2006-03-09 - 1:31 A.M.

So we have the internet again. God, that was a long, boring week. Is it sad that I find myself with SO much extra time if I don't have the internet at my constant disposal? It almost makes me feel pathetic. But then I got stoned a lot with Berkey & watched a lot of movies so it all balanced out. I read quite a bit more than I usually do too. I miss reading. I bought 'A Separate Peace' at the thrift store in Jasper last Friday. For 99 cents. Beat that, bitches. I was stoked.

So yeah, I went to Jasper with Brittany on Friday. It was pretty cool. She can be pretty tiresome at times but she's cool when it's just the two of us hanging out. Now, don't get me wrong with the tiresome comment. I think she's a pretty bad-ass chick. The problem is that she's even more insecure than I've ever even thought about being. In comparison to her, I'm a completely sane, self-loving & accepting individual.

For instance, the other day at work, I was writing down some general gossip to my friend Jennifer (aka Jenni5) -- mostly because she sits like an entire row over & I can't just yell across it, ya know? Must keep things top secret. Haha. Anyway, we're writing back & forth, right? Well, Brittany sits right next to me. She all of a sudden pipes up with "Are you guys talking bad about me? I always get paranoid when people whisper or write notes in front of me. You guys are talking about me, aren't you?" Wtf. I had to sit there & tell her no for at least 10 minutes before she'd believe me. Paranoia what?

Eh, enough about that. Onto the more exciting part of the Friday. So we get back from Jasper & she drops me off at the parentals' place in Haleyville. I pick up the clothes & all my shit and head back to Hamilton to have a viddy night with Zachary & Berkey. Well, this was the first night the three of us had hung out since Zachary had gotten back from Mardi Gras so we had to hear that awesomely bad-ass story as soon as he walked in the door.

Okay. So. Zachary is not a violent person at all, man. People refer to him as "hippie" or "hippie Zach". He's that laid-back. So when Berkey tells me that Zachary called while down in New Orleans & was telling him about kicking someone's ass, I was slightly skeptical. If you knew him, you'd be skeptical too. But yeah, Zachary tells us about how he completely fucked up the face of this huge, 7 ft tall LSU football giant. The guy was calling him an asshole for no apparent reason & knocked Zachary's beer out of his hand so he just punched him square in the nose. It's a pretty cool story but I don't really have the energy to type it all up right now. Maybe another day. Anyway, there was a guy in this LSU asshole jock's group that got the entire thing on video camera. Close up. A full 5 or 6 minutes worth of Zachary just dodging punches & then killing this guy's face. We're all really hoping it pops up on the internet somewhere. After the fight was over, everyone started handing him all his shit back (his sunglasses, jacket, button down shirt, etc) & these other LSU dudes come up and invite him to their party, saying he's bad-ass & that was the coolest fight they've ever seen, blahdeblah. So we're also suspecting that there's now some sort of Zachary fan club at LSU. Maybe they now ask "WWZD?". Ya never know..

So after the awesome story of Zachary owning some LSU bitch, we watch the Dark Side of Oz (the Wizard of Oz muted with Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon playing over it). Zachary & I thought it was bad-ass but apparently it bored Berkey. I think this is only because he couldn't keep his mouth shut long enough to pay attention to the movie. Pfft.

Afterwards, we decided to go on an adventure to Hamilton Beach. Okay. Obviously with this being viddy night & all, I was really, really stoned. Therefore, I could never make you feel the absolutely complete awesomeness that was this adventure. Even the drive over to HB & back was just.. Satisfying, I guess. I was truly happy. We listened to Zachary's theme by a band called British Sea Power & it starts off with the wind whipping around while the music is building. I lost myself in it a few times on the trip over.

Now, Hamilton Beach is actually a pretty large creek rather than an ocean or some shit (come on, guys, I live like 7 or 8 hours from the ocean). In order to get down to it, you first have to jump a huge, metal gate that's prolly around 5 feet tall. I'm only 5'7-ish. I'm not athletic at all. I have a tendency to fall a lot. This was obviously not going to be my forte. I had to have Berkey hold the flashlight & everything while Zachary held down the gate with one foot, BUT I hopped that bitch. Twice (obviously). I was proud of myself. Anyway, you head straight back into the woods like 50 feet & then veer right and start heading down the hill. Once you get near the bottom of the hill, you run into 2 sets of shoddily made steps. More like random, flat stones about once every foot & a half. Whatever. After essentially crawling down those (speaking for myself, mind you), you end up on this little ledge overlooking the creek by about 30 feet. Someone has thrown out a little sand pit right next to the edge of said ledge & then directly behind you (if you're looking at the creek) is a small "cave" (doesn't really go into the rock so I guess it's more of a crevice) with huge rocks you can lay down on and shit. Directly in front of that is a little fire pit with rocks around it to sit on. So yeah, we walk around for a bit, Zachary strums away on his ukulele for a short while, we smoke a bowl, & decide it's cold and we're gonna leave.

The next part of the story (and the last part) is gonna sound pretty retarded so let me backtrack for a bit first. You should know two things.

1) When Zachary was getting ready to go down to Mardi Gras, he kept saying that he was finding these signs all around him that he should go through with the trip & all. He was planning this little drug episode when he got down there & the first place they stopped at upon arrival was an antique shop, where he found a painting of the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. If you haven't seen/read Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas and/or know much about drug culture, I don't think you'll understand. But yeah...

2) The only time I ever have songs stuck in my head is if I've either heard 'em right before I have to go a long stint without music or if I listen to them on the way to work or something when I'm still half-asleep.

So on the way back, Zachary's randomly like 'do you guys like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club?' so I'm all like 'Hell yeah, I do'. What song does he start to play? "Love Burns". The song that I had had stuck in my head all day despite the fact that I'd listened to plenty of other music that day and I hadn't heard the song in weeks. When I told him I'd had that song stuck in my head all day, he just looked up at me with this look of shock like 'damn, man, there's a sign'. I just kinda sat there for a second, soaking up the music again, before rolling down the window and singing loudly with the wind whipping in my face.

It. Was. Bad-ass. Enough said.

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