what a day.  what a mad, mad day.  my mother gave me a surprise; On The Road by Jack Kerouac.  somehow, someway, i've found something i've been looking for, for a while.  something that makes me think a little more, analyze & notice the finer points of this, my life, and change my perspective.  only 95 pages in, i can see why this affected stewart so much.  its touched something inside me; something i wasn't aware of, or at least something i had thought had died.  a yearning for experience, to live life, instead of hiding from the petty fears that have dogged me throughout my existence, ive realized that the fears will always be there, ive got to stop hiding from the beast and face it head on, spit in its face, accept the fact that its there and to coexist with it.  when school starts, im throwing all ive got into it.  i need to get out, be myself; ive been hiding from this reality and sugar-coating it with boyhood fantasies, thinking itll just come along on its own and to just keep plugging away like ive always been doing.  wrong wrong wrong.  grab the bull by the dick, beat the shit out of it and get out of the ring.  time for gary a hanson to grow up.  kerouac seems to have trodden across the very places that are major segments of my life at this point; upstate new york...

"If you drop a rose in the Hudson River at its mysterious source in the Adirondacks, think of all the places it journeys by as it goes out to sea forever - think of that wonderful Hudson Valley."

"I was all for it.  Iowa!"  "..across the prairie of Iowa ... I could see the greater vision of San Francisco beyond."
even the town of my birth; Arcadia, California.  its a strange feeling; like in a twisted world free from logic, time, physics, i am a segment of kerouac...or at least, my life has become a twisted parallel of his journeys on the road, but without the interesting experiences.  the book, in such a small space of time, has changed my outlook...or maybe this was just the final stone falling into place, cementing things already floating about in my convoluted mind about my past, my present, and my future.  im trying not to sound too wishy-washy, i apologize if i am.  i did some chores around the house, got $10 from my mother, and took myself out to a movie (Men In Black if you're interested, ill have a review of it at a later date).  i havent seen a movie alone since i saw Romeo & Juliet; i kinda like going alone, in an offbeat sense; a martyr to my own lonliness.  i took myself out for a coffee afterwards at perkins.  felt like dennys...except no one was there that i could talk to.  just loud, older folk buying food while i scrape together the last of my $10 to buy a coffee.  filling my body with caffeine until i feel hollow inside; the nether region of time after the days activities make me drowsey and before the caffeine rush kicks in for another night of watching cartoons and wondering about life, the universe, and everything.  then i have a beer to calm down my inards; adding more chemicals to the odd mix in my stomach, following it up with a cigarette or three, watching the night sky, wondering when the answer will hit me and i can go on to climb that huge mountain where a prosperous & happy future await me if i have the strength to ascend to the top.  strange thoughts hit me while i look at the stars, and i think kerouac put it best...
"...really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds.  I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.  I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future..."
i do miss new york,
"somewhere far across, gloomy, crazy New York was throwing up its cloud of dust and brown steam.  There is something brown and holy about the East..."
but i know ill be back there at some future date.  it was my birthing cradle; where i developed and laid down the elements that make up my personality; that unique "gary-ness", and i cant really cut myself off from a place that holds so many portions of my being totally.  but for now, get that stinkin' piece of paper so the man knows i can do that which i know how to do, and then, san frisco.
"I was itching to get on to San Fransisco."
 

July 3rd