Here we are again, in Penn's woods.  Shall we still call it that?  Of course, the name began the long tradition of cutting down the woods to leave a subdevelopment with a pastoral name reminiscent of the wildness that there once stood.  I feel again the sense of momentum ground to a halt...I have eaten and drank and indulged too much today to relax, to simply exist and enjoy the change of pace.  I am addicted to doing stuff.  As long as I can direct this into productive endeavors, it shouldn't be a a problem.  Right?
Why did I watch that movie?  They all leave me the same, like a woman brought to the brink of orgasm, only to be droppped off again, on the sidewalk in front of her place, sweating and utterly discontented.  It's fascinating, of course, and opens the doors to consideration of alternate realities.  A writer writes his dream girl and she appears, entirely at the whim of his typewriter.  Toy with the ideas of traditional gender roles, control and dominance, expectations, etc.  He, of course, does the right thing and sets her free.  Then meets her in a park later.  Ah movies.
But what's really on my mind.....
Crashing on my brothers couch, I have dreams like...silly old girlfriend wants to get back together.  Read: my long-lost youth seeking out, seeking expression (and reconciliation).  Do I buy a four-wheeler, or what?  I am torn between the world I was raised in--jobs, cars, husbands and wives, family, pissing in a toilet and flushing it down--and the only kind of world that will work--living softly, minimizing my consumption.  As they say,
In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don't try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.
Ohhhhhhh.  Happy people.  Youthful joy...did I ever possess it, or rather, embody it?  I felt about halfway there during my hedonism years, drinking, eating, smoking, indulging.  When I was with that girl, nothing was off limits, or off the table.  Wait no...not like that.  I just mean that, well, one thousand words on the topic:

 At some point, I became stimulated by the idea of restriction.  I've always sought structure and order for my life.  I considered joining the military.  Instead I rejected the structure for several years, (see pic) before coming back around in the judgmental hippie vegan camp, then eventually eliminating inorganic vegetables, sugar, processed foods--working on minimizing grains right now.  To do more with less--this is the success of all great artists and life livers.  The natural debate that arises is the question of what may or may not be missed in the meantime.  But these material pleasures (?) pale in comparison to the real rewards to be found here in life.  I think.

Calendula

Sometimes I eat like I want to break myself.
Every time I see my brother, his head seems to have gotten smaller.
He's probably shrinking it
to avoid losing it to his "man-eating succubus" of a wife.
Do I have green stuff on my face?
I schmeared some lemon balm on it. Sweet Melissa.
My nephew poses with a $100 bill. His mom comments, "you better put that back!"
Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partner, but The city I live in? Really?
My grandma waits, looking out the window, for the oil people to come fill her tank.
When the cop took my Florida license and parent's address into her car last night, I remembered Murphy's law.
More faster-er, Netflix promises.

Mary Donahue has eyes that defy the plumbing of their depths. In a few moments' assay, one may feel one has reached the inner ken. Then the iris' swirl outward
expanding exponentially like spheres of storm cloud, spreading wings and encompassing one. One attempts to remain extant simply by maintaining the gaze. The iris' swirl back down to size, winged layers lappingover each other. Did that happen? one asks oneself. Maintaining the gaze, painful as the sun through thick cloud, one falls into the trap of pride. I can hang. The eyes are glassy magnets, and there is some kind of prize within, if one could just...
You have good eye contact; you are articulate, she tells me. You've qualified for the real interview.

In my dream, I throw a party at someone else's house, get sweet with someone else's ex-fling.

I ask the old Quechua mamichas,
This plant, it's for eating?
They laugh haughtily; Es para las vacas, they tell me. For cows.

12:24 Am Hillman Libarry (turret windows)---1:13 AM

So...toook a little road trip to see my babay. Spent too much time in Tenessee, drinking whiskey milkshakes, and got sidetracked into suburban Atlanta, so I had to make up some time. I could feel something in me feeling closer. Nashville was a goddamn tease, everywhere and everything I wanna see and do with her--ribs, beer, screamin country guitars and dig-deep voices in every bar on the strip. I was a madman on the road that night, cruising at 110 for long periods. We were tearing through tanks of gas and I was wishing I could burn out that gaseous shit in my chest, the pressure--so close, and yet, still 6 hours away. 6 HOurs! Picked up a speeding ticket in Moultrie, Georgia. When I got into Tallahassee, it was like entering some hazy dream world from a distant past. It was like 1:30 Am; the roads were empty and everything was dark and King-of Prussia-like in its four-lane majesty. The emotional twinge was subdued a bit by the lack of sleep and the ridiculous amount of vitamins I had been ingesting to combat it, but still. THese were the roads I rode around on with her! HOnda aCCORD, sunroof open, sitting at stop lights kissing or just looking at each other, so that people were always honking at us to go! when the light unknowingly turned green. Everything was so damn dark now. I expected her to be sitting in her room at the front of the house, and tapped the window with one fingernail. Then I saw through the blinds that she wasn't in there. I called her, said come to the front door, whisper/screamed WE're Here! She jumped into my arms. It took me a while to really realize what the fuck was going on. We walked to the car, she met Tony and Micki, brought our stuff in, laid on the bed. Tony read "bloody fingers" from the scary story book. selfishly, I didn't wanna hear scary stories or fuckin talk or be around anyone but her, just look at her, take her in, in all her reality. We slept in her bed together, against her mother's wishes.

Talking to her earlier tonight, I got into some bullshit again. I get to feeling sorry for myself, here in the city, in the cold, trying to feel purposeful among many sources of self-loathing. I have this perfect image in my head, of her driving my car in the morning sunshine, and it alone is almost enough to keep me going for five more weeks.

We were in Virginia, coming back, tangled in a net of airbases and superdevelopments, more traffic on 95 than any other part of the trip, and we had put on Mother's Milk (Red Hot Chili Peppers). "Aeroplane" came on. It's one of those songs.
"I like pleasure spiked with pain and music is my aeroplane...pleasure spiked with pain-- that motha fucker's always spiked with pain." I sang this out, sure to get that little pause between the motha and the fucker, cool out the words. Why did I do this? Of course, it's a cool part of the song, BA even, but what gave me the urge to vocalize this one lyric? I was in pain. The color had been gradually draining from everything. In Florida the fields were green and the cows were a rich brown. By North Carolina, 95 was like a concrete trail through a world made of concrete, with drab, sidewalk chalk coloring. It was like riding an amusement park ride through the next stages of global warming and pollution--trees withered and lost their leaves, not to mention the cows, who were now laying on their sides. By Virginia, the sun was hiding down by the horizon, trying to creep in between some gnarly tree branches. Fuck you, sun, I thought. You do a half-ass job all winter, too scared to come down between the buildings for even a peep into my moratorium-lit apartment.

Oh, she is the sun. She was born and has spent every year of her life in the Sunshine state. The words 'sunny disposition' took meaning in my mind when I met her, almost 3 years ago.

Maybe I should go tanning. Vitamin D deficiency, anyone? Eskimos. It happens.

Her doctor has her take 2 vitamin D a day, among others. For the [post]mono, but still.

Listening to the rain on Thursday night in Tally-ho

I brought one of my two sailor's hearts with me, planning on deciding on Saturday whether or not I want to give it to her. Sailor's hearts are big seeds that wash up in the Keys, the Gulf Stream having brought them from South America and Africa. There is a story we tell Scouts on the island about them, a legend, but I kinda like to leave it at "you give them to your woman," although I think my meaning for 'woman' in that sense probably carries more weight than any fourteen year-old's. I knew that I would feel about ten times more sure of giving it to her when I got down here, was with her. And I worried about that, the way it seems like two different parts of me who don't agree on everything the relationship represents. I've been drunk for a great deal of the time I've spent with her, and we've had a lot of sex, and my conscience wants me to know that these are not conventional pillars of a meaningful relationship. But talking to her after we saw each other in Iowa, things started to sound better and better, really f*cking better. I got into a bit of a slump, then, mid-semester, had nothing to talk to her about, nothing to talk to myself about-became a body going to classes, brain running at about 25% capacity (and yet, got 4 A's and a B, even one A+ --oh, Pitt Johnstown, you are a bad joke). But now...goddamn. It has occurred to me once or twice in the past 48 hrs or so that I have to go home and go to Pitt and take 18 credits soon, but that seems hard to believe. Especially lying in a field on a blanket, eating a wonderfully organic sandwich with some wine, laughing and telling her about my family's wild shit, "Angi was a beautiful pregnant girl riding through the shitty neighborhoods of Cherry Hill NJ in an ice cream truck." She told me that that was the sexiest she had seen me, talking about my family. The girl has had so much for us to do-even if, as we talked about today, we can't really tell most people what we've been spending the first half of the days doing. Some shitty part of me is saying "just because you're doing fun things in Tallahassee doesn't mean that she is your queen." But shit, son. She is so much more perceptive and intelligent when I engage her in the endless, pointless commentary that runs through my brain. And she loves it! I was worried my never-ending comparisons of the South and PA would be getting annoying, but she said today she loves it! I mean, coffee set up in the front of the supermarket, just there, free? In case you want some while you shop, she says, common sensically. And how goddamned sensical it is.
Meeting her parents and family just makes me like her a lot more-something seems so goddamn wholesome about this girl who recently played secretary to my bossman. They all hug and kiss each other when they come and go, even within a couple hours time of the last time. She drives stick. She misses driving the little Toyota truck. Her dad calls while we are at the park, scolding her for taking the truck, which doesn't have plates on it. Then he shifts, "I don't care, you know, I just don't want you to get caught. If you see a cop, make sure you let him go, don't have him behind you." The other day, her mom called back after a quick convo, to say she was sorry, she didn't mean to sound like she was_____. This is a family where feelings are important, where they are not neglected for even a minute.
We have some small things that we laugh about together, and it is so nice, things that others might not get. I remember my aunt or some older woman, talking about someone's girlfriend, "she can cook, hang on to her." And I thought, are you kidding? I mean, sure, that's great, she can cook, but how about love? Do you like the girl? Today I was thinking, that school of thought is not terribly misguided, though. I mean, you want a girl you can be around (Corry-"You want a girl you can fart in front of") . Of course you want the passion, too. It seems I have found both. The passion is definitely there, and she is definitely full of wonderful surprises-she makes sushi, for example. How the f*ck does she know how to make sushi? I am currently plotting to send her roommate a facebook message in an attempt to scheme to get her the sushi set we saw at the hippy store Sunday. "Something she can show people," (another pail from the cool wellspring of Corry's wisdom of all topics women). If you love something, set it free. (somebody else said that). It worked. She is the Vivien Leigh to the Clark Gable I wasn't sure I had in me. She is my nature woman. Another person on this planet who has gone down her fair share of shitty roads, looking for something she knew was...somewhere? I should dream to be so lucky as to have found her.