"it was so easy to fall in love with you, it felt almost like a home of sorts or something." -josh ritter.

he rode the horses, he had the drawl, but he was still too short. my heart almost hurt for him. everything was okay though, because he met a little lady, and they got married. they moved on, onto their own mountain and cowboy children (and later, cowboy grandchildren). in the winter they were stuck at home because of snow, but in the summer coyotes would sing them to sleep. the sky woke them up every morning with it's reds and yellows. the patchwork quilt was neatly replaced; the coffee was black and fresh, at 5 am everyday. his boots were left outside so she wouldn't have to sweep up piles of dirt. he replaced them at 6 each morning but wasn't ever able to take them off until right after sundown. it was a rich, quiet sort of life.

she, on the other hand, lived in the city. the freeway was congested; the air was polluted and grey. she longed for black nights and bright stars, and maybe even that prairie grass. the city was beautiful, but the buildings didn't hold up compared to the mountains. people in the city wanted more of everything: more money, more sex, even more fat. she longed to meet just one person that was content. each passing train was an opportunity not taken. each day was another day of dirtier lungs and the desire to be somewhere else. maybe the country, where the people were few and far between, or maybe somewhere foreign. she was something of a daydreamer, but she never acted on her dreams because a small part of her was just comfortable enough. i wanted to tell her to act on an impulse, just this once, but the words just never came out.

good grief

today i drank a cappucino that tasted EXACTLY like a cigarello. seriously. i was expecting a dirty aftertaste, but not black-lungs dirty. i don't even know what more to write about that.

my dreams are so strange. last night everyone had needles with liquid in them, and we were injecting them in everything but ourselves. they weren't drugs, but i was afraid that if i put them in myself i would be addicted. i tried to throw them away to hide them from my parents, because i knew my mom's heart would be broken, but taylor kept pulling them out of the garbage. then the view switched. i was with kelsea and caleb, and they were just trying to entertain us. we lived right next to the ocean, and the waves were coming up higher and higher, until they almost reached the house. kelsea kept saying she was caleb, and then she put on a puppet show. caleb was asking me if he could come over and play the drums, and i told him no, because i didn't have a drum set. he was confused. the ocean decided to go back down, so the sunken ship appeared and everyone climbed out. we took their old sea clothes, even though they were still wet. caleb kept trying to put jackets on kelsea because it was windy, and i couldn't figure him out because one was a yankees jacket and another was a red sox jacket.

that, all in all, is much more interesting than my real life. today i went up to the u for awhile to check it out. funny that it may become part of my life for 3 years, and all i could think about was 'do i REALLY know that asian guy over there?'. i went to band practice too. two whole hours of an amp that sounded like it was left in the mud. i miss acoustic, and sometimes i just ache for the day when i don't have to go electric.

"You make me REALLY want to take pills. Good thing you don't deal drugs, or I'd totally buy them from you.."
-Moriah, when I was taking some ibuprofen tonight


my head and heart want to be in italy tonight, and i can think of one good reason:
1. they don't speak english, most of the time.
seriously, that would be terrifying. and beautiful. sitting at a cafe, outside, i could hear so much BEAUTY, because i wouldn't understand it. also, the coffee there looks so much better. duhh.

some good things that happened to my night:
-vanilla cappucino. it makes me so happy, with it's dirty aftertaste.
-salt lake city. oh how i miss you, except you make me feel too young.
-listening to NPR on the freeway. their voices are soothing, even when they talk about the failing economy. seriously.
-my old yamaha. five years of new strings and dents, and it still sounds beautiful to my ears.

and some other things that happened:
-always ending up with provo. maybe not awkward, but hard.
-really being too young.
-having the same pair of pants (and probably same size, too) as a man 7 years OLDER than you.
-the feeling in my throat, like someone inflated a balloon and left it in there.

good night.

today i kept calling the wrong dog, and i couldn't figure out why she just wouldn't come inside. that probably describes the condition of my head lately. i don't really think, or at least i don't remember thinking. it's headache season. goodbye peace of mind and hello waking up at 3:08. goodbye solidity and HELLO chaos. does anyone know the cure?

sometimes i feel like i am living in two different cities. i leave a little piece of me with the laughter in salt lake, or the tears in provo. it is a weird thing, when they both blend together. winter is a funny thing too, a lonely, long kind of thing. winter is coming, and i think i would rather just move south for a few months. i could go to mexico and really learn my spanish. instead of only being able to order from a restaurant or get directions, i could ask someone about the state of my health, or describe the geography of utah. snow is fine though, at least the first time. after that it just becomes something annoying, like the barking dog down the street.

i guess that is my life, stripped of all real complications. there is still the issue with actually reading shakespeare, and deciding what in the world i am doing with my life. my room is still messy and i still have to work a ten-hour shift on friday. there are finals, and projects, and band practices. there is not falling in love, even when i want to so bad, and not drinking any form of coke, ever.

thank God for easy mondays, and ryan adams. what would i do without them?

"You see, I am trying to quit my vices one at a time. January was drinking, June was smoking. I'll quit drinking soda some other time, and God gave me coffee for a reason; I am NOT quitting that."
-Tony

"you were home for me and i was home for you"

it's easy to fall in love with the people that you don't spend time with. you pointed your weapon of choice and gunned down my heart and soul. i was still trying to fix things up inside when i realized that i didn't have to, that it wasn't even real. skin is only beauty deep, or something along those lines. beauty isn't in being really tall or really skinny, like i thought it was. true beauty involves changing guitar strings or falling asleep to your favorite song. it might be passion, or confusion (not in the masses). beauty was left with that person sleeping on your couch. now it's a fantasy at best, the one that puts your daughter to bed at night.

i don't know the right words anymore. i lost them a long time ago. but you do, oh how you do.


on a side note, i am a really happy person lately. i like the whole idea of being given grace for the moment, because a moment can be so many things. i get grace when i mess up the coffee during a show, or even when i am thinking about yelling at the old lady at work. i don't have to walk around with a thousand pounds on my shoulders, because in that moment i am always going to be okay. when i space out during worship, and forget what i'm playing even as i'm in the middle of it, life isn't a disaster. it's a beautiful thing, really.

"And she's ten miles of peace..and the hardest of nights
-Ryan Adams



i think i met the real international man of mystery, and i can tell by the way he writes texts and how he smiles and how no one really has his phone number. i would like to get to know him better, but he is just too elusive. he comes and goes, and no one ever knows where he is. dang, man. no connections, except showing up late at an occasional party if there's time. where IS work, really?

thoughts for this weekend:
-invisible children follows me around. seriously. he stopped calling me, but there they were, the whole 2 hours we were at starbucks. creepy.

-i can't make decisions very well. i don't feel older, but i feel like i have less time to make up my mind. february first is when everything needs to start falling into place.

-even monopoly has a credit card these days. i can't even find my own dang debit card half of the time.

-the music up in salt lake is good. i could probably even fall in love listening to it. i like the sound of the snare drum too much.

-i made a list of all of the qualities i want in a husband, a few years too early. i figured i'll save it and show it to him. hopefully there is a real person that can even fill all 50 qualities i chose. shoot.

-i am never riding in an old accord again. that just translates into encounters with death.

-after playing music for 5 years, i finally learned how to roll cables to sound man way. shoot.

i am happy today...i am partially in love with so many things today.

spirited words

i finished my research paper after 2 weeks of wishing i'd finished it, so still being awake seems natural. congratulations for surviving, kid, you only have 3 more years of this. the major source of my stress left me with my final point, and then my printer ran out of ink. life sure is funny, sometimes.

i'm thinking of you coming back into my life, and i was wondering if you'd do it slowly? slower than you left, and slower than you entered, please. maybe it would be best if you only came back on weekends. holidays would be okay, too, and the occasional rainy day. just don't do it too often, and don't say too much. i have my own opinions these days, you know. i hope you do too. i don't want this, i do want this, but everything outside of me screams to wait. and so i do wait, and i'm starting to like that feeling. like playing guitar and making use of the wrong chords. it's like discovering that i can breathe. it is entirely rational and yet completely illogical. or maybe the other way around. did i ever really believe in life any differently?

maybe, on second thought, being awake isn't rational either.

tonight i am sleeping in jeans again. this is the new me, the one i am growing into, because the old me would have planned better. the old me, with the clean hair. maybe the new me will even be able to go a whole day without making the bed, a whole day without thinking you or them or what in the world i am even supposed to be doing with my life. maybe the new me can make decisions.

i like looking at the freeway through foggy windows. the heat was so high that it made your head spin, and i don't know how devin kept driving. everyone fell asleep so i stared at all the flashing lights and tired cops. when you spend a year away from a city like salt lake, you get disoriented. all the faces are new. all the people are new. all of the bands and the roads and the buildings even seem new. he had never lived up there, he'd been in provo all his life. i had no excuse. i think i miss that, just a little bit.

it is a very strange thing when new friends remind you of old ones.

i got a girl with my name to take my sunday shift, which means i have a FULL week off. i think i really will miss all of the old people though. i practically work at a nursing home, except i never clean out bedpans. today an old man came in with his beanie on top of his head...not covering it, just sitting on top of it. i think he was trying to be nine again. another lady came in, and the whole time i was helping her and her husband find pants, she was making sounds that basically meant 'my dentures are falling out'. these old people make me smile so big..maybe i should find somewhere else they gravitate towards.

i feel happy right now, where i am. the cold is almost unholy, but you take what you can get.

and nothing is as beautiful as when she believes

ben harper soothes my soul, especially when my writing class is starting to kill me. i'm so shaky, and i just want to take a sick day and sleep, sleep, sleep.

my rest is in JESUS.

on a side note, obama won, and i think i am ready for that.

i'm living more life up in salt lake.

yesterday was a dream. i woke up hearing things, and i fell asleep on the floor. sometime in between i had band practice, and i tried to play all of the songs standing on my x and not throwing up. work was a fragment of a thing. i was there for all of three hours and got almost nothing tangible accomplished. the carpet was warping and twisting, but technicalities, technicalities, and here we go to salt lake. the music is good, and, for the record, we are not matching. nice shoes. here comes my stomach, and there it goes. maybe water will help the problem, but not hot water. my muscles are free, and floating, and what in the world is going on? one am comes and goes..and comes and goes again. oh well, maybe all that we are looking for really is in the car, so let's brave the storm. good night, good morning, and good luck.

what am i saying, where have you been? i miss you when i am at a loss for words. i sometimes even miss you when i look in the mirror, but i guess that isn't too important, because sometimes i forget you too, you know.