Where Will They Live

Wow, today has been crazy busy. And I barely remember this weekend - and not because of any sort of self abuse. I think that I'm just tired and all the play rehearsal puts me in a weird sort of mind space.

On the way into work I was fed a nice, hot portion of "Day Of The Lords" by Joy Division. I was also nearly hit in the face with the aluminum crutch of a rotund man standing on the sidewalk of Cherry Street, bag of god knows what gathered at his leg. I sort jerked my face away from the worn rubber knobbie at the bottom of the crutch and tried to throw him my "look dude, I'll mess your shit up" look, which admittedly is probably not that strong; few people I think tend to believe that I will mess their shit up. But Old Roundy kept shaking his crutch and bunching his bag. I was about to let fly some choice but derogatory words, soaking his face with my vitriol and saliva, when I realized that he was attempting to hail the bus coming down the street behind me from what was decidedly not a bus stop.

And that's about the time that "Day Of The Lords" came on. Man, the tuberculosis ward aspect of the endless coughing here at work is making me feel a bit put out. Man, I derail myself way too easily.

The Joy Division immediately brought me back to a summer night in Chico, before I lived there, before I started planting the seeds of drama and depression that would be harvested a couple of years later. Alexi and I were driving down Main Street through the quaint downtown area of this college town - quaint meaning it was about 7 or 8 blocks by 3 or 4 blocks, depending on how loose you wanted to play with the "downtown" definition of things.

We were going to move there, Alexi and me. Damon was coming as well and eventually Amy Lou would be joining us. But for now it was just Alexi and I, looking for a place to live and admiring all the brick buildings and the heat and young, beautiful people. The drive north through the hellish section of I5 was taken up with Bauhaus and Bowie and The Cure's Staring At The Sea cassette (with the awesome side two chock full of B sides), but I specifically remember driving down Main Street, fully loving the heat that would soon become a dreaded monster and listening to “Day Of The Lords”.

There was so much excitement flying around the air then. Alexi was breaking away from his parents, both of us were breaking away from the creeping evil of Orange County and we were going to be in an honest to goodness college town. And if coming of age movies had taught us nothing, it was that college towns are where the BIG trials and tribulations would take place. Compared to the cultural wasteland of OC, we were in a town that had coffee shops and a serious lack of chain restaurants, a place where the bookstores readily sold Henry Miller and William Burroughs, a place where the video store carried a much sought after copy of Eraserhead.

And crap, I need to go back to work. My apologies, but I’ll continue this tomorrow.