and now what dusty decay
old journal, old friends.
it has been awhile.
it's just been awhile. and that's okay.
we get busy. we forget.
but reading old entries of mundane days i would have likely otherwise forgotten, i will update in hopes of not forgetting recent thoughts and currently remembered memories.
...
so where to start.
i met erica, for the second time around. she was dave's first girlfriend and our long hated nemesis for much of high school. after a long night of unbelievably heavy drinking i ended up at her house w/ allison and lloyd. it was fun but it was nothing. i woke up in the middle of the night shaking and counting backwards from a hundred in the apartment me dave and jeremy still shared. and this "thing" with erica remained nothing for a weekend or two. and then it blossomed into something at allison's grandmas. and for a long period of time i thought the world had finally come around. after multiple false starts and mistakes, it seemed as though everything was falling into place. i swear.
we spent a night walking through the rain at allisons grandmas house that will linger for a lifetime in my most cherished memories. allisons grandmother lived in the middle of nowhere, no street lights, neighbors five miles down the road. after a long night of drinking i put on a pair of shoes i did not own and we set out into the darkness our hands outstretched in front of us. we lost the driveway, we lost the grass, but eventually we found the road and we walked back and forth in the black and the rain for hours. and fell asleep in a bed in the basement very far apart and with clothes soaking into the sheets.
after some unbelievable earth shatteringly awful events, she moved back to auburn from jersey, and pretty much set up camp at our apartment. which was good. great, even. it was always something to look forward to.
then... well
jeremy and leslie moved out, leaving me dave and erica. then rent went up. then dave decided to get his own apartment. then we moved into an apartment with incredible character, but it was approximately 3 feet by 5 feet. and as it turns out (many months and broken ashtrays later) erica was extremely bi polar. and extremely unmedicated.
so that was fun.
moved onto chestnut street. much bigger apartment. we had our space. and it was here erica eventually came to terms with shit. started going to a doctor.. blah blah
we also got super fat and comfortable and lazy.
then we moved to syracuse. to an apartment so fancy its like i wake up every morning in a hotel. okay... maybe a motel. but fuck. we have a bathroom AND a vanity bathroom. and there's a pond. and geese and ducks. and a working fireplace. and... i dunno. i feel sort of grown up here. it's nice digs.
...
i finally got out of retail.
i spent from the minute i stepped foot on new york soil after hurricane katrina, all the way up until this past november as a waldenbooks employee.
i began as a lowly seasonal calendar stand employee. then they kept me on and moved me into the store. then i got keys and more hours. opening and closing the store. then julie our store manager left for georgia, so john took over the store and i was the assistant manager. that lasted a good long while. i was working 40 hours a week. making 10 bucks an hour. benefits. discounts on books. it wasnt awful, i suppose.
then opportunity came a-knocking. the manager at the great northern store up and quit which left them swinging in the breeze out there. so they offered me the store. i was climbing the corporate ladder! left foot, right foot, and so on.
so that lasted a good... 2 months. great northern mall is a piece of shit. the store made (if they were lucky) a hundred bucks a day, and their lease was not renewed. and on top of that store, i was also running and staffing their calendar store AND a calendar store at shoppingtown mall. my phone was ringing nonstop, there was nothing but problems problems problems. lighting fixtures were wrong. shipments didn't arrive. TOO MANY shipments arrived. no one showed up to work. the drawer won't open. the computer doesn't work.
suicide seemed like an extremely viable option at this point.
but then fate. *knock knock* swooped in. they needed phone-answering-persons at the gastro office across from crouse. YES! i would answer phones! my telecommunications degree finally put to good use! so yeah. they offered me more than the 14 i was making as a store manager, and all i had to do was sit around and answer phones all day. easy e-fucking-nough. i quit, said adios, and thus was my foray into the medical field.
...
i lasted two weeks as a phone guy. then they decided i was too smart and too bored. so they moved me to the billing office, and it is there i have resided every since. they pay me 17 dollars an hour to sit around, play volleyball with oranges with my coworkers, call insurance companys and bitch about denials, crunch and punch numbers, and listen to npr and podcasts and cds. it could be worse.
but.
i work in an office full of women. the WHOLE office is crazy crazy crazy. there are two men (aside from doctors) that work in the entire joint. and everyone is catty and bitchy and backstabby and insane. and i spend 8 hours of my day next to the craziest of them all. and its like high school all over again. "what are you LISTENING to?!?" "you saw WHAT movie?!? what IS it with you and these stupid weirdo movies?!?" and honestly... i get it. i obviously don't expect a group of 40 year old women with kids and dogs and houses to be all wet over the new pavement reissue. but... i don't know. their cares dont exist beyond dancing with the stars and desperate housewives.
whatever. whatever.
...
i guess that sort of, in broad sweeping brush strokes brings us relatively up to date...
me and jeremy went to go see greg ginn the other night at the bug jar in rochester. WOW. we went into this fully aware that this new band he was in wasn't black flag. we went in pretty much assuming we were going to be disappointed, but holy shit did we completely underestimate mr. ginn and company. he was in two of the bands that played that night (both bands featured the exact same members, mind you) and it was just... ugly. they're jam bands, and i can appreciate a sprawling landscape of sound as much as any dirty hippie. but fuckkkk. seeing greg ginn in that classic pose, legs spread impossibly far apart and head thrown back staring at the ceiling. it was just a total total bummer. boring. greg ginn was boring. my favorite guitar player of all time bored me to fucking tears. he wasn't noisy. or ugly. he was BORING.
ugh.
but... i suppose. years from now i can say that "this one time i had to press my bottle against my chest to allow greg ginn to pass"
i'll just keep it to myself that this happend in 2009 and not 1984.
...
i quit smoking. i've had exactly 2 cigarettes since i moved to syracuse 5 months ago. and both i had while i was drunk which of course do not count.
i'd like to say i had this grand epiphany about what a filthy nasty habit it was, but honestly they just go to be too god damned expensive.
smelling nice is just a bonus.
...
layla bean curd could quite possibly be the best cat in history. she's become more of a third room mate than just a pet. she goes to bed when we go to bed. she wakes up when we wake up. she talks. she hangs out. i like her more than most people.
...
time has been moving far too fast for my tastes as of late. it's thursday night and i can still vividly remember the feeling of "is it wednesday already?!?" from last week. everything is just a blur. monday already? wednesday already? friday already? monday again? wednesday again? it's awful.
i've been secretly recording some songs on my mp3 player that i hope i continue working on. i've got plans to buy a 4 track and work on them. i dont want to be boring. i dont want to be old and boring. i must do everything in my power to remain young and virbrant and constantly. doing. something.
...
less video games.
less alcohol.
less wasting.
less all bad things.
more working out.
more reading.
more writing.
more all things good!
...
i will i will i will
after this last beer.
...
gene ween in a matter of days. so excited.
missed shat because jeremy was late recording some band.
dont see dave too much these days. he went and got married.
layla rolls upside down when you say her name.
spring is here, i opened the windows the other day and honked at the geese.
everything is so bad. but its better than it was.
everything is so good.
i'll save it.
for later.
later.
it has been awhile.
it's just been awhile. and that's okay.
we get busy. we forget.
but reading old entries of mundane days i would have likely otherwise forgotten, i will update in hopes of not forgetting recent thoughts and currently remembered memories.
...
so where to start.
i met erica, for the second time around. she was dave's first girlfriend and our long hated nemesis for much of high school. after a long night of unbelievably heavy drinking i ended up at her house w/ allison and lloyd. it was fun but it was nothing. i woke up in the middle of the night shaking and counting backwards from a hundred in the apartment me dave and jeremy still shared. and this "thing" with erica remained nothing for a weekend or two. and then it blossomed into something at allison's grandmas. and for a long period of time i thought the world had finally come around. after multiple false starts and mistakes, it seemed as though everything was falling into place. i swear.
we spent a night walking through the rain at allisons grandmas house that will linger for a lifetime in my most cherished memories. allisons grandmother lived in the middle of nowhere, no street lights, neighbors five miles down the road. after a long night of drinking i put on a pair of shoes i did not own and we set out into the darkness our hands outstretched in front of us. we lost the driveway, we lost the grass, but eventually we found the road and we walked back and forth in the black and the rain for hours. and fell asleep in a bed in the basement very far apart and with clothes soaking into the sheets.
after some unbelievable earth shatteringly awful events, she moved back to auburn from jersey, and pretty much set up camp at our apartment. which was good. great, even. it was always something to look forward to.
then... well
jeremy and leslie moved out, leaving me dave and erica. then rent went up. then dave decided to get his own apartment. then we moved into an apartment with incredible character, but it was approximately 3 feet by 5 feet. and as it turns out (many months and broken ashtrays later) erica was extremely bi polar. and extremely unmedicated.
so that was fun.
moved onto chestnut street. much bigger apartment. we had our space. and it was here erica eventually came to terms with shit. started going to a doctor.. blah blah
we also got super fat and comfortable and lazy.
then we moved to syracuse. to an apartment so fancy its like i wake up every morning in a hotel. okay... maybe a motel. but fuck. we have a bathroom AND a vanity bathroom. and there's a pond. and geese and ducks. and a working fireplace. and... i dunno. i feel sort of grown up here. it's nice digs.
...
i finally got out of retail.
i spent from the minute i stepped foot on new york soil after hurricane katrina, all the way up until this past november as a waldenbooks employee.
i began as a lowly seasonal calendar stand employee. then they kept me on and moved me into the store. then i got keys and more hours. opening and closing the store. then julie our store manager left for georgia, so john took over the store and i was the assistant manager. that lasted a good long while. i was working 40 hours a week. making 10 bucks an hour. benefits. discounts on books. it wasnt awful, i suppose.
then opportunity came a-knocking. the manager at the great northern store up and quit which left them swinging in the breeze out there. so they offered me the store. i was climbing the corporate ladder! left foot, right foot, and so on.
so that lasted a good... 2 months. great northern mall is a piece of shit. the store made (if they were lucky) a hundred bucks a day, and their lease was not renewed. and on top of that store, i was also running and staffing their calendar store AND a calendar store at shoppingtown mall. my phone was ringing nonstop, there was nothing but problems problems problems. lighting fixtures were wrong. shipments didn't arrive. TOO MANY shipments arrived. no one showed up to work. the drawer won't open. the computer doesn't work.
suicide seemed like an extremely viable option at this point.
but then fate. *knock knock* swooped in. they needed phone-answering-persons at the gastro office across from crouse. YES! i would answer phones! my telecommunications degree finally put to good use! so yeah. they offered me more than the 14 i was making as a store manager, and all i had to do was sit around and answer phones all day. easy e-fucking-nough. i quit, said adios, and thus was my foray into the medical field.
...
i lasted two weeks as a phone guy. then they decided i was too smart and too bored. so they moved me to the billing office, and it is there i have resided every since. they pay me 17 dollars an hour to sit around, play volleyball with oranges with my coworkers, call insurance companys and bitch about denials, crunch and punch numbers, and listen to npr and podcasts and cds. it could be worse.
but.
i work in an office full of women. the WHOLE office is crazy crazy crazy. there are two men (aside from doctors) that work in the entire joint. and everyone is catty and bitchy and backstabby and insane. and i spend 8 hours of my day next to the craziest of them all. and its like high school all over again. "what are you LISTENING to?!?" "you saw WHAT movie?!? what IS it with you and these stupid weirdo movies?!?" and honestly... i get it. i obviously don't expect a group of 40 year old women with kids and dogs and houses to be all wet over the new pavement reissue. but... i don't know. their cares dont exist beyond dancing with the stars and desperate housewives.
whatever. whatever.
...
i guess that sort of, in broad sweeping brush strokes brings us relatively up to date...
me and jeremy went to go see greg ginn the other night at the bug jar in rochester. WOW. we went into this fully aware that this new band he was in wasn't black flag. we went in pretty much assuming we were going to be disappointed, but holy shit did we completely underestimate mr. ginn and company. he was in two of the bands that played that night (both bands featured the exact same members, mind you) and it was just... ugly. they're jam bands, and i can appreciate a sprawling landscape of sound as much as any dirty hippie. but fuckkkk. seeing greg ginn in that classic pose, legs spread impossibly far apart and head thrown back staring at the ceiling. it was just a total total bummer. boring. greg ginn was boring. my favorite guitar player of all time bored me to fucking tears. he wasn't noisy. or ugly. he was BORING.
ugh.
but... i suppose. years from now i can say that "this one time i had to press my bottle against my chest to allow greg ginn to pass"
i'll just keep it to myself that this happend in 2009 and not 1984.
...
i quit smoking. i've had exactly 2 cigarettes since i moved to syracuse 5 months ago. and both i had while i was drunk which of course do not count.
i'd like to say i had this grand epiphany about what a filthy nasty habit it was, but honestly they just go to be too god damned expensive.
smelling nice is just a bonus.
...
layla bean curd could quite possibly be the best cat in history. she's become more of a third room mate than just a pet. she goes to bed when we go to bed. she wakes up when we wake up. she talks. she hangs out. i like her more than most people.
...
time has been moving far too fast for my tastes as of late. it's thursday night and i can still vividly remember the feeling of "is it wednesday already?!?" from last week. everything is just a blur. monday already? wednesday already? friday already? monday again? wednesday again? it's awful.
i've been secretly recording some songs on my mp3 player that i hope i continue working on. i've got plans to buy a 4 track and work on them. i dont want to be boring. i dont want to be old and boring. i must do everything in my power to remain young and virbrant and constantly. doing. something.
...
less video games.
less alcohol.
less wasting.
less all bad things.
more working out.
more reading.
more writing.
more all things good!
...
i will i will i will
after this last beer.
...
gene ween in a matter of days. so excited.
missed shat because jeremy was late recording some band.
dont see dave too much these days. he went and got married.
layla rolls upside down when you say her name.
spring is here, i opened the windows the other day and honked at the geese.
everything is so bad. but its better than it was.
everything is so good.
i'll save it.
for later.
later.