exuberance

Last night, after picking Jake up in Pembroke, we all went to Milly's tavern in Manchester:

Milly's Tavern: Pretty much everything about it is typical. It's full of people trying way too hard to be attractive, shrieking at each other over the sounds of slightly outdated hip hop music. a lot of tits, a lot of ass, a lot of watered-down cheap booze and beer. Don't think I'm looking down on these things, I love tits, ass and cheap alcohol. Who doesn't.

I don't love screaming over music and a collage of voices to be heard though. Especially when the particular people I was talking to are some whom I recently discovered are very, very interesting, down-to-earth and cool. Which is I guess what happens when you go away for so long and come back. People grow up and mellow out - some of them.

I also realized - no, I was reminded - the extent of girls' bitchiness - everything does not have to be a competition. Why do you lower yourself to coldness? Is it to try to maintain some false feeling of power? If you get your power by being an asshole to other women, you're getting nothing more than one less friend tomorrow.

After we left, around 1 a.m. (the bars close ridiculously early in this ridiculous little state), the night was nicer than most have been recently. We sat outside Milly's near the river for a bit and watched the stumbling drunks coming out of the bar - the groups of publicly groping bodies, the obnoxious voices of women made over-confident by alcohol. Police started showing up to catch people on their drive out. Apparently there's nothing more productive for them to do. We ended up in a practice space in the Manchester mills. It was like a playground for us - filled with keyboards, drums, guitars, even beer. People jammed a bit and people listened a bit. I needed to write so I ripped of a piece of the newspaper ans started scribbling all over it. Maybe I'll scan it in to here later, but mostly it was just a bunch of horrible unimportant thoughts.

Everything is so different now than my memories, but from what I can tell, I'm enjoying myself more and learning more now than before. I don't think time should be measured by clocks. I think it should be measured by how vivid the memories are (the more vivid, the closer to now), and how much things change.

The Manchester Mills ^

On my hand is written: "The ultimate wasteland - exuberance."

Things became sort of weird. I'm not going to go into it, except that I was reminded that my outlook on a lot of things does not coincide with the people I often meet, which could get me in to trouble. I don't want to hurt people, (especially people that are pretty much my favorite). Maybe I should leave New Hampshire before I piss someone off, or make myself out to be something very very not cool. It's kind of funny how one person can make you see yourself in a more truthful way, like that person is more of a mirror than an actual mirror. Have I become a total cold-hearted prick? I don't want to be. i have a lot of compassion inside and I want people to see that too. Can you be tough-skinned and a sweetheart at the same time?

Last year they called me bi-polar and depressed. But those are only words, signifying some one's random definition of illness. I don't think they really explain me at all. There's nothing wrong with me - people just need to learn to accept a wider scope of normalcy.

Go here.