yeah dude!!!!!!

AH, THE WORLD!!!

OH, THE WORLD!!!

I paced the streets in all directions, driven on by wretchedness. Naturally it was stupid of me to bespatter the drawing-room ornaments of the worthy folk, stupid and ill-mannered, but I could not help it; and even now I could not help it. I could not bear this tame, lying, well-mannered life any longer. And since it appeared that I could no longer bear my loneliness any longer either, since my own company had become so unspeakably hateful and nauseous, since I struggled for breath in a vacuum and suffocated in hell, what way out was left me? There was none. I thought of my father and mother, of the sacred flame of youth extinct, of the thousand joys and labors and aims of my life. Nothing of them all was left me, not even repentance, nothing but agony and nausea. Never had the clinging to mere life seemed so grievous as now.

wow yeah lol

THE MAGIC CITY,
3 A.M.

. . . another nervous night in Miami, in this godforsaken place, which is called “The Magic City”. They sent me here for reasons not interesting enough to articulate, and I’ve got about twelve hours left until I can board a plane back to California and be done with the whole thing. It’s late and I’m alone in my dumpy hotel room by the airport drinking the worst coffee I’ve ever put in my body, which is saying something, and wondering how it all went wrong. My brain is still on Pacific Time, and god knows I haven’t slept for six months, not really, and so I know now with absolute certainty that I won’t be able to sleep, and will have to watch with great sadness as the black-out curtains in my room become rimmed in red sunlight in a few hours. That will be my signal to go downstairs and beat the geriatric crowd to the continental breakfast bar, where I’ll grab as much free fruit as I can get away with before they kick me out . . . and then it’s back into the swamp of Shitsville just outside these air-conditioned castle walls.

Before yesterday I had not stepped foot in the state of Florida in many years, and even that was just a brief layover at Fort Lauderdale airport on my way to visit Leila in New Orleans, which was well over a decade ago now. And before that: I had bought my first car in Florida, up near Jacksonville, during the summer of 2005. My dad and my friend Dan Lama and I had driven through Virginia and North Carolina and South Carolina and Georgia to get down there, to the tune of about 700 miles, only to turn around and head back at about a hundred miles per hour with my yellow 1976 AMC Pacer hitched to the back of the truck we’d come down in. Anything before THAT would have involved Mickey Mouse. . . .

I know that my brother is out there somewhere. They say he is in or around Miami, though I don’t know why. I’m sure if I stood on the roof of this crumbling hotel long enough, I could spot him out there in the great sea of darkness. But I’ve just got to go is the thing. I must get away from this place. By my reckoning, I’ve visited over 25 cities in over 20 states (and one Canadian province) in the last six months, and this is really the only time I ever wanted to get out of a place quick, probably because it was not my decision to come here. Alas, that these evil days should be mine.

And now I will cease complaining about my getting a free trip to Miami, Florida.

Today I saw my friend Katie, who is one of my best and oldest friends. I had a stranger take this picture of us:

She was going to take me to a strip club, but I’m out of time. I’ll just have to settle for a ride to the airport. And then what? Well, I reckon I’ll just keep on doing what I have been doing, which is to self-perpetuate this endless nightmare until something kills me!

i met my baby nephew! his name is tower! and he’s perfect in every way!

yeah man . . . the chillest song

i remember doing mushrooms alone in berkeley one night, and i walked many miles through the hills petting cats and picking flowers. there was no one else out, just me. i had a really great time. and just before sunrise i was on the comedown, and i got back in the doomsmobile parked near the clocktower on campus, and i drove on the empty freeway back home to oakland with this on and felt real good

i wrote this back in august 2018 and reading it again made me cry:

i don’t care about anything i own or much else in my life. if most or all of it went away i wouldn’t care, because all i care about is dante. i have put all of my love into dante, and have protected him and made him comfortable because taking care of him is the only thing that makes me happy anymore. all day long i think about how i can’t wait to get back to him, and how he’ll be waiting for me when i get there. and every day we go outside for a half hour and walk around the yard and sometimes he lies down in the grass and takes a nap while i read a book. and he’ll go to this tree by the gate and grab a leaf and bring it to me, and i’ll throw it into the air for him to catch, and then he’ll take it in his mouth and run inside with it where he has a little pile of leaves he’s been collecting. at least half the week i sleep on the couch to be near the chair where he sleeps, and when i wake up in the morning he’s curled up by my legs

when dante hears me crying, he comes to me wherever i am and lays down on my chest and goes to sleep

i still cry about dante every day. i have cried for him every day six months. and now no one is here to come to me when i cry about him being gone forever

it is always a little sadness to me when i realize in a friendship (whichever one it may be) that i’m the one who reaches out 100% of the time. the other person only ever responds to me but never initiates. it makes me think that i want to be their friend more than they want to be mine, which is fair . . . but it is still a little sadness nonetheless. how could it not be? and then i get this dark suspicion that rather than them considering me a friend, maybe they just regard me as some weird annoying guy who they merely tolerate. oops! reckon that’s just fear and paranoia talking. i’ll never know unless they say so. in the real world, in nearly all cases, it’s not that people don’t like you . . . it’s just that they don’t think of you. what can you do? anyway, i always endeavor to approach everything with good intentions, so outside of that, ultimately there’s nothing i can do otherwise. and so i say: well baby then aloha.