The gas station story.

2011-11-02T20:57:00.000-07:00

It's at least a little funny that I fancy myself a writer, being a drop out by the age of fifteen and all. My love/hate relationship for the internet is based on the severe hypochondria, lack of attention span, and miraculously decent vocabulary I've accumulated from mindlessly scrolling through media on a glowing screen for ten plus years.

When I lived in Suffolk, a mostly rural but large city about an hour away from my now suburban casa in Virginia Beach, I was a pretty self absorbed (surely you can't imagine me that way, right?) young adult just scraping by on what little money I could get through whatever strange means possible. I had sworn off the idea of capitalism and consumerism, and made sure to blog my unintelligible ramblings via my mother's wireless internet. How convenient. My father had recently passed, a long relationship had ended, and I was just a mess of a human being. You know, like now. I hung out with my childhood best friend John and his close friend Josh all the time, of whom would become my best friend for a number of years before we had a 'bro break up' for various reasons.

I can remember drinking shitty sangria wine out of obnoxiously huge Halloween goblets and watching The Dark Crystal on an enormous projector on John's wall. That was one of the most cinematic moments of my life.

While I mostly just turn into an even split between a stand up comedian and a lunatic when drunk, Josh was the type of guy to grab you by the shoulder and growl Cannibal Corpse lyrics at your face. He's a pretty shy guy, until you've been sipping cheap vodka from a coffee mug for most of the evening. One evening we had done particularly well in the amount of liquor and beer we had seemingly magically acquired, and we were going back and forth from my house to John's. Just singing a long to random records, playing guitar, watching movies, waxing philosophical about the most mundane of topics, etc. One of John and I's favorite things to do was to see who could puke the most. He usually won, that guy didn't give a damn around that time. I can remember burning each other with cigarettes and thinking pissing on each other was completely hilarious. I think hanging out with people outside of our circle after that was hard, and the phrase 'get on my level' comes to mind.

So there we are, unbelievably trashed in John's front yard. Me wearing the dingy old women's blazer (I just had to make sure it was still in my closet, and it is.), John with his usually greasy long blonde hair, Josh in all of his gingerly glory. Cigarettes were probably the most prized commodity at this time, and we needed some. We get into John's car, and our feeble drunk minds are blown by More Than a Feeling by Boston. We're talking stop whatever you're doing and sing this entire damn song, and hit the high notes like a dying whale would. And then we drive to the gas station.

We park directly in front of the gas station, discuss briefly if we wanted to go to the diner next door but decide against it. We spend about five minutes collecting ourselves for when we walk in so that we don't catch any negative attention. If there's one thing I've learned about Suffolk, it's that if you are under the age of thirty all of the cops would love to find an excuse to have you put your hands behind your back. Josh is in no shape to go in, I'm in no shape to go in, still we scrape what money we have together. More yelling to random songs on an old rock station is making me feel uneasy, and I look at my phone to see we've already been parked there for over twenty minutes.

Everybody finally quiets down enough to get this usually simple task at least going, and we get out of the car. I dust myself off from whatever kind of random ancient sludge was residing in John's car at the time, and button my jacket up to look a little more presentable. We all take two steps forward and realize that the gas station is completely dark, empty of all people, and with a bare floor. Total mind fuck.

2011-11-02T19:10:00.000-07:00

From the film 'Unmade Beds'.

2011-11-02T19:02:00.000-07:00

It's funny (it's really not) that when you're younger and you go through some sort of trivial teenage break up, you have your parents there to catch you even though you feel like the entire world is falling apart. Compare that to adult life and a true life shattering ending of a union, when you are left alone with your thoughts.

2011-11-02T18:55:00.001-07:00

"And then I thought to myself, I really shouldn't pass out against this dumpster. People will think I'm the type of person that does those type of things.."

2011-11-02T18:44:00.000-07:00

This Cold Cave song reminded me of this Jay Reatard song for some reason.

2011-11-02T18:36:00.000-07:00

I know we're all projecting and I know we're all making
Excuses for the lack of steps that we're taking
Toward forward momentum or life worth living

Or rather, that's me projecting