I Don’t Like Hearing Trump. 

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. 

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. 

I'm gonna have to juggle a bit. My desire to write and be a real human being and do what I need to do to survive in this brutal, boring game.

Saturday and some stuff and things

The words written the night before (See post entitled “What the fuck do I call this?” I think that’s what I called it.) were what they were. That was an experiment. If you surmised that those words were the product of an altered state, you are correct. It’s fair to say that I do have a relationship with cannabis. It’s been an off and on thing for about 3 years but mostly on. I despise a lot of the culture around this drug. A lot of it makes me cringe. That said, I do find it a valuable exercise at times to write while under the influence of it. 

That can be easier said than done. The temptation is to just chill and listen to some music until I just get drowsy or to play some Rocket League. Rocket League while high can be quite the trippy, beautiful experience. That’s often when I can enter ‘the zone’ when it comes to that game. I know when to challenge for the ball, I somehow make decisions that seem to make sense without really thinking, I seem to react automatically and I’m okay trying something crazy to see if it works and it seems like I learn how to make “crazy” work. 

A soccer game with rocket powered cars while stoned as fuck is only so satisfying so at some point I’ve got to pry myself away and look at the page. I’ve got to ride the green dragon and take it where I want to go. 

I’m less judgmental of my thoughts. The flow is easier. There is a danger there. If you’re high as fuck, you can be really satisfied with mediocre or lazy ideas so you find yourself in the position of trying to figure out whether you are onto something or if you are just being silly. If you can tell the difference (even sort of) then you are getting to be dangerous. 

I'm sitting at work and reading Noam Chomsky.

This is the most Chomsky I've ever read.

It's possible I am going to become an insufferable asshole for awhile. Strike that. I'm not becoming an asshole. What I'm doing is becoming more aware. I've been reading a lot more recently and I'm gaining insight into the way the world actually functions. It's cliche as all fuck to say but in all my schooling, I never really learned much of anything. They don't teach you about the illusion.

I'm convinced that one of the trippiest things ever is living in the U.S. and believing everything we tell ourselves about how great we are. THAT is a hell of a trip to be on. That is a trip that I was sort of on in my younger days. It's hard to judge now how sincerely or deeply I believed it. See, I think I always had my doubts. Doubt is good. Doubt is a sign that you're still sane. Shit, I even doubt where I am now. I could be totally wrong. Maybe I just picked up a new illusion.

I'm becoming quite convinced that one of the most vital aspects of the human project is disentangle oneself from illusions. These include the illusions of society and the illusions a person has about themselves.

The inner-city crack epidemic is now giving birth to the newest horror: a bio-underclass, a generation of physically damaged cocaine babies whose biological inferiority is stamped at birth...[This is] a race of (sub)human drones ... [whose] future is closed to them from day one. Theirs will be a life of certain suffering, of probable deviance, of permanent inferiority. At best, a menial life of severe deprivation ... [T]he dead babies may be the lucky ones.

-Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer in 1989. 

People like to pretend there was a time when the American conservative was sane and not possessed by cruelty and a special kinda crazy.

It’s not a myth. It’s a lie. It’s total bullshit. 

That’s so called respectable (and soon to be deceased) conservative writer/thinker/fantasist/whatever the fuck Charles Krauthammer condemning an entire class of people when they were fetuses back in the much simpler and much more innocent year of 1989. 

Only difference now is there is less sophistication. Less subtlety. 

There were dog whistles before but now the dog whistles are replaced by screams and shrieks. 

You could say something wicked this way comes but you’d be wrong. 

Something wicked was always here and just leveled up the wickedness. Just made it nastier. Just made it harder to look at. Just made it make your ears bleed faster so you plug them and tell yourself it’s all gonna be okay. 

See, we all gotta confront the possibility that it might not be okay. 

That sudden peace and drive safe was me be being lazy as fuck. 

God damn it.

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