Sunday, June 20, 2004

Trip, pt. 1

I don't have time to put in the italicizing tags and so on, but you'll live with it. I don't want to get caught on my mom's computer like I was last night, trying to post this up when I was done with it. My dad gave me hell about it and grabbed my nose somewhat hard and it hurt, and then he smacked me on the head among other things. So if I'm caught here it's hell.

---

I went up there with them to Dickinson that day. I don’t remember many details of the day, and many subsequent, but I have what memory has allowed to preserve and be kept. It’s here I’ll try to get what I can from this scatterhouse called my mind and its storage.

It was with my mom and brother and our dogs that I went to Dickinson. We were going up there to drop off our dogs, which would then be boarded at a pediatrician’s place. We went up there Thursday. I don’t recount what I did on the hour and fifteen minute trip it takes to get up there. I’m guessing I read Depraved, a book I had randomly started reading the night before we left. It’s a book about a serial killer in a time when the term serial killer had not been coined. A time called the “Gilded Age” often. The book chronicled the exploits of the one, and only, H. H. Holmes, his killings, and his eventual capture and hanging for his crimes.

When I arrived, I got out the things I had brought: a bag with miscellaneous books, a bag of dirty clothes (to wash at my Grandma’s), and my backpack with a notepad to write on, my CD player, my CDs, a few issues of Rolling Stone, and whatever else I’d put in there. I had brought most of the things I would need for our trip to our cabin since I was going to stay at my Grandparents’ house until then, driving there with them.

I’ve always enjoyed staying at my Grandparents’. In past summers, I’ve gone there for months at a time. And I would be doing so this summer, too, if it weren’t for my inherent need (or so say my parents) for a job. I’ve told my parents it’d be easier to just get a job in Dickinson, but they won’t have it. I tell them my Grandpa could easily use his connections in the town to get me a job as well (since he knows virtually everyone in the town), but they won’t have any of that, either. They won’t have anything of anything when it comes down to it.

It gives me a sort of melancholy feeling to realize I won’t be able to really enjoy my summer to its fullest extent, due to the fact I need a job. And the most pressing thing to me is not being able to be at my Grandparent’s for a few months during the summer, as I’ve said. It’s far more enjoyable around my Grandparents than it is around my parents. My Grandparents just seem to handle me so much better, as well as actually make me feel happy because I enjoy their company so much.

They are eccentric people, to say the least. My Grandma is overweight, but it doesn’t bother me. From what I see of her, I would’ve liked to see her when she was young, because I’m sure she was beautiful. She has blonde hair, and she plays Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. Any woman at the age she is who plays those classic systems is great to me. The main game she plays is Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine. We just call it “Beany Meanies.” It’s a puzzle game, somewhere on par with Tetris, where you match up pairs of same-colored blocks and cause chain reactions and a whole bunch of other things to beat the hell out of your opponent and drop blocks on their screen. I’m far better at it than her, but she handles it all right. The game’s extreme fun. Really, it is.

My Grandma is also very wise. When I talk to her, she tells me things I think all the time, and gives me encouragement. Sometimes I seem to myself beyond my years in how I handle some things, and she supports this feeling-but I try not to give myself too much. It’s just nice to have someone that listens to you, is all. Because she’s a very smart woman. I remember endless cases where I was sitting there watching Jeopardy, and she’d know answer after answer, while I’d just sit there, blank as hell and not knowing the answer at all. Her name is Margaret Kostelecky, but we just call her Marge. I’ve called her other names, too, derived from Marge. Merge is a main one.

My Grandpa is even more eccentric and different. While my Grandma’s a rather same person, my Grandpa is much more. From the first time I’ve known him and on, I keep considering him one of the best people I’ve ever met in my life. And that I know.

He’s one of those people you’d call a “bullshitter,” if you’d like to say it like that. He likes to talk a lot, is all. He’s not afraid to embarrass himself at all. Not afraid to stop some random person off somewhere and shoot the shit with them. But most of the time, the person he talks to is someone he knows. In the town where he lives, Dickinson, he seems to know everyone. And he just stops there and starts going off with them when he sees them, on and on, chitter chatter until who the hell knows when. The guy would’ve made a good, but disgruntled, orator, if you ask me.

But really, there’s been so many occasions where I’ve gone somewhere with him, and he’ll find someone, and start into some conversation with them till hell freezes over. It does get kind of annoying, but that’s just my Grandpa, is all I say when I think about it to myself. Just him.

When he talks, he has a slight stutter, which gives him a sort of accent that is genuinely his. It’s sort of like Ozzy Osbourne’s, only not as bad. His drawl is just him-and that’s that, nothing more to say.

He was one of those bullies back in the long-ago past he lived in. He only made it to about 5th grade from what he’s told me. He’s said that he’d “beat the hell out of you for not saying hi.” He was out of control, getting in fights all the time-but then, his father told him it was either reform school or barber school. His choice was barber school.

That’s right. I’m proud to say it, too: he’s a barber. He owns his own business, on Villard Street in Dickson (basically, a main street there in the town). He gives $5 haircuts-has been since forever, and it hasn’t changed since. He has a nice little building where he cuts peoples’ hair for the cheapest price you can find around. And of course, what is any barber without the ability to shoot the shit with his fellow patient, who he operates on and gives a haircut to their wishes? Not a barber at all, is what I say, and my Grandpa’s a barber if there ever was one. He’ll move the mouth with you, teach you over in the cheek and tongue of dialogue, and you’ll even get a haircut in the deal.

He’s also owned a drive-in movie theatre once in his life as well. Was in a past marriage, got divorced, then married my Grandma (who also went through a divorce before remarrying to him, too). He used to smoke a pipe, but doesn’t anymore. He has diabetes. He spoils us grandkids. His name is Theodore Kostelecky, and that’s my grandpa. His nickname is “Beave,” since he’s, apparently, so much like Beaver from Leave It to Beaver, which I haven’t even ever seen. He likes to watch westerns, he’s prone to be hyper sometimes, and he eats like a goddamned machine. And I mean that.

One of the phrases he says sometimes is “bullfrog.” I believe it’s a form of the word “bullshit,” only, it’s just what it is, “bullfrog.” It’s used to give admittance to unbelief of something. Is so-and-so saying they’re going to go out and do so-and-so with someone, but you know so-and-so isn’t? Well, he’d be prone to utter “bullfrog” at this circumstance. And it is bullfrog, damnit.

He is one of those people you’ll never forget, and you’re glad you have around. Sometimes he’s a little testy with you, but you can live with it. He’s a patient man-a fisherman, a hunter, and he’ll take his time with you, talking the smack with you and going about his way. He’s not the smartest man you’ve ever met, but to me he’s far better than most scholarly, insufferable know-it-alls out there. He has that thing called common sense that they don’t have. And he isn’t snobbish. Isn’t egotistical. Does not talk to you like he’s the king of shit mountain and you’re just some hemorrhoid rubbing against him. No, instead he treats anyone and everyone nicely, as long as they are nice to him. He can do math, he can read, although with trouble, he has opinions, he is a human being, and he is, in end, my Grandpa. A barber. A person thrown through this world and who’s come out different in a good way if you look at it right.

Now, back to the story at hand. For on the other hand, you have five fingers.

This was to be the only time I’d be able to stay with my Grandparents this summer. So I took it in and did my best with it. And I’m glad I stayed there for those three days that I did. They were some of the best days in recent memory. Except for the first night there.

My mom’s about 35 in age. She was there that first night, and so was my brother. My mom still acts as if she’s some college student on a road of reckless abandon. She is a somewhat pretty woman (her beauty’s faded), and prone to getting her way with things and doing what she wants.

She has smoked since I can remember. A terrible thing as far as I am concerned. At this point I don’t worry myself with it, nor have I much in the past. Every once in a while I just tell her that she needs to stop smoking, because she’s killing herself. I have even wrote her about two poems and given them to her to keep. One of them I tore up in a fit of rage though, I don’t quite remember why, but she didn’t seem to care too much anyway. Maybe you’ve had the chance to read these poems I’m talking about, maybe not-but the point is, I’ve tried to show her that I want her to stop smoking. I mean, my dad used to chew tobacco-he stopped. Why can’t she? But at this point, it’s not my thing to worry about.

It’s a really selfish thing though. Despite the addiction, you know it’s bad. And beyond that, it’s an entirely selfish act-it’s knowingly killing yourself, shortening your life you’re given, throwing it away. Also, it’s so bad that it even kills people who don’t smoke, which is called secondhand smoke. That’s something I don’t deserve to be around. And I don’t deserve to see my mom, someday in the near future, with lung cancer, in a hospital, tubes and wires all in her, an oxygen tank from that day out endlessly there for her-but it’s what I’m going to see. I know it. I had my grandma Violet, who recently died. She was like that. That’s what’s going to happen-but as I said, at this point, I’m indifferent about it. Let her do what she wants, she’ll learn the lesson the hard way.

Then there’s alcohol. She’s grown a liking to the drink. A while ago, she started going out night after night after night with her so-called “friends”-people who are in their 20s and so on. Does she really need to hang out with these people? My dad’s endlessly told her this, among other things, but she just gets her way, and thinks it’s my dad trying to control her.

Basically, it’s a big mess, when you bring my dad into the picture. It’s been getting so bad lately, they are getting near to a divorce. I think that’s for the best, too. Most of the time I cannot stand my dad, but I live with him-it isn’t that bad-and he’s good to me when he’s good to me. My mom’s just not even there most of the time, she’s always gone, out running errands, out late as hell at night doing who the hell knows what. I guess that’s fine with me.

The thing I hate, though, is when she comes home drunk, or near there. The way she acts at this point I cannot stand. She comes up to me, like she hasn’t since I was some little kid, and says, “Don’t you love me?” And she starts hugging me. Most of the time I let her hug me, but I cannot hug back with true feeling-I am just not like that, I don’t like being touched unless it’s by someone I want to be touched by, I haven’t for a long time embraced my parents. It’s just a thing that happens as you become a teen, and it’s just the way I am. I don’t see the reason to hug or anything else to my parents because I can barely stand them. And mainly, I don’t see the reason to hug my mom and say I love her when I don’t even know her, and the only time we talk is just when we talk for a bit.

Of course I love her for raising me, I guess. But sometimes I feel I just wish I wasn’t born, but I can’t come up to her and say that.

So when she’s drunk like that, she says, “You hate me, don’t you? Why won’t you tell me you love me? Why do you push me away like that?” and I just stare off in some distance and wait for the moment to pass, because I cannot stand to show emotion where I haven’t felt it for a long time.

I’ve been raised my whole life to be self-sufficent-to be enough to myself. Over the years, I’ve grown accustomed to being alone. From a young age, my friends weren’t even really friends at all, just people I hanged out with who I idolized but really who hated me. I’ve also moved about six times in my life, and this leads to further having less friends.

At this time, I only have about one real friend, and that’s it.

I like being alone. I like closing myself off from everything.

So here we have the night. My grandma and mom went out. They came back some hours later, and she was drunk. I tried to stay away from her, but she came up to me and gave me her same act. I told her that I just wanted to be left alone-I didn’t understand it. Why did she need me? While she was doing it, my Grandma voiced in with her wisdom. She told her that it’s all about what my mom wants, and that’s true. She doesn’t understand that. And as I sit here and try to type out my feelings about this whole mess, I am just getting tangled up. I don’t really know what to say. All I have to say is that I love my mom for who she is, and I love her for raising me (even though sometimes I wish I hadn’t been born).

I get a feeling I am too young to understand the way my mom feels fully. But mostly, I see it as her just wanting to feel better, instead of a cooperation. And I just don’t need my mom coming up to me, drunk, her voice somewhat slurred, and revealing whatever the hell that is that she tries to do to me and say. My grandma said that “a mother needs her son,” but I still don’t understand. Why does she need my love? She has my dad’s love, even though it’s dead. And my brother, him. He’s going to 7th grade, and he still acts like he’s some four-year-old baby, the way my dad’s raised him. He constantly embraces hugs and tells my mom he loves her. Which is good, but that’s just not me-as she should know by now.

What I wonder is what my mom would do if I told her I loved her and meant it, and I hugged her and meant it. I bet she’d just find another thing to be mad about.

She’s a woman that’s never going to be happy. She takes endless amounts of prescription drugs, drinks, smokes-she seeks to find happiness in the wrong places. She’s been married twice, divorced my real father when I was four or so. Seems this marriage is going to go the same way. When she’s drunk and comes up to me like that, she seems like some little girl. She still seems so young and stunted in her growth-she isn’t a beautiful 34-year-old woman, she’s more younger than that at heart. She seems pretty naive to me.

The thing is, the path I’m on, I can turn out like that, easy. But I’m going to change.

She’s just not going to be happy, and certainly, me loving her isn’t going to change that. So I don’t see why she seems to center on that I “hate her,” that I wish “she hadn’t had me,” and on and on, as she rambles when she’s drunk.

On that night, I told her again and again that “I hate you,” sarcastically, and told her again and again “as the sarcasm bleeds from my mouth.” Basically, it’s just a game to me. I know she can’t find contention from me, so I don’t see why I should take it very seriously. And she’s only like this when she’s drunk, anyway. So I don’t really worry about it.

That night was a bit different, since my grandma voiced her wisdom, too. What she was saying was exactly right, but my mom wouldn’t hear any of it, of course. What she was saying to me was very selfish and something out of a soap opera, but I took at as I always do.

When it was all over, I decided I needed some music to clear my head, and I decided I’d write something to further help purge it all from my system. So I put A Perfect Circle’s Mer de Noms in my Grandma’s DVD player and turned it on, and took out my notebook from my backpack. I didn’t have a pen with me, though, so I went to my Grandparents’ junk drawer (they’ve always had one) and found my pen.

I’ve decided I’ll include what I wrote in here. I’m not too particularly fond of it, but why not, I guess. I actually wrote two things. I bet I wrote them that night, both of them. Not sure. I’ll include both:

“Intoxication, poison in her veins.
Comes to me, heart bleeding.
Expects my heart to bleed for her.
Emotionless expressionless indifference.
My heart’s all out of blood. It
doesn’t need any new blood.
It’s tired of bleeding.
Nothing left to give.

“What’s this thing they call love?
I’m going through this thorn
and it is not worth it. Too
young to understand the
complex tangle. Too young to
really know what this is.
She comes to me with poison
in her veins and expects me to
know what this thing called
love is.

“She’s not asking for much. Just
a little touch, that’s all. I never
signed up for this show, but
this show must go on. the
alcohol is poisoning her thoughts
is all. She expects me to be
something I am not.

“Maybe that something is what they call a son. I’m
just no one. The only
thing I feel is this lust
I just want what I want
and I don’t have reasons
why. I’m too young for
this thing called love.
Showing the open emotion
that’s coming from her
is foolhardy to me.
I just want to be alone
and by myself.”

Okay, I was in a certain mood when I wrote it. Doesn’t mean I feel the same. But it was just all about getting it out and sorting it out somehow. And that’s what this did. Here’s the other one:

“I’m ugly. The apple fell far from the tree. Why does she need me? I’m a lost cause. They tell me about my future but my future’s right here. It’s hopeless but I keep along. Sing the same old song. There’s nothing else to do but wait it out. My time’ll come.

“I’m not a kid anymore. He’s more dead than I knew. I’ve put him behind. I’m still naive. My naivete will be gone soon enough. I’ve lost myself in someone who’s not me. It’s all contrived. Same as it was same as it is. When she tells me to love her I feel it’s a waste of time. It’s a lost cause. She’s a drama queen, makes a hyperbole out of it all, expects me to give in. I’m too distant to care anymore. No longer sore. Just gone. What’s left here is an actor. He has it down to the face.

“She acts like she’s younger than she is. Still such a little girl. I’ll never understand her. She smokes it all away, drinks it all and lodges it in her throat.

“Her lungs are so gray. When she speaks it’s ash. You have to take a filter with it all. Stupid human survival, stupid human ways. Phoenix, go away.

“Every breath in this temple is another breath closer to that coffin. I think I’d rather just blow away ash. Please burn me to nothing.

“She’s far too poisoned to make any sense. I’m far too rotten to feel this innocence. All I see is dense. Just a concentrated moment. Just feel tense. I’m behind my fence. My isolation, that oxygen mask. Think I’ll drift away. Sleep it gone. No reason to hold on. Give in give down go where it keeps me fine. Where nothing matters but the feeling, how it passes time.”

This one’s even more sullen and somber as I read it now. What can you do.

So that’s laid to rest.

The other main thing I want to talk about that I did while I was at my Grandparents’ is watching two movies which I’d like to reccomend for you (who’s reading this) to see.

The first is called Mystic River. It’s based off a book. It is about a group of friends and how one singular event influences their entire lives. It is excellently acted, directed. If I were to be in the mood for it, I would give it three stars out of four. I know it’s rather arbitrary, but what can you do. It’s worth seeing, though. The movie won some Academy Awards, if that’s enough to make you want to see it.

What type of movie is it? I’d say suspense, mystery. The main story arc of it is about murder, and who did the murder, without giving too much away.

My Grandma had this rented, so that’s how I saw it. I’m glad I watched it. It was worth seeing. So if my recommendations mean anything, go out and rent it, since it’s out on DVD and tape.

The other movie I watched is called The Good Girl. I don’t really know how I started watching this movie. It just happened.

I was up late one night, after watching the end part of some other movie, and then this movie started. From its title I thought to myself, “Seems like some stupid chick flick movie,” but as I further watched it and listened, I was drawn in. I remember that I was reading Depraved as I watched it, and eventually I closed the book and gave the movie my full attention.

Jennifer Aniston is the main star, our protagonist if you will. The movie starts out with her taking. It starts with her in the supermarket where she works. Then it progresses from there, all over the place, where its story goes.

What made me keep watching at first was that that actor who played Donnie Darko in (duh) Donnie Darko was in it. I absolutely love that actor, and I’m sure if you’ve seen Darko you think the same thing. I forget his name right now, so don’t kill me, but you know who I’m talking about if you know who I’m talking about.

In it, the actor, I’ll just call him Donnie for nostalgia’s sake, plays a man in his 20s called “Holden.” (Although Holden isn’t his actual name, since he said “Tom’s my slave name,” in the movie.) I did not know it when I first watched this movie, but “Holden” is the name of another character in another story, a little book called The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, respectively. What’s funny is that after seeing this movie, I inadvertently purchased Rye at a Media Play in Fargo (which I’ll be getting to later) and learned this same thing as I just said. That “Holden” was obviously taken from that book.

When I was reading Rye, I thought more about it, too. Did Rye and The Good Girl have more in common than just that, since it seems pertinent that that’s where the movie might have gotten some of its story? And it did. It rang a nice bell, as I read further through Rye.

In Rye, the Holden in there calls many things “phony” and seems at odds with the world. The same is for Holden in The Good Girl, although I’d say that the Holden from the latter is much more at odds with the world than the other.

Also, and this is the main thing I found, in Rye, Holden asks his girl acquaintance Sally Hayes to run off with him, and live with him for the rest of his life. Which Sally doesn’t do.

In The Good Girl, the Holden in that one and Jennifer Aniston’s character have an affair (Aniston’s character is married to a fat bloke). Eventually, after many things lead to other things (as to not give it all away), Holden steals money from the store he works with her at. And he finds her and asks her to run away with her.

She doesn’t do it.

There’s a genius part in the movie where she’s at a stop light, and she’s talking about how she had to make the decision-on one side of her was where she worked, that same old job of working your whole life away for a world you hate, and getting old there-or there was on the other side the hotel where Holden was waiting for her. She just shut her eyes at the stop light, and when someone honked behind her, and she opened her eyes, it was green-and she turned into her supermarket, being “The Good Girl,” and then telling her boss where Holden was.

Another point to prod-in Rye, he says how he would like to commit suicide many times.

Well, The Good Girl’s Holden does just that, at the end of the movie. So I spoiled it. Wah. But, it’s another point I connect with Rye that they took into account when making this movie.

But besides this little tirade I have going on, what I’m trying to say is this is one of my favorite movies ever. Holden’s character is so much like me-I feel that I need a woman (as many others do) and I feel that I have nothing left to live for most of the time, even though I might try to cover it up.

Needless to say, this movie gets three stars from me (and did get three stars-it said that when I checked it out on the digital cable I watched it from). So I highly recommend The Good Girl if you want a good movie-even moreso than Mystic River.

While I was watching The Good Girl, there was this strange creak noise. After I was done watching the movie, I proceeded to write about it-late as hell as it was. I’d like to share that, as well.

But it was just weird. I had this feeling that told me I was meant to see this movie when I did, and it was as if this creak noise I kept hearing was the same thing:

“There is this creak. I don’t know where it’s coming from. I look around this room and try to isolate it. I think maybe it’s coming from the window, maybe it’s the blinds moving in the wind. But then I pan my eyes out more. And beside the window there’s a small lamp. It makes a round vale of light on the side of the wall. that light seems to be moving.

“When I really try to focus on the creak, it seems to stop. It seems to get delayed. But then it starts right back up again. I can be scared by it if I let myself. It’s really late and I’m feeling beyond everything. I think I’m hearing this creak for a reason. At first it made me think of a door sitting there and creaking. Then it reminded me of the way my bed creaks.

“Sometimes I wonder if there’ll be anything. But all I hear is this creak. It seems to be getting louder. It was going on the entire time I watched this movie, The Good Girl. It was like I was meant to watch it, just like it feels like I am meant to hear this creak.

There’s too many things going through my mind. I’m here in my boxers and all I want is what I always have wanted lately. I need to let this passion free. And that requires something more than these words. The creak goes on, like the pendulum of time itself. My heart beats onward, a muscle, with the sole purpose of keeping me alive, keeping me alive.”

Don’t ask, is all I have to say. I had the urge to write. . .so I wrote. And this is what happened. Damn it seems corny as I read it now. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but what the hell. The rest of this notebook’s just blank pages. Someday they’ll be filled. With corny things like this. No less.

So here we are-on with the story, I know. I’m holding it up. Arresting it.

Those three days passed fast at my Grandparents’, as I said. The two last things of note to say is that I went to Wal-Mart with my Grandpa (as we often do while I’m there), and he purchased Michael Crichton’s Prey for me, and that I walked a bit too while I was there, preferably at night, as usual. I’ve been walking a lot lately, since it’s summer and nice out, and it helps to keep my lean muscular figure, as well as alleviate stress.

Maybe you’re wondering what Dickinson itself is like? Well, beyond its rather. . .strange name, it is a town a hundred-some miles from Bismarck, North Dakota. Dickinson is of course in North Dakota too. Mostly, here in North Dakota, everyone’s old. Especially in Dickinson. Hell, you’ll see old fogies all over the place, like bats out of hell-then going back again. Sad, I know. We’re also all hicks here too-my included. So whaddya’ll think o’ tat?

Yes. Anyway.

Anyway.

We left Dickinson on Saturday. Before doing that, though, we dropped the dogs off. My Grandparents have two dogs-Sassy and Missy. Missy is this absolutely beautiful dog that I cannot believe is a dog because I believe if she were a human and a female she would be my wife. She’s that beautiful, and I damn mean it. She has assets like asses have ets. Just don’t ask about that, but otherwise, she is a nice-colored brown in color. Thing is, I forget what type of dog Missy is.

My Grandma calls her “Missy Moo.” Missy Moo. . .genius name, yeah.

The other one, Sassy, (rather referred to as Assy), is this short, black, wiener dog. When you pet her and show her affection, she growls at you, even bites you. And she eats like a hog on heyday. I don’t like her. But other people do.

So we go in to drop off the dogs at the place. I go in, carry in my dog Bunny’s cage, dog food, other pet things. I’m walking into where the cage is, and there’s this beautiful and hot and attractive woman with a mop or broom something sweeping or mopping or whatever you have it. I just wanted to get that in here, since I own this story. I’m sorry I don’t know your name, but it’s sure that if this gets published somewhere and you read it, I’m hoping you know who wrote this- so remember me. Remember? Don’t you remember? I’m that handsome man who stepped in there and gave you the ole eye, and I’m sure you did the same. Do I need to describe myself? OK, will do. I am about six feet tall, long black hair (black as a raven), I weigh 235 pounds-I have a 10% body fat level-I’m all steel, with a barrel chest, six pack in stern resplendence, sternum tight and good for grabbing. Legs are pistons in action (as good as those Pistons he beat them Lakers out in the water). Hands and arms are brawn to the name. . .I’m your dream man. . .

Or not. Anyway. On with the damn story. She was great-looking, nice tush, but on with the damn story, as was said. On. With. Damn. Story.

It takes about three or so hours to get to Fargo from Dickinson. Fargo is this big metropolis (in North Dakota standards) in the right or so corner of the state, somewhere around there. Obviously, I don’t give a rip about its location. What’s funny though is that Bismarck, where I have my residence, is the capital of North Dakota, while Fargo is bigger and has more people than Bismarck.

So who would vote for Fargo as the capital?

Fargo is where we were going on Saturday, where we would stay the night, and then go to our cabin from there-drive there-the next day. But first, my Grandparents and I stopped off at my house in Bismarck. Before we left Dickinson for Bismarck, we got Hardee’s. I’d just like to say: Hardee’s has some damn good sausage and egg biscuit-thingies. Those thingies are good. And then there’s those hashbrown rounds they have-enough to give Taco John’s Potato Oles a run for them goddamned money, yessir indeed.

After going there, we hit that open road that never seems to end.

We got to my house. I gathered more books, anticipating that I’d end up being bored out of my mind at this cabin trip. Which was right.

The only reason I was going was because I was being forced-I did not have a choice. My mom had decided that I would go and so I resigned to that fate. The good thing about it was that I had an entire week before we left, and in that week I wouldn’t have to worry about having to find a job, because I certainly couldn’t get a job when in a week I’d be gone a week. No sir I couldn’t. So didn’t. And I’m being damn straight about that, too. I didn’t. Best week of my life, that was, when I didn’t have to worry about getting a job. Or worry about undertaking the medial tasks of whatever job I will have. Or would have.

We stayed at my house longer than I wanted. We arrived about 9 AM or so. So I bummed around, giving people the bumrush-telling them all the time that we “needed to go” and “right now” just because I wanted to be on my trip and have it over with.

While I waited to go, I went on my mom’s computer, which is upstairs, and snuck on the internet. I have a computer down here in my room (which is where I’m typing this right now. Ah, writing, isn’t it telepathy?), but my dad rendered my modem incapable of its duties; and this modem didn’t even get a funeral, either. Nor did it get embalmed. It just sits in my computer, severed and not working. Too bad, I know, but you can’t fight the evil ways of my dad’s communism. It’s sort of like this: when you’re outside this house here, it’s a democracy (or close to that), but when you step in, The Man of The House puts his foot down and puts it down with all the raging fervor of some crazed bastard, and you’re in Commie Land. Now, Commie Land is not a fun place, counter, and contrary, to popular belief. But you’ve got to suffer every once in a while.

Hey, it gives me something to bitch about, though, which is fun. I like that much about it.

So there I was, on the net. I checked my My O page-saw if anyone had commented on my latest entry. Someone had-Terra, an unlikely gal to have commented on it, since she seemed to be mostly nonexistent on the net for a long amount of time, but had recently begun posting again. She left a nice comment, of course, being the good woman she is, and so I continued about my way, browsing others’ My Os.

The highlight of this browsing was Megan’s My O, rather known as her internet alias which I’m not going to tell you right now because I can’t seem to remember. It’s late and I’m sure she’ll excuse me for this sin. So maybe now you who is reading this doesn’t know who I’m referring to when I’m referring to Megan, but what can you do, you suffer. I know that her alias has something to do with a word that means something like heaven. . .but it escapes me weak wearied mind this late eve. I hate this. You know, it’s that “at the tip of the tongue” thing. I can see the word but I can’t but I can and it’s blurring in my goddamned mind like some frolicking wandering thing.

Anyway, I saw pictures of Megan on her site. These were very beautiful pictures of a beautiful woman whose beauty is endless, of course, and I commented as so on her My O. My favorite picture had been the one entitled “Vogue.” I have not, yet, checked to see her response, but I am flattered to check it as such, but have not as such at this as such time as such.

Now, between you and I, I would like to tell you something: I have made an immemorial memorial, a picture shrine, to this Megan I speak so fondly of. She doesn’t know this, so you can’t tell her. Keep it hush-hush, okay? I don’t want her to know. I’m one of those shy coy little men. I don’t like people knowing I have a shrine dedicated to them.

Now if I could only remember her internet alias, which escapeth me and doth not utter forth from this tongue. Withal, “Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit I.”

Alas.

So that’s what I did. I gave her a comment. I remember it now as if it were brandished forever in my head and I was sworn to wear it for all to see: “I find you attractive, but then again I find many women attractive lately.” I wondered if she took that last part the wrong way, because, as I’ve evidenced, I find that Meggy’s a beautiful creature. But ah well, hell’s a slaughter. Sure is.

And I’m still trying to remember her alias. It’s killing me.

Now, it’s late as hell. I’ve kind of gone off course, as digressors such as me are oft to do. So I shall end this here and not write another line until tomorrow’s eve is upon me, and I feel the urging. So till then, this “part one” has ended. Ta ta, and tea for all.

And just now, it came to me. Arcadia. I was thinking I would have to cheat, but there we go.

It’s just like that Latin word for dearest I’ve been trying to remember lately. That still hasn’t came to me, but at least her name did just now. It’s crazy how it works. Really crazy.
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