Latest Posts by mistahsojourner - Page 5
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.
Love this track.
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.
Slightly Different
Monday morning and Eugene Debs is whisperin’ in my ear
The word is fuck.
Fuck this. Fuck the boss. Fuck the Benjamins but save some for me, will ya?
When it’s just about all you can say
When you ain’t got a prayer but mama says ‘em for you anyway
FUCK
She whispers it in the dark
and then screams it
fuck yeah.
Fuck.
Can’t say it in front of everybody
It’s special like that, ya dig?
Fuck
Fuck.
When the boss on his shit again and I got a head full of commie propaganda on a Monday
When it’s one way and I need it to be another
God damn it, good looks don’t pay fuckin’ bills.
Fuck.
She whispers it in the dark
when she wants that love harder.
At the sky
when you got nothin’ but the rain, your sweat, your bones and a raw deal.
Gotta watch who hears you say that
Not sacred
but it’s something, ya know? You feel me? Am I talkin’ crazy?
Fuck.
Not interesting
I need to get the fuck outta here.
These roommates really are not working out.
Like, being here irritates me.
I need to be alone. Truly alone sometimes.
I cannot be hearing the bickering and arguing that is the byproduct of your fucked up, sad marriage.
I can’t come “home” at the end of my 9 to 5 what a way to make a living day to scary cable news propaganda. That shit gets to me on a deep level. Like, maybe it’s the holy spirit helping me recognize with banal evil is. Seriously.
I probably need to be sitting down and talking to someone. I don’t want to take medication cuz it does nothing. The only drugs I’ll be taking are for the fun of it. Seriously. I’m only going to alter my mind with drugs if I feel like it. Not doing it on doctor’s orders if I can help it. Fuck that. Real talk though. I need to be talking to a professional probably. Don’t worry too much. I just need the perspective of someone with a more level-head than I’ve got.
Aight. Back to our regular scheduled programming.
What it is
All of this arises from a sense of loneliness. That’s what drives this. There are layers to it.
Not a ridiculous number of layers though. I’m a simple guy.
I’m not close with too many people and by many, I mean, like any. That’s not to say that I don’t have my moments. Those moments kinda scare me though so sometimes I need to take a few years to breathe and by breathe I mean, mess up my life and sink into a pit of self-loathing.
I’m questioning the wisdom of doing this but not really. Fuck that. You gotta take risks sometimes.
This is an unremarkable’s man’s inner monologue on a Friday night.
I was about to declare this art but god damn it, that would be cringe-y as fuck. It is art though. It just will never be studied because it’s not that good. It has its moments though. This is all about those moments.
Humidity makes me think of madness. Makes me think of the heart of darkness within you. C’mon. Show it to me. I’m sure it ain’t so bad. Tie headband like 80s action hero and nod to you. I got you. Hold my hand if it’s the end. Hold it tight. Tight. Like you mean it. Do you mean it? I do. I think I do.
Shit. Tryin’ to remember what that was like. Trying to mean something that scared you. That traumatized you. That weighed you down like a motherfuckin’ Anvil that got put there by Bugs Bunny when he had the devil in him. What’s something like that? Love, baby. Love. Right? Love that’s a WMD. Love that leads to accidents. Love that leads to words arranged in a certain way that come to priests at night when they think maybe the cloth wasn’t such a good idea. Trying to mean the words you pluck out of the air just for a quiet nod and an “I feel you.” It’s hard to mean things.
Hard to find what the fuck you mean. Like really mean, man. You with me? Think 10 things. Count ‘em. Do you take them into a dark room with you? Are they any good there? Do you really want them there with you? Do you cringe 15 years after telling someone that one time you felt the spirit really strongly or some shit?
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.
This track always goes right to my heart for some reason.
“The borders should be illegal instead of the people / That were here before the Bible and all of its sequels.”
I got no idea what to do with this today. Been feeling that a lot lately. I think it would be a lazy cop out to just write that and leave it at that. Even though it is lazy, it’s honest. This is just some dumb blog but I’m not going to write anything that isn’t true and I’m sure as fuck not going to write anything that I don’t feel or that I don’t believe in.
Of course, that does not mean every single thing I’m going to write will have weight behind it. Shit, I could write that I want pizza and that could be quite true and something I truly believe in. I’m just not going to bullshit you. Do you believe me? Why do you believe me? What reason do you have to believe me? Fuck. If you do believe me, I have to say that I’m genuinely touched. Thank you.
I’m surprised that I’ve stuck with this. In the spirit of not bullshitting you, I’m a bit of a flake. I tend to give up pretty easily. That’s why I don’t have a ton to show for 35 years of life. When things get tough, I tend to peace the fuck out. This is a long established pattern. It’s what I do. Yeah, a large part of this tendency is animated by depression. Yeah, I’m too hard on myself but I don’t want to be too easy on myself either. Don’t mistake me for a climber though. What I’m after is fulfillment, personal satisfaction. I could give a fuck about climbing. I know that I’m never getting rich writing poems about rain. Poems. I hardly ever do that anymore. Whenever I try, sometimes I end up with these aggressive, creative rhymes but I just stop when I really can’t rhyme anymore. I do have to say that I got some satisfaction from yesterday’s entry when I started off typing the word ‘fuck’ over and over and over again and then ended up on some semi-poetic meditation on the word ‘fuck’ and the contexts that it gets said among other things. I may re-visit that.
Saying mean things to Tucker Carlson on Twitter does not make the world a better place but it makes me feel a little bit better about his existence on this planet. I don’t want to debate him. He isn’t worth the effort. He doesn’t give a shit about logic or facts and if I’m being honest (which I try to be.) neither do I. They have their place but in the world we got, they got seriously limited utility. When power decides facts don’t matter, they don’t matter. Tucker may not ever read the barbs I tweet his way but I think there is power in giving a mouthpiece for the protofascist scum running the country the respect he deserves.
The DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) made me proud this week with their badass direct action in Washington, D.C. and Portland, Oregon. Good work, comrades.
We have a barbecue at work to celebrate the summer solstice. Work stuff like that tends to be lame but I enjoyed BS’ing with the people I work with. I’m a shy guy by nature but I do enjoy having animated conversations with people and making them laugh or at the very least engaging with people in a genuine sorta way.
That’s an accurate description of my project, I suppose. Being genuine. Authentic.
Authenticity however is a bitch and it can be a luxury you just cannot fucking afford sometimes. Shit, I think you can really only have so much of it in a world where your good looks, charm and kindness don’t pay your bills.
White fear weaponized runs the machine.
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I had nothing so I typed the same word over and over and over again. That really didn’t get me anywhere. Seriously, all I accomplished was typing the word ‘fuck’ over and over again. That is all I have to show for it. Maybe that’s all I have to show for this entire day. A single word.
Fuck.
A word uttered when shit gets real.
A word uttered just because.
A word she whispers when you’re doing it right.
The last word before a sudden fade to black.
A word when you got nothin’ but the rain, your sweat or your bones.
A word that’s just way too motherfuckin’ honest
for some people.
Wanted:
The people I can use it liberally with.
---
Fuck. That was kinda lazy.
Yo. I didn’t get too much of an intermission between crises. Sick dog and then corporate office warfare. Johnny on the spot with the duct tape, the kind words and the bullshit.
The Grand Motherfuckin’ Conspiracy.
I’ve always kept one eye on the conspiracy theories that were en vogue. It’s just something that I’ve always done. I suppose you can learn a lot about reality by examining alternative interpretations of it. That’s basically what a conspiracy theory is. It’s an alternative explanation of reality that’s not endorsed by The Powers That Be.
I have a lot of feelings about conspiracy theories. Complex feelings. On the one hand, they can make people feel dis-empowered. If Queen Bey, Jay-Z and the rest of the Illuminati elite have everything locked up that tight, what kinda hope does the average Joe have? I do believe that there is a grand overarching conspiracy by powerful individuals to keep things pretty much the way they are. I believe that The Powers That Be only want you smart enough to fill out the forms and push the buttons. They don’t want you schooled in critical thinking. They don’t want you to have the time to think. They want you to come home all bleary-eyed and ready to turn on the TV. The last thing they really want you doing is thinking about your situation. If people really start thinking, the whole system will fucking fall apart at the seams and there offspring will have to take that job at McDonald’s.
One of the big names in American conspiracy theory has been Alex Jones. He’s a Texan with leather lungs who has been preaching on the radio since at least some time in the 90s. He warned about government overreach. He ranted hysterically about RFID tags paving the way for the Mark of the Beast. He’d be nearly in tears talking about CPS (Child Protective Services) being some kind of stealth pedophile ring. He was the prophet Ezekiel for American paleoconservatives who waged their own “infowar” on the Internet.
I remember that old milieu. It wasn’t that long ago. I can remember these YouTube channels run by upstarts that were inspired by Alex Jones. They shared dispatches from the rising police state from their own neck of the woods. Maybe their local police department bought up a bunch of military surplus equipment. Maybe they noticed listings on an Internet job board for military detention specialists and they connected the dots to a possible internment of American dissidents that was just around the corner. I remember sitting up at late at night, sipping on orange soda like Kel and watching these grainy YouTube videos of possible camp locations. Imposing, empty structures behind razor wire. Huge train cars. It was speculated that the train cars were fitted with shackles for the transport of prisoners. Yep. The FEMA camps was comin’. They would be filled with patriotic American citizens who would not go along with the Luciferian, globalist New World Order death machine that was run by bankers who wanted to merge with machines and become immortal beings of light or some shit like that.
What became of Alex Jones? Well, that’s a funny story. You see, at some point, he came to the conclusion that the only hope for America against a bloodthirsty, pedophilic, globalist conspiracy was Donald J. Trump. Trump was America’s last best hope. Jones-y always had a problem with torture yet Trump declared on stage that he loved water boarding. Jones-y railed against power hungry cops that beat the shit outta citizens. Trump joked about police brutality on stage in front of an audience of pigs who fucking loved it and yes, they are pigs. If you have a problem with that, you can go fuck yourself.
The FEMA camps never came. That shit got especially intense under President Obama. Of course, we are now seeing people get rounded up and Trump presides over it. The Infowarriors and their YouTube channels are silent however. Many of their channels sit abandoned and those that do not have taken up the banner of Donald J. Trump, the golden-haired warrior who is making America Great Again. See, it doesn’t much matter that people are being rounded up because the people being rounded up have dark skin, they don’t speak English and they are not American citizens.
It’s only an outrage if it happens to white folks. White pain is the only pain that matters to motherfuckers like Alex Jones.
You’ve got no idea how surreal it is for me to see Alex Jones carrying water for a sitting American President. It’s incredibly difficult to appreciate if you’ve not followed the man’s career. In his mind, pretty much every President that came before Trump was working for them. They were in on the plot but somehow this fat, loud-mouthed septuagenarian ex-game show host who got his kicks walking in on naked teenage pageant contestants isn’t. Somehow he has been sent by God or some shit.
The reality we live in is truly strange. As I go about the drudgery of my day, I sometimes pinch myself and wonder if the Almighty dropped acid at some point and this just happens to be his bad trip.
Sick Dogs and Our Bad Conscience
I spent a bunch of time with a sick dog this weekend. I’ve known this dog since she was 8 months old and rowdy as hell. I really thought that she might die. I cried buckets. It looks like it isn’t this dog’s time though. As a result, my emotions are still pretty raw. I ain’t got tears to cry but I’ve still got plenty of feeling.
Compassion that moves me to anger. Furious anger. Righteous anger. I don’t know what it is about the drive home from work that makes me think about all the big picture stuff. Big picture stuff? Shit. That’s so inadequate but I don’t know what else to call it. It’s burning anger about all the injustice that’s bigger than me. The injustice that happens while I watch a clock. It’s monstrous shit. It’s shit for The Hague. It’s shit that gets Meryl Streep Academy Awards for starring in fucking movies about it. It’s shit that grieves my fuckin’ spirit but at the end of the day doesn’t even really inconvenience me because of the accident of my birth.
My country puts little brown children in concentration camps. They cry for their mommies and daddies. These facilities are often run for a profit and the guards go home, drink beer, watch the game on occasion and probably beat their wives and then promise to never ever do it again. They can do what they do and then they can go to Home Depot or Cabela’s and never give a second thought to what they are doing to earn a pay check. Banality of evil. They’re just doin’ their jobs. Maybe they’re all grim about it. Maybe they’re tormented. Maybe they lose sleep over it. I know some of ‘em enjoy it. They are having the time of their lives.
Yeah, immigration cops are bastards. It’s a popular thing in certain circles to say that all cops are bastards. I didn’t use to believe that but I’m starting to. I got a relative who is a deputy sheriff. I’ve watched him joke about running over protesters. I’ve seen his buddies mock African American Vernacular English. I’ve seen them drink a beer while rockin’ a Punisher skull on their chests. They’re bloodthirsty, suburban warrior fascists. They are the soldiers of this sad apocalypse.
The enforcers of this shameful order are one thing but then there are the people on the sidelines. There are people who see the pictures of weeping children behind chain link fences and are thankful. They smile. They could not be happier. They are seein’ America become great again. They are seein’ people who are not like them suffer. They are watching a man who says the vile shit they say in their taverns and their country clubs in front of the whole nation proudly and without any shame at all. They got a man leading the country who has given permission for the demons that lurk inside them to run wild.
I sit here at my desk and pound my keyboard and I got no idea what to do. I wish that I could tell you what to do. Tomorrow I’ll go back into work, the machine will grind on and I kinda hate myself because anything I might do or say is ineffectual in the face of this grave evil.
Here’s what I’m going to do. It’s not much. All I can think to do right now at this moment is to tell you the truth as I see it. It is that bad. My country is engaged in a great evil. If there be a God and that God is just, he must punish us. I do not know if there is a god. I do know evil though. We’re seeing it. I don’t give a flying fuck about flags or anthems. I care about what’s true.
God. Damn. It.
I will never forgive the people who perpetrated these atrocities. As far as I am concerned, names like Trump, Miller, Sessions, Kelly and the whole Satanic cabal of them deserve to live in infamy. They should be hauled before a court and sentenced for crimes against humanity.
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.
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.
A Moment on a Tough Day
You join hands with your sister.
You pray over a sick dog.
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.
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.
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.
Random embarrassing fact #2
I don't know that this really qualifies as embarrassing but it might be. I try to cry at least once a week. Basically, I sequester myself and either think about something that makes me sad or touches me and just let the flood gates open. Why the fuck do I do that? That's a good question. It's not something that I entirely understand but I think the reason I do it is to re-connect with my humanity. That's not to say I'm like a fucking Vulcan most of the time but the world we got can be de-humanizing as fuck. It re-connects me with something pure. Like, that which animates the forces that liberate. And fuck, sometimes I gotta cry, ya dig? Okay. I guess also it's solidarity with people who have a reason to cry. Shit. That is cheesy as fuck but that's what's in my heart, I think.
Random embarrassing fact #1
When I was in high school, I used to play this game on the Internet called Harsh Lands. It was a MUD. Basically, it was this text based medieval game world with a heavy emphasis on in-character roleplaying. You stayed in-character. You talked like your character at all times no matter what. You did what your character did. My character was this deeply religious warrior who rose to the rank of Master Sergeant in The Tashal Watch. The Watch was the organization in charge of keeping the peace in the city of Tashal which was the largest city in the Kingdom of Kaldor as I recall. I was the highest ranking player character lawman so I was basically the law in that city. After I retired that character, I played a thug/enforcer type who was a member of the Lia Kavair. The Lia Kavair were basically a medieval Mafia. They were a den of thieves, assassins, racketeers. My character roughed people up who needed roughing up, extorted people, menaced people and on one occasion even killed someone. I remember spending a lot of time ruminating on this character's guilt for having taken a life to the point where I made myself pretty much a wreck in real life. I should mention something about death in this game. Death was permanent. If you died, there was no coming back and starting over after losing some gear or whatever. You were dead. As you can imagine, that made shit pretty intense at times. This sounds nerdy and dumb and it was but it was incredibly fun to collaborate with other people and create stories.
This is the part of the evening where I listen to Roads by Portishead and stare at the ceiling pensively.
The President
I’m going to tell you the truth.
Not gonna put sugar or honey on it.
It’s not that I disagree with the President or his policies.
It’s not that he represents everything that is soulless and wrong.
No.
It’s that I fucking despise him.
With everything in me.
I hate him. I don’t give a flying fuck about discourse or listening to or understanding the other side. If you are going to come to me with that, fuck you. I don’t care. We are past that. What has the fucking discourse ever gotten us? What has being respectable gotten us?
You can tell me that I’m wrong in my hate. That’s fine. Maybe you’re concerned with the effect that such intense feeling has on my health. I mean, God bless you if you think that. Let me tell you, it’s hard to carry around, aight?
See. I’m owning the hate. I’m not dressing it up in some pretty three piece suit and calling it something polite. Nah. This is me owning it. It’s ugly. It’s awful but I’m owning it.
I go off sometimes. I fucking lose it. I lose my voice. I get told by people, “Oh. You’re so full of hate. Everybody hates him so much. It’s scary.” What the fuck?! WHAT THE FUCK?! What do you think he’s full of? Love? Hell no. If you are going to put on that stupid red hat, you do not get to play that card. That’s perverse.
Thursday
I sit down at my desk, open a Word document and start typing away. Nothing like inspiration has hit me. No burning bush. No getting struck blind with the truth while hearing the voice of God. The office is quiet. I’ve said my good morning to the office manager as is always my custom. She’s a sweet lady.
It occurs to me that what I’m doing here is writing just to get something down. It really doesn’t matter if it’s complete garbage or not. Just do it. Nike that shit.
I sip from my second cup of coffee today. I have one cup of coffee at home, another when I get to work and some decaf in the afternoon while I’m just coasting through the second half of the day (hopefully).
I’ve worn a collared shirt and khakis every single day that I’ve been employed here. I could probably get away with dressing a bit more relaxed but I don’t. Even though I’ve developed quite the disdain and skepticism for authority, I still tend to follow rules. I try to look as respectable as I can even though the idea that someone is respectable due to wearing a collared shirt is almost unspeakably stupid. Maybe I manage to completely undermine my air of respectability by wearing my collared shirts untucked though. I mean, I used to tuck them in but they kept coming untucked so I just wear them untucked.
I’ve been in this habit recently where I sit down at my desk at work and begin writing. I do it “now” instead of waiting until I get home because mostly I fear that I’m not going to have much in the way of motivation when I get home. What I’m aware of when I’m sitting in the office writing is that when I’m doing that, I’ve got the vibe of the office going on. I believe when I’m engaging in this exercise in the office, my mindset is that of the office. There is reservation in my words. I keep myself from going to certain places inside myself because of where I am. Things be calm at the moment, ya dig? Any moment though, that serenity gonna get murdered by a member of the professional managerial class. I’m always thinking about getting interrupted.
Don’t ask me what’s with that 1950s hipster language or whatever that is. I couldn’t tell you.
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.
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.