Darth Segway

I am lonely.

In some ways that’s a good thing. I don’t like to write music when other people are around, so being here by myself helps with that. Writing prose is a very solitary endeavor as well. So there you have it. I should shut up now. End of blog. Bye bye. Good day to all.

Nope. Not done yet. I’m still going.

The problem isn’t really that I have all this alone time when I am trying to get some writing done. The problem is that I am alone pretty much all the time. Yes, of course I have my wonderful family here who I love more than anything. I enjoy spending time with my kids. I love hanging out with my wife. But everyone needs some friends to goof off with too. Right? I don’t think I’m the only person who feels this way.

Because I don’t drive I am here at home all the time. In L.A. that wouldn’t have been too much of a problem. I had friends out there who would occasionally drop in to see me or take me to lunch. The bookstore was a block away from our townhouse. My folks lived a few miles away and came over every other week or so. I could even hop on a bus or call a cab to take me to a local music store or movie theater if I was feeling up to it and had a few extra bucks burning a hole in my pocket. So I wasn’t really alone.

Beautiful as it is here, it’s extremely isolated. The bus service was cut off to our area a few years before we moved here due to budget cuts. And when I called some of the local cab companies…well the conversation (real by the way) went something like this:

Me – “Hi. I need a cab to pick me up and take me in to Johnston.”

Cab Dispatcher – “Okay. Sure. What time and where are you located?”

Me – “About 11:30. I’m in Scituate.”

Cab Dispatcher – “Where?”

Me – “Scituate. S C I T U A T E.”

Cab Dispatcher – “We don’t go that far out. Sorry.”

Me – “Can you recommend any service that does come out this way?”

Cab Dispatcher – (laughter) “Nobody does man.”

So in other words, I’m hosed. Until the weekend when my family is home, this house is pretty much my entire world. All of our neighbors work during the day so there’s no one around. Even if they were home, I’m the crazy bald guy from California who plays drums and walks with a cane. Maybe that’s unfair. I can’t read their minds, but it’s how it feels to me most of the time we see them.

I’ve tried to make friends with some of the other dad’s from Little League. Most of them don’t show up at practices or even at games though. They certainly don’t come to any school events so there goes that idea. I talked to my therapist about how difficult it's been to build a community for myself since we moved out here. The response was awesome! Ready? Here’s what she said, “Oh. Well…you kind of moved to the wrong part of the country for that. People out here make friends in High School and then don’t care about anybody else. People from the West coast are much friendlier.”

Seriously?

I had a hard enough time making new friends back in L.A. The friends that I did have out there are still around of course, I just happen to be three thousand miles away now. Makes difficult logistics for checking out Record Store Day together.

Facebook has been my tether. I used to look down on Facebook and Myspace and Twitter and all the other modernist internetty modes of friendship. It’s all I’ve got now. If it weren’t for this computer screen, I wouldn’t have a friend at all other than the television.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not looking for the giant group sympathy “Awwww”. (Well maybe I am, but that’s a different blog post.) It just makes me think about my life and all the friends that I still have even through all the ups and downs of everything in the last few years. Some have stuck around since kindergarten and some since Junior High or College. There are a few great ones that came around after that through playing music or a meeting through mutual friends. Some are even sticking around through the digital world too, and to tell you the truth it’s pretty cool.

I just get a little stir crazy sometimes and want to get out into the world. I never realized how much you can’t do when you aren’t able to drive anymore. The nearest coffee shop is more than three miles away. Dunkin’ Donuts is not much closer. Since I’m trying to lose weight, that’s not really the best destination for me anyway. Walking long distances is kind of a problem these days too. I’d love to get a Segway and be a TOTAL geek riding around the country roads out here on one of those! Anybody got a spare $6K laying around they want to toss my way?

I am truly grateful for my friends and my family. But it is lonely here. I’m working really hard trying to rehabilitate my body and my mind. I keep trying to play drums and guitar too. And who knows, little league starts again at the end of this month. Maybe old Alex will finally find a friend he can pal around with. Wouldn’t that be the sweetest thing?

In the mean time, who’s up for clam chowder and a movie?

/>