We've been had, I know it's over // Somehow it got easy to laugh out loud

Hello old friend. Thought I'd take a bit of a break from myself and try to focus on clearing my skies of all melancholy. Some success, thanks to my great friends. I got to talk to Charice until the roosters started crowing the other day, which was just wonderful. We talked about all sorts of things, it's a secret though. Melissa is also back from school and will be here all summer for me to pester. We hung out all Friday, we saw a documentary about the Flaming Lips which was unbelievable. We did all sorts of things, it's a secret though. Ugh I'm no fun.

After we all watched the Miami Heat and the refs defeat the Pistons Sun. night, we all went over to Ellston's house for drinks and cards. I got pulled into having drinks also, I had the self-afflicted blues (not relating to basketball) and soon the shots were piling to the ceiling, the opposite direction my poker chip stacks were going for the short time I played. After that it got sort of hazy and dark. I was being merciless in my self-character assassination ways, with all restraints removed, and then trying to drink more to battle it and then throwing up in the bathroom, then waking up still hugging the bowl to a text message from Isaacs, sending a reply more numerical than english, and passing out on a couch. It was dumb. I woke up seeing large rabbits running around in the house and thinking that somehow the alcohol had fused a segment of the Flaming Lips doc. into my present perception of reality. They were actually tame ones running around doing their thing. I got out the bottle of Clean Power and went to work in the bathroom. There was vomit everyplace. It's texture was consistent with the BBQ Frito chips I remember eating prior to the pyrotechnic performance. I'm hoping it will be a lesson for diving into such self-pity yet again, we will see.

Memorial Day was alright. After listening to 'Monday' from I Heart Huckabees on repeat for the ride home, taking aspirin and throwing my regurgitation stained clothes in the wash I met up with Isaacs at the Lake Vine Fine Wine b-ball courts. They (The nearby bank? The Party Store? God?...) put their rims back up! We chewed the fat, threw up some airballs, it was cool and just a gorgeous day. Met up with the fam. at the Grandma's house for a joint celebration of the holiday and also my baby cousin Miranda's b-day. This excited my ma who seized the opportunity to ruin 2 celebrations with one swing of the bat. It's a secret.

The Isaacs, D and I caught Star Wars after the fact just a few min ago and Isaacs introduced the "Cedar Point waiting in line" debate of who is the greatest Jedi or Sith in the galaxy. That is a really tough one no matter how you slice it when you really think about it. I mean Obi-Wan pwns Anakin but loses to Count Dooku twice, Yoda fights Dooku and the Emperor both to a draw, Vader loses to Luke/Emperor and on and on. What nerds we are. I love it.

And i'm screaming at the top of my lungs pretending the echoes belong to someone // Someone I used to know

A customer tells me I look a lot like the bloke on 'American Idol'...

My Dad is an icon. This has been not a belief among those in the house but rather an undeniable fact. Reasons # 1981 and #1982 tallied up this week. First I'm making the old faithful 4 waffles/glass of milk/centrum vitamin b-fast when a small object catches my eye sitting on the window sill. I pick it up and discover that it is a mollar, or rather, a crown of a mollar. My ma comes into the room and I ask her if it's my Dad's and she says "yes" and also when he was going in to have it fixed to which she said "whenever he feels like it I guess, it's been there for almost 2 weeks now." Ok. The second being that sometime in the 4:00 AM area the other day Brandon + his g/f stroll in and somehow my Ma gets woken up (she sleeps on the couch most nights, not in her bed in her bedroom I mean why would she do that?) and gets mad at him. He tells her something eloquent along the lines of "Shut the fuck up" and that gets the hive all stirred up. She flies around yelling and of course the Dad rises. In heroic fashion, he tells her "I'll go yell at him", comes down, shoots the shit with my brother for a few minutes, goes back up, tells her that the issue is settled and cashes out for the night. I'm very unsure of how I'm supposed to someday become someone like him when I grow up. Stoic.

I worked the usual kamikaze Sunday shift. It was a really nice day outside of course. As I was walking out after a hard day's night, I saw a birds nest sitting on the sidewalk along the building. I looked at it and then looked up to the Walgreens letters and pirtched atop the 'r' a chirping bird was looking for his summer cottage. I was sad. I went in looking for a ladder but it wasn't one to reach the at least 15 feet up there so I had to try and explain to him that I could not get his home back and that sometimes life tests us and it is how we respond to these tests that prove our true medal and, ultimately, build character.

At Meijer the other day I got 6 strawberry yogurts (spruce up the trad. b-fast) and Bright Eyes 'Digital Ash in a Digital Urn'. Fear not if you haven't heard anything from it, I update here as I feel, which is usually every 3-4 days, so in about a month you'll have heard it all. It is really good. No matter how far a leap from anything before it is, it still sounds just like him/them. Such lyrics.

I just got back 30 min ago after a.) watching Detroit Bad Boys take the 3-2 series lead in the NBA East Semis, basically setting up the East finals dream matchup with the Heat and Deux.) playing 4 player Dr. Mario for something like 3 hours at the Raj manor. I think you can cut the ribbon/crack the champagne bottle on Summer 2k5.

And even though I'm not as cool as Han // I still want to be your man

Hey what's the good word? Yesterday I went to my little Sister's soccer match. She plays for the JV team at the High School, but the game was at Pierce Middle school, which was nice because my auto-pilot led me to Crary Middle School. Idiot. I got there just as the game was supposed to start. 'suppoused' being the key word, the other H.S. ended up doing a 'Justin' and rolling in 20 min after the fact. It gave me time to see my Sis run the field (This was my first time at one of her matches) but also to absorb the atmosphere that I had been away from since, I think, the first homecoming game after I got graduated (2002). It was funny, like all the cliques were in place which reminded me then and now of being on the outskirts of a huge soap opera ("Oh my gawd! He said hawhat!?") I giggled, and they played all the hits like 'Mickey', the flavour o the month hip-hop, new Blink 182 (My hypocrisy knows no bounds, old Blink was good I think) and Good Char. I hope I don't come off as cynical/ironic about it, because there really was an odd comfort there (not because of the temp. however; sitting on the cold bench with a cold breeze in my usual unprepared wardrobe), like a simplicity to it. Then the actual game got underway and it was awesome. My Sis plays right wing on the offense, she had a good corner kick into the box and some good cuts between defenders, and the team won 3-0. She did really well, especially since she picked up the sport as one of her friends asked her to tryout and also had a fella yelling out to her when she was going in and out of the game, I smiled. She gave me a big hug (a hug #2 to site previous post... ha) after the game, I'm way proud of her, through the turmoil of the fam. she has, as a freshman, joined the JV Poms team, JV Soccer, plays violin for the school, plays nintendo, was rumored to have had a boy in a garage band adoring her and manages a 4.0 on the GPA. Maybe she can bring "balance to the force" of this family.

And I've been completely obsessed with Star Wars the last week (I'm pretty controlled about it, a love for 'the galaxy far, far away' without playing all the games or bringing it up day in + day out and all), I think it is Wed. when Episode III drops, which I am actually excited about now. This is weird, because after the mad excitement for the Episode I and the sleepwalking into # II, I figured the month or so before this one would have that same hazy indifference. But really, after watching the first 2 new ones once each again recent, a desire to see it to be entertained has come, as they have all done in their ways. Because really, no matter how mad you are for the Star Wars, you cannot say that the new two hang with the o-riginals anyway; A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi can honestly be watched and only get romance from them or only get adventure from them or only get drama or suspense or sci-fi or comedy from them. They are that amazing that they can stand alone as a single genre, but with all the elements create a wondrous and endless film universe. Unless you ask Melissa 8-)

When I think back on all the crap I learned in High School // It's a wonder I can think at all

I've been seeing a lot of long lost High School alums lately. I've seen Sara Kasacavages twice in 3 days (a. probably not spelled correctly and II. I'm still trying to find a specific memory of talking to her at the Mott, I am thinking that it might have been either the "sat near her in a class" or a "heard of you though another person" thing) and then just last night I saw Brynn Dery at the O.T. It was nice, I wasn't sure what terms we were on really so I gave her the 'one and a half armed' hug (as opposed to the level 2 'two arms around shoulders' or #1 'left arm over shoulder and right behind head' hugs, respectively) and talked about where she was going and this and that. Generic stuff basically.

Let me ask you this: do you work someplace where they play music through a speaker or something overhead? Well they definitely do this at Walnuts, but here and there I've suddenly been finding myself singing a song to myself only to then discover that it has been playing overhead, totally subliminal. I was wondering if it was my head playing the usual tricks on me or if perhaps there is some sort of larger conspiracy to it. Just like that movie 'Josie & The Pussycats'......... not that I've ever seen it before.......

Been thinking about robbing my bank a lot lately again. I am pretty sure this started when I found out when somebody told me that those white lines on the doors are so when robbers (and by the way, is there not a word for somebody that steals something that does not sound funny: robber, bandit, crook, hoodlum, burglar...) run out the tellers can see how tall they are for I.D. So the last two times I've gone in I've given the place the look 'Ocean's 11' style. I've deduced that there are 8 visible cameras and that the large vault door is always wide open which I think is a decoy like no other. But I still think I need a partner; somebody to do most of the shoutins, and also to carry some of the cliché bags of money with the big dollar sign on them. The Bonnie to my Clyde for real.

The most peaceful thing at night now is to hear the mice that we have in our house get into the ceiling of my room and patter around. It makes me happy as a clam.

I want a lover I don't have to love

Chuck: "Boy, you'll be richer than your wildest dreams after this week"
Justin: "Yeah.... it should be just enough to pay for the funeral."

It's almost true it feels like. I've felt really frail this week, as we are down to 4 techs, one of which being on vacation. I still have to work tomorrow, Sat. and Sun. before my day of rest arrives. At least I'll be able to buy a new pair of shoes, but I'm a bit unsure of what ones I might get, we'll see.

I like seeing birds nests in the letters of store names when I walk by and to hear them chirping on a nice day.

If you close the door, the night could last forever

I'll tell you I have not read very many 'modern' mystery/thrillers, but 'The DaVinci Code' has to be the Holy Grail of the genre (subtle pun). It is just a perfectly constructed web of theory and fact placed around a fictional murder mystery caper basically. I myself picked it up at first knowing that one of me and Melissa's favourite actresses was going to be in the film version, and then learned that my friends Charice and Meghan picked it up literally days before and after, which sounded like it would be funny, like an Oprah book club or some such thing but we ended up way apart in readins. You'd be proud of me though, for I read the entire 450 pages in an astounding 3 weeks! That's ridiculous for me. I liked it a lot too because somehow in the end it seemed like you could be the biggest atheist or fundamentalist or anything in the between and still find ideas and belief/disbelief in there and come out with open eyes to all walks of faith.

I decided to give my self the spring/summer off from school, to rest after having school one way or the other for 2 years straight. Now it seems like work will more than happily fill this void, I work the first 8 days of May. I pulled into my parking spot up at work this morning and pressed my garage door opener..... not really a good start to it all. I've been having a lot of mental lapses lately. Like I get in these random stages of deep thought and my "autopilot" just goes blank. So I'll be hunting for a person's scrpit under the wrong last name just after I heard them say the right one, or think that my partner ordered trump in euchre when it says right in the middle of the screen otherwise. My shower routine (stop panting ladies...HA) is soap, shampoo and face soap... it would get to the point where I would forget if I used shampoo already or not at least twice a week until I started by flicking the lids lids open to start and closing them after use to avoid this worrying problem. I think I just need the rest.

I really like it after a long Sunday workday turning on the tv to watch on the TCM channel "Silent Sundays" at night. I like how it seems like no matter if it's a comedy or romance or whatever they always seem to have like this mist of melancholy everytime, especially when they are (almost always) scored by only the pianist in the theatre. They feel comfortable.