2008 (A Year in Review)

Two Thousand Nine rolled in with a bang. As I predicted, the night started bad and continued to go downhill. Que midnight (our central timezone handicap prevented us from seeing the ball drop), and I'm standing beside Stephen staring soberly at solo cups, listening to The New Year and identifying with Ben Gibbard's sad bastard routine. Each of us wallowing in that sad state between tears, shouting, sleep, and wishing we were somewhere else. A brief retreat to my room and a missung chorus of Work later, I emerged and decided to drop a little blog on my beloved public. (This was not my first lonely New Year with Ben).

Best Album

Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago. Fun fact about this album, I love it, but every time i listen to it I think of claire because her sister's name is emma. Regardless, it is brilliant.

Best Film

The Dark Knight - I was totally against the hype for this movie until I saw Batman Begins in May, and when i saw it I was super stoked, plus, Watchmen trailer. I was a dick to claire the night this movie was released, but i didn't care, also, Stephen and I bonded over it.

Best Book

I don't think I read a book released in 2008, but my favorite that I did read was probably the Razor's Edge by Somerset Maughan, or all of the Sandman trade paperbacks by Neil Gaiman. I wish I could tell stories like Neil or write words that moved people, but I was recently informed that I will not change the world and I am full of excrement, so that's fair enough. I would rather have foolish ambitions than no ambitions. (Lindsey is beside me and says hello. Also, she is probably the best girl I know. Really, she's wonderful. :v I love Lindsey.). I realize that this seems like some sort of catty, passive-aggressive way to address an issue, and probably strikes with the same venom of a note passed by a 5th grader, but unfortunately it's my only recourse. 

Favorite Album 

Say Anything - In Defense of the Genre,  we have been over why i love this album many times, so y'all should get it. Max = Frustrated Romantic, Me = Unsuccessful, Frustrated, and Pathetic Semi-Romantic, without talent.

also

Brand New - Deja Entendu, Jesse Lacey, Max, and Tim Kasher form the songwriting trinity. This album resembles Is a Real Boy in that it deals with Jesse coming to grips with fame and heartache and life on the road. Both SA and BN follow the progression of 1) First Album - sophomoric and poorly produced, but with glimpses of lyrical brilliance. 2) Second Album - Foolhardy, youthful, great. 3) Third Album - Angry, Disenfranchised, Magic.

But DE was essentially me growing through the same emotional stages that I was in high school with IARB, except in college. It's like how Scrubs keeps repeating the same story arches season after season, but with slightly different outcomes. I haven't hit the IDotG and tDaGaRiM stage as a 19 year old, so hopefully I avoid it entirely.

Best Moments of 2008

Cloudcroft Trip

(This is embarrassingly difficult)

Hanging out in the garage

First moving into my new house

My last McAllisters' adventure

Every moment with Lindsey

Colorado Trip

Creating the Magic Blog!

Getting my first college grades (that may sound like bragging, but I'm proud)

Netflix on the Xbox

TDK Night

Half of Aggie Trip

TV

30 Rock

Worst Moments of 2008

Cruise

Graduation

Week after Graduation

Hour Before it Ended

Clint Eastwood Night

Riding with Chelsea

Half of Aggie Trip

The First Senior Get Together

Carino's After Graduation

That about sums it up. 

Nick is listening to Coldplay right now, Viva La Vida was a poor decision. Its weakness has caused me to dislike the older Coldplay albums. I don't identify with you anymore Chris Martin, you're happily married, you have children named after produce, and your wife hasn't impressed me in a film since Royal Tenenbaums. 

I think I have the grades to transfer now, and I think that i might have the courage to actually follow through with it. Despite my lack of the ability to influence anyone and anything I'm gonna try to do what makes me happy.

Also, I hate my job. Last semester I had to work 9 hours on Tuesday and not 9 consecutive or 9 in a split shift. It was 8am to 12pm then 6pm to 11pm. And I had to work every gameday. It's gay.

I applied to U-Dawg with joel and jono etc., so hopefully i get that job, i can work every night so that works, they need my expertise, i've made a pretty ballin' quilt before.

Anyway, I decided to update, and now i'm in a better mood. 

Meagan inspired me to perhaps go back and do an entry for every year of high school, but at the moment it sounds like too much work.

Essays (A Ticket Out of Here)

I have completed my application for UT and have decided to post my essays for admission here, because it's a waste for them to be read by only one person.

The first is just the "Tell us about yourself," I borrowed heavily from a blog entry for it, because it works and wasn't too difficult.

A Charmed Life: The Kyle Gregory UT Admissions Essay (Topic A)

This is the second time that I have typed a response to the illustrious Texas Common Application “Topic A” essay prompt, in hopes of being accepted to the University of Texas. My last attempt was met, not with outright rejection, but an offer to attend one of Texas’ satellite schools and transfer to the Austin campus in the Fall of 2008; it was essentially the collegiate equivalent of a passive-aggressive note from a roommate asking for rent money, the message is clearly upsetting so an attempt is made to soften the blow with a distraction, be that an offer to attend a different school, or a charming purple sticky note. Unfortunately, for both my roommate and the University of Texas, neither method prevented feelings of anger and resentment. Exposition aside, I’m afraid that my life story has not changed much since my last essay, I’m still a suburban, middle class, white male who has never had to suffer any true adversity of any sort, except for the occasional grounding and archaic curfew. I’m Catholic, so I at least avoid the WASP trifecta, but other than that there is nothing distinguishing about my background, at least from a socioeconomic standpoint. I realize, even though the essay topic states, “The statement of purpose is not meant to be a listing of accomplishments in high school or a record of your participation in school-related activities” but let’s be real, that is exactly what people use this essay for, it’s nothing more than an academic dog show for top 10%s to parade their accomplishments about like undergraduate Shar-Peis. I could do the same, I could remind you, noble reader, of my 3.9 GPA in high school, finishing 11th and top 25% in my graduating class, my twenty hours of AP credit, or my 3+ GPA and $25,000 scholarship at Texas Tech, but that would be tacky. I will choose instead to focus on this statement from the essay topic, “Rather, this is your opportunity to address the admissions committee directly and to let us know more about you as an individual, in a manner that your transcripts and other application information cannot convey.” I appreciate the open-endedness of this request and will do my best to fulfill it admirably.

I find myself (as an individual) remarkably interesting, and you may find me trite and boring, but that is something I will have to accept. I am a Texas boy, born in Houston, raised in Lubbock, with brief stints in Colorado and Mississippi. My life goal is to be famous. Like a pre-teen girl, I still cling to that notion that I can do anything and be anything. I am going to graduate, already a cult figure due to the popularity of my blog and pieces in the venerable Daily Toreador (or Daily Texan). This will lead to a lucrative editorial position at a magazine in a cool city like Austin, Nashville, or New York, where my incredible wit, intelligence, writing ability, sports knowledge, pop culture savvy, and charming anecdotes will cause me to be labeled “the next Bill Simmons/Chuck Klosterman/David Sedaris.” At this point I will develop the wanderlust inherent in brilliance and travel the world (my expatriate charm will lead to several foreign women falling in love with me, and hopefully treasure!). During my travels I will have all sorts of experiences that would appear magical and poignant in slow motion and overlaid with Sigur Ros or The Shins tracks, and hopefully I’ll start a revolution (musical or political) and return home safely. Back in the States I will become an accomplished and successful novelist (brining prestige to my alma mater).
The fact is, I’m not the typical Tech student, I fancy myself a bit more worldly and believe that an education in Austin could help me reach my goals. I realize that you probably still don’t know much about me, other than that I’m arrogant and naïve, but I am hamstringed by the one page limit of the admissions essay, and thus incapable of encapsulating my remarkableness; please forgive this and please consider my application to the University of Texas at Austin.

The second essay is about, "An issue of importance." I chose to write about Dippin' Dots. Hopefully, my inability to take anything seriously (other than myself) will not make them upset

Dippin’ Delusional
America has recently experienced a year loaded with controversy. A heated presidential election, an economic bailout, and a war with no end in sight have rollicked the nation over the past twelve months. In the midst of all this turmoil, the talking heads, with their incessant and unhelpful punditry have neglected a real and pressing issue that has been weighing ponderously on the souls of the American people. Common folk are forced to meditate on this disgraceful intrusion every time they visit a mall, theme park, or other place of purported entertainment. I type, not of rampant poverty or the decaying sense of trust between fellow human beings, but an equally sinister and unaddressed plague. You have probably borne witness to this travesty yourself. You take a date out for a pleasant afternoon about town, only to be visually and aurally accosted by a gaily made up cart and its cheerful proprietor, shilling the “Ice cream of the future.”
For those unfamiliar with Dippin’ Dots, they are bb sized balls of flash-frozen ice cream purchasable for roughly six dollars an ounce. According to Wikipedia, (a very reliable source) Dippin’ Dots first began conning unsuspecting consumers in 1987. 1987 was 21 years ago, yet in 2004 Dippin’ Dots brought in about 34 million dollars annually, as opposed to the 225 million sold by traditional ice cream peddlers, Blue Bell. Either the Dot people are slow-playing us, or Dippin’ Dots is in fact, not, the “Ice cream of the future.” Yet, for some reason, this 21st century snake oil company is given a free pass by the media. Mike Wallace has yet to investigate these charlatans on 60 Minutes, and Olbermann wouldn’t touch the subject with a stolen corps of correspondents. It’s clear that all of America is caught in the grip of “Big Dot” and I’m the only man with the bravado to call them out.
The Dippin’ Dots fiasco illustrates the failure of modern media to focus on the real issues smothering America. Rather than expound on genuine problems, sensationalist, and quite frankly, idiotic stories, like “Flag Pin-gate” and Joe the Plumber dominate at least 16 of our requisite 24 hours of news. Whenever any issues of actual importance dare tiptoe into the arena of public discourse they are quickly diffused by the ranting of ideological zealots. (Fun fact: Obama’s middle name is “Hussein”). The self-righteous bloviating running rampant on American media outlets is effectively strangling anything remotely resembling intelligent discourse and discussion. The effects of this can be seen with the decline of intellectualism in the United States and the rise of ad-hominem vitriol on both sides of the party line. The era of Woodward and Bernstein is dead, luckily, O’Reilly and Matthews have stepped up to take their place, and con artists like Dippin’ Dots are taking the ineptitude to the bank.

Cheer Up (All of You)

Last night I was privy to something heretofore unseen; a three man pity party. (not innuendo)

Now most celebrations of patheticness are solo experiences, occasionally two people try to break open the fail-pinata and (at least in my experience) it's two people of opposing genders. (I don't know what trannies do when they feel a little blue)(Rhymes!)

But this was a new experience that i fear is growing more and more common.

It seems like everywhere i turn i see someone with a facebook status like, "Jane is lonely... :(," or

"Dietr is going to jump off a roof." (I have news for Dietr and Jane, they have nothing on me, and i don't post annoying statuses for attention)(that's what the Magic Blog is for). 

Now the obvious cure for this plague of sad would be for women to stop being such GD idiots, unfortunately, the fairer sex has been doing their very best to create misery since day 1, so to hope otherwise is the definition of vanity.

It's ridiculous how many times i've heard, "I just feel sick to my stomach whenever i wake up," "I wish i could take a break from life," "It's just stupid bullshit, I don't know why it gets to me, but it does."

I tend to disregard any sad people below the age of 17, when you're that young everything makes you sad.

But the proportion of unhappy college students is staggering, and it seems like the ones who are happy, are only happy because they live in a fantasy world, full of fake friends and table related games of sport, or they stumble about in an alcohol induced stupor.

Now, some older readers (agewise, not the colloquial use of older meaning "those that have been reading for an extended period of time") of KMB may think to yourselves (in your rapidle idling brains), "Kyle, you are foolish, all young people are angsty, it's part of the process of growing up."

I would reply to those people, "Fair enough."

But if that were all i had to say then you people would be denied a Magic Blog, that i like to pretend you all crave, and that would be criminal. 

I think the issue here is that at some point in recent history, it became cool to miserable.

People stopped admiring dashing and arrogant Han Solo and became drawn in by Anakin Skywalker's whiny and pathetic yammering.

Angst is sexy.

I defy you to watch Jake Gyllenhall in Donnie Darko and not want to possess his quirky/lonely charm, or date him if you are of the feminine persuasion. (Also maggie G. is super hot in that movie as well)

So what happens, is you get these kids, and i think it really attracts kids who were ostracized, or felt ostracized, when they were younger, for being smarter than average. (that could very well just be arrogance). And so with this intelligence they tend to a) spend a lot of time alone and b) chase "higher pursuits." 

(I will stop using this 3rd person narrative now as I don't know if this actually pertains to anyone but myself)

But young kyle was, if possible, more narcissistic than my current incarnation. 

Back in the day, when I was a Crestview Tiger, we had this neat little program called Accelerated Reader, where whenever you read a book, you could get on the computer and take a short quiz on it, and if you passed you got points that you could use to buy little trinkets that kids would enjoy. 

Essentially the only three memories I have of First Grade at school are...

1) You needed 100 AR points to get a phone, and I desperately wanted one (why a 6 yr old would need a phone is beyond me) but sadly, my reading wasn't up to par back then and i did not accumulate the necessary points. However, my best friend at the time, Chris Woldstad (he goes to UT now and is a Tech hater) did get the points. And I remember telling my parents one time that I was jealous of the fact that he had both a phone and an N64 in his room.

Those were simpler times.

2) I was taking my first spelling test ever, the word we had to spell was "Newspaper," I remember wrestling with this word for what seemed like 10 minutes, before settling on, Neuspaper. It was the only one that i got wrong.

I am now a Journalism major, foreshadowing perhaps?

3) I had to take an IQ test to get into some advanced program the school had, I didn't know what it was back then, but I remember the last question was not actually a question, but some test to see if you could think creatively.

The question was just a big black oval in the center of a blank piece of paper, and I was supposed to integrate it into a scene, the example the proctor used was, "it could be something like the nose on a teddy bear," and even 6 year old me thought that was incredibly lame. 

I decided that it would be a boulder resting on a pinnacle in a canyon with several other boulder pinnacles around it (nevermind this being physically impossible, at least the way my nascent motor skills depicted it) and atop the main black oval was my family's camper and my family and I.

I find this strange because to this day I hate camping, but maybe i enjoyed it back then.

Anyway, my drawing got me into the advanced program thing so good work young me!

Anyway, as a child, my lack of physical ability and social graces (still keeping strong there!) led me to spend a lot of recess reading books.

How lame is that? Just sitting on the curb reading.

Now, not all of recess was spent this way. 

Sometimes I would bomb around the jungle gym, and before they took it out, the thing that you spin really fast and sit or stand on was awesome (i don't remember the name, how sad is that)(I have been told it is "Merry-go-round") but some kid busted his head, so that went away.

Also wall ball was pretty popular for a while, and at one point my friend Carter and I appointed ourselves "protectors of the ants" and deterred other kids from squishing them.

Anyway, back to the point.

I read a lot of books as a child, and i think this may have contributed to my social awkwardness. (It was that or my propensity for wearing matching sweatpants and sweatshirt several times a week).

I didn't really find other kids interesting, and regarded most of them as pretty stupid and inferior to me. I don't think i took someone the same age as me seriously until like 7th grade.

But, to continue my elementary school tales, I began to covet the AR points, and i think i had the most points in my grade throughout the rest of elementary school. (i have the medals to prove it)

So, I mean come on, who were these children that tried to compete with me, the master of AR, they were weak and stupid. 

At this point, I was too young to really be a "loner" because at that age kids pretty well hang out with everyone, the only thing that set me apart, other than my awesome brain, was that I didn't play football, so perhaps I have my mother to blame for my social insecurities. But i still felt semi-alienated from the other kids at school.

I deviated pretty severely from my main point, which was, that I read books that a young kid may not comprehend fully, but could still get through from cover to cover and feel accomplished and inflated.

It wasn't as bad in elementary school, I pretty much just read Hank the Cowdog and Animorphs, but by 4th grade I had knocked down The Hobbit, and the Entire LotR trilogy. 

Middle school was more of the same, mostly Star Wars books, but I read all of Dumas' Musketeers series + Count of Monte Cristo, Dr. Doolittle series, the Secret Garden, all of Kipling's books.

If it had a Penguin on the spine I wanted to read it because it made me feel sophisticated.

Then Jr. High, when I could actually comprehend those books more, I kind of backed off, I think mostly because of lack of material, I tried though. I read Thomas Paine's "Common Sense," because for a while I was obsessed with the American Revolution. 

Then 8th grade came along and I became obsessed with guitar and classic rock. 

I remember having my mom buy me Led Zeppelin's "Early Days/Latter Days" best of collection, and it developed from there.

I stopped wearing my khakis and polos and traded them for jeans and black t-shirts.

My friends and I would patrol the hallways, each of us wearing a shirt proclaiming our devotion to Led Zeppelin, or ac/dc, or van halen, with Guitar Pro and Guitar One magazines nestled in our backpacks. 

So this led to more unfounded superiority over my peers, because there is no bigger snob than a music snob, especially when said snob is a mediocre guitarist.

Anyway that summer I moved back to the LBK, which was awesome, because Colorado is pretty lame, peoplewise, they all love hockey and basketball players that like to drive drunk.

So I returned to Texas and wanted to go to Frenship, but i ended up mooring at the old TCHS.

There, I encountered a Mr. David Hutchens, at the time renown for wearing no less than a half-dozen t-shirts at once and pretending to be friends with the seniors. 

I had known David since I was 5 years old, as we both grew up in the shadow of the Neugebauer Park gazebo, and were good friends at the time.

But the years had caused the bonds of friendship to weaken, and David ignoring me, plus the prickish and hostile nature the Trinity student body took toward outsiders left me pretty lonely.

Luckily, this is where i developed my current standby method of dealing with a lack of social interaction; attach myself to a woman that has no particular interest in me. 

While (as always) this attempt at a relationship went nowhere; it did get me out of my black t-shirt and jeans phase and led to me getting a haircut, which was very, very necessary.

This allowed me to fit in better and make friends, but I was worried that my new teachers wouldn't recognize how brilliant I am without them seeing that I could hold my own amongst literary giants.

I started by reading, "The Sun Also Rises," and then knocked out every Hemingway novel after that, and then it took off from there, if it was written by a member of the "Lost Generation," I probably read it. 

And that has stuck with me, more from enjoyment and trying to refine my literary taste, rather than some sort of intellectual genital swinging contest. (i realize that previous sentence sounds pretentious and false, but so be it)

But the point of that was, I was desperately trying to be perceived as "cool" and "intellectual," and historically, people that are perceived that way, lead pretty unhappy lives.

Also fortunate for me was that, now that my preferred music was no longer socially acceptable, I had to now branch out and discover other forms of aural entertainment.

This was largely unsuccessful in the initial stages, because everyone was either a "poser" or terrible, generally skewing toward the latter.

(David is beside me and says hello, also he is dealing with girl problems) (he likes to pretend that his 6 month tryst is as devastating as 3+ years of insecurity, but it really isn't)

Anyway, in this journey of musical self-discovery, I went back to listening to bands I liked in my jr. high days, Something Corporate and Death Cab for Cutie.

Essentially it just built from there, Hot Fuss came out that fall and I devoured that record. I sat alone in my granpa's study for a week during Christmas with the album on repeat while surfing Amazon's "Other Artists You May Also Like," and writing all of them down.

It just all snowballed from there, David and I would trade artists and CDs that we liked until we had built formidable iTunes libraries. (david's computer ineptitude has led to his being deleted time and again, but mine remains).

Anyway, to shorten things considerably.

Bands I Discovered My Freshman Year (or earlier) but Still Love 

- the killers

- cursive

- neutral milk hotel

- death cab

- soco

- the decemberists

- the thrills

- coldplay

- built to spill

- iron and wine

As you can see, for the most part this is all pretty poppy music, and the albums that aren't (in the aeroplane over the sea, ugly organ) I didn't fully appreciate until a lot later in my musical development.  

But even from this you can see the trending toward music that speaks to that disappointed little part of your heart. 

Alright, this blog has veered way off course (i've been writing over the course of a couple days and several different times, and in between the start of this and right now, i've had a bit of an attitude change) 

Initially I was going to expound upon the overwhelming sadness that I see in the vast majority of my friends, and try to explain what i thought caused it. I was then going to segue with, "It all started with one disgruntled Jewish man." Then I was going to talk about Bob Dylan and how he set the stage for all the depressed singer songwriters to come after, and the i was going to list my favorite artists and how the represent one aspect of teenage misery, so I will probably just do that without the arduous exposition.

Bob Dylan started it all. Bob moved from middle class, middle America and tried to pass himself off as a heartbroken loner, and you know what Bob? You created a monster, because now every kid that ever bought a pair wayfarers thinks that they can be you. And you were just a political malcontent, until some woman that you tricked into believing that you were some visionary broke your heart. And where did that get you Bob? It made you a lot of money, but otherwise, it probably hurt your feelings.

You are the worst Bob, you made it cool to ditch your normal, semi-affluent life and side with "progressive" politics and date girls that think your "outside thinking" is soooooo sexy. You are the reason for my tears, you made every other lonely guy with a guitar and a modicum of talent go out and express themselves.

Jim Morrison is famous for three things; substance abuse, dying in Paris, and writing terrible poetry. Jim Morrison essentially created the "scene girl," because in his day, unattractive who loved terrible music would flock to his shows. Jim is who you can blame for the terrible bands fronted by men with a thesaurus and an associates degree in philosophy.

Then there was Robert Smith, the frontman for a band held dear by ever middle school girl with a crush, "The Cure." Rob made it ok to be honest with girls that you are into, but not in a romantic and alluring way, in a creepy and obsessive way. Whenever Rob loses a girl, rather than win her back with romantic gestures, he writes songs that would probably help the plaintiff in a restraining order trial. The reason he was staring so long at pictures of girls is because he was too creepy to actually interact with them

Smith's associate in making creepy and sad music in the 80's was one Michael Stipe. He fronted REM, and while he turned out a couple of decent tracks (nightswimming, bad day) after 20 years in music i haven't seen any evidence that he has a pair of testicles.

Morrissey was the king of sad for a long time, but i've never really listened to the Smiths, so i can offer no real critiques.

All of these men set the stage for the worst and most overrated musician of all time. Kurt Cobain. Stop idolizing this man, he wrote terrible lyrics, dressed like a hobo, and married an idiot. I get it, he brought music out of the hair metal days and infused some honesty into it, but people act like he was the John Lennon of the 90s. I will contend that, had he not shot himself and became a legend, Cobain would be as highly regarded today as Axl Rose. Just remember this, the next time you hear a song by Nickelback and want to weep, Cobain was responsible.

Luckily, in the mid-90s, music began to recover, and by my estimation this started with Doug Martsch and one of my favorite records, There's Nothing Wrong With Love, by built to spill. It's an album about finding and losing love growing up in Idaho. Doug wasn't a great singer and his band wasn't great (ala cobain) but he actually made an effort to make interesting and emotional music, and kind of set the stage for powerpop bands that would come after him (Beulah) or in the same time frame (Modest Mouse). While these bands aren't anywhere near as emotionally desperate as most i listen to, i don't like them as much either.

Now as we grow closer to the current era in my timeline of depressing music, we get to one of my favorite songwriters ever, Tim Kasher and Cursive. 

Tim is spiritually conflicted, romantically scarred, and remarkably angry, he also write some of the best lyrics out there. He wrote a couple of excellent albums and EPs early in his career with awesome titles (Such Blinding Stars for Starving Eyes) but his lyrical ability doesn't really shine until you get to his three most recent albums, Domestica, Ugly Organ, and Happy Hollow. All three are concept albums, the first dealing with his divorce, the second his art, and the third God (through the story of a small town and its priest). In "At Conception," he's writing about a pretty difficult subject (teen pregnancy, loss of innocence, fall of leaders) and he puts out, in my mind, some of the most compelling and inventive lyrics out there, "He cried, this simply cannot be! She quipped, quite the opposite you see, i'm no Virgin Mary, and you're no carpenter, so who will build my home? Jeannie you're just a kid, you can't conceive such mortal sin!" The way he weaves religion, humor, and heartache into his lyrics is I think very typifying of the way a lot of kids in Lubbock feel. Trying desperately to be cool, but really hurt and confused and wondering if God is out there. 

Around the same time as Tim was getting his start, another highly praised lyricist was getting noticed. Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel, made one album, but it is probably the most influential of the past 20 years. His songs are cryptic, melancholy, and beautiful. The album sort of tells a love story, but honestly, i've listened to the album at least 20 times and still couldn't tell you what he's trying to say, just that I like it. Not that it really means anything, but the lyrics he's written that always pop up in my head during the day are, "The only girl I've ever loved was born with roses in her eyes." (I wasn't going to talk about this but as i was writing the lyrics down, I realized why i was compelled by them) I think I like these lyrics because there is always that uncertainty in life, that idea of "the one," what if you let the only girl you ever love slip through your fingers? Are you desperate to be lonely forever and wander around having nervous breakdowns like Jeff? I hope not. Also roses and eyes are pretty.

Around the same time as these two (a little earlier than both) another of my favorite artists started gaining steam. A Mr. Ben Folds. According to my somewhat glitchy last.fm, i've listened to at least 424 tracks penned by Ben and i love basically every one of them. I realize that i essentially am trying to be the blogosphere's version of ben. He made heartbreak catchy, upbeat, and funny. All of his songs are about loss or disappointment, but the only remotely sad one (and most popular) is Brick. Ben's wry take on life is great, because he both mocks it and expresses this feeling we all have of being underwhelmed, while at the same time coming across as honest and vulnerable, and really cool as well. I feel bad for ben though, the dude sings about love so much but has had like 4 divorces, maybe he is just a dick, but i hope not. Favorite ben lyrics, "I love you more than any man has loved before, i love more than all the stars up in the sky, i think that we should settle down and live happily forever...after; what do you think of that?" and "the cruelest lies are often told, without a word, and the kindest truths are o-ften spoke..but ne-ever heard."

If I were to estimate the impact albums have made on my life I would say that, in terms of making me appreciate music, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea led me to see there was more out there than pop and classic rock, but Transatlanticism is the first record i think I really connected with on an emotional level. I got it the same time as Hot Fuss and Our Endless Numbered Days, but i can remember sitting alone at my aunts house alone in fort worth listening to New Year on repeat and wondering why Chelsea Clark wouldn't return my affections. The entire album is gold and I think that it was the first album that described emotions that i had never personally experienced, but could totally understand. I could always lose myself in books, but with "Title and Registration" "Passenger Seat" "We Looked Like Giants," et al, i could lose myself in a song. I knew how Ben Gibbard felt driving through a freezing Portland, or lamenting a lost love. Every Death Cab album is gold. They seem to follow me as I grow up, Transatlanticism was all about that sort of introduction to romance and heartbreak, Plans came out in the middle of high school, when i was doubting who i was and what i wanted to be, and when Narrow Stairs came out my senior year, "I Will Possess Your Heart," described my greatest wish and "Cath" described my greatest fear (still does) and "Your New Twin Sized Bed," was who i thought i would surely become. I think I owe a lot of my misery, but a lot of the things I like about myself, my vision of myself as this romantic hero, destined to be rejected but still be the better man, from Ben Gibbard and Chris Walla. 

(And as I reflect, I realize that this is where it started. I always thought I wanted to be like the heroes in books, i wanted to be Robert Jordan and get the girl, but really i wanted to be Ben and miss the girl.)

Favorite Death Cab lyrics, "The glove compartment is inaccurately named and everybody knows it, because behind its doors there's nothing to keep my fingers warm" "Goddam the black night with all of it's foul temptations, I become what i've always hated"

If Death Cab was who I was during school, then for the past few months (i coined it "My Summer of Hell") were encapsulated by Max Bemis of Say Anything. To understand Say Anything, you have to understand Max. For the majority of his life he was an un-medicated self-destructive bi-polar (in my mind) genius. He fell in love with a girl in HS and did everything he could musically to impress her. During the recording of his first album, Baseball, he had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized. He recovered since then and proceeded to put out two of the greatest, most emotionally charged albums ever, and he is a case study in the sexually frustrated romantic. Is a Real Boy is essentially a thesis paper on anxiety and self esteem issues and the impulses that accompany them. I thought this album was genius, in my mind Max is the most clever and honest songwriter out there today. "Belt" captures the teenage arrogance and vigor that i was feeling as a 17 year old kid. "Woe" was my frustration at being misunderstood. "The Writhing South," was that prurient part of me that i still don't understand. "Alive with the Glory of Love," was the exhilarating, selfless, exciting, and irrational romance that has become what i've always wanted. "I Want to Know Your Plans," was the sappy sweet, but still semi-mean, guy that I wish I could be. "Admit It," the capstone of the record essentially bottled up all the emotions i could have, particularly that pride that only a 17 year old can feel, pride in every small perceived victory and the victories you are sure will come. Also "Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too," was one of those goofy fun songs that you could sing along to with friends. The rest of disc 2 went largely ignored until after I discovered In Defense of the Genre.

At first I was not fond of IDotG, but then during senior trip, it all made sense. All the rage and vitriol that Max was spewing were doing loops in my own head. It may be the greatest expression of pure rage and disappointment and bitterness ever set to music. He even mentions feeling betrayed by a girl on a cruise ship! It just spoke directly to me, and even then, I'm nowhere near Max' level of anger, I can't just straight up abandon someone I care about the way he writes about, and I'm glad for that. 

But Say Anything is easily my most played artist, and it really spiked over the past Summer, long story short, if you've ever felt overwhelmed by rejection, Max has a song for you. I feel bad for the guy, cause I think he really is a romantic and still searching for love.

Favorite SA lyrics: "When I watch you, want to do you, right where you're standing" "If only you'd stop breathing, I'd quit you exclusively" "I am proud of my life and the things that I have done, I'm proud of myself and the loner I've become"

Most recently I've really gotten into Brand New, and I've had Deja Entendu forever but really only listened to "Ok, I Believe you but my Tommy Gun Doesn't," because i absolutely felt that the first couple of lines applied to me. But I think Jesse Lacey is an interesting cat. He's a great lyricist, but where Max has a sort of bravado and sense of hope, Jesse is just pure pessimism and seems almost entirely devoid of sympathy, but he also seems to have this messiah complex. He seems devoid of sympathy on "Sowing Season," from The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me, when he says "I'm not your friend, I'm just a man who knows how to feel, I'm not your friend, I'm not your lover, I'm not your family," and i identify with that sentiment. You want to not care about someone, but you can't because you see this hurt and and you feel for them, but at the same time it's so overwhelming you wish you could just drop it. And he seems to have this need and desire to be there for people, in "Jesus Christ," "Jesus Christ, that's a pretty face, the kind you'd find on someone I could save," and in "Degausser," "Take me, take me back to your bed/I love you so much that it hurts my head/I don't mind you under my skin/I'll let the bad parts in, the bad parts in/you're my favorite bird when you sing/I really do wish you'd wear my ring." I think he just kind of illustrates that feeling that all guys have, where when there's someone you care about, especially a girl, you just want to make their pain go away.

Favorite Brand New lyrics: "I am heaven sent, don't you dare forget, i am all you've ever wanted what all the other boys all promised, sorry i told, i just need you to know."

I apologize for the inconsistencies in this entry, you have to understand that it was essentially written in two states of mind. 

It was just intended to discuss how the people I know that are sad are sad because it's almost fashionable, you take 2 parts Barsuk records, 2 parts Wes Anderson, and 1 part moody Europeans and you essentially can create the emotional state of any of my friends (or myself). 

But that's not true, life just sucks sometimes and you have to have faith that it will get better, or milk your misery for fame and fortune.

Anyway, i hope y'all enjoyed this entry, it took forever and was rather epic. So it may be a while before i have anything else to say.

I Missed You (Words Make Me Happy)

Readers, I'm sorry that i haven't been around recently (other than one lame post) I just haven't had anything to say.

Life has been consistent lately.

I thought that things were changing for the better.

The Magic Blog is pretty vital to my life in that whenever i write something in here it's like a pledge, a constant reminder of something that I have resolved to do.

So with the last real entry (the real one, about claire) I was feeling good, confident even. Maybe i'm not some hideous CHUD with no social skills or interesting qualities.

It was like by clipping those last emotional heartstrings that bound me to claire I could finally leave high school behind, and get into the meat of college.

I was like Bluthton, free to drift the skies of academia.

But recently i've just been angry.

Not angry, just listless, I don't know where i belong or what i should be doing.

I like tech, classwise and football wise, and i like the people. It's just lubbock.

I was having a conversation with someone and i put it this way.



but

i just need to leave this town


you wouldn't understand


no, i do.


but you don't

i mean on some level

but you don't have these ghosts chasing you reminding you that you were never what you wanted to be

I think that's the hard part. Every time i turn around or come home there's some high schooler that knows all about who i was for the past 4 years. And that's fine if you're the person who revels in your 4 years of glory and have no regrets, but i'm not that guy.

But i don't like who i was in HS, and college is a time to reinvent yourself, but i don't get that opportunity, because everyone knows who i was and who i am.

And don't get me wrong, i'm not some ridiculous self-loathing idiot, for the most part i like who i am, but i feel like i somehow misrepresented myself in my younger days.

In no real order, here are my regrets.

I regret that i didn't work harder in baseball.

I loved pitching, and that was it, but because i was arrogant and goofed around all the time i didn't get to do it as much as i wanted, even though i was good enough. I think i disappointed my dad, because he really wanted me to succeed and was really proud of me whenever i pitched. It's one of those things that's special because it was a bond that only my dad and i shared. I feel like i cheapened it by halfassing all the time.

I regret that i didn't try harder academically.

I always just assumed that I would get by doing the bare minimum, and then i got offended that things didn't work out like i thought they would.

I wish i had pursued more girls.

By essentially only chasing one girl i feel like i never developed the social skills to really talk to other women. The beauty of this scenario is that i never even really talked to the girl i did like.

I just realized today that if i look back on what brought me to where i am today, it was essentially laziness.

I just drifted around, hoping for the best, and maybe i let some good things pass me by.

I think i just now figured out that i don't know who i really am or what i want to be.

I'm like a john hughes movie wrapped in 19 yr old skin.

I think i need to leave.

I want to go to austin.

But i think i lack the sack.

What if i go there and it isn't any better, what if it's worse?

At least here i have friends, albeit friends depressed by their own situations, but misery loves company, and lubbock is the General Motors of disenfranchised youths.

At the very least, in Austin i'll get to go to lots of shows. People meet people at shows right? (i don't know)

I have a friend that wants me to go to Boulder. But i think the odds of me meeting a good God-fearing young lady up there would be pretty slim.

Let this be a lesson to you kids.

Don't get all wrapped up in one girl, cause when it doesn't work out you're just left twisted in a knot wondering how the hell you got there.

I just need time i guess.

Sorry (I'm Not Interesting When I'm Not Angsty)

I don't really have much to say.

(That's not some retardedly enigmatic call for attention, I just felt bad not updating for a while, but the fact of the matter is that nothing really interesting has canoed down my brain river. Also I realize that writing a single definitive sounding sentence reeks of the finality of a 12 year old girl; but you know what, Hemingway never wrote a sentence longer than 6 words. So take that.)

Checkmate (A Resignation)

I'm done readers. It's been a long few months but I think I've overcome my thing for you know who. (Claire, not Voldemort)

It's not so much an overcoming, a conquering, mostly it's just defeat.

I had great things planned for this entry, a passionate discourse and dissection on the woes of romance, but I don't really have a passion anymore, romantically or angrily.

I used to have the first, but that went away, I thought, turns out it just spun a cocoon and burst out as a rage filled butterfly. (Mothra)

I got worn down you know?

It was very frustrating dealing with Claire.

I just desperately wanted to prove to her that I was the guy she needed.

Every time she came to me because some dude hurt her I just tried to be supportive, in hopes that she would one day realize that I was the one that was always there for her.

I may not be the best looking, most charming, or nicest, but I was always there.

And that was tough.

When a girl comes to you calling some guy mean names or saying she's not good enough for him and throwing the biggest pity party for herself it takes a lot of self control not to explode.

"If you're not good enough for him, what does that make me?!"

"Don't you get it, don't you see it, all these guys are just stupid jackasses that are trying to manipulate you!"

But I suppressed that, and maybe that was a bad thing. Maybe honesty would have been the better route.

I had this allegory that I used to describe the relationship between claire and I.

We play gender chess, trying to feel better about ourselves while simultaneously not letting the other person get too close, and she is the best female player I have ever encountered.

Our styles of play are polar opposites.

I try to draw her out of her shell with total honesty, telling her every silly and serious thing that pops into my head.

She is a robot. She will never say what she is thinking, and offers only the vaguest idea of whatever situation is distressing her to illicit sympathy.

This would infuriate me.

I felt like my transparent honesty would be moving and reassuring, letting her see that I really meant the best and wasn't trying to trap her with boyish posturing and manipulation.

One day, I thought we had turned a corner.

She opened up to me somewhat unprovoked about some guy that hurt her.

And even though I knew that this guy was probably not right for her and just another joker that thought she was hot; I kept my cool and consoled her.

I didn't mind consoling her though. Because she was so closed I always thought that she hurt a lot more than she ever let on. I just hoped that by comforting her through whatever she chose to share with me that would somehow transfer to the things that hurt her in secret.

It's nice to know someone is there.

I felt pretty good about myself after that. Sad for her, but I thought maybe she would finally take off the blinders and realize that there was a guy out there that was there for her always.

Later she said they patched things up, but I still held out hope.

Her reconciliation raised a question in my brain. "Why do girls chase jerks when they have perfectly nice guys waiting for them?"

I queried this to a more knowledgeable source and her response was, "we are stupid."

She elaborated that girls appreciated that they could make jerks like them, apparently it validates them more than an affirming man.

This was a new paradigm for me. I realized that I had been playing chess with missing pieces. Perhaps being honest with my anger would be the rook I needed to put her in emotional checkmate.

I meditated on the things she did that pissed me off, working up a good head of rage to unleash the next time she came to me for comfort.

Then things took a turn to where it would be wildly inappropriate for me to be jerk, so i put that one in the back pocket for later.

The week progressed without any chance to unleash my dormant fury.

Then friday night, I come to find out that she is off gallivanting around the hometown of the dude she was 5 days from calling names unprintable in the magic blog.

She went to some romantic weekend getaway with some dude she had known for a month.

I found out via text that she was having a "wonderful" time.

The only response i could conjure up was "awesome."

You can't see it, but if you zoomed in really close to that passive aggressive period at the end of "awesome." you would read pages and pages hurt, and confusion, and angst, that I wouldn't dare express out loud and had to hide behind one tiny piece of punctuation.

Then I finally gave up.

I realized that it just wasn't worth it.

I still love her and want her to be happy, but it was too much and I wanted nothing to do with her for a while.

I spent the next few days avoiding her, it wasn't worth talking to her, we would never be more than friends and it was too painful to be that close without it leading anywhere.

I decided to move on.

A few days later she finally started talking to me and we just picked up where it ended the week before, superficial displays of friendship.

It's unfair to say superficial because I really do love and care about her, but it just doesn't go beyond the platonic anymore. Which is probably what she's always wanted.

It just feels strange to me, the lack of passion or enthusiasm.

I don't want her to become just another girl that is my friend, I like to imagine that one day there would be some sort of romance, that all the waiting would pay off.

But I'm done and it's easier.

She wins gender chess, I'm not going to use my angry pieces. Instead I'm knocking over my king and conceding victory.

(Don't read this and think that claire is a bitch, she's not, well sometimes she is, but mostly i'm just a sensitive little guy)

I suppose that I might just be going through that nihilistic phase. You know, what does it all mean? Where am I going? Does my life make a difference?

I've always been a big believer in seeing the beauty that God has laid out in front of you in the world. If you take a few seconds to stop being a self absorbed dumbass and just look around you'll see a lot of really amazing stuff.

Cliche stuff, like clouds, and sunsets, and pretty girls.

And then there's stuff that seems like it's just for you, stuff that makes you happy.

Dogs for me, or driving down an older part of Lubbock.

I dunno if it's maturation or emotional erosion, but I'm losing that romantic sensibility that made me interesting to myself.

I see people walking around campus holding hands, or kissing when they get off the bus, and I know it's nothing more than an automatic response. There's no real affection.

I used to hate that, but now I wonder if that's all love is, faking it until you trick yourself into believing you need this person.

I realize that at 18, it's foolish to give up on the idea of fulfilling genuine relationships, but i'm just in one of those ways, you know?

In one of his comics, Neil Gaiman writes, "I don't know if I much believe in love. I think people are just horny and scared. So they find someone who makes them horny and cling to them because they are afraid to face the darkness around them."

If I believed that entirely, I think the world would be a pretty sad place. It would cheapen every spec of relational bliss that makes things a little brighter. Old married couples, the bond between your parents, Robert Jordan and his gypsy princess. (I realize how gay that sounds)

But that might be just indicative of the way culture has shifted toward cynicism. In the old days, Dante proposed that the love of a woman (Beatrice) could save his soul.

Dante is more highly regarded than Gaiman, but I don't know if he's any more right.

I just get annoyed that more people don't think like me. To be fair, I don't really associate with anyone beyond my high school friends, and people don't normally expound on their perceptions of romance when you first meet them, but still, you'd think two people of my nature would find a serendipitous way to get together.

I sort of talked about this earlier, in the blog about my imaginary bus ride.

Of course, that blog was just an attempt to illicit sympathy and admiration for my cute, sensitive nature/generate comments. And I partly succeeded.

The only comment that actually addressed the non-rhetorical question was Meagan's.

"a part of me feels like i'm holding out for some sort of romance that doesn't actually exist. it's just a myth that's been passed down by authors and screenwriters through the generations."

And now i'm starting to feel that way too. It doesn't make me too sad though. (I started writing this like a week ago, hence the emotional vacillation). I don't know how it makes me feel really. Like I understand conceptually that life is not a movie or a book or a song, but I still like to feel that it is.

The best way that I feel I can describe it is that that romantic center inside of me has kind of gone into hibernation. Right now I just don't want to think about girls or about friends or about college, I just want to put my head down and get through the semester; but I know it'll be back.

I never thought that I'd become one of those "I have to get out of Lubbock" people, but I'm just feeling emotionally capsized.

I went down to B/CS for the game this weekend, and even though I despise all that is aggie, I had to admit, my friends down there seemed to be a lot more stable and mature than my friends from HS that live here (no offense) and I'm just tired of feeling like I'm still in the 12th grade.

Apparently, a lot of people get kind of bummed the first semester of college, so maybe it will pass.

But if it doesn't I'm submitting my transfer application to UT in May.

Nothing to Think About (Nothing to Write About)

I'm sitting in the ticket booth right now, and it is very miserable.

My old friend the stapler is here, but I don't care to reveal the rest of his tragic story. (He gets hit by a car)

I should be writing a history paper, but I don't feel like doing that either, and I don't really want to write in the Magic Blog, but I have nothing better to do.

I don't have a story to tell, all of the entrances to my domicile have been adequately barricaded to prevent unwanted domestic animals. (David also scared the cat away with a bb gun)

I have been doing a strange experiment lately (the past 18 hours or so) in that I have been intentionally thinking angry thoughts so that I can be mean.

You may ask why I am doing this, I'm afraid that information is not appropriate for the Magic Blog. Due to my vast readership I am unable to be as intimate with you beloved listeners as I wish. I am trapped in my own kingdom.

I hate the ticket booth though. I was pretty cheerful today, but this place likes to eat every happy emotion and amplify every negative one. It's like being in Azkaban.

I had a lot of good thoughts this week (good in the sense that they made me feel like i was intellectual), mostly about the nature of selfishness. But I used up all my emotional energy complaining to people/soliciting advice. If the energy comes back, I may jot some stuff down.

It is strange how KMB has evolved. It was never intended to be this way.

It started as a way to distract myself at work during the summer.

I did have an outline though.

I started with the dream thing, just as a trial run.

Then I was going to go through my old xangas and juxtapose them with how i feel about whatever I was writing about 3 or 4 years into the future. (Still an interesting idea, I think)

Then it changed to where I was just going to do a High Fidelity sort of thing where I went back and retold the stories of all my failed relationships. (I'm being generous with the term "relationship")

This was all essentially an exposition to where I would post excerpts from a letter I wrote that I was particularly proud of at the time. (It was to claire [duh] and I still like it)

People (3 of them!) would read my correspondence and clamor for more peeks into my personal life. (Like Ben Franklin)

But I had to wait until the right moment to spring the word-trap.

Then I realized that I would essentially be posting the Livejournal of a 13 year old girl and stopped that nonsense.

Then it went whimsical with the restaurant thing, which was cute, but I think I'm funnier (I realize that is hubris) when I write slightly more intellectual things, non-sequiturs have their place but they get old.

Then I went back to the mope format (it's my go to) with some deviations.

I personally was very proud of Money Monster, but I think it was too cerebral for the audience.

I think the one about Mr. Stapler was a little weird, it garnered no comments, I almost didn't post it because I didn't want people to think I was severely depressed (I'm not, just a vagina) but I thought the joke was too classic to pass up.

I believe that was my last attempt at short fiction. I dislike short fiction. It's easily the most pretentious genre. (No offense to my good friend and commenter, Jordan). But short fiction isn't my bag if you aren't exploring the 3 laws of robotics. I bought a book of the 50 Greatest Short Stories at B&N like 4 months ago, and I like a ton of the authors. I've read 1 story.

(I realize that I have often claimed that I want to be an essayist which is probably considered much more pretentious)

Actually, amateur poetry is the worst. If you write poetry and you aren't impoverished, suicidal, or a minority, your poetry sucks.

What was I talking about?

Right the blog development.

Anyway the blog developed into what it is today, which I'm not sure what it is, just a way to distract myself at work.

So it really didn't develop at all.

I've had some more ideas for blogs though.

I already have "Me at Work" which is lame.

But I've thought of a series.

Like "Kyle's Magic Music Blog," this was going to debut with the new Ben Folds album, but my laptop was broken at the time so it has been delayed until I am particularly bored.

Then I could have, "Kyle's Magic Move Blog" and I was recently inspired to do "Kyle's Magic Rant Blog."

As you can see, I'm like Tinkerbell with all the magic I am capable of spreading.

There is more to this concept, but I'm leaving work and feel it deserves its own exposition.

Caterwauling (A Pun)

Tonight was pretty intense.

I fought off a home invader.

First, an exposition.

David and Nick are off hunting this weekend. Being the sportsmen that they are, they will sit for several hours in what is essentially a treehouse and wait until a deer goes to eat the food that has been left out for them for several weeks and then shoot them in the heart.

Meanwhile, I am at home alternating between watching college football, arguing on the internet about college football, and playing NCAA football 2009. I might watch a dvd or two. I assume at some point during the weekend I will have a dream that causes me to wallow in self pity for the better part of the day, until I see a dog or have a good cry.

This is a deviation from the topic, but still animal related, so I will proceed.

Ever since leaving home, I have been somewhat lonely, if the 23 pages of self reflection I have produced haven't revealed that fact yet. But the one thing that always cheers me up is seeing a dog.

This clearly has roots going back to infancy.

My first dog was a Boston Terrier named Tibideaux. (My parents lived in Louisiana when they bought her and reflected the geography with her moniker). There are pictures of me in my nascent state (infancy) rolling around on a blanket, with Tibby (her nom de plume) laying beside me.

Tibby was a major source of comfort for the next 6.5 years. She died one day while I was at school and I have very vivid memories of the night before her death, when my parents told me that Tibby was sick and probably wouldn't make it through the night, I read 3 Hank the Cowdog books and cried myself to sleep on the top bunk of my metal bunk bed.

The next morning Tibby was still ok and I said goodbye to her and got on the schoolbus and went to school. My mom was sitting in our old blue lazyboy recliner with Tibby lying with her head in her paws squeezed between my mom's left thigh and the armrest of the chair.

When I got home, Tibby was gone and since all of my experience with death up to this point was how it had been portrayed on Nickelodeon, I assumed that we would bury her in the backyard. But, she had already been cremated. I realize now that up until this minute, in my mind I always imagine Tibby dying in the same place I had left her, my mom sitting in the chair with her lips tightened into a slight sad frown at the corners, her hand ruffling Tibby's ears, but she probably died at the vet.

I wasn't very sad when Tibby died, I don't think I was young enough for it to really affect me yet, but looking back on it now, I imagine it must have been really tough for my parents, they had had Tibby for 6 years before I was born, and she was probably a reminder of those early years of marriage.

6 months or so later, my parents got a new Boston Terrier puppy. She was adorable and it amused me to no end that she was afraid to walk across the tile of our kitchen because it was cold. So I would ferry her back and forth, whether she wanted me to or not.

After about a week of deliberation, we (my parents) decided to name her Piha. They should have named her "Piha, it means freckle in czech" because that is how she is always introduced. My grandparents came from the small Eastern European towns in South Texas, and my Granny speaks Czech, so that's where that came from.

From ages 7-18, Piha has remained a part of my life and continual source of comfort whenever I'm sad. Whenever I was sick or feeling depressed I would force Piha to come and sit on my bed while I moped.

And now, in this awkward transitory stage, without any of those comforts that are so easy to take for granted, dogs are an endless source of joy. Whenever I see people walking them, they make me smile. Once I got to pet a lady's Great Dane and it made me happy for like 2 days.

I get to see Piha every Sunday, so that also makes me happy.

Back to the topic.

I'm home alone, and I hadn't had a cigar in a long time so i figured that I would smoke one tonight in my boredom. I went out to the porch to smoke and brought my computer. A friend invited me to a movie, and we always leave the backdoor open because both our fences are locked, but I forgot that I left the glass door open as well.

I go to the movie. (Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist)(It combined many of my favorite things)(Movies about music, love stories, michael cera, movies set in one 24 hr period). And I return home.

I go into the backyard to get a water bottle, and when I return, who is there to greet me but a large annoying black cat that frequents our porch.

I yelled at him to get outside, but apparently he found my tone rude and ran into the bedroom area.

I didn't know which bedroom he ran into, so thinking quickly, I grabbed Glenn (the roomba) and put him in my room to scare him out.

The cat didn't appear so I checked the other rooms, but he was elusive.

I was worried about him jumping out and scaring me, so I got on Ichat and started a video chat with someone so I wouldn't feel so creeped out.

I proceeded to go around the house poking things with a tennis racquet for 20 minutes.

I eventually heard the dogs next door barking so I can only assume that the cat made an exit.

If you don't hear from me after a while though, it's because the cat was hiding in my room and I died of an allergic reaction.

People I Meet (Attempt #2)

Dear Readers, I apologize for the turn our last adventure took, here I will attempt to complete what I set out to do the other day.

College is a fairly magical place, everywhere you turn there are many statues, which is always a sign of high society. Also there is a fairly high concentration of limestone, which lends an air of academia.

Now I will list my classes and professors and the various characters that inhabit my college world, if you've read a blog by a student in the Fall or Spring you know how it goes.

I start every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 9:00am. My alarm is set to "Blues" which is nice because it's like I'm being awoken by BB King with a recorder.

I shower, drink orange juice, take vitamins, get dressed, drive to North parking, get on the bus, get off the bus, walk to the Mass Comm building, and sit in my chair.

In Mass Comm, I sit at the back between a chunky sorority girl and a dude with long curly hair that wears rolled up jean frequently. I chose that particular seat because on the first day I was pretty petrified about actually looking at anyone so I sat next to the nearest open seat that was beside a girl.

Little did I know that me and the girl (her name is Kelsey, i saw on the roll sheet) would soon become mortal enemies. I don't know why we are enemies, but there is a palpable hatred between us. Perhaps it is because she is chunkier than I thought and she crushed my expectations? Perhaps it is because I was sick earlier in the year and she kept looking at me when I sniffed. Maybe it is because she is clearly dumb as a box of rocks.

Regardless, my distaste for her has caused me to ally myself with long curly haired dude (greg). Greg and I don't actually speak, except for once when we mocked a Celine Dion video we were forced to watch, but those snickers cemented a resolved stance against fat sorority girl.

There are many women in this class and it is easy to distinguish between the serious students of journalism and the girls after an easy degree. The journalism girls are not very attractive, also they email Dr. Dean about people looking at Facebook in class.

It is it really their concern what people do in class? My guess, jealousy of the pretty girls.

The professor for that class is Dr. Dean. He likes to start every day with a joke, but i think the funniest part about him is that his title is Dean Dean, double name = comedy gold. He's a good teacher and bald, plus he presupposes that all students drink, so he isn't an idiot.

My next class is Music Appreciation with Dr. Wilson. (Real name, Dr. Fried). I call him Dr. Wilson because he looks exactly like that character on House. He really loves music, which is charming, but he also loves very boring music. This class has a couple of characters in it that I would like to address.

Super Well Dressed Homosexual Black Man: Scott Schuman would bust a nut over this kid. (That's right ladies, I read the sartorialist). This guy seriously brings his A-game with every outfit. He sports a tie almost everyday, but usually with blazers or a cardigan, occassionally a vest. He rocks some pretty legit Chanel sunglasses as well. I always appreciate the effort he puts into his outfits, I can only assume he feels the same about my cargo shorts and t-shirt espousing my favorite Wes Anderson movie/Texas Tech.

Girl With Short Blond Hair: I appreciate your boldness with the short hair, and your macbook, and your diligent note taking. I spent the entire first week of class trying to determine if I found you attractive, the final verdict was not really. Also you ride a pink bike, which I would probably find endearing if i wanted to date you, as it stands, it just looks like you are trying too hard.

I now go to History. My professor is Dr. Kriedler, and he is the most animated of the bunch. Also he looks like Robert Downey Jr. so I like to pretend that it's him. When he talks about how people struggled during the Great Depression I know that he can identify after his stint in rehab. Also he is a pretty hardcore Southern apologist, which is entertaining. Time to outline some folk from this class.

Ginger Eric Eberhart: Name is self explanatory, we talk every once in a while.

Pretty Girl With A Mole on Her Chin: Your constant talk about your partying on your cell phone before class is irritating, but I gave you a cough drop the other day because I am a gentleman.

Girl with Lots of Tattoos and Stickers on Her Macbook: I think your tattoos and stickers are an attempt to be cooler than you really are. If it's any consolation, I think your music staff tattoo is neat.

That about covers that class, with the exception of Bifocaled Blond that Always Looks Stressed Out and Never Speaks.

My last class of the day is Sociology.

Sociology is terrible.

The professor is foreign and despite her best efforts, fails to interest anyone in GH Mead's theories of child development.

Luckily for us, whenever there is an awkward pause before she answers her own question one man dares to break the awkwardness, with more awkwardness.

His name is Billy Bob, because he looks like Billy Bob from Varsity Blues. He has a hick accent and loves to wear a backwards Tech hat, jorts, and a short sleeve button down. Whatever the topic at hand is, he will interecept it and turn it into some uninteresting and unnecessary confessional from his childhood.

I find him so fascinating that in addition to taking sociology notes I have begun to take them on Billy Bob.

Here is the transcript:

Facts about Billy Bob
-Doesn't have a Facebook
-Likes black hats
-Father liked Westerns
-Still wears a watch
-Finds women, "Very different, but cool"
-Hates Iran
-Didn't play kickball
-Had ADD
-Uses a PC
-Did research group recently, fascinated with protestors
-Member of college republicans
-Slow note-taker
-Expert on computer dvd technology

The only redeeming qualities about this class are that we get open book exams and that we watch movies on wednesday and the cutest girl in the class is in my small group.

Tuesday I get up at 7:00am and work from 8-12 then 5-10, it's a pain. In between work sessions, I have math class. Math is a joke, it's all super easy, I do it online, and I don't have to show up. I do anyway, because I am dedicated. The class is full of shapeshifters, I can't pin down what anyone really looks like.

Thursday is the best day, I get up at 11:30 and have class til 2, then work til 5. It's the best.

That is essentially how my life goes, with little to no deviation. I apologize for this being one of the weaker entries, it belongs with "If I Was a Super Villain," unlike the previous one, which turned out better (more about me). I realize that most people will speed read through this hoping to get the end.

I'm sorry I failed you loyal readers.

People I Meet (I don't actually meet them, I'm too shy for that)(Turns Out I Don't Do That)

Hello avid readers, I have to warn you, this blog will probably be pretty terrible, ranking down there with "If I was a Super Villain." I am doing this to alleviate the suffering of a friend who is trapped in a land of fakers and heartbreakers. I feel his pain, even though I'm here in Lubbock with tons of friends I feel a little left out of the college scene, but hopefully that will get better.

After a month at Tech, I have finally got around to typing the cliched "Here's my Life in College!" post, but it has to be done, it's a Blog Law.

As those of you that know me personally know, I'm living with David and Nick. (For my readers across the nation that is new information)(Rhyme Alert!)

This is a pretty tranquil existence, the only major issue was when I once left an empty bag of popcorn on the floor and David didn't speak to me for 2 days.

As a journalism major my classes are not particularly rigorous, a basic math, intro to mass comm, sociology, history, and music appreciation.

Whenever any adult I ever encounter inevitably asks what my major is and I respond and then I am forced to justify my degree choice I find it very difficult to respond, because, let's be honest, Mass Comm is barely a step above Human Development and Family Studies in terms of degree. The last resort of youth pastors and future teachers. (No offense, but the degree is not difficult)

So, here in my blog (which I can only assume all future employers and acquaintances are reading) I will lay out my future plans.

I am going to graduate, already a cult figure due to the popularity of my blog and pieces in the venerable Daily Toreador.

This will lead to a lucrative editorial position at a magazine in a cool city like Austin, Nashville, or New York, where my incredible wit, intelligence, writing ability, sports knowledge, pop culture savvy, and charming anecdotes will cause me to be labeled the next Bill Simmons/Chuck Klosterman/David Sedaris.

At this point I will develop the wanderlust inherent in brilliance and travel the world (my knack for mastering languages will lead to several foreign women falling in love with me, and hopefully treasure!). During my travels I will have all sorts of experiences that would look super meanigful and poignant when overlayed with Sigur Ros or the Shins, and hopefully start a revolution (musical or political) and return home safely.

I will then write about these experiences and sell them to GQ, where I will be offered a job.

That will begin my "New York" phase, where I gallavant around the city making money and connections, all while dressing impeccably.

Soon I will become cooly disenfranchised and return to Texas to reconnect with the Earth. I will travel the trails as a cowhand, never revealing my true identity (and getting totally ripped as well).

When I get tired of working the land (which will be soon cause i'm kind of a puss) I will buy a house and work on my first book of essays in dark room on a typewriter, clouded in pipe smoke.

After the book is released, things really get going. My genius will be fully recognized by literary critics, sexy indie girls, and people that listen to NPR.

This will lead to a booming social life, and not because I am a famous writer, because I am actually that awesome.

Also, anyone that was ever mean to me or didn't appreciate me will take a long hard look at themselves and realize that they are just big failures.

And every girl who has ever rejected me will look over at their sloppy husbands and sigh and wonder what could have been, they will want me back, but it'll be too late, I'll be marrying my author/doctor/chef wife, who is also a model. And she's in a band, a good one named after an obscure punctuation mark or Kafka short story, and she won't be the singer cause girl bands suck, she'll play bass or something. And when they play at Madison Square Garden I will come onstage and just pull off the most bitchin' tambourine solo.

After my first book comes out and I am regarded as the preeminent essayist in the United States I will start work on my novel.

The novel is gonna be pretty bad-a, it will be dark and gritty, but hilarious, and actually hilarious, not just retarded like American Psycho. Think Chuck Palanhiuk but without all the rape. Also there will probably be either a wizard or big foot.

The novel will come out and I will be called things like, "grasps emotion better than Foer," "More sinister than McCarthy," "Best satire since Swift," "a Chobsky for people with testicles," "Gaimanesque storytelling," "wordier than Faulkner!," "The American Hemingway who didn't write all his books in Paris," and, "Makes Shakespeare look like a faggot."

After this book comes out I try my hand at self producing/directing/writing/starring in a feature film. The film comes out and I am a critical and commercial darling, like Diablo Cody but with talent.

After all this wild success, you'd think I may develop an ego. Well you'd be wrong, I would not only be the nicest guy in Hollywood, I'd be the nicest guy anywhere. And I'd impress you with my humility.

I'd then return to Texas and get back to my roots. I'd get to work on a departure from my previous literary excursions with a book on theology and spirituality. It would be lauded as better than Miller, Bell, McLaren, Chesterton, Lewis, Spurgeon, Luther, and Aquinas. People would read it and finally "get it."

Then after all my success I would disappear and spend the rest of my days as an anonymous music critic with my wife and family, occassionally releasing new books under a pseudonym, like I already do, as John Grisham.