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Notes From The Flip Side: 04.23.2000

I've been reading Graham Greene's "The End of the Affair" lately. It's a simple tale about a jilted writer who can't stop thinking about his former lover. Yes, it hits very close to home. The book was written in 1951; my former fiancee wrote me notes and cards that said the same things in different words. It's an uncomfortable book to read - it feels like I'm picking at fresh scars - yet I feel compelled to finish it, as if completing it will, in whatever way, yield some sort of closure.

In its own way, it has already offered considerable solace - Greene described my ex-fiancee a full quarter of a century before she was born and has described my reactions to date as if he were following me. He has captured the anger, the bitterness and the jealousy surrounding failed love and its rebirth with another with words that act as triggers for memories like bullets. They tear through skin and muscle without grace; his expression is elegant, but the emotions that expression elicits simply hurt.

I still remember too much. I still hate coming home to an empty apartment, although it's not much different than when I lived with her and came home to an empty apartment.

I'll be as honest as I can - I'm lonely and that feeling, more than any other, makes nights seem like they last for weeks. Maybe that's what makes the words stumble out of my mouth, clumsy and foolish, as I try to talk to start a conversation with someone I've never met before.

Eloquence escapes me these days. I can write what I feel, but fucked if I can actually say it. In the meantime, stuttered syllables fall like sick from my lips.

I'm thanking every star which is not yet in the sky that tiltWheel plays soon. I need to go lose myself in rock and roll that speaks to me in language that I understand. This is my last hope this weekend of feeling something good and cathartic, a wave of joy which can carry me through the week and all the shit that comes with it. Good times are ahead. If I say it enough, I just might believe it.

Site Updates

I need to restring my bass. The Hot Water Music interview is almost done, barring a bit more transcription and some scanning. I've added an essay about Metallica's Napster suit. The abstract: Fuck Metallica.

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