I should title more of my blogs...

So I've been thinking... which is worse, to be remembered for something negative or to not be remembered at all?

I'm reading a book that takes place in an office in which people are steadily being let go. There are main characters that leave and you feel for them and you wonder what they're doing with their lives. And then there are the countless other characters with no names that you only know they're gone because their is another empty desk being described.

I'd like to think that I'm a main character and not just filler.

The fact that you might be reading this from bed makes me smile.

I've been smiling all night long... for so many reasons... but all those reasons are because of you.

I can't wait to see you again.

you are all that i want in the world
all that i'll ever need.

tonight i'm going to dream of your lips and mine.

sweet dreams

No. No, you're right. There's nothing left now. The world is moving on and so must we.
...
i think you think we think we know, but really, does anyone?
...
I was thinking about things, earlier today, and that is always a dangerous endevour. Especially when I think about you. Then it becomes the most dangerous endevour.

I was thinking about holding you i9n my arms and sweeping you off your feet and takin gyou away. Taking you away from all that ails you. Taking you to a place with nothing but sun and sand and water. To a place that exists only for you and me. We take off all of our clothes and let the sun wash over us and burn away every bad thought, every worry, everything that doesn't belong and when the heat begins to get to be too much, we slip in to the ocean and let it's cool waves wash over us and give us new life. We emerge from the water hand in hand, standing tall, naked and alive. We let the sun dry us, put our clothes back on and rejoin the rest of the world, looking exactly as we had when we left, only now we are smiling
...
I still haven't recovered from this weekend. I think I should sleep a little more... maybe a nap. actually... now that I'm thinking about it, I don't really see any sort of need for that "maybe"....

You know what time it is, folks?

Tool Time! Brought to you by Binford Tools!

Wait...

No...
Not quite.

Me thinks its Nap Time!

(sounds of cheers fill the room)

That's right, folks, it's Nap Time!

Let's give it up for Everyone's Favorite.... Mr. Sandman!

(more cheers)

Mr. Sandman... bring me a dream.... make her the cutest angel that I've ever seen...


...
..
.
.....
...
..
...

... And delerium sets in.

A Lap Dance Is So Much Better When The Stripper Is Crying.

At least, that's what the immortal Jimmy Pop Ali of The Bloodhound Gang once said... and if he said it, then it must be true, musn't it? Well I have to say, so far, I personally have never received a lap dance from a crying stripper. In fact, I've only been to a strip club a grand total of three times in my entire life, and I'm not enitrely sure the first two should really count.

My first two experiences at strip clubs were actually at the same place. Cafe Risque. Does that place even count as a strip club? I dunno... Let's take a look at how those two visits came to be, shall we?

Step back with me, folks, to the year nineteen hundred and ninety seven. Three years before y2k and about two months after my eighteenth birthday.

Actually... now that I'm about to tell the story, I realize that it's not that great. I mean, basically, I was driving back up to Gainesville from Cape Coral with JTrain and Crafty and we were talking about where to stop for dinner. We just happened to be passing one of the many billboards for Cafe Risque when Crafty brought that topic up for discussion, so I blurted out Cafe Risque. Crafty thought that was a good idea. JTrain was only 17 at the time. I said, "shucks, I guess we can't go." Crafty was having none of that, though, so we drove back to G'ville, dropped off JTrain, then went back down to the Cafe.

There was a six dollar cover and a two drink minimum. Since we were both 18, we ordered cheese sticks.

They were pretty good. A bit overpriced, if I remember correctly, but even still, they were the most memorable part of the trip. My general description of the place after that first visit was "A Waffle House with topless servers." And I'm not sure about any of the Waffle Houses you've ever been to, but I can tell you that I do NOT want to see those servers topless. gross.

I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking that if the place was so bad, why'd you go back?

There's a reason, I promise.

Flash forward a few months after my first trip. I'm back in Gainesville and JTrain has a friend of the family up visiting for a weekend. We'll call him Louie. Louie got in town on Friday night. When asked what he wanted to do, all he would say is "Go to Cafe Risque." That was it. That's all he wanted to do. After two days of having him beg me to go with him (JTrain was still too young to go) I finally gave in on Sunday night.

This time was a little better. A Lot better, actually, but only for one reason.

Hold on. Let's step back a second. One of the main reasons I didn't want to go was because I had a Macro Economics test on Monday morning and I REALLY didn't want to spend the time to drive all the way down there and back just to spend money to see below average looking women with no clothes. I finally relented when he agreed to pay for my cover and my dinner as well as let me bring my notes to study.

Yes, I went to a strip club to study for an exam.

Okay, so there we are, sipping on our waters, my nose burried deep in my notes, Louie's nose burried... well, god knows where.... when I feel a hand on my shoulder. There's a pretty good looking chica in a bikini standing over me, peeking over my shoulder at my notes layed out on hte table in front of me.

"You have that test tomorrow too, huh?" she asks.

"umm.... yeah. you?" I stammer.

"Yeah, I studied all day before work..." blah blah blah, etc. etc. etc. I have no idea how the rest of the conversation went, but I thought it was cool that a girl in my Economics class was a stripper.

We only talked for a few minutes and I never saw her again. I tried to look for her during the exam, but couldn't spot her.

Oh well.

But, yeah, that was the extent of my strip club experience.

At least, it was up until my most recent trip to Vegas.

But you know what they say... whatever happens in vegas, stays in vegas.

One Weekend In Vegas Described In 38 Status Updates!

..............................

Laundry... packing... nap... flight... la... flight... vegas

Laundry, CHECK! Packing, CHECK! Tired? Not even close...

is laying in bed, definitely NOT sleeping, thinking he forgot to pack something...

two and a half hours sleep ain't too bad, right?

is getting ready to board his plant to L.A. ... should be there by 9:40am :) woohoo!

is going to be in LA for the next two hours, then vegas

just finished watching Rounders.... t minus 2 hours til vegas

ITS GO. TIME!!! .... sorta. josh lands in 45, amar in an hour or so and phil in two.... then it'll be GO TIME!!!!!

Gotta love slots at the airport

is still waiting for GO time... so close....

Venetian waiting for phil to place his first bet

is drink.... drank....

just lost my first $2o of the day...

just bet on FSU. the world is coming to an end

lost another hundred playing blackjack... .. . then made it back

is going to the promised land... Caesars Palace

Caesars is a bitch.

won 3o in blackjack and enjoyed 4 crown and cokes before dinner. not too shabby

... josh just bet on florida state too

hasn't been this drunk in a Long time :)

can't see straight

is feeling good. I said no alcohol until after dinner.... but... ummmm... yeah

is going to the Bellagio for some all you can eat goodness. definitely gonna put a hurtin on 'em

is going to play some blackjack while everyone power naps

is :)

is staying up all night with Noble

just had "the best" eggs benedict. they were delish!

just got moved from Gate 53 to Gate 52. United, we suck at flying And It Shows!

the bitch had me run 30 gates and my plane left 10 minutes ago. fuck

might not be able to make it back to fl until tuesday

got a red eye to DC then a 6am flight to Tampa! .... then 9 hours of work. yay? :)

tried very hard to give away his ticket to DC and still make it to tampa in time t work, but no dice

is about to catch some shut eye on the plane. two hours sleep in he last forty

is now in Washington DC with three hours to kill

the sun is up. about to board. 21 hours of airplanes and airports so close to an end...

landed. my god I can't believe I made it back.

is on my way to work after an Amazing shower....

has officially given up on Today and will try again tomorrow.

sometimes i wonder if dreams really mean anything at all....
sometimes i wonder what the world would be like without my rose colored glasses. I wonder what it would be like if if i really didn't believe everything would work out in the end. I wonder what it would be like if I didn't see the breaking of both my arms as an opportunity as opposed to a pain.
sometimes i wonder what it would be like to give up.
to give in.
to let life win.
sometimes i wonder what it would be like to think that my dreams arent' going to come true.
but
fortunately
no matter what happens
i know.
i know.
i know that the world will go on whether i'm awake or asleep
alive or dead
sinking to the bottom or rising above the world.
so
really
the only way to really enjoy
is to not worry about what Was, but focus on what Is and what it will take to get to what Will Be.

i leave you, dear reader, not with a smile on my lips.... things haven't been... well, they haven't been as they should be

but i do leave you with a feeling in my heart

a good feeling.

and a tired one.

my fingers keep twitching on the keyboard.... my eyes are Not open.

oh, i do think its time for bed, though...
good night dear reader, good night....

I've met some women in some very interesting ways. Looking back on my life recently, I realized that I don't think I was ever really normal. I know, that's a conclusion most of you came to within hours of meeting me, but still... In recent years I've connected with women via Facebook, Myspace, repeated and random bumping into a complete stranger, and in not-so-recent-years via aol's Instant Messenger and even a wrong number. Yeah, somehow I parlayed a wrong number into a date. It was the most bizarre thing...

Flash back with me to 1997. Freshman year at UF. I'm living in a "temporary" triple (for those of you who don't know what that is, basically, it's a room meant for two people that they put three people in because each year they overbook the dorms under the assumption that 10% of the people will move off campus.) My roommates are J-Train and Alec. J-Train was my buddy from High School, so we were actually planning on being roommates. Alec was... well... first off, he was Eugene. He went by Alec, though. He was an interesting guy, but, fortunately, not really involved in this story.

So yeah, Me, J-Train and Alec living in a room meant for two. Since there were three of us sharing the same room, that meant three of us sharing the same phone line. To elliminate some of the confusion of having to write each other phone messages, we got one of those answering machines with more than one mailbox. You would call our landline and the machine would pick up and prompt you to Press 1 for J-Train, Press 2 for Alec or Press 3 for David.

Well, during the first week alone I think we must have received two dozen phone calls for Will.

So, that was 1 for J-Train, 2 for Alec or 3 for David. Who in the world was Will? We sure didn't know.... but we did get tired of getting calls for him, and I was curious. I mean, this guy was getting more calls than any of us were, so I changed the voice mail to something like this:

"Hello, you've reached Jennings, Room 4-1-1. We're not picking up the phone, so levae a message. If this is for J-Train, Press 1. If this is for Alec, Press 2. If this is for David, Press 3. And if you're calling for Will, he no longer has this phone number, but if you want to leave him a message, Press 4. If you have any information as to where he might be or what his new number is, let us know so we can pass along any messages we have for him. Thanks! Bye!"

Kind of silly, right? I mean, who would leave a message for a guy on an answering machine that says he doesn't live there anymore?

You'd be suprised. Lots of people left messages. No forwarding information, though. Not yet, anyway.

One day, during the third week or so of school, I wasn't thinking and actually picked up the phone without screening the call. Oops, oh well. Too late.

Me: Hello?
Caller: Hi?
Me: Hey... umm... who is this?
Caller: Amber. who is this?
Me: David. How's it going?
Amber: Not bad... is Will around?
Me: Nope.
Amber: Do you know when he'll be back?
Me: Nope. Actually, I don't even know who he is. I just moved in here a few weeks ago and got this as my phone number. Been getting tons of calls for him, though. He was a pretty popular guy, wasn't he?
A: Ha! Wait. Are you serious?
M: Yep.
A: Oh. Yeah, he was a cool guy....

.... and the conversation went on for about an hour or so longer. No clue what we talked about, just remember that she sounded cute, so... why not? Total stranger. Called for some guy named Will who no longer lived there. We bonded over the phone. It was weird.

A few days later, Amber called again. This time, I wasn't there to pick up, so she went to the answering machine. She left a message in the Will mailbox, saying she'd found out what happened to him and left his new phone number. I ended up writing down a list of all the people that had left him messages and gave him a call to relay the names.

I got his machine. Go figure. I just left him a long message explaining the situation and gave him the names of all his callers.

He never called back.

He must have thought I was a freak or something... I probably would have.

A few days later, something totally unexpected happened. I checked my messages after class one day and I actually had one! I know, amazing, right? Well, it gets even better... the message was from Amber.

She left me her number.

I was grinning the rest of that afternoon.

I was pretty busy that night (playing video games or something, I'm sure) but I didn't get around to calling her until the next day. When I did, though, she said that she just wanted to make sure I'd gotten her message about Will's new phone number.... yada yada yada... we talked for another hour or so, getting to know each other a little better. Somehow at the end of the conversation we'd agreed to get together later that night to hang out.

I don't know what I could have said to convince this girl that meeting a complete stranger at Denny's for some desert was a good idea... and I don't know what convinced me of the same thing.... but it happened.

We met up for desert.

She was hot.

I was ... me.

We hung out and talked for a while, then went back to her place to hang out with her roommates.

The whole experience was kind of surreal.

It was a good time.

We ended up going on a couple of dates, but nothing major.

So, yeah... the first girl I ever dated in college I met because she called the wrong number.

Who else does that?

Nobody.

And that's why I'm Dave.... Just Dave.

She stands over me like an angel from my past. Boots to her knees and flowers in her hair, she is a vision of beauty and innocence and purity and happiness.
She stands over me, a sharp contrast to everything I am now.
She kneels down and takes my hand in both of hers.
She whispers that she loves me and begins to cover my hand in kisses.

I close my eyes and, just like that, the world is gone and all its cruelty is gone with it.
I hear nothing but her whispers and I feel nothing but her soft lips on my skin.
I let my eyes slowly open again and see her smiling down at me, her beautiful green eyes filled with love and caring
I try and smile back, to tell her how much I love her, how much I need her, how, without her, the world was empty. But I can’t.

A Lesson As To Why You Should Check Your Mail Daily as Well as Double Checking Zip Codes Before Mailing Things





Part One: Checking The Mail



I was busy on Saturday. That's nothing new for me... I'm a happening guy, you know... well, I worked from 10am until around 6pm, then drove down to S. Tampa to meet the Watsonian Wonders for some dinner. Originally, we were going to go to Cappy's for some pizza. Jason and I went there for lunch one day a while back, but Jen never made it, so it was going to be her first time. That was the plan, anyways... and as you know, things very rarely go according to plan. Somehow we ended up craving barbeque, so we went to a place who's name completely escapes me at the moment. It was a Very mom&pop kind of place. Not bad, either. Not the best in the world... but not bad by any means.

After dinner I drove back up to my neck of the woods to watch some UFC beat downs at Gators Dockside. No, I did not get any wings. No, there was no "scooner" sauce involved, but it was still a good time. I got to watch a guy who looked a little too much like Chris get knocked out. That was a good time.

By the time I was pulling in to my appartment complex it was after 1am and I REALLY had to pee. I had a quart of Iced-T while at work, 3 more glasses of T at dinner and half a pitcher of beer and a glass of water while watching the fights. I was BURSTIN.

Sunday was spent hibernating until I had to go to work to do inventory, then at work doing inventory. Nothing too exciting there. Watched a bit of a movie, did some reading, went to work, counted things. Lots of things. LOTS. Then went home, ate dinner and crashed.

Then came Monday morning. Training down in S.Tampa... I always misjudge how much traffic there will be, but always fear that I will err in the wrong direction and be late. So I leave early. But wait! I'm driving by my mailbox.... I could check it... that would delay me a few extra seconds... I'll do that! I park my car... get out... get my mail key.... open my mail box.... smile. What's that in my mail box? It's not junk mail... it's not a bill... it's not ESPN the Mag... it's not a movie from Netflix... what could it be? It's a box!

Yay!

I got a box!

A small box....

But a Box!

I snatch it out greedily and rush back to my car before anyone can steal it away from me. Granted, its 9am and there's not another person in sight... but you never know.

I sit in my drivers seat with my package in my hands and a smile on my face.

I open it slowly, as if that would somehow build suspense.

I see the note, hand written, and let out a little laugh.

"Happy Purim Love A+C"

Under the note was a plastic baggie filled with Hamentaschen.

My aunt and uncle overnighted me homemade cookies. :)

Thankfully I checked my mail after only a few days as opposed to the week it sometimes takes me!

...

Okay, it's late. I'm tired.

...

ok... it's late... i'm not tired... but i should go to bed anyways. that means you don't get part2 tonight. I wore myself out a bit sending an email earlier, so I'm not up to typing anymore.



Oh, and for those of you keeping track! I'm on 18th Floor by Blue October. 23 songs down, 3594 to go....

she tore apart my paper heart and let the pieces rain down on the street below like confetti
....
I wrote that this morning... not sure why, but I had the image in my head when I woke up. I was in an apartment overlooking a city street. It was relatively early in the morning.... I was in an open living room clutching at my chest, looking up at her. She was on a balcony about ten feet away from me, tearing up my heart (which happened to be made out of paper) and letting the pieces fall to the street below. A group of people in suits stopped as they were hit by the falling pieces and looked up to see a steady stream of confetti falling from the sky. They dropped thier briefcases and started dancing while I fall to my knees two dozen floors above them.
... so yeah, that was the image stuck in my head as I ate my breakfast.
....
I've decided to play a little game, let's see how long I let it last.... at 10:57 tonight I reset my iTunes playlist to include every song on my computer. I sorted them alphabetical by song and turned off shuffle and repeat. Let's see how long it takes me to listen to every single song on my computer without skipping. That's going to be the hardest part... not skipping. But... we shall see. I wasn't paying attention, so I actually started at the end of the alphabet, so right now I'm listening to 5 Times Out of 100 by HotHotHeat. Now comes 2 different versions of 45 by Shinedown. First accoustic, then not. :)
...
I've noticed that I overuse the smiley face. Totally and completely. I mean, I use it in emails, blogs, texts, ims.... everything. In fact, I've been known to use it multiple times in a single text. I think I need to temper my smileys..... I think. Here's the thing, though. I really do smile a lot. I mean, a LOT. My cheeks hurt today. Not because I was pretending to be a chipmunk and stuffing my cheeks with cashews... nay... they hurt because I was smiling, grinning and laughing all flippin' day. For serious. They hurt. Maybe I'll try not to smile at all tomorrow and see how it goes.
...
And I'm staring down the barrel of a 45.... swimming through the ashes of another life... no real reason to accept the way things have changed... staring down the barrel.... and I'm staring down the barrel of a 45 and now I'm swimming through the ashes of another life and there's no real reason to accept the way things have changed staring down the barrel of a 45----------
...
ok, tonight is going to be a multiple blogger... first this one, and then the next. I just wanted to get some random stuff out of the way before I got to my real blog. Not that this blog isn't real... it's just that the other blog is going to be a story and i didn't want to clutter it up with other random thoughts, though I'm sure while I'm writing I'll be distracted and write random things in it or not have it go the way I mean it to go or maybe some other strange transgression.... who knows? Not me. and I'm pretty sure YOU don't know either.
...
Actually, before I even go write that blog, I'm going to write an email to a group of people on FB. yay email!

It seems like sometimes there are things that aren't meant to be had. The world comes so very close to reaching a certain point, and then it shifts, it turns, and a new path is begun.

Watch the day and all it brings and welcome the night in to your arms

Pieces of the puzzle fall to the floor and get swept away leaving the pictureboth incomplete and perfect.

What can you do with a sentimental heart?

I life my head up and look around and see exactly what I've seen before.

Your tentative hand brushes against mine and sets the world on fire.

so close to sleep... darkness... fingers can barely move across tehk keyboard.

copy. paste. delete. wash. rinse. repeat.

good night, world.g'nihgt world.

What's the point in having a sky if it isn't to hold all the stars at night, to shed light during the day and pour down a little rain every now and then?
...
I remember once, when I was six, a hurricane blew through Long Island. That was definitely not an every day occurance up there. At the time, it was just my mom, my sister and I living in the house on Newton Ave. I remember being so excited. I'd never seen a hurricane before. I didn't even really know what one was. All I knew was that it was windy and raining all day long. Late in the afternoon the winds picked up and battered the house. The power was out. We were staying huddled in the dining room, one of the only rooms without windows. It sounded like the coming of the apocolypse. At one point everything seemed to get louder. A door that was left open upstairs Slammed shut. Another flew open. We ran upstairs to find that the windows in one of the bedroom had lifted themselves open. We decided that the house had better judgement in such things than we did, so we threw some towels on the floor in front of the now-open windows and ran back downstairs.
And then came the silence.
The eye of the storm.
My mom told me it would happen... that there would be an eerie calm... and then the madness would begin again. I didn't understand. How could there be a quiet at the heart of such terror. And then it came. Silence. Even the sun came out as if to taunt us with what a beautiful day it could have been.
I'm not sure how we convinced her to do it, but during the eye my mom let us open the front door and stand on the porch. The neighborhood was still there. No houses blown away. No trees lifted from the ground and strewn across lawns. Even though it sounded as if an army marched through our front lawn, the grass was wet but not trampled. And then my mom ushered us back into the house, back to safety.
For the second time that day, it seemed like the big bad wolf was outside our door trying to blow, blow, blow our house down. Huddled with my family around a kerosene heater and a battery opperated radio, I curled up in a blanket and fell asleep as freight train after freight train roared down the street.
I woke up the next morning in my bed, tucked in like it was any other morning. I threw on some clothes and my socks and shoes and ran downstairs and out the front door.
Something was wrong. I new it immediately, but couldn't quite place what it was. And then it hit me. The house across the street was gone. Well, not gone, exactly, but hidden. Apparently the ivy that covered ever inch of the house blew off, but stayed intact. It was ripped away from the house and was standing as a giant wall in the middle of their front lawn. It was pretty cool. Shortly after I walked out, I could hear the sound of the chainsaw as someone from inside that wall of ivy decided that would be the most satisfying way to get out. The only other damage from the storm was to a garage down the street. An oak tree, apparently, couldn't quite withstand the winds long enough and toppled down during the night and felt a garage would be the best place to land. Better the garage than the house.
....
So... what made me write about a hurricane when I was 6? Well, I don't know, really, but now that I'm done, I guess I'll say that the point of the story is this:

Sometimes life will decide to blow your whole world away, but we are strong. And we have chainsaws to hack through the ivy that might stand in our way of recovery. Chainsaws are kinda badass like that. Be that chainsaw. Rawr.

I take step after careful step as I walk closer to the edge of the world. The ocean rolls into the shore ahead of me.
I look over one shoulder and then the other.
I am completely alone.
Slowly, I close my eyes and breath in deeply.
The smell of the saltwater reminds me of home.
The breeze is crisp and cold, so I pull my jacket close around me.
The waves crash beneath my feet
People laugh in the distance
But I stand alone and silent in the night.
I take another step along the pier
And another.
The sounds, the smells, they are the same here on the Pacific as they were on the Atlantic.
So much of life out here is the same
But so much of it is so drastically different.
The beach is to the west, not the east.
That is something I have yet to get used to.
I take another step
And another.
I open my eyes again and look over the edge of the pier.
I only have one, maybe two more steps until I am no longer over the beach
Only one or two more steps until I reach the end of the earth.
The end of This Earth
And into a new beginning.

I walk into a bookstore.
I begin to browse, though I'm not really looking at the titles.
Just moving my fingers over the spines, waiting until one feels right.
My hand brushes over book after book until it just seems to rest on one.
I slip the book from the shelf and read the title.
It looks so familiar.
My heart starts to beat faster as I sink to the floor with the book clutched in my arms.
I sit down in the middle of the ailse, surrounded by shelves of books
I run my fingers over the cover.
It feels as if that book has been searching for me just as I have been searching for it.
I open the cover and begin to read.
I start the first story
And I realize that I've heard it before.
I skip to the next, and it is the same.
Story after story, I've heard them all before.
They are the same words.
They are the stories she whispered to me as I fell asleep.
They are the poems she'd leave for me in my shoes.
I don't know how I found the book
Or how the book found me.
But I sat there and read it from cover to cover
And back again.
With every word I read I can hear the sound of her voice
And she is with me again
As if she'd never gone.