That Once A Week Crying Thing I Do..

Note to self

Need to reflect on the features in society that exacerbate or animate depression or other mental illnesses. The way out of the darkness clearly isn’t self-help or drugs. 

Thing with dreams is 

sometimes they are just too shiny 

and they blind you. 

Dreams burned into your brain 

by people who finished school 

and always work late

and you can never tell the difference 

between yours 

and theirs. 

That kills. 

It's a weird life. That's all it is.

Summer

I’m swimming through a world of thick oatmeal. I’m in oatmeal purgatory.

My deepest desire at the moment is a dim room and the feeling of bedsheets against my bare skin. I’ll take a whole week of that. In fact, get me three months or so of that. Just give me time and I’ll decide how to kill it. Mostly though, I just want to close my eyes and drift off. When I wake up, maybe I’ll feel like smiling. Maybe I’ll feel like life is okay.

I don’t think I ever quite adjusted to the lack of a summer vacation in adult life. It was a life saver. A soul saver. Was three months or so of nothing but damn did I need it.

I remember late nights. Staring at the ceiling. Chocolate milk on the nightstand. Art Bell’s voice on the AM radio gently interrogating a long haul trucker who has visions of how the apocalypse might go down. I remember the sound of the garage door opening. Dad home from the night shift.

I can remember my face illuminated by the pale glow of a computer monitor. Lights were off. Tapped gently on the keyboard so mom and dad had no idea I was awake. XXX lovin’ with strangers on IRC (Internet Relay Chat). Some of ‘em come to me more than once. Yeah, I had online “things” with people who I never really knew back in the dial-up era. Like friends with benefits type stuff but instead of real life sex, it was just writing dirty stories together. I never ended up on an episode of Catfish: The TV Show. I’m thankful for that. That could have been way weirder.

I can remember getting dismissed from the last day of school. High school some time. Evangelical Christian school. The books say diabolical shit. The Great Depression was socialist propaganda. British rule was good for India cuz it exposed Indians to Christianity and many of them cast aside their false religion for the only savior that laid it all down for them. Nelson Mandela was a dirty commie. Satan basically ran the Catholic church. Bible teacher was a nice guy. I think his heart was in the right place. I think that to this very day. I remember when it was all done. No more schooling left so we all chilled and watched a movie about getting left behind after the rapture. So, I walked out of the school a free man. The sun was shining. Women wore sundresses. My mind kept wandering to the appearance of the Anti-Christ and 7 years of tribulation. I can kinda laugh now but that shit fucks with a kid.

I can remember a suburban megachurch. I can remember a youth pastor with swagger. Shit, I think he hangs out with Justin Bieber. I’m serious about that. I’ve seen pictures on Instagram. He spoke with a drawl despite not coming from anywhere near the south. He was obsessed with talking about sexual purity. I used to go midweek. Jesus power ballads and righteous suburban honeys I never said a word to. One night, his words cut deep. I had mad guilt. Mad guilt over being a human being. Mad guilt over filthy thoughts. Come forward and re-dedicate your life to Jesus Christ. I did. I responded to an altar call. I cried. I got taken in a back room. I got told to accept the baptism of the holy spirit. The evidence of that was speaking in tongues. It was supposed to come down on me and I would speak in tongues that were not my own. Some bald dude had his hand on my chest as he declared that I should let the spirit speak. I did not speak in tongues that night. I didn’t feel it. I had at least one person years after the fact admit to me that they faked speaking in tongues.

I’m sitting here in the office on a Monday. I’m tired. I keep sipping water and having to go to the bathroom. Maybe I should stop before someone thinks there is something wrong with me. I also keep getting up and just taking laps around the office.

I need mercy today. I need the world to play as nice as it can today. I feel like I don’t have ‘it.’ I don’t know what ‘it’ is. The best way I can describe ‘it’ is whatever you need to be in the world and not totally fucking lose it. That sense is always more acute on a Monday. As the week goes on, I feel it less and less. That’s how it goes most of the time anyway.

I do feel some satisfaction. I did the work of attempting to communicate the realities of my internal world. Just trying to do that is fulfilling. It occurs to me that I’m not only trying to communicate my internal reality to whoever might be reading this, I’m also attempting to describe it to myself.

I better get to trying to look busy. I better get to trying to look like I know what I’m doing.

Fucked o’clock 

and time to get up. 

Nude 

Tired 

Still slightly stoned 

but not stoned enough 

for America 

when she on that cocaine 

and she talkin’ all crazy 

and her nails are demonic claws 

tearin’ us all to ribbons 

but you don’t talk about that 

cuz if you do talk about it 

you don’t really love her 

but she loves you 

She really fucking loves you 

You know that, right? 

You do. 

I’m tryin’ to try

but if I die

I’m like, “Okay. Yeah.”

Sunday afternoons are a bad trip

without a sitter

without a map

without old men with kind eyes

who tell you exactly where the fuck you are

and how to get back home.

So a friend of mine told me how yesterday his coworker died on the way to work due to speeding and crossed a red light (she was late for the third time, so I’m guessing she was trying to avoid a write up). As soon as she crossed the light she was hit on the drivers side by a semi. The messed up part is that in less than an hour her table was cleared for a new worker. In less than 4 hours they had sent out the news that they are hiring. By the end of the day the hiring manager had contacted 4 people for an interview. Moral of the story is, these jobs don’t care about your ass. They will replace you in a snap. Don’t risk or waste your life trying to go above and beyond for a job that could care less about your wellbeing.

Brain feels kinda smooth today. It always feels like it’s not quite firing on all cylinders on a Monday. 

Fuck Mondays. 

Yeah. I said “Fuck Mondays” but I don’t really feel it that viscerally at the moment. Nothing much happened really. Just dealt with minor problems here and there that I was able to fix fairly quickly. I got to spend my idle time at my desk listening to podcasts and reading. I’m about halfway through the book The Great Divide by Matt Taibbi. Maybe I can finish it by the end of the week. Been awhile since I actually finished a book. 

I’m flirting with the idea of cutting back on my gaming, specifically Rocket League. I’ve played Rocket League pretty much every single day since I got it some time last year. It’s a fun game but I think it distracts me too much. Yeah. You are reading about a 35 year old man talking about his need not to game so much. I find myself firing up Rocket League even when I don’t really have a desire to play that much. I guess it fills up time when I have absolutely nothing else that I could be doing. It stimulates my brain when I ain’t got shit else to stimulate it. I guess I want to see what happens if I try stimulating it with something else. 

I put in a call to a therapist I saw some time last year. He hasn’t called me back yet.

This navel gazing is getting old to me. I want to be writing about something else but I have no idea what. 

I’m fucking bored. 

I suppose I’m bound to catch a feeling about something this week. 

I am half-assing right now and not even lying about it. I am phoning this in. I don’t give a shit. 

Sup with you? You good? Did you daydream about sex or murder today? Did you fantasize about being some sorta hero? Did you cry today? Did you do anything to advance a criminal conspiracy today? 

This is a man throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. This is a man sitting cross-legged in a chair and trying to think. 

This feels like a fuckin’ homework assignment.

I don’t feel much of anything right now. 

I just am. I guess that’s okay. I mean, what’s the alternative? 

Been working almost 6 months. I have not held down a job for more than 6 months since 2012. If I make it beyond 6 months and I’m still employed, do I fucking win something? I’ve been thinking about that. What does that mean for me, if anything? 

Fuck. I tried. 

Maybe I'll try bearing my soul on this fucking blog to strangers who might happen by cuz that's how lonely I really am.