when you scan the radio i hope this song will guide you home...

[carkass]

i have such a broken family. i was talking with ward, a regular at work, and, for some reason, i decided to tell him about james. (for those of you don't know, james is my older brother, who i haven't seen/talked to in four years..) i told him about how the last time we saw him he wasn't the brother i knew and had grown increasingly dependent on/aware of his wife's cues in social situations. we started talking about it because i told him how we used to think him and michelle were part of a cult. he said it was very rare for couples to join cults together and it sounded to him like james was/is being abused. and the more i read online about it the more sense it makes. i used to make excuses for her, because we had had a few good conversations, candid ones in fact, about things that had happened in her childhood and how she had had to grow up a lot faster than most of her peers. but, as broken as someone is, as much shit as they've been through, or whatever, that gives them no excuse to manipulate/abuse the people around them. that may be a reason for it, but it's no excuse. i really really really wish that i could just talk with him, the james i used to know. especially after what happened with stu. especially after all the emotions of melanies wedding. especially when i'm trying to figure out, well, my life. he was really good at advice. so, i guess a lot of my reasons are purely selfish ones, but he wouldn't mind. i used to see him all the time. the shape of his shoulders on the guy walking in front of me, his jawline on the next guy in line, the way he would have trouble putting his mouth around certain words in the way my class-mate asks a question, his jafar fingers, when he finally grew into his glasses and his smile, the toothpaste green of his first car. he would tell me the name of a girl he just met so i would remember because he wouldn't. i haven't missed him this much in a while.

this song gives me hope:

Landed

We'd hit the bottom
I thought it was my fault
And in a way I guess it was
I'm just now finding out
What it was all about

We'd moved to the west coast
Away from everyone
She never told me that you called
Back when I was still
I was still in love

'Till I opened my eyes and walked out the door
And the clouds came tumbling down
And it's bye-bye goodbye I tried
And I twisted it wrong just to make it right
I had to leave myself behind
And I've been flying high all night

So come pick me up
I've landed...

The daily dramas
She made from nothing
So nothing ever made it right

She liked to push me
And talk me back down
'Till i believed I was the crazy one
And in a way
I guess I was

'Till I opened my eyes and walked out the door
And the clouds came tumbling down
And it's bye-bye goodbye I tried
Treading the sea of a troubled mind
I had to leave myself behind
Singin' bye-bye goodbye I tried

If you wrote me off
I'd understand it
'Cause I've been on
Some other planet
So come pick me up
I've landed...

And you will be so
Happy to know
I've come along
It's over

And I opened my eyes and walked out the door
And the clouds came tumbling down
And it's bye-bye goodbye I tried
Down comes the reign of the telephone czar
It's okay to call
And I will answer for myself
Come pick me up...
Come pick me up...
I've landed.

-Ben Folds