vicarz | Go ask Orge

30 April 1987 I'm in a very hating mood! I'm hating. I really don't care about anything at this moment and that's scary!

Finished "gang leader for a day" which I'll rave about later

Started reading "Go ask ogre" which starts as a series of letters written by a "17-year old cutter" who wrote a series of letters to Nivek of puppy start in 1987. I was 19 in 1987. For some reason, hearing her inarticulate rants, seeing the titles of songs from that era, just seeing the dates, has me spiraling into my memories.

Part of me died with Kelly I see now, good. Kelly was my first love, and while I can't imagine how she wanted to come to my house and have sex with me every day, then to watch thundercats, when she did I felt that I could be loved at all.

Before that I had dated Kay Ford, briefly. She dumped me for Steve Ludenfeld, a jock across the street. She wanted to make more friends and I couldn't do that for her. Her little sister told me that he fingered her (we never broke up). I walked up with a bunch of my stoner friends - they were sitting on his front step. I yelled something "I don't know why you're with him - he has no balls" and my friends laughed while they both ran in the house. My friends provided me with a knife - one of my first, this one had about a 6" blade. I carried it everywhere with me for months. He stole and fucked my girl - that made it the proper thing to do, killing him. We met later, in the paths behind the apts. He said "I heard you were talking about me," and I laughed and said yes, same thing I said to his face. It was a rare moment when I wasn't scared, but I also had this big knife in my pants. He threatened that if I didn't stop he could do something, and that while he knew I had my friends he had friends too and some of them were on the football team. He pushed me, but it didn't phase me - didn't feel like stabbing him, was flattered that I was competition at that level. I felt good, and it was strange.

I can hear my voice still, it was...I know so much more today, but I can imagine the way I felt, the morality was all wrong and good god dangerous, but nothing came of it - here it feels like yesterday but it was over 20 years ago - a lifetime or more for some. I know those feelings, remember the thought patterns and they still all make sense to me, even if I know better now.

Can't sleep now with all these memories. Are they accurate memories - do I really remember how I felt or is it as artificial as...? Am I still that person, how much so? The stupid things I did, I cared about, the way I still carry it with me, the memories, those feelings - what does it mean today? Could I help someone else through that, can I help myself?

I miss hoping there was more. This was the thought that drove me out of bed. Living in the basement of a townhouse of gaithersburg, I rarely got glimpses of this station 99.1 WHFS which sometimes played weird music. I just heard of skinny puppy, kraftwerk, screaming blue messiahs, bauhaus - glimpses from this radio. When I discovered the weird music on 120 minutes (MTV) I had hope. When I saw punks in movies I had hope. I thought there was this wild world out there, with crazy people doing insane things. It was like a dream I aspired to. There was something out there more than this life I knew, more than the jocks that ruled my school, more than the freaks I didn't really belong with who just let me tag along, more than just being laughed at for the rest of my life. I knew it because I heard this music.

Once, and I think it was 1987, for a summer I had a group of friends. I dated, was romanced by more than one person, the phone rang and I got messages, I belonged. It didn't last but I never forgot that feeling - always wanted it before then, always missed it since. That led to Kelly too...

Wishing...the music, I don't think I would have articulated it as such at the time, but it gave me this hope that there were others like there, that there was this group that I belonged to out there somewhere. I miss that hope. Today I've been to the crazy places, I've done the crazy things, and they're not that crazy. You do anything long enough and it's cozy - those girls knitting in Murky, they're crazy. Putting on eyeliner and making out in nightclubs is just saturday. Now, I've done crazy and it isn't anymore. I know the coolest kids, and they're just people with problems like me. I've been seen as one of the cool kids and know it means nothing. I've seen everyone get old, get better and worse. I've been accepted and still not fit in, cared less. I've been weirder, wilder, stronger, better armed than I ever imagined. And it means less than nothing. It's just more people with different music, but nothing is really all tha different. There is no solution out there waiting for you.

There is no group out there. There was no group, not for me. There is no easy solution that makes the past make sense. You can give up that dream. Perhaps you can make your own dream, make your own dream reality. For yourself, for someone else, with someone else. I miss thinking that I'd run into some pre-existing solution for all my pain and problems, sure, but the follow-up thought is that now more than ever I have the power to make my own solutions and even form my own dreams. Make me what I want, make what I want, and know that it never stops but that's not necessarily a bad thing. You keep hoping, wishing, dreaming, making, and growing.