The back of my Gobstoppers box says, “ENTER THE WILD WORLD OF WONKA AT WONKA.COM” but I misread it as “ENTER THE WILD WORLD OF VOMIT AT WONKA.COM”.

Whee, vomit!

One of my best friends in high school was Lisa. I met her through AYS (Albuquerque Youth Symphony, for those of you not in da know,) where she played cello and I played violin. [Insert Asian girl playing violin joke here.] I met her late in high school, but we became very good friends very quickly. When we went off to college, I went west and she went east. We made half-assed attempts to stay in touch through freshman year, but our respective lives caught up with us, and to make a long story slightly less long, I completely lost track of her after sophomore year. Every so often, for the next three years, I would have mild panic attacks when I realized I had lost touch with her, but I never made much of an attempt to find out where she was. But yesterday I was thinking about her, and I went ahead and called her dad to try to find out where she was. Fortunately, Albuquerque has a way of sucking people in, so her dad’s number hadn’t changed. So it was with some trepidation last night that I gave Lisa a call. After getting over the initial shock of actually talking to each other, I found out that she had moved to Kansas City and was doing some pretty kickass stuff. She manages a coffee shop, and through that, she’s met some musicians that she’s been playing some gigs with, including one singer who wants Lisa to play and tour with her.

Lisa talked about how she never imagined that she would be where she is today, until we both realized that neither of us really knew where we expected ourselves to be at this time in our lives. I’ve told a lot of people that I find it strange that this basically the first time in my life where I don’t have any plan. When I was in middle school, I wanted to be in high school. In high school, it was college. In college, it was getting a job. But now, here I am with a job and an apartment, and I have no idea what to do next. I can’t really imagine myself programming at EA 10 years from now, but I can’t imagine what else I would be doing. So instead, I’m just sort of meandering through life, hoping that I don’t screw up.

In other news, this weekend I’m going to visit Nathaniel, who I also haven’t seen in nearly 3 years. It is sure to be a good time, and I’m excited to see what he’s been up to.

1) On the way to work today I saw a Porsche with the license plate “HOT MKT”. You get no guesses as to how he made his money.

2) In the cafeteria at lunch I saw a woman who looks exactly like Monica Lewinsky.

3) Plum Passion Starbursts taste like ass.

So how ’bout them blackouts? Just so everyone knows, YGB and Moo are fine, if not a little annoyed.

Wow, so it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted here, if you haven’t noticed. Mariel and I have been getting ready to move, so that’s taken up most of our time. Moving day is going to consist basically of mass chaos mixed with a lot of boxes and a U-Haul moving van. Good times. Mariel’s sister is coming to help us move, though, which is nice. Nothing brings a family together like hernias. (Hernii?)

I’ve also discovered some cool new websites to share. The first is courtesy of Moo. She found out that a company called Art Box has a character called Sha Sha. That, in and of itself is pretty cool, but they also have TONS of Sha Sha merchandise. Go here and see for yourself. (Search for ‘Sha Sha’ in the search box.)

The second website, shown to me by someone at work, is called Found Magazine. It’s a collection of random things found by people from all over the world. This to-do list is one of my favorites. Check out the “find of the week” for some great ones.

Other than that, I’d just like to say that if you are that bastard in the red Miata who cut me off on El Camino and then tried to stare me down at the stop light, I hope your tonsils explode. Kablooey.