two.points.collapsing

heh. i spelled “tail” as “tale” in the last post. i blame fievel. i’m so stupid.

i was up until abou 4:30am last night. so the party was pretty successful, you would probably say. good for those guys. i mean, i’ve never seen so many people at a party before in my life. maybe at some of those big frat parties, but those guys are so well-funded, it’s not nearly as impressive. i had a great night. and i drank out of a brown paper bag for the first time, which was, of course, life-altering. i had never used a dumpster as a urinal before either, that i remember, but that wasn’t really life-altering as much as it was just a relief.

tonight we rock. ozma at chain reaction and i can’t wait, and maybe if the energy is there, another party afterward. lovin’ this weekend, absolutely lovin’ it.

[now hearing this: modest mouse – this is a long drive for someone with nothing to think about.]

something i don’t think i’ve done in at least a month on here is the whole brian’s book club thing. that is, record and submit opinions on what i’ve just read. i bet there are literally dozens of people with no good book recommendations now, just weeping, sobbing in their rooms, terrified to go to a bookstore and read something that hasn’t been given an official collapsing approval. it must be awful. and so i will now dutifully overview my last month or so worth of reading to relieve that terrible aching hole in the hearts and minds of the more literary of you. more literary than me anyway, which is probably all of you (you’re so smart).

the inferno; dante

well this one you probably read in high school. i did too, and i felt like looking over it again for kicks, and i found a copy with a neat cover for only 4 dollars, so i bought it a while back and read it a few weeks ago. either the neat cover as just a mask for a shitty translation, or it just isn’t as good as i thought it was. i think it’s the former because i’m pretty sure it’s a masterpiece or something (so they say), and besides it makes you sound very smart when you have an opinion on good or bad translations of classic literature.

ender’s game; orson scott card

i read this because i think someone more literary than myself, possibly several such people, said i should read it. rising to the challenge, i picked it up and gave it a try despite the fact that it said, “one of the top 100 books for teens” on the back. well it says that for a reason, because it’s a kids’ book. i didn’t really like it much. maybe if i had read it at 13, i would have remembered it fondly at 21, but at 21 i only remember sadly how i took too long finishing it because i just didn’t want to read it. and i guessed the “twist” ending. that didn’t help much either.

doctor faustus; christopher marlowe

it’s been said and heard by most bookworms, i think, that christopher marlowe was a rival to shakespeare’s talent and might have been more remembered had it not been for his untimely barfight death. so it goes. but again, how can you not read a literary classic when it’s only 4 dollars at barnes and noble, and it’s the time-honored tale of the soul-selling seeker of truth? well i know i can’t. i have to say though, this was not as good as i’d hoped, and i much prefer the later faustus story by goethe. i remember thinking the mephistopheles character being much more entertaining and clever in that one, and just finding it more provocative in general. and besides, it makes you sound terribly smart when you have an opinion on which is a better version of faustus.

a heartbreaking work of staggering genius; dave eggers

i loved it. no book could live up to that (ingenious) title, but i did enjoy it all the way through. the introduction/acknowledgements alone were brilliant, and the rest was just well done, i think. i can see problems with it that might not make it as good for you, but i really enjoyed it. so thanks dom for recommending it to me oh, about a year ago. i’m slow because i’m descended from canadians. the french kind. yech.

now i’m going to start the count of monte cristo as well as probably coraline by neil gaiman, which i probably should have bought and read months ago when it came out since he’s my favorite. that shouldn’t take long to read though since it’s a kid’s book too. i bet you a million dollars it’s better than ender’s game though.

so i know this is really long — but you know, actually, the best things i’ve read so far this summer are the first two trade paperback volumes of the collected preacher comic book series. i know i missed the boat and that stuff broke in, what, the mid 90’s? but late discovery or no, it’s still fucking fantastic. oh lordy lord, if you like comics at all you either probably already read these, or would absolutely love these if you picked them up. even if you don’t normally read them, i say check them out because you won’t be sorry. they’re just so cool…

so i think that’s enough for now. read up, folks.

[now hearing this: the simpsons. “look, a dog with a poofy tale!….heeheeheehee..heeeheeheeheehee!”]

it’s the fourth of september already? i’m going to have to start reminding myself that i have internet now and can do the weblog thing again.

weekend, oh weekend. actually after friday night’s party nothing much went on for the next two full days. mostly sitting around the house, which isn’t in itself such a bad thing. it got really unusually hot though on sunday. what’s up with that? one of the only perks of living in LA is that it doesn’t get really hot or cold and you don’t have to deal with that pesky variation. i think it was almost a hundred degrees though. yeah, i’m whining. we don’t have air conditioning.

monday though — lovely labor day. of course we had a barbeque. what, are you kidding? actually, one of our friends called one of our other friends to ask if we were because he knows us and rightly assumed we probably would, but this second friend hadn’t been told yet, and when i talked to her she told me about the first guy’s prescience. that’s what i like to hear: people expecting, nigh on demanding quality barbeques from the robot house.

(that’s what we call our place…have i mentioned that before? i can’t remember.)

school on tuesday was pretty weak. i don’t think i like school anymore. guess we can give it more time and see, but whatever. naturally, office work is loads better, so i’m just on cloud 9 today…

[now hearing this: phone etiquette. i need to put a cd on.]

so let’s try to get back in the swing of things here. like with a song of the week and everything. i have to admit though i haven’t really been hearing much new music or buying many cd’s lately. it may be a symptom of internet loss or maybe i’ve just been preoccupied. so the best i can offer for the moment is some good old piebald, and “still we let it choke us“. not new, but damn if it isn’t great anyway.

we went to a party last night and tried to get drunk on sangria, which just was not happening. i had to resort to beer, which let me tell you right now means i was pretty intent on alcohol. then the lot of us tried to talk to girls, then continuously regrouped to laugh at our failures and why girls are stupid (which becomes a really popular topic whenever we’re drinking, not surprisingly), then dispersed to try again regardless, only to end up all coming home together and with no luck (although one of us *ahem* did get a phone number). and that’s what college boys do for fun.

the best part though, obviously, was finding an excuse to hug the gorgeous girl with the enormous rack. say what you will, but life is about the simple pleasures, isn’t it? i’m not an insensitive jerk, i’m just human.

and who knows what tonight might hold, so i’ll have to get back to you. hopefully something more than just playing multi-player halo on our two networked x-boxes (up to 8 players! EIGHT!… technology is a truly beautiful, wonderful thing!).

[now hearing this: the white stripes – white blood cells. “…i’ll bet you five you’re not alive if you don’t know his name…”]

it’s been my privilege to begin school again this week, and let me tell you how excited i am about this. let’s start with my schedule. i get three days a week with no class, during which i get to relax instead of going to class. relax with a full work day that is. it’s really quite envigorating. who needs free time, this is college!

there’s so much more to be happy about too! tuesdays and thursdays, which are the days i do get to go to school instead of relaxing, begin in a classroom at 8am! thank goodness the school has kept me from wasting my morning away doing something like getting rest, or perhaps pursuing leisurely activities, and has seen fit to kick my day off right with a dull and overly demanding class on management strategy. they’re so good to me, looking out for my interests like that.

but it gets better! the two classes following, the ones pertinent to my area of concentration at my beloved business school, promise to be very challenging and teach me a whole lot. i mean, why else would they be comprised of 80% sorority girls and 15% frat guys? i can only take it as a sign that these are definitely the kind of courses i will get a lot out of. thank heavens i didn’t end up in one of those “fluffy” majors where they hardly teach you anything of substance, and you don’t even really do any work. that would just kill me!

so anyhow, i’m so glad to be back in school. i bet i’ll learn so much this last year of classes, i’ll be twice as great at whatever job i might get than i would be if i started today. heck, maybe even three times as good, i’m just going to learn so much!

oh well, better get some rest — gotta get up and go to work tomorrow and try extra hard since i don’t get to go in on monday what with this stupid holiday and all.

[now hearing this: nada. goodnight.]

has it really been that long? sneaking up on two whole weeks without a single written word, and only sparse ones in the weeks before that? i’m rusty. i’m out of tune. my legs are shaky. i’ll have to ease back into it.

but oh, there’s so much to tell. i bought a car last night. i got a new internship today that could be of the leads-to-career variety. so much growing up is being done in such a short time, it’s given me a bit of a headache.

and with all the big steps up i’m trying to take here, all i really still want is someone to share my big new bed with, if even for a single cozy evening. it just seems such a waste to have so much mattress space for one lonely person.

anyhow — the dsl has been integrated into our fine new household. collapsing should be fully operational again very soon. i just have to get my sea legs back.

[now hearing this: the melange of several roommates’ worth of music floating down stairways and across halls. i love our new house.]

blogging from my room because we finally looked up the university dialup number. the ETA on our DSL is tuesday now, and the closer we get the more i realize i’m looking forward to being hooked in again. it sure will be nice.

still hanging in there — lots of things floating around at the moment but nothing’s getting nailed down really. i might be about to switch to a new internship which doesn’t pay, which means i may need to find a second job, since i may be buying a car soon. i may have to reconfigure my school schedule because i may or may not be able to get into the classes i planned on getting into to complete the minor i might not be able to finish up before next spring. and of course there’s the senior-year question of what exactly do i want to happen to me when the college adventure wraps up in 10 months.

things are pretty decent though. great big 21st birthday party tonight for a dear friend, and more dear friends are finally moving into our house here this week, so this place will be full and fun-filled before you know it. and possibly the best part is that i think i’m back on the upswing after a certain pivotal evening — sometimes i think a few words or a single look can be all it takes to snap you out of something and set you back on track. so it’s back to living it up and looking for trouble (i.e. girls) just like it should be. at least mostly.

soon i’ll be fully connected and we’ll be back to daily writing (i can’t wait) and songs of the week (i bet you can’t either) and all the collapsing you know you miss. i know i do.

[now hearing this: recover demos on mp3. scrumptious.]

i think they tried to deliver our dsl modem yesterday, but no one was home to sign for it. we’re getting closer, but still not there. it’s sort of aggravating, but mostly i don’t think about it or mind so much.

and i’m going to look at more cars tonight, i think, which will be super duper fun for sure.

still without connection in the house. i miss blogging. i miss reading blogs. how are you? hopefully well. how am i? pretty alright. things are fine, the new place is excellent, the internet might be up in about another week or so. then my trusty laptop will be able to connect me to the world once again.

car shopping and beachgoing and tons of fun planned for the weekend. well, not tons, but sufficient portions to satisfy my appetite i suppose.

carry on, see you soon.

in the few minutes between very urgent phone calls, while leaning back in his black leather executive’s chair and scanning the city below his office window (several dozens of floors above ground level), he takes a second to think back to when this all began. he might not have always been the type of person who felt extreme satisfaction when his title leapt from VP to SVP; and it could have been possible — at some point in the distant past — that he would never have become this person at all. he remembers the awkwardness of getting a phone call on his brand new cellular phone (years past most people’s adoption of the new technology), while at his job, from a human relations person at one of the country’s largest advertising agencies. the embarrassing dilemma of trying to arrange an interview for a better position while sitting at the desk of your current one. but he managed, and the interview time was set. this could be the big first step, he remembered thinking.

but maybe it started before that. maybe he would never have come this far, and his office would never be nearly so high off the ground, if he hadn’t let her go. it wasn’t his choice of course, but you can never fully escape thinking that it was somehow your fault that she wanted to leave, can you. reality has a tendency to blur in those situations.

it’s nice to have so many extra rooms in his apartment, such a mammoth television screen; and his car does go very fast when the traffic is thin enough. but things could be drastically different today if not for what happened back then. values, decisions, paths in life — all totally dissimilar to the ones he had chosen, which happened to lead to this wildly successful career. he was proud of how far he’d come, how high he’d risen, how well-dressed he could afford to be, there was no denying it. but anyone might wonder how things would be different if things hadn’t fell apart with her; if he’d done or said just the right things that one summer…

but then the phone starts to ring, and he snaps forward to answer it, because he leads a very important life.