Log Out Challenge. 1 week without facebook.

Sounds silly I know, but I'm on facebook so much without actually doing anything and barely talking to people that I thought, "Will I miss it if I just don't get on?"

I didn't want to up and delete my account yet I wanted to experiment so I decided to swear off Facebook for a full week. I'm not even going to do anything that requires signing into my account to connect. This is the list of everything I haven't been able to do so far as a result. Just to show how much I use facebook's capabilities.

Day 1 Monday:

• Heard quite a few things I would've liked to make into a status.
• Saw some really funny videos I would've liked to share.
• I found out that a friend who's house I wanted to go to this weekend doesn't have her phone and can only communicate- drumroll please - through facebook.
• And general talking.
• I couldn't connect my Picnik to my profile without logging in as my mom had logged in on her profile from this computer so it didn't have it saved.

However I found that I didn't really have the urge to get on, and my brother as well as a few friends have told me I won't last three days without facebook. Joke's on them...I WILL last three days...wait....i mean seven...yeah that.... *gulps* wish me luck.

I'd like to call hax on this weekend.

The universe definitely trolled me this weekend. Let's just go day by day.

Friday: Jazz band up and got cancelled because Ryan felt the need to jokingly ask Schatz if we could just not have it and Schatz actually said go for it. I decided to go home where my parents were acting like children. Which isn't out of the ordinary but it was hightened a bit to the point where I literally asked them to shut up because their immaturity was giving me a headache because they bicker like 6 year olds. Drumline practice was ok except that the string was broken on the marimba I use and our drumset player tried to tell me that Jesus invented drums through the whole transitive property thing (If A=B and A=C then B=C) because I said drums were around before Jesus meaning the 'robed in flesh/ first Noel' Jesus and not the spiritual Jesus. Practice then ended on a good note...pun intended and I got to watch Dinner for Schmucks and half of The Other Guys.

Saturday: Woke up by Josh angrily screaming my name then five minutes later denying it completely. Not jokingly but literally denying having yelled at me. The only thing that secured my sanity here was that mom heard him too. Got a call from my cousin who said he couldn't come over because he was stuck with his younger cousins at him mom's house despite this being my uncle's weekend to have them. The girl cousin who never spends the night, however, was able to go with my uncle for his usual weekend visit which I found to be idiotic. I got a little solace from the madness by going to South an hour early for the game and hangin with the winterguard before they left for their first contest. I have to say, they're a lot of fun to be around when you're not stuck with them for 6 months and you haven't seen many of them very often since the 6 months you were stuck with them. I also got to see Alyssa, who is a friend of mine who moved to Iowa and had come back to TH to visit the guard peeps before they left for the contest. The basketball game was qutie a bit of fun too. Then I went home and watched the rest of The Other Guys.

Today (Sunday): Woke up to dad cleaning the water heater which was quite peculiar and the morning just had a weird vibe to it from the start. I had made plans on friday during lunch with Alla, Beka, Danny Baker, and a few others to see Tron today but nobody called me so I just figured they decided not to go. Until Beka's status pops up on the front page of Facebook stating that she was about to do the aforementioned events with the aforementioned people and nobody bothered to tell the aforementioned me. Needless to say I was kinda pissy about this since no one decided to contact me especially since I was not only standing there but also contributed to the making of the plans and promised a contact when the time was decided upon. Guess 5's a crowd and the perfect group is 2 girls and 2 guys that neither girl is dating. I tried texting Alyssa to see if she wanted to hang out before she left, only to find that the number I had for her was wrong and found out the hard way that it belonged to a 50 something-sounding woman after an awkward (but slightly pleasant) conversation.

I also tried making plans for tomorow, being that it's MLK day, with my band that I and friends put together for the SMASH Battle of the Bands. I got a text from Bethany, yes her she's our singer and no one objects to it so I won't get shanked by drama kids...hopefully, asking what time. I told her I'd talk to Cody, our drummer who's house was the venue of choice, and get back to her and the rest of the people. After sending multiple texts and a facebook mass message to give details, the only response I get from anyone is from one of our trumpet players, Bartley, who said he couldn't make it. Thus causing the last of my weekend plans to be flushed down the toilet like yesterday's Taco Bell. Did a few stages of Sonic Adventure 2 where you have to do treasure hunting missions that are friggin hard BUT the locations of the gems you have to find kept changing with each life I lost so even a walkthrough didn't help at all. Josh somehow lost his phone by it slipping through the front console of the car. I managed to find it in the floor board as it had slid all the way to the back. Now everything is over, let's hope tomorrow is better.

Sidenote: This was another weird thing but didn't affect my day or mood. The static from my monitor caused a piece of string to stand up but it was weighed down by a pencil or something so it didn't just cling to the monitor. It was pulled up but only to a certain point to where it could 'stand up.' When I moved my finger toward it, I was able to push it without actually touching it like I had disturbed the electromagnetic field or something. Total physics trollin.

Well I've had enough of the weirdness. Going to bed. Night peeps.

If tomorrow's just a future yesterday. Let's make today a fortnight ago. (...totally copyrightin that $#...screw it SHIT! there we go...that felt good not having to censor myself.)

Almost Christmas. woohoo

Multiple story arcs here so lets get down to business, shall we?

Music And Idiocy: I've been pretty beastly in the music department lately. Like, more than usual even. I've been roaring on my trombone during pep band as well as bossing percussion. I'm just killin it every which way. Played the orchestra concert this past thursday which went well. Except for the fact that during warm up I almost lost my $#!7 because this one broad by the name of Lillian gets up on Murph's conductor stand to lead the group in warm ups (some of us Wind Ensemble people accompanied the orchestra) then in a run of the chart order. She didn't conduct at all and the group was getting out of time despite Kristan's best efforts to shout out things on the fly to keep them together. When Lillian gave an extremely flashy cut-off (as Cindy so hilariously put it) like a chiken bursting out of the coop, I asked if I could conduct so she could play (the excuse I used when really I just wanted her gone) and that I was losing my mind at how out of time the group was. Well she refused, again despite Kristan's best efforts this time to get me up there because I can actually conduct, stating that she knew what she was doing. I didn't disagree with her in this but I couldn't know one way or the other because she DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!! IN PIECES WITH PAUSES AND TEMPO CHANGES!! Seriously, I was about to flip a bitch. No foolin. I started snapping my fingers in time and clapping so they'd get in time and almost grabbed the cowbell. Luckily they were good in front of a conductor and the concert went smoothly. That and I showed no mercy with my timpani part in dictating the tempo. The other groups were very good as well. They included the cadet orchestra, both choirs, and a choir and orchestra combination. Oh speaking of choir I saw Bethany. (I know what you're thinking, "Ugh. Really Levi? More crap about Bethany?" But this was just something I had to share because it made me laugh) Which brings me to my next story...

And not a single F*** was given that day: After the concert I was talking to my cousin because my 2nd cousin, his son, is in the orchestra. Well I bid them farewell then saw Bethany and figured I'd say hi real quick and make my final rounds to the other choir kids before splittin. Well we were talking and walking toward the door when this one choir kid (I don't know the cat but he seemed to be the kind of guy who was a little too into the show Glee if you know what I mean. Not tryin to be offensive I'm just aiming for description of character) comes up and walks on the other side of Bethany then proceeds to say, "Oh look, Bethany's boyfriend is right up ahead!" As if to make a point to me. (to refer to past events, Bethany's friends hate me for reasons I still don't know and gave her constant crap while we dated until she broke up with me)To which I responded, "Oh yeah I know Caleb, he's a great guy. Hey Caleb how are ya?" and shook his hand. If it were an internet comic that frame would've been the one with the "Eff Yea" guy. Bethany also hugged me like 3 or 4 times before she left so it was just like a huuuuge middle finger to that kid. Bethany and I are still friends. She's ok with it, I'm ok with it, frig even Caleb is ok with it. I can't see why her other friends can't seem to back the frick off besides the fact that I'm pretty good friends with Marcus. Doesn't bother me though. Because either way, I still win. And it's sooo much fun to be trollin on those kids when they think they're so clever then their minds just get blown and boom goes the dynamite.

I'm apparently a good friend: Erin and I are pretty good friends again. The whole awkwardness thing has blown over completely and I'm back up in the standing with her that I was in before I even asked her out. She sent me a text a few nights ago tellling me that she was glad I was in her econ class and that I'm such a good friend because I back her up on stuff against Tyranny. I capitalize Tyranny because that's the chicks name yet also a great descriptor. So yeah there I am. Friends with Erin once more. That's all it'l ever be. I'd almost like to try asking her out again but do it in person this time like a man with some fricking balls but I'm pretty sure I'll get rejected just not in as indignant of a fashion as the sticky note got.

Misc Stuff: My parents re-arranged my room completely without telling me and screwed up my placement of things because I saw a mouse in the house near my room that probably came in when we brought the Christmas decorations in from the shed.

Murph and I pranked one of the freshmen into "finding the tacet" which is a percussion item that doesn't actually exist. I told her it was in the percussion cabinet next to the cymbal tuner. After I let her off the hook she smacked me upside the head quite vigorously but we had a good laugh about it. I still felt bad though so I got her a bag of Jolly Ranchers and then she gave me some of her mom's homemade pepperment bark.

Kara and I are in quite the good friendship standing too. We currently have plans for her to come to my house and play M rated games (such as CoD: Black Ops) and watch R rated movies because her parents won't let her despite her being 17. Oooh man. I'm such an enabler of rebellion I know but honestly I've been playing M rated games and watching R rated movies for as long as I can remember and it hasn't made me use drugs, extreme profanity, get a girl pregnant, or kill anyone. So I figured someone who's already a teenager wouldn't be that scarred by Beverly Hills Cop, Old School, or Mortal Kombat.

I got accepted to Purdue much to the chagrin of my mother, had a great performance at Bloomington North High School today with the Jazz Band, and I miss my bestest friend ever Brittany Ferrari incredibly. ^_^ That's pretty much it.

update on last blog

Ok so here's how things have gone since my last post. I'll keep this brief.

1. Got new lightbulbs for the dining room! ^_^
2. Still kind of shaky but it's not as bad as it was. I should probably try cutting out caffine...
3. Erin and I are still friends. I talked to her today (not about the whole situation but just casual conversation. It's like it didn't even happen and I'm not about to bring it up)

UUUhhhh....i think that's it. cookin with dad tomorrow for Turkey Day and hangin out with a fine lady by the name of ashley on saturday. should be a fun weekend. who know's i might even go to church on sunday morning. guess we'll just have to wait and see if i can actually get up in time haha. XD

Happy Thanksgiving and have a safe and relatively trample-free Black Friday everyone!

Recent thoughts and occurences

Had kind of an odd week. Made Marimba 1 for indoor which is like the straight up boss position as far as PIT is concerned. First basketball game for pep band is saturday so i'm looking forward to that. Not to mention jazz band is in full swing (pun totally intended) and Keiser and Cindy are finally official which makes me happy.

Now for the suckish part of the week. I've had steady headaches all week and have been more jittery than usual. My hands usually shake but it's felt slightly worse in the last few days and i've had occurences where i feel like my heart's beating right out of my chest like i'm some sort of Looney Toons character. I tried doing stuff to relax but i just can't seem to when i'm not in bed. Ironically enough the only time i'm not all jittery is during band when i'm in the loudest environment possible. At home when I'm supposed to be able to relax i feel like i can't because i'm always having to hop up and do something, mostly dog related which i just realized i forgot to put Caesar up in his barn for bed time which i will now do before resuming this post. FRICK!!!!! ok that's done back to business. I tried listening to one of those relaxation therepy videos and that just made my heart race even faster which i found odd. It's like i've been so used to trying not to fall asleep at school (mostly due to my rather loud snoring which would be bad in a classroom even during off days when nothing is happening and no one would usually care if i slept) that my natural response of adrenaline rushes to stay awake has bled into my relaxation time.

The lightbulbs burned out in the dining room. Which means i now can't eat dinner in there at the computer because i have this strange phobia of eating in the dark that i've had since my early childhood. Simple remedy is eating somewhere else sure but it's just my usual habit.

And if that all wasn't enough I asked out a girl yesterday. Yay right? Haha Fat chance. Erin is her name and i sit right in front of her in Econ. We're fairly good friends and i've known her since about 2nd grade but just developed 'more-than-friend' sentiments for her in the last couple years. I wouldn't call it a crush because it wasn't that strong but still that's semantics i suppose. Well i didn't know how i was going to go about it but i knew i had to. mostly because my friends who knew i was planning to, wouldn't shut up until i did (band kids are supportive in that regard haha). Well she left the classroom to go take something to another teacher and another friend, Cindy, said it'd be cute to write it on one of Erin's sticky notes with the little yes or no check boxes (yes like the George Strait song. it seemed campy to me at first due to hearing that song all the time as it is my parents' "song" but i disregarded that fact agreeing with Cindy). My plan was to get up to talk to Joseph, who sat on the other side of the room, then when she saw it i'd go back over and turn on the smoothness.

However when she saw it a look of slight...indignation i suppose is the word, came across her face with a sarcastic "really?" tagging along. She crumpled it up and threw it away and told Cindy "What am i three?" in response to cindy asking if erin would answer me. Granted i know i'm not exactly catch of the year but well (brutal honesty in 3..2..1) you don't need to be a bitch about it. I mean seriously i've been on of the few people who has legitamately supported her among the rest of us who are tired of hearing about all the marathon stuff as a friend and when i thought that maybe our friendship could evolve, it all fell apart. I didn't talk to her at all today but apparently she had a date tonight with a certain Mark Schmitz. Tall, rich, and graduated already. Frickin ridiculousness. I never expected her to take the shallow choice but she did say today as well that she'd totally be a trophy wife so i guess the true colors really do come out when you wipe the bullcrap out of your eyes. I don't mean to be up here badmouthing her as i'd still like to be friends with her. I'm just quite pissy about this and am ranting, fair enough eh? Oh well i shouldn't worry. it's not the first time one of the schmitz boys has indirectly screwed up my endeavor for a relationship. Two years ago a girl named Arika chose the younger of the two boys over me, and now the older with erin. But i'm not worried. Money and nice cars will only get you so far and don't even get you genuinely nice women anyway unless you get lucky and find a nice woman who doesn't care. Still it's a short term WTF'ery that i'm not a fan of.

It sucked because she looked really nice today and i couldn't even tell her. I'm pretty sure the only people i even made eye contact with during first hour today were Joseph, Cindy, my homeboy Nate and Mr. Mancuso.

Who knows? maybe all of this is some cosmic thing. Like the universe is against me dating certain ladies. The whole time i dated bethany she was catching crap from people which caused her to break up with me, but she got a new man and no one has made any objections to it. Not even me as he's a nice guy from what I've seen (then again keiser doesn't really like him which makes me giggle because i kind of hated that i couldn't find a flaw in the guy at first) And now i've struck out with Erin. I don't think the universe is totally against me dating period as i'm not sure i've enacted some sort of niche in the karma line of life or some crap but even if it is against me i'm not really going to give a crap. I very well may see a certain lady named Beka in my future but we'll have to wait and see. Fate likes to throw curveballed boomerangs.

This is kind of a wah wah pity i'm losing my mind blah thing but it's kind of a triumph. I got over my self proclaimed over thinking without action that i've dubbed "Hamletism" and found my new favorite novel in Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. Writing this is actually making me feel calmer. I think my inability to relax is just from bottling everything up. Who knows cuz i sure as frig don't. Guess i'll play it by ear just like the Orchestra music that i have a rehearsal for tomorrow that i haven't practiced because it's quarter notes on timpani. Good night everyone.

Short Story Idea (Current title "All Signs Point to Yes" )

Devin Hoover woke up in a cold sweat. The thunderstorms that shook the entire neighborhood, although incredibly loud and dismal, were nothing in the way of frightening compared to the nightmare he just escaped from. He got out of bed with the pictures of events still to come, the same that plagued his dream, swirling around with no real coherency with static being all he could hear. He worked his way out of bed and stumbled toward the door in an effort to escape the madness in his head. The storm had knocked out the power to the whole house, causing his room to have absolute zero visibility. As he had neared the door with nothing but his cellphone to light the way, he tripped over a carelessly placed guitar case and fell with his arm hitting a shelf of books and knicknacks. He got on his hands and knees but before he could stand, he felt a large thud on the back of his head and he was rendered unconscious. He entered the dream once more, except this time with only one picture in his mind. The picture of his imminent death. He awoke the next morning to absolute silence in the house with the exception of his sister talking on the phone downstairs. He looked at the floor to find his Magic 8 Ball, the source of his blow to the head the night before. He picked it up, shook it, and asked if his dream could become a reality. The pyramid inside the looking glass of the ball showed the response. All signs point to yes.

thoughts for this evening

Marching band started to get stagnant for a while. I even got to the point for a week or two where I got really fed up with quite a few people in the band. I still am but now it's only the people that warrant it. Today, however, we did really well at a District contest and made it on to Regionals (the order goes District, Regional, SemiState and State Finals). We needed a 60 to get to Regionals. We got a 68.15 which is amazing considering at the Regional contest a 70 is needed to get to Semi-State. It definitely re-charged my spirits and made me remember why I do marching band in the first place. From what I've seen the other people in the band that are getting burned out in this last month. So things are going pretty good on that front.

Now let's get to the real depths of my mind...

You guys know about my whole dating situation with Bethany. I helped her and her mom take stuff out to their van when they were picking up their choir fundraiser items a few days ago. I gotta say it was a weird way to meet her mom considering I dont know if her mom knew exactly who I was haha. Just an hour ago (from the time of writing this) I saw that she's going out with a guy now, which doesn't bother me seeing as how it's not my problem. However, during the whole course that we dated (yes that ever so epicly looong 2 weeks :/ ) she never wanted us to change our facebook relationship status because she felt her mom would flip out. I didn't mind since I figured it didn't matter. The day after we started going out she said she had a talk with her parents about dating. Looks like they're ok with it now.

Granted I'm happy for Bethany and her new boyfriend. I've met the guy a few times in the past and he's pretty cool. Guess what gets me a little pissy is that they're "facebook official" and i have to say, although it feels nice to kind of be the catalyst to her parents being ok with her dating, I almost feel like I was used as a springboard to get her to that point and other than that I'm just a forgettable chapter and back to where I was way back before we dated. Granted I know facebook doesn't determine life but it's more the principle of the thing. I don't know maybe I think too much and let things get to me that shouldn't. Seems to be a recurring issue that I have trouble resolving.

Unrelated thought : I'm in real need of a driver's license and a job also (both of which I am currently unable to get due to lack of time.)

Ultimately marching band's pretty much the only thing that's engaging. Other than that everything feels...stagnant. I have the strangest feeling that I'm becoming the quiet observer yet again. Who knows? Knowing me I've probably just hit a dry patch and maybe something's gonna happen to make things fun again. S'pose only time will tell.