they gave you poetry and endless hours of conversation

Today was eventful, so at the risk of becoming a daily blogger like I feared I'm going to talk about it a little bit.

I woke up feeling shitty and expecting to feel shitty all day because I had felt shitty yesterday. I took some ibuprofen and figured I'd tough out the school day. I ended up feeling great all day, for which I have to give some (if not most) of the credit to my gym teacher doing a Yoga Unit while we're stuck in doors all week due to rain. Originally I wasn't going to do yoga but then I figured what could it hurt and man, I'm glad I don't subscribe to that masculine idea of staying in the gym and pelting balls at each other (for something so masculine, it sounds really homoerotic, doesn't it?). I learned a few easy and relaxing stretching techniques and fuck man, do I feel limber and loose and all around good. If you're reading this, go try some basic Yoga, you'll feel stoked.

Later on I had a sub (stitute teacher, not the sandwich) who I recognized as the brother of a dude I used to know before he graduated. This wouldn't be all that interesting except for the fact that not only did I know his brother, I had seen a movie this guy made way back when I was a freshman. I distinctly remember watching the flick because it was made on a budget of $900 dollars (take that Clerks!) and I remember it been really good. This was right around the time when I was deciding I wanted to make movies sometime in the future (more on that later, I'm sure) and seeing it done, and done well, for so cheap by someone I had a vague connection too was pretty radical. Anyway we rapped (for the square - talked, chatted, spoke) for a bit before I had to leave and I told him I intended to pick up a copy of the flick once I got a chance. Hopefully I'll do that soon and see if it holds up.

Around 2:15 I left school and drove to the doctor's office near my house for an appointment. On the way home I noticed that a billboard I read every day on my way home had suddenly been replaced. I wouldn't say it had been my favorite billboard, but I had always noticed it and often mused about it between the time I passed it and then time I got to the stoplight no more than five hundred yards down the road. The billboard had a picture of two women embracing and looking sad, if memory serves me right. It read "My friend has mental illness". The words "my friend has me" was in white font and the rest in red. Presumably this was done so the message of "My friend has me" would stand out because the billboard was about supporting friends who are fucked up in the head, or something. And yet this always caught my attention and the first thing I would register were the words "ntal illness". It took me two or three days worth of driving passed that billboard to finally realize the actual message of the white letters. What does that say about me? On the surface it says I'm drawn to the color red more than the color white or at worst I'm a little retarded, but what if it has deeper meaning? What if the fact that I always zero in on "ntal illness" is a mild test of character that I failed? Every time I went "what the fuck does ntal illness mean?" someone somewhere was shaking their head. Or maybe it was just a billboard. Probably that.

I also stopped and put gas in my tank for the first time in eleven days. I had used my car daily for eleven days, starting at a full tank, and whittled it down to an eighth of a tank of gas. I told the guy to fill 'er up and when all was said and done my car had taken in $17.44 worth of gas. I'm at a full tank again and that will last me anywhere from a week to two weeks depending on how much I drive. Now, my friends tend to joke and call my little Kia Rio a matchbox car or a baby car or such, but fuck it dude, if I spend less than twenty bucks every other week on gas, do you know how much money that's going to leave me for coke and whores? Lots man, lots. Expensive coke and cheap whores, naturally.

As I was walking in to the doctor's office I walked by a car and inside that car an elderly Asian women was sleeping soundly in the passenger's seat. That was a strange sight.

Once I was in the doctor's office I sat in the lobby for about five minutes reading (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, for the curious) before being called back. I got my weight taken and I've lost nine pounds since I was last weight. I knew I'd been slimming down, but that's a pretty big loss, right? I haven't dieted or anything, I've just cut soda and gatorade almost entirely out of my diet. I'm considering cutting out most snacks next to see where that takes me, but I've never been one to sacrifice goodies just to improve my looks. For my health yes, but my appearance, no. Maybe I'll just start throwing up after meals instead.

As for the doctor encounter itself, I had a young guy. He seemed like a dick at first but warmed up after a little bit, without losing that slight edge of "I'm a doctor, therefore superior" attitude. Luckily I don't have swine flu or the much more deadly strep throat, just a minor viral infection which I usually get about once a year. My brother has a ruptured ear drum. Neither of us is in serious condition. Once the visit was done I bolted, leaving my mom to settle all the paperwork and such. When I got home I talked to my sister in law (or at least, she should be. Due to barbaric laws defining marriage as between a man and women, my sister and her partner aren't allowed to tie the knot. Criminal.) for a little bit on the phone. She's a chatterbox, but really very cool.

Now I'm blogging. Actually now I'm finishin blogging so I can go shower, eat some pizza, write, and watch Rescue Me at ten. Stay classy.