Malaise, Codine, and the Green Fairy

Once again, I'm feeling apathetic disconnect from the world which translates into some internal unease. Unlike most times this happens, I'm not much bothered by it, which paradoxically, makes me more uneasy in an objective, rational way. Usually, I get a bug in my ass and do something about it. Now, I just don't care enough to gear up for something. My innate sense of discontent will kick in soon and I'll, uh, got to Bangkok or something.

In more tangible news, my back has been killing me. I'm getting it stretched and fixed so it hurts in the mean time. Last week, it hurt enough for me to call my doctor's office and plead for some temporary relief. Rolaids came in the form of Tylonol 3, a relatively(!) weak narcotic. That was enought to dull the pain, but after four days of it, I found myself rather nauseous. For some reason, one day, they wouldn't hit me and the next day I'm babbling and staring beyond space. Thankfully, my back feels better.

In more culturally-oriented drug abuse news, my bottle of Nouvelle-Orleans arrived in the mail last week. I'm not sure how much more will be brewed in the near future as the distiller is based in New Orleans. I have not yet tried it, since it was not cheap and I need a good occasion to do so (refer to paragraph 1 as to why this may be a while). Perhaps New Years Eve. I bet Sophie would love it!

Anyway, I need to wash Cheeto residue off of my fingers.

First the Power, Then the Women

We have these ragged pine trees at the corner of our building. I've wanted to get rid of them for 15 years. In high school, I had to mow around them and when I made it into the office, they blocked any site of outside that I had through my arrow-slit of a window. My father never saw it my way.

Today, our tree service was here cutting down a couple of pine trees that no longer fit due to the curb and gutter going in. Since my father's on vacation, I asked if they could cut down the ragged pine trees and they're doing so as of now. I'm happy as a pig in shit.

I have the power, now I need the women!

Tales of Ramadan

I didn't finalize my Halloween plans (at least the Saturday bit) until the day of the event. As usual, I skipped the riots on State Street and instead went to the wonderful suburb of Waukesha to raid the party of my roommate's brother, Mark.

Again, as usual, I put no effort into my costume and donned my Blackhawks jersey, grabbed my street hockey stick, and headed out the door. Shaun and I stopped by Giganto Halloween Warehouse to round off our outfits. He found nothing, but I found an old-time goalie mask or, as most people know it, a Jason mask. Outside of the Land Shark, we were the first to arrive.

An important note to the evening's festivities is Shaun's solidarity deal with workmate Fathi to not drink alcohol for Ramadan. Shaun had been doing this for about five weeks. Also important to note is that the keg wasn't Barley Water Lite, but Strongbow. Another important note, which he told me later, was his diet that day of five pieces of toast with peanut butter.

It didn't take us long to get a buzz going. In that time, a fruity-looking pirate, two wizards, a jailbird, and tasty French maid arrived. Shaun and I take great pleasure in making Mark squirm and were throwing out one-liners and other assorted jokes, much to the pleasure of the Land Shark, including one about the pirate's poop deck.

When the party headed inside, I found a comfortable chair, which, given my old fogie tendencies, was a mistake. As the party kicked into high gear, I dozed off. Noise is no problem for me; I even fell asleep at the butt-numbing Metallica concert of 1991. Eventually, I took refuge in the spare bedroom after repeated yells of "Chris, wake up!" rang out (I was wearing my Chris Chelios jersey). Shaun continued to hang out with the crowd and pound cider in his five week virgin belly.

At about 1 am, a very drunk Shaun barged in and dropped to the floor to snooze. Not more than five minutes after that, Mark's girlfriend came in to restart the Halloween noises that were turned up to 11. The sound waves found Shaun's button and he leaned up yelling "Oh God" and "I'm never drinking again!" in between the witches' cackles and his dry heaving into a plastic bag. Evidently, his end of Ramadan culminated in his conversion back to Christianity. As more "Oh My God!", "I can't believe this!", and "Oh no!" chants rang out, I started cackling louder than the 11-amped witches. I turned off the music and Mark's girlfriend suggested sleeping in the other room. I didn't mind Shaun's discomfort, since I was tired and selfish, but there was no sofa in the other room. Shaun had enough and told me to drive him home.

I proceeded through the house, announcing Shaun's coming with imitations of the hwwwaaaahhh's, "Oh My God!"s and "Oh No!"s; again with much laughter. He slept most of the way home while my vision blurred in and out. I did managed to make it home, but the last ten minutes were again punctuated by Shaun's groaning as mention above. When I got to my room, I hastily threw my laundry off my new bed, put sheets on the bed, and fell asleep.

Moral of the Story: Always be happy to fall asleep in a comfortable chair.

Top 10

So Dave posted his top 10 random songs, so I guess I will also:

No Need To Worry - Folk Implosion
Sleeping on the Sidewalk - Queen
Joyriders - Pulp
Everlong - Foo Fighters
Pink Cigarette - Mr Bungle
Dollar Dance - Hepcat
Something Better - Marianne Faithfull
Not My Idea - Garbage
She's Got Spies - Super Furry Animals
Candy - Morphine
F.U.N. Song - SpongeBob SquarePants

Ok, that's 11, but I had to add "F is for Fire that burns down the whole town!"

Life Soaked Out of Me

I was going to write a post about the 101-proof smoothie I made to get through class, but I'm just to bored to do it. That class soaks any ambition right out of me. Next semester, I'm going to take German with my roommate, so we can have witty conversations that no one can understand, even word for word. Ok, submit "innane" for "witty". Hopefully, I'll feel interested enough in life to write more tomorrow.

Sleep Well, World,

Henry

Greetings From The Mid-Atlantic!

I'm currently vacationing in the mid-Atlantic, now parking my ass in Wilmington, NC. It's been a relaxing vacation marked with nights of sleep stretching 9 hours, beer, food, and general lazing. A day-by-day recap of my vacation thus far would make boring blogging and reading, so I'll list some observations and such:

1. Old people at airports are well worth watching. An old couple occupied the seats across from me in land-of-the-dead terminal in Madison. The old guy, stereotypically, couldn't hear for shit and his wife kept trying to talk to (at?) him. She would yammer away with periodical bursts of "Did you hear me?" to which the old guy would respond "enh?" At one point, when she was mentioning the grandkids or some plot of Matlock, he loudly proclaimed that he wanted some chocolate. He also managed to clear his throat three times per second. As I said, old people at airports are worth watching.

2. I -heart- mass transit, especially the train kind. Adam and Susan live just off of the Orange Line that made my stay convenient. I used it to get from the airport (with Adam's guidance and company) to his place and to downtown Washington. The mix of people was interesting given the Madison is 83% white. Being the capitol of the free(???) world, many kinds of people live there and fill the subway. This helps my main goal of blending into the background much easier, because I'm just another white guy instead of a rather German-looking guy who dresses like he livess on the east side of Madison. The less identifying adjectives that bounce around people's heads when seeing me, the better.

3. North Carolina people can't drive. They suck! They ride your ass for ten miles while the left lane is wide open, run read lights not out of a rush, but from pure stupidity, don't understand simple principles (like move to the middle of the intersection while waiting to turn left) and generally are obstacles.

4. Eastern North Caroline looks like central Wisconsin. I saw a lot of trailer.. uh, mobile homes, pine trees, winding highways, and random towns featuring an old gas station/repair shop and three houses in various states of disrepair. Oh, and an ice cream shop. The only difference is most homes, except the mobile variety, are made of brick and there's cotton instead of soybeans.

5. Like Wisconsin, when you get to the end of the road, you find exaggerated accents. I went the wrong way on Carolina Beach Road and ended up in... Carolina Beach! When I asked for directions, I had to dust off inner reaches of my brain that decipher heavy accents. That part of my brain expanded quite a lot when I worked in a noisy pub in Scotland. I half expected a banjo to play in the background, but before you worry about my safety, they were squeaky clean and quite accommodating.

I'm sure the next three days will provide more intrigue. We'll see.

Quote

I found this quote at this site:

A friend is someone who will bail you out of jail, but your best friend is the one sitting next to you saying "that was f***ing awesome"