David

Yesterday I returned from my week long sojurn in sunny Florida. I made it to the beach one day, but the rest of the week was spent in Orlando visiting the girls.

On Sunday, Laura, John, megan Hill and I went to a flea market where they served beer. It was fucking awesome.

Monday night we all got ridiculously, old school hammered and decided that it was a good idea to climb on the roof of the girls' house. A little bit later, Megan Murphy and Morgan decided it was an even better idea to jump off the roof. Morgan made it. megan didn't. As such, I spent all of Tuesday in the E.R. waiting for the worst excuse for a triage station ever to look at Megan's leg. Turns out she tore a few ligaments in her knee and sprained her ankle. But, on the bright side, she got medical leave from work and so was able to spend the rest of the week hanging out.

Wednesday we had planned on going to the beach but, of course, it was 50 degrees and raining outside all day. So instead we decided to go do the stupid spring break thing- get tattoos and piercings. Megan Hill, Lindsay, Brandon and I all got tattoos with our initials in them (megan got a design made from weird fonts, Brandon and Lindsay got a tree I drew with our initials carved in the trunk, and I got a custom day of the dead style peice with our initials encraved on the coffin) and Jeremy got a hole punched in his eyebrow.

Other than that, we went to a few parties where there were either no girls aside from my friends in attendance or where the girls who were there were either interesting or attractive but never both.

Despite all of the mishaps, it was still a great trip, mostly because I got to hang out with my girls for nine straight days and watch kung fu movies.

Woah, I haven't updated this shit since two-double-ought-four.

At the moment, I'm suffering through a hangover, as I have been nearly every day since last Saturday. In short, I shouldn't be allowed to date a girl who both listens to metal and drinks as much and as often as I do. It's too much fun, and I'm in a perpetual state of hung over.

And, on that note, I'm going to go back to sleep until it's time to go to work.

Semi-interesting things about the month of November, not including my birthday:

-Lindsay, Munchkin, Vance, Steph, Brandon and I went to the fabulous Masquerade on the 18th for the Bouncing Souls/ Against Me! show. Now, I have been going to the Masquerade since I was 14 years old. This show was the first time that I was able to legally drink there. Needless to say, the combination of my favorite band, the usual pregaming with Mr. Daniels, and the ability to buy booze proved deadly. I got ridiculously blasted and, as usual, ornery. I started the show with my usual frantic dancing and singing-along while orbiting the edge of the pit (it's the only place where there is room to dance). There were three kids in the pit who were being assholes and pushing little kids around. I grabbed the first one and yelled "Push pits are lame! Dance, don't push!" Amazingly, he took my advice and shed his pseudo tough guy demeanor. The second kid was committing more of the same; he even pushed some kids over and didn't help them up, which seriously pissed my drunk ass off. So, in an incredibly hilarious spat of immaturity, I grabbed his cap and flung it into the crowd, hoping he'd get hte message. He didn't. So, when Against Me! began playing one of my favorite songs, I decided that if this kid wanted moshing, he'd damn well fucking get moshing. I leaned into the pit and, upon getting a clear shot across, I flung myself, at this point a mostly numb, flailing, windmilling mass of elbows and fists, straight into the bastard. I wasn't too surprised that he made a quiet exit from the pit about halfway through the song. Pussy. Anyway, the third and final asshole was saved from a similar fate by a sudden and unexpected reminder from my metabolism: "you drank too much too fast and didn't eat beforehand, you fucking moron! Taste revenge in the form of crippling stomach cramps and nausea!" I was forced to retreat prematurely, and I spent the last three or four songs attempting to keep the contents of my stomach where they were. Lame! After Against Me's set was finished the crowd began chanting for an encore, and they were the fucking opening band. Aging indie kid that I am, I couldn't help but think that the first time I saw them was in a closet in Athens with a crowd of about 50. We met up with Mike and John afterwards, which was cool; I hadn't seen either of them in a long while.

-I also saw Bethany at the show, and made plans to hang out with her over the weekend. I called her a day or two later, and she invited me to come along to the Georgia State production of Hair. Why I decided that I should go to a play that obviously stinks of hippy... who knows. But anyway, I met up with Bethany and two of her friends at the lofts beforehand and then headed to the play. Well, needless to say, that play was a total waste of both the evening and my five dollars. It was filled with all this quasi socio-political commentary that was, I suppose, designed to have some sort of relevancy at the time of its writing. Unfortunately, it isn't 1968 and things that were thrown in to freak out the man back then are no longer freaky to anyone. "Holy crap, they're talking about drugs and sex in incredibly obtuse slang!" It seemed like it was designed to be a radification of the youth culture of the time, but, to me at least, it came off as a condemnation; it vividly showed that most hippies were only in it for the drugs, and the vast majority who were politically active at all were so only because it was the cool thing to do at the time. Hair only strengthened my hatred for the "peace, love, blah blah blah" mentality and for a wide cross section of my parents' generation. Ideals aren't fucking fads. I left as soon as the first act was over in order to spare myself the rest of the play and spare Bethany and her friends the argumentative, superior, and snarky mood that an hour of hippies had tossed me into.

-I went to The Echo Lounge with Luke and Kyle about a week ago to see a bunch of psychobilly bands play. It was okay; I was DD so I couldn't get drunk enough to enjoy the music solely because it was music, and the bands weren't that great. The first band would have been really cool had the singer not growled all of the vocals. The closing band was interesting; they all dressed like zombies and the lead singer had a foot tall pompadour-hawk, pointy ears, and vinyl clothes. They, too, would have done better to ditch the growled vocals; it just doesn't work with rockabilly. But anyway, it was still a pretty good evening; I went to The Earl for the first time beforehand and afterwards we, for some reason, struggled through a pitcher of margaritas at Taco Cabana before heading home.

-The day after Thanksgiving I worked from 5:30am to 7:00pm. It wasn't really that bad; I made a lot of money and there were very few asshole customers.

-Saturday, a man came in and berrated us about our return policy. This would normally be filed in the "just another asshole" category, except that this guy was wearing the epitome of out-of-fashion facial hair: The Hitler 'Stache. It was fucking hilarious; the entire time he was yelling at us I was holding back laughter. Times like that make me wish that I didn't care and was willing to get hastily fired, because it was difficult to keep the comments in. All I managed was a quiet "Zieg Heil!" and a goosestep salute as he walked out.

-That night was kevin's birthday, and I went to his place for the party. There were few people there, and the majority were members of our old school crew. Thus, we decided to go old school and all get ridiculously fucked up. By the end of the evening I was up to my elbows (literally!) in Paul's dinner, and I somehow managed to wake up at Lindsay G's place in the morning.

-There is an Irish pub in Underground. I spend way too many days there with Luke, Kyle, and Nate drinking beer and laughing at those poor fuckers who decided to go to class.

-I'm changing my major to history, and starting in the program next semester.

-Last night Luke, Kyle, Ronnie and I decided that we desperately needed Mexican food and beer, so we headed up Buford Highway to a place that would satisfy those urges. Afterwards we headed down to The Echo Lounge. Entrance, this amazing guy who sounds like Hank Williams singing the blues and whom I had seen open for The Yeah Yeah Yeahs a while back, was opening for Travis Morrisson, former lead singer of the dearly departed Dismemberment Plan. Entrance was awesome, until he broke a string during the second song. He sang the third with only drums as accompaniment, and then walked off the stage. It's a good thing those three songs were about a 9 on the fucking awesome scale. Travis Morrisson came out a few beers later and played some fun, light, dancey pop music that sounded kinda like the latter days of Dismemberment Plan: less guitar, more keyboards. It was a fun evening.

-Oh, and I got my car back with a less-used engine and a new clutch. Wooo!

Well, I made it safely past my twenty-first birthday and the choas that ensued afterwards.

Friday, my actual birthday, was hangover day one. I woke up and went out to lunch with the boys and a visiting Alison when that little lightbulb sulking above my head shook off the dust and blinked into existance. I could legally buy a beer with my lunch. And so I did, and it was good. Afterwards I headed to Duluth for dinner with the family. It was nice, even though I was a little quiet and edgy due to Thursday night. That evening I went out to Dantanas with the boys, Lisa, Catie, Brett, and Jen, where the bartender bought our table two rounds and me a third round.

Saturday I had to wake up at 7:00am to go to a store meeting, and then I had to be back to clock in at 11:00am. Saturday was not a very pleasant day. After work I picked up Lindsay and headed home to clean up for The Dave and Paul 21st Birthday Extraveganza. All of my good friends showed up, with the exception of two who had lame excuses like "I'm 250 miles away!" In addition, another fifty or so people were in attendance. It was a fun night. The cops came twice, which was not expected; some guy next door (who does not actually live there, I might add) decided to be a douche and not only call the cops but come over and tell us that he did so and rail against us for violating our lease. Naturally, it being my birthday and me being as drunk as I was, this pissed me off, so I began cussing him out. For some odd reason Ronnie pulled me away (odd not because someone pulled me away, but because Ronnie of all people did it) and I broke the news to the guest that the party was over and asked that everyone who could leave do so. After clearing out all of the random kids, we still had, by Nick's count, thirty people over. The cop showed up in the midst of the exodus and, upon witnessing that the party was over, gave me the half-assed lecture of a guy in his mid twenties breaking up a party and left. Katie volunteered to carpool us a mile down the road to Stephen's place, so we packed up the remaining keg and continued the party. Luke drove, Lindsay, my sister and I back to my place at about 5:00am and we went to bed. Overall it was a really fun party; nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary happened, but everyone seemed to have a great time, so I was happy. Oh, and I spent sixty dollars on beer for the party (go, Natty Lite kegs!) and ended up with about two hundred dollars worth of whiskey as gifts. Awesome.

Sunday I woke up at 9:00am and got ready for work. On my way up 85 to drop Lindsay off, the throttle in my car began to make strange noises, the kind that a throttle should not make. Great, I thought; that's more money I don't have. At about that point the engine bucked, kicked out of gear, and belched to a halt. So Lindsay and I got to hang out on the shoulder of I-85 until the wrecker came to get the car and my father came to get us. I was quite late for work. The rest of the day was spent cringing in pain from my third hangover in as many days while trying to be pleasant to Alpharetta fucktards returning $1.49 packs of fuses.

Monday was my first day of 21 without a hangover. I found out exactly what happened to my car; through no apparent fault of mine or anyone else's, the engine threw a piston road right into the block, cracking hundreds of pounds of American cast iron. Awesome. But hey, my poor car is getting a new engine with about half the miles, so hopefully she'll run better than ever. That night I went out with Ronnie, Kyle, and Luke to 10 High for Heavy Metal Karaoke Night. And, while we were rocking out, Nick was standing in line to purchase the Atom Bomb to the Nagasaki of my social and academic lives: Halo II.

Needless to say, I spent Tuesday alternating between studying for Spanish and playing Halo II.

So yeah, that was my weekend. A bit tame, but fun none the less. Here's to legal alcoholism and early liver failure!

The end. I turned 21 today.

last night Kyle, Stephen, Ronnie and I went to Tu Tu Tango for a private party hosted by Jermaine Dupree and watched our friend Kym belly dance. And I got to drink for free all night. I'm currently still half drunk, so I'll fill in the details later.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

Fuck you, America. You just succeeded in stripping any last particles of naive idealism floating around in my brain. Hello, jadesness; hello cynicism. And I'm all of 20 years old.

Seriously, you fucktards deserve everything you're going to get.




Hey Kate, just how cold is it up there?

I went to Little 5 with Alia and her friend Binky(yeah, I don't know) today. We had lunch and went record shopping. I found Don Johnson's "Hearbeat" on vinyl for three dollars at Wax n' Facts, but for some inexplicable reason I didn't buy it. And my continuing search for some Joy Division vinyl was, as usual, fruitless. Lame.

Oh, and as it turns out, Binky, who goes to Agnes Scott, knows and lives on the same hall as my sister, and Alia has met her before while visiting Binky. It's a small fucking world.

Laura, who interns at Disney World, called me this morning to tell me that she aquired one day passes for herself and three friends. I was excited; after all, I've never been to Disney and I'm headed down there next weekend. But, as per my usual luck, the passes become valid on November first, the day I'll be driving back to Atlanta. Lame.

Oh, and I'm about to run into some money problems. This sucks more than usual because it means that I am unable to quit my job until all my shit is payed off. And I really, really hate my job right now. Bah!

But, aside from these cases of my usual bad luck, life has been going pretty well.

Oh, and I decided today that my crew has had enough of this sitting around phase and that we need to get back into crazy partying and fucking shit up phase. Hopefully this will mean more interesting and diverse journal entries that will better entertain Kate.

I went and saw The Faint last night at The Variety Playhouse. The band played well, though not as well as they did the last time I saw them. But the best part about the show (aside from The Faint covering Psycho Killer by The Talking Heads)was that about half the people I know were there. I saw about 15 kids I know from school, an old friend from high school, an old friend from middle school, Carson, Jill, Mike, Emma, a hilariously drunk Bethany, and my roommates. I went with Alia, who I somehow managed to convince to leave the house for once. And, miracle of miracles, Kym actually showed up. It was great; Ronnie, Kyle, Kym, Alia, Emma, Mike, and I took up this huge section of floor and rocked the fuck out, much to the annoyance of the head-nodding-arms-crossed indie kids around us. It was a blast.

Wow, I haven't updated the ol' LJ in a while. Well, September was a pretty good month all in all.
Things of note:
-I met Lindsay's boyfriend Max. He is a cool guy; it sucks that we weren't able to show him a better time because of school and work obligations.

-Cinefest is the best thing ever, because in the last month I've seen Eternal Sunshine and Supersize Me for free, and this week I'll be going to see Saved. I also saw Shaun of The Dead, which was fucking awesome, and Garden State, which was even more awesome.

-The hurricanes caused all sorts of craziness at work; it seemes that every denizen of Florida was hell bent on buying a weather radio from Radioshack while being as rude as possible about it. But, the deluge also allowed Luara to escape the clutches of Disney World for a weekend and return to Atlanta, so that was awesome. We also got real drunk and went swimming in the middle of the storm one night, which was both stupid and ridiculously fun.

-A few weeks ago Nick, Kyle, Stephen and I went to the Empire Spirits trade show at the Fox. It was absically three hours of scantily clad women serving us free booze. Fuckin' fantastic. It was so fun that Nick ended up going on a date with a 41 year old a few days later.

-Lindsay, my sister and I saw Flogging Molly and danced up a storm. I also went to some stupid hippy show with Alison last week. I guess I can't complain because it ended up being okay, and I got to hang out with Ali and Lacy all night. Last Thursday I went to the COnverge and Cave In show at The Masquerade. Unfortunately (in the beginning of a recurring theme) my boss wouldn't let me off work, so I made it to The Masquerade at about 9:45, just in time to hear the opening notes of "Juggernaut" wofting from inside. Too bad that was the last song Cave In played. They finally start plaing old stuff at shows and I fucking miss it. Lame. But Converge was pretty incredible, so I had a good time.

-After that show I got stood up, so instead of hanging out at 80s night (yeah, I'm not sure what I was thinking either) I went home, got blasted, and went to a 24 hour bowling alley and tried to bowl. It was awesome.

-Friday night I found myself hanging out with a horde of kids who were tripping at my apartment. All of my roommates were either headed to work or to some lameass club. I quickly decided that I wouldn't be able to handle tripping kids sober, so I started drinking. And then, after drinking, I decided to try to find either someone to come hang out or somewhere to go. I ended up going to some School of Music party at which the only people I knew were Bethany and Mike, and Mike left soon after I arrived. I had a pretty good time, though; I ended up getting this girl Heather's number. Heather, in a case of it's a small fucking world, is a girl I met in a bar a few weeks ago who turned out to be my cousin's best friend. I've know her for years, so it was very weird to run into her at a bar.

-All of the time not accounted for here was probably spent lounging around the complex and drinking and playing video games.

We fucked up. Oops. At least the enemy consists of a bunch of pussies. Now, to just deal with kids I know...

So yesterday I totally joined a band. A country band. With White James and Takashi. Since they are black and Japanese respectively, I offered to let give them some credibility. This is gonna be fucking awesome. Burgeoning Indie-country scene, here I come!

Lessee...
Well, I really haven't been up to that much lately.
Firday night Lindsay, Munchkin, Ghetto Mike, Chad and I tried to go see Blondie at Centennial Park, but it got rained out. On the way back to the old William Oliver Building we stopped under an alcove to get out of the rain for a bit and a homeless guy tried to sell us some condoms, both the male and female versions. We finally got him too go away after Munchkin extrapolated on the wonders of unprotected sex. It was pretty weird; I can honestly say that, through all my dealings with the homeless in Atlanta, none had ever tried to sell me condoms from a garbage bad until that night.
Anyway, instead we went to Bamboo Luau and got to' up.

Saturday night, miracle of miracles, the ever awesome Kate actually crawled out of her cave and hung out with us. So, in celebration, we went to Bamboo Luau and got to' up. Starting to notice a pattern? Anyway, afterwards we drank more and watched the Olympics, the activity that has consumed our lives for the last week or so.

Yesterday I started classes. I'm taking Reporting I: Basic Journalism, Spanish II, Cultural Anthropology, and Literary Criticism. So far, so good; none of them have been too tough, although I have a lot of work. It was really good to see everyone from school again. Best of all, Mike and Chad work at the Jake's on Broad Street, so now we all have a place to hang out and eat and do work between classes. Awesome.

I saw Garden State last night. It pretty much summed up my middle teen years in wonderful Alpharetta, Georgia. Awesome fucking movie.

Now I'm headed down to campus to pay my debts to Georgia State so that I can actually register and take classes this semester.

Last night I had a drink called The Suffering Bastard at Bamboo Luau. We also got a bowl (bowl!) of a drink called The Scorpion, and three long straws to drink it with. Awesome.

"And, well, I can't go down by myself, but I'll go down with my friends..."

Man, I fucking love that song. Bitches only wish that it applied to them.

I just got home from my rad trip to Orlando to visit The Bitches. Their house is absurdly awesome. I did a good amount of drinking and hanging around on the beach. I also got to see Laura. Laura rocks harder than most. Megan Murphy tried to crush my face in her sleep Thursday night. We went to Flagler and saw the old spring break house. Last night the party didn't stop until eight in the morning and we listened to that song to celebrate. Nostalgia abounds.

This whole "work" nonsense is seriously cutting into my drinking time.

I started work. It's going well. I like my job.


I moved into the new apartment. Same complex, just a different building. Nick and I moved in with Kyle and Ronnie. Our rent is now dirt cheap. Unfortunately, we also have three apartments worht of shit packed into one. As is, we can barely move or sit, and we haven't had time to cull the unnecessary stuff yet because all of us are working full time. Ah well.

Oh yeah, and we now have three cats: my cat, Opus, Kyle's cat, Nico, and Ronnie's cat, Alabama. They hate each other. It's pretty funny to watch.

Yesterday I hung out with Carson for a good while. Later on i met up with Lisa. She had just broken up with her boyfriend, so I was obligated to get her drunk. So we sat around and drank and shot the shit. It was pretty cool.

Lessee...

Last week Lindsay, Ghetto, Catie and I trekked down to fabulous Macon, Georgia to see our friends in The Oval Portrait play a show. It was fun; unfortunatly the venue decided to change it to a 21+ show so none of the local kids could get in. So, Vince got really drunk and writhed around on the floor, and then he bought Lindsay and I drinks too. It was pretty cool. I ended up buying a tshirt from them so they'd have some money; they were going to just give it to me, but empty houses don't pay the bills.

The next night was Andrea's 18th birthday. We threw down at Megan Murphy's place. It rapidly turned into a dance party. My night ended very, very well with a side dish of frustration and "why did I do that again?" for dessert.

Last weekend Ronnie and I drove to Milledgeville for the twins' 20th birthday. The party was awesome; I was afraid that these redneck fuckers they know would be there and would give Ronnie shit and force us into a situation, but luckily they didn't show. The only drama of the night invloved me yelling at a kid who tried to tell me that Sean Hannity is a genius. That, and this guy ran his 3000GT into a ditch in the front yard. It was so bad that we could niether pull nor tow it out; luckily a Dually drove by right then, so we flagged it down and the driver towed the car out, minus its front bumper. The rest of the day was spent lounging in an inner tube in the lake and drinking. This is also known as the best activity ever.

We discovered that Raquel's goody goody roommate has smoked crack before. That was pretty hilarious.

I spent most of this last week hanging out with the girls. I'm going to miss them whn they move; our high school cliche is finally dissolving, years later.

Wednesday I went with the Megans, Lindsay G, Paul, Ronnie and Brett to see Spiderman II. It was the best movie I've ever seen. I had a stupid grin on my face for the duration of the film, and then for the remainder of the night, too. I'm apparently so attached to those characters that, though I knew what was going to happen (from my years reading the comics), I still got upset when things just weren't going their way. I could explain in more detail, but I don't want to devulge anything about the movie for those who haven't seen it. I also realized, later that night, that the massive quantity of Spidy books I read during my formative years had a pretty big impact on my interests in literature in general; I tend to be drawn towards themes of duality and balance, and I'm pretty sure that all stems from years of reading Amazing Spiderman.

Thursday I started work at Radioshack. I did a lot of certifications and stocking.

This morning I recieved a call at 6am. Turns out the accelerator cable had snapped in my Dad's car on his way to work, and I was the only one he could get in touch with. By the time I got him tools, fixed the car, and came home it was time for me to go to work. And, of course, today they decided to teach me by the old "drop 'em in the water too teach 'em to swim" method, which is to say that they threw me on the sales floor and said "go nuts!" It was an... interesting day, especially since there was one guy who was gong from Radioshack to Radioshack wreaking havok by trying to find a concealable recorder and being a general asshole to all of the employees. Oh, and one of the other kids didn't show up for work, so I stayed late to help the other guys out. Fun. It's as if retail was telling me, "welcome home!"

The Echo Lounge is now 21+. Lamest thing ever. Or, at least, lamest thing until November 5th.