Laying on a couch in Richmond, VA. Getting dropped off at the Richmond Airport at 9:00am, which means tour will offically be over.

I think i am going to retire this blog. I dont want to get rid of the stuff on here, but i want to do something else, go in a new direction.

the new Lemuria record is incredible.

incredibly short sighted and completely irrelevant.

I kind of want to quit every band I play in and move somewhere to the pacific northwest, or just the furthest place possible form here or there. Readjust myself in Canada and get a new focus on everything that needs sharpening. I don’t want to be anywhere around her (or her), and I don’t want to think about them, or anyone else. I don’t want to have to feel like I am constantly letting someone down by doing things that do not really have to be done (booking tours, loaning gear, talking, listening – these are all things I wish to avoid these days). I don’t want to take another insult form a drunk friend, and I don’t want to kiss another girl. I want to be by myself until all of this makes a little bit of sense.

Until I know what I am doing.

Until I don’t have dreams of anything other than the achievable.

I have lived a life of always wanting more, and constantly striving for it. Maybe its just about time to accept the inevitable and say, “fuck it. I’ll just be a single and lonely and not a musician for the rest of my life.” These are the cards that are constantly dealt to me, so maybe I should just cash in the hand and settle for my marginal victory.

Many people my age would kill for a degree and a middle-class job. I have the first and all the possibilities for the latter, but, all I want is to be loved.

Out the window to my left is a sign for Interstate 75 South. All it reminds me of is how much I don’t want to go home.

But We're All Getting Older, Anyway - Looking back on 2007

The Only 5 Records that Mattered in 2007
5. Lifetime – Limfetime
I was never really that in to old Lifetime, and I think with this record I never will. This is everything I could have ever wanted out of Lifetime

4. Glass and Ashes – Glass and Ashes
I think only 200 people are lucky enough to have a copy of this record before the year ends, and I am one of them, and it is seriously incredible. Leaps and bounds above their last effort. Brutal and melodic and awesome

3. Young Livers – the New Drop Era
Just something incredibly special about this record. Cant put it in words. Just fucking incredible

2. A Wilhelm Scream - Career Suicide
These guys step it up on every record. I have no idea where they will be going from here. They have practically mastered fast punk rock

1. Fake Problems – How Far Our Bodies Go
Simply one of the best performances in a long time. Seeing this band now is like seeing Against Me when Against Me was still fun to see. These guys just embody the spirit of this music, its fun and honest. I cant remember many records that have ever come out that I think are on par with this.

In 2007 I learned that the worst drivers in the Southeast can be found on the stretch of I-75 between Gainesville and Tampa, FL, and that Chicago is just another city. In 2007 I fell apart and put myself back together. I played some killer shows, met some great new friends and didn’t get tattooed enough. By the age of 22 I have done almost everything in the world I wanted to achieve by now.

In 2008, I have my whole life ahead of me.

So here’s to that.

the other day I was carrying on a conversation with a girl that I am at least mildly attracted to. The thing about girls is that, 85% of the time, they are only really interested in talking while in conversation. That is not to say that this is a Golden Rule, but, for the most part, a female just wants to talk and they want you to listen idly listen.

So while I was sitting there listening to this female acquaintance rabble on about something, I started to wonder what it would be like to be in a relationship with her. And all I could see was fighting. And arguing. And drama. And Bullshit. And woes among woes.

And this is not restricted to simply this girl. Every girl i think about now outside of a platonic context, all I image in a future full of bad times. I foresee the ways that she will probably get pissed off about all the little dumb things I do. I see her getting mad about me going on tour. I see us bitching about hating each others friends. Essentially, i don't ever envision any kind of pleasurable circumstance with a female in my future. ever.

And I suppose now that I have a realistic view of the future, all of life will be much more bearable

Closing Doors. Metaphorically, of course.

Kat Amaya is getting married later this month. I don’t have many ex-girlfriends, but this is the first ex-girlfriend I have ever had to get married. At first it felt a little weird, that someone I use to date was now getting married. But, in all honesty, this was the inevitability of it all. I sort of always knew that Kat and Jeremy would get married someday. Looking back on my experience with her, it seems as though that our relationship was that of convenience and circumstance. Everything we said about how much we liked each other was something to just say, in order to validate being there. I don’t doubt that we liked each other at the time, but I would say that we more so liked not being alone. There were many instances where I knew there was no future between the two of us, and that I was just saying things and acting the way I did simply so I wouldn’t have to be alone. I am pretty sure that things were exactly the same for her.

Regardless, it is a little weird to see how nonexistent you can be in someone’s life. Especially someone who you use to, presumably care so much about. Prior to today, I hadn’t talked to Kat in months. Who knows when the next time will be.

At least that is a period of life that is closed forever. There is no chance of relapse or being stupid and lowering your guard enough to get involved with someone you know you aren’t really interested in. She is married.

And that is that.

And I suppose all is right in the world.

I suppose Chuck Klosterman is not as irrelevant as I once thought.

Let me explain:

Just recently I have been in a rather interesting situation. I have become decently good friends with a girl who has a boyfriend. Now this is not really a big deal, I have had friends who were girls that were not single. However, within our group of friends, there has been a fair amount of chatter of something going on. Now I am hearing this all third, fourth and fifth hand, so I really have no idea who is starting this and who believes it, but suffice it to say that I have heard from quite a few people that some people within our group of friends believe that my relationship with this girl is not strictly platonic.

For the record, it 100% most certainly is. The amount of time spent hanging out with this girl outside of any kind of large social gathering is non-existent. I will admit, however, that there was a time when I and this girl would flirt a lot, but again, it was all strictly platonic. I have never given this girl so much more than a hug. In the scope of the past couple months, we have both reached out to the other when we were in some kind of woe situation. But i must reiterate that we have never done anything. Ever.

I can understand how this must seem a little fishy on the surface, but, like i said, there is nothing going on, so I really dont feel like I am doing anything in the wrong.

But this all comes back to Chuck Klosterman because of something he said in one of his books (they are all essentially the same). The reason dating is so hard is because guys who are looking for single girls have a very high bar to hurdle. What i mean is that you have to be more desirable than every other guy on the market. You have to seem more interesting and like a better investment than every other guy who will hit on that girl that night.

But with taken girls, you simply only have to be more desirable than the person she is dating. With taken girls, the bar is only set as high as the person she is dating has set it. I dont think this girl is at all interested in me, and really she is just a friend to me (i understand that this constant reaffirmation of the platonic nature of our relationship sort of goes against my argument, but I swear, we are just friends), but I think that if I wanted to get involved with the girl, all I would have to do would make myself seem more interesting and desirable than her boyfriend.

Lucky for everyone, I am a nice guy. Because I would honestly never want to put anybody through the strain of having some other guy scheming on their girlfriend.

anyway.

real life

I am applying for a job as a "writer" for PRICK Magazine in the next week or so. I wrote this today and will submit it with a resume and etc. I haven't edited it yet, that is why i am posting it. so i can read over it over and over again and find the mistakes, etc etc

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On Paying Someone Lots of Money to Draw on My Skin
- or - Validating My Stupid Tattoos
by Zac Hobbs

I suppose there are those decisions in life that we will ultimately regret. Most tattoo collectors keep this thought in the back of their mind every time an idea for a new piece enters their head. As human beings, we are able (at least in some capacity) to mediate our decisions and ultimately hope that when the grim reaper comes to read our name from his tome that the bulk of our major decisions wont be filed under the “regret” category. “Maybe I shouldn’t have dated her,” “Maybe I shouldn’t have quit that job” and “maybe I shouldn’t have gotten that tattoo” are all phrases that no one wants to utter on their deathbed.

When I was 20 years old, I began a 2 and a half year odyssey of having a rendition of Gotham city, complete with Batsignal and Bat Mobile, permanently drawn onto my upper arm and chest. I have spent well over three days worth of hours of my waking life in a tattoo chair in Valdosta, GA (three and a half hours from my home, mind you) while Craig Beesly jammed insane amounts of colors under my skin. I am significantly poorer because of this experience.

I have a green Blue Whale tattooed under a banner that says “Brodependant” on my left arm. When I was in Chicago I had an apprentice tattoo a red one line drawing of a polar bear onto my badly sun burnt arm, which now looks more like a pink Arby’s Hat. I have a koi fish missing half of its body tattooed on my foot and a star on the back of my arm that I can’t really explain.

I may not be the king of stupid tattoo’s, but it is a fair statement that I have quite a few bad ideas permanently drawn on my skin. But the way I see it, tattoo’s are sort of like an old photo album. They are reminders of where we have been, what we have done, what we have loved and what we are dependant on (in my case, Bro’s).

Tattoo’s are not some manifestation of your inner most being, but they are also something a little bit more than some ink jammed into your skin. If it takes you more than 2 minutes to explain your tattoo, then it probably doesn’t really mean anything to you at all. At the same time, you shouldn’t just jump straight into every single bad idea, either. I suppose if nothing else, tattoo’s are just a rather absurd way of visually explaining the kind of person that you are. I have a religiously confused friend who has a tattoo of a devil with a sword kneeling below a bloody cross. I have another friend whose only tattoo is the initials for the group of friends he grew up with. Every tattoo says something about us, even if they are something as stupid as discolored blue whale.

If tomorrow some revolutionary company invents a cream that will lift tattoo’s from right under the flesh, then the day after tomorrow I would still have a bunch of kind-of-sort-of (probably real bad) ideas forever tattooed on my skin.