Paul

I don't know how long I had been asleep, I just know I had woken up like that before. I heard my dad frantically say, "Oh No!" and then I knew something was very wrong. I sat up in my bed not knowing what to expect, and my mom, still on the phone says, "Kathy says Paul's dying on her."

Family used to be a big part of my life. We've moved around a lot but we were always close to my Moms family for the first 10 or so years of my life. She had ten brothers and sisters and most remain in Upstate New York even today. Any time we did anything usually one of them and their kids were somehow involved.

This was alright. I've always been really shy so a lot of times I didn't really enjoy a crowd. A person here or there is fine but when it came to huge family ordeals, they just weren't for me. I'd go sure, but I'd usually cling to my Mom or Dad, and just follow them around the entire time. I did have a lot of cousins my age but like I said, it just wasn't for me.

When I found out we were moving to Texas I cried all day. I was only 9 years old and I knew I was going to have to leave the small pocket of friends I had made there. I didn't understand why, but I knew I had to go. Well I know now that it was very much for the best.

When we arrived in Texas I had members of my Dad's family close by for the first time in my life. We used to have reunions where I was guaranteed to see most of them every year. But my Aunt Doris and Her husband Ed both died, and we just sorta drifted away. We now live Just down the road from my Aunt Kathy and my uncle Paul. They are the only family I ever see, and I spent all morning and afternoon with my dad directing ambulances and helping carry him out of their house. He looked bad, he looked really bad.

Healthy Cycle

Well the cycle didn't end. my brother is now at of jail, at least for the moment. I've worried so much over the last 2 days i've made myself sick. And if you know me, I live by the words, "Just don't worry about it, there's nothing you can do." And here I am, thinking about it constantly.

But this is just my thing. This issue has always torn me up inside and it will probably continue to for some time. People are just going to have to deal with it cause this is my one big piece of baggae and everything takes longer, and takes more effort when I'm carrying bags.

on a positive note, my father is taking the job in Mt. Pleasant, which means he will be home again, instead of only home on the weekends.

Please Let the Cycle Break

Today my brother might be getting out of jail on bail. For anyone who has read this back a few months you would see that my brother attacked my family and has been held until now awaiting trial. Well today his wife may be bailing him out. She is friends with a bail-bondswoman apparently and she is going to give her a payment plan deal to get him out now.

I don't know the whole story, I just know I have that sick feeling in my stomach again. The same one I had all through this year. The feeling that he is going to be out. The feeling of safety is drifting away and all the anxiety is coming back. We have a restraining order that states he cannot come within 100 feet of our home. But it's not like he's exactly listened to the law before now.

Another problem is my mom has blocked out everything that happened. She thinks that if he is out everything is going to be nice again. Her memory is horrible partly because of her medication, but also because Ken and his wife have been brainwashing my mom since day one.

He threatened my family with guns and my mom refers to it as, "He was having a bad day." I have fought with her a few times lately over my hatred towards him and my mom at least party thinks I'm the one in the wrong. She also blames me for him being in jail which is a great thing to have from your mother. Really makes me feel like an outsider in this family.

I just keep waiting for everything to go wrong again. The past few months I was too happy. I could sleep at night sometimes. I could go to sleep without licking all the windows and doors and hanging a blanket over my window. I can't help but feel it's all coming to an end again.

My dad as always isn't worrying about it. And he even invited Ken to our family Thanksgiving if he's out. So I won't be going this year if he shows up. I am going to be cooking my first Turkey myself. My dad still has his delusions that we will be some perfect functional TV family, but that is never going to happen. Ken could save my life, Ken could die to save me from something and I will still, always hate him.

Nothing is going to erase the last 12 years. Whether my parents turn their back on the problems like they always do or not. But they will, and have already begun.

Touching is Good

So the concert could have been better. Either way I set my alarm to wake me up at 7:30am so I could begin the hunt for a DS. I didn't think finding one would be much of an issue on launch day, but I wanted to get an early start to make sure I wasn't let down. Wal-Mart had a surprise in store for me.

I woke up at 7:04am. A full twenty-six minutes before the alarm was set to go off. I was kinda mad, but just layed in my bed till it went off and then I got up. I threw on the pants from the night before and left for the Sulphur Springs Wal-Mart.

I walk in just after 8am and head to the electronics section. I walked around and looked for the DSs and didn't find them. I knew they had them though. I saw one man wheeling a cart covered in music stuff so I let him be, and asked the woman on the ladder facing the phone section. "Are ya'll selling the DS yet?"

She tells me no, that they are holding them for what Wal-Mart apparently calls the "Blitz." The "Blitz" is the day after Thanksgiving when the Holiday shopping season officially starts. I plead my case that today is launch day and that they are supposed to be for sale. She admits she did see commercials hyping Nov 21, and decided to ask the other guy who was the morning electronics manager.

So mike comes over and she asks him and he says he can't sell them yet. I ask if he could maybe go in the back and crack open a case and just sell me one since they have them. Nope, can't do that, have to save them for the Blitz. You see readers, for Wal-Mart to sell something Friday for full price to someone else, is better business than selling it to me for full price on the day it is released. Needless to say I left pissed off an disappointed.

I got home and decided to call other close Wal-Marts before driving to them and getting shot down. Mineola wouldn't sell them, and neither would Mt. Pleasant. I was hoping one of these nearby towns would come through because I didn't want to drive all the way to Longview for something I could get close to home. But I didn't get that lucky.

On my way into Longview I stopped at the first Longview Wal-Mart. Boom, big display and a few for sale. I got my DS but didn't get any games there since they only had Urbz, Spiderman 2, and Madden 2005. None of those interest me at all. So I continued into Longview and waited for Best Buy to open. They had all the goodies on a table at the very front, so I grabbed my copies of Feel the Magic and Mario 64 DS and exited.

Behold the goodness:


Beautiful, just beautiful.

I tried the Metroid Prime: Hunters demo while I waited for Best Buy to open and was left very underwhelmed. The touch screen way to control the game didn't feel very comfortable.

Feel the Magic on the other hand is delicious. It was the first thing I played when I got home, and I played till the battery went red. Then I plugged it in and played some more. I let it charge off for a while and played a while longer last night. Using the touch screen to control a game is addictive and fun as hell. I have only played the initially available mini-games for Mario 64 DS so far but they alone are damn fun. Even small stuff is a whole new experience when playing with a touch screen.

The new Gaming System era has begun and I'm loving it so far.

Feeling the Catastrophe

Best of the very few pictures I took of the show.

So Friday night Josh and I went to Click's Billiards in Tyler, Texas to see a Flickerstick show. We had been waiting for this for over a month. We show up a little early, get our tickets and wait for them to open the doors.

When they did finally open, we went in and found a spot at one of the tables in the left half of the bar. Josh drank, I sat there twitching waiting for the show to start. Also ahead of time, my writing may not be the sharpest this morning, 12 hours'll do that to ya.

More and more people show up and the first band takes the stage. They were called Entrust. The first few songs they played we're ok. Their lead singer was trying way way to hard to sound a certain way and this was bringing down the overall performance. The rest of the band though, were very talented. All hitting some nice riffs and solos and beats. Halfway through their set we moved down to the floor because Josh had already had to cross the whole bar just to piss. Once we got down there, Entrust decided to play a song about Jaeger(Yay-grr). Followed by a rap medley.

Yes that's right, a rap medley. It included such classic artists as Snoop, Biggie, Criss Cross, Outkast, Skee-Lo, and that Fat Mexican who sings the "Lean Back" song. Yes, this is a Rock concert and they sang this steaming pile of make me envy the dead. It seemed to go on forever too. Had to have been ten minutes plus. Was the single worst song I've ever heard in a concert, and I've seen Alligator Dave so that is saying a lot!

They got off the stage and made way for Rockett Queen. They at one point made a comment about how funny and cool the new Bowling for Soup video is. That should explain it all right there, but I'll go on. I really think they stole half their sound from Bowling, and the other half of their sound from a dead goat they stumbled upon on the way to the rock show. Rock Show you say? Well it's a coincidence you mention that, because this band said that in almost every single song. I know at least 2 of them focus on the phrase, and one included it but didn't focus on it. After the third song I really thought they were looping their music.

Speaking of the music. The whole night I thought it was just the shitty bands fault the sound quality was incredibly poor. Either they didn't sound check well enough or they did and they just have bad taste in what music should sound like. But I was wrong. Click's sound that night was atrocious. It was probably the worst sound I've encountered at a club in my career of concert going.

So Flickerstick takes the stage. Right when the house music cuts off, josh goes to piss. Well of course it starts before he gets back, but it didn't matter. There was only two distinguishable sounds during their set. The outrageously loud vocals, and the humming drudge of all the instruments just running together to form one blob of noise. After four songs we left our perch near the stage and retreated back towards the bar hoping that it sounded so bad because we were too close to a speaker. Nope, we moved back 20 feet or so and it still sounded awful. After Flicker played beautiful we left. That was the song Josh was waiting for and it was one of the 3 I wanted to hear most. Couldn't even really pick out it's main riff it was so distorted.

So we left, and got some grub at IHOP. Josh had probably the largest omelet I have ever seen. I'm getting one next time. Then we got home around 3am, and went to sleep around 3:30am.

Catching Up

Wow. A few days go by and I think, "I just won't blog today." Then a few more, and a couple after that, and finally end up with only two blog posts in the month of November. This is after my, sometimes, multiple posts in a single day until now. I have a lot of posts to catch up on, and I guess today is a fine day to do so.

I just slept for 12 solid hours. I woke up once or twice, but every time I was able to go back to sleep. I was watching the packers game last night and at 8pm, I was hit by a magnificent wave of tired, and I acted on it. I know it had a lot to do with me only getting about three or four hours of sleep the night before. Why did I only get that much sleep? Well, the following posts will recount my busy weekend.

Bleed Us Dry of Our Dignity

Does anyone else have that friend that shits all over your day dreams?

You know, your day dreams. Little thoughts of things that could be, that can sometimes help brighten your day or just simply get through it all together. They could be anything. Imagining yourself driving that kick ass car that just drove by. Talking about what you are going to do with your lottery money after you win. Thinking of how great that something can be when you finally get it.

But I wonder if anyone else has that friend that stops them when they start. I have a friend who did that tonight and it really pissed me off. It didn't serve any purpose except to crush it so that it fit their view. I was voicing a little day dream I have, and I smiled and laughed a little because it was a quirky little thing that I thought was funny. It brightened my day. But just as soon as the sun came out, they told me in great detail of how it'll never ever happen.

Now, at this point, is this something I think will happen? No not really, but it's fun to think, or make comments about it sometimes. Nope, can't have that. I have to be put in my place. I must learn that it's perfectly alright for one person to dream, but I am not allowed to because I'll never fucking have it.

I was sitting quietly on the beach, proud of my sand castle. I was king for a moment. I could see something that will never be, but it was fun. Then someone came along and stepped on it. Drove their footprint down into the watch tower, and made sure to run their toes through my courtyard. The townsfolk evacuated, and the city is left in ruin. I rebuild, but it's never the same as the first time I saw it.

Long Time Down

It's been almost two full weeks since I last wrote a blog post. It hasn't been that nothing interesting has been happening. Rather, I've either deemed it not important enough to write about, or I just haven't been able to find the inspiration to articulate it sufficiently.

Tonight is really no different. Here I am at five in the morning, sitting quietly at my computer. I was so tired a couple hours ago, but I just couldn't quite get my mind to slow down enough to take the off-ramp to slumberland. I tried opening my window and listening to the rain but it didn't help. I tried listening to some music, but Jimmy Eat World was a poor choice and it just spurred more mental escapades. My mind seems to be saying, "We'll pull over at the next town and sleep," every time I get close.

Up until tonight I had my sleeping issues under control. A few weeks ago I could be heard complaining about my inability to sleep every night. For the last week or so though, I have had an abundance of sleep every night. It was wonderful. I know tonight is just one night, but it seems like those long deep sleeps were forever ago. It's not going to help any that I have to be back up around 8:30AM to take out the 7 bags of garbage we have accumulated since Thursday. And I'll be awake again sometime before noon to turn in the keys to my brothers storage since my Dad and I cleaned it out today.

I'm going to make something give soon.