I had a bit of a moment to take stock of my life today. Long drive back. Back from my mother's retirement. Her milestone, not mine, but still, when one passes a milestone one takes note. Or a photo. When that one is me. I'm surrounded by dreamers and fools. But what else is new? All dreamers are fools, so that might be redundant. But writers, I think, some of them. Climbing that impossible mountain to ink spilled on a page. For money, no less. Parents, now, a few of them. A man "about my age." I've crossed over. Despite my college hoodie (maybe because of it?) and my hip haircut (!) and nerd glasses, I guess I just don't look like a college kid. Maybe it's the bags under my eyes; more understated but more permanent. Maybe it's the look of cold calculation in my cold blue eyes as I look at nearly everyone and know that after this moment my life will go careening off into the wilderness without them; I'm not going to be seeing you in my math class on Tuesday. The cock-sure swagger that I know myself that I try to put on in order not to surrender to the doubt that is always knocking on the door. Or maybe it was the bar, the little-too-early for drinking, the older crowd time. I was at Steak 'n Shake on a Tuesday afternoon, packed with a demographic I didn't remember in high school. But that demographic was the 1am crowd. The one order of cheese fries for three crowd. You can't go back again, and we all know it. But that bundle of joy comes along, and all of the mistakes we've learned to forgive our parents for but promised ourselves that we'd never make, they come knocking too. The road was clear enough, and the drive long enough. Listened to the talk, talk, talk that I fill up my time with. I remember I used to listen to music. But it's after one in the morning and I've made it "home." The quotations around that word make me want to vomit.

It made him sad, not because he saw some instructive allegory or harsh sermon on the vanity of all human hopes and utopian imaginings in this translation of a bright summer dream into an immense mud puddle freezing over and the end of a September afternoon - he was too young to have such inklings - but because he had so loved the Fair, and seeing it this way, he felt in his heart what he had known all along, that, like childhood, the Fair was over, and he would never be able to visit again.

-Michael Chabon; The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Well, I have this trouble with the ghost of my brother, who I killed in the womb. I'm wondering how I can just banish him to hell already. He's all pissed off because he died without being baptized. You know, God knowing you in the womb and the whole bit. He blames me for the whole thing. And I keep telling him, "Shit man, should have eaten your Wheaties." And he's all like, "My mouth wasn't even developed!" And then I'm all like, "Wait, then how the hell are you talking to me in this dream? Where'd you get that mouth? How'd you learn English?" And he just tells me that vengeance knows no rules.

It's been snowing for the past few days. Winter in Chicago. I'm about to take a jet plane to NYC, see some old friends, do a couple of shows. The actual new year. Am I ready? Are we ever?

My hands are cold and I feel powerful today. I don't believe those two things are related.

I feel days just rolling past me. These emails, the dates on them, are weeks (sometimes months ago). I feel like I have been sleeping for a long time. But I do not feel much rested. It is hard, sometimes, to start anew. I think sometimes you can say that you have begun, and wherever you are you must move foward from there. Well here I am. Happy new year.

I like train stations. I rolled into Union Station (Chicago) today. There's something about the lack of the security check point that allows you access to all people at all stages of the travel process. The man buying tickets, the family sitting down for a quick snack, the lover waiting at the gate.

[insert something profound here]

I am having trouble sleeping at night. And trouble waking up in the morning. I'm sure this is ideal.

Bought a netbook today.

It's the first day of December, and I'm able to wake up in Chicago and really take the day for myself. I feel like I should have a lot of things to say here, deep and dark thoughts, mysterious (necessitated by the internet-aspect of this space). But I have little that is flowing from my brain (or heart) and out my hands here. I'd say I want to take a nap, but I just woke up. So that's not quite right. I'm awake, I'm here, but I'm not really ready to go. I want to feel this weight lifted off of my chest. I want to feel done and fall into that feeling of completeness like a warm river, and let it wash over me and take me away.

Even the idea of picking out socks makes me exhausted. I think we can officially say the tank is out of gas.

Was able to sleep in a bit today. Feel somewhat alright. Not great, but somewhat alright. Looking foward to getting back to myself.

I am lost in a sea of myself. Or, perhaps, I have simply lost myself.

It's a slow burn with me. Strange, considering how I spend most of my days.

Not that I expected things to slow down, but damn.

God-fucking-dammit. One more day. One more day until what? Until the same conversation could be had? Yes, exactly. Until it could have laid the ground work for something more, something else, for that far off future that no one can see. One more day till revolution.

In Chicago for a few short hours. Thoughts about this somewhat mixed.

I have re-learned today what I have known and re-known many times. My life works best when I wake up between eight and nine in the morning, but don't have anywhere to be until noon. It gives me time to have breakfast and compleate tasks and communicate with people. Which, I think, is the theatre life-style I signed on for. So what the hell, theatre? What's going on here? Why are days like this so rare?

October has offically begun for me, and I am on the road, hard travelin' month.

I am going to get my ass handed to me this week at Links.

Happy Birthday, Emily Jane!

	1.	Dance
	2.	Lighting
	3.	Rum
	4.	Football
	5.	Sex

	Most likely in that order.

Getting in a bit late tonight, Lauren and I took some dancers to Side Street. Goddamn, that was awesome.

Well, I told you it was natural seeming. And I think there is something so beautiful about that because pornstar scenarios are so "yeah yeah." So it's rather ordinary. I was out in my garage tinkering around with something, in my weekend clothes and you pull up in your car. I run up to you and jump on you, and you lift me up a little. I grasp your face in both my hands and we just kiss one another.

Woke up this morning and got out of bed with a bit of a shiver. Autum is falling upon us.

I have been building for myself a life here. Which, I think, is obvious and natural, I think everyone does that. Take some time that they have sitting around and build a life out of it. What I also think I was building was a person, in this case, myself. Not complete, as not person is complete (final) until their life is over, but still whole. Whole enough to say, "Here I am." So say, "This is where I stand, on this place, and not one that one. This is who and what I am." Which is a simple statement, I suppose, but I could say it with a bit of bluster and a fair amount of confidence. I could spit it out from the gut in a baritone that doesn't quite sound like me, but, still, has the ring (the tone and timber, if you will) of my voice. There I was saying, "Take this person, whole but not complete, and change him, just a little bit (and a little bit at a time), in your image." There I was saying, "Let's walk down this road, hand in hand." And there you were saying, "I'm not sure if I want to do that." What then? Hell if I know. So here I am saying that I must define, now more than ever, what is mine. Honestly, who and what. But property lines are blurred. For no man is an island, and here I am, standing on this place and not that one, saying, "I am a man."

I believe(d?) that you can talk it out. That there's a way. That if you can get the people to the table that somewhere-out-there there are words that can be found and that those words can heal. That there is power in words, that there is magic in words. That saying things can make them true. Things like, "I forgive you." Things like, "It's okay." But maybe that's not always true. That is isn't True (big T). Which, in retrospect, I don't know why that's so surprising. But still, sometimes it comes as a shock that sometimes there aren't any words, no "Abracadabra!" that can magically put all of those actions and all of those years into a place that everyone can understand and agree upon. The narrative from this side will always be different from the story on the other side. No matter how much you shout across the divide there's an echo, nothing comes out right. That you can sit down and say, "I love you" and it falls flat, like an egg on the floor. All the king's horses and all the king's men.

And I'd like to build my life on something solid. Anything. I keep feeling the ground shift beneath me. Sometimes it's fun and sometime my stomach sinks. Mostly I feel tired of these castles made of sand.

Last day before going off and up out.

Going out in a blaze of glory, dominated at HeroClix this evening!

I am engaging in a little bit of nothing.

Got my all-in-one back. I feel complete again.

I want to write some poems. Or a bit of prose. But just lose myself in words, words, words.

I have the little printer that could.

Dream last night in which people were making fun of my goatee. It was oddly upsetting.

I had a dream last night in which my grandfather thought I was gay. I'm forgetting most of it, but a lot of it has to do with some kind of letter. And you'd think I would have learned the lesson about writing letters regarding my sex life years ago.

It's taking a while, but I do believe I am getting there.

There is a good chance that I'm going to spend the rest of the day nursing my hang over. There's also a good chance that's a-okay with me.

I'm waking up tired these days.

Happy Birthday, Lauren Girard!

Real day off here. I just got up. And I don't want to go anywhere.

I had a dream last night in which I was matriculating at Harvard. Eddy was there creating a dance that involved a large hat, I helped him move it. Also, never saw Emily in the whole of the semester, but was eating in a dorm-like cafeteria, which makes me think I was an under grad.

I had a dream last night where I had dropped my bag off of the back of the L. While it was pulling into a station. So I quick got off the train to pick up the bag, still on the tracks. somehow, though, in all of this, I left my shoes on the train.

Woke up early this morning. Cough wouldn't let me sleep.

Walls, for me, are things to climb. There's like a big workspace that needs to be carved out. Such as:

I am still worn out. This shit is going to easily take me a week or so to get back into things.

It's quite a day when you sit down and pick this path or this path. Explaining from your core what you want to do with your life and how that effects what you do professionally. That you're thinking about taking the risky path. The one less sure. Then you count your beans and you realize that the checks you haven't recevived yet will cover (bearly) the checks you have written and stapped on your desk. And you're about to go into the slow season. And you're about to go to bed.

I have been dreaming quite a lot this week.

I want to drive down mountains in the dark
Everyday
Or night
As the case may be
A thousand stars smiling at me
White knuckled
Sphincter clenched
Alive
To a home I've never known
A mountain home
That's never stale
Crisp, like the air
Like the breath in my lungs
Like the twinkle in your eyes
Displaying all of the best personal artifacts
Of all the best parts of me
Artfully
Beautifully
Next to panoramic views
Of the dizzying play between earth and sky
That makes us feel small in god's world
But solid
Like a fist
Like a promise
Like the rock the house is carved from
Ageless
Like I would like to be