Once again, I've been slacking on this so I guess there's quite a bit to catch up on.

After my car accident, just when I thought things couldn't possibly get any worse - they went and did. It's as if since the day 2009 came into effect, life has just been shitting on me and I really have reached my breaking point. But, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? Then consider me a friggen body builder, seriously. I've been beating myself up so terribly over all of this but what I've realized isn't that it's just about waiting for the dust to settle and then moving on, it's about actually making the effort to change what it is that is wrong with/you don't like about your life and that's my next step. April is only two days away and I really am just looking for the new month to begin so I can feel as though I have a fresh start. Finishing out the semester with good grades is my absolute main focus right now because it's the one thing I cannot afford to fuck up.

I'm definitely looking forward to the summer because I feel like I haven't been taking full advantage of my free time the past few summers. I'm going to be moving back home in September due to financial reasons and just for the sake of getting my feet back on the ground again, so it's pretty imperative that I make the most of the time I have left living in this house with my roommates. I also want to take plenty of road/day trips. The shore is obvious plus I'm going to North Carolina with my sister and cousins. Nick and I discussed a possible road trip to Canada, so we'll see how everything pans out.

This summer is also going to be time to really sit down and put work into DG4L and JBSP because they're both things I enjoy and want to put more serious time and effort into. With my accident, Mike being sick, and just our busy schedules in general thanks to good old UArts, what we did start is still coming along slowly but at least getting somewhere. We're working out the kinks with everything and hoping to have a bunch of fresh shirts to rock come the middle of summer.

I'm sure there's a bunch of more crap I can talk about, like how my bracket "crashed and burned" (way to fuck everything up for me, Duke) but I have to get up and make the commute to the city in about seven hours and I'm sleep deprived as is so I'm ending it here.

So much for my luck turning around. I'm borrowing my mom's (and hopefully soon to be mine) car for the weekend to get to work and yesterday I ripped open the tire accidentally on a curb pulling out of my driveway. I had to pull Nick out of bed to fix it but he once again stepped in as my hero and put the spare on it and I got to work an hour and a half late. After work I played scratch-offs in hopes that since everything has been going so terribly wrong lately something would work out in my favor and I ended up wasting $6. Maybe I'll end up winning the March Madness pool at my dad's office even though everyone keeps telling me how terrible my bracket is. Screw you guys.

Things to look forward to: finishing the first set of DG4L shirts, finishing my etchings/starting my screenprints, warm weather (happy Spring, everyone), my first tattoo, and hopefully things taking a turn for the better.

So on Wednesday night, I was driving on 676. Someone cut off the person in front of me and that car then slammed on their brakes. I slammed on mine but it really didn't do anything for me. Everything happened in a split second - all I remember is brake lights in front of me, my face slamming into my steering wheel, and then looking up and not being able to see out my windshield because my entire hood was up in my face.

I'm really lucky and surprised after actually seeing the damage that I'm okay. My jaw, chin, neck, back, and shoulders are all pretty sore but otherwise I'm fine. Considering how hard I hit my face on the steering wheel, I'm really surprised I didn't break something. I guess I should consider myself lucky. I can't say the same for my car though - it's completely totaled.



But in the moment as I sat shaking in my car from just pure shock at what had happened, I felt I hit my breaking point. I felt like at the same time I hit that car I hit a brick wall in my life. So much has gone wrong since this year started that I'm honestly not sure how much more I can take. But I felt a lot better after I had a talk with my dad. He is honestly the most incredible person ever and I am so lucky to have him as my father. I am constantly fucking up and he is always there to clean up the pieces and get me back on my feet. He pointed out that basically, shit happens and it's the way you handle it that really matters because you can't always help things. That's life. It's always going to test you and what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. You have to step up to the plate or get the fuck out of the game.

I'm hoping things will turn around for the better soon. For my own sanity, at least.

So St. Patrick's Day was relatively quiet over here at 16 East Collings, but still fun. Pizza, beer, and a bonfire. The fact that I had class until 7:00 last night and again at 8:30 this morning limited my ability to really celebrate. But I got to hang out with some good friends and damage my lungs inhaling the phone book that we burned, so it was still relatively eventful. However, getting out of bed this morning was not easy at all. Thank you, Nick, for rubbing it in my face that you didn't have to go anywhere at all.



In dumber news, Temple's Tyler School of Art left a 10 foot trojan horse made out of cardboard in Hamilton Hall this morning with a note saying they've apparently declared "war" on every art school in the city, UArts included. One word: lame. I mean, what the fuck? First of all, if you have such little schoolwork to do over there that you honestly have time to make several of these horses and leave them at the schools in the area, I should consider transferring there. Secondly, don't you have something less retarded to do with your time or are you really just that bored? UArts sent out an e-mail recommending we don't retaliate but knowing people at UArts, that's probably going to happen anyway.

I got another four days straight at work which is excellent because I could certainly use the money. I thought I had my rent paid off last week, but that was until I had to buy my car a brand new set of four tires which I am still pretty miserable about but considering my car drives a thousand times better now, I guess I should be happy about it.

I'm heading back up to the studio tonight with Mike in hopes that tonight's screenprinting events are more successful than they've been lately. I'm so looking forward to getting these shirts done and it just seems like it's taking forever. Mike's been a huge help and I'm glad I'm teaching him to print because I am going to force him to help me with jobs from now on. He has become my apprentice/first employee/partner and he really doesn't have a say in the matter.



I must say, life is pretty excellent lately. Despite some of the bullshit, I can't really seem to stop smiling.

My dad: "So what are you doing for St. Patrick's Day?"
Me: "I don't know. Probably gonna get wasted."
My dad: "I don't care what you do but you better be wearing green when you do it."

So my back left tire was leaking air pretty bad to the point where I would put air in it, drive to work, and it would pretty much be flat when I left. So today I took it to the tire place. I had my fingers completely crossed that maybe, just maybe, I would be lucky enough that they would say all it needed was to be patched and they could fix me up and send me on my way with little financial damage. So what did they call me back to say?

"You need all new tires."

Awesomeeeee. Surprised that things are not working out in my favor again? No, not in the least bit. Miserably unhappy? Absolutely.

So this was my first week at work and I can say it was definitely worth it. I'm starting to feel a little better now that my financial stresses are beginning to disappear. I know it will be a while until I pay back the money I owe while still paying my rent and bills and get back on my feet, but at least there's a light at the end of this tunnel.

School starts again tomorrow and I can most definitely say I'm not looking forward to it, but at least I'm half way through the semester. Unfortunately, I have to drop one of my classes due to my own stupidity and lack of being present for class which resulted in a without a doubt failed midterm exam. But with the classes I took over last summer, I'm already ahead and this will just be one less thing to stress me out for the time being.

Despite everything I have to complain about, I can also say life is going pretty well. Sometimes things just need time before they can fall into place and that's the best way I can explain the situation. A lot of things were put into perspective recently and I can honestly say that despite starting off on the completely wrong foot, I'm happy with the direction things are going in currently.

Since Joe is not pleased with the content of my blog being supposedly repetitive, I'll talk about something different. 

Finally finished my training at Applebee's and am finally working. I missed making money and that two week period of not working was killer so I can't even imagine being one of the millions of people who have been laid off recently in this country. I'm back to having no days off a week between class and work, but I don't mind. My days off usually consist of being completely unproductive anyway, so at least I'm getting things done.

Speaking of school, I'm not really looking forward to going back. With all the work hours and things I want to do this weekend I'm going to have to find time to fit in all the work I totally didn't do over spring break. Whether or not I actually will find that time is yet to be seen.

Mikey and I finally have the ball rolling with some screenprinting stuff, so everyone should check out his blog over at blogspot.com/dgfourl and keep their eyes open for some sweet shirts coming up in the near future. I'm excited for summer to come so he and I can collaborate on some more ideas and make some awesome stuff! I would post pictures but I can't figure out how.

Time for a nap.

I've been slacking on this lately, but I'll get to it eventually.

Just let it be known that this really is it. I'm finally at the point where I can leave all the bullshit in my life and the people that come with it behind me.

After the recent hell I've gone through, I am shocked that things are going so perfectly lately. Of course I worry that it's all going to fall apart because I don't feel as though I deserve good things, but then again I've done nothing to deserve the shitty cards life has occasionally dealt me. I think it's time to be an optimist for once and hope that things have only been bad in the past so that they could be awesome in the future. I haven't been able to say this in a long time but - this just feels so right.

Now only if my laundry machine would work - then I'd really be in business.

Just thought you should know I can see through exactly what you're trying to do here and it's not working. But nice try.

This blizzard, which I was completely unaware was even headed our way until yesterday, is my saving grace. I definitely did not even start my sculpture project that is due today and classes are cancelled which means I have a total of two more weeks to finish it because next week is spring break. It doesn't get any more awesome than that.

My dad has stepped in as my hero once again and really helped me out with my rent this month. I can say that I literally have the best dad in the whole world. If he only had any idea about how truly poor I am and what a big deal this is to me. Hopefully this means I can actually put the money I have now away so I stop living by scraping pennies to pay the rent every first of the month. Not to mention the massive amounts of money I owe Gregg can hopefully start to be paid back.

I can't say for sure what's going on anymore because life has been so unexpected in both positive and negative ways lately, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best because I can't help but wish everything just starts falling into place for me.