Stuck in the middle with you….

Two of my best friends live at opposite ends of the United States. For those of you not familiar with Oblivion, we are, of course (where else would you expect a place named Oblivion to be?), just left of center in this I ‘tis of thee, sweet (yet slightly salty) land of liberty.

I have come to realize that Oblivion is a hard place for all of my friends, and by default our friendships (due to my present proximity to Oblivion) to deal with. To the people I’ve known that have now moved away, this place is a reminder of all the things they never became. Here, the only thing to do is dream of other places and things bigger than you. Imaginings that someday you will leave and do all the things you’d always hoped. Not that any of them are unsuccessful, quite the contrary. One is a geologist, another pursuing a Ph.D., yet another teaching and working in a highly respected art museum, the list goes on and on.

But when they were here, when our friendships were wired with late night coffee buzzes and reckless talk of our futures, the geologist was an aspiring actress, the Ph.D. was moving to the French Quarter pursuing dreams of freedom, the teacher was off to art school with visions of Pollack in his head, and I was stuck in the middle with them. And, I was stuck in the middle with them. A warm place with smiling faces and laughter, cigarettes, driving junky cars, drinking cheap wine, full of teenage angst raging against the “system” of conformity, listening to (what felt like) revolutionizing pulse pounding alternative music, dropping acid, discovering our minds, discovering our sexuality, going to concerts (some of the best), talking until our dawn, and more glorious laughter.

I thought the day would never come when I would smile back on my teenage years and declare them the “best days of my life”. At the time, those days seemed anything like the best. If I actually dared to think then that those days were the best it was going to get, I probably would have successfully opened my wrists with a razor blade. Now, one month from my 30th birthday, I am not ashamed to say that they were fabulous times.

I am a collector. I always have been and I probably always will be. Not a collector of things, but a collector of memories, feelings, experiences and happenings. I am the one who remembers collectively for the groups of people in my life. I am the one who recalls those hopes, and dreams we all had. I am the one who remembers what we did ten years ago on someone’s birthday. I am the one who had the camera there and still has those pictures. Ask me what I did yesterday and I can’t remember, but once things pass out of the short-term memory mark and hit the long-term vault, I’m golden and will remember it forever (All those drugs I took in the Sixties).


Nothing and no one has turned out to be like they thought. Presently, I am lucky to talk with a friend or two every few months. I am their memory of a carefree time and place, in the flesh. Sometimes the transition between the past and present is too hard of a bridge to cross again and again.

I’ll have to finish this thought later….

Dancing in the streets!

A picture is worth a thousand words...

I love bunnies being eaten by sharks...

http://www.angryalien.com/

Leave it to an Australian....

...to finally get me off my ass and write some more mind-blowing (or is that mindless?) crap for the world.

Either way, I'm back from the summer hibernation slumber beneath my desk and ready to puke up a few witty observations for y'all. Speaking of 'ready to puke'..... has anyone else had enough for this stupid so-called presidential campaign? Let's get real folks, these two candidates are just slightly better than have to choose between getting poked in the eye with a stick, or being forced to watch a "Starting Over House" marathon. I must state that I am a kindhearted noninterventionist a.k.a. “compassionate liberal” democrat, but John Kerry reminds me more of a democrap, than a democrat. Sadly, I will be voting for him though. Mostly out of bone-chilling hatred for the self anointed frat boy gone wild, Bush Jr. I’m not saying Kerry doesn’t have good things to say, but I’m not saying he does either. Because you know what? I’m not sure I’ve really heard the man say anything at all. I watch the news, I read the paper, I surf the net and I’ve seen John Kerry pictures and stories hundreds of times already. But, I can’t not recall a single, solitary sneeze, much less an opinion or original thought, that this man has put out there. I know all about what he did before I was born, (ie: Vietnam, after Vietnam, etc.) but what about something from the last 20 something years? I would appreciate knowing that he voted five years ago for or against protecting the habitat of the imaginary endangered three-toed, yellow fin hermit crab rather than wondering if he’s spent the last 20ish years in a suspended animation hyper-chamber. He’s like Jesus…. Born, (time lapse), did some stuff in his outspoken late teenage years that no one agreed with, (time lapse) and now is back being hailed as the savior….or something like that. (Sorry Jesus, no offense, you’d win hands down against Kerry any day if you ran for President).

Anyway, enough of that, it’s making me depressed. By the way, I take back all the mean stuff I said about C2. It’s actually ok tasting…..