Alright, stop your clamoring, here's an update. Today I was in the park after riding my bike all the way to Laporte accidentally and getting lost and using the old "mountains are to the west" trick to get back into Fort Collins. This guy is walking a pig on a leash, right, and he's trying to pick up girls with it. It was either working, because these girls were standing there talking to him for a while, or it wasn't, because they then left and sat down at another spot not too far away. Alls I know is, I spent the time thinking "How am I supposed to compete with a guy walking a fucking pig?" Seriously. That's like not even fair, he should be fined or something. Not that I was trying to compete, I was trying to read Libra (which, by the way, would mean "book" in spanish if it was a feminine noun, and I'm sure there's some deeper meaning there), but still, that's just cheating. That's grabbing money out of the bank when the other player's rolling the dice. What a jerk.

I think this past weekend (aside from today, which was kind of lame) was the most fun I've had in a while. Friday night Sarai and I went over to John's and played DDR, but Sarai got frustrated at her whiteness while I shook my booty like... a... professional booty shaker or something. Saturday was all kinds of fun, Kate and her friend Robin and Sarai and I met up with Cam and Charlie and John and Rachel and Stoney and everybody else for the football game. Kate is turning out to be the awesomest person. I've had her in a class every year since my first semester at school, and I never talked to her because I was too shy and she was too mysterious and all that bullshit, but then I finally got some balls this semester and talked to her and she's way cool. I knew a girl who dressed like she does had to be someone I would get along with. She has a website on which she sells purses and monsters and scarves and probably other things, and that website is http://www.madewithrobotlove.com and maybe if you folks buy stuff from her she'll give me a cut of the action and I can buy that new life I've always wanted. She's supposed to be making me a shirt but who knows what's up with that. Plus she "accidentally" grabbed my junk at the game last night and turned bright red and couldn't stand up from laughing too hard. She's so shy it's cute. Anyway.

So how do you get lost and end up in Laporte when you're riding your bike, you ask? I'll tell you. You go the other way on the trail you usually take, and find out it's just this lame little loop and you assume you end up back on the road you turned off of, but really you're on some other road that goes perpendicular to the original road, and don't realize it until you see lots of stuff that says Laporte on it, and then you realize you've been riding way longer than you should have been. Then you just orient the mountains on your right and ride back until things look familiar again. I love riding my bike. I wish it wasn't getting cold soon. I thought I lost my green jacket, but then I realized I just left it in my car. Whew. The day I lose that jacket, I will die a little inside.

That new story I put up last time was not the story I was originally working on. That story was/is about a plane and I might still finish it. But unfortunately I am otherwise dry of ideas for stories right now. So for the none of you that come here to read stories, sucks to be you. I mean, sorry.

Apparently I'm "trim" according to Kate's roommate Erin, who is "tall" and has "red hair." That means I'm "fit" which is not a word I would ever consider using to describe how I look, but even since Kate told me Erin said that, I've looked in the mirror and been like "Oh hell yeah I'm fit, look at me, all trim and shit." Kate says I don't wear enough form fitting clothing. Not directly she said that, but I inferred it. But if I move down to a medium, I'll be one of those guys who wears shirts to show off his "hot" body and I will never be one of those guys, so sorry ladies.

September 28th is Leslie's birthday, so if I don't update again by then, let's all wish Leslie a happy birthday!

September 30th is Kate's birthday, so if I don't update again by then, let's all wish Kate a happy birthday!

September 30th is Weezer/Foo Fighters concert, so let's all wish Cam and I an awesome time at the concert! Sucks that I can't go to Kate's birthday party though. But it is Weezer.

October 8th is Against Me! in Wyoming, and I'm pretty sure I'm going up. It's a Saturday night so if anyone wants to go see what promises to be the musical equivalent of the second coming of Christ, let me know.

October 9th is Against Me! in Denver, so blah blah blah read the above paragraph, and if you're too lazy to sit in a car for a few hours on Saturday, come on Sunday! See ya!

This is a new story I wrote tonight called Starving to Death.

It’s hot. I should have worn sunscreen. I recently started riding my bike around town, in a large circle back to the park to read. Gets me some much needed exercise. There’s a swing by the lake that I really like. The sky is always so blue here. I’m sitting in my swing staring at this giant turtle sitting on a log between three crane looking birds. I don’t know anything about animals. They’re white birds with long necks. Probably good fishermen. Fisherbirds. I don’t know. But there’s this turtle just sitting there, and the birds seem to think it belongs, and it seems to think it belongs, so somehow it belongs. None of the animals are acting like it’s their log. I can’t tell which was there first, though I’d imagine it was the turtle, since they don’t move very fast.
A family on bikes rode by a few minutes ago and pointed this out to me. Well, they pointed it out to each other, but I was right there so I heard and took notice. The little kid on his tiny bike rode right in front of me like I wasn’t even there. He just stood there on his bike not five feet from me and had a conversation with his parents. This struck me as odd, since his parents were behind me, on the other side of the path. I guess it’s just weird to be treated like you don’t exist.
Recently a female friend told me my wardrobe is boring. And that I don’t have enough self-confidence, and that makes me so very unattractive. So in a sense, I guess, looking at my gray shirt and jean shorts, I don’t really exist. I mean, of course I do, but what do I have to distinguish myself from everyone else? Nothing. In that sense, I don’t exist. I be. But I don’t really exist.
My knees are red. The only part of my body that gets any sun. I’m going to have funny sunglasses tan. For some reason I thought that if I was riding my bike I wouldn’t get sunburnt, so I neglected to put on sunscreen. Like if I was moving, the sun’s rays wouldn’t hit me. Now that I have red knees, I see the folly in my thinking. I pull my shorts legs up to my underwear, exposing my white upper legs, hoping maybe I can get them tan. Like someone’s going to see me naked sometime soon. Ha. Every time someone walks or rides by I pull my shorts back down and cover up my skin. I don’t want to be seen tanning in public. Or I’m ashamed of my body. My legs are white as snow, and hairy. It’s very unattractive. Of course, if I’d just leave them out they’d be tan and less scary. Meh.
There was a woman in the other swing, maybe 40 feet away, when I came over here. Alone, maybe in her 50’s, wearing a long skirt that goes almost to her ankles, a light jacket, and a scarf or handkerchief or whatever it’s called over her head. She must be hot. I look over at the swing now and she’s not there. She’s moved down to the edge of the lake. She’s standing there looking out into the water all alone and it’s beautiful. It’s 90 degrees out today and here’s this woman all alone, dressed for autumn, standing by the edge of the lake. A poet would have a field day with this. It’s very windy and the wind caresses her skirt and her handkerchief.
I realize I’m not getting much reading done. But the wind is blowing the pages out from underneath my fingers so I have to keep turning back to the page. The wind is also blowing my gray t-shirt around on my back, and it feels good, like a back scratcher or a massage. So you take the good with the bad. It’s blowing hard enough to rock me gently on the swing. All in all I am enjoying my day, despite the fact that I don’t exist and my knees are sunburnt and my bottled water is warm and gross.
Every so often a girl will run or walk by, my age, and I want her to stop and sit and talk with me. I am lonely. I have no problem admitting this. The problem lies in becoming not lonely anymore. My mom told me that I should go to the park and read, and I’d meet a girl. Problem is, Mom, nobody’s going to stop and sit and bother some guy who’s reading on a swing. I look up each time and I smile, but behind the sunglasses I can't even tell if they see me. Plus, what’s a girl like these going to want with a nobody kind of guy like me?
It’s not just the girls I look up and smile at. I smile at kids and dogs and couples. I smile in an attempt to get people to smile back at me. Two old men walk by and say hello. I smile big and ask how they’re doing. They walk slowly past without responding. Human contact. I win. Old men are about the opposite of the ideal crowd I’m trying to get to talk to me, but hey, I’ll take it.
I read a while before the wind picks back up and makes it impossible. I look up and the woman is walking slowly up the hill back to her swing. Her swing is lower to the ground than mine and it looks like she’s kneeling in prayer when she sits down. My eyes aren’t great, and she’s far away, but she looks pretty. She’s 30 years older than me at least, I’m not physically attracted to her, but spiritually she looks beautiful. I can’t put my finger on it. She swings gently, pushing herself with her foot, staring out at the lake. She never turns her head. The people that pass me silently pass her silently and she doesn’t seem to notice. Her very existence on that swing makes me glad to be here. I feel connected to her, even though I’m fairly certain she doesn’t know I’m here.
I wonder who she is and how she came to be here. She’s not reading or anything. Is her husband at work? Is he dead? Recently dead? Is she here for the calming effect of the sun reflecting off the water as the wind creates waves over the surface of the lake? What is she thinking about? Who is she? Did she wake up today and decide she was going to come to the park and just sit? Is there something strange about that? It seems like in today’s world everyone should have something to do. I’m here to read. The girls are here to exercise. This woman is just here to be here. There’s something terribly sad and wonderful and out of place about that and it makes me feel lighter on the inside.
Another blond in short shorts and a skimpy top runs by me and I find myself wishing she would stop and talk. Just talk. Tell me that I’m alive. Show me that people notice me. I notice people. I want people to notice me but they never do. I smile, she runs by, eyes obscured by sunglasses. I try to remember if she’s run by before. Maybe she’s doing laps. Or maybe this was a new one. Why are all these girls blond? They’re all blond and tan and in great shape and they have no distinguishing features whatsoever. They spend their days getting hit on by losers like me, losers with a little more confidence that allows them to talk to the girls. They go out at night and drink and flirt and get guys to buy them drinks, and they go to the bathroom in groups, and their favorite quote is “Live for the nights we’ll never remember with the friends we’ll never forget” and they wear pink pants when they’re not out here running and really when it comes down to it it doesn’t matter if this is a different girl or the same girl running laps, because she has nothing to differentiate herself from thousands upon thousands of other college girls. She doesn’t exist anymore than I don’t exist.
This woman on the swing with her dress and her handkerchief, she exists, though nobody besides me seems to notice. I feel a longing to go over and sit with her and listen to her talk about herself, her life story, why she’s here today, how she can stand the heat dressed like that. I want to but I know I can’t. I can’t because I’m shy. I can’t because I have nothing to say to a woman of her age. I can’t because I don’t want to ruin the illusion I’ve built up in my mind.
I want to be in love but my knees are sunburnt and all my shirts are gray and my friend says I dress like a middle-aged man, and I can’t be loved because of all these things. I want to go lay my head in this woman’s lap and have her coo me to sleep stroking my head. She is right now the embodiment of everything good in this world.
I can’t see her face.
I realize I’m starving to death.
I need to read. The wind dies down for a moment and I try, but I find it impossible to concentrate. I’m scared that one time I’ll look up and she’ll be gone. I know she can’t stay here forever. The sky is blue and the lake is pretty. The ducks swim in a line, largest in front, smallest in back. Sometimes they quack and I smile. It’s such a funny sound. A little girl in a pink dress who must have just started walking waddles by behind her mother, who is talking on a cell phone about some kind of business. I want to talk to the girl, to ask her to sit down and tell me all about her life. I want to experience things from a new perspective. But I can’t do that because the mom would yell rape and it’s not right for a guy my age to be talking to a little girl like that. Even if it’s completely innocent. Even if I just want to learn from her. The three birds are still on the log with the turtle and I wonder if they’re just statues. Just then one of the birds flies off without saying goodbye. They’re not statues. Or maybe the others are, and this one bird just thought they were real, so he flew down and landed on the log, then hung out for a while before he realized they were statues, and now he flew off again because statues aren’t good conversation.
I turn again to look, and the woman is standing up. I know she’s leaving. I feel like a part of me is dying. I really feel like we’ve connected during our short time together. I want to walk over to her and tell her it’s been an honor and a privilege sharing this side of the lake with her, but I don’t want to scare her. She never looks at me. She never saw me. I watch her walk down the hill and out of sight. Whatever she was hoping to accomplish here in the swing by the lake, I guess she finished.
Things seem different once she’s gone. I settle down and start reading, pulling my shorts legs up to expose my pasty skin when nobody is around, pulling them back down when I hear someone approaching. My knees are very red. I imagine the top of my head is burnt too. I should really invest in a hat. Maybe a Braves cap. Maybe a floppy fisherman’s hat. I know I’m going to have funny sunglasses tan lines when I get home. I finish what I wanted to read. A woman who is going bald with badly dyed red hair is walking a dog that looks strangely like her as I stand up. I put my stuff away, drink the rest of my terrible hot bottled water, get on my bike and ride off. I will come back here every day I have the chance and I hope I never see the woman in the long skirt and handkerchief covering her head again.

This is why I don't read the newspaper when I get it. I just clip coupons.

So the government can't take care of its own citizens, that's good news. Glad to know if disaster strikes in one form or another we can all run around screaming our heads off with no one to take charge. I thought the reason we had government was that we give up some of our freedoms to do whatever we want in order that they take care of us in a situation like New Orleans. But apparently our government exists so that they can advance their personal beliefs as law and make a lot more money than they already have.

Gas prices are still really expensive even though the wholesale price has dropped back to a little over 2 bucks. Everyone's still paying around 3. That's, oh, say 80 cents profit per gallon for the gas station owners. On a little gas tank like mine, filling up gives 8.00 profit to the station. Multiply that by the hundreds/thousands of people who fill up each day, most with bigger tanks than mine, and that adds up to me needing to open up a gas station.

Priests abusing kids isn't news so much anymore, but I think accusing a priest who's already dead is pretty stupid. The guy can't even defend himself. It's now 40 years after the fact. Should have spoken up when it was going down. I don't like child abuse, but 40 years later bringing it back up so you can sue someone and get some money isn't real classy either.

And finally, some museum has decided that dinosaurs were created by God 6000 years ago, lived with man, went on the ark with Noah, etc. They say that the fossil record doesn't prove evolution. I say that the fossil record proves that A)The earth wasn't created 6,000 years ago, and B)Dinosaurs didn't live with man. Any rational human being can tell an allegory (the Bible) from a non-fiction account. The earth wasn't created in 6 days or whatever, and it wasn't created 6,000 years ago. Why would God put dinosaur bones, dateable to millions of years ago, in the ground? To make people not believe in him? Doesn't that seem a little weird? If I was some kind of god, I would try my hardest not to make people not believe in me.

I really want Taco Bell and Quiznos. Not at the same time, but I haven't had either in a while and they're both delicious.

I'm going to career fairs on Wednesday and Thursday with a backpack full of resumes. Maybe I'll even shower beforehand.

Intramural softball started last week. We play mens on Thursdays and mixed gender on Wednesdays. We lost both games, though the mens we probably could have won if our left fielder had caught a single ball. I can't play mens this week I think because I have to work on Thursday for some reason. Usually I work Monday Wednesday and Friday but this week they have me Thursday Friday and Saturday. That's lame.

I have a new friend in Australia. The time difference is so big (16.5 hours, I believe) that it makes me smile. I'm getting up and she's going to bed. I'm going to bed and she's starting her day. That's the kind of stuff I enjoy. I also enjoy when she uses Australian slang. Makes me smile.

I learned today that the reason I'm at the bottom of Sarai's "guys I would date" list is because I lack self confidence. She says "it just makes you so unattractive." Wow, that helps. Now I'm going to walk around with a swagger about me, knowing how goddamn unattractive I am. Ah personality and sense of humor, I thought you guys were going to treat me a lot better than you have. I'm not willing to act like an arrogant prick, so goodbye women. I'll try again in 5-10 years when maybe women will start looking for someone who will treat them like a person instead of a walking vagina with boobs. Or I'll just be alone forever. It's a lonely life, but a lot less complicated. Feh.

Some frat guy on a bike ran into me on my bike on the way home today. He was riding his bike and talking on a cell phone at the same time. I saw him coming from a mile away. I wanted to dodge, but couldn't. Now I am a little cut up and my finger may or may not be broken. I don't think it is, but I was scared there for a little bit. This proves a few theories. One, frat guys are stupid and have to pay for friends because of their stupidity, and they drink a lot, and they're stupid and can't make friends without paying for them. Two, using a vehicle and talking on a cell phone is a bad idea, especially if you're a socially inept frat guy who's stupid and has to pay for friends and act like you joined a frat to do community service, when we all know you did it to get drunk every night and sex up as many unsuspecting drunk girls as you can.

It's been a long time since I wrote anything here, mainly because nothing has happened. Sarai and I are not an item, I live in the apartment on Birch Street, I'm going to drop one of my classes and only be a part time student, and I enjoy my 20 hour work weeks at Officemax, but it's not enough hours. I live with Cam and Danny and they're both easy to get along with roommates. Now you know my life.

I am writing a new story that I think has promise. I'm hoping it'll be the big shebang in my honors thesis, but we'll see. So far it's like a page and a half in 10 font, single spaced, so I have no idea how long it really is. But it's good, I think. We'll see.

People in my honors seminar bug me. For no apparent reason they'll go "When I was in Italy last summer..." or "Growing up in Sumatra, I learned to speak fluent Swahili..." It's like these people spend every day thinking of ways they can try to make you feel inferior to them. Because they're smart. I have nothing to say though. I can be like "My written grammar is pretty good" or "I wrote a story one time..." but it's not the same. In summary, honors people should get over themselves.

I really don't have much to say. I just wanted to let people know that I got hit by some jerk on a bike.