Verbing The Adjective Noun

Of course, and as expected I've gone a very very long time without so much as thinking of updating this contraption. I can blame twitter for that, but I don't even update that as much as some people do. Oh well.

My last post was pretty dismal. This one is too. Just letting you know ahead of time. So if your not in the mood to read about the things that are bothering me feel free to navigate away from the page, and look at something that more uplifting, I think most people look at pictures of cats, or pornography.

I'm in my 6th year of college. I should I graduated in year 4. I've mentioned this before. This semester is nothing but liberal arts. If I pass these classes I can get my Associates degree, and then just take one more class in the spring to snag that bachelors. If I don't I'm done. That's it. Apparently the credits for my associate degree will expire in January, meaning if I don't get this I won't be able to even attempt that final course for the Bachelors.

Of course Dad, and Cathy are on my ass about passing. Unfortunately they are not being very positive about it. Today is a great example. I'm woken up at noon, to my dad telling to get up, and do something with my life. To me this seems excessive. I'm going to school. I'm attending to get a job. Let a guy rest once, and a while. Of course I get up, and shower. On my way to the shower, I can see that Kenny was woken up, or at least spoken to in a similar fashion. He doesn't take things the same I that I do. I can tell he is angry, and try to calm him down after my shower. I manage to get him to stop punching the wall, but the stress is too much for him, and he starts crying. The atmosphere in the house is already too much for him, so I eat, and get ready to leave. While waiting for my food, Dad, and Cathy approached me. You know what time it is? I think you do. It's time to call Dylan a failure! It's always the same thing. I'm not trying hard enough, All they want is for me to find a part time job. They don't acknowledge that I'm trying, or at least they do but mask it under it not being good enough of an effort. They say that I do nothing on some days, and I inform them that I'm doing class work. Read. Taking notes. Stuff that I'm supposed to be doing. Cathy condescendingly asks me how classes are going, presumably expecting me to give a nervous, and unsure answer. I reply with "I think they're going fine" She gives some cold "I hope you do well." Then replies with something she said to me before that once sent me over the edge.

I honestly can't remember if I mentioned this, and frankly I don't feel like going back to check right now. The last time I was talked to like this Cathy mentioned that Sarah will leave me for somebody more successful. She said this again, only this time she added that she hopes it happens. The last time she said that she crossed the line. This time she annihilated it. I'm tired of trying to be elegant about things. I decided this when she left the room talking about me "going ahead, and talking about this on that blog of mine" She reads this. Good. At least I know I have a reader out there. Even if she is the most condescending woman I've ever met. Any enough with that. It's time to vent a bit of frustration. When your more or less living on borrowed time, then you tend to accumulate a lot, even if your on a drug designed to prevent that.

Cathy, what you said was cruel. Crueler than anything you have ever said to me. As I've mentioned before I'm tired to being elegant about things, and keeping my words to myself. You are a horrible person for even thinking about saying that to me, if you even try to mutter that line again, pray that there aren't any sharp objects in the room.

As for you Dad. I try to shrug off the way you talk to me as a failed attempt at tough love, or constructive criticism, but enough is enough. In the 23 years that you've known me your approach has never worked. If your not satisfied with the way I'm doing things, then don't say anything at all. All your little talks do, is make me feel anxious (even while on medication). It slows me down. Your not helping.

Now with that off my chest, I'll try to make the next update more positive.

With the semester out of the way, I'm sad to say that along with Art History, I did not pass Japanese. I did however Pass all my art classes... Which means All of my core classes are complete, leaving nothing but liberal arts. Next semester is basically 13th grade. I should be done by x-mas...

With all of that stress gone for the next three months, you figure it had to go somewhere right? That stress, and frustration decided to place itself into home. Long story short, I'm being downsized. Getting booted out of my room, and likely to end up in the laundry/little sisters' playroom. Which would still be those two things in addition to my room. It's bullshit. I'm told that I'm not pulling my weight, though with a commute from hell, I really can't hold a job that would give me the kind of hours to either pay rent, or make myself appear more responsible. I can either be a student full time, or a work full time. Choose one. I try to make that clear. It's a pain in the ass situation, and it's clear that I'm not favored in the household. My step mother, talks to me like I'm an annoying pet, and indulges in what I refer to as the "Dylan's a failure" lectures. They're increasing in frequency. I've decided to be a bit more assertive about it, while playing on the defensive. Sadly this let to her pulling out the low blows. When she tells me to act my age, and be mature, I find it ironic that she goes for a petty insult. A catastrophic but petty insult. To paraphrase she said that Sarah will realize of much of a loser I am, and leave me for somebody successful. I had to bite my tongue(literally) keep my mouth shut. There a things I can say that would reduce that woman to tears, but I don't do it for the sake of not making my dad's life hell. I'm a screw up, I admit that. Sarah is aware of that, but she sticks with me. Sometimes I wonder why she does, but she does. I'm very thankful for that. For my step mother to say something like that, is unforgivable as far as I'm concerned.

The situation here sucks, but my Mom's situation is way worse than mine is. I should know. I witnessed what the hell is happening. My mom's landlord is a dick. A real dick... To be honest I'm not really sure if he's actually the landlord. I have a feeling the house belongs to an elderly couple, not some miserable middle aged bastard. Anyway... My mom lives in a tiny basement apartment with my little sister Kayla, and since October, my older sister Tyler (though she's only there every other day or so) The landlord raises her rent, just because Tyler is a frequent visitor. To make things worse, he looks at all of us like we're the scum of the earth, or criminals. We've seen him watch us. It's fucking creepy. He wants to catch us on something illegal, so much that it borders on obsession. A few days ago Matt, and I came to my mother's place to pick up a package, and to help her out with a computer issue. Apparently the landlord did'nt like the parking job, and told us to fix it. Matt does it immediately, but the landlord is still throwing a fit about it. Tyler steps out, and tells him to calm down. He starts to go off even more, talking about how Tyler is squatting, and threw some nasty insults about her father (if I remember what I was hearing correctly, I really couldn't hear everything). He tells Tyler to leave, threatens to evict my mom, threatens to call the police. He was very unpleasant. Matt, and I finish up what we were doing, and head out. I would return the next day.

The next day Kenny, and I came over. We were gonna have dinner, and cake to celebrate his 22nd birthday. Things are going fine, until The landlord walks past the window, and tells Tyler to get off his property. Tyler responds to him, and the argument continues. Now, I'll admit. Tyler could have easily let him go, and none of this would have probably happened. Though in retrospect the dude could have come down, and started problems anyway. Tyler has what I call a "Don't fuck with me policy" She steps outside to talk to him. The argument gets heated. The landlord calls the police. Fuck. Why now? He steps outside to wait for them, and Tyler calls Eric. Eric was a friend of her father's. They hang out. He's an attorney. A real estate attorney. He comes, and talks to the landlord... From across the street. Landlord wouldn't let him on the property. To my knowledge to police did'nt show, but the problem is far from over.
My Mother's apartment is illegal. Not approved, and also a fire hazard, a death trap even. Only one fire exit!? So since the landlord called the police, they will come eventually. The town with look into things. Town officials will come, Carpenters, The Fire Marshall. All to check if the apartment can be legal. If it isn't then Mom, Tyler, and Kayla will be kicked out, and with all the trouble The Landlord will get into when the town finds out, the landlord is gonna get screwed... And so is his family. That's the thing though. His family is fine. Is just the landlord who is an asshole. All of this unnecessary bullshit is affecting people that just don't need to be involved with it. I really hope this guy get's what's coming to him, but at the same time I don't want anything to happen to his family... I get the feeling that they may be suffering as much as my Mother is.

My stepmother tells me that it's time to enter The Real World. I'd like to, hell I want to, but aside from not being ready to do so yet. I'm terrified of it. The incident described above makes me realize just how horrible The Real World is... But you can't avoid it. One day everybody has to enter it, and to me that's a tragedy.

At some point last weekend I turned 23. Snuck up on me too. Strange when you have to be reminded of that sort of thing. Aside from ageing, that weekend was also the anime club's yearly trip to Boston, and most importantly Sarah and I's pseudo anniversary.

I say pseudo, because I actually figured out the date. (April 21st) We usually just counted the Saturday of the convention. Her and I have been dating for 3 years now. That's a long time. My longest relationship, and it's still running. I guess I'm doing something right, or at least I'm trying. I fuck up way too much. Maybe Sarah just accepts me for those shortcomings. Still 3 years. I know married couples who have been together for a lesser amount of time.

Since 3 years is a big deal, I decided to make this anniversary count. I needed to come up with something epic... Sadly I couldn't think of anything plausible, or muster up the funds to even do anything normal. Though I sort of lucked out. Nobou Uematsu was at the con. Sarah's favorite composure. It was then that I got my awesome, and mildly illegal plan. The plan was to corner Eumatsu, and force him to dedicate a song to Sarah. Long story short I failed. Got caught in a commission, while Sarah was online for the show. She was right by security so me sneaking with her was out of the question. She got to see him play though. So even if my idea didn't really work, there was still that. Doesn't stop my plan from failing, but it does soften the blow a bit.

I tried to spend time with Sarah. I didn't get to spend as much as I hoped. But it was more that last year, so that's looking on the bright side of things.

Also that weekend I lost something, that I kept on my for ten years. I always wore a silver pendant around my neck. Wore it everyday since I was 13. Strange that I lost it on my 23rd birthday. Ten solid years, and it vanishes. While it's the mark of the end of an era. It isn't all that bad. I have the image committed to memory, so I'll either tattoo it, or commission Sarah to make a new one.

Both of those options will have to wait till I can afford them though.

I'm really not into the whole religion thing. To many rules, too much of a headache. That's why I'm agnostic. I can simple shrug my shoulders, and not care when religion or faith is the topic of discussion. It's strange that despite this, people just love to try to talk to me about faith, or god, or the bible, or whatever spiritual following, they are trying to sell. Does being agnostic represent some sort of vacant lot to the religious? If they really want it, I'm gonna have to charge rent...

It's midterms, so I've been staying later more often, this leads to me walk home through Lindenhurst at the late hours. Last night I arrived in town at about 3AM. 20 minute walk to my Mom's house. Easy. Uneventful... Right?

I'm walking, and there is a woman in front of me. She's dressed in a coat, and carrying a musical instrument in a case. Maybe a violin, maybe a ukulele. Hell If I know. Music isn't exactly my thing. I'm a good ten paces behind her. She keeps looking back at me. She's nervous. I'm not that spooky looking, am I? We both take the same turn, I end up passing her. At least she knows I have no intention on following her now. A few blocks later I stop to tie my shoe. There she is. Great. Now I'm followed. Please don't murder me mysterious violin woman, I'm really not in the mood.

"Can I ask you something?" She asks. She isn't holding a weapon. That gives her a few more points than the guys that usually ask me that. So I say "Sure". The woman smiles. "Can I talk to you, about The bible? And God, the mother?" Fuck. I really don't like bible speak. I usually try to change the subject, or just walk away. Something was wrong with me though. I decided to say yes.

She walks with me, and we eventually stop at a light, where she pulls out a bible. In retrospect that would have been the perfect time to pull out some weapon, or terrible torture device. She starts to read. It's the international version, and It's covered in notes. If I didn't know any better I would mistake it for a text book. She mentions a lot of strange things. Using god as a plural, saying that the second coming of Christ already happened in 1948 (I think that's when Jerusalem was claimed, or restored, or something like that).

I'm not comfortable in any house of worship. Not sure why. Something about it just unsettles me. Church, Temple, Mosque. They all do the same thing. I have trouble breathing, my heart beats faster, and I get nervous. This woman was a walking church. She began to go on about The Book Of Revelations, and I just realized the street I needed to turn on, passed about three blocks ago... She hooks me into a little more conversation, before I finally tell her that It's 4AM, and I need to get home. She insisted that I attend a bible study, and attend a communion on passover. We ended up exchanging numbers.

She's texting me, about all of this now. Why didn't I give her a false number? Or just an email address?

Maybe I should just not speak to anybody after 2AM...

It's the beginning of midterms, and things have gotten intense faster than expected. Odd. I thought I was keeping a good pace with most of my work. Then again, Some of my classes are more overwhelming than I originally thought they would be. Animation is a killer, though I saw that coming. Japanese is real pain though. A 4 hour late night cram class. I was hoping that years of watching subtitles, I would have some sort of affinity. I was wrong. I'm beginning to think that pairing those classes was a mistake. Unfortunately it's a mistake I have to deal with. I'll pass somehow.

The other classes aren't too bad. I'm more or less up to date with those. It's a shame that I have to balance school with work. Provided that they give me hours. The whole store is in a sort of civil war, or at least most of the staff would like to wage on. It's your typical business crisis. New management comes in, and proceeds to drop current employees to move in their people. Think office space, but it's retail, which may be worse. The situation is a real catch-22 with me. If I get hours I get paid (very little), but I can't work on school work. If I don't have work, I can get to work on my projects, but I'll find myself broke.

All I really have to look forward to at the moment, is the yearly trip to Boston. It's happening on my birthday weekend, so partying will occur. I just need to make sure I did enough work to justify it. It's Sarah, and I's pseudo 3rd anniversary. I actually discovered the date, but the event itself is important too. The trip is gonna be big. I'm trying to think of something awesome to do for Sarah... I haven't really figured out what to do yet though. I'd like to go beyond your basic dinner, and a movie.

Aside from Boston, I can actually make This month's Vampire game. I've missed a lot of games, and down times due to work, and school. It's a shame. There's a plot unfolding, and all my character is doing is twiddling his thumbs, since I can't be there to do anything. I-con is coming up too. But for the first time ever I might not be able to make it. My sister Tyler wants to see the Tim Burton Exhibit for her birthday, and that seems more important. This might be her worst birthday ever, and I wanna do what I can to prevent any tragedy for her.

Lecture classes are a huge weakness for me, when it comes to my learning experience. Just sitting there while somebody speaks at you is an overall boring 3 hours. Even if I find myself interested in the subject at hand, my eyelids still get heavy, and I find myself falling into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness. To combat this I make an effort to get the blood flowing back into my brain. This often comes in the form of commentary. It isn't really the best commentary out there if your looking to learn though. I'm the Mike Nelson of art history. That leads me to the current situation...

It's a but past that halfway point in my medieval art course. There's some of sort strange bucket on the projector. It's square in shape, looking like marble, or maybe pearl? Probably marble. The plates are held together with what looks like melted gold, or maybe copper. The same metal is used to show some christian iconography. It's a holy bucket. A pail of enlightenment. The Bucket of Truth. As I look at the image groggily, the professor asks the class what we think the purpose of this most exalted of buckets is. After a second or two of silence I open my mouth. "Exorcism?" I just said it to keep myself awake. "Yes. Among other things." Whoa. Whoa. WHOA. Back the fun bus, the fuck up. Did I just answer something correctly? My smart ass remark was right? It blew my mind. I was defiantly awake, though the fact that I was correct made me wonder if I was having some weird dream.

I get out of class, and decide to chill out for a bit in the game room. Almost immediately I'm called by my Dad. Apparently my grandparents are having people over for dinner. So I'm stopping early tonight. I hit the next train to Wantagh, and end up on a crowded peak train. A crowded pink train with my huge portfolio. I end up sharing a seat with an old business man, who decided to sit in disregard to my precious cargo. He started conversation too. After discovering I'm an artist, he started dropping names. Name dropping is pretty ineffective, when you have no idea who the dude is talking about. I got the feeling he was bullshitting. Then he mentioned being a martial artist, and showed me pictures. OK. I don't trust your name dropping, but I can't deny your photographic evidence. Evidence that you can certainly kick my ass. Then again. Kicking my ass isn't really an extraordinary feat.

Leaving the train I find myself at my Grandparents. The cousins, and some aunts, and uncles are there too. And my younger siblings with the exception of Kenny (He was sick). I wasn't really sure why were all there. I figured it must have been a birthday, so I listened for clues on who it could be. Turns out I was half right. My uncle's birthday was soon, and there was cake, but that wasn't the big reason we were all there. Grandpa pulled out a box. A nice leather crafted box, with a plate that had my late uncle's name on it. He opens the box to reveal a chalice.

Another holy bucket. Holy Fuck. You don't see two of these in one day, or at least on most days. Grandpa explained it was a new thing the church was doing. Something about prayer in home, and our family was chosen as the first to have it. He began to lead the prayer. I stayed quite. It's odd being the only non catholic in a catholic family. As odd as it was, I'd like to think my uncle Billy would be pretty psyched to have a holy relic made in his memory. Know that I think about it. Billy had a sense of humor like mine. Makes me wonder If he planned for me to see two holy buckets. A real perk of being one of a dearly departed must be screwing with your still living relatives.

My friend Matt is always complaining that he wishes there would be some sort of paradigm shift, so the world would suddenly be less dull, and more exciting. His idea of a paradigm shift is a new world breaking discovery, or some sort of cataclysm. Whenever he brings up a cataclysm I bite my tongue.

I do this for two reasons. One, I'm paranoid. Incredibly paranoid. Everybody is a robot, and their trying to kill me paranoid. Two, unlike Matt I'm almost constantly being warned about some sort of imminent danger. Odd signs, weird dreams, ominous warnings from strangers. Too many ominous warnings.

Most recent example. I'm waiting for the bus to work. I take the bus to work, on those days when I cant get a ride out of a parent, or my brother. The bus is awkward when you have to go to work in a suit. This dude starts to talk to me. He's presumably homeless. The dude starts talking to me, tells me his life story, He has the time to do this, because he ended up on the same bus as me. I'm about to get off, and he grabs my arm. "It was nice talking to you, kid. Be careful. Your in great peril." Great peril? Jesus fuck... What kind of homeless dude talks like that?! I have no idea why, but people just love to tell me how screwed the world is, as if I can do something about it, or I'm somehow related.

I'd be flattered if I come off as some sort of hero. But honestly. I might be the most insecure hero on earth. Or at least in New York.

The Homeless warning wasn't the end of this, by the way. Oh no. Background stuff has been screwing with me too. I might just blame this on my paranoia, but how many songs about the end of the world can you play in a row, without somebody noticing?

I once read that the world will end on a Thursday. I sort of hope that's true. At least I'll sort see it coming then.

Most people do a double take when they find out that I'm color blind. Sort of seems contradictory, since I'm an artist. Well, Beethoven was deaf. Is the Art's an equal opportunity employer? I'm not sure. Macy's is however. Which leads me to yesterday's little incident.

I really didn't feel like talking to people, but I ended up ringing a long line of customers. It was a one day sale (that lasted three days), and the line was a nightmare to look at. A Hindi lady comes up, and starts doing a bunch of separate transactions to reuse a coupon. I hate it when customers do this. She hands me the coupon, and I freak out. Her finger tips were all covered in blood!

Or so I thought. The thing about my color blindness, is that It isn't complete. I don't see in monochrome, I just have trouble distinguishing colors. pink is purple, blue is gray, and red is brown.
What looked liked dried blood to me, was actually henna ink. She explains this to me, and looks at me like an idiot. To make things a bit more awkward the guy working with me was from India, and saw the whole thing. He proceeded to give me a history lesson on the creation of henna, and it's impact on his culture, and the culture of nearby countries.

I think I remember most of what he was talking about, but when he brought up china, I can't help but think he hates the Chinese. Go figure.

In about 20 minutes I'll be walking out the door to begin the spring 2010 semester. This was originally going to be my official final semester, but academic probation decided to push that to the fall.

I'm retaking Oil Painting, Documentary 2, Indesign 2, and AfterAffects. I'm really not looking forward to AfterAffects. It's animation. As much as I appreciated animation, it's way to tedious, and stress inducing for me to ever consider as a career. I'm gonna have to bite the bullet on this though. Need those credits.

I didn't sleep. I've been so used to waking up at noon, that I was too afraid to even lie down. Last thing I need is to oversleep on day 1. Especially when Day 1 has a class with a professor that knows me for my "attendance".

At least I'll be active this semester. So hopefully the concept of boredom won't be encountered too much. That's something to look forward to.

It's been 2010 for almost three weeks now. Figure it's about time I make an update.
New years eve sucked, I got sick before I could even go outside. The plan was to party with the guys in the city. Maybe next year. I'll just count the date with Sarah from the day before as how I spent new years.

A few odd things happened between my last update. I got distracted by Twitter. So tweets replaced posts. Did I mention I got a twitter? I blame my brother.

http://twitter.com/DylanErb

You can find my twitter in that link. There's something strangely addicting about using twitter. I still gotta make an icon, and back ground though. Then again, customizing this blog would be a good idea too.

Today my mother was released from the hospital. She went in a few days earlier for an abscess in her mouth. They found something wrong with her heart beat, and kept her in. My siblings, and I ere worried of course. Well. The siblings that knew. Turns out my brother Will found out through my twitter. I feel kinda weird about that. The first two days she was in the hospital I had work, so I did'nt have time to visit. That effected my attitude at work...

Did I mention I'm still working at Macy's? Yeah. I'm surprised too. It's strange how in a lot of jobs I consider myself one of the worst, when in reality I'm considered one of their top guys. Have I just been under the assumption that I'm and underachiever this whole time? The mother in hospital thing, made me pretty irritable at work. Being irritable, and wearing business attire makes me feel like the people I see on the train every morning. I would prefer not to picture myself in that position again.

The next day was able to see my mom. Tyler decided to pick me up, so I could visit before work. Had to wear my work clothes. At least I can rock a vest, so I looked good. I don't like hospitals... It's just one of those things. You almost never go to a hospital for a good reason.
We went to see my mom, Kayla was there already doing what she did best. Annoying Mom. She really has it down to an art. We talked about how she was doing, and some funny stuff like Kenny hitting on a nurse. The nurse seemed interested. That made it funnier. Her name slips my memory, so we'll just refer to her as Cletus.

Had to go to work, and later got a text from Sarah. One of those sappy girlfriend texts. As mushy as it is, it did raise my spirits enough not to jump kick a customer or two. Later a got another text telling me that Mom was home. The rest of the day flew by. Well... By rest of the day I mean like two hours.

2010. Honestly the year isn't off the best start. But after a shitty year like 2009 I'm trying to stay optimistic about the whole thing. Trying.