I know I'm feeling a bit out of sorts.

I didn't realize quite how out of sorts I was feeling until a few moments ago.

I had made a burrito for dinner. I grabbed a bottle of beer out of the fridge, as well as a large bottle of hot sauce. I sat down and began to eat.

About halfway through my burrito, I mistook my beer for the bottle of hot sauce. I tipped it upside-down and shook it. The shock of cold beer suddenly pouring onto my hand brought me back to my senses.

I grew angry, but I still had to laugh. Then I ate the rest of my beer-soaked burrito out of spite.

It wasn't that bad. I may have just invented the beer-ito. How serendipitous.

I am also thankful I didn't confuse the bottles the other way around. Not that drinking hot sauce isn't a sure-fire way to make you realize what is truly important in life.

It's Friday night and there is lots to do. My friends are out at the club, at the bars, and having farewell-to-the-condo parties.

I'm stuck in this emotional limbo where the last thing I want to be is alone but I'm pretty sure it will be best if I spend some time by myself. Grab a strawberry milkshake. Listen to some music. Be old.

Try to get used to this feeling.

Today was a beautiful day.

You're a Spirograph!! You're pretty tripped out,
even though you've been known to be a bit
boring at times. You manage to serve your
purpose in life while expending hardly any
effort (and are probably stoned to the gills
all the while).


What childhood toy from the 80s are you?
brought to you by Quizilla


Spirograph? I've used one of those less than a handful of times. And that was only because I was trying to see if I could cover the entire paper with colored pencil using only the various Spiros. Never could get those damn corners.


Me Gusta La Lluvia

So I was just taking a shower and thinking.

I know, I know. Showering? Thinking? Doesn't sound like me at all. But it's true. I was. And I was.

There is a lot that I don't understand. But, I think there is a lot I do understand. So, I try to take the things I do understand and use them to try to figure out the things I don't.

For an instance, take the human mind. Specifically, the various systems of information storage that are collectively called "memory."

During these past few weeks, I've been throwing away all the nostalgic crap that I'd amassed over the course of my life. Sometimes it was emotionally taxing. There were many moments that I wanted to remember forever. And I still do want to remember them. But my room is a finite space. A very finite space (as those who have seen it can attest.)

I can't have it all.

What was I...right, memory. I've locked up the memories of my experience into these little knick-knacks, trinkets, letters, and pictures. They were safe.

Before I was able to get rid of them, I had to develop my "Skin" theory of memory. The idea struck me during a past shower, as I was reflecting on my various scars and the generally wacky ways I acquired them.

Thus, I presumed my memory to be like a skin, each experience leaving a mark or scar upon it, forever changing it, altering its growth and its course.

I found comfort in the idea that even though one day I may forget that I have ever refereed an ice-cream wrestling match, the experience will still be a part of me.

(Yes, I'm sure I could have picked something a little more profound than ice-cream wrestling, but that's just what came to mind.)

Now, after this shower, I have a new idea.

What if memory is more like a muscle? What if it is something that must be strengthened and grown through regular exertion before it can reach its full potential?

What if, by letting things go, I am making myself weaker?

I'm thinking that I should have gone to Wal-mart, picked up a composition notebook for 87 cents, sat down with each object I was about to throw away, and then described it and its significance.

Seeing as it is far too late for that plan, I'll have to add it to my list of things to do once my Time Machine is complete. Although, the first thing on the list was to go back and give myself the Time Machine so I wouldn't have to spend my life working on it.

Apparently, Future Guillermo is as prone to procrastination as Present-Day Guillermo. I'm not surprised. Present-Day Guillermo thinks he has all the time in the world, but Future-Guillermo with his Time Machine knows it. There is a distinction, even both frames of mind have the end result of nothing getting done.

What was I...right, memory.

So I'm now torn between "Muscle" and "Skin". Well, not entirely torn. From what I remember from my psychology classes, it's a bit of both.

Yin and Yang. Fate and Free Will. Brian and Peter Griffin.

Damn you, Future Guillermo, would you hurry it up?

I Dub Thee

I have a new title. Last night, my sister dubbed me: "The Boy Who Uses Many Plates But No Cups." That's accurate. When I eat dinner, I usually prepare three of four different things. This requires several plates. I don't usually drink anything while I eat. At the end of the meal, or whenever I'm thirsty, I just stick my head under the faucet of the kitchen sink.

It irritates my mother to no end. I defend myself by saying that I'm just cutting out the middle-man. I don't think she gets it.

But I am kind of a hippo-crite. I refuse to eat directly out of a pot or pan. Seriously, that's just ghetto.

A Toast!

Whenever you're out drinking with your buddies, every round should begin with a toast. The honor should then be passed around, with everyone getting a chance to be the toastmaster.

If you know an elaborate toast, you should go first. If you don't know any toasts, then you should go later. You'll be drunk by then so you won't care and neither will anyone else.

This was my toast the last time this game was played:

"Do not waste energy trying to sound profound. Just appreciate it if it comes."

It was a toss-up between that and "Sake Bombers are bitchin'!"

Disclaimer

I want to point out that this post was supposed to be about our trip to Lake Roosevelt but something is wrong with my camera so I couldn't upload any pictures.

Blasted technology.

Sublimation Is A Virtue

The previous post came at the end of a long night of exercising my Delete key.

I just had just learned of a coffee house on Southern and Mclintock called The Xtreme Bean. That sounds like a very appropriate place for me, I thought. My thought was correct. On weekends, the place is open 24 hours.

I wasn't very concerned with all 24 hours, just the ones between midnight and dawn. After spending some time there with the boys (and Jessica), everyone decided to go. I had not yet begun to nocturne, so I went home, packed up my laptop, some notes, a box of Crackerjack, and a Capri Sun. I returned to the coffee shop, purchased a mug of coffee, plugged in my laptop, and went to work.

The light of the rising sun found a very frustrated Guillermo.

I had started four separate stories. Despite my most frenzied efforts, each one had died on the page. It was sad. The poor bastards never had a chance.

But I learned quite a bit. I learned that I don't have too much trouble thinking up scenarios or things for the characters to say. I just can't figure out how to get them into the next room, so to speak.

It's like trying to move a stubborn mule. Or a very fat ass.

You know, frustrating.

Around seven o'clock, I gathered my belongings and drove home. I didn't need to eat my snack. I don't drink coffee very often, so when I do it keeps me very awake and not very hungry.

At home, the computer was on and the screen wasn't completely covered in the pop-up ads that have been waging guerrilla warfare on it lately. I sat down, logged in to blogger, tried to imagine what kind of conversation the sun and I would have in my current state of mind, wrote "Internal Sunshine Of The Plotless Mind", realized that was a terrible title, and then decided to leave the bit untitled.

I think I made the right choice.

This morning, Donaldo wanted to go running. When he woke me, I did not even want to acknowledge that it was morning, much less go running. I almost didn't go, but then I tried to remember the last time I had gone running. The last time I went running was...hmm...the night before I started drinking again.

I slurmed out of bed and put on my running shoes.

This night, we went to a bar called Rogue, which is sort of a punk bar but mostly a dive. I fit right in. Some guy even asked me if I wanted to go beat up some skinheads. I politely declined, citing my own shaved head as the reason.

Not that I was in any way affiliated with them (which in itself would have been a good trick; myself being of Mexican ancestry), but because in a poorly-lit bar where my skin color isn't as obvious, a drunken brawler-for-equality might easily mistake me for the bad guys.

So I avoided a fight. It's good, because I haven't ever been in a fight. I was roughed up a few times when I was little, but once I had grown my peers seemed to lose that inclination.

I didn't drink tonight, either. It had also occurred to me that I had been drinking every night for the past week. Not getting obliterated every night, but certainly cutting loose.

So the moral of the story is: Running prevents drinking.

Not counting all those times I used to get drunk and then go running, of course.

Oh, and if I don't post tomorrow, it'll be because I'm at Lake Roosevelt rappelling down into secret ravines.

I have to decide soon if I'm going, since we'll be leaving in five hours.

Decisions, decisions.

Me: Hey, Mr. Sun!

Sun: Who are you?

Me: My name is Guillermo! I just wanted to tell you that sunrise was bitchin!

Sun: Gee, thanks.

Me: Can you teach me how to wake up like that? I want to be all majestic and awe-inspiring.

Sun: Do you humans have nuclear bombs yet?

Me: Oh boy, do we!

Sun: Then shove one up your ass and wire it to your snooze button.

Me: Ha ha, you're funny!

Sun: Look, um, Gwuh...Goo...Gully...what is your name again?

Me: William.

Sun: Yeah, okay, William. I gotta go, you know, I'm kinda on a schedule.

Me: Where are you going?

Sun: Over there.

Me: What's over there?

Sun: I will be, if you ever shut up.

Me: Ha ha, you're funny. Are you following the moon?

Sun: No, I am not following the moon.

Me: Why not? She's hot.

Sun: You're trying to be funny.

Me: I'm not trying to be anything. I just want to know what's going on between you two.

Sun: If you don't understand gravity, kid, I don't have time to explain it to you.

Me: Is it that simple?

Sun: Gravity is simple, he says. Let me see you calculate where I'm going to be in 10 hours and then tell me it's simple.

Me: I thought you said you would be over there.

Sun: Oh, we're clever, are we? Well, you just earned yourself an extra dose of UV rays.

Me: Thanks, but don't worry about it. I have to go to bed soon.

Sun: Must be a rough life you lead, Gwilliamo.

Me: I wouldn't call it that.

Sun: I would expect you to call it sarcasm.

Me: Huh?

Sun: Go to bed, kid.

Me: But laws of attraction, that's what you're saying?

Sun: Right. There are laws.

Me: Hmm. Is it possible to break these laws?

Sun: Perhaps. You can certainly try. Although, from what I've seen, you'll probably be torn apart, or at least lose a great deal of mass.

Me: Oh. Are those my only options?

Sun: No. Under the right circumstances, you could change into something else entirely.

Me: That's neat. Like what?

Sun: Depends on what's already in you, kid.

Me: I had a quesadilla for dinner.

Sun: ...Yeah, you know what, then you're good. Seriously though, I have to go. I guarantee you there are some really pissed-off farmers right now.

Me: Oh, okay. Hey, do you want me to tell the moon anything for you?

Sun: No.

Me: You want me to tell her no?

Sun: Wow. Goodnight, kid.

Me: Goodnight!