Month: August 2005

Well, it was inevitable. JoLynn posted her pictures from Adam’s party and they are as bad as I imagined, and sometimes even worse.
You can check them all out here and while you do I’ll be sitting on the floor rocking back and forth chanting “I’ll never drink again! I’ll never drink again!”

“And when The Lamb opened the Seventh Seal, silence covered the sky.”

I bought the album MCMXC A.D. by Enigma years and years and years ago. It’s hard to say when but it’s been with me for a long time and I have a lot of incredible memories with it as the background music. I’m guessing I got it somewhere around 1993. I consider it one of the absolute best ambient / electronic / trance / whatever albums ever made and I’m listening to it right now.

I just thought I’d tell you.

I fell asleep with the new Coheed and Cambria song playing on repeat last night. It’s a 6 minute song and I slept for about 8 hours so I heard it right around 80 times in my sleep. I’ll tell you what; I hate that bitch now.

In other news JoLynn and Courtney came over last night and decorated my place for the big white trash extravaganza this weekend. So now I just have to make sure I have no guests over before Saturday cause that would be pretty damn embarassing.
We also made piles and piles of Jello shots, as per protocol. Courtney and JoLynn made the “good” shots. Lots of colors, and liquors and flavors. I made my standard death shots with vodka but this time, just to spice it up a little I replaced one cup of the vodka with Blue Curaco; so maybe they won’t be as awful as usual.

Afterwards I was able to (easily) convince them we needed prezels and beer from 75th Street so we went there and teased Adam from afar. Good times.

Man, what I guess will be the new single from Coheed’s new album is up on their site and it ROCKS!
CoheedAndCambria.com has the goods.

I have Coheed and Cambria tickets in my greedy little hands. OH YES I DO!

Well, things quickly got back to normal here. Thursday night Adam, JoLynn and I hit up 75th Street Brewery for some pretzels and beers. My request and they were good enough to entertain me. We met Danny, who is the drummer for several local bands (the Cure cover band and the Smiths cover band) and who is a waiter at 75th. He told us he’s working on a new band called… Transit.. something? And when they start doing shows we should check em out. Supposed to electropunkdancystuff.

Friday we ended up at 75th again trying to “take it easy”. Courtney joined us and after a while we decided to head back to Adam’s. I was pretty tired and I wanted to not get completely hammered so I’d be ready for Scotty’s party on Saturday. That went pretty well until Adam kept pouring me beers and then JoLynn called me a big pussy. I got up and rummaged around in Adam’s cabinets looking for something to challenge her to a shot duel with and all I could find was tequila. Ouch. So, we sent one of those down the hatch and that hurt and then she broke out the Captain and we shot one of those bastards down. Not good. I fell asleep pretty quickly but I could have just as easily thrown up.

Saturday night was Scott’s birthday party at Tanners, but before that I needed to get him a gift! Courtney and I went to the Independence Mall cause she was looking for some purse that only they had and they have a Hot Topic which is a fine place to get a friend a gift. Courtney bought two (2!) purses and I bought three t-shirts. One for Scott and two for me. Scott’s was red and had a picture of a mushroom guy from Mario Bros. and said “Everyone Loves Mushrooms!” which is true. I got one with Duck Hunt paraphernalia on it and an awesome brown shirt with a PARTY switch on it.

So yea. Party at Tanners. Tanners turned out to be a little on the lame side. It was too hot, too crowded and then the lamest band ever came on. We relocated to McCoy’s and the awesome happened. There were shots, there were drinks, there was bread and Courtney threw up in the ladies room. Score! JoLynn has lots of great pictures from the party.

As per regulations we hit up some Town Topic and it was great as usual but with all the food I ate at Tanners, and McCoy’s and all the beer and shots and everything it didn’t sit very well. The hash browns tho… man. I think from now on I might just get a bucket of hash browns and skip the pancakes.
The pancakes are awesome though, too.
Cheryl was in a better mood than last week and she definitely knows me now. She said my order when I walked in the door. Sweet! It’s nice to be a “regular”.

Sunday I spent a lazy day around the house getting Mac OS X for Intel working on one of my PCs. It works and it’s fast. I can’t wait till they release the Intel laptops. I want one!

Next up: Gaming, decorating the house, more OS X and then Adam’s Officially Old White Trash House Party Saturday night! Come one, come all! It’s gonna be a blast.

You’d better skip this one.

On the morning of Friday, August 5th, 2005 my mother died. She was 59 and would have turned 60 today. Her name was Dorothy Parker and she was married to my step-father Fred Parker. I’m not exactly sure what her death certificate will say the cause was, but she died of cancer. I found out from my brother pretty early in the day and then talked to other members of my family throughout the day. Tuesday morning my brother Adam, his wife Susan and I flew to New Jersey for the services. We had an informal viewing Tuesday afternoon, a formal viewing Tuesday evening and the funeral was Wednesday morning.

The last funeral I remember going to was for my mother’s father. My mother’s mother died after he did but I don’t remember her funeral. Those were both when I was pretty young, but honestly I don’t remember when. I may have been around 15 years old. So the point is that my mother’s funeral was the first one I have been to in my adult life. Most people seemed pretty surprised about that.

During the viewing I met a lot of people that were involved in my mom’s life who I had never known about. People she worked with, extended family, employees of the salon she went to and so on. More people than I ever imagined one person could know. On top of that I met, or re-met many of my family members who I either had never met before or had not seen since I was a kid. Since I live so far from the rest of my family it was interesting, and surprising to see just how big it was.

I’m rambling a bit here…

Back to the funeral. Everything went as well as one could hope, I think. You hear a lot about seeking closure and how the funeral and viewing give you a chance to come to terms with the death but I felt like that had all happened in the weeks before for me. In July when I went to New Jersey I knew that my mother wasn’t doing well. She put on a strong face and we parted by saying “See you soon” but I think that I knew I wouldn’t see her again and I think she did too. When I was in Chicago a few weeks back Fred called and said that my mom wanted to talk to me. I was ordering lunch at some deli at the time so I went and found a quiet corner and sat down and talked. We had a short conversation and my mom said some things that maybe she’s wanted to say my entire life. Talking to Fred it was clear that that conversation was “Goodbye”. And I thought that was actually going to be her last day. She held on for another 2 weeks after that.

During the funeral services, while still at the funeral home my brother Chris and my two sisters, Civvy and Laura spoke a bit about my mom. Judy Underwood, my step-brother’s fiance’s cousin, sang Ave Maria, beautifully, and the pastor from my mom’s church spoke quite a bit. As people said things the rest of the people in the funeral home responded and it was clear that everyone there knew my mother. I don’t think people were just there to pay their respects to someone who had died. They were there to say goodbye to someone special in their life.

The service at the cemetery was short and accompanied by a bagpipe player playing Amazing Grace. My mother’s request and very much in character. She’s always loved the instrument and the song. And that was that. We had lunch at the church that she attended, people shared memories and caught up and parted.

As many people said during the services, my mom was tough. All her life she dealt with everything that came down the road head on and she fought to the very end. She went to bat for me more times than I can remember and many times for things she knew I was in the wrong on. But she would never let anyone mess with her kids. She was protective and supporting and all the things that a mom should be.

We weren’t very close for the last 10 years. I didn’t call very often and I didn’t visit very often. I don’t feel bad about that. I would have called more often if I had more to say but as other people in my life have found, I don’t often waste time with idle chatter. My mom knew I loved her and I knew she loved me and that was enough, for me. I think it was for her too.

I admit, I didn’t know how to respond to the guy at Tootsies that said I was hot and wanted to know if I was JoLynn’s. How do you not hurt someone’s feelings and still tell them “NO FUCKING WAY!”?

We were just talking about vacation here at the office and Jono, Lake and I all agreed that we didn’t think we had ever taken a two (or more) week vacation all at once. The topic came up because our colleagues in the Netherlands for the project I am working on seem to take two week vacations every three weeks. So, the question:

Have you ever taken a two week (or more) vacation from work?

Respond in the comments or I’ll eat your soul.

So all this week I’ve been staying in and watching movies. I’m broke as hell from all the insanity over the last two weeks so I’m just spending a week in exile. So far it’s been good. I’ve gotten lots of sleep, watched a bunch of movies (Amelie, The Count of Monte Cristo, Benny and Joon, The Court Jester, Garden State, Love Actually, bunch of Aqua Teen Hunger Force) and saved money. I actually haven’t spent a single dollar since Sunday night when I filled my gas tank.

On top of that, it’s made it easy to get back on my diet. This morning I was 208, which I believe is a first. For the last few months I have been holding around 209 which has been good. I’ve been eating healthy most of the time but not hesitating to pig out now and then and I was able to maintain. I’d still like to be under 200, so hopefully I can do that in the next few weeks and then maintain it there. I’d really like to be 180, but I don’t think I can do that without working out a lot more than I want to.

So that’s all good, but it doesn’t mean I haven’t been bored out of my mind. I am a social creature. Much more so than I was a few years ago. Part of that just comes from the fact that I don’t have a game that is demanding all my attention. When I was playing EverQuest regularly I could easily spend a week without seeing another person in real life and not even notice. Now-a-days I start getting ansy after like 4 hours. Heh.

So I have one more night to go. Friday night is going to be a whole different story, perhaps. Once again I will have money and will be looking to friendly bartenders to take it away from me. Or maybe I’ll just stay home and watch movies again. I really am saving a lot of money…

And I need a damn truck.