life is beautiful

2003-03-28 - 5:49 p.m.

you know it's bad when you update your other journal, the one that you never update, before you update your main one. but it's understandable that i would focus more on my jack white diary since the new white stripes album comes out this tuesday. oh, such exquisite torture as this can only be felt by gods, poets, and lovers. i just happen to be all three.

what can i say? after such a long time, everything shrinks in importance. the scope narrows, no matter how wide the window.

i could talk about war. but war sucks. anytime anyone mentions baby bush or the current war i simply get upset and twisted up inside. i feel helpless and drowning, fighting waves created by millions more than me.

i could talk about my family. but that's the same rollercoaster that it always is. my grandmother's been in the hospital, but she's out now. i'm going to visit her shortly. so much happiness, so much sadness in the blood. sometimes i wonder if it balances out evenly or if the scales tip slightly one way or the other. everything changes so much that i wouldn't know the difference.

i could talk about work. but work sucks. work really sucks. but sometimes i feel like that's the only thing that keeps my dreams alive: imagining what i'm gonna do once i have enough money to quit. sometimes i wonder if i take shit because i feel the need to punish myself, deep down. i try to balance karma by heaping shit onto myself: shitty jobs, constantly moving, never opening up to being happy. i could almost be happy here, despite the odds. natalie keeps asking me to move into an apartment with her. people at work keep wanting to get together, inviting me to do things. another couple of months and i could get another promotion. a shitty promotion at a shitty job, but still. i could get another job, one not so shitty. i could actually get involved in things. i never called that guy who asked me to be a dj on his radio station. mary anne wants me to go to an alternative health seminar with her. carrie keeps wanting to go shopping and go to blues clubs with me. people tell me how cool and fun i am. i could make connections here. but i don't.

at the bar a couple of weeks ago i told rob that i know too many people to be comfortable here. rob grinned and asked kathryn if i had just made a freudian slip. i said freudian slip nothing, it's the truth, and i'm not hiding it. but despite that, i could almost be happy. i could get a new job, i'm making friends, i have my family. i'm almost happy.

but then i see those dusty desert pictures, those images of women driving through heat and sweat and suntanned arms. and it changes my mind on what happiness is. the open road is my happiness, the fresh starts and dry heat and wind from an open window at 90 miles per second. and i feel like i can really get that, i can capture it by throwing everything in the trunk of my car, peeling out, and never looking in the rearview mirror. i can take the perpetual road trip, the journey that never ends. i don't know how i'd live, how i'd make money or find food, but at this stage of the game it doesn't matter. it all seems so possible until i look at the things i'd be leaving behind.

none of these feelings are new. they're just becoming more complex, that's all.