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Snow and Broken Glass before/after
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Well, the storm has since moved east, churninging up the plains with its innocence, obliviating all in a pale impenetrable curtain. Like a child on a rampage, it knows not good nor ill, just want and need, pure in its existance.
The innocence has melted here, become slushy brown with sin and age, but, like Old Bull Lee said,"America is an evil land. Old evil, which has been here long before us all."
I've been trying to pinpoint when I lost my innocence, and have come upon a raft of dates, dating up until this summer.
But what really is the definition of loss of innocence? I've been trying to pinpoint it for quite awhile now, and have come up with nothing meaningful to me. First fuck? First drink? First crime? First Fight? It all seems like arbitrary lines drawn in the sand of the slipperey slope.
Perhaps part of my karma is to be forever innocent, blushing and blind, the devil with angel's eyes.
Believe roomie is headed for the post c-party blues. I 've let my feelings be known to my roomates. Its not for me, and I do not like it. Conventional wisdom dictates prudence in these affairs.
The whole situation disturbs me, quite frankly. Roomie has a jeckyll-and-hyde deal going on with that stuff. This week he's sure to be a bitch to deal with, given the mound of white stuff he played with this weekend. He's already snapped at me once. Of course, I stood my ground, and snapped back. May've not been the brightest of exchanges, about nothing, hockey, if you will believe that, but I feel no need to start taking shit from anyone at this point in my life.
Let's see how this pans out...I have a feeling it may go south. Don moves in tomorrow and he has a limited conscience with the stuff.
There was a woman on the radio last night, having listners call in, and hitting them with questions from the Book of Questions.
A book with questions that are designed to provoke thought and discussion.
One of the questions: Would you be willing to have fitful, horrible nightmares every night for a year, if after that year, you received a million dollars?
Pathetic.
I live that life for free.
So yeah...basically sleep is tormented nightmare time, torture, pain, loss. And I love to sleep. Go figure.
Such is my life.
I thought of my childhood yesterday, specifically about my vice-principal. I was president of my class for three years (the only years I ran) , also vice-president of the entire council and an office assistant for one.
Basically, I had to spend a lot of time with that asshole. I could not stand him, and looked towards our daily encounters with all the enthusiasm of a Hutu walking into a Tutsi tribal meeting. Just an intolerable man, who always tried to get me to snitch on my classmates.
"You are my eyes and ears when you're out there. You KNOW this. I'm COUNTING on you." he'd say.
Well, don't count too hard. Of course I never snitched.
So it didn't take long for me to evolve a friday night ritual. I would have to help organize the dance and either provide chaperones, or delgate the resposibility. His son would go to the dance, along with his wife.
And every friday, like clock-work, I would get drunk as hell, roar into his court with my 79' monte carlo, finish off whatever beer bottle was in my hand, take it, sometimes those laying behind the seat as well , and I, and who ever I was with, would smash those bottles in his driveway and peel out. EVERY school friday. For YEARS.
And he never figured it out. Not once.
He'd ask me questions from time to time. It started with random complaints, like,"My neighbors keep throwing bottles in my yard." Not willing to admit the truth,then:"My neighbors keep throwing bottles in my driveway. At first I thought it was my son, greg...but I'm sure its them." Then, after confronting his neighbors about it (he came to school with a black eye, but I never ascertained the truth of the situation, however I suspect his confrontation skills were poor, at least with adults) the line of questioning turned to:"Do you know who keeps breaking bottles in my driveway?"
To which answers I could provide, in sound countenance I demurred, "No That sucks." or,"I have no idea what you're talking about.", always fleeing to pull my friends from class for gales of laughter. Then to repeat that ritual, once again, on friday.
In retro-spect I have to wonder, at least somewhat, although i have no real doubt, if he didn't at least suspect how someone had picked out his Time of Extreme Vulnerability. How he didn't know who put the puzzle together, and had access to all the information needed.
After a certain point, when he had falsely accused me of giving these random kids free passes into class to avoid unexcused abscences and tardies (which I didn't. I only gave them to certain friends, so we could go get high. Not the kids of which I was accused), it didn't matter, 'cause I came home dejected about being falsely accused, and my Dad went on the war path. He went into his office the next day and scared the living shit out of the man, in his stern, subtle-yet-not-so-subtle-way of eye contact and gritted jaw. The vice-principal gave me an apology later that day, looking rather pale, and let me go to lunch early.
Of course, I continued the glass barrage on his driveway. A man's got to have certain priciples and rituals, after all.
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