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Another indication that Roommate D has lost all perception of a world outside his marriage:

We ordered new carpet a few weeks ago, and it’s due to be installed this morning. Last night we moved all the bedroom furniture downstairs so we didn’t have to pay the installers obscene furniture-moving fees, but we left the beds upstairs until morning. After I wake up, I haul my bed out to the hallway while Roommate D finishes clearing out his room. I’m about to take off for work, but I notice his bed is pretty thick and probably heavy, so I ask him if he’d like me to help him move it. He mumbles a yes.

So I stand in his door waiting while he’s picking up some random crap from the floor. And I wait.

And wait.

Not too long, but long enough for me to prompt him with a “We should probably move the bed while I’m still here.”

“Yeah, hold on,” he mumbles, going back to pick up various stuff from the floor. He untangles some electrical cables. He puts little things away. Finally, when finished moving all the crap that can be moved by one person, he returns to the bed and I help him move it.

It’s not like he kept me waiting for a half hour, but it was rather annoying to offer help, have it accepted, and then have the assumption made that I’ve nothing better to do than watch while he performs tasks that could just of easily been done after the bed was moved; after I’d left for work. I wonder if he really even noticed that I was standing there, doing nothing.

Again, not a big deal, but I think this contributes to my theory that he no longer feels a part of the world outside his relationship, which is sad.

So, Thursday ‘Nae and Natalie and Colin and I headed over to a friend’s house and stuffed our belly with beer and turkey at a Thanksgiving potluck. I met some wonderful people, and had a great time. Friday, ‘Nae and I visited my family, sans Dad and Sis+Hubby, and Mum was surprisingly well behaved .

That is, until Mum stopped by the next day to check out the remodels I’ve done to the house. (I’m waiting until the carpet’s in to post pics.) Everything was going along just hunky-dory until this little monologue cam tumbling out of Mum’s mouth:

“So, ‘Nae what are you doing for Christmas? You’re more than welcome at my house in Phoenix. Oh, wait, I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know why I said that. I should think before I speak. It just kind of came out. It’s up to Barclay, whether or not he wants to invite you. Oh, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that either. Sometimes it just happens. I just thought it’d be nice – but it’s not my decision – but the offer stands. I’m so sorry. I really shouldn’t have said that….”

‘Nae and I were dumbfounded by how long it continued. Nowhere near as bad as previous encounters – quite sweet, really – but quite amazing none-the-less.

Oh, and two unrelated notes:

I’ve found what I want to go as for Halloween next year:

And I finally got some jeans that don’t fall off my ass when I’m not wearing a belt. (Due to weight loss, not because I was intentionally baggy-ass style before.) My reward? A drunk fat chick grabbed my crotch last night. The whole twiggle-n-berries at once. Yay.

I ran into M a few nights ago. At first, I felt a bit of schadenfreude: she’s definitely gained some weight, I’ve definitely lost some, and she’s certainly not modelling anymore.

And then I think, maybe she’s quite the coke. That’d be cool. I’d like to think I had something to do with that, but most likely not.

We end up chatting for a few, and it turns out she lives in NC now with a Marine husband, looking forward to the whole children-and-picket-fence thing. She’s cleaned up, sober, and confides in me that she “wasn’t in a very good place when I met her.”

Well, shit. Totally killed my schadenfreude. I’m genuinely pleased for her.

But it was still a tad awkward.

Photo updates are trickling in over at osbornphoto, check ‘em out ….

My new favorite water, just because it’s so nearly pornographic.

Mai and Rich. Notice she looks relatively sober here.

This is Craig. He was overwhelmed, and tried to eat the bird.

Living room UFC.

This is Mai again. She actually passed out with her head on the coffee table.

Nae, modeling our favorite water.

“Good tree, that’s a good tree.”

Me again.

Again, the “good” shots will be popping up on osbornphoto periodically, so keep an eye out there.

I’ve had my fair share of debaucherous days through the course of my life, all pale in comparison to the one I’m about to relate. It’s brief, but entirely true. We’ll call the guy Brian, because he looked like a Brian and I never caught his name. He was already drunk enough to be in the “already friends with everyone” stage, so I don’t think introductions were the first thing on his mind.

Anyway, Brian was in Detroit, gambling large sums of money – “the kind of money we don’t like to talk about” – and losing. So, he proceeds to slam back a shit-ton of beer and tequila. Prior to passing out, he calls his cousin, a tenant of his that we’ll call Paul, and tells Paul that if he buys a plane ticket to San Diego with his credit card and packs his bags, Paul’s next month’s rent is comped.

Paul complies.

Brian wakes up on a plane mid-flight, and has to check his ticket to find out where he’s going. After a few more mid-flight drinks, he arrives in San Diego, where a friend lives, but his buddy is working so he sleeps half the night on the driveway of a stranger’s house. Upon waking, he realizes he’s still drunk, and heads down to PB for more drinks and ends up with two fresh tattoos on his arms – “Honor” on one, and “Pride” on the other. After ten more shots of Patron, he asks one of the bartenders to go to Hawaii that night. After her shift is over, they walk out the back together.

Alas, they didn’t go to Hawaii.

They went to San Francisco.

Halloween evening a few of us were training in the park – one of my traditional activities, although I usually work more on the meditation and visualization side of things. We were working with the bo, well after dark, when someone suddenly hefted a bo as if to throw it like a javelin. There was a furry little bunny rabbit that’d ventured out onto the grass about twenty feet away.

I chuckle.

“I think I’d probably get it.” He sets down the bo.

I push some ego buttons. “I don’t know, those little fuckers are pretty quick.”

He considers, perhaps testing himself, then heaves the stick forward, hitting right where the critter was nibbling grass before it scattered, scared as shit. When he retrieves his bo, there’s a chunk of fur on it.

“At least you know you could survive on wabbit stew if you needed to.”

“Yeah, but now I feel bad. Karma’s definitely going to bust me for that one.”

“Fuck. I goaded you into it. Now I feel bad too.”

“Yeah, it really is your fault. I’ll tell Karma when I see her.”

Thanks.

‘Nae

‘Nae and Mai

Shaw, ‘Nae and Rich

Every once in a while I think it’d be cool to own an antique Japanese typewriter. It’s got a very novel quality about it, and you’d be joining an elite and respected “club” of people that own them. People would be impressed, and probably give you a little extra lee-way with your assignments. As an antique, it probably wouldn’t have an owner’s manual, and even if it did, I probably wouldn’t understand it, and half the instructions would be translated incorrectly anyway – or very possibly, be self-contradictory. It’s bound to be an adventure.

You’d have to coddle it just to get anything done with it – but in my mind there’s no reason to own it just to keep is stashed in a sterile environment. There’s a certain responsibility to caring for antiques, and this would be no exception. Considering it’s extreme complexity (and surely, it’s a delicate beast), I’m sure it’d required an undue amount of attention just to keep it alive. But there’s still that craving … sometimes I think it’d just be so damn cool to have. There’d certainly be moments of profound joy, having the simple beauty and depth of Basho reproduced from such a beautiful blank slate. Or, perhaps, just a little bit of me out in the world, a expression of myslef that will surive long past my body.

On further analysis, however, I probably wouldn’t really like having one. I’d probably get frustrated quite quickly. I’d find that it wouldn’t quite do what I want – I’d constantly be performing the wrong action, and next thing you know, it’d be spewing ink all over my new carpet, have wads of paper stuck in it’s maw, and the only thing it’d successfully spit out would be nonsensical and profanity-laced. I wouldn’t know where to get supplies for it, nor which ones were the best given a selection. Invariably, I’d end up sacrificing time with my friends and family just to figure out how to get a 17-stroke radical to print, just because I don’t under the language too well. Knowing me, I’d probably even lose sleep over it. I’d worry about it being stolen, or spontaneously breaking, or just tripping over it in the middle of the night when I’m going to get a glass of water. I’d wonder why it came with so many god-damned buttons, and who in the hell ever thought it’d be a good idea to create one of these things.

It might just be better to borrow one from a friend for a bit – I’d still have to be quite careful with it, but at least I’d have someone to ask questions of; someone to query about the operation and, in the worst case, someone to return it to when it acts up. Even so, it’d only be an occasional thing, and in retrospect, I don’t even know that I’d go so far as to ask a friend for the favor – it’d probably just be hoisted upon me.

Wait, no, I’m talking about children.

Never mind.