I drove to Vermont with my mother yesterday. A friend is going to watch Nadja for a few months until I have a place of my own. Vermont was unimaginably sad. I lived there for about four years. We all lived in a house down the hill from school and went to the caf every morning to drown our hangovers and ringing ears in coffee and maple syrup. There was one night when Theis, Dan, Brian and I sat in my bedroom (which was, in fact, a closet) and put on the most bitter and angry songs we could find, at top volume, and screamed all the lyrics for hours. It was pathetic, from outside, like some masturbatory-masculine group therapy, but fucking hell, tasting blood in your throat because youve been singing so hard feels good. But then, I was a hardcore kid for a few years and got off on things like that. There was a time when Theis and I drank vanilla extract because we couldnt find any other alcohol and the time we drank a handle of tequila in a few hours and made it so that neither of us can touch the shit again. It was very silly and infantile, but felt great at the time. We played with the dogs in the park down the road and could be as loud as we wanted at any hour. The couch on the porch once caught fire because I left a cigarette burning.
Tara moved in with me and we bought Nadja together. Her father loved me, even though he was super-rich and I was extraordinarily poor. We had an enormous symbolism of experiences to draw on: eclipses and freezing nighttime walks wed go on, all the herbs we always had drying in our closet, and the little ways wed save each other from our own sicknesses. We traveled a lot. Drove up and down the coast a few times. There are hundreds of pictures of our being in love that I have in a box somewhere, all up and down the ocean. She almost died in Miami, once, and the police chased her car almost into the water. It was hard when she broke up with me, because I loved her, and because it came as a surprise. It was harder, because I loved her, and we lived together. I couldnt afford a place on my own until the following fall and so I lived with her. Her dad paid her rent. I had to live with her all through her falling in love with someone else. It was rough. No amount of eclipses and herbs made it any easier. I was homeless for a little less than a month with Nadja. She didnt know it but, often, I slept in the back of her car.
I moved to Woodbury with the people I lived with in that first house. They all had the bedrooms already so I lived in an attic with Nadja. He chased mice all night long and kept me up. Id just lost my job as a vegan chef because I kept crying at work and showing up drunk. I stayed up all night while Nadja pounced on little fuzzy things and we both breathed in insulation. I filled notebooks with poetry that might have been worth saving, but each time one was finished I burned it because I thought it was pretty and symbolic. Im stupid like that. I was drunk for about three months.
Eventually I moved to Montpelier, to an apartment with strangers (one, a hippy I grew to hate, and the other a puppeteer whom I adore to this day, he fucked his cousin at their grandfathers funeral but thats another story entirely). Montpelier was a mess. I had a short relationship with a girl across the river who obsessed over what she thought I was, but never loved me. I think I loved her for about a week. Where Tara breaking up with me changed my life, Kristin breaking up with me resulted only in a hangover. I moved back to Woodbury for lack of anything else. My final summer in Vermont I had saved enough money to not need to work. Theis worked seldom. Brian and Matt worked, but before Theis or I were even conscious. Our house became known in central Vermont as a party house, of sorts. We were friends with a few high school kids and they would come over because they knew we would have alcohol and drugs. They started telling their friends. Etc. It reached a point where the four of us boys would stand back and watch as a bunch of underage girls got wasted and passed out listening to Prince in our house. After the parties ended and bonfires burned away Theis and I would watch movie after movie and talk about theory and revolution until the whiskey was gone and the sun was up. Occasionally one of us made a pot of rice. Ive never been happier or less content.
Tara moved in with me and we bought Nadja together. Her father loved me, even though he was super-rich and I was extraordinarily poor. We had an enormous symbolism of experiences to draw on: eclipses and freezing nighttime walks wed go on, all the herbs we always had drying in our closet, and the little ways wed save each other from our own sicknesses. We traveled a lot. Drove up and down the coast a few times. There are hundreds of pictures of our being in love that I have in a box somewhere, all up and down the ocean. She almost died in Miami, once, and the police chased her car almost into the water. It was hard when she broke up with me, because I loved her, and because it came as a surprise. It was harder, because I loved her, and we lived together. I couldnt afford a place on my own until the following fall and so I lived with her. Her dad paid her rent. I had to live with her all through her falling in love with someone else. It was rough. No amount of eclipses and herbs made it any easier. I was homeless for a little less than a month with Nadja. She didnt know it but, often, I slept in the back of her car.
I moved to Woodbury with the people I lived with in that first house. They all had the bedrooms already so I lived in an attic with Nadja. He chased mice all night long and kept me up. Id just lost my job as a vegan chef because I kept crying at work and showing up drunk. I stayed up all night while Nadja pounced on little fuzzy things and we both breathed in insulation. I filled notebooks with poetry that might have been worth saving, but each time one was finished I burned it because I thought it was pretty and symbolic. Im stupid like that. I was drunk for about three months.
Eventually I moved to Montpelier, to an apartment with strangers (one, a hippy I grew to hate, and the other a puppeteer whom I adore to this day, he fucked his cousin at their grandfathers funeral but thats another story entirely). Montpelier was a mess. I had a short relationship with a girl across the river who obsessed over what she thought I was, but never loved me. I think I loved her for about a week. Where Tara breaking up with me changed my life, Kristin breaking up with me resulted only in a hangover. I moved back to Woodbury for lack of anything else. My final summer in Vermont I had saved enough money to not need to work. Theis worked seldom. Brian and Matt worked, but before Theis or I were even conscious. Our house became known in central Vermont as a party house, of sorts. We were friends with a few high school kids and they would come over because they knew we would have alcohol and drugs. They started telling their friends. Etc. It reached a point where the four of us boys would stand back and watch as a bunch of underage girls got wasted and passed out listening to Prince in our house. After the parties ended and bonfires burned away Theis and I would watch movie after movie and talk about theory and revolution until the whiskey was gone and the sun was up. Occasionally one of us made a pot of rice. Ive never been happier or less content.