It's time to taste what you most fear.

I rarely post and/or take photos of myself, but I guess this may be an important thing to document in my life that I might want to look back on some day, right? Taking pictures with my Nikon is really strange to me, with it being a such a big, heavy camera and with the lens and all but the new live view shooting mode does make it pretty easy and interesting. Yeah, here's my face. That's all.

Oh, I guess I do want to mention (my shirt reminded me!) that this past Wednesday, Corpsey gave me a free ticket to go with her to see Jello Biafra at Altar Bar, in Pittsburgh. I must say, that was definitely one of the best decisions that I have made in a long time. I was so close to passing up the opportunity just because it seemed like too much of a hassle and took too much energy, but now I can certainly die a littler happier after hearing that voice live, that is for sure! What an amazing man! I get giddy thinking about it. It was pretty moving in some strange way? You know how I feel about live music. It was a crazy day of work and then going to a show. Being on my feet all day and drinking on top of that was pretty exhausting. Not to mention I had to go into work early the next morning, on about four hours of sleep, and work a ten hour day. You know what, though? It's a night I'll never forget and that's what matters. If you would have asked me on Thursday at work, I may have told you otherwise, but I impress myself sometimes when I put my mind to it. No, but seriously, I would have been kicking myself for life for not going, if I wouldn't have!

» Linds

Chuckie Stump

I do have all kind of fun posts and cute pictures and things to share, but on a more serious note, I wanted to take the time to look back on some memories.

My friend, Chuckie, pictured above on the left passed away a year ago, as of yesterday. Our little town truly went through a tragedy, losing Chuckie and Jake, two of the kindest young souls, only within a month apart. It's a hopeless kind of feeling. You would think others would be effected so deeply by these events that they would take a look at themselves and learn from their mistakes. I don't think that this is so for a lot of people, though, unfortunately. It makes you wonder, who could be next? It's a scary feeling.

I met Chuckie through my friend, Paul, whom at the time, well, we were inseparable friends. Chuckie and Paul were best friends. They were neighbors and had known each other their whole lives. So, naturally, Chuckie and I became friends. This was around maybe 2007 or so, around the time I graduated high school. At the time, several of my good friends had started a punk band. We spent many days and nights in a dirty, old garage while they jammed. This memory is particularly dear to me because there were only a handful close friends who were around for these times in the garage and Chuckie was one of them.

He, Paul, and I also spent plenty of time loitering in parking lots in my car, waiting around for something fun to get into nearly every evening. We were bored out of our minds at the time but I didn't realize till now how much of a good time we were having just talking, laughing, and smoking and how much I would end up cherishing those times that seemed so unimportant and silly at the time.

xo, Linds