...was a bad year.
That's right. I said it. The year 2007 was not a good year for me. That is not to say that good things didn't happen, and at the very least it's not meant to demean any of the experiences I had with any of my friends. In fact, it might be fair to say that if it weren't for the year 2007 all together, I might find myself in a much deeper hole of confusion, depression and self doubt than ever before. However, most of my experiences from 2007 were really negative and fucked up.
In the year 2007:
- I attempted to fulfill the stupidest New Year's resolution ever, which resulted in a series of really awkward conversations between myself and a girl at a Dennys, a random girl (who was shit-faced at the time) in front of The Alley during a First Blood show (which was also a show where I almost got in a fight with some douche bag for hitting people in the crowd), a girl in the Virgin Records at the Block and a girl in a T-Mobile store at the Brea Mall.
- I spent several nights a week with my best friend driving around Orange County, walking on random beaches, crushin' on a ginger who worked at a really good yogurt place in Huntington Beach, scumbaggin' around downtown Fullerton and Brea, looking for Black Star Canyon, hating on random people in downtown Disney, smoking imaginary joints in the Disneyland Hotel and eating at just about every Mexican diner and burger joint we could possibly think of.
- I went to see my friend's band play a house show for Dustin's birthday party in Las Vegas (which was also the last time I ever got to see Palehorse), was smitten by a girl I thought I'd never see again, did absolutely nothing for Valentine's Day a second time in a row, got to see Lifetime and quite possibly fractured my elbow (it still hasn't healed completely and I will probably never be able to extend my right arm 180 degrees ever again) from doing a stage dive during "Young, Loud and Scotty", changed the name of my pop punk band about 7 billion times, played my first game of basketball in several years and threw around a football (which made my elbow even worse), inadvertently started an ongoing inside joke that my friend and I are gay together and started liking a girl who habitually farted in my car and called my friend and I her "dads".
- I watched two really close friends of mine go through very turbulent shifts in marital status, worried about impending drama that I had no control over and subsequently witnessed the end of an era, got my hopes up for a job opportunity at Boeing in Anaheim (which inevitably fell through the cracks), watched a friend of mine fall for a girl who has way too much baggage, saw another friend of mine fall for a girl who had way too many ties, tried to help with some car trouble at 1am in Anaheim Hills and discovered that I don't have any jumper cables and should probably get some, laughed my ass off when my best friend broke some dude's leg, lost a lot of my original pop punk recordings because my computer crashed again, finally started wearing contacts again, realized that my cell phone was becoming a useless piece of shit and eventually got a brand new, pre-paid phone while somehow managing to swoop a girl's phone number out of it (even though it was really awkward the way I did it).
- I spent countless hours talking on the phone with a very close friend who was living in Reno for a while, sympathized with almost all of my closest friends as they all endured heartbreak and breakthroughs, infidelity and insincerity, waited in suspense as a best friend dueled in a legal battle with the California DMV, saw my first "secret show" at Chain Reaction, agonized over trying to avoid a girl who might have been crushin' on me, agonized about my academic probation and imminent expulsion, skipped a lot of class and ignored a lot of homework, bought a $740.00 Ibanez for half-off in Oceanside during the 3-year sale, started driving to Colton for Son of Man practices, watched a fight get busted by the cops during a Life or Death show in Riverside (which subsequently led to the venue being shut down) while the girl I gave a ride to walked around drunk talking to random people, drove the same girl to see Set Your Goals in LA for some reason, had to sneak us to the front (because LA venues fucking suck), dipped out on Anti-Flag and drove all the fucking way to Pomona and hung around outside the Glass house during the first night of Facedown Fest wishing I had gone to see 25 ta Life instead, began slipping into a steady state of long over-due teen-aged angst and depression due to the New Year's Resolution, and eventually failed both of my spring semester midterms.
- I spent two weeks at the end of the spring semester being anti-social with the intent of studying for my exams and still ended up getting a B and a C, was visited by my best friend for a week of staying up until 3am almost every night, watching fucked up videos of urban violence on youtube, slightly altering the lyrics to Victim and The Saddest Day as an inside joke (therefore ruining the songs forever), throwing together a completely spontaneous barbeque in front of my apartment while my friends hung out in the jaquzzi, eating at Alberto's, Ruby's, Pepe's, Buca di Beppo, In 'n Out, Farmer Boys, Ocean Thai and a random Mexican food place in LA (which would have been Rosco's Chicken and Waffles if it weren't for the fact that the cops closed off at least a block of Gower due to some awkward drama with helicopters and an ambulance), and jamming out in Dalziel's old garage in order to purposely piss off the neighbors in this really sketchy neighborhood where we were eventually asked to stop playing by a group of black dudes (because their mom was "trying to sleep") and a couple of cops.
- I had to fly back to Las Cruces for a week so that I could get my New Mexico driver's license before my birthday (which is when my original Texas dl was supposed to expire), had to get a library card (which I almost couldn't have done if I hadn't lied about a lot of shit), watched a really shitty old video about defensive driving and filled out a little booklet, drove to Albuquerque and went on a wild goose chase at UNM looking for a super top secret office for defensive driving classes so that I could turn in the booklet, hung out in Albuquerque with some really good friends afterwards, met this girl from Denver who introduced me to the television series "Undeclared", drove to two Sonics in one night for free root beer floats, decided that I might be lactose intolerant (and later discovered to my surprise that it was probably just indigestion), ate waaay too much food at Cici's Pizza, went on a really intense journey into downtown Albuquerque looking for the DMV the day before my birthday so that I could get my dl on time and came really close to not being able to get it (after coming back home I got my California dl a couple months later and they punched holes in the NM one...uuuugggghhhh).
- I turned 23 and didn't get drunk enough to ignore the fact that I felt old, finally saw Hatebreed at the new Club 101 in El Paso and made eye contact with Jamie Jasta during "Empty Promises" while headwalking on a shitload of metal kids, saw Death Before Dishonor and got to see an old friend who now has his own kid, saw Die Young and got to talk to Daniel for a little while before they played, hung out with my best friend in El Paso before flying back to California, played Resistance for about ten hours before leaving town (we didn't get to finish playing it!!), came home and slipped into one of the deepest states of depression I have ever been in, drove out to Las Vegas to see the Tons of Fun Fest, saw a lot of friends from the IE and Arizona and hung out with everyone until the end of the night, walked around Huntington and Laguna Beach on Fourth of July, got sunburnt as fuck, drove way out to Fontana and watched people blow shit up that same night, randomly decided to drive to Las Vegas, got really bummed out because I didn't get to hang out with the friend I really wanted to see, walked the strip in 104 degrees of heat, ran into a group of drunk dudes from Nor Cal several times, stayed in a sketchy ass Motel 6 where the dude at the front desk couldn't do any math, got to visit two really close friends from Albuquerque while they were house-sitting in LA, checked out the Getty Museum for the first time since I was about 12, ate at Los Compadres on Sunset, watched some Mariachis play while my friend requested a grip of awesome songs, went to the Sound and Fury fest, basked in ginger heaven, stayed at another Motel 6, walked around the beach in Ventura with my best friend (no homo), and got kind of sick right after I got home.
- I spent the rest of my summer trying to ignore the impending doom of my last semester of academic probation, had a very serious heart to heart with two really close friends and kind of opened up about a lot of fucked up shit, talked about religion and science until 3am on a work night, called as many friends as I could to ask for advice about what I should do about school, visited my sister and confessed my whole academic situation to her, had another heart to heart with her and her husband, made the decision to continue going to school, and deposited another big check of loan money...
- I put off playing guitar for several months, stopped going to shows (except for when I put up with a great deal of shit with the school just so that I could go see The Unlovables in San Diego), rarely saw any of my friends for a while, rarely got out of my apartment on weekends, watched Southern California burn on the news for a week straight, saw Converge and 108 at Showcase, was held hostage by a terrorist, found out my best friend hit a cop with his truck and put the guy in the hospital (he got away with it Scott free), failed my midterms again (despite rigorous studying as compared to the first two semesters), spent hundreds of dollars to get my car fixed AGAIN, started playing guitar during Thanksgiving break AGAIN, changed the name of my pop punk band AGAIN (for the last time), saw Shook Ones AGAIN (and was amazed...again), started a mini-golf war with my best friend (one which will not last much longer when he realizes he's not the "champion" he thinks he is), completely fried another hard drive AGAIN, had to memorize an entire chapter of the most complicated mathematical theory I have ever encountered, gave a really long and boring presentation about it, got fucked over by a senile Iranian physics professor who hates me because I'm from Texas, found out one of the other grad students is originally from El Paso and spent about twenty minutes reminiscing about the gangs, the awkward shittyness and the violence of having to grow up going to school in a border city in the early to mid 90s, scored two Bs (one of which should have been an A) and an A (which should have been a B), hung out at the OCP on one of its last nights of business, and finally...drove back to New Mexico on one hour of sleep...
The rest, of course, is history...and 2007 was without a doubt a really fucked up year. Yet somewhere in middle of all the drama and all the mayhem of 2007 I met a person who kind of made me look at things a little differently, even though I don't think she was trying to. I think she was just trying to be my friend and somehow I fucked it up or made it too awkward or something by going about everything with the wrong intentions and hopes. I'm just tired of being alone and I get carried away a little too easily these days. She didn't mean to, but she proved to me that I don't have to be miserable like this. The only reason I may be miserable from here on out is because I haven't figured out "where to begin doing for myself". If it's anything I've learned from 2007 it's that my life is going to get a whole lot worse if I don't start living my life.
"Passion and burden are two words I won't use in the same sentence ever again..."
