Jump-Start

Don't worry, this isn't another cop-out. And for the record, I'm sorry.

I'm really starting to miss Carl. There's really no better audience for this than you, because no other audience is as familiar with both of us (except, perhaps, Stu, Lucy and Bridget), but that's not why I'm writing it here. It's because, as I sit here, smoking my trusty marijuana Vaporizer (the Pencil Sharpener) and slouching towards a blog window, I am reminded of Carl and the numerous blog posts, phone calls and World of Warcraft sessions which began with a bowl; this act perfectly exemplifies the sort of negative logic which propels my apathetic lifestyle when I'm in Atlanta. But let me explain:

There is a distinction between 'people who smoke pot' and 'pot-smokers'. It is my belief that this line is drawn between those people who never interact with drug dealers and those people who do. It's the difference between liking pot and wanting pot, essentially. Once you 'want pot' it's only a matter of time before you find someone to get it from. Once you know that guy, the only things stopping you are (i) your bank account, (ii) your dealer's cell-phone, and (iii) method of transportation. If you own a car, obstacle three is permanently not a problem. So that's the difference between 'people who smoke pot' and 'pot-smokers'. I gave you that distinction so I could give you this one:

There are myriad occasions for smoking pot, including but not limited to : (i) two (or more) friends are in the same place with pot, (ii) two (or more) friends are in different places with pot, (iii) you are alone with pot, (iv) any clock or device displays 4:20, (v) you can name a country in the time zone of the next place it will be 4:20, (vi) it's raining pot, (vii) your mother's lifelong best friend has brought her friends to swim in your pool, and one of them has brought pot, (viii) you drove up to St. Louis with your brother to tour a college, but really to go see CAKE and smoke pot, etc. etc. etc.

It isn't particularly difficult to decide when to smoke pot. It's really just when the option first occurs to you that you choose to smoke; for everyone but Carl, at least.

For all intents and purposes, Carl lives in the present moment. He's not thinking about ten minutes ago, and he's not thinking about a week from now. His subconscious has learned, over the course of many years and many many failed social interactions, to hold onto incredibly important information which is likely to come up later; otherwise, the things you do with and say to Carl are essentially leaves blowing by his car as he drives from one present moment to another.

Sigh. The sad part is two-fold; not only had I long envied this about Carl, but I feel like my interactions at Wash U are taking on a very Carlesque aspect. Agh, this is a very long and roundabout story!

So Carl, and deciding when to smoke pot, and negative logic if you can remember that many lines ago! As Carl pilots his way through every oncoming moment, it will occasionally come time for him to begin a task which will require his undivided attention for some discrete period of time. Faced with this objective, Carl's immediate reaction is to consider smoking pot. Why? "Because we won't be able to once we..."

The beauty of it, of course, is that we end up smoking before nearly everything. Theoretically, we could smoke, play WoW for an hour, smoke, drive to Chick-Fil-A, smoke, go downstairs and play video games. The only way we could smoke more is if smoking could precede smoking, leading to a chain-toke of indefinite length (or until we ran out of pot).

And so, beginning this post by warming up my vaporizer sent me straight back to good ol' Decatur, to a Summer of complete irresponsibility, and to the practice of smoking a bowl before doing anything. It'll never be as fun alone.



I really owe you something special, don't I? It's been.... well, let's just say it's been too long. At the very least, I owe you an introduction to the new suite. It's fortunate that I've taken so long to write this post, because I've had more time to get to know them all. Here's what I've gleaned :

Douglas K. Freling & Benjamin Abraham - I heard stories about these guys way back in Freshman year, pulling pranks in Lee (not the poop, though). The best word for what these guys do is 'mischief'. Their limitations are three : motivation, budget, and felony status.

Doug, on his own, perfectly exemplifies the black box principle of Behavioral Psychology : we know what goes in, and we can see what comes out, but your guess is as good as mine as to what goes on in between.

Ben is a Jewish G.I. Joe. I ask those antiwar members of my audience to access to 1950's idealization of the military man. Who knows who Ben'll defend me against, but I will rest assured knowing that he's defending me well. I trust him implicitly.

Orson Ferris Ridgely - I list his full name only because look at it! Orson is sneaky, like a ferret or some other tunnelling rodent. The bottom line with Orson is this: don't leave him alone in a room if you expect him to be there when you get back; lock picks, trap doors, unauthorized access to the school's tunnel system, and the sort of disposition with which one masters those things handily.

Jonah Krueger ("J.Kru") - There are blankets, pillows, mattress pads, fluffy towels, down comforters, stuffed animals, live animals, and then there's J.Kru. Go ahead, reach out and touch him, twirl a lock of his hair, cup your hands around his butt BUT DON'T PINCH! Jonah is one of the cuddliest critters in nature, but it's all too easy to scare him off.

Noah "M.C." Michlinberg - If you've ever seen Disney's TRON, you'll certainly remember the grim array of polygons that caused so much trouble for our protagonist. Well, if anyone is likely to design and implement a computerized reality inhabited by pseudo-humanoid representations of programs ruled by an antagonistic digital demigod, Noah Michlinberg is. TRON coined the name "Master Computer"; we shortened it to "M.C.". He and Vlad ought to get along well.

And then there's Brody, but if you want to know about him you're going to have to read Alfonzo's old posts. I'm not rehashing any of it, hilariously trivial as it might have been.

Vlad and I are a little out of our respective elements, though maybe I'm worse off than he is. I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with living in the same room as him, but we'll see how it goes. Otherwise, I hope you all had pleasant Saturday nights, are having pleasant Sunday mornings and will go on to have pleasant Sunday afternoons.

-Alan

Re-Introduction

Alright, alright, there's one more thing that needs to be done before we can get back to business as usual; I've got to get everyone up to speed on my Junior Year.

This past May, we closed the door to Suite 3100 in Park Hall and turned in our keys. Though Chaz, Vlad and I had agreed, earlier in the semester, to room together this year, certain unforseeable and unexplained events have led Chaz to seek housing off-campus. Alfonzo, it should be noted, knew from the outset that he would be living, alone, in an apartment off Delmar. Given his disposition towards disappearing for days, or even weeks, at a time, I can't truthfully say that I will miss having him around; however, his participation on the Blog is not contingent on his living with me and Vlad.

(....the dust clears....)
And then, there were three.
(....tumbleweed....)
Or rather, six.

The peculiar condition that the blog finds itself in is one of identity-shattering displacement. Where, before, exactly two-thirds of the BlogFam lived in Suite 3100 of Park Hall. At present moment, to the best of my knowledge, none of the members of the BlogFam currently reside in a location called "Suite 3100". In fact, exactly two-thirds of the BlogFam lives in houses or apartments located off of their respective campuses.

The plan had been for Chaz, Vlad and me to move into Greenway--school-provided apartment-esque housing located just North of campus--but Chaz's abdication coincided with a stastical error on the part of the University; namely, more accepted students decided to come to Wash U than the school actually has room for. One of the many consequences of this mistake was that our three-bedroom quasi-apartment was given to a group of three, rather than our gimpy group of two. All freshman being designated a room, and all other rooms having been filled, Vlad and I were told that there was no place for us on campus, and that we'd have to seek shelter elsewhere.

Tragic, isn't it?

As it should happen, the oft-mentioned Brody was experiencing housing difficulties of his own. There was some sort of chain e-mail bounced between Brody and his suitemates (you might remember his gaggle of Engineers; the party-throwers; find them on facebook or something) which piled one too many straws onto poor Brody's back. Through means which I have no intention of explaining, I have obtained and edited this e-mail for your consumption.

-"Oh yeah, Brody, your mom says hi. Shes saying something else but I cant make it out-shes in the shower right now."
-"So much for Italy making Brody classier. Oh well. Maybe he'll come home with a sweet sports car."
-"You talk clearer than you write. And I usually don't understand a damn thing
you say."
"Thats what I told Brody's mom after I unloaded in her mouth"
-"But if it'll keep the semen off of your glasses, Brody, I suppose it'll work fine."
-Brody : "I have yet to stick a potato in Alfonzo's tailpipe."
Lenny : "I should hope so. I only hope he can say the same about your mother."
-"Here's your word of the day: "Owndizzleified"
As in: I totally owndizzleified Brody's Mom last night.
Or: A bunch of teenage girls completely owndizzleified Brody at Halo."
-"Oh yeah...it's Brody's fault. Fucker. Next time I see you, BOOM! HEADSHOT!"

The Summer's abuses mounted, and Brody decided he wasn't going to take it anymore. He worked in secret, finding 5 guys who were willing to live with him. It was at this point that Brody and I communicated for the first time since early May.

He asked, specifically, if Chaz and I would like to live with him and 5 strangers. It should be noted that he had no reason to assume that Chaz and I wouldn't be living with Vlad and Alfonzo again. I told him my own situation and he agreed to take Vlad in place of Chaz. In the space of an afternoon, Brody seceeded from his suite, registered our suite, and bumped his ex-suitemates out by the same principle of priority that made homeless men of me and Vlad.

So, long story short, I'm living with five guys you've never heard of, one you've heard a little too much about, and Vladimir. I'll introduce the guys formally some other time. This post is it's own, and should be kept separate from that.

Good night, I guess.

-Alan

The Networks Did It First

Disappointing myself is something I've finally gotten used to. Long-gone are the days when I'd make conservative estimates of my own willpower and ambition; I just shoot for the stars, hit the ceiling, and make no apologies for my unabashed (and numerous) failures. I insist that this is no fault of my own, but rather the obscure precipitate of a betrayal which I experienced early in life.

I blame FOX for the poor example I live by. It was a very tender time in my life; I'd finally begun collecting a somewhat consistent group of friends, yet, year after year, the school administration seemed to push me into the corner of our elementary campus furthest from my cohorts. My 5th grade year, they did their worst: they stranded me with my two worst friends (they had not done so well as to keep me from my friends altogether) in a class otherwise populated by every person who had ever bullied me during my tenure as a student (as well as a number of inexperienced bullies yet to be rallied to the cause of making me miserable). In a protective maneuver, my teachers looked out for me and befriended me (insofar as a man and woman in their 40's can befriend an 11-year-old), which made me a new, more easily detested form of "Teacher's Pet". I had not volunteered myself, as most pets do, which put me in the peculiar position of resenting my protectors alongside my assailants. Because I had done nothing, asked for nothing and expected nothing in return, the animosity I faced was entirely the initiative of those producing it; in short, they hated me for who I was, and nothing more. Dr. Phil might say that they hated me for what they weren't, but that's the sort of high-mindedness that's likely to get me back into trouble with those around me.

So, back to the outset of this epic excuse: in response to my isolation and estrangement, I became good friends with my Nintendo and my television. The X-Files, Rocko's Modern Life, the whole TGIF block, Pete and Pete.... these shows kept my imagination's pilot light lit in that time of darkness. Rocko and Pete ran on Nickelodeon, so a couple months of Fandom had allowed me to see nearly every episode of their cumulatively weak catalogues; however, the joys of network television were a new discovery that fateful year, and I came to depend on their quasi-weekly regularity. I'd even faced the fact that my shows would disappear shortly before the school year ended. What I had not prepared myself for was the treachery that FOX would unleash upon the world.

6th grade came. I saw my old friends on the playground, heard about all the fun times they were having (nearly all of them had wound up in the same class; the one I'd been in the year before). Under pressure from my mother (you think she's a bitch about pedestrian rights? you should see her when she thinks her child is being neglected by an institution to which she wrote a $10k check to every year. brimstone has nothing on the sulfurous steam she emitted from her nostrils), I'd escaped the bullies while, again, evading my friends. It was a step up, perhaps even a couple, so nobody heard me complaining.... until The X-Files season premiere was pushed back to November 2nd.

Betrayal! Mulder! Sculley! How could the unwitting pallbearers of my social casket just up and abandon me for so many months? At the height of the show's popularity, they had the audacity to arbitrarily extend the season finale's cliffhanger by two whole months!

What does all of this mean? Does it mean that I plan to withhold news of my exciting life from you until November? Perhaps, if that's what it takes to rid myself of these FOX-implanted demons. What I'm really trying to show is how very blameless I am in all of this. I was abandoned by a television show at an early age, and it will forever hinder my ability to provide media entertainment to others. I'm sorry, it's just the way that I am.

-Alan