Thanksgiving Wierdness

Okay, so this is going to be one really long entry. I had a very interesting Thanksgiving break. I've been delaying writing it all down just because there is so much to say. To start, I went with Sean Brown, my friend from UM, to his home in Naples, FL for the break. He lives in a two bedroom condo with his mom, Karen.

Wednesday, we spent three hours in the car trying to get from Miami to Naples. We listened to "her" music and I talked to her a little bit about christian music, a genre she loves and I have long since abandoned. It was funny to hear myself spouting out artists that I intrinsically hated but pretended to like for her sake. Now that I think about it. My whole weekend (well a portion of it) was spent praising things I was fundamentally against for the sake of those around me.

My throat was still very much in pain from the massive ulcer in the back and I had to swallow anesthetic gel in order to be able to eat basically anything. I went to bed that night with nothing but gel, pumpkin seeds, and some orange juice in my stomach. Thanksgiving morning I wasn't allowed to eat anything either because Mike Ladney, Karen's current employer, was treating the family to a "Port Royal" Lunch. Chris, Sean's long-time friend, showed up with barely enough time to get ready and head to Mike's house before the five of us went to lunch. Okay, Sean and I had managed a rather peaceful break thus far. We watched some TV, had a few minor arguments, and slept, but as soon as I stepped in Mike Ladney's house... everything changed.

Mike Ladney is an 86 year old man who has been extremely successful in life as a manufacturer of hubcaps and gas-injected molding. Despite his great wealth, he is a very lonely man. He takes great joy in having three young men and a lady in his presence. He saw Chris, Sean, and me as his sons and future millionaires like him. And he saw Karen as a replacement for his wife and mistress. The most ridiculous things come from this man's mouth and I truly hope to capture them in this entry.

The first thing we did was "tour" his house. That was a joke. It was a mess and junk cluttered every corner. There was this freaking annoying frog that croaked everytime you step in front of the beam (god, i really just wanted to chuck that sucker). Mike started by showing us his china cabinet that had been converted into a picture cabinet for pictures of his wife and the "love of his life." The wretch called his wife was a bare subject but he touched on it a couple times. The way he spoke about her made me realize just how sensible she was (lol, in my mind at least). His wife gave blessings to their daughter to marry a "brown, Brazilian" man and Mike very strongly disagreed. He refused to give her away and shunned the family. Now that he is in need of a family, however, he has made an attempt to love the "beautiful brown babies" but the damage had been done. And lacking the ability or will to dismantle his racism, he will never stand a chance.

The next topic was the woman, June, who lived with him for 15 years after his divorce. His children had been adults at the time of the divorce and chose to break ties because their mother got enough money and the didn't feel like having their lives controlled. June is now in an Alzheimer's unit in CA where she will remain for the rest of her life. June's daughter hates Mike (as do many people who know him) and feels it best not to give him visiting rights (as he's so sex deprived he's liable to rape her).

The main living room of Mike's house has two big fish that "he caught." It's very depressing to me to hear him brag about those fish and how he caught them. He can only take pride in the things he has personally done and can only take satisfaction in impressing others with his pride. He plans to have a professional put up his "themed" wallpaper that is supposed to "bring out" the fish. If you ask me, considering how there is absolutely no theme to the room anyway, the fish stick out enough. And if you were going to put up wallpaper, you might as well NOT spend freaking $10 grand on it. (no i did not mistype) He takes joy in the things that are monetarily dazzling. So i look at the paper and don't think anything special of it. But when he sees it he sees a lot of money that is supposed to draw attention to his fish which took a lot of money to catch, including owning boats.

The boats. lol. He took me through the tour of all the boats and I was not impressed... Mainly because he claimed that he and his brother put together this car engine and got it to run in a boat when he was 15. In the picture, they do not look 15 and the two kids in the back of the boat, actually running the engine are "just some neighborhood kids who came along for the ride." So, he has all these boats and never knew enough about them. He certainly used the boats but now they just lay to waste and he retains them only for show.

When we get to the Port Royal Club for Lunch it is at least 1:30 and I am so hungry I can hardly stand it, nor hardly swallow. Every waiter and waitress knows "Mr. Ladney" and exactly where he is sitting. They know not to upset him because he is vindictive and very wealthy. (He'd sue the club for all their worth, and considering the $30k/year memberships thats gotta be a bit.) OK, so we finally go get food and he MAKES me get certain foods. I'm already annoyed. These meals are hard to relate but basically what all three of them consisted of was me trying to find good food, Chris brown-nosing Mike for as much favor as he could, Mike telling us all in his own way that we should have chosen a different "path," Sean trying to say as little as possible, and Karen fending off the passes Mike made at her.

One of the most rediculous passes he made on her came on the last night we dined. I was somehow talking about how little children tend to get up in the morning and go to their parent's bedrooms to cuddle before the day starts. Sean denies doing this and I said that he should make it up to his mother by cuddling with her every morning durning the break. So Sean blushes and puts his head down. We all think it's funny until Mike decides to change the mood: "If you don't, I will!" WOW. I was shocked. He's freaking 86 and certainly doesn't pay Karen enough for THAT. Sean quietly got up to start getting his food in protest. I just stayed there trying to figure out what would happen next.

Other memorable moments from the weekend no that you know the characters:

Friday, before the Seafood Buffet (the night that Sean enjoys the most according to his mother), I ended up at the ER so they could take a look at my throat and try to give me something. (They did give me a cortisone shot and antibiotics, I'm better now.) While Karen waited with me there, Chris and Sean worked on a mouse-trap car. When Karen and I got home we found Chris playing Doom 3 on her laptop (already forbidden) and Sean sprawled out on the air matress. Apprently they had purchased a few necessary parts from Home Depot and then given the rest of the afternoon away to sinful indulgence. They had consumed massive amounts of ColdStone Ice Cream. I picked on Sean for being so stupid in the bedroom while Karen in her rage uninstalled Doom 3 and relentlessly tried to kick Chris out of the house so he would go get ready for dinner.

I left out a character, Carmen. Carmen is Karen's new kitten. She is himilayan and no longer has front claws. On Friday, despite enormous pressure from those around her, Karen took Carmen to "have her nails done" and be spayed. First of all... Carmen is a red and has always meant red. So why the hell is she naming a brown and white cat Carmen. Secondly... this cat has not torn up anything in the house yet and was just starting to get used to her claws. She is extremely fun-loving and will miss her claws dearly, I can tell.

I hate to stop right here but I think I will have to pick this up later as it is already 2am. Night

sickness

Okay.. I know I haven't posted in a little while but what can I say, I've been sick. Really, I have. I'm almost done with this bottle of chloraseptic. My throat has been swollen for a week and I'm definately going to see the Student Health Center tomorrow.

Okay, there are a couple of things on my mind right now. Breath. My ex IM'd my brother yesterday and said that he needed me to call him. At first I thought it was really wierd but I called him right away because I can't imagine it would hurt. As it turns out he didn't answer so I left a message. He called me this morning at 7:45am. But even after going to sleep at 3.. I was awake due to my throat and back pains. It was soooo nice to be able to talk to him... but there's a catch. His dad died on Wednesday. I know what it was like for him in the family and I know that it was very hard to cope at times but I admire him greatly for how well he was able to do it. I start to cry when I think about it. I dont' know how it happened and don't really want to. We talked for only 15 minutes but it seemed like an eternity as we tried to catch up on life. I don't know if I'm just crazy or what but I felt that we were meant for each other during that phone call the same way I did when we were dating. When I think back... I notice that we broke up for two very immature reasons. When I come back to reality I see that I will be flying back home the day he leaves for auditions in NYC. Fate certainly has its ways. And I won't be going back for Thanksgiving.

Okay.. so enough of that. I have been talking to Jeremy a lot lately on skype (lol... of course he checks my blog, he must be the only one). LMAO, we tried tuning his new guitar over skype... very interesting... The strings are so new and soft that it goes out of tune very quickly. Anyway, I hope he learns a lot about the guitar in the next few days.

That reminds me that I am supposed to be getting some Christmas music in the mail from Elizabeth Blair... lol I have to play in church on the 18th. We'll see how that goes.

What else, oh yeh. Last Friday night I went to a club called Coliseum and this guy from UM said hi and that I had a nice body... w/e. But if that wasn't a creepy enough introduction, he asked Alyssa for my number and she freaking gave it to him. So Jon, that's his name, calls me on Sunday while I'm asleep and I tell him that I'm asleep. Then he calls me this Friday and asks me to go to this "cocktail" that his friend is throwing. I agree to go but then cancel when I get back from dinner and I'm not feeling well. Somehow he weasles me into saying yes and I take a "power nap" before he picks me and Logan up at 8. Well I looked like crap but I was after all sick. We went to his house for him to change, which took forever. Then we went all the way to freaking Barry University in Fort Lauderdale to pick up Josh. By the time he had run all his errands and we got to the cocktail it was already 11:30... He definately could have just left us on campus, run his errands and then picked us up. Anyway... this story gets longer. Jon tries to get me to drink at least 3 times and then gets really drunk himself. I just made my own drinks by mixing different juices together, lol. At one point in the night Jon comes up to me and asks me "what I expect from him" like whether he should "invest in me" as a friend or a potential date. I was like WTF?? (probly the same thing that is going through your head right now) Anyway, I recovered my jaw from the floor and told him I didn't expect anything from him and that I probly was a better friend than date. He took that well but I think only because he didn't want to believe it (he still thought he had a chance, please give me a break). As he got drunker and drunker he started to put his arm around me and stuff. Ugh.. again, give me a break.

So I ended up not riding with him to the pre-white party. I definately went back to campus with some of the cooler (read::more sober) UM kids there. I got a call from him yesterday at like 10 asking me to go on a yacht with him and some rich guy... I was asleep again and told him flatly so. Then... this is the real kicker. I get a call from him at like 6pm on Saturday and I think he was just trying to talk casually but it was really akward so he ended up saying that I was a really cool guy and he wanted to "incorporate" me into his group of friends. WTF WTF WTF??? I took offense to this and I was tired of his crap so I basically just went off on him over the phone. lol I told him that a click of friends like that is very fake. That's why I didn't join a frat because I would have to be friends with some people even if I didn't want to. I don't want to be invited to dinner and feel obligated to "the group" to go; I want to feel obligated to a person to go. Lol, I think I made him really mad but at least he got the point. He even tried to argue with me that I should take his "offer" of friendship. UGH. I just want to wash my hands after typing that concept.

Anyway.. I think that's all I have to say for now... I'll hopefully update soon

Skype

Skype: ""

Coolness!! install skype and give me a ring... ooo i can't wait!

Liberal Friday ... Every Friday

Okay here is the great idea my friend Ron came up with at CoC. The liberals of this country need a way to proclaim their vote for the other guy on a weekly basis. So what we've decided to do is wear RED every Friday.

We call it liberal Friday and make tshirts to get out the campaign. The only difficult part is explaining why we're wearing red. It seems a little off because everyone is thinking of the red and blue states on the map but that's not what we mean. We are mad at the state of the government right now and we are paying tribute and respect to all those troops who will have to serve under Bush over the next four years. We feel pained to know they will be in such bad hands. Not to mention the best reason being that we just want to take away red as a Republican power symbol. If we were to wear blue.. they would wear red... but when we wear red, they can't.

the upside

Things are looking up for me in the short run at least. I know that Bush's policies won't affect me now for a bit. I'm looking forward to the rest of this semester and possibly rallying up some fellow Green Party support on campus. I've got some research to do for the whole thing but I certainly think it could happen.

For now I'm starting a facebook group about the Green Party. Hmm.

We went to the Sunset Tavern tonight. It was okay but all they did was talk about politics.
I'm at the point where I want to just start fighting with conservatives to try and change their minds. The problem is that they are all so happy and reaffirmed right now that it's very hard to plant any doubt in their mind.

I don't know what to do about the classes I missed today. I slept all day and have dressed myself in black in protest of america (not deserving of capitalization). I listened to a Puccini opera and then to Cats the musical. But after dinner tonight I'm listening to Ani Difranco because I'm in much higher spirits. She's such a cool liberal.

OO I also just had a conversation with my best friend from back home. God, I miss those conversations that get very much indepth. We talked about his girl. I'm a little skeptical of her because she seems to be playing games with him and the way he talks about the kind of connection they have... she should not be playing games with that. Then we talked about religion because religion is always fun and he has recently become more religious than I think he had been before. I love how I'm able to spout off ways to validate homosexuality in the eyes of the church. I took a bible study over the summer where I learned about homosexuality in the bible. I've also picked up so many reasons along the way, why religion is not anti-homosexual at the core. I find it ironic that I'm able to defend homosexuality while preserving religion's integrity and yet I'm not religious. I am staunchly not Christian but I come from a Christian background and when I broke from the church I did not say religion was bad... I just said it wasn't for me.

Anyway, that's all for tonight. I'll write again later.

America will suffer the consequences of the choice it has made. That is clear. What those consequences are still remains to be seen. The Right-Wing Bushies and the Extremist Right-Wing Congressmen elected in 2004 will obliterate the America we know today. Roe v. Wade will fall and anti-sodomy laws will come back into play as gay marriage is banned. The govermental system of social programs will go bankrupt on purpose.... so they can privatize everything to hell. The "moral issues" that supposedly decided the election are the most distressing things to me. That euphamism means nothing more than the most hateful and biased compelling force called christianity.

What remains moral and fair about a president that gave his CEO friends jobs in the cabinet and contracts to his VP's company? How can you claim to have saved a single american when you've purposefully and remorslessly killed thousands of innocent men, women, and children just because of who they worship and who their leader was (which was certainly non of your business).

President Bush, I hate you. It's that simple. But I've hated you for four years now. Hate doesn't go far enough.... at all. So right now my hate expands to at least 55 million rebublicans who gave their votes to you. I did all I could to stop it and while my campus turned out in record numbers to vote against you, the cuban propaganda van came to campus to heckle the students waiting in line for upwards of 5 hours.

What I want you to know is that you have succeeded not in controlling a very powerful country but in alienating and provoking millions of people accross the world. I can tell you right now that I get the sense that I know what the 9/11 terrorists were feeling. They felt compelled to hurt us because of people like you who offended and provoked them. I now feel compelled (even in my pascifist ideals, like the muslim traditions) to hurt you and your supporters. This divide is so significant in my life that I will not breathe a breath of pro-Bush air for the rest of my life. Over the next couple of days, I am in the process of violently breaking ties with my bigotting aquaintences. My purpose is to not help them in any aspect of life.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
I cannot even begin to describe how angry I am. Mourning will not work. I think that while writing this entry I have just come to realize that Kerry didn't win. Tenenbaum didn't win. Nader didn't get any votes. Daschle lost. Florida went to Bush. And the country is divided more than I could ever imagine it could be. They say that during Vietnam the country split, after Nixon's re-election the country split. But both of those times were not orchestrated by the party in power. Somebody was deathly afraid of communism and took it too far. A bad president won re-election after doing some good and some bad. BUT HERE, we have a miserable, crazy, sneaky, fascist president, who did so little good its not even funny and so much bad, winning re-election.

I've heard people say over and over again that we hit rock bottom today and last night. That's the truth...but my questions aris about whether rock bottom is now.... or when Bush starts to unleash his mad tri-fecta.

We all got that "thought." You know exactly what I'm talking about. You are aware that the assault weapons ban expired. You are aware that the president supports your right to bear arms. And you feel, in protest to that right, that the most appropriate thing to do is to bear arms against him. The militia is protected in the Constitution for times like these, not for gang-wars. If you had that "thought" that maybe, just maybe, you could point and shoot, then please have trust in the fanatics of this world. We KNOW they exist. The foreign ones have done over 4,000(bodies) in damage to us in recent years. The locals are much more inspiring, however. I love how D.C voted 91% against Bush. That's the city where he'll be inaugurated if he makes it that far, btw. We're all fanatics for the next four years and if we unite ourselves, then in four years we'll have someone, just as far to the left as Bush is(was) to the right.

I don't really know how to stop writing because my mind won't stop till Bush is dead, impeached, or not allowed back, but here it is. The End for now.