Letters to the judge.

It's strange how things from your past come back to haunt you after you've pretty much blocked them out of your mind.  There is one thing in particular that I think will repeat itself in my mind many times.

In July of 2009 I lived with my boyfriend, his parents, his brother, and his brother's wife. I was in the Lehigh Valley visiting my parents and I received a phone call.  The caller informed me that my boyfriend (Kevin) was in jail and that his brother was dead.

Someone killed his brother.

Absolutely frightened, I tried to get in touch with his mother. She was in a psychiatric hospital, crying and screaming, "Nicole, he's dead, I saw him in the driveway, he was blue!"

Sure enough, Brian was dead.  Kevin's dad had shot and killed him with my dad's gun.

It was such a bizarre tragedy.  I came home to police tape, a disheveled bedroom, a little neighborhood boy praying in the front yard, and a big puddle of blood on the basement floor.

I remember visiting his father in jail once a week and Kevin's mother going far off the deep end.  Once she asked me if I could help her gather some of the blood from the carpet, because she wanted to rub it onto the plants in the garden that Brian grew her.

Kevin, horrified by this, took a knife, cut out the section of the carpet that had the blood stain, and threw it away.  We went out for ice cream to get it off of his mind, at which point he realized that he got his brother's blood all over his pants.

It was the worst funeral that I ever attended in my life.  I remember entering the door to a packed catholic church and hearing loud, loud sobbing from Brian's widowed wife.  My dad's eyebrows dropped and under his breath he whispered, "oh my god."

Brian was a scary man.  He threatened to kill me, my family, and pretty much anyone who got in his way.  I remember the utter rage that would consume his body.  I was absolutely horrified of him all of the time.  The stories that I have involving Brian are stories that you would otherwise only see in a movie.

The whole incident that resulted in Brian's death began with him holding a gun and threatening to kill Kevin. Kevin's dad used another gun to try to scare Brian away from Kevin.  To this day, everyone tells me that they're thankful I wasn't home that weekend.  My dad is thoroughly convinced that I would have been killed that night.  Brian hated me more than anything.

So why am I writing about this?  To get it off of my chest.

I recently found four or five letters that we sent to the judge prior to Dave's sentencing.  Including the letter that I sent.  What a total mind fuck.  This, along with many other things in my bizarre life, will never disappear. Just add it to the list, I suppose.

House plants.

Just sent the following texts to a friend and I think it sums everything up pretty well:

"I've been very... to myself. But I like it. I feel like I'm unintentionally prepping myself artistically. I think I need to go with this whole isolation thing because I feel like it's dragging me somewhere on purpose. And if it's gonna bring me somewhere worthwhile (in regards to my writing)... I don't want to miss the train. I work on my writing every day, as you know, and I can sense that something bigger is on its way." 

 And then I felt guilty. Because in my isolation I am alienating my friends. I didn't want them to think I'm straying away from them because I don't love them, so I posted the following on Facebook to justify my separation:

 "It's scary how much I love to be alone. I was born to write, I guess. I feel like I'm marinating in my loneliness, and once I suck up all of the yummy lonely juice I'll be ready to write a best seller or something. Ha." 

 Best seller.. most likely not. But I just want everyone to know that my separation is not malicious in any way. I just need some time to reflect on my art form and to expand my horizons in regards to my writing career. Sculpting my skill is something that is very important to me and it is something that I can only do without company.

 Unless you count Lucinda. (My house plant).

non-jesus and wheat gluten

I've considered myself an atheist for many years. People always inform me that "agnostic" is a better term for what I am, but honestly I choose atheist because it is more set in stone. I was raised a Christian but learned quickly that first of all, the whole story is a bunch of nonsense, second of all, believers tend to be a very hateful crew, and lastly, I do not want to be associated with them at all. So I've adopted the term atheist in high school.

I bring this up because today is my most hated holiday. Easter. I hate it. Every year I have Jesus nonsense shoved down my throat. At first I tried having nothing to do with it but that didn't work because, as I said, it was being shoved down my throat. So then I decided to have a little secular chocolate bunny pooped-out Easter egg celebration every year. It's going rather well. All bunnies, no Jesus. I'm about to go make secular chocolate Easter eggs.

I love how everyone assumes that people have the same religion as them. My friend Jim wished me a happy holiday weekend and (he knows how I am, so I could do this) I said to him, "It's not my holiday weekend." He smiled at me. The assumptions seem to dissipate the closer you get to the city. Jim is from Doylestown.

Christmas is just much easier to de-Jesusize. All those reindeer and elves. It's just the holiday of giving to me. A time before the new year starts when it's all snowy and pretty outside when you show your loved ones that you care about them. Jesus can suck it.

I just really hate when people force things on me. Really. It's a serious issue I have.

I went to go visit my parents yesterday. Yes, yesterday, not today. It was a mini Easter strike. My dad said "The least you could have done was bring your grandmother some flowers." Ugh. Okay, I'll bring secular Easter flowers next year. The day before Easter. She was really upset that I wasn't there for her "Easter ham" and then teased me for a good half hour about my vegetarianism. My mother hopped in.

I was actually amused. It was kind of funny. I schooled my grandmother on how to be a vegetarian or a vegan. Her mind continues to be boggled by this. She doesn't understand that there is other food out there other than meat... lol!!! I tried explaining wheat gluten to her as well as bean burgers and such. I think the problem is that the media shows vegetarians as people who sit in front of a slab of tofu for dinner every night. I hardly even like tofu. It has to be prepared well.

My grandmother said "I have two pounds of butter in there. It was on sale. You can take some." And then I told her that I use vegan butter and she was so amused. I explained to her how vegans bake, for instance, substituting eggs with bananas and using vegan sugar (which isn't made with crushed up animal bones).

Her mind was just blown. I love that cute little woman! Anyway, happy secular Easter!

The one less traveled by.

Randomly decided to go to Boston with Keely and it was great. It was my first time there. We took a scenic route on the way up, which led us to a bunch of extremely large mansions in Connecticut. It was super fun. Keely is the best road trip person ever.

Upon our arrival in Boston, we went to the home of a cute lesbian couple that we're friends with. We stayed with them. They sort of live in a ghetto-y area. We found razor blades on their steps, their back yard was littered with broken bottles and bottle caps, and it was just all around creepy. But we survived and that's good.

The first night we watched Borat, drank, and the girls got high. Which was kinda mellow but I was totally feeling it. After our long scenic route road trip, we needed to just chill out and relax.

The next day was super fun. We went to the best vegetarian restaurant ever. I was madly in love with the food and couldn't get over it. And then I was amused by the toilets. In Philly there are dirty grimy city toilets. In Boston the toilets even ask you if you are flushing "solids" or "liquids" to save water.

Like I said, they lived in a ghetto-y area, but even the ghetto-y area was nicer than most places in Philly. Despite the razor blades and broken bottles.

After the best vegetarian restaurant ever, we went shopping in Cambridge. Which was super nice. The stores were great. I want to live there. Really. I want to move there right this second. After that, we went back home to watch Twin Peaks and eat the best vegan pizza ever. Seriously, staying with vegans was great. I thanked them for sharing their favorite foods with us.

Then we went to see Wild Flag in Boston which made me want to marry Carrie Brownstein.

The last day of the adventure was spent wandering around Boston with Keely and her dog. Stuffed my face with a burrito and a smoothie (Boston has the best food ever, I swear). I fell madly in love with the city at this point. It felt like home, to be honest. And I thought it was cute that all of the churches had gay pride flags on them. It was a very gay friendly place. I was surrounded by cute gay men everywhere.

If I were to move to the Boston area, I would probably move to Cambridge. It felt like a place that I could call home.

You know, I've been in my apartment for less than a year and I have already been looking at places closer to center city.. and now I'm even considering Cambridge.

I'm young, you know, and I have nothing tying me down. I can do whatever I want to do whenever I want to do it. I don't have a significant other. I don't even have pets. That's a great place to be in life. A place where you are literally as free as a bird and young enough to roam wherever you want to roam.

I am lucky. My life is fun. When I want to have fun, I have it. When I want to sit in my apartment and avoid humans, I sit in my apartment and avoid humans. When I want to go somewhere, I go. When I want to stay somewhere, I stay.

In the past I've emphasized that I am flighty. I think it's in my nature. I'd die without spontaneity. I absolutely hate making plans. Some preparation is necessary, but I really like to make most decisions as I go along. When people ask me "What's the plan?" ... my first thought is "I want to hit you" and my second thought is "this is stressing me out."

Keely is the same way, you know, and that's why we are perfect friends. The couple we stayed with kept asking us what our plan was.

"I don't know, uh.. we were kinda gonna just go. And like, wander, and see what we found along the way." They looked at us like we were crazy. But we wandered.. and we found plenty of awesome things along the way. I'm definitely going to have to head back up to Boston.

Next stop... Washington, DC. Keely and I are going to be staying with two gay boys this time, Nick and Robert. Exciting! This will hopefully occur sometime within the next two months.