07/22/2004 - 7:35 p.m. | nate walsh is law, you are crime

The scene opens on our hero (anti-hero?), Nate Walsh, perched on a chair in front of his computer. He resembles a young Chad Lowe - yes, Rob Lowe's brother - or at least that is what the psychotic lady who came into the candy store told him the other day, and who is he to disagree? He is wearing only his skivvies, because that is what the ladies love, and he is occasionally sucking on a Ring Pop, because he is such a raver. "Man, I could sure go for some X!" he says to no one in particular. "The muscle spasms are a bitch, but think of all the free love!"

Suddenly, his progress in stalking... well, whoever it is today - is impeded by an instant message from Michelle A. Wetzler. "Blah blah blah diary bitch bitch," it says. He is curt with her so that she will leave him alone, but the fact remains, and the seed is implanted in his head: He really hasn't updated in quite a while. The Ring Pop spills its resevoir of sticky drool all over his hands and pretty much any personal possession he has. "Now I remember why I hated these fuckers," he thinks. Spritz is leaving to abandon him shortly - Kyle he hasn't seen in fucking decades. Nate notes that Spritz is beginning to talk like Jen from overexposure; he worries. "Well, the house is empty again. I am done with school for the summer, off of work for the night, and friendless for the forseeable future. Now I remember why I kept this diary!" Nate can be such an emo fuck sometimes.

He sits there, scratching his neck some, making sure that none of his zits have gotten too unruly, and tries to sort his thoughts out. This is not made easy, as his relatively boring life and alcoholic lifestyle have led to a deficit in what could be called "real memories." For instance, he had a dream (He thinks it was a dream!) that he was flipping through a women's fashion magazine or something, and in those ads in the back - you know, the shitty kind of classified ones? - he remembers seeing some product that boasted, "Have skin like Natalie Imbruglia's!" And he remembers thinking at the time that it was a pretty odd comparison to make because who cares about Natalie Imbruglia these days (except for him and Kyle), especially what her skin is like? I mean, he's sure it's perfectly nice skin - the thought of caressing it nearly gives him a semi - but is it really such a pinnacle of achievement in skin that we should all be striving for it? And then there's the fact that none of this probably didn't happen except in his mind. So you can see why getting a simple day-by-day synopsis of events out would be difficult.

Also, he's been receiving high praise from this fellow Chadly about his diary entries, and if you know Nate Walsh, he does not do well with praise. It makes him very nervous. He sits there worrying that if the last entry was so freaking great, the next one is going to be a huge fuckup. It sucks being talented, am I right?

Nate shakes these thoughts aside as best he can. "OK, so what important stuff happened this week?" Uhhh. Let me get back to you on that one. "OK, so I have had this random death pain in my right arm all week long, but I've mostly just played through the pain, laughed, and thought internally, 'Oh, my sciatic!'" Please note, medical students and nerds, that Nate realizes that the sciatic is a nerve in the leggish area. He just likes how the word sounds. Then he thinks about how he would like some McDonald's. Then he thinks about how he would like to punish himself for that last thought. Can you see the chaos he is working with here?

"OK," he starts. Nate Walsh thinks "OK" a lot a lot a lot. Never spelled out either. Always "OK" like a big stamp in the face. "OK, so on Monday, I went to class - actually, I went to class all week long, an effort I think deserves some sort of medal, but let's try and be chronological here. I took the test, got the usual A with minimal studying (ha ha - fuck Parkland), and then spent the rest of the time trying to decide who I would ask about the final project. In the end, it was no one, and I went home in shame. How fucking boring." Backstory: Nate had... some sort of marketing plan project paper presentation thing due on Thursday, and although he had the basic idea of the structure needed, he wasn't sure on the specifics. And those count sometimes. So, thoroughly convinced that at least 3 (Maybe 4?) of the girls in the class were in love with him, he sat through the whole two hour bullshit session, giving everybody The Eye (or as best as he can approximate The Eye with the one motherfucker floating up towards the ceiling) and seeing who best responded to it. He couldn't decide, got terrified, and ran home to send out a mass e-mail instead. No responses, incidentally. Nate tries to remember his breathing exercises, but they always seem to slip his mind at crucial times.

Nate opens a bag of Chi-Chi's Tortilla Rounds and begins smashing them into his face, as he is poor and carbs are the only thing he can afford to eat. The term "low-carb" (or its trailer park cousin "lo-carb") is really starting to mess with his psyche. People come into the candy store all the time and ask about sugar free candy, assuming that it means that they are also low in carbs. This is completely untrue, and as he stoically rings up their seven pound purchase of gourmet chocolates or whatever, he secretly hopes that they will balloon up to Jabba the Hutt proportions. "No Star Wars references," he thinks out of the blue.

Nate opens a bottle of generic shit white grape juice that has been sitting next to him fermenting for quite some time (Days? Weeks?) and gives it a sniff. "Not moonshine yet," he notes and takes a swig anyway. He remembers that his shift on Monday was with Big Boss Amy and Retard Jane, which further reminds him that he works 2 to close tomorrow with Jane there the whole time. He is not pleased with this thought and would probably start drowning his sorrows, but like I said - like he said - still no moonshine. Why is it called that anyway? "RIP THE GRADUATION HATS AND DIPLOMAS OFF OF THE DOGS AND THEN THEY ARE JUST REGULAR DOGS!" Damn those candy store scheisters. Anyway, he doesn't really like thinking about Jane's horrible laugh and being picked apart piece-by-piece by stupid Amy, so he tries to move on to happier thoughts: Younger women love him. They flock around store in their packs ("Wouldn't it be funny if I called them 'murders' like with crows? Because, you know, they are all ravenously, evil scavengers?" No, Nate. That would not be funny) all giggly and stupid and nervous and trying to check him out. If he gives one of them direct eye contact and a smile, he can practically guarantee he will be mopping a puddle of them off the floor that night. "But," he reminds himself, "this is not at all socially acceptable right now. We can't all invite 16 year olds over, get them drunk, and have them suck you off; some of us have morals!" However, once he gets a little on in the years - say, Michael Douglas' age ("Blowjob scene from Disclosure!" he thinks involuntarily) - this unique power of his will be tres beneficial. Heh heh heh.

For the time being, however, Nate is in love with only one woman: Jen from Hot Topic. On his break ("escape") from the candy store, he stopped in at his other place of occasional employment because he had to get out of his one shift there that week because he had to work at the candy store that same afternoon because Jane changed his hours all around BECAUSE Jane hired that fucking flake Angie and got rid of her just as quick and now there aren't enough people there to even potentially take a day off EVER EVER EVER. Nate begins to rant, "For instance, I really wish I could go home and see everyone at Riverfest and maybe get a little messed up and hit on Brenna Davis or something (If her legs freshman year were any indication, she should be some sort of goddess now?), but there's no one to take my place. What if I get ebola or something? Do I just still go in, vomiting up major organs and the like?!" Enough of that. But like I said, he came in, and Jen was fucking adorable with her tiara and pink eye shadow and homemade "Band Geek" shirt and pink wristband and jeans and barefoot because her pink high heels were destroying her soul, etc. He was pretty adorable himself, though, fully decked out in 80's attire - pink shirt and skinny tie (which reminds him that he needs to order some more of those from that one website he found. He also needs more shirts to wear with them, but he is too fucking poor for that). Anyway, Nate likes Jen, and Jen likes Nate a lot, too, I think, even if not in the whole "break off the engagement" sort of way. But Nate can dream that his charms were so powerful.

Nate ponders this for a moment and then decides if there is anything else to tell about Monday. "Because I've revealed so much as it is," he adds. "Oh! Be sure to mention the thing about how you've started using this random tube of apricot scrub you found in the bathroom. That's pretty irreverent and wacky!" Shut the fuck up, Nate. But I guess it does "exfoliate" his skin, which I think just means, "makes you feel like you're at the beach or something because the shit feels like you're rubbing sand all over your head." "But feel my skin! It's so soft and firm!" Yes, Nate. That's from the grease. Who am I even conversing with here?

And if it is your apricot scrub that I am using, just consider it compensation for the gallons of my good-smelling conditioner you used. Eat it.

Nate takes a break to think about why he even began on this ridiculous endeavor in the first place and starts checking AIM away messages, e-mail, the usual. This reminds him that one of the major sources of distress in his life has been allieviated. "That girl I met at the concert finally e-mailed me back!" he thinks, practically already grinning like a dope. Life sure is tough when that is a major source of distress. "And here I thought she hated me or something and merely gave me her address as a decoy. Turns out she thought I was doing the same thing to her by asking for it instead of... well, dunno. If we had stayed in town and not been lost in the ghetto, maybe we could've hung out..." He thinks about that for a moment. "Anyway, she is both cute and smart, and I would like to be her best friend." Another pause, thinks on it for a moment. "Yes, saying anything else would just be odd." Song quote: "I need to take a shower when I look at you." He told me to put it in here. He has also been occupying his time with fake drunk e-mails to various HotOrNot nymphos. It's a bad habit, and I don't think he wants me talking about it, but I think it is sort of funny. This is getting far-removed. WHY IS EVERYONE ON THE INTERNET FAT?

"Fuck this shit," Nate says. "I'll do just do some third person bullshit."

I can't even keep a cohesive theme for a whole fucking entry. On Monday, as I was leaving the mall, I saw there was a big meeting going on at the Buckle, and I was highly, highly tempted to go shake my ass in front of the window (I know it doesn't enrage others quite like it does with me) and sing at the top of my lungs. I could not think of an appropriate song, however. I still can't. :( Tuesday, I got up early, looking all spruced up for class, ran out the door, blah blah blah. Left the keys on my other jeans. Well, so much for a consecutive record then. I sat on the porch in the humidity and tried to think of a plan. The resulting plan was sitting on the porch. I spammed Kyle and Spritz until one of them woke up and let me in. This took only roughly 45 minutes. Arrived at class pretty much just in time for the guest speaker to leave ("WHOOPS") and then learned enough about the final assignment that I could probably wing something adequate. And adequacy is excellent here at Parkland!! (TM)

I have a feeling I slept a lot, because that whole hour of class really takes it out of me. I then began trying to tackle the process of coming up with a marketable idea. Discouraged, I probably took another nap. When I awoke, I went into Hemingway Mode and banged out a fairly decent something something about an artfag t-shirt business that would give unemployed art students (Aren't they all?) the chance to create works for untalented fucks like myself who want their fashion to be unique. And by unique, I don't mean the shirt with the clever saying on it at Hot Topic. Because there are like 17 more of that same shirt right behind it. Talk about individuality. Apparently when I write this sort of thing as Hemingway, I get a little manic and use a lot a lot of buzzwords and advertising talk. So we've found the secret to success. All that was left was to find a name for the company. To the rhyming dictionary we go. Shirt, pert, curt, hurt, dirt, revert, spurt, squirt, overt, alert, insert, inert, invert, pervert, subvert! Subvert-A-Shirt. Done with that messy business!

The reason I was trying to get done in a timely fashion was that Kyle wanted to watch the fourth season of The Sopranos, and I wasn't going to miss out on that. Let us pause here and now to say: FUCKING INFANTRY. FUCK DIE FUCK HATE IT THAT FUCKING GAME. Kyle gets home, and he's like, "OK, we're going to go to Yousaf's in a little bit, right after I shower." And then Spritz goes, "Kyle, get on Infantry blah blah squad practice Arcades blah blah." Obviously, Kyle must do this, despite having made plans only moments earlier with Yousaf and myself. So, he's just gone. For three fucking hours then. And I'm done with all of my work, and I want to do something, so I just start walking around. First to gas stations, then to Schnucks, I think maybe for microwavable popcorn chicken, which apparently does not exist (Market that, bitches!), and then I decide I really want to tacos, so I start calling everyone I know, but it would seem I do not know very many people, and certainly none of them want tacos, so I come home and try to fall asleep, which is hard because I am so fucking mad at Kyle and because I can hear the two of them yelling back and forth about how they made their Pixel Man do this or that and the fucking little puff sound effects, but finally I do crash, and then Kyle goes and watches eventually, which I already said I couldn't do because of early class, so now I'm behind and pissed off and don't like anyone very much at all, you slimy fucks.

Wednesday, Perfect Legs was wearing a skirt. So much for class that day. I presented my stupid shirt idea, and no one seemed to hate it (even if they didn't get my jokes), so we consider that a "near-success." Maybe I went to lunch with Kyle? No, Wednesday was the day he was missing the whole time so I couldn't even be enraged to his face. Instead I watched the deleted scenes on the pirated Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! DVD that Shelly made. "And prayed for a quick death?" Yes, and that. Back to the mall to do my little candy duty. I guess it should be nice that I got paid, but I pretty much have to dump the whole of that check into the unquenchable pit of fire that is my credit card bill. I swear I don't even use the fucker - once for books, once for a class, and then $16 to tan every month - and still I find myself dumping hundreds of dollars in it over and over again. Credit is for saps. I really like my little useless 2 to 6 shift. No one comes in so I can just sit and sing quietly and fill candy bins over and over again. All three stalkers came in. Really, I don't even mind two of them. I would like to be friends with the guy, I could even see myself maybe being OK with the albino (or snatching her into the back room for a passionate makeout session just to fuck with their heads), but man... that fucking wiccan. She just loooooves tigers!! And she never really talks, except to say something that completely creeps me out. What a wonderful gift you have acquired there, Hortence. Perhaps your spell fizzled?

After work, I typed up my shit paper and was deciding what to do with myself when Yousaf and I IM'd each other at roughly the same time and said we should watch a movie. Great minds. As I walked out the door, ass pizza in hand, I noticed Spritz and Jen watching Braveheart. "His wife's throat got slit... Heh heh heh." Could not stop lauhing about that.

I don't know how the circumstances came about, but everyone seems to blame me for Yousaf becoming an alcoholic. I get home last night and Shelly goes, "What did you do to Yousaf?" And then Bill just said, "You are a bad influence in Yousaf's life." What the fuck did I do? Blame Spritz, Mr. Slytherin, whose ultimate goal in life is to make every straight-edge person drink. I didn't say, "Hey, Yousaf, let's get plastered and watch movies!" I just suggested that we watch a movie, and he goes, "We're drinking, right?!" Um, all right. So, first we go to Meijer to look at the booze they have their because, well, because maybe Yousaf is an alcoholic, and he is now on a quest to find the absolutely worst thing to drink on the planet. "Bourbon, Nate? What do you think about bourbon? Some Wild Turkey maybe? That's what the Punisher drinks!" I make some comment that I would sooner scoop my own eyes out with a grapefruit spoon, but he kind of ignores this. "What about scotch?" I'm not even sure why we went, because neither of us is 21, so we just kind of looked and left. However, I am very glad that we did go because otherwise I would not know about Yousaf's God (Allah? Buddha? Kali?) given gift to create destruction as he sees fit. We're driving back on 74, right before the exit to get on Lincoln, and Yousaf, the notoriously fast driver, can't pass either of these two cars right in front of him - a white one and a darkish SUV. He's all pissy, so he goes, "Man, I hope they hit each other." And don't listen to his denials; he's just trying to keep his power a secret! But seriously, seconds later, the SUV passes the white car with little room to spare. Freaked, I think, the white car tries to get out of the same lane, but turns the wheel too sharply. Trying to compensate, the white car jerks the wheel back the other way, smacks into the SUV, and sends it flying off the road. Meanwhile, the white car has spun out of control and is facing the wrong direction. It pauses for a moment, and then backs up off the road itself at top speed. "LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE," I cry, laughing my ass off. I am allowed to laugh because no one was hurt. I keep playing it over and over and my mind, and I cannot stop giggling.

We get back home, and Yousaf starts getting trashed. To appease him, I have like my one drink, but he soon forgets all about me, lost in a see of straight Grey Goose vodka on the rocks. In his Meijer "On the Rocks" glasses. Of course, you might say I'm a bad person because I don't tell him to stop, but I think that is rather weak of you, so shut it. By the end of the first movie (Very Bad Things, a "dark comedy," by which they meant it wasn't very good at all), he is already starting to type a little off and giggling retardedly at things. Which is not to say that I was King Brilliant. I kept tapping the wall his screen was projected on and yelling, "Damn useless touch screens!" over and over again. He keeps making me watch graphics demos for his new video card, which I think are boring as hell. "OH XCRAP" is my new favorite phrase, incidentally. By about halfway through our second selection (Full Metal Jacket - Hey, does anyone else think Kubrick is a bit of a hack? I dunno, the first part of the movie was pretty interesting, and he didn't do a bad job with the war shit, but the stories seemed so unconnected that I didn't care at all), he is pretty much just yelling all the time and twitching and being as ADD as one can be, screaming about how bad Smirnoff vodka is as compared to Grey Goose and spilling shit and constantly getting ice. He rules. We finish the movies, and Yousaf tries to clean up, I think, but he's far too giggly and stumble-y for that, so we got out to the dumpster so he can try and smash the two bottles he just finished. Well, first he tries launching a box at the dumpster, and it lands on the roof of the car next to it, so I say, "Maybe you should, uh, get a little closer to the dumpster, huh?" He whips the first bottle in. BOOM. Doesn't break. He swears some. He winds up on the second. BOOOOM. Doesn't break. But I do think he woke up everybody in a three block radius, which made giggle hysterically all the way home. I peed on a tree and thought about girls. Well, I assume. I dunno what I thought, but that seems about right.

biguatschool: DONT CRINK SMIRNOFF
biguatschool: heh, I havent drinkin tghat much ;-)
biguatschool: CCFCIUUKIN G CLOWNS

Up early early today for miserable studying and printing, and I was really gonna try and talk to Perfect Legs after class today and at least try... something (Of the 3 who loved me, she wins because she does not have the typical beerslut raspy throat voice that sort of makes me want to die. I remember once I was in the candy store, and this pretty hot girl was with a fairly fugly dude, and I thought, "Well, how the hell did that happen?" and then she said something and sounded like Carol Channing or a throat cancer patient, and it all became clear... He must be deaf), but she left before me, and now I'll prolly never see her again. Sniff. But that's what the drunken stalking is for, right? :D Just let me have my spots of happiness, even if they are technically "criminal."

There. Happy, Shelly, everyone? Swell.