I need Smurfs.

I don't want to give into my own smugness with this post, but I suppose to expunge all that self indulgent nonsense from my writing I have to write in a self indulgent and smug way.

Its been nearly 4 weeks (with one of those weeks spent in a drunken haze back in the comfort of my old stomping grounds) since my exorcism from my parents grasps and some things have come to light in their absences. I suppose that part of the "coming of age" of the 21st century American male is taking on the medial tasks that the parents once took care of and facing them head on. As much as I like to believe I've had a firm grasp on responsibility certain things have come to light.

Paying for Laundry - Now I've been separating whites and darks since my early teens. Its never been the comical sitcomish situation of a lone red sock ruining everything or the shrinkage of my favorite sweater. Its a fairly simple operation. Put your clothes in the washing unit, add some detergent, set your cycle, and go sit on the couch till the buzzer a buzzes. Simple. Easy. No problem. I've apparently been taking the luxury of an at home washing machine for too much granted. See out here in the real world it cost a dollar fifty per wash... And its hardly adequate enough space for all my clever t-shirts, let alone my 3 pairs of pants. The expense comes to about $3-6 a week depending, which seems at first glance like change in the couch, but that small chunk of change is the difference between toast and Sketti-O's for dinner.

Waking Up - High school seems so far off at this point even though its hardly been the blink of an eye since I've been in the hallowed halls. Back then it was hardly a chore to awake before noon. For the most part it was necessary to get up at (shutter) 6:30 and jog down the hill, pop-tart in hand, hoping to catch that big, yellow bus. But somewhere between graduation and community college 6:30 in the morning became the hay hitting time with drunken, lazy eyes and for the most part it wasn't even my own hay I was hitting. My mother, being the wise sage she is, allowed me to keep this routine for the most part, attempting to quell this nasty habit here and there, but letting me learn from my mistakes (and hangovers). When she grew fed up and my routine became pathetic, she would rattle me from my daze after few hours of sleep until I found a niche of a 10 A.M. wake up time. Now, with out her supervision, and with no reason to awake before the ice cream man comes a calling, my sleep pattern is all awry.

Nutrition Pattern - I know from my corpulent physique that you wouldn't guess it, but I am somewhat of a health nut. Everything that passes through my teeth and gums and down, down, down the esophageal tube into my stomach is registered and separated into categories in my brain. For the most part I am very conscious about what I eat and how fast it will kill me. Don't get me wrong, I still slobber down a quarter-pounder with cheese in record timing, but I usually remind myself afterwards that its gonna hurt in a few years. There was always the comforting blanket of mom's pot roast or lasagna every so often that never registered as a harmful meal. It was good, old fashioned, at home cookin' and there ain't nuttin wrong with that. Despite my peaked interest in the culinary arts there is a paranoia in knowing everything you put in your meal. Even more distressful is realizing you've eaten food from a can at least five nights this week.

Dishes - At home we had a dishwasher... Her name was Grandma... I kid! I was a spoil middle class brat to my public school brothers who didn't have the luxury of a dishwasher. Now I feel their pain and curse the soft, pink hands of anyone with such a monstrous machine. Dishes back home would be done in a timely fashion... Timely enough to serve my meal purposes and be left where ever I want. The next day the dirty dishes would have disappeared from my desk, couch, ceiling fan etc. and be cleaned and put away by some mysterious force. My brother and I always theorized that there were Smurfs living in the drains that would come out at night retrieve dishes and pair socks. Apparently those nice little smurfs don't come in every home! Now when I leave a dish somewhere it stays there and just sits, and sits, and sits... Then green fur starts to grow on it... And that is no substitute for a fern my friends. So I bite the bullet and bring the dishes to the sink, but there they sit, and sit, and sit... Until... And you wouldn't believe this... I have to get a spunge (I never really knew what they were for) and some dish soap... And clean the dishes off... Manually...

So those are just some of the many differences from home life that are slowly building some character into my puddy of a back bone.

Brian

Fresh Fish!

I've got bags under my eyes you could put your groceries in. I'm either not sleeping enough or I'm sleeping too much. If I had to wager I'd say too much seeing as I woke up at the ass crack of noon.

Brian was already slaving away in the recliner, smashing the joystick on the Gamecube controller, and playing a little Super Smash Brothers: Melee. I know many of you richer and dandier folk are brawling these days, but give us a break. We just moved in. We haven't even got a paycheck yet. I couldn't stand it anymore. Cranking the speakers up to the maximum capacity and letting George Harrison burst through with the ever wonderful, Monday de-funktifier "Wah Wah" was the perfect cure.

I leapt from the couch, bounded around the living room, and slammed my shoes on my wandering feet. It didn't take much convincing to get Brian to follow and the two of us hit the beach once again.

The sun was shining in quite a pick me up kind of way and the strong winds didn't deter us. After searching the streets for somewhere to park, not wanting to revisit the towing disaster of days past, we zipped our wind breakers and began haunting the vacant streets. There were actually a few misinformed tourists looking dumbfounded to the fact that there was no one around. Brian and I used them as our tent pole for the usual laugh inducing activity of "Poke Fun at Strangers".

The beach was wind struck and occupied mostly by scavenger seagulls looking just as dumbfounded the absence of people. They starred at us with hungry eyes like all they saw were walking talking pretzels. Brian allowed his inner Irish Setter to shine as he chased some down the beach trying to catch them in his grasp. I wonder what'd he do if he actually ever caught one... Probably feed it to the rat.

We walked down the beach, as close to the surf as we could, picking up shells and horseshoe crabs and discussing this and that. It was pretty therapeutic to actually be out in the sun and moving my legs a little bit. Any anxiety I might have had subsided in exchange for good, old fashioned fun. It it was 10 degrees warmer I would have gladly dove into the water. Dipping my hands in the water I realized it was just about warm enough to swim in. Flashes of skimming, boarding, and just chilling on the beach were received from the future and helped supply a new, less cynical outlook for the future.

I found a big rubber fish. Brian found a big dead fish.

After about a 35 minute stroll on the sand we moved onto the boardwalk, which is made of cement. It was like a bad IPod commercial as joggers, most likely listening to Vampire Weekend or The National (I was going to make a Sufijan Stevens joke, but I guess he's out.) and showing off their freshly toned buttocks bounced on by. We bought some iced tea, shared a super sized Twix, and beat foot back to the car.

On our way home we passed what must be the first national monument I've seen here in Virginia, Mount Trashmore. Using the only resource American's can trust, Wikipedia, I've found that its a serious place. It was once a landfill that has now been turned into a lovely hang out for the citizens of Virginia. I guess you could say its kind of a trashy place. (Bwaa-ha-ha). It apparently features a 24,000 sq ft. skate park, two lakes, various walking trails, and a large playground. Not to mention its a 165 acres of green grassed glory. So we found yet another place to hang.

We got home. I played some more Scrabble, trying not to listen to my pulse, and munched away on some delectable little pizza bagels. Boredom set in and we kicked around the soccer ball a little bit. After we were out of breath and a little sweaty we came inside and vegged to some South Park and Colbert Report.

Tomorrow hopefully we'll hit the home base for a weekend, but things are looking up here. It should be an alright summer.

Brian

Somewhere I lost an hour

Welcome to the most laid back, boring, uneventful, poignant, mind boggling, nerve racking, stupidly funny, week to date in the 3rd quarter of my life.

For the record I did secure a job position at a local, quite low key, not-so-tacky, run of the mill steak house called Lone Star. I am officially part of the fold in their small family of servers. They've awarded me with an apron, 2 t-shirts, and a little black book in which I will one day write down the various demands of hungry southerners. Did you know there are six different ways in which to cook a steak? I kid you not.

But that was Tuesday and today is Saturday. Time has moved forward. I guess I have aged a little bit. My heart has been racing more and more. My roommates have been trying to quell my hypochondriatic fears of imminent death, but I know better. Of course I must be dieing. Honestly what else could be the cause... Stress? What an excuse!

In reality I think sitting around all day, everyday in this apartment is giving me an insane amount of anxiety. I need to go out and do something. Unfortunately this entire area is a perpetual strip mall emporium. Its an endless supply of Dollar Stores, Just-a-Bucks, Family Dollars, Bottom Dollar, etc. Its not exactly hard to get gallons of peach Tampaco or $50 worth of cap guns, but I had that back home.

And where are the people? I suppose I should ask, where are my peers? Everywhere I turn there are overweight undereducated 40-somethings or young riff raff in tight jeans and zip up hoodies, but where are the people I'm supposed to bond with? I attempted to haunt the halls of the local Barnes and Noble, but that was to no avail. It was mostly kids reading bad manga or girls giggling over Cosmopoliotan.

Hrumph.

I'm heading home for a week Tuesday. It'll be a refresher.

Brian

Good Morning!

Saturday morning I awoke, still sitting on my couch, a warm Coor's light in my hand, the afternoon sun peaking in through the blinds, and I was still a little drunk.

And this is what it is to be on your own.

Mike, Brian, and I finally had some down time in which to ritualistically drink our selves into a stupor. It was a the first time we've had since we've arrived to bond between each other and our surroundings. What was supposed to be a quiet night at home drinking the typical white twenty-something beers of choice (Blue Moon, Land Shark, Yuengling, and Mickeys) slowly became a night of hedonistic filled debauchery. Brian giggled insensibly to himself. Mike did his darnedest impersonation of Linda Blaire by spewing forth vomit in such a fury I thought his skeleton was sure to follow. It all slowly faded away into Saturday morning.

Saturday was a day of rest which lead into another party made entirely of Navy guys. Each one did their best to represent a different facet of the frat boy mind set. Beer pong was the game of choice as it has seemingly become my generations past time of choice. Skate videos were the only form of entertainment. And one excitable little man was discussing the fine points of why he wouldn't do gay porn (mainly because men have muscle based asses while a females is softer and smoother). Before I left another guy quaintly described how he would deal with his recruiter if they ever were to meet again... With a swift punch to the dick.

We headed home, after being worn out, watched Saturday Night Live, and finally I got to feel the pillow beneath my head. I dreamed of sitting in a theater with Jason, an old friend of mine, while some middle aged woman tried to hit on me. She attempted to make out with my cheek and then stuck a twenty dollar bill in my mouth. The dream moved to my old neighborhood as I stood on the front porch of my little brother's best friend Mark preparing cookies for everyone. He stomped them into crumbs and I awoke moments before pummeling his face.

Brian was tapping me on the back asking me to join the party. I came out at the early morning hours of 12:46 as Mike was finishing up playing Kingdom Hearts 2. Mike ran out to get his hair cut. Brian and I began to play some Sonic the Hedgehog. Mike returned quicker then expected and dragged us out to Wal-Mart as it seemed his barber was not opened on a Sunday. We loaded the car with empty beer bottles hoping to gain a small fortune, but alas there are no bottle returns in Virginia. Apparently the vast majority of states don't, a fact I had never known. New York, and ten other states, are apparently in the minority there. Which begs the question, what do the other bag ladies in other states do for fun? The Wal-Mart parking lot was the sad substitute we found to leave our empties in after embarassing myself by approaching the Wal-Mart greeter with what must of been a bizarre sight, me with a cart full of empty beer bottles. Mike got his ears lowered as Brian and I combed through the soft lit halls of Wal-Mart experiencing an uneasy bit of Deja Vu. It seems that all Wal-Marts are designed the same and this one tickled the back of our brains and helped recall home. We expected to walk outside to familiar surroundings. This was not the case.

We drove home and sat around. I read some more of Ayn Rand's The Anthem which is great, but quite depressing. Brian finally picked up the collected trade of The Watchmen and began to devouring. I cooked some tuna noodle for diner. We played some more Sonic the Hedgehog. Watched a disappointing George Carlin special. Followed it up with a disappointing bit of Adult Swim. Then they hit the hay while I vegged in front of the television.

Nothing exciting yet, but tomorrow I fill out paperwork at my new job.

LONE STAR SERVER.

Brian