gat dang it i don’t have anything to eat right now.

//i could defrost a pork chop.

nah

hmm

probably pretty dehydrated right now. i been drinking this big blue cup of water but i dont’ think it’s helping that much. it is empty though, let me fix that and try again.

whoops. came back to the computer and hadn’t filled my glass yet. still haven’t found anything to eat.

good news! i found my glass, and it was filled. i must be looking out for myself.

well, that about wraps it up. i hope you’ve enjoyed this little chunk of my saturday night. happy sunday.

-alex

“How was your weekend?

As food comes…

“So…”

“…”

“We’re probably going to have a talk, yeah?”

“I don’t know, maybe.”

“Let’s eat a bit more first.”

“Ok.”

“So when was the last time you saw your dad?”

Later..

“Feels like about time for a talk.”

“Yeah..”

“Well, one of us should probably ask a question.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“…”

“…”

“So.. it seems like we’re after different things.”  (not a question, I know)

“Hmm, pretty much.”

Later…

“So like, we have the chemistry right.  The chat, the banter, it’s all there.  And I really love making out with you.”

“There’s that.”

“But it seems like–”

“Oh, just help yourself.”

“Sorry, I know I have beef on my plate, but yours looks good.”

“Yeah, I’m not going to eat all this.  There’s probably a different spice on it.  I think it’s different beef.”

“No, it’s the same.  But if you don’t mind..”

“No, help yourself.”

“Ok, so yeah.  It seems like the basics are there, but I don’t really see a routine happening.  I’m trying to fit you into my life, and to be honest it doesn’t really seem like there’s place for me in yours.”

“You know, my friends all think I’m desperate for a boyfriend.  But really, I’m content– well, happy being alone.  That’s not the right word.”

“No I got you.  But at this point right, like, it’s so easy to break it off.  For me, I just want to go into things full-force and let them run their course.  And if you sleep together, and it doesn’t work out, so what?”

“Yeah, I’ve been there.  I just don’t want to just have it happen.. and not mean it.”

“Well hey, it’s your journey.”

Later..

“So, call me old-fashioned, but I think dating should be something where you really get to know someone before you sleep with them.”

“See, that’s not dating.  That’s courting.”

“Well, ok.  But I just don’t want to fall into sex, because I’ve done that before.  I want to..”

“Choose it?”

“Yeah.”

“See, but I don’t get how you’re supposed to know.  See like, by the first–second date/whatever, I pretty much know if I want to sleep with someone.”

“See I know on the first date if I don’t want to.”

“Well, sure, DON’T want to.  But how are you supposed to know if you do?  And that’s why I don’t really understand courting, because you’re developing the platonic-friends-sorta-side but forcing the physical side not to happen.  See, I won’t know if I really like someone until AFTER I sleep with them.”

Later…

“So, we don’t need to be friends or anything, right?  I hate it when people say that.”

“Oh sure.  Like maybe if I see you at a show, then I’ll say hi.”

“And Facebook too.  We can maybe post on each other’s walls occasionally.”

“Sure.  I’ll leave you a note on February 22nd.”

“And I’ll leave you one whenever Facebook tells me when your birthday is.”

Later..

“So, what do you want to do?  I think I might still try going to Buffalo Exchange.”

“Yeah.. well, I haven’t been home yet and need to go.”

“Mmm, yeah ok.  So.. we should probably get going.  Should we hug or something?  Not one of those creepy side hugs.”

“Nah, we can do a regular hug, just not let our crotches touch.”

“That sounds ok.”

“I take it you don’t want your teabag?”

“Nah, help yourself..”

Et cetera.

Et cetera.

“Well, no, not exactly.  It’s a complicated case, Maude.   Lotta ins.   Lotta outs.  And a lotta strands to keep in my head, man.  Lotta strands in old Duder’s–”

Shot pool with new officemate J – he’s good but inconsistent, and we were almost perfectly matched.

Had a massage from a powerfully-built Swedish woman.  Came out feeling like an old man.  Sure is nice to be able to roll my neck around and not hear a lot of pops and clicks, though..

Rounded up a poker table for Friday night.  D gave me a ride up to R’s place, where J and the other R were waiting.  B and his friend P came by.  I had a feeling it was going to come down to me and D in the end, not to sound cocky, but because we were the only two playing actual poker.  And low and behold we did, and I walked about 30 bucks richer.  Nice.  D stopped in after we got back to the hill for a beer and a blunt.  Smart kid.

Saturday I helped my mom and Jay move.  Their new house is in Magnolia, so hmmm…  Very 50′s, but then again so was Mum’s last house before they re-everything’ed everything.  Certainly a nice piece of land in a nice neighborhood.  Good view, good floors.  Greek for dinner.  I still don’t get lamb.  Mum and I went for coffee and chocolates afterwards, which was nice.  Came home and stayed home, instead of getting shitty drunk as planned.

Today, I slept until noon, but I was having such a wonderful dream I stayed back for a while longer, well worth it.  Was supposed to see J for an evening date tonight, but she came back late and tired, which I foresaw and understand.  Can’t shake the suspicion that she is going to end it soon, though.  Probably just paranoia..  and I had just come up with a good nickname.

Watching “Role Models” and eating a manly dinner:

Real men make their own potato chips.

http://this-mortal-coil.blogspot.com/

Please don’t tell me how it ends.

• Lots of girl-with-amazing-voice-singing-and-playing-piano songs.
• Two piano-guitar-drums-singer rock groups.
• One fellow played a koto he’d tuned all wacky, while the teacher sang with him.
• The inimitable Trevor Lee Ridge (of our brother band IMUR) rocked it several times on guitar, then once again on piano.
• Some dude I didn’t know was clearly very talented with a Stratocaster.
• And my personal favorite Mary Lambert, who has the most goddamn sexy voice I’ve ever heard.  Kept giving me the goosebumps it was so good.

J and I played with K – we were the only outside musicians.  We played two songs K had written for piano in his Songwriting class this semester.  I played bass on one, and guitar on a very-new song we’d only played once together – and that was at a show.  Sounded good though.  Anyways.

I noticed a lot of shaky hands on stage.  Like, not just a little sweaty-palms tremble, but full-on Total Panic hand convulsions.  Yet, as soon as said hands touched key or string they managed to produce utter magic.  Stay in music school, kids.

And damn, there was not a single unattractive person there.  I wish I had majored in something sexier.  Sure would have gone to class more often.

Official pre-show shot of The In & Outers.  I don’t advocate being drunk on stage – no one wants to hear you flub notes because you drank too much and now your fingers are fat, useless sausages – but, it’s hard to look cool bone-sober in a room full of drunk people.  Tequila is fast, effective, sufficiently-ritualized, and will also help you maintain a useful attitude towards the authorities.

How convenient that my favorite bourbon is also cheap and universally available.  Sometimes they have Gentleman Jack, which tastes the same but is much smoother.  Best enjoyed with a single icecube and smugness.

Whiskey Sours are cheap and make all bourbons taste exactly same.  Just don’t get it with a maraschino cherry, or alternately eat the cherry before anyone notices.

Now, I’m not trying to set myself up like some heavy-drinking manly man.  I just want to get drunk enough to talk to girls, and possibly later get drunk enough to yell at passing cars, because damnit I spend all week being smart.  When Saturday rolls around, I want to be an idiot.

How else am I supposed to feel a deep brotherly kinship with a whole bunch of strangers?

I realize it had to be all-or-nothing for me, and you’re not the all type.

Exquisite.  1100 pages of nothing but plot!  The same ugly, lonely, overthinking human trapped in a hundred different lives.

Plus it’s fun to read it on the bus, as people watch you track down footnotes within footnotes.

It wasn’t bad, I guess, but it definitely did not cure my DFW jones once Infinite Jest ran dry.

(aka “A Supposedly Fun Thing Thing I’ll Never Do Again”, available online for free at Harper’s)

What most people have read by DFW.  An article he wrote for Harper’s, deadly funny, do read it.

.

Of course, my new favorite comic “pictures for sad children” sums it up pretty well.

Otherwise…

1. Got a new job at a certain massive corporation.  Pay is good, work is good, perks are nice.
2. Band has taken off, to the point where it’s like a second job.  Except I can drink on the clock.  Lots of shows, lots of practice.  Demo released, album in the works.
3. Moved into a decent apartment on Capitol Hill.  Finally have space to stand in the center of the room and spin around and not smack into things.  This makes me very happy.
4. Make enough money to be able to buy toys and clothes that aren’t from thrift stores.  This too makes me happy.
5. 99 problems but a yatch ain’t one..  Sometimes it rains, sometimes it pours, sometimes it’s dry as a bone (har).  But I’m still riding the wave (and mixing metaphors).  Occasionally I even split infinitives.
6. Strange, I actually feel pretty happy most of the time.  Not that I don’t suck – I’m the worst – but I’m also pretty good.

Anyways. A was telling me about the “envelope system”. Unfortunately, I don’t remember exactly what he said, but since then I’ve stolen the key points of his speech and worked it up into my own little spiel, which goes like this:

“I’m onto envelopes. Every week, when I get my paycheck, I cash it, take it home, and stuff money into various envelopes – one for groceries, one for rent, one for clothes, etc..”

“Well, yeah, I used to be pretty bad with cash too. But now it’s pretty straightforward. If I put $100 bucks in my wallet every Saturday, I can spend it however I want – but once it’s gone, it’s gone. No going to the ATM for more. It’s hard to be reckless with cash when you don’t use ATMs.”

“There are other things about debit cards that I don’t really like. It’s easy to just be out, throw your debit card on the table, and never think about money. And so it used to be, I’d be out, and get hungry, and go to a restaurant, and order what looked good. Then when the bill for $7-$10 bucks comes, you just hand them your debit card and forget it about. Because, come on, what’s 10 bucks? It’s painless. But to go to the grocery store and drop $100 bucks on food for the week HURTS – debit or cash or whatever. And it doesn’t make sense right? Because in the long run, I’d save a ton of money just going grocery shopping, not to mention I’d eat way better and healthier.”

“So really, envelopes helped me find a budget that didn’t make me feel guilty about spending money when I ought to, and made me more aware of when I was spending money that I shouldn’t. Because you can torch through whatever’s in that envelope, but when it’s empty, it’s empty. And really, since I’m not nickel-and-diming myself with convenience stuff, I’m buying a ton of cool shit – new guitars, lots of clothes, money for travel, and I’m even saving. I have a fucking Roth IRA for retirement!”

“But there’s another part to it too, and it’s a bit more philosophical. So, ok, I’m working at this job. I enjoy the work enough, but let’s face it, I wouldn’t be there if they weren’t paying me. That’s like a quarter of my life gone, every week. So when I say, ‘Oh, I’ve got $400, maybe $500 in my checking account’; when I spend my money whenever on whatever, I’m sort of disrespecting myself. A quarter of my life gone, and I don’t even know where all that effort is ending up? But when you cash that check, man, and hold those $20s in your hand, it’s like you’re holding your life in your hand. It’s indescribable.”

“Plus, there are all sorts of little cool things about cash. The big one for me is never, ever, having to worry about my plastic being declined. I usually leave $100 or so in my checking account just in case, but I always pay in cash, and everyone takes cash. And you ever return something you bought with debit card? Ok, wait a week, they’ll call you and give you store credit. But with cash, you just hand them the receipt and they hand you the cash back. And man, rent. I used to hate having that last paycheck of the month just disappear to rent. Even though I make decent money now, I was still suddenly broke for one week a month. But if you divide it up over each paycheck, you never even notice it.”

Ok, so that’s the spiel. Thanks A, for not minding my egregious theft. Ok, so now for a breakdown of how it all works. Once per week, I have like a four-hour window to make it to the bank on Saturday before it closes. And I get a big stack of cash, mostly $50s and $20s, but also some smaller bills to round it out. Then I go home and get my bank.

First I count up everything that’s in each of the envelopes, including my wallet (“Walkin’ Around”) and my bank accounts. BTW, ING Direct offers a 3% APY savings account, which is really freaking good, better than most CDs at other banks.

So then I go through and decide how much money to add to each envelope. Stuff like groceries, I just add whatever it takes to get me up to $100, and stuff like rent is just a flat amount each week. Whatever cash is left over goes into the “Blow” envelope in the back. Once this hits a certain amount, I put it into my Bank of America account. Every so often I transfer everything but $100 in my BoA account to my ING account. I keep a grand in there for emergencies; everything over that goes to my retirement fund. Then at the end, I have tally it all up, and figure out my liquid worth, which is really cool.

Then during the week, if I feel bored or sad, I just grab my clothing envelope and hit up downtown, or my toys envelope and hit up Guitar Center. Eating out, bars, movies, etc all comes out of my wallet, and to be honest I occasionally have to re-up during the week from the blow fund. But I just know maybe I should give myself a bit more next week. And finally I can just stop worrying about money. I hate being in debt, I hate being broke, but really I don’t care about money – I just like what it buys. I like guitars, and buying my friends drinks, and eating like a fucking prince.