The Last Full Day

There was another false start today. We were told that we'd probably wake up early to go boating, but my dad ended up getting a boat reserved later - at 12:30, so we were allowed to sleep in for a while. At something like 8:30 I detected that something wasn't going to plan so I got up and asked my parents what was going on, informed them I was taking their bed, was informed I would be disturbed, and slept comfortably in a marshmallow until sometime around 10.

Then we just hung around until it was time to go. I had Cheerios, which is the only type of cereal we have. The bowls are very deep and always have way more milk in them than you think when you are done.

I've been entertaining myself in my down time here by reading a topic on the SomethingAwful formus I post at. It's title is "Creepy reads on Wikipedia," and it has people bringing up things anywhere from serial killers to unexplained sounds to things like Cossart to outsider art. By far the most interesting thing that was there was Henry Darger, the most celebrated example of "Outsider Art" there is. You should read the abstract of that Wikipedia article. Seriously, read it. Now.

Congratulations on reading it! Anyhow, I spent a LOT of time reading about all those things. Very informative, though not sure it was worth probably the 4 hours or so to read about all of them.

Anyhow, we went to the Marriott to get our boat (that's where the dock was). We stopped at a convenience store on the way. A guy in a truck that was towing some sort of trailer almost destoyed the car we were in while we were in the parking lot. I got a doughnut which was marked Krispy Kreme but was definitely from Dunkin - a disappointment. My brother and I carried the large blue cooler down the very long dock when we got there, and it took a long time to actually get out of the dock. There was another family there and it seemed they were all renting waverunners. The prep work on our boat wasn't all done by the time we got there and apparently the man that we communicated with had to put some oil in our boat before we set out.

We went out and got to fishing. I didn't really feel like fishing, so I just chilled out with my aviators on and didn't do a whole lot. They caught some small fish - Ryan caught a tiny little one. Then they caught some Jack - possibly the same fish twice? And we also caught some catfish, and they made strange sounds (so did the Jack). We tried a new spot after we drifted down our first path a few times, and we saw porpoises jumping (!) which was pretty cool. There were also other fishing jumping, more in the distance, however. There were a lot of porpoises and they seemed to get pretty close to our boat, but never closer than about 50 feet. Jessica was afraid we would catch one. She was also afraid that we all texted too much and that I wasn't actually a great photographer.

I saw a huge fish jump at the point of land near us at one point and told my dad, and he drove over there. We drifted down that once or maybe twice and caught some fish, my dad thought one was a Pompano but it was just a Jack again. At one point a Jack jumped very close to our boat, in and out of the water twice, the first longer than the second, probably about ten feet horizontal and then about four. It was surprising and I happened to catch it.

My mom made me take a picture of palm trees in our complex earlier because they "look like a mom and pop and child." She also made me take pictures of everyone on the boat, so I took really bad pictures on purpose, and then my sister and mom tried to take good ones, I'm not really sure which are which right now, oh well!

My mom wanted my dad to go somewhere crazy for not a very good reason and we kept running on shallow ground. The first time it was about to happen Ryan said, "You're about to run aground" and then my dad ran aground and was surprised and Ryan said, "Geez, someone should have said something." This happened multiple times and we gave up. We stopped to fly fish for a minute on the way back because we saw two people on one boat with a fish on at the same time, but I don't think we had any luck. There was another boat at our dock when we got back, so we waited a few minutes before pulling in.

There were two girls at the dock that were from the family renting waverunners from before. I was confused why they were there. The rest of the family wasn't there, and one of them had changed clothes but the other hadn't. Were they renting waverunners again on their own? I dunno. My brother and I took the cooler back and we all used the bathroom and drove back to the apartment. I took a shower and read about creepy things. I also had to look up weather for my mom (it will be windy but I lied so she wouldn't freak out) and order pizza from Papa John's because my brother and I didn't feel like Chinese (neither did my dad but he dealt with it). The guy from PJ's said it was very confusing here even for a New Yorker, and I agreed. His name was Doug and he made 3 deliveries, per the receipt.

We went to David's house for dinner again. I couldn't not-touch the guitar anymore, so I asked Wendy if I could touch it, tuned it a tiny bit and played it (I'm not very good though). Everyone else sat down for dinner, but Ryan and I were exiled because we already ate and there wasn't enough room. He watched Two and a Half Men and I read The Great Gatsby, which David is reading to Lucien. He tried it, at least, and said he also read "Be Prepared" to him, which is like a Boy Scouts guide of what to expect for a male who's about to become a parent. It referred to infant behavior that seems contrary to survival instinct as "a sort of baby-version of Jackass." (i.e. flying down stairs, sticking things in sockets, laying face down in every water source possible).

I joined the dinner table after some people left and Jess was mad that I didn't help clean up. I asked Dave about his reading to Lucien and he showed me Be Prepared. I think I went back to the TV area after that and listened to Jenn talk to my sister about marriage - Jenn was glad that she waited to get married because she changed a lot.

When we showed up at David's house, we heard a cat crying from behind a wall of hedges. We looked for it with our cell phone lights but couldn't see it but it kept crying. I told Jess to go to the other side but she wouldn't so I did and it turned out to be Scooter, and it crawled under the hedge into David's yard. Jess didn't even see it scurry away, it was lost in the night, although it came back inside later.

I headed to the kitchen area later and got some Gummi Bears, and then some more gummi bears, and then some more. I talked about the time Jenn accidentally ate the paper part of Fruit by the Foot, after asking Ryan and Jess what the name for that was anyway. We also talked a little bit about my going on Semester at Sea in 2010 and how I was going through "Pirate Alley." Some seemed scared and some thought it was okay, Dad said he only had $2 in the event of ransom and otherwise I was screwed. I said that they'd never been captured so it was okay, but secretly I hoped we were captured by 1600-style pirates, or maybe even 1700-style.

My mom went to print out boarding passes and I went and we talked about Semester at Sea and Barack Obama and his court cases about his citizenship and if David actually had to convince Wendy to vote for him. The printer ran out of paper and I printed my itinerary for SaS. My mom told David about draft mode on the printer, which I first heard about years ago on an NPR segment about sophisticated consumers.

Earlier, young David had made me give him a piggyback ride. I made space shuttle noises and so did he, and I was convinced I didn't want kids because I don't like playing things other than Facts in Fives and pianos.

Jenn and her family left so we said goodbye to all of them. My mom had given them their Christmas present earlier, but they already had the Pokemon DVD game, so we had to find out a way to return it and get them something else. I'm not sure how that was resolved.

Wendy was holding the baby now; Grandmom had it earlier when she was on the rocking chair with him. I showed Wendy where I was going for SaS and she mentioned some places she'd been and that I should get some leather in Alexandria (I think). She said that Hong Kong was like New York but with three times as many people, but I said it was okay because they were 1/3 the size, and she added "and all with jet black hair."

We went home after that and I read more creepy things 'cuz I'm a loser, wrote this, and am now going to sleep.

Peace out!

The Girl in Green

There was a girl at the Marriott Hotel the day we went there for lunch who was sitting alone at a table for a while (later with a younger brother) with black hair, a green bikini swimsuit, and interesting eyes, although I can't remember why. Maybe it was color, or maybe it was shape, but there was something uniquely intense about them. It wasn't particularly attractive or not, but it was striking and you couldn't help but notice if you looked at her. She was probably 18 or something like that.

She was behind me when I sat down at the table. The bar near the food area was playing music, including the song "Suddenly I See." I asked my sister about it; she didn't know who it was by but knew it was the same girl who sang "Black Horse in a Cherry Tree," which was a familiar name but not tune. While the song was playing, the girl in green walked up to the bar without me noticing, and on her way back she was lipping the words to the song. I just happened to be looking in her direction and made eye contact for a fraction of a second while she was lipping. She flashed a smile very very quickly, and then her face returned to normal and she stopped lipping, as if to say, "I mean, I don't actually like that song?" I didn't mean it, but I thing I looked angry at the time because it was sunny and I was squinting and I didn't mean to look at her so I didn't smile or stop looking possibly-angry, and I kind of felt like I ruined her fun for the moment.

Peace out.

Third Day in Florida

On the second day my Grandmom had a delusion that we were supposed to eat breakfast at her house, and we saw that she bought materials when we went to use her bathroom so we agreed to eat there the next day.

I woke up next to my sister and apparently my mom woke me and was wearing my green Brasil jacket (which contained my Aviators) and I just said, "MY JACKET" and apparently dreamed she had been wearing it the previous night. Then I guess I woke up and got ready to go, and we walked over at about 9:30. My grandmom said we were very punctual.

We were afraid she would make the batter too thick so I handled the batter with a little help from Jess, and Jess tried to cook at first but they kept getting burnt so I took over. They turned out all fine but I thought some of them were mushy in the middle and they were "wheat honey" pancakes rather than just plain pancakes, so that wasn't great. My parents came at the end of breakfast after we had helped clean up a little bit and talked to my grandmom about moving and her whole ordeal and basically ordered her to keep it colder in her apartment. It was weird. We were about to go shopping and Jenn and her family were going to come for a spaghetti lunch; Grandmom kept trying to leave with us but after a while we got it through that she had to stay to have lunch with the rest of them.

The walk to and from Grandmom's was very wet because it rained the night before. I walked barefoot through the grass and my dad said it could have lizards and snakes and he was serious.

We went to the stores a tiny bit later and my mom saw a jewelry store where she could get her watch battery replaced. It was decorated from Christmas and it had very gawdy jewelry that Mrs. Rock would have loved. The couple running the store was from Brooklyn and an old customer walked into their store down here and was surprised. They moved because of the weather (the owners, that is). We asked how long a drive it was to Kennedy Space Center - about 90 minutes, they agreed.

We kept walking by the shops. My dad asked what 3 Rednecks was because it was headlining one of the places; my sister and I figured it was a band or a show. It was very hot and I kept feeling tired and just a little bit sick to my stomach, and I was just not in a very great mood. We went into some stores looking for gifts or sunglasses and were mostly disappointed. One store we stayed in for a while was April Daze; I look at "Porn for Women" which had muscley men doing things like cleaning a cat litterbox with talk bubbles saying things like, 'Nothing better than cleaning up after the cutest things on four legs.' The shop owner said, "THAT'S SO FUNNY YOU'RE READING THAT MOST PEOPLE ARE AFRAID!!!" which drew the attention of my dad to the fact that I was reading Porn for WOMEN, which was a little bit awkward. I think my sister got some journals for her students there.

There was one shop with two very small dogs in it of the owners' and they were very cute, but we left quickly.

There was one shop with a peace-sign shirt that I liked but it was for girls. They also had things that let water fall down glass that you put up against a wall that I like so much, but they were prohibitively expensive, ruining my plans to line my entire house with them.

After that we looked for a place to get lunch. Burger King's broiler was broken, so we went to McDonald's, and I got chicken. I took a long time to eat because I took the fried part off, and I ended up not even being done eating when everyone else was, so I had to rush and eat a little bit of the fried part, too.

We were supposed to go to Sea World that day but it was a long drive and expensive and no one really cared enough to go, so we went to a local Florida Oceanographic Institute instead with Jenn and her family. We got in free. My sister spilled some soda on the car floor. We looked at sting rays and then went on a nature trail walk and I talked to Jenn about the movie Milk and things at Brown and politics and how people called her husband Dead an "Obamacan" and that she was proud to have converted him, which I thought was sort of funny. We walked back to the stingray pool to watch a program on them and then you had an opportunity to feed them because they had been de-barbed, but it was too slow for me so I lost attention and wandered to other things. There was a hermit-crab-finding-its-shell game, a starfish pool, and a help the turtle find its way to the sea game. We checked the gift shop and then I checked out the indoor part and then we left for the Shell Beach.

(We saw bathtub beach the day earlier; it was guarded by a shallow reef and had very calm water)

Shell Beach was largely eroded and had huge coral/rocks sticking out everywhere which was very painful. Richard danced on them which was dangerous and he didn't seem to understand why. We drove down to a nice beach while Jenn/Jess/Mom/youngkids walked to the nice beach, about a half-mile down. We hung out there for a little while and then went back to our hotel and showered and watched TV before going to dinner at a place called Dolphin Bar.

The wait was very long. First we went to the gift shop but there was nothing I liked, so I went back and saw my dad at the desk buying a giftcard for the Brandt's (since we're staying in their apt). He told me there was a lot of history and to check out the pictures, so I did, they were of people I didn't know, including some girl named Florence whose last name I forget (it started with an L) and letters from Ronald Reagan and an old couple sitting beneath a picture of Richard Nixon and lots of other people I didn't know. My mom made my dad buy her a really gawdy silver/stone beachy bracelet for her big Christmas gift since she's impossible to shop for and he hadn't gotten her anything big. She liked it, and liked that she got it cheaper than his website said it was worth (she checked at home). There was a book on the table of letters from kids in a JD Parker 4th Grade class to someone who got them a class subscription to Cousteau's Kids, which apparently had stuff about albino dolphins, beluga whales, and pollution in its September and October issue. The kids wrote well but used the word "elated" to describe their reaction to the magazine with surprising frequency.

I texted when I got bored. My sister was about to make us play the Name Game when our table was called (the one about people's initials) and my dad was getting really impatient. My mom didn't like the table so we got another one that she liked about 5 minutes later. I got chicken and chocolate cake, and we fed bread to a bunch of catfish that were hanging around the dock at the back of the restaurant. When I got back, I mostly read SomethingAwful's topic on creepy reads from Wikipedia, then came here.

Peace out.

The Second Day in Florida

Hint! Don't read this if you want me to have stories to tell you when I get back :-P

I slept on the couch the first night here. It has a hard-wood frame, but there are cushions on all three dimensions so I thought I might be able to sleep on it. My parents got one bed, my brother the only other, and my sister took the aerobed because I had been tired earlier and thought I'd be able to sleep on the couch. I remember watching some SNL before going to bed, including the episode where Ben Affleck hosted and played Keith Olbermann and apparently Obama actually made a guest appearance, but I was hoping to fall asleep long before he would actually be in the show, so I changed the channel to something else, though I forget what.

It turned out falling asleep was a lot harder than I thought. I had two blankets and an extra pillow, but I could not figure out what combination of them was right, and I didn't have my own baby blanket. I tossed and turned most of the night and didn't get a very good sleep.

We were supposed to get up and go see relatives and possibly fish at the beach at something like 8AM or maybe a little later, but I think somehow my parents could tell that none of us were very well rested. They woke me up when they got up because the couch is right near the kitchen and etc., and I said, "Do we have to go now?" And they said that the kids could sleep a while longer but they were going to go out until about 10:30, so I wrapped myself up (wearing only my underwear) in one of the blankets I had, trudged to my mom and dad's INCREDIBLY SOFT BED, and disappeared in the marshmallow-like mattress for the next few hours. Apparently my sister tried to find me in it and could hardly see me poking up between the folds in the mattress and pillows. I remember before going there, though, my mom said something about getting doughnuts, which I was pleased to find when I woke up for real. I had one (Dunkin Donuts), chocolate with sprinkles. My sister pointed out that the box spelled it "HOLIDDAYS" but we concluded it was to match with "DD" for Dunkin Donuts.

We got our sunscreen on and our swimsuits and went to the beach. It was warm outside, but it was windy and the water was a bit cold - probably high sixties - and wind+coldish water is never a very fun combination, so I didn't go in. My dad and his brother fished a lot, and David caught a few whiting fish. He was using shrimp as bait, which he said wasn't a great choice from an economic standpoint, but you got very fresh fish. They also used sand fleas as bait, which were little crab things they caught by skimming the sand in the shallows. David was going to keep the extras by boiling them for 45 seconds and them freezing them. Jessica tried to cast the rod a few times but was not very good at getting it far out.

Richard and David played in the water a lot, but not so much the older kids. It was a very nice day outside, incredibly blue everywhere. My dad chatted up a passing family with the bucket of sand fleas we had collected, it reminded me of how personable he can be if he feels like it. I took a picture of him chatting them up. We buried the youngest David (my cousin, not uncle) in the sand up to his head and he dug himself out and then rinsed himself off with my sister's help. My uncle David showed us how to fit a 13' fishing rod in your truck.... pop the trunk window open and close it lightly on top of the rod and hope it doesn't break.

After that, my parents took us on a tour of the island, I think it's called Hutchinson Island. It wasn't incredibly impressive, but it was nice, I guess. There's all different types of water everywhere - rivers, oceans, bays, inlets, whatever. We were looking for a beach called Avalon but we never found it, and just turned around to go back and maybe find something to eat. We ended up eating at the Marriott which, in this town, is just a RIDICULOUS resort with way too much space and its own golf course and beach and etc. When we showed up it was really busy, and one woman was reserving a number of tables for her party of 15, and my mom yelled at me to grab one table the second the party of four that had been occupying it left it. Even after we sat down, it took about 15 minutes to get a waiter, and ended up taking at least an hour to get our food after that. We came in at about 1:15 and didn't get out until 2:30, which was when we were supposed to meet our family at the pool back at our complex.

So we drove back there after food and showered off the salt and sand, but then we all needed to go to the bathroom, so my siblings and I went to our grandma's apartment to use the bathroom (she lives in the same complex) and then convinced her to walk to the pool with us. Then the kids all went swimming with Richard and young David. We played tag. My mom's camera had a lens error sometime during our swimming after my dad touched it, and my mom asked me to fix it but I couldn't, so I became her official photographer. We tried to throw Richard but it didn't work very well; Ryan could do it best alone. David didn't want to be thrown. We did handstands in the pool. After a while I got a headache and wanted to go back, but my mom made me wait until my dad could drive me even though we lived ten seconds away, so I had to wait for all the kids.

I took a nice long shower when I got back because it helps when I have this type of headache (sun and temperature changes and swimming/chlorine) and my mom and sister yelled at me for using hot water when we had a small tank, which I didn't know. We basically sat around until it was time to go to my uncle David's house for dinner. I can't remember what we did in between, I'm sure we just watched something on TV.

Apparently we stopped at a beach and I took some pictures when we drove to the tip of the island. I also remember unloading my pictures after my shower to clear up my memory card, since I think it's only 256MB.

The sky was really pretty when we drove to David's. We took my grandmom's car because we took her, so that was six people, which is too much for one car. When we showed up my mom made me show Wendy how to do things on her new camera, not against my will, but probably against Wendy's. My mom basically was like "HERE LET JEFF SHOW YOU COOL THINGS." It took a while but I figured out how to do color accent on her camera. I remember House was on TV. When I showed up, the first thing I did was pet their very very very very very fluffy and dark black cat named Scooter under their table for a while, and then Wendy gave me a cat comb to make it better. He rolled on his stomach; it was very cute.

We had dinner of Pompano fish, which my uncle David had said were great for eating earlier in the day and said he was really excited to cook for us. It was pretty good, and we all sat together at the same time, except for baby Lucien, who was sleeping, but cried at the very end of dinner. My sister took care of him, but then after a while Wendy's mom (Cathy?) took care of him instead. The conversation seemed to split in two then between men and women, but as usual, I favored the women. I think my dad and David were talking about fish, which I couldn't take. The women were talking about motherhood which was sort of interesting. Cathy also talked about the years people were born (Wendy, David and I are all year of dragon), and we talked some about music and math and a kid they knew named Leon who was an actuary and wealthy in Hong Kong. At some lull in the conversation we all went to the other room but I forget why.

Oh, we watched the Eagles game earlier and they destroyed the Cowboys. Also, I remember looking for the bread from dinner after dinner was over, and getting a cup of cold water dispensed from INSIDE the refridgerator, which was very strange. I also found out Wendy had a facebook and said I would friend her, which I did today.

When we went back home, I drove because I didn't drink anything, and after that I think we pretty much just watched Family Guy and House and went to bed. I slept with my sister this time.

Oh, my Aunt Jenn stayed in her hotel that day because she was very tired - her kids have tons of energy. Also, I was without sunglasses because I left them in my coat pocket, and I left my coat at David's house.

Peace out.

The Day We Arrived

My dad gave each of the siblings a $10 bill before we went to the airport because we'd get there around lunch time and he told us we should use it to get something to eat before we got on the plane. At about 11:25 I asked when the plane would board if we were leaving at 12, and it turned out it was boarding at 11:30, so we all got up to get food. I couldn't find much that I liked except a tiny candy shop with a small pack of three peppermint patties, so I bought that. I paid for it with my $10 bill and it cost $.89, so the change was $9.11, which was great, considering I was about to fly. My mom is TERRIFIED of flying and I considered showing her the receipt or telling her, but then decided against it.

Earlier in the day I had been texting Gina and we realized that it was the one-year anniversary of Sarah's after Christmas party, which was the day that we were blessed with the Best Txt Ever.

The man sitting next to me was old, very wide and big but not fat, had a full head of hair despite his age, and dark and somewhat leathery skin. His wife sat in front of him because US Airways separated them, as it had separated my family, so I also sat alone. I had a window seat, and the man had the center seat. He tried to take an empty seat by his wife, but then a commanding woman came from first class and said "Oh No, They Gave Me That Seat" and made the man go back and sit in the middle next to me. She was a jerk. The man didn't have much respect for my personal space and his elbows crowded me the whole time. His feet were in place but he spread his legs out at the knees, so that crowded me too. I spent the whole time reading Newsweek for the Hi-Q team but didn't even finish. We spent a lot of time on the tarmac, too. I also took a lot of pictures, and discovered that my camera DOES have a long exposure setting!

There were also some asshole teenagers on the plane sitting behind me, somewhere near my sister. Apparently they talked about some friend's mom being hot and made the mom in front of them angry, and she told them they were dirty-mouthed and inappropriate. Apparently there was a disagreement over the possible meanings of the word "stud." Apparently she talked to a flight attendent about them and that angered them even more (she sat right in front of them), and they accosted her further after that. My sister loudly said "THEY SOUNDED LIKE ASSHOLES" behind them as we walked off the plane and one of them heard her, which was the goal.

I ate all my peppermint patties on the plane, faster than I had expected. They didn't make a very good lunch so I was very hungry by the time we got off and it took forever to unboard. I bought a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos when we got off because I am a gross person.

My parents were sort of irritable the whole day, which usually happens. My dad really hates airports and my mom hates flying and she hates when things don't go perfectly according to plan, which happened when Enterprise didn't give us the kind of rental car that she asked for. Even though the Jeep we got is perfectly fine, she was still upset and angry about it. I wish that she wouldn't be like that, I wish she would be more like me, No-Drama Obama.

...

We went to a place called Shrimper's for dinner because my mom wanted fish dip, which my brother thought was hilarious. I got a chocolate milk so it was good. I wondered if I should still buy an apartment at PSU because of the market conditions, figuring a depression would completely sink me if I couldn't find renters. My dad talked about why he got out of the deal (on a technicality) for the property he had bought in Florida. We also caught my sister up on another divorce in the 'family'. My dad's brother is getting one, and my mom's best friend (who we call my aunt) is getting one. This is the one whose son drowned, if you are familiar. It's really sad, but apparently this often happens to couple whose only child dies, I don't know.

When we were at Shrimper's I took off my Brasil jacket and was wearing my Change We Can Believe In shirt beneath it. My sister and I went to the bathroom at the same time and apparently people were arguing about Obama at the bar, and my sister wondered if I had instigated it with my shirt. We had come across an Obama-mania booth earlier at the Philly airport, staffed by an Asian girl who smiled sheepishly at me when I did to her, after my sister pointed it out to my Obama-obsessed mom.

I took a picture of my food at Shrimper's because it was chicken tenders but I took off the tender and just ate the chicken, and by tender I mean the bread parts. My sister said I would post it on Facebook and it would be embarassing, but I never do that, but now I might and tag the picture with her so she'd be embarassed.

We were driving around Florida and talking about Christmas lights on the way to one of the houses (Fred's, where we are staying, or David's, my uncle whom we are visiting) and my brother and dad talked about white and blue christmas lights. They said it means you don't really believe, and my brother said, No, it's not like they spell it out. My dad said, "That's what blue lights spell if you really look closely, 'I Hate Jesus'." Which was out of character for him, and thus very funny.

Wendy plays guitar, which is really cool. She's my Uncle David's wife. The baby is really cute and my grandmom loves holding it, which is equally cute. Everyone liked my Obama shirt, which was very nice. Jenn, the sister of David and my dad, has apparently done a great job of liberalizing her children. They referred to Sarah Palin as "A STUPID IDIOT!!" and Richard apparently threw a baseball at her when she was on TV. For reference, he is 10 and his brother is 8. They were also disappointed that their public elementary school voted went for McCain when the kids were asked to vote.

We played tag outside and my uncle Dave talked about how this place is a blast from the past, telling a story about getting Wendy's very old knives sharpened at a blade sharpening specialty shop right from the 1950s. Her father was a butcher, or maybe grandfather. I tried to use my long exposure but the stars weren't shining strong enough, or the other lights were too strong.

Peace out.

---

My heart sort of sank when I turned off the Christmas lights on the tree just a minute ago.

Peace out.

Hurricane

Hurricanes come up the east coast all the time but it's only every couple of years that a good one makes it all the way up to the Jersey shore. When it happens, adults freak out and kids get all excited because the waves look crazy, the ocean looks angry, skies look dark and the wind is incredible.

In Avalon, we're doubly lucky because we have some safe spots to view the hurricane from on the North part of the island, near 9th and 10th street. As it turns out, streets with higher numbers were put underwater by storms long ago. So much for safe, eh? But anyway! There are public bulkheads at the east ends of those streets near the inlet, and there are beaches and large rocks beneath them. The tide from the storm always covers up the little beaches, and the fierce waves are then free to crash directly on the rocks below the bulkhead, sending walls of water over the solid metal guardrail. Whenever there's a good hurricane, kids gather at the bulkhead and wait for a good wave to come, crashing onto the rocks and sending a thick wall ten feet over the guard rail and then crashing down on the kids, who scream, get soaked, and run away. Sometimes reporters come and videotape it for the news. Sometimes the streets flood and parents decide it's time to go home.

One time a hurricane came up the coast and my mom suggested my brother go "parasailing" with its wind. In this context, that means taking two broomsticks, tying a bedsheet between them, putting on rollerblades, and letting the wind blowing into the sheet carry you at crazy speeds with no effort. So we actually did it - my brother and I were both pretty good skaters. We got two brown broomsticks and went out on one of the big, long, deserted streets in Avalon with our pink bedsheet sail and went probably twenty or more miles per hour on our blades. Stopping was always the scary part. "What do we do?!" I asked Ryan the first time we did it, totally scared. He told me, "Come'ere," and he put out his hand for my broomstick, so I handed it to him and he put them together, killing the sail and letting us come to a stop. We did it a few more times, and my mom might have a videotape of it.

Our friend McKenzie who lived in Avalon wanted to try it to, so she put on her skates and gave it a try with my brother. They went about as quickly as my brother and I had before, but she didn't know how to stop, and wasn't as good at skating as I was, and I think she fell and hurt her legs at the end.

Peace out.

Twister

When the movie Twister came out (a long time ago, I think I was in first grade or so), my whole family went to see it. If you're not familiar, the plot of the movie is basically that a bunch of different teams are trying to get their devices to the center of a tornado and prove that its the best for prediction purposes. So they basically just chase tornados the whole movie and get really close so they can put their inventions into them.

About halfway through the movie or so, I started having some sort of crisis. I don't even remember how it came on. In any case, I remember feeling like I couldn't breathe, feeling like no matter how deeply I breathed in I couldn't fully satisfy the need for air, and that (this is the weird part) the responsibility for directing breathing was consciously mine for the first time. I felt like up to that point, breathing was always automatic, and now it was up to me forever, and I wondered if I would die when I slept. I did have trouble going to sleep that night.

Anyhow, I started freaking out in the theater, though not loudly, but my dad sitting next to me noticed. I'm pretty sure I got off my seat and went to the floor with my panic - the cold of movie theater floors seems to make me feel better when I feel sick. Another time I got very sick in the middle of Castaway, and went to the cold floor of the theater minutes before throwing up in the bathroom. After getting on the floor in Twister, my dad just took me outside and we sat on the curb of AMC Painter's Crossing until the movie finished, and I suppose I told him I was afraid I couldn't breathe, and he told me that everything was fine.

The whole thing was just sort of surreal, that I actually had a moment where I realized that breathing was sometimes under conscious control and sometimes not, and I went into a panic about it. I also had a moment where I realized that the nape of your neck caves inward just a tiny bit for the first time when I was about five, and I freaked out, cried, and tried to blame the woman who had just cut my hair (thankfully I was home already).

My brother insists that I was just scared by the movie, but it really wasn't a scary movie.

Peace out.

Christmas Eve

When I was younger, I remember I asked my sister if people worked on Christmas Eve. She said yeah, and I remember being really surprised. Then I remember asking her if bosses asked all the atheists to work around Christmas so everyone else could celebrate, and then I also asked if it applied to anyone who didn't celebrate Christmas, like Jews or Hindus. For some reason, Dunkin Donuts is explicity tied to this memory, and I don't know why. I think maybe we went there around Christmas, or I assume everyone working there is Indian (terrible person, I know, going straight to hell) and therefore is an example of a place not effected by Christmas celebration.

I went to the mall today for shopping and was reminded of this because - terrible person going straight to hell - an Indian woman was working somewhere in Boscov's when we entered. Actually, today in general made me feel bad for all the people that had to work today. The woman that checked us out at B&N was clearly old enough to have a family and was wearing reindeer ears, and I would have liked for her to be with her family, I think. Same for everyone else (as long as they wanted to be). Jess pretty much summed it up when we were finding a parking spot on our way over and said "You know, Christmas pretty much sucks when you're an adult."

I guess it does but I like to think it'd feel better again if it would snow.

Peace out.

Money

For the first time, today I finally spent somewhat significant amounts of money (to someone my age) for gifts to friends, without doing secret santa or whatever. I guess I finally realized that I have more than I need right now, and I definitely don't have anything better to spend it on. It felt good, actually.

Peace out.

Soco Amaretto Lime

Chloe and I listened to Soco Amaretto Lime tonight when I was taking her home from Nicki's pit reunion. I had asked her if she heard it on the way there, but we didn't have time to listen until the ride home. I told her the story, about Baccalaureate and Pat Dawe singing it, and his friends standing up and singing later. I sang softly up till the end, because I wanted to sing but didn't want to ruin the song for her. I thought her eyes looked different near the end, but I wasn't sure until after the song was over. I told her the rest of the story, about the parties and singing at the end, and I teared up a bit too. I asked her if she was sad, and she said yes, about everything, and missing things, and I said I was too. I tried to make it a little bit better by remembering that at least we had something worth missing and being sad over. I suspect we were both still a bit upset by the time we got to her house, and it probably would have been nice just to talk to my friend a bit longer 'cuz what better is there to do but it was late and it seemed someone in her house was looking for her, ending a conversation a bit too early, I think.

Peace out.

Christmas Light Driving

When I was a junior in high school, Erin and I went to look for Christmas lights. It was in my dad's old Q45 that he gave to me. I'm pretty sure it had a big dent on the side by that point, and things were going to get much worse with it soon. We drove around the neighborhood, and perhaps the neighborhood next to ours, and made our way down Kirk Road. At some point, I think we turned into Devon's neighborhood, and then I think we turned into Wasiq's neighborhood because we knew there was that one house in there that was always INCREDIBLY lighted.

We didn't know how to get out of his neighborhood, though (we didn't know he lived there at the time...), and I guess we came out on Naamans Creek Road, and I guess I made a right turn. It turned out this was the opposite direction of home, and ended up taking us toward Kacey and Steph's neighborhood, which I think I was familiar with by that time.

It's a left turn into the neighborhood, and it comes up a hill. Erin was in the passenger seat. I put on my signal and slowed down to make the turn, everything looked fine, so I went. Out of nowhere, I saw headlights.

Crap.

They're coming fast. I remember seeing them and immediately fearing that I was about to get Erin killed. I don't remember thinking anything at all except for some appropriate obscenities, but I suppose I was aware enough somehow to floor it, and we made it into the neighborhood safely.

Once we got in, I just about died. I remember I freaked out. Things feel sort of light when this sort of freak out happens, and I don't feel nauseaus, but more like I'm about to pass out. Sometimes I get dots in my vision, coming in from the side. My legs feel almost out of control, although they don't shake. I'm just afraid that I can't control them. I had pulled over, I think, because I didn't want to drive around like that.

I forget if Erin realized how scared I was of what just happened or not. I think she did. I wanted to go home after that, and I think we basically went right back. I never would have forgiven myself if I had gotten her hurt that night. I'm ten times more cautious about that hill now.

Peace out.

How Tests Should be Taken

I took my Econ 002 final exam today in the Eisenhower Auditorium, which fits over 1,100 kids, since my instructor for that class actually teaches about 1,100 kids. We waited outside for a while, and then went in a line into the auditorium. A guy used a clicker to count how many of us went in, and we were given a scantron by another girl at the door. We waited to go into the rows of the auditorium, and since the chairs didn't have writing boards, we were given hard tablets to write on. The shadows from the lights made it really distracting to fill in the circles on your sheet.

When we were done, we had to go up to the auditorium stage on the right, get our ID checked against the ID we put on the paper, then hand our scantron and test book to another person. I finished my test and got in line to hand my test in. It took me about five minutes just to get to the back of the line, because it went to the very back of the auditorium and people couldn't "curl around" anymore. It took me another ten minutes to get to the front of the line and hand in my test. By the time I got up, the line was wrapping around the entire many-thousand people auditorium. It's possible the line went out the door of the auditorium shortly after.

The whole time I just kept thinking to myself, ironically, "Yeah, this is how tests should be taken."

Peace out.

Sharon

One Saturday night last year after a drumline practice, everyone went to Sean's apartment southeast of campus to hang out for a little bit. We watched Family Guy movie and maybe something else, but I forget what. I think Sean's roommates came in and out, and I think at least one was a girl, but I could be wrong.

I guess it was nearing the end of the season, and people were wondering who was going to do it again next year and who wouldn't join. I think I was asking Brooke, the pianist, one of my better friends that year, if she was going to be there next year. She said probably not. One of the reasons was she was afraid Tollie wouldn't be there, and the other was she feared she couldn't afford it.

Sharon was one of our older members, I think she aged out. She'd done a lot of corps and lines before. She overheard, or was in our conversation. She was standing at the end of the kitchen, holding a drink in her hand, in the low light. When she heard what Brooke said, she very forcefully said, "Do NOT let money stop you from doing anything. I swear to god. The ONLY thing that matters is the memories you have with people."

Peace out.

Pictures that make you wanna say FUCK YEAH

Some animal pictures that make you wanna whip our your switchblade comb, take a Lucky Strike from your pocket and nod to yourself, FUCK YEAH. Thanks to the guys at SomethingAwful.

Peace out!

Drumline Weekend

My last final is on Friday. I've gotten over the frustration of having to stay here all week as my friends leave. But I still have drumline on Saturday and Sunday, so I have no chance at all to go home until December 21st, when some of my friends have now been home for 5 days. I'm getting really upset, because I miss my friends a lot, and Christmas is going to feel extremely rushed because I'll only have three days to do shopping and to enjoy the season. I really want to be home, so I can have a fireplace, and my own piano.

Peace out.

Springfield Party

There was a party for Springfield Thon this weekend, Saturday night around 8. I knew my friends were going to a comedy improv show for Full Ammo before then, so I hung around working on a new website for my music until about 10. I think that it was about then I set out for the party. I wasn't sure exactly where I was going, but I found the building. I walked in at the same time as Jackie and a male friend of hers - she's a family chair for us. I looked for the stairs, but couldn't find them, so I took the elevator with the two of them. I actually wasn't sure who she was or where she was going exactly until when we got out of the elevator and headed for the same room numbers.

The first room I went into was 310. Some kids were playing a drinking game when I went in, I think, and it was very very very crowded and very small. I didn't know many people and I sort of felt uncomfortable. I made my way further into the apartment and Liz Fin came inside and noticed me, so we talked. She asked me what was going on, but my life has been lame recently, and she talked to me about her life for a little bit. She said she was leaving soon, and I said I probably was too, but I was going to check out the other room first.

So I went to 309. I think the first person I noticed was Mike, so I walked behind the kitchen and asked him how it was going, and he said good. I remember noticing a girl somewhere near him, but I forget who and why. I saw Dana dancing - one of the many people dancing, most of the girls wearing antlers for the holiday theme - and she excitedly said hello, so I did as well. I felt pretty uncomfortable because this room was essentially nothing but dancing; the music was much louder than the other room, and it was probably even more crowded. I saw a lot of kids I knew, mostly freshmen. I told Dana I wasn't sure I was going to stay very long, but that maybe I'd go to the other room before I left, and she said she'd go with me. So we went, but it was as strange as before, so she grabbed my hand and took me back out of the room and said that everyone would want me to say hi.

So I went with her to 309 again for a little bit and said hello to some people. Satbyol hugged me, and I said hey, how are you to whoever I knew that I saw. Matt was dancing with his shirt off. I said that I was probably going to go, and Dana looked disappointed. I think she was trying to make sure that I had a good time, and felt like she didn't do a good enough job. It's really not her fault, I'm just not the kind of guy that can have a good time at parties like those.

I took the elevator down again, and Jackie and her friend got in with me. We talked about Springfield, and parted ways at the road.

Peace out.

A Terrible Week with My Bike

My bike wheels had been getting really flat, so I brought it inside on Tuesday to inflate the tires. Using a tiny pump that my dad got me before I went to Brown, I tried to inflate the wheels in the stairwell of Simmons because it was too cold to do it outside. People passed by and wondered a bit what I was doing, but I guess they figured it out. At some point, putting the pump onto the air spout thing completely deflated my rear wheel, so the bike was totally useless 'till I got it fixed. Then the air spout thing receded into the bike. FML, as I like to say.

So I brought it to my room and got the spout out using some tweezers, but still had no luck with the reinflation. Dana helped me look up what to do on the internet and it was still no help. I called my dad to ask him, and he said to try for another pump, 'cuz mine might be broken. So I did; Dan had one that didn't fit my outlet, but Matt had one that did, and it actually worked, so I got my bike back on Thursday, I believe.

On Friday morning, my lock was frozen shut. I've written about this before. I slammed some ice out of the lock, but still no luck. Somewhat self-consciously, I spit on it figuring that spit is warm, and it'd melt whatever was jamming it. I waited a few seconds and - surprisingly, embarassingly almost - it worked.

As you might know, my flash drives are on my keychain, and when I was handling the lock, my keys fell out of the hole and my flash drives slammed on the ground, and the harddrive of one fell out onto the wet ground. FML. I put it back together and decided to pay more attention to it once I got to class. So I put the lock on properly, and got ready to go.

I have to put my pedals in place before I get on the bike, and as I kicked them into place, the chain popped off.

So I locked up my bike and walked to class. I haven't put the chain back on yet.

Peace out.

16 Things

A Facebook thing was going around recently where you were supposed to tell 16 things about yourself. I didn't really feel like doing it, but I figured it was a good excuse to spend time thinking about memories I'd sort of been meaning to write down but couldn't force myself to. Anyhow, here you go, all completely true to the best of my knowledge:

1. I went to pre-school at Elam Love & Learn, which is on Smithbridge Road, basically across the street from Bruster’s, just next door to Megan’s. In the mornings sometimes we would fold a piece of paper into nine squares and write the same letter in each square. Sometimes we’d have time to play, and there was a girl named Alex that I “liked” and usually played with. One time we were playing with wooden blocks and we made a ‘stretcher’ out of them and laid me on it, as if I were hurt, and a kid named Dave asked if he could play too. We thought he was weird because he pretended to be a vampire, and we stuck our tongues out at him, and he cried and got us in trouble. This is my first clear memory.

2. I almost drowned sometime before I was in about third grade. There was an old beach house (condominium) that we had in Avalon on the bay, and there was a bulkhead in the front, and a dock below it that would rise and fall with the tides. You could jump from the bulkhead to the dock line if you wanted to, but sometimes the jump could be eight feet or more. Once, on a cold day, I was wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants outside in the evening and I jumped from the bulk to the dock, but I couldn’t stop my momentum, and I feel in the water. I started screaming because I was scared and my clothes were heavy. My dad happened to be on the dock at that moment, and ran over and pulled me out. I went inside and took a warm bath for a while. My sister and her friend Becky checked to make sure I was okay (must have had a swimsuit on). I might have died if my dad hadn’t been outside.

3. The first song that I ever legitimately learned on piano was Do You Hear What I Hear. After my first piano lesson with Mrs. Pino, I went home with my mom and played through the first bit of it over and over and over and over again, and she sat there patiently as I messed up over and over and over and over again. I think I was in fourth grade. If I had kept up that kind of determination, I’d have been the best piano student of all time. Unfortunately, I started being told to play songs I didn’t want to play. I quit on and off until 9th grade. The reason that I started playing piano seriously again was because of the version of “Best Imitation of Myself” on Ben Folds Live, which my sister made me listen to in the car one day for basically no reason at all. Thank god for it.

4. I used to post on the forums at GameFAQs.com a LOT. There was a discussion board called The Forum, mostly for political and “philosophical” discussion, that I frequented. There were a bunch of other regulars – Ryoko, an Asian woman, Chemocles, a nice married dude, ghost sgt, an old cynic with three daughters, propheticfiction, who I think cut up birds, yars, who was hilariously sarcastic at all times, Polemos and Epistemizer, who wrote 2,000 word long posts when everyone else wrote five sentences. I never told my age but everyone knew I was The Young One. It was nice to sort of have a second ‘group of friends’ like that, and that you could always debate with but still like, ‘cuz it’s just the internet. Over time the board got taken over by people we didn’t like, and I tried to make another board for us to post at, but it fell apart too. It was actually a good time in my life, and I would enjoy if I could find something like it again.

5. One time when I was in second grade, I got on the school bus and didn’t realize that I hadn’t brought my backpack. My teacher was Mrs. Hopkins, who was very very nice. Back then, I was really really uptight, and sort of mean. When I got closer to school, I somehow realized I didn’t have my backpack, and I got *incredibly* nervous. I walked into class and tried to contain myself, but before the first bell even rang I felt sick. By the time all the kids were out of the hallway, I had asked Mrs. Hopkins if I could go to the nurse, and she let me – I think I was very pale. I threw up in the hallway before I made it there, I think right in front of the library at Concord Elementary School. Yes, I was so nervous about forgetting my backpack that I threw up. Mrs. Hopkins didn’t even care I forgot it.

6. We used to play football every day during recess in middle school. I can’t remember everyone there, but Greg Davis, Sean Haggerty, John Kernicky, Paul Skulski, and a whole bunch of other kids would play. I was okay, I usually got picked in the front half of the daily draft of teams. I could run forever. I was always the one that brought the football. The last days of 6th grade were kind of confusing and I didn’t know when we’d have recess and when we wouldn’t, but I thought that it ended a certain day, so I didn’t bring my ball the next day. Turns out it was a perfect day, and we had recess. Sean Haggerty got really angry at me, I remember he pushed me while saying, “We’re not gonna play football on the last recess of our young lives.” I sort of knew I screwed up, but it really wasn’t that big a deal. I forget what we did instead.

7. I had a couple online journals before chemicalroad. The first one was actually on livejournal, but I’m not giving the link to that because it’s terrible. I started that one because a girl who liked me asked me to and I did it because I can’t say no sometimes. I only wrote once or twice, then I realized I didn’t like her and she went psycho, tried to make me jealous, and then disappeared. Her name was Brenda. The next one was xanga.com/poulemarchus, which was my screen name before Singing Farewell. That one went for a while, but stopped when I found out my parents were reading it. I hate it when my parents screw up things like that; an entire year of my life in writing disappeared because of it. I eventually started xanga.com/stateownedmedia, but only wrote in it a few times. I still like to go back and read them every now and then. I’m not sure anyone can read the poulemarchus one right now though.

8. My mom found out that one of my legs was longer than the other when I was young and she realized my underwear and pants didn’t fit right on my hips. I had to have a lift put into my left shoe for a long time, like an inch thick in seventh grade. Kids used to call me “spice girl” in school, and kids at soccer camp called me “boots.” It was really annoying and I wanted to punch people and make fun of their acne, or ugly eyes, or terrible haircuts, or crooked teeth, but I didn’t. I got the growth plates in my right knee broken in 8th grade to fix the problem. I told people I had the cast because of a surfing accident, or because my brother beat me up, because I felt like telling a cool story. People believe me but I think most people found out eventually. If I didn’t have this problem I’d be six-foot-one. No one asks me about my shoes anymore, unless they’ve caught on fire recently.

9. When I was young, I really liked the song “Masterpiece.” I forget who it was by. Anyway, I actually liked it because I thought he was saying “I found a *monster* piece in you,” rather than masterpiece in you. I had a weird visual understanding of it in my head, and I just thought it was an incredible concept. I mean, this was like kindergarten.

10. My family had a computer when I was really young, a while before 2nd grade, and we had the internet through a provider called Prodigy. It was really terrible and slow, but I was too young to tell the difference. I found a game somewhere once involving a girl and an adventure through pre-historic times with dinosaurs, and always wanted to play it a second time, but I don’t think I ever found it again. This is my only memory of Prodigy.

11. I got a blanket before I had a memory. It was white and had some sort of design on it, although I’m not sure what. It’s ragged and brown/yellow/white now. I still sleep with it every night. Deal with it.

12. I used to be really obsessed with tractors and trucks, and I was convinced I would drive one for my job when I grew up. I thought people would pay for rides in 18-wheelers. Turns out I was wrong. I used to always make “towns” for tractors that I would take to the beach when I was young. In my old house, we had a living room with pink carpet and a lot of open space, and I would spend hours and hours with little metal tractors “mowing” the carpet, making straight lines with their metal wheels from one wall to another, back and forth. I idolized Scott, our lawn guy.

13. I used to be completely phobic of being alone. It started one day when my brother and neighbor convinced my mom left for good and was never coming back. After that, I would be one room away from my mom and afraid she was gone, and we had this conversation a thousand times: “MOOOM!?!?” “What?!” “…just checking.” Sometimes I got scared and did it at night when I was sleeping, or when we were both sleeping. Sometimes when I woke up in the middle of the night I’d check on them to make sure both of my parents were still there.

14. I have a lot of things wrong with me. When I was born, my tear ducts were messed up and I had to have surgery on them. I was diagnosed with Tourette’s when I was around 12, but I’m pretty sure that was inaccurate, or it went away. One leg was longer than the other. I’m losing my vision. I have an irregular heartbeat, but apparently it’s nothing dangerous. I have pecsis, meaning one set of ribs sticks out unequally against the other.

15. I never really know what my songs are about when I’m writing them. They sort of take on meaning retroactively, and sometimes they just take on extra meanings, and it happens to be a cooler meaning. For instance, when I wrote Singing Farewell, I imagined it as a song to a living friend from a deceased friend. Turns out it’s a way cooler song if you think about it more in the context of a graduation. Those sorts of things happen in almost all my songs. Some might say that’s cheap, but I think it’s cool, almost like I subconsciously have a meaning that I just need a month and a dozen listens to figure out.

16. Last one, about the future this time. I’d love to make a difference in the world, but I have no idea how. It’s so intimidating. Should I spend it working with poor people, maybe in undeveloped nations? Be a teacher? Just be a really good friend to everyone? Be a politician? I don’t know. I sort of realize that even though I’ve surrounded myself with beautiful things and people that I love endlessly, there are a lot of terrible things in the world that would crush your soul if only you could consider them simultaneously. I’d love to be the world’s hero and have everyone be, at the very least, safe and content. Not for the recognition, just because I want people to be safe and happy. But there’s so, so much inertia otherwise.

I might go into more detail on some of these at some point if I feel like it, or if someone asks me to.

Peace out!

Quick Break

This entry is really just a note to myself in case I ever want to remember what I did each day on this break. It won't be particularly fun for anyone else to read. Anyhow.

The Friday I came back I drove home with Dana and Gina and it took 6 hours and we all got pretty frustrated. I dropped Dana with her sister near McDonald's and went to the GV football game after dinner. They lost, and that was the night I found out about Chloe too. We all went to Abby's afterward and had a fire inside, talked, and went to Cossart Road. I went home around 2.

I can't remember what I did the next day in the morning, although I think it may have been math homework. Kelly Davis came over that day sometime while Penn State was playing football. Later I went with Michelle to see Rachel's play, but we couldn't actually talk to Rachel. I drove Michelle to Corey's house and then went to see Chloe in Exileland. Sarah and Gina couldn't come so it was just me/Chloe/Jack/her mom/Faith, which was fine. He played violent video games.

On Sunday I played hockey in the morning until about 2PM all told, including lunch and driving with Chas. It was good. I think I sat around the rest of that day because I was so dead from hockey, but I'm not positive.

On Monday I visited school and saw Mrs. Rock and Mr. Trabocco. She talked about the economy, Swiss Francs, Hi-Q, and the rapture, and he talked about cell phones and going into business first. I believe I did some work for my INS 301 class that day, and went to drumline practice later. To correct, this was the day I did my Linear Algebra homework as well. Drumline was okay, I went at the same time as Gina, and hung out with Hannah and Kate afterward till they got rides. I think I chilled after that.

Tuesday I drove for a long time to get a business card for INS 301 from Elise Manzi, and was very mad. I visited everyone at Hi-Q after visiting Kelly Davis at her house and buying Peppermint Patties for the team. Her mom apparently has Parkinson's, which made me very sad. I drew a devil behind Mrs. Rock on a SmartBoard and took a picture. I watched House that night with Chloe, Gina, and Matt at his house and talked to his family some and brought cookies. After, I went to Jason Fish's house to see Beth, and met her friend Krista.

I didn't shave. Wednesday I remember working a lot on my CD and trying to write songs, including the new one called Meaning to Write. I know I finished it that night. I don't remember doing much else that day. I believe I went to Tina's house that night to see Beth, Tina, and Krista. I think I did something in the morning with someone that kept me busy for a while, but I can't remember who. I think this may have also been the day I played Paperboy at Dominic's house with Joey and Gina.

I remember now that I actually hung out with Kristin a lot on Saturday, the first Saturday, because we hadn't gotten to talk in forever. It was nice.

I played hockey in Delaware with the guys until about 1PM on Thanksgiving Day for the Turkey Cup and then went to dinner with my family minus Jessica. That night I went to see Beth and Krista at their house and watched some House and came back around midnight. I think that was the last time I saw Krista.

The next day I burned a bunch of my CDs, finally, and brought them to a couple parties. There was a bonfire at Abby's with Sam and Sarah and Shana and Steph and others whose names I forget, and then I went to Kaycee W's apartment in Chichester to see all the old senior friends. I think just about everyone in the world was there, save Jen, Erin, and a select few others. I had gone shopping with Jenny earlier that day for a long time, 9:30 at Office Depot to mall to Genuardi's, and early in that morning Nupur had texted me that her parents found out and wouldn't talk to her.

I don't think I did much on Saturday and I started to feel sick toward the night. I had gone to the bookstore with Matt/Dan G/Chloe/Brianna earlier and we looked at The Areas of My Expertise and The Onion's Atlas, which was offensive and hilarious. I considered watching Helvetica later, and possibly watching with others if I could, but no one seemed to be around and I felt sick and couldn't find any copies nearby. So I worked on a website instead and worried about the weather.

Then I drove back with Margo and Gina after getting some sand from Gina's dad, and not knowing what Margo's dad's last name was. It only took four hours this time, and we weren't so frustrated.

There was that tree in Gina's yard that I wanted to check out to see if the leaves were as yellow this year as they were last year, or if they would even turn the same color year after year, but I forgot to look every day.

This turned out to be a lot less "quick" than I had intended.

Peace out.

Deer in the Headlights

I narrowly escaped two car crashes while I was here already. Even more if you count the journey here.

On Sunday morning I played hockey with Chas and the older guys at the Delcastle park in Delaware. Chas drove from his house and back to save some gas for us. On the way back we were coming up on 202 and not sure which direction to go, and we went straight, and saw some signs from 202 in front of us. There was a hill you went down before you got on to 202 and it crossed another road, and there was a red light in front of us at the time. I figured Chas saw it so I just kept going, but as he got closer, he wasn't slowing down. "Red light... red light!!" I didn't quite scream but I was pretty freaked out, because if anyone HAD been coming through, probably one of us would have been done. Fortunately there were no cars.

The night before I was going to visit Rachel at her play at Delaware County Christian School. We got there in the middle of the 4 hour play and there wasn't any way we could see her till the last scene, so Michelle and I decided to go and tell her dad to tell her we stopped by. We promised ourselves we'd visit her before break was over. I took her to Corey's house on the way back because he was babysitting his little brother, and we took Smithbridge past the light on Kirk because we forgot where we were. As I was going somewhere a little past the entrance to Bobby's neighborhood, I was talking to Michelle about something, and I saw something in my headlights. After a moment of thinking, I realized it was a deer poking its head out of the woods. "I should probably stop," I thought. Doot doo doo...... yeah, I should really probably stop. So once my brain got down to my foot, I put on the brake. There was no way I'd be able to stop before that deer. And to make it worse, there was a car coming in the opposite direction that would almost definitely hit me if I swerved, or if I hit the deer. Thank god, it retreated back into the woods before I got to it.

The deer-in-the-headlights expression is totally real, if you've never seen it before.

Peace out.

Black Bronco

The night I came home and went to the GV game against Neshimany [we lost], we went to Abby's afterward, and I think seven girls were sleeping over. I was also there because I didn't have to be home until I felt like it. We decided to go to Cossart Road instead of a diner, after the fire would die out. It never quite died out, but we got impatient and went anyway. I went with Chloe, Trisha, and Molly. Abby, Sarah, Hannah, and Kacey were in the other car.

We drove there and pointed out the mansion, the true guard tower, and the other strange tower. When we got on the road, I was in the front, Sarah was driving the car behind me. I think sometime shortly after we passed over the little bridge, I saw a car coming in the opposite direction. One other car had passed us before, I believe. I think that one was a sedan of some sort. Whenever you're on the road, though, you try to see what kind of car it is to see if it's a black Bronco or red pick-up or whatever else the stories had said. As it turned out, the second car was actually a black Bronco. Creepy!

So we drove down the road at like 25mph, pointing out the leaning trees and the skull tree and the driveway that leads up to the "guard house." I checked out the driveways on my way to make sure there were no cars waiting. It was after midnight and I was a little more on-edge than I usually was. When we got to the end of the road, Sarah was still behind me. We decided to turn around and go back down the road. When we did, I looked to see Sarah, and saw that there was a black Bronco right behind her. Super creepy! However, part of the myth is that you can't see the face of the driver. I could clearly see his face - he was white, about my age, maybe in high school, and wearing an orange winter hat, pulled down over his ears.

They actually turned around and followed myself and Sarah on the way back. I kept my speed at about 25mph. Apparently the Bronco waited at the turn around, turned off its lights, sped back up to Sarah, and turned on its brights right on her tail a bit later, freaking them out. Hannah said she didn't even see them before they put their brights on, and she was looking right behind them.

Chloe called Abby at some point, and Sarah was crying. The car was still right behind them, apparently right on their tail. I could see two pairs of headlights in my rear-view mirror. We kept going at about 25mph all the way back - the road is too dangerous for anything else - and got to the stop sign at Rt 100. We didn't want to stop because we didn't know about the safety of the car behind us for sure (I was actually a tiny bit concerned), so I rolled through it, and Sarah followed.

The Dresden Dolls were playing quietly, and right as we were turning, we heard some sort of screeching sound, or maybe a faint scream, that sounded like it came from outside. We wondered what it was - I thought about turning the music off in the middle of it, but decided it was probably just the car or something like that. But the others asked what that was, and said it sounded like someone, maybe a baby, screaming right outside the window.

We called the other car and asked them if they heard anything, and to our surprise, they confirmed. So it wasn't something just in the car, and it wasn't something just in the music that was playing. That freaked us out a little bit.

Thankfully the Bronco turned left as we turned right, probably to go back and freak out more teenagers. We still don't know what that sound was.

We were glad that the newbies actually had a good first Cossart Rd experience. I mean, it was almost definitely kids from local schools just messing around, but we DID get "chased" by a black Bronco on Cossart Road.

Peace out.

---

I saw her earlier and that her eyes were red, and I thought maybe there was something wrong, but I didn't say anything because I thought it was more likely that it was from being out in the cold for so long. A few moments later when I saw her, she was, I think, crying openly and being hugged very closely by one of her friends. I didn't know what happened, but I pretty much knew, and I was sad for her.

I walked away and minutes later was somewhere near her again, organizing things for later, and I saw her with red eyes again, and being hugged by friends. I don't think I actually had even been told what was wrong at that point. I was wearing my big, fuzzy, itchy jacket from some name brand store (I forget which one. AE?) that people seem to hate to hug me in. So I took it off and put it on the chair next to me, and took off my pink mittens, and said her name and hugged her for a while. I told her that I took off my stupid fuzzy jacket just to hug her to try to make her laugh, but I think that actually made her cry harder, and I was worried I screwed something up. I asked her where she would be that night, because I wanted to be there for her and for her to be with friends. Partially that was because I thought it was what she'd want, and partially it was because I had no idea what else might help.

And though it was nothing in comparison, my heart broke a little bit for her under the light of what happened, the beauty and the tragedy, the gravity of the hour.

[and if this kills you, tell me to get rid of it, and i'm sorry]

Peace out.

Spin Out

There's a big hill somewhere down 322 coming East out of State College where you have to make a left as you're going up the incline. We left around 1:15 on Friday to get home, and by this point it was probably already 3:30 or so. We were all very frustrated, and knew that there was a good likelihood that things wouldn't get any better from here.

We were going up the hill - myself, Gina, and Dana - on the right side of the road, I believe. Then, a few cars in front of us, a dark-colored [green?] jeep spun out. All the cars in the right lane stopped, and I suppose it was in the middle of the road, because all the cars in the left lane stopped, too. Or maybe just no one wanted to take a chance. But so there we were, sitting on an incline in a half-inch of slush and ice on 322, with a spun out jeep in front of us.

There was a big flatbed truck in front of the jeep. It was going up the hill just fine, but then it slowed down. Then we saw that it was going backward and it's tail lights were on. I didn't know what was happening - for a few seconds, I was convinced that this truck was about to slide down 322 and make a multiple-car accident heap, leaving us stranded there for a number of hours, not moving forward at all. It was a frustrating thought. Thankfully, it turned out the truck stopped to help the jeep. I don't know how he saw it, but I guess somehow he caught an idea of what was going on.

Some people were getting frustrated in the line of cars up the hill. I remember looking back, and in my head, cars went on in both lanes as far as I could see. That's not saying much because it was gray, cloudy, and snowy, so you couldn't see very far, but I would say it was about three-quarters of a mile. I forget what we were listening to at the time. Some cars honked their horns, and we didn't understand what they thought it would accomplish. Then some cars pulled around us from behind, went back up to the right side of the road, and drove past the jeep and onward. I thought about doing it, and started for the left lane to get around the car in front of me, but then the jeep moved. I didn't think it would be safe.

I remember I slid out a little bit at some point when I was making that initial move. I was really really frustrated, and almost convinced myself that the minute I took my foot off the brake and put it back onto the accelerator, I would fall off the road into the ditch on the left. There was a large rock/mountain separating the east and west directions of the road.

The trucker slipped as he was helping the guy in the jeep. He was pushing the jeep from behind, but the jeep wasn't doing very well. Somehow they happened to make something magic happen, and the jeep made it up the tiny incline from the dipped left side of the road to the elevated right side. It got its wheels on the rumble strip and then went on its way, on the rumble strip. So I knew it was my turn to go.

I had told Gina I thought we would spin out. The trucker headed back for his cabin, and people started to move. I aimed immediately for the right. Even though my steering wheel was all the way to the right, we hardly went to the right. In fact, at first we did lose our traction a bit, and I remember Gina saying something to me, "God-- Jeff...!!" in a frustrated and somewhat angry voice to me, and I told her to shut up/not to talk, which was mean, because I was in a really foul mood, and very afraid we were about to land ourselves in a snow drift. I kept the wheel all the way to the right and went slowly, and eventually we caught a grip and made some progress to the right, and made it to the rumble strip. We drove on that for a while, but I was afraid driving on it for too long would destroy the car. Plus it was very annoying. So we drove on at about 25MPH for basically the rest of 322, and got home at 7:00PM or so.

Peace out.

The Ice Burns of Prof. Haran

My Stat 200H [elementary statistics] teacher is a young Indian guy - maybe 30 or a little bit older - with a modern sense of style and vocabulary. He often refers to incorrect methods of statistics as "silly," but you can tell he knows it's sort of ironically funny.

Anyhow. One day in class, during the end of the voter registration drive up here, I was sitting in the back so I could pass notes with Dana, which we do to pass time. I had some "clings" in my backpack (kind of like stickers, but they used static cling instead of an adhesive material) that said "Vote for Change" on them. They were pretty big - probably about a foot diameter. So I took one out when he was looking away and put it on the back wall, over my head. When he turned around he did a quick double-take and asked me if I did that. "Did what?" "That." "Hm? Oh... uh, sure..."

He didn't seem upset by it. Furthermore, he's a professor and does research on global warming, so I felt pretty safe saying he was liberal. I think I asked him after class and he said he was supposed to be "shy" with his views, so he didn't tell me.

Another time, he asked me if I went to the Sarah Palin rally. He had. I was going to go, but I didn't have the effort to go because I heard you needed tickets, and I had driven 3 hours back home from an Obama rally that day. I prodded him again to ask if he were liberal - "Come on, you watch The Daily Show and you do research on global warming, you can't not be liberal." And he said, "I don't know, I might be..." and winked. But he still somehow didn't quite give it away.

But I'm going to go ahead and say he's liberal. Don't quote me on that.

Anyhow. Recently I got a lot of assignments back, and the first one was a lab on which I got 30/30. Generally I don't do super-hot in that class. I feel like I always answer things correctly, but the grader goes for details and you're damned if you do and damned if you don't, so I always end up with something like a 90% I feel like. Anyway, when I got the lab back, I said, "Oh my god! This is the first good grade I've gotten in this course!" He overheard me and said, cuttingly but playfully, "That's because you never come to class...?!"

I rarely go to class, it's true. But it was still funny the way he said it. It was just funny that he actually called me out on it.

Anyway, Colbert is on.

Peace out.

If I Had A Million Dollars

Sometime last year when I was at Brown, Chaz and Sarah and Nupur and Ben and other friends (Allegra? Margeaux? and one other whose name I forget, I think it started with a J, she played water polo) were hanging in Chaz's room. It was sort of small - actually, unusually small for a dorm room at Brown - but it never really felt cramped. It had a sunroof/moonroof/starroof above Chaz's bed in the corner, a futon/chair beside the bed, and his roommate's bed against the other wall. There was a little Ikea coffeetable in the middle that I "helped" Chaz put together during the first week we were there, and their desks were just about opposite their beds. I think this was the night of SexPowerGod, but I'm not sure.

In either case, Chaz had his computer - a white MacBook, I think - playing some music, and somehow when we were talking about music, we got to If I Had a Million Dollars, by The Barenaked Ladies. He said that he thought it was one of the prettiest songs he knew, and told us that sometime we should really listen to it - so we put it on right then.

If you're not familiar with the song If I Had a Million Dollars, you should be. The whole song is basically the two lead singers listing all the things they would buy for their girlfriend or wife if they had a million dollars, and each verse ends with "If I had a million dollars, I'd buy your love," before going into a chorus that lists more things they would buy for her so she would love him. And so we sat and really listened, and at the very end, Chaz said, "Oh, oh, this is the best part."

So I listened to the prolonged last line: "If I had a million dollars.... I'd be rich."

I'd listened to the song hundreds of times before, and I had always thought that it was just a pun. But for some reason when Chaz told me to listen to it, it completely changed the meaning. He wasn't talking about money at all; that's not the kind of rich he means.

I had actually momentarily forgotten the line as I was writing this post, and it didn't actually hit me until I wrote the line out just a moment ago, and when I did, it was strangely just as strong as the first time I realized what it really meant. And I remember the first time, Chaz and I just looked at each other, both feeling a little mushy and sentimental, and half-cried out, "It's so beautiful!" and hugged each other, non-ironically.

You should really listen to it sometime, maybe.

Peace out.

Songs

I'm working on two songs currently. One is basically finished, except I don't know what range I want the chorus to be in. The other I've just started, but I have some really pretty ideas for it, and it would go with basically any lyrics ever.

I'm trying to finish my CD by the end of Thanksgiving break. So for all you people out there that like to pretend you enjoy my music, get pumped!! I have like... 68 minutes or something so far. So I might go for one more song. I think 72 is about sufficient...

Peace out.

Stephens

There's a guy's bathroom on the first floor of Stephens Hall which I sometimes use. It's very peculiar. You have to walk in, go around a wall, and then go around the wall again to get to the only toilet in the entire bathroom. Strangely enough, it has two sinks. And even though there is only one useable toilet in there and it's hidden by the bend of a wall, it has a door on it. As if the first door wouldn't have been enough. Whoever designed it was an idiot. I can't even describe.

//

I might play vibraphone for PSU Indoor this year, but if so, I have to learn Burton grip instead of the Stephens method (which I have basically always used and loved). I'm pretty upset, but I guess it's nice to have to actually learn something for once. I always carry my two Pilot G-2 .05mm mechanical pencils with me, and I can put them in my hands and pretend they're mallets to help me learn Burton grip.

It's a tough grip. And to make it even worse, it's almost impossible to find a good tutorial on it. Jim Ancona's book has a sample from this section on the internet, but it only contains the even pages, and the bulk of the explanation is on an odd page.

I tried Wikipedia, Google, YouTube, and VicFirth. I'm not really sure where else to go, so I think I might just e-mail Tollie and Jim and see how it goes from there.

Peace out.

In General,

I have been pretty disappointed by college life as a whole.

Peace out.

The Great Restoration Part 2

Peace out.

The Great Restoration

Earlier in the night, Gabby, Gabby, Gina and I had taken a look into the lounge to check out an election watch party. It just so happened that everyone in their except for us was black (literally, every person), and we felt a little bit out of place, so we headed back up to Gabby B's room to watch the rest of it. We had gotten snacks from Louie's - Gabby R got chocolate Tastykake mini-donuts, and I got some Junior Mints, and Gabby B got some organic sun chips, or things along that line.

Gabby lives in a lounge that was made into a dorm room, so it's pretty spacious. They have a huge bed in the middle just to watch TV from, but it's bent up where your head is to make it easier to see. The sheets were blue, and there was a blue blanket on it. The TV was good, and we moved a tall green cup to make our view a little better. At first it was Gina, Gabby R and I sitting on it and watching, but eventually Gabby B took other Gabby's spot, and she then ended up sitting on a pillowchair right next to the bed.

I was giddy the entire time. I texted my friends about how excited I was. I couldn't believe it was happening. McCain had a tiny lead in the beginning - something like 8EV to 3EV - but after the northeast onslaught, we all felt a lot better. And then, early in the night, we heard that PA had been called for Obama, and then we saw it on the channel we were watching. We switched between CNN and ABC and NBC, and sometimes FOX to see if they were freaking out yet.

Once PA was called, I knew deep down that the election was over, but I didn't celebrate quite yet. We kept watching. For a long time it hovered around O:200 - M:130, and we got sort of impatient. Colbert and Stewart's live broadcast came on then, and we watched it, and switched to the news inbetween. I think I had eaten all of my Junior Mints by then - but that's okay, I think we actually started watching sometime around 8:15PM and it was 10PM by then. Colbert had a cockatiel and it was very cute and white.

We kept switching back and forth and back and forth, and nothing changed, and Colbert and Stewart weren't being too terribly funny. I had talked earlier of partying with all the black people in the lounge because I was sure they were a little more fun to hang around with than the lameos we were being, and eventually Gabby B took me up on that and we went down.

I feel like I should mention there was a naked roommate in the room with us for a long time, wearing a towel and nothing else after her shower, but she dressed eventually. Another roommate did some laundry and then hung around. A third roommate listened loudly to her headphones, and didn't hear us even when we all simultaneously screamed her name. The toweled roommate IMed her to get her attention.

Also, at one point I called my mom and screamed "OHIOOOOO!!!!" into the phone and then hung up on her just for fun, because we won Ohio. She called me back to ask what just happened.

Anyway, we went down. There were two other white people there; one was a photographer and one appeared to be writing in a notebook. Gabby and I stood in the back for a little, and then I suggested that we get closer to the front and take a seat, so we did that. The TV was on very loud, on CNN. As Gabby and I walked around to sit down on the floor, the photographer took a number of pictures of us - we suspected it was because we were the only white people there. We felt a little self-conscious, but it was okay.

This was about 10:42PM when we went down, because Colbert wasn't funny enough. I got a call sometime in there, and I believe someone told me we won Virginia. Our station wasn't reporting it, but I remember shortly after hanging up, I heard people saying things about Virginia. Maybe someone else got news from another station and brought it in. Eventually, CNN called Virginia as well, and everyone was really excited, and we all screamed.

There was a black guy behind me, thin with short hair, who was working quite intently on what looked like some studying for a biology class, with powerpoint notes printed out on plain white paper stapled in the corner. He was dressed nicely. He wasn't paying full attention to the election because he said he wasn't doing great in his class, and when we all freaked out about Virginia, he looked up from his work and asked, "Wait, what happened?!" So I told him that we won Virginia, and he gave me a very full smile.

And then I realized it was almost 11PM, and that the polls of California and Oceania were closing in a about a minute. We were at 225EV or so, and we were about to get at least three more states in a matter of seconds. I turned back to the guy behind me and said, "That's it! That means it's it! We won!" And he asked me why, and I told him we were about to take California, and that would be it.

The time until polls close came onto the screen. It was less than a minute. It was counting down in seconds. I was in the Stephens Lounge, with dozens of excited black people around me, a photograph, a writer, and Gabby B sitting to my left. The TV was on CNN, with the volume about all the way up. I was wearing my "Friends don't let friends vote Republican shirt," my nice jeans from Aeropostale, my embarrassing red Hanes underwear, and I believe mismatching white socks, as I'd left my shoes upstairs in the lounge. I had my camera in my pocket, and my cell phone, but I think everything else was upstairs. I hadn't shaved my chin in a while, and I didn't have a coat with me at all.

Twenty seconds left. Would this be it? I suppose somehow I knew that this would be it. I took my camera out of my pocket and set it on video mode, and set it on my knee (about shoulder level as I was sitting), and zoomed in on the screen. Just as the CNN "Breaking News" visual was coming on screen, I started filming, and the visual broke to Wolf Blitzer standing by a huge screen with a picture of Barack Obama on the left, head only, blue background, and words to his right

BARACK OBAMA

ELECTED PRESIDENT

Everyone was looking. Everyone saw. Everyone understood immediately. We all screamed. People jumped and danced and cried. I turned my camera off and struggled for a moment putting it in my pocket, and hugged Gabby. The photographer went wild taking pictures, and people continued to celebrate, dance, cry, laugh, text, call, hug. We chanted O-BA-MA and crowded around the screen, and some girls danced with Gabby for a moment.

And that was it.

We had done the impossible.

Peace out.

More Obama Rally

When we were walking into the rally, there was a man standing against a wall with a yellow posterboard sign draped around his neck by thin white string which said something to the effect of, "What does God think of killing six million innocent babies?" You could tell the guy was kinda smug, and my mom could sense it too and she said to him, "What does God think of killing thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq?" The guy was a little shocked for a second, and seemed to not know what to say, and then somewhat smugly replied, "He doesn't approve of it."

My mom used to be a single-issue, pro-life voter. I don't know how or why she changed.

//

My mom befriended two people at the rally. The first was a white man about her age in the line in front of us, wearing a wooly hat with a short brim and I think stuff to cover the ears and a trashbag on his torso to protect from the rain. I don't know what he talked about to my mom, but I know that at some point they talked about negative advertising, and someone I entered the conversation and he told me that I might like the movie The Boogiemen. Or maybe it was The Boogieman. In either case, it was about how Lee Attwater invented negative ads for campaigns in the Dukakis campaign and completely destroyed his campaign in a week. We talked about how terrible that was, and we talked about how the Republicans have actually gone as far as to slander Obama as a Muslim Terrorist.

The other guy was a black man also about her age, maybe a little bit older, that ended up next to us during the rally. He worked in a bottle factory in Allentown, and drove all the way down to see this rally. He talked to my mom about how excited he was to be there because everyone at work was Republican, and he could never share his excitement there. He seemed like a really nice guy, and I felt bad for him because of this next story.

//

One of the 'rules' listed in the e-mail was not to bring umbrellas. Of course, people didn't listen, I brought an umbrella, but I put it down as soon as I got into the rally because I didn't want to block peoples' views and it was hardly raining anyway. However, there were a LOT of people that left their umbrellas up. There was an open space in front of Obama for a number of yards, then an orange mesh fence, then a gate, and we were about fourth row back from the gate. You could hardly see him from there anyway, and to make it worse, these jerks in the front had umbrellas, blocking the view for everyone.

People in the crowd got really really angry. We started chanting to put the umbrellas away, but there were still some up by the time Obama started talking, and no one behind the front row could see him except to cleverly position themselves in a line through the umbrellas. At one point I got really frustrated, so I tore my way through the crowd to a person in the front row with an obnoxiously large blue umbrella, tapped them on the shoulder and said, "Hey, could you please put your umbrella down so everyone back there can see?" Seeming not to know - which was ridiculous after our chanting - she agreed to put it down, and everyone cheered.

A second later, a young black girl put an umbrella up.

We could. not. believe it. That was not the change we needed. The change we needed was umbrellas down right now.

People yelled insults to her and told her to put the umbrella down, but she didn't listen. People kept screaming and getting frustrated and Obama was talking, but the sound system was low and the screams were loud and angry so you could rarely hear a word. I was getting frustrated again so I went up to the girl and asked her to put the umbrella down, and she said no, and I said, "Please? There's like 500 people back there that can't see because of your umbrella," and she said, "Do you see my hair?"

Her hair was in very small curls, and I suppose it would come undone if it was wet, but bits of it had already come out. It clearly wasn't a perm. I don't know anything about perms but I know that this situation wouldn't arise if it were. So she could easily do it again. Everyone got really mad at her, and she left her umbrella up, leaving hundreds of people unable to see. Another person had the gall to put up a lady-bug designed umbrella somewhere to my left, and people jeered at them too.

The worst of it all is that it was hardly raining. After a long while - by the very end of the speech - the black girl in front of us put the umbrella down, and we could all see, and we were elated. Unfortunately, it was the very end of the speech, so we just heard his normal closing that you heard tonight on the Obama infomercial.

That stupid girl. I'm so mad at her. The rule said no umbrellas. I drove 400 miles to see this. Do I see you hair? Yeah, I do, I don't care, I drove 400 miles and who knows how far all these other people came. At least one from Allentown. Others missing school. Selfish jerk.

People say that whatever you right on the internet can wind up on the front page of a newspaper, and I sort of hope this does, just so that she sees it. She'd probably be a jerk about it and say it was our fault for not being tall or something, but whatever. She's a punkass.

But the goal was just to go to a rally. And I did that. So whatever.

Peace out.