I haven't written here in a while, and it probably has to do with being back home and enduring the intensity of the holidays.  Christmas was entirely too difficult to deal with, but I got through it, and enjoyed sitting and being home with my family.  I have been bombarded with the question of what I am doing for new years quite a bit lately, as is customary around this time of year, but I really do not want to do anything.  Last year I worked on New Years until about 10 and went home to find Meliss at home waiting for me, so we could spent the rest of that night together.  When I am able to separate those memories from these days, and realize that tonight is just another night, one of thousands that will make up the rest of my life.  Separating the realities is difficult though, and something that I still have yet to accomplish.  I imagine I will force myself out tonight with friends, forcing a smile, and pretending like I am fine.  Everything is so dependent on how I feel in that exact moment when I am asked to go out though, so it is impossible to make plans in advance.  For now, I am going to go and enjoy this 70 degree weather and cool breeze.  

A list of what I am listening too right now. In no particular order.  Yes, this is important.

• Radiohead,  In Rainbows -  Check out this new album.  It is amazing.  Simple, and much different from Hail to the Thief, which I did not care for.
  
• The Go Find, Stars on the Wall- Not a coincidence the second to last song on this album is titled Kid OK.  Slightly influenced by Radiohead, this mellow, electronic style keeps me from finishing the album because I keep playing the songs over and over.  Much quieter than his first, it is a perfect companion for lonely nights.
• Belle & Sebastian, Dear Catastrophe Waitress.
• Amos Lee, my favorite songs; Soul Suckers, Black River, Keep it Loose Keep it Tight, Arms of a Woman.

Please check em out.  Oh, and I have posted a potential idea for some artwork I may have done.  Just an idea.  Any thoughts?

She shouldn't have died. It was a tragic mistake. She knew she shouldn't have been drinking, I only wish I could have talked her out of going. Or at least gone with her. Her stupid, ignorant sister in law decided to bring Meliss along with her, and include her in the destructive behavior. Her stupid sister in law. I hope she spends her life in misery. She knew Meliss had epilepsy. I just don't understand how she could have been so dumb. To cause such destruction that night and leave me there to find it in the morning. Melissa didn't even like her. We met her for the first time and Melissa thought she was talkative, annoying and odd. Hours were spent on many nights talking about how she disliked her. She put on her happy face for her brother yet behind closed doors for a while spoke with apprehension over her new family. But she was not her family, and never will be. She was poison that night. And I will forever think of her as the driving force behind her death.

I took this photo when she decided to paint her room pink. It ended up turning out a bit different than what she wanted, but as always, she didn't fuss. She is so gorgeous. It amazes me to this day. The way her hair centers her perfect features, and falls down, almost to her shoulders. I love this photograph. Piper, the other girl in the photo, was the only person I thought to call to come to the hospital the day Melissa died. I can feel what it was like to walk into the room and see the two of them painting and laughing.

I am home now and I never imagined how hard it would be to come back here. I haven't even gone back to Santa Barbara yet, which I am no way near ready for, but just coming back here is difficult. I wrote the previous post on the airplane, and felt pretty damn strong. Walking into my home though, and seeing her duvet on my bed, her notes on a yellow pad of paper, and then seeing her obituary. An obituary was written for Melissa. That can't be. It's just been so long since I've talked to her, it hurts so much. I knew coming home would be walking back into the fire, but this is nothing like I could ever imagine. The pain I have been trying to deal with has all come rushing back in at one time. I wrote that last night was glorious. Perhaps in that moment in time, and I am grateful for those few hours of tranquility and peace but I am now back into the depth of this torment. This does not change the fact that I am where I belong right now though. I need to be here, where my heart was broken. It feels good to sleep with her pillows and blankets. The fragrance of all of it whisks me right back on Elise Way. Right around the corner from Lazy Acres Market, where we would walk to get stuff for dinner. God I miss that. It has only been a few months, but it really has been a lifetime. The person I am now is entirely different than the one I was back then. I sit and cry over the loss of her, and I don't know if she would recognize me now. Her death defines the man that I am today. I carry it in everything I do. I am just so much different, both in how I look and how I feel. The metamorphosis began the moment I found out what happened to her and I hope there is still some of me left when it all comes to an end.

My Yellow Brick Road

I am writing this on board Delta flight 7670 heading up the coast, back to California. The ocean is to my left and the sun is setting. A path is given to me in the distance on the horizon, leading me all the way home, in the form of a color. I'll explain. The sky is forming different levels of colors. At the top, a grayish blue, which fades down into a green, and then to yellow, to orange, and finally to pink. Similar to the shades found in a rainbow sherbert. At the bottom, a bright pink layer, as bright as she would have hoped it to be. I instantly know my idea to return home is indeed the correct one. I told myself that I was going home to see her, to sit at the cemetery and talk to her, and I’ve had many doubts the last few days, for one reason or another. But here she is, leading me all the way home. I know that it may seem absurd to some, but these are the things that give me a bit of comfort nowadays. The comfort of her touch and of her glances are all but memories. The comfort of waking up next to her, and falling asleep with her in my arms are only in my mind, and now I look toward earthly signs that she is indeed here with me, helping me. Loving me. The sky is now a deep deep blue, as dark as the ocean it reflects, but the pink still remains. As vibrant and beautiful as it was before. The moon shines through this blue canvas, a bright white light in the sky yet the sun is still creating this pink sliver of comfort. It is her. Descending into Los Angeles now, finally home, it remains for another few minutes before it disappears over the edge of the earth. As I am told to close my computer, all that is left is the moon illuminating this glorious night.

Side note*- I love the "have a safe flight" comments from people prior to someones departure on an airplane. As if anyone can really control whether or not the pilot is an idiot, a drunk, or a terrorist. Like saying, "have a safe flight" really gives comfort. I mean, if someone doesn't say it, and then the plane starts to go down, are you really thinking to yourself, as you are nosediving through the air, amidst screams and little bags of peanuts flying everywhere, stealing the old womans oxygen mask sitting next to you because yours doesn't work, "god damn you timmy!, why didnt you tell me to have a safe flight!"

I make my triumphant return this evening to the city of angels. All packed up and ready to go, once again I wish I had the power to travel through time, only now It would be used to move these next six hours forward in order to get home quicker. Although, if I had the power to travel through time, I wouldn't be focused on going forward rather I would put the wheels of time in reverse for a few months and then perhaps put it into park for a while and let me sit with her and tell her that I love her, and to not go to SF and that I am sorry. I would probably put time at a standstill, not wanting to leave that moment with her, existing in her eyes forever. A fixture in each others consciousness.

Lying on the roof, counting
The stars that fill the sky
I wonder if
Someone in the heaven's looking back down on me
I'll never know

So much space to believe
When you're small
The moon follows the car
There's no one but you
Hey, the the moon is chasing me

I worried if I looked away, she'd be gone
Don't lose the dreams inside your head
They'll only be there 'til you're dead
Dreaming.

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I am coming home soon, the excitement is almost palpable and I can hardly sit still. I am excited to go to the cemetery and talk to her.  I know she isn't there.  Something is inherently wrong with saying I am excited to go to the cemetery, but its true.  I want to sit her grave site and talk to her. Maybe going there will make it real.  I am just so tired of going to sleep only hoping that when I wake I will realize that this has been all one terrible nightmare.  

So Meliss and I got word one evening that my little sister was going to be at her home all weekend, and that none of her roommates would be there.  This was also during a time that she was kind of, sort of dating this guy, and there was no way in hell we were going to allow her to be alone with him.  So we decided we would drive from Santa Barbara to Santa Cruz one evening and surprise her, and stay with her for the weekend.  This photo was taken in my sisters living room, during that weekend.  Some of the best memories I have are the road trips we enjoyed together, just the two of us.  Something so beautiful about just being in the car together, driving through the middle of nowhere, talking and listening to music.  I will never forget that, and I would give up anything for one more hour.

I am ill.  And no, I don't mean ill as in Illson5, J. Carusos screen name.  I have no idea how I remember that.  I'm sick.  And tired.  I left 2 days after her funeral and two months later I haven't returned home yet.  I need to come home so I can go to the cemetery and make sure there are flowers and that it is nice and tidy.  I need to talk to her and tell her how hard it is to live in a world without her.  I can't leave here soon enough.  Don't tell anyone I'm coming home, its a secret. 

I'm back. Like Jordan. Like the Spice Girls. Like 80's florescent colors. Like the high fade.

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I have been working feverishly on this now, figuring out if it will be a short novel, or memoir. I have decided to put a portion of the first chapter here online, and hopefully I will get some feedback. And yes, I know, there are grammatical errors, I am well aware.



When I decided that I would paint her toenails today, there was no doubt in my mind as to the color. I leave my home at ten o’clock in the morning, the same time I do everyday, and head down Pico Boulevard with a kit full of products used to beautify ones finger and toe nails, with a shade of polish so vibrantly pink, that many, upon seeing this color, may immediately think of the color adorned so famously by a doll named Barbie. I knew it was perfect. I knew she would approve. “The color is definitely pink enough, the color is Melissa,” I thought as I nod my head in awareness of the parking attendant I have become so familiar with lately that I even notice that he has changed the part in his hair today. I gather up the nail file, clippers I found in my bathroom, polish, cuticle oil, pedicure scrub brush, and geranium sage and peppermint lotion. “If only she knew what I was doing,” I thought, hoping to somehow convince myself that today was perhaps a bit more normal than usual. I inhale from my cigarette deeply one last time, and as I blow the smoke out of my lips and into the warm air of this September morning, the light breeze not even cooling down this day, I flick it to the ground, and step on it as I climb the steps into the hospital and into the cool air conditioned lobby of the UCLA medical center. Couches outline the walkway to the elevators, where anxiously awaiting family members and new patients sit. I walk through this runway, clutching my nail products until I arrive at the elevators where I find myself standing and waiting with a herd of medical staff, children holding balloons, and a few elderly women in wheel chairs. I turn around and walk back toward the lobby and into a doorway that leads me to the stairwell. There was no way I would be able to stand patiently. Not today. I start running up the steps, as if I am training for a triathlon. Images of people running up bleachers at football stadiums on Saturday afternoons come to mind as I briskly pass doctors going up and down from floor to floor. Climbing seven flights of stairs would normally be quite the exercise, but today I am adamant about getting to her as quick as possible. I reach the seventh floor in less than sixty seconds, not even feeling the slightest bit out of breath. I enter the hallway of the seventh floor and turned to my right. My hands tense slightly, and I feel my fingers tighten, forcing me to pull them apart one by one as I began to move down the hall. I walk until I pass the nurses station on the left, under the sign that reads ‘Neuro-Science, 7th Floor West Wing,’ and into room 768. My heart begins to throb rapidly, and I take one, drawn out, deep breath as I enter into the room. I notice a new flower arrangement on the windowsill, and for a brief second I think her eyes track mine. No. Not today. 5 weeks and I am still fooled by this beautiful yet brutal apparition. “Hi meliss, its me,” I say as I walk close to her and kneel next to the hospital bed. I do this daily, kneeling at her hospital bed. I kneel at her hospital bed as a man would kneel when asking for a woman’s hand in marriage. She is sitting up right today, her back at a forty-degree angle or so, her head tilted slightly to my left. A pillow keeps her head propped up, preventing her from completely resembling a rag doll, and her eyes open every so slightly, as if she is peeking to see who it was that entered into her room. The cut in her lip, probably from the seizure, and the subsequent fall into the bathtub has healed, and the swelling in her face has subsided. The tremors in her arms and legs are not as severe as the day before, which I am glad for, and she only twitches ever so slightly. Her arms and legs are in constant motion, never taking a moment to rest. A constant, unmethodical movement. But she looks beautiful. Her skin is clear and soft, and to think, she hasn’t used any products or facial scrub in quite some time. Even when her eyes are open, and even though they do not look at anything in particular, her oval shaped brown eyes, tinted with a slight amber tone, causes me to stare at her, as I did on so many mornings, anxiously awaiting for her to rise from her slumber. Her hair, a natural color of chestnut and mocha, with small waves of a lighter shade, similar to the sand found on the beaches close to our apartment in Santa Barbara, had been put up in a pony tail, and knowing she would find it bothersome, I take out the rubber-band and let her hair exhale as it collapses down to her shoulders. Her lips, corresponding puzzle pieces with mine, created to fit perfectly, are smooth and full, resting gently. I take my hands and press my palms to her cheeks as I kiss her forehead softly and then sit down on the hard plastic chair next to her bed, keeping one hand on hers as I sit.