I don’t know how it works for everyone else, but if you were to graph my maturity level over time, it wouldn’t be a straight line, rising to the right; it would look like a flight of stairs. I seem to undergo relatively little growth for long periods of time, until some large event happens that prompts me to change the way I conduct my life.

The conclusions to romantic relationships in my life have always (more…)

After being told by 13 people in the past twenty-four hours that I need to write a new blog, I have conceded.

It’s been a while, indeed.  Since my last post, I’ve written a few songs, shot a film, bleached part of my hair again, and eaten no less than twelve pizzas (six from Domino’s, five from Pizza Hut, and one from Little Ceasar’s).

Lately Jaclyn’s been on my mind a lot.  Not in a “liek omg i want her back liek sooo bad” sort of way, though.  It’s difficult to explain, but I’ll see what I can do:

As of late I’ve been listening to a lot of friends and acquaintances talk about ex-significant-others and current not-so-great relationships.  I’ve found it somewhat interesting that people in general never run out of horrible things to say about their past love-interests.  They can just go on and on about how such-and-such drove them insane and how this-and-that pushed them over the edge.  It’s usually never explicitly stated, but they’ll run circles around the notion that their ex-boy/girlfriend is a complete moron, and that they should be avoided at all costs, lest I become less of a human being.

I was listening to one such rant as a certain Asian classmate of mine accompanied me to the mall.  As she was telling me about how horrible her recent ex supposedly is, her voice steadily got louder, as if she wanted everyone in the mall to understand how much he deserved to go to hell.  I quote:  “It’s like…  If I had known what an asshole he was, I would never have let him fuck me…  Cuz, like, now I feel…  …disgusting.”

Really?  That’s what made you feel disgusting?  I thought it would have been the fact that the number of guys you’ve slept with dwarfs the number of songs in my iTunes library, not that just one of those guys turned out to be a jerk.  I digress…

Judging by my recent experience, it’s apparently pretty common for people to gripe about their past relationships.  And this is what brought Jaclyn to mind.

Yeah, Jaclyn and I had issues.  She was stupid sometimes, and I was stupid more times, but overall our relationship was pretty damn amazing.  Whenever I get a chance to tell people about what an incredible person she is, I do.  I’ve been told on more than a couple occasions by friends that the way I describe Jaclyn makes them feel like they’ve failed as human beings in comparison.

Becoming conscious of the contrast that exists between the way I feel about Jaclyn and the way [insert name here] feels about [insert insert-name-here's ex's name here] has done two things: 

First, it has made me wonder what Jaclyn tells her friends about me.  Does she talk about me like everyone else on the planet talks about their exes?  Or does she talk about me the way I talk about her?  Somewhere in between, perhaps?

Secondly, it’s expanded the appreciation I have for the relationship Jaclyn and I shared what seems to be a century ago.  This isn’t the first time such an expansion has taken place.

Over my first year or so in college, I met tons of new people, and many of them were complete asshats.  They were wastes of flesh, who had accomplished nothing, and wished to accomplish nothing, thinking that a productive evening consisted of a bottle of Everclear, sex with a stranger, and pools of their own vomit.

Whereas in high school, Jaclyn was the most amazing person I had met out of a relatively small number of people, in college she became one of the most amazing people I had ever met out of a much larger collection of people.  I can only assume it’s a trend that’ll continue for the rest of my life.

Michael: Stupid girl games.

Brad: yeah, guys would never play them if it wasn’t for the sweet prizes awaiting the winners

I’ve heard this story a few times throughout my life, but it was told again this evening, and since I like it, I’ll share it with you folks.

Back in the mid 1900′s, my Grandma, Angela, was in college.  She and a friend, Peggy, had an afternoon class together.  One fine day, Peggy and her boyfriend had planned to go out after she got out of class.  Since Peggy’s boyfriend, for one reason or another, had to bring some friend of his, Frank, along, she invited Angela to tag along as well, so that Frank wouldn’t feel like the odd one out.

After class let out, Angela had to stay behind to talk to the teacher, so she told Peggy to go ahead, intending to catch up a few minutes later.  Peggy left to go find her boyfriend and Frank.

After talking to the teacher, Angela left the classroom in a hurry, and took off down hall, so that she wouldn’t make everyone late.  She raced down the hall and barreled through a set of double doors, colliding right into…

Frank.

Peggy, her boyfriend, and Frank had been standing on the other side of the doors, waiting for Angela, who was now tumbling through the air.  Books and papers flew every which way, and Angela was terribly embarrassed for tripping over Frank within the first half-second of meeting him.

They ended up getting married, and having three kids, one of which would turn out to be my dad.  My grandpa always likes to say, “The first time I met your grandma, I swept her off her feet!”

One couldn’t see much more than twenty feet in front of one’s self right now, it’s so foggy outside.  The moisture in the air is making the power lines above our house buzz pretty loudly.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything having to do with the goings on in my life, so for everyone who’s interested (all three of you), here we go:

I spent a good ten hours with Kate on Sunday.  I had forgotten how much I enjoy her company.  For lunch we went to Yama Sushi and both got crunch rolls.  One of the crazy Asian ladies who works there stood about two feet behind me, with her hands clasped in front of her, staring and Kate and me for nearly the entire duration of our stay.  It was…  uncomfortable.

We drove through one of those gas station car washes; it was the first time I had washed my truck in months.  It looks a whole lot better now, though I still need to “take Windex to the windows”, as Kate put it.

We tried to make it to make it the mall before they closed, but being as it was Sunday, most everything closed pretty early.  We just walked around and looked into the windows of all the closed stores…  and inside of this no-name coffee shop, there was a teenage boy who was sweeping the floor, but upon seeing Kate, he stopped and gawked…  slowly turning his head to follow her as we walked by.  It was obvious enough for both Kate and me to notice, and we had a good laugh at his expense.

Back at Kate’s house, she showcased her new lappy.  It’s one of them newfangled Intel Macs!  She’s also got a new computer chair.  And by “new computer chair” I mean “an old computer chair that her dad used to have but handed down because its falling apart”.

At eleven in the evening or so, we ventured off to Del Taco so that I could force Kate to try a Double Del Bacon Cheeseburger.  Alas, she wouldn’t even take a bite of it, instead opting for a plain ol’ ninety-nine cent cheeseburger, and then complaining that it wasn’t as good as McDonald’s.

At about midnight, we walked to the park near Kate’s house.  Among the various structures on which to play was something that resembled a twelve-foot high Hoberman sphere made of intertwining ropes that went every which way, all anchored to huge metal posts.  Kate and I climbed up inside and sat, listening to crickets, beetles, distant cars, sprinklers, and the occasional airplane.  We eventually delved into conversation and postulation about life, God, and the universe.

Our inner-child eventually got the best of us, and we fantasized about what would happen if the sphere we were in blasted us off into space, sailing through the stars, to eventually land on some alien world.

After briefly playing around on the swings and some kind of weird, spinning donut contraption, we headed back to Kate’s.  We sat and talked some more, until realizing that it was 2:30 in the AM…  at which point we said our goodbyes and I headed back up to Oxnard.

She leaves for college on Saturday, so hopefully we can squeeze in one more hang-out session before she’s gone.  (HINT HINT, if you’re reading this, Kate.)