Acta Non Verba.

He asked about what had happened to your tv, and i knew then that nothing i could do nor say would change the course of events to follow. The mind had already been made up and i was no more a part of the decision than i had ever been. loneliness is something you cannot know until you are truely, actually, alone. there is a cold edge in the vaccuum of space that you teeter on, to fall is to fall into madness, to stand is to fight for what little grasp of yourself you have. Nothing means anything when the bottom falls out like that, and when you've been there you create mechanisms to prevent it from ever happening again. You can't know yourself until you've been there. You can't know what you're capable of.

And the funny thing is to think of this tenuous grasp I have lately on the idea of perfection, my mind has become so clouded over the course of the past two months. No matter what you believe life to be, perfection is a myth, the pursuit of which is the human equivalent of tail chasing. I only control myself, and I have a million more mistakes to make before I'm dead. That is not a valued statement, or a judgment, or an incendiary remark that pertains to anyone but myself. He fights for my right to exist the way we used to fight for each others'; unflinchingly, illogically, irresponsibly, frustratingly. Dogged and determined and I don't agree with or approve of the tactics, but it's nice that there's at least one who will accept me for all of my failings.

Not agreeing does not preclude being excellent to each other. But breaking points exist in any relationship, regardless of the origins.

The Loneliness System.

And that's exactly why I didn't want the Midas touch on my belongings, I knew the assumptions that would be made (for the worst), I knew that there would be no margin for error, just the constant condescending and the sense of worthlessness she'd have to rise above. Judge, jury, executioner. As if I would have done a 180. A pipe, bottlecaps, and the undrunk swig of scotch which was provided by the one who would listen, regardless, without that piety in her eyes. Assuming all the wrong things, that pigeon hole with its death grip, and I suppose that this is the entire crux of the issue, glinting in the sun, undeniable.

I cannot live with you --
it would be life,
and life is over there on the shelf,
the sexton keeps the key to.

We're all human unless it's me, and humanity is worth fighting for unless it's someone you actually know. It's the third time, which is supposed to be the charm, but it feels more like the last nail slamming into the lid. Allayed hopes. A sickness in the pit of my stomach and the words I cannot bear to utter, but feel so fervently regardless.

"That's you over there, in that van. Who gives a fuck-all about how thin the ice is you're about to land on. The thing is to keep driving anyway."

The position of shotgun is currently open to applicants.

500.

Pissed and ugly, and I woke this morning thinking how disgusted I am with each one of us, everything. Mood swings, my avulsioned thumb, something dead in the center of my brain, would give you everything I have twice and there's just this sardonic laughter undertone crushing and biting, last night when I walked to the kitchen I offered a "fuck you" but you didn't hear it, instead you heard the clanking and that's what made you worry. Because you will never, ever understand. Not ever. A jar, with a heavy lid. He kept contradicting himself and I just wanted all the talking to end, and for some reason I have learned to never expect that I'll get what I want, just waiting, constantly, for there to finally be silence. A jar, with a heavy lid.

(Thanks For The Reminder.)

Think about how quickly things pass by and are gone. Existence flows past us like a river. So it would take an idiot to feel self-importance, or any indignation, either. As if the things that irritate us lasted.

(MA)

I think I have an ulcer. My brain is such a foreign thing, so much doubt (can I really do nothing right?) negativity irritation cancer. The best thing would be to quit this town where madness prowls, out to supply hostages of these damned. I used to not be able to imagine ever being apart. It's funny, all these stupid cliches, and truisms, and they wouldn't be truisms if they weren't true. You only hurt the ones you love, right? Such a pitiful feeling of helplessness, of hopelessness. Like a little child. Can you tell me what this is all for? Can you remind me again of my purpose? Because my hands get cold when I type. My eyes strain to see through a lens. My fingers slip through holes in my pockets. And the soul of my shoes are wearing thin.

How To Fight Loneliness.

Jeff Tweedy says:
Just smile all the time.

All those people in that waiting room in sandusky the other night making jokes and small talk and the kid with the ten gallon cowboy hat cuts through the only moment of silence, "who's to say what normal is? I think the normal people are really the crazy ones." Does everyone think that? Definitions become so tenuous; crazy, sane, normal, happy, bad, none of it means anything anyhow.

He's a brick, drowning me, down to the bottom. It takes such a large chunk of my brain that I feel like a stranger in my own head.

You know it's all beginning
to feel like pretending
no love's as random,,,
I can't stand it.

He says forever
to light a fuse
We could use
A hand full of wheel
And a day off
And a bruised road
However you might feel,
Tonight is real.

When I forget how to talk I freeze
won't you please
Bring that flash to shine
And turn my eyes red
Unless they close
when you click
And my face gets sick
stuck.
Like a question unposed.

How I feel today. 

Box Full Of Letters

"I'm sorry," I would have offered, but once crossed these bridges cannot be backtracked over. We have to meet each other in that place the Russians hold in such high esteem: forward.

It's like a building being reduced to rubble, the heart breaking. What can you do, other than stand far enough away so as not to be cut to ribbons by the shrapnel, wait, rebuild? What can you do.

But there is certainly this new loneliness. Not necessarily a thing of pain or discomfort, it's just labelled under the category of "other." Haven't quite figured out if this is a passing ripple, a part of the transitory. Gemela. That will always be something special. That will always be something for just you and me. We were going to travel to West Africa, to be treated like royalty! And in my mind we did go, a thousand and two times. Lately I've been feeling as though I'm living inside a Salinger novel. Fear. The cycle of rejection. Lives you don't want to lead but could see yourself falling into. The mind's failings. Weaknesses. The constant pressure of high tide waves slamming into the break wall. And do you break? A million times and you cannot break, not even once! Not even once.

Visions of the open road and the feeling of absolute freedom that comes, after the fear and quaking and pain have left. Flight. Recollections of a bench in a garden in Athens. The look that says he detests me and inability to feel anything but apathy. What can you do? These things repeat themselves. Life is cyclical, isn't it?

Because being appreciated is tertiary to simply being accepted. And at primary is being treated with compassion. Because all three are absent.

Hell Is Chrome.

And in the morning I had a face so dead that the people passing on the street did not notice me. It was his turn last night, after I died for the second time that day, (oh will these Phoenixes just give up...) drenched in sweat and skin cold as the grave, frightened words and epileptic movements. Was it a nightmare, or the onslaught of demons, or the off-gassing of some neurosis that I had simply not yet had the opportunity to experience? He sprang up and the shoulder was out of its socket and he spent a lifetime behind the closed bathroom door and I could hear every now and then a whimpering. Rugby's gaze held fast to the tomb and his ears stood cocked at attention. He did not move from this position until the door opened once again, and the ghost emerged from the darkness.

How many hours later.

"Is everything ok?" and I remembered asking the same question myself previously that night, I remembered the answer and how it had made me see red. The chuckle afterwards that sealed the deal.

"No."

Silence. I could hear his mind replaying everything, searching for the spot where something went wrong.

"Because of the conversation with your brother and sister?"

"Because of everything."

Arms wrap around me and a stubbled chin grazes my back, two lips try to ease the tension but it just feels too late. The allies are so put asunder and the wants and needs of everyone around me only disgust. October is such a long shot to hope for. My eyes are molten glass, lava.

"Along the open road on winter nights, homeless, cold, and hungry, one voice gripped my frozen heart: 'Weakness or strength: you exist, that is strength. You don't know where you are going or why you are going, go in everywhere, answer everyone. No one will kill you, any more than if you were a corpse.'"

Because I knew the sense of worthlessness she'd have to rise above.

The Code Word: Fine.

If I ever was myself, I wasn't that night.

And in the second part of the dream there was a tv behind the bed and we were watching that movie about Rimbaud, the one where Leonardo diCaprio plays him. In the dream, Verlaine was played by the guy who was professor Lupin in that one Harry Potter movie.

And Aimee had the size and overall appearance of a three-year old, though I knew for a fact that she was seven, and had some magic ability to make herself appear three. She called me aside and spoke to me with the vernacular of someone with a college education. She had only a few teeth and she looked so beautiful.

The nightmare before the Rimbaud dream caused me to wake up screaming, sputtering, covered in sweat and tears, unable to shake the terrifying visions. I could scarcely breathe. I had to sit in the dimly lit living room with the cat and write it all down before I could pry the vision from the backs of my eyelids. I had no nightmare sentinel this time, there weren't any sympathetic arms to receive me. Just a casual "are you all right" and it wasn't nearly enough, and I'm trying to not feel bad about admitting that. I had one of the worst dreams of my life last night. I wasn't all right then, and really, I'm still not.

An Ode To My Friends.

You guys are awesome even though you probably won't read this. Well, some of you will. I've got so much living to do! And this is a statement that fills me with excitement. I want to chart out a pirate's treasure map of the locales that this road will lead me to, but there would only be one point on it. It's all a giant mystery, and that's most of the fun. I'm not done discovering, and that's the beauty of the entire thing. I do not mean to offend, but think that it is an inevitable part of this irrational existence. What matters is if (and how) we get through these rough patches in the road. I'm not going to be Jack Kerouac, or Charles Bukowski, or Rimbaud or Wittgenstein or Marcus Aurelius or Jesus Christ though certainly there are ties that bind me to each. I'm going to be emily, that's all.

"Goodbye here, no matter where. Goodwill recruits, understand: our philosophy will be ferocity; ignorant of science, cads for comfort, to hell with the sputtering world. This road is real."

Love's For SAPS!

So happy St. Valentine's Day Massacre everybody. The two of you who read this blog anyway. Love is folly, chocolate will clog your arteries, roses just turn that ugly crusty brown and die anyway. Sharpe's is the only worthwhile existent thing. Just Sharpe's. King George commands, and we obey.

I have to go back to eating my bowl full of nails now. Then I will butter my hair (like the Gauls), get into my viking ship, and shout obscenities at nothing in particular.

Best Valentine's Day movie to share with yer "snookums": Buffalo 66. Go rent it. Now.

Somebody post me a comment. Topic: most original/absurd date you've been on. I'll start once I have a chance to eat these rusty nails.

Got No Blood On My Hands.

He was wandering around the front office looking for someone when I came back up from the warehouse. A middle-aged Italian man, his hands were strong as was his face, and I thought that he was probably quite handsome when he was younger. He looked like an aging movie star from the 40s or 50s; strong and rugged, a far cry from the Leonardo diCaprios of today.

“Hi… how can I help you?”

“Hi, uh, um.” His face began to twitch a little as he tried to force the words out. “I was supposed to see Anne. I, ah…”

I noticed that he had two bills in his hand, one looked like it was from Columbia Gas. I interjected.

“Are you here for casework? Some type of assistance?”

“Ah, I guess, yeah, I don’t know. I talked to Anne?”

“Ok. Anne’s out sick today. I’m pretending to be the caseworker. Come into her office with me and we’ll see if I’m convincing or not.”

He chuckled and looked relieved as he took his station across the desk from me. He put the stack of papers that had been in his hand onto the desk and pushed them over to me. I noticed that the top paper was a release form from a correctional facility.

“I just got out,” he said without making eye contact. “My wife, well, we’re separated now. She tried to keep up on the bills while I was locked up but she got behind. I got these shut off notices… gas and electric. I got no job, I’m trying, I’ve…” his face began to twitch again as he tried to force all of this information out as fast as he could. “There are a lot of people who care about me. Bosses who sent me money while I was in there. I can work but I can’t, I mean…” He looked up at me. “I gotta take care of this. I got a hernia when I was in there. I had set up with the doctor in jail to get surgery on it, but they play games with you in there, they screw you around. They saw that my release date was coming up in 90 days so they kept just moving the surgery date back and back and back, so that they never actually had to do it. One less thing to pay for. God, it’s getting bad now, almost to my scrotum.”

He shuddered and I wondered what this conversation might be like if I hadn’t met Ryan. I had so much empathy for this client, much more so than for any other client that I had ever interacted with. I thought about the metal walls and the constant television and the dirt, disease, neglect, the night of excruciating pain and the deputy who did nothing about it. Did this guy have a night like that, too? I wanted to give him everything we had, twice.

“You always heard these horror stories, too. See, the clinic where they were going to do the surgery was in Columbus, it was a part of the OSU medical program. So you had students working on you. I heard about a guy who went in for hernia surgery and came out with a colostomy bag because they nicked his intestine. And they don’t fix that kind of stuff. Plus you have to go down there to meet with the doctor in shackles, it’s..”

“Dehumanizing.”

“Yeah.”

I gave him every bit of information I could find about the different services we offer and the other agencies in Lorain County. “Come back tomorrow for our food distribution. When you end up getting your surgery, we have prescription assistance available, so if you can’t pay for them we can help.”

He looked me in the eyes again as he got up and smiled warmly. “Thanks so much, I really appreciate this. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

And as he left I felt myself hope with a sudden urgency that I do see him again tomorrow.

I Beat Up Apollo Creed AND Mr. T.

It was an early morning drive to the food bank, the grogginess I usually feel at that hour of the day was exacerbated by the fact that I had stayed up too late the night before, thinking that the 15 minute nap I had snuck in would count for something. Jeff Tweedy was doing his best to keep me awake as I made my way north and then west. I had to stop myself from turning left onto 113. I have gotten so used to the drive to Ryan’s that it’s just about automatic. “Food bank, em…” and I turned the volume control several clicks to the right.

The driveway up to Second Harvest should have one of those steep grade signs that you see off to the side of the road on highways, right before you get to really treacherous rises in elevation. Someone masochistic designed that thing; there was no effort made to alleviate the fact that the food bank is situated atop of a sudden hill, a literal “higher ground” for an organization that serves as a figurative higher ground for so many people in the county. The driveway is a steep bastard, and on a day like today it felt like a truck-eating 90 degree angled leviathan. I got to the half-way point when the truck stopped moving. I was on a solid sheet of ice! I was starting to move backwards! The wheels were spinning like crazy and the mph gauge was reading 60! Holy shit! “Please don’t let anyone else come up this driveway right now…”

Ba’al must have been listening. I gently hit the brakes and shifted to 1st gear. Slowly, slowly, I nudged the accelerator. There were deep tire track ruts on either side of this mountain slope they were trying to pass as a driveway, proof that I was not the only person who had trouble getting up the thing. Deep, deep ruts. Ruts that I would have surely gotten stuck in. Ruts so deep they had cut through the surface layer of permafrost, turning into craters of sloshy mud water. I had visions of having to go into the building to ask for a tow, having Martin gladly offer to help, having to listen to all of his posturing. Martin wasn’t someone I wanted to be in debt to. I let out a “come on, baby!” of support while continuing to nudge the gas, and the truck crept forward by centimeters. I could feel the back tires starting to slip out of line.

“Why in the shit would they not have salted this?! God…” I said out loud and immediately felt like Napoleon Dynamite. “Idiots!” I added with a chuckle for good measure. I slowed down to an utter crawl, and the truck began to stabilize. After what seemed like three hundred years of gently tapping the gas and praying for traction, I had gotten past the two-thirds mark, the point at which the driveway flattened out a little. I was in the clear. Just a little… picking up speed… keep going, just a bit more… and…. I’m uuuUPPPPPP! Dad’s truck was as pleased with itself as I was and we vroomed through the parking lot and around to the loading dock in back.

A burly looking white guy with scanty hair and fewer teeth greeted me in the warehouse.

“Lemme guess. Oberlin Community Services.” He wore a half-grin and carried a clipboard in his massive left hand, the only thing that distinguished him as a food bank employee and not a skull crushing pirate.

“How’d you…” but I was cut off before I could finish the question.

“There a van in yer way out there?” I was still wondering how he knew where I was from, and just looked at him with what probably came across as a blank stare. “Put it this way. There a van parked out there at all?”

“Oh. Yeah, but..”

“Okay, here’s what you do. Go wait to pull around, I’ll send the guy and you can pull it in.”

I wasn’t exactly sure what he was on about with this cryptic set of cave man instructions, but he was so sure of himself that I was sure of him too, and I went back out to the truck. Seconds later another burly white guy appeared, got into the van, gave me a wave and pulled away. The warehouse door rolled open and the first guy started giving me airport landing pad hand signals while I backed the truck into the warehouse. Where else would I have gone, I wondered, as I watched his gesticulations. The hand signals were unnecessary but comical, I thanked him in my mind as I chuckled under my breath. I got out of the truck and he wheeled the first pallet up.

“This way you don’t get your toes all snowy.”

“Oh, thanks!”

He disappeared while I loaded the boxes of pudding snacks, pasta, beans, and tomato sauce. I eyed the boxes of canned orange juice, and the guy reappeared, almost as if he could hear me thinking to myself, “those things are heavy as fuck, and my guns are tired!”

“We’re not supposed to help agencies load anymore, but I’ll help you with these while nobody’s lookin’.”

We got half of them loaded and he said, “hey, you’re pretty strong, what are you, a street fighter or something? I bet you can scrap. Hahahaha!”

I had no idea whether I was being made fun of or not, but the guy’s laughter was so boisterous and self satisfied that I couldn’t help but laugh myself. We finished loading the truck and I offered a sincere thanks, to which he replied “hey, anytime Rocky.” With a pat on the back.

An Echo.

Ameer killed himself and everyone came out of the woodworks to grieve, like that human instinct to latch onto whatever is momentarily shining brightest in the sky. Onto the next bit of glory once this one burns out, carrion in a river of carrion. God, he was gone, and every time that crappy Campbell's painting van went by your eyes went straight to the "AB" he had wiped on in primer with his finger. You were never, ever going to see him again. Not ever. And at the memorial when Todd W. said, "Ameer watch over me," you wanted to break his face for being so shallow, you wanted to knock those big teeth right out of that empty head. All of these matters of consequence and the ticking of clocks, it all goes on but Ameer is still 19, that damn "AB" still rolls around town, a whisper, a whisper.

We have got to stop living as though an outside force imposes meeaning on the world.

Now Approaching Midnight.

"What are you thinking about?" she asks, cutting through the sleepy and comfortable silence in the room.

"Genesis."

"The band?" and they both chuckle, but the conversation that follows is profound and taps into some part of her that normally lies dormant.

I thought of Alan Watts and the nature of human consciousness, our desire to chop information up and categorize it, regulate things, bring order and structure to all of this chaos. What is time, other than a way to validate that the future must certainly exist? Has there ever been a Wednesday since the world began? And I thought about you, and god how did I get so lucky, I thought of this process of excoriation and the close calls, how there is this renewed desire for life and all of the madness that entails. And I wanted to tell you, but that look you gave me after you had said what you wanted to say tore the words from out of my mouth, stole the breath from my lungs. I am absolutely certain now.

"Death has simply ceased to matter, because the present moment is so complete that it requires no future. For the price of intelligence as we now know it is chronic anxiety, anxiety which appears to increase to the very degree that human life is subjected to intelligent organization."

Needle In The Hay

Ferocity in the eyes of Richie Tenenbaum like sustained hunger, an ache that never goes away, toxicity. Elliott's voice wafting through the background, "he's strung out and thin," and he stuck his wrist under the light, pulled back the sleeve and showed me. "Frankenstein scar" is what he called it with a chuckle, souveneir of 14 years ago, we are wolves and we claw each other's hearts out.

No promise that I can make that would suffice so I will just instead be here, this reciprocal thing, but finally I think it's enough. The way that you look at me when I come through the door and your hand on my back when sitting in the living room with Nick, the pause for a first moment alone together once outside and the mix disc with Lou Reed at first and Billie Joe Armstrong's pumping out of the speakers, "I love this guy's voice" and that smile that always makes me crack, "me too."

OMG WTF LOL PST and other aol type terms.

Vin Diesel! Need I say more? You like life fast,
party hard, expect girls to keep up with you?
If people mess around with you then they're
gonna end up either in the hospital or dead
because you don't take bullshit from
anyone..I'd definitly stay away from you in a
dark ally....


Which Action Hero are You???
brought to you by Quizilla

Dance Around Like Devo.

And I think that part of the problem with relationships with men is that they have no idea how to make you feel valued, important, not taken for granted. So it comes out in these little bits and pieces, these little cracks that you can steal glimpses through, these human moments. Maybe it’s an insecurity thing. “Well, if I say that stuff to her, it makes it look like I need her, it makes me appear weak.” Hey, I want that stuff too! Give me all of it.

"I felt ok going to the looney bin because I knew there was somebody out there who I could have a conversation with, who really understands me. And that she’d still be there when I got back.”

He was armed only with Charles Bukowski and two pictures of me and I wondered when things stopped feeling so tenuous. (My heart smiled at the admission.) And standing in the record store with you laughing at the selections in the 25 cent bin was like standing with a sibling, it felt so close. Reminded me of Franka’s line in the Princess and the Warrior, “We were husband and wife, brother and sister, mother and father. Only we were both both.” That is an awesome feeling. Maybe it’s fleeting, maybe it isn’t. There is no way to know, so why get wrapped up in the anxiety of wondering? (And isn’t that what life is?)

My gun. It's cool. 

Yes.

16. The human soul degrades itself:

• Above all, when it does its best to become an abcess, a kind of detached growth on the world. To be disgruntled at anything that happens is a kind of secassion from Nature, which comprises the nature of all things.
• When it turns its back on another person or sets out to do it harm, as the souls of the angry do.
• When it is overpowered by pleasure or pain.
• When it puts on a mask and does or says something artificial or false.
• When it allows its action and impulse to be without a purspose, to be random and disconnected: even the smallest things out to be directed toward a goal. But the goal of rational beings is to follow the rule and law of the most ancient of communities and states.

17. Human life.
Duration: momentary. Nature: changeable. Perception: dim. Condition of Body: decaying. Soul: spinning around. Fortune: unpredictable. Lasting fame: uncertain. Sum up: The body and its parts are a river, the soul a dream and mist, life is warfare and a journey far from home, lasting reputation is oblivion.

(Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Book Two: On the River Gran, Among the Quadi.)

A Sketch.

The amazing thing about language is its ability to evoke emotion. To color things. Words are like so many tubes of different colored paint, and the resultant image depends entirely on the skill of the artist weilding the tools. Some people talk (or write) unceasingly, and yet say nothing. Some people speak only after deliberation, but are such masters of locution that when their lips (or pen) start to move, the room becomes silent, everyone stops to listen, and no one wants it to stop. With this latter category, it's as though the speaker (or writer) has some implausible ability to "see things as they really are," to make cohesive the human experience, to bring words to emotions, feelings, experiences, that most have never thought to put to words. Am I rambling? I'll get to the point. The first time that I read Virginia Woolf I realized that there is a uniform depth to the human experience. That these observations I can make are not unique to me. But that for many people, once the observation is made, it is either not fully examined, or flies away as quickly as it was received. There are some people, though, who can tap into this elusive... "something," this higher consciousness of observation, take a snapshot of it, and recount it in such a way that it is immediately accessible and meaningful to the person who is receiving the story. Like their eyes see through the surface of the every day to some often unknown pulsing just below.

Just a random thought that isn't connected to anything else.

Today: I am scared, and feeling really lonely. Lousy kind of. Not exactly sure what I need to do to deal with it. Stop worrying about whether their are expectations or not? Stop thinking about the ways that things could have been different, but weren't. I have not changed that much, have I? Maybe a beer or two more than was the norm, maybe staying up later and later. But am I crazy and just not seeing something? There is this new person who is becoming more and more a part of my life, and that certainly causes ripples for a time. But when did the bottom fall out? I don't know if I can keep thinking about this for extended periods of time. Causing schizophrenia. Just wanting to be loved and cared for, despite my faults or shortcomings, or differences, or however you want to label them. And in the end isn't that what everyone wants?

I'm not done figuring out how to behave. Probably I never will be. Feeling very much pulled in two different directions. This is just me being me.

In The Bible-Black Pre Dawn

Rough housin' (literally), bottles clankin', dishes flyin'. "Maybe I'm retarded?" I thought, "because no matter how hard I try I just can't seem to get this right." This followed with the thought that perhaps this "right" is just wholly unattainable. The wisdom from my dad clanging in my head like the familiar toll of a bell from the safeness of childhood. "I'm not perfect, I'm going to make mistakes. Get over it already!"

Woke this morning to the sound of rustling outside, and Marcus Aurelius saying in my ear, "do not feel offended, and you haven't been." Will try to take this to heart.

H.A.L. Will Be Proud

Robots on subway cars going to factory jobs daydreaming about beat boxing on street corners. Think about it people. The first groundbreaking short film from director MLE the Diesel. Aww yeahz. Coming to an obscure internet page near you!

Just So Random.

Ah, these states that are never named, these eminent positions of the soul, ah, these intermissions of the mind, ah, these miniscule failures!

Lucky to not be afraid of the healing process, to appreciate the raw along with the tough. To not pretty up or hide the ugly emotions in the name of being strong. To not disdain weaknesses as anathema, and also not to revel in them, or find my identity in them. Balance in all things.

Hey, how could I have gotten so lucky? Thank you for listening to my heart palpitations regardless of how frequently (or infrequently) they come. If I were Mike D and I was breaking it down in "dedication," I'd go: "This one is for... Lake Orion! Olympia Washington!" Seriously though. Those two guys rock.

Looking through the past I found something I wrote that I had forgotten about:
"Anyway, there's some amount of revolution going on here and [now.]
Good revolution.
Let's be good to each other...
no pretention
no blame,
two advocates for each other.
In a years' time we'll look back on the us of today and shed tears of happiness for the strength that we had for ourselves."

And I think we've done swimmingly. Hey, when we get to the year marker I'll buy you's a beer but you'll have to order since I speakee no frenches.

Life is not always pleasing, but it is always a thing of beauty.

I Miss You Already.

"Well, it's midnight, let's do this."

You reluctantly got up and I followed. Your eyes wouldn't meet mine and we joked about how Vic had decided to just walk in, the words we both wanted to say hanging heavy in the air much like the fog outside your window. Pounding like a tribal drum beat in my temples, out the door, down the stairs, just keep it together. Just twenty feet more.

Stood in the kitchen putting on my coat and you finally looked up at me. Tried to force a smile but it wouldn't come, tried to hide the desperation in my eyes but could feel that it wasn't working. You pulled me close to you, and amid passionate kisses you paused and opened your mouth to speak.

"Don't say goodbye to me," I uttered before the words escaped your lips. A hand in my hand, a gaze cutting through my brain stem, a lump where a heart should be. Elephant on my chest. You ran your hand through my hair one more time and I knew it was then or never, so I reached for the door handle. Eyes locked. "I....,,,," but it trailed off.

"Don't go crazy," followed by that laugh that says you're already there. Out the door. Down the steps. Jeff Tweedy's voice reverberating from the speakers, "what was I thinking when I let go of you?" two thin spider threads creeping down my cheeks. The drive home but it feels like I'm in Siberia, the streetlights seemed so unnecessary just to illuminate this cutting world.