Two Truths and a Lie

Does anyone else like to get into fights over emails? I know that I do. The most recent one happened with three of my bosses for a school job that I have. My immediate boss sent me an email that was asking something of me that I couldn't do. Basically, I wasn't in a position to commit. I told him that I couldn't but I made a guess at what I could do. He emailed me back and said that wasn't good enough. Then I sent a longer, nastier email.

I guess he forwarded on to a boss who I have never met and someone who I have met. The one I haven't met emailed me to clear up a few things but ultimately say the same thing as my normal boss. I let her have it too.

Bring them on! Unless they fire me (which they probably will) I won't quit!

UPDATE: Right after I posted this there was an email waiting in my box for the higher boss who I have met. Apparently he didn't like the tone of my email (who blames him), so he wants to talk. I called and left a message and sent him an email.

This morning I went by school to try out a little Bar Review study course. Actually, it's better described as a pre-bar review study course.

It involved the boring chore of watching videos from previous bar review courses. Somehow I decided that it would be a good idea for me to sit there and act as if I was enjoying what was going on. It was a drag.

After lunch, I watched the videos (along with about 15 other people) until the next break. Then I told my friend Zapata if she wanted to take off. Indeed, she had enough of it. She was going to go computer shopping, because she wanted to see some more Apple laptop computers. I alerted her to the existence of the Apple Store.

Before too long we were at the Apple Store. Does anybody know why this place is packed? It was my first time going there, so I wasn't expecting to find that many people running around. It was difficult to find an available worker but they were friendly enough.

I think that a lot of people don't realize that they're not supposed to push someone out of the way so that they can sample the computer.

Alright so I'm a sucker for people who are artistic. I'm a little tipsy right now, but I must admit that in the grand scheme of things I'm a hack. I write decently. I come up with a few good ideas for plays. But I am certainly no Tony Kushner, Tennessee Williams, or even Sam Shepard.

No.

This is why I love hanging out with people who are the shit.

Yes.

This evening I went out to dinner with Biggity (a visual artist with one show under his belt and a very promising career), Peru (a smart, talented, and attractive photographer who works with Biggity, and Russian Girl who is an art student). I had to get a little homework done, so I didn't go with them to an art opening.

I got a call a little while later asking if I wanted to meet them at a bar in a sort of cool area in Dallas. I went over there to meet them. They had a guy who was the director of a gallery and a young art professor (ceramics) along for the beers.

It was great! It makes me wish that I had a little more talent, then I wouldn't have to rely on being a lawyer to make ends meet.

Tuesday evenings are typically a good time. Since Biggity has Wednesday off work, we try to go out with friends on Tuesday nights.

This Tuesday was no different in that respect but there was one big difference. I didn't study this evening.

Usually I will study on Tuesdays until 9pm or so, and then I will call Biggity to head out. We can usually find a few other people who want to join in the festivities. This time I wasn't able to study beforehand because I went to dinner with three of my friends. Then I went to watch an intramural basketball game.

The dinner was with an attorney friend, a law student friend, and her husband. It was a lot of fun. Catching up on old times with friends is typically a good time. We went to Cafe Brazil which serves pretty good food. Actually, I love their grilled cheese sandwich, which is what I got. I convinced the lawyer friend to do the same.

After all of this, I went straight to school to watch some of the law girls playing an intramural game -- they won. After that I found Biggity and a couple of people who live by him. We went out for some drinks and went back to their place to watch some Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

The problem with all of this is that I have an 8:30a class on Wednesdays. Even though it's good for Biggity, it is terrible for me.

Growing up involved very minimal exposure to sports. I played soccer, but I was never interested in professional sports. I didn't like football, baseball, or basketball, so I didn't watch any of them on TV.

The only time my family really watched sports was when the Superbowl came on. We had all the family over to watch. I loved those days because it was a big game and everyone was there cheering on their favorite teams.

I have since changed to the point where I will easily watch 15 hours of sports a week if allowed. Who am I kidding? I'd watch non-stop sports if I could.

Today was one of those fun days where a big group of friends go together to watch hours of football. There was plenty of beer, pizza, and other items of junk food to go around. We had a great time watching the game, talking about everything, and fighting over the games.

I was unable to post recently, because someone had the audacity to disparge the boom boom enchiladas via email. She was unable to see my tears and lack of concentration that resulted from this blow.

I sunk very low after this character attack on the boom boom. Very low.

Last night I was wallowing in my apartment. Wishing that I could go back to the innocent days when I believed everyone loves boom boom. In the middle of this upsetting evening, I received a phone call from a few of my friends. Apparently they were sitting on the sidewalk drinking cheap beer and they wanted the entertainment to arrive.

Boom boom was gone. What entertainment could I be?

I didn't even deserve to share their beer.

On the way over I stopped at the liquor store to pick up a cheap 40 of malt. I found a Mickeys. Made it over to the sidewalk and tipped a few drops to the dead boom boom. I will never be able to be the same again, but I was able to bring joy to those who have not heard what boom boom really means.

Really there are just two things to discuss today that doesn't have very much to do with one another. One is a good thing and the other is a very good thing.

First, the good thing is that I decided to get some back bone and tell Dominos that things aren't working out. It was the most odd conversation, because we've only gone on four dates. We rarely talk to each other. It seems to be more that she calls me whenever she goes out and drinks. I wanted that to end and I think that it will now. I told her that it seemed clear that neither of us really seemed to have much interest in a relationship together, so I don't want to be called for dates or anything anymore. She was cool with it.

The second thing that is really great was Chika Chika Boom Boom day at Chuys! You'd better bet that Wednesday is the best day in the world. I've got into a weekly habit of going to get these oh so good enchiladas with my friend Amanda. She loves them too. After our admin law class we head over and feast. It is brilliant. Basically they are chicken enchiladas with the very best sauce ever. It's a cheesy sauce with green chile sauce sort of mixed together. Words can't describe how wonderful they taste.

I admit that my belly isn't happy that I only fed it Lucky Charms for dinner. I was in a hurry before my evening class though.

That was my day. Good and very good!

This evening I went out with Biggity to a local bar. We go there about once a week. Usually it is on a weeknight, because we like the calmer atmosphere. The weekends bring in the crowds of people who are just there to go nuts. Weeknights are the people who are there to hang out, talk with friends, and share a good time with friends.

It's nice.

We had a pitcher of Shiner Bock (Texas favorite) and a bowl of queso while talking about what is going on in our lives. We've been bestfriends since high school. Somehow I was able to get him to come from Kansas to Texas. He thought that it sounded like a good idea for college. He has stuck around ever since.

After the pitcher he got a call on his phone. It was his friend, Peru. She was talking to him about a photo job she just completed. She is a really great photographer here in Dallas. I think that she gets to go out to a lot of events and photograph them for wealthy people. It would be a pretty nice gig.

Anyhow, I told Biggity that Peru ought to come out and join us. After thirty minutes or so she showed up.

It is nice to get to hang out with good friends with a few drinks.

Today I decided that I would drop by Best Buy to look into some of those mini-mp3 players.

ASIDE: Does anyone remember back when those Sony mini-discs were the hip things? I remember that when I first went to college (6+ years ago now), I rode in the truck of this guy who had mini-disc everything: his stereo in his dorm room, a portable one, and a stereo system in his car that would play mini disc.

This was when mp3s were just starting. I remember using audiogalaxy.com to find FTP sites to log into to download music my first semester of law school. Then it Audiogalaxy developed some sort of a device that was great. You could download this client that you would open. Then search online for music at audiogalaxy. Then you would just add that to the queue. It would automatically download the song whenever the host computer logged on.

I digress in my digression. This guy had a portable MD player that was so much cooler than my battery-consuming cd player that lasted 6 hours on two AA batteries. I wanted one of these things. The funny thing is that Sony did the same thing with MD players that they did with Beta. MD is better than mp3 or ACC as far as sound quality. However, it's a proprietary file-format so they screwed themselves over. This is how VHS beat Beta. Thank goodness DVD came around. Thank goodness digital files came around in other forms too.

I digress.

I went to Best Buy looking for one of the shiny new Apple Shuffles. When I got into the parking lot I was quickly reminded that everyone goes shopping if they have MLK's birthday off work.

Irk.

Do I go in or not? If I go in it means that I have to look for a place to park and then fight with the crowds. I decide that if a parking spot opens near the store then I'll park and go in.

One does. I go in. Bingo. There are the music players.

I trample over a couple of kids in my haste to locate the player I want. Then the worker guy comes over in his blue shirt to tell me that I shouldn't buy the Apple Shuffle. Something about how listening to albums is more enjoyable than listening on shuffle. That it doesn't have a screen to help you figure out what album you're listening to. That it is only 512mb instead of a lot more like you can get with other players.

Too bad I don't want all of those features. I want a little player that will shuffle the music for me so that I can enjoy my runs.

The cap will fall off, he tells me.

Too bad...I want it!

Well, we don't have them in stock yet.

What? You argue with me about what music player I need, after I tell you that I want the Shuffle, only to tell me that you don't even have any available?

Want one of the other players I mentioned?

Irk!

I didn't have much that I needed to buy, but I decided that I ought to go to the grocery store today.

The motivation was the fact that they had 12-packs of coca-cola products on sale for 4/$10. I like to buy them when they are less than $3. There were a few interesting things that I saw while at the grocery store:

• I saw a law student (or recent graduate) who probably was from my school. He was wearing shorts and a stupid shirt that had an emblem (think of the FBI sort of thing) and said "Law Student Division." The oddest part was the wearing a t-shirt and shorts when it is 40 degrees outside. I can't understand it.
• Those really good Tollhouse cookies were on sale. I opted not to buy them because I'm an idiot. Give me cookies!
• I bought a six pack of Amstel Light despite never having one before. I think it is pretty good light beer. Truth in advertising?
• My checkout lady was trying to be flashy with the lady in front of me. She sort of swung the 12 pack and dropped it on the floor. Caffeine-free diet coke went everywhere. Heh.

I ended up spending $30ish on things I really didn't need. Tomorrow I'll make tacos though! Woohoo.

It seems that I've been really remiss on giving my daily update on this blog. It really shouldn't be difficult as I just say something that happened every day, or I make up something.

Today was a boring day though. Yesterday was a boring day. Everyday lately has seemed to be a little boring. However, that wouldn't bother me so much because I could change a few of the facts and make it more interesting. The problem has been that I have been really busy getting some of the start of the semester matters in order.

What I intend to do right now is just explain my process of coming up with the lie posts. In all of my writing: here, poetry, and my semi-successful playwriting, I draw on things that I already know. It isn't always autobiographical, because I have some qualms against that in creative writing. Actually, there is a good debate about the merits and demerits of using autobiography in professional creative writing. I fall into the category of feeling that it creates inferior work.

I digress, when I write lies they are usually autobiographical because it's easier to be believable. What I mean by this is that when you read one of the lies it usually is something that I considered boring, but saw an opportunity to make it more exciting. No doubt, there have been a few posts that were entirely made up. However, there are quite a few of the lies that have an element of truth in them.

That is how I develop the posts. I hope that it's difficult to tell the difference. I know that a few of you just like to read and other people like to make guesses. I don't really think it matters. I enjoy when you guess, but I think that as long as you are enjoying what you read then my job is served. Also, I think that overall this blog gives a very accurate description of who I am and what I am about. The lies don't tend to be so extravagant that you would think I'm an entirely different person than reality.

I think this is good because blogs are, in many ways, about building a relationship. The purpose here is to just make it happen with a bit of a twist. It also allows me to say some things I wouldn't otherwise say, because I can hope you won't believe it is true!

This afternoon I went out to White Rock Lake to go on one of my semi-annual runs around the lake.

I try to work out, usually by running, four or five times per week. Right now I don't have any aspirations of training for any competitive runs, but I do at times. I just like to go and run a couple miles. It usually gives me quality time to think about things, enjoy the evening or morning, and see my neighbors.

Usually it is nothing all that competitive. I do have a very strange thing about not liking other people to pass me when I'm actually running. For this reason, I keep a pretty fast pace.

The run around White Rock is much further than my normal run. It's about 9 miles. Actually, I've heard that it's between 9 and 12 miles, so I'm not really sure what to believe. There seems to be a few different paths one can take, so I guess that might cause some disparity in distances.

This evening a high school guy passed me in after my first few miles.

I was not about to put up with this; no way. I went after him and ran back in front of him.

Apparently he wasn't going to put up with this either, so he came and passed me with very little effort.

Grr.

This cycle continued for about 7 miles until he passed me as he ran to his car. I sit here before you a very worn out and broken runner. I remember why I don't enjoy going on competitive runs -- I like it too much until I lose.

Last night proved quite interesting as I had another run in with Fogerty.

This time it was partially my fault, although, it was prompted by him.

At around 6:30 pm, I started to hear a lot of music coming from below. I put up with it for awhile, but I was trying to read my immigration law text book. Eventually I pounded on the floor a couple times. Nothing happened for a little while.

About two hours later, he turned up the music again, which started to really piss me off. I hit the floor again to annoy him. I heard the level go down a little and his door slam.

My doorbell rang.

I open the door to find Fogerty fuming outside my door. Ok, maybe he wasn't fuming, but he did have steam coming from his mouth, since it was freezing outside. This is close enough to fuming to make me imagine a chubby dragon in front of me with rage in his eyes.

He asks if something was wrong in my apartment because he kept hearing noise. I told him that I could say the same about his apartment. Then he started to yell about how he was not going to turn his music down. Eventually I cut off his little rant to ask him how old he was.

50.

And you act like a college co-ed having a party.

I'm not turning the music down.

We can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way. If I have to call the management about it, I will.

Fine. Call the management. I've lived here for 10 years, and I haven't had any complaints from anyone living there.

They aren't living here anymore, are they?

Look, I'm not...

Listen, we can either work out a compromise or I will go back into my apartment. I'm not going to argue with you about this anymore.

I'm not going...

Did you hear what I just said? Let's try to reach some sort of a compromise. If you don't want to turn down the volume, and I need to study, could you agree to turn it off by 10pm? If you do that, then I'll study at the library in the evenings if I need to really concentrate.

Ok...

Then he talked to me a little more about random stuff. He's an odd little character, but I'm glad we've sort of got something worked out.

I got a ticket today for an illegal U-Turn.

I'll admit, there was a sign at the intersection that showed u-turns are illegal. However, the officer did a couple things wrong that should give me an easy victory in traffic court.

1. He told me that he can't stand people that drive foreign cars. Interesting point of view. I'd like for someone to show me a new car that is purely American. I bet you can't do it. My vehicle is a Nissan, which is manufactured in Tennessee; just like that whiskey you're enjoying.

2. The sign clearly said that u-turns were not allowed from 10 PM until 4 AM. I'm guessing the restriction is either to cut down on people cruising this road or because u-turns might be more dangerous at the posted times. Maybe it's just a nonsense restriction. Regardless, I was u-turning at 3:00 PM.

I pointed that out to the officer, and he told me that I could fight it in court if I didn't agree with the ticket.

He doesn't realize that I'm a law student with little else to do in my mornings than put strikes on stupid police officer's record.

I think that the title speaks for itself, but I will elaborate.

My OEM battery in my truck started to get a lot of weird goo and flakes on the top of it. This didn't seem like something that is a positive character for a battery. (Pun entirely, and unapologetically intended).

While I was visiting home for the holidays I ran the truck by Pep Boys. They were pleased to put a new Energizer battery in the right place, clean up the goo, and tell me to pay 70 or 80 bucks. I paid because I didn't have to worry about shocking the shit out of myself.

Fast forward a few days to driving back to Dallas. I'm hitting the road in Oklahoma like any true Texan: fast and with a lot of disgust. Then my bladder tells me that it's time to either pee in a bottle or turn into the stupid Oklahoma I-35 rest stop.

Bottles are difficult to pee in (even for boys), so I decide to stop.

Then the truck won't start. I sit there for a little bit, and I look around, and I open the hood, and I look around some more. Then, like any good mechanic, I jiggle some wires. Suddenly there is power.

I drive.

For the next few days the same thing happens every now and then. The truck won't start, so I open the hood and jiggle.

Enough is enough.

I take it to a nearby Pep Boys and tell them that they fucked up my battery. Basically, they didn't put on a new clamp that would actually connect to the grounding terminal. The guy is smug. I get smug. He gets smuger. I tell him that I can talk to the manager. He gets a little less smug.

I'm such a stupid male sometimes.


Eventually he says that they'll put on a new clamp and everything, but I have to wait for an hour in the little room with a senile old lady, and I have to pay money for the clamp.

Since he has the clamp and the tools: he wins.

My truck is now running again without weird hiccups.

Do you ever have the strangest conversations at grocery stores?

Seriously, for me it's one crazy ass trip or another whenever I go to the grocery store. One time it was the bottom falling out of the pack of Guinness bottles that I picked up. They shattered right in front of the girl I had been checking out.

Another time I attempted to talk to a girl who was smiling a lot. Come to find out, she had a boyfriend who was getting a couple steaks or something. He wasn't pleased to find me trying to get the phone number from his girlfriend.

Today I was sort of complimented by a couple checkers. I went to check out and the girl who was actually checking me out commented on my box of Lucky Charms. It was white for the winter seasons. This girl thought that was cute and wanted to give me a hard time for getting a "cute box of cereal." After that, her friend came over and asked me if I wetted my hair.

That's right, she said, "did you wet your hair today?"

Strange.

It was pretty early in the morning, so I think that my hair was still a little wet. Right now it is long enough that it's curling up, so I'm not sure how easy it is to determine that it's wet. She did.

I said, "yes, in fact, I took a shower not too long ago."

She seemed a little sheepish and replied, "I like it...it looks nice."

My hair impresses check out girls at the grocery store. Beat that.