i love

it's cold. i'm awake only because ray is on conan and i had a song stuck in my head already and i never can forgive myself for missing stuff like that. the last time this happened, i ended up staying up for hours even though i was exhausted just thinking and writing in my head. it scares me that i enjoy this short story class i'm taking because it's such a contrast to all this pre-med shit. there's no future as a writer, even i know that. but i lay in bed and compose. i write music sometimes. two nights ago i had a tiny piece of a song stuck in my head so at 2am i got out of bed, pulled out my guitar, and figured it out. i can't let these things go. being creative... i don't know, i want to leave something behind. i don't know what it is yet but i want to. a book or a story or a song or something.

the television is muted and the shadows play across the walls. the sounds of my fingers on the keys blend in to the most wonderful thing i can imagine hearing. even the refridgerator quits whining for a while. i watched a music video earlier today and was heartbroken. not even because she is real... because she isn't. not to me. just another minor celebrity. i've done this to myself before, to lesser extents. but it's just so damn beautiful. so shocking to think that maybe, just maybe, i can define for once who i really want to fall in love with me as someone half concrete. or just whatever i can read into that little bit of film. it was perfect. and it was strange to think that the song and dance might give me the same feeling as what very few real people ever have. but i can relate it to real life. i couldn't take my eyes off it, couldn't believe it, wanted to laugh and cry and hold it in my hands. the same way i felt watching a kid dance once or twice.

i even dream about writing. i dream about the people i love. last night i was at some club trying to scribble words for some assignment on a very large piece of squared paper with an egg carton-like feel to it. i kept rewriting the same statement. "he studied as they schemed." or something like that. i kept dreaming squared of this white guy with slick back hair looking at a running green-painted engine in an old green chevy car in the middle of the desert. the engine had the feel of something from the military and had a peeling shiny red sticker that said "409." and i, the man, was supposed to steal it. there was another guy two, who figured i knew what i was doing. but it was my job to study and know how, it was their job to scheme and figure out how to do shit right. and i was writing on the egg carton something about how we needed to commit crimes like white people, not black people. we needed to plan, to figure, so everything went right, so it was easy, so we never got caught, so nobody got hurt. and it was that simple. in the dream, the contrast between planning and studying and going in with a gun and a mask and shooting people. i know it sounds terrible but that's how it was in the dream. i'm not going to pretend otherwise.

and i know i love. i know i do. it's just nobody here. it's somebody. i don't exactly know what to do about it. but when i talk about it to people i can see the contrast. the people i try not to hide from here, it's different. i can finally see those contrasts and it doesn't lend itself to making my life any easier. because i can say, definitevely that i love someone with all my heart. metaphorically speaking, because i love others too, i just love... fairly unconditionally. and i get caught up in doing the right thing and saying the right words and all but i think i'm doing ok. i haven't let go and i won't. nor will i make things difficult. i live to be the best friend i can be. to be a blessing...

just live for my dreams

You fell apart, and I had to rescue you.

it's been an interesting week. the most pleasant suprises mixed with the most sickness i've felt in a long time. some fun, some creepy moments, and a lot of hugs. but for now i will leave it as a dream i had last night.

there is a girl. i'm going to leave the name out. she and i are walking to a familiar castle downtown of a city. we just crossed this great intersection late at night so that the only light is from the orange streetlamps and only a few cars and pairs of headlights occupy the five or six lanes of traffic. the two of us are walking down the sidewalk to the right of the traffic and i realize her hand is inside mine and we are somehow pressing together while we walk and talk. that contact is so special, you know it. she is telling me that she is tired of being alone. that she wants a boy who will do right by her. i look down and she kisses me on the forehead. it surprises me how quickly it happens but i lean over and kiss her and she kisses me back. we walk on down the dimly lit sidewalk toward the castle, the two of us, for a second, it seems, more than just the two of us.

to be fair, later on in the dream, before we marched around the armaments in a line, she said the same thing to another boy we know. seems like, looking back, she may have been fishing, but it still doesn't really bother me.

also, i got an entertaining spam email today. aside from trying to sell me cialis or a home loan, i don't mind these much.

Subject: Better Success, wind-hungry

"all of you, buzzards, toads, Visitors, Boneses, Quarterblads, bloodsuckers,
truck. They crawled into the shade. Arthur lay on his back and began
chewing. "When the fog lifts, you'll see that we're surrounded by nothing

Redrick said nothing. Thanks! You fell apart, and I had to rescue you.
.. ! Everybody was getting fed up with his tricks, and the guys had told"

i wish i was rayshawn ross

today was a good day. i wish i could start more posts like that. the goddamn fucking anger of yesterday subsided a bit and some amazing things happened.

i drove out to my grandmother's to pick up some stuff. she's been out in the mountains for a couple days so the house has been uninhabited. i parked kristina behind the house in the driveway and popped my trunk. used the "you toucha my keys, i breaka you face" keys to open the porch door and surveyed my booty. the television was bigger than i thought, will look damned good in my tiny dorm room. unplugged the rabbit ears and power cord and whatnot and managed to stumble out to the car with the 26" beast nestled against my chest. sat it on the lip of the trunk and fineagled it a bit before finding, to my dismay, the damned thing wouldn't fit. stepped on the power cord a couple times, nearly spilling myself on it, before dropping it carefully in the grass to re-evaluate the situation. what a fucking moron. my dad told me to take the truck but i didn't think the fucking thing would be more than 20". stupid fuck. unlocked the house door and wandered around inside, all the way to the back room to pick up an old .22 pump rifle off the top of a cabinet. examined it in the kitchen, checked that it was unloaded, and took it out to the car. laid it in the trunk beside the spare and closed the trunk. found a couple huge plastic bags in one bedroom and laid one down on the right rear seat. lifted the deadweight television and sat it on the lip of the seat, worried about screwing up my leather. had to slide it into place, which neither the seat nor the tv wanted to do. worried more about screwing up my leather.

finally got it leaned in place, the screen to the seatback, and stuffed the other plastic bag between the two. i wonder if anyone saw me. i can only imagine how sketchy it might seem to see a kid drive up to an empty house and walk out with a big television and a rifle, drive away. the cops never found me anyway. i left a note written on a paper towel thanking my grandmother for her donation to my room being the best for watching the sopranos sunday nights. drove on out through the country tailed by an asshole in a chevy work van with pittsburgh steeler front plates all the way to the library where i found yet another book i wanted but didn't get cause i'm full up anyway.

ended up having coffee with danielle and talking for hours and hours. what a wonderful kid.

and the most wonderful thing of all... when i explain it to friends they say it's creepy... but i didn't feel that so much as a wonderful sense of rightness that wasn't so much coincidence as a good omen. before i left the house today i told an amazing friend that i "love you always", which isn't something i usually say. in fact, i may have never told anyone that before. i was driving a swath through the country, hitting the road i would have taken anyway after getting gas. driving around, heading down a hill towards a dead end and stop sign in the country when i saw something on the road. i stopped, turned right instead of left, turned around, drove back to the intersection {there was nobody around, it's out in the country}, turned back up the road, turned around again, and slowly approached for the second time. and... it was what i thought it was. somebody had written, in huge spraypainted letters across the road "i love you always".

i can't help but feel something because of that. something's right with the world, with what i said. that i meant it. i think it's understood, too. it's not creepy, it's wonderful. it's beautiful.

etilletas

it was cool for the first time in a month. sitting out on the deck with my dad under that old awning we put together a couple summers ago. him with his laptop and me with mine. it was that time of night when the entire place glows of blue, there being no sun to directly illuminate the environs of my backyard, relying instead on the swath of dying blue sky that fades into white. him with his numbers and figures and me with the drudge report, blogs from beirut, news from the lines - i am concerned that i know far too little about the world and am making an effort to understand it all a little more fully, getting books about the problematic religions, reading the words of those working with children in dirty parks, listening to the parts of NPR when people talk while driving my truck to do yardwork.

i meant to write out there but the environs was beginning to strike back. my father was headed inside to watch the skins in hd, it was growing dark which didn't really bother me at all - the air was as pleasant as ever, growing even more so - but, this being the south, the mosquitos, having gained the advantage of darkness, were feasting on my extremities. my dad isn't one of those people bothered by bugs like that so he wasn't even aware. i headed in, though, to sit here in my claimed chair to listen to dmb live trax and watch the bengals embarass todd collins to the sounds of some pretty much heavenly noise while the welts rise on both ankles, the backs of my arms, wherever they feel.

got so much to do, moving away in a week, nobody is around to talk to, and i have so much to do. i need to find the time to head out west a little ways to do a little more bush work, again to pick up a television i've acquired on loan from family, drop by the library a couple times probably, wash out a fucking grease disaster left over from our famous beer-butt chicken bonanza of last night. take a day to vacuum, bumper treat, leather treat, wash, wax, and rain-x kristina. oh, yes right, and pack.

i can't decide whether this week should feel long or short, what with classes starting next wednesday. the last week of the summer is always the shortest, or used to be, but having been away for three months and seeing one kid once the entire time, and what with sunday nights and a book i can't terribly get into, the hours pass more mundanely than ever. even the cats are crawling out of their skin.

i been sleeping so strange at night. it's rare for me to be dreading going to bed at night. i sleep so badly, dream so strangely, so far removed from comfort. even with drugs, an hour before i can rest - rest! pillows too hard, blankets too thick, too hot, thoughts too disquieting. i don't do enough. i do, but i don't do enough. not like at school, where i sleep wells. where nobody will be shaving in the other corner of the room at 3am (not this year). no, nothing like that. and i walk everywhere... and i cannot wait for the sleep.

i'm counting all my relevant friends these days. i shouldn't. i always come up with figures nobody wants. how many people sincerely care about me? nine, maybe, outside of the family. how many do i speak to... every week? six, and recently, three. mostly every day? one. i sat outside tonight reading about lebanon and thinking of how lucky i was to be male, (upper) middle-class, and white. but, i guess, as a recommended book and reasonable judgment of being reminded of myself, i'm a wallflower. and not in a good way. in the way that... i'm not a major player. i'm the outskirts, the burbs, a founding but associate member. i'm a satellite.

all my plans run together. i've been thinking recently that if my grades weren't great coming out of wake to join the army. i could train to be a radiologist... when i got out i could apply again and hopefully that would be just cool enough to help out. even if i'm not a front-line guy, with the way the world is headed, i know it isn't the best of ideas. still, you only get one shot at this life and it would be a shame not to do something so honorable while the chance is there. could be one of those things i look back on when i'm eighty and think "i wouldn't have known it, but that was the best thing i have ever done"... fuck if i know. this morning in church one of the celebrations was that one of the kids i used to know in sunday school was home on leave. everyone clapped. it's that that i kind of wants for myself but nobody else does. but i guess it's automatic acceptance, more or less. similar to the kind i could have (in my mind) by riding a motorcycle, albeit more honorable. and to think, i could nullify half the purpose by doing better in school. concerns involving going overseas, whether or not i can go at all. fucking around freshman year is going to haunt me more than i ever knew. this year is going to be different.

more studying, more focus, more work... more alcohol, more fun... maybe even finding another satellite to share it with.

all hands up

i been takin a break. since all those lost words for wyoming. reading, playing music, trying to convince myself my voice is worthwhile. i dread going to bed every night, laying awake uncomfortable, waiting to pass on and i take pills to help but they don't. not until the morning when i can't bring myself to roll over. but i dream every night. spectacular dreams. i lay in bed and write music in my head. i write literature. compose short stories i wish i would remember in the morning. only in the static time. only when my mind is the only thing working. only when i'm trying to convince it to stop.

and how much has happened since then? lost loves, new old firearms, making records, playing with handguns? i read a couple more books. made a couple more faux friends.

i was driving today, down the same old country highway, daydreaming. i think now of the last time i was there, going the other direction, of the ecstacy of music, of the screamed words, of the time and it was only a couple days ago but i can't remember. and i composed all these wonderful words in my head to describe it all but it's all lost on me. and i meant to write it all down but it all got lost in the barrel of a gun. i was driving today, down the same old country highway, daydreaming. i dreamed a radio station out of ncsu. i dreamed it was three in the morning and i was supposed to be dee-jaying for a couple hours. somebody has to do it. i dreamed i wondered if anybody was really out there. i let loose a message over the air, if anybody is awake, anybody at all, call up here and i would ask them what the fuck was going on. and someone would say something and someone else would call in and argue with them and i would mediate between phone calls, play a song or two in between for good measure - some amorino i suppose - when i came upon a church. this being a mile or two from my house, i knew it well, though never visited. saw a great white cadillac hearse in the drive, lot filled. five or six pall bearers sat on the steps under the peeking sun, some smoking, some lounging around, some standing. fat men and black suits. their charge under glass. i was playing reggae loudly, too loudly for a funeral. i wonder if they heard.