I Did Not Save Any World

It’s good to have a night at home. I was going to go to the gym, and I was going to run errands, and I was going to go out, but instead I opted to stay home and watch a movie all by my lonesome. I had heard some good things about Scott Pilgrim Versus the World so my decision was easy as it was the first thing that came to mind anyway.

The movie was, indeed, good. It was good for a couple of different reasons, each one striking a different chord in me.

1. The movie took place in an alternate videogame/reality world. What I mean to say is that the common events of the videogame world collided with real life and all the characters accepted this as fact to their reality. I grew up as an avid gamer so it was fun for me to hear the old video game themes and see the old power ups.

2. The movie focused on the effects of a past relationship and the impact it can have on a future relationship. A lot of movies attempt to do this, but they never really succeed without seeming trite. This movie did a brilliant job by just being real about the awkwardness of the entire thing and showing that love does not need a grand gesture or overdone romance to regain one’s footing.

3. In true ancient Greek fashion the hero, Scott Pilgrim, must perform a catharsis before he can overcome his enemy…himself. It’s interesting to see ancient Greek themes woven into current stories.

4. One message in the movie is that everyone has a past and that while you can never forget your past you can move on. It’s something I have been wrestling with for some time now. I’ve accepted my past and I have learned from it and now I am ready to move on with my life. For whatever wrongs I’ve done I know I have atoned for them and that justice has been served.

The movie was better than I was expecting it to be and it’s because I never know what to expect from Michael Cera. He always plays the same character which is the weak and timid guy that is too afraid to do anything for his own benefit and constantly puts his feelings aside for what he perceives as the greater good. I can empathize with his characters because unless I am drunk that is exactly what runs through my mind. I watched a about a fraction of Youth in Revolt, so after watching Scott Pilgrim Versus the World I really want to go back and finish it.

I don’t think I will have the time for that until next week perhaps. Given my constant juggling of two jobs and saving what little time I have in between for a social life I do not typically have nights like this. As a result my writing and my motivation to write has greatly suffered. This week I have to close the bar Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Friday night I am going out with some co-workers to Scottsdale to do my annual dress up like the tool I was in college and pretend to enjoy Scottsdale Socialite Company for the evening trip. I actually really like the people that are going out but I loathe the environment; I got enough of it in college. Saturday morning (at 8-fucking-AM!) I have a work meeting at my bar which means forced cleaning while simultaneously being hung-the-fuck-over, drunk and tired. Then that same afternoon I have a five hour tattoo session followed by me closing at work that night. I realize after writing this that I will most likely not want to do anything Sunday, so maybe I will finish the movie then.

Found some new tunes this week that I am really really enjoying during the day at my office. Some of the albums that are in my current rotation:

1. Cut/Copy – Zonoscope

2. Cold War Kids – Mine is Yours

3. The Civil Wars – Barton Hollow

4. The Decemberists – The King Is Dead

5. Discovery – LP

6. Mumford and Sons – Sigh No More

7. Neon Indian – Mind Ctrl: Psychic Chasms

8. Snake! Snake! Snakes!! – Self Title

9. The Love Language – Libraries

10. Gospel Claws – C-L-a-W-S

An entry with two lists! Never thought I’d see the day.

Penis Pipe

I’ve been lazy. Not about writing, about life. I have not penned anything because there really hasn’t been too much to write about. Life keeps on turning pages on more quickly than I care to read and I opt for the cliff notes. I’d be concerned but honestly my days have, lately, not been noteworthy. In fact, all the progress I have made in my adult life has taken a backseat to my most recent antics.

Part of me wanted to be more responsible this year than I was last year but judging by the opening month of 2011 that has been a complete and utter failure. Not only have a managed to drink gallons of alcohol more than I typically do, I have been rather promiscuous as well. I made a resolution to floss more and use more condoms. My teeth are very clean. Last week was my first time going back to the old STD doc in a long while:

Me: Hello old friend, we meet again.

STD Doc: I am going to put a pipe cleaner up your dick and derive satisfaction from this.

Me: This is a poor way to deal with your jealousy but I understand I have no choice in this matter.

STD Doc: You are correct, you do not. (Inserts pipe cleaner)

Me: Unintelligible noise accompanied by a strained face.

STD Doc: Looks like today is your lucky day. Do you want an HIV test?

Me: Fuck off.

This isn’t how the actual interaction took place, but you get the idea. STD tests, actual now called STI tests, are never fun and always embarrassing. The questions are always funny though and in hindsight it is fairly easy to laugh. Anyways, the doctor gave me a clean bill of health a week later so that was awesome news. Getting the test actually inspired me to get up off my ass and start doing things I had been shelving for some time. My house really needed a detailed cleaning: Cleaned. I really needed to get back into the gym on a regular basis and eat better: Gymin’ it and acquired healthy foods. Need to start stacking cash to prepare for events later in the year: Bank account is quite healthy.

It feels good to be accomplishing the small goals that I put forth. It was pretty easy to do with a rather light schedule at the bar this past week, so this week should really challenge me to stick with it since I have to work every night up until Super Sunday. Good for my bank account, bad for my social life and extra-curriculars. This is probably a good thing though because lately I have felt sort of lost. Despite the positive outcomes of my decisions I am looking for something more than just good fortune.

I am pushing myself to stay focused till August when I finally plan on moving. Not just to the city but to another state. I’ve gone over my next move for a couple of years now and the move that truly makes the most sense is going to Chicago. Gone are the reasons of the past where I wanted to pursue comedy. I want to move to Chicago to be around the people I miss, the people I found I had a lot in common with during college. I am not worried about leaving other friends behind because the ones I still talk to I know distance is not a factor. I just increasingly feel like I just don’t belong in Phoenix. I love Phoenix for what it is, but I have never been comfortable with the idea of calling it my home. Who knows, I may change my mind about Chicago but come August I will be somewhere else, but always in your heart.

In other Chuck news: I’m flirting with growing my hair out. I hope I look really good but probably just look like a goofy loser and stop mid-way through the awkward middle stage of hair growth. That’s as real as I can get I think. My heart hurts. Goodnight.

So Far...

I've done an awful job in writing in this. Sorry, Alecia. I'll do better. I've been going through the motions of life the last few weeks and not really allowing myself the time or privilege to take in and consider what is going on around me. It's not the absent of thought but rather the dismissal of thought that plagues me.

Sometimes I keep myself so deliberately busy that I really do not have the time to sit and reflect on what is going on around. Yet, even as I write that the first thought that comes to mind is: That's a lie. You're being lazy. Stop making excuses.

I must not tell a lie. I find that my writing is much appreciated when I am reading. I have nasty habit of only reading in spurts. I get on these "reading binges" and then when I get my fix, I ween myself off. I am like the world's most successful and responsible drug addict whose drug of choice is the printed word. Well...I am making up for it.

I thought I would find myself even busier than I typically am during the holiday season but the opposite is proving true. As a result I have more time to spend on personal liberties; the gym and books. Looking through my book collection I realized it was woefully outdated and that I needed to hop back on the modern literature pony. I went to Borders and purchased two books, a Christmas gift to myself, of sorts.

Where Men Win Glory

Decision Points

One of these books I am proud to own, and the other, not so much. I can't honestly say I am not intensely curious to see how W describes his presidency, though. I am hoping it makes for a fascinating read. I cannot tell a lie.

Chair Sadness

I spent a grand total of $20 on my desk chair. I should have saved that $20 and put it towards a chair that cost maybe $50-$60 maybe? Now all I can think when I sit/look at that chair is that I wasted $20. I’ve blown $20 more times than I care to remember in my life but I am usually not reminded daily of that failure as this chair now does.

I can tolerate failure in my life, hell it’s happened a bunch. What I cannot tolerate is being reminded of it. I think most people are like that. It’s not the failure that gets to them, it’s being reminded of that failure that’s the hard part to deal with. That’s probably why most relationship advisors tell you to get rid of everything that reminds you of your ex. In theory it’s great advice, but in practice it is pretty hard. I, for example, have a couch and chair from my ex. Does this mean I am going to get rid of a perfectly good couch and chair when there are standing kids in Africa who would be happy to have those? Absolutely not. Do they remind me of her? Sometimes. I am going to get rid of them? No.

Another failure in my life is my Itunes library. No, the music is grand and I love it all, that’s why it’s there. The failure lies in the organization. Having been carried over from 3+ computers at this point, the library has it’s share of duplicates and missing files. I have been trying to edit them out and I know there are handy features to assist in this tedious task but I cannot seem to do it for more than a few minutes before I lose interest and something else like write, or read a book. I am doing both right now, well sort of. I was reading a magazine actually, Snowboarder.

There’s something about the “we don’t give a fuck what we print so long as its true to our sport” attitude the magazine has always presented that I have enjoyed. Snowboarding has always been more than a sport to me. I’ve said it and I’ll say it again, it’s a culture. Some people are lucky enough to live that life every single day and I am happy to have even lived it for just a year. A major facet of snowboarding is learning to love the environment around you and appreciating everything nature gives you. You take the snow when its heavy, wet, or scare for the days its dry and plentiful. You cannot have the good without the bad, so you better learn to love the bad as much as the good because sometimes it’s all you have.

Allow me to get deep for a second: I had a realization tonight as I was reading the section in Snowboarder entitled “On Deck”. Basically, On Deck is a feature where the magazine puts the spotlight on up and coming snowboarders breaking into the professional realm for the first time. I was reading one of the columns when I realized that all these riders had something in common: Overwhelming optimism. It’s not their youth or their good fortune, it’s just the way they see life. They don’t hate and they don’t judge, their concerns lie elsewhere. I realized that I spend too much time on the latter. I need to occupy my time and faculties to looking towards the future and not commenting on the present.

That being said I really hope there are more treats at healthcare tomorrow. Just because I am going to subscribe to overt positivism doesn’t mean I cannot take joy in an interesting oddity of corporate office culture.

I just realized I wrote this entire thing MS Works Word processor. Gross.

HealthCake

Holiday weeks in the office are traditionally slow. I don't know if this is how all offices operate or just those that are related to healthcare but I do like that it allows for my creative vices: I.E. writing.

I've been babysitting the Orange Cat for Trevor while he and Rina visit his parents in California. It's nice to have another body in the house, even if it is a 4-5 pound cat who is orange. I am not home terribly often so I do feel a bit bad about leaving her in the house to tend to herself, but she seems not to mind. So far, favorite spots of my apartment include perching on the counter corner that overlooks the living (so she resembles a very soft gargoyle) and blending in with the chair that has a very similar color wheel to the Orange Cat. When not at either of those two spots it is busy doing one of 3 things:

1. Trying to open the cupboard door that is very skinny and full of plastic bags. Not sure why.

2. Incessantly running her paws across the patio door blinds. This annoys me and I put a stop to it promptly.

3. Molesting me. Usually at the exact time I am ready to get up or move to the kitchen/bed/etc. No idea how she plans this.

I could do without these behaviors. It seriously impacts my ability to play Call of Duty when I have to toss a pillow in its direction to make it stop. Ruins many a good killstreak. The orange does not care that I would be but one kill away from a chopper but then get knifed in the back as I protest its behavior. She's lucky it isn't real war. How bad would she feel?

No sooner does Trevor retrieve the Orange than I go to Cali myself for 5 days. It will be great to get away. Since I bought a new car I have been re-figuring my finances. My normal one or two trips a month has been realistically slashed to one every other month. This trip doesn't count into those finances since I will be with family and essentially on their dime the entire time. I do plan on making a trip out to Mt. High though, a snowboard haven for park rats. This will be a nice contrast to my last snowboard trip since there were no hips, jumps, rails or boxes to be seen. Still the same amount of snow though, hah. I am optimistic for a 15 inch base which should be enough when riding park. I am also hopeful that I will not injure/break anything on this outing.

When I get home from Cali the next weekend will mark the opening of my home mountain, Sunrise. Well...supposed opening anyway. There hasn't been much snow in the forecast there that I have seen, but who knows. I heard rumor that the White Mountain Apaches are allowing the use of reclaimed water on the mountain for snowmaking purposes: If that's the case then it should open early. If not, it could be closer to Christmas which would necessitate me making another trip out to Cali before the season. Either way, the temperatures are finally in the 60's in Phoenix which means winter has finally arrived in Phoenix. That's about as cold as it gets here...maybe 50's for a week or so later in the year, but that's the biggest bite winter packs here.

I'd write more but I just received a very important message at my office:

Cake - November Birthdays - 1:50 PM

At the printer in 5 minutes

This just gave me an idea...CAKE TALLY! For the remaining 2010 I am going to document all the sweets that make their way through the office.

11/22/10 @ 1:50PM - Giant cookie cake with vanilla ice cream to put on top

I woke up at 6: 20 AM this morning. It was like Christmas day when I was a kid, I was just too excited to sleep. I tried to go back to sleep for another hour, didn't happen. I laid in my bed for the next hour before rallying and getting out of bed. Threw on my snowboarding clothes and was out the door. I had to scrape frost off the window of my car and it actually felt good. It made me miss living in the mountains. After the ice was gone, I hoped in the car and headed up the mountain toward wolf creek.

It was chilly when I got there, but I knew the sun was going to be out all day and things would warm up pretty quickly. Besides, I never wear jackets when I snowboard unless I absolutely have no choice (read sub 35 or so). See, the sun was doing its thing:


First lift of the day. Can't wait to get off it and take my first run of the 2010-2011 season.


Conditions were sketchy at best. Lots of bare spots, rocks and tree branches poking out just about everywhere. There weren't a ton of people on the mountain today, so we all dealt with the snow together.


This is what I would refer to as the bridge of death. I'm sure that if there is enough snow than this spot is not all that sketchy, but when you're dealing with a ten inch base, it's very sketchy. The thing about it is that it's at the bottom of a step decline and then goes immediately back up a sharp incline so you need to approach it with a lot of speed. There wasn't a ton of room for error either since it was narrow and the snow was all packed and was basically kernals. Ski patrol came in and tried to shore it up.


Not all of the runs were terrible. There were definitely some sections of pow here and there that allowed for an edge.


Best part of Colorado, the epic views


The sun became merciless. It wasn't too hot for me, but it was too hot for the snow.As morning gave way to afternoon, the snow began to melt, quickly. The hard kernals of death turned into a combination of that with slush, which created some really tricky conditions. Seeing as it was my first day out, my faculties were not all about me. I hit a jump, tweaked it out, and came down on a slush pile that stuck my board and result in me going end of over end on hard/soft snow. Luckily, only superficial wounds:


Nothing shitty beer can't solve.


A full day of riding, from 9AM to 430 PM. It will take me approximately 18 hours of driving, several hundred bucks and a strict diet of fast food, but to me and others like me, it's always worth it.

Colorado makes my heart happy everytime. So good to be home, if only for a few days. Nothing else matters to me when I am here.

Also, Sister Golden Hair is a great song.