so i've been reading bob dylan's memoirs, called Chronicles: Volume One, which my wonderful girlfriend emily recently sent to me through the mail. she found it for me at a used bookstore.

it's a fantastic read. dylan names all of these performers back in Greenwich Village as if i should know them. he has passages of masterfully orchestrated nonsense. one sentence does not invariably lead to another, the connections sometimes implied on some level above or below that of mere words. most of all, the book fills me with a feeling of restlessness. i have this feeling that i am coming to a point in my life where i will have to make certain decisions and think more intensely on certain things. many ethical, economical, pragmatic and philosophical questions have to be at least partially answered. i have this feeling my life can go in two very distinct directions, or some strange amalgam of the two.

the strangest thing is that the book has served as a catalyst for this feeling. much of the book, aside from the Greenwich Village sections, are dylan's lamentations of the pitfalls of success and being pushed into situations he never desired, his own disappointments with himself and the people who supposedly adored him. so much of the book is written not only matter of factly, but 'after the factly.' it all looks back. old dylan finding fault in the young dylan. some now alien version of himself.

it's just odd, is all, that a book looking back on a career should so deeply affect me at the beginning of mine. i will likely work in a bookstore or maintenance this next year, nothing glorious. but i will keep writing, here and elsewhere. much more elsewhere. and i will keep living the life filled more and more with glorious, awful wonder each day.

just a fragmented thought to keep no one else but me up tonight.