Ok, let me tell you about my day.
Last night the power went out so sizable chunks of today were spent adjusting to this. Total elapsed outage time, 21.5 hours. Eating melting ice cream before it becomes totally unrecognizable, driving two big bags of frozen meat to a friend's house because his refrigerator still had power and I could charge up my phone over there.
What I decided to do was to write a letter to John and Tina. These are the two friends of mine with whom I got stoned. By August 15th they'll be in Fairfield, California. (Home of Jelly Belly jelly beans) They're moving there because they're just about done with the midwest and I guess Marijuana being illegal out here stresses them out a scosch. As an aging 24 year old who lives in a little asshole of a suburb, is chained to his dying mother, and has trouble making new friends that don't live 30 miles away, this is pretty upsetting. I had planned for some time to write them a letter that I'd give to them before they leave, that they'd open upon settling into their new place out there. So my project while the power was out was to write this thing.
Maybe I've been made very anal about my writing after some years of college, but I started with brainstorming/outlining, then wrote a rough draft, and now I'm going to write up a final draft. I have this fancy faux telegraph stationary that I got from 'The Boring Store' in Chicago, which is actually a spy store, which I'm going to use. So I'm writing about how much I'm going to miss them, thanking them for being really good friends to me, telling them what I love about them, and trying to make some plan that I'll go out there this winter inbetween semesters and visit them.
This is difficult enough for me, but for some reason I wind up listening to this clip of Jack Kerouac from Woody Allen's Manhattan, where he talks about moving on in life and talks about the last page of his book On The Road. I thought the book was kinda pretentious when I read it three or four years ago but I knew it had been good. So I get it off my shelf and start reading the last page where Sal talks about the last times that Dean came out from California to visit him in New Jersey and the ways that each man expresses his deep and abiding love for the other. But their time is always short, and Dean Moriarity always has to go and catch a train to get back to his wife, and Sal is left to think about his past adventures with Dean, and he thinks about Dean, and again he thinks about Dean. And suddenly I start weeping. I'd been crying some on and off before this but I mean, lips curled back, can't breath, hands clenched over my face like a child bawling. I can't stop thinking about how terrible it is that these friends are leaving me, and how being friends with them is going to be a herculean task, and probably by this time next year we'll be distant and I'll be as alone as I've ever been in my life, and I still have to write out the final draft of this letter.
So I figure I'll go downstairs and play a record while I do it and along the way I pass a TV so I turn it on to catch the end of the Sox-Tigers game. The Sox had fought back from a big deficeit to tie the game and take it to the 14th inning, and in the top half Matt Thornton gave up a two run homer after pitching brilliantly for three innings or so. I come in for the bottom half of the inning, and I thought the Sox would go up and out in order. But then there's men on first and third and the Sox have already scored one back. Thome strikes out on a foul tip and then Nick Swisher nails a three-run, Game Winning, Walk Off home run off the closer Joel Zumaya, winner winner chicken dinner. So I flip out and put on my Sox hat and spin my cats around until they're dizzy and play Go Go White Sox and now I'm all cheered out and my cats are peeved at me. And I still have to write out the final draft of this letter.
It's a real roller coaster ride these days.
Last night the power went out so sizable chunks of today were spent adjusting to this. Total elapsed outage time, 21.5 hours. Eating melting ice cream before it becomes totally unrecognizable, driving two big bags of frozen meat to a friend's house because his refrigerator still had power and I could charge up my phone over there.
What I decided to do was to write a letter to John and Tina. These are the two friends of mine with whom I got stoned. By August 15th they'll be in Fairfield, California. (Home of Jelly Belly jelly beans) They're moving there because they're just about done with the midwest and I guess Marijuana being illegal out here stresses them out a scosch. As an aging 24 year old who lives in a little asshole of a suburb, is chained to his dying mother, and has trouble making new friends that don't live 30 miles away, this is pretty upsetting. I had planned for some time to write them a letter that I'd give to them before they leave, that they'd open upon settling into their new place out there. So my project while the power was out was to write this thing.
Maybe I've been made very anal about my writing after some years of college, but I started with brainstorming/outlining, then wrote a rough draft, and now I'm going to write up a final draft. I have this fancy faux telegraph stationary that I got from 'The Boring Store' in Chicago, which is actually a spy store, which I'm going to use. So I'm writing about how much I'm going to miss them, thanking them for being really good friends to me, telling them what I love about them, and trying to make some plan that I'll go out there this winter inbetween semesters and visit them.
This is difficult enough for me, but for some reason I wind up listening to this clip of Jack Kerouac from Woody Allen's Manhattan, where he talks about moving on in life and talks about the last page of his book On The Road. I thought the book was kinda pretentious when I read it three or four years ago but I knew it had been good. So I get it off my shelf and start reading the last page where Sal talks about the last times that Dean came out from California to visit him in New Jersey and the ways that each man expresses his deep and abiding love for the other. But their time is always short, and Dean Moriarity always has to go and catch a train to get back to his wife, and Sal is left to think about his past adventures with Dean, and he thinks about Dean, and again he thinks about Dean. And suddenly I start weeping. I'd been crying some on and off before this but I mean, lips curled back, can't breath, hands clenched over my face like a child bawling. I can't stop thinking about how terrible it is that these friends are leaving me, and how being friends with them is going to be a herculean task, and probably by this time next year we'll be distant and I'll be as alone as I've ever been in my life, and I still have to write out the final draft of this letter.
So I figure I'll go downstairs and play a record while I do it and along the way I pass a TV so I turn it on to catch the end of the Sox-Tigers game. The Sox had fought back from a big deficeit to tie the game and take it to the 14th inning, and in the top half Matt Thornton gave up a two run homer after pitching brilliantly for three innings or so. I come in for the bottom half of the inning, and I thought the Sox would go up and out in order. But then there's men on first and third and the Sox have already scored one back. Thome strikes out on a foul tip and then Nick Swisher nails a three-run, Game Winning, Walk Off home run off the closer Joel Zumaya, winner winner chicken dinner. So I flip out and put on my Sox hat and spin my cats around until they're dizzy and play Go Go White Sox and now I'm all cheered out and my cats are peeved at me. And I still have to write out the final draft of this letter.
It's a real roller coaster ride these days.