Dear K, And just like that I hit a wall. Something happened. I don't know I guess the wind shifted. A veil came down. I need someone to lay in my bed and whisper to me. Whisper to me until I'm asleep. I want a pair of arms to hold onto me. As strong as I am I need a little help lifting this weight. Lately I've stopped believing she exists. I've been looking in the mirror and telling myself I'm just going to have to talk to myself for a while longer. I've been alone in crowded rooms before. I couldn't stand anyone this week. I've let petty things cut me down. I need some help with this weight. Something is sitting on my chest. When I walk around it moves to my shoulders. Tell me I'm good, tell me I'm great, and I'll try to believe you long enough to lift the weight, K

Apple Pie!

Dear K, Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! Yes. I am so excited for you! New friends are awesome! I make 'em all the time. Last night I had drinks with a very pretty girl. I don't think I'll ask her out again. She wasn't right for me. So tonight I will go out in the rain, with my umbrella and mustache and search for one that is. And tomorrow night I dance. Tomorrow night I dance for days. I shake my hips and waggle my arms, and sweat and stomp and stumble and struggle to the beat. I'm still building my body. I've found some muscles, and my shirts are starting to get tight around my arms. It's weird. I can lift really heavy things now. Someday I'll put this whole damn world on my shoulders, just because I can, K

the blood of job

Dear K- I’ve gone and done my best to break another heart. It wasn’t intentional- when is it ever intentional? The truth is that I am too emotionally fucked up to know right from left. The weirdest part? I’m happy. For some reason, I am having a great time with all this chaos and it’s a spark that has started burning wicks of my consciousness that have been dormant for a long time. It almost leaves me feeling guilty, to take pleasure from the creativity spurned by the angst of myself and those around me… I found some new friends who are damaged goods, just like me. Just like us. Last night we sat around and drank wine, discussing the facets of our lives that we don’t set out for the houseguests to see. We asked each other the thoughtful, probing questions that can only be phrased by a fellow victim and only answered in such company. It was interesting to relive those long buried thoughts and feelings and realize that in some cases, not much has changed. This is shaping up the be a very interesting summer. -K

Alive and Perfect

Dear K, I would encourage you to go out and meet those guys at their bars. You are only this young for a little bit of time, use it. Make bad decisions, meet bad people. I'm learning this slowly, but a date is a date is a date, it doesn't have to mean anything more than that. If you find someone you like, then you find someone you like, if you don't there's always the next one, and who says that it has to end back at someone's place. Anyway, what I'm saying is what I've always said to you: get out there. Make new friends, meet new people, meet everyone. I promise you everyone you will ever meet is interesting and worthwhile in their own way. Sure sometimes it takes a little work and mental stretching to find that nugget of golden humanity, but it is there every single time. I love people and I haven't met one that I'm not happy to have met, even the ones I don't like. I am enthralled with the idea that we all exist. In fact we shouldn't exist. The very fact that I breath, in fact the very fact that there is matter, let alone the fact that there is an entity that can contemplate existence, is unbelievably amazing and rare. I've been reading about the big bang, and I guess we shouldn't exist at all, but we do, and we know it, and oh my goodness we're all just little bubbles of beautiful improbability, and every moment we get, joy, sorrow, pain, suffering, ecstasy, all of it, is a wonderful rare beautiful thing. I am in love again, and it is with life. Please join me, When we have the time, and we will, I expect a dance, K

babylon

Dear K- I am glad that you are feeling well these days. I, too, have started to be active again after a month of distraction. It wasn’t by choice- my life was thrown into turmoil and the first thing to be sacrificed were the activities I enjoyed but which were not necessary- exercise being one of them. But now I have also rediscovered the morning. I’m remembering the feeling of awakening at the same moment as the sun, then running out to greet it before the dew evaporates and before the birds begin their dawn chorus. There is a comfort to running alone in the morning that I cannot feel at any other time of day. It is like a prolonging of the dream state- my mind still wanders along pondering this and that while my feet plod on the asphalt. Today I thought about what it means to be alone. I made the mistake of admitting to my newfound sense of unattachment last night at work. As soon as word got out that I was single I had coworkers lingering at my desk, casually hyping up their favorite bar and dropping unsubtle hints that I could find them there after our shift if I was looking for some fun. Am I looking for fun? I don’t even know anymore. These days, fun is sitting in a coffee shop in the early morning with a good book, or walking my dog around the park, or just spending an evening watching a movie and laughing with a loved one. I was never one for cheap thrills and one night stands. My heart isn’t strong enough for that sort of behavior. Keep up the physical activities. I’ve always found it to be relaxing and bring a sense of purpose and accomplishment to my life. Pitter patter thud thud thud, -K

I'm Gonna Build Me A Body

Dear K, Something wonderful has happened to me in the last week. I've remembered how much I love moving. It started with dancing,as all good things do. I went out for an evening of dancing and came back a younger me than I've seen in years. I am running again. I joined the YMCA. I've been lifting weights. I lifted so much my arms hang down by my sides, loose little dumb things that can't grip or raise or move, and they wake me in the middle of the night screaming in pain. I'm doing it right. I used to be so strong. I could lift a house and sweep underneath it. I could ride my bicycle faster and further than any man in the county. I was Hercules, I was Ajax, I was Achilles, I was Hector, I was Zeus, I was a mighty hundred armed giant. Then somewhere along the way I left my sinews. I dropped them by the side of the road. I told myself someday I'd be back for them, there wasn't enough time. I'm finding them again, slowly, it is going to take some months, but I will be bigger and stronger than I ever was. I will throw you up in the air and catch you in my arms and run a hundred miles, and laugh and giggle the whole way. I am building myself a body. I am going to become a beast of the earth. I am going to become a buffalo, a bull, an elephant. I will be Atlas and hold the sky up for you, K