...was "OVER THE LINE."
That's right, it was without a doubt the absolute most intense, out-of-control year of my entire life. From start to finish, beginning to end, it was the most fast-paced and unrelenting roller coaster ride I've ever been through, and it kept me on the edge of my seat just about every single day. I can't think of a single month out of the entire year where I didn't have to face a difficult financial or life-changing decision or deal with an incredibly fucked up situation that cost me a chunk of my sanity. The year 2008 was not a bad year...it just wasn't a very good one either.
In the year 2008:
- I started things off by ringing in the new year with several of my best friends and a thirty pack of Bud Light, played hours and hours of Rock Band on a PS3, got a hilarious "wake up call" to eat breakfast (a dozen eggs with chorizo) JUST as I was laying down to go to sleep after staying awake until 5am, went on a 12 hour drive back to California with a cooler containing a bag of Hatch green chili and some of the greatest spaghetti sauce ever made (which ended up going to waste due to preservation difficulties), returned to my tiny apartment in Fullerton still not knowing whether or not I had been kicked out of school for being on academic probation for so long, and then found out my mom had gotten very sick due to her bi-polar disorder and had to be hospitalized.
- I found out (informally) that CSUF was willing to give me one last semester of academic probation to fix my gpa by getting at least one A in my last three classes, talked to my graduate advisor who told me the only way I could finish school and graduate in May was by passing all three comprehensive physics exams before the end of the semester, faced a decision to either move in with my best friend (who I accidentally started an ongoing joke with the year before about how we're gay together) in Los Angeles or my other best friend (who would be working for an internship during the summer) in Las Vegas as soon as school was over, decided to go for the all-time greatest Hail Mary pass of physics by attempting to take three classes and pass all three comp exams in one final semester of academic probation (risking the possibility of being kicked out of school and being left with over $50,000 of loan debt), decided to quit my job (in hopes that what was left of my loan money would be enough to last me until summer), woke up a dozen times to the sound of a jack hammer right outside the door to my studio apartment, saw "she who we do not speak of" driving her annoying Scion while I was trying to hang out with my best friend on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, and was forced to spend several days low on food without cash or a debit card because my previous one had been compromised.
- I started taking a "rocket science" class (which I'll never be able to live down), watched my best friend get into stoner metal (which led to me getting into Electric Wizard), started flirting awkwardly with a girl who worked at the local grocery store but FAILED to get any digits regardless of how many times I saw her, played a final game of mini golf with my best friend and shut his ass down for good, started writing and recording new Onlooker songs furiously (which led to a 12 song, 25 minute CD that I often refer to as my first real "demo"), laughed uncontrollably for several days because of the BRD video, spent Valentine's Day with my sister, brother-in-law, niece and my parents at a steakhouse restaurant in Torrance called The San Franciscan (which had the worst service we've ever had to put up with), got a flat tire at my sister's house and ended up having to replace all four tires (which cost me $724), invented "The Game" with my best friend (which we continue to play religiously now), was invited to a dozen hardcore shows (which I couldn't afford nor did I have time to go to) by the most annoying person who has ever existed, started looking on NotPop for people to play in Onlooker (which turned out to be a complete FAIL), accidentally went to see Down to Nothing play at Chain Reaction (which turned out to be an even bigger FAIL), and saw Shook Ones play at the Showcase Theatre.
- I was fucked over powerfully by someone who broke into my car by shattering the driver's side window (only to steal the faceplate of my stereo, which is basically worth nothing), had to pay $165 to get the window replaced and another $20 to fix a broken pulley system in my door (which still doesn't work properly), saw my friend's band Restrained play a house show in Riverside (which turned out to be hilarious because of all the meth addicts who were there), started losing a huge chunk of my sanity after driving around for a week listening to broken glass rattle around inside my door (which is still there and continues to rattle around to this day) instead of my stereo, finally went running again for the first time in a few years (two days in a row) and ran three miles in about 25 minutes, saw Shai Hulud and Earth Crisis play at the Knitting Factory, got a cold that lasted about four weeks and coughed so hard at one point that it induced a migrane headache that lasted about four days, consumed half a bottle of extra strength Tylenol, half a bottle of Mucinex DM, and two full bottles of cough syrup, started doing poorly in my classes and had to miss several lectures due to my cold, and found out much to my dismay that The Showcase Theatre was going to be shut down.
- I drove to Las Vegas for spring break (while I was still sick) to hang out with my best friend and his girlfriend, walked around the strip and ate at expensive restaurants (including Le Provencal, which is probably the best French food restaurant I have ever been to), hung out in the Beatle Revolution Lounge (where my picture was taken by some awkward photographer in a fedora), got shit-faced at the poolside cabana at the Mirage, got drugged up on Mucinex and Tylenol and then shortly afterward was invited by two girls I met the year before to go drinking at some random bar off the strip (even though I needed to wake up early the next morning to take my friend and his girlfriend to the airport), met up with the two girls at a bar called Moon Doggies and proceeded to take shots of things I had never even heard of, saw Converge (who played "My Great Devastator") and The Red Chord at the Glass House, successfully passed the first comp exam (even though I made some of the most retarded mistakes I have ever made on a test), decided to move to Las Vegas instead of Los Angeles, realized the logistics and time frame of the move were going to be extremely fucked up (because I needed to plan everything around my final exams, the last two comp exams, my parents and two of my best friends flying into town for my graduation, renting a U-Haul truck and figuring out how the fuck I was going to load it up before the graduation ceremony, and the need to sell a broken refrigerator that had been thrown down a flight of stairs), and basically came to the conclusion that if I succeeded in my attempt to write two five-page papers, turn in several more homework assignments, pass all three of my classes with at least one A and pass the last two comp exams in the remaining three weeks of school that it would be the most beautiful thing that has ever happened in the universe.
- I watched my best friend break up with a girl he had been dating for about 5 years (which resulted in several weeks of bitter drama), threw a "going away bbq" at my old apartment and got to hang out with my best friends one last time, took the last two comp exams back to back on the same day and only passed one of them (which forced me to retake the other one during finals week), tapped into an infinite well of stupidity by inviting the harbinger of doom (a person who literally wanted to fly out to California in hopes that there would be an earthquake, that he would see a lot of black people, and that he would possibly see me FAIL at getting my master's degree) to my "graduation" ceremony, retook the last comp exam and passed it (even though it was twice as hard as the original one), decided that everything I was going through was so epic that the only way to justify it would be to start writing a screenplay about it (an idea that was kept a secret at first), failed my atomic physics final (and abandoned any hope that I would get an A in the class), failed my statistical mechanics final (but already knew that I was going to get a B anyway), failed my rocket science final (but thought there was still a chance that I could get an A), rented a 14 foot U-Haul truck in Redondo Beach and drove it back to Fullerton, packed my entire life into the truck and sold the broken refrigerator for $25 in less than 2 hours (thanks to my sister, who used Craigslist), drove the U-Haul truck all the way back to Redondo Beach, attended my "graduation" ceremony (which cost me $200 for the regalia and the guest tickets) and found out that I got a B in atomic physics (but still had no clue what my grade was in rocket science), celebrated my "graduation" with dinner at C&Os in Marina Del Ray, walked around the beach holding my niece (which ended up making my arm REALLY fucking sore), and woke up the next morning to move to Las Vegas.
- I tried to stop for food in Baker but came upon a sign at the Del Taco that said, "sorry wer close", drove ten miles uphill (forgetting that the air conditioner was still on) outside of Baker and had to pull over to discover that the water reservoir had completely exploded, found out there was a nearby mechanic who looked like a tall, lanky version of Joe Dirt and lived in a motor home next to an abandoned gas station, stood outside in the Mojave Desert (while it was 104 degrees) wondering if U-Haul was ever going to send us a tow truck, was almost killed by a mini van (driven by a drunk driver) going 60mph (which came within 5 feet of me before it fishtailed and did a barrel roll into the gulley next to the exit), was questioned by a highway patrolman who looked like a Mexican version of Kevin Heffernan with a mustache, had to drive 30 miles backwards past Baker to pick up a new U-Haul truck from a dude named Virgil who looked almost EXACTLY like M. Emmet Walsh, had to drive the new U-Haul truck another 40 miles back to the Halloran
Springs exit (which put us four hours past our 4pm deadline to check in and sign our lease, rendering us completely homeless), had to unload all of my shit from the old U-Haul truck into the new one in the middle of the desert without any food in my stomach, was invited to go out and party that same night by the same girl who got me drunk at Moon Doggies, had to check into a random hotel on the outskirts of town, signed the lease for our new apartment the very next day and finally moved half of the shit from the U-Haul truck into our new, second-story apartment by myself in the middle of the afternoon when it was 110 degrees outside.
- I got to show my best friend the Las Vegas strip for the first time in his life, saw my other best friend and his girlfriend while they were celebrating her birthday, met a girl from the Midwest in the casino at the Tropicana (while my best friends were playing Black Jack) and talked to her for about half an hour until her two friends showed up, was invited to go eat somewhere with all three of them but completely FAILED to get any digits (because I suck...and everyone should know this by now), bought an 8 ounce flask (which I filled with whiskey) and walked around the strip getting completely trashed (until I tried to set my drink on top of a water pipe in a bathroom at the Tropicana and found out the hard way that it was a shitty idea), met up with my best friend and his girlfriend at Dick's Last Resort at the Excalibur and proceeded to get so drunk that we completely forgot everything that happened for the next several hours, apparently watched live music and saw my best friend try to dance with every single woman who was in the room (literally), took a cab to the In-N-Out burger across the 15 freeway from the strip, and finally woke up the next morning to find out that we had all bought In-N-Out hats and that my best friend almost got his wallet stolen.
- I met a girl at a Vans store who asked about my Daggermouth shirt but still FAILED to get her digits, started running again (even though it was an effort that only lasted a few days), started swinging a golf club again for the first time in over seven years and discovered much to my surprise that I can still knock the shit out of the ball, accidentally drove into a sketchy part of town near North Las Vegas while trying to find the Triple 7 at Main Street Station, came across a dude who was "sellin' that chronic" on the bridge between New York New York and the MGM Grand, spent as much time as possible in the apartment (where we had refrigerated air) hiding from the obnoxious heat outside, worried about my cousin who had just moved to Tallahassee, Florida (right around when Hurricane Ike was tearing shit up along the Gulf), found out that I almost got a C in the rocket science class but was lucky enough to squeeze by with a B, decided to contest one of my grades in order to avoid having to go back to school, didn't get to see The Dark Knight, was ditched in the middle of the Las Vegas strip (because I wanted to eat food) while I was shit-faced, and most importantly, discovered the Freakin' Frog - a bar and grill with a catalog of over 700 beers located right across the street from UNLV.
- I flew back to New Mexico for my 24th birthday (where I did pretty much the same thing I've always done for my birthday throughout my entire life: nothing), bought a $500 suit and attended my best friend's wedding (which took place at Cattleman's Steakhouse on the outskirts of El Paso), saw my best friend's parents at the wedding and rekindled a dozen childhood memories, flew back to Las Vegas and got to hang out with my best friends who had just gotten married (and were spending their honeymoon in Las Vegas) and found out they won over $700 their first night, drove my best friend across town to get a new tattoo, saw a doppelganger Tina Turner (who suddenly threw down her purse and decided to dance in front of Fat Tuesdays - forever immortalizing her as the "bitch walking in squares"), went on the New York New York roller coaster ride (which I concluded would be way better if they could figure out a way to make it go over the hotel), drove my best friend to McCarran Airport so he could fly out to Minnesota (but not before we tried to eat at a Chicago style bar and grill where the manager decided to rip apart his driver's license in a foolish attempt to make sure it wasn't fake), drove back to California and spent a whole day with my best friend looking for apartments in Los Angeles (where we came across the next Lenny Kravitz, Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett Brown, and a porn star - all of whom were interested in the same apartment), saw Life or Death and Xibalba play at The Pharaoh's Den, spent my Fourth of July at Redondo Beach for the second annual Seaside Lagoon Independence Day Celebration, started talking to my best friend in great detail about something that we thought would never happen (which eventually did happen, and kind of made us feel bad...even though it was amazing), and still didn't see The Dark Knight (but was now being made fun of for it).
- I went back to Las Vegas and drove out to the Hammer House (a small shack in the middle of a junk yard right next to a women's prison just North of Las Vegas) to see Die Young and was invited to get high again with the same girl who got me drunk at Moon Doggies and her friend from Orange County, was straight up accused of being a stalker, talked for a little while with Stu from Folsom and the dude from Orange County about a bunch of random bands, made an ass of myself in front of Daniel from Die Young (which really sucked because I wanted to have a more serious conversation with him), found out about a new and innovative way to use mIRC, had gasoline siphoned (stolen) out of my car when gas prices were peaking, finally watched The Graduate, missed the Sound and Fury Festival and the opportunity to kill thousands of snakes, tried to mail a check at a nearby post office and found out it was actually a front for drug trafficking, hung out with my other best friend's sister and her husband, ate at the best Greek food restaurant I have ever been to, drove out to see the Hoover Dam and the new bridge project, saw a box of poodle chihuahua things (each of which were apparently worth one fourth of a Harley Davidson), went to a strip club for the first time ever and got a couple of lap dances, a body shot and drank four long island iced teas, invented the RTTPAPLAC scale, hung out with my best friend's aunt, uncle and grandmother (who had all flown into town for a wedding), took my best friend's uncle to the bar at the Tropicana where we all got smashed and watched live music, got in the stupidest fight ever with my best friend over a mystery box, found out in the worst way possible that "she who we do not speak of" is getting married (and has somehow decided that she's more mature now and that everything she has done to get what she wants is justified, which by the way - if she's reading this: you have FAILED at life...that is all), rented a Budget truck and moved all my shit to an apartment in Los Angeles, had the worst moving day of my entire life (which cost my best friend a massive scar on his shin), and had to fly from LAX (where I met a girl who works at a Buffalo Exchange in LA) back to Las Vegas to pick up my car and then drove back to Los Angeles in the same day (all because my fucking car wouldn't fit on the towing dolly without its bumper being completely ripped off).
- I signed up for a Netflix account (which lead to me finally watching Cool Hand Luke, Annie Hall, Irreversible, The Last House on the Left, Spartacus, The Outsiders, Rosemary's Baby, Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon and Citizen Kane), started writing a screenplay (which is currently in the beginning of ACT II right now), tried to get the grade in one of my classes changed from a B to an A (so that I wouldn't have to fucking borrow another $10,000 for school) by confronting the terrorist who held me hostage the year before (but FAILED because he claimed that he couldn't find my final exam), started grading homework assignments for one of the sketchiest physics professors at CSUF, found out that a pair of sunglasses I bought for my best friend was put in a blender, walked around Venice Beach and saw hundreds of sketchy people and reached a new level of scumbag, walked around the Fox Hills Mall and got harassed by a dude who was convinced that he was selling the tastiest French fries in the world, bragged to just about everyone I know about how my cousin got accepted into the screen writing program at FSU AND the American Film Institute, met up with my best friend who flew into Long Beach (literally...like he literally flew the plane) and hung out with him at Ruby's, was invited by my best friend's girlfriend to attend 80s night at the "Cantina Lounge" (formerly known as the OCP) and realized how completely out of touch I am with mainstream society, wore my $500 suit to a career fair (where pretty much everyone STILL told me, "go online and apply at our website"), played my first round of golf in over seven years with my dad, brother-in-law and his friend, drove out to Downey to see my best friends' band (which had just gotten signed to a pretty major label) play a show in a small church, saw a photographic depiction of an outdoor festival up in San Francisco (and really wasn't surprised at all), drove home from school one night to find out that our black neighbors threw a party and a bunch of thugs showed up with 2x4s to stir up some ruckus (which scared the living shit out of a really nice neighbor of ours...a girl who was just trying to walk her damn dogs), concluded that the ultimate YouTube FAIL video of all 2008 is the one where some jack ass drives his motor home into an ATM building, and was greatly disappointed by the surprisingly large population of idiots who thought that turning on the LHC in Switzerland might actually create a black hole that would swallow up the entire world.
- Went to my niece's 3rd birthday party where I saw SIXTEEN toddlers jump around in a bounce house on my sister's front porch, got to see my mom for several days but had a very difficult time getting along with her (which is often the case due to her illness and our strange past), went to see Skarhead play at Chain Reaction (and was startled by the freakiest noise in the entire universe), drove all the way out to Sacramento to see my best friend, got completely smashed and found out about a whole lot of shit I wasn't prepared for, ate at a sushi bar (a girl's idea) for BREAKFAST (not necessarily my first choice for breakfast after a night of drinking but good nonetheless), met some interesting new people and found out the hard way that I hate Jell-O shots, ate at a sports bar for BREAKFAST (on the day that Miami was playing San Diego), went to San Francisco and spent the most awkward day of my entire life there, met a dude at Bubba Gump Shrimp who recognized my Die Young shirt, still didn't see the Dark Knight, returned to Los Angeles and discovered the strangeness of Stickam, went to a Cro-Mags Q&A "jam session" sponsored by Nike Sportswear, and finally drove to West Hollywood for Halloween and saw over 200,000 people walking around in the streets getting completely wasted.
- I watched the United States of America elect the first black president, took the first quantum mechanics II midterm and scored higher than anyone else in the class (except for the Asian), got excited for my best friend who was offered a job at General Dynamics in Phoenix, Arizona, accidentally got food poisoning but couldn't figure out what the fuck I got it from, flew to Austin, Texas for the first time in my entire life and went to the Fun Fun Fun Festival, saw so many gingers there that I decided I wouldn't mind flying back at least once a year from now on, ran into a girl I knew from high school and actually got digits this time (but never got to hang out with her because she totally flaked out on me...NOT SURPRISED), saw the legendary Integrity play and was forced to come out of "mosh retirement", took pictures in front of my home state's capital, saw an upside down dead person in cowboy boots, watched the Cro-Mags and the Bad Brains wrap up one of the best weekends of the entire year, flew back to LA and ordered the Star Sixty-nine Lifetime hoodie (which I never received in the mail) from Merch Now, flew back to New Mexico for Thanksgiving and played a second round of golf with my dad and my best friend (which turned out to be a bad idea because my dad fucked up his back and was unable to hang out for the rest of my trip), spent the night before Thanksgiving at my best friend and his wife's house (where we had a "practice" Thanksgiving dinner, even though I had already eaten a shit-load of food a couple of hours before), got to hold a Russian AK-47 (stamped, not milled), invented a drinking game called "Saves" with my best friend (which no one wants to play because it's too easy to get fucked up from), and finally got pretty drunk and accidentally convinced my best friends to go outside for a night jog (when it was roughly 40 degrees) wearing only our boxers.
- I went out drinking at the Yard House with a bunch of physics majors and was "made fun of" for ordering a Bug Light (even though I had already had a chocolate stout and a New Castle), started wondering WHERE THE FUCK MY LIFETIME HOODIE WENT, spent the last quantum mechanics II lecture drinking beer at the Cantina Lounge (where our professor told us a story about how he accidentally lit his hair on fire at a house party where he already felt singled out and didn't fit in), got pulled over on the way home from school during finals week (OF ALL MOTHERFUCKING WEEKS) and was charged with expired registration (because I have also FAILED at life), had to listen to an LAPD helicopter circle around my neighborhood for an hour before I decided to go outside and see what the fuck was going on, found a road block right outside the front door, saw a teen-aged, black kid (who was actually the son of our neighbors who threw the wonderful party several weeks before) wearing my MOTHERFUCKING HOODIE, confronted him and asked where he got it (which he responded to with pure lies), made him give it back to me (even though he tried to come at me with his annoying thuggish attitude), started hating my neighborhood with a passion for the next few days, took my last final exam, had my car rear-ended AGAIN, flew back to New Mexico, drove to Albuquerque for one of the best days of all 2008, met a girl at "Ladies Night" who talked to me for several hours (and apparently thinks I'm funny - which means she's incredibly smart) even though I was shit-faced, FINALLY got digits, ate rediculous amounts of food with my best friends (who wrote some of the funniest Christmas cards I've ever seen), started a cuddle party with my best friend (and four other people) on his twin-sized bed, drove back to Las Cruces and got to see all four of my best friends who I grew up with, FINALLY watched The Dark Knight, and closed out the year at a New Years party where I finally played beer pong for the first time ever (and lost three times in a row...ouch)...
The rest, of course, is history...and 2008 was without a doubt a year to be remembered...with so many highlights, so many disasters...and yet somehow it went by even faster than 2007. What the fuck is that all about? This year I learned a lot about myself and my friends. I realized that I'm going to turn into my parents whether I like it or not, that the same thing is going to happen to everyone else around me, and that perhaps the first step to understanding who I am is to figure out who my parents are. Growing up is a strange process. It can be very brutal, and if you're the kind of person who isn't ready to accept certain facts about yourself, it will definitely "knock your dick in the dirt". Take it from me...at some point your heart WILL die, and you WILL have to grow up. It's up to you to decide how you meet that death. I think something in me may have died during the year 2008. I'll be spending the next twelve months trying to figure out what it was.
"...how we grow older, how we forget about each other."
