Murder Murderer Love Inc.

Well, I'm here in my family's apartment for another day - the continuing joke that is the Denver International Airport and the smiting of God's snowy hand upon it has left me deadlocked without point or purpose. I will probably be returning to Denver the day after next; hopefully the apartment is not/was not on fire. At least it's comforting to know that no one has released the creature. Yet.

I've had a lot of fun here in Salem, don't get me wrong. It was so unbelievably great to be with my family - spend time with everyone and get back to how I grew up. I love seeing my sisters - reciting fun movie lines, making stupid jokes, just being weird all-around - and I hope I fill my position of 'little brother' good enough for the time being. I love seeing my parents - I get to spend more time with my dad now because of his new job, and I think that now - after my senior year, graduation, band stress, and much more - my mom can relax a little bit (I'm such a fuss, I know). Also, being able to just sit alone and think to myself has been great. Just relaxing - watching movies, playing games, playing guitar and writing songs - all things I thought I could do back in Denver, but are so much different here. It's been a great time.

I do hope to return in time for a joyous celebration of the New Year, which I have decided in an off-hand sort of way is my favorite holiday. There's some aura that sparkles so slightly in that one night. The atmosphere is warm even when it's freezing. Whether it has been the somewhat crazy events of Fabry's annual get together - something about 'death sauce' and David Byrne - or champagne from a paper cup on a couch in Zac's shed - listening to Ryan produce loud, drunken sounds from his guitar and spending the last seconds of the year 2005 in the air. Whatever it is, the memory of New Years itself always compares to the mass accumulation of memories from the year before. It always sticks with me until the next year rolls around. It allows me to do what I'm doing right now - reminisce and swell with nostalgia.

Who knows where I will find myself at the end of this year? In the basement of my drummer's house discussing Freud and how humans open bananas wrong? Snowed in at my apartment with Tyler and Dustin listening to our perfectly selected soundtracks? Will I be spending the last draining seconds on the phone with someone...anyone...spilling my soul? In the immortal words of The Chemical Brothers...

"Where do I start? Where do I begin?"

Somewhere beneath a vanilla sky. Somewhere sitting on the couch between a girl I've never met and my grandfather discussing literature. I'll be back to playing croquet at lunch breaks and believing what I write. I'll find myself somewhere solving mysteries with Nancy Drew, or turning Japanese. I'll finally board those fateful clouds I spoke of in years past - the last liner to cross the starry expanse. I'll jump so high I never come down. I'll drag out the 'olde' record player and dance the twist and mamba to the sounds of The Beatles and Tim Kasher. I'll list inconsistencies and impossibilities with great ease - laugh at my own humor - and make a toast to that brand new day. I am so excited; I can't even express it.

We'll be dancing in the dark.

We'll be flying like trapeze artists.

We will not be afraid.

I spent my day in solitary confinement; all for my own good. My throat has calmed down a bit, and now all that remains is my innate case of insomnia and a piercing headache that only knocks at the edge of my skull when I stand up. The day was filled with the consumption of water, Patricia Arquette, and bell tones of a 'G' note ringing through my head (no matter how I play that back, I won't be able to find that perfect note I'm looking for). I need casette tape and a cup of coffee. Now.

I tried to put my thoughts on hiatus for today - tried to hold back from letting anything disturb this serene sense of 'nothingness' that has glazed over the pain in my head - but to no avail. I found my tired mind drawn back to here (even though my words are sparse and I feel empty of things to say). My glasses sit precariously on the end of my nose, and my fingers bleed softly from the endless fiddlings of my musical obsessions. I discovered once again that twelve-string guitars are both physically and mentally exhausting.

So, what do I babble now? A senseless list of my invisible scheduling for the next few, uneventful days? I will attempt to regain my head. I will be flying back - Flight 792 - to Denver on December 30th (weather permitting; nature seems to playing a cruel game with the citizens of Colorado). I will either spend an uneventful New Years here in Salem, or I will be spending an uneventful (but probably intoxicated) New Years back home with Locke and Jean. I will attempt to finally finish writing down what's been floating around in my head. I will attempt to find a new four-track. I will wish it into existence! That is my dream!

My thoughts have wandered like jazz - playing hopscotch over the ebony and ivory keys of this seemingly silent piano. I have thought of her. I have not thought of her. I have searched my maps endlessly for the right way out, but I have failed. I have flipped the switch of every light in every room of my house - looking for some warmth or enlightenment in every corner. I have watched my phone ring away - not even bothering to pick it up let alone see who has called. I have planned my attack - placed my troops. I have perfected all the language I need. I have stumbled through the meaning I've once held, but now lost. I'm reading something about a beet.

"Somedays aren't yours at all;
They come and go as if they're someone elses days.
They come and leave you behind someone elses face."

I kept flipping on the computer today for no apparent reason. Every time - wandering with a sense of aimlessness, yet fierce with a sense of programmed action. It's like I was expecting something to happen. I was expecting something horrible - or something fantastical - to find it's way to me via this endless expanse we call the internet. My "friends" are a click away. My memories are recorded in an efficient, time-saving self-recording calendar archive. Our entire world teeters on the edges of our search engines and our news sites; every breath turned into nothing more than: "01110011 01101001 01100111 01101000".

I wanted something drastic to happen. My connections to sever - for those enticing red and blue banners (screaming 'NEW MESSAGES!' and 'NEW FRIEND REQUESTS!') to flash in seizures. I wanted some lost soul - someone living behind a name and a painted face - to sacrifice their pride for their honesty. I wanted something inside these electric light parades - these interconnected expanses of information bubbling over in an ever-boiling melting pot - to become human. To feel the way we feel. To dream the way we dream. I always wonder how I can never get across my thoughts the way I truly mean them - I wonder why the electric impulses in my brain cannot be duplicated and translated into a computer's electric impulses. I wonder how much our mechanics can differ from that which stands before me (recording my fingers and their movements, but never really getting my real message across). When will we discover the possibilities, and watch ourselves be destroyed?

That's one for the history books.
Please God, save us from our digital apocalypse.

So many things have changed. All at once, in a sudden whirlwind of passing months, moving, calendar pages, and lost letters, my life has fell back into position like a cosmic game of Connect Four. I have no idea what direction to face or run to. My compass has run north and south in circles. Since I last rejuvenated the dying horse that was this journal, things were going pretty smoothly for me. I mean, apart from trying to survive the last two months of high school and looking forward to a shaky yet extremely exciting future.

So, yes - things have changed. Right in time for this new year too. I still have many wants and dreams; many goals and aspirations. I haven't changed as a person - other than my hair growing too long and maybe my sleep schedule. I don't know - I just don't feel that different. I'm still this person I've grown to know from conversations in the mirror or over this journal - this kid named Jordan. At least we get along most of time.

I recently (and by recently, I mean in October) moved with the band and some friends up to Denver, Colorado. I've never moved before; I've lived in the same house since as long as I can remember. My childhood house in the hell we call Los Alamos is now occupied by someone I've never even met. I might not miss that place, but I miss that space I called 'home' - my room most of all. So much of my life went on within the walls of that room. Everything from playing with Lego to packing all my memories in boxes at the beginning of my 'new start'.

Denver...has been an interesting experience so far. Still young in our stay, we have run into so much shit that I didn't even know was possible. Yes, the good things are always evident - infinite freedom, a great band, parties all night - but so are the bad things - never having money, shows getting cancelled, scraping for rent. I think Tyler is the one that said, "I have learned more in these two months of living alone that I learned in four years at our stupid high school". We live our lives to a steady soundtrack - discussing the ways of the universe and the properties of love long into the night with Marble and Dustin, planning an explosion of sound and color like I've never seen before with both Tyler and Elise, and journeying along the path (and cliffline) of my life with everyone right by my side.

The summer seems so long ago; losing my Alexandra to the inevitable rising tide. The future as her husband has grown to be nothing more than my own hope and aspiration; a love put on hold indefinitely. This has also put me in a very fragile state - a state where I constantly feel sorry for myself, question the future, and wonder 'why'.

"And strange lonesome monsters loafed through the hills wondering why...and it is best to never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever wonder why."

Right now, I'm within these new walls of my family's house in Oregon; I write from the same hands on the very same keyboard that I etched all my silly high school angst and endless teenage turmoil to the page with for years and years. I present something new. Within all this change - within the spiraling path of music, mayhem, and that thing called "love" - I write something different. Contradiction. Confrontation. Opposition. A threat to my heart that this is a war and I am not about to give up.

So, I'll stop feeling sorry for myself. What do I really have to feel sorry for anyway? Yes, I lost the race against love - as always - alright, try again, second place, you almost had it this time. I find that putting a few years of training into myself might do the trick to win her back one day. Yes, I "live like shit and suffer for my art", but I really do like it that way. Yes, I've definitely had some moments; some coughing, screaming, sobbing fits of utter disgust and unbridled anger...but, how I see it...once you've let yourself go, there's nothing more to do than to find yourself again.

That's my goal. That's my dream. In simple terms, still the music, mayhem, and a thing called "love". That's my aspiration. My inspiration as a person - a friend, a lover, a fighter, and most of all, a damn good human being. Welcome again to my life; sit and talk awhile if you like.

- Jordan