1. Listen to Kid A.
2. Listen to Ol' Man River.
3. Listen to Can't Hardly Wait ("I'll be home when I'm sleepin', I can't hardly wait") and cry sitting in front of the damn computer.
Don't look at me right now.
N.B. The most telling aspect of my personality is that I'm already reminiscing being home and crying while I'm still at home. I could call my friends and go hang out with them, but instead, I'm sitting alone in front of the computer. Don't even bother pitying me.
So, i have a black eye.
And shockingly, it was not given to me by one Sarah Brown.
My friend Kurte and I learned a very important lesson yesterday.
Even if you've been drinking all day, it's still not a good idea to sneak up on tony.
in about 2.7 seconds, tony schooled us.
we tried to grab him from the couch and were going to toss him outside.
i got clocked in the face, and kurte got flipped and thrown into the coffee table, and then punched in the throat.
both of my nostrils bed profusely, and i am now the proud owner of said shiner.
tony, who is one of our best friends, my roommate for two years, and kurte's current roomie.
tony, the nicest guy in the world.
tony, who apparently hides a rage that burns with the intensity of a thousand suns deep, deep inside, and only lets it out when two of his friends sneak up on him.
Seriously.
He's like the fucking hulk.
sadly, the coffee table did not survive the brutal attack.
And then we saw the engine hearts.
who rule.
you know, i can safely say that no band i've seen play this year has much on the engine hearts.
and generally i'm not a big fan of covers, but when your covers are can't hardly wait (in a sped up, hard rockin' style), 20th Century Boy ("I wanna be your toy!"), and Where is my Mind, you can get away with it.
they just rule
and I should know.
P.S.
We also ran from one bar to another to make it before last call.
like a half mile.
drunk off our asses.
oh, and if USC loses to OU, I am out $200 and have to dance on the bar at empire in women's underwear.
Go Trojans!
but the the return of one of my idols, heroes, most favorite creative people ever.
How did I miss the news about this?
How fortuitous I bought a paper today!
Oh, man, things are looking up in the world when Opus is back on the front page of the Sunday comics.
I have the last two Bloom County strips on the bulletin board above me, and I have every Outland Strip in a box somewhere.
Yay!
I'm giddy like a school girl.
so, i did some silly things while drunk last night.
i discussed jealousy with my lady friend.
specifically, my irrational past jealousy.
go back to like age 17, read Before She Met Me and you'll understand.
and we talked about when we dated before.
and i said somethings i'd never said before.
and she thought i was making them up. at first.
i don't really blame her. we all know i'm somewhat guarded when i'm not spilling my fucking blood and soul out on this webpage.
but these things were good to say.
i feel like i can tell her things, even stupid drunken things, even things i've held on to and kept compressed in the garbage compactor of my brain, even stupid jealous things, and she'll understand.
even though sometimes, we definitely don't speak the same language.
but we hack through the gaps.
so, instead of making me feel bad, this somewhat wrenching, sometime displaying steve's less attractive judgemental and jealous sides, discussion made me feel good.
like if we can talk about this, if she understands this, then all of those things that fuck up relationships (or at least my relationships. and i guess not 'all of those things,' it's usually just me that fucks 'em up) can be discussed, worked out, disarmed.
the thought of which makes me happier than anything has in a long long time.
people are confounded when confronted with other who believe differently than they do.
some are fascinated, but still confounded.
and then, when they confront someone who doesn't believe in anything...
well, it fucks 'em up.
ususally makes 'em a bit angry.
'this thing means so much in my life, how can this person not only not believe it, but what's more, have never believed it".
damn, i could say this much better with a guitar.
but ain't that always the story.
jesus, mary and joseph this drink is strong.
i spend most of my days in my closet.
usually in the dark.
not writing, usually.
just sort of goofing off on the internet.
see, all my classes are at night, and most of the normal people i know work during the day.
hence the closet.
you're probably wondering why the closet.
right?
well, i live in a studio.
with a massive walk-in closet (and a scooby-doo style revolving door, which sadly, goes unused most of the time) that had a little vanity.
and not being a little vain, I decided it would be my desk.
which works out well, cause the only phone jack in the place is next to it, so I can hook up my DSL right there.
and i listen to yappy dog (who usually wakes me up at about 11) and fill my brain with fascinating, useful and useless information on all manner of things.
i don't have a tv, which i told myself would make me write more, or at least read more, but it doesn't really.
it just makes me internet more.
sometimes i get really lonely in my apartment.
in 27 years, i've never lived by myself.
sometimes i get lonely and as you know, sometimes i have good bouts of self doubt and self loathing.
i don't drink as much as i did, which i guess is good, but let me tell you, i wish i had a bottle of bourbon right now.
not cause i'm in a self loathing state, just cause i'd like a little maker's and water.
i don't know why, but i don't feel like writing much anymore.
i'm happy.
i have good friends, but you know, i had good friends in tulsa, too.
i have an unbelievably amazing girl.
which i didn't before.
but, i don't know.
i don't know what's wrong with me.
but i sleep all the time.
and i'm tired the rest of the time.
but i'm happy a good 70% of my days, which is about 30% more than usual.
maybe it's the lump in my head.
the one that feels like the tumor.
the thought that, even if it is benign, i'm gonna have another scar on my head.
i guess maybe i feel out of place.
i've always felt out of place, a little uncomfortable.
like everybody is always thinking, "what's he doing here?"
i want to do something amazing.
and not really for approval's sake, because if it was something just i thought was amazing, that'd be good enough.
but i think that desire stops me from doing things prematurely.
like if they cease to be amazing (and most ideas sound amazing in my head, until they start materializing, then there's always something missing) i just stop.
never give them a chance to be good, average, or even bad.
and thus lose out on the practice, the process, all the things necessary to do something amazing.
be right back...
gin&tonic time (when's there's no bourbon in the house, i get desperate)
jesus, i don't know.
just getting some things out, you dig?
there'll be more story either tomorrow or monday.
sometimes i just wish i had a big house where everyone i love could come and live.
more story soon, I swear.
in the meantime, check out some live tracks by tulsa's own Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey.
Their version of In a Sentimental Mood really does it for me.
But thursday was packed.
I got advised, and am taking a playwriting workshop, a fiction workshop, and a poetry class.
And I had late food and a milkshake with Sepi and K. (Too lazy to do the HTML, so look over to your left there... yeah, there... and you'll see links to two of my favorite ladies)
I promise two long story bits tomorrow, one after I help Del replace his battery at 8am, and one in the evening.
Sorry, it won't happen again (but I do plan on taking a few days off the story for thanksgiving).
I saw Doughty.
he was awesome
He covered a Magnetic Fields song.
He was funny, and cool, and Lisa Ling and Lucy Liu is now called 27 Jennifers.
Rock and roll lives.
He was a small, unfriendly child. His studies consumed him, but he resisted any attempt by Grandfather to teach him alchemy. Viktor scoffed at the art, calling it outdated, and later, as he got older, simply an elaborate ruse. Grandfather never realized the extent of his own child's hate for him, and always tried to do the best for Viktor. Grandfather set up his alchemy practice in the bowels of the Fox theater, next to Ishmael, who was descended from a line of great Moorish alchemists. The dank and poorly lit depths of the theater emitted strange smells that hinted at the clandestine, yet brisk, dealings below. Alchemy was surprisingly popular in Atlanta. Grandfather used his profits to buy little Viktor anything he asked for, but bristled at the repeated requests for Chemistry sets. Grandfather sent Viktor to one of the best private schools in Atlanta, where Viktor became a top student in the sciences and mathematics. Eventually Viktor graduated and was accepted to university in the north. Grandfather was able to buy Viktor an automobile for his journey, and sent him packing with his tuition and enough money to live on for the year.
Both men were relieved to be free of each other. Grandfather, who loved his son a great deal, but had never understood him, and Viktor, who was finally free of the man who ripped him away from his beloved mother as an infant. Grandfather had always quite enjoyed Atlanta, but his new found freedom from Viktor opened up new world to him. He and Ishmael would spend days underground, neither sleeping nor eating. They attempted to unlock the secrets of the cosmos, but mostly succeeded in building a strong friendship. Other days, Grandfather and Ishmael would spend walking the streets, marveling at the world. They would sit on the porch of the little house on Peachtree Lane, discussing Allah, Jehovah, Demosthenes, Ibn Zakaria, Aquinas, Bohr, Newton, Ghandi, Einstein, Fuller. Ishmael and his wife, Khadijah, grew to be grandfather's greatest friends.
Each week, Grandfather would sit at his cluttered desk in the little house on Peachtree Lane and write his son a letter. He would tell him of the sweetness of the onion he had on his sandwich, the beauty of the butterfly that alit next to him as he sat on the park bench, or the tasty borek Khadijah had served. And, without fail, each week, Viktor never replied. Until one day, shortly after the birth of Ishmael's son Ibrahim, a letter arrived from the north. Viktor had finally written. In a brief, formal letter he told Grandfather that he had graduated, been married and had recently had a son, James. It also contained a check for several thousand dollars. Accompanying the check was a ledger with Viktor's perceived debts to Grandfather, beginning with the cost of the passage to America, the cost of his private schooling, and ending with his college tuition and the automobile. There was no return address.
The next day, Grandfather retreated below the Fox theater. Khadijah would bring him food almost daily, food which he rarely ate. Ishmael kept the lawn of the little house on Peachtree Lane mowed, and painted it after the first year, and again after the third year. Grandfather spoke to no one, closing his shop to all besides Ishmael and Khadijah, and even they were only acknowledged with head nods and grunts. After the third year, the lab was closed to even them, and Khadijah would slide the food through the uneven space between the bottom of the door and the ground. Ishmael would slide in notes to Grandfather, and once every few months, one would come out. Eventually, after five years, Grandfather opened the door to the shop, walked over to Ishmael's laboratory, and knocked on the door.
that will be serialized here on the spigot.
it's all going to be first draft, written directly in movabletype stuff, so you'll have to bear with awkward sentences, bad grammar and horrid spelling.
all that aside, i'd appreciate comments or suggestions on the story, if you have any.
Thank you.
P.S. Here you go, Petey
His grandfather had practiced the art in the old country, before the Germans came, before the Russians took over. Jimmy came from a line of alchemists that stretched back into the bits of time that were foggy. His grandfather had been somewhat of an alchemy prodigy at a young age, the best alchemist in the valley, and people would come from neighboring villages for his services. He had known the Germans were coming. He told the village elders, but there was nothing they could really do, so before the Germans reached the village, Grandfather had packed up his laboratory. He then told his young wife to pack her things and get their small child ready for the journey. She refused. She had lived in the village her entire life, and frankly had no interest in following him across the seas, where she had heard there were no jobs to be found, and certainly no jobs for alchemists. Grandfather spent three days trying to convince the young beauty of the danger she faced if she stayed, but to no avail. So it was that Grandfather left his young wife and took his small son across the broad Atlantic to a place called Georgia.
Since that day, Jimmy's father, Viktor, hated Grandfather with every fibre of his being. Grandfather had been a distant parent, always working in the lab, always smelling of sulfides and iodine, never knowing, or showing much concern for how to interact with the small homunculus his wife's belly had produced. Viktor loved his mother, Eliena, a great deal, and when she declined to join her husband on his journey west, Viktor wanted to stay with her. Grandfather had somehow convinced Eliena that, even if she thought the trip was ludicrious, America was the land of the future, and would offer Viktor better opportunities than the old country. And so Grandfather and his reluctant charge made the journey across Europe and then over the sea. Grandfather tried his best to entertain the child, but he could not stop the wailing of the infant. Eventually, somewhere in the rocking seas, past the Azores, Grandfather gave up trying to satiate the baby. And so, Viktor gave up crying.
Viktor's childhood was a stern, serious one. This was not Grandfather's fault. Grandfather reveled in the wonder of the mundane, as those with fantastic abilities tend to do. A walk in the park, a bird in flight, a balloon in a child's hand. Viktor, however, liked none of these things. Viktor hated Grandfather. His only memory of his mother was an infantile blur of happiness, but he knew that somehow, no matter the fact that the entire village and most of the old country had been wiped off the face of the earth by either the Germans or the Russians, somehow, everything would have been better if he stayed with her. So Viktor concentrated his hate into determination and work, and became a studious hermit, never going outside their little house on Peachtree Lane, never going on walks with Grandfather.
'cause holy fucking shit, you wish you had my last 24 hours.
Just listen to lots of ramones.
Then drive down sunset at like 5 AM drunk off your ass screaming along to Milkshake.
That might get you sort of close.
But not really.
'Cause I did neither of those things.
But I did dance like a crazy man.
And woke up with the best girl in the world next to me.
THE RAPTURE! THE RAPTURE!
THE GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING RAPTURE!
NORT!
KAREN!
DRINKING WITH BREAKFAST!
BAR AFTER BREAKFAST!
STILL DRUNK!
THE FUCKING RAPTURE!
YOU DO NOT EVEN KNOW!
I MISS K!
WHY IS SHE NOT ASLEEP IN MY BED!
GOOD GOD!
*CUE HAND CLAPS*
I SAID, ARE YOU GONNA BE MY GIRL!
YOU LOOK SO FINE THAT I REALLY WANNA MAKE YOU MINE!
*KEEP CLAPPING, DAMNIT*
RUN MYSELF INTO THE GROUND!
MY LIFE IS BETTER THAN YOURS!
I COULD TEACH YOU, BUT I HAVE TO CHARGE!
Why is it so nice just to know you are asleep in my bed in the other room?
'cause i'm feeling so good that it hurts my skin, feeling so good i could do myself in
peter gabriel
julian barnes
gabriel garcia marquez
paul hewson
vaclav havel
salman rushdie
wim wenders
dave evans
hayao miyazaki
joe frank
stan lee
roger waters
brian eno
bp fallon
ira glass
steve jobs
oliver sachs
paul mccartney
luc besson
bill murray
mike doughty
britt daniel
But sunshine that makes you feel empty inside, and puppy dogs that are secretly trying to steal you soul.
That and alchemists who live in Hotlanta and make gold out of lead for the No Limit Army's jewelry.
So.
Yeah.
If you're still around, well, you're almost more persistent than I am.
God knows why you're back, but perhaps you enjoyed my part-fuck up, part-paranoid 2am fantasy rantings on this space while the side columns covered the actual blog.
I mean, what's a blog site without an actual blog that one can read?
Jesus.
I don't know.
I don't care.
Actually, that's such a lie.
Perhaps you've noticed that my blog has been, well, one of the worst blogs on the face of the planet lately.
Perhaps you haven't.
But here's the problem.
I can't make the words do what I want.
I used to be pretty good at it.
But I can't express the elation, fear, drunken euphoria, massive rift with my best friend, fucking, self-doubt, making out, apathy, creative bursts, blockage, mania and depression.
I want you to know what it feels like, what having the one constant in your life for the last decade grow so far apart from you that you don't even talk anymore is like. What's worse, to know most of the apart growing has been done by you.
To know how it feels to have a wonderful person in your life who is neither old nor new, a person you scarred badly once, almost without realizing. To try to be careful with that person, to try and pull youself back from the full-tilt abandon with which you tend to display, to try to be smart, sure and rational about this.
To know what it feels like to live in the same city as one of your best friends you used to only see a couple times a year, if that. To be able to call said person up and go to a movie, or get beakfast, or just watch him edit lame dating shows. To basically have another you around, but a you different enough that his advice is actually good, just somebody who you feel this connection/sameness/identity with.
What it feels like to question your worth as a writer on an almost daily basis, especially when you look at this blog that you used to write funny, witty, manic shit on all the time. To look at it languishing in mediocrity, and think of how it was better when you were drunk all he time, and think, maybe I was better when I was drunk all the time.
I should be using this blog to sort all of that out.
But the words won't come.
Or if they do, they're bad, forced, like this.
I fucking hate this.
and it's so nice.
I think I'm gonna sit here all day and listen to Tom Waits and maybe some old blues records like some Robert Johnson or Son House. But for right now, Small Change is gonna kick it while I watch the rain out my window.
don't worry 'bout it, honey
so here's my yesterday:
awoken at 11 or so, by a beautiful girl bearing donuts who then proceeded to crawl into my bed and fall asleep (thus looking somehow even more beautiful), doing some writing, waking up said girl, said girl leaving, and then going to cowboy sushi with my long lost friend Jon, who lives in the wasteland of Dallas (what does that have to do with Dallas? nothing. but young lesbians in love are nicer than anything in Texas.)
We ate far, far too much, and to combat our food coma, made the traditional arcade run, where we played hi-tech games until we could walk back to our cars.
Then I headed home for a night in, until matt and katie called to see if I wanted to see tsar with them.
Never one to turn down a rawk show, I went.
Tsar =
"Hey, you got your Thin Lizzy in my Ramones!"
"You got your Ramones in my Thin Lizzy."
"Wait a minute..."
They tore through their set like wild animals. I think they stopped long enough once to say "Thank you, we're Tsar" but I could be wrong. They were high energy. Damn.
Oh, and I met Tony Pierce. Ok, yeah, I was a little star struck. It was sort of like "tony, steve, steve, tony" and he said "steve of the mental spigot" and what do I say to that? tony pierce of the tony pierce? I guess I could have said bus blog. Oh well. Tony, if you read this, I'm a huge fan, it was great to meet you, and I really liked tsar.
Now I feel like a dork. But whatever.
Tsar made me want to get back into the business of releasing music. It made me wish Little League Hero would finish their album, or Beef and Lemons would get back together, or mstizza would finish his album and get a band together.
Anyway, so I had a dull migrane all night, which was fine until Matt and Katie and I got back to my car, and it wouldn't start.
So, waiting on the corner for AAA (thanks to katie.)
right.
I think that's it.
Look at katie's site for pictures, and tony's site for detailed descriptions of how much tsar rocks.
So I bought some good pasta sauce, some romas, some edam (for appetizers, you know, little cheese cubes. Oh, and God bless the river E), and some really kickass little veggie meatballs (also for appetizers, to be prepared in a little bit of the average pasta sauce I already had).
So after some edam cubes, fake meatballs and tomato slices, I'm going to do a little marinara with ricotta over rigatoni (with a little splash of red wine for good measure), and maybe I'll go pick up some bread, too, something with asiago melted on top.
Oh, and wine, there will be lots of wine.
Ok, so I'm probably just gonna eat another Lean Cuisine pizza.
But I do have all that stuff.
And I might get ambitious soon.
But it seems like a waste for just me, you know?
which I think is merely all a metaphor for my lack of self confidence.
My fears that I'm actually a horrible writer, or worse still (because horrible writers can get better) a mediocre writer.
"Yeah, that steve, he can string some sentences together, but when he tries to write about the stuff that really matters, well, it just comes across as contrived, cold, or unconvincing.
His humor is stale and trite.
Look at him, eating a fucking Lean Cuisine pizza and drinking wine in the middle of the day. The lush. The drunk. The alcoholic.
And Lean Cuisine? Who is he trying to fool?
That's all he does, you know.
Well, that and sleep.
He just eats and drinks and sleeps.
The lazy degenerate.
He should be spending hours each day, honing his mediocre skills, so that maybe, one day, he can edit something for another mediocre writer, and get paid for it.
And these ideas that he has...
the magazines, the webzines, the record labels, the one-off colection things...
anything that has ever seen the light of day has done so because someone else took it over, finished it, not because steve had some sudden drive and determination.
He's only willing to try if it's easy.
That's why he dropped out of things, almost flunked out of school.
Watch, he'll do it again.
He's already behind.
He's already not trying, finding excuses to give up.
By the end of next year, he'll go limping back to Tulsa, failing at something else because he lacks discipline.
The girl?
Oh, she'll realize all of this, she'll wonder why she was ever attracted to him, she'll leave him for someone smarter, someone with at least a hint of work ethic, someone who speaks french and deals well with strangers at parties.
He's worse than a has-been.
Just a never-will-be, always letting people down, never even trying, that's what kills me."
in my notes about the guest speaker we had in my technical writing class tonight, I found myself writing:
USC MPW - - best school in country
Rich kids - - bad?
This woman - - best chapel speaker
I have ever seen.
TCU.
Well, I still think that the Big East and Boston College should win this award over and over and over, but I digress.
Actually, I don't digress that far.
Let's look at one school, and I'll tie it in to how TCU is being boneheaded, and how the Big East made a stupid, stupid choice in one of its expansion schools.
Ok. You're the Big East. You've made your decision to ignore the second word in your name and add Cincinnati, Lousiville, Marquette and DePaul. Fine. You are now arguably the best basketball league in all the land. But, but, what gets you more money? Basketball? Or a membership in the BCS club?
BC$.
Louisville is actually an average mid-major football program that could step up to the level, well, lets be honest here, the level isn't that high in the new Big East. When Syracuse is the only school left to even qualify for a BCS bowl (in the history of the BCS), it's not that high a level. But I have confidence Louisville can make that small hop up.
Cincinnati. Cincy is a mid-major also-ran in football. Losing to Sun Belt teams, MAC teams, WAC teams, and beating some of them, but a mid-level program even for the mid-majors. But they can probably make that hop, too, and let's be honest, you really wanted all of these schools to make your basketball the LEAGUE OF DOOM. And that's cool.
Then you need another school that plays football. Hmmm, who to pick...
Let me see.
How about a school that has been to 6 straight bowl games?
A school that has won 5 straight bowl games?
Over Cincy, Louisville, BYU, etc.?
A school that beat then 6th ranked K-State at K-State?
A school that has made consistent appearances in the top 25 over the last 5 years?
A school that is a natural in-state rival to those pyros at WVU?
A school less than 200 miles from Louisville and Cincinnati?
Naah.
Let's go with USF.
Yeah. A school with no football history to speak of, and one that is nowhere near any of our other schools.
That's smart.
Marshall would have lent creedence to your attempts to stay in the BCS, would have been geographically logical (not only logical, but it also would have filled in that gap between the old eastern schools and your new midwest basketball cadre of doom).
But whatever.
Your mistake is CUSA's gain.
So, now, you're TCU.
Your league just got coldcocked and robbed.
It tried to make up for it by adding:
• the best non-bcs football program around (better than any one it lost, that's for damn sure)
• a basketball team that has been to the NCAA tourney 8 times in the last 10 years, and one of those times it didn't go, it won the NIT
• the reigning NCAA baseball champion
• another one of those "up-and-coming" Florida schools that everyone wants so badly
• and, well, SMU. Who has been good in football (long, long ago in a galaxy before the death penalty). And occasionally basketball. And is your cross metroplex rival (Who you always play. And if playing them is now a conference game... wait for it... that's right! You get to schedule another non-conference opponent! So now you can play the big boys and see how you stack up. Like Marshall over there.).
Ok, so you're TCU and you're thinking of leaving for the... MWC?
WTF?
"An unidentified TCU official" estimates travel costs will rise by $200,000 per year.
And what are you leaving for?
The MWC?
Seriously?
You're leaving a conference where you have nice regional rivalries with Tulsa, SMU, Rice, Houston and Tulane, and and AND, the opportunity to play a mid-major perennial powerhouse like Marshall in a title game every year (that is, if you're actually as good as you think you are), a conference with 5 bowl tie-ins, a conference whose champion has beaten the MWC champ in one of those bowls four out of the last five years, for what?
For eight schools that snubbed you once before when they left the WAC you had just joined for the MWC?
For eight schools that think they're somehow worth you leaving the up and coming football conference you're in (and honestly, the conference is now better in football than it was- Marshall alone makes sure of that) for a conference that is mid-level in football, and mid-level in basketball. Yes, they have Utah in basketball, and the storied tradition on BYU in football, but where is Steve Young now?
And how exactly is that better than Marshall in football and Memphis and Tulsa in basketball?
And then add exit fees from CUSA and entrance fees to the MWC to that $200,000 increase a year.
In any event, TCU wins the dumb move of the week award for even considering an MWC bid.
Stay in CUSA, let them take Boise St. and whoever else those haughty bastards deem worthy from the WAC.
And if you want to leave to a better football conference, you should go to the MAC.
these are parisienne streets
boulevards
glide me to the bridge
globing across the arroyo
as I cross the hills, I can
see the cracks where the lights shine
through, brightness, not daylight
(gonna kick the darkness til it bleeds daylight)
you are my major key
(the minor fall and the major lift)
the orange grove sings sweetly
(it's inconsequential that you sing so sweetly)
and I can smell the juniper bush
my lonely apartment
(lonely only only old town)
wishes you were here
(like two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl)
where are you tonight?
why are you not in my car, driving around with me, shouting earnest coldplay lyrics along with the stereo, in the cold(-ish) LA air, shouting some earnestness into the disaffectedness that inhabits this place, proving that we don't care, that we can thrive, we can thrive here, that nothing that has gone before is as important as this moment, with the windows down, the heat struggling to compensate, cigarettes lit, "singing, youuuuu are, youuuuuuu are."
I don't know. It's everything I fear, everything I always resist, but I wish you were here, I'm glad I miss you so badly, I'm glad I wrote this, I'm glad for everything that has happened, ever, because it's led to this point of me missing you, me knowing that things would be better if you were here, me feeling silly, me not caring, me driving down sunset, listening to Clocks, the sparse population of cars and pedestrians moving in time, but apart from the music, and knowing, if you were here, this wouldn't be as detached, in fact, it wouldn't be detached or alienating at all (even though I treasure the crystalline feeling this brings, the fragile emptyness that non-connection can bring, the beauty of separation driving in this metropolis and listening to staccato piano and properly plucked notes on a guitar can bring), it'd be better, it'd be whole, it'd be that way being with you can make me feel, that feeling like it doesn't matter if everything is ok, it doesn't matter that the world is crumbling, it doesn't matter that I can't write, that I don't understand anything, it just matters that you're here, with me.
Screaming into the cool night air, driving to nowhere.
Wish you were here.
I miss the old spigot.
Unweildy?
Yes.
Not that well designed?
Got me.
But unique? Mine?
Yep.
Sigh.