everything is fine

It's been one of those days. One of those long days after a series of long days. One of those days. One of those days where you wake up in a daze and stay that way. And all the things you worried about earlier come back in full. Oh well. I feel like I'm not even awake. Everything today just sort of happened, and not in the way that I would've liked them to. I gave blood today. I've felt pretty bad since. All I want to do is pass out in a little hiding spot for a while. But there's so much work to do. So much more to worry about. I feel like my head is stuffed with cotton. Everything is so hazy. I can't even think coherently. I just want things to go well. It's so much easier to relax when I'm not sitting here over-thinking every little thing. Deep breath.

"There is appropriate," she said. "And there is in appropriate. That is inappropriate ." I bit my tongue to stop from laughing. She sat up in her bed and stared at me. I leaned against the doorway. "Okay." I said. "Do you understand why that is inappropriate?" She asked. "Yes." I said. And then I laughed. This past week has been the longest week I've had in a long time. I don't really mind, it's been a good one. Should've been a month, though. That's what it felt like. Sometimes I think I'm losing my grip on my sense of time. And my memory? Yesterday I saw a caterpillar crawling on the ground. He made his way out of the grass slowly and crossed about two sidewalk tiles. We sat and watched him from the bench. It was a nice day outside; perfect temperature, clear skies. Then a bird flew down and ate the caterpillar. It hopped into the grass under the tree and finished its meal. And all we could ...

I had almost forgotten how much I hated those little worm things that hang on their web lines off the trees. I hate those. A lot. Oh well.

I got rained on when I went to class this morning. I watched everyone run, skip, and jump their way through the rain but I walked. Getting rained on is nice. It's so refreshing. All I could think about was that song. If all the raindrops were other things besides raindrops, oh what a rain it would be! When I got to class I was completely soaked through. It was like I had jumped into the creek with all my clothes on. Then it got cold. I'm not very good at handling cold. And now, of course, it's sunny outside. That's how it goes, I guess. I'm looking forward to this weekend. Unless it's cold.

I took a walk today. I need to walk more often. There's always so much to think about. So much to balance. It was nice, though. Things look much better when you relax. Everything falls into place, right where it needs to. Someone sent me an article about how terrible our future is. It's all very doom-and-gloom. Oh well. That's how it goes, I guess. I'm not too worried. For the foreseeable future, things are the opposite of doom-and-gloom--whatever that may be. I have an urge to look at some stars. Time to get the telescope out.

It's raining right now. I guess the April showers came early. It's good though, we need the rain desperately. We always need the rain. I like to watch the rain fall. Everything looks so green afterward. I want to play in the rain like a little kid. I used to wait for the rain to stop when I was a little kid. The sidewalk in front of my house collected the rain in a puddle and I would ride my bicycle through the puddle as fast as I could, send the water spraying off to the sides behind me. Every time I did it I thought of the scene in Batman when he drives the Batmobile to the Batcave for the first time in the movie. The car sent leaves flying off to the sides, and on my black and purple bike it was the only thing I could ever think of. The last time I rode my bike through a puddle was when I was mountain biking. The puddle was actually a big hole full of mud and I slid out and got stuck. And covered in mud. But I was happy. And I'm having a good time now, too.

If I was an animal, I think I'd be a turtle. Certainly not by choice. Turtles have shells that they hide in when they get scared. They get scared pretty easily, I guess. They bring their shells with them everywhere just in case they get scared. And they move slowly. Super slowly. I guess clams and oysters bring their shells with them everywhere, too. When I was a little kid I believed that if you took a turtle out of its shell, it would then become a frog. I know better, now. I won't be a turtle anymore. I'll be a frog. Or a dog. Or a wolf.

Things work out. I'm pretty happy. Who isn't?

I lie about little things, a lot. It's not out of malice. It's not malevolent at all, actually. It's compulsive. Accidental. It's an accidental joke. I used to try to see what people would believe. So I'd say semi-believable things with confidence and a straight face to see what people would do. It became a habit. And now I lie about little things. Not really lie, I'd say. It's more like I suggest things wrongly. I try to tell people when I do that. "I'm just kidding." I say. Usually. But I try to be as honest as I can. Sometimes that gets me in trouble. Sometimes it's easier to just say, "No, I'm just an awkward person," rather than "No, I get butterflies and my tongue gets tied up." I guess that's okay. It's just to make things easier. Everything can be so difficult to deal with sometimes. I'm still so worn out from the camping trip, but I can't sleep.

Eleven hours is a long time to spend in a car. It's a long time to spend driving. It's a long time to spend staring at the road with your leg locked up on the accelerator. I hate using the cruise control. It feels like I'm not really in control of the car. Oh well. It was a nice, peaceful drive that I was mostly awake for. You tend to see weird things when you have nothing to look at. Makes for good conversation though. You only need one word to make a joke. I was certainly anxious about the trip. I think everyone was in their own ways and for their own reasons. I just wanted things to go right. For everyone to have a good time and walk away smiling wider than they were when the went in and I think it worked. And despite my misgivings, I had the best spring break I've had in a while. I was hanging out with good friends and got closer to friends I wasn't as close to before. No, we didn't do much. What we did, though, was fun. We laughed hard and g...

I saw a couple of friends today. A couple of really good friends. It's always nice catching up with old friends like that. It'd been so long since I'd seen either of them. I never get to talk to Anna any more. It was nice hanging out with her. We just drove around for a while and caught up. These last couple of years we've only been able to talk within the context of meeting with a mutual friend, so it was good to be able to just sit and talk. I talk to Matt online a lot, but that's no substitute for talking in person. We ate and saw a movie. Just an all around good time. I wish we got to hang out more often. I'm so tired, but seeing old faces is such a relief. It's refreshing. I need to make more of an effort to reach out. This summer, I guess. There's just so much to do. I'll make time, though.

People don't change. You might turn around one day and your best friend from middle school might transform into a total stranger a couple of years later. A story on a local news website. A shout-out in the obituary column. But he never really changed. He was always the same person. You just didn't know him the way you thought you did. I hate thinking about that. Everybody has a lot of faces to meet and memorize. Some are just uglier than you might have thought before. Oh well. I can pretend it doesn't bother me that much. That's okay, I guess.

A friend of mine came over this past weekend. It had been a while since I had seen him. A few months? A long time. And the last time we had hung out, we were in no shape to do any talking. I hadn't gotten a chance to talk to him about, well, anything really. So he came over to do a demonstration for his new job. "I work for Vector Marketing," he said. "And I'm selling these knives." He showed me the knife set, which was quite extensive. We cut through rope and leather with them. They were very, very nice knives. Expensive, but nice. He explained his situation to me. It wasn't cheery. It was a mean story that went to a dark place. "But," he said. "I'm doing alright." Alright. It's the best we can expect, I guess, but not the best we can hope for. He could be doing much better than he is. Bad luck? Maybe. It's depressing to see that he's not doing what he wants. He's doing what he can. I wish I...

I fell behind on my cartoon drawing, but I think that's okay since I have such a big stash of them from my earlier enthusiasm. It's not from lack of ideas, it's just laziness. But I'm not going to let that slide anymore. Everything, every day. I need to start writing again. I've put that off for a couple months. I need to put these fresh eyes back to work on my zombie story. Greg and I made a writing pact. We have to fill a page quota every month. I'll get to working on it eventually. I've still got a couple weeks left to procrastinate. I drew a guest comic for a couple of old high school friends who started a cartooning website . They've done a good job with it. I remember trying to maintain a webcomic. That was a pretty terrible time. I posted that garbage on deviantART, too. Oh well. Everybody is young and stupid and hopeful sometimes. I had a Xanga, too. And a LiveJournal. Dark chapters. Of course, now I have a blog, so who am I to ...

I had never heard of Staple! before and so I wasn't planning on going at all. "We're going as a group thing," she said. I thought about it for a while. Webcomic artists would be there. "Alright." I said. And I went. We walked in and split our different ways. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do at all. There were so many people. So many things to do. I only knew a handful of names and no faces. I made my way down the first aisle and glanced back and forth furtively. I stopped when I saw a Spider-man comic. Paul Benjamin. I talked to him for a long time. He had a lot of things to say. I guess you would after you spent a few years as an editor for Marvel before writing for Marvel Adventures Hulk and Spider-man and his own graphic novel. "Are you a writer?" He asked me. I laughed. "I pretend to be." He grinned. "Not like, do you get paid to write. Do you write ?" "Yes." I said. "Is it a ...

She looked around at the group expectantly. "Everything in Texas is..." She started. "Big!" Someone yelled. "Very good!" She said. Then she told them about the anatomy of the Quetzalcoatlus wing. Her audience was captivated. Then we went to the Coelophysis. I showed them an evolution tree of dinosaurs. They were thrilled. Little kids are more fun than grown ups. Everything amuses them. "Will that dinosaur poop the dinosaur bones out that he ate?" They're so eager to learn and share. I wish I was a little kid again. They want to know everything. They're all friends. There's no bitterness or cynicism and they don't judge each other or divide into elitist groups. They're just kids in class. "Everything in Texas is..." " Dinosaurs?! " I'm ready to disappear into the desert for a few days.

The name caught my eye immediately. Jimmy. Jimmy Talarico. It's funny, but I never really knew the last names of my friends when I was growing up. I guess. I looked him up. He looks much different from the Jimmy I remember. The Jimmy from 2nd grade. Jimmy and I played robots, I wrote once. I wonder if he remembers me. The way I remember him. And Anthony Carroll. And Luke and Joe Miller. And Tahsir Rahman. And Caitlin Wright. 2nd grade was a long, long time ago. He's a politician now, I guess. All of his pictures are him dressed in suits, speaking behind podiums. He's very active, politically. I wonder if he still adopts retired greyhounds. He looks very old. Like an aging man. The way he cuts his hair, the way he holds himself. He's not a boy anymore. "God-gosh." He said. He only said it because it irked Luke. I couldn't help but laugh hysterically. He ran for a position in student government. His profile is littered with Obama camp...

I won't jump over this ledge, I thought. Because I might fall. So I dismounted my bike next to it. It was a large planter box that separated the mulch from the sidewalk. I stepped into the leaves that had collected against it and fell. My shins hit the edge and my bike fell on top. And I sat there. I wanted to just sit there for a while and watch the fountain. "Are you okay?" The man asked, tentatively. "Yes." I said. I locked my bike up and took my quiz. Later, I stood by the bike rack. There was a little bird hopping around on the ground and I watched him for a while. He pecked at the sidewalk. Then another bird pooped on his back. He paused for a second. The other bird came out of the tree and started pecking at the ground too. The bird with poop on his back continued to stand there. Eventually, he flew away with poop on his back. I shooed the other bird away. Poor birdy bird. I guess everyone poops on their friends eventually.

I used to get nightmares from eating chocolate before I went to sleep as a little kid. I don't know why, but they were always vivid nightmares. Growing up, I always attributed them to the chocolate. So I didn't eat chocolate. Later, I realized that I had nightmares anyway. Once, I woke up from a particularly bad nightmare and sat up in my bunk bed. The idea was that from my top bunk, anything that was coming for me would get my brother first. That would give me enough warning to make a break for it. Babies sleep soundly, though. My room was dark and the curtains were drawn. There was a light coming in from the kitchen. Reluctantly, I climbed down and investigated. My dad was in the kitchen making tortillas. "Do you want one?" He asked. I took a warm tortilla and ate it. We ate in silence until we had our fill of tortillas and cleaned up. "Nightmares?" He asked. I nodded. "It's okay." He said. I went back to sleep. No nightmares....

Finally, I can make boxes in Photoshop. Who knew it was so difficult? I don't know if I'm looking forward to Spring Break or not. I think I am. I definitely want to spend time with my friends, but I like to enjoy nature in small groups. Or alone. Hopefully I can suck it up. I want to go fishing. I haven't been fishing all that often in my life, though. My grandfather tells me fishing stories all the time. Actually, both of my grandfathers do. They both go deep-sea fishing. I want to reel in marlins and sharks. Then I want to punch that shark right in his nose and let him go. That'll show him who's boss. When I was with my dad, we went to the coast. We walked out on the rocks next to a fishing pier. In the shallow pools of water we found a bunch of dead fish. They weren't fish, they were baby sharks. Someone had reeled in a pregnant mother and cut her open and the babies spilled out into the water and washed up on shore. She was hanging up on the...