brown, charles

last night my family saw the new james bond movie, casino royale. i have to say it was pretty good. daniel craig does a decent bond. it was a lot better than anything since the 70's anyway. oh, and eva green was gorgeous - freckles, yum - although she looks better in the movie than anywhere else. one thing about movies though, i was in the bathroom afterwards, full of the movie efflux. i knew as well as anyone that every man lined up at the sinks and every man lined up peeing behind me, every man was 007. that's how it is. i felt like bond zipping up bond's pants. it's amazing how that works.

today was lovely as well. i sat down in front of my obese amp with the old {well not old} epiphone dot. i know it's not the highest class guitar i own but it's the only one with dual humbuckers. and i know they aren't the nicest humbuckers but with the volume just halfway up on the amp it was the loudest thing in the house three times and every finger scrape was exaggerated. you take those two humbuckers and a semihollow body that resounds a great deal more than the strat and it sounds just... sinister. i mean, i helped. the clean channel wasn't spectacular but it all adds up when it gets dirty. i didn't flood it with gain or level, just cranked up the reverb and it just growled. it was fucking scary. i thought yesterday it would be fun to start a loud growling electric cover band to play dave matthews. it would be hilarious. since the humbuckers were relatively low grade, whenever i let it ring for a while it would gather the feedback whine, but that's cool too. even there, just halfway, every piece of china in the room shook. the windows rattled. i love it.

after lunch i went out and practiced basketball in the rain for almost an hour. i airballed some, naturally, it being a wet ball and heavy. i was good, though, which was nice. it feels like practice pays off sometimes. also working on jumping which has gotten better, and dribbling with my left hand, which is ten times easier than it was a week ago. i mean, i'm proud of myself. playing in the rain. in december. with no shirt on. i'm amazing.

later on, my mother and i drove out through the muck to the canes game, which was brilliant. first game i've been to this year and they won 5-1 over the islanders, whom they hadn't previously beaten this season. an 8 year-old did a spectacular job with the nat'l anthem. a couple times during the game they showed my corners storm squad girl on the jumbotron. storm squad girls are the most beautiful anywhere {better looking than any cheerleading squad i've seen so far} but my corner's was astounding... to me anyway. i think i'm destined to marry a redhead with freckles. jesus god, i can't help myself. just further proof that i'm not steve mcqueen... i'm charlie brown.

ok, hey, time for pushups and possibly reading in bed. bon nuit!

shit

i just read the most disgusting/disturbing article in rolling stone about hog farming. most of it was about eastern north carolina. a global magazine talking about eastern nc, and in the worst of terms. makes me hate this state. maybe i should just be a veggie weirdo.

in happier news i had a strange dream last night. one part found me in some strange location outside in some mesas with lots of people milling around. i'm in the lobby of a school of some kind, people walking out after classes. i see a girl walking out with a friend with a face that made me think it was someone else. she waved and i pretended i didn't see her.

she walked closer and i realized it was laura c., who was now offended that i had dismissed her. i had to catch up to her and her friend and, while walking, explain that for some reason she looked like this girl i hadn't spoken to in months and months because she's a lying slut (why do i keep saying that?) and that i didn't mean to offend her.

that's the first time i've seen her in a dream. strange.

ah well, when i get the imaginary smell of pig shit out of my lungs, i'm going to lie in my bed on the electric bed warmer and read some more, only this time in a novel of my choice.

tell your mom what to expect

she says it's right out of the blue.

early this morning i was about to eat a frozen pastry thing but the voice told me i didn't need it so i left. i was walking back from the bathroom thinking i would eat a sausage. the voice said i should do pushups so i did thirty. i'll save the sausage for later. it was pretty out so i ran down to the fence by the ocean. i ran. it was terribly nice, running. i don't do it all that often (when you're not playing a sport, who does?) but it was wonderful. reminded me of charter soccer when i would chase somebody down and tackle them cause i felt like it. love it. it was gorgeous by the sea. the spray rose off the breakers and settled in a haze over the shore. the sun this time of year is pretty low and reflects off the ocean brighter than it does out of the sky. there was a solitary old man walking very slowly along the sand, staring at it. off to the right was a couple of middle aged... humans... walking with their dog. i felt like running out there and taking a black and white picture as a sample for a picture frame. sunny by the ocean. sixty in december. hardly anybody around. what's better?

i realized in bed a couple weeks ago that i'd love to be a skydiving instructor. today i thought real quick and made a list.



short list of things to do before i die:

learn to surf
play the piano
buy a good dSLR camera
buy a 1950's triumph motorcycle
ride said motorcycle a long distance
attend burning man {possibly with camera and motorcycle}
try all kinds of drugs, once
skydive, a lot
bonnarroo
basejump
own a flat and live in vienna
write a book
live on a sailboat for a month
visit africa and do something
be in a band
fall in love {looks good in italics, no?}

hopefully the voice will stick around for a long time. i think i'm going to bermuda next summer for a week. i fully expect the voice to kick in and for me to fast and do random exercises and tan down here until i look good enough to handle bermuda for a week. in fact, i think if i look good enough, i won't have to learn how to speak to girls at all ;)

happiness is...

driving home {much too fast} down country roads singing old our lady peace in full falsetto as the sun sets.

oh no

is it clear to everyone that i have no identity? i'm not o-negative, that much we knew. everyone changes and i don't realize it until my relationships crumble and i end up reading old post from years ago and having it dawn on me that i loved who i was back then so much more. the way i wrote anyway. i basically stopped when i got to school here... i miss high school.

if i sit here and be quiet there are five sounds: the ocean waves break and roll through the door i left open. this contrasts the air conditioning that just clicked on. under that is the ticking of a wall-mounted clock. the television whines (you know it as soon as you walk into a room and then forget about it) and my computer's fan wheezes. i encourage anyone to do this. close your eyes late some night and count the sounds. i have trouble believing there are only five but unless i move, i can't find any more. five sounds...

i left the sliding door open because this entire room smells like dog piss. two of my grandmothers' (pl.) three dogs are basically incontinent. this makes for a huge pain in the ass. {thermostat ticks twice} this place used to be so clean and white and now it's just fading. i wouldn't mind terribly if all the dogs died and left us with clean houses. is that terrible to think? i actually wouldn't mind living here for a summer and working at this one particular coffee shop down in beaufort that i love so much. {air conditioner shuts off, clock grows louder} then i realize i can't this summer because i've got to find some summer school chemistry/bio to take before mcats next-next spring. {that life alert commercial just came on again. you know the one where the old woman falls in the middle of her room and stretches for the camera but can't reach it. i always laugh at that part. is that bad?} that one little coffee shop with the tin ceilings (not roofs). ceiling is an extremely odd word, if you look at it. very wierd/weird. the ocean is angry tonight, you can tell. i walked out there earlier today and there was approximately one person out there. then again, the fog has been so bad today... the courtyard outside by the pool looks like a scene from a horror movie. i looked out a little while back and almost saw the big dog/wolf thing from that 'lady in the water' movie i never saw. it almost ran out and killed me, i swear to you.

the water when we were driving home from here over thanksgiving, under the bridge, was spectacular. a blue i've never seen before.

i get these images of myself, ideas that i can't quite make happen. i buy clothes on the premise of how good they would look if i were on-stage playing music for people. usually this is on the mag quad like those shit bands they hire every now and then that five people end up sitting down listening to. and you can tell the lead singers are trying to forget that nobody's there because they look at the sky when they sing and never into the eyes of their five fans. i keep picturing myself as one of those guys. every time i hear a song i want to play or can somehow perform. or maybe i'm playing bass backing up a pianist. maybe i'm singing. i sing in the car a lot.

i just had a wonderful thought but i'll write a new post about it above.

i was reading around tonight looking for this particular post from about two years ago and there was one paragraph at the end of some rant that was shocking to read. stark and honest. i used to write when i wouldn't care who read it or i'd forget people could read it and it felt so much more uncensored than today. it was strange, though, because i really feel the same way. i write fiction a lot better now than then, though.

i would love to be an old black man. maybe not even old. maybe just black. maybe i just want to be black. it's like i'd have more confidence in myself or something. i have no idea. maybe i just want to be keb mo. or that guy from the biology department who served me during the love feast.

i think i have a slur sometimes. but i think that's ok if you're a singer because it sounds sweet. but i think it also makes you sound gay. but i think it's ok to be gay if you're a singer. i think i wouldn't mind it at all.

i closed the door and the blinds because the fog frightens me.

i like myself sometimes. but i also don't a lot of the time. there's a demon in the back of my head. i was hungry an hour and a half ago and i went to find a sausage (because it's the only food in the house) but the voice came and said "you don't NEED to eat that, it's late" and because i knew it was true, because i knew i would get fat if i did and kept doing it, because i knew the voice was right, i put the plate away and left. i hate that.

it's the same voice that loves blood.

{the sound of my computer thinking}

why won't you fucking talk to me? it's like we were never friends, never close like we were. remember three years ago? four? we could talk for hours and we did every night on and on because it was like we were the same person. and we had the stupidest problems and we fought and worked them out every single time. i had such a confidence back then because i knew, i just knew things would work out for us. and what, we would joke about marriage? marriage? are you kidding me? and you wanted dibs but you couldn't marry me because i'm not the same kind of fucked up christian you are. and i would get mad about that! am i fucking unbelievable or what? jesus, just because i don't believe christ was born on september 11. this wasn't supposed to happen, though.

remember when you moved away and you needed me? you needed me because you had no friends up there and i could be the invisible shoulder for you to lean on? back then i used to think you were a pretty and pretty cool girl and that it would do me good to try and stay friends with you and that if i did, maybe it would be a couple months. i remember because i stood in my bathroom looking out the window at the summertime outside. but it got wonderful. and then i had stupid issues with your stupid habits and we fought some more but always made up afterwards. and you would visit and it would be strange because i have honestly no idea how to treat you to your face and you're pretty much an awkward (doesn't look like it should have a first 'w', does it?) individual too.

and so then we "broke up", which is laughable today, to me, right now. and then you got a boyfriend which is just not ok. you started seeing some boy. i started seeing some girl. now you've been dating him for nine months and i haven't spoken to mine in six because she's a lying slut. this wasn't supposed to happen. this wasn't supposed to happen!

you're so happy. i can't fault you for that. i would love to be where you are. where the people don't suck and where i had someone to lean on. can i get by on seeing you once every two years? probably so, by now. why? because ever since our senior year of high school, things have been falling apart. and it's probably my fault and it damn well fucking is yours. you are too busy, i'm too lonely. you love your life too much to want to involve yourself in mine. i don't know if that's true at all. see, the thing is, when we were together (together?), when i was one half, it felt so much better because i didn't have to face the world alone. and if i stayed home it was ok. and if i didn't make out with people behind the pillars in the hall at lunch, that was ok too because i didn't have to. but now i don't have that and i'm alone and it's not because i have someone far away. it's because i'm alone.

so talk to me? i don't even know if i really want to you but it would scare me, i know that. i remember nights so long ago i would be away and set it so that the computer would mooooo really loudly when you came back. that noise still gives me chills, it always did. i would sit in front of the fire and line up the door exactly with the lamp across the room so that when i sat there, in the same spot, i could see if you'd left me messages in the reflection of the glass. i know it would scare me if that window popped up. it would be worse if you called. i never was good on the phone, but you never were either. always talking to someone else. you never paid me a lick of attention on the phone.

the first time i ever called someone on a cell phone that was mine, it was you. i set your speed dial number and pressed it as i was walking out of my yard. and i walked up and down the street talking. the phone got hot and yours did too.

i would stand on my back porch where the reception was good and describe the deer in my yard. you told me you would show me around new york city. i said i'd move there and we could share an apartment after we graduate. it's as bad an idea now as it was then. kind of like sharing an apartment in europe with the slut. i'm just full of them ;)

but i can see you sitting there. you've got better things to do. and i'm here, waiting. it's like you don't remember at all.

:)

i don't necessarily agree with everything she says but this little girl cracked me up. and yeah, i agree with some of it still...

finger pickt

i sort of wrote a song tonight. just a little fingerpicked thing based on some of the chords from tom petty's 'square one'. i brought home postcards in case i want to write more although i'm not sure who they would go to.

it was really difficult to leave school today. this entire week has been so relaxed for me... what with three finals. i just don't care anymore. but it was rough, today. packing up the room, some of it anyway. i don't know, maybe that part wasn't so bad.

saying goodbye is tough. i choked up.

when i was driving towards university i got a real strong notion that i wanted to stay. i didn't really want to leave that place right yet.

but i went and drove home and the two albums i chose, back to back, full-length, brought me almost right to my doorstep. and i sang almost every single word. it was hard. about halfway down 421 south i just about broke down and cried. i mean i did cry, a little. maybe just because i was singing 'crush' as loud as i could. that could do it all by itself. but there's a lot of emotion today, everywhere.

but now i'm looking forward to a month of... not much. what i'm really looking forward is going to bed and nosing into a new novel. suite francais. should be a gem.

love you always

words

i've been short recently. like down in jacksonville after a ten-hour bus ride nearly without sleep and standing for six straight hours and watching a football game in the rain and everyone's celebrating and they're playing the fight song and all i can do is cry. no words. walking down to the landing afterwards for dinner with my friends, fans everywhere. and i'm thinking:

i'm in jacksonville
i just rode forever on a bus to get here
i'm at the landing
there's a band outside
a thirty foot tall christmas tree
we're on the water
celebrating people everywhere
wake just won the acc championship

i can't describe it at all. it was too much, still is. and i've been writing a lot but for fiction and i've been reading a lot but it's for school. and once i get through two more hellish exams i can go home and be boring and read novels because i want to.

and i'm thinking about people and it's confusing. i'd really kind of like to be an elderly black man. and have a motorcycle. and play slide guitar.

and that hispanic girl on 'ten items or less'? i'm in love with her.

and those girls who sing the songs. them too.

and fans of this one comic strip.