57

May 28,1994



I remember that Ashley painted flowers, she sold weed too. That day we gave her our money which she added to her own to buy a half pound. The dealer, as we found out later, took our money along with hers and split. No surprise of course, this was to us.



After finding another source, we drove around M town and visited a couple friends. The party started before we arrived too and there was people there that I didn’t even know. This was no surprise, cities are just like that. And, being in the artsy neighborhood, there were freaks, painters and poets on Tucker street that night.



We were broke for the most part, so we bought Old English 40s and made a circle in the living room floor of Gina and Shanal’s apartment. In the center, we placed the bag of weed. It was a shrine to the great Fuck Upeth, I reckon. we sat around, sipping the malt beverage while I wrote poetry…soon to become drunken scribbles. I never realized the bag of weed was gone until I saw some blonde guy smoking the whole thing in a giant joint.



There were fights as well, as usual for college parties. Bruce groped Shanal, making Yasid very angry. Shanal retaliated on Yasid and informed him that she was not his girl and that he didn’t have to defend her. This made yasid and Shanal fight. A bucket of water was thrown over the balcony on Bruces head and someone was throwing apple pie around the room. Eventually I wrote on the wall with a snickers bar and we all passed out.



May 29,1994



I hate airport goodbyes, but who doesn’t. The day went so slowly and it was so hard. I feel my tears coming back, dripping on her poems she wrote. The gang went together to the airport to with Gina and Seji goodbye. They had to return to Oslo and we were all heartbroken. On the drive over, we reminisced about all the fun we had in Memphis over the past year.



Of course, we had to take two cars to accomadate all of Gina and Seji’s friends. It was me, Betanee(Japan),Hanen(Japan),Shanal(India), Yasid(India), Chee hu sun(China) and Mechelle(Tennessee). We talked of so many things while Honin drived. The time that Seji had gotten the dragon tattooed on her head was one of the funniest stories we chuckled about. I remember how I raced that train on the way to Rockys tattoo parlor and how everyone nearly shit their pants. I remeber the water fight on Tucker street where we could only use 10 gallon buckets. We even laughed about how the cops almost crashed our going away party from the night before. Betanee told the guys how Musi rejected me because I wasnt from Africa followed by my story of how my accelerator cable had frozen on the way to school one day and scared the shit out of me.



By the time we arrived at the airport, our stomachs were hurting from laughter.



We enterd the airport somberly and went through the motions of damnable airport goodbyes. I couldnt seem to tell Gina that I loved her, enough. Then, in one instant, she was gone.



Everyone in the gang knew I was hurting, and they had to have been searching for something to say. All of a sudden, Yasid fell to his knees in front of me, in front of every one in the airport and proposed to me.



I couldnt help but laugh as I pulled him back onto his feet.



June 1,1994



All I do is sleep, I feel like doing nothing else. My therapist prescribed some antidepressants to me and they seem like sleeping pills.



I told my aunt that I was moving back home in a couple weeks. I was dropping out of Art college and venturing out for something else.



I had no idea where I was going….except home.