needles and pins in my closet

Bow-chica-bow-bow. Thats the sound that should be bumping by some floating ghetto blaster next to me as i have walked around these past few days. It is a lot like that Broadway musical part of 500 days of summer but more egotistically founded and no ridiculous cartoon birds. Not to say that i haven't lately experienced similar yet "Mormon-esque" moments as what prompted the dance scene in 500 days. But thats not why i am really walking with a swagger and a grin. I just cut my hair. I have been doing this since high school. I have developed a cycle that fits itself about 2-3 times into a year. Newly cut (must use goo to style)--> Long & thick enough to use natural grease and genetically thickness to faux hawk--> 1st ugly phase too long to hawk, too short for flip, wear a lot of beanies--> start of the hipster flip, looking good with beanies-->full on shag can you say ashton kutcher--> slick back like undercover cop--> cut back leave front--> get really pissed at something non-hair related and hack it all off--> restart. Now no matter what song is blasting in the ears, that bass beat is meant for me and my steps. Do i imagine myself just getting more looks from pretty passing girls? Probably. But i'd look at me at least.

Step 1. straddle your space-heater

My room became my room today. Up till recently I hated being down there in the cold basement nook that I pay $235 + utilities a month to sleep in and store everything I own. I would sleep there, get dressed there, watch an occasional hulu episode there, come back home to sleep and start that all over again. I hated to spend any time there, I would even walk all the way up to library to do some night studying so I wouldn’t have to do it in my own room. The walls radiate the cold and are periwinkle purple from some dumb wanna-be beatnik granola chic before me. Her poems written on the back of the closet door sucked too. I decorate in a painfully required effort with relics I picked up from the mission, to give the illusion that I actually think home-décor says something about my persona. I have thumb tacked personally designed gospel pep-talks anywhere near my bed. Wither I am bringing just myself or others into bed or pulling just myself or others out of bed I’ll know that to stay humble I must keep a heart full of charity. I know where the traffic is. I have a bench press that has made itself equally useful as an upper-core tonner as a towel drying rack. My windows are frozen shut and the one wall outlet has two power grids plugged into it. So if I want to run my space heater, electric blanket, laptop, laptop connected sound system, and cell phone charger I’d have 5 more plug-ins left but only 20 seconds before I blow the fuse. I don’t have a chair for my desk which is really only like my wider but less deep trash can. Finally, cleaning up really means doing the laundry and kicking the electronic cords back under the desk.

I didn’t like this place until today when I had to study a whole bunch for a test and then write a whole bunch for a group project. I enjoyed the time spent sitting the floor against my bed with my laptop on my lap and my space heater between my legs. The one remaining 60 watt light bulb is so dim that it will not cast that annoying glare on my glossy textbook pages whilst I read. I can reach anything I need from sitting here or assuming a prone position across the floor. At least for tonight I am enjoying my den, my pad, my room. Yeah for acceptance of ones surroundings!

Bring the Rock, I'll bring my desk

Talk show Musical Guests. Letterman, Sullivan, Leno, Fallon, Ferguson, Conan and anyone else that sits behind a desk and talks to celebrities will at some point look over their desk past the pointless pretty faced actress and there, you will watch the muse. It must be the hardest thing to do for any band or artist. Everyone is there to NOT see you, it is that simple. I mean every band will play a show where they don’t fit the bill or no one got the memo that they existed. But they never did it on live national television. Another thing is that everyone is sitting down which is never cool for rock n’roll and at least thirty feet away from the front mic. The thing that would scare me the most would be the fact that the show’s host probably hates me and my noise. Like when you knew a parent of your friend didn’t want you to be over at the house for dinner. So awkward. But I what I love the most about musical guest stars is how great they are at showing the evolution of music and how it is played live. My video examples are not extremes they are both awesome songs, they are just really good examples on how things have changed. My first is a band called Grass Roots (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJlY2QThjoA&feature=related ). They play an awesome folksy drama-rock song, lets live for today. The song has tons of emotion and these guys play it like they mean it, but now a days one finds the video lacking. The drummer embodies it all, I mean he was just tapping those crash cymbals like they were lil’puppy heads and it would give them brain damage. Which leads me to I think the best Musical Guest Performance ever and never to be replaced. I like watching Letterman with my dad, we both can connect to his humor and pop-culture references and laugh together. Letterman came back to his show after a short break due to heart surgery, and he invited his favorite band to play his favorite song. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz_3G3sSufs ) After that song there was not a non-Foo Fighter fan in the house that night. My Dad and I were both blown away by their raw emotion. My Dad could not believe Taylor Hawkins on the drums either. The emotional levels people experience while playing music or listening to it have not changed, we have just progressed in projecting it. Long live the rawk.

As my HP laptop gently weeps

I was having one of those days where I woke up and even before I could reach my muscle-bound (a.k.a scarecrow) arms out of the electric blanket covers and turn on my space heater I had already my top three spots on my 5 problems to fix list already taken. Say you are a problem and you make it on my list, I will contemplate you every spare second I find. You are a problem and I need to fix you, that is how simple I am with the likes of you.
But just because you are on my list and I want your bumpy complexion to become smooth doesn’t mean you will. Something’s need time along with my best efforts to straighten out, but that doesn’t mean you can’t indulge in “F-this” music to really get into the mood. “Bury me With it” Modest Mouse, “Glue man” Fugazi, “parties and Bullsh*t” Biggy, etc.
Anyways no matter who you are there is always someone you want to talk to, someone who will let you vent. Someone you can trust. So I call this person and of course I ask how they are doing. I never thought I would be the “vented” this call. But he or she needs to vent and got to it before I did, so I listen. He or she gets to the end of their catharsis and something unexpected has happened. I do not want to vent anymore.
Nothing has changed in my situation, except me. I will not purge my troubles through the phone line, because I have this new calling to be the strong one during the call. Not only for their immediate well-being, but because I have this new desire to tackle my problems so I have room on my back for their burdens too. Such is the power of love. This love that we have not only will urge me to help, but also buck up and fix mine so I can help sooner. To be helpful not hurtful. This love will help fix both our problems in time. Mi aime a ou mamma.

i love voyeurism and oregon

Computer lab observation 5,236

There is a young man dressed up all nice in a seasonal sweater and it is this dog’s day. No doubt about it. Apparently he just got a haircut that could allow him to do the “jedi padawan pony tail” that all hipsters covet. It is his day because he is sitting there spread legged with one girl standing in between his legs leaning forward pulling all his hair back. No bother that even from this viewing point ten feet away I can tell that this girl’s bra isn’t from JC Penny, one can only imagine how great his point of view is, two inches from her collar bone. Now that is not all, this lucky lil’puppy has got girl number two taking all the pulled back hair and winding it into the post-masculine pony tail. Not to bother that every time she wants to say something to him she puts her chin on his shoulder and breaths it into his ear. With pony tail secured girl number two leaves but cleavage girl number one stays to not so much chat but stare him down and run her hand up and down the small of his back. Every dog gets his day; some get theirs in the middle of the computer lab. Glad everyone including a creepy kid wearing and “green heart Oregon” shirt are watching. But does this dog enjoy his moment of pimpage or thinking that everyone sees him as a pimp more?

My personal I.D. page (required class work)

Vital stats
1. I am a Junior
2. I am probably going to end up being a P.R. major
3. 562-754-6353 mfiggat@gmail.com (my people will always contact your people first though)
About me:
If I was back on the west coast I would be called lanky, here in Utah I am called lurpy, and no one further east has experienced my body type in my presence long enough to tell me what adjective would be used.
I have a totally non-intrusive and completely harmless aptitude for participating in people’s daily noteworthy events. Nothing too big, just tons of boys and girls say I just made their day. Odd how that’s usually the last thing they say to me before I never see them again.
I do not hold many interesting hobbies that inspire awe upon declaration, because I grew up poor, still am poor, and have an emotional attachment to money saved. I make much out of little because of the aforementioned reasons, so I’ll surprise you with what happens on my time.
I grew up in the town of Eugene, OR and it will always affect me. But for the last 6 years I have lead a very nomadic non-drug related life in many various west coast cities.
I read the majority of my news through the MSN news reel. It used to be the actual paper but the state of Utah doesn’t require breaks at work, so that outlet ceased to exist in my world.
I have been in love one half of once.

AN EVOLUTION - manscaping

It is never an original thought, never an innovative initiative. The idea always comes from some friend who has an older brother, or someone who is on some sports teams requiring showers post-practice.
The idea is Manscaping.
This word may confuse some female readers but rings true for any male. The root of the word “man” is self explanatory, but the “scaping” part may require some explaining. We liken it unto, landscaping. Explained, the art of sculpting ones outdoor surroundings including both growing and stagnant things for both functional and athstetic purposes. Now we apply that same logic to the male body. We sculpt certain growing parts for both functional and athstetic purposes. There is one particular area that always has a great story or two connected to it, which is the pubic area. This is an evolution by which every young man passes through from his first snip to current practices. I thus state it in evolutionary vernacular to make even more respectable.

Stage 1: We are made aware that we can indeed sculpt or at least cut back the growing hair all over our body. What was once a glorious moment when this hair became visible and proved our maturing manhood, has now become negligible maybe even a nuisance.

Stage 2: We think, it is hair right? So what does mom cut our hair with? Now we are hiding mom’s scissors in our pockets as we walk to the bathroom. Standing over the little bathroom garbage can or in the shower with a spread legged stance bent over for a head-on view, we do the 1,2,3 check. These are mom’s sharp scissors and we are so very careful to check from every possible angle before we even think of snipping. It is a slow and tedious process that yields a very uneven coiffure.

Stage 3: We discover that the men at Norelco are freaking geniuses and are light years ahead of our primitive ways. With one flip on the back of dad’s electric razor pop’s out a mini-electric hair trimmer. But in the words of our very wisest teacher Jerry Seinfield, “sharp metal teeth aren’t what I want around that area.” To which I add sharp metal moving teeth. In the impatient and hardly poised hands of a teenager this hair trimmer causes irritation, razor burn, razor bumps and heaven forbid razor malfunction caused by flesh jamming. In the end it made for a closer more even shave, but we had to make sure dad never caught on.

Stage 4: We started shaving our facial hair by now, some may have demised that a razor made for cutting facial hair may have an equally fantastic effect on the love down below. We were so pleased by how smooth and sleek the quatro left us. We were so very UNpleased when we thought maybe that pore opening shaving cream may help also, only to find that our super sensitive skin down there will burn with the heat of a thermite grenade for days only minutes after application. Still it gave us the best feeling both functionally and athstetically. But those razor bumps never left and with our newly gained STD knowledge from sex-ED class we became super aware how much they looked like a visible case of the clap.

Stage 5: What is the difference between dude razors and chic razors? They look like they may operate in similar manners. These questions required answering; maybe just maybe this is what we have been waiting for our whole manscaping evolutionary lives. The clean and smooth feeling of a Schick razor. The even coiffure of the electric hair trimmer. But magically this pink venus razor gleans away the hair without leaving razor bumps the day afterward. The only down side is having to explain why such an item is hidden behind all the AXE body soap bottles, when your roommates find it.
Dare I predict that when the world falls so far into corruption and blurred gender lines and man is faced with an actual leg-razor designed for men (it will happen) we may find lemonade in this most acidic of lemons. Knowing that we have what our pubic areas always wanted the most.
Authors note: not 100% autobiographical