We're Gonna Try Something Different.

http://anesthesia.tumblr.com

Go here now instead.

"I Think They're Glamourized More Than Anything."

- Brenden, on the way out of the hospital after visitng Julie.
I am so sick of having to explain to people that being in a psych ward/ treatment center/ whatever is not bad or pointless. It seems that the general opinion on the matter is that they either brainwash you or that they do nothing.
As someone who spent a week in one last year, I can say that neither of those statements are true. I guess you can liken them to drunk tanks. If you're sufficiently fucked up to go to one, then you need it.

Also: it's almost Christmas.
Also Also: That girl who wrote me the missed connection is back in town tomorrow and I am excited.
Also Also Also: I should probably start writing again. In general.

I've Been Moving A Bit More Slowly.

I spent a good portion of the past week in the car. Thanksgiving was as delightful as always, as was the Christmas tree getting and Post-Thanksgiving.
However, I was hit by a ton of bricks yesterday night. Or a bag of cinderblocks. Or whatever.
Last thanksgiving/Christmas tree getting/etc was spent doing the exact same thing I did last year.
There's someone halfway across the country who I miss more than I can express. He made me a mixed cd of christmas songs.
I have never cried to christmas songs before.

The Sailor's Last Name Was Truelove.

Once upon a time there was a girl who rode the trains. And one evening, on the way to the train that would take her home from school, she walked outside and felt different, like the nightmare she had been living in for the past eight years had just ended, and that if she wanted she could be better for good. And she smiled, and the boy standing outside asked her what she was so happy about. She told him that she didn't know. The next morning she woke up and felt good about it. The morning after that she did the same thing. A week and a few days later, after feeling this way for a solid week and a few days (saving occasional anxiety attacks), she was driving to the place where she spent all of her free time. She smiled to herself, in the car. She was happy to be alive for the first time in eight years. A few days later she saw a sailor on the train reading For Whom The Bell Tolls by Hemingway. She recognized his last name as one she had seen on gravestones 3 years earlier, in a cemetary where her dead relatives were buried. She thought about how odd it was, with the book and their connection being death, and how the coincidence was almost unreal. And she felt alright about it. She didn't know what to do with herself or how to handle herself. She realized that her parameters had shifted, and that she would have to relearn a lot of things. But she looked forward to what was ahead. She looked forward to the plans she had made. She looked forward to the things that would happen that she hadn't planned.
And she was excited about all of it.

A Few More Haiku, Some Self Evident Truths, And Something Else

HAIKU:

Temple to temple,
exhausted,
your hand touches mine.
-10-26-08

Exit from
married couples, long hair, card games, for a cigarette
to celebrate the coming months of floundering.
-10-27-08

The same two conductors
both ways in one day-
a mystical sign of some sort.
-10-28-08

100% straight
means kisses on the cheek
and a not-so-secret crush.
-11-8-08

SELF EVIDENT TRUTHS:

*If you hold still enough, you don't feel trapped.
*The universe will have its way regardless of our current situations.
*Likewise, regret is unnecessary because the universe will balance itself out despite our actions.

OTHER THINGS:

Important B's in a man:
*Bookshelf
*Bedroom
*Body

A Craigslist Missed Connection Posted For Me By A Truly Amazing Woman:
Close But Almost No Cigarettes Left (10-21-08)
I met you too soon and too late.
Ever since I left that night bad luck has been following me.
Makes me wonder if I went the right way at 10:30 the next night because that's all I have time for nowadays.
Was that the right freeway. That's freedom for ya.
To be brave in the face of fate is no simple task.
I wouldn't call it cowardice. well maybe depending on my mood.
There are corn fields, bike parts, mountain ranges, shaking hands
in between here and there. So maybe for now this world is closer.
This made my day, week, month. Where did you come from? Who are you?
We lived ten minutes away that whole time.
Call me when it's time to call me.

(Addendum: I still haven't called her. I'm waiting for something to tell me that it's definitely time.)

Haiku 2 and 3

Three figures in the crosswalk
they all like boys.

---

Freedom doesn't have a purpose
under the light
of the racetrack
-10/17/08

Haiku (Hopefully, The First Of Many)

a line at intelligentsia,
my lime green umbrella,
the smell of clove cigarettes.
-10/15/08