The DerfJam Chronicles

Bowling league was a little peculiar last night. I guess not enough people showed up so what would have been 4-person teams got split into doubles. So now it's just me and Richard on a team. We're called "Dominatrix Time". Richard is pretty good. I seen him bowl maybe like 5 years ago but we were all messing around so I didn't get to see his real skills.

I haven't bowled since last season so I sucked hairy ballzack last night. The first game I got a 131. The second I got 148. A little bit of an improvement. And then on the third game I got hella tired so I bowled a 101. I didn't even think I would break 100. But I barely did. So we lost 3 out of 4.

Right now my arm is all sore. It's hard to straighten my arm and I can't really pick anything up. I think I need to downgrade my ball. I have this massive 16 pounder. I only bowl with 2 fingers so I think that's what makes it heavy. I need to learn how to use my thumb. But I think a 14 pounder would be the most effective for me.

It begins tonight. I'm pretty excited. I haven't really bowled since last season and we're the defending champs. Hopefully I'm not too rusty. I got the award for most improved player last year and so we'll see if my improvements have stayed with me. We lost two players from last year but I think the replacements will be worthy. Richard is one of my closest friends and he was a kick arse bowler when he was younger. I think he won some city championship for kids. And the other I have never met but he works at the bowling alley so he's gotta have some mojo. You can't work at a bowling alley and suck.

I wish that our 4th member was someone I knew. I asked a few of my friends but they're kinda busy or they didn't want to. The only one who was down was Bobby but he responded too late. Lazy bum. Hahahaha. He called me back the same day we got our 4th member. It's just so much funner when we're all friends. Sometimes I feel bad cuz we're joking around and having a jolly good time but that other guy who's on our team doesn't have the same sense of humor as us and he just looks at us weird. It's almost like we're alienating him.

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Last night I went to my best friend Jay's house and we watched these videos of us from back in Kindergarten. We still look the same. Our hair is just different. Hahahahaha. The videos were pretty weird too cuz it's his Dad just filming us in the classroom learning our lesson plan. And then he films us at recess going buckwild. And then we go on a field trip to the park across the street. He also filmed the junior olympics. Jay ran the relay race and his team got beat cuz he didn't hand off the baton very well. Hahahahaha. I remember my event was the tug-o-war but it didn't get filmed. Maybe my Mom has it somewhere.

It's pretty sick to know that me and Jay have been friends for over 20 years. Not many people can say they've been friends since kindergarten. I know people will be in the same class in kindergarten and then meet up again later on in life, but we've been friends the whole way through. That's something special.

Today would have been my Grandma's birthday. The big family reunion was planned for next weekend. We're still gonna go up to the Bay to visit her grave.

Yesterday something really crazy happened. My sisters alarm clock, from when she was a kid, is displayed in my Mom's room for decoration. It's one of those white Japanese cats with the paw up and it plays music when the alarm goes off. Well, the alarm hasn't worked for years. Yesterday my sister was in the living room and heard some music, or she thought it was someone's phone. Well, she followed the sound and it was coming from my Mom's room. It turns out her alarm clock went off. That clock is out of reach and nobody set the alarm. My parents say it was my Lola visiting us. She let us know that she's still with us.

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I saw Harold & Kumar 2 and it was dope. I loved it. I wanna see it again. It's so ridiculous with the exaggerated stereotypes. It takes things to the limit and pushes it.

I also got to chill with Shawne Merriman and Stephen Cooper. I was taking pix at the club and Merriman goes to me and says "No more pictures" and so I stop and then I'm watching him and he starts to triple kiss these two chicks. It was dope!!!!!!!! Kendra Wilkinson was there too and she was faded. I got to take a pic with Julia Bond. Note to self: Teach Joel how to take pix! I hate that guy.

Staci finally sent some pix from 80's night at Channel One from a few months back. My shirts says: Metro League: Rock Paper Scissors Metro Champion 1982 1983 1984 1985. And everyone sang 80's songs on karaoke. I wanna throw another 80's party but with my friends this time. It was pretty fun with a bunch of people I didn't know that well. Imagine the madness if it was with my closest friends. That would be obese! Morbidly obese!

I'm 25 damn years old and I have no idea what to do with myself.

I wish things were different. Just deal with it.

When I'm bored I resort to reading the blogs of people I don't even know.

Thank you for all the little details you take care of. You didn't have to but you did anyways. And for that I love you. I know if you were in a closer vicinity to me you would be here consoling me but you're not and you still do what you can. Don't think that the things you do for me go by unappreciated. It really makes me feel special. I know I need to do more on my end and I apologize for that. Imma do you right. You have my word.

1: Does your dong say Micro Machines on it?
2: No!
1: Then it's not the real thing.
2: ?

Throwback to 4th grade. Hahahaha. At the end of every Micro Machines commercial, the guy who could talk really super fast would say "If it doesn't say Micro Machines, then it's not the real thing!"

Sometimes I wish I kept all my old toys. But I know one(or a few) of my younger cousins in the Philippines is probably enjoying it right now.

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Last night. No offense Christine. I had more fun with you but Kim just looks more slammin'.

Near death experience. Yesterday when I was driving home from work I was really tired. And there was an accident on the 805 south so we were going single digit speeds. That didn't help at all. So I'm driving along and the traffic starts to speed up a little. I'm probably going 15 mph and my eyes start to feel heavy. 2 seconds later I feel my head drop and I wake and I notice the car in front of me has it's brake lights on. It was probably 10 ft in front of me and my eyes got HUGE and my heart stopped beating for a second and I slammed on the brakes. I probably stopped about 4 inches away from hitting that car. The whole ride home I was wide awake because of that.

I guess it's not really a near death experience cuz we were traveling at pretty slow speeds (less than 20 mph). But that whole cliche' of "I saw my life flash before my eyes" is kinda true. In the moment that I realized that I needed to brake, it felt like time had slowed down. My eyes got huge and my peripheral vision got better than normal. It's like when you focus on something and the objects in the background are blurry, my peripheral vision had everything in focus for a few seconds. I didn't breathe and my heart felt like it stopped. But as soon as my car stopped, my heart felt like I ran a mile. And my vision was back to crappy. Ha.

This is my nephew Taylor. I was playing the ukelele and he would not leave me alone. And he kept on trying to grab the uke from me so I just sat him down and let him give it a go. And then I started playing drums on my leg and he copied me. It was so funny. He had one hand just slapping his leg.

This kid can munch too. Half the time, he had some kind of food in his hand. So did I. We get along great.

When I was up in San Jose I tried frog legs and snail. Hahahahaha. The frog legs were pretty good. That whole "taste like chicken" deal is true. The meat is a little bit more chewy than chicken but it was good. The snails on the other hand were pretty damn gross. It tasted kinda like mussels or clam or something. I'm not a big fan of shellfish so I wasn't feelin' it. My cousin was all pouring salt on it to see if it would shrivel up and sizzle or something. Ha.

I miss my family. I wish we all lived in close proximity to each other.

I don't think I've ever cried as much as I did the past few days. I tried to stay strong and I was when I was here. But when I went up to San Jose and I actually saw my Lola laying in the casket, I just couldn't stay composed. I had to break down and let it all out. The more I tried to hold my tears, the harder it became to deal with the situation.

Hearing all the stories everyone told of my Lola was very emotional. I could hear the love coming out of every word they spoke. It was joyful and sad at the same time. Hearing the stories brought back so many good memories. We also had a photo montage and a slideshow with a bunch of pix of us with Lola.

I remember when we were poor and we couldn't afford nice clothes, my Lola would buy fabric and make custom clothes for me. It was funny too cuz she would make me like a shirt or some shorts or something and then I would go to my cousins house and walk into their room and notice that my shirt and/or shorts would match their pillow covers. Hahahahaha.

This was the first significant death in my lifetime. I've had other family members pass away but I never really had any strong connection with them. My great-grandma passed away when I was in high school but it didn't really hit me too hard. This one was really tough though cuz I was a Pallbearer, one of the guys who carries the casket into the actual grave. I didn't want to let the casket down. I kissed my gloves before I placed them on the casket with her. I kissed my rose before i set it down in the grave with her. And I kissed my balloon before I let it fly to heavens with her.

The thing that made the whole situation easier was having my niece and nephews around. My Lola died on my nephews birthday. This was her first great-grandson. She was so happy that she got to live to be able to have great-grand children. So now every year, we'll celebrate the life of my Lola as we celebrate the birth of my nephew. Seeing the innocence in a child is what makes life worthwhile.

I can only wish to live half that old. I’d be lucky if I even reached 45 with the way I take care of myself. I want to say it’s a wake up call but it’s not. It’s up to me to do something about my health. No external occurrences can influence my mindset, at least not in the longrun. Something can happen and I’ll change for a few weeks or a month or so but as soon as normalcy returns, my old habits come back to form.

I’m not too sure how to have a conversation with people right now. I’m not exactly in the most cheerful mood and I don’t really want everyone to know what’s going on. They ask me "How’s it goin?" and all I respond with is "Yo!". I don’t really like to lie to people and tell that it’s goin’ good when it really isn’t. Everyone at work keeps asking me about my weekend, wanting to see some pix of a crazy weekend, but I got nuthin’ for them.

Zoua called me last night askin’ me to go out with her and her sister, since it was her sister’s last night in town. I didn’t have the heart to tell her what was goin’ on so I told her I was busy. I really was busy but on a normal day I would have dropped what I was doing to go and hang out.

I’ll be MIA again this week since I’ll be up in San Jose for the viewing and Funeral. I leave Wed and I might be back on Sun.