I got a writing assignment back from a High School English teacher with one critique: �find your voice.�


I scoffed.

At the time, I figured all I needed was an opinion. All I had to do was enumerate my thoughts with my keyboard and my voice would shine through these alphabetical equations.


I was wrong.


In order to have a voice, you need a story to tell. To have a story to tell, you gotta� play the game. And as my coaches would say, �pain is part of the game, ladies. If you�re scared� go play Madden.�


Milton Bradley isn�t God in this game of Life, so I fear that my Coaches sentiments are true: �If you don�t win, you ain�t shit,� �cause� I�m not sure how to win.

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Dear world:

You're mean, and you don't like me.


Respectfully,
Jon.

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My roommate and I don't talk much. I saw him a total of four seconds today although we were home together for about six hours. Most of our conversations are as follows:

Him: Hey, what's up man?
Me: Yo, just _____ (studying/reading/dancing the cha-cha) You?
Him: Just ____ (Headin' out/Going to nap/dancing the Tango)

We dance a lot in my apartment.

Anyway, I'm in the kitchen washing my breakfast bowl at around 1 P.M. ( I've been waking up at around 6 each day this week. Slept in on accident today.. ) and singing a song about him not being home. As I draw near the chorus, I begin to tip-toe toward my room when I see him stepping out of his and taking a peek into mine to see if I'm home.

"Yo," I say when he looks to me. " Hey man, what's up?," he says in response. We walk past one another and I go back to my room and he goes outside to drink or something.. As unbelievable as it may seem, we have a really good relationship. He may be the best roommate I've ever had.

I look myself in the mirror for a few minutes and practice my faces for a few minutes when I hear my cellphone start buzzin'

Moohell: I miss you, hon.

Michelle. I hadn't thought of her in awhile, so I didn't respond right away. When I did, I texted back the only thing I could think to say

Me: Are you okay?

Her: Yes. I just want you to know I think about you all the time even if I don't always tell you so.

I respond with a quote from one of my favorite poets

Me: Oh.


She doesn't know that I was home for a full month and that I'm 300 miles south for another six months. I miss my kid sister, and my parents, and my Anh, but Moo and I haven't been close since I re-joined NuTang in 04 with this account name.

I'm fighting the urge to call her.


In other news,

I want sweet potato fries.

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I remember the two of us as kids nearly ten years ago talking.. me about Pokemon
and you about Harry Potter.

I remember your momma driving us to six flags and playing Mortal Kombat in the backseat of her SUV

I remember you leading the way to the biggest and scariest roller coasters after we drank sugarwater.

I remember going 100 meters into the air and hearing you remark how beautiful the Dallas skyline looked at night. I was watching you when I told you the view was beautiful.

I remember leaving my College orientation nearly three years ago to see you.

I remember you taking me to a pizza parlor that you proclaimed to be the best in the town.

I remember us walking hand in hand beside a pond reminiscent of Walden..

I remember me placing one arm behind your knees and the other across your back when I picked you up and carried you away from the pond.

I remember how you looked up at me while I carried you the moment before you kissed me.

And I remember laughing as soon as your lips left mine.




I forget why we're not together.

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This has been the best first half of summer.. nevermind.

This has been the best Summer--

These past Six-seven weeks have been the greatest of my life because I've gotten to spend so much time with my kid sister, the brightest star under the sun and the most important person in my life.

Seriously.

I canceled all of my plans this morning in order to spend my last real weekend ( I'll be packing during the next one ) with her. We of Ice Cream Sundaes, Law & Order ( WHOO ), and movies, and I doubt that a day will ever come that'll beat this one.




Although I'm excited to head back to my apartment in San Antonio, I'm not looking forward to resuming my role of Atlus. I'll go back to school during July, back to the Rape Crisis Center to begin working with victims under the age of 14, back to being a mentor to a little boy on the East Side Ghetto, back to editing for the Newspaper, back to speaking to High School students about College Leadership, back to organizing university-wide trips for Habitat 4 Humanity, back to tutoring spiteful, sucktastic, spoiled, sniveling, strange, and smelly students that come to me, back to not yelling KAMEHAMEHA!!!! when Tina rubs my bald head for good luck, back to putting up with/hanging out with my roommates who I loathe/adore, , back to coming home from dating people who don't compare to the girl who thinks me her soulmate so I can sit in the living room and watch Sportscenter, back to studying for the LSAT, back to imitating J.D. from Scrubs and daydreaming of Yale, back to getting beaten by Anh in Mario Kart, and back to talking to my parents and big sister on the phone weekly, and back to missing my little one daily..

by day.

By night I'm going to go Henry David Thoreau on the world and live in my own personal Walden. Turn off my phone, toss out the laptop, tuck in Ophelia ( my Wii ) in our bed so that I sit outside on my patio and write, read, and think in the moonlight.

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I should not be writing right now. I should not even be awake right now. I�ve got to get up in a mere eight hours to get to an English class.

My summer daily routine is as follows: My alarm goes off at 6:55 AM each morning so that I can press the snooze button. I roll out of bed twenty minutes later, rummage through my pile of clothes on the floor and perform a smell test, slip into my Jesus-inspired Sandals, and yell for my kid sister to lock the front door as I slam it shut. My second test of the day starts now..
Every morning before I walk across my lawn I have to check for the mean-mugging bunnies who populate my neighborhood. I usually feign bravado and power walk my way to my car, then drive to my first class.
The kids there are innocuous enough. Rather than don one of my usual school facades, I sit in the back of the class and occasionally carry on a conversation with the girl beside me(during the rare occasions that we�re both awake.)

I�ve developed a few facades back in San Antonio. Around my peers I�m social, but not quite loquacious. When I�m near a teacher/dean/president I�m not familiar with, I�d try to shy away from hubris as much as possible -- so much so that my flirtation with self-deprecation was commonly identified by people apt at reading others. I�m usually a different person once I get back to my apartment, though. Every time I�d step off of the bus and cross the threshold into my bedroom, I close the door, look myself in the mirror, and thank God that I�ve found my respite for the time being� and hid. I hid from my increasingly annoying roommates ( they weren�t really annoying.. Or mean, or bad, or anything. I loathed both of them for merely existing around me for about a month. ), I hid from my acquaintances, ( I had/have no one I consider a friend in San Antonio. Frankly, I can think of only three people -- and that�s stretching it -- who I consider a friend. ) I hid from myself, too.

But now I�m back in my home town and I�m loving it for the most part. I get to spend day after day with the most important person in my life: my little sister. Even though I�m not in San Antonio, I still can�t wait to get home in the evenings those are the times that I get to spend with her, Anh, my mother, and Jack Mccoy.

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"... I forgot how weird your sense of humor was, Jon," 'Dre tells me as he takes a seat across the room from me.

"You know how I do," I reply. "However, I do take offense to your use of the word "weird..." I'm eccentric, pal. Unique, even.. but weird? Hardly," I say with my head tilted up indignantly. Much like this :
Wow, I have a big head.

While Andre shakes his head in disbelief, Matthew begins to grin from ear to ear as I stretch out on a recliner in his house. "I missed this," Matt says to me after a chuckle. " The classic Jon sense of humor."

With a shrug of my shoulders, I allow the corners of my mouth to rest as my smile fades. I glance around the giant living room, trying to reconstruct and compare its present condition to how it looked when I was last in Matthew's home two years ago, a year or so after we initially met. Me, Him, Gene ( below ), Dre, and Josh(I was closest to Josh than any of the aforementioned folks), were there that day at Matthew's place.




Anyway, back to Matt and I. We clicked quickly. He was intelligent, sarcastic, and most importantly, witty. Contrary to what my NuTang blogs may indicate, I do have a few male associates... they just aren't as I just don't write about 'em all that often. Why, you ask? 'Cause as much as I love Superman-look-alike Adrian,



the stuff we did when we hung out would be boring to write about 'cause I couldn't romanticize it. Well, I could... but then I'd be a fan of Los Angeles Sporting teams ( a.k.a. a loser. )


Anyway, I've known 'Dre for years -- ever since 7th grade Football. We're not the best of friends or anything, but we keep in touch and make an effort to hang out. Back in High School, most of my free time was spent on the football field or in the locker room. As such, most of the folk I spent my time with were on the team; however, I've lost touch with a lot of them over the past three years and I dun' see them no more. Wish I hadn't.

The only person, outside of the Family, I really see on a consistent basis when I come home to Dallas is some loserface woman who I love with all my heart. I only love her because she serenades me with her acoustic renditions of "The Final Countdown!" and the theme from the Fresh Prince.

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