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fourth class book rate

the crimethinc diy guide says,

“It’s a real tragedy how few people know how much money can be saved by learning the various rates you can send things at the post office. Don’t send everything first class – that’s a ridiculous waste of money. For records, CDs, and ‘zines, there’s another class, called “Fourth Class Book Rate,” which is much cheaper, if about a week slower. They won’t offer this to you unless you bring it up yourself. Use their terminology (reproduced in quotes) so they assume you know as much about this shit as they do. If they are dubious (“Is this really a book?”) you say: “It’s in excess of fifty pages, permanently bound, no letter or message enclosed” — even if that’s not the case, as long as it could be looking at your package. You can also it’s a record with music on it, if that’s clearly what it is, and they’ll give you the same rate.”

i spent a good part of the weekend at kathleen and johnny’s new apartment over on the east side of town. despite it’s frightening adultness, i can’t help but like their sweet black appliances or copious amounts of good food or matching towels. the apartment looks like a firehouse because it sits atop a huge garage. the ceilings are high and there are few seperated rooms making the place light and airy. the alleys behind the apartment are like the ones around campus but attractive rather than depressing. and the apartment is only a few blocks from the franklin conservatory. sweet. yesterday after eating too much food we walked to the park with jimmy, michelle, kane, johnny, and kathleen. it was really fun, though a little too much like a stella episode we had just watched or something. good times and goofing around. someone said they’d pay me $1 to jump across a man made creek and i almost made it. i got one leg across, but came up short with the other. some lady with her kids just laughed. as i was about to leap, she told her kid, “look honey, want to see something funny?”

if someone were to ask me about these days, these days in the late spring of 2003, i would recall them as days spent atop a bike. atop a bike at 8 in the morning after having painfully woken up to picnic, ride, climb trees, and hike with my friends at a beautiful ltitle metropark that i didn’t know existed. or riding my bike to some friends’ new apartment and being happy for them and eating the cookout food and having a lovely time, but at the same time feeling uncomfortably adult. or riding my bike through the rain to visit a new friend and talk until far too early in the morning in a manner that was both akward and intriguing. or riding my bike to other new friends houses to play collectable card games for the first time in ages, with pubescent screams and bickering happily absent. or riding my bike through the shadows of the streetlights and the darkness in the alleys to get dumpstered bagels and bread. to be atop the bike is pleasureable now, and i barely miss the car. but can this bike take me to where i want to be when i have finally exhausted this place?

i said goodbye to two friends today as we exchanged akward hugs across the back seat before they lept from the car, their meager backpacks flailing behind them to enter the cold sterility of the airport terminal. the rush to the airport, via the bank to retrieve a lost atm card, for them would just be the start of the adventure as they will travel europe for the next month until we head to michigan to play some awesome shows. but for me, it’s no adventure. instead, it’s like a hint of the future, or at least a part of the future that’s a liittle bit scary. a future of constant hellos and goodbyes, a future of squeezing tiny moments of intimacy between the mess of logistics that is demanded when living life. maybe the business people that i see every day aren’t so vapid. maybe the logistics, the “business” of life is so consuming that that is what we all do from day to day, and it’s the rare time that things transcend such monotony. it was rad to have my friends back for two days, and those days were crazy, busy, productive and great. i got to have intimate moments with people and conversations that fealt like they meant something rather than just being fun or stimulating. i fealt excited and like i could plan and scheme for the future. i’ll miss my friends, but the worst part is now i suddenly feel as if i’m just biding my time, trying to make the best of things until things get exciting again.

coffee shops

are scary places during the am, filled with crazy business types and parents with little kids. business must be the easiest thing to do. at least at the marketing or middle management level because all i ever hear is the most inane, lamest talk ever out of these people. meeting after meeting, going on and on about nothing.

weekend antics

holy crap! another weekend of more fun than i could handle. here’s the quick rundown before i get too tired and forget.

friday = vegan potluck at becca’s. despite a few rough spots like the dishwasher overflowing and soaking the floor and some traveling crust dude being creepy the night was awesome. the first potluck i’ve been to where pretty much everyone brought food. i was gorged. afterwords i went with stephen, bret, jen, tim, + others to this abandoned dance club where we hung out and wondered about what sweet shows we could have there in secret. after that i went to some parties with becca, bret, emmet, and some other kids who i barely know. the parties were pretty dead by that late hour so i went home and slept.

saturday = courier race. i hadn’t planned on racing and only went down there with dave to check out the action. i got peer pressured into racing though and gabe was kind enough to loan me the entry fee. it was exciting to roll through the streets at full speed, weaving through the traffic and breaking every conceivable traffic law. i rode with gabe and kane (until he flatted) and then gabe and some couriers for most of the race. it was the most fun i had in ages. it just fealt good to move that fast. later that night there was a party at bld with amazing blues singing by miss maime, a foot down competition, a bonfire and other hijinks. the only bad part of the night is that jen hit a pothole on the way there and endoed landed on her face and now it looks like someone punched her in the face with the swelling as extreme as it is.

sunday = recording justine handsome. recorded six of justin’s newer songs for a new demo today in my room and tim’s room on the computer. i think it sounded pretty good, but what do i know. took a quick break to eat awesome gluten free waffles and bannana sugar cookies at kane/michelle’s. after recording, played intramural soccer on one of andrew’s friend’s men’s soccer team which was fun, but some of the guys on the team took it much too seriously. after that, i called steven and we rode down to dodge skatepark to deliver brett some tools and then snuck into the mershon auditorium to see margarot cho which was awesome and hilarious, especially for free.

teen movies

was watching “say anything” which i found on my brother’s floor and i wondered, is the token rebel character in the recent teen movie “bring it on” given a clash shirt to wear because the costumers were lame and couldn’t think of anything better to say “good natured, misunderstood, bad boy” than a clash t-shirt, or is it as an allusion to the good natured, misunderstood bad boy played by john cusack in say anything who also wears a clash shirt. that would be pretty sweet.

i am not whining about my band

ok. i am not whining about my band… i am just trying to come to terms with what is a new eperience for me. really, i am. so recently, there have been a couple of instances that have just really been akward. at the monday night bike ride, somebody introduced themself to me and asked what my name was. i told her geoff, and johnny, interjected, “you know, from defiance, ohio”, which i think everybody took as a joke, but i would be horrified if they didn’t. but just the fact that someone could make that joke, and that people could take it seriously is really frightening. i guess ultimately people who i spend a lot of time with me will be able to decide for themselves whether i have some stupid rock-star attitude or not, and i shouldn’t really worry about random kids, but it always hurts to think that people might have misconceptions about you. maybe it’s because you suspect that they might not be misconceptions at all, which is scary, but i’m pretty sure is not the case.

weird event two. this kid sean put out a fanzine with an interview with us. he hounded us for weeks for the interview, and i was happy to do it. however, his enthusiasm for it was so intense, its still really akward. he dropped off some of the zines the other day, and it’s really hard because it’s a bi-weekly zine so it’s basically just our interview. i guess that’s cool, and the format and all, i’m just afraid of seeming self-agrandizing. also, it’s not that the interview is bad, but it’s definitely not how i would interview myself, and i guess it’s strange to see someone else’s representation of you displayed so publicly. it can’t help but feel like losing control.

weird event three. i was at a party last night and people started playing the cd. it’s really surreal to hear something you’ve made being played at a party. but more than that some kid started talking to me about the band. will and ryan and i used to talk about the band all the time when we first started, and maybe that wasn’t so good, but at least it was with kids who were are close friends and understood that the band was just a big part of our lives. but now i talk to kids who only know me through the band and it’s hard because i like talking about the band, but since i don’t know these kids, it seems like it’s all i have to talk about and i’m really worried that people are like “gee he talks about his band alot”.

i’ll deal.

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