everything is fine

My brother is wrapping up high school band camp. It's kind of funny, because suddenly we have something we can both relate to. Sort of. Not really in a loving, brotherly way. It's more like a begrudging transmission and reception of information. You take what you can get, I guess. After a few days of band camp, I discovered that he had been leaving his instrument in the band hall without a lock. "Nobody steals stuff out of the band hall." He told me. I related some appropriate anecdotes and let him borrow my own lock until he could get one for himself. "I'm going to need that back," I told him. "So you'll need to get your own lock." A couple of weeks later, I reminded him of the terms of our deal. The next day he returned my lock and revealed that he had left his saxophone unlocked. And apparently, for reasons beyond my comprehension, this is my fault.

One of the things I really enjoy about the summer is sitting in my room at night and watching the dramas that unfold on my windows. All of the moths and bugs flock to the window, trying to get to the light on the other side. And, so, it becomes a hunting ground for intrepid geckos. I've seen geckos eating some pretty damn big moths. And they'll fight each other for bugs. I've seen huge moths slam into my window, too. Like, Mothra type shit going on. It scared me pretty bad. I saw a gecko try to eat a cicada, once. The cicada flew away with the gecko. I wish I had that kind of resolve. I'm finding that I don't, especially as I clean my room and sort through my old things. Unfinished stories and projects and songs and all sorts of things. All abandoned over time and forgotten. I won't let that happen to this zombie story, though. Hopefully.

I read an article the other day that stated, with several different levels of confidence, that our personalities are pretty much set after 1st grade. And, so, I thought about it for a bit and tried to remember what I was like in 1st grade. The only thing that really stuck out to me was the memory of my teacher. She was an older woman with a gaunt face. Very serious. Also, very mean. Unduly mean, it seemed. Considering we had just come from kindergarten, a year that revolved primarily around raising chickens and playing games, being forced to exclusively do legitimate schoolwork with no transition was a bit of a shock. And the few times we did anything remotely fun, she managed to suck the pleasure out of them by criticizing us for not coloring inside the lines or some such foolishness. There were, I'm sure, many other examples. But thinking about 1st grade fills me with a sort of rebellious fervor. It was, I believe, the first time I had ever recognized an authority figure

The other day, as I drove home from class, I realized there was a fly in my car. A tiny little fruit fly, not unlike the ones we studied once upon a time in high school biology lab. It was albino. He flew around for a bit as I drove out of the parking lot. A bit annoyed, I tried to wave him out the window. He would always fly back in and land on the dashboard. Finally, he landed on my finger. I moved my hand about, trying to get him to fly away. But he never budged. He sat on top of my knuckle and faced forward, looking out toward the road. I tried raising my hand to the open window, but he would walk down my arm until I brought my hand back inside the car. And he would face the road again. So I let him drive with me, my ever vigilant fly buddy. During the trip he faced forward, unyielding in the face of the uncertain path. And in that moment, I connected with him. He wanted what I wanted: to move forward. To go somewhere. Somewhere new. To have an adventure . We cont