i'm interrupting this radio silence with another radio silence.

i barely made it through last week. so i might not actually be able to do 'anything' (YES I CAN) as predicted.

but i went to florida and that made everything okay.

a spiderweb of crazy and 42 hours in the company of the greatest people on the planet will do that . . .

if i make it through this week, i can do anything. and by anything, i mean anything.

this will be the most boring post ever because i don’t have time to be funny or cute or say something witty or take a picture of something fun and tell you all about it.

i’ve take on too much and i’ll be there first to admit it.

how is it only wednesday?

and how am i functioning on 17 minutes of sleep over 5 days?

trouble’s in town, too. and that’s always a circus act to juggle.

and rem broke up today.

you may not appreciate this is you never lived in athens or went night swimming while listening to ‘nightswimming’ or drank beer with mike mills on his front porch.

but if you did any of those things, and especially if you did them all, then you can understand why this is devastating.

i would probably cry about it for a few minutes if i wasn’t sitting in a room with 4 people i’ve never met and 2 people who sign my paychecks.

there’s always the walk home . . .

"i'm free next week if you're ready to destroy something."

watch how fast i rearrange my entire week upon receiving messages like this.

::09::11::11::

because i don’t have much to say, but feel like i should, i’m going to steal from myself and just say what’s already been said.

it’s okay to steal from yourself.

the photos are different, but it’s the same empty sky . . .

the post that follows this might well be of the memorial. and then i’m going to take a break from things which involve sad reflection and go back to talking about stupid stuff like dancing on coffee tables and hang gliding.

[okay, i’ve never talked about hang gliding before, but this could be a good time to start.]

it doesn’t hurt any less because a mere decade has [almost] passed.

it doesn’t feel any more comfortable just because we’ve had some time to get used to a new skyline. and hate it.

it doesn’t bring us any additional comfort to sit patiently and watch as cranes and heavy machinery attempt to bring back to life what we all know will never be again.

it isn’t any easier because i watched it crumble from a classroom in a southern state while you watched it fall from a sky that you could almost touch.

the sting isn’t any less great because i wasn’t born here.

and the sadness isn’t buffered by the fact that i won’t likely die here.

it’s a bittersweet reminder of where we came from.

and a significant blow to the idea of how far we still have left to go.

but it doesn’t make me any less proud to love this town.

and to know that she’ll flat out kick your ass if you so much as show her your teeth.

time zones are stupid.

even if you are only one hour behind me.

still stupid.

DO IT FOR YOUR DAWGS. and do it for the hometown, too.

i’ve known john isner since i was like zero years old. the isners were my next door neighbors growing up, our dads went to davidson together, and his brother was the first boy i ever saw naked…and also the first boy i ever took a bath with (SCANDAL). easy, killers. we were like 3.

as he moves into the quarterfinals of the us open, the hometown might just come unglued. not unlike the time he spent 3 days playing the same match at wimbeldon last year. (OHMYGOD DID YOU SEE THAT??)

and the bulldogs are pretty stoked, too.

at his match the other day, Double D asked me if watching john play on such a large stage is surreal. not any more surreal than it is seeing his likeness splattered across giant billboards.

yay isner. and yay fountains.

a reservation for heartbreak.

i’m not expecting this to be the most fun i’ve ever had, but i’m expecting it to be the 2nd most important visit i’ve made down there.

and i’m going alone.

i think it’s the only way to do it.

 

[p.s. who (WHO) has one-THOUSAND eight-hundred and seventy UNREAD e-mails?? how is this even possible? there’s probably some good shit in there i’ve missed . . .]

[p.p.s. i’ll pay someone to go through these e-mails for me. for reals. and with my account password, you’ll have carte blanche to read all my personal goods, too. knock yourself out. make a day of it.]

[p.p.p.s. i’m actually not kidding. someone out there has enough free time and wants this job. so whoever you are . . . CALL ME. i might even bake you something.]