Your Parasympathetic Nervous System Reacts

THE CRUSHER

2009-02-08T23:33:00.000-08:00

I forgot what the movie was called, but I will refer to it as "The Crusher." God damn was this movie scary. As mentioned in one of my previous posts, I spent almost every weekend of my childhood at my grandparent's house. My Grandads let me watch whatever I wanted on Saturday morning TV. It was usually saturday morning cartoons, however this one particular day I was watching a movie instead, this movie was "The Crusher."

I may or may not be making things up in my mind, but this is how the memory comes back to me. The dude, The Crusher, had metal plates on his head, and was very ugly, very tall, and had big boots on. The dude had huge hands. He would crush people's heads with these hands of his. They were huge. He smashed people's fucking skulls. Holy shit. Imagining the amount of force one would have to use to smash someone's skull with their own two bare hands; mindfuck.

The dude hid behind shower curtains, under those merry go-round things on the playground (which now that I think about it makes no sense seeing as how there is no room down there, especially for a huge dude), and in other weird spots.

Needless to say this has fucked up my life. I can't have the shower curtain closed ever for fear of someone being on the other side. I always check under things, just in case.

Best Field Trip Ever

2009-01-31T15:22:00.000-08:00

Fifth grade, at Valparaiso Elementary school, we were going on a field trip to Sea World, and we got to stay there over night! Everyone knew, and this was like the pinnacle of the entire year. Everyone waited till the day. I'm pretty sure I got zero sleep the night before and zero sleep on the bus as well. But god I was so stoked.

We get there, and we have to basically learn some dumb stuff about underwater animals and what not. Whatever, it's worth sitting through. We get dinner, and just straight chill it. Now all the fifth graders are split up into three groups. These groups sleep in three different locations; The Sharks, The Dolphins, and The Manatees. I was really hoping for the Sharks. I was really really hoping for the Sharks. The shark group was all picked, and gone. I was pissed. Next I really wanted the Dolphins. Of course not. I got to sleep in front of the Manatee tank. I wasn't too stoked, but whatever. I was sleeping at Sea World!

I am still too stoked to sleep, so are my friends. Most of the kids, and even the chaperons are asleep. We start running around and jumping over the sleeping kids like hurdles. I'm surprised none of us landed on them. It was so much fun though. I'm pretty sure we got caught being goofy and was told to go to sleep. We went to sleep.

Wake up. We hear some rules, of course I didn't listen to any of them, being as punx as I was. All the groups get split up into smaller groups. My little group sprints to The Journey to Atlantis. Finally, we were free and able to do what we wanted. We got there and were the first kids in line. I shoved my way to the front and sat in the front of the cars.

That was the best ride I had ever rode at Sea World, so we rode it a couple more times, till we were told by our chaperon that we couldn't ride it any more. Whatever, fuck her.

The rest of the trip doesn't make a good story. Getting splashed by Shamu, and seeing all the other aquatic animals. I believe my favorite were the penguins.

Here is my blog update:

2009-01-27T00:51:00.000-08:00

Hide n SeekI

2009-01-25T13:49:00.000-08:00

I used to go to Day Care every day after school, and I always enjoyed it. We would always go on field trips and whatnot. This one time we went on a field trip to a park, that was really only like fifteen minutes away. I don't even know why we couldn't have went to a park that was at the beach. That would have at least been a little bit cooler. Well, so we're all hanging out. Some of us decide to start playing Hide n Seek. We all call out, "Not it!" I wasn't it, yet.

We were playing, I was on a pretty good streak of not getting caught. I finally got tagged. I was it. I was not wearing shoes for some reason. It was all grassy, I'm sure it felt good on my feet. Well, I was it. I had to count to some ridiculous number like one hundred, out loud. Base was a tree, therefore I was leaning on this tree counting to this preposterous number.

I didn't realize but I was standing in the biggest ant hill that has ever existed. And if you know anything about ant hills, you know that if you are standing in them, the ants come out to see what's up. Well, I had tons of ants on my legs. Hundreds. Really, not even exaggerating. It was horrible. I was getting bit, I was not very happy. I probably starting yelling or crying or something to get someone's attention. They came over and poured water all on my legs to get the ants off.

They called my parents, and they came and picked me up. My mom sat me down in my kitchen and had a big bucket. She filled it with hot water and told me to put my legs in it. God this felt so good. I just sat there for a while and let my legs soak.

Worst field trip ever.

'Nam must've been hell..

2009-01-23T14:14:00.000-08:00

I don't even remember this picture. But I'm sure it was a good day.

Well, onto the story. You can't tell, but if you were to somehow make the environment in the picture rotate to the left you would probably see where my pool would have been going. It was not there yet, but that's where it was going.

I remember I was very stoked on getting a pool and I watched the guys come in and out of my backyard creating this wonderful thing in my backyard. Well, one day, I decide that's it's probably a really good idea to go into the pool, while it was still being built. In the deep end, there was some muddy water. In the shallow end, it was completely dry.

I was just walking along, down towards the deep end. You know, just hanging out, acting cool. I am talking to my mom. She is talking to me. I am not paying very much attention. All of a sudden, I slip, fall into this big puddle of murky ass gross water. With who knows what in it. it was horrible. Unwanted wet and unwanted dirtiness. Worst pool memory ever.

B-M-X

2009-01-21T13:24:00.000-08:00

So a skate park opened up in the town of Niceville, Fl a while back. It was around the same time my dad opened up his skate shop. It worked out well. However, I could not skate, so even though I could get a bunch of free shit, so I never really took advantage of it all and just kept riding my bike. I sucked at that too, but at least I could do some stuff.

Well, one day some friends and I were all hanging out at the skate park, and I was doing some jumps on my bike, and for some reason this girl named Felicia was filming me with her video camera. I made the first one, turned around and tried to do it again. Failure would be the word to describe what was about to happen. I made the jump, but landed a little funny, legitimately flew off my bike and went face first into the pavement. Keep in mind that Felicia was still filming.

My front right tooth practically bounced into my lip then into the concrete. I was bleeding so much. My tooth was chipped at the bottom, and cracked in about the middle of the tooth. I was bleeding so much. I was crying so much. I was screaming so much. I was yelling, "Fuuuuuuuuuccckk," while crying. I believe the word shit was also incorporated.

The girl that was filming fucking taped over me actually falling with me on the ground, bike still on top of me, screaming, yelling, and crying in pain. Not like she could have just kept filming or anything. NO. She had to film over the probably more important part. Last I heard, she still had the footage. If there is any way I can get a hold of it, I will post it.

I had to go to the doctor's and get some stitches. We actually went to the like doctor's office and they straight up told my dad and I that they were closed. Needless to say we never went there again. We went to the emergency room. I got stitches. A couple of months later, my tooth was turning dark. I had to get a root canal. Worst shit ever. And, basically half of that tooth that got fucked is now fake. I can't feel temperature difference in it. All I can feel is vibration running through my tooth.

I have not ridden my bmx bike in a really long time, nor will I, I'm sure.

The First Time

2009-01-19T15:33:00.000-08:00

The first time I smoked weed. I was 13, maybe 14. I spent almost every single day of the summer at my friend Kris Bundy's house. He was my best friend of the time. We would skate, we would jam (play guitar and bass and try to come up with rad punk songs), we would play video games, we would just hangout and do whatever. I always knew he smoked weed, but it wasn't a big deal. One day he asked if I wanted to smoke. Being the early teenager that I was, I caved and said, "Sure."

He had some in the top dresser drawer in his room, he also had a Victorias Secret catalog in there. He started going around the house trying to find things to make a pipe. He ended up finding a pen, a plastic top to a perfume bottle and some tin foil. It worked, I guess.

He started to break up all the weed and then proceeded to put in this contraption that was basically a really shitty one-hitter. I guess when you're a teenager, you do what you have to do. He handed to me, and lit it for me. I took the biggest hit, even though he told me to take it easy. I did not heed any warning. I felt like I was almost going to barf, but I did not.

Immediately after we went skate boarding, bombed some hills. God, being so young ruled so hard.

Television

2009-01-18T16:09:00.000-08:00

Bedtimes. Who needs them? Fall asleep when you're tired, not when you're told to go to sleep. Well, as a child, like many children, had a bed time. I would always be watching TV and my mom would come in and say, "Okay Shaun, five more minutes then you have to go to sleep."

I would always beg, "Mom, ten, please, pleeeeeaaaaassssee."
Usually she would say, "Okay, ten minutes."

I would get another solid ten minutes of TV watching time. However, after the ten minutes I would probably still be in the middle of a tv show, so I wouldn't want to go to sleep. My mom would come in and say, "Okay, it's been ten minutes."

I would always lie, every single time, and say, "Mom it was all commercials, I didn't even get to watch TV. Can I get another ten mintues, pleeeeeaaaassseeeee?"

She would usually believe me and I would get another ten minutes, thus making fifteen minutes more than I was supposed to stay up. I guess I was pretty good at setting up schemes to benefit myself.

Cats

2009-01-17T00:52:00.000-08:00

When I was a lot younger I used to stay with my Grandads and Grandmother every weekend. It definitely ruled so hard because I got spoiled so much, and I got to help make breakfast on Saturday/Sunday mornings! Well, they lived in a really cool house on a lake in Crestview, Florida which I may inherit when.... well, you know.

Well, my Grandmother wasn't a true crazy Cat Lady, however she did have a lot of cats; nine to be exact. Well I got to name one or two of them, one I remember I named "Kidden" (supposed to be Kitten but my t's turned into d's and it just stayed that way).

Onto the actual story: When no one was looking I would legitimately walk on the back porch, which had a pretty big drop off of it, and push the cats off the porch onto the ground below. It was a pretty far fall too. I never hurt them, I guess it's true that cats always land on their feet, but I still feel bad, because I'm pretty sure they were pretty pissed at me all the time.

Hair-cute

2009-01-15T23:37:00.000-08:00

I guess all kids go through phases where they do dumb things. Well, I definitely had my fair share. I heard that when I was a baby still in my walker thing I would go around to all of the potted plants we had in our house and eat the soil out of them. Then when my mom would ask if I had eaten the soil out of the plants, I would shake my head no with a big ring of dirt around my mouth. I can imagine it was pretty obvious that I was lying.

Well, I also went through a phase where I cut everything, excluding myself. I remember I would always want to watch TV in my mom's room because the TV was bigger and the bed was a lot more comfy. So one day I brought some scissors into the room for who knows what reason. I decided to cut her big down comforter. Well, about two seconds after doing this, I realized that I really fucked up. I turned the comforter around so the cut was at the foot of the bed, but I thought that this wasn't enough. So I went to my mom's little office and grabbed the tape and the stapler. I stapled a couple of staples to close up the hole that I had just cut, but I thought that this still was not enough. So I put some scotch tape over the staples. I figured I was in the clear and everything was good.

Well surely enough the next morning my mom wakes me up and asks, "Shaun, did you put staples and scotch tape on the comforter in my room?"

"Uhhh uhhhh uhhh"

"Don't Lie."

"uuhhhh uhhhh uhhh, yyyy-yes...."

She wasn't very pleased. However I did not get grounded by her. It was my dad that got very pissed and grounded me. I think my mom was excited because that meant she could buy a new comforter.

A little while after that I hadn't grown out of my cutting phase, and was still cutting random things here and there. Well, in about fourth or fifth grade I had a bowl cut, just like every other male in elementary school. I decided it would be a good idea to cut my own hair, so I did. I cut a big triangle out of the front my bowl cut. God, horrible decision. It definitely looked like shit. My mom and dad just laughed at me and said I had to deal with this one myself. After this though, I wasn't allowed to have scissors anymore. However, I had a pair stashed inbetween my bookcase and my tv stand just incase the urge came back to cut something.

Béisbol

2009-01-14T15:05:00.000-08:00

During elementary school I believe that my grandfather, I referred to him as Grandad(s) (sometimes I included the s and sometimes I didn't, even though it was always meant to be in a singular form), tried to vicariously live his dreams of playing baseball through me. So I played little league baseball for five years in a row, maybe six. I was not good, at all. My grandads was the coach and co-coach of a couple of my teams, and he was always way more into it than I was. Every year he always talked me into playing by basically taking me to the sign-up whether I wanted to go or not.

So I played and I played and I played and got very discouraged through the years. I had zero hand-eye coordination. I couldn't make the bat connect with the ball and I couldn't catch a "pop-fly". During the first couple of years, I played catcher, and I never caught the ball and always had to go scrambling for it when it would go right between my legs. The rest of my baseball career I was always put in right field. If you know anything about baseball you know that right field during little league games basically means, stand there and look like you are ready to catch a ball; however, no balls will be coming your way. So I always played right field because the coach (not my grandad) knew that I sucked. I learned that if I would just step into the ball I would at least get on base, so from time to time, if I didn't feel like striking out and crying about it (because I always did for some reason), I would step into the ball and limp over the first base.

Then a game came, where I was basically taught how to catch pop flys and was kind of being trained to hit the ball. I was up to bat. I was very nervous. The pitcher throws the ball, strike one. The catcher throws it back. Repeat, the pitcher throws the ball, strike two. The catcher throws it back. The pitcher throws the ball one last time and I actually hit it! I, Shaun Alexander Spencer, hit the ball. I didn't just hit the ball, I killed it. It was all the way in far left field. I was so amazed I just sat there, it was completely quiet, and I stared at it. Finally everyone's yelling came into my ears and I started to run. First base, the coach tells me to keep going. Second base, keep going. Third base, I stop. I believe there was only one out at this point. Another kid comes up to bat and strikes out. Two outs. Another kid comes up and hits the ball! YES! I AM ABOUT TO MAKE A RUN! YES! I AM SO EXCITED. The center fielder catches the ball. before I make it to home plate. So bummed.

That was my last year of baseball, and I never wanted to nor do I ever want to play this sport again.

One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight

2009-01-13T17:42:00.000-08:00

Sometime in Elementary school I either went on a class trip with my class, or with my day care to a magic show kind of thing. All I heard was "magician" and I was in. I told my parents about it, they were cool with it, and they payed however much it cost and I was in on this. I waited and waited and waited until the day of the magic show. I woke up before my mom came in - like she would every morning to wake me up. Man I miss those days when my mom was practically my alarm clock. A nice "Shaun it's time to wake up" is nicer than the sound of any alarm that I've ever had.

Well, it was time for the field trip and I was very excited, as were all the other kids on the bus I'm sure. We got there, and it was about to start. We all sat in a big group, as all elementary school field trips do. And it all began with a song, if you can call it that, that went "One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight... One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight.." those were the only words, and I believe there was no, or little background music to the song. The magician walked out on stage and everyone began clapping, to tell you the truth, I was a little confused as to why people were clapping when he just walked out on stage, and I am still confused as to why people clapped before he even did anything; whatever I guess.

The music stopped and there were a couple moments of complete silence. He had one of those mics that are on your ears and then come down to your mouth. He asked, "Who thinks they know the name of the song that was just on?" Every little kid in the entire building went crazy waving their hands in the air trying to get chosen to come up on stage and give him an answer. He said, "If you get this right, I will give you a fifty dollar gift certificate to ______" (I forgot where exactly, but fifty dollars in elementary school equates to about a million dollars now).

He called on some girl, she had blond hair, was wearing a green shirt and blue jeans; I was pissed. She got up on stage, he asked her name, and she was very quiet, but replied with her name which I do not remember. He asked the question again, "What do you think this song is called?" And he requested for it to be played again while she was thinking of the name. I knew the name, it was so obvious, SO OBVIOUS. She kept saying uhhh, mmm, ummmmmm.

He said, "Okay we need an answer."
She replied, "Uhhhh I dunno..."
He said, "Well you have to have some kind of guess."
She said, "Uhhhh, Numbers?"

In my mind I was just saying, "UGH ARE YOU SERIOUS?!" "YOU HAVE TO BE STUPID!" "IT WAS SO OBVIOUS!"

Needless to say I was very disappointed that this girl could not guess the most obvious song title, which I knew from the beginning. It was "One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight."

Oh Canada

2009-01-12T12:51:00.000-08:00

From about the ages of 7 - 12 my parents would fly me from Florida to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to go visit my Grandparents for about two weeks every summer. Well, I always really enjoyed this, my grandma Lucinda was a professional cook and always made the best food, and always let me help. We would always go on cool trips and find cool things to do. One year we went to The Black Hills and camped for a weekend. It ended up storming very badly on our last night there and so we packed up everything and slept in their huge 1980 - something Dodge van, that was a dark blue with a lot of rust spots. I remember waking up and thinking, "Where am I right now?" I got out of the van and we were at this cool coffee shop, I got a hot chocolate and I was beyond stoked on being there.

Well, onto the main story - One year we went to Canada, which I was beyond stoked on. We got to our cabin and it was pitch black. We turned the porch light on, there was a dead bat on the door mat. I could tell already that this was going to be a good trip. We got inside, there were two dead bats, one in the kitchen and one near the fire place. We got most of the stuff out of the van (possibly the same van previously mentioned, they had a lot of old rusty vans), and then called it a night. I woke up the next morning, and to my excitement we were right on one of the Great Lakes, again this trip was ruling so hard. Lucinda made breakfast and the day had begun. We went out in the boat and I kept asking to drive. Grandpa Brian thought I could probably handle the task of driving a boat in a completely empty lake and let me have at it. Of course, I fucked it up. Full throttle, and everyone is kind of freaking out. I take a turn and I almost flip this boat. Needless to say, me captaining the boat ended there.

The next day I wake up in the loft (I was stoked on the loft, and I definitely called dibs on it). I was walking down the wooden stairs, there was no hand rail or anything, and I slipped and tumbled down the rest of the stairs; I'm surprised I didn't just fall of the side and break something. I was lucky, but still hurt. So I laid down on the couch. My grandparent's friend's kids were there as well. They were a little bit older than me, but they started messing with me when I was hurt, laying on the couch. I keep telling them to stop, and they do not. I end up rolling off the couch and hitting the side of my head, near my temple, on the corner of a table. I probably could have used stitched, but instead we cleaned it out and put some Neosporin on it and put a bandaid over that. Minus the couple of injuries, that was probably my favorite trip with my grandparents. I don't think my parents were too excited about it though.