person......and so on. email is greatness though. does it make people better friends? does it make you get to know someone better? i think so. then again i could be wrong. i doubt it though.

triple five soul. standing around in the women's section of j crew, next to the sweaters and beaded belts and assorted female shoppers, we were trying to figure out who the best/worst dressed people are. this is the conclusion. all the girls we know, pretty much dress well. girls don't really make super fashion faux pas. they know how to match colors, styles, all that sort of stuff. some people are of course, much more fashionable than others, and do tons more shopping, but in general, all girls can put an outfit together.



even with guys, there aren't really any terrible dressers. looking at the twenty-ish crowd anyway. once you hit forty however, some fashion part of you must die and suddenly, all the clothes that don't go together, suddenly get slapped onto the wrong places. i'm very anti-shirt tucking. that's a no-no. especially the jeans and t-shirts tucked tightly in combo. dreadful. also, tie selection, some people have terrible tie selection. but i'm sure forty something people have better things to do than match colors.



and then there are some people who can just wear any style, put on any old thing, and it looks damn good. pretty sick actually. quite jealous. but anyhow. i wish i had lots of money to buy clothes. i want to be a shoe person. there are too many cool shoes out there. i want a whole stable of shoes. my closet will be filled to the brim with beautiful, super clean shoes that are hardly worn but look pretty. on or off. that is my dream and someday i will have it. i don't need porsches and expensive cars. just cool shoes. backpacks and man purses are cool too.



also. some girls just aren't hoodie sweatshirt girls. they can wear them, but it just looks like they're wearing somebody else's hoodie. oversized and baggy. that can be cute. but not all girls can do the hoodie and own the hoodie. not that it's a bad thing. just something i realized. yeah, i think about important things. and one more. girls who can rock visors. very dope. and bucket hats. that's an extra point too. and there's something about overalls. bonus. and girls who wear things in their hair (barrets, headbands, colorful things). excellente. cool earrings is a plus too. especially big hoop ones.

sent to me by the ill to the mo. "hey, at least it's not crack!" amen.

finally got to play lots of basketball today. three hours of it. outside. ucsd. greatness. didn't lose a game. not that the winning had much to do with me, but it was good. my knee is still kinda tweaky and i think i run funny and i'm sensitive to hurting it again, but at least now i can run full out. my friend, tim, is straight up the best baller i've ever seen. it's sick how good he is. that's why we kept on winning.



there's something totally irreplaceable about doing sports with guys. or i guess, girls too. but quite honestly, when it's all guys, there seems to be a magical sort of trash talking, stupid humor, competitive edge thing going on. not to knock on girls and athletics here but maybe you know what i mean. or i could just be totally wrong and chauvinistic. nah.

bottoms up. it's been a really really fucking good week. i'm looking back at what i was doing a week ago and it was straight greatness from then till now. nanaba was here last weekend of course. and there was some all nighter action. and hong's birthday. and some mafia. and visitors from other southern californian locales.



and i've pretty much kept to a good schedule this week. sleeping early. getting up on time. even semi-early. ten o'clock on tuesday and thursday. eight o'clock on monday, wednesday and friday. having a big house to myself wasn't frightening because babbs was here, kicking it for a few days. and i went to all my classes (well, i skipped one to talk to somebody, but i was technically on campus). and i ate. and i kept the house clean. and i took out the trash. it's like now i can notch one "responsible" week under my belt. strangely, i rather enjoyed it. knowing that my week wasn't a total waste and that i did productive things. could this be a mature side of jon kicking in? perhaps. but i'll have to string another week together with this one to call it truly a sign of things to come. consistency is the key to goodness. ain't that a bitch. i hate that actually.



it's like when you get As on all your tests and then get one lone B- and your grade drops like a mother. and climbing from a lower grade to a higher grade is insanely tough. it's not fair. but really, i'm not here to whine. i'm here to gloat over one week of fulfilled everything. i'm expecting fireworks, awards and medals any day now....

girl i know this might seem strange

but let me know if i'm out of order

for stepping to you this way

see i've been watching you for a while

and i just gotta let you know

that i'm really feeling your style

cause i have to know your name

and leave you with my number

and i hope that you would call me someday

if you want you can give me yours too

and if you don't i ain't mad at'cha

we can still be cool cause



i'm not trying to pressure you

just can't stop thinkin' 'bout you

you ain't even really gotta be my girlfriend

i just wanna know your name

and maybe some time

we can hook up, hang out, just chill

-musiq soulchild, just friends-

bada bing. what's the deal with strip clubs? nudie bars? paying women to undress and romp around a pole? i so don't get it. i hear it's a big thing. as evidenced by the multitude of strip clubs everywhere. i can recall right here in san diego, driving by cheetahs all the time. a big pink barn of a building, advertising nude women and giant neon lips. i'm not even really confused by the objectification of women. because that happens every day. but on a smaller level, i can't comprehend the whole enjoyment of strip clubs. a group of guys (and maybe girls) gets together to spend money, go watch some disinterested chicks strip, make some rude comments, drink some beers, and then they go off into the night. how unsatisfying. why not some scrabble or some chess instead?



i can feel people going to strip clubs once or twice out of novelty or curiosity. but to make it a habit. that strikes me as weird. or maybe it's not weird. since it seems as if lots of full blooded american males enjoy strip clubs. do i, and the majority of the guys i know, just not get it? why is it we would not want to be caught dead in a strip club? is it that we respect women more? i doubt it. is it that we aren't really into women? i doubt it. but strip clubs, like porn, seems a weird evil to me. necessary perhaps, but evil. then again, not even really evil. because in the capitalisation of life, you gotta do what you gotta do. just don't take me along. i can't think of anything more uncomfortable than watching random girls strip for pay. how is it gratifying or satisfying? ah, if only i had answers.

meeting new people. it's now a process. it used to be a little more carefree. people just popped up. by simply being in a college environment, there was an endless supply of people walking in and out of your daily existence. even if you never really went out of your way to talk to people, they inevitably will wander into your life. friends will have other friends. organizations will have people. parties will be filled with random people. meeting new people in college is easy. it's the after life when meeting people becomes hard.



most people (i'm basing this on me, so the use of "most" is a little bit of a reach) emerge from college with a pretty good grasp of who they are. they know what kinds of people appeal to them. what kinds of things they like to do. the days of randomly wandering the streets are over, and the social sphere can be very limited. on one hand, you have the people you already know. and that is comfortable. but then that fact makes it hard to reach out of that comfort zone.



where do the cool people hang out? where are those people, who are mad cool, but don't work with you, live with you, know you from before, don't belong to bars and clubs.....where do they go? there is no one place for the fun, yet not super party people, to hang out and meet and greet. coffee shops? denny's? fumari's? where can you meet people? i guess that's why so many people go out to bars and clubs so much post college. it's the socially accepted place to make new friends.



not that i want new friends of course. i'm just wondering, were i in a position to have to go meet a whole new group of people, what would i do? where would i go? i would want to just skip all that initial BS and launch into a friendship ASAP. if we get along, cool. if we don't, next.

just one

one love

everybody's just one

well thats how i universally greet the whole entire world

and focus on the energy that would make your skin curl

the one strategy, the one universal plan

the master blueprint, one survival for all man

i self lord am

-busta rhymes and erykah badu, one-

i'm a beau-ti-ful butterfly! it's time. to see if a change can indeed be made. if i can make myself a non jealous person. if i can try to pretend to believe in rational, logical things. if i can have faith in the power of mind of matter. then i should be able to do this. *this* is reshaping myself into a responsible person. into a person with conviction, heart, timeliness, organization and maturity. and ability to suck up my gut and do things that i don't really want to do.



my mom is gone. for a month. which means i have a whole month alone. and strangely, i'm going to try to be good. as in, work, study, eat, sleep, as well as play. i'm even going to try to wake up earlier than ten minutes before i'm supposed to be somewhere. is it possible to flip a one eighty and become something you're not? i think so. i would like to believe that anything is possible if you want it badly enough. and what's been holding me back is the fact that i haven't been wanting to face responsibility. but now, approaching one year, it's not a matter of want anymore. it's a need. if i can't do it now, i better find myself a different line of work.



the last few years, i've been advocating the idea that jealousy can be eliminated, insecurity can be eliminated, everything can be eliminated. now the question is: can laziness be eliminated too? the answer is probably yes. i wonder, if i become a responsible non-lazy jon, will i still be jon? that's a question for another day i guess. and a moot one if i never get to a proper responsible level. i want to declare this day as a "the beginning of the new me", but my motivation tends to wax on and wax off. and i said i would sleep at midnight. and here it is. 12:34am. that's strike one already. off to a rip roaring start people.



(brian had a really good metamorphosis quote on his desk a few years back. i don't remember it however. but it would of fit.)

it's been altogether too long since i've stayed up all night. i didn't make it sadly. i think i fell asleep for thirty minutes or so. i can remember being able to pull all nighters at the drop of a hat. and now, i'm only good up till about seven am. all this plus my brain was busting out when i played basketball on friday. little men, pounding big drums in my head. i think it's the nicotine. or the lack of proper exercise in nearly a year. it's kind of scary. to think that i haven't full out ran in almost a year. how i keep my girlish figure i'll never know. but now i'm back. and ready to play basketball again. middle schoolers of the world beware.

niche. host. attending son. shy twelve year old. confused. observer. entertainer. procrastinator. uncomfortable greeter of new acquaintances. see-er of old friends. advice giver. manipulative soothsayer. annoyed. cure all for work doldrums. level nine warcrafter. funny. awkward. inspired. unavailable. skipper of class. late. i was all these things today. needless to say, it was a good day.

from caren wilson. hi, how are you? sorry i haven't been able to get back to you for a while. i've been so busy with work and school... tired of it all. =( anyways i was going through my mail and saw your letter so i thought i would say "hi" you are from here, hard to find a decent person in this town. =( you are one of the only normal replys i have gotten on that service. everyone i have talked seems to have some kind of mental problem. =)~ sorry my reply isn't long i have to get going i just started this new job and they might get the wrong idea if i'm late the first month. anyways keep in touch...email me at smartandsassy33@yahoo.com. i keep on getting stupid emails in this box hard to find people. bye.



this is the most personal spam i've ever gotten. my gosh they're getting good. they even emailed this thing to my umich account, along with three other umich addresses that i didn't recognize. i was tripping for a second, thinking i knew a caren wilson. but of course, when she said "decent" person, i knew she wasn't talking to me. what's funny though is how real this email could be. i mean, the "busy with work and school." the "anyways keep in touch." all marks of a typical short paragraphed email. is that funny? or is that sad?

h to the izzo. i haven't taken an i-zone picture in two months. mainly because the cost of film would make me starve. not that i'm starving. but i'm having a hard time justifying spending six bucks for twelve little sticky pictures. but i kind of miss my i-zone. then again, i haven't bought a pack of cigarettes in about two weeks either. so i've probably saved myself dozens of dollars this month. where all that spare money went, who the hell knows. i don't even have any of the money i hid from myself earlier in the month. that's scrapping the bottom of the financial barrel. maybe i should work for money. wow. what a novel idea.

popcorn clouds. it's only occured to me recently that people don't normally have much of a say in where they get to live. after college, finding a job is muy importanto. and that could mean moving to all sorts of crazy places. especially if your job requires you to pack up and move every so often. i want to live in san diego. or at least los angeles. but i'm thinking that in twenty years, i'll look back and realize that i've lived in a bunch of places i never really wanted to. because life just happens. and when you factor in the possiblity of marriage, it adds to more moving. i mean, what happens if the girl likes the east coast? it never even crossed my mind that my wife might want to live somewhere other than san diego. what if she likes cold ass winters and east coast things? what do we do then? i don't want to go out there. i want to stay here. between two people having careers, the possibility of losing jobs, gaining jobs, personal preferences, whatever, it seems like we'll never get to really choose where we want to be.



and if that's the case, why should i be so adverse to hiking up and going somewhere? china even? if the twenties and thirties are about transience, then coming and going should be an accepted part of life. perhaps my unwillingness to not do something i don't like--but is seemingly a fact of life-- is stupid and extremely short sighted. then again, we knew that.

calvin: i've decided i suffer from low self-esteem.

calvin's dad: is that a fact.

calvin: from now on, my goal is to feel good about myself.

calvin's dad: you're going to work harder at everything and build some character?

calvin: no, i'm going to whine until i get the special treatment i like.

calvin's dad: i wonder if anyone else is as scared about the future as i am.

calvin: i've found that immediate gratification is the only thing that helps me.

i have no night vision. i am a lamb, walking through the valley of darkness. i need to lean down very close to the ground to make sure that i don't fall and slip and crack my ass on rocks. or worse, fall into the ocean and drown. this is what happens when you go lobster fishing without any lights. but the waves were calm. the tide was low. and the moon was nowhere to be found. and the lobster king caught six lobsters. and nobody else caught more than none. i'm too girly to bother with bait, so once my squid got taken off the hook, i gave up and just started to soak in the atmosphere, watching the king go about his business.



i love san diego. where else can you be standing on the beach at three in the morning. perfectly warm. perfectly content. scrambling madly over exposed barnacles trying to maintain some semblance of balance. i really shoulda eaten more carrots when i was little. i would die very very quickly in a blank dark space. either out of fear or quietly moving predators. either way, it wouldn't be pretty. and even though i've yet to actually catch anything, i'm proving to be exceptionally proficient at finding hidden puddles that soak your shoes and your socks with nasty cold seawater.

there's too much estrogen up in herrre--take off all your clothes! let's break it down. imagine the scene if you will. jon walks into a room, all heads turn around (because i'm late, as usual). all forty female heads turn around. no males. just females. what the?!? is this the fuel for nightmares? for dreams? am i in heaven? or just a very segregated and complicated hell? is this venus? did i swing a left when i shoulda scooted a right and somehow ended up in some giant women's bathroom? is this the amazon? what the hell? where am i? a-ha. women in english literature: the brontes.



i've seen movies where a guy takes a feminism class, to either get in touch with his feminine side, or to pick up chicks. this character sits smack dab in the middle of hundreds of women and everyone giggles when he raises his hand in class to spout male macho-isms. i however, snuck to the nearest available back corner and tried to blend in. among the ponytails, the long flowing hair, the bared upper arms, the perfumed scent of feminine rage. i ask again, what am i doing here?



honestly, i don't want to take this class. but i need to. all the other 3:30-4:50pm classes are either closed or cancelled. i don't want to read about jane eyre. i don't want to be drenchingly nauseated by romance. but if i must. i will. i will shoulder this burden for the good of my eventual undergraduate degree. i looked around in a quiet panic, scanning the room for signs of subtelligent malean life. where are my brothers? i cannot fight this war alone! i need wing men, boys to men, men-at-arms, se(a)men, or quite simply, men! not men-strual cycles! what the........this could prove to be interesting........

some people call me the space cowboy, yeah…

some call me the gangster of love.

some people call me maurice.

cause i speak of the pompitous of love.



who do you talk to when you need relationship advice? and does their advice ever really help? or is it just reassuring to have another opinion? having been on the giving and receiving end of lots of relationship advice, i've decided it sucks to give out advice. all you can really think of saying is the generic, "it takes time, trust them, be careful, blah blah blah." everyone knows what to do but does it help to have someone remind you of it? in our more rational helpful moments, everyone says the same types of generic things. rarely is something super profound coming out of a friend's (or my) lips. this makes my case for trying to think up the answers to every relationship situation before you actually get into a relationship. this is of course, like trying to make strategic plans for war before actually engaging in war. pretty useless.



one other thing i've realized. friends are always right. they give you this basic generic advice but the reason is that it's right. in nearly every case, the friends always turn out right in their assessment of the relationship. when you get to the point where everyone you know is saying that you should bail, 90% of the time, they are seeing stuff that you are refusing to admit to. it's tough, because there is a 10% chance that the two of you in the relationship see what nobody else sees. but as well intentioned and beautiful as that is, listen to your friends. because they know what's going on. this doesn't mean listen to everyone of course. just listen to the people that you trust, and if they say bail.......draw the damn horse and holler "abort abort!'