The Conclusion of Chapter One

So I know you all have been waiting with bated breath (ha, ha) here's the conclusion of Chapter One.



The interesting thing about Travis is that Travis is a very smart person. I think he is resigned to the fact that college is just about his last chance to go wild. Which is interesting, because Travis is in love. Travis loves Collene. Before Collene, Travis loved Karen and before Karen, I’m not really sure because he just refers to her as “the ex.” “The ex” still keeps in touch. I know this because whenever the ex shows up on his instant message program he utters a loud groanal, “FUCK.” Apparently “the ex” is still very much in love with Travis. I am not in love with anyone. Some people say I’m in love with myself, but those people are assholes and I hate them.
It’s Wednesday night and Travis and I are sitting at home with the last remaining Corona. I am very upset because we don’t have limes and Travis isn’t motivated enough to go get in his car.
“You’ve got legs asshole, either go drive my car or fuckin walk. Quit bitching.”
“Fuck you.”
I walk back into our little excuse for a kitchen and glance at the clock on the wall. It is one of a few things that isn’t broken in our house. When I say our house, I mean a two bedroom one bathroom one mini-living room and pitiful excuse for a kitchen, “house.” I love it. I’m a messy person, and since the house encourages my messiness, the house and I get along real well.
The clock reads 7 o’clock. I look at Travis. He isn’t drunk.
“Get in the car, we’re getting beer.”
He begins to stir. “Did you call the girls?”
I hadn’t, but I lied anyway. “Yes, they are all coming, including the hot blonde from math class.” The last part was true; I had invited her on the way out of class. Apparently, two shots of liquid courage transforms me into James Bond. Hurray for Bacardi.
Travis’s car is a white Passat. The trunk is always full of whatever Travis and I are drinking. It has been the vessel of many an adventure. It now sits in a junkyard somewhere, the interior scorched. I miss it.
This night we show up at the local Drive Thru liquor store to find the store empty. I mean deserted fuckin empty. We are in a hurry so we walk around behind the counter and start yelling for someone to fuckin help us.
“Hey Jose, or Jorge, or whatever the fuckin Saint you’re named after, get your ass out here and get me some beer.” Don’t separate a man between him and his drink.
I had taken two shots in the car and was in no mood for games. I looked at Travis and we both knew what had to be done.
Fifteen minutes and four trips later, the car was filled with 15 handles, and 10 cases of beer. We left a twenty dollar bill on the counter. I never knew where the fuck Jose wandered off to, but I imagine he passed out in the bathroom. His job sucked and I don’t blame him.
Heading south on the 405 Travis and I were in business. I took Travis’s cell phone and began to dial. Party time.

My Novel

Out of the 30 - 40 visitors I get a day between my two sites, only three chose to let me know they would like me to post excerpts of my novel. So, I'm going to take that as a broader microchasm of how the rest of you feel and go ahead and post a bit of the beginning. To give you a little idea of where I am in terms of finishing- you are about to read the beginning of Chapter One (not all of it). I finished Chapter Three two nights ago.

I hope you enjoy a twisted and odd look at life through the eyes of Rob...



A lot can be said about the trip we took. I’ll say most of it. Travis and I live in Southern California, near Santa Monica. It’s pretty, but it’s LA. LA sucks. Parts of LA don’t suck. We lived in a nice slice of suburbia called Westchester. It’s only important because of the jail we get thrown in later. But I’m getting ahead of myself, we have places to go, idiots to meet, girls to piss off. The trip really started as a joke. The trip was a joke.

Chapter 1 - My Name is Rob

I never quite understood why math was important to English majors. English majors, of all other majors, really have no idea what the hell they are doing. Travis and I are English majors. We sit in the back of the same goddamn Math class, listen to the teacher read out of the book, and nudge each other to keep from snoring. Travis leans over to me, “How much are we paying for this school?”
I’m not sure, but I think about it. “Maybe 40 grand, why?”
“Dude, we could go to fuckin Mexico and live like kings for 40 grand. Let’s open up an In N Out Burger down there. Shit, Mexicans love McDonald’s, they’d go apeshit for In N Out.”
I’m compelled to say that In N Out is a private non franchising corporation, but I don’t give shit. Plus before class Travis and I had two shots of Bacardi. Not nearly enough to get us hammered, but enough to make the clock go by faster. The girls in this class are aware that Travis and I are hammered- they haven’t decided if it’s cool or not. Travis and I don’t care.
The teacher continues to drone on about exponential equations. Travis leans over again, “Are we partying tonight?”
“What day is it?”
“Wednesday”
I consider my options. Thursday through Saturday are our normal operating hours. The girls at this college, however, are boring. They are gorgeous, but boring. We could drive to UCSB and pass out in Travis’s car. No, I’m not that desperate. Then in the midst of my thoughts, Travis has a moment of clarity.
“Jesus tap dancing Christ.” A few girls start giggling, Travis is louder than he realizes.
“What? Did you have a thought? Don’t lose it.”
“Fuck you. We have a four day weekend dickhead.”
It takes a moment for this to settle in my brain. Millions of doors are opening to us. We could throw parties at our place, we could party hop the neighborhood, pass out in Travis’s beach house. Again, Travis interrupts my thought process.
“Dude, we should throw a party at the beach house”
And with that, it was settled. He didn’t have to ask me twice. That just left the little chore of getting enough alcohol to last me, Travis and whatever girls decided to join us in our debauchery. Fuck guys. My alcohol is for me and the girl next to me. I may have said this out loud.
“Fuckin A man.” I get a nod of approval from Travis. A blonde girl in front of me laughs. She turns around and stares at me.
She smiles and asks, “Are you guys drunk?”
For a second I think about letting Travis handle this beauty. However, I beat him to the punch.
“My name is Rob, and I’ll be as drunk as you want me to be.”

A Vote Perhaps

Updates have been lacking a bit and I apologize. I have begun work on a novel of sorts and that has been taking up whatever time I have between work and finals. However, I should be updating more frequently and thoughtfully hopefully as time goes on.

In the meantime, if you would like to see me start posting bits and excerpts of the novel, please let me know in the comments section of this post. It would be easy for me to do and you might find the novel interesting. Or if you would rather I keep the site as is and focus on essays on whatever topic strikes me, let me know that too. We'll see what happens.

The Loft

The Loft is a building on campus, within shouting distance of my apartment. The Loft is my school sanctioned job. I get paid 7.15 an hour to do basically nothing. This is not to say I do not love my job because in fact, my job is probably the greatest thing since sliced bread. Loyola Marymount pays me to supervise parties and get togethers and as if that isn't great enough, they give the Loft staff money to plan parties. For example I came up with the advertising scheme for our Toga Party: a picture of John Belushi in his Toga, totally drunk.

Needless to say hundreds of college kids showed up and the Loft got a favorable review from the administration (minus some kids who showed up with open beer, which I thought was hysterical; the administration viewed this as a "bad thing").

I have two bosses. One of them is a gorgeous internationally ranked Irish step dancer. She makes fun of me on a continuous basis because I contend that I am more Irish than she is. I base this on the fact that I can drink more than she can and own a pair of Irish boxers.

My other boss and I continually go on In N' Out adventures because neither of us own a car. This usually involves one of us getting bored of playing Halo while on the job and deciding that we are indeed, hungry. Then we call every single person we can recall from memory, including people we do not really know, and begging them to take us to In N' Out. If this does not work, we then degenerate into prank calling people.

In October my job became designing a Haunted House (a.k.a. Haunted Loft). Once completed I scared people for three nights in a row, 9PM-12AM. Keep in mind I was paid for all this work.

Some nights my bosses will randomly decide to take all of us out to dinner. Other nights are devoted to the bosses buying us all drinks.

Easily the best job I have ever had, the Loft serves as a shining reminder that chill jobs exist for chill people like me.