A Sort of Homecoming

11/22/09

Thousands of feet above Las Vegas right now, listening to Homeward Bound by Simon and Garfunkel, purely by accident. My love does not wait silently for me where I am going. I guess if you call New England a place I love and hold dearly it kind of makes sense in a different way. Going home for the second time since I moved and I’m not even really settled there is kind of an odd feeling. I almost feel like I am just on some long ass vacation.

The same feeling I had when I used to go away to California, I got that coming here. I think that is telling me something? Weird how much is inside my head that nobody knows about. I decided on this trip to kind of forget about California. Forget about sun. Forget about how I feel there every day and then every other day. I will write less, maybe take more photos. I will write less that people will see. I have been keeping this intense journal on my computer at home and on this laptop that nobody will ever read. I kind of follow a pattern and write the same thing every day in there, but it is a good exercise that tells me where I am at in life.

I did not sleep last night, deciding to go in and out of sleep on the airplane instead. Thankfully, there was an empty seat between the guy on the aisle and myself as the seats in coach are brutal for people my size. Sometimes I will upgrade to first class, but money isn’t really allowing that right now. I like sleeping on the airplane though, especially these long flights. I read for a minute or two and then fall asleep and that’s that. Today I put on some Grateful Dead from 1973 and faded in and out of sleep for a few hours which is all I really need. I say that now, as I fade in and out of life as I type this. Once I start seeing things and realize I am not thinking about things in my life I know it’s time to hit the bed. It is safe. I spent so many nights awake in thinking about my situation over the last year or two and thinking about these escapism scenarios with a girl thousands of miles away. That would put me to sleep every night, thinking of her and her smile. Imaging us on the coast somewhere, waves crashing below. Content. Happy. Now here I am back in Massachusetts with sixteen different ideas about thirty five different oceans, none of them calm.

Tomorrow I am going to take some pictures of the area and try not to think about anything remotely that has to do with me.



11/23/09

Spent a good day today outdoors. It was cold and overcast all day. It feels kind of good to have it on my face. It doesn’t really feel that cold like I thought it would coming from Los Angeles. Strange how warm it is in California but how cold I feel there a lot of the time. I feel distant from everyone there. I try to explain this feeling to folks and I am looked at like I have eight heads. It is a lonely place, regardless of people telling me I am not trying hard enough and that kind of thing. Listening to people tell me how it is and what I am bad at and what I am doing wrong has been going on for quite some time and what a shitty place that is to be. This kind of thing has been going on for at least ten years with people.

I like going in and out of moods sometimes as it keeps me busy and keeps my head going. On the other hand though, getting way too lost in your head, walking around the woods or out at the ocean is unhealthy for me if I don’t have a pen or a keyboard in front of me. I can’t delete thoughts with a backspace or delete key. I can’t go back and edit thoughts so they catch the eyes of whoever could be reading it. I can’t close out a document and turn it off. I keep going and going up and down and back and forth. With no set routine in my life, my head is turning into an espionage novel. Conspiracies taking place left and right. At the end of the day though, I fall asleep laughing every night. Remembering that I’ve been the same person for well over twenty years now. Remembering everyone remains the same person forever. This is kind of a problem. But not really as it’s real.



11/25/09

Pretty good day today and night last night. Got a call from an old friend who had no idea I was in town and we ended up hanging out all night until way past 5:00 AM, drank some wine and talked about old times and current times which are pretty heavy for her right now. She is an amazing woman and mother of a beautiful kid and I’m sure will pull out if it, but man, some men really suck how they treat women. Especially when the women are my friends. Ugh.

Still kind of feel like a target. Fuck.

Have been dying for red wine all day today. Almost feel like replacing coffee with red wine. Maybe one glass a night before bed. I think they said that is a good thing? No fucking way I am really doing this though I just felt like typing those words out.

11/29/09

Oh, four days later. In a pretty good place in my head for the most part. I kind of want to go home now. Listening to “Everybody’s Been Burned”, a solo version with just Graham Nash, wow what an intense song that is. I may play it again just to experience that vibe again.

Today I spent the day by myself. Took a long drive to the ocean and took some more photos of things that are etched in my memory anyway. This makes things a bit more clear for me though. Now I have fresh memories as well as photos of some of these places I have spent years speeding by in a car with a head full of ideas and girls with nice shoes and friends huffing cigarettes and racist jokes by the second. Good times, New England. Who knows, I may come back here some day to die. I had a great time with my friends and family and feel like it was a good idea that I stayed a little longer than originally planned. I think I got whatever out of me I needed to get out of me, or rather, got whatever ideas I may have had about wanting to come home out of me. I still feel like whole stories aren’t being told and I still always sleep with one eye open, but right now I am content to be in this place I am in. The way I have operated lately, I could easily be an asshole in three days again.

One thing here, like I love it here because of my friends here and you know it looks nice or whatever, but I will never be one of these people who is like proud of where they come from or what their nationality is. Taking pride in circumstantial shit like this is bullshit to me. Irish pride. Proud to be from New York. Proud to be from Boston. Proud to be from the South. Proud to be Italian. None of this has anything to do with you. Your dad came in your mother’s vagina and you were born, that’s all that happened.

I guess I should go to bed and let you think about that image for a bit.



11/30/09

Like most nights in 2009 I barely slept last night. I attempted to go to sleep early, but still woke up every hour or so, eventually waking up at 8:00 AM which coincidentally would be around when I would be going to sleep in California on a normal night...well, 5:00 AM.

Going back tomorrow I feel like the trip was good and bad. Bad as the weather here really does suck. I mean it was unseasonably warm for most of the time but really, the sun was out one day out ten. No wonder everyone here is so miserable. People enjoy complaining here, they also enjoy giving unsolicited opinions on things. Two things I can’t get behind. What I mean is going on to the internet and letting the world know that this thing in your life sucks and how this thing is awesome and this thing is not. After a while it gets boring and then you form opinions or ideas about people by their personality on the internet which is really bad. I recently have tried to slow that kind of thing down as I feel like I may start being defined by things I say on the internet. The best time to reach me is when I am in person. Anything else is for attention, just like anyone else. I’ll try and remain the really funny guy you know though with my witty one liners. You watch.

12/1/09

Wow, the first day of the last month of the year. What a great year for horrible experiences.

Saw a ton of great live music. Moved 3000 miles away from home. Broke up with my girlfriend of 6 and a half years or so. Split the band. Got closer to this great bird out west. Avoided being really cold. Got to drive across the country one and a half times. Went to Utah. Seemed to spend more time with my friends because of the move before, after and during. Reconnected with some old friends. Oh yeah, and quit smoking after smoking for 20 something years. Like way more than 20, 25 years? Who knows, but I feel better.

12/1/09 II

Up at 8:00 AM, I barely slept last night which is nothing new, but it was definitely one of those never get comfortable nights which happens way too often. Perhaps once I get into a gym when I return this will change. Either way I can’t fucking deal with it.

Followed around everywhere I go. They follow and listen in to my calls and read the things I write. I pull over to the side of the road and they drive past me making believe they are someone else. I know who they are though. I don't have any secrets yet they dig and even when I set traps for them they put me on trial for something I didn't do. Sometimes I do things in my sleep you know, even in the middle of the day.

Tomorrow starts chapter 3 I guess.