Save Lando

it’s weird, being back to writing on a semi-regular schedule. i think that for some reason i have a lot i need to get out lately. this month marks a lot of changes for me in my life, and with the insane number of things going on in my head, you guys are barely getting cliff’s notes.

so like, I’m sick. so sick i called in for the second time ever at my current job. it’s lame. all i do is sleep and sit. not that i had a ton else planned, but hey, i would have liked to do something. anything really. i guess i can’t really complain a whole lot. i was sick for a few days, and never really got too bad. just a lot of muscle ache and fatigue. noticing how everyone else’s sick went, i got off tons easier. yay me! it’s crazy this year. i know that the whole things being blamed on people guessing wrong on the strains of flu and it running like wildfire through the flu shots everyone got. bah, flu shots. whatever. i never get flu shots, and i’m almost never really sick. periodic cold for a few days, but everybody gets that. and maybe it’s the gibson reader in me, but does anyone else ever have silly daydreams that involve your blood being the cure for a lot of the worlds diseases? um, er, yeah. me neither.

so, Loopy finally started getting things together for a move. she handled one of the bigger issues already, bringing over her kids. well, sorta. cats. three of them, thus founding the savelando/goingloopy home for wayward rotund felines (or fatty catty camp). we’re not taking anymore campers at the moment, so don’t ask. it went surprisingly well, as they’ve been here for three days and the hissing is minimal, and there’s even a litttle butt-sniffing going on. and although one of the cats is fond of crawling all over us while we sleep (or try to), i think it will probably work out. the shy one will even let me pet her before she hides underneath the sink for 6 hours at a time.

things are slowly coming together little by little, as the march deadline approaches. buying a little furniture here and there to fill out the apartment, even putting some of it together myself. be scared! i also finally decided to spend some of that egg i had in the banko, and buy myself a car. i’d been wanting a truck forever, and just had problems saving enough money to go straight cash on a truck that i wanted. i detest payments, so i had resolved to just buy outright. i hadn’t much thought about a car until a friend of mine that used to work with me had to sell his. he was moving and needed to get rid of everything. he gave me a pretty decent price, and even though it could use a paint job, everything else is sound (now that i replaced the tires, ha, and even the hubs). it’s nice to have that little bit of freedom again. living without a car for the last year made me experience many things i probably wouldn’t be too eager to revisit.

so things are together for the most part, without the rest of Loop’s things. if only we could get machismo to get the last of his things out..ugh, i’m going to have to help him move his entertainment center. it weighs, like eight thousand pounds and is awkward as shit. hooray. think this is all i’ll post right now, sorry for the short, but needed to update a little.

in recent history, on this crappiest of commercial holidays, i’ve made a top eleven list of valentines day song (sorta) that come across my media player while i’m typing. why buck the trend? eleven songs this morning, that make me look schizo, with the ‘L’ word in the title:

1. Reel Big Fish – Somebody Loved Me
2. the Doors – Love Me Two Times
3. Jim Sturgess – All You Need is Love
4. Gomez – Girlshapedlovedrug
5. Jay-Z – Blueprint (Momma Loves Me)
6. Calexico/Iron & Wine – A History of Lovers
7. Alicia Bridges – I Love the Night Life
8. Lady Sovereign – Love Me or Hate Me
9. Barry White – Can’t Get Enough of Your Love Babe
10. Led Zeppelin – All of My Love
11. Belle and Sebastian – I Don’t Love Anyone

it’s also apparent, after some trips back through vd days of blogging past, that i generally don’t have very good days around this one. that kind of sucks. i think it eased last year, and that’s for the better, i guess that when you actually have someone you really care for, things feel a little better when you’re bombarded with an insane amount of not-so-subliminal consumerism manifestos. whatever that means. i’m also thankful that like me, the slacker packer, abhors this ‘holiday’. we shun it like Okies shun showers and manners. it was decided that we don’t need holidays to buy things for each other.

work’s pretty much sucked all kinds of sweaty animal balls lately. my boss has been spending all of my shift with me, pretty much doubling my workload on his whim. it’s gotten so bad that he’s invaded my dreams, only to give me more work to do. wouldn’t want me to be wasting that time sleeping or anything, right? at least one things come of it, he’s decided that i’m actually far too busy and probably need some help. but him mentioning that we need someone else to help me and it actually happening are about as close to happening as me winning the lottery. i also had some bad luck yesterday. i spent the morning watching the clemens/mcnamee congressional hearings. not so much for the baseball aspect, but it was marvelous theater. plus, it’s always fun to watch someone lying get grilled. i tried, in vein (har), to continue listening at work. sadly, my Zune ran out of charge halfway through the day. want to see me have a hard time? watch me pay full attention to customers and my boss. i thought for sure that i’d be visiting Jack when i got home.

i’m been spending the greater part of my non-work schedule deep-cleaning my apartment and watching the Venture Bros. first two seasons. think i spent an age looking through an endless supply of pictures i had stowed in my dresser. i found tons of pictures from my pre-sister life. there was even quite a few from my post-sister pre-fat life. i even found some old pictures of my grandfather. one from ‘92, which had to be pretty soon before he passed on, but a year or two after i last saw him. i kind of got a little emotional, remembering the last few days i had spent with him. i also found quite a few of my mother, in her early twenties. was strange seeing her so young, with half-smiles on her face. i’m still not sure how i feel about it. i’m, sadly, way past early twenties now. just the way she looked in the pictures, it’s hard to tell if she’s happy, or burdened and annoyed. i have the same vapid look in all the piccies of me, so i can’t really relate.

i’m still finding an insane amount of cat food everywhere i go in my bedroom. you’d think with a 23lb cat, that wouldn’t be a problem. wrong.

also, ‘Machismo’ still has a few things still here. namely a recliner and 4 boxes of porn. i came home recently to see that the mail had been snagged, and the trash emptied. i thought, “oh awesome, he got his stuff”. not so. the chair’s still here, along with various minor items. but. the porn is gone. it boggles. not that he got the porn, because come on, you need porn, it’s Valentine’s Day. but the fact that he didn’t just grab the rest of his junk while he was here. is this some way of staying in contact or something? like the old woman trick of ‘accidently leaving something important behind’? oh, and he also shut the door to his old bedroom/ the cat’s bedroom. so for god knows how long, my cat was locked out and without foor, water, and a place to take his massive cat shits. i, seriously, spent the first ten minutes i was home looking for cat shit outside of his bedroom. sadly, all i found was catfood. more catfood.

so I’m re-stowing the giant bag of cat food after feeding the giant bag of cat a few days back. the bag slips off its perch, and i catch it. as i catch it, it spills. and by spills, i mean it fucking rains cat food in my bedroom. and maybe even rain isnt a good descriptive phrase. it was like a friggin’ snow globe. a snow globe of cat food in my bedroom. all over my floor. my bed. my clean and dirty clothes. my dresser. in my fucking hair. this is the definition of a bad start to the day. the rest of the day had my boss staying at work 5 hours later than normal, just to make sure i could have someone physically in my ass while i’m working. I’ll tell you what, if my day ever starts that way again, I’m just going to pass. on everything.

the day did have one funny moment though. a co-worker of mine (a newer, very dimwitted one) walked past when i was dealing with two young, semi-attractive ladies. and catch his line. he says “oh man, you look like that one movie start…what’s her name…”, he of course not remembering. then the girl says something like “hopefully she’s not —” before he cut her off with “no, she’s just average”. I’m sure the look on my face was killing her friend because she was cracking up when i turned to my co-worker and said “are you fucking retarded or something?”. now, I’m not sure if this technically counts as a cockblock, because he’d done that to himself first. later, i ran into him in the back and said something to the extent of “man, you need to fucking work on those pick-up lines. your game sucks.” not that I’m don johnson or anything, but christ, come on. compared to this guy, I’m at least comperable to antonio banderas.

and speaking of comparisons, for some reason the phrase popped into my head at work. “the darker the berry, the sweeter the juice.” (thank you Oprah) i then looked at myself in the mirror and wondered if i had as much ‘flava’ as a warm glass of tap water. seriously. there is a sun still, right? maybe i can’t be antonio banderas… is there like a famous albino heart-throb? i can only think of three. the winter brothers and roy orbison. what the hell? are all the famous albino’s musicians?

I finally went through my closet. it’d been years, and maybe even more than a decade since I’d last done it. i was finding clothes from high school in there. Loopy helped, and close to 90 minutes later, i had 8 bags or clothes and shoes to donate to charity. you hear that ‘cornholers’? i donated 2 bags of shoes. suck it! i joked with Loops as we were bagging everything up, that “some needy, chubby man is going to have a very good day.” of course, not all my cast-offs made it to charity, Loops claimed some. the soft t-shirts and a flannel she liked. a purple-ish flannel that was my baby some 15 years ago. some of you more than likely remember that flannel. oh times, they are a changing.

we’ve been looking at some furniture that we both can live with, and i think we’ve got most everything in mind, with only things to sit on as yet undecided. pretty sure we’re not going buddhist (sorry Dick). and the suggestion of curry colored walls was a bit too much. you know how i feel about curry. everyone knows how i feel about curry. Loops did manage to snag an old wooden desk, that she’s now using for her computer, from the ‘white trash america’ auction the other day. I’m surprised, with her hippie ways, that the bean bag chair discussion has not reared it’s ugly head. i also am going to have to check her things for hidden lava lamps. damned hippies. the only acceptable item related to hippie-dom that would be acceptable is a real life mystery machine. ZOINKS!

she’d never go for something like that though. i think she’d be afraid of the massive amount of cartoon poon I’d be scoring. that’s right, i said it.

so my sister celebrated her birthday a week late, well, the dinner portion of it anyway. and for some strange reason, the women in my family want to all eat at semi-fancy places. this time, she picked an urban italian eatery downtown. prices were about what i expected, and at least not quite as boggling as my stepmothers birthday dinners. it was a little strange though, as everyone around us made me feel like we didn’t belong. see, my family’s pretty easygoing. very casual, though i did see a jacket on one and a tie on another. this place had nothing but suits in it, and the only people under the age of 50 were all at our table. you could smell the geritol and snake-oil. seriously, it was like there was a fucking casting call for Murder She Wrote up in that piece.

3:1 she’s burning ants to death on that car. 1:2 she’s still looking for the rest of the food they left off my plate. that picture kind of reminds me of my great aunt, who, true to her roots, was visibly shaken when she was denied ranch dressing for her salad. she then was forced to eat spaghetti and meatballs, as she would not bow to those newfangled concoctions those wacky italians devised. the poor woman. keeping with a longstanding tradition, she and my uncle mocked the chosen eatery endlessly. i will have to put much more thought into my birthday meal, i will not stand for dissention in the ranks. maybe something classy, like lunch at a strip club.

Machismo spent most of the past weekend moving out. looks like he’ll be long come come next weekend. the apartment has been pretty quiet without him around. kind of lonely. it’s weird how that even if you don’t see someone you’re living with, you know they’re there. not that there’s no one here but me, its kind of depressing. strange, i know. i haven’t even ventured into naked time. some of that might to do with there still being a kitten with claws around. i’m not playing W.o.W as much anymore (waiting for warhammer online like a good little dork), and half thinking about giving it up for good. i’ve been reading, and cleaning up the house little by very little. trying to have it somewhat ready for loops when she moves in. but seeing as how that won’t happen for close to a month, i’m not exactly inspired to tackle labor asap. though i’m not exactly excited to sit around on my ass and watch billy madison for the 500th time this week.

it’s kind of weird. he called me at work last night just to talk for a few minutes while he was here at the apartment picking up things. i reflected on how this was the first time i’ve ever had a transition in roommate status and not had hard feelings about it in some way. the whole things been pretty seamless so far, and I still get to keep a friend. i guess there weren’t any hard feelings when J9 moved out, but he was actually committed, for the crazy, so it wasn’t a shock. in fact, it was pretty much a welcome thing, just meant i didn’t have to babysit anymore. i don’t mean that in a negative way, he just needed…a lot of help. think Machismo and i decided that we should hang occasionally, he’ll need it living where he is now. either that or i get to watch him on the news.

Loops and I did go out shopping last weekend. decided we were going to buy things that we need for the apartment. surprisingly, we needed dishwear. so we wondered around god-knows-how-many stores just browsing at dishes and bed stuff. she’s asked (told me) to be able to change the colors of the place, adding that its all too dark. apparently, grey is not a valid choice for the color of everything (i still say that’s incorrect. grey is perfect for everything). so not only my bedroom is about to change, the bathroom and spare bedroom are bound for new deco. don’t think i’ll have too much of a say in anything, as my idea of using nudie mag pages as wallpaper is likely to be shot down. its totally not for me. it’s the guest room (catbox room – woot!), its for them. shopping is exhausting, i’m not sure how people do it, i was toast by the end.

so in my haste to pump out my last entry, i left out tons of detail and editorial. why not revisit.

i told you about me traveling to houston to spend xmas with Loopy’s family. but i didn’t go into how weird it was. i got along with everyone there, and for meeting any family, it feels weird. you know how it is, there’s always one person in the family thats horrible. you know, the really annoying one or the psychotically retarded on, etc, etc. and i would lay awake at night wondering what sounds were. like, is that just loopy snoring, or is sloth rattling the chains in the basement, desperately needing his baby ruth? i have my fair share of experience with retards, its not like i couldn’t handle it. christ, i work retail, i do it 8-12 hours a day.

and speaking of mouth-breathing booger eaters, i was sort of having a conversation with a native oklahoman last week. he expressed nervousness due to the fact that a couple of middle eastern fellows behind him were speaking. they were speaking heavily accented english. the man said that he was feeling uncomfortable because he doesn’t like when people arent speaking english around him, and that they may be trying to blow him up. YEAH BECAUSE THEY’D TAKE TIME OUT OF THEIR BUSY DAY TO BLOW UP SOME BIGOTED REDNECK ASSHOLE FOR FUN.

git-r-dun INDEED. the irony of it all? the man spoke with such a thick southern accent, i barely understood what he was saying.

and segueing to another story, i was helping a customer recently, and speaking my normal speed at work, which is to say fast. i asked him if he needed help with anything else and he asked “yeah, do you speak english?” seriously. this was one of those large, dirty truck driving types. never mind i had been speaking to him in english the entire time and he seemingly had no problems understanding me, he still had to ask. i stared at him for a second wondering if it was an insult or that he genuinely couldn’t understand non-drawled out english without a heavy dose of kentucky fried accent. i then told him that i spoke english quite well, but i spoke faster than most people and that it was that that he was likely having a problem with. he repeated what i said, perhaps so he could slow it down and comprehend later. still sounded like an insult though. fuckhead. i hate people.

enough aside…

if people were to meet my family, i’d be embarassed for them to meet going on about 40%. not because they’re weird or anything (ok, maybe they are), but because they have no problems being themselves. scary, at least in this case it is. most of the local ones are pretty much religious anymore, but that doesn’t stop ‘em from having an almost racy game of uno! oh come on, everyone loves uno. though i really can’t say a lot, as they did impress me tonight. we got together a week late to celebrate my sisters birthday, and after an overpriced artsy meal, we retired back to her house for games. they cracked open a couple of bottles of wine and got a little looser than i’m accustomed to seeing. it was nice. Loops even broke out a bottle of wine she’d been stowing in her car for the last months and a half. they all drank the australian-car-merlot. fucking classy if you ask me. it’s good that the Loops gets along with them, i’d feel bad about subjecting her to so much interaction if she didn’t.

and finally:

after a few years, Machismo is moving on. he’s leaving the compound here at an attempt to live in a real life house with his ex and his son. not as a couple though, as roommates. HAHA. ok, now that i got that out of my system. he’s signing the lease as i type this right now, and probably moving out asap, he already attempting packing. its going to be strange, though i imagine that the stress level will go down in the house. most certainly there will be a drop in unreasonable and unfounded anger. He mentioned in confidence while i was in the shower that i was the best roommate he’d ever had. good to hear, even through third party.

Loopy is moving in soon, it was decided. its going to be interesting, as she is bringing 3 kitties with her. lets hope the peace can be kept amongst the feline border. we’ve been discussing what we need to help us co-exist, what we need to buy. apparently, loops ransacked the library at alexandria earlier, and we’re in dire need of book cases. seriously, who deals with hard copy anymore….