dreams (am i crazy?)

i literally dreamed of my grades last night because i was so excited to check my grades today.

so, here i am, checking them. they're just what i thought they'd be. it's like checking your airplane reservations again and again... kind of.

two nights ago (i'm not sure if it was a dream or not) the image of a big shiny black spider with a bright alarming red hourglass on it's belly flashed through my mind for no longer than a 1/3 of a second.

instantly my mind went wild and i didn't sleep well for the rest of the night. "what if i get bit by a black widow?", "andrew once got bit by a black widow and he was fine... sure he spent a few days in the hospital, but i could handle that.", "how would i know if i got bit by a black widow before it was too late?", "what would i do with all my stuff while i's in the hospital?", "i'll just tell one of those rv campers to take me to the hospital.", "what if they give me the anti-venom? then it'll never work again!" "there could be a black widow in my tent right now, and i'd have no idea.", "i shouldn't have left my tent flap open all day. dang it! i know better than that too.", "wait... what's this bite on my leg? mosquito? hope so.", "wait how do you know what a black widow bite looks like? what are the symptoms? nervous system break down? shoot, that's happening anyway! my muscles are all sore already too!", "wait, what will i do with all my stuff?"

on and on and on my mind went until i couldn't take it anymore and i'd grab my headlamp and go crazy checking every nook and cranny of my tent/sleeping bag. until at last i was satisfied enough to lay back down. then i'd lay there fore three seconds and my mind would begin to go bananas on me again until i couldn't take it anymore and i'd grab my headlamp...

spring break

able body.... check!

supplies... check!

spirit of adventure..... hold on a sec..... yep! check!

family

Family is the bread that holds the soup. Don’t read into that statement just let it sink into your heart, like soup sinking into the family bread bowl and you’ll know what I mean. Wednesday night is family night and Jacob and I had family dinner. Pizza with all the fixin’s (secret family recipe). Finals are over and they’ve left holes in our schedules and our hearts and we’ve tried to fill those holes with what’s important. Today I talked to every member of my immediate family but at the end of the day I walked to my basement apartment, carried my bike down the stairs and who was there to meet me? Jacob Graybill. He knows how to show the love. To illustrate how well he shows the love I’ll say that I know what his mustache and goatee feel like against my forehead. He’s family except for one thing, with family, you share either a last name or blood and we share neither. There are two remedies to this, becoming blood brothers, which we’ve both decided against mainly because it requires us to bleed, or have the same last name. So henceforth I will be know as Alex B. K. Graybill-Vercio and he will be known as Jacob S. Vercio-Graybill. Jacob welcome to the family. -Alex

family is the friends we don’t get to choose (that sounds vaguely familiar). sort of like eating. it’s the hobby we don’t get to pick. alex is like a really good apple pie. you have to eat to live, but sometimes the food you get to eat is really delicious. alex is like the family you get to choose (now that’s familiar). we often drink tea together or, like the picture here, eat food ceremoniously together… really close together. maybe we like to sit on the couch so close because it’s functional. we can both see the computer screen, or smell each other’s breath, or give a high-five with little effort, or whatever else you can easily do (feed each other?) when you find yourself sitting so close to another person that it’s impossible to determine who it was that just farted. but maybe we sit like that because we like to. we’re pretty much family. i mean, we’re roommates. but, who knows, maybe we’ll make it official. maybe we’ll “tie the knot” through the ceremony of becoming blood-brothers (a two man wolf-pack) by cutting our palms then clasping our hands, letting our blood mingle together... or maybe we’ll just hyphenate our last names. -jacob

entry #257 (just kidding (wouldn't that be cool though?) there's no way i would count them all)

i sat down to work on homework and my wrists decided they were tired of subjugating themselves to whatever the distant lord brain wanted. tired of obeying every exacting command supposedly for the good of the whole, when everyone knew it was all about what made that brain feel good. so the atoms in the cells of the tissues of my wrist divorced themselves from each other and consequently from my arms.

i watched as they scrambled off to find something. something pleasing according to the desires of the hand. each hand was determined to do what it wanted to do. perhaps to wrap themselves around. they didn't get very far before the fingernails decided they had ridden around on the tips of their fingers long enough. they pulled off and fell on the linoleum where they looked up enchantedly by the holes in the ceiling. soon, each of the bones in what used to be my wrist and hand one by one decided they had gone far enough and jumped the train until all but a four or five bones remained in each hand. and those "hands" continued their journey to wherever it was they were going.

then the cells in my skin tissue and the cells in my muscle tissue grew weary of putting up with each others differences and split up once and for all. while each individual blood cell tried to get as close to the earth as possible. spreading out like the masses of people sprawling out at woodstock.

i looked at all the components that used to make up my functional hands. each was lying strewn haphazardly along the ground in a trail no longer than three feet long. lifeless. like the stiff, uncomfortable school uniform on the floor of the bedroom of a young boy who is late for soccer practice.

"oh my word!"

i'm sitting here in the library studying. it's the most fun i've had all weekend. my mind is currently in the process of exploding because of all the fun i'm having in here.

jicydk (text language for, "just in case you didn't know")... i'm being sarcastic.

it's not really that bad though.

i just heard a phone conversation take place in the hall that i couldn't help but eavesdrop on because it sounded like it was being amplified through a speaker system directly into my face. i heard the girl answer the phone, "hello?" then i heard silence for a little bit, then a gasp... then all i heard after that was the phrase, "oh my word!" repeated again and again. over and over. with greater intensity every time. she probably said "oh my word!" seventeen times in the four minute conversation. on average, that's more than four times per minute! needless to say, she didn't say much else except "bye" at the end of the conversation.

it brings comfort to know that at least one person in the library is excited about something.

why?

every time the door opens, a wormhole connecting the front door of the gym and the north pole is brushed open and a full 6,500 gallons of fresh arctic air rushes directly into my face and arms.

it's a good thing it's a double door there, that way it can accommodate forty people come in those doors every minute while i work.

at six o'clock people start telling me, "hey man, that door's locked!" (because they lock automatically at six)

i just look at them and think, "darn!"

philosophy should be restricted to discussion...

i was leaning way back in my chair just now. it's one of the chairs at one of the cubicles in the library. i just kept leaning back more and more and more, until i had my feet up on the desk part where my elbows usually rest.

suddenly the little feet on the legs of the chair slipped straight forward. to make a short story long, i instantly realized i was falling and there was nothing i could do about it except maybe prevent my head from smashing against the wall behind me, but before i could react, i was crumpled on the floor like a dirty t-shirt in the hamper.

as soon as i collected myself and sat back down, i noticed my elbow burned. i looked an saw a perfectly circular scrape. "that's a perfectly circular scrape." i thought. "i wonder how that happened." then i realized, "that's about the same size as my buttons on my coat on the back of my chair."

check - clear

check - clear

check - there it was.

i had pinned one my buttons to the linoleum with my elbow and sure enough, some of my skin tissue remained under the fingernails of my button as evidence.

i felt a little bit like the star character on my own version of the popular show "csi: wwu"

case closed.