You never know when you're going to need a lead pipe
That's what I said to my best friend, Christie Ryder, last week.
She was picking up the lead pipe wedged between my center console and the front passenger seat of my car.
She looked at the pipe as she listened to my answer and nodded while saying, "very true," in response.
Welcome to New Jersey, summer of 2006.
--
Wrapping the school year up... so to speak.
Moving out of the dorms was as chaotic as it was chaotic.
Ashley screamed sometimes.
Mom bought matt and I plates.
mom, ashley, matt, matt's dad, and I drive past two lovers fucking on top of a parking garage.
i get to luke's show -just- in time and mom, matt, and ashley get there a few minutes later.
I sit with mom as luke dedicates a song to me (which I may or may not have hallucinated, nobody else seems to know what I'm talking about)
and as the notes come and I look around the room at all the people there and all the things that the next day will bring and... I start to cry.
I hope that nobody will see this and when the song ends, I just finish wiping my tears before his mom comes over and introduces herself for the first time.
She thanks me for caring for luke, but I ask how she is and there are just so many things that I want to say about how I understand that I know, but realize won't really mean a thing.
pain is pain. is pain. is pain.
Later on that (last night in town)
I am almost assaulted or something by a crazy bum and his friend on a bike.
He asks if i am "cool" because he is "sweet on me" and tells me that he is... dizzy d.... or something... a lyricist from florida.
"OH YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME," he says, "HERE, LET ME SHOW YOU."
I am sitting on the ground with my notebook open waiting for luke to come outside as he says he will after he says hi to some folks.
I pretty much make my last peace with life and wait for the man to shoot me in the forehead as he digs into his pocket for some un-identifiable something.
He pulls out a Florida identification card and shoves it in my face.
ha. un-identifiable identification card.
After escaping:
Luke and I watch the moon on our last night and he gets kind of quiet and bitter and I just sit there wishing I knew what to do to make him realize how badly I need him to be nice and strong because I'd pretty much given up all my remaining strength to him.
After a while he at least tells me what is bugging him and he says something romantic after dropping jewelry and minutes later,when I realize that we are walking to the car that will take him away from me until august, I turn and grab his face and kiss him and hope that he knows how much I... fucking. mean it.
The car pulls away and I run across the street and punch road signs and just at once there is this feeling that throughout all of my obviously measly existence and all of measly existence there was only this and this moment.
The ride home is filled with steak, my pumping the gas because my mom and sister have no idea how to (you aren't allowed to pump your own gas in new jersey), and many key moments of heart ache and family psychoses.
--
At first, I spent many days wondering how I ever found home in this place.
Cops everywhere waiting for you to pick your nose wrong before slamming you to the cement.
I wallowed for days, dazed.
Ryder and I did our usual thing, only the nights ended earlier and weren't fluid music like our old days.
We ate tuna on crackers like we always have and talked like the old men that we are.
Eventually, I began to snap back into myself.
I remembered how to dodge and spot cops.
I remembered all my old shortcuts and hang-outs and connects.
But, things are, in some way, irreperably different.
Josh says that he is so envious that "this is what you guys see everyday" as we stand on the look-out cliff next to the george washington bridge and I look out at the city, spit off, and absent-mindedly say, "uh-huh."
I'm really thinking about what else to put in the box I recently sent to lucasluke.
--
Oh right, Josh is back.
I think it was about a year ago that Ryder and I met him at our diner.
That fateful night that we were adopted as Josh's new jersey native guides.
We take him to the diner our first night of hanging out and are eventually introduced to his lovely new band members.
Josh wears glasses (rarely)
Josh and matt and jamie, so adorable
Johnny makes delicious ramen tuna dishes
(and his voice is gorgeous)
Big John will cut you... with his camera
The rhode island accent is fun.
--
My trunk has a crossing guard stop sign in it.
My nipples have barbells in them.
My latest mix is shattered somewhere on the garden state parkway.
My lover is a caped figure on my desk between my left speaker and a candle filld with crayons.
My hair has not been this long since freshman year of high school.
My apologies everyone, I fear I've been avoiding my life.
And still. the room gains clutter and my legs gain pounds and I gain dust sitting around this corner with my homework as far as I can place it.
--
Micky. I would have never guessed HIM to be the perpetrator in a million years.
--
Last week's beautiful breezy wednesday, dad and I went to piermont and looked for driftwood on the pier.
We found a bunch of things including a dead baby sturgeon, a sneaker, a volleyball, a telephone pole, a great walking stick, and and oil funnel.
Dad asked, "what if I get hepatitis from that thing?"
I learn alot from hanging around my father.
In this picture he is pointing out the prison, 'singsing' or... 'sing sing' which is across the river on the other side of the tappan zee bridge.
Sometimes the gov'ment lights big piles of logs on fire to remember brave people who died in wars.
Dad and I think that this one was too close to other trees and telephone wires.
--
Later I found a wooden board tied with a yellow rope in the middle and attached to a tree.
I swung for a little and caught side of two dead crabs that made me think of you.
And then I took a picture of the emotion I was feeling at the next moment, just.. missing you.
--
Does anybody hear me?
--
What am I doing this for?
--
What... am I?
and...why.. are you here now?
and... why -aren't- you here now?
--
Yesterday the 20 dollar watch that I picked out at the mall and James bought for me broke off my wrist as I was bending down next to my car.
Ashley was at the door and I said, "fuck, my watch broke."
She said, 'that's what happens when you're stupid."
and I laughed because it was a good burn.
and then I was silent as I remembered how pathetic I felt when James didn't get my a christmas present and I had to take him to the mall so that he could let me pick out things for him to get me.
I was hoping that he would make me a card. That's all I really wanted.
Then I remembered how much I begged for him to write me a letter when I went away to school.
And how the months passed.
but never.
--
yeah so, Lewis black is a hilarious comedian.
--
yeah, so, my 'blog' has almost attained 100,000 views.
I wonder how many of that was actually read.
Seriously.
Welcome to the fake-information-intake age.
--
Okay, right, Gia goes to school, right?
Basically, I leave here at 7 and I race down highways and through streets and I take a two hour hell class where I write down many problems and suffer and guess a lot.
Russ is in his fourties and has bright blue eyes and a gentle composure.
Colleen is a thick eyelinered chick with metal overtaking her ears and a bandana over her pink dyed hair.
She looks like she could be related to Malenda.
Amanda is a ghetto fabulous half latino (i'm guessing) with giant gold hoop earrings and great jeans.
More characters soon.
I'm the self-acclaimed moron of the class and I am constantly pointing out when I make stupid mistakes and don't know how to multiply or divide.
--
I haven't had piercings to care for in a long while and so I hope this will keep my mind off of things a little.
I NEED SOLITUDE.
and.............
the door cracks open and she breathes quicker as she searches the air for his scent.
...... i've written this before.
I've written this scene before.
this scene. this scene.
i wrote this scene years ago and he was.... the one I was writing about.
--
new clothes, new piercings, new boats, new family problems, new stressors, and the old habit of sliding my own hands down my own body as I fall alseep.
And yes.
Shakespeare is still fucking adorable.
over and out
She was picking up the lead pipe wedged between my center console and the front passenger seat of my car.
She looked at the pipe as she listened to my answer and nodded while saying, "very true," in response.
Welcome to New Jersey, summer of 2006.
--
Wrapping the school year up... so to speak.
Moving out of the dorms was as chaotic as it was chaotic.
Ashley screamed sometimes.
Mom bought matt and I plates.
mom, ashley, matt, matt's dad, and I drive past two lovers fucking on top of a parking garage.
i get to luke's show -just- in time and mom, matt, and ashley get there a few minutes later.
I sit with mom as luke dedicates a song to me (which I may or may not have hallucinated, nobody else seems to know what I'm talking about)
and as the notes come and I look around the room at all the people there and all the things that the next day will bring and... I start to cry.
I hope that nobody will see this and when the song ends, I just finish wiping my tears before his mom comes over and introduces herself for the first time.
She thanks me for caring for luke, but I ask how she is and there are just so many things that I want to say about how I understand that I know, but realize won't really mean a thing.
pain is pain. is pain. is pain.
Later on that (last night in town)
I am almost assaulted or something by a crazy bum and his friend on a bike.
He asks if i am "cool" because he is "sweet on me" and tells me that he is... dizzy d.... or something... a lyricist from florida.
"OH YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME," he says, "HERE, LET ME SHOW YOU."
I am sitting on the ground with my notebook open waiting for luke to come outside as he says he will after he says hi to some folks.
I pretty much make my last peace with life and wait for the man to shoot me in the forehead as he digs into his pocket for some un-identifiable something.
He pulls out a Florida identification card and shoves it in my face.
ha. un-identifiable identification card.
After escaping:
Luke and I watch the moon on our last night and he gets kind of quiet and bitter and I just sit there wishing I knew what to do to make him realize how badly I need him to be nice and strong because I'd pretty much given up all my remaining strength to him.
After a while he at least tells me what is bugging him and he says something romantic after dropping jewelry and minutes later,when I realize that we are walking to the car that will take him away from me until august, I turn and grab his face and kiss him and hope that he knows how much I... fucking. mean it.
The car pulls away and I run across the street and punch road signs and just at once there is this feeling that throughout all of my obviously measly existence and all of measly existence there was only this and this moment.
The ride home is filled with steak, my pumping the gas because my mom and sister have no idea how to (you aren't allowed to pump your own gas in new jersey), and many key moments of heart ache and family psychoses.
--
At first, I spent many days wondering how I ever found home in this place.
Cops everywhere waiting for you to pick your nose wrong before slamming you to the cement.
I wallowed for days, dazed.
Ryder and I did our usual thing, only the nights ended earlier and weren't fluid music like our old days.
We ate tuna on crackers like we always have and talked like the old men that we are.
Eventually, I began to snap back into myself.
I remembered how to dodge and spot cops.
I remembered all my old shortcuts and hang-outs and connects.
But, things are, in some way, irreperably different.
Josh says that he is so envious that "this is what you guys see everyday" as we stand on the look-out cliff next to the george washington bridge and I look out at the city, spit off, and absent-mindedly say, "uh-huh."
I'm really thinking about what else to put in the box I recently sent to lucasluke.
--
Oh right, Josh is back.
I think it was about a year ago that Ryder and I met him at our diner.
That fateful night that we were adopted as Josh's new jersey native guides.
We take him to the diner our first night of hanging out and are eventually introduced to his lovely new band members.
Josh wears glasses (rarely)
Josh and matt and jamie, so adorable
Johnny makes delicious ramen tuna dishes
(and his voice is gorgeous)
Big John will cut you... with his camera
The rhode island accent is fun.
--
My trunk has a crossing guard stop sign in it.
My nipples have barbells in them.
My latest mix is shattered somewhere on the garden state parkway.
My lover is a caped figure on my desk between my left speaker and a candle filld with crayons.
My hair has not been this long since freshman year of high school.
My apologies everyone, I fear I've been avoiding my life.
And still. the room gains clutter and my legs gain pounds and I gain dust sitting around this corner with my homework as far as I can place it.
--
Micky. I would have never guessed HIM to be the perpetrator in a million years.
--
Last week's beautiful breezy wednesday, dad and I went to piermont and looked for driftwood on the pier.
We found a bunch of things including a dead baby sturgeon, a sneaker, a volleyball, a telephone pole, a great walking stick, and and oil funnel.
Dad asked, "what if I get hepatitis from that thing?"
I learn alot from hanging around my father.
In this picture he is pointing out the prison, 'singsing' or... 'sing sing' which is across the river on the other side of the tappan zee bridge.
Sometimes the gov'ment lights big piles of logs on fire to remember brave people who died in wars.
Dad and I think that this one was too close to other trees and telephone wires.
--
Later I found a wooden board tied with a yellow rope in the middle and attached to a tree.
I swung for a little and caught side of two dead crabs that made me think of you.
And then I took a picture of the emotion I was feeling at the next moment, just.. missing you.
--
Does anybody hear me?
--
What am I doing this for?
--
What... am I?
and...why.. are you here now?
and... why -aren't- you here now?
--
Yesterday the 20 dollar watch that I picked out at the mall and James bought for me broke off my wrist as I was bending down next to my car.
Ashley was at the door and I said, "fuck, my watch broke."
She said, 'that's what happens when you're stupid."
and I laughed because it was a good burn.
and then I was silent as I remembered how pathetic I felt when James didn't get my a christmas present and I had to take him to the mall so that he could let me pick out things for him to get me.
I was hoping that he would make me a card. That's all I really wanted.
Then I remembered how much I begged for him to write me a letter when I went away to school.
And how the months passed.
but never.
--
yeah so, Lewis black is a hilarious comedian.
--
yeah, so, my 'blog' has almost attained 100,000 views.
I wonder how many of that was actually read.
Seriously.
Welcome to the fake-information-intake age.
--
Okay, right, Gia goes to school, right?
Basically, I leave here at 7 and I race down highways and through streets and I take a two hour hell class where I write down many problems and suffer and guess a lot.
Russ is in his fourties and has bright blue eyes and a gentle composure.
Colleen is a thick eyelinered chick with metal overtaking her ears and a bandana over her pink dyed hair.
She looks like she could be related to Malenda.
Amanda is a ghetto fabulous half latino (i'm guessing) with giant gold hoop earrings and great jeans.
More characters soon.
I'm the self-acclaimed moron of the class and I am constantly pointing out when I make stupid mistakes and don't know how to multiply or divide.
--
I haven't had piercings to care for in a long while and so I hope this will keep my mind off of things a little.
I NEED SOLITUDE.
and.............
the door cracks open and she breathes quicker as she searches the air for his scent.
...... i've written this before.
I've written this scene before.
this scene. this scene.
i wrote this scene years ago and he was.... the one I was writing about.
--
new clothes, new piercings, new boats, new family problems, new stressors, and the old habit of sliding my own hands down my own body as I fall alseep.
And yes.
Shakespeare is still fucking adorable.
over and out