Ramble On

I'm not tired enough to go to sleep yet but too tired to really do anything else that one would do at 1am. I should probably start working on getting to bed earlier, as well as getting up earlier, with that whole job thing starting next week. Oh well.

Let's do a stream of consciousness post and see how it turns out. And away we go!

......

Earlier tonight I walked by a bum on the street. In Seattle, that's not hard to do, and normally they don't stick out to me anymore. This one did, mostly because he had a TV with him. Not a little hand held one either, at least a 13 inch one. He was parked in front of a record store, turning the knob from station to station. I didn't see how he got it plugged in but I assume it was from the record store. As I walked past, I couldn't help but think that June is really going to suck for him when TV goes all digital. Obviously not the worst of his problems but doesn't make it any easier for him either.

One of my lasting memories of Seattle involves a homeless person. I visited up her almost a year before I moved up, just to make sure that I would like this city. I stayed at a hostel near Pike Place Market, one that doesn't exist anymore. As I was going back and forth between the hostel and whatever destination, I came across a young homeless person, not much older than me. She stood with her gaze fixed on the sidewalk, with a sign reading something like "Dreaming of a Big Mac & Fries. Please help make my dream come true." Obviously her sign was meant to be somewhat humorous, at least it was to me. For some reason, it made me enjoy Seattle even more on that trip. I thought to myself "even the homeless are cooler up here!" On my last day, I finally talked to her for a bit and even asked for a picture. She was hesitant until I assured her I wasn't publishing it anywhere. She was really a nice person and I truly believe she was just down on her luck. I gave her something like $10 but she seemed even more grateful that I asked her to take her picture, as most others would do it without asking. I never saw her again after that.

More proof that the homeless are cooler in Seattle. A friend of mine told me the most awesome story last week about when he saw two drunk bums outside his bus stop. One was insisting that the other bum was dead. The supposedly dead bum then began asking people if he could hear him. He reported to the first bum that he got two no responses and three "I don't know", so maybe he was really dead. The first bum was hysterically laughing his ass off.

We get approached all the time from homeless in this city, it just goes with the territory. Usually I just ignore them, other times I'll politely decline. I'm actually really bothered by the amount of homeless in our city, and I know that a large number of them are really just people who ran into some bad circumstances trying to find someway to get their lives together. I choose not to help only because there's no way to really determine which of the homeless are like that, and which are just hopeless beggars and drug addicts. Not to mention, quite frankly, I'm not in the most secure financial situation either.

Enough about bums. The Suns lost tonight. I watched a lot of the Suns-Lakers game on Sunday. We looked really good that day, especially Barbosa. For the first time ever, I watched him lead the team like an actual point guard. I've never seen him play so poised and so in control, especially in the half court setting. He also cherry-picked like crazy but I won't complain. He seems to mesh better with Shaq than Nash does, although I haven't caught any of the post All-Star games with Nash, so I have nothing to compare too. Anyways, our defense is and will always be a problem. I'm resigned to the fact that we're possibly looking at no playoffs this year, and honestly, I'm fine with that. That'll give us a lottery pick, add some more youth to this team, and take one last hurrah next year with the 7 Seconds or Shaq philosophy, for a full year, and see where it goes.

It's getting weirder to think that I start work next week. Although I'm definitely looking forward to it, it's a little sad that I'll have to give up this lifestyle that I've been accustomed to over the past 10 months. There's definitely some things I would have done differently, mostly remember to get my car fixed sooner and devote more time to exercising, but I don't have many regrets about how I've spent my time or my money. I can't say that I'm not going to miss sleeping in until whenever I want or staying up late as well, but in the end, I'm sure I'll prefer getting on a more regular schedule, especially when I see those first couple of paychecks.

We're going to the Sasquatch Music Festival again this year, the third time in a row. Last year, some of our friends took the middle of the three days off and just spent the day in the campsite, drinking and partying. I have to admit, part of me was a little jealous of that idea, so this year, we're only going to one day of music so that we can spend all day Saturday doing the same. We were going to go two days, Sunday & Monday, but I ultimately decided against going on Monday. I was kind of able to justify the ticket price considering the bands that will be there that day, but I figured it was best to save the $70 (not to mention addt'l money for food and whatever), mostly because I realized that economic situations are different this time around, and that just because I'll have a higher paying job doesn't change the fact that I need to be even smarter with my earnings this time around.

I bought a bottle of what I thought was one of those clear water drinks that's carb-free but tastes like soda. Instead, it's sparkling water. I hate sparkling water, and I hated that when we were in Europe years ago, we had to specifically ask for non-sparkling water when we went to restaurants. Seriously, I don't understand why people think this tastes good. I'm all for putting lemon in water, but this just tastes like sour water. I have a headache now, which I'm completely blaming on that nasty faux-soda crap.

Bedtime.