Before leaving

Today was productive. Cleaned my room for the first time in weeks. Finished up a mix tape for Hannah. Caught up on emails dealing with the new Big Kids LP and European tour. Acid Fast practiced. Earlier in the day I worked on gathering material for a few collages that I'm working on. After Acid Fast practice, Hannah, Matto and I watched Hot Tube Time Machine. I stretched quite a bit today. I do push ups and other excercises though out the day as a matter of routine recently. Things seem to be well on the surface when you look past the financial situation. There is a part of me that is worried about the trip I'm taking in less than 10 days. For the first time since before last Summer I feel good about myself and the path I'm on. The momentum is strong and I'm sort of in love with the life I'm living right now. And now I'm packing up my bags and taking off for 2 months. I hope home is still there when I get back. I hope that who I am still belongs in it. And if I don't I hope I'm still strong enough to keep moving.

It seems like although every tour I've ever done I hold dear to my heart, there is a part of me that also curses the tradition. Every Summer it's the same thing. I say goodbye and come back a different person, usually tired and a little bit heavier.

chistmasish

This morning I woke up and it felt fine. I made coffee and responded to some emails I've been putting off. Was planning on going for a run early, but the rain is putting me off at the moment. Central heating is broken and so the only way to stay warm would be to hang out in my cave downstairs with the space heater on full blast. I sent my dad a text this morning, but he didn't respond.

Ice Cube Rom Com

Last night I sat on the couch in my parent's living room watching Are We There Yet? A rom come where Ice Cube plays a middle aged bachelor that falls in love with a single mother of two. They become friends and she asks him to accompany her children on an trip. The kids are obnoxious, but cute, Ice Cube overcomes all the obstacles, his crush falls in love with him blaha blah blah. It was entertaining and helped dull my loneliness. Earlier in the day, I'd started to work on cleaning out the garage, sifting through boxes of old photographs, cassette tapes, and letters, plastic tubs full of Christmas decorations, blankets, and toys. Old matchbooks that my parents had collected from all the restaurants they used to visit, undeveloped disposable cameras, and the underwear that was issued to me when I was in juvenile hall. Nothing seemed to be organized, but piled together and packed away in an almost chronological order. It was the first day of rain this season and it wasn't drizzling, but pouring down in sheets, flash flooding the street and drumming up a droning rumble on the wooden rooftops.

Wednesday is already 133

Haven't read the old books in a long time. I used to feel more attached and in love with those characters than the real people that loved me in my real life. I miss both of them. Today I woke up at my parents house in the garage. It was almost 1 o'clock when I got to the kitchen. Been 27 for almost 2 months now. Days are getting shorter. Sometimes I'm very happy to be alive. There is music that makes me want to give all of this another go. My mother introduced me to Ludovico Einaudi today. Hearing the chord progressions and melodies, I can imagine the way he writes music, which isn't usually the case for classical compositions if that's what his music is. I can imagine him figuring all of it out note by note as he plays. Every note runs deep from the tips of his fingers to the pain and joy in his hear. It's blood in rosy cheeks, the sun on snow. It's the sound of me waking up with energy as if everything wasn't just going to be alright, but amazing.

My two rotting teeth don't hurt anymore and hopefully won't hurt until I have time to take care of them. It wasn't too long ago that broke the second one and was worried that the pain was going to break while I was on tour. It didn't. Tomorrow morning I'm going to try to wake up in the morning. It's been a few weeks since I've had a full day. This picture was taken the day before I turned 27. We were in Lake Michigan. Today I ran 5 miles. Tomorrow I'll run 5 and a half. Hopefully.

It's the gift that keeps on taking autumn

It's the gift that keeps on taking. Pressed the flesh, barely pulled through the manic. Emotions busting at the seams. Haven't felt this narrow since 2003.

Teeth holes cavities infection, crumbling sharp dull failing,

bleeding gums chewing impacted, bite the tongue's muscle, digest the spill

Mess swollen allergic, expensive years

Offensive poverty, hate love die birth bills pills

Prescription therapy, intensive forgetful disease

Missing Teeth

Vacation water, July mountains crowded

With nothing and everything, river old lake young

August gives into Autumn retreats

Magnified naked fresh air peaks view more peaks sometimes cities

Can be vacations too

Manic, consistently unpredictable,

Afternoon is always morning, sometimes no morning at all

No plans, no escape

Haven't felt this empty

Since the first time I recognized my extra skin

Since I grew into it the first time around

Boycott the election year hysteria.

Fashion more sex, gather less war

Catapult the mess down the line

Down the generations ready to receive it

Or never be born at all

Raise lost questions raise lost cities.

Divide the party over and over and over

Collection emptied for more personal identity

Find a steadier path easier to erase all traces

And bury the prints

Last summer woke me up this morning

Covered my body in dream sweat, rolled over in it.

Last chance to walk away left with the season

Too much, Too little

Too tired to stand in the middle

Nothing less than a finishing line

Could anchor this wandering mind

clock smash

Today like most days, I woke up in a state of confusion to my ugly cell phone alarm clock song. After almost falling off of my loft, I put on the same cd that I've been listening to every morning for the past 2 weeks because I'm too indecisive to choose another. When exiting my windowless cave I was hoping to find myself entering a sunny day, and that maybe I had confused the days and it was actually Saturday. I was wrong. Twice. It's not even Wednesday and all of my clothes are all of my clothes have been soaked for the last couple of hours. Now, I'm freaking out about my age and my lack of education or health security and all my friends growing up without me and my parents dying too soon and tooth aches and how am I probably just thinking too much and how self pity is only a road to no where and what I'm going to do when I get off work today and there's nothing to do except prepare for work tomorrow. And so I'm putting it on a social networking site. Real cool. I'm definitely going to regret this impulse.

Stuff happens

Stuff has happened.

On Saturday morning Anna and I said goodbye. Again.

On Tuesday a few labels made an official announcement about the Big Kids LP being released in July.

On Wednesday I discovered that my best friend and next store neighbor from the age of 7-16 works in the same city. He's been practicing law in San Francisco for a year now. I used to delivery packages on daily basis to the building that he works in. I made the discovery while delivering a package to a woman at a graphic design firm. It was his sister, the same sister that drove Boris and I to junior high Monday through Friday 12 years ago.

On Thursday my boss got hit by a car. He's okay, but can't work so I'm running the company by myself. I'll be working 10 hour days until he's back on the road.

Today I wrote my frist blog entry in 2 months.