Fuck you, I'm an anteater

Can't believe I have to miss this show tomorrow for work. My best friends are playing with my favorite band on earth at the tiniest most comfortable venue and I will be making cakes the entire time...boo. Also, tonight my favorite Michigan band/best pals band is playing with 108 and Soul Control. Should be a perfect time. Making vegan dinner to take.

Just depends if I can move this shit out of my house fast enough...but it's really fucking stupid/hard with a broken foot, pouring rain, and absolutely by myself. Give me a break. GO TO THESE.

PS

This is my bedroom, and outside that window is a long stretch of roof from the apartment building and Jordan (the guy who lives there right now) said it's the best spot in the world to sit on at night. I will be sleeping on the roof. Perfect life.

This will not be as funny to you as it was to us.

Johnny and I signed the lease to our new apartment last night. Tymm got to see it, too, finally. Though he will only be there for maybe 2 weeks the entire time we live there, haha.

Anyway we had to meet the landlord in his "office" which was, from the outside, this abandoned shithole building. He lets us in and our eyes POP. The place is like a fucking enchanted castle inside. It's all restored, redecorated, and insanely gorgeous inside. The ceilings seemed neverending and in the living room was this intense stained glass ceiling. So this goofball with a toupe on his dome sits us at this fancy dining room table and we're all just sitting there (johnny and i plus the dudes who live in our apartment currently) while the landlord gets his paperwork together upstairs.

So he comes down, after about ten minutes of us sitting without him, marvelling at the fucking mansion we're sitting in. I instantly notice his toupe is going to slide off his sweating head because of the intense humidity in the room and I am already filled with laughter. The entire time I feel Johnny kicking me and I seriously almost lose my mind. The landlord keeps going on and on about he is an attorney, owns 7 businesses BESIDES his rental property, invented some golf machine, is this really important rich dude, blah blah blah. I am texting Johnny underneath the table the whole time about this guy's fucking hair and FINALLY the landlord's cell phone rings and in the middle of interviewing us, he answers it on HIS BLUETOOTH (a 65 yr old man with a bluetooth) and says, "HI CANDI" in the goofiest voice I have ever heard. I turn to Johnny and we fucking burst. Our faces are dark shades of red and we can't stop laughing. I keep saying, "I'm seriously dying, it's so hot," Johnny has both hands on his face, Jordan across from us is pulling his hair, and the landlord is seriously clueless that we're all dying because of this fucking wig on his brain. Typically I would think this is adorable, but the dude is some rich goon who kept making TERRIBLE jokes about us coming home drunk. It doesn't register to people that SOME PEOPLE DON'T DRINK. He made this joke probably five times before he realized nobody was laughing.

Anyway I wrote that strictly for memory purposes, because I NEVER want to forget how hilarious that situation was. Writing it out does it nearly no justice as compared to being there in that 100 degree room with Johnny and two strangers and our sweaty landlord with a wig. I have never felt so stupid. I could not stop laughing. I actually had to think about the past month of my life to stop laughing, that's how much it took.

So, that was our first experience with the landlord, and I'm sure there will be many more. Johnny thinks the lesson there was "don't judge a book by it's cover." But I think the lesson is "judge a landlord by his toupe."

Last night felt unbelievably great. New Found Glory. Everyone I love surrounding me singing our guts out. Tymm's life is seriously becoming unreal. I'm so proud of him and excited for everything his band is looking forward to. Bummer that it means he'll be gone much more, but it's just a small price to pay for all the good things coming his way...

So happy to get the fuck out of this house and into a tiny apartment with my best friend in downtown Ann Arbor. Back to my ice cream shop, back to where I feel comfortable in my own skin. I've got a million things on my mind, but I feel alright. Cast my worries to the side, focus only when I get the time. I will get there safely. I feel so lucky to have the few perfect friends that I do. I've got big plans with them for this season. Summer is here...I can feel all the beach days right around the corner. I will LIVE in a lake this summer. I am anchorless.

For sanity's sake, I wish my dad could leave my mind for at least a few moments a day. I literally spend all of my time thinking about him. Just wondering if things could've been different. I listen to "Anchorless" by the Weakerthans at least twice a day and the water balloons behind my eyelids pop.

"They called here to tell me that your're finally dying, through a veil of childish cries. Southern Manitoba prairie's pulling at the pant leg of your bad disguise. So why were you so anchorless? Shoebox full of photos; found a grainy mirror. Sunken cheeks and slender hands. Grocery lists and carbon-copied letters offer silence for my small demands. Hey how'd you get so anchorless? Got an armchair from your family home. Got your P.G. Wodehouse novels, and your telephone. Got your plates and stainless steel. Got that way of never saying what you really feel: so anchorless. A boat abandoned in some backyard. Anchorless in the small town that you lived and died in."

Yesterday was one month. When we got our new apartment yesterday I wanted to call my dad and flip my wig about how excited I am and ask him to help me move my things. But he isn't there to call, he isn't standing in his kitchen looking at birds through binoculars or watching my little brother shoot hoops in the backyard. He is gone.

I need you so much closer.

EARTH DAY.

TODAY. SO HAPPY.

WE ARE MOVING BACK TO ANN ARBOR. I AM SO HAPPY I COULD BURST. I AM SO EXCITED TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, I'M A CREEP. I'M A WEIRDO. WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING HERE? I DON'T BELONG HERE. I'M COMING BACK TO MY CITY! AND MY JOB! Perfect life. See ya, Peter. Fuck off.

My third grade teacher told me I had no future.
I run through snow and turn around
just to make sure I've got a past.

My life's a chandelier dropped from an airplane.
I graduated first in my class from alibi school.

There ought to be a healthy family cage at the zoo,
or an open field, where I can lose my mother
as many times as I need.

When I get bored, I call the cops, tell them
there's a pervert peeking in my window!
then I slip on a flimsy nightgown, go outside,
press my face against the glass and wait...

This makes me proud to be an American

where drunk drivers ought to wear necklaces
made from the spines of children they've run over.

I remember my face being invented
through a windshield.

All the wounds stitched with horsehair
So the scars galloped across my forehead.

I remember the hymns cherubs sang
in my bloodstream. The way even my shadow ached
when the chubby infants stopped.

I remember wishing I could be boiled like water
and made pure again. Desire
so real it could be outlined in chalk.

My eyes were the color of palm trees
in a hurricane. I'd wake up
and my ID would start the day without me.

Somewhere a junkie fixes the hole in his arm
and a racing car zips around my halo.

A good God is hard to find
(because she isn't real)

Each morning I look in the mirror
and say promise me something
don't do the things I've done.

Sarah cut and dyed my wig...

I'm sure nobody cares but I have to document this because it's freaking me out! Still have to lighten it a lot more but I'm waiting a few days so my hair doesn't fall out like Stinky's tail hair (meow). I love it. Sarah is getting really good at doing hair. I can't believe she can do all this to my brain for free....life rules. Each of my closest friends have the best jobs. I'm so proud of them. Especially Tymm!!! Fireworks got added to the fucking NEW FOUND GLORY tour...this is unbelievable. Even crazier is that they're playing a sold out show down the street from our house on April 26th, life is seriously a shock. This is huge for them. They are really taking off and it is so intense and awesome and they really deserve it.

Also I went to work at Sarah's ice cream shop last night and I feel like I AM BACK. My heart isn't so sore finally. That place calms me like nothing else can. Her grandparents have owned it for three or four decades and they used to have an antique shop there and then decided to make it an ice cream shop 25 ish years ago. I can't even describe how perfect it is. When you step in you feel like you are right in the middle of 1945.

ANYWAY, I feel so good and I love this life. PERFECT.

I'm alone but I'm not lonely. I have kinetic energy. The dividing line will separate us all. Sometimes it's those nights where I'm all I have is really all I need.

I wonder when or if it'll get easier. With each day I pretend to feel better but it's just getting harder, and becoming more "real." I still cry daily, possibly even hourly. I miss you, dad.

It's strange how the sun can shine when your father's dead and you're stuck behind a window. But it's only strange until I say fuck it, I will never be stuck anywhere.

Last night felt good. I slept in my best friend's bed while he snored on the couch and I couldn't stop crying. I wasn't even sad or miserable or anything intense. Okay I think maybe I was 10% sad since I was sleeping alone for the first of 35 nights without Tymm but otherwise, I didn't even know what I was doing crying like that into Johnny's pillows. I have the most wild emotions right now and I don't have the energy to sort them out so I just cried last night because I feel so bad and I feel so good. I feel guilty for having amazing days. I feel guilty when I sit with my best friend and laugh until we're drooling (we're pigs). But when I am happy like that, I savor it and I push away the guilt and it doesn't come back until I try falling asleep.

That's when I feel stuck, and I panic and wonder with intensity if the grip on my heart will ever loosen up. That's when I replay my day and the smiles and the faces of the people who made me laugh and then the guilt slams into me and my eyes fill up. And that's when I have to tell myself to shut up because after all of this, I deserve these good days and I deserve these amazing friends. And I close my eyes and push every thought out of my way until all I see is black and after hours of this, I finally sleep.

So, those are my nights, and these are my days. Today will feel good. Picking up Dave Kloc from the airport, he's home from LA for a couple days. Great dude. Then watching the Office with the usual bebes and their dogs, I HOPE.

I'm alone, but I'm not alone. I have kinetic energy.

Thank you for fixing me just in time for you to say goodbye again. I will have a knot in my stomach for the next thirty five days. Thank you for making me see there's a life in me. It was dying to get out. I love you. Pinky swear.

Sitting on a bench outside my classroom. My crutches are parked next to me. Waiting for Ryan to pick me up from school. I don't know who I was trying to kid coming to school with these pieces of shit stuffed under my armpits. I shouldn't have stayed up so late last night but I had fun in Caitlyn's bedroom, haha. Those Shea sisters....

I just ran into Ryan Felton and he's wearing a Busch Gardens windbreaker that he bought in Virginia because he was cold. Only this dude would spend 55 dollars on a theme park windbreaker.

I got my period today.

Tymm's in Chicago.

See ya.

Happy Easter, dudes.

Today Tymm, Ryan, Aaron and I went to the Detroit Zoo. It's in walking distance from our house but since I'm in my moon boot we had to drive there and they took turns crashing me into fences/walls in a wheelchair. The underground polar bear and seals exhibit blew my mind. Completely surrounded by water, polar bears can stand on your head and seals can just hang out next to you. I also fell in love with artic foxes and pudu and warthogs, as always. The lions roared at eachother back and forth until they fell asleep. It was wild. Also extremely cold and we were all underdressed. I am still numb. Nap time. Good day. Thanks for pushing me dudes. And thanks for always carrying me around, my Tim!

ps. We really wanted to steal a prairie dog but we had no way to hide it because I forgot my purse. Also Aaron almost got killed by a peacock and a duck. Goodnight.

I can feel myself turning back into the girl I was in that picture. Where I had a better attitude, I saw my friends every day, I ate ice cream in my second family's ice cream shop and then Sarah and I laid together on this hill every single day, where I drove out to go swimming in my dad's pool, where I woke up every morning in my mom's house to either her or the dogs making me laugh before I even opened my eyes, where I didn't even know how to pronounce Tymm's last name so I just pretended he only had a first name, where we'd spend every night in Johnny's backyard around a shitty fire we could never keep going and then end up getting ten people naked and swim, where my grandpa didn't have cancer yet and was still hammering shit in his basement, where I hid moth balls in Mrs. Gibbs hallway and stunk up the entire ice cream shop on accident, where Julie still drove around in that T-model junk ride with star wars stickers everywhere, where I rode my bike more than I drove my car, and where everything felt RIGHT.

March 2009 and the beginning of this month had the potential to wreck me. It was literally my worst nightmare coming true. Moving to Royal Oak and instantly dealing with the creepy Chelsea shit, my stubborn beautiful dad's life being taken from him, breaking my foot on the day of his funeral, and the downward spiral from those two situations. But I feel it closing. I've never wanted something to end as much as I wanted March to.

I know I'm turning back into the girl in that picture because I can feel the brakes slowing and my clear state of mind returning. I can't expect to come to a complete halt and everything just fall back into place. But I can appreciate the slow days I have now, laying in bed, feeling the love of my life's skin next to mine as I rest, dreaming about summer and baseball fields and slipping into the clear water at the beach, teaching my friends dogs to swim, putting some money together somehow to drive out to one of Fireworks shows this summer since he'll be gone for months at a time. I can appreciate my future.

Despair can ravage you if you turn your head and look down the path that's lead you here. Because, what can you change? You're a vessel now, floating down the waterways. You can take your rudder, and aim your ship, just don't bother with the things left in your wake. Just sail, belly up to the clouds, the rocks scraping your back. To breathe in the air will be the only thing that you have. And your love will be warm nights with pockets of moonlight spotlighting you as you drift, the actor in this play. You walk across the stage, take a bow, hear the applause. And as the curtains fall just know you did it all the best that you knew how. And you can hear them cheering now, so let a smile out and show your teeth because you know you lived it well.

I am coming home.

Quit posing like you're rebellious, you boring pieces of shit. You're flying the flag of anger when you're as generic as white bread.

Real post coming soon.

And just like that, he's gone. My handsome, stubborn dad was stolen from this earth by the hands of some young brutal coward. I forgive you, dad, for everything. I know you weren't innocent. I struggled for two decades trying to relate to you. I struggled for two decades trying to forgive you for the person you were and for the person you weren't. The most important thing in the world to me is that we ended our struggle on our own terms three or four months ago, and I finally felt like your daughter again. You have my heart in a kung-fu grip, dad. You spent the last four months of your life reminding me everyday, "I love you Jezebel." I had to delete those voicemails after your funeral the other day. There were probably ten or more, just you, rambling. They always ended the same way. I can look at your pictures right now, but I can't hear your voice. My ribs feel like they're cracking, like my heart is just swelling and bursting behind them, when I hear your voice played back over my phone. You and those vocal chords are gone.

Everyone's got something to say about where you went. Nana thinks you're in heaven, saving her a seat. Johnny thinks you're watching over him every time he sinks the basketball into the net; you're still at his games, you're the reason he scored that time. Your wife thinks you're coming home, she's only dreaming, this can't be real because she can still smell you on the pillows. I even heard some biker at your benefit dinner say you're probably sitting at the bar in hell, trying to buy the devil a drink.

But me? I know where you are. You're home. Home is nowhere. You aren't anywhere, but it sure feels like you are. I'd like to feel safe and comfortable and say a prayer to you hoping you're up in the sky listening to me. But I know that's not the case and I know that I am not safe in that sense. I am safe, though, with memories. You're still alive when I close my eyes and the movie screen starts playing on my eyelids. That's where you are and that's where you'll be forever. Standing above my eyelashes, I can still see you staring out the kitchen window, singing me some 90s country song. And then you turn around. There you are, dad. You're standing on my eyelashes wearing those old work boots, the same pair of jeans you've worn since as far back as I can remember, that flannel with a cigarette burn on the bottom right side, those rough big hands down on either side of your body. Your knuckles were always scabbed. I remember your thumbs were as big as my whole hand. Your neck lined with tiny brown specks all the way up to your mouth and behind your ears. The cuts on your striking jawbone from last time you shaved. Those cracked lips. Those crooked teeth. That nose that I wear, too. And then those eyes. Those wild blue bulbs of life that I wished mine looked like every time I looked into them. I'd spend hours when I was little sitting next to you pulling your earlobes and asking why my eyes were green. The best part about you was your ocean eyes dad. I think I'll miss seeing those, most.

I can't finish everything I wanted to say. This hurts. It's time go back upstairs and crawl into bed with my sleepy Tymm and close my eyes and play the movies on my eyelids. Tymm. Nothing else compares. He has proven to me his heart is made of gold. At the benefit dinner, my dad's best friend came up to me and said, "I heard you're married!"

He heard I was WHAT?

"Yeah, that's what your dad said. He said you got married!"

I don't know why my dad would've told this man I was married to Tymm but it makes me feel better knowing he met the person I will spend the rest of my life loving. I think my dad knew I was going to marry Tymm before I even did. He won't be there to walk me down the aisle, but it's okay because he already did, at some point in his wild mind.

Sleep time. See you in the movies dad. I'll follow you into the dark.