My Darling Wolves,
I love you more than I have ever loved anything in my life.
I have to qualify this statement I realize. I don’t feel like I should have to, but then of course, I would have nothing to write about, and I’m writing this because I need to write. I hope that all of you read to the end of this. I expect none of you to. Partially because it’s been painfully clear to me that since I became network manager nobody reads my emails and nobody wants to hear anything from me other than the short explanation. Mostly because nobody reads my blog 
.
I also typically have a strict policy against emo livejournal style blog posts, so much so that I had to mask an “I miss you” in the form of a post about sorority girls. I hope this doesn’t fit that description too thoroughly. I’m usually very afraid to send links to my blog in part because I don’t like my writing, but mostly because this is my development space as well and I’m very embarrassed of the work in progress I have here as it is all unfinished and none of it is where I’d like it to be. So please please please I beg you please do not venture outside the /blog directory. I will be thoroughly embarrassed if you do.
Lastly, I am neither a writer nor a poet. I wish I was a warrior-poet and philosopher-king. The hyphens make them cool. I will ramble and not make sense. I absolve myself of all requirement to write well.
I open and close my writings to you in the fashion of a love letter not only because I generally find it funny to enclose entirely pedestrian announcements into something so personal, but because wolf house has been a lover to me in many ways. I pine over it, I protect it, it deserves my love letters. Each moment I work for wolf house, it is a labor of love. My letters to you are labor, so they are love letters.
I of course mean those words differently from when I say “I love Linda like I have never loved anyone before.” I love her uniquely and unconditionally. I couldn’t ever love a community or any individual even as I love my one homie above all homies. That’s just not how these things work.
I meant what I said at the last meeting when I said you should be proud to live in undeniably the best house in the USCA. It is undeniably so as long as we make it so. I take personal insult when I hear that other houses think we spend our money on frivolities, when people don’t want to eat here because they’re unsure about the healthiness of the food, when they say our house looks dumpy from the outside, when they refer to it as a druggie/dealer house disdainfully, when they break shit, steal shit, and fuck with shit. Some of these things are true, some of these things are not. But I know that despite all this that I live in the best house in the USCA, that I would go out of my way to help you if you needed me whether you were my close friend or whether I talk shit about you relentlessly because you cheated on my close friend. I’d be there for you because you’re suddenly more human to me because you’re a Wolf.
I would be in an MMA/Fight club with you guys maybe because a blow to the face from or to any one of you inherently communicates more respect than the garbage that comes out of my mouth or my fingertips. Maybe because the closest family outside Family I’ve had besides wolf house is my team of rasslers and fighters, and we have a weird way of expressing love with violence. Maybe it’s because the crushing contact of human flesh is as viscerally human as the emotion I’m feeling. Maybe I just miss rasslin too much. But I’ll fight you, with you, for you. Not forever. That’s unique to my homie. But I will.
What follows is not a criticism. Please do not read it as such. They are thoughts. I do not intend for people to behave differently as a result.
I unfortunately at this moment cannot help but feel uniquely alone and I don’t really understand why. Aside from Clay who’s record I’m not sure I want, I have spent the most time In this house. Clay precedes me, Elyse happened to move in the same time I did, she from 5th floor Priestley, I from 4th. And Zoe came in part of the way into that semester. That’s pretty slim company (though very rich company . I’m commenting on the quantity, not the quality).
In the two years I’ve been here, the coming and going hasn’t bothered me. I’ve left the speaking and doing to those with more experience or skill sticking to the realms I care about most. This semester and over the summer I’ve grown into a place In which I’ve been confident to speak, comfortable to act, I’ve grown into a position of power and duty, responsibility and the wisdom of the ancients. I’ve felt the need to defend my politics and my faith because it really fucks with you every time you feel like a pussy for not standing up for what you believe in. I’ve felt people’s respect even before we had met and for no good reason I can think of. It’s been far too long since I have felt this way. I have felt the need to continue to improve this house and this community and still do.
This makes it particularly striking when I sense that people have impressions of me outside of my control. My intensity frightens people. I frighten people. These words probably frighten people. That fear is particularly hurtful for no good reason. The why, I suppose, is more personal and beyond the caution I’ve thrown to the wind. I’m arrogant, full of hot air, racist, sexist, annoying, frightening. I’m upset by losing to a girl, I’m the religious one, I could only understand if I was female. I stick my nose where it doesn’t belong. I’m too honest. I’m dishonest. I’m scary. A grumpy old man. Some of these are true, some of these are not. Sometimes it’s very difficult for me to tell. I admit very freely that I’m often paranoid. I can’t rule out my insanity.
That last one struck a lot more strongly than it should have. I’ve long idolized the thought of living as a hermit in a shanty or a lean-to atop a crooked hill with nothing but a mangy mutt, a rocking chair, and a scattergun. But the thought that at age 21 with a year left to give to my wolves that I am dated and should be put to pasture was absurd. I realized today though that I don’t really have anything to offer but the past. “This how we’ve done it in the past” or “this is why we have done it this way in the past” as if it were any justification to continue doing so. Maybe it is, but I never thought so when I was told such things. But to have worked so hard to change things to make them the way they are now, so we can do things right, responsibly, givingly, aware of all members, those that speak, those that don’t, those who want to stay but don’t get what they want, those who love the house and the people in it, but never get heard…That it is anal, uncooperative, too rulesy, too bureaucratic…and it’s all true. And it’s not. And I made it that way and it blows…but it doesn’t because I’ve been robbed and fucked and ignored and you will too. But the house has changed and maybe it doesn’t need it anymore. Maybe the step is to change the locks on our front doors and then we can finally let our guards down from the outside world, stop being so vigilant against the zombie apocalypse, be cooperative again.
This house is never going to be the house of Elf Killing, Stebbins Rocking, the house of Domination and La Mano Negra, the house of the Great Flood, the Great Embezzlement, the Great Juan Bahena incident, of “donato, this is disgusting” “no no no BITCH!” and “EEEW, they’re kissing!”, the house of guided rockets and haymakers to tha face. These are things most of you will never know about. So my instinct is to recede into my hermitage atop the house and gaze at the East Durant Massive from the balcony knowing that at one time even very recently we watched Aladdin there and me and one other person sang every lyric to every fucking song. That right below me our food delivery person from ck insisted that I “remember this face” as he drew a box around it with his hands and as I threw him out for being a jerk after the party. Remember and in remembering I’d be forgotten.
I’m exhausted and not as brave as I was two hours ago when I started. Don’t be awkward. If I pointed out something very specific I can guarantee most people either won’t know, won’t care, or won’t read this anyway. I’m not hurt and I hope that you aren’t. I say this lovingly. This house is yours, not by my decree but by your ownership of it. I continue to be your servant, your brother, your packmate. I have your back when you need me. I may even serve you in different capacities as time moves forward. But when I leave in May, you won’t need me. And hell, you may not even care outside the availability of my single . We’s cutthroat like that ain’t we? 
But as I told a former wolf and really good friend of mine, I just need a couple beers and a sniper rifle attached to an X Box controller. It’s just that nobody else does anymore.
I love you guys. I needed to say that publicly. Feel free to proceed as usual.
With all my love,
Your Friendly Neighborhood Hermit
PS: I’ve said everything I could but I haven’t said everything I want. Maybe it’s better this way, maybe more will come in the future. For some reason I don’t care about how vulnerable I’ve made myself here. If you all left me I’d be fine. I’d be sad but I’d be fine. But it’s 3 in the morning and I have to get my steering realigned before class. So I’m going to bed, as I said I would 3 hours ago .
