hi!  i gotta admit, the new cheetos commercials are awesome.  the cat tells people to perform terrible pranks, like stuffing cheetos in a dude's nose cause he's snoring on a plane.  kinda awesome.  cheetos, in and of themselves...evil.  commercial...crucial.  i haven't emailed in like a week, cause i've been hanging on the east coast with my old buddies from high school.  we had our ten year high school reunion this past saturday in princeton, new jersey.  it was so much fun.  it's neat how things feel just like they did the day we graduated, even though some of us haven't seen each other since that day in 1998.  i was thinking back on that day and remembering how ambivalent we all felt.  happy to move on, sad to say goodbye.  bryan newman was there.  i love that man.  i feel blessed to have been brought up in the same location, where we could bond and connect about feeling ostracized at school and find solace in the punk scene around us.  growing up in new jersey was awesome.  i can't help feeling like some of that was the wonderful friends and schoolmates i grew up with.  new jersey is just like any other state, some of it's awesome and full of action, and some of it howls in the passing wind.  i remembered bryan and i being so excited at graduation, knowing that two weeks later we would go on our first national tour.  what lucky 18 year olds, huh.  so wonderful.  i really just feel so lucky for this beautiful life.  and you guys are more than icing on that ass.  that ass is a layered cake.  three tiers of icing.  so thank you.  tanky tanky.  and you know what?  i think i am actually in love with barrack obama.  it's the strangest thing, i spontaneously come to tears every time he gives one of those "we can pull together and make this work" speeches.  he is truly inspiring to me.  this world is at odds.  but we're all neighbors.  there is no one apart from us on this planet.  just us.  if there were some other semi-human species here, trying to kick our asses, we would easily band together and feel the love and protect ourselves...together.  hey, i know i'm a hippy.  i don't like granola, but i like you.  and you.  and you.  all a ya.  we will fade under the spinning stars and then we're gone.  we're gone!  and for now, things feel like they're looking up.  perhaps we have a nice sunrise in our future.  THE SUN ALSO RISES, is what i like to say to my pessimistic cohorts.  when the world seems so cold and there's nowhere to turn, i still look up at the stars and the gorgeous bone-white full moon, and i feel such love.  such joy.  i know we are together.  i know i sound funky at times.  but i really don't care.  i grew up with such promise and so many highly engaged individuals, that my optimism abounds.  it reaches out.  it wants to grab you and hold you.  i will lift you up and hug you so hard it cracks a rib...and hopefully barrack is in office at that point and we all have health care (hehe).  so shit man.  i just wanted to say hi.  i'm sitting in the hotel in philly.  waiting to fly out tomorrow morning.  i wanted to say hi cause i miss you and i hope you are feeling fine and hopeful.  sometimes it's hard, huh!  love ya.  miss ya.  feel ya.  need ya.  bye!

chris

sitting here on the bus.  day off.  minneapolis is nice and quiet where we are.  i was just noticing the trees swaying softly outside.  it's funny, if i didn't know it was the wind moving them, it looks like they're dancing.  so happy.  just hanging out.  losing leaves.  making new leaves.  churning out the oxygen.  dancing.  i love this world.  so confusing sometimes.  here we are all together in outer space, but we don't really talk about it.  we just carry on with our day.  go to work.  try to occupy ourselves in the empty hours.  wishing for more.  wanting more.  wanting to feel complete.  to be whole again, like in our distant memories we can somehow remember a better time.  a better world.  a world we share.  why are we pitted against each other?  why are we thirsty for recognition and irritated when ignored.  we are here together.  off in the distance i see a totem pole beside some dying trees.  the totem pole is not painted.  just carved tree.  years from now no one will remember what happened here on Earth.  in a million years, there will be no trace of our little lives.  what are we doing fighting?  what are we doing killing each other?  cutting each other down with words.  why aren't you more like him?  why don't you act more like her?  do we ever wonder why?  why do we need to be right?  why can't we accept the humanity of others?  the pain.  the joy.  all the while, the trees are dancing.  i love you.  we will make it through.
chris

sup dawgiostasis!  I LOVE YOU!  you are special.  do you ever think about that?  i was watching a movie the other day which started with one of those outer space shots where it zooms all the way into an animals eyeball sitting on planet Earth.  dang yo.  so nutty.  we are actually alive in this vast intergalactic hangout.  so strange!  so beautiful!  and how odd is it that at this moment in human evolution, we are at war!  ha!  i mean, not "ha!" but holy cow!  this is nutty.  here we are, alive in the cosmos.  all alone together.  we are friends.  we are all in this together.  picking apples and planting seeds.  how odd is it that we hate each other?  well, i just want you to know that i love you.  i love everything about you.  i love that we are different.  i love that we are here.  forever wondering why why why did it all begin?  what the applejacks!  so insane.  outer space, man.  what is it!?!  what the dr. jones!  i am in love.  i am in awe.  so painful.  so treacherous.  so dynamic and explosive.  so boring, sure, sometimes, boring boring boring.  so EVERYTHING!  i mean, that's really what it is, i suppose...EVERYTHING.  it's everything.  it's here.  it's there.  it is wherever you are and wherever i am.  and it is you and it is me.  this cosmos.  i wish i could give you my eyes and lift you up to the sun, and when you come back down, we would embrace and hold hands and run and roll in the grass.  and we would share.  above all else, we would share.  we would know that to take care of you is to take care of me.  and we would not squander this existence.  we would see very clearly that we are here now but it is not forever.  we have this brief time.  our organs can only be sustained for such a brief period of time.  and then, poof!  lights out.  for, what are we but the electrical current and communication between our vital organs?  is there a you which exists without those precious organs???  hmm....i guess we can't know, but to apply logic we see quite clearly that we are our bodies.  yup.  kidneys and collarbones and fifteen folds in the heart.  and i love you!  here we are.  all together.  all alone.  alone together forever for just a moment.  i love you.  i love you.  i love you.

chris