Le super shame

today's blog is about shame.

these past 5 days or so i have experienced many different kinds of shame. let us start at thursday night, when my odyssey of emberassment begins with me hooking up with a girl i told myself i wouldn't hook up with again (although really, i couldn't tell you why. i guess i'm just not that into her and don't want to be using/used). i was shamed. however, still more shameful was how that night eventually turned out

WARNING "R" RATED. DIRTY SEX TALKINGS TO COMMENCE, SCROLL DOWN AND AWAY.

so that night we'd gone out dancing and hit a couple of bars. both were awesome times. i enjoy swing dancing as well as drinking. i'm pretty good at both, if i say so myself. so eventually we made it back to my apartment and began the "messing around" portion of the evening. let it be known i have not had sex with this girl due to her policy of no ugly-bumping without a commitment i.e relationship. whether this is her way of hinting at being desireous of a long term thing from me is erroneous, as i'm about interested in THAT prospect as i am in rubbing hot sauce all over my bait n' tackle (which is to say, not terribly interested at all). so anyways, and this is where it gets uncomfortable, she eventually gets down to the hand business on me. which is in itself a damn shame, since she apparantly is just completely against any oral action. i imagine this is because it would stop her from talking for longer than a fucking minute and a half. but i digress, she lays there pumping monotonously for a few minutes... then a few more... then more time passes... and more time.. she's all like "funny, usually i outlast the guys by much longer. not the other way around" (she mentions this because i'd already sent her to the moon, so to speak. twice.) to which i ALMOST reply "funny, usually it doesn't feel like my dick's getting attacked by a hundred hungry rodents" but instead simply say that i'll finish it myself. and proceed to glare angrily in the darkness at the pile of respirating disappointment next to me while furiously tugging my man parts. i hate to leave a job undone. i am shamed it had to come to such actions, hilariously inappropriate as they are. fact of the matter is, some people are just not good in bed. and that too is a shame. also, i promise the story is funnier when i tell it in person.


OKAY ITS DONE YOU CAN READ AGAIN! NO REALLY I PROMISE!

okay so thats done. fast forward to friday. now, recently i picked up a very special kind of facebook friend. this type of friend has a very special title. this special friend is a
STALKER.
one day a couple weeks ago i got a facebook message. i'm all "what? i don't get messages, i'm not important enough. something is fishy" and it was some chick saying she thought my profile pic was cool. i've gotten similar statements about that particular picture so i just said 'thank you' in a message back. this message turned into a conversation which turned into a friend request which IMMEDEATLY TURNED WEIRD. have you ever fb chatted with someone who is able to shoot 7 messages to you in the time it takes you to type one? i have. i didn't even know fb LET you do that its chat is usually so fucked up. so right away i realized i have to always be "offline" whenever i'm online fb chat otherwise i'd be ambushed by weird girl! weird girl who then proceeds to send me messages begging me to unblock her creepy (and also fat and unnattractive in general) ass so she can essentially attack me on chat again. she then insinuates we have a date?? on that saturday? um, what? no, crazy lady, we do not. also, you are crazy. so instead of de-friending her or bluntly explaining my disinterest in her exsistence, i flimsily make excuses for not wanting, essentially, to make friends. and then proceed to ignore the subsequent messages and chat ambushes completely. i am ashamed of myself for this, i know there are more decent ways to deal with a situation like that, i just can't figure them out lol. fact of the matter is, i'm sometimes a bad person.

fast forward again to sunday night. i'd been in the cities for the weekend and was filling up gas on my way back up to dreary duluth when i bought a pack of cigarettes...
wait, what?
i've been trying to quit for about a year now, and recently have been doing pretty okay mostly due to support from friends. however, the second i have money and am left to my own devices, i cave and buy more coffin nails. i smoked two on the way back to d town and promptly hid them from myself. talk about shame. damn. fact of the matter is, i'm a slave to my own impulses and tend to sabotage all my own goals thusly.

then go to just a few hours ago today, monday. when i was perusing the mall looking for new clothes i happened upon a GNC and took a peek inside. i've heard and seen the things whey supplements can do for a man who's looking to build muscle and, being of the non-muscular variety, am pretty curious. suddenly i am accosted by a sales woman with bad hair, a worse tan, and some seriously heinious makeup. i explain to her my curiosity and she tells me that "muscle doesn't come from a can, boy. it comes from hard work." this was good advice. she also told me that the work outs i'm doing now don't build muscle, but tone the body. both are good. i've been tone, but i've always wanted to have more muscle and be physically stronger, but really aren't the supplemental kind of person (i have trouble asking for help) and fear the connotations one draws from such behaviors
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JMOh-cul6M

dear god, is this what i could become??

i am shamed. my spinyness suffers thusly.
i wish you all be spared from such shames!

a metal fucking afternoon

so today i spent the afternoon on a cliff side tearing trees out of the ground and hurling them downhill. it was definitely pretty sweet. the REASON for the tearing/ hurling was because i had volunteered for a buck thorn pull as part of a class requirement i do outdoorsy things outside the classroom. so i decided to hop up to the hill we have here on campus and lend a hand (and a hatchet. sweet!) on buck thorn day trying to weed out an invasive species that's literally choking the life out of local forests. and let me say that "weed out" is a REALLY relative term here because some of these guys had been growing for upwards of 10 years and some were just little weedy fuckers, some were sapling size, some were big ol' shrubs. but the ones i messed around with here were full on 15-20' weed trees! and they're roots were totes all tangled in with the massive fucking rocks on the cliff side. while we were out there, some film students (i guess?) asked if they could take some footage of us while we worked and, being a total attention whore, i said yeah. they had good timing because moments after they set up, i'd hacked the last root of this massive tree-weed i'd been working on for like 10 minutes and proceeded to use every muscle in my body to rend it from the dark, moist earth it had commandeered for interminable years. hearing the gritty tear of its roots and the chorus of pained vegetable capillaries as they were exhumed from their rocky homes, i tossed the once magnificent specimen down the mountain side and proclaimed in a mighty voice of throaty victory. "yeah! fuck you, buck thorn!" and lay my trusty hatchet to rest whilst i mangled the young branches of a sapling nearby.
like i said, it was pretty epic and cool.
oh hey! i'm going to madison for halloween! sweetness. i'm excited for my costume. another super hero shirt do-it-yourselfer for me, surprise surprise. this year i'm going as clark kent. see what i plan to do is make a superman symbol shirt (no stores seem to sell just the old red and blues with the big S anymore!!) and wear it under a white oxford shirt and a blazer with some nondescript pants and maybe a tie. the great thing about this costume is that
1. its functional. pockets. warm. available materials.
B. its cheap! i already own the regular clothes. i bought the blue shirt for like 4 bucks and stealing the paints from wal-mart was easy pickings.
3. its totally Rob! i mean, plenty of people go as super man, but clark kent is an under-tapped resource! plus, i think if i do my hair the right way and keep my glasses on (another benefit) i look kinda like him... minus the godly physique and the super powers.
i look forward to spreading drunkery and mischief about the ol' madtown in a few weekends! nick and friends, hold on to your socks, cuz i plan to rock them the fuck off!

on a totally unrelated note, i have two tests tomorrow! and i'm totes using this blog as a procrastination outlet rather than study old quizzes. but whatever. don't think i've got much more to update you guys on. sorry i never seem to have the energy to expound on my sweet dream library, but if you dear readers really wanna hear 'em by all means comment impatiently and i'll write a few up POST HASTE!

I RETURN VICTORIOUS OVER THE POWERS OF NATURE.
and indeed, it seemed my very environment had it's sights set on ending my life! countless times i could have sworn our canoe was about to flip over, dumping myself and kesley, my partner for the weekend, into the FREEZING lakewater, freezing us to death WITHIN MINUTES. also challanging was the intense winds! on and off the water, it blew into your face no matter what direction one faced, thus sending me home with a rose red nose and cheeks much like sunburn only much more painful. it was so cold and hatefully blustery that we could barely muster the energy to even feed ourselves! so we ate the easy thing in our packs; chocolates, cheese and one night some mac and cheese. i probably gained a couple pounds on the trip, despite the immense amount of caloric output i achieved. on that note, another danger were the portages. a portage, for those of you who are retarded, is when you are canoeing a lake and come to the shore, but need to get to a lake on the other side of a landmass and then proceed to carry your gear and canoe (the canoe i carried single handedly was 72 lbs) over said terrain (in my case, mountainious rocks, ice, mud and snow atop hidden treefalls) for a distance known as 'rods' which is about 15 ft or the length of a canoe (i walked a total of ~400 rods, yes with the canoe the whole time.). i nearly fell and killed myself countless times on these treks. also, please note that canoes are NOT built to be carried with ease. they are built to be carried albeit in an economical (not ergonomical) fashion. my back and shoulders are absolutely killing me. i can barely shrug without incredible pain and could really really really use a pretty girl here to help rub the kinks out!
speaking of pretty girls: i mentioned last time the girls i was with and my enthusiasm over spending a weekend with them. WELL. upon setting up tents the first night, we were able to choose our own tent partners. i threw my junk in one tent and let god sort it out, and to my surprise and joy, kelsey, the girl i had my eye on since classes began immediately threw her sack in with mine! now, before you start with your "oooh, rob! you sly dog" speeches let me just say; co-habitating with a woman you know and love can be mighty difficult even in the best of times. living under extreme conditions in a team-work heavy environment with a woman you're attracted to but barely know can be complicated and frustrating to say the least. this thought occured to me as i held in one rancid fart after another. at one point even forgetting the dutch oven i'd made of my sleeping bag and shoving my head inside for warmth only to immedeatly remove my noggin due to tear filled eyes and a mouth full of potential vomit. rancid, rancid, rancid. so yeah. pretty sure my shot with kelsey is blown. sad faces there. and let me illustrated a few points here by saying that on friday night i was too cold to flirt. lets go back. I, Rob Finlayson. found an environment to be SO EXTREME. so baleful. SO BITTER AND HATEFUL AT THE VERY PROSPECT OF MY BEING. that i couldn't even manage a witty quip and sly compliment!! and that, ladies and gentlemen, is saying something!
so thats the worst of the weekend. lots of awesome stuff happened too though! we made cake! it was fucking AWESOME. but when our guide, jake, squeezed it out it legit looked like a bear shit we'd decided to fry up in a hypothermic delusion. also, when i mentioned how frightening it was when i almost tipped over and died in the canoe, it was also EPIC and AWESOME that kelsey and i managed to cross a lake in a pro fucking fashion that shocked and impressed guides and professors alike and went down as one of the more epic ventures of the weekend. also, did i mention i carried a fucking BOAT over two fucking mountains? TWO. that was pretty fuckin' sweet. pictures of that shit to come. defintely pushed myself to the limits and back again in a lot of ways this weekend. absolutely the trip of a lifetime. ONCE in a lifetime, to be sure, but trip of a lifetime nonetheless.

i can't wait to move to arizona.

stay spiny friends! i'll get more stories as i think of them and pictures as they become available!

Greetings dear reader!
so sorry for the epic lack of updates but lets face it, my life is pretty boring. SO, main point of today's is that tonite i'm hitting the sawbill trail in the BWCA (thats the Boundry Waters Canoe Association for those somehow not familiar) with my class for a weekend of canoeing, portaging, learning and all around adventure! the other day my group and i went grocery shopping for food for the trip. now, grocery shopping is not an activity i usually find enjoyable. however, let me tell others of you in my position to try something: go shopping with hot girls. seriously. it made the whole experience so much better! in my group are two smoking hot girls, which naturally fuels my machismo in the course of any action i take. (a can of tomatoes you say? why course let me just *huuuurrng* curl it epically into my hand and drop it into the cart for you). so there's one thing i'm excited for on this trip, the ladies are fun and good lookin'. another thing i enjoy about this upcoming weekend is our guide/ "trip leader" dude's name is jake and he has a seriously epic beard. full on leonidas, no lie. he asked us if any of us smoked (as in maryjewanna) and said he'd be cool with it long as we shared lol. well, nobody smoked but i still found it pretty funny. he asked us too what we wanted to learn this weekend and i said "how bout some sweet survival skills. like full on bear grylls shit" to which he epically replied,

"dude, i've met bear grylls. he's a pussy"

woah, dude hold on. i've spent i don't know how long defending bear grylls to people who call him out on his show. but here's a guy who's MET the man, and puts the BEAR in BEARD. i am inclined to believe his statement as fact. epic, epic fact. needless to say, i'm excited to see what we can do under the watchful eye of such a man. thirdly i am excited because there's a very real chance i could DIE out there this weekend! and as anyone who knows anything knows, rob finlayson is excited at the chance of non-survival. its gonna get cold this weekend while we're up there and possibly even snow (FUCK) and i've not been camping in well over ten years! thats a whole decade for my skills to get rusty and my mind to get dull! however, according to jake the guide, our prof. gave our group only one leader as opposed to the usual TWO leaders because he has more confidence in us than in the other groups! which makes the tiny indian inside me swell with pride! (E NOK CHA).
so yeah, thats about it for the weekend plans. i can't really sit here much longer to tell you guys another track of my best of dreams album. but i'll update on monday with how the trip went as well as a favorite of mine "jaguars and jewels" a dream i had just before i travelled to mexico! oh, which reminds me! i might finish my schooling out in spain!! more details on that in the next post. always leave em wanting more. if it works for opium dealers it can work for bloggers.
stay spiny folks!

Okay, so.
second post is gonna be a longer one i think. lots on my mind that i would love to tell you guys about! so like a good college student, i'll plug in my thesis first. i've decided a good part of my blog will be an album of "best of: dreams rob's had." also, for the past few days, i've been completely distracted by thoughts of my future, more specifically a very specific path thats on my mind more and more since the last year when i thought of it... after that i think you all are just super fascinated about what i plan to do regarding more tattoos and i may just polish off with some emotions if you are (un)lucky!!

so some dreams i have saved up in my head and have remembered well enough to even name are
-the shucks gun
-powers and loved ones
-killed my mom
-jewels and jaguars
-hunted in mexico
-world of din and mendi

and assorted other tracks. feat. lil' wayne and rihanna.

so the shucks gun. i had this one back in oooh 9th grade or so and will be one of the few i will name names in. in it, my 15 or so year old self is hanging out in my backyard with then good friend adam. mid conversation, the grass shoots up to about eye level and my dad comes out on the deck and yells to me "ROB! CUT THE DAMN GRASS!" at which time i relay to adam "hey, i gotta cut the grass. see ya later." so i'm mowing the lawn, when all of a sudden.
WTF TENTACRUEL THE SIZE OF A HOUSE FALLS FROM THE SKY.
no lie. it was huge. landed in the pond in my back yard and just kinda sat there waggling its tenta's cruelly albeit not seeming to do much beyond that. so there it stayed for an indeterminate amount of dream time before i got so sick of it i decided it had to die! so i try everything at my disposal; rocks, sharp sticks, small arms fire, fire fire, insults, poorly written poety. all to no avail. when suddenly steven fucking segal comes up to me dressed as rambo and mumbles to me about my problem involving the large blue squid bug ruining my life (apparantly) and suggests the 'shucks gun' i'm all asking and shit about the gun when he explains that "its a gun so powerful that when you use it, you can't help but say 'shucks, thats a heck of a gun!'" so he hands me this huge super soaker looking piece of ordinance and when i pull the trigger--
bullets firing lasers and flames shooting missiles and missiles that shoot bullets that shoot flaming lasers fucking fly out and kerblammy! tentacruel blows up! where it and the pond used to be there's now a large, dry crater thats filling with shark carcasses. i guess when you blow up a giant pokemon, dead sea carnivors fly out?

enough of dreams, lets talk about dreams! last year in an anthropology class, we talked a little bit aobut fire fighters. we read a case study in which an anthro grad. became one and we even had a guest speaker talk about her ethnography regarding a fire house... since then the thought of having fire fighting as a fall back, or mabye primary, career goal's been in the back of my mind. lately now moving towards the front of my mind. and today all over it for a good 15 hours. reasons i'd want to do such a thing? i want to help people. more than that, i want to SAVE people but know i'm not smart enough to be a doctor, a career that doesn't have enough adventure anyways. when you get down to it, fire fighting's probably the closest i'd ever get to being a super hero. and lets face it, chick would dig it too and i could be anywhere in the world and do it!


as mentioned earlier, here comes tattoo thoughts! this is where i need some reader participation! since i got my first tat this past august, i've been dying to get another. i will be getting one when i graduate college which is a specific design i've had in mind for some time. but i want one soooooneeerrrrr! spacing i really want would be something that starts on my back shoulder, comes up onto my neck, and ends down on my clavicle or chest. i've thought about a queztalcoatl design, signifying my experience in mexico, something i really wanted, but i just don't know! any ideas from the infratubes!?

thats all for now. no feelings this time. they're dumb and kissing is awesome.

-Rob

The First!

okay!
so, my good buddy nick made a blog. my other good shebuddy laura claims to also be making one. i follow some other blogs here and there. i also tend to have a lot to say in general.

SO I MADE A BLOG.

basically, i live in duluth and i hate just about every minute of it. its boring, its lonely, its cold. its like that dowdy girl you brought to a high school dance once as a favor to the girl really wanted to take but couldn't so you just grovel at her feet for.

pretty sure this will mostly be things i want to talk about but nobody else ever seems to want to listen about! these things include:
-lucha libre
-beers i like
-celebrities i don't like
-personal philosophies
-crazy ideas i think are amazing for 72 hours then promptly drop
-stories and folktales.

that said! let me just tell you that my favorite luchador is dragon rojo, my favorite beer is finnegan's irish ale, i really can't stand shia lebouf, i believe regrets are life lessons we see as too painful to learn, training a falcon is REALLY expensive, and my favorite greek myth is pygmalion.

soonly, i'll drink a few more beers (molsons canadian. yumm) and probably see fit to systematically explain each one of the above because lets face it i have no real social life atm.

ALSO. let me just say i'll promise to keep whining to a minimum as my arbitrary number of subscribers is suddenly important to me and besides i hatewhinerstoo >:(

mostly though, i feel as though i'll probably be following the lives of my much more interesting friends, although i will say i'm prone to the occasional adventure and know what! you'll get to read about it!

also, i had a crazy scary dream last night. more on dream updates to come.

so uh.. stay spiny or something i guess.