think about the things I said, read these pages cold and dead...

Attempts at highway driving foiled by accidents and sundry, somehow ended up traveling to Parmastan via the route of white flight down Broadway, past sokols and social halls and pawnshops, old churches with decaying facades, through the parts of Clevelandia I rarely traverse, the sun and the trees making even the lands of crack and foreclosed homes and things-falling-apart for decades still look strangely beautiful.

There are so many people at my parents' house, cousins and uncles and old friends who have taken on the status of cousins and uncles. I find I don't have much to say to anyone, not because of anyone's fault, but that's just how it is this time, so I play with the nephew and look through old photos culled from my great-uncles house and mingle my way through and try to keep in check my own weird opinions on things, because I know there's no point in debating when certain people are so ensconced in suburbia that it's obviously one's own fault if they can't find a good-paying job because they're lazy.

I don't even know what to say to this because I think of all my friends with degrees who did everything the way they were supposed to, and sure, the unemployment rate might not have changed all that much, but everyone, including yours truly is working, but underemployed by the standards of older generations who had jobs or prospects lined up within months of graduation. I was one of the lucky ones but I couldn't raise kids or buy a house on what I make, while my friends are living at home or with multiple roommates, paying down student loans stringing together part-time gigs in food service or second shift at the gas station or the group home, looking into beauty school or the Peace Corps because what else is there? There are slackers in every generation, but just because someone isn't able to afford two cars and a home in the exurbs doesn't mean they're failures either.

But the night is beautiful, and I listen to Jar of Flies, harmonizing to the vocal lines, howling along because no one can hear me except God, these streets are so empty, until I get back to my neighborhood where the punks are watching the police cars fly down the road blue and read. These songs are familiar and uncomplicated, comforting in their warmth and resignation and brilliant flashes of hope in the bleakness.Everything feels tired, it's just the beginning of summer...