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11:31 p.m. - 2001-11-10 I'm a little interested to find myself beginning to flirt with my old flame again. She ran me through the ringer but good in my adolescence, and I am almost certain that I got over her. But she still calls me every now and then, or runs through my mind on a rainy day, not unlike this one. I really doubt that she has the same power over me that she used to. I've moved on for fuck sake. But, whenever I find myself in a situation like the one I'm in now, she'll test me. No job. Low on funds. Pending break-up with one of the most intense and solid loves I have ever known. Clouds and moisture in the air. Bored. That's when those little reminders of her existence and her role in my past take on more significance. I feel like I know myself pretty well these days. But having everything of external importance suddenly fall in a puddle all at once, well let's just say it makes you a big target. I am amused by it all in a way. This will test me to see if the line that I have been selling myself, the one where I'm over her and indeed know how to keep her in her place, is worth the breath that I used to push it out of my mouth. I have a good feeling that I'm right, but a little doubt is ever present. As I mentioned, today it was raining. I walked across the street car tracks in front of my house with my head down in an effort to keep the ol' face-piece dry. Looking down is a strange thing to do. As you walk along, you notice things on the ground. One of the earthbound happenings that I usually overlook was the rain run-off that had created a small river running down each of the indentations in the street car tracks. It was neat. The kind of neat that would have been a perfect opportunity for hours of entertainment when I was just a wee, snot-nosed brat. I would have put little things in the river, slivers of wood or a discarded gum wrapper and watched the current wisk them away, off to other lands at the end of the block. Or I would have tried my best to dam the thing up and cause a mini flood. I would have examined the terrain of the adjacent asphalt and imagined how it would be to live as an insect crawling over the bumps and cracks. The little tufts of grass that emerged from the crevasses would be my jungle. I'd get so lost in my games that I'd end up soaking my pant cuffs by dipping them in a puddle, but I wouldn't even notice. I might even just sit my little ass down, and pay the consequences of a wet, itchy booty later when the setting sun reminded me that I was not in fact a bug. When I was little, thoughts like this would have been explored due to a marked indifference to the rain. Today I was reminded of that time, because of a lack of the same. Being a grown up is a bunch of crap. When I was a kid, I always thought that there would be this magical transition when the world would start to make sense. I trusted adults the way the Taliban trusts in Allah. They all acted like they knew what they were doing, like the answers were just at their fingertips, and I believed. I don't know, maybe the questions I needed answered were just too easy back then, but that's all changed now, innit? I see why people are so attracted to the whole god thing. It must be nice to trust in Allah the way that I used to trust in the grown-ups. Or Jesus, or whatever. But fuck, it sure would suck to get to the next transition and find that my faith in religion was as ill placed as my faith in adults. I don't want to fall for that one again. Adults are a bunch of fucking morons. Let's roll? Did he say that to us? To the whole world? Did it really become the fucking sound bite that got played over and over, the most relevant thing to repeat in the whole speech? Headline worthy? Was it even worth saying to us? Is that what we need to know? What's next, get a guy in a GI Joe costume up there to give him the forearm smash? I wish that they would come up with some fresh ass break dance steps or something to go with this war. Maybe Tag Team could even make a song to accompany it. Hell, if it gets J-Lo shakin' her ass in some short-short fatigues, I might support Bush. I digress. I guess I don't really digress too much, but I had some more relevant things to say if "relevant" means "relevant to me and my little life". Oh well, whatever it was, it'll keep. I wish I could just scoop out my brain with a frosty ice cream scooper and plop that mug into a 2 quart (1 pint) container to be placed in the freezer section of my new fridge. Not to preserve the thoughts mentioned in the beginning of this paragraph, just cause it would feel nice and cool when I put it back in my everlovin' head. Refreshing even! Anyway, I just sat and read almost the whole damn archive for Outfoxed with a bag of microwave popcorn. He's my new hero. A carpenter who writes with a golden alphabetabulator and gives a wise air of experience. He's my new grown up. Plus his tales have reminded me of the nobility of the trades, and the pride I used to have in being a part of it. So Monday I take the job offer, and strap the ol' tool belt back around the hips to go back to the job of building this great country of ours. Or maybe demolish a little of it and re-build it, fuck if I know. All I know is they better be paying $24 or higher, with full benefits. And I'm not going on the coffee runs. By the way, the old flame is a weak, sophomoric attempt at a metaphor for depression. Very weak, yet somehow, not deleted.
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