San Francisco Trippin'

I'm sitting in front of my laptop on a fold out bed, in Newark, CA, where I just paid $5.95 to access the internet for 24 hours (about 25 cents an hour). To make the situation slightly uncomfortable, I am tonguing the loose tissue from the roof of my mouth as I had just burnt it earlier.

My morning started at 6:45am as my brain decided to wake me up 15 minutes before my alarm (stupid brain!). I finished packing and got ready, then picked up our rental car for our family trip out to Northern California. My parents had to go for a wedding in Hayward and so my brother and I decided to join them, but instead of the wedding, my brother and I decided to go to San Francisco. We decided to take the longer, yet well-worth scenic route, and planned a stop in Solvang. Solvang was very nice and clean, all that was missing was some snow. We stopped by a jewelry shop so that my mom can look at their selection. The lady-worker kept mentioning that the jewelry's expensive because they're hand-crafted by Native Americans! So can you imagine how expensive they'd be if they were hand-crafted out of Native Americnas? Cha-ching!!!



We were on a time crunch, so we had to eat and leave as soon as possible. We went to a popular breakfast/brunch place there called "Paula's Pancake House". Their food was great and good enough for my picky parents to eat.

My Omelette


Everyone's Food


About two hours away from our destination, we had to stop for gas, and while waiting I saw a great opportunity for a picture of my parents, so I ran to the car and busted out my flash unit and umbrella.



My brother and I dropped off our parents at the wedding and we headed to San Francisco. We were pretty hungry and walked around a lot looking for somewhere to eat, but most of the places were closed and if it was open, it didn't look too appetizing. We gave up and got back in the car and headed to the banquet hall of the wedding and saw a Jack in the Box a few hundred feet away. We ordered our long-awaited food and as soon as my teeth bit into that stuffed jalapeño, the fire temperature of the jalapeño burnt the roof of my mouth.

Thanks for reading and if you're reading this through your email, please click on the "Cloud Cuckoo" link to see the full content with the pictures I've added.

The Lonely Lady

It was winter last year when I first encountered the lonely lady and I've had two additional sightings since.

I met up with a group of friends last year at BJ's restaurant for appetizers and beer, so we sat at the high tables of the bar. Across from me were the booths and that's when I saw one of the saddest sights I've ever seen. There was this old lady hunched over her food, sitting alone in the booth, asleep. I felt bad catching other people staring at her, but I was obviously guilty of this as well. I don't know how else to explain it, but it was absolutely depressing on so many levels. I had a billion thoughts simultaneously pass through my mind trying to figure out what led her here, alone and asleep.

I imagined the lonely lady when she was first brought into the world, her parents at the hospital as her mother is holding her newborn baby daughter, smiling, envisioning a bright future, a great life. She learns to walk, learns to speak, goes to school, plays tag, makes friends, vacations with the family, graduates, falls in love, and fast forward all that to this very moment, where she's sitting alone and asleep. I could be wrong or right about her past, but I'll never know, and I'll always wonder.

I saw her at In-N-Out once before and I saw her again tonight and again, she was sleeping both times. I glanced at her table and saw an empty tray with scraps, a newspaper, a ziplock bag full of items, and hand sanitizer. I'm happy to know she eats, that she can afford to eat, and that she keeps herself busy reading. On my way out she was awake, packing up, and cleaning the table, so she's either considerate or has o.c.d. or both.

Now I know I can be totally wrong about everything and that I shouldn't even pity her, because she could be absolutely happy the way she is, but again, I don't know if she is or isn't. Even though she seemed like the loneliest person there, in a crowd full of teenagers and adults lost in life, the lonely lady was definitely not the loneliest.

I Know, Right?!?!

Anybody else notice the uprising popularity of the phrase, "I know, right?". It's so subtle and contains everyday words, that it can easily swoosh over your head, but once you start noticing it, you start looking at these people differently and think, "are you a zombie cult member!?". I want to grab these people by their shoulders and start shaking them, yelling, "WAKE UP! IT'S ME, MUSTAFA!!! STOP SAYING THIS SHIT!" (slappy slap across the face for you zombie cult member).

If you use this phrase, it doesn't mean that I don't like you, but I do wonder about the day you caught the I-Know-Right?-Disease (IKRD). It's usually said with a smile and it has the same arrangement of musical notes.

Such a random blog...
...I know right?

A Love Lost

I’m back on the market ladies, yay! (Sarcastic twirl with my index finger followed by a roll of the eyes). The way I feel right now is the way the lady with the sideburns, and basically everybody at table nine felt when Adam Sandler sang, “Love Stinks” in the Wedding Singer.

My heart aches throughout the day, but peaks before I sleep and when I first wake up. I’ve dealt with physical loneliness the last two years being in a long distance relationship (thank you for being there, right hand) and now I’m dealing with mental loneliness.

I decided to share this with you all, because in some form or other, you know how I feel. It sucks doesn’t it? I’ll be fine in the end, it’ll be a learning experience, mountains will collide, birds will poop out rainbows, blah blah blah, I know.

I was totally one of those people in a relationship that looked at a struggling couple and thought, “Must suck for them, they need to be more like us, right honey? Honey? Where are you!???” Now I’m one of those that I criticized, shit!

I’m staying positive and I’m not beating myself up over it, I’m just beating up other people over it, so it works out perfectly. The hardest part are the little associations that remind you of them. True story, I got really sad putting on my shorts this morning, like super duper sad, because I remembered when I went shopping with her to buy those shorts, so here I am standing in my room with my shorts half way up to my knees being really sad and in my head I’m thinking, “I should be laughing right now”, but instead I just stood there looking like a rape victim (that’s a messed up metaphor).

Joking aside, I am already learning a lot from this break-up and I’m learning to put myself first before anything else. I don’t know what the future will hold for me and Lara, but I know we will be in each other’s lives for sure.

Some Thoughts...

It's 3:38am right now and I'm in a sleepy, delusional mood, so I decided to write.

I don't know if my tolerance for people have lowered or that people are just becoming more choke-able. My brother often wishes he was superman (not because he's mentally retarded), but so that he can pick up the useless people in the world and chuck them out of this planet. Although I strongly agree with this fantasy, I think there are better ways to deal with these dead-weights. I can't really think of anything funny to add, so I'm going to stop trying and discontinue the negativity.

I'm super starving right now. I want a sandwich with a fuckfull amount of avocado and cheese in it. I can't really satisfy that craving because it's late and I don't have convenience access to it. I will try my best to dream up that sandwich.

Speaking of dreams, I usually have to wake up around 7am to pee, it sucks! It's really common for me to dream that I used the bathroom, but then a minute later, realize that I haven't gone yet and then I have a second dream that I used the bathroom, and again, realize that I haven't gone yet. When I finally wake up, I'm flooded in my own pee........but when I finally do wake up and go, it's such a wonderful feeling, especially when you have more time to sleep.

The worst though is when your bladder wakes you between that 10-20 minute time frame before your alarm, I think, "I could have been sleeping those extra twelve minutes!!! I know, I'll quickly go pee, go back to bed, and sleep for the remaining 11 minutes". Then 10 minutes later I finally fall asleep and a minute later, stupid alarm goes off being the stupid alarm that it is.

After all that sleep talk, I am now ready to sleep.

Look Ma! I'm flying! Weeeeee

I am waiting to get picked up to get dropped off at LAX for my flight to Virginia. This will be the very first time that I'll be flying with someone I know (my gf) and not alone (like a loser!). I am more excited about the flight than anything else, strange.

"What are you so darn excited about?" you ask?

I'm excited to chat, to have her nap with her head on my shoulder. I am excited to share my trail mix and beef jerky (wooo!). I brought a two-way splitter so we can use two earphones in one jack to watch a movie together. I'm excited to watch a movie together and listen to music.

My sleep schedule's already pretty messed up, but after this flight to VA, it's going to be so out of whack, that I'm going to use the phrase, "out of whack".

I'm starting to feel really good and confident about the near future. My friend just offered me a sales position at her work, I'm getting asked by different people for paid photo gigs, and I'm feeling healthier than ever.

I feel like life is waves after waves of filtering out friends and it never stops; you never know which friend will turn out to be the next jerk-face or which weirdo will turn out to be your best friend. Although you lose friends in the process, it's nice to make new friends, it's like washing out the brown stain from your underwear.

Okay, my ride's almost here :)

BYE!!!

Damn Drivers!!!

I had a terrible driving day today. I was seconds away from becoming the Incredible Hulk (I wish). I experienced two of the three different types of bad drivers: First was the super duper slow lady. I experienced the stupid slow lady three times in one trip (each a different stupid lady). I try not to honk, but by the time I was stuck behind the third lady, I slammed my palm against the steering wheel, which unfortunately made no noise; perfect opportunity missed! argh!!

Then earlier tonight, one of those, who think they're professional nascar racing, Fast and Furious imitating, fuck faces, zoomed in and out of my lane in front of me, trying to race his way home before his parents beat the living shit out of him for borrowing their car.

There must be some personality test taken along with the driving test. There are so many incapable, cuntable, and irresponsible drivers out there. I want to rip their hearts out and wash their windshield by using their heart as a sponge.

The third type that I cannot stand are the bad left turn makers. I'd be in the left lane and the street perpendicular to where I'm at have left turn makers coming inches away from hitting my car, because they don't have to stay within the lines.

So frustrating!