jetta

tequila was good. i learned that a big beer and a potentially upset stomach is all you need to make someone a philosopher. i learned about god... and right and wrong. or did i?

i drove home tipsy and paranoid. the cops could smell my ambiguous sobriety, i could tell. a women's soccer game was close to ending so there were no parking spots. i let all the kids out of the car in front of polo and went to look for one anyway. i turned on some music and ran forward till i found that rilo song at the end. drove around the circle and back out in front and i actually found a spot out near the big hill but i got stuck. i didn't want to. so i kept driving, back past polo towards the road. i knew it then.

i knew i was only digging a hole i would have to climb out of later.

but sometimes life isn't dictated by good, intelligent, safe choices but rather what would make you happy in that moment. whatever would ease the longing, the pain. so i drove out the gate as soberly as i could. the song changed but it was a good one. turned right once, twice, three times until i was on the street she lives. rolled quietly and somberly towards what i know i shouldn't see. i imagined the fates steering me towards some passionate scene of love with another guy. but i never saw her little house at all. only a jetta. black. with the correct tags.

i was surprised but i still can't figure out why. a jetta? black? it makes no sense to me. i continued on down the street and around the horseshoe, only to dive back across like i always do. and i drove away. the song changed at the stoplight but it was good. she drives a jetta.

the song changed again before i found a place to park but it was a good one.

jetta. i'll see her tomorrow morning bright and new. we'll make plans JETTA for the night. everything will be wonderful. a hole. a jetta.

jetta.

a weekend lonely sort

a lonely weekend at a crowded beach house. how can that be? alone in a room full of people? well, i suppose it's not such a mystery. loneliness has nothing to do with the people you're with, only the ones you're without.

and so i'm sitting back in the apartment, lights out, thinking of the girl i haven't seen in weeks. maybe tomorrow morning. i hope so... although i run out of the breeze blowing in me. whatever it is that forces my hand throughout the day. that thing that puts one foot in front of the other, that spits the words from my breast. it's been so long, and this is the scary part, that i forget what a real human girl she is. what i do, and this is nothing new, is allow her to be elevated with distance and time to some sort of ideal. an impossibly larger than life winged diety. it's no longer her face i can even see, but just the idea of her. and i think about it all day long. i check email only to see if she's written me back. if a notification pops up, i'll lose my breath. heart beat pauses. heat rises from a well deep down. only to be let down once, twice, and again.

the last time she wrote me, i was in the coffee shop working. it was the most beautiful thing i'd seen in ages. i had to pause and collect myself for a moment. (let's pause and add our own intentions... right here) she sounds so sincere when she apologizes, when she says she would LOVE to get dinner very soon. that tug of war begins again, the one between my elevated, high-flying ideal and the solemn kid inside who wants so bad to remind me how it's been in the past. how everyone i've gotten close to has changed. how i never know what anyone else is thinking. how morgan acted (how i can't believe her). how i really and truly know that danielle visited her boyfriend in boston before she moved here. (but those are her words on the page, that's TRUTH) but who's to say it will always be that way? whenever i hunt vampires, i never find them. whenever i trust completely, i fall on my stake.

but if it's really like it has been... if she's really no different... will i regret it? can i find comfort in that pain, same as always? or, and i laugh at myself when i realize this, can i just get dinner with a friend?

what will hurt is the realization that we are friends, as wonderful as that is. i know that and i can't stop it. i can only hope i've grown enough that i can handle that.

i hate all this speculative writing. it's not me at all. where's all the honesty? i'm crazy about danielle right now and for no reason at all. why? because she was that girl back in stats class a year ago. the one i always wanted to meet but never did. the one i never spoke to but noticed every single day. and now i've met her. now we're friends. hopefully we're getting dinner soon. that's why it's such a big deal. that's why she's a big deal. she was so sweet in vienna, so understanding, so kind. if i can break her collarbone and fuck up her rotator cuff (and i did!) and she still wants to get dinner with me (she does!) then maybe there's something there after all.

maybe. god, maybe.

bright shiny morning

i know, i know...

(i know)

there's a girl sitting across the room from me. i can't quite figure her out. she's a mix of alli, angela, and danielle a. to mine eye. the back room of the coffee shop is quiet except for the whispers of a standing fellow to my new friend will (fast and loose with "friend", there, eh?). i can't really tell. i have headphones in. but it seems reasonable...

this girl has dark hair pulled back and is wearing a purple-reddish tank top and concerned eyes. she's acting like her laptop is presenting her with an interesting challenge. always making faces and squinting. i'm not going to lie, it's cute. she is. squint.

we're in the back room of the coffee shop.

she looked at me a minute ago and i looked down real quick. then slyly looked to the right and left... all around the room. well, it made me feel cool, anyway. i think she caught me. not that she'd do anything about it. oh my god she just bit her thumbnail. i think we're soulmates. (i soul-out too often, don't i know it) ... (it's just that jenny lewis makes me want to be next to someone)

there are a hundred thousand things i've meant to say in the last long, long while but none of them are going to be written. i just don't get to it enough.

it was a bright shiny morning last sunday i went outside while my parents were at church to hit golf balls in the backyard. underrated times, those. morning is my favorite part of the day... and the part i sleep through the most. it was getting late but the grass still twinkled with the last dew and the sun still burned through a discreet wash of moisture in the air. i'd brought out the old three wood, which was my first mistake. oh well, the rest doesn't bear mentioning. but rest assured, aside from the golfing, it was brilliant.

i'm concerned... well, not concerned, but a bit interested... about danielle a. i can't remember the last time i saw her, probably before the first biomech exam, but we haven't spoken in a long time. i remember the time she mentioned dinner without provocation. i've been paid now... i need to go remind her. on my way home this past weekend, i dropped her off a mixtape in a plastic bag. i didn't leave any sign that it was from me but i'd assume it was fairly obvious. point is, i haven't heard anything about it. now, scarier, maybe one of the kids that lived there somehow found it, got the cd out, and put the bag over his head and died. or maybe, maybe, a family dog found it and tore it to shreds... or consumed the bag and died. i should have hung it up somewhere. i'm probably public enemy number one. (or maybe it's just that she hasn't seen me since then and therefore hasn't said anything)

...

it was on the couch right next to her i lay one night listening to the newest belle & sebastian album and talking to dubs online, even though she was right across the room. then she came over, leaned down to kiss me, and left. i remember wondering how lucky i was.

...

i'd bet i'm better off with jenny than dubs anyway

...

meghan and i drove to knoxville the other night. conor was there and jenny too. i got sick on the way home. i remember her speeding down I40 in the middle of the Appalachians, without a lane, around all the other folks, looking for a place to pull off so i could be rescued. i remember the blurriness, the fuzziness, the warmth, the lisping, the weakness, and the fear. we pulled off on the road to old fort. it was deserted. i climbed out my door and sat in the dewy, two in the morning grass with my head in my hands. the freezing air felt good. i regained consciousness. oh, to have the gas station bathroom back. but i wouldn't trade that moment for the world.

i love her so much. she knows it too.

...

i need to sleep. whatnot in the morning. i love. just wish others did too.