A ghost walked up to me and asked me for change. He walked out of the early 90s doing exactly what he and I did then and asked for some money for beer. I didn’t even recognize him at first and then he called me doctor and asked my friend Johnny and I, who he also knew, if we were planning some kind of demonstration. He was driving a tow truck and selling meth, but now he is down on his luck.
Spring is trying to settle in, but the cold at night keeps winning, but we wake up to cherry blossoms and daffodils to keep us thinking that the sheets of rain and foggy breaths are going to be behind us. I see young lovers jumping the winter gun and I start smelling the air. Then I remember I am dead inside.
A couple of buddies are jumping a train to San Francisco. That takes me back to when I almost jumped a train, but the security chased us and I got cut up on the razor wire one summer evening. We succeeded the next day and went to San Francisco the next day. I have never felt colder then when I was in that boxcar.
My NCAA bracket is fucking busted.
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I went to a reading tonight. It was for Lindsey Kugler’s book Here. It is a collection of essays and photographs of when she lived in Austin, Texas for a year. She worked as a social worker and an online provocateur.
I had dinner with an old teacher of mine. He teaches at U of O. He wants me to go into the MFA of creative writing program in Eugene. I just realized a day later that my future is about to happen.
I learned that when someone looks at you funny or mean you ask him or her in a surly voice, “Can I help you?”
I came home last night and fell asleep around eleven. I must have been sick because I fell asleep right away. I had a bunch of crazy dreams. I feel like some of the dreams were happening right on top of each other in layers. I do remember talking to a seal that was balancing a beach ball on its nose about my inability to love. I also remember putting bread in a toaster and the bread disappearing and me having a melt down panic attack because I had to go to work in a little bit.
I’ve been battling a cold the last few days. It hasn’t been that bad, but when people talk to me it feels like they are talking on the other side of a thin apartment wall. Sometimes I ask them what and other times I just smile and hope they didn’t ask me a question.
Sometimes when I’m on the bus and someone has a baby in his or her lap and the baby is facing my direction and I can get away with it, I make a really scary face that makes the baby cry. I don’t know why I enjoy it, but it cracks me up.
I’ve been thinking about vacations. I’d like to go somewhere. I don’t need to go anywhere exotic, but I think sometime this summer I’d like to get out of town for a week and just relax. Any ideas? My list at this point is: New York and the bay area for baseball.
Last night, when I was waiting for the bus at Lombard and Interstate, an older gentleman walked up to me and asked if I wanted to come over and smoke some really good weed with him. I said no thanks. He reached out his hand and squeezed my shoulder, which I was ready to sock the sad fuck, and pleaded with me to smoke weed with him. I said no means no and get the fuck out of my space, pervert. He then did the same tact with some young guy who was wearing sweat pants. That kid spit at the old guy and told him to fuck off or he’d call the cops.
I have a huge urge to drink coffee right now. Not for any of the effects, but just that comforting taste that coffee has. I always get the urge to drink coffee at midnight and even after not drinking coffee I have trouble going to sleep.
I went and saw the band Deathfix tonight. They were incredible. The only sad thing was watching everyone stand so perfectly still. Sometimes the only movement was a phone being placed at a different angle to record better. I didn’t stay for Ted Leo. He sings too much and uses way too many words.