The Funny Stuff

Perhaps this is unrelated to Will and Lilly and I. I was watching the 11 o'clock news tonight with my mom (it's like she magically appears out of nowhere some days), and the funny stuff is apparently gaining a reputation. One of the filler stories was about a "health concern": young teens being rushed to the ER based on adverse reactions to an "unknown drug." The way they describe it, I know it's the funny stuff. I'm fluent in the drug langauge of this town, even this state, and nothing else that's around would cause such delirium. Will wasn't kidding when he said this batch got around. I thought only a handful of people would have it, but it seems like everyone's heard rumors about it now.

Truly Distressing Happenings (a long explanation)

I've come to the sad conclusion that I probably have to tell someone. I can't tell Lilly. I wouldn't tell Will. I wouldn't tell any of my other friends. In part, it's because it would get back to Lilly somehow (I know it). I just don't trust them to say anything that would do any good at all. So, perhaps, this is exactly the sort of thing that would go on this blog.

Lilly and her love interest are, despite my stifled objections, dating now. His name is not Tommy, but that is how I will refer to him from here on. In an attempt to foster good will, I spent some time with the both of them. We wandered off to a more or less abandoned clearing not far from the Elementary School in town. It's the best place to enjoy both the sun and your choice of debauchery; it may be close to the school, but nobody wanders far into that neck of the woods precisely because nothing's there. Things went well in the beginning - I even started warming up to the guy. We lost track of time, and Lilly had to rush off home for one reason or another. I don't remember why, exactly. I don't think it was important. Tommy and I stayed behind to clean up (never leave evidence, you know?), and as evening came crawling in, things starting to get strange.

I thought Tommy was just out of it. He had this strange look on his face, a little like the look a person gets when something refuses to sit well in his system. I thought maybe he was going to hurl his whiskey. I reached out to pat him a few times on the back to encourage him to keep it together. Instead of smiling, or throwing up, or doing anything at all I expected him to do, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me in for a kiss. He missed. He hadn't thought I'd try to bite him. But he wouldn't let me go. He held on for a few more torturous minutes, trying reassure me. You know when a man croons? His voice will get real low and kind, he'll tell you everything is okay... Imagine that laced with anger. I felt like his voice was crawling up and down my spine...

I came back into my head enough to reach for the empty whiskey bottle I'd left on a nearby stump (side note: this stump is huge, it makes a fantastic little table). I hurled it at his face. I missed, of course, because I didn't actually want to mutilate the man. I just wanted him off of me. It sailed past his ear, much farther than I'd thought, and shattered on a tree behind him. The noise must have startled him, or maybe my message got through, and he let go of my wrist. I pushed away from him, pocketed everything I needed, and left without another word.

I knew Lilly would be meeting him later that night. I was talking to her before bed, and, gently as I could, I asked her how it went and whether anything interesting had happened. She only reported good things. I wanted to tell her right then that her new boyfriend has some sort of terrible streak in him. It would have felt fantastic. I hate the man simply because he's with the woman I love, and tearing them apart would be ... I'm having a hard time finding the right word. Perhaps fantastic? Validating, maybe? The sad truth is that he seems to make her happy. I'm sure she would have told me if he'd ever crossed a line with her. She's strong enough not to take it. I didn't tell her then, and I don't intend to tell her now. I love her, I want her to be happy. I would never want to crush her based on something I wasn't 100% sure about.

The silence is the worst part. I've called Will again to see if he'll come around and keep me company. I think perhaps I'm sending the wrong messages, but I desperately need company right now. I don't want to face myself alone.

Distressing Happenings

Something really awful happened tonight.

I'm honestly torn about what to do. I'm not sure it belongs on this blog. But then again, I've shared everything else with you readers, haven't I?

I think that maybe I'm too angry to write about it now. I need to think things through, somehow make it through a very late dinner with my mom, and try not to freak out. The worst part is that I can't call Lilly this time. I go to her with all of my problems - but this one feels out of bounds.

Until I have a cooler head...

This is where I'm going, all by myself with Lilly, and I'm excited.

Dad told me to call him when we got there, call him when we leave, all that shit. He's already called me twice. He's really not the talkative type of father, but whenever I travel somewhere without him he gets super nervous. It's sweet in a I wish you did that kind of thing all the time kind of way.
We leave in about four hours. I'm already packed. We're well stocked for this adventure in all manners of speaking. It's all I can do to sit still and listen to the insects and the birds and the lawnmowers outside my window.

A Vacation

Today is actually really fantastic. Lilly reminded me that we're going to see Nine Inch Nails (how cliche of us) tomorrow night. We only have two tickets; her new potential squeeze is excluded. What's even better is that the concert's in New York, so we get a lot of alone time in the car and we're spending the night at a motel. I'm really just relieved that Lilly and I will have some time alone. I feel like I'm going to be seeing a lot less of her soon.

In Which I Am Almost a Major Fuckup:

I almost told Will about Lilly last night.
But Will is not Lilly; I can't tell him everything. 

Sometimes I feel like Will wants to come onto me. I may just be conceited. Either way, I don't feel like dumping my love-related problems on him would bring me anything but absolute trouble. My gut just says this is not something you tell Will about.
Mom is going to be very late coming home. I intend to open all the windows, smoke in the living room, and find a good movie on TV. I could use a night away from everybody.

Half a bottle of "water" later:

I really just want her, you know?
Maybe I will always want her.

We've never actually fought for very long about anything. In the end, we miss each other too much and one of us calls the other to blather about how bad she feels.
I want her to myself.  

Sometimes I would just like to hide under a rock.

Apparently, Lilly's taken to some guy I've never met. She's been asking me for advice about how to act around him. I'm tempted to sincerely give her the worst advice imaginable. If she were anything but my best friend, I honestly might have. But for the past few days, I've bitten the bullet and tried to help her get this mystery man interested.

I've been drinking a lot once I get home. Will called earlier; he wants to hang out tonight. I told him I wouldn't use any of his funny stuff (we still don't know what it is and have simply dubbed it 'the funny stuff'), and that I'd prefer we just chill and drink by ourselves. I don't want to see Lilly right now, and I certainly don't want to give her any more advice about how to be endearing. Will said he'd call back about an hour from now - or was it half an hour from now? - about whether we have the all-clear to chill at his place. I hope he doesn't want me to drive. I've been drinking some really terrible vodka I got my hands on earlier and I'm halfway through my new pack of camels. I don't really think driving is the wisest choice right now.

You Don't Always Know What You're Buying

The weirdest fucking thing happened today.

Lilly and I were at my house, in the middle of baking a giant pizza-sized cookie. I heard someone knock at the door, which is weird - nobody ever comes to my door. There's no reason to. The nearest gas station is an hour's walk away. Anyway, there was Will on my porch. He looked like he'd been through hell. He was bleeding in a couple places and completely covered in mud. Looked like he'd just seen a ghost. He asked to use both the shower and the phone, and I went ahead and let him in. After he was done with his business, he told us how he'd ended up there.
Apparently, he'd been on the same shit I'd been on when I had the whole northern lights/car incident. I told him about that, but he insisted nothing like that had ever happened to him or anyone he knew and just shrugged it off. So, not listening to me, Will went ahead and tripped alone watching Animal Planet. He was fine for the first hour or so, he said, and then it just hit him like a train. Right in the middle of a two hour tiger documentary, he started freaking out. He thought the tigers were real, in his house, and hungry. My favorite part of the entire story was Will's description of how he hid in his bathtub for twenty minutes. Something startled him (I figured it must have been some loud part of the show or something. I imagined a nice, loud tiger fight.). Scared to all hell, he told us he just ran straight out his front door, across the yard, across the road, and into the woods across from his house. He says he doesn't remember exactly how he got where he did, except that he could have sworn that a tiger was still after him and that the woods just did not end. Somehow (and I can picture how), he came to one of the hills along Route 180 and just ate shit. He had already run through some swampy bits (probably by the Millers'), but slipping and sliding down that steep hill just fucked him up completely. That's how he got bloody. As he got down to the road, these redneck kids almost creamed him in their truck. He said he didn't see what group it was, it all happened so fast. He fell right into the road, the truck was there, it came within about a foot of hitting him, and drove off. After that, he told us, he was scared back into his head and realized he was only about a ten minute walk from my house and didn't think he could make it back home without being harassed in his state. I had to agree. He really did look like he'd been chased down by something.
The funny thing is that after he told us all this, I asked him how much he regretted his solo trip. He told me that he didn't. Paraphrasing his words: "I have a crazy, kickass story of my own now. I mean, yeah, I could have died, but I didn't. That's what makes it good. One day, we'll all be sitting here like this, and I'll say, 'Hey, remember that time I showed up at your house thinking a tiger was chasing me?' and we'll all laugh." I realized that I agree with the concept. I wouldn't have any 'what the fuck' stories to be proud of without all the crap I get into. I'm proud I've survived those things, and I'm happy I can make other people laugh by telling them how this one time, I was just minding my own business, and something completely crazy happened...

The silver lining of all this (besides the incredible story Will, Lilly, and I have now) came about when Will used the phone. He called his guy because he wanted to know what the hell had happened. Apparently, the guy has been getting calls since he sold the last of that shit. Will didn't share many details, but he told us that his batch of illicit glory had been tampered with somehow and cut with something weird. His guy hasn't figured out what it is, yet. But as a show of goodwill, he's refunding everyone who bought from him and flipped out. Will is saying that we three should get together soon, set ourselves up in a damn positive environment, and just use up the rest of the shit and hope for the best.
I'm inclined to agree. 

The Only Thing I Really Care About

I would be immensely proud if I could find the words to describe Lilly. I've drawn a lot of portraits, but I would never attempt to draw hers. I feel like the most important thing about her is something beyond description - a strange kind of charisma, if you will. Everything she does is part of a larger, even more interesting story that is her life. I'm drawn to every word that tumbles out of her mouth. She writes beautiful poetry, too. It's not really like anything I've read before. I want so terribly to be in every part of her life, and I feel like even then, she'd be a mystery to me.


I thought about these things a lot this afternoon. I spent it with her (but let's be honest, I spend most of my time with her). We wasted most of the afternoon smoking cigarettes by the window in her room, trying to blow all the smoke out of her window. We'd put on some terrible daytime show on her little 23" TV. We made jokes about it, half out of our heads. Dr Phil seems terribly overdramatic in such a mindset.
Suddenly, she turned the volume down and looked at me, grinning. "I'm going to get on Dr. Phil," she told me.
"How?" I asked. She tried to keep a serious face, but the corners of her mouth were twitching.
She picked up her pack of cigarettes, Winstons this time (we smoke whatever we can get our hands on - no brand loyalty here) and she pulled out a handful. Before I could say anything, she'd stuck them all in her mouth at once.
"Dr. Phil, I have a smoking problem," she said to me, as I were the doctor himself. She couldn't smile, her mouth was so full of tobacco rolls. "One just isn't enough anymore!" As she said this, one of the cigarettes fell out of her mouth. "If I don't smoke at least ten of these fuckers every hour on the hour, I just go crazy!" Two more fell out just then. "Oh lord, I'm getting a craving!" She grabbed her lighter then and tried to simultaneously smoke the seven or so cigarettes remaining in her mouth. She failed at lighting a single one, and she dropped them all in laughter.


I'm hoping that might help explain why I want her with me every minute. When she does things like that, I want to grab her and tell her how beautiful, how adorable, she is. And believe me, it's not just on the inside - she has the most adorable pout, curly red hair that she stubbornly insists on straightening, she's curvy enough to be unbearably soft, the perfect size to fit into a bed with. I think about telling her all the time. But I would risk losing her. I couldn't take that; I'm afraid I'd just shatter if she were suddenly gone. I swear that half the cigarettes I smoke are wasted on thinking about how I'm completely unable to say a single thing to her.