erica swamprat's Journal

Time:

9:05 pm.

its been months, and broadway continues to plug on. im at the end of a stress-filled semester of school, gearing up to go to the east coast, figuring out what 2007 will look like, and im in love.

BROADWAY has been getting better every time we play (except for last time, at punfest, where we ate pot donuts beforehand and played a stoner rock set, all bad timing and outta tune) we cut a record, wrote some new songs, and we're going on a mini-tour in february.

SCHOOL i have mixed feelings about, depending on when you ask me. this is a new endeavor, i havent been back to school since i dropped out in 10th grade, and im remembering why. i got As. i have an A in anatomy and physiology right now, but after my final im sure i wont cuz i havent cracked a book in weeks. too much other stuff going on. i lose interest, which is exactly what i did in high school. and i feel horrible about it. i dont spend any time studying, but the guilt i feel takes up a lot of my time, and effects my relationships to people and to other projects. school just feels like institutionalized guilt. as if i dont guilt trip myself enough already about other stuff. so im not sure if im going back, and if i do it wont be for nursing. city college has really exciting community health worker programs and rad classes like harm reduction and ending sexual violence. so maybe ill give those a try before i give up on school altogether. theres also mad volunteer internships here where i feel like i learn a lot more and am using my time more effectively.

JANUARY will find me in new orleans, georgia, florida and possibly points beyond and in-between, with the broadways/bestfriends jackie and matt in tow, being hella unstopable and getting buck and visiting people and kicking ass.

2007 will be a big year i b'lieve. big plans abound and im discovering new things and new ways to do things all the time. its like being a little kid. for example:

i can have an amazing
RELATIONSHIP that exists in all the ways i want it to and is modelled after nothing ive ever known, but is something that we can create for ourselves and make different and new, and doesnt have to lead to wreckage and horribleness. matty b is tall and sinewy and coyote-like. he is beautiful. he is a genious and he writes incredibly and has all these fresh thoughts about everything. he challenges me to consider new things and then to externalize them. he adores the shit outta me me and has many different ways to tell me. he rides across town to meet me on my lunch break at the clinic and bring me treats. he is my best friend and hes really good at it. we have strong powers together and we do amazing things. we play music together and it feels incredible. i make him feel like a boy and a girl and he makes me feel the same way. sometimes we are not boys or girls at all but animals and we wrestle and bite and growl and laugh. sometimes we get overwhelmed by the way we feel about each other and we cry ourselves dry. it is hard to do and takes much work, but it is so worth it.

to work! more later.

Comments: 5 hot, sticky, sweets - pour some sugar on meee.

Subject:	jolene's last ride.
Time:	12:32 pm.

many of you may be familiar with my little green beater ass fixed gear, love of my life, thats been with me since '02. well, yesterday a tragedy befell her, she was posted up on a signpost while i was at the flea market, and along came a wasted homebum who decided itd be a fine idea to stuble over to her, knock her down and pass out on her, then try to get up and do his drunken homebum dance on her back wheel and forks. i saw the whole thing people, whilst i was strolling back to unlock her and take her home, and i subsequently ran over, threw the poor drunken homebum on the ground with my superhuman strength, and screamed at him for like 5 minutes. however i was too late to save jolene from the irrepairable damage of a crimped rear fork. so she retires, to greener pastures, less potholey roads, to the big, flat, freshly paved, trafficless street in the sky. thanks for all those good years, my friend. youve been the best, tuffest, freshest bike ever and ill never find another like you.

Comments: 6 hot, sticky, sweets - pour some sugar on meee.

Time:

3:04 pm.

hangin out in the library at school. feelin like the fuckin alien i surely am. rippin huge loud farts and making everyone grossed out, but dont pretend you dont fart! you cant hold that shit in its dangerous! ill outlive all you fuckin haughty squares, with my dirty face and basically streaked with sweaty dirt everywhere. sarah sass says junkyard dog, and nothing could be more true. its fuckin warm and sticky in the bay area daytimes and im fully lappin it up like a thirsty puppy. ridin my dirty bike, wearin my dirty clothes sleepin in dirty beds. school is fuckin weird. for some reason, even though its all structure and discipline and responisibilty, it doesnt feel like what real life is. it feels real strange, real life to me is bein able to drop in on yer friends at any hour of the day, or to jet across the country at the drop of a hat to attend a dear buddy's funeral or a queer music fest in the mountains, or just to give someone a warm squeeze. it feels fake and unreal to stay inside to study, even though principally its a good thing, that ive been needing to do for a long time. now more than ive ever been im hooked on people, people all the time, sparks and people. its bad, so ive quit drinking and im trying to deprioritize my social life, but im so fucking in love with so many people right now its really hard. i need to work on expression, small things, quality not quantity, etcetera.

the bay feels really good right now. ive fuckin reluctantly fallen in love with oakland california, dirty south kid that i am. dont ask me how it happened, cuz 3 months ago this place was trying to kill me and i was in a constant state of panic-attackedness. really, i think it mightve been the longest-running worst time in my life. and now im all, oh oakland, riding the bart across the city literally swooning. i dunno. its weird.

in other news i moved into a new house with van and jaqxun, both of whom i fucking love living with and our house is the most fancy place ive lived in my life, so the home life is good, everything worked out, it always does.

Comments: 2 hot, sticky, sweets - pour some sugar on meee.

Subject:	cat+fish!
Time:	11:14 pm.
Mood:	headache?.
Music:	promise ring - sos.

dirty south friends tour 2006 is pretty bumpin. i just made it to my mom's house, after bein in the NO for 2 weeks. it was a whirlwind and i wish i could go back for just a lil while longer. cuz its hard for me to get into the swing of things and really get rad QT with lots of people when im in town for such a short time, and it seems like a lot of the kids there now are just so distant and bummed these days. totally for good reason and i think thats why i never took it personal, even though its my tendency to do so. i mean its been just about a year since the storm, and everyone is real spooked about this hurricane season. like theres kids still livin outta boxes and moved into new houses without decorating and people who are still waiting to paint and fix their houses and stuff just cuz theyre real nervous itll be for nothin and they'll just lose it all again. makes sense. i even have feelings like that and im not even living there anymore. poor lil fuckers. little brave stubborn things.

i did get to spend mad time with some special ones though. including a couple of aquatic adventures. first day i was there, after getting into town the night before and staying up til 4 drinking with thomas, we got up at 7 to go hop into casey's car with megan and go tubing on the bogue chitto(they say it like boga-cheeto). we got a cooler fulla beer and paid these cajun boys in short shorts and mullets for tubes and the ride to the drop off point in a busted old school bus. it was beautiful and out in the middle of nowhere and we saw snakes and snapping turtles and we took some mushrooms and floated in the blazing sun for what ended up being 6 hours, cuz we kept having to stop and wait for meg to make sand angels and disappear into the woods, and we had to drag around anarctica, which was the tube our cooler was strapped to. around hour 5 or so we started really feeling like we might not make it out and the river just wouldnt end and it was getting dark so me and casey tried to rally the troops by assuring them we'd all die out there if we didnt hurry the fuck up. then when we finally made it i discovered i had the worst sunburn of my adult life, so i was real delirious and we were all still tripping but casey heroically drove us outta the cuts and across that epic 30 mile bridge over lake ponchartrain and we made it home basically unscathed. then after 10 or so days of staying up all night, getting buck, riding bikes, sweating, sparks sno-balls from T.L. at royal st. grocery, starting a band and playing a wicked rad show, drinkin in bars and kickin it at zotz waaay too much in nola my mom came over from biloxi and picked up me, walt, misha and karli and took us to pensacola for spring break summer twothousand-SICK, wherewe ran around on the beach, went to a show at NC ryan's house, stayed up til dawn, and ran around on the beach some more. twas lovely. now im at my moms in the middle of nowhere, and realizing how much i rely on cities and the people i know to entertain me. which is good and bad. i mean, there was a time in my life when i was an expert at entertaining myself, but i also didnt really have any friends. now i do and when im by myself i get kinda bored. balance, its all about balance. anyway, theres a lake to swim in close by and i get to go to gainesville for a spell and explore, so thats pretty tight. woah epic update! g'nite.

Comments: pour some sugar on meee.

Subject:	updatin
Time:	12:47 am.
Mood:	sleepy.

okay so ill update. so you old friends and new ones can have a lil peak into my life. today marked kinda the end of an(other) era. i moved off my sweet little dreamboat. i borrowed alex's car, went and scooped up helper bee owen in berkeley and hauled my stuff across the bay to jaqxun's in frisco. im super excited and not really sad cuz the boat life was fuckin ruff and i think it lended a lot to my anxiety, bein alone all the time in a tiny space. and i dont like my anxiety. it makes me mean and moody and a fuckin bummer jerk to be around, and that aint me! id way rather use my powers for good. it wasnt like livin on the boat in seattle, which was one of the best times of my life for so many reasons.

i started a band, then a few days later my bass got stolen outta jack's house in west oakland. fuckin bummer. that thang was my baby! the dear sweet sparkly love of my life. bass thieves, bike thieves, i hope they all step on needles and get hernias and humiliating rashes and VD. but we're gonna get a new one, and we wont let this minor setback stop the rock! we're gonna be pop/rock and roll/punk/new wave/goth in no particular order. we need a name too if you have any suggestions. THE PERSON WHO COMES UP WITH THE BEST NAME GETS A PRIZE!!

a couple days ago was my 4 month aniversary in the bay area! fuckin right. ive felt crazier here than ive ever been in my life, except the last week ive felt pretty awesome. maybe its cuz school is done for a month and i get to go on vacation. im going to NOLA for 2 weeks to see some good buddies and bask in the sweaty and drink daqueries and have DIY goth nights and make music videos and cycloramas and play jawbreaker covers til my hands bleed and ride bikes in flipflops and visit my mom. im pretty fuckin stoked.
well theres the news for today. maybe ill try and post some snapshots up in here next time. xo-rat

Comments: 2 hot, sticky, sweets - pour some sugar on meee.

Time:

6:28 pm.

i'm having a hard time handling stress. im having the dull, second guessing, achey heart feelings that come with spending wintertime in the northwest, when drinking coffee might help if you could figure out how to not drink so much that you scatter yerself and then cant use yer brains for crap. in the past month i have: spent weeks in the bay area, and portland, i bought a step van, worked on it for a couple weeks, got overwhelmed, then sold it. im gonna get married tomorrow to pat, cuz were buds maybe i can get the pell grant early then? even that is becoming nerve wracking! but its all stressful cuz we want prenuptual agreements, but cant really do that without a lawyer, and if something weird happens, like one of us gets sued, the other one has to take heat too. it aint easy gettin married! damn damn. we'll see what happens. im in seatown for a few days tho, and i really wanna hang out with one robert daniels, but the kid is so fuckin flaky i doubt itll happen. ah hwell.

Comments: 9 hot, sticky, sweets - pour some sugar on meee.

Subject:	no sleep for the wicked.
Time:	11:14 pm.

well well well. i finally made it out of the fuckingdamn vortex that is the bay area, although santa cruz isnt really gaining much ground. tour is over. fallopian bomar is dead(the mystical minivan which carried us halfway across the country), we are all going our separate ways. maybe we will never play together again, but damn was fun while it lasted. we had the best last show ever though, at the 24th and mission bart station, at 3 o clock on a saturday, with shitstorm and david copperfuck, both amazing, and free burritos! the sun was shining, kids were drinkin and dancin, moms were coming out of the bart with their kids and stopping and hangin out. old dudes were smokin cigars, wingnuts were hollerin. and the cops never came. it was beautiful, i couldve cried. all the bands played 3 songs each, then switched up, til all our songs were played, then everyone hung out, skated and drank more. incidentally, that was the last time i drank since. im on the wags for a while since i pretty much got drunk every night on tour. one must rest from such madness. later that same day, we saw effing shotwell, which due to my giddy emotional state from earlier in the day, and the fact that ive loved them for years and listening to them has gotten me outta some pretty ruff times, was damn near the raddest shit ever, and again the tears threatened to flow. since then we've been kickin it in the bay. san fransisco is great and all, and i fucking love the hell outta the kids there, but that place drives me nuts if im there for more than a couple days, small town kid that i am. i can live in cities, but not CITIES. you know. i think its because i try too hard, im around so many people, and i must aim to please them all, so i end up using myself up it feels like, till im all fragmented and i feel shattered and exhausted. then i cant speak to anyone for days, buts its hard to get that space, when everything is so packed-in and close together. plus im fragile, really. tinder said it best when those boys left us to go east, telling me i have a little glass earthquake heart.

ian and i have this wild scheme to buy some kind of large diesel machine, and if it works out im gonna spend a month or so in portland converting said beast, before i go to southern oregon to rock with sal, tinder and shade, about which i am so stoked. i get to kick it in the woods with 3 of the best kids ever, and play really good music, ride horses, milk goats, take hikes, breathe fresh air and go swimmin without no clothes on. yeah west coast. i never really intended to stay here, but it looks like thats whats happening, at least for a little while. come visit!

Comments: 2 hot, sticky, sweets - pour some sugar on meee.

Subject:	boss dogz.
Time:	6:52 pm.
Mood:	ifeellikemychestcouldexplode.

im in olympia washington, visiting this place and toe with nona and easy ian. im a little over a week out of minneapolis, on tour with fallopian jungle, the best fucking stoner pop punk band in hotpants youve ever heard. shit is hella fun. we just had a buncha days in seattle after our show there. we were drunk and played super sloppy, but there was circle pits and disco raver dancing just the same. seattle was stressful and drunk but beautiful, my sappy ass walked around on wet shoes for many a night reminiscing, in a sleep deprived stupor. i havent been back there since leaving on the boat, and leaving this really intense romance behind, and now all i have are memories of both those things, and the spots are still sore. they make me shake and slump, and maybe say things i shouldnt, but i was tuff as nails, except when i found out about the death of my dear pupdog friend adeline, and i cried so loud and long, til i was weak and dizzy, like i did when the hurricane was hitting new orleans and i was so far away. but my sweet friend walked with me around in circles, made me smile and curled up with me in his warm bed. im excited and tired. i dont know what ill do after this, and i just hate leaving things undone, unsaid. but i cant ask too much, cuz really. really. this doesnt make much sense. im in an emo mood, maybe its this damn town. tonight we see kimya dawson, and tomorrow we rock PDX, where i get to see more old friends, and get more puddles in my shoes. come out and dance please. i just need to sleep on this, ill be smiling by then for sure.

Comments: 6 hot, sticky, sweets - pour some sugar on meee.

Subject:	fucking croissants
Time:	3:13 pm.

wow its been forever, again. i cant seem to ever motivate myself to update this thing, to quantify. not really wanting to think about these last few months too much, with the present and the future being a full plate on their own. but this week is dedicated to aloneness and introspection, so here goes. a hurricane crashed through my fair crescent city, and i havent been back since. i tried to, after the beet harvest, which was wrought with excitement about being back in the states, exciting new friends, a poppunk band that wrote songs about beets on accoustic guitars in a mini van blasting the heat at 1 in the morning after our 12 hour shifts, sitting in the driveway of our farm squat, while 20 or so kids slept peacefully in barns and stables, and the hard work paid off when we played our first/only show on halloween in minnehopeless, which is where i still am, over a month later. riding my bike in the snow, working at the needle exchange, playing music, working out, feeling tuff sometimes and oh so fragile other times. feeling indecisive. not really knowing what im doing here but not really knowing where else to go... being dead set on one set of plans one minute and a completely different plan the next. im trying not to rope anyone else into my flakiness. thats the worst part, when you dissappoint people. i wanna go on tour. i wanna stay here. its too cold. i wanna go back to nola. its too crazy there. i wanna go to mexico, etc. its annoying, my existential crises. i feel like im being pulled from all different directions, and i cant make a decision to save my life, so i flounder, and all the good opportunities pass me by. this seems really negative. but really, if you dont count my existential crisis, which only developed in the last week, things here are awesome. i have so many fucking incredible people in my life here. im in a really good all girl punk rock band. i have a warm, calm cozy house. but winters here are not for me and i know that, and the road calls my name, through phone calls from distant friends that make me cry, punkpost letters begging me to visit westcoast cities ive neglected for years. surfing trips to mexico. and a dirty south city where my whole life still resides in boxes, in various states of moldiness, and my friends cook food on propane stoves, gut houses and try to make their lives normal.

Comments: 3 hot, sticky, sweets - pour some sugar on meee.

Time:

3:23 pm.

wow. ever been alone fer so long that you start to wonder if you even excist? like you need to be able to speak to other people to know for sure if youre not just dreamin. im feelin it. im so tired of travellin. i just wanna go home. go home and stay put. run around and ride my bike and visit my friends and play music and laugh and talk and talk fer days straight. im worried about this new hurricane. i wanna talk to my mom. i just took a week offa school and went to the lovely lake atítlan. and hung out in little pretty towns fulla rainbow hippies, which was kinda gross, but really, im way too judgemental and i know that. so i was friendly when they talked to me. even though i lied through my teeth, saying i was a romanian anthropologist and things of that nature. some of them were nice, even fun. but generally i prefered to do coke and stay up all night roaming the streets with wild ass italian hipster boys than smoke weed and listen to shitty rythmless european kids play bongo drums. it was fun. i swam daily in lightening storms, and ran hella game. now i go back to huehue for school, after i spend one more night in xela dancin the night away at one of g-mala's only gay bars. good times. and then a few days after that i rendezvous with my goblin, whom ive been seperated from for weeks, and left to my own devices and irrational thoughts. woo. stoked. nothin like a bestfriend to make you feel like you exsist again.

Comments: 3 hot, sticky, sweets - pour some sugar on meee.

Time:

4:18 pm.

ugh i just ate a crapton of really pure dense chocolate with that and the alanis morrisette on the radio in this place, i think im gonna hurl. im in xela, which is undoubtedly the bay area of guatemala, with its cold foggy rainy weather, and unusually high population of north american kids from the west coast. so ive taken up all of my bay area habits, going on epic walks and not really talking to anyone. i split from my travelling compañera a week ago, to learn spanish quicker. and its probably working. learning spanish is really HARD. i also think learning spanish is making me bad at talking and spelling and writing in english, which is funny. so saturday i didnt have any school, so i decided to put on my headphones and walk the 10k to zunil, to visit the likeness of san simón, which is this pseudo-catholic saint of revenge and curing afflictions, all the nice saintly stuff. he was this intimidating, but somehow alluring plastic man in sunglasses and a hat, with a hollow body, for holding all the liquor people pour into his mouth as offerings. it was pretty intense. there were people in there hollering and crying and praying and sweating. so i lit candles and sacrificed some rum for me, and some for my homies, to bless us and keep us safe. so if you all are ever feeling vengeful or hedonistic or need someone to bless you, just look to the south and ask san simón.

Comments: 3 hot, sticky, sweets - pour some sugar on meee.

Time:

4:42 pm.

huehuetenango is a busy, polluted city in the highlands of guatemala. ive been here a week and a half, with my buddy the g. scandal. going to school for spanish, studying my face off, eating good food(squash and garlic tomales, what!?) and hanging out at the orphanage wrestling herds of dusty boys and singing badly translated punk rock songs to sleepy babies. the family we're staying with is amazing. mom is a hilarious, scandalous lady with gold teeth, who rules the house with sass and grace. dad is a soft spoken psycologist, who reads the paper to me in the afternoons. maria is the oldest, she teaches us to salsa and laughs at my silly moves. shes married to a boy named gustavo, who quizzes me on geography. lourdes is the youngest. she burns us reggaeton CDs and listens to greenday, and loves my pop punk mixtapes. and on the weekends we put on our dancin shoes and go out to la discoteca. and i swear i wouldnt brag about shit that wasnt true, but we SCHOOLED that place. i mean we tore the club up. with the velocity of my ass shake and la duendita's enthusiasm and totally hot ground moves, we had crowds. i mean we had boys linin up to take us out to the floor. i dont think ive ever wilded out like that before. soo much fun.

things are good. im homesick for the NO like i knew id be. here is just about the opposite here of my life there. but in a good way. no stress or busyness is nice. get up at 6, eat breakfast, walk to school, study, walk to the orphanage, eat, study some more, sleep, etc. i wish i knew this city like i know that one. sometimes all i wanna do is go someplace by a river where i know no one will be, drink a beer and wax poetic. im feeling a need for some time alone, not just by myself in the city were everyone is sweating my weird looking gringa ass. and sure i miss my band. my tight bros. my swimmin pool and my punk rockpile.

Comments: 10 hot, sticky, sweets - pour some sugar on meee.

Subject:	broken hearts and empty sparks
Time:	8:17 pm.

jaqx and i are finally gearing up to leave central california, where we've been for an excessively large part of our vacation. stuck for the best reasons, him because he's a squishy, make-outy love beast, and me cause i cant resist crisscrossing to sacto, santa cruz, oakland and back, trying to get in the most quality time with the most people possible. and its been a sucessful experiment. mad Q.T. with bestfriends i get to see way less often that id like. i have the poison oak and sunburns that are indicitive of having a blast in santa cruz. we finally started our band, crankcase explosion, it was so much fun, screaming and playing in renee's living room. we got surfboards, and i was really bad at surfing this time, cause i collided with this poor dude my first time out and then lost my confidence. but theres always next time. i like that i have these annual traditions, it makes me feel grounded and rational and less complicated. i had a 24 hour date with jade, whom ive always wanted to get to know better. i enticed her to leave sacto with me and we trekked around oakland all wetbrained and hungover, and drank tea and talked about everything. last night tinder and i hitched to the city to see the devil makes three, we got 4 free tickets and danced our tired feet off, then met up with robert and walked all the way from downtown to the bay in the wee hours, to a beach that robert had been staying on. we tried to watch the meteor shower, but it was too cloudy. there were these homebums burning a dead body that smelled like the meat packing plant in augusta on friday, blood burning night, when we used to go downtown and hang out outside punk rock shows cause we were like 13 and usually couldnt get inside or had no money. the three of us walked around looking at old grafitti from the 80s, and stayed up late giggling in our cardboard house, hoping that the homebums wouldnt run out of fuel for their fire and decide to sacrifice one of us. today im sleepy and heartachey cuz i had to say goodbye to those 2 heart stealers, for who knows how long. but portland is next and im stoked, on fancy dates and staying up too late. and i have this really outlandish goal of totally confessing everything to this boy. of being communicative and brave and not so scaredy and anxious like i usually am around him, talking about everything else but how we're feeling about each other or at all. im gonna lay it all out, cause ive got nothing to lose, really. im reminded of sunrises and common rider songs. this will be tuff. wish me luck.

Comments: 2 hot, sticky, sweets - pour some sugar on meee.

Time:

5:40 pm.

i feel like this livejournal really dates me. we've been through some goofy years together, thats for sure. sometimes i think about terminating it. but theres nothing like reading through yer old friends' life to make you feel all goopy and nostalgic, and sometimes you need that. just about a week ago, jaqxun and i left the sunny shores of louisiana, bound for the west coast on our EVICTION TOUR 2005. we made it to oaktown in 3 and a half days, with a plethora of sleazy/annoying truckers. when we got there, i basically walked around the east bay the entire first day, debating whether or not my future career as a trucker is the best idea, thinking about life and dealing with being back here for the first time in a year, and all the crazy feelings that come with being here. but it was good and it pissed down rain and i listened to dead moon on my headphones and called svet when i got home. we went and drank bloody marys with her rowdy team of boy buddies, and they gave each other some of the awfullest tattoos ive ever seen, it was awesome. next day i went to the city with jaqx and met a bunch of his sweet, stylish friends. we had a NOLA reunion with clarabella, and saw shitstorm play and i ran into all kinds of random kids from bygone eras. its nice to go into a really intimidating city that you just dont know at all and see kids that you love and that make you comfortable. the next couple of days where a whirlwind of nerves and sleep deprivation, substituting booze for sleep mulitiple nights in a row. skarp played a couple shows in the bay area and i tried to hang out with robert as much as i could, since hes not someone i see very much and i so love his company. we had a crazy awesome time, walking around a bunch, rescuing a wasted svet from marker-wielding drunks, taking crazy pictures, writing postcards, talking about old times and what weve been doing this past year, and making crazy plans for the future, weddings and island tours and kidnappings and boat rides. theres just something about that boy that makes me totally comfortable no matter what i do, no matter what strange crap flies outta my mouth or whatever goofy thing happens, hes all enthusiasm and encouragement. ah, goddamn heart stealers, i swear to god.
now im in santa cruz, hangin out with goblinstein and the wonderful melyn. making plans to find our old surfboards and then use them to entice the rest of the boatcrew to come down. yeah. this vacation couldnt be going better. why is it that i can be so positive on this coast all the time and then spend so much time feeling low and shitty back east? ill take the easy way out and blame it on the winter. cuz its home, dogg.

Comments: 5 hot, sticky, sweets - pour some sugar on meee.

Time:

8:58 pm.

well, halloween in minneapolis is over. and so, as you know it are the elections. but i dont wanna talk about that. you know how i feel, hopeless and shitty and mad as hell. halloween was great though. we had 22 houseguests for the weekend, in addition to our 13 housemates. (viva la squeezebox 35!) but our house is HUGE, and that shit was so much fun. total fuckin chaos, i loved it. now as the kids trickle away, and the house gets cleaned, we find great things in the freebox, and brace ourselves for winter. only the loyalest of friends visit this snowy wasteland in the cold months. but i can only say that everyone else is totally missing out. i loved this place so much when i visited last winter that i fuckin moved here! you get the star treatment. cold hands and warm beds, sledding, ice skating and breakfast dates. winter is our best kept secret. im lovin this town and its busy, motivated ways. right now im working the staff shift at the bat annex free school. its been my first chance in days to read comic books and focus on myself, without the yells of people and the thump of booty music in the living room to distract me. not a soul came in all evenin, which is good, cuz ian lane came and hung out with me and we drank gin and juice, so im in no shape to show anyone how to use the janky ol photocopier anyway. take care of yerselves kids. get spraypaint on yer hands and yells in yer throat. keep fightin.

Comments: 4 hot, sticky, sweets - pour some sugar on meee.

Time:

3:41 pm.

so i left nasty ol asheville a while ago. and as soon as we got 20 miles westa' town, i felt like a real person again, and not as much of the insecure weirdo that i am there. me and casper and jade spent the first while of the drive talking about how that place is cursed and just makes everyone strange and sad. im in renville minnesota, hangin out post beet harvest. that was the most epic short job ive ever had. fuckin 16 straight 12 hour days. all freaked out cause you feel like youre this work machine, cause all you ever do is work, sleep, wake up, drink coffee, go back ta work, sleep...etc. the piling site is this dusty old barren wasteland, kinda like a moonscape, or some post-apacalyptic desert world, covered in mountains of beets. soo crazy. renville is this tiny quiet farm town, that blows up every october with this influx of punks, oogles, junkies, weirdos and alcoholics. they think we're gypsies, which we are. they love us or they hate us, and they get really sad when they find out we dont travel together all year. we were about 40 deep, staying at this abandoned barn just outside of town. we had an army of dogs, walls fulla rats, and fires every night. the place is surrounded by the creepiest corn fields ever, so we worked really hard trying to freak each other about ghosts and aliens and coyotes. but now its over til next year. which is rad, cause its getting cold, and im not really feelin the small town life. but im punk rock wealthy, and i have all kinds of crazy schemes about what to do with all this money. sailboat? school bus? trips? tattoos? ill be living in minneapolis the next few months. come visit!

Comments: 7 hot, sticky, sweets - pour some sugar on meee.

Subject:	i take back every bad thing i ever said about new york city.
Time:	6:45 pm.
Mood:	drained.

so i just got back down to carolina, after a much needed northeast vacation. C-money and i hitched down here thru a hurricane! i spent abit of time in DC on my way up, hangin out with deirdre while she was lit up on percoset fer days, cuz she got doored at work and messed up her hand real bad. cathy came and met me there, then we mobbed up to nyc. i was real aprehensive. after first promising myself id never again set foot in that city, and promising myself id stay far away from the RNC, there i was. whatever, im a promise breaker, a bad person. real bad.

but new york was fuckin beautiful. and full of hundreds of the most amazing kids. i feel like i saw just about everyone ive ever known while i was there. real overwhelming in a no-sleep, running around constantly sorta way. where youre hangin out all over town and all of a sudden you realize its 5am, and its one more night youre not gonna sleep, but its okay, cause youre having a blast, and whats just a teeny bit more delerium?

now im back in NC and confused again. i dont think it was always this hard to make up my mind about shit. something happened, probably while i was on the boat, that ruined my ability to reason and decide shit without panicking and going nuts. im thinking about leaving asheville. cause its not fucking perfect, but what the hell? im gonna lead a real sad life if i expect everything to be perfect all the time. i just need a home. i need a place to go back to thats supportive and fun and not too terribly cold. i feel like im ruining my ability to be taken seriously. i cant even take myself seriously sometimes. i just need to stop. just stop and take care of myself and stop beating myself up for making the wrong choices. cuz thats just absurd.

Comments: 5 hot, sticky, sweets - pour some sugar on meee.

Time:

1:51 pm.

im stinking up the library with my sweaty-kid-in-the-humid-south-who-rarely-bathes stench. today is zachary's 21st birthday and we're gonna get good and plowed. we drank mimosas for breakfast this morning and we're counting down til 3pm when the bars open. yesterday we went tubing with 3 of the olympia transplants, floating for hours down the french broad that smelled like poop trailing along a cooler fulla beer. alternating between peeing our pants and screaming and relaxing. sunburns all around. total punk rock summer camp type shit. i need to figure out how to build a lightweight wood or coal burning heat stove for pretty cheap. i also need to find some horses to ride. we went out to rosetta's last night for zack's birthday, even though he was MIA. me and aryn dorked out about equines for a long time. hes cute. horses smell good. i smell like ive been living on beer and coffee and swimming in poo.

Comments: 5 hot, sticky, sweets - pour some sugar on meee.

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