Call me when you try to wake her.

So sorry for not updating. I've been out there living and breathing and walking and spending money. Making the world spin. Making my head spin.

New York was great again. Everytime I leave I feel like I'm leaving something great in my life. I've taken on a second job to fulfill my goal of my newest project "5,000 or Bust" (meaning I need that amount of money or nothing.) I've got a sizeable chunk out of the way, but it'll be good to have it all done.

Jane has left. I can't believe that I was actually standing at the airport watching her go. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do. She knows that. Amy knows that. Judy does too. I didn't want to be standing there, I didn't want to have dinner at Macaroni Grill the night before. I didn't want to have to play the last game of Scrabble with her. I didn't want to have to keep hugging her again and again so I could just know how it feels to be that close with her. What's an ocean between us right? I couldn't cry when she left, or in the car leaving, or the drive to Denton. When I got here I just let it out and lay there. I love her so much.

Listen, you'll have to excuse me. I have a lunch meeting with Cliff Huxtable at the Four Seasons in 20 minutes.

Two days in NYC so far.

We landed late Thursday night and crashed. I crashed. I had been up for way too long studying for my linguistics class and hoped to sleep on the plane. Didn't happen. So Thursday for me was all about getting to one destination: a bed.

Friday we got up late and went to eat at Junior's here in Brooklyn. Did I ever tell you guys how much I love Sauerkraut? I wanted to dance a bit when I ate Sauerkraut, but being in a confined space and with Amy and Jane there, I had to dance in my head. I think the Time Warp from Rocky Horror is a good dance to do for food.

We went to the MET and I felt lost most of the time. It's a labyrinth. The sculpture exhibit there is great.

Virgin Megastore, Strand Books, Karaoke in K-town. I sang Michael Jackson's Ben, which is my safety song. I know it by heart. I had a friend named Ben, still do, and I'd like to shout that out for a sec. Ben, you gotta song.

Yesterday was shopping. Got some books, Talking Heads stuff, hung out on Bleeker Street. Bought a faux Coach purse in Chinatown. Drank alot with an NYC police officer (training) and everyone. Two mind erasers and I don't remember getting home. I think we took a cab. I don't remember a train.

Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the Universe.

I've been sick, thought to be fired, thought to be ON fire, and fell asleep in the middle of drinking a cherry coke. Plus I slept on my glasses and made my face look like some discarded Picasso painting. I bloodied two of my knuckles without knowledge, broke a plate while washing it and nearly got hit by a Miata this morning.

But I'm leaving for NY on Thursday and none of this seems to matter.

Jane and I will be flying to NY (via Atlanta) Thursday and spend the weekend doing NY things. I guess gawking and getting lost, and then finding cool things and then being exhausted. That's what tourists do right? I hope to go to the East Village. We're going to The Met this Friday. We did't get a chance last time.

Quick. Someone tell me where I can get a faux pink Coach bag!

I wanna see the hands. Come on. Which one of you nuts has got any guts?

I woke up feeling sick. I think I haven't had a cold this bad in well, years. I'm just going to go blow money on OJ and antihistamines until I can see through lead or run a marathon.

On the way home from class earlier I ran into Luke who was already sitting in front of his house double fisting coffee and a Mickeys. This is pretty usual for Luke since he spends his days doing nothing but trying to become less and less appealing, but this morning has taken the cake. Apparently he had gotten into a fight last night/early morning with some hippie kid named Sloane. I'm not sure who won, but Luke's wrist looks broken. He doesn't want to go to the hospital (lack of insurance) so he's got a towel wrapped around it and resting in his lap. It's really purple and bruised. I should've forced him to go, but I mean, it's Luke and there's not much you could do. Then we talked about beating people until their unconscious, and then making them wake up in odd situations. Like, beating up that hippie guy until he passes out, then go put him in a house with a wife and a kid, a minivan. He'd be like "whoa, they beat me into suburbia."
We also tried the situation where the guy would wake up as a fry cook at Denny's and an Eskimo on a hunting trip.

Plus: I'm back on myspace. The pressure was too much and I broke.

Rachidian

It always makes me think of Rome, the way the sun hits the buildings in the afternoon.

I couldn't sleep right away.
I read some, but then I remembered I had to send a couple of e-mails (one to Jerry in Japan, one to my younger brother Seth) then started to peruse YouTube.
I was looking through all my videos that I've saved over the past month, when I found out you COULD save videos, Here are my favorites (so far):

A Tribe Called Quest-Check The Rhyme
The Flaming Lips- Mr. Ambulance Driver
Camper Van Beethoven- Take The Skineheads Bowling
The Smiths- Panic
Talking Heads- And She Was
The Descendents- I'm The One
Men Without Hats- Safety Dance
Alphaville- Forever Young
Barenaked Ladies- Easy
Porno For Pyros- Pets
Me Myself and I- De La Soul

Man. I love ALL those videos.

Russia, are you not speeding along like a fiery and matchless troika?

Hey.

I'm trying to read Julio Cortazar/listen to Suicidal Tendencies/drink Optimator. The combination is confusing yet stimulating.
New York is on the horizon again. Jane and I are going to go the last weekend of October becuase....well, just becuase we want to. I can't wait. New York is still surreal to me even know it'll be my third visit. It's an overwhelming feeling to be there, to be around all the life that's happening. It always makes me think of a city that's constantly moving- not just the people but the bricks and the ironworks and the bridge. Like these inanimate objects are also living and breathing there, moving along with everything else.

Denton is still Denton and will forever always be Denton. Whatever image you have of Denton in your mind right now is the same exact image of Denton as it probably is right now. I do love it here, but it's getting a bit tedious. We saw a big "gang" fight in front of our house last night. Strange. I saw someone get hit with a baseball bat HARD.

I was talking with Jane the other night after we had left the Old Monk in Dallas. We were there for her friends birthday. I was thinking about my line of work, the mental health racket, and wondering how much of "me" is involved with it. I would never opt for another job, If I had to do it all over again I would, but at the same time I wonder if people are only interested in that fact. The fact that, yeah, I've had to deal with stuff that's way out of the norm. People love looking at car crashes, and watching scary movies. It's an entire different thing to live it. I have to equate those two instances with my life while working at a mental institution. It was a long series of events that I don't feel comfortable about. I've recently started writing down a lot of things that went on, trying to sort them out in my mind. I don't regret the things I've done but sometimes I have huge questions about them.

I'm a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.

I think my favorite Bob Dylan song is Wigwam.


Working on a couple of new stories.

I only read futures, I don't evaluate them.

There are two things in my life that I don't have time for. Adult Contemporary Jazz and Golfing, yet this morning when I woke up I thought, "Wow this weather would be great to play Golf in." The Jazz part is just something that I know I'll never have time for, on the pure base fact that I don't get it.

I had a dream last night that I was still living back in the apartment with Jane. It was like I woke up and I was in our bedroom and I walked into the living room and checked my e-mail and went back to bed. Then I woke up to my alarm and realized I was here on Sycamore street and that TAD had his NPR/alarm blaring the BBC. It was weird to wake up twice in two different places. My mind woke up there but my body woke up here.

I am having a love affair with this ice cream sandwich.

Ugh.

My allergies are killing me to the point where you sniffle so much in class, and then the girl behind you offers you a tissue becuase somehow you're offending her. Thanks girl with lowrise jeans and pink ROXY t-shirt. I appreciate it.

Last night we watched Bring It On: All or Nothing, completing the trilogy of Cheertastic movies. It was...entertaining. Pretty much the same premise (white school vs. black school with the one Asian cheerleader in the mix). I wonder if that's how living in a Cheerleader world really is. Always having to play the race card while doing double lutzes and yelling Go Whoever. Heavy issues man.

I'm off to have lunch with Luke and Aya and then work.

This must be where pies go when they die.

My meeting with the Undergraduated English advisor, Terrence, was this morning. Two classes. Two more classes and then I'll be finished with my degree in Creative Writing.

When I was younger, I collected office supplies in hopes of one day working in a cubicle or an office. I would have staplers and reams of paper, a couple of typewriters (Computers were still foreign to me at that age) and a desk my dad bought at an office surplus store. I'd spend hours arranging and collating, filing things with stickers and labels. Subconsciously, I think that I wanted to be middle of the road, average necktie and jacket kind of guy. It was a sense of security, being able just to have some sort of job from 9-5 with a pension and a Datsun.

Gone are those days.

Drowning is my third favorite way to die. But, they are all good.

I have finally moved.
The apartment is really, well, empty. And big. I can't belive we had that much space.

The new place is alright. I have a much smaller room, two roomates and no internet thus far. I'm on TAD's computer next door. It's not the same. I'm trying to break my addiction to the internet but at the same time I'm fiending for it hard. I need all the useless information it has to offer, I need to check my gmail a thousand times a day.

Jane and I went to the Magnolia last night. A Scanner Darkly was great. I've never read much Philip K. Dick, a short story here or there, But I really liked the way Richard Linklatter filmed it. It was hilarious. I'm glad that cast Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson as junkies. Junkies playing junkies, blurring the lines of reality once more.

Draped across the armchair in front of the stove, in the opposite corner of the room, Mr. Farthingale spied his robe.

Who needs a house out in Hackensack? Is that what you get with your money?
- She pulled the vinyl stars from the wall as if pulling the light out of the night sky. I need more boxes.

Rock and Roll Hoochie Coo- The new house is well....it's a House of Rock and Roll. Not the HORR bar out in El Paso, but a real house, with people living there. I plan on spending most of my time recording many of the projects I have seeme do surround myself with. People at Borders always ask me when I have time to sleep, and the general answer is always when I get a chance.
New York State of Mind- Our trip to New York is coming up quicker than I can think. There's just a few things I want to see piled on top of the general things(Empire State Building, MOMA). I'd like to go to CBGB's, McSweeney's, and Central Park. At least a little bit of it. Last time I was there we just kind of, well,looked at it from across the way. It looked nice.

What's with all the Billy Joel?

My dog didn't bark but sniffed their crotches; maybe they had been somewhere interesting.

Work is the grand cure of all the maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind- Sometimes I sit and wonder what a "normal" job is. I think I had one, once upon a time ago. I've been working in and around the MHMR field for going on seven years soon. Explaining it to people I see their reactions as a mix of horror and fear, or the ladle out the praise: You're such a good person. I could never do what you do. Yes. Yes you can. You just have to really have to drop preconceived norms and go with it.

It was a dark and stormy night, and all you could make out was a lighthouse along side the road- The joke that has been forbidden has risen again. I had a request for the lighthouse joke twice today. Once by a customer who had only overheard the middle part.Actually, I'm getting sick of it. But I have a new joke now. A better, more powerful one.

Um, so, are you like in a band?- Someone asked me that today while eyeing my tattoos. I should have told them I was something more ordinary, like a Snakecharmer. Because that's what's right underneath "being a member of a band" on the job scale. Yes, I'm in a band. And yes, we play these two shows this month:
July 15th @ RGRS in Denton:

Las Munequitas de Muerte
1) Man Factory
2) The Pebble that Saved the World
3) Blackheart Society
4) Art Howe

July 31@ J&J's Pizza in Denton:
The Pebble That Saved The World
Sarah Reddington
Fire Don't Care
No City

a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality

I took an apartment near the state university, where I discovered both crystal methamphetamine and conceptual art.

I learned yesterday at work that all the Life Saver Training that I go through ever single year (for five years now) won't help me save someone drowning. Please, don't ask me to help you if you drown becuase I'll probably take your temp and and try to expell a meatball lodge in your throat.

-All Roads Lead Back to Tucson- Tonight I'll be at The Gypsy Tea Room to see Roger Clyne and The Peacemakers nee The Refeshments. I'm really excited, I had to miss the last show (I still feel bad Carina) so this one I've definately got to make up for it. Plus they have a new EP out.....I just checked the website. ONLY available Itunes. Damn it all.


-Pop music is about saying "fuck me". Rock and roll is about saying "fuck you- Another show at J&J's on Saturday. Velma Loves Daphne. Maaster Gaiden. The Pebble That Saved The World. Druids On Parade. A bunch of Dallas bands. It should be fun, but we're not playing any more shows until the tour. Brian, Jacob and I recorded the first two songs for Wizards vs. Dragons last night. Look for a show soon.

They took my mother’s stomach out about six months ago.

I just got back from Bowie. Don't bother looking it up, it's a horrible little place full of potholes and burned out houses. I imagine that's what people who reside in other states think of when they think of Texas. Just a bunch of meth labs and horses.

My mom called me today and informed me that one of my friends had drowned in the resevoir back home this morning. Seth's Company was called out with a team of divers to look for the body. I don't know when the funeral services are going to be. Seth has stayed home the rest of the day and isn't taking any phone calls. Not even mine. Dereck called me not too long after I hung up with my mom. He was pretty upset as well. He was worried about Seth (which is very odd) and plans on driving up there tonight. I wish I could do the same. Seth is young, too young to really be seeing stuff like that.
But then I think.
I was just a little bit older whenever I had to face something like that. They can give you all the leave they have available, try to sign you up with counselors and preachers and other people but it doesn't make any sense. They weren't there. I think it's best to let Seth just work it out and figure things out on his own.

The original darkness was still there in the stories, and it was still very dark indeed.

The weekend has been long. Work was good, nay, great and I got some sleep in.

Secret Headquarters Not So Secretive- There were quite a lot of people at the show, which is alway surprising. Jacob's voice is pretty much gone, it's all the Scientist's Blood (a concotion of alcohol, energy drink and fruit punch that Camella always makes for us) and too many unfiltered cigarettes. There was much merriment and mirth to be had by all.

Go Away!- Greg and Tina's going away party fell a little flat. Set to a background of traditional Irish music Jane and I sauntered inside and out, trying to find our place amongst so many familar faces. Needless to say we left early. Mike D now resembles someone that I could totally see living in Florida.

Of Mythology and Men of Tomorrow- My parents are having a grand garage sale coming up soon, and that means that much of my life pre-Denton is either to be trashed or sold. Since I'm not there to intervene, my parents judgement presides. The only thing I really wanted to keep was my comic books (boxes and boxes) and my Norse mythology books. All of fifth and sixth grade I was enamored with the destructive gods and drunk vikings. Hopefully these treasures will be back with me soon.

Work work and work. I need more time to do things. The curse of adulthood and responsibilities.

"To take upon us the mystery of things"—what King Lear so wistfully says for himself and for Cordelia.

I don't have much to say.
Here:

- Learned that a co-worker, Jeff in the Cafe, has written a rather lengthy and extensive Sci-fi novel and is having it published soon. I sort of drowned in my own self pity there during our hour together at lunch. Oh yeah, he's 18, fresh out of High School. I asked him where he found the time to write it: "I don't know. I can't sleep sometimes, and I thought it'd be cool to write a novel." Congrats Jeff for the reality check.

- Camella is sick. She's getting better but for some reason it bothers me when she's sick. I wish I could bring her soup or something, but I have built a reputation of being the guy to not bring soup, so the idea is moot.

-Someone in Philadelphia is angry with me, and I don't care.

- The show with The Tah-Dah's is coming up quick (tomorrow). Come if you read this. This means you all from Arlington to Dallas. You get to see the full band, all five of us now. Brian and I joke about having some gospel back up singers, but under the joking facade I did a mental check to see if I knew any gospel singers. I've got plans, baby.

I hope the weekend finds you well. And those afternoons you spend flipping through cable channels you should be thinking of something else. Go solve a problem or something.

It’s a choice between sleep and breakfast, and I go with sleep.

A very sinister day. All day I've had those dark rain clouds that you see in cartoons following me around.
"You sound like Eyeore today."- Chrissy (as told through a mouthful of bagel.)

I got a message from my parents asking me when I'm going to get my life together, just a random call that leads me to doom. I guess my life isn't together for them enough. All day I'm walking around until lunch hits, and as I sit in the breakroom eating my daily sandwich (from home) David Byrne a la The Talking Heads comes over the radio- I guess it's healthy, I guess the air is clean./I guess those people have fun with their neighbors and friends/Look at that kitchen and all of that food/Look at them eat it' guess it tastes real good.
I never have ever wanted to buy tiles for a kitchen. I've never wondered if I should buy a brass knocker or a silver one for my front door. I've never thought about actually owning and maintaing a working lawn mower. These things that my dad, my brothers, my mother, everyone I ever grew up with worry about on a daily basis, and I can't connect to any of it. I don't think I'm totally cut out to be that type of person, someone that has a mortgage. My brother wants to have children. He sent me an e-mail last week asking about parenting books at Borders for his lady fair (I actually have forgotten her name.....). I just think in my mind that I'll carry them to the register and buy them and get suspicious glances from people wondering what kind of father I would be. I don't want to deal with that.

In lighter news.....The Pebble That Saved The World/ The Tah-Dah's show is coming up this Saturday at SHQ in Denton TX. We're playing with a full band now, I hope it sounds well. Well enough so I can quit my dayjob and live on the coast and try pilates and Scientology, and yell at PA's about my panini not being grilled enough.