“Just admit it. If there were little babies around, and you had a fire-axe, wouldn’t you want to go up and hit them?” – Little Ben
It was good times with the Quad tonight. We went to free pancakes and pictures with Santa, and then we came back and played No Holds Barred in the courtyard.
First row: Goggles. Bronzed processor. Back row: three mugs. Blue. Dark, navy blue. Almost worthless– $.99 each from Walmart. Drinks cool off too fast. Lesson learned. You get what you pay for, right? You get what you pay for.
“Can I make it? / Damn right / I’ll be on the next flight / sittin’ next to Vanna White.”
I haven’t listened to Nelly since… Sagar’s car. God, when? Last fall? Night, driving down Prarie. Lowes on the right, lit up bright. Subs thumping. I’m in the back seat, Carter in the front, Sagar driving. Blue receiver, flashing. Driving. And all the world is right. High school, Cheyenne night. And the world’s right. There’s a wisdom in it, really.
“oh-oh / oh-oh / I’m a sucker for corn-rows / and manicured toes / e / i / un-da-lay undalay undalay / momma e i ei / oh-oh”
Avenues. Night. Beige house on the right. They have a Corvette. How many times have I seen that car? How many times have I walked past it? In Sagar’s car. Back seat. Sagar driving. Bright blue receiver, flashing in the night. An internal quiet, the external boom. Two subs. Ported box. Nelly. And again the world is right. Now I don’t know why we were there– it doesn’t matter. The reason is long past. The moment lives on. Friends. Car. Avenues. Cheyenne. Night. Nelly. Those were the days.
“Those were the days my friends / we thought they’d never end / we’d sing and dance forever and a day / we’d live the life we choose / we’d fight and never lose / for we were young and sure to have our way.”
Driving. Night. The road from Billings to Bozeman. Open to the right. Back from Cheyenne. Back to Bozeman. Cheyenne: happiness, new things, remembering the old. Bozeman: New, but adventure? Adventure, but new? Where are you going? Where going? Where? Night. A passenger, but alone.
“And I’d give up forever to touch you / cuz i know you feel me somehow / you’re the closet to heaven / that i’ll ever be / and I don’t want to go home right now.”
Driving. Bozeman. Daytime. Mountains. New roads, in the foothills. The heights of the Brigers to my left, all of Bozeman to my right. No passenger, alone, but not lonely. Life is changed, but there’s a beauty to it. This is good. This is good. Smile. Turn, new road. Further in the foothills. My favorite instrumental interlude. And life is good.
There’s homework to be done. Always homework to be done. There’s a mountain dew bottle to my right. My camera is there also. Outside, people play football in the courtyard and it’s night. My business card, tattered, worn and now almost torn in two– separated in two, but still connected.
What are you thinking? What thinking? What?
So I saw her today, or more accurately, she saw me. I’d seen her earlier, walking into campus, presumably to some media theatre arts class. It’s entirely unavoidable that I should see her: leaving food service, standing in line in front of me for coffee, sitting across the room, her car parked near my door. Ten minutes later, I walk into Wilson hall and she’s there. Being the oblivious type, it’s doubtful if she’s so much as noticed me since our official “fuck-offs” some weeks ago. Obliviousness didn’t save her today. I open the door and enter, and there she is, standing. Waiting. She sees me, and for the briefest moment there’s a look of surprise and uncertainty. The moment passes, and she regains her composure: a mix between refusal to see me and cold defiance. Myself, I nodded as I always do when I see someone I know but I have no to time stop and talk–amicably: an acknowledgement. I walked down the hall, carrying her in my mind for a few minutes, wondering. Does she hate me? Is she indifferent? How is she dealing with this? How am I dealing with this. And then she was gone. “Hello, Laura.” “Hi there, Mark.” “Bonjour, Monsieur Pinet.” “Bonjour, class.”
I shuold have been studying for my chem test all day. Thus:
I developed that in like the last hour. It’s kinda useless at this point, but hopefully it’ll gain some utility with time.
This is quite amazing. I’m teetering on the brink of happiness (a quite amazing, in and of itself, especially when contrasted to my state of mind a mere three weeks ago). I feel a little stressed, and I feel like a thoroughly normal person at present. And it’s great. So check this: for the second night in a row, I went to sleep (it was a quite short night’s sleep for me, but I did go to bed just the same), I woke up in the morning, and I went to class.
Yeah. Like Neo says: “Whoa!”
It’s a big deal because, well, it’s the first time in upwards of two months that I’ve done the normal sleep, go to class, go to work cycle. And it’s a wonderful feeling.
The chemistry test on Wednesday is going to be my sad undoing, but that’s ok. After going to ALL my classes and eating lunch, I went back to the quad and jammed on my guitar for a while. It’s amazing how quickly a lot of this stuff has come back– I’m almost as good now as I was two years ago when I quit. By the time I go back for Christmas, if I keep things up, I’ll be better than I was. Whoo!
I’m not sure if I did well or not my English exam– I’ll know Wednesday, one way or the other, and regardless I have some extra credit that should help me out. The test consisted of writing four short essays. As always, I mis-managed my time, and ended up writing like a page and a half for the first essay and all of four inches for the last essay. *french accent* How like life.
I need to get back to working on my T&C Presentation. I like the idea I have, but it’s going to take some time to make it into the speech I want it to be. Ta ta!