I Can’t Concentrate. 

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.

Memorial Day

Yeah. It's Memorial Day weekend.

Fuck American Sniper.

Fuck Boeing.

Fuck Raytheon.

Fuck the NFL and its camouflage shit for "da troops."

Fuck John Bolton, that demonic Colonel Sanders looking motherfucker.

Fuck the drone strikes.

Fuck the chills you get up your spine whenever you hear our lame-ass national anthem that doesn't even slap.

Fuck that verse in said anthem that taunts slaves who dared pick up a weapon and fight for their freedom.

Fuck the Blue Angels.

Fuck Henry Kissinger.

Fuck that yellow ribbon.

Fuck the war they plannin' in Iran.

Fuck Blackwater.

Fuck Erik Prince.

Fuck Barack Obama.

Fuck Manifest Destiny.

Fuck Pete Buttigieg and his tour in Afghanistan.

Fuck every pundit who calls Trump (Fuck Trump too, of course) Cadet Bone Spurs.

Fuck the idea that killin' for the colors that don't run makes you a real man.

Fuck 'these colors don't run' bumper stickers.

We're not the rebels.

We're the Empire.

Fuck your jingoistic logic.

Fuck the gods of war.

Fuck the dark, patriotic elixir that makes people lose their damn mind.

Fuck your lectures about being disrespectful.

Yeah.

Let's be pro-life.

Let's hug.

Let's cry.

Let's feed all the kids.

Let's be strong and beautiful.

Let's do what we want to.

Fuck heroes.

Mourn the dead.

Say never again

And fuckin' mean that shit.

Sometimes the sun shines 

and somehow I’m okay with that 

The wind tickles me like it does 

and I really can’t protest 

even if I got no clue 

what the sweat and the tears 

were for. 

I wanna lick everywhere you'll let me.

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. 

Friday War Story: Man Versus Wide Format Printer

The week been gentle. The week been chill. Too gentle. Too chill. I don't trust it, man. Shit has to get a little crazy some time. Why not today?

I get in. Email waiting for me. See, there is this special printer on the third floor. It's this beast of a machine that is used to print and scan technical drawings. It seems most people cannot scan to their network folder. Turning the machine off and then back on did precisely dick so it falls to me to exorcise the demons from this fucking machine.

 I ascend one flight of stairs to see this for myself. Stick the piece of paper in. It scans. Well, son of a bitch. It works, right? Well no. For some people, it scans and then prompts for a password but guess what? The touch screen provides no way to actually enter in a password so whenever it prompts for a password, I'm sunk. That's a brick wall.

 This has me sweating. Everybody is being nice about this but if I can't fix this, I'm thinking maybe it harms my reputation. Maybe people start thinking I can't hack it. It occurs to me now they probably don't care THAT much but being the anxious, neurotic son of a bitch that I am, I sweat.

 So, I'm about out of ideas. I've not seen this problem before and Google is no help. Fuck. Why the hell did I come to work today?

 I let the office admin know that I got no idea what the motherfuck is going on. She puts in a call to the printer company and she says they will call me and send someone out. Thing is though, I know they are gonna push back cuz there is no god damn way this is their problem. They call me up and tell me to piss off.

 Yeah. I get it but fuck you too, brotha.

 Aight. MacGyver time, man. Think. I'm up and down those stairs. Hey. Wait a minute. There are a few ports on the back of this printer. Got an ethernet port. Got some funky looking serial port and a USB port. Hmm. I run downstairs and grab a USB keyboard. I plug it into the USB port on the back of the printer and... IT TYPES. I can type in the password now. I type the password I think it wants and check the box that says 'remember my password.' ... IT WORKS. Holy shit. I fixed it. Inside I'm ecstatic. I walk tall. I'm like that guy at the end of The Right Stuff walking away from the wreckage with a cigar hanging out of his mouth.

 God damn. I need to chill.

So... I woke up and thought

Being aware of your own internal life and spending time there makes you remember that others possess an internal life as well.

This has the side effect of wanting to make sure the world is gentler.

Been kind of a brutal weekend for me. 

Didn’t know that I was going to be dealing with a sick dog. All of that wrecked me. Think I got my cry quota done for the next week. 

I’m exhausted. I feel beat up. 

I’d take a hug or two.

That dog is hanging in though. She is this adorable thing but god damn, she’s tough. 

I think I’m way too up in my feelings right now. 

I’ll get back to you. 

If I could exist as some kinda layabout, I would do that. I’d shave when I want to. I’d sleep when I want to. In fact, I’ve kinda done this. I’ve spent a great deal of time jobless. You get a ton of time to yourself. Thing is though, it’s pretty much a living hell. Even if you have a place to go if you absolutely cannot pay your bills, it’s awful. You don’t feel like you have a reason to be living. You don’t feel like you deserve to live. Fuck. It was one of the worst things I’ve ever experienced. I did that off and on for about 6 years. 

I fucking need space. 

I could have spent all that time that I had writing but I had even less focus than I do now.