"Person man, person man
Hit on the head with a frying pan
Lives his life in a garbage can
Person manIs he depressed or is he a mess?
Does he feel totally worthless?
Who came up with person man?
Degraded man, person man"

I am realizing this now, that I am the degraded man or the song, in a sense. I feel constrained, in a way, by tons of stuff, but not really. It's just a feeling of being stuck somehow, but yet I'm hopeful...like something is going to give soon. God, I don't take shit from anyone anymore. I've lost my qualms, my cares, and my tongue is loose, which can be dangerous. Recently one of my avid readers intoned that she didn't know I could be angsty...people have no idea just how angsty I can get. That's why I write. This is going to be a very productive year because of that angst. I'm looking for someone to share that angst with, I guess, or something. I am looking forward to school, but at the same time I'm worried. Always worried. Not because I am going back to school, no, but because I will have to be with people again. It's been 2 full years since I've had to share space with other people. I mean my personal space. I figure that it will either go one of two ways. The first way will be that everything will be all happy and good. THe second way is that I move out. There is middle ground in there, the ground in which I will be living, but in the interest of time and sanity, I'm leaving it out. And for dramatic effect. It's all in the delivery after all. That and the wrist.

I need to pick up a squash racket before I go back to school. God, I can't wait to just go there and whack a ball around, get better, and work out. I feel like I've been a lump all summer, though I must say that I absolutely kicked ass in my hockey game this past night, winning 7-3. For those who don't know, ice hockey is one of my great loves, aside from the ladies. I must say, that the ladies can be colder than the ice, but I think I'll go through some more relationships before elaborating on that all too common point. Back to task, hockey is something that I have been playing on and off for a good many years, about a decade or so. I played almost everyday until about my senior year of high school, when I suffered a knee injury. This injury cut my ice time dramatically, but it also allowed me to explore my more artistic side, namely playwriting.

Things have never been the same since then.

John had an odd revelation yesterday, or I guess two days ago since I can't sleep for the second night in a row. Both he and I were the absolute bottom of the barrel in our school band, middle school band. We blew. We didn't know jack, really, and it showed. We had some great, great fun, but really didn't learn about music. One thing that we all had to do was practice. To make sure we were, they gave out these practice sheets that we would have to fill out as part of our grade. Everyone lied on them, but the best instance of this lying, and the most blatant came when John turned in his practice sheet to Mr. Wojowicz (Woj) at the end of the year trip to Riverside amusement park. Without thinking, he just filled in the time he needed, and gave it to Woj. Woj looked at the sheet and said, "Funny John, that you could practice with those stitches in your lip." You see, John had been hit in the face with a frisbee during a game of ultimate, and he had a few stitches in his lip that kept him from playing his sax for about a month worth of classes. John, realizing his folly, turned to Woj and said, "Yeah, that is funny." And walked away. That sort of shit was our forte. But the revelation, yes, the revelation. We are probably the only people that are playing instruments right now out of the entire band. We both play annoying instruments, at that. He plays the bagpipes and I the accordion. If we end up living in that apartment in the city after we graduate, our neighbors are going to kill us.

It's amazing what you will do when you choose to do it.

I wonder if I am an insomniac yet?
Oh yeah, and I am me.
Not you, not he
(though to some that may be)
but I am me
myself
a pair of mes
will rock the party
admittedly so
we'd be foolhardy.

And that's why I'm not a poet, not by anystretch. For further evidence, got to poetry.com and search for Topher Zanzibar. That's my pretencious pen name. I actually like those poems though.

"There's a girl with a crown and a scepter
who's on WLSD
and she says that the scene isn't what it's been
and she's thinking about going home"

(lyrics by they might be giants)