The greatest gift is not being like anyone. The greatest gift is feeling a little different everyday. It keeps you on your toes somewhat. Not knowing what tomorrow night is going to feel like. So tonight I feel generally shitty, well, I feel happy, just depressed in general. My mood has been "generally depressed, but able to crack a smile and have a good time". I feel extremely fucking lonely lately. I've not really had a conversation with anyone in a week or so. I've not had a night out with someone just talking and hanging out in a week. It's weekly now. This is what you get for the week. This is your small dosage, do with it what you will. Perhaps my general indifference to the summer living of everyone around me (working a whole lot, going to the beach, parties, etc.) is putting me in this place. Perhaps it's just me not putting any effort into anything right now except work, my band, and my writing. I feel lonely, yet I don't want to be around anyone. This could take years, I thought it would take two weeks and a new car. It seems like everyone is doing their own thing, and I'm doing my own thing. My own thing is hell right now though. Get up. Work. Come home. Get coffee. Come Home.Sleep. Get Up...Tomorrow night I was planning on going up to some arcades by myself to play pinball. Now that's a Friday night! The loud voices and whiskey drenched breath is not in my agenda anymore, and probably won't be for a long time. I haven't been drunk since April or May, I can't remember now. I can't remember what that feels like. I know I don't like it though. I don't like having no control. As my friend Adam said once, about abstaining "I don't want to miss anything". The marijuana is a little different. It sort of just relaxes me, and makes me nervous and insecure at the same time. I'm out now, and don't have the money or the desire to get anymore right now. I would if I had the chance, but I'm not going to go out of my way to get it. But feeling drunk is so not me it's not even funny. I've never had an amazing night while drunk. I feel like I'm cheating on myself when I have a drink in my hand. Hey, you're succumbing to peer pressure you weakling. It's turned on and off from time to time, these feeling. Right now it's so off that I had to change my order at the Italian restaurant the other day because I realized there was wine in it. A little over dramatic, but it's got to be done. If I want anything to go smooth, I need these rules and standards I set for myself. I've been on some sort of warped "program" for myself that I'm not going to get into here, but I feel good inside on a lot of things. It doesn't count when you're drunk. Sort of like Woody Allen saying that laughter from audience members doesn't count if they're stoned. It doesn't count for me. It's a false evening. Nothing happened last night. The last thing that happened when I was drunk was, I fooled around with Jessica whom I hadn't seen in 7 years or so. Ran into her at the bar, and left with her. That was a strange night, it sort of triggered events that led up to yesterday actually. So those nights don't count for me. I laugh and act loud, etc. But I'd rather be just as fun and know what I'm talking about. Never under any cicumstance look in the mirror when you're drunk. You feel like a loser. The next time you get drunk, go look at yourself in the mirror for 20 minutes, stare into your own eyes. It makes you feel really good, trust me. So I feel far away and alone right now. I can't reach things with these arms anymore. I feel like I am spiraling towards something shitty. This isn't a result of anything that happened recently, it's just that feeling you get in the winter, showing up now. And simultaneously being by yourself through timing issues. This weekend I have a couple of shows to go to, so it should be okay. It will be good on those two days. Monday I'll be in this white room again.

I hate knowing that things happen behind your back all the time. I hate knowing that people talk, I hate knowing that you are often mentioned in a conversation "don't tell him". I hate knowing that I do this. I talk. I do things nobody can know. I say things about people. I use a decoder ring when I mention their names though. Don't let them know exact names and places idiot. I hate knowing that somewhere right now, someone is stabbing you in the back. I hate that everytime I think about it, I realize my karma is catching up with me in the summer of 2000. Last summer: her: "I missed you" me: "oh yeah?" summer 2000: me: "I miss you" her: "Oh yeah?". Someone is taking things from me right now. Someone is out there making me pay for everything I've taken. Physically, and anything else. Someone sent me the bill this summer. I deserve it I guess. It was about time to pay I guess. Pay your bills. Pay what you have owed for years now. You hurt this person, it's been ten years now, you've collected interest along the way, don't worry this will just hurt a bit. Now you're going to feel a sharp sting. Go play your fucking pinball or whatever the fuck makes you happy now. Go talk about more people and such so I can come back and visit you when you least expect it, say...when you're really happy someday, I'm going to come and tilt your fucking pinball machine. When you're driving down route 81 through Virginia I'm going to pay you a visit. Sort of like how I met up with you in Nashville briefly. Sort of like how I met up with you in the Great Smokey Mountains. Sort of how you ran into me on the rainy early morning hours on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. I was sitting on that park bench. You saw me. That's when you told your friend "I'm going back to the room to read now". You made it to 5:45 AM and then couldn't do it. You couldn't talk to anyone anymore. I make you like that. I don't want you to talk to anyone right now. I want you to believe that you can't talk to anyone right now. I disconnected your phone too. I made it so you get no incoming phone calls from the 978 and 781 area codes. You get the room, you get the guitar, you get the pen, but sorry, you don't get the conversation, you don't get the sunny day, you don't get the walk on the beach. Stay in the room, and shut up now. I will tell you when it's okay to talk.

So theres a good affair going on at work right now. Work is going very well right now actually. The band, and work is going well right now. I feel good making progress in those areas, as there are good rewards.Contentment, money : ). So there is a guy and a girl there. They both have lovers already. He often walks to work with his girlfriend. This is all I know so far: I saw them walking arm and arm down the bike path. I see them together a whole lot. She was apparently fighting with her boyfriend outside of work the other day. Quotes from co-workers: "yeah I know huh?", "I saw them...", "She has a baby...", etc. His girlfriend was in the lobby waiting for him tonight and didn't look very happy. Now this girl in work is no ordinary girl though. She's absolutely gourgeous. The most amazing eyes in the whole world, and a fashion that is like no one I've seen before. Aside from holding doors and saying "excuse me", I've never talked to her. Hell if I knew she was into cheating on her boyfriend, I would have been sending her e-mails from my desk already by now...right. I'm not really into the working with girlfriend thing, so I don't even think about it. There have been affairs there before. I see them from time to time. Hell, I was almost involved in one, but jumped ship before it went anywhere. No one there is close in that way to me anyway.

Hampton Beach, NH on a Friday night. Cars driving up and down the strip. People walking up and down the strip. Lot's of bad haircuts. Loud hip-hop music that sucks. Girls in bikinis. Sand. A nightclub that made people sit down at a Ramones gig once. How fucking silly is that? I worked at this place for a couple of summers. Three actually. My friend had a small used CD store there, and I would work there under the table a few days a week. It was the summer of 97 and 98 that I worked three jobs, 7 days a week for something like 83 days in a row. At the beach it was often 10AM to midnight. By yourself. No break. You could smoke in there, which was a bonus. You could lock up and put a sign up that said "be back in fifteen", but this could take hours. You'd start walking towards the door to hang the sign up at 2pm and someone would walk in. A customer. Maybe a girl in a bikini asking for change for the parking meter, or maybe some guy that wants to buy a Bad Company cassette to go with his 12 pack of Bud Ice. So at 2pm someone would walk in, then another, another, this would go on until you got a lull at 4:50PM, you'd have to run to the door to put the sign up. Getting caught putting the sign up was a big no-no. "Oh you're closing up, we'll just be a minute". Yeah until someone else walks in and you walk out smirking. I'd have to go to the bathroom so bad sometimes, I'd just lock the door and go into the backroom(we had no bathroom, you had to go into a motel upstairs where the stairs would kill your bladder) and piss in a Mountain Dew bottle. Well, I did that once actually. The bathroom upstairs was closed, and I couldn't make it two blocks down. Connected to my store was a little coffee shop owned by this hippie guy and his wife. He was a great guy. A total Deadhead, so we had a lot to talk about. He was the antihippie though. An ex-hockey player, skinny as a skeleton, but tough as nails. He hated Phish and made fun of me. "I love Jerry man, Phish sucks". He got in fights sometimes. He was a pretty funny guy. he was bitter having to work retail all day in the summer like me, so we had a good time. I'm going to go up there soon. There are some nice people that I met up there working. They work there every summer. I met a great group of Tibetan women who worked next to me. I saw one of them last summer and she remembered me and everything. She had a little niece who was 7 years old and would hang out in the store all day with Jim the hippie and I. Yang-Chen was her name I think. Nothing better for the soul than to have a little kid around. They take away any feelings of depression you may have. I'm not going to get all corny and talk about the "positive power of children" though. As a matter of fact, I should go to sleep.

before & after