You're Bloody Well Right

Warning - If you're the sort of person who gets songs stuck in your head easily and likes to sing the song you have stuck in your head while in public, don't listen to Supertramp and take offense at strange looks people give you. I was at a graduation party today for my friend Brittney's sister and singing "Bloody Well Right" by Supertramp. In addition to feeling like a billboard (Squier by Fender shirt, Pink Floyd Dark Side Of The Moon cap, Paris Blues jeans... blargenflargle!) I was stared at by several people because I was walking around muttering "You're right, right, you're bloody well right..." to myself. Meep.

I'm so torn. I know I've got three-ish years left until I truly have to think about it, but the choice between U of Iowa and U of BC @ Vancouver is a titanic and difficult one. I know Iowa City to be a truly inspiring place with a wonderful Writer's Workshop, but I also want to familiarise myself with the "scene" and territory of Couver before I move there. Hm. Of course, I want to tour Europe with my friends, see Tuscany and Rome and Vienna and Hamburg (well, maybe not Hamburg, I'm a vegetarian) and London and Paris and Champagne and Edinburgh and all of Wales... *sigh*. I'd like to tour America as well, go to all fifty states. I want to have a box, a small-ish box, each with a very, very small something from each state. I've never seen a bayou, or the Atlantic, or a volcano, or even mountains from anywhere but above. I've never been to my nation's capitol city. I've never seen New York City, or Boston, or Philadelphia. Never been to Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Conneticuit, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, or Wyoming. I've never been outside the United States. There is so much I want to do before I even think about college. What if I die tomorrow and never get to do them? After all, I owe them a lot; they've kept me alive. They're the reasons I have scars and not deep wounds that will never heal. They're the reasons I've never jumped off the bridge by teh grocery store, never sat unmoving on the train tracks, never fallen asleep in the bath, never done drugs or drank (excessive) alcohol. They're the reasons I wear a seatbelt in an automobile and my helmet on a bicycle and clothing that isn't suggestive.
I know now that if I ever wondered what made me love so deeply, laugh so heartily, or cry so forcefully, that I will never wonder again. It is fear. Fear watches over me like a guardian angel, so I take care of myself. I'm not like the status quo, who fear other countries because the government tells them so. I fear not being able to live my life to the fullest. I fear not being able to live out my dreams.
People ask me what I want to do with my life. I nearly gave my high school's guidance consellor a heart attack once because I answered "drive a truck". I've also said "live out of a van", "write books", "run for public office", "meet my future spouse in a bar", "sleep", "make music in a college town", and "be proposed to by someone who offers me a vending machine ring, not because he or she is a cheapskate but because they can't afford it". The truth is, the honest truth, is that I want to be remembered. I want kids to be able to think of me the way I think of John Lennon. I want to be loved and respected by people I never met, by people who were born after I died, by people who think I must have been a good person because I tried my damndest to make a difference, to change things.

However, I'll have a job of doing that...no one even reads my stupid blog.