alive and ok about it. but just ok.

clomp clomp clomp clomp clomp clomp

my little brother's boot-clad footsteps against the hard wood floors wake me.

6:30

i had fallen asleep around 3:45. on a futon i had received as a gift after my tumor surgery when i was around 13. a 12 year old futon may as well be a swatch of itchy fabric. my back was killing me, my eyes burned. my little brother's empty bed called my name sweetly and softly.

i nestle in, only to realize the iHome he had received as a christmas present the previous day shined with the might of roughly one million (LED) fireflies. i quickly grab the first few things i can reach on the night stand and encase the iHome, drowning out the light.

sweet sleep....

katherine, rick, myself, and a few other (obviously unimportant) boys are hanging out. rick gets hungry. we head to the car (now just me and the boys) and make our way ACROSS THE STREET to burger king. it's closed, so we swing the car around and head to canes. we walk inside only to find, surprise!, it's also closed. no worries, however, seeing that taco bell is a whole 180* spin-of-the-body behind us. which is perfect, because now katherine is part of our escapade and what she really wants is a burrito, mainly for the beans they put on it. the agitated line cook seems to think the burrito is much better WITHOUT said beans, and proceeds to make the burrito much to katherine's DIS-liking. katherine walks outside to wait in the car.

just then, a loud noise. a wreck, perhaps? there WAS a car stalled in the median earlier, maybe someone had hit it? i walk to the large front windows and door to look. it was not, in fact, a wreck but rather a distraught and shifty man open firing on the crowd outside. he walked up to the front porch, yelling orders (as crazed, hostage-holders often do)and had us all in his sight...

sweet, sweet wakefulness.

7:10

once i had time to wake up and process the fact that not only were my eyes still burning and my back still killing me, but now i had experienced a huge load of stressful crappy dream time in my roughly 20 minutes asleep. this dream could only be related to one thing: hidden anxiety about a near shot-to-the-head a few weeks earlier.

pan back a few months. gerard and i are shooting his sig sauer 40 s&w at the shooting range. it had been a good year since i had shot a gun, but it was surely nothing new. i grew up around them. i got my first gun when i was 5. we had about 10 in our house at all times. we hunted and shot skeet and shot at pumpkins and coke can pyramids. but the thought ran across my mind: what would happen if someone actually walked up to me, pulled one out, and demanded something or just shot? my mind was reeling. a lot would happen, i thought.

not so true in real life.

pan right on back to about a month ago-- to a nice, small restaurant bar filled with 2 bartenders, myself, and 2 older, very drunk men (complete with hiccups and drunk-eyes and slouching and general weird temperaments). a small conversation starts between one of the men and i. we discover that we were from the same town and he knows my family, etc. the other man slouches in his chair, hiccuping, and says nothing.

when the conversation died down a bit, he looks at me and says "i'm scared of you."

"i'm sorry," i say. "was i being rude? a bitch?"

"i'm scared of you," is all he says.

he proceeds to half-way get up, crawl to the next chair (the one occupying the space between him and me), reach into his jacket, and pull out a small gun. right up to my face.

* nothing * nothing * nothing * nothing * is he fucking serious *

"are you serious?"

he laughs. an evil, condescending, asshole, drunkard laugh.

*freakout of the friend and bartender (my friend) ensues*

* still nothing *

he is made to leave the bar, in a very hush hush manner.

i think some more. about what you may ask? hmmm. jacob, sarah, and theresa. my face splattered on the wall behind me. a past lover. not having the chance to say goodbye.

all in all, a much more different experience than i had previously imagined. no life flashing before my eyes. no extreme panic. no elevated anxiety and heart rate. a lot of anger at the carelessness and thoughtlessness of this older, rich, high profile man, with children around my age. a little jittery when i had to walk to my car in the dark. c'est tu.

since then i've become nervous about stupid things i never used to get nervous about.

i've gotten more and more angry. i replay a scenario in which i storm into his office and announce to him in front of his workers and colleges what an ass he is, how i'm going to expose him.

"how about let's replay the scenario with your daughter and my dad?" i would say.

"if you were my father i would be ashamed of you. how disgusting that someone with so much power and notoriety in this city would be a drunken, testosterone-laden buffoon stupid enough to fudge his career and family life. AND POTENTIALLY SHOOT A YOUNG GIRL IN THE FACE."

it's times like these i can't wait to see how hard karma kicks him in the ass.

and yes, something will be done about it.