the life and times of audie jones.

i've thought about a lot of things. a pistol tattoo down my ribcage that no one would ever understand. don't worry, i'm not violent. a sunflower field in my backyard, with rows and rows of yellow silken petals. my small collection of switchfoot and jimmy eat world albums sitting in the corner of my room. this boy i once loved and maybe sometimes still do. the thought of him, anyway. the taste of raspberry chapstick when you've got a bad habit of biting on your bottom lip. a motorcycle that fits me perfectly named penelope. it's the trademark that makes me an official badass. the loss of something so dear to me, and i've yet to figure out what.

i haven't been writing like i used to. my notebooks are getting kind of empty, and the one piece i was so proud of sits unfinished on my dusty bookshelf. i was reading earlier this evening and it really sucks ass. i'm embarassed that i was so caught up in myself to think that it was good literature. and how does a piece of writing get to be literature and not just some stupid piece of shit writing that some 21-year old girl decides to think up? i've never seemed to figure that one out.

i've thought about getting drunk every night for 3 weeks straight. why? i have no idea. i just wondered what it would be like to have the ability to completely wipe out 21 days of your life; like you lived and breathed those 21 days, but you were never really alive. or maybe that's backwards. maybe you're so intoxicated that you become fearless. all inhibitions slip away and you're truly free to make this ass of yourself that you were destined to become. either way, i'm too much of a chicken to do it, and i'd be too scared once i got started to stop.

and this idea just came to me not even 48 hours ago. there was once this man named audie jones. he smoked up until he got lung cancer and died. he spent his whole life gambling and drinking and being a good-for-nothing father and husband. but towards the end, when he finally put down the cigarettes and held death in his palm, he found god. or perhaps god found him. it's a crazy story, really, and this man...audie, he encouraged others to believe as well. they called him a hypocrite, but loved him anyway as they held onto his withered hand, watching him go. this man was my grandfather. and i held his hand. i was nine when he died, and he never really looked like he was gone when i saw him in the casket. and now 12 years later, i want to write a memoir about my papaw. the life and times of audie jones. not a granddaugter's tale of some sweater-vest wearing, tobacco pip smoking, wise old kind-hearted man. but the memoir of who he really was. from the beginning to the end. the cheating, the lying, the stealing, the bourbon, the abandonment, the war, the divorce, the family, my dad, the diagnosis, the repent, and the death. i want to write it all.

i think i'll set up the interviews tomorrow.

maybe life will pick back up again.