Re: tandy & holly; the music store
His own view of booze was complicated. Too complicated for him to think about. Holly did that a lot... not think. It was easier, better, and he had developed a killer-talent for being willfully blind and knowingly oblivious, but he'd also spent the past year being a military guinea pig, and that kinda put a serious kink in the whole 'off the grid' thing. He was pretty fucking sure that people just thought they were off the grid, and that it wasn't reality, but whatever. That ideology wasn't going to make her feel any better, because their legit first conversation had been about cellphones and Big Brother. So, yeah, 'the boring kind.' "More like the conspiracy-theory kind," he said, and he was that guy too, so it was fine with him. "But you seem kinda miserable lately. I mean, not that you were ever a ball of sunshine and joy, but, yeah." He lifted a shoulder, but it wasn't apologetic; Holly wasn't into mincing words about other people's shit, only about his own shit. Call him a hypocrite, but it was whatever.
But she asked what he would do, right? And that was simple. "I'd practice. I'd do shit that scared me, whatever that was. Watch a scary movie, or, IDK, get a friend to frighten you, or go to a haunted house after it closes or something. In other words, I'd get it under control." Which, yeah, also hypocritical, since he wasn't dealing with his thing, but his thing wasn't going to critically wound someone. And he shrugged again. "Trouble finds everyone. That's just fucking life. Whoever thinks life is a good-time party? Hasn't lived yet." Simple, and it did seem like life was being really fucking heavy with the punches lately. It made him think of Noah, and of how hard Noah was having it lately; he wished he could do something about that, but, right. "Control is the best way to deal, in my opinion." Simple. "If you can create light knives, master it. If you can come and go, or trade places with the other guy, master that too."