At the end of the night // there's a road we'll be on

Snatching Victory/enjoyment for the jaws of defeat/boredom

Beck is just great. I somehow let this slip into the grey matter of my brain, but then I get his new one 'Guero' yesterday and it is the man. He's so fearless, he does just whatever he wants; he does rap, he does soul, funk, acoustic and electric and all of them just amazingly and you get them all here. There is a song called 'E-Pro' that is I think made to hear only through the cheap $5 headphones and a song called 'Scarecrow' that sounds like he bumped into the Shins on the street and they also had all their gear and played it and then shook hands and parted. And hahhhaa this song here, I was laughing out loud in Computer Science class when I heard the "Willy Wonka singers" (the newer one I think, I just saw a trailer for it, Johnny Depp's in it, I think it looks good anyway) near the end for the first time.

And it's really a great soundtrack for a Computer Science class. After having to sit inside and finish all the homework I put off till the last minute (there were cotton snowflakes fluttering by!! I felt like I was back in 5th grade watching the second hand actually going backwards) I got done with it an hour early, but alas didn't have a single book to read outdoors before the class started. I don't know what would be the best adjective to use to describe just how long this class feels.... I will choose 'maddeningly'. I downloaded a free version of euchre called 'Hardwood Euchre' in there: a sort of fantasy/Lord of the Rings meets euchre affair, you even get to be a wizard if you want. But there is only one catch: after the 7 day trial expired, you only can play 1 game per day. So this game, falling at exactly 7:00 P.M EST each class period I have decided is the most important euchre game ever played. And it lived up to the hype, myself (hlcis) and my dwarven counterpart slaying the court jester and gnome, erasing a 9-7 deficit by taking 10 straight tricks. I almost did a cartwheel down the aisle, but did not.

Also I think this song on there called 'Girl' will seriously be my Summer anthem I think, like how Casual Dots were last year and SMiLE was this winter and my Indie GH/'A Quiet Place' were for the highs/lows of spring break.

Want to hear something else that is (not) funny? How about going to Subway before all this "excitement", patting you pocket and subconsciously wondering why it feels so empty, getting your 12" and pop and going to your car and seeing your keys sitting dazzlingly on the passengers seat. Wow that was just "capital", walking into the forest nearby to fetch a stick long enough to reach first the keys, in almost the style of the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' ride in Disneyland I thought, because they of course get almost 2/3's of the way up to the cracked open sunroof and then fall behind the seat and, as kids beginning to point and giggle, I had to resort to trying to get the stick to reach the lock, then breaking the stick in half over my knee and getting another stick and then finally getting the damn thing to open. I'll never do that again. And if you believe that, I'll tell you another.

Walking back to my car from class at night (I parked where I "used" to park last semester for the first time in a while), I listened to U2 'Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own', it was pretty emotional, I'm not sure why but I really am.

Whenever I wake up // try and take the shape of // Turn into the whole wide world I made up

my Grandma and Grandpa have an air hockey table at their house! I imagine them playing each other at night and my Grandpa yelling at it and my Grandma scolding him, I smiled.

I never went to church as a kid and I don't think we had a bible in the house, I used to read & reread 'Dinotopia' over and over again, so I really think that's my 'good book'; same fantastic story, morals and characters, and you don't have the outdated prejudices and sexism.

My cousin Courtney (Doshi) is the most effortlessly loving woman with children. If she has kids that's my guarantee that there will be a line of sanity running into the next generation of our family.

Owning an Audrey Hepburn film that you haven't seen is like owning an unscratched lotto ticket that you know wins you dough, thank goodness.

Tommy bought me a U2 ticket and I'm happy about it he says we're cool since I bought him a ticket for Pistons playoffs I think, that should be a lot of fun

I'm still bothered about the captions to the spring break pictures, I didn't really write any of them but they are in my name, I don't really like it but I think I'm stuck with it, especially the picture with that girl it makes it look like it's all laughs when I couldn't have cared if i'd lived or died.

I wish I were more intelligent, so I could help people when they are sad or really depressed. or maybe not so odd, so if they felt really bad they might call and we could talk and maybe both feel better about it. I keep trying but i think i'm still more the person that when you see the call you press "no". it's like the same roller coaster all over again. then they say "but when did you ever not have fun on a roller coaster?" everyone's a comedian

Walking the street from morning to night // With a star upon your shoulder lighting up the path that you walk

GLORIOUS! I just saw a beautiful film. Have you seen 'Finding Neverland'? I had been wanting to see it since I'd seen a movie trailer for it before it came out, but I think I just lost it in my mind until today when I was grabbing my keys to go get it and it was sitting on the kitchen counter, conveniently (destiny?). I'm so lazy, and mostly lyed around like my cat, drove around and thought for a while, came back and I thought "maybe I'll turn in, if I get to it I'll watch the film tomorrow..." But something happened, I think either I remembered that Kate Winslet is my favourite actress around or that Johnny Depp becomes his character, and I decided that I can put off getting up before noon another day.

It's like dreaming for 100 minutes. I mean that's it. In english, it's the story of J.M. Barrie, the man who wrote 'Peter Pan' and the different influences that came to be the masterpiece of imagination that it is. It's so wonderful, how everybody looks down their nose at Barrie as his imagination takes flight and he turns the park into a circus for all the children or their garden into Cowboys and Indians or the forest into a pirate ship. Kate Winslet's Mom, I forget her name in this so let's call her Kim Bentley, leads the way of those stopping at nothing to try and tear down the world of fantasy all around them, in vain.

Them is the widowed Kate Winslet (Sylvia) and her children, the oldest of 4, Peter, is at the center of everything. He has had so many terrible things thrown at him, just like so many hardships, things that nobody deserves to go through, especially at such a young age, and as a result he channels his fears and frustrations into banishing childhood dreams, seeing with just his eyes and never his heart and burying his imagination. It's when Barrie opens the children up to the world beyond "grown up reality" do they and Sylvia (the only adult not to have abandoned fantasies for society/"respectability") see the fairy tale that life is, not through escapism or "burying your head in the sand", but by seeing the magic in things that you are trained as you become an adult to overlook or to forget.

And as Barrie uses his heart to weave together the adventures of that summer with the children and Sylvia into 'Peter Pan', so does Peter see that there really is a Neverland, like there is a heaven, and as Barrie tells him "you can go there whenever you like", in his heart. I just deleted the whole paragraph that went right here talking about the most wonderful part for me, I think it might spoil it if you had wanted to see it, it happens just before and during the theatre performance of 'Peter Pan'. It is just beautiful. Just so much spirit from the children, it's like how a friend and I talked about just recently, (destiny?) and how it seems that you are born perfect; like your eyes are connected to your heart and not your brain, and concepts of "social status" and "corporate ladders" and anger and hatred and coldness haven't yet been programmed through experience and scorn. But also all this garbage can't totally blow the candle out in your heart, that there is such a thing as magic, and that things like imagination, and friendship and Love last forever if you believe in them.

I've still got sand in my shoes // and I can't shake the thought of you

Alright tell me if this makes sense: I thought of Shannon all day today, I started listening to the Dido album I've had for almost 2 years but have hardly ever touched (my old "shoe shopping" paranoia...), I had to work and the 2nd full day of spring (basically stamping "I'm a moron" on my forehead for trying to be cute last writing for saying how it wasn't spring but it was, when it was spring and it was) was cold and raining and it was the best day ever? Alright so you're saying that, in addition to not making grammatical sense as usual, that this cannot possibly be so. No doubt you might say a.) this is the same woman that when she said to you in person "I trust you.", you rummaged around in your pocket for anything you could possibly use as an engagement ring, 2.) Isn't it like this big phobia you've had lately about getting all this music and not listening to it hardly at all, like you're subconsciously trying to show off or something and c.) what happened to this "Love is in the air, flowers and showers and the sun" Spring?

Waking up to baseball on the television was a nice start.

But it was like the idea was beamed into my mind that I was going to listen to my favourite electronic pop chanteuse from the fair 2001, Dido, but her newer album that I got a few years ago, listened to it twice, and decided it was "missing the perfect balance of beats and acousticness that her first one had, even though it has the classic sweet/melancholy lyrics and soaring voice". Well put that in today and 'Sand in My Shoes' rolls in and "Hey Shannon, how are you today?" basically. But it was different, like you would automatically assume thinking of her out of noplace would maybe bring some sort of anger or sadness or desperation along with it, but it was happiness, and a lot of it (??). It was like this rush of the things we did and all the words I wrote about the nights thinking of her and the fun thoughts of things I thought we'd do in time but didn't, only they didn't hurt, it made me very happy. Apparently I've dealt with "it" and made it to that place where I only think of the good times and/or I think that maybe I found "our song", posthumously. (Clears throat, gets ready to preach to the choir) Like you know when you're with somebody and you have "your movie" or "your place" or "your song"? Well me never being "in a relationship" per se, I've still had an "our song" since 10th grade High School, like a single song soundtrack to my feelings/fantasy memories of that person. Sometimes a few, but always one shining musical fingerprint, familiar to all ears but unique to one heart. And this was most definitely ours.

It was really nice too because in thinking of this, it really settled my head on how I had been buying albums way faster than I could listen to them. I totally believe in fate, I don't rely on it or give into it, but I really feel it's there, and it was like I was meant to buy this album when I did, but to really find definition to it years later (today). Or like how Melissa got an album that I had bought at the Pawn Shoppe a while back but hadn't yet listened to and now I'm getting bowled over daily by it (though I don't know what fate's plan is with that, other than maybe just finding funny ways of getting me into artists (?)).

But really with hearing this song and making me smile about Shannon for the first time in a looong time....it's like now I'm free, like I dealt with the pain down in Florida & now I'm ready to meet someone at a show or at the grocery store or at the DIA and "I know we (Shannon + I) said goodbye" and "I'll see her again" in my mind and heart whenever I need a smile, like the women that have gone away that I've been so lucky and so very happy to meet in my life so far.

Girl, where were you on that perfect day?

Oh Spring is here! Well maybe not if the calendar has anything to say of it, but really it truly feels like my favourite season in weather ravaged Michigan. Like for example I switched from my pseudo-high class winter coat to the "stealing" jacket (story behind "stealing" jacket for those not on the "in": In 2002 there were some pretty heavy emo things going on, and while I praise this as being one of my most favourite years that I can ever remember being alive, there was a time (phase perhaps) where I and 2 of my associates decided that we would hit "it" back for all the bad things "it" was doing to us. So we stole. And we were good. So good that it became a game, we'd just steal things for no reason almost it was horrible and this coat I had with the 2x inside pockets was unstoppable. Epilogue: We (or basically I) saw the err in my ways and literally went on an "un-stealing" spree, sneaking everything to their shelves/bought the things that I'd still wanted but took so long ago.)

Another thing about this time that I really love is to see the ducks. Ducks are such an underrated animal. I mean they aren't penguins or dinosaurs so you really forget about them in the coolest animals of all-times list, but they are just great. Like how you always see the guy (drake?) roll in first to check the area and then sure enough the gal (mallard?...) breezes in, gives him a few sarcastic quacks about food/water but then they laugh and they have a great time. But then sometimes a batchelor drake swoops by and starts quacking game and the husband has to step in and defend the honor of his beloved. I honestly see this everytime ducks come, it's a soap opera for real going on in my head. I think I need it examined.

What's your favourite song to blare out of your car at night with the windows all down and the wind coming though your hair laughing and yelling the lyrics?? See mine is hands down The Doors ~ L.A. Woman (Triumph with the big T) but tonight this song was just great, and even though they are my summer indie band (with The Rentals) they just took it over, and cutting through a fog "as thick as pea soup" (namecheck Yukon Cornelius in here, ha) it was the perfect thing, like Love is in the air and everybody will laugh and smile and the world is great.!!.!akljajioa laaaaa aaa'

Spring Break: Episode II

(Now in superb M.L.A. format!)ha

Well when we last left our friend Justin, he was dangling (himself?) from high atop a cliff and seemed ready to take that last step off and be lost forever. Wow alcohol is crazy about magnifying things, it's like it will make fun times x 4 better somehow but also tough times get a double order of bleakness. Thank the maker for my two old standbys: music and friendship. U2 and a "semi" drunken call to Melissa definitely turned out to be lifesavers, and suddenly I'm tipsy and dancing on sand and we crawl into an Irish pub and the shot of choice 'The Buttery Nipple' (what I would forever after refer to as 'The Rubble Nipple', props to the Ren + Stimpy fans) came and then I remember leaving a drunken voice mail, losing my shoe, falling into a bush and climbing into a tree (though maybe not in that order) as we made it to Lulu's, then talking to a man with holes in his eyes from New Zealand and climbing to the edge of a balcony and then I, nor Isaacs, seem to remember what happened after so draw your own conclusion about it I guess, we knitted a Spring Break quit, that works.

Saturday begins with Isaacs telling us how he woke early to see a.) 2 by 2 of men sleeping in beds 2.) our curtains wide open and c.) "Barney" roaring from the tv that was left on overnight. That got things off to the right humorous start. Isaac's amigo Koss came out also and we all swam in the ocean and went barhopping for a while bla bla, but then as the devilish night washed over us so did the influence of alcohol, as after a few spots we went back to our Tropic Cay and it was the most frustrating thing to hear this group of like 12 kids (the kids that we the "popular" ones at your H.S.) blaring all their requests of Alan Jackson, so me and Raj pooled like $20 together into a medley of The Strokes, NIN, 'Idioteque' and an Isaacs-Bentley singalong of 'Mysterious Ways' by U2 and suddenly Weezer 'Say It Ain't So' blares and speaking for myself (but I have a sneaking suspicion of the same from him) it just took over. Like this was a place that was not on Earth, are you like me and remember your favourite/most memorable time that you heard one of your favourite songs? Like when I listened to Coldplay 'Sparks' coming from Jessica's play or when I heard The Beatles 'Teddy Boy' (from their Anthology) while doing the dishes at the Flint Appt. It was like that, we went crazy, drawing the halo over the head, writing the letter, drinking the bottle and then the huge riff rolling around on the pool table, we were a little bit closer to heaven than here for 3 min + anyway. The cherry on top was the Rajala line as he pulled out his box of condoms "Like I was going to use these anyway" as we attached them to the girl's doorhandle next door. I thought it was funny.

Sunday morning was really nice. I woke up at like 7:30 AM (that is not a misprint for those who know me pretty well) and just walked around outside, read and listened to light chorus singing. Just the unaldarated glee of having these friends here and the ones reading in here and everyone I've been lucky to know now or to have known before, it was just so serene and wonderful. Ran around on the beach like children we did later and as night came, we decided it was going to be our kamikaze night. So went to the beach, did our Baywatch run across the hot sand like children and went to all the aforementioned places, drinks and laughs.

Monday was chilled, sort of that walking dead zombie feeling after everything. Not really drinking heavily ever then suddenly doing it for so many straight days apparently does that to you. At the end it was funny to gather it all into perspective, like how my head worked drunk and maybe more importantly how my heart worked under it. I was happy with what came and somehow I was able to figure things out that I couldn't before, like suddenly seeing that Mickey Mouse come out of the Magic Eye book (my Grandma is all about the Disney ones) So many problems have solutions now and it's a happy thing. What is not a happy thing is to twist your ankle rocking out on 'Mysterious Ways' in the bathroom mirror, I think I'd better get some rest.

hey here's the Soundtrack to the adventure and the words that tied it all together basically:

Suppe ~ Light Calvary Overture (triumph, glory)
The Chi-Lites ~ Oh Girl (Oh, girl! // I'd be in trouble if you left me now)
Clinic ~ Sunlight Bathes our Home (Back and forth the colors go // where it stops no one knows)
Dido ~ Paris (Going back to Paris on the train // Raining and without you it's not the same)
Air ~ Cherry Blossom Girl (I'll never love again // Can I say that to you? // Will you run away // If I try to be true?)
Weezer ~ Say it Ain't So (The son is drowning in the flood! + GUITARS)
Johnny Cash ~ A Boy Named Sue (I tell ya // Life ain't easy for a boy named Sue)
Modest Mouse ~ The Stars are Projectors (It's all about the moderate climates // You wanna be blessed and be cursed for sure)
Optimistic (You can try the best you can // You can try the best you can // The best you can is good enough)
Rilo Kiley ~ It Just Is (Today's the day I realized that I could be loved)
Jon Brion ~ Monday (like a carnival)
The Decemberists ~ Los Angeles, I'm Yours (There's a city by the sea // A gentle company)
The Police ~ Roxanne (Roxanne // You don't have to put on the red light // Those days are over // You don't have to sell your body to the night)
The Raveonettes ~ Love in a Trashcan (jukebox churns out songs about sex // c'mon baby, you're my best fix)
The Rentals ~ She Says Its Alright (She smokes a couple hundred cigarettes and hands me the keys, oh, while she gets ready for work // Be back at seven in the morning to let her in, that's about when she returns)
The Strokes ~ 12:51 (Kiss me now that I'm older // I won't try to control ya)
U2 ~ Electrical Storm (all)
U2 ~ In God's Country (Desert rose, dreamed I saw a desert rose // Dress torn in ribbons and in bows // Like a siren she calls to me)
Dve Nevesti

Spring Break: Episode I

Yea I think it would be the best thing to break this down into like 2 entries, not just for all the activities and experiences, but also for the fact that I'm feeling about 5 days worth of hangovers on 5 hours of sleep. The 'Dork Squad' Ft. Lauderdale adventure, starring: Isaacs, Higgins, Rajala and myself. Featuring drinking. Heavy drinking. I called it my "therapy" for love lost/never had, sort of like dropping an a-bomb onto my heart, releasing me back into the wild. We had to get there first. We meet at the Raj manor late Tue. night, mowed through 'Tombstone' and left at something like 3:30 AM to get down to Detroit Metro. You know that feeling you get when you're driving along and you see a cop and it's at that point where it's too late to hit the brakes so you just have to 'coast and hope'? Well getting off to the right start I get a ticket for apparently going 53 in a 35, which he is so kind to drop down to 40, I don't know if it might be because i was going no faster than 45 but that's between the State of Michigan and I now. Ah well, we laugh as we make out way to the D, plenty of time and all, get on board and sail down to "Fatlanta" and almost find a way to miss the flight to Florida because of a Budweiser b-fast for the fellas, but we make it to sunny, warm Ft. Lauderdale. Or so you would think, it's pouring rain, you can see your breath, we wondered if we'd returned to the great lakes state. We hear it's only to last the night so we shrug it off as Michelle (Kettering friend) gives us a lift to our Sea Club Resort and true to the spirit of the day to that moment, we find that Travelocity has bofucked us on our room, saying that we'd only registered 2 adults for the 2 beds there, which we come to find throughout our trip, has happened to almost everybody that got their Spring Break 2k5 on at this fine 1 star establishment. Well we made our way out into the cold (?!) night to get "the drink", I got to stamp around in puddles that were simply huge, and made it back and got to drinking. The official Justin drink for everyone reading who have almost certainly drank more than I was 'Bacardi O' + orange pop until about day 3, we get a few down and things are beginning to recover you can feel, so we set out back into the night and the 'Tropic Cay' sticks out to us, and somehow the drinks are free and the lights blur and the sounds swirl, and after saying a prayer to the porcelain God and watching/feeling everyone's libido's flaming in the night, it was like this sexual outburst or something I felt, like some demon that had been hidden for 22 years someplace, I remember just walking out to their pool, changing into my belated b-day suit and splashing into the cold water. It was nuts, Isaacs picked up a few girls there, including a 43 year old cop (??) and brought them back to our place, they mostly did about as much flirting as can be done without clothing hitting the floor, I giggled under my blankets and they looked at me funny. A wonderful turnaround from where the day had been going. That was Wednesday. You couldn't ask for better weather on our Thursday, we got a bite at this restaurant called Lulu's, I got to feed a bird on the table and we met Cheryl, our official waitress as we were to see later. We got to meet the beach also, it was scaaaaarry. I kept thinking about how it was like walking around in Cosmo magazine or something, just like plastic, you could just feel sex all around. I started a book Melissa was kind to let me borrow, worked on my sunburn, collected seashells and smiled. At night we took our shots at the hotel and then set out for this country bar/club that Michelle works at. She got us free drinks which I later discovered was amazing, and as we waited for the couples to finish square dance lessons, I saw this lady sitting with a friend 20 or so yards away. After I glanced childishly for like 14 years, they saw us sitting and came over near us. I thought one of the ladies was pretty and I thought about how nice it would be to dance with her once. So I tried to talk to her, but I was horrible and got it all wrong, and when one of my friend's yelled about what I was doing, her friend said "Oh, this guy is just over here spinning game with my friend, that's all" and that really made me feel a sharp sadness and I couldn't think of words and pretty soon the rest of the guys came to basically bail me out and Isaacs started hitting it off with that girl which was making me really really depressed so I didn't say really anything, and after a handful of shots we moved to the pool table where Isaacs and the girl started basically having sex. I went into the bathroom and cried. It wasn't that Isaacs had "stolen my girl" (whom I guess Isaacs later found out was engaged) or anything like that at all, it was like it put me at the edge of the old cliff, the place where I don't know what to say to her somebody else takes her or when I meet and know a wonderful woman for a long time and then I slowly convince myself that the best thing is that she should not be with me and to find somebody else that is like 10 x better. Naïve desire for an innocent dance with a girl that 1 hour later was all over Tom, it was like this feeling that every girl (and guy really) will get drunk and fuck if they hear the right things no matter what and that I am crazy about how I feel about beauty and love and then I basically watched a guy cheating on his girlfriend and then I sat alone at the table watching everyone slow dance. It's like lately I've been thinking about how some people rationalize things, trump up a bogus self-satisfying reason for immoral behavior, like how Fundamentalists use religion to rationalize killing American citizens, or how in the book I'm reading the main character rationalizes having an affair with reasons like her husband wasn't exciting, too wrapped up in work, not good with sex etc (interesting as to why then this marriage went through, perhaps due to the childbirth, or maybe persistence on his part, or fortune...) or how it seemed to be the motto down there that "Girls only come down here for Spring Break for one reason!..."/it is fine and normal to think of sex with every woman you see all the time, everybody does it and they even say so in psychology etc etc etc. What do you think? Then there was a lady that was so drunk that she was trying to get me to (freak) dance with her, and with everyone pushing me and me trying any way possible to be away from the spotlight I basically curled up in a ball on the floor. It was really dark and frightening. Rajala was there for me though, he kept me on a good drinking regiment and talked to me straight about how he believes in love and how he'd had sex and regretted "throwing it away" ever since and it restored hope. That was a really tough fucking day though. But things got better, as for me I think I'm going to put this Monday to bed, stay tuned.

I tell ya, life ain't easy for a boy named Sue

Johnny Cash is crazy! Everytime we get in Isaacs' car we have to listen to it. 'I Walk the Line', 'Ring of Fire' (Isaacs: "It's so simple, and he really explains the lyrics more than sings them yet it's the best ever")they're great, but 'A Boy Named Sue' is just hilarious. I mean who plays a live concert in a federal prison?? And how it's like an explosion of yelling and laughing at the end, I think it's funny. Wow it's been like a 3-day Justin Birthday festival this Fri-Sun I've been way lucky. Friday Melissa took me out to see 'Phantom of the Opera' in Detroit (hahaa this time we found our Detroit locale). I thought it was just great; the Masonic Temple looked really great so I took a photo, I was with a great friend and the show was great. Raul owned also. Then Sat. night we got the O.G's of wallyball together for a super bowl/probably send off of the sport that has had it's share of amazing times, then made it back to Rajala's for drinks. Yea you read right, I drank with the gang, the thought of mine being that I will warm up for the Spring Break starting this Wed. where I decided I will be drinking (heavily) to drown certain emotions and bury them in sunny Ft. Lauderdale. Responsible, eh? Drinking my problems away. I always stuck to not drinking not just for that reason of "escaping tough parts of life" (don't fear, this doesn't open the door to drugs for the same reason), but also because it was a promise I made with someone long ago. And I don't like how some people need it to do things that they should be able to without it ("liquid courage") and that some people drink and go off and drive on the wrong side of the I-75 freeway and run people off the road and how many other stupid things some people do to ruin things because "Hey, I was drunk". But I drank, I gave up on all the arguments I had against it, it was interesting...it's like I could feel the earth rotating or something, it was funny/odd, and everything is hilarious and hard at the same time because it totally blanks my memory so I cannot remember anything except these random thoughts and I'm at least 3 x as obnoxious and strange let's not forget. But it was nice, we went to the Diggity in the morning for eats and went out with the Dad and G-pa to the 'Autorama' at Cobo Hall and basically watched everybody gawk over cars and women (stereotypical male behavior I hear), we saw a truck that my Dad actually painted, but I don't know if I was really hungover or still a bit tipsy but I couldn't keep a thought in my head and I kept having these psychological questions running through my head like 'Why is it that all the guys there go crazy for the barely dressed women?' Like what is it, what has made those things "attractive/beautiful" to like 99% of the fellas I know? Call me a liar or whatever but I just don't see it, because the few women that I've been so lucky to know whom I think are completely beautiful are completely different than those girls, not just by "looks" but almost everything (grace, humor, emotions, kindness, sexiness......etc etc etc) And it's like it's getting worse by the minute, all the magazines and shows and "beauty pageants" setting the "rules" of beauty, I lose sleep over these things. Ya also Sat. night, Missy (Rajala's sister's friend that lives at the house), who is really nice to me and who I think is a nice person with maybe some bad things surrounding her, yelled out "I love you Bentley!" out of the car window as she pulled away last night. And I didn't think of it at all until I had "had a few" and suddenly it was all over my head, I don't know if it was some sort of unknown desperation lost in my mind coming up for air, or the drink or just somebody saying that to me and it actually sounding halfway serious. I went up there to ask her about it at some godawful late hour later that night, drunk as an idiot, but she was sound asleep with a fella next to her so I went back downstairs. It's like the alcohol was playing tricks on me, begging me to just quit and stop caring and believing in Love which is dumb because I will never "give up" on Love no matter how tough the road gets, to be able to do everything for and to sacrifice for a single woman....pretty bad when I'm less coherent sober than drunk....hahaa and then there is Baun singing along to 'Ring of Fire' in the other room. I need a vacation.

And the moon's laying low in the sky // Forcing everything metal to shine // and the sidewalk holds diamonds like a jewelry store case // ...

...they argue "walk this way," "no walk this way". That wouldn't fit up there. But really I'm not sure you need many of the lyrics at all for this song today (that is a pretty perfect one, just sing that one over and over to the beat if you wish). Like do you ever feel a song attaching itself to a moment, but sometimes not even really the lyrics, just the notes and rhythms and how they together add perfect color to a special moment? That's what I'm talking about. Haha (sigh), so I go over to my best lady friend Melissa's house at around 7:00 PM and we greet each other and we are off to what I originally had as a surprise place in Detroit, but after a barrage of questions (ha), I told her that we were going down to the Campus Martius park/ice rink. Good times, right? Well you forget who was driving down there, so after we are talking and talking we discover that the Ambassador Bridge is over our shoulders and after I turn it around and miss I-75 (more talkins) we are exactly in the middle of noplace, which sounds scary, (lost on a winter's night in Detroit), but I'll tell you something it was the best time ever. We laughed, shared padded insults, stories and even made a game of it, taking turns on wild guesses as to what road to take next. If only I could get a map and a red pen and draw where we went, it was hilarious. We ended up at a Cabin restaurant and discovered that we were in Plymouth, about an hour off course, so after jolly phone calls to get the right direction, we 4 hours later (on the dot) made it back to her place and it was magical. We laughed, shared silent moments....I don't know, you'd have to know our friendship, I mean you have a friend like that too so you know it, I won't even go detail by detail, I think I'll save that for on the inside. There were these trees after she recognized our path, they had this perfect blanket of snow wrapped around them like two rich actresses with mink scarves, I took a picture to remember that, but to also remember this great time we had. For me the exclamation point was driving away from the house with the horn part of this song ROARING (towards the end, after "cause we're comin' For ya!") and maybe this will only make sense to myself, but even though it is 'Taps', it sounded full of life rather than death, it was glorious. We should indeed all get lost more often.