Then again

Then again, my brother recently purchased GTA: San Andreas. So I may be here awhile.

One Step Forward . . .

As I slip back into my old house, with my old parents, and old brother, slipping into the same jokes, the same banter, I realize how easy it would be to never grow up.

I had two different friends who used that stupid quote about growing up being optional for their yearbook (what's it from, the Dazed and Confused movie poster?) and its inaneness is only rivaled by the reality, which I have to say, isn't good.

Not that I'm not happy to be back. Or that I've really made an effort yet to up the maturity level on my part. I use funny voices with my mother, call my brother names, and generally look down on my father.

Dad. Good guy. Real smart. Pretty cool back in the day. But then again - he told me he was going to make a bumper sticker, saying "Support our Troops - Bring Them Home." Get with it, Daddio, that bumper sticker's been made. You gonna be a part of the revolution, you gotta stay ahead of the game. We're cruisin' the postmodern - if you haven't heard about it in the first five minutes, you're already too late.

Speaking of too late, there's an article in the New Yorker (right next to Seymour Hersh's Pentagon Spy Ring expose) about these college kids who struck it rich selling penis jokes on the Internet. They mention how college humor (the name of their site) revolves around inside jokes, such as the SNL sketch "More Cowbell," of which they sell a T-Shirt. I smiled to myself when I read this, because I had been selected out of the preterite (that's an inside word)
masses. I've seen the sketch, knew the song, then sat in a car for forty hours listening to a remix that played up on the joke. So I know about "More Cowbell." And you know what - it made me feel cool.

The New Yorker, august publication of the intelligentsia, mentioned an inside hip college joke, and I knew it! I'm hip! I'm with it! Awesome.

Of course I'm not actually cool (the evidence being that sometimes I think I'm cool) but it's nice to know I can pass as that in the bifocaled eyes of my elders.

Which brings me back to my original point which is how I feel like I'm fourteen again, or sixteen, or something like that - the lie is given in that I see myself acting fifteen (fooled you, went in between) - couldn't do that when I was actually that young.

So what's going on? Am I regressing? Or playing? It feels right, it doesn't feel right. Hard to say.

But now the fun begins. I took my Boho Semester, now it's time to join the Bourg - assimilate or die. Like that horrible Mastercard commercial - get a job. Hey, my Mom loves her job. Then again, she went to bed tonight at 8:30. So its tough to say.

But. But. But.
If I don't get a job, I'll never move out, never take a girl back to my place, never marry, never have kids, never get fired, never get promoted, never get the big retirement party, never take the trip to Vegas, but still die.

So, when you look at it that way...
it doesn't really matter...
so you may as well work...

At least then you don't have to live with your mother.
How do kids do it for as long as they do?

First Thoughts on Last Thoughts on Elsewhere

It's 2:57 in the morning, and in six and a half hours I'll be gone. I've been in North Carolina since the end of august, when Phish exploded into an apocalypse of mud and I ran away in the night from unemployment and my parent's couch. Seems I traded one couch for another. Even so, I'll be sad to go.

I return to Philadelphia bored and bearded, ready for the next adventure. The Eagles are in the Super Bowl, I'll be spending nine hours on a train, and its only been a week since I kissed a girl. For a guy and a city whose had decades long dry spells, these things aren't so bad. (Decades? I'm only 22. What do I know of decades? Still, if life so far has been such an eternity, I may have to reexamine my fear of death. Then again, not really.)

Messages in a bottle. Blogs. Stupid things. You begin hoping someone reads it. One day you'll worry about someone reading it. I found myself in a blog not too long ago. The girl who kissed me. She said some really nice things. Sort of a haiku, almost. Sort of freaked me out. (But of course, I got a big kick out of it. Who wouldn't?)

I got mine so I could write on someone elses, elsewhere's, intentional accidents, elsewhereelsewhere.blogspot.com, ongoing chronicle of the mad adventures of G Scheer Naval Passage, and Stephanie Allenburger, the artist formerly known as the embarassed blogger, before I showed how much more embarassing it was having a handle (I believe that's the jargon they use in this crazy business) like that one.

I fucked up the website today. Spent my last day in Greensboro trying to solve a problem of my own making. Classic gumption trap. Darndest thing. It works now. elsewhereelsewhere.org. Check it out. I really like the text page the most. Made it myself. Work of art, maybe. In parts.

So.

Nine hour train ride. What will I do? Suggestions? Perhaps sleep if this insomnia continues. Last time I was on a train I felt real weird about getting up and walking around. Up to Vermont. Beautiful little railroads over forests, creeks, mountains. Tomorrow I go through the steelyards of Virginia, the refineries of Baltimore. Back up to the cold. Cold cold Philadelphia, you murderous city. Sometimes you have to go back to move forward. Forwards and backwards are irrelevant orientational conventions in a three dimensional / six directional universe. Though add a dimension to your model, and suddenly forwards and backwards start looking a lot more relevant. Forwards. Only option really.

Except when we sleep. The opening of Swann's Way talks about how when he sleeps, he remembers. I haven't gotten past the opening. It puts me to sleep. I'm not looking for Swann's lost time.

I find it difficult to end these things. The temptation to sign off lazily with swagger is great. You have to catch yourself before you do it, and then it generally works out okay.

It's 3:19 in the morning.