TWIST

DAY ONE of the 2004 Joy Family Vacation. I was up at night last night.
Our flight left at 5:30am. Up. Up. Up. In the sky, me scared shitless only because I was. Much like the girl in the terminal whom I will never forget. Balled up, scared shitless. Rocking back & forth, head buried inbetween her knees. She was powerful - full of gravity. My mind, at 9am singled her out. Our eyes skipped off one another a few times. I hope she felt what was on my face - the look, the uneasy quiet fear. Somehow our gravity melded together and she ended up next to me on the plane. I kept my head pressed against the side of the cabin, hoping for sleep. She sat with her knees up, her feet on the edge of the seat. As the plane began its noise, spreading and fanning the fear, the Girl hid. Covering herself with the complementary blanket found in the over-head compartment, she didn't move until we touched down in Florida.

Drinking beer at 11:34 in the morning is always a good idea.
I've been on the beach since 9. Sweating, squinting, reading. I walked aimlessly up and down listening to Beck's opus off of Eternal Sunshine. All that ran through my head was, "gee where should this song go on the Kate mix?"
I told myself that I would never again fall hard for a girl. That was truth, a fact and something that was actually happening until I met Kate.
It's only been about a week since rearanging the pieces so the water would flow in this direction, but already I'm turning into clay mud just thinking about her.
There is no burn, no longing - no earth stopping longing - but it's only been a week, it's only been a few kisses...
We stood in what I'm assuming was her father's "office", holding each other.
Holding each other?!!?!
It was as if we were old, harden'd Ex's finally returning to normality. Returning to that infinatly small space that exists inbetween two humans pressed so tightly against one another that stars could form. Smashed together, squeezing. I pressed my head against her neck.
My God she smells like beauty.
I can feel the alcohol she spilled soaking through my shirt and into my skin. In the darkness, the sound of us is deafining.
Luke, I can hear him shuffeling through the house, his bare feet skidding on the hardwood floor. Even though I'm transfixed on her face, I can sense Luke and Brittany standing behind us, by the staircase. I don't care. How could I? With Kate pressed against me, it's hard to think about anything else. Including the continuation of this paragraph.
I've been thrown back into the hear-and-now.
My Brother and Mother have returned from the beach. Michael is complaining about my music (Stevie Wonder), wanting to watch TV. Mom's making sand-whiches. I'm eating one and drinking a fresh beer. Michael has moved into the bedroom where a door can seperate us. Dad's on his way back here for the sand-whiches and Mom's left.
As quickly as this room filled, it's empty again. When I drink around my parents, I get more drunk than I would with said company above.
When I was at Kate's, I finished a 750 of Captin' (with major help from Kate) and only after I got high, did the rest of the evenings consumption smash me in the forehead. It might have had something to do with the numbers the grandfather clock was pointing at (3, 5).
I asked her to stick around for a while. She answerd by tightening her grip around me.
Blur-all blurr until we are on the couch. Her head nuzzled under my chin.
She passed out like a rock, quickly cutting off blood flow to my arm. My left arm. I pressed my nose against the top of her head. Pouting my lips I kissed her hair. She smells like shampoo.
Well, at least her hair does, which is a good thing. Shows me she likes to be clean--what the hell am I writing about?
Back to the hear-and-now. My Dad has made it back here for his sand-which. He is enjoying it next to me. We're going to converse and discuss the eventless day a head of us.

It's Sunday. My hair's wet and my shoulders are ruined. The sun has tap danced the Charleston across both of them, with golf shoes.
I haven't written in here since thursday and right now I'm forcing it. My Dad is in the room with me. "Aaron! Do you want a piece of provolone cheese?" my Mother just asked. My answer would have to be, no. I have yet to shower. I think my hair is turning white.
I went to a flea market yesterday. Blah-zow! the event of the vacation. When I get back to Blahtavia, the populous (as I now call them) will ask, "So, what'd you do while you were down there?" Answer: Flea Market. Other than that, I looked at the ocean a lot, floated in a pool quite a bit, and ate food.
This entry is turning to shit. Way way way too many people in and out. I try to ignore them, but my vision is too wide. I'm going to freak out. This is hopeless. (Train of thought: why is Fishman such an amazing drummer? Answer: because Fishman is such an amazing drummer.)
Questions seem to be the theme of this entry. Questions & rolling frustration.
I don't like people around when I write, it hold me too far outside their realm. Me, this pen. This paper. My mind transforming into a phsical object - that being these words up this. It's too much.
...Yes! Victory! They are gone.
Look at that, they cleaned the freakin' room while they were here. More quotes: "It's 3." Yes, thank you Dad for that bit of information. I'm thinking about eating some food. We're going to eat at 4:30. My body is lame right now. Sun, heat, water, and only Cherrio's will do that. I need to shower, but dammit I'm too tired.

My headphones are on. The Yankees are on. Phish is in my head, thanks not to the Yankees, but rather to my headphones. It's still Sunday. This vacation is getting longer as it gets shorter. I still have 3 days in this state. Day three will be spent traveling.
I want to write about Kate, but I don't want to over do it. I think about her, but they are slow thoughts. Ones that come and go, but never really leave. It's a calm aloe-like idea, the thoughts of her. Who is she? We've only just met. Things have (if at all) just begun. Thursday (could have been Wednesday) on the phone she pressed out words about falling easily for people. "I'm scared," she said. Not wanting to fall into that todash darkness where your thoughts become overpowerd-BLAHBLAHBLAH.
Yanks are losing 7-2 against Boston. My brother turns into Satan while watching these two teams battle.
Those sentences I just crapped out, fucking sucked. "I want to write about Kate, but I don't want to over do it," and I did. So forced. So fake. "Todash darkness" was the moment I knew it was time to put down the pen for the night.

I had my first dream about her last night.
I'm standing in the grass of some annonomus subconcisous home. There is a party floating around me and as usual I'm the last to arrive -and the one to arrive alone. I know Kate's somewhree around here and I begin looking for her. When I find her, she's on edge, nervous & her eyes are bouncing around looking never right at me. There's a guy there with her - I can feel him stairing at me. She keeps telling me that she wants to get out of there but before she can leave she has to go talk to this other guy.
It's not a good dream. Laiden with paranoia.
Kate is new in my life. A human whom I've just begun to understand. The manafestatoin of her past which is unknown to me is this kid in the blue jacket. Kate walks over to him and whispers something to him. He looks over her shoulder at me whith his head down peering through his bangs.
My God, it's me, only I'm taller and skinnier.
As dreams happen, the shift from one image/moment to the next is unnoticable and impossible to describe.
I'm looking down now at Kate. She's in my arms, making a horrible face. Her mouth is sucked in on itself and has turned into a crack running lengthwise across her face. "Aaron," she says, "everyone is leaving and going to Amanda's house to smoke pot. Ireally want to smoke pot but I really want to go with you."
"Can you stop that with your mouth," I ask. Apparently she can't. Her eyes have begun to do the same thing. Her face now is only a nose bookended on top and bottom by what looks like a deep groove, almost like an ass crack, from one side of her head to the other. I violently push open the groove where her eyes should be. "Look at me please," I said. As soon as I take my fingers awy, the groove/divit returns.
"I hope, I really hope they don't actually smoke," she says, "because I want to go with you."
Alcohol. Suddenly we need alcohol.
I leave her at her house and I am on main street, Batavia. All the streetlights are off. Half the road is under construction. As I get infront of 3D liquor, all the cars a head of me have their lights off. It's pitch black. I flash them 4 times. The car on the right is the first to turn them on. Soon, almost all the cars are glowing with light, illuminating the road. As I turn down center street I can sense/see Jackson St. it's coverd thick in darkness. Bad darkness. Todash darnkness. Something is wrong. Is the power out? Why did I leave Kate? It's so dark over here. Something, some huge devistating presance is waiting for me at home. Why did I leave kate? Turning onto Ellicott, I know that leaving Kate was a bad idea. "I had to get alcohol at my house, that's why I left you!" But why? Wasn't there booze at her house? What the fuck am I doing out here?! I can't that this shit -
my shoulders are on fire. My sunburn. I'm back in Florida, crawling out of this dream, rolling back and forth on the bed. Holy shit, my shoulders are burning alive. I either need to fall back asleep (near impossible) or just get the hell out of bed.
It's Monday now. Two more days to go.

Tomorrow I fly. We fly. 1pm flight time. Lay-over in Atlanta and then on to Rochester. I'm on the beach today at 9:30 attempting to finish my book. The longer I'm out here, the greater the puddle of sweat is that's forming on my stomache. It couldn't be any later than 10 and enough is enough. I gotta get inside.
The walk down the million-dollar walkway is growing. The weight of my backpack is growing. Why the hell did I bring all these CD's in the first place? 96 Phish CD's plus 96 random. You have got to be kidding me Aaron. Actully, now that I think about it, it might only be 72. Reguardless it's a lot, and I don't know if I'll make it inside because of it.
Out from under the palms, across the road and onto the blacktop parking lot. Door No. 2 -closer. Closer. Get under the shade, fast. Past door No. 4. My ears begin to ring. I'm so weak that at door 3 I have to switch hands and hold my backpack with my left. The backpack's coverd in sand, otherwise I would have had it on my back. Attempting to unlock the door is near impossible.
THE A/C!!! Praise the Man Jesus it's cold air!
I am NOT built for this state.
Collapsing in the first chair I get to, I begin heaving in huge gulps of air. Maybe I'm dying. Maybe I'm deydrated. Maybe I should sleep. Yes. Sleep would be amazing -and ya know what? That's all I did today. Not bake in the sun, like I wanted to -but sleep. It was lousy dreamless sleep too.
Noon, two, five. Okay! Dinner at six. Off to Stevie Tomatoes. Home of the best wings, best pizza in Naples and full of the lousiest idiots I've ever come across. As you could expect, the pizza was as good as the people.
Florida. Full of plastic. Cheap fake plastic.
So here I am, sitting upon a bar stool, in Naples, eating "hot" wings and waxing poetic Jethro Tull with my father and brother. Meanwhile my mother and her sister, my aunt, are drunk on vodkatonics and who knows what Frank is. Michelle, our waitress is getting a full-on of what the Semmens are capabul of: quiet mind control. Michelle has a lot of tables, and the last thing she needs is a couple of we-think-we-know-it-all flower childern telling her where and what to do next in her life. I have ears like a hawk has eyes. If the wind blows in the right direction, if the holes inbetween the sounds of the resturant arrive at the right time, I can pick up on bits of their conversation. They're feeding her the "just be happy" with your life bullshit. I'm sorry Michelle, I didn't get to pick my family. Please ignore them... and what's with Frank pointing at me? Why is Frank pointing at me? Michelle comes to my side of the table. I have dirty plates and since I'm not allowed back in the kitchen - "He's a writer," Frank begins. Oh no, fuck you man. Michelle smiles. "He could write you a wonderful love poems." Jesus fucking shit! Michelle can only smile. I can do anything but. "Oh! You're embarassing him," the Sisters yelp. At least by this time Michelle's left.

If you wanted to split hairs, I could just write her a journal entry.