RAPID HOPE LOSS
I think things got blown out of proportion from what happened on Friday night / Saturday morning. Every once in a while we all kinda get a little too close to the edge, and its nice to be able to recognize that without have to jump over. I've met some really wonderful people already this year, and I've been having the time of my life. It's nice to know that there are some kindred spirits out there; it just makes this world a little less lonely. I am slowly regaining my voice back, which I hope to get back by this weekend so I can kinda hang out with Brook / Jaime. And if not, I know I can probably take it easy.

SOMETIMES THINGS FALL APART
This was a long weekend for me. Hitting high points and low points within a few hours is very disastrous. I am fortunate to have survived the weekend with nothing but losing my voice and a few bumps on the fore head. I may have made some new friends, but I think I may have lost some old ones as well. That's always tough. I am still feeling some guilt, even though I know I shouldn't. I'm not quiet sure if I did something wrong, but I am sure carrying a heavy guilty feeling hanging above me.

I know I've been playing with fire for the past few months, and sometimes you just get burned, especially when you dance around too close to the flame. It was fun while it lasted, but the train needs to slow down a little bit for now.

"We are all born different, life just forces all to be the same..." -- Ken Kesey

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLOG!!!
My blog is one year old today. It's been a long and interesting process in developing this blog. My blog is a living and breathing thing. It has to be nurtured, and be constantly tinkered with. It is brutally honest. Sometimes people have read it the wrong way, and there have been times in which people took it seriously, or not serious enough. Committing to writing the daily progressions of my life can be difficult. It seems as if there are two kinds of blogs out there, there are those that are deeply too personal and uninviting. And there are those that are fairly shallow and rarely touch upon the person writing it. I was keenly aware that I didn't want my blog to get too personal, but I also wanted it to reflect the events and emotions that are going on with my life.

TRANSFORMATION
It's been exactly a year since I've been messing around with this blog; and so much has changed within that past year. When I first opened this blog, I really felt a little lost, and out of touch with myself. it seems as if I was just going through the motions of life. I wasn't really taking advantage of every single opportunity to explore life. I don't think my confidence or situation was bad, it seems that I just had a mid-twenties crisis and I refused to acknowledge it. That person stumbling around just a year ago is a stranger to me now.

I am still slowly getting used to my body; and I know it's sad but society definitely treats you a lot different when you're fit than when you're out of shape. Back when I had all the weight, no girl would ever dare to grab me on the dance floor and dance with me. Now, its hard for me to get out of the dance floor without stumbling into someone who wants to dance with me. I know I've always been friendly and not shy which got me to a certain point in meeting women back when I had all the weight. I hadn't really recognized the mojo (which Alfie refers to it) until this weekend, when Jessica and Kevin really pointed out the way girls treat me now.

This transformation has definitely changed me, for good and bad. I also feel like I've lost touch with some friends who haven't been able to grasp the changes that's happened to me physically and personally. I am very keen of the deadly hole that happens when people discover their sexual value. I don't think I've reached that rabbit hole yet. I still try hard to be a gentleman and be respectful of the people that I meet. I am still responsible. I still go to work everyday. I am still writing my next book. I am still intellectually investing in myself. I am still painting. I am still writing poetry. I still read French and Ancient Greek philosophy. I still play video games. and I haven't considered waxing my body at all.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: More Than This (Roxy Music), Collide (Rachel Yamagata), It's Not The Spotlight (Beth Orton), Mining Town (Whiskeytown), Needle In the Hay (Elliott Smith), The New Year (Death Cab For Cutie), Laughing City (Eisley), Dirt Off Your Shoulder (Jay-Z), and Subterranean Homesick Alien (Radiohead).

BLURRY
Saturday night was a pretty blurry and sordid night. I took Jessica and Kevin to my stomping grounds; Daddy's, Beauty Bar, Star Shoes, and the Ivar. We started the night at a metal bar in Tarzana called Paladinos. That's where we all began to get a little toasty. After a quick drive on the 101, we arrived at Daddy's. That place just doesn't fail me. As we were about to leave, I uttered "Danke Shun" (Thank You) in my worse German, and this girl stopped me, and returned a "Bitte Shun". We quickly hit it off, and we just began talking. She was accompanied by her mother, and we all got engaged in a pretty cool conversation about travelling. Danya was very interesting, we both talked about our recent break ups, and kinda shared a mutual appreciation for what we both went through. We exchanged phone numbers, and I moved on from there.

The night began to unravel when Jessica decided that this night was going to reach a higher level. This was supposed to be a level 2 night, just be laid back, meet some new people and socialize. Jessica wanted to up the ante by trying hard to push it to at least a level four of a night.

It reached level four when we went Richard Blade's 80's night in Hollywood and Vine. There we got pretty plasted, and I started flirting with this girl named Amy from Seattle. She was getting fairly close to me, so I began to flirt back. After an hour of dancing and talking, she drops a bombshell. She tells me that she is married, and perhaps is only interested in mild fling. I could've definitely taken advantage of the situation, but I have a conscience, and I kinda slowly made my way away from her. I spent the rest of the night, acting like if I had just lost someone. Got back and got a mean ass hang over on Sunday, which relegated me to watching great college basketball games on television.

STOP ME IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE
I'm still slowly trying to recover from my St. Patrick's Day debauchery. I went to the Tam O'Shanter and met up with Brooke and Clare. I quickly recognized that one of the waitresses working the giant keg of Guinness was one of my old high school friends, Jennifer. So I decided to put on the charms and talk to her, which in turn she gave me free drinks for the night. That's a quick way to my heart. She got my pretty drunk pretty quick, which by 10pm, I was doing my Michael Flatley impersonations in front of everyone. Dancing wickedly with a bunch of Irish lasses was pretty fun. But after all that twirling I ended up flirting with a girl who works at a cemetery, and a girl who works at Cal Tech. Oh well... I'm going karaokeing with them next weekend. This weekend is for sobering up, which still means I'm probably going to down a couple of pints.

Agh, the never ending story of a drunk man loose in a drunk-ass town...

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

SPARTAN

I went to see Spartan last weekend. For a David Mamet film, it was a little unusual that they chose the idea of conspiracy theories regarding the secret service. The plot definitely twists and turns, and you don't quiet know where this movie takes you. It sets you up with predictable situations, only to bring about unpredictable results. It's very intriguing. It has surprises and turns that are rare for an action movie. Val Kilmer is excellent in his purposeful performance. I recommend people looking into this movie, you won't be disappointed.

THIS LOVE
Lately Brooke A. and I have been talking about love. And I still maintain that love should be simple, once it become to overly complex it no longer becomes love; this thing that we may call love has become a chore. Love happens for various reasons, but it just happens, I don't think we really can control our feelings or emotions about it. In college I took a philosophy course on Love. And it is an idea that has plagued mankind since Socrates brought up the idea of Eros (passion). As a writer, Love is a subject that we can use that as a humanity we can all identify with. So I've posed these questions to myself and maybe y'all can relate this to your own life.

- What is love? And what does it mean to me?
- Why do I feel the need to fall in love?
- If I can fall in love, can I allow myself to fall in love?

I'm just throwing these questions up against the wall to see if any one of them sticks.

FALLING OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH
So last night, I'm getting ready for bed. All snuggled up in my 1,000 Thread Count Egyptian Cotton Duvet Cover and bed sheets. When I get a phone call at 11:30PM. It's Alex. She was a little drunk. It's the first time I had talked to her in over two months. It's funny how people just kinda call you in random moments of your life. It was a fairly pleasant conversation. I was surprised that I wasn't as angry at her. But then again, I'm not the kind of guy who holds grudges against people, and I acknowledge that I am still learning how to forgive people.

Even though she didn't formally apologize for what she did, I don't expect a formal apology, and just forgiving her allows me to move on with my life. Throughout the whole conversation, I felt very much detached from her. It's as if I didn't even know her anymore, but what can you expect. I don't regret getting involved with her, and I feel like I learned a lot of lessons throughout the whole experience. I feel like I am in a much better place now than when I was back then.

HEART AND A HARD PLACE
It's been almost three weeks since I got back from Mardi Gras. I've tried hard not to think about Jaime, because I know nothing is going to happen in that situation. So on Friday night, I was talking with Brook and she quickly mentioned Jaime after noticing that I was a little blue. It just made me more blue. It's nice to know that Brook realized the connection that I grew with Jaime on that awesome Saturday night. Which reminded me of a story that happened on Sunday Morning.

When we got out of the club, we went to our hotel room on Canal Street. Jaime wanted to get some beers, so I joined her as we made our way to the liquor store. As we were walking down Canal Street, the street was competely empty. I felt like Tom Cruise walking around Times Square in Vanilla Sky. It was very surreal and romantic, to have this beautiful street all to ourselves.



After a few minutes of revelling in this experience. I notice a group of six drunken guys walking towards us. I immediately felt some tension from Jaime, because she started to squeeze me really hard. As they approached, one of them tried to grab her short school girl skirt. Which prompted me to instinctually defend her. I took her aside, and pretty punched the guy on the face. I thought I was going to get my ass beat by these redneck frat boys. But instead, they saw some sort of aggression in my face and they left us alone. I probably won some points at that moment, but inside I was a little shaken.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Against All Odds (The Postal Service), Cold Hard Bitch (Jet), Bend And Not Break (Dashboard Confessional), Just Another (Pete Yorn), Two Months Off (Underworld), Six In The Morning (D12), Magic Love (Bent), and The New Year (Death Cab For Cutie).

LYING ON A BED OF CLOUDS
I don't like to think that I am an extravagant person. I drive a phucked up Honda CRV. I buy my clothes at American Eagle. And I shop at 99 Cent Stores. I understand value. But once in a while, I get the stupid virus, and indugle on something really ridiculous. Last weekend, I entered a very beautiful specialty store in Sunset called Bed Post. And I met a beautiful sales lady who brought up the notion that I should be a guy that sleeps in exquisite fashion. She sold me a set of sheets made out of 1,000 thread count (yes that's 3 zero's) and fine egyptian cotton. I got home and was pretty skeptical to what difference it would make in my sleeping habits, guys just don't quiet feel some of that. But when I slept in these sheets, it was like I was having sex with Ashley Judd in a room full of cotton. It was very soft and comfortable. I just spent the first few hours rolling in the softness and fineness of the smooth cotton. I was running my hands through the bed sheets. It was intoxicating. I had never felt like this before on a fabric. Now when some of my friends visit, I invite them to lie in my bed, and experience the beautiful world of fine egyptian cotton. It is simply marvelous. I can't stop raving about it.

CAN I USE VIAGRA WITH THIS?
Strolling through the quagmire of the internet can result in some pretty interesting discoveries that I sometimes like to share in my blog. This is one of the more disturbing articles that I found. A 16 year old boy, named Malik (kind of an unusual name for a Russian boy, but I hear Russians are really into hip-hop), lost his penis after receiving an electric shock while urinating on an electric wire (ouch!).

Now that's bad enough, but guess what the Russian doctors did next...

Russian surgeons grew a penis on his arm and have now moved it to his groin. The Russian Clinical Hospital for Children surgeons created it by putting an empty latex cylinder in Malik's forearm and pumping a solution into it every day. The cylinder grew on the boy's arm for 10 months until it took on the shape of a penis.

Douglas Murray, a past president of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons, told Ananova this kind of plastic surgery was not uncommon.

Mr Murray said: "He would probably be able to stand up and urinate instead of having to sit and do so."




Sick isn't it??

So what do we learn from this lesson? Don't pee on electrice wires...

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Run (Snow Patrol), Brand New Colony (The Postal Service), About A Girl (Nirvana), Holy Wars.... And The Punishment Due (Megadeth), Everything Is Not Lost (Coldplay), and Born Slippy (Underworld).

THE PIG
On Saturday night we all went back to The Pig 'N Whistle in Hollywood. It's the first time I've been back there since my birthday. The place has definitely changed for the worse. We made the best out of the situation and had a lot of fun, but otherwise the crowd and the music were pretty disappointing. Before we were at The Pig, we hung out at Lucky Strikes and drank a little bit there. I met an Australian girl named Leah. She's in town for a few weeks, and we had a pretty good conversation about L.A. and travelling. I didn't realize it until she left but I am a social whore. I love meeting people, and I love telling stories, and I love listening to theirs.


Cecille (I think) getting freaky out on the dance floor.

TENDINITIS SHMENDINITIS
I've been training hard the past few days for the L.A. Marathon after slackin' a little bit during the road trip. I've been working so hard trying to catch up that I developed tendinitis on my right knee. It's so fucked up! After 3.5 miles or so, my right knee almost gives out from the pain, the muscles are just not holding it. My left knee is fine, but my right is just fucking me over. I talked to the doctor and the only cure he has, other than to amputate it, is by resting it. So despite that, I've been running lap at the pool to relieve some pressure off the knee, but I am beginning to understand that I may not be able to finish out the L.A. Marathon as I had imagined.

POOL PARTY
I got invited to a pool party at The Standard hotel in downtown L.A. next weekend. Dove and Steffi are probably going to join me, but I also invited Brook. Hanging out with Dove and Brook is very much like being on crack (not that I would know how crack would feel like), but I could just imagine, because of the energy and electricity that they bring to the table.

BACK 2 REALITY
After being on the road for almost two weeks, it feels very surreal to be back in the real world. It's as if everything that happened during the past few weeks has just become a distant memory. I am back playing softball. I am back at work. I am back at the gym running my usual 3 miles. But something is a little bit different. I don't know what it is, but something seems just a little bit off. The roadtrip made me think a lot about life and what I want from it. Driving through the straight roads of Texas can make you fairly introspective. I know I'm looking at some of my friends a little differently, and probably some of them are looking at me strangely as well. I feel like some of my closest friends are quietly becoming strangers, while others are getting closer, maybe too close for our own good.

Los Angeles is a bubble. We are shielded from nature's prickly fingers. Living in L.A. is like living in a cocoon, we refuse to see the world around us, because we are easily swallowed by plastic buildings, silicone breasts, and foreign cars. Sometimes we truly believe that the world revolves around our fabulous city. You can be anything or anyone you want to be here, and you are always just a break from hitting the big time. The rest of the world doesn't operate like that.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Yeah (Usher), Requiem For A Dream (Paul Oakenfold), Silver And Gold (U2), Human Behavior (Bjork), Ba Ba (Sigur Ros), Love Song (311), and What Am I To You? (Norah Jones)