wonka vision

11 september, 2005
when i was just a little boy, i asked my mother what would i be? would i be handsome, would i be rich, here's what she said to me..." just be careful".

as i look back, i have to wonder what she really meant. i remember having a hundred or more questions to ask about the things that were going through my head, thoughts not every 13 year old has mind you. the response of "just be careful" certainly wasn't the best answer to all of my questions then but it did help me survive a few things over the years. there is one other important question that i arrived at later on in life that i wish now, i had asked back then..."what if he's straight?" better yet, "can we even be friends?" i don't think that anyone on the planet has the right answer to any of these, although some may qualify simply based on personal experience. in the end the reality of it is we all decide how we act and how we react. the path we travel is wide. there's no need to make it straight or narrow. just relax, listen, respect one another and open your eyes. chances are, you will see a world of pure imagination...

as i have mentioned before, i have been spending a lot of time with the boys downstairs (ed & matt) and as each time ends and the next one begins, i can only think of all the fun and countless hours of laughter we have, every time. hey, don't get the wrong idea...its not always hours and hours of drinking, smoking and dirty conversations. we have each spent a fair amount of personal time doing things for one another, simply as a means of helping a friend. ed's been working on the final repairs on my jetta (such a well toned, greasy mechanic), matts been sharing his music and playing his acoustic guitar for me (yeah, thats my soft side), i got to splash just a little color and added a few pieces of furniture to their apartment, ed's taken on the laundry detail knowing well off the department of health was soon to call, matts put more miles on the vacuum cleaner than ever before, ed's still trying to let other people talk once in a while but fails most times, matt has finally publicly spoken aloud of his dark secret love for "the buzzer", i found out what "dropping a duce" means along with what "dsl's" are. yeh, ed shaves it, matt loves to touch his stomach and i actually find a peacefully place to be myself amongst them.

of course there are times when some of our ideas clash, the views on pleasure are north & south and the definition of "clean" has three different versions. beyond all that, at the end of each day, we all have a few things in common...graham loves our hair, regular or menthal doesn't matter when it's the last three cigarettes and we all have come to love one another for who we are, not what we are.

if i had to choose one, the answer is easy...they already had.

to be continued...