Mistahsojourner - A Boy Coming To Terms

A Conclusion

I’ve come to a conclusion. A lot of the conclusions I come to are tentative but this one is definitive. 

Two days off are not enough to recover from five days on. 

It just doesn’t happen, man. 

It doesn’t matter if you hate your job or not. 

It just ain’t enough time to breathe and remember that you’re a human being. It’s not enough time to be still know and know that He is God if that’s what you’re into. 

This is not any sort of earth-shaking revelation but it was apparent to me today that I am capable of expressing myself very lucidly if I try just a little. It’s important for me to not try too hard. Trying too hard will fuck things up. You gotta dance with it a little. You make it smooth. You steer it gently and you make it do what it does. That’s how expression works for me. 

I got into a discussion with the parents about the way the world works, about U.S. foreign policy, about a better world. It wasn’t very long before I got fucking pissed off about their attitude. I’m not going to give you a blow-by-blow breakdown of this discussion but the gist of what I kept hearing from them was people can and have tried running the world a different way but those different ways have always failed. The way things get run in this country is not perfect but it’s a hell of a lot worse in every other place on earth you care to name. 

Is that what getting older does to us? We just shrug our shoulders and say, “Well, things will never be perfect but we have it a lot better than those brown people over there who don’t speak English and who get followed around by flies.” 

I am not at all convinced that this is a generational phenomenon. 

This is totally a propaganda thing. We don’t get educated about the way power works. Maybe we go to college and we get a professor who assigns some Zinn or Chomsky and then we forget all that when we go to work to make some asshole a bunch of money. I think maybe something like that is what happens. 

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

God damn it.

Friday reflection

I re-read my story of the fight with the printer. 

I dig how soaked in style it is. I dig the voice. Even though it was a really mundane incident, I like how inspired it felt. Of course, I don’t really know how it reads to anyone else. You might read that and think, “God. What the fuck is wrong with that guy? Really?” 

It also occurs to me my tendency to freak the fuck out about pretty much any motherfucking thing. Let me tell you, It’s not an easy thing to live with. It’s a bitch from hell. I don’t want to sound like I’m martyring myself but what you read there, while the dramatic flair is turned up a few notches, is a fairly accurate portrayal of what my internal world can be like. If it were possible, I’d love to visit someone else’s internal world and see what it’s like for them. What is their internal monologue like? How do they speak to themselves? 

I tend to be pretty harsh. 

“C’mon, you dumb motherfucker. Think.” 

As you can imagine, that doesn’t do me any favors. I’ve been to therapists here and there. They always bring up self-talk and all that. Be nice to yourself. I never really got good at that. I’m so far into the way I do things mentally that I can’t even imagine what doing it different would look like. 

There is a desire in me to do something other than these navel gazing sessions but I have no idea what that is. 

This whole thing seems a bit adolescent. There is a bit of an eye wink at that with doing this thing (whatever it is) on Tumblr. I occasionally joked with people about how, “I’m totally gonna post on Tumblr about this later. Well, here I am. Maybe what I’m going to end up with is a chronicle of me maturing. Maybe I’ll just become more self-aware. Maybe I’ll end up a threat to the system. 

Heh. I’m just messing with you. Smile, okay? Fist bump me. C’mon. It’s cool. I’m just messing with you. I was going to go really far with that sudden shift in tone there, like maybe start talking about an angry manifesto or something but I don’t want to freak anybody out. I don’t know how this is really reading. I’m honestly am joking though. 

I’m not funny. I can make people laugh sometimes but I don’t know how you really do that. I don’t know if anybody who can really knows how it works. Imagine understanding that at a deep level. I wonder what it’s like to understand anything at a deep level. Mostly I just have a vague idea about a few things but I could be nobody’s guru. 

I was browsing Netflix. Instead of watching something, I’m writing this. There really isn’t a damn thing I need to be watching. 

This is a man thinking. Have some respect. Wish him luck. 

I could say this is a man shadow boxing but that’s bullshit because I’m not a boxer. That’s me appealing to something manly because I’m not the bad ass warrior even someone like me thinks they are supposed to be. I’ve taken a punch without crying though. I can take a lot of abuse. See, I’m doing it. Damn. So fucking dumb, right? Shit. I’m smarter than this. I’m wiser than this. 

I was sober when I started writing this and now I’m not. Go back and re-read this. When do you think I started feeling it? If you really went back up and tried to re-read that, thank you. That’s really god damn cool of you to play along. 

Alright. Get ready for some next level shit. You ready? Fuck. Got nothing. I thought of how to proceed there but just came up empty. I thought of several things but none of it felt too natural or clever to me. 

How the fuck is this going to read to me tomorrow?

WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING? 

Do you know what the fuck I’m doing? 

Confusing the reader. Wink and pantomimed finger gun thing. 

I could see this being really dumb and maybe irritating. I could see this being a serious waste of time. 

Peace. Drive safe. 

I’m reasonably certain there is an alternate timeline where America descends into fascism to the strains of “Holding out For a Hero” by Bonnie Tyler. 

Even as I sing along about pining for a street-wise Hercules, the spirit of eternal fascism tickles me. 

This song pines for Charles Bronson in Death Wish. 

It’s calling out for a version of Walt from Gran Torino who doesn’t have a redemption arc. 

It’s calling for a cop who becomes like The Punisher in real life. 

Umberto Eco wrote of the cult of heroism. 

This song could be the hymn for the cult of the avenging hero. 

Nothin’ in my head 

except the lies 

duct taped together 

that make the dream we live in breathe 

down our fuckin’ necks.

that breath is warm, sista or is it brotha?

smells like cheap perfume worn by Lady Liberty 

 after Elon Musk gave her a roofie 

then he went to the stars 

and forgave y’all’s sins 

but said hell no to stock options for all 

and tickets to the billionaire’s ball. 

Never alone 

got alphabetical men listenin’

to midnight confessions 

of dangerous love 

that will make them drink 

and die one of those deaths 

that ain’t quite official.

-----------------------------

You just kinda start. You see where things go and then you get stuck. That’s okay, I guess. 

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.

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez: Trump Isn't Ready For A Girl From The Bronx

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Donald Trump might both be from New York City, but she doesn't think he knows to deal with a girl from the Bronx. Subscribe To "...

No irony here. The rise of this woman gives me hope. I remember hearing her name on Intercepted and Chapo Trap House. It’s trippy as fuck to hear a name in those weird podcasts you listen to and then see that person on normie TV. 

Even if she never gets to Congress, she fucking won. I don’t think she’ll be the only one. She’s 28. Seriously, this lost generation is waking the fuck up. Some of us are pieces of shit but some of us get it now. 

Of course, I’ve got no idea what to say. Not a god damn thing. This is just another Monday survived. I knew I was coming into a shit show. I knew all weekend that a potential horror show was waiting for me. I handled it. I held on. That’s all. Tomorrow is another day and there will be another day after that and another day after that and so on until I die. 

Yeah. That’s all. 

Some days just are. No sugar. No flowers. They just are there to age you. 

It’s tough to write things that aren’t just things. I’ve never put together a shopping list but I imagine that’s fairly easy. I mean, I guess it’s easy if you got the cash to cover it, right? It’s just a list though. You write down what you need and that’s it. 

Trying to write something that’s pretty and honest and makes someone cry or fucks with them or makes them angry or just mildly annoys them, that shit is nigh impossible. 

It’s Sunday. I’m not high. I don’t even wish I was (that much.) Nah, I’m indifferent to the fact that I am not high. I love being high. I dig the feeling of focus, how easy it is to smile, how sometimes it puts me in the mood for some love, how it can help me flip on a flashlight and descend into the dark cave of my feelings but I don’t need that all the time even if tomorrow I gotta punch a clock and it hurts to think about. 

If you’re reading this and the above paragraph worries you, please don’t worry. 

It’s misting outside. It’s gray. I dig it. 

Sometimes I think I should just drop all this and be a man. Learn to be alpha and all that shit. 

I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that my soul or whatever the fuck it is is the soul of an artist. My medium happens to be words. I hesitate to go around saying that shit because that’s pretentious as fuck. 

I got an appointment with a psychologist at the end of the work day tomorrow. I never really know how to prepare for those. I hope I can get something out of that. 

I’m afraid of women. I don’t know how to fix that. I have been for my entire life.

I think serial killers are not interesting at all. Serial killer groupies are pathetic. All this media that dwells on serial killers is propaganda that justifies heavy-handed policing. Fuck police states. 

I’m a weirdo but not in a particularly interesting or novel way.