Easter

I was driving home from Village Inn tonight and had I'm From Barcelona in mind. The song, "Chickenpox." Its a great song, but "great song" hardly gets the tune and words right in description. I hummed some of the melody and the first lyrics. "You can't have it once you've had it." Thinking about the song, you can't chickenpox more than once unless you have shitty luck and you can't have your youth once you've had it. I don't remember having chickenpox. I hope I had it because how the saying goes is pretty disconcerting: Its best to have chickenpox when you're little because as an adult you'll get an angrier outbreak and die a painful lonely death. But I can remember my youth and I hope to never bury it albeit I have a tattoo saying otherwise.

Today was a good Easter. It was a good Easter because there wasn't anything Easter about it. I woke up late and showered and went to the library to do some belated research for a class debate on apartheid in South Africa. The city was a ghost town the drive there, everyone in their homes eating and drinking. Listening to At The Drive In on my headphones-a dangerous thing to do behind the wheel but my only means to disrupt the silence in my car-I hoped no one would be there and saving myself the embarrassment of being the only asshole not at some family gathering. But there were people there and it really didn't matter. We were all heathens, together, online and printing shit for homework.

After the library I went home and made a quick breakfast/lunch and watched an episode of Futurama. I then went to Jessica's grama's house to pick her up. I took a glance of her collection of animal figurines in the front yard, nice novelties to give the place a friendly welcome. Bunch of frogs and red cheeked gnomes. We got in the car and headed east for Harley Davidson to see Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band. We saw them last year in Marfa for free. Today was the same with a donation of food or other perishables for orphans in Juarez. We met up with Priscilla and Gabe and caught a beautiful set, an El Paso twilight as the background as an extra. The crowd was ecstatic, almost obnoxious at some points, probably East Siders, ha. They played songs from their freshman album and a few new ones from their sophomore to be released in a few weeks. I got the shakes from the set, I even was in a trance for a few solo songs just with Conor. A great lyricist, a great poet, a novelist really. It was a very spiritual show for me, I wish I had more of them.


Photos by Jessica.

At the end we tried to get Jessica's raffle ticket signed but the man, the policeman shut down the party and so we headed for our cars. Jessica, Gabe, and I went to Village Inn by UTEP and enjoyed a nice meal. We played tic tac toe, we had trouble deciding on the ever-expanding menu. I decided what I wanted and then found out breakfast was served anytime of the day and I had to go back and reaffirm my decision. We talked about cults, movies, drugs, Coachella, Asia, and The Doors. Eventually we paid our bills, Jessica and Gabe both touched my face in the parking lot then laughed, me completely oblivious to the fact and we said our good-byes. Then I drove home.