ickcure

i fly out in a couple hours to start my first real tour in two years and i am actually nervous!

this has been the longest interval between tours for me, no doubt, and looking back on it, i'm on the fence as to whether i regret turning down all those offers i had in between.

but i can't do anything about that now, and anyway, i wouldn't be on this tour had i not had that job at folio to begin with.

and this is a good one. this has all the makings of a classic. we will see!

itinerary with mates of state and black kids:

April
17 - seattle
18 - off day
19 - portland
20 - san francisco
21 - san francisco
22 - off day
23 - los angeles
24 - pomona
25 - tempe

i fly out of phoenix on the 27th. i'll be thrilled to be home by then, i'm sure.

i dont know if i'll update this during the tour at all, prolly not. so i'll catch ya on the other end.

i am totally addicted to running again.

this is an incredible development for me because i was shot in the foot 15 months ago. what if i could have never run again? i choose not to think about that, and to go running instead.

my body is tired and aching, my back is tight and my legs are stiff, yet i still want to run because i feel so good afterwards. it is a struggle -- it really is -- to convince myself to take a break today.

i know nobody reads this, so i am going to go ahead and write this here so i can say i told somebody. this is contradictory to my pattern of behavior, but i have not told anyone yet that i am going on tour.

in years past i would have trumpeted this news to all available outlets, but i've kept this one under wraps, i suppose to avoid a jinx of some sort. i have turned down a few tours in the last couple years, citing my desire to live a more adult life.

oh but this offer was just too good to refuse! so i accepted. im going on tour with the black kids and mates of state, and barring a major ceiling falling thru or rug pulled from under, i'm leaving in a week to meet them in denver.

i won't bother saying this is my last tour ever. thats something i would have trumpeted outloud too. but i wont say that this time, because now i just dont know.

anyway, it feels good to have told somebody.

reading textbooks
playing music
hustling photoshoots
taking pics
chasing girls

that's pretty much been it, man. my days are packed with reading, shooting, and composing.

i would trade all this for a teaching job, of course.

returning to school has really made a big difference in my life, i have to say. i didn't think it would. i thought i would approach it with apathy, frankly. but i'm actually completely enthralled with it.

i graduated with a couple'a bachelors degrees six years ago! that doesn't seem that long, but since then i've just been doing a tour here and there and going through a few jobs. wandering, basically, and that's a long time to do that.

so when i started sinking my teeth into my coursework, i realized i entirely forgot the feeling of belonging i have when i'm at school, and it's really lifted me out of a funk that had set in so long ago i had become used to it.

i admit, when i visisted UNF for the first time after deciding to go back, i kinda just walked around in a daze, thinking to myself "what am i DOING here?" i had some fun times there, man. but that was another life ago, and that's why i was thinking that.

and now that i'm back, i feel rejuvinated.

of course there's an element of taking a step back in all of this. i should have left jax a long time ago. but that's GREATLY alleviated by the fact that UNF has sorta grown into a beautiful swan of a campus.

maybe that's exaggerating -- but i'll tell you what. one time on tour i went on to the vanderbilt campus to explore. i wanted to check my email, so i found my way into their large beautiful library and bypassed all that student-only entry shit.

i stepped into the new UNF library today for the first time, and it honestly reminded me of the one at vandy. imagine that!

so anyway, yeah. school is really turning my life around!

my buddy elkin is leaving for basic training on january 30th.

he's a year older than me. we met when we were both working at the campus voice, the student newspaper over at FCCJ. we helped each other write some stories. we became tight. we ate lunch sometimes. we worked together on special assignments, even won a couple awards for it.

after community college, elkin and i parted ways. he went off to tallahassee, where he gained the cherished college experience every young man needs to go through. i went on tour, and i saw the country traveling with bands. we didnt keep in touch at all that period.

a few years later, lo and behold, we're teaching at the same high school, his alma mater. we hang out at lunch sometimes. fuck around. gossip bout teachers. im teaching 9th grade american gov't. he's teaching 9th grade reading. elkin and i are on top of the world.

and yet a few years later, we're both office monkeys on philips highway. me at folio weekly, designing ads and laying out pages. he at the office on the phone talking about thermometers and refridgerators. we meet for lunch a few times. money is tighter. but same ole' elkin. same ole' dennis. just fuckin' around.

and then we both got laid off at the same time.

and now he's leaving for basic training in three weeks. i tried to talk him out of it. i told him i didnt want to see him come back in a mangled state, cuz surely he'll be put into the line of fire at some point.

but he's ok with all that. the incentives are too good to pass up.

this is another point where our paths diverge. see you in a few months or years, elk. i wont be in the armed forces. perhaps i'll be in china, who knows?

anway, i love you elk. take care of yourself.

i was walking down a wooded road, through a forest.

ahead in the distance, on the side of the road, i see a woody-style station wagon, with vacation suitcases tied to the racks on top. i know the car has been recently abandoned because i see fresh footprints leading away into the trees.

i follow the footprints, which lead me to a lake.

i hear blood-curddling screams here, the screams of a woman, and i notice that there is a large alligator on the far side of the lake. the alligator is savagely working on a child's body like a dog chewing on his bone. ten feet away lay the remains of another person, gnawed and mangled into a pile of human chewing gum.

it was a family of three, i realized, that had lost its way on its vacation drive. the alligator had snatched the father first and chewed him into a raw pile.

the alligator was finished with the child now and walking slowly towards the mother, who was paralyzed with the fear and grief over the sudden loss of her husband and child.

as the teeth came down on her, she let out a scream, but that scream ended as a gurgle.

this is just a test

the tour with et, thursday, rise against and circa survive went smashingly.  i think i understand texas a little better now.  you have to go there to know what i mean.  at the very least i was delighted to try texas bbq for the first time.  yum!  in any case, still waiting on the film.

tomorrow morning:  hopping on a plane and going on another tour.  i will see you guyz in a week.

i know i have said this before, but this time it's the truth, this is the last one ever for me!

im leaving for tour in the morning.   florida, texas, and all places in between.  see y'all in a few days!

also, big tour announcement coming up!

today at dunkin donuts i overheard these four older peeps, prolly late mid to late 40s, talking about myspace.

"you put music and videos on them and u get other people to be ur friends, i dont get it. thats where serial killers get their victims."

i am in bed sick.  some snotty nosed snivveling little kid at dunkin donuts gave it to me, prolly.

for halloween i aim to design a donut using either the jelly hole or the donut hole to resemble a gunshot wound.

a couple days ago at work, one of the managers made the usual batch of donut icing, except instead of white or pink or chocolate, he put a light-hunter-green food coloring in there.  my guess was he was trying out a halloween decoration or something.

he put the green icing on top of a couple dozen cake donuts (not jelly donuts) and then put two dabs of white cream on one end.  in the center of those dabs he put a choclate chip to make them look like eyes.  on the opposite end he poked into the donut a cone shaped hard green candy, kinda like a jolly rancher.

it was supposed to be a crocodile, his ode to the recently deceased steve irwin the croc hunter.  it didnt look anything close to a croc, nor did it taste any different than any other donut with icing on it (except u got chocolate chips and a hard candy bonus), but it sold out within a couple hours.

so i have been able to increase my hourly wage by about $1.50-$2 an hour by putting out a tip jar (actually a styrofoam cup) by the register.

i see those tip jars all the time at places like dunkin donuts or the loop, but i never put money.  in fact i never see anyone put money.  but you'd be surprised, i collect several extra bucks at the end of my shift that way.

well today the boss comes out and starts throwing her weight all over the place.  dont put so much cheese on that bagel!  dont give them so much butter, what u want us to go broke?  and take that tip jar out of my sight, it doesnt belong there.

believe me, dunkin donuts makes plenty of money for our boss. between her and her kids SUVs and their college tuition, she has prolly seen more money watching people sell donuts than she deserves. the shame! i bet if she had to sling fried dough to fat asses with attitudes all morning she'd change her fucking tune.

but anyway, i digress. no more tip jar, im back to regular ole' $7/hr.

i saw a bumper sticker today that read "it's ok to not drink."