This Week

I don’t really know where to begin with this week, so here it goes:

• –Last weekend I worked overtime on Saturday, to make up for the previous Saturday that I tried to go to work, but my front passenger tire blew out on U.S. 60 while I was going 60mph. My spare was also flat, somehow. Four hours and almost $200 later, my car was mine again.

• –I spent some time writing at Coffee Rush Saturday night. At least I tried to write. I got some organizational work on the book done, merging what I had written on Justin’s laptop with what I had written on my new laptop with what I had written last November on my desktop at the House on Mill.

• –I forgot to bring my ipod and earphones with me to Coffee Rush, which resulted in my work being constantly interrupted by evangelicals who wish to make C.R. their own personal reaping ground for souls by the way of silly and rather used-carsalesman-esque approaches and handy booklets. For example: “Hey slick, you sure do type fast. You doing a school report or something?” If it’s not the evangelicals, it’s the pyramid-scheme-vitamin-pill-hey-sell-this-product-to-your-friends-and-families middle agers, who, in all honesty, just creep me the fuck out.

• –On Sunday, Justin and I mutually had the complete day off (a RARE occurance), so we spent it sleeping in, and I also caught up on a bit o’homework. We also went to Wallace Cinemas at Gilbert & Warner to catch “Pirates of the Carribean 2.” It was cool that it was only $10 for two tickets, but we were completely surrounded, on all four sides, by large Mormon families. When one family whispered to their children about US, we kindly whispered back about THEM. Somehow the whole scene looked like a lost scene from “SLC Punk.”

• –On Monday, I resumed my working rituals as did Justin. Nothing exciting happened most of the week.

• –On Tuesday we attempted to watch “The Boston Strangler” that just came out at Hollywood Video. This movie was made so cheaply that it didn’t even have a DVD menu … just started playing. We didn’t pay no mind to it, and I spent most of the movie doing homework.

• –On Wednesday my mom called me at work, she had gotten bit by a brown recluse spider and needed some accompaniment and a ride to urgent care. So I leave my cubicle in south central Phoenix and proceed to whisk away to Gilbert, but luckily a kind DPS officer pulled me over on the U.S. 60 going through Tempe, and proceeded to kindly warn me about the implication of driving 82 in a 65mph zone. I explained to him my speeding and apologized, but he was insistent on kindly assisting me with the scheduling of a court date. Not wanting to leave me in a bad situation, however, he also gave me the option of mailing some money directly in or attending defensive driving school.

• –Luckily the cop did not notice I was neglecting in buckling my seat belt.

• –After the kind officer released me, I pulled back into traffic only to find that I had run over something, and it had become lodged under my car, creating sparks on the pavement as I drove. Knowing the piece of shit that my Pontiac is and not wanting it to burst into flames, I pulled back over (still on the far left-hand side of the freeway), and attempted to free the stuck piece of plastic/metal. Keep in mind that in order to do this, I had to lay on my stomach DIRECTLY IN FRONT of my car, and reach under as far as possible, while cars going at 70mph were two feet away. I could not help but dread the cell phone talking or make-up applying driver who could have easily taken me out. Needless to say, I made haste of the project.

• –Got my mom to urgent care, got her meds, then had a very enjoyable lunch with a very good conversation. I liked that.

• –Spent some time at my parent’s house talking with my grandmother and playing with their new puppy, Cocoa. Pit bull puppies are fun.

• –Returned to the apartment, very tired and drained from the day. Noticed we were out of vodka. Damnit. Justin asked me to go buy some from Walgreens. I told him no, it was too humid. I told him to go buy some from Walgreens. He told me no, he was too tired. So we watched South Park for awhile.

• –Later — still Wednesday evening — Justin’s swords came in the mail, as did some new posters for our room. We spent some time reorganizing the room to make way for our new decorations.

• –Thursday morning, after visiting Justin at Starbucks, I got back on the 60 to go to work. During the turn onto the freeway from Stapley, a large white diesal truck swerved into my lane, running my off the road and my car into a chain link fence. That was fun.

• –Thursday, after work, I had some time to kill before I was due at Arica’s house for dinner. I decided to drive to Headquarters over by ASU to look at some posters for the room, and to get zome boba tea from Ewok’s across the street. I forgot it was game day over at ASU (I don’t really follow this kind of stuff), so traffic sucked big time, but I really did enjoy being down around Mill Ave/ASU again. I lived down there for awhile, and miss the atmosphere. It is quite funny though, watching all those suckers pay $10 for parking, while I know all the good, free, secluded parking spaces. I had to walk a bit to get where I wanted, but again, I missed it, so it brought back good times to walk around Forrest Street, past the e-joy lougne (where much of “Avenue of the Giants” rough draft was done, as well as the final draft of “CPH”), and the old site of Long Wong’s.

• –The Headquarters didn’t have any good posters this time, but the guy said they were revamping the poster selection tonight and to check back tomorrow. I bought a pack of cloves though, just for the hell of it. It’s been awhile.

• –I walked across Forrest to go to Ewok’s, but it apparently went out of business. This sucks. This place was the best boba/soup/sandwich joint in the area, and I spent a good amount of time here. Before I moved to Mesa, I would even bring my schoolwork down here and study. Another loss of a stellar independent business in Tempe. Seriously, this almost made me as sad as when Java Jungle closed down.

• –I walked back to my car and decided to drive back down Mill and take Rio Salado Parkway into downtown Mesa, but of course the traffic still sucked because of the Sun Devil game. And I have to mention — am I the only one that thinks that the Sun Devil’s new advertising style is just — ghetto? I would expect this kind of Ebonics-style sloganing from Compton Community College or any given Raider’s game — “This here’s Sun Devil country” — but dude, we’re in Tempe, and most of your team is white. No one is fucking scared of you. Just play good football. Whatever.

• –Since Arica paid for the homemade Thursday Night Meal last time, I volunteered to pick it up, and we got Stouffer’s lasanga (didn’t have time for COMPLETE homemade) and I bought all the ingrediants to make Ceaser salad from scratch. Plus, what would an Italian meal be without a nice bottle of chianti?

• –I hung out with Arica and Nikki for a bit, Ryan and Tim got there late, and Brandon, Andrea, and Randy were all at the ASU game. Jee was visiting with his girlfriend from Portland, Arica’s roommate, Nikki, was absente, Justin was passed out at home from work, and Token was never anyone we knew in the first place. In short, I didn’t stay too long, as I was tired and wanted to get home to Justin before it was too late, since he was leaving Friday morning for his parent’s place in Payson for the weekend.

• –Got home Thursday, saw that my sword came came in the mail … a black and red Samurai sword. This thing is badass. I shall post a picture soon.

• –Friday morning came way too early. I said goodbye to Justin, pretty bummed that I wouldn’t see him for the rest of the weekend. I was going to go up to his parent’s with him, but elected to stay here to work on my book, catch up on school work, and catch up with a couple friends.

• –This morning at work I am all done with this weeks work, save for returning a few voicemails / emails. Score! At work, our manager, Katie, brought us in bagels from Einstein’s … tasty treat. Some of us, including Corey and Sirena, also began planning tonight’s trip out to First Friday and the goth-industral club Tranzylvania. VERY excited about tonight, as I rarely get to hang out with the very cool people I work with outside of work.

• –Made plans to hang out with my friend Crispy on Saturday for a little while, been a long time since I’ve talked with him.

• –Made plans for homework and book work this weekend, too.

• –And finally … justin comes back Sunday, and I have Monday off. Yay for paid holidays!!!