blakerson.com

And life continues to be fun.

Saturday:
-Mavs game. Good seats make those games really pretty fun. I was one of those idiots waving the giant white inflatable thingys whenever Golden State shot a free throw in the first half. As always, a good time.
-On returning from Mavs game, Eric and I decided to hit up Starbucks. What a good call that was. Of all people I could come across, I found Oscar (Lamar choir, for those who don't know) and his posse enjoying a celebratory coffee after they put on their big play. Good bunch of people, and a good time was had until we got kicked out.
-After being dropped off at home by Eric, I took off again for the lan going down at this dude Cameron's place. Cameron turned out to be really cool, as did Emma (who I met IRL for the first time that night).

Sunday:
-Coffee at Coffee Haus. Branched out and got an Eskimocha and liked it quite a bit. Quite a cool group that was there.

So I spent four nights out and about, and I loved pretty much every minute of it. Yay for interesting people.

Holy shit, I have it so well in comparison to other people. I mean it. Truthfully, I have enough good shit in my life and so little bad shit that I shouldn't ever have a right to complain. About anything.

I decided to make my round of weekly website checks, one of which is a friend of an Austinite who by the looks of her blog is cute and sweet as can be. So suddenly, after weeks of inactivity, said chick comes back to say that out of nowhere she had to bail her mother out of jail after chick's little sister made abuse accusations. Girl was persistently skipping school, doing all kinds of bad things with substances and boys much older than her, and getting away with every ounce of it. It hit chick like a ton of bricks. And poor chick's mother was absolutely destroyed, since she had had nothing but good intentions for her own daughter all along (the abuse stuff didn't ever really happen). So after bailing her own mom out of jail, chick had to help her rearrange her own life with that little obstacle of divorce in the way.

That, my friends, is a sympathy-evoking story. It happens every day, I know, but not in the context in which chick described it. Chick fights for the good guys, and so does her whole family. I also don't want to describe the story in any more detail for the sake of protecting the innocent, because it's pretty much wrong that I even say this much about someone I don't even know.

The big deal to me is that unexpected bad stuff happens to everyone - it's the only way bad stuff comes around. But think about the random bad things that happen to you in relation to the bad things that happen to people around you. Chances are you'll start to feel kind of fortunate.

I'm beyond fortunate. I'm blessed.

The last two days' activities have been pretty darn cool.

Thursday:
-Lunch at Ton's Mongolian Grill. Holy moly, what good food. That's being added to my exception list of Asian foods. I found it surprising that everyone else I was with compared it to Chinese while I found it so close to Japanese (still my fave for its consistency). Maybe I just haven't been exposed to *good* Chinese. Oh, and soy sauce is among the foods of the gods. That stuff + fried rice = quite nice. The extraordinarily long lunch convo was absolutely enlightening, too. Apparently everyone's expectation is that I become a long-haired hippy pot-smoker. Gotta play the doubt card, sorry kids. In recent times, my hair's gotten shorter, my dress a little closer to prep, and I'm getting a little less militant about my slight liberalism. I know that college is all about change, but I'm really betting I've already done most of my mellowing so college will end up as mostly smooth sailing. Besides, I'd rather engage in the vice of women at UT rather than mind-bending substances - my mind's bent enough. Ashlye says she smokes to mellow - I'm already mellow. It's made me start to think that all my releases (games / writing / music) really are healthy for me, because I don't need mind-bending substances at all.

-Evening with Soph. Picked the chick up at 7:00, did lots of aimless driving and a long stop at Sonic for drinks. Talked about life, the universe, everything, and the opposite sex. Was probably the first time I've been drilled on the topic of the ex-girlfriend and not felt a weird sort of discomfort thinking about the whole thing. I'm getting ever closer to just looking back on all that and laughing. The evening also reinforced my love for long drives and witty convos. Hanging out with her made me wonder why so many things went wrong before - why we got into the fight, why I thought she was leading me on, all of those things. That's all behind as if it never happened - so how in the hell did I let it happen in the first place? Really, hanging out with her made me wonder why I've been stupid enough to not spend more time hanging out with her up to this point. That kind of regret is what makes me feel like it's the end of senior year - just as things fall into place, it's all over and life starts over.

Friday:
-Evening at Apex. I was bored and hyper and no one was around, so I suddenly remembered it was my plan to just go hang out at Apex the next time that happened, since I had seen so many people just hanging out up there, friends with the owners, forming their own little community of people who know each other. So I showed up around 7:00 and was quickly assimilated into the group. I spent three hours watching people play Soul Calibur II (the Japanese import, it's pretty damn sweet) and talking with people who came in and out of the store. I walked out of the store with a few new friends as I made my way to...

-Greg's house. Much mellowness. By that point I had forgotten it had been a slow night, but in retrospect it was still a slow night at Greg's. Laughing and joking with Aroon's biatches (*stifles laughter*), pool, Crank Yankers, and then Alex and I awkwardly left as Greg's Steph nearly fell asleep curled up with him. Interestingly, the overwhelming majority of people there spoke Spanish in some capacity, and more than half of those Spanish-speakers were native speakers. And for once, I was able to communicate! with these wonderful people in Spanish. God bless AP Spanish.

-Home. Now writing and mellowing and talking to my guardian angel.

Life is good, amigos.

So I'm experimenting with this new philosophy with life: following the white rabbit.

You know the scene from The Matrix that I'm talking about. Neo wakes up at his computer to see the hint "Follow the white rabbit..." on his screen. When he's invited to a party by the people who show up at his door, he rejects the invite then sees a white rabbit tattoo'd on the chick's shoulder, then instantly says, "Sure." I did the exact same thing when Eric offered me Swank� Mavs tickets for this weekend. Then the little white rabbit popped up in my crazy little head, and I said what the hell, swank tickets are worth the price. So I'm finally going to a Mavs game, go me.

The one political cause I care for: Free Joe. A kid at Michigan Tech ran a server that listed who on the resnet was sharing up what. The RIAA sued him for $150,000 per song that he had indexed - basically a collection of Winamp playlists. Multiply that 150k by the 600,000+ files included in the massive list, and Joe is being sued for 97.8 billion dollars. The RIAA has gotten completely out of control. Quit buying CDs. Now. If you feel the need to support someone, send cash to the artists themselves.

And I can't stop watching my collection of Michelle Branch videos. Downloaded, of course.

[really ugly Annoying Emily Picture]
You are annoying Emily. You try too hard to be
whatever it is you are trying to be, and it
definitely is not working out for you. Nobody
likes you. Nor does anyone think you're cool.
However, you're probably too blind to notice
it.

What kind of Emily are you?
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