Katrina or Ann Coulter: Which is more damaging?

A note to the readers about disasters: I do not like to hear about them, I do like to discuss them; I do not like to see footage of them. To be honest, I don’t even like to know about them. Ignorance is bliss when it comes down to it.

With the severity of Hurricane Katrina, I cannot avoid the news and coverage of it. Politicizing the aftermath is the last thing any decent person wants to do. Wanting and needing however, are mutually exclusive in this case. I do not want to write most of what I am going to (with the exception of anything I write about Anne Coulter) but I feel that what has been said and not in the last few days deserves more than some lip service, if not a good ole fashion make out session with ASIA serenading.

Earlier today, Venezuelan President Hugo (You-Go!) Chavez offered support to our country through crude and heating oil as well as monetary funds and aid workers. That’s the same Hugo (You-Go!) Chavez whom Pat Robertson, not ten days ago, called for to be assassinated. I’ll get to that in a minute, but for now let us discuss the hurricane and its effects.

Katrina (why the fuck they name these things, I don’t know) is one of the worst things to happen to our country in decades. The hurricane itself was a mere category 4 when it hit land in Louisiana, but the flooding it brought with it was the thing of nightmares. Nightmares incidentally, that the people of New Orleans have had for years. As it’s been stated probably millions of times already, the city itself is below sea level and was kept as dry as it could be by a system of levees. These levees are the first politically polarizing issue in the Katrina’s wake. Some of those levees were not yet finished. They were not yet finished because of a lack of funding. That funding shortfall was created in President Bush’s budget when they decided that the funds should be moved to the war in Iraq. They knew full well that the levees were being shortchanged and that hurricane activity had increased in the past years, yet they still under funded the contractors who were charged with building them. Is that he knew that his budget had caused the massive flooding perhaps the reason President Bush lowered Air Force One on his trip back to Washington, D.C. (more on that in a moment) instead of inspecting the damage on the ground? Maybe it was a good thing seeing the damage from up high. That way he could see the big picture for the first time in his life.

Speaking of his flight back to D.C., what in the blue hell is he doing going to Washington D.C. instead of Baton Rouge? Or Shreveport? Criminy, I’m sure Ida, Louisiana would have been acceptable. Instead of staying remotely close to Louisiana at his cushy little ranch in Texas, he decides that he can lead better from a thousand miles away. My conspiracy theory is that he’s actually an earnest worker when he wants to be. See, he doesn’t want to work while on vacation. Texas equals vacation and Washington equals work. But he wasn’t technically on vacation in Texas this time; he was just avoiding the renovations on the West Wing of the White House. So he was working. In Texas. Which kills my conspiracy theory about him separating his work life from his private. But then they came out and said that he was cutting his month long vacation short by a few days so he could get back to work. In Washington. Which actually proves my conspiracy theory. So yeah. Moving on.

Consider the following: While George pounds out some golf, the Gulf States get pounded. His aides cut short his trip to San Diego (good riddance) and fly him to Texas, not Louisiana. Or Mississippi. From there, he watches the occasional news story about some big storm that hit Louisiana and Mississippi. Devastation abounds as 80% of New Orleans is submerged and Biloxi is totaled. That night, Bush goes to sleep. In Texas. The next morning, they fly him out to Washington D.C. They detour (yes, it was a detour, not a planned route) over the disaster area and he remarks that the damage must be “doubly as bad on the ground.” He lands in Washington D.C. and makes a speech explaining all the services that are being rendered. His aides decide to leave out the bit about cutting funding to the levee builders. He goes to bed in Washington D.C. Not Louisiana. Not Mississippi.

That’s it. That’s the passed few days for our President. That is what he did during the country’s worst natural disaster in a century. He didn’t bother to fly over to the site and inspect the damage (something almost every President would do. Incidentally, his father did the same thing when Andrew visited Miami). Instead he had them lower the plane so he could make out little ants floating down Bourbon St.

Now get that sick feeling out of your stomach and let’s jump into the next politically prostrating point. In his speech to the country from Washington D.C., Bush said that he was going to be loaning crude oil from the strategic reserve to the refineries. That is something I think we can all agree is a good choice. Perhaps a better one would be to have done it years ago to stabilize the skyrocketing gas prices, but that is for another post. What he said next is something I think has flown under the radar. Over the disaster zone if I may. He said that this would be a temporary solution to the problem of raising gas prices.

Basically, he’s being nice enough to give us fair warning that we’re screwed. Keep in mind that last year, the big oil companies made a net profit of seven billion dollars a month. In zeroes that comes out looking exactly like this: $7,000,000,000.00. That’s 15,031,100,341,796.84 Venezuelan Bolivares. And that’s only a month. In 2003 alone they made $53 billion. 2002 showed $21 billion and 2001, $38 billion. Just from a layman’s view, and that’s really what I am, I can draw a very simple correlation between those profits and the price of a gallon of gas. Watch:In 2001, a gallon was roughly $1.64. Profit: $38 billion.
In 2002, a gallon was roughly $1.51. Profit: $21 billion.
In 2003, a gallon was roughly $1.83. Profit: $53 billion.
In 2004, a gallon was roughly $2.12. Profit: $84 billion.

See how easy that was?

In essence, what Bush was doing in his speech was throwing us an extra crumb but reminding us that the crumbs will get smaller and smaller from now on. You think he’s not being political in the aftermath of Katrina? He’s flat out saying that his friends in oil are going to be raising prices drastically and that he won’t stop them. How could he, right?

That’s where politically point three comes in. The OPEC nations (as scummy as they are when it comes do many, many things. One of which is oil), pledged to increase barrel output by 1.5 million to help offset losses created by Katrina. Bush has gladly accepted. Another country that is rich in oil also came out today and offered support through crude and heating oil, Venezuela. Yes, the same Venezuela who has Hugo (You-Go!) Chavez as President. A President mind you, that was elected twice in elections verified by the Carter Center. A President that has been through two coups and was deposed in one only to be brought back after protests en mass from the people of Venezuela, who it can be said, know what they want. A President that has been likened to a dictator in spite of his democratically elected status (unlike some dictators that have fake elections; the Carter Center doesn’t do fake elections). A President that our President’s administration has labeled a threat to national security because of his leftist leanings, while right leaning theocracies that give us a better deal (if you can call it that) on oil are welcomed. A President, whose assassination was called for on live television by a religious extremist living in the United States. That President, Hugo (You-Go!) Chavez has offered support to our country in a time of its greatest need, yet our own has not decided whether or not to accept it.

Incidentally, Hugo (You-Go!) Chavez is more than likely going to ask for Pat Robertson’s extradition within the next few days. A request that under International Criminal Law should be honored provided they charge him with the right crime. Unfortunately, Robertson will more than likely be left alone because of the Bush administration’s decision, I kid you not, to ignore decisions and orders issued by the International Criminal Court. But as far as Pat Robertson’s little tirade about assassinating the democratically elected leader of a foreign country has started the ball rolling. It is the new issue of the Right, and they will run with it no matter what. While the State Department has come out saying that his remarks were “inappropriate” and that the U.S. “does not share his view”, most of the Bush administration is silent. That silence is all but condoning that view.

That silence also gives the okay to the hate spewing psychopaths to start in. Just today I was listening to The Radio Factor in hopes of hearing Bill’s reassuring voice, which no doubt would have been yelling at someone who lost their family to the flooding, but that was not to be. There was a guest host whose name I don’t recall, but what made the entire 56 seconds I listened worth it was Ann “I swear I didn’t have a stroke or sniff a line of blow five feet long, I just speak out of the side of my mouth…LIBERALSSHOULDDIE” Coulter’s arrogantly arrestable comment:

“I think we ought to have public discussion about which commie rats should be assassinated”

I don’t like everything about Hugo (You-Go!) Chavez, but the fact that he’s still willing to help the American public in spite of calls from (as much as it pains me; oh it pains me to admit this) influential people for his murder makes him one hell of a guy to me right now.

Getting On With Life

A few days ago, our president responded to the Sheehanigans going on in Crawford by reminding the world that he needs to “get on with [his] life.” It sounds like something one would say to the devastated partner clinging to hope that their defunct relationship might be resurrected. In a way I find the Sheehan/Bush/U.S. situation a lot like a failed relationship.

Relationships require a degree of trust to remain in working order. Sheehan ultimately pledged her trust in the U.S. military and its commander in chief by allowing her son to go to war, regardless of how he felt about it. Technically, if she felt so strong about her son not going, she could have given him the old hobbling treatment ala Kathy Bates circa “Misery”. Because she did not join the Bates family practice, she was silently consenting to the decisions her son’s superiors made. She trusted that theirs would be sound ones and that the only way her son would be put in harm’s way, let alone in a situation that he might lose his life, would be if the safety of American citizens or residents was put in jeopardy.

When I say jeopardy, I mean it in the sense of physical harm. Monetary harm is something that President Bush has excelled in propagating lately, but it is not something that should be a case for war. Should is the operative word there because unfortunately, Major General Smedley’s “War Is a Racket” points out that war is indeed, a racket. “It always has been.” Considering Smedley waged them himself (and was decorated highly because of them), his is an opinion that one must afford a certain amount of weight.

With the idea that there is no war without want of profit in mind, we understand that in spite of everything President Bush told us leading up to and throughout the course of the war, Casey Sheehan died for the bottom line. That bottom line is the same one that killed Arthur William Bailey, Jr. Bailey, like our president, was born in New Haven, Connecticut and was less than three years younger than Bush. About a year before Bailey died, all of New Haven celebrated Bush’s enlistment in the Texas Air National Guard (which in acronymic terms was known as T.A.N.G.. You make the call as to how ironic that is). Bailey’s tour in Vietnam lasted less than four months before he was killed in an ambush. Meanwhile, T.A.N.G. had this to say about the now veteran Bush:

"George Walker Bush is one member of the younger generation who doesn't get his kicks from pot or hashish or speed.... As far as kicks are concerned, Lt. Bush gets his from the roaring afterburner of the F-102."

That same F-102 he used to “shuttle” tropical plants from Florida to Texas for an importer. Again, I leave the conjecture entirely up to you readers.

So while American soldiers were dying in the tropical plants of Vietnam, Bush was transporting the tropical plants of Florida. That connection is the only possible one that would make Bush’s statement thirty plus years later of “I've been to war. I've raised twins. If I had a choice, I'd rather go to war." make any amount of sense. Bush had the choice to go to war and he chose T.A.N.G.

Casey Sheehan had a choice as well. Unlike Bush, he did not dodge a draft and instead enlisted without conscription. When he did, he (like his mother) placed his trust in his commanding officers. A trust that is sworn to when he signs his contract. A contract that is only valid if adhered to. When Bush and company started clamoring faster than an auctioneer on some good tropical plant about the need for a war, Sheehan did not run. Instead, he told his mother that it was his duty to go and serve. If only his duty had been to run tropical plants between states, Cindy Sheehan would be back home in Vacaville.

Instead, Casey re-enlisted, went to Iraq, then onto Sadr city where he would volunteer for a rescue mission during which he and several other soldiers would be killed. It’s not like she suddenly became active and vocal in her opposition to the war in Iraq. She always had been, but it was that series of events set in motion Cindy’s grief driven journey.

Americans were not in jeopardy before we went into Iraq in 2003, but since then they have been. With almost 1,900 soldiers dead in a war that has no purpose other than the bottom line, Bush reminds us that he must “get on with [his] life.” Thanks to our president, Casey can’t and that’s why Cindy is.

Searching on a lark

The last post brought up a friend of mine from grade school, Lark Ellsworth. Let me make it clear that the reason I will be writing Lark Ellsworth’s name in its entirety is that apparently Google has “about 12,100” results for Lark Ellsworth but none contain “Lark Ellsworth”. Hopefully this entry will rectify it and in the off, off chance she searches her name in quotes (“Lark Ellsworth”), this blog will appear. Considering my memory is and always has been patchy at best, my rose-tinted thoughts of our friendship may or may not have been accurate. That said, I believe we were good friends, Lark Ellsworth and myself, and I am inclined to believe that if we still knew each other, we still would be.

Lark Ellsworth was the kind of person that you did not meet everywhere you went. She was genuinely considerate, friendly and caring. I don’t believe Lark Ellsworth was that way due to the young, possibly naïve age at which I knew her. I truly feel like she was that way because it was who she really was. Often times I think back to the way Lark Ellsworth would treat me with compassion when others wouldn’t, which tended to be more often than not. As with every grade school class, we pretty much stayed together from kindergarten through sixth grade, so if someone in your class wasn’t the nicest to you in those formative years, they generally didn’t have a high opinion of you when we finally departed company for our next scholastic assignment. Lark Ellsworth though, didn’t have a malicious bone in her body. Instead it seemed to me that she was built entirely of forgiveness and pleasantness. For that, I thank whoever created her.

Lark Ellsworth was talented as well. She played a mean violin and by the age of nine, I have no doubt in my mind that she could have conquered the cello. By the time we parted ways, she also spoke better French than most people I knew. Even the French ones. Including my grandparents. I have no doubt that she has excelled in her life so far and will continue to do so in the future. Lark Ellsworth, or at least her family, sent us a Christmas card one year (I believe it was when we were eighteen, but again, the patchy memory), but that was the last I heard from her, or her sister Robin (who incidentally has left barely more information through Google than her older sister has). I would like her to stumble across this entry if only to see how she is doing. Were I to see her again, I would love to catch up with her and hell, I’d even buy her lunch.

It is not a rare occasion when I think of Lark Ellsworth. Mostly I am sent reeling back into my passed by the smell or taste of something. Generally I find myself thinking about a time of greater innocence, if there ever was one at any rate. That time usually revolves around the complete and utter lack of responsibility inherent to childhood and subsequently what I spent most of my time doing during it, ala school. When I think back to Knox elementary, I have five very distinct memories.

Lark Ellsworth
Getting my front tooth knocked out by Chris Hirsh (who I hope has crabs)
Lark Ellsworth somehow pulling strings to get Tina Evangelou to go to the multi-cultural fair with me
Mr. DiSalvo
Knocking over half of the potted pits our kindergarten class had placed on top of the bookcase dividing the “kitchen” and classroom with a wave of my hand

While Tina Evangelou will be addressed in a later entry, I felt that including her in the “difficult to find through Google” would be a lie since I think I found her, according to Google’s math, in “0.07 seconds.” If it is her, she’s an All-American rugby player and works for SANDAG. Tina, if you find this and remember me, hi. For three years I was head over heels in love with in the capacity that an eight through eleven year old can be. Silly, I know, but still. You would be one of the first in a long line of desperate, albeit truly unreachable crushes.

It’s funny how my memory works. Picture it as a moonlit night with patchy clouds. Most of the time, the moon is partially or completely obscured by those clouds. However, there are times when the moon shines unobstructed and illuminates everything in its pale gray rays. My memory of most events is obstructed, partially most of the time, by something I can only describe as mental clouds. They pass over memories and prohibit me from remembering things clearly when I want to. More often than not, those memories shine clearly when I don’t necessarily want them to.

So back to Lark Ellsworth. If I exude nothing but wonderful praise for her, it is because I believe her worthy of it. Occasionally I look back to the time we knew each other and think that I took for granted a great friendship. Certainly one can argue that we were in grade school and the only thing that matters after that is the alphabet and multiplication tables, but no matter what the age, I think friendships are ageless. Now before I go on sounding like a Hallmark card, let me remind you that my sentimentality goes only so far. I don’t look back to my friends’ weddings and newborns with a teary eye. I will admit though, I welled up when my Chargers went to the Super Bowl. In comparing (how tactless) my friendship with Lark Ellsworth and others I have had over the years, I find that not only does it stack up to some of the best friendships I’ve had, but in some cases surpasses them.

Am I a jerk for ranking friendships? I don’t think so, no. I’m sure a lot of people, possibly some who read this, have ranked their friends. Not only that, but perhaps they’ve even lumped friends into categories. Myself, I am guilty of that as well, but that just makes me a functioning human being. My uppermost tier is the “Who would I bail out of a Tijuana jail at 3 a.m.” group and at the risk of coming across as obsessing in this post, Lark Ellsworth is still one of those included in the group. Always has been. Even if I haven’t seen or spoken to her in eleven years.

Yes, it’s possible that Lark Ellsworth has turned into a different person than the one I knew back then. As much as I hope she is still the same great individual, I understand that people change and blah blah blah. Still, Lark Ellsworth, if you have transformed into a totally different being, I’d still like to know how you’ve been and how you’re doing. If you do happen upon this post, I hope you are able to see it for what it is (a Google powered Craigslist “Missed Connection”) and not what it appears to be (some creepy obsession thing) because as my aforementioned seven friends would vouch, I’m a good guy; which ironically has caused a lot of shit for me over the years.

But I digress. I guess it’s nice that I remember our times together as children. My favorite memory is of her in a flower print dress, looking out through those glasses and me in all my dull glory which I will spare you, running through the house of some person I vaguely remember at a party for something my patchy memory forbids me to recall. Funny how memory works, isn't it?

The Party

The pity party is one that I don’t like to attend often. It’s full of smoke blowing and half-hearted empathy from those that stop by and peek through the window. As a 23 year old, I always try and cheer myself up that I’ve got years and years to enjoy my life. Time enough to go out and make friends, to go to parties and the like. At the same time however, I am constantly reminded that I am 23 years old with a total of 7 friends and never went to parties and the like. I don’t know how I missed out on that though. The few acquaintances I had throughout high school were party animals. They went out every Friday, had house parties while their parents were away and generally lived the lives you see in the movies. I never experienced it, not once. I guess that’s why they were just acquaintances and not friends. I remember one time during the start of my senior year I got invited to a bonfire, I waited. And waited. I put on my black hoodie and Adidas and waited. I sat on a dining room chair in front of the TV for two hours. My parents asked me if I was going somewhere, and I said “Maybe.” The reason I said that is because I knew, deep in the memory of my heart, I knew that I wasn’t going anywhere. I sat silently for two hours, trying not to well up over something that seemed so trivial.


Trivial to most, but to me was a big night in my life. Never once had I even been spoken to by the people who had invited me. I guess though, that’s why I knew it wasn’t to be. In spite of that however, it still hurt that no one came to pick me up as promised. That one day was the one day I felt like a real high school persona. A character in the drama filled laugh fest that was the high school movie. That night when I went to bed though, I knew that I would never be one of that crowd. I know that sounds melodramatic, but you have to understand where I come from on this issue. It’s not like I was a leper or anything, or even one of the weird guys that were so out there that they were automatically outcasts. No, I was just a normal kid going to high school.


The problem started long before that, though. I’ve harped on this before to others and at risk of sounding patently annoying, I do fault my grade school situation as the root of pretty much all that has unfolded upon me in the 11 years since that time. I didn’t come from an abusive, a broken or even a lower class home. I didn’t have massive social factors playing a part in my ostracism like race or religion. The only thing I had was my grade school. Missing the boat seems to be a theme in my life and grade school to junior high transition was the first time I was left standing on the dock watching the harbor cruise sail out. You see, long before I’m able to recall, my parents made a choice. That choice is something I wish to god and back that I could change.


The two options for school were Catholic school or French immersion school. My dad, being a staunch opponent of religion in school was dead set against Catholic school so the decision, it seemed, was already made. I understand my parents’ reasoning for putting me in the school insofar as I am able to comprehend. They wanted me to learn another language as a child so it would be easier for me to understand it. My anguish, and it genuinely is that, comes because that school was 20 miles away from my home. 20 miles seems like a trifle of a drive but to a 4 year old kid, it is a lifetime away. Instead of going to the school that was less than 2 miles away, I was bussed to a school ten times farther away. I’m not sure how many people sit back and think about what life could have been like had they gone back and had a different experience in grade school, but I venture to say not many do. It happens almost daily to me though. I think back to what people I met upon moving to a “normal” school for junior high would say about their grade school. The teachers they all shared, the birthday parties they all went to together. I wondered what it was like, but at the same time I realized that I was already behind. I hadn’t gone to their schools; I hadn’t known them for most of my life. More importantly, they didn’t know me and kids, being the vicious and cruel things they are, made me know it.


Immediately I was the outcast. They asked what school I had gone to. I said “Knox” assuming that they might know it from Jim. They looked at me with a peculiar expression on their face and smirked with a couple eye roll and brow furrow and walked away. All it took was one week for the entire school to know that I had gone to a “special” school where they taught nothing but French. I can honestly say I tried to make friends with people. I don’t know why, but it didn’t seem like anyone cared. Everyone it seemed, was all stocked up on friends and didn’t need or want another one. After all, they had all been together since they were five years old. My friends from grade school on the other hand, were scattered throughout the city of San Diego, and much like the school twenty miles away, the city was just too big for a twelve year old kid to keep friends nearby.


Recently I’ve been trying to find one of the best friends I’ve ever had in my life and I, like Grimace did, type her name out in hopes that she occasionally does Google searches for her name.


Hi Lark Ellsworth, it’s me, Brian Carver from Knox elementary.


She was the one person that I grew attached to as a kid and never wanted to lose as a friend. As life would have it though, she, just like the school we shared, was twenty miles away. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to keep in contact with any of my friends from school. That proved to be somewhat devastating to my social sanity once I moved onto junior high. With no friends to speak of and no aid in sight, I was relegated to the bottom rung of the social ladder.


Over the course of two years there, I stumbled along the path of least resistance in order to get by. While I kept trying to make friends along the way, it seemed to me that I had made enemies without doing anything to deserve them. The saddest part though, is that I got more attention from those who hated me than those who liked me. It was because of those people that for some reason, I was deemed “at risk” by the administration and singled out for attention from the guidance counselor. She was a nice lady, but I think starting her approach to me with “What’s wrong with you?” kind of makes for a difficult guidance session. Through various death threats from Asian gangs and demented white trash (Ian Bare. I hope to god you Google your name from prison some day), I realized that I must have something wrong with me.


I examined myself closely one day after school. Among the bruises handed out to me by said parties, I did not find a birthmark in the shape of a bull’s-eye anywhere on my body. Furthermore, I wondered if perhaps it was my penchant for keeping to myself after being spurned from the lunch tables for a solid year that was bringing this hate down on me. After all, who is going to pay attention to the guy no one pays attention to? A bitch of a cycle, really. Later, I was to learn that the administration did not in fact actually care about me at all. The most blatant example coming when they did not bother acknowledging me after I burst into the office and slammed the door. Ian had told me earlier in the day that he was going to kill me after school. When the last bell rang, I decided the best thing to do would be to wait in my sixth period class for a little while to make him think I left school early. When I explained to my teacher why I was waiting, she said that she had to go so I could wait outside. I tried to explain that as long as I’m in her classroom, I at least had cover under a desk should he try and hit me with the baseball bat he had shaken at me while making his not so veiled threat. She looked at her watch and told me that it was too bad, I had to get out. As soon as I did, I saw Ian at the other end of the corridor. I booked it and he did likewise after me. When I got into the office and explained the situation, the very same guidance counselor told me that Ian was a nice boy. That nice boy however, was pacing back and forth just beyond the campus grounds, bat in hand.


At any rate, junior high seemed to set the tone for what my life was to be like in high school. This time however, the pool of students grew immensely so that those 300 or so from my junior high might be scattered enough for me to evade more persecution. It was and I was able to make a few friends over my four years there, but those few friends were barely more than acquaintances. Don’t get me wrong, they were more than acquaintances, but barely is the key. We would see each other at school, and maybe even hang out a little afterwards, but always on campus. Not once did I go hang out with anyone at their place outside of stopping by on the way to water polo practice. A greater person may have realized that they were not to be a part of that revered high school clique and set aside the life they hoped for pursuit of the greater good. That good, being advancing well in school and attaining impeccable grades in order to ultimately conquer those who did not keep their mental daggers sharp.


For five years, I was not to be deterred in my quest for the life instead of that great good. In those years, my grades slipped and I hid my emotional baggage in sports and mental musings. I hoped that maybe, just maybe if I excelled in one area of school that someone would notice. I did excel but the memory of my tired heart was only refreshed as no one took notice. I guess being one of the only people to letter in four sports over the years isn’t enough to merit his name spelled correctly the three times it’s in the yearbook every year.


What goads me the most though, is that night I spent two hours ignoring the truth I knew was to come that night. It was the night that it finally clicked in my head. My life in high school was not going to be what I had hoped for. My only way to live what I hoped for was to do it out of high school. That night being at the start of my senior year, I decided to try and reverse everything I had screwed up those three years prior.


I hoped that in spite of the fact I had a mediocre G.P.A. and hadn’t applied to schools during my junior year, I would get into somewhere out of San Diego. I worked hard, I studied, I actually did home work. For the first two months of school, I had improved greatly and was on track to put up a respectable graduating G.P.A. It was right before the winter break that they took my counselor away and moved her to the K-P grouping. She had helped me tremendously during the start of the year and promised that my replacement counselor would be just as adequate. It turns out though, that she wasn’t. She was barely out of school two years and this was her first permanent placement. Instead of making the calls and writing the letters my old counselor had promised, she quit after two months. So with five months to graduation, and eight months before I had hoped to attend a real University, the school installed the tennis coach as my counselor. He was a great coach, but a horrible counselor. I kept working hard though and finally boosted my G.P.A. to the level that I was told would get me into at least a state school if not a UC of less than stellar stature. But that still meant I would be able to get out of San Diego. Start anew. Live in a dorm. Party, hang out, and make real friends that I would be able to keep for longer than a school year. But that never happened. The tennis coach counselor was just the latest in bureaucratic let downs.


With no getting out of San Diego and living the college life I had dreamed of, I took the last vacation with no care in the world I would every take. Upon getting back, I took a job at a restaurant and made what turned out to be one of my best friends ever, Marv. Through him I would meet his brother and through his brother I would meet Bryanna. For the time being though, Marv, the rest of our loose knit group of co-workers and I had one of the best summers of my life. Earlier in the summer, I had enrolled in my local community college. A rather dream shattering moment if I do say so myself.


Towards the end of summer, I met Gina. The whore through whom I would eventually get to experience a portion of that college life I wished for.


I feel I should explain that Gina was not actually a whore at the time of our dating, nor do I know if she turned into one after or is one now. What I do know is that she would hang out with an ex-boyfriend of hers and take road trips with him and tell me about them weeks later. She also went on to tell me that on those trips, he would tell her how much he loved her and that he wanted her to be with him. As if that wasn’t enough, she would always remember to bring up how attractive he is and how much she still cared for him. It was all really creepy looking back. The icing on the cake came when she wanted to pledge a sorority at Riverside. She would beat around the bush about the process but never failed to ask if we would still be together if she had to do things to get into the sorority. So let me be clear in my contention that she was a whore is based solely on those factors. But that is beside the point.


For the first year and a half of my time in community college and hers at Riverside, I spent countless days with her. In that time I got to experience fleetingly that first year of college that freshman are privy to in the dorms. What I missed out on though, was experiencing it myself. The intermediary that she provided gave me a glimpse of what that life is like and man how I wish I could have had it. Now that I go to UCSD, I am not bothered by the fact that I missed the time in the dorms or the keggers at frat houses. It’s the friendships that people have I’m envious of. It’s the getting the hell out of where you grew up and forcing yourself to make a new life that I wanted. It’s the ability to go back and meet up with friends from your college days that I wish that I had. Transferring from a community college to a university in your home town doesn’t afford you those luxuries. Being a community college transfer student is just another way of getting left on the dock.


For all the things I’ve missed though, I have to admit that overall I’m happy with my life. Sure, there are times where I get depressed thinking about what I’ve missed out on. The hardest part though, is when I try and justify what I’ve done as being comparable to what I haven’t. What I have now though, is something I would not trade in for those memories and abilities. I would do anything for the chance to go back and do it all over again, this time right, from grade school on and keep the seven friends I have now. And it’s realizing that I would want to keep those seven friends that makes me 51% glad I fucked up so badly.

Stands

Today is Sunday, August 6, 2005. I am sitting at my computer yet again, staring at my blog thinking that I need to write something. You see, it’s been over a month since I started out with this and made a huge leap with the first post, all two sentences of it. Originally, it started out as a place for me to dump my thoughts about our incredibly inept our chimp of a president is. The problem arose when I sat down the next day to write those out and the ensuing tidal wave of issues I have with Bush ultimately froze up my brain. The blue screen of death appeared to float hauntingly between my synapses and I just plain quit. Every day this would happen. Sit at the computer, look at the empty Word document and try to pick out one of hundreds upon hundreds of things I wanted to write about. Every day the same end would come of it. In a way, I think that tactic is the only thing going for the Republican Party. They apparently have a doctrine that tells their people to go and do as much harm on the biggest scale as possible. Keep doing it every day and whoever your opponent is will stand in awe of your stupidity and forget to point it out as such. It’s brilliant really. If you had to compare it to something outside of politics, I guess the only way would be to imagine two people squaring off to fight for a girl. Then, one of them takes off his clothes and starts beating himself in the face with his shoe while screaming nonsensical things. All the while the other guy stands across from him with his eyes wide and mouth agape shocked by what is going on in front of him. So shocked in fact, that he doesn’t bring this strange action to the attention of the girl who is looking right at him, wondering why he doesn’t do anything. My point is that there are so many things that the Republicans are doing egregiously wrong right now that we just can’t bring ourselves to point out these idiotic phenomena. We just stand there hoping that people pay attention. Unfortunately, they don’t and then wonder aloud “The Democrats don’t seem to stand for anything.”

We do stand for things. Mainly though, we stand for not running around like idiots with a backwards pointed set of goals, bent on living in the hypocrisy of small government imposing strict laws regulating personal freedoms and choices.