I better get myself a magazine rack, 'cause I've got a lot of issues.

I don't know what my problem is.

I'm honestly considering entering myself into some kind of anger-management program. Thank God I haven't lashed out at someone, because if I did I'd probably die. I'd lose a fight in an instant if it wasn't online. I realize that I have the problem. One should not want to jump across classrooms to impale classmates one has not even had a conversation with, but this guy really, really wants to sometimes.

This is why I'm glad my creative writing class is over. Let me explain.

We sit in a large circle. Directly across from me are these two guys. One's a grad student and one just finished his freshman year. And neither are particularly talented writers, and I know that makes me sound like an asshole, especially since I don't think I'm a great writer, but when you're writing poems about drunk girls imitating Shakira, or poems about "the disillusioned" being attracted to nightclubs by "angels of sin", something must be said for your creative mindset.

Now, I only write this because they made me very, very angry. If they didn't behave like high school students, I wouldn't have a problem with them. But about two weeks ago, I happened to look across the room and noticed that they were writing notes to each other and giggling. Then they'd look at me and quickly look back at their notebook, and giggle.

This went on for about an hour.

Now, I fully admit that I'm one conceited son of a bitch. But I'm conceited in a paranoid kind of way. I always say that the reason I haven't tried pot is that I'd get way too paranoid. Because I'm even a paranoid drunk. And like everything else in my life, I blame high school for this. (I think my mother would interject here and say, "Get over it, Tyler," but then I'd just respond with, "At least I'm not blaming everything on you.")

So obviously, I was angry. Even if they weren't making fun of me (which, honestly, is most likely the case, since they really had no material except that maybe commenting that I look like Opie, "that guy from Rent", or Eric Stoltz from Some Kind of Wonderful (but not Eric Stoltz from Mask)), it's still rude.

And, okay, I admit I'm not the nicest person in the world. And yeah, I judge. Everyone does it. But we all learned back in elementary school a rule that I think we should all follow in our adult life: It's perfectly acceptable to make fun of people as long as you don't do it to their faces and try your damnedest to keep from actually hurting their feelings.

So last night, which was our last class meeting, our professor made us do formal readings of our work. And what did the Fuckhead Twins do? Well, the grad student organized his life, I suppose, with his Louis Vuitton day gay-planner. (It's safe to assume, dear readers, that the douche with the Louis Vuitton day-planner was gay, which is perfectly fine with me. But let it be known that no one - straight, homosexual, bisexual, male, or female - should have a Louis Vuitton day-planner). (And while I'm on the subject of high-fashion faux-pas, I regret not telling the very sweet, quiet girl from class that just because Coach makes it doesn't mean it's not a fanny-pack.) His partner in retardation, the freshman who looks sort of like a middle-aged investment banker trapped in a nineteen-year-old's body, completed Sudoku puzzles. Of course he did. And about every two minutes, when their minds reached capacity, they turned to each other and chatted while our classmates and our professor spoke.

And honestly, I wanted to run over there and beat them both in their stupid, stupid faces. They just put me in a miserable mood, which gave me a headache. If Project Runway wasn't on last night, I probably would have had to take an angry-nap to get over it.

A few highly intellectual thoughts.

Last night was pretty goddamn wonderful because I finished my creative writing class, which is a huge load off my mind, and I drank two three (I just remembered) glasses of wine and watched Project Runway. I was planning to write about my class, but I figured I could also mention a few things about PR.

1. Keith is my favorite because his thesis about Gone with the Wind / The Carol Burnett Show blew my fucking mind.

2. Alison is adorable despite her lisp and lack of personality.

3. I really wanted Jeffrey to get kicked off. It's not that because his dress was gross (it was), but it's because of his neck tattoos. I am anti-neck tattoos. The tattoos, combined with the right eyebrown with the fade, makes him look like a walking optical illusion.

4. I've come up with a mathematical formula:
(Nick Cave + Mr. Bean) - Rowan Atkinson + (Richard E. Grant / 2) * GAY = Malan
He makes me want to throw up.

I actually have work to do now, I'll write about class lataz.

Loss of innocence.

Last night Nicole and I were watching TV. Well, Nicole was watching TV and I was trying to take it over because she was watching that episode of Degrassi that I've seen a million times where Paige is doing the student teacher, who looks so much like a sad little puppy dog I just want to kick him in his stupid, round face. It was the same episode that Manny and Paige get into that stupid catfight, and Emma turns into this "feminist" who is all, "MEN! Who needs them?!" (even though she has a huge crush on the boy two doors down who just looks weird, like God pinched his face when he was born or something).

Anyway, I took the remote and started flipping through the HBOs and came to a movie where the first shot we saw involved Lindsay Wagner walking through a locker room and a naked black man jumping up from a bench to a locker to conceal his manhood. And then we realized that the man was Denzel Washington and we just got a quick glance at his penis. It felt really uncomfortable, because there are just some people you shouldn't seen naked: your parents, Julie Andrews, and Denzel Washington.

An important discovery.

Apparently you do not need alcohol to have a good time. All you need are aluminum foil hats.



My only disappointment is that Lisa didn't get a picture of my bitchin' aluminum foil ascot.

Blog game zone.

So I saw this on another blog and thought it was a fun idea.

I listened to my iTunes at random and typed up the first lines of the first thirty songs I heard. Some are tough and some are really easy. If you recognize one, leave a comment with the title and artist. And don't cheat and look the lines up on Google!

When correct answers are posted in comments, I'll cross-out the lyrics in the actual post.

1. Sexy Sadie, what have you done? You made a fool of everyone.

2. So you don’t get to be a saint. Martyrs never last this long. Guess I’ll never be the one to defeat desire in song.

3. I got tired, I killed it through and through. I don’t wanna make the same mistakes, the same mistakes with you.
ANSWER: Jon Brion - "Mistakes"

4. As I stumble into bed, I curse the devil in my head. And if I die before I wake, I hope the Lord won’t hesitate the pluck my coffin from the ground, He need not heed the neighbors now. And throw me up for all to see, the flies of August swarming me.
ANSWER: Liz Phair - "Ride"

5. You’re obsessed with finding a new brain, but what you need is a new body. It feels your brain has lived a thousand lives before.

6. Well no one told me about her, the way she lied. Well no one told me about her, how many people cried.

7. I was thinking I could clean up for Christmas, and then, baby, I’m through. Four more weeks couldn’t make any difference, except maybe to you.

8. Slavin’ away, all for you, my love. And I’ve nothing to show for it, ‘cept my dusty old book full of pictures. Dusty old book, tell me a story about how I wasn’t so tired from my slavin’ away.
ANSWER: Fiery Furnaces - "Slavin' Away"

9. When you were young you were the King of Carrot Flowers and how you built a tower tumbling through the trees.

10. Small stakes give you blues. You don’t feel taken or think you’ve been used.

11. His name was Perry. He had a learning difficulty. His father was a very mean man. His father burned his skin. His father sent him to his death. He was ten years old.

12. The clouds starting forming, five o’clock PM. A tunnel cloud touched down five miles north of Russellville.
ANSWER: Drive-By Truckers - "Tornadoes"

13. I bought a toothbrush, some toothpaste, a flannel for my face, pajamas, a hairbrush, new shoes, and a case. I said to my reflection, “Let’s get out of this place.”

14. There’s a voice on the phone telling what had happened; some kind of confusion, more like a disaster. And I wondered how you were left unaffected.

15. Speaking outrageously, I write in cursive. I hide in my bed with the lights on the floor. Wearing three layers of coats and leg-warmers, I see my own breath on the face on the door.

16. I’m a ghost, and I wanted you to know that it’s taken all my strength to make this toast.

17. Just afloat on the sea. Find myself on a page in history. You know as I ride along, I can always hear the song about you and where you’re meant to be.

18. Headlights race toward the corner of the dining room half illuminate a face before they disappear. You breathe in forty years of failing to describe a feeling. I breathe out smoke against the window, trace the letters in your name.

19. When you wake up feeling old at this piano filled with souls, some strange purse stuffed nervous with gold. Can you be where you want to be?
ANSWER: Wilco - "When You Wake Up Feeling Old"

20. You’re everything you need and so you fight. You take them on your own until you die. The wisdom in your breath comes much to late. And everyone you see just gets a face.
ANSWER: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - "Still Suspicion Holds You Tight"

21. Baby was a black sheep. Baby was a whore. Baby got big and baby get bigger.
ANSWER: Patti Smith - "Rock & Roll Nigger"

22. Thought you were the only fish in the sea. Thought you were the only leaf on my tree. Thought that you would miss me when we took that walk. Thought you were the only paint on my wall.
ANSWER: Be Your Own Pet - "Love Your Shotgun"

23. I am an American aquarium drinker. I assasin down the avenue. I'm hiding out in the big city blinkin'. What was I thinkin' when I let go of you?

24. A single rose in the garden dwells. Like any rose it’s not itself. It is my love in your garden grows, but let’s pretend it’s just a rose.
ANSWER: Magnetic Fields - "I'm Sorry I Love You"

25. Well I came upon a child of God. He was walking along the road and as I asked him, “Tell me, where are you going?” And this he told me:
ANSWER: Joni Mitchell or CSN&Y - "Woodstock"

26. I know you want to leave me, but I refuse to let you go. If I have to beg and plead for your sympathy, I don’t mind ‘cause you mean that much to me.

27. My name should be trouble, my name should be woe. For trouble and heartbreak is all that I know.
ANSWER: Conway Twitty - "Danny (Lonely Blue Boy)"

28. And so it is, just like you said it would be. Life goes easy on me most of the time.

29. My arms are all twisted. The only thing I miss is. I messed up I missed it. I messed up the missing of you.
ANSWER: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Mysteries"

30. Louis is probably thirty years old but he looks like a solid forty-five. Louis says that he’s got a headache. I look in his eyes and I believe him.

TGIF!!!! LOLZ!!

That pug is so cute I want to squeeze him 'til he poops! Thanks, Cute Overload!

I'm in an a pretty awesomely good mood today for a few reasons:

1. In honor of Taste of Chicago, I get a two hour lunch break. I was originally going to skip the Taste and go to the library and nap, but now I'm meeting Nicole, Dan, Kristin, Lisa, and Lisa's friend Tyler. So now I'm excited.

[Also, this might seem weird, but I don't think I've ever really met another Tyler my age. Remember how in Back to the Future Part II Jennifer from 1985 meets Jennifer from 2015 and they both pass out because it's way too po-mo for either of them to handle? I hope that doesn't happen when I meet Tyler #2.]

2. It's Lynette's birthday today, so my boss brought donuts. Mmm, donuts.

3. I listened to the new Peaches album, Impeach My Bush, on my commute this morning. I was very hyper-sensitive of the volume level of my iPod earphones because I didn't want anyone to hear what I was listening to. I'm not sure how I feel about Peaches. She's so disgusting, yet incredibly entertaining. It's not even good music, but I can't not like it. Megan and I decided this morning that Peaches is like Junior Senior, only with more fucking.

4. I went to speak with a lady from the DePaul English department yesterday about the MA program. I've decided that I'm going to apply for January 2007. When I think about it, the MAPH program at UChicago doesn't seem like a good idea when I realize that a. I don't want to be sixty-thousand dollars in debt, b. eight courses isn't a lot of credit to apply toward a PhD program, and c. I don't want to be sixty-thousand dollars in debt. At DePaul, I can work, continue to live on the LP/Lakeview border, and get a mostly-free (since I'll be responsible for taxes on the graduate courses) Master's degree. Also, I don't have to take the GRE and the thesis is optional. So, yeah. Duh.

5. We're going to sign a lease this weekend, finally.

6. And that pug. That's worth posting a second time:

Grillmast Suckmaster.

I think I'm a good three-fourths of the way into the story that is due at 5:45 this evening, so instead of using the valuable time to finish it here at work (even though I still have piles and piles of transcripts to update on People Soft), I'm going to blog instead because, hey, I'm a procrastinator. Also, I think the story sucks, as usual, and my attempts to write something remotely uplifting is skirting dangerously close to Nicholas Sparks teritory, so I'm afraid to finish it just yet because I don't want to write something that my high school English teacher might think is good literature. (I'm talking about the woman who had us read that masterpiece of the British canon, And Then There Were None, in the twelfth grade.)

Last night we had an impromptu barbeque (check out those rhyming skillz, y'all!) at the house. Janna and I picked up some frozen burger and veg-burger patties and I was really excited because Joe has a grill that I've never gotten the chance to use, and I figured two weeks before moving out would be the best time to learn how to grill. Looong story short the meat didn't actually cook because the charcoal was suck-town. Also, I managed to drop two veggie burgers through the grill onto the flame. I'm not a grillmaster. We ended up just eating a lot of chips and dip. After two margaritas and some Corona, I was angry about that stupid grill and how the flame just WENT OUT when I squirted more lighter fluid down there. I decided I'd just throw a match onto it and call it a day, for Fourth of July's sake. Only when I tried to do that the match burned my finger and then wouldn't stay lit long enough for me to put it on the grill. So there you go.

So now I'm trying to figure out an ending to my stupid story, which I should try to finish over my lunch break. Although I'm going to Chipotle for the first half of it. Thank God. I missed Chipotle. It's been a long eight days.

I'm so ready to be over all of this.

So this is something that I feel awkward writing about, and I'll probably prove myself to be a complete selfish asshole in about a minute and a half, but I just can't decide whether or not my frustration at the moment is legitimate, or if I'm just a jerk.

I don't really like the act of publicly grieving. I just don't, so whatever. I didn't want to write long posts about my grandmother because no one else would really want to read it and I feel weird about putting all of that out there. Even though I've got a lot on my mind now, I don't really want to share it with people who only read my blog. In last week's post, I just kind of referenced it in a paragraph to let people know it happened. I didn't want to make a major announcement, but I also didn't want to call people up and say, "Hey, my grandmother died. Say something nice to me now." I don't expect everyone I know to start calling me up and trying to console me, because not only will it not really help, but it's just kind of awkward for everyone.

I got a few phone calls on Thursday and Friday from Kristin and Laurie. I was really happy they called. I got a few emails and IMs from other friends who read the post, and I was really happy that they wanted to let me know that they were thinking about me.

I read this poem last night by Julia Kasdorf which included the lines, "I learned to attend viewing even if I didn't know the deceased, to press the moist hands of the living, to look in their eyes and offer sympathy, as though I understood loss even then. I learned that whatever we say means nothing, what anyone will remember is that we came. I learned to believe I had the power to ease awful pains materially like an angel. Like a doctor, I learned to create from another's suffering my own usefulness, and once you know how to do this, you can never refuse." This really hit home for me because I realized that even though it was hard to know what to say to all of these people at the visitation and the service, it was a really kind gesture that they were there. I shook so many hands and hugged so many women who I wasn't related to. There were people who weren't exactly close with our family there, too, but they felt they should come anyway for whatever reason. The point is that it was nice to see people who wanted us to know that they were thinking about it. The gesture is enough.

When my father's dad died when I was in eighth grade, the only friend my age who called me was Carver, a girl from church. I was thinking about how she called me, and how she was the only friend of mine who actually did get in touch with me, which seemed out of the blue at the time because most people just happened to speak to me when they came to talk to the entire family. She called the day after it happened to tell me that if I needed to talk about anything, she would be there, since her grandfather died a few months before and she knew what I was going through. I realize now that it's not random to do such a thing, and I appreciate it more now when I realize that, like back then, the people you aren't the closest to will surprise you. (If you ever Google yourself, Carver Weakley, I hope you find this because I don't know how else to get in touch with you and thank you.)

I guess I'm kind of aggravated that I didn't hear from a few specific people at some point over the weekend, people who I know what I'm doing these days because of this blog, as if our friendships that have spanned four years is cheapened so much that a simple text message is too much effort. (And I realize I'm also horrible at keeping in touch with people, but I don't care at this point because this is about me.) (See? I told you I would prove that I was an asshole.) What I'm trying to say is that I'm not expecting grand gestures of sympathy. I'm not asking for flowers or cards or these elaborate speeches letting me know that everything is going to be alright and blah, blah, blah. But the gesture would be nice.

1922 - 2006.

It’s been quite an exhausting weekend. I’m flying back on Tuesday and I can’t wait to get home. I’m hoping I can recap the major events without being too boring and going on for too many pages. (I’m writing this in a Word document instead of writing my three-to-five-page (double-spaced) short story which is due on Wednesday.)

I know it’s kind of a stupid thing to say, but the major thing I’ve realized this weekend was that my childhood is officially over. I know I’m almost twenty-three and this is obvious, but I guess I fully accepted it. My grandmother’s house was packed: it was the first time in probably at least three years that all five of the grandchildren were together. It was really the first time in a decade that we all hung around my grandparents’ house, since my mom took over the entertaining duties for Thanksgiving and Christmas a long time ago. Even though I lived at home for a couple of years during college and always visited my grandparents at least once a week during that time, it was really the first time that I really noticed everything in the house since I was a kid. Suddenly I started to notice again the figurines in the curio cabinet in the kitchen, or how there was still a Matchbox Rolls Royce in the china cabinet because I thought it was worth too much to play with like the rest of my Hot Wheels.

The whole process – both the funeral home visitation on Friday night and the funeral service on Saturday – was a town event. I saw so many people I hadn’t seen in years, including my old best friend Mitchell’s parents (his mother said to me, “You’re so grown-up and good looking. I wish my son was as mature as you”), my third-grade guidance counselor (who also taught my father Chemistry three years in a row). There were also countless people from town who came by, including our delegate to the Virginia Assembly (he lives a mile down the road), who talked to everyone, including me, as if we were just his constituents (sorry, I didn’t vote for you) and not the people he’d lived in close proximity to for almost fifty years. I remember noticing that he had very well-groomed politician hair. Then at the church on Sunday I saw my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Walker, who told me that she still thinks about me because I was always her favorite. (LIES.) There was also Miss Harvey, the middle-school gym teacher who still has hair down to her butt, and her mother who used to play the organ for us at Sunday school. And since the obituary mentioned that I was “from Chicago,” I had to answer the same question about EIGHT THOUSAND TIMES:

“Do you really like Chicago?”

One woman, who lived down the street from my grandmother and had daughters who were close in age to me came up and said that she was impressed that I moved so far away. She and her husband built a house down next door to her in-laws’ house. She said to me, “I didn’t think anyone made it out of Westmoreland County. James [her husband] tried so hard and he didn’t even make it off of Wakefield Street.”

Even the rich bitch who lives in the huge house down the street, who I think only acknowledges that the rest of us on the street exist when someone dies, told me that she and her husband went to Chicago a few times. “You should really go see the Pheasant Run resort in Geneva. We’ve gone to some decoy auctions out there and it’s just beautiful.” Thanks. I’ll be sure to check that out, Middy.

Anyway. Long story short: everything is weird. It’s feeling more and more that I’m losing a place here in this town. There’s nothing for me, and no matter how many people tell me that I’ll be back to settle, I know I’m not going to be living here ever again. It’s kind of sad that the place where all my roots are buried is dying, too. Well, there is a new coffee shop that opened up in the old Exxon building. Maybe I’m wrong; maybe Montross is on the make, but I doubt it.

I think I’ll just end this here, since I’m trying to not be sad and I really don’t want to grieve all publicly and shit. I will admit that it’s been a much harder weekend than I expected, and no matter how hard I tried to keep my composure, I felt that I just couldn’t and I hated myself for it. When I think of my grandmother, I think that maybe she would have wanted me to not be sad and to look at the bright side of things and all that jazz, but I think she would have also appreciated a few emotional collapses.

. . .