i have this poster on my ceiling. it's from health class in tenth grade, a poster about my entire life. it is shaped like a board game: start is when i was born, finish is simply marked with the word "die". my teacher didn't want us inventing gruesome deaths for ourselves just for the project, but i would have chosen to live a long life anyhow and die of old age. that was me early in high school: i was angsty, but still optimistic enough deep down to feel i'd love being alive for that many years.

each block of life is separated by color, chunks like "6-10 yrs" and "50's". the high school block is labelled "14-18 yrs" and the next block is merely "20's". there is no age 19 on the poster. it's simply missing, with my high school graduation and marriage to billie joe armstrong butting right up against each other. (hey. what can i say. optimism.)

it's interesting how i omitted age nineteen; is it that unimportant? a lot of people say they hate being nineteen because it means nothing, in the eyes of the law. it lacks the excitement of eighteen, the anticipation of twenty, and the legality of twenty one. i always scoffed at people who said that because who cares? it's just an age. it's just a number. but lately i've been feeling that maybe the naysayers are on to something. nineteen has been an interesting year, but it's also felt more restless, unstable, and generally darker than my other years. there are a lot of factors that may or may not contribute to this effect, but nevertheless it remains true that nineteen has been a bit of a missing year. lack of motivation. lack of soul, of the very essence of what makes me the quintessential j. m. t.

i just heard my dad walk in the door, back from another one of his tromps around the globe in the name of science. he'll save the atmosphere one day. maybe when i'm out of the nothing year i'll truly appreciate that fact, his sacrifice of family time for the sake of humanity. it's noble, isn't it. i'll care more when i'm back on the board, back in the game. playing in the light green section: "Get a part time job and a car"; "Graduate from college. Get a job involving art"; "Fall in love with Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day and get married". those are my twenties, as laid out by me at age fifteen.

i'll be there in three and a half months. until then, you can find me in the liner notes, not attending college in the new england area.

past future

last five entries:
blisters and bruises - 03.18.08
dorsey - 03.13.07
finding peace - 02.02.07
unintentional clean slate - 09.11.06
natural born cyborg - 06.23.06