The Life and Times

posted by Charleton @ 10:54 PM

This is not a eulogy.

But it is a funeral.

My life is over. And it follows that this blog is now over as well. Why so sudden and abrupt of a finale, you ask? I must confess that it is not abrupt, but merely poorly documented. My life has actually been headed in a downward spiral for some time now, I just was too preoccupied with the nothingness I was approaching to make any mention of anything here. How did this happen? Actually a large part of it is this school. Lawrenceville is unbelievably boring. No one who hasn't experienced it will believe me, but underneath the veneer, Lawrenceville is actually an incredibly uneventful place. In middle school, if I ever thought that I might be spending Friday, or even Saturday, nights just wandering and looking for something to do I wouldn't have come here. If I had known that I would be in a prison called Kennedy with no chance of getting out beside serving out my sentence of two years, I would not have come. But I did come, and I can't leave. I know, in my head, that I would never really leave here. Lawrenceville has gotten it's claws into me, and it's not letting go. It's really just the people that I like though. The school, the administration both suck. I shouldn't feel this stressed about anything. I shouldn't constantly be in a bad mood. I shouldn't have to regret a decision to come to school here. But yet, I still know that there was no place else for me to go. I can't really go back home to school there. Where? To the public high school that, according to George Bush, is leaving children behind? To the private schools full of snooty rich kids who think and act like they own anything? Home School? It shames and pains me that this is my best option. But again I digress.

That was just a brief summary of what was sending me on a downward spiral. But now I will return to the subject of the ending of this blog. The topic of this blog was "the unbelievably true stories of the greatest life you'll ever hear of." I cannot continue to chronicle my meager existence under the auspices of so great a boast. I cannot continue to spit out bits and pieces of the happenings of my day and expect a huge response. So I will end this now. I should have done it a while back, but I didn't, so I'm doing it now.

I may find a way back into the blogosphere, should L'ville or at least Kennedy have some grand turnaround. I've also toyed around with the idea of becoming a poet and hiding behind the sentence "it means whatever you want it to mean." And hey, November is national novel writing month. Maybe I'll blog a novel. But this is definitely the end of The Life and Times.

Charleton

posted by Charleton @ 10:39 PM

Time to get funky

I want to get funky with someone today:

1. I want to get funky with Mr. Larson. OK what is your problem JLar? I haven't heard from you since the end of last year and I'm supposed to be the varsity football trainer? What is this? So I'm going to email you for the 2nd and last time. And I really hope that you ask me to show up for preseason this Sunday, so that I can say no. Because how are you going to ask me to all of a sudden change my VERY busy schedule just to accomodate you? I really don't think so. You can just be stuck with Belle then.

In other news...this is my last week at my job, and I hope I never have to work for her again. I learned a real lesson about staying in school though. So yeah....I guess I'lll be showing up a school on September 6th as an RTA whether DC emails me back or not.

posted by Charleton @ 3:14 PM

The True Story of August Seventeenth

“Swallow!” she commanded, standing over me to make sure I did as I was instructed. I say quietly in my chair at this round table, my mouth struggling to consume this new intruder with as little contact with my tongue as possible. This pile of amorphous semi-solid had been called food by its server, but it must have been some devious poison, some mysterious substance designed to make me sick. I chewed. I chewed. I swallowed.
The day had begun as any other: we arrived at her house a little after nine o’clock as always with an understood dread of the rest of our time there. She called to us as we got out of the car.
“Good morning! We have a lot of work to do today.”
“Hi Dr. J,” said my sister more cheerily than I thought was deserved. “How did things go last night?”
As part of her church’s “Backyard Bible Study” initiative, Dr. Jamison had hosted 16 guests for dinner the previous evening.
“It was great!” she said as she hugged us. I did not hug back. “We had the most delicious food. And, as a treat, there’s some left over, so we’ll have to have that, won’t we?”
Just then, an involuntary breath of air passed into my lungs as I pondered the infinite horrors that could come from eating in a garbage dump. I knew, as surely as I had known anything before, that I must avoid eating her food at all costs. Could I fake sick? Could I come up for an excuse for our leaving early? There was no time to consider my options just then, because there was work to do.
We wasted away the morning doing the meaningless task of attempting to clean up this filthy woman’s house: a summer job born of every evil intention anyone had ever had for me. She had spent her entire life, it seemed, saving every bit of trash she could find, in case she might have the chance to torture two young, innocent souls such as us. The clock struck noon. Midday. My time was running out. Any second now, I was going to be forced to have lunch within the bowels of Oscar’s trashcan, and I had yet to work out a plan. We ascended the stairs to the kitchen, and she said those 4 words that changed my life.
“It’s time for lunch.”
I panicked.
Before I could stop myself, before I had really examined this plan made too hastily, I had already spoken my reply.
“But we’ve got to clean up this dump first!” I blurted out, looking first to the wide-eyed, shocked expression of my sister and next to the face of the architect of my demise.
“You’re right,” she stated. She had ignored my fearful, anticipating glare and had agreed with me. It worked! I had bought some time. My sister and I set to work cleaning up from the previous night, finding butter that had set out all night (that she intended to keep) and several cups half-full of a strange liquid resembling milk added to orange juice and ice tea. I held my breath the whole time. Before long, our job was finished. The kitchen looked as clean as it was going to get. We had worked too quickly.
Only a half an hour had passed, and I was no closer to escaping my fate.
“I’m going to go wake up my husband so that he can eat with us,” she informed me, and seemed to add “Stay put.”
I had been granted another brief delay, and I knew now exactly how not to waste it. I marched downstairs determinedly, ignoring my sister’s questions and opening the door to the garage. I continued through the garage and into the backyard and arrived at the garden. I opened the gate meant to keep out the deer, and I weeded. I weeded furiously, ripping up the roots of any plant I did not recognize until I heard voiced again. It was her.
“Good idea. And look! We got some tomatoes already. Pick those and we’ll take a picture. Let me go get my camera.”
YES! With any luck, we would be out here until it was two o’clock and time to go, and I would not have to suffer the filthy cuisine waiting for me in the kitchen.
But no, I did not get off that easy. We finished taking pictures at 1:15. I was all-in, and I got screwed by the river card. My battle was over. She was victorious. --To Be Continued--

posted by Charleton @ 4:28 PM

Ahoy

So we had to go back to work at Felicia's house today after that really nice 4-day weekend we had. But some stuff went down, and we managed to be able to arrive an hour late and leave an hour early. Sweet. On Friday, me and the chauffeur went to Fatburger for lunch. Seriously, one of the best burgers I've had. Delicious. Everyone who lives near one should go to it and offer it your firstborn.

In other news, welcome to Justin Scott, the newest member of blogspot whose site I intend to read. The picture of you is amusing.

In real news, I'm all of a sudden really unsure about school. Well, not school, but going to school. I am involved in two things that require preseason, or some form of it. The first is my being potential/tentative trainer for V. football. The second of which is my being RTA for Kennedy again. But of course, neither of the people in charge of these two activities has returned my e-mails, thus casting a cloud over my move-in plans. I seriously am pretty clueless as to when I'll be on campus. Not good, because I plan on bringing a couch with me, and I don't think I would be moving into Kennedy at the beginning of football preseason so...

Whatevs. I'll just keep checking my e-mail every 3 minutes as usual.

posted by Charleton @ 3:17 PM

Oh no! I got tagged!

"List ten songs you are currently digging....it doesn't matter what genre, or if they have words, or even if they're no good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artists and the tens songs on your Blog. Then tag five other people to see what they're listening to."

Can't Satisfy Her-I Wayne because for the longest time, I didn't realize that the song was about a prostitute who's either 7 or 11 I can't remember right now. Still good though. Just don't listen to the lyrics.

Back Then-Mike Jones I too like this song Carolina. and yes I have it, so ill send it to you. Please don't tell me that I'm the only person who got bored and called 281-330-8004?

Hide and Seek-Imogen Heap because she has a really good voice, and it's just a good song.

The Blower's Daughter-Damien Rice because Closer was a really good movie.

What's So Different-Ginuwine because this is a really important lesson: "you're tellin me it's different but what the hell is different, if you cheated on him, you'll do it to me"

The Storm-Lenny Kravitz and Jay-Z even though I am officially over Jay-Z, I like lenny kravitz, and Just Blaze is probably my second favorite producer, after Timbaland.

Shake It Off-Mariah Carey because I know that no girl in her right mind would shake me off because I'm just that nice.

Robert Johnson-Justin Scott because I'm all about that subterranean stuff. And because I lived in this kid's room last year.

Gone Gone Gone-The New Deal because it's tied for the best song without words with the Kill Bill Whistle

and finally....

The entire BE album-Common because it's just a really good album, and everyone should go out and buy it. "Came home to the crib, got two kids, and my baby mama late. UH-OH UH-OH UH-OH"

Since I don't even have 5 blogger friends (and SOMEBODY had to go and tag devin and be tagged herself), I tag Chavanne, Anthony, and Joe Cha.

And I'm going to come up with one of these later so that I can tag all the good people first.

posted by Charleton @ 2:18 PM

Been a lot of places Seen a lot of faces

I suddenly remembered that phrase as the title of some xanga that I came across. I don't remember whose it was, but I think it was Sarah Schiel's sister's. Strange. Anyway, got back from VA on Monday. It wasn't the best trip ever. Saw some family and what not. We watched movies in the car on the way down, and pulp fiction is one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. Quentin Tarantino is cool people in my book. I think I'm going to make an audio post soon, because Chavanne and I have a lot of good quotes, most of which require an accent of some sort. I feel like there was something more to say, but I can't think of it right now, so I leave you.

posted by Charleton @ 5:46 PM