How Things Work in My Brain (Or, Further Evidence That I am an Idiot)

College has started for me and it is a magical experience.

The one thing about Tech that smacks you right in the hormones is that, as you cavort across campus you must hunt to find an unattractive lady.

This would be good news if you were not the type of man to attach yourself to a lady who was spoken for the majority of your school time then get pissy when she leaves.

Unfortunately that is precisely the type of man I am.

But college is a time of change, and so I have resolved myself (like Daniel) to change, and let the latent ladies man lurking beneath my gentle exterior burst forth like a beautiful mutant from a storm drain.

No longer will I awkwardly court women who are oblivious to my intentions (It's 11:11!) , or not talk to attractive women because they scare me.

My main strategy so far is to silently ride the bus across campus listening to my ipod and wearing dirty sweatshorts, (dirty sweatshorts are like spanish fly for sexy college women) while making it abundantly clear through a series of grimaces, squints, and self conscious whistles that I don't want to talk to anybody.

(That was a joke that kind of fell flat, i was trying to set it up like i was being all cool in college then juxtapose it against what i really do in the hopes of comedy gold)(It appears unsuccessful)

Luckily, being the idiot that I am, I am able to justify this isolationist strategy to myself (like James Madison) by concoting a ridiculously cliched scenario where I meet the woman of my dreams on a bus.

The scene is thus.

I amble onto the bus and take a seat near the back with a partition on my left and an empty seat to my right.

You may or may not know, but Ben Folds has a new LP coming out soon and I'm just stoked out of my mind. I got the new single off itunes (feat. Regina Spektor!) and it's pretty sweet.

So I've been jamming to Ben Folds all week and in this fantasy that I have concoted (on the bus) I am listening to the new single and trying to make sure at least the pointy tip of my faux hawk has not yet collapsed (it probably has), when an intoxicating woman walks on the bus.

She is petite with dark emo/scene hair, wide oval eyes, and a shy small smile that is quick to meet her lips whenever she makes eye contact with someone.

She is wearing dark eyeliner that only serves to enhance the hypnotic quality of her gaze and her complexion is so soft that she doesn't need make up.

She sits in the empty seat beside the partion, so she is beside me, but we are seperated by an angry peice of gray plastic.

I smiled at her when she first walked on but then went back to absentmindedly staring at the window/trying to sneak discreet glances at her figure.

In one of my super sneaky ogles I notice that she has 3 stars tattooed on her right bicep (cliche, I know, but this is my fantasy) and perhaps a cross with a verse on her right wrist, so I know she's down with JC.

If the verse was Rev 3:1-2, I'd know she was the one. Or even the phrase Wake Up!, that might be even better.

I change the song on my ipod and she glances at it.

She leans over the partition and asks, "Are you listening to Ben Folds?" I respond in the affirmative. "I love him! Have you heard the new single?" I reply that I am listening to it right now and then we go on to discuss the merits of the song, she shares my opinion that it sounds like Ben meets Sondheim, Regina is better than I am willing to admit, and we are both amused by the classic Ben Folds harmonizes with Ben Folds on this track (Eg, Jesusland, Not The Same).

At this point we get off the bus together, skip class, and just make out all day while listening to Rockin' The Suburbs.

Then we date, get married, and live happily ever after.

Also she reads my blog and thinks I'm funny.

Now if any of you are savvy readers (I love you all even if you aren't) you may realize, as I did, that I just essentially combined the love story plots of The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

If you are unfamiliar with those two works, the first is a novel by Milan Kundera, where two people fall in love over the book Anna Karenina. The allegory is more appropriate than I even realized because I think they totally bang after that!

So in this instance, Tolstoy = Folds, and Banging = Make Out Sesh.

Maybe I could do a modern reinterpretation of that classic work, like West Side Story.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a film by Michael Gondry where Jim Carrey falls in love with a girl on a train and then it gets all sci fi. But we will focus on the beginning of the movie.

In this film, Jim is a loner who takes the train to work and while absentmindedly scribbling in his diary (Magic Blog?) a precocious girl with DYED HAIR! bugs him until he talks to her. They proceed to talk and joke and long story short, they fall in love. Also I think he skips work and hangs out with her that day, so another parallel.

(I just realized that I was drumming along to my ipod and the other people in the SUB may
not appreciate that)

Does this ridiculously serendipitous situation speak to my immaturity? Have modern and classic romances emotionally stunted/gayed me up? (These aren't rhetorical, answer in the comments) I hope not. Is there not a certain kind of beauty in this old school romantic ideal, or is it just totally misguided?

I would like to explore this further, but I have class and have to jet, but if you are a beautiful girl and meet the aforementioned description, please get on the citibus at tech around 9:50 MWF and 12:15 Th.

Writing Experiment (Alone in the Ticket Booth)

As an experiment to keep my skills sharp, I am going to attempt to describe this crazy stapler that I just met.

He lives in the ticket booth in the Texas Tech University Student Union building.

He is multiethnic, I'd say half black, half latino, he also had some exposed metal bits, so either he is part robot or has had significant body reconstruction after a terrible accident.

He is very limber and can straighten himself into almost a 180 degree angle. He must have been a gymnast in high school.

He lives under a shelf with a scotch tape dispenser and a screwdriver, I like to pretend that he is secretly in love with the scotch tape dispenser, but feels he is not good enough for her because he doesn't have his GED. The screwdriver is just the dick who lives in their shelf-house but pays rent.

The front of his staple dispensing area is rusted and grimy. He is sensitive when asked about it, but I believe he secretly freebases crystal meth in an effort to distract himself from his crippling social and relational anxiety, as well as to forget about the shambles he has made of his once promising life and gymnastic career.

He knows there is no shame in honest hard labor, and dog gone it, things need to be stapled in this world. Still I think at night, when all the lights are off and the night manager is sleeping instead of doing his job, Mr. Stapler emerges from his shelf-house and gazes at the soft red glow of the exit sign (his only light in this dark place) and wonders what could have been.

Maybe he promises himself that one day he will prove himself worthy of Lady Tape Dispenser's serrated love, that the next morning he will get clean, go back to school, and tell her how he really feels.

But as sure as the fluorescent dawn will spark at 7 am the next morning, Mr. Stapler will wake up and be waterboarded by depression. As he struggles out of bed, his breath reeking of turpentine and WD-40, he will walk silently past Ms. Dispenser's room and quietly sigh and hang his head. Leaning against her door frame we will listen to the rythmic zip zip zip whirr of her breathing and wish that he was there to hold her whenever her spinny middle falls out and she feels useless.

These few minutes of fantasy ultimately are nothing in his monotonous and largely useless life and as the dizzy of reprieve gives way to the chill of cold tile and the feeling of old Corn Pops sticking to his base, the harsh realities of the world seem that much worse.

Now the sound of her breathing seems a cruel joke, of which he is always the punchline. Rather than smile at the thought of her breath on the nape of his neck, all it reminds him of are the chills and itches he gets when his stash of Meth is exhausted and he collapses on the floor wrapped in a threadbare blanket, weeping.

Suddenly exhausted, he turns from her door, wishing that he had never been brought into being, that the concept of the staple was nothing but the dream of a lunatic.

He plods to the shower, numb, turning the water to it's highest setting. He'd rather feel his plastic blister and bubble than feel nothing at all. As wave after wave of pain collapses on him, he weeps, the first of many crippling battles with himself, each inflicting wounds in his psyche deeper than any he could inflict on his body. (As hard as he might try).

He gets out of the shower and composes himself. He glances at his face in the mirror. His youthful features are obscured by the rust and scratches that come with hard living. It's just as well, he thinks, I don't deserve to have anyone love me.

He wanders to the kitchen and poors some cornflakes in a bowl, he reaches into the refrigerator for the milk and howls with rage. There is nothing but 2 drops left. He can't stand it. He throws the bowl across the kitchen, shattering it and sending a small battallion of roaches scattering. He collapses on the kitchen floor.

Mr. Stapler comes to two hours later. He curses himself for missing work and hopes that the foreman will show him a little mercy.

He is given a reprieve if he works for half pay for the day. It will mean no breakfast for a few days, but he needs the job.

Which brings me to my meeting with Mr. Stapler. He sees in me a new hope, someone who may understand his tale and befriend him, bringing him back from the precipice of destruction.












I avoid him, the man is an addict.

I've Had Enough of You (Go Away)

Manny, we get it, you do really well in LA, you're wild and unpredictable (You have dreads!) LA is wild and unpredictable, (Gays!) it's a perfect match. Now you no longer have arrogant annoying white people supporting you, but arrogant annoying Latinos, this is truly a great development for baseball. You'll notice that they traded you, a man whose origin i don't know to multicultural LA and Bay, who is totally white (Canadian, he's like the white equivalent of superman) to totally white Boston. You know what this trade is really about? Bud Selig projecting his own racism on America. I hope you are pleased with yourself, Manny being Manny? No, Manny destroying the foundations of this country.



Brett Favre, I understand life really sucks in Mississippi, but must you project your own wanderlust on the rest of America? I really don't care about the state of your text message inbox. The worst part is that you were going to make $75 million if you stayed retired, do you know how many surgeries that could have paid for for Daunte Culpepper? Poor Jeff Garcia was worried he was going to have to work the streets of Tampa Bay if all the text rumors between Scott and Wilbon were true. So gratz on the Jets trade favre, you're now supported by the only fan base composed of people as old as you. Also you should be contractually obligated to play in Wranglers.

Michael Phelps. We get it, the man can swim. You know who else can swim? Every animal ever. Fetuses. Wind up toys. Eight gold is quite the feat, but do we really need to hear about how he is the greatest athlete of all time. He's not. As a swimmer he barely qualifies as an athlete. There is more to being an athlete than sheer ability, there has to be some thinking involved. You think michael phelps knows what to throw a lefty on a 1-2 count with a runner on 1st? Probably not, but I'm sure he could totally outswim me, very helpful never. Another annoying thing, his name similarity to David Phelps, Michael could never hope to match david's voice control on Virtuoso, even with his swimmers lungs.

Also I hate to ruin his image for all the pre-pubescent and post-menopausal fans of his, but the man got a DUI when he was 19. Does that sound like an American hero to you? It sounds like a criminal to me.

You Asked for it (Bringing the Hammer)

(Your Next Entry Topic)

Well Internet, you asked for it, and you got it.

Due to the dearth of comments praising my insight, writing ability, unconventional good looks, I am done regaling you with tales of my high school romances (you won't even hear about bromances). No more will my tearful ruminations dance in front of your eyes like a literary lambada (the forbidden dance!).

This is hard work people, I plumb the depths of my soul to bring you into a fuller understanding of the human condition, and how do you repay me? Not with with the laud and exultation I deserve.

This blog was created for one purpose and one purpose alone, to celebrate me.

If you aren't prepared to do that then you are in for more posts about bacon and cryptozoological creatures.

I hope you are proud of yourselves.

Hard at work (10 hour day)

AIM comedy gold:

sebastian: This Russian conflict is such bulls**t.

me: everytime theres a chupacabra sighting i get so dissapointed

sebastian: I honestly can't see this ending well.

me: hey i'm trying to discuss serious news

A Letter to the Wells Fargo ATM In The Student Union Building at Texas Tech (Be Quiet Money Monster!)

Dear Mr. Angry ATM,

Why are you so angry? I know that your efforts to eat that ATM card from the TTU Federal Credit Union were vanquished, but that is no reason to keep beeping and buzzing and making whatever that strange conveyor belt noise is at me. You brought this upon yourself with your greed. Maybe you will learn a lesson from this. It seems unlikely, even now you flash your out of order screen at me. Know this, I will not cater to your e-demands, you will suffer for trying to take that poor girls card. Nary a shard of plastic will pass your e-lips this day. Even now you make a fool of another unsuspecting student. You are a sadist Mr. Machine. I hope you are proud of what you have become, the scourge of the ATM bank.

Please Be More Considerate.

Love,

Kyle Gregory

Overcast Day (Grumplestiltskin rears his head)

I woke up in an unpleasant mood today. This was both good and bad for me. Bad, because no one likes to feel bad, but good, because it allowed me to have things to put on the internet. Driving to work, I was pleased to see that Lubbock shared my melancholy and chose to express it with some grumpy looking, if relatively benign storm clouds.

But the clouds were helpful, they added a nice gloomy ambiance as I fashioned a makeshift soundtrack for the pity party I was throwing myself.

It's starting to rain outside. I have a pretty good view of some trees with the droplets splattering all around them. I feel just like Thoreau, if Walden was 3/4 parking lot.

I used to like a girl who was infatuated with rain. She always told me that her dream was for a guy who would call her every time it rains, just too tell her that it was raining.

For the next 9 months, this girl would get at least a text message whenever there was so much as a particularly dewy day.

Every time it rains I think about her, and while I don't have any feelings for her anymore, I have the benefit of being able to look back and recognize that as the beginning of my modus operandi.

Find out whatever a girl wants and try to be it.

If you are familiar with me outside the realm of this blog, you'll be aware that this strategy has not been particularly successful.

Is this a statement about humanity? Females in general? Just another nice guy finishing last?

I woke up this morning wondering why life was so unfair. How does a guy like me, a guy, who for all intents and purposes avoids any and all "unsavory" behavior, prove to be so unsuccessful romantically? How come so many dishonest manipulative douchebags end up with really great girls? I think I would be flattering myself to say that girls are turned off because I am too honest and noble, but I wish that were true. It's better than the alternative. I'm remarkably unlikeable.

But maybe the issue here is not women. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's naive to think that girls want the kind of romance people write about. Maybe my familiarity with Milan Kundera is not all that helpful in a practical sense. Maybe all girls want is a text conversation every night and a ride in daddy's car. This would be difficult for me historically because I only recently got unlimited text, and my dad is very protective of his car.

Maybe I try to hard (like John Mayer). Maybe girls can tell that I'm only doing things in an effort to please them. Which makes no sense to me. No one goes out their way to please me, with the exception of immediate family. Is every television program ever created right? Is it all about being yourself? (No, they are wrong, because in every television program ever created, when the protagonist tries and tries for a woman he eventually gets her and they live happily ever after)(e.g, Seth Cohen, Jim Halpert)(Both of those men are way better looking than me).

Why on Earth would I want to be myself? Myself is selfish and controlling and jealous and everything a relationship shouldn't be. I thought the beauty of romance was the willingness to sacrifice yourself, to give up on the things about you that could hurt the other person in favor of pleasing them. But maybe I'm just a pussier Francine Rivers.

Zach Braff would have you believe that you can center yourself by yelling into an abyss with Natalie Portman during a rainstorm.

The effect is not the same when you use your outside voice at a gutter while a construction worker and lunch lady look on during a weak drizzle.

Sometimes We Fail (A dirge)

Operation: Eat Little Caesars Without Getting Crumbs in the Sheets, was not a success.

An Essay I Wrote In High School (I thought it was funny)

As you may know from reading the torrent of comments that have been posted on my many blog entries, people are clamoring to hear the stories of my high school romances.

While these are thrilling and heart wrenching tales, the mood that is required for me to write them (self pity) has temporarily fled. So in the meantime one will have to make do with a torrent of non- sequiturs and essays that only I find funny.

So in that vein, I've been digging through stuff from school and came across a literary gem.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that this is the finest humorous essay since Swift's "A Modest Proposal." It is that good.

To set the scene. Imagine that I am in an AP Government class (I made a 3), and I am forced to write a 1 page summary of every chapter. Now keep in mind that this is in lieu of any actual learning or teaching. (I would later learn that the book has 1 page summaries at the end of each chapter entitled "Summary") So I decided to make lemonade out of lemons, and the result was comedy sangria.

I am aware that some jokes fall flat and the writing isn't terribly awesome, but please ignore that and you might even learn something about our nation's history.

The History of American Beauracracy (A Primer) or, Whigging Out!

The following is a half attempted execution of an unnecessary assignment. Chapter 2 is basically all of last year condensed into one chapter, roughly the equivalent of 40,000 quizzes. It begins with the Articles of Confederation, a document almost as lame as this assignment.
The Articles failed because the government couldn’t really do anything at all. So we (we being the continental congress) met again to write something better. This time, the Constitution burst forth from the wombs of the founding fathers, proceeded to eat its embryonic sac, then scream loudly as the suspiciously giddy Ben Franklin spanked it hard, ensuring life. Apparently the book also covers stuff before this, the important things to know are, French and Indian War, Stamp Act, 1776, Boston Tea Party, Whigs, Torys, Faggys (not a popular party, but very dramatic), and the Declaration of Independence (sometime later Nicholas Cage would steal this document to find a buried treasure).

John Locke greatly influenced the Constitution; the Constitution would later blame John Locke for its subsequent dabbling in psychedelic drugs. Jefferson usurped Locke’s ideas and Americanized them, making them better, much the way Steve Carrell took over The Office. Important Phrase! Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, Will Smith also would steal from Jefferson, usurping this famous phrase and adding a glaring typo to keep the ghost of Jefferson from stealing his first born in exchange (Jefferson was notoriously bad at defending copyright law, preferring a more barbaric method). Whoever wrote the notes at this point was kind of a dick, calling the Articles of Confederation “The Government that Failed,” sounds like someone is projecting their own issues on 18th century colonial America. The Articles just made the colonies states and now they had to pretend to like each other, like your mom’s new boyfriend’s kids.
There was basically no money at this point, so the government printed fake stuff and had Uncle Moneybags distribute it via a shoe, a thimble, and a pewter car, which was odd seeing as Henry Ford was far from inventing the automobile at this time. People had to accept the money; this was called force acts, which seems kind of graphic and crude for a history book. This era of American government was so weak that a bunch of hillbillies made them change the entire system of government, this was called Shay’s Rebellion. Shay’s Rebellion led to the birth of the Constitution.

The Constitution was not brought by a stork, but in fact made in a steamy, passionate night at the Philadelphia Convention. They were supposed to just revise the Articles but, Alexander Hamilton had been keeping his quill in his wallet “just in case” and wouldn’t you know it broke right in the middle of some heavy delegating and the Constitution was conceived. The founding fathers are described here as Urbanites, which I believe are a special breed of termites that feed on the shackles of the monarchy. Here the Virginia Plan and New Jersey plan duked it out, basically one side wanted representation by number of citizens and the other wanted equal representation. The two sides were pacified by Connecticut, who swung both ways, proposing the Connecticut Compromise, which combined the two plans, creating what we know as hot bicameral action. Also Black people weren’t people at this time, just 3/5 people.

HOT BUTTON ISSUE! Who should vote? White males or rich white males? They let the states decide. The Constitution goes on to talk about finances, which was just as boring 200 years ago. Individual rights were also popular, but the Constitution did not address them, creating quite the sticky wicket. It’s not in the notes but they made the Bill of Rights to fix that. James Madison was pretty ticked that no one wanted him to be president so he fought back the only way he knew how, legislation. He proposed the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances. Sumner would later prove that caning your opponent produces much better results.

These systems basically had the Executive, Judicial, and Legislative branches split their power, so that they all required the consent of the others to pass laws. The Federalists and the Anti-Federalists got into fierce arguments over the correctness of the constitution. John Jay wrote a particularly scathing treatise entitled, Ratification Must be Stopped In Order to Ensure the Freedom of Our Great Land These United States of America, or Patrick Henry’s Mother is a Whore. It was very popular. The Federalists didn’t want anyone tainting their beloved constitution, but the Anti-Feds claimed that it did little to protect individual rights. To rectify this, a compromise was reached, amendments were allowed and the Bill of Rights was born. There are formal and informal ways of changing the constitution and if you’d like to learn more you can read the free response questions we all wrote. The notes then tell you why the Constitution is important, and it truly is, so read the last point.

I got a 100.

My Dream Restaurant (I didn't really dream this)

Hello again loyal readers. I have come to you once again to address a pressing issue in my life.

The lack of opportunity for me to purchase massive quantities of food that is not only filling, but also delicious, and most importantly, cheap.

Why is there not a drive through where I can purchase a bucket of hot wings for $5?

Dare to imagine with me. You roll up to a gaily adorned one story building with a glowing and attractive menu, advertising any array of low quality, high fat, super tasty snackles. There is a speaker by the window with which to place your order. You are greeted warmly by a woman with a foreign accent, and she requests that you place your order after suggesting to you the Pot o' Pizza Bagels. You politely decline and request the Popcorn combo. You receive your combo in an old Abercrombie and Fitch or similiarly sized bag, which is both huge and cost effective. In your bag of tasties, you find, popcorn chicken, popcorn shrimp, and popcorn. All for $5 or less.

There is no limit to the kind of snack food you can receive. Cookie cake, donuts, burritos, egg rolls. The place would be magical. The best part, all your food would be loaded into an easy to carry shopping bag.

There could even be a buffet! For half price you can bring in your own bag and ladel an oreo, chef boyardee, and icee pop goulash up to it's brim.

Can you imagine a Sharper Image bag full of bacon? I can.