Belize and Libya

[WRITTEN AT Sun 21 Aug 2011 11:58:15 PM EDT ]

Today is appears Libya has been won.

Over the last day there has been intense fighting. The rebellion forces had win after win and now the have taken the capitol, Tripoli. Residents went out of their houses to greet the rebels with cheers. There are still pockets of resistance, I’m listening to the BBC now. They say a hotel that is being used as the governments “media center" is still heavily guarded. Their, now former, dictator has not been found yet. Two of his sons has been captured.

Today I met a two women from Belize. Who was also Karl’s daughter. Remember Karl? He was the old man that died whom my Mom did housework for. He also built a tri-meran in he basement, witch he had mom and I helped him move out of his basement and up a hill. And when moving it up the hill the mast snapped and almost fell on me.

We were at China lake with David when they showed up. Their skin was very dark brown, both had dreadlocks, one was taller than me and big, the other was skinny and about my hight and had a son with spiky hair. Both spoke with a accent that I thought sounded like Jamaican. All three went swimming. The skinny one was swimming with her son in her arms while I was sitting on the shore watching Maisie and Spencer swimming with a air raft far out in the lake. The mother suddenly cried out. I looked to the trio. The said something excitedly to her friend, then looked around, saw me, and said “Did you see that?!” I asked what. She said that a fish had jumped out of the water into the air just inches in front of her and her child. I laughed. Maisie and Spencer lost the raft and the wind picked it out of the water and was skipping it across to water towards the shore up the road a ways. I went to get it. On my way back I say two guys walking down the road in full pirate costume getup and one having a large pirate flag resting on his shoulder. I saw them earlyer sitting in a black scratched up canoe that was in the back of a red truck that was driving up that same road they were walking down now. While they were in the truck they were waving mock pirate pistols in the air. (Woah, I just head Gadhafi has may have been arrested.) I recorded video of them walking as I said “Hey you have the best boat on the lake.” One said “Thanks. You have the best inner tube on the lake,” pointing at the triangular air raft I was carrying. I said “Oh haha, very funny. Thank you.”

Mom was talking with the smaller girl with the Kid when I got back. Mom introduced me to her. Her name was Liz. She was wearing a yellow shirt and a red bikini bottom. We shook hands, her hand felt cold as ice. Probably from the water. They resumed talking about Karl from before I got there. I asked “Oh, you knew Karl?” Liz said “I’m-I’m his daughter.” I simply said “Oh.” I was not sure what I should have said to someone who lost their father. Mom explained that both of those girls were Karl’s daughters, sisters, and the boy was his grandson. She then asked Liz what part of the world they were from. She answered Belize. She showed us a hand made bracelet which had the word “Venezuela” and Liz said that is where her boyfriend is from. I never got the boys name. I don’t remember the other womans name. The reason they were in this country is because they have inherited Karl’s house and are now living in it. I shook hands with her again before she left. I sat and looked across the lake for a while after that. Something suddenly made jerk my head to left and there before me was a fish hanging in the air, for just a milisecond, before falling back into the water. Woah.

I went over to Boonies the night before. We hung out, talked, and he showed me how to properly read guitar tab. Turns out I’ve been reading it wrong all this time which is why nothing I read in tab made any sense to me. I then downloaded the tab to the song “Come Down” by the The Pillows, one of my favorite bands. I now pretty much know how to play it with the exception of one little riff that happens in a few different spots in the song, it’s crazy impossible to play and only lasts a half beat and is supposed to be played in between really fast strumming, but other than that I know how to play it. Awesome. I know how to play a song now. Well, I also know how to play “Warning” by Green Day but that song is nothing more that 3 open chords repeating over and over for 2 minutes, so that does not count.

I actually know how to play a song now. And now that I can decipher tab now I can learn even more songs. HOLY CRAP. THANK YOU BOONIE.

Also while I was there Boonies friend Seth gave me an old cell phone that he no longer uses to replace my old one witch is, literally, physically falling apart. It has a 1.3 mega pixel camera on it that can take still photos and video so I’m really happy about that. It is what I used to record video of those two guys in pirate outfits. Thanks Seth.

Also some time ago I was riding my bike home one night and the sky was so clear you could see the Milky Way. I stopped in the middle of road to gaze up at it. I said aloud “We’re under the universe.” No one else was there, I just felt like that was what to say. It’s a cool sounding phrase, so I wanted to make note of it.

I promise myself that I WILL write down and record everything that happened Portcon and Joey’s Death before anything else happens.

[END WRITING AT Mon 22 Aug 2011 01:34:41 AM EDT ]

I will always love you, Joey.

[WRITTEN AT Mon 25 Jul 2011 11:37:05 PM EDT ]

Sometime today, Joey, my dog, is presumed to have died.
This morning I got up for work. When I was getting breakfast the front door was open. Joey took a very long drink of water and floundered down the steps. He paced around for a bit, I noticed that he had a really had time keeping his butt in the air. It looked like his entire back end, hips, butt, tail, legs, was just too heavy for him to hold up. He then came near the steps again and stood facing northeast, parallel to the house. I stood in the doorway looking at him. He looked up at me. He was panting hard and fast. He looked a bit like a sheep. Mom and Spencer had recently cut away most of his fur to rid him of fleas. Now he looked like a fluffy white sheep. I saw the lines and wrinkles in his face as he looked at me. A few months ago was when I actually noticed that he had grown wrinkles when the headlights of our car shined on his face one night.
He looked at me a moment more, and I looked right back at him. He looked happy to me.
He looked forward again and started to walk across the lawn in parallel to the house, towards the wood. I walked too, but just to the fridge to get my breakfast.
By the time I was ready to go, we did not see Joey again. Joey would normally walk around outside all the time, and eventually come back in. I walked all around the house but he was no where to be found. Nowhere. He could not have gone far, he was old and slow and today he was even walking funny on flat ground. He could not have walked far at all through all the thick trees and underbrush. That was hard for even me to walk through. Yet, he was no where. It’s like he simply evaporated. Eventually I had to go to work. On the drive home Mom talked about that’s how animals like to pass on. They go off and hide somewhere alone and let themselves die. How animals like dogs know exactly when they are going to die is beyond me. She told me about how when I was away at the film festival for two days, Joey walked down the driveway and was hit by someone driving to our neighbors house last night. I noticed when I came home the day after the film fest I noticed that there were gashes on Joey’s face, around his right eye and forehead. I thought maybe he had fought with Big (our other dog) again. I guess now that he got those gashes from whoever hit him in the car the night before. Mom said that the night before someone driving away from our neighbors house had dragged Joey under their vehicle and Mom had carried Joey home. At his age, Joey should not have survived that.
I feel guilty, and I should. I deserve it. When I came home from a bike ride that late last night, Joey had peed all over the kitchen floor just where you walk in. I cleaned it up, but later that night when I was listening to the radio in my room he peed on the rug. I yelled at him and kicked him twice in the butt. Not hard, but, no, I’m thinking of all kinds of reasons to explain away why I would hurt Joey like that, but I have no excuse. There is no excuse. What I did to him was wrong. After I found a towel to help soak the pee out of the rug I went into Mom’s room where Joey was hiding. Mom was not home yet, she was at Jim’s. I apologized to him, pet him, scratched, and hugged him. I also tried to look more closely at the gashes on his face but he did not want to let me look at it at first, he kept pulling his face away from me. But I looked at them a little, said goodnight to him and went to bed. Witch brings me to now, I still have not seen him since this morning. It’s 12:33AM now. I lit a blue Mulberry incense stick for him. It’s raining heavily now and has been for a hour. My room smells nice right now. A BBC news man on my radio is talking about President Obama working with republicans to solve the debt problem. I feel so guilty. I’ve known that Joey was old for a long time now and I’ve been meaning to take a photo of us together. Because I knew I may not get another chance. But I kept putting it off, and now it is too late. I wish I could somehow have been able to at least say goodbye. I remember when I first got him it was late at night and two old women brought him to us. He got out of their car zipped back and fourth around the driveway very fast. He was small and fit and young. I have a memory on being on my knees after giving up chasing him, and watching him zip away from me, then back past me. And Mom and Doug are ignoring him for the most part, talking to the two old women they were buying him from. Come to think of it, I think Joey was my first friend in Vassalboro. Before even Donald and Ernest. And I don’t even have a single photo of the two of us together. I’m always the one taking the photo, the one behind the camera. Damn it. Damn it all.
I’m tired. I’ll write about MIFF and other things that have been happening later. I’m going to sleep. I miss Joey.
I’m so sorry, Joey. I’m so sorry. I love you, Joey. I really. do.

[END WRITING AT Tue 26 Jul 2011 12:45:59 AM EDT ]
[WRITTEN AT Tue 02 Aug 2011 03:31:53 PM EDT ]
A few days one of Davids aid workers was driving us home and Mom was telling her about how Joey had Joey had gone off into the woods to die, and how lots of animals would do similar things. We drove up behind the our car. Just over the car you could see through our door, that had been opened. And just over the roof our car, though the doorway I saw two brown ears.
“Hey, look who’s not dead.” I said.
Mom gasped and got out of the van but did not go in at first, she seemed afraid to believe it. I got out and walked up the steps into the house. I petted Joey and put my bag on the table and watched Joey pace around the kitchen and back to his usual spot, staring out the doorway. Mom hugged the aid worker and eventually came in. It was nice for Joey to be back. Later that night I used the webcam on my netbook to take a few photos of me and Joey. However, even with the lights the shitty camera had a hard time making out any shapes or anything. I figured I’d take some more photos in broad daylight the next day or so when I was not working. Over the next couple days Joey acted weird. At one point I found him walking around under the house, and trying to eat a small frog but that part was not abnormal for a dog. He did want to come out nor did he try. On Friday, July 29, Mom picked me up from work. On the way home she told me, I don’t remember any of the words she used at all but long story short she told me Joey was having seizures for a long time and not coming out so she put him down. When I asked how she told me she got a gun from Jim.
I felt nothing.
When we got home I turned on the tv and got something to eat. When I turned on the tv I passed the doorway to Moms room and saw the aftermath. Joey was laying on his side no different from any other time he would lie down. He was pointing towards one of Moms dressers. A bit dark green, blue, or purple colored silk-like, patterned fabric was covering his head. Blood was seeping out from under it across the pink carpet.
I felt nothing. Save for maybe a small amount of surprise from never having seen such a sight before.
Later on, after I had dug a sizable hole, Mom and I worked on moving Joey out of the house. When I went into Moms room the stench was almost overpowering. Almost. Mom had already moved him enough to wrap him in a blanket. I suggest I go find a tarp to move him with and I got her to agree. More than getting a tarp, I just wanted to go to the car and get enough mints out of it to keep the smell from getting to me. By the time I found the tarp Mom had already gotten Joey to the front door, don’t ask me how. We rolled him into the tarp and brought him to the hole I dug in the front yard. I think either of us could have lifted him by our selves but we did not I don’t think either of us wanted to touch or smell him. We rolled him into his grave and Mom started to push one of the piles of dirt back into the hole while I went to pry rocks out of the ground in the area to pile on his body. Before I covered his head with a rock I asked Mom, “Can I see his face, or is it bad?” She said, “No, nope, it was a clean shot.” I uncovered his face. The first thing I saw was his teeth. Then his nose. A small amount of blood coming out of his nose. Then his closed eye. I asked Mom where she shot him, she said right between the eyes.” I looked at him for a long time. He was upside down in perspective to me. I craned my head to look at him better. After a while I covered him back up and put a rock over his head. Then Mom pushed dirt over his head. I put rocks over the rest of his head and buried him. Later, I put a square-ish rock of granite over his grave, a little to the left of where I think his head is, like an improvised tombstone.
It’s has been a few days now. I’ve gone back to my last day at my temporary job. Now I’m back to being a N.E.E.T. Our boss got us pizza to eat with each other at the end and I was laughing and talking with my former co-workers. I don’t feel any different than normal. I know I recognize Joey being dead as a negative thing, but I do not feel anything negative, or anything at all for that matter, about it. I feel nothing. Joey was the first friend I had when we moved to Vassalboro. I remember how during Winter when I would dig tunnels through the snow, Joey would dig his own small, cone shaped holes, and then shove his head into it.
Why don’t I feel anything about his death? At the same time I feel like I’m supposed to be feeling bad that I don’t feel anything about. But going back to the start, I don’t feel anything. Maybe it’s just not hit me yet.

The reason this part of this post took so long is because I had to leave to go eat at Davids house.
[END WRITING AT Tue 02 Aug 2011 07:35:32 PM EDT ]

[WRITTEN AT Tue 16 Aug 2011 02:47:26 AM EDT ]
After we brought Maisie home from her camp she was only here for a few days, and then she was off to spend a week with her father. That was When Joey died. I noticed a while back she had left something at the foot of Joey’s tombstone. It was a small red piece of leather. Circular but with a tab on one side that has a hole punched in it so one could tie it to things. In it Joeys name was scribbled into it via burning. While she was at camp she got to use some tool to burn words onto various shaped pieces of leather. She made one for me too with my name name and a fish burned into it. I found Joey’s a day after it rained. It was covered in the freshly dug dirt splashed up by rain drops. I put it back where I found it, but I wish I could think of some simple way preserve the leather name tag in the outdoors on the ground, it will just rot in the open elements.

A couple nights ago I finished taking a shower and there was no towel. It was late and no one was awake so I just quietly walked into the living room to get one. As I grabbed a towel I looked at the darkened entryway to Moms room and thought “Ew, Joey can see me naked” because he was all ways up all the night just pacing around in Moms room. Then I remembered he was dead. Finally, I felt the tinyist twinge of guilt.
I remember taking him for a walk once, even when he was never really into going for walks. I remember riding the our 4wheelers when I was younger and he would always run with us. When ever he saw water like a creek or swamp he would always dive in and go for a swim. But if we ever would try to give him a bath he would always fight and squirm against us until we were just to tried to force him into the tub.
I can’t really think of any else to say about Joey. I wish I did but I can’t think of anything else right off the top of my head. I’m not going to tie in Joey’s Death with everything else that happened in between Joey’s Death and Portcon 2011. Which was a lot of things, and I really to get it all written down, but Joey deserves his own post. Not that saying that really *means* anything. He was a big part of life here. And like I said earlier he was my first friend in Vassalboro. I can’t do anything else for him now except kick myself over and over for not hanging out with him more before he died. Which I am. We always bitch about what we lose after it’s gone, and don’t give a fuck about it while it’s around. I’m no different. And I hate myself for it. I’m going to try and see if I can gather up any photos of Joey from Mom and Maisie and digitize them. They probably have more photos of Joey than I do.

Goodbye Joey. I love you.
[END WRITING Tue 16 Aug 2011 03:51:38 AM EDT ]

[ADDED Wed 17 Aug 2011 04:23:33 PM EDT ]

I want to say more, but I just don't know what.
I miss him. I want him back at least long enough so I can say goodbye. I can't remember exactly when was the last time I saw him. My Mom told me about it on the way home from work, so I suppose I saw him in the morning before work. I have an image of it in my head where I'm looking down at him as he paced in kitchen like he normally did. In the direction of the glass door. But that could have been any morning. I just had the change that "did" I just typed from "does." Past tense. Joey is in the past tense now. Everything is always in the past tense. I hate this. I hate that I can't say goodbye, I hate that Mom had to shoot him with no one to help her, I hate that I didn't get to say goodbye, I hate that I don't remember that last time I saw Joey. I want another chance. I want a do over of that day. I would have skipped work. I would have hugged him. I would have done so many things different.
At least he got one last adventure in the woods into him before he died. I glad for that.

Portcon 2011

[WRITTEN AT Thu 07 Jul 2011 02:07:22 AM EDT ]


On a day at some point a while before Portcon, I saw a double rainbow. I was walking home from the library and while I was standing next to a field I saw a rainbow, and above it I saw another bigger one above it. Or at least half of one. So it was more like a one and a half rainbow. And as I was looking I saw a bolt of lightning right inside the smaller, inner, rainbow. Wow. Bet I'll never see that again. I kept walking down the road towards two pre-teen girls I saw jumping in puddles from the recent rain. I passed them while they were near the culvert. I told them that they probably should not go inside it because of the bugs, and then told them about what I saw. They got excited and ran back up the road towards the field. When I got home Spencer was there and he asked me about the same girls from the road. (He and mom saw them when they had driven home.) He made reference to fucking them and then asked me what I though of it. I told him they seemed to be 12 and walked to my room.

One of the days before Portcon was really weird; I can't remember witch day exactly because it was a while ago now. When walking to Bills house a helicopter flew so low I almost could have hit it with a rock. When walking from Bill's house I saw some animal up a tree. I think it looked like a beaver or groundhog or something similar. It was not really that scared by me. It broke off the end of a branch it was sitting on and chewed on it. While I was watching, a truck drove by (not visibly disturbing the tree animal) and a bat few overhead. That was nearby where my old middle school art teacher lives. When I was almost home I was listening to music and looking at the stars while walking and I saw two things moving in the sky. They looked just like any just like any of the other stars that were in the sky, but they were moving. (Of course I don't think it was stars that were moving, any of the stars we see in the night sky are un-imagineably far away, and any of their light that we actually see is hundreds of millions of years old. I'm not crazy.) From my viewpoint, one object was traveling on a downward right slant while the other object was traveling on a upward and to the right. If they had kept traveling without any change in trajectory, they would have pasted each other in parallel, but their trajectory did change. They had some sort of pull on each other, like a magnetic or gravitational pull. When they reached each other in center of my vision they changed each others trajectory when they came close to each other, they swung around each other like they were momentarily tied by a string, witch then broke sending the objects in perfectly horizontal trajectory (from my viewpoint) in opposite directions from each other. Really weird shit. I wonder what they were. Maybe some low orbit debris? NASA tracks all kinds of plain ol' garbage that's orbit around Earth. I wish I could know what they were, but I never will.




PORTCON 2011

Corey, a friend of Steve's picked me up at Barnes and Nobel bookstore in Agusta early in the morning. When I got in the car he gave something from Steve. It was the case to a DS game, Kingdom Hearts: Re:Coded. I opened it and two twenty dollar bills unfolded in front of me. Steve was paying Corey for my ride to Portcon. “Oh...! This is for you!” I said, and handed the money to Corey. The other thing inside the case was a Kingdom Hearts game, but not Steve's Re:Coded, it was my 358/2 Days, a game I let him barrow. He used the case from his game to protect mine. Steve is such a great friend. I'm going to pay him back too.
The first thing I saw when I walked into the hotel Portcon takes place in was a giant cosplay of Creeper, a creature from the game Minecraft. It serves no purpose in the game other than to silently walk up to you and then blow the fuck up. That's it. Thats all the down. Blow up you and anything you have built in the game. Their haunting faces are not fun either. It was a really good cosplay too. I took a photo on a cell phone a “borrowed” from my sister, who is currently away at some camp she got into for free. I just walked around and looked at artwork in the artist alley for a long time. Boonie and Steve could not come this year so I went around trying to meet new people. Like I do every year. Though this time I only talked to people who seemed to be my age. A girl named Amber talked to me asking about the giant wooden box on my back. This year was my first cosplay and I was cosplaying as Ginko from the manga MuShiShi. She tried on the box and said it was heavy but I really don't think so. I also met her friends, Taryn and her boyfriend John, Katie, and Spencer. John is a programmer who works with various languages, one of witch being Assembly. So he's pretty much a genius. And I told him so. Amber was doing a perfect cosplay of Lighting from Final Fantasy 13. I met a girl named Shelby who was doing an amazing cosplay of Red Link from The Legend of Zelda: The Four Swords. I took a photo of her too. And she took a photo if me too. I though it was really cool that this was my first cosplay ever, and 5 people actually recognized my cosplay, and three asked to take my photo! All this even though I TOTALLY fucked up my hair. Ginko's hair is supposed to be white. But my the bleaching job ended up making my hair half blond and half orange-ish. But people recognized me anyway! Next year, I'll have a wig instead.
[END WRITING AT Thu 07 Jul 2011 04:53:24 AM EDT ]
[RESUME WRITING AT Mon 11 Jul 2011 10:21:16 PM EDT ]
In an attempt to get my hair at least a little white I crossed the street from the hotel and walked to the Portland mall where I found a store selling white spray-on hair color. I wondered what the mall guards thought of me. I mean, anyone could carry a low yield nuclear device in their bag, but I had a giant wooden box on my back. If I were a terrorist I could do a lot of damage with a bomb as big as my box. I went back to the hotel, walked into a bathroom and unloaded the whole can on my head. It did not work at all. It just made one chunk of hair on my head all stick together like, (as John said) “Looks like somebody jizzed in your hair.”
In the vendors room (where I met Amber and co.(Or rather where they met me)) I bought a dark green t-shirt with a yellow graphic on the front of four characters from a anime I like called FLCL, I bought a keychain toy of Mew from the Pokmon games. After looking at the label I found out that the toy is actually from 1997! It's never been opened so it may be worth a lot of money. I also bought a pin-on button of the main character from the games Pokemon Black and Pokemon White. Though the seller was out of that particular character so she sent it in the mail to me and it arrived yesterday. At some point when we were outdoors we saw a small line of people all waddling in a line. Some one said “Join the waddle line!” And I did. So did Amber. The line of people waddled around the hotel following the person in front of the line. The line got bigger and bigger as we coaxed more and more people to join in. The “Waddle Line” got really really big as our leader fearlessly lead us into the hotel itself. As if it was not crowded enough already. Any of the normal footpaths that weaved around groupings of people inside were blocked but the giant line of slow moving cosplayers. We went down one hallway only to find out that the door at the end was locked! The leader turned and led us all back down the hall so that the entire line passed itself. As it did we all high-fived each other congratulating each others dedication and such. We went out of the hotel a different way that we went and walked around the whole parking lot (stopping traffic) and eventually back inside the hotel for another round. This time we went inside the already packed and cramped Artist Alley. I tired to get a couple artists I talked to earlier to join in, they really wanted to but they could not leave their booth. Back outside we went towards the tent, then circled around for another jaunt through the parking lot when a man dressed up as a purple octopus (what game/anime is it from?) stood in front of the line and tried to break us up by pushing tackling people. Me and another guy held him off so everybody else could go around. But nobody came back into the line after that. I guess they were pretty tired of it by then anyway. Later on, Shelby, Amber Taryn, John, Spencer, Katie and a couple other people sat on the floor next to a glass wall hung out and talked, ate, and played the ten fingers game. I suck at that game. Simone and one of her friends were there playing too. It was during this time that I learned a lot about all these new people. Shelby turned out to be 15 witch surprised the fuck out of me since I though she looked to be my age. She though I was 16. Fuck I hate looking young. Amber is actually married. I heard her mention it earlier but I thought she was joking, but she really is married. I though that was really cool and impressive considering that she was as young as I am. Shelby gave me a slice of pizza. When we were playing the purple octopus guy walked by and I said “Hey you!” He began walking towards us. I kept saying “Hey you! Hey you! Hey you! Hey you! Hey you! Hey you! Hey you!” and when he came close enough I said “Fuck you! You ruined the waddle line.” He reached one hand out of his bulbous purple octopus head and started pushing down on mine. I wriggled out of it and fell backward underneath of him. Purple fabric tentacles were dangling around me. He kept trying to grap at me. “I will RIP OFF your TENTACLES.” I said. Then I noticed his boxers were hanging out from the legs of his shorts. I stopped struggling for a moment and said “You know, you're wearing the same boxers as me. My newfound friends laughed. He silently took his brawny arm back into his costume and walked off. I hope I remember that for a long time, it was funny.
I don't remember when exactly but Me, Amber, Taryn, John and Spencer were outside the hotel when a girl with red-ish glasses, gray painted skin horns that looked like Candy Corn gave Spencer a “Make over” by drawing a giant frown, a heart, and other scribbles all over his face with black lipstick. A tiny bit before or after that (can't remember. I hate that.) Spencer had on a mask of a very frightened house head. He had an extra witch he gave to Taryn, who clipped the bright powder blue wig she was wearing on the frightened horse head. It was both ridiculous and very funny. As we were standing there laughing at ourselves a truck drove by, leaving the hotel. Inside the truck a man was recording video of us on his iPhone when he was driving. We all laughed, waved, and I said “Hi Internet!” I really wish I could have a copy of that video. Both because of the memory stored within it and also because I just really want to see what we looked like.
The whole Ten Fingers game next to the glass wall with everybody was happening during the end of the day. We were basically killing time while we waited for the rave to start. Right as it started up I decided I wanted glowsticks this year because I never had them in years past. I also did not want to buy them from Portcon staff for a ridiculous price. So Shelby and I went off to find a local dollar store when I could get a bunch of them for cheap. We did not really know where we were going so I asked for directions from a couple women. I did so in a slight European accent because people in Portland are always more helpful than usual when they are being asked something by someone who (they believe to be) is a foreigner, for whatever reason. The people sent us in the right direction but we still could not find it so we double back, had a hell of a time crossing the road, and went to a party store where I bought us each some glowsticks. We got back to the tent, unwrapped the glowsticks, I helped her put some on her wrists, and I went in. I IMMEDIATELY lost Shelby in the tent. But I found Amber, Simone and everybody else and danced with them for a really long time. When Taryn would not dance with John, (as a joke, she was not really mad at him or something) John decided to grind with me to spite Taryn. I thought it was funny and kept going with it until even John got uncomfortable with it. I teased Taryn with “I think I look better behind your boyfriend than your boyfriend looks behind you.” I think I'm getting better at dancing like this. When we all got tired we went outside and I let Katie barrow a dollar so she could buy water. She said she would go to her car to pay me back, so I told Simone I'd be right back and we all went to her car way out in the darkest furthest away part of the parking lot so she could pay me back. The some Portcon security guy came up to us out of nowhere just to make sure Katie was not selling us drugs. He was cool. He shined a light in my eyes and told me that because my pupils did not dilate that means I was not high. (Woo!) She shined the light on his own face and mimed the look of a person whose head was trying to wiggle itself off the rest of it's body in order to get away from the light. He said thats what a person who is high looks like when you shine a light in his face. He had a shaved head, no shirt, and a black military vest with all kinds of pockets. He was cool. Katie drove us all back to the entrance and then drove herself home. We dove back into the tent again to keep on dancing. I was sad that I would not be able to find Simone again for the rest of the night because this was the first time I had gotten to see her since she broke up with me.
The rest of the rave was really cool. Amber said I should try waltzing right there in the middle of the rave. I did just that, but with her as my partner. Or at least I tried. She had a hard time following my direction. But in her defense, I'm rusty, and you could barely hear anything over the music.
You know the things at dances where a bunch of people get in a circle and people take turns showing off their dance moves in the middle of the circle, one or two people at a time? Well that happened and John went in twice. He is apparently talented at many things. After his first time going in, he came out holding his hands outward and saying something like “Ohh! Gross! It's so gross! Ohh!” He kept looking for something to wipe his hands off on and eventually found one of the fiber straps that holds the tent in place. When I first came upon the circle a guy and a girl had glowsticks on their hands and feet and were having a mock fight in tune with the music. And when I heard the theme song from the game Mortal Combat come on, I took a bit to gather up my courage and did the same thing with another guy already dancing in the circle about halfway though the song. I've never been in any kind of performance that was viewed by other people, and I've certainly never danced in front of other people before. I think this is a good step forward for me. I'm no hermit, but I'm not the most social person in the world either. After we danced for a long long time, I was beat, and Amber and I went out for a break. I asked some Portcon staff what time it was and the told it was around 10:20 or something. I was supposed to meet Corey for my ride back at 10! Amber and I hugged, said goodbye, and I went back inside to get my big wooden box with all my stuff in it. Some bitch of an older woman had move it into the lost and found saying the Portcon staff I left it with were not supposed to take it in the first place. My cell had a bunch of missed calls on it. My cell is out of minutes so I borrowed a cell from some guy, right as I placed the call his cell died. I borrowed a cell from one of his friends and called Corey. He said to meet him in a line of cars outside, or at least that's what I thought. I went and found Shelby in the video game room talking and having a drink with some other people. I returned the camera I was holding for her in the box, wrote on her prop shield the URL to my Facebook account, thanked for the fun I had and walked out to find Corey. Outside I asked one girl on a bench (that I talked to a little earlier in the day) if she had fun. She said she had a lot of fun and that this was her first Portcon. I told her it was my fourth and the best one yet. I kept walking and told her to have to good night. Ultimately I had to borrow one more persons cell phone to find Corey. It said the person's name on the home screen on the phone. When I gave it back to him I said thank you and “also, you have a badass name.” He smiled, looked surprised and said thank. His name was very badass, I'd like to tell you but I do not have his permission to say his name on this public site, so I won't. I put my stuff in Coreys car and waited as he added more oil to the engine. By that time the rave had ended and everybody was filing out to their cars or back into the hotel. I called out Simone's name a few time to see if I could get a chance to say goodbye. But I did not. I recognized a guy who walked by as someone I saw dancing in the circle and said to him “Oh hey. You're a good dancer” He came up to me, shook my hand and said “Thanks. You're a pretty good dancer your self.” This caught me off guard. “I am? Thanks, I don't really know what I was doing. “ He went on to tell me about how he looked up videos to learn about dancing but it's more about having fun and dancing to how you feel. Corey got his car working again a bit after that.
On the way back I apologized a lot for being late a making Corey wait. He said it was okay. We listened to a band he called Modest Mouse. They sort of sound like a low-key Red Hot Chili Peppers to me. At the Barnes and Nobel book store where I was supposed to meet my mom, she was not there yet so I called her from Corey's cell a couple times before she woke up. She fell back asleep on me. It's a scary thought when such a thing happening could mean I get stuck in a far away town. Corey was just taking me as far as that book store and no further. He left and I waited. It was colder out now so I changed out of the t-shirt I wore for the rave and back into the long sleeve shirt and trenchcoat used for my Ginko cosplay. I read news on my cell until I ran out of interesting articles. I walked aimlessly around the parking lot. Waiting. For almost a hour. Eventually I started walking down to road towards some lights that may have been a convenience store when I might use a phone. I though maybe Mom had fallen back asleep. Just as I got going down the hill her car came up the hill. I got in. She drove me home, not talking much. I was so tired. When I finally did get home, I feel asleep almost instantly. This was probably the best Portcon so far.

And now, I can barely keep my eyes open right now. I'll type more later. Goodnight, from 2011.
[END WRITING AT Tue 12 Jul 2011 12:51:56 AM EDT ]

[RESUME WRITING AT Fri 15 Jul 2011 01:57:26 AM EDT ]
A little while after Portcon, a some day last week, I was out running and at the turn-around point of my run I stole some wifi with my PSP like I sometimes do in order to check messages and such. (This time it was Jim's wifi.) On Facebook one of the people I met from Portcon, Amber, posted a question asking who wanted to come to the beach with her tomorrow. I commented back saying that I have been dying to and would it be possible for her to pick me up. Because I had no idea where she lived, and I know Mom would not bring me, I thought I was joking when I said that, and did not think anything would come of it. But of course no one can tell someones voice inflexion through text, so she took it seriously and her sending me a text message woke me up early the next morning asking me if were going to do this or not. I gave her my address and we made arrangements for her to come get me. Later in the day. When Mom got back from running errands in the morning, I told her about it and she was a little surprised. She asked if it was someone from work, I told her it was someone from Portcon and she said “Well, cool!”
Amber came in a little silver car with her husband, Evan, and their friend Josh (Who Amber called “Cooms”). Amber did not really know of and beaches to go to, so Mom and I suggested Sandy Point Beach, a secluded beach in a tourist town that the tourists are conveniently never told about. A hour or so later we got there at what looked like high tide. We set all our stuff down and began to talk about video games, anime, manga, and about how much this years E3 event sucked. I tried to teach Amber how to skip rocks but she does not appear to have much physical coordination. The wind did not help her either, but she managed to skip a few. Josh and Evan did not talk to me much, Amber and I mostly talked to each other. I talked with them a bit when E3 came up, but not much more. I really hope I did not do anything wrong. I want them to like me. I tried to get the two into Amber and I's conversation, but they mostly just acknowledged what I said and went on with their own subjects. When we sat down to eat, I pulled a towel to sit on out of my bag. It actually turned out to be a hand towel that was not much bigger than my ass. Amber and I laughed at this. I greedily ate a PP&J sandwich Amber had made me plus most of their chips. I had not eaten anything since two days beforehand in an attempt to loose weight. It's working a little.
Time passed and the tide cam came in. I thought it was high tide when we got there, but the tide came as close as about fifteen feet from the grass. Amber, Evan and Josh were looking like they were getting ready to leave. I know I'm the kind of guy that would like to spend the entire day at the beach, and I know it would be rude to ask them to stay for an extended period of time, but I wanted to stay just a few minutes longer. I asked them to come up the beach with me. They did. We walked up the beach until we came to the beach's tide pool, where they only dry way of crossing it was walking across a fallen tree that someone had cut down and laid across it. I walked over it as normally as I would walk across flat, solid, ground. Amber held out her arms for balance to cross it. Josh and Even said and did nothing. Amber walked back and forth across it a couple times in front of them. I tried to convince them to cross it, but when ever I said something they just looked at me, and looked away again, saying nothing. Amber said that Josh had his iPod in his pocket, meaning he did not want to risk falling and getting it wet. Amber stayed with them and I walked up the beach just a little more, and then around the bend in the beach, revealing a completely shaded in coast line, and more beach houses in the distance. The shade kept the sand cool on that side but that shady part of the beach was apparently used by seagulls for dropping and breaking clam shells from high above. The broken clam shells everywhere hurt a lot to walk on and made me wish I had my sandals. One this part on the beach the sand did not end with a grassy plain, no, here where the sand ended a extremely steep hill began. I climbed up it. The grass here was different. It was not like the thick, stiff, reedy plant life you normally find around beaches but in it's place was normal, short, soft grass that you find in peoples lawns. The top of the hill was un-naturally flat, and there were the flattened ruins of a small house. Very old. It looked like it was built from scratch and possibly had a dirt floor. It was made from brick, mortar, and wood that looked like it was cut more by hand than machine. I wondered what kind of person made a house like this, if they were still alive, and who owned the land now? Possibly his or hers descendants? Just how old was this place? This is was exciting. This was a little bit of an adventure. I wished the others would have come. Though, I'm the only person I've met who would have found this interesting. I looked over the bay and took of my shirt, it was getting hot now. I yelled out for the others to come, but I already knew it would not be possible for them to hear me. I climbed back down to the beach, and walked to its end, this time with a walking stick so I would not have to all of my weight pushing the bottoms of my feet into broken clam shells.
Walking back around the bend I saw Amber walking towards me. I wrapped my white shirt on the end of the stick and twice waved it above my head like a flag of surrender as I walked toward her. We met at the tide pool and I walked across the tree-bridge to her end. I complained that Josh and Evan should have come. She said Josh was really more of the “stay inside all day instead of outside adventures type.” And Evan stayed with him so he would not be alone. And I understood that I was natural for Amber to stay with the people she actually knew (plus she was married to one of them) and so I did not question it. When we reached Josh and Evan they had already brought their stuff to the car and only my bag of crap was left. When we got there I had carried everybody's stuff to the sea side to be nice, I hopped I would get to do it again, but no. While picking up my stuff I noticed and shiny piece of plastic that formed the words “Just Married.” Evan and Josh explained that people had showered the car with the things at Amber and Evans and, despite Evans cleaning, every once and a while you would hear them rattling around in the AC system and one would get spit out ever so ofter. I wanted to super glue it to a piece of beach glass I found. I placed it in the middle of the beach glass and though it actually looked really pretty like that. Unfortunately I lost both the beach glass and the bit of confetti on the way home. Somehow.
Driving back we drove past a very old car called a DeLorean. A car that was famously used in the “Back to the Future” movie trilogy. In the movie the car was able to travel back in time once it reached 88 miles per hour. Josh jokingly suggested we pull a U-turn and follow behind it until we reach 88MPH, and then take a photo of the speedometer with the DeLorean visible over the dashboard. I kind of wished they were serious about it. If I were driving, I would have done it. Really. I would. We also almost hit a dog. Amber stopped to avoid this hitting the dog only to have it come over to her door wanting to play. She walked it back to the house we thought the dog came from and Evan drove the car into the driveway. The house was dead quiet and empty and we found a the line the dog had been hooked to next to the door step. It was attached to a metal stake that was supposed to be stuck in the ground but had been pulled out. I don't see how something like that was supposed to hold a dog of any size in place. Almost anything could pull that out of the ground. Especially this large Golden Retriever dog. Not that it mattered, the hook that should connect to the dogs collar was broken anyway. Amber tied the line to the dogs collar and she and I wrapped the other end of the line many times around a water spigot in the front yard. I took a notebook and pen out of my bag and Amber wrote a note to leave on the door of the house. “And to think, I was telling myself this morning there's no reason the bring a not book to the beach-I won't need it!” I said. I went to pick up a tennis ball to give to the dog and I laughed out loud when I saw the back side of the house. There were two foam Archery targets in the back yard. One was in the form of a deer, the other was in the form of a baby black bear. Witch for the smallest second, I thought was real and crapping in the back yard of that house.

We got back to the secret beach and back to my house without any (further) incident thanks to Amber's GPS. Amber later posted two pictures she took of me at the beach on Facebook. Other than that I have not heard from he since.

Work is going fine. They only have us working one day a week. I work again next Monday and I'm going to talk to my boss to see if there is any other work to be done on the campus. I need more money if I'm going to travel the way I want.

[END WRITING AT Fri 15 Jul 2011 03:42:21 AM EDT ]

Busy for once

This was all written last week, I just forgot to post it until now.

[WRITTEN AT Sat 11 Jun 2011 11:47:26 PM EDT ]

Monday, my first day of work. Finally after months and months of nothing a job opened up. I saw an ad on Craigslist for it. A temporary, very-part-time job cleaning up residence halls at Thomas college. Mom and Spencer dropped me off two hours early. I waited at the residence hall I was told we were supposed to meet at but then the boss, a guy named Mike, walked in with the other people who were doing the same job as me and said I had to go to the main office to fill out some paperwork and make a time card. Apparently All the other workers were told to meet at main office and I didn't get the memo. After doing the paper work I went back to the building but had to go searching around for them since Mike did not tell me where they were going to go. I found them in a lounge on the second floor and as I walked in Mike stuck me with the bathroom work. "If you don't volentire for volenTOLD." he said. Instead of being early and looking like a good worker I looked like a stupid teenager. I did the work happily though. I'm glad I'm being paid. The other people I was working with was two younger girls, a older woman, and a younger guy, maybe younger than me, whose race I could not determine. Maybe Latino or African. The older woman talked to Mike much more than she did any work. One of the girls actually went to college but other than this temp job she has with me, she too is out of work, just like all the people who didn't go to college. The older woman crapped herself in the elevator going from one floor to another. The other three were constantly complaining about the work. I said they shouldn't complain because they are being paid. They didn't stop. When we were almost done cleaning up once residence hall Mike left to go do something and the two girls and the one guy just stopped working and talked at one end of the hall by the door. I took part in their conversation but that was while I was cleaning up the floor, sweeping, and going up and down the hall to the janitors closet to put away tools. They were just talking. When the conversation came to transportation I said all I wanted was a vespa. The guy said "Aw! Kunckles!" and jumped from where he was over to me and held out his fists to me. I was kneeling on the floor. I looked at his fists in front of my face. "Uhh..." I said. "Just bump one, I don't care witch one." I bumped one of his fists with mine. Apparently he wanted a vespa too. I cleaned a lot of bathrooms that day. It left me wondering, do all college students go through some ritual when they chop off all their pubic hair upon entering college or something? Because their were pubes everywhere. The owners of the hair made no attempt to clean them up. The workdays are really far apart. My next dat of work is next Monday.

Tuesday. What the hell did I do Tuesday? Oh right. I went and bought pants for my cosplay for Portcon. I'm going to cosplay as Ginko from the manga Mushishi. It's a really spiritual manga about creatures called mushi that exist between the plains of life and death and Ginko travels the land on foot helping people with problems caused by mushi. I got a the pair of tan pants I needed for it. Now all I need is a pocket less, white, button up shirt and a large wooden box I can carry on my back. Afterwards I was standing on part of an old bridge by the river that separates Winslow and Waterville. I was on the Waterville side. I saw a blimp low in the sky way up river. It was flying diagonally across the river from the Winslow side. The front half of it was blue, the back half of it was white and its rudders were red. It kept going down and up and down again. I kept watching it, wishing I had a camera. While it looked like it was struggling to keep its altitude, it kept getting lower and lower and eventually disappeared behind the thing but tall line of trees that ran along this side of the river. I climbed down from the old structure I was on and bolted to the other side of that line of trees as fast as I could. I came out on top of a hill where train tracks were. The blimp was no where to be seen. Even if it was possible for it to fly over the line of trees and into the town, there were no buildings there tall enough to hide it. If it were over the town I should be able to see it. I concluded it must have went down, landed or crashed, somewhere up the line. I jogged up the train tracks until I got to the Waterville train yard. Nothing. Where where was it? It it had landed somewhere in the train yard then it would have been towering over everything in the area. I wanted to go and look around the train yard, but there were yard workers walking around the train yard getting a passenger train ready to go. What was a passenger train doing here in a freight train yard? There were never passenger trains here. I gave up and went to look at the river by the train yard. There was a drain pipe that spewed foul spelling water into the river. They water fell a long ways to the bottom of the pipe, it looked like a small tropical waterfall from the bottom. I climbed down to the rocks around the bottom of the falls. I also walked under the pipe itself so it was like I was behind the waterfall. That was the day when I first saw a blimp.

Wednesday was Winslow High Schools Graduation. Witch meant my friends Turk, KJ, and Hannah were all graduating. When I got there I saw Boonie and went to sit with him. I was glad there was someone there I knew. I kifed an unused cell phone of Maisie's and used the camera on it to record video of KJ and Hannah graduating. I accidentally missed Turk though. Darn. Afterwards I also got their reactions on video. I asked them how they felt now that they had graduated. Hannah said it felt really good. KJ said he needed to pee. Turk said he was going to Disneyland and getting his head shaved. I followed KJ to his car and mimicked his mom, taking too many pictures of KJ all in various poses and with various. I too pictures with my cell phone while KJs mom tooks photos with her real camera. She even wanted to get photos on KJ and his girlfriend, and even me. She then posted two photos of me and KJ to Facebook but I could only find one. My hair was huge and crazy. After KJ left I went to go find Hannah again but her mom had left with her already. There was still a large amount of people outside the building that the event took place. (the Colby College gym) But no one I knew, except Donald. I seen him earlier taking pictures of his friends as they graduated. He called out to me. I waved, but I did not want to. Boonie, his Friend Seth, Seth's girlfriend, and I got in Boonies car and drove out of the lot. On the way out I saw Donald walking in the lot again and Seth said "Whose that...redhead in the purple shirt?" I said "Donald Cyr." Seth said "He was like, running around and hyper-ventilating and crying a lot." I said "Yeah, he's like that, he gets excited a lot, I knew him when I was little." Seth just said "Oh." We stopped for smoothies on the way to Boonies house at a store across from the Waterville train yard. I told them about the strange blimp I saw the day before. They said they saw it too and that when they saw it they thought it looked like it was going to crash. Boonie was giving me a ride because told him how my mom told me that I had to walk home from Colby College. He thought that was stupid and wanted me to crash at his house in Winslow for the night. There was crazy weather that night. When I was alone in Boonies room, Seth came to the door and said "Mere" (a shortening of the phrase "Come here") I followed him outside to the back porch to where Boonie was where there was crazy winds and heat lighting going on. I tried to take videos of it but the shitty camera on Maisie's phone could pick up very little of the effects of the lightning on the sky, even though the lighting would light up the whole night sky. I even went across the street and climbed up on the roof of an unattended garage and took video. But I got scared off when I saw a particularly big bolt of lightning flare up the overcast sky. We ended up spending the rest of the night dicking around on the Internet, looking at videos and news from this years E3 event, and talking about women. Boonie also talked to me about a very comprehensive board game called Dungeons and Dragons that he plays with Seth and his twin brother Dylan. I've heard about it before and I've never really cared about it but Boonie seems to really want me to play so maybe I will give it a try. We went to sleep around 4AM and I woke up around noon the next day. We played video games from a while and we went down to his basement and he played some stuff on guitar and drums and he even let me play with his guitar some. Boonie is a master musician and is in two bands. I don't know if I've mentioned that before. He is crazy good on guitar. A master. I can only hope that I can be as skilled as he is some day. He took me home around 6PM. Boonie always insists on giving me a ride even when I actually want to walk. He's probably the kindest person I know. That was Thursday.
[END WRITING AT Sun 12 Jun 2011 01:54:25 AM EDT -TOO DAMN SLEEPY]

[WRITTEN AT Sun 12 Jun 2011 07:30:21 PM EDT ]
On Friday when I went for a walk there were three kids on my road. I knew what kids lived in town and these were not any of them. Two girls and one guy. All dressed in typical rap idol fashion. The two girls were wearing denim shorts smaller than a pair of panties. The guy wore a yellow shirt two sizes too big, baggy jeans belted under his ass and a white cap with an extra large flat visor with the sticker still on that was tilted sideways. They were around the first culvert you drive over going in the road. The skinnier girl and the guy looked like they were arguing about something, they were keeping their voices down and speaking really close to each others faces. They were around 12 feet away from the culvert. I dragged my feet on the dirt as I came close to surprise them. And they were very surprised to see anybody around at all. I passed them saying nothing. The other, more plump, girl was standing on top of the culvert itself, playing with her hair pretending not to hear whatever the other two were talking about. As I passed the said to me with too much glee: "HI!" I took out one of my earbuds. "Hello." With the same amount of glee: "What's your name?" I did not stop. "Drew." She said something I did not quite hear. I continued walking while attempting to put my earbud back in, but she called after me: "What's your last name?" I called back with: "Smith." and said nothing more. I don't feel like having 13 year olds looking for me on Facebook. Who were these kids and what were they doing on my road? It's not like there are any stores down here nor anyone other kids they may visit. On my walk I relayed a message to Jim from my mom about gas for the lawn mower she borrowed. He was kinda rude and did not say goodbye to me. After that I went through a empty field and found 4 Painted Turtles. They were all moving towards the road and I did not want them to get run over so picked them up and cairied them a small distance in the direction of the river. One kept trying to walk around me and towards the road. A tractor trailer truck came over the hill. The turtle stopped trying to scramble around my feet and raised its head like a periscope to look at the tuck. The tuck changed gears a it came down the hill releaseing a long, low, and very loud rumble. The turtle pissed itself. "Yeah I'd be scared too." I said. The turtle let me carry it in the direction of the river without fuss.
On my way back home I noticed something in the water flowing out of the same culvert those kids were at. In the shallow water sitting upside down on a rock was the boys white gangster cap. Apparently whatever argument him and his ho were having did not end so well. I paused my music and stood on the culvert. I pointed at the hat and said aloud: "Now that's funny." And it was.

On Saturday on my way back home from the library black, very beat up, SUV stopped braked hard to stop, back up, and turn onto the road that I was walking on. I looked away from it and kept walking. After a few minutes I realized the SUV had not passed me. I turned and looked back. It was a about 15 yards behind me fully stopped. Maybe they were lost and looking at a map? I kept walking. More time passed and the SUV had not passed me. I turned to look again at it. The SUV suddenly lurched to a stop behind me. The beat up SUV was following me and each time I stopped to look at it the driver hit the breaks. I took my knife out its holster on my bag. There was deep marshy wetland on either side of me. If I was going to run it could only be forward or backward-unless I could swim faster than I could run. At least it they decided to confront me I could stab them in the face. I turned again and suddenly the SUV pulled up next to me. I gripped my knife tighter. In the passenger seat girl in and purple hoodie staring lazily at me. The driver was a very stereotypical redneck. He had a dirty gray t-shirt and and a black baseball cap. His two front teeth were fused into a single lopsided one. He was unshaven and bobbing his head up and down as he talked, loudly. "HEY MAN AH THOUGHT YOU WAS SOMEONE I KNEW." I simply replied with "Uh" and got ready to run if I needed to. "OK THEN HAVE A GOOD ONE." He drove up the road a while then turned onto my dirt road and sped up, flinging rocks and dirt behind him. I didn't know who he is visiting on my road but I hoped he'd stay a long time so I would have to get home before he could pass me again. And he didn't.

It's late. I just watched my mom say "I don't have issues." over the phone to someone just as she took a big hit from a double sized can of booze. I hope her drinking does not cause me to be late for work tomorrow. It's only my second day.
[END WRITING AT Sun 12 Jun 2011 08:23:02 PM EDT ]

Longest post ever. (I'm sorry)

Okay, this is my longest post ever. I had a lot of stuff happen that was worthy of recording, then there was a lot of procrastination. And Mom kept making me go out and "help" Spencer with stuff every single time I sat down for one second to do anything, including write this. What should have been 15 separate entires is now one. Lots of bad stuff happened, and some good stuff happened. Hopefully I will be able to do better in the future.


[WRITTEN AT Sat 14 May 2011 11:01:31 PM EDT ]
The day before Samoset animals were going nuts. Big (one of our dogs) was barking at something off in the woods across the road. Then came back whining like he was hurt. As I was going for a walk later on I met the guy who lives behind us in his red truck driving up the road. He told me that there had been a few confirmed cases of rabies in dogs on the outskirts of town. I thanked him, he continued driving up the road, I kept walking a bit, remembered what happened with Big earlier, about faced, and rand back home. I got there and told Mom about it. She said there was very little chance Big had rabies because he had his rabies shot. I walked down the road again for my walk.
On the way back home I heard a din of chattering over the music I was playing in my ears. I looked up to see a freakishly large flock of bids in a tree around 20 yards up the street from me. I turned off my music to listen. They were so many, so loud. Each one having something to say. I slowly walked forward, just a few steps. Without waring the din torn away from the world as though Earth itself just vented all its atmosphere. The flock moved, as one enormous being, over me, over the street, and into a new tree behind a house.
[END WRITING AT Sat 14 May 2011 11:56:37 PM EDT ]

[WRITTEN AT Mon 16 May 2011 11:56:24 PM EDT ]
I watched them for a moment, standing there near the north end of Cemetery street. They were barely whispering now, compared to the sound they were making now. The sun was setting. The clouds behind their new tree were orange, blue, and gray. I stood there for a moment, smiled, put my earbuds back in, and continued walking home.

The next day Jim's son, Ernest (also a former friend) drove me to the nearby Fieldstone gas station where I waited for Simone and her mom (Deb) to pick me up and bring me to Samoset, a resort where Deb and he husband (Ed) own something called a "timeshare" where they get a room and get to use the resort for a week, once a year, or something like that. It took I guess two hours to get there. I did not realize just how ritzy the place was until I got there.
[END WRITING Tue 17 May 2011 12:32:18 AM EDT ]

[WRITTEN AT Fri 20 May 2011 12:27:13 AM EDT ]
Our room was on the bottom floor. It had a kitchen and living area, a bathroom and one bedroom, and a small outside deck overlooking the golf course, and the ocean. On the first day Simone took me on a tour of the place. We hung out out in a tiny arcade. She played a snowmobile game, a played a claw-arm game and won a small candy called a "tootsie roll." A favorite candy of mine since I was little. I gave it to Simone when she won her game. We went back to the room, her mom ordered pizza. Simone and I watched movies and kissed in the bedroom until her mom got tired of watching tv in the living room. Her mom came in, I slept on the couch.
The next day Simone and I went swimming in the resorts pool. It was really nice. I remember there were these underwater lights in the pool that slowly changed color. More people came in as time passed. Simone's mom came in at the moment Simone and I parted from a kiss. She was wearing red and black heavy clothing and carrying her camera. She called us over to the edge of the pool and asked if we were going to stay longer. We said yes. She said something else. The noise of other people in the pool was too loud. Simone and I looked at each other and asked each other if the other had heard what she said. Neither did. Deb repeated herself a couple times but then gave up and left. We swam for a while longer. Took showers in these really luxurious changing rooms. There were even steam rooms inside there. Afterwards we went to this upstairs corridor area that had a ping pong table at one end. We sat down, kissed, and cuddled for a while. Then badly played ping pong. It was mostly me who was bad at it, I'm clumsy as fuck.
After that we went back to our room. Sat on the bed of the bedroom and watched tv. Deb was watching TV in the living room. Close to nightfall we went outside so I could look around and see coast. Simone was taking photos the whole time. Photos of the building and the trees. We made our way down to this small beach on the inside of this great stone breakwater that lead out to a lighthouse. I had he take some photos of the harbor lights. I remember there were three fishing boats anchored in the harbor, close by. One of them had a light on it that illuminated the all the ropes and rigging on the ship. I thought it was beautiful. I tried to take photos of it but the zoom on Simone's camera was not good enough for it. I took a photo of Simone keeling down on the breakwater, but in the opposite direction. (looking over the coast - not the harbor) Back at our room we kissed and cuddled on the bed until Deb wanted to go to sleep, left the bedroom and slept on the couch.
On the last day Simone, Deb and I went for our big walk to the break water. Deb wanted to go the long way around by leaving the resort, going on the street, then taking a small trail that skirts around the resort. But when we got to the edge of the resort property there was a fence, and the gate was locked. So we just followed the fence across wide lawns. The was a lone, fallen tree out side this smalled tree'ed area, I climbed on top of it just because I love to climb things. Though Simone and Deb took no notice of my antics. I jumped down and followed them through this small area of trees. On the other side the lawn was soaked and mushy. Water left over from recent rainfall. I tried to jump across some deeper water at one point to the grass itself slid under my left foot as it hit the ground. I fell in the water soaking my whole left side up to my hip. Simone and Deb said nothing, they must think me immature. Simone jumped over the same puddle and landed with her left foot in the hole left over from my left foot, but she did not slip. The break water itself was like an immense stone bridge the lead to a lighthouse on the other side. The breakwater was made of many many large squarish stones, with large misshaped stones piled on one side, all the protect the harbor from large waves. The was only one stone on the breakwater that was wide enough to reach horizontally across the whole thing, Simone challenged me to find this stone. I sort of did. I noticed it was we were walking but only because I noticed that Simone because Simone looked down at it as we passed over it. She took a picture of me standing on it while point down on it with one hand, doing a thumbs-up with the other hand, and wearing a ridiculously happy look on my face.
The lighthouse at the end of the breakwater was cool. I noticed that it was powered by a combination of solar panels and what looked a huge power cable going down into the water. It also had a fog horn going. I was able to see another, bigger light house on the other side of the harbor. I could see at the tip of the other shore, rising out from behind trees. Bed told me it was the Owls Head light house. I was amazed. Owls Head light house was a place that my father would bring me as a child when I used to visit him on the weekends. There was a rock beach there, with large boulders that I would climb all over. I remember that it was a long walk up a dirt road up to the light house. And even then you would have to walk up a long suspended wooden walkway to get to the light house. I visited the place as a child only one other time other than the visits with my father. Preschool took my class there once. I don't remember any of the other students that I went there with. I don't have any memories of seeing them there. I just have memories of walking with them, I never *see* them in my memories, the memories are just me *knowing* that they are there. I got to the top of the lighthouse first, I think. I remember that there is a student next to me, on my right. He and I are looking out over the coast. There is a fog a ways off, we cannot see all the way to the horizon. The boy next to me tells me that the island we see is Africa. I say "No its not." He told me again that it was. I thought about it. I remember seeing Africa on maps in school. I knew where Maine was, and Africa was generally in a southwest-ish direction of Maine, and we were on the coast. I deduced that he was right: I believed him.
(Back in todays time now, not my childhood.) On the way back to land from the break water there were even more people than there were going in. On the way in I pretty much just saw one person: a Asian girl in running clothes, breathing heavy. I smiled and nodded to her in greeting. She looked away from me and continued on her jog. Other than that there was only a group of friends my age walking out when we were going in. Now there were tons of people going into the breakwater while we were going out.
By the time we got back to the room it was time to pack up and go home. On the drive back we stopped at McDonalds. Simone let me have some of her strawberry milkshake. It was delicious.
They dropped me off at the Barnes & Nobel bookstore in Augusta. They waited a while for my mom but left when she did not turn up for a while. I did not mind. I love Barnes & Nobel. As usual I saw all kinds books, manga, and even a couple magazines that I wanted to buy, but did not have the money for. Mom turned up after a small while. She was practically in tears. Her car had broken down just outside the
plaza. She has such a stressful time driving outside her normal circles. Then her car crapped itself making her late to pick up her son. I hugged her. I'm glad a guy came by to help her revive the car. On the way out I saw a very comprehensive visual guide to guitar, for only 8 dollars. I wanted it. I know it would help me learn sooo much. Mom subtly urged me to get it, but I didn't I was trying to save all the money I could, not that I even know what I'm saving for anymore.
We drove all the way home without further incident.
[END WRITING AT Fri 20 May 2011 02:42:07 AM EDT ]

[WRITTEN AT Sun 22 May 2011 04:09:13 PM EDT ]
There was a local talent show at this place in town called a "grange." The audience was all people old enough to be youthenized. Mom said there used to a "fresher crowd" there." I'm fairly sure that fresher crowd is still there, just no longer as fresh. I couple people played guitar. There was one juggler. One woman played electric chello, witch was pretty cool. A gril played violin while her mother played piano. A kid with a long pony tail wearing a fedora sang and played a Death Cab for Cutie song on a Ukalalie. There was one person I knew there. I first met him at another talent show at Mesalonskie High School. I mostly knew him by the nickname of "Toast" but his real name is Erick Anderson. He sand two songs while playing piano. At an intermission he came and talked to me. Apparently he is a part of some organization called American Youth. You pay tuition like you would if you went to college, then they ship you out to some place in California where you are put into rigorous 16 hour a day dancing and singing training. Then they send to either shows for audiences in other countries (or Broadway), or they have you put on shows for less fortunate kids in America. And once you're a part of the group you're in it for life. Erick said you could be 40 years old and you could call them up and say "Hey, I wanna do a show. When is the next opening?" I talked with him about it for while. I could see Doug, Maisie's father, over Erick's shoulder glaring at Erick. I do not know if I have mentioned this before but Doug is racist, and a homophobe. And Erick is black, and gay. Doug just kept glaring at Erick with hatred. Obviously Doug knew that Erick was black but I wonder what Doug would have done if he knew that Erick was also gay? Doug once proudly proclaimed to Mom that he "pissed in some dumb Mexican's coffie." Maisie's bit in the talent show was her doing a hip-hop dance to some 90s boy band music. Doug literally RAN out of the building, seeing that his requirement to watch his daughters show was done, so he could go to his house and drink. Maisie had to chase him down so she could ask him if he liked her work. Mom sang Mercedes Benz by Janis Joplin. She even got the audience to sing along with her, including me. I recorded both Maisie and Mom on an old camera-cell phone. She video quality was shit but it's the only thing we have to record video. I helped Erick take sound equipment downstairs and out to his van. Then he gave me two phone numbers for the American Youth people. Would this be good for me? A livable alternative to the work-earn-consume-die system we have set up for ourselves? I thought about it a lot. I've never been good at anything athletic. I am clumsy as fuck. Both my regular voice and my singing voice sound like crap. I like to play guitar in my spare time, but I suck at it. And of course, as always, I have no money to pay for tuition. Erick said that no matter what your situation is they will help you to make it work, find a easy way for you to pay. But thats what every college or universities promotional website says too. I decided I would not be good for it but I'm keeping the numbers around for Maisie. She says all she wants to do is dance. And since she has will have boobs when she is older she will be able to get a job a lot easyer than me. So maybe when she graduates High School, if I remember, I can give her these numbers and she can do it.
[END WRITING AT Mon 23 May 2011 12:57:51 AM EDT ]




[WRITTEN AT Sat 04 Jun 2011 04:04:40 PM EDT ]
Spencer came back from Jail at some point after the talent show. I don't know that I like him any more. (Okay I had written a whole bunch about Spencer here but then I had a computer problem and lost all that I had just typed and I don't feel like writing it again so point is Spencer is an asshole, talks shit about me behind my back with my mom, orders me about like he's my new daddy or something and is engaging in sexual relations with my mom. There. I said it.)
Steve came over at some point after Spencer came back two for days in a row. On the first day I was partially at the library, and he met me there and wordlessly handed me a black and white electric guitar. He said on the phone the other day that he had bought himself an electric guitar and I had jokingly told him to go buy me one too. I said "I don't mean to burst your bubble but I think your guitar is missing a couple strings." And it was. Steve replied with "Correction: YOUR guitar is missing a couple strings." I didn't believe it. I was totally joking when I said for him to buy me one too. Holy crap. I had no idea what to say. He just bought me an electric guitar. Holy crap. He also handed me an umbrella so that the rain would not damage the guitar when I walked home. Although when I was almost home and it stopped raining and I closed the umbrella and tried to toss it to my other hand but I dropped it and the handle snapped off when it hit the pavement. I felt pretty pretty bad about that. I could basically explain the situation with this following statement: "Wow, gee, thanks for buying my a awesome freaking electric guitar. Here, let me break your umbrella for you." I'm still trying to find a way to fix it. Later on in the day we met at my place and I showed him a couple chords on his guitar. He also brought over a bunch of manga that he had bought for me to read. He usually does that after he's done reading them. It's a regular thing with us and I'm very thankful for it. On the second day we went for a run though the woods. He said to pick a direction and run in it, so we did. We found this big marsh-bog like thing. Almost all of the dirt you stepped on just sank into water. We crossed by jumping across rocks, fallen trees, and some stable dirt As we got closer to the other side I noticed a mailbox, then a expensive looking house. I pointed them out to Steve who did not notice. As we got closer we saw a road. Up the road there were more and more expensive houses. After a couple dogs were barking at us Steve leaned close to me and said in a low voice: "On three we run into the woods." I replied with "What?" I think he may have said "onetwothree" very fast before darting to the left into the woods. I chased after. We ran. We stopped. I found a blueish-greenish elephant doll in the leaves, I held it in front of my face and made it make elephant noises at Steve. He said "Andrew, that is creepyist thing I have ever seen in my whole life." I laughed and stuck it in a tree just above my forehead. We kept running. We came to a small, swampy, creek. Steve crossed it pretty easily. Steve is much taller than me. I got stuck in the middle of the creek on a tiny patch of dirt, hanging off a sapling that could barely support my weight. Steve grabbed my hand and helped me across. We ran up the huge, steep, hill on the other side in the direction of a road I knew was there, but at the top we could see that we would have to go through the yards of two houses I recognized in order to get to the road. We went down the crest of the hill and kept going. Eventually we ended up between two peoples yards, we went though as quietly as possible and Steve picked up a golf ball that belonged to one of the houses families. I stared to recognize where we are, and I took us in the direction of a small river that would take us back to my road, and it did. After walking back up the road to home, Steve and we took turns smacking that golf ball he found around the plain dirt area across the road with a bent golf club we have in our yard. I ended up hitting it farther than he could. While looking for the ball after he hit he found a couple arrows that I had lost a long time ago while playing with a Bow that Rob had given me. After the started a campfire for Mom to cook dinner and convinced Steve to go out to this show Of Boonies at a bar called Mainely Brews Tavern. Steve really did not want to go but I was sure he would have fun. After that we each ate a hamburger Mom had made and went to the show.
Mom dropped us off in a lot behind the bar and we went inside, Boonie and his Fathers band were already playing. The place was packed and Steve said he wanted to stab me. I could barely hear him, we typed words into our cell phones to talk to each other. He said he felt awkward. Later on he would tell me that hated being in places where there are tons of people because he one of them might stab him. This girl with her hair pulled back and in a pink shirt came up to me with a quizzical yet amused smirk on her face and said "Joel?" I smiled and shook my head, "Nope." She went on saying "Joel?" a couple more times and "Are you really not Joel?" I said "No I am really not Joel. I wish I was Joel. Joel sounds cool, I don't really like me name very much." At that moment Steve said something I could not hear and took off, leaving the bar. Leaving me to explain to this possibly stoned woman that, no, I really am not this person named Joel. I am Drew. "Cuz you really look just like this guy I know, the hair, the face, the everything. You look just like him." Eager to rid myself of this woman I explained "I get that a lot. I'm just one of those guys who looks like everybody. I was born with one of those generic, template, faces." Shut put one hand over her mouth to conceal a smile, and touched my shoulder with the other hand, "Oh wow this is really embarrassing, I'm so sorry." I looked at the band for a moment, looked back to where she was, she was gone. I did not see her again for the rest of the night. I listened to the music (mostly classic rock) for a while longer then went to go find Steve. I knew where he went. I walked to a nearby geek card game shop called Spellbound and found him at the desk watching these a guy and woman showing waaay too much cleavage playing a war like territory based board game. Steve said "How did you find me?" out of the corner of his mouth. There was a tournament going on at Spellbound that night and at one point the woman called out who would be battling who in the next round. After a while we went for a walk. We crossed the 2 cent bridge, got to the Winslow end, turned around and headed back into Waterville, went up to a Burger King and Steve got fries. On the way back Steve found playing cards Scattered around the streets. Boonies, dads, band was named Blackjack. Maybe the did some pre-show card tricks outside? We went back in and listed again. In between songs Boonie had one of his friends (and a band member) named Seth to invite us to have seats up front. Only I wanted to take up th offer though because Steve wanted keep his back to the brick wall. While I watched the band he played a Kingdom Hearts game on his DS. During a couple songs Boonies dad got off the stage, and was replaced by Seth. Seth, Boonie, and his brother Dylan all played together now as unit. They played a couple newer songs, one was Basketcase by Green Day, the other was a Red Hot Chili Pepers song I did not know of. The band took a break and we went outside. I congratulated all of them. All of them sounded so great. Really professional. I can only hope I can play guitar as well as Boonie does someday. Seth was really happy that people were singing along with them as they played the Red Hot Chili Pepers song just like when the real Red Hot Chili Pepers played a song. "It was so cool!" he said. Maybe someday I can learn to play bass like Dylan can too. We went back in. The band played until well after midnight. Steve looked pissed. I just sat there propping up his head with his fist. He even said he fell asleep at some point. After the last song I went up congratulated them again. I asked both Dylan and Boonie if they had anything to do with the cards Steve found in the street. Boonie said "Oh, sorry." and laughed. Dylan said "No but we do have business cards." And then he gave me one from his wallet. That was a lot of fun for me, but not for Steve. He really did not have a good time and I won't drag him to some event he does not want to go to ever again. On the way home we dropped him off at the corner and we walked the rest of the way to his moms house where he sometimes stays on his days off from work. I remember his unique way of waving. He would walking forward with his back to us, and still be waving goodbye to us over his shoulder. It was very dark then all except for one streetlamp directly over our car.

[END WRITING AT Sun 05 Jun 2011 06:08:19 PM EDT -The reason this timestamp is so long after the starting one is because I keep having computer problems yesterday that would make it loose everything I typed and it was really late and I was very tired so I just said fuck it, watched some anime and went to bed.]


[WRITTEN AT Mon 09 May 2011 01:59:39 AM EDT ]

Mothers Day

Sometime around 5 or 6AM Mom got up and started moving around. If she found me awake and reading the manga that Steve had left with me, she would would be mad, and she does not need that on Mother's day.
I awoke some time around noon to the sound of David outside, here for his weekly visit. Nobody knew I was awake so I made a the card for my Mom I should have made some time earlier in the week. After I went out and propped it up on th table. It haf a flower on the outside, a orange and red heart on the inside. I listed off some of her qualities and said that they were all she would ever need and that she lacked nothing. She liked it.
Mothers Day also means that we have to go visit Nana. Mom was going to go alone but Nana would be easier on Mom if I was around so I called Steve and told him not to come over until after 5:30. He said okay and Mom and I left. Spent about a hour at Nana's house. Mom tried to talk to Nana about a problem wit Doug's terrible treatment of Maisie, but Nana said "I don't want to hear about Maisie right now. Did you look at my daffodils!?"
I do not know if I have mentioned this before but Nana is evil, religious, and very much senile.

Right now my head hurts and I'm waay to tired to write the rest of the mothers day part of this post. Happy Mother's Day, from 2011.

[END WRITING AT Mon 09 May 2011 02:29:38 AM EDT ]

[RESUME WRITING AT Tue 10 May 2011 09:33:27 PM EDT ]

Later on Simone called. She started to say that she "felt like an asshole." I knew she was breaking up with me. She told me how she had cheated on me multiple times. "Pretty much every time there was a band practice." With two people. I should have been mad, I should have been furious, but I was not. I told her I understood why she wanted to break up and I acted as understanding as possible during the whole thing. I felt bored through the whole thing. Blank. Before the call I had felt good, at least normal. But now I just felt nothing. Very Blank. I talked back and fourth with her about it for around a hour. She said that she cheated because she was never able get the attention from me that she wanted from me. I lived too far away. There were long periods of time were we did not see each other. I missed her too.
She said it could all change once she got her license, she said that then she would come to see me whenever she could. Now that I think about it, I could end up getting my license before she does. Either way, she wanted to "take a break" for the moment but she still wanted to be "friends with benefits." I agreed. I reasoned that it was better than not having her at all.
At the end she was crying. I had my hand on my chest under my partially unbuttoned shirt. Plaid, light blue and white, short sleeves. Black jeans also unbuttoned. Lying in my bed. "I don't know when I would be able to call you back." She said. I said okay. She said I love you. I said I love her too. She said bye. I said bye. She hung up. The phone hung in my hand for a few moments. At some point I moved the phones ear piece to my lips. I heard the phone's connection click off and on once. Then again a minute or two later. Trying to re-establish the original connection. I could feel the speakers vibration against my lips. I held the phone out in front of me and looked at it. In time I heard ringing, twice. Three accending tones. Then, a woman's voice: "If you would like to make a call hang up and try again. If you need help, please hang up and dial your operator." I leaned over the side of my bed. I cradled the back into its base.
I went into the living room and turned on the TV. Out of the three local channels two were news, the other was a show called "Cheaters" were they get with a person who is being cheated on by his or her significant other, then stalk the cheating person with video cameras, record making out with someone else, then show it to the one being cheated on until he or she gets angry enough to go and beat up the cheater in a public space. After recording the fight they then add dramtic fight music and put it on TV for the masses to see.
Reality TV disgusts me.
I took a long shower. Went back out and watched the public channel. I saw the tail end of a documentary of the Japanese concentration camps in America and the beginning of a documentary about the death of a Japanese American singer whose band (Yellow Peal) sung about the prejudice of Asian Americans back in the 60s-80s.
I turned it off. I'd had a full day. I was tired. Well, I'm always tired, but today I was really tired. I tried to type some of this post but was just too tired. Now it is very late again, and I must go to bed. Tomorrow I am going to get new glasses and go get new strings put on the guitar Steve bought me. (Witch I am unbleiveably thankful for.) Goodnight.

[END WRITING AT Wed 11 May 2011 12:17:19 AM EDT ]



[WRITTEN AT Thu 19 May 2011 04:34:09 AM EDT ]
Today (well, yesterday night since its 4AM) I walked home from the library. It was completely dark. I was on Cemetery street, right next to Mathews Avenue, but I walked past it because I wanted to see the colors of the clouds that I could see over the hill, up the road. I was listening to Kings and Queens by 30 Seconds to Mars on my PSP. The road was deserted, no one behind or in front of me. I ran up the hill as the song was coming to climax, it came to climax right as I reached the top. I threw out my arms and sang as loud as I could.
"...foooor our DREEEEAAAMMMM!!!!"
Suddenly:
"EY!"
I practically shit myself.
Some man on a bike was riding right next to me. (My left.) He was facing me but I could not see him. I could only see the dark outline of looked like a man on a bike. Everything within the outline was blackness. The bike looked like it had an older style to it and something made me feel like the man was old too.
My response: "Woah, hey! You scared the crap out of me! ...I was singing!"
So awkward. When he yelled I really jumped. I don't even know why he yelled in the first place. I had also don't what else I could have said back to him, other than what I did. What else do you say when you are found singing in the dead center of a road around 9 at night?
He kept riding on past me. Turned so he was in the middle of the road like me. I saw sparks from a cigarette splash on the ground while he was heading towards the middle line. I kept walking in his direction so I may seem less weird. But a car came by in the opposite direction and I turned with it and went onto Mathews Avenue, on my way home.

[END WRITING AT Thu 19 May 2011 04:57:17 AM EDT ]



[WRITTEN AT Sun 22 May 2011 02:45:13 AM EDT ]
Today I was walking home from the library and like useual I walked by the trailer park that where a kid named Alex lived, someone I used to be friends with. Outside his trailer home I saw an off-white, big, exspensive looking, classy car. Later as I came nearby the house of a childhood friend (that is now occupided by my middle school art teacher, Ms.Briggs.) I heard two car horn beeps behind me. That same classy car pulled up next to me, two people inside. I first thought the passenger was a kid named Jeremy, when the window rolled down I saw that it was actually Alex himself, and Ernest was in the driver seat. How does this ass have a driver license before I do? Especially when he younger than me.
Alex waved meekly. "Hey do you want a ride to the end of your road?" asked Ernest.
"No, it's alright." I answered.
"Okay." Ernest replied.
And then he drove off, accelerating faster than people normally do on this road.
I took the left at Ms.Briggs house. Three quarters of the way home. I came to where a small river ran under the road through a culvert. I stepped over the guardrail. There were some dead fish in a hole in the ground, some unwanted catch. I stood on the edge of the metal culvert over looking the river and quietly mouthed the word to the song playing in my ears while watching some birds, even if it was in a language I do not know. The song ended, I stepped back over the guardrail and back onto the road. I looked up. In the distance I saw Donald riding down the hill on a bike. I squinted to see, maybe it wasn't him, but it was. His hair is shaved off now, he used to keep it really long. He came closer and closer. He came to pass me. I did my regular, odd, two-fingered wave. He waved back and said something but it just came out as mumbles since my music was playing. His head was tilted to my right, he had what I can only describe a sad smile on his face. He sped past. I kept walking. I played back his mumble in my head again and discerned that it was either just "Hi "-or-"Hey Andrew." Still walking, I took a right onto Cemetery Street. I crained my eyes as far to the right as I could without moving my head. Donald was still speeding away, he did not look back.

I got home, watched some TV, then beat Pokemon Diamond (yes!) sometime after 1AM while hearing Mom and Spencer screw. Earlier this night I overheard them talking outside. Spencer said "His behavior is so...distrusting." Mom replied with "Hey doesn't trust *anybody*"
Well, it's nice to *not* hear them say completely, fucked up, disturbing things when I am the topic of conversation between them - witch happens a lot. The day before today I overheard them talking about me. Mom said something so seriously fucked I ran inside and packed a backpack with clothes, a compass, bathroom stuff, netbook, and other crap to take traveling. I kept pacing around the house just repeating "This is sooo fucked up." over and over again under my breath. I did not want to think of what more they were saying about me while they were outside beside the campfire. It was so messed up I don't even want to say it here on this blog. And usually I bare-all on my blog. Thats how fucked up it was. I know I can't leave, I have no where to go. And unless I have another place to stay I have no where to put my guitars. Could I sleep on the streets for a few nights? Sure. But I'd have to come back eventually, and coming back after that would cause more problems than it would solve. I need to get out of this house. I want to leave. They only things I would come back for are to play my guitars, to visit David, and to visit my friends.

I want out. Now.


On a nicer note, I listened to the album Catalyst by New Found Glory while I was writing this part of the post. It just ended. It's okay music. It's not a favorite but it's okay.
[END WRITING AT Sun 22 May 2011 03:32:48 AM EDT ]



[WRITTEN AT Fri 27 May 2011 09:06:08 PM EDT ]
Yesterday during my walk I saw Donald again. He saw me too. He was sitting in a chair outside a girls house. He did not try to say hi or follow me. On my way back taking the same route, he was no longer there. Shortly after turning a corner I saw a group of gangster guys maybe around my age and a couple girls younger than me pass me on their way to a small clearing off the riverside trail that I walk to do drugs and drink. As usual they had backpacks full of drugs and cheap beer. You'd never see them wearing a backpack while going two for from school. One of them was in my Senior year high school English class. I remember came to class more often than other stoners in the class. When I took the riverside trail back home I encountered one of the girls and him walking out of the clearing and onto the trail. As I walked briskly past I waved a little and he said "Ey wus gonon men?" I just kept walking.
On my way back from the walk a saw a squirrel in a tree by the side of the road. I stood and watched for a while. The tree had only a few branches on it and few leaves so I could see him pretty well. It stared at me unsure of my motives. Was I a predator? A small blue car drove by scaring the squirrel onto the back of the tree. I scowled at the car as I drove away. The squirrel came back into view after a while, shortly followed by a smaller, more lightly colored squirrel. "His mate!" I thought. I stood perfectly still for a long time and watched as two squirrels turned into three, then four. They were scampering all over the tree. At one point two of them got really high up in the tree and looked down directly at me. I climbed down the slope to the tree. The squirrel closest to the ground ran around to the side of the tree that was opposite of me. I put my hands on the tree and swung myself around it, the squirrel was gone. I swung around to the other side, nothing. I stepped back and looked up the tree, the other 3 squirrels were gone too. "Fucking Houdini Squirrels." I though. I said goodbye to the squirrels out loud and went home.

Today on my walk I saw two drug dealers and their hos talking outside an apartment on the bridge overlooking the waterfall the is a part of Jim's land. I went down on sat on the big stone wall on the opposite side of the river, the side Jim did not own and just listened to
music for a while. On that side of the river there was a large gray garage behind me. It was never open, it was never used, it was never open. I don't know what it was for. When we were little, Donald, Ernest, and other kids in the area said it was "The Doughnut Factory." I still don't know what it was really from. I climbed back up and started walking home. Two small kids were coming towards me on the other side of the road. One was on a scooter and I recognized him to be this tiny kid who harasses me and other people at the library by throwing things or screaming at them or calling them names. No one ever did anything about it. He curved onto my side of the road as we passed and said something to me, my music kept his insults at bay. I did not acknowledge him. I kept on walking.

[END WRITING AT Fri 27 May 2011 09:53:57 PM EDT ]



[WRITTEN AT Sun 29 May 2011 11:17:31 PM EDT ]
Today I was searching trough the ruins of the trailer across the road that we used for storage. (It caved in, I don't think I mentioned it.) I had a room all the way in the back where I kept a lot of crap from my childhood. I am pretty sure I saved a the things that mattered out of the room, and a thing or two from its previous occupant, a girl named Amy. I brought lots of stuff to my bus. I brought all my old yellow, metal, Tonka trucks to the backyard/playground area and put them on the dirt under Password Tower next to two very old, broken, and rusted ones. Mine were still so new looking. It was not the same one as the one I had now, but I had a Tonka dump truck when I very, very, little. I think it was my favorite toy for a while. I had it at my fathers house and I don't think I was ever allowed to bring it back to Moms house. It's front window was broken in and missing some of itself, the rest of its transparent, green, windows were still intact. I think. I would drive it around in the dirt. I would put my hands on either side of the dump body, put all my weight on it, and then run forward as fast as I could, running it across the large plain of grass that was my fathers backyard. I remember there were cracks in the yellow paint around the corners of the dump body because I would squeeze my butt into the dump body and ride backwards down a hill on my fathers property in that little thing. I have a flash in my mind of looking up from under it, seeing my arm carrying it over and off a dry dirt jump with green grass on the right (my right) side of the small mound of the jump. I loved that toy. I wish I still had it. If I remember to, I think tomorrow I will take the Tonka dump truck that I put under Password Tower today and put it in my bus instead for safe keeping. Even if it is not the same one, the Tonka dump truck has a lot of old memories associated with it that I do not want to forget. I'd rather not have the one I've got now to be destroyed by time or the Elements. Or be abused by Maisie or her friends. Now I really want to draw a picture of myself running with that old Tonka toy over a plain of windswept green grass.
Another thing I salvaged was a very large storage and carrying case for CDs. It used to belong to Doug but he never used much, he only ever kept a very small amount of CDs in it. I cleaned some of the tree seeds and pollen out of it and brought it to my room. I put a couple cassette tapes in it that I found (probably broken). There was a award ribbon on my door that was for someone who was a Participant in Vassalboro's Memorial day parade. I found it in the hall almost a year ago but I never knew who it belonged to until recently when I flipped it over to see Maisie's name on it. I put that In the case too. I wrote a note in it saying to clean it, not to break it, and signed my name to it. I put the note in the case and put it in Maisie's room in the middle of the floor so it would be the first thing she sees when she comes home from her dads. I barely use CDs from anything because I download all my music but Maisie has all kinds of CDs, so I thought she might like it. Plus she always comes home from her dads in a awful mood so hopefully this will help her.

I know Mom has been drinking ever since Karl (may he rest in peace) conned her into it, but now she does not even bother to hide it from me. When I walked out the front door today -under orders from Spencer to get a plank of wood- she was sitting in the passenger seat of the car drinking Spencer's booze, straight from the bottle! Even though she saw me standing there on the steps she kept on gulping it down! The most she did was try to avoid my gaze as I walked by. I feel so torn and conflicted. Mom is the only parent I've got and the only one I want. I am supposed to love her unconditionally but I don't like who she it turning into. For the last few months shes been getting more and more bitter with me. She keeps making off-handed comments about me in conversation and she talks about me behind my back all the time, and now that Spencer is here, she does not even bother to cook dinner for me or Maisie at all, her and Spencer just cook special Columbian dinners for themselves. She barely talks to me anymore, she at least talks to Maisie some, but not nearly as much as she used to talk with Maisie. She does not take care of herself health wise, not counting the drinking thing. She keeps bugging the neighbors for more drugs. And unfortunately for me I noticed that she never bothers to wear bras or underware anymore. She's also stopped visiting her friends like Jim or Lisa&Jamie. I don't what I'm supposed to do. Shes getting worse and worse and keeps getting meaner and meaner, especially whens shes drunk witch happens more and more now. Shes lost all her respect for herself. What am I supposed to do in this situation? I don't like the person she is becoming, and if she were aware of her own changes, I don't think she would either.
[END WRITING AT Mon 30 May 2011 12:28:15 AM EDT ]

A little while later...

[WRITTEN AT Mon 30 May 2011 01:46:38 AM EDT ]
When I went outside to get something a while ago I talked to Mom about driving to Nana's tomorrow. (She said her and Spencer were outside looking at the stars but there was far too much cloud cover to see any stars tonight. Spencer had just walked inside when I asked he about it.) Me misheard something that I said about driving and she got all angry at me. Then after I explained what I had really said she was still angry and treated me like I was stupid. Then she went inside and I heard Spencer ask through a bad of chips "Is he still bein a wussass?" My foot bumped into an empty booze bottle. Fucking disgusting. I threw it as hard as I could into the forest. I heard it crash through branch after branch until it thuded against the forest floor. My foot bumped into *another* one. This one still had some alcohol left. I threw it the same way as the last time but some of the alcohol got onto my foot and sandal. Fucking gross. Thankfully this particular poison did not seem to have any smell to it because it was too late at night for me to take a shower.
Oh yeah, Mom has taken up pinning me down to only certain specific times of the day when I am allowed to take a shower. Like I'm a little kid or something. She seems to be doing this out of spite. Still don't know why.
[END WRITING AT Mon 30 May 2011 01:59:24 AM EDT ]7



[WRITTEN AT Mon 30 May 2011 07:00:55 PM EDT ]
Just now Mom and Spencer left to go pick up Maisie from a fun park in Benton. Before they left Spencer threatened me for giving my mom shit, witch I was not. I'm being threatened, in my own home, by a guest! Mom was right there, she saw, she heard, she did not care. Her son is being threatened by a person we know to have killed people before and she did not do so much as blink. This is so fucked up.
They left me with orders to do some wood work that required an electric hand saw. When I went to do the work, I discovered that the saw in question is not to be found. It's just gone. The case that it goes in is empty and it is no where in the work area nor inside nor anywhere in the yard. They either hid it or took it with them. Why are they doing this to me? Why is MY MOTHER doing this to me?

I want out. Fucking now.


On another note some time during last week (don't remember when, I hate that.) while when I walked to the library on an overcast day I saw the two horses in a field on my way to the library had masks over their whole heads, they could not see? "Why would you do that?" I thought while looking over at the owner walking with his small son on the other side of the field. I walked up to the fence and whistled. They actually ran over to me. One came really close and stuck its head over the fence at me. A little scared and surprised. I leaned back, would it bite? I slowly touched its wet snout. I sniffed me a little. Then went back towards the darker colored brown horse. They both walked into the corner of the fence. Suddenly they made some noises and started stamping and bumping into each other, it looked hostile to me. I thought maybe my presence was the cause of it, so I said bye and left for the library.
[END WRITING AT Mon 30 May 2011 07:13:58 PM EDT ]



[WRITTEN AT Sat 04 Jun 2011 12:01:13 AM EDT ]
A few days ago while I was working on rebuilding the porch steps Maisie came out to talk to me. Mom and Spencer were not around. She came out to talk to me about what I had been talking about before while we were inside, witch was my frustration and anger with my current situation with Mom and Spencer. She was actually acting and talking like a human being. She expressed some of the same feelings that I've been having and she also said that Mom does not talk to her as much as she used to - something witch I had pointed out earlier in this post. She said one time when she walked outside she had seen Mom and Spencer doing it in the car. We talked about it for a really long time. When it got dark she went and got her cell phone so that she could use its light to illuminate the steps I was working on. That was so nice of her. So unlike her. We talked while I worked until I finished the steps and we went inside. I told her to keep what we had talked about just between her and I. She said "Of course, we're brother and sister."
So unlike her.
The day after she showed up at the library while I was working. Mom had dropped her off and Mom had said that if by the library's closing time she was not there to pick us us, then start walking. We walked. On on way I took Maisie's cell phone and took two photos of the clouds. There was one dark, heavy looking cloud that was soooo close to the ground that the it was able to cast a shadow with the setting sun onto the thin layer of clouds high in the sky. About a quarter of the way home Mom and Spencer met us on the road in the car and brought us to the end of our dirt road, not all the way home, because they wanted to go to the store get something. Maisie guessed that this meant they wanted to go screw. I kinda sang some songs by The Beatles while we walked. For some reason I was suddenly unable to remember all the words while with Maisie, so I mumbled over them. On the way, when we got to the top of a hill overlooking the forest, we saw lots of lightning in the same big, dark, heavy, cloud that I had taken two pictures of earlier. We stopped to watch. Maisie said it was heat lightning. There had been crazy weather all that day. It had hailed during the morning. In New York, Boston, and even as close to home as Winslow there were tornado watches in effect. My friend KJ, who lives in Winslow, posted on Facebook "Wind's picking up, sky's getting dark, brb hiding in basement." Maisie was still acting like a human being.
Today, well it's 34 minutes past midnight now so, yesterday I went for a walk to the old Waterfall by Jim's house. On the bridge I noticed that I could pick up the WiFi signal from Jim's house on my PSP, so I climbed down to the waterfall on Jim's side of the river. I checked my messages on Facebook so I could find out from my friend Hannah where Winslow High Schools graduation was taking place. I left the PSP in a tree to update its system software while I climbed around the waterfall. I broke away some overgrown branches from a path near the shore of the river. Its a small path that leads up the to top of the rock wall via a dirt incline witch was kind of like a tunnel because of the plant life that grew overhead. Though that was only when you went up from the river going right, if you went left you there was a way you could climb up the rock wall itself from the bottom of the river, and up to the top, where there was a large flat rock to lay on and a path that lead out to Jim's large, grassy, yard.
I had left the PSP in a tree near the end of that path while it was downloading the update file because it would download faster if it was closer to it's connection source. When I went to go get it I saw Donald, Jim's son/my former best friend, was running around in the yard feeding something to his dog. I snuck back with the PSP, and sat on the large flat rock and installed the update. When it was installing the update I walked to the very corner of the rock wall. It was pretty high up and you could see over the trees and pretty far down river. I looked to the from the river, to the left, and right then Donald noticed me standing there. He bolted to the path, "Aw crap." I thought. I jumped down onto the top of the dirt incline that I mentioned before, opened up the cell phone and began to read a news story. Donald came crashing through the plant life and onto the corner when I had just been. "Woah! Andrew! Bro! You scared me for a second there!" He was pretending like he had not seen me. And he used the word 'Bro.' Jeeze. I looked at him. He was wearing a Beatles band shirt and a very, very, short pair of shorts. Not really knowing what else to say: "Those shorts are a little too short for you. Just so you know." He smiled and I don't think he said anything. I went back to pretending to read a news story on my phone. Eventually he walked away. I laid down in the dirt and *really* picked out news story to read. After a while I went down the dirt incline and leaned against the rock wall to read. At some point I felt a vibration, a bump, ripple though the rock wall and into the one shoe I had pressed against it. I read for another small while, then decided to go back up again. Instead of the taking the way up going right, I took the left way to get back up. I climbed up. When I reached to the top I put on hand on the large flat rock I mentioned before and pulled myself up. There was Donald sitting on the rock. "Crap." I thought. I sat and read. He leaned over started talking to me. I don't even remember what we he started in talking about. I was not enough of a jerk to just turn around and leave when I first saw him. He ended up talking to me for more than an hour. I kept most of my answers brief, reading science-related news stories. At one point he complained about the spray paint graffiti that had showed up around the waterfall since a large amount of gangsters had moved into town a year or so ago. He called them delinquents. I said "You do drugs and listen to rap, you're one of them." He responded with "Well at least I don't spraypaint and destroy property!" He said that he would like to have hung out with me more but he had a prior engagement. When he saw a truck pull into Jim's driveway he said he had to go and emphasized just how good it was talking to me. After a minute he came right back saying that it was not his ride but just the guy who lives in the upstairs apartment. I bet that was awkward for him. He kept talking to me for a long while after that. About the future of the world, current events, his liking of rap, nanotechnology, a camping trip he went on, life extension, politics, lots of stuff. He said it was funny she should find me here here because he just recently had just went to to the old culvert on my road. A little creek that had a small island in it where me, Donald, and his twin brother Ernest used to go and play when we were kids. He said the reason he went there was nostalgia. He got a phone call and he and his friend decided that Donald would ask his dad, Jim, to give him a ride because his friend who was supposed to pick him up had run out of gas. He asked me what I would be doing for the rest of the night "...just hanging out here reading?" I said "Yeah." He once again emphasized just how good it was to talk to me. I did not look at him. He said "See you around." I said "Seeya." He left. I finished the last news story I wanted to read. I read most of the good ones there were to read on one site I had access to from my phone. I stayed a while longer and listened to the waterfall. But not much longer, it was cold. I climbed back down to the river. Jumped from rock to rock until I reached the base of the bridge and then climbed up to the road. It was around 10:30PM. Just as I was thinking if there was a curfew in this town or not, a sheriffs SUV drove past me. It was dark.
On the way back home I noticed some lightning bugs in the tall grass around the ditch. A few yards up on the other side of the road I noticed one lightning bug very far out in a field. I looked back towards where the lightning bugs were near the ditch. For a split second I thought the bright blinking light of a radio tower on a far off mountain was an unusually bright lighting bug. Then I noticed that one of the lightning bugs near the ditch was blinking in tune with it for a moment. I looked back out over the field and did something I always wanted to do but never did, no matter how many times I passed that field. I walked into it.
The ground was farther down from the tips of the grass than I thought it was. I let my hands play over the tips of the grass as I walked. One hand was open, the other held the knife I always had with me for protection. I stopped. I pushed my glasses down to the tip of my nose and pulled my hood back with both hands. The night sky was beautiful against the trees. The clouds completely masked space and the stars above. They were this off-white, gray color. I'm not sure what was illuminating them with that color. I could see orange light against the clouds from a mill that was on the other side of the river that split my town in half. The grass was slightly wet from a rain that lasted less than two minutes a small while ago. I could feel it on my hands and through the holes in my shoes. The grass was so tall. All the plants looked gray. I kept getting a strange feeling that I was being watched from the lone tree standing tall in the field above the wreckage of a ruined barn. It really was beautiful. All of it. I down through my glasses and could see the grass clearly beneath and around my feet. I looked over my glasses and could clearly see the leaves of trees and shrubs. The trees and plants were pitch black against the sky. Being in the tall grass felt good somehow. I loved it. It made me feel like a real traveler. A real adventurer. Don not ask me why. It just does.
That one stretch of road, that one part of Cemetery Street where there were no houses and almost nobody drove. Especially at night. I always feel like I'm the only person in the world when I'm there. You could probably feel it too. At that time of night I always walk in the middle of the road so I'm less likely to be attacked by animals lurking in the trees on the sides of the road. That's why I had the knife out while I was in the field. Animals. After I had left the feild a large animal jumped in the woods as I walked by. I ran a little to put distance between me and whatever that was. The rest of the journey home went without incident.
[END WRITING AT Sat 04 Jun 2011 02:00:17 AM EDT ]