How do you go about getting your stuff back, Mike? I've always either embaressed myself too far to ask, or hoped it would kind of end up in some flowery hat box they'd empty out on their sheets whenever they were feeling nostolgic or lonely or bored. Like, how you make sure to visit a photobooth right away because you know things are eventually going to fall apart, and you'll need something corny and Cameron Crowe-ish for the next one to catch you fingering whenever you want to make her feel insecure.

I mean, I think I'm done with all that now, or else I wouldn't be asking you. I just want my copy of Something Wicked This Way Comes and Emerson's Essays. Everything of theirs I've given back, except for the ephemeral stuff like paintings and notes and train tickets; I collected all that stuff to burn in the back yard- I had this metal thing I was going to use as a fire ring and everything-, but it all just waited on the floor by my dresser until I threw it away.

I also threw away all the notebooks. I don't want to revel in that stuff anymore. I acted like a jerk, they acted like a jerk, nobody was willing to lift their face up from all the juicy drama.

The really hard thing about that is having to admit how easy relationships really are. It feels good to be honest with people, it's rewarding to cultivate connections with people, and it leaves you with all this goddamn energy you have to use to actually do something positive with your life.

So, I want my stuff back. I'm left with either dealing with that, or you know, going to college or something.

I close my eyes and all I can see is a road on fire. I'm meditating, making like I'm on a dive and I'm pausing for decompression on my ascent; watching my feelings float around my eyes, watching the heavy ones sink and the light ones pass on above me. That's my technique. But all I can see is my hands on the wheel, steering off to the smouldering shoulders in the smoke. I try to drive through flames, but my truck or my hands fight against me to pull into the shoulders again. So I open my eyes, and I'm back at the service station, fire engines parked all around, firefighters grabbing coffee in the convience store and rushing back out again. Grace is beside me, blankets pulled all around, and she's asking me how I'm feeling. What am I thinking about. She's telling me things are going to be alright. I'm laying my seat back, and I close my eyes again. Samuel is on his way to pick us up.

   I start my engine up every now and then, try to put it in gear, but the engine just slowly drifts forward in the parking space, inching closer to the cement poles in front of the convience store. The officer that picked us up told us that the fire was almost out and the interstate was open again. We're not going anywhere yet. I know my engine is bled dry, probably my transmission too, and I know it's my own stupid mistake for not checking them before we left. We're on our way back to OKC from Auburn Alabama, and we almost made it. If we hadn't been pulled off to a nowhere exit by a police blockade, we may never have noticed the noises the engine was making. If we hadn't stopped for a bathroom break, or got lost in Nashville, we may have been broken down on the interstate when the semi overturned.
I'm trying the engine again.
I'm drifting again.
I'm laying my seat back down.
Samuel is on his way to pick us up.

   I remember checking the time in Grace and Samuel's car, but I don't remember what time it was. Something like 5am. I remember looking out the windows and seeing everything a quater of a mile from the interstate still blazing. I remember billboards like bonfires. I remember shoulders still smouldering. It all seemed like a dream, so I drifted off again, and woke up in our driveway.

   I have a home. I couldn't tell you where it is. It seems like it's everywhere I love people, and if I try hard enough, that's everywhere.

   I had to let go of my truck. We went back to the nowhere exit, towed it to the nearest mechanic, and that's where I left it for a $200 check. The guy from the salvage yard made fun of my handwriting when I signed the bill of sale. The mechanic charged me nothing, and only apologized for having to give me such bad news. I had overheard him on the phone, eariler, snapping at a telemarketer. Not snapping like someone who's used to it and just sort of rolls it off with his eyes, but like someone who is honestly trying to say the most decent thing he can manage. His eyes didn't roll so much as water. He said he'd just lost his home in a fire, he had no insurance, so money was a little tight.
   I watched my truck from the back seat of Grace and Samuel's car, talking about bands and school. They told me not to worry about rent this month. What's a truck?

   I have this folder of resumes and applications, and that's me getting my life in order. I have these vague memories of girls, but their pictures don't really strike anything in me anymore. I just cleaned the house, with my roomates; they put my stuff away and I put their stuff away. I have a home. I love people. People love me. I have this feeling like I'm on a dive, and I'm pausing on my ascent.

I've locked myself in the bookstore, two hours and forty minutes after closing, and all I want to do is just look at the books. Reading any of them would spoil everything. There's one here by the desk, How To Be Strong, Healthy and Happy by Bob Hoffman. Can you see how things would be spoiled if I read something like that?

On my way to work this morning, I was sucking on something Thoreau said about every dissapointment being perfectly compensated for anyone careful enough to look for the compensation. For about eight seconds, it felt true, and I was completely comforted with the feeling of absolute universal balance. After eight seconds, I realized that the sort of dilligence it would take to maintain that care would be all-comsuming. There would be no room for fantasy, for dependancy, for addiction, for John Cusaic, for train tracks, for cigarettes, for alcohol, for sex, for Jesus, for love; and there would be no need. I could be completely satisfied, in the way any of those things satisfy me when an impulse demands one (or sometimes two and three together).

Really, what Thoreau said was just a pretty thing to say. If you really put it to your mouth, it's as ephemeral as a cigarette, and just as cancerous if you relied on it. If you could find compensation in all your disapointments, you wouldn't relate to the rest of the writhing mass of suffering humanity. You wouldn't need to. You wouldn't need anything but a pond and a shack and a bean field.

Someone said that if everyone was a Thoreau, there could be no Thoreau.

So that's why I decided to pull The Little Prince from the children's section and read it in the front window.

[It made me cry.]