Life with Zacky - Part 2

Wow! It has been awhile since we updated this thing. A lot has happened over the past two and a half months - birthdays, basketball games, finals, concerts, and general happiness with life.

In late October I celebrated my 26th birthday. Zack took me to dinner at a local brewery. It is one of our favorite spots. After, we carved pumpkins in preparation for Halloween. We have an annual carving contest and I think this year I actually won by one vote. Bragging rights go to me!

We spent a few days in Texas with my sister. It was a much needed few days away from our everyday lives. Zack spent one night really sick after unknowingly drinking a whole bottle of wine and smoking a bad cigar, but otherwise it was a delightful trip. We relaxed, drank wine, made food, went shopping, and enjoyed the botanical gardens in Dallas.

The end of November was thanksgiving and as it was our first one living together, we went all out. We had the turkey, green bean casserole, mash taters (what I call mashed potatoes), rolls, corn on the cob, and wine. A  lot of wine. After we finished gorging ourselves, we promptly fell asleep. It was about 8 pm. At 3 am we woke up to go Black Friday shopping, this would be my first time doing so. Best Buy and Walmart were the only stores open when we left the house at 4. We purchased our necessary goods at Best Buy and headed to Walmart. This was the best time to shop at Walmart because their sales started at 10 pm, 12 am, and 8 am. If only I slept during the day....

We also decorated our Christmas tree from head to toe in giant microbes. Now, our tree is only three feet tall, but 9 diseases are on it. These diseases include mono, hay fever, acne, giardia, diarrhea, ulcer, bad breath, athlete's foot, and chlamydia (and most recently stomach ache, but he is not in the picture). As Zack says, It is BAD ASS!

December has already been a month full of adventures and work, lots of work. In early December we ventured to Lawrence for Zacky to take the GRE. Yes, he is planning to attend graduate school in the fall of next year, so we will be living in either West Virginia, Texas, or Minnesota. He did really well on the test so I know he will be accepted into all three schools, which in reality means we will be living in West Virginia this time next year.

We also have ventured to Wichita on two occasions this month. The first trip was for the K-State basketball game against West Virginia. Zacky is a hard core West Virginia fan as many of you already know. He had never been to a West Virginia game prior to this, so this was an epic moment in his life. It was even more epic when West Virginia won in double overtime. For me, this was quite the sociological experience. Zack and I were the only people in our section openly rooting for West Virginia and the K-State fans were not so happy about that considering they have a profound attachment and love for K-State basketball (and football). There were maybe twenty other West Virginia fans in the crowd and I was a little worried that the guy next to us was going to have an aneurism from the angry comments coming out of his mouth every time the referee called a foul on K-State or West Virginia scored.

Our second trip to Wichita was for the Staind concert. Zacky got me tickets to see them for Christmas and it was one of the best gifts I have ever gotten. I have wanted to see Staind in concert since I was a teenager. I did see them briefly once, but they were opening for Creed and I missed some of the opening. This was the real deal. The three opening bands took forever to play, but when Aaron Lewis finally took the stage I was in heaven. He has an amazing voice. Even Zack agreed. We both had an enjoyable time singing along. Needless to say it was AWESOME! Thanks babes.

A few days ago Zack celebrated his 26th birthday. He claims he is old, but technically I am older so I have no sympathy for him. We went to see the newest Sherlock Holmes movie. It was pretty good. We are both readers of the Sherlock Holmes stories so we were happy it followed the books to a degree. After, I took him out to dinner. He wanted steak so we went to one of three steakhouses in town, Whiskey Creek. All in all it was a wonderful day.

Finals are over for me. I am officially on winter break, but, as Zacky reminds me, I have a thesis to write. My winter break will be compiling information for my thesis and writing a literature review for it. Yay to breaks! But it must be done. I will do my best not to complain about it.  

With all of this time living together gone by, a few habits have developed over these four plus months. One habit that Zack has developed is humping me every time I bend over. The below comic sums this up perfectly. It should be noted Zack was the first person to show me this comic and admit that he does this. I happened to agree. In his defense I often grab his ass whenever it is within arm's length. :) 

Random things of Late.

Greetings again one and all! Alisha has been on my case, in a lovingly way though, that I update this blog. She says it is because she wants my peeps to know what is going on. But she admitted that, secretly, she likes to see what is on my mind. Isn’t she just a sweet little deceiving love nugget? Anyhow, I figured that it was time to take a break from Gears and get this little fella updated. And now onto the juicy stuff.

In the previous blog, the one written by Alisha, she failed to mention one very important feature of me being in Kansas. I am the resident spider-killer in this apartment. And if you ask Alisha, this is by far the most important job I do. There have been times when I have been in one room, and when, suddenly, out of the blue came a scream from the room. “SPIDER!” then a quick exasperated breathes. “ZACK! COME KILL THIS SPIDER!” After I laugh for a minute or two, and Leesh is done hyperventilating, I come and quickly kill the spider. The poor little spiders never had a chance, and because of Leesh’s irrational arachnophobia, spiders are now steering clear of our apartment. Which I guess is a good thing, until we had another unwanted visitor, and this one was slightly bigger.

We had a mouse! This is a very serious problem. I can handle some little spider that I could  squash with my mighty thumbs. (As mentioned earlier, I have been playing a lot of Gears, my thumbs are fine-tuned killing machines!). But a mouse? How the fuck am I supposed to deal with this!? Leesh was up in arms about this mouse in the apartment. First thing Monday morning, as we discovered the scumbag-bastard on the weekend, Leesh was at the apartment complex demanding action be taken. The sneaky little shit found a way to get into our cabinet from the hole in the back. There is a switch in the back that turns on and off the water. That is how he got in. It turns out that the little asshole was eating my food. Well that’s it, he is doomed. I will not tolerate some food stealing, disease spreading, whisker faced mongrel running rampart around my domicile. Well the apartment people did just enough to fix the problem, I suppose.  The covered up the hole by nailing a piece of board over the area he got in through. Real top rate work. Blah! Well this is just fucking great. Now the mouse can die inside the wall and stink up the place. Some people are idiots, and we are forced to live around them. Oh woe is me.

As of the typing of this little blog, Alisha is making pumpkin bread. I do not know if any of you have ever had some of Alisha’s famous pumpkin bread, but it is hella delicious. This is the third? time that she has made pumpkin bread. The first time that she made some I did not have a chance to eat any of it before Alisha NOM NOMED it all. She was angry that I did not help her because she ended up consuming all that junk food herself. It was super unhealthy, and she wanted me to share in that unhealthiness. The second time, she gave me a bite, and I discovered how enchanting the little morsels of bread are that I then proceeded to eat most of the two loaves. This was also a bad idea. Though I did save her from morally unhealthy choices, I received chastisement from her for eating all her bread. There is apparently no winning with her I have noticed. ;) So with the this batch of pumpkin bread that she is making, we will see if a can somehow find that happy middle ground where I don’t let her eat too much as to let her think that it is really unhealthy, and the other side where I eat too much and don’t let her have any. Although I do have to admit, it is smells super delicious right now.

For those of you who follow me on facebook, let’s face it, if you are reading this than we are friends on facebook, you will remember that the other day I posted something about seeing some missionaries on the prowl about the neighborhood. Well Leesh and I had the opportunity to meet with them. I say opportunity mainly because I don’t want to offend anyone, as a number of our friends and a few family members are of the LDS persuasion. Anywho, we ran into them, coincidently enough, while walking to the grocery store to pick up some tequila and margarita mix for a little happy hour time. I, personally, have had very little experience with missionaries. Other than one of my close friends being a RM, I have never expressed any desire to talk about it. Any questions I do have I just direct toward my one friend and he gives me the answer without any kind of guilt-tripping, you’re going to hell for living the life of a sinner talk. As the missionaries happened upon us, they were cordial, as I suppose you have to be as a salesman (face it, missionaries are salesman, getting you to buy in on their business), and struck up a conversation. One was from Utah and we were kinda talking about that. There were a few subtle hints that I picked up from the conversation that I could tell where they were directing the chat. They finally asked if we had any interest in the church. Leesh, being the consummate atheist that she is, mentioned that she was in fact an atheist and thus didn’t have any interest in learning about the church. The head missionary then asked, “Are you happy with being an atheist?” To which she took a little offense. The missionary then said, “The church has always brought me happiness.”  Though we quickly made excuses and left the two missionaries to go get our drink on, Leesh was very annoyed by the interaction with them. She was very upset with the fact that the missionaries implied that since she was an atheist she was unable to be happy in life. She was pretty upset about the interaction.

Isn’t it always the way that after some social interactions you always remember the best thing to say. Leesh happened to feel rather insulted after this event and started to think about all the things she could of said. She thought about it and said, “I should of said, yes, being an atheist does bring me happiness. I get lots and lots of sex with my boyfriend without the inhibited social pressures of organized religion. And now, I am going to go get some alcohol and get trashed.” I think that is hella funny. Well, at the very least, it reminded us of home.

And now, onto some funny rage comics. Each one reminded me of Alisha in some away or another. They are all relevant to me and to us. They need a little explanation, but don’t you worry, I can say with relative certainly that they will amuse you.

This first one is funny because it is not really applicable here, because Alisha is already trained. Whenever I am gaming, Leesh quickly jumps through the front of the screen whenever she has to pass by. This is great, it does not hinder my hard concentration that I have when blowing shit up. So, excellent, Alisha comes in with built in protocols.

Next:

This one is hella funny. It is simple and quick to the point. And very, very, very TRUE! Alisha has yet to fart around me. At all, ever! After like a year and a half of dating she has yet to break wind around me. She says that she is still not comfortable enough with me to fart around me. Apparently she still wants to impress me. Such silliness. If I did not know any better I could swear Alisha did not have a butt. Well, if I listened to my good friend’s wife who says, “It’s true that women don’t have assholes until they are married.” Anyway, one day, soon, Alisha will fart, and it will be an end to an era.

Finally:

This one is kinda my favorite. I tickle the beejeezus out of Alisha. All the time. For no reason what so ever. I need not defend my reasons why I do it, I am her boyfriend and thusly I am allowed to tickle as much as I want. She would do anything to stop it. Well, almost anything….

Now it is time to end this thing. It is super long (that’s what she said). Bye bye

Life with Zacky (as written by Alisha)

Things in Kansas are much the same. Well except for the 6 foot man that has taken residence in my apartment. This blog is going to be a little different because it is going to be about life with Zacky. Since he has moved in things have been very different on the home front. I now have someone else to pick up after. Needless to say Zack is messy. Not too messy though. I think I got lucky there. Or my anal retentive organization and cleanliness has him frightened. I like to think it is the former.

Now that I have a man around it isn't all mess and no gain. He is great for a good many things.

1. He puts together furniture - Upon arrival to Kansas we had to assemble some of his furniture and purchase new things and he did all of that. Awesome! I like to think he enjoys exerting his masculinity even though he outwardly wishes I would help him.

2. He lifts stuff - Again, moving is a story in lifting and he did lots of this. He lifted all of what we brought with us to Kansas and then some. Now I have someone to take all the groceries up a flight of stairs and into the house. Epic win!

3. He is my own personal heater - Many of you do not realize how insanely cold (or HOT) Kansas can get. If the wind blows from the south we fry and if it comes from the north we freeze. These two things can change daily. For example two weeks ago it was 108 and the next day it was 78. With the cold weather approaching Zack will be a nice heater. My favorite thing to do is stick my freezing cold hands on his neck or my freezing cold feet under his behind. He does not like this at all. Then I remind him I am touching him. ;)

4. He makes the homesickness bearable - Those of you close to me know that last year I experienced some extreme homesickness. So bad I almost dropped out of school. Now that Zack is here I am far less lonely and less homesick. He has added a nice sugar coating to a bland cookie - grad school in Kansas. Needless to say I am happy to have someone to come home to. And the hugs are an added bonus!

We haven't experienced much of the town. One because there isn't much of one. Two because our schedules are completely opposite. He works nights while I sleep. I work and go to class in the day while he sleeps. I study. He games. I read. He preps for the GRE. You get the idea.

I will leave it at that for now. Chao!

I lack any witty or zippy title name.

Well well now, this is starting to turn into the real thing. Blog #2! Hot damn! I will get the boring updates out of the way early. I’m fine. Alisha is fine. Work sucks. School sucks. The only joy either of has is when we are hunkered down in the apartment doing nothing together . It is outrageously hot, the bugs are abnormally huge, and we have been watching far too much 90s comedy sitcoms. And now, on to the more interesting and funny stuff.

Speaking of work though, I would like to, ever so briefly talk about it. Working in retail is in some aspects universal. There are some codes that can get paged in order to respond to different scenarios. They are all very serious. For example, a code brown is a shooting, a code red is a fire, etc.  It is worth mentioning that the color purple is not used in this scheme. To change the topic slightly, Manhattan is a college town and thusly 90% of the people have K-State garb. K-State happens to be just like Weber State in that they are both the Wildcats and both have the color purple. Now, going back to the fact that this is a college town, and the fact that I work in, for lack of a better term, a “grocery store,” there are frequently customers that are women and of college age. Now, with this information in hand, I shall go back to the color scheme for serious incidents. I was diligently working in my area when one of my co-workers came up to me and said, did you see the code purple? At first, this slightly distressed me. I thought some serious shit happened and I missed it. I said no.  Then, “What?” He then smiled a little bit, and said, “You know, the two code purples that just walked by.” It slowly dawned on me as I saw the two young ladies walking by. Ah yes, a code purple! Well then, in that case, “Yes, as a matter of fact I did see those code purples. There have been quite a few of them in here tonight.” The other guy smiles and says, “ya, that happens a lot here.” My reply was simple and sweet, “Awesome!” That was my induction into code purple. Needless to say, Alisha did not find this story very amusing. ;)

This brings me to my theory on relationships and the viewing of the opposite sex. While dating, the world is a petting zoo. When you are in a serious relationship, or married, the world is a zoo. Allow for some explanation.  While dating, you can look and touch, much like a petting zoo. But while in a committed relationship, there is only looking, much like the Zoo. For a while now I have found that I am ok with the Zoo lifestyle. Precious moments :)

However, Alisha’s feminist personality perplexes me sometimes. For example, before we left for Kansas, we were doing the mundane and monotonous  arranging of stuff for the move. So there I am, navigating this mammoth coffee table into the back seat of her car while she is kinda sitting there and staring at me.  So while I using my Herculean strength to put this table in there, I calmingly ask in a half annoyed voice, “are you gonna help me or stand there?” Her response was half feminist rhetoric and half laziness, “No, I think I’ll leave that to the men.” BLAH! What is this nonsense!?!?!? This aggravates me further and prompted me to say, “well if it’s the man’s job to do the heavy lifting then why don’t you do the woman’s job and get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich.” HAHAHAHAHA. I should of won this argument. I turned her sexist comment back on her. Take that! But as I am sure, you all know what happened, Alisha got annoyed and left. =/  But not before she yelled at me a little bit. On a side note, my dad thought this story was hilarious, until Alisha came walking in and then abruptly stopped laughing and said,  “that was very wrong Zack.” Well now, I see how it is. I should be a feminist too.

Now, On to a completely separate and unrelated note. I don’t know how many of you peruse the RAGE COMICS on MEMEBASE at FAILBLOG.ORG, but I suggest that all of you do. There are some hella funny comics on there. This one is a small little nugget that is Alisha Massen to the letter.

Well, that is all for now. Laters



PS. The update was not approved by Alisha. Nor did Alisha proofread it.

The long treck cross country!

Greetings all! This is your good friend Zack here (along with Alisha), and we decided, well Zack decided, to start a blog. It seems like everyone has a blog nowadays, and since it is hella boring here in the land of Oz, now seemed like an opportune time to start one. So, Fuck Ya! Blog Time! w00t! I will periodically update this thing, whenever the moods strikes me, in order to keep all you informed on our happenings.

This first installment I will share with you all the joy and amusement of our move out here.  Kansas is roughly 16 hours away by car. Add another 3 to that number because of road construction (fucking Kansas has road construction every seven miles). Also, add to that number the time we took for pit-stops, Leesh has a small bladder and must void it frequently, which is another 2 hours. The total for us was around 21 hours of driving time spread out over two days. And sweet Jesus, it took for-fucking-ever. But luckily we managed to find a couple ways to entertain ourselves. I will share some of them with you peeps.

Code names:

To start off this story, it would be relevant to know that we had walkie-talkies. It was a fairly efficient way to stay in communication with one another. Cell phones lose coverage in Wyoming, because let’s face it, there is nothing in Wyoming. So we were talking back and forth on them and every once in a while a random trucker’s voice would come through, which would confuse the both of us. So we decided to create code names so that we could address one another. My name, of course, was Papa Bear. While Leesh picked one that shocked me; Pinkie Pie. So, Pinkie Pie and Papa Bear were communicating back and forth across Wyoming and Kansas. It makes me wonder what the truck-drivers were thinking when they would hear, out of the blue, “Pinkie-Pie, this is Papa Bear, how is your bladder doing?”

Contact problems:

At one point in our driving marathon, I had an itchy eye and went to rub it. Like a dumbass I rubbed it a little too hard (insert that’s what she said joke), and my contact shifted and rendered me blind in one eye. I quickly sent out a radio announcement, “Pinkie-Pie, my contact went stupid on me, can we pull over at the next available spot.” Her response, “Sure thing Papa-Bear.”  So we pull off at the next exit and park in a parking lot of the only building around. And, as chance would have it, it was an adult entertainment store. I quickly fixed my ocular impairment and looked around and discovered where we were. I quickly say, “So Leesh, how about we pop on in there really quick and pick some stuff up.”  To which she replies, “ I don’t think so, I have you now.” This confuses me a little bit, I mean, did she just relate me to some sort of porn star? I quickly mumble some sort of inaudible response to which she just laughs and goes back to her car. I just sat there confused.

Kansas in opinionated:

Speaking of porn, I found out something very unusual about Kansas. While on the road in Kansas we passed a number of signs that speak volumes about the people of Kansas. A number of the farms that we passed had religious signs out along side the road. “Praise Jesus for he is the lord!” and “He died for your signs!” The people of Kansas are also pro-life and the amount of anti-abortion signs almost equals the amount of Praise Jesus signs. Some of those signs are funny, “Choose life, your mother did.” Religious nutters. These signs did lead to an interesting scenario where I saw the sign that said, “Porn hurts Jesus, Don’t  choose porn.” Not even five-hundred feet behind that sign was a billboard which said, “Kansas’ biggest Porn Outlet.” Look at what the churches are doing. Trying to kill small business. Bastards.

Anyway, this blog is long enough now. Time to end it. To summarize. We both made it here safe. Leesh starts school on Monday and I start work on Saturday. Kansas is anti-porn, pro-life, and pro-Jesus! In the journey here we probably killed about 3000 bugs with our cars.  =( The end.