30.8.08

This is not a joke

From People Magazine!

"David Duchovny in rehab for sex addiction. Duchovny's lawyer confirmed to People on Thursday evening that the Californication star has checked into rehab to undergo treatment for sex addiction."

Our prayers are with Duchovny and we hope he gets better so he can kick ass on television again.

23.8.08

Random Thoughts # 2

I'm addicted to the taste of Coffee in paper cups.

17.8.08

East Coast Trip: The Baby, My Friends, and The Open Road

There is something about driving new open roads that is so exhilarating. Maybe it’s the sense that you are leaving behind the past and racing through the present towards a completely unknown and exciting future or maybe it’s just the thrill of driving pretty fast with the windows down, singing along to some good songs at the top of your lungs as you’re looking over the peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I don’t know, it’s very zen and very awesome at the same time.

Well, that was me in my Black Chevy Impala driving towards Pennsylvania, taking all sorts of backroads through the mountains and then 81 into PA, heck I even got to drive through West Virginia for a stint. Now this being me, I did get a little confused at the beginning of my trip where I miss read my hand written note and thought I had to go 3 POINT 7 miles up this road and really it said 38.7 miles. I went back and forth a few times before I really re-looked at my scribbled directions.

So after a few blissful hours of driving, I made my way to Phoenixville, PA, which is about 10 minutes from Valley Forge, you know Revolutionary War important. Anyway, the area is really beautiful, lots of trees, although I swear to god that there may have been some kind of crazy bug infenstation problem with the trees, because when I looked up into the trees, I kept seeing these like nests, that kind of looked like really thick spider webs or something that moths create, but huge and everywhere, and I felt/feel a little sick talking about it. Anyway, but you know Phoenixville's a nice town, low on franchises, high on trees.

This is what Teal Benevides (formerly Wisniewski) does.

Teal Benevides, MS, OTR/L, Thomas Jefferson University
"I will discuss current and past research on sensory integration for children with autism and our current research at Thomas Jefferson University."

And she teaches.

Teal and I go way back, like WAY back, er as back as I really go with current friends I still keep in touch with, note, I keep in touch with, because Teal, bless her heart, has a “I can’t seem to keep in touch with people” condition. I know a lot of people with this condition; bless all of their hearts. And you know, back in the day when I was younger, and less thoughtful, all of the people with this condition really erked me, but I understand it now, and I’m really cool with it, and I hope all you forgive me if I ever catch this bug.

So in this world that we live in, the mid to late twenties world, you know, really know who your old good friends are because when you hang out with them, it’s like you and them and nothing else, our worlds may have changed, we may have changed, but you are beyond all of that, you see straight to who they are, no bull shit, no fake outs, it’s just you and theem and everything is kind of funny or it's kind of sad.

Well, it’s this WAY with Teal, and it’s this way with Mike, Rachel, Michelle, Jorge, Corey, and it’s this way with most of the friends I have now (you know who you are). It’s like our bodies are just machines that protect and shelter our souls and when you see a great friend or family member, a doorway opens, and your real selves can walk out and say “Hey!” good to see you, isn’t all this other crap stupid.

So, Teal had a baby with Zach Benevides and her name is Ella. And Ella is really cool, uh, she eats a lot, and uh, she doesn’t cry too much, and she likes her rocker. Teal promoted the concept of “breast feeding” quite a bit while I was there. You know, it’s a natural thing, and it’s a cheap way of feeding the baby, and it doesn’t always work correctly, and all the “wow, I didn’t know that, would it be wrong of me to say that sounds kind of icky.” All I can say is, thank god for Lindsey having Elena and really desensitizing me to the whole baby thing or I might have been a little freaked out, but really I found it to be educational, not that I’m ever going to have to put a lot of this knowledge to work. Although, she really did open my eyes to alternative ways to give birth and the places you can go to have your child. She went to this special clinic/house place, that was nice and relaxing, and she got to hang out in like a jacuzzi or spa until she was ready to have the child, and then she did it more traditionally, but comfortable and on her own terms. If you can afford, the real trick you know, this sounds like a cool baby time option.

Regardless of all this, there is really something special about babies, I mean, they are just these little crying, eating, sleeping machines, but when you see the flare of personality, thought, life, it’s exciting and invigorating, it’s like being on the right there at the moment of some special project’s conception. Her whole life, the basis for everything will be laid by the groundwork of what her mom and dad will do in the next few years, er up to 15 years, but that’s like the first fifth of her life, and then she’s on her own, hopefully carrying with her all those important memories, events, and skills from childhood. Crazy. But it’s also cool to see a baby smile.

And thank you Zach. Thank you for watching all the behind the scenes features that my people’s make out here in Hollywood. You just never know if people really watch them. Well Zach does, and Zach is excited by all of those things, so you know, if I ever lose the fire to make these things, I’ll just think of Zach. I won’t let you down, Bro!

I spent the night there and woke up on a nearly deflated air mattress, just barely floating over the hard floor. I spent a little more time with Teal and Ella and then took off for Washington Reagan National Airport to drop my car off. And to make this leg a perfect Haiku, I got lost around the airport looking for a gas station to fill up the Impala’s tank. I mean, really how many of you have gotten screwed, because you forgot to return the rental without filling up the tank.

Mike was sitting at work wondering, “Where the hell is Will?” Well, Mike I was at a gas station, getting my debit card declined, because I used it in California, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania over the course of 4 days. Thank God for credit cards (did I really just write that?)

Mike and my M.O. when hanging out is to not plan anything and if we do something great, if not, great.

This time we had a nice Northern Virginia time. Hmmm… we went to the driving range, we got happy hour, we chilled out, we got coffee, and we talked. We talk about the year, about life, about what we want, and if we’ve gained anything since last we spoke, whether that’s wisdom or televisions. It’s also fun to see Mike interact with his girlfriend Jill. She’s really nice, but they are like polar opposites, just into most of the same stuff, except like many Americans, she has a television show dependency that is border line obsessive (which I guess we all are like.) Good luck Mike!

I also got to hang out with Mike’s roommate, this guy Michael, and he is a Washington D.C. police officer, and he has a very downcast sarcastic view on life, and he doesn’t particularly talk about women very nicely, but he was an interesting guy. Apparently, he believes that most officers in D.C. have been emasculated and are now basically public customer service operators. It was intriguing to hear his views on things and to know that he’s probably going to end up being an accountant.

This leg of the trip was nice and relaxing. It was the relaxing block of my trip. Thanks Mike!

At some point, I will extol the virtues of Happy Hour and Brunches in a blog, but just not this one. And seriously, Microsoft Word’s spell check does not have BLOG listed as a word. Nutz.

Oh yeah, I got to hang out with my Dad! We had our yearly business meeting. It was a good time, I got to get some stuff of my chest and so did he. Yeah, that whole thing about parent's and childhood and memories and stuff, yeah he was pretty absent, and he admits to never having thought about the child's emotional state when I was growing up. But in the end, you know all you can do is move on and try to forgive, because there ain't no going back. Although, I did want to smack him when he tried to project his money means everything including love thought process on me. I don't believe that and never have. Anyway, he’s hoping that we can do this more then once a year at some point, and I’m hoping that I don’t have to help my mom out financially ‘til the end. We’ll see.

So Pops is doing pretty good. He and the wifey thing are doing well and kicken it, they’re nearing retirement age and hopefully she can stay government employed until that time comes and she can get all the good retirement stuff. Oh, and my Dad’s brothers and sisters have confirmed it, he’s actually two years older then he thought he was, turns out that his Dad messed up the age on one of the forms, and in order to just keep things from getting sticky with the government, they just never changed it. I just keep telling him, think you’re sixty and you will be sixty, and it’s like you’ve got two more years to put into your life before retiring!

But truly, I’m sorry for the loss of two of my Dad’s close friends, who suffered some tragic endings. They were long time friends, life friends, work friends, all of the above. The 30/40-year friends. Those are the friends you can’t replace.

That’s the thing with your great friends, like I said earlier; it’s all funny, until it’s all sad.

14.8.08

The East Coast Trip: Mom, Joe, and Jacob

(See Prologue Blog Below)

On August 1st, I arrived in North Carolina to the delight of my nephew Jacob, my brother, and my Mom. I said my hellos, and my Mom threw up into a trashcan. She did that a lot that weekend. She’s fine now, although not fine with the banks, but well, when is she ever. Not a whole lot to say, but you know, when my Mom is sickly, it's really easy to be compassionate with her, I wish I was able to find that when she isn't sick.

Anyway, the weekend was fun, hanging out with Joe and little Jake, just kicking it in North Carolina. We went to see “Journey to the Center of the Earth” in 3-D. Jake liked it a lot, but my brother thought their reactions to the ridiculous situations they were faced with were unbelievable. My response, “Dude, it’s a kids movie.”

We also just watched TV and went out to eat a few times. My brother is a connoisseur of fat foods, and he found disappointment with a greasy stand called the Cook-Out. The portions were really small and just not that tasty, I mean for the amount of Fat in these little burgers, really they should be good as SHEEYYATTT!!!. I on the other hand found us this really cool bread company in Raleigh, and got us all some delicious cinnamon bread, which my brother was really freaked out to try, but admitted that it was the best wheat bread he had ever eaten. He wasn’t even sure wheat bread could taste that good and I told him he needed to stop eating the Seven-grain breads.

One of the things, I don’t really get with Joe is that he can be very inconsiderate about the little things, like sleeping in. Now, I understand getting up and getting an early start, but having to adjust to East Coast time can be very difficult, you know he wants to wake up at 8:00 AM and to me that is like 5:00 AM. And really has anybody noticed how messed up your body’s eating schedule gets when you’re back home. It’s like you’re hungry all the time. Anyway, my brother just tells you to stop being a little (BLEEP) and get up and deal. Thanks Joe, so basically his strategy for dealing with him is "Deal." And you know what, when you have the knowledge that you're going to know someone until death, I guess that it can kind of give you the confidence to be like that.

We had a little chat after a few days and we came to a realization.

Joe - Here's the thing, you and I, we're leaders, we hate following others, we can't do it. We have to do our own thing.

Will - Yeah, I can see that, kind of thought it was like that.

Joe - But you, see, the thing YOU hate about me, and the thing that always causes us to fight is that I'm obsessive and controlling and you, you're not.

Will - ...

Joe - That really pisses you off doesn't it.

Will - ...

Joe - Deal.


The morning before we left for Lynchburg, Joe and I went through a box of photographs from our past, like the old days, and wow. When I become a parent, I WILL NOT let my children wear purple shirts; I don’t care how much they love it, no giant baggy purple shirts. Man, I mean there is this purple shirt that is just in all kinds of pictures and it spans years. And the big glasses don’t even get me started on the big glasses. I remember in 7th grade when I got contact lenses, it was like the world changed. Everything was anew. Think about it like this; for 6 years I’d been looking at myself in the mirror without glasses, and I have really bad vision, and then one day everything clears up and you see yourself for the first time, well that’s what happened when I got contact lenses, I freaked out. And then I got a haircut. I mean if you look at those old pictures, ME, BJ, little Will, whatever you want to call me, I fluctuated from looking like a cute, redheaded, asian kid and then to an awkward slightly off kilter geeky glasses person WHO LOVED THIS BAGGY PURPLE SHIRT! And my brother, well he either looked like a handsome self-loving kid to a thuggish self-loving attractive thug (skinny or fat). There weren’t any picture after the Contact Lens period; I put a moratorium on any picture being taken of me after that period, kind of like Mutt Lang (sorry Shania, you deserve better, now make some damn music, and stop acting like a robot).

On Sunday, August 3rd, we left for Lynchburg Virginia and I got to hang out with my sister-in-law Jennifer and Joe made me get a haircut. Thanks Joe. We also went to see “The Dark Knight.” Afterwards, I was so afraid that they were going to hate. You see they never, NEVER, like anything I recommend. They trust my opinion when I tell them not to see something, but not when I like anything. Luckily, ‘The Dark Knight” is kind of good so they did like it, I don’t think they enjoyed it, but they said it was a really good movie.

Jacob, my nephew is absolutely awesome. I mean he’s the man. He’s like a cross between my brother and me in most ways. He loves fighting, but he’s cute and not threatening. We had a great time watching videos on my computer; he particularly liked Admiral Akbar’s Cereal. SO FUNNY!!! He also liked the trailer to “The Watchman”. But after a few days his infinite energy supply exhausting, and yeah, he really needs to have a brother or sister, he’s very used to getting all the attention. And after that much time around family, I was ready to get going.

And so on Tuesday, August 5th, I was dropped off at the Lynchburg airport, with my really, really, really heavy luggage and I went to AVIS to get a rental car. The first care they gave me was a Ford Taurus, but it needed an oil change, so they swapped me out into a CHEVY IMPALA!

So me and my big ass Chevy Impala took off for Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.

The East Coast Trip: Prologue

In September 2007, I took my annual mid-year trip, knowing that it would be the last trip that I would take out there without the restraints or burdens of adulthood. Not that I didn’t feel that weight bearing down, I just decided to shrug it off, throw it back.

This time around I was in the full throws of adulthood, at least it was everywhere and I couldn't avoid it. Babies, Toddlers, Reunions, Careers, everywhere I tell you. And also, I may be in some kind of maturing period for me, although that is really to be decided I suppose in the future, when I’m done with the period and can look back with some true understanding. Let’s just say that right now I’m considering a lot of things about life and what I believe and where I’m going, but I’m proud to say that I’m doing this without being TOO overly dramatic or having some sort of crisis (which one comes between quarter and mid life?).

In saying all of this, I am breaking up my trip into 4 legs.

1. Mom, Joe, & Jacob

2. Teal, the baby, My Dad, and Mike

3. The Andy Wright Experience

4. The Reunion

Hope you enjoy.