Bumper stickers Berkeleyites have

I've been at Randy and Loc's house in Berkeley for three days now. This home is a really peaceful home compared to what I've lived in. There was always an unspoken tension at the apartment on Francisco. Living at home was intolerable due to the amount of conflict and unhappiness. Here, there is just harmony.

Randy and Loc have been together for about ten years. They act just like I would have expected a gay couple to act. Randy is very quiet yet firm. He likes to read science fiction novels while resting on the couch or in bed. Loc is the more boisterous of the two and he seems like he could be very "Diva". Loc is very creative using his skills as an artist and his knack for design to decorate the house. There are many paintings, pictures, and found-object art made by Loc decorating their two-story victorian. They both like to watch movies but have different tastes, it seems, when it comes to which movies they watch. They have a beautiful pitbull mix named Priscilla. She's a very playful and affectionate dog and is always striving for attention.

The room I'm sleeping in is the color of grape laffy taffy with a fuschia trim. There is a shelf where, behind pictures of Randy and Loc with their families and friends, there is a hardcover book with Madonna on the cover that has her name in hot pink letters at the top. There is an easel with a canvas where Loc has pictures of women in large, colorful dresses wearing arabesque masks and large headdresses. There are pencil markings on the canvas where the start of another painting is being outlined.

They live in a typical Berkeleyite home but they don't annoy me like typical Berkeleyites.People who have "Free Tibet" " "Meat is Murder" and "Dog is my Copilot" bumper stickers all over they're hybrid cars, mopeds, and fixed-gear bicycles. People with locks of matted hair or short-cropped tresses under paisley bandanas as they carry recyclable canvas grocery bags containing expensive organic and locally grown produce from the day's farmer's market.

 People who have opinions about everything and when that opinion is challenged, they have to picket, protest, riot, hold candlelit vigils, or write a letter to their congressman. People who think they're better than you because they graduated Cal or grew up in a rich family in the hills or wrote a novel or a vegan cookbook that changed the lives of nobody. Randy and Loc both exceed my expectations for what I have discerned as common Berkeleyite traits. I will enjoy my stay here.

My stay here will be unfortunately short-lived. I'll be moving in with Sean and Brian much sooner than expected due to Sean being able to evict his sister recently while his Dad is preparing to move to Placerville. Despite my antipathy for the common Berkeleyite, I really enjoy living in Berkeley and fully understand that not every Berkeley resident fits the mold I have constructed for them. I am hoping to experience more and more of this city while I still live in it.

Are we there yet?

I have never wanted so much for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to based on a true story. Nevermore have I wanted to erase bad memories.

It was pretty much inevitable from the time that Andy moved out that Adam and I were going to have to

move out. That day comes tomorrow. I've rented a U-Haul and Adam has secured us a storage unit to put furniture and boxes in until we move in to permanent digs. I'll be moving in with my friend and co-worker Randy and his partner Loc in their place

in Berkeley. I'll be living there until around August which is when I'll be moving in to Sean's apartment in El Sobrante. He and I and our friend Brian are going to split the rent at Sean's place.

Adam will be house-sitting at Andy's house for a couple weeks and then he'll be house sitting for our friends David and Mary so his situation is slightly more bleak. He'll be living on a couch for a few weeks but then after that, he doesn't really have anywhere squared away.

What exacerbates this whole annoying transition is the fact that neither Adam nor I are financially fit enough to improve our lives. Even if/when we get settled in more permanent homes, we'll still be broke, barely able to pay bills, barely able to keep food in the kitchen, and overall just unhappy. Unless we can find better paying jobs, we will remain this way. I'm hoping to change this within the next year.

Once I can get myself back in school I can start exercising plans for my future, I can start crawling out of this slump. I feel like a child in the backseat of a car during a road trip saying "How much longer?" "I gotta pee." I'm hungry" etc. Life is a mean Dad that wants you to pee in a gatorade bottle and eat that nasty Clif Bar because we still have a long way to go before we get to another rest stop and will be damned if he's going to let you put your wiener out of the car to take a leak. Dad's car. Dad's rules!!!

With no direction home, like a rolling stone

Les Claypool, although more recognized as a TV anthem composer and Primus frontman than he is recognized as an author, wrote a book called South of the Pumphouse. The book is loosely based on Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea only the setting of this slightly twisted tale is a little town called El Sobrante and other of it's surrounding areas in this section of the east bay.  El Sobrante is an unincorporated town policed by the county sherriff's office which is based 30 miles away. The town has no mayor and only one fire department (which is incredibly inconvenient when more than one basement meth lab explodes at a time). No writer that I know of has ever captured the character of a town so vibrantly than Claypool did. Granted, I can't imagine many (if any) people have even thought about writing about the town. Claypool describes the town as a haven for methamphetamine abusers (tweakers), wife-beaters, alcoholics, and blue collar nobodies. He couldn't be more accurate and even wrote a song while with Primus about the people of the town called Those Damned Blue-Collared Tweakers.

I used to live in El Sobrante for about 4 years. I bore witness to the many annoying quirks of this town while I was there including having to wait for my street to be opened up because of police barricades that were put up while federal officers raided a meth lab at the end of my block. The town is like a black hole; no matter how hard you try to escape it, it always seems to suck you back in. I will probably be living there with Sean sometime in the upcoming months. Sean has also experienced the annoying quirks of the town but all too recently.

   Sean lives with his dad, his brother, and his sister, Maureen and her husband and son in El Sobrante. About a week ago, I got a call from Sean at around 11PM saying that his tweaker-sister's husband, an MMA hopeful who weighs twice as Sean and has two strikes on his record, while tweaking out on meth, angrily accused Sean of stealing a pack of cigarettes. Sean had nothing to do with the vanishing prison currency and while explaining such to the angry tweaker, he was punched square in the face by his brother-in-law's boulder-like fist. 

He sustained a very swollen and black left eye and two large cuts on his lips from them being rapidly forced in to his incisors. Sean asked me if I still had a room for rent that he could stay in indefinitely. He had borrowed two month's rent from his brother and I was his last hope of getting out of the unstable environment. While living on the futon in my living room, Sean asked his dad to finally kick his deadbeat sister out of the house so that he could go back home without fearing for his life. All of this came at a really unexpected and nearly convenient time because Adam and I were down to our last week and last hope of getting the spare room filled. We hadn't been able to find anyone and with Sean offering to pay for two months, Adam and I were able to buy some time to arrange to move out on our own terms. Sean went back home today after his dad changed the locks and gave Maureen the boot.

So now I'm left in a bit of a jam: I am forced to move again. After the recent mess with my checking account, I missed two car payments. Because I haven't been able to fully recover yet from that debacle, I won't be able to afford the increase in rent that Adam and I are taking on to reduce the cost of the spare room. A coworker of mine, Randy, who has been a very supportive friend to me in the last few months, offered to let me stay on his couch rent free until Me, Sean, and our buddy, Brian are allowed to take over the rent at Sean's house. At least with that option I can try and pull my finances out of dire straights. So for at least two months, I'll have to box up my life again and put it away in storage.

   Of course, El Sobrante will live up to it's reputation as a black hole and pull me back in to it's dark matter. Even only living there 4 years was apparently enough to plant roots. I have a feeling like I might be homesick for my entire life.

   

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.

All of life's little (and big) curveballs

So after many weeks of depression and self-pity, I finally managed to hook up with some like-minded people who I can hang out and be stupid with. It's been a long time since I've had people like that to be around just because Kate was my only real friend for 5 years and I put off hanging out with others many times to just hang out with her. Oddly enough, all of these  new friends are co-workers who I never expected I would ever hang out with. The first week we all hung out was the first time I had ever partied so hard. Over a span of 4 days I only had about 8 hours of sleep and still had to be at work in the morning. It was really strenuous just trying to keep going but for some reason I would always manage a second (third, fourth, and fifth) wind and be able to just keep going. I decided to make a pact with myself, simply because I rarely got to hang out with other people, that I would never turn down an opportunity to hang out with new friends no matter how wrecked I was from the night (or nights) before. Over those 4 days I learned things about my friends that I never expected. I did things that I never thought I would do or even want to do. I hung out with people that I would otherwise ignore, avoid, or call the police on and actually got to know them and like them. I'm beginning to learn what it's like to be a normal 24-year-old guy.

One great aspect to this crazy transition is that I'm starting to find out that girls may actually somewhat be attracted to me. What a concept, right?  However, I am also learning the harsh realities of being male. Let's just say that something happened to me that I'm used to seeing in movies or hearing comedians joke about that I always thought would NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER happen to me. I've been able to be cool and laugh about it now but to put it coarsely, penises get you in trouble.

All embarrassment aside, I'm slowly learning how to be comfortable with myself and I'm trying to be more self-motivated and not have to depend on someone for motivation. I'm getting "out there" and playing the field which is something I was never interested in doing. I'm taking care of my health a little better now by working out and taking multivitamins and going on hikes (I'm sure drinking like a fish and smoking like the caterpillar from Alice and Wonderland are balancing all that out but that's beside the point). I just registered with the regional parks district to go on hikes around the bay area. These are some pictures from the first hike which happened to be at the Albany bulb. I've been to the bulb a few times before so it was a good chance to get my bearings and prepare for a real hike. 

I'll be doing more hikes and definitely be doing other things to put myself out there. I'm finally breaking free of my clingy-ness and I'm branching myself out. You've probably seen a lot of  "Me, Myself, and I" throughout this post and I'm not one to be selfish usually but right now I'm focusing on making me, myself, and I happy because I've gone too long trying to make other people happy. 

Sometimes you have to walk in the rain

I have been really depressed lately. I think I'm finally starting to come to grips with "officially" being an adult. 

This shopping list drained the last of my money from my bank account last week and it reminded me of when my mom was my age raising me. She used to always say "I can't afford that" when I would ask for something that we didn't need like a toy or a candy bar or something like that. I remember the cartoon Dino Riders had it's own line of toys that were very popular when I was young. It was about some good guys and some bad guys  from the future who accidentally get sent back into prehistoric times and put GI JOE style battle armor on dinosaurs and battle. I remember asking my mom to buy me the T-Rex with the eye-laser helmet and hearing her say "I can't afford that". I told her "but it's only this big" as I raised my four-year old hand to the middle of my stomach because to me size was relative to the cost of something. As much as I get depressed about how broke I am, I like to think that those times when it was just me and my mom were some of the best.

I've been trying my hand at dating now that Kate and I are just friends on hiatus and it hasn't been working out so well. I called up a girl I sort of had a crush on from one of my classes and asked if she was single. She told me she was and we arranged to go out and have drinks one night when she got off of work. We listened to a three person band doing (badly) an instrumental cover of In the Garage by Weezer and played a card game called Demon which was just a slower version of a game I used to play in high school called California Speed. After that we drove up to Indian Rock in Berkeley so I could show her the view from this part of the bay area then we called it a night. I called her (probably too many times, which I have a terrible habit of doing) to try and get a second date but after several attempts she replied back telling me that she wasn't interested in dating and she was still in love with her ex. Bummer. But I dealt with it in stride.

In the same month, this beautiful girl who I work with who works a seasonal position stopped in one night while I was working. We arranged to hang out THAT WEEK which was exciting. I get really intimidated by beautiful women so having one so eager to hang out made me really happy. That Wednesday, we went out to Stinson Beach. We had Safeway deli sandwiches, we skimboarded (or at least tried to skimboard), we tossed a frisbee around, and went on a nice long walk up and down the beach and talked about how life deals you shitty cards sometimes; I don't like that analogy because I don't play cards. Let's say life gave us shitty light conditions (photography). Anyways, We connected because we both have ne'er-do-well younger brothers who are the same age. After the beach we went out to Beckett's for dinner and then went back to my apartment for drinks and a movie. She held my arm on the way back to the car. We watched Superbad and drank Guinness while curling up on the couch together. There was a lot of mutual flirting going on and I was really happy with how the day turned out. While I drove her home I asked if she wanted to hang out the next morning before I went to work. So we went out for breakfast at Fatapples and went for a walk through the botanical gardens in Tilden Park. More flirting ensued and as I said my goodbyes, we kissed on her porch; Let me emphasize the WE in WE KISSED. I called her that day (once again, probably too many times like an idiot [also probably mentioning too many times how great those two days were]) to see if she wanted to go catch a movie the next day. I didn't hear from her at all the rest of the day but when I checked my facebook messages the next morning i was stunned to see this: 

OK Breandan, i can't do this. i don't feel whatever it is that you feel about us. when you invited me to the beach and stuff i though it was just as friends and that's all i wanted us to be and then all of a sudden it was a date and i was not expecting or really into that idea. i', sorry for not being clear on that point at the time, it's just that all this has really caught me off guard (caught YOU off guard?). you're really sweet (really?) but i'm just not into you that way (i'm so sick of that cliche). i'm sorry for leading you on.

p.s. please don't call anymore. thanks. (tell me if I'm wrong but was the P.S. necessary?)

I don't handle rejection well so, naturally, I was incredibly depressed for the next couple of days and slightly depressed the rest of the week. I know it's lame to be depressed because of a girl but when it comes at you like that, the only thing you can do is cry real hard and then get over it. Of course, in my depressed state, I thought that Kate would be able to make me happy but she has become more detached from this relationship than I have because she has found friends (which is great and I'm incredibly happy for her) but trying to get sympathy from her didn't work and we just ended up having a big fight in the pouring

 rain. It hadn't occurred to me as I walked back to my apartment in the 

rain from Kate's truck that this was a metaphor for my life.

I was playing my guitar the other day trying to learn some Chuck Ragan

songs (because they're easy and I'm not that great) and I looked at the 

lyrics to the song Don't Cry. The last lyrics of the song are: 

We're pushing change and we all need to walk in the rain.

It still didn't hit me then but later that night, my friend Randy and I went for a 

couple drinks after work and after a White Russian, it hit me.

The Running Free

Friday 11:30 pm-Interstate 80

You're going Home 

You're Running Free

As if you would be 

if  you never owed them anything

And now you're on your way out

In the trust you've seen 

your path on home.

I didn't feel like I was going home. I was driving to the new place but it didn't feel like home. It still doesn't. I feel like I'm in a holding pattern. I know this place is just temporary and it's unsettling. I feel unrelaxed. However, when this song came on, the words that stuck in my mind were running free. I don't feel like I have a home but I feel free. I have officially fled the coop.

Andy, Adam, and I recently got moved in to our new place. It's a small two bedroom apartment in upper North Berkeley. It's a beautiful and relatively quiet area. We live right near the Cal Berkeley campus so we have many grad students for neighbors. This is the view from my bed. I picked up a loft bed from IKEA and set it up in the living room because I don't have my own room. I only have about a foot and a half of clearance between myself and the rough painted stucco ceiling but at least we have a decent living area that we don't have to be embarrassed about when we have company. $300 to not look stupid in front of people. Was it worth it? You be the judge. 

It took about three days for me to finally get settled. two of those days were spent putting my rather large 

bed together by myself. Underneath my bed I have a large comfy egg chair and a shelf with my DVDs and CDs. I put up some framed pictures along the wall underneath just so I could claim that small space for myself and leave the rest of the living space up for communal decoration. 

The nights are quiet. When Andy's not at his girlfriend Estrella's house, he's usually in bed by 10pm and Adam shortly after. The neighbors are all pretty much quiet with the exception of one. He woke me up this morning with the sound of really loud crooning echoing through the bathroom vents. This went on for about 30 minutes before he started to add a little percussion to his dreadful singing. This included banging on the sink and what maybe sounded like a towel rack. All I wanted to do was sleep in a bit but for the next hour all I heard was my loud, obnoxious upstairs neighbor.

At this point I feel neutral about the whole living situation. I'm not incredibly happy about it but I'm not incredibly upset either. I'm unhappy in the sense that I have to scrape whatever remnants of a paycheck I have to throw towards rent, utilities, and parking (yes I have to pay for parking and yes I agree that it's totally stupid) on top of having to pay my other bills. I'm also unhappy that I had to leave my old home under the circumstances that I did; I don't want to not live at home but I can't live there if I want to maintain any sort of healthy mental state. Ironically enough, my brother and I finally started to get along after years of us hating each other. Overall I think the amount of money I'm spending and the amount of stress I'm incurring are all a small price to pay for my independence.