I was really, really looking forward to Coachella, mostly so I could get this big weight off my chest of asking my girlfriend to marry me.

It wasn’t easy, all the planning, the plotting, and the scheming.

But, it was easy actually. I hadn’t taken my pills in days so my mind was off to the races. I also wasn’t doing my daily meditation practice that was ascribed to me by my guru.

I was tired and in bed, lonely. But, I realized on a drive back from MMA the practice that I do that I wasn’t worthless and could actually pull this off.

I was at Coachella, just having gotten engaged. There were a few shows coming up that we were looking forward to, Bjork, Four Tet, Skrillex, and Friends. Two Friends to be exact…if you don’t know who that is, you’re obviously not up-to-date with edm music in the mid-to-early 2020s.

We were in the hotel room. It was messy because we didn’t clean it. We didn’t order room service but we got some Dr. Peppers at the hotel concierge aisle. I don’t know what to call that place, the lobby?

We were waiting to go to the show, but my girlfriend was taking a long time. Well she was my fiancé now. That was the new digression in our saga.

I’d hoped she’d stay that way for another year, or year-and-a-half or so.

But, I’m not here to make it make sense. I think it’s just a process; it’s a processing process. And, I was still working as a software engineer. 

A lot of people said my writing was crap, but I didn’t care. I wrote anyway. I’d taken a long hiatus in writing to work on my music and my job. But, I didn’t care. I didn’t have any of that to do today. I felt like when I wrote-- I was more adventurous, more free-spirited.

I’d go to coffee shops just to write.

And, for the sake of it, I’d do it. I know I’d tell people I was writing a book for the longest time, but I wasn’t. Music seemed more wholesome, but I couldn’t work on it all the time. Neither could I work on writing apparently, cause I was putting it all down.

My relationship to the arts was complicated. Well it wasn’t that complicated. I’d just not have energy for it and put it down. I guess that’s how things don’t get done.

But, I was waiting for my girlfriend to get ready. So there was all the time. All the time in the world actually…

Galaxies, cosmos, were formed in the time it took. Haha just kidding.

There was a Dr. Pepper on the table, so I drank it. I don’t know what that’s called either, doing things just cause you feel like it.

My mom would know.

Sometimes I was on the edge, but there was so much in my head. Sometimes I’d write in the library and read for four hours. I brought two books this time which was good. And, I’d know what I’d end up being. That was the plan, that I’d know what I ended up being.

But, I’m just a kid. I’m twenty-six, going on twenty-seven. And, I had a lot of time to figure things out.

I guess I’m trying to cloak my self in this writing because it’s intense. I gave it up when I ran to the ashram, and I picked it back up. Something in me was telling me I’d have to pick it back up again, like I picked up those music classes, like I picked up those drugs, shrooms, acid, Molly, and the whole lot.

It’s a coincidence that we go to a music festival where people are doing a lot of those drugs, for our anniversary, just as I stop doing all those drugs, but I stopped a couple months ago, but you know what I mean.

It’s a metaphor it works better in absolutes. 

We live in the Instagram age… Where nothing doesn’t happen unless it’s filmed. If it’s not filmed, did it really happen? Does a fly that lives and dies in a cave that no one’s been to ever really die?

Porter Robinson is sick!?!!?     

I just told my girlfriend I’m always kidding, and she didn’t believe me. I’m riffing off these Coachella vibes that got me all hot.

It’s hot out here like 100 degrees. It’s cooled down to 80 degrees though, which is nice, with a nice breeze.

My girl and I are sitting down on the grass watching a Rae Sremmurd concert from the distance about 100 feet from the crowd.

Sometimes sounds have a poignant mark on us that’s unstoppable, something fearless, like it’s grace.

I want to go see the Adidas store, she says.

These mountains are beautiful though, gorgeous some would say.

I used to have dreams of singing on that stage. Then I realized how hot it was, and how I’d be sweating on the stage like a cow. 

Something about the ups and downs of life has brought me here, looking at the sky on a daisy day like today.

It’s as if nothing makes sense, but it makes the most sense at the same time.

I’m not competitive by nature- I usually lie down and roll under the rug when competition comes knocking at the door.

I prefer the slow approach to life like walking down Madison Ave with no money. You have to walk, put your headphones in, and take each breath in as it comes.

I’m not a poet. I’m not a writer either. It gets hot in here, this concert.

Coachella ‘23 it’s in the wraps, and some part of me wants it to be in the wraps.

How do I capture this moment. Is it through an Instagram post, a sonnet, or the moonlight? The moon shines bright tonight.

I rarely look at these moments as the gems they are, the stone used to make the mountains that are the human nervous system.

What am I even talking about? Well, you know how neurons look like the root systems of plants?

How do we look at these neurons, if they’re in us? Well through microscopes of course! We dissect the cadaver of a corpse and determine its nature. Or, if they’re alive, we have electronic stimulation?

What’s my point? I’m an insecure, sensitive human being, and I think these nervous systems are the key to our piece of paradise, these dopamine, serotonin transmitters.

Now you don’t have to pop molly to know this, the ecstasy, the OM. What you do have to know are these are my Coachella diaries. These are just some of my Coachella observations.

I’m bored. I’m lame. I’m adjudicating this honey next to me because she’s my fiancée, soon to be wife, and once was my girlfriend.

My head hurts from writing all day or from walking in the Coachella sun all day. I’m tired, drained. Life’s given me enough today. What’s up, Sun? I’ll say to tomorrow as it rises waking us up. But, we get up at one or noon, not that we can tomorrow. We have a bus at seven am.

My girlfriend was getting ready… AND, SHE’S DONE!!!