Wanderer above the Sea of Fog

This years long feeling of dread that was always in my brain and when I looked out the window at the end of the day, out into the woods, into the eyes of unsuspecting weak women who had no idea who I was. “they’re all weak” I’ll tell myself forever and for the most part I'm correct. I can barely look in mirrors nowadays. That years long feeling of dread. For the most part caused by polluting my body with all types of poisons. It’s gone now. Now I am still just as paranoid and dread it all. I still feel them all behind me ready to take me somewhere I don’t want to go. Listening to them complain, echoes of the same complaints over and over for years now, the same people complaining about the same thing. Weekend nights are hopeless now. Remember a weekend evening was cause for much needed sleep the next day? A quiet night with one or three people works now. A nice night out with a friend, walking around book stores and gossip halls. Most of the week, a ghost in the forest lurking around, attempting to make women all over the world laugh when I can. I have no connections, deep connections with other men nowadays. Maybe for a long time now? In Los Angeles I certainly did not. This afternoon I missed the coast out there. The Pacific ocean, how we drove it up and down, well a couple of trips one ending almost bad and one beginning amazing. Who is the guy two years ago thinking eternity is an actual idea? Whoever I thought I was, I wasn’t even close. Under a spell of bright blue water and deeper eyes, sugar kisses and hair that flowed down like all night long. I miss it and her constantly but never think about it all too much. I hate ever saying “I’ve moved on” as that is such an empty and final thing to say for such a big piece of me in the last decade. Hmm, this blanket of white ice that seems to cover us once a week now is holding something down. Is it holding down my thoughts so they don’t float away into the sky like before and end up all over the clouds? My own thoughts spent months and months turning the clouds and sky dark gray. My own ideas for how to make things better was to move further and further away from the “nice guy” I always am. Yeah, that guy. Bitter and shot down for the last time ever I am a completely different person now and I imagine some other completely different guy out there I’ll never know in my place doing everything right I could never get down. Still not 100% comfortable with this place and this person. As much as I am obviously going to stay here for a long time, my head is always going to be scatterbrain and never be able to sit still. Sometimes I fuck things up for a reason. Sometimes other people fuck things up for a reason. It all happens so slow when you are older that you have the time to fix it, but you get so comfortable you have no idea how to do any repairs. I wonder if I’ll laugh about all this in three years time of if I’ll still be kicking myself in the teeth for it.

gazebo

Upon arriving here every evening I am out of things to say. Around people all day making jokes and talking and then I run out of things to say by the time the sun has been long asleep. I feel like this year and last year were these hopeful great years. I remember getting all excited to leave here and start something/somewhere new. Leave this town and that girl for another town and another girl. Eventually I’ll learn my lesson. Nobody is really worth moving anywhere for. Nobody can convince me I am wrong all the time. I do that myself quite enough. I can only be made to feel guilty and like shit before I am pushed into angry guy mode. I’m not an angry person, but you know.

Feelin' (like a ) Demon

Most nights for however many years now I barely sleep, or I think I barely sleep. Lately I barely sleep though for real. I feel fine throughout the day. I don’t smoke anymore and am slowly going to try and just stop doing anything. I already don’t really drink aside from maybe a sip or a shot here and there, and that’s usually because someone offers me something. I would never in a million years order a beer or a “drink”, especially at this point. Even weed at this point, it’s kind of a useless thing. I don’t really do it as I never have it anyway, so if I can get rid of all of it and be free of everything aside from caffeine I’ll feel even better every day. I can’t imagine walking around with any sort of leftover feelings from a night of too much of anything. even something as insignificant as cigarettes, there were nights I just smoked so fucking many of them, the next day I really felt like shit. I want to get back to one of the original reasons I hated doing all that stuff for years...because I didn’t want to miss anything.  Every girl I’ve ever dated, I’ve never been drunk around any of them. I was always drunk in times when I was single. I wanted to be able to remember all the times I spent with them, so being wasted or buzzed or whatever didn’t even sound like an option. To me, spending time with people and being high or drunk around them basically means you are bored with them and need to escape. No? I’m not that bored with people I spend time with that I need to be there I guess. Who knows. I think this makes sense to me. I never really go back and read this stuff, but I think I made sense.

I’ve failed at being able to create anything in a long time now. Without a comfortable place to work it is growing increasingly harder to think of anything worth sharing. I know they say you can’t write too much. I kind of think I do right now though. In writing about nothing I am not creating anything aside from just channeling every thought I have down. Either here or on my own machine. Trying to decide what to put here is easy, if it’s vague it goes here. If it says “That dude Carl is a shithead” or whatever, it doesn’t.  I need to travel more, have some more experiences that afford me the luxury of something to talk about. I enjoy talking to people who have a million stories to tell, or have been to a million different places or had a million different experiences. Everyone else is boring.

I don’t and probably won’t trust anyone ever again, and don’t really give anyone reasons to trust me at this point. every single person is full of shit and selfish. I guess once you figure this out, you’ll just have an unfulfilled life full of failed relationships and never really have the ability to tell anyone the whole truth, nothing but the truth and so help you god whatever else you’re feeling. nobody else does anyway. I watch all these other relationships and can easily see right through them and find all the faults and whatever is wrong with them. Nobody is happy regardless of what they try to think themselves to sleep with at night. I’m kind of an empty cold person and then realize at the end of the day everyone is kind of the same, shallow and does their own thing for themselves. How this will ever change is beyond me, but really, I can’t take thinking or talking about it anymore. I may/should just go back to talking about traveling or being funny in here and destroy any vague references to anything remotely about people, etc. It’s tired maybe?

Iowa

To spend every night of your life drowning your sorrows in spring water and chewing gum
Drowned in an ocean of ideas that never came to fruition
Spiraling out of control only happens if you knew how to drive in the first place
I was that guy for years I think
Now I’m like twelve of those dudes
I can try to make you laugh
I can try to make all sorts of things happen
I have no patience for these strangers though
People who’ve been in my fucking way the whole time
Kept a secret
How many more times can I forget to write songs
I used to be able to spit them out
A dozen anthems an hour
Two dozen choruses, all catchy
Now just writing things on a piece of paper
Crumbled into a tight ball and thrown far across the room
Balls of them strewn about the floor around the barrel
Three hundred ideas I foolishly told people about
I need to keep everything to myself now
Well, at least these things that make no sense

Well Done

There were lesbians and there were men talking about different drugs there were dudes with their cocks out on chopping blocks waiting to be cut in half or something like that there were dudes there were all sorts of clowns and men with masks there were images of people with their arms being ripped off and their were all sorts of different melodies and images of musical notes and different instruments and there were people staring at me and I didn’t know how to approach it I knew on the next day I would be killing myself or so I thought there were people asking me questions are you alright are you from around here you feel like a foreigner from a different country when you are around these people you feel like you are not going to be able to control yourself there were men who thought their scripts were written better than this man there were girls who thought they couldn’t spend another dime on revlon there were men caressing their sweaty heineken bottles with not a glimmer of honesty in their eyes there were all sorts of wallets and lights they talked in this language I’d never heard before they even had all the fingers on their hands the sounds in there were always all over the place you hear the singing you hear the voices you hear the echo chamber hello is anyone there you wonder if you are actually the only one with blood inside their heads you wonder if with all of the noise and everything people are just there to entertain my fiendish thoughts from time to time I wonder how long it would actually take me to finally break and do things I would regret the next day how capable am I of being a piece of shit I’m pretty fucking capable of it I just need to have gasoline thrown on me first and then it’s all over I wonder how long it would take to make it into the newspaper I wonder if with all of the secret information I have I could bury politicians and rock singers just the same I wonder how many souls I could break in a week I bet I could piss more people off than you that must mean I’m doing something horribly wrong I don’t really know why I end up there and there are people that tell stories and then stab everyone else that is running faster than them and then there’s the folks back home I remember the folks back home always looking for a handout always trying to get something that ain't theirs I feel like I will throw up all the secret rumors and microfilm information if given the chance I better watch out they better watch out I hold strings and I hold on to them tightly I don’t break that easy I will break others though I have no problem stepping on anyone I have no problems I have no problems I have no problems I have no issues I have no issues I have no issues I have some problems but it’s none of your business just because I don’t have the right medications to deal with this shit don’t mean now look you-

Some days I realize I’m not into anything anyone here is saying. I don’t want them to chime in with jokes or comments as it usually is just some empty meaningless set of words looking to elicit some sort of approval or “let me get in on that” invitation request. At the end of the day though I just end up wanting to be left alone. I long for endless drives in the middle of the country or in some new corner I’ve never seen. Reporting back to whoever gives a shit what I ever have to say. Reading back to anything I’ve ever written I think that’s what and where I like the most. This idea that I need to be stationary in one place for long periods of time, it’s a shit idea. Actually, everything right now is a shit idea. Maybe next week will work.

Brightly Moved

In the summer we would be stuffed into the car and drive up to the summer place on the lake. Hot and sticking to the seats with some horrible sounding AM radio baseball game he’d make us listen to. Going on rusty old rides and eating grease all weekend, that’s all I really can remember about those weekends. Coming home was always kind of a drag. Back to whatever shitty things were happening at home.

I’m probably lying when I say I don’t like being here. I think it’s more how grey everything is and the memory of this time of year isn’t fond. People love fall around here because of ridiculous things like pumpkin flavored shit is out or apple cider is around a bit more. I like it because the trees look like they’re trying to stab the white sky and the ground is messy and disgusting. Crushed up wet leaves everywhere, dark and dreary around dinner time. Outside on days when it’s not a bright blue and orange day here it constantly looks like what it looks like when you give someone bad news. That’s why I like the fall. I’m not going home to share moments with someone under a blanket and watch movies and drink exotic teas. I find inspiration in this crappy looking place. It inspires me to want to escape and leave before it gets worse here. When the icy cold fingers of New England weather strangle every last bit of desire to be outside from you. Less people around sounds like a good time to someone I’m sure, but at the end of the day everyone goes to bed wishing they were somewhere else.

The short days post Christmas here come back to haunt me. Thinking about crunchy pants after a long day sledding and coming home to TV and warmth and cinnamon and all of that. I hate winter though. I really can’t find a single thing good about it at this point. Being completely uncomfortable, freezing and having nowhere to go for months, no thanks. The last few years pretty much stopped celebrating Christmas, never get a tree, never want a tree or any of that empty symbolic crap in my life. A couple of dinners with family and that’s enough. All of it means absolutely nothing to me at all at this point. This is the bright spot in winter for some I guess. I can’t think it’s worth it. The only thing I can imagine being awesome in the winter is being 3000 miles west of here.

Every time I come home at night here there has been this ball in the driveway. Looks like a tennis ball with all of the color drained out of it. There are no dogs on our street just cats so it’s not from a cat. I briefly thought it might belong to some ghost and then I remembered I don’t really believe in anything like that at all. It was briefly frightening to imagine some ghost of a young boy looking for his ball in my yard in the middle of the night. We have all of these creepy woods behind the house that, if you believed in that crap, would hold all sorts of spirits and ghosts and creatures of the night. They do contain some nice inspiration though.

Some of the people I have had the displeasure of talking to lately, I can’t understand. Well, I think of myself being a complete failure every few hours...and then I think of this one particular dude I have had to talk to online a few times in the past couple of months and shit, I feel so much better. I feel myself get weaker by the day and then I remember this guy exists and I can feel like a much stronger person. I kind of look forward to experiencing more of this guy so I can be inspired to be better.

Regardless of all this inspiration coming from everywhere, most of this is an exercise. Feelings that last for three minutes and go away. I never get angry for more than a few minutes. This place is great for exercising and exorcising. Fiction seems harder to come up with without a little reality though.

100 Best White People I've Ever Met

A mans best friend is not a man or a dog.

Telling me that you care is just one of a million things.

She tells me stories that Mother Goose would kill for.

We speed down the highway, and I still can’t get a commitment.

Wish I was taking a vacation in a month. Don’t ask don’t tell.

We spent weeks at a time together.

Will it stop being the latest issue of the newspaper?

My favorite night this year was in May.

I expected to forget what I went for, and then I found her.

The reasoning behind all of this is grounded in bad punk records.

She is short.  She just waves at me.

Her favorite song was my favorite song 10 years ago.

I hate to think that I am not clear all the time 24 hours a day.

We smoke heroin because we don’t talk to each other anymore.

She is short as well. Real smart. I can’t believe I was in awe of her at one point. “She’s one of us” we say.

There was a small pile of dirt left at my door, methodically placed there to get to me. I hear them out there.

She made me think back to six years ago and go over all sorts of letters and notes.

I have a series of things I need to always do. Never walk down stairs in front of anyone.

My guitar sits there now rusty and out of tune, waiting to be completely retired at any minute.

She sends me messages I never delete

We talk and talk and when it gets down to waking up in the morning, I still have the book open.

I lose touch with people for a day and I feel like an exhaust pipe.

The best thing I remember was looking over and realizing the mountain would not tell me I had a call.

She looked best in the morning. Once a girl can look that good, that early, an inch away, she has me.

We make out and never talk about anything. Nobody knows, and nobody ever will.

She is on my mind more than she’s in my mind.

The other thing I need to do is always flush the toilet when I leave a bathroom, no matter what I did.

Long letters from her are rare but truthful.

It always feels like this when I get around to talking about it. Clear and concise.

I watch them smoke many attractive cigarettes in fifteen minutes.

I acted like I was one of them. I acted like I meant it. I asked for paper.

They complain and complain, wonder if they’ve ever smiled

Once they break in though, they have me. I never let them break in.

I swear I never want anyone to get hurt. I’m always good hearted in the long run.

She wears this shirt that makes me just want to watch television with her.

We had a good time, and then I went on my way. Two more tornadoes, and a brush with the police.

Every morning I need to look out the window for two minutes before shower.

The key is to flip it when you can see that it’s not stuck to the pan.

They are out there, arranging more piles of sand to fuck with me. I hear them.

Disgusting dudes with no cocks.

I take these days in stride now, you can tell me if I am “too much for your mirror”.

I was almost attacked by Stevie Nicks riding a Unicorn last night.

Blues music is my only outlet now. It sucks when you’re not allowed to spit in private.

The night he died.

I wonder how many have tried to forget they even met me

She was scared as a bunny rabbit on crystal meth.

Phil Collins.

Right now, I feel like I could jump out this window and fly.

She, the song by Kiss.

I wish I could run on back to Virginia Beach right now. The only place I’ve ever felt so shitty and so good.

I’m perplexed at how they operate. It’s almost like trying to teach a duck to write poetry.

I never got to cook tons of meals like I wanted to.

There are more than one ways over the moat.

I would piss people off at work, and then ignore them until I face them at the copy machine. Three nails at a time.

I opened up my eyes today. More than they’ve ever been open before.

She made her way in, and looked around, and realized she couldn’t redecorate.

I only lied seventeen times today

The last time I was at an amusement park I fell of the merry-go-round. Now I see stars over everyone.

I knew it was wrong.

We talk about what it will be like to walk around Heaven on Quaaludes.

She has a funny way about her. Even when she is angry with me.

Some day I will stop looking at the hand obsessively.

We walk and argue about who fucked less people.

I knew she was bad news when she asked me if I liked “The Fucking Doors”

Massachusetts has a funny way about making you feel like a goddamn loser.

We play phone tag, and I play connect the dots.

Wait, I think we just killed each other.

I hate them, and when they look at you like they do.

I need to open doors at the bottom of staircases after they have been properly closed.

Wait until I show them all

He comes home, checks his messages, and checks his arms. Everything is there, he sleeps.

That faggot Mark

We drink and I make pretend I’m interested. This is how we get along.

She takes her pretty time while I look at old scratch marks on my left arm.

Finally I find her, and she ignores my eye contact.

Once you have them down, you need to start again. It’s so tedious now.

In your spare time, you should not do what you do in your spare time. You are losing.

Married and never happier, yeah okay.

It’s funny how many times I doubted what was happening to me. Now I write instructions.

The way it goes is this: you work for me, I work for you, and the money goes to the house.

I should probably be worried about this.

Gifts I never gave or received, how sad it that?

He tells me I should go for it. I ask him what he has invested in this. “----- -- ----- --- --------“.

Rain came and I shit my pants.

Not sure if I want to die on cement, or a bed.

I met her and immediately made phone calls the next morning.

My one and only way to catch on is to just move on. Look, I know what you’re doing.

We spent time on the rocks, frozen.

We pretend we don’t see each other, and then I fuck it up.

So exhausted I have to be awake when I sleep.

My one last hope for survival, hmm

We walk on red bricks.

Taking time off from time.

She looked at me once.

It’s lonely out here.

Massachusetts.

Evenings.

Lonely.

Never.

Done.

Out.

New York

Fucked up skills on the microphone. Words coming out twisted like licorice. This big head full of ideas and words to pass around and share. It's none of anyones business really. I guess I make it theirs by typing it here. Nobody should know a fucking thing though really. Hence the occasional fabrication. Hence the backspace key being used more than the space bar. Sometimes though,  I want to say what I need to say, and get the fuck out of Dodge for a couple of days. Nobody seems to understand me. Ha. What a fucking joke of a thing to say. What a cliche' “oh poor me and my loneliness”, “Poor me and my...whatever.”I guess that's why I started doing this in the first place. I meet and greet and walk down the street and smile and frown and get turned upside down. I wanted to come here and make this a place to showcase events and memories posing as photographs and words. This is all I really have. This is all I always have. Not just this place. But words. I have plenty of them too. The same ones I write here, or anywhere else would come out of my mouth no problem. I just never get the five seconds to. I think about them here and then just write them down. I tell others the same things. I tell everyone in the world. Bragger. I tell myself I won't completely cover myself with these words. I can't help feelings and emotions though. I just can't wear a halloween mask. I can't think of other options right now. The telephone doesn't really ring much. I'd love to have 8 messages on the phone when I come home. I'd love to talk to her before I go to sleep at night and tell her about the ridiculous whatevers that happened on a given day. I have ancient history that I want to talk about and words full of sugar and spice and everything nice. I have words and all of that, fuck yeah. Nobody has it like I do for her. As far as I know. I can't get into it all here though. It's not like it's swallowed completely. Maybe it is, and I just don't know it. Maybe it's all too clear. Maybe everything in here from the last few weeks makes sense to somebody. Maybe it scares. Maybe it helps things out. Either way, they're just words that I want to put across. I did it again. I do it every time. I wrap up in this and that is all. Go with the flow. I sure go with the flow. I go the way I'm supposed to go. I make sure I dot the i's and cross the t's. It’s the end of the summer and I'm in a different place then I was at the beginning of the summer...I just have no idea how to drive or walk or read or listen or anything anymore.

I think the state I’ve spent the most time in besides Massachusetts and California is New York. I fucking hate New York though. I hate New York City. I’d go there and do it proper some time and like it as a back drop in books and film, but I can’t imagine ever spending more than say...two days there. All those buildings and people with sneers on their faces and worse accents than the dreaded Massachusetts accent. Upstate New York though, it’s different there. Like a bigger Massachusetts with less shitty people everywhere. If there’s one thing that sucks about New England in general it’s the awful people everywhere you go. Way up north though, upstate way west of Albany things get dark and grey like it is here. Sprawled for miles and miles small towns along Interstate 90 that you’ll never go to ever. Prisons what seems like every fifty yards. Farms and orange cities at night telling you you’re really tired and should probably stop. Anytime you wake up in the morning in upstate New York your main objective is pretty much “Leave upstate New York”. What a glorious big sky it is in the morning though! It’s kind of flat there I guess. There is nowhere really to go but east or west and it’s the same in both directions. Do you want to go back to the ugly state of Massachusetts or to the gateway to somewhere kind of okay and have to be in Ohio for a day?

Having different people through the years come in and out of your life, or what I call “peripheral friends” is painful for the most part. Learning about the habits and retarded ideas they have that presumably lead to them being just that, peripheral. I have no patience anymore for anything like this at this point. Either you’re here or you’re not. I don’t want to give an update to anyone ever, not one I mean. Just remain in your boring ass life and stay there. Leave me alone and be weird somewhere else. I’m not into anything you think I am into. I am not interested in anything you think I’m interested in. I never lied or lead you to believe this, you are just those people who never listen you just talk and talk. A bad ear with a bigger mouth. What makes anyone think they get to just show up and jump right into anything that is already established? The expression “they mean well” is full of shit. Nobody means well, they all have some motive. I don’t believe anything now. I have to be as rude and mean and removed as possible now so I don’t give anything else away. Fuck them.

Relentlessly plowing through my dreams in the middle of the night. In the backyard of every nightmare house that shows up at the tail end of a bad dream. They stand there and try to scare me with whatever they can. It’s always some big house with lots of windows so you don’t have time to check them all to see who is watching you from behind the yellowed drapes. The whole story though, the whole nightmare though. I seem to dream it every night lately. Death, endings, rain, whatever other cliches my subconscious feels I need to be subjected to.

Ohio

Trying to fall asleep and I think every night I should be reading because my head spends the whole time staring at the floor, my arm, whatever reading thoughts and images going in and out of my brain. Do I really want to forget green yellow and blue for a life of grey and the sound of a trillion people complaining about anything they can. How miserable can they all be? I need some sort of entertaining distraction, fall TV, a thousand books, a million songs I am supposed to learn on guitar and offers to join bands that don’t ever need to exist. Drugs, film and money I could be spending on better things than just coffee and fuel. Watching everyone around me remain a member of some odd fraternity of who knows what. Invitations to parties I wouldn’t have gone to even when I was a winner. I can’t even muster up the energy to reply to emails and phone calls. Unless you’re offering me money or a way to make money, why?

Clouds of poison air hang over me everywhere I go. They end up raining on me and there I am again, not able to breathe or move. Paralyzed and sick. Done for the evening and that kind of thing.  I wish there was a way to just remain in the sun for more than fifteen minutes but I don’t think there is. I’ll never take any kind of drug for this. I’ll never talk to any kind of professional person for this, this is just how it is now. Great. I’ll someday learn to not complain about it so much though.

In the midst of late night games of tag and hide and seek I like to sit back and watch the kids ring around the rosey. It’s a bit sad how people regress in mobs. Mobs, large groups. They get together and all of a sudden muscles are flexed and cocks are pulled out for size comparison. It bothers me that I know some of these people. It bothers me yes; to a point of wrapping my arms around the cool white toilet and vomiting out any memories I might have of any of these people saying things like “Yeah, I’m sensitive”, or “No I’m not a slut”, or “No, I don’t tease men”, or “I care about you, I want you”. No I haven’t taken anyone serious in years. I’ve no need to. Actions speak louder than words. Doesn’t anyone know this? Doesn’t anyone know tales of debauchery have been told to my deaf ear for a million years now? I don’t think so. I don’t tell people how I feel if it’s something I don’t agree with. First off, it’s none of my business. Secondly, I do what I do, they do what they do. There’s no in between anymore. There’s no overlap. The things I want to do are nothing like what anyone wants. I’m a boring guy. I want to stay in, or go out with a couple of people and joke around here and there. I don’t have the fancy guitar work down yet, and I don’t have the lip history. I don’t have many references around here. There is a family of shared saliva that I would rather not have anyfuckingthing to do with at this point. It has gone so far now that it’s become a ridiculous parody of itself. I like to sit back and watch people spiral downwards though. Sometimes it’s the only way to get through to people who are “friends”. You don’t get a word in edgewise, why not just watch them smash into the wall? Then you can walk over with that big shit-eating grin on your face and a glass of iced water with your hand out “I told you so” When they go to grab you hand you pull it away. “I’m off to see the wizard” Girls do their hair up in blue and green and guys do their best Billy Idol impressions, I laugh my head off at them. Sounds like fun honey. Thirdly, No one wants to hear me talk. I have too many opinions. I’d rather leave them in my head or on here where a small number of people I know and don’t know read them. I don’t want to get into telling people what to do more than I want to tell people what not to do. I am no ones father here. Hugs just don’t feel the same when the same arms are wrapped around every warrior around the corner. There’s no personal feeling there. That feels good because it’s strong I guess. What’s happening upstairs though? Air and oxygen. Or lack of oxygen maybe? I don’t feel like falling down anymore. I haven’t fallen down in years, since this past few months. I feel wasted. I feel untouchable. I feel stronger. I feel weaker. Everyday is a new emotion. I like the cool iced water going down my throat. I like being myself. I like to always be myself. I don’t want to act anymore. I’m going to be the guy who plays a bad guitar. I’m going to stay in front of this mirror and beg and plead and pray, but I’m not going to go to the movie shoot this week. I’m not going to go to the scene where the guy walks in and wraps his arms around the girl and says “honey I’m home”. I have no home with anyone. I have no place to rest my head except right behind me with the pillow and the blanket and the dinosaur. I light candles for me, and I fill the room with Nag Champa, but I go at it alone. Sure the door is open for visitors, I just don’t know if the visitors are coming any time soon. I always chase them away with my eyes.

Despite all of this though, I feel like I see the end of the tunnel down there. I mean I think I do, if not. Hrm.

Washington

I feel like I am on fire.

Kansas

Kansas. I was remembering it here and well, it’s flat and yeah I guess pretty boring in the traditional sense. Flat. Truck stop. Flat. Truck stop. Cool looking dead barn. Flat. Truck stop. Repeat forever and eventually reach Colorado which coincidentally is also pretty flat for a long period of time. I assumed I would cross the border into Colorado and all of a sudden be surrounded by snow capped mountains and ski lodges and just wall to wall white people everywhere you look. No, it’s flat for the first two and half to three hours traveling west on Interstate 70. Eventually they start showing up miles away and the next thing you know you’re in Denver which is kind of a boring place to be. Well, I’m sure it’s perfectly fine but I ignored it and flew through it for the most part.

I was in Kansas three or four times in my life. This last time driving through it and I drove through just about 50% of it moving west. After that, the whole state of Colorado. All of this in one day. 720 miles or so. Good times.

A truck stop in Kansas is the kind of place where all the men look like big lesbians and all the women look like big lesbians as well. This last trip through Kansas, a well needed stop that included a Starbucks, a couple of different disgusting fast food choices and lots of travelers as usual, most from the area though. American flag stickers and football fans and whatever else you assume these salt of the earth folk are all about. It is clearly on display in things as simple as how they talk. Not the accents per se, but the way they talk to you, like they don’t trust you with your plates from the North East part of the country. Sometimes this presumed ignorance of people out there is kind of endearing but most of the time it’s sad and you just leave the area not worrying that people in different parts of the country and world have different ideas and opinions than you.

This past weekend ended up being good for the most part. Spent most of Saturday outside with friends enjoying the last remnants of summer in a bright and crispy day outside in a “New Englandy” setting right near where I live. It was a “beer festival”, but didn’t feel like one. I’d have to say if I made a list of things I care about beer would be like # 780. Going back to reality after having good days though, no fun. Sunday played some music which was also refreshing even if it wasn’t music I wrote. I’m kind of rusty on the guitar as I quickly found out. I kind of want to start playing original music again but really, there are at least eleven things I need to do first before I can even think about it. 

The last time I really kind of embraced New England was this past May. Giving a tour of different areas of the three different states we visited here was great and made me appreciate things more out here. Slowly though, they are getting back to the “ugh this place sucks”. I enjoyed having mountains around me. Surrounded by valleys and hills and a bluer ocean than this one we have here. When I picture the ocean here I think of gray and cold and uninviting smells and rocky shores with some tiny beaches snuggled in between them. And then I think of dudes in Patriots jackets walking around.

A year ago yesterday was nerve wracking and amazing and whatever other thirty five adjectives I can’t think of right now. High above the valley with a longtime dream fulfilled and realized. Adventures I’ll remember forever. I don’t really know what’s happened since then. My head brings me to places I never need to be. People I don’t know and people I do know bring me to even worse places. Every two hours I have reminders I see in my peripheral vision or right in front of me taunting me. Every night going to sleep with nothing. Unfulfilling nights staring at the floor wondering what she is up to thousands of miles away. I don’t tell anyone a thing and I certainly wouldn’t listen to a thing at this point. I feel like I have to do it all myself now. I miss her terribly. I miss the California version of her and the Massachusetts version of me.

I have no idea of what I can do or what I should do now. I’m still emptied of ideas and not completely feeling like I am where I need to be. Should I go or should I stay? Everything is kind of flat right now, how I speak and think. One of these nights or days maybe not so much anymore, right now though, it’s flat. Bored days and nights with entertainment from good friends here and there to fill the valleys and turn them into peaks. I imagine if I tried to sing it would be flat as well. As long as above this flat life there are bright dark blue skies and all that goes along with that.

Illinois

These creepy salesmen and saleswomen trying sell snake oil and everything else in between
They come in and out of your life like snakes themselves
Slithering around
Why are you here again?
Why were you ever here?
Making me feel normal
Making me feel like I should be the one giving you advice
Gross and unhappy lonely people everywhere I never want to be
Stay there and be in your world

This weekend will suck, I know this already. I can’t come back from anywhere without having to feel like this.  Ready to hide out and push things from way far away instead. Just sitting around waiting for shit to happen, waiting for the other ten axes to fall. Last year at this time I was, well.

Ain't It Just Like The Night

People seen in the waiting room:

She sobs uncontrollably into her can of BBQ Pringles as he yells from upstairs to be quiet. His big hulk of a frame has beat her senseless physically and emotionally enough times now that she has almost had enough. I wish I had married Tommy instead. He looked like Magnum P.I. Too bad he wasn’t the one. Frank knows one day I will kill him in his sleep. His large presence in the house is like the king of all kings. Deep down inside he was too much of a pussy to put the dog to sleep when it suffered. He gets teary eyed when he sees American flags and World War II movies. If he had sons they would have all turned into faggots. She loves him and he won’t fuck her ever again. One day my own Tom Selleck will come.

The only times I feel like I accomplish anything are here. Here with a blank sheet. I never finish things well enough that I can ever experience pride. It’s been a long series of ill advised ideas, failed relationships, and days in the rain hiding from the outside world. Days where I think I have it figured out and have the final idea I needed and then nothing happens, and then nothing again. This will go on and on until the end of time. Change is hard this late in the game. I mean I think it is anyway. For fun and games I can always just continue watch other people prosper and fail.

I haven't been down the road in a long time. I haven't taken this route in so long. I like this route here. I like how this winds around and gets me to where I think I need to be. It's way fucking better than the bus. Dances and hugs and pats on the back are never going to fulfill me for as long as I stay on this route. Karaoke on Friday night gets cancelled for a random trip to the moon. Dinner and a movie ain't helping anyone on this route. John Holmes and Jerry Garcia driving a techno colored station wagon to the ocean for conversation about ecstasy and Mick Jagger lips. Rug burn from sitting on the floor statuesque for far too long through scary movies and rock videos. Park the car by the side of the road, park it across the street so no one sees us. They all start rumors, they all fill themselves with lies about the moon and lies about the way my car runs. The motor runs great, it needs a tune up, it needs to take different drives, silently through beaches and neon lit strips of Elvis Presley videos. Like a man not even with himself anymore. Like a ninja. Like someone in the deep blue sea swimming. I don't know, sort of like if you took one part confusion and one part total shit you would sort of feel this like this.

Connecticut

I hate just having words to say and type and read and hear. I always needed more and now there are no words. I don’t want to ever talk about anything life related now. As if just writing anything like this is not obnoxious enough. Even the job interview yesterday. “It went well” I keep saying. What does that even mean? Now though, pages and pages of empty nothing, feeling like an exhaust pipe spitting out nothing but the same old shit every fifteen minutes. No one will be the same, nobody can replace or substitute. What a shit place to be for probably all winter like this.

New Hampshire

Thirty seven days in a row and she wakes up feeling like the disgusting person she is. Her children at school and the afternoon is spent with rum and various phone calls to slightly less disgusting people. There you are with a camera and a microphone outside the window to watch it all go down. Spy on whores and weak people like this. Watch them and how they interact with each other. It’s really enough to make you never feel surprised about anything people do. I can’t ever judge these weak, dumb people. I’m one of them too, I don’t have anything to offer. A few jokes here and there. In the afternoons I go down to the bar and complain into whoever wants to listen. I was just lazy enough for enough years to get by like this. I can make pretend hundreds of emotions and ideas and opinions. I can make pretend I live here or there or anywhere really. I always keep the front door, the back door and of course all the windows closed. I can make pretend I have all sorts of things in common with them. I can lie to strangers in the bar, that’s my number one thing I can do. Great.

He is an old guy I can’t relate to at all. His life spent complaining about others and anyone else that never does anything that directly causes any adversity in his life. I’ve never not known him as this person. I wonder if as a child he was ever happy. The nonstop commentary and bitching about everything even slightly negative. Spending long amounts of time around people like this always does something to me deep down, like someone screaming as loud as possible while handcuffed to my ears for all eternity.

Every night for the last however many years sleeping an hour here an hour there. Wondering when I’ll snap out of this weakness. I was never one of these fools. I sit around and have to listen and read the words of morally offensive people trying to give me advice. Trying to take advice from anyone at this point, well I feel stupid. I never ask for help but I do like to talk. The sound of silence though, sometimes it works so much better. Some nights I can just sit there and not look at anything. Not say anything. Not feel anything. Not hear anything. All of it is noise and crap to make me think too much for that late at night. Every night for the last 800 days I’ve gone to bed like that, it’s time to just not do that and shut up and be quiet. I think it works better in the end. Regardless, I’ve hated going to bed the last month or so. It’s been different and too quiet. Sometimes I feel like the shittiest person in the world. Other times I feel like I am right on point, like I can never be a mean person at all.

When you see them wide eyed and ready to take on whatever ends up coming to them it’s sad. These empty conversations about nothing of any interest really. How fucked up so and so got last weekend. A couple of racist jokes here and there and melted into a couch like spilled ice cubes from a strong mixed drink barely touched. The life, yeah it’s great with nothing to worry about. With what amounts to an inexperienced head filled with really bad ideas and even worse opinions.

So there’s a clown in the woods with cuts all over his face that runs around in peoples backyards laughing and making all sorts of creepy noises. He usually will come out when he hears you pulling in to the driveway or parking space. He has these little cuts all over his face from running through the woods, and his white make up is faded and sweaty. He won’t let you see him for too long, but if you look into the trees when you get home at night, he’s there. Cuts on his face and all. I just walk by him and try not to make eye contact with him at all. He’ll leave you alone if you don’t pay him any mind. When you get home at night there is a clown in the woods with cuts on his face watching you secretly.

I have a document, exactly 26,000 words as of yesterday about the good and the bad of the “last year”. Somedays I feel like shit and want to escape from myself. I can’t swallow enough things to do that though. I can’t drink or smoke anything to make things disappear. It is there at all times in the forefront of my head. There aren’t enough places for me to hide that I won’t just sob myself into infinity over this. I could become angry and mean or depressed and quiet. I don’t want any of this though. Whatever I thought existed in the good parts was good and amazing and will be there forever. Every single second of shit though, I need to destroy it with fire and sleep. I am in such a non-mood right now that I can’t even make sense of anything regarding this.I wonder from hour to hour from minute to minute how I get back to where I was in say...1999. I have no idea who that guy was or how he did anything. I have no idea about anything now. A trillion people could say “everything will be alright”, it does nothing. I appreciate the sentiment and the effort. I don’t appreciate how my head reacts to things now. I act out and am a very angry rotten shitty person. Peripheral friends who come and go like the seasons trying to talk to me about “how it is”. Give me a fucking break. Nothing is worse than an amateur architect trying to teach anything let alone the inner workings of strangers.

Purgatory

I Come in here and see all the reasons I don’t want to be here. Unfriendly faces that are supposed to be friendly. Walking around town and seeing people I thought were supposed to be a lot more friendly, these Jesus people they love one another, but no one else. If they don’t know you, forget it, you don’t get anything. I hope they all burn in hell for eternity. I don’t want to be in this shitty place anymore. If it means doing shitty things to make money to get out of here I’ll do it, what do you got? I don’t feel any sort of connection here any more. I don’t feel like I am “turning my back on my home”, this place sucks, every single thing about it. Let me tell you how I really feel though.

At this point it doesn’t matter who will let you down, it’s just a matter of when they will.



I hate that they can’t stop it. Can’t stop the attempts to impress everyone and me with witty remarks and knowledge about shit nobody cares about. I can’t read or hear anymore of it as it makes me disappear for a day or five at a time from all of this. Asking for advice and opinions about things that are happening to nine people away from me, that I haven’t seen in however many years, who knows really. Whatever it is I am talking about here, I have no idea. Oh yeah, I’m not like you and don’t ever agree with anything you say. It never means anything and never will. You’d be better off leaving me alone. Sure I can lie for eternity and keep entertaining your ego a tiny bit every other week, but for the most part if you disappeared from my life completely I wouldn’t care even a little bit.

Whatever and whenever all of this crap washes over me, which is almost every other day I never know how I am going to react. Like someone with anger issues, most likely not. I know when to shut it off, I know what lines I am not supposed to cross over. Sometimes though, I imagine a life without knowing how and when to turn shit off. I imagine how many fights I would have gotten into. How much more shit I would have broken. How many friendships and relationships ruined. At one point though, I learned how to be a pussy about shit I guess? Or just be more of a behind the scenes shithead. At this point though, ignored and left to my own thinking and time wasting I spend way much more time figuring out how all these fucks do things. I sit around and think about who and what I despise and am left with a small handful of people and places and things to do. What a cliche that is though, eh?



"Paintings"
So I wake up because I’m tossing and turning in the bed because you know I have some issues with some issues I have how funny is that I keep myself up late at night like this so I have been reading this book it’s just a non fiction book about ummmm people I guess don’t really need to go into detail but it says a good thing to do is to wake yourself up in the middle of sleep and then write you have the most creativity and your thoughts are actually the most crystal clear they can be so you know I toss and turn in bed keeping myself awake because I have some issues with some issues I have and I wake up and hey here I am again shit what did I write in here earlier hahaha I make myself laugh so not to mention the fact that there was a guy standing at the foot of my bed while sleeping you see when this guy gets in those mean Ihateeverybody moods he needs to throw satchmo on the stereo to sing me to sleep because I have some issues with some issues I have and he helps me out he makes it all better see

Okay, look at me now cool as a cucumber I stay up late and then get up early and turn into the doctor so not to mention that I wake up and there are snakes all over the floor of my room probably from the guy that was standing there watching me sleep it’s cool though satchmo is so much more powerful than the evil doctor that comes into my room and puts snakes on the floor and makes me itch like I do I have itches all over my body all weekend he put fleas in my bed that cocksucker put fleas in my bed bedbugs is the more polite thing to call them I guess flea is a mean thing to say it’s like saying bitch or cocksucker or motherfucker or communist so yeah it’s funny because I don’t fucking dream anymore how fucked up is that that’s not fair perhaps because I watch so many movies that I don’t need to dream who cares anyway dreams mean nothing but a bunch of random images that are useless in the long run like the issues I have with some of these issues I have right now

Imagine me as fireman coming out of the building like superman or yeah forget that imagine me as superhero here to save the world from mean evil people like myself when I have those issues that I have imagine me like totally top ten style with gold rings on my fingers and a handful of cash they pick me up in jaguars and drive me far and take me to exotic places where we can forget about how to make a good cup of coffee and forget about the issues I have with some of the issues I have imagine me like the big time and shit ya know like the big time no guys coming to visit me in the middle of the night that are part of that network of people who fuck with me I talked about them and people just laugh and point and make fun like the little boy who cried wolf or fire in a crowded theatre it’s a bit funny that anyone would think that I’m this big meany who hates and spits venom in real life never takes himself too seriously I mean takes himself too seriously I mean fuck I can spell I can’t form good sentences but fuck I can spell gosh darn it but fuck if anyone ever says that I am a big jerk and I shouldn’t say this and I shouldn’t say that about this person and that person than they don’t know me and they can go sit in a theatre with little boys who yell fire and throw wolves with rabies at girls with pony tails

I once threw a jellyfish at a boy on the beach he cried and threw sand at me and my mother slapped me across the face and told me to apologize I never ended up becoming friends with him or even having a homosexual encounter I think the one thing they teach you is to never have a homosexual encounter with a boy who throws a jellyfish at your face I did all sorts of bad mean things like that when I was a little boy I threw a brick at my brothers friend because he said I sucked at football I showed him how it really was with my dallas cowboy cheerleader looking self and then a kid attacked me at age ten and I stabbed his hand with a rusty pipe

Let me tell you about it and make fun stories out of the absurdity of it all as it stands now though I can’t take people chasing me into the house because they watch me from the woods I can’t take myself too seriously I have a good amount of time left when I think ahead of a living clean lifestyle you watch me I can live like the bathroom sink with bright white and shiny like a new bathroom sink you know I can live like that like a guy that is clean like the bathtub in the convenience store outside of Knoxville Tennessee that I hid from a homeless man with an erect thumb for twenty-three minutes I can make things out of words that don’t need to hurt people or confuse people if I need to watch hello my name is christian I live in Massachusetts I enjoy good film fine food and louis armstrong once a week.

I have a plug sticking out of my head that tells me to keep going and yeah I want to say one more thing, picture me like on fire and shit like the king of the world of whatever I need it to be ya know like picture me big time.

Imagine if Your Favorite Band of All Time Was The Fixx?

When it is warm too warm to sleep and any idea I ever had about forever is hiding in an unmarked box in it’s fifteenth basement, fire builds in my brain. I feel and see every bad thing coming now two days before it happens. I have several ideas and places I want to be. I have several ideas of what I know will be the reality. Things don’t work out because you wish them to work. Things don’t happen because you will them or want them to happen. They don’t happen when you pray. When your loved one is filled with cancer or whatever else is going to kill them, go ahead and pray and see what happens. Your god sends them to nowheresville, to a void. Enjoy your photographs and memories. All of this shit happening, it’s all my fault. Has nothing to do with fate or because I wanted it to happen. All of the other things though, yeah you know. Those all happen because people are basically shitty. You can’t count on anyone. Everyone lies or is just never there when you really need them or want them.


Today is an amazing day here. The sun is so bright, and I don’t know if it’s these sunglasses I have on but the sky is so blue it looks like the Pacific Ocean. I have a nice cup of coffee here and I can’t imagine a better time to be alive than right now. Things are looking up. I have been getting a ton of writing done, creative writing. I’ve had some great weekends with friends lately, taken some great pictures. I applied for a job that may put me back in California which would be great!

I can’t really deal with the

I actually have to go to the bathroom so I’m not going to finish this one.

Hey, I Can Do Arson You Old Bat

Last night could barely get to sleep. Hearing noises and seeing things. This house I am in now, the last house on the left of a dead end. Woods behind it, some nosey old people in the neighborhood, It’s my grandmother’s old house, part of the family and hopefully it will be where I grow old some day who knows, maybe it will sell and allow me to grow old somewhere else. A nice big yard, a pool that is out of commission right now and a neighborhood any family would want to raise their little white kids in. The neighborhood feels like the kind of place where every other house probably voted for Obama, has at least two Norah Jones CD’s in it, yet if a black person was walking down the street they would probably call the police.



Trying to get to sleep here some nights is impossible. I don’t believe in ghosts or anything I can’t see with my own eyes that is/was scientifically proven to me. I’m sorry but it will never happen. I know some people become born again Christians or sudden believers in God and that kind of thing, but honestly, ghosts, monsters, demons, Jesus, God, magic, planets aligning, crystal balls and that kind of stuff, I can’t imagine ever believing in it. Forever I will just continue to dismiss it. Maybe someday I will have some sort of event in my life where I suddenly “believe” in the unknown, but nowadays, highly unlikely. As much as I like to talk shit and make jokes about it, I don’t think less of people who “believe”. I just think you’re all fucking crazy. Heh.



So yeah I am convinced the house is haunted. Or people/things from the woods are trying to get in through the basement. I hear them late at night scuttling around down there. They know specifically that I am staying in this house so they are targeting me as they have in the past. Seems like everywhere I have lived they visit, spy, watch ,all of that fun stuff. I’d like to think I am imagining things sometimes, but really, come on. In California this never happened. Maybe the nature of just not feeling settled in ever is taking it’s toll and now I’m seeing things. Hotels, floors and couches has been the norm since August 4th last year. Maybe they are following from years ago. I’ll get to the bottom of it someday I swear. In the meantime I do my own spying all day and all night and know where they are and where they watch me from. It’s a mutual thing.



So I had this once, I was walking through this series of buildings, this complex if you will. It started with me walking up a balcony in some sort of theatre. A real steep balcony, with soft lights on the stairs, and red velvet at the top, glowing from another series of 4 or 5 lamps of soft light. It was elegant, but dirty at the same time. Contradicting the red velvet on the walls was a dirty, grimy, sticky cement floor. Old dried up soda, and chocolate covered raisins. Cigarette butts, and dank beer smell. There was a group of people sitting in one of the aisles. 5 or 6 people that looked familiar. No faces whatsoever, but they looked real familiar. As I passed them, they started blurting my name out. Right at this moment, I was all of a sudden with a girl with no face, no personality, nothing, just “a girl”. We were rushing by them, and I seemed to feel particularly embarrassed by the whole situation for some reason. We made our way out into this courtyard type are that was real European looking. Lot’s of real old buildings with amazing stones, and windows and doors. The doors. The fucking doors. No, not Jim Morrison and his Doors. Doors I kept opening. Looking in the rooms and hallways for something. One doorway would open to a wall. Another doorway would open to a long hallway with more doors along the walls inside it. There was one door that held the room I always see in my nightmares. A big room with huge ceilings, and a floor that is basically big rusty beams. Real damp, and dark this room. I always end up in this room. Scaling the walls, trying not to “fall in”. This room is huge, probably 20 yards wide by 30 yards long. I opened this door and shut it immediately. The next door I opened there was a man there. There was a stairway that looked exactly like the one in this old apartment building I used to hang out at. Four stories high, old wood banisters. Doorways with apartments you’ll never see. So I open this door, and this tall blonde guy with a Hawaiian shirt on. I pick the guy up by the collar and heave him down the stairs. I run down after him swearing. I throw him down the next stairway. I run down after him, and do it again. I do this until he’s at the bottom, and start kicking him in the stomach over and over. I go back into the courtyard. The alarm clock goes off.



At one point in time, all of the best vacations I have taken have all revolved around me seeing a band, usually Phish, before that, it was the Grateful Dead. Most people who know me in person state that I definitely don’t seem like the type that would be into either of those bands. I don’t look like a “hippie”, but I learned years before, when I spent time in the punk rock scene for years, that it had nothing to do with what you looked like. Anyway, I just remembered my first trip by myself twenty years ago.

I bought this book listing every single Grateful Dead show available on tape from 1988-1995 or something like that. I opened it to February 25th 1990, in Oakland, California. I was twenty years old at the time. I was going to take a train from Boston all the way to San Francisco, and meet my best friend at the time, Derek there. He flew. I had never been away from home by myself for a long period of time, so this two week journey to see two Grateful Dead shows would prove to be a stepping stone to what I would still be doing ten years later, and define when I really feel myself. On the road, by myself. Previous to this show, I saw the band in the summer of 1989 and then a “famous” show in New Jersey in October of 1989.

So I get on this train in South Boston and I’m immediately feeling elated to be leaving, seeing the band, and seeing parts of the country I had never seen. I was a painfully shy person, but being on a train for four days straight will make even the most timid person a “life of the party”. I think we were maybe two hours into the trip, we stopped in Springfield, Massachusetts. The train was relatively empty, and I was lucky enough to score two seats, so I could sit at the window. In Springfield the train sort of filled up and I see this character walking down the aisle. About five feet tall, cowboy boots, denim jeans, a denim jacket, long black “ZZ Top beard”, and sunglasses (it’s 9:30PM in the dead of winter), a duffel bag in one hand, and a guitar slung around his shoulder. I of course make eye contact with him, and he immediately sits down next to me.

“HOW YA DOIN BUDDY, I’M JIM (I can’t remember his name at this point), WHERE YOU GOIN!!?”

“Ummmm, San Francisco.”

“WELL IT LOOKS LIKE WE’RE TRAVELING TOGETHER, I’M GOING TO DENVER!!!”

“Excellent”

Yeah, real excellent.

So he starts talking and doesn’t shut up about music and traveling. It was interesting, but his voice, and overall demeanor made it a little hard to take him serious. The best part was yet to come though.

“YOU LIKE VODKA???”

“No, I don’t really drink at all”

“WELL IF YA DO, I GOT PLENTY”

He opens his jacket and has two fifths in each inside pocket of the jacket, two nips in each breast pocket, opens his duffel bag, and he literally, no joke, had a little bit of clothing, and what looked like 6 more bottles of vodka. I got up and went to the restroom, and he showed up in there.

“OH THERE YOU ARE, HEY YOU WANT A SWIG OF THIS OR WHAT????”

“No really, I’m all set”

So we get to Albany and I know what I have to do. I knew that we would be switching trains in Chicago in the morning, but I really couldn’t deal with him anymore. I got out of the train and went into the station and asked if I could get a room for the night on the train. It would be eighty bucks. I forked down the money and got my upgraded ticket.

I went back in and told “Jim” that they fucked up, my ticket stated I was to be in another train. A likely story, as anyone who knows Amtrak, you buy a cheap ticket, you sit wherever the fuck you want. I went to my room, and it was literally about the size of a stall in a restroom…okay the handicapped stall (which begs the question I often ask myself when I perpetually use the handicapped stall, can I get arrested for using this, or get a ticket? I mean it does seem to me the same crime as parking in one of the handicapped spaces, but the room in there is great, you get those railings in case you’re sick, drunk, or handicapped; it’s a whole new world in there. I imagine the women’s room to have a similar affect on me if I was to ever walk in a “good one”[as opposed to the one I was in at Saratoga Springs, New York, which was so dirty I thought I was in the men’s room]). It was tiny nonetheless, enough room to stand, and fold down the bed which was right against the window.

Waking up in Ohio the next morning was an absurd feeling. Ohio. Who lives in Ohio? Guided By Voices. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and ummmm…some other people that apparently love corn. So Ohio is pretty boring…on the train at least. I won’t ever just say a state is boring if I haven’t stepped on the soil there. Driving through Nebraska is as boring as watching ice melt, but when you get out and walk around a little, late, in the middle of a chilly, damp night you realize there’s nothing like it in the world. Nebraska.

So we arrive in Chicago, where you get to get on the double decker train. Much bigger, much more exciting. I still hadn’t seen “Jim”, but I was aware we has around. I did see him in the middle of the night actually for a couple of minutes at the bar (“why is he buying drinks with all that he has on him?”…I figured it out, he was just making his drinks even stronger, that’s apparently what you do or something when you’re a big drinker. Up the ante a little). The next time I saw him was in Denver where he was getting off. I went up to him and, knowing he was getting off for good and said:

“Hey Jim, I was looking for you the past day and a half to see if you wanted to hang out, we were supposed to be traveling together and all that…well, hopefully I’ll run into you again…have a good life”

It’s funny, all of the people I met on that first train ride it always ended with “Have a good life” What a strange departing phrase. There was no internet, well, not that I was using anyway, so there was no e-mail exchanging, and I was certainly not going to write anyone letters. I met a lot of great people. The most memorable after “Jim”, were the two old black men from Mississippi who got me drunk and told me stories about segregation, and John Lee Hooker and that kind of stuff. I have an amazing picture of one of the men reading the newspaper at dawn that I will post on here some day when I remember to scan it.

The other guy was an African fellow who was with me from Denver to San Francisco. He didn’t speak very good English, and he had a ton of money. He owned farms, had a big family, and traveled the world from time to time. Sam was his name. When we got to San Francisco, neither of us had been there before so we sort of hung out for a little while, until we got our shit together. I took a good photo of him at the San Francisco train station that I’d also like to put up here. I love meeting new people. I especially love it when I’m traveling though. You can’t really rely on small talk at all. You don’t have to make impressions though either. I like to put on an act from time to time when I meet people traveling. “Yeah, I’m a policeman in Boston” So this first trip was the first of a dozen of these, most of them small ones with friends, but I did three summers where it was two week excursions by myself that were both healthy, and bad for me at the same time. I had this a little on the first trip.

The train ride home got tedious. “Shit, Indiana again”

For subsequent summers, I will probably not be going on the same type of excursions though. There are no tours to follow around at my age. I am going to go somewhere though.. Either way, I need it again, and it can’t come any fucking sooner. That’s it, I’m going across country again.