may 31charlie mayer has a piece on npr tomorrow, june 1st, an audio essay he put together about graduating from college. listen at 50 minutes past the first hour of all things considered.
graduation is monday. my brother wants to protest - what about the working people? swarthmore is all about inconvenience - first semester always starts on labour day, second semester on martin luther king day. these quakers don't respect nobody.today:
damn.the power keeps browning down. shit is blowing closed and open and in my room and it's lightening outside, better than tv.
tonight i did watch some tv, with my folks - mom and george; and jim and lori, and colin and barbara, and howard, and donnan, and chris and lynn, and amy and arraya. all them folks assembled here to watch me graduate school. them's great folks. nice people.
i've got so much packing to do still. the heat is palpable - thick, my family didn't want to walk around campus today. we ended up in air conditioned hotel room watching the bulls, which was inevitable with so many chicagoans in tow, and such a great game - the seventh and possibly michael jordan's last. down to the wire it went. arraya sez, about mj - "i bet his heart go boom boom boom too"
nice to see amy every time. everyone is nice to see, and to have them together. but so much of the time is heat-recovery, or tv, or ceremony that isn't just shit-shooting. but hey, life is better than no life. they're very kind to me, and the meals have been great. ethan showed up for one yesterday. i am so honoured by such smart (intelligent and sharp both) people. they give me cards honouring my graduation that seems such a surprise to them that it ever happened. chris, and probably lynn too, travelled from san francisco for this reason. howard came because he urged me so much to return to college.
tomorrow i drive to boston, and wednesday i move to oakland. here i come!
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today's muzzik: jimi hendrix at woodstock. how can someone make something that coherent and beautiful on that much acid? "rhythm and melody are more intrinsic to the human soul" amy theorizes late at night, tired from packing, folding things slower, sitting on my bed. and the sounds of thunder and sights of lightening, which always remind me of my father who did go out in the rain to sit in his boxers and do a little dance in the midwestern thunderstorms. "sounds spiritual" ben says, in an abandoned room in worth L with abnormally large windows that will be split up into two rooms during construction this summer. so maybe to get jiggy with this, i'll say he visited me like a torrent tonight, and i packed and mused quietly underneath and felt both comforted by the storm, and worried for my driving girlfriend, and knowing i will someday again be outside, but i am still inside, for one more night. but up until the storm i had forgotten him consciously which means he's now unconscious, like the weather or something - if i think he was the weather than he oppressed us and made us tired and still bonded us and gave us ready subject for speaking. and then he waits til we sleep and wakes us. and now i sleep yep.
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justin hall | <justin at bud dot com>