i’m in the flatlands again. the last time i was in bowling green ohio it was the night of the second presidential debates. i was supposed to cover it for alternet/wiretap, after giving a speech to a crowd that included the amazing alli star. we were in a bar watching the debates and the dear sweet friend i was traveling with experienced a devastating personal loss. we’d been on the road and were both on the far end of tired. when you stay on the road so long you feel this near constant aloneness, talking to yourself and laughing at your own jokes and thumbing through your memories so that they turn sepia in your head. its an odd place to suddenly have deeply personal challenges thrown your way, there’s no one to really catch you, you learn your own strength and ability to give. i sat up with my friend until two of her other people could get to us, drinking beers and feeling the loss. what energy i had was white hot, shit kept popping into my peripheral vision, but in front of me i just saw that we are never really old enough for grief.
coming back here makes me feel grown up and cautious. life’s been hard lately, i need a quiet wide moment but can i trust the endless skies and endless fields here. the worst concentrated racism in the country is harbored in pockets of this state. but i’m here with some of the most brilliant media minds in the country, talking about how we frame and blast next level thinking and comunity building at the allied media conference (www.alliedmediaconference.com). go check it out and wish you were here – big ups to joshua brietbart, jason, mike and shannon who all helped with my bein here. i’m going to keep an open mind.
today i had a nice talk with my landlady. she still won’t let me stay though, so the evil is still present. i am trying to let life flow over me and wash me clean of all feelings of ownership on this earth. to that end i am rereading the hitchhikers guide to the universe!
i go and read chelsea’s blog and feel remarkably unfunny but i don’t care, my life is not funny right now. i and everyone i know are going through a series of slow small tragedies of the heart and home and the only state in which i can laugh these days is one of such inebriation that i can’t write you all. just kidding mama, i never drink to numb the pain!
off to the cornfields!