Lou Reed in Dark Water

After a perfectly lovely dinner complete with beer battered fish, mango salsa, coconut rice, topped off avec swampy cocktails, Tanner and I watched the Japanese version of Dark Water last night. The film's dark yellow, jaundiced colors and ominous tone create a uniquely somber mood. It rains constantly throughout the movie and you can almost feel the humidity seeping out of the television and coating your skin. The apartment building the mother and daughter move in to is dilapidated and dank, reminiscent of anonymous Communist Block housing. Like most Japanese horror films, Dark Water takes its time to get to the scary stuff. It creates an intense mood that sticks you to your seat and then it proceeds to weave this magical web around you and, before you know it, you are deep into its clutches and there is no turning back.

Without giving away the ending, I can say that it is really, terribly sad. It hit me in some deep, dark, water logged, secret place where the lonely roar seems almost deafening. It makes you want to hug your mother really hard until she tells you to quit it because you are a 32 yr old grown-up and you can't sob like a little baby anymore. Like the single mother in the film, our single mom has always loved us so very, very much. As the mother in the movie says to her little girl, "I think everything will be ok as long as you are with me."

Oddly enough, this film reminds me of a song we were listening to last night on Tanner's ipod: Lou Reed's "Perfect Day" off his Transformer album. Like Dark Water, "Perfect Day" is dark, dank and bittersweet. It is seeped through and through with loneliness, angst and suffering. But I always thought that made it an even more intense love song. Love and sadness are so closely intertwined, right? To me, that song was Lou Reed saying to the world, "Yes, life sucks the big one. You come into the world alone, spend most of your time here in pain getting knocked about and then you die alone...but, the big BUT, there are those little brief bursts of sunshine that make the madness bearable. Drinking sangria in the park, going home when it gets dark, dancing to slow songs in the kitchen, watching a movie and cuddling on the couch, drinking swampy juice, getting your hair brushed and even arguing about a sad song - all of these little bits and pieces make life worth every penny.

Tanner didn't agree that "Perfect Day" is a love song. He thought Reed was being sarcastic. Lou is pissed at this girl that keeps him hanging on when he wants to let go. Bitter, yes, but sarcastic...? I don't get that. Call me dippy if you will but Reed sounds so darn genuine. Or maybe that is just the soaring melodies that make it feel real to me...? What a sucker I am, eh?

The one thing we agreed on is that these perfect days, as nice as they may be for a momentary distraction, don't change the big picture. You still wake up the next day facing the same demons and sinking in the same dark water. But I think ultimately, it is like Reed's last refrain, "You're going to reap just what you sow" which says it all. It is your choice to reap something nasty and dank or something fresh and vital. You choose the path your life is going to take (unless you find yourself stuck in a Japanese horror film!!). And if that path can involve a homecooked meal, green cocktails, ciggies on the porch, spirited arguments and snuggles with the most special, wonderful and amazingly sarcastic boy ever, then bring it on. I mean, how many people can make you forget yourself so that you think you are someone else, someone good? That is one helluvah perfect evening. Sing it Lou...

Lou Reed
Transformer (1972)
Perfect Day
Just a perfect day,
Drink Sangria in the park,
And then later, when it gets dark,
We go home.
Just a perfect day,
Feed animals in the zoo
Then later, a movie, too,
And then home.

Oh it's such a perfect day,
I'm glad I spent it with you.
Oh such a perfect day,
You just keep me hanging on,
You just keep me hanging on.

Just a perfect day,
Problems all left alone,
Weekenders on our own.
It's such fun.
Just a perfect day,
You made me forget myself.
I thought I was someone else,
Someone good.

Oh it's such a perfect day,
I'm glad I spent it with you.
Oh such a perfect day,
You just keep me hanging on,
You just keep me hanging on.

You're going to reap just what you sow,
You're going to reap just what you sow,
You're going to reap just what you sow,
You're going to reap just what you sow...

PS Me and Lou Reed both got the golf ball eye disease!!!!

She Hangs Brightly

Today was one of those perfect dark days. The kind that make you want to curl up underneath a cat blanket with a dusty old book, a crackling fire and a pot of strong tea. I've been listening to this old tape of Mazzy Star's "She Hangs Brightly" in my car recently. It goes perfectly with this weather, my mood and the sky. The clouds have been trippy of late. Thick and rich, black and blue and multi-layered. It is hard for me to tear my eyes off of them to avoid ramming my car into people. Driving down Main Street toward the water at sunset was almost too perfect. The hard, black water sparkling in the distance and the sun bursting yellowish light through the black clouds in powerful shafts.

This Mazzy Star tape brings me back, way back to 1992-ish. It is funny how music can bring memories to life in a way that even smells or photos can't. I was 19 yrs old and at school in Norwich, England for a semester abroad. I spent my first month horribly lonely. I couldn't connect with the blase, fake-as-hell American bimbos or the redneck, pint guzzling Brit boys that populated my hall. It didn't make sense!? As one of the Brits pointed out while examining my music collection (a white boy named Miles Davis!!?), "All your music is British!"

It was true, I had been an Anglophile most of my life! I loved Brit music, literature, cinema, tea and the funny way they talked! My British accent was close to perfect, what was the problem? I was beginning to wonder if I could ever fit in, ever again. I spent so much time alone that I was beginning to lose my mind.

"Now how exactly does one speak out loud to other people?" I would ask myself. My only conversations were with people working in chip shops, newspaper stands and pubs. I spent hours upon hours alone in my room reading Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, wandering the city aimlessly, and drinking tea out of little plastic cups for 40 p.

My luck changed when I met Gabi, an Irish girl who had already graduated. She hooked me up with her clique of activist friends and got me a job scooping gourmet ice cream out of a little cart on a cobblestone street for 3 pounds an hour. Gabi was gay and most of her friends were too. We went to the only gay club in town and danced, drank, smoked rolled up ciggies and laughed our arses off. Then we'd eat tea and crumpets in the morning and I would tumble off to classes. Some girl with a large tattoo decorating her belly made me this tape of Mazzy Star. I listened to it constantly for months and took it on my trip to Ireland. This music will forever be entwined with the stark green Irish coastline and the bumpy bus ride that took us from Dublin to the coastal villages.

When I left England, I vowed to come back and live there very soon. 10 plus years later and I never set foot back in the country again, not even once. Even when I was in Switzerland visiting family. England, Gabi, Norwich, Reynaldo's Gourmet Ice Cream, and that lonely month at the University of East Anglia are wrapped up tightly in this old cassette tape like the newspaper surrounding my favorite meal of fish and chips. And it amazes me how popping a dusty old tape into my car stereo can bring all of it flooding back...just like that...

YouTube Bug-Eyed Fugly Frigid Man Troll

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. -Oscar Wilde

I have been having an odd experience at youtube. At first, it was all fun and games. Tanner got me started and within a couple of days of posting my first videos (mainly bits and pieces from The Deadbeat Club), Scott Westerfeld, one of the authors whose books we reviewed, (read "Pretties" and "Uglies" for some scary, futuristic fun) had watched our video review and plugged us on his blog. C'est magnifique! Thus began my love affair with youtube and up went a ton more DBC segments.

As is the way of the internet, next came the "haters", the "flamers," and the "missing a sense of humor-ers" and I began to wonder about the glories of youtube. The comments became cruel and personal and they seemed to be centered around the Britney Spears and Green Day segments. I was skewered for being a "bug-eyed, frigid man troll crack whore" (not necessarily in that order) and other such lovely descriptive terms. For example:

eew what an ugly narrating bitch, where does that thing get off dissing other people?! seriously with that bright red lipstick and big bug eyes make her look like sum crazy crack whore! and whats with the cheap lesbian video too? who cares if brit hasnt lost the weight shes still a great person so fuck off ugly crazy bitch!

Thanks btd456! At first, I tried to exlain myself to these little beasties:

"Now look here you kids, I like Britney Spears music! Like Spears, I myself have zits AND a double chin! I am lampooning her in the spirit of irony and comedy. I mean, don't you little turds watch Talk Soup? Do you see any colors besides black and white? Does grey even exist in your world? Why must you take everything so bloody literally?? And more importantly, learn how to spell you miscreants!!"

It was pointless, the hate mail continued and I stopped responding. The rabid Green Day fans were insulted by my tale about Billie Joe and his drunken temper tantrum. Again, I couldn't understand why this story would make them so angry? I mean, Billie Joe is an authentic punk rocker who throws temper tantrums and cusses out bar maids! That is rock star glory for you! He should be applauded and adored for his naughty behavior! He is the real deal kiddies! But no, instead all the teens ripped into me for making up lies about their perfect little saint of a punk rock star. Again, it doesn't bother me that they don't believe me, but why are they so humorless!? I have favorite celebs and what not too. But if someone made fun of Ewan McGregor (my dreamy favorite celeb), I wouldn't attack them personally for it. For example:

i just watched this video for a second time and it made me even more pissed. u can tell that this is fake. Billie Joe is the nicest person in the WORLD!! and he is not like that. he would never do that. and its funny u should say that u like Green Day bc it doesnt say u do on ur profile.

Thanks BillieJoeRox! And even better still:

WOT THE FUCK I WISH I CUD SHOVE THAT WOMAN SOMEWHERE WHERE THE SUN DONT SHINE

Thanks kerplunkedpunk! Again, this is the glory of the internet - random, anonymous attacks on a spiteful, personal level. What fun! And when a teenage girl told me to suck a guy's cock because I was so annoying, well, I wondered why the hell I was bothering to post the videos at all....or live in this country, world or solar system for that matter. Jeez. Quel bore.

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative. - Oscar Wilde

Listen to me, where has MY sense of humor gone? I mustn't be like these sour puss 13 yr olds who hate any shades of grey and humor beyond the potty variety (which I enjoy as well). My love affair with youtube was brief but I still get occasional kicks from it. Like my new youtube pal in So Cal and some nice emails from people in other countries who enjoy the show (!!??). That is all good. But it is always a terror to open up my emails and see who has ripped me to shreds each day. For example:

FUCK THAT STUPID ASS WOMAN! SHE CAN SUCK A GUYS COCK! GOD BILLIE JOE CAN YELL AT HER ALL HE WANTS BECAUSE SHE'S AN ASSHOLE!

Thanks XxAlexanderGordonxX !

These sort of lovely comments give me pause when I read my emails. I think to myself:

"Hmmm...I wonder if "billiejoeisgod" will have something pleasant to say. Oooh, it looks like, not. And what about "britneyluver2006". Ouch, no, that is making my skin ache....ouch. Is my head really shaped like an eggplant?"

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow. -Oscar Wilde

All this, and I am not even a popular youtuber! The popular youtubers tend to have videos about magic tricks, camel toes, funny accidents, or girls who talk to their computer cameras in monotones. Yipes! Pehaps this is 1% of what it feels like to be Tom Cruise. And Cruise, like the youtube teen watchers, seems to have no sense of humor or self awareness so maybe this crap rolls off quicker. Oddly enough, the Cruise scientology video I posted got lots of hits and no negative comments. Seems the rabid fans of scientology do not youtube...yet...(please don't sue me!!)...

Meanwhile, I am trying to take the daily youtube batterings and occasionally strokings with that famous grain of salt. I mean, soon there will not be much left about me to insult!!? They will have to get creative and then perhaps a sense of humor will begin to develop?! In fact, this flame about a Britney segment is rather well written, inventive and delivers a nice diss (yes, there are typos but that is standard):

I think that you are the deadbeat, look at you, you WISH that you could look a quater good as she does...i agree duckboy, this is the only place someone will watch your fugly face cause not even your "so called friends" will want to listen.... You MUST BE BORED, go and get a life golf ball eyes!!!!

You got me there Duchy0901! Oh well, try youtubing today!!! And if you stop by my videos, be sure to leave some creative comments (I beg of you, be kind)!

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much. -Oscar Wilde

Everyday is Like Easter Sunday

Tanner was nice enough to have me up to his family's Easter meals in Alburg and Highgate. We ate lots of tasty treats and had a neato time with his family. His grannies and grampy are the sweetest and his pop is super duper nice and understated. Tanner's dog Bean snorts like a pig when you put your head real close to her and give her kisses (which it is impossible not to do - over and over again). His grandparents live in a perfect little cottage right on the water in Alburg and his granny collects these cool little glass doo dads which are all over the house. They have an ancient, mysterious cemetery behind their house and it seems like they have found the best place in the world to spend their twilight years. It was one of those perfect, cloudy days which progressed slowly and calmly and involved decadent food, nice people, family and friends and lots of chill time in the car listening to blues, classical and jazz tunes. Here is a little montage to commemorate a gray, beautiful, rainy Easter Sunday in Northern Vermont.

Shoe Whore

"Women have a higher pain threshold," he said. "Men would not do this."
-Simon Doonan, the creative director of Barneys New York, had a simpler explanation for women's ability to wear the shoes they love.

Here is the thing. Like many girls, I find it hard to resist the persuasive pull of pretty shoes. In fact, walking by sweet smelling shoe stores, such as Stella, is nearly impossible to do. Just looking at their window display causes my mouth to salivate and my head to swim. Before I know it I am down the stairs and deliriously man-handling every pretty pump within range.

Now that it is spring and everyone is peeling off their layers and parading down Church St in all their naked glory, I find the pull of Stella too hard to resist. I have been good all winter, and even saved a little dough. It was time for a spring treat. So the other day I gave in to my addiction and bought some new shoes (at Stella as fate would have it). While walking around the store in my top 5 picks, I was amazed by how soft and comfortable they felt. Were these high heels or clouds?

"Wow," I thought to myself, "I thought heels were uncomfortable! But I could walk around in these for days! I'll never wear flats again"

I was in the middle of a shoe buying haze. The colors, shapes and styles were overwhelming me, I was frothing at the mouth, my head was cloudy and everything smelt like roses. My feet looked fabulous in the mirrors, I had to own these shoes! Must have them, have them all! Cha ching.

Moments later I was wearing the shoes down Church St.

"Ouch, ooch! Ow!! Oh my, this can’t be right." Clump, clump, clump. "Ooooow, oooch, owww!"

What had been a smooth, bed-of-roses-jaunt inside the store was like walking on stilts once I was on the cobblestones of Church St. I clomped along at half my normal speed to avoid breaking an ankle. It seemed like any moment I might hit a big cobblestone and topple over. Normally I walk quickly and sturdily, with a bit of a bounce. In these new shoes I felt precarious and vulnerable. If Church St was a jungle, any lioness worth her salt would have sensed my weakness and attacked me first. I would be dead meat in my pretty new high heels.

"How in the hell do women walk in these things on a regular basis? How can they navigate the streets of New York wearing these ridiculous things?? This is insanity!"

And the next day when the blisters popped up and lasted all week, I knew it was worse than insanity - it is sheer madness. How has the fashion industry managed to convince women that beauty can only be attained through suffering? Worst yet, I love these beautiful stilt shoes as well! I am infected with the beauty myth virus!

When I was growing up, my feminist mother made it very clear that high heels were awful for a woman's body and nothing but trouble. I grew up thinking everyone knew heels were bad for your body. Mom wore no make-up, jewelry, new clothes or high heels. She was about as traditionally feminine as an eggplant. We all wore hand me downs and thrift store fair. It never bugged me much when I was a kid. After all, I was a tomboy climbing trees and wandering the woods all day, what did I care about high heeled shoes for?

In my teens I longed for clothes from the mall and department stores. My first big purchase was a shiny white bubble dress (now back in style again, damn it, wish I still had it!) and white high heels with circles cut into them. I had no place to wear these clothes to in rural Johnson, Vermont. But I dressed up in them and wore them around my house and imagined one day I would have pretty places to wear my pretty shoes to.

In my 20s I indulged my inner girl to her utmost. Since my mother never taught me how to be a girl, I picked up bits here and there. Brandy taught me how to die my hair and pluck my eyebrows. Joy taught me how to apply lipstick and Robin taught me how to do it without a mirror. Nessa taught me about toenail painting and Jen showed me how to scour the thrift stores. I amassed bits of jewelry, lingerie, shoes, make up and other girlie fare.

Now that I'm in my 30s, I try to indulge my inner tomboy and my inner girlie girl. It's sometimes tough to balance them but somewhere in the middle is where I am most at ease. I guess that is part of the growing up process, finding exactly where your own style preferences reside.

In China, women once bound their feet to attempt to attain a higher social status. There is no easier way to make someone powerless than to take away their power of movement. Even more extraordinary is when women choose to bind their own feet, by choice. And yes, I mean you and your Manolos SJP.

Oddly enough, I still love my high heels. I love to look at them and fondle them and sometimes wear them out in public. But the other 95% of the time, give me flat, secure shoes that I can walk tall, proud and confidently down Church St in. Cause I know when the jungle comes to town, the lioness will be far more attracted to the teetering high heeled ladies than to my solid frame.

Toothless Circus Freak

Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats.
- Diane Arbus, photographer

Ok, so my bum is healed but now my face is all busted up. Imagine, if you will, being pummeled in the mouth by two prize winning fighters for 2 hours – only these fighters have the additional assistance of sharp steel instruments with which to poke around in your sorry ass mouth as you bleed and gag. Got a nice vivid picture? Can you feel the hammer slamming the screws into your jaw bone? Taste your blood as it seeps past the suction tubes? Smell the fighter's after shave as he punches you over and over again?

Well, that is the joy I underwent in a dentist’s chair 2 weeks ago while getting dental implants. Apparently, I was a very “tough case” (he tells me laughingly afterwards). Oh yeah, not only are my missing teeth front and center (thus making mistakes all that more awful) but my bone mass has receded so they jammed some cadaver bone up there to pad the sucker. That’s right, there are anonymous dead people in my head. And when I ask them about who these people are and where they come from, all I get is weird looks. Like you wouldn’t want to know if there were dead people implanted in your gums??! Duh!


“There's a quality of legend about freaks. Like a person in a fairy tale who stops you and demands that you answer a riddle.”
- Diane Arbus

All of this melodramatic trauma goes back to when I was 9 years old. I was riding my bicycle up a hill near our apartment in Johnson, VT. It was a hot, muggy day and I was coming back from the swimming hole with my friends Noah and Erin. My bike chain had a history of falling off out of the blue, and it decided to fall off once again, only this time I was pushing my way up a hill. My head flew forward and smacked the handle bars. Next thing I knew, I was on the ground and there was hot liquid dribbling out of my mouth. I put my hand up to catch it and it was immediately filled with blood. I felt no pain. But I also didn’t feel a tooth where there had been one moments ago.

Later, when I was home and cleaned up, I remember staring in the mirror at the gap where my front tooth had been. I had only grown it in a couple of months ago and now it was gone. A clean hole was all that remained. If I had known then what I know now about the years of pain, suffering and money that would be sunk into that gaping hole, I imagine I would have crumpled up in a ball and sobbed. Instead, I just wiggled my tongue through the gap and marveled at the presence.

Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot. It was one of the first things I photographed and it had a terrific kind of excitement for me. I just used to adore them. I still do adore some of them. I don't quite mean they're my best friends but they made me feel a mixture of shame and awe.
-Diane Arbus

Fast forward through braces, flippers, and flippers accidentally thrown in the trash only to be dug up after dinner to when I was 16 yrs old. I was living in Indiana with my father and a dentist decided to improve the aesthetics of my smile by giving me a new bridge. To do this, he pulled out my second front tooth - which happened to be perfectly healthy and was not hurting anyone. Then he shaved the two teeth on either side of my (now gone) front teeth down to little skinny teeth. He glued a 4 tooth bridge on top of them and called it a day.


For many years, this bridge served me well and all was fine and dandy in the land of teeth. In fact, over the years, I almost forgot that these fake teeth were not my own. They became a part of me, much like my real teeth had once been. Fast forward to 15 years later and the bridge is loose. Dentist after dentist (yes, I asked them all) tells me that I have to get dental implants. “No, no, no,” I say. I do not have 10 G to spend on new teeth. I like my old teeth. We have been together for 15 years!! We are attached, literally! Do not take away another part of me!

After much grumbling, complaining and putting off, I finally made the appointment to get the implants. The surgery lasted for 2 hours and even though they asked me to go under, I chose to stay awake. I went under to get my wisdom teeth out and felt awful afterwards, as though I had died and been resurrected or something. I wore my big headphones and played my ipod on shuffle and tried to pretend I was on a desert island. This was hard to do when the hammering commenced. Yes, hammering. They hammer the titanium screws up into your skull and your entire head reverberates. They also cut your gums open, flip them up and carve away at your bone ridge before hammering. But I am not here to disgust you. I am not here to complain about my bruised face and lip; the days of pain and suffering and healing and exhaustion; the creepy stitches that I have to leave in for 3 bloody weeks which make me smile all weird like I have facial tics; or the fact that I have to eat everything with a knife and fork, yes, this includes hamburgers and sandwiches.

“Everybody has that thing where they need to look one way but they come out looking another way and that's what people observe. You see someone on the street and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw. It's just extraordinary that we should have been given these peculiarities. Something is ironic in the world and it has to do with the fact that what you intend never comes out like you intend it.”
- Diane Arbus


No, I am here to tell you about the joys of being toothless! That’s right, I am coming out of the closet as a toothless super freak. We value teeth as one of the signs of good breeding and class status. Being toothless immediately throws you in with the the circus freaks, the unfortunates, those who are unable to afford good dental care. Turns out I am not alone in my freakiness. Shane MacGowan of The Pogues is my new super hero. He let his teeth slowly rot away due to drink and poor hygiene and eventually they all got pulled. And does Shane go around wearing the fake teeth the record company bought him? Hell no! Shane McGowan is a crazy drunk Irish rock star and he stalks around stage toothless and proud!

Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you are behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory.
-Diane Arbus

So viva le freaks! And may we all take out our fake teeth and be proud of our toothless status. And may my new $10,000 smile be worth every damn bloody, cadaver-filled penny.

Sunday Drive Down Memory Lane

"You know, more and more I think that for many years I looked at life like a case at law, a series of proofs. When you're young you prove how brave you are, how smart; then, what a good lover; then a good father; finally, how wise, or powerful, or what-the-hell-ever. But underlying it all, I see now, there was a presumption. That I was moving on an upward path toward some elevation, where - God knows what - I would be justified, or even condemned - a verdict anyway. I think now that my disaster really began when I looked up one day - and the bench was empty. No judge in sight. And all that remained was this endless argument with oneself - this pointless litigation of existence before an empty bench. Which, of course, is another way of saying - despair."
- The Fall, Albert Camus 1913-1960

Today T and I drove to Johnson to see my old hometown. Last Sunday we used our one shared day off to drive out to T's hometown of Highgate. Last weekend was dark and dismal which made for perfect driving weather. Today was sunny with a bit of a chill in the air and we opened the sunroof and soaked up the rays. We listened to old indie rock mix tapes and sang along with Yo Lo Tengo, Stereolab, Guided by Voices, Daniel Johnston and Sebadoh.

You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.
Albert Camus


I lived in Johnson, VT for about 8 years from age 7 to age 15. We left Manhattan when I was 7 because my mom wanted to raise us in the country. We traded the swanky Upper East Side and a liberal Montessori school for a remote apartment at Johnson State College and the tiny Johnson Elementary School. It was a tough transition at first but I spent most of my time outside running around with the other kids in the apartment complex, staying out from morning until dark most summer days. We became country kids and the city seemed like a distant memory. Someplace we visited occasionally to see our father.

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.
Albert Camus

It was harder living out in the middle of nowhere once we got to be teenagers. Johnson had one restaurant, which closed at 6pm. No movie theater, bowling alley, bar or pizza parlor. Main St consisted on one blinking stoplight, a hardware store (still there today!) and a Grand Union. I was bored out of my skull with a bad attitude and nothing to do with it. My best friend and I would roam the streets at night just looking for trouble. All the lights in the town were usually out by 9pm and we spent lots of our time up at the college getting into any trouble that we could, looking for excitement, an escape from the everyday.

We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking. In that race which daily hastens us towards death, the body maintains its irreparable lead.
Albert Camus

Occasionally mom would drive us the 1 hour to Burlington (this entailed much begging on our part) and we would get to spend luxurious hours in the "big city" eating at McDonalds (such a treat!) and wandering around the mall and Church St. The drive to Burlington has such sweet memories for me because it meant we were finally getting out of the doldrums, we were headed toward the "big city" where anything might happen!

We continue to shape our personality all our life. If we knew ourselves perfectly, we should die.
Albert Camus

I used to visit Johnson every time I came back to Vermont on my bi-yearly visits from California. We'd walk in the woods at Married Student Housing and visit all our old haunts. But since I moved back to VT for good, I've been avoiding Johnson. There are too many ghosts there, too many memories, and now that I live in this state for good, they seem almost inescapable. A part of me feels like I betrayed my teenage Johnson-self. The girl who was bored stiff and dying to get the hell outta Dodge, get to the big city to lead a life of glamour and adventure, hat girl would be SO pissed at me! Pissed at me for making it to the big city and then LEAVING IT to come back to VT.

She'd be like, "Ewwww, are you, like, crazy or something? You got the hell out of this rat hole and then you came BACK??!! What is your problem?"

Then again, the younger version of me loved Johnson. Loved catching tadpoles and fireflies on hot summer nights. Loved digging in the dirt and making mud pies. So perhaps she would not be as angry with me for this return to VT, this return to the country and a slower, nature-filled life.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures - be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.
Albert Camus

In Johnson, T And I stopped at The Bad Girl's Café for coffee, chai and a turkey sandwich. Obviously, none of this cool stuff was in Johnson when we lived there 15 yrs ago. Now there are art galleries, an art school, yoga studios, a bookstore (!!) and a bad girl's café. It is a whole new town and even though there is still just one blinking stoplight in the center of town, you know there is more action round those parts these days. We visited the college, drove past my old ratty apartments, and the stretch of woods we used to roam. I rattled off the names of all the families whose houses I used to hang out at as we drove past them. "There is the Coles' house (her aunt's farm is down below), the Seymour's farm (she went to prom with my best friend), the Lehouiller's farm, the Manchesters (a house of boys that we were all in love with), the Bedfords, the Sladycks, the Paris' (her father taught Biology), the Mehrten twins live up that hill (only I could tell them apart), the Sullivan's (his grandma was my 2nd grade teacher)….etc…"

All these names still rattle around in my head but I haven’t gotten aournd to calling these old friends from childhood and high school to see if they still live in the area. What they are today and who they grew up to become is a great mystery to me. I left when I was 15 years old and we kept in touch for a couple of years and then, well, time happened and the ties faded. Sometimes this wears on me - all these memories from the past and no updated memories from the present to match them with. Maybe that is why I was in a thoughtful, introspective mood most of the day, despite the bright, bright sunlight, the beautiful mountains whizzing past, the peppy indie pop tunes and the swell company.

"Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day."
(Albert Camus / 1913-1960 / The Fall / 1956)

The mountains rose high above us as we drove back home to Burlington. Once again, I felt the old familiar thrill of knowing I was headed to the big glamorous city where there would be McDonald's fries, a stop at the mall, a glimpse of a cobblestone street lit up by lights and people and places to be seen with and around. So maybe I haven’t dealt with all the ghosts that still reside in my small "hometown" but perhaps I can deal with what is happening tomorrow and the day after that, and next week, well, maybe I can handle that too.

"If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life."
(Albert Camus / 1913-1960 / The Myth of Sisyphus)