if i think about it hard enough, I'm back there...

I'm in that green green room. the walls sponge painted that dark green on lime green. the moulding the dark green. the subsistent leafy plant on the window sill next to the oscillating fan and the guiness glass of pennies. just to the right of centre, dan is sitting on the floor resting on the futon playing star wars: jedi knights on his computer. I am curled up against the side of the futon, kind of watching, kind of just there. As I remember it now, there is a playlist playing with the soundtrack from the end of the affair mixed in with radiohead. I know that's not true. Because he's playing video games on his computer so there can't be music playing. if anything, there is the sound of the video game which does include music.

we're not talking. every once in a while he'll explain something about the game, or show me something really cool. but I don't really want to talk because I am not here to bother him. Being around him makes things better without needing to talk. And I know he's way too polite to tell me to shut the fuck up, even if he wanted to. Because sometimes when I talk, I talk way more than I mean to. It's been a rough week. I'm stressed. Home is actually a sanctuary again. My two awesome roommates are a sanctuary. We have overcome all of the cleaning/chores bullshit... (because I finally realized that everyone was doing their part but with 3 people and our insane cat it's never going to be the same as my place with Elisabeth. We kept that place clean, because she really cared about that stuff. Got me to care too, which caused so much crap when I moved in here with dan and steve. poor guys... I can laugh about it now and I hope they do too... but I digress.) Now I absolutely love being here with them all of the time, instead of just pockets of time when I can manage to not be stupid, like before. The talks, the debates, the coffee, the silence. So back to the green room and the Jedi Knights. Dan demonstrating the choosing of the character and the gear and the store, like he's 12 he gets so excited. And I just feel so happy. So at peace. My thoughts are all quiet ones for the first time since the latest family drama/trauma. But I spent hours talking about that with Steve last night, and now I just need to not. We joke a bit about his buddy Jesse, and about how I think he's superhot. But then, back to the game. Dan gets into a great lightsabre fight, and I confess, I am riveted. It is like watching a movie, except your buddy beside you is in it. crazy.

I didn't blog much those days, even though I was happy and stuff, just not inspired. My job, the future stretching out before me looking exactly the same as today, the dreams I can barely remember, the sense that I'm losing my voice. That's before I applied to school. I'm afraid that all the great experiences with these guys will get lost, that's why I'm here again. That's why I came back to this crazy-painted apartment with the teeny tiny kitchen with the beatles poster on the wall, with the giant dinosaur microwave acting as microwave stand for the little microwave. To the guys I took for granted way too much. To the peace and patience and friendship Dan gave me without even thinking about it. So these days I don't see him much and I talk to him less, not like Steve who I still kind of talk to every day, one way or the other. That's why I'm back here in this green room watching Dan play Jedi Knights. The purple comforter bunched up in the corner still kind of smells like cat pee, smoke is in the air because this is before Dan quit and we just both had a cigarette. He usually doesn't mind sharing with me even though I am not a smoker. Oh, I remember the times we used to go out in the cold to get him smokes... the time that the convenience store beside that Chinese Food place (what was that called???) AND the gas station were closed and we had to walk to the other side of the mall... woooow. so cold. sorry, did it again. So. Every few minutes I space out and start looking at his books again. Absentmindedly pick one up off the floor and start thumbing through it. The fight didn't go the way he wanted it to so he has just reset the game. that'll probably happen a few times. And I'll just sit here, curled up against the railing of the futon, happier than anyone should ever be in a green green room.