"When you grow up, your heart dies."

Ten bucks and a stale twinkie to anyone who knows this title quote offhand. Okay, I admit: I actually spent the ten bucks on a prostitute and ate the twinkie, so basically you get a pretend high-five.

Since I haven't started working yet, I decided to clean up all the random unpacked boxes in my room. It was at this point that I realized that I actually have more women's clothing in my closet than men's.

I also learned today that it is generally a bad idea to wear boxers while jumping on a trampoline in the presence of minors. No elaboration needed.

And just in case anyone was wondering, consumption is subject to diminishing marginal utility.

Stroke of my... I mean, midnight.

"Life is half spent before we know what it is."

Oh my God. It's official: I am "as old as the hills."

• Has anyone seen Jonathan Lipnicki lately? (Jerry Maguire)
• Anybody remember City Slickers with Billy Crystal? Yeah, did you know Jake Gyllenhaal was in that?
• Recall this Andy Lawrence? Okay, then, how about this one?
• And of course we all remember the hippie that Danielle Fishel's Topanga on "Boy Meets World" began as... And the um, well, you know, that she grew into...

Panda Says, "No."

Well we worked more cattle this morning and it was quite shitty, with lots going wrong.

I had a slightly frightening dream about praying mantes (yeah, I looked the plural up) that could run really fast, and I think they were hunting me.

I watched a squirrel hop from over the horizon today. He walked down a line of approximately forty trees and right past me before passing into the sunset on the other side. It was very majestic; I think he may have been rabid.

I've decided to add a link to the Apostrophe Protection Society since my slightly obsessive, grammar-nazi purchase of Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

Milli Vanilli Flavored Ice Cream

For those of us looked down upon by the rest of the population (literally), there is a bit of light at the end of the tunnel: Read this article. My favorite line: "But supporters of short people say it's about time someone recognizes the unique challenges they face."

So my morning has been occupied by working cattle. [Cue blank, lifeless stare]

Perhaps the most interesting portion of my morning, then, centered on my studies of the transfer of momentum from a rapidly-moving object to stationary particles and the spatial changes subsequently undergone by the latter... Yeah, I stuck a stick in the dirt.

• Sid: "Let me tell you one thing, heifer: You hit me, and you will have just punched your ticket outta' here!"

Blueberry with an English accent

Just in case anyone was wondering...

I am worth $2,230,850 on HumanForSale.com

Holy Circle Jerk, Batman!

So I registered for classes at SEARK today. Holy. Fucking. Shit. I hate that place.

• 8:05 - Go to the bank to make money appear from nowhere, thus funding my summer.
• 8:56 - Arrive at SEARK.
• 9:05 - Get in the longest fucking line I have ever seen.
• 9:30 (Time waiting: 30 minutes) - Realize that I am in the wrong line and first need advisor approval. A cute blonde with eyebrows in need of a bleach job holds my place.
• 9:33 - 10:02 - Go the Nursing/Allied Health Advisor room; explain my case. Am told to go to General Studies Advisor room and am incorrectly directed to Technical Studies Advisor Room; explain my case. Am sent to the Vice President 0f Student Affairs for special executive approval ("Why do I have to sign off on this? I don't know why they sent you to me."). She sends me to the co-chair of General Studies who I finally track down after three cross-campus trips in a dimly lit office ("Yep, I'm the guy to come to.").
• 10:03 - Resume my place in line, which has moved exactly ten feet.
• 11:00 (Time waiting: 2 hours) - Sit down in line.
• 11:58 (Time waiting: 3 hours) - Arrive at the front of the line where the following conversation occurs:
  "They approved you for this schedule?"
  "Yes, ma'am, they did."
  "No."
  "Mr. Eggensberger signed off on it."
  "No."
  "Well..."
  "No."
• 12:14 - The data entry worker leaves, then returns and claims that I must go obtain approval from the Dean of Library and Distance Learning Division.
• 12:30 - After doing so, return to data entry where the following conversation occurs:
  "Did you find her?"
  "Yes, ma'am."
  "All right... Wait, you've still got..."
  "Fine, just take the Sociology off! I don't care."
  [...]
  "Well, I guess... No, it's okay as long as Ms. Perschbacher signed it."
• 12:37 - Pay at the Business Office without a hitch.
• 12:49 - Purchase books without a hitch.

Mark it: a full four hours of bureacratic fuckarow designed to make my life a living Hell.

My statement of summation to mom: "That place is a complete cluster fuck, Mother; do you realize this?"

Shoop, Shoop Ba-doop...

La la la...

Friday night was Relay for Life... Surprisingly, I managed to shave a few hours off and only be awake and walking for 22. But we did raise $62,000 in a town of 2,500 people, so I think things worked out rather well.

Highlights (centered around my mother):

• "I turned a corner and spilled Mark's [sweet and sour sauce] all over my lap. You know how hot that was? And then it looked like I was ragging!"
• Mom to random woman: "Yeah, you didn't see me on TV? I was on Let's Make a Deal. I can't believe you don't recognize me..."
  [The girl later asked for an autograph. Needless to say my mother wasn't on TV.]
• "I need a stamp and a telephone book! Run! A stamp and a telephone book! And look for a deck of cards!"
  [Should I mention that this was a serious scavenger hunt?]

Further highlights (centered elsewhere):

• Saw lots of people I haven't seen in a while... Talked to Wilson for, like, forever...

Saturday I went to Conway and then rode with Jordan to Alma's graduation. I met his parents (which appeared to turn out rather well!) and several friends... most of whom were crazy (no doubt a positive trait). I managed to deter my annual post-Relay headache with a few Excedrin tension headaches and had a good day!

Sunday was pretty much spent tilling.

Today (Monday) I rode with Megan to Fayetteville for a job interview.

Highlights:

• On the way up, we saw... a fucking... fat-truck. Not a phat truck. Not a fat truck. A FAT-TRUCK. I'm talking about a tanker truck designed specifically to transport fat.
  It read, "Inedible Feed Fat. Not For Human Consumption." This spawned a conversation centered on the possibilities concerning the contained fat's consistency.
• I shopped for a while during Megan's interview, spent too much money at a bookstore, and wound up in a Shiatsu Massage Chair for 15 minutes. Megan and I then returned to the bookstore, sat on the floor, and read random books.
• We went to McAlister's where I tried to hook Megan up with either the lesbian cashier with the blue mohawk or the straight male server before being accosted by the tragic, obviously gay employee, whose actually job we we never figured out.
• On the way back we heard No Scrubs.
• We met Jordan at Shorty Small's in Conway for a quickie in the parking-lot. Okay, so maybe we just ate, but you know.

And I promised Megan that this would get TWO entries in my blog because at the time it struck me as totally and utterly profound. I suppose one good explication will suffice:

You know the line in Anna Nalick's Breathe that says, "And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table...?" Well Megan's response was, "Why don't you just turn the table over?"

This may not seem special to anyone else, but yeah... my life was changed.

Ho. Ho. Hoe. Who? Me?

Well I found myself attending two separate graduations this evening: Taylor from kindergarten and Star City's High School.

The former was very good... the kids are always so cute in their little caps and gowns...

• Shamby: "Where's Mr. Ryburn? I figured he'd be here."
  Mom: "Oh, he's out of town; I think he's in Memphis... or... maybe Alaska."
  Shamby: "Um... okay... so which is it?"
  Mom: "I don't know! Wait, I think he may be in Australia. Hey... Carita... where's Mr. Ryburn?"
  Carita: "Bennie, Jr.? He's in Texarkana at an ABA meeting."
  Me: "Mother..."
  Mom: "Shut up. Don't talk to me."
  Me: "He's sitting on the back row."

The latter was overall pretty good; again this year I only got there a half hour early, so I ended up in the... um... tragic section.

Highlights:

• Being literally tackled in the crowd by Alicia.
• I saw a girl who looked just like Tiffany Taylor (Yeah, so I watched Camp last night... sue me).
• And that's pretty much all.

Isn't it kind of disturbing when you see all these hot little seventeen year olds walking around and you can remember when they were eight?

And... Considering I'll be up for a minimum of 24 hours beginning tomorrow, I think it's time for me to go to bed. *sigh*

Silvered Rings and Diamond Eyes

I'm tired of depressing blog entries, so "now for something completely different."

• There's a really interesting porn site called Beautiful Agony. There's no actual nudity save for the neck up, but it appears to have a rather large fanbase...
• This Friday night (7p to 7a) is Star City's annual Relay for Life. It's on the square; anyone in the vicinity should definitely attend and try their hand at me in the dunking booth. Besides... I think we can all agree that the whole thing's for a very good cause.
• If you haven't, you really need to download Beautiful Things - Andain. The perfect word for it was included in a recent comment... "enchanting."
• In addition, since you're working on that, you should also download When the Stars go Blue by Ryan Adams and totally eliminate Tim McGraw's shitty country version from your memory.

Oh... and I just had to blatantly steal this from Heather's blog:

Hint of Human

The mirror warps your reflection
as you decide who to be,
you only see what you want,
and youve never seen yourself clearly,

Just a skeleton,
a plethora of someone elses style,
face, ideas, body and morals,
as you look you know its been a while
if ever,
there were a certain time you were faintly human

Shake and Bake Reality

So I returned to the recliner (as, I later found, Tessa and Jordan suggested) after a couple hits of Excedrin Migraine and slept quite peacefully, relocating to my bed in the middle of the night. As for tonight... I'm thinking Excedrin PM around 9:00 will do the trick.

Last night as I was lying in bed, a friend called. I didn't answer. He left a voicemail:
"Hey, Greg, it's (...). [Blows smoke] I guess I either just can't catch you or you're avoiding me... [Two second silence] Bye, Greg." And yeah, that sounded like a "I'm not trying anymore" Bye.

I realize that I've gotten worse than I ever have been at returning calls, voicemails, posts, and messages... Since my computer only sometimes will pull texts off my broken phone, even that has ceased most of the time. I just find myself not wanting to talk to anyone... And I guess if I continue doing these things, people will eventually stop trying. Maybe that's what I'm unconsciously trying to achieve.

I hate shitty depressing blog posts. Random quote:

• Random redneck at softball field: "You won't find any virgin ass right here. My ass has 'taken it' plenty of times."
  [I'll leave that completely out of context]

Melancholy Dolly and a Pup Named Sue

And the headaches continue...

Now I am fully aware that melancholy blogs bitching about one's feeling shitty have been well overdone; I realize that it is cliched and banal; and I understand that no one really cares. At least I'll refrain from titling it "I hate my life" or "Is this all there is?"

So I spent the day tilling the garden until I sheared the pin attaching the tines, at which point they ceased to turn and I quit.

After dinner I decided to go to bed early before realizing that after trying for some five odd hours, I can't. This isn't, necessarily, because I'm not tired, merely that from my waist up aches so severely when I lay down or sit that I am unable. I know that it's tension, and I know exactly from whence it arises. But I'm not a fucking horse, and I won't be sleeping while standing. So for now I'm stuck watching terrible MTV "reality" shows like Parental Control.

But... on a lighter note, I suppose... some Will & Grace quotes might be appropriate:

• LORRAINE: What's it look like I'm doing? Turning tricks for Tootsie Rolls? I was kicked out of my place, so I'm moving in here. [TO KAREN] Hello, mother
• Karen: Hit the road, you syphilitic toad!
  Lyle: Karen, if there's one thing I will not tolerate, it's rhyming insults.
  Lorraine: Sow.
  Karen: Cow.
  Lorraine: Runt.
  Lyle: Stop it!
• Karen: There are two things that I will not tolerate in this house: racism and constipation!

But this one should sit separately [And no, this in no way is associated with any depressed blogs of late]:

• When I'm feeling like there's no love coming to me and I have no love to give... When I'm feeling separated from the world and cut off from myself... When I'm feeling annoyed by every little thing because I'm not getting what I want, I'll remember that there is an infinite amount of love available to me.
  
  And I'll see it in you.
  
  I'll remember that I am complete within myself so I'll never have to look to you to complete me. And most of all, I'll remember that everything I really need I already have, and whatever I don't have will come to me when I'm ready to receive it.

So maybe I'll try leaning against the doorframe...

Come, Mr. Tally Man; Tally Me Banana

Well, it's been a solid week since I've posted and I've not much to show for it:

• I have little recollection of the weekend (save for being extremely tired from three shows)...
• and nothing interesting to say about finals Monday and Tuesday.
  (And there were so many good quotes, too...)

Wednesday, however proved quite interesting... I had gone to bed with a headache and woke up with a screaming migraine. So I took some Excedrin and traipsed off to my art final; I did stop once on the way and prayed to God that a midget with a spear would fall from the sky and stop the whole violent nausa/blinding light/timpani pounding thing, but to no avail.

Once there, my pieces received rave reviews. But the thing lasted for THREE... and a HALF... HOURS! Needless to say, I really didn't feel like packing my shit up, but I did nonetheless. Went out to eat that night with Victor and Shane at Chili's... had a good time discussing the wait staff...

I loaded everything today and checked out of my dorm; while having lunch at Hog Pen, Dr. Lopas was there (my art prof)... he said, "I don't know if you had any doubts or not, but you definitely aced my class."

So this got me thinking. For my first eighteen years, I was good. At everything. Then I got to Hendrix and it all turned to crap. I feel as if I've gotten to a point where I'm treading water... no ambition... no striving for success... my only goal to be average, nothing special, and mediocre.

And then something happens where you realize that there may still be something that you're good at; something that you enjoy having in your life; something that makes people appreciate having you in theirs. I guess this goes back to the post I had a while back where I said that everyone needs to appreciate and to be appreciated.

There's a part of me that makes me want to say, "Fuck it all. I'll be a photographer and a graphic designer and an architect and a starving artist. Or maybe just a teller for the rest of my life." But can I really guarantee that I'll even be happy then? Maybe this is just a rebellious swing from the whole medicine thing.

Maybe I'm just fucking crazy. Cool beans.

Oh. And Mom just told me that since Mark hurt his leg, I'll have to till the garden Saturday. In the immortal words of Tessa, "Shitty."

Heart-shaped cookie

This is a special super-duper, lucky-good post by request of Tessa (who updated one of her LJ posts, like, three or four times in one day...)

So in the week since I've posted... I really can't remember anything that's happened. Okay, maybe...

• Jordan started working the night-shift, so we've been meeting for "lunch" at 8:00 pm.
• I enlarged a hole in the ass of one of my pants: from (---) to (------------)
  [Multiply those by, like, fifty for exact measurements]
• I realized that there are only two weeks lefts in the final series of Will & Grace, and I haven't even been watching it!
• I discovered that polyvinyl alcohol does, indeed, suspend rather well in isopropyl alcohol

Some quotes:

• Campolo: "Louise, what are you doing?"
  Louise: "Sniffing my pen."
  Campolo: "Sniffing your pen? That's not a drug thing, is it? That may make class better, but still..."
• Overheard at Hendrix: "Because your mother is a good mother and doesn't give your shit away... like mine."

From Edward Scissorhands:

• Bill: Sweetheart, you can't buy the necessities of life with cookies.
• Kim: Hold me.
  Edward: I can't.

"It had no pink skin, just heavy gray metal."

I had a nice sized entry all ready to go and Blogger randomly disconnected and lost it. So screw it.

Today's update now consists of Tim Burton's The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy
[Link]