Rock Star Hour

Underground gangsta shit!

OMG! What did I tell you about Gizoogle. Stefan did some Ben Franklin quotes. Big pimpin', spendin' g's, yo. This one's my favorite:

He that be of tha opinion money wizzle do ho-slappin' may well be suspected of doing ho-slappin' fo` money.

Oh man, if I were to die laughing, I think I'd be OK with that.

p.s. I tried to write Jeff back a little while ago, but like two sentences into it I just started to not feel well again. I don't know how to respond. And this should probably be going in my diary at home rather than on here, but it's like I need some advice from you.

Nikki said they had talked about it, and he's probably just going through one of those "What does it all mean things?" So he's fishing around to see if I'm married to Kevin Banister yet, er something, I guess.

I need to think about this some more, that's all. Without having any kind of objective it is hard to know what to do. 'Cause I don't know if I want to be his friend. I know I don't ever want to date him ever again, and I know that sometimes friendships with ex-lovers can be confusing. And I know that my life is relatively drama free right now, which is rad.

Um, case closed for the night. Wish me luck on my Italian test tomorrow on Il futuro Semplice. I'm going to own it.

So ...

Jeff just wrote to me on MySpace. He just joined, and found me, and wants to be friends. I feel like I'm going to throw up.

What'd he have to go and do that for?

Why are boys like that?

He put it on me. He said he doesn't want me to hate him, and that I was nothing but nice to him, and that it just took him this long to sort things out for himself. So now, if I want, he's ready to be cool.

Uh, yeah ... this would have been a lot easier if I wasn't already used to the idea that he hated me. After all, it was he who didn't say hello back, who did not even acknowledge that I existed, or that he knew me at all, much less lived with me, even though we were surrounded by mutual friends in a ridiculously uncomfortable situation at The Good Life show in like, October.

And now I feel like if I don't say anything back I'm the immature one. Even though I've sort of wanted something like this to happen in case we do end up at camp. I know I'm going, but rumor has it he is not sure yet.

Still, the situation would be a little easier, considering we have to live in the same building and work 15 hours a day together, if we could come to at least civil terms on our own before the summer.

I ... really am going to go throw up now. Probably not. But I can't write back yet. I can't.

Cigarette time. Gross, but oh well.

Hooray for Happy Thoughts!

These things made me insanely, incredibly, dorkily happy this week:

I. Left-handed Monkey

So, I was walking around Montrose on Thursday and I noticed there's a new thrift store where Chemistry Records used to be. And it's called The Left-handed Monkey. That just made me really happy. I wanted to tell everyone.

II. Goddamned Genius

I got my first A this semester. On my Italian test I took a couple weeks ago over l'imperfetto. Che sempliche! Mi sono molto intelligente, si. I've been kind of discouraged because my first couple grades weren't so good. This just gave me a little validation that my hard work is paying off. Italian's been kicking my ass. But it looks like the times are a'changin'. Rad.

III. Record Store Fun

So, Thursday, while I was in town, I stopped by Half-Price books and bought three CDs. This made me so happy. I've been in withdrawals for music. I haven't been to a show since December, and last fall I was going to at least one a week. Quite a change. I don't remember the last time I bought a new CD, which was really makin' me sad. They make me really happy, though.

Most of my friends would probably disown me for the ones I ended up getting, though: New Found Glory, Sticks and Stones; JamisonParker, Notes and Photographs; and Puff Daddy and the Family, No Way Out, but please don't tell anyone.

I've been wanting that NFG album since it came out a few years ago. I remember listening to the whole thing online; I just never got around to buying it. It's awesome, though. "Understatement" and "Forget My Name" and "My Friends Over You" just rock my socks.

The Puff Daddy one is way not good, but it makes me happy anyway. It's just got a couple old-school songs on it that bring out the Alief in me. I can remember hearing "It's All About the Benjamin's" in Driver's Ed when I was like 17. My sister and I jammed it in her car the other day. Ha, I am lame.

I have to say, surprisingly, my favorite of the three is the JamisonParker one. They added me on MySpace, and I checked out their music there and on PureVolume. And I instantly liked it. I love that feeling. When you get some new music, and you're just like, Yes! This is exactly what I've been wanting to hear! I'm going to have to write to them, and tell them how much I think it rules. Seriously, if Ben Gibbard doesn't marry me, I might just have to marry them. :)

IV. New Friends

I made two really excellent friends this week: Marshall, and Sean. I met Marshall on MySpace, and we're supposed to meet up at UH. He actually doesn't know I'm a complete and total dork yet, so we'll see. Sean is Anja's roommate. I met him at Numbers a couple weeks ago, but last Friday I saw him again, and we ended up talking quite a bit. He's way cool too.

V. Gizoogle!

This site is so much fun. It makes me laugh uncontrollably (Thanks, Marshall). Dude, seriously, I gizoogled my site, and some of Allen Ginsberg's poetry, and some quotes by Kurt Vonnegut. But I think my favorite was the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. I know where I'm going next time I need to procrastinate from doing anything. Rock on.

VI. I am moving again!

So, I talked to my sister, and I'm going to rent a room from her house in Montrose. It's going to kick so much ass. They already cleaned it out for me, so I'll probably be there starting next weekend. OMG, did I mention how much it is going to rule? 'Cause, yeah, it kinda is. You bet it is. Arrivederci, Alief. I've got places to be, yo.

VII. Old Friends

This weekend has been so awesome. Started on Thursday with Randy visiting from Oregon. Then on Friday I just saw so many people. My sisters and I got together, all three of us, for the first time in we didn't know how long. We just shot the shit at House of Guys. We really needed that. Then that night I went to Numbers and saw my friends, but not before I stopped by Slicks. There I visited my old regulars and coworkers. I might go back there on weekends to be a shotgirl. Scott asked me too. Scott and I used to wait tables together, but he's the baller manager now. It'll just be cool to live nearby and get to see those folks more often.

VIII. Coffee!

Merideth and I are going out for coffee in just a little while. I don't know what's better than that. We've been getting coffee together every Sunday, it seems like. I've started to look forward to it a lot. I hope when I'm back on the other side of town, we will still make the effort to hang out as much. We decided New Year's that we would, and we really have.

Well, you guys, that's about it. Talk to you soon. XOXO.

Top 10 Reasons Ben Gibbard and I are getting married:

1. He has the sweetest voice in the world.

2. They had a bad case of the nostalgic blues ... (All-time Quarterback)

3. When every Thursday I'd break those mountain passes, and you'd skip your early classes, and we'd learn how our bodies worked. ("We Looked Like Giants": All right, that's kind of cheesy, but it's also kinda hot.)

4. I want to take you far from these cynics in this town, and kiss you on the mouth. We'll cut our bodies free from the tethers of this scene. Start a brand new colony. Where everything will change. We'll give ourselves new names. Identities erased, the sun will heat the ground under our bare feet in this brand new colony ... everything will change. (Sigh. "Brand New Colony." From start to finish. I'd cut off my left arm to marry someone as attractive as Rodney Dangerfield if he could write me a song like that.)

5. Everyone knows this one. I am thinking it's a sign that the freckles in our eyes are mirror images, and when we kiss they're perfectly aligned. ("Such Great Heights")

6. Who Wouldn't?

7. He got us free water. Last time Death Cab came to Houston, they played Numbers with Pretty Girls Make Graves. The venue was really hot, and in the middle of a song someone near the back of the audience screamed because a girl was passing out. The band stopped in the middle of what they were playing to help. He asked the club's staff to get everyone water, and they did. They brought out boxes of cold bottled water and handed them out to most of the crowd. Then they picked up exactly where they left off with their music.

8. He lives in Seattle on Capital Hill. And I want to move to Seattle, so there you have it. And then we can take long walks on the Belltown streets, and take the ferry for a romantic day in Bellingham, where we would go to the park by the bay and play songs to each other.

9. OK, we've quoted some favorite lyrics here, but let's not forget everything else he's ever done.

10. He could sing me to sleep.

Enough to make your blood boil.

This is infuriating.

I first read about it in The Houston Press this afternoon while taking a study break. I couldn't find a link to the Racket column, or I would have used it, but I had to respond.

First off, how can a fucking corn-fed, native midwesterner from a town of 100,000 flannel-wearing, Wal-Mart patrons say anything of the sort?

Regardless of his comments' trailing off in audacious, self-centered flattery, he basically insulted an assumably large demographic of his fans, er, paycheck.

Fuckin A. Sometimes it just makes my brain hurt to think of how stupid smart people can be. But then again, it's quite possible that Conor Oberst may not be much more than a pseudo-intellectual, which is a hard idea for me to embrace, considering I once described him as a "musical, poetic genius," in a review not only for the Cougar's more than 30,000 potential readers, but one that was also picked up and syndicated to other college papers by U-Wire.

But I may have spoken too soon. After all, he is a college-dropout who is essentially too punk rock to even pick up a newspaper or a history book. He seems to be unwittingly opinionated for someone so uneducated. I mean, the Press story pointed out historical facts about his home state, such as the notable thousands of Indians who were killed and chased out of that region of the country in the name of manifest destiny or just plain greed; and the fact that Bush actually took more support in his own state than ours in the last election.

Not to mention the fact that although I've been playing guitar for less than a year, I can already play several of his songs and have been able to for months. Sure, Fevers and Mirrors was a lot less musically complex when compared to 2002's Lifted, a compositional masterpiece which held individual parts for nearly 20 instruments, all of which he wrote himself. And yes, he did tour the album with a 19-piece band, no less than a historically monumentous feat, especially for an independent artist to accomplish.

But more than ten years of songwriting, three bands, and dozens of albums and experience and years on the road have still not taught him the art of public relations, obviously.

Then again, for someone who so professes to abhor attention from the media, he had no qualms with whoring himself out to Filter, Guitar Player and Rolling Stone, among others, all in the same month to shamelessly promote his latest release, I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning.

So there you have it. A long-winded mix of walking contradictions making up the rock star he has become.

It just never ceases to amaze me how far an artist can get with absolutely no reverence, or even consciousness, for who his audience is. It's equally fascinating that a person can be a complete asshole, hidden under the shiny, safe veil of being an artist.

Yeah, I'm really pissed. Just like I'm sure Oberst was pissed way back at some Houston show where legendary rumor has it a fan chucked a glass beer bottle at him, prompting him to swear off this city from any more live performances. Surprised he wasn't the target for an instant replay in Dallas.

Still, I've long since learned how to separate the artist from the product. And though I have come to hold Oberst, the man himself, on a lower and lower pedestal that is now sinking below ground level into the hole he recently dug, I'm not going to discriminate against one of my favorite songwriters, whose drive and talent, along with a knack for pinpointing the most sensitive pieces of a soul for the sake of a song, inspires me daily.

No, I'm most likely going to be eating these words while I fork over the money for I'm Wide Awake, only to fondly welcome it to its place in my mind as another favorite. Even so, I wish he would shut the fuck up sometimes.

Former Mugwump MIA

I ran into Dick on Tuesday. He's a higher-up in publications at school, in case you don't know.

Talk about being put on the spot. I worked very closely with Dick, and he gave me a lot of support in my decisions as editor-in-chief. It was very hard running into him. Hadn't seen him in almost a year.

Last time I talked to him was just two weeks before I left for Seattle, or so. We had long talks about being vagabonds. He grew up in Bremerton, actually, and told me many stories about going hiking in the mountains, and travelling along the coast of Oregon. He gave me hope. Lots of hope.

It's been nearly half a semester, at least. I don't feel like counting. But of the countless times I've been on campus since I came back to Texas, I still couldn't bring myself to go into that damn office. Some of it is pride. Some of it is the pangs of anxiety I get every time I entertain the idea. And some of it is a big bowl of "What the fuck for?"

I think I've still got a lot of anger where all that is concerned. I learned a lesson in politics, among others. I also learned that when you're the boss it's not so easy to know who your friends and enemies are.

Enemies is a strong word. I'm not even sure in what sense I mean to use it. It seems very hard to separate the personal relationships with the business relationships there. That's another thing that makes it so hard. Half the time I think that most everyone there has ill feelings toward me, and certainly not respect. If they did they would have told me the truth before election day.

No one even told me he was running. I would never have run for the position without the support of the staff. I said that once, at the first election, remember? And I meant it.

I've come to realize I happened to be in the right place at the right time, and sometimes I'm not sure how much it had to do with me. Like I was just a figure.

It's not just anger at the committee, or those who I trusted and hired and trained only so they could turn on me. That's not completely right either. I trusted and hired and trained them so they could solidly take over later. I guess I just did a better job than I anticipated.

I'm sort of thinking out loud here, but this has been on my mind for a while.

Dick asked me if I am going to come back and write. I said possibly, or that I might go into the Advertising department so I could get some experience there, since I am thinking more and more of going into marketing when I graduate. Certainly not journalism. I've known that for awhile, which is another reason why this whole situation just eats me. That I cared so much.

But the truth is there's a part of me that wanted to leave and not come back, and even though I am back, I'm still starting over. And I think this city is big enough. And I tried to make believe that the campus was, too; only the past caught up with me there.

We didn't talk for very long, but I told him I would come by and see him. I told him I had been planning on it, and I had. I must've looked like such a liar, but I just haven't been ready. I don't know if I will be for awhile.

This still hurts. And it's not even completely outside of me. I contributed to the way things are. On some levels I know I made a mistake, but on another I can see that the way things turned out is the only way they could've been.

Sometimes I think that absolutely nothing is wrong, and that I'm just still adjusting from the whole experience, from beginning to end. I lived and breathed that paper for more than two years. It has part of me. It made part of me. And I loved it.

Fucking sex, dude.

Oh my god, it was so magical. The electricity surging through my body in the moment. My heart is singing. It was like ... sex.

Yep. Just got done playing guitar for three hours. My hand hurts in that good sort of pain. Like when your muscles ache the next day after a good run.

I've started running again. I went four times last week in my neighborhood. I don't go for very long, but I know I will. Like when I first picked up my guitar and I could barely stretch my fingers to play a C. I knew I could, if I tried. And I could.

Orgasmic. That's how I feel. I've been so discouraged lately. Every time I would play this voice would keep shouting "You suck!" I remember a friend describing that feeling to me months ago, and it's been creeping up on me with my music, trying to slowly stifle my passion.

Like how passion can begin to fade in a relationship.

I needed to spice it up, so I did.

I did the equivalent of having hotel sex. You know what I'm talking about. Sometimes things can start to become routine with your lover. So you go out and have hotel sex, and it is some of the best sex you will ever have. You get a good bottle of champagne, and you take your time, and then you're rejuvenated, glowing, like you just got laid for the first time in months and everything's fresh and new. And romantic again.

Today, I decided, again, that music stores are definitely a place where I want to hang out. There's this buzz about everything. Salesmen running around. Musicians plugging in and rocking out.

And i fit right in. I blended in with everybody else. Like a driver in a car on the freeway. All the other cars in sync with the line of traffic. I was home.

I was at home at Guitar Center today, but even more, hours later, my Strat plugged into my brand new amp, with its brand new cable.

I bought a microphone too, and a stand, and set it up in front of me. I couldn't sing into it. My parents were downstairs; plus, my dumbass in the excitement left out a very important piece of what will be my vocal ensemble: something to plug the damn mic cable into.

But I swear, I set that damn thing up in front of me anyway, and played my heart out; and I swear I began to see my own aura around the edge of the mic as if my spirit were singing even though the rest of the world were oblivious to it for this moment.

As if I needed an excuse to go back to that store.

There's always an excuse for a musician to go to the park on a pretty day, with birds and people and others just waiting to listen; just as there are always new ideas of things to add onto the guitar player's shopping list.

I have been working on my fingerpicking, despite the unruly voice in my head. The voice encompasses not only my most inner insecurities, but the negative forces of the world. The mount of people who are going to continuously tell me that I can't do it.

I'm not playing for those people. And I'm not playing for the voice in my head. I just am. Because it is the only thing in the world sometimes that makes sense, though sometimes on the outside I know it can appear to make no sense at all.

I feel just as I did when I picked it up. All over again. When I never wanted to put it down. When I forgot what I used to do with so many hours. And tomorrow, when I have the house to myself, I'm going to crank it up and sing till my heart's content.

And then I'm going to sing some more.

It's true. I'm a half-assed believer.

One who only likes to believe this stuff when it's convenient. Like if I were on a fantastic date with the sexiest man alive, and he was giving me the eyes, and we were at a Chinese restaurant where my fortune cookie read You're going to get some lovin' tonight. Then, yes, I'd believe it. I'd make it so.

But this is taking it personal:

"People change and forget to tell each other," mourned playwright Lillian Hellman. I bring this thought to your attention, Virgo, because at least one of your relationships now fits this description. It's at a pivotal point when the accumulated changes you have both undergone can no longer remain unspoken. To avoid becoming irrelevant to each other, you must communicate the backlog of truth now. (P.S. I suspect there are actually two relationships like this.)

What am I supposed to do with this? There are two people, in fact. And I didn't really need my horoscope to tell me this. It's just more poignant this way.

The fact is I don't know what to do about it, but I know that pride is worthless in some situations. Many of them when you feel like it matters the most. When you feel like it's the only thing there.

I've taken a nonchalant attitude toward relationships of many sorts. Most of you who read this will no doubt know who both these people are, without having to think hard, but I'm going to refrain from naming them.

The thing is, I've seen enough life that I have adopted this attitude that people move in and out like tides. And it doesn't matter what you would like from your own gravity, if the moon's is stronger.

But I fear that this acceptance, which I once thought was healthy, may not be at all. What if it means that I've become lazy? What if I'm not willing to fight for anything anymore? Not even friendship.

Isn't friendship, true friendship, one of the many virtues that makes life, no matter how complicated it gets, just that much more rich and valuable and conceivable on a day-to-day existence?

I'm learning a new lesson, and it's a really hard one to grasp. It makes me feel so small. It makes me feel so much less than wise.

I used to think that when people change, that's the end of the road. There are plenty of fish in the sea. Sometimes people need to go through phases at their own pace. Sometimes they need to split off in different directions because that is the seemingly lone alternative to standing still.

I don't know why it took so long to occur to me that sometimes one person can go, but they can leave a tie. A tie that can grow. A tie that can be learned from.

It's just that it takes so long to build them; I guess it just seemed more healthy to cut them loose rather than watch them slowly fray over time.

But what if they didn't have to? What if I gave up? What if these what-ifs will never end? And they'll keep circling in my head while I'll think about all the what might have beens and dream about the lives these people I cared so much about are having, and wonder if I closed a door in a youthful haste disguised in a fog of false maturity.

That's it!

Fucking drunk. Cara's not allowed to go to bars anymore. Can't believe she's typing this. It is taking quite an effort, but she's shitfaced. Even when she tries to pace herself, fucking people always buy her drinks when she's not looking. Then she can't turn them down, because they are right in front of her ... free. Happy fucking Valentine's Day. I'm going to bed. Damn.

Roses are for sissies ... grrr

I went running today ... for like 15 minutes. Made me feel productive.

I'm trying to forget Valentine's Day, because I hate it, but people keep reminding me with "Happy Valentine's Day!" comments on MySpace and shit.

And lemme ask you this, what's so damn happy about it?

If I was going to get anyone anything for Valentine's Day, I'd get something for my mom. But you know, the broke + no car thing isn't really going to help me do that. Maybe if I were more mindful, I could have gotten her something while I was out this weekend, but eh.

So tonight, I'm participating in some starcrossed singles hate party or something. It's not really a party, though. It's a mission. I'm reporting to Maj. Mayhem and some others sometime before midnight. I will not disclose my secret code name for the mission here, or my orders. But I will say we are meeting at a bar, and I'm pretty sure it'll be all downhill from there.

Ah!

So, I added comments, and then neglected to post anything that could possibly provoke a comment. Eh.

I'm trying to get out of this stand still that I'm in. It's like the world is moving, and I'm caught in the middle of it. I'm sure there's a parallel in physics, but I'm not up on my science. But I do know that it has something to do with force being applied to an object on opposite sides.

I'm feeling so restless today. And bored. It's not like the stuck at home kind of bored. I got to see my friends a lot in the past few days. It's amazing how social I've become. This time last year I spent many empty hours at my apartment, ignoring just about all my phone calls.

You know that thing when you have a series of light bulbs go off in your head? Ding, ding, ding. I've had lots of them in the last few days. This week really. Now I'm just sort of breaking the news to people.

Namely, Nikki. Or, not Nikki. I need to talk to Nikki, but we've both been in kind of the same position, and it's a hard one, so I don't know how I'm going to do it.

I talk to Nikki all the time. She's my best friend.

The problem is how do you tell your best friend you've changed your mind?

I want to move back on campus. It's crazy. I'll be 25. But I do. Since school started I walk around, and I love it there.

I have to do for me, you know?

Campus is like a big park. With the birds and the squirrels and the grassy places. I want to hang out there, and play my guitar, and listen to some music. Lie down by the Satellite and close my eyes and make believe it's a Washington hill. I do.

And then I want to graduate, and close my eyes, and wake-up to the sweet sound of the Washington wind.

Today is the perfect day for a ferry ride. The rain has stopped, and there's a breeze in the air. I could picture the silvery textures and lines of the sailboats in the distance. The seagulls flying above the water. And the way the sunlight hits the glass windows of the Seattle skyscrapers. Fucking amazing.

Love rhymes with hideous car wreck.

Fucking love The Blood Brothers. Dude, they're coming to town. Do you want to go with me? Wed. Feb. 23. Fat Cat's. Yes, yes you do.

I'm on fire, and now I think I'm ready to bust a move.

I just listened to Catalyst in its entirety while I made my Capitolo 8 Italian flashcards, which made me think of how much I am like my mother. Making the flashcards, I mean, not the New Found Glory.

The New Found Glory made me think about a lot more, and I just had to write, but I wouldn't know where to begin. My mind raced during the whole thing, and most of my thoughts did not border on Italian at all.

And it feels so useless ... Do you know that Aveo song? I can't think of the name of it, but it's on Battery.

Listening to NFG made me so depressed, and it usually makes me happy. That's why I played it. Thought it would be good work music.

But it just made me think of a boy, and then Seattle, and then another boy, and then coming home, and then the first boy ...

Come to think of it, I know why that is. It was as if my life replayed in my head from just days before I bought that album in June to where I am now, in the perfect span of 14 tracks (I never listen to the hidden tracks after the last song "Who Am I." I just always stop it there.)

And then I felt just like that song, "Who Am I," at the end. Here are the lyrics.

Don't say it'll stay this way forever

I'm afloat in the ocean trying not to sink
I'm a crack in the asphalt you walk by on the street
I'm a falling star you'll never see
The lash in your eye the I in team

So Who am I?

Don't say it'll stay this way forever
Don't say it'll stay this way forever

I'm the lesson you'll never learn
The sickness that was never your concern
I'm the big surprise at the end of the night
The bridge in the gap
The corner of your mind

So Who am I?

Don't say it'll stay this way forever
Don't say it'll stay this way forever

Don't say it'll stay this way forever
(you don't know, you don't don't, you never know)
Don't say it'll stay this way forever
(you don't know, you don't don't, you never know)

I'm holding on
Yes I am
Careful what I wish for
I am the knot in your stomach
The phlegm in your throat
The message saying you're not home

Don't say it'll stay this way forever
(you don't know, you don't don't, you never know)
Don't say it'll stay this way forever
(you don't know, you don't don't, you never know)

I'm afloat in the ocean trying not to sink

And I keep thinking about conversations I had with people. Before I left, and when I came back, and since then.

And contrasting them with words I recall writing in my diary. Like how once Dave told me not to be afraid of losing. And how everything I had I could get back again in three years. And then I think about writing to myself a couple months ago, describing the complex feeling that it is to be a "triumphant fuck-up."

And then I think about what Dave told me about making declarative statements.

Today, on TV, I overheard Clint Eastwood in an interview. I wasn't actually watching it, because I was upstairs from the living room. But the TV was on, and I heard him say that he would never say never again. Something about not wanting to be like Sinatra and retire several times. So, he's not going to say he won't be in another movie; he's just not going to say anything, and then what will be will be.

Maybe people should be able to say whatever they want. I've said my share of things. I said I was going lots of places.

But lately, I feel so stuck. This week as we know I was really sick, so that made the stuck feeling even more acute. I've been at home for days.

But it's more than that. I'm back in school, but I feel dissatisfied. For one thing, I said I would take 17 hours so I could get the fuck out. And you know what, I only have 8. It's just that tuition and fees has gone up so much, and I realized I need to prioritize, and I'm not fully in a place to do that right now.

I never thought I'd be living with my parents at 24. I'm looking at three to four more months of it before I go to camp.

And then camp. I don't know what I'm doing. There's a possibility that Jeff will be there. I've been telling everyone that it doesn't matter, that I can do this. But of course, it causes more than some anxiety.

Yesterday I was thinking about that whole situation. And I flashbacked to breaking up with Jeff and the day he moved out. When I came home and his things were gone I collapsed on the floor. And I did that more than a few times over the next few months when I'd just be alone at home doing everyday activities and the slightest things would remind me of him.

If I ever met Jeff again, and I was in some position where I would be asked for an explanation, I honestly don't know what I would say.

"I'm sorry. I guess you just caught me on the wrong end of a nervous breakdown."

And I know that's not all of it. And I know he was not for me, but I just hate how these things work.

You know what else, I've been thinking about? Being the between person. I wish there was a term for it. You know how in the movies there's a couple main characters who are on a quest to fall in love with each other, only there are these supporting actors who play their lover or something, and you want them to break up so the main people can get together?

You know what I'm talking about. Like Walter, in Sleepless in Seattle. You know how Annie Reed says to Becky something about how "you think you could tell what he's like by looking at him but you just can't." Remember?

Or when Maggie Rice decides not to go to the cabin and marry that other doctor she works with at the hospital in City of Angels because she's in love with Seth? You don't want her to be with that doctor guy. You want her to be with Seth, even though they can't touch each other because he's an angel, because they're in love.

So here's the thing: I'm that doctor guy. Seriously. Only, maybe we're all that doctor guy. Because you have to be one or the other. You're the in-between thing or you're it.

See, the thing about my exes all being in love, as I have said before, is not necessarily that they are in love that bothers me. It's whom they fell in love with that bothers me. Because in most of the cases I know both parties, and it just ends up making me feel like the Walter. Like I'm the obstacle they had to go through to get together.

And I watch those movies. And I believe in love. So of course I don't want to be the Walter. I want the Sams and Annies of the world to get together.

This is true. I'm not just reading into things. My most recent boyfriend broke up with me to be with his best friend's sister. Who didn't see that coming. As soon as I learned he had a new girlfriend, I immediately knew it was her. The first night I took him out when I was dropping his best friend off at home, he said, "Nathan, I swear I'm going to marry your sister one day."

I shit you not.

There are others, but I think you get the picture. So, it's like, I couldn't be mad at Craig for that. Who am I to stand in the way. Plus, I'd never doubt myself or feel bad because somebody didn't want to be with me. For any reason. Because if there's one thing I learned it's that you can't feel guilty over your own emotions. You could be with somebody one day and be happy, and the next day they could wake up and just not be in love with you anymore. That's the way it goes. And when that happens, you deal with it.

I can deal with just about anything. I just would rather not be the Walter, you know?

And then what?

Should I talk about the aching in my head? The not being able to breathe that comes along with winter illness?

Or should I talk about the body aches and the tiredness that can't quite seem to overcome the pseudoephedrine combined with antihistimines in my "nighttime" medication and how they seem to cut it less every day?

Or should I quit the whining and talk about school, or more about Moby Dick, or the songs I'm writing?

Maybe I could write about loneliness, and how loneliness caused by circumstance, rather than the self, is somehow more bearable because you can pretend it isn't real. It isn't chosen; it's just a symptom of the getting my shit together virus.

I'm pissed about being sick because it means I can't go dancing tomorrow night. Lame.

And also because being sick makes you sort of cranky, and the lack of sleep or food because of the sickness only adds to the just overall negativity of the situation. Being caged in your own body while some unknown lifeforce conspires a system overhaul.

I could talk about the phone calls. That's another thing that sucks about being sick. Today I got several phone calls from people I haven't talked to in awhile. Important people. The people you'd want to talk to when your doing great. The people you would smile at even on the phone. Instead, when they ask how you're doing, you can only answer in this sheepish, half-assed voice that you are ill.

Just for this week, though. The sickness only started Monday, so you fish around in your mind for one of the million stories of things that have happened over the last few months that you could catch up on. They are either fuzzy in your medicated brain or just plainly unsuitable for the ears of your company.

Meh. I just need to get better. I got sick this week, but before that, all I could think about were the things I couldn't do. Because of work or lack of money or a car or being at my parents' house. Now, that I am sick, all I can think of are things I could do and would do if I were healthy. Numero uno, play my guitar.

I talked to Trevor today. We've been playing phone tag for about three weeks. And I finally got to talk to him tonight. We go out of our way to get in touch every couple months. Only, this time I decided I want to see him, so we're going to figure something out.

It's funny how in this city it can be so impossible to see some people they may as well live in Oregon. He's staying on the north side of town. I'm staying on the southwest side of town. I did think about going to see him when my car worked, but I was busy driving to Pasadena at the time, and didn't want to lose my sense of direction.

It only recently became so clear to me that I truly do want to see him. It's been almost a year. You'd think if he could go to Canada, and I could go to Washington, and we could wind up in the same place, then, no matter what, we should be able to see each other. But seeing each other would only complicate things. Because for so long I held onto our last goodbye in my head as if it were a neat tiny package. And so unwrapping it would be just like when you're a kid and you find out where your mom hid the Christmas presents. And how just wanting a peak at them would fuck the whole job up, and you'd be found out.

So I guess that sums it up. I was afraid. I was afraid of too many things to count. I was afraid of clouding up my perfect memory images, the ones that have smoothed over and taken their shape over much time and thought, that I've gotten to look at through time's many respective colorful kaleidescopes.

And I was afraid of not being in control, like when your sick. Like how, when your sick, your body tells you when it's time to rest. And I can't control my illness, just like I can't always control my emotions. But the better thing about the emotions is that they don't have to control you.

And one of the things I learned in just the last few months, is that they can control you in two ways, by propelling you to and from people and situations.

You may not know what for shame I'm babbling about. I haven't taken those of you who read this into account during much of these spoutings off tonight. It's ridiculous and rude, and I blame the Theraflu, or the just plain flu.

I imagine it would be like being the new friend or lover in the room while a group of old college buddies reminisced and played catchup.

Or like starting to read a book or watch a television series in the middle.

Or maybe, if you've read many books by a favorite writer, like I do with Nick Hornby and Nora Ephron, you could pick any page or chapter, and get a feel for the characters, and just know from the patterns and recurring themes how it ends.

And if you knew, wouldn't you still read it for the little things? The digressions that make so many modern works of fiction worthwhile. Or would you set it down, never finish it, and casually and broadly speak about it in conversations at parties?