i've seen your flag on the marble arch

you are a fake.

what?

your'e faking everything and have been since, i don't know, whenever.

what do you mean, i, uh, live and breathe this industry. what the fuck are you talking about?

you slide along, gather enough info so you can slide by and get the right contacts and people but you don't know shit.

(silence)

(silence)

i

hallelujah

and i dont know what to say. i finally get some furniture, decide to move in despite the lack of a tv, and discover that David Foster Wallace is dead, alas.

i'm torn between disheartenment and disappointment. i, we, need a voice for us. he was the closest thing to print reality that we've had in a while, and there's no one on the forefront that seems worthy of taking up the standard.

i dropped a lot of money this last week. sucks having to rebuild your life from scratch, but at least i can say i'm sleeping in my own bed tonight.

but there was something about you

and i still feel lost sometimes. purpose, focus, goals, direction, all these things are wandering around but have yet to grow roots. i look back at where i was four, five months ago and am scratching my head.

i found myself talking with one of the servers tonight, triple major in psych, chem, and nursing. discussed the usual bs, but then, as i know she's been with her boy a while, she asks if i'm married.

i've dealt with this before here, everyone who doesn't know about this idiocy thinks i'm married, which is why i don't go out. at all. i gave her the very abbreviated version, but i feel bad because...i don't know how to deal with people anymore. i had to start walking away, because it still hurts, and while i'm sure she's just conversing, i feel like i'm intruding.

just want to be numb.

when i was younger i thought i could stand on my own

after a 40 minute delay, a call to work and saying how i was going to be late for our year end planning meeting, i forked over $800 and signed the lease. my own place for the first time in over three years. i feel liberated and afraid at the same time. time to get serious about everything, can't float along anymore. i don't want to grow up.

trying to reconnect with myself but it's nothing but disconnect. idiocy runs amok in my life, and it's simply because it's easier to ignore things rather than take control.

i've maybe heard this boston song all of four times in my life, and seemingly only once in every city i've lived in, but it's always at the right times. say what you will about classic rock and especially scholtz, but his words here are right on and the song has been nonstop in my head since 12:15 this afternoon. it reminds me of carefree afternoons in the '80s listening to WLVQ in columbus and wondering when life would begin.

if i only knew.

limelight

a catalogue, of sorts, because i need to remember.

*

one bedroom life, w/bath.

westside flyover gangland country. five people shot two blocks away this month.

no parking when anyone is over.

rediscovering self.

neverending idiocy with x.

needing to get life back on track.

cd's in corner, desk facing window, window covered multipe time for darkness.

books on nightstand, all 25 of them. reading Bowles for the first time in years. hate that i bought it in 1996.

knives in closet, temporary bed as well. wedding/funeral suit also. have to plan for the best and worst sometimes.

bathroom: sony radio that i have carted across my entire life for ten years. shaving bag inherited from my brother back in 1987 and have held to the resolve that if it doesn't fit i don't need it. towels thanks to the generosity of my sister.

*

and it's sparce, because you learn what you can live with, and without. i spent six good years in Pittsburgh, four bad ones in Madison, and here is where the life begins.