The Man Behind the Legend
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This is the part of the site where I give you all updates about my own life and what I've been doing. So, if you are interested, read on. Older stuff is at the top, and newer stuff at the bottom.
By the way, I make it a point not to delete old stuff that I may be embarrassed about later. Part of what was written here was written when I was in a very foul mood. After I have climbed out of these lows, I am often ashamed or slightly embarrased about my thoughts from those time. Other things were written when I was about as manic as can be, and after I've slipped back down, I feel ashamed of my exuberance. However, they were valid thoughts for the state I was in, so this is as much of an appology as you're getting.
� 1997 [email protected]
Prom night was really one of the coolest nights I've ever had. We went to prom, and Jake and I snuck out to cruise in his dad's '94 Mustang convertable (with one hell of a stereo system). We cruised by my house and picked up some wine glasses. Then we went back to the prom, procured our dates, and went out on the soccer field.
At this point, Jake produces a bottle of champagne, and we toasted the night and each other. My dates and I got shoved in the back of the convertable at the end of the dance, with Jake and his date (Julia Mendiguren). We sped, blasted the stereo, and talked our way out of a speeding ticket. The party afterwards was pretty cool, too.
Come to think of it... if it hadn't been for Mr. Bolin, I would have been done in. This was the first real formal dance I'd ever been to, and I wasn't very prepared. Having poor parents, no money, no driver's license, etc. didn't help much. I had spent two weeks before the fact trying to at least purchase a bottle of champange, to no avail. I even almost asked my mom to do it for me. Still, at the last moment, Jake saved the day (night).
This was a pretty cool night. The one on the left is me with my girlfriend, Laurel. She called her costume "The Devil's Bitch." I thought it was pretty cool. The bottom right picture is me with my friend, Suki. Suki, as you can see, had dressed herself up as an angel. It was a pretty effective costume, especially up against Satan himself. On the top right is simply a picture of yours truly looking evil.
When I went downtown (in Ashland, every halloween there are a bunch of intoxicated people running around dressed up acting crazy) I ran into a co-worker named Evan. He was dressed as Jesus. He walked up to me and said, "Brother! Have you talked to Dad lately?" I told him the big guy was still holding a grudge.
The Summer of '99 . . .
Dear God, where do I begin to explain the horror that has been my last few months?
This all started back in april, I think. I was in my girlfriend's dorm room, and I was going to give my mom a call to ask her for money for some shampoo, or something. I called, and she right away informs me that my financial aide letter came in, and I'm all out of grants and scholarships!
You see, all of my financial aide was based on the fact that my mom could not begin to support me through college. However, mom got remarried, so, her income goes up, my financial aide vanishes. So, much to my abject terror, I heard myself telling my mom I was going to come back and live with her in this hell hole town that is La Grande.
Now, most people think that La Grandians' hatred of this town comes from a "the grass is always greener on the other side" sort of mentality. That is simply NOT TRUE!!! DO NOT COME TO THIS VALLEY!!! I do not pretend to understand what it is, but there is something essentially wrong and even evil about this place! The most obvious manifestation of this dark force is that the valley simply won't let you leave. It is possible, but certainly not easy. The stage was set for my own entrapment into this valley almost four years ago, when my mother first met her new husband.
For, while I don't blame either of them (they are simply unwitting pawns, already thuroughly entrapped by the valley's sinister web) it was their relationship and subsequent wedding that caused me to be trapped here. If mom hadn't remarried, I would have had enough money to either stay in Ashland or even move to Eugene as I had hoped. I stress again, that this is neither of their faults, simply the EVIL that is this valley!
This was not the first time, either. In 1992, it was my mother's relationship with another valley-ite, Charles "Tuck" Upson the Third, that caused us not to move back home to Coos Bay. Mother had finished school, and we were going back home. Sure, I would have missed the friends I made, but I was GOING HOME!
Of course, 1.5 weeks after we moved back to Coos Bay, mother decided she missed Tuck and wanted to go back. So we went back. So here I am, now and forever.
I realized, on the day I moved back to La Grande, I had been living on my own for exactly three hundred and sixty four days.
THREE HUNDRED SIXTY-FOUR!
I am not the only one trapped here. Jacob can't seem to get the ball rolling on his attempted entrance into the Coast Guard. Loren keeps pushing the date of his eventual move to Eugene back further and further.
Have you ever seen the movie, "The Three Amigos?" There is a scene in which one of them is chained up in a dungeon with those excercise springs, you know? And sitting on the table right in front of him are the keys! And so he pulls, and pulls, and he's almost there, ALMOST get the keys, and then SNAP!! The springs pull him back against the wall and he must start all over again. That is this valley.
I have written more on the evil of the valley, and you can find it here.
Me and my friends must have done something wrong. We must have failed to train the next set kids right, for only two people I know have gotten houses, and neither will ever be party houses, or really even hang-out houses. I don't get it. Basically, what I'm saying is that the sad fact of life is that me and my closest friends all live with our parents, and no one has a good place where we can come over uninvited and kick it for hours or days on end. So most of my summer has been spent cruising around in other peoples' cars, and sitting out on the grass at a park (which isn't bad when it's warm, but fall has decended in full force).
Speaking of driving, the one good thing about this summer is that I have a car now. It is a brown 1985 mercury marquis, four doors, and it has a big lighter colored stripe down the middle where the weather has worn away the paint. It has been dubbed "The Skunk Mobile."
Anyway, though I swore I'd never do it again, I'm working fast food. KFC has taken me on, and my mom and Auldin refuse to understand why I hate the job. In fact, they're really starting to piss me off. They don't take me seriously. I hate that. They act like I'm some dumb punk kid who doesn't know what he's talking about. What they don't realize is that it's their total inability to listen to new and different ideas that makes them ignore me. No matter how many times they read our local paper (a truly worthless rag), they will never, ever get back in touch with the horrible reallity our world has become. Phwew!
Okay, I've vented, now it's time to do something else. Catch ya later!
Oh my Goodness, new stuff!!
When last I wrote something on this part of the page, It was mid-fall of 1999. I was (that's right, WAS) trapped in L.G. and very, very depressed.
I was working for f-ing KFC, a real hell hole, if you ask me. I hated my job, I hated my life, and I was pretty displeased (not quite hate) with most of the people around me. Nobody could understand just what it was about La Grande that I hated so very much. This was complicated by the fact that I was too depressed to really convey what it was either. I have been painfully reminded many times lately that there is no hope for someone in the depths of really bad depression. I was at a very, very low ebb at that point in my life. The only thing for that sort of a person is to wait it out and hope.
There are many reasons I hate La Grande. One is the drama. Anyone from a small town will understand immediately. You know so few people, and they all know each other, and it turns into a stupid soap opera. It makes me want to vomit. Next, I would have to say I hate that there is no one new to meet. It is a small, small town, and very few new people come through, even with the college. Third on my list is that there is nothing to do. My step-father was on the city council (or was advising, or something, I'm not sure) and he has informed me that they block new development, especially development of new things for kids to do. Case-in-point: The new bowling alley was blocked for two years, and only opened two weeks before I left. Fourth point: I honestly do feel that the valley is evil. Sue me.
The biggest thing I hate about La Grande is something I was not able to recognize while I was living there. I was so at a loss when people would ask what it was I hated. People thought I was just lost in self pity, which I was, to a point. Again, sue me. I am (mostly) human, and humans do feel self pity and get depressed. However, it was not JUST self pity.
For me, La Grande became a symbol of my own failure. It was an icon of my inability to succeed in life, a glaring beacon that said I could not survive in the real world, so I'd always end up living back home like a loser. I felt helpless to change my own destiny. That can be the worst feeling in the world.
The first thing I did was go to McD's. I hate McDonalds. However, I figured that if I didn't have a job, I wouldn't be able to survive, so Mickey Dees was better than nothing. On the very day I was accepted for the job, I did a silly thing. I decided to try for "the activist job," a job that many who move to Eugene end up trying. It is a job with OSPIRG, the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group. The job was paid based on how much money you could wrangle from people as you canvassed neighborhoods, looking for donations for the various causes we supported. I though it sounded great, working but at the same time doing something really good. Things did not quite work out as I had hoped.
On the very first day of the job, I had my first panic attack in like three years. I used to have (and still do, to a point) a terrible time talking to people, which would sometimes end up with a panic attack (shortness of breath, nausea, dizziness, etc.) and me generally freaking out. I couldn't handle it. Don't ask me why, it's just the way I am. I was alone at the time, and was able to hide it from my group. The next day, I called them and told them that "something has come up" and that I couldn't work for them. Sorry. The big problem was that I had called up McDonalds and told them I had a better job.
So I went jobless for another few weeks. Then, my good buddy Loren told me the Little Caesars he worked for was hiring. So, I went right down, all confidence and good will, and was hired on the spot. I thought at first it would be just another fast food job, but I have ended up loving it. I like my bosses, the people I work with, and I even like the work, oddly enough. And finally, I have found somewhere that appreciates the fact that I am a good worker, because I am, and finally I have a manager who has realized that and treats me accordingly (i.e.: more hours, respect, and friendship).
I am also going to school at LCC, Lane Community College. It's nothing great, but it is a way to avoid loan payments until I figure out what I really want to major in.
So that is my life right now. I hope you've enjoyed our little chat.
Oog. Here I am again, back in the depths of depression and self pity. Oh me.
I have no real excuse for being as low as I have been lately, but that does not change the facts of my life. There, now you know my emotional state beforehand. Here is what I have been up to lately.
The last time we talked it was decemberish of 2000. Now it is mid-January in 2002. More than one year since I've done a serious update on this site. Wow. Anyway, I have had some definite changes in my life, so let's start where we last left off.
Now, school. After nearly failing fall term, I decided to go all the way and just do it. I failed winter term. That's right, ol' nerdecker himself, the man who couldn't fail if he tried, flunked. And it wasn't even difficult. If you're wondering what the secret is, it's this: don't go to class. Simple as that. I stopped going for a number of reasons, none of them good ones. Over all, I was just plain tired of school, and was kind of subconciously looking for a way out, and man did I find one.
I don't know what else to write. Other things have happened to me, but they all kind of seem small and meaningless. Maybe I'll write more later. Ian Fagan, Monday, January 14, 2002, 1:20 a.m. PST.
Oh yeah, I've had some issues with my car. Take a look here.
Winter once more
Once again it's early morning in January and I'm writing something for the website. Once again, I've allowed the site to slip by for almost a year untouched. However, this time I actually have done some real work on it. I hope you all like the new look.
Anyway, I suppose this is the time for me to bring you all up to speed on the oh so fascinating events (or non-events) of my life.
So no change there. Hmmm . . . scanning over the last entry, I see that I omitted to mention my housing situation. Bullard and I ended up getting an apartment march before last, downtown, kinda shabby, but not bad. Cori moved and got her own place and then moved and is now living with her boyfriend. There is a kinda interesting story about Bullard and I moving into this place that you can read here if you're interested.
I am also still out of school. I don't have any idea about what I want to do for the rest of my life, so I can't really go back yet. Furthermore, I have been thinking of waiting until I'm twenty-four, when my parents' incomes no longer count towards my financial aide. Maybe by then I'll have some sort of an idea.
Okay, on to the events. I finally decided I simply could not afford to be driving the skunkmobile around anymore, so I got a bike. A kick ass bike. It's a Haro, cost me half my tax return, but it was worth every penny. It's got one of those really light aluminum frames and a really good gear shift system. I started riding the four miles to and from work several times a week, and busing the rest of the time.
My legs, which had never fully recovered from the incident with the broken foot, are now in much better condition. I'm not in anything that could even be imagined to be good shape, but I am in better shape than I was, which is cool. I don't ride so much now that it's winter, living in the City of Rain and all.
Her name's Shianne, and she's from one of the towns I lived in growing up, Union. I've known her since I was twelve or thirteen, and had feelings for her, as she has had for me, for quite a long time. Circumstance has just never been right for us. But back in June, Shianne moved down to Eugene, and we've been together ever since. She has a daughter, India, who is possibly the cutest little girl I've ever seen. She is also absolutley crazy, nice and loving one second, and pure evil the next. Since the job market in this town
Well, that is all that I can think about now. I've been awake for about twenty hours on four hours of sleep, and so I need to go zonk out now. Night all. I'll write again soon. I think I'm going to turn this into my journal, either that, or put up a journal section in this part of the site. I think I'm probably rambling now. I am having difficulty thinking clearly. I will go to bed now. Good night. I will write again soon. I just sang a song to India about wiping properly. Wow.
Ian Fagan, January 3, 2003, 2:31 a.m. P.S.T.
Summer Revisited
What I am saying is that Shianne's joblessness is not her own fault. "God" knows she's tried, but this town's job market sucks ass.
The worst part about this hiatus from school is that I have even less of an idea of what I want to do now than I did when I dropped (flunked) out a couple of years ago. I WILL go back to school no matter what in fall 2004, after I've turned 24 and my parents' incomes no longer affects my financial aid. But what I will do there is beyond me.
So, on to less depressing stuff.
My goofball of a little brother came down to visit last weekend. It was cool, since I haven't seen him since last summer. He's getting married to the brunnette on the left in my prom picture (earlier on this page). Her name's Michelle Shields and she's pretty cool.
That's pretty much it for now. I'll make more updates, I promise!
Oh, by the way, if you play shadowbane, you can find me on the Carnage server playing as Astrid Bloodmoon. Send me a /tell!
Ian Fagan, Saturday, June 7, 2003, 1:48 a.m. P.D.T.
Okay, the job thing. I am still working for mother f-ing little f-ing caesars. However, I only work there two days a week, for a little extra cash. I work full time (8 to 5, who'd a thunk it?) at a place called McGuire Bearing Company, as a driver and warehouse worker. The job sucks sometimes, but it is leaps and bounds better than full time Caesars. It pays better, has paid vacation, health insurance, all that stuff.
So that's better, but I still haven't figured out how to get enough sleep. I can't sleep even when I have the time. I run on about four to five hours a night, except on weekends, when I can usually manage to squeeze in about six or seven. I used to sleep anywhere between two and five hours a night and then catch up with a good ten or eleven hour nap once a week, but that never happens now, ever.
Let's see now . . . Shianne got a job. Guess where . . . that's right! Little f-ing Caesars. She has my old job, right down to the pay rate and the title. It's not the best work, but she seems a lot happier now that she has a job. She is trying to save up enough to get an apartment for her and India. Cliff is supposed to be moving out in a couple of months, so I'm going to get a 1-bedroom to myself. It's gonna be hard, but I make more money now.
You might gather from this information that Shianne and I are breaking up, but you'd be wrong. The thing is that we were kind of thrown into the situation we're in now suddenly and unexpectedly. We were most definetly not prepared to be living with each other, especially under these circumstances. So, we're gonna try out the living separetly thing for a while, then we will see about living together, but only on our own schedule.
I'm not gonna make any promises about when my next blurb will come this time. Hopefully soon, but probably not.
Peace out.
Ian Fagan, Friday, June 11, 2004, 8:35 p.m. P.D.T.
This is one I'm proud of. This is me and my dates (yes, plural) at the senior prom. To my left is Cori Callahan, and to my right is Michelle Shields. You can't tell, but I had blue hair, blue goatee, and a blue mustache. I was the envy of everyone but Jen Miller, who had two guy dates.
My pictures back from Halloween. I am a handsome devil, ain't I?
The only problem with this costume was that I just wasn't quite prepared. My suit should have been black, instead of dark blue. I should have shaded the make-up a bit (though it was done by Dani, and turned out really cool). Furthermore, I was trying to get a briefcase with contracts and a inwell of red ink, just to have some fun during the evening. Oh well. Next year, maybe.
Well, well, well. Where in hell do I start? Perhaps I should start where I last left off?
But it seems to have all worked out. In early june I moved to Eugene. The plan was that I would get a house there with my old friends from Union, Norm and Cliff. Well, it took us a month to find a house, and a month and a half for me to find a job, but it all worked out in the end. We got a great house, kind of out of the way, but an awesome place to live. My job . . . well, I like the job I have now, but it is not the first one I acquired.
So now I like my job, but I want to get a new place. One month into our stay, Norm moved out, and we went sans roomate for three months (jumping rent from 300 to 450). Now we have a roomate, for another month or two, then she moves out. I just want my own place now, so I don't have to deal with stupid roommate b.s.
Winter in Eugene, revisited
As you may recall, I was working part time at the Caesar's and going to school at LCC part time as well. I was enamoured of my job at that point, and quite pleased with myself. Let's see . . . I hate my job now. I may not have mentioned that I had broken my foot, and I had a bigass steel bolt put in the middle of it, ostensibly to help it heal--it now hurts constantly--and I was stuck not working for a month. Well, between the broken foot and being a basicaly lazy person, I rarely went to class and nearly failed fall term, but that was all good and well, as you will see shortly. At the end of the month, I discovered that the manager that I had liked so much was getting fired. Hmm . . . so I went back to work, only to find that the assistant manager was to take over the duties of the manager, and guess who got to be the new assistant manager? Neither of us had been trained for this, nor were we ever trained. We also never got the titles or the raises we were promised So that didn't help any. But I'm not going to go into excruciating detail about all the reasons I hate my job. Suffice it to say that I do, but I seem incapable of getting a new one.
So I went from part time school and part time work to full time work. I feel like that is all I do. I can barely even miss a day anymore, what with paying back school loans and car insurance, rent, food, gas, etc. The days have become a meaningless jumble of slapping together pizzas and generally hating the customers. Some of them deserve my wrath, but honestly, most don't. But they get it anyway.
Well well.
Let's cover the non-events first, shall we? Let's see . . . I'm still slaving away in the pizza mines, slinging pizzas for Caesar Victorus. I am now sort of the almost official assistant manager, not that that means much. I think I hate the actual work less, but the job itself more. I have tried and tried and TRIED to land a new job the would pay me better than this, or at least be a change of pace, maybe something I don't loath doing, but to no avail. I was, in fact, just turned down for a pretty cool job with Monaco Coach Company.
With the rest of my tax return, I bought a good discman, paid off some debts, and bought a guitar. I play almost every day. I'm still not very good, but I am getting better all the time. It's very theraputic and a whole lot of fun.
Also, I've got a girlfriend now! For the first time in more than three years, I am not single. I wish I had a picture of her to show you (addendum: Thanks to the new digital camera, I do have a picture!), she is so beautiful. But for all her outer beauty, she is simply radiant on the inside. I is fun, and smart, and loving, and just plain great.
sucks ass, she hasn't been able to get a job. She moved in with me back in august, which definetly wasn't to plan for either of us. It's been hard, but rewarding at the same time. She's still searching for a job, and we all wish her to best.
Egads! I am indeed a slacker. It's been a long time (5 or 6 months) since I updated. Oh well. I've been drinking so now it's time for another episode of "What the heck has Fagan been doing."
When last we saw our hero he was working for Sleazers and living the high life of work-sleep-work-sleep-work-work-no sleep-work etc. Guess what? I still am! Nothing has changed except a 50 cent raise last month, and many more hours worked each week. You'd think that would make my life easier, but you'd be dead wrong. I never have enough money (excepting a couple months ago when I got my tax return). I used the bucks to buy a kick ass digital camera which you can thank for the new pictures in this area.
My girlfriend Shianne is still, sadly, engaged in the so far fruitless job search. My roommate, Cliff, understandably wants to either kill me or move out, or both. I choose to blame the economy. Oregon is the worst state to look for a job in right now and Eugene has got to be the worst area of the state. Off the top of my head I can think of four major employers in the area that have either closed up shop and headed to greener (and cheaper) pastures or have engaged in massive layoffs. U-hauls are now more common on the streets than VW buses in this town.
I have been pretty depressed about school lately. I realized that if I'd stayed in school, I would be graduating next month. I really, really have to get back into school. This whole pizza thing just isn't gonna cut the mustard. I still hate my job, and between $5 large pizzas every day and the quitting of one of my best workers, I don't know how I'm gonna make it through.
To the right you'll see my brother (who bears a disturbing resemblance to Lorenzo Llamas) posing in Drunken Kung Fu style, whilst wearing the groomsman outfit I'm supposed to wear for his wedding. I think it's pretty cool that he decided not to go with the traditional tuxedo. Besides, I get to keep the outfit!
Oh. Um. Okay . . . well, I guess you've all figured out by now that for all my grandiose claims of giving more attention to the website, I never actually follow through. Sorry. But, here I am again, typing away. Once more, I am gonna give you a brief rundown of the stuff that's been happinging to me since last I wrote here.
Well, shoot. I just got started and now I have to go. Ted (my brother) called and I'm going over to his house to hang out for a while. He lives one block away, which is cool.
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