What's going on with me?

5-31-06 - Tomorrow makes one year since I moved up here. I tried a few times, while writing this, to come up with some sort of insight on my life at this point as compared with a year ago, but I came up with nothing other than I�m not anywhere near being disappointed with my life. Although there are very few of them, I�ve got good friends that never cease to keep me entertained. Things are going well with my job. I don�t really have a reason to complain about anything. I just need to learn to quit being stupid about some things.

Saturday night, Blake, Diana, Chris, and I went to The Comedy Zone about a mile from my apartment to go see Blake Clark perform. He�s the guy that was the hardware store owner on Home Improvement and was also Drew Barrymore�s dad on 50 First Dates. He was quite funny. Afterwards, we were standing outside and we saw him out there, so we went to talk to him and we each got a picture taken with him. It was mucho fun. There was some dumb woman sitting next to me who started heckling him at some point during his performance, and I was so close to just reaching out and slapping the taste out of her nappy mouth. Yes, I said nappy. It�s better than grody.

When we were leaving, Diana was given a free admit four pass to see a dude named Gemini tonight. We went, had a great time. I got picked on by the emcee and Blake got picked on a couple times by Gemini. While we were leaving, I was given a free admit four pass to see Cee Jay next Wednesday. We're awesome.

Monday night at about 11, I walked into my pseudo-kitchen and flipped on the light and I saw ants running around everywhere on one of my counters. I was obscenely pissed off. I kill a lone ant any time I see one. It�d worked up until that point, but I walk away for a couple hours and come back to that. Not cool. I killed all of them, which took about 10 minutes due to their frantic ways. I came back about 10 minutes later and killed a couple dozen more. I then decided to try to kill their scent trail by rubbing soap over where it looked like they were coming from. I did that and then rubbed a somewhat thick line of hand soap across all the surfaces surrounding the counter. I even went as far as to spray potpourri around and in the possible entry point, not knowing why that would do anything. I then looked in my trashcan and saw them swarming in there, so I took out the trash and killed all the ones I could see running around on the carpet (there weren�t many).

I killed a few more stragglers after that and then went to bed. I woke up at about 4 and decided to check the situation while I was awake. I didn�t see a single ant. I went back to sleep and when it was actually time to wake up, I saw a few and killed them. I dreaded coming home from work to see what might be waiting for me, but there wasn�t a single one on the counter. I acknowledged my victory, but it was too soon. I killed some on several occasions last night. I just kinda gave up. I saw more in the trash can when I woke up this morning. I called the apartment complex yesterday and told them I was having a problem. They said that the monthly pest control spraying is next Tuesday, but if I need it sooner, they�ll do it.

I bought and used some spray tonight, after trying some other creative tactics. We'll see how this works out. Yay for ants.

So after all that mess, I get to work yesterday and discover a war zone. There are probably 16 cubicles in the room where mine is. The entire room was barricaded, causing all of us to wander aimlessly until they could find places for us. It turns out that over the weekend, a leaky pipe caused several ceiling tiles to fall in, most of them in one office, one in mine (somehow...it�s a few cubicles away, but it missed all the ones in between us). A little before lunch, we were able to go into our offices, wearing hard hats, to get our personal items and items necessary for work to prevent (further) damage...and to do that whole work thing. In my office, I saw no water damage, which was lucky. The one dude whose office got hit by all the tiles got hit hard. Many documents were ruined, etc. I could go on about this, but there�s no need. It�s a terrible situation that could�ve been prevented. Yup. A few months ago, the same dude whose office got ruined had a ceiling tile fall and damage a lot of his stuff a few months ago, but maintenance �wasn�t able to fix the leak due to lack of funds.� Now they have all of this to deal with. Luckily there was no asbestos up there, but there was fiberglass. Oh, well. Maybe the government will learn some time.

5-17-06 - I meant to write about this yesterday, but I forgot. It�s something that some of you will think is moot (pronounced like it�s spelled, not like �mute�).

Sunday was the series finale of Malcolm in the Middle. I remember, back before the show premiered, pulling up to the Arts Guild one day and I heard a commercial for it. Lois was yelling and her voice annoyed the crap out of me. I vowed never to watch the show. I have no idea how it happened, but I watched it one day and I loved it. I�ve seen just about every one of it and, at this point in time, I can�t think of any one that I disliked. Reese is one of my favorite TV characters ever, don�t ask me why. Actually, so many of the characters from that show, even the very minor ones, could easily rank high up on my non-existent list.

All of that being said, I�m thoroughly going to miss that show. The finale left me feeling satisfied, which is a great feeling. Shows don�t always end on their own terms, and when they do, sometimes it�s hard to wrap things up in a single half-hour episode. When it was getting down to the last few minutes, I became immensely sad, and it lingered for a good while after watching it. It hasn�t really become apparent that there will be no new shows, but I�ve accepted it. I know it�s dumb to get all mushy over a show ending, especially one as silly as Malcolm in the Middle, but I can�t help it.

5-16-06 - I had a good weekend, despite it starting off on Friday morning by getting creamed in racquetball by Blake. The first game started with me getting a 10-5 lead on him, so I did our usual picking on him for whooping him. Well, he came back and won 15-11, so he started doing it to me. The next game, I won 15-5, so I resumed the gloating. Well, he beat me 15-5 the next game. All in all, �twasn�t pretty.

I went to a party on Saturday night that was held in honor of Jeanne (a woman I work with) who is getting married on the 27th. I had a lot more fun than I expected to have. Immediately when I entered, I saw a little kid running around and I knew it was gonna be a good night. I didn�t know he was the kid of this guy David that I met a work a month or so prior. Anyway, the kid�s name was William. He challenged this guy Will to a game of chess, so I sat down to watch.

Will went first and moved a pawn that was on a white square up two spaces to another white square. William told him he couldn�t do that, and we both told him that on the first move you can move them two spaces, but he disagreed. Being that he was six, Will decided to let him win the dispute. He moved it one space, instead, to which William said, �You can�t put them on that color!� which confused us even further. Well, before long, William was jumping Will�s pieces, which made us laugh. People were walking by and I invited them to stop and join in my watching of a rousing game of chesskers. Well, David came by and saw his son playing and decided to help him play.

At some point David asked, �How did both of your bishops end up on the same color?� Will and I laughed. After playing a bit, William (pretty much just David) got Will in check, so David to William to say, �Check,� which he did. This happened a couple times, and William always said it quietly. At some point, I told him he needed to be excited about it and yell it, and he got slightly louder. Later, I leaned over to William after he put Will in check and whispered, �You should say, �You got served.�� He said, �You got sowved,� which made us laugh. The next time he put Will in check, he said, �Check, you got sowved!� That made us laugh again, but it prompted me to get a bit of a look from David. William ended up saying it about five times. Luckily, he didn�t say it any more that night.

Later, we were outside and William was bugging me. He kept wanting me to play hide and seek with him, but I was eating and just in the mood to sit, so I told him I was glued to my chair. Later, as he was turned around, I got up and ran inside the house. I heard him out there wondering where I went. As I was about to go back outside, I was caught. As I sat down, I told him I got glued down again and he admitted to doing it.

Anyway, I tried to get him to bug other people. I started it off by asking him to dance a jig, which he said he didn�t know how to do. I kept telling him he just needed to dance. Eventually, he did a really goofy dance that got the few of us that saw it to laugh. I then, after a few tries, talked him into performing his jig for a couple of people, which brought on great laughter from us, but confused looks from everyone else. While he was being coaxed into dancing, someone (Will, maybe?) told him that dancing a jig will get him all the ladies. I told him to go up to Wease, who was throwing the party, and tap him on the back and dance a jig. He did it; but as he was doing it, he decided for himself to tell Wease something about getting all the ladies. Poor kid, corrupted in a few short hours.

I met Jeanne�s fianc� Randall when I arrived at the party. I had a couple opportunities to joke around with him. Actually, let me backtrack a second. Not long after I got there, someone knocked on the door and since I was closest, I answered it. It was a woman I�d seen before, but didn�t recognize. She introduced herself as Teresa and then I knew I�d met or at least seen her a couple times before. Ok, so about 10 or 20 minutes later, I was kinda making small talk with Randall, when Jeanne said, �This is the guy that pulled the trick on Charlie.� (Go back to my February 2006 page and look for what I�m guessing is the 2-20-06 post. I�m too lazy to check. If I�m not mistaken, Jeanne is mentioned in that post, also, as she was one of the few present.) I laughed, as it�d been a couple weeks since anyone had mentioned it, and I assumed it was dead. Randall laughed and then Teresa said, �Oh, that was you?� and I laughed and said yes. We then talked about it for a while, and I was happy that the memory was still living on.

Some of you may know that while I love making other people laugh, I usually do things to make myself laugh. Seeing others laugh makes me happy. Seeing other people�s reactions, depending on what they are, are often funnier to me than the things that evoke those reactions. One of my favorite reactions to get is the groan when I tell a dumb or slightly mean joke. Luckily, I got it right before I left:

I didn�t stay at the party long, only about 2 1/2 hours. In that time, a few people had made their way to the door and headed out, but most were still around to hear my cheap shot. Almost everyone was sitting outside when I decided to leave. Will and Fred were sitting inside playing chess, Will still reeling from the sting of defeat imparted on him by a six-year old...and his dad. As I was outside saying goodbye to everyone, I said, �Randall, it was good to meet you...and my deepest sympathy.� Everyone�s chuckle turned into a disheartened groan, but Jeanne just laughed and said, �Alright, I�ll get you Monday!�

I love little get-togethers like that!

5-13-06 - My life is good at going from kinda good to kinda bad to great to terrible.

I don't know what to think about certain people or situations at times.

I hate that some people are so incredibly far away.

I'm amazed at some of the things that I'm able to accomplish (both good and bad, both intentional and unintentional).

5-2-06 - Every morning at work, someone will come on over the plant intercom system and give a daily safety message. They�re usually pretty stupid, but we get a kick out of them. Yesterday, at the end of the announcement, the guy ended with, �Have an All-American great day!� I immediately went to a couple people�s cubicles and asked if they thought that statement was protesting the immigrant protests. I know it wasn�t and it�s not funny, but I got a kick out of it.

Yesterday seemed to go by so incredibly slowly. I�m glad it did!

The Ben Folds concert on Friday was amazing. Not only was it a performance by my favorite musician, it was completely free! I went with Jasmine, her boyfriend Ian, and some skank that they work with. The skank, who I won�t mention by name but I�ll call Eva for the sake of giving her one, seemed alright at first, but instantly showed herself to be one of those people that is confrontational for the sake of being confrontational. To echo something Travis once said about someone else, who I REALLY won�t mention by name, though her name shares 5 letters with Travis�s (with the sixth one being obtained by replacing the �v� with an �h�-like letter), she�s mean because she�s fat. I know that�s a terrible thing to say, and Eva isn�t by any means morbidly obese, but I�ve met several people that are like this, unfortunately. There is a distinct type of irritability that exists from this. I don�t like when people are blatantly rude to other people for no reason (and while I say that, I must acknowledge the fact that I�m 100% sure I�ve done it before on multiple occasions, though I have not been happy with myself on any occasion that it�s happened). Nor do I like people who are unreasonably demanding of others, but that�s irrelevant. Compound that with the fact that I like to pick on everyone (and I only pick on you if I like you, which means I stopped talking to her, period, not long after I met her), and you can see why we didn�t get along.

Wow...yeah, so the concert was great. I was only about 10 feet from the stage, so I was about 15 feet from Sir Folds-a-Lot. I kept shouting for him to play �Emaline,� though he didn�t take any requests. I tend to be annoying in situations such as a concert. I yell things. Luckily, I yell things that tend to make the people around me (those I know and those I don�t) laugh on occasion, even if it�s only a chuckle. At a couple points, I yelled �Your Most Valuable Possession!� for him to perform the �song� of that name. Apparently, this tickled a few people around me because others started yelling it, as well, and you can hear them on a couple videos I took.

During a certain cover of an NWA song that Mr. Folds performs at his concerts, right after the line where he discovers his cousin Daz and right before saying �I uncocked my [gun],� he paused and I yelled, �What�d you do, Ben?� I met a nice gal online Sunday night who apparently was only a few people behind me at the concert and claimed to have heard me yell that, and she thought I was a moron for it. It�s a small world.

While at the concert, two separate similarly-acting groups of three annoying whores stood behind me and Ian. They kept yelling �I love you Ben Folds!� and other things in a voice befitting a cheerleader with herpes. They kept singing loud and out of tune with the same voice. They danced around like crazy, pushing and bumping us repeatedly, which did not please Ian, given some of the things he said to them. I got one on video! They kept trying to push past us to get closer, but without even so much as looking at each other, Ian and I just leaned our shoulders up against each other so they couldn�t get past. We rule.

All in all, I loved that night. Jasmine and I got to the concert site at about 5:30, gates opened at 6:45, and the opening act started at 7:30 with Ben Folds starting at 8:30 and playing until about 10:30. We left her and Ian�s apartment at a few minutes after 5. I didn�t have a drink right before I left home, nor did I drink anything at Jasmine�s before we headed out. My best guess is that the last drink I had before the concert was between 4 and 4:20. We didn�t get back to their apartment until after 11:30, I think, because we sat outside the tour bus for a good while in hopes that he�d poke his lovely head out and I�d be able to fulfill my promise to Liz that I�d make out with him for her. Oh, and I also wanted a picture of myself with him that I could put right next to my picture with Butch Walker.

Speaking of my promise to Liz, I was talking to Kate before the show and I told her about that promise, to which she laughed. I then told her how I planned to do it. I said that I�d get really close to the stage, and then I yell, �Ben, you dropped your pick!� and when he bent down to get it, *BAM!* surprise attack. He�d then sit up and shake his finger at me and say, �Oh! You got me!�

I�m being informed that I�m a moron.

I�m going home this weekend to see Kate, Kate, and a couple others (not named Kate) in Little Women at the Maury County Arts Guild. I haven�t been home in nearly three months, which is a record for me. I find myself greatly missing the people that I left behind there, but I�m finding myself also becoming more and more accustomed to living in Knoxville. Yesterday made 11 months since I moved up here. I�d been slowly enjoying life up here more and more, but that�s recently spiked a number of times in recent months...heck, days. I feel more optimistic about things. We�ll see how long this lasts...