The woman upstairs screams about her husband all the time. almost every morning I am awakened by her insane yelling. She's either yelling at him or yelling about him. Now of course it is hard to think about rights and wrongs. if you are lucky you get to a certain point in life and you stop thinking about who's right and who's wrong, but maybe more like how can we make the situation the best that it can be for all involved. What bothers me most about this situation is that I am good friends with both the kids. Great kids. Little T is a genius I swear to God. he's 11 and he's writing songs like a 16 year old. He loves the stones the Beatles Dylan Bruce U2 Radiohead prince. a freaking 11 year old in this day and age of shitty Emo and screamo music – which is the shit that all the other kids listen to – already knows the good stuff. cool kid. they hide out in my apt all the time to get away from the screaming. Everytime I speak with the mom she is screaming about the ex. Kids have a problem in school, it’s the ex husbands fault. Everything. its all his fault. Now of course he says the same thing. I mean, they're both stupid for this. they're both probably right in their own ways, but their both stupid for not seeing what's really happening. and worse they're both heartless idiots for cutting the other one down in front of the kids.

One night she started in on her my husbands loser speech in front of my main man, the eleven year old. “are you retarded?” I asked her, right there on the steps in front of the kid...

Current spin: Richard and Linda Thompson, best of island years.

One of my girls was on the phone with tmobile and Motorola at the same time to try to figure out how to get the cell phone to back up the phone numbers onto the laptop.

Hey Sam,
Real quick data dump here. new album is doing very well. up and down. recently compared to Jim Morrison for my lyrics in a review. felt good of course. contrast that with an equal amount of bad reviews or worse, just pure ignoring us for the most part, and well you’ve got one roller coaster after another in my poor head and heart....

Congrats on you and xxx! How wonderful. Nesting. Aaahhh. I long for it once more.

Yes perhaps I have arrived because I now officially hate New York as much as I once liked it.... ugh is my feeling word for the day. yes, one day I would like to find a place as cool as New York but warmer and less noisy and less INTENSE.

John and T are good. the girls are good. John is stressed like all married corporate working fathers.... t is the model wife and mother... they live in Katy Texas now God love em and God hope I never have to go there.... LOL.

Spoke with Laura recently and she sounded rather chipper. In good spirits.

How are things with your mom and you? getting better?

San Diego? Heard its great. Enjoy the warmth...

Lets hang some time when you get back. I could always use some BKLN time.

Safe flight.
E

Seeing the conflict in action everyday right now with this CD of ours. one minute we’re stars and in the next minute we are nobodies. What a fucking roller coaster.

Gary = Gray,

Bill taking a shit

Not wasting my time with Tyler or someone else

I am shit. I am still so full of pretense that it drives me crazy. today I finally met someone who works in our office here after being here since October. You know, how hard it is sometimes to just put yourself out there and say hello...must change that.

Amazon.com right? very soon they will rule the free world.

Slowly but surely watching myself become a junkie yet again. the thing about being a junkie, whatever your pleasure, is that you tell yourself that if you are rich or successful that it doesn’t matter. That you can do it anyway. but its not true. you still get sucked in. and you still get sucked down. Just like you did when you were poor and unsuccessful. It doesn’t matter who you are, if you go all out on any drug trip you're going to hit bottom and eventually suffer. so the question that begs is if one knows this, then why would one still partake?

Current spin: belle and Sebastian, dear catastrophe waitress. I love this band. reminds me of phoenix and Donovan. Sounds like they are from the sixties.

Speaking about when you're in a cell phone conversation and it gets cut off or someone never receives your email or your voicemail.... She tells me, “there's so many unfinished sentences out there in cyberspace from me to you... one of these days we’re going to be up there, out there, looking at them all... it’s a story in itself.” I will make this a song.

The divorce still rages in my apt/townhouse here on the very posh and quaint upper east side. The family above me constantly fighting screaming yelling throwing things slamming doors, all of them suffering. I try not to get involved but have a good friendship with all of them, especially the eight and twelve year old boys. They come over when they want to. just knock on the door. Manhattan is so funny like that. the square footage of this entire townhouse is about the size of the house I just sold in Miami. and yet here there are four families living here. each of the apts only about 400 to 800 sq ft. funny huh. Perspectives. Anyway, the boys come downstairs and let themselves in or knock till I let them in. ‘o.k. listen,’ I tell the younger brother, ‘if you knock and I don't answer and then you knock again and I don't answer, do you know what that means?’ ‘it means you're not home...’ ‘right. it means I'm not home.’ ‘but sometimes you are home and you still don't answer.’ ‘well yes. that's true. but if you knock and I don't answer, and you think I'm home, that means that I'm either sleeping, taking a shower, using the bathroom, or I'm hanging with a beautiful girl, right?’ he blushes. ‘and so in any of those cases, you just have to pretend I'm not home, you dig what I'm saying?’ ‘o.k.’ he answers and then rushes into the apt...

When I am home and I answer we have good times. we all sit around and play the guitar, or I write while the older one plays me his newest songs he's written while the younger one jumps up and down on my bed or the couch, a privilege he is probably not allowed at home. then we eat cereal till we’re stuffed and watch concert DVDs and I try to explain how the divorce will soon be over and everything will be fine.

Their divorce mirrors my own break up with Cleopatra, which unbelievably still lingers after over four years now. but luckily we are very much near the end now. I never should have allowed the things I did and know that now. hindsight is always 20/20 of course. once a Princess always a Princess I suppose I thought and so I thought it was my duty to kind of let the little Princess do whatever she wanted to, no matter how much it damaged me or compromised my life or her integrity. It took me a long time to understand that I was not serving either of us by just being unconditional. Harry palmer wrote somewhere that ‘you should never flow love to someone who is attacking you.’ it took me so long to get that. we just assume that being enlightened and spiritual means letting people walk all over you. but it doesn’t. One thing I do get out of this divorce the people upstairs are enduring is that it makes my situation with Cleopatra seem so much easier and less charged. Takes my attention off of it.

Sometimes late at night when she is tired Princess Little Tree cries because she is overwhelmed by a feeling of uncontrollable loneliness, as if she is all alone in the world and has no one. I cannot speak logic to her. she just needs to cry it out. I understand. Sometimes I am overcome by this feeling myself. It is easy to let yourself feel abandoned and betrayed by people when we have given our all and more and then they disappear or betray us in some way. it is never easy to handle this. it will always be a challenge I am sure. My dearest brother and compatriot Bas almost refuses to speak with me now till all the business between Cleo and I is worked out because he says it is easier for him. for me it is very sad, hurts a lot. I obsess on it at times and find it difficult to focus on work. I don't blame him but I blame him. so to speak. How do we know when to give our love? How do we know if something is going to last forever? if we are o.k. in giving our love and commitment and friendship and loyalty to another? Is it only for reciprocation? For mutual benefit? Or can we rise above that and just do it unconditionally? I guess that's where I am now... wondering if I man enough to do that... and move on.

I'll tell you, this is the year where Fishy grows into a man. After all these years, who would have known? at least he is seeing that manhood is upon him. whether or not he will rise to the occasion is another story. That is the question to the story isn't it?

It has been a perilous journey. I have lost a few battles the last three years. mainly with my higher self. feeling like a fighter who's got the wind knocked out of him sometimes. Waking up days or weeks or months later and trying to remember what happened... Made a few mistakes along the way. but I'm slowly rebuilding. Shaking old habits and rekindling old friendships.