Homeland: Chicago

I never thought I'd say this, but, as it is, I'll just write it down
Chicago's a homeland I love and I just really want to be there now
All this pretty talk of winter blossoming into spring
These are only my ideas, but, instead, I'm out in California and I don't got nothing

But, I might belong somewhere, at least, back in the midwest
I'm only just contemplating here, but, at best, that's my second guess
Yeah, it's all just an aphrodisiac of faith
And look at me; yeah, just watch because I seem to have found myself out of place

And girls - they're the ones who brought me here
Nah... Only one when we talk particulars, but she's not been found to be anywhere near
Girls pretty much are the fire that fuels my soul
Without them, and lacking objectification, I've noplace left to go
From all'f this, yeah, a great chasm's been built
Spinning on my axis and no... I seem to have lost my tilt Just working my way; getting the hell out of there />Maybe Kansas City, St. Louis, Greenville, or Indy... no, not there />That's where my true love resides, but even that's only in theory />Honest to God, I don't know where she is or where she's gone, so I can't guess she's even anyplace around to be found

Past and Present

She was always peaceful even when I haven't been
All those noises constantly parading themselves around in my mind led me once to have haughty eyes
Only to realize in the few seconds after something's said what I truly meant by it
Muses; muses are... my life

For the time being, she's sitting at a table by herself, having forgot me and a time ago
That's how it is when she sees me, getting up, as she's the one to come closer
No... Not me; I hate being watched
But, hey; if we're honest here - I feel it all the time, everyday

Living out on the fringes of society; that's where she and I clash
It might be where we all clash and why, when I do this, it never tends to last
With the tensions that arise, I might ought need to stop
All that's needed there, though, is a pretty face, as pheromones get released into the air, to make me decide responsible I'm not

Unfairly deriving information from harmless insects because that's how small I feel in times like these
Harmless insects, in relation to flowers; not just this, not just that, but all will come to fruition in sex
Just doing the same thing over and over and over; unaware what else will suffice
Words tend to gather and pollenate, but - oh, no; I know - this is far from a laughing matter

Squashing concepts like the tiny, little bugs they are
Hoping to be able to come back to life with the success of the next swat
Running down a motion that never stops and I'm tired, not wanting to point fingers with the desire that remains
There's more to it than I give it credit for they say, but I'm always tarrying on whether or not I can believe it

In that dark place again; as soon as I came I wanted to leave
But the silence - it beckons -, and no one deserves to hear the shit I think up
She and that time is missed, but I don't think...
As I sit, staring wide-eyed, her bringing salad to her mouth from a table ten steps down

Well, she was peaceful - too beautiful for even my own mind -, but, as the sights re-sound, the waves crowd and corrupt, making themselves too visible for me to be able to recognize if it's still so...
I love her, but she's Everywoman in her own time, regardless of the pockmarks she leaves on me.

Cobwebs

What the hell's wrong with you, man?
No, you know it's just not my thing;
I'm always on the lookout for a muse to light my way...
So, I can't suggest it ever was to be like this, but what do you got to bring to the table this time?

And I prithee you don't use circumstance to make me feel like shit;
Nor do you point fingers at what you don't understand and attempt providing your own solution.
'Cuz we're all free in this fucked up mixture, standing bright under this shady palm; the invitation's open for you to join!
But don't - oh, no; please don't - assume and bring your false pretense `round here when you come by...

Because I was just on my way there when
You up and denied me access with your upright, locked position in this mess,
So, with that, I just turned a blind eye that way and wondered why I even still gave a damn;
With this in mind and your questions never-ending, I just don't know what to say:
It just gets so exhausting having to repeat the same, old story over and over again...
And I think you know the answer, so just stop trying to sweep the cobwebs off the floor.

But, now, with things picking up, you look at me, scared that I don't need you for...
I can't securely say I have a case there, but I might not want to do this anymore.
Yeah... I always thought you to be beautiful even when you weren't here;
Don't you know it hurts, though, when I can't tell you my deepest sentiment?

Chorus

Resignation

Upgraded from an earlier vowel to a much simpler "or",
But, really, what is all this nonsense even for?
We all always tend to find ourselves caught up in an endless haze
Settling for the answer once found, not instead still using windows to alight the way through this hectic maze...
The gaze is uncertain, unsettling to say the least;
Certainty, though, is the thing we're after; it has been ever since we landed somewhere due east.

There's a subtle, steadily dropping, never stopping well of sorrow ascertained within this precept -
All of which has stemmed from the fact I can't explain you the reasons why I left.
And, oh, I'd painstakingly gone back for to begin at once upon a time,
However, I then did what I had to out of a coward's heart, being misled into a fool's paradise, so let's pay that no never mind...
My stomach's got that hardy aroma back now; it finally kind of hurts again!
You say you're sorry for me, but, suffice my saying so, that's not to be allowed...

No... I feel sorry for you; you don't seem to remember when,
But here, now, I'm only spitting to the crowd;
As for you, I apologize to the select few who silently, respectfully disagree -
Oh, no, though... Watch out! Even if you say you're one with them, you still very well may not be.
Honestly, I can't rightly say I even know they truly exist...
That's what she told me once and it gave me hope, but, as time wore along its merry routine, it came apparent she didn't care to learn, rather, instead, asking me to leave it alone if I wouldn't take to the ethic she was presenting.

It gets sticky right there, though; I've already been warned and I don't care.
We don't have time for each other is how it seems to stand, so I'll just be a snare;
Because it's really all about you or isn't that what you just told me?
Embracing this stench - the one that really isn't - is what's truly set me free!!!
Caution is more of a necessary treading along these lines, though...
Unable to say to you what I truly mean, accepting the fact I don't know how, as I admit I've nothing left to show.

But that's just not good enough; no, you want me giving evidence, something tangible;
Yeah... I already did that with a result that proved unfruitful, so I've chose to remain negligible...
To admit to light, seeing truisms, but I can't outrightly say they represent the truth -
Just to say none of it's clear and I'm completely okay you're not okay with that, no matter how uncouth the statement;
I've got to watch myself now, though, because I always classify them, you even, as "they",
And that, at times, isn't fair, for me to separate you from them, but words are my life, in spite of the endless tangle that provides, and it complicates more everyday.

Third Coast Participation

*The morning following, though, we four all got up, Marcus coming down the stairs mentioned previous, Jarvis coming up another set of stairs from the basement, both to the main room where Kevin and I’d been laying on the couches and, as we all got around to throwing on the attire for the festival we were taking off to in the next little bit, we’d all snapped pins representative of the piece we were winning the award for, ones Jarvis said he’d had made for each of us, to our jackets as well and, by the time the eight of us – Marcus, Jarvis, Eliab, Bailey, Caleb, Corbin, Kevin, and I – met in the lot behind the ballet studio, as I guess it was to be considered, where the festival was being held, we all had them on; on the way there, though, we’d stopped along the way then to pick up Eliab and Bailey, both of them from their respective locations, Caleb and Corbin having come in a separate vehicle then, the girls, Heather, Mason, and Emily arriving somehow other as well… After the group of us had congregated and discussed the supposed events of the day, prior to their having taken place, we all walked around the corner from where we were, as they all stepped into the entrance of the building, and then we all crowded into the elevator – the one Kevin and I rode down again shortly after with our friend, Deg, to step right outside, down the sidewalk a tad, just to the side of the building and have a cigarette together – to make our way up to the next floor where everything was happening; as we all got off the elevator then and stepped across the way, into the registration room, things started narrowing in my intentional mind as I began making my way around, picking up my nametag from one of the higher-ups, June, meeting an older lady named Jocelyn who I’d supposed to be a fellow producer, and buying a Third Coast Pidgey shirt, picking up a similarly themed pin from NYU student, Celeste, the girl I was most struck by, taken with, that day, as I’d mostly sat there, by the table where she was, that morning, having got her email address from her and all, in the process and the most exciting thing, that which gave me cause to even feel a little bit silly, about that was the fact that the three of them were already familiar with the name, smiling at me while I introduced myself, laughing, even though I’d not met them before. Stepping into the next room, the lounge situated before the door that led into the hall with Studios A, B, and C – the one where we all did the active presentation we were there to do –, the ones being used for the day by all of us, as we were sitting, listening to the radio stories as they were being presented to the masses, Kevin bought us both breakfast bagels before running into and introducing me to a girl named Leslie and, as he stepped out of the room to go do something or other, he told me to be on the lookout for Jad, telling me then some of his features, even though I’d not seen him while Kevin’d disappeared, before introducing Deg and I as the three of us went down to the bottom floor to have a cigarette, talking during that time about Deg’s upcoming travel plans, that being yet another reminiscent moment for me, looking out to the street and all that was in front of us, being in Chicago once more. My two favorites, out of all the pieces heard that day, the two most piercing ones in my opinion, were a Wiretap piece, to start off with, called First Steps, hosted by Jonathan Goldstein, who’d actually gotten up for a question/answer session in the studio where the piece’d been shown after that segment of time and stories had finished, a Canadian chap, one of the apparently larger names in radio, Kevin and I’d run into and chatted with a bit on another of our cigarette breaks that afternoon, and another Radiolab piece, which, I’m about certain Jad had gotten up and gone to the front of the room for the same reason Jonathan did at the end of that segment, about a couple who Kevin and I’d run into, stepping off the elevator and onto the yacht later that night, and had made some small talk with as well, called Lost & Found, both of which still bring tears to my eyes and, ultimately, I think I can say sitting up at the front, as I was both of those times, in the darkened rooms, hearing those pieces particularly, was, most likely, the highlight of the whole experience for me, being among those people, my people. Incidentally, as I’m pretty sure was the case, Celeste, June, and Jocelyn were in Studio C with us during the segment when we did our live performance and we then had our own question/answer time to close that one out, however, going into that room I felt Jocelyn had taken a comment Marcus had made to me about not walking even when I could snidely even though that’d been the joke among the lot of us the whole day and, honestly, that finished souring my already somewhat soured opinion of her because, along with the fact she’d not even known about it – the joke –, I’d picked up the tinge of a threat I was sensing from the watchful vibe she’d been putting off toward me all day, a negative aside; I felt kind of stupid, too, if we’re going to be honest here, simply from the fact of being paralyzed the rest of the day around this girl, Celeste, only being able to look and gawk at her all the other times we’d come across each other after having sat with her that morning, as I’d been able to talk to her then, but she sat somewhere behind me in the room during that segment.
*Thinking about us all being in that room now, though, is somewhat comical because Brandon, the guy I’d mentioned before who sat behind me at the VFW party, and his crew had their award-winning piece presented during that time as well and, I mean, just with their having been the last group of people at the ceremony that night to have won an award and then, with our being the first group, it’s just a funny thing to look back on and consider now… When our moment in the spotlight had ended, though, after we’d all vacated the room we were in for the past hour or so, there was an hour-and-a-half or so break in the festival day as most of the people who’d attended that day dispersed from the building to go grab some dinner I’d suppose, but, as we were all leaving, there were these dancers dressed in costumes, covered, head to foot, in bluish purple fur, doing, I guess, some kind of African dance, so, it seemed, we all congregated there for a brief while in the lobby, watching that performance, with the chatter filtering its way throughout the crowd; after making our way out from that, though, the eight of us went down the sidewalk a little ways after coming out the entrance to the building and went around the corner then, making our way to a hotdog place, where, though the pickings were slim for Kevin and I, both of us being vegetarians, we still were able to make out alright with the meals I covered for us then, but, again, just before going into the food joint, as we all were standing outside, laughing and joking, the joke about me sitting, being pushed here and there when I could’ve been up, walking around, continued with one of Kevin’s legs perched on one of the wheels of my chair, an arm rested on his perched knee, as I was in it and he was situated in a thinkers’ pose while a snapshot was being taken of that moment. After eating – all of us –, though, we’d all gone back to the place where we’d come from and, shortly after getting back, the selected assortment of us who were still there all shuffled into the auditorium where the awards ceremony, which was hosted by Peter Sagal, the official host of Wait. Wait. Don’t Tell Me!!!, was about to take place and once everything’d gotten settled, people taking their seats and all, the short bit of the piece for which we’d won the award played and we were called up to the podium afterward and I’d had the first word, being followed by Marcus who then handed the microphone off to Kevin after he was done speaking, Kevin then making a laughable speech, hinting, rather unsubtly, about the possibility of getting a job with WNYC in New York and, apparently, probably not as an afterthought, though, that worked because, at some point in the ceremony then, possibly even right after we’d all gone back to our seats upon receiving the award, I think it was Jocelyn who’d told Jad, from up behind said podium, to watch out because Kevin might take his job, at which point the whole room chuckled; that was actually the first time I’d ever really been nervous, finding myself at a loss for words initially, to speak in front of a crowd, allegedly asking Kevin what I should say, to which he just smiled and replied by telling me to be myself, though I doubt I showed a moment’s hesitation once Peter’d handed me the mic, but Mason told me, at some point after the whole of it, that she thought I’d done well up there. As it all then came to an end, before the whole crowd of us started to exit and make our way to the yacht, a place where Kevin’d initially told me in an email, at some point shortly before I’d flown in, that we’d be able to get drunk on a boat, which, for me, brought the initial reaction to mind of, “I’m on a boat!!!”, both Mason and Heather, as I recall, and perhaps Emily, too, gathered us all – the eight of us – together for a picture in front of the stage, podium, and powerpoint presentation screen in the room as I began making small conversation, talking and laughing with Peter, who I saw again briefly at the party and who Kevin then referred to as my boy, which was pretty nice and, honestly, made me feel kind of cool and good about myself, further confirming my fresh connections within the industry, we then made our way out of the building and back to the garage where Marcus’d parked the car earlier that morning, debating, however, whether to even go to the party, but when we’d all shown up nearer to the pier, walking along the sidewalk to get to the yacht, Kevin started joking, making plans, comically suggesting about all the things he’d be saying at my funeral, which, oddly enough, was actually kind of an enjoyable contemplation for the time being because… Coming onto the yacht, though, we ran into Jad in the basement there and we’d all formed a line then – Jad, Kevin, me, Marcus, Eliab, Caleb, Bailey, and Jarvis -, Kevin handing me the radio placard as we all stood while Emily and Heather both took pictures of us, but Corbin and Mason weren’t there, them having already gone home or something, before we’d all gone up to the top and, as Kevin and I were stepping off the elevator, we ran into the couple from the Lost & Found piece and talked to them for a bit, their having heard Kevin’s and my voice in the clip just played in the room where we’d all come there from, and I was so pleased to have met them before the day’d gotten over; when the two of us’d stepped out from the elevator entry, into the main space, I’d sat back in my chair just observing the crowd, smoking cigarettes as they were handed to me, merely sipping on some wine, not really intending at all to get drunk that night, but, as the night wore on, Bailey came up to me, asking me about how many drinks I’d had and, upon my response then, she’d told me that they were going to stop serving free drinks after 10:30, telling me something along the lines of, “Drink up!”, and, I guess, taking that as the silly, fun suggestion that it was, I started gulping things down more fluidly, so, after I’d finished my fourth wineglass, I started to wrap my right hand around a beer bottle and the rest is lost to me, but, apparently, as I’d found out the next morning, waking up on a mattress on the floor of Marcus’s, Jarvis’s, and Neil’s apartment, my night had ended quite a bit sooner than most of theirs.
*That night, though, was the first of my blackout drunk experiences, so, I guess, I’ll just go ahead and aide memoire here in repeating about how it’d already been initially pointed out that we’d be getting drunk on the boat and get drunk I did, so, as I came out of the bathroom the morning following, Kevin sprawled, but awake, on the shorter of the two couches, I sort of shouted out to him, “Dude!!! What happened to my face?!”, asking him, at some point in the conversation, if the bust had happened before or after the yacht party, which he told Jarvis about sometime in the day, and we all sort of laughed then at my expense, but, as I’d think would be pretty needless to mention, most of the other particulars are pretty faded and tucked away in my mind, however, there are a couple memories that I can vaguely recall, along with a phone conversation I’d had with Jarvis some months later, that I’m somewhat hopeful will be enough to map out these shady details of the story for you. There was mention pending from Marcus, too, that day, as we all were laughing, reminiscing, about the bathroom incident the night before and it really is sort of funny how, as I’d hope would be the case for each of us, there appears to be this kind of definite distinction between memories coming out of a drunken state and the lighting of such instances that stands in direct opposition to the same surfacing from one of sobriety, something noticeable still able to be contrasted, but I could picture myself struggling to work my stomach hard enough to lean forward and coordinate my legs at the same time to stand up, getting out of my chair, and, somehow, steady myself in front of the urinal with, probably, one or two guys on either side of me, upholding me by the arms, as I was then focused on urinating; the thing that was so great about Marcus’s description of those moments, though, was in the way we all then started poking fun at me for just undoing my belt and zipper, just letting my pants fall to my ankles then, as a child would, all the while with them keeping me from falling backward, laughing in response to my helplessness, so that’s one… The other of the, I think, only two vague memories I have came in relation to the state of my face just then and is a story I still tell and laugh about whenever the subject arises, but, as the group of us were heading back to the car from the yacht, apparently, and I remember this part quite well, we’d all burst out in the song, “Wake Up,” by Arcade Fire while walking down the ramp there, in the parking garage, and, as I was being pushed in my wheelchair by, as I’m pretty sure it was, Marcus, my foot caught the ground, during an interjection interlude in the song, and I collapsed directly as a result, smacking my nose against the smooth pavement, and – pause… The five, still coherent at that point, all picked me up off the floor and helped me back Into my chair, crowding around me, panicked, yelling, “Allie! Allie! Are you okay?”, and, after the few moments’ silence on my part, all just looked around at each other, chanting in unison, “Oh, no! Oh, no! We killed Alan!” –, after the few minutes it took for me to catch my wind again, I opened back up, shouting, right at the place where I left off. It’s a funny consideration, though, I think, to think about the things our minds choose to latch onto and why, not really knowing the reason behind the things we can’t remember compared to those we can, but I remember it being, to an extent, regrettable, on the phone a few weeks later, when Jarvis and I were talking, laughing, about my aforementioned state of drunkenness, but, more particularly, about the time, I guess, after I’d grabbed the beer because, as he’d put it then, people were coming up to me, inquiring, curious to hear about my input on the piece just shown, but my mind was already completely gone and I was just staring blankly ahead while the questions were being tossed at me, before I set the drink down, sort of spilling what was left of it across the table and onto my lap. These are all things terribly loosely and unsteadily based on the momentous glimpses I possibly might’ve even imagined and, apart from that, from the things I’ve been told, so, I guess, I’m pretty proud of the fact I was able to get up when I did the next morning and go to brunch with Kevin, Jarvis, and some other producers before they all parted to, for the most part, fly back to each of their respective locations, after which the three of us went to a local bookstore to meet up with a fellow producer from London, Elisabeth, who we all then spent a good portion of, who Kevin and I then spent the whole day with, before dropping her off at her hotel that night so she could catch her plane back In the couple hours following, where the three of us – Kevin, Jarvis, and I – stumbled upon a classic comic, so to say, a children’s book in some regard, that she started making fun of us for looking at and finding enjoyment with, which I then bought and kept with me.

Much More Illuminated

Can you understand that I started over, that all this walking around isn't merely me?
And that's not what life's about, but this makes sense to me...
Who cares about it anymore, though? I've already made an idiot/ass of myself.
People are finally starting to react now; I see a riot coming up over the horizon and we're pissed!!!

And you can finally call me one of them, retracting on the traction that's worn
Things are beginning to change, evolve, after so much, so long, of a similar repetition
It's all come `round to scientific methods, mathematic averages, and just shit like that
But, let me make it crystal clear, I'm one of them; not one of those

Yeah, that's not how this thing works and, really, has it ever been?
Because I'm allowed to be who I want to be, what I want to be included...
And how could it ever have been any different in accordance with anyone else, past or present?
We're all one in the same, are we not, and things are much more illuminated now, having chose a side.

Such a gruesome end, supposedly terminated, yet, actually only transferred in mysticism.
And it's not something any of us have the vocabulary to describe, so that's the way in which we're so easily challenged...
It's all such a heartbreaking mess only culminated by conspiracy,
But, you know what I'm talking about, don't you?

Then don't! You'll make me cry...
And, the way things have been formulating lately, I'm not sure that's a thing you want to do.
She cried once; it had an adverse affect on me -
On a park bench, as we sat once, when I still believed in love...

...and He's Come Out of Hiding

*Thinkers: not the best allies to align yourselves with. Joke. I’m a thinker; she’s a thinker; he’s a thinker; that’s what we all are; at least, what we have the potential for being at our utmost cores. And if that’s still too broad a contemplative jump to undertake, let me narrow it even further for you now: to the subject of she and I and a summer it then took me `til mid-winter the following year to recover from entirely. When we two began to fuck with one another’s emotions and I began to substitute that for the actual thing in the hopes it would eventually turn to the real thing, then, in a season’s absence on her part, things began to change, with a twist of apathy on mine, and, I suppose, that’s what happens when people like us start to mesh, to mould, with one another, uncertain of how delicately to proceed. And, as I now proceed to analyze the following, I’m beginning to recognize just how dangerous mixing spirituality and romanticism can be, a thing completely other than that of blending the former concept with that of love. The one has almost no place to reside with the other while the next has just about everything, in every aspect, to do with the one. Before this is taken any further, though, I think you’ll need to be aware that you’re in no position whatsoever to tell me otherwise. My eyes are cold, hard as granite now; they’re not soft and warm, nearly as inviting, like they were when we knew each other. And I haven’t seen that welcome simultaneously coming from hers lately either, so that’s what might’ve cooled the burnt-out ember past the point of even possible reignition.
*Probably sometime shortly after the halfway mark of June was when it all began happening; it was the summer, she was beautiful, and my heart melted at her posture when one of my friends here introduced the two of us. I swear it to God, though; when I spotted her, sitting from where I was, on a day prior to that one, the light peering out from behind those iridescently green eyes behind that pair of half-glasses automatically sent chills down my spine and I did my best to avoid any interaction whatever with her up to that point, but, as time had its way with me, the stars had another say in the matter. Hoping for something more precise to come of this, though, completely fucked with me because, reminiscing on a day going throughout the next couple-month span after the time, forcing myself to go over to the table where she was stocking goods and talk to her, when she’d given me her phone number, the usual presence that inhabited my being back in those times had gone out from me, that being a period when everything, only short of being suicidal, came to call; I was so glad, in those moments, she’d not come in that day to find me in that manner because I’d been in that spot before without any logical conclusion for why I’d not gone there then. She was young, though, and I probably knew better, though I’d gone the route opposing then, than to invest myself like I had because, as I’d come to find out, upon taking this swift plummet, one that I most possibly would’ve taken even had I known, we both eventually had our sights set for her to be able to go to Europe for the semester upcoming and, as it came to pass, those expectations were met; wait… that’s not it, though, so, casting all that aside… Dancing together, though, in that way, figurative, mystical, and exhilarating while it’d all been taking place though it was, with several instances when I’d just fallen to tears in sheer ecstaticism at the numerous recollections I find myself still holding onto these days are the few, impossible though they seem, to consider as ones not coming back now because of the way in which things have manifested themselves and they’re mine to claim; you can’t have them, this detachment not supposing to have happened. The apparent obsession, in the midst of all of this, though, actually comes more of the nature of the sciences, from experimentation, just in the way things work; that, along with the fact, realizing I’m not precisely the excavator I’ve always made the hopeful attempt at being, wondering where else my mind will wander as time goes on, is what drives me, and I thought this a fascination she and I had in common towards life, however, that possibly being the case, I hardly consider us to be pursuing such a matter in the same fashion anymore. The most difficult of issues at hand here, though, just comes at its being hard to accept sometimes that everything, as it ascertains to certain crowds, may not be appropriated likewise by others, but that doesn’t change the fact of the matter being that, after constant wear from the masses, some have turned a blind eye to cultural relevance, not complying with its mostly being about termination, the acknowledgement that there’s not a way to know if there even is a scientific explanation that needs pursuing.
*Nah… The essentiality of it all, after having fibbed to yourself so long, is the very thing romanticism gets mistaken for so much of the time. Everything else is just mishandled, nasty conspiracy so oftenly misconstrued, which even serves to turn people against each other in some regard. Contradictory and unpeaceable, but I’ll just let your mind wander freely here because there actually is a point I’m trying to make. Holism, want, and love – the three all coalesce with one another, understanding that love comes with persistence and, for such to be present, the thing so being must be sought after and, with its all making headway here, when it becomes apparent the thing so desperately desired by one is actually longed for by the relationships accompanying, thus is borne the stuff of holism. Merely as a side quotient now, though, the tragedy of it all occurs when things get jostled with, strewn about, thrown out of proportion because, as it so turns out, there actually is an order to things. Want can’t stand in place of holism, nor can either be brought to a standstill before love’s taken center-stage, so there won’t be any nonsense here as far as saying how substitution’s possible for one or the other before everything falls into its proper place. Oh, yeah… Memory. That, too.
*The story starts out, reaching more towards the end of things, slowly inching its way backward, but, as things remain now, it continues without a definite say one way or the other; the initiation, however, comes in telling about the latter half of this past October when I’d gone up to Chicago, having heard from the man with whom my soul aligns that we’d be receiving an award with our friends for a radiopiece the lot of us had done, with an insistence that I be there. So, I went, the details of the trip being deemed irrelevant, as that’s coming out in a whole other volume, except for one poignant detail made apparent the day after the festival, as we were strolling along a sidewalk in downtown Chicago, among friends, the man just made mention of above making the comment about the way I’d been walking being more unsteady and off-balanced than it was the last time we’d seen each other and the comment festered, making me reflect on a time, more toward the day we’d met, when I’d unjustifiably been annoyed with him for being unsupportive of my laziness. Somewhat silly, but yeah, that’s some of the shit I remember… Even after the lingering comment, though, I’d stayed, mostly using my chair, that being the case for the next couple months, its being, however, interrupted a little over halfway into it when I’d visited a dear college professor friend of ours, as he’d told me the same thing, prior to a night in a suburb of Chicago, repeating what our professor friend had mentioned to me about said condition to the man I’ve been making reference to all along, and he agreed, stating, more piercingly, about the way he wasn’t a fan. After that night, though, and the moments we’d had together then, it was still just so upon returning to San Diego until a few nights after, as I was sitting in the coffee-shop, waiting a couple hours more than was previously orchestrated for my ride, along with everything else that’d been going on at that point, I went mad with the personal chaos produced by all’f those noises in my head only I could hear, making the decision right then of not wanting this anymore. And, with the next day’s being New Year’s Eve, I just took it to recover from the night previous and, having already set the blasted wheelchair aside by then, I’ve just been walking around everywhere ever since having recuperated, and, having lost track of the chair now, making light of what’s being considered, I’ve just been strengthening and adepting myself accordingly as time continues to evade itself…