Soory, I couldn't post last night. I don't know that I'll be able to post later today because I'm going down to see Ben Folds at Davidson College! I can't wait! I will stand in awe, I imagine. What greatness... I will be staying with Greg tonight, and if he hasn't used all of his free AOL hours, I'll blog. I am at school right now. It's Senior Skip Day, Prom Decorating Day, and Special Olympics Day, so over half of the school population is not in classes. All is quiet in the school. We are watching The Horse Whisperer right now. I've seen it before, a good while ago, and whatever. Everyone is watching it and I am not. I am leaving.

So I didn't post last night. watcha going to do about it, huh? Igrawoifa;weoif.... I've not had such a great day/week. I am being urged more and more every day to become the hermit and recluse I'd love to be. I tried to be a recluse during lunch yesterday, but there were people everywhere I went. Maybe I can ask Mrs. George for permission to build a lean-to against the gym. Then I'd crawl in with my lunch, letting on that I had to climb a 20 ft tree and steal eggs from a bird's nest to get that food. That's Tom Sawyer-influenced. O, to be a recluse from this wretched/wonderful world! What a life to lead, picking berries all day, and occasionally fishing with a spear. A beard would grow, and I'd never wash my hands (like what happens on all my normal weekends). Hermit, recluse.... I wanna be one... Whenever someone would come around, I'd have to quietly and stealthily break down camp and sneak off to another side of the mountain. I'd step on a twig, which would snap, and they'd look to the place where I'd made my faulty step, but I would've ducked behind a tree real quick. They'd even come up right beside of me, but they wouldn't see me. They'd go away with their hunting party, and I'd stay with my alone party. I'm about the only company that will tolerate me. Even still, it's always nice to have someone other than yourself to make fun of.

Due to biological difficulties (being asleep when computer service was yet available to me), I was unable to post a blog last night. However, I'm pretty sure this is how it would have gone:

I'm so so very tired. I didn't really get any sleep last night. The funny thing is that I haven't been tired at all today at school. No, I never got tired, but I was delirious throughout the day and I was very obnoxious, especially to myself. It's funny how you can annoy yourself by doing something and continue to do it.

I don't really know how the rest would have went, but I'd probably make up some stuff about a third grandma or talk about cheese crackers, which are pretty good. I'll post later......I think...

Last night I had this dream that 6 or 7 of my teeth fell out, all at once. Rather, one was loose, so I pulled it and the rest followed with ease. Is this a good sign? The strangest thing about it was the reality of the dream: I could feel the missing places in my gums and I had that feeling that everyone gets when he or she looses a tooth. It was quite real. Hmmm.... These episodes of Alias are getting too intense. I'm gonna get ulcers if I keep watching it. G-night.

When I was younger, so much younger than today, I remember these little things that my older siblings and I used to do that were so fun. No, not the fights over pancakes and cartoons. I'm talking about things like the kid-organized "Gentry Olympics" which took place in our back yard. Basically, that was just one huge obstacle course. I think I won all the time, since I was the smallest and could just get through things faster. I also remember a fun little activity we'd do while idle. We would all hum the same tone. Since humans aren't perfect, we can't hold the exact same tones. It'll always be off by a few Hz. Anyhow, when the tones would line up and fall into each other (that's the best way I know how to describe it), as they mathematically have to do, it sounded so so so weird, and we loved it a lot. I specifically remember sitting in the station wagon so many years ago and playing this little tone game with the O-4 [Original Four (Gentrys)]. I still do stuff like that, except now I do it for ear & vocal training. If I hear a steady tone, I will try to line up with it exactly. This helps me develop good intonation, theoretically. I mean, that's my thought on it. I haven't read anything about it anywhere. I was doing it in school the other day. Our school is being renovated and we have all this machinery around the school doing the work on it. Well, motorated machines happen to create quite steady tones as well. So, I just hum quietly to myself at the same frequency as the machinery and it sounds real cool. I did that today during the longest Saturday school of my life. That thing took forever. Usually I can read pretty fast in Sat. school, but not today. I was trying to read Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne. It's a great good wonderful book, but I was tired and boredom and discomfort took me. Greg came up yesterday and brought with him the new Jump and Marcy Playground albums. They are so very good. I'll update the links soon to include Marcy Playground's website along with Jump's new one. Greg and I went and played on Main Street last night. A couple of old people stayed to listen. It was fun, but just a little practice. Practice for what? I dunno. I figure playing on street corners can help me play better on stage. Also, that dude from the band Only On Sunday says he wants us to open for them way up in Stuart sometime in late May, I think it is. Cool. I'm tarred, or tired. "Life was easier at five." -- Marcy Playground, "Paper Dolls"

Gillian Welch's music is putting me to sleep......





and I love it.

I didn't know it was Earth Day. Thanks for reminding me, Google. I don't think I realize a lot of days and times of year. I miss National Saxophone Week every year. Yeah, tough. Last night, I slept in a tent in the back yard. I did it on a whim because I had gone out there and heard lots and lots of crickets chirping. It was all lovely, but by 1 AM, they had all stopped, car activity actually sounded higher, and birds were singing. Crazy birds. It wasn't time to sing yet. Our yard is a jungle right now. I haven't gone to mow it yet, but it's going to be a good mow when I do. I get satisfaction from taking out whole fields of weeds; what about you? Sometimes, I feel like this: f[0a9j4[0j. But that's rare. There are no good Jenga imitation games. That's it. Goodbye.

Note: The following blog post is not a large complaint or a bandwagon-style hate letter. It is, in fact, a filler for boring blogs. All rights reserved, except for the one about the cow.

I was recently sitting near the back of an auditorium, talking with a person named Welker and making fun of the Vocational Honor Society with him. I said stuff like, "Congrats! You can be in the club for people who don't wanna take real classes!" and he agreed. Then up he goes! One minute, the VHS is at the end of your forked tongue, and then the next you are swept off into the adventure. All I know is after taking Computer Applications I my first year in high school, I vowed to never take a vocational class again. I knew about them. If you master the vocational classes in high school, you can take Busy Work 101 in college at half the tuition, but do nothing that was required of you in vocational classes. Me? I wish I could have dropped three certain "required" classes such as CompApp, Health/PE, and a little thing called Earth Science. Wow, I did not enjoy those. I mean, they were pointless and really, in my view, unnecessary for graduation. I mean, we really had Earth Science every year from 3rd grade on up to high school. Sure, they called it "Integrated Science," but that just means they stuck something about meteor inbetween the three types of rocks and the chapter on clouds. I was sick of Earth Science when I came into high school. "Oh boy, I don't have to take that boring class," I thought. Next thing I know, it's a graduation requirement for my class on. And just another thing: if they keep adding all these grad requis, why should we pick our own schedule? Let's just let the freshmen year be known as the "I'm bogged down with stupid, pointless classes this year but not next year" year. That settles that!

Last night, I picked up the phone after it rang a little. The person spoke on the other end, and I instantly knew who it was. It was one of my aunts from Florida. My longing for Florida came over me that instant: I want to walk barefoot down the dirt roads and barefoot through the woods again. I must be there!!! It's truly eating away at me. I want to go home.

It's getting hot again and I only long for summer more and more... So, last night = not so great. Grrr.... I get mad at myself everytime I think about it. All the mistakes; all the lack of goodness that was supposed to be there... For now on, I refuse to play onstage with a band unless we have either 1) practiced a total of 5 hours (at least) or 2) not practiced at all. Yes, you read it right. When Greg and I were goofing off in the band room before the thing started, we were great. Actually, not all of it was goofing off. A good bit of it was practice (since we hadn't practiced at all before then; we had only picked the songs on Monday). We find it hard to practice so much since Greg lives in Statesville. Anyhow, there were some really cool people there. There was a guy from the band Only On Sunday that really enjoyed our goofing off in the band room. I can't wait for summer... Have I not said that before? I can't bring myself to listen to certain CDs until summer. This is because when I think of certain CDs, I remember the times that I listened to them the most and I can't listen to them unless it is one of those times. For instance, Al Extravaganza!, my own compilation of Weird Al, is a travel CD. I can't listen to it unless I am in transit. Dashboard Confessional's old stuff is definitely summer stuff. I'm surprised at how much I didn't do last summer; I sat around all day...just sitting....

The best thing ever:

Sorry about all these missed blogs lately. It is truly hard to blog when you're living with seven other people and you don't have regular access to your own computer. Great, now I don't have anything to write about. I mean, I don't feel like writing anything in particular. Not inspired. And you know, I'd hate to write anything I wouldn't want to read myself. So, what would I like to read? Well, right now, I think I'd like to read The Hobbit again, but I don't know. I don't want a fantasy blog. In the past few days, I've been getting ready for that Mo' Rocka thang. It's a battle of the bands, just in case we have some out-of-torturecity readers. As of now, I'm feeling like it's going to be fun just to do it. Funness is the nature of this weekend, and so is a cheese sandwhich. I hope I can find a good movie I haven't watched in a while around my house tomorrow night. I'm gonna need it...

***For no reason at all, the following blog will be posted in third-person in novel-like format.***

Brad sat down at the keyboard, the kind you type letters on. He was apprehensive and scared: what would his next post bring? What would he do so that it wouldn't be worse than yesterday's post? Would the authorities shut his blog down to protect the public from extreme stupidity? Would the authorities even know his blog existed? Did anyone know his blog existed??? These are the questions he didn't ask to himself.
Slowly, Brad put his hands on the keyboard in home row position. This doesn't feel right... he thought to himself as he replaced his fingers on the 'W', 'X', '5', 'F', 'ALT', 'O', '[', and 'EJECT' keys, as he was used to. Brad doesn't have thumbs. Browsing to Blogger, Brad suffered twenty-one pop-ups which advertised three SUVs, a cell phone, and asked him who Papa Smurf was. Brad panicked, but made it to his beloved blog in one piece.
Struck with nothing to write about immediately, Brad thought for seconds before he decided to write more junk like this. He knew he couldn't tell about the government program called Project Splice-end he was involved in or he'd be shot, and he also knew he couldn't tell about how he had cheated on that English test earlier that day or he'd get in trouble. Brad decided not to do a blog at all and deleted all the posts.
"Oh no!" Brad exclaimed not quietly. "What have I done?!"
Right on cue, Marshall showed up and gave Brad $2500 for doing such a great/lousy blog and used his photographic memory and computer ability to reconstruct all of Brad's posts. Brad didn't know how to take his blog being reconstructed, but he did know how to take the $2500. Goblin showed up and the three had a belching contest and tried to sound like Canadians all night. The end.

Umm, Happy Birthday to colaterality.blogspot.bom!!!! That's right; my blog is 1 year old today, on Easter. (Happy Easter, btw). I had something special planned on my other computer, but I guess that's down the drain for now. I still haven't fixed it despite my extreme efforts. I hope it's retrievable. Good night all!

My computer crashed again last night and I've been working on it all day, inbetween Saturday school (reading time) and sleep. I'm still working on it, so I have to go. =/\=

Confirmed: the movie is 12 years old, from 1992. I saw a commercial for Honey, I Blew Up the Baby.

Bristol, Florida, I love you.

Appropriate is Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here." Well, appropriate if somebody in Bristol is playing it on a boom box or a stereo system and wishing I were there. I doubt they would, because it's not like I know anybody there, and Pink Floyd is the last thing my cousins would listen to (most will listen to country, if anything at all). They are in the deep deep South. They've just made it outside the Civil War, I think. Yeah, my cousins won't be listening to Pink Floyd. Many times, they sit down and watch tapes of their old tee-ball, football, and baseball games of years past. Those sports mean everything to my guy cousins. Speaking of Pink Floyd (and the same album), Darth Vader is telling Luke, "Welcome my son; welcome to the machine," right now as he's trying to convince Luke to turn to the Dark Side in Episode VI: RotJ. It's on a tape of stuff we taped over 12 years ago. More than that, I'm sure. It's probably from the 80s, come to think of it. We had taped Star Wars off TV. It's got all these old commercials on it. They are all funny in how old and cheesy they are. Okay, a commercial just came on that gives some sort of time reference: it was that of Jay Leno. So, it was taped sometime after Johnny Carson left the Tonight Show. That's a sad thing, because Leno stinks. Letterman rules!

Disregard that earlier post. I wasn't in my right (or left) mind. Well, here's proof that my computer finally staid on for an entire day. That's right. I was able to leave my computer and AIM on for a full day. I have proof:



See? That's something for me. Well, I wasn't on the computer an eight of the time it was gone; I turned it on last night and let it go while I slept, and then all day at school today and then I went to Wes's and did nothing. We meant to pull some music together, I assure you, but it doesn't happen when you plan for it to. Last weekend when Greg was here, we had planned to stay up all night and work on getting music together. So, naturally, after David Sloop's farewell party (he's going on a mission) we were so tired that we just went to bed and he left angrily the next morning. It just doesn't happen when you plan for it to... Anyhow, nobody used my computer, so I was able to leave it on for a good while. A few minutes after that screenshot was taken, my computer locked up again. Broke that running record...

waofuhnrwe

Hey kid, I'm a computer. Business first: the authorized Jump single I'm supposed to distribute. They told me I could use KaZaA and all that, so I guess blog-distribution is approved. "Young America" is a great song I've used for my background music during my recent games of checkers. I haven't been playing checkers that much, but it must still be too much because sometimes when I close my eyes, I see a checker game there. That's how I knew that I was playing too much Reversi and TriPeaks. Today, I went to the Biltmore House and Estate where I learned that I really want a banana tree in my own back yard. I also want secret passages in my future home. They didn't tell us about any secret passages that amounted to anything, but they have to be there. Nobody builds a house like that without secret passages. My brother Bryan took off down to Florida yesterday since the SCC is having their spring break this week. I ever so long to be there right now. As I've said before, it can't feel like anything but home and peace when I'm there. Everything feels right and perfectly perfect. I don't know if it would be different if I lived there permenantly. Dad is always homesick for it and has spontaneously expressed wishes and plans to move there, but we never take them seriously. I really really want to be there, pretty much the only place where I feel at ease... It's funny how my accent and character change when I'm there. I become much more open with my southern accent and I get in the mood where I can talk to any stranger on the street. That place, Bristol, Florida, is much much smaller than Mount Airy. The small-town atmosphere beckons me, where everyone knows my grandmother and calls her by her nickname, Tookie. My goodness, I'd better stop this or I'll forget that I ever have homework and responsibilities. Carefreeness... Anyhow, I wanna be there bad. Okay, I'm out like a light when it's not plugged in.

Tomorrow's very special: the new Ben Kweller album comes out. Whoa, that's all I had to say. I'm not feeling up to writing right now. Maybe later (but don't count on it too much!).

Hello all. I am watching The Ten Commandments. Great flick. I think it's a great way of showing the story of Moses and the Deliverance. I like that it's not a musical or a "modernized" version, and that it's kind of boring in some places. I just thought I'd let everyone know that I like facial aerobics. I like finding new muscles in my face that I didn't know existed yesterday. I like to do weird things like flaring the nostrils, wiggling the ears and eyebrows, and my latest endeavor has been to find some new muscles in my upper lip. I've always been able to point it one direction, but not to the other. Moses has just stepped from Mt. Sinai with gray hairs. Hmm.... I'm bored. I'm going to finish watching T10C while doing facial aerobics.

L

I'm not feeling much up to writing right now, so I'll just tell about a weird dream I had the other night. Briefly tell. I had a dream where some of my cousins and I were skeet shooting. You know; clay pigeons. I don't know what that was all about. I think we were outside of some fancy dinner. After that, I found myself at a swamp. Weird, huh? Interpret it if you want. I personally think it means that this blog is over.