Birthday Countdown Part 1

It is late 1988. I am in first grade. My mom made me oatmeal for breakfast, I put extra brown sugar on it and washed it down with milk. There was probably some toast too. I run into my parents bedroom where my mom is getting ready for. Obviously, since its 1988, she has to take me to school on her way. She has a jewelery box on the headboard of the water bed she shares with my father. The box, not the bed, looks like it was carved from a fallen redwood, and its drawers are lined in felt. I climbed on to the bed and my little fingers dug through the jewelery.

"What are you doing?"

"Ummmmmmmmm, nothing"

"..."

"I need to give Ashley Jefferies a present. She likes jewelery, necklaces. You have a bunch of necklaces, I don't have any, so I should give her this one." I hold up a necklace made of white sea shells. It isn't a pooka shell necklace or whatever, but it similar.

"You should probably ask first"

"Ok. Mom, can I have one of your necklaces to give to Ashley Jefferries. I like her, and she might like me if I give her this. That's what she said"

My mom let me take the necklace to school and give it to Ashley. She liked it. She didn't like me.


*******************************************

I was thinking about this story a couple of days ago. It's mostly true. Surprisingly I don't remember what i had for breakfast, or what I said to my mom one morning in 1988. I also might have given this necklace to a different girl, but because this is my blog, this is how it happened.

On the 16th I turn 27.

To celebrate this milestone I'll be putting up stuff like this. Little memories, expressions, stories, insights to why I am almost 27 and sandwich between a girl looking at Hello Kitty lunch pails and a guy watching wrestling with Korean subtitles in a university library.

Most of the stories will be mostly true.

Thanks for coming around.

Class, classes, classless.

Sunday and Monday I saw Matt, my friend from Chicago. We stayed up ill 3 drinking and singing and recounting those cold months I spent there and the warm months I've spent here. It was another example of how both greatly and positively music has affected my life.

I sat in my first class yesterday since sometime in 2003. Different, very different. I didn't know my way around the campus, there was no one I had a class with before, no one who went to my high school, no one's younger brother or sister. On 3 hours of sleep I did well. I was excited to be there, and I'm excited to go again tomorrow.

I say things at the wrong time. I say them the wrong way. I say them to get things I want. I say them to back out of things. I say them to avoid confrontations. The worst is when it is the best thing to do but you do it at the wrong time.

I'm getting better at rebuilding bridges I've burned. I don't think I need any more practice, but I keep setting them on fire.

in 15 minutes....

I'll be with Whit drinking beer.

I am moving on August 1st to Canoga Park.

I start school on September 2nd.

I got a car that drives on freeways.

I'll be quiting my job soon, but shooosh, they don't know yet.

Then I'll serve again, maybe tend bar, and read more, and write more, and blog more.

August 29th 2009. Thats the wedding day.

See you there.