what am i saying? i've lost the string.

i always like to put my best-self forward (duhhh nate) when i first will meet you or see you or write to you an anything, and that way you can have an idea of what i'm breathing, what's rattling there inside my chest, lungs, and head, and about the fact that i worry about my soul. i do (if even because i partly copied that last sentence). what i am meaning to get at is, things haven't been so steady or so bad this month that i haven't wanted to write. those things don't work that way. i work in a cemetery (excuse the interjection) and i peruse monuments and headstones everyday, but what kills me are the battles that i don't know how to say in any context in here, the ones that some of us know and i do too but they aren't mine ... but writing about them and sharing them would kill us faster?, is what i'm trying to argue. i don't believe so. it's just that i've always found the face and the ways and the honesty of a ditch digger, for i'm the ditch digger's best friend, more alive than any english prof and writing this and words are only toothpicks to hold me up a little and other times he does.

i think, we have to go by instinct. but in a certain sense, there is just so far that you ought to go, just so much that you should do. i speak of simple things that are very very complex (of all things), although i can't say just what they are but you know them when they come upon you (i say that now). i think the best most meaningless thing i can say is, do what is proper toward yourself. the greatest immorality is going for gold against the grain of yourself when you don't need the gold- you don't tape dead apples to the apple tree. and in the end the world is full of fruit, and flowers, and rocks too- different kinds of sorts of types of fucked up rocks. and i guess that so many problems come in upon a person that he finally dismisses them all and chooses to be the rock. or a rock to somebody. that's sincere.

i don't want to cast nature as a hitler painting roses, but i refuse to believe nature is beautiful still without us letting it be.

with confidence, i have read and concentrated more than many most if not all of those i'm close to (they have girlfriends or boyfriends; i have music and politics). the country is not better off than it was four years ago. bushlovers suck, like mosquitos. i want to slam dubya *one-term president* and republicans but it's foolish to try and write about it- it's like having to write about all the feelings you've ever felt delegated to politics. so i have decided to lay off- and it's hard to- i know i shouldn't when i don't know where i'll ever be able to dot the next sentence after the one i havent even finished. it's just...i cringe when Grandma says, "i really admire him because he seems like such a nice man." this paragraph is so off point...

so is this a one. i never listed "the woo mix" songs (those are it for me) but my current playlist happens to be:

this is our emergency / pretty girls make graves
your cover's blown / belle and sebastian
untitled #4 / sigur ros
inspector blancheflower / the fiery furnaces
trapped under ice / call and response
you're only king once / beulah
the good life / weezer
revelry / sea ray
love cats / the cure
adele / white mud free way
nothing is wrong / gomez
glastonbury revisited / cosmic rough riders
over the pond / the album leaf
playground love / air
inside of love / nada surf
lonely holiday / old 97's
turbulence / arab strap
roman candle [or any song by...] / bedhead
clean living / rjd2
...sad sadly / nina gordon & james iha
a caucus race / murder by death
fade into you / mazzy star
have you forgotten? / red house painters
fee / phish
the beautiful occupation / travis
lost cause / beck/flaming lips
love will tear us apart / joy division
smile like you mean it / the killers
summer roads in europe / the clientele
interpol and coldplay and elliot smith and franz ferdinand (who knew such good music after being assassinated 80 years ago) in general...
tony's music back from seattle that includes the helio sequence and 764 hero and the united states of electronica

trouble everywhere. i like how the cat stands in the middle of the kitchen and doesn't know what's going on. i like how my dad cuts out and collects a stack of frequent-flier-miles on the bottoms of his cereal boxes- the ones that expire before you use them- his As Good As It Gets ideosyncracy if he has any that compare to mine. i like how there are always other more unsure things but Mom's reassurance relies on the fact that all she has to do at the end of the night is remind me to do my math homework. lauren's fine, it's just that she's going to someday marry a republican i believe, and even then she'll be rich at least.

i liked camping at the dunes with good company tony matt and andrea this past thursday friday and saturday even when the weather was shitty and the sun only came out once the bags were packed and we were ready to leave. peggy sue's was a good eat. it meant a lot meeting (i guess we've already met, but in a sense) iu ellen and her friend and on her whim or mine going to the deserted beach on a misty day. iu will be fun. i can't put my finger on it. in general it will be a lot of fun.

it'll help getting across what i mean how the summer's gone once the online photoalbum is up...which'll be very soon!!!! a picture is worth a thousand words, but an album...endless possibilities.

today was one for the books. this morning Dad hollers from the back door, "nate, you're never going to guess what happened." ... "what's new, Dad?" well, his 2nd van was torched evidently last night, this one the safari and by vandals (the first was 6 years ago coming home from vacation- we have a home video of it up in flames). haha the insurance company will be suspicious i am thinking, what with this being Dad's second one to blow up. it was good that he had it worked on last week and new tires (grrrreat) and his tools clothes shoes cd's weren't inside. the police said it was probably hispanic youth in the neighborhood who were looking to take the safari (vehicle of choice, heh) for a joyride when it wouldn't start for them. stop by the shop an' see it before an appraiser gets out there.

i liked hugging erin in the car while we went 40 miles an hour and i was supposed to be driving. it was a thrill meeting jen(na) at erin's potluck and alfons' 18th beday beating his friends at basketball with jack and him and spending a day at mennofolk with both nick and christy together and bonneyville in the storm and at the diner with ant. i road a motorcycle this month. check that off. spending 6 hours a day with old man lonnie and randall doesn't get old- or as old as it should. and louie and the guys at work and seevers and mike and charlotte shel and sara and all else- what is elkhart without you guys? and katie rogers, there have been times you're the only person i felt like seeing.

goddamit i am having to stop writing i have a fuckin math test first thing tomorrow morning. i wish i was a better writer. i wish i could say something something that could do it for you except that i can't. something like that. would be good.

and tony is home. things are normal again. but i'm going to grow the beard; no revelations it's just that time.

~gowdy

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