For once in my life I felt young this evening. I always feel old. All of my friends are much younger, ranging from 21-25. Not really "much younger". I find that the people my age that I knew before are boring at this point. Kind of ironic, as I always complain that my friends are having too much fun. : ) I just happen to hang out with younger people. Age is just a number to me. Normally one would not admit such things in public, but in the interest of being honest, and not giving a flying fuck what anyone thinks about my music taste, I just returned from seeing Steely Dan at the ampitheatre here in Mass. I've liked them since I was a young kid. My dad used to play some of their records, and I got into them more a few years back. It was a pretty good show, tons of "adults" that were drunk, and falling asleep on their blankets. Tons of white people. So I think I wrote about my experiences, and feelings on molesting children, etc. a couple weeks ago("I bet the earth is flat actually"). I witnessed some sketchy situation this evening at the show. There was a group of people in front of us. Three men in their 40's probably, one woman in her 40's, a girl that was no older than 14 years old, and a boy maybe 15 or 16. I couldn't make out the realtionship, like who was a parent, who was a friend, etc. Anyway, one of the men was a bit drunk, and he kept tickling the young girl. They were on the blanket in front of us. He was getting just a little too creepy about it though. Once it got dark, he looked pretty much passed out, he kept touching her head, neck, legs, etc. She would push his hands away. It was a bit disturbing, as he wasn't being secret about it, this is why I have no clue how all these people were related. I didn't see any wedding bands or anything like that. Strange stuff indeed. Perhaps in the future I will not pay attention to strangers. I return to the ampitheatre tomorrow to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Foo Fighters. It should be good, and I'm assuming the crowd will be a whole lot different. I'm not looking forward to the 45-60 minute ride there though.

The record store was hell today, everyone and their mother came in selling stuff today. The air conditioner was broken, or so I thought. My boss came in later in my shift and showed me the correct way to start it. I was sweating at this point. We did score some great stuff from a girl who's guy friend claimed "she was a DJ in college". Just about every Black Flag cassette, in fact, tons of damn cassettes, as well as a ton of vinyl including some Clash records, and Cocteau Twins 12" singles. I hate when my boss comes in and buys shit from people though. He gives them shit for money. I'm always more than generous(Perhaps because it's not my money; I would surely never pay 4 dollars for a copy of Foreigner - Records on CD, but the store will.). It also depends on the customer. I remember a very attractive girl came in with about 15 dollars worth of stuff, she wanted some box set for 50 bucks. I said "yeah, you got about 50 dollars here". Or the guy that sold "these records I found in the basement, I think they were my brothers". All very rare punk/hardcore records. He just wanted enough to buy 3rd Eye Blind on CD. If collectors paid top price for the stuff he had, it would have been about 200 or 300 dollars. "You got about 15 dollars here, I guess we can cover the sales tax on the CD you want". I bought them for the store, and then just took all of them home. I got the first GG Allin record (before he was a nut case), 2 Dickies records (one of my favorite bands of all time), some rare early Boston hardcore records, and a White Zombie 12" that was out of print, as it was a cover of Kiss God Of Thunder, and Gene Simmons made them stop making it, and a handful of other stuff. I don't raeally collect that stuff anymore though. I'm more into collecting James Brown vinyl, etc.

Damn it's strange to look back at how I've acted the past week and a half or so. I haven't felt like that in a thousand years. I hate it. I'm never really depressed anymore. Rather, the last couple of years. I am generally always in a good mood. This is still true though actually. If my head gets into a cycle of thoughts and feelings though, I keep going with it. (I just realized I smoked a pack of cigarettes tonight.Yuck.) Not really knowing what's going on in life in general for the long term, work, and "other frustrations" have led me to this. I'm doing my best to keep my head above water though. I can't fall into this. The healthier living thing has helped a little bit.(wait, did I say I smoked a pack of cigarettes?) Once you get on a roll with that, there's no stopping. Losing 10 pounds helps also...I don't really see it, but the scale says it's true so...I keep moving on. I need to keep moving forward with everything. Health. Work. Feelings. Progress is my friend right now. My best friend. I feel a bit removed from my friends for some reason. Not in a bad way, just removed. I don't really know how else to explain that without sounding critical. There's no way I would ever not want to see any of them though. With the idea of progress being my friend though, I wonder if when I say "feelings" that my feelings will progress into more than they are, and have been in the past year or so. They reached a peak of sorts a month and a half ago, I just wonder where those feelings go now. I don't throw out feelings like that. That would be completely denying my passion. That would be lying to myself, as well as others. I tell people things, and I mean it. I told people things and I meant it. Feelings like that don't just go away. Avoidance of them and what they're focused on could fade them out, but I'm not going there. I feel good right now feeling exactly like I do, and that's good enough for me.

before & after