With Them

   So I was in Game Stop buying Mortal Kombat 9 when I ran into this cute kid that's in my Human Growth & Development class. I've known him since high school, and I actually smoked K-2 with him for the first time. We were probably 17 years old. It's not surprising to run into him two years later because this town is just that small.

     I smiled at when I saw him because, as I said, he's cute. I even managed a "hey". I was actually embarrassed. I was wearing these bright M&M pajama pants and a gray shirt with the word 'volleyball' running across the front. If I remember correctly, I was wearing fucking white socks with flip-flops, too. WHO GOES OUT IN PUBLIC LIKE THIS?!? This chick. And who suffers the consequence when she runs into an adorable guy in the middle of a store that thrives off testosterone? Still this chick.

   "Look who it is!" he yelled across the store. "Dude... you pay attention so much. Every day in class you just be all hovered over your notebook, scribbling shit! You look like this!" He mimicked me reading the board with my head up, then hurriedly looking down and writing as fast he could. He repeated the motion another three times. I probably turned red.

   "And what about you!" I yelled back. "You sit back and don't seem to do anything! But then you did your Power Point and sounded all educated and shit." He smiled and his yellowish tan eyes glowed against his dark skin.

   "Damn right I sounded educated!" he said in a cocky tone, then laughed. College guys. He actually found my game for me and I left the store. I was so excited that someone else acknowledged how much effort I put into my schooling. R.G. would die if he knew about this. I texted him:

"This kid from my one of my classes just made fun of me for being studious.
Are you happy?"

   His reply: "Ecstatic!"

   Man, the last time I had R.G. for a teacher was in the 11th grade. The class was American History. I think I did pretty well. I smoked a lot of weed that year. Probably before school. Sometimes at lunch. Most likely after school. I walked out on my volleyball team in the middle of a homecoming game. I really isolated myself from my classmates (all 11 other of them). I was the definition of teen angst.

   But here we are, 2 years later and I'm rolling with the best of them.

   These were actually recorded last week. In that time, I managed to get my A&P grade up to an A but my Dietary Nutrition went down to a B. I'll get back to it's proper place by next week. Anyway, I've been to some dark places in my 19 years on this planet but I'm definitely at one of my best.
To which I conclude with:

n.lite.n

"Oh My God" 

by Michael Franti & Spearhead

Oh-my, oh-my God!

In my mind they got us livin' suicide

Singin' oh-my, oh-my God!

In my mind they got us livin' genocide 

Oh my my...

Slam bam I come unseen

But like gasoline you can tell I'm in the tank

Like money in the bank

I smell appealing, but I'm toxic, can send ya reeling

Without an inklin', keep ya thinkin'

'cause you gave cash to the feds, left your school district for dead

Fucked you up in the head, but still they sayin' nothin's wrong

Sellin' firewater but outlawing the bong

Still believing the system is workin'

While half of my people are still outta workin'

Anonymous notes left in the pockets and coats

Of judges and juries from 'Frisco to Jersey

Threats and protests politicians mob debts

Trumped up charges and phoney arrests

Stage a lethal injection, the night before the election

'cause he got donations from the prison guard's union

Oh-my, oh-my God!

In my mind they got us livin' suicide

Singin' oh-my, oh-my God!

In my mind they got us livin' genocide 

Oh my my...

Listen in to my stethoscope on a rope

Internal lullabies, human cries

Thumps and silence, the language of violence

Algorithmic, cataclysmic, seismic, biorhythmic

You can make a life longer, but you can't save it

You can make a clone an then you try to enslave it?

Stealin' DNA samples from the onborn

And then you comin' after us

'cause we sampled a James Brown horn?

Scientists who's God is progress

A four-headed sheep is their latest project

The CIA runnin' like that Jones from Indiana

But they still won't talk about that (Jim) Jones 

(People's Temple mass suicide) in Guyana

This ain't no cartoon

No one slips on bananas

Do you really think that that car killed Diana

Hell I shot Ronald Reagan, I shot JFK,

I slept with Marilyn (Monroe) she sung me happy birthday

Singin'

Oh-my, oh-my God!

In my mind they got us livin' suicide

Singin' oh-my, oh-my God!

In my mind they got us livin' genocide 

Oh my my...

Well politicians got lipstick on the collar

The whole media started to holler

But I don't give a fuck who they screwin' in private

I wanna know who they screwin' in public

Robbin', cheatin', stealin'

White collar criminal

McDonald eatin', you deserve a beatin'

Send you home a weepin', with a fat bill for your

Caribbean weekend

For just about anything they can bust us

False advertising sayin' "halls of Justice"

You tellin' the youth don't be so violent

Then you drop bombs on every single continent

Mandatory minimum sentencin'

'cause he got caught with a pocket fulla medicine

Do that again another ten up in the pen

I feel so mad I wanna peaceful revolution

Singin'

Oh-my, oh-my God!

In my mind they got us livin' suicide

Singin' oh-my, oh-my God!

In my mind they got us livin' genocide 

Oh my my...

Restaurant Writing

    When I was still young, I came to the conclusion that the mind is insatiable. I've chased people and ideas only to watch them remain a safe distance ahead, or away. I see it in others, too. Society tries to distinguish people by race, money, and intelligence, but it doesn't realize we are all surviving on the same things: oxygen, love, and acceptance. Trying, anyway.

    The kids of my generation face problems that no other era before us has. My grandpa never told me a sad tale about the day his first Xbox 360 illuminated the blazing red ring of death. My grandma never sat me down and asked, "Have I told you about the time one of my supposed friends hacked my MySpace and deleted all my pictures and comments?"

    When my mom's dad was my age, he enlisted in the Navy and deployed to fight World War II. When my mom's mom was my age, she had been out of school for five years already; working to take care of her mom, while simultaneously avoiding nightly attacks from her abusive father.
It was a different time.

Funny People

“Religion has convinced people that there's an invisible man ... living in the sky. 

Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. 

And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn't want you to do. 

And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. 

But he loves you. He loves you. 

He loves you and he needs money.” 

—George Carlin