I have overdosed on nostalgia (my own, others) and it has deposited me here, with this empty page and an odd aftertaste, like copper and chocolate. The copper could be blood. The chocolate is likely chocolate.

I have pored through and re dug the trenches of my hourglass memory, allowed the sand to flow back in and obliterate details, leaving me to restore. I have considered the erotic, the emotional, the historical…reconsidered the erotic (I like the erotic) and tried to walk around within these memories as I am now, keening my hearing to catch the songs playing that allowed the acts to happen, listening to the words of the songs that gave me reason or gave me pause before I made yet again another big, dumb decision.

I’m not sure that these remasterings of the memory make for a better end product or just act as historical lip-synching. I can discuss my first kiss. But what would my first kisser’s story be? I could talk about the effects of a national tragedy. But am I really sure I wont lapse into someone else’s story of heartbreak, survival, triumph? I can discuss great personal horrors with a laugh and a joke and I can create great (self indulgent) emotionally wracked tales about Van Morrison records. Which I probably stole from Lester Bangs.

The erotic is clear, though. I made it my business to remember every second of minute as they happened. I like the erotic.

I have used my past as a venue that my present plays out of. I’m not even sure it matters that these tales are true, or maybe an amalgam of my smoky memory and 80’s sports movies, where we all triumph in the shoes of the loser in the opening scene. Which, of course, could also be me.

I have looked for great meaning in small interactions and looked past tons of bullshit. I haven’t considered the worst of these moments…or maybe what I ACTUALLY am is a ‘constant state of considering the worst of these moments’.

The things from the past…the important things…I have kept.

Friends and lovers and a thousand practice tapes.

Old books with fresh inscriptions.

Art from first, then second, then third grade (and so on) from Miss C-Rae.

And this still doggedly determined heart that wont allow the past to be my best days. And this mad internal clock that runs backwards and makes me faster and thinner as the world grows fat.