Moving People and Attitudes

Every once in awhile, there is a day that just completely throws your logic and views on life for a loop. Today was that day for me. Yesterday I thought I'd be working until 3pm at Starbucks, then packing for a weekend wedding with my mom and my new stepdad, Mark. Things slipped out of my control quicklike. I saw off a great friend, Cathawk, at O'zones, then found out I needed to get the Starbucks shift covered due to our leaving at seven in the morning. I packed rapidly without forgetting anything (thus far) and slept in the car the three hours to Tallanasty. We arrive at my sister's apartment to find three truckloads of clothes, appliances and junk that we have to move to her new house a couple of blocks away. Yay. She shows up, (because she wasn't there when we got there, she had a metabolism 2 test) and we get to work. After the extensive moving process, a reward of Jimmy John's is more than welcome. A Gargantuan JJ sandwich was inhaled in a record like... 5 minutes, and we hit the road again. Ali and I watched a crappy cam-version of Dinner For Schmucks, and then I fell asleep until we pulled up to a gas station just north of Gainesville. Now I haven't said much in this blog about my ex-girlfriend, but she just got back from Barcelona, and lives in Gainesville. I'm still pretty friendly with her, so you can imagine my frustration at not being able to say a quick hello. Then again, I couldn't tell you if that would be a good thing for me or not, considering I still like the girl. We passed by Gainesville in traffic, adding just a bit to the frustration, watching each exit pass by verrryyyy slowwlllyyy. When we got to the hotel in Port Canaveral, I was kind of wondering the sexuality of the entire hotel. I know this sounds strange, but it was pink, had only guys at the bar outside, and both check-in guys had gay lisps. The wedding is tomorrow, and I'm actually pretty excited. I love my new step-dad, and I've been pretty lucky in the step-fam department. I now can say I have three little sisters, three little brothers, and I'm the eldest of seven. I'm very much looking forward to the wedding, and even more so to the cruise afterwards. I'm wayy too spoiled, and feel somewhat guilty to get to have so much fun all the time. I'll be walking my mom down the aisle tomorrow, and floating to the Caymans, Jamaica, Cozumel, and Haiti after that. I was originally intent on reading the rest of my Tolkien short stories, some Biblical passages, and Italian poetry on the cruise. I now realize that Ali's going to be my workout buddy when we're not doing rock-climbing and crazy cruise dinners, so we'll see how much reading and writing I get done at all. The excitement's overwhelming! Maybe a workout sesh at the hotel wouldn't hurt...

Karma Konstruction

Balancing out the karma is a pretty difficult thing to do. I feel like mine's just right today, but this morning was another story. I should probably start with the previous night. Yesterday afternoon, after another of the dreaded 8 hour shifts that have been plaguing my life lately, I bought a 24-pack of Keystone and was looking for trouble. It was easy to find, as an old friend- Thinh Nguyen, invited me to a Marine Corps barbeque. The barbeque wouldn't have had any seriously negative effects if it didn't include rum and beer pong. I met a bunch of hardy devil dogs that take competition in ANYTHING to the next level. Be it throwing ping pong balls at solo cups, shirtless wrestling, or even picking out music to listen to, they really like to take the reins. After a couple hours of debauchery and some skirt steaks, I decided to turn tail and run to the beach. I originally intended to hit up the Vanilla Ice concert at Cap'n Fun's... but never quite made it. Flounders was the place to be, and the band on stage played a lot of great music. The booze helped the music out a lot, but they did play an Incubus song that rocked my world. Pardon me. (The song.) I met up with two gorgeous women that I've known for an extremely long time, Cait and Erow, and boozed some more. Keep in mind that Sunday, (The day after) I had another 8 hour shift, and it started at seven in the morn. More like mourn with how I felt; we eventually got kicked out due to the fact that I snuck my kid step-brother in throught the back. I had a great time all night, and have no regrets even now, despite still feeling a bit hungover. The shift went by very slowly, but I worked with my favorite cast of Starbucks baristas. I think the turning point of the day was on my lunch break, when I went to Publix to get a Cuban sandwich. I saw some people that normally come into my work, and eyed this quart of Caramel Macchiato ice cream. Of course feeling as crappy as I was, I wanted anything to help out. I bought the sandwich and the quart. I brought it back to work and shared with the crew, fixing my karma a bit. We all spiced up the decadence with shots of espresso and some extra caramel sauce. I got off work, and keeping in mind that my little step sister's birthday was today, drove directly to Guitar Center. The people in that place must have thought I was crazy. I walked in, grabbed a an electric Squier starter set with an amp included, and waltzed around dizzying myself with pretty shiny things. Eventually finding a really nice gun metal bass guitar, I had to have that too. It was on sale, actually a super cheap Yamaha. The bass amp was on sale too, so I had them load the two guitars and the amps into the truck. I drove over to the birthday party that was going on, and walked in with only the bass and bass amp. Started tinkering with it, and got Haley (the birthday girl) really jealous. (As she plays guitar at the age of 13 now... which is why I bought the Squier set.) Once she couldn't get anymore frustrated that I "hadn't" bought her anything from the guitar shop on her birthday I had Matt walk in with hers. She flipped out in the best way possible. We tuned the little pearly white electric and let her rip some CCR and Pirates of the Caribbean. We had a nice time eating Matt's wonderful chicken that I'd been waiting for over a year to taste, and then had ice cream. Again. hah. Karma fixed. I'm currently watching Matt play the new Mario Galaxy 2, and helping Haley link her blog while deleting her phone number from facebook. (Blows my mind that the parents let that one slip!) Their grandparents are over too, which is nice. I hadn't seen them in awhile. It's almost bedtime for me... 9 pm is still late for my next 7AM shift... another one of those 8 hour bastards. I miss a lot of my friends right now, still. I know I posted pictures in my last post, but the ones that I never got to see (due to being in Barcelona/Boulder/Hawaii) would be really nice to see eventually. I can't wait for their return, but my mom's wedding will keep me busy as of this coming Friday. She's taking me on a Caribbean tour. It's only been a couple weeks here in Pensacola, but due to some recent lifechanges I'm pretty stressed out and burnt out all the time here. Taking on work, quitting bad habits, being a good friend, buying unnecessary goodies, being a good big brother, and trying to help the parents out in the yard while still having me-time is a difficult schedule to balance. I even missed out on the writing group today, and have to still see a girl about some dogs. . . Crap. Heh,... I gotta go take care of that stuff now actually.