Among the many gems I re-discovered while unpacking...

From March, 1997: Julia, Rochester Matt, Sue, and me - at Java's-

Me: I think that my thoughts should be elsewhere. Somewhere in perhaps
O H I O, and the amber waves of grain and such. No. I'll not think of such a wretched place. I'll think of...

Julia: ...beautifully wrenching figures. Or perhaps not. There's water there that flows through center and back. Sliding over rocks that have lost all sharp edges with time. Time transforming the molecules of water into one...

Matt: flowing moss, containing bits of all it as consumed on its path.
oh god
The twit is still there. Her mouth opening and closing and she has to be talking to me (is it appropriate to say we're having a conversation when I haven't said a word?) for quite some time. And I have no idea, nor care, about what she has said. Then suddenly, either because she has finished her thought or run out of air, she stops and looks at me. I know she wants a response. After an uncomfortable silence I open my mouth and say...

Sue: ...Screw you, you stupid whore. {Sue is always subtle.} You never liked me, I never liked you, so why after 5 years are you now standing here wasting my time with this mindless gibberish? I don't care that you're a NAIL TECHNICIAN at Sears. And you don't care that I'm going to grad school - if you even know what that is. And don't worry - I won't be spreading gossip about you when I see my friends. I don't care enough about you for you to even enter my mind. Ever. And I don't care WHAT you say about me. Tell everyone I screwed the Queen of England for all I care. Now get out of my face, get out of my space, get a life, and get out of mine!

Me: Much better. And now that she's gone and I am peacefully alone, I light another cigarette and start to think again. I think that red is the best color of all. I am unconquerable when I wear red. On the contrary. It is I who does the conquering. Passion is red. And it is hot and longing. I am wet with passion. But what if...

Julia: ...it became a river...a river starting quietly and gently as a babbling brook. The brook flowing into a winding river that flows around curves in the earth. Moving toward an uncertain point. The current picking up as if following a metronome that clicks faster. Tumbling over rocks and churning up in some kind of frenzy eventually spilling over into a gorge, water splashing up and catching the light in one final chorus...

Matt: ...Water equates life, I conclude with another sip of tea. Nurturing but potentially deadly...too much or too little will kill you. A precious balance must be kept, just as in life. Balance ...God...what do I know about that? I tend to lead a life of excess, or at least I think I do. But didn't all the great minds always engage in excess? What's wrong with occasionally pushing the envelope, like yesterday when...

Sue: ...I went hang-gliding off of the Rockies. God, it was a beautiful thing. Soaring with the hawks, and all of my troubles below... But alas, that was only a dream. What did I actually do yesterday? I wish I could remember. But of course, living in the present is the best way, and living for the future is the American Way. Where is there room for the past? In a book full of memories, good and bad, that is where the past is kept, safely locked away, so it cannot repeat, or even tell its story. There is too much in the past to tell. Too much much in the future to be missed if we dwell in the past, right? So tomorrow I will...

Me: ...pretend to know what I'm talking about.
Why is it that I so desperately want to have a one track mind? And why is it that it is never possible to think one thought at a time? Why must it be that the backs of all these heads look like his? And oh how I want them to be him. All of them. So that I may face myself when I face him. I know this will never be so; for I am three parts female but only 1 part male. And I ask, what is this damned maleness I feel but barely see?...

Julia That one part male in the stereotypical male lusts. For life. Oh I see...YOU are the one with the one track mind. I keep getting distracted and held captivated by a look. As I look up and try to interrupt with my eyes. I am successful and laugh inwardly. I remember a summer or scene or two here. Time is suspended in Java, literally. The same people, only altered slightly. I have always been here, it seems. And although...

Matt: ...time passes, as it must, and he and I change, as we must. There is always that constant. The water, the dreams of what I might do if I had the chance (and wasn't scared), even that shallow, skanky bitch who just graced me with her presence: they are all constants. They are the things that help define me and my existence.

Great. Now my cup is empty and Miss "Overly-Helpful-Let-Me-Get-You-Something-When-You-Don't-Need-It" is nowhere to be seen. And the counter is too far away to walk.

Oh, God's gifts to white trash are leaving. I work hard to make eye contact with Little Miss Blue Light Nail Decorating Special. I'm wearing red so this is easy to do 'cause of the power it gives me. She looks, I smile and wave as if to say:

Sue: Fuck you and the platypussies you stumbled in on.

Me: This, of course, makes no sense to me - why I would have so much contempt and describe it in this way because a detest the P-word. Just as I hate Yoda, that little, perverted, ugly, pointy-eared green man who gave me nightmares as a child. The one who continues to haunt my nights; friend to the bed gnomes who invade my sheets and my mouth while I slumber.

I wish I had more to drink. I could go up to the counter and scam something. I'd say, "Hey, I'm with the band." After all, I am 1 part male. Aw Jackets.

Julia: Ru-ru-rah! ZTA! Oh, uh...wait. That's a different time and story. That does not need discussion. For this would then be the story that never ended. "This is the song that never ends."

Buh'bye I love you.

The End.