I don't know why, but I've been feeling overly restless lately. I think I'm getting the mid-twenties "oh-my-god,-I-can-see-the-rest-of-my-life-forming-ahead-of-me-and-is-this-what-I-really-want-and-what-the-fuck-am-I-doing-here" crisis. I want to go explore and travel and see the world. I need to sit tight here for another 10 months or year, to save up money and then who knows what will happen. I am blessed to be where I'm at, but I don't know if it's for me, at this point in my life.

What I would like to do: I would love to save up money and travel for a year or two, write, post pictures on my blog, figure out some way to make money off of a blog and off of writing, and use that to fuel my habit for travel. I've been writing lately. I need to have an outlet, and that seems to be working for right now.

I will try to update this more.

SONNET

I don’t think that I’ve been in love as such,
Although I liked a few folk pretty well.
Love must be vaster than my smiles or touch,
For brave men died and empires rose and fell
For love: girls followed boys to foreign lands
And men have followed women into Hell.

In plays and poems someone understands
There’s something makes us more than blood and bone
And more than biological demands...
For me, love’s like the wind, unseen, unknown.
I see the trees are bending where it’s been,
I know that it leaves wreckage where it’s blown.
I really don’t know what “I love you” means.
I think it means “Don’t leave me here alone.”

Well, I'm at work right now.

I work at careerbuilder.com, I'm what's known as a phone monkey. What that means is I make millions of phonecalls, and try to sell advertising. It's amazing.

I'm dating a wonderful girl named Ally, she's amazingly hott. and amazing. and hott.

I'm currently really hungry.

Who wants to get me some subway?

Well, I'm still living in chicago. I'm now working at careerbuilder.com, which is going pretty well so far. I'm not as broke anymore...but I'm not making a million dollars either. I'm going to struggle for a month or two until I can really get back on my feet. I'm just going to have to watch my pennies.

So, right now I'm stuck in Decatur for the day. I don't have a car or anything, because I rode down to our show in belleville with Jessie, and then rode back to Decatur with the band, so I'm car-less. I was wanting to hang out with my grandparents today, but I couldn't get a hold of them before they went to church.

Oh well, anyway...Things aren't too bad currently.

Date:	2005-04-13 16:30
Subject:	what else could go wrong?
Security:	Public
Mood:	depressed

I'm living in chicago now. unemployed. $270 in parking ticktets. Kicked out of my parents house. Nearly $40,000 in debt.

I'm not having a good time.

In fact i fucking hate it. I've been sitting around the apartment applying to jobs. Wasting my time, most likely.

Crying.

Fuck this. It was supposed to be amazing. I haven't even fucking went out once, really.

Fuck this. fuck this. fuck this.

Well, this weekend wasn't fun. 2005 can't get any worse, I don't think. At least that means that it's all uphill from here.

Wednesday evening I got a phonecall from my Aunt Careen. She informed me that my Uncle Greg had passed away. He had had cancer for 3 or so years, and it was expected. She also informed me that my Grandpa John, who was sick with cancer as well, probably wouldn't live the night.

My parents were on vacation and didn't get home until about 11 o'clock on Wednesday evening. When they walked in the door I asked them if they had talked to my aunt or anything. They hadn't. I had to tell them all of this. It was my dad's dad, so he was taking it pretty rough, and my step-mom was really shaken up about it. She had taken care of my grandpa for the past few months, and was really attached to him.


Thursday morning I got a phonecall around 7am, and found out that my Grandpa had died.

If you're keeping count. That's two close relatives in the space of 12 hours, both of cancer. That brings the total of people close to me that have died in the past 6.5 years to 10.

All of my aunts and uncles came into town by Friday evening. Jessie and I went over there, which was actually fun. I really like my aunts and uncles for the most part. My Aunt Careen is very liberal which is a nice balance to my ultra conservative father and Uncle Kent.

My cousin Shannon who is four years older than me came into town. I hadn't seen her since my grandmother's funeral four years ago. That was really nice. I always liked her.

Since it was a father/son who died, they held the services together on Saturday morning. I woke up yesterday (Saturday), the day of the funeral, and it was snowing out. Snowing is too nice of a word. It was more of a blizzard. The wind was gusting up to 50 miles an hour. It was miserable. We all had to be outside for the graveside service. That wasn't fun.

2005 can only get better.

12 hours at The Buckle is more than enough for one day.

Date:	2005-01-17 17:36
Subject:	Real life has started back up...
Security:	Public
Mood:	cold
Music:	The Dismemberment Plan-Timebomb Remix

Well, I went back to work today. That was exciting. I did nothing but working on backstock inventory. That consisted of sitting in a room and typing UPC #s into a scan gun for 4 hours. Needless to say, it sucked.

Other than that, my car has been a drama in my life. It wasn't running for about a week. It finally started back up, so I went to my grandpa's today at 8:30 this morning to work on my car with him. We went to autozone, got the parts that we needed, and went back to work on my car. This job should have been a 45 minute project, no big deal at all. Unfortunately the distributor cap is behind the motor, against the firewall. We still couldn't get it off by the time I had to leave for work. My grandpa kept working on it, and was never able to get it. He replaced the spark plugs and spark plug wires, so now it DOES run a lot better. Unfortunately the "service engine soon" light is still on.

He went out and bought me a new battery, which is super!!! I'm really happy about that. My grandparents are really nice to me.

We're taking it to a friend of his that is a mechanic on Wednesday, I think. Hopefully he will figure out what all is wrong with it. The steering wheel has started vibrating like when it did when I had a tire going bad. I don't have a tire going bad now, so I don't know what's wrong with it. It could be a tie rod or something. Hopefully it's nothing too expensive.

I've gotta go back to work for a meeting tonight at nine. Fun times.
I'm out.

I just wrote a REALLY FUCKING LONG ENTRY. and it didn't get posted. FUCK. IT. ALL.

these are the last words of the entry, that I remember.

"GUH.

2005 is FUCKING AWESOME."

My entry basically told how fucking lame this whole weekend has been.

Date:	2005-01-13 16:55
Subject:	Who gets the last laugh?
Security:	Public
Mood:	gloomy
Music:	It's a guilty pleasure, that's all i'm saying

Well, the days are getting longer. Maybe that means things are getting better. I'm not exactly sure. So far 2005 has been a banner year. Secretary gets bumped from playing a show less than an hour into the New Year. Two days later our trailer flips and we have to cancel our tour. I come home, and my car breaks down. I'm stranded. Jessie is 9,000 miles away in Chile, my parents are 3,000 miles away in the Carribean. I can't even call my Dad's shop to have them help me out, because the shop is closed due to my dad being on vacation. So, I've been stranded in my house since last Sunday. The only time I've left was yesterday to go to the dentist's office. My grandma had to pick me up to help me out with that. I hate asking for help, because they always give me crap that the only time I call is when I need something. That makes me hesitant to call them. Guilt trip city. On top of all that, I'm broke as a joke. I don't know how much it will cost to fix my car. I need a new one, dear God I need a reliable car.

Things will turn out for the best. I've just had a lot of time to sit here and stew on the shit that has happened, and it's just boiling over. Things will turn out for the best, I just have to keep telling myself that.

Jessie will be back next week, and who knows what we're going to do when she gets back, hopefully we will just leave. Get the fuck out of Illinois. That sounds like a good idea to me.

neodurden: yeah, she basically said "what venue do you want? i have my own way of always getting what i want."
neodurden: i was really confused...i think she was saying that she would sleep with someone to get us a show up there....
theassertiveman: she's probably a good cook
neodurden: HAHAHA

I went into the dentist's office this morning...guess what? I've now got braces. They look like crap, but hey...it will be worth it when I'm done with them. ::repeats it until I believe it::

I now understand why everyone is so happy to show their teeth off when they finally get the braces taken off. I know when mine come off (in a year and a half, hopefully) I will be showing my new teeth off like crazy!

Well, as of September 10, I'm out of a job. It's something that needed done. Something that probably should have been done years ago. I don't know what this means for my life, but it means something. Perhaps my life is moving on to the next stage. I don't know.

The tour report I promised:

The Iowa show got cancelled. The Denver show was okay. The Arizona show was cancelled and then we booked it somewhere else, and that show turned out to be the best show of the tour. For some reason, since we are from Illinois everyone there thought we were from Chicago. People, Chicago is a small corner of the state. There are other places in Illinois than Chicago. Also, while I'm on the subject, there is no 's' pronounced at the end of Illinois, unless you're using it as a posessive. Example: "I miss Illinois' flatness". Then you prounounce the 's'. I actually had one guy correct me on my pronunciation. I said "we're from Illinois" (pronouncing it correctly, of course), to which he responded "Illinoise". I didn't say anything to him, although I should have. Before AZ, we were in San Diego for the most pointless show ever. We played to two bartenders. Guh...that sucked. Not even the other bands stuck around. Assholes. Before that, Campbell (San Jose) was a really great show. Before that, Provo, UT. That was a bad show at the time, but when compared to San Diego, it was a really great show. Before that we were in Denver for the Blood Brothers/Daughters show, which was amazing. Omaha. People there are weird. Effingham was a really great show. Kids seemed to like us there.

That's my tour.

On another subject, I'm getting braces. It's weird for a 22 year old to get braces, but I've always been self conscious about my teeth, so for graduation, that's what I asked for. I have seperators in my mouth, so there is room for an appliance (i'm hoping it's a blender, and not a refridgerator). So, I'm going to be even hotter! oh yeah.

Well, I'm out on tour right now. Things are going pretty good, although the LOOOOOOOONNNNNNGGG drives get really grueling. Right now I'm in Califorina, we just played a show last night at this pretty cool venue called the Campbell Gaslighter, it went really good compared to the previous night's show, where NO one showed up. Literally we had one person pay. To get people to come inside, we had to make it a free show, and even then only about 10 people were there. Never go to Utah, I've only had bad experiences there!

Anyway, I'm on the guys' computer at the house we're staying at, so I should probably not make this entry too long. I will post a full tour report when I come back!

We're going to San Diego tonight, the night after that, we might be coming back here...the kids liked us that much, they're willing to give us a set at a show on Thursday. Friday we're going to Tempe AZ, Saturday Aurora CO, Sunday Cedar Rapids IA (the Iowa kids love us!)

In the meantime, post me messages!

Today I am a college graduate!!!












I love Jessie!

So, I've had an eventful, and good, past few days. I finished my last final ever, of college yesterday. It was a stats final. I think I did alright on it. I'm not sure what I got in the class yet.

I got everything done, I had been planning on getting done yesterday. That is always an exciting thing. Then on my way home from work, I ended up getting $11 in FREE GAS!!! Someone had prepaid on the same pump as me, and then didn't take the gas. So, that means that I didn't get charged for it. I think the person was just doing a good deed. I thank you person, whoever you are! You made a good day, even better.

Today I found out that my band's music is going to be featured in another movie (the first movie we were in is called Envying Alice, and was directed by a good friend of mine), which is super exciting to me. The trailer with our song in it is at www.dbfilms.net. You should check it out, the movie is called Run & Gun, and looks pretty freakin' cool.

Tomorrow my band has a show with Tubring and Haste at the Creepy Crawl in St. Louis. I have always wanted to play there, and have never gotten the chance. Now, I'm finally getting it!!! I know that is where a lot of younger bands get their start, but I've been going to see shows there for a very long time, so I want to play there!

Anyway, if you read this...say hi!!! And you can still congratulate me on graduation, if you want:D

I just finished my final full class of college EVER!!!! I have finals, but they aren't going to be too difficult. I'm essentially done!!!

::dances some more!::




post congratulations, if you want...I won't stop you:D

yes, it's true.

Today I am wearing an outfit comprised completely of Clean Clothes!

I am still alive, yes. I don't know why this journal has been so sorely neglected. I just haven't felt the need to update, I suppose. My life has been static as of late, that's not to say that it hasn't been interesting. It's just that not a lot has been changing.

My days consist of class and work, my evenings consist of hanging out with Jessie. My weekends are filled with work and band practice.

School has been going well lately, I think. I'm doing well, in everything but my improv class. I absolutely hate that class. I hate it with an undying passion. I am not a trombone player. Although, I do play trombone. I haven't taken it seriously since halfway through sophomore year, probably.

I am about to graduate in a month. I am so incredibly ready for this whole era of my life to be over. I don't want to go to school anymore. I am going to move home after graduation, and save up some money for a year or so, until Jessie graduates. After that, who knows. I would like to do so much. The short list: be a rock star, open a venue, work in a studio, work in video games, work in movie audio prodution.

I promise to keep this up for those of you that might actually read this, and just for my sake....if you do read this, let me know:D