It's Been Too Long...

I love this town on Thanksgiving.

At four in the morning I drive around and see twelve cars. I drive by all the places that influenced me. I drive through the small town wrapped in a cloak of city.

This is a small town in many respects. This place was dead. Not a sound louder than the engine of my car.

Open all night.

This might be my favorite phrase in the English language. Open all night and every connotation, denotation and connection related to it. The impact of this phrase on the ear conjurs images of low lives, scum bags, silence, drugs, alcohol, coffee and a slew of other Platonic images. I can't think of another phrase that says so much in so little.

I drove by my first apartment, I drove by Able hall, I drove to the Haymarket. I went by all the places that I remember staying up all night at. Some of them are completely different. Others are still the same. The alley I shat in, the fountain I'd smoke by, the lighting that pleases the eye.

The streets talk to anyone who is willing to listen. I've known this or years. I tripped into my own bullshit when I got a job, girlfriends, too much homework, and spun around and around and around. I thought I forgot. I thought it was gone. When I went down to the city it all came back.

Urban renewal, new challenges, torn down past, modification, remodeling. Fuck all that. They can tear down the Starship. They can bulldoze the Douglas Three, they can blow up Taste of China. A metaphysical piece of me is still there. Eating sushi with a former enemy, watching movies because I don't have friends. Strung out of my mind, sick with fear over a stat exam, trying to find a meaning in a meaningless world. I'll always be around and so will they.

I'll leave this town someday. I'll come back. More things will change. Prespectives and buildings. These two things change at simultaneous rates.