I was really bummed out with the comments on the latest.com
article and the reddit comments about me and my letters to Pitt. I thought
about it for a while cuz people called me whiny, which is a new insult to me.
Not one that I’m used to, and I don’t have the defenses built for that one. And
they really went after me personally and not my idea, which everyone kinda
agrees with, tuition is too high.
But I went walking around and thinking. And came to the
conclusion that sometimes you’re gonna wear leather pants and sometimes people
are gonna like it and sometimes people are gonna call you a fag. But what’s
important is that you wore leather pants. Because that’s what you wanted and
you didn’t do it for anyone else but you.
One time I brought home a big faux fur jacket. It was lion
fur and perfect (yes purrfect whatever) for wintery gigs. I believe in a show
being a show so when I play music I dress up and it’s an event. So I come home
with my new trophy, scuffled out of its Goodwill purgatory, and my mom sees it
and with complete honesty and sincerity “ok so are you gay now?”
She wasn’t being homophobic in any way, she was just
genuinely curious. And I was confused cuz like what could be more overtly
heterosexual? I was imitating the great flamboyant singers of the 70s and 80s,
she should’ve been more worried about STDs
I like gas stations, or servos they call them here. I’ve taken a lot of Megabus trips and driven a lot of drives. Gas stations are the frontier towns of today, they got your bare basics to get you back on the road.
There’s an Arby’s on I-80 on the way to New York City. In
that Arby’s there’s the jolliest fast food server ever. He’s this bright sunny
spot on the way through slushy roads to dirty towers. And besides being the ideal
employee for a service based company, he’s the best person. Because if you can
work at Arby’s and spread joy like that without cause, going against the
inertia of tired travelers coming into your store… then you’re a God of joy
bestowing happiness like magic.
There’s a way the light rolls across that artificial, terra
formed grass, in a sheetz parking lot that shouts out “lay on me!” And when you’re
in a car you feel like you’re working because you’re literally progressing. So
you get a snack and you flop on the grass and you wait for the bus to start
moving again or you pee and get back to work.
My roomie confessed to me over breakfast that she had gotten
drunk last night and eaten my Tim Tams. She was super apologetic and had gotten
up early to sneak out and buy some new ones for me this morning. I had to tell
her that she had done absolutely nothing wrong and really this was the sign of
an ideal roommate. I would expect I do the same and then attempt to reconcile
in the morning.
There’s a kind of bird here that I call “hover pigeons”.
When I’m walking through a field, and I’m really focused on the strawbs,
suddenly a dozen small helicopters will erupt out of the bush. They’re funny
looking, grass mimicking, pigeons about a quarter the size of a New York
standardized pigeon. They wait until you’re
about five feet away, close enough that if you actually were trying to capture
them you could, but then they flurry away with a loud feathery buzz. Like
little camouflaged fireworks lying in wait to surprise you.
