I am going to kill Lara Ann Cooper! SHE SCRATCHED MY COLDPLAY CD! More than scratched, she knifed it to a musical death by cruel negligence and an apathetic attitude proving her too lackadaisical to put it back in its case, thus creating the perfect atmosphere for catastrophic ruin! AHH!

The whole world better get on their knees and pray it plays ALL THE WAY THROUGH without going into a spasm. Sigh. Dumb best friends who scratch your CDs. How do you tell her nicely that she is a horrible caretaker for your CDs? Hmm. I guess you don't tell her nicely, she's your best friend.. hehehe. No manners required. Best friends duel on a mutual level of love and hate. It's really a beautiful process of understanding. I just got back from her house. We dressed up like rockstars and went out on her roof where I scrambled around with a candle and tried with intense concentration not to spill hot wax. We took a few pictures and entertained her little sister. We hugged goodbye and I took home some of her dad's tomatoes. Ambrosia. Mmm.

Anyway, my life is so insane right now only because I read Jamie's weblog and it corresponded with a lot of ideas that have been rustling my mind lately. Like the Nature vs. Nurture. I've been mulling over that for a while now. My question (which is soon to be made into some sort of novel when I actually get enough initiative to sit down and write) is this:

Do we adapt to our surroundings or do our surroundings condition us into adaptation? Do we change our surroundings or do our surroundings change us? By surroundings I mean everything encompassing something effectual - such as society, social circles, family matters, etc. More on this later once I actually figure it out.

Other than musing over age old questions of the intricacies of life, I've been hanging out with Jamie (primarily) and Lara. Lara and I recently spend two hours laying on her bed like a hysterical bedlam of characters from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - sane enough not to be categorized as "vegetables" but unstable enough to be susceptible to the slightest tinge of emotion. God, we were so sentimental. Lara has this big box of relics from our past. From two summers ago when we were both entangled in a group of friends. They are long gone now, each going their own way clothed in bitterness. It was a horrible and vicious breakup. Something very movie-esque that will never have a sequel. Anyway, we dumped out her life on the tan carpet and sifted our fingers through letters and birthday gifts like we were turning the pages of a scrapbook. All these artifacts serving as metaphors for yesteryear and seeming so insignificant from the outside but hurting like hell on the inside. Perhaps not literally, but figuratively we tore our hair and wore a stylish raiment of sackcloth and ashes.

We collapsed onto her bed like biblical characters contemplating the existence of God and the quality of hope. One of my favorite verses, "Life is merely a moving shadow and all our busy rushings end in nothing. We heap up money for others to spend." (that was paraphrased by me). It really is as frail as we try to deny. But to deny the imperfections of ourselves is to deny truth and to deny truth is to deny beauty and without these things life is a vacancy.

Sometimes I just close my eyes and fill the void, find the veracities. The emancipation of the mind is the most valuable enlightenment. Once truth is venerated, once it is lauded, then the flowering dream of life can fully unfurl. All the seemingly inconsequential things, all the imperfections and the oddities, all these things are the components of truth. Truth will always translate into beauty. And beauty will save the world.

* * *

I've decided that Barnes and Noble is some sort of brilliant newfound mecca. I seem to collide into arbitrary acquaintances and beloved friends continually when walking the path of books or sitting in the cafe. I'm so glad to have good friends. It's wonderful to be able to look across an isle of Stephen King and see a familiar face hiding behind the latest music magazine. In one of Carson McCuller's books she talked about the "we" of ourselves. She says so often we are just "I" and we long so very much to belong to a "we." I love my friends, I love being a "we."

Speaking of all this. I'm a bit upset by Kyle. Not really mad or on the verge of maligning him on my weblog. But he just sort of disappoints me. He's been in town for almost four days now. I wish he'd have the courtesy to call or e-mail me. I keep reiterating that communication is imperative. But there's only so much one can do to nail a concept into wood. This is life I suppose, the life that is ever fading into a chaotic shadow. This is the fate of a dream and the beauty of simplicity. What a sentimental night.

And my Coldplay CD just skipped.