#truth be told i've had car stickers for a while now just. sitting around

[prismxtics]

it has finally sunk in that I Bought My Car. this car is mine now. i'm gonna put some fucking STICKERS on this bitch

[suicidejack]

Crow

I have a trust deficit. It's developed in stages over many years. I've been lied to for so long and by so many that somewhere I forgot that I never even knew the truth.

I've spent many years in solitude because I refuse to believe the big Lie.  A few years ago I isolated myself so far away from other people that for almost a year my only correspondence was with the animals I encountered over time. My list of friends included a cat, a raccoon, an owl, and a crow.

He alighted on a tree stump one day at lunch while I was taking a break from guitar practice.

I said to him, "You're a crow, right? He just looked at me.

"Well," I said to him, "crows are smart birds. You live in societies called Murders, and you hold yourselves accountable to a standard of ethics that includes courtesy and respect."

The crow just listened, so I continued.

"So where are all your crow cronies? Where's your girl crow, and your crow family?"

The crow tipped his head at me the way he always does, and I was compelled to offer him some trail mix. He likes the granola and the m&m's but he don't like the little freeze dried coconut curlies.

After a minute he said to me, "You should know this."

He spoke to me telepathically, not with a human voice, or a crow voice, but through the subliminal wave link between our minds. He said to me, "You are no different than me. Here you sit, alone with your music and your machines, isolated from the rest of the humans. You have discovered, as I have, that solitude is a good thing."

I said nothing but I listened attentively.

Solitude," the crow asserted, "is good. It's where you find your Self."

At that, my large, wise crow friend took to the wind, and he flew aloft, leaving me utterly, and completely alone.

For days I sat there wishing he would return. I went and opened a box of the butter cookies he likes, but still he remained absent.

After about two weeks I had given up as hopeless the chance that I would ever see the crow again. Then one random day, right at lunch time, he returned.

I was elated, but I tried to contain my joy.

As we shared my lunch, I addressed the subject of his observations on solitude.

I told him, "I agree with you. Solitude is a good thing. But Loneliness and Isolation are not Solitude."

He looked at me sideways through his coal black eyes, and his mind was silent.

"Loneliness," I continued, "is akin to a Silent SCREAM in the deepest part of the night that will not let you go to sleep."

After a moment of reflection, the crow conceded that what I had interjected was the truth. He hopped a few times to get a better angle and trajectory and then he once again took the wind under his big black wings, and this time he disappeared off over the horizon. It was the last time I ever saw him. I like to believe he returned unto his own.

I spent some time repairing a damaged old F150 pickup that I found in a field on a farm near Port Orchard. It had a sticker on it that said Don't Mess with TEXAS.

I removed the part of the sticker that said Don't, so it just said Mess with TEXAS, and I took it out on the road and down to the freeway, off that mountain, and I headed back to the city, where I am now surrounded by a million people in all directions, and all around me. all the time.

Here, amidst of all the people, cars rushing by, sirens blaring, lights flashing on and off all day and every night, there are people chattering and hopping around everywhere. And I feel far lonelier here than I ever did when I was alone up on the hill.