whatiwas

had a very, very nice time with an ex tonight, roaming the streets of the lower east side and Ankeny and getting harassed by the Ankeny police for parking at the high school to talk.

the last time we'd spoken in person, it must have been two or three years ago, because i have it in my head that we went out on a non-date while i was home from school at some point in time. she had short hair then, a style she looks at disparagingly now but i found incredibly pretty, and the self-consciousness that plagues her to this day had freshly blossomed.

god, i met her when she was a sophomore in high school...something like that. mazzy star, tricky, tori amos, lisa loeb, making out anywhere and everywhere, breathless words hissed and hushed...Holly.

you can't go home again, i learned that the last time i went to iowa ten months ago, but this time will be different, this time isn't the shattered empty me scared and depressed about returning to a cold, dead seattle and a cold, dead relationship. this time, i'm going to do it right, single, simple, and fucking present.

and i'm going to start by getting some fucking shut-eye.

merry xmas, folks, a day long-dead in the scheme of certain reckoning, but still present in some form.

my name is darryl.

we are all here, now.