Friday July 16th 2007

No 4 a.m. street cleaners, no undecipherable shouts in the night. All I hear outside is the steady swirl and hush of a small river that creeps and twists along the perimeter of a well kept lawn. Last night at dusk, when the sky was bluish-gray, like looking into God's eye, Anton and I climbed a steep hill across from the house. The dry twigs scratched our legs and the dead sage brush made for unsteady hand holds. About half way up we reached an old road, now grown over with weeds. Looking up we glanced a fawn who had been carefully observing our slow progress. She snorted and hopped behind the crest. We continued down our road and looking up again, saw a head and a pair of ears outlined by the dusk light. Far behind, at the peak of the hill was a much smaller and more timid pair of ears. The deer watched us descend.

Too much to write, always. One year ago was "the breakup", the "suicide attempt", the "recovery". The time I drove my car the to the train yard at 4 a.m. I sat parked, watching a train cross my path 100 yards ahead and I pressed the pedal to the floor. I was building speed, faster, faster. Finally realizing what I was doing, I slammed on my brakes and skidded to a stop 20 feet from the moving train. Form there I could read the words printed in large letters on the cylindrical cargo: PROPANE.

Almost a year ago to the day, or week. I moved into my parent's house in Olympia. I stopped eating. I slept for days, and I cried when I was awake. I was sick and in pain. Soon I was sitting in a brightly lit room with a blonde psychiatrist with very clear blue eyes. My dad told me I would get fixed up. He said he just wanted to see me smile again. The doctor told me to write things down. I started taking Paxil. 20mg at first. Too much. They gave me too much with good reason. It was the only way to keep me out of trouble - out of shadows. I didn't mind the feeling of living in a dream, but the fact that it made me so happy scared me, so I cut down to 10mg. At that point I moved in with Beth in her little one bedroom apartment near the Catholic school I attended when I was 6. We were sitting by the lake, the boat launch public access where the hippies and the poor families play. We lie on towels across gravel with bees and dog shit all around us. It was a great time and we loved it. I was doing great.

I began hanging out with Jawn and Stephen every day, which became partying every day. Lots and lots of beer. Fun and fun. I never drank beer before. Now it had replaced meals. Anton came down from Tacoma and would hang out with us. We got him to break "edge" and drink with us and everything was great. Soon it was into the Black House with all of us: Stephen, Jawn, Jawn's sister Katie, Me, Anton, Michael, Cherish, Zack, Megan. Cherish left. Cats stayed. Anton and I painted my room yellow with a teal ceiling, pink clouds, an octopus lady, a dead rabbit and a hot dog by Walker. I started working at Izzy's Pizzeria with Beth and Maggie and I started my last quarter at community college. I dyed my hair black, we got a short, black lab-mix named Cezar and I stopped taking Paxil. I felt like shit. I stayed busy with school and work, and things were good, but then an accumulation of events led to some bad stuff between me and Stephen and I left that night and moved into my parent's house again. Cezar was gone. We hoped his new family would be as good to him as we had wanted to be.I kept working at Izzy's and finished school. I had my wisdom teeth pulled and took lots of Vicodin, which was a great feeling. Anton and I adopted two kittens that were free. They hissed at us when we picked them up. The boy was orange and we named him Kavi Xiu. The girl was black and white and we named her Mika Mae. I quit working at Izzy's in December, and I hope that place burns to the ground. Worst conglomeration of everything I hate about America. Fat, disgusting, God-fearing republicans eating their clogged arteries to their capacity, yelling at their kids and leaving a pocket-change tip.

That summer was a lifetime. I spent all my time running. To rooftops and front yards and playgrounds, fucked up on too much booze and painkillers. It was a crazy mess, but it was necessary, in the way that it is necessary to sedate a dog with a broken spine.

In January Anton and I visited New York City. I wanted to keep going to school to study film and we wanted to see what it would be like to live in the city. We moved to Brooklyn in February. The projects. Bedford-Stuyvesent. Dangerous enough that our taxi driver complained about taking us home at night. We were only there for about two weeks when we found a better apartment at the Morgan stop on the L train for $1400 a month. Anton started a job at a deli in Park Slope where he made fruit smoothies for $8 an hour. I worked as a host/waitress/busser/whatevertheyneeded at a pizza place called Fornino's on Bedford Avenue where I received an undisclosed envelope of cash every week. I started an internship at VICE magazine, when I met Dan, John James, Lauren, Dana and Chris Roberts. I moved over to VICE films (VBS) and Dan got me a job at IAG in Manhattan where I watched TV for 4-6 hours a day a wrote survey questions to help track the effectiveness of product placement. That job was stupidly easy, but I was afraid of getting stuck there for too long. Anton and I made friends with people living in our Dominican Republic neighborhood. We met kids from Seattle, Georgia, Michigan. Oliver gave us lots of free alcohol and weed at the Royal Oak and always promised us a good time, though it usually consisted of watching him play video games or practice guitar. Harlan invited us to parties with free alcohol and funny kids who chase geese with bells for a living. Carter painted erratic and amazing pictures of random people and objects on huge canvases, and talked and acted with the same chaotic nature of his paintings. Dan and Katie were our couple friends, they were always sweet, generous, lovey-dovey and fun (now married.) Hayden moved into the apartment with Anton and me, and our house became a vegantropolis.

New York is a strange place to walk around alone at night. On Saturday nights, when you get off work at around 1am, you walk down Park Avenue through the crowds of the drunk well-to-do in their high heels and button-ups that cost more than my paycheck. You imagine people jumping from the 40 story buildings beside you, landing flat on your head and you hunch over as you walk. You think about the things you love about the city: the amazing food, the culture, the nightlife, the diversity. Then you smell vomit and garbage and sweat and shit. It hits you in the face like a soggy brick and it makes you miss home. We explored the city and we ran out of cash. Anton's parents helped us get by- bought us furniture, paid most of the rent, and eventually ended up paying for us to move out. We left the city and now we sleep with the trees. Only last week I could see the Empire State Building from my bedroom window. Now I have a much better view.