I wanna rock your gypsy soul, just like way back in the days of old.

From The Project

It’s a car. Four wheels and a convertible top that used to work with the press of a button. When the motor failed I didn’t bother to fix it. Instead I operated it manually, standing in the backseat and yanking whenever I needed to close the roof. The radio is factory, the speakers shot. Whether I’m playing Elton John or Jay-Z, the music comes out with all the clarity of a drunk Muppet speaking Bulgarian.

The turn signals don’t even work right. You have to hold them down exactly halfway or risk being rewarded with an ear-splitting whine.

It’s a car and I’ll find another one. So why am I crying as I list it for sale?

*

Adam loves the car. He loves the challenge of navigating with the side mirrors, tossing down the top with one hand. The radio’s corny graphic equalizer makes him laugh. I always felt comfortable letting him drive my car. It just felt right.

I haven’t spoken to him in three weeks.

Today's writing

I’m on the night train back from Prague. It’s the last train, the midnight one, and the carriage smells like piss and Pabst. The floors rock with laughter and are wrapped in cigarette smoke. It’s like an episode of Cops waiting to happen.

Today's writing

My first class is 7A, a wiggling bunch of twelve-year-olds none too happy about being packed into school chairs. I can hear them warbling on the other side of the door.

Take a deep breath and go. Let’s do this.

And my feet don’t move.

The paralysis lasts maybe fifteen seconds, nothing too extensive. But any amount of time is significant when you’re talking about being shaken to the core. Just ask any earthquake victim.

What if they won’t listen?

What if they throw things?

What if they make fun of me?

There is wishing and there is wanting, and in this moment those two are in opposition. I wish to be ballsy and brave, to stride in as the English conversation terror master. I want to run as fast as my stumpy legs will take me.

Excerpt from 2005

You’d like to believe the city calls, but it doesn’t. All it’s doing is staying quiet, that great lighted joke across the bay. Look now, five o’clock and already dark, already the sun has quieted itself under the horizon, setting the sky to flame and ultimately to dark ruin. Dark ruin, you think, muttering to yourself, laughing under bated breath. That’s funny. You like to watch the city as it sinks into the bay and rises again at sunset, standing in this muddy little corner of a place you can’t call home. There’s nothing of it that is a home, though you like to think of anywhere you stand as home. The five feet around you, that’s home, that’s what you used to think. Then you moved here and the circumference shrunk. You couldn’t afford much else, so tight are the limits to which your dollar will stretch, and so you came to West Oakland, this jutting little peninsula off a cocksure ruin of a city, and you stand at this smeary window, and you watch the woman called San Francisco sell herself for absolutely no cash.

If Not For You

If not for you,
Babe, I couldn't find the door,
Couldn't even see the floor,
I'd be sad and blue,
If not for you.

If not for you,
Babe, I'd lay awake all night,
Wait for the mornin' light
To shine in through,
But it would not be new,
If not for you.

If not for you
My sky would fall,
Rain would gather too.
Without your love I'd be nowhere at all,
I'd be lost if not for you,
And you know it's true.

If not for you
My sky would fall,
Rain would gather too.
Without your love I'd be nowhere at all,
Oh! What would I do
If not for you.

If not for you,
Winter would have no spring,
Couldn't hear the robin sing,
I just wouldn't have a clue,
Anyway it wouldn't ring true,
If not for you.

- Bob Dylan

J's here!

We hadn't even been drinking.