I'm facing a strange phemomena lately--I was always branded as the friendly child, the one you could put into any situation and expect to come out of said situation all smiles and with at least one invite to the birthday party of someone unknown before then. This has held true throughout my life and I'm very thankful--I really despise being alone. Let me qualify that: I love being alone when I'm getting work done or when I'm writing, playing music, or some other solitary activity. However, if something doesn't fall under the label of "solitary activity", then I don't want to do it alone. Got to get gas at the gas station? Surely Mom would like a nice ride in the car. Gotta get food at the grocery store? Go to Super Target with friends and it becomes a social event. Eating, shopping, chores, exercise...all of these things are better with another person along. (And don't get me started on Friday Nights! Fridays are those sacred days when there is more to do in Orlando than on any other day and, better yet, there's no church the next morning. To spend a Friday night alone is horrible enough...spending it alone and at home is even worse.)

So, let's work with this phenomena I spoke of earlier on two levels: macro and micro. On the macro level, I'm finding that the older I get, the harder it is to just "hang" with friends or to get together on the spur of the moment. I see my friends less and less. It's getting a little depressing and I can't figure out if there's a remedy or if I just need to get over it.

On a micro level: I just got back from the beach (lovely weather, btw). I pulled up to my house at 9:30pm, a little tired from driving. After an hour, I started to get restless--this was Friday night! How could I stay at home? How could I be alone? But there was no one to call...sure, I could have called Megan, but I don't think her parents would like an 11pm phone call. Braden was out of town...in fact, half of my friends are out of town. The others--working, I don't have current numbers, they live in other states, etc...

So, to counteract this phenomena of alone-ness, I went to the movies. By myself. The singlemost heinous thing I do to myself--it's really demoralizing. Eating by myself at a restaurant--perfect...that way when I do something stupid at the table, like drop things in my lap, it's only me who sees it. Going to the bookstore by myself--just fine. The movies--a big fat no! And I went to see "About a Boy" (which was rather good in my opinion--even though it shared an identical shot with Bridget Jones' Diary...just take out Renee Z. and add in Hugh G.)...I was heckled by a group of high school students who didn't know that I could hear them say, "Is that guy waiting for someone? I can't believe he came alone" followed by giggles when they realized I went to "About a Boy" without a date--isn't this a "date" movie. I pulled out my little writing notebook and tried to pose as a movie reviewer...a rather thin disguise considering the release date for the movie was last friday...earlier even for real reviewers.

So, as you can see--I need to either get over the friend thing...or I need to find a girlfriend, or better yet "my soulmate"--the person who I will proverbially "spend the rest of my life with."

Or not. Maybe this will be good for my writing, which hasn't been worth anything lately.

(I haven't even read over this again and I know it sounds negative...but please take it in the manner that I wrote it--stream of consciousness, I'm still thinking the whole lot through (boy, can you tell I've been to a British flick? Bollocks)). =)

I am very disappointed to find that my new copy of "The Metamorphosis and other stories" by Franz Kafka is a "new translation." I don't know what my aversion is to new translations or why I didn't see the words "A New Translation" emblazoned in gold on the cover of the $4.95 paperback (which has to be government subsidized because $4.95 could definitely not pay for its satiny smooth cover and substantial page weight). Why would I be such a snob when I can't even read in the original language? Shouldn't I be happy that someone took Beowulf and reformatted it like a 19th century English novel or somehow dug deeper into German to find what Kafka was really saying?

Unfortunately, I don't believe that $4.95 will buy me a better translation--I'm pretty sure it's one of those "New Modern Fun and Funky Bible Translation" deals--ultra-modern, yet blah English for those who don't want to think too hard ("Your word is like light shining on my sneakers; a flashlight for my sidewalk").

Maybe I could borrow someone else's copy...

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In other news, I have oblique muscles along my torso. I know this because they feel as if they are continually being swiped off by large, feline mammals (with sharp claws).

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In better, other news: Just got the new one by The Get Up Kids. It's a really optimistic album despite the low-key-ness...for an alterna-rock band, they sure know where the pop hooks can be found. Go them.

Also, the new Moby was not worth buying, despite the 18 tracks (how clever). The only fun I had while listening was imagining each song playing in insurance or toilet tissue advertisements.

I've taken up TaeBo to see if I can get into a normal exercise routine. So far, I've successfully made it through 3/4 of the instructional video without injury. I don't know how long I'll last with this exercise program considering I despise little comments like "You can do it!" (how does he know? The person on the other side of the TV may be paralyzed or something) and "Use your heart to guide you through this exercise program" (I don't know, I just thought that maybe I'd just use my body)...there's also this very skinny, very ripped blond girl who scares me on the video. They've given her a headset microphone (like Madonna) so I can only suspect that she comes into play later and with much greater ferocity...I'm not looking forward to that moment.

Otherwise, I already feel better--more breath at my disposal (I'm a former asthmatic), better posture, and climbing up the flights of stairs to Braden and Nicole's 3rd floor apartment is ultra-easy now. Yea!

I can't believe it! My friend, Jessica Welch, is married. =) She's like my adopted sister (and 5 years younger than me...I need to get my marigable backside in gear), so it was really sweet to watch her get married. She's now the wife of Ray, who is a really cool guy.

I videotaped while my dad performed the ceremony. Who would have thought? In 1988 my dad was a drug addict--in 2002, he's marrying people as an elder of our church. Go figure.

My eyes are really drooping after such a long day, but I wanted to be the first to post (since Megan's internet is quasi-down) that we've finally dyed Megan's hair it's proper color--Pillarbox Red from Manic Panic. It's red. It's really red.

Really, really red.

It was the first time that I had ever totally bleached out someone's hair and dyed it another color. I was really nervous, especially when her roots took about 3 seconds to go blonde while her ends took forever (it was all that Feria over the years that clogged the ends up...oh well). The final result is quite smashing...she'll tell you that I did all the work, but I'll tell you that she's the one who has to pull it off with charisma...and she does. =) You go girl.