Long Weekend (few weeks back)

Now this entry has taken me weeks to write. Not because of it was difficult subject matter or really complex. But because of my inability to commit time to this art form. I have been soooooo bad about staying vigilant in this. I don't know why. I could come up with a million excuses why. I have started working full time. I have been tired. I have been depressed. But really it just comes down to I haven't felt like it even though I have had so much to write about. So I am going to be playing catch up for a bit trying to get back on track with all this. So keep in mind as you read this that it did happen a few weeks ago. A lot has happen with the people in the story since it took place.




So this was a long weekend for me. Filled with all kinds of good and bad,but mostly good. I traveled all across these lands and covered many different cities and counties in just a few short days. I made a lot of new friends, got together with some of my oldest friends, and even got a small insight into who some of my enemies might be. But I think the most interesting portion of my weekend actually bled into the beginning of my work week. Typically it's Friday or Saturday night that are the most outrageous and exciting nights for me, but that was not so much the case for this weekend. On Friday I was out in Hollywood with a lovely young lady from Iceland where we went to dinner out in Beverly Hills and then just ended up spending time in the area. I was supposed to attend a birthday as well for one of my best friends but because she kinda changed the line up of events I just stayed in the Hollywood area until late and then came home.

Saturday night was spent with my friends Nate and Elise and a few others. We at one point ended up at a high school party that are friend Jason who is our age invited us to. Now I think we just assumed that since Jason is our age that surely the people he hangs out with are going to be around our age too. This was not the case at all. We start walking up to the house and notice that everyone else walking up to the house did not only look young,but they were all going in through the back yard gate. This is a dead give away of a high school party simply because it means that whoever is hosting it does not want a lot of people inside so they can avoid anything getting messed up before their parents get home. Well we walked into the backyard and it felt as though every teenage eye in the whole place turned and looked at us. We were clearly the oldest people there. It was horrible! I felt like a chaperon or something! So we retreated shortly there after. Saturday night also held a lot of drama between me and my friend Elise and her friend Nina. But we will not get into that because it is just silly girl stuff that Elise cooked up that I had nothing to do with. I just somehow got stuck in the middle of it.


So Saturday and Friday were fun and interesting and generally a good time. The whole week has been for the most part. But it was the days Sunday and Monday and the transition between them that stand out as being quite a story(if I tell it right)and just a new experience that I don't do too often. You see Sunday started off normal. I woke up and ate, did my thing for a little bit, worked out some. I took a shower and just hung out. Sometime in the afternoon I get a call from my very best friend in the world David. He wants me to go out to Temecula with him to meet a girl from the internet who he has been talking to. She has a friend with her and also that way it just won't seem so awkward or scary for them to meet. Since I would do just about anything for my friend David I agree to come along in support and hopefully have a good time myself in the process. It could either go one of a few ways in this situation. One: David and this girl really hit it off and I am there as the perfect wingman to help input compliments about him and funny and cute stories about us growing up that make him seem even greater than he already does. Two: It is a horrible ugly train wreck and David (who does not drink often) is offered alcohol and because he is so nervous he gets drunk and either falls asleep,throws up, or makes a fool of himself. Three: the girl he is going to meet turns out to be lame and can't stand me so I go into to jerk mode and just focus on entertaining myself at whatever cost. Or Four: A combination of One Two and Three.


Now I think it's important to give you a little back story on my best friend David. I would do anything for this guy. I would fight, kill and/or die for this guy. I love him,in a totally non gay best friends type way. Ever since about 8th grade we had been best friends and have remained that way ever since. I have even known him longer than that though. We were born on the same day,in the same year, we are about the same height, same size shoes, same size waist. We like all the same stuff and always have. I mean, there are some things on me that are bigger,of course, but for the most part we are like twins that came from different mothers. We have been through a lot together and he has seen me at my best and at my worst and has stuck with me and believed in me through pretty much all of it. David is simple yet complex if that makes sense. He has a very strong personality, strong views, and he is just very strong. He has his life on a very precise routine that he seldom strays from. His routine makes him feel safe and productive but it also makes him lonely because it does not leave a lot of room for companionship with a woman. Aside from that David is one of the pickiest guys I have ever known when it comes to chicks. He is really good looking and he works out and is in incredible shape,so a lot of girls out there really dig him, until they talk to him and he makes them feel stupid. He has had one long term relationship to a girl named Krystle who is still to this day one of my best friends. But for David, he was just never able to find another girl that measured up to what Krystle was to him.



But he didn't stop trying. It seemed as though no girl was good enough. People I have seen David with girls that could easily be supermodels,and that are fun and smart. I mean real life perfect 10's and yet somehow he will find something wrong with them. This has been going on ever since he and Krystle broke up, and David was getting lonely. He did not know how to meet chicks without breaking his routine of working out,going to work, skateboarding, metal music etc and so on. So a friend of his suggested he do one of those on-line dating websites. So he did and met a girl who seemed to be everything that he was looking for. She is pretty,easy to talk to, nice, funny, and David liked her. So they had been talking for a little bit and then decided it would be good for them to meet. That is where our story left off right?


So David comes to pick me up and we start heading out east. Deep into the sticks of Riverside county and whatever other counties are out there. It turned out that we weren't actually going to Temecula but we were going to Lake Elisinore,which I am not sure if it is farther away or if it is closer than Temecula or what. I don't ever go out that way unless it's for a good reason,and there are few reasons good enough to go to Lake Elsinore. David talks the entire drive there about how nervous he is to meet her(her name is Kim actually by the way)and how she hopes that she is as cool as she is on the phone. How he has been waiting for so long to meet a girl who is as cool as this girl seems and how he is really trying no tot get his hopes up but he knows that he is. Then me,being the good friend that I am, start laying some facts down and start putting some thoughts in his head to mess with him. The conversation sounded a little like this:

Me:Well dude what if we get out there and she is just like totally huge? What if the pictures she showed you were her but like two years ago and since they were taken she has just been eating non stop? What are you going to do then?
David:Naw man! She also sent me pictures on my cellphone too and she is not fat man.
Me: Well let me just ask you this. What was the picture of? Was it of her face just smiling? Is is pretty much a neck up shot? Because that is what fat chicks that are still way pretty in the face do to deceive guys they meet on the internet.
David:Nuh-uh! I know she isn't fat man! She doesn't sound fat on the phone. Anyway she can't be that bad.
Me:What does fat sound like? She could be 600lbs and you would never know until we get there and just smell the stench of rotten bed sores and old chicken grease dried in the folds of skin on her neck. I ma telling you man she is f*cking huge! Just watch.
David:Dude don't jinx it man! I really like this girl so far man c'mon.
Me:Alright I am sorry I am just giving you a hard time trying to make you more nervous. Your right,she probably isn't morbidly obese. But I am willing to wager that she either has a gnarly mole on her face that shines in sunlight or like a wicked birthmark on her neck that's the shape of Australia or something.
David:Maaaaaaaaannn...

I know I am a good friend right? So we finally get out to the house where we are meeting them. The girl Kim that David has been talking to lives in Corona apparently but was visiting her friend Candice who lives out in Lake Elsinore. Now David is nervous. It's fast approaching the moment of truth where he is going to come face to face with this girl who he really likes from their conversations and yet has never seen. I am pretty nervous too to be honest. I am just hoping that I am not right about her being a fat ass or having a mole or birthmark on her face. I would feel horrible if it were true, not only that but I would probably have a really hard time not staring at it. So they get there and it is a great relief. She is adorable! She has tattooes,she is a little shorter than David, long black hair. But most importantly she is not a disgusting sack of lard and she doesn't have any gnarly dis-figurations anywhere that we can see. David is relieved, I am relieved, it should all be fine. Her friend Candice whose house it was was also very pretty, so hey. This might not be so bad right?


Well we all go inside and start talking and getting to know each other and what not. The girls are very nice and they offer David and I some drinks,and I decline explaining that I don't drink. David takes a drink. Now my friend David does not drink often and he certainly does not drink a lot of hard alcohol. He is a Native American and when he drinks he gets very red. He also starts talking a lot and the things he says are often very stupid. I see him drinking for the sake of looking cool to be a very bad choice. But he does and so the girls. They are all drinking a lot while I watch TV and relax. They are all outside on the porch talking and I am inside watching TV where I can hear them. I can start hearing David saying the stupid things I feared he would. Such as how most girls think that he is too good to be true and how these girls can lose weight in a really healthy way and how David can tell them how to. He begins to explain about how the body and diet break down and how he has mastered fitness and his own health. How he is sooooo strong and healthy and that's why it's hard for him to find a girl because he is so healthy and most girls don't take care of themselves as much as he does and it's hard for him to respect them. I cringe. But to my dismay this girl seems to be taking in what he is saying quite easily. Maybe she is just that drunk(she drank very heavily) or she actually really liked him.


David really seemed to like her too. I hadn't seen him this way around a girl in a long long time and it was kinda weird,but cool. We all hung out there for hours and hours until it was around 10:30pm and everyone decided that it was time to go out and do something fun. Now I was unaware that there was fun things to do in Lake Elsinore,but apparently there was plenty to do. David and I had drove around what seemed to be a dump hole little town for a bit before meeting the girls and it really did not seem like any kind of hot spot for entertainment. But it was already late and my original impression that we were not going to stay there all night had been shattered hours ago so I was game. As long as we were back at some point so I could get enough sleep to get up and go to court the next morning I would be fine. You see, I wasn't going to court for me but for a good friend of mine that I formed a bond with during my last month of jail at IRC. I had promised him(who we will call Jim in this story)that I would come and see him when he went to court next, even though I would not be able to go up and talk to him or anything while he is sitting in the court cage in orange,it would still be nice to see him and give him a thumbs up. That and there are few things that will keep me from keeping my word to people now. At one point it was not as important to me but I have come to realize just how crucial it is. Jim is fighting a murder case out of Orange County. His wife of 32 years was terminally ill and did not want to live any longer. He loved her enough to kill her. Which is controversial and still ultimately illegal,but in my eyes it is an incredible act of love and I will be there to support Jim in any way I can. So although I had been wanting to go home, I knew that David was having a good time, and that I would be fine as long as I was able to make it to court in the morning. So anyway, we had the idea to go bowling,but the bowling alley was closed bt that time. So we had the idea to go to a nearby Indian Gaming Casino. Which sounded fun.


We ended up driving about 20 minutes away to the Pachanga Resort and Casino in what city I am not sure. I had been to other Indian Casinos before but never this one. It was actually rather cool. It had big fountains and neat architecture. And you could smoke cigarettes inside too. We go inside and head to the bar area becuase everyone but me had already been drinking and I guess just couldn't wait to drink more. I played the video poker screen that they had built into the bar. Now anyone reading this who has ever gone out or really spent any time with me knows that I get bored sometimes,and when I do I entertain myself in various creative ways. You know what I am talking about. I talk to people in accents, I walk way to closely behind and beside people. I will purposely fall down into or on stuff and make it all crash over and etc. and so on. Pretty much a big part of me views the world as a stage and I am just a performer. So that's how I do son! We start walking around the casino, I don't have a lot of money on me so I am not really down to gamble. But there are a few things that I am always down for,the first being making people laugh,the second would be singing,and the third would be dancing. If I can make people laugh at the same time as either one of the other described activities than it is even that much better to me. So I decide that we are going to find a place where dancing is going on and I am going to get an entire crowd of strangers to watch me. So we walk through this casino,and it's huge!!! Like it's really big. We have no clue where we are going. And all the slot machines are making the same flashing lights and ringing noises and what not. I finally ask someone who works there if he knew where we might be able to dance and hang out. He points us in the direction and even walks us to the front of the place. While walking with the gentlemen whose nae I forget now,I learned that the casino was not only big, but that it is bigger than any Las Vegas casino,220,000 square feet to be exact. So we finally make it to a club they have in there with a big dance floor called "Cabaret" which is occupied by a bunch of older folks dancing together to whatever top 40 remixes they have on loop there. So I go to work.


Now again,for those of you that have been out with me before know that I am "a dancer" of sorts. I have been told many things about the way I dance. That I am good. That I am if nothing else entertaining. But I just like to think of myself as a guy who enjoys dancing and making a fool out of himself on occasion. Most of the the time to a fault,like many things in my life. So I go to work. I am dancing,hard,fast and stupid. The older crowd that were there were not ready for me and it showed on every one of their faces. The girls we were with did not know it would get to that level either I think. But I didn't care, I was in "Jordan Idiot Dance Mode" and it wasn't slowing down. I was bored and this was going to change that if even for only a bit. So I danced until the floor was cleared and everyone was just watching me do my thing. This is what I wanted! Yes! But where to go from here? The club was closing and they played the last song. So we made our way through the massive Casino back to the opening where we came in at and to our ride. We made our way back to Candice's home and since David was still feeling the effects of the alcohol and he didn't want me to try and drive his stick shift with the tricky clutch,we decided to stay there.


I set myself up on the sofa in the living room and David slept in one of the kids' bedrooms. As I was drifting off to sleep I began to think of the craziness of this situation. Here these girls not only let two complete strangers in to their home with no prior knowledge about us except for what had been discussed on the Internet,spent the entire night with us,and were now letting us sleep in the same house as them the same day they met us? Were they crazy? Had they done this sort of thing before? What if we had been crazy psycho killers? What if we had taken them hostage and burned them with cigarettes and cut all their hair off and did voodoo rituals in their backyards with the kids' toys? I mean of course we didn't do any of that stuff. But who meets people on the Internet and feels like they trust these people enough after a few hours to let them into their home and sleep there? I guess I should feel honored by the fact that I am the kinda guy who people feel like they can trust right off the bat. And Candice actually told me a few days later that she was a bit leery about it,but after a bit she felt like she had known us for years. Which made me feel good. But what if I had been some convicted felon/drug offender who had just gotten out of jail a little while back,with no car and a crumby job who has nothing to lose? Wait...don't answer that.


So the next morning we woke up at about 6:00am and started heading back in to Orange County. We were going to drop Kim off in Corona on the way,so that meant there was three people smushed into a little Ford Ranger cab. We drop her off,make it back to our homes,and with a little time to spare before David had to be at work. It was shaping up to be another interesting day because I was working on just a few hours of sleep and I still had to go to court in Fullerton,make it back to my house,then go to work for a few hours,and then go out that night again. No nap. No problem. You see getting to court was going to be easy. My mother was actually already summoned to go in to the court to be interviewed for jury duty,and said that I could catch a ride with her. Except that she had already left when I got dropped off that morning. So I would have to take the bus. So I put on a nice black and gray suit so that I look good in court and I have my Dad drop me off at the bus stop on the corner of Richfield and Orangethorpe right by where I live. I could take the Orangethorpe bus down to Chapman,then take the Chapman bus down to Berkley and walk around the college to the court. Bada Bing Bada Boom! I get to the bus stop with about fifteen minutes to spare so I walk across the street to the Circle K to buy some protein bars and change for the bus fair and what not. While I was in there I see a very close family friend who we will call "Chris" in this story. My parents and he and his wife have been very close friends for a number of years and two of brothers have been employees of his in the past and I myself have even applied to work at his company before. I say hi in passing and then make my way back across the street to the bus stop. Chris,whose office is in that general direction,stops and offers me a ride farther down to the Chapman bus just to make it a little easier on me. I graciously accept and get into his SUV. I love Chris and his family and it is very good to be able to catch up with him a little bit. I hadn't really gotten a chance to see him too much since I had been back from jail and the last time I had really had a chance to talk to him was when he and another family friend came to visit me while I was in jail. So it was a very pleasant drive. Not only that but he gave me a ride all the way to the court instead of just simply to the bus stop I needed farther down the rode. So I got to have a great conversation with a man I love and respect and am thankful that God placed in my life,and I saved a couple bucks in bus money too! Thanks man!


So once at court I walk up to the front door and take everything out of my pockets,my belt and my sunglasses too,and make my way through the metal detectors. Unfortunately I am very much familiar with this process having spent so much time in court in my past. I make it onto the other side and put myself back together I make my way upstairs to the courtroom that Jim would be appearing in. I take a seat inside and wait. Now like I have said, I have spent a lot of time in court,and I have been on both sides of it. I have fought cases that have ended in jail time. I have taken cases to trial and beat them, and I have even worn a orange jumpsuit inside of the little prisoner box you see in courtrooms. So I have pretty much done it all. One thing I can say is that there is no worse feeling than being that guy in the cage. Because you already know that you have that going against you and even if it was something simple, you will always feel like you are getting unfair treatment simply because of the fact that you are a prisoner. A lot of times the courts sends you on what is known as a "dry run" which means you go to court from the facility to the court,sit downstairs in the holding area with a bunch of dirty criminals pacing around worrying, and you either don't even get to see a judge,or your case is held over to a later date. It happens a lot. It isn't such a horrible thing when you you don't have to go back to jail at the end of the day. But when you are in custody,it really sucks.


So once Jim is ushered into the little area where prisoners sit we make eye contact and he seems really excited to see me there. I can't really walk up to the cage and talk to him or anything,because it is totally illegal to do so. So I just smile and mouth the words"How are you doing?" to which he shrugs his shoulders and looks around himself as if to say "Well I could be better". He calls his Public Defender over to him and talks to her for a minute and then she comes over to me and asks me"Your Jordan right? Your here for Jim?" I say yes and she tells me that he said it's really good to see me and that he thanks me for the books I left him and the letters and that it means a lot that I would come to see him. Itell her that it is no big deal and that I said I would and so I am here. I asked her to tell him that I have more letters for him and that I will be sending them out soon,and that I can't stick around too much longer but I will wait a little longer. She tells him and Jim shoots me a smile and a thumbs up. I wait a little longer and then the judge resets a date for his arraignment so that he has to come back in May, dry run. I wave and make my way out of the courtroom and start walking back down to Chapman so I can catch the bus home and eat soemthing and shower before I have to go to work.



I walk around down Berkley Street by the college and make my way to the bus stop where I waited for the bus to come. As I was sitting there my litttle brothers friend Jesse came walking up through the crowd of kids coming and going from class. Really? I stop and talk to him and he offers me a ride back to my place of living. So that makes two times that day that I would have had to take a bus that God instead provided me with a ride. So I accept and make it home an hour or so before I would have had I taken the bus. I have more than enough time to work out some, eat and take a shower before I walk over to work for a few hours. Once I get home from work though I am so very very tired. I take a nice long nap that afternoon. When I wake up I am sure I went out with frineds or something, unfortunately it has been weeks since I first started this entry and I can't fully remember what it is I did that evening. But I am almost certain it was fun. But this is two days that seemed almost non-stop as far as activity. Seamless and long as hell. But ultimately satisfying to complete. That's it. The end.