Constructive Summer.

Life continues. Summer school is still tedious, but it's coming closer and closer to an end. Unfortunately, Hope's out of town for a week. Fortunately, I still have people I'm "just friends" with, so I should be able to stay busy in her absence.

It's so weird. I feel like I'm participating in life. Listen to this. Friday night, went and visited my girlfriend at work. Then went to Kyle's, hung out on the street for a couple hours with friends. We sat on a car, listened to music, Kyle played his guitar. Footballs were thrown, jokes were told, memories were made. I'm pretty sure this is all normal, but it's new to me.

Nothing major to tell you guys, just thought I'd update this thing for posterity, if nothing else. See ya.

Christopher Michael Tucker.

9 to go.

I'm sitting in summer school right now. It's really awful. My friend Kevin took off. So I'm on my own for the last half of this 19 days. He threw all his papers all over the Jack in the Box parking lot, and a couple of mine were in there, so a principal came and talked to me a bit ago. I just laughed. Saw the Happening last night. It was okay. Mildly entertaining, with some good comedic relief to interrupt all the suicides. Hope couldn't go, but I got to visit her at work after, so that was nice. I should be getting to see her after school today, and maybe going to a show so I'm trying to focus on that.

This half of class has been spent right here in this computer lab and I haven't done a bit of work yet. The stupid school has every good site blocked too, so I just wander around absolutepunk.net and some catch up on some blog reading. I like to get on wikipedia and see who has birthdays when I've got time like this too. Like yesterday would have been Tupac's 37th birthday. Thank goodness I had all this free time to figure that out. Lunch is in twenty minutes. Then three more hours of horribly repetitive English that I learned in middle school. Wonderful.

Christopher Michael Tucker

Um, I can't link you to anything, but you should listen to She & Him, especially "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?" It should be on their myspace. I've been listening to them a lot lately after seeing Zooey in that movie last night. Lovely voice. Listen please.

Happiness.

Here are things that have made me happy as of late.

1) Hope Retter
I don't really have any kind of benchmark, seeing how I've never dated anyone before, but so far, she's been a wonderful girlfriend.

2) People being decent to each other
Maybe they always have been, and I just haven't noticed, but regardless, it's good to see. The best was seeing a black woman and white woman discuss books (Yes, books!) on metrolink today.

3) Good music, and shows.
Those are constants really. For posterity, here are the highlights of this week show-wise. Wednesday was Nightmare Of You, The Graduate, Paper Rival, and Edison Glass at 2 Cents Plain. Everyone sounded good, especially Edison Glass. That band is so sick. See them live, for real. Well, and NOY, but I left during their first song, which was a good, good decision. Friday I went to the Asian Man Records tour. I left after Andrew Jackson Jihad, because they're why I went, and Hope and I deemed it more fun to walk to Maurizio's pizza. Kepi Ghoulie played too and they were fun.

That's all for now. 11 more days of summer school for me I think. Not too shabby.

Christopher Michael Tucker.

Go listen to Wilco or Paul Baribeau or Edison Glass.

The need to love.

Summer school is not nearly as bad as I expected. Sure, it's tedious and ridiculously annoying sitting in a classroom staring out a window watching responsible kids enjoy their summer, but hey. I've only got 17 more days to go. The classes are small and I feel very comfortable and at ease, especially since a good friend of mine, Kevin Farrar sits by me in both sessions. Lunch leaves something to be desired, but beggars can't be choosers.

The Moon In My Basement played a show Friday night at the Creepy Crawl. There was a decent crowd and quite the interesting variety of bands, ages ranging from 14-50ish I'd say. I'd also say, "Wow. Some 14 year old kids can really shred." There was some confusion about if we were on the bill or not, but everything got straightened out, and we actually made 100 bucks. I didn't do anything with this show, well, minus booking and photography. The sound was pretty bad, which can either be attributed to a sub-par performance or bad sound, or a combination of both. Who really cares...we made 100 bucks.

I went and saw my cousin graduate yesterday, followed by a party back at her house. I ended up spending the night at her boyfriend's place, which sounds weird, but it isn't. We're friends. We played video games until about 2, when Hope called. See, she lives on the same street, and I figured, "What better time than 2 AM to introduce her to Mr. Ryan Potter?" So we hung out with her for a couple hours, jumping on the trampoline, talking, playing Chinese rock paper scissors, you know, the usual. We headed back to his house at 4, and eventually went to bed around 5:30. They woke me up at 8, and I felt remarkably awake. I still am.

I'm a little down, though. I was supposed to go see Mates Of State tonight at the Bluebird, but my show partner for the evening didn't feel like going anymore. The evening improved, however, when my mom brought home I movie I'd been aching to see for awhile, "Lars and the Real Girl." I was going to write a lot about how it affected me and emotions it brought out in me, but I think I'll let you form your own opinion of the film. Seriously, check it out sometime. I haven't seen a movie this good in a long time. Tomorrow night I'm going to see some guy "Hey Chris" speak at an art market. I have no idea what I'm in for, but I think it sounds pretty swell. Till next time.

Christopher Michael Tucker

If hope is a dangerous hole, will you join me?

Here's what's been happening in my life. I hung out with one of my best friends, Victoria Keller a few days ago. We went to the mall. It ended up being a really good night actually. We got sodas and talked about feelings and coexisting with other people and were very honest. I feel this was very healthy, as I got some things off my chest I don't feel I could have talked with other people about. We also played a bunch of arcade games at TILT and got enough tickets for a kite. So I now have two summer goals. Grow a beard, fly a kite.

I went to the Honda Civic Tour on Friday. All the bands sounded really good actually. I got fairly close to the front, thanks to my friend Rachel arriving at the venue at 6 in the morning. I also got to see Phantom Planet and the Hush Sound acoustic at Vintage Vinyl before, which was lovely. All around it was a pretty good day. I met some new people, saw some good bands, danced, got a text message up on the big screen (Chris Tucker, will you marry me? <3Brendon Urie). I didn't get to see my friends Hope and Allyssa due to the excessive rain, even though they were at the show. The rain also put a few of the people I was with on edge. Minus all that nonsense, things were pretty good.

A couple days ago, me and some friends attempted to have a big glowstick rave party thing at the park at night. The location of the thing got moved, not too many people showed, and most of those that did were the wrong people, if you get my drift. I had a quick aside explaining my upcoming actions to a few people there I care about, and then took off with Rachel, Heather, and Molly. They drove from Illinois for this thing, and I felt they deserved better than the crap that was going down at the time. We ended up going to Steak 'N Shake and talking for a couple hours. It was a nice time, really. I think the evening was saved, if only a little.

Yesterday and today thus far have been filled with lots of nothing. It's sad, seeing as how tomorrow is the first day of summer school. Add that to my friend Mark and me discussing the affects of drugs on people in our lives, and you've got one sad kid. This stuff makes me think a lot of weird things. Example.

"Sometimes I wish I could just leave this world. I mean nothing suicidal by this. I just think it would be blissful to float in space or in some other dimension in silence, and in peace. I think if I could, I would stretch out to the point that all the sun's rays would be absorbed into me, and I would become a warm, floating mass, completely content, absolved of the corruption and sadness of typical human life, completely unconscious and happy."

I have no idea where these ideas come from or if you understand the feeling I'm trying to portray. All I know is that this dream is very visible and nearly in reach in my mind, and that in itself, makes me feel a little better.

Christopher Michael Tucker

Go download a free record at weareempires.com