the liking did me better than i ever thought it would.

i want to sleep until graduation.

and then keep sleeping.

it’s very cold in my house. thanks for trying to help, but as usual, it’s beyond any of our control.

inundated with thoughts of the media. steeping in paper topics that require a linguistic tango that exhausts me mentally, but really, doesn’t take that much effort.

i got a package today in the mail that brought me to the carpet beside the dog and in front of the space heater and kept me there for a very long time. and it hurt very much. because i hurt someone very much and i didn’t mean to. and i miss it, too, but i know it’s not like that anymore.

remember how many other things were at play? the hormones and the drugs and the depression and the loneliness and the heat and the distance and the helplessness and the poverty and the angst and the newness and the youth?

some of those factors are still present. what is no longer present is us, as eighteen and nineteen, respectively. and unfortunately, i think that that is perhaps the crux of feeling like we did when we said all of those things, and were stupid enough to put them into print.

it hurts a lot to think about how i used to feel. that summer is excruciating to remember.

i had to close the book.

but february made me shiver….

working working working.
cocktailing/bartending/serving = all the same.

they all take time and make me money.

filled out my exit paperwork for school.

graduating soon.

holy god.

holy, holy, holy diploma. i can’t believe it.

also, can’t believe how much i let this get out of hand.

things in this life change very slowly, if they ever change at all.

but nathan said it best- “yeah, yeah, ok, whatever. so we’re all, like,  leeches and we all enable each other and we all suck each other dry, but like…what the fuck? why can’t we just fucking stop being so bad for each other when like, we care about each other, and like….change the world?”

or that pretty, pretty boy at work: “…when you’re just trying to do something beautiful, but like…it means you have to change a little….do you want to change the world with me?”

little bird, have you heard, freedom lies, freedom lies.

plus: this is post 100.

minus: living alone is alone-some.

plus: triple-digit cash money in my pocket every night.

minus: exhaustion.

plus: lovely weather, lovely city.

minus: no one to go play in it with.

plus: a lot of familiar niceties in the workplace on the daily.

minus: social anxiety keeps it at that.

plus: beautiful sunshine dog here.

minus: beautiful sunshine boy there.

plus: the end of school is in sight.

minus: i won’t, i feel, have anyone in town to celebrate with when it comes.

my self-imposed status as a hermit is catching up to me, as i come to mildly dread nights off, because they mean nights i will spend at home, alone, with no one to call except someone who can’t come.

i am homesick for something that no longer exists, as it now resides in too many cities.

BOO, EMO KID.

xoxo me.

Yes, we speak of things that matter, with words that must be said.

my life is mosty functional.

that is, i feel purely utilitarian. proletariat.

i find little bits of satisfaction in conversation, in sunlight, in passages of books that others have written that ring true.

but for the most part, i work. i make a little money. i spend a little money.

and i do radio. at which my mumbling and my stuttering render me mediocre. but it doesn’t matter because i can play music without speaking, and say a lot that way.

sitting on my porch (MY porch. my somewhat-very-own porch) tonight, i got an idea of what the next nine or ten months will be like.

new house, new street, new corner store (where i got recognized from work. that’s an entry for another day.) new bus route, new bike ride.

new heartache, new uselessness, new nights spent wandering in circles in my home with a bottle and a romanticized idea of what my life was supposed to be like.

perhaps i was wrong in condemning organized religion. i see the merit- it must be nice to feel like there’s a reason to your existence.

but ignorance gets corrected eventually, and it’s never easy to swallow.

i prefer to deal with what is in front of me, and not what is beyond the last heartbeat.

and, apparently, i will do this in the corniest way possible.

so, i will continue to live on my own first principle:

don’t fuck anyone over.

don’t, don’t break the spell. it would be different and you know it will.

i like being liberated from keeping conventional hours.

time isn’t so much linear these days, as much as a commodity.

that is, when i can snatch it and take it to bed with me, i will.

and i can count it, until it makes change- start work, get off work, things close, things open.

and i can buy a little more, or spend a little more, depending on what my needs are.

and i can manipulate it to fit said needs.

and for once it feels like the supply is equal to the demand.

it helps that in bellingham in the summer, it is mostly light out from about 4:30 AM to 10:30 PM.

the only issue with this is that most people still do their business in the day, and their sleeping in the night.

_______________________________________________

additionally, i found a large-ish casio keyboard on the side of the road.

it’s amazing.

hopefully by august i’m a musical genius. though mostly i think i’ll be making crappy beats to go with my crappy lyrics. ya hear me?

i am an island.

did you ever stop to think….

….that i nap all the time because the work i do is also physically exhausting?

….that the hours at which i do it are not easy, and they often mean less sleep?

….that because i deal with humans, and all of their little quirks, and all of their self-centeredness all day long, when i get home….i just want to be alone with my thoughts?

i can’t spend entire days (or nights) serving people, just to come home and continue to do it so that you feel important.

_____________________________________________________

everyone is the most important person in their life.

it’s true for you, and it’s true for me.

and it has recently come to my attention that it is actually impossible for me to make you important enough to be validated without entirely effacing myself and what i need.

yes. you do come second. you come second to me

but you come second, which is the first most important person after my own self. and that sounds selfish but FUCK- who else is there, all the time? just me.

why do i have to constantly have to go out of my way to make sure you feel important enough?

i’m already fucking tired.

i’m sorry you don’t feel important enough but the fact of the matter is i have to make money, i have to get sleep, i have to have time to just collect my thoughts. i love you, i love you, i love you, but i cannot spend my entire life assuring you of it. if you don’t already know that yes, i love you. and yes, you are always at the forefront of all of my thoughts and actions. and if you don’t know that, well….

it’s like the smartest man alive tells me:

tough shit.

And your very flesh shall be a great poem.

here is something i’ve been thinking over for a while:

compliments on someone’s physical features.

maybe this has only recently come to mind because this has only recently happened in my life.

example:

“you have very pretty freckles” or….

“your eyes are very blue” or, stranger yet
“wow. you are very beautiful.”

here is what i find strange about these things:

it’s not like i did any of this myself. i didn’t make my eyes this color. these freckles have stayed in their respectful, rightful places since i’ve had skin that wasn’t brand-new. and beautiful? that’s just symetrical features, genetics and knowing what to do to make those things work together.

so. i think this whole concept of beauty if ridiculous. it’s really more like luck.

and not talent at all.

and it’s misleading.

example:

old man: “ma’am, i was very displeased with your service today.”

me: “um, sorry?”

old man: “blahblah geriatric type complaints about the good-old-days”

and then as i walk away, to his wife….

“That is the sort of girl who has gotten by her whole life with her looks. You can just tell.”

…no further questions, your honor.

someone close had nothing left.

i’m not quite sure how it’s possible the drop from feeling so ace, and good at what i love, and exploding with knowledge that i want to pass on and discuss and dig into.

and then find myself wrecked and slumped and completely unimportant. you could at least have the courtesty to nod. or respond. or do something.

it’s like when we’re speaking over the phone, and i’m blathering like i do (because i can’t stop) and then i have to look at my cell and see if the call got dropped because there is nothing but silence from across the world, and no confirmation that your phone isn’t just sitting on the counter face-down, while you wait for me to shut up.

here’s the deal-

i don’t know what else to do.
i know i’ve been saying this for a while but…
i’m dry. i’m all cleared out.

every ounce of what was in me is drained.

i am a nomad. and a ghost. and not a part of anything but a part of everything. i want to go to the ocean. and go in it. and be part of that.

because that’s a pretty big body to be within.

father up above, why all this hatred?

this is a holiday. a holy day. to celebrate an event that may or may have happened, but that many millions of people throughout history have staked their lives upon.

maybe it was a miracle, maybe it’s an old wives tale that somehow caught on.

and i may have only ever sat through one church service, but i know with every cell in my body that:

1.) God doesn’t see the connection between drinking before noon, eating chocolate bunnies and wearing $400 heels on a Sunday morning and his rise from the earth, either.

2.) Rabbits don’t lay eggs.

3.) “He Is Risen” is a poorly constructed sentence for all intents and purposes, save for the fact that because most English speakers would be ok with this clear mixing of tenses, linguists would have to accept it as a grammatical statement.

4.) God wants you to treat your waitress as if she really were a human. That’s kinda what he’s all about. That whole compassion, do-unto-others malarkey.

5.) God also wants you (if you’re going to celebrate his son’s return to the waking world) to stay home with your family on Easter, so that others can enjoy the same experience (see above, about the treat-thy-neighbor thing.) If no one got all spiffed up to go eat $20 eggs, then no one would have to spend the day serving on them, thus missing a gentle afternoon in reflection with their loved ones (surrogate parents included, beautiful warrens of my heart.) And parents would be forced to make conversation with their children, instead of chiding them for misbehaving in a restaurant.

So today we will drink this wine and muse about a pretty radical guy in the cradle of civilization.

And we will also think about our families, both the living and the dead,  because, regardless of who your savior is, family is it.

And try to ignore all of the things that people do in the name of salvation.
Hope everyone had someone to hug today.

xoxo me.

p.s. today one of the chefs at work was making small talk and he asked me why i was in bellingham (practically no one is actually local- the city is full of nomads) and if my family was up here, or “just me.” and i said “no, just me” and it sounded so lonely i almost cried.

p.s.s. while i was writing this, i remembered the time when i was 14 or so, on the night before Easter. and I asked her what we were doing the next day. And she responded that we were going to the grandparents and that “your aunt will probably be all dressed up, so let’s look like shit.”

that one did make me cry.

we all lose the path through the black and the blue.

another day working before the sun came up, watching the sluggish fog lift from the bay through dry eyes.
another siesta that leaves me feeling otherworldy.

another day of proposed plans and filmy excuses and the overwhelming feeling that i am sub-par, regardless of the number of strokes i take.

another afternoon of bleary mechanics. dog park, run, shower, cook, laundry, repeat.

yeah, the meds are great until they pull the bait-and-swith.

now my head feels like it’s underwater, and my stomach is always on the verge.

and of course i’m always tired. i’m working myself into a ghost to try to do everything.

i feel seasick.