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18:39 - May 10, 2003
So I asked him, and so the story goes... So who can guess what he did wrong?
As he's driving away, all smug, he looks in his rearview mirror and the tow truck is backing up to his BMW, all ready to hook up to it. (Of course.) He screeches a U-turn in the middle of the road, burns rubber all the way back to the lot, and slides in between his BMW and the two truck right before they hook up. As he gets out of the Geo and Back in the BMW, defeated, the tow truck guy is already on the phone, calling to my dad, 'The police are on their way.' When he gets to North Shore Towing that night to get his car back (legitimately this time) he fins it alone behind a locked gate with a Denver boot on it.
23:51 - May 09, 2003 Before yesterday, I hadn't seen a real storm since I left Chicago. Boulder weather is eerily cheerful and mild. Right now, outside the upstairs window from where I'm typing this, lightning is streaking by every three seconds and thunder is shaking the house. I'm starting to remember what summers are like here. And in Nebraska we saw a tornado begin to form. Reminds me that not everyone's safe in the sheltering arms of the mountains. Also, decadence. I got home at 7 am and slept from 8am to 7pm, and then my dad, my cousin, his girlfriend and I all went to a steakhouse and ordered a dinner that ended up costing 178 dollars, used 15 dollar valet parking, and through all this nobody but me blinked an eye. When she brought the wine I thought of Lara's sunlight streaming through burgundy wish. The can discuss the merits of the different wines on the wine list all day long, but I bet they never thought about how the sun would look streaming through any of it. It's warm at night here. The sun can go down and the air can still hang there, hot, humid. I'm finding it laborious to breathe in this much moisture. All the way down I-80 we were were slowly declining in altitude and each foot that dropped away, another portion of a mile, another stretch of road... I kept wanting to turn around.
22:37 - May 07, 2003 Andrew: 'It's weird that it just feels normal when you're saying goodbye. It's like.. 'bye, Aaron' or whoever, but then they leave and later you're sitting here without them. For three months, man.'
23:40 - May 06, 2003 I ended on a great note with Nick, at least, and that's why it's so hard. I can't deal with taking a day hike up into Gregory Canyon with him and his dad and spending sunset sitting on high rocks looking over Boulder and watching climbers, and telling hilarious stories over wonderful Thai food and having it be the last day. When we get back to the dorms I find myself speechless. I know I have to study and I know I have to go to Andrew's, and I know I'm not going to wake up at eight in the morning to see him go. Quite surprisingly, he's the one who gives me a hug. But I'm the one who has so much trouble letting go. And when I leave Andrew's because I can't deal with it over there, they insist that I come back tomorrow, but really, I know I won't be back. 'This isn't goodbye,' Andrew says sternly, 'because you're coming back tomorrow and I'm going to see you then.' I don't know what to say to him so I accept his hug, hitting my head on the bottom of the fort ceiling. I don't know what to say to Lara either. We've spent the whole semester together. Nearly every day. I won't see her or anyone for three months, so what the fuck? We're living together next year, but that's still ages away. I can't have any appropriate last words for any of them. It's so much easier to be detached and just leave. And go home, and forget. I would never be a good nomad because I would be leaving people all the time and I would cry about it forever.
21:59 - May 04, 2003 I haven't thought too hard about going home (probably related to all the excess - I'm not letting myself smoke for awhile) until tonight, when I had put most of my stuff into boxes and Nick had helped me carry (actually just carried) my keyboard out to the car, and we went back to his room, and everything was stripped bare; the poster of Frank Zappa sitting on the toilet even, which was his room's staple if I ever saw one. And the 'no buttriding' poster, and the avocado plants. It was all boxes and bare walls. I looked at him in his knit hat and flying hands and my stomach coiled tight, my throat cinched up.
Yesterday (was it only yesterday?) I lay in the tall grass under a tree and listened to Andrew, sporting my rainbow hat, playing guitar, and singing tunelessly, and heard Chell shiver from the wind next to me, and Camille's pen scratching out designs on Lara's foot. We were looking at pictures later, giddy. 'There's my foot and there's Andrew, and there's the mountain,' Lara exclaimed. 'That's everything.'
18:14 - May 02, 2003 I go home in less than a week now, and I don't wanna. Well, I do wanna; actually I really really wanna, but at the same time I can't stand the thought. I've grown to truly love Boulder, and everyone in it. I also haven't missed the parental supervision (not that my parents do much of THAT, but they're still an unwelcome presence: 'WHY would you WANT to smoke a BLUNT at ELEVEN in the MORNING?' 'what POSSIBLE reason could you HAVE for wanting to DRIVE around AIMLESSLY packed in a car with a bunch of PEOPLE?' 'what do you MEAN you want to build a FORT out of my COUCH?') Everything's completely understandable, but really, what has smoking a blunt at eleven in the morning or driving aimlessly or building forts done to change my personality for the worse? Nothing, that's what. If anything, I need more spontaneity in my life; it's exhilarating and it helps chip away at this anxiety block in my stomach that has only been expanding for years. Now it's starting to wear down, because I decided to do things I never would have thought of doing, like climbing steep dangerous rock faces and dancing in public wearing a mask of Pac-man. When I get home, I plan to skinny-dip in Lake Michigan with my friends whenever they're willing, and go to Canada sporadically for no reason, and ride my unicycle that I haven't touched since junior high school. I stop Lara in my head whenever she says it's getting close to time to leave or that she's going to miss everyone because I just don't want to think about it. Wherever I am, I'm missing someone. It probably builds character, but that doesn't mean it makes it any easier.
02:03 - May 01, 2003
19:05 - April 29, 2003 I had a dream (really vivid and really long; I slept for twelve hours) that it was summer in Chicago, but all my Boulder friends were there too. My dad had built me a lakeside fort. I guess it wasn't really Chicago because there were cliffs leading down to the beach and Lake Michigan was warm, but under one of the cliffs he had carpeted the sand and scooped out the sandcrabs. The only water that filtered in filtered right into a little pool at the side. You could open the door right out into underwater. It was definitely THE summer hangout that twelve-hour long summer.
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