Forget about being guilty, we are innocent instead.
Soon we will all find our lives swept away.

The current count-down is D-12... Chula Vista here we come. There is something about the first Dave concert of the season that is both exciting and terrifying at the same time. The excitement comes from the anticipation. A live show--Dave, Carter, Boyd, Stefan, LeRoi, Butch, and now Rayshawn--all on stage together, their energy making an entire summer boil down to one evening.

Take a look again, everyday things change
But basically, you and me stay the same

The past few weeks have been very bizarre, to say the least. Thoughts, fears, hopes, desires, dreams, lusts, they are a tempest within my head. The painful memories that have haunted my dreams for the past year and a half no longer content themselves with playing their draconian pantomime while I sleep. They surface and, in the light of day, become real. A cold sweat breaks my forehead when a car matching make and model passes on the freeway, the color doesn't even have to be the same--the mind boggles.

An old friend, for whom a particular breed of painful memory faded and withered long ago, asked me about the nature of the pain over a glass of red wine--I don't believe he noticed the tears that began to form behind my sunglasses. The San Francisco streets may be the best place to just let the emotion go, to finally let the tears come after such time has passed. But never let them see you bleed.

They are often like sharks, the scent of blood, riding the current like crimson-iron on the current, draws them near. But emotion is not my weakness--far from it. My weakness, and my demons, are much more complicated than simple emotion. They use the emotion as a pawn in this medieval game that slowly plays out in my soul.

And yet, there is so much more. Without the rules, the game is nothing--and without the game, the rules are nothing.