oh, dignity can be so hard to maintain, and kindness, and honestly I’ve never liked the grateful dead, no, really, no, I do understand that drugs are fun, sure, but when you say Phil like you know him, I don’t sympathize, and anyway Box of Rain was the only one that ever did it for me, and that the memory of a cassette tape now living out its last in the back of a station wagon in Los Angeles… god help me, when I open my mouth– when a stranger, new or well-seasoned, leans in for the bear hug I don’t want I think

jesus, is this how I sound? or is it the Coors, is it the air out here? I think

oh, to have a moderately and tastefully lit room, a few good books, soft cushions and something stable to lean against, a minimal yet satisfying number of good beers, good cigarettes, vinyl playing quietly, to have you, to have the fear that I am not enough keep pace with your spirit and your intellect, rather than the fear that, if I spoke, no one would hear. 

I am too tired, too drunk, too spent from childish boredom to have much to say. but I wish my little could rest on those dear shoulders. you all, my dear friends, have spoiled me for teeming others, for you, turning your cheek to mine, you look, you speak, you listen. and while the wind howls through the space between us, it knows itself, a conduit.