Lissie - Pursuit of Happiness

I'm in love... seriously.. I can't even begin to describe what happens inside me when I watch this video..


fuck engineering.. I'm going back to music..

oh so cold

hello,,,

it's currently friday, february 4th, 2:52 am.. it's snowing outside.. quite gracefully i might add.. but the last few days have not been so amazing.. i haven't been to work or school all week. there has been a one inch thick layer of ice on everything for four days now. Before today, I hadn't ventured farther than a few hundred yards from my house.


jump back to the present,,, I just arrived home.. I drove half way across the metroplex to see the NFL experience in Dallas (another vessel for the nfl to make a shit-ton of money off of the superbowl). the drive to the exhibit was plagued with traffic, ice, and wrecks.

The exhibit however,, was Amazing... lots of emphasis on that..

but by the time I had satisfied the hunger for super bowl nostalgia, two inches of snow had fallen over the city. Now all the ice is neatly tucked away under a soft blanket of snow.

The drive home is quite different. there are hardly any cars on the road. The lanes are no longer visible, so everyone is allowed to drive wherever the hell they want. Most people choose to drive in the center of the highway,, and allow the assholes to pass on either side of them..

there is nothing on the radio,, so i dig through my cd's until i come across the temper trap album and pop it in.. I need to pee. with two ee's.

I take the exit for george bush from 635 and suddenly find myself alone..
all alone...

no more cars.. anywhere.. other than the few scattered here and there on the sides of the highway,, usually facing the wrong direction, completely covered in snow.

I need to pee bad... I mean real bad. so bad, that it hurts to sit down. I can feel it in my back... I can't even lean against the back of my seat.. I'm hunched forward and hovering over the steering wheel.. squinting out into the distance for that warm comforting glow of a QT... (side note: moving to the city has had one pleasant side effect... I've fallen deep deeply in love with the QT stores...)(more on that later)


I take my wallet out of my back pocket and set it on the console; in some desperate attempt to make the urinal pain subside.

didn't work.. I shift weight between butt cheeks a few times.. nothing.. no gas stations in sight.. nothing but office buildings and the distant white wilderness..


A quick glance at the water bottle in my floorboard brings forward a few intriguing thoughts.... calmly I wonder if I might be able to pull off a driving while urinating in a bottle episode without spilling in the truck... I detailed the interior just a few days ago... can't be having any urine spilled in the truck..

suddenly that thought is interrupted when my equilibrium begins sending new messages to my brain.. they're screaming that my body is now traveling in a direction other that forward.. ,,and this new direction is in fact closer to 090 degrees than 000... but immediately correct the situation with a sharp jolt of the steering wheel to the left and back to the right,, and as fast as it had all happened,, I am again heading straight down the highway..

I glance in the mirrors,, but still nobody.... no witnesses..

during this whole episode,, "soldier on" has been playing in the background.. (one of my favorite temper trap songs..) it's cranked up to eleven..


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZs0_r3ROjg (please do)


then,,,

I punched it..


no reason.. just givin' it gas.. a lot of gas..

the rpm's shoot up to around five thousand almost immediately,, proving that i have almost no traction.. but i am still gaining speed.. faster... and faster...



"soldier on.. keep your heart close to the ground.. "


faster still.. and for the most part in a forwardly direction... I own this road.. three lanes wide for as far as I can see,,, all to myself. no yellow lines.. just white..


the song is nearing my favorite part.. right about the four minute mark.. when he screams the word "DAD"


I'm no singer,, but in my own head, I seem to be able to match his pitch on that word...

I belt it..

i can't quite describe how i feel..

invigorated.. With that one word I'm able to release every single thing I've ever felt towards, or wanted to say to my father... just one word... DAD!!!!

it's become quite a scene in the truck now,, the song reaches it's greatest intensity,, I'm traveling about as fast as anyone would ever dare travel in these conditions.. snow is flying toward my truck but amazingly sweeping past as it draws near.. The whole thing looks just like when they launch into warp speed on star trek. (bad reference I know).. i'm screaming at the top of my lungs..

it occurs to me,, that the cops aren't going to care what i'm doing at the moment.. they're too busy helping the hundreds that have run off the road, to worry about some guy driving "too fast" on a road with no lanes and possibly urinating into a plastic bottle in the near future.... i can do whatever I want.. I wish I had a pistol right now so I could hold my arm out the window and blast it into the air as i speed down the road.. while peeing in this bottle..

now THAT,, would just put me right over the top..


and then,, the song is over... i slow down.. back down to earth.. I'm alive.. I don't need to pea anymore.. I'm reminded of when I used to get out on a back road and stand up on my motorcycle at 70 miles per hour.. just to feel alive again.. I don't typically need that sort of adrenaline anymore,, but i suppose tonight IS a special instance.. I've been cooped up in a house with two dudes all week long..


anyhow,, the rest of the trip was uneventful... except I stopped at whataburger.. for obvious reasons.. As I jumped out and began hurriedly walking towards the door... I had one thing and one thing only on my mind.. I was consumed with my need.. I had full intention of going in there and proceeding to try and blast a hole in the back of their urinal... they'll never forget the night that Ryan Hagood stopped here to pee..

but once again my inner monologue was interrupted... this time it was somebody behind me yelling... I turned around to find some overweight bald guy with a truck full of weirdos way too old to be out this late.. He asked me very loudly if I ordered double meat.. I could tell he was drunk.. I said "fuck you" and turned around and walked inside.. he can't touch me right now.. with his yuppy friends,, all too old and pathetic to have real lives.. they've either abandoned their families during a blizzard to go drinking, or they've led such pathetic lives that they've missed every real opportunity at starting one.. have fun guys..


back on the road... as I approach my exit,, I decide to go past,, and catch the u-turn at rufe snow,, so I can cut through the Rec center parking lot... which I know for a fact hasn't been salted.. It's perfect.. not one person has driven through since the snow began to fall a few hours ago.. I creep through it at first,, as if driving slow won't disturb the white sheet,, but then ,, I punch it again and whip out about 4 pristine donuts.. I made a mess of that parking lot, and then hauled ass out of there.. like I'm sixteen years old again and one of the three cops in gorman might by chance be outside of their apartments for once and hear all the commotion..

and now here I sit.. or lie,, on my couch.. listening to the television as I pour my thoughts out into the world wide web..


good morning.