I've been a handful of different places in the last couple months and now here I am in Chicago. Random? Yes indeed. By all means I shouldn't really be here, based on my bank account at least. Which leads me to thinking I need to jump ship before I've even gotten into bed with the windy city, beautiful though she may be. I road tripped out here just yesterday with Ekahn to move good all Queen Bess across the country and damn, there is a lot of corn between home and here. So now that I'm here I realize that I can't sustain this, I've gotta get back home and regroup! That's exactly what I think I'm going to do. Catch a train home and make my way back to LA, with a mind for spending some more time in SB's big sister city. How is it that I've been jerking around in SB for so long without taking more trips to the land of big movies and even bigger attitudes? I mean come on. So that's the game plan, head home and explore the closer country, find that little club scene that lives just south of my quiet beach town.
There is a dog staring at my crotch right now, should I be offended? Oh wait no there is a ball placed between my legs, that must make it all okay. Damn do I want a dog! Except that everyone I tell that to looks at me like I'm nuts. Come on, how hard can it be?
Anyways, I have no insight into Chicago. I've spent a total of 2 hours out on the town, a combination of both no money and no idea where I am. Lame excuses but I'm still trying to grab a little mid-western footing. I did look around Division St. though and whoa! Beautiful people and rad looking shops. Plenty of food and tons of music venues! To quote the good CA governor, "I'll be back."
Monday, August 24, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Make home of the road, but don't make the road your home.
I've just arrived in Portland, I feel tired. I have no funds to speak of, which doesn't bother me, at least I think it doesn't. It is difficult to tell for sure though. I don't mind not having, I just don't like to not being able to be doing things because of that lacking. Pshhhhhh, I'm being silly.
My last few weeks have been full of adventure. It all started with a crazy group of musicians by the name of HumanLab. The swept through SB one night while I was pedicabbing and I left with them the very next day, playing mandolin in their band. We stormed up to SLO and Santa Cruz, meeting and staying with awesome people along the way. When we turned back around I ventured with them all the way to Huntington Beach, their home base, before we struck out once more through the south coast making it all the way up to San Francisco. I decided that I needed to get off the van at this point because A. I didn't really feel like heading all the way back to Huntington, which was their plan and B. I had make a pact with myself saying that I was going to go to Oregon, and I can't lie to my heart. Conveniently my friend Lauren was celebrating her 21st birthday in a short time so I spent the next few days hanging with her before taking part in a wild night of limo riding and complimentary bar drinks. I got a bunch of make up put on for the event, amazing the response you can get from a little orange eye shadow. The day after the party I met up with Maria, my newly found traveling buddy for the trip up to Portland. Maria has taught me many things so far, one being that coops are awesome and another being that dual tandem bikes can be frightening. Together we made our way around SF on a 'ghost tour' and hopped on a ferry to get over to Larkspur to meet up with our ride north. Kory, our driver to be, and his girlfriend Sasha were a fantastic couple. After we'd had a couple of beers at the local brew pub we went back to their place at which point they launched into an extremely long winded debate of Atlas Shrugged. She loves it, he hates it; it was a beautiful thing. On the ride up, Kory, Maria and I were joined by a man who I have decided to call God Man but was actually named Brett. He earned his title by relating every story topic to an experience with God, impressive if you think about it. Other than that the ride wasn't unusually eventful, though it was long. After 9 hours of being car bound we pulled up in front of Emma's haunted love mansion in Portland and made our way in and onto the couch. Kory continued on to Seattle do his business type stuff but Emma, Maria, and I rallied ourselves for a 4 mile round trip dumpster hunt. Come on guys! The pizza is on the house!
As I have just said aloud to my house mates, I'm a bit antsy. Is it the result of hours of cardom? Or is it something else, hard to say really. What am I doing up here one might ask? I don't know. There are some mandolin lessons I'm interested if I can find a little money. There are also harmony singing classes that sound like a lot of fun if I can only find the funds. Lets walk all the way out on the limb and bring to light the bar tending school I would like to attend for a couple weeks. One day I will learn what it means to plan ahead, until then I'll just keep doing what I do.
If anyone has any Portland adventure that they'd like to hear/see lived out, do tell me about it and I'll get right on it as I have plenty of time. Hopefully some of the upcoming stories shall included playing the streets of Portland, hitting up the Oregon Country Fair and the High Sierra Music Festival, and moving into an attic here at the haunted love mansion. Keep it incredible.
My last few weeks have been full of adventure. It all started with a crazy group of musicians by the name of HumanLab. The swept through SB one night while I was pedicabbing and I left with them the very next day, playing mandolin in their band. We stormed up to SLO and Santa Cruz, meeting and staying with awesome people along the way. When we turned back around I ventured with them all the way to Huntington Beach, their home base, before we struck out once more through the south coast making it all the way up to San Francisco. I decided that I needed to get off the van at this point because A. I didn't really feel like heading all the way back to Huntington, which was their plan and B. I had make a pact with myself saying that I was going to go to Oregon, and I can't lie to my heart. Conveniently my friend Lauren was celebrating her 21st birthday in a short time so I spent the next few days hanging with her before taking part in a wild night of limo riding and complimentary bar drinks. I got a bunch of make up put on for the event, amazing the response you can get from a little orange eye shadow. The day after the party I met up with Maria, my newly found traveling buddy for the trip up to Portland. Maria has taught me many things so far, one being that coops are awesome and another being that dual tandem bikes can be frightening. Together we made our way around SF on a 'ghost tour' and hopped on a ferry to get over to Larkspur to meet up with our ride north. Kory, our driver to be, and his girlfriend Sasha were a fantastic couple. After we'd had a couple of beers at the local brew pub we went back to their place at which point they launched into an extremely long winded debate of Atlas Shrugged. She loves it, he hates it; it was a beautiful thing. On the ride up, Kory, Maria and I were joined by a man who I have decided to call God Man but was actually named Brett. He earned his title by relating every story topic to an experience with God, impressive if you think about it. Other than that the ride wasn't unusually eventful, though it was long. After 9 hours of being car bound we pulled up in front of Emma's haunted love mansion in Portland and made our way in and onto the couch. Kory continued on to Seattle do his business type stuff but Emma, Maria, and I rallied ourselves for a 4 mile round trip dumpster hunt. Come on guys! The pizza is on the house!
As I have just said aloud to my house mates, I'm a bit antsy. Is it the result of hours of cardom? Or is it something else, hard to say really. What am I doing up here one might ask? I don't know. There are some mandolin lessons I'm interested if I can find a little money. There are also harmony singing classes that sound like a lot of fun if I can only find the funds. Lets walk all the way out on the limb and bring to light the bar tending school I would like to attend for a couple weeks. One day I will learn what it means to plan ahead, until then I'll just keep doing what I do.
If anyone has any Portland adventure that they'd like to hear/see lived out, do tell me about it and I'll get right on it as I have plenty of time. Hopefully some of the upcoming stories shall included playing the streets of Portland, hitting up the Oregon Country Fair and the High Sierra Music Festival, and moving into an attic here at the haunted love mansion. Keep it incredible.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
The Truth about Being Patient
I've recently been pondering the definition of patient. Here is what the dictionary has to say:
patient - bearing provocation, annoyance, misfortune, delay, hardship, pain, etc., with fortitude and calm and without complaint, anger, or the like.
That is good and all, pretty straightforward, but what about more complex scenarios? I can be patient in traffic, I can be patient even while I'm late and waiting for a bus, but do I need to be patient when it comes to going after the things in life that I want most right now?
Here's the deal. I'm in school now, again, and again there is something that is drawing my attention else where. I know I just heard someone yell, "Teach the boy some discipline!" but I'm not listening to whoever that was. I'm in school and I think I want to be blowing glass in Eugene for the next year but lo and behold it interferes with my continuing education. Or does my education interfere with my glass blow apprenticeship? I can't trust my own judgment; it has been too altered by society, pushing and shoving me down the chute labeled 'uneducated youth.' I feel like the deepest part of myself is screaming, "Get out of there!" Or perhaps, as some people are prone to remind me from time to time, I'm a bit lazy, marginally undisciplined, and more focused on enjoying myself than getting my work done. Well, yeah, what else should I be focusing on?
That might sound selfish and self-indulgent but I'm serious, if I'm not working towards the enjoyment of life then I don't really understand what all the hubbub is about. No Mr. You-aren't-looking-at-the-big-picture and Mrs. You-aren't-fulfilling-your-potential, I don't want to keep my nose to the grindstone right now. Now there comes that moment where I ask myself why I don't just get up, drop off my academic suspension, and thumb a ride to greener pastures. Because I'm scared. It is scary to go against what nearly everyone to whom I propose my dreams tells me: stick it out. Be patient, the dreams will come. This excludes the believers among you, you know who you are ;).
I have to wonder, am I trying to follow a more righteous path? Or am I just trying to avoid what has to be done? After all, everyone knows what a diploma is, and if you have one, the world considers you intelligent.
patient - bearing provocation, annoyance, misfortune, delay, hardship, pain, etc., with fortitude and calm and without complaint, anger, or the like.
That is good and all, pretty straightforward, but what about more complex scenarios? I can be patient in traffic, I can be patient even while I'm late and waiting for a bus, but do I need to be patient when it comes to going after the things in life that I want most right now?
Here's the deal. I'm in school now, again, and again there is something that is drawing my attention else where. I know I just heard someone yell, "Teach the boy some discipline!" but I'm not listening to whoever that was. I'm in school and I think I want to be blowing glass in Eugene for the next year but lo and behold it interferes with my continuing education. Or does my education interfere with my glass blow apprenticeship? I can't trust my own judgment; it has been too altered by society, pushing and shoving me down the chute labeled 'uneducated youth.' I feel like the deepest part of myself is screaming, "Get out of there!" Or perhaps, as some people are prone to remind me from time to time, I'm a bit lazy, marginally undisciplined, and more focused on enjoying myself than getting my work done. Well, yeah, what else should I be focusing on?
That might sound selfish and self-indulgent but I'm serious, if I'm not working towards the enjoyment of life then I don't really understand what all the hubbub is about. No Mr. You-aren't-looking-at-the-big-picture and Mrs. You-aren't-fulfilling-your-potential, I don't want to keep my nose to the grindstone right now. Now there comes that moment where I ask myself why I don't just get up, drop off my academic suspension, and thumb a ride to greener pastures. Because I'm scared. It is scary to go against what nearly everyone to whom I propose my dreams tells me: stick it out. Be patient, the dreams will come. This excludes the believers among you, you know who you are ;).
I have to wonder, am I trying to follow a more righteous path? Or am I just trying to avoid what has to be done? After all, everyone knows what a diploma is, and if you have one, the world considers you intelligent.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
The Science of Procrastination
"Never let schooling get in the way of your education" - Mark Twain
Okay so the quote is a bit overused but it's still true! I feel like I spend a tremendous amount of time during the day learning glorious, perchance useless, things and more often than not those things are interfering with what should be my scholastic study time. Damn well tragic if you ask me. Then I get all flabbergasted/stressed when I don't have my 'real' work done and before anyone can figure out what I'm dealing with I'm shouting out things like, "I hate school!"
For some reason everyone takes this to mean I hate learning; I don't really, to the contrary, I get all giddy when I get to learn something new, be it mundane or otherwise. Twitter? I think yes. It is just that I don't like deadlines and being told what to study and when-the working world is going to absolutely love me.
Is this such a bad thing? It's the 21st century! Information is at our finger tips and all that. Anyone currently studying anything relevant to today will most likely discover that by the time they know what they are doing with whatever it is they are studying it will be outdated; I'm not into that. To make matters worse it seems like most everyone is going to school to secure a job, what happened to knowledge for knowledge's sake? Give me the classics! Useless bits of history, astronomy, Latin! But hey who I am to know either way. I could be on to something or I could just be staging an elaborate procastinatory plot.
Okay so the quote is a bit overused but it's still true! I feel like I spend a tremendous amount of time during the day learning glorious, perchance useless, things and more often than not those things are interfering with what should be my scholastic study time. Damn well tragic if you ask me. Then I get all flabbergasted/stressed when I don't have my 'real' work done and before anyone can figure out what I'm dealing with I'm shouting out things like, "I hate school!"
For some reason everyone takes this to mean I hate learning; I don't really, to the contrary, I get all giddy when I get to learn something new, be it mundane or otherwise. Twitter? I think yes. It is just that I don't like deadlines and being told what to study and when-the working world is going to absolutely love me.
Is this such a bad thing? It's the 21st century! Information is at our finger tips and all that. Anyone currently studying anything relevant to today will most likely discover that by the time they know what they are doing with whatever it is they are studying it will be outdated; I'm not into that. To make matters worse it seems like most everyone is going to school to secure a job, what happened to knowledge for knowledge's sake? Give me the classics! Useless bits of history, astronomy, Latin! But hey who I am to know either way. I could be on to something or I could just be staging an elaborate procastinatory plot.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
The trick to spring break is getting so drunk that you forget you're in school, nobody told me that.
My spring break has come to an abrupt, unfortunate, and sadly, unavoidable end. By lunch tomorrow I'll be bumping down the I-10, bound for Prescott and another six weeks of collegiate bliss. As short and oddly scheduled as this break was I feel that I've grown immensely in the last week, reaching to new heights such as Twitter, and my very own blog. Fascinating are the lengths that an optimistic academic travesty will go to in hopes of finding fulfillment in a era of cheap thrills, instant gratification, and cliches. Like my dad always says, if only I'd put all this energy into my studies.
I'm going to say that between now and the end of the quarter I'll burst into tears four times, forget my lunch at home on a Wednesday three times, undertake some bizarre mission involving either live-stock or something too big to fit on top of my car twice, and sound a barbaric yawp to end an argument at least once. All 'n all I think it's going to be a great six weeks!
Considering that I have an eight hour drive looming on the other side of the sunrise I think it best that I adjourn for the night and plan that, in the future, I'll write blogs at a more decent hour.
I'm going to say that between now and the end of the quarter I'll burst into tears four times, forget my lunch at home on a Wednesday three times, undertake some bizarre mission involving either live-stock or something too big to fit on top of my car twice, and sound a barbaric yawp to end an argument at least once. All 'n all I think it's going to be a great six weeks!
Considering that I have an eight hour drive looming on the other side of the sunrise I think it best that I adjourn for the night and plan that, in the future, I'll write blogs at a more decent hour.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
