moments before bed

Just so you know, you're watching Idiocracy on the big screen and set up this weird cardboard stand for the smaller monitor. You're feeling pretty clever right now. And hungry. And tired. It's late and you should be asleep.

So you're not going to watch the whole movie. You're just seeing if this new set-up works.

Plus your stomach hurts.

This is such a waste of time. All you want is to say that right now your life is good. Knock on wood, your life is good. And you're not bragging. You just want to record the fact that the past week has been nice. Not sure... The movie is distracting you. So that's that. The strip club was awesome. You saw Kayla. You went to a party -- yeah, what the fuck, right? -- and didn't stay long but you talked to people. Done.

UPDATE: You and Bryce are looking to cancel Comcast because they upped the prices (newest bill was 120 bucks, twenty more than last month, and 70 of that was just for television -- and you don't even watch television). So that might stop this blog short, lest you figure a way to write while at school, but you already know that's kind of awkward.

Okay. Good night.

first of the last

It's funny because you don't really want to write right now. You're fine just listing to Only Son and stumbling aimlessly across the internet. But yet here you are. Each sentence forced out, rewritten, edited. Painfully. Slowly. Your fingers are pretending like they're sore, tired, like they don't want to type. Like they just want to do nothing. Shut up fingers, you say, shut up and work through it. Pretend like you're playing Guitar Hero.

"Brand New Broken Heart"

Or maybe it's your brain. Your body. You're tired. Your brain doesn't want to work this hard. Making words. Forming sentences. Kind of. Short snippets of thoughts. This is your brain on school. This is your brain on two hits of pot. This is your brain after one of the most unique weeks of your college education, ever. Ever, ever, ever. This is why you're writing -- OH YEAH! -- because this is the last first week of your first last year of college. The first week of your last year, my friend in the future. This week was a transition. Next week the ball starts rolling. For the last time. Seriously. Like -- forever. So don't fuck it up, you.

"Quiet Surrender"

Matt Raute. What the fuck, right? A guy you weren't especially friends with -- more of a friend of a friend thing -- during highschool -- and he calls you up last year and tells you he's transferring to SSU. He shows up a few months after that and wants to hang out, wants to know where's good to live, wants to know what I'm up to. No dialogue passing between us for months. You're remembering this now because you probably wouldn't have ever thought about Matt Raute again if you didn't walk by him this morning, before class. He was there with Terran (spelling?), a girl from highschool who was also a friend of a friend of a friend. Layers over layers. Terran is definitely not how you spell her name, but it sounds like that -- you think. She didn't say anything to you today. For a second there you thought Matt was going to actually complain about or refer to the fact we never talked since he'd transferred -- and you did feel guilty, which is why you suggested meeting at The Pub for a beer (make that two) before our five o' clock classes.

Thanks to Sean Gohara, you talked to a girl on the bus for a good fifteen minutes.

"Sleepyface"

Emma Smales. What the fuck, right? For whatever reason, friendships suddenly disappear. Laziness is your excuse, most of the time. After moving to Santa Rosa in 2007 you immediately alienated yourself from your SSU friends and your (now) ex-girlfriend. While you can't break up with your friends like you broke up with Amy, you can still fall into an odd gray area where life took you both in different routes. You're not the same person after six months. Seven. You're not the same person you were one month ago. Emma was not the same person. Familiar, someone you care about, yes. You care about all of your friends. But she's older. She's got different friends. But so do you, so what did you expect? Your life is totally different now. At least through humor and reminiscing and the distractions of others seated with us in The Pub (including Matt Raute), there was not a bit of awkwardness. There's a "thing" on Saturday that you really should go to. But, um, yeah -- that paragraph was about the time you ran into Emma after not seeing her for so long that you didn't expect to ever see her again.

"Long Live The Future"

You're also giving your new friend Rachel a lot of attention. You don't know what that's about, yet, and even now -- today -- August 28, 2008 -- you don't know if you're attracted to her or want a new friend or just enjoy talking to her... And Kevin from ETLIST and L & C is the one who really made you think about what you're doing, about how it's "the first week of school" and "you're already going after the ladies." Kevin is the more mature and older version of Garrett Sucatre, from highschool. That better still make sense to you in the future, Future Me, because that's the only way to describe him and only you will get the reference. But anyway, you were talking about Rachel -- glasses with short dark-red/black hair and a relateable disinterest in school Rachel -- and maybe you wrote about that because you'll find this stuff interesting in the future. Past crushes. If this is a crush. You don't know. You're just trying to be more social and you prefer to socialize with women. Kevin's cool, though. It's nice to have someone also taking L & C and ETLIST back-to-back with you. But fuck off if it isn't impossible to know how old a person it this year! Jessica from the bus could very well be 25 or 26, although she looks like a sophomore. No offense, Jessica. But the more you talk with her on the bus, the more you realize that she's gone through some shit -- just like everyone else you've been meeting (which is maybe why Rachel is appealing because she seems to have the same casual white middle-class upbringing that left you with very little traumatic memories) -- and been going to SSU for six years already.

Now you're listening to The Whitest Boy Alive again.

"Burning"

You're taking a class on aliens. And the history of the Hawaiin Islands (you learned five new words today and the names of the five volcanoes that make up the Big Island).

Light and Color could be a legit physics class, but probably not.

Shakespeare's holding you back from a totally bullshit semester. Not to say you won't learn some interesting tidbits and factoids, like stuff you could use during Trivial Pursuit. Your alien class might substitute for a real creative writing class, turns out, which is sort of awesome in a whole bunch of ways. Guess you'll get someone to read your stuff after all. Feedback helps, even on short little assignments. Hone those skills, boy, because you ain't got anything else going for you except knowing how to make a cappuccino.

"Done With You"

That was fun. I'm glad I wrote tonight. A fucking hour or two just went by and I only took five hits from the bong. I didn't even get up.

Well, you broke out of the second person for a moment but you don't want to fix it.

Then you erased this compliment you gave Chuck Palahniuk. It was dumb, don't worry.

So now you're done. Maybe. You're gonna take another hit and then think if there was anything else worth talking about. No. That's it. Maybe. Yeah... well I guess what's on my mind, your mind at this point in time, is if any of the people you've met this week will become out-of-school friends. You know it's true that if you don't meet people during the first two weeks, you'll have a hard time making it happen. This year, you really do feel like you've been pushing your usual social limits. Just quit being so self concious, someday, if not soon, because it's fucking annoying to go to the bathroom every hour to make sure my hair's not all flat and ugly -- just get a haircut already. Just keep brushing your teeth and using deodorant.

You'll be fine. Just go that that "thing" on Saturday if you don't want to lose all of your friends forever.

Out.

chapter three

Names to remember: Rachel from LIGHT AND COLOR, Kelly from ETLIST, Jessica from THE BUS HOME, Maddy from SHAKESPEARE, and to sit with Lindsey from OUT OF NOWHERE.

You also just finished re-reading Lullaby and have started re-reading Fight Club.

You're kind of in that phase right now.

You're Chris Fryer the student, now. It's an entirely different you. A summer goes by when all you did was smoke pot and watch movies and work and lounge, lounge, lounge... you forget what it's like to sit in a classroom. Go over the syllabus. Introduce ourselves. The meet-and-greets of the first days are over, now. You've leapt off the diving board. You're swimming in it now. Literally. With school and work running side-by-side, you're immersed. No more full days of nothing. No more trips to the river, unless it's on Sunday. No more staying up past your bedtime for no reason. Not as much coming home stoned after work at 3:00 AM. Not as much being stoned overall, most likely.

But fuck all that. Alyssa got fired.

Monday, the official last day of summer, and the official last page of 2008: Chapter Two, and the chapter ends on a plot-twist that no one could have seen coming. You went into work like normal around 3:00 PM and Michelle pulls you aside and says, "Alyssa got fired," and tells you to read the note they posted on the whiteboard in the back. It says she didn't pay for her food. It says they need to fire her to send a message. To prove they will drop the axe on any of us. At any moment. For the stupidest shit. Better yet, they'll fire you for stupid shit that you didn't even do. Alyssa paid for her food after coming inside from smoking a cigarette. The money is in the register. The food is paid for. No harm done at all. She's fired -- swear to God this is true so don't think you were crazy or anything because this really happened two days ago, I promise you, me, and us -- she's fired because she didn't pay for the food BEFORE she started to make it, before she put the cheese and pesto on the bread and tossed her sandwich into the oven.

And you don't know who you're writing this for. You, obviously, but you feel like it's necesary to write it down. Catalogue the event. Even though you know that life will go on. The sad truth is that life will keep going. It's like A'romas hit a patch of rapids while rafting and Alyssa fell out of the boat. Splash. Just like that, snap of the fingers quick, she's gone. Forever, probably. Although she'll probably stop by now and then like Mario. Shayna. AJ.

That plot-twist marked the end of summer and the next day you woke up and took the bus to school. Physics: Light and Sound, Astronomy: Extraterrestial Life / Interstellar Travel, Geology: The Natural History of the Hawaiin Islands, English: Intro to Shakespeare. All good classes. You've met a few people. Girls, you notice. Funny...

Now you're out of steam. So, that's all for now.

nights like tonight

See... and then nights like tonight... you really do want to move to Denver. You really do want to start over. Start fresh. Right now it would be okay if tomorrow you drove to the airport and left California. Left school, left work, left your friends, left your apartment, left your Jeep, left your bills, left your stuff, left your life. Now that your credit card is nearly paid off, the idea isn't so far-fetched. You've just got two more semesters of college and the gates open, my friend. Here's to hoping we made it that long, Future Me. Because right now you're thinking you need the Denver Plan. You need it the way drifting shipwreck survivors need to see dry land.

Ctrl A, Crtl X, Ctrl N, Ctrl V.

Just like that you'll be at square one. Older, wiser... Fresh.

It makes sense that you'd feel this way now. Heartbreak is a killer. You've felt your share of it, shy boy, because you're still too timid. Not shy, no. You'd hardly call yourself shy these days, having broken out of that shell over the years. But you're reserved. No. Not too much. You flirt. Everyone flirts. You don't flirt the right way. Dropping hints and teasing her... Bryce called it "planting seeds" and that's something you don't do. Not hardly at all, really. You don't feel unique anymore because a lot of guys experience the friendship trap syndrome. So it's not cool to be a lot of girls' closest guy friend. Because you probably aren't. It's frustrating when you like a girl. It's so frustrating.

Fuck that. Stop talking about it.

You don't want to remember heartbreaks.

But you write this out and you speak your mind because it feels good to let go. And now you're going to get high and eat a bowl of frosted flakes and just try to step back. Be happy you're alive. You feel like you're in a low point in your life right now, it's been feeling a little lackluster around these parts, but soon that'll go away. School's going to be a bitch but it'll be a new adventure. Your credit is looking much better. You have food in the fridge. So mostly everything is good. Just keep your head up, You. Someday you'll look back on this part of your life and marvel at the sort of stuff you used to let bother you. Right now you're reading this and thinking about a hundred other things you stressed out about since then. It's all a part of life. Nothing is consistently good forever. Emotions fluctuate. You have to adapt.

Ebb and flow.

eighteen minute post

Last night you bought Madden 09 because a Snickers deal saved you eight bucks at 7-11. Last night you drank Russian vodka. Last night you thought a lot about Denver and why the plan lacks the appeal it did before. Last night you watched Half Baked for the second time. Last night you got stoned. Last night you got your financial aid check (and this morning you paid off $1,433.18 of your credit card). Last night you worked on an art project you plucked out of Half-Life 2. Last night you stayed up obnoxiously late until the aforementioned art project was complete (and this morning you hung it up above the door). Last night you were worried you'd feel bored and lonely but it turned out to be just right.

You're only writing this to kill some time before work. You're driving today. Someone almost stole your hat when it flew off your head as you biked across the Range / Guerneville intersection. Amy stopped by to kill some time before she went to work -- she's gone now -- and she brought you hot chocolate and a pizza bagel.

This is what bothers you about the Denver Plan: it's not your plan.

The idea is you'll move to Denver and stay with your uncle, Brett, and his wife, Megan, while being hooked up with a job in Megan's father's advertising company (or some media-connected field like that). But the matter-of-fact way that your mom reminds you of how it's going to play out is what distresses you. You hate it. You hate that you hate it, too. Denver is cool. You've been there a few times, now, and you know you like the city. It's like the Seattle of the Rockies. Sure, you hate the Broncos and will probably get stabbed on the street for wearing a Raiders shirt, but that's okay. Denver seems like a place you'd enjoy living, and you totally know that. But still...

You remind yourself how much A'romas (or any coffeeshop) is a temporary, transitional job. It's the college job. It's not a career. It's a starting point. A place to meet people and not take life too seriously. When you graduate it will be time to really figure out what the next step is. In your vision of the future, you work simple side jobs and write novels. But that won't happen right away. And do you really want to keep the status quo as it has been? Living paycheck to paycheck? You know this is going to be a hard pill to swallow.

Now you have to go to work.

alyssa and melinda

Here's a memory you really don't want to forget, considering how surreal it felt. You went to work tonight at 8:00 PM, the first real thing you'd done all day, and that was nothing special -- just a chance to let out some of that pent-up energy from the past two days. Work ends, 'nuff said. You're down to go smoke with Carissa after you drop off Alyssa -- which was the original plan -- but then Carissa says that Alyssa (20-ounce-breve-hot-chocolate-with-whip Alyssa) wants to have us over to smoke and see her apartment. You're in no position to decline a new experience and you agree without hesitation to meet back at the A'romas parking lot after taking Alyssa (the coworker) home and picking up two forties from 711. Midnight rolls around and you all head your separate ways. Oh, and you let Alyssa drive herself home because she passed her permit test on Wednesday and, gosh darnit, you couldn't say no to her.

Half hour later you follow Carissa out of the A'romas parking lot thinking you had a far way to drive, but then you're pulling over down the street -- less than a block from work -- and parking in front of this old building that recently became a bicycle shop after a failed clothing store. Now you're looking up at the balcony that overlooks the road on the second-floor of this building and there's breve-hot-chocolate Alyssa waving down to you. She actually lives up there. And you're not even going to remember exactly how awesome this place was. Imagine that bachelor pad apartment you dreamed about renting in some big city, and then blow your mind by actually meeting the people who rent an apartment that, more or less, exactly matches your dream home.

The staircase is a thin, too-vertical climb with steps that creak and moan like demonic piano keys. The first room is a dark laundry area with an obnoxious amount of doors leading to unknown places, hallways or secrets. You've been in love since you parked on the road. You're following Alyssa through the tour like she's guiding you through a virtual recreation of what you someday hope of having. The tiny last-minute-thought kitchen off to the side of the empty dining room with hardwood floors and white peeled-paint arches and beams -- everything from the 1940's and showing age, yet sturdy and homely. The scatterbrained assortment of chairs and knick-knacks all over the place. The headless, armless, legless mannequin. The food porn coffee-table book. The two bedrooms with the shared bathroom. Access to the flat gravel-coated rooftop with an incredibly open view of the stars. High ceilings. An unkempt and unorganized look to the place that makes you feel more comfortable than being somewhere too tidy. You know from the instant you step inside that these are the kind of people you want to be friends with. And, maybe because you loved the apartment so much and wanted to someday return, you were seriously on your conversation game tonight. Carissa even complimented you on it when you guys went to Jack in the Box afterward.

You know what that's like -- when you're the perfect mix of stoned, buzzed, and hyper and an unusual amount of comfort and energy seems to sharpen your wit.

Alyssa and her roommate, Melinda, were good hosts. Melinda and Alyssa would both qualify as two of the most attractive girls you've had good conversations with. And you're a harsh judge when it comes to how you think a conversation went. You usually pick up on negative vibes and back out of it, quickly, when the conversation goes wrong -- especially with an attractive girl -- and the same goes for how you respond when it goes right. Like tonight, when you were talking to just Melinda (the other two were having a cigarette break) you had that "Oh fuck I'm really stoned I don't even know if I'm making any sense Can she even understand the words coming out of my mouth Am I too quiet Too loud Too weird She's not laughing Focus Focus Focus" moments, which often causes a minor panic attack when you're the wrong mixture of high and low, but tonight you pushed through it. Literally. You literally remember having those pessimistic thoughts in your head and you remember telling yourself to step back, focus on what you're saying out loud, and find some cohesive point to this conversation. You talked about ways she might make the apartment more homely -- as Melinda confessed she still didn't feel like this place was her home... When it was the four of you together you felt totally comfortable -- not awkward in the slightest -- which helped you stay vocal. If only you could figure out how to tap into that confidence every time you went out... Alyssa reminded you a lot of Jillian -- who quit -- who is simultaneously sweet and rough in her demeanor. Melinda was more relaxed and played along with your stoned ramblings about making the apartment more homely, which almost became a competition between us of who could have the dryer sarcasm.

This is why you started this blog. You want to remember nights like this one. You don't always go out. You don't always meet new people. The day to day stuff is pretty boring in the long run. But when you end up going to a customer's apartment for the first time with one of your best friends from work and relaxing while passing around the bong and talking about cooking, about books, about music, and then go get 2:00 AM Jack in the Box... Those are the nights you want to remember the most. Nights you feel like you made a positive and memorable impression on strangers who could become friends. You were high. You were all high. So that has to be taken into account when you figure if your conversation had any worth -- you remember all agreeing that a trampoline-sized drum would be awesome because someone could dance on it while also playing the drums -- but at the time, during the experience, the dialogue was good. That's what matters, now, looking back. Like choosing between the fish or the chicken side of the meat category, singing along to "Don't Worry Be Happy," guesstimating that memorizing twenty meal-sized recipes qualifies you as a "chef" as opposed to a "pretty good cook," how you write fiction but enjoy writing fiction that pretends like it's non-fiction -- and the ensuing confusion over which meant what...

It all fades so quickly. You're glad you got as much written as you did.

Oh, and Bryce got his HD camera. That's the start of another adventure entirely.

two : thirteen a. m.

Bob Coleman recognized you from the platform when you stopped by A'romas today. He called out your name and you turned and saw him, still looking like Don King, sitting with some other professor. Now you're not about to pretend like you didn't just make eye contact with the guy, so you hold tight to your coffee cup and scurry across the coffeeshop to say hello. And what does he say? You can't remember now, but it was something like "You're lucky I let you pass my class, you ungrateful shit, and I know you didn't read any of Jane Austen's books -- you didn't even buy them. So let's just make sure THAT'S the last thing we ever talk about." And you probably just got that vibe because you were riding the endtails of an earlier high, so you do whatever you can to get away.

Blink, gone, you're going home.

You wasted an obnoxious amount of time working on a blog / story concept that came out alright but didn't turn out as satisfying as you hoped. Hours wasted. That has never been a feeling you've enjoyed, but it's one you're used to. False starts. Fucking false starts. Not that it didn't help pass the time. Now that you've flushed all that out of your system, though, you find that it's already 2:00 AM and you're not that tired. Just now you erased five sentences in which you confessed to being high and then tried to validate it. But it was dumb rambling.

All you wanted was to talk about seeing Coleman at A'romas. Oh, and you paid Carissa back. And all your checks are in the mail and your paycheck was a high average, so you're feeling financially comfortable. Bryce warned you that you might get kicked out of school on September 9th if those tuition fees aren't paid off. But you honestly don't know the first thing about how your education is being paid for, so like you've done the past three years, you're going to do nothing about it. Here's to hoping those aren't famous last words.

Not much else is going on in these parts. Ashley is trying to get "The Crew" together for a paintballing expedition before Aaron goes back to France. That would be a lot of fun, you're sure of that, but you feel like those friends have given up on you. Not all the way. Not yet. But you did decline a handful of chances to hang out with them over the summer because of one reason or another. People pay attention to that. Friendships are work. It's just that more often than not, you feel the happiest in your apartment with your stuff and your hobbies.

Okay. That's all. You really have nothing to say. Okay. Done.

(UPDATE: the next morning you woke up to check out your class schedule on CMS and your "Total Due Now" amount was replaced with "You have no outstanding charges," which means the 2,100 some odd dollars I owed for tuition was magically taken care of. Again. I'll be expecting the bill after I graduate...)

tuesday at noon

Last night you made a pancake in the oven inside of a brownie pan. A blueberry pancake smothered in butter. Then you played go-fish on the kitchen floor. You're thinking about when you cleaned the kitchen floor Cinderalla-style on your hands and knees with a sponge. And how cleaning up can really alter a person's attitude if they're ever feeling a little off-put by their existence. A way to keep order. Organization. As much as you like to say that you just go with the flow, that you're not inclined to plan anything long-term, you feel a whole lot better when your bed is made. Anyway, you're a little stoned, so don't bother finding meaning in this entry. You are writing this exactly one week before you start your senior year at Sonoma State. The last hurdle before you really find out what reality feels like.

There's really nothing to say. But because you already put this much effort into writing an entry, you'll just let it stay. Who knows? You could have stopped smoking pot because of some future life choice, and now that you're reading this... you're getting a nostalgic feeling that brings a little smile to your face. Making pancakes in the oven... You crazy bastard. Or maybe you'll just shake your head and wonder how you managed to tie your shoes every morning, being stoned half the time. Either way. There you have it. Some stoned ramblings.

Um...

Okay, that's all.

the denver plan

You're listening to: The Whitest Boy Alive - "Burning"

Michelle called you this morning around 11:00 and you're pretty sure she just wanted you to drive her to the bank, although she couldn't quite come to say it. You're thinking that maybe all the really bizarre arguments you had with Amy have scarred your conversation skills. At least on the phone. Talking to Michelle reminded you of the feeling that you weren't saying the right things on cue and weren't taking the conversation where she wanted. Frustrated with you, she quickly ended the conversation. This all seemed way too familiar.

Then again, it could be in your head. Maybe you just assume it was a bad conversation because, when you were with Amy, that was a bad conversation. Almost word for word. And the tone of disappointment, like each word is followed by a sigh, was coming through pretty well.

So that was weird.

Sean called you last night. You talked for an hour. At first you were like, "Oh... I'm just being lazy... I don't know if I want to talk right now," and then after a while you realized that friends like Sean are rare and if you keep being so lazy about all your friendships, you'll lose them. So we theorized about social interactions and discussed life philosophy and plotted out an idea for a book we might co-author. You're wondering if you'll find a chance to visit him. You think about the Denver Plan and you're reminded of how much that feels like the Real First Step in your life and how unprepared you are. Sean was talking about getting an apartment in New York City after college. That's a surreal thought, but mostly because it doesn't fit with the Denver Plan, and your mind is pretty set on the Denver Plan.

The Whitest Boy Alive is your new Mellowdrone.

You were happy to hear that Sean is experiencing some of the same feelings as you were at this age. He has more focus on meeting girls and being a productive socialite than you. But that's always been the case. You've never really dedicated much attention to the pursuit of women. So far you're okay with that. You're put off by how much effort it takes. Look at how you reacted to that conversation with Michelle -- and she's a friend from work, not a girlfriend, not a girl you intend on dating. You're not ready for that. Plus, that goddamn Denver Plan is a constant cock-block. What's the point of meeting a girl if you're moving to another state in ten months?

Anyway, you're gonna run out of weed today. Congratulations. Or maybe you'll save a little for tomorrow. Really it depends on whether or not Michelle hangs out after 6:00, before you go back to work at 8:00. And if Alyssa's cashed, too, then you might smoke the rest with her. That might be good for you. Clean out tonight and start fresh tomorrow. No more buying. Not for a while. Not until all the bills' checks clear. Keep your head about you when school starts next Tuesday. You woke up this morning at 9:30 and realized that you would have probably gotten up earlier and caught the bus to school by now, since a usual Monday schedule has you going to class at 10:00 every Monday and Wednesday morning.

You think you'll be able to handle the commute -- the bus, the bike, the busy days, the addition of homework -- and yet at the same time you're pretty sure it's going to be hell.

where are you?

Well that's three times you've started and erased this entry. Should you even bother with one today? This feels like entirely useless blabbering, now. And it is. It really is. But now you're kind of enjoying it. What will this be like to read in the future? Can you remember what it was like to be stoned, sitting with your back against the wall and your legs stretched forward on your bed, tucked away underneath the staircase in that small loft you rented with Bryce in Santa Rosa? Where are you now, Chris Fryer? Are you still living the same lifestyle? Do you still have the same friends? Do you remember that loft in Santa Rosa? The checkered blanket you had hung up underneath the staircase like a canopy over your bed. The movie-ticket collage. The poster you drew of the reindeer looking at a bird. The nightstand by your bed made of plastic milk crates and duct-tape. The 32 inch flat screen TV that put you in debt -- do you still have that TV? The Xbox 360. The Gateway PC. The little videocamera. Do you still have any of that?

What about...

The entertainment center Amy bought for you from the Thrift Store. The iPod. The black ottoman chair you're surprised you've held onto for so long. Do you still use that alarm clock that you've had since freshman year of highschool? Could you have even held onto that blue trashcan you remember Nancy giving to you for free? It would make a good trashcan for the bathroom... And do you still have that apple juice jar full of loose change? That 'born' poster you copied off of the wall in Half Life 2. That Shel Silverstein poem you posterized and framed. That map of Liberty City. The stuff board... And what about that $45 dollar mint-green couch you bought from the Thrift Store (still one of your favorite purchases, up there with the TV and computer)? That's the first couch you ever bought. How many of those DVD's do you still have? Did you hold onto that bike or did you have to give it back? What ended up happening with the Jeep Cherokee? Do you still sleep with the same blankets and pillows? The same mattress and bed-frame?

Are you the same person you are now, just older?

blessing in disguise

So here you are again, Chris Fryer. Go ahead-- take another hit from the bong. I'll wait. Or you'll wait. If you actually do read this in the future like I'm planning you will. This is all part of the plan. This shit doesn't matter to you at all right now-- this life you're living has no value yet, it has no purpose --but it's going to pass by you in a heartbeat and your biggest fear is that you'll forget all the good memories. This is the part of your life that you're comfortable with wasting. Just a little, though. You're not going over the deep-end or anything. No coke or meth. No hookers. No getting arrested for tagging the side of a sculpture outside the library with a smiley face stencil. You're going to stay the mild-mannered college student you've been for three years and you're going to graduate and you're going to move to Denver.

Maybe.

Funny, but all this writing has distracted you from the bong. Maybe it's not such a hot idea, to smoke so soon before work. But you're talking 8:00 PM, which is more than three hours from now. But considering your paranoia about being late, you'll leave at 7:30 and so that really gives you three solid hours five minutes ago. Okay, now you're just going to take a hit because you've been talking about it so much. Nope... Still typing. Still typing. Okay, either I change the subject or I take a hit.

I took a hit. You took a hit, you bastard. I hope you have more willpower in the future.

Just kidding. I don't give a shit. I'll be sober by 7:30, no sweat. Anyway it's been a kind of crummy two days so I think I / you / we deserve a little high. But you're not about to start complaining about life again because you've come to realize that life is not a party all the time. Life is a series of events that make existence worthwhile. Existence, overall, is pretty bland. You wake up with a stomach ache because you've been eating poorly and then you bum around the apartment trying to keep yourself busy. Today wasn't as bad as yesterday. Today you have work to look forward to like a lighthouse beacon. You've just been rolling through the day with your eyes on that task: Go To Work. And that helps you forget how lonely the time can feel when all you want to do is nothing but you at least want someone to do nothing with.

Anyway, this is kind of a reminder that today was also the day you really got involved with those two other blogs you started yesterday. Two different stories told through diary/blog entries. You feel proud of these two creations and hopefully you continue to add to them. Someone commented on the second posting of "How I Survived The Zombie Invasion" and that made you happy. It's kind of the end of summer, though, and you're worried school will take away all this free time you've been having. You bitch and moan about having nothing to do and then you'll be bitching and moaning about having no time at all. So that helps these boring days feel like blessings in disguise.

Guess that's all you wanted to say. Alright, good talking with ya.

your current playlist

Benny Benassi - "San Francisco Dreaming"
Bob Marley - "Weed"
Mazzy Star - "Sweet Jane"
Butthole Surfers - "Friend With Weed"
Beck - "Farewell Ride"
Sublime - "Doin' Time"
Joe Cocker - "With A Little Help From My Friends"

You should remember these songs because they should remind you of your friends. Carissa got you to download the "Friend With Weed" song for the robot movie. You finally realized that Joe Cocker's "With A Little Help From My Friends" was a cover of The Beatles' "With A Little Help From My Friends," even though the titles should have been evidence enough. You just hadn't ever thought about it since watching Wonder Years. The Sublime song "Doin' Time" evoked some happy nostalgic feeling when you listened to it just recently, so that's been played a few times a day. Michelle and you stayed up late downloading the Natural Born Killers soundtrack and making mixed CD's and smoking... which resulted in a few more songs introduced to you by Michelle that you can't stop listening to. So all that goodness contained in the lyrics of some random music, and fossilized here on the internet.

The River teaser trailer

Here you go, you silly bastard. If you still find time to put stuff like this together in the future, Future Self, then I must not have grown up at all. But that's cool. Now you've got this little video to remind yourself of a lazy afternoon at the river with Carissa... Only it seems a bit more intense when you throw in that song from Requiem For A Dream. And you thought you were so clever...

break in the sleep cycle

You wake up in the dark and you feel fine.

It's 3:00 AM when you wake up and now you're trying to remember when you went to bed. It wasn't that long ago but it feels like another lifetime. Maybe midnight? No... It wasn't even that late. Last night was one of those weird nights when time can't keep up with where your brain is going and so by ten o'clock you're looking at your watch and thinking, "No... No... It feels way later than that," and a part of you wants to pretend like you're not done and ready for bed. But you all stopped playing pool and you got Ruth home and you got to your apartment at just the right time.

You wake up in the dark and you feel fine and then you try to move.

It's still dark and it's still about 3:00 AM, maybe 3:15 AM, and now you don't feel so great. Now that invincible feeling has faded into a churning burn in your guts. You want to get up and drink a glass of water and take Advil. You want to chance a trip to the bathroom just to pee, but you're thinking maybe this is Round Two of vomiting into the toilet, and so you don't go anywhere. You roll around and try to get comfortable. It's not as hard to get comfortable as it was last night, but last night you were exhausted and so some otherworldly force knocked you unconscious. Now, though, it's just you and a sour stomach and your own damn willpower. Obviously you decide to write in your blog. Okay. That kind of makes sense. It's almost 4:00 AM now and there you are, writing down your misadventures of the night before. And again you wonder what inspires you to write. It's four in the morning and the sun's going to start to rise and now you're not as sick as you felt an hour ago (let alone six hours ago), but you stay awake and keep writing, just to finish this paragraph for the sake of proper grammar.

You wake up and it's dark and you feel hungover and so you take a shit and read a couple pages of The Mist, down two ibuprofin, dress up in proper pajamas, and curl up with your blankets for a while to see if maybe you'll tune into your old sleep cycle.

Not happening.

So you write. You write about your friends and your life. You write with the hope for an audience, but mostly just because it's enjoyable. You do this because someday you think you'll stumble across this blog and fondly recall these memories of your youth. Maybe you will. Maybe you won't. You know there's a LiveJournal account out there with your name on it and a good amount of entries that you wrote during junior highschool, but good luck finding it. This one feels a little more secure, you tell yourself. This one might actually mean something more to you in the future than the earlier ones. Maybe that's true. Maybe, you're thinking, because you're such a level-headed and responsible adult now, this blog won't just be another stupid creative endeavor like all the other projects you've devoted so much of yourself to.

You're tired of your sarcasm that no one's going to pick up on.

You just fill the white space with random thoughts. You mention the afternoon you smoked with Karen in her garage and met her two dogs and listened to your mixed CD and talked about anything (considering this was the first time you got to hang out with her outside of work). You get to see her awesome little house just down the road from where Jillian lives (or used to) and that's a trippy flashback to sophomore year intersession when you lived in Jillian's basement for two weeks. This makes you think about Shayna, from A'romas, who also stayed in Jillian's basement for some amount of time after you did, and who checked herself into rehab last Wednesday. Then you're thinking about Tiffany, who checks into rehab today (according to the grapevine). And now you're anxious to talk about the rock that was thrown through the window of A'romas sometime between 1:00 and 6:00 AM on Sunday.

This was a historical moment that you were a part of and you almost didn't even mention it. So you come into work at 8:40 AM like you always do and stand in line to get a mug of coffee and everyone's in a good mood and all's well, but then Michelle keeps pointing off to the right and you think she is pointing at some person and so you don't notice the gaping hole in the large plate-glass window on the far wall. Then you see it. A big ass hole in the window. Sara and Danny came in at 6:00 AM and found glass everywhere and this heavy stone near the roasting machine. Nothing stolen. No sign of forced entry. Just the simple story of When Rock Met Window. Later in the day the resident handyman, Smitty, stopped by and put a square of cardboard over the hole and taped over the cracks and, as far as you know, that's as much as they've repaired it. The window is huge. This won't be a cheap thing to fix. Now you're wondering what they'll do with the big rock the vandalizer(s) left behind. You're thinking about when you and Sara stood outside the broken window and tried to CSI an answer, but came to no conclusion. This was after three beers at the Toad in the Hole. You were in no place to be investigating crime scenes.

You were just thinking about Kim and how she's making waves with the other coworkers. Not good waves. You don't have any problems with her and you probably never will, but you see things and hear things and know things that you wish you didn't because you're still kind of really naive about the reality of people. Not to say Kim isn't a good person. She's just going through a mid-life crisis, we think, and that's why she's become the resident tattle-tale. It's hard for you to be close friends with the two people that dislike Kim the most. But whatever.

You started thinking about Pineapple Express. How can you not? You saw it twice. You tell everyone you see to see it, and then you warn them that it's a legitimate blend of stoner comedy and action violence. To emphasize that point, you tell them that someone gets their toes shot off with a shotgun and, yes, you do see it happen. To make sure they still want to see it, you tell them about how the last scene of the movie really makes the whole thing. You drop lines from the movie and then apologize to people because they'd have to see the movie to understand the signicance of "I will fuck you in the street" and "The monkey's out of the bottle" and "I felt like a wishbone." First time you saw it with Bryce. It was a smaller and more in-tuned crowd, you remember, who saw the Thursday afternoon matinee, and you're smiling because you're glad Bryce suggested sneaking in Baja Fresh burritos. Second time you saw it with Carissa, Alyssa, and Alyssa's posse. You fondly remember hotboxing the Cherokee before the movie and then flirting with Alyssa's friend, V, on the way to the ticket booth. Popcorn and candy and soda. Jumping in the elevator. Losing the car Seinfeld-style in the parking garage. Finding the bud Alyssa lost under the backseat of the Jeep and thinking, "Score."

Now a new wave of sleepiness breezes by. It's 4:30 AM now and you've been up since 3:00 and who knows how long you've been writing for. Does it matter? It's sort of therapeutic, this blog. It's a place to rant in an organized fashion. But not just rant. You see signifcance in everything. And this will all be important in the long run, really. In a couple years you'll be so happy that you wrote this down. Even if it's boring, stupid shit. Even if you're in such a different place that none of this makes any sense, you'll at least know that it happened. This is a record of your tentative first steps into adulthood. A record of the friendships, jobs, and relationships you created. A handful of stories you'd otherwise have completely forgotten, you stoner you.

So go back to bed, you crazy sonofabitch. You woke up in the dark and you felt like shit for a while, but that's gone. You took a hit from the bong on your nightstand at 4:20 AM and felt like a fucking champ and now you're feeling especially gravy. Still you write. Why? You're thinking about the novel now. You're thinking about your hopes and dreams. Being published. Making tons of money. Buying a house. Getting a dog. Meeting the one.

And before you start thinking about too much at once, you cut yourself off.

my main project

Filmed more of the robot movie. The working title is: HOW I SPENT THE DAY AS A ROBOT. But Karen suggested THE DAY OF ROBOT. Now I'm gonna make up a couple more right now and see if I can think of anything good on the spot.

ROBOT SATURDAY
A ROBOT WEEKEND
ROBOT FINDS BOTH LOVE AND DANGER IN THE SAME WEEKEND

I like that last one. Sounds just right.

That's really been my main project right now. I've officially put the novel on hold just to get this out of my head and finish it. I don't know what it's about and I don't know what it's for... But I like picking music for the scenes and editing the clips together into a continuous stream of miniature music videos. And I've been smoking a lot of weed recently and that makes the whole endeavor more of an adventure. I don't remember the last time I laughed as hard as when me and Carissa were sitting outside in the parking lot in the spotlight of a lamp filming scenes of us smoking a cigarette (me with the robot helmet on), and then we thought we heard some sound and got all paranoid and self-aware of how bizarre we looked outside at 2:00 AM with a robot costume and a camera. And it's the little moments like that which make the little project seem worthwhile-- getting my friends involved with some silly thing their odd coworker is putting together. I love it when they get called while we're filming something and they say, "Oh I'm just hanging out with my friend, Chris. We're just filming this robot movie. It's about a robot doing normal people stuff. Yeah. I don't know. It's fun."

I'm gonna go work on the fight scene now. Over and out.

august mix

Another thing I want to remember in the future is the songs I've been picking for my mix CD's.

AUGUST MIX

1. Atmosphere - "Sunshine"
2. Gnarls Barkley - "Going On"
3. Peter, Bjorn and John - "Young Folks"
4. Belle and Sebastian - "Your Cover's Blown"
5. Cali Buds - "Finally the Herbs Come Around"
6. Phoenix - "If I Ever Feel Better"
7. Modest Mouse - "Dashboard"
8. Patrick and Eugene - "The Birds and the Bees"
9. Joanna Newsom - "The Book of Right On"
10. Wax Tailor - "Que Sera"
11. Mellowdrone - "Four Leaf Clover"
12. Band of Horses - "The Funeral"
13. MIA - "Paper Planes"
14. Long Beach Short Bus - "Stray With Me"
15. Rogue Wave - "Every Moment"
16. David Bowies - "Ziggy Stardust"
17. Guided by Voices - "How's My Drinking?"
18. Gogol Bordello - "Start Wearing Purple"
19. Jimi Hendrix - "Castles Made of Sand"
20. Joseph Arthur - "Honey and the Moon"
21. Burt Bacharach - "What the World Needs Now"
    

a leak in the cork

So this lady comes in last night to A'romas with a bottle of wine. Our policy doesn't allow for outside food or beverage--right?--but she's got this big ol' bottle of red wine and she's dressed up all nice and Carissa asks her, "Did you bring us some wine?"

The woman says, "No. It was a gift for some people--but it's leaking. See?" and she shows us that the top of the cork has a small hole. Then she says, "I had it in the back of my car and it was rolling around and... I guess..." The woman shrugs. "Do you guys want it? I can't give it to them like this," and Carissa and I look at each other and say, "Hell yeah we'll take it."

We drank the wine later with Rachel at Carissa's house with cheap frozen pizza. It was past 3:00 AM by the time I left. Mostly it's the idea that some woman came into A'romas and gave us a free bottle of 1998 Cabernet from a local Healdsburg winery. This memory isn't as exciting to me as when someone tipped us a joint, but still pretty exciting. So thanks for the story, Woman with Leaky Wine Bottle.

And in case Rachel becomes a famous singer, I want to remember that she played her CD for us.

i do solemnly swear

It's official. I don't like when this thing becomes a diary. I hate diaries. I think the everyday stuff we live through is generally boring and I don't know why sometimes it seems like a good idea to write it all down. The last two posts have been crap and I apologize to my future self for their lackluster content. So from now on I will try to keep the diary-sounding crap to a minimum and just talk about the stuff I REALLY want to remember. None of this "Week in Review" VH1 bullshit. I promise my future self that this blog will be restricted to priceless memories and the occasional philosophical rant. And whatever I might film with the camera.

a'roma roasters

It's 5:00 AM on Sunday and I have work at 9:00 AM and I usually wake up at 8:00 AM to leave by 8:30 AM (although with my bike and the need to first go to the bank, I was thinking more like 8:15 or 8:20 AM). I actually woke up about a half hour before this and have since shaved, put on a sweater, watched the unfinished robot movie, considered smoking a bowl, thought about asking Sara (and probably Adam, too) if they'll want to help me film scenes for the robot movie, rolled around under the blankets with my eyes shut trying to fall back to sleep and failed, and went pee. It's safe to say that it's "one of those mornings" and I think I'll just do the opposite of what a normal person might do and just go with it. I got five hours of sleep. That's enough, right? What does the sun have to do with how rested I feel?

So anyway, I was thinking of using this time to talk about my job.

A'roma Roasters is a coffeeshop owned by two women (and the answer is yes) and they're both at least fifty, maybe sixty, and both of them oddly resemble the two extremes of my grandmother's personality. Kay is crazy. That's how I remember her name. She is always fixing, always adjusting, always cleaning something. There is one thing she'll devote an entire afternoon to fixing even if it means she has to pull the dishwasher out from under the counter and block off half of our working space. You'll look around and there she is, cleaning dust from the rafters, spraying the sidewalks down with a pressure washer, or desperately trying to convey something to Yuen, who just nods and looks for Jose for translation. And then you have Dayna, who is the calmer of the two. But while Kay walks the walk, it's Dayna who talks the talk. If you get into trouble, it's Dayna who will sit you down and talk it over. Kay has no time for such manners because there's a loose screw somewhere in the cafe that needs to be tightened. So Dayna has that calm and rational personality that makes her more pleasant to be around.

Then there's Carole who does the music bookings and the paychecks and the teas. About her... she's a pretty plain motherly figure who, for some reason or another, finds herself coming in every day to do whatever it is that she does. I'm not totally sure. I know she's in charge of our paychecks, though, and that reminds me that today is payday. Thank God.

And Tema finishes up the last of the management team, although she's going to be moving to Florida pretty soon (I think she said she was leaving in August). She's been with A'romas for sixteen years (it's been open for eighteen) and has since married a woman named Lupe and done side work for a dance club. She's got short blonde hair that she styles with gel and loves stickers with puppies on them. For a long time she was the shift manager in charge of scheduling. Now that task will go to Jose when Tema is gone.

A'romas is a lot different now than it used to be. When I started working, these people were my mentors and none of them still work there: Angelina, Jillian, Tiffany, Shayna, Carl, Shauna, Mario, Crystal, AJ, Lizzy, Shaun, Marc. Then there are people that have come and gone while I've been there: Jazmin, Belen, Steve, Ryan, Sarah (I especially miss Sarah's friendship), Annie, Carlos, James. And there could be more, but it's early and I can't think of anyone else right now. But it's just interesting to me that when I started two years ago, the coffeeshop was a different entity. Now that new people have come, the atmosphere of the place had to readjust. I can't tell you what makes one person stay longer than another. Some people leave in the first week and some make it through a whole summer.

Coffeeshops are in my blood. My dad's been working at coffeeshops for years. I remember waking up super early when I was a kid so that he could take me with him to this cafe by the train station. We'd load up this cart and go outside in the cold Bay Area dawn and serve fresh coffee and hot chocolate to the commuters. Also, my grandmother bought up this house in Auburn and converted it into a coffeeshop across the street from a courthouse. She calls it Courthouse Coffee and that place has been open--what?--like six or seven years, now. I worked there from the day it opened to the day I moved off to college. It was usually so slow during the day that I'd spend 75% of the time on the internet. But it was family owned and it was easy work and I loved working with the espresso machine and the smell of freshly ground coffee and the taste of a really good mocha. And Courthouse Coffee was not just coffee, but also sandwiches and salads and smoothies and, later, beer and wine and quiche and pie. It was good training for the future because I knew how to multi-task. I think this is why they hired me on the spot at A'romas.

One end of the building consists of the Ice Cream Room, the Manager's Office, and the Middle Office. Then there's the connecting hallway with the two bathrooms. The main room is the Coffeeshop with a long, bent counter that stretches from the hallway to the back door. Starting from the entrance to the Back Office, the areas behind the counter are divided as the Food Station, Register, Drink Station, and then Bussing Station. Food is food: sandwiches, burritos, salads. Register is that and nothing more. Drinks are drinks: mochas, lattes, cappuccinos. Bussing Station keeps dishes clean, brewed coffee fresh, back-ups plentiful, tables cleared, cream and sugar stocked, etc. When you have a shift of strong employees, the combined efforts of all four stations can work flawlessly, or one weak link will drag down the tempo of the others. But we all kind of meander around when there aren't customers or we'll switch around to help eachother out in the middle of a rush, and so if we're all friends behind the counter than it usually just feels like hanging out and getting paid to make coffee for a few hours.

There are a couple different shifts you can work and, besides being put on one of the four stations and making that your primary task, each shift has something expected of you that is unique from the others.

1. Opening: wake up early, brew Columbian for the black iced coffee, start a dark and a light and a decaf brew, make black iced tea, put away bagels and pastries, prepare the coffeeshop for business.

2. Nine to Five: come in at nine, ignore the clock until around noon, take two 20 minute breaks, get your second-wind around 3:00 and crash at around 4:00, get a lot of sympathy from coworkers.

3. The Afternoon: come in a few before 1:00 and have a cup of coffee, do a majority of the chore list, wonder where all the customers are, wonder why all the customers show up when someone's on break, wonder why the tip jar looks so empty, wonder what to do when the chore list is done, clean the same thing you just cleaned ten minutes ago, wrap the leftover bagels and pastries, change the music a lot.

4. Break Coverage: come in at 9:00 AM, 3:00 PM, or 8:00 PM and fill the spot of whoever takes first break, take out trashes, stock everything, grind back-ups, touch on the chore list if applicable, feel like a pimp when you leave a half hour before everyone else (sometimes for day shifts, never at closing).

5. Closing: come in around 6:00 PM, if it's Friday or Saturday then you can move the corner table to make room for the band, see a lot of drunk and high people, play the music louder than usual, pull the soup before eight, lock up the chairs out front at eight, pull the cold-masters by nine, start taking down the espresso machine around ten, close the ice cream room, close the bathrooms, wrap the cakes and pies inside the pastry case, sweep the floors, mop the floors, put up the chairs and vacuum the platform carpet and put down the chairs again, clean everything, wipe down everything, refill sugars and honey and beans, give the fifteen minute warning, if you're the monitor then go clean up the place where the smoker's hang out and lock the gates, kick everyone out at 11:00 or 12:00 (depending), lock the front door and bathroom, turn on internet radio or plug in someone's iPod, close down the shop, count tips, turn off the lights, set the alarm, exit.

Working at A'romas is, overall, pretty amazing. It's not like working at Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory or anything, but it can still be a lot of fun. It's definitely my favorite job so far. I've met some of the best people there and I honestly miss some of the employees that have left. It makes me happy to see Annie, Tiffany, Shayna, Angelina, and Mario still come by sometimes and say hello. Because there are people who don't ever come back, like Shauna or Ryan or Sarah...

Sarah, who I mentioned earlier, was this punk-rock girl, 23, who I would have loved to have been friends with when I was single. One night after a closing shift--we're talking like one in the morning, here--me, Sarah, Danny and Danny's friend decided to go to San Francisco. No one was high or drunk. We first went to the beach and started up a bonfire, but it was too cold and windy and so we went back to the car to venture elsewhere. I don't know San Francisco too well, so I don't know exactly where we went, but after that I remember us parading up and down this one road, being goofy and loud. Danny's friend tried to frog-leap over a parking meter and failed, falling to his ass. I'm starting to think that Danny's friend was named Danny, too. So I'm off topic now. This was also the night we stopped just near the Golden Gate Bridge and there are these abandoned military bunker-looking structures we walked through, which was creepy in the thick of the night when not even a cellphone screen can help you see.

For the record: Danny (the Danny from the last paragraph) used to work at A'romas and then left to try out San Diego. A few days ago Danny came back and he plans on working at A'romas for a while before heading off toward some other goal. This is odd timing because now there's a new Danny who works at A'romas. We call one of them Danny Blonde and the other Danny Brown.

Now it's 6:23 AM. Sara and Danny Brown are going to open A'romas in seven minutes. Then Michelle will get there at 8:30 AM. My shift starts at 9:00 AM alongside Ruth, and we'll both go on the clock so that Danny or Sara can take a break. Four hours will go by like they always do and it'll be 1:00 PM. I think I'll ask Michelle if she wants to smoke a bowl with me before I go with Sara to the Toad in the Hole (assuming she wants to stick to tradition). I'd like to go play pool later. I also would love to have Sara and Adam help me on the movie. Carissa will be off work at 6:00 PM with Alisa and I told Carissa to try and get Alisa to go out again, so maybe something will come of that. Who knows? I like to have no expectations and yet be ready for anything, you know? These aren't plans. These are theories yet to be proven.

In conclusion, A'roma Roasters is where I work. It's an independently-owned coffeeshop in Santa Rosa that doubles as one of the city's more popular hang-outs. Not kidding. This place has a lot of loyal customers and each day brings a flock of new ones. It's fertile flirting grounds both behind and across the counter. The atmosphere is generally good, depending on the personalities that make up that crew. I get paid enough to afford rent and keep up a social life. And hell, I was even Employee of the Month in July. Come September, it'll be two years at this place. What this all means for me in the future... I don't really care right now.

meanwhile...

I can't stop thinking about the robot movie that I'm working on. And it feels so insignificant, these thoughts--this movie--but something about doing it seems worth the time. The low-level quality of the whole production is what I love the most, although I'm sure the appeal of grainy, off-colored images will disappear when Bryce brings home the HD camera. For now this camera, like any new and shiny contraption, has become a small obsession. And I find myself lost in circular logic when I try and figure out what's driving me. But, then again, what the hell is driving me to do anything at all? Anyway, all that said because I've been messing around with the camera so much that I haven't been writing, but I counter that con with this pro: my story revolves around amateur film-making... And my whole motto on writing is that you write what you know better than what you don't, and so I'm always trying to experience something in the hope that the power of the actual experience will strengthen anything I might write about it.

This is the camera, by the way:

Things that have happened recently that I want to remember are:

1. Carissa hanging out last night and helping me film scenes from the robot movie. This was after we went to Safeway to shoplift a memory card and buy some snacks and two Fosters forties. This was after we smoked a bowl and watched the first robot movie and she told me that she'd been comatose all day off of painkillers.

2. Staying up late with Bryce. This was after he gave me a new box for my nightstand, this antique-looking mini-chest with a latch lock and gold designs on the edges. This was after he got home from work, before which we'd spent the morning hanging out. This was after he started watching Everwood online.

3 - 8. Trying to get Tuesday's shift covered so I can go to Marine World with my family. The word Gloyal. The idea that Rosa Parks would have disagreed with Bob Marley's "Get up, stand up" song, and how much of a revelation that felt like at the time. The laughing chain video. All of the pizza. The chocolate frosting ganja cookie sandwich.

And that's all for now.

feel fulfilled

Of all the things I'll never fully understand, the one part of this life that still bedazzles me is the view of a cloudless night sky full of a million stars. Just millions of them. All sprinkled all over the place. Some of them arranged in shapes. Sparkling lightyears away. Untouchable, these distant stars. Stars at the center of other solar systems in other galaxies. Places we'll never get any closer to than through a telescope lens. Places so far away that they could have died and gone supernova millions of years ago and we still see the light it was casting before it exploded. What does that tell you about your concept of time? To look up at the stars and constantly be looking at the past.

It was warm out tonight and I had to ride me bike back from A'romas, so that's why I had a chance to look up. Even with shorts on I didn't get any goosebumps. I wasn't wearing headphones, so I didn't have Atmosphere rhyming in my ears to distract me from observing the midnight world around me. Other than the constant concern that a cop was going to pull me aside and ask me what I was doing out so late and ask to see inside my backpack because he'd smell pot on my clothes and find the weed and arrest me, I had a pleasant ride. Whenever there weren't any cars around I liked to pretend I was Cillian Murphy in 28 Days Later, but with a bike.

For the record: Someone made me a paper flower and left it in my cubby-hole box at work today. I don't know who made it for me and Michelle was at A'romas and claimed no responsibility--guessing instead that it might have been Sara. Rosa thought maybe Alyssa made it. Michelle thought that was a particularly strange and funny idea, that Alyssa might make that for me, but then I was thinking since I give Alyssa rides after work so often that maybe that's what it was for. Sara giving it to me seems possible, too, because Sara's one of my closest friends there. And then a small part of me thinks it could have been Alisa because I've been trying to get her to go out more and go to the bars with the rest of us after work sometimes, and maybe she'd make that for me because she appreciates that I've been including her and helping her spend time away from her obsessive 40 year old boyfriend.

I went on a roadtrip today with Carissa and lounged on the beach. That's really all there is to it. We smoked, drank, swam, sunbathed, and napped on the shore of the Russian River out by Guerneville. It's nice to get outside and see the natural world every so often. Being at the river on my day off is like completely shedding myself of all the big responsibilities of life. I don't worry about rent or bills. I don't worry about work. I'm not thinking about my Jeep Cherokee. I'm not even thinking about much of anything. Water is such a tranquil element. It's hard not to just lie down on your towel and disappear with the sound of wind rustling the treetops overhead.

On the way home we stopped at Safeway and got chicken and mashed potatoes for dinner. Then we made chocolate ganja cookies and watched Shark Week stuff and the movie 28 Days and Danny stopped by with Jenny to buy a ten-sack and I hitched a ride with them because they were heading back toward A'romas. When I got there around 11:00, the night crew was just starting to close and I stuck my head inside to say hello. Turns out they had been super busy and I could see how far behind they were and so I go inside and start to help them close. I'm stoned from being at Carissa's and the idea of cleaning off-the-clock seems like a fun way to spend time I otherwise had no plan for. Plus, Michelle was working and I like making her laugh. And I got that surprise paper flower, too, which made me feel happy and loved, although I don't exactly know by who...

I brought the camera with me to the river. I'm going to go see what I filmed now and probably put together a video. Hopefully all this filming and editing stuff doesn't distract me too much from working on the novel. But maybe that's what I need right now--a whole bunch of hobbies to keep me busy.