(See what I am saying?)

twenty five

live moves too fast and it should when i am 25.

i don't sleep much and i think too much about things that don't require a decision. and i should when i am 25. i think about selling out and 401k's or staying true and cobra health plans and i think about democrats and republicans and i think about love and loosing it and success and never having it. i think about making money and buying stuff and i think about it all burning up in an apartment fire. and i should when i am 25. and i love my friends and i forget too much no matter how many pictures i take and how hard i try to remember it all.

and i should when i am 25.

i am taking some advice offered to me, and ignoring even more if it: i am taking advantage of using youth as an excuse for as long as i can. i am relying on a conscious too strong to ever allow myself to take the easy way, to ever give up on it, to ever not think about it, and to be aware than i don't make everyone happy and that i am happy with that.

and i am also sad and frustrated and laughing and loving it. and i am trying to remember it because it is going to fast. and the fuel gauge is busted and i have no idea when it is going to run out of gas. and that is the way it should be when you are a 1973 CJ-5 or when you are 25. i know about both.

it is like one hand in the campfire and the other on a block of ice at the martini bar.

like cat fishing after midnight in ohio and wondering if the ACE train in manhattan is running on time.

like being over dressed for strangers in the truck stop but under dressed for dinner with friends.

like working at MTV and never owning a TV.

like a cooking a candle lit dinner for a beautiful girl with a towel around your waist because you just buried your grandmother's cat in a patch of poison ivy in the dark and had to wash off.

like looking the whole world over and hoping you don't forget where the house you built is so you can go back to it some day when the walls are thick enough and you have slept on enough couches that are sure you know how you want your couch to sit and you have made the right picture to hang on the wall.

it is like being me when you are 25.

Modern Memory

he asked me why i take so many photographs.

i told him because there is usually a camera in my pocket.

i have thought about that question more, and as one place and face smear into another, i realized i take photographs not because i always have a camera in my hand, not because i went to college to learn how. or because i want to see famous places and famous people.

i take them because who i know and what i see and all that i go through is real and no one will ever see it the same way. i take photographs because the places i go and the people i know are important to me. and no one will see it for me. no one will remember it for me.

i haven't used this whole internet thing becuase i see great potential to make money and sell product. i have used it because it can helps me write it down before i forget about it, it helps me get a little bit of my insides on the outside, it helps me talk to myslef and be able to listen. because everything keeps making it easier and easier for me not be around the people i want to talk to, and harder and harder to say something important to them when i do. dropped calls and banner ads and roaming charges and email inbox storage warnings have replaced meaningful conversation, laughter, and non-premeditated, non-spell checked, - talking to each other. but should i ever stay in one place the people i want to talk to would never be in the same spot anyways. however, when some of us find ourselves sitting on bar stools next to each other, or sitting on front porches together, or playing croquet together, it is usually harder to remember it, and the pictures always seem harder to focus.

:Faithful friends and friendly readers; here is less talk and more pictures.

getting what i deserve

Taxi # 7G29 left manhattan through the Queens Midtown Tunnel like a bullet leaves the barrel of a gun. I checked my watch, not for the time, but the date. The month of April seemed more like 720 hour day separated by the occasional sunrise, before - or after - a sunset. And as the taxi pulled up to the departure gate, i was nearing another sunrise.

After being patted down and magic-wanded in my 17th consecutive security search in airports across america, i sat down and watched the sun rise over the airplanes sleeping on the tarmac.

Early morning light still reminds me of walking down the gravel lane under the sycamore tree to get on the school bus. but today my gravel lane was concourse B at the LaGuardia International Airport, and my bus was a Boeing 757.

Everything else in my world right then reminded me i was sitting alone at 5:49 am by the windows at gate B6 in LaGuardia International Airport.

In this world i have learned to tell the difference between an ash and elm, a pilsner and lager, bait caster and a fly reel, red wine and white wine, red oak and white oak, between 80 lb. cover stock and 60 lb. text weight, between a rothko and mondrian. and i can tell the difference between happiness and sadness, success and creativity, being true and being paid well, and i can tell the difference between what i deserve and what i don't. but sitting right there as the sun came up over the sleeping 757 at concourse B in the LaGuardia International Airport, i realized i can't tell the difference between what was right and wrong for me. i couldn't tell what it was- where it was- that makes me happy. i didn't know what it was that would make me successful, how to ever keep being true to myself.

some of the simplest things i cannot answer. i have turned away and left behind and snuck out the back door and kept quiet and moved on so many times before. and through all the bruises and buzzes and ATM receipts and duffel bags i haven't yet been able to end up completely right - or completly wrong - and able to know the difference. but right there in concourse B i knew i needed to keep my eyes open for as long i can make this life last. i need to remember it. i need to write it down, i need go with what i know. and learn what i don't.

Gate B began it's boarding calls. i stood up. i looked out at the long island sunrise. there was no one else there looking out the window at it with me.

and for a minute i was afraid that i have gotten exactly what i deserve.

Avenues only go one way

5th avenue runs up the island like a lateral line on a fish, and serves very much the same purpose. we walked up that line like two tightrope walkers in a circus act. They say when you are up high, not to look down or you will fall. walking up fifth avenue, the same applied to my life.

Summer was coming and the buds at the end of the tree branches in madison square park shined bright red like a million pin pricks in my heart. we were young and lived fast and impulsive. it made our conversation slow and cautious. and on 5th avenue, i found many things in common with my life:

Everyone else was walking in the other direction as me.

There were too many places that looked exciting and interesting to stop and check out along the walk.

The signs and people and stores reminded me there were too many ideas to consider, ways to live, and possibilities to pursue to ever feel entirely true about any of them.

all of which made it hard to hold onto her hand.

You cannot forget things once you see them. and on 5th ave. when summer is almost here, you see a lot. for the first time in my life i thought that maybe i has seen too much. too much to be positive about what is right and wrong. too much to be sure that where i was and where i should be. too much to ever stop and think that i had seen enough.

Avenues only go one way. So does life. and trying to make it any different is a hard thing to do.

but on my map i can change my direction. and the idea of life sold in the store front windows and on the magazine stands and in the songs being played in the coffee shops show me their way. they are beautiful, and they are sexy, and they are exciting, and some are even almost real. but they are still only one way. and none of them- all of them - are my way. my life and its style is not a gum-glued tear out special advertising section in the middle of a magazine. my life is not always well lit. i am not retouched. i am not in a perpetual sunset on the perfect plane of the pacific ocean. i am not under a studio soft-box. i am under all light and darkness in this world and it is sometimes harsh and very hard to live in.

i have things that are strange and hard to deal with. and i have things no one else will ever see and never be able to try on in sleek store front shops, heard with bouncing back beat soundtracks, or in glossy magazines. i have happiness and i have sadness. i have adventure.
and i have beautiful people
in all their ways -
and real ideas
in all their directions-
that are in my life that make up the glossy magazine spread in my head.

I don't think life ever stops moving on fifth avenue in new york city.

i am sure it won't stop for me.