Ah, so that "gay" waiter at George's didn't look upon me with that particular fondness out of attraction, but out of familiarity: he's an MU student. I ran into him today at work.

Sorry for all you haters.

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Okay. So two Mondays ago, I started full-time work at Mansfield doing the IT thing for the summer, and let me tell you, my job is AWESOME. It's just like it was during the semester except I work more than twice as much each week. Oh, and I got a raise, so now I get $6.00/hour. That's a neat $825 a month, which is okay with me. However, what is not okay is what I found out the fourth day I was there: the first pay period in the summer is three weeks. Okay, that's fair. Big first paycheck, right? Sure, if you don't count the fact that you submit hours and then get your money two weeks later.

Three week pay period + two weeks turnaround = FIVE FUCKING WEEKS I HAVE TO WAIT TO GET MONEY. Damn it. Oh well, it's going be a sweet paycheck and I know some things that are gonna go down nicely with that.

Work itself is pretty good. I get a good workout because the bulk of what I do is physical labor. We're moving all the teachers from one building to another and I am in charge of making sure the computers get over there. I think I have moved probably 25 people and I've definitely taken well over 50 computers over there. So some nights I come home exhausted. Other days are slow and we get to piss around, so I find myself whiling away a lot of hours online reading Wikipedia or doing IM or something. It's a great job and my supervisor never seems to mind if I take a little too long a lunch break, like I did Friday.

Check this out: Sarah and I were gonna meet (haha, you thought there would be no mention of her in this entry? Think again!) up for lunch on Friday, over in Wellsboro, at a Greek place called George's. Funny story about that; they serve these stuffed grape leaves with their salads and Sarah had me convinced they were called "naps," when what she was actually talking about were naps you take with your, you know, body. So she pulled one over on me. Bitch. Anyway, we agreed that we'd meet at 12:15, since I officially get off for lunch at 12. I do, and I decide that I should put gas in my car since it won't get over there if I don't, so I do that and suddenly it's 12:10. I think, okay, Wellsboro's not far, I'll just be fashionably late like I usually am. Yeah, uh huh, sure. I didn't even get out of Mansfield till 12:15, and it's about 15 miles to Wellsboro. My car doesn't like going 60 and I couldn't even find the place at first (it was right on 6, so naturally I'd miss it), so long story short, I eventually get there HALF AN HOUR LATE.

It should go without saying that I arrived to a fuming mad girlfriend.

But lunch there was good and the [male] waiter hit on me, or so my [female] girlfriend tells me. Good-looking guy, but I'll reiterate, I'm straight. We decided he was the kind of gay where you hold your hand out, palm down, and kinda vibrate it a little. You know, Parkinson's gay. It should also go without saying that I bought lunch because I was very sorry for being so late, and we ended up necking a bit in the parking lot, to the tremendous amusement of some old women.

Oh, yeah, and I got back to work at 1:45. Oh, yeah, and lunch break ends at 1. Let's just say that was one time when my supervisor was a little pissed. That whole day actually sucked balls except for the awesome part of meeting up with Sarah. Whatever. All in a day's work, you know?

The first weekend off of work ruled though. Chicken came up! The whole intent of the weekend was recording, and we did. Oh, we did. We didn't end up recording anything we started off wanting to though, which was funny. I'm putting the mp3s on my server and y'all can hear them. However, the most notable event was Saturday night. Chicken and I recorded our shit and then met up with TJ in Troy, made a Rico's run, and then stopped at the liquor store before we went back home. We got a couple of good spirits and then headed out, and shortly after we got back, my mom and sister got back... carrying mixers. Let's just say we partied like crazy that night, and I don't think TJ has ever been as drunk as we made him that night. A good time was definitely had by all, and I think there are photos of me, since I was the first one to pass out, with a Nintendo 64 controller in odd places on my body.

Sunday, TJ (who is Jewish, I should point out) and I wanted to get wasted and go to church, but I think our souls thanked us for not doing that.

Work this past week was utterly un-noteworthy, but my extra-work-ular activities were not. First thing that happened is Tuesday, I followed Tom home from work so he could work on my Jeep. It needed some body work to pass inspection, and Tom has 23 years in the business under his belt, so he offered to do it. I hung out with his family and we had dinner and it was good, and when the car was finished, it was totally patched. The body was not going to fail. I drove it home and it was quiet and not smelling like exhaust fumes for once.

Wednesday, I took it down to get inspected after spending the morning underneath old junked Wagoneers getting a speedometer cable for it after it decided to blow Tuesday night, the fucking cunt. Mom and I went out to lunch because what the hell else were we gonna do, and we came back at 2 pm to find that the car failed inspection miserably. Apparently huge cracks down the middle of the frame cause cars to be unsafe. Who knew?

Having a less-than-legal car was a slight impediment to me getting to work. So Mom and I had been talking to these people that my sister babysits for, the Wrights, about buying their car they were selling. They were offering a 1998 Subaru Legacy L sedan with power everything and it was a pretty nice car, but two young kids and the rigors of living on a dirt road had done a number to the inside, and so aside from being mechanically and bodily perfect, the car was filthy. So we offered them $3000 for it - which we're told was a lot generous - and they didn't take the bait. We offered it in CASH, and they didn't take it. They wanted $3700, and no lower. So we were like fuck them. Mom and I got ornery and went up to Troy to look at cars. We went to three dealerships fruitlessly.

And then we happened upon the Maxima.

In the back lot of the Cummings/McClure's dealership, there was this Nissan Maxima. I had decided that I didn't want an American car because I was kinda fed up with them, so I looked at that car and decided it was worth a second look. Mom and I looked at it from the outside, approved, and then opened it up to find an immaculately maintained automobile. Seriously, the thing was spotless inside and out. 132K miles on it, but in 13 years that's running a little under average, so that's fine. We decided to take it for a test ride, and I hadn't driven it more than 20 feet before I decided I wanted it.

So we bought it. For half the price of the Wright's car and we got basically twice the car, so here are the specs:

1992 Nissan Maxima sedan
3.0L V6
4-speed automatic
132K miles (it's used)
30 mpg highway mileage

As a nice added bonus, it lowers my insurance rate by $30 every 6 months, so all I can say is: fuckin a'.

The car was met with great approval by all interested parties, and this last Friday, I made my first pilgrimage to Sarah's hometown, Ulysses, PA. Right smack in the middle of Potter County: God's Country. She and I met up after work in Wellsboro and I was amazingly on time, like, I was one minute late and it was because there was a line a mile long at the red light. The first thing she said to me was "Hi. We're going out for dinner; are you going to change your clothes?" which I thought was funny. I followed her back to the ranch, showered all fast like and got a tour of the house, and then her folks took us to L'Italia in Westville.

The Italian place was nice and I swear the chocolate raspberry tort I had for dessert made me orgasm. Seriously, I was fucking tripping on that stuff. MMMMM.

Saturday morning was great. Aw hell. The entire weekend was awesome, but the one important thing that happened was that I totally came out in the straight way: I'm in love with Sarah.

What else can a guy do? It's not something you can control really. Just something people do. And love is overrated, but it feels good anyway. Especially when you get a brat to love you back. ;)

I went home today and spent the last two hours writing these entries.

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At last, the long-anticipated report of my past weekends!

School got done for the year at 5 on Wednesday, and instead of packing, I went out and drank at Mark's Brothers, for Wednesday is $0.35 wing night - or so we thought. My friends and I got there and whaddaya know, they're all out of wings. ON WINGS NIGHT. FUCK THAT PLACE. So I meet up with the music majors I went there to hang with, and a group of us go to this place they call the Bear's Ass or something. It's in Blossburg and the bar itself sucks, but at least they have wings. So we're eating, and then the great Rich Cummings and his crowd all show up, and having eaten wings, we head back to Mark's Brothers. Rich and I have martinis while everyone else is drinking their sissy Long Islands (I love Long Islands), and those do us in. After a beer or two after that, we leave and I stub my toe real bad on the sidewalk.

I should point out that I was supposed to be packing my shit to go home Wednesday night, instead of drinking. HEY. You only live once, right? It's not like I was gonna get an F on my Packing To Go Home 101 Writing Intensive final at 8:00 am on Mars.

Thursday comes and my mom calls me at 7. I wake up still a little drunk and a little more hungover and she informs me that I have to be packed in an hour. So an hour passes and predictably, I'm 5% more packed than I was when I woke up still drink and hungover. Albeit less hungover. Oh well. We get home and the first order of business to take care of is the registration and title transfer of my Jeep to me; we do that and voila, the fuckin' Jeep is legal! It's a good thing.

I don't remember what happened Thursday night but I imagine it involved cleaning the car and/or drinking. I've been doing that a lot lately.

Friday. Woof. Friday was a hell of a day. In the morning, Rich Cummings called me and we met at the gas station to transfer THE GOODS. The goods being his drumset. He took me out to breakfast and we conferred some information about the show I was supposed to be playing for him tonight, and at the end he says something funny: he hands me $30 and says "Hey, here's 30 bucks. Now just don't forget to show up." Like I'd fuckin' forget. GOSH. I spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready for my big trip and getting pumped for the show, and finally the hour came and I left for Williamsport. I got there with no hitches with the truck (knock on wood), got the shit in the door of the Bullfrog Brewery with no problems, and thus began my night.

Okay, so a little background. Rich asked me if I could sub for him with his band Black and Blues, and not being a man to turn down an opportunity to play drumset, I said sure, I'd do it. I got to the place we were playing and met the band members and they were all totally chill guys. Just mega cool, and the lead singer greeted me by saying "Hey, tonight you're in the band, so you get a free meal. Also, what kind of beer can I get you?" What a way to start an evening, huh?? I ordered my stuff, got set up, and promptly started jamming with the bass player, and man, if I had been worried about playing with these guys beforehand, just listening to the bass player groove with me set my mind totally at ease.

In fact, the only thing that set me off about anything that night was that I went to the bar and asked for a whiskey sour. I've been fond of those lately, so I thought it'd be cool to top off a great night with a great drink, and the bartender looked at me weird, left, and came back with an AMARETTO SOUR. For those of you who don't know, an amaretto sour is the wussiest of wuss drinks. It's just bad news in a bucket, because like, you order that drink and the bartender already thinks you're a pussy. Even if you're a girl. I know women who would excommunicate other women for drinking amaretto sours. Anyway, I gulped it down and went to the other bartender for the rest of my orders that night. The second guy I talked to remedied the mistake and gave me a real whiskey sour with none other than Crown Royal. Which RULED. That was a drink to behold. Damn was it good!

Oh, and shut the fuck up if you're going to pick on me for liking my kamikazes. Mike Mangini drinks kamikazes and if they're badass enough for him, they're badass enough for me.

Anyway, I played the show and it rocked. That's all I can say, and I hope I get to play with these guys again because I wanna rock out like that again! However, my evening was not over. Rich finally showed up around 11:30 and I headed out the door after listening to his awesome drum solo. ONWARD TO LOCK HAVEN.

See, I had been drinking a little bit, so I was a tad nervous all the way to Lock Haven, but I got there with no hitches and I met up with Sarah and had the BEST FRICKING WEEKEND EVER.

Seriously. We went right to sleep on Friday and then woke up bright and early Saturday and had nothing but wicked fun all day. It's been a fricking long time since then and my short term memory is going anyway. But I think we drove around a lot and my car stalled all the time and fuck the Jeep because it must have known I had a hot chick in it or else it would have behaved. Sunday was just another awesome lazy Sunday morning and we just hung out! This is such a lame appraisal of the weekend and I swear to God it was great. Just trust me on this, fuckers. I went home Sunday and apparently I had about 50 feet left on my truck before I ran out of gas, or so my mom said after she ran out after having driven those 50 feet.

However, that was three weeks ago, and it's time for this entry to be done. The past two weeks of my life have been awesome too and they're in the next.

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It's weird, that timestamp came up as 8:20 am but it's definitely 10:19 am here.

Anyway, work starts today. In fact, I am actually at work right now. Tom, my supervisor, rules. He gave me two projects today and told me to putz around so that I didn't have nothing to do all day. Not so bad. Here's to becoming a 9-5 working stiff. *clink*

Oh, and if you are a bartender and you make me an amaretto sour when I ask you for a whiskey sour, I hate you and please don't do that again.

I'll write a post about my weekend when I get home.

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Here are two badly-written articles about the recent events at Mansfield University:

http://www.wetmtv.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=0E3D02D6-C4F7-437B-BABF-8E877C156054

http://www.wetmtv.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=E35F47C1-C071-4E44-AEB6-1CD09602EB56

I didn't know him, but my heart goes out to his parents. Apparently they didn't even find out until after the rumor had been up and down the school and was then finally confirmed with us.

I'm not going to go on a self-righteous rant or pretend to be really upset because both of those things would be contrived since I didn't know him, so I will simply say this: if you are ever feeling like there is no way out, you are wrong. There is always, ALWAYS something you can do to help yourself, or to get help. People were put on this planet to help each other out and the least we could do for each other is actually do that once in a while.

Derek Morrison, I hope you have found the escape that you were looking for, but I wish you had waited and found it on earth. I don't know what comes after we die and maybe it is bigger than ourselves, but this life is so much more beautiful than can ever be fully appreciated by anybody, and I am saddened that you wanted out of it. Rest in peace, brother.

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Okay, I guess I have to make a new post. Damn it! I wrote a new poem and I think y'all should read it:

Eat Pizza.

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