They say money can't buy love, but love can't buy a damn thing.

Oh, Joey Crack. You're such a hopeless romantic.

This morning I decided that Koffee Brown's "After Party" is the sweetest and most wholesome let's-go-home-and-fuck song. I listened to it three times while dancing in the foyer and eating a bowl of honeycomb cereal. Speaking of wholesome.

Funny how certain songs will come out and I will absolutely completely unequivacolly hate them, changing the channel on the radio or television dial immediatement when I hear the opening strains. Then months or years later the song is my new best friend. We all have our Nelly Furtados and sometimes Nelly Furtado is my Nelly Furtado. Though in this case it's Koffee Brown. They remind me of people I went to high school with performing at the step show. It warms my non-icy heart.

Anyway, I mention this song because I forgot it's the origin of another entry in Raybear lexicon: Tell your boys good-night. Trouble is, I'm having a hard time describing it. The literal meaning is when you meet someone at the club and you leave early to go home with them -- it's the last thing you say before walking out the door and waiting from them to follow you out. However, I use this phrase in bigger contexts as well, with a general intent of saying it's time to go, or it's time to move on. I also use the phrase to indicate I've interacted with a person who I want to say the phrase to (or have the phrase said to me). For example, while standing in the clerk's office this morning with Roberto and pointing out all the cute clerks, I just shook my head while staring at my favorite and said, "daaaamn....tell your boys good-night."

It has wide usage potential. Much like "don't block the box". Or "it's buttermilk -- go!" Or "I can get behind that."

Sometimes I wonder how the hell anyone understands what the fck I'm talking about. I think I just have a good tone in my delivery, so even if you don't explicitly what I'm talking about, you can pick it up based on context.

Days go by and still I think of you.

I just briefly considered renaming my journal to "you think you know, but you have no idea", but I couldn't personally handle having something so attached to me being aligned with an MTV catchphrase, no matter how damned perfectly it matches. Then again, I constantly say "whaddup....doc" in Redman's voice which comes from watching multiple marathons of Cribs. But whatever, back to the matter at hand.

Here's what I've discovered about my very public journal. Sure, other people will read it and misinterpret it on a near-daily basis and that's fine. I mean, it's not great or happy or even pleasant at all times, but I understand it's the nature of the beast and has always been that way. What suprises me are when I don't even understand what the hell I was talking about, when I go back and read an entry months or weeks or even days later. But I'm okay with that. I don't pass judgment on myself, even if I did sound like an ass (or a crazy ass) at the time. I also resist all urges to go back and edit anything. I'd rather just let it stand as a testament to my moment of humanity. Sure, whatever works.

I feel so lucky to have people floating around in the ether who like to read my words, who offer feedback and validation and most importantly their eyes and brains. I don't take any of that for granted. It's just sometimes I tire of explaining myself. Am I talking about you right now? No. No, I'm not. I promise. This is not some passive-aggressive entry about some person's actions towards me that I don't want to confront personally so I'm resort to some bullshit public way of exposing myself. Guess what? I don't do that.

This is just me writing about writing. Writing about connections with audiences and how people write words and feelings and actions into the spaces between paragraphs, the gaps between entries. Even if you could read every entry, including the private ones for myself, no would know. I don't even know and I was there. I obviously like reading other people's words -- I make it about myself and that's why it touches me. But I don't turn it back around and ascribe unknown qualities to the writer and think I know them.

I started thinking about this because I finally started reading my novel after months of ignoring it. And I'm completely in love with my characters. I have no idea if how I know them in my mind comes through the words at all. I'm hoping this break will bring some objectivity. As much objectivity that can come from a smitten author.