5:35 p.m. - March 23, 2002
'timothy', part II, and last night
I went back to Timothy�s shop today because I wanted to make sure he was eating the bacon double cheeseburger he�d ordered. At maybe 5�7� and 113 lbs, he looks like if he were to go outside holding bunches of birthday balloons, they would lift him up and up over the roof of the store and up through the trees, all the way to the God he�s so eager to be one with, someday. I sat down on the chair next to his workbench and that was it; I lost track of time. We talked for an hour and a half. Sometimes, talking to Timothy, I forget who I am and what I believe in, and the funny part is, it never matters, that loss of self-assuredness, flippancy, cynicality even if that�s a word, that I try to hard to maintain and cultivate. He is so careful not to directly say that he�s sorry I�ll be going to hell, and you can tell he wishes he didn�t think it, either. But that�s just who he is; everything he says is directly connected with God and Jesus and the Bible, and if you take semantics out of it, it�s really just philosophy. It turned out, at one point, that we were arguing the exact same view.. with the one small difference that he was using �God� and �Satan� and I was using �Good� and �Evil�. I pointed that out. He smiled, cradled the violin he was repairing in his arms. �You�re right,� he said. The only other time he ever looked at me like that was when I said, in reference to people who try to convert other people, �It�s like trying to make an elm a pine. They all come from the same earth. You say all people come from God. Wherever they come from, isn�t it natural to split into different systems? Species of plant?� That made him put the violin down and spread his arms. �You are more sensitive to such things,� he said.

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It�s getting spaced further and I think that�s a good thing, those times when I wish Erik were around, but last night I felt it hit me, hard, because I realized suddenly there is nobody else, nobody, that will understand if I ask to just stop for a minute, stop everything and just hold me. He used to do it, no questions asked, and it calmed me down, warmed me up, rejuvenated me, really. I didn�t believe in the power of touch until I met Erik, mostly because I never touched anyone. In middle school I used to watch those groups of girls that hugged all the time, and wonder why they did it and what they got out of it, having their hands on each other all the time. I spent most of those years walking down the hall, arms stiffly crossed, slipping in between people in the hallway, because I didn�t want to brush against anybody by accident.
Then came the orgy pit of junior year; I realize there must have been some event in between that made me willing to participate, but whatever it was, I don�t remember. (Although the event that comes up in my mind was hugging Aubrey after the senior solo auditions, and being completely shocked that he let me, and even smiled. There must have been something before that, though.) This has nothing to do with anything; however, my point is, last night I found myself in the steel grips of anxiety, and I was just tired, and my eyelids felt heavy, my hands limp on the wheel, and the music hurt, and it's good music, or it should be under normal circumstances, but, fucking anxiety and neither of them in the car are people I could tell about it, not really. So I kept quiet. Licked my lips a lot; they were drying out. Every time I looked at Mike I knew that he was exactly like me, he would pretend to listen if I started talking but eventually turn up the music and go, 'you've got to listen to this.' I do it all the time. 'You've got to hear this.' And imagine asking him to hold me, Mike, who gives off the strongest �don�t touch me� vibes since who Taylor claims he is. I mean, he would shrink farther and farther and farther away from me until he was just a little ball of clothing in the corner of the backseat. David might do it, but he�d be making faces over my head the whole time and also think I was hitting on him. Either way, I wished I could talk to them, just for awhile, until I started breathing right again. But I didn�t know how to ask and David kept talking about aliens mating and running trains and Mike was randomly spouting off mp3 player info out of the middle of nowhere. I wish I knew more people well enough to be honest with them. And I miss deep talks because there's no one to have them with anymore. I'm not good at the Friday night outing mentality. I like to delve into people's minds, usually one on one. I haven't done that in forever, and its a tangible gap there; the lack of human taste in my mind.

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