she gave me this book. it's one i'm fairly certain i'll never be able to bring myself to finish. she gave me this book, which she claimed was one of her absolute favorites, and a blank one for me to write in. it was the greatest combination gift anyone had ever given me. it didn't take thought, it came straight from the heart. it exemplified why i think she's the best thing to ever walk the face of this earth.

that book sits next to my bed now, untouched. i can't even open it. my place in it marked by a little note she left me the last time she was here:

hello brian,
i miss you.
[heart],
[her]

i stuck that in the book the day after she left. i used it to mark my place as i crawled methodically through it, trying to savor every word.

like i said…now it sits next to my bed, unread. every night i take my watch off and place it on top of the book. every morning i pick my watch up and leave for work.

her beautiful gift has become a resting place for my mundane life. part of my daily routine.

but it still tugs at my heart every time i catch the cover of that book out of the corner of my eye. every time i see that scrap of paper sticking out the top, knowing exactly what it says.

i can't finish that book for a lot of reasons, i'd say. but the main reason i can think of…

i don't want to know how it ends.

dear entertainment weekly magazine,

heart,
brian.

yep. i called them. i gave them hell. "troy" was the unlucky bastard that got to talk to me. here's about how it went down:

troy: can i have your account number?
me: that's the problem, troy…i don't have an account number. or an account. or a subscription of any kind.
troy: interesting. and what seems to be the problem?
me: the problem is that somehow you people got my bank information and charged my account $19.95 for a subscription i have yet to see (or a bill, for that matter).
troy: oh.
troy then verifies my information
troy: well, sir…it looks like you have some sort of promotional offer through sam goody.
me: i filled out a card for one (1) free issue, troy. at no time did i put my bank information on that card or sign it, indicating that you would be getting that information from sam goody. i would also like to point out that i still haven't gotten that free issue.
troy: i'm very sorry about this, sir. i don't know how we could have gotten your billing information.
me: don't worry, troy…i'll be talking to sam goody, as well. i think that this entire deal is a little shady, and you're lucky i decided to call you before the better business bureau.
troy (obviously rattled): can i put you on hold while i look into crediting your account?
me: most certainly.
hold
troy: i've put in for a credit to your account. it should show up in the next 30 to 60 days, depending on your billing cycle.
me: it's a bank. there is no "billing cycle."
troy: like i said it should show up in 30 to 60 days.
me: troy…it didn't take 30 to 60 days for you jokers to charge my ass for something i never fucking got. i think you need to do a whole lot better than 30 to 60 days on the return of my funds.
troy: i'll…uh…se what i can do, sir.
me: mighty fine of you, troy. have a great day.

thank you, thank you…

beyond that, i did jack shit, yesterday, sleeping until 2pm. i actually woke up at 10am, decided to sleep until noon. then i woke up at noon and decided to sleep until 2. it happens. it was dreary outside and my ac made the apartment all frigid-like. i was comfy in bed.

so other than that, my day was spent talking to friends and eating a small pizza from wick's. and then i went to bed.

how uninteresting. it was labor day! i was taking a rest!

get off my fuckin' back, already…

dear entertainment weekly magazine,

how about you don't charge my checkcard (that i never gave you the number of) for a suscription ($19.95) to your magazine that i never received? how about you give me my fucking money back, you sneaky little shits?

fuck you fuck you fuck you.

heart,
brian.

home from work. haven't done much since getting home, just ate some ice cream and made some ill-advised phone calls.

now i'm sitting in a dark apartment, listening to a mix of the lemonheads and jets to brazil. sometimes i wish i knew why i torture myself like this. i'm exhausted but i can't seem to be able to make myself think about sleep. i'll probably read until the wee hours of the morning until my eyes find their own way to closing.

if you haven't caught on, i've been posting odds and ends on molly's fringe site, snapshots. it gives me something to do with all these joycam pictures that i have stacked up, waiting for me to get joycam project done. but, just like everything else in life, it's a work in progress. get used to it.

"get used to it." that and "deal with it" are two things i really hate to hear.

i swear i'm the king of bad ideas. last night was a bad idea on so many levels, it's ridiculous. my head is swimming just trying to find a good place to start.

okay…the one thing that wasn't a bad idea was seeing the casket lottery and small brown bike. that part of the evening rocked the house, and given some time, i might think it made the rest of the evening worth it.

so here goes…

bad idea: drive out of town, see a show, and drive home afterward, knowing you have to work in the morning. that's just a recipe for disaster, i tell ya. that's not the worse part. lets get further into this…

another bad idea: since it was looking like i might have to go it alone, i decided to ask this girl that i sorta know to tag along with me. she believes in the rock. it would be fun. background: this is the infamous "record store girl." this is a girl that i have been semi-crushing on for at least the greater portion of the year of our lord 2001. this was a blatant attempt by my subconscious to try to get over that other girl. you know…invite a cute girl on a roadtrip. that's moving on, right?

i don't know where i got that idea.

i spent the majority of the ride up to bloomington picking this girl apart in my head, constantly comparing her and realizing that she is nowhere as awesome as the girl who still, despite everything that has happened over the past few months, still occupies almost all of the available real estate of my heart. sounds lame, huh?

okay…so…bad idea: taking a girl you're crushing on out of town in a ill-advised attempt to prove to yourself that you're over the other girl. face facts…you're not.

okay…so we rock out to the show, it was nice seeing stacy, junior, and nate. there was some sort of after-fest dance party going on a block away, and we somehow got ourselves convinced into going. damn that stacy…

the rest played out like the bad plan to end all bad plans…

after a few (too many) beers, it became apparent that stacy and the girl i brought were really hitting it off. this, on one hand, kinda irked me because i was thinking i brought this girl up to try to take my mind off things. well…scratch that plan. on the other hand, i wasn't bothered in the slightest bit because (a) stacy is someone i consider a really close friend and (b) i guess i really don't give a shit about that girl because (c) i'm still completely in love with the girl who broke my heart. odd situation. try to wrap your head around it.

lots of beer. lots of dancing. the casket lottery crew had to represent and show those bloomington kids what the body rock is all about. there are pictures to prove this. i'll try to scan them in soon.

after a while, junior and i headed outside for some fresh air. when we finally wandered back in, both stacy and the girl i brought were missing in action and would continue to be for a good long while. we're talking an hour or so, which is a damn good long while when you're drunk, tired, and still have to drive an hour and a half before you get home to go to sleep to get up for work at 10am. we all started deciding that it was well past time for the train to pull out of dodge. i asked around to see if anyone had seen stacy and got the response (from a very disgruntled girl) "yeah…he's making out with some chick in the women's restroom."

bingo. we found the missing parties.

so we sit. and we wait. i'm feeling weird because my aborted attempt to get over someone ended up with the girl making out with one of my friends in a restroom. nate was ready to leave stacy, but realized that i couldn't just leave the girl because then the c.l. would have to drive her back to louisville. so we were stuck. sitting. waiting. we took turns yelling into the bathroom, trying to get the point across that we're wanting to leave. we finally get some girl to go into the restroom to tell them that we're leaving. she obliges. comes back and smiles at me and says "so what band are you in?"

:::sigh:::

eventually they emerge from their hidey-hole and we all file out of the bar in silence. it's now almost 5am and i still have to drive all the way home (dropping the girl off at her place) before i can crawl in bed for some sleep, sweet sleep. there's some confusion where i end up driving stacy back to the hotel room. after standing around, commenting on how the hotel room smells like piss, waiting on stacy to say his goodbye, i get a little fed up, climb in the car, and get it started. the hint got across.

bad idea: dance party until 5am with lots of alcohol, an hour an a half away from home.

she slept the whole way home and i drove the whole way listening to rocket from the crypt and neurosis. i somehow avoided falling asleep and killing us both.

i finally got home at around 7am, this morning. i walked into the house, called work (concocting some weird story that i don't even remember) and told them i'd be late, only working a half day. now i'm at work, having only slept about 2 full hours, i think.

yep…that was a disaster.

first day of september. it's crazy how it's already this late in the year. the ninth month of twelve. we are almost 3/4 of the way through the year 2001.

and what the fuck have any of us done?

me? not too much. i've shit on, been shit on, and watched something great slip away. i've eaten way too many lunches and dinners at q'doba. taken quite a few pictures with the joycam. seen a whole mess of rock shows.

and written here a whole hell of a lot.

i'm headed up to bloomington in a bit to catch the casket lottery and small brown bike at the ol' bloomington fest. i may be going solo because i think the person that was supposed to ride up with me (as of yesterday) seems to have flaked. my life, full of flaky people.

what's up with aol.com's shoddy presentation of liberty meadows, lately? since jack pointed out that it ran daily, and in color, i've been thoroughly addicted to it. but noooo…aol's gotta fuck it up. a while back it was down for a couple of days and then stuck on a sunday strip for a whole week, while all the other comics plugged right along. after this outage, i noticed that they were re-running strips from around christmas of last year(!). that continued for a couple of weeks and now we've been stuck with the same (old) sunday strip since, well, sunday. it looks like they really need to get their shit together, over there. rat bastards…

so what have i done with my summer?

sat around, wishing you'd call.

i spent the evening hanging out with matt for the first time in a while. we went out and grabbed some dinner and then sat out on the back porch, drinking bourbon and shooting the shit. it was a good time, and we're hoping to hit a pool hall tomorrow night.

it's getting into that late summer period. where you sit on the front porch, drinking beer, and watching lightning from a far off storm race across the sky. it's that point in the year where you realize you're more than halfway through it, already. nights like this only spark reflection. a time to come to grips with your summer full of mistakes and missteps. a time to look regret in the face and try to live with it.

what do you do when all your summer amounts to is a stack of snapshots?

buy more film, i guess.

oh, beloved day off…day that i get to spend doing all those things i have to do…day that i get to do whatever i want.

day that i spend sitting at home.

i tried to sleep in late today, but the cat just wasn't havin' it. she's quickly climbing my "major annoyances in life" list, to say the least. i've spent most of my morning/early afternoon making calls and preparing for the trip to cmj in a couple of weeks. i don't know if i can really afford this trip, but it looks to be a shitload of fun, regardless. after this one, i plan on hitting chicago on the 27th and then staying near the home base for the forseeable future.

because, maybe if clyde gets sick of me…she'll let me sleep.

a friend at work gave me a scanner yesterday. he said he wasn't sure if it works or not, but i could have it, regardless. well…it works. score one free scanner for brian.

still no response from rally's. maybe i should write them another email…

in lieu of words…

okay…normally i would give this article a big "hell yes!" but right now i've got a pretty bad taste in my mouth, so i have to give it a huge "what the fuck ever."

nothing personal. just being bitter. very very bitter.