i don't know what it is about the scent of cigarettes that turns me on . . .

. . . but it's time i found a girl who likes to paint.

i want you so badly . . .

. . . but nothing ever seems to happen.

trouble at heart, trouble in mind . . .

i command everyone to go out and buy ben harper's new collaboration with the blind boys called "there will be a light." folks, this is jammin', psychedelic gospel at its finest. highlights: "take my hand" "where could i go" "well, well, well" "satisfied mind" "mother pray" "there will be a light" and "church on time." oh, and the other four songs on the album, too.

words of wisdom from ben and the boys: "it's so hard to find one rich man in ten with a satisfied mind." money isn't everything.

but damn, i sure could use just a little bit more.

if you've got the money, honey, i've got the time . . .

so clint and i sent off our fines to the coffee county general sessions court clerk yesterday. it was simultaneously nauseating (that's sooo much fucking money!) and liberating. we will not go to jail.

and thus begins the next chapter of my life. it will mean: less money, more independence, and tons of free time. i never realized how much time smoking weed takes up until i quit. now i find myself having to think of things to do again. like running. and reading. things i used to do.

but hey, it will be nice to have my head straight again. and to be able to remember names and conversations and due dates.

now all i need is a nice girl.

oh yeah, how could i forget . . .

. . . i want to give a shout to my girl mary jane. thanks for everything; you taught me so much. like how to really hear music. and how to think like a child. and the importance of sharing. just because we're parted doesn't mean i don't still think of you fondly. maybe we'll meet again someday.

so i'm not doing drugs anymore . . .

. . . as of this weekend. it's been a whole two and a half days since i last smoked. i haven't noticed any changes yet. except that i'm beginning to feel that i can relate to straight people again. and that is a good thing. because most people don't do drugs.

spent some time with kelli last night. every time i'm with her, all i want to do is lean across the table and kiss her. she's convinced herself that she can only love one person. and that person is not me. one day she'll realize that love isn't always enough to make a relationship good. and hopefully one day she'll understand that she deserves to receive the same love she gives.

hot philosophy girl in my modernist poetry class keeps looking my way during class. of course i don't know what to make of this. so fuck it. next time i have the money, she's going to dinner with me. period. i'm tired of sitting around waiting for something to happen. everyone says "don't look for love -- you'll find it when you least expect it." well i'm here to tell you that that is just grade-a fucking bullshit. love only happens when you make it happen. so there.

it's like lennon said, you know, "and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."

amen.

a millimeter of a shark tank

i just found an old tape that jake and i recorded one day when we tripped together. it was late last may, after school had let out, but before bonnaroo. joey was out of town for the weekend, so jake crashed at my place. early saturday morning we woke up and each ingested a hefty dose of 5meo-amt. jake had brought a tape recorder to chronicle our voyage. listening to it made me remember something: drugs are weird. that particular day, my dad called my apartment just as i was peaking. that was by far the strangest conversation i've ever had with anyone, period, much less my own father. also, jake sorta went off his rocker, talking about how nothing mattered and the universe made too much sense and all that other shit you think about when you trip. that fool walked fully clothed into the pool at my apartment complex, destroying his phone and soaking his wallet.

but it reminded me to ask the question: what really does matter? familial ties? religion? the law? loyalty to country? all my ideas about the world have been shattered. now i'm clinging to my ego. i want a different reason to live.

we sat, discussing the politics of the fishtank.

college is fucking up all my friends. every week another one has a maddening existential crisis. i think maybe that's what college is supposed to do. it's supposed to break your mind. it's a time to experiment with sex, drugs, politics, philosophy, religion, art, music. it's a place to forget who you were the eighteen years before you moved into that tiny-ass dorm room.

today i remembered that redemption happens when the buddha tranquilly ponders his sins.

i am sorry.

i guess this means i'm an orphan.

the last american summer

this was the first summer i had looked forward to in several years. my entire college career, summer has meant lake charles and dog shit and no friends in town. but not this summer. this summer was supposed to be different.

in a lot of ways, this summer marked the end of a lot of things. most of my friends have been scattered across the globe because of money or school or lost love. the hub is no more. pretty soon, the responsibilites of adulthood will be looming over the summers after this one.

that is why i've deemed this the last american summer. american. not in the sense of apple pie and baseball, but in the sense of the ideal of unlimited personal freedom, fraternity, the open range. american like cowboys.

we had it good for a while. things are changing. let's hope this dark night is coming to a close.

weed should totally be legal.

i love talking to joey when he's blown. he's the craziest, most creative motherfucker i know. now that i've got him smoking, i've discovered this whole new side of him that is simply amazing. i really think he's some kinda idiot savant or something. i've got two words for y'all: true. champion.

"we must love one another or die."

the world, i've decided, is utterly absurd. i know this is not an original thought (kudos mr. kierkegaard). the only thing is, i've just recently learned for myself how ridiculously chaotic life truly is. we're all stuck in this unholy cycle of kill and eat. we all rely on some false ideology to provide us an archimedean point around which our lives can revolve. but it's just that. false. wake the fuck up or die in your sleep.

i want out when i'm fifty-eight.

so i know it's weird to write my first post on the subject of death, but it's been on my mind lately. i don't know what to think of it. we live in a "christian" society that tells us there is life after death. maybe that's true, maybe it isn't. but it doesn't really matter. because we live like it's not. it's like the hope for an afterlife is some lie we tell ourselves to make us feel better about dying. but the only problem is, we can't convince ourselves of our own lie. to truly believe that your death is not the end is to be insane. my goal in life is to be ready to die by the age of fifty-eight. by that time i can accomplish all the things that are really important to me. and hopefully by then i can shake this fear of death that's been ingrained in me since youth. if there is a heaven, i'm ready. if i rot in the ground, that's cool, too.