Maybe I'm Doing Something Right.

Don’t Wish it Was Sunday

Tomorrow is just another manic Monday. I don’t like Sundays. That’s not new. I suppose it’s not so bad. Things have been a lot worse. I could use some paid vacation though. I could use some time to chill, just be and kinda get my head right. 

I tracked down the number of an old therapist. I’m thinking about giving him a call this week. I figure it can’t hurt. I’ve got some things I need to figure out. There’s only so much that I can figure out on my own. Not to sound all emo and self-absorbed here but this exercise here has me all up in my feelings and it occurs to me that I should probably be talking to someone. If you’ve been regularly watching this space or if you know me at all, you’re probably inclined to agree. 

It occurred to me last night how taxing it is for my mental health to reside in Trump’s America. Shit is fucked up and I honestly feel like we are all being gas lit when people pretend that it isn’t incredibly fucked up. I feel a tremendous amount of guilt about the fact I can choose to ignore this horror show if I so choose. Others do not have that luxury but god damn it, I’m not doing anyone any favors by making myself miserable. 

You’ll notice that I played around with my poetic meditation on the word ‘fuck.’ Not sure how I feel about it. Might play with it more. 

Mid-July

On a summer night in mid-July

the asphalt cools from the day’s baking

and a man recovers from a day that ends in y.

Legs crossed on the floor like when he was a kid

Window is ajar and the breeze is sweet mercy.

Mercy hard to come by

even in mid-July

if you live long enough.

Money

from my blood, my sweat, my crazy 

deposited in the bank account 

of somebody in another ZIP code

in the months I used to just chill back in the day. 

Back in the day is what feels okay 

Back in the day to make ‘em spend their pay 

to make ‘em feel like they used to 

before things got sinister and weird 

and too damn expensive 

and not worth it 

back when it was all in front of ‘em 

and lookin’ like a shiny kingdom of love and sugar

Know what's cringe?

Dating sites and dating profiles.

I get lost in the night's machinery

with nothing to see but what there is to see

synthetic angel glow and Internet Protocol that never sleeps

keeps me company

and that troubles me

I think I’m slowly getting over myself. The operative word is slowly. 

This is me reading two of my posts. 

Okay.

I’ve dabbled in Buddhism. The Buddha talked about subduing your own mind. You need to subdue it because it’s powerful. I guess maybe you can let it play a little but sometimes you’ve got to subdue it and make it do something. 

What I’ve just described would be seen as problematic as fuck by actual Buddhists. Can you imagine how insufferable a Buddhist fundamentalist would probably be? Imagine a self-styled western Buddhist fundamentalist. God. Think about how annoying Calvinists are. When I was in my late 20s, I saw a fair amount of the people I came up with go all Neo-Calvinist. They start wearing black. They grew beards. They listened to this funeral folk music shit that I felt guilty for not liking cuz maybe that meant I was going to Hell. It was all such a drag. It was really fatalistic and mournful and had this twisted conception of God as this holy serial killer who gonna fuck some people up with tornadoes and STIs. 

Part of me still fears going to Hell. 

Part of me wonders if they’re right. 

If they were right, that would be one hell of a plot twist, right? 

Imagine you go through a year of Hell. Imagine losing everything you love. Imagine losing your mind. You stumble upon the truth and it’s the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or it’s The Church of Scientology. Sometimes I imagine what it’s like to actually believe the truth is in one of those places and to fear that you’re turning away from it if you forsake it. Forget the Job shit. Maybe it’s not that dramatic. Imagine that hole inside you is filled up by what you get in those places. It’s hard for me to conceive but I think about it. 

I’ll tell you what though. I don’t really want to fake it till I make it just because I’m deathly afraid of Hell. No. That does not seem like a very good idea at this juncture. 

Bill Hicks- It s Just A Ride

A choice between fear & love. Words to remember, words to live by. I make zero profit from this, ad is due to an erroneous claim by [Merlin] Absolute Label S...

This feels cliche because the late comedian Bill Hicks tends to be an influence on insufferable artistically-minded types of a certain age. I meet people and I feel like I can sense people who the man spoke to. 

This is one of my favorite bits of Hicks. This spoke to me even when my mind and my world were much smaller. 

The blank space and the blinky-blinky. 

Fan blowing and gettin’ down to the slow beat only they can hear. Move its head to the right. Move its head to the left. Do oscillating fans get together and have raves? 

I’m a straight man. Sometimes I don’t even know what turns me on anymore. I mean, I do but not really. 

I have an appointment with a therapist on Tuesday. This time I’ll go to the right address. I don’t really know what to say to him. 

So, what brings you in? 

Scream my lungs out. 

Or punch the wall. 

Or throw something. 

Midweek in lieu of more imaginative title

I haven’t been reading over my words too much lately. I often do while in the course of writing them but it’s pretty rare that I revisit them after the fact. I think that probably needs to change. I read over the words I wrote yesterday about faith and lack thereof. Things were more lucid and interesting than I initially thought but there was more awkwardness and lack of clarity than I’m comfortable with. Things that read clumsy get on my nerves. Unfortunately, it seems to me that I’ve got a knack for that sort of thing. It’s frustrating. It pisses me off but it’s not like I’m trying to make a living here. Language that is just functional bothers me. I like it to have flair, swagger, style, musicality even. I guess it can’t always. I guess it depends on what the hell it is you’re trying to do. Maybe I’ll get on firmer footing with this. It has been awhile since I’ve actually tried at this. Of course, I’d contend that I’ve never really tried.

There are things I don’t want to do. There are places I do not want to go with this.

I don’t want this to degrade into pounding out “hot takes” on current events. I’m absolutely nobody. Nobody cares what I have to say about the horrors of the age. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’ll never comment. I’m not above breaking my own rules. If somebody shoots up a school or some other place like probably happened today somewhere in America (Fucked up, right?), do you really need me to tell you how awful it was? Do you really need me to ruminate about how surreal and terrifying life in Trump’s America is. You don’t. You’ve got people with more expertise and talent than me to do that. The other thing is I’m invariably going to read an issue of Current Affairs (look that one up. Good magazine.) or listen to an episode of Chapo Trap House or Citations Needed (Great podcasts. Listen to them.) and my take is going to be influenced. When I had short-lived podcasts of my own, it essentially became this frustrating exercise in “hot takes” on current events. I definitely delivered them in my own style but it felt very derivative and pounding out “hot takes” is exhausting.

It seems pretty inevitable that I’m going to re-tread ground I’ve already been over. How many times can you read that I just don’t want to go to work? That I’d rather chill in a dimly lit room? That pretty much describes every single day since I’ve been conscious.

Of course, I think maybe I’m catching myself engaging in “market thinking.” I’m under no obligation to make this interesting in the least. I’ve said that this is not my diary or my journal but it essentially functions that way and I’m some weirdo that has inexplicably given the public access to my inner thoughts. It does not get more non-commercial than that. Still, if this gets boring or tired, just remember that you’re getting what you paid for.