a good goddamn, the ability of swarm.

it was weird. all the lights in the bar were on and I had arrived and all was warm and familiar. like old friends. I'd never met a one. but all old friends, like high school graduate mates. but a bit detached. like they knew,e, thought more OF me. more exactly, they knew a friend that I'd dated. and I came back to see her but she wasn't around or she was. but in this dream I never saw her. I remember walking in and they gave over control of the music and the atmosphere. and all the drinks were free. one of those absolutely temporary moments and one that feels so invincible. I sat on the bar and watched the full room and drank a beer endlessly. cold and constant. 

the specific part I remember is her friend coming over. a whole new invention. small and shorter. shoulders. a white tee shirt. she was sad and missing someone and I never understood who but I understood it. He had left her. and I never Loved her but she was under my protection there and then. and I had her back. and there was no romance save that reserved for the lost. I just wanted her to be okay. and she sat on the bar with me, quiet. large sunglasses and silent. 

and we left the bar and she drove us to a house somewhere unimpressive. white porch, unclean. and the sun was coming up on the light blue slats. paint peeling. and I remember sitting on the step. sun rise like a film waiting to be made, all the right reds and oranges with the blue. a goddamn deep sigh that goes forever because he's gone. and for some reason I don't have a shirt on and she has a neck tattoo and still wearing he sunglasses and the tears. the I'm sitting and she's crouching behind me, her arms crossed and leaning on my back and her head rested on her arms and crying. and I'm just there for support and we're okay. 

fastening the ship to the fleet.

i feel like i shy away from conversations that go from intro/beginner tier to intermediate/knowledgeable tier because the level of competitiveness in those conversations can be more overwhelming than the amount of shared information and helpfulness and reason that goes into them. at least in my experience. forget expert level. that's just where people to go masturbate or piss.

i guess this could be mostly pointed out on the internet, because where else can you really REGULARLY go to speak your mind on topics? the most ready example i have is a music group that just popped up on facebook that i got included in. there's so much that i want to speak about, but only one of them is a friend and the rest are friends of friends. so if i go in and start just wielding all of these opinions and throwing down general input on different artists, i'm already perceiving that i'm coming across as knowledgeable to a fault. that could just be my own nature of perception of others clouding my perception of how others perceive others. i think the syntax of that sentence holds up. what i'm trying to say is maybe it's just me.

same goes for anything hockey related or video game related. once i step outside of the realm of people who know and understand my voice i start to feel like i'll be seen as the person i was in middle school/high school which was a sort of forceful know-it-all who tried to prove that i knew a lot about subjects i knew nothing about through reference, posturing and "conversational logic equations". awful. so now i've learned about that part of my Self and have been very toned down about how i approach revealing my opinion outside of my groups of friends who know what i mean. but ALSO, i've been compensating for that part of my personality by being COMPLETELY nonpartisan in so many conversations that i actually do have a leaning towards. the one thing i've gained out of that style of conversation or interaction is that i leave all of the negative opinions out of it. it's never helped anyone. even now when i hear negative opinions about something it frustrates or embarrasses me for them. going back to the music discussion, there are times i wanna lay in and be like "that band is honestly more wack than i have ever heard. how are people listening to this and then bringing it with them?" but what's that going to do. are they going to change their opinion? a decade ago, fifteen years ago, yeah, i honestly think i thought people would rethink their stance. now, i more or less take a higher road where i want to ask "hey man, i don't think i get it. what song(s) or what other bands are you listening to that got you into that? i think i need a stepping stone." same thing happens with sports, but the nature of the conversation is always competition so i'm always instantly disappointed when someone brings competition into it because obviously i'm the outsider there. it's fine.

i would love to 'escalate' my interactions on these types of subjects that i actually have a knowledge about. not only to learn more on the subjects but just to get proven wrong a little bit. learn that a few people might talk some cool shit and be willing to hear me out and learn something. i know i have a lot to offer and with my current surroundings and current job, i don't think i'm teaching anybody anything, which is something i've always sort of gotten a big rush from.

you gotta feel good, man.

kid, hum the bidding.

i just had the craziest flashback while standing and cleaning the kitchen. 

it was from a "cub/dad" weekend camping trip when my dad and i went camping with the cub scout troop i was a part of. it was the first or second night we got there. probably the first night. and we had gone to sleep and it was dark. probably around 8? 9? had to be somewhat early. and i remember going to sleep and waking up alone and there were voices far away. and i just had this recollection of walking across this field with all of these tents and getting closer and closer to where my dad was with all of these other guys, these other men and i remember seeing him and us interacting... i don't even think i knew what to say and/or i don't remember saying anything in particular. but then i remember going back to the tent alone and going to sleep.

i feel like this is a memory/moment that really [eventually] put into perspective what goes on in the world of People as opposed to Parents. i think about this moment from time to time i realize. and i wonder if he was embarrassed or if he was surprised or if he cared or if that ever crosses his mind. i wonder if he was just kind of hanging with these other Dad Dudes and feeling good about it. i've always seen my dad as kind of antisocial. mom and dad never had any friends as i got older, just members of the family they spoke to. no one who were "family friends". is that rare? are family friends real? 

anyway, now i'm thinking about when you're just trying to get away for a weekend and you meet this random set of people you'll never talk to again and you're just shit-hanging and maybe drinking, maybe smoking, who fucking knows. and this little kid comes up and is like "ummmm..." and what do you do? i'm in that position now. he's not MY kid, but he "is". and if i have someone over and we're shit-hanging and playing a game or talking bands.. and little man comes out and wants to have food or something, i'm cool with it. but i'm pretty social. if you're not social, does it affect that?

ALSO. who do i get this social vibrance from? is it my dad? there's no way. i don't think i get much from my dad at all, in fact. it took me a while to realize that i think i got my more creative side from my mom. i realized that my mom always wrote us letters. i think she has that drive to write. or at least that small seed that could have been nurtured into a more avid writer. she reads a lot. she has a love for Words. i wonder if she ever has realized it. or if she realized that I realize it. any of it. but i think if she were allowed to grow in a creative environment, i think she would have spun something really great. 

i know dad reads a lot as well. or read a lot. he's read a lot of those weird coming-of-age novels. henry miller and hesse. vonnegut. a lot of that older stuff. asimov sci-fi. really interesting to see where that. his mind is more of the left brain, science minded stuff? who knows. it's always been pretty easy to tell that i'm my mom. and my sister is my dad. everything is strange.