2003-02-08 - 2:29 a.m.

I went out after work tonight--a Friday--like a young man should. Coupla rounds of the cheapest beer possible, in a stupid trashy bar snugly nestled in a field of stupid trashy bars--closest bar possible to work--that we kinda have to go to, �cause we always get comped.

Two pitchers of swill split between my dear friend R. and I, and my buddy had Long Island iced-teas--I don�t know how many.

$4.25.

My dear friend R. and I haven�t shaken the Catholic guilt outta ourselves yet, so we left the dude a $20.

And walked back to the train station.

Perhaps the most beautiful song ever written is Robyn Hitchcock�s Winchester. I don�t know what he had in mind when he wrote it, but it always reminds me of when I was stuck in a tiny American bubble in a tiny Dutch town far away from everything else in the world, walking in twos and sevens, and in my case often alone, the dark quarter mile that spanned the gap between the pub and the actual castle we lived in.

The song could mean a lot of things--it�s about love, it�s about something that happened a long time ago--a tribute to memory, to fondness, to now nothing but tender people that aren�t around anymore, that were special once, �cause everything was, and so were you.

Walking through the dark towards your door.

The song always makes me want to cry, and usually succeeds.

My dear friend R. and I will never give up on each other no matter what. We�re both that way--when we meet people who are equally awesome and fiercely loyal to good friends, well, it�s kinda obvious, isn�t it?

She can have friends I don�t know and I can have friends she doesn�t know--that�s how it works. She can get married and move to Arizona. I can become a junkie.

It doesn�t matter--her heart is so pure, and--fuck it--so is mine when it comes to that girl, that nothing can extinguish that quiet love.

The best part is--we can take each other for granted as much as we goddamn please. In fact, that�s the very best part--like a plant that cannot die--daily, calculated waterings or neglect make no difference.

I read my book waiting for the bus, and I got off at the foot of Godforsaken Hill, ready to climb.

The snow today was so beautiful, I know that, but I didn�t feel it in my heart, the way I used to. This morning, I watched it fall--fluffy white gigantic amoebas, stormtrooping.

Like I�ve built up snow love immunities in my body. Like my cells are supersaturated--have had their fill, as if my own snowman�s liver is tired from all the joy I�ve forced it to break down over the years.

On my walk up Godforsaken Hill, down the middle of the street �cause nobody but nobody shovels their walks around here, legs pumping, getting it over with, some snow that had peacefully settled on tree branches and houses, things up high, got unsettled, disturbed by a fearsome gust of wind, and, aided by a streetlight, I watched those snow particles eddy, thinking that�s beautiful.

Thinking that�s beautiful, that the snowfall has ceased for everyone else, but I can still see these pieces of snow fall again, not from nebulous clouds--just for me.

Thinking wouldn�t it just mean everything in the world right now, right this second, but it won�t happen, it just wont, if these little pieces of snow, kicking around in the unpredictable wind, and isn�t it nice that through these snowflakes I can see how the wind works, how it doesn�t care where it goes, how Kevin Lemanowitz can�t predict each gust, wouldn�t I just be hitting the lottery if those floating flakes of tree dandruff, were blown my way?

And it happened. What I wanted to happen actually happened.

Nature, snow, omens, asking and actually getting, prayer, it happened, and I saw it coming, and I didn�t think oh, here�s an errant gust of snow, come to hit me in the face, when it could have easily avoided me altogether.

No, I said uh, heh heh, huuuu, huhhh.

And then huuuuuuuuuuuuuuh.

That was my howl. That�s all I got, but I felt it, and it felt like happy. For just a second. And then I thought if anybody in any of these houses just heard me, they�d be concerned that there�s a raving lunatic roving about.

And then I didn�t so much as say hnnnnnn. huuuuh.

Tomorrow is either going to be a big day, or nothing at at all--there�s no middle ground. I think I�m ready, but I always just think that when I know I�m not. Perhaps my episode with downstairs neighbor foreshadows tomorrow.

I�m never truly ready for anything, which is why I can still love getting blasted in the face with snow that at this point should have settled, to blow about in the night when nobody is around to hear it, or to melt and drop, same conditions.