There is no place like Nebraska...

A sheet of cherry blossom petals cover the sidewalks on campus, their subtle scent wafts between brick and mortar buildings. I appreciate the beauty of campus as it changes from season to season. I try to ignore the faint odor of urine that forever lingers on R Street. I try to imagine that the feral, sewer cats are more like pets than potential ring worm carriers. God, I love it here. I love the barefooted people sitting near the fountain on chalk-stained sidewalks. I love the tiny doors in the basement stacks of the library. I love to hear The Carpenters ringing from Mueller Tower, reminding me how late for class I really am. I love riding my bike alone at 12:30 a.m. in circles in front of the union. I love the millions upon millions of memories I've made with the people I've met here. You don't find people like this elsewhere; at least, I'd like to think you don't. I love that this is my home. 

I really do love it here. Just thinking about leaving makes my eyes well up thick with tears. It's been five years, five of my most formative years. Thank God I got to spend them here. I know I've spent the better part of the last five years denouncing being a "Cornhusker" and the football team. And I don't take it back (except for Suh, I'm on board with Suh.) I don't love Nebraska game day. I don't love the scores of people who live and die based on a football game. I don't love how much it overshadows everything else that's good about UNL, about Lincoln, about Nebraska. It makes me want to scream at the drunken masses in their Nebraska red, "Look at everything you're missing. Look at everything you think it worth looking over." And maybe (certainly) I'll be a Nebraska football fan in the future. I enjoy the games. I like football. I love a good challenge, and I've enjoyed the games I've been to. Someday, I'll proudly emblazen the word "Cornhusker" over my chest... once the bitterness has worn off. Because I am proud of my school. I am proud of my education. I really do think there is no place like Nebraska.

Here in my poorly-lit room, with a gentle breeze creeping through my window, I can hardly believe it's all coming to an end. I look at my remaining classwork. If I don't do it, will I somehow slow down this process? Can I desperately grasp for an extension? Just a few moments more, please? More squirrels, hiding things in the ceiling of Piper 3, watching storms outside of Pound, laying in the grass in the green space, parking my car late at night, riding futons down the stairs, bicycle crashes (yes, I'd even take those), opossum catching, roof dancing, dirty dirty, movie nights, Husker Hoagies, bullshit lectures, green bean casserole, anything... please just give me anything that I can keep. Two weeks from now, at this exact time, I will be spending my last night at UNL. I will be worried about checking everyone out of this dorm, wondering if I made the right choice in not walking, crying because all of my walls will be so bare. I hate bare walls. 

I made April promise it wouldn't go this fast. April is always telling lies.

Go on up, you Baldhead

2 Kings 2:23

(The rest of this post is unrelated.)

Jenifer and I drove down 27th Street on Wednesday evening on our way to Sonic. My mouth salivated as I thought of the cherry, vanilla Diet Coke that awaited me. Her poison? A chocolate Coke... gag. We jerked to a stop at the red light on Holdrege Street.

"Is that guy playing with those dogs?" She said.

In the parking lot of the Lucky Chef Express to our left, a tall man was waving his hat as two pit bulls jumped around him.

"Sure..." I said absently, finishing a text.

I looked again. No. That man was not playing with those pit bulls. The two, adult pit bulls - one black and white, the other tan - clawed and bit at the mans arms as he tried warding them off with his baseball cap. Suddenly the man ran into 27th Street, the traffic around him squeaking to a stop. He dodged in and out of vehicles, trying to get the pit bulls to stop chasing him. But they continued to bite at his baggy jeans and hands. He ran around the intersection about 30 feet in front of us on the other side of the median. Without warning he jumped onto the hood of a silver sedan.

"What is he doing?" I said to Jen, my voice rising in shock.

Then, with the grace of a man who had done it before, he leaped onto to the roof of the car, laid on his stomach facing the front and reached his hands through the open windows on either side of the car. The dogs jumped and scratched the sides of the car. As it sped off down 27th Street, the dogs ran after it.

We didn't see what else happened. Traffic started moving again, and we drove in shock to Sonic as I called animal control, trying to find a way to describe what had just happened.

(Sorry, this is a little more literal than I usually write... but REALLY... WHAT?!?!)

Sleeper 1972

It's 1:40 a.m. on a Wednesday, and all of the people should be sleeping. I should be sleeping. But I'm glad I'm not. I want to wake all of you from your crusty-eyed slumber in your disheveled sheets. I want you to greet the silence beyond your open-windowed screens. You should be outside, walking with the one you love. Walking over asphalt trails, your footsteps hollow in the dark. And don't say anything. Just walk. People always think they have to say something. Don't. And if you don't have someone to walk with, walk alone. People always think they need someone to walk with. You don't. I wish I would have walked longer, alone in the dark. I wish I could remember how much I value being alone. But I don't. Embrace loneliness. You can't truly value someone's company unless you know what life is like without it. Wake up! Nights as empty and as beautiful and as clean as this don't exist in your sleep. They hardly exist in your wake. And you sleeping fools, you drowsy angels, you're missing it.

I only like you for your large hands

• York. New York? Old York? Who knows... at least it's York. 
• Manchester Orchestra twice in three months? Oh my! Brand New and Kevin Devine better get their pelvises in gear. 
• Somehow I'll survive the next month. 
• My heart grasps longingly at the mountains, the oceans, the rivers, the lakes, the endless sky. These plains hold it steady, though. 
• You can give a man a rock, or you can teach him to rock. 
• Dear 2010, I know I said you were my year, but you better step up your game. I give you until August. 
• Ta ta ta ta ta ta taaaa ta tattaaaa ta ta ta ta ta ta ta taaaa taaaaaa taatatataaaa taa. 
• I love this life with abandon and wish to speak of it boldly. 
• Avocados. 

Also, Neil Young...

I am an agent of chaos...

I can't pick up a pen tonight. They're all too heavy, too empty, too careless. On my way back to my dorm after class the dry, browned green crisped below the rubber soles of my sneakers, below my rubber soul. And the breath of night whispered to my rouging skin. And I wish I had someone to ask to stop holding my hand in this heat. And everything about the weather makes me wish my bike had life. And everything about the weather makes me wish I wasn't so cold.

I want sweet tea in the cool grass with cargo shorts and bare feet. I want gravel roads and empty fields and ditches. I want pavement and black sky and crickets. I want the empty sounds of night, the deafening silence. I want to stand in the middle of the street, face to the sun, and greet the fairness of chaos.

And something, everything, in this 60 degree open-air palace makes me want you, too. Will you take my palm and let ours sweat together as we step over cracked sidewalk and dirt? Will you sit near me on chipped, steel benches, sipping coffee, mostly black, as the men and women pass in their business suits? Will you listen as Neil Young floats out of my windows and down the highway as we head nowhere? Will you give this season meaning?