Chapter Two

It was Wednesday, April 6 that it all happened really. Neither words nor actions could accurately describe the incident. I’ll explain a bit more:

If you haven’t seen I *heart* Huckabees, you should. It will help explain (in movie form) what I will try to explain (in text). But my account, my friend, is first hand. Straight from the horses mouth. Seen with my own eyes. Heard with my own ears. and most Importantly, experienced with my own heart and soul.

It all began Tuesday morning at 5AM in San Francisco. I woke up, took a shower, packed some dirty clothes in to my suitecase (because I hadn’t had time to do laundry previously) and jumped in my car. I decided to just drive myself to the airport and park and pay the insane prices they think they must charge to park conveniently. I’m the sucker I suppose, but not the only one since i had to drive around to find a place to park. Nevertheless I found a spot and made the flight. Destination: DFW.

DFW: Wicked spread out airport. This was my first time to actually have a connection at DFW and not actually have it as my termination point. Point is, I had to take a freakin 1992 train (it was realllly old) from Terminal A to terminal B via terminal C. As I walked from the train stop to my gate, I notice a strikingly attractive young man running the other direction, obviously in a rush to catch a plane or something. I thought about it for two seconds, and kept walking. It was over already.

I get to my gate (#13) and sit down. There’s another cute guy sitting with his mom, but I fail to notice him past the initial glance. The plane is delayed so I’m sitting, getting my iPod out, ready to listen. Upon looking up, I notice a familiar face walking over to sit in my section. Yah, it was him. My heart sunk. I didn’t know what to do. How to sit. Which way to look. Should I play my iPod. Should i just sit in silence?

He is on his phone. I’m thinking, “if only I were the guy/girl on the other end”… I have to call Erica. So I called Erica, and I told her “if ever there were beauty in this world, it is sitting right in front of me at this time” bla bla bla went on and on about him to her. probably boring her. we hang up. i just sit and dream.

Well, it wasn’t all peaches because the guy comes on the speaker and announces that the tulsa flight has been moved to gate 10. the guy gets up. leaves. i felt a bit releaved, since i would no longer have to worry about how i was sitting or what i was doing, but also sad. I don’t know why. We never spoke, nor did we even exchange eye contact. But something made me sad. I was over it in about 5 minutes when the flight got delayed again. Now we are up to 45 minutes of lovely delay.

Needlesstosay, I finally made it to Amarillo. Met the fam. Got the car. Drove to Lubbock. That took 1 hour and 45 minutes. It was crazy driving into Lubbock. The wind was blowing about 40 miles an hour, the air was filled with dirt, the trees were still dead (but in the early stages of blossoming), and the skyline was non existant. Even though all that I was seeing would have been an utter to disgrace to anyone from the Bay Area, tears still managed to gather in the creases of my eyes. I was pulling into a town where I spent four years of life. A town I ran away from because I hated life. A town where I had had my only boyfriend. A town full of frat boys and sorerity girls. Just a town. I almost missed my turn because every building along fourth street has been demolished and removed. They are building an east/west freeway now. Build, tear down, build new, tear down, etc. We’ll come back to this.

I arrive at Lynsey’s. We hug. Chit chat for a minute. She tells me how good I look. I say ok. thanks. Then we head to eat. Of course I had to pick because I’m always the one who has to pick. We went to Rosa’s Tortilla Factory. They have the most amazing burritos. Back in school I would go there all the time. I concocted my own little special. Two bean burritos covered in queso cheese, then doused with honey. It makes for the most amazing taste ever created. I scarfed it down.

At this point I’m really tired. I had been traveling all day and just wanted to go home and sleep. Lynsey and I drive around Lubbock for a while. Checking things out. I tell her, I hope Daniel doesn’t call because I’m tired and would rather not do anything tonight. Of course, ten oclock comes, and ring. ring. ring.

Hello, I say already knowing who it is. Heeey man. What’s going on. Oh nothing, just got in from eating. So what do you want to do tonight. Well, I don’t know. Whatever is cool. Well I have to go by my friends house to get something, so how about you meet me over there and then we can go down to the depot district and grab a drink. Ok, that sounds cool.

Obviously I had changed my mind in the short amount of time between having made my previous decision and now. I spray myself with cologne. Take a good look at myself in the mirror, and head out. Upon arriving at his friends house, I hop the little rail which protects their balcany from intruders. Ya, it doesn’t do such a good job. I go in. The room smells of weed. I hug daniel. We decide to leave and go to the bar.

On the way to the bar we talk about my trip and how excited we both are and the fact that i’m “so adventurous” and how he wishes… bla bla bla. We get to the bar. The bartender decides not to pay a lick of attention to us so Daniel has to actually go over to the other side and order drinks. We take a shot of jager and have a beer. x 4. we talk about europe. we talk about life. we talk about living spontaneously. we just talk. we take pictures of ourselves in the mirror behind the bar, (which would only live a short life because they were deleted later that night) i see a lighbulb go off in daniels head. he says “hey we should roll tonight” i make a horrible face, and say ya right. he’s already on the phone with steu to try and find some. i’m still shaking my head no. buzzed at this point we decide to head to see his boy. We arrive at CBS news and pull around back. Steu lets us in the back door. We sit around and chat for a bit. We decide to leave to go back to the place where I picked daniel up so that Anna, his friend, can roll a joint for them. Done. We go back to CBS.

We go out back, I take a small hit, but it doesn’t effect me. I didn’t really feel like getting high. So i didn’t do anymore. We sat in the back room and they talked to me about the excitement of taking X. telling how words cannot describe the feeling and state of mind one enters when rolling. I stand in disbelief. By the way, three pills had already been delivered to the studios. There was one there for me. Whether or not i was going to take it had yet to be determined at this point.

We go back into the controller room. Which was very cool by the way. Full of TVs, recorders, and endless panels of buttons. Steu’s job is the take the broadcast to commercial on a timed schedule. Very interesting. Since I’m buzzed I decide to call travis. He actually answered. We chat for a bit, but he gets disconnected. He calls me back, but my phone never rings. He leaves a message. I get the message and am thrilled that he actually called me back. Cloud 7.

2AM arrives and it’s time for Steu to get off work.. . The three of us leave to 7-11 where we pick up some orange juice, water, some candy, and one scratch off. We lost…

We arrive at Steu’s house. Parked in the street, the three of us drop the pills. Past the point of no return. Excited. yet scared. We get out of the car and make it to the door of the house. A debate goes on between daniel and steu whether or not whe should go in or go over to annas apt. since steu has roomates and we didn’t want to wake them, we decide to go back over to annas apt. where we would be able to put music on and enjoy the evening.

we arrive at annas and are sitting at the dining room table drawing. listening to music. having a good time. feeling like a third wheel, i make a comment along the lines of “don’t you guys have another friend who can join us” Steu is like, matt.

Matt is his roomate. Daniel gets on the phone with matt and asks him what he is doing. He had just gotten home from the bar. He welcomes the idea of us coming back over there and chillin in his room. Get in the car again. Drive baaaack to Steus (and matts) place. No effect yet.

It’s been about 30 minutes since we took the stuff and I’m still not feeling it. The other three guys are starting to feel really good. I can tell. I am not. (Matt just happened to have a tablet in his bathroom drawer, so he took it when we arrived) I was not into him. Sadly.

It wasn’t until it was recommend i rub vicks on my freakin balls that I began to feel the effects of the ecstacy.

————————————

I hope you haven’t forgotten by now that I began all of this with reference to a movie: I *Heart* Huckabees. It’s a comedy. And until this point in my life, that’s merely all I saw in it. Comedy. It’s about everything being connected. The same. Except different. Like the blanket.

Daniel and Steu were feeling really good at this point and went to Steu’s room. Of course this left me in a room. Alone. With a boy I was not into. He wanted to give me a massage. Of course I say yes. It feels great. I give him one. Feels great. Everything feels great. We’re layin on our backs next to each other and i just start going on and on and on and on about everything. Every single thing that I say leads to something else and I just can’t stop talking. I am seeing everything in such a beautiful way that I could not help but smile and be happy. This whole time in yanking matts hair like he’s a doll or something. Just beeing.

I make him run outside with me. The wind (which is still blowing it’s brains out by the way) Feels great. I appreciate the wind. Earlier in the day I was cursing the wind. Now I was in love with it. Matt, who hates the cold, begs me to go back in. We go back in. But not to his room. We go to Steu’s room. In an effort to not wake the other roomate, the four of us go to Matt’s room which is on the other side of the house. By now I’m wired. I can’t control the fact that I am excited about everything little detail of life. For five hours, yes 5. Cinco. The number after four. I talk. I run around the room, pacing. Talking about life. Spilling my guts. Revealing things I have never told soul. But it felt so natural. Like i was king of the world. I was so confident and excited and just has so many freakin revelations that I couldn’t stand it. I realized at this point that this movie wasn’t the simple comedy I was viewed it as, but rather it was exactly right. EVERYTHING IS THE SAME. everything is part of everything else. it’s a circle. one thing leads to another and it always comes back. I tried to tell a story. But guess what, i probably had 30 or 40 stories going because I couldn’t finish one. Tangent after tangent after tangent. It was beautiful. Travis kept coming up. the band. a song. called side. I was going to play it early in the night. But everytime I would go to play it, i would say travis, FUCK, travis. and i would go off about travis. the person. i couldn’t stop. I was on fire. I have never been happier in my life. I wanted to record myself. Because I was genius. Matt had “Think Different” posters hanging up in his room. WHY? he wasn’t even a mac person. he had PCs. that night i was thinking differently. like a kid. experiencing things for the first time. excitement. joy. happiness. not even the fact that travis. the person. has a girlfriend and doesn’t even like me like i would like for him to like me could bring me down. it excited me. it was beautiful. because in the circle, travis and i had joined. While I was giving my extended stand-up, Steu sat on the floor, drawing. Peacefully. Full of passion. It was kyle. They look identical. It was the same. A person so intriqued in his work that not even a guy putting on the most obnoxous show of revelations could take him away from his art. it was kyle. i was so excited that i would just talk about it. but talking about kyle would take me back to san francisco. where the golden gate bridge was. the bridge. the bridge that is the #1 suicide destination in the US. I had done so much research on jumping off the bridge that I knew how far above the water it was. how fast your body is going when it hits the water. how far into the water you go before you come to a complete stop. which side of the bridge people jump from. side. which side. side. side. side. what happens to the body, if it’s ever found. how much time it takes to hit the water. how many people have jumped. how many people had lived. how those who lived had regretted jumping. all 27 of them. i knew all of this, because i had spent weeks of doing research. everything. kyle and i had talked about suicide. i don’t even know kyle. but the night of travis’s party, kyle and i were alone in his & travis’s room and i told kyle i wanted to die. he was the only living person i had ever told that to. i was back to travis. the person. who would take me back to travis. the band. and i would remember, SHIT, i was going to play that song. but that was like 3 hours ago. but 3 hours had never passed. time was never a thought. I had transcended time. Its in the movie. Watch it. I was living.

Reminding myself that I was going to play that song, I listened to what was actually playing and it was sigur ros. the music travis. the person. has encouraged me to get. i couldn’t get out of the circle. because it’s the truth. it’s inevitable. life is a circle. everything is a cycle. death is but the blossoming of life. a flower blooms.. and dies. and cylces back to the earth were all repeats. i was in lubbock. of all places. where i had started my journey of life on my own. where i had had my only boyfriend. who’s name was matt. my crush in high school’s name was matt. i was here, in a room, with the boy who i was “assigned” to whos name was matt. even if i had wanted to escape the excitement of life. i couldnt.

matt was in the other room and came back with a blanket. he hasn’t seen huckabees. a blanket. FUCK. i wanted to show them the blanket. but just as soon as i would get the chance, something would change. another part of the circle would come along and i would go on a nother tangent. the song. the blanket. the shirt. travis. the band. the person. everything. the bridge. i couldn’t escape and i was thrilled.

It was about 8AM by now. The point when I finally regained composure. My old composure. But it wasn’t my old composure. I still felt the energy and excitement from previous engagements. I went over to the stereo, and put on my song. It was the perfect finale to my five hour show. Let me paste the lyrics so that you can get an idea of what was sung:

Well I believe there’s someone watching over you
They’re watching every single thing you say
And when you die they’ll set you down and take you through
You’ll realise one day that

The grass is always greener on the other side
The neighbours got a new car that you wanna drive
And when time is running out you wanna stay alive
We all live under the same sky
We all will live we all will die
There is no wrong
There is no right
The circle only has one side

We all try hard to live our lives in harmony
For fear of falling swiftly overboard
But life is both a major and a minor key
Just open up the chord

But the grass is always greener on the other side
The neighbours got a new car that you wanna drive
And when time is running out you wanna stay alive

We all live under the same sky
We all will live
We all will die
There is no wrong
There is no right
The circle only has one side

—- It made me cry. But not tears of sadness. Tears of joy. It was perfect. Somebody else wrote a song that totally took my everythought and put it into music. It just happened to be sung by a band called travis.

i can’t write anymore………… back

Add comment August 21st, 2006

Hey, that’s my brand!

About a year and a half ago I did drugs for the first time. Ecstasy to be exact. It was the most amazing experience ever, I will admit. I had many revelations that night. It would be safe to say that of those revelations, the one that has had the greatest impact on my life is the fact that on that night, I realized that everything is the same. I mean everything. Like your dirty socks are the same as the glass used in BMW windshields (which is very high quality glass, by the way). Now before you go dismissing me, hear me out.

I believe there is no such thing as a straight line in life. Everything is a circle. Everything. Cycles if you will. Just as the Conservation of Energy states, matter cannot be created nor destroyed. Just changed. That is, in any closed system (like our Universe), what is already here is all we have. We cannot “create” more. We can only take what was given to us and manipulate it, or change it. Everything goes through a cycle. Ups and downs. Ins and outs. If you try hard enough, I bet you can list 100 cycles in less that 2 minutes. Go.

We’ve all been presented with this idea our entire lives (the one about matter). First in grade school and again in college. Probably the most influential presentation of the idea (to me at least) came in the form a movie. If you’ve not seen “I ♥ Huckabees”, please do. It ranks very high in my poll of favorites. Now, it didn’t get very good marks, but I’m confident the critics didn’t see past its witty exterior. (Critics are often very shallow anyway.) The movie is super deep, and probably only 1% of the population actually gets what the movie is about anyway. After taking ecstasy, I was able to join that 1%.

It’s a movie about existentialism. I’m not going to link to the definition because if you don’t know what it means, I’m going to leave it up to you to look it up. It’s about everything being connected. Like friends on myspace, or the geese in a flying V. Connected. Every connection has an even smaller connection, and so on, and so on. Everything that you are made of is infinitely related to everything around you. I guarantee if you think hard enough, you can connect my dirty socks to the glass in my car in less that 5 degrees. Try it. Now I could go on and on about my theory, (which I already did here), but it’s a bit off topic for this post.

I decided to write about this after reading a few articles tonight about corporate branding. Google (who now rivals Coca-Cola for the number one recognized brand in the world) has sent cease and desist letters to a select group of individuals who are ‘googling’ things. Now, I’m sure each of you has used the term google as a verb before. It’s every companies dream to become a household name. That is until it becomes a household name. All the effort once put behind the brand to get it into the home is now refocused on protecting it from genericification (I think I made that word up). Apple is doing the same thing with the iPod. Sadly, it’s too late for Xerox and Band-Aid. (Ever wonder why they say, “Band-Aid Brand” in their commercials now? That’s why.) Yep, you’ve guessed it. As I promised, everything is a circle and this brings me back, full circle, to my beginning points. Everything is the same. I like to call it the teeter-totter of life. You have to give to get. Because when you think about it, that’s all we really can do.

Ecstasy, circle, Energy, existentialism, corporate branding, I Heart Huckabees

Add comment August 21st, 2006

Signs in Nature

I spent today on a photographic escapade with the intent of proving that signs really do exist in nature. Ok, so maybe I used Adobe Photoshop to create the final image, but rest assured each individual image was left unaltered. Please enjoy each photo in its true essence here. A lot of things have been on my mind lately. Mostly the fact that now that I’m “through the rain,” I’m scared to death of gaining back more weight than I lost. I try my best each day to eat as healthy as possible. Fruits, vegetables, fiber and protein are the main essentials I try to put down the old trap. I really love broccoli. Often times I’ll eat an entire head of it for dinner. Sometimes even two. Steamed of course. Mmm. Although it has been brought to my attention that I do not make a very “nice” friend the days thereafter! :)

I was very much looking forward to going back to work tomorrow, but the company in charge of Apple’s absense management has totally dropped the ball once again. Not only have they yet to approve my leave (which it’s been four months now), they’re now postponing my much anticipated return to work. (I know the people at my store anxiously await my return.) Granted, it took me a bit of time to get the ball rolling. (If I would have been able to ‘get the ball rolling’ in a timely fashion, I probably wouldn’t have had the need to be on leave in the first place, now would I?) It makes me so upset. I fear I’m going to get the dreaded letter of denial for failure to comply with deadlines and such. I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. In other news, some students at Oregon State love Firefox so much that they have created a crop circle in its honor. I’ve never been a big fan of man-made crop circles, but you’d have to admit that this is pretty darn cool!

work, health, crop circles, star signs, broccoli

2 comments August 21st, 2006