Yeah, dad was rediculously fast. I don't know exactly how fast, but I know that he'd come home from the library with a stack of like 6-7 books and have them all done a day or two before we went back the next week, and he only had a handful of hours to read at night and the weekend. I think the bulk of it was done on Sunday, but still. That's rediculous. Too bad he couldn't put that kind of energy into cleaning his alcoholic, drug-addled ass up and being a real father. Ah, the joys of childhood.

It's true about school work. Man, did I HATE the constant assignments that were only work-for-the-sake-of-working bullshit. I do recall more than one night where me and Aaron would be up all night at the 11th hour trying to bang out a paper due the next day. Not a smart way to do it, true, but our lethargy and procrastination was legendary and we had an image to uphold, damnit! (LOL)

As for condoms on our bedroom floor.. eh.. what? This is a new one on me! Wha..? As for chicks.. We weren't exactly casanovas. I think I made out with one chick the entire time I was there in highschool who was REAL close to being my "first" but it didn't quite get to that point. She disappeared a couple of weeks later and no one ever heard from her again, not even her friends at Redondo! (WTF was that all about anyway?) Very strange. BTW.. contrary to popular belief (I think?), nothing ever happened with me and Yoli in the back of her limo except some laughs and a back rub. I probably could have got a little somethin' somethin', but I was too clueless to realize it nor to know what the hell to do about it. Chalk that one up on the "man, if I only had THAT one to do over again" wish list. Unfortunately for me, that list is a long and painful walk through my mid-teen years of missed and squandered opportunities.

I did see mom's book collection downstairs and specifically the shelves dedicated to vampire-related writing. I kind of lost my taste for Anne Rice with the violin book. Too much focus on the semi-homosexual boy-love fest and not enough meat to the plot in my humble opinion. Not that we don't all crave a good semi-homosexual boy-love book now and then, mind you.. but it just couldn't hold my attention.

On Douglas Adams, I got through So Long but also thought it was the weakest of the books and haven't ever read anything beyond that. I did enjoy the bit about the taxi cab driver fellow that hated the rain though.. (won't ruin it for those waiting to read it!)

The Indy Car pile-up extravaganzas! Those were always high quality. Man, I forgot exactly how poor the graphics were back then. Aaron, didn't we get that game from the guy who used to pirate people's credit card numbers and buy tons of computer shit? The guy that traded our crap modem for his super-duper one for no aparent reason? I don't remember his name but I'd guess that he's probably serving some time.

On a happy note, Michelle just had her baby shower and we have all kinds of cutsie clothes, blankets and outfits for our daughter-to-be. Now, we get to go buy the heavy-hitting stuff.. cradle, strollers, carseats, etc. Weeeee! Man, how very strange to contemplate actually being "Dad" to a little person. It's funny how the two things in life I feared worse than death are now my biggest reasons to be happy. I love being married and I'm incredibly excited to be a Dad. Funny how our perspective changes as the river of life moves us downstream a bit.

Late,

~O.

P.S. ~ It's always vexed me for a looooong time about the whole "Oriental Rugs" and no one ever seemed to want to explain it to me, but I remembered the other day about a time elsewhere where someone told me they thought my last name was Nishiki, like the bicycle manufacturer.. and it clicked. One of life's little mysteries solved?