www.neil.blog memo to myself. do the dumb things i gotta do. touch the puppet head.

I want to hear about the first live music performance you attended. This means whatever show, or concert, or whatver that you went to first. This does NOT include the school sing-alongs that you went to in second grade. Who did you see? How old were you? Did it have any sort of impact on your life?

I went to see a Polish opera when I was about 12. It was kind of crazy because I had no idea what anyone was singing, except one part was about a woman who fell in love with a goat. I only knew this because it was in the program. It was interesting, to say the least. My grandmother (or babci, rather) had a great time, while I just wondered what was going on. The singing was nice, though.

Reading through all the ljdrama and everything recently, it’s weird to see how what I thought were well-defined and infinite friend groups are falling apart. Some people that I thought were ‘best friends forever’ now are not anymore. It’s weird for me because two years ago I really didn’t have any friends. I used to look at some of you guys and think how awesome it would be to have friends like that. Now I do have friends like that, but some of you guys hate each other now. I know it’s all part of growing up. I just never really thought about it. Eh, people grow apart I suppose.

bffls?

Last night I went with my mom to see ALAN JACKSON. It was so fun. Not gonna lie. I knew all of the songs, and all of Sara Evans’ as well, which is weird considering I don’t listen to country radio anymore and I don’t own any of their albums. I think I was one of the only people there who was not drunk or wearing a cowboy hat, so I felt left out.

Anyhow it was sweet, I’m glad I went. Not really the kind of concert I usually go to, but definitely interesting. It was also funny because everyone was there for the music, which I think is why they originally started having concerts back in the day, before scene points. Nobody was there because it made them look cool, or because it’s cool to “go to shows.”

It’s about music, guys.

slide guitar > double bass.

Today I almost quit my job. If I had another job lined up already that I know would pay me comparably, I would have just left. I’m sick of lying to customers and getting yelled at when I tell the truth.

Here’s the situation. For those of you who don’t know, my job is doing tech support for an internet company. People call me and tell me their internet is broken, and I have to fix it. We do the same thing that companies like AOL do, only we’re a lot smaller. Small as in a two-room office in a building in Worcester. A lot of people sign up with us for that reason- it’s a small company, you talk to the same 5 people every time you call, we know what we’re doing, generally nice, we can get things done without going through a dumb script. We all have real-life computer knowledge, whereas some companies just get people to read pre-scripted questions and answers off a paper.

Anyhow, I think my boss doesn’t want people to know we’re a small company. I personally think it’s cool that were a little indie ISP like that, competing with the AOLs and Verizons of the country. My mistake tonight was this: there was a business DSL customer who had been down for a week. We needed to send him a new modem, but nobody could figure that out except me. He was pissed and told me he’d better have the modem at his desk by 10 on Saturday. I told him I would configure him a router myself, make sure it works, and get it shipped as fast as possible. I’m only allowed to authorize 2-day ground shipments, I need approval for anything faster.

Well I get in trouble for telling the customer I would configure it myself. Apparently I have to make up some fucking bullshit story about how “I need to contact the warehouse to get a new modem sent to the engineering department and have them configure it, and then the shipping department would figure out how quickly it would be shipped.” Here’s what really happens: I reach over my desk and grab one of about 200 modems that are stacked up in the corner. I plug it in and set it up. Put it in an empty box, give it to a fella named Big Ryan who prints out a shipping label. Then I take the box and get on my skateboard and ride down the street, up an elevator, and drop the shit in a box. There is no warehouse, no shipping department, none of that shit. It is me and Ryan and my skateboard that is getting these things sent out.

Also, my boss called the guy and told him we would send the modem “DHL OVERNIGHT.” DHL is a shipping company, like UPS or FedEx. The term “overnight” would make you think that it would be there the next morning. But this is “DHL Overnight,” and it is the weekend, so he won’t have that until MONDAY. Meaning he is going to call me tomorrow and ask where the fuck his shit is, because we promised him overnight. And it is my job to tell him it was sent DHL OVERNIGHT which doesn’t necessarily mean the next morning. Then he will probably cancel and I will get blamed for losing a customer.

My job stresses me out.

Hung out with Julia and her friend tonight, went to Moe’s for the 4th time this week, etc. The girl asked “where is your friend with the black hair?,” meaning Rod. But he was working. Met up with Cailah and her friend, drove Julia home, went to Cailah’s and watched tv and now I am home trying to fix my mp3 player which broke and it sucks. THX 2 JULIA 4 CHEERING ME UP 2NITE. <3

The good news is that I can still graduate. The bad news is that I actually have to try, which is something I’m still getting used to.

Went to Friday’s tonight with Renè.. my card was rejected. She tried to pay with hers.. it was rejected as well. I thought I had $150 in my account.. I have NEGATIVE $30. So needless to say I’m pissed. I thought Worcester State had already cashed the $150 check I wrote to them for deposit, but apparently they hadn’t yet. I’m so bad with money.. maybe I should cut up my card.

Surprise party for Nikki today, it was fun. She was surprised. I climbed a tree. That’s all.

Senior skip day, coming up. I will not be partaking. I need to be there for math :/

Maybe I’ll leave at 11 and play outside for a few hours, just because I can. I have been doing that a lot recently.. begging people to play frisbee with me because I love it. Hanging out with Julia on Friday, I’m excited. The inside door handle on the passenger side broke off so I need to go to the junkyard to get a new one. At least I cleaned out most of my car.. it is less shitty now. I’m not complaining, it gets me where I need to go. It’s just that now the door is hard to shut.

I have been staying up too late. I fell asleep in physics yesterday and failed my test, because nobody woke me up. Guys, if you see someone asleep during a test, shake them or something.

I’m not excited about graduating, because I probably won’t. I’m not going to lie to myself, there is almost no way I am going to be able to walk across the stage with my class, and it sucks. I can’t even enjoy my last 15 days or whatever it is, because right now things are looking pretty bleak. I’m looking at myself in the mirror as I type this and I realize the kid that I’m staring at doesn’t even care. I put all my energy in high school into the wrong places. All I cared about was moving up the social ladder from the outcast I was, or viewed myself as, in junior high. So I got what I wanted. More friends, a reputation, for people to know me and hate me or love me or whatever. Doing whatever homework I could scrape up between classes or in study hall, never really caring about my grades except the day before and the day after report cards came out. Barely passed a few classes, and a few grades, escaped summer school many times and just went on to do the same thing the next year.

I managed to coast through two years of junior high school; plus a full three-and-three-fourths years of high school. If I can just scrape through the rest of this term, my life will be perfect. I’m accepted to college, I have tons of friends, a steady job, a good family, and on top of that I’m fucking gorgeous. Except even the kids with no friends can manage to pass fucking ALGEBRA TWO. THE SECOND TIME I’M TAKING IT. AND I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO.