andyeticarusalsoflew

[andyeticarusalsoflew]

Look I know almost nobody reads my thoughts I spit out here and my opinion is completely valueless here but I gotta say something and I don't have anybody irl who cares either so:

Cars shouldn't have LED lights on them. Period. Nobody else can see fuck all with your mini fucking suns pointed directly in their windsheild. It is literally the only time halogens are better. If your car (or truck, especially big trucks) has LEDs change those fuckers. It's not that hard and they're actually cheaper to swap on most models when they burn out. LED headlights are fucking dangerous and it's honestly wild to me that they're even legal at all. Do whatever mods you want to your vehicles, man, I don't care for most of them but I feel like we should all be able to build what we want but for the love of all that's holy leave your lights clear and halogen. No smoked taillights and no LEDs. It's not worth the danger to you or anybody else. Stay safe, stay cool, keep drivin'.

[andyeticarusalsoflew]

Snowballs

Today was the first snow of the year.

I went to work like always and stayed late like always but I made it back home to my apartment complex just about the time the school bus was pulling in. I ended up being the first vehicle stopped behind the bus when the stop signs kicked out. It was full of elementary kids and I waited there patiently and held the line while the kids poured off onto the little embankment to disperse to their parents.

Except they didn't immediately disperse like usual.

They stopped and had a little snowball fight.

And I fucking lost it. Crying in my truck like a baby watching those innocent babies have some pure fun.

I almost didn't make it through this week. Had a few extra rough days that led into extra rough nights. It's not unusual for me these days.

Seeing those kids pelt each other with fresh snow was a gift I didn't know I needed.

I am glad I'm here. Even though it's hard and I am still so immeasurably hurt. I am still alive and I still love this world.

I hope you are all well. Keep making snowballs. Keep going.

We're still here, friends.

I love you. Stay warm. Stay safe. Stay here.

[andyeticarusalsoflew]

I like leather boots and belts and jackets and I like old trucks made out of real metal and the smell of real high octane gasoline and I like real paper books and I like tactile buttons and knobs and dials I can touch with my fingers and use.

I like sharp knives that cut anything I want like it isn't there and I like to drive too fast with my windows cracked no matter the weather because I like to hear the asphalt under my tires.

I like heavy flannels and chunky wool sweaters I'm always too damn warm to wear comfortably and I like to listen to music on the Bluetooth speaker I bought in high school when I shower.

I like a cold night and a warm beverage and a cold ass beer on a hot summer night when the air is so thick and humid I almost forget how much being alive can hurt for focusing on taking my next breath.

I like to walk to the closest pond and just listen to the water lap gently at the rocks and I like to watch the ducks as they watch me. I like to have conversations in my head that I will never be able to have out loud and some nights I like to imagine my own death and funeral and I like to ask myself if anyone I've ever loved has ever loved me enough to attend.

I like to walk home and shake off the cold dampness of this old world and all the hell I've so far endured in it and pour myself a hot cup of tea and sit silently and listen to my cat purr because he knows that is all I need from him. I like the little chirp he makes when I give him a pat and the way he follows me off to bed because I survived just once more.

I am a man who makes a great many mistakes. I am still learning to be good because I was not born as who I was meant to be and I chose to live on hard mode the very same day I decided to live at all.

This life is brutal and there is not one name in my contacts that I am confident would answer if I called but damn it all to hell if I won't be the one that always answers.

I am still here. I still like things. I feel. No matter how hard it all is, no matter how bad or how long it hurts, I am still here.

I'm not much, but I am.

Sometimes that is just enough.

If you're reading this, I love you. I am full of love and forgiveness and even if those I love never forgive me my sins I will love them forevermore nonetheless and if that is my one act of rebellion in this world, so fucking be it.

I love you. I'm here. I'm glad you are too. Let's do it together.

There's still things to do.

There's still people to prove wrong. Let's do it.

[andyeticarusalsoflew]

"Mr. Pretender, don't you know who I am? I am your best friend, but I ain't your biggest fan."

[andyeticarusalsoflew]

"Someday, I might miss you, But I sure don't miss you right now."

[andyeticarusalsoflew]

"I'm wonderin' how long I can get by. Seems so wrong but I know I'll be alright. Only been down for a minute. Feels so long when I'm in it. Holdin' on to the ticket. Some things are hard to get, some nights that I regret, but I'm cleanin' up the mess."

[andyeticarusalsoflew]

I leave the lights on for my cat

When I go out, I leave the lights of my home on, so that my small friend doesn't have to sit in the dark.

I've been asked before why I do this. They said the cat didn't care either way, so why pay the extra for the power?

I lied and said I wasn't sure why I did it. It just felt right, I guessed.

I don't lie often, and I'm very good at it, so they took that answer and we moved on.

The truth is much harder to tell people.

I leave the lights on for him, because I wish someone had left them on for me.

I am not an easy man to love, and that is as much my fault as anything, so I don't write this to point fingers or lay blame.

I am not angry with the people I have loved.

In fact, I love them all still. Just as much as they day they left.

But in truth, everyone who I have ever loved has, at some point, grown tired of me. Folks run out of time for me, it seems.

And when they do, they do what they feel is right when you're moving on from a space.

They turn off the lights and they lock up behind them, and I am left alone in the dark, forgotten and expected to find my own way back out.

I always have, against all the odds.

I almost didn't, a time or two. I almost gave up more times that I can count on both hands, but there was always one little creature who sat in that endless dark with me until I found a way to turn the lights back on again.

My little cat loved me in the dark just as he did in the light.

So I refuse to leave him in the dark they way everyone did me.

Maybe he doesn't care about the lights, but I do.

Maybe he doesn't know the difference, but he knows I love him.

He knows because I left the lights on. Because I promised I'd be home in a bit.

Because nobody ever left the lights on for me. They never came home again. I am not them. I refuse to be.

[andyeticarusalsoflew]

If you've never had to use duct tape on your vehicle door in a parking lot using a dollar bin flashlight held between your teeth (because there's no money to fix it right and nobody else you can ask to hold the damned light for a minute) then I envy you.

But then again, this is how I grew up and is all I know how to be, so I suppose I'll keep taping the ol bitch back together and she'll keep taking me to work and together we'll live until we die.

Perhaps I've been taping myself back together in the dark for years, too. Maybe that's why me and that ol' Chevy get on so well. I tape us back together when we break down, cause God knows no one else will.

[andyeticarusalsoflew]

"So keep the shirts I left at your place. They'll do nothing for me now, except dress me in pain; And I know, I know, love is a game. But, if I keep losin', I don't wanna play."

[andyeticarusalsoflew]

"Lord knows that I've been blessed. I can stand up to the test. I can live on so much less, this much I been learnin'."

[andyeticarusalsoflew]

"I'd come back if you just called, cause it's just two hours to get there, babe, I could make it back in an hour or so..."

[andyeticarusalsoflew]

"Deal me in, deal me out. Pick me out of a crowd. In the dark, all alone, I'll go anywhere but home."

[andyeticarusalsoflew]

"I've got so much love to give. I've got so much more than this..."

[andyeticarusalsoflew]

"Don't leave now in the middle of a feeling."

[andyeticarusalsoflew]

"We tried the world, good God, it wasn't for us."

[andyeticarusalsoflew]

"Everything dies, baby, that's a fact; but maybe everything that dies, someday comes back..."

[andyeticarusalsoflew]

"I am not the kind of man to blame the dealer on a losing hand."