I sing along with Charlie while he was playing guitar.  We sound pretty good together.  Our friends always enjoy it when we sing together.  He plays guitar, and he’s a fantastic musician.  The songs he writes are so beautiful.  

Quinn’s not half the guitar player that Charlie is, but there were songs he played well, and we always had fun rocking out together. 

Lately, Charlie’s been playing the song "Let It Be" a lot.  That was the processional at our wedding.  We had such a beautiful wedding.  All our friends participated.  They all read something, or played something.  We rented this little bohemian ballroom in North Rogers park, and I made the floral arrangements out of Dominick’s bulk flowers.  I picked out used books as wedding favors for all our guests (there were fewer than 40).  Charlie and I wanted a bad ass vegetarian feast that we could never afford to have catered, so we cooked it ourselves.  It was a lot of work, but we’re both pretty bad ass in the kitchen when we bother with such things, so the meal was AMAZING.  Charlie made his nine hour, from scratch pasta sauce, and bruschetta, among other things.  We burned CD’s with the music we wanted to play.  There was even a sketch artist on hand, sketching pictures of people for tips.  And, that generated some beautiful keepsakes.  All of our friends helped out, and everything was really wonderful. 

Accept that I felt like I looked fat around that time.  Leave it to my random insecurity to mar even the most beautiful memories.

Quinn was there, of course.  As a groomsmen…  and, back then, I never would’ve imagined… 

we were like family.  My little group have friends has been that way for years.  A fucked up, dysfunctional, often intoxicated little family of artists, musicians, and malcontents.  Nearly everyone has depression.  Quinn also suffers from suicidal ideation.  Maggie is incredibly insecure, and depressive.  In spite of being a wonderful person, Jordan has a lot of demons.  My friend Anna is cool, but she has breakdowns, and frequently disappears (retreats home to her family for months at a time).  The rest of my closest friends are dead, in prison, or have moved far, far away. 

Someone I knew from the drug scene died this week.  She had HIV.  I don’t know if she shared a rig, or if her boyfriend passed it along through sex, but either way, she’s gone now.  From what I’m told, she was in denial about her condition, and wasn’t taking her meds.  This made me think a little.  I’m not dying, physically, but I haven’t been living, lately, either.  I don’t know how to shake off all this inertia, and I don’t know how to start affecting the situation in any positive way.  But…  I have to try.  I have to start trying to live my life, because it’s passing me by.  Feeling like I wasn’t really living, or feeling…  that was part of what got me into this mess.  I do drastic things out of a desperate need to FEEL SOMETHING, other than pain, and sadness. 

Being wanted was a high.  And, hypersexuality is kind of like a sex addiction.  Like, thethings Charlie’s done to hurt me because of his need to get high… 

but I don’t think he sees the comparison.  And, I don’t think he’d react well, right now, if I tried to push him to talk about things.  And, if it went badly, and he said something about us being done, because I pushed too hard, too soon…  I don’t think I could take that, right now.

It’s Quinn’s birthday.  I miss him so much.  I miss talking to him.  I miss his jokes.  I miss jamming with him, and the way he played Mason Jennings songs.  I miss his perspective, and his honesty. 

I just miss my friend.

I saw his brother yesterday, but that was mostly business.  We didn’t talk about Quinn at all.  That would be too awkward. 

I’m gonna try to be productive today.  I don’t really know how to get things moving the right way, but I’ve gotta try.  Otherwise…  I’m just waiting.  Like, a broken down, old person, who’s just laying in bed, waiting to die.