![[icon]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/37125477/3897943) |
ain't no gyroscope can spin forever, yeah.
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| .... if you've never driven to a casino at one in the morning on a whim because you and corey buran ran into two guys you kinda know at a bar...
...you should. just saying. | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment   |
| i debated back and forth if i should have left my old post up. decided not to.
everyone knows how I feel, anyway.
i'm totally fine except for one thing. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I was at work today all day and I composed this big thing about times in my life I've "redefined" myself internally. Times I decided to embrace things about myself I previously didn't like. The Alex Bad thing, a few times in high school. After freshman year of college when I decided to stop using the "depressed" tag.
And I still believe it, but I don't think it would be honest to post it now. Not as a big "this is it!"
I have a few things to tie up before school's over for the semester. I do plan to stick to the weight loss program that has so far been only marginally successful and it might not even be this summer. I don't know if I'll get to the novel. I can't focus.
I'm not unraveling like I thought I'd be. I can't believe she left and I can't believe the reasons even more than that. It seems wrong the way bad dreams do, where people can fly so you know that it isn't real. Someone can't wake up and take themselves out of your life. They can't, not without warning. But they can. She did.
There's never going to be a big hatred post. No one really dropped a "you can do better" or anything. I think everyone I talked to understood that this was something I'd finally bought in on and it was supposed to be a big step. To borrow a line, this was "the person you never run out of falling in love with."
I don't need to get married at 24. I don't need to move in with anyone. I won't have a lot of money (any money?) and I have less than a complete picture of the future. But she at least opened the door. She helped me see that I COULD do that SOMEDAY. She always told me the same thing, if more cautiously, until the day she didn't.
This doesn't cause me to cast down the whole "I'LL NEVER TRUST AGAIN!" but when you go this long and this hard believing you've really broken the ice on going to the next step of your life, having your partner in it leave with essentially no fanfare and absolutely no warning is even more terrifying than a flaming breakup.
It went from 100 to 0 in about twelve hours.
Imagine waking up tomorrow and every sure thing breaks away. I'm not going to do anything drastic.
I just can't believe it's real. I keep expecting her to call up and say this is just like Bradley where she spent a few days demanding she needed an extra semester. Or all the times she went through rough patches with family and friends, most of which she made good with again. Like me, she's a worrier and dramatic. She takes things to heart and she gets wounded pretty easily. I always loved that passion about her, and to see her end it in a twenty minute instant message with sincerity, but really in a subdued way.... it doesn't click.
I keep expecting her to be the girl I knew for two years instead of the one i've known for less than a week. The one I really don't know at all.
----
I know everyone is going through rough times of their own right now. I'm trying to listen and I hope those of you who are graduating make some lasting memories and enjoy your last few days at this level.
----
Since I'll say it eventually, I may as well say it now. We had our problems, but we worked. And that's not something I'm good at - but I tried to listen and improve. I loved her in a way I wasn't sure I could, because all the callous mistakes of my past seemed unthinkable with her.
I don't believe in soulmates. I think Abby and I were lucky to find each other on a quasi-double date outside a bar we hated. She was a very special person, and one of the few people I can say I ever truly loved.
I don't think there's anything else to say. Barring unexpected developments, the story of Abby and I is over like that. We had fights, arguments, petty pot-shots at each other and months and months of love and respect.
I'm really not holding anything back. I'm angry, but more angry at the situation. She made an honest case, and you can't fault someone for that. I never felt like I was re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic with her. Every step felt like a real step, not repressed problems that come out in a fight. I tried, especially in the last six months, to do everything I could to make it work. So did she, to the point of making concessions I didn't expect.
I'm not really miserable, because I'm not sure how to respond. It all seems so unreal, so unexpected that it's like it couldn't have happened. I can't blame her for doing what she wants to do. If being with me isn't making her happy, then why would I want that for her? I would want to work it out, if there were anything to work out. But if there's not, then it's just over.
There's going to be sad nights, especially since I just saw her and we were so happy. The summer will probably see some weak moments, but I've already trained myself to stop checking her AIM and I deleted our text history, because it made me sad. You can't purge someone from your memory and I wouldn't want to. It never went bad, so I can't even find blame. It's just a blank space.
And it ends with an apology, as it only could have.
I'm sorry I wasn't what she wanted, but apparently she believes I never will be. And maybe I can't be. If she thinks she's right, then that's the only vote that counts. And that's how it ends. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| i wake up early for no reason and force myself to go back to sleep.
i sleep for twenty seven more minutes.
i dream we are in new york. austin duck, who i have not seen in a long time, is there.
she is there.
we get on a bus. she sits on my lap. i tell her, "i didn't expect to see you again."
she smiles.
i wake up.
i'm alone. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Reply with Five Things you think everyone in the world should experience but that few people have, along with your reasoning. So it can't just be something that's awesome, it has to be something awesome that the people in this LJ group haven't come into contact with. Hamlet would be a shitty example, because half the people here have read it already. There's no real limit, but try to keep it more on objects like books and food and less on experiences like "you should go to rome."
I lifted this from Andrew and Nata, and I liked theirs. Mine will be worse. I don't care if you like these things, but these are things you can experience if you do so choose.
1. Life After God (book)
Douglas Coupland is the kind of guy that I cannot stand, but I have to respect. I've read five of his books, and he's just weird. He supposedly popularized Generation X as a term and most of his themes deal with this ironic/hip/not-hip world we live in and the things we choose to identify with. Ramen noodles = poor and lonely lifestyle, MS Word = work, but a tool you come to identify with, etc.
I wouldn't have expected to like it, but Kenton turned me on to him years and years ago and I've given Microserfs out to just about everyone that's asked for a book rec. Life After God is about mortality and how you experience it before you actually die. It shook my whole world view and I read it in one night. I used to give it to everyone as a gift, I've probably bought it at least four times. It's something you could walk into Borders and read in a chair, and if you ever find yourself in that situation, I'd suggest it.
2. The Devil and Daniel Johnston (movie) or Daniel Johnston (music)
I am interested in things I can't explain but get well regarded reviews. I spent a long time trying to understand Radiohead's appeal as THE BIGGEST BAND IN THE WORLD and I think I'm as close as I ever will get. Bands like Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade, Muse, and half of the XMU Indie Radio line up just elude me completely. I listen to Animal Collective and I feel like there must be something wrong with me, because that stuff is 0/10 no stars bad to me. Sounds like screams and banging.
Some of this is cultivated hatred and some is just a difference of taste. But outsider music has always interested me. Daniel Johnston is about as popular as an outsider musician can get, and I got a bunch of his music to see. Jon used to listen to what he explained as "creepy" music. I'd call this a tributary of that, at least. Johnston was in love with a girl when he was younger, and she married a mortician. He essentially dedicated the rest of his life to her memory and his obsessions. His music is interesting as a look into his mind. He is very clearly mentally ill - he once threw the keys out of a plane his father was flying at the time and forced a crash. He is alternatively deeply religious (afraid of The Devil, Satan, Hell, etc) and into secular culture and drugs. He's also in the second half of his life and still lives with his parents. So, yeah.
The movie is a documentary about his life. I wouldn't call myself a "fan" of Daniel Johnston, but this movie puts a lot of issues into perespective - and the scene where they track down the woman he pined for through outsider music for decades and introduce her to him as a musician and somewhat closet star, well, that's worth the price of admission, right there.
3. High Fidelity (book)
Obviously see the movie, but that doesn't fit the assignment's requirements. The book has a lot of themes that hit close to home. I read this on the airplane and in the Detroit airport when I went to Chicago for my last Goats concert. I saw the film first, and I'm glad to have done it, but the book really is a treat. It has a somewaht different feel, in a good way.
4. Goose Island 312
Named after the area code in Chicago, this beer is delicious. I like a lot of beers in a wide range (except for Guinness, which is somewhat difficult for me to explain. I know I'm supposed to like it, but if I want beef and barley soup I can get that elsewhere) but this is my favorite. It might be that "go to rome' aspect that I only love it because I cannot get it here, but I really enjoy it whenever I go back. It's something I can drink a lot of and the taste never becomes unimportant. It defies description.
5. IHOP Coffee
I cut my coffee-teeth on Waffle House with Ashley and Jon and Jen and Lindsay and the like. I spent my fair share of time in CK's with Kenton and a rotating crew of people I didn't know well, yet. But there's something about the coffee at IHOP, which those of you who were a few weeks back can attest to. I won't say it's the best coffee in the world, but it's definitely the closest to what I expect from coffee. It surprised me, too.
If I had a six, it would be "Things I've Learned from Women Who Dumped Me" in the audiobook format. If for no reason other than "Don't Leave Room for the Holy Spirit" by Tom McCarthy, which is thirteen minutes you owe it to yourself to listen to.
Seven would be EarthBound for the SNES. Game is great. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| This is totally unedited. In AP English, five years ago, Mrs. Parker made us all write a letter to ourselves in five years. At the time, if I'm not mistaken, Morgan and I were together and doing well (as well as we ever did) and I expected to be about where I am now. Those days are somewhat of a blur. This was written on the day that I stood up against Dan Cummings, which is an interesting day to remember. Five years from now I'll be 28 - who knows where that will put me.
5/11/04 12:00 PM Senior Year - AP English
Hey,
Today, you spent the day bickering at people about gay rights. That's because, at 18 you were mighty pissed at all sorts of things.
Remember that anger. Write your book. Fight for what you believe.
The most important thing in life is that you feel OK with everything that happens.
So long as every night, you can say that's true, then life is as good as it gets. That's all you'll ever need to know.
Little failures only matter if you let them.
But you only get better when you let them.
Love,
Yourself
(this is the back:)
Tucker, Jon, Adam, Brent, Morgan
These are the people you'd die for.
Doug, Leigh, Jessica, Jessica Bode, Andrew, Natalie, John Arnold, Austin Duck, Stephanie
These are the rest that you love, if not all at once.
Never forget these people, and never remember your grudges.
Life's too short, and you're too lucky.
JUST BE OKAY, du calme, c'est la vie , and stall for time. life will be okay, despite your detractors.
| | comments: 10 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | BUSY | | Time: | 06:02 pm |
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| I am glad to see LJ come back.
I have been ridiculously busy lately but doing well.
I got my letter from five years ago, I'll type it up this week. There are lols in it.
I have to go read about England! | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| I just deleted my deadjournal.
Those days are only embarrassing. Probably going to purge the old livejournal, too.
If you have any memories from my old journal ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) zander019 go ahead and back them up or whatever. I'll probably delete it soon.
| | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| Actually, I'm just calling the pool off. I'll mail back any money I get. People didn't seem too interested and being this far away from each other without paypal seemed doomed from the get go.
HOWEVER, there's a couple (fifteen at writing) folks in my facebook pool at
http://apps.facebook.com/cbssports/groups/group/179084
so join up if you want bragging rights.
Name's "I Am Right About Everything And Now You Know That, Like Me"
I think that says it all. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| This is the day they announce the brackets.
We are all scattered across the USA, but we are doing this.
I am going to host a pool. To enter my pool, mail me five dollars in cash or check or mail order or whatever you wish. If you get me five dollars to:
Alex Bad
3471 Bent Creek Cv
Collierville, TN 38017
Then you are in. I will invite people by facebook to said pool. The winner will get a check for all the money I get after the national championship game. Alex Good and other non-facebook users post a bracket in the comments of this post.
If you want to bring me the money or have me meet you in town, that's fine too. I know this doesn't seem like much money, but you wouldn't MISS five bucks if you didn't have it - but don't you want 150 bucks?
Post here if you mailed it. I'll start inviting after brackets go live. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | MARCH | | Time: | 03:04 pm |
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| If I were to do a winner take all March Madness pool on facebook for five bucks, who would do it?
Comment here if you'd be willing to put five bucks down. | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| Saw Watchmen.
I know, read the book.
I know. You've told me.
Seriously, I know.
It was okay. Parts of it were pornography and senseless. It was really entertaining, the ending was lousy as hell, and the love story was asinine.
Night Owl was really boring.
Every single other thing was great. I was on the edge of my seat and I loved it. But in my opinion it suffers from that all too common problem of not hacking up about twenty minutes of it. "Murder your darlings."
Seriously, that sex scene was hilariously awful.
But the rest was exciting. Worth seeing, for sure. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| Stephanie, Kay, Bailey, Adam, everyone else who was in AP English five years ago...
...remember those letters you wrote "to yourself" five years in the future?
P-Law just told me she's mailing them this weekend.
What do you think yours says? I have no idea what mine says but this is going to be GREAT.
Sidenote: It just occurred to me that I think Bailey was not in AP. I think he had Hendrix. I don't know who was in sixth period. Maybe he was. He is, in my mind.
I have been unable to remember who was and who wasn't. The more I think about it now I think he might have been in that class. But it would have to be sixth because of Newspaper. Bailey, what the fuck? All I know is that fourth period was full of creative, interesting people and sixth period probably sucked.
We were great. We still are!
Well, except for Adam.
(sixth period sucks) | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| Something I've been thinking of a lot lately...
...if you could relive one year of your life, which would it be?
I don't mean calendar year. Just, like, "the year I lived in italy" or "sophomore year". Assuming you would not be able to know what was happening, and it's just like you are watching a movie of yourself from inside your body.
I'm not completely sure, for myself, but the idea interests me.
Which would you, and why? | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| I was walking back through LJ and found this:
A run down of each player:
1. Taylor: Measuring in at a clean 12" tall, Taylor Almond brings a certain je ne sais quoi to the trivia table. Best remembered for his work on Rule 34, Taylor was the player who brought us the answer to New Zealand's capital -- Wellington. Taylor is a great mid-level man to have on any team because of his cooperative nature and his level-headedness, much needed to prevail in moments of low morale and cluth moments.
Top Answer Speed: 55wpm, downhill
2. Alex Bad: Bad is loud, knowledgeable and he knows it. But fear not, this salty competitor knows better than to scream anything other than Mountain Goats lyrics from the tables at Buffalo Wild Wings. Alex's strengths lie in obscure band names, literature, presidents, and losing the upper hand which could work to his disadvantage in high stress situations. All in all, Alex brings a strong presence and an undeniable wealth of trivial knowledge.
Forecast: 100% chance of Mountain Goats
3. Alex Good: When I think of a good slow player, I think of Alex Good. Give that man a beer or 4 and he'll pull sports, history, even movies factoids out of the depths of his sloshy repository without batting an eye. As the ultimate "indoor kid," Marino has an advantage in that he has infinite hours to scour Wikipedia and other useful websites preceding the competition.
Trivial Mount: Ted
4. Tucker: Mr. Five has the advantage of high school experience, just like a few other competitors in our midst. The only thing he doesn't want you to know is that Tucker is a better Alex Trebec than Ken Jennings, if you know what I mean.
Likelihood of Convincing You His Wrong Answer Is Right: 95%, Code Orange Level
5. Bode: As chief stenographer of trivia nights, Djbode is responsible for writing many of the answers that got us this far. Jessica has been know to drop a bomb or two, baby, during trivia bouts by knowing capital cities of faraway places, things about Africa, and why Marconi plays the mamba. MIA for a few days, Jessica's reclusive nature could work in her favor, similarly to Good's "indoor kid-ness."
Trivia Makes Her Feel: pretty. oh, so pretty.
6. Morgan: Morgan "The Lumberjack" Gibson has missed quite a few trivia nights which is her biggest disadvantage in this tournament. That aside Morgan is a decent trivia player but often misplaces answers as a result of too much or too little confidence. (20 points, Chameleon- respectively). If you want someone who knows things that you probably know too on your team, Morgan's your girl. Also, if you need to know about musicals, she is your girl.
Brain Weight: 1.83637E-14 Gigawatts^2
7. Natalie: This half pint of sweet tea half drunk up is leading the board in cuteness. Don't let the gingery goodness fool you though. Weezy knows lots of stuff, especially about France, pop musics and culture, presidents, and Joey Fatone. Natalie's sole weakness is that sometimes she doesn't speak up which could work to her disadvantage.
PhD: Building the team back up from a defeat!
8. Fletcher: Get this man a bucket of beer and some wings because when Mr. Caulk pulls up to the bar he means business, if answering sports questions is the definition of business. Fletcher is a great competitor and loves throwing in a snide comment or two between knowing the answer for the point value of a bullseye.
They Call Him Candleguy: simply cause he is on fire.
9. Bailey: Bailey "The Stick" Everett is mostly likely to be singing along to the music playing in between questions and pumping his fist furiously after answering a question about a movie or actor or something equally cinematic. He will make you chuckle, he will make you slap your forehead in disbelief.
Favorite Interlude: "The Final Countdown"
10. Alex Darling: While this creeper started out as a relatively quiet member of trivia nights, AD has stepped his game up in recent weeks providing invaluable medical knowledge as well as superb flirtation skills in turning in answers. Mr. Darling may well have eased his way into the pants of the trivia hosts but, assuredly, the only Alex without a suffix has earned a spot as a clutch player.
Attack: paper cuts
Team A
Alex Bad, Morgan, Fletcher, Bode, Bailey
Team B
Alex Good, Tucker, Taylor, Alex Darling, Natalie
DISCUSS. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| My full netflix queue:
1. Eulogy
2. Funny Ha Ha
3. The House of Yes
4. Wristcutters
5. The Corporation
6. The Producers
7. The Third Man (Disc 1)
8. The Third Man (Disc 2)
9. Dirty Harry
10. Sudden Impact
11. Dog Day Afternoon
12. French Connection
13. Glengarry Glen Ross
14. Metropolis (1927)
15. Metropolis (2001)
16. Pi: Faith in Chaos
17. Garden State
18. Crash
19. For the Bible Tells Me So
20. Man on Wire
I cut a list of about 300 things I sort-of wanted to see to a list of 20 that I do want to see. I've seen Pi and Garden State but they were both years and years ago and I think I have a false opinion of both. Dog Day Afternoon, House of Yes, Man on Wire, Eulogy, and Funny Ha Ha are all for this weekend.
I find that I never have anything I really want to see. After those I need to knock out:
21. Thelma and Louise
22. North by Northwest
23. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
24. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
25. An Inconvenient Truth
26. Bonnie and Clyde
27. Lost in Translation
28. Casablanca
Some of these are bad omissions that I have no explanation for why I haven't seen them. After finally watching The Devil and Daniel Johnston, Annie Hall and Network (and some other movies I'd been meaning to see for as long as I can remember) I realize I've been missing a lot of things I have no excuse to have missed.
Thanks for the suggestions last time and I try to be open to ideas, but I'm not really big on action movies or "so bad it's good" stuff. I'm not really a "classics" guy, either, but I've only seen part of Casablanca and that's dumb.
What else should I see, and why? | | comments: 13 comments or Leave a comment |
| I should be reading this book, and I'll go back to it in a second.
Tyler recently updated his journal for the first time in years, and it was weird to see it. I re-read his old posts, and then went walking through Amanda DeStephano's posts, and took a glance at Diana and Mike's defunct journals. It made me think about 2005 and how different everything was back then. I didn't know almost anyone I know now. Not well, at least.
I'm hard on my nineteen year old self, and just talking to Elyse and Corey today reminded me of some really dumb things I did in those days. Reading Amanda bemoaning terrible nights and broken parties puts those days in perspective.
I think it's funny how the location change to Memphis again has put Peoria in a strange place. I haven't thought of those days anymore. But the memory of being so upset at myself for losing a racquetball match as Brent's doubles partner and drowning it in a seven and seven in our dorm room just came back to me. It is strange to remember 2005, when I felt out of place and turned everything around through a drinking game based on a sitcom and a literary magazine.
I think everyone feels like they make mistakes a lot in their life. I think my life has been fine, so far. And the memory of consoling a friend who got dumped an awful lot, now that I look at Amanda's Bradley years in perspective, really makes me think.
I had a great time at Bradley, despite myself. And I'm glad I can appreciate those years, even if I can't really articulate it right now. I need to be reading, but I hope, and this part is essentially just to future-Alex, that when you look back on this in four years that you remember the failures, constant social anxiety, the beginnings of a multi-year nicotine addiction, the half-dozen breakups and bad decisions at parties, and essentially the clusterfuck of being ninteenish and never seeming to know how to act around anyone... I hope you remember it for what it really was.
Tyler and I developed a theory at one party that nineteen is the worst year of your life. I don't know if it's true. You could tell, over cigars and pale ales, that Tyler was wounded by a few too many people. Mike, Diana, Amanda, Kyle, everyone back then seemed to get the short end of the stick a lot. That's what Beer and Becker meant to me. It's what it still does.
Sometimes you walk home from a party and no one is happy, no one wants to be with each other, and no one can remember why they hang out with each other in the first place. Sometimes you roll around in newspaper angrily, sometimes you fall asleep in a chair, sometimes you refuse to go out and elect to drink a jug of milk and watch a sitcom from ten years ago. Sometimes you watch Becker and drink two dollar beer.
Life isn't what happens when you stop doing that. And the people that matter are the ones that can see you the next day and buy the next round. Or go to lunch and joke about the charity bowling game.
Some people have a sports team or a club. I have B&B. And if I've played it with you, as I have with a lot of you, then you know what it means to me. It's not about the show. It's not about the beer.
You get the picture.
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unrelated: http://likeiwassaying.livejournal.com/9619.html this post is really funny, especially because some of these people (shell, kate, eliot, vincent, melissa) I haven't talked to for any length of time in years and I'd never have guessed the ones that would still be in my life. Some of my judgments of people are really funny because I would say exactly the same thing now. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| i've got some time to kill, and something funny happened. before i used lj for screaming and youtube videos, i guess it was a journal.
last night something happened that used to happen all the time. i've been going to memphis parties with corey, and it is seemingly impossible to not run into at least one person you know at these.
it's always someone i haven't seen in five years or more. last night it was a guy i essentially haven't even heard about since then. nice guy, but we were never close.
the conversation always goes the same way. we talk about what we've done since high school and about how that was a long time ago. then, seemingly every time, they say what this guy said:
"man, i saw stephanie a while back!"
i have to laugh like hell. he also wanted to inform me that she graduated from vandy, and that that is a good school. it was funny.
i don't know why this strikes me as funny, but whoever says you can't go home again has never walked into 2002 every other friday. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
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ain't no gyroscope can spin forever, yeah.
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