I'm back in Chicago. I've been visiting since Friday, I leave early
tomorrow. It's been a strange trip. I saw a good friend get married
and it was wonderful.
I'm trying to figure out how to not put the cart before the horse.
I don't know what I'm doing anymore.
I'm going to see the bean, maybe he has some advice.
It was a success!
I'm 27, have been for more than a week now.
Am I alive? Yes.
Am I happy? Yes.
Am I freaking out? Of course.
It'll be ok, whats the worse that can happen.
This might be our last night at this bar. I'm a little sad. I've grown
to like it in the few days we've spent here.
I feel like I'm either out of the loop or in the center of the storm.
Either way it feels pretty nice.
I'm not sure when things happen in life and that counts as meeting new
people. And I don't know if the people you meet are new, or their
attitudes are new, or if you are new.
I know this though, there is a bartender in Long Beach who plays the
songs that murder my heart.
But should that matter? And should it count?
Fuck it.
I'm just trying not to freak out and loose my mind.
And accidentally fall in love.
I fall in love enough.
I need a sandwich.
This is a preface to what will spill out of me tonight at the bar with shuffleboard.
I think about you sometimes. I imagine you are riding your bike, like I am. I'm hoping some one is happy to hear you coming up the steps, driveway, whatever. Maybe somewhere some one is painting you a picture, or writing you a letter, and they have the postage to send it. I hope you don't drink too much, and when you do, I know you will, when you do, you call a friend you haven't spoken to in a while. I hope they are happy to hear from you. I hope the miles and roads between us get smaller everyday. I think you might be getting a handle on this stuff, the distance from family, the art bouncing around in side, the self destructive behavior. This summer will be better then all the other ones past. This will be the summer we do things people will write plays about, we'll make stories that people we don't know will tell their kids and put themselves in our place. So cheer up. You'll make it through the year, you always have. You'll make a new friend or two, you'll lose a couple more. Just remember that its time to sing. Take a shower and live a little tonight, ok?
It was probably fifteen minutes past midnight, some Saturday or Friday night, probably March or April. My dad and I hadn't moved out of the house on Santa Rosa Circle yet. (That's the one with the names in the concrete) I had spent the evening out with my friend Nick Lee, he's famous, he was a waiter in an episode of Real Housewives of Orange County. We weren't drinking, or getting high. Fuck, we weren't even smoking cigarettes. We were driving around, eating fast food, maybe sliding on said fast food trays, maybe ghost riding shopping carts into polls. We ended up finding a sign for some church's open house and bringing it back to his garage. Or maybe we put it in someones lawn. That probably makes more sense. So we were fucking around with some church sign, totally sober. We lost track of time and I showed up fifteen or twenty minutes past curfew. I walked into the house and the fireplace was one, but all the lights were off.
Things had been strange in the Booth house those months. That is where this post came from. Just for reference.
By the fireplace there was our computer desk. My dad was sitting in the chair. He had been waiting for me and asked where I was. I told him. Nick. Church Sign. Sorry. He was upset. He said this:
"You aren't going to do this to me. Not like your mother."
I said I was sorry and went to bed.
I was seventeen, about to graduate, about to move to an unfamiliar city. My parents marriage was finally done. I didn't have time to argue with my dad about how I wasn't how he thought I was.
It is funny the times you find yourself giving up, or giving in.
I did both that night.
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I decided tonight I am going to be recording things into the voice memo app on my phone because its easier then setting up all the recording stuff and it makes me feel better about the immediacy of the whole thing. Here is the first one. Second or third try, recorded in my bathroom. I heard this song tonight for the first time in my life and I decided that it was a good place to start. Enjoy.
BOOTH! - Chelsea Hotel Number 2 (originally by Leonard Cohen) - http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?zunmdmzjetj
Expect more of EVERYTHING!
I use to have one of those 110mm cameras. I had got it from my grandmother, Constance. It had a brown leather-esque case. I took a lot of pictures with that camera. I remember when I got it, I put an info card in it, in case it got lost. My hand writing was extremely sloppy, more so than it is now. I still remember the way my name looked.
I feel related to everyone with the name Anthony. We are a part of group, a secret collective, that only I know about.
One day in high school we got out early, it was finals. I remember everyone was going to soccer practice or hangout or do something exciting, but not me. I snuck off. I took my 110mm camera and drove around to places that had been important to my romantic development. I took a picture of Michelle's house. I took a picture of Jennifer's House. I took a picture of the cul-de-sac I lost my virginity on. I took a picture of the playground where I had my first kiss, and then I turned around a took a picture of where I had my first real kiss. I took a picture of Kimmy's house.
I know I took a lot of pictures that day. I got them developed and I used to keep them in my backpack. I didn't show these pictures to many people, if any at all. I carried them with me in boxes for a few years, moving them from place to place, house to house, until just before I moved to Sacramento, right around when I started this blog.
I took my truck to the dump and threw away a lot of things. One of those things was the box with those pictures in them. There were a lot of pictures in that box, but I remembered that set, in the blue vinyl sleeve, as the one I thought about keeping.
Sometimes you have to start over.
I was in sixth grade. I had been dating this girl Raquel for a couple of months. The funny thing about sixth grade and dating is that nothing really happened, at least for me. No sneaky handjobs in the movie theater, no under the shirt, over the bra second base action, nothing. Anyways. I was in sixth grade, and I had managed to convince my mom to take me to the school for Raquel's little sister's christmas program. It was lame. But the point was to see Raquel and exchange christmas gifts. I dont remember what I gave her, but I do remember she gave me two things. She gave me a necklace with a key on it. That key fit into her necklace, a heart, and made it complete. It was totally tacky but at the time meant SO MUCH. And the other thing she gave me:
The biggest boner of my entire life.
Yup.
We kissed by a tire swing. It was my first kiss. And I got this crazy hard big boner that was uncomfortable and messy and wouldn't go away for almost 3 hours.
It wasn't big, literally, but it felt enormous.
And the kiss had no tongue or sloppiness, it was just lips to lips.
It was awesome.
I have problems with being ignored. I'm a pretty selfish person. But
the thing, funny or not, is that I only need acknowledgement. I'm
pretty sure I spelled that wrong. Anyways. I find myself fitting into
the same sort of thought all the time. There is ALWAYS a foot out the
door. Always. Why? Not exactly sure. Just the same way I don't
understand why the guy close to me keeps saying bro.
I am pretty selfish. That has to come out in this blog. Thinking
people care or are better off for hearing my stories about drunken
life failures, that's lame.
But this has turned into a mess.
I'm trying to find a medium where the interesting parts make sense.
And I'm trying to find a part of life where I don't lie. And I'm
trying to find a space to express everything.
I'm buying beers for people. Rather a beer for a guy.
Anyways.
Shuffleboard makes me want sandwhiches and attention.
I get neither.
Birthday soon.
It is late 1988. I am in first grade. My mom made me oatmeal for breakfast, I put extra brown sugar on it and washed it down with milk. There was probably some toast too. I run into my parents bedroom where my mom is getting ready for. Obviously, since its 1988, she has to take me to school on her way. She has a jewelery box on the headboard of the water bed she shares with my father. The box, not the bed, looks like it was carved from a fallen redwood, and its drawers are lined in felt. I climbed on to the bed and my little fingers dug through the jewelery.
"What are you doing?"
"Ummmmmmmmm, nothing"
"..."
"I need to give Ashley Jefferies a present. She likes jewelery, necklaces. You have a bunch of necklaces, I don't have any, so I should give her this one." I hold up a necklace made of white sea shells. It isn't a pooka shell necklace or whatever, but it similar.
"You should probably ask first"
"Ok. Mom, can I have one of your necklaces to give to Ashley Jefferries. I like her, and she might like me if I give her this. That's what she said"
My mom let me take the necklace to school and give it to Ashley. She liked it. She didn't like me.
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I was thinking about this story a couple of days ago. It's mostly true. Surprisingly I don't remember what i had for breakfast, or what I said to my mom one morning in 1988. I also might have given this necklace to a different girl, but because this is my blog, this is how it happened.
On the 16th I turn 27.
To celebrate this milestone I'll be putting up stuff like this. Little memories, expressions, stories, insights to why I am almost 27 and sandwich between a girl looking at Hello Kitty lunch pails and a guy watching wrestling with Korean subtitles in a university library.
Most of the stories will be mostly true.
Thanks for coming around.
