824

Gingerbread Men, Good... Deer, Bad

Well, with Thanksgiving over and this afternoon spent on the tree farm picking the perfect christmas tree I thought I should drop a few holiday touches here as well. Hope you like them. Look for pictures from the tree hunt today coming around soon. Also, drop me a line and let me know what the most interesting moment of your holiday weekend was...

Mine was probably the not-so-slight collision with a deer I was involved in the night before Thanksgiving. Pretty scary to say the least... Thankfully everyone, including myself (I was driving), got through it ok. I wish I could say the same for my sister's car which was pretty beat up after it was all said and done. One thing is for sure though, after something like that you really realize quickly how thankful you are for making it through with only a few scratches and cuts... and this year THAT was what I was most thankful for.

There & Back Again: A Tale of Labor Day Weekend '05

Happy Tuesday-After-Labor Day people! I hope you all had an awesome weekend relaxing, ect. I know you have all been beside yourselves sitting around wondering what it was that I did over the three day weekend so without further ado here's the "Lovin Labor Day Weekend" galley now online for your viewing pleasure. Absorb it in small doses kids...

+Jacob

Sometimes You Need A Soundtrack...

At times life seems like a song or vice versa well for the last five months or so mine has lived inside the melody of this song for the most part... Let's just say thank God I finally got it off "repeat." Here's to moving on... and a damn good song. Enjoy. :-)

+Jacob

Red, White, and Pinehurst?

I spent this past weekend with some friends in Pinehurst, NC before heading home on Sunday night for the family 4th celebration... I didn't quite take enough shots for a gallery but I thought I would post these shots from my lunch at "The Tavern" Resturant on Saturday with Brandy, Whitney, Peter and his brother Dean. There's also a shot of Whitney taking a picture of Brandy taking a picture of her from the night before (that's Friday night for those keeping score). Enjoy em... Hope you had an excellent weekend!

+Jacob

Parting Gifts...

Often in my past I used to turn to the page as my own form of therapy. I would write and thus in some ways at the end it was as if the sorrow, pain, worry, and confusion of my adolescent life would somehow pass through me and onto the page leaving me feeling somewhat better and almost always with a better perspective on things. It is with this somewhat selfish hope and a deep desire to pay tribute to a strong man that I embark on the next few lines below.

Earlier tonight, amid the rain outside the windows and my feverish glances around the house, I debated on taking another dose of cough syrup faintly hoping that when I woke up from this round I would finally be better. Then the phone rang and I knew... It was my aunt with the news we had all been dreading for the past several months. My uncle was finally gone.

George Monroe Johnson Jr. was a father, a husband, a brother, a son, and my uncle. I will always remember the summers when I was small and he would come by our house and play with me in my small K-Mart pool that I loved so much. Or a few years later when he moved to the lake and I would go visit him and my Aunt and he would take me down to the dock, slices of bread in hand, and amaze me by feeding the masses of fish that would come to the dock as we dropped tiny pieces of bread into the water.

He also taught me more than he could even imagine in the past few months of his life. I will always remember the soft words he whispered to me a few short weeks ago and draw strength from them for years to come. He said, "Jacob, never forget that God loves you and will always be with you." You see, my mother had told him that I was gay shortly after he told her about his cancer because she wanted to finally express to him in the time he had left how proud she was of me as a young man. Well now I know in his own way that by saying that short phrase to me he was telling me that no matter what God loves me and accepts me for the way I am and so does he. It was one of those moments where something so simple at the onset can mean so very much in the coming days... and for that final gift I will always be grateful.

Rest in peace Uncle Joe... I will always love you.

+Jacob

Ah, Easter... Have a good one everybody!

Spring Has Sprung? Well, Atleast the "Break" Part Of It...

A week later and here I am... Yeah. Hmmm, well to say the least it was a very awesome week...

On a totally different note the site got a kinda semi-major revamping... Hope you guys like it. I wanted to design something that had a little bit of a more worn, aged look about it since that's how I feel most of the time... hahaha, just kidding, well kinda. Anyway, I still have other things I want to tweak/add in the time ahead but like the title says my spring break has "sprung" by this point so it will have to wait. Who knows... maybe I'll actually find time to post more than I do in the meantime.

That's it from me for now my friends. Much love and well wishes to all of you. Drop me a line or a quick comment if you get a chance.

+Jacob

One last thing: The Simple Life has been back on for several weeks and I totally didn't know... Man, what rock was I under? ;-)

Windy with Wonka & Williams in the Forecast

Well happy Saturday my sneaky, blog reading, no commenting friends... I'm happy to report that my week long vacation of "do whatever the fuck I want with no fixed plans" is in full effect and might I say quite refreshing after weeks of pushing through the daily grind. Just look for me attempting to push the limits of just how laid back I can be this week... I'll be that guy.

Speaking of laid back people, I got a nice surprise last night when Cori Williams (that's her and I back in the day in the photo) finally came up for air from that mountain of papers that she has to grade as a second year middle school teacher and gave me a call. It was sooo wicked hella cool to hear from her after several months of us both being too busy to make "that call" and catch up. She's coming up from Raleigh to see some of our mutual friends from Elon that live in Charlotte and then going to a teaching conference that starts in Greensboro on Monday. I'm pumped to report that we are gonna hangout this weekend and finally get to see each other for the first time in over a year... Score one for this "go with the flow" vacation already and it just began! It's great how things just fall into place sometimes isn't it?

Also, this morning while perusing yafro and drinking a cup of warm coffee I came across the first image from the upcoming re-imagining of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory due out in theaters in July. I've been a fan of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton since way back when I was a little dude watching Edward Scissorhands so I am hella excited about this new film. I'm skeptical about the decision to loose the songs from the original but if anyone can pull off Wonka as well as Wilder did in the  classic I think it's Depp.  Anyway if the actual film ends up impressing me as much as this poster for the film did we should all be in for a rare treat: a good remake of a classic film.

Well that's it from Camp 824 for now kids... Go out and enjoy the sunny yet cold and windy day were having today if your in NC like me. And if your not in NC well just enjoy the day and think of me and the beautiful NC mountains... Yea, that works.

+Jacob

Sleepless in the Sleep Lab

Well, as some of you know, last Monday night I had the oh so delightful task of taking part in a sleep study so that I can finally put to rest the question of whether or not I truly do have sleep apnea or some other sleep disorder. Sounds like a good, solid plan right? Well you know what they say about where a road paved with good intentions leads...

Anyway, all was well when I arrived and found that my sleep tech was a youngish black woman with whom I could joke around with and share memories of watching In Living Color back in the day, until it came time to hit the sheets. Listen closely because here is where I start to get slightly pissed about the turn of events...

Before I go any further I should preface all of this by saying that I am one of those people who need certain elements in place in order for me to go to sleep. These are as follows: Background noise (I prefer the TV on CNN), A fair amount of time in the bed with my eyes closed reflecting on the days events, the ability to move around freely and lay on both of my sides until I fall asleep, and familiar surroundings, or in the event that any of the previous are not readily available I should be slightly intoxicated instead.

So, with all that said, to put it simply... NONE OF THOSE THINGS WERE PRESENT IN THE SLEEP LAB! Well, other than my pillow which I brought with me since they said to. So needless to say I was really doubting my ability to fall asleep esp. since when I get anxious about something I have a hell of a hard time sleeping in normal conditions. Well even with a god-zillion probes attached to me (check out this woman here to get an idea of what I looked like) I did fall asleep... for 30 mins!

That's right my friendly, In Living Color-loving, sleep tech came in to adjust one of my many probes and woke my hard-to-fall-asleep-ass up. This is where it begins to get not so pretty... I laid there for an hour and could not fall back asleep even though I tried my damnedest because, God knows, I didn't want to have to come back and get my probe on another night. Well, after an hour she came over the intercom (Did I mention that aside from the god-zillion probes that she was also watching me from the other room with a night vision video camera and monitoring the sound with the intercom constantly?) and she said, "Mr. Jarvis if you can't fall asleep soon I am going to have to scrap the study and reschedule it because we are not going to be able to monitor a full six hrs. of sleep."

Well you all see where this is going by now. I was promptly evicted from the sleep study after about 30 mins. of paperwork, getting dressed, finding out that my Dr. could and should have given me something to help me sleep (she suggested Ambien), and talking with the tech about how angry I was at myself for not being able to sleep (little did she know I was also slightly pissed at her for waking me up).  All in all it was a hellish experience that I am going to have to face again in the near future although this time, after my follow-up doctor's apt. on Monday, I will be armed with some good sleep meds before I step foot in that sleep lab.

BTW, did I mention the fact that I asked my doctor for something to help me sleep when I went for the study when they suggested that I have it done and they told me I would be fine without it?  Mmm yea... that's where I get a little pissed.

Sleep well & stay tuned everybody...

+Jacob

A Note From Daisy

Today I received a a short note through AIM from my dear friend Daisy (far left) who lives in New Orleans and it put a smile on my face so I thought I would share it here along with what I think are a couple of pictures (left) from the evening that she is talking about below...

"Right now I am currently laughing my ass off b/c of the time when you and Brandy smoked up in her room and E got SO mad and she was like storming around the apt screaming "BRANDY, HOW COULD YOU DO THIS... YOU KNOW I HAVE HAD AN ADDICTION PROBLEM WITH POT!" hahahahah... damn funny"  -Daisy

Maybe it's one of those things where you had to be there to totally enjoy it but you gotta admit the pictures of Brandy and I are damn funny. I was trying to be Stuart from Mad TV at the time the shots were taken. I love them so much I have them both in a frame together.

Daisy I love you so much and I hope I get a chance to see you soon! Thanks for the hella funny memories you sent my way today! Keep them coming...

+Jacob