Myrickles

1:01pm: From Now on, my new site is...
http://www.kevinmyrick.com

Go now. This is where I will update from now on.

11:25pm: Site change
From Henceforth, all of the Kevin goodness will be published on my own website, kevinmyrick.com. A bit early, yes... but I got bored last night and this afternoon. So thus, go there.

Oh, and for those of you who are wondering why kevinmyrick.com doesn't work, here's the thing. My hosting company is a big fat bitch and I have to change around the domain names. So it's not quite live yet. But here's where you should go anyhow.

http://www.ultimatealchemy.com/blog

Enjoy.

8:48am: "I AM SPARTACUS!"
So right now on this gloomy April Fool's Day (which I think this might actually be sweet, sweet irony.) It's raining outside. Not pouring, but a nice refreshing sprinkle compared to the other night when it was hailing, lightning and thundering out. That was a fun storm.

I have still yet to work on my Advanced Comp research assignment. I got the interview with Corey and Sara done, but I still have Eccentric to go. Two stories, a half draft of my research assignment and cleaning up my room. It looks like dogshit, my room does. But I think if I can spend most of the day tomorrow switching some things around and getting rid of stuff it will be ok. It's just a matter of getting up in the morning.

I'm 99.9999999% sure that my paycheck is going to be real nice this month. I've got the money coming in from Allen plus I'm thinking I'm over hours on desk duty (which means I get paid there, if I am indeed over hours,) and a leasing bonus. Add the cash that Lori is giving me and I'm halfway to my goal for prom. Fuck that is going to be an expensive trip. As soon as I get my paychecks, I'm buying the plane ticket and throwing what's leftover into Savings. I've still got to find a place that can alter stuff around here. I didn't think about that, crap. Hmmmm....

Oh, my new ringtone right now is "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones. I've also got "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" by Jet for Jess's ringtone, and "The Futurama Theme" for a backup not so annoying sound.

Ahhh, life is sweet. I'm thinking some AC/DC next. Maybe "Thunderstruck" or "Dirty Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap)." I love those songs, purely for their guitar rifts. Thunderstruck at the beginning is also just, well, beautiful. I'd love to see it Live with Angus rockin' out on the Guitar. Ahhh that would be sexy.

So yeah, desk work sucks, umkay?

As I mentioned before, my site ultimatealchemy.com is becoming kevinmyrick.com. As of April 27th, ultimatealchemy.com will no longer be held by my "company" Ultimatealchemy Productions. Instead, we'll be focusing more on my branding with a weblog and the online draft publication of "The Sierra Madre Stories." With that stories #7 and #8 will be put out in their original unedited forms on the site, as well as to Storymania users. I'll also be posting the 52 series on the website, and using a nice new blog interface for all of this. I'm going to see about maybe getting some designers in on the act and letting them at it, and leaving me with a simple interface to work with. Or something like that. I don't know yet, but I'll figure it out soon enough.

Suffice to say, a lot of things will be changing for me soon. So keep up.

Oh, and Happy April Fools' Day!

11:14pm: You don't know how happy I am...
I have finally found out how to get the pictures off of my phone without having to spend a shitload of money. And also add ringtones, and other stuff. I am now happy. Really really happy.

So to give you people an idea of what I will be doing with said new ability, here's some photos. I'll explain in a moment...



and...



You see, one of my residents parents decided that they really liked me, and sent me an Easter present. Peeps along with some other assorted confectionaries. And being that I am a pyromaniac, I decided to have a little burning fun with the peeps. They are supposed to be indestructable and all. The first one is right after I relit the peep and almost burned the shit out of my hand. The second one is after I got done toasting the peep to a burned crisp. I call that peep guts. Not exactly a great picture, but not bad either. I'll be posting more pictures from now on.

Oh, by the way...

Starting in May, my website is changing to kevinmyrick.com, where I will henceforth be keeping my blog. However, I will still do some lj posts and be looking at my friends page constantly.

So yeah. Other than that, all is well.

5:11pm: Mitch Hedberg dies at 37
Wow, this is totally unexpected. Apparently he was found dead this morning in a New Jersey hotel room. Many places are reporting the cause of death is still unknown, but according to MTV.com of all people, Hedberg's family was told that he suffered a heart attack. They got that from the Pioneer Press, which I believe is a newspaper in St. Paul, MN.

I don't know what to say. We'll miss you Mitch.

12:42pm: My question to the audience is...
So I've been working this week. We've done everything from ripping out an old tile floor to dealing with ceiling tiles. It's been fun, kind of.

Tomorrow night after I get off of work I'm going to go do an interview for my article on Eccentric, a store in downtown Auburn that sells really cool stuff like "Don't Panic" towels, etc. Should be a hoot. A real hoot.

Then I'm going to go do stuff, maybe go see Sin City without Ashley if I get bored enough. I've still got food in the fridge, but I don't feel like cooking for lunch today so I'm ordering Jimmy Johns. I might go get some cash and see about some Chinese Food tonight, just because it tends to last me so long. I mean, hell, it lasts a really long time. Mmmm, Sweet and Sour Chicken is the shit. And I've got to start cleaning my room for housekeeping tomorrow. It's time to start getting stuff ready for Goodwill, and maybe switching some of the closets around clothing wise. It's too hard to get into the small long closet to find shit I want to wear.

Yeah, I'm a bit tired. Worked on some stuff for Lincoln and I last night. I'll probably continue to work on it tonight after I get some stuff cleaned up, and start working on my damn English paper. That thing is going to be the bane of my existence. I've also got to get my taxes over to H&R Block sometime soon and get those done. I hate doing Alabama State Taxes, I really do. Plus I figure I should let the professionals do it so maybe I can get a discount somehow. That would be great, umkay?

Gonna go see if I can take a few minutes off extra tomorrow to mail off some stuff I've been neglecting. I've been a vwery bad bwoy, yes I have.

Wow, I'm writing about errands. You know why I'm writing about errands? Cause NOTHING IS GOING ON HERE! IT IS SOOOO DAMN BORING. You know what the highlight of my night was last night, besides talking to Jess? Watching it hail. It got up to dime-sized hail last night. THAT WAS THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY WHOLE NIGHT. I HAVE 300+ Channels with HBO, Cinemax and Showtime and I can't be entertained by anything but HAIL! Now mind you, it was my first time actually seeing it hail right in front of my face.

My life officially has hit bottom when the only thing that entertains me is hail. Maybe I should go blow up all the credit card buildings in order to fulfill my life dream of living off of the land. Hmmm... nah. Takes too much time. So yeah, I think maybe I should shut up now before things get really screwed up.

Where the hell is my Jimmy Johns? I have 20 minutes of lunch left and no food damnit!

Eh, I'm gonna go watch TV. Everyone else enjoy their stay at the beach for spring break, or whatever you're getting to do. Fuckers.

5:56pm: Rest in Peace Johnnie
Johnnie Cochran 1937-2005

He died this afternoon. Another lawyer I can't call to defend me while being judged in hell. Well, shit. Maybe his soul will do some pro-bono work...

12:26am: A pointless list and other things of importance first...
( a pointless list... )

Now, where was I? Oh yes. Not doing pointless lists. But I sacrifice sometimes to make life more interesting. So yeah, Waffle House just isn't the same since I quit smoking. Even if I tried to start again, it would never be the same. No one to go with anymore, no one to sit with in the smoking section waiting on food and taking a drag off of a Red, and then drowning the taste with over-sugared coffee. I'm serious, I don't know why I quit, other than the whole "it's bad for you" thing. Nothing seems the same anymore. And it's making me nuts.

So anyhow, today was boring. Just another holiday spent at the desk. It was quiet though, and I sat up at the desk and watched movies, surfed the net and was just chill. It was nice for once not to do anything.

Now it's time for sleep. Work at 8 a.m.

10:00am: Happy Pagan-Stolen Commercialized Christian Based Holiday
Ahhh, Easter. At first, it was something I only cared about for the candy. Especially the Cadbury Cream Eggs. Talk about a sugar high... oh baby. It's some good stuff, let me tell you. This was when I was a little kid.

Then, when I used to give a crap about my religious beliefs, it was about the Christianity portion of the stolen holiday. The death and supposed resurrection of Jesus Christos. I know, you don't need to tell me. . . .

Now, the whole holiday is about sleep and television, with the candy thrown in for good measure. Sure, I might have missed Charlton Heston as Moses and as Ben Hur, but I think that I'll be ok. I have my Cadbury Cream Eggs to tie me over.

I normally wouldn't try to ruin a day off holiday such as "Jesus Flying Into The Clouds Day" with some news crap, but I felt the need to comment on yet another piece of "this shit has gone too far..."

We have this CNN Web Edition article on a new NBC show called "The Book of Daniel" that apparently is going to be about someone's own personal Jesus in modern times. Wow. Like I said yesterday, I don't have a problem with religion, but things like this crap is just overly evil. It's like Mooby from "Dogma."

Speaking of "Dogma," I think I might watch that later.

Ok, I'm done for now. I'll say some more when I "wake up" from my "nap."

7:34pm: As I become more involved with Zen practices, should I try to live without appliances or possessions
I bought this Zen book a while ago at Hastings, just to check it out and start getting into a better frame of mind. At least, it was my intention to try to get into a better frame of mind. Almost a year later, and I still have no clue as to what a right frame of mind looks like. Or if it even exists.

The book says "There are many things we do not necessarily need. But needs can be judged in many different ways, and items around us can have both practical and spiritual benefits. From a Buddhist perspective, objects that make our lives easier are less of an obstacle to Enlightenment than simple items to which we have emotional ties; so keep the diswasher, if you like."

Today is day 13 of my quitting time, which is a long time without a cigarette. I really wanted one today for some reason. I'm not supposed to have cravings anymore, and the drugs are supposed to control that. But alas, they're not doing such a hot job of that right now. I've had some bad cravings tonight, and I think it might be from the anxiety I've been having about everything lately.

( Spring Break Blues... )

Oh, I forgot to mention: I drove my friend Lincoln home to Alpharetta last night. It was one hell of a ride in the middle of the night. I hate driving at night, if I've never mentioned it, because the lights kill my eyes. It's one thing to drive at night if it's just you, but another when lights are blazing in your face from the other side of the interstate, or hitting your rearview mirror just so, so that it partially blinds you.

( More of my experiences with Lincoln and company )

I think my favorite topic was the ( Chocolate Cross conversation from last night. )
So yeah, that went and pissed me off. And now, we're back to square one on a stormy Saturday night and I'm still craving a cigarette. I think I'll just go try to do something productive now, like read. Or watch a movie. Cause apparently, writing isn't helping, and talking isn't doing much good either.

12:16pm: I hate you guys... I really do.
Yeah, so last night was talent night here at my building. I hate talent night. I hate the roommate game. I hate any and all events where we have to move furniture and/or the stages in order to make the event work. It's just that well, some of my coworkers just don't want to actively engage the muscles that nature intended them to use. So thus, they sit on the sidelines and watch us move everything, and comment on where stuff should go, etc.

This of course makes me angry.

And because talent night was such a wonderful success, everyone who wanted to go was done in like an hour and a half. Done, completely. And of course, that sucked. So we tried to stall. My boss sang. And I got on stage to rant about crap and tell a funny story. This went over like a puppy thrown into a river in a burlap sack. Full of bricks.

I killed the talent night. Why? Because I have NO TALENT!
( Killing things good and proper, the way it should be done. )
I think I am going to go stick my head in the shower at some point to get the crustiness off of me. Ewww, crustiness.

Oh, did I also mention that Cap'n'Crunch is the shit? Fo shizzle mai nizzle.

10:02am: Sixth Avenue Heartache
Fucking hell. This is what I have to say every time I take a Wellbutrin pill. I've not had a decent night's sleep since I quit smoking really. Maybe just one. And it's fucking killing me, every time I take one now I begin to think how long I can last without sleep good healthy natural sleep. Three days? Four?

Ok, so maybe I'm a little dreary from the fact that I've not had sleep, and being melodramatic. But fuck man, I need my rest. I can't keep up this attitude of not giving a shit about stuff if I have no sleep. Really, not giving a crap about anything or anyone is really a big pain in the ass when you have not had any sleep. And caring, well, that's just takes more effort than I am able to give right now. And this shit is literally KILLING me, at least, that's what I think its trying to do.

On the plus side of things, I finally have the Jeep. I said, I HAVE THE JEEP! Isn't this just wonderful news? It drives so well, and I am really happy getting to go to and fro in the thing, down streets of my own accord without anyone else having to cart my ugly ass around. It's well, wonderful. And it has 4 wheel drive. So if I ever get pissed off enough during traffic around here, and I upgrade those tires ever... let's just say car crushing has always been a small dream of mine. Even though I'd probably never do that, it'd still be cool as hell to see that in every day traffic. My only problem is the killing someone part. I could really see that happening.

Yeah. Isn't this just peachy?

Oh, as part of the ritual of breaking in the vehicle, I went to Wal-Mart to see about getting a cup holder because it doesn't have one, and that's something I need. I'm sorry, long road trips and Kevin= needing something to drink constantly, and that means I need a fucking cup holder. Especially if someone else comes along for the ride. Like for instance, my friend Lincoln. I'll probably be heading up to Atlanta with him Friday, just a quick trip out of Auburn. Bad news: I have to come back Saturday. I don't really like the whole idea of, you know, leaving someplace. But I don't really want to leave any place I might go for Spring Break. I need some place I can rest for a few days, just get the hell away from here.

But instead, I have to work. And work. And work some more. All during my spring break. Fuckers. Mother fucking fuckers. I don't want to work during spring break. I don't care about the building during this time. I want to work my desk shifts, that because of a co-worker's selfishness of wanting to get out of town while the rest of us stays, I have to stay here and work his Thursday shift. But I look at it this way:

1) Whatever time I get of his during Spring Break is more time on the clock for me, in which that means more time I get paid for. I should have exceeded my hours about, oh, I don't know, by the end of this week. If I haven't done so already. Then we have to consider that, because I'm working maitenance during this time too, I get to clock those hours. So if I work 40 hours this coming up week, and Easter Sunday, then I'll be able to have a nice paycheck for the month of March. Which means I'll be on my way to paying for my trip to Maryland for prom.

2) Because he is leaving and I'm taking his shift, and leases that he might have received during his time become MY leases, which is good because then I get a leasing bonus. And the more leasing bonuses I get, the better. Mainly because I get a nice fat check for those leases. And then will have another nice fat check in September when the new crop of freshmen move in. Ahhh, bonuses. Those are good, except for the 40 percent tax that is on the fuckers. I mean, fucking 40 fucking percent? It's almost not worth it.

3) I'm might be the only resident staff member this month to go over my hours. Assuming they aren't cut. I asked about this last night at a meeting where we had to make believe we were doing a lease, and yeah. My boss told me because I work so damn hard and much that I was in a small minority not having hours cut. They're cutting hours because "we have to save money until the end of the quarter." Which is the end of the month.

So this makes me a happy camper. The more money I have in the long run, the better.

Enough of me for now, I'll do a more comprehensive update tomorrow.

9:37am: Oh no, there goes Georgia, oh no Hogzilla
They actually spent the time to dig up an 800lb-8ft hog in Southern Georgia.

Excuse me while I have a severe anger management problem...

Now, what the hell are they trying to do here? Are they trying to waste perfectly good money that could be spent elsewhere? It's a fucking pig. A P-I-G pig. (Movie reference?)

I think whatever time and money they invested into this venture could have been better used in say, finding the Loch Ness Monster, or Bigfoot. You know, if we found Bigfoot, what would we do with him? I think we'd conceivably have to teach him how to drive the monster truck Bigfoot. Since it is sort of named after him and all.

Hogzilla. That's messed up. I want my Godzilla back damnit.

Oh, and apparently the weather here is about to get nasty. Great, just another thing to be angered about today. At least life isn't so bad right now. I'm on day nine of quitting smoking, so I have to be doing better than I was doing on day three. I think I'm going to make it though, I'm going to get past the cravings and the evil.

I'm done for now. More later.

1:40am: Another night in paradise
I wonder what my life would be like sometimes without her around.

I wonder if maybe I wouldn't be quitting smoking right now. (If we're going by my count, it's eight days now since we count the first day as being one. We never start out at zero.) I think I'd be reluctant to. And maybe I think sometimes I don't really comprehend what I've gotten myself into, and am just enjoying everything while it lasts. Or maybe I do, and am still just enjoying everything while it lasts.

Enjoying her love. Her touch. Her taste. Her thoughts. Her way of editing me sometimes. Her way of calming me down a bit when I'm on the phone with her (although we do still have our moments.) I enjoy everything about her. Even her faults (to a point.)

When she asks me how I know that I love her, I tell her. And she understands. And that feels wonderful.

When she tells me she loves me, I think for a moment how much that is awesome. How awestruck I am at that proposition. That someone actually LOVES me. LOVES me.

She told me that she is addicted to me tonight. She can't get enough of me.

And for the first time in a long time, I am flattered by such a compliment.

I get compliments all the time. My parents remind me how much of a good kid I am. Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles, all of them telling me how good of a kid I am. How proud of me they are for going to college. How great it is that I'm working too. How much they think I am smart. How great they think my writing is (my Dad has actually read a lot of my stuff. He didn't say much about it, other than it's good. I know the truth, it needs work.)

I get these compliments all the time. They are now expected from these people.

I do good because that is the way I've always been taught to do something. Don't half-ass it if you can, don't get into trouble. Don't fuck up in school. Learn. Work hard. Give most of yourself. Be happy.

Be happy. This is the point of the post where things get complicated. Where the need to be pleasing sometimes gets in the way of my need to be happy. Everyone is expecting so much of me. And the pressure, it's there. It's in the back of my head constantly, weening away at my brain. And suddenly, after two years of college, multiple years of high school, and too many years of trying to please everyone, I'm giving up on that. I'm glad that you people love me, and that you're proud of me, and you think I'm smart, and that it's great that I'm going to college, and that my writing is good. I've heard all of this before, over and over and over again. I don't need to hear it again. I just want to be who I am with who I love.

And the same goes for her. She wants to be with me, and I want to be with her. And frankly, I don't think that's too much to ask. Thus, I'm beginning to wonder if maybe Auburn is the right place for me to be still. I'm wondering why I'm still working this shit job for shit pay. I'm wondering why I'm subjecting myself to humiliation and employee embarassment for the "good" of the company. I'm wondering if I'm really able to be completely happy ever. And then I start to think that maybe, just maybe, I am destined to be alone. That happiness is sometimes temporary for me.

And this folks, is one of the reasons why I started and quit smoking. I thought it would make me happy. Instead, I just wasted a lot of money and ended up hurting myself in the process. I'm not as happy as I'd like to be, and I don't know if I'm in the right place in life right now. All I know for certain is that I'm hear right now, and that I should be doing something with my life. Anything and everything to make myself happy.

Right now, I want to be with her. Or her be with me. Or something, anything to where we could see each other every day, just so I can see her smile. That's all I want, is to see her smile every morning as I wake up. And then, I want to spend the rest of the day in front of my computer writing about something, and thinking of her smile until she comes back to me. And then I would be delighted. I would be estatic. I would be happy. I would be a warm gun.

Instead, I'm here and now. And I think to myself how much a cigarette would be good right now. Even though it would taste like dogshit. But instead, I think I'll eat a cookie. Those are at least somewhat healthier.

4:16am: Too fucking early in the morning
I can't sleep. This is bad. I've got a minor headache and Suzie Orman is on TV. It's the only thing on TV. I fucking hate this shit. Fucking Wellbutrin and its fucking side effects.

Ugh. I'm going back to the couch.

2:19am: Day Five Spectacular at the Desk
So yeah, I had to work the desk today. Which on a Friday means a few things for me. One, for instance, that after 7PM, everyone will be drunk. And they won't start coming back until around 11:30. So I have in between those two times a large amount of time to kill. Even then, I have a lot of time to kill before then.

So naturally, at around 4:30ish, I disable my computer and prepare it for front desk duty. Thus, the keyboard and mouse go too. And so, I carry those in my messenger bag whilst carrying my computer under one arm. It kind of pisses me off that I have no better way to transport the thing.

I get up front, set my things down, and suddenly the chaos of the day begins. Austin calls to ask me to let him into his room somewhat clandestinely because he left his keys in the room and doesn't want to pay five bucks. He's used up all of his times he gets for free. So the dilemma is how do I let him into his room without my three bosses at the front yelling at me? I don't know...

Before all of this though, we got to see some of our new uniform items that we're going to have to wear for this new promotional campaign the company is running until the 27th. It's called Waves, and we give away a free trip if you're name is drawn nationally. Each property picks a name and sends it up for the national drawing. Should be interesting. So, to promote this thing and get people to lease, we're getting to wear hawaiian themed stuff. Which normally I'm all about, but since corporate, in their infinite wisdom deems it so to add things to the uniform, like for instance, funky hawaiian flower print hats (the tackiest thing I have ever laid eyes on...)




I swear this is the ugliest thing my eyes has ever had the displeasure of seeing. And I like my hawaiian stuff. I like board shorts with that sort of pattern. I like to wear hawaiian shirts much like this. (well, 2 colors with the whole flower thing) but this hat is too much.

But you know what? I don't care anymore. Let them make us wear an ugly hat. We're just showing how fucked up we are more and more.

I finally get to sit down after all these different chores that had to be done, and I get down to the business of the evening: get my Grace Hill training done. Let me explain.

See, in the infinite wisdom of my company, they've decided that we are all idiots and don't have a fucking clue of how to sell anything. I mean, when we interviewed we had to try to sell a board to a group of people. And that is really fucking hard to sell lumber. Lumber is a commodity that should be able to sell itself. Giving tours and getting leases usually isn't that huge of a deal. I've gotten used to people telling me they want to shop around. I encourage it, in fact. I tell them to go look on campus, to see how long the wait list is. I tell them to go look at apartments around here if they want to, see how clean the models are? Nothing like that in the real thing. College towns are so fucking laxed on living conditions of these places. And the rental companies make a killing off of college kids in rent. And utilities make a killing off of us. Charter basically has a monopoly on cable. Which sucks. My cable bill just went up. I'm calling Monday to get the scoop as to why.

Yeah, I was talking about work, and this Grace Hill training. So instead of having real life training, they give us little flash based presentations for us to watch and take tests on. We have to make a 70 or higher to pass (I've made a 100% on one test, which so happened to show up at the convention for GMH somehow, and my bosses were happy with me about it.) And since we're supposed to be getting this done, oh, I don't know, before Thanksgiving, I've needed to get mine completed for a while now. So I'm finally finished, I'm hoping. If I have to do one more goddamned training module and hear that bitch voice tell me something is wrong on the challenge quiz. I fucking hate that bitch.

So I finally finished that. It took about an hour and a half, just like I thought it would. Then I set up my computer around 7PM and started working on the new writing project stuff with Lincoln. We've got a lot to cover in a very long amount of time to do it in. If anyone's interested in helping us, we're working on creating a universe for some short stories and possibly a book eventually. Hopefully we'll have the Wiki up soon, and that will help a lot. the site is www.whengodsdestroy.org. It was supposed to be whomgodsdestroy, but I am a dumb fuck and registered the wrong name. Fuck it.

Did that until around 11. Started checking brackets out for the NCAA tournament. Fucking hell, it's all messed up now. Nothing is right anymore. I've got the major ones I've picked sort of working. But Syracuse got knocked out, and I had them going to the final four. So that messes up a whole chain of events. I really hate causal chains now that I know what they are.

Shut down the computer at 11:45 anticpating the arrival of my relief so I can come back to my room and sleep. Twelve rolls around, and still no one. 12:30? Where are you? I'd called my boss at 12:10 to let him know what was going on. God love my relief, she fell asleep on the couch fully dressed to come to work. If it wasn't for her, I'd go nuts.

Did I mention there is softcore vampire porn on my television right now? It's nasty. Oh so nasty. Especially the Fabio vampire wanna be. He's just "studly"...

Wow, it's almost three in the morning and I'm still up. Time for sleep.

Night folks.

12:38am: Top of the Mornin' to ya
Howdy all!

Well, yesterday was by far the most fucked up day of my life. I was pissed off as hell, shaking at times, and even to the point of wanting to kill someone. I mean, rip out their hearts and feast on it. Yummy.

So yeah. I was really pissed off yesterday. A lot of that anger was vented on Austin, a friend of mine who lives in my building. And another good portion of it went against a piece of writing that was featured in two posts yesterday, which was quite unfortunate. I won't necessarily retract what I think in those posts, but more of an apology for being so cruel and vulgur towards the author. So yes, for once, I apologize to the author of that particular post for being rude.

And today, it has been better somewhat. The cravings are pretty much gone. But on the downside, my body is starting to detox itself. So yeah, it has been uncomfortable to say the least and pissing me off to no end. At least on the plus side I've read a lot.

Damnit to hell. That is all I have to say. Damnit to hell.

Too much shit right now. I've got the cleaning people coming tomorrow and my floor is covered with shit. Allen came by this evening after he got back in town from Philadelphia and told me he was coming to inspect my room. What the fuck for? To tell me it looks like shit? Yeah Allen, I know that. Thanks buddy. What the hell do you want me to do? And why is it I have to keep my room immaculate while the rest of the RA's on staff get to keep their rooms shitty? Is it because my room is the only ADA room in the whole building (which for some reason seems pretty fucked up to me. You think we could do something about this... alas though, I'm sure we can't for some reason.) So I've been running around trying to tidy up a bit. But that really isn't working.

And it all has to do with I have too much shit. I've got to start cutting down the amount of shit I have.

And now, I'm pissed off. People know how to push my buttons, and it doesn't help that I could use a couple of cigarettes at this point. Just enough to keep me balanced. But that's not going to happen, because I'm not allowed to smoke anymore. Wait a second though, and I'm not going to use quitting smoking as an excuse here. Am I not allowed to be pissed off from time to time? Can I not just be pissed off because a person pissed me off? I can't be mad at someone?

That's not fair. Not fucking fair at all. I think if I want to be pissed off because someone began an argument with me and pushed my mind into that direction, I'm allowed to be a bit peterbed for one night.

Fuck it, I'm tired and I'll finish cleaning for them in the morning.

10:08pm: *The End to that annoying rant from before...*
Right, when I said I'd finish this in a minute, I lied. I meant that I would finish it when my brain wasn't racked by fucking crazy ass cravings. And as we all know, those suck balls. I hate them so bad.
( finishing what I started... )
Fucking hell is all I have to say. Fucking hell.

I really am being a bastard for no reason.

I got a Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Extra for myself at Best Buy tonight. I just wiped out my bank account to do so, but you know what? It was worth every penny. I've been waiting for something like this for over two years now. Ever since I saw the Ipod, I've wanted one so bad. It's better than the iPod though, and cheaper. I took it upstairs to show my friend Chris, aka defiantwyant who has a Nomad Zen Micro 5GB player. I told him how much I paid for it, and he pretty much saw it at the same price on the internet. Hahahaha!

Mwohahahaha!

2:02pm: *Expressing my pissed off opinion even more...*
I just got done reading this piece of absolute crap. And let me tell you why it is utter crap.

( more of another annoying Day Three Based Rant here... )

12:57pm: *It's day three. This is the longest I've ever gone without a cigarette in over 2 years*
And this people, is why I am cranky. I'm past being Oscar the Grouch angry. I'm past Archie Bunker on "All in the Family" angry. I'm full blown nuts right now. And I can feel it in the back of my brain pissing me off.

What's pissing me off right now? My toes. I feel like I want to crack them right? But I can't. And thus, I am in a really bad mood.

I've been reading Dooce.com for the past few days, and am amazed at how well this woman writes. I'd love to read some of her fiction. And I've never really had a favorite female author, but this is one I could grow to enjoy.

It's cold today too. That's another thing that is pissing me off. It's cold and rainy. Those two things combined should have me pissed off real bad. But uber pissing me off is cold, rain and wind blowing on you all at the same time, so that way you get a cold rain soaking from different directions, and are continuously soaked even with the umbrella. And you're body is tired, and you're cranky because you haven't had a cigarette in three days, and you want to shoot someone if they open their mouth one more goddamned time to ask you for something because for some fucking reason they just can't do it themselves. Like for instance, "Hey Kevin, can you come here for a second and try to fix my fucking computer?" You know what, it's called the fucking internet. I used it to learn about most of the stuff I've done to fix computers. Some of it is just intuitive anyhow. It's not that fucking hard. Learn bitch, and quit asking me for favors.

Another thing that is pissing me off is the fact that all my smoker buddies from the past are now complete and utter assholes. I shaved my head right, giving myself a haircut and taking away the three pounds of hair that adorned my head, and one of them was like "oooh, I wanna rub it!" This of course, was while I was on the phone with my mom trying to pay attention to what she was talking about, which had to do with the recent passing of a family member and how other family members were upset, etc.

So yeah. I'm a bit pissed off about everything right now. Even with the Wellbutrin.

But I'm fighting the fight. I'm going to do this, even if it mames me. Not killing, but maming is OK.

Oh, and another thing that pisses me off is that now when I have the urge to smoke, I have to remind myself that I don't have any cigarettes, no fucking car to get them with, a half-ass lighter to light them with, and of course, am trying to quit so my body is confused as hell while my mind is going "we don't need one anyomre." And my body, if it could communicate, is saying something along these lines, "Well, we're so used to having one every two hours, what are we supposed to do now? Relax? We forgot how to do that."

So yeah, everything is tense right now. And hard. And well, just nuts. I should have locked myself in my room with enough supplies to last three days and told everyone to fuck off. Or waited until Spring Break to do that. Either way, I'm quitting now, and it is well, not fun. Because no one like a fucking quitter.

I'm hungry now. Food.

4:04pm: *fighting the craving...*
Even with the Wellbutrin, I'm getting some cravings. My body isn't quite used to the fact that we don't have to go outside to smoke a cigarette every other hour or so. Sometimes less, sometimes more. Depends solely on what I'm up to at the time.

Right now, I'm feeling edgy, a little crazy, and more importantly, tired. I didn't realise how much I depended on cigarettes to keep me going. Fucking hell. It's a crazy world, and I'm a happy guy.

8:46am: I'm giving up... again
So, since yesterday was my birthday and all, a few things changed.

One, I quit smoking. The Wellbutrin is some good shit, and I haven't had a craving, nervous twitch, or anything like that since I threw my cigarettes in the trash. Which, is kind of sad. I should have smoked them all before I quit. But I didn't want to kill myself even more so than I did before. But yeah, I quit yesterday. And so far, everything is okay. I'm kind of jittery right now, but other than that, it's cool.

I also cut my hair. Now, you'd think this would be an ordinary thing, something that people do all the time. But let's just say when I cut my hair, it all goes at one time. There's no half-assing it (because my parents always told me if I was going to do something, I should do it right the first time. At least, I think they did. They probably told me it was okay to make mistakes too.) So thus, I have no hair right now, unless you consider hair that stubble that is on my head. I'm not leukemia patient bald, but I definitely feel about three pounds lighter without the hair.

And now, I've upset Jess. Of course, I knew it would upset her that I cut my hair, but I am an individual. And it's my fucking hair. I don't tell her to cut her hair. So how can she tell me I can't cut mine? It's not something I'm really mad about, or trying to be an asshole or anything, it's just well, kind of sophomoric in some ways. It's my head, and I'll do whatever I want with it. Except for piercings and tatoos. So I hate needles, shoot me if you don't like it.

Overall though, my birthday was good. Especially a conversation Jess and I were in on the phone. We were talking about names we'd want our kids to have (I've not been too creative on the girl's side, but I've decided that William, John, Paul and Peter would be good names for boys. Girls range from Elizabeth to Mary, but eh, whatever. I'll get there.) And I asked her...

[Me] "So, what's your grandmother's name?"
[Jess] "Which one?"
[M] "You know, the one you live with. The one that looks kind of like a troll."
[J] "Oh yeah, right. Her name is Jesus." (Spanish pronunciation is "Hey-Zeus" as far as I can tell. Correct me if I am wrong.)
[M] "So her name is Jesus."
[J] "Yes."
[M] "I didn't know girls could be named Jesus."
[J] "Yeah, in Spanish cultures they can." (Or something like what she said. At this point, I was thinking...)
[M] "Isn't she a bit belligerent to be named Jesus?"
(What a line. I'm actually proud of myself for saying this. It'll need further explanation, so just give me a second.)
[J] "Oh man, I'm so telling my mom that. She'll love it."

OK, so to explain a bit here. Jess's great-grandmother lives with them. And she is around 90, small, wrinkled, and troll-like. Hence the expression that she looks like a troll. Now, the other problem with her is that mostly the only thing she does now is mumble in Spanish (to me, incoherently) and look out the window (when she's not sick and in the hosipital.) And from what Jess tells me (because I don't speak but about four phrases in Spanish, so thus I am a failure at life once again) she is mean, and not just regular mean, but wicked mean. The type of mean that makes people hate god. So thus, when I say that she is a bit belligerent to be named Jesus, I'm being sarcastic and honest all at the same time. Wow, that was too much for one good line.

But in hinesight, last night was a decent wrap up to my birthday. I'm 20 years old. Twenty. It just feels old saying it. Too easy. I need a number after it now, like twenty-five or something. At least it takes more than a syllable to say it. Well, two syllables. Whatever.

Well, I should probably get back to looking like I'm doing something important. And since the Wellbutrin feels like it might take a few minutes to kick in from the dose I took this morning, I'm going to go twitch around for a while now.

11:58am: "It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to damnit..."
Well, happy fucking birthday to me so far. It's been OK, I guess. Not much really going on.

I was on my way to Beginning Acting this morning when I remembered that today was the day to register for classes if you're a junior, just like me. My only problem with this is that right now, I'm still in the same dillemma; I can't ever get the classes I want when I want them.

Let's take for instance this coming up semester. Because of my lateness in registering, I'm now enrolled in the following classes:

ENGL-4710 - The Gothic
ENGL-4520 - American Realism and Naturalism
PHED-1600 - Intermediate Karate
ENGL-4440 - Contemporary British Literature
JRNL-2210 - Newswriting

Now, let's look at the three English courses up on the screen right now. Those should read ENGL-4200 - Fiction Writing I, ENGL-4220 - Poetry Writing I (a class I am sure I'm going to hate with a passion, but it must be done...), and finally ENGL-4010 - The Personal Essay. Now under normal circumstances, I wouldn't mind the courses I picked. Hell, any class that gives me an excuse to read Stephen King (As in, The Gothic class) or British authors (Contemporary British Literature) sounds awesome. In fact, I'll overlook the fact that American Realism and Naturalism on the course description looks kind of bland. But here's my problem with the whole system at Auburn right now. The competition is too great, and the technology they are using is too overloaded. Thus, when you try to register for any form of classes, you can't. Why? Because everyone is on at the same time looking for the same thing. It would help, of course, if maybe we had more faculty teaching the fiction writiing and poetry writing classes, and more than Dr. Hammersmith (who is teaching the Advanced Comp class I am in this semester) teaching the Personal Essay.

But I shouldn't get pissy about that right? I mean, I'm "paying" for an education (student loans suck balls) that is good for Alabama, right?

No, I think I have the right to get a bit pissed off. I'll have been here for almost two years now. That's right, two. Come May, that's 5 semesters (I stayed over last summer). I'm a junior. I'll have around 75 hours, give or take a few. I need these classes to get the hell out of college.

And everything else is a bit of a waste. I'll have my extraciriculars. I'll have 6 of my 15 hours of journalism done by the end of next semester. And by the time I'm done with karate next semester, I should be close to getting a blue belt.

Fucking college crap. What the hell is wrong with the system if people can't get done in time with what they want to do? I should almost just go into engineering just so I don't have to put up with any more class scheduling shit, because that's alll Auburn seems to care about. That, and Architecture, Vetinary, the Sciences and Business. When it comes to the arts, they'll let us have our sandbox. But we don't always get to play.

Damnit. Now I'm ranting on my birthday.

11:40am: *Live from Maryland, a not so important update... well. It is to me anyhow.*
So yeah, I'm at Jess's house and doing a post of sorts.

It turns out that the Jeep is not ready this weekend after all. Apparently, when Cue-ball went to go pick it up in Augusta, after waiting all damn morning for it, something else happened and it's still in the damn shop. I'm done putting up with this shit. I'm gonna call Heard tonight when I get back and give him an ultimatum: you have until next Monday. If I don't have my Jeep by then, the deal is off. I'm getting a little pissed off with all this after all. And I think I've been patient enough, since it's been almost a month since I was supposed to get my Jeep.

This weekend has been the most awesome pre-birthday weekend ever. I've had some crappy ones too, like the blizzard of '93 when I turned 9, or when I was twelve and the bridge fell in. Those birthdays sucked like hella bad. But this birthday in comparison will be good. At least, the events beforehand (except for the Jeep part) will be good.

It has been decided, according to the prophecy, that Cue is going to drive me back from the airport. I'm not paying 40 bucks for a ride back. That just isn't happening. And since he is willing to, and I guess he feels bad for not having my Jeep, so that is a plus. I'm going to talk to him about this whole situation and see what he thinks. While his opinion is biased, I still feel the need to discuss events with him.

Oh, and for those of you wondering why Thursday I was suddenly unavailable, my step-aunt died and I had to go to LaGrange for the night. On the one hand, I got to see and hang out with my mom for a little while. On the other hand, it was awkward as hell and I had no clue of what to say to these people. It's not like we were that close or anything. So I am giving up on trying to be consoling. I feel bad for these people, and offer my condolences for their loss. But other than that, I have no clue what to say.

Okay, I'm done here. New post when I get back to Auburn.

4:01pm: blah
will not be available tonight. IF you need me, you probably have my cell phone.

Later,
Kev