Fall

Off and on sweater weather.
Curled toes just barely hitting the floor that smells like stale beer and your clean laundry.
Beginning to involve those feelings where you're hugging so tightly that you might explode, and it feels so good, that it makes you nervous.

I run out of things to say when I really need to say them. It's that nightmare you have when you're trying to scream something at the top of your lungs, because you're terrified, or it's very important - but nothing comes out. Except this is reality and I'm fucking speechless.
I'm terrified of being too hard to understand. Or just not capable of being able to face all my demons. Sometimes hiding from them night to night. Either emotionally unavailable or just too available. Bad timing. But I cross my fingers, close my eyes, and tell myself i'm brave.
I've got all these friends that are within walking distance or a quick bike ride. Living in a fantastic apartment with rad ladies. Eating great food, drinking good beer, and having memorable conversations.
Chicago is something really special to me right now. An indefinite home I'm not ready to leave anytime soon.

There's a theme here.

WHISKEY SOUR SUMMER

I like hanging out on my new balcony swinging my legs off the ledge, drinking out of a mason jar.
I just overall like feeling like there's a new chapter in my life. The relief that winter is far behind me.
Figuring out some kind of balance with drinking and being productive is off and on.
I get close, and then I fuck up. 23 years old and I feel like a fuck up. All these imperfections I try to just turn into bad jokes. The keys and phone I lost in just one night become something we laugh about on a stoop.
Waking up and mending my scraped up knees. I wake up some days feeling like an asshole, and it's back to the drawing board.

So, I try to fit in all these spectacular sounding plans.
Like maybe i'll tune up my bike and put a tape player on it, and ride around listening to the Shirelles.
Or maybe i'll make this fantastic fucking picnic and go on some kind of date that involves a pinata full of mini comics for us to lay around and read.
Or going to the library and catching up on some very late homework.
Or finally going to a triple feature at the Brew and View and eating a shit ton of pizza while watching Pee Wee's Big Adventure (or whatever they're playing).


But I never have the time. Or i'd rather catch up on all this sleep I never get. Or it just sounds so much more convenient to sit at a bar and share a cheap fucking pitcher of Old Style and talk about the stupidest shit.

I've had special moments while drinking. They're as real to me as special moments while I was sober. That's the honest fucking truth.
For the time being, I just like to hang out with a stupid grin on my face.

I didn't just type all of this up because I feel like there's something in my life I need to justify to anyone, or even myself.
The way I spend my nights and how I feel about it, change on a day to day basis. Mostly, i'm having fun, and trying to figure out what kind of person I am.
Sometimes i'm just happiest sitting on a stoop, a porch, or in a garage, after a hot fucking bike ride, drinking a cold shitty beer with a tight friend sitting beside me.

STOKED ON SHIT

COOL MERMAIDS

This may or may not have been under the influence of a shared margarita pitcher.

I have to read poetry before I go to sleep every night.
Otherwise, I just lay there thinking like a lunatic.
I start building mental blue prints of how i'll be different the next day & so on.
Which is great, except I start getting overwhelmed with;
my inevitable fuck ups,
the faces that are miles away,
all the school work I haven't done,
bills, letters I haven't sent, things i haven't said,
"what the fuck am I doing?".
So, I read some Dorianne Laux until i'm asleep.

Sketchbook drawings for Tif's zine.

I'm staring at this mug of caffeine that's getting cold.
I guess I feel like crying. I had this bummer fucking dream.
I was on the bus and I heard this guy tell his girlfriend that he thinks of her as
a song he can't stop listening to. But he's scared one day she'll be
something he's been attached to for so long, the words won't be as special.
She didn't look offended or hurt by that. I probably wouldn't be either.
What a fucking way to put it.
What a familiar fucking feeling.
I play these songs that swirl around in my skull all day long,
but eventually they aren't that special anymore. Maybe in hindsight. But not the same.
BUMMER DREAMS.

I'd rather be drunk & in love.

A shitty dark drawing to describe feelings I'm too nervous

to even talk about.

Tried to go to sleep, but then I read this.

Perhaps my life is nothing but an image of this kind; perhaps I am doomed to retrace my steps under the illusion that I am exploring, doomed to try and learn what I should simply recognize, learning a mere fraction of what I have forgotten.
- Andre Breton

Spring time

My winter made me feel a lot like that drawing. My whole experience in SC, thinking about people that aren't in my life anymore, moving to a cold city, being unemployed, being too far from friends, not enough good conversations, not knowing where to get cozy, piles & piles of bullshit.It's possible i've just changed old habits for new ones. But I think i'm figuring some shit out, and reassessing a lot of things I should have gotten around to a lot sooner.I sat around listening to a lot of stoner metal and drinking 40's with a couple people this weekend. I need really simple (awesome) social interactions. I like listening to people dissect their shitty day through conversation over Tecate and Bongripper.
The weather in Chicago finally changed. Just opening my windows made me happy about living here. I rode bikes with Teresa yesterday and we grabbed some coffee & lemonade nearby and it got me stoked on doing that ALL spring. I'm broke, sugar high off mexican coca cola, almost drunk, studying fetal skulls, trying to build friendships, and thinking about all these projects I need to start.I'm ok with those things.
Journal pages:

opening and closing doors.

I won't say a whole lot about the reasons why I left Florida.
The urgency to leave was motioned by the sickness of my father.
My own emotional urgencies also influenced my leave.
My drinking was probably reaching an unhealthy level in Tallahassee.
Everything was feeling out of my hands & I couldn't stand it.
Working and drinking, and dicking around.
And maybe finding some time to sleep afterwards.
I miss my florida friends. I didn't even realize how much I would miss them
until I was visiting for the Fest.

I did quite a lot of drinking but was able to keep my memory the whole weekend.
I even realized that I love my friend Eddy to death. I never knew how much of a good fucking dude he is in my life.
I woke up on Saturday morning in Austin's room and realized I had lost a fucking contact lens. I called Eddy, and I wasn't surprised to hear that he hadn't even gone to sleep.
I'm half blind, and we're riding bikes meeting up somewhere between Austin's house and wherever the hell he was.
I'm whining about how I can't see shit, and I need some glasses. After about an hour of riding our bikes to all our friend's houses, trying to locate my glasses, I felt them at the bottom of my backpack.
I slapped my face and apologized to Eddy. He says he needs a cigarette & throws his bike on the sidewalk. I can tell he's kind of frustrated, but I can also tell it's hard for him to bed mat at me, because he was smoking his cigarette and smiling.
Anyway, I tried to salvage the morning and I showed him a swimming pool nearby and we hung out and drank a quart of miller high life.
There were a lot more special moments like that during the weekend. Like when I sat in the back of my grandpa's pick up truck with Jheanell and Dorys and people would come and drink beer with us.
Or when I realized everyone surrounding me at certain times, was from Miami.

On the drive back to South Carolina, it finally hit me that I didn't live in Florida anymore. It hit me that all my friends were miles and miles away. Miami was even farther away than it was in Tallahassee, and Tallahassee was actually a place that I missed.


South Carolina was bittersweet. It felt amazing having conversations with my mom over coffee. Talking to her about heartache. It was great getting to really know my 4 year old nieces, and witnessing their hilarity.
My brother and I stayed up late talking about heartache too. He was feeling it for the first time & it was mostly just reminding me that I still had some of that pain in my stomach too.
My dad has cancer. SC was mainly, hospitals, doctors, surgery talk, and overall shitty feelings.
I had originally written a lot of detail about being at the hospital, but I decided to delete it.
It's the internet, ya know.

Which brings me here. This really huge cold fucking city.
I'm living in Chicago for maybe a short amount of time with one of my best friends.
I'm already used to the weather & really love riding the city trains.
I got to see the fella i'm in love with last week. We kissed and I listened to him snore, and I remembered that he's real and that missing him all the time makes me feel human.
I have a job interview at a really rad coffee place sometime this week, and I hope I get it.
All in all, i'm happy. Happy and kind of unsure of everything in my life right now.
Which is probably why i'm blogging?
I guess I just typed out the past couple months of my life in a blog, because I'm piecing a lot of details together at the moment.
And these all seemed like pretty important details.

WINTERWINTERWINTERWINTER

Just bought a one-way Amtrak ticket to Chicago.
I predict freezing my ass off and hopefully making insane amounts of coffee

For Nelson Ball. An antlion holding a donut, and riding Shreen. Tattoo design.