BACKGROUND:
I had gone to Laura's place in Phoenix once before this trip, which was actually a ridiculous event on its own. I had just broken up with Dasha, my first (real) girlfriend, and my emotions were all over the place. I was an eighteen year old kid with very little relationship experience, and was ready to fall for the first cute girl that seemed interested in me. We had been chatting for a few years at this point, both really dorky teenagers ready to latch on to anything with meaning. We fooled around for a few days when I got there, eventually realized we were both still crazy about our past boyfriend/girlfriend and ended on sort of a sour note. (She slept with her previous boyfriend one of the days I was there, which really upset me, and when it came time to sleep with each other, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I think I was really fucked in the head during that time; Imagine how you feel now about adulthood, and think back to when you were 18 and still figuring yourself out. Not only do you not know your place in the world, you have no idea where to even begin. I was really a wreck.)
I have to admit though, I sort of had a good time. I stayed on the couch of these HUGE COKEHEADS, which was a vividly interesting experience. Laura, at this point, seemed all about offering me a place to stay in her room, but eventually would get freaked out her father would find out, so she arranged to have me stay at her ex-boyfriend's (he wasn't even her boyfriend. I just don't want to say lover here) friend's place. What this meant was, introducing me to these kids who were a couple years older than me at the time, having a couple drinks, then driving home while I laid on the bed of some guy's house while they did coke and watched old b-movies (it was the first time I had watched toxic avenger in my life; in a weird way I really liked these kids even though they were complete degenerates). They talked to me about life and what I was doing in general, and since they were so coked out and I was such a sweet kid, they took to me immediately. One of them, Paul, was this balding 23 year old guy from Alaska, who apparently grew up on a fishing boat and would wake up at five in the morning every day to catch fish. He had this plan to go back one day and become the best fisherman he could be, taking in boatloads of fish every morning. He also kept saying how he thought he was going to die soon since he was balding, which made me laugh because of how paranoid he was being. His sister, this really sweet girl who was 24 or 25 at the time (a little chubby in an endearing way), kept saying how cute me and Laura were at the time (She asked if I was a fucking virgin, and given how feminine and skinny and shy I was, I can't really blame her), then wrote me a note a few days later about how she lived vicariously through us. It's strange thinking back on in it and wondering how everybody turned out. Mary, another sweet girl about our age, ended up becoming a stripper. We used to exchange messages on myspace about getting together and doing acid some time (She told me a story about hallucinating and seeing pink elephants), but ever since she started working at the strip club, I think I became less interesting to her.
So I stayed at Paul's place for the rest of the week, sleeping on his couch and talking to his roomate which coincidentally, was from the town right next to the town I'm from. Dublin, California. When he was growing up it was sort of a hot spot for gang activity and skateboarding, but by the time I moved there (I was six when I left San Francisco) it was just a normal suburban area like San Ramon. Nothing violent really happening. THOUGH, for some reason, I really thought it was funny to talk to him as if Dublin had transformed into this gang-haven where police bashed peoples heads in for no reason and how skateboarding was still king (it wasn't).
"Yeah it's just gotten worse and worse man. People get knifed all the time."
"I bet. It was really bad when I was growing up. Dr Dre shit"
"It's still like that man. It's fucking scary"
The rest of the week went by slowly. I would wake up in Paul's apartment, look at the flag he had from 1796 (I forget how many stars it had, I think 13), and wonder what the fuck I was doing in Arizona. I'd watch television for a few hours until Laura would come pick me up in her truck, we'd go have breakfast somewhere, and I'd spend most of the day wondering what the hell I should say or how I could seduce her. Sometimes she'd take me to visit her ex boyfriend which was FUCKED looking back on it. He hated me and I, of course, wasn't too fond of him. I remember he saw us holding hands in the mall, and started yelling at her about how I was influencing her with cigarettes, and eventually went off into some corner of the mall SMOKING CIGARETTES OF HIS OWN. IT was a classic weiner teen maneuver (which I'm plenty guilty of myself, but STILL GOD YOU YELL AT YOUR GIRL FOR SMOKIN CIGARETTES THEN YOU GO OFF INTO A CORNER AND SMOKE THEM YOURSELF/ GODGDODODIGOGD)
So, things didn't end too well. I do remember buying a pipe for Paul to thank him for letting me stay at his place (essentially a stranger that was a friend of a friend of a friend), and bought him some groceries since his cabinets were depressingly bare. I remember the night before we left they tried getting me to do coke, and I had said, "yeah, I used to do it, I ended up spending ten thousand dollars on it, that's why I quit, I can't do it anymore" and they had all admired me for my strength and dedication to quitting, especially Mary. Of course, I had never even done hard drugs at that point in time, and just wanted an excuse not to do any.
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Anyhow, flash forward to a year later. I had been on my own for a little while, though to be honest I can't really remember how I was feeling emotionally. I think I was just ready for adventure and wanting to go on a trip to a variety of places. Looking back on it, did I visit Laura immediately after visiting you? I think that might have been the case, but I can't really remember. Actually, I think I went to Pennsylvania then Montreal afterwards. Anyhow, around 19 or 20 I went back to visit Laura, despite not really having that great of a time with her the first time, or at least, ending it as awkwardly as we could have. She looked up to me back then, and I was spitting out a bunch of stuff about how I wanted to direct (I really have to get on this film editing thing. I'm getting a macbook in the mail soon, so um...[talk is cheap]) and how I'd like to cast her in some of my stuff, and how we'd create such beautiful film in the future, which all meant that while she herself was trying to figure out what she wanted in life, I had convinced her to major in drama. I'm pretty sure she regrets this decision since she works at Office Max (and has for five years now) and has accumulated all this debt to essentially become somewhat of a useless theatre major. But hey man, it's not always about the money, and I've been thinking lately about how I would've probably been in the same boat (being 24 and floating around not aimlessly, but confused and scared while remaining very ambitious) despite ANYTHING I majored in. But then again, I always like to think that I'm different and that my success won't be determined by what I did in school, but what I do with myself in my twenties and thirties and maybe even sixties (if I can keep off the tobacco and stay on the exercise train and avoid fucking boulders falling from the sky). I guess what I'm saying is I'm trying not to feel guilty about having that much of an influence on her. But it wasn't my fault.
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So I'm taking a break right now just meandering on facebook and thinking about life in general. My little cousins are over, as well as my aunt, who for the entirety of my life has convinced herself that she's my real mother, which is fine by me. She's the one I dedicated the book to when I was younger. She's making me take this celebrity doctor friend of hers to breakfast tomorrow, which I guess isn't so bad since she had asked me to drive him to fucking Los angeles (5.5 hour drive) a week ago and said I didn't have to. Apparently her friend is scared to death of planes, and took a bus up to Northern California with a TOUR GROUP just so he wouldn't have to fly. I thought that was pretty funny.
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The second trip to Phoenix was as depressing as the first, maybe more so. I think I had forgotten how boring Laura actually was, but went to visit her anyway. The minute I got to her place and unloaded my stuff into her room, Laura comes up to me with this grave look on her face which basically meant, "so I fucked up, you can't stay here." I spent about 30 minutes telling her how I wanted her father to look me in the eyes and tell me I wasn't allowed to stay at his place (She had stayed at my place for a week in california before, yet this didn't seem to influence him at all), pacing around pissed off and wondering where the hell I was going to stay. (In retrospect though, I don't really blame her dad. He didn't know me, and Laura probably never even told him she stayed at my place for a week. Given how sneaky and shitty her ex boyfriend was and how much he hated the kid, I can see how he was wary of letting a stranger in his place. I could've been getting her hooked to heroin or something. Laura would often berate him and her step mother [her mom died when she was young. I remember we bonded over looking at old letters she wrote her] about how all they would do was work and eat and watch basketball and Deal or No Deal on TV and how I'd agree with her, of course, being the ARTIST that I was I had to agree with shit like that all the time, but really I didn't mind so much. Most people are like that.)
I spent the first night sleeping in her truck while she frantically phoned people and asked them if I could have a place to stay. This would become a recurring theme the rest of the week.
She had been dating this skinny blonde kid who played guitar for a while, I think his name was Matthew but I forget. For the sake of this story I'll just call him Matthew. I don't really know what the hell I was doing getting tangled up with this crazy girl who seemed to be crazy about me while still dating these other crazy art guys, but as usual I think I was just bored and ready to do anything. My curiosity seems to lead me into all sorts of terrible situations, but upon reflection, I never seem to regret any of these things. They just seem funny to me now.
Anyway, I get to his place, which ended up being his grandparents place. He was in his room with a couple of kids a few years younger than us practicing some folk song which didn't sound that great but was impressive nonetheless because it was a BAND and they were PLAYING TOGETHER as YOUNG ADULTS. I remember feeling awkward because I didn't play an instrument (though I had played piano and guitar for years and never gave myself credit for that for some reason, mostly because I never played in a band myself, and all I knew how to play were basic classical and blues pieces that my teachers gave me), and feeling like I wanted to punch one of the kids lights out for berating me because I couldn't jam with them.
"Do you play?"
"Um... not really."}
"GOD YOU DON'T PLAY ?? GODDDD"
(Can you imagine that by the way? I feel like a lot of musicians have this condescending attitude toward people. Sometimes I wonder if the reason I've been trying to improve at guitar (and other things in general) is just so I can smash kids like that in the face and hurt their egos)
So I stood around awkwardly with Laura while she was swooning over these fuckers, and eventually they all left and I talked with Matthew about seeming like he was one of those guys who was smarter than his friends and most people around him and was trying to find his place in the world. He was stuck working at this MExican restaurant in the blazing Arizona sun, and kept telling me how he thought the world was going to end and actually ended up admiring me for leaving to go to Montreal to study writing. We bonded over the fact that the world was ending in America (which seems to be the only thing college freshmen know how to talk about) and drank 40s together. Matthew was that older guy who would buy his younger friends alcohol and worry that he'd get in trouble over it. He confided in me that he was a high school drop out and going nowhere fast and the only reason he hung out with these kids was because he didn't know anyone else.
Laura told me he was the type of guy that was straight but was really into gay things, like having pictures of STUDS on the wall, which didn't make sense at first, but made sense when we were in his room. He had pictures of guys all over the fucking place. Now that I'm older it just seems like a bi thing to do, but back then it seemed sort of cool. I don't know. I didn't feel uncomfortable.
UNTIL
a few hours later when we were all starting to pass out and the sun was coming up, Laura was fast asleep in the corner of the bed and I was trying to sleep and I feel Matthew's arms slide around me while he whispered, "can you sleep alright princess?" I sort of whispered, "um....." and he sort of snuggled up closer to me while my eyes were wide fucking open and I was just wondering to myself, "WHEN THE FUCK AM I LEAVING PHOENIX THANK YOU LAURA FOR PUTTING ME IN THIS SITUATION YOU SLEEPING GODDAMN FUCK, GODDD FUCKING DAMN IT". Eventually him and Laura left the room to go fool around or something behind my back (once again, why was I visiting Laura?) and I was stuck there with my thoughts and the feeling like I had just been sexually molested or something.
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I forget to mention, the first time around in Phoenix something similar happened to me. Me, Mary, Paul, and the original guy that introduced me to all of them, (we'll just call HIM Matthew too for convenience' sake) were all sleeping on this fold out bed after everyone had stayed up all night doing coke, and Matthew fucking puts his leg around me like I was a pillow and starts hugging me. I'm not sure if he thought I was Mary or if this was just something he DID but here I was clamped inbetween a couple of chubby guys wondering how the hell I would get out of the situation. I don't even remember HOW I got out of that, it just happened and it stopped happening which leads me to wonder how many times I'm going to get molested in my sleep like that by strangers because it's really starting to hurt my self esteem
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A couple days went by at Matthews, and eventually I told Laura I couldn't stay there anymore, so we ended up going to Tempe, which was sort of a neat little hippie college town where people rode everywhere on bikes. ANOTHER MATTHEW (this kid was actually named Matthew, the skinny blonde kid from trip two was actually named Ryan if memory serves me correctly), a red head with short hair and rolled up jeans on one leg, invited us in and gave us a place to stay. He was actually a really nice guy who had his own radio station that played indie music or whatever around campus. I remember I was freaking the fuck out and wanting to leave Phoenix and arranging my plane ticket to be moved ahead behind Laura's back, and exploding while we were in the studio, letting my heart out to Matthew and telling him what had happened. He just sort of gave me this cockeyed look like, "so, you're abandoning your friend?" and just said, "well good luck man, in whatever you do". The next night I told Laura I needed to leave and that I wanted to stay in a hotel room and she looked at me all sad but realized she couldn't do anything about it. I ended up having a pretty good time in that hotel room. I ate Domino's and watched basketball and played Zuma. Then I left and vowed to never return to Phoenix again. (Until you came along, and now that I think about it , I'd love to go with you in the blazing heat. It'd be fun)
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And YES I know The Warriors is your favorite movie, I deliberately seem to drop hints that I love that movie too to get on your good side. It's one of my favorite things about you. I was wondering if we could listen to Wu Tang together though, and that for some reason seems like something I do with more superficial friends (cause lets face it, I'm a goddamn yuppie that shouldn't be able to relate to Wu Tang other than being competitive and wanting to crush my enemies), so maybe let's stay with folk and rock and maybe ELECTRONIC HOUSE DUBSTEP JUNGLE TRANCE, I'm not sure. For some reason I really feel like listening to country music with you just because of how much I want to see your happy face listening to the stuff. I don't have enough friends to tell me anything about country music except you.
I hope you're doing alright. So you took a plane to Seattle already? How are you? How did those airport fuckers turn out on the plane? You really encounter the strangest people in airports. It's awful though because I'm usually grumpy as hell while traveling since everyone who works at the airport has to be a complete asshole most of the time, and when they're not a lot of them seem like they don't even know what's going on in reality. Like living in two dimensions or something.
MISS YOU THANK GOD I AM DONE I AM EATING BREAKFAST NOW I HOPE YOURE HAPPY :*(
(love,
george)
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