"working hardly"

Maybe it was because of the snow slowly melting or the fact that the geese were now flying North in V formation. Maybe I was just bored, but a few months ago I decided to seek a new job. The melting snow and flying geese are not supposed to be reason for employment but when you're me you fall into a routine and until you start to think about it, you're stuck. Without geese, I'd still be riding my bike and wearing a satchel at work.
The job looked really great! The sign posted on the board at the coffee house reminded me of a personal ad - using terms you would never use in any given assembly job. It seemed like me, so I took to thinking about it for a week before finally making my way to this fantasy land of a workplace to inquire.
I arrived with 5 minutes to spare before I needed to be leaving for my real job. It took me long enough to even find the place, holed up & building recumbent bicycles in a Mafia meeting room-type-building. The size of the building alone threw me off enough to where I forgot to try to act like I fit the description of the desired applicant. For nearly two years, I've been taking 5 minute walks across my workplace just to get to the bathroom and this place was like driving up to a gas station. When I opened the door, I was greeted with being briefly glanced at by one of the three gentlemen in the room. I had enough time to notice bike parts all over the place and two guys at a table assembling one bike. I immediately thought "whoa, that's totally inefficient" then stood there for around 5 seconds, which seemed like an eternity, until one of them spoke.
"Can I help you?"
"are you hiring?"
"who?"
"are you hiring"
(the clearly socially inept guy then threw it over to his associate)
"I'm sorry, the position was filled"
"wha?"
"the position was filled, you're about aaaaah....week or two late. But thanks for stopping by!"
"yep"

Oh well. The place was small anyways. And I probably couldn't listen to music either. And they probably don't pay very well.
I didn't let myself get too disappointed and instead stopped at vertigo on the way to work and bought some compact disc therapy.
my first job was hardly inspired by geese and melting snow. I needed money for magazines & things, so the day after my 14th birthday, I called the phone number in the paper and got myself an interview for a job with the Grand Rapids Press. A paper route. I was to be an "independent Carrier". The woman from the GRP in charge of the Hastings area came to our house a few days later, my mom signed the forms and I had the job. She drove me on the route the first day to make sure I understood the process of leaving a paper on someone's porch. She gave me a little book designed specifically for keeping track of money collection and a large canvas bag with orange reflective edges and the press logo on the side. She also gave me a gigantic bag of green rubber bands, most likely to keep me occupied after work.
I started off the next day, alone, on my bike. I Lived near the south edge of Hastings, and my route happened to be on the North edge, it was quite a trip considering the incline and my weakling-ness. My papers were dropped off every day in front of the credit union, so I actually had time to rest while I rubber banded each paper and stuffed it into my bag. The neighborhood was mostly inhabited by the elderly... Or lonely middle aged people. The old men were always waiting for the paper. Watering the lawn, washing the car, sitting in a lawn chair in the garage, certain men always asked silly questions. "what's the word?". "uhhh"
I felt sorry for the old men who lived alone. Some of them were married to their lawns, but the others were just plain alone. One guy was always on his back porch around the time I came by at the end of the route, drinking lemonade and reading a book or doing some sort of puzzle. He'd always greet me enthusiastically with a "hey Joe!" when I opened the door to the porch and handed him the paper. One day I opened the door to find him at the table sitting across from a framed black and white picture of a young woman. He was drinking some sort of liquor. He greeted me with an "oh... hey there".

One year later, I was 15 and fed up with my monthly salary. It fell somewhere between $90 and $120 monthly. I tried to get a job at the new Applebees, but was disappointed to learn that the last of the positions suitable for a 15 year old were filled earlier that day. DAMMIT. The paper route had kept me from getting a new job. I relayed my dismay to the boss, and she offered me a new, larger paper route that was closer to home. Left with no other options, I accepted. The new route was much like the old route, but now included an entire retirement community. Retirement communities can be looked at by their denizens in two ways.

1.Pennock Village: A place where older people can enjoy their retirement without the worries of home maintenance and with the convenience of meals on wheels, a health club and a hospital next door (just in case) there's also a golf cart path that leads directly to the Kmart parking lot.

2. A prison... Forced upon you because you cant keep up the house anymore and your kids are pretty busy and can't come help you out all the time. Plus, you can't drive.

The difference of perspectives is made clear when it comes time to collect the money. Half the time, my money was left on the door or mailed to me in the envelope I had provided a week earlier. Half the time, I would have to knock on the door and politely demand my seven or thirteen dollars (depending on the subscription). Half of this time (one quarter of the entire time) the people inside were very nice and would offer me cookies or on warmer days, a drink. I always accepted. Sometimes I stuck around an extra few minutes to converse, and I ended up hearing some pretty cool stories about the old days, the depression, world war, vacations to Yellowstone, fishing, etc.
The remaining time was pure hell. Being a 13 year old left me with little right to argue or even defend myself against the cranky ones. Evidently, knocking on doors was taboo in the earlier half of the century - or so they made it seem. I'd knock at the door and be greeted with an angry expression and unkind words.

"I'm here to collect for the grand rapids press"
"Why do you always come around at dinner time!?"
"I shouldn't have to be interrupted from my meal"
"I'll get your money, but I really don't appreciate being interrupted during my dinner"

I could have responded with "perhaps you should hang some sort warning on the door next time you're eating dinner, bitch, assuming you still refuse to pay me on time with the conveniently pre-addressed envelope I provide you with every month. I know you can mail it, because I know you get the newspaper from outside your door which happens to be 3 steps from the mailbox, which has a large outgoing mail slot...If you can't acquire a stamp, just leave it on the door like some of your neighbors do. I don't think they'll steal it, you have quite a reputation for bitchiness".

Cranky elderly couples are even worse, they work as a team.

I kept up the job until my sixteenth birthday. After a very brief period of unemployment, I was hired at McDonald's.

TO BE CONTINUED - when you least expect it.

Filler

the queers 

from The Queers show at Ten Bells - 4/19

xanga revisited

This is the April Fool's page from maddox.xmission.com and pretty much sums up everything I hate about xanga, but couldn't put into words.

walking through meijer and...

 

Stan once put mayonaise in his hair, but this stuff is hardly creative. This stuff is just disgusting. It's cholesterol AND PLACENTA!

MSU = Links

I stayed at MSU on Friday night, and most of Saturday (big basketball day). After reflecting upon my great weekend 10 minutes ago, I remembered that according to sitemeter, 21% of my page's visitors are from MSU, or at least visiting my page from an MSU server. After reflecting on my weekend at MSU, and my page's visitors from MSU I was reminded of my fellow bloggers who link to my site, namely, a Blogger who lives at MSU. After reflecting upon my weekend at MSU, my page's visitors from MSU, and my fellow blogger who lives at MSU, I was reminded of the fact that I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to add a link field to the side of this page. I pasted the html in various places, assuming the links would eventually show up somewhere on the site, but obviously they have not. Look over there and see for yourself. I noticed that a few visitors were referred to my site from some of my friends' sites so I'm going to link to them right now. Actually, I'll link to a few others who didn't necessarily link to me, what the hell. This post serves as my temporary (and incomplete) link list.

Blog of the Hurricane
Guythatnooneknows has opinions
The Randall J. Supplement
The Isaac Haze
WYCE (listen online randomly in the middle of the night)
darth punker
Michigan Radio (npr)
isyouis
the human comedy
things I hate about my flatmate

UPDATE 4/21/05: since the conception of this post, my MSU visitor percentage has dwindled to 8% of total visits.

Fiction 2

I had been waking up at 8:30 p.m. for the past few weeks, but since it was my birthday I decided to get up at 5. I put on some decent clothes, and did my hair in anticipation of my birthday celebration. The place was clean, as it had always been since she stopped staying there. I wasn't actually expecting anyone to show up but I got up early just incase the proposition turned out to be real, the birthday part really made no difference to me. I was prepared to sleep all day then head to work at 10:00 p.m. No one at work knew when my birthday was.

I was never ignorant enough to be "suprised" at what I'd become. I was perfectly aware of the way I was wasting away, alone. With the blinds drawn and the lights off, I would wake up, shower, shift the futon into couch mode, watch TV and chain smoke until it was time to leave. I was sure I was forgetting how to speak. I didn't eat much at the time aside from vending machine food. The fact that this was bad for me was indeed a fact that I was aware of, but self pity would just make things worse.
After living in Grand Rapids for 6 months I had no friends in the city, let alone my building. This was fine at first, I had a roommate afterall, and had moved there with the intention of continuing the pursuit of something that made so much sense before. Things were great then, and things were great for the first few months after moving. The place was awesome, she was awesome, my job, though not particularly awesome, was now 10 minutes away from where I lived. Things started to deteriorate around the same time her ignorance started to build. The bills would never pay for themselves, and the sleeping neighbors had feelings too. So did I. The only thing keeping me from cracking, aside from my razor sharp ability to reason, were the weekly visits from my friends and the alcohol they brought with them. The manufactured fun provided me with the opportunity to express my feelings for my departed companion in a healthy way: through disrespect and sarcasm. Mean, yes, but much less than what I was capable of. I would rush home (to my parents') as soon as possible every weekend with the ultimate goal of making normal social contact. The combination of skipping sleep on Saturday morning and the familiarity and safety of my parents' house provided me with just one good night of sleep per week. The pattern seemed to be working out, but it was obviously unhealthy. I hadn't been physically able to eat a full meal in a month, and had extremely painful chronic heartburn. Heartburn, how fucking ironic. One of my many attempts to break her shell of ignorance was to make my doctor's appointment while in the same room.

"Yes, I need to make an appointment"
"I've been having eating and sleeping problems"
"yeah that's fine"

She didn't even seem to notice that I was there, or that I was on the phone. I left my pepcid samples and paperwork on the counter a few days later in hopes of provoking some sort of inquiry, just so I could answer "BECAUSE OF YOU!", "YOU'RE THE REASON I CAN'T EAT OR SLEEP! DON'T YOU GET IT?". It didn't really work out that way. The hardest part of living with her was the fact that I lay restless on the other side of the room while she slept every night. The fact that she was right there, that she no longer wanted to even talk to me, that she seemed to hate me for no particular reason and there was no way I could get her to try to explain it really drove me crazy. Her alarm clock would wake me up from light sleep later in the morning, and I had to lay with my eyes closed and listen to her get ready for work. It was torture. The hardest part of living without her was the fact that all of her belongings were still there, teasing me. I was constantly distracted during my TV watching by the pile of clothes amassed on her bed. Sometimes I would throw my empty pop bottles into the heap. "fuck you, pile of clothes!" The sharpie writing around the door frame didn't help either. A few weeks earlier, she held a large late night party while I was at work. Some drunken asshole wrote each guest's name on the paint with the disclaimer "BUY PAINT TO FIX THIS SHIT". If only it were that easy, jackass.
I was very angry with her about the party, but she laughed at me. She also laughed at the noise ordinance violation that was left under the door the following Monday. I let her know how I felt about the blatant disrespect, and a week or so later, she was gone and I was alone with bills and no good explanation.

Around 8 there was a knock at the door. I jumped up, perplexed as to how my visitor could knock at my door without first being let into the building.

"happy birthday Josiah!"

Two of my friends entered the apartment.

"someone was going in, so we went in after them"
"ah ha"
"we put our money together and bought you a gift"
"sweet, thanks!"
"we didn't have any wrapping paper, so we just used newspaper"
I unwrapped it.
"holy shit, its the thing!"
"yeah, I remembered how cool you thought it was when you and I saw it in the store and decided it was overpriced... We got it anyways"

It was a tiny, highly detailed Asian cork carving in a small glass case.

"sorry I didn't bring a cake like I said I was going to" said my female friend
"no, you said you were going to come up here and bake me a cake" I replied

We ended up walking around downtown looking for a place to eat. Everything seemed to be closing just as we approached. I realized that this was the first time in weeks that I had been outside in the daylight (aside from my weekend commute to Hastings) and one of the few times I had ever walked around since I moved there. We found a place that was still open,"Harry's Brooklyn Pizza", and went in. The single piece of pizza and two fountain drinks I consumed nearly made me sick. I guess I wasn't quite to that point yet, but for the first time in a long time, I was having a great day.
Some of the happiest moments of my tenure in the city were the days we moved my things back home. My friends and I ran across the balconies, pushing loud carts and banging into corners. Hell, at that point I had nothing to lose. At the end of the night we sat on the steps outside and had a small "last time we'll ever smoke here" ceremony in which we reminisced about the other times we had smoked cigarettes on the steps. The time I found a pack of Newports and someone's car keys, then activated a car alarm while smoking a Newport, the time some guy promised us dozens of drunk women and a keg in 15 minutes, not to mention hookups to the VIP room at "the stack" (he went inside after just one of his cousins showed up, empty handed).
Everything came back together when I moved home, but the resentment for the girl who caused me so much distress has yet to cease. Every time I hear from her, begging for forgiveness, I get the same feeling in my stomach that I once had every single day and it's starting to seem that I've become the depressor. My principles and standards keep me from making more stupid decisions, leaving me with only one explanation for my coldness; I bought paint to fix that shit.

just one more

Work....let this one explain its self.

Fiction 1

I had just driven home from work, another day, another average day. I was put on one of the worst jobs in the pressroom. I had to stand, as opposed to sitting on a stool, and I was forced by boredom to actually complete 400 + parts. My mind would tell me to slow down, but my boredom would tell me to go faster, as if the day would end when I did. It rarely did. I usually had an extra half-hour between the time my job was over, and the time the bell rang at midnight. Tonight was no freaking exception. It was a Thursday and Thursdays usually meant watching my friends drink when I got home. I wasn't to the point where I was going to start drinking on work nights, I'd need some sort of problem to start that kind of problem. Funny how that works, the way one solves problems with other problems. I guess if it works, then there's still only two problems, and yet another problem has not been created. Problem problem problem.

I arrived at home approximately 48 minutes after midnight. I was wearing a nappy plain white tshirt, and an oft worn zip-up sweatshirt with a cigarette hole burned in the pocket. Everything is a god damned memory these days. I spit my chewing gum over my car, out into the rural abyss, slung the one good strap of my back-pack over my left shoulder, and headed to the door. I could hear the people inside laughing, having a good time. "already drunk" I thought. I opened the door and the party crowd was in the corner of the kitchen on some beer-drunk mission, when unexpectedly, two girls turned around simultaneously. Shit. This wasn't one of the regulars. This one actually appeared to be my age. This one was attractive. This one seemed different. She spoke. "hi". The look on her face told me that this wasn't going to be another MGD night, something was in the air, it was the high life, tonight was going to be a mixed drink with three ingredients; me, you and lots of vodka. (name) spoke "Josiah, this is my cousin (name), (name) this is Josiah". Name spoke next "I've been waiting for you all night" and kissed me on the cheek. FUCK...fuck fuck fuck... This doesn't happen to me, nothing like this is supposed to happen to me. My feeble mind cannot possibly bear the load of another, not again, not after those other times. My 19 year dry spell was not about to end. As much as I wanted it to, there was no way the two devils on my shoulders would let me experience any sort of pleasure. I could get the twins drunk, but they'd just become more witty and clever, like I do (I think I do). EDIT: The twins would just become jerks, like I do, and end up distracting me all night long.

It's 6:20 a.m.

And I hear a motorcycle in the distance.........................................
I stepped outside to have a cigarette at 6:20 in the morning, expecting to hear nothing more than kittie's purring as she eats her food out on the frigid front porch. But I heard the motorcycle in the distance. I can only imagine the other times I've heard the motorcycles. I would lay in bed, sleepless, at my parents' house a few years ago. I had to work early the next morning, but neither my mental state, nor my sleep schedule would let me rest. Every Friday night, I would hear the motorcycles trekking down Broadway street. A fun night at the bar, and a drunken, two wheeled drive home. Up to that point I was always worried. "I'm never going to wake up in time for work" I would think to myself. Little did I know that my McDonald's life was just a tickler, a feather in the world of my work life... Three periods equals "continued". Boy are those three periods perfectly posed.
So I stand, leaning on the outside wall of this magnificent, tiny home, the house where I now live. Upon hearing the echoes of the 10 degree motorcycle ride, the first person I can think of is my own second cousin. Victor. Victor once worked as a lumberjack out in the forest, and once upon a time, a large branch fell on top of Victor's head. From that point on, Victor suffered from random headaches, and regular/random memory loss. Once when I was at the grocery store with my mom, we ran into Victor. She had to remind him of who she was and of course, he suddenly remembered, and she went on to tell a joke about the branch that fell on his head. He responded with laughter. The impaired have a default reaction. The impaired want to be treated as if they have no impairment, so a joke about said impairment has no adverse psychological effect on the person. If anything, it has a positive effect. I was young at the time, but shared an understanding between Victor and my mother, as was the case in most situations. I play pool at the Olde Town Tavern almost every Sunday, but during Hastings Summerfest, I've been known to play on weekdays. One such weekday, I ran into Victor, wearing his leather, motorcycle parked outside, talking on the payphone. I didn't approach him, knowing there was know way in hell he would know who I was. My friend made a joke about him, his "mullet" his "Pantera fan" getup, his barfly ways. But I respected this man more than I respected the friend who was making these comments. Afterall, he may act like it, but a branch never fell on his head.
I heard the motorcycle somewhere out in the rural abyss, and hoped upon all things that it was Victor. I hope he's on his way to some warm bed, to be shared with some beautiful, understanding woman. I wish this upon him more than I wish it upon myself, afterall, a branch never fell on my head...But maybe one should.

A selection from my huge novel

from: NOTSUR DNUORA SELCRIC PT. IV

...not to mention, the spotlight and the heat radiating from hearth's edge was making the dome extremely uncomfortable. I put out my cigar in the dog's dish and continued to aimlessly shuffle about the showroom. The band had started playing of a horrible dissonance and it was no longer possible to carry on a conversation with any of the members. Groups of 2nd, no, more likely 1st class Chamber Masters were sitting in small circles on the floor, making the trek more difficult than I had originally planned. I desperately looked for a clear spot where I could finally stake my claim, this was also made nearly impossible by the management's strict no-leaning policy...

Online Dating in Ruston, Louisiana! HERE!

Burn On Sweet Fire

That's the title of one of the many romance novels, sitting atop one of the many piles of romance novels in the lunchroom at work. The cover of course, is a copy of a racy oil painting depicting a partially shirtless long-haired male clutching an open mouthed petite woman wearing a lacy old-timey dress. The peculiar and confusing thing about trashy romance novels is that the ending of the book is almost always given away on the cover. There is no point in reading one of these books. There is probably no point in writing these books either, but that is beside the point (If there even is a point here). My point is, piles upon piles of trashy romance novels can only mean one thing; someone at work is obviously very lonely. Somebody at work obviously doesn't have the unconscious ability to get themselves out of a rut, and probably hasn't for the past 30 years judging by the age and quantity of the books. Today happened to be the day that I unconsciously enabled my ability to unconsciously change myself, whilst driving home from work. Here's how it happened!

I'm an asshole. At least I have been lately. I'm also a really nice guy most of the time and I find myself jumping between these two phases about 6 times per year. I don't know what triggers the asshole phases. It's probably just a mechanism in defense of some wrongdoing, specific or not, that offended me just before the phase set in, or just a way to get out of a lull in action or "depressed" period. I put quotes around "depressed" to convey sarcasm. It's usually more boredom than depression. Either way, I get myself into these phases, and rarely notice the change. But as time goes by, my gut, like the innocent bystanders, starts to feel the effects of my own alter-ego. I was driving home from work earlier tonight and happened upon an illuminated church sign, you know, the kind with a clever message on the front. The one-liners seem to be just as important as the church service itself. If its not meant as an advertisement for the service, it's meant as a promotion of the church's message and is aimed the kind of person that drives more than they worship God. I am the latter.
This week's message:

Forbidden fruit causes many jams

If it weren't for the mood in my car created by the song that was playing, I probably would have thought something like "how can they never run out of those...Do they have books filled with clever church sign ideas"? But the song played on, and I started thinking about the message, and how It intertwined with one line of the song and how the two lines could be applied to my life right now.
Instead, I thought "I'm such an asshole!". The "forbidden fruit" had been eaten, and I am indeed in a little "jam".
On I drove, and on I thought.
Lately, people from my past have been casually contacting me, and I've been forced to sort through them in order to not make the same mistakes over again. There's a reason that I consider them "people from my past". The song is "fooled with the wrong guy" by Beulah and lyrics seem to fit my circumstances in an eerily literal fashion. (Although, the song sounds great under any circumstances).

The recent contacts served as the beginning of my phase shifting, the crafty church sign served as the realization of my current status, and the dark lyrics and overwhelming calm of the song that played in the car at the same time helped me realize that It was time for another change. The romance novel merely Served as a catchy title to this thread. Maybe sitting in the drivethru at McDonalds on the way home reminded me of a more simple time in my life, namely the summer after senior year when I still worked at McDonalds, practically had no job, had lots of friends who got along with eachother, many aquaintances, and all the time in the world. I could also get along with very little socialization skills. If only I could have what those church sign keepers have.
All in all, tonight's drive served as the denouement to my latest phase. I eventually got home, and being the nice guy that I am, fed the rest of my double cheeseburger to the cat. So far so good.

A few more are now available.

These pictures are from the Rockit King show I attended earlier this month.

pictures by me

me shooting. skyler waiting

Division Ave.

State & Jefferson

Evans Tempcon Hose Dept.




things have been up with lots

UPDATE 2005

My last post was about the Northern Lights. I think I was going through some transcendent phase back then, becoming more of star player on Team Josiah's Mind. Then I moved out here to the country, to the back 40, wild cats chill on the porch (where there happens to be a couch). I've stopped loitering because of this place, I'm not constantly in search of the unattainable good time. Here, the good time is easily attainable and doesnt have to be searched for. Hey, I dont watch tv anymore.

So far, in order of personal acceptance, this blog has mostly been about :
Card Playing
Writing in this blog
My current place of residence (at the time of the particular post)

So far I am the most proud of my blog because:
I dont talk about romance (possibly because it doesnt exist)
I dont provoke anyone (except you, bitch)
I rarely post, even after a small amount of critical acclaim

The Killiteenz are back from Hiatus. We're writing songs again. If you dont know who the killiteenz are, you probably think I'm being serious right now. If you just read the word "Killiteenz" and thought I was being serious, you're probably reading this in CIT class.
But seriously, the killiteenz actually exist, and there will be links someday... If you're confused right now, just be patient and you'll eventually understand.

Questions? Comments? they feed my ego....... please throw me your intellectual scraps.

Aurora Borealis. And Jupiter. RIGHT NOW!

In layman's terms, the sky is freaking out. Jupiter is also visible at the moment. The closest thing I've seen in the past was the Deltaplex spotlights moving across low clouds, really nothing compared to aurora Borealis. Stuff like this usually doesn't excite me, (Planetary education, Weather, Dinosaurs) but If I could see a dinosaur in the sky from my driveway right now, I'd probably write about it on my blog. LOOK!

Fear and Loathing in a Retirement Home

When I was in the third grade, I was scared. I knew the calendar was slowly counting the days until it was time. The long strip of paper taunted me for almost a semester. The dotted lines, the directional arrows, the loops. I was convinced that I would never learn to write cursive.
Of course, teachers teach, and I picked it up at a normal pace, because... learners learn. With the exception of memorizing the entire multiplication table in 5th grade (up to the twelves anyways) nothing has really scared me the same way - until just recently.

The daily newspaper has two - countem - two crossword puzzles, I usually get 3/4 of each puzzle completed at work and try to do the "jumble" game, and try not to look over to the left side of the page. I get a nervous feeling in my stomach, much like the feeling in third grade. "when it comes up, I'll just change the subject", I think to myself, "I don't really NEED to know how, do I?". "whats going to happen when I'm in a retirement home?". Extreme boredom ensues. My eyes wander. I start to read.

The name of the column:

"Bridge"

I understand the elderly have about 50 years to learn how to play this game, but I'm sure none of them even fully understand it. I think the only person who knows every rule is Frank Stewart , the Tribune Media Services Columnist.
Every single day, Frank gathers up 3 other directions (I'm assuming they're friends of his) To set up some random bridge situation. I can tell from the example that there are four players (directions). They each have a seemingly random amount of cards from each suit. How did they get there? I don't know. Frank never gives any history, and I have no idea how these cards end up in the hands of four different directions, or what you're supposed to do with them. But Frank DOES ask a "Daily question". This man must be really old. The questions make no sense, they all end with "what do you say?". This is exactly like when the old men on my paper route would ask me, enthusiastically, "Whats the Word?". It's supposed to be some kind of trick - I think.
Example:

DAILY QUESTION
You hold (spade)10 8 6 5 2 (heart)9 (diamond)8 6 5 (club)A 10 8 7 Dealer, at your left, opens one diamond. Your partner doubles, you bid one spade and he raises to three spades. The opponents pass. What do you say?

ANSWER
You hold more values than you might have held. Partner's double obliged you to respond, and partner is betting you can take nine tricks even if your hand is hopeless. Since you actually have two tricks - a fifth spade and an ace - bid four spades.

HOLY SHIIT......Bridgers are misleading! "You hold more values than you might have held"? Yes, kindof like when Frank had more glasses of brandy than he might have had before writing the day's column, or how I have more quarters than I might have had because I'm magic.
FRANK IS PLAYING CALVIN CARDS!

Excerpts from other questions/answers, and the way I perceive them.

...But your queen is "working"... "she" is turning tricks to pay off "her" student loans.

"If partner raises to three spades, you'll try for a grand slam". Truckers' CB radio
banter..suggesting they stop at Denny's

"Pass" Like when I played Texas holdem that one time.

"What do you say?" Like the old guys on my paper route.

Every column starts with something to break the ice. In my case, it is the ice of total fear and confusion. Frank seems to understand my relationship with card games. I was once forced to join a game of euchre with a friend and two relative strangers. In a random coffee shop in a random neighborhood in Chicago, I was taught to play the game in 30 seconds by three people at once. These guys were serious about their euchre. They played as if it wasn't just a game. My teammate was getting very frustrated by my lack of enthusiasm, responsibility, and short term memory. That was the worst game of my life.
I guess I could blame it on my parents for never teaching me any card games. My grandma taught me how to play "War" but it is of no use now. My cousins taught me to play poker, but the game of poker is probably much too smoky for a retirement home recreation room. When I get old, and I'm chillin with my homies (the elderly always use slang terms from their good old days) I'm going to be totally left out, and I'm not going to dance with a hot chick (again, old timey slang) at the monthly dances, and no one is going to join me when I watch re-runs of elimidate on TV Land. No one will sit and reminisce about how every girl had a skippit in elementary school, and when everyone is playing bridge, I'm going to be sitting all alone. (with a snack pack, preferably) I'm going to be that guy that always hits on the nurse.

"Unlucky louie plays the dummy like a man buying stocks in a bear market. He knows his
finesses will lose, yet he stakes his contracts on them anyway".

Frank tries to help.

"As you'd imagine, Cy the Cynic views the government bureaucracy with grave suspicion.'if laughter is the best medicine', Cy told me, 'its a wonder the Food and Drug Administration Isnt trying to regulate it.' Cy enjoyed a horselaugh at the expense of today's West..."

Frank isn't helping.

I Could just wait it out like I did in '93. I could take a class through community education (believe it or not, these classes really do exist). But I really don't know what to do. Until judgment day arrives, I'll focus on the now, remembering that even the best players take the game too personally. "North needed a drink after today's deal". Even the best players are as confused as I am. "How could I know what was going on?" south asked glumly".
But no matter what life deals out, I'll always remember above all things that I can still take nine tricks.........even if my hand is hopeless.

The Integrity League's Unexplained lack of integrity explained euphemistically. PLUS: Talk of Bears

If anyone actually checks up on this blog anymore, they would probably have noticed that I've been out of commission for quite some time - as far as blogging goes. One bad move and the whole system went down. This disastrous, bad luck induced Integrity Leauge domino effect has come to a halt on the screen of your personal computers, and for that I apologize. Apparently a domestic problem can lead to a life filled with sleeping. I shall explain in part: Due to a lack of communication, the comcast internet bill was never paid, therefore the internet stopped working? What kind of deal is that? Not only did the internet stop working, but the cable television stopped working. I've resorted to sleeping all day, much like a bear escapes the cold desolation of winter by sleeping in a cave all season. The only difference is my lack of stored animal carcasses, BUT, just like a bear, I hate hunting in the winter. (I have a refrigerator with some cheese, various condiments and bottled water in it, this is a great example of how we humans are at the top of the food chain).

I woke up the other day to find my roommate and her little brother hauling her computer away. It's not that big of a deal because without the internet the only thing I could really do with the computer was play solitaire - but for some reason she took the phone with her too. I am totally perplexed. I'm "scratching my head on this one". Why would she take the phone? Now I cant "buzz" people into the apartment building like I could at one point. No one really ever comes to visit me anyways, but without the internet, and without the ability to let people inside, I've become totally isolated in my own "cold desolate world". I have no choice but to Hibernate.

I commute to Hastings almost every weekend now, but I am usually too lazy or uninspired to type up a post from my parents' computer. In approximately 1.5 months I'll be back for good, I think. The integrity of the Integrity Leauge shall be fully restored. I will triumphantly return to my former typing glory. (Pay homage to my awesome red power).

I'm like an 18 year old middle-aged man

I recently started working third shift, which wasn't too big of a change for me. Since my average bedtime while on second shift was 5 a.m. I figured an extra hour and a half of consciousness wouldn't be a big deal. Then I remembered all of my stupid sleeping problems.
The problems stem from when I was still living at home, I slept on the bed from hell. The bed wasn't hellish in and of itself, but my stupid back problems plus the mildly uncomfortable bed created the beginning of the aforementioned stupid sleeping problems (I slept on the damn thing for approximately 16 years). My only refuge was the couch in the living room. The couch was the only place in my house where I could lay comfortably, until my parents decided the room needed a stylistic overhaul and gave it away in favor of a hard-as-a-board and too-short-to-lay-on love seat and two chairs (sacrificing function in favor of form). Why would anyone prefer a love seat and two odd chairs?
Suddenly I had no suitable resting place at all! Imagine having a life. Now imagine that your life is TOTALLY UNCOMFORTABLE!
When I moved to Grand Rapids 3 months ago, I bought a futon. Futons are cheap, and can magically turn into a sofa, so of course, it was the smart decision. I knew I was making a good choice when it came to comfort, afterall, I had laid on my brother's futon for all of 5 seconds and it seemed comfortable. I was wrong. Even after purchasing a neato memory foam mattress pad, I can still feel the bars underneath.

Flash forward to today. I get out of work at 6:00 a.m. Since I started my new shift, I've been progressively staying up later and later. Its currently 9:18 a.m. and I'm still wide awake.
On Thursday, I gave up on the concept of "normal" sleep, and just decided not to sleep at all. I came home, laid down for a hour, and got up.
A miracle! I came home on Friday morning and after 35 hours, slept for an astonishing 14 hours.
I now have in my possession a totally comfortable couch (bought for $10), a couch that could easily beat up any given futon, love seat or odd chair. When I close the door to the bedroom, the rest of the apartment is as dark as night. 24 hour darkness has always been a dream of mine which proves to me that dreams do come true. I still stay up too late, and my back still hurts, but at least I have something comfortable to go lay on.

A lack of substance: writing about writing

So I realize, now, one week after starting this blog, I have nothing substantial to write about. After numerous brainstorming sessions, short drives, swinging, fishing, sleeping, showering and many other writers block remedies failed to help me out, I came up with some pointers to help me to create a quality blog. A starting point.

1. Fiction is good.
It seems that I’m not the Josiah I used to be. The old me wrote about anything and everything, my walls were covered with random phrases, (phrases I came up with when I was by a wall). I had those special crayons that would wash off of the side of the bathtub, incase I wanted to write in the shower. Every time I came into contact with a pretty girl, I would write on her and she would run away…. So I just stopped writing. Interesting eh? IT WAS ALL FICTION!! Sadly, my fictional life is much more interesting that my non-fictional life.

2. Avoid unnecessary drama caused by writing about people. If anyone is familiar with “Xanga”, it’s a web log community that seems to be designed to hurt peoples’ feelings, or to tell people how they’ve hurt yours (at least in the local xanga community). It seems that everyone who writes purposely writes about someone else, knowing full well that the “someone” in question has a subscription to, or is a regular viewer of said xanga. It forms a circle. Before you know it, the internet is making you cry, and that’s not very cool. People forgot how to deal with their serious personal problems and started discarding them on the internet, yes, the public internet.

3. Don’t purposely misspell things. A couple misspellings here and there are nothing to scoff at, but when you start typing “ur” instead of “you are”, “your” or “you’re, you’re crossing a line. Soon we will all forget how cool the word “your” looks! Just stare at it for awhile and you’ll understand why “UR” is such a horrible “word”. I guess that’s it for pointers

I seriously lack when it comes to keeping anyone’s attention, however, I’m very good at giving my attention to someone who says something purely intriguing. For example, just yesterday, I was talking to a friend and she started off her sentence with “I read a good article in the New Yorker today”. After hearing this one little statement, I realized how uncultured and lazy I am. She read The New Yorker, where as I slept all day. I don’t read anything, let alone The New Yorker! Maybe it’s just the sophisticated sounding title, or maybe I just realized that people I know read The New Yorker and I don’t. Maybe it all subliminally tied in with my writing dilemma. She reads The New Yorker and she happens to be a really good writer. I know now what I have to do.

The same thing goes with comedic effect. I lack the comedic genius to make anyone come back to this page in hopes of laughing again, if they ever did in the first place. Another friend once made the statement “fork in anus is the new cellar door”…………How can I compete with that? How can anyone compete with that?

the integrity league

hello, I am josiah, welcome to my blog