So I heard you like updates...

**NOTE**
This page used to be the go to characters list. Now there is a Cast of Characters page on the right hand side of the blog for all the characters I have written about. This page also has some good quotes further down, so its still worth a read! -JTY
**

So it turns out, in residential life at a school with a quarter system... September is a very busy month, hence the lack of updates.

so before i give any updates i feel the need to compile a list of nicknames i've created thus far. this is part due the fact that i don't remember who i'm calling what and also because some people have demanded or necessitated renames. Plus i'm beginning to suspect that some of you only read my blog for the nicknames ;)

The cast (in rough order of appearance)

Maniac Magee (my boss) AKA JD who wished for a new name. wish granted: Naysayer P. Squirrel (the P stands for porpoisephone)
Clark Gable (one of my roommates)
Brock (my other roommate)
Alejandro (our friend, grew up with Brock)
Steakhouse (friend and staff member I've known for a long time)
GF (my gf) she wants a better identity so I shall call her Tenshi which means Angel in Manga err.. Japanese
Kareem and Jordan (they are twins)
Penny (Jordan's fiance)
Diet Lemonade (she's a nutritionist or dietitian or something healthy)
Santa Claus (another boss of mine)
N.I.N. (a friend a coworker of mine) I've decided her name is obscure and complicated. She is now Whedon Watchedit (which is now only semi-obscure and a fun pun)
Spam Boa (my best friend who lives in Utah)
P-Diddy (i still laugh at her name... a friend from school, she lived in Singapore for a while)
Yellow Piggy (a friend and former staff member when I was a student)
Drewe Yorke aka Jules (my brother, I think I finally settled on Jules Drewe Yorke)
Banana Slug (a friend and former boss of mine)
VG Anteater (Banana Slug's BF, the VG comes from a webcomic called VG Cats)
Sassy Gay Friend (former resident director at work)
El Bandito (friend from the first staff I was ever on in college)
Heavy Spy (good friend who occasionally dresses like me)
Suite Buddy (my fellow ARD who left me for better things across country)
Nemesis (a friend who I frequently battled to the death during our first 4 years of friendship)
Bridges (a friend I've known since high school and went to college with me)
Kirbs (my brothers gf)
Cheeky Monkey (my sister)
Tia Favorita (my favorite aunt... yea its not that original)
Dungeon Daddy (good friend from that first staff also)
Spotty Sister (Tenshi's Twin)
Angry Beaver (Tenshi and Spotty's friend from high school)
Micki Granger (another friend from staff)

That's everyone that's made an appearance as of 10/10/10. I'll probably keep adding people below and using this blog as my notes list.

UPDATE 5/15 All the new people so far (I've been putting them in the comment section but here we go.

Jabbertalky- My HS friend who is a bit of a talker...
Princess Predator- supervisor of some of my boss's coworkers
Mama Goldfish- very good friend from hs and college
Sunshine Knives- Very good college friend, among other things she knows ninjutsu
Always Playing VGs- APV, Mama Goldfish's BF
Charptooth- one of AVP's best friend
Pokeboss- a student leader
Captain Peanut- a programmer who is allergic to peanuts :)
Mustang Alley- a friend of ours who has a sweet Mustang
Settler Type- Bridges' BF
Pandita- A sweet loving staff member
Dr. Beeker Flips- my good friend in med school
Missy Sunflower (cheery), Royal Rose (socializer), Green Trickster (do it in the dark), Hungry Brawler (smashing programmer), Britney Bell (popculture obsessed leader), Shy Rider (quiet but funny ball in cup champion), Beatboxed Arms (tough guy, sweet heart)- some of my 10-11 staff
Nobel Dancer- Great staff member and Indian dancer, staff 10-11
King Wrangler- kinda my lil bro on staff 10-11
Fall Girl- King Wrangler's gf who go blamed for any staff tricks
Chai Ducky (friend and RA) -staff 09-10
President Futballer (my partner and friend on staff)- 09-10
Punk Sister (another great RA who I stay in touch with) -09-10
RC Tequila- Friend since first year who took time off to live in Mexico for a bit
Terrific Craniac- Former "staff" member though she wasn't on my staff, also my Cranium partner
Tiana Gamer- Heavy Spy's GF
Faithful Filmer- Sunshine Knives bf
Math Magician-good friend and former resident
Fontaine Patisserie- Old friend and fellow staff member
Daughter Pleasant- Very happy friend, I think Steakhouse is the mom
Sarcastic Sasser-Friend, staff member and close with Tenshi, Steakhouse and the crew..
Shyly Sue Hoo- Captain Peanut's gf
Green Suited Pastaman- AVPs really good friend

As it is getting late, I'm probably not going to continue my summer updates here. Instead I'm going to leave a bunch of quotes I have sitting around and do another update later this week. I'm feeling productive so I feel like that is not an empty promise.

on to the quotes:

"If I ate your head, would you run around like a chicken?" -I associate this with Yellow Piggy. I'm not sure why.

"I can drive the cart. It's just those bystander people things... I mean it does have insurance..." -Naysayer P. Squirrel

"Porpoise phone? Do you mean Persephone?" Banana Slug to Naysayer P. Squirrel on discussing Percy Jackson.

These next few end up having a running theme that makes fun of me. Let me set the scene though:

This isn't a quote but just a moment that makes me laugh. Brock is lying on our futon, sucking on a champagne bottle and talking nonsense. Suddenly, he has a thought and gets excited. "Wait..." he starts and then forgets to hold the champagne bottle and drops it onto his head. "Ow...." he says, surprised. Bystander laughter ensues.

Later, I had another foot in mouth moment: 'Does anyone ever have those moments where they're like, 'Damn I'm long'" (I was commenting on the length of my arm... facepalm)

I don't even know the context for this one but it was one of Brock's many non sequitors :
Brock- "Yea, it's hard getting drunk with pregnant people"

Another random by Brock, I think the bottle knocked him senseless- "Oh! I can't write down all the people I've had sex with unless I have 6 hours on a train with Aderol"

Alejandro- "James, you're gunna have to be enough of a girl for both of us" (sigh)

Tenshi- "Just when you think James is really innocent, he lies" (the context for this was about how i play board games and whatnot... it was a bad quote night for me...)

To wrap up the night and the James-related quotes, Brock says, "I feel like we're giving his (James') Eulogy. But he's not dead... He's standing right there..."

That will do it for now. Goodnight!

Listening to: "Privilege" by Incubus, who I like a lot better after I saw them in concert in Utah last summer.

Reading: JLA comic books... I've been in the mood for superhero stories of late and DC has met my needs.

Playing: Spam Boa and I had a nice streak going in SC2 but L4D2 just got new DLC... guess I'll just hafta keep playing both.

-JTY

Summer Highlights Part 1

So I am sooo tired right now and yet I refuse to have a whole month without any blog updates, so you get part 1 of my planned summer exploits. I have a list in front of me that I've been compiling, so its not like I haven't been thinking about blogging, its just I haven't made time.

Summer actually more or less ended at the start of August for me when I went back to work. I know for some the concept of getting part of the summer "off" is strange but most of us are or recently have been students, so that makes the summer seem short. I simply haven't been making time to update this blog and I apologize. While doing multiple updates in rapid succcession doesn't feel like I'm solving the problem, hopefully I'll form better writing habits in the process and have a bunch of shorter blogs. Fingers crossed.

So two quick stories from my summer that may be of interest to you:

My sister, Cheeky Monkey, celebrated her 18th birthday this month. She is the youngest in my family and it's amazing how we are all adults now and off to (or in my case just out of) college. Me and the GF drove down to meet my family at Benihana's, which I had never been to before. It was awesome. A performing chef made us lovely food and the restaurant did the birthday cheer for my sister. We used to always joke the I was the smart one, Jules Drewe Yorke was the funny one and Cheeky Monkey was the cute one and it still stands. My short, oft-teased sister had a blast and to my eyes was still the cute little kid following us boys around playing dinosaurs and stealing GI Joes to marry her Barbies.

While the party itself was chill, even when my sister hammed it up with her presents which included cute underwear courtesy of Tia Favorita (which my dad, brother and I pretended did not bother us that she really was that old), she also showed me her loaned guitar and how to play around on it. I am completely an artistic failure but with the help of my sister and the internet I popped out the opening chords to Stairway to Heaven and it was bliss. When the GF showed us some Metallica, that made it an even sweeter deal. The party died down, but not before I played one more big brother prank on my sweet sibling. I'm not going to explain it, just watch this video and picture me cackling mercilessly hehehehhehehehehe. http://www.todaysbigthing.com/2010/02/02

Another highlight of the summer was attending the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I had seen the movie before but the GF, myself, Dungeon Daddy, Spotty Sister, Heavy Spy, and Angry Beaver decided to try something new before Spotty Sister left for an Island in the Sun for the next 5 years... quitter. Anyway, before I knew what was happening a golden speedo's muscular man was drawing lips on my face in lipstick and I had V's scrawled on my cheeks for being a Rocky Horror Virgin and I looked over to see the women with Penis written on their foreheads and chest and we all around looked ridiculous. After being surrounded by scantily clad people and people so risquely dressed that the scantily clad people were ashamed of them, I (and about 200 other virgins) simultaneously proceeded to get mass dry humped by the entire cast before we could watch the show on screen and acted out. We laughed, we cried, we struggled to stay awake at points, we wished we could hear all the witty comebacks the audience threw out there and of course we time warped with the best of them. All in all a thoroughly amusing and fun experience. All the time we were there though we wondered which part would make our friend Micki Granger literally die. We decided it was probably if she had been asked to fake an orgasm on stage in the likeness of her father having sex with her mother. yea...

So that's all for now. It's almost midnight and I gotta get this up. Next time, I'm going to try to figure out what I've named everyone so far, to be consistent and also change some things, and I have plenty more summer stories.

I leave you with this Brock quote: "You know you are a whore when you've hooked up with two people of the same name"

Now playing: Starcraft 2 hence no blog updates...
Now reading: Choice Theory by Dr. William Glasser... its for work!
Now listening to: Well the Time Warp again... it always gets stuck in my head when I think about it...

Celebrate America Day?

I started writing my thoughts for this one down on the 4th of July. So although that was while ago, I think the delay emphasizes my eventual point of how little we keep Independence Day and our nation in our minds.

One night not long ago as I was driving home, I felt like listening to talk radio. I don't remember who I tuned in to, but one of the points the callers and the dj were making was that very few people would actually be reflecting on the birth of our country and the United States in general. This made me think that yes, that's true. People will think about how its a holiday and they don't have to work and there are parties and barbecues and fireworks and drunk drivers and all the normal holiday things. But like so many of our holidays, we don't think about the reasons we have the holidays.

This criticism is not new. Every Christmas, Easter, and even holidays like Veteran's and Memorial Day I've heard people make these commentaries. Often for the religious affiliated days, people say well I don't believe in that or we don't want to impose the religious beliefs on people so its secularized. I find that sad because it has resulted in a lessening of the holiday to the people that do believe in it but regardless, what are people's excuses for Independence Day? Aren't we all American? And aren't many of us that aren't American here because we want to someday become American. There is a very small minority of people in the country that don't want to be here because its America. They may not want to be here because they were forced out of their homes or had to come here for economic/work/bigger issues. But generally, the people here like America, at least in concept.

And Independence Day is ABOUT THE CONCEPT! It's about standing up and saying I am a free person who wants the chance to pursue my own dreams. Its about the values of liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and living our lives. It's about standing up with pride saying this is my country, I would fight for it, I am loyal to it, I love it.

I think many people like the idea of America, but have become disillusioned with it, angry at it, caught up in the political this and that and that they associate the country as a bad, horrible place. I think we get so caught up in complaining that we don't appreciate our country. Why don't we ever get so caught supporting our country or lauding it?

What really solidified these thoughts in my head was a conversation I had with the GF on our way home after the 4th of July festivities. She had learned about the escape stories her Armenian grandparents went through during the Armenian genocide by the Turks. I listened as she told me about how some fled sensing the impending disaster that staying would result in. And how some were forced to stay. One of her grandparents got a job with a Turkish family as a kind of nanny and English tutor. She was accepted there by everyone but after the genocide really went underway, the mother of the household came to her and told her to leave before the head of the household came home. So her grandmother had to leave her whole life behind or her boss would have turned her in. Listening to the GF tell these stories was like hearing a movie script. Hiding away, sneaking out in the middle of the night, betrayal and the goodwill of strangers helping others escape to Greece. I felt so humbled that our country does not have the infuriating history that overlooked Armenia has had.

So this 4th and beyond, I'm trying to appreciate all the good things about the country that I am proud to be a part of. That's not saying I won't look at the actions of its people with a critical eye. I just want to do my part and proudly strive to make my country just as awesome as it was in 1776.

As summer continues to creep in and weather steadily gets better, I am not actually working in Summercamp right now. That picks up next month. For now I am happily part-time employed and enjoying the extra time I have for sleeping and video games.

But as I have mentioned that I would talk about Traps, I look back on the waning days at Summercamp and a particular program that I supervised. One of the events was a Pie Your Supervisor. Well, my student teams talked JD into getting pied but since I was overseeing the program, I was exempt. Also, I think the thought of pieing JD was way more enticing to all of us. Still, as the moment arrived, I noticed most of my staff as actually afraid of pieing him. Naturally, this meant I had to set the example. He'd been pied maybe six times and suddenly noone else had the nerve. But they all had the nerve to encourage me.

I filled my paper plate with whip cream and stepped to the line. The object was to toss the paper plate about 6 feet and hope it hit the right supervisor (there were two of them going at the same time). Hope to hit? Yea right. I admit I had every intention of charging JD and rubbing the plate across his face. Having been pied before, I knew that you had to do this gently so you wouldn't poke their eyes or give them a bloody nose. As I stood there with the pie, letting the suspense build and planning a route that wouldn't leaving me slipping on the melted whip cream on the floor, JD sprung his first trap. He charged at me and over that short distance I literally had one second to raise my hand out in front of me to stop him. My hand that held the pie of course. JD ran square into my outstretch arm, slamming his face into the plate and tackling me, covering my new sweatshirt in the whip cream that already covered his body. Naturally everyone cheered because they got to see one supervisor tackle his assistant AND they got to see their other supervisor essentially punch his boss right in the face with a pie.

Well at least I didn't break his nose. We kinda laughed it off and he went back to being pied. Just as the program was ending it occurred to me that I should disappear before he was free to hug/tackle me again. I literally turned to go and suddenly this man had leapt onto my back and I literally caught and carried him, all the while getting whip cream wiped into my hair and all over my sweatshirt again. Trap 2.

"OK OK we're even" I said. I went to wash up and judging by all the whip cream on me you can guess it took like 10 minutes in the public 1person bathroom. Finally free of the cool whip and holding my lost cause sweatshirt, I open the door. Before I can even register what happened, a WAVE of water slammed into my face. Trap 3 courtesy of JD who had been waiting outside the bathroom the whole time. Now I smell like whip cream, have no sweatshirt and and wearing a drenched t-shirt as the cool evening air kicked in. Revenge must be had!

As our programmers cleaned up, I noticed a shovel and pail in the sandpit. Grabbing the pail, I returned to the bathroom to arm myself. I then followed JD around the entire building sneaking slowly closer, closer, closer until I lept out from behind the corner and tossed the water onto JD. But the suckers fast and managed to punch at the pail, resulting in an explosion of water that fortunately pretty much completely land on JD anyway. The pail had a whole clear through it and at least we were even. Amusing, I not only got the last laugh but an encore when about 30 minutes later JD, dry and changed, walked out of his office and heard a bush move. He jumped, scream STOP WITH THE WATER and turned to see one of the many squirrels staring at him innocently. I wasn't even on campus haha!

I promised to mention the story of Sassy Gay Friend meeting Alejandro. There's not much to tell other that they both can take alcohol like beasts and it was an eerie moment where both my worlds collided. It would be drinking club that brings these things about. I dunno if SGF and Alejandro will ever meet again but I do enjoy having someone who knows me outside the dept hanging out, relaxed with my work buddies, so perhaps this summer we all go drinking again.

On to Brock's Block. This episode features a few very Brock moments in which I just shake my head and go Oh Brock. One came when we were having our Star Wars movie marathon. It came to our attention that two of our good friends, Nemesis and Bridges, had never seen any Star Wars movie (BLASPHEMY!). We hosted a viewing at our apt with its giant TV and had like 10 people over for the party. Brock decided to chill in his room until well after the first two movies emerging only for food. This gives me the opportunity to point out the other sides of Brock that I don't normally address in this blog. For one thing, he can disappear in his bed. Whole days can pass by with Brock spending half of them sleeping and the other half far away in cyberspace.

Another side of him came out when he emerged for pizza. At dinner, while many of us were engaged in explaining the nuances and brilliant details of Star Wars to the new and less nerdy, Brock struck up a conversation about the importance of investing in the stock market and various ways in which such investments can bring fortunes. Which brings up both the intellectual side of Brock and his money mindedness. Always looking for a good deal or a way to turn a profit from a sale, its no wonder he didn't go into Business. I'm not surprised in the least that he buys stuff so much from Amazon.com but he also resells much of that to pay for his dinner.

All this boils down to a deep financial discussion in the midst of the epic Original Triology viewing of Star War-epic proportions. Oh Brock.

Another moment came a week earlier. My brother, Jules and his girlfriend, Kirbs, came over to visit me for a little on Sunday. Alejandro and Brock where there after a night of drunken debauchery that involved a lot of things that I'll leave your mind to fill in. Needless to say, the result was Brock decided to create a hand written graph of all the people he had sex with and how they were connected to each other. The thing took up a full page and was like a spider web of different names intertwining, getting really interesting when people that were straight turned out to be gay and other people were just into experimenting. I learned a little more than I wanted to about Brock and a fair number of other people. My brother learned WAY more than he had intended to that day and poor Kirbs has only met Brock when he was totally gone at the Lady Gaga party we had and on this day, I can't imagine what impression she has of him. That said, Brock, I do know its a positive one. An amused one, but a positive one. And of course, a conversation about people's sex lives also leads to interesting opinions and discussions about what counts as sex. Brock has never been one to be discreet. More like graphic. But yea, I just shook my head and said, Oh Brock.

So finally, after two weeks hacking away at this long blog, I can publish it. Sorry for the typos, I am just trying to get it out. No quotes from Brock today because my book is not hear but I have a full new page of them so I'll be sure to treat you next time. And that next time won't be long away. Promise.

Reading: The Magician's Nephew (only one more Narnia book after this!)
Playing: Alien Swarm, Left 4 Dead 2, and Super Mario Galaxy 2 (but that's just the last 24 hours)
Listening to: "Duel of the Fates" John Williams if you don't know what this is, then you can come over for the movie viewing part 2

I don't know why you say goodbye I say "safe travels"

Today I had dinner and watched some movies with a few staff members including Banana Slug, NIN, VG Anteater and Suite Buddy, who has my partner in crime in the buildings we help supervise. I'd say Suite Buddy and I are tight. Back in September, we planned a whole retreat for our teams together and at the end of the day, our teams still barely knew each other but we were Suite Buddies for life. When the times were stressful and we were literally banging our heads on the walls, we had each other to commiserate with.

Well, today I suddenly realized this would be the last time I saw her before she leaves for her new job across the country. I was saddened by the departure of my friend and ally here at work. And as I gave her a big goodbye hug and she walked away, she said "Goodbye" and my response was "Safe Travels."

I walked to my car thinking about those parting words. It's something I ponder a lot in general. What do you say for a goodbye, whether temporary or permanent? If you could choose your last words, what would they be? I am reminded of a Terry Pratchett character who realizes that he is about to die and decided this would be a good time for his final words. "I really wish I wasn't here" he says. I think the quotes on my Facebook if you want the full thing. But really though, what would my last words be. The last lines of a book or especially a movie are a really big deal. Many characters are remembers for their parting thoughts whether it was "Frankly my dear I don't give a damn" as he walks out the door or "NOOOOOOO" as he falls to his doom. It sums up a person's character.

If you want, post some of your favorite last lines in the comment sections. I'm trying to make this blog more interactive and I don't think you need to sign up to comment.

Knowing that life will most likely bring Suite Buddy back to me or me to her if I manage to get out to visit (I have been meaning to travel...), I feel satisfied with my wish for her to travel safely. This is not a goodbye, which I supposes means nothing really but goodbye. Rather it is a "practical" wish for my friend to be safe so that I can see her again. So I ponder what makes a good goodbye and how I think its an underlying denial that anything could possibly be a permanent goodbye that makes me hesitant to be offer something so definitively an ending.

So "though I'm not normally like this" I will offer a special shout out to my Suite Buddy and may her new job be wonderful and may she travel safely back home to us here soon. Its not goodbye but it is ta ta for now.

On a totally different note, I was walking up the hill to my car today, and a pristine tennis ball came rolling down the street to me. I thanked the Easily Amused gods and picked it up, playing with it until I accidentally through it in a rose bush.

And then I found 10 dollars...

I wish. Well in honor of my Suite Buddy, I will share the Times story I've been promising. We recently went to a dinner show called Medieval Times. Myself, along with Banana Slug and Vg Anteater joined the rest of the graduate students which included NIN and Suite Buddy among others. No JD did not come despite it being one of his favorite places ever!

After totally stressing out over being late and going through traffic and not being able to see the GF before I left, I finally arrive before most of the others. Naturally. I proceeded to not know how to get into the building and therefore walked in the back through the employee entrance. A few of the squires looked like they were going to get up and stop me, then said eh, whatever and sat back down.

So yea, I single handedly invaded the castle and I didn't even have a sword!

After meeting up with everyone and purchasing a nice stein of rum and coke (I don't do beer), we were able to watch the show, eat a whole chicken with our hands, and root for the Green Knight who was the villain in this film. Besides epic knight duels, jousting, swordplay, and mediocre acting, there were a few real treats. For one, the main host was pretty funny and kept alluding to pop culture references while still maintaining a medieval air and accent. There is something hysterical about a knight quoting Lady Gaga. Also, the was falconry. And while I love birds of prey (I mean they are RAPTORS afterall) and think animals should be respected and cared for, both free and in captivity, I laughed just as hard as the next person when this majestic bird flew elegantly around the arena and promptly smashed into the protective plastic wall surround the jousting pit. The bird was fine but its dignity was forever marred. All in all though, especially in comparison to the jousts I saw two weeks earlier at the Renaissance Faire, the show was good and fairly well acted and battled. Too bad we were the bad knight. We were the coolest but it was inevitable that we'd betray the king and try to overthrow the kingdom, ultimately losing to a prince. Better luck next time Macbeth.

All in all the night was lovely until, upon leaving the Times, I was pulled over for talking on a cell phone and got a $150 ticket. Worst of all, I was calling my mom! Sad face. Part of me was angry that the cop wasn't out taking on the drug dealers, hit and runners, and angsty teenagers with their graffiti cans, part of me was just relieve that I have a high tolerance for alcohol and only had one drink that night a long time before I met the officer. Worst part, my initial reaction was to call my mom and tell her what had happened. Yea, that woulda been dumb.

Changing gears, I haven't done a good Brock's Block in a while. This is in part because he hasn't done anything particularly out there that I have been present for. That is mostly my fault since I've been devoting a lot of time at school and hanging out after hours a lot too. He does sleep at an unreasonable 10pm many nights. That said, lately, he's been up until 12 or later and I shed a tear because I'm so proud of him.

One thing you should understand about Brock is he enjoys alcohol. But he's querky about it. He likes to drink alone. He likes hard cider and wine the best but he is also the only one in our apartment who drinks beer. So often I will come home to find 3 or four beers/hard cider bottles or an empty bottle of wine sitting at our coffee table and think we had people over before realizing its just Brock. Even stranger, if people are coming over, Brock will drink BEFORE they show up and then stop once everyone else starts to drink. He likes his buzz but he doesn't like to share it I guess. This often leads to situations where Brock is drunk and everyone else is just starting or not drinking at all. You can understand now why I have a quotebook of things he says.

One particular night not too long ago, we were celebrating a one of our local sports teams, the Streamers, winning a big game, and went to dinner after. Brock was drinking throughout the game and decided he was unable to drive, so I drove his car to the restaurant. He works in the area in a fancy business building so we parked in his garage parking lot. Upon returning a few hours later, Brock is still a bit tipsy and we find the gate to our structure down. As in those wall gates that lower from the ceiling. We were going crap, how we going to get our car... Brock being less than sober, still manages to say he knows the security guard and sobered up enough to ask for help. He was not sober enough to manage the swipe access card or the elevator and I was worried for a sec that the guard wouldn't help these young drunkies but it ended up working out fine. We decided that Brock is one of the luckiest guys we know, not just for the chance that he knew the night guard for the job that he'd been at for 6 months but also just in general. He has a good job, has been to good schools, and gotten good scholarships and positions in various organizations and also put himself in a lot of wacky, zany, ridiculous situations without much negative consequences. I still chuckle at the time I got a phone call at 2 in the morning from Brock saying "Hey, I jumped on a random bus to see where it would take me and the end of the line is here in Dangeroustown. Can you tell me where the bus back would pick me up because I've been wandering around and people are looking at me weird" For the record, Dangeroustown is a minority neighborhood known to have crime at night and Brock stood out like a sore thumb. But it all ended fine with only a strange homeless man bothering him. Go figure.

Well, I'm glad he's lucky and I'm glad he's my roommate. Next time, I think I'll have fun analyzing the differences between Clark and Brock. They have so much in common and yet, so little. I'll also tell you about Alejandro and Sassy Gay Friend.

I leave you with this Brock quote: (Regarding the purchase of Sarah Palin's book) "I want something to seduce Conservatives."

Listening to: Bulletproof by La Roux (random I know but her accent is really catchy)

Playing: Fire Emblem Sacred Stones

Reading: Sherlock Holmes

(Look I finally am playing and reading the same things in a row!)

The muse of Musings has returned!!

So my muse, that feeling like I just gotta write stuff down has finally re-hit me. I greatly apologize for a month+ delay. I am especially grateful to those that kept bugging me and bugging me to write. I've literally thought about it every day for the past 2 or 3 weeks, but I haven't felt truly inspired to write so the thought of spending over an hour crafting an entry (yes it easily takes me that long and that's without grammar checks!) just sounded more like work. In fact, I began writing part of tonight's entry 3 weeks ago but I just wasn't feeling it and it felt forced and journal-like rather than a true musing. To counter this, I think I will try posting in parts over the course of a week or so, that way even if I only write everything at once, you will have things to look forward to a little more often. Also, it will solidify a habit, I hope, so that writing comes more easily and I slip into the groove a little faster. Plus, its summer! I can afford to lose sleep a little bit easier so I can't use the "I'm too tired to write excuse."

Anyway on with the blog!

The cause for my pondering mood tonight is the new movie Toy Story 3. It just came out this weekend and if you haven't seen it, its wonderful! In addition to some great new characters and a fun, fast paced story, it really struck a chord with me. Without giving anything away, the movie centers around Andy, the toys' owner going to college and what is to become of the toys. This theme and the idea of a boy leaving behind his childhood playthings struck me so deep, that I won't lie, I very nearly cried at the end. Besides struggling to hold back my self-perceived unadult tears (you can get into debates about boys not being allowed to cry another time, let me just leave it at I do not cry, especially in public), I realized that I wasn't just being touched by the story, I was near-crying for change from childhood to adulthood. I had put myself in Andy's place, and the thought of leaving behind my toys, my childhood memories, the happiness, the freedom, and uninhibited imagination, made me want to weep at the loss.

I miss my toys! My legos wear I created whole worlds with reoccurring characters and ships and dragons and giant robots all blending together in an ongoing epic saga. My beast wars, action figures that transformed into animals, with whom my brother, Drewe Yorke, and I pitted against the giant Godzilla toys and his army of dinosaurs. Enter the Star Wars, Ninja Turtles, and Batman characters and the living room was turned into a massive war zone of gray-hair inducing proportions! My Mighty Max toys, (the manly Polly Pockets) where all of the above occurred on a smaller scale. And I can't forget the many Christmas's wear Drew, my Dad and I got out the plastic army men that helped inspire Toy Story, armed them with Duplo (big legos) blocks and fired at each other from behind the decorations. Many an ornament was lost those years.

So important were toys to me, then and now, that Drew and I actually vowed to pull them all out of storage one weekend this summer to relive the glory days. And that's why I near-weep. Because I do see those as the glory days, especially when the wave of nostalgia hits. Even as a child I took the Toys R Us song very seriously: "I don't wanna grow up, I'm a Toys R Us Kid!" I know that the paradise I lived in wouldn't last and I'm glad to say I think I made the most of my time there.

But I miss it and though I love life today, I haven't by any means forgotten about toys. I look around my room and see (in no particular order, a Legend of Zelda Sword and Shield, Mario magnets, Mario and Yoshi remote control cars and a light-up sound effects making lightsaber, just in my immediate view. I have a few toys hidden up in my closet too. But secretly I yearn to flash forward a few years (read at least 10), when I have young kids of my own so I have an excuse to lay on the warm carpet next to the Christmas tree and play with the new toys my kids have just opened, without fear or consequence of being just an adult in denial, weird, childish, or stuck in the past. I like wear I am now, I really do. But I sometimes wish I could have the best of both worlds. I guess that's life though. And that's a really adult response, too.

So sorry the somber note. And that goes for my last post too. I hope that people feel comfortable continuing to discuss heavy topics and keep dialogue flowing. I did have a good convo with Clark after his response comments and I've been meaning to translate that into a public post, but well, you see how often I update.

On to some light Summercamp stories, which I started writing before.

I shall provide you updates on my life in Summercamp over the last few weeks of the school year. Three instances in particular come to mind. Tacos, Times and Traps. Today I'll talk about Tacos.

Not just any tacos mind you. Pink Tacos. There's probably a sexual connotation that can be made here but before I start saying things like I devoured that delicious taco, there were actually no tacos involved. I went to the Pink Taco restaurant with N.I.N., Banana Slug, Banana Slugs BF VG Anteater, and our Sassy Gay Friend. Banana Slug drove all of us in her five seat sedan. Pink Taco is a bar and mexican restaraunt with really tasty chips, guac, quesadillas and loads of other appetizers that we took full advantage of. In honor of NIN's birthday, she, Sassy Gay Friend and VG Anteater took shots. Sadly, I had to go back to work so my celebration was limited toasting. We were joined by JD, who just returned from jury duty (more on that later). When all the celebrating was done, as in all good celebrations water was called for. The waiter brought a plate of water glasses and as he began to hand them out, the tray magically flipped sending 3 full water glasses to the floor and one to Sassy Gay Friend's Lap. After our instinctive compassion and sympathy for both the poor embarrassed waiter and our friend, we couldn't help but chuckle ever so slightly. Rest assured that remarks insinuating that Sassy Gay Friend had wet his pants, became excited, or that the waiter made his pants wet were ever remotely offered, mentioned or used as the butt of the joke for the time at the restaurant. Nope none of us said anything at all.

Well, I can at least promise I didn't say anything.

As poor SGF tried desperately to dry his pants off with those air blowers that you can't aim. I can only imagine what that looked like in the bathroom, the rest of us were served free drinks and JD proceeded to tell how he was sworn to not share any case details yet and the proceeded to tell us all the details he knew. Technically, at the time he was not an official juror so he probably could tell us that much, but I still had flashbacks of Brock going, "Guys I have a secret. But I can't tell you" and me going innocently, "Oh really what's it about?" and Brock proceeding to tell the entire thing.

As we left Pink Taco a little drunker, a little wetter and a little more legally informed then we had intended, it dawned on us that there were now six people to fit in a five person car. Let me point out one other thing: Banana Slug was the smallest one of us and it was her car and she was the DD. Next shortest was probably JD and then N.I.N. and I are nearly the same height. SGF and VG Anteater are both taller and stockier than I. This meant, of course, that I got to lie down on the laps of N.I.N., JD and VG Anteater for the 15 minute drive home in broad daylight. JD, my BOSS, and VG Anteater, my FORMER BOSS'S boyfriend. Yea, it was bonding time. Oh and lying face up meant JD could smack my stomach if I sassed him, which I do without thinking now. Needless to say, the ride ended with us being a little closer, and little more intimate, and a few red hand marks on my stomach. At least noone pulled us over. That story will come with I talk about the Times.

Until next time, I'm signing off now. I'll leave you with a few quotes that have been said around my house recently. I cannot attribute these to any one person, but I'm sure if you know the person you will know who said them. Now, you'll learn just a little too much about them...

"Yesterday, I hooked up with... (Dramatic Pause) an Asisan with an 8-inch penis! Yes-they do exist. It's like the Loch Ness Monster, but I found it."

El Bandito- I'll slap the gay out of you if you go after that man (referring to Brock meeting a certain higher up in my department)
Response: "I'll slap the straight out of you! It'll be a spanking."

"Some people say I made out with a homeless man. He was not homeless!"
Someone adds "It was in an alley!"
My response "Were you peeing or just walking there?"
"Both"

That last quote bothers me a bit because I think a lot more happened than just walking and relieving oneself . Also, one witness swears it happened multiple times.

I promise to talk more about Brock next time since I didn't share much about him today and this post still took almost an hour.

Listening to: "You've Got a Friend in Me" -Randy Newman though there's a few interesting renditions of it in the new movie.

Reading: Sherlock Holmes anthology. Love me a classic mystery.

Playing: Bioshock (Almost done with the first one) Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 with Heavy Spy.

Happy Father Day all! Call your dad's if you can.

Thoughts on Religion

I'll warn you now, I don't intend this particular entry to be very humorous, so if you don't want to see my musings about religion then feel free to disregard this post.

I also want to preface this by saying that I am an active, attempting-to-be-devout Catholic. I can only speak best from that point of view and while I don't like to represent my entire religion in my thoughts, and may not completely capture the Catholic point of view, I'm sure this entry will be expressing both my thoughts and the perspectives of my Church.

The other day, a friend of mine posted a link to an AP article on Facebook about the Pope making statements against gay marriage. In addition to his own angry comments (it should be noted he's gay) several other people, most of whom I didn't know, also responded angrily, usually including several comments about molesting priests, bishops or popes, and the like.

My natural first instinct whenever anyone says anything against my church is "Hey! What was that for?" The kind of instant defensiveness that someone gets when insulted. My second thought (it should be noted that I read the article before the comments) was "Mman, the Catholic Church just CAN'T get itself any good PR." The article itself was slightly more biased than a usual AP article, emphasizing the most negative soundbites and glancing over the complete picture of the Church's stances on gay marriage and also abortion and a number of other issues at the time. The article also wandered off about where the pope was and why (Fatima, Portugual if you were wondering).

Anyway, continuing my reaction process to the Facebook post, my third thought was "yea, my friends are angry and I don't blame them." Maybe ripping the pope a new one on a public Facebook thread isn't the best way to convey that anger, but it doesn't discount the fact that many people are angry at the Church, at many of its recent actions, and particularly at its stances on gay marriage, especially after Prop 8 passed a year and a half ago.

So, because this article initiated that series of reactions for me and I was feeling perturbed after reading the posts, I too commented on the thread with the following post:

"..."

I was intentionally vague and didn't say anything else lest I start a flame war on the post, but I did also want to express my feelings, at least in the general sense of the negative which on the Internet an ellipses can suggest. My goal was to be convey an, "OK guys, you've made your point that's enough" kind of remark. Maybe it wasn't my place, but I did feel that the other perspective at least had the right to say something. Later, Brock told me that my friend was worried that he had offended me with the post. I hope he knows he hasn't. I understand that such topics are very emotional, frustrating and confusing to me and to everyone else. If I were truly offended and hurt, I probably would have said something more than "..." My goal of defusing the conversation was accomplished without trying to start a fight. (There was only one post after mine and it changed the subject)

Generally, things like that slide off me, and the last thing I want to do is anger the people already angry. So as I pondered this event again today, I was spurred to write a blog entry because the reason the people get angry more than anything IMHO, is misinformation. People don't understand what other people think, why they think it, an often are unwilling to see the perspectives from another's point of view. I am no exception, but I am trying. So let me try to convey my Catholic perspective on gay marriage a little, and also try to explain why the Church FAILS at creating positive PR.

So, first let me say that the Church's rules come from Scripture (ie the Bible) and Tradition (not to be confused with tradition, which for the purposes of simplicity, means habitual actions) Tradition with a capital T stems from the belief that Jesus gave his authority to the Apostles and they in turn have the ability to create Church doctrine and dogma. Peter the apostle, is considered the first pope and the other apostles the first bishops, and the Catholic church traces its current lineage all the way back to them. Therefore, in the Catholic church's eyes, the Pope has the authority Jesus gave Peter. That doesn't mean that everything the Pope says is God's word incarnate. A lot of what the pope says is either A) just the pope speaking as a MAN in a position of power or B)doctrine, positions the church holds but not necessarily set in stone things. For example, saying the Mass in Latin for hundreds of years was a doctrine and a practice not a permanent thing. Dogma is something that Catholics have to believe to call themselves Catholics. Things like Jesus died and Resurrected. It should be noted that many things in the Bible constitute as Dogma.

OK so that's a bit of a theology lesson but the important thing to understand is that the pope is a normal human who makes mistakes and whatnot but he is also an important man who represents the Church (not God, the Church). The Church strives to do God's will on Earth and convey what God's will is to everyone. And it has 2000 years of practice, so it does actually knows what its are talking about, despite popular belief.

So what about gay marriage? OK so in the Bible there are a number of verses about homosexual acts being grave sins. Most Catholic and Christian (when I say Christian I tend to refer to non-Catholics followers of Christ, though Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox believers are Christians) groups tend to cite the Sodom and Gomorrah story in Genesis or a passage in Paul's Letter to the Romans, found in the New Testament.

So here's the church's stance on homosexual activity (meaning sex specifically). It's wrong. There's no sugarcoating it, that's the stance.

Let me make things a little clearer though: Here's the church's stance on pre-martial sex of any kind. It's wrong.

So right there I want to emphasize that the Church considers any sex outside of marriage wrong. Generally, there's no way to tell that to people and make them feel all warm and happy, so its no wonder the Church already starts out with a bad image.

There is actually a long and logical reason why the Church says no sex before marriage. It centers around how the Church sees sex as something very valuable, very important and sacred. Therefore, it wants to create a holy place for sex. That place is the sacrament of marriage.

The next logical step is to say well if I can't have sex homosexual or other kind outside of marriage- and I want to have sex (an important thing to add)- then I want to be able to get married. But the Catholic church says no gay marriage.

Again, you are right. The Catholic church says no gay marriage because it defines marriage as that between a man and a woman. Why does it do that? One main reason is simply that a man and a woman can create a baby. Again, the church values the creation of life, so it has created a sacred place for life to be created: Marriage. Sex creates life and marriage is the safe and holy place for all those things. There is a method to the "madness". If you have something valueable, you put it in a safe place where it can be cared for. This is how the church views marriage. The safe place to care for sex and more importantly, the new life that can come from sex.

A side note, any the Church finds that any sex that doesn't have the possibility to result in a child is also incomplete and therefore not given the proper value and thus wrong.

Judging by how many of my gay friends jokingly call heterosexuals "breeders," I think that it is accepted that some people are called to create new life and some aren't. This has nothing to do with being parents or adoption, this is about creating the life through sex.

Also, this has nothing to do with the legal rights that come with marriage. It is true that when Catholics get marriage through the Church, it also means they receive the legal rights of marriage. It is these legal rights that I think many of my gay friends get so angry about that they do not have. And I agree with them. The church does not say that homosexuals cannot love or be with someone they love. It only says they cannot partake in this marriage sacrament that the Church issues because sex is a fundamental and required part of marriage. The church says gays shouldn't have sex for the same reason unmarried people shouldn't have sex, because it is not whole complete sex, it does not have the procreation aspect to it and only focuses on the pleasure side. The church sees sex in big picture, and wants all people to see it and value it in the same light.

There's a lot of complexities to marriage, sex, and procreation that I am not going into minute detail on. It is summed up in the Church teachings on the Theology of the Body if you're interested let me know. Some of the holes in my statements that you may be picking at are probably answered there.

So now for the topic of marriage specifically. I think its safe to say that most people that want same-sex marriage to exist want it primarily for the legal rights that come with marriage. Brock pointed out to me that they also want to be viewed as equals and as an accepted part of society, so the social rights of marriage. Here is where the Church PR department fails again. Whenever the Church says marriage, it refers to the afore explained Sacrament of Marriage. The legal rights and the social acceptance, as I understand the Catholic church, are completely fine. However, that's not the message that I think most people get from the Church. Because it says "No same sex marriage" meaning its not going to be giving out same sex messages, and because it takes political stances against it, the opposite message is sent. It also perpetuates a social stigma against same sex marriage.

The Church says same sex marriage is not ok because, i think, supporting it will send a message that homosexual sex is also ok. Most people define marriage by the legal side of it. The church defines it by the sacrament. It doesn't particularly care about the legal rights but in the United States, those come with Catholic marriage. However, that's a hard and complicated stance that the Church doesn't break down for the average person. That's what I consider bad PR. Not the fact that it doesn't agree with same sex marriage but that it doesn't explain why or what it does support. Its a complicated press game that most people I dont think even care to know and the Church isn't bothering to explain. And the way the media works, people aren't going to remember that the chuch thinks civil and equal rights are good. They are going to focus on the fact that the church doesn't think gays should have sex.

So what does the church think gays should do? Live a life a celibacy, just like any unmarried person, any priest, or any nun. Not everyone is called to marriage, gay or straight. But I'm sure that sounds and feels like being singled out and being prejudiced against. The PR department failed again when the Vatican issued a statement saying gays were being discourage from joining the priesthood. Yea, that was a fail. Telling people to live a life of celibacy but not given them the chance to serve God in a role where celibacy is also emphasized. I know that came down due to the child molestation allegations, where mostly little boys were targeted, adding a homosexual tone to the priest's actions. That fallout has its own set of PR failures and successes and I'm sure the Church is learning a lot about transparency. I don't think people ever really cared about Church doing its own thing before, but now that these allegations and the cover ups have come to head, I hope the Church becomes a little more open and less secretive with the general public about its business and handlings. I think the private nature of the Church in general has hurt it a lot lately. Anyway, a good homosexual Catholic is called to live a celibate life, that doesn't mean they can't have partners, lovers etc. It just means they can't have sex, which is something that society these days doesn't bother to make a distinction for.

Another people. A lot of press goes to people who say gays are going to hell. The Church does say stuff like homosexuals acts are grave sins. So is premarital sex though, but the soundbits tend to focus on just the homosexual side and the church doesn't push the non-gay agenda very publically it seems. Let me explain something else. According to the Catholic church, sins can cause you to go to hell and some sins are more dangerous to your soul than others. But hell is defined as the rejection of God. Someone once explained hell to me as something you choose. You choose to be away from God and disregard him. So what does this mean? It means the God I believe in is a God of mercy and forgiveness. What happens to you after you die is your business between you and God and whatever relationship you've built with him. It's not like there's a checklist before you qualify for heaven or a number of strikes before you get hell. There's no one thing, even something as horrible as murder, that guarantees hell, but the rationale is if you choose to do that you probably aren't choosing God much in the first place. The church can give you guidelines, but God ultimately decides who goes to heaven and hell, not man. (A good Catholic tries to follow those guidelines because they believe these are the best ways to get to heaven. Many Catholics choose to pick which guidelines they like and only follow those. That's a whole different subject but I will say, I think those people are missing the point and should re-evaluate calling themselves Catholics if they aren't at least trying to follow Catholic teachings. There's a difference between trying and failing and rejecting teachings you don't like). Sorry for the tangent. Moving on...

Also, there is nothing in the Bible that says all homosexuals are going to hell. Again, the sex is bad, being gay is not. Don't you EVER let anyone tell you that being gay means you are going to hell.

As I wrap up here are a few notes.

I said "the church" for the most part in these places. I intentionally did not say God says this, because for one thing, I don't know what God says. For another, the Church represents God the best it can and is pretty good at it from what I can tell and what I believe, but ultimately, God is the one that will make any judgments. The Church can say that swearing is bad all it wants but I have no doubt in my mind that there are people in heaven that swore on earth. The Church also comes off as harsh and unforgiving. People miss the messages of mercy, hope and imperfection. The God of the Catholic church and the God that I believe in is one of mercy and forgiveness, who knows that we make mistakes every day and loves us more than anything we can imagine. I wish the Church would focus its PR on that rather than on the don'ts. Yes, the rules are tough and tend to call for restraint rather than going buck wild. But all rules do that and generally they are for the better.

One last note on the topic of converting people. Many would argue that a Catholic's role is to convert those people around them. This is a very common Christian perspective. The Catholic church isn't competely about converting but it far from opposed to it. Also, it does use the mission of spreading Christ's message as justification for "telling people how to live", to put it in the negative light, as most people do.

Here's my take on that. As Catholics, we believe that our path to heaven is the best, most complete path we can take. Because we believe this, we don't want to just keep that to ourselves but share that opportunity with everyone else. Its a very positive mindset. Some Christian groups, I believe, take it too far and become bothersome and forceful in their conversion attempts. This has given all Christians a bad reputation. I don't think as Catholics our mindset is that of convert everyone. Our moral compass is guided by this faith, so we often have clashes with people that have a different set of values. Right now, we Catholics should not be out to convert as much as to inform. Nobody is going to join a faith they don't understand, and when people don't have the whole picture, how can they understand?

These perspectives are Catholic perspectives and the Church means them for believers and non-believers alike. However, we it is more important that we express these beliefs, not impose them. If a person chooses not to believe what we Catholics believes, that is their choice. Catholics share and encourage the perspective but shouldn't force it.

Also as the Bible quote goes, "Let him without sin cast the first stone. I feel we Catholics should work on holding ourselves accountable.

We have to deal with a lot of our own issues, meaning each Catholic figure themselves out and commit to at least try to be Catholic. I think there are a ton of non-practicing Catholics and I'd say the Church has just as big an obligation to reconvert those as the non-Catholics. But as those things progress slowly, the Church shouldn't disregard is mission of spreading the message that is a faith that believes in a great God. A God of love. A God of acceptance. Of forgiveness. Of understanding. Of self-sacrifice. Of true selflessness. Of peace. Of hope. Of Joy.

My faith is a happy faith. So remember when you read articles, that they never report on that side of the church. Only of the negative, the human side, the failings and the mistakes. They don't focus on the power of a belief in God. The peace of mind. The bliss that comes from having a God that loves you and wants what's best for you, and actually knows what that is better than we do ourselves.

Thanks for reading until the end. My goal is not to convert or force my faith on you. I'd love to have conversations about this and see how you pick my statements apart. I think sometimes its taboo to talk about these things, except in emotional outbursts. Brock and I have already had a great convo while I was writing this. He helped clarify some things for me too. I also went to Mass in between this and the sermon and readings really hit on some of these topics too. I know I made some assumptions that may not be true or accurate. I apologize if anything offended anyone. It's impossible for me to perfectly reflect all the Catholic Church's views. So I reflect my own views of what Catholic is. I hope I also conveyed the positive sides of Christianity, since it seems those are so often overlooked.

I pray that this sets some thing straight, brings for more openness, understanding and acceptance.

Always late it seems...

Sorry I haven't written in two weeks. Between long days at work and a number of things going on in the evenings, it just has slipped beyond my priority lists. Thanks to everyone who keeps bugging me to update. I think I owe it to Brock to write about him first for once, because he started reminding me to write almost every day.

So for Brock's Block, first I want to talk about an incident that happened just the other night. We had some mutual friends, Jordan and Penny, in town from Georgia. After playing basketball with Jordan, his twin brother Kareem, and another friend of ours, Argentina, we all went out to a sandwich joint called Punchos. Brock had texted me while playing ball saying, "What time you coming home?" I called him to invite him and he didn't answer. I called him again and it rang twice, going to voicemail, making me think maybe he hung up on me because he was doing something else. I get home later that night and found the house perfectly clean, which if you know Brock, is like a miracle (Clark and I are considering hiding all the dishes except one so he has to wash them...)

Needless to say I thought for sure that he had some... "company" over. I mean, the guy like literally uses radar to find a quick, carseat-filled fling. Well, the moral of the story is never make assumptions. Turns out Clark just wanted a clean living room and Brock had been asleep. My bad. You know what they say about assumptions...

Sorry Brock :)

Brock quote of the week: "Is there any alcohol in our apartment that you've hidden and I don't know about?" I guess I must have let slip that a few weeks ago when he was looking for beer, I had a whole cooler of it hidden in my room so he wouldn't drink it before Alejandro and Diet Lemonade's co-birthday bash.

In another episode of my life in Summercamp, mother nature continues to claim stake over Summercamp. I was sitting in my office on Thursday and this tiny little bird hops in. It looks around and peaks behind the printer and then I move a little and it hops back out. I just kinda smiled to myself. Flash forward a few days. My OA walks in and is like, "there's some birds in the conference room." JD and I get up and walk to the entrance. I spot two birds flying around the far window. JD walks up to the door and one of the birds shoots out right at our faces. I cry out and duck, covering my face. I've seen Hitchcock's The Birds. When I look up, I see JD just standing there like "What?" Silly me, I forgot that he probably couldn't see the creature flying to gash out his eyes!! I exaggerate. Long story short, because the second bird wouldn't fly out on its own, I lowered the blinds on all the other windows and then went out behind our conference room and shaded the last window, so the only other exit was the door. The bird left and we earned our office back from nature.

Apparently there were birds in the office the next day too.

I feel like a freaking Disney princess.

On a more pondersome note, recently the school at which I work was visited by John Quisones (sp?) who is a broadcast journalist and has the show What would You Do? It's about people in situations where they witness some kind of crime or mistreatment (portrayed unbeknownst to the onlookers, by actors) and then he interviews them about why they took the action they did. For example, if someone sees a man putting some white powder in a woman's drink while she's gone, do they warn her?

Anyway he was there and talking about a lot of different topics particuarly his own story of being a Mexican man trying to break into broadcast journalism. Among other things, he mentioned that his family had live in San Antonio, Texas since before it was part of the United States. He said when people asked him when he crossed the Border, he responds with, what are you talking about? The border crossed us!

It got me to thinking about where we come from. Sometimes we are so focused on where we are going and what we are doing next, especially those of us just out of college, that we don't think about where we've come from, in the big picture. I was looking at those around me: JD comes from Kentucky and says his family speaks hick at home. My other boss, Santa Claus, comes from a small town in the Midwest and has strong ties to Purdue, but doesn't stay in close contact with his old hometown friends. Another coworker and friend, N.I.N (Nice is Neat- try to figure out THAT book reference) hails all the way from Hawaii. My best friend, Spam Boa, lives in Spanish Fork Utah. Another, P-Diddy, lives in Singapore. I mean even in my family one Grandma grew up in New Orleans and the other in Panama. I have friends from China, Australia and countries across the world. And I was just having a convo with the GF about how I am proud to have come from Orange County and grown up in good ol' Santa Ana.

Besides being an excuse to make up a nickname for a whole bunch of people (P-Diddy hahaha) I really was feeling quite pondersome about what it means to say you come from somewhere. How our identities are formed much more by what we've been not what we are going to do. I could say some day I'm going to be a teacher. And people may even look at me and say yea, that guys totally going to be a teacher, look at this and this and this. But I'm still more defined as that guy who grew up in Orange County, went to some giant brick-building'd school, and did that and that and that. I'm not sure what I'm trying to get at here, but I am very happy and proud about where I've been. So, for my last thought, people always say if you could go back and do something different, would you? I say no because who I am now is because of where I've been, what I've done and how I interacted with all the people around me who have done and been to all these places. Live and learn from fools and from sages. So thanks all of you for all the places you've been and good luck with all the places you'll go.

I promise to get another, funnier entry soon. I don't want this blog to be forced but at the same time, I appreciate people asking for more.

Next time, I'll give the context for this quote by my friend, Heavy Spy, enjoy!

"Maternity wards and psych wards are the same thing. They both have crazy people shouting."

Listening to: That stupid robot unicorn attack song always gets stuck in my head...

Also, my friend Yellow Piggy lent me the CD of a certain musical performance at school that I took duty for so everyone else could go see Yellow Piggy sing. Her acapella group sounds pretty awesome :)

Reading: Editing paper after paper after paper it seems... also the Angels Team Report, looking for hope

Playing: Starcraft 2 Beta, Pokemon HeartGold, Left 4 Dead 2... ALL AT THE SAME TIME!! (and in better quality with my new graphics card)

Quote night AKA My Foot in my Mouth

So today I am inspired to write because I just had another one of those foot in mouth moments where no matter what I say, people interpret it as dirty and terribly amusing. I was conversing with my friend Steakhouse and the GF and we were joking about how Steakhouse could beat me in arm wrestling. I was like OK bring it on! I had every intention of letting her win and making myself look like a fool, a weakling and all around less of man for the amusement of others. Little did I know that I was going to epically succeed at the whole fool part. As I was coercing Steakhouse to arm wrestle me, the GF goes "Why don't you arm wrestle me?" I say "I'll do you both at the same time!" I set myself in position to wrestle and then realized both of them were laughing. Laughing hard. Like near tears. I mean, what's funnier than someone who's openly chaste and who doesn't even swear to offer a threesome? But wait, there's more. So the counter to which I challenged Steakhouse was a little narrow and raised, and well, she's a little short. So she says, "It's not big enough". After she laughs at her own "that's what she said," she continues to complain about not being able to reach, which prompts me to shove my foot deeper into my mouth saying, "Hurry up and just do it!" yea...

This makes me recall a few other moments of as my friends have begun to dub, That's what James said moments.

I won't even bother giving you much context. Rest assured that they were all innocent in my head and I never once realized what I said until everybody else started laughing.

"Finals over, pants off!"

"It's really hard! It's the hard part" -this was a video game...

I can't think of any more right now but I'm sure my boss and most of my friends have plenty they could add in the comments section.

Speaking of my boss its time for...

Life in Summercamp

This week I'll recount another tale of animals in my office. There was this bee in my office the other day, and it was buzzing against the window. (Side note today I my office was blocked off by a swarm of bees which were bother by the high winds we've been having) ANYWAY it was buzzing around and I noticed this spider web in the corner of the window. The bee buzzed close and this big ol' black spider leaped out and tried to capture the bee. It just missed and the bee untangled itself and "staggered" to the other side of the window. Then like something right out of Animal Planet it flies right into ANOTHER spider web where ANOTHER big black spider on the SAME window captures and devours the bee right before my eyes. All it needed was Morgan Freeman narrating something like "This one, was not lucky enough" to complete my trip into a documentary in my office. Of course, no-one else in my office noticed. I do promise I get work done there too!

I've decided I should probably rename Maniac Magee, my boss. If you didn't know, Maniac Magee is a book I read in the 6th grade about a boy who could befriends a former bully named Mars Bar and could run on a single rail of the train tracks. I picked the name at random for no real reason. Anyway, my boss, who if you didn't know has a vision impairment. He's blind. Legally not literally. Like he can see someone but he would be able to hit them with his shoe from a short distance (he recently tried) Or if you saw him on the street walking (because cars are off limits to him) and waved to him he wouldn't know who he was waving back to. Like he has a walking cane- you get it! Anyway, he read Maniac Magoo, who was a blind comic book character he was teased about as a child. He thought I was being a jerk and totally making fun of him in an insensitive way (when in fact I make fun of him in completely sensitive ways). So now I shall refer to him as JD, the initials of a particularly favorite beverage of his.

This brings me to my JD moment of the week. I have two actually. The first is a quote from one of our staff members. JD was recounting that he was being called in for jury duty soon and how he was afraid he wouldn't be able to get out of it. Our staff member completely unintentionally responds with "But I was kinda under the impression that they want... normal people..." Burn.

The next happened during our one on one this week. JD asks me "hey, do you want to go to Jumbo's with me and a few of my old staff members?" I respond, "Isn't that the strip club that you keep trying to get me to?" (He's slowly trying to corrupt me which he says isn't corrupting, "just sharing and giving me new experiences")I go on, "Naw I don't think its really my scene" He says, "It's classy! They wear pasties and panties!" Then we both stopped and had a moment that my boss was just telling me about pasties and panties. It came up three more times that night.

On a news note, my boss actually just rehired me to return to my same job next year. I'm really excited and happy to continue to work with him and the exciting times in Summercamp.

For Brock's Block, I'd like to first talk about the disco stick. Yes, there is a disco stick in my apt. Brock ordered it off the internet (he is addicted to Amazon, he even ordered medicine for when he was sick-it arrive two weeks later well after he'd gotten better...) This disco stick was for the Lady Gaga Poker Party we threw a few months ago. The stick arrived two week after the party. It cost him something like $45. It is hand made with a duct tape handle and a plastic crystal head. I bring this up not just for the absurdity that a disco stick is in my apt. but for the comments it received this weekend when Brock wasn't around but all our other friends were. They went something like this:

What's this? Wait, did you say a Disco Stick? Like Lady GaGa? This is Brock's isn't it? It looks like a mace. I could kill someone with this... Stay back or I'll beat you with my disco stick (no yours truly didn't say that innuendo) Wait... it lights up? Turn off the lights I want to light the disco stick! Why would anyone buy this? Oh right its Brock. Look its made of duct tape. He paid how much for this?? Oh Brock...

That conversation happened like 5 separate times. And they all ended with the disco stick being left on the floor or toss somewhere random and forgotten.

I'm not at my apt. right now so I can't pull up one of my recorded Brock quotes, so I share this moment: I came home last night and saw Brock sitting in my chair. I said to him, "You must have just gotten home." He responded, "Yea about 15 minutes ago why?" "You still have all your clothes on."

-James Tiberius York

Listening to: Classical Music from Fantasia courtesy of Steakhouse's slacker.com station.

Reading: Voyage of the Dawn Treader (yes I've actually made progress)

Playing: Left 4 Dead 2- Bonding with my best friend as well as three of my other best buddies while slice, burning, and shotgunning zombies: Bliss.

The Quirkies in my Life

Context: A little about me:

I live in a beach city apartment with two friends who I have known since my first year of college. I work at the university I graduated from, which is under construction like... ALWAYS. I work in Res Life which was a transition from my time as an RA to my current role as Asst. Resident Director. I am dating a current RA who I've known since her first year. She's a senior now in the building we were both RAs together in. Now I work in what will hereby be called Summer Camp because it is an outdoor community with lots of trees and squirrels. This brings me to my first little section of my blog:

Life in Summercamp:

My office is shared with the office assistant. A friend of mine calls me the Head OA rather than an Asst. Resident Director and the comparison amuses me because some days I feel like one. In fact, I walked into my old Res Life office the other day and my old boss was in a jam, resulting in me volunteering to be an Office Assistant for a day. (Ironically, I replaced my gf's spot because she couldn't make her shift due to class conflict). So I was Head OA for a day. I'd like to make some jab about college educations not really getting me anywhere, but as most of my friends live at home and everyone's working wherever they can, I'll take what I can get.

Now that summer's on the horizon (despite this week's rain) my duels with the squirrels have recommenced. They are everywhere in summercamp and one in particular likes to sneak into my office to inspect the empty trash can. I yell at it and this only results in my boss next door going "What?!?". The squirrel just stands motionless looking at me like I'm an idiot, then continues its journey into my office. Then I stamp my foot and it looks at me again and promptly ignores me. I have to get up, flail my arms, stamp my feet and look like a general fool, chasing the stupid animal out of my office under the picnic table and up a tree. At this point, the OA is just laughing at me and passing residents are giving their Asst. Resident Director a weird look. And my boss yells at me for picking on the squirrels! I wish the owl we had this past winter had picked more of them off...

Speaking of my boss, there are a few things you should know about him. He is legally blind and sometimes uses this to his convenience though it also has some hilarious side effects. He is loud, brass, and blunt and generally really funny. He talks about his experiences in Bible college where he was kicked out of, and that one time he was struck by lightning. It's a funny story but its even funnier to think that he was struck by lightning at bible camp. Needless to say he's not very religious anymore. He will be a regular character in the show that is this blog. For now, I've decided to refer to him as Maniac Magee.

I turn now to my domestic life, specifically my roommates.

The first one was my best friends roommate way back in first year. We have a pretty tight knit group of friends that we call the Family and many of us hung out because of that first year. Clark Gable, who I shall now call this first roommate, is one of the smartest people I know. He literally won Jeopardy! and regularly competes in pub quizzes and some days just lives on sporcle. He recently committed to our same undergraduate school to earn his Masters degree in Film and so I'm excited he's staying in the area. This man watches more movies in a week than I see in theaters in a year. We have a collection of over 600 movies on the wall and he is always renting films from the library. I'm sure we'll delve into some of his quirks but for now just know these three rules of the universe: Clark don't drink. Clark don't dance. Clark don't sing. Though that last one has an exception for Disney songs and very specific situations...

This brings me to my last roommate, the biggest reason people told me to start a blog. For future blogs, I want to call this Brock's Block. I would refer to him as Alejandro for the lyrical connection but Brock is just an amusing name and it rhymes with Block, which is also the name of a powerful man outside of whom's door Brock once stood naked, one of many streaking stories this man has. In fact, its hard to find situations where this man has all his clothes on in general. He generally comes home strips to his boxer-briefs and wifebeater (if its cold) and plops in front of his computer to catch up on the many friends he has around the world. We had a landmark moment the other day when he was like "Guys guess what." After a series of snarky and incorrect guess he went on to state proudly: "I have over 1000 friends on facebook". This is a big deal, especially in Brock's life. Just a few other random details for the purposes of context for Brock: he works at a stressful job that spurs him to have a drink after work to calm down. He is a fairly lightweight drinker and gets very chatty when under the influence. He can't keep secrets. You put it together.

I'll try to end all of Brock's Block with a quote from him. For future reference, please note that any"A" in this quote is his close friend from his hometown in Hickville, California (a town which Brock is very proud of but also makes for great satire). A is a reoccuring character too and I've decided to bestow him this alias Alejandro. I've just come to accept that Lady Gaga is a part of my life these days.

B-"When I was only around white people and dumb Asians in 'Hickville', I wasn't racist"
A- *Facepalm"

That's all for now. Until soon.

-JT York

Currently listening to: "Time is Running Out" by Muse (I'm still on a huge Muse binge after seeing them in concert in Las Vegas last week. So awesome!)

Currently reading: Voyage of the Dawn Treader by CS Lewis or I would be if I weren't...

Currently playing: Pokemon HeartGold by Nintendo. This explains everything: http://www.awkwardzombie.com/comic1-032910.php

First Post

So once a week or even once a day I've been encouraged to start a blog. Many recommend a video blog or a youtube blog or at least some kind of chronology of the antics myself and the people around me. Seeing as how I'd like to improve my writing style and practice more anyway, I finally stopped being lazy and have gotten around to starting one. I hope the excitement of doing something new will have me updating it with some kind of consistency. I do have thoughts on the format and some reoccurring themes. Nobody really wants to hear about my day to day life but rather wants to know the funny stories about my roommates, coworkers, and situations that a post college student goes through. There will be parts where I am musing and tossing thoughts around but I will try to also make it easy for people that just want the latest antics to be easily accessed. I know I can be wordy and rambly, so I'll aim to be user friendly and entertaining. So whatever you get out of this, I hope this blog is beneficial to all of us, fun and all around enjoyable.

BTW... In case anyone mentioned in this blog gets famous or politically active or whatever, I'll try to be very name-cautiuos. Also, I like to make up names for people so everyone knows who I'm talking about but I don't actually use their name.

Also, if you don't want me talking about you, let me know. This blog is primarily for you, my friends and my own entertainment so please don't be offended or hurt by anything I say. Its not intentionally vindictive.