#4

...i met a girl who kept tattoos for homes that she had loved

i keep telling myself that i like coming home to hannibal. but then i actually do it and end up spending the time here on the verge of some sort of mental collapse. it's not the people - i could care less about flocks of toothless river-folk with no grasp of common sense. it's not the lack of things to do - i could sit at joe's diner drinking tar-coffee for hours on end as long as i'm in good company.

it's my parents. it's the house i'm supposed to call home when i go back.

the first thing that hit me when i walked in this time wasn't the stacks of clutter everywhere. this time it was the smell. at least in all the years before, the house was just messy. clothes strewn about, random odds and ends filling every available space. but it wasn't dirty so much as it was just overflowing with useless junk (except for the bathroom, which i attribute to my unemployed, heavily-bearded younger brother). i could sort of manage the junk.

but a smell?

it filled each nostril as soon as i crossed the threshold in. nothing rotten or sour - just the tangy smell of dog, swirling with a general musty odor. immediately my blood pressure went up a few notches. it's bad enough that whenever i come home, i can't even sleep in my own room anymore. not that it was ever really my room, so much as a room with an extra bed in it. but at least i had that. now it's just filled to the brim with rubbermaid tubs that spill over with old tax forms, credit card receipts and just plain worthless shit. not to mention that i just found out an hour or so ago from my brother that they sold the bed, so even if i worked up the motivation to go in and make sense of things, there'd be nothing soft for me to lay my head on.

so i settle for the loveseat. it's too short, uncomfortable and not safe from the crazy fucking dog. i'm sure to wake up from her either jumping on my chest or scratching at my arms for attention.

i spent all my life not being able to have people over. no sleepovers, no friends coming by after school. it was too embarassing, too shameful to have them see all the piles of things. so many senseless piles. and i blamed myself over and over again for not doing anything. now i come back a handful of times a year and i spend the entire weekend (or however long i'm here) going on a rampage through the house to clean and organize and make things seem normal.

"it's going to stay this way from now on," my mom always says. and for some reason, i always believe her.

my heart breaks every time i come home. and now i need an escape plan. a way to say that i won't do this anymore. i won't spend my "on vacation" with a roll of paper towel and a trash bag trying to be merry maid. every fucking time.

but hey, at least they just bought a new gigantic flat screen for my dad. god fucking bless.

#3

...here's where i stand, here's who i am

I fucking adore the movie "CAMP". The acting is atrocious, there is little to no plot at all, and continuity errors are sprinkled across the movie like sequins on a drag queen. But goddamn! The music is fantastic, just fantastic. I get goosebumps at least every 20 minutes from the loud, booming voices and I've seen this movie at least 50 times in my life. I owned the soundtrack until I wore it out from all the playing.

I should be practicing my guitar right now, keeping the ol' digits warm and freshly calloused, but the hangover I'm exhibiting right now has me paralyzed to the couch. How many gigantic steins of water can I drink in one day, you ask? The answer is many. Oh so many.

Did I mention that a young Anna Kendrick is in CAMP? She plays strange little Fritzy.

Also, I may want to move to Madison in another year or two. God help me.

#2

...i've got greens and i've got blues

Guitar lessons are awesome. It's strange that I can actually see an improvement - okay, maybe it's not actually strange, since it's been about two months or so. I guess that's the whole point. I'm getting more and more excited for playing in front of people. I also really enjoy the time I spend with Jed; the guy is hilarious and a really big sweetheart. I would recommend him to anyone.

I'm even more excited to start playing the Drive-By Truckers today. Isbell-truckers, of course. Isbell-truckers reminds me of a really good time in my life.

I wish it weren't so humid and muggy out, I'd suggest that we practice out in the backyard. Oh well, to the air-conditioned confines of the basement, I suppose.

I'm readyreadyready to make something magical with what I got.