Catching Up
Best I can tell, the last time I was posting regularly was towards the end of my time living above Honeywhites on Main and 22nd. I used to be able to rattle off the list of exact addresses to all the places I've lived, but not anymore, apparently.
I think maybe I had started dipping the first furtive toe into crippling substance abuse issues by that point, but it was mostly all still fun and games. I know for sure my coke use increased exponentially that year (2006-2007).
I was just coming off a year of living in Midlothian with a girl. That was a bad situation. She was the first real rebound after Beth and by the time I realized I was not ready to settle down (and certainly not in the fucking suburbs) I was already moved in. I spent almost a year being detached and emotionally unavailable to her before she finally snapped and threw a shoe at my head while she was drunk after I got home from hanging out with Travis and Aaron. I walked out then and there and Matt helped me grab my shit a week later. I lost my dog Hercules in the custody battle.
I came back to the city with a mission: Drink. Drugs. Women. Fun.
I had 10 people in the apartment sniffing coke before we even moved any living room furniture in. Sex on a twin size mattress on the floor. That pretty much set the entire tone of the year. Finally crashed and passed out only to wake up at 4pm and go play a show with Titan at Alley Katz the next day. That show was roooough.
Travis and I started rapping and formed The Legacy in November of 06. As with all things I did that required commitment and an openess to constructive criticism, I quit a few months later. I didn't quit rhyming, I still do that, but I quit the group. This will be a reoccurring theme up until present day. I can take crticism nowadays, but I'm still awful at following through on anything I daydream about.
I also started selling a gang of weed that year. I'd done some small time stuff before then, but I moved from the hand to hand steet level shit to middle man at the distribution level. I actually funded the camping trip I wrote a post about with proceeds from the business. I remember being exceedingly proud of that. Every Tuesday I'd pick up a new pack, move it, get my money, and spend it until next Tuesday.
I spent a lot of time with Stech that year. Looking back, I think she was getting over Myke and needed a safe space that was still somewhat familiar. I got called a snake for it, but I was packing heat and in a whole different zone than those boys; couldn't tell me shit I was worried about. We had a nice few months, I caught feelings, and she rolled out. That was my bad. She taught me how to order coffee at Starbucks and had me switch up from saying "Can I get" to "May I please have" while ordering food. I actually kept saying "may I please have" until a few years ago; now I say "I'd like".
My folks found out I smoked weed at that apartment, too. Found my ashtray full of blunt roaches haha. They were cool with it, suprisingly.
I had my bathroom strung up with blue Christmas lights. That's another theme that reoccurs in the years to follow: carrying things that reminded me of someone I was working to forget along with me for the ride.
I went to Miami for the first time that year. Found a bag of weed in the sand on the beach. That was cool.
Tariq and I we're regulars at Rocks. 2 or 5 nights a week getting faced at that bar. That's the closest thing to Cheers I suppose I'll ever have. I still have to cup my hands around my eyes and press my face to the glass window every time I walk past that building, trying to catch a glimpse of our ghosts while imagining what it used to look like inside.
When our lease was up on the apartment, Tariqs folks offered us cheap rent at their old house in Chesterfield. So, only one year after I escaped the burbs, I headed right back.
That's when shit gets really real. Absolute rock fucking bottom.
I'll catch you up tomorrow.
I think maybe I had started dipping the first furtive toe into crippling substance abuse issues by that point, but it was mostly all still fun and games. I know for sure my coke use increased exponentially that year (2006-2007).
I was just coming off a year of living in Midlothian with a girl. That was a bad situation. She was the first real rebound after Beth and by the time I realized I was not ready to settle down (and certainly not in the fucking suburbs) I was already moved in. I spent almost a year being detached and emotionally unavailable to her before she finally snapped and threw a shoe at my head while she was drunk after I got home from hanging out with Travis and Aaron. I walked out then and there and Matt helped me grab my shit a week later. I lost my dog Hercules in the custody battle.
I came back to the city with a mission: Drink. Drugs. Women. Fun.
I had 10 people in the apartment sniffing coke before we even moved any living room furniture in. Sex on a twin size mattress on the floor. That pretty much set the entire tone of the year. Finally crashed and passed out only to wake up at 4pm and go play a show with Titan at Alley Katz the next day. That show was roooough.
Travis and I started rapping and formed The Legacy in November of 06. As with all things I did that required commitment and an openess to constructive criticism, I quit a few months later. I didn't quit rhyming, I still do that, but I quit the group. This will be a reoccurring theme up until present day. I can take crticism nowadays, but I'm still awful at following through on anything I daydream about.
I also started selling a gang of weed that year. I'd done some small time stuff before then, but I moved from the hand to hand steet level shit to middle man at the distribution level. I actually funded the camping trip I wrote a post about with proceeds from the business. I remember being exceedingly proud of that. Every Tuesday I'd pick up a new pack, move it, get my money, and spend it until next Tuesday.
I spent a lot of time with Stech that year. Looking back, I think she was getting over Myke and needed a safe space that was still somewhat familiar. I got called a snake for it, but I was packing heat and in a whole different zone than those boys; couldn't tell me shit I was worried about. We had a nice few months, I caught feelings, and she rolled out. That was my bad. She taught me how to order coffee at Starbucks and had me switch up from saying "Can I get" to "May I please have" while ordering food. I actually kept saying "may I please have" until a few years ago; now I say "I'd like".
My folks found out I smoked weed at that apartment, too. Found my ashtray full of blunt roaches haha. They were cool with it, suprisingly.
I had my bathroom strung up with blue Christmas lights. That's another theme that reoccurs in the years to follow: carrying things that reminded me of someone I was working to forget along with me for the ride.
I went to Miami for the first time that year. Found a bag of weed in the sand on the beach. That was cool.
Tariq and I we're regulars at Rocks. 2 or 5 nights a week getting faced at that bar. That's the closest thing to Cheers I suppose I'll ever have. I still have to cup my hands around my eyes and press my face to the glass window every time I walk past that building, trying to catch a glimpse of our ghosts while imagining what it used to look like inside.
When our lease was up on the apartment, Tariqs folks offered us cheap rent at their old house in Chesterfield. So, only one year after I escaped the burbs, I headed right back.
That's when shit gets really real. Absolute rock fucking bottom.
I'll catch you up tomorrow.