Mission

A few blocks away, over on Mission, there is a liquor store called Don's. It is ran by a man named Randy. I walk over there whenever the president speaks on television. Randy has a small TV set behind the counter and he puts the speech on it for me. I get a Styrofoam cup from next to the soda fountain and dump Christian Brothers into it. Randy doesn't like it when I drink in the store but he turns his head when the president is on TV. Sean sits outside chain smoking and drinking Old Crow. I get tired of hearing the same things so I sit on the curb with Sean drinking during the applause and laughing at the kid begging for change.

our (almost)hero returns from abroad

I've been back in California a few days. Halloween came and went with much less then a mild yawn. Spending four days in a row seeing some of the best bands ever, drinking some of the best beer and singing and shouting with some of your best friends will make you forget about halloween.


So, about this announcement. Yes, I decided where I am moving to. I am very excited. Very. Excited. I'm looking forward to not driving and going to more shows and not slanging peppers' margaritas and hopefully sitting next to a fire place.

Chicago, here I come.

My expected departure date from California is December 23rd. Mark your calenders.

I am walking to the liquor store. We will speak again soon.

It's been a few days, no?

Nothing to exciting going on over here. We got hot water back at our house after 5 or so days, so I'm smelling a little better. The Fair opened, which is the like 11 day long drunken high school reunion with gang fights, underage pregnancies, tractor races, the Charlie Daniels Band, and a demolition derby. We are high class. Going to the fair is the motivation for posting again. I have some fun stuff in the works, but that is for another time.

Today I need your help.

As mentioned previously, I will be moving somewhere at the end of the year. I have some cities in mind: Seattle, Chicago, Minneapolis, Eugene, and recent newcomer Austin. Boulder/Denver dropped of the list because I couldn't bear to attend Broncos games. Here are my criteria for my new home, in order.

1. Good public transportation/No sprawl. I will not own a car. WILL NOT. I'll have a bicycle though, so a little sprawl is ok.
2. A "Scene". I would prefer a good punk rock/underground/whatever scene, or at least a place to see live shows, and hopefully play.
3. Football. Being a Bears fan, a city with a NFC team would be nicest, but almost any team will do. Also, college football would work. That's one of the things that got Austin involved in the mix.
4. Bars. Both for employment and entertainment. Everywhere has bars, but some places only have shitty bars.
5. Studio apartments. I will 99% be doing this by myself, so I would like affordable housing. I wont have much in terms of possessions, so it won't have to be big.

So there you go.

I know about Chicago, I've been there a couple times. I sort of know about Seattle, from the couple of nights I spent there recently and from hearing Whit's stories. But as for the others on my list, I'm pretty much limited to info on the internet. That is fine, but I prefer hearing about it from someone who lives there and might have some similar interests to mine. So if you live in any of the places, or have, or spent a bunch of time, or have friends who live there, give me some info, please? Or if you know of a place that might fit me, let me know.

You guys are great, whoever you are.

Tomorrow, one story that sums up my personality/life's path. It's a good one. There's no Lita Ford.

the loosing of ties that bind

You remember people moving away. There were kids who would move in the middle of the school year. One day you are teasing some poor kid with them, the next they are telling you about Kansas City. The ones who moved in the middle of the year always moved to a "City" of some kind. Then it was the kids who you had shared a couple of years of school with, and this would be the last June you saw them. They would say goodbye to third grade, the Antelope Valley, and you. Then the family would move. Grandparents, retiring from work and constant showering of you with affection, would hit the road. Aunts and Uncles would soon follow. The cousins of course would have to go, even if their parents hit them with belts, even if they promised to come back. Neighbors would come and go, a better job, a better house, a better neighborhood. Teachers you had hoped to have the next year would be gone before Independence Day. Soccer teammates would leave just as soon as you started to remember their older sister's name.

And that was life. Person after person, family after family, crush after crush, best friend after best friend would leave the Antelope Valley. And you? You stayed.

You got the keys to your house so you could come and go as you pleased while your parents did anything BUT parent. You would sneak drinks, or pills, or porn. You made plans to join the masses, to get out! You were never coming back once your feet or tires hit the asphalt. You categorized the things that made you happy, the things that made you sad, and the things that did nothing at all. You knew what was going in you backpack/trunk/cardboard box that would help you keep living. And you planned. You put maps on your walls. You put push pins in possible destinations for your wandering heart. You ranked all of your friends in order of likelihood to join you in a cross country bus trip to a strange town. Every girl you met, you would picture them standing with you next to some lake you had only heard about on television or read about in books, hoping the picture looked right. It would consume your every thought. And one day you did it. You got out.

You left at the end of one season, and were home before the next season was finished. You walked out of your front door for the last time and the leaves on the trees were still a magnificent green, and you were back before they left the branches.

Some of your friends had moved on. Some had stuck around. You would tell stories of the things you saw and the things you did, and no one knew if you were lying, but you didn't have to. You had been ALIVE for 3 months, and these poor suckers didn't change at all. The reasons you came back? Not important. You would tell anyone what they wanted to hear. It was a girl. It wasn't what you were looking for. Your roommate was a bastard. Your band was more important than whatever you were doing there. You didn't fit in.

But really you were scared. It wasn't as easy as all of these people had made it out to be. But, really, you weren't in their heads. You didn't know anything of the sleepless nights, the empty kisses, the warm drinks. You just knew they were gone and you would never see them again.

So you tried again. Or you tried to make plans to try again, but you didn't go anywhere. You told your girlfriend you were moving, and broke up with her, only to have to admit a month later that you weren't going anywhere and you still loved her. And that was life.

Till you tried to make plans again. And they fell through. And again. And again. And again.

You still lived here, but your address changed faster than you could, or wanted to, forward the mail. You made new friends, and you lost old ones. And then one day you made it happen. You left again, but this time not for good, just for a while. And you missed everyone you left behind, until it was time to come back. And you don't know if you wanted to. Not because this new place was anything special, but because where you were heading was nowhere special either.

But you showed up that afternoon. And nothing had changed. Hair was longer, or shorter. Friends missed you, or didn't. Your bed was warm, or it wasn't. But you lied in it. Your old routines became new routines. Your old fights became new fights. Your old life became your new life.

Until it wasn't your life anymore.

So you jump from a couch to a guest bed to a borrowed bed to your own bed. And you make new friends. And you meet new women. And every morning you wake up alone. And sometimes there is coffee. Sometimes there is breakfast. Sometimes there is nothing.

And here you are. Your almost 25. And your friends are hearing the same rumblings they have heard a thousand times before. Some new city. Some new plan. Some new life. And you understand if they don't believe you. And you understand if they think you are crazy. And you understand if they think you will fail. Because you have all those same thoughts every time you tell anyone what you want to do. You look into eyes of lovers and friends and strangers and hope to see some sort of encouragement, some sort of support. But it's not there, and you don't blame them. You won't hold it against them, because you'll probably need their couch in a few months anyways.

on your last night in town

So tonight is your last night in town. You'll spend it in a house with ugly blue carpet with friends and drinks and your dog. You'll probably be doing some last minute packing. There will be some tears. Part of me wants to be there, but most of me knows it is better if I am not.

We spent some horrible times together these last few years. And we have spent just as many wonderful ones. There's been nights I wish I could never forget, but I will, and nights I want to throw away, but I will never be able to.

I've known of your existence for probably 15 years. We were friends for close to 10. We were more for 5. And now I don't know what we are. It is sad, but it is reality. For every mean thing I ever said I thought two sweet things. And for every time I broke your heart I broke my own too.

I've heard that you have said I am no longer the person you fell in love with. I agree. I haven't been that person in a couple of years. You are no longer the girl I feel in love with either. But you can't be nineteen forever, right? If there is anything I have realized in these recent months is that we constantly reinvent little parts of ourselves, and if you are too close to the fire you don't notice it getting stronger or dying out. Piece after piece, thought after thought, love after love, they all add up and before we know it we are different.

In 24 hours you'll be on the road with your now ex-roommates, in another state, on your way to another one, and more after that. You'll see things you have never seen before, and things that are familiar. Days will pass. Then weeks, then months, and years. And we will forget the things we said that we meant, and the things we didn't. We'll forget the sunsets and the trips and the fights and the songs. And one day you'll wake up to realize you haven't thought of me in a long time, and you will smile, and you will be happy.

Or you won't.

I don't want to tell you to be safe, I want to tell you to be strong. I don't want to tell you to be careful, I want to tell you to be consistent. I don't want to tell you to forget me, but you should. I don't want to tell you good bye, but I will.

Goodbye.

where have I been? not so sure

Yesterday I did a little slip and sliding. Yup, i's awesome.

About every 3 months get this urge to move. Sometimes its to another part of the glorious Antelope Valley (Rattling the Kettle - They call it Antelope Valley because the first high school here was Antelope Valley, not because of dead animals!) Rarely it's to another country. Most of the time it is to one of a couple cities. It used to be Boulder, CO. Then it was Chicago, IL. Now it's Seattle, WA. (For a hot second it was Minneapolis, MN) I think I still would love to live in Chicago, but someone stole it from me right under my nose. Boulder, or rather Denver, is the same distance from both sets of my parents and from Lancaster, my eternal home. Which makes it very appealing. But I am gonna stick around for a while.

The nice thing about these urges is they always happen when I feel my life is getting super shitty. And at that same point a series of things happen that remind me life is actually ok and I have a great group of friends here.

It will happen someday, and it will be fun, and then I'll be back.

almost a second chance

I spent 20 minutes trying to find the right music to play while I wrote this. It ended up being Hey Mercedes.

I am not one to have a large backpack full of regrets, more like a wallet, a little kid wallet. I remember when I got my first wallet, it was a shitty red nylon one, and it had some change, a dollar or two, a picture of my parents and something with my address on it. Stupid little thing. Anyways, my "regret wallet" is mostly empty. I put events/people/places into it occasionally, and after a few years/months/days/minutes I take them out, realizing I am happy where I am now, and I wouldn't be here with/without that thing.

I do regret not buying the last Jawbreaker album when I found out about them in junior high and they were still together, but I probably would have sold it back at some point to buy a korn record, so I am actually ok with it. Besides, who would have wanted to be that cool in junior high? (HA!)

The main regret tormentor has always been my involvement with the fairer sex. Not the ones I actually stumbled into some sort of relationship but the ones I didn't. And not the ones I didn't because they saw behind the curtain or I wasn't boxing my weight, but the ones who because of circumstances it was impossible.

I had a girlfriend. They had a boyfriend. They lived in another state/country. They were married. I didn't know there name. I was moving away. They were moving home.

It's not even really a regret, actually. It's a what-if? What if any of those mitigating factors were gone and something could have happened, even for a night?

Most of these girls are very long gone and forgotten, thrown out with the boxes of pictures/address books/childhood memorabilia I have left at the dump during one of my many moves. Names and faces blur together. Did I meet them in a store, or under a tree, or at a friends apartment, or never at all?

Those chances never present themselves again.

Except this time.

I might have a second chance at a first shot.

What happens in bed stays in bed

I am not going to get out of bed until this is finished.

I haven't been much of a dreamer since I was about 17. Not the sleep time dreams, my teeth fall out while I am stuck in a never ending fall in the middle of Las Vegas at least twice a night, but more the John Lennon type. I don't dream of grandiose changes to the psyche of the American public. I don't hope for the perfect mate to fall out of the bar stool next to me. I try not to make any plans, because I usually sabotage them before the get to pressing. I don't want to be anything.

To an extent, if I want something to happen, I make it happen. But for every night of singalongs around a table of beer I have two nights of working. I know, necessary evil, right? Fuck that. No evil is necessary. If we don't want to do something, we shouldn't. We all make compromises, and I am ok with some of mine, I just don't to be defined by my compromises, or my failures.

It has been said that the Antelope Valley has a large magnetic pull, which not only keeps the meth-heads here, but also pulls back in most long term residents should they happen to move away. It's happened twice for me, once from San Diego and once from Sacramento. I've also been in various stages of planning to move to Ventura, Colorado Springs, Chicago and Minneapolis (the last one is just in my head, which is probably where it will stay).

And all of that ties in with my lack of dreams. My lack of ambition. All of my desire is wrapped up in mostly booze, some making out, and a little music. I can make those three things happen. I can't make anything else work.

I am safe.