Kyle's Magic Blog (Not about Magic)

Things Fall Apart (The Poem, not the Book)

2011-08-06T21:58:00.000-07:00

I just reread my last serious entry. Boy was I an asshole, and I only think I've gotten worse.

It's been a real long time since I dusted off the old magic blog. I've tried to start a few more, but nothing maintains my interest like myself. Looking back, I think it's pretty remarkable that I averaged over 2 entries a month for over a year. I suppose that was mostly a consequence of my easy desk job. In fact, I actually got a little choked up when I looked at my entry for november 2009, I like that there was a sense of completeness, a sense of closure, a character arc.

I told Jordan that I was thinking about restarting the Magic Blog and he told me not to, he said that he liked the way it stood as a stand alone piece of whatever it is (art? memoir? hubris?).

My last real entry in that story arc was August of 2009, it's two years later now, August of 2011. I started the blog going into my freshman year of college, now I'm heading into my senior year.

I figure two years is long enough to jump back into the story.

Don't expect anything too earth shattering this time around, or really, anything as good. KMB may have just been the worst sort of adolescent angst spread out over 12 months, but I'm genuinely proud of it. It really was therapy for me.

I'm not the same person that wrote that last story. I remember one evening my sophomore year when I was sitting on the capitol lawn with some people that I hoped would become my new friends, and Jonathan prompted me to tell the whole cruise story. I don't blame him, by that point I had refined the narrative like a one man show. I could hit all the highs and lows, self-deprecating comedic beats, and still manage to make myself come out kind of charming. Plus, I had basically wrapped my entire identity around being this lovelorn loser.

So, I started telling the story, and about 30 seconds in, I realized that it had ceased to mean anything. I wasn't that person anymore. I was finally free of this albatross that had been weighing me down.

But nothing really replaced that. I didn't write for two years because I had nothing to write about. I ceased to be an even remotely interesting person. I was (and remain, I suppose) a sanctimonious dick without any depth.

I don't feel smart anymore. I don't feel interesting anymore. When I was younger and dumber I could entertain myself for hours just thinking about things. Looking back, it seems like I was forcing some theory on you guys every week. Now, I don't think about anything.

It's affected my friendships, my two best friends are going through difficult times because of girls. One has decided to sublimate his pain into a crazy ascetic diet. He won't talk to me about how he feels because he knows that I will just make a joke out of it.

How did that happen? How did someone who started a blog to try to excise all of these thoughts that started bubbling because he was so empathetic turn into someone who can't empathize anymore?

I don't know, but it really bothers me.

I really don't know what's going on with my other friend. He made a poorly thought out romantic decision and it hasn't worked out for him. But, I think he made that decision because he's graduating and doesn't know what he wants yet. He tries to talk to me, but we have a weird communication barrier right now. He has some new friend that he likes to hang out with. I haven't met any of them, but I imagine that they are mostly harmless.

He's not himself anymore though. He doesn't talk the same, he doesn't think the same, he doesn't act the same. He thinks that there's tension between himself and his old friends because of some of his specific actions, but that's not really the case. He's alienating people because he's different.

I wonder if my friends felt the same way about me two years ago?

My girlfriend is mad at me right now. You may know her as voldemort 2. I know her as little bit. We've been dating for 15 months and talking for almost 2 years. It's been really hard. We live very far apart and we communicate differently.

She wants me to spend as much time as possible visiting her and seeing her frequently, even if it interrupts my routine.

I would rather just get into a routine so that I can just power through it until the long breaks I have to see her for a long time.

She's really busy, she doesn't have time to come see me, she has to work to pay for school. Therefore it's up to me to come see her. She makes me feel guilty for not coming. She makes me feel guilty a lot.

I love her though. I don't think she believes me when I tell her that I love her. It's probably because the first time I told her that I loved her, I took it back the next day. I probably wouldn't believe me either.

She hates football, but I love football. I don't think she understands my love of football. I think she just thinks that it's a stupid game that takes up all of my Saturday's in the fall. I don't think that she understands that it's about more than a game, it's about all of the narratives that surround the games, this little world that focuses on this one piece of minutiae. It's about belonging to a community.

She has a tough life. I just try to love on her as much as possible. Sometimes it's really awesome and I just want to be with her forever. But when it gets bad, I feel defeated, I feel like none of our love has done anything to change either of us, and we're both just stupid selfish people who will never understand each other.

It's a disheartening feeling.

Being in a relationship changes the MB. Back in the day, I could be so brutally honest because the only person I could hurt is myself. I'd never want to hurt lindsey. I love her so much.

I'm bad at communicating in person. I'm way better at the cute lie. In writing, I can be anyone. But I don't really try to be anyone, I can just be myself to the utmost selfness. I don't have any of my social hangups or any of my physical quirks. It's just unadulterated Kyle dripping onto the page, unpasteurized and whole.

I'm never more honest than when I'm on the internet.

I think that's enough for tonight. I don't really feel any better. Back in the day, when I finished an entry, I'd get this really awesome rush and all of my problems would lift off for a while. It was nice. I hope it comes back, maybe it'll mean that I'm interesting again.

Things My Dad and Hipsters Both Like (A Comparative Analysis)

2010-07-12T02:15:00.000-07:00

King of the Hill

Quentin Tarantino Movies

Shirts with slogans like "Father's Day Fun Run 1998"

Absurd hats

Garden grown produce

The Avett Brothers

Writing angry letters

Not wearing a belt with a tucked in shirt

Frugality

Get Excited (Magic Back)

2010-02-07T02:43:00.000-08:00

Hello beloved readers. I don't know where you are now, I have to assume that y'all are scattered to the wind, as, lately, KMB (the tie that binds us all to this odd little corner of the e-universe) has been inactive for the past few months. For this, I apologize. And if any of y'all are willing to take me back, well here I am.

I last left you devoted and beautiful people in August, my last night in Lubbock, the place I've spent over half my life, the place that I think I will always consider home.

During the summer, my friends and I from high school have a little get-together every Tuesday night at the house I used to inhabit. It's just a little gathering of our friends from the city and some younger kids from our old high school. We get together and we hang out, and then my friend Dusty gets out his guitar and plays some worship songs and we all gather together and have community. Then someone will share a few words, and then the singing begins again.

During the summer, my friends and I from high school do my favorite thing. Every Tuesday night a the house I used to inhabit, we join together; and I see a lot of beauty. I see it in the faces of my friends, i hear it in the music that we share, and i breathe it in in the cool Texas air. And every Tuesday night in the summer at the house I used to inhabit, I feel more alive than I ever do elsewhere.

A few weeks before I left for Austin, we changed the formula for our Tuesday assembly (LoW {Lifestyle of Worship}). Rather than one person talking, and us gathering outside, we stayed in the living room and everybody had a chance to share. When I opened mouth, what came out was the truth. I just told everyone that there was no shame in being in Lubbock, there was no shame in being surrounded by people that love you and build you up, there was no shame in who I was.

At the time, I remember congratulating myself internally for my eloquence, and my bravery in confronting something everyone thought was a negative. I commended myself for rebelling against the status quo.

Then I left.

Now, I'm back for Christmas break, and all anyone asks me is, "How is Austin?" And I fear I never have an adequate response. So, I have assigned myself the very difficult task of explaining the last three months in the realm of our beloved Magic Blog. I will do my best to articulate not only what happened, but what I was thinking and feeling and fearing. I hope you will all enjoy it. And not rip on me too much for being out of practice when it comes to Magic Blogging.

(I wrote all of the words preceding this parenthetical statement over Christmas break, i never finished the entry, and now i have decided to reclaim it; i fear that i will be going in a new direction, however. It is February 7, 2010)

Rather than write a time-consuming biography of the past six months, I've decided to readdress some of the themes of the old Magic Blog and see if I can expand on them or show how i've matured or how being away from home has changed my thinking, or whatever, who knows where this will go?

I suppose we'll start (we readers, i'm inviting you on my emotional journey, aren't you excited!) with where my last entry lived, the idea of having to earn things, and my semi-newfound life philosophy of not really wanting to earn anyone's stories, much less have to carry their emotional baggage.

I made a new friend before I left for Austin. We knew each other before this meeting in only the most peripheral of ways, the giant friend-of-a-friend net that comes from living in Lubbock.

Anyway, I met this girl at a party at her house that I was only attending because Claire was there. It was kind of the middle of the summer and I was (shockingly) romanticizing myself more than was probably warranted. At the party, talking to Claire ended up being mostly a waste of time and everyone else i knew there wasn't really in a talking state. Lindsey was there though and so we went into a back room and chatted for a while and then the girl that would become my new friend wandered in, upset.

Lindsey had to go to talk to her boyfriend or something so it was just me and this new girl sitting in her room, surprisingly, not terribly awkwardly. I started talking to her, and (as i said earlier) she was upset about some guy she was seeing or used to see or something, it was a complicated situation that I couldn't fully grasp at the time because I was busy thinking about claire and myself (mostly myself).

Anyway, things took an abrupt and strange turn for the honest. (Don't ask me why, but for some reason I decided to re-adopt my "total honesty" strategy from the previous summer for the evening). And so I'm sitting here, with this girl I just met, and I talk about claire for a bit, and then I talk about my favorite subject (me) in great detail, pontificating about how i'm going to be some great name, some famous writer, whatever just a lot of self promotion, with only a little bit of depth.

(A little backstory for this section. At the time I was really consumed with being a great journalist {I had been reading Hunter Thompson} and so I started couching every encounter I had with people in the context of me gathering quotes and writing a story, so it was almost like an interview situation)

After I wax on about myself (i wax on about my self so well) for a while, I decided to get more detail on why this new young lady is upset; this turns out to be an almost comically ironic situation in that she starts really pouring her heart out (at least that was my impression) and i was utterly dumbfounded. Here I was, espousing this philosophy of earning baggage and this girl who i barely know is dumping it on me at an unprecedented rate. Of course, I rather voyeuristically continued to listen, enraptured for around an hour before we parted ways.

For the next few weeks, this created a weird situation where I knew a whole lot about this girl's thoughts and emotions but not really anything about her real life. Which was really how i preferred it, it seemed rather journalistic of me, swoop in, glean some interesting and potentially hidden personal details and then swoop away like a quizzical Batman. I figured we wouldn't ever speak again.

Fast forward a few months and find me in my dorm room in my first night in Austin. I don't actually know anyone, so I am lamely just on the internet waiting for someone to get on facebook to talk to. In my hour of loneliness, the girl from the party appears on facebook, so i ask her about her previous relationship problems. We get to chatting and she has to go somewhere but gives me her number and tells me to text her, because she thinks i am interesting (her first mistake), and wanted to keep talking about the subject we were discussing.

Anyway (i realize that i rely too heavily on "anyway" as a transition), a few sporadic texts between me and this girl (who i've decided to name Voldemort 2, but i'm apprehensive about because that carries certain romantic as well as emotional connotation that one who is a familiar reader might associate with voldemort 1, but that really isn't my intention, it's merely a device to maintain some cohesiveness between KMB if yore and it's new incarnation, so don't get bogged down with the imagery that you might associate with voldemort 1 {sadness, obsession, extreme romantic attachment} when you read about v2. And more specifically don't take me choosing voldemort as her name as some sort signifier of her as the central female character in this new story, because that also is not my intention, i just chose it because it fits within the pre-established magic-canon and it also might tickle her. All that to say, don't think that calling someone "voldemort 2" means that she is "claire 2" because that is most assuredly not the situation we find ourselves in) lead to a full-fledged textlationship, where we are constant phone friends.

Again this is an awkward spot to be in, because while I am in constant contact with this person, i have no idea how she actually exists in the real world and vice-versa. We are isolated to this dishonest sphere of text (i call this the "cute lie" we may touch on it later)(i am a regular roland barthes!).

So I have this text-friend, essentially a pen pal, and I'm carrying a little bit of her baggage but not a whole lot, and to make things complicated, i explicitly told her when we first started becoming friends that i was just not down to carry any more, I was once again an isolationist (like James Madison {Callback HEYOH!!!!!}). As you might imagine, this led to the weirdest kind of friendship possible, where we spent all day talking, but essentially said nothing and eventually once we ran out of things to talk about, we just started complimenting each other on being so wonderful (it was weird). It was a relationship built on mutual emotional gratification. There was an eerily profound lack of depth.

Occasionally (i really hate spelling that word), we would be forced to confront glimpses of each other beyond surface level. She sent me an elaborate and loving birthday gift package (exposition: I used to be super gay for 11:11 and every time i caught it, i would wish for something even gayer than wishing on 11:11, like true love or to meet my future wife or happiness or whatever) that contained a hand-written rendering of the "Love Verse" from 1 Corinthians (she has really pretty handwriting) with a note that said "Remember what you have already been given on love..." And so I was forced to confront some emotional and spiritual depth from her, which i was reticent to do.

Luckily, these moments were deliberately few and far between.

Anyway, over the break i started seeing her in real life from time to time, which led to a surreal situation where i was talking to her and she confessed that she had romantic designs on me, which i rebuffed awkwardly, because i was unsure as to how i felt about her (despite some definite romantic feelings). This followed with a typical kyle-esque round of questioning ("why?" being the primary inquiry) that led to her saying, "I just feel like we've become so close..." At which point i cut her off with a rather blunt and dickish, "Are we close?"

The answer, of course, was no, and this was deliberate, but at the same time a pretty startling revelation in a period of romantic confession.

I went back home (Austin) with our closeness dilemma, as well as our romantic tension, unresolved.

But we continued to text very frequently and continued to participate in the "cute lie." Until very recently, things came to a bit of a head and it became clear that this sort of relationship just was not going to work, a relationship without any sort of depth is worthless to maintain, if you will excuse my profanity, it's nothing but social masturbation. (Social in the sense of maintaining friendships and society and that other greek stuff, not public sexual acts and other greek stuff).

So a little baggage leaked out, and things feel healthier.

So readers, it appears that one of my great experiments was a mighty failure, you can't divorce yourself from someone's trials and tribulations and expect to have any sort of real relationship with them. I realize that most people learn this rudimentary lesson early on in life, but i am shockingly retarded. I can't hide from the weariness that world puts on me, and, to be honest, this strategy was really really sucky. It kept me from making friends at UT and turned me into a very nice, but very shallow robot; it also made me seem dumb. It's kind of the opposite of when i started the Magic Blog, (or at least the letter that was the impetus behind it that only a few of you have read) where i describe myself as a robot; but at that time i was being robotic as a defense mechanism to protect myself from the Earth-shattering revelation that the world isn't as good as I thought, and this time i became a robot because i starved myself of any emotions other than amusement and the most shallow empathy.

It's a cycle, Carl Jung would be pleased.

(ps i'm aware that the mb has kind of turned into Scrubs with a lot of lame summary moralizing at the end of every entry, i apologize for this and plan to try to make it funny again soon)

This Blog Is The Boy I Once Was (We'll See How It All Turns Out)

2009-11-08T03:49:00.000-08:00

July 2008-August 2009

Last Week in Town (It's Pretty Weird)

2009-08-15T21:20:00.000-07:00

I saw 500 Days of Summer today, and it was pretty magical.

Any movie starring my future wife (zooey deschanel) and a cast member from 3rd Rock from the Sun is going to be right in my wheelhouse. Especially if it liberally references popular bands that people pretend are obscure.

Also it has a guy brokenhearted about a girl, so that's a pretty big draw.

This movie managed to couch something i've been trying to elaborate on in the Magic Blog better than i have been able to couch something i've been trying to elaborate on in the Magic Blog.

There is a sequence of events where female romantic lead opens up to male romantic lead in that super special we're special friends way, and mr. voiceover narrates, "Male romantic lead knew that these were stories that not everyone heard, these were stories that had to be earned."

First of all, I appreciated that they called these exchanges of words "stories" because i like to describe things as stories. But also, i think this may be a more (genuine, no) (appropriate, no)... complete explanation of my constant complaint about "carrying someone else's baggage." The way things happen is that, not only must I be bonded to someone through these packets of emotional hpv, but in order to receive one in the first place, I must work so very hard. I must sacrifice, i must love, i must put up with all manner of nonsense, to phrase it eloquently, I must earn it.

Here again, we draw on another theme that runs throughout my life and the life of the magic blog. My very immature way of not seeing the world for how it really is, but as this sort of fanciful wordfairy land populated by charming, beautiful, and interesting people, with myself as the ruler of this adolescent candyland.

Every once in a while, the real world sneaks up on me like an agile freight train and ambushes the back of my pretending-nodes. (In my brain!) And i take a mental-breath and take reality-stock of the actual-situation.

I am a nineteen year old college student who is moving to a new town to find something that I probably just imagined. I couldn't even tell you what this thing is. If pressed, it would be a girl. A girl like Clementine in Eternal Sunshine; a girl who by her very affections makes the world into something different, something out of a story.

I am studying journalism because i want to be a household name. I want to be iconic. I want to be an archetype.

I want to be a fictional character.

I don't even want to be superman or anything, i want to be famousrichhappyman (I would like flight), and i would settle for just happyman.

This distresses me.

I am distressed because as far as I know, this person has never actually existed. It's just me getting caught up in fiction again.

(Let this be a lesson for you future parents; don't let your kids read)

My friend nelson left the state today. He is going to Colorado for the year. Despite us drifting apart some in college, as i left his filthy apartment this afternoon, i still felt that sting in my psyche and bruise in my gut that comes with separation. I can only imagine how it will be on Friday.

I recently described my current emotional state as "lumpy." And i feel that it is a remarkably accurate way to describe the way i am feeling the things that i am currently feeling.

All these different emotions are just floating in my cut like clay (non-toxic) with no discernable form or shape. And maybe that's pretty much how it as to be until there is some new stimuli to act on it. To mold it like patric swayze in ghost into something i could readily identify, like, sad, lonely, hungry, happy, magical.

This is the problem with summer readers, not enough to say.

Kyle's Sappy Blog (Sappier Than Usual)

2009-08-05T06:21:00.001-07:00

It's good to see you internet, it's been a while.

This is my third to last day of work. I've been here for around a year, and now i'm ready to leave.

I head to Austin on the 20th, it's not very far away.

KMB erupted from my mind-placenta a little over a year ago, and things have changed a lot since then.

Back then, I was insecure, mopey, and isolated. I'm still insecure and sometimes I get a little down, but it's not the same. I've figured out how to be happy.

It wasn't even a conscious decision, just something that grew organically out of my socializing and the normal maturation that comes with age (a whole year!).

I used to come home every night and lie in bed and feel smothered by nothingness. Even if i spent the whole evening with friends, having a good time, I would come home and be consumed by all kind of negative emotions, usually worry, often anger, and sometimes just apathy. And ever so slowly, God brought me through that.

This just dawned on me last night, as I was laying in bed. I'm leaving basically everyone I know and love in two weeks, armed only with awkward social skills and the wit of oscar wilde; but as i sat there, waiting for tired eyes, I was perfectly content with this, perfectly confident; everything is alright.

More than anything, this has made me grateful for the people in my life, I'm trying to see as many of them as possible in this short time, and as i'm doing so, i'm seeing the influence they had over me that i never noticed, and I love them all for it. I love you guys.

So here I am, at this weird empasse, that I don't know if i'll ever experience the same way again. This transition, a year late, from everything i've known to everything i don't. It's a new beginning.

And I wonder what the implications of this are for the Magic Blog. The way I see it, the Magic Blog was a story. A story in a couple of layers, the story of me figuring out who and how i want to be for the rest of my life, the story of my first year of college, the story of me working out all of this misplaced sadness and aggression in front of all of you with a few turns of phrase; but most of all it was the story of me trying to tell a story about a boy and a girl.

And i never even got around to sharing it.

A long form of the story exists. I wrote it a week after I graduated high school. It has all the gorey details, beginning to end, every jot and tittle, other cliches for completeness. But, you guys don't need that, and I don't need that.

So here is the story I made this blog to tell.

Once upon a time, there was a boy and a girl. The boy thought the girl was the most special girl he had ever encountered, so he tried to make her feel the same way. Sadly, the girl couldn't make herself feel the way the boy felt. This made the boy very sad for a long time. But, one day, he realized that maybe it was better to be friends than to be sad; so he stopped. And it didn't matter so much anymore and things were better.

So now the Magic Blog has to find a new identity. The awkward part is that every story I told featured characters that I was familiar with for years, which enabled a certain sort of honesty that I feel i might be incapable of duplicating, especially since I will be writing about new people.

I can't really see myself telling the story of the girl that I like from my film class in the Magic Blog, especially since i'm trying to use it as a seduction tool; she'll think i'm a fourteen year old weirdo.

So much like myself, the Magic Blog has to make this transition blind, hopefully she will survive, she should, she's a fighter.

Tonight I Write (Words and Sentences)

2009-07-15T22:47:00.000-07:00

Hello world (the little slice of it that visits my corner of internet that I am renting from the benevolent proprietors of blogger.com, which i believe is the mighty google) I have decided to return to the Magic Blog; I apologize for my prolonged absence.

I haven't really been ruminating on anything to talk about recently. My life has been remarkably stable and predictable. I wake up every morning at 7:15am. I take a shower. I get dressed (just shorts). I drink orange juice from the carton and instant breakfast from a glass. I always stir it with a little spoon, because using a big one is superfluous. I put on a shirt, then i take it off, then i debate whether it will get too sweaty over the course of the day. Usually, I convince myself that it won't, but eventually it does. I pack up my computer, cord in the front of my backpack so it doesn't make a weird shape on my back, the actual laptop sequestered in a neoprene case.

Then I go outside. The annoying mockingbird squawks at me, and I think maybe Atticus got it wrong. I get in my car, slinging my backpack into the passenger seat. (WORLD! if you will allow me to get a little fanboy, Max Bemis posted a song from Baseball on youtube, this is marvelous news!). Then I start my car, usually, i see the "low fuel" light and get a little annoyed thinking about going to the gas station and putting in $10. Then my ears are assaulted again by my ipod adapter waiting a few seconds to intercept the magical sound wave it uses to give me music. (fm 93.2). Then a few seconds of fumbling with morning hands and I'm pulling out with This American Life or The BS Report or The Bugle, or later in the week, shuffle, accompanying my ears.

Left, Right, Left, Right, weaving through the border between half built suburbs and half diminished prairie, rolling through stops like a common criminal. Then down a dirt road, bumping and rattling, assuring myself that eventually i'll take better care of my car. Then down the newly constructed loop, getting angry at New Mexican drivers and those who don't understand it's a freeway. Slumping in annoyance at the ill-timed lights on campus. Parking under a shady tree if I'm lucky and grabbing my bag and ipod and strolling inside.

I clock in, always eight minutes late, go upstairs and grab the ticket selling machine (old dell laptop) and return to my post. I put on my poorly knit work polo and set up my laptop and the school's laptop. I check my blogs, trying to hold off on world of warcraft or watching tv shows because i feel that the time passes faster that way.

I do weird stuff like that sometimes. Every once in a while I give myself weird little endurance tests. Like how many days can I go with only five or so hours of sleep. How many days can I go with just sleeping and not eating except when my mom makes dinner. Or even stupid things, like, how long can I go with an irritating rock in my shoe. On saturdays, I refuse to get up out of bed and use the restroom, instead, just being uncomfortable for about a half hour before i realize how stupid I am.

I don't know why I do those things. Maybe it's the aforementioned doldrums of my life. In high school there were all sorts of ways to push myself, be it academically or in baseball. And in college I pretty much focused on getting As, kind of transferring the energy that used to go to athletics toward academics.

In the summer there's not so much to do.

After work, I come home and nap. I wake up around six. If my mom makes dinner, I eat with my family. If they are at tennis or something, I take a shower, drink some orange juice, and then repeat my morning routine. I text someone and go to where they are, getting food at some point.

Then I come home and sit in my bed, propped up by pillows and a headboard, I talk to people on facebook and check other blogs. (Sometimes the MB for comments, futiley).

Then I go to sleep and it happens again, but dreams happen in between.

Magic Back (After A Magic Mini Hiatus)

2009-06-28T21:11:00.000-07:00

I have returned internet.

My life has not been particularly eventful recently, I have been a peripheral character in my friends' stories for the past few weeks, which is pretty alright with me.

I have not blogged in several weeks; if asked, I could not provide a reason. Perhaps, subconsciously, I felt that the Writing Monster post sort of bookended a year of thoughts. You know what I mean readers, a real year (January 1-December 31), just doesn't adequately fulfill the mind's need to cut up life into twelve month blocks. So, at least while i am young, the year is more usefully divided between beginnings and endings of school.

I don't know how this works in the future, once one is employed year round. Maybe anniversaries, or children's birthdays, or perhaps the Gregorian (that's what my last name is) calender reclaims its rightful place as the king of the time-keepers (grandfather clocks are the princes, metronomes are the serfs, the sundials were all killed in the people's revolution).

Regardless, in addition to be conveniently timed with a mind year, that entry also sort of finished up the Blog's mission to try to make claire fall in love with me.

A mission it did not succeed in, but, to be fair, it's probably not entirely Mr. Blog's fault. He performed well, always posting my entries, with limited spacing issues. The fault lies with me. (Any songwriters who want to make that the name of a gentle acoustic lullaby are welcome to, with proper attribution).

So for the next monthish, we're in a bit of a limbo, as not a whole lot will be happening. KMB's one year anniversary is July 23rd, which might herald a rebirth.

I have to find a new story. I've spent a year telling one, and never even got around to finishing it, but it doesn't feel necessary anymore. I think i'm a little more mature and not as insecure and i'm learning how to not be lonely.

Michael Jackon died the other day.

This is relevant to me.

When I first lived in Lubbock, as little child, I had a VHS tape. On this tape were several popular music videos with equally popular cartoon characters superimposed into the videos. These cartoons would dance, lipsync, and generally cavort with the singers in the videos. I had a favorite video. In this video, Alvin, (of Alvin and the Chipmunks) donned a red jacket, some shades, and a sparkly right glove, and proceeded to dance around on pool tables with Michael Jackson to Beat It.

I thought it was cool.

I wasn't aware of who Michael had become (creepy ghoul, possible pedo, child endangerer). So whenever anyone mentioned Michael Jackson, I would associate it with a young black dude wearing a snazzy glove, singing a catchy song (with an animated rodent), and an eddie van halen guitar solo.

UPDATE THE VIDEO EXISTS ON YOUTUBE, it also has Smooth Criminal. Apparently Mike wasn't rocking the glove, and my memory has been tainted. Memories

I was too young to pick up on the cheesiness, which is kind of endearing to me now; I identify with Dave Chappelle's sentiment that, whatever you think of Michael, he really did want to be loved, he turned himself into a white alien creature because he thought people would like him more. It's a pretty tragic tale.

I could write a pretty lengthy tale about how MJ is the modern Oedipus (father issues, undisputed ruler, disturbing pecadillos, and a catastrophic self destruction) but it's too soon after the fact to not feel dishonest.

Anyway, this exposition all to say that, Michael Jackson is important to me because he was the first artist I ever identified as my "favorite" and Beat It was my first favorite song.

Keep in mind, it was 1996 when I was making these claims, well into his crazy stage. And I remember riding in the car with my friend Chris' mom, listening to the radio, and she asked me who my favorite singer was. Not thinking anything of it, I replied, "Michael Jackson." She gave me a very strange look. "Really, you know he's weird right?" I didn't know he was weird, but after she said that I didn't really watch the Beat It tape anymore.

I don't like lists, but I feel like doing a list.

A List of Kyle's First Favorites (Excluding Song and Artist, As They Have Been Covered)

Book - Goodnight, Moon (my mother and father would read this to me all the time before bed, it used to make me feel safe and happy)

Movie - Dumbo (foreshadowing my future insecurities about myself?)

Halloween Costume - Pinocchio (much like Tim Kasher, I was pretty captivated by the tale of the wooden boy)

Allow me to explain why Pinocchio is brilliant.

Pinocchio is a story about what it means to be human. It tells that universal tale of self discovery, and doesn't skip over the hard parts (being turned into a donkey, eaten by Monstro), and it has a happy ending.

It's also a Creation allegory, and the story of the prodigal son; with songs!

Pinocchio is the best movie for children to love. You learn early not to lie, not to run away, to trust your conscience, and most importantly that you have a Father that loves you unconditionally.

I have thought about getting the album cover of Is A Real Boy tattooed on my foot one day. This is a good tattoo because, not only do i love that album, but because it is also Pinocchio's nose.

It also let Tim Kasher write Driftwood: A Fairy Tale, one of my favorite songs ever, so I feel like it is a good thing for me to love.

My mom still has my Pinocchio costume in her closet, tiny red overalls, white shirt, little felt hat, and a rubber nose.

Readers, I am happy to be writing, but I am out of practice and tired. I feel like I will cut this entry off now, maybe soon inspiration will strike and I can write an entry that makes me stay up all night sweating and whispering to myself about how brilliant I am, but tonight will not be that night.

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

Dreams (The Kind That Accompany REM Sleep)

2009-06-05T05:22:00.000-07:00

Hello magic groupies, how are you all today? I am well, thank you for e-asking.

Today we are going to talk about dreams. I have done this before, in fact, dear readers, the very first taste of Magic you all received was just a simple little description of some dreams that had recently played in my mind theatre. (I think it's an AMC).

But today, my friends, we are going to discuss a different kind of dream, are we excited? (Yes!)

This kind of dream is called a recurring dream, and I've been having three different ones!

Here, I will describe them.

The first type started occurring shortly after my beloved childhood dog, Piha, died. In these dreams I bomb around with a dog. They are generally pretty uneventful. Usually just me taking a walk with a dog. Usually it's a Boston Terrier, sometimes it's Piha, other times it's some future dog that my parents have not yet bought.

Normally these dreams are good, because, as we have documented several times, dogs make me happy.

Other times they take a turn for the tragic, and the dog I am walking will run away and be struck by a car. But whenever the dog getting hit by a car dreams happen, the dog either changes from a Boston Terrier to a German Shepherd or was a German Shepherd all along.

According to The Google, "Pay attention to dreams about dogs, as they often bring important messages. Dog dreams that are positive mean that the dreamer is lucky in friendship. A threatening dog signifies discomfort with large social groups."

So apparently, sometimes I have good relationships with my friends, and others, the relationships are threatened?

I think I probably just miss my dog, and wish that Chopdick had died instead of her.

My second dream is fairly common. I will be tooling around some mountain pass or other high thing, and suddenly, the ground will release me and I will fall for a bit, and then of course you realize, "Hey, I'm dreaming," and then you wake up. UNLESS YOU HAVE MASTERED WAKING LIFE!!! But, I haven't, so I just wake up.

MORE GOOGLE INSIGHT!!!

"As with most common dream themes, falling is an indication of insecurities, instabilities, and anxieties. You are feeling overwhelmed and out of control in some situation in your waking life. This may reflect the way you feel in your relationship or in your work environment. You have lost your foothold and can not hang on or keep up with the hustle and bustle of daily life"

I don't know about this one, I feel pretty in control most of the time, if a bit annoyed about how scheduled my life is.

"Falling dreams also often reflect a sense of failure or inferiority in some circumstance or situation. It may be the fear of failing in your job/school, loss of status, or failure in love."

This one makes a little more sense, as they tend to correspond with Magic Blog posts. Maybe they'll stop happening now?

"According to Freudian theory, dreams of falling indicate that you are contemplating giving into a sexual urge or impulse. You maybe lacking indiscretion."

My already tenuous relationship with Freud has just gotten worse with this "interpretation," God knows I'm not in any position to give into any urge, I can't even get kisses with tongue!

My other dream is probably the most unusual.

I always dream that I am preternaturally good at ice hockey. This dream has no basis in fact. After my years in CO, I am an okay ice skater, but i've never actually played hockey in my life. Yet, often enough, I dream that I am taking people part on the ice, either with my brother (who played roller hockey and is also good in the dream) or with a bunch of people who aren't as good as me. Let's consult Google.

First, we'll tackle the times when I am just skating alone. In a section the "dream dictionary" calls "Playing Sports - Individually."

"You may feel responsibility for your own success or satisfaction. Many times, entertaining ourselves stems from being neglected by others, so we dream of playing alone and enjoying ourselves in spite of them. Other times, it is a product of distancing ourselves from others, even if perhaps they would want us to play in the group."

If we follow this interpretation maybe I just feel isolated, possibly from dwelling on and then executing my move back to my parents, as well as my eventual move to Austin. The website also has handy feedback questions.

The website asks, "Do you feel a sense of loneliness or comfort in the dream?"

Well dream page, as a matter of fact, I enjoy these dreams a lot. I like to effortlessly slide on the ice and whack stuff around with an aluminum stick.

Now we will address the part of the site that says "Playing Sports - With Others."

"Dreaming of playing with others can be a symptom of your need to enhance your interpersonal communication skills. It can also inform you of the possibility that you have been neglecting communion with others, and that you need to seek more camaraderie in your life."

This is bullcrap dream website. I have lots of friends and I communicate excellently. I think that maybe the webpage is jealous of my human emotions and the ability to feel, and that's why he is trying to bring me down.

Also his question is, "Is the game being played for fun or competition?"

In my dream state, it's always just for fun, it also always has both genders represented, in more of a pick up game type atmosphere. This also makes me the star of the dream, because, as I said earlier, I am the best player out there.

Maybe this is just my brain letting me enjoy what it feels like to be the best player, because there is never a situation where I am playing a team sport and I'm the best person out there. Maybe that's why it picked hockey, because I won't be able to say to my dream self, "Hey, you're not better than that person in basketball, you've played them before."

I suppose it doesn't really matter.

There are some dreams beloved readers. I hope you enjoy reading about them (slash) interpreting them, and always remember, if you dream about falling, wake up before you hit the ground, or you will die in your sleep!

Writing Monster (Blogheara)

2009-06-03T23:02:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

I am concerned. I am concerned because there has been an almost criminal dearth of comments on my most recent updates to KMB, and honestly readers...this hurts me where my heart is.

I think it may be psychological for you cats. Apparently the entry Night Writing made people too sad. I find this strange, seeing as there have been countless similarly disheartening dissertations on my still difficult to discern emotions. Maybe we just reached a critical mass, like it was all too much for my beloved readers. The omni-present bitching, regardless of how poignantly expressed, overwhelmed everyone's sympathy receptors.

The fact that I could potentially be writing to empty air, that no one might read this for months is, in a way, liberating. (also lonely). I could say whatever I cared and damn the consequences. This is usually the attitude I have when writing, but occasionally, i will refrain from being too eviscerating in the name of good taste and common empathy.

I am one of the angriest people I know, but no one is ever directly affronted by my rage. I like to spread it out, mail little packages to neutral parties, so that eventually only a shadow is left. But the shadow is just as dangerous. It colors my perception, influences my interaction, casts a pall on every sentence i speak, type, or text. I don't know why this is. I like to pretend it's out of sincere motives. That I don't confront people I care about because I don't want to risk losing that camaraderie. And I realize that's probably disingenuous and being a crappy friend, but maybe i'm just that caring. Or maybe I don't care enough. Or maybe I'm just a wiener.

I don't know team. I'm used to using my Magic as a sort of outlet. A way to express myself with thinly veiled messages.

And for the past year almost every message has been directed at one person.

But i want that to change.

I'm tired of trying to please this one person, I'm tired of this, as Jordan so eloquently put, "Fight Club type situation," defining me and defining how i see myself. I'm tired of trying to insert myself in someone else' story.

I think I turned a corner the other day. I think I may have, if not resolved, at least articulated how I feel and how I want to change.

But I'm turning a corner like a firetruck. I can't do it alone, and i'm worried, i'm downright scared that if the driver in the back doesn't help me get around this corner; then maybe history is doomed to repeat.

But this person, this passive aggressive little coward is not who I feel like I am. I'm an angry son of a gun, I'm like Bill Hicks, without the addictions. (Also I'm funny). (TAKE THAT BILL HICK'S ESTATE).

So now i'm apprehensive to be all up on front street in the Magic Blog, maybe it's time I started behaving like a man.

A few months ago, I wrote an entry called Checkmate. It was good.

When I wrote this, I listened to La La Lie on repeat, it took twenty-two listens. All I could think was "Guess what? I'm done."

I realize that maybe that wasn't the way I should do things. Maybe there's no such thing as all or nothing; maybe i shouldn't focus on one relationship so relentlessly. Maybe I should find fulfillment in something else, rather than this imaginary wonderland i've convinced myself would make my life ever so grand.

Maybe it's a process, maybe it's gradual, maybe hours of dialogue and honesty aren't enough. Maybe every problem can't be solved by slight of tongue. Maybe sometimes it just takes time?

I don't like things that take time readers. I don't especially like things that take action either. I pretty much just like to hear myself talk. I also like to overthink. I think the overthinking is what does me in. I analyze everything so much and I expect others to do the same, to devote a lot of time to hypothetical pursuits, when in reality they have much more productive and probably healthy things to spend their lonely times doing. So when that time comes, when i'm free to pontificate; it comes out in a rush thoughts upon thoughts upon thoughts, a tower of babble, if you will. And after i have flushed my brain, I expect the other person to feel this same sense of relief, to see it as this wonderfully cathartic experience. Maybe they don't see it as that, maybe it's just a step in the right direction, not the destination. (Dinosaur Comics has made me realize that we need new metaphors world, i'm tired of everthing being about traveling or playing sports).

This is where I err. People are not all me. Things take time. I think I'm ready to take time, I think I'm ready to spread myself out. I think I'm ready to find genuine fulfillment.

I think maybe my love letter ends here. This is the conclusion of the pages and pages, and maybe it's better that way.

Or maybe it's just the first step.

I love you readers, even if you're just me.

I Think I Talk To You Best When I Write (I Write About Most Everything)

2009-05-31T21:29:00.001-07:00

dear world.

Tonight i am sitting in my bed. There is a tv in front of me. It's name is Westinghouse. It is a poor man's sony, but i don't care because it accomplishes what i need. My Bill Murray poster is also looking at me, six Bill Murrays in fact. From caddyshack, stripes, ghostbusters, ed wood, lost in translation, and life aquatic. Bill makes me want to be a comedian.

Behind Westinghouse is a rolled up poster of Hunter Thompson. Hunter makes me want to be a writer.

My name is stacked in vertical letters beside my tv.

K
y
L
e

There is a poster on the wall over my left shoulder. It is green and says Manchester Orchestra in red lettering. Above the lettering, in beige, it says Mean Everything. Below Manchester Orchestra, also in beige, it says To Nothing. This album makes me want to love albums.

Beside me (left) is a cup that once cradled some orange juice, it is white and says Buns Over Texas, with a Texas shape behind it. This cup makes me want to eat hamburgers.

To my right is the door to the bathroom.

I had a blow out on the way home today. There was a nail in my back right tire and as i drove over some railroad tracks, it pulled some sort of maneuver that led to all of the air escaping. So i inched along to my house and pulled into my brother's garage. I proceeded to loosen the nuts (hehe), jack up the car, remove the tire, attach the silly donut, tighten the nuts (hehe), and de-jack the car.

This car blow out occured at a rather (in)convenient time. It happened to coincide with my own brief explosion. Events have conspired over the course of the years and today that have made me lose myself (like eminem) to a three minute burst of mad. It was a pretty uneventful attack. I just jacked the car down forcefully, took a brief shower where I scrubbed sand off myself forcefully, and then i dried off forcefully. Then i got on the computer and said bad words to Stephen.

And now it's pretty much done.

I really enjoy the EP that came with Mean Everything to Nothing. It's called Fourteen Years of Excellence. The second track is particularly spectacular. It's called It's Ok With Me. It sounds like Andy Hull wrote a hidden track for Heartbreaker. I wish that I had seen them live when they played in Dallas four days ago, sadly, I had to give pool cues to foreign students.

Over the past week, I have endured three remarks about my belly that were not made by members of the BFC (that's right, we get colors). This has made me decide to get fit, as it were. I have been running daily and stopped drinking cokes, (except on the weekends, and even then i limit myself to two). I am also seriously considering getting Wii fit. I am essentially on the workout plan of a sixty seven year old who is recovering from a broken hip.

I am working twenty eight hours a week at the SUB. This creates awkward encounters because my phone cover is UT themed. I have to hide this so my boss doesn't ask any questions. I have what is probably the easiest job in the world, but i still hate going to it.

Also I am pretty hungry. I've also been eating less what with my new fitness plan, and this leads me to dream about eating and/or drinking a lot. I fear that this revelation will remind my friends of an unflattering nickname.

I don't have a lot to say tonight and no one reads this anymore. So goodnight readers.

A Year (A Whole Year)

2009-05-28T22:52:00.000-07:00

That's devotion, or something sad.

Writing Like A Novelist (An Experiment)

2009-05-25T00:05:00.001-07:00

One thirty am is a bad time to be alone. In the back of your mind, slightly beyond the reaches of your consciousness, but ever present, is the knowledge that everyone around you is asleep; or in a state of fortified frivolity rousing and carousing, illuminating the night with their own exuberant glow.

I sat in the kitchen alone, my yellow highlighter to my right, marking passages by Dr. Thompson that struck me, ruminating on my isolation.

I had felt unusual since driving home, four wheels on the pavement, engine softly humming. Not a spaceship, noiseless and ethereal, but like a slightly precocious ghost, never revealing himself except for the slight bump and rattle that added a discordant beat to the music softly drifting from the speakers.

When I say, "I felt unusual," I don't mean in the sense that I was feeling different than many other late nights at home, I mean that my brain felt disconnected from my body, wandering on its own solitary plane.

I put down my book and retrieved my hookah from the cabinet. It had been purchased online, touted as being "handmade in Egypt" a fancy way of saying that it was a serviceable product, but nothing that would last much longer than a year. I carefully assembled it, enjoying the ritual. A quick rinse, the chink chink of ice on glass, and the graceful connection of metal tubing. I filled the bowl with mint tobacco, covered it in tinfoil, and used a fork to make sixteen square holes for heat to travel through.

As the coal lay nestled in the tongs, I sparked it with my lighter. It was a purple lighter. I always buy purple lighters. Purple is the favorite color of a girl I thought I loved in high school, my own personal remembrance of a story that everyone shares. This girl led me through my first period of real self-doubt. Not any lasting doubt of course, not the kind faced by any forty year old man looking back on what he's accomplished. No, this was emotion that birthed musicians, writers, and artists, when they first realize that maybe they are better off expressing themselves to the anonymous masses, rather than the one they care about. This was the emotion that leads foolhardy teenagers down paths of self destruction and rebirth.

I never had the nerve to be self destructive. I think I'm too smart to be, or possibly to stupid. Most people with the word brilliant littering their obituaries have gone through periods of self induced personal hell. It was never my bag.

I puffed. The creamy white smoke slowly filling the empty space between the water and the rubber seal, listlessly floating, unable to escape, except into my lungs.

I decided to draw a bath.

I set down the stopper and turned the handle, warm water crashed onto porcelain.

I debated whether it was intelligent to have a hot coal within striking distance of my nuptials, but in the end assumed that with all the water around, I would probably be safe.

Carefully, I carried the pipe into the bathroom, setting it on the tile and congratulating myself on not burning the house down.

I looked at the open bathroom door, there wasn't a soul around, no one to see me as God intended. My housemates were spread across the state, probably asleep somewhere in West Texas. In the end, I decided to close it, I wanted an ambiance, I wanted the tiny room to fill with smoke.

I relaxed into the water. A towel rested on the edge of the tub to dry my hands, and my book beside it, in case I tired of suffocating myself.

Short, slow bursts of noise came from both my feet and my face. The faucet emptying steamy water that mingled and contrasted with the cool mint in my lungs. It was entirely pleasant.

As the tub filled, I turned off the faucet. I turned it off earlier than usual, I had recently showered after a haircut and straight strands of brown were still in the pipes, giving the drain fits. The only sound now was the gentle bubble of ice and water as I breathed in every few seconds, relaxing.

I spit in the water, the white flecks floated between my knees for a while before they dissipated or married themselves to a bit of hair that had not yet gone on to brutalize the drain.

The bathtub of two collegiate men is not the most sterile place. I watched as bits of sand from days playing volleyball with friends, shaving cream islands, and assorted bits of soapy detritus floated around my ankles.

I didn't mind, my only concern was turning the faucet between my toes whenever the water cooled too much for my liking.

Smoke doesn't like being underwater. It escapes to the top as quickly as it can, and spreads like fog on some Irish peat bog. I blew bubbles like I did as a child in Houston, remembering swimming with my parents in our neighborhood pool. It was a community made of young parents, all of them enjoying the sun and teaching their toddlers not to fear the water. Pool staff would hand out dixie straws so that we could blow bubbles without having to get water in our noses, for no other reason than the pure childlike delight that comes with the pop and splash of making harmless noise. I remembered my dad holding me around my chest as i paddled in the water, my tiny arms stroking back and forth like a fetus, never moving anywhere, just learning to enjoy being outside. And whenever I tired miming a freestyle, I would sit on my dad's knee with my straw and blow happy bubbles.

I was blowing happy bubbles again, without the luxury of a straw, and without that crutch I once again felt the sting of water rushing into my nostrils. Snorting and sneezing like a donkey, I sat up and blew smoke and water out my nose. My left nostril was clogged, so a lazy stream shot out my right.

"I should stop doing this," I thought to myself, but in sitting up, the blood returned to my brain and with it, the pleasant buzz of tobacco. My concerns about my health were temporarily sidetracked and I reflected on the evening. In truth, there was not much to reflect on, so I decided to imagine the next day, Memorial Day. Memorial Day would be busy. I had to wake up sometime in the morning and call my mother, telling her that I wanted to eat lunch with the family rather than dinner, as I have a graduation party to attend in the evening. I thought about what might happen after the party, wondering if I would be able to get coffee with the girl who inspired all of my lighter purchases. Wondering about what we would say, knowing what we would say, me making funny quips and dissing her music, as she smiled and treated me not unlike a petulant child. I knew there would be the inevitable awkward moment, where I would mention my previous affection and her ever shortening patience for such remarks would shine through. Then I resolved to stop smoking hookah so much.

The water was cold and I was too lazy and afraid of burns to move the coal and get more smoke. I resolved to get out of the tub and have a shave. Inspecting my patch of hair, plotted haphazardly across my neck and chin, I decided to shave down to a goatee. Shaving is one of my favorite things. Whenever I shave, I pretend that I am Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, slicking back my hair and lathering up with Barbasol, I slide the razor over my cheeks. It sounds like paper shredding. I dry off, get dressed and hang up the towels. I always use three towels, I wrap one around my waist, drape one across my shoulders, and pin the third to my chest. It drives my mother crazy, she doesn't like to wash towels. I just don't bother.

(I just wrote over 1000 words about a bath, TAKE THAT FAULKNER YOU ARROGANT BASTARD)

Possible Future Band Names (French-Anglo Trance Fusion)

2009-05-24T01:56:00.000-07:00

The Rockodiles

Rockodile and the Manimals

I Hate Myself But Love Neal (neal diamond/my chemical romance cover band)

I Hate Myself But Love Nealon (kevin nealon dialogue over trent reznor moog loops)

Kyle Gregory and the Captains of Industry (Me on lute, Chopdick on maracas)

Chick Singer and the Flat Chests (best new music on pitchfork)

Beep Beep Ribby Ribby (every album will be self titled, but have an image of a different barcode on the cover)

The Scrapbookers (also a scrapbooking club)

The Bookscrappers (also a book burning club)

Look Out! (i'm right behind you)

;;;! (dance-punk...IN SWEDISH)

Tums (also an antacid)

Animal Collective Blows

Coldplay

Night Writing (Deserves a Quiet Write) With Bonus Quiz!

2009-05-20T21:05:00.000-07:00

Summer has begun readers.

It is time for sleeping, being outside, working, and moving back in with your parents.

This is my last week in the Magic Manor, and soon i will be forced to Magic Blog from my Magic Bedroom.

MM has been good to me. Despite being an ice-cave, it has provided me shelter from the elements and clint eastwood; as well as giving me a taste of that zany college experience.

I don't have much to say tonight my friends. The problem with updating so frequently is that I have less time to squeeze thoughts out of my mind-grapes or have zany experiences to document.

I suppose I will continue my high school saga theme at some point in the future, but they take a certain mood and a block of uninhibited time, neither of which i possess at this moment.

I usually break out KMB to absorb the catharsis that comes with writing neat words; but recently (other than the last essay) it hasn't had its usual soothing effect.

I don't know if this is because i have been burnt out of blogging, or if it's just that i don't feel that I have anything to say, or if i'm simply just too, not overwhelmed, more like anxious and befuddled to gather any sort of lasting comfort.

There is a new girl at work. I can't tell if she is cute or not. I want to her to be cute and I wonder if that is influencing my assessment to the positive or negative. It is difficult to judge the attractiveness of people at my job because we are forced to wear remarkably frumpy polos, and the new girl in question had her hair up and glasses on. I think she may have that 80s comedy hotness, whereupon, once the hair is let down and glasses removed she is attractive.

I don't have any assessment of her personality because i didn't talk to her, and more importantly, i only judge women on their looks.

(I just looked at the amount of text i have filled this box with and was immediately disheartened)

It's tough to write when you don't have anything to say.

There was a small get together at my house last night.

Joel and Stephen came over, along with a host of friends who left town to go to other schools, including a man i didn't mind seeing.

Not to discredit my lovely friends from over the state(s) but the only one who has really been mentioned in this blog and is sure to illicit at least a paragraph or two of text who was at my humble abode last night was miss claire.

I don't like being social with that woman. It bugs me, I feel like she ignores me, which could very well just be my own paranoid narcissistic delusions, but it seems to be true.

Why the hell am i writing about this? There is no upside, at this point my teenage heartache has been exhausted as a literary device, it's not like i'm unveiling any sort of new and exciting information. I sure none of you magic groupies care to hear anymore about it, especially since i know all of you in real life and do plenty sufficient bitching to y'alls faces. And, i don't think she does, but if claire ever got a mind to read this, she'd probably be horribly weirded out and think i was some sort of obssessive Oliver character. Hell, i'm writing it and I think that.

I mean, i have a theory as to why she gets so much press in the MB, it was developed when i spoke to lindsey during the formation of Sometimes I Feel Fourteen (not a link, just colors).

I said something that I found rather telling and may explain this pathological need to e-gripe.

As i was talking to lindsey i said, "It bothers me that i can write pretty words and it means nothing to her."

And I think herein lies the issue.

Kyle's Magic Blog was birthed essentially as an extension of a very long and personal letter that was written by me, to her, essentially a much crappier but probably more earnest version of the probably inevitable Year Twelve (A Prompted Reflection).

Long story short, she read it, it seemed to mean a lot to both of us, but didn't really change anything; at least not the way i want and had deluded myself into believing it could.

But that, plus my entrance into higher education made me realize that it would be a good idea to keep writing, and I did.

But other than the MB's stated purpose (to celebrate me) it also had an ulterior, not exactly sinister, and in its own way, beautiful motive, which was to try to get the pretty girl across the state to notice me.

I think we may have hit a breakthrough readers. (I think y'all need a name, like juggalos, something magic related, unicorns?).

Maybe all of my romantic frusturation is fed by magic blog.

It makes sense.

I wander through my pretty boring life looking for situations that could make interesting magic material. (Today i wondered if I found out i was dying in two weeks and wrote a book in the short time if it would become a perrennial best seller after i was gone).

And not like specifically romantic material, just material, just things i can write about and put clever parentheses after. Just things to say, in an inane little attempt to show off.

And I realized this last week but didn't vocalize it.

This is what I do best. More than anything. It's what I want to do best. More than anything. This sad little blog that produces the occasional quality joke is the sum and culmination of what I want to be known for and what I want my future to be.

And that's why I'm dejected, that letter/this blog is my best and final effort to get her attention.

I suppose i thought it would even the playing field. All of my physical faults are negated by this particular medium and i'm able to express myself more honestly and articulately than I ever could with my mouth. And the words last, even if they are stupid and goofy, they are forever honest.

So in my fight club fantasy land, all of these words, be they pretty, funny, or pathetic, are a 114+ page long awkward approach at a bar.

A super personal pick-up line that is about as effective as asking if she was hurt by her fall from heaven.

And even this semi-revelation/semi-confession is essentially meaningless. It's all just mental masturbation.

It doesn't help me in the practical.

After sebastian, stephen, susie, and lindsey read this, it won't have changed anything.

It will still be awkward between claire and I because she just doesn't care about me the way I care about her, and my stupid selfish jealousy will forever get the in way.

It bothers me that we interact so well one on one, but in a social situation i just feel like a horse's ass.

And KMB just exacerbates the issue, because all of the people around us know how i feel about her more than she does! (i wish there was a punctuation mark that was somewhere between a period and exclamation point in severity).

I just chase my tail, best friend -> love interest -> hate interest ->best friend -> &c.

Also, in our year apart she has gotten hotter, which really is just pouring salt on my heart.

I wish i was more mature, or could meet another girl to distract my idiot face.

Advanced Global Personality Test Results

Extraversion	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	38%
Stability	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	54%
Orderliness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	54%
Accommodation	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	54%
Interdependence	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Intellectual	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	66%
Mystical	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Artistic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Religious	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	90%
Hedonism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Materialism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Narcissism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Adventurousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Work ethic	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Humanitarian	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Conflict seeking	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Need to dominate	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%

Romantic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	83%
Avoidant	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Anti-authority	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Wealth	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Dependency	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Change averse	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Cautiousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Individuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Sexuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Peter pan complex	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Family drive	\|\|\|\|\|\|	23%
Physical Fitness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	%
Histrionic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Paranoia	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Vanity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Honor	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Thriftiness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality test by similarminds.com

Stability results were medium which suggests you are moderately relaxed, calm, secure, and optimistic.

Orderliness results were medium which suggests you are moderately organized, hard working, and reliable while still remaining flexible, efficient, and fun.

Extraversion results were moderately low which suggests you are reclusive, quiet, unassertive, and secretive.

trait snapshot:
does not make friends easily, secretive, introverted, reclusive, observer, dislikes leadership, somewhat socially awkward, does not like to stand out, dislikes large parties, values solitude, solitary, avoidant, ambivalent about fitting in, not dominant, unassertive, suspicious, prudent, unadventurous, worrying, weird, intellectual, frequently second guesses self

Year Nine (A Prompted Reflection: Part Two)

2009-05-17T01:28:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I compiled all of my blog entries into a single chronological word document. Keeping my crazy spacing intact, it was 119 pages long. The word count was 34,022.

To put that in perspective, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is about 120,000 words. That means I only have one-fourth of the angst required to be a success in the mope genre. (But I'm much better).

Because I love you readers, and for some reason, every night in the appropriately named "witching hours" (I don't know if there are actual "hours" or just one "hour," it's been some time since i read the Big Friendly Giant), appropriately named because this blog is magic, and I am a modern day wordlock. I get the desire to type words into a little white box surrounded by a larger beige box with all manner of colorful buttons.

I have to imagine this nightly writing sesh (sesh = session) won't continue all week, what with the working MWF, but I think summer is probably just conducive to extra blog attacking.

So, four months after her inception, I have decided to continue my brief history of trinity. Here, I will attempt to document various and sundry important parts of my Freshman year of high school.

You can read the first bit here.

If you are a longtime reader (you all are) then you will remember that my basic prompt, from Meagan, was "You should write more about people I know and times I know. Maybe things will start to come back to me."

I will do so admirably.

My freshman year marked my first major swing at adolescent romance and the arts of love. I have already detailed the Jenna saga (less of a saga, perhaps telenovella?) but that lasted all of three weeks so I don't believe it really impacted me.

No, the real heart destroyer of years fourteen and fifteen was Chelsea.

Chelsea was attractive to other fourteen year olds. The kind of girl that, in retrospect, you realize had nothing on the interesting looking girl that everyone overlooked until it was too late. She had bleached blond hair, bright blue eyes (i am always attracted to women with striking eyes), an american eagle wardrobe, and an ultimately immature view of attraction.

She was the girl that would be cast as the lead crush object of the younger quirky son in a tv show that prided itself on being a realistic portrayal of youth. (Think Sam's crush in freaks and geeks).

Chelsea intrigued me. Coming from the strictly regimented caste system of public school, and unaware that trinity was, in a rather positive way, a melting pot. She was shallow, self-obsessed, and catty; the recipe for popularity in the school I was accustomed to. (Please don't take this as an indictment of her present character, I never really talk to her anymore, but no one is who they are going to be at fourteen.)

Allow me to digress for a moment. As I wrote, "I never really talk to her anymore." I realized that this was my main strategy for girls that I perceive as rejecting me. I haven't spoken to Chelsea since I was maybe sixteen. I only recently reconnected with Susie, mostly because she is unrelentingly sweet and forgiving. And, more often than not, when I am irritated with claire, I flat out avoid her, as we have documented in the MB with my mall dodges as little as two months ago. I think I just like to pull a third eye blind and cut ties with all the lies.

Regardless, after high school retreat, I started chatting with chelsea via AIM. (the club for people without photo ids and frumpy sweatpants). I still remember her screen name (sn) but i shan't share it because God knows what kind of creepers read this blog, I wouldn't want them to travel back in time and harass her.

As almost any female can attest, when my visage and flop sweat are hidden and my mumbles concealed by pretty text, I manage to be moderately charming.

With this e-ace in the e-hole, i worked my magic on chelsea. She liked fashionable things, and by that i mean, things that are fashionable to other fourteen year olds. This consisted primarily of sweatshop manufactured clothing and gifs of cutsey phrases that could be plastered on a xanga. I showed her my sensitive side. Quoting lyrics from oasis, yearning for my own personal "wonderwall," totally getting john lennon's message of peace and understanding (massively marketable at that), and sharing her desire to be kissed in the rain. Coupled with my bad boy persona (my xanga picture was me holding my stratocaster); this onslaught of sensitivity overwhelmed her.

I was staying at a friend's house with my mother in Colorado Springs the first semester of my Freshman year. I was in Colorado because I was getting my braces off and my parents would rather drive ten hours than just have some orthodontist in lubbock do it.

I stole away to the computer and hopped on aim.

There is a certain piece of courtship that is very specific to our generation. You can have your drive-ins, your football games, communes, etc.; but for me, there was nothing as exhilarating and exciting as seeing the screen name of the girl you had a crush on lit up in black on your buddy list. As the program loaded you waited in anticipation, hoping beyond hope that she would be on, but never letting yourself get too excited, because she might not be, and then you were stuck just talking to sebastian.

But when she was, it was so wonderful.

This particular afternoon, Chelsea (who was "spazy" and possibly ninety-seven) happened to be on at the same time as me.

She was the only one on my buddy list that was online. It was fate, it was like we floated alone, tethered together in the vastness of the internet.

We chatted. I played it cool, describing my trip, asking about volleyball, standard friend stuff.

Then the conversation took a turn to the flirty. At first of the innocuous type, but it drifted into serious "do you like me" territory.

(i told claire this cute anecdote the other day, but i've been trying to work it into the magi b for a little bit, just never gotten around to it. Plus she never reads this. possibly because she has become a villainous character. i even call her voldemort)

We chased each other tails, like kids do (also dogs), neither of us ever actually confessing to being attracted to the other. So in the end, the ever pragmatic miss chelsea devised a scheme.

"ok," she typed, "how about, we do a countdown together, and if we like each other, at the end, we type '1' and if not we type '2'."

A bead of sweat ran down my side. I ran my dry tongue over the dry roof of my mouth. I thought.

I thought, "Do i really want to do this, do i really want to be rejected by the most popular girl in my grade, maybe it's better to just live in mystery."

I was tense and adrenal, this would not end well. There's no way a sexy hoe like chelsea would ever be interested in my goofy ass.

"Ok," i typed, "let's do it"

"3"
"2"
"1"
...

"1" "1"

I was relieve and surprised and encouraged. "I am going to have a girlfriend."

I didn't know then what I know now. That for all her faults, she was still a nice girl who didn't want to hurt my feelings. When I typed one, i threw my fragile young heart into that white window, she typed one to keep it from getting too terribly damaged.

These days, I don't type one anymore. I live in mystery. It's better that way. I can have all of the pretend girlfriends I want. We talk online, we text, we hang out every once in a while, and I never have to worry about that sting of rejection. The best part, I never have to get to know them. Sure, I know their favorite bands, and foods, and characters on the office; but i don't have to deal with their baggage. I don't have to know the things that make them hurt, those things don't have to make me hurt; and it's better that way, at least for now. I can still be the fourteen year old kid talking to chelsea on the internet, not the fourteen year old kid staring at the pretty girl with green eyes and a potter puppet pals patch on her backpack across the room.

I was elated. This girl, this girl, who, in my adolescent eyes, was perfect, liked me; me!

I was back in Lubbock soon, footloose and braces-free; and my courtship was redoubled.

At first all went well. Just because we liked each other, it didn't mean we were "going out," no, that was a whole nother level, and it required finesse to get her to agree to such a formal arrangement.

It was weird, the first face to face meeting after our prime conversation. Awkward smiles and glances, each of us remembering, but neither of us confessing.

We started talking for hours on the phone. Like her screen name, I can still remember her number, a number that I haven't dialed in almost five years.

Phone conversations were nice. I could crack little jokes, play on words, feel clever, while she let loose the occasional giggle. The night would wear on and as i got sleepier, i tried less, my chipper conversation devolving into a languid drawl, as she yawned every few words. But it made me feel happy to be so connected to another person. Even when she was having a sleep over, she would ignore her friends and talk to me.

She loved the rain. She wanted a boy who would call or text her whenever it was raining, just to remind her that he was thinking of her. Since I didn't get a cell phone until my sixteenth birthday, I would borrow my mom's and call her whenever it drizzled; just so she knew.

A common topic of conversation was the fact that she had never been kissed, and the circumstances she wanted to surround her first kiss. It had to be nighttime and in the rain.

I wanted to make this happen. (spoiler: i did not).

Around december, the vinyl started to crack. She started ignoring my calls, paying more attention to her friends. I would get irritated, complain about her to jade, but I still pursued, john eldridge style.

She claimed she was into me, but she was talking to another guy. A baseball player from lubbock christian. (A school I would end my pitching career against undefeated). This was shocking. I was shocked that she would abandon sweet sensitive me for a better looking douchier guy. It was my first taste of the future.

She said she appreciated me, she understood that most guys wouldn't keep it up after she made it clear that I was her second choice. She never pulled the "let's be friends card." She kept it honest, she told me she appreciated me, and to make it extra gay, compared me to some stupid jesse mcartney song about a guy who never gave up or similar bullshit. I was like a feeding tube for her ego, a constant source of nutritious compliments.

(I wonder what it would be like for chelsea to read this, I bet it would be interesting at least. I wonder if somewhere out on the internet there's a thousand word dissertation on me?)

She was on a ski trip with lindsey, I was in my grandfather's garage, listening to Hot Fuss on repeat, quoting "Change Your Mind," at her. I made my last push, laying it all down on the keyboard, explaining that she was the only girl for me, and nothing would make me happier, all the things that you say with absolute conviction one night but bring the blood flushing to your face in the years to come.

It wasn't the same after that.

I asked her to homecoming, but she would rather go alone.

I tried my best to look good. I wore my new american eagle jeans, and my american eagle vertical striped pink shirt (she loved pink shirts on guys), and put a little gel in my freshly cut hair.

We rode in a limo, a mix of the dated and the dateless, we ate the same restaurant, tried to enjoy each other's company, I tried to pretend, but it was far from a date, it was a lesson in self pity.

Maybe that's where it started, my lack of confidence bordering on contempt with myself, in the ladies department. Maybe it was all born that january evening in a Carinos. Three and a half years later, i would almost throw up in that carinos' parking lot, anticipating what was, at the time, the most devastating thing I could ever hear.

Fuck carinos, i never liked it and it's overpriced.

The next semester was all angst and desperation. I tried as best I could to reclaim Chelsea, but it was useless. I became annoying.

I was spared further embarrassment when she transfered the next year. (i wonder what would have happened if she had stayed? Would it have been the same story, but with a much less worthy girl? It almost makes me happy to think about, it's so weird)

In a way I am grateful for the experience. Sure it set a rather crippling precedent when dealing with the opposite sex, but it did make me realize that i didn't want the popular girl, she wasn't worth it, and sometimes she wasn't that nice. But, i do have to give her credit, she was never mean and i don't think she ever intentionally meant hurt me, if not for my own sense of pride, it would have been a nice clean break.

She also got me to stop dressing like daria, for which i am eternally grateful.

And i also killed two and half hours writing about her, i wish they had been at work rather than at night-nap time.

It's fun to remember readers.

Sometimes I Feel Fourteen (Like Tonight)

2009-05-15T22:57:00.000-07:00

Today was the last day of high school for the TCHS class of 2009.

A little less than twelve months ago, I was leaving too.

After the 3:30 bell rang, I circled the foyer and said goodbye to the lion. My friends and I, grouped together for the last time, trading stories, laughs, general geniality. Anticipating the cruise we were embarking on in two days, not really considering this to be our last hurrah; the sadness not creeping in.

Truth be told. I was never sad about leaving high school. I wasn't sad the last day, i wasn't sad at baccalaureate, and I was so preoccupied with other things that I barely remember graduation.

I remember getting my diploma, head shorn, nose making me look like the eagle from the muppets, smiles, handshakes, awkward hug, and sitting down, filing out sound by side, strictly regimented joyless hat throw, then changing into my scorpion shirt and cargos, blasting Work, heading to the reception, nauseos.

(i just burned my wrist on a foreman grill)

Looking at my table, receiving my gifts (entirely gracious), flashes (the camera kind, not the good kind), stupid conversations, driving to the party, half-hearted basketball, stale cookies, dominating at ping-pong, nausea, lying on the sidewalk, stars, clouds, and jimmy eat world, lindsey comforts, back inside, pineapples, yelling, chickening out, chickening in, an hour of emotion, driving, waiting, cuban cigars, vomit, home, bed.

I guess I miss it sometimes now. That mischevious camraderie is gone forever.

I had a good night tonight.

I went to Mcalister's and enjoyed a corned beef on rye with mustard. I went with my most complicated best friend. We chatted, we caught up, we enjoyed each other's company. I told stories, she pretended to be interested. It was pleasant, we arranged to meet again soon and often. I loved it.

One bit sticks at me. It's a common enough bit. Nothing important. I dismissed it. Now, at night, alone with my xbox and kevin spacey, it bothers me. It shouldn't, why am I not the sweetest? (My sweetness is not the bothersome bit).

I feel like fourteen year old me is still around.

Braces, long hair, black shirts and insecurites. Flirting over aim, making stupid videos, and staring at the pretty girl across the room; hoping we grow up together.

More than any of my peers, i think the pretty girl made me grow up.

It bothers me that I have not kissed a girl in six years.

It bothers me that I think about things too much.

It bothers me that I think about things that do not exist.

It bothers me that I try to wish things into existence.

Tonight I am pretending that I am the sweetest boy she's ever met. (But I'm Not)

It bothers me that I burned my wrist.

I'm just concerned that, despite what she says and I think, I'm not mature enough to not take it personally.

I think romantically, I am still very much fourteen.

I believe that leaving will help. Being away from all but two people I know. I will have to grow up.

(I just had a chat with miss lindsey)

Lindsey says this should be exciting. It terrifies me. I am bad at making friends. I am awkward and I don't speak well and I'm sweaty and fidgety.

(For the past few days I have been listening to the same forty-five seconds of Ben Gibbard playing Brand New Colony acoustically over and over)

Sebastian weighed in on my melancholy, "Why are girls so retarded with that shit? She obviously knows you've got feelings. Its like they do it to be mean."

I claim that I have matured beyond taking everything personally and he rebuts with, "Whatever. No one does."

He has a point.

I am an unfair man.

I expect too much of everyone but myself. (not true, i expect a lot from me, but i actually live up to my expectations of myself)

I blame books and movies.

We've been over this months ago.

I won't lie, I am developing a self satisfied smirk. It's a little comforting. Actually, in an odd way, hugely comforting that the Magic B, has kind of returned full cycle. Like a pathetic phoenix, he rises and falls.

I don't know. I am much more cheerful now, I have high hopes for tomorrow. Thank you for accompanying me on my lonely little late night trip down memory lane.

You are my favorites, readers; welcome to my livejournal.

I Have Nothing But Time (To Write In My Blog)

2009-05-15T01:14:00.000-07:00

I just got finished watching Fight Club for the first time in years.

While i've probably outgrown the pseudo-anarchistic themes that so captivated me when I was fourteen, I am kind of depressed that I will probably never in my life write anything as cool seeing the last thirty seconds of that film for the first time.

It also made me remember how freaking good Frank Black is. Isaac Brock could learn a thing or two about yelping from him.

One thing that I notice about myself when I watch movies or read books like that, ones where the main character thinks or acts in super unusual ways, is that for like thirty minutes after, i tend to emulate that sort of, i don't know how to explain it, like escapist way of thinking?

You know what I mean, where, while thinking you do it in choppy, almost disingenuous bursts, where you're almost thinking as a character, not as yourself?

The following films/books make me do it.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Catch-22
Fight Club
A Confederacy of Dunces
other things like that.

Catch-22 was the worst, after reading it, I would only be able to think in twenty word sentences for what was probably an unhealthy amount of time.

Regardless. Fight Club has gotten me a little ruffled, like a word slinging chicken. (Boggle player?).

It is because, I, as I always do, wikipediaed the film/novel as I watched and came across this little quotation by
Chuck Lastnamenotworththeefforttolearntopronounceexceptwhentryingto
soundcoolinfrontofgirlswhoarethemselvestryingtosoundcoolbynamedropping
amaleorientedauthorwhointentionallywritesbooksthataredisturbingandpromote
antisocietythemesbutmostlikelywasjustliketherestofusbutneededawaytoget
publishedbutmaybethat'snotgivinghimenoughcreditmaybehesincerely
believesinhisnovelsandpeoplethatreadthemreallydogainsomemodicumof
selfsatisfactionandidentificationwithhischaractersregardlessthenameisdifficult

The quotation is as follows, "all my books are about a lonely person looking for some way to connect with other people."

Good work, Chuck. You just wrote up my hopeful future career more eloquently and concisely than, more than likely, I ever could.

The point of this.

Being famous is hard.

I know that most of you don't have a wildly successful e-diary, but for those of you that do (arianna huffingtion, kanye west) you know exactly what i'm talking about.

Despite the fact that I am the most clever man to ever put flesh and nail to half-inch by half-inch plastic, there are other clever people that may draw the public's attention, thus reducing the amount of attention that I, quite frankly, deserve.

This is unsettling.

What if my dreams are realized, and I write a super-duper awesome book that is popular not just among elitists (dave eggers), nerds (cormac mccarthy), and retards (stephanie meyer), but also people who don't annoy me?

This will work toward some of my plans. Particularly the one where I marry my best looking female fan and build a modest fortune, but what then.

Above all, I deserve the adulation of my people. What if I can't repeat my success? I think I would feel very constricted, also lame.

This bothers me. Being famous takes a little work. Not if you're an actor or some other essentially talent-free fame siphoning star-monster, but someone legitimately famous. (Authors musicians, and filmmakers only; designers, poets, etc., don't count because no one outside of a specific (lame) circle cares what you do).

Stephen King says the key to authorial success is writing for two hours a day.

Listen, King, there's only one thing I do for two hours a day, and it's make fun of people and/or watch television.

This makes me concerned.

I don't know if I can deal with the expectations. What if I run out of ideas, what if no one gets what I'm saying, what if my hoes move on to the next hotshot young genius?

I worry about getting ulcers.

I don't know readers, life seems like too much hard work. But when I'm not working, I'm bored, much like mick jagger and crack cocaine addicts, I can't find any satisfaction.

Another thing that worries me, is about being able to emotionally connect with people. (Another thing that worries me is if that long name a few paragraphs up will jack up the formatting of this entry).

Like, I am concerned about sounding forced and cheesy. I can go back and read something I wrote months ago, that was written with absolute and total honesty, and I won't feel anything, except maybe pride at a particularly precocious piece of phrasing.

I am curious if maybe emotional impact is a learned skill?

Like comedy. You can say something, and you can appreciate that it's funny, but you would never laugh at it, but vocalize it anyway because you know that other people will appreciate it with their sweet comedy receptors.

Or maybe i'm just pissy because i legitimately feel like the quality of the Magic Blog has dropped off in recent months.

It's the same old shtick. Kyle is sad/irritated/humorously narcissistic/making attempts at non-sequiterial humor. It all feels a bit stale and stagnant and silly and stuck and soft and sad and lazy.

Why am I not an innovator readers? Why do I not tell clever little tales that make you squint your face and fall just a little bit in love with me? Or perhaps dark epics with post-apocalyptic themes that warn of the perils of consumerism or global warming or overfarming? Maybe even some personal stories where I grow and you learn a little bit about yourself?

It just bugs me. If I can't be funny, why can't I be earnest?

If I end this with a question will it seem self-absorbed and stupid?

Song Lyrics (THEY MEAN SO MUCH!)

2009-05-12T21:48:00.000-07:00

hello bloggersphere.

(I'll be the grapes fermented bottled and served with a table set in my finest suit like a perfect gentleman).

I decided to write tonight because I am a little bored and I took a rather extensive nap this afternoon and then drank a Red Bull to orient myself.

I think that I will forever enjoy that bubble-gummy tang of Red Bull, as I used to be known to chug a can at 6am before I went to work. This kept me sharp and focused when I was browsing the internet and looking disinterested.

I am done with my first year of college and now it's summertime.

When I was a younger man, full of both vim and varying amounts of vigor, I used to very much anticipate and romanticize this particular season.

I used to have a playlist devoted to songs about summer. It was pretty rad.

Selections include, "Summertime" by Mae, "Warmth of the Sand" by Dashboard Confessional, "Summer Skin" by Death Cab, &c.

Back before I realized I was lacking some attributes necessary to be a musician (sex appeal, talent) I wanted to name my first EP "Songs about Summer" (applying both to the season and Rachel Bilson, I was a big O.C. fan).

Now that I am a college student and blogger (futurely famous) summer is not so exciting. It's basically the same as the school year, except with more work and platonic fake-dates.

(Right now, I am listening to Ben Gibbard, courtesy of NPR: Live Concerts, I can see why Zooey would marry him, even though he looks vaguely like a giant baby) .

My brain is sleepy right now, I can't really focus on anything, facebook chat, ichat, and itunes are all distracting me from the Magic Blog. I like the color blue, it brings out my eyes.

So, as you all probably know from following me on twitter/reading it on perez hilton, I am moving to Austin in August to attend the University of Texas.

I will miss my friends but I'm sure there are all new adventures to be had five hundred miles away. (Perhaps Spike Jonze will make a movie about it?).

I don't have much to say about it yet. I haven't really hit the emotional impact stage of processing this change yet. It's all just facts and organizing, cars and bikes and beds.

Sometimes, I wonder why I wanted to leave, others I feel spectacularly certain.

I don't really feel sad. I've just kind of accepted it passively, in the back of my brain, I know that leaving the BFC will be tough, but that is how life operates.

I can only hope that by leaving, I will gain an exotic sexiness that I can then use to manipulate female friends from Lubbock into kissing me with tongue.

(Ben is covering Nirvana)

I don't know that I think as much as I did when I started KMB(NAM), I used to just kind of mull things over in my brain until I pulped them into e-ink that I could transfer to mr. blogger. Now I'm just running on instinct, taking things as they come robotically.

I kind of imagine that on days I work, it will be like this, it's the only way to endure eight hours of pretty boring desk managing, and maybe i'll be super intellectual on my days off. (We can only hope).

KMB has kind of deviated from its central purpose. Which was to be openly and sickeningly honest with the e-denizens of Lubbock and beyond (Colorado).

I don't know if it's better or not. But I suppose I will drop a little honesty on my e-friends.

This week I am going to see Voldemort for the first time in a long time. I am conflicted about this. Not in the Mean Girls, catty sense of betrayal way that used to accompany my encounters with her, but in ways that I can't phrase eloquently.

I am very excited and happy to see her, and I appreciate the turn our relationship has taken into what I feel is more genuine territory.

But I am worried. What if, (apologies to my beloved susie) I fuck it up?

I am worried that I will go all were-idiot, and fall into my old selfish ways, bring back the whole "If I can't date you I will be an insufferable prick" motif I had rocking for a while. I used to think it was interesting and dramatic, but have recently realized it wasn't very nice.

It's hard to explain how you appreciate people. Sometimes you just have to write about it on the internet and hope they read it and pick up the paragraphs between the lines that you don't know how to articulate. (e-ticulate?)

(Brand New Colony makes me want to be a better person, which used to be my justification for a lot of things, including, being a dick, ironic, in an alanis morissete kind of way).

But as for my arrangment with the dark lord. There's something that concerns me almost more than acting like an idiot (which is fairly inevitable).

And it's something that's been nagging at me. (I wanna be the fire escape that's bolted to the ancient brick where you can sit and contemplate your day).

What if I decide that it's not worth it.

It's no secret that I have devoted inordinate amounts of time and emotional energy to one person. And, what's bugging me is, I really don't want to exert that effort again.

What if, in the presence of this person that galvanized this adolescent fire in me, i realize that I don't want to try it again.

Who is done with love at twenty?

At the same time, as I'm rediscovering my teenage years with the advance of summer (rejuveniling) I'm kind of feeling that cheesy, self sacrificial itch that songwriters can sing about but sounds retarded coming from anyone else.

I kind of want to be that guy again. I need to find some girl to force my self-sacrificial nature on.

I want to be the platform shoes that undo what heredity has done to you so you won't have to strain to look into my eyes (not necessary, i'm average height).

I blame the music, stop making heartache so appealing.

(I'll be the water wings that save you if you start drowning in an open tap when your judgment's on the brink)

I've been listening to the same forty-five seconds of the same postal service song for the past hour.

I like it, if nothing else, it's familiar, and not so roboty.

Best Band Ever? (Probably!)

2009-04-28T05:20:00.000-07:00

Is this the single greatest band to ever exist?

Probably.

For those of you who are unable to identify Steve Perry's disconcertingly feminine features, the band in question is Journey.

There are literally several reasons (at least seven) why Journey is the pinnacle of modern musical expression, and I'm not going to bury the lead.

Reason Number One Journey is Awesome
Don't Stop Believing

There is not a person on this earth that does not appreciate this heartwrenching song, describing that unique blend of loneliness, romance, and trains that has held sway in America's heart since the dawn of the steam engine.

Whenever you ask someone what their favorite Journey song is, you're really asking them what their second favorite Journey song is, because Don't Stop Believing is their real favorite.

I don't want to say that this song is better than Thriller in its entirety, but I won't not say that either.

This song is so incredible, people that quote Family Guy love it, and people that quote Family Guy are retarded!

Part of the appeal of Don't Stop Believing is the song's versatility, it can be played anywhere, weddings, funerals, Bar Mitzvahs, Bat Mitzvahs, federal hearings, graduations, birthday parties, cinco de mayo celebrations, births, engagements, divorces, graduations, may day, earth day, president's day, mlk jr. day, inaugurations, galas, premieres, juntas, sporting events, scrabble events, sleep overs, slumber parties, the Olympics, assassinations, church, Halloween, Christmas, Easter, and New Years.

My senior year of high school, Don't Stop Believing was my musical intro whenever I stepped on the mound to bring the heat (82 on a good day).

Don't Stop Believing is potentially more accurate and reliable than a Voight-Kampff test, because to hear it and not smile would mean you were nothing but a replicant or Rutger Haur.

Reason Number Two Journey Is Awesome
Diversity.

Think about your favorite Journey song, does it feature pounding bass, brain exploding synth, and blistering guitar? Of course it does, but you know what else it has?

The depth and breadth of all human emotion.

Take my favorite song, Separate Ways, as it begins you hear a sweet synthesizer jam over a mighty kick drum, you're thinking, this song rocks, it's going to be about Journey kicking ass, but then, you step back as Steve, in a howl of pure emotional exhaustion screams his heart out of his chest, "Here we stand! Both of our hearts broken in two! two! two!"

Even Steve feels the pain of ruined relationships.

Consider also, Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin', a simple folk ballad about making lemonade and getting to second base. That's right, not only is Journey tender, but the know how to party.

Then there is Wheel In The Sky, adapted from Perry's senior thesis on the Roman deity Lupercalia, to remind you that he's more than just a pretty face.

Lastly, of course, is Faithfully, the touching tribute to Steve's dog.

Reason Number Three Journey is Awesome

Musicianship

Little known fact, everyone in Journey but Steve is/was a nerd.

The first few albums they released were boring prog-rock pieces that no one wanted to hear, if Steve had remained undiscovered, they would have fallen into a lifetime of mediocrity and become America's Rush. But luckily, for all of us, Steve washed onto the shore of the San Francisco bay from whatever moonplanet he was born on and graced us with one of the greatest frontmen ever.

Which of these is best? Journey Greatest Hits? or Journey Greatest Hits Live?

TRICK QUESTION!!! IT WOULD LITERALLY EXPLODE YOUR BRAIN TO CHOOSE!

Little known fact, the CIA tried to make Castro choose between the two in a botched assassination attempt in 1953...30 YEARS BEFORE THE TRACKS WERE RECORDED!!!
(To avoid explosion, Castro lied and said he preferred Styx)

Reason Number Four Journey is Awesome.

I AM WRITING ABOUT THEM!!!

Words Go Here (Snarky Words Go Here)

2009-04-26T22:01:00.000-07:00

The following is an actual transcript from a conversation I had on Friday.

Me: Cutie reading a book i like beside me, should i talk to her?

Friend of Me: Comment on the book! You have a perfect in!

FoM: Yes!

Me: What if i misjudged? What if she's only attractive at a glance? What if it's required reading?

Me: Also, I smell like pizza.

(Eighteen minutes pass)

Me: I blew it.

An exposition.

After enjoying my traditional Friday 11am One Guy pizza (I don't like the numbers in that sentence or how they look), I walked to Holden Hall to endure my equally traditional boring fifty minutes of history discussion. The discussion in question occuring primarily between the TA and the weird kid with a mustache.

But today was different. Today, after loitering around looking for rollerblade girl (aka rollerskate girl, aka rollerskate skinny) (She is called this because she wears rollerblades, inside), I leaned nonchalantly against the doorframe of my room and was surprised to see a girl that had, until this point, never shared this particular 20 by 20 space with me at 12pm on a Friday morning.

She appeared to be cute enough, and the most striking thing was that, not only was she cute, but she was reading a book. Now, you must understand that this particular discussion of 25 people may have a composite IQ of 800, they don't take kindly to booklearning. Also, there is only one decently attractive girl, and she looks like she's seen more dick than a New England phonebook.

This new apparition was reading a book that I particularly enjoy, Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. Not only does this book appeal to the imaginary expatriate side of me, but it also appeals to the pretentious side of me, because it's written by a well known author, but not one of his more well known works. So, being the sly devil that I am, I sat down beside her to make a quip about how I enjoy the book and then con her into falling in love with me.

Except, as I sat down, I panicked and sent the previously transcribed mayday text message. So, rather than make simple small talk, I just listened to my iPod and stared at the chalkboard.

This would have been alright, had she not been, literally, the only person sitting in this particular row of fifteen desks. She was sitting at the end of the row. When, I made my tactical approach, I sat in the open seat directly beside her. We sat beside each other and endured a classful of silence. We were the only two people in the row for the duration of the period.

I later gleaned, from her conversations with the TA, that I had never seen her before because she is in a different discussion and had attended this one for scheduling reasons.

The poor girl (who could have potentially been my future wife) had to endure an hour beside a guy who smelled like pizza, said nothing, and was apparently OCD because he kept peeking over and reading the title of the novel she was reading.

Yesterday, I went to a wedding.

I like weddings. They combine two of my favorite things. (Wearing a suit and the potential opportunity to do the chicken dance).

This particular wedding was a celebration of the love between a friend of mine who is several years older and her fiance, whom I had never met, but he appeared to be perfectly nice.

This was an outdoor wedding, I watched my friend laugh off crazy bursts of wind that drowned out the pastor and tossed various matrimonial accoutrements across the sunny plains, and how she cried as she read a sweet little poem from a rectangle of paper, and how, in what I thought was the sweetest part of the ceremony, as she read words of love off the same rectangular batch of paper, her fiance helped her secure a page that was flapping in the wind by gently guiding it into her hand; I was struck by something.

I am terrified of relationships.

Toward the end of the ceremony, the pastor started talking about the symbolic nature of the wedding ring and I noticed that every married man in the audience was looking at their left hand, gently massaging the ring on their first finger from the pinky.

Then I realized that I was doing the same, twisting an imaginary piece of metal round and round and pondering my future.

Then there was the weird bit in every religious wedding where the holy man makes the required statement about his power being vested by the state of Texas, and the bride and groom kiss and everyone claps and the parents dry their eyes and the ushers do their escorting and people filter into a large hall to exchange small talk and eat sandwiches and my terror spasm receded.

The reception was nice. I had tried to put my best politician's swoop into my part and wear a suit that was conservative but with a little punch of color, and I looked remarkably like the junior senator from Illinois or someone of similar stature. I ate a sandwich and said a few hellos and felt remarkably happy. It's difficult to feel sad at a wedding, unless you're in love with one of the people being married and you're bitterly attending just to be a good sport, but even then, you can take comfort in knowing that you have a good plot outline for a Hugh Grant-type picture lined up.

I drove home eventually and changed. Then I went to a friends house to celebrate his birthday. We ate homeade tacos, played nazi zombies, and discussed TULIP; and the whole time I felt wonderful.

Then I came home and watched a little Arrested Development and then laid down to sleep.

I was still basking in the post-wedding glow of the prospect of relational bliss and felt like I would soon be adrift in the land of dreams (which have been weird and sad lately) but it was not the case. Lurking beneath the comforting emotions I had been cushioned in all day were shards of crippling inadequacy rolling about in my stomach.

I reflected (and continue to be reflecting) on how happy my friend was to be married and how happy and laid back she was about the whole affair.

And it all just seems like too much work.

I don't want to find a girl, and put the work into pursuing her, and enduring the ups and downs. And what if she's high maintenance, or she doesn't get me, or i always secretly think she's not as into me as I am to her, or she is secretly not as into me as i am to her, or i can't provide for her like she wants or deserves, or i am too distant or too clingy, or we stop relating after a year and collapse out of love.

I don't want to have to find a house to live in or raise kids. I don't want responsibility, I don't think I can handle it.

I didn't apply for a job at the school paper because the application was too much work (three 600 word pieces and a letter of reccomendation), and this is what I want to do with my life. That's how little work I put into things.

I don't know. I don't get happy thinking about being married in the future, I just feel overwhelmed, and my life isn't even that stressful.

At least I have friends, it makes me a little less anxious, at least I'm comfortable where I'm at now.

I wish i had reassurance.

Me Typing With No Real Aim (I'm Tired of Only Two Entries Per Month)

2009-03-29T20:07:00.000-07:00

Hello blogosphere. (Or as I like to say, Blagojesphere). (Sound it out).

Tonight, I don't really have anything to write about. I will say, in an unfortunate turn of events, the wish I made in my last blog has been granted. Chopdick has broken the surly bonds of the backyard and touched the face of the streets and back alleys of Lubbock.

She will be missed, but not very much.

Readers, I think tonight I shall share with you some childhood dreams. Those dear sweet ambitions that one nurses when they are young, only to have them slaughtered when facing the cruelties of earning potential.

I remember when I first began to learn to read. I was about four years old. We lived in a two story house in Mississippi and I was upstairs playing with my dinosaur toys, when my dad came into the room with a very large hardcover book. He proceeded to sit me down, open to the first page and explain to me that it was time for me to learn to read. He pointed to the first word in the dictionary, "a," and it pretty much took off from there.

Essentially the only knowledge that my nascent brain enjoyed processing related to dinosaurs. For the first six years of my life my world revolved around Triceratops, Velociraptors, Plesiosaurs, and their ilk. So the vast majority of my early reading material featured large print and pictures of large reptiles.

This childhood fascination led to what I believe to be my first ever career aspiration, paleontologist. Yes, as a five year old child, my life's goal was to dig up old rocks in the hot sun.

My mom's parents are Canadian immigrants who came to Houston after World War II to find jobs. One of the things that my grandfather did when he came here was to put together a brontosaurus for Houston's Museum of Natural History. When I was young, this was the coolest thing ever.

(Update: 3/28/09, Chopdick has been returned to the backyard, she is serving time leashed to a column)

My next career aspiration came in the days after we left Mississippi. (I was there ages 3-5). Our family loaded up the trusty Astro Van and moved into Lubbock.

Here I got my first taste of America's pastime. Despite the skill I previously displayed in soccer (freedom hater's pastime) my dad felt that baseball was a more natural fit.

I joined a little kids t-ball team and with dreams of following in my father's footsteps, played shortstop my first game. Despite my impeccable form, i was struck in the nose my first game and had laces for a week. This also presents an interesting chicken -> egg -> chicken situation. Did being bludgeoned by the ball cause my current giant nose, or did my current giant nose cause me to be bludgeoned by the ball. These are questions that will only be answered when someone invents a time machine.

This led to aspirations of being a professional baseball player for the next nine years. After a few stints at first base and in the outfield, my dad, realizing that i lacked any natural athletic ability, decided that my best bet to succeed would be on the mound. Pitching was all about technique, outsmarting the batter, and undeserved cockyness, all of which i would soon master.

(this blog is at an interesting impasse, it's not very funny nor is it very intelligent, poignant, or magic like most of the others, it's kind of dull and uninteresting, but I have to satisfy the lust you people have for my way with words)

I had a tumultuous relationship with baseball practice. Sometimes I loved nothing more than practicing with my dad, other times, i would hide under the bed in the guest room so that I could avoid throwing.

In the end, I'm super grateful for that and I have that sort of Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams nostalgia for those times. (Without the overweight black sportswriter observing our practice)

As I got older and the kids with actual athletic talent caught up with my solid fundamentals. (I was like women's basketball player) my dream of playing in the MLB died, the last time I really harbored those aspirations was in the fifth grade when, for an assignment, I made a future business card that read, "Kyle Gregory, RHP, Atlanta Braves." Back in the halcyon days of Bobby Cox' pitching arsenal, all I wanted to do was break into that rotation and spent lots of time at the library reading about Maddux, and Smoltz, and Glavine.

My childhood hero (note the small arms and overwhelming whiteness)

I don't know what I wanted to do in the future during the sixth and seventh grades. I think I was pretty much just obsessed with getting my first girlfriend and wearing adidas sneakers with blue stripes. I succeeded in one of these endeavors.

Eighth grade brought on two separate (not mutually exclusive) future destinies. This is when i started to really bond with my buddy, Sebastian. (Mostly because he wanted to date me). Together we were the best pair of cutups since Lucy and Ethel. Sebastian, a diva, took center stage, making a general ass of himself; while I sat quietly in the background jumping in occasionally with a hilarious quip.

This was the time when all kids discover their love of comedy, generally constrained to the masterworks of Mssrs. Sandler and Mike Myers (both still brilliant), and I was no exception.

I spent most nights at home watching roughly 12 episodes of Who's Line is it Anyway or The Simpsons. Fridays were reserved for Friday Night Stand Up on comedy central, and Saturdays brought the crown jewel, Saturday Night Live (with a magnificent cast featuring such comedic luminaries as Maya Rudolph and Dean Edwards). But I was young and didn't realize that the show had once been the pinnacle of American ensemble comedy, so each episode was a revelation to me, and when Will Ferrell left it was the lowest point of my year.

I started reading everything I could about the show, and while names like Bill Murray, and Dan Akroyd, and Gilda Radner never really meant anything to me, I was still caught up in the mythos.

For about a year, all I wanted to do was be a writer for SNL. I had it all planned out, I'd move to LA, or Chicago, or NYC, and join The Groundlings, Second City, or UCB, Lorne Michaels would see my comedic brilliance, offer me a job, and fame, fortune, and women, would be mine. (If there's one thing women like, it's sweaty comedy nerds with bad skin)

Second childhood hero (THAT'S CRAZY!)

Simultaneously with my comedy ambitions, I decided that I would one day be a rock star. I had mastered the first 30 seconds of Stairway to Heaven and was prepared to rock the world. I think we have covered my eighth grade musical experience, so y'all just use your imaginations.

My previously documented affection for music led me to halfway pursue this dream almost all through high school. Not by practicing or writing songs, but by plinking around and recording bad covers of Sufjan Stevens songs. (I still do this).

Then, along came college, and my dreams of being a journalist. I think i'd be good at it, i'm naturally cynical and the average journalist can't write their way out of a wet paper. So I have that on my plate at the moment.

But recently, I have rediscovered my desire to be a comedy writer. I think I would be good at this as well. (I'm snarky!) It seems like it would be a fun profession, admittedly a difficult field to get into, but let's be real, at the rate newspapers are dying I probably won't have a job out of school anyway. Also, if the 4,500 commercials i've seen for Krod Mandoon: Flaming Sword of Fire on comedy central (Penis Jokes! We're mocking a genre that is no longer popular!) has taught me, the field needs some fresh blood.

I love you readers.

Can't Sleep (Like Neil Diamond)

2009-03-22T23:52:00.000-07:00

Salutations internet.

I am writing you this e-love letter because i cannot sleep.

I am sitting here, beneath my Texas Tech blanket and vaguely mexican comforter on a bare mattress pad idling away the witching hours listening to sufjan.

Today started off obnoxiously.

I was awoken at 8:15 to the sound of Chopdick's incessant barking. I ignored her, assuming that David or Nick would deal with that god-forsaken beast.

Unfortunately, that was not the case, and around 8:20, I was re-awoken by the sound of the doorbell.

I groggily dressed myself in a tshirt and shorts and ambled over to the door.

I was greeted by an elderly gentleman in jogging shorts holding Chopdick.

He explained that she was out in the street and he was concerned for her safety, he didn't want her to be hit by a car.

I feigned graciousness, but at the time half wished she had run away for good.

I crawled back into bed and decided to forgo morning church.

I was re-awoken by the doorbell going off again. This time it was 12:30 and David and his underaged mistress were answering the door as a different neighbor held a spritely Chopdick.

Apparently, the dog has discovered how to unlatch the back gate, this must prove some intelligence, but i haven't seen any evidence of it.

I eventually got up for real at 2:30 and our shower was broken.

I have been unusually anxious lately.

I think it mostly has to do with the fact that I'm supposed to find out if UT accepted me as a transfer by April 1st.

I don't know why, i'm perfectly happy here. Not nearly the angsty young man who threatened cyberspace with filling out a transfer application a few months ago.

I like where I am and I like my friends.

I think the best way to describe it is comfortable.

Not in the sense that it's comfortable because it's familiar, but comfortable in the sense that i know exactly who i am and it doesn't bother me, at least some of the time.

Last night, when debating whether to wake up for church or just go in the afternoon, I decided that i could probably take a nap at joel's.

And this is an oddly comforting thing, the ability to be so content around a group of people that you love and that love you, that you have no qualms about zoning out for an hour or two. It's a very simple thing, but also very nice, like a quilt or gravy.

(A side note: Seven Swans is probably the best album about Jesus ever written; it has been with me through many emotional times over my estrogen laden past year and it is proving a pleasant, brass and xylophone accompanied, companion at the moment)

Regardless, I worry about getting accepted to UT, and i think, if for no other reason, than a feeling of invalidation.

Sure I didn't work super hard in high school, but i did quite well on the SAT and finished 11th in my class. It seems overwhelmingly unfair that I was denied due to some unnecessary top 10% rule.

Some of this anxiety may also stem from my recent trip to Abilene to see a film that my friend Jordan had made.

The short was showing at a filmfest his university was putting on. It was a neat affair and I was especially impressed by one of the musicians playing.

This event was also interesting in that I encountered the woman who tossed my heart over the side of a cruise ship. The lovely Miss Claire was there and performing. We had found our seats and got up to grab a drink, and in david's case, snackles. And when we returned were greeted by a high-pitched and excited, "KYLE!? DAVID!?" hugs, and various and sundry pleasantries that always accompany a surprise meeting.

As I awkwardly escaped from my hug, Clare quipped, "I thought I imagined you." And, despite the fact that it was idiocy, i still managed to smugly muse, "Because you miss me," to Mr. Brain.

Little did Claire know, that not once, but twice, I had spotted her from afar in the venerable South Plain's Mall and scurried away quickly before I was seen. This is due partly to avoid an awkward meeting and mostly because I am a coward.

But the encounter was for the best, it made me realize that I had no real reason for being a ridiculous prick and avoiding her, so that tied up a bit of a loose end. I imagine that if I never spoke to her again it would be like the baby the Ryan is clearly having at the beginning of season 2 of the OC, but they never address after he leaves Chino for the second time, and error so stupid and glaring that Claire would have to turn into a lesbian to get KMB ratings up.

The one thing that is glaring about Abilene, and ACU in particular, is that there are many many attractive ladies. And I know, I go to a school full of women renown for both their hotness and their looseness. But the ACU girls had a certain appeal, namely, that they were all a little bit emo. They seemed like the type that would nurse a blogger whose heart had been wounded by his own stupid pride back to a relationship ready adult. (They would do this with lots of making out). I am fairly certain that one cutie with short black hair was giving me the eye after the show, I shot her that infamous Gregory grin. She probably melted.

I have been known to knock ACU for the fact that it appears to be mostly a glorified church camp, but I think it's possible i could have been perfectly happy there.

Back to my anxiety.

It was as I was laying in bed, almost identically to how i am now, unsuccessfully trying to enter dreamland and ruminating on short-dark-haired girl, that I realized that I had not been in a relationship in going on five years.

This struck me as abnormal. I have friends who have had equal dry spells, but they weren't really looking for anyone. I'm sure my rather devoted pursuit of a similarly devoted girl contributed, but still seems odd that I can't find a single girl interested in anything beyond basking in my wit.

It made me wonder if I would ever get married, a fear that i think has been expressed on KMB, but it remains with me. People aren't getting married til around twenty-seven these days, so if I go by the average i've still got a good nine years to hunt. Regardless, I find this worrisome. My plan is to go to Austin and charm all the shyly cute scene girls, but I can't do that here so there's no reason to believe a change of scenery will turn me into some sort of Don Juan.

Despite these obstacles, I do feel that things will work out for the best, which probably means I have a pretty great life.

People I Meet (Round 3)

2009-03-04T20:49:00.000-08:00

Hello again, e-people. (eeple). As you may have noticed, there was a rather extended hiatus from the Magic Blog. This was not intentional, but i have just been particularly busy these past few weeks. All i've had time to do was gloat about my foresight into the lives of athletes. I believe my last meaningful entry was on New Years, a rough day for me, but life goes on, and like Rudyard Kipling, I can force my heart and nerve and sinew to serve me long after they are broken, singed, and requiring tommy john surgery.

This new semester is (like all new things) different than the last. Classes are harder, i wake up earlier, and i associate with different sorts.

Last semester i hung out with my high school friends and my friends that used to work at Trinity.

This semester i hang out with other high school friends and my friends that used to work at Trinity.

I feel like i've matured a little bit, but not a cool way. I feel like i've lost some of that charming lack of awareness that comes with being a little foolish.

I was discussing this the other night and I realized that i don't really perceive things as "beautiful" anymore, I used to call everything beautiful. Sunsets were beautiful, people holding hands was beautiful, everything God put here had this inherent beauty that i went out of my way to find. Homeless people holding signs were beautiful, I taught myself this summer that sad things had a beauty to them to and it seemed so deep and real, and now I don't really experience that emotion with things happy or sad.

I hope that I can find it again.

I thought i got the shaft with my work schedule this semester. I work M-F and wake up at 9,6,9,6,7 throughout the week. At first I hated it, then i liked it, now i tolerate it. I can get homework done before class and have my nights free, but i still have to go to bed moderately early so i'm not dead during the day.

Mondays I have two classes.

The first is Mass Comm 3300 with Dr. Saathoff.

This class is nice because attendance is not required and the professor is remarkably personable and laid back. It's not terribly in depth so i can half pay attention.

There are too many people in the class to really pick out any characters.

The only one that comes close is Adidas girl, a girl i caught a glimpse of across the way and thought was pretty attractive. She was wearing a vintage adidas shirt, i was wearing a retro Astros shirt, so i thought it was meant to be. She was the total opposite side of the lecture hall from me so i slowly halved the distance each class. I was finally two chairs from her and saw that not only was she less cute than i thought, but she also had a longboard.

I sit back on the other side of the room now.

My next class is Poli Sci.

This class is actually semi-interesting, but i'm usually distractedly browsing my laptop and not paying a ton of attention.

The real star of the class is my professor, Mr. Mayer. He is 5'5" and overwhelmingly Jewish.

He dresses in a remarkable combination of corduroy and demin (like david sedaris) every day. He looks like he's about to uncover a velociraptor voice box and use it to save his stranded family.

This has earned him the moniker, "Indiana Jew." Mildly offensive, I know, but accurate and hilarious.

He often addresses controversial events in the realm of politics in unintentionally hilarious ways.

My personal favorite, when describing the gays in San Francisco, was, "I was wandering around town with my daughter, and I see these men, and they are walking the streets wearing leather chaps and nothing else!"

Imagine Woody Allen telling you that story wearing a hat and carrying a leather whip and you get the basic picture.

This class also has no real characters, i sit beside a friend from church and behind Brandon Carter, who while large and scary looking, doesn't really do anything out of the ordinary.

Tuesdays and Thursdays I have journalism.

My professor is intelligent and likable enough, but also kind of a penis.

Judging from him, my textbook, and my classmates, all journalists are paranoid, overly-suspicious idealots. (I just made up a word, i combined idealist and zealot, i am like shakespeare).

While the textbook preaches objectivity and fairness, the idea of the "watchdog press" seems to take precedence over intelligent analysis of events.

There is a stereotypical ideal that the government and business are always corrupt and the little guy is always right.

My professor especially seems to view any corporation other than a small-town paper or local business as inherently suspect.

He has one exception to this rule, and ironically enough, it's one of the most corrupt and loathsome enterprises in the US.

This man, who holds truth and objectivity to be the paragons of an enlightened society spent 45 minutes of class defending the music industry.

For our first assignment he asked us if we thought pirating music was wrong and if we do it.

The next day he got up on a soapbox about music copyright, and proceeded to call out the people that admitted to downloading music illegally, which he claimed was 80% of the class.

Then he called out me (not by name), because I had the cajones to say in my written response in the blue book that it was right to pirate music. The irony of this situation is that the vast majority of my music is paid for.

He refused to accept that perhaps there was a reason that people refused to pay for shit music and that the industry may deserve what is happening.

This was about 3 weeks into class, and since then it's proceeded deeper and deeper into tinfoil hat territory; the suspicion of enterprise just exceeds rationality it's like the classroom exists outside of the real world.

Anyway.

This class is small and fueled by discussion, as such more people catch my eye/annoy me.

I sit in the second of four rows on the left side of the room, I will describe companions in relation to where their voices come into my ears.

At the leftmost top corner is Mild Manner Black Guy, he made a good point early in the semester so now the professor calls on him all the time, unfortunately, his quality has slipped considerably.

Closer to me, but still in that general area is Dapper Dan.

This guy has an opinion on everything, yet manages to say nothing of any substance, he just lets out a thick drawl of platitudes or reconstructions of whatever the professor said, with the occassional awkward joke.

Directly behind me rests the bane of my learning experience.

If you are familiar with me outside of the intertrons you have probably heard me rail against the female opinion writer of Texas Tech's paper, the venerable Daily Toreador.

She's uninformed, unable to think critically, and thinks the Huffington Post is a legitimate news source. She is the definition of the idiotic "liberal because it's fashionable" college student.

Her opinions will literally send me into a fit of rage, not because of what they are, but because of how they are presented. I have never seen any person celebrate ignorance quite like her. I'm no apologist for the GOP, but the way she goes off about conservatives makes me want to jump off a roof, or more accurately, push her off a roof (just for a scare, no actual injury). We get it, GW sucked you don't need to browbeat us with your idiotic opinions you regurgitate from the Al Franken podcast.

Her article on the Israel/Palestine conflict was so misinformed and failed to remotely capture the complexities of the situation or take into account 4000 years of history in the region, it made me want to cut myself.

Anyway, i have the distinct pleasure of sitting directly in front of her in class, and for 10 minutes before the professor shows up i have to listen to her yammer to the girl beside her, who is identically stupid.

It's not that she's opinionated, that's fine, it's that she takes each and every opportunity to stand on her soapbox, and that soapbox must surly contain johnson and johnson no tears, because God knows she's too retarded keep it out of her eyes.

Really, do you think the rest of the class cares as you speak, conveniently loud enough, about your view on abortion, religion, or politics. We don't, no one does. Even if you were remotely informed no one would, you're just creating awkwardness and tension, all the while patting yourself on the back like you're some sort of cultural luminary.

And it doesn't end when class starts, oh no.

A clip of GW speaking comes onscreen, "I'm sooooooo glad he's not our president."

When discussing the Michael Phelps situation (called it), a girl remarks that she doesn't think Lindsay Lohan is good influence because she parties all the time, and does drugs, and is a lesbian. "What is wrong with being a lesbian?"

How does she miss the context of the statement? It has nothing to do with being a lesbian, it was about a pattern of self-destructive behavior. It's not just her, it's the entire class and the professor encourages it, no one looks at context, they just focus on idiotic buzzwords.

I used to think i lacked the moral fiber to succeed in that class, now i realize that i'm just smart enough to see the shades of grey.

Beside her sits Coolio. I have no idea what race this man is, he could be white, black, or latino. All i know is that he has dreadlocks, it's quite possible some terribly misfortunate farmer plucked him out the ground by his dreads, like a radish. He never has the correct answer and always offers some stupid off topic remark when called on; I don't appreciate him being behind me. I also recently learned that he is a club promoter, which only adds to my distaste.

Continuing with our tour of idiocy.

On the same row that i sit on and to the right of me is Carmine the Bowler. I call her this because she looks like Janeane Garofalo, and acts like her character in Mystery Men with a little bit of Kim Kelly from Freaks and Geeks sprinkled in.

She is offended by literally everything. Anytime she opens her mouth in class it's like a maelstrom of haughtiness is unleashed, and to my knowledge, no one has ever said anything unkind or critical to her, the professor could ask her the date and she would flip out.

Personally, she is not without a sassy charm, but in discussion she just adds to the overwhelming awkwardness of class discussion.

At the end of my row are the only two people that I like.

One is a thoughtful looking guy with glasses who looks like he would bust a nut if a new Flaming Lips album came out, but, defying stereotypes, he knows a lot about sports.

More importantly, he always answers correctly, sparing all of us from an assault by the peanut gallery.

Beside him sits the other person I like, a cute girl who also likes sports. She also always gets the answer right. I was cursed by not having a last name in the C-D range so i don't get to sit on that side of the room.

My next class makes me sleep tears of boredom. It is US History up til the Civil War, focusing on the period between the Revolution up until Ft. Sumpter, aka, the boringer part.

The professor is ex-military and therefor very specific in the way he does things. Attendance is required and the tests are all essay form. This would be fine if it wasn't a Freshman required class that is equivalent to high school history. The only semi-cool bit is that we get to use clickers to take surveys and such.

I am too unconscious to take heed of anyone in this class. I sit beside Christian and J-Hoff.

The week just rotates around that, except for Friday, where i also have a history discussion.

My TA is cool, but not as cool as the one last semester that just told us to leave after he called roll.

That's basically the extent of my day. I will try to write more. Also, be on the lookout for Leafy!, the newest sensation in music blogging.

Who Knew It? (It Was Me, I Was the One that Knew It)

2009-02-03T14:32:00.000-08:00

Michael Phelps is bad for America. (That sentence is a link)

I tried to warn you about this threat months ago. (So is that one)

Year Nine (A Prompted Reflection Part 1)

2009-01-20T21:13:00.000-08:00

Hello beloved and tolerated readers. How have you been? I have been well. I started classes two weeks ago and it is, as always, a blasty-blast. I may fill you in on all that business at a later date, but generally when I claim the MB is going to do something in the future, that doesn't happen.

But today is an exception, today I tame the reigns of this runaway stallion of sad to follow a semi-linear semi-coherent semi-interesting story. An epic if you will, like the Illiad or Forrest Gump.

Here, on this venerable sheet of e-paper, I will document my Ninth Grade, Freshman Year at Trinity, memories. (very special ones).

As those of you who read this blog regularly (or as I call you, the multitudes) will recall. Earlier in the year after my overly long musical extravaganza; a young lady by the name of Meagan challenged me to write more about my experiences at Trinity, to satisfy some journey of self discovery that my magnificent works have clearly inspired. I decided to do this because I don't have anything else to do and because I am a gentleman. Like a young Ms. Fyock, she has given me an assignment.

Here is my essay prompt, much like the SAT, I will attempt to fulfill it to the best of my ability.

Meagan wrote, "Dude, reading your blog just now made me realize that I can't remember anything about Trinity. Who did I sit with at the lunch table? Who did I hang out with on a regular basis? Were we friends? If so, how did I not know about this long time obsession with that girl? I'm not kidding. I have some pretty vivid memories of being a cheerleader, and I remember driving out to Susie's house occasionally on Friday nights to watch Degrassi, but that's it. It's kind've making me sad. You should write more about people I know and times I know. Maybe things will start to come back to me."

The last two lines are the most important because they mention me, and not in a disparaging way with the word, "obsession." (I prefer healthy interest).

Since Meagan left my life (except in that entirely peripheral e-lationship sense) after or during my Sophomore year, she will be bored if I decide to continue this through all of high school. (Not really, I am supremely interesting).

Also, in the interest of interest I will attempt to mention regular readers of my e-thoughts and e-dreams and the impact they had on my young life.

Take yourself back to the Fall of '05 in Lubbock, Texas. I am 14 years old and full of myself. I have a record player, a vinyl copy of Yellow Brick Road (aspirations for more albums by straight men), and every Led Zeppelin shirt that Hot Topic can supply. Throw in some braces, long, unkempt, helmet-esque hair, and otherworldly pale skin, and you have 14 year old Kyle.

I've covered this before, but I wanted to go to Frenship (aka Doucheland) but my parents wanted me to have a more nurturing environment where I would have no chance of getting top 10% and thus I landed in Trinity.

Prior to class, I had to go and get a tour and take some tests with Mrs. Hill. The tour was underwhelming (the school is in an old Kmart) and Mrs. Wolcott was unimpressed by my Alegbra skills, but Ms. Fyock enjoyed my essay on a current event. (I think it was abortion). So i made it into Pre-Ap English.

The first day arrived. And I, dressed in an Old Navy polo and some ill-fitting khakis (the homeschool tuxedo) sat down in Bible.

I was perplexed, because everyone seemed much older than me, and I feared I was in the wrong class. (I didn't know at the time that Bible was desegregated). But Mr. Haladay (who is a wonderful person) called my name during the roll and my fears were assuaged. As he read the names off of the sheet I listened for anyone I might know from my previous years in Lubbock.

He called David, (it was David Gartz), and I searched expectantly, trying to find David Hutchens, and I remember thinking, "He's let himself go." Turns out it was not David Hutchens and I was too young to appreciate Mr. Haladay's insight.

Onward to math.

Math was packed with people that I would one day love and/or hate and/or make me miserable for a large portion of my life.

I sat at the very back behind a short character with elfish features. He introduced himself as Shye and we chatted for a bit.

David walked in, and this is not an understatement, the first semester of ninth grade, David was an ass.

I think he fancied himself some sort of Jack Black character (school of rock had just come out) and put on this obnoxiously energetic facade (which was later described as his "joy" and he apparently lost it).

Similarities Between 15 year old David and Jack Black

Fat

Differences Between 15 year old David and Jack Black

Funniness

Likeability

Now, I had never seen David in "his domain" of TCHS, where he grew up and knew everybody and "hung out" with seniors. So it was odd. I mostly remembered him as a lispy kid who watched the History Channel that I bombed around the neighborhood with.

So with him ignoring me, my only link to this strange, ritualistic world (Pledge to the Christian Flag anyone?) I was quite lost.

That was also my first class with, Donnie, Zach, Nathan, etc., people who I would eventually be friends with, but dismissed out of hand because I was down with Classic Rock and they were down with Newsboys.

This is also my first class with Claire. Her angelic 14 year old features drew me in instantly. Green eyes, brown hair, an Invader Zim backpack. We were perfect for each other, if only she would realize it. (this sentiment carried on for a long time).

After second period, we had the traditional "First Fruits Chapel," where I was greeted with a hearty handshake by a gentleman who introduced himself as, "Nick Jones." I sat beside him and Shye in my first ever Trinity chapel. Hosted by none other than Ernie Garcia (a man i never really appreciated as a speaker, he always came across as condescending).

Lunch was a lesson in awkwardsauce. I didn't know any of the guys and they came across as standoffish, so for the first week of school, I ate at the girls table. Looking back, it may be the lamest thing i've ever done, and i'm not terribly impressive.

Then drama with another force in my life, the irrepressible Debbie Boyle.

Mrs. Boyle should not have existed, she was like a cartoon character. Take every television stereotype about drama teachers and craft them into a majestic MiMi from La Boheme type character and you about have her. Boisterous and shameless, her antics ranged from sitting on a student, to re-enacting "The Catch" with only herself as both Flutie and the receiver. She was wildly entertaining.

This class also contained David "Grimace" Hutchens, as well as John Claborn, Jade, and others whom I would befriend in time.

But the shining beacon of the class was, once again, Ms. Claire. I sat with her and Carlie long enough into the semester to tell that it made them uncomfortable.

I was undeniably a ladies man.

My class was Baseball with Coach Bob Highley. Imagine the coach from Saving Silverman, except that he proselytized all of the time, and you have Coach Highley.

Prior to this year I had never so much as touched a dumbbell, so I was embarrassingly weak in the weight room. My baseball ineptitude never did change much.

I remained essentially a social pariah for the first 6 weeks of school. The only shining beacon was when a girl whom I found cute (jenna) remarked on my shoes, the pride of my wardrobe.

They were yearish old All-Stars that were ratty and ripped and decorated with the names of bands i love, written in faded blue bic ink that had accumulated over a year's worth of math classes.

Jenna came over and started reading all the bands on my shoes. Whenever she said, "I like pink floyd!" or "Led Zeppelin is awesome!" my little adolescent heart went all a-flutter.

For the 2 weeks prior to my first High School Retreat, i mostly tagged around Shye and Jenna.

My first ever High School Retreat rolled around and it was bore city. A lot of exceptionally unexciting chapel and overly structured activities. (every hsr after was much better).

The first half of the week i continued my strategy of hanging out with shye and jenna, but eventually, i think she realized that i had a crush on her and ditched me. So it was just Shye and I for the last bit of the week.

We climbed rocks and played football and all of the typical campy stuff, and i got to know my classmates a bit better. We all bonded over mocking david for hanging out at the senior table whilst wearing 4+ shirts to contain his Moobs.

The only thing that really came of that trip that became a part of the culture of our class was the descriptions for stretching before going on the ropes course. Up to the day we graduated, choruses of "Pot-Bellied Pig" and "Humpback Whale," could still elicit chuckles.

Throughout the duration of the trip, Jenna had often commented on how much she hated Trinity and wanted to transfer. I had always assumed these were useless laments, like the ones that i frequently voiced. But unlike me, Jenna had some sort of willpower and never came back to Trinity after the retreat. And that ends the story of my first attempt at high school romance.

Throughout this first part of the semester there had been two tools sitting in front of me in study hall. They were both tall, looked like the lifted heavily, and always shot me threatening looks, followed by snickers. One had light, short hair and the other's was wavy brown. Their names were Jade and Adam, and over the course of the year, they would become my best friends.

I don't know how Jade and I first became friends, but I know what event solidified our burgeoning relationship.

Jade had aspirations of becoming an amateur filmmaker. His attempts to hone his craft usually manifested themselves as him filming Adam doing something remarkably stupid and dangerous while he made strange noises into the microphone. He eventually started bringing his camera to school and filming innocuous pranks, like throwing food at sophomores.

One morning, he decided to up his game. For the past week, the freshman class had taken to kidney slapping each other in the hallways, and Jeff Reimer's reaction was always particularly comical, and Jade got it into his head to film said reaction and profit off of it somehow.

The stage was set. I would take the camera and hide in the super unnecessary backpack pile while Jade lured jeff out into the hall and slapped him. This was some Penn and Teller quality stuff.

The moment came, and with it... comedy gold.

The plan went off without a hitch, the slap, the scream, the laughter. Then the situation escalated; like an angry warthog, Jeff charged Jade and Jade (being much swifter) escaped and ran past my hidden backpack location. Jeff pursued, hit a backpack, and busted soundly on his belly.

This seemed at first to be a bit of immature fun, but the next day I was ushered into the office of Ernie G., our assistant principle.

Apparently the incident had infuriated Jeff's parents and Ernie thought, incorrectly, that since I was filming the ordeal, I was the ringleader. The meeting ended with him telling me that I should choose my friends wisely, and by choose my friends wisely, he meant not be friends with jade. In my rebellious young mind this firmly entrenched me in Jade's camp.

Soon, I was at Jade's house every weekend. His family was remarkably friendly and remarkably fit. A result of being Jade's new friend was that I spent a lot of time with his old friend, Adam.

In the beginning, Adam and I did not get along. He thought I was goofy looking and weird (both true) and I thought he was douchey and stupid (half true).

We finally bonded over Jade's turncoat actions.

The three of us had the idea to create a works bomb in order to rid Jade's backyard of wasps. After several dangerous chemicals and a loud "Kaboom!" We were in trouble.

Jade was already on his parents bad list and told Adam and I to take the heat for this hair-brained adventure. The three of us sat on Jade's tiny and awkwardly placed loveseat (its only purpose appeared to be for maximum chastation) while his mother ranted and raved at us indiscriminately. His dad then trundled in.

Matt is not a very intimidating man, clearly much more comfortable making teenagers laugh rather than squirm, but at the time Jade looked like he feared for his life.

Matt trundled in, scowling and bellowing. "Who's idea was this?!"

Immediately, Jade squeaked, "It was Ad-y-am."

Matt turned to Adam and I, our faces set in that bashful but amused way that all teenage boys grow to master, and proceeded to question, loudly and repeatedly, if we were, in fact, eaten up with dumbass.

After the fifth or six bewildered chorus, the situation resolved itself.

Adam started laughing, then I started laughing, then Matt started laughing, then Sandi, and finally, when he was sure the coast was clear, Jade.

This familial cheer bonded Adam and I, and we've remained friends since.

2008 (A Montage)

2009-01-05T03:35:00.000-08:00

Readers, I am very tired. It is 5:35 in the am, but it's my last opportunity to stay up this late, so i've taken advantage. I was rereading every blog entry, and certain bits poked out at me, and I decided (both out of hubris and for the benefit of my legions of new readers) to gather them and create the literary equivalent of a KFC famous bowl. (Read this while imagining Michael Ian Black making snarky comments between each)

Dream explanation: This one is the most straightforward. I text Lindsey a lot and I would like to kiss Claire. It also says a lot about my personality in that in a dream, where I can be or do anything, I describe myself as only "kind of cute." (I am very cute)

This is from my first entry, I decided it was important because it established Mr. Parentheses and the atmosphere of the usual Magic Blog, (Pathetic!)

You may ask, Why? Why do you feel the obsessive need to relive these painful memories that everyone shares some semblance of and doesn't care to read about. The answer is because I am an emotional masochist. I must constantly relive my grief in my head and share it with others. That seems like a very unproductive and probably unhealthy way to spend your time, but I'm getting better about letting it go, so hopefully this will help in that regard.

This is from #2 where I outlined the original Nick Hornby plagiorization that this Blog was conceived as. (It really hasn't evolved from this point)

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.

This is probably the truest thing i've ever written. (Which makes entries 4-26 irrelevant)

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

Still true.

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.

This is from the most depressing entry. It is also the only one to receive no comments. (Short fiction is dead)

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.

I'm still waiting for this. It seems to be more and more unlikely.

I have often pondered what if would be like to be a super villain. A menace of the most maleficent kind. I bet I would be pretty great at it.

Classic KMB silliness.

I thought about talking to you, but what would I say? "Hello, You are very pretty, please be nice to me." Also I had my headphones in, so even if i said anything I wouldn't be able to listen to your response. But rest assured, if we had spoken, I would have offered to pay for your waffle fries (please don't let me, my mom only gives me $200 for food).

This is proof that I am the most romantic human being to ever exist.

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.

You'll all be jealous then!

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

Fun Fact: Billy Bob, sadly, dropped the course.

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.

The closest the Blog has ever come to dealing with anything that genuinely happened and affected me that didn't boil down to, "Girls are mean! I'm so misunderstood! :( :( :("

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

Most honest section from my most honest entry.

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.

Learn from this.

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).

"I am hip and moody"

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.

I'm a freaking oracle.

2008 (A Year in Review)

2008-12-31T22:41:00.000-08:00

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

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)

2008-11-30T21:52:00.000-08:00

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)

2008-11-18T15:49:00.000-08:00

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.

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)

2008-11-10T22:38:00.000-08:00

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)

2008-10-31T17:18:00.001-07:00

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)

2008-10-15T22:05:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-10-07T19:18:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-10-03T22:42:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-09-26T18:28:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-09-21T20:40:00.000-07:00

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.

An Open Letter to the Beautiful Girl Behind Me In Line at Chick Fil A (An Introduction)

2008-09-11T12:24:00.000-07:00

Beautiful Brunette,

Hello, you may not remember me, but about 5 minutes ago we were both in line for delicious breaded chicken from a family friendly restaurant in the Student Union Building. I was the guy wearing the grey American Eagle hoodie. (Don't worry about the smell, it's new and the rain gives it a vomity odor). I couldn't help but notice that not only were you beautiful, but you were not wearing a T-shirt espousing the merit of the sorority that you joined. This gives me hope that you aren't a stupid vacuous slut (no offense to all you God fearing sorority girls, but you're mostly whores!). I also noticed that you were with your less attractive friend, hopefully this means you value personality and aren't trying to make yourself look better by comparison. Whenever I stole a furtive glance at you, you didn't immediately turn away and face the opposite side of the line, this did wonders for my self-esteem. (I just saw Alex Natarajan, I thought he was dead). I thought about talking to you, but what would I say? "Hello, You are very pretty, please be nice to me." Also I had my headphones in, so even if i said anything I wouldn't be able to listen to your response. But rest assured, if we had spoken, I would have offered to pay for your waffle fries (please don't let me, my mom only gives me $200 for food). Your hair was wet, which makes sense because it is very rainy outside, but if we happened to hit it off and you wanted to walk to class together i would totally let you use my umbrella, even at the risk of making my jacket smellier! And whenever we encoutered a particularly precarious puddle (there are many in this flat town) I would help you get over them (you would think I was so sweet). Then maybe after you got done with class you could come talk to me at the information desk and we could listen to the new Say Anything rarities that I found on the internet. It would be a pretty awesome day. Then when I got off, maybe you could come hang out at my house for a little while, but you'd have to leave soon because Thursday is when I go to Buffalo Wild Wings with my friends.

Love Always,

Kyle

Nothing In the World Makes Me Happier Than This (A Sad Commentary)

2008-09-05T23:55:00.000-07:00

It's an elephant wearing an adorable hat.

If I Were a Super Villain (A Fantasy)

2008-09-02T17:37:00.000-07:00

I have often pondered what if would be like to be a super villain. A menace of the most maleficent kind. I bet I would be pretty great at it.

You may do some pondering yourself, and in this period of reflection you may wonder, "If Kyle were to proclaim himself a super villain, what would his name be, what powers would he wield, and what havoc would he wreak? (If you pondered this I would commend you, because you pondered in parallel structure)

Well, I am prepared to answer those questions as long as you promise not to betray my secrets to any potentially interested parties (CIA, FBI, Christian Bale) because I fear both clandestine organizations and men who yell at their female family members.

When choosing a super villainous name, one must reflect on the image one is projecting to one's subordinates. That is why I chose a name that not only reflects my magical background, but also my mastery of alliteration.

*Merlin Man*

I know what some of you are thinking, you are thinking, "Kyle, isn't that name a little too intense and graphic for a silly trip to the land of imagination?"

You people are thinking wrong.

I don't want my subjects mocking some ridiculous name like Dr. Doom when they are mining in the Frito pits of Juarez, they need to know who is boss. (Merlin Man is boss)

You may wonder what my main method of madness will be.

It will be riddles.

Like the mighty Sphinx I will pose the mightiest heroes of each town a riddle, and like Oedipus they will fall before the power of logic. New Deal, Hereford, Abilene, each will be subjugated to my will.

I will constantly try the psychological patience of my subjects. They will drink nothing but Capri Sun (both disgusting and made of plastic straw impervious material) and all of my correspondence will be typed in ALL CAPS.

I may or may not fashion some sort of death ray or kill beam or maim light.

I also to the liberty of creating some concept sketches of my costume.

For those of you not gifted with a wizard's looking glass I will take the liberty of describing the labels and details of the costume.

Boots of Fury
Jorts of Rage
Mustache of Riddling
Awesome Hat!

Now that my plan for domination has been laid out, all that I have to do is wait for a foe to defeat and then rise to national prominence. (I'm waiting Nicolas Cage)

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

2008-08-29T09:02:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-08-26T16:06:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-08-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-08-14T08:43:00.000-07:00

(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)

2008-08-13T13:51:00.000-07:00

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!)

2008-08-11T08:21:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-08-07T06:17:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-08-04T23:20:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-08-01T23:03:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-08-01T19:03:00.001-07:00

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.

Upper Case K (A Meditation)(Also a good DJ name)

2008-07-29T10:33:00.000-07:00

Imagine yourself behind a desk in a crowded lobby. A computer screen rests before your eyeballs, keyboard, mouse, assorted brochures. To your right, just in the peripheral of your vision there are shelves. Many shelves with many brochures. Your job is to provide information, but what if the information proves too much? These are questions you cannot answer, which in truth, answers your question.

You gaze at the shelves and see the brochures have been labeled, in plain script, with a handy Labelmate brand labeler. One catches your eye. It resides below a phone book (ATT Spring 2006, Greater South Plains). The label reads, "LubbocK" then there is another label below it. "Phone Book."

Why the strange capitalization Mr. K? Is it to denote the all encompassing nature of the phone book? The mighy "L" and "K" acting as sentinels, guarding the world of Lubbock and her phone numbers (and pizza coupons).

Was this a specific message to me? As my name begins with an upper case "K." What message do you have for Mr. Label? Are you marking my place in this world, do I, Kyle with an uppercase "K," belong in Lubbock, the land of upper case "K's." These are answers I do not have, and even my many mighty brochures offer no elucidation.

Perhaps this is no cosmic sign at all, rather the work of an errant labeler. If so, I'm dissapointed. Because, bold label, you have offered me untold mystery and distraction at work, and I assigned to you a greater importance. If you are uppercase merely by the whim of someone with a Labelmate, what does that say about me, and my uppercase "K," what does that say about all of us.

Once again, my brochures prove useless. But they do offer very enticing deals on 2 bedroom apartments.

A Series of Crushes (Parentheses make it match)

2008-07-26T06:19:00.000-07:00

With the advent of my fiercely popular blog, I have recently rediscovered my previous contribution to the internet, the Xanga of my youth.

Because I am the person that I am, I felt compelled to read the workings of my early high school mind. Some of it is embarrassing, some of it is actually kind of funny, but most of it is sad. The journal reeks of failed relationships.

That said, it also allows me to see very seminal moments in my life that seemed fairly mundane when I was 14 years old, but ended up having a major impact on the rest of my life up to this point.

So, due to the fact that this transitional period in my life (high school/college) has caused basically nothing but self reflection, I've decided to document the 3 major high school crushes in my life, with perhaps a sprinkling of some lesser ones thrown in, like a sorbet to cleanse the pallet of my overwhelming failure.

You may ask, Why? Why do you feel the obsessive need to relive these painful memories that everyone shares some semblance of and doesn't care to read about. The answer is because I am an emotional masochist. I must constantly relive my grief in my head and share it with others. That seems like a very unproductive and probably unhealthy way to spend your time, but I'm getting better about letting it go, so hopefully this will help in that regard.

I know that my legions of readers are curious about who were these women who so impacted me, what sort of girls were they that shaped and shook me so? Well the answers are, in chronological order, Chelsea, Susie, and Claire.

I know that this blog is many times more popular than our school newsletter and most Trinity alums and current students have an RSS feed to it, so they may recognize the previous names. "How very odd," they might reflect, "None of these girls appeared to care about Kyle in the least." Exactly.

Just to get you all in the mindset of 15 year old me, here are my original Xanga posts, from Tuesday, November 16, 2004.

"Hey guys this the xanga im gonna use from now on i used to have an ebloggy but i got tired of it. So yah whatsn new w/ me hmh. Yesterday i went to B&N and D-hutch was there and we hung out for a while so that was cool. Today i went to school and it was cool, courtnety was acting a little wierd. We had the senior auction for guys and me and Jade bought John Claiborne for $42. Then i had ca and we played stickball, lifted, and then messed around. so thats about it. see ya

-Kyle"

and

"so i added some cool mellow music to my xanga by the beatles, they didnt have and zep or floyd so i went w/ them."

The first thing one may notice is my frequent use of the colloquialism "cool" and my strange fascination with nick names. (The nick name thing gets worse as the xanga progresses) Also you may notice my fascination with proving myself "cool" I accomplish this by informing the reader of my love for classic rock bands of the 70's.

It is very easy to tell why a woman would find me unlikeable.

Dreams (not the kind that you chase)

2008-07-24T07:05:00.000-07:00

The night prior to me typing this I had a few dreams which I would like to share with my beloved audience.

1
The first dream began in the middle of downtown Lubbock, I was standing just West of the local landmark, "haunted hotel," there were various other citizens milling about with me, and it was dusk. There was a flash of blue light and, this being dreamworld, I was immediately aware that the majority of people outside of the shockwave of the flash/blast were dead and that a lot of them had turned into insane zombie people. Oddly, this did not perplex or frighten me, rather I realized that I had just dreamed what was essentially a *SPOILERS* plot point in Watchmen*SPOILERS*. I think I later proceeded to fight zombie people/run around.

What I believe caused this dream. First off, I've had comics on the brain recently what with TDK coming out and the Watchmen trailer. I also briefly discussed zombies and the book World War Z, with Ben Law 2 nights prior, so that may have contributed. Or, possibly my brain was reflecting on my internal struggle to find my place in a world full of people who are seemingly mad or spiritually dead. The brain is kind of a dick in that it doesn't let you know what the hell is going on in dreams.

2
This dream was more of a brief scene. In this scene, the late John Paul II is standing before a council of Cardinals (not the ones that play American sports) and he is told that he must face trials to become the new pope. Apparently, I went back in time in dream land. Then I was able to witness the first of the pope's trials, which was, fighting an anthropomorphic gorilla. I realize that, being primates, gorillas already anthropomorphize themselves, but this was like he was fighting a man dressed in a gorilla suit, but it was a gorilla. Also it was 7' tall. I can only assume that the pope went on face more trials where he fought other fantastical beasts. Dreamland also took me to mythical Greece, because that is totally the plot of the Heracles myth.

How this dream came to be: I have no idea. Maybe I just wanted to see a man fight a monkey. My main theory is that I was dreaming about David Haladay, who is not only popely, but also fought a monkey in his youth. Why Mr. Haladay/Pope/Heracles are infiltrating my dreams, I do not know, I can only assume it is an allegory for the trials of manhood I must face after graduating high school. Hopefully, I won't have to combat any large mammals, because I don't have any boxing gloves.

3
This dream was set some strange dystopian cartoon land. There was an expanse of green, clearly animated grass ahead of me, in an entirely 2D environment, the grass was little more than 2 hillocks of a sickly irradiated green. The sky beyond it occupied 3/4 of my field of vision and was a menacing shade of black blue, like a bruise. Cropping up beyond the second grassy hillock were 3 buildings smashed beside each other, the leftmost the shortest, the middle the tallest, and the rightmost in between. They were black with cartoonish windows and outlined in purple. I was standing beside Lindsey, but rather than speak we were texting. When she did speak, she said, "Claire sent me this text." She displayed the message which read, "I used to think he was hideous, but now he's sort of cute." Claire then materialized beside me and we kissed, but in a very 1980's teen drama fashion, my alarm rang right as our lips met.

Dream explanation: This one is the most straightforward. I text Lindsey a lot and I would like to kiss Claire. It also says a lot about my personality in that in a dream, where I can be or do anything, I describe myself as only "kind of cute." (I am very cute)