The Sky Suspended
(31 July - 9 August 2000)

9 August 2000
[from Albuquerque]
-It is alarming how close we are to return-to-Mass time.  I know this brings a couple people out there comfort of some kind, but I just call it alarming.
-Kate, are you ever updating again, or should I just give up?
-Nobody loves me.  Okay, that's not fair at all, but it's the gut-reaction I get everytime I don't have e-mail.  All this is a little silly.
-Very.... denteresting.

8 August 2000
[from Albuquerque]
-Okay, fine, DON'T call me back, G'!
-Hadn't heard from Matty Ristvet in a WHILE.  Apparently he's rising through the corporate ranks of Best Buy.  That's about the last thing I would've predicted.  Maybe he's just waiting so he can blow up the institution once he's well-trusted enough.
-I guess I'm not going to Oregon.  I have extremely mixed feelings about that.  Sigh.

7 August 2000
[from Albuquerque]
-Neat.
-Stina has come & gone... when she showed up, we were in about equal moods & when she left, she was distraught & I was overjoyed.  Not because she was leaving, but for other reasons on my front... but she also was none too pleased with returning eastward.  So it goes.
-What am I getting myself in for?  At least it seems like I'm not the only one getting myself in for something, & that's one of the coolest feelings in the world.
-I'm not THAT hard to track down, am I?  Well, actually, I guess I might be.  Listening to Mesco's chat with my Dad on the answering machine (said machine recorded the whole thing since it had picked up before my Dad got to the phone) cracked me up.  I still think that I'm relatively accessible, but some folks just have a knack for calling when I'm not around.  Oh well.

6 August 2000
[from Albuquerque]
-Happy Birthday, Shannon!  Welcome to the roaring twenties.  Or something like that.
-Wow.  I guess one never really knows others as well as they could till they play "I Never" with them.  Crazy.  But neat.  That's really all I feel comfortable saying about that.
-Yay!
-So, things looked like they couldn't get much worse circa 6 pm yesterday.  Now, 12 long hours later, they don't look like they could get a lot better.  Minus the loss of Kevin, of course.  But I'm trying to put that in perspective.  Still not sure if I'm going up there or not... so many pros & cons on both sides.  Either way, things have about 160'd from 12 hours ago & you don't see me complaining.  I love the sine-curve life.
-"I like your smile & your fingertips, I like the way you move your hips, I like the cool way you look at me - everything about you is bringing me misery..."
-Sarah rocks my world.  Talking to her was a double-party & a half... making her spiffalicious, of course.  Stop rolling your eyes at me!

5 August 2000
[from Albuquerque]
-The shock & sadness are competing.  They'll continue to for a while, I figure.  I need to figure out if I'm going to the memorial or not.  Though I did write him a song.  So it goes.
-I'm clinging to the friends 'round here.  All the more tightly.  As well I think I should.
-I think I listened to "Looking for the Holes" about 80 times yesterday.  We'll see if we can break that record today.
-"There's so many ways to wear what we have before it's gone, to make use of what is there..."

4 August 2000
[from Albuquerque]
-I miss July.
-Kevin House (1980-2000)...  I'm in shock.  He & Bowen & John Grotz WERE my friends in Oregon... they were the ones with me for 5 full years of incredible ups & downs.  Tony & Cisco, too, but Kevin was such a close friend.  That baseball doubleheader will forever be etched in my mind... & so many things to look back on in a friendship that meant so much then & had been allowed to fade so much since.  But we were still in some contact... he even stopped by here & stayed with my parents in April or March.  So.  This hasn't even hit me.  It was a car-crash in Kansas, but I might go back for the memorial in Seaside in a week.  I just don't know.  I feel horrible for allowing us to grow apart that way... it just makes me want to cling more tightly to everyone I have around here.  Just hearing his mother crying on the phone about how he was happy & they'd talked the day before was enough to make me sob forever.  I'll miss you, Kevin... in many ways, I already was.

3 August 2000
[from Albuquerque]
-So, I spend tonight (well, technically last night - by 45 minutes) hanging at Double Rainbow (yes, the ice cream place... & the bad one, too... up on Juan Tabo - "Double Yuppie" as some would call it) with some of what we used to call the "smart girls group" from high school, which of course includes Nathaniel.  I kept myself to 5 cups, which is reasonable... 6 is probably where I wanted to be, but I'm feeling it now anyway.  Regardless of which, I spent a good deal of the time wondering what I really had to say to these people... not all of them, of course, but most for sure.  Though the stark contrast of how much more I had to say to them than others was made clear when Katie Foster, Joe Brandt-Hammar, & kids like that showed up... many of us just ducked our heads & went on with our evening.  Anyway, I ended up spending some time thinking about people I usually binge on coffee with, & ended up realizing it'd been way too long since I chilled with Lisha.  So coming back to read about her extreme disenchantment with Cambridge was no surprise in at least 2 different ways.  I think I would be in the Charles River right now had I spent my summer where she spent hers.  But she's more cut out for that coast, though apparently less than she might've estimated.  Either way, we're due for a good talk.
-Yesterday, my Dad & I talked about many things.  Among that which really resonates is that he had no idea it was any later than the 27th of July... time is starting to spin too deliriously in the wrong direction.
-Maybe she's just used real mail & it'll take a while.  Maybe she hates me.  Maybe the suspense will put me in the Rio Grande.  Except the Rio Grande would be a lousy place to try to jump into, since you'd just end up slightly bruised & deep in mud.  Fitting.
-I have potential songs & poems running through my head, but all of them are just little clips... nothing enough to be a real piece.  Or I could write them all in one, but they're vastly different in mood & perspective.  I haven't been this scattered in a while.
-People in movies always seem to have sensible motivations.  They do things for reasons that are widely palatable & explicable... even if they do so subtly, or for bad reasons, there's always such overarching logic behind their actions.  I really wish people in the real world would follow that lead.  A few in particular come to mind, as I'm sure you could guess.  One especially, of course.  But seeing "What Lies Beneath" (a poorer cousin to "The Talented Mr. Ripley", but still decent) made me yearn for such sense.
-Being gruntled hasn't even been a THOUGHT today... that's how far from it I've been.

2 August 2000
[from Albuquerque]
-The Dukes may be leaving town after this season, but it's always fun to cruise on down to the Sports Stadium while we still have a chance.  Hard to beat 9 innings, funnel cake, ice cream, & good friends.
-Perhaps the most diverse roll of black & white film I'VE ever had developed.
-Amanda Shaffer is a nutcase.  We'll always be running into her at the Frontier... & possibly wherever else we go, too.
-Tell me more things I don't already know.
-So, I'm really hoping I have nothing to be nervous about.  Somehow, my stomach doesn't want to share that hope.  Well, it shares the hope, but adds the trepid sense of being nervous anyway.  I guess I just wait.

1 August 2000
[from Albuquerque]
-August already.  Sheesh.  We're not going to think about the end of the month just yet... let's think of this as a supplement to July, shall we?
-I'm actively seeking distractions.  That's interesting.
-Mesco is a crackfiend.  But in a good way.  So good to be friends again.
-Suspense is only good in movie theaters & novels.  In life, it's just a pain in the rear.  But news from the former front has been amusing, so that takes the edge off at least.

31 July 2000
[from Albuquerque]
-What are the odds of the following?...  Jake left Pasadena 2 days ago in order to come home for a brief 2-week stint between JPL & GA-Tech.  At the same time, unbenknownst to him (& vice versa), I was leaving the Canyon to head for the final hang-out with everyone at Camp Verde, to leave there the same morning Jake left Flagstaff.  None of this is that crazy till you realize that about an hour east of Flagstaff, Jake & I passed each other on I-40.  Apparently he honked at me, but I didn't notice since I was blasting music & such.  We were both in the right lane when I looked behind me & thought "How weird... a blue Saturn.  & it has a bike on the back!  If I didn't know better, I'd think... oh my God, it's Jake..."  So we went to the Gallup Giant (you know, the Travel Center I stopped at 6 times in the past month).  'Twas fun.  & almost as bad as cutting to the 6 of spades in one try.
-So, in case it's unclear, going to the Grand Canyon was probably the best thing I've done this summer.  I mean, there was the Dylan concert, but 10 days of challenging fun can't really compare.  Of course, now I get to enjoy the ache.  The realizations of missing things that one couldn't have held on to tightly enough at the time had one tried... & boy, did I try.  Methinks "Blood On the Tracks" is going to be on repeat the rest of the summer.
-I'm exhausted.  & my knee's still a little sore.  But I'll get back to regular correspondence soon.
-I wonder if she's home yet.  I wonder a lot about her.
-Thanks, by the way, to all who encouraged me to go.  As time progresses, I will thank you less, I fear, but for now, I am very much grateful to you all.

 

Introspection, My Worst Friend* (Current)
Ye Olde Archive (Past)

Tell me this is not the end...*


*-lyrics from an as-yet unreleased song, "The Same Old Frontiers", by SWClayton.