i know some of you have real jobs where you have to pretend to do work sometimes, so feel free to have some lite-brite fun.

and thus i salute the working class.

home for the holiday has been quite enjoyable, i must say (not that Thanksgiving 2002 would be hard to top since we ended up having Thanksgiving dinner at IHOP). this year was nice, and i carved my first turkey. i learned three things: 1) an electric turkey-cutting knife (more like saw) is very fun 2) i eat three times as much food when i'm at home here in eastland 3) my grandmother is truly what some might call a "character."

my mom, my granddad, my grandmother and i played scrabble after dinner on wednesday night, and i've never seen anyone try to cheat as much as my grandmother. she would accuse us of not knowing our vocabulary when she would make a word like "zut." my granddad ended up sweeping the game, sealing the deal by turning the word "pal" into "pallette," on which he also got a triple-word score. but no worries, i reasserted myself tonight by whupping up on everybody in chinese checkers. or maybe, since everyone is so PC now, that game may actually be preferably referred to as asian american checkers.

the chinaman is not the issue here, dude

so yeah, carvin' turkey, game nights with the fam....oh yeah, and i helped my mom put up the Christmas tree too. i was also productive in that i finished reading a novel and got fat. i miss amy and i'm glad i get to see her tomorrow. and i'm glad she won't care that i'm fat (within reason).

i'm headin home tomorrow morning for the whole thanksgiving thing. i'm thinking home won't be as fun as it could be since neither my brother or sister or any of my nephews or nieces will be there. but when i'm home with just mom, that usually means i get to catch up on movies that are out for rent that i didn't get to see in the theater and that i will have time to read (hopefully i can finish Where Rivers Change Direction). I am excited though about coming back to Lubbock on Friday night cause i will get to meet and hang out with Amy's sis Lori and her husband.

the paycheck i got for substitute teaching was less than half of what i thought it was going to be (because the pay period for this check ended after i'd only subbed a couple times), so i may end up standing on a street corner with a cardboard sign that says "poor academic/musician needs money for rent." i won't dress down or anything, i'll just wear my normal clothes...maybe it'll work. i told amy another idea i had about how we could sit outside wal-mart selling raffle tickets to a raffle that won't ever happen. um in fact, anyone interested in buying a raffle ticket, just email me. [a low hushed voice says "will accept check, money order, concealed cash, or paypal. hurry and buy one today. supplies are limited."]

a bit ago when i was at the grocery store, a little boy was riding in the basket his mom was pushing, and he saw that i had frosted flakes in my basket, and he pointed to them and said "tony the tiger." his mom asked him if he'd like to have that kind of cereal too, and he said yes, so they took off to the cereal aisle. i also took a little trip today out to the strip to pick up some "spirits" if you will. i've recently discovered the sweet satisfaction of kahlua, so i got some of that and some half and half to go with it. i also bought a gallon size of burnett's vanilla vodka (hey, they were out of the smaller ones!).

before i make different mixed drinks for friends, i really feel i should perfect them...and to do so, i'll have to be the bartender and taste-tester. so now you know what i'll be doing the rest of the day.

\m/
I believe in a thing called love, just listen to the rhythm of my heart. There's a chance we can make it now, we'll be lookin' till the sun goes down. I believe in a thing called love.

(for the uneducated out there, \m/ means ROCK)

well, that was an easy $30. that's how much i made by going and watching an hour or so of Mission Impossible 2 with a class at a technical high school here in town. i guess substitute teaching does have it's high points.

i overheard one of my students in my real class (the composition class i teach at Wayland Baptist University) last night saying how one of his friends drowned. my student, mike, said he and his friend watched helplessly from the shore. the guy was fishing and fell out of his boat. the trolling motor was on, so the boat began to circle around automatically. apparently the guy was pretty big, he used to play football for Texas Tech, and even though he was a young guy - in his early twenties - he was not a great swimmer. so he got over to his boat and reached up and grabbed the rail on the side to pull himself up, but the rail broke, and he splashed back down into the water. the boat began another circle and he started swimming for it again. Mike said that he and his buddy just figured the guy would get in the boat or just swim to shore, which was only like 300 yards away. But then the guy started splashing a lot and went under. By the time they got out there, he had drowned.

Starting class (in which the biggest tragedies are left out commas and poor paragraph structure) after hearing that story kind of put things in perspective. Hopefully my students take something else away from my lectures. Something that really matters.

i put it all on black, no color you were all dressed in

i bought a lottery ticket today. i'm going to win $6 million. i also decided that i want to be a travel writer.

on the grass in front of my apartment, i saw a bird hopping along with a ketchup packet in its beak.

i want a cool job again, like when i used to work in the university writing center and do tutorials every now and again then surf the web and play bookworm on the computer. the call to substitute this morning came about five minutes after 8am. the system voice told me that the job was at some jr. high, the name of which i didn't understand, and then the voice told me that the assignment started at 8am. ok really -- i'm in my bed sleeping, and this computer voice is telling me i should be at a job that is at a school i've never even heard of much less know where it is, and that i should have been there five minutes before i got the call. hmm. so, as you may have guessed, i declined the offer. substitute teaching is depressing.

last night i helped amy's parent's unload some big big furniture. her dad and i were unloading this huge entertainment center (solid oak, mind you) and after tilting it over, i tried to lift it to even out the weight with her dad, but in mid lift, i realized that 400 lbs. is probably more than i should be squat lifting, so we set it down...on my fingers. yeah. my back hurts today. but hey, i'm young. i'll bounce back.

i'll be true, i'll be useful, i'll be cavalier, i'll be yours my dear.

i'm kind of scaring myself because i think i have the potential to be...yes, that's right...a morning person! i know, this is horrible news. some people say you are born that way, a morning person, and you can't really fight it or that you are a morning person because of how you were raised and what color pjs your mom dressed you in, but i do have to qualify all this by saying that my morning person tendencies only come out when i go to bed early. like last night, i went to bed at like 10:30. i mean, really, what is that? i guess the only way i can justify it is that i wasn't alone and that there was the possibility of me getting a phone call early this morning to substitute.

well, i didn't get that call, and i have to say it was kinda strange sending her off to work while i stick around the apartment in my pajama pants and my hair sticking up everywhere. but if i'm going to be a true academic all my life, maybe that is a feeling i should try to get used to. this substitute thing is wierd though because i feel my employment (or unemployment) status changes daily. maybe i'll actually be productive today and fill out some grad school applications. who knows.

not that anyone in my family is necessarily internet savvy, but i still hope that something like this does not happen.

a lot has happened in the past few days. sunday night, brandon and i picked amy and kala up from the airport then, a little later, went to see The Jealous Sound play. they were amazing, and i was very happy that they played the songs off of their first ep. that is one of the few bands i've seen play where i knew every word to every single song they played. i also got to chat with blair (also of Knapsack fame) for a few minutes.

monday morning, i got my first call to substitute teach. i substituted in an American Sign Language class. overall, an ok experience. i'm substituting for that same teacher again today, but i'm on the nice long lunch break that i get since her preperation period comes right before lunch. so it's a pretty sweet deal...i have classes in the morning from 8:40-11:50, then i don't have to be back at school until 2:15 then stay until 4:15. all in all, i get paid $60 for working about five hours. today has been much better since the kids already know me...i'm being less of a policeman and more of a teacher. the afternoon class is really loud though, so i'm not looking forward to it very much.

there is a boy named Travis in one of the morning classes. he's hearing impaired, and he has a few other problems with speech and comprehension. but watching him do the work is inspiring because i can see that everything is so much harder for him than for the other students, but he keeps at it and never really seems to get frustrated. seeing him deal with all the obstacles he faces in the simplest of tasks (writing, speaking, even walking) makes me never want to complain about anything again. when i think about him i want to cry, not because i feel sorry for him, but because i don't think it's fair that he has to deal with all those physical and mental adversities.

ok, enough ranting for now.

yes, i may be a complete slacker right now due to the fact i can't seem to get a job substituting, but the good thing is i get to surf the net and find really funny stuff like this.

slacker plans for the day: workout, read a novel, rent a movie (maybe Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers or Laurel Canyon).

it's finally cold! yay. current temperature in Lubbock, Texas: 38 degrees fahrenheit. finally sweater weather.

sweetness. my friend John LaMonica was just on the Conan O'Brien show!!! john plays percussion (timpani and whatnot) for the polyphonic spree. that's the first time i've ever seen a friend of mine on national television...and even moreso, on freakin' Conan. he even got a few zoom in shots on him. don't worry everyone, i'll tape the rerun of the show on comedy central tomorrow so i can show you all and brag about it for a while. background info: i met john when he was 17 years old when his band My Spacecoaster played a show in abilene. My Spacecoaster is in my top three favorite bands of all time. i got to know john pretty well over the years of playing shows with spacecaoster and seeing them play throughout texas.

many thanks to sonia who called me to tell me that polyphonic spree was playing on Conan tonight.

yes, the fact that the "comment" link is in a bigger font than the rest of the page is driving me crazy, but i've spent way too much time trying to edit the html code to no avail. so i guess you and i and everyone else will just have to live with it. and for those of you who read and don't know...anyone is free to click on the "comment" link for each entry and read what others have said or post something of your own, which would make me a very happy man.

brandon and i recorded this afternoon, and considering the progress today, we will probably be finished with the demo in another week or so. i just called in to the substitute computer system for L.I.S.D. and there are still no jobs available. at this point in time, a call at 5am or so is going to be welcome and might even induce a bit of euphoria because i'm ready to get this rolling so i can start makin some benjamins. cause we all know, it's all about the benjamins, baby.

i want pizza.

up early again. i took amy and kala to the airport at 5am. on the way, we decided that i'm a pimp, which would subsequently make them my ho's (i don't really know how to write out the plural of "ho" so, for now, we'll resort to the unexplainable apostrophe) but in actuality, only amy would be my ho, so that would make kala my bitch. i said that i could write a rap song now, but it wouldn't sound so tough of me to rap about my ho and my bitch because most rappers have more than just one of each.

in any case, they are gone to new york city for five days. i know that i'll miss them both even during such a short time. but even more so, on the drive home from the airport, i realized that my heart boarded the airplane with her.

oh yes, and now the delayed report on my halloween:

amy and i just hung around at her house so we could give candy to the plethora of trick-or-treaters that came by. all the kids were super cute in their costumes, but the two that really stood out were this one boy dressed in a spiderman getup, mask and all, and a boy wearing a black robe with one of those scream masks on. the kid in the scream mask was kinda creepy because it was wierd to see such a ghoulish-looking figure who was only three feet tall. we ran out of candy around 8pm, so we just closed the front door and switched the porchlight off.

later we met up with kala and her uncle and his boyfriend at the "alternative" club. saying that there were some crazy costumes there is quite the understatement. kala was dressed as a vampire and even had bite marks on her neck. i saw "cowgirls" who looked very much like girls but were not, a guy wearing only a cellophane "skirt" and makeup and a woman's wig, a couple dressed as neo and trinity from the matrix, and a couple of guys dressed as mormon missionaries with white shirts, black ties, Elder So-and-so nametags, and bicycle helments. they also had blood splattered on their faces and shirts to show that they had been hit by a car. those guys won the costume contest. amy drank three mudslides really fast...too fast. she turned into drunky mcgee, but i can't really complain...but i'll not tell you why. overall, a pretty darn good halloween.

got up early. grocery store. nutella. mmm.

hopefully i will start substitute teaching tomorrow, even though it's been a week and i haven't gotten a call yet.