ad astra!

It felt so good to walk out of the store today.

Yesterday I went to see Jay. We went to Clementine’s Too for lunch, then to the St. Joe beach, and then I was able to convince him to drive up to Saugatuck and Oval Beach, because I think it’s the most beautiful beach in Michigan.

I absolutely love the way the sand feels under my feet and walking ankle deep in the cool water of Lake Michigan, the warm summer sun on your face. That is Summer Bliss.

I haven’t blogged anything in such a long time. Why is that, you ask? Mostly because I’ve spent an awful lot of time with Zac. Which has been a lot of fun. Last Friday we headed up to Grand Rapids and went to Diversions and then crashed at my brother’s. Saturday we went to Muskegon and Michigan’s Adventure. Then on the way back we went to Diversions again. This is when stuff got a little screwy. I noticed Zac looking at a boy, and before the night was over he was in the car with us headed back to Kalamazoo. So I went home and Zac and random boy went back to Zac’s place. That’s what precipitated Sunday’s post.

We talked about it. It’s not like we were even boyfriends or anything, really. We’ve just been hanging out and having fun. Zac says on AIM:

Zac: I know saturday night seemed so shady of me… And I really do feel like I’m a horrible person… I don’t know, maybe it was easier than having the “talk” with you. God, I wanna make excuses, but I know they’re all excuses… I wish I could explain whats goin through my head, but I can’t figure this mess out
Zac: All I know is that I leave in a month to go back home… then in another month I leave the country…

So yeah, I dunno what happened really but it happened and it hurt me and I forgave Zac for it. I’m a forgiving person. We’ve had a lot of fun together and we both leave soon, so I can’t see the point in being angry about it.

Second thing: Work. I have it all arranged so I will be set up to transfer to the Jenison store on August 16th. I work on Friday at the Gull Road store and then I never work in Kalamazoo again. I’ll be on vacation July 31st through August 15th, and I decided to go to New York City again and brave the heat to hang with Dino and check out some (air conditioned) museums. I’m staying the longest thing time—6 nights, 7 days—but I need a nice long vacation before I move.

Third thing: Place to live. I’ve found a really great apartment downtown on the sixth floor of the Lofts Apartments; Heidi is the manager there, and we were neighbors when I was with Todd. I was in GR last week with Joe and he’s decided to move in with me, which will make things considerably cheaper, less lonely, and more fun.

Fourth thing: I’m trying to recover the header graphic. GRNET.com is fux0rd and I can’t seem to find a local copy of it. I’d make a new one if I had some decent images and a decent version of Photoshop. Anyone have an extra copy of CS for Mac?

Fifth thing: I haven’t seen the DNC Convention, since I don’t have cable. I’ve watched some of the speeches on the Net and it looks like it’s a week-long campaign ad for John Kerry. I’m sensing a need to reform our primary system. The conventions used to be a big deal where the candidate was nominated that night out of a pool of competitors, now it’s all decided months beforehand by a handful of state primaries. Perhaps we need a single national primary day or something similar. Not only would this shore up the cash spent during the 7-month primary season (hopefully to be spent on the selected candidate) but it would also give the DNC and RNC a greater sense of purpose in its primaries. This year especially it was decided early on, but it really made the New Jersey and Montana primaries held on June 8th nearly pointless. I mean, did anyone bother to vote? What would’ve been the point? Let’s do it all on one single “Super Tuesday” and have the conventions the following night. Or forgo the conventions entirely. There’s really no point to them anyhow. I got the DNC platform in an email a week before the convention (the official time it used to be announced) and we all knew Kerry was in by the end of March. </rant>

That’s about all that’s going on right now. I need a new bracket that holds my muffler up. I seem to have to replace that every few years. It’s probably time for a new exhaust, too, but I’m not springing for that quite yet. It’s not noisy and Michigan doesn’t measure for emmissions. Haha.

This is because I feel sorta heartbroken.

Casey Stratton :: Standing At The Edge :: For Reasons Unexplained

Everything was going so well
I don’t know what happened
A smashing sound and suddenly
I’m falling to the ground

If I had just held on for once
If I had been more
Confident in myself
Maybe less afraid of everything
If you had not been painful for me
If you had been more honest with me
I might have made it

Sorrow comes again
For reasons unexplained
I come to you
But I am not the same
You sense my fear
Tell me it’s ok
A cross to bear
I pull too far away

All the world can see right through me
I feel shattered and paralyzed
Mistakes have been made that left me
Crashing through the ice
I feel so alone

If I had just stood up for once
If I had walked right out the door and into
Something more than we could get
If you had only learned how to stop
If you had been more than you are
Then maybe we could have survived

Sorrow comes again
For reasons unexplained
I come to you
But I am not the same
And you sense my fear
Tell me it’s ok
A cross to bear
I pull too far away

Without regrets
Without the same tired thing
I will release you
Like shooting stars
Of who we are
Of who we were then

Sorrow comes again
For reasons unexplained
I come to you
But I am not the same
You sense my fear
Tell me it’s ok
A cross to bear
I pull too far away

Casey Stratton is here at Diversions tonight… How fucken cool is that!?!

I haven’t updated this since last Thursday. If I don’t do it now I will never get around to it. Let’s see…

Thursday I got home and was supposed to do something with Joe, but I crapped out and went to sleep. Friday I went to work at Gull Rd and then Zac and I drove to Indiana to get cartons of cigarettes. We came back up and went to Brother’s with his friend Amanda who had come to visit from Anderson, Indiana. After the bar we went to Eric’s and everybody drank more. I’d had 5 drinks by 3am so I knew I was done for the night since I had to work at 8:30am in Three Rivers. I spent most of Saturday at work on a lot of caffeine and drinking lots of water and making sure that Sunday would be easy for me if I came in absolutely retarded.

Let’s just say that Saturday night was an absolute blast. I got to know Zac very well over the weekend and I pulled Sunday off. I slept for about half an hour at Zac’s place on Sunday morning before I had to go into work at 10am. So I still hadn’t slept. Luckily, it was only a four hour shift and I’d perpared ahead. By the time that was over, I could barely think. Then I ended up going down to Indiana with Zac and Amanda and taking a personal day for Monday. I thought I could sleep in the car on the way down, but I couldn’t, so I ended up meeting his family and driving around Anderson well beyond the point of exhaustion.

When you’re so tired but you have to stay awake there comes a point when all of your strength is being concentrated on not falling asleep. I was astounded that I was able to stay awake from 11am on Friday until 2am Monday morning. It was a lot of fun.

I just don’t want the post that was here to be here anymore. I like this instead (thanks, Dino!):

Summer Strategies
How to Have a Fling
Form a limited partnership
By Lorelei Sharkey�&�Emma Taylor
New York Magazine June 28, 2004

The first rule of a summer fling is that your partner be seasonally appropriate. The ideal candidate will have at least one of the following: beach house, roof deck, balcony, back garden with grill, car, boccie-ball set, access to the Soho House pool, A/C, hot beach body, margarita skills, or a best friend with any of the above. It’s easy to forgive somebody’s foibles when he’s driving you to his Catskills cabin in an open-topped 1975 Buick LeSabre.

Choose someone with a built-in expiration date. If NYU summer students are too young and SummerStage performers too transitory, then pick up someone in a place you’ll have no reason to frequent come September—the Jersey Shore, say. Call it site-specific dating. No poaching at your own time-share unless you’re willing to see the relationship through until Labor Day. If you find it crass to inquire about these requirements face-to-face, try trawling online personals for telling hints. Or tweak your own profile to attract someone who’s looking to share his assets for a season. For instance, “A roof deck is sexy; a private roof deck is sexier.” Or “venality or sexy candor? You make the call” “I’m looking for a summer fling with a beach house and a car.”

Then keep stress to a minimum. Learn to text-message—it’s the smoothest way to make a date. Don’t worry about how you look in a bathing suit; just strip and enjoy the suntan-lotion massages. Avoid meeting parents; skip furniture-shopping; and limit get-togethers to once a week. Expect it to end on or before the first day of fall—if it doesn’t, well, that’s just a pleasant surprise! Finally, be sure to have sex on a rooftop at least once. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Zac has A/C.

Today is Nationwide “Computer Ate My Vote” Day.
No rallies in Michigan. I don’t think we have a paperless voting initiative. We still use the butterfly ballots to confuse the old people.

Someone searched for “free downable daily inspirational words” and found my blog. I dunno what they would’ve got had they typed downloadable but I do in fact like to think that this is a good site for daily inspirational words.

Today’s Inspirational Word Is:ascend

This song’s my mood right now.

Guster :: Keep It Together :: Come Downstairs and Say Hello

Dorothy moves to click her ruby shoes
Right in tune with dark side of the moon
Someone, someone could tell me
Where I belong
Be calm, be brave, it’ll be okay
No more messing around and living underground
And new year’s resolutions
By this time next year I won’t be here
I turn on MTV, the volume’s down
Lips move, they say
It’ll be okay

To tell you the truth, I’ve said it before
Tomorrow I start in a new direction
One last time these words from me
I’m never saying them again
and I shut the light
and listen as my watch unwinds

To tell you the truth, I’ve said it before
Tomorrow I start in a new direction
I know I’ve been half-asleep
I’m never doing that again
I look straight at what’s coming ahead
and soon its going to change in a new direction
Every night as I’m falling asleep
These words repeating in my head

Voices calling from a yellow road
To come downstairs and say hello
Don’t be shy, just say hello

To tell you the truth, I’ve said it before
Tomorrow I start in a new direction
I know I’ve been half-asleep
I’m never doing that again
I look straight at what’s coming ahead
and soon its going to change in a new direction
Every night as I’m falling asleep
Those words repeated in my head

Download this song recorded live in concert on 20 June 2004 [Apple AAC format, 3mb]

Sorry there was no Fiction Friday. Nothing came together with having to work all week. I didn’t want to just throw an old rag up. I will most likely work on two things and do a double post! So it’ll be a treat.

Tonight I went with Jordan and Zac to see Mean Girls and it was (as Zac would say) the bomb-digitty.

I don’t think I’ve ever actually known someone named Zac. I think we may have to call Jordan Screech from now on. Which “Saved By The Bell” Character are you?

iTunes topped out at 100,000,000 songs tonight. I was there for that lil piece of internet history. I hope I won! One hundred million songs = one hundred million dollars. Think about THAT… It’s only 80,695,807 euros, though.

Patent Upheld for DNA-Altered Mouse

But… isn’t that technically a derivative work?

More Amazon wonderment. I found this amusing:

• 1 person recommended Atlas Shrugged [ABRIDGED] instead of Just a Geek

Posted by Athenae
From reading the AP and NYT’s political coverage, I’ve come to understand John Kerry has a little coin to his name. That unlike our plainspoken, plastic-turkey-eating preznit, he windsurfs. And talks about policy. With a servant. Or something.

I suggest we all take a look a candidate for president who is, in fact, very, very wealthy.

Pass it on.

On the way home from work today on US-131 there were four cars all driving in a row. I was one of them. All four of us had John Kerry stuff on our cars! Three bumper stickers and a big sign in the back of a Ford Focus! It was so cool, we were all grinning and waving. It was a Kerry-Caravan! Perfect timing for Kerry’s announcement of John Edwards as his VP! I just wish I’d had my camera.

I really hate this apartment. I’m not sure why. I definitely wouldn’ve have chosen it to live in for longer than just over the summer—bad location between 2 one-way streets, ground floor, shitty cell phone reception, bugs. But I think the greater part is because it’s not home. It doesn’t even feel like home. I guess when I got the place since I knew I’d only be here three months I decided not to think of it as home. I’ve really been missing the place on Bellevue and living there with the guys. Missing it so much I could almost cry.

It was the first place that felt like home in a long while. When I was with Todd it felt like I was living “in his place” and not a place of our own; when I lived in Grand Rapids it was my mother’s house back in Jenison that was home. Now I have no home. I hope I can find a place I ‘ll love when I move next month. Time to get moving on that, as well. I think I might be able to have my friend Kelly as a roommate, but I would really like to live in a house agian. The Bellevue house was awesome. I how loved my room filled with light in the morning, having three people upstairs to talk to and hang with, and being able to go “home” at the end of the day. Now I don’t feel that way. I feel like I come home to my crappy, empty apartment and that’s all.

*cries*

One more thing. Blogspot is being a bitch lately. I hope they get it fixed soon.

Marketing that’s too clever for it’s own good: Will Ferrell’s character in his upcoming film Anchorman has his own Friendster profile.

(I’m only four people away…)