At this point in the novel, Long Peterson is on his way to a party he's not

sure he really wants to attend.

`I feel stupid and contagious, here we are now, entertain us.'

NIRVANA - Smells like Teen Spirit

I know the moon controls the tides and my mother swears blind that it gives her mood swings (though I think that's to do with another cycle ). I'll tell you one thing though. Whenever the moon's in this particular crescent, when it makes a little upside down moon bowl every now and then - whenever it goes like that, I feel contented somehow. I don't know why, maybe it's just because I tell myself that it works. I got that Ren and Stimpy song stuck in my head. `Our country reeks of trees, our yaks are really big ....'. I was kind of hoping in a way that some of the kids from school would be there at the party. I miss some of them in the holidays, in a weird kind of way. This is the last summer vacation ever. Next time it'll be the summer vacation that never ends. This time next year, it's like we've been all together on a huge big tarpaulin, way above the earth. But now they're about to take the tarpaulin away and we're all going to fall together right down to earth with nothing to break our fall. And those people will go from people who you tell your feelings to, to smile - and - nod people you see walking in the opposite direction in the mall, to faces in the yearbook, to faces in the street. I used to sing Beatles songs with him in Mr Hansen's Biology when I was sixteen. I used to sit behind her in home room, she had the nicest hair and she always wore this particular blue sweater with little knots on it. They'll like, go off and have their life, fall in love, have a career, all that stuff. And I'll never see them again. I don't even know if they'll remember me. But I'll miss them. Kind of like I miss them now. I don't know whether or not they feel the same way. God, this sounds so dumb. But I do feel that way. I bet you, once we all leave and do our own thing, no matter how much we promise and stuff, we'll all drift apart. Spending an hour a week together is a lot different to spending six hours a day, five days a week with them. You know, in some ways, I almost wish school would never end, I wish you could have that, I don't know, at least the security of knowing exactly who you're going to see there and pretty much what you're going to do there, every day, every year. I mean you're holed up with most of these people for like, six years of your life. Whether you like them or not, or whether they like you or not, they're up there in your mind somewhere. It makes me almost scared because I think of how I'm only going to be at school another year. Cause after that, I've got to call the shots. I'm the one who's got to make the friends, break the friends, make my life. And goddamn it. I'll miss everybody too. Just miss the fact that I know I'll be with them there every day. I've almost finished the bit of my life that other people write, I'm up to the bit that I write, and shit, I don't even know how to damn well start it. Or continue it, or whatever. I wish it could write itself for a while longer .

As soon as we got to the party I suddenly remembered why I can't stand Morgan's parties. If you're not drunk or stoned or got your tongue down someone's throat, you're the one who ends up on the couch upside down with a bowl of slimy popcorn watching David Letterman or playing Super Mario Bros and listening to someone hurling their guts out in the bathroom. This always happens, I always remember too late. I sat down on the couch beside a girl in my English class with this little pink teddy bear in her hand and this guy in a beanie in the other. I was so bored already. I tried the refrigerator, it was full up with Coke. Everyone always brings gallons of Coke to parties. A couple of Twinkies. Some melted chocolate. Someone's sweater. OK, sure. A sweater. I couldn't even hear the damn television because someone had put dance music on the stereo. I hate dance music. The only thing I really like doing at parties is sitting outside them. Sticking popsicle sticks with orange tide marks into the potplants and holding on to your cup - the cup you get at the beginning of the party and claim as your own for the rest of the night - and talking to kids you wouldn't even smile at if you passed them in the hall, finding out all these really interesting things about them. It only lasts for the party , no longer. The day after and you wouldn't even say `hi' at the shopping centre. Like this girl, Carla something or other, she used to be in my art class, she was sitting there sipping a rum and coke and telling me how one time when she was twelve she slept for an entire night in a Circle K bathroom. She stood up after she told me that and I only came up to her nose what with all her make up and stuff. Big Hair. High heels. I hate all those things. They're just techniques to make girls taller than me. A plot against short guys. I think I'm paranoid about my height, I'm not even that incredibly short . It's just, sometimes it seems that everyone is taller than me. But other times, I feel taller than anybody else. I don't mind being a little on the short side. Most of the time. I mean, Gil's taller than me, but that's OK. Bethel and I are about the same. When it really annoys me is when I'm shorter than a girl I like. It's so embarrassing .

I was just sitting on the porch. It was me, Jefferson Pickett this kid from my school, and Caitlin something, who I'd met about three minutes after whatever time we got to the party sitting on the porch lighting matches and burning the pot plants. But every now and then I went wandering around the streets. I didn't even know the area very well, I hoped it was one of these ones where you can go round full circle and end up back where you started. Walking around at night is unbelievable. The streets seem endless at night. All you can see is house and streets, streetlights all over the place, up on the hill and snaking out behind you. You feel like you could walk and walk and never leave them. All you can see is streets, and street lights hovering above you on the tops of poles, throwing little light - puddles at you on the road. I was at a party once, an engagement party for one of my cousins, in Atlanta. I was only about seven or eight. I was trying to stay out of everyone's way - you know how they make you feel like an amoeba that doesn't quite understand English yet ? We were in a big convention room in a skyscraper, the whole posh thing, lobsters in the tank and all that. I was looking out the window, just trying to spot a swimming pool on the roof or something like that. Then I saw this woman, all dressed in black. She looked up at the window, and I waved - I was stupid in those days, I still thought people would see you if you waved to a plane. She wandered across the road, and up the road, and away along under the street lights. I asked my great - aunt or something like that if that woman was running away. She looked at me all soggy through her mouthful of fish eggs on water crackers and smudgy pink lipstick, and went `Some people like to walk at night, dear .' And I've always liked to since then .

I went inside and attempted to put something better on the CD player. No good, I got trampled by all these girls in fashionable clothes who want to put on dance music. They scare me. People who look like they just stepped out of Sassy. Then I made the stupid suggestion that we go down the video shop and get out something to watch. Cause Earl just goes `Sure ! C'mon, I'll drive ya down !' Stupid stupid boy Long. Earl drives like he thinks. Insanely and far too fast for his own good. We were screaming along those stupid skinny roads at about a million miles an hour. I hate it when people do that. I was pretty glad that it was just a crappy little car that wouldn't go fast enough for Earl's taste. Morgan kept on telling him to step on the gas and laughing and pointing out the window. I wanted to smack his gob, he was off his face anyway. The only reason I knew Earl wasn't drunk too was that he's a diabetic. No real indication though, I guess. Probably doesn't stop him being high as a kite. We kept going over these damn bumps and there was a nail sticking out of the roof which skewered my head every time we did. It wasn't even big enough for the lot of us. The radio was on and kept going offstation every other time we turned a corner. Everyone was singing along to it and headbanging, but all I could think of was `Keep your eyes on the road, you dick !' I don't know what he was trying to prove by trying to take off in the damn thing. It just proved to me for once and for all that his dick ended where his neck started. I'd more or less known all along anyhow. Gil was getting into it all, once he gets his adrenaline pumping he turns into a lunatic. I think he'd had a lotto drink anyway. He was biting his nails right through though. We pulled up outside the video store,all lit up with neon night - light and tall gangly kid with Pearl Jam T - shirt inside. My chest was pumping, I couldn't swallow. A Coke would be nice. There wasn't very many people around, it's not like the weekends. Everyone tends to get out of your way when you're wandering through the store singing the theme song to every movie you walk past. There was a good looking girl there in a day - glo pink dress, taking a good hard look at the New Releases. I took a good hard look at them too . I could see her watching Gil out of the corner of my eye. So I wandered over to him over at Family Classics and dropped him a whisper. `Gil. She's looking at ya, man ! Over there, in new releases. Don't look up. Not yet. OK, now. Oops, she just looked over here. Quick, walk around there to Action Thrillers .' This is the good thing about friends. They'll always let you know if someone just gave you the eye. No rivalry or anything. And in return, you let them know when they're getting the eye too. Great setup.

Eventually it was just like, close your eyes, turn around twice and pick. Noone could agree on anything. We got some crappy B - grade horror movie and `Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey '. We had about a ton of Coke at home but for some reason Morgan only wanted to drink Mountain Dew so we got a big bottle of that too. Earl stacked one of those king sized bags of popcorn on top of that. I ended up being the one waiting on the line to get served. One of those assholes from our school was at the desk, giving us crappy looks. There was this woman in front of us with a baby over her shoulder. I don't know very many babies, but when you look at them, it's so weird. There's like, these little tiny humans - it's the same sort of weirdness you feel when you see one of those miniature ponies that can sit on someone's palm or those bonsai plants. Babies have these huge eyes, they never seem to blink either. There was this one in front of me. I heard a horn blast outside and watched a couple of girls we know fly by Morgan in a car, waving their arms off. When I turned around this baby yanked hold of the longer part of my hair. It didn't hurt or anything, actually it was kind of cool. He gave me a big smile, for no reason. Out of all the people around, for some reason he'd chosen me to grin at. I smiled back. I didn't feel stupid about smiling at a baby. He said `pull hair !' and twisted it around his hand - have you ever seen how small a baby's fingers are ? I just sat there, smiling at it but saying nothing, just feeling this tug at my hair. I think it's stupid how people treat babies like they're idiots or something. How is going `dook at the ditty bitty boy ! Aren't you a bootiful boy ?' going to help it get on in life ? I mean, is there a cutoff point where you stop making goo goo noises at them and suddenly start treating them like they have a brain after all ? It's like how some adults always treat you like a little kid, even if you're sixteen. That little baby in front of us took a few more yanks of my hair, staring at me, with these blue eyes that looked like satellite dishes or something. Then he giggled and said `Let go !' and dropped it. I glanced over the woman's shoulder. She was getting out `Jurrasic Park' and `Beetlejuice', which is one of Gil's favourite movies. I hoped they put the kid to bed before they put that on. It took absolutely nothing to give me nightmares when I was a kid. I got them when something went wrong with the TV station and a commercial started running backwards.

I would've rather walked home than driven with that jerk Earl. There was no point even attempting to offer to drive myself. I'd made hints all the way up to change it off the crappy radio station but no one had listened to me even then. I knew Gil wouldn't particularly want to go home by himself though. We got back in, and Morgan suddenly started howling like a wolf, opening his mouth wide and going `AWROOOO !' He rolled his window down and yelped it outside at all the hedges and cats on the pavement. It was kind of fun, we all did as we drove home through the town, beating our chests and everything. Then all these people would look up, either going `What the hell was that ?' or they'd look past us kids in the old beat - up heap, with one finger tapping on their jaw and the expression on their face saying `Dear dear. Teenagers .'. I liked that, though. I kind of like being thought of as wild and untameable. Mainly cause it means I don't have to live up to it. I like having society shake their heads over me. I felt wild now. I felt like ripping my clothes out and screeching `AWROOOO !' all through town. It felt good. We were looking around for someone to moon but the roads were pretty empty. I have only ever mooned someone once - on the last day of school me and two other guys mooned the principal's car. I mean, I didn't even realise we had until I looked up and saw this BMW with a fat assed jerk driving up the street interrupted from thinking up new and interesting ways to make us dislike the learning process by this row of butts squashed up against the window. I'm glad I did it, too. I'm like that guy who invented penicillin. All the best things I've done have been by mistake. Like, I always wanted to answer the phone like Homer Simpson, go `'yello ?', but I never got the guts to in case it was one of the guys my Dad works with or something. Then, I was just watching the Simpsons and I went out to answer the phone. It was like, the Professor of Horticulture at Shonash University asking Dad about the infrastructure of the immature acacia or something. But I did it, just without thinking or anything. I was glad I did it, too.

Rhiannon was totally off her nut when we got back, yelling all this shit at Morgan. Both of them were. Rhiannon's hopeless with drink, she just has to walk past a bar and suddenly she's out of her mind. She has the amazing ability to get drunk on root beer. Morgan's just as bad but in a different way. He is not satisfied until we are dragging him away from the windows and holding him over the john to throw up. I don't mind loosening up my tongue a little but a couple of times I got so out of it I just wanted to jump off the roof or something, I felt so repulsive. It didn't take them long to have a fight. Them having a fight while they're off their faces is not a pretty sight. She's mad at him cause he's too drunk. He's mad at her cause he's too drunk. Both of them are mad at each other cause they think the other person's trying to change them. The thing I always notice about Rhiannon and Morgan is how when she hugs him she'll run her fingers through his hair and make it all sit wrongly and part in the wrong spot. And it's so obvious that he hates it. So many things you'd think would be so obvious, but until you actually spell it out in big clear capital letters and five different languages people don't even think about it. Things are only obvious when you think about them afterwards. I can just bet you there was a big circle shaped rock lying around on the floor of some cave man's cave for about ten million years before he took a look at it and thought `Hmm. I have a pretty neat idea about this thing. You know all those troubles I've been having carting heavy stuff around ?....' (This is me in Jerry Seinfeld mode ). No, really. Every single relationship I've seen which has broken up ever was because one of the people in it tried to change the other one into a different person. So many kids I know have said to themselves `Oh, after he goes out with me I'll make change him from being such a no hoper' or `I'll stop her being a druggo ' They treat them kind of like a new car, trying to shine it up for presentation to the world, sticking all the right bumper stickers in the back window so everyone who drives by you knows what kind of person you are. It's not like you buy the basic car and buy all the optional extras, like luggage racks and coloured hubcaps and fluffy dice to hang on the rear view mirror. You can't just add bits and take them away to suit your model. You'd be better off just getting a whole new car .

So of course I end up having to do what I hate most. I hate having to sit on the patio nursing other people's beers. I hate it. Because usually I'll have a sip of each one. And one sip from twenty thousand bottles equals twenty thousand sips. Equals the only guy in the whole place who doesn't want to get drunk getting drunk. Someone had given me a half bottle of Jim Beam so I went out on the porch and took sips of it in one hand and sips from the Coke in the other hand. I was so bored that I just went, stuff it, and skulled it in one go. I like parties where you know no one else there. Apart from anything, they can't look at you and say `You're the guy who led the protest when Mr Blaxland dissected those frogs !' They don't have your name and number. There was this girl out there on the other end of the patio, on the vinyl love seat surrounded by dingy ferns in orange plastic pots with peeling stickers on the sides. She was picking the white polyester fringe off the roof of it, cleaning her nails with the bits of nylon thread sticking out at the seam. Just swinging a little, back and forth, pushing off against the plant stand with her foot and looking around for someone to talk to. If I was Morgan I could've plonked myself right next to her (and I mean properly, not scrunched up in the corner, I mean practically on her lap) and start chatting to her. He might not actually get her, he's not a super human babe magnet, even Morgan has his limits. But at least he can just launch straight in the middle of a conversation and say things that don't make him sound like a demented halfwit drunk. I can't do that. Just go up and talk to a girl like that. God, I wish I could though, I really wish I could. I mean, after that, after you break through that top layer, it's all easy after that. It's like, the victory lap you run after winning the race.

I must have looked like I thought the laces of my Docs were the most exciting things I'd ever come across ever. You know how you try not to look at something by staring at something else ? I could see out of the corner of my eye that Earl was leaning over the arm rest and talking to her. Just chatting. Not buddy buddy. Oh boy. It's not what you know, it's who you know in the love business. Someone who can introduce you to them is like love steroids - suddenly you're bigger, stronger, and a better winner, and it's got nothing to do with nature. I wandered up to Earl, taking the scenic route via the garden hose and the icebox full of Cokes and beer. Her and Earl were having a big deep conversation (and that's near impossible with Earl, no kidding). A nodding conversation. I cracked open the Coke and watched the Coke - gas come out of the top of it. There was a half empty beer on the step so I took that too. What the hey.

`Hey, hey, hey, Long !' he said. He put his arm around my neck. Please don't do anything embarrassing. `Howya been, man ?'

`Oh, OK .' I tried to half turn myself around to include her in the conversation. She didn't smile much. Just crossed her arms and looked like she was trying to watch a movie up in the sky just above my head.

`How's the band goin, man ?'

`Pretty OK actually .' No reaction. Maybe I'll just rip all my clothes off and dance around naked. `Y'know Morgan Truman ?'

`What, Gil's cousin Morgan ?'

`Yeah. Well he's drumming with us now ,'

`Cool beans, man. You wanna Coke, Fern ?'

Fern shook her head and turned around to see if maybe somebody'd moved that screen from above my head around to where the garden hose was hanging on the brick wall. She was damn good looking. Purply coloured hair which you could tell was dyed but it looked great anyway, blowing in her face and around her neck. I wanted to talk to her, I could but I had nothing to say. I wanted to ask her where she got her necklace from, it had a silver angel holding this glittery coloured thing on it. Earl began talking to her on the side about something, in that way you know people are doing because they want to discuss something which is not one of the set group of things they always talk to you about. But I tried to nod and look interested and include myself in it anyway. I fought the temptation to just sneak away. He turned around to me. Boy, Fern really thought that concrete floor was fascinating. She was seeming to be a bit of a pain in the ass. But when you've got your mind set on doing something, meeting someone, little details like that hardly even matter. You forget about them.

`You wanna beer ?' he asked me. It hadn't kicked in yet, it hadn't loosened my tongue up, just made me paranoid .

`This one'll do me just fine ,' I told him. Fern said `Yeah, could you bring me one ?'. She didn't have a whiney voice, just a flutey one that sounds like your brakes screeching round a tight corner. Sooff Earl wanders to yank an Icehouse out of the ice. Oh great, great. Don't leave me here with her ! Not now ! OK, now here's my chance. Talk to her. Say anything, man. God, she's damn pretty. Now she's looking at the mosquito buzzing up round the light. I started singing part of a song under my breath. `I'm all by myself, as I've always felt ...' Standard `Uh oh Rhiannon's kissing Morgan, where do I look' procedure. I looked down and realised I was standing in the exact same way as she was, resting on one leg, arms crossed. Say something, dammit, say something, say anything ! Break the ice ! Smash the goddamn ice against the pavement ! Shut up, say something, shut UP ! I wish she'd say something, I felt like I was stuck in neutral with all the cars on the highway banked up behind me waiting for me to SAY SOMETHING ! Come ON. Should we talk about the weather ? Should we talk about the government ? Hi HI Hi. Hello. Anybody. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She tossed her hair over one shoulder.

`I better help Earl with those beers. HHuh .'

That huh needed two H's because my voice stalled. It was trying to keep up with my body which was fifth - gearing the hell out of there. I am a real stupid pansy - livered wuss. I'm the first one to admit it. I wanted to go home. I read somewhere that Michael Stipe from R.E.M. used to pretend to faint when he wanted to go home. Good move. There are few times in life when I wish I was like Morgan Truman, but this is one of them.

`I'm gonna stage dive ! I'm going to stage dive ! I'm gonna do it !' Dean Johnson was yelling to every one till Slide Mountain. He was weaving around on the roof - who knows how he got up there, he probably flew - ready to jump off with a beer bottle in one hand and his Blind Melon T shirt in the other one. Or it could've been his girlfriend's. Or it could have been his girlfriend. So me and about three thousand other people rush over to catch him. And we realise pretty soon that there was no where to dump him afterwards. So we threw him in the garden where one girl was throwing up and another one was holding her hair back so she wouldn't get stuff in it. I love parties like this. Not. I was starting to feel kind of blurry, the yard was beginning to float around. A girl in a coloured stripey shirt and a beanie handed me a cigarette but I gave it back to her. The night sky curled and curved up above our heads, dotty with stars being annoying and not offering any help or anything. But it was so quiet all of a sudden. Up in the sky no one was being noisy. No one was trying to brain each other with Fender Stratocasters or squirting Spray - On Cheese into the Kool - Aid. No one was passing out in the garden. I wished I could get up on a real high mountain, high enough to get away from everyone, and sit there by myself, and only come down every now and then for more corn chips and M&M's to chuck to people on the other mountains. A mountain party, that's the sort of party we need. Everyone sitting alone on mountains. Some one was smoking pot out in the garden, I could smell it. I felt incredibly depressed. I didn't feel great at all. I hadn't tried to get drunk, but I hadn't tried not to either. I'd had about three beers, about that in coke and scotch mixes, and knowing the way people round here do mixes I may as well have skulled a bottle of turpentine. It was starting to kick in bad, and I know I don't hold it well. You know how your limbs kind of start to buzz and your teeth go numb, you start to get real boiling hot. I started believing I really was on a mountain, and I had to climb up it. Something was after me, I didn't even know what it was, just that I had to get away from it. I get so paranoid. I had to get up on top of the mountain and see the sky by myself. I think I kept telling everyone else not to help me because I had to get up there alone. I climbed and climbed and climbed but for some odd reason the mountain was too steep. `TOO STEEP ! TOO STEEP !' I slithered down the wall into the wet ground and the dog of whosever party it was (I still don't know) came and licked my face. I kept telling the dog to go get me some CC's but it came out as CD's. `C'mon boy. Get me some CD's ! Go on boy. Get the CD's for Long .' I could see, just for a second, that girl Fern and Earl, with her tongue down his throat. Oh Jesus H. Christ. That fucking bastard. I was so depressed, I felt like I was almost going to cry, and I don't do that often. That sonofabitch could have any girl he wants, any damn girl in the whole wide world he wants. That bastard. I felt so lonely, I was almost going to just walk out the door and walk home. But you know what I did ? God, this is so embarrassing. I don't even want to tell you. I don't like to even think about it. I walked up to Fern and stuck my stupid damn tongue right down her throat. She must have been pretty drunk cause she just pushed me off her right into the mud there beside the hose. I flailed around for a little while. Didn't actually try to get up, I just wanted to hide from her. Oh, go to sleep Long. Just go to sleep. It'd be better for everyone. I was like, face down in the mud with my arm all bent up underneath me. I could just see the top of Gil's head around in the window. I bashed around in the mud. `Hey ! HEY ! I'm in HERE Gil ! I'm here ! ' I wondered kind of vaguely what mud tastes like. I fell asleep and pretty much found out. I'm lucky I didn't choke on it or something.

When I woke up it was about two AM in the morning. All I felt was being hoisted by the stomach into someone's car. I was aware enough to know what was going on and to remember everything. I just sped up the hangover time. Instead of getting it in the morning, I was getting it now. I started to hear Morgan and Gil in the front seat .

`C'mon, tell me all .'

`Well, I was there, and I kind of went `what the hey' and went up to her and started to have a chat....'

`About ....'

`About ... oh, what was it ? Oh, I know what it was. I told her she had a cool Ren and Stimpy T - shirt. It was a Powdered Toast Man one .' I was going to say `You know Frank Zappa does the voice - over in that episode ?' but I was afraid more than just words would come out if I opened my mouth .

`What's gonna happen ? You guys going out ?'

`Yeah, well she gave me her phone number and told me to call her up. Not yet. But it's a start, huh?'

`Cool, yeah. Cool .'

Oh great. Even Gil scored tonight. I don't mean `even Gil', but gee. Gil's into sex, don't get me wrong. He wants it just as much and as severely as anyone. Sex would suit him real well, I can just see him turning it in to the most hysterical thing ever. The world famous Cast - of - Seinfeld impressions for foreplay. Post - coital jokes. Yeah, Gil's girl, whoever she may be, has really got her work cut out for her. No, really. He's a real romantic. It's just, Gil's more into love than anything. You can just tell how he'd like to have someone who loved him without having to buy him a CD player first.

It made me feel real great, let me tell you, that I was the only one who didn't score. I felt so alone, just for a second. So damn lonely. I mean, the liquor gets me paranoid, but as well as that. The thing I hate most when you're drunk is that you lose sight of who you are somewhere along the way. You leave your personality behind and then forget where you left it. It's hard enough to staying yourself, that just makes it harder by sticking all these extra layers over yourself. And what is yourself, anyway ? It's sort of like you're a birthday present with layers and layers of paper wrapped around you and you keep ripping all the layers off until you get to the middle - and there's nothing there. It's just the layers .

God, what a waste of my life that party was. I'm getting real paranoid about that at the moment.I go to sleep every night wondering `What did I do today that was worthwhile ?' That's my trouble. I should be waking up in the morning wondering `Will what I do today be worthwhile ?' and making sure it is. That's my other trouble. I'm running out of days, worthwhile or otherwise .

When I got back in, Jacob was up and there was a big pile of overturned sugar in the middle of the bench. Someone had written `Nebula' in the sugar. Jacob must have been making lemonade.He likes making things from scratch. I'm more of the toasted Pop Tart variety of cook. I swear, Idon't even know if Jacob goes to sleep at all, whenever I get home, no matter if it's like, four thirty in the morning on Christmas Eve, he'll be up wandering around the house looking at the picture of me and him and Jules when we were kids, or reading a copy of `Musician' on the basement couch. He was on the floor, in front of Mtv, meditating. Jacob's really into Zen. I sit there for five minutes trying to concentrate but thinking about how I could be doing something else like writing down a song I have in my head or seeing if it's a full moon tonight. He got Ashley into it but he didn't really have the patience either. Ashley's always looking for things, but he never seems to find the right things. It' like he's channel surfing on the TV inside his head. He'll just keep flipping channels, over and over again, watching some things awhile but leaving it to see if there's something better on the next channel. Then when he finds there's nothing on, he'll go right back to the beginning and see what's changed. It's like if he stays on one too long, the program on the next one will be over before he gets to it. I wonder if Ashley's still like that, or if he's changed. Maybe he's found his right channel. I don't know. When we find him .... I wonder if we ever will ? I try not to think about it. Block it out of my mind.

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