OK, ok...bear with me while I flush this out of my head.

Been thinking about people...people our age...you know, that odd bunch of us stuck between the gen X'ers and the those fucking annoying gen Y death defiers...

Anyway...been thinking about two specific groups of people...me and Tony and Marc and Joe and Nathan...and then that whole WMC crowd...how are we different and alike...I think that both groups share something...

Lets first, for the sake of understanding who is who, a label...names for each group, that may be useful

Frostburg (myself, Tony, Joe, Nathan, and Marc)

WMC (Sprague, Dennis, Matt, et al.)

OK, so back to here.

The similarities...all involved are way too smart for their own good...I mean, lets look at where we are and what were doing...happy sitting behind a desk?  No, not usually...looking for something else, somewhere. Looking for something to keep us otherwise occupied...anyway...

This is rambling...can't quite bring these thoughts together.

Both groups have a sense of what is now, cool, in the moment...but...neither willing to embrace it wholly.  The WMC set knowing it and cheekily tossing around the buzzwords (po-mo) and the ideas and the affectations therein...and the Frostburg set seeing all that crap and ignoring, though slyly playing the roles assigned within that genre...though, none will ever admit...and this is all a grotesque and too easily done generalization...anyway...

But it is there...playing in this game of modernity, this thing for us, or, in fact not for us, for them...maybe that's more it...that both these distinct friend groups have an us and them thing...though, is interesting that both are accommodating of each other.  Knowing that were not quite like you, and you, not quite like us, but both far enough away from them to consider the other group worthy...useful...interesting and fun even.

Maybe it's an insecurity thing, a never feeling comfortable between that 95% middle of the bell curve...yeah, yeah I put us all, in a general way beyond the second standard deviation, of whatever this vague and troubling definition of being,  young variable is...

Maybe we're just what happens to nerds and loners, and all those who weren't the cool kids in HS turn into.

But this way can't last forever...I mean look all around us...look at those we know who are falling into the routine of everyday life...toeing the line...following the path, because...well, that's what's to be done.  Isn't it?

Maybe, maybe...but there still needs to be some way (though subtle) to tell the rest of the world that they haven't won...that just because we are slowly all breaking...breaking down, getting real jobs, settling down with some warm bodied other...because of any number of reasons...just because we are playing at being like everyone else, were not, really...there is something irreducible...some vague feeling I get when I think about these two friend groups that is keenly in opposition to the rest of the world...words arent there, in my mind...yet.

But, what is the point of all this. Is this some dying breath attempt at creating community?  An attempt to tell you all that despite what I say and do that I am glad to know each and every one of you...that I want to know more like you...that it's ok, to be whatever we are...I dunno...just me...inspired by some deep down sense that I needed to write this...to get this out...to put to paper (so to speak) this thing...to work through a thought to the end...to talk it out...maybe...I think that some things just need to be said...given a voice...for my own selfish reasons or more than that...I can't really tell...because I dont know.

This is from my book (of sorts) that I am just about half finished now...it is the epilogue...or the latest version of it...it speaks to this thing...anyway.

Read. Thanks.

The mourning (after)

I think that the thing, that thing that I've been chasing with dog eyed, tail chasing persistence is so fucking utterly huge and clear that you can't ever grab hold. Until. Until, you stop hiding, stop trying so hard to create a picture of things just right for you. Because no picture will ever satisfy, because you aren't the one with the paintbrush. I've learned, maybe, that it just takes four or five million steps back, to let the grip ease.

The point is fear. I am scared to death, scared in my core. That's the fucking human condition, this ethereal fear that resides beneath all of the dust and cobwebs of normal life. Maybe, without so many words, those words my mind has never been able to form, the picture I've never been able to draw how I felt it in my mind, maybe that's what I know, have forever felt. That beingborn fear. I think that this terrible feeling that I've never turned my back on is why I am just on the periphery. This is why always a little bit of me is removed. This is what I want to cling to, to show others, to force others to see. This is why I want as many to know as possible that it's ok. I want to cling to this fear, to eat it, to breathe it deep, and stand (together) and defeat this thing. To defeat this horrible ungrasping thing and destroy it, together.

God, this is all I've ever wanted. But, it's so hard, the struggle against this thing alone is nearly impossible but together is even harder. The personal gap so far to cross, a miracle, given to fly across this great precipice that we can all see, our fear. Ours.

This non specific fear of life, the life breathing fear. This is not new but my friends, people my age; we've no voice. We've grown to become people barely alive, grown in a time where a year is no longer a year but ten, twenty, more years. We grew up in an era that was, that is so over stimulated, so over grown that we are shells. Pure exteriors drawn not by ourselves, not being because this is who we are, but because this is the role we are imitating.

The world outgrowing us, speeding by at a pace well beyond what a normal person is able to match. So what's left to do but imitate that which we see. No time for creation, only mimicry, only tracing the pictures already there. This is us, now. We've been passed. We've left ourselves behind, in such a hurry to get to the next thing, we've all missed the big thing. This living and dying thing. Fuck, why won't anyone help me with this?

Hey what are you writing man? As Jack and I sit outside the café near his apartment in Baltimore. We're safe and secure now. Our memories both full and sated by the last amazing few days in Boston. My flight leaves for Arizona in a few hours. This is the bitter end, or not. The worst is over now. Without thinking, for once I answer, honestly.

'The truth man, so far as I know.'