Poolside

Laying here by the pool with my eyes closed is perfect to hear the wind washing waves through the trees.

Rachel Comes Over For A Haircut

I'm not sure if this will go in.

[Lili's gone and I'm bored. Come over! Let's get hiiigh]

[Why yes, let's] She's quick in response.  The girl likes her weed.  It makes my limbs tingle.  She does, not the weed.

[Is it cool if Erin comes too?]

[Sure. Why not]

What do you call it, this feeling?  It's like someone spilled wine on my shirt.  It's not anger, non.  Anger shouldn't come from something that can't be helped, and it rarely doesn't come from immaturity.  Non, it's not anger I feel.  Disappointment?  Sure, but what a two dimensional word.  It feels like air slowly escaping from that helium balloon of anticipation.  Not a sharp pop, but a steady hiss.

Disillusionment.

The sad curtain coming down.

I don't think I'll write anything memorable in this lifetime.  How can I?  What's memorable anymore?  What words hold weight nowadays?  Precious few.  I hope they remember that when I'm dead.

Love In The Time Of Gentrification

In a few short years the whole city changed.  Streets literally became cleaner.  Alleyways filled with nicer cars.  Old ghettos turned around, and now the rent's gone up two-fold, three-fold... ten-fold - you get the point - and the only ones able to stick around are the ones from out of town.  And the select few.  The brave ones that didn't leave, or at least came back after a little bit.

It's such a college town here in Venice.  It is a college town.  There's LMU and UCLA and, of course, your's truly, SMC.  Pico Tech.  A land of high school kids that didn't go anywhere, but also of a high contingent of students out of state, or out of country, namely China and Sweden.  Go figure.

Max doesn't live far, just on the other side of Pico and up a few blocks.  But he doesn't go to school.  He's a traveler, a handsome vagabond.  A helium balloon on a stiff wind at times.  He was flying about for a while, to Nicaragua, to India, and back home to Humbolt.  Hmm.  Maybe I should say he's a boomerang instead because he always comes back, and now he's found roost in Santa Monica.  I used to work with him at the shop years ago, he was there when I started and now he's back.

Max's apartment got raided by the LAPD last night - I mean early early this morning.  7 o'clock, bright and early.  He sleeps in the living room, a familiar situation to me, and he's woken up to the sound of task force officers in vests and plain clothes at his door, yelling for unit 103, his unit, to open up and come out.

Cold sweat.  Heart racing.  No, I'm just kidding.  He was just really tired.  Half asleep.  As he creaked the door open, a bright light came flooding in and he squinted.

"Put your hands up! Raise 'em!"

He raised his hands.  The man to his left, just outside the door had a long shotgun barrel pointed at his head.

"Turn around and walk backwards slowly towards my voice!"

He did all that.  When they asked if he had anything illegal in his car, he told them about the gram of weed in his car.

They scoffed.  "We're not here for that.  Besides you probably have a card or prescription or something for it, don't you."

"Uhm..."

"Or you're in the process of getting one, right? Jeez," the officer laughs.

"Uhm, yes! Of course, sir! What are you here for then?"

"What's that? Oh, that I'm afraid I can't tell you." He takes the handcuffs off.  Off just him though, not his roommates, the two Chinese guys he'd found on Craigslist living in a two bedroom apartment in the SMC area.  Nice place kind of.  There were thirty officers outside and in the streets by black cars and GMC Suburbans, armed.  They were taking computer towers out of the apartment, from the roommates' rooms.  "You might want to start looking for some new roommates or for a new place to live, my friend. These guys are bad men, I don't think they're coming back. And I'm guessing the next month's rent isn't paid yet."

Thanks officer. The guy's nice enough.

So Max tells me the place is $1800 a month. "We could split it three ways," he tells me.

I tell him I'll talk to Mike about it.  Our last place, me and Mike, was this spot in Mariner's Village last year.  Right up on the channel coming from the marina.  We paid $3007 a month for a three bedroom.  There were four of us.  They wanted to raised rent on us by $200 after the first year.  The audacity.  The place didn't even come with a refrigerator.  We had to buy an old mustard yellow one from a shipping office in Westchester for fifty dollars.

[stop]

I Ain't Afraid of the Light If You Know What I Mean

I've been listening to the Cults a lot lately, which is to say now that I'm comfortably numb.  Yet my hand seems constantly at my head, pulling hairs out by the strand.  I don't know what I'm doing anymore.  I don't know.  I've dropped the reigns somewhere.  The horses are running free and careless now and there's no control, but the way's still pretty smooth honestly, the lands flat and there aren't many rocks or trees or anything really.  A great flat patchwork quilt of nothing is what I find myself flying over at a strong gallop.  I wish, I wish, I wish for a cliff.

No you don't.  Don't be stupid.  All right, but I wouldn't mind one though, I'm ready.  Life's easier to understand as a Western.  

You just think you're ready because you're lazy.  You're not ready get, not really.  You have too much to do still.  You've got classes, and travels and thing to write still.  The reigns aren't gone, they're just dangling out of arm's length.  Reach a little.  Try.

Get a job, do your homework.  Write, write, write.  And stop pulling your fucking hair out, idiot.

Didn't I

"Didn't I treat you right now, baby?"
          (Didn't eyee?)

"Didn't I do the best I could?"
          (Didn't eyee?)

Sometimes I'm not so sure.  Then there are nights like tonight that come by, nothing special in particular.  Just Monday, a school night.  I parked my car at a meter in Westwood.  Class is at 7:00 so I get there at 6:45 and skate in.  The cold dread creeps into me halfway through class is the fact that the streets are metered until 8:00, and i hadn't put any money in.  

I'd just got a parking ticket last week.  And I didn't put my front license on the dash.  I'd just got a ticket for that last week.  "Fucked," were my thoughts.

"Fucked, fucked, fucked."

We had a ten 10 minute break just before 9:00 so I decided with a grimace of ho-hum fuckity-fucked to check on the damage.  It had been $90 last week (not to mention the $35 Ford charged me to put the license plate back on, only for it to fall off again last night somehow).  Fucked.

As I skate up to the old Sport, my heart's dropped even before I've looked at the windshield.  And yet, when I see it, I'm met with ha pleasant surprise.  My car's still there, and there's no ticket on it.  An hour and change and no ticket.  And no license plate.  I put it on the dash for good measure and skate back.  

At the stairwell I whisper "thank you" every step to the fourth floor.  Days aren't so bad all the time.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.