I want you the right way

yeah, I can see it now
the distant red neon shivered in the heat
I was feeling like a stranger in a strange land
you know, where people play games with the night
god, it was too hot to sleep

Another day, more self-reflection. It's becoming a theme. But I did make it through without a major inciting incident, so that's a plus. And it's still in the nature of a lifeline--the people I trust, trust me. Flip side of that is I'm still not always sure I trust me, but--they do. And if they do, they have to have a reason. So, above and beyond how untrustworthy I feel, I have support that I'm worth their trust.

I can work from there, if from nowhere else.

I followed the sound of a jukebox coming from up the levee
all of a sudden, I could hear somebody whistling from right behind me
I turned around, and she said
"why do you always end up down at Nick's Cafe?"
I said, "Uh, I don't know, the wind just kinda pushed me this way"
she said, "Hang the rich"

Of course, everything's still very much up in the air. Sexual tension ramping up to a fever pitch, at least for me, and for the other two, they are currently in no place to do anything about it, so...I'm going to have to figure out something (relatively) safe to do, because the old outlets won't precisely work, either. Though I am becoming very tempted to freelance.



catch the blue train
places never been before
look for me
somewhere down the crazy river
(somewhere down the crazy river)

So, patchwork. And patch work. Shoring up the breaks in the structure, though thankfully there weren't as many as feared. Momentary lapse of everything, but back to moving. Fairly sure the tinder box still holds bones...but we'll deal with that when it's time to deal with that.

ooh, catch the blue train
all the way to Kokomo
you can find me
somewhere down the crazy river
(somewhere down the crazy river)

We're back to steady state, more or less.

take a picture of this
the fields are empty, abandoned '59 Chevy
laying in the back seat listening to Little Willie John
yeah, that's when time stood still
you know, I think I'm gonna go down to Madam X
and let her read my mind
she said, "That voodoo stuff don't do nothing for me"

We make our choices, we roll the dice, we try to do what's right--at least for us--along the way. Every single person is just making it up as they go along; some are just better at playing the game than others.

No one knows the future, not even the people who do, because the future can always, always change. And ofttimes more suddenly than we thought possible.



I'm a man with a clear destination
I'm a man with a broad imagination
you fog the mind, you stir the soul
I can't find no control

That is the current issue, yes. Finding that tricky balance between loss of all control, and too controlled to inhale properly, and holding the center point. Now, I have always tended towards over-controlled, the unconscious spasms and stumbling notwithstanding, and it has been a constant effort just to get myself to let go once in a while.

I think I'd reached a place where that was possible, even if only occasionally, but now...I have to find that place again. The path I took the last time no longer exists.



catch the blue train
places never been before
look for me
somewhere down the crazy river
(somewhere down the crazy river)

Names change, ideas change, places change, maps reconfigure. It happens. Granted, usually it's more or less imperceptible, and not something starting out as one thing, one idea, one shade of reality, and ending up something else entirely, but I've had that happen too. It's not unknown.

ooh, catch the blue train
all the way to Kokomo
you can find me
somewhere down the crazy river
(somewhere down the crazy river)

It's more mercurial than I like my reality, but I don't get to choose. The future shifts, the past erases, the present restores--everything's in motion, in flux, and I'm just learning to float. Too much chance of undertow to swim. Will dog-paddling be okay?



wait, did you hear that?
oh, this is sure stirring up some ghosts for me
she said, "There's one thing you gotta learn
is not to be afraid of it"
I said, "No, I like it, I like it, it's good"
she said, "You like it now
but you'll learn to love it later"

I'm frequently afraid of things. Mostly things in me, patches of damage, locked doors in the backbrain, the things in boxes I don't dare unpack right now. All the shadows in all the corners. They've always been there, though, or at least as long as I can remember.

Which does speak to a dark personal history that goes back some distance, and you would not be wrong, and that's all I'm saying here. I've come to terms with enough of it to function. That's really all I need until something else goes bang.



I been spellbound
falling in trances
I been spellbound
falling in trances
you give me the shivers
chills and fever

And sure, all of this? It touched on a lot of old issues. Some things I thought I'd resolved, some things I clearly hadn't, but I'm taking them in order when I can. Occasionally several issues attack at once, but that's hardly unusual either.

you give me the shivers
you give me the shivers
I been spellbound
I been spellbound
I been spellbound
(somewhere down the crazy river)
somewhere down the crazy river

It just hasn't happened for a while.

But one way or another, I get through this. No new (visible) scars, stopped that long ago. No life-threatening episodes, though there was, and may still be, more of personal recklessness in this than I maybe want, long-term. I'll eventually stop throwing myself off of cliffs to see if I can fly.

Though sometimes I have, so, y'know, girl's gotta try.

(Pictures taken at Lucifer's Lounge in Hell, Ostoja, Quicksand Cove and Salt Beach. Lyrics are Robbie Robertson's Somewhere Down the Crazy River.)