DJ Jazzy Jesse: Part 2

One of the first posts I ever wrote was about how I share my name with a DJ in Oregon, and occasionally get his emails. I hadn't gotten one in a long time, so when one from "Nicole" arrived, I decided to reply.

Hi Nicole!

First of all, congratulations on your wedding. What a truly magical time in your life, and I appreciate you sharing the schedule with me. I just broke up with my girlfriend, so I feel like you're rubbing it in a little. I'm going to let that slide because I know it's been a busy time for you, and keeping up with what's going on in my life probably hasn't been your number one concern. (Side note, are any of your bridesmaids in to short nerds? I'm just saying, you could do me a solid )

Secondly, I'm not sure how I feel about playing "Big Green Tractor". Be honest with yourself, is that really a wedding song? How would you feel about throwing out the whole mix and just going with Journey's greatest hits? I'm an expert in these kinds of things, and I guarantee that by the time "Faithfully" hits, there will be so many people crying that you could get Kleenex to sponsor this wedding. You'll think you were at an onion cutting convention. People will talk about it for years to come. Everyone loves Journey Nicole. Everyone.

Also, you won't have to waste time burning copies of those wedding CD's that everyone hands out these days, but nobody listens to. You can just hand them a copy from the store. Guests will appreciate that extra level of effort and class.

Third, what are you guys serving? I hope it's crab cakes. I love crab cakes.

In closing, I believe you've reached the wrong Jesse Bearden. I'm a software engineer from Phoenix, and the only DJing I do is DJ Hero on the Xbox. Not to brag, but I once got 300,000 points on "Intergalatic", so maybe you should have me do it. Do you really want some schmuck running your dollar dance who couldn't even break 200k? You ask that guy for his high scores. Anything under 250 is bush league and you deserve better. Remember, it's your day Nicole.

If you wouldn't mind, could you tell me which email you were trying to reach? I get emails about weddings somewhat regularly and I'd like to be able to forward them on the the right place.

Jesse

P.S. I'm serious about those Bridesmaids. Anyone cute and in to nerds?

P.P.S All jokes aside, here's a link to that Journey album. If you don't already have a copy, let me know and I'll send you one as a wedding present.

The Pizza and Taco Diet: Sean Gets Skinny

Sean and I used to constantly make jokes about each other's weight. I'm not even sure where it started because we were both only about ten pounds overweight, but we still teased each other unmercifully. It was just our thing.

"Oh. A second donut, eh fat ass?" I'd ask, as I passed him on the way to the office kitchen, secretly hoping he hadn't taken the last one.

"Would you like the eight or the twelve piece?" the Chick-Fil-A worker would ask.
"Oh, I'll take the twelve"
"Yeah, look at him. He's only ordering the twelve because you don't have a twenty piece."

"Do you guys want to walk to lunch or drive?"
"Well, I'm down to walk, but I doubt Size Large over there has the stamina to walk half a mile unless there's a park bench between here and there."

In August Sean decided that enough was enough. His kids were getting to the age that he was chasing them all over the place, and he took this as a sign that it was time to get in to shape. He wanted me to join him in his quest to get thin, but two things stopped me. First, I truly believed that losing ten pounds would just result in putting back fifteen once I stopped. Second, I was coupled and happy. If Rachael accepted me chubby, why bother getting skinny?

The thing about Sean is, when he starts something, he doesn't start small. He researches. He focuses. He dedicates himself. Normally this dedication lasts about a week until something new and shiny has come along, but if the Liang Prank taught us anything, it's that when he really sinks his teeth in to something, he doesn't screw around. Within a week he had a diet web page set up with the following mission statement:

I want to be skinny enough that I can call Jesse Bearden a fat ass without him being able to respond.

Good luck with that tubby, I thought as he droned on about calories and shoe-less jogging in the office.

To my surprise, three months later Sean had dropped twenty five pounds and seemed to be keeping it off. Even more surprising, he wasn't spending every waking moment rubbing it in my face like I would have done were the roles reversed. Of course by that time I was no longer coupled, and feeling less than emotionally fantastic.

When I get down emotionally, stage one is wallowing in it. This is followed shortly by stage two which is, "As long as you're going to be worthless, you might as well work on you." With that in mind, I soon joined Sean's diet crusade...

Sesquipedalis 2.0

I fully intended to be "done" with the new blog layout and everything by this time, but I realized something: Writing regularly is hard.

There are still a few things left that I need to fix, but for the most things "work" now, and I'll continue to fix them up as I try to get back in the habit of writing. You'll notice a few tabs at the top of the page. Hopefully those will be living documents that I update and perfect as I go. There are a few more coming that aren't quite done yet, but I am working on them.

Please let me know if you find something that isn't working, or if I've totally screwed something up.

The biggest change is to the commenting system. It may seem a bit unnecessary and overwhelming at first, but I was really getting tired of trying to keep spam off of the Shaq post, and I went looking for something new. Definitely let me know if you have issues with it, and if you completely hate the new comment system and don't want to use it, you can always email me at sesquipedalis@gmail.com.

- Jesse

Under Construction

So, I've been meaning to change a few things on the layout of the blog. I'm going to spend the next week, or two weeks, or year fixing it up. Hopefully I won't break anything in the meantime, but you'll be seeing some changes for a while. I'll post when I'm done, and maybe talk a little about what's happening.

I should note that the commenting section is being worked on as well. Right now, if you leave a comment, there's a chance it'll disappear, so if you've got something important to say, hit me up at my email.

Sesquipedalis@gmail.com

Nerd Word(s): Don't Take My Shoelaces Away

Don't Take My Shoelaces Away
- Statement

1. "I'm fine"

[ Origin: I believe that when prisoners or mental health patients are suspected of being suicidal, their shoelaces are taken away, or they are given shoes without them for fear of strangulation by shoelace. ]

- usage
1. "Man, when Ron Artest got that rebound and put back, that had to be one of the worst moments as a Suns fan. Are you going to be okay?"
"So long as Steve Nash is a Sun, you don't have to take my shoelaces away."

2. "There's a rumor that Miyamoto won't be directing the next Zelda game."
"You don't have to take my shoelaces away until we at least see how it turns out."

Good Mourning Rachael: Part 3

After a few months of being together, things got a little bumpy. While I tend to lead a carefree and easy life, Rachael was working six days a week, and putting in a lot of effort to make sure all the ends met up at the end of the month. On top of that, she was now putting up with my dumb ass eight or more hours a day. All of this added up to one stressed out monkey who had been uncharacteristically unhappy. For me this was just a hurdle that we'd get over together and continue on our way. After all, her problems were now my problems, and if there's one thing I can do in this world it's problem solve. I saw it all as a speed bump on our road to forever. Unfortunately, as I often do, I underestimated what was really going on.

I did my best to assist with the small things. I tried to help with the laundry, and when she refused, I went and found a laundry service. I sent flowers to her work, and when she accidentally spilled wine on her carpet, I rushed out to find an appropriate cleaner. It wasn't much, but she was a tough person to take care of. I'd screwed up before in my life by not putting enough effort in. This time, I wasn't letting that happen.

One day Rachael left on a trip to visit her sister in Chicago. There had been a little emotional distance between us, and I hoped that the physical distance would make her miss me and maybe bring back the good times. I also thought that a little time away from every day life would do her some good. I dropped Rachael off at the airport. What I didn't realize at the time was that I was saying goodbye to my girlfriend Rachael. The girl who came back was just my friend.

Stress and responsibilities had overwhelmed the girl that I cared so much for, and in the end something had to give. In this case, I was that something.

And just like that, the girl who this very blog brought to my door and I were no longer a couple. While the story of how we met was, in my opinion, quite remarkable, the story of how we parted was typical in most regards. There were a few attempts at reconciliation, a few distraught late night calls, and a few sappy emails. In the end though it wasn't enough, and one day she was just gone.

Were you expecting a better ending? Sorry about that. The extra U in the title wasn't because I was feeling particularly British or anything.

When you write a blog that's basically a sitcom representation of your life, you tend to leave the bad things out and therefore some stories never get their proper ending. The truth is that sometimes Ross and Rachel just don't end up together. But that doesn't mean it's the end of the world.

For me, this blog is a lot about perspective. My people, the nerds, tend to be an overly emotional and sad lot. That's a little bit of self fulfilling prophecy. It's probably easy to see this as a sad tale of the nerd who didn't get the girl, but you'll notice that a solid two thirds(Or more) of the story are about how much I truly cared for her(And still do). I've spent my whole life wanting to spend a decent portion of it alone, so to enjoy someone's company that much was honestly groundbreaking for me. While the story itself doesn't have a perfect ending, there are really a lot of positives to take away.

So, hopefully I didn't bum anyone out. I've already had two people tell me this story was utterly depressing, and I hadn't even gotten to the bad part yet. Don't worry about me, I don't write about things until I'm cool with them. There's no need to take my shoelaces away.

Good Mourning Rachael: Part 2

Despite my first failed attempt at romance, two weeks later Rachael and I were inseparable. Every morning was a struggle on my part to get her off to work, followed by a day of exchanged emails and texts. The day was broken up with lunch, and the afternoon of work was just a break in the action before some night time event. It didn't really matter if it was Sushi and a night out or curling up on the couch to catch up on True Blood, a show I didn't even like. So long as Rachael was there, it was the perfect evening.

For the first time in my life, I wanted to hold hands. I wanted to skip through the park and have picnics. I was completely cheesy and I couldn't have cared less. When Rachael wasn't around, I missed her like a fat kid on The Biggest Loser misses cake. I talked about her to the point that people told me to knock it off. Even I knew it was annoying, but I couldn't help it.

I was that guy. I was in love.

To the outside world, the relationship was probably completely nonsensical. There were times that a look was enough to induce pants-wetting laughter. We practically spoke our own language, and rarely discussed anything serious. We didn't have time for that. We were too busy cracking each other up and joking around.

One morning the alarm went off. Rachael had to be up three hours before I did, but I always made an effort to get her up and going. I am a morning person. She is not. Rachael is not a morning person like I am not a Lakers fan.

The alarm went off, and as I reached to silence it, I was mauled by the tiny girl to my side with a cry of, "I missed you!"

It was a silly moment the likes of which you'd see in Rachel McAdams movie. The girl proclaims to have missed the guy while she was sleeping in the same bed. Normally I'd have been the first to call bullshit, but truth be told, I kind of missed her too.

That day I realized that this was it. This was how I wanted to wake up every day for the rest of my life. We had only known each other a few months, and I knew it was far too early to become so emotionally invested, but I didn't care. I was all in.