A Day From Weeks Ago

I was bored again tonight.

I called Corey. Nothing was going on. He said he'd call me back if he found something.

And I was depressed because I didn't do anything last night except sit alone in my apartment and record music.

I sometimes feel guilty for not calling my friends because I more-or-less base the decision of what I do on the odds of me meeting a girl.

I decided to go on a bike ride, which is becoming more and more common for me. I just can't sit around sometimes. I think it has to do with this crazy feeling that if I don't do new things I am not progressing. Why progressing is so important, though, I don't know.

I decided to go to Bookmans but it could have been anywhere. I just needed a destination.

I had a dream last night. It was me and Kyle, who I haven't dreamt about since the funeral. I can't remember what it was about. I just remember waking up at seven am. Seven am is the worst, because the sunlight was pours through the lines between my shades and makes my whole room loud and golden. I don't know if I'd mentioned it before, but as close as I've come, I still haven't cried about Kyle.

Mike called me today. None of you know Mike. It's just a name to you. But Mike is still like a brother to me, even if he is half-way dead. Mike introduced me to family crisis, to drugs, to heartache, to struggle, to a number 4 at Carls. Jr, to real companionship, to loyalty, to class differences, to being there for somebody, and to so many other things I can only explain in blips and phrases. He called me today, as he does occasionally, and he wanted to sell me a Dell computer gift card. He got it for free with his computer, which I know only because I helped him order it. But he must've forgotten that. He must've known he wasn't fooling me, that he wanted the money for heroin, and that he knows I know he is slowly killing himself, the way Kyle did, but in a much more seclusionary way. I told him I didn't know anyone who'd want to buy it. He called back twice: Once to ask if I was absolutely sure, and the third time he hung up before I had a chance to answer. I thought to myself, death is a very subjective term.

Note to self: There's nothing you can do.

Neil came into Beaver's today, and he punched his dad in the face today but he wouldn't tell me why. He helped customers even though he doesn't work there anymore. He talked about how he cried when D.L. died even though he was pretty sure D.L. hated him. He said how he wished he'd stayed in Flagstaff, and that he needs heart medication, and that the blue album by Weezer is the Pet Sounds of today, and continued to measure his life by albums, and I told him about my dream with Kyle, and on ... and on... and on...


And I was riding my bike to Bookmans. I was riding through the U of A mall, and "Narcolepsy," by Ben Folds Five, came on my iPod, and all the little links started to melt together, and they connected all at once... Neil and Flagstaff, and Flagstaff and Jessi, and Jessi and myself, Mike and me, and me and Kyle, and Kyle and the funeral, and the dream I had, and the recurring dreams Neil has, and Mike punching his dad in the face, and me standing there not knowing what to do, and Neil punching his dad in the face, and the mental hospital, and Rage Against the Machine, and Ben Folds Five, and Neil, and Flagstaff, and Jessi...

At that moment, I finally almost cried.

The trees just passed. I stared up. I thought to myself, god damn, the trees seem so far away until you see the sky.

When I got to Bookman's I bought three vinyl singles from artists I've never heard before. I was feeling impulsive, which seems to happen a lot these days.


Corey called and said he found something to do.

So I ride my bike back the way I came. Down Second avenue. To University. Stop by Jimmy Johns to see if Keegan is working... nope. Back onto Unversity. God, I'm a riding cliche.

But there I was again. Dead center, in the middle of the U of A mall and something hits me. From nowhere. Really. Jesus Christ, I am alive. I mean, I am ALIVE. Words are so limiting. How far have I come? You don't know. No, I'm serious. You really don't know. I'm trying to sum it up. I texted Jessi, who, depressingly, is still one of the only people who really gets me:

I just wanted to tell you...
I'm riding my bike through the u of a mall right NOW.
And I've Never been happier that I'm ME.

She called and said, "I've never seen you happier, Baby Joel!" A reference to Eternal Sunshine, which will always be our movie. "I wake up every day and tell myself that today is the day I'm going to fall in love again, " she told me a few weeks ago. Tonight, I asked her:

"Did you fall in love today?"

"No, did you?"

"Maybe for a second."

"With who?"

"Nobody."

"Oh! With what, then? Life?"

"Well, I don't want to sound that trite."


I got to the house Corey was at.

There were three girls, two dudes, me, Corey, and a beer pong table.

While the girls were racking their cups, I turned to Corey.

"Corey," I said, "I think I had an epiphany tonight."

"What?"

"I said, I was riding my bike, and listening to my music, and I don't know what it was, man, but I think I had an epiphany."

"Yeah," Corey said, and dipped his ball in the water cup, "I have lots of epiphanys when I'm bored."

Robby

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Three Cartoons

Drawn specifically for Pima Community College's newspaper, the Aztec Press.
They are esoteric.
Click to see the full toon.

Issue 1


Issue 2


Issue 3

Happy Birthday,

Kyle.

Some Songs?

http://www.myspace.com/beefylogsbitch

A Visit to Palo Verde Mental Hospital

I was kind of nervous, I guess. I had been to that kind of place before, anyhow, when my grandma got Alzheimers and couldn't remember who I was, but for some reason could remember how to play Scott Joplin perfectly on the piano. I didn't feel like I was in a strange place until I sat down and looked at everyone else who was there for visiting hour. There was a middle-aged couple, the woman was crying and the man was trying to comfort her, sitting at the table in the cafeteria. There was a family with two teenagers sitting at the table next to mine, the dude was wearing an Interpol shirt and stole a chair from my table, and said "Well now I don't feel bad for being late," when he sat down.

I don't think I've ever been friends with a true schizophrenic before. Besides Fernando at the Ranch, I guess, who was so brainfried I couldn't tell whether he was psychotic or if the holes in his brain had finally taken their toll. Oversized and awkward, stupid and harmless, and unaware that being twenty-two years old he was legally allowed to leave the Ranch at any time. I remember him pacing in circles in the room, repeating to himself, "The devil is chasing me, Dave... the devil... the devil..." as I wrote letters to friends I'd never send. It was frightening at the time, but it was Fernando, and it was controlled craziness, and that's just the way Fernando always was to me.

I visited Neil yesterday, who had always been crazy - crazy like me - and who I had always loved for it. He wasn't crazy crazy, I mean. He was eccentric. We'd hung out a few times. He worked the same schedule as me at Oracle, and we talked on the phone every day to keep ourselves entertained. It's not that Neil and I have ever been good friends or anything, but there was some strange way we connected. We understood each other. Maybe that's why I decided to visit him, because I knew I would want him to visit me. I'm still not exactly sure why I went, and maybe that's why the last thing he said to me keeps reverberating in my mind. The converstaion started off with me, and I talked about Jessi, and how I had just gotten off the phone with her, again...

"i'm so stupid, neil. i dont know... i guess it's better than being alone."

"dave - dave! dave. listen: i had a girl like that up in flag."

"yeah?"

"yep. her name... was kayla. and the night before i came home, dave - the night before i came home - she left my house and the door just went WSHHHH," and he imitated falling back into his seat.

I laughed, "what, so you, like, realized you liked her or something?"

"no, dave! i had liked her the whole time!"

"oh."

"it is just like the battle of los angeles, do you know what I'm talking about?"

"um."

"the battle of los angeles came out ten years ago, dave, and i have had no idea what to do with my life ever since."

I laughed again. It was a funny way to measure the length of life: Rage Against the Machine albums. It was funny because it made sense to me.

"dave," he said demandingly, "rage: evil empire."

"yes: i get you. rage against the machine."

The crying woman in the dining room, I noticed, had composed herself...

"no, dave. you don't. rage: evil empire. i have been listening to it here. and you know what? it's AMAZING. i had heard it before, but i hadn't absorbed it, do you know what i mean?"

"yeah," I chuckled, "i think so."

"i have listened to the battle of los angeles so many times, dave, so many times! and thats when Y2K came, and i think something snapped. something snapped, dave, in my brain. you know, i tried to put a key in the wall socket to try and start my living
room? like it was a car."

Next to me, the teenager family's grandma finally came out, and I saw their faces go from cynical to sad in a heartbeat as the nurse helped sit her down.

"that's pretty crazy, neil," i said.

"i know! but i have been listening to evil empire, dave, and that's their middle album. and the battle of los angeles was nearly their last. and when i was up in flag... i was listening to self-titled - nineteen ninety-two, their first album, self-titled - the whole time. for like two months straight, dave. i had never heard it before. and when she closed the door and i went WSHHHHH," and he fell back again, "that's when i realized she had LOVED me the entire time."

I laughed again, "and the door was like..." and I imitated a door descending down a hallway with my hands.

Neil laughed, "exactly, dave! you see, that's why you're here! you GET me, dave, like no one else does!"

I sat there, and I hadn't realized it until then, but I was trying to decipher who was the Neil I knew and the Neil who hadn't taken his medication, and somehow ended up here after tearing up Nate's mail and placing it in patterns on the porch and calling the police on himself. It wasn't like Fernando, because there was no other Fernando to me besides the one who would stare blankly into nowhere. I wondered what Fernando was like as a kid, suddenly, if he had ever had written a story in school, and what he was like before the holes in his brain had...

"dave," he said seriously. "i had never listened to evil empire. did you know that? evil empire, dave! it came out between self-titled and battle of los angeles."

"so?"

"SO! we both start at the end, dave, go back to the beggining, and have to..."

"connect the pieces in the middle?" I felt guilty for not knowing whether I finished his sentence out of empathy or obviousness.

"yes! connect the pieces in the middle! that's why you get me, dave. it was the door slamming, and me going 'WSHHH' and the door," he imitated me, "floating down the hallway, when i realized she had loved me, LOVED ME, dave, for the six months i had been there. she left for colorado. and now here i am.."

"here we both are."

"exactly! here we both are, peicing together everything in the middle, at last."

"you're crazy, neil."

"yes! yes, i am. but you are, too. i just started listening to evil empire, dave. i mean, really listening. absorbing. and it is AMAZING."

We sat for a second, and the visiting hour ended. I made my way with Neil, talking about Rage, to leave with the crying couple and teenage family, and all the other sad, confused faces sitting in the dining room..

"dave, thank you so much for coming."

"of course, neil."

He looked at me strangely, "you know why you came."

"because you're my friend?"

"no, dave - you know why you came."

I stopped to absorb the thought.

"why's that, neil?"

"you know why, dave."

And walked away. That's the last thing he said to me. I'm not sure if he was being crazy or being Neil, but the more I have thought about it, the less I knew why I did go and visit him. Maybe it's because I'm a "good guy," as Neil told me, and as Jessi told me only minutes before that. Maybe I'm a little crazy, too. But it just keeps reverberating... I wonder what Neil thought.

A Condensed Story Of My Life So I Don't Forget - Part 2

I was born in a red brick house
with a Christmas tree
and silver spoon in my mouth...

My childhood is a blur. All I can really remember are the things that my mom has reminded me of since high school was over. My best friend was Alex D., who was the same age as me and dad went to college with mine, and therefore we were destined to be friends. He lived six houses down the street. We would turn on the hose in the back yard, and make things out of mud. We'd play with the balsa wood airplanes I'd beg my dad to buy me at the hardware store. We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. What can I say? We were kids.

My brother, Paul, was born on April 29th, 1991. I don't remember ever being close with him, even though we shared a room until I was twelve. Even though we were siblings it felt like we lived in two different worlds, which is still true. I started to drift away from my family at a young age, though, and sometimes I blame myself for being so distant from him. We still don't really talk. Even Robby (who, at this time in the story, is still just another friend at my elementary school) hung out with Paul more than I did. Paul got a MySpace a few months ago and I didn't know what to do when he put me in his Top 8. I know that's a silly example, but that's really the best I've got, and that may say more than I meant it to.

I was teased a lot as a young kid. My only social saving grace was that I was the class clown and was also a pretty good drawer. Chuck Jones was my idol, and I drew every day - pictures of Looney Tunes, cartoons, even charicatures of my teachers and classmates. I even met Chuck Jones in fourth grade, and my mom still says that's one of her favorite memories of me growing up. If it weren't for my ability to draw, I think less people would have even considred talking to me. I remember my parents bought my clothes for me, and my parents, if you didn't know, have a pretty detatched sense of fashion, especially for young boys. Flamboyantly bright striped polo shirts, shorts that were too short, jeans that were too, back then, tight. I remember one time someone called me "gay" at school, and I went home and asked my mom what "gay" meant, and she said very straightly (no pun intended): "It means happy." So the next day, when I was called gay again, I said "Yep!! And I'm proud of it!"

There is one important memory I remember from that time - one that would seem so trivial, but one I always think about when I sit and "try to figure out where it all went wrong." I was at Alex D.'s house, and it was fourth grade. He told me that I needed to have my parents stop buying clothes for me, and that people thought I was.. well, gay. Or something. We were in his family room playing Sonic 3D Blast on Sega, I remember this distinctly. Before we left to walk back to my house he gave me a pair of his jeans to have, because they were cool, and I remember feeling guilty, somehow, but also trendy - daring, even - at the same time. As strange as it sounds, I look back on this as the first time the world of my parents stopped taking precedent, and the little moment that allowed the rest of my life to take the course it did.