missing you

He sit up in his bed, trying to wipe away the tears that were welling up in his eyes.

A distant dream.

Visions;

of her mouthing the words “I love you”.

of the sunlight catching her hair just right, making it glow like a thousand stars.

of her laying in his bed as he would come home from a long day, her arms reached out, inviting him to share her warmth.

-

He had spent most of his time, working on an old farm truck his father had left him. It didn’t run and it needed a lot of work, a fitting metaphor to match the broken and beaten state he was left in after he tried so hard to make his life work with another’s and had it all thrown in his face.

He didn’t mine being alone, the quiet was nice and he didn’t feel the need to try and socialize with the people he knew.

Until he had met her…

-

“You’re some kind of fucking masochist, aren’t you?!” she had asked him one night while he was bringing up his old relationships.

He just stared into his whiskey and stir the ice with a skinny black straw before he let out a long sigh and answered, “yeahh, I think so.”

He had been so fucked around before, had his mind twisted and manipulated against him so much, that it was hard to let someone back in.

He thought it was funny how much he had liked her by this point, even after just a few dates and nights in.

-

Before he knew it, she had been staying at his place a few times a week and had even brought over a toothbrush and shampoo to have for the mornings.

She joked with him, “Looks like I’m pretty much moved in, you can’t get rid of me now,” with the silly smile that had won him over many times before.

He shyly smiled back before grabbing her and holding her tight in his arms.

-

The weight he had lost in his self-depreciating state had been gained back and then some. She liked to keep him fed, knew it was the easiest way to keep him in a good mood.

He would sit at the window and get stoned and drink while she made dinner for the both of them. He would watch her move around the kitchen, taking in every detail he could. The way her hair would fall as she prepared different pieces of the meal. The small parts of her butt that would poke from under her shorts as she bent to get things out of cupboards. The way her hands moved and the concentrated looks on her face when she was deciding what to use next.

Occasionally, she would look up to meet his gaze and ask, “What?”

And he would answer, “Nothing… I just love you.”

-

The evenings were theirs, to do with what they wanted. They mostly lay in his small bed, holding each other, talking about the things on their minds or eating shitty fast food and shoving handfuls of candy into their mouths. Sometimes he would start playing with the spaces between her ribs, which would make her twitch and giggle until a wrestling match erupted and they would grapple each other until they were exhausted.

-

She taught him that he was worth something and that despite being in a relationship, he could still be his own person.

She had given him both the freedom and the companionship he had longed for.

She would listen to him rant and rave about the drama in his life.

She would let him complain about the pop icons of the time, and how he thought it all bullshit and how he couldn’t understand people these days.

She would entertain his borderline psychotic musings after he had smoked too much and lost control of his words.

He loved to listen to her talk, she was one of the few people he could sit and have meaningful conversations with.

He loved that she needed her own independence.

He loved that no matter how down she got, that rather than take it out on those around her that she was willing to take a moment and realize and fix her situations.

He loved the way she didn’t wear perfume or scents or feel the need to do her hair everyday. He missed the tiny little bunch of hair, that she liked to refer to as a bun, that would sit on top of her head and move around as she spoke.

He loved that no matter how wound up be could get himself, that she was there to take away his stress and comfort him when he needed it.

He loved her.

-

Before they both knew it, her time to leave had come.

The night before they had shared an amazing dinner and a lovely walk around town.

Snapping Polaroids of one another to keep for memories, laughing, talking.

That night they lay in his bed, holding each other and confessing the thoughts they had on their minds about one another.

She would begin to cry and he would hold her, and hold back his own tears until he couldn’t help it anymore. They had been ignoring the fact for some time and its harsh reality was finally there to slap them in the face.

The following morning his alarm went off.

Without much talking they both got ready and made their way to his old farm truck, which he eventually had gotten to run, he opened the door for her and after she was inside, made his way to the driver’s seat.

They didn’t say much on the way to the station, they simply held hands and gave each other a little, teary smile every time their eyes.

“You know I’m not going to move,” she said. “You’re going to have to put me on that train.”

He made his way over to her door, opened it, and took her hand.

He walked her to the platform and wrapped his arms around her.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

And after one final kiss, she made her way into the passenger car of the train.

Moments later, the train left the station.

Her moving slowly away.

Him, alone, standing on the platform.

-

He sit in his bed, trying to ring out these tears, that were now falling, heavily, onto his sheets.

Was she real? Was she a dream?

She had come and gone before he had the chance to realize it.

She had taught him so much about himself and what a relationship was supposed to feel like.

She had helped to restore some of the faith that had been lost to those that were unkind to him.

He loved her.

Holidazed

If I could remember more of this I would write you up a nice story.

The only thing I have to say about Denver is that it felt unreal.

Take a 45 minute flight (or 8 hour road trip) and you can smoke all the recreational marijuana (in a private residence, with permission)

I was hoping that Cannabis Cup would be my Woodstock.

In a way it was, I suppose.

I was cynical in my published review. Unimpressed with the quality of the seminars at the Cup.

But I did also realize, that people probably weren't there to hear people talk, and if they were it was to hear "FREE DABS!"

Coming home left in depressed haze the first few days, which was hard to break out of.

Now my heart aches for more.

More travel, more experience, more, more more.

I hope to return to Denver soon and adventure around a bit on my own, and maybe tell you about that.

for now here are some pictures from my most recent time in the Rocky Mountain city.

Photo credit to Dustin Johnson on this last one.

connected.

The other day my friend Tj sent this picture to me:

Now, I’ll admit that I did laugh when I first saw it, but then a notion entered my mind.

It may have been my pot-rattled brain thinking into things a little too much, but at that moment I thought to myself:

 “Holy shit, this is on the internet... which means anyone could see it.”

A child’s first thoughts on Abraham Lincoln could very well be that he endorsed the idea, that if one was indeed brave enough, that any plausible item could be used as a dildo.

Now when I was a kid, I had no idea what a dildo was, it wasn’t even in my vocabulary. But kids these days are a little different. I’m sure that they know what dildos are the moment they are cognizant enough to realize that you can look up anything on the internet.

I suppose the point that I’m trying to make here, is that children these days are born connected and that pop culture is going to ruin us as people.

People no longer have to wait to learn about something or ask someone else who knows, they can immediately seek out the knowledge themselves. Which, in theory, is an incredible idea. It’s instantly gratifying: something as people we have grown even more accustomed too with our iPads and smartphones.

I myself own an iPhone, a Macbook and do at times find myself screaming at a small plastic box full of electronics because it’s refused to let me connect to the World Wide Web wirelessly.

But, I feel my generation, some of the last to be born un-connected, were very lucky.

We, as children, grew up with these new technologies coming into our lives.

I remember first using a computer around the time I was in kindergarten.

I wasn’t crying to crush the latest version of some time consuming application game, or using it to watch some garbage reality television show on the way to the store.

I was selecting different shapes and sizes to make monster caterpillars, which would then print out, in black and white, onto a piece of plain white paper.

This process never really sunk in with me.

I made things on the screen, then they were on paper. It was that simple, it was instant and my horrific caterpillars were very gratifying.

From that moment on it was an inevitable climb up a technological hill.

Our “on to the next” mentality is at an all time high, can we push it anymore?

As a connected world, we move through things so quickly it’s alarming.

We can go from Abe and dildos to Miley and her terrible fucking presence at the swipe of a finger.
We can see what Kimye is up to and then hate-like all that person's photos.
Snap a few selfies and post them on various online social outlets.
But do we really need to be able to?

I feel that older generations were able to take more time and appreciate the world around them, and these days we only ask “What’s next?”  

These may just be the rantings of a reclusive, old souled 24 year old, but for god sake’s people why can’t you appreciate the real world in which we live and stop fawning over celebrities and memes?

Applications such as Vine fully endorse the antics of the maniacs that are consumed by them.

Download the app and look at the popular page, you’ll see the same 15 people or the hottest “new vine thing”.

These 6 second skits and ideas are taken on in mass one day, and easily discarded the next.

Vine, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are a scrambling rat race of likes, reposts and followers.

I suppose I’m not one to talk, as I’m on all of the above mentioned apps, but as an observationalist, as well as a blogger and someone who realizes the trauma social media is causing our minds and souls, you can fucking suck it. I’m trying to make a damn point here.

Did I ever think that posting my caterpillar monster on the internet would get me 1000 likes and a cult following? No.

Social media is the downfall of human beings, as actual living people.

Why be who we are, when we can be who we want people to see?

We can be funny or attractive if we say the right things or take the right picture, that’s what the internet has taught us, and will continue to teach many generations to come.

This is very scattered and very unorganized, but this issue is something that causes me to become flustered. Should it be? Probably not, but as an observer of human nature and condition, I must say that I am greatly concerned to see the technologies that unfold in my lifetime.

I will be the old man trying to properly operate my hover shoes.

I will be the decrepit, senile bastard mumbling to himself about “the times when you had to pull your phone out of your pocket to view and reply to all your text messages,” or  “still having to actually answer the door or go to the restaurant to pick up pizza.”

But it makes me happy to know that there will be a generation of crotchety old fuckers right along side me cursing this “goddamned technology.”

One final request:
That you please take the time to go outside and do something in the sun? Before there's an app for that too.

PS

These rantings are not the original rantings I had in mind. I was going to make a case on the forseeable doom that our children and children’s children face in the wake of this terrible beast, that we call being connected. I even changed ideas mid writing and didn’t even care to go back and fix them. Instead I took this moment to give you my thoughts (albeit, sometimes hyprocritical) view on people and social media.

alone.

We hadn’t really planned on this situation being long term.

He figured he would just run away for a month or two and crawl back to the city with his tail tucked between his legs.

But it had been three years now.

He had decided that it was time to leave when he was listening to NPR one morning. The rich had begun their race to space.

“Space Tourism” the voice on the other end of the radio said, and that was it.

He decided then and there that it was time to go. He walked out of his workplace without a word. He made his way home and grabbed anything he could sell for supplies.

Laptop.

Television.

Gaming system.

Printer/scanner.

DVDs.

CDs.

Speakers.

He penned a note for his roommates, apologizing for leaving so abruptly, before he left with a backpack full of clothes and toiletries to meet up with a man he had contacted via online classifieds about purchasing an old VW Bus.

Life in the city had worn on him quickly.

He had tried to understand people and the way they worked.

He thought he had come to the high rises and bustle to get away, but only ended up trapping himself.

He worked. But deep down he felt that his passion was writing.

Something he never thought would be the end to his own means.

He thought about it often. Life as a writer.

Truly inspired, one who could paint masterpieces with keystrokes.

His job, his thoughts, his life would always catch up with these daydreams

and soil them.

But now, he had all the time in the world to write.

To actually write, pencil to paper, and create.

He would lie in the back of his VW Bus and stare at the sky.

His ideas and thoughts would shape the clouds in front of his very eyes.

He would take long walks and imagine scenes playing out in front of him, in the empty forest.

As he tended his nightly fire, he would stare into the dark, beyond the reach of the flames and his stories would become reality. Twisting shadows and rising smoke, mixed to create vivid, visual serenades of the mind.

And then he would write it all down on his pad of paper. In great detail, explaining the things he saw through his mind’s eye.

This collection that had grown from the toils of his fingers and thoughts had become, in what was his most humble opinion, the best things he had ever written.

Of course, there was no one to edit these workings.

But perhaps, that’s what he enjoyed most.

They were his raw feelings, scrawled, scribbled religiously on all this thin yellow paper, without anyone to tell them how to arrange or display them to make other people happy.

Tears would come to his eyes, even when he wrote of things that were not sad.

He was purging a well that had been building deep inside of him for some time.

These words made him feel.

They made him real.

They made him who he was.