Ray IS a Persuasive Dude

When the buzzer rings, I leave Ray up in his apartment and run downstairs to open up the heavy double doors to let Gerry the bass player in.

Gerry's bushy, black beard is beaded with moisture from the snow falling in giant flakes from the slate gray sky, and our greeting is a wet one as I clap him on the shoulder and water sprays everywhere.

As he follows me up the stairs, we discuss the new song (which, I explain, sounds like a Cure b-side from the Faith-  or maybe Seventeen Seconds-, era) but my mind is elsewhere, mulling over a question: Why did I automatically run downstairs to open the door at somebody else's apartment?

Am I so obsequious that I simply do someone else's bidding without being asked?

6/23/09 - Am I using my time well?

"Superjail," I tell Katie as we talk on the phone, "seems like it'll be bad mojo, but really, it's pretty benign." I say this while the remains of the two beers I drank in quick succession during dinner finish rattling their way around my bloodstream. The cat lifts her ass as I pet her, and for once she simply allows me to stroke her fur, rather than yelling at me about whatever it is a cat thinks is important enough to yell about.

Earlier in the day, I played my guitar and sang a version of the song Bobby McGee for a play reading, before having to go back to work, where I thought about my upcoming 38th birthday, and what I've accomplished with my life so far.

6/20/09 - my inexplicable heart

I lie in bed staring at the ceiling as what little light there is on this gray, cloudy morning filters weakly through the shutters and curtains and blankets Katie has thrown over the window. Her arm drapes across my chest and even though I lay calmly, I can feel my heart beat slow, hard and strong, shaking my entire body slightly with every thud.

I think this may be an insight into myself. I am calm on the surface, placid, with a seemingly orderly mind, and people sometimes look to me for steady leadership, but beneath it all, my inexplicable heart pounds, shaking me and everyone close to me, and none of us is quite sure why.

5/16/09 - If I weren't so emo, I might accidentally kick somebody's ass

While watching a fight between two adversaries on the TV show Deadwood, I am once again reminded of the violence that only in the last few years has become a part of my mental landscape. I find myself with a heart full of bloodlust, imagining foes, altercations, assaults, wanting to fight, carrying around a pen knife, wondering if today on the way home from the train I will need to use it on someone.

This is new for me, but I suppose I have always had it. It explains my former depressions, my black moods and despondency, which I thankfully have much less of, but which must have been nothing more than an already extant violence in my soul, which I formerly turned inward because I could not accept that it was part of my "good boy" personality.