Alex Vernon.com

As I mentioned in I’m lost I really need to start creating things. Plus I need to occupy myself so I don’t go crazy, especially since I don’t have a steady job yet. So to accomplish this or at least start on the path I have signed up for a Photography class at PCNW. I have taken some photo classes before (check out The Showcase School if you’re in Atlanta) but have never learned black and white. I’ve been shooting digital for some time now and this would be a nice change. Learning how to develop my own prints will be a lot of fun as well. I have also signed up for Spanish lessons. I have been wanting to learn Spanish and Japanese for some time, I’m starting with Spanish though since I figure it will be easier plus it’s more useful as well. Then in March I’m taking some Go lessons. Go is another thing I’ve wanted to learn for years and I’ve bought books but never had the discipline to teach myself. Taking a class and having people to play against should help me a lot. Finally I also purchased a guitar. A Simon & Patrick Woodland Spruce for the curious. BTW the picture does not do it justice, it is beautiful. Playing guitar is also something (start broken record track) I’ve wanted to do for years. One of my roommates plays and I also have some self study material. I almost signed up for lessons however I thought better of it because three classes a week then four in March might but too much strain on my assaulted brain. I will probably take some lessons after my photo and Spanish classes though. So there we have it, music language and art I also want to start sitting (Zen) and take Aikido again to round things out. Aikido is going to wait a little while though or at least until I can see how I handle my schedule. As I’ve said before I’m tired of thinking about things and not following through. I have decided (sorry Dubya) to stop fucking around and get some things done. Now to see if I have the discipline to measure up.

Barefoot in the Bermuda grass the soft blades pressed between our fourteen year old toes, Steve spots a bird on the neighbor’s chimney. “Alex” he exclaims, “Let me take a shot!” I glance down at my scoped pellet rifle already primed with ten bird killing pumps. I glance at him, seeing the death festering in the depths of his eyes. His broad smile attempting to deceive me of his baleful intentions. “No” I say, “I’m taking it.” I raise the butt of the stock to my shoulder and gaze at the amplified image of my target. He seems so peaceful and unaware of the danger waiting to exit the end of my barrel, in the ultimate expression of human cruelty and teenage stupidity. My finger goes to the trigger, I inhale, aim for the mortar beneath the top brick of the chimney and squeeze. There is a puffing sound as the rifle’s air is released, propelling the pellet straight into the mortar. We hear a whack as a piece of the mortar flies off scaring the bird away. I suppress a smile as I turn to Steve and say “Damn, I missed! I’m bored of this, let’s go ride bikes.” “Ok” he says. As we walk into the house, I glance over my shoulder at let the smile escape.

Women are my greatest weakness. When I have one my creativity is stifled and I get lazy. When I don’t have one I think more but at the same time my thoughts are preoccupied with getting one. My roommate went with me to the Tin Hat the other night and made an astute observation. He said (paraphrasing) “You need to stop this, you’re just wasting time. Coming here and hoping something will materialise by chance. You need to work on your self then other things will come.” As much as I hate to admit it he’s right. I’m letting the preoccupation of getting a woman run everything I do. I could be enriching myself in numerous ways. The again why do I want to do that, to make myself more attractive to women? Maybe that’s part of it, although I would like to think it’s bigger than that. Maybe not though, maybe I’m just an animal at heart and sex until I’m bored then move on to the next one is all that matters to me.

Hey, hey, I don’t know what to do.

I’m tired of appreciating everybody else’s genius. I want to create something myself. I see pictures, paintings, drawings, read novels, poems, hear music but what do I have to contribute? I want to create something that enlightens others like so many have enlightened me. It makes me feel guilty thinking of all that I have taken and what little I have given back to the collective conscience. It makes me sick to think of the time I’ve wasted trying to be Cool or being lazy or just not caring. Sometimes I wish I could cry.

At the bottom of the world…….

One of the good and unsound realities of living in Seattle is the plethora of high gravity beer. For conventional people this is a good thing. For me however it is the catalyst for poor decisions and embarrassing behaviour. When I start drinking my sense of responsible consumption goes out the window. This of course is exacerbated with higher alcohol beer, which brings me to my new ex-crony Maritime’s Jolly Roger Christmas Ale. I have no idea what the percentage is in this stuff but I sure react to it. It would help if I didn’t drink it like I was drinking PBR but that requires too much responsibility on my part. Good old Jolly has helped me to make an ass of myself twice in public, the second time causing me to swear him off. I took a couple of pulls of one the next day for recovery purposes then dumped the rest. Yes, yes alcohol abuse or whatever, just bite me. Before my second incident I was staying in one night and wrote a couple of blogs while under Jolly’s influence. Incidentally it was only two but I still had a pretty good buzz. Much more than if I drank a six-pack of Guinness. Anyway the next two posts were from that night. Reading them now they seem pretty raw and because of that I’ve been holding off on posting them. I suppose I should qualify them better or add more explanation. However on the other hand I do like them in their unadulterated drunken form so I’m going to leave them be.

I was watching the news the other day because I was contemplating taking my own life and I figured that would put me over the edge. I got out my P2000 and started watching…..

Blah blah blah, blah blah, blah blah……….

I pick up my finely German engineered people killer and feel the nicely balanced weight and custom hand grip in my hand.

Blah blah, got shot, blah blah will kill you

I press the barrel to the side of my head. I feel the cool steel rim of the barrel pressed against my temple realizing how much I would miss sensations like this.

Scientists think they found evidence of liquid water on Mars…..

What?!

Crater blah blah, new deposits blah blah, probe blah blah

Wow! that’s pretty fucking cool! Maybe I should stick around for awhile…

You know what they say Lonnie?

OH GOD! A FUCKING NEWSCASTER SENTIMENT!

Scientists say where’s there’s water….

I cock the hammer back with my thumb, (since my pistol doesn’t have a safety and is double-action only I don’t want the recoil to mess up my shot)

there’s a small chance, just a small one….

My finger feels the polymer trigger, funny how a simple digit can end everything just from a nerve signal sent by my brain

of a Starbucks going up.

Huh? Wait a minute, that’s goddamn funny. I can’t believe that I enjoyed a newscaster joke. What the fuck is wrong with me? What am I going to tell my friends? What’s next? Am I going to buy a Volkswagon and shop at the Gap?

Click, BANG!

Recently I finished Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton. I’ve been a big fan of Wil’s blog for sometime. In fact he’s the reason I started blogging. I avoided blogs until I stumbled upon his, I didn’t really care if Chrissy did get a phone call from Bobby or that Johnathan got to level 15 billion on Tetris. When I was exposed to Wil’s blog however, I found out how interesting blogs can be and I’ve been hooked ever since.

The book has been in my possession for some time. I have a habit of buying books and reading them months or years later, in fact I have tons that are still patiently waiting to be read. I pulled the book off my ex’s bookshelf when I was watching her house over Thanksgiving. Wil’s intense stare and slightly pissed off look on the cover compelled me to start reading. I had already read most of the reprinted blogs but the additional commentary made the book purchase worth it. Wil has a very interesting and unique style of writing and sounds like a really cool guy. He’s definitely more emotional than I and has a very different circumstance of problems and blessings for lack of a better word. Even so he seems like he would be fun to hang out with. I mean come on he’s a geek, drinks Guinness and plays poker, what else do you need? Want more? Ok, he was on TNG and in Stand by Me, nuff said.

I’m sure I would’ve enjoyed this book even if I’d never been a Star Trek fan. I will admit it was interesting to hear some of the behind the scenes stuff but it was more more interesting reading Wil’s thoughts about the different situations. If you are not familiar with his blog I suggest you head over to WWdN: In Exile and check it out.If you like what you read pick up a copy of Just a Geek or his previous work Dancing Barefoot which I plan on reading as well. You won’t be disappointed.

*If you’re a fan of Star Trek TNG I’m sure you know this is a play on the line “Shut up Wesley!”. Yes that’s a little mean but it’s my juvenile sense of humor and no offense to Wil is meant.

Ok about the whole Seattle thing. I have neither the patience nor desire to spout out a long version of this. So here is the condensed Golden Book version for those of the Republican persuasion.

Actually I like Golden Books, used to at least. I should read some now and make sure they aren’t Nazi propaganda material.

Anyway back to the point. I’ll call this the Short and incomplete version of events because someone, whom shall remain nameless was to lazy to blog about them in a timely fashion as the forthnamed events occurred.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the introduction out of the way, on to the center of the Tootsie pop. Have you ever heard about the free tootsie pop story? In the past supposedly if you got a wrapper with an Indian shooting a star on it, you could turn it in for a free tootsie pop. I was never sure about this story, especially because almost every wrapper I got had the aforementioned Indian on it. Of course they could have printed more after they stopped the promotion. Or it could of just been an urban legend. I suppose I could Google it but I kind of like not knowing something in this time of immediate reference gratification. In some ways it’s great but then I also tend to spend large amounts of time looking up random useless crap just because I can.

Ok I’m done with the tangents now. On to the point of this post.

My time in Seattle started on October 2nd. I wanted to leave Atlanta for multiple reasons. I was tired of all the traffic, republicans, the rat race mentality, overbearing summers, friends moving away, the city council and mayor killing bars and restaurants but most of all it was wanderlust. I moved around a lot growing up and I won’t lie to you, it sucked. Always being the new kid (on the block) and having to fight to establish myself. Having to make new friends and acclimate to a new school. A byproduct of all this moving around is my boredom of a location after awhile.

Cue melting screen while gentle harp music plays……

I originally moved to Atlanta in late ‘96. Eddie a really good friend of mine had moved there from my previous city of Charlotte. I had visited him during the Olympics and was wowed by the plethora of nightlife and women. I was also told the ratio of women to men was 4:1, add to that the large gay population it made it even better. Of course that was probably bullshit but it convinced my horny nineteen year old mind. The kicker however was the job market. This was during the Tech Boom and Atlanta was hot (insert chessey Hotlanta joke here). Atlanta’s high tech want ads were as large as a small phonebook. Conversely Charlotte’s were composed of a just a couple of pages. Off I went to the phoenix and received two jobs offers my first couple of days there. I accepted the second one because Eddie worked there. Things were great for awhile, lots of parties and work was fun (gasp). But alas all good things….. Some of my good friends moved away, I fell (actually jumped headlong) into drug abuse and ended up quitting my job. I’ll save the specifics for another blog but eventually I was getting close to scraping the metaphorical bottom. Somehow I managed to crawl out of the pit of my own creation and started to put my life back on track. Once again I was a respectable member of society and hated every minute of it. With fewer good friends, disillusionment with life, my fellow man and even computers I knew it was time for a change. Previously I passed up on a possible move to San Diego and negotiations fell apart on a transfer to Ft. Lauderdale with another company. I probably could have went to Tampa as well. Finally I was at the point where I was tired of stagnating in my personal and professional life. After visiting Boston and Chicago as possible candidates, Seattle was decided upon. I was with my ex at the time (yes I’m single now, control yourself ladies) and she vetoed Austin which was also in the running for me. Looking at things now I might have been better off in Austin but I’m willing to give Seattle a chance. So Seattle it is and has been for the past couple of months.

End under-dramatic flashback sequence…..

This post has already run on much longer than I intended so Seattle details will have to wait. In the meantime you can read some of my Yelp reviews. Incidentally *self plug alert* I am now a member of the Elite squad. If you read this on Atlanta Bloggers I will be removed soon. Have no fear though, you can still read me via my Feedburner feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/AlexVernon or on AlexVernon.com of course.

Ok kiddies that’s it for this post, be cool and stop stealing your grandmother’s pills.