Good weather today. The sun is testing its rays for spring, but the wind is still gripping winter like death. Spring break. No beaches, no rum, no wet t-shirt contests. This is the week I have an excuse to drink white-russians and smoke a joint in the afternoon before going to work.

I have been watching editing sessions from a Hunter S. Thompson documentary recently. The entire film is shot from a hand-held, digital camera. This makes the film look like a family birthday or a holiday scene. Watching the different cuts I feel like an old, strange, never-mentioned relative has just died and my grandmother has sent video of the weird black sheep. Perhaps I’d see where I get the odd behavior. And perhaps I do.

My life, at least the one I can still remember and feel connected to, has always been shaped by writing, breeding sex, and rock n roll, drugs and more sex, and always rock n roll. Hell, all the cool kids are doing it. Why not?

I can say have had plenty of fun and intend on creating more. We have to get our kicks in when we can. Reading Thompson’s Fear and Loathing On the Campaign Trail certainly has me comparing how Nixon was fucking the nation then and how George Jr. is fucking it now. Not that the man-child means to do harm. No! He is, after all, a true believer.

And Jesus will not stand for certain things. We need a rest from foreign fear. They need Democracy, Liberty, Shopping malls, and for God’s sake Churches. Huge churches with basketball courts and private schooling to ensure The Word is spread forever over the vast Empire of Our Lord. Right? Maybe. Or maybe Jesus never bought into all of that. He does now, like it or not.

A young woman was on the early morning bus today. She got on by the trailer-park stop off of Highway 52. Her child nestled in a sling closer to her chest, covered by a multi-colored blanket most likely knitted by her grandmother. Or maybe great-grandmother. The young woman is pretty, such a smooth face, probably the same age as me. She lets down her blonde hair, still curly because she doesn’t have time to straighten and primp in the morning. She has feedings and changings. But her hair looks nice. It frames her glasses that frame her face. No effort needed.

She is wearing a hoodie with the college name printed proudly across her chest. The child buries deeper into the letters to find warmth in the cold windy weather. This girl, this young woman, this mother seems so familiar. Almost as if I, by some stretching and pulling of reality, had let those characters in from a dream, or certainly an alternate universe.

I could have easily been the father. But what would have the choice been? I’m not parental material. And the women I see are not the motherly type. But maybe this young woman wasn’t either. She and the child seem to be getting along fine. Blissful and tired.

Eerie. This girl, this young woman, this mother has the face of a ghost. Beautiful and placid, haunting me from a life I could have lived.

These are strange times in a world even stranger. What chance does the little bastard have? Slim to fucking none I’d say. And I should know. Humans are sucking the fat from the earth as fast as possible, screwing anything and anyone in the way. And incompetence of leaders abounds while complacency sky rockets. Soon we’ll all be humping the corpse of peace. God is dead. It happened right after hope was lost.

And if my present is any indication of that child’s future, then, well . . . shit. No hope. He’ll be stoned, smoking a cigarette, drinking a cold beer all before noon. But he’ll still be able to type somewhat coherently.

Oh well.

Spring Break 2005.