Lost Four Months

Okay, well, I’ve been doing really bad on this blog of mine. I’m over 3 months behind (Holy Moley!) and keep letting myself lag more and more.

And there’s no real good reason for this. Just been too busy with life to write about it. I know, that seems real lame sauce of me, but well, this is the first in many sad attempts to even out the scales. Fortunately, I’ve been keeping notes on every day, and though that means I will miss out on most of the visceral connection and thoughts on each day, at least I will be able have some kind of record. And I can at least say that November and December will have a better record of my little existence.

This means I will write November and December as normal, AND retroactively write July through October. For every November entry, I will do TWO old entries. Maybe even more, if time permits. Here’s to hoping I can get my crap together. (Maybe as a cool bonus, I will skip between the Lost Four Months, and write about days out of order). Keep in mind, that the “Retro Entries” (did I coin my own phrase?) will probably quick and uninspired.

Luckily, November 1st was relatively uneventful, just another day of Math class and work. Awesome, right?

Yesterday, I watched The Walking Dead, and that was beyond awesome, which I will write about in detail soon.

….okay, even I don’t trust me. But bare with me, please.

Topics of Conversation: Math woe, the Doctor is out, turkey, notes best not made, more information, waiting to make sense, atonement for faltering in my journalistic duties, etc.

-Nate

August 19

Well, I had some school today, but after that your guess is as good as mine.

NATE NOTE: The journal notes for August 19 through 24 are missing.

There are at least five days in a row that I have no notes of. That will make retroactively writing about them very, very difficult.

Topics of Conversation: The Supreme Justice of the Supreme Court Extreme, 6th Edition, foolish chipmunk, etc.

-Nate

Second-Person

Getting a paycheck is awesome, isn’t it?

Its just… its money that’s yours. You earned it. It ain’t addressed to you for no reason. You should be able to have each dollar to spend as you see fit. To invest and throw away to your heart’s content.

Too bad it just isn’t like that.

You got the bills. They get first crack at all your money, and they always want more of it. You always want to give them less of it. Really, if all your debt had a face, you’d kick it’s ass. Friggin’ bills, man…

I’m not sure why I went all second-person on you. For all I know, you hate when people assume what you’ll do. But I’m thinking you’re a creature of empathy, and that we’re on the same page, right? OF COURSE I’M RIGHT.

So anyways, I got a paycheck, which I would spend a majority of on bills, and then went out to catch up with Carissa. She was getting her car smogged, and I figured I could help her out in dealing with this big ol’ scary world. After doing that, I would run out to a bank and deposit my paycheck.

And that’s pretty much how the day went. She got her car smogged, saw how easy it was, we got my check to the bank, which actually took longer than it was supposed to. It was much more harder to find the bank branch in question than I had originally thought. But found it we did, and then food was acquired with said money.

After that, Carissa headed home, and I headed to Lainey’s place to watch yet more Lost. I’m officially getting WAY into it. The 2nd Season isn’t quite as good as the first, but its still better written than a lot of the crap on TV right now. I think the other thing I like about it is the sheer ambition. This is a very unconventional show. And its creating its own mythology with each episode.

Lainey fell asleep. I guess she’s not into the show as much.

(I’m kidding, Lainey! She actually already watched almost the entire season).

Topics of Conversation: Dinosaur people, visual learning, hummus for the day, mangoes, diary shovers, banks, sometimes I think too damn hard about stuff, drinking to anything, 3-second memory, cold show, dreams of repeat importance, getting some good anger going, etc.

-Nate

Matt Lauer Can Suck It

I taped another Water Board Meeting for Lakewood. It was exciting as it always is. Though they were having problems with a water leak above the council chambers which I thought had a funny symbolism to it.

I talked to my boss, Steve, and a co-worker, Joe, for a bit before heading out to the bank to cash a check. I also made plans to meet up with Carissa for lunch. We ended up grabbing some teriyaki (Again. I’m a fiend for the stuff, man) at a place on Beach called Aloha Teriyaki. It wasn’t a bad joint. I’d probably go there again some time. And the company was fun, which usually makes food better.

I headed to Norwalk after, which was slow, as it always is on Mondays. I stayed a little later to grab some equipment that had been used by the Finances department for a presentation. They went for way longer than had been expected, and I had to load up two portable pull-up screens, two projectors, one laptop, a microphone, various cables, and a big, cumbersome speaker all by myself.

I did it one trip. BOO YAH!

I got home and watched Will Ferrell’s Land of the Lost on On-Demand.

Not many of my friends liked it that much, so that steered me away from watching it in theaters. To be honest, I actually liked the movie a lot. Some of Will Ferrell’s schtick gets old at times, but other than that, I was really into the movie. It has that fun, improvised humor feel to it, wrapped in a big budget action-adventure movie. And I really wanted to explore the Land of the Lost in Land of the Lost. So kudos to them on that.

And the Matt Lauer stuff made me laugh. They were great bumpers to the movie. Would I have liked it as much if I paid $10? I’m not sure, but I liked it on Cable.

Topics of Conversation: Repair Insurance, water bottle shower, cocoNOTS or Coconauts, the Fake Grape Emporium, scans, complete support, Swedish Ireland, spam, 27% Hawaiian, Wyoming, weird sweaters, was someone strange BEFORE or AFTER getting rich?, freedom without cars, etc.

-Nate

Lost Pizza

I headed over to Lainey’s place to hang out and grab some lunch. It had been a while since the last time we had hung out, and I hadn’t seen her cat, Hemlock, in a long time. The cat was getting really big after only 4 months! She was a little more tolerant of me this time around, but only just. And Hemlock seemed nicer, too. Hey! (I’m kidding, Lainey).

Having an opening bit/monologue doesn’t work as well without a live band and an audience track.

We went to Del Taco for lunch and talked about birthdays and how not to plan them. I found myself slightly concerned over the fact that I did not have much of a plan for my upcoming birthday. At the same time, I didn’t feel all that bothered by that possibility when I really thought about it. My Birthdays aren’t something I get all that worked up about.

We headed back over to her place and decided on watching Lost Season 2 for the remainder of the day. I had yet to see any of this season, and she had it on NetFlix, so we blasted through a ton and a half of the episodes. I didn’t really catch the names of the eps, but I could google them.
At one point, Patrick called to invite me to get some pizza. He also called with some awesome information: a movie project that he had been working on some monster designs for was getting greenlit! That meant that he would be getting paid to do designs on an actual movie! This was awesome news indeed, and deserved some pizza and camaraderie. After finishing up another episode with Lainey, I bid her farewell, and headed to Garden Grove.

I met up with Patrick at a Pizza Hut, and we talked about the amazing and annoying possibilities that came with such an opportunity. We also talked about women and all the headaches they can bring, but hey, what’s new there, right? (I hope all my friends whom are women, lovely, forgiving women, don’t get angry at me and kick my ass). After pizza, we were walking to our cars when we heard a racket from across the way.

It was karaoke.

Apparently, the Kelly’s Coffee on Chapman and Brookhurst hosts karaoke 4 to 5 days a week. And we were hearing some pretty crazy takes of Eminem and other 90’s standbys. Patrick and I looked at each other and decided to check it out.

Checking it out quickly turned into singing. Hey, that’s how karaoke works. It sucks you in, and you suddenly find yourself singing “Oliver’s Army” at the top of your lungs. At least I did tonight. Patrick and I sang “Build Me Up Buttercup” and “I Want You Back.” We were pretty sexy at it, too.

Topics of Conversation @ Lainey’s & Pizza Hut: Fake chicken, talking at gun point, the Ripple Fund, avoiding rumors, birthday blues, shaved cat, “I don’t like you” said Lainey, for want of a french fry, watermelon jelly beans, walking a thin line, etc.

-Nate