I can't help but find comfort in growing with them, here on my bed, watching them from my window. Every day a little different, another set of experiences to build my character upon. And the trees, stripped of their shell over winter as I stripped myself of mine in August, feeding off the sustenance of the sun and rebuilding anew as I feel myself growing in the company of Jenny, in the promise of summer. When I am with her, things make sense, life feels better and there's a shared brainwave we've both tuned into that strengthens us not only in a relationship, but as friends at the same time. And the trees, sprouting green, must feel somehow more complete--fleshed out and appreciative of good sunlight. What better time to grow than when the days are hot, the nights warm, the people high and sweating with the sun.
Here Jenny and I are so alike we may be growing on the same tree.
I felt guilty for hanging out with Kirsten yesterday and felt bad for Kirsten that I felt guilty, knowing she honestly just wants to be friends, but mostly feeling bad because I knew that I'd feel uncomfortable if Jenny were hanging out with a past fling, which I wish was something that wouldn't bother me but can't help it that it kind of does, and while I caught up with Kirsten, it just so happens that Jenny was, in fact, meeting up with an ex-fling of her own in Davis that same afternoon.
Having these duel games of playing catch-up with past flings was an eerie experience, indeed, for both of us. I know how much Jenny loved Davis. I know how badly she's missed it. But I know how much she's started to embrace the present, and I know she loves me, and by these thoughts I am comforted. On my end of the experience, I'm casual and friendly with Kirsten, and I take photographs as we walk to the Downtown Mall, where she wants to but spends none of her recent casino winnings. We listen to Todd Morgan and the Emblems play outside of Zuhg, then get dinner at Pizza Rock where the DJ booth is inside of a semi-truck engine suspended over the bar. We talk about Collin and her sister and her plans to visit San Francisco next week and Old Soul and Shaun's change of plans for Colorado and this guy Phillip that likes Kirsten and I talk about Jenny and tutoring and new music I've discovered and who she recommends I listen to. At some point during dinner I realize that I don't make her laugh anymore and I feel quite boring because of this. It's also a sort of relief to notice where things have changed, to know that things have, in fact, changed. Signs of growth are always promising. I have genuine interest in Kirsten's well-being and in her life, and I am glad to share with her the evolution of my own, and because of that I can say that hanging out with her was fun.
Of course this is how I see it now, in retrospect.
Afterward, waiting for 7pm and a good time to leave for the show at Ace of Spades, Jenny texts me and asks if it's a good time to come over. She's totally welcome to, but I tell her that Kirsten's still there--since she's borrowing the room tonight--and then I suggest that we just meet at Spades instead. I can tell that Jenny's put off by the plan--why shouldn't I come over? she's wondering--but I was more interested in stepping away from Kirsten's Twitter world and back into my own.
Turns out I'm the first one to get to the show. I'm grumpy now, knowing Jenny's feeling weird, knowing how weird I feel, and the sun is setting and the black birds are chirping noisily in gangs above, tree-branches drooping, pale-purple sky spotted with flapping wings. I feel like turning around. I can't. I don't want to hang out with Kirsten any longer, so I can't go to my room, and I'm basically homeless if I don't just go to the show and continue with the evening's plans. The first one there--Shaun expects to be arriving in fifteen minutes, and Jenny said she'd be there at seven--I get a Blue Moon from the bar while a punk chick screams into the microphone on-stage to the support of loud aggressive rock, like No Doubt on a cocaine comedown. I sit outside in the patio and people watch and dwell and drink my beer and wait and wait and wait until finally Shaun shows up and knows the guys at the table across from me and I am curious about their lives and then I give up my seat to a couple and stand by the fence and talk to Shaun, who finally heads for the entrance and gets a beer and joins me on the patio. We drink and talk until Jenny arrives on bike, goes inside, gets a beer, and joins us on the patio, where we've been talking to Ashley, the girlfriend of a band member playing at the show tonight. We're here to see A Lot Like Birds, who won't be on-stage until after ten. Jenny's in her own strange mood due to her trip to Davis. It's barely eight and I get my second beer, fourth of the night, and when I come back I see Jenny smoking a cigarette and I'm in a weird mood so I hate that she's smoking, but I don't say anything--what gives me the right to?--and rest gloomily against the fence beside her until we finally start to open up to each other about our strange days. Jenny describes the pull of Davis, how it felt to go back, how Jessie didn't say much and how amazing the sun looks when it comes through the trees. I talk about being restless, wanting to run, the flight in me coming out stronger than the fight, and how hanging out with Kirsten put me in a mental whirlpool that I'd yet to swim my mind out of yet. I felt drained. I didn't want to be at the show and neither did Jenny. At first she wanted to hop on the 9 o'clock train back to Davis for the bike race, missing Davis all the more because of today's summery taste. I don't want her to go that route. Davis is a foreign concept to me, but it has the appeal of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory and I can sense that Jenny could easily be lost with in its wonders once again. But Jenny wants to be with me. I watch her battle Davis behind her dark eyes as the sun sets and Shaun contemplates the role of an alpha male and we're interviewed by some band-member's parents and I probably get another beer and we go inside for a while to listen to one of the bands. Then Jenny and I leave together, long before A Lot Like Birds starts to play. She gets Panda Express. We sit on the cement wall outside of the restaurant and spill a little more of our guts on each other--my fortune cookie says "Follow Your Heart"--and it feels good and we're holding hands as she walks her bike home. Minutes later we're taking bites out of the leftover cannabis food on the kitchen counter and climbing into bed, confessed and relieved and glad that the day is done.
Outside of my little life, however, David and Laura came in to Old Soul in the morning and said they'd been mugged near the K and 21st intersection the night before around 2:00am and the two attackers took Laura's purse and punched David a few times in the head, and when they'd come in to the coffee-shop Shaun and I noticed that Laura had a cast around her wrist, which she said she'd sprained after a fall during the mugging. Really scary news, considering the odd rise of local violence in the area, this subtle pull toward self-destruction that society seems inclined to to follow. They're both fine, thankfully. For the first time ever, I am legitimately concerned with being armed at night.
- Left to Fry
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