"so messed up"tall firs
too old to die young
[ecstatic peace]
too old to die young
[ecstatic peace]
a friend once approached me with a wild look in his eyes, grocery bag nearly falling out of hand. i could have sworn that coffee yogurt peeking out of the flimsy plastic was going to go splat onto the sidewalk. and when it did, i was going to chuckle. emphatically. but still classified as a chuckle. not enough to make him feel bad. what with the frenzied pupils, that probably wouldn't be the brightest move - involuntary or not. hypothetical consequential actions aside, just like i am acting right now as i retell this story, i wasn't too concerned with my friend's almost vertiginous glare at the time. i simply attributed it to the late night sky and the previously mentioned grocery bag full of goodies: it takes a special kind of person to shop for coffee-flavored yogurt at 2 a.m. and morgan was exactly that kind of guy. also, it might have had something to do with the fact that i was teenager at the time.
skateboard and paper-sacked beer in tow, i was enjoying the clean suburban air with casey when i happened upon bumbling 22-year-old morgan. i was a freshman at hopkins when i met morgan's former senior year self and we slowly became what we regrettably called ourselves back in that arrant year of 1997: "best buds." now i was skating through the pitch blackness following my own senior year, morgan just home now after his four years at luther. gliding through street after vacant street, i wondered how long it would take me to skate to the campus i was attending that fall, and if i could just stay there until september. one might think the impracticality of that notion was what kept me from following through, but really it was because i knew when i left for college, i'd have to give up my massive stereo that i had to my older brother petey. "trust me, it'll be too big for the dorm," my mother scowled at me from the bottom of the stairs. petey sucked. still kinda does. he lived with our parents when he was going on 30 years old back then, only working part time at some kind of auto shop . he still kinda lives with them at 36 now...i think. who knows; i haven't talked to any of them in over a year.
casey had no mode of transportation that evening, so i inadvertently shredded too much pavement so that i ended up about twenty feet ahead of her at all times. except for the times when she'd run and catch up, almost instantaneously smacking me in the head with her oversized flannel sleeve to get me to slow down. come to think of it now, every time she did that, she just snagged the beer out of my grip and took a swig. whatever her motive was, it was annoying and all the same, mostly my fault. by the time morgan showed up, however, she had stopped caring enough to even do that. as i watched that yogurt cup intently and waited for morgan to respond to my oh so eloquent "sup morgan?," casey sat down at the curb, clearly not wanting to be a part of my encounter with an old friend. i was fine with that, because if she had walked up to our non-conversation and feigned interest, she wouldn't have been eventually bored enough to divulge her toothpick case from her shirt pocket. of course i didn't know she was doing this until i realized morgan wasn't staring at me with his crazy skeleton eyes, he was staring at casey's toothpicks. late night yogurt shopping + getting excited over a teenage girl's possession of numerous toothpicks in an easy-to-carry plastic case = crazy skeleton eyes, getting more crazy and skeletal at an exponential rate.
"you like yogurt fondue?"
i could feel my eyes widen in response to his question, but i don't think they quite resembled any of the adjectives i've used above regarding ocular cavities. yet.
"i saw you eyeing the coffee one. there's bananas, strawberries, and more flavors underneath. your girlfriend has toothpicks and a curb to sit on. let's get to work."
"she's not my girlfriend."
"ok, bud. ok."
skateboard and paper-sacked beer in tow, i was enjoying the clean suburban air with casey when i happened upon bumbling 22-year-old morgan. i was a freshman at hopkins when i met morgan's former senior year self and we slowly became what we regrettably called ourselves back in that arrant year of 1997: "best buds." now i was skating through the pitch blackness following my own senior year, morgan just home now after his four years at luther. gliding through street after vacant street, i wondered how long it would take me to skate to the campus i was attending that fall, and if i could just stay there until september. one might think the impracticality of that notion was what kept me from following through, but really it was because i knew when i left for college, i'd have to give up my massive stereo that i had to my older brother petey. "trust me, it'll be too big for the dorm," my mother scowled at me from the bottom of the stairs. petey sucked. still kinda does. he lived with our parents when he was going on 30 years old back then, only working part time at some kind of auto shop . he still kinda lives with them at 36 now...i think. who knows; i haven't talked to any of them in over a year.
casey had no mode of transportation that evening, so i inadvertently shredded too much pavement so that i ended up about twenty feet ahead of her at all times. except for the times when she'd run and catch up, almost instantaneously smacking me in the head with her oversized flannel sleeve to get me to slow down. come to think of it now, every time she did that, she just snagged the beer out of my grip and took a swig. whatever her motive was, it was annoying and all the same, mostly my fault. by the time morgan showed up, however, she had stopped caring enough to even do that. as i watched that yogurt cup intently and waited for morgan to respond to my oh so eloquent "sup morgan?," casey sat down at the curb, clearly not wanting to be a part of my encounter with an old friend. i was fine with that, because if she had walked up to our non-conversation and feigned interest, she wouldn't have been eventually bored enough to divulge her toothpick case from her shirt pocket. of course i didn't know she was doing this until i realized morgan wasn't staring at me with his crazy skeleton eyes, he was staring at casey's toothpicks. late night yogurt shopping + getting excited over a teenage girl's possession of numerous toothpicks in an easy-to-carry plastic case = crazy skeleton eyes, getting more crazy and skeletal at an exponential rate.
"you like yogurt fondue?"
i could feel my eyes widen in response to his question, but i don't think they quite resembled any of the adjectives i've used above regarding ocular cavities. yet.
"i saw you eyeing the coffee one. there's bananas, strawberries, and more flavors underneath. your girlfriend has toothpicks and a curb to sit on. let's get to work."
"she's not my girlfriend."
"ok, bud. ok."
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