Nicknames

When I was little my mom called me Coco, a name of a French clown. Probably because I made her laugh all the time, but what parent doesn't laugh at their child growing up? Children are funny.

But for a long time I never received a nickname I actually liked. My name was still fairly rare when I was young so my nicknames weren't so much nicknames as they were mis-pronunciations. 80% of the time it was a substitute teacher who didn't know how to read. I got "Chole" (like Joel with a Ch), Cleo, Schlo, Ch-low, and others so off I nearly rolled my eyes right out of my head. Is it that difficult? Really?

However, from one of these pronunciations came the first nickname I liked. Ch-loe, which sounds like Cello-ee, and this was okay because my orchestra teacher called me that. I was okay being called my favorite instrument.

Another one I don't like so much is Chloyster. It's based on a Pokemon that looks like a big purple angry oyster. It's stupid. My cousin called me that at first because he thought he was clever, but then it was just to piss me off. I don't like those names that end in -ster. It sounds so frat-tastic. I'm neither a frat boy nor a bro. I don't even have a dick. So don't call me something that implies I do.

It was another long while before I got another nickname I didn't mind. I think it might've been my friend Amy who called me Chlobo once, and it didn't catch on for another few years. Then it was added on to by Random, and Chloboat was born.

In Supai Moose called me Chlotor, and I started using that for a while. There was also Chlobtron in relation to robot sounding names. Not as cool or popular as Chlobo.

So that covers just about all of the screen names I use. Sometimes I use my middle name, and I used to think about going by it but I don't think it would catch on since I've lived here so long.

Day 3 of F.B.C

Frankenstein
Blog
Challenge

Something You're Afraid Of

I have several fears. Spiders, which has turned into more of a hate than a fear, heights, climbing, and small spaces. 

Minus the spiders, this: 

This is almost everything in one, and it was really anxiety inducing to do. I talked about this in my Mojave entry. For some reason when I climb rocks and such I'm terrified of slipping and breaking something because I don't trust myself with that kind of activity. On top of that I've never broken anything, and I don't want to, but you know how sometimes you say you don't want something to happen and it does? Yeah, that's what makes me afraid. I shake, I get dizzy, my muscles won't move etc. But with a little mental preparation I can push through it, which is a good thing to do. It helps to get encouragement when/after facing my fears, too. :)

There you have it. You officially know my weaknesses.

The New Tattoo

Okay, first of all, I had to do something weird to make the photo appear right side up. I thought maybe blogger was bein' silly, so I kept trying to upload the photo. But it was uploading it upside down no matter what I said.

Soooo I saved the edited photo upside down, and tried it again.

It uploaded right side up. Explain that to me.

This is part of a quote most people think was originally said my Dr. Suess, when it fact, it was originally said by a rather average man called Bernard Baruch. Don't get me wrong, I like the Dr. Suess version too:

"Be who you are, and say what you feel, because those who matter don't mind and those who mind don't matter." 

Despite certain peoples impression that I just got this tattoo because I wanted to get it out of the way to start on other tattoos (which I suppose is a little true) this has a lot of meaning to me.

I'm sick and tired of changing for people, of worrying what they think, of trying to go out of my way and do things I wouldn't do of my own freewill to make sure they have a good opinion of me. I'm sick of being misunderstood, of being told to "snap out of it" and not getting the support I need from friends who aren't really my friends. Most of all I'm sick of being judged for my actions and decisions.

I decided to be myself and forget anyone who isn't happy when I do something they don't like. It's my life, and when everyone else comes and goes the one person I'll always have is me, and maybe that sounds a little selfish, but I think it can't be any more true. It's relationships that are selfish. It's "what's in it for me," and "you owe me," even when its unspoken.

So fuck it, accept me for who I am and what I do or I don't need you in my life. Because those who matter don't mind who I am.

Your First Love

Well, this is a little tricky. There are a lot of technical questions to ask. The first person you had feelings for? The first person you had mutual feelings with? I'm one of those people that has fallen in love too easily. I've had trust issues in the past, but I have the ability to see the good in anyone. My life has been all about love. I guess you could say I love being in love. I've rushed things, stayed when I should have gone, and changed myself for someone else to try and make them like me. Needless to say, I've learned to stop doing all of these things, because they've gotten me stuck in some pretty bad situations.

But when I decide I love someone, no matter what happens, they tend to always have a place in my heart, and so it's hard to forget them. I don't try to, I just find another way to process the feeling. I change it into something else, try to remember the good times, and move on with my life. I don't dwell on exes for a terribly long time. I'm sad for a while, but eventually I get past it.

But the one person I dwelled on the longest was my first love, who, however hard this may be to believe, was Stewart. Everyone forgets about that, but I never will. He was my childhood sweetheart. I held onto him emotionally for years. And later in life we both agreed that even though we were young, it was something special, something hard to find. We got each other through an awkward part of life. For almost two years we were inseparable, which just doesn't happen so early on.

I wish I had an old picture to put up; its one of those things I'd have to take a picture of an old picture to do, but there are some cute ones. There's one of us at a Halloween dance, and I'm hunched over because I'm taller than him.

It was a relationship based on our own little world. Symbols were incredibly important. We had these necklaces we always wore to represent each other. We had a secret written language. Obviously we weren't mature enough to have anything physical, but what we had was better than some of the future relationships I had that involved a physical aspect.

I'll admit there was a point where he really hurt my feelings. It had to end some time because we had our whole lives ahead of us. We weren't supposed to stay together our whole lives. It was really tough getting used to life without him so close, but I did it.

I think out of all the people I know and see on a semi-regular basis, I've known him the longest, which is really weird to think about. Things are really different. We're all grown up. But I don't think either of us will forget that once upon a time, we were important to each other.

The 140 Mile Journey Pt. 2

Now where was I? 

Ah, days three and four. 

Photo by Sarah Ramm

So by this point my camera has died, and I brought my ipod in case I got reeeally bored and wanted to listen to some music, but I decided to use its camera ability instead. Surprisingly, the new ipod touch takes some pretty damn decent outdoor photos, and was therefore optimal for this photo happy trip. 

We stopped here for lunch on day two. It was near perfect weather, so Mikey and I took the opportunity to dry our wet stuff, which worked pretty well. Sarah made everyone some yummy chicken salad, and I would've had some Nutella if it hadn't gotten so cold it was nearly solidified.
Day three was all about the photos, really. I got some cute pictures of all of the dogs, and we went to what seemed to be an old mine site. The clouds were just surreal that day; they looked like paintings. I feel like this is what anyone who has never been to the southwest pictures it, with all the cactus and sand and pretty skies. When the weather wasn't crappy it really was pretty.

Later on we came across an interesting marker. A flagpole, with the United States flag and a sadly torn "Don't Tread On Me" flag, sat rather randomly along the trail, accompanied by a decorated metal box. In this box was a thick notebook, where obviously travelers have stopped at and written in.
(I took a picture of a really funny signature I had to point out to everyone else later. "Kris stuck it in my pooper on the Mojave Trail. Matt.")
So we signed and dated our own little moment on the Mojave Trail. I added "IT'S COLD!!!" to emphasize the time of year, because damn, it was cold the entire time.
We ran across more weird junk. A lone chimney, obviously the only thing left standing from a (probably) torn down house. A rusty bed frame.
By then we'd covered quite some distance, and it was about time to set up camp.

This was how we set up every night. The orange tarp was an addition after the first or second night to block the wind, which made a nice little safety area to eat dinner and play games. The Cooks have this amazing ability to be comfortable wherever they go. I'm loving camping more and more for several aspects:
a) Getting away from all technology
b) Not worrying about all those pesky possessions except the ones that matter
c) All the wandering and discovering
Okay, that sounds super gay and hipster. I don't know, I'm just getting a lot more out of it than I used to. It helps being with cool people when you go. I didn't even feel all that gross like you normally do when camping, since it was so cold I didn't sweat much and when I did it didn't have the chance to sit and make me smell bad.
Aaanyway dinner was pure sodium that night. We had a discussion about how bad it was for us. Packaged flavored mashed potatos, canned meat/chicken (chicken if you were smart like Rah and I) and corn. Salty salty salty. Add sugary drinks and alcohol and I'm fairly sure I gained weight on this trip. Fantastic. Good thing I have Wii Fit.

It was chilly and windy that night, but thankfully it only rained for a little bit, and not as hardcore as it did the first night.
But I was so cold I bitched out on seeing the first landmark of day three, this rock pile you see on the left. It may not look like much, but it's a damn big pile. You're supposed to leave your own rock there.
It sits on Soda Lake, which isn't as much of a lake now as it is a pile of muddy salt. That's what all the white stuff is. Salt. Kinda crazy. I stayed in the car while everyone got out and took pictures. I had Michael take this one.

Our next stop was this creepy place called Zyzyx in California. According to the sign of facts, it was once a religious mineral spa and resort started by a priest. Mikey and I thought this was just code word for Cult. There were empty bath houses, rooms and stale water. What's left now is a small gift shop and some rooms for college students to stay in. For some reason. I forgot...
I got some really interesting photos here. I put a few up on my DeviantArt, once again, so follow the link from Part 1 and have a look.

Day three was amazing. The rain went away and the wind settled down, and we stopped by this place with sand soft like at a beach, minus the body of water. Mikey and I let our sleeping bags dry out completely. We buried him in the sand and made him a sand mermaid!
And I read Choke, by Chuck Palahniuk in one day. Michael had finished it and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. Honestly, I didn't really like it. Just not my kinda book.
I was so busy trying to finish the book though, I missed out on taking videos/pictures of the quicksand we came across. Luckily Sarah took one!

It kinda freaked me out at first because Mikey went in that first hole and kept sinking, and we didn't know how far it went. I don't know why I was worried; it's not like he was totally helpless and we had Chris Ramm with us. That's good news in any bad situation.

So we pressed on and found ourselves a camping spot next to a mesa. All of our stuff was finally dry, the weather was great, and it was a good night. We'd covered a lot of ground that day and were almost to the end of the trail. From where we were we could see the road between Vegas and Los Angeles, all light up with cars. There was a train nearby, too, and we would hear it occasionally. I drank the last Smirnoff and since it was my last night drinking freely underage I added some alcohol to my alcohol. That's right. We all had more to drink than we had the whole trip. I slept awesome.

So that morning we climbed the mesa we parked next to. A little nerve wracking for me. We did see a tortoise though, which was cool. We didn't have much further to go, so it was a little sad.
We reached our last landmark shortly: Camp Cady. This marked the end of our trail. We had completed 140.4 miles across the Mojave Desert. I'd feel a little more accomplished if I'd been driving or Mikey had been driving but it's still a fun thing to say you've done.

There wasn't too much to see at said Camp Cady, though. Some crazy trees. Broken glass. A couple old bricks representing the remains of a wall. The smokestack of the old train was cool however. Pretty sure it was rusted cast iron.
After that, we got onto the interstate to head home. It was really weird being on an actual road again I started to get carsick almost immediately, and we had a little trouble discovering just what route to take home. Rah's radio was kinda breaking, too, though thankfully it wasn't as important to keep in touch.
We were looking for an A&W to have some fast food as is tradition after epic trips, but settled with a Tommy's instead.

Tommy's was disgusting. They're a burger joint, and for some ungodly reason they put chili on everything. Chili fries, chili burgers, chili breakfast sandwiches, chili breakfast burritos...I hesitantly tried a chili burger, and could only eat half for two reasons:
1: It was so greasy the grease was soaking through two layers of wrappers. It was really unappetizing.
2: I was surrounded by the morbidly obese patrons of the restaurant. It's really hard to eat gross food while looking at people who have probably eaten too much of it.

My stomach hurt for a little while afterward, and I settled for a Cliffbar to hold me off till dinner at Chili's (ironically) in Kingman. I've never been to Kingman before, but it isn't bad. The view is really nice. I wish I'd gotten a picture, but I was paranoid about my ipod dying at this point, and was trying to stop whipping it out at every opportunity by this point.

Three more hours, and we were home, exhausted and ready for a shower. It sucked coming home to snow. After the epic snow in December, I was so done with it. I guess we missed the worst of it though, which is good, but it's supposed to snow again tomorrow! Agh!

I can't believe I ever thought about living in Flagstaff.

So there you have it! Overall it was a really good trip. Way better than staying home. I skipped a day of class but it was worth it, and I've already made up for the notes I missed.

Here are some extra pictures:

The Meaning Behind My Blog Name

Well, it's a play on words based on a song title, and here it is:

Michael and I just discovered where the audio clip came from, actually. It's from a scene in a movie called "Strange Days." Pretty odd movie, apparently. I have yet to see it.

Anyhow, the message is pretty obvious and simple. I write about things happening right here, right now!

The 140 Mile Journey Pt. 1

February 18th at 7am I got in the car with Michael, his parents, and two of their dogs to head to Nevada and follow the entire Mojave Trail through the Mojave Desert. In their jeep followed Michael's sister and her husband with their two pitbull mixes: Lily and Amber. I was so ready to be out of the house and so excited to go on vacation I had trouble sleeping the night before we left. Just like before Supai. We woke up at five to have breakfast and I was so sleep deprived I slept a lot of the way to Nevada.

I woke up just when we were entering Laughlin.  Laughlin is like if Vegas never got big. It's a little eerie and outdated, and when we were there we saw a lot of road construction. I didn't pay much attention to it. We stopped at a gas station just before stopping at "point zero" at the Colorado River. "Point Zero" is also known as our "Point A." I guess Michael's dad wanted to make sure we did the whole trail exactly as we should. To stay in touch with the Ramm jeep, we had these nifty radios to talk to each other. On top of that, Michael's mom had a travel guide with detailed instructions on taking the Mojave trail, right down to strange landmarks. I noticed if you want to take this journey, you better be prepared. Don't go alone, pack a little more than you need, and prepare for all situations. If any family is good at doing this, it's the Cook family, so there was no point during the trip in which I was worried about surviving. Thus we began Day One of our journey.

Teddy Bear Choya Cactus

After the Colorado River, our first stop was a little trail for some scenic photo opportunities. We saw our first petroglyphs here and it was probably the best weather we saw until the last day or so. For whatever reason, I can't make Blogger put two pictures next to each other. God forbid.

We had lunch after this, which was just a large snack of cheese, meat, crackers and the option of sandwiches. Michael's dad had bought another six pack of Smirnoff coolers and put it in the back next to the dogs, and when they opened the back it wasn't much of a surprise that because of the bumpiness of the road we were on two of them busted. We're pretty sure Chaos drank them, because she was sick for the first few hours of the trip. The goal of every day was to find a camping spot, but we made a lot of stops along the way. Our first couple stops were ruins of places that had been there a long time ago. Fort Piute, made in 1867 and lasting nearly into the 1930s was one of the first landmarks we saw. It was pretty much just a trail of rocks to low walls of more rocks. The kind of thing you see as a kid that adults try to explain in an interesting way, but you don't really listen because all you see is rocks. Yep.  Just like that.

Joshua Tree

 It was around then that we entered the Joshua Tree Forest. Joshua trees are very strange. They look like something Dr. Suess came up with. Like a cross between a cactus and a palm tree. The other plant life mingling with the Joshua trees were Mojave Yucca, which look about as you'd imagine if you've ever seen a yucca plant. Short, squat, with big pointy green leaves. Everything was pretty pointy in the Joshua tree forest. And it never seemed to end.
We made spontaneous stops at anything out of the ordinary. There was a lot of creepy junk, like really old rusty bed frames and shot up pieces of rusty metal. The most interesting thing we saw in the forest though was the bus. Next to the remains of another trashed rusted car was a trashed rusted bus. It appeared as if it crashed. Horribly. And after that it was a victim of who or whatever came along. It had been shot at, written on, and used as a home. There was trash everywhere, but also an armchair, which was so odd I took a picture.

I edited this one and put it up on my DeviantArt, which I haven't been to in forever. I just did an update and added both pictures from the trip and random pictures I like that I've taken through time. It is here.
So the Joshua Tree forest went on for a while, and sundown was getting closer and closer. We needed to find a clear enough site to camp at, and not a wash. In case you don't know what a wash is, it's pretty much a soft chunk of sand where water has traveled repeatedly. You don't want to camp in them in case it rains, because the water would easily uproot and soak all of your stuff and it would not be pretty. Sarah was getting tired of looking for a spot and suggested a wash because she figured it wouldn't rain and it would just be comfortable. But...

As we set up camp, it was pretty clear that rain was on its way. Sarah made us some delicious yellow chicken curry, because we had stoves and shit, and at that point all we wanted to do was get in our tents and go to sleep. The wind was getting angry and cold.
And then it started raining. And raining. I woke up to rain hitting my face, and realized that because of the wind, the rain was getting underneath the rain fly of the tent and soaking our stuff. Mikey and I curled into a single ball trying to escape the wet.
It was a damn unpleasant first night. We all got up, teeth chattering, wind still blowing, and had the quickest breakfast possible of snacks and bagels before getting the fuck out of there. It was so cold. Don't even get me started on how much it sucked having to take a piss in the middle of a stormy night in the desert.

This was when Mikey came to the sad realization that he was very underprepared. I mean, I had sort of been expecting nicer weather too, but I still brought a couple long sleeve shirts, a few light jackets and my hardcore cholo coat. And boots, definitely boots and socks. But Mikey had one pair of pants, one light hoodie and sandals. This is why, in a lot of pictures, you'll see him wearing my low cut girly sweater with the rest of his layers. He needed it more than I did. But I'm pretty sure that my cholo jacket saved my life. As in literally, which I will get to when I go into the second night of the trip.
We were all pretty cold and miserable, so we drove around for a bit thawing out. And for a while, it was snowing, which is a weird thing to see in a desert. It's not that I thought it wasn't possible, I just never thought I'd see it.We finally stopped at an official camp spot (not to camp, because that's cheating) and found one of those visitor places with some souvenirs and maps and all

that jazz. Rah and Mah bought some Joshua tree seeds for a dollar. I left my wallet at home, which was probably good because I probably would've bought something unnecessary, like a jackrabbit stuffed animal (one of the only wildlife I saw the entire time, aside from a tortoise and a half dead lizzard). After that we decided to go on a (very cold) walk around Hole In The Wall Canyon. For a while it was just a lot of landscape, but then we got to the canyon itself. According to the informative sign at the end of the trail, the rocks were formed from volcanic ash and smoke so many years ago.

It got interesting but a little confusing when the trail seemed to taper off in two directions. We weren't sure if we were going the right way. It was nice down there though; there was a little stream and so there was actually green grass. There's a funny picture of me somewhere Michael's mom took chillin' in a little cavern I found. Anyway, it turned out we had to follow a narrow path and climb some rocks, which made me really nervous. At two points there were metal rings that had been installed to help you climb up the rocks, which I didn't like at all. It combined several of my fears at once. It took some mental preparation but I made it. Obviously. I didn't have a choice so I made myself do it. I definitely had a smirnoff after that. In fact, I think I drank most of them during the trip. Not that I drank all the alcohol. We're talking about the Cooks here. They came prepared with several flasks of different kinds of alcohol: vodka, whisky, and two kinds of tequila. We were set.

So after the hike we had our snack time, and by this time my camera died so there's a chunk of the day missing on my part. This picture here is the overlook we found. Turns out the one hole through the canyon wall we saw lead to it. It must've been where water pooled during storms, because it was really grassy at the bottom. If we had somehow gotten in there, though, it looked difficult to impossible to get out, which I think is why the fences were there.
Michael and I tried to take this opportunity to dry our very wet sleeping bags, but right as we got them set up it started getting windy and wet again, so we had to pack up and leave.
This presented a problem. Did we want to sleep in wet sleeping bags? No. Did we want to get rained on again? No. So we thought we would solve this by sleeping in the truck. It seemed like a good idea.
It really wasn't though.
Halfway through the night we were too cold to sleep. All I had blanket wise was my jacket, and Michael hardly had anything. My feet were frozen. We decided we'd slept enough, and Michael joined me in the back, where we were much warmer scrunched together. My jacket covered both of us, and I really think I would've gotten sick or something without it. It was so cold. And originally Michael had said I shouldn't bring it, because it would just take up space in the truck. It ended up saving both of us.

So it's taken me forever just to get this much out, and I want to start my new blog challenge, too. Therefore I'm saving days three and four for later! Here's one more picture:

Jack Jack. Isn't he cute? :D