Goodbye Cruel Blogosphere

...At least for now.

I've been wasting way too much time on the net and this is not very good, so I will disconnect my wireless card and access the internet only when it is absolutely necessary for me to do so.

"But Rich! What about your scintillating love story???" Do not fret, dear readers, spring break is nigh and I will probably continue my tale then.

I'll try to post whenever there is good reason to do so.

Please, do not be sad. I know it is as hard for you as it is for me.

Rich's Sad Love Story, Part I

Earlier I promised you, my many faithful, avid, and beloved readers, that I would bring you drama, and I am here to deliver. It's a pretty long story, so I'm going to be typing it in installments. It will probably sound stupid to everyone, but I could never say enough how much the following events mean to me. I hope you enjoy it, or at least get a good laugh out of it. I will probably sound like one of those psychopathic bloggers after this. Maybe I am, and maybe I'm not. If it'll help, I guess you could think of this as a work of fiction. I doubt anyone, even my friends, cares about all this, but humor me anyway. Thanks.


It has been a year to the day since I first fell in love.

It is exactly this time one year ago. It is 10:30 pm on the 26th of February, 2004. It is a Thursday, not a Saturday, and I am exactly where I want to be: seated next to the woman I love in her piece-of-shit 80's Ford Escort in the empty parking lot of our college. We have been here for the past half-an-hour or so, and we will be here for another two. We are not making out, we are not doing the nasty, we are just talking and laughing, talking and laughing about the ordinary things and the ordinary people that constitute our ordinary lives, yet to us--well, to me at least--this is anything but ordinary. This is the happiest night I have yet to know, perhaps the happiest night I will ever know. The planets are in perfect alignment tonight. All is right in the universe. It is cold outside but the car is warm. It is very late and I have school in the morning, but that doesn't matter to me anymore. Few things do. I am here seated next to the most beautiful woman on earth.

You may ask yourself how I--with my near-sociopathic tendencies and all--have gotten here, alone with this beautiful, tall, sexy, horn-honk-inducing (yes, that really happened) goddess. That is a little story in itself.

We first met about five-and-a-half months ago, in the beginning of September 2003. We had both just started working at the bookstore of our school. Our eyes kept meeting each other from across the room. I thought she was a customer but then she had been there much too long and later on she was chatting with us, her fellow employees. She is tall and striking, and all the other guys at work were obviously all physically attracted to her, you know, flirting like crazy with her and all. I wasn't so much, but I did think she was very friendly and we got along and I liked her as a friend. In the next few days, I could see that she was friendliest with me. She was always talking to me and hanging around me, and I started to feel that there might be something more than just friendship between us. So I asked her out to a jazz festival. She was polite and showed what seemed to be genuine interest and told me she wanted to go, but she was a runner and had a busy training schedule. I assumed I'd misread her and that she wasn't interested in me at all that way.

We were still close though, the closest among anyone else at work. She always showed interest in me. She asked me how the jazz festival went--I told her I'd decided not to go. She asked why, and I couldn't really give her a proper answer other than "I was lazy." She was always asking how my then very pregnant sister was. She admired the fact that I was taking multivariable calculus and even joked that I should tutor her. She was very enthusiastic when she told me she loves the guitar and that she thought it "so cool" that I played. We had lunch at the cafeteria together one time, and on another we shared a laugh about how the two of us collectively wasted over a dollar trying to get a newspaper from a defective dispenser.

Every guy in the bookstore was still obviously attracted to her. Everyone was so interested in her that her age became a mystery we were all trying to solve. I'm not sure if I was the first to find out how old she was, but I did one day when we got around to talking about her high school years in Poland. She gave it away. I did the math and was disappointed to find out that she was twenty-four, which also surprised me because when I looked at her I always thought it looked about right that she was my age or maybe a year younger. I was nineteen and she knew this, so by then I was certain that this was never going beyond friendship.

Sadly our time together didn't last very long. I was really beginning to like her and whenever I would sign in for my shift I would always check the schedule to see if she worked that day too, secretly hoping that I would see her, if only for a few minutes. But after two weeks she stopped coming to work. She is one of those people who come in temporarily during the start of each semester when things are busiest in the bookstore.

I did not see her again until one day in November, when she dropped by the bookstore to leave a textbook with us for a friend of hers who was stopping by to borrow it. She exchanged a few short pleasantries with us and was off, but before she left she said good-bye last to me, and she was holding her hand out to me. She was not holding it out the way one would hold one's hand out to shake another's. Rather, she was holding it out with her palm facing downward. I reluctantly gave my hand to her, palm up, and she squeezed it, sending a shiver through the length of my arm and on down my spine. I did not see her again for a long time.

At the time I wasn't kidding myself. I'd mused that the hand "caress" had romantic overtones but really I knew she didn't like me the way I was beginning to like her, so I moved on turned my attentions to another pretty girl in my math class with whom I always had nice conversations about music.

The semester went on and ended without my seeing her again, my sister had already given birth, and I flew home to Manila for Christmas and had fun there and didn't once think of her. I came back to the states on the eve of Martin Luther King Day very depressed about leaving my family behind once again, and went back to work at the bookstore right after the holiday. To my great and wonderful surprise, she'd come to work there again, and we were very close once more, but I had no idea just how close we were about to become.

-End of Part I-

I'm Hungry

We have tons of cheese in the house. You know what this means.

That's right. It's grilled cheese time, baby! Oh yeah!

Longer, more dramatic post to follow tonight, and I do mean dramatic.

Woohoo!

Mark your calendars! The new Go-Betweens album is coming out on April 25th!

Only 60 days to go! Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Oh No! I Am a Failure!!!

I didn't do so well in either test I took today. It doesn't bother me too much because they were hard and I tried, but I am mildly chagrined because I've wasted a strike a bit early in two classes. I won't beat myself up over it though. It's hard trying to become an engineer. I guess I'm kinda glad even that now I know why I screwed up and next time I'll be ready. So watch out, the both of youse professors, you pair of fucking sadists.

Studying last night was a hoot. I brought home a bottle of Mellow Yellow to keep me up in case I pulled an all-nighter. The best soft drink for that is Mountain Dew but my school only sells Coke stuff, so I hoped the Mellow Yellow would keep me up just as well.

So I was hitting the books and then at about ten I decided to drink the soda. By around one I wasn't making any more progress and I was getting really distracted so I decided to turn in. I don't know if it was the nerves or the soda, but I didn't fall asleep til round 4:30, and I had to get up at seven. So I was tossing and turning for around three hours, futilely trying everything that might make me sleep. That may well have been the shittiest three hours of my life.

Anyway this entry is so boring and I've lost interest in it already, so, uh, bye.

My Trip to Costco

I am a proud price club member. I go to the price club because I am frugal and down-to-earth, and because I recognize and appreciate great value when I see it. I also go because I am cheap.

I really hate going to the price club because it's always crowded. It's bad enough going there alone, but it becomes a nightmare when I go there with more than one other person in tow, because it's a statistical surety that someone from the group (i.e. me) will leave to look at the DVD's and will later on spend a long, long time peeking into every aisle in a seemingly futile attempt to find out where the hell everyone else has gotten to amidst a sea of fellow cheapskates. But if I must go to the price club, I must, and I prefer to do so during odd hours under the assumption that everyone else but me has something better to do than go to the freaking price club on a weekend night.

So tonight, Saturday night, was one of those times when my sister and I had to go in order to stock up nuestra casa. I had a plan all laid out--we would go at around 6 PM and enjoy a decent parking space and some room to actually move around inside the store. When we got there at ten-to-seven, the parking lot was virtually empty. "Jackpot!" I cried. I was giddy and giggling like a little girl. I imagined there would be few people there tonight, but not that few. My timing was perfect. I had outsmarted everyone. I am a fucking genius!

As you have probably already figured out, it was closed. As it turns out, the price club closes at six on Saturdays. Apparently, even price club employees have better things to do on a Saturday night than be in the price club. Jesus, I am such a loser.

New Shit

It's been over a month since I started this bad boy and I couldn't help but notice, as you, dear reader, have probably noticed too, that my blog has so far lived up to its alliterative moniker.

Reading other blogs, it's become clear to me that the funniest ones are about normal people, like you and I, who fail, miserably or not. It's not schadenfreude, it's empathy. We're all human--well, most of us, anyway--and our failures bind us together the same way our triumphs do, perhaps even more so.

Since no one else seems to screw up as much as I do, especially when it comes to love, that's what I'm going to write about. I'm not going to start today because I want my dumb stories to last for a bit while I go out and put myself in more painfully uncomfortable and hopefully hilarious situations. Hopefully this thing develops a cult following. That would be sweet. But even if it doesn't, hopefully I make a few of you laugh a little from time to time. We're all in the same boat after all.

The Dark of the Matinee

I saw "Hitch" yesterday and it was nice. Oh my God I'm so gay.

Beginning to See the Light

Why is it that when I have homework due very soon, that's when I decide to do the things that I normally wouldn't bother to do when I actually have the time to do them? Like clean my room or check my email and stuff, or update this blog for that matter, although that I have been doing somewhat regularly.

Anyway, today is Ash Wednesday. For those who don't know, Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Lenten season for us Catholics. Lent, as the cooler of us Cats call it, is a 40-day period of personal sacrifice which, as I recall it, is designed to bring us closer to God as well as to commemorate the 40 days and 40 nights Jesus spent fasting in the desert where he was also tempted by Satan. Lent ends with Holy Week, which in turn commemorates the passion, death, and ressurection (i.e. Easter) of Christ.

Aside from getting ash imposed on our foreheads (as in 'from ash we came, to ash we shall return'), today is also a day of fasting and abstinence. This means we can only eat one meal today, and if things haven't changed, it should be fish. This fasting continues throughout Lent, although on Fridays only. We are also encouraged to give something up for the whole season as well, in line with the whole sacrifice thing.

I stopped going to Church on Sundays, Until very recently, I was going weekly without fail, when I realized I was becoming too dependent on God. This sounds very silly but let's say I had a big test or something like that. Then I would pray in Church that I'd do well, and going to Church and saying this prayer was more of a priority than actually studying for the test. So I decided not to go for a while. So far it's worked out, although I must admit I do worry that I may be damning myself from the Big Guy.

I like to think that God is a pragmatist and doesn't really give a shit if gay people get married, as long as they're happy, and I also like to think that he won't send good people to Hell just because they believe in Allah or Buddah or nothing at all (which is what we Catholics--maybe all Christians--are taught).

Given my taste for modifying my religion, I myself was surprised that I decided to fast today. So I went to school with only an apple to eat all day. Of course by eleven I was hungry as hell so a friend and I went out and bought a sandwich. And then when I got home, I pigged out on leftovers from our little Chinese New Year celebration last night.

So goes my attempt at reconciliation with the Man upstairs. Maybe I'll fast every Friday this Lent, I don't know yet. I want to, but it's really hard, which is really the point of all this. I'll try.

Wrapped Up in Books

Maybe it's just me, but when the train is full and I have to stand up, I like to peruse the novels other passengers are reading. I'm aware that it's a pretty obnoxious thing to do, which is why I try to be as unobtrusive as possible so much so that I doubt that the other passengers even know I'm doing it. I find it cool because I get free previews. If a few pages of a book seem good, I may consider keeping an eye out for it in a library or a bookstore or something.

Whenever I do this, the one thing I look for that tells me whether a book has a chance of being good are the names the author gives his characters. This may sound like a non sequitur--and it probably is one--but it's very important to me. Here's an example. I was in a bookstore a few years ago and I saw some books from the "Left Behind" series of semi-religious novels. At the time, I'd yet to have heard about said series, so I went so far as to pick a book up and read the blurb. It seemed interesting enough, like a modern interpretation of the book of the Revelation to St. John (which is really freaky, by the way), so I opened it to the first page. After reading the first character name that came up, Rayford Steele, I put the book right back on the shelf. I mean, come on, man, any book whose characters have names like Rayford Steele has to be a crock of shit.

Unless in parody, it's very important that the characters in a book I read have no shitty names like Rayford Steele or WASPy ones like first names that begin with T and end with R, such as Trevor or Tucker or Taylor, you know, names that your neighbors whom you suspect may be klansmen might have. God, I don't know, maybe it works. After all, more than three years down the line, I still have that awful fucking Rayford Steele name etched onto my brain. The only good book I've come across with that sort of name that I liked is The Catcher in the Rye.

So should anyone reading this decide to write a book, please, give your characters normal names like Elizabeth Bennett or Arthur Dent. If you must give them "weird" ones, make them cool like Yossarian or Stiva Oblonsky or Zaphod Beeblebrox.

I Don't Want to Play Football

I suppose the question of the day (three times and counting) is "Did you watch the Superbowl?"

Of course not. Competitive sports suck. Everyone should just play for fun, not for glory, because that's when feelings get hurt and people cry and stuff. Plus, football is totally homoerotic.

As the great poets Belle and Sebastian put it: I don't want to play football/I don't understand the rules of the game/...I don't understand/The thrill of running, catching, throwing/taking orders from a moron/grabbing for the sweaty crotches/getting hit by people I don't know...

Do I feel like I missed the spectacle? Kind of. But those who watched it missed out on a nice evening of Nick Drake and the Velvets.

Take Your Carriage Clock and Shove It

"Hey, Rich, what time is it?"

"It's three-thirty-five." How glib!

If only I could answer that smoothly every time someone asked me the time, right? Right. But whenever I am posed the above question, the following thoughts pop into my head, thus rendering any hope of giving a normal answer useless:

1. Do I tell you the time or do I show you my watch and make you tell the time for yourself?

2. Do I round off the time? Do I say two-thirty instead of two-twenty-eight?

3. Is it "a quarter of four" or "quarter to four?" Or are both understood? Do they even mean the same thing?

4. If we're in class, do I tell you the actual time or just how many minutes of class are left?

There's so much pressure in giving someone the time. I get performance anxiety. I start stuttering like an idiot and eventually give the wrong time and have to correct myself, like an even bigger idiot. I wish everyone would just wear a watch.

On a totally different note, I was reading "The Bob Dylan Albums" by Anthony Varesi in the library today and I was in the chapter on Blonde on Blonde and Varesi mentions that "4th Time Around" is a parody of the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood." I thought about both songs and put the lyrics of the Dylan song to the Beatles' melody in my head and it seemed to fit. I tried it on the guitar when I got home, and fit it did. That's pretty nifty, I guess, but really I don't think it's as hard as it seems. Maybe all songs of the same time signature can be superimposed with each other. I've seen one other example of this. The Rhodes Tavern Troubadors are a DC band with a great guitar player (Dave Chappell--not to be confused with the comedian with a similar name) and they put the lyrics of "Pinball Wizard" to the tune of "Folsom Prison Blues" in their live show. It's a really cool rendition, and in the end they play the Townshend power chords, thus making everyone in the room feel like smashing the place up, in a good way.

Little Bastard

God damn that Puta-what-fucking-ever groundhog! Six more weeks of winter my ass!

I want spring! I want love to come back in the air to remind me how much life sucks!

More cold and then now taxes. I never win.

If you see that rat, shoot it.

Atrocity Exhibition

New word alert! Coprophagia. Look it up, you coprophagist!

I think spring is coming. Yay! ^_^ Hooray for warmth!!!