Ringers

Tonight I had class. Statistics 145. Every Monday and Wednesday from 5:30 to 7:00. Tonight my teacher didn't show, I got to go home early.

The weather was beautiful and I would not waste it. In mere weeks even the evening weather will be unbearable, but I will love it anyways. But it will not be great basketball weather. Tonight was. So I go home, I change, I got my kicks on, grab my favorite so smooth it shouldn't be allowed on a court but god damnit it's still better than rubber basketball, call up my friend D, and head to the park.

Within minutes of getting to the park. Two girls come up to us. One is short, frankly speaking has a nice ass, and is outgoing which is 100% what I am not. She starts to talk to us, and tells us the catch. They are selling magazines. Sorry, not interested in magazines we say. She says, "If I make a 3 would you buy one?", "I'll think about it" I say as I toss her the ball.

She takes off the UHF's. That's an acronym for ugly face hiders. You know, those huge sunglasses that make a girl look like a praying mantis? Ready to pounce on you at a moments notice. Happy to disguise the cavernous expanse that lies beyond. This has never proved more correct. She laughs for a while, can't believe we agreed to it. throws up the worst shot I have ever seen in my life. But you know what? Swoosh.

Fuck.

Ok, I look thru the fuckin pamphlet, covered in stickers that said "hottie". Those stickers fucking lie.

"Wired magazine. Ok, I can deal with that. How much?."
"40 bucks."
"40 bucks?" what the fuck is this?
"It's a two year subscription."
"Two years?!?"
"Yeah it's all we sell."
"What else do you have?"
"Maxim?"
"I like Maxim. How much?"
"Same price."
"That's all you have? Two year subscriptions?"
"Yeah."
"Sorry, I'm out."

They were very upset. Whatever no one said two years.

Morals of the story. Never trust a girl wearing UHF's, make her take that shit off first. And never make a bet with someone who looks like they don't know what they are doing. Ugly shot or not they are a fucking ringer.

They'll repackage it and try to sell it to me again

I had a ninja turtles bike growing up. That bike is better than any bike you could ever get now.

My spokes had these things that did the same thing as cards (made noise) but they were each in the shape of ninja turtle heads and the back clipped on the spokes. They made noise by sliding up and down the spoke, but if you were going fast inertia would take over and they would all hit the outside of the wheel and rode in silence. It was kind of the 6 year old equivalent of breaking the sound barrier.

I gave it to my cousin when I got an 8 (?) speed silver diamondback that made me feel like a baller. I didn't like it as much in the end.

made me think at least

A few weeks ago (Feb 11 to be exact), I woke up. That's not a metaphor I'm talking completely literally. As is par for the course on a Sunday, it was about noon, and I was heading over to the parents to eat their food and do laundry (I don't have a washer or dry at my current pad). As geeks are wont to do, I got on the computer to check my email and a few other things. After a few minutes I checked my facebook account. This is when I found something that caught me a little off-guard. On the "feed" that it shows as soon as you log on, a bunch of people had commented on my friend Michael's profile, but the content of the comments was out of the ordinary. They all said things like "I hope it's not true", "I hope you're ok", and "I'm so sorry, I hope your friends and family are ok".

You probably put it together.

Michael had passed away.

As more details came out later, I found out he fell while climbing in San Lorenzo Canyon on Saturday night.

Mike was a great guy. I went to high skool with him. We took a bunch of computer science classes together throughout our term in public education. Mike was a great guy to geek out with, talk about Star Wars, talk about cars. He was my vice president in BPA senior year. I went on trips with him to Dallas and Cincinnati. He was with me when we got evicted for throwing water balloons out of 13th floor window of a downtown Cincy hotel room. Water ballons that would hit empty delivery trucks and sound like bombs went off. Mike could make anything out of duct tape, wallets, backpacks, his prom tux.

Mike deserved better. I hadn't talked to Mike a lot since we graduated, but he was just the kind of guy who would be there if I ever needed anything. One time I posted a stupid bulletin about how I fucked up. Mike wrote back right away, "you allright? everything going ok?" I was just mad at myself for fucking up with some girls. Not a big deal, happens all the time, but Mike was there just on the chance something was wrong.

Every other person I know that has passed away (in my age range) did things to fuck themselves over. They got involved in gangs and drugs, hung out with the wrong people, didn't do anything to protect themselves, their families, or their futures. That wasn't Mike. Mike was genuine. Mike was over half-way towards his CS degree from NMT. Mike was going to do great things.

R.I.P. Mike.

The rest of this is probably going to sound kind of self-absorbed, but I know everyone else thought about the same things, so whatever.

I attended the Mike's services the Wednesday after it happened. It was weird to the say the least. First of all, it was an open casket, and I showed up way too early for someone who does not in any way have an urge to see the body. I understand some people need it for closure or whatever, but it's definitely not my thing. After the service, I saw a lot of people I hadn't seen since high skool, I saw old teachers which was nice, but I noticed something, I have no idea how to talk to people in this kind of situation. It's out of control. The only thing I could think of was "how are you?" but I knew, the answer, "FUCKIN TERRIBLE! we're at a memorial service you idiot!" well, they didn't say that, but you I could tell that's what they were thinking, but no one really knew what to say to anyone.

Everyone talked about stupid shit, about how this made them feel like they were wasting what they had and they weren't going to do it anymore. Let me be the first to say, I call bullshit. Everyone knew beforehand, continues to know now, what they are and aren't doing with themselves. It was an excuse to fill the world in on how sorry they feel for themselves, on how they don't do anything, and it pisses me off how dishonest these people are with themselves constantly. These kids would preach to me about how I needed to find God and how he leads them thru life and is their best friend and all of that bullshit all thru high skool. And now they are no where because they have no personal accountability, never have, and never will. Even after this it was just an exscuse, a way to grab attention. I can't stand it.

It also however made me think about if something were to happen to me who would be there? would it be a lot? Family, friends, co-workers? Isn't that who it usually is? Should it matter either way? What would people say about me? Would it be good things like everyone has to say about Mike? Or about how much of an asshole I am? Does it matter? Here's what I decided, I want it to be the people who matter. The people who are around me all the time, the people who care on a normal weekend, the people who call, the people I talk too. Fuck everyone else. Fuck them caring when it was too late. Fuck all of that.

And then I realized, I think I'm kind of a hypocrite, I hope that's not what I did to Mike, I hope I don't do that to anyone ever. I hope I care about everyone and everyone knows I'm there, I hope there is no bad blood with people that there needn't be, I hope I give my all to everyone.

I think I went full circle, I think I'm right back where I started. I don't even know what I'm writing anymore. I hope one day I can figure it out, I hope one day my internal journey leads somewhere else.