Tonight I was having fun. I was out at a club (something I rarely do) and I was dancing sober (something I almost never do) and then it happened. A Tropical Sh*t Storm swept into the club and dumped little sh*t rain and sh*t wind all over the night and all over my mood.

If you're reading this Miss Sh*t Storm, I am still your friend. Just because you are an ex of my best friend does not mean I don't care about you. I do care about you, and your behavior concerns me. Call me if you want, we should chat. I am your friend, but you owe some apologies.

That is all.


COMMENTS

DAVID said: If you ask me, that club was shitty enough to begin with. I was quite upset that we didn't end up at the Big Bang.

Miss Shit storm still has my copy of Maus that I need to reclaim somehow. Anyway, I do find it interesting that you would name someone you consider to be your friend "Miss Shit Storm."

That's like going up to a fat person and saying, "Oh you're not fat, lard ass." Or maybe that's compeltely different... who knows I'm way too tired and that damn ink stamp wont come off no matter how hard I scrub.
07.30.05 - 3:35 pm

BenO said:
Damn.

The friend issues just keep coming at you man.

See you tonight at the fortress.

P.S.
Bring the Ruby Pendant of Destiny.
07.31.05 - 5:15 am

Then I said:
David,

Everyone else had fun at M.R.

Yes, calling her Miss Shit Storm was definitely snotty, but that doesn't mean I'm not her friend. It means I am upset with her. Hell, my own mother calls me an asshole when she's upset, it doesn't mean she doesn't love me.

Beno,

This isn't really comparable to the other friend issues lately. This is just one of my friends being shitty to another, and me standing up to point it out. Angrily.

Also, bring the what?!?! :-)
07.31.05 - 2:53 pm

Guillermo said: The Ruby Pendant of Destiny. I think I saw it in the glovebox.
08.01.05 - 6:19 am

My bro

Early this week my brother emailed me directions to his new apartment in Prescott. I thought it was strange, but I thought it was just a hint to come visit. So I emailed him back saying that I had planned to go camping this week, but we hadn't decided where to go yet. I told him we could find a place near Prescott, and come hang out with him on Sunday afternoon on the way back home if that worked for him. I got no reply.

Fast forward to yesterday when I found out my aunt is in town and I had apparently agreed like a month ago to spend this Saturday afternoon with her and my mom visiting my brother. Sh*t! There goes camping. Wait a minute... Jon knew that, then why didn't he... Hmm.

Last night we had a text message conversation on our cell phones that went like this:

Me: I'm an idiot. I'll see you Saturday.

Jon: ITS OK I LOVE YOU ANYWAY

Me: Were u gonna call 2 correct me, ass?

Jon: CORRECT WHAT I AM DRUNK

Virginia comandeers my phone: Hi, this is Virginia... I'm really stoked your drunk. Have fun!

Jon: Thnx

Jon again: OH YEAH I REMEMBER U. U R BEAUTIFUL

Vir: Is that just the drunk talking?

Jon: no i sober when i met u

Vir: U not sober now...

Jon: No

Sigh. Alchohal does amazing things. Virginia is most definitely beautiful, but my brother would never have the balls to say that to some girl he barely knows, even in a text message.

Ah, sweet Mother Booze, let me once again suckle at your intoxicating teet.

EDIT Update at bottom of post. EDIT

It's amazing how one can be surrounded and yet feel totally alone.

It could be that I only slept five hours last night, or it could be that I'm still a little sick but today sucks. This was supposed to be my day, and I shat all over it.

The day started off nice enough, a touch uninventive, but nice. We went out to a nice lunch and it was decided that we would spend the day in accents. I was scottish and the girls were english. I'm pretty sure we had the host and waitstaff snowed that we were from the UK. Good times.

Then we saw the new Willy Wonka remake. Loved it. My only tiny tiny gripes are A) the oompa loompa songs were so busy it was difficult to make out Roald Dahl's lyrics and B) we didn't need to see the other children safely leaving the factory at the end, I liked it better in the earlier version when we never knew what happened to them. Besides that, it felt like a deleted scene that accidentally got left in. 4.5 out of 5

After that the girls mentioned a small "gap" in their plans. A five hour gap. Five hours? This hurt my feelings a little, and was a touch disappointing. I mean, yes, they had to change plans to adjust for my illness, but it just didn't feel the same having to pick from a list of suggestions. I was hoping to be whisked from one thing to the next like we planned for Meg. At this point my mood soured and no matter how many ideas they came up with I hated them all.

The point here is I took what should have been a little disappointment and let it ruin my whole outlook for the day. I turned a little turbulence into a tailspin. This is the one day of the week that all three of us have free to hang out together ALL DAY and I blew it. At this point Meg has taken a nap on the couch while Noel reads in the bedroom, leaving me all alone to mope on my f*cking blog.

Who can blame them? I certainly don't.

*************************************************

After reading over this post again it occurs to me that some of you may be a touch confused.

A couple weeks ago Meg was having a bad week. She was sick and stressed about her show and having a rough time at her job. To cheer her up we had "Meg Day." It was a whole day planned out by Noel and myself of fun and adventure for Meg. So, in return the girls turned it around on me and made yesterday "Joey Day" but I was still recovering from strep, so the great day of active outdoorsy-ness they had engineered went on hold for another time and they had to enact a last minute Plan B. What you read is that Plan B.

It was sort of decided without discussion that we will cycle back through. Meaning next time is Noel day, then Meg day, then Joey day, etc. etc. I can't wait to see my Plan A Day eventually.

My last post was met with snide sarcasm, and it pissed me off. I apologize for those of you who read my initial response in the comments. It was not one of my better moments.

Here is a rational, and researched reply.

Ignorant of human biology, eh? Well, there is actually a branch of human biology called PSYCHONEUROIMMUNOLOGY and it is the study of how our thoughts and feelings effect our immune response. It was founded in 1974 by a Doctor Robert Ader who discovered that the immune system contains nerve tissue in it. (if you take the link, Dr Ader is mentioned about 2/3 down the page)

Two years ago THIS ARTICLE references a study that showed meditation can boost the immune system, and specifically mentions a connection to greater antibody production. The long term study showed the benefits lasted up to four months after meditation training ceased.

I was skeptical at first about ACEM MEDITATION's website being too biased because they offer classes and CD's and whatnot, but then I found out they are a nonprofit organization founded to develop "a psychological understanding of meditation processes based on Western thought and practice." I am sure they are biased, but there is still some good info there.

Beyond all this, it is plain common sense that the mind directly influences the body. Look at extreme fear for a moment. It can make a person sweat, breath heavily, it can accelerate their heart rate (even to the point of heart attack), it can make a person shake or even faint. Anger actually has all the same possible symptoms. Now, think about how effective the body can be at defending itself when it is going through all that crap. In periods of extreme stress (such as fear or anger can provide) the immune response is severely weakened. Fact.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my last post, but that is what I was getting at. I "allowed" myself to get sick by not taking care of myself emotionally and psychologically. Sure, I eat right, and I exercise, but that isn't all that is important, as THIS ARTICLE explains.

NOTE: all links lead to article sited in each respective paragraph.

Betrayed

By my own flesh and blood... I mean that literally. My body.

My mom is a very spiritual person, but some of her beliefs have actually been supported by some scientific data. A great deal of her beliefs have to do with the power of positive thinking and meditation and of the mind over the body and all that. Recent studies have shown, for example, that meditation can be instrumental in managing stress and blood pressure. Also, positive thinking (something as simple as a better attitude) is shown to have an effect on everything from blood pressure to immune response.

My mom takes it a little further though. For example, there's the story of the lady with nine malignant tumors in her torso, on various major organs who beat it back and went into full remission after her doctors stopped traditional medical treatment. Through a radical change in diet and heavy meditation she turned around what was a prognosis of only a few weeks. That was years ago and the woman is still going strong.

For my mom, that story and the many others like it prove that it's possible for any of us to overcome physical maladies with the power of the mind. She takes it one step further and suggests that if that is true, then when we get sick it is because we allowed it. The logic is if you accept that the mind can shut down disease, then it stands to reason we should be able to prevent it with the mind as well. So when we get sick, some part of us wanted to get sick. Whether it's self-sabotage, or it is a symptom of some greater emotional/psychological problem, it's our own doing. I try really hard to believe in that myself, but lately my body has made it hard.

Just a couple months ago I had a fabulous opportunity to go teach an improv workshop with a good friend of mine. She works at a private arts school and asked for my help for an afternoon. I was very excited about it, because not only did it sound like fun, but it was a great job oppportunity too. She was telling me that the principal of the school was looking for arts teachers, so I might be able to parlay my workshop into a job. I was unsure if teaching was the career choice for me, but I was curious anyway.

The morning of the workshop I woke up with a horrific sore throat and a fever so high I couldn't even stand up to go to the bathroom without clutching walls, let alone drive and then teach. I called her to explain and she was not happy. She cussed me out saying that I had "f*cked" her and that she now had to run this whole workshop thing by herself and then hung up on me. She hasn't answered my calls since.

Now, for the sake of discussion let's assume mom is right. Let's assume I allowed that to happen on some subconcious level. Why? Why would I do that to myself? What possible reason could I have had to want that? A friendship is apparently destroyed over it, and a great opportunity is lost.

The reason I am writing all this now is I woke up Saturday morning with a sore throat that has finally today gotten so bad that I am going to a doctor. Same exact symptoms that hit back on that workshop day a couple months ago. And this time I have nothing important to ruin. I'm just studying, and a sore throat doesn't get in the way of that.

Grrr.

Comments

David wrote: I'm sorry, I guess I didn't realize that people don't believe in viral or bacterial infections. Either that or have complete ignorance of human biology.

This isn't scientology and your subconscious mind isn't being haunted with the ghosts of the victims of Lord Xenu's nuclear attacks on the Earth.

You aren't being possessed by evil spirits and Zeuss isn't talking to you in your sleep. Jesus did not send angels down to council you nor is the invisible pink unicorn that lives on the moon commanding you through radio waves being emitted from it's single sparkly horn.

You did not "self-sabotage" your body into feeling sick. Your mom is not right nor was she ever right. You have no control over the fact that you are sick. Just take care of yourself, take your vitamins and your body's immune system will take care of the rest.

Oh and study well and try not to get too nervous while taking your test.
07.22.05 - 12:41 pm

I wrote:
WTF?

F*ck you, dude. You're an as*hole for making that link to scientology. If you accept that the mind and your attitude are instrumental in making a recovery from an illness it's not a far leap to guess that maybe your mind and attitude can strengthen the immune system for prevention. There are studies to support this, as I've mentioned.

The crack about biology and infections was f*cking snotty as hell. "Complete ignorance of human biology"?! The idea here, you condescending prick, is that your body's defenses can be better able to fight off the infections so you don't come down with them in the first place. That is not quasi-religious mumbo jumbo, it's something I have seen evidence of.

Just because you don't believe in anything, D, doesn't mean you have to belittle those who do. Look at Brandon. As much as we don't believe in the Bible, we at least appeal to him with logic and by expalaining what we see as contradictions. We don't gather around and make fun of him.

Not cool. You can try to pull the whole "I was kidding" bullsh*t, but I don't buy it. Your comment drips of sarcasm and bitterness towards anybody even slightly spiritual. Not cool.
07.22.05 - 5:27 pm

MOTHER F**KER

Take the link above first.

I want to start by saying that under normal circumstances I do not have any desire to desecrate the American flag. I think it's a pretty good flag. A touch boring, maybe. but it doesn't strike me as deserving desecration.

Right now I'm itching to burn that wavy little bastard til the cows come home and sh*t on it.

I am so sick and tired of conservatives wanting to take things away from us. Just because they think people shouldn't do things they like to make it so that they couldn't.

Riddle me this, you bible-thumping, gun-toting, artery-clogged, middle-america retards; how does burning the flag impede on your life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness? You know, the handful of things that this country's laws were originally intended to protect? Those pesky little things that seem to get in the way for you people lately.

Life: Hmmm... it doesn't seem to me that wiping my ass with the flag would actually kill anybody. I mean, maybe the entire republican party might drop dead of a heart attack, but that is sort of tangential, isn't it? And would that really be so bad? Kidding... but it's still not murder.

Liberty: Does burning the flag actually somehow imprison someone against their will or prevent them from leading a healthy, productive life? Does it stop anyone from doing anything wholesome? Well... I suppose it prevents them from looking at the flag... you know, once it's ashes... but it's not like there's only one. We got a bunch of them. Really we do! Somebody thought to make a backup or two.

Pursuit of happiness: Ah-ha! This one seems a bit trickier. Yes, it seems that way until you really pay close attention to the word "pursuit." See, people might say, "yes, burning the flag makes me unhappy!" BUT, the problem there, Sparky, is that it's your "pursuit" of happiness that is guaranteed, not actual happiness itself. So, tell me how does me making a torch out of Betsy Ross's brainchild prevent you from searching this great wide open world for that elusive bitch we call happiness? I mean, nobody says you have to watch. Go somewhere else, because if I'm burning flags then your happiness just took the last train to Outta Here Town.

"But burning that flag is disrespect for this country and brings down the morale of the BLAH BLAH BLAH..."

Guess what, that is an abstract that is in no way measurable, and in NO WAY protected by law. Life is measurable. Are we alive or are we dead? Liberties are quantifiable. How many things are you allowed to do, according to the law? Pursuit of happiness is, again, trickier. It's not quantifiable, per se, but ask yourself: am I allowed to pursue happiness? So far, the answer in the USA is "yes."

Now ask yourself:

How is the nation's morale?
Are U.S. citizens respectful enough?
Is the flag as sacred as it should be?

Can you give me a number? A percentage? No. That stuff is all subjective. It's all a matter of opinion. Essentially this is an attempt to make a legal mandate about an opinion.

Hmmm.... morale and opinions being regulated by the state. What does that sound like? The soviets? Or was it Orwells's 1984? Hell, you know, I think it might have been both.

I'm sorry, but if this thing really happens, I am rounding up a big bag o' flags and heading to Mesa City Hall with a zippo and a smile.

Donnie Darko (director's cut)

Oh, Richard Kelly... what were you thinking.

There's a lesson to be learned here, kids. See, sometimes as an artist we can be our own worst enemy. Generally speaking artists are perfectionists, and rarely ever feel totally satisfied with their work. I can't tell you how many times I've sat in front of a canvas thinking to myself "okay, this is very very close to being done... just one little brushstroke there... and maybe one little stroke here..." If we don't reign ourselves in we can "almost-done" a piece of artwork to death. We can easily destroy something by trying to make it better.

Richard Kelly has done just that.

SPOILERS, Look out!!

In the original cut we get a look at a strange sort of pocket of time that never realy existed. We see twenty-eight days of the life of Donald Darko that end up never having happened. Sorry, for those of you who haven't seen it, but that's the best explanation I can give you in a couple sentences. In the old cut we are given no real concrete explanation, but we can piece it together to come up with our own. That seemed to be the appeal of the film for most people I know.

This time around Mr Kelly seemed to give his audience less credit. This time we are given passages from the book from within the movie (Philosophy Of Time Travel) at key points. And I mean they are printed across the screen and held there for long enough for you to read them. One recurring theme is the idea of Tangent Universes and Manipulated Dead. These two phrases are literally printed across the screen constantly. Okay, so I guess we're supposed to understand that Donnie is living a Tangent Universe, and he is The Manipulated Dead because he actually is supposed to die. Okay, that idea is kind of what I had figured out for myself, I just didn't have the convenient labels for it. One particular moment that SCREAMS of spoon-feeding is near the end.

You may recall in the original cut that after Donnie dies in his bed we see all the people he affected in his lost twenty-eight days waking up in their beds startled. It's as if they were all haunted by this chunk of time that never existed. It's like they were all dreaming it in unison and all woke up disturbed by their dream. This happens all without explanation. It just is. And it is good.

In the new cut Kelly feeds us a screen that reads something somwhat like this first:

Those that experience the Tangent Universe will wake as if from a dream. Most will not remember the time spent in the Tangent Universe, but some will and they will be haunted by it.

We read this and then are shown all the folks waking up. Why? Why do that? Why spoil such a pure moment with a billboard telling us what is happening. If someone needed to be told, then this was not the movie for them.

Here's one last example: The scene where Donnie sees the big wormhole in the sky and passes back through it to his bed twenty-eight days ago is also highlighted by an elaborate flashing of images from the movie cut with random stock images and it all starts with a big flashing sign that reads "PURGE." With this it seems obvious to me that Kelly is showing us that time is purging the last twenty-eight days from The Big Memory Bank In The Sky. Jeeze, Richard, if you're going to hold my hand through the entire movie, could you at least buy me dinner first?

All in all this new cut is just a dumbed-down version of the original and did not need to be made. I give it a 2 out of 5 poops, and it only gets those two for its passing resemblance to the original.

Those who can...

For a brief time I was a teacher of sorts. I was the makeshift authority figure of an afterschool improvisational comedy troupe at my old high school.

I graduated from Mountain Pointe in May of 1998. The drama teacher during my time there was Mr Jodi Reppert. Excellent teacher, and like a father to me. At the end of my freshman year at ASU Mr Reppert came to me and told me he was retiring and that the new guy that he was grooming to take over for him had mentioned that he wouldn't have time to run the extra-curriculur improv troupe. Mr Reppert remembered that I was big into that when I was there and knew that I had gone to the Chicago Improv festival that year as a student (by the way, if you're an actor and you've never been to that thing, you HAVE to go. I took workshops from Matt Walsh of The Upright Citizens Brigade, and Mick Napier, Charna Halpern, etc. AMAZING stuff) ...so he asked me to take the improv helm while the new guy, J. Rollins settled in.

Over the course of the fall semester I taught them A LOT. I started with the basics; the three "rules" of improvisational comedy, which I am sure some of you already know some variation on them, but here they are as I learned them:

1 Don't deny what your scene partner gives you.
2 Don't ask too many questions because that puts ALL the pressure on your partner.
3 Don't tell stories, DO things.

The first time we met we spent a little time naming our little troupe. We all agreed on the perfect name: "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Improv." The kids loved it, and that was it. I went on to teach basic warm-up games like Rope and ABCD. I went over short form crowd-pleaser games like Party Quirks and World's Worst and I even got into showing them a little long form.

We had a show once a month, and if I remember right it was generally the first Thursday night of every month. Over the course of the semester our attendance grew until the little small stage room was packed with excited comedy fans. I knew that they were there to see the kids and not me, but it still gave me a great sense of accomplishment.

Unfortunately for me... and the kids, Rollins brought in another guy to be my "co-director." Mr. Quinn. He didn't know the first thing about improv or comedy for that matter, but he was on staff. He was an english teacher, and I was just an afterschool volunteer, so I had no say in the matter. At first I thought he would be cool, because he let me do things the way I saw fit. That all changed in January. The first week after Christmas break he decided to take the reigns away from me. Before we met with the kids that day I went over some new games with Quinn that I had discovered that I wanted to teach the kids. First thing he did that day for rehearsal was insist that the kids write a sketch to open the first show of the semester. A sketch?!? For an improv show?!?
Okay, yes, we did that a time or two as an intro if one of them happened to have written and brought in something that they all liked, but it was not a standard thing. And he was doing it on my time. We only got two hours a week with these kids and he had them squander it on brainstorming SKETCH ideas. I was livid. If it were productive, or even structured for that matter, I wouldn't have been so mad, but he just had them all sitting around chatting about it. An hour into their brainstorming session I just quietly slipped out the back. I knew some of the seniors from when I was still a student there, so I figured if they missed me they would call.

I never got a call. That was the end of my tenure at MP.

I am not religious

It often frustrates me to see religious people use their beliefs as an excuse to judge, invade, persecute, degrade, slander, rape, murder, terrorize, etc etc.

I recently called out a friend on doing a thing from that list. To me. After roughly seven years of loyal friendship he made some very heavy-handed judgments about me based on one conversation. As if a small handful of unfortunately misunderstood words can undo a sea of shared experience. At first I tried using reason to appeal to him. I tried reason good and hard. He would not listen to reason, so I lost my cool. I will admit that in my anger and hurt over the situation I used... colorful language, but I spoke the truth. He took great offence and said he'd prefer not to see or hear from me again.

I do not bare him or his religion any malice. In fact if christians actually followed the teachings of Jesus, I think the world would be a better place. Wonderful maxims like "hate the sin, but love the sinner" and "judge not, lest ye be judged" get overlooked all to often in favor of cynicism and hate.

Jesus preached forgiveness and love. It pains me that so many "christians" would rather do quite the opposite.

An Extremely Related Tangent

At the ripe old age of twenty-five I'm beginning to see why so few people stay friends with the ones they knew when they were young. I've come up with a theory. I think it's a two-pronged attack by Life. Ah, Life. And I mean the one with a capital "L" and a heart of pure black.

Prong one: you've got the inescapable fact that we all change as we grow older. Some of us will change careers. Some of us will end up in relationships that rearrange our priorities. Some of us will find and/or lose their faith. The fact of the matter is our minds are continuing to grow and change structurally and chemically throughout our entire lives. Through this process some of us will grow together, but the majority of us seem to grow apart.

Prong two: there seems to be a gradual homogenization within social circles. After a group has been a group for just so long, the real differences (and I mean the real ones, the deeply ingrained ones that are defining personal characteristics in each person) really begin to stick out. A sharp corner of fundamental zealotry here, or a rough edge of radical liberalism there and you've got yourself some friction. Social friction. Like sandpaper, it will eventually smooth itself out, but these defining edges and corners of each of us will not. So, in general, what gives in then to restore equilibrium? People leave the group. It's inevitable. Most of us can only rub ourselves raw so many times before we just give up.

End Tangent

This theory is something I've been kicking around for some time. I am seeing now that this event in my life may be one or both prongs at work. It's funny how being keenly aware of the "why" behind something sh;tty doesn't comfort one at all.

Not even a little.

Never again

I know, I know, everybody has said that while suffering after a wild, hedonistic binge, but I mean it. I know, people have said that too, but this "never again" is a very specific one. I will NEVER eat nine "special" brownies in one night again. It is Friday, and I still haven't fully recovered all my faculties.

Monday night my friend Gabi had a 4th of July party. For this party she took a hundred dollars worth of weed and made an enormous amount of magic brownies. It had been about two years since I had been good and stoned, so I thought "what the hell" and chowed down.

Seven brownies, and three hours later I was feeling mildly buzzed and very disappointed. It turns out that Gabi had cooked the weed with butter in a crockpot for TWO FULL DAYS. The consensus among the biggest potheads we know was that the THC quite probably got broken down chemically after so much prolonged heating. Based on how I was feeling, I was in agreement with them.

I was just about to give up hope on getting stoned when in walked a young stranger with a new tray of brownies, only this tray was the real deal. Just catching a whiff of the tray as he walked by gave me the munchies. The consensus on this one was that this guy must have just crumbled a bag a leaves and stems into a bowl of instant brownie mix. Much less elegant, but WOW did I get high.

After two of this kid's treats (bringing my grand total to nine) I was flying high. I actually don't remember much after my skin started buzzing. I remember begging Meg to take me into the bathroom to... ahem, you know. And she did. And it was good. So good. Mmmmm...

I also remember that everyody seemed to think I was the funniest f**ker on earth for a few hours. The third, and final, consensus of the evening was that my friends want to stockpile weed so that if they ever get bored they can get me high and enjoy my antics.

Sweet.