shit, finals!

Normally I try not to use exclamation points in my writing, they just seem to represent some forced sense of excitement. But the title needs one to reinforce that this time around a lackadaisical 'shit, finals...' won't suffice. No, no, these are junior finals. The bitchin' kind.

My English final is some project that we got to design ourselves based on one of the units we focused on throughout the semester. I chose to create a portfolio on actual utopian societies, but the important thing is that we get to design our own rubrics as well. So today I was supposed to have all my pages of drafting done. I had my introduction, half finished. My teacher was like, "Clay, where's the rest?" "Hey Mrs. Besco, chill out, I'm working on it" "But the project is due Monday" "And today's Friday...were you trying to make a point?" Ohh I wish I could talk to teachers like that, but that is in the realm of fantasy my friend. Anyway, the standard other stuff: Chemistry, a.p. European History, Algebra 2, Spanish 4; you get the idea.

Speaking of euro, we had an excellent day today in class. Most likely because over half our class was on a field trip to the DIA. I didn't go because of some other tests that I would have missed had I went, and I just don't like art that much. So I thought we would have a sub and a review packet to do, but alas I was wrong. The seven or eight of us sat in the classroom unattended for roughly 90 minutes playing gameboy and watching 'beerfest' on muscles' iPod. Best day of A.P. European History ever. Who cares about Napoleon and the rise of French absolutism anyways?

One last thing worthy of note, we hit up Asian Buffet after the meet last night. Normally, well, it leaves your ass on fire, but the stars were aligned last night, and the general's chicken was delicious and extra saucy. The highlight of the dinner was not the freshman eating wasabi, but rather the fortune cookie game. If you've never played before you're missing out. Crack open that cookie, read your fortune, and then add '-in your bed' to the end. I won with a "You will quickly start a popular business (in your bed)", or I was winning until A.J. pulled the same fortune. Good Asian food is hard to beat. Word.

5 hundo

Listen up playas, meet tommorow against Canton. In case you didn't know, the Chiefs are all douchebags and give a bad reputation to all native american tribes out there, almost as much so as last years' Atlanta Braves. Anyways, I'm swimming the 5. That's right, 20 bitchin lengths of that damn pool. I normally swim 1/10 of that. By my math, if I go a :25. in the 50, that times ten is 2:50; a new world record. So, if you want to see history made in swimming, I suggest coming to the meet at 7. I hope you didn't believe me about the w.r., if you did you obviously know nothing about sports in general. But whatever, the point is the 500 sucks, big time. I swam it once as a freshman, and since then I have somehow been able to dodge the elephant tracer round that is the 5 hundo. Tommorow that bullet will hit me square in the face, and my chances of surviving will be quite slim. If you were planning to come to the meet, don't bother; we'll win by at least 120 and I'll swim my worst event. So if you were planning on flying in to see me swim, well I hope you bought flight insurance.

In more important news, Sylvester Stalone is back with RAMBO. The one time Chuck Norris who sadly is now more washed up than Gary Coleman is back for a way too unnecessary conclusion to what would have been remebered as a great series. With that being said, will I still see it? Of course, the midnight showing no less.

But anyways, I plan to Rambo my 5 hundo. It's a verb now, spread it. Word.

what I've learned

This morning I was overcome with the typical "shitty" feeling that I have come to know well during swim season. I feel that "shitty" is a proper adjective to describe monday mornings due to the simplistic animosity that floats through my mind as I climb out of my flannel sheets and sleep walk towards an hour and a half of pain. Pain that is as dependable as Billy Mays doing infomercials, that old guy from liberty medical pronouncing 'diabetes' wrong, and as dependable as the Lions falling short of weak expectations. I know all sports sucks in their own ways, but consider this: 1. Swimming is the only sport where you must control your breathing (as in not breath. Seriously, try running in gym and only breath every 10 seconds). 2. Unless you sweat it all out dancing at the Italian American Club on saturday nights, it takes at least a week for that exclusive chlorine stank to come go away. 3. Shit, I'm too tired to think of a third. But the point is that swimming, just like other sports, sucks. I have never, ever, looked forward to a swim practice. Not once. But this year they've been much more bearable, because I've just given up. Quit? No. I've given up the freshman dream of mythical 'fun practice'; a practice where we stretch for an hour, warmup, then cool down, and then play some dodgeball with Keira Knightly (I love dodgeball, and Keira Knightly is hot. Best of both worlds). It will never, ever happen. So why fantasize about it? The sooner I realized I will never have fun the easier practice became. Practice sucks, its not gonna change, so get used to it. Work blows, probably always will, so do something fun for lunch.

And that's exactly what I do at work. Race Toby and Josh to McDonalds, buy my #2, and haul ass back to the shop where I can listen to some way unintelligent but nonetheless thought provoking conversation that makes me feel good about myself.

But I digress. The point of this post is utterly nonexistent, except for the fact that I listened to "Soulshine" by gov't mule this morning when I woke up, and I must say it made that it made my death march much more... positive. If you haven't heard it give it a listen. Word.

Florida, 3 of 3

Not too much to say for this one, but I saw some pretty cool stuff on the trip, and just thought you may like to see. For instance, one day at the beach beds of sargassum weed floated up, and I saw countless different species, highlighted with:a craba shrimpanother crab species, freakishly small, in the crease of my fingers an extremely small fish

and the highlight of the day, a seahorse.

So Jeff Corwin, cut the shit and start returning my calls. You've seen what I can do, and I know you want to take me on for whatever job you need done, just give me a call buddy. In addition, I went to John's and we saw a whole family of iguana's that just hang out in the seagrape there, obviously pets at one time, there are now iguanas of all size, including two 4 footers.

Corwin, call me. Word.

Northville v. Stevenson

Last night was the most important meet of the year, Northville v. Them. So why is there a picture of Chuck Norris, I mean he didn't fly in for this meet? Well my friends, if I had to metaphorically draw what our attitude and mentality looked like last night, it would be this stunner above. Two machine guns with rawhide straps; cut off sleeves; look of determination that's near constipation; a big, hot, nasty American flag; and of course the denim shirt unbuttoned to the belt for maximum sweaty sexy. In fact, the talk we got while stretching out before practice wednesday blew my mind. Rich was pacing in front of us explaining that underestimating that team down six mile was the worst mistake we could make, and that we'd have to swim the best meet of the season to beat them. Then out of the blue Rich said something to the extent of, "This is a twelve event meet, you do not let them back in at any point. When they pull themselves out of that pool, you put your cleats on and drive them through their skulls." Yikes. I almost started laughing, which totally would have ruined the depressing mood. I mean it just sounded so exorbitantly violent. I don't even kill spiders, how am I gonna shove a spike through a kid's head? Anyways, we didn't need to.

Although we lost the medley relay despite my :22.8 split (bitchin' fast), we were ahead the whole meet, although only by 2 at diving, which made it way too close for comfort. In the ultra competitive world of high school swimming, 2 points is practically nothing. The highlight of the meet was that of the 20 or so girls who timed for us, about 18 must have had "we love northville boys swimming" shirts. Score. They may as well have said, "I come to meets to check out the dudes", but that may have been too obvious. I even saw them being passed out at school today, which means we're spreadin' the love, groovy. Anyways, the only bad part of the girls timing is that you're walking around in you're speedo the whole time. Maybe you try to change the subject off your bulge, example: "Hey Megan, did you do the Spanish homework?". For me that generally doesn't work, so yesterday right before I hopped up to bend over on the starting block I said,
"Hey Lindsay?"
"Yeah, Clay?"
"Don't stare at my ass, okay?"
"Haha, okay..."
Then I went a :52.6, so regardless of how baggy my suit happens to be in the ass, I probably will kick your ass. Wow, that's really cocky, but hey, why not?

We went out to Red Robin and I had a great Red Robin Bacon Cheeseburger with amazing Freckled Lemonade, making sure to slurp the chunks of strawberry through the straw in a very suggestive manner. Anyways, on the way home it was raining like a bitch, and dark. Not great driving conditions. I had to drop off some underclassmen, so I told a.j. to put on some good music and tell me how to get to his house. He chose "Crazy Rap" by Afroman, a solid victory song. So as I was focusing on driving through a.j.'s hood, I unknowingly said the whole verse of the "Met this girl from Michigan, can't wait 'till I f*** that chick again". SHIT. The streak came to an end. 16 years, 10 months, and 11 days without saying the f-bomb-gone. SHIT. I don't know what I have to live for anymore. Ohh wait, another Stevenson ass kicking, never mind. Word.

bowling, anyone?

After 12 games of thoroughly spartan football games this year, the crescendo that is fourth quarter losses and broken dreams built up into an undeniably electric Champs' Sports Bowl. Yes, the Champs' Sports Bowl, the creme de le creme, the holy grail, may I say the Jessica Alba of college bowl games? I had the pleasure to see this historic game. Historic because of the Chernobyl degree of suck that plagued Brian Hoyer through his entire 'game'.

The three hour drive from Jupiter to Orlando was quite uneventful except for the Stover family classic driving game that we played. I challenged Brady to a game of 'cows', and after Mandy laid down the rules, we battled. We modified the game rules for Florida wildlife, and concluded that cows=1, assorted water birds=2, alligators=10, and florida panthers=300, while any roadside memorial/cemeterry lost you all your points. I could tell I would have to step up my game and count as fast as I could with my eagle eyes seeing as how brady saw about 4 panthers in a quater mile.

Finally we arrived in Orlando, and, well, it wasn't that great. Not quite a family fun park if you know what I mean. After close to 4 hours of dry tailgaiting, we made our way to the stadium and up to our seats.

I fully expected for B.C. to beat us into a pulp, as did the 300 or so B.C. fans at the game, those cocky bitches. Anyway, the State side of the stadium actually started to shake as sparty led the team out of the tunnel. I'm not sure I could have yelled louder if I wanted to, especially after the first, "first down, biiiitch". Somehow MSU was winning most of the game, but as any experienced State fan will tell you, there is a constant fear of that the stone foundation that has been laid for the past 3 quarters will crumble into a shitty, demoralized heap of shit.

So who dropped the duece in this game? Mr. Brian Hoyer with 4 INTs, 1 fumble, and 11/36 passing or something like that. Needless to say we lost by 2 or 3 points or something like that. It looked so promising. I liken it to that fake cake in the kitchen. You know, the one on the platter that's just there for decoration but you think it's real. You get so excited about this slice of cake you're about to have because the chocolate looks so good, and then you cut into it and it's fake, making you feel embassed about even thinking about taking the cake. I was embassed that I thought we could win, so close but yet so far. I got a bit frustrated...

We lost, and I really don't want to even think about it anymore, it's that sour to me still. Ohh, and it didn't help that we pulled a mini Florida State and had 4 or 5 players accademically ineligable for the game. I mean shit guys, study for your finals, its not that hard. You get your own tutors for being on the team and you still can't pass, can't pass, your finals? Shit guys, I mean shit. Better luck next year guys. Word.

future career? yes, please!

If you don't know me, than you probably don't know that fishing is sorta my thing. What overpriced cars are to some, and Grey's Anatomy is to others, fishing is to me. Not quite an obsession, but...well, maybe. I don't want to talk about it.

But I will write about it. In my six or so days in florida this Christmas break I went fishing twice. The first was to the infamous Juno Fishing Pier. The place where multiple times I have spent hours watching the little Vietnamese men around me pull up fish as I do seaweed. With the exception of one trip I have never left the pier with that indescribable feeling of pure luck and gratitude that the nine inch bluefish decided to bite my double hooked line instead of the hooks of identical bait around it. What I have left with each and every time is sunburn. As you can tell, not too many fond memories of the pier. And why should there be? All that happens is that I get harassed by seagulls and pelicans, step in bird shit, and up smelling like bait, and catch absolutly nothing. But somehow I still love fishing.

Anyways, this time was different. I was going with the father-son fishing team of the century, John Arthur Syverson III and John Arthur Syverson IV (John and Mr. Syverson for short). As I was saying, they love fishing as much as I do, and Mr. S. knows all about saltwater catching. At least that's what I thought, until we struck out again. At the end of the day we asked the vietnamese man in his camo jacket what we were doing wrong. We had to buy him off first with leftover shrimp, but we got what we needed to know, "Your hook too big, and line too fat". Shit. We had no chance all this time.

But I wasn't about to let one bad experience of the fishing capital of the world deter me from the work that needed to be done. Catching fish.

The last day of the vacation I planned to wake up early, 7 o'clock, and go fishing. However, after a totally dry new year's eve celebration, and much other demanding activity of the sort, I accidentally slept in until 8:30. "Shit, shit, shit". I tried to sneak out of the house, but Dad spotted me with my fishing gear. "You gonna go swimming later then?". "Ahh, maybe, I don't know." "You know you're supposed to, You're not doing what Rich told you". "Alright". I trudged into the bathroom to put on my speedo and get my swimming shit together, went across the street to the pool, put in a solid 40 minute workout, and called it a day. After all, I had work to do.

Still in my speedo and a pair of shorts, I grabbed my gear and headed to the dog park. But clay, there's no fish in dog parks, are there? Good question loyal reader, not usually. But this is perhaps the nicest dog park I have ever had the privelege to experience. About 2 acres of native florida wilderness proctection area thing, a nicely fenced, two section dog area, and jai-lai courts for whatever. Ohh, and it backs up to the intracostal, the system of inland saltwater waterways and channels that border the ocean all along the coast. The previous day I saw a manatee, and that was my main reason for coming back. The chance to see the fatest, clumsiest, most unevovled animal on the endangered species list that for some reason has a special spot in my heart. Sappy, in know. No manatee this time, just sweltering heat and lots of big, big boats.

I tied on a DOA shrimp to the end of my line, naive as that sounds. I didn't know what I was doing, but after much Discovery channel I knew that fish loved the mangroves. Second cast I pulled in the shrimp as saw about a one foot pufferfish chasing my lure. "Haha, this is gonna be a fun day". About the fourth of fifth cast I tossed the shrimp out there and 'jerked it' right along the mangrove roots. All of the sudden something pulled back, and hard. I 'jerked it harder' and something silver came out. It jumped high out of the water and I honestly thought at first that it was just a giant minnow, how stupid of me. After a solid fight I pulled in the 18 inch barracuda. Awesome.

So awesome that in my panic to get a trophy shot it almost bit me. All I'll say is that if it bit me I would have 'leatherman'd' that ho.

I know I look constipated in that picture, but I wasn't. I was sweaty, and sweaty is sexy.

After my barracuda miracle I was fishing purely for fun, I had the "nothing to loose, everything to gain" attitude. I caught nothing for the next hour and a half but that was fine with me. The couple that came while I was there did. The man was at first a little hesitant to get in the water, saying, "Shit, shit, that's cold. I ain't puttin' my foot down in that. Shit man". "Just give it a minute boo, you'll be hot in a second". Within two minutes of fishing he pulled in a nice pompano. He put down his cigarrette thing and unhooked the fish, dropping it in the bucket. I told him I had to leave, because I did have to be home. "Alright man, I got to go, but good luck to you." "Ahh, we just came from home. Left the kids and came fishing. This is our time, our time, haha. Well good luck to you too little man." The 'little' man wasn't necessary but I knew he meant well. Goodbye beach and new friends.

That was, for many reasons, possibly the nicest, most gangster man I have ever met.