LiSTEN UP [said the man with the gun]

you don't have to be a tree hugger to love the earth

or a lion tamer to calm these beasts.

I'm a tourist in my own habitat...

...on my own planet.

Stopping angry Lincoln Tunnel drivers to capture this enchantment

We don't know how long we have!!

"AY MAMA!!"

Maluca had me at hello

(the day Michael Jackson died)

It was an accident.

Then there's Amanda Blank....

I planned to blab my blab about this one

way before she got to the masses

But she can do it up. So i repaid the favor - - -

DON'T LOSE SIGHT OF YOUR DREAMS

(or get into a car accident while you drive to them)

havin a beer and some cool whip...

getting older means responsibility in the foreground...emotions taking over used to be allowed to be the foreground. responsibility was just what you did to avoid getting yelled at. we're brainwashed to think that WANTING responsibility is going to be the only way to have it, to make things happen in our lives, to be "successful". I love independence. I love being able to do what I want because I'm financially and emotionally free. But where is that real real realness of naive exciting new happiness mixed with vulnerable twisted young hearts...flying from one place to the next with each other, holding on to what we feel and not what we have to do next? Where's the feeling you get late at night in a dorm room listening to radiohead when the wind outside is too bad for anyone to go out. Everything else is so silent. Nothing can ever make me feel as deep and real as that. I looked at the world like it was a fresh young tree, I sat back and waited for it to show me new things every day. Life seemed far and long and the bitter cold felt fresh while the heat felt like love. Now my eggs are in the right baskets, maybe my pockets are empty but there's strength on my back and I walk solely with responsibility and the mundane priorities written across my forehead. I know what's supposed to be done and I know how to shield myself from pain. But shield myself from pain....and also from life? Where is love? Where is PAINFUL, emotional...needy, clingy, raw, real love? If it comes and then goes and then comes back and then grows...will it ever even stay? Responsibility scares it away. When I learn to mix it all, I'm going to let myself fall. Maybe just in time for the changing leaves that bring emotional breezes. Maybe, again, I can feel like never before and promise to it that I will never scare it away. I'm not scared anymore - please show me that it's you.....I know my wanting to be around you has not gone away. I know that when I was with other people, I dreamt of the way you used to fill my life with all the things I wish i could have but don't. I did the same for you. I know nothing else around me feels right without you. I know what you mean when you say it scares you that you want to see me everyday. I know how hard it was to carry on every day when we recovered from the pain we inflicted on each other. I know it was both of us. I think neither of us knew how good we had it. I think neither of us realized that magnet between us as intensely as we do now, as we realized while away from each other. I remember the deepest deepest feelings that I never thought possible...pouring out of me because of you. I want to hope that spending time with you again is going to allow this to reappear. But i'm afraid that my guard is up so high, that it will take so much longer than before. I'm afraid of being wrong about me and you. But when I'm with you I'm home...? And I never thought I'd say that. I want to take things slow but I don't know slow with you and I'm afraid I never will. I want our homes to intertwine. I've always wanted that. I want our lives to overlap and I love to coexist with you. I'm afraid of all of this and I never thought I'd still feel this way after so long. I didn't even start writing this intending to send it to you. It was supposed to be a sentence, one sentence - that i wanted to jot down for myself. it turned into this....