boredom and madness creeping in...

today i feel: kind of like crap
today i'm hearing: andrew bird--armchair apocrypha
today i'm thinking: it's time to get away

This is another one of those occasions where I take no responsibility for what I'm about to say. You were warned.

I want to write. I want to write something interesting and illuminating and have it change the world somehow. But the words aren't coming in the way I want them to come, they're just jilted and distorted on the page. Last night I started to write letters to people that I will never send, just to get the words out of my system. Didn't help, though. Got me upset; I started to cry. I've been feeling like doing that a lot this week. It's this place, it's this lack of life. It's the abandonment of life.

People make fun of nursing homes a lot. I remember that the Simpson's did a parody of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest where Bart broke his grandfather out of the old folks' home. It was really funny, actually. But it's not funny; not when you're actually there. It's horrible. The monotony of a scheduled life: the cage of tacky wallpaper and childlike cries from ancient mouths every hour of the day. I used to go to nursing homes every week when I was little. I hated the way they smelled. I hated that there was nothing you could do for those scared, crying people but wheel them back to their room and wait for them to calm down. I hated the inevitability of the whole place. Because everyone dies, you know? That's how it's supposed to be. And I can handle that fact; I can be comfortable in my own mortality and I do my best to be so. But the thought that I could die in a place like that, surrounded by strangers and tacky scrubs and the whole mess of it, that was so scary to me. That was the worst thought in the world. And I told myself, there and then, that I was not going to die like that. I was never going to be that helpless.

It's so strange to picture people you know like that: rotting teeth and paper-thin skin. I can hardly picture my grandparents that way and that's exactly what they are right now. I really can't see myself as old yet. It scares me to think about that. Of course, it scares me whenever I find myself reading Reader's Digest. It's too...settled. For me. I don't want to settle. Not like that.

A friend of mine had a baby a couple years ago. Kameron. I saw pictures of him that were taken recently. I haven't seen that kid in over a year. He's getting so big; looks just like his mum. He's beautiful.

I want to get out, but there's nowhere to go. I want to escape, but where would I run to? I want to hide, but I can't go anywhere where someone won't know my face. BTown's grown in the last few years, but everyone still knows who I am. How depressing is that? This time last year I would have been holed up at Paige's house, watching telly and eating Pringle's from the can. When we got sick of that, we'd go to Border's and wait around for Matt to get done with school. Then go get him. Then go back to Border's. Well, where else were we supposed to go? Or we'd break him out of U-High and find some sort of adventure. I'd give a lot to have an adventure right now.

I'm moving back to Carbondale Thursday. I'll be packing up all my stuff tonight and tomorrow while trying to get around my da's folks. They're getting in town this afternoon. Double grandparent duty. Great.

I'm going to flop onto my back, flip on the telly, and wait for something to happen. Just like I've been doing the entire week.