palesky

monday, october 18, 1999 4:20:00 pm

jack's dog


i've been writing in my book every once in awhile. book meaning what was once my poetry book but has now turned out to be whatever i want to write in it everyonceineawhile book. which is a good book to have, if you like to write every once in awhile. i suppose. i was flipping through it's pages and was quickly appalled with myself since the writing per day ratio is terribly low. i remember the days of being able to write at least 3 pages a day - scary how minutes, hours, days fly by when time seems so precious. i've thought about time management (money, sleeping, life management as well for that matter), but like i've always noted, i've just been thinking. it seems like such a hassle to implement something that would change my current lifestyle - i seem to be getting by, so why change, no? but then i suppose that's the downfall of the many people that belong in the procrastinator category, such as myself.

i once knew this girl (i still know her, but it just seems proper to say i once knew her) that i was terribly in love with. i don't think i knew it at the time, and i'm not sure if she knew it either - we were both dense when it came to those topics. i don't know if she ever knew if i liked her, and sometimes i wonder if she liked me. she had a smile that would always make me tingle and although she never claimed to be intelligent or smart, she had a certain wit about her that made me want to giggle. she was one of the kindest persons i had ever met, and i would often find her stressing about others before herself. the fact that she was also beautiful was also an asset, as is usually the case. i find myself thinking about her as each day goes by, and wonder what would happen if i ever told her that i liked her terribly so at one point of my life. wonder wonder wonder.

i have several cd's laying on my desk at work, none of which i have listened to in some time. there's the new marillion disc (marillion.com, c'mon, aren't those kind of album names supposed to be corny?), stp's purple, spock's beard, beastie boys' ill communication, a live bootleg of california guitar trio, tortoise's TNT, black eye peas, cake's prolonging the magic (i'll admit, i listen to this one in my car all the time), bootlegs of phish and grateful dead. instead i've been listening to the sorts of mr. bungle and fantomas, since i've always found that mike patton's relatively strange musical genius both refreshing and like ear candy. which brings me to the point that i don't even have time to really listen to music, which is scary, since it's something that can usually be done while i'm doing something. case in point, i think i've been doing too much of everything. wait. didn't i just say the opposite? in that case, scratch this paragraph.

i hang out with friends less often. i find myself leaving places earlier than expected, wanting to take off when there are too many heads around. i've always been a social kind of person, but lately i've just been dealing with too many people at the same time, and frankly i'm getting sick of how fake and deceitful some people are. back-stabbing, gossip spoken behind ones back, things taken from others. argh.

i was seriously thinking about growing my hair for awhile. this notion quickly got destroyed when i shaved my head by accident one day without a hair clip. i remember standing in my bathroom shaving my head, humming weezer tunes quietly to myself when my clipper started to make the horrible noise it makes when it gets all stuck and clogged up. i proceeded to take off my number one clip (which i had always used while shaving me head), just to inspect what was wrong and to see if i could fix whatever was ailing my dear old clipper. i had almost done curing whatever was wrong with it, when i was interrupted by a knock on the bathroom door by my room mate mike. not to go off on another tangent, but earlier that day i was visited by a friend that now lives in NYC, and he gave me a small little thing that is usually consumed at raves, which was what mike was inquiring about. "hey, do you think i could get half of that stuff", and which i replied with, "dude, let me finish cutting my hair first man!". i heard him grunt through the other side of the wooden door, which prompted me to simply take the clipper to my head and run it across my scalp. after about 3 inches across i realized that i had forgotten to put the hair clip back on. all i could think was "fuck". and what i thought was what i shouted at the top of my lungs. but since then i've fallen in love with my shaved to the scalp head, and no longer do i crave the lifestyle of a long haired freak boy.

work, work, work. it makes randall a dull and very tired boy. the amount of work on my plate is ridiculous. and yet, i find myself here, writing to people that will never write back (you CAN you know), wasting my time. not that writing to you people is a waste of my time, but i should probably really be doing something other than this. not that i'll listen to myself when i say these pseudo-scolding things, but...

i was conversing with mia (who has turned out to be one of my better friends these days, that loving little girl) when i came up with a pretty funny pick-up line. pick-up lines in general are pretty funny, or so i find. you know what i find useless? flirting with someone while you are driving. you are pretty much teasing yourself, no? i mean, hell, are you guys ever going to get out of the car and talk to each other anyway? i mean, you just end up driving around, passing flirtatious glances at each other, and yet you pretty much never speak to each other. man, this whole dating/love thing can be pretty ludicrous at times, but when you find that one person... oh man, is it worth it.

so stop scolding me that i haven't updated. i know better than you that i haven't. i think it simply delays my updating process. however, don't throw away your hopes, something is definitely in the works. i wouldn't have it any other way.

you know what i hate? when you are ready to go to bed and you're all comfy and you've got the right amount of tiredness just nipping at your eyelids, and then you turn on the television. that's pretty much game over for me, and i end up losing two hours of sleep simply because i started watching something that i couldn't stop watching. this happened last night, and i don't even know the name of the movie, since i hadn't watched it from the beginning, and every time i remembered to look at the TVguide channel, it had just passed the particular channel that it was on and i would get all pissed. however, i do know that it was a movie staring lawrence fishburne (that dude is as cool as shit) playing a guy who lived in south central and just got out of jail. from time to time someone in the movie would shout at him "soco", which i eventually learned was short for socrates. it was pretty somber and depressing at points, and yet i couldn't stop watching.

i was standing in mcdonald's quietly waiting for my turn to order 20 chicken mcnuggets, when i noticed a black family staring at me. there was a young teenager immersed within the family group, and she was trying to whisper quietly to her mother in her not-so-quiet voice, "hey, look at that chink". now, i don't know what it was about me that required her to tell her mother to look at me, nor do i really care, but please, if you decide to throw racial comments my way, or ever whisper about me in some racial context, at least get my fucking race right. you probably couldn't get off the bat that i was born and raised in canada, but damnit, i don't look like a chinese, japanese, korean, or vietnamese person. i'm filipino damnit, get it right. but then getting it right doesn't mean i won't deck ya.

i've turned back to my sleep-deprevated nintendo64 days. about a week ago i went over to kelly's house to pick up my nintendo64 that i had left at her house way back in april. i think she had wanted me to sleep over the night that i had left the n64, which i was planning to do, but i ended up being so tired and craving for the comfort of my own bed, that i elected to just leave my gaming system behind. bad mistake. i hadn't seen it for 6 months since that date, which had left me with some serious video game withdrawal. but then again i think it was a bad mistake to get it back. i've already bought two new games (gauntlet legends and the new tetris, both of which are very cool games), and a new controller, and have proceeded to turn both my sisters and my other room mate that hasn't been mentioned yet in this entry (which would be rob) into video game zombies. the more the merrier, right?

why is that when you absolutely, positively need to be indoors (such as being at work, for prime example), is when it is temptingly gorgeous outside? i've been looking out my window for the past couple of hours, just petrified that i'm not going to get out soon enough to enjoy this absolutely beautiful day. it's a tad windy, but the warm sun, swaying trees, and leaves turning every color connected to green, red, orange and yellow more than makes up for it. i don't think i've seen such a pleasing day as today. i feel like i need to frolic out within the wonder that is nature and make myself one with it. life would be so much easier that way.

* * *

about two weeks ago i was house-sitting my fathers place as he was in montreal with his wife and two of my sisters, which just left my and my middle sister (middle sister, i'm hoping that makes sense) at the house. it was thursday evening, the moon was full and i was extremely tired from work and lack of sleep. it was around 7 o'clock when i noticed that the moon was out, still slightly groggy from my power nap earlier, when the house received 13 phone calls within a 20 minute period, leaving me irritated and unprepared for what happened next. a knock came at the door, which i promptly answered. there stood a tall caucasian man, with his dirty-blonde hair in a mike piazza hairstyle, a red t-shirt and blue jeans. he calmly asked if john was in, at which i replied that there was no john living here. he simply nodded and turned to leave. strangely perplexed by what had just happened, i stood by the window and watched him drive down the street in his dirty lincoln, expecting that that would be the last i would see of him. twenty minutes later, a knock came at the door again. now, i was slightly annoyed when i answered the door, which was soon swept away when i realized that it was the man who was seeking the mysterious "john" earlier.

as soon as the door opened he was quick to say that he had no weapons on him and didn't want any trouble, which instantly put up red flags for me. i nodded and he went off into his story:

"well, i used to work construction around this area a couple of years ago, and well, i don't know if you have an older sister or not, but there was this attractive woman who walked out of your house and she had a really nice pair of shoes... and well, i was wondering if i could have them?"

by the time he had finished his little blurb, my heart was racing a little faster than normal, and i knew something was afoot. i replied with, "huh?" and then continued with, "look, i don't have an older sister."

"well, it might have been a younger sister, do you any of those?". (those?)

i knew this was bullshit, because when there was construction in my area a few years ago, my sisters did not live at my dad's place, nor did any other female. i rebutted with "well, i doesn't make a difference if i do or not. do you know what kind of shoes they were, the ones you are looking for?"

"uhm, not exactly, but do you think i could go inside and look for them?"

HUGE red flag. "uhm, i better not buddy. you just better go. that's super shady."

he then went on to try and offer me some kind of monetary proposition. "i've got eight bucks on me, please, i just really want those shoes. c'mon man, i just want them".

i didn't waver. i just wished i had a gun. "no dude, you just better go. bye." and i closed the door on him, and even though i can't be sure, i thought i felt him slightly push the door as i turned the bolt lock. an hour later i called the cops and walked around and to tell all the neighbors what had just transpired at my door step.

i slept with a golf club that night.

* * *

i've turned off the lights in my office. i like working in dark areas, i've come to conclude. either that or the bright fluorescent lights just irritate my eyes too much for me to bother with them on. i've got some groovy cosmic-acid jazz playing in the background, and the soft white glow of my computer monitor upon my face. my fingers are dancing upon this keyboard as i write to you, and my cluttered mind is sitting upon my shoulders. i've never been so at peace with myself while totally confused as to where i need to go. i'm both in chaos and resolution, and you know what? i dig it. now all i need is a giant lava lamp.





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