True to form, this time I will not press delete no matter how bad whatever I write is. Or if I end sentences with dangling verbs. Or if I dangle verbs. “Oh, dude it’s sick,” says Barry. “What is that?” asks Hart. “Chelan?” The bros are at work. Hart is wearing a black and red flannel shirt. Barry is wearing a black and red flannel hat. I don’t think they’re cognizant of this fact.
I, for my part, am sitting on the couch listening to “New Soul” by that chick who may or may not be from Israel. My Instant Messenger icon is jumping up and down telling me there’s a new message from the Mexican girl I’m talking to online. I decided today that I need to marry a Mexican girl, mostly so my Spanish gets better. I want to speak as good as native speakers, which means I need to be speaking a lot more Spanish than I currently speak. And the only way I can think of to do this, short of bussing tables at Ivar’s, is to marry a Mexican girl. Or a Colombian girl. Colombian girls are gorgeous.
“I’ve been to Hollywood, I’ve been to Redwood,” sings Neil Young. I wonder if he actually went to Redwood? Is he referring to Redwood National Park. Who cares.
“Oh shit, it’s snowing” says Barry now. “Ooh, it’s getting warm next Wednesday.” Then he starts to sing along to “Heart of Gold,” about a half an octave out of tune. He and Hart are looking at pictures of various boardriders on his new computer, which apparently measures 27″ from corner to corner. “Mark, what’s up for this weekend?” he asks me now. I don’t respond, and he doesn’t notice. Barry has the attention span of a lemming.
Tomorrow is the last day of school, and I am so relieved. I am going to miss my students, but I am also very ready for it to be over. Instead of writing this blog I should be planning how they’re going to review for the final tomorrow, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I don’t want to do it. My motivation is waning, just as I know theirs is. All of our motivation is waning. As a teacher, it is my responsibility to elevate this level of motivation, but all I can really think about right now is how after tomorrow afternoon I won’t have to be in a classroom for more than three weeks. Three weeks! So like I said, motivation is waning. The end is in sight, and it’s making it hard to concentrate on the present.
It’s still fucking cold outside. Fucking freezing. But I’m getting used to it. It’s all a question of what you’re used to. Like this song “Short Skirts” by Felix da Housecat. It’s fucking horrible. and now Barry just started playing something on his computer. It a goddamn madhouse in here. I can’t concentrate. This song is horrible. But it’s making me concentrate on the present, because the only thing I can think about is how badly I want it to be over. Maybe slight discomfort is the key to Zen. Maybe I’m a genius.
This entry was written by , posted on December 11, 2009 at 12:50 am, filed under Stream of Consciousness Thursdays and tagged snowboarding, spanish, university of washington, uw, winter break, zen. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
My worst nightmare has come true. I have been accused of the one thing on Earth I never thought I would be accused of, the one thing I have I have fought with every ounce of my being to eradicate from my soul. I’ve worn deodorant every day for five years, never owned a Nalgene bottle, and crinkled my nose every time I’ve heard the word “tofu.” But none of it matters, because it’s happened: People think I’m a hippie.
It all started with Phil’s slackline. Before coming to Alaska, I had never slacklined and didn’t have much desire to try. I considered it something reserved for granola, hemp-loving assholes in the quad and people who consistently complained about the constraints of “society.” But as it turns out, slacklining is awesome. And not even that hard.
But people think I’m a hippie.
This might, of course, also have something to do with the fact that I don’t really drink up here, I always want to go on walks, and I’m often barefoot. I don’t want to have to explain myself but I want people to know: I abhor hippies! There’s no people Earth I despise more! I wear deodorant! But no one understands. People see you on a slackline, they see you barefoot, and they think you’re a hippie.
Which is why I’ve decided to take evasive action.
From now on, no more drinking out of water bottles. Instead, I’m going to buy styrofoam cups in bulk at Fred Meyer and throw them on the ground after each use. I’ll stop eating vegetable in favor of all meat affairs: Bacon and sausage for breakfast, chicken for lunch, and beef for dinner. I’ll make politically incorrect jokes and laugh at people with disabilities. I’ll do my best to try and forget that there’s things going on like genocide in Darfur and sweatshops in Bangladesh. If at all possible, I’ll go whaling.
And most importantly, I’ll stop slacklining. I love slacklining, it’s one of my favorite things to in the long Alaskan evenings — balancing between two birch trees in the warm crepuscule — but now I’ll have to quit. It doesn’t matter that it’s fun and it builds strength in your legs and it’s great for your balance and people think you’re badass when you can easily jump on and walk the whole thing when others can’t even take a step — I have to stop. Because what’s more important? A small physical diversion, or a set of ideals? And what if slacklining is just the tip of the iceberg? What if by the time I get back to Seattle I’m hanging out in parks playing kickball and listening to Rusted Root?
You can keep your slackline hippies. I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’ll figure something out. Maybe I’ll take up moose hunting. This is Alaska, after all.
This entry was written by , posted on June 26, 2009 at 8:28 pm, filed under Alaska and tagged cherry blossoms, cooper landing, drumheller, slacklining, the quad, uw. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Photo Courtesy: Morgan Kokenge
This entry was written by , posted on June 3, 2009 at 12:41 am, filed under Uncategorized and tagged arboretum bride, montlake cut, seattle, uw. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
OK, whatever, I know it’s not baller, but I’m still pretty stoked I got all the games in the first round of the South Region right. It makes me feel like I still know something about basketball. Go ahead and make fun of the way I picked it to pan out though, aka LSU beating UNC and Gonzaga in the Final Four.
This entry was written by , posted on March 21, 2009 at 2:18 am, filed under Uncategorized and tagged final four, gonzaga, march madness, ucla, uw. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
The purpose of today’s blog post is to explain to you all my hopes and dreams. I will literally be exposing my insides to you — the things that make me tick, the things that make me angry, the things that make me smile — in an attempt to show you where I think I stand on the road to a achieving a certain set of goals, and why I want to achieve these particular goals in the first place (Note: I will be figuratively exposing myself to you).
Lately I have still been interning at L’Etranger, but my internship is quickly coming to an end. Which of course raises the question: What will happen when it’s over? Will they offer me a high-paying job, say, as Editor in Chief of Making Sure All Content is Rad? Probably not. Will they ask me to start writing articles that actually get printed in the paper? Maybe, but probably not. Will they ask me to extend my internship and keep coming into the office and keep doing the awesome stuff that I have been doing over the past three months? It’s very possible, but I sort of doubt it. Will they ask me to keep submitting stuff to the online blog and then “take it from there”? This is more on the right track. I have no idea what will happen when this internship is over, but I suspect it will be something along those lines.
However, not to disappoint you, faithful readers, I already have several plans. But before I tell you my plans let me quickly outline some of my life goals for you so you can start to get an idea of where this whole writing thing might one day (hopefully) lead.
Basically (and this is where I get really hesitant because I hate talking about shit that I actually care about on this website) I would like to one day write books. Or a book. One day I would like to write a book, and I want it to be hardcover, and I want it to have a cool cover, and I want it to somewhere say something from The New York Times book review like, “Wetzler’s musings on the world of femme rock often border on trenchant, but never stray from delightful.” Something like that. Someone who worked for The New York Times would obviously come up with something less awkward, but you get the idea.
In addition to writing books (or A book) I would like to write for a magazine. Which brings me back to what I am going to do after this internship is over. Should I not be offered a job here is Dictator at Large or Resident Madman, I will be forced to look for employment or internship opportunities elsewhere. It has recently come to my attention that Spin Magazine offers three-month internships, one of which will be starting June of this year. So I’m going to apply for that. Look out NYC! What up Brooklyn? What up — um — Yonkers? Wetzler is on the way. I just wish Chipotle in New York didn’t cost 13 dollars a burrito. Maybe I’ll have to get a job there.
If I don’t get the internship at Spin and L’Etranger doesn’t ask me continue on, I have several back up plans. One is to work at a summer camp in the San Juans on Lopez Island. This would be great because it would give me a chance to exercise some of the authority I never had growing up as a youngest child. I would be doing things like organizing canoe trips or teaching young campers how to dive. When the campers didn’t dive properly I would scream at them and tell them they’re parents would never love them until they learned how to dive right. Or I would swim up from underneath them and pull on their ankles and pretend I was a giant sea monster. When they laughed upon seeing that it was just me I would splash water in their open mouths and yell, “Stay alert!
The backup plan for Fall of the year of our Lord two thousand and nine is graduate school at the University of Washington, in the Department of Hispanic Studies. This is where you go to study Hispanics. Or it might just be where you go to study Spanish. As in the summer camp scenario I would have an opportunity to mess around a bit with those ensnared in the confines of my strict but beneficent authority: Multiple choice tests where each question has several pages of choices; Pop quizzes during which I dance flamenco shirtless in front of the students to test their concentration; Extra credit to kids who bring me Pagliacci before or after class, and even more extra credit for kids who lightly dust the slices with Parmesan cheese and red pepper. The possibilities are endless.
These are the options, and to tell you the truth, I’m optimistic about all of them. Spring is just around the corner so naturally optimism is in the air. My friend Lee is flying in from London on the 16th and we are going to party our eyes out. We are going to go camping and watch Sounders’ games and touch Lady Gaga’s inner thigh. I am going to introduce him to tall cans of Pabst and six-dollar pitchers of Rainier. Maybe we’ll even jump in Lake Washington.
So I will keep all of you posted and strive towards the realization of these goals (particularly those described in the paragraph concerning summer camp) and I will also let you know if all of these options fall through horribly and I am forced to exercise option “F,” an option that involves hiking in Burma (now Myanmar, I suppose), learning to cultivate opium, and losing my mind.
Talk to you soon!
-Wetzler
This entry was written by , posted on March 9, 2009 at 5:02 pm, filed under Writingz, the intern files and tagged brazil, brazilian girls, homme, huskies, opium, san juans, summer camp, uw. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Dear Mr. Chipotle,
The other day I went for lunch with a prospective roommate and she asked for extra sour cream on her burrito. What does this mean? Should I live with this girl?
Signed,
Confused
Dear Confused,
The short answer to your question is “yes”: you should live with this girl. The long answer is as follows:
The fact that your prospective roommate had the guts to ask for extra of any of the ingredients is a good sign. For whatever reason, people tend to be abnormally passive in the Chipotle ordering line, almost as if they know it is a process that has been designed by a higher being and therefore would feel silly doing anything to interfere with it. I once asked for extra sour cream myself and it was one of the scarier things I have ever done. Before doing it I slammed a few shots of Makers just to get up the courage.
Now, the fact that out of all the ingredients your prospective roomate could’ve asked for more of she asked for sour cream is even more telling. Sour cream, for all you Chipotle amateurs, is the most important ingredient in the burrito. This may seem like a bold claim, so I’ll say it again: IT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT INGREDIENT IN THE BURRITO. It is the yin to the salsa’s yang. The mediator that keeps the rice from quarrelling with the beans. I once took a first date to Chipotle and when we got to the end of the ordering line she asked for NO sour cream. It was the first time I have ever considered hitting a girl.
To sum up, the fact that your prospective roommate enjoys sour cream tells me she has a refined palate. It tells me she’s intelligent. It tells me she has a visceral understanding of the words “synergy” and “cohesion.” The fact that she asked for EXTRA sour cream tells me she’s brave. It tells me she has courage. I would use the word “spunky” here but it’s one of my least favorite words of all time. Bottom line is this: If I was on Mount Everest and my expedition had to tether into teams of two to cross an icy crevasse, I would trust this girl with my life.
And trust is the most important quality in a roommate, right?
Sincerely,
Mr. Chipotle
This entry was written by , posted on March 6, 2009 at 3:23 pm, filed under Chipotle and tagged chicken burrito, mr. chipotle, sour cream, the ave, university way, uw. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Rippin’ it
Dear Faithful Readers,
By last count there were roughly 42 of you. Why do I use the word “roughly” with the seemingly precise integer “42?” Well, it’s complicated, and you’re not a statistician. So don’t ask questions. The other day apparently there were around “60″ of you. 60! I don’t even know 60 people, so that made me feel pretty good. Actually, the thing that made me feel awesome was when I went to a bar the other night and a friend of a friend recognized me just because of the “blog.” I had never met this girl in my life. She asked me “How Hawaii was.” So as you can see, I’m already famous.
Fame has its downsides, though. I have to wear those hats with the really curvy bills pulled down tight over my eyes all the time so people don’t recognize me. That or really huge sunglasses. The other day at Chipotle some chick was harassing me for an autograph and she scratched me with her newly manicured nails. I screamed “How dare you” and scratched her back. Nobody messes with me when I’m at Chipotle.
Another fairly annoying thing about being famous is the paparazzi. These days everyone has a point and shoot camera, so everyone is a potential paparazzi (or paparazzette). So far nothing too bad has happened but I’m really worried that one of these days I’m going to be getting out of my car and someone’s going to take a really awful crotch shot and put it all over the internet. Right now I don’t have a car so I guess that’s not very likely to happen. But maybe some one will do it when I’m riding the bus. I take the 71 all the time.
In health news I have stopped drinking again ever since my and Darren’s trip to Ensenada. I’ve replaced the drinking, however, with gross amounts of junk food and frozen pizzas. Tonight I polished off a frozen Tony’s pepperoni pizza to myself, which is bad and clocks and at around 1000 calories but isn’t as bad as it used to be because their pizzas have gotten smaller. One of the reasons I haven’t been drinking is because I’ve had a cold, which I’ve been combating by ingesting around 20000 mg of vitamin c a day.
As far as employment goes, I’m still interning at El Extranjero. I’m confused because a lot of the time people there aren’t that warm to me. I mean, some of them are, but most of the people haven’t even introduced themselves. I think most of them look at me and think, “Oh, there’s that new intern. I’ve heard about him. He’s going to be huge,” and they’re kind of intimidated and it’s just easier to walk past my desk without really making eye contact. Or something.
In travel news the next Where’s Wetzler? trip will be this weekend, though to where I do not yet know. I might do it in the same format as the last one, i.e. post photos but never really reveal the location. Keep you guys guessing. Make you study those maps. Do you study maps? Study those maps. I was in the 8th Grade Geography Bee. I got out on the first question because I confused longitude with latitude. Study those maps.
Fondly,
Wetzler
P.S. Natalie Berry
This entry was written by , posted on March 2, 2009 at 12:51 am, filed under Capitol Hill, Uncategorized, master cleanse, the boot and tagged agoodreed, friends, seattle, seinfeld, uw, vancityallie, yobeat, your mother. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
I went to Chipotle today for the first time in a while (3.5 days). I ordered a chicken burrito because I don’t hate myself, and watched as the girl with the crooked-yet-endearing smile flashed me a knowing wink before heaping on great mounds of fire-grilled chicken. During the wrapping stage a new employee encountered trouble when the burrito burst under the girth of its delicious contents, and the girl with the crooked smile was forced to leave her post and assist in wrapping the thing she had so recently designed for my now-gaping maw.
“¡Es un burro!” the novice said, which basically means “This is huge!” but literally translates to “It’s a donkey.”
Indeed it was. A fresh tortilla was steamed to take over where a weaker one had broken and I stood by watching, rapt with delight.
And then I ate it in just under 6.4 seconds.
“Jesus, you eat Chipotle fast,” said my friend Morgan, causing me to beam like a 6 year-old girl who’s just played well at her first piano recital.
“It’s good to be back,” I thought.
-Wetzler
This entry was written by , posted on January 19, 2009 at 8:17 pm, filed under Chipotle and tagged ave, barbacoa, carnitas, chicken burrito, chipotle diaries, steak, university way, uw. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Waiting for the bus yesterday I had an idea for a TV show. This often happens to me when I’m waiting for the bus, or in the shower—I have ideas that I think are awesome, but then later realize I was just really bored. Anyway, in my idea I was like Bam on Jackass—where he goes up to people on the street and does annoying shit—except I’d be like a Polite Jackass. For example:
I see a guy on the street. I’m at 1st and Seneca. “Do you know where Pike Market is?” I ask him. I don’t say Pike MARKET with the stress on the “market” to make it sound even somewhat close to Pikes Place Market, but PIKE Market, with the stress at the beginning.
“You mean Pikes Place Market?” he asks.
“No, no, I was told about a Pike Market.”
“Well, I don’t think that exists. I do know how to get to a Pikes PLACE Market, though.”
I pause. “But…you don’t know how to get to Pike Market?”
“Well, that’s just the thing: I don’t think there is a Pike Market. I think you’re thinking of Pikes PLACE Market.”
“With all due respect, sir, I think I’d know if there was no Pike Market.” I’d always be saying “with all due respect.” It would be one of my Polite Jackass trademarks. I’d be at McDonald’s and say to the guy, “With all due respect, sir, I ordered a cheeseburger.”
Anyway, the guy looks at me like I’m a lunatic so I just start rubbing my chin thoughtfully and say, “OK. What do they have there?”
“At Pikes Place market? Everything: fruit, fish, flowers, salmon, food.”
I pause and look pensive. “And what do they have at Pike Market?”
You get the idea. Really dumb, but also funny. Another idea I had was where I get onto a public transit bus and put a penny in the coin dispenser and ask, “Can i get a transfer?
Then the bus driver laughs or gets stern and says, “You didn’t put enough money in,” so with a concerned look on my face I say “How much is the fare?”
“A dollar fifty” he says, and I go, “Oh crap, crap, I’m sorry” and reach into my pocket and pull out a nickel and put it in the dispenser, and wait, looking at him expectantly. At this point he either gets really mad, or keeps laughing, or someone on the bus, probably someone demented or obese or wearing a dirty Mariners hat or listening to a transistor radio, loudly says, “Its a dollar fifty. You gotta put a dollar fifty in if you want to ride the bus. Stupid.”
And then I turn and say, “A dollar fifty? When did it go up?”
As you can see, I’m sitting on a veritable gold mine of ideas. And by “gold mine” I mean “pile,” and by “ideas” I mean “excrement.”
-Wetzler
This entry was written by , posted on January 2, 2009 at 7:30 pm, filed under Uncategorized and tagged busch light, key light, odegaard, suzzallo reading room, the ave, uw. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.