I just called my friend Dale Muck on the telephone. I guess we're still friends, I haven't talked to him in 8 years. I remember the last time we met, we ran into each other at a Sunoco gas station in Cleveland, Ohio. "The last time I saw you, you said that you had become a mod," he said. I remember that moment, I was at a Unique thrift store, buying used ties and starchy white shirts. He must have taken me seriously when we ran into each other in an aisle, me with an armload of ties and white shirts. "Oh, I'm mod now," I probably said. I was joking, but in the Cleveland, Ohio way. That's a place where everything has to be a joke because you're living in Cleveland, Ohio. It's a little after 6am where Dave is living now, just outside of Cleveland. He answered his phone and I apologized for calling so early and reminded him who I was and he remembered, which pleased me. Instead of catching up, I told him that I only wanted to know if he still liked the Dead Milkmen.

• It's President's Day!

Dale Muck had a giant old blue car, one of those rusty boats that came from Detroit in the 1970s that you could fit 11 people into and drive right over mailbox poles. Dale was slightly older than me and my friend Josh, but we spent most of one summer together. We somehow charmed a woman who worked 3rd shift at Dairy Mart into allowing us to take anything we wanted by the armload. I'm not sure how it started, but I know we'd go often and hold our shirt out like a basket and fill it with Slim Jims and No-Doz and Snickers bars and dozens of eggs & just leave without paying. Dale Muck had a liberty spike mohawk and it was dyed orange. We'd spend hours driving aimlessly through Northeast Ohio and somebody usually had a remark about Dale's hair. Whenever that happened, Josh and I would appear out of the other windows, hurling eggs at a rapid tack, one every second at least. I remember two guys at an intersection, stunned to the point of immobility after calling Dave a "fag" and then being pelted with eggs over and over again. It seemed like we were there for three minutes at least, just throwing eggs with an 80% rate of target impact. They had looks on their faces like they couldn't have possibly deserved what was happening to them. It's not right to throw eggs at people, even though getting hit with chicken menstruation ejecta causes far more ego damage than physical harm. In 1974, the Cleveland Indians held a 10¢ beer night promotion at Municipal Stadium that caused a riot which resulted in an umpire receiving a head injury after a fan hurled a chair at him and then ran away. We were all just powerful cowards taking advantage of a situation.

In that giant blue Chevy Nova Impala SS Monte Carlo Caprice Classic we listened to the first Dead Milkmen tape over and over again that summer. I don't care how many times it could have possibly been, I'm going to say it was over a zillion, which isn't even a number. I think we each realized that eventually the summer would end and we would go our separate ways. The next time we'd see a sky, it would be over another town. The next time we took a test, it would be in some other school. Whatever we had as parents wanted the best stuff for us, but they had to do what was right for them, because it was their time. Their time, OUT THERE. But in that car, it was our time. It was OUR TIME and that would be all over the second we rode up Troy's bucket.

• Don't look to hard, the meaning here is very vague.

"Why are you calling to ask me this?" Dale responded to my question regarding the Dead Milkmen. I told him that I wrote an online column for the website of a weekly paper in Seattle.

"I have to be at work in 2 hours," he replied, now sounding annoyed.

I paused and looked at the clock, which now read 4:39am. I saw two Rainier tall boys on my desk, a copy of the book Ralph The Heir by Anthony Trollope that I have been meticulously cutting all of the pages out of and most of a Totino's Party Pizza. All of a sudden I imagined myself reaching the tape of a finish line, breaking through with my arms in the air. Parker Posey ran up to me and squirted red Gatorade into my mouth. Stu Nahan appeared from nowhere to ask me how it felt to run such a glorious race.

"I'm really sorry, I wasn't aware of what time it was where you are," I said to Dale.

"Well, where are you?" Dale quickly replied, most likely assuming I was in Seattle and should be able to tackle simple subtraction.

"I'm in Guam," I lied. I don't care if yesterday was Kurt Cobain Day. This Totino's Party Pizza totally sucks.

Quote of the week: "I'm going to have a wet spot on my pants when we get to your house." - Kelly O 2/19/2011

• Go ahead and ruin a run to the border.

Today is my roommate and best dude friend Ruben Mendez' birthday. Leave him a message in the comment section! Call and leave him a message on the phone! 206.708.6158!

• Maybe they've been put there for a reason.

• Thanks, Darling Belle. I'll see you soon.