And isn't it ironic, dontchathink?

I think it's funny how I always expect the big days of my life to offset all the shitty little ones. Yesterday, Dis-O, was no exception. It's not like I necessarily had high hopes about the day or anything in particular, I just wanted to walk away from it with a better taste in my mouth than when I arrived. After all, I've been working hard these past few weeks. I deserved something to go my way.

No such luck.

It all started well enough, anyways. But by the time 11pm rolled around, I had been stood up by so many of my friends on so many different occasions that I was pretty much ready to break into the registrar's office, pull my file, cash in my tuition, and start a new life up in northern California. I felt so taken for granted. Not included. On the backburner.

I have this sense that the general feel of last night is going to play heavily into my attitude for the rest of the semester. I'm no longer excited about anything. I feel like school is just another form of work, complete with a spectrum of people surrounding you that range from funny and tolerable to evil and two-faced. Except school requires me to use my brain in place of my biceps.

I needed Dis-O to be fun, and it was for the first few hours. The new freshman class at Rice is promising as ever. But after none of your friends call you for six or seven hours and everyone else is running around high on hormones and Hennessey and you just need one person to come rescue you from yourself and it doesn't happen... well, you get the point.

Ah, let's see... I need to talk about something more positive so people don't get all "OMG R U OK" on me. I followed through with my Sunday lunchtime tradition today by driving down to Chipotle and having a barbacoa burrito with everything on it. I read the Houston Press and felt like I could easily walk into their office with a printed copy of my blog and get a job on the spot.

I think it's pretty absurd that the mainstream newspaper in Houston-- the Chronicle-- is actually a liberal paper while the the Press seems to be falling into a more and more conservative bias. I mean, it's fucking Houston. You'd figure that the Chron would be run by cowboy meth addicts who carry around six-shooters and lynch black people after church on Sunday. And you'd figure that the alternative press in Houston would be run by liberals so far out on acid that they were fired from their jobs as at the Austin Chronicle.

Nevertheless, it's my tradition to sit there and read the sardonic wit of Richard Connelly as he talks about such Houston mainstays as ferret owners and corroded sewer pipes that pump oil refinery waste into your bidet. And they have This Modern World and The City, which is cool.

It's important to have traditions that you can adhere to when the rest of the world is busy hitting on guys and girls and tripping on mushrooms, metaphorically of course. There's something about a huge, disgusting burrito, a cold Dr. Pepper, and an alternative press rag that can inspire even me to get out of bed in the morning.

lol podium

I've been cutting stickers all morning. If you fuckers forget to log out, I will castrate you with a hammer.

Big bites of summer, now devoured

Ah, let's see. I don't even know where to start.

I guess I'll start with what's fresh in my mind. I re-read Less Than Zero on the plane ride back from Orlando last night. It's not like it's my favorite book. I mean, it's very much non-plot driven and basically exists to shock the reader into understanding why contemporary society is bullshit, as is the case for most of Bret Easton Ellis's work. But like I've mentioned before, that book has an eerie connection to me. Every page seems to strike a chord with some facet of my life.

Like the idea that you can feel nothing for... weeks. That you can go days and days without giving a shit. Or that maybe you are feeling, it's just on a completely different level than anyone else can possibly understand. Ellis gets it. No one else gets it, but he pens it as I feel it. Or don't feel it, you know.

And then there's the whole hating your hometown thing. I've lived so many nights back in Panama City Beach just like Clay lives his nights back in LA. I've lived them fast, substance abound, staring out from the corner of a really nice house onto a hardwood floor teeming with people I swore I'd never speak to again. It's weird to think that there are people out there like me who sip their beer with complete contempt for everything, wanting nothing more than to be back at the college that welcomes them with open arms.

You might as well turn the clock from early 80's to 2007, rename Clay to Kyle, and move the story from LA to PCB. Seriously. So yeah, if you want a little insight into my internal dialog and what it's like for me on Christmas breaks, pick up a copy of Less Than Zero and give it a whirl.

I've been on two trips since we last spoke. I made a New England trip to see Allee and see all the sights and sounds of New York and Philly. Every time I go back up north, I'm reminded why I'm so lucky to be at Rice. The air is static and dry up north, with everyone you pass on-edge and waiting to pounce. Everyone is just dying to use that trademark New York/Philly vernacular to hit you with curse words you've never heard before. I'll take the down-home, blue-collar southern feel of Houston over that crap any day. But it was still a fun experience. Me and Allee hit up all the places in NYC worth hitting up, I got to ride a train, and I ate a big fat cheese steak at Gino's.

Then after a week or two of straight-up IT at Rice and finishing my summer math class, I traveled down to Orlando to see my brother and assist as best I could with his move-in. We hit up Magic Kingdom and just generally had a good time. I guess my biggest regret is not getting to spend any one-on-one time with him; we were a group of people the entire time. Hopefully he'll come visit me here in Houston now that I'm not living in the world's only multifunction nightclub slash cesspool slash warzone (you know, the WRC 90's). But I was actually pretty bummed when I left.

The next two weeks are guaranteed to be a little bit like hell on earth. I've got to start pulling overtime in order to amass the cash I need to make it through the year. And everyone's coming back to Houston, which means my able-bodied arms are going to be loaded down with bookcases and boxes and anything else that people need toted about.

I need to clean my apartment. I need to Swiffer and dust and I need to do dishes. I need to put things in their places. I need to start working out and I need to shave more often. I need to start taking things more seriously in my life and get in touch with reality.

Disappear here.