Bombardment

This blog entry is dedicated to the memory of my dog, Mickey.

It's been a long time since I've made an entry in this blog. About three months. Not really a huge amount of time, but probably the most eventful quarter-year I've ever had.

For starters, my dog was murdered.

After John moved out of the house, Mom had a hard time paying her bills and the rent. I was sucked in to these money problems when my phone (which is still on a joint plan with my Mom) was repeatedly getting cut off due to my Mom not paying the bill. My brother convinced her to allow one of his friends to move in and help out with the rent. One night while my Mom was at her new boyfriend's house in Napa, my brother's roommate got shithoused drunk and got really pissed off with my brother. The roommate locked Patrick out of the house and proceded to pummel my old, innocent dog, Mickey. The police were called but the damage was done; Mickey was left to die in the house while the roommate made a hasty escape before the cops could show. The next morning, Mickey had to be put down.

I only found out about this because of a call I got at work from John's brother, Vince. He was wondering about what happened with Mickey and spoke of whether or not he needs to get the cops over to my Mom's house.

In the end, the police and the District Attorney's office were involved. They spent about two weeks just trying to find the roommate but eventually caught up to him. He was charged with two felonies and will be serving prison time. I hope this guy burns in hell.

I went back to Mexico this year. I hadn't been since I left the church three or four years ago. This time it was with a different church who used to go down with my church. We stayed with families who lived in the town. I have never felt such a strong connection with the people down there than I did this time. I don't know if it was the hospitality or if it was just me being around a nurturing group of people after being away from such groups for a while or if it was a combination of the two but I do know that I have never cried on the day we left and I have never wanted to stay there so badly in any of the previous years I went. I'll be writing a separate blog about the trip soon.

I made a lot of new friends on the trip including Valentin, who randomly invited me several times to go night fishing at the Berkeley marina and catch stingrays and sharks. One night I went there to meet him after work and came across him and his buddy trying to figure out how to haul up a 150-lb. stingray.

They ended up having to drag it from almost 3/4 of the length of the pier and dragged it up on shore. Aside from that really exciting moment, going out there at nighttime is so peaceful. Just sitting in my camping chair bundled up, listening to waves, waiting for a bite all made me incredibly relaxed amidst my troubles.

I got together a box of things that reminded me of Kate. That box contains:

-1 pair of plastic gag teeth

-1 piece of artwork made w/ izze soda caps and construction paper

-1 piece of artwork made with copper wire and marbles

-1 pair of sunglasses

-1 high school ID of Kate's

-1 copy of the Juno soundtrack

-1 copy of the book All About Us completely filled out

-1 hangman puzzle book with some pages filled out by us

-1 handmade tie made by Kate

-1 wooden frog

-1 scrapbook of us given to me for my birthday

-3 small plastic bags filled with confetti

-7 handmade stickers taken from encyclopedia pictures

399 PHOTOGRAPHS

I was originally intending to burn the contents of the box on an upcoming camping trip,but the angel on my shoulder aka my friend from photo class, Jessica Beach, told me that the better idea would be to tape up the box and stow it away for a while. When I asked her to take it for me, she agreed.

I randomly ran into Meaghan Yarnold, the sister of my old friend Patrick(Pappy) at a party that my friend, Morgan had. Since then we have randomly been hanging out for the last few weeks. The new late night hang out is Happy Donuts on San Pablo Ave. in Albany. The donut shop is open 24-hours and we've found ourselves there at 3am just talking about stuff we remembered about each other from all the years back.

It's been only three months since we've moved in to this apartment but Andy has already moved out to live with his girlfriend. I feel a bit abandoned and tossed aside about it but I wasn't completely surprised that this happened or how soon it happened. At least, not yet. Right now I'm too worried about finding a new roommate and being able to afford my rent since my rent would have to go up $75 just to make it fair to any perspective roommates. Especially after what happened with my checking account.

Apparently, someone obtained my checking information by hacking a gas pump ATM. They "hot carded" it which means they put that information on to a dummy card and just charged everything as a credit. The card was used in New York and bought someone a bunch of stuff from Champs Sports and McDonald's. Whoever was using it overdrew my checking account by nearly $400. Since then, I've had my money reimbursed to me but not before I missed my last car payment. Right now I am trying to refinance my car loan to get my car company off my back and to free up some money to help with rent and to feed myself.

These last three months have tested me greatly. There have been many times in these last months where I've wanted to kill myself just to end all of this hardship. I've had a lot of help-both with verbal support and monetary support-that have helped me to get through this. I've felt like a 16th-century British Navy Schooner being bombarded by a haggard-assed black pirate ship with Satan's blood being used to swab the deck and spiked cannonballs that released hot acid, flesh-eating swine flu, and Dane Cook (Dane Cook get's released like a damn Pokemon) when they crashed through the fragile wooden hull of my ship.

SO I WAS IN THIS CANNONBALL. *unnecessary amounts of laughter for something that obviously isn't a punch line* AND I CRASHED THROUGH THIS SHIP. *unnecessary interpretive gestures* And I was like "DUDE! DID SOMEBODY SEE THAT?!" *raise the "reverse rock fingers" as the crowd shits itself with excitement*

Now that things are starting to shape out a little better, I'm able to take a breath to vent a little bit. I can guarantee that I'm going to run to trouble again sometime later down the line. But I'm also becoming a lot more confident with myself and I'm able to respond like an adult to the trials of life.