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.
Half naked.
Arms raised like some prophet preachin’ what nobody wanted to hear
but I bleed for ‘em
so they love me
Get punched.
Get kicked.
The more it hurts
The more they feel it
that stuff people think is the holy spirit.
Tightness in the chest
need bed rest
but the show must go on
the roar of the diabetic souls
that in the night
tell me not to mix those two things
gets me through another one.
Fly to victory
and then the waiting room.
I’m slipping a little. I feel laziness starting to grip me. I ain’t been as conscientious with this endeavor. I missed two days this week. I did not write a single word. Whatever. Like many a baby boomer says, it is what it is. I’m gonna pick up. I’m gonna continue. I’m gonna live on. I will survive. Aight. I’m gonna put on that song. The Cake version.
I sit in this room that was my bedroom back in the day. I grew up in this room. I came to be in this room. I prayed in this room. I had my first orgasm in this room at the age of 16. I dreamed in this room. I woke up on summer days that were full of nothing but possibilities in this motherfucking room. I sat in the dark and listened to Art Bell in this room. I don’t have my own space anymore. I haven’t since some time in November, I think. I miss it. I’ve always felt like I didn’t belong anywhere. I don’t really have a space right now where I can just be. That’s traumatic, man. It really is. I express this and nobody really seems to give a fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Part of me thinks this shit is about on the same level as some angsty, hormonal teenager who is failing English and is brilliant but lazy according to themselves and who writes on a blog with a background that is as black as their nail polish.
I need to challenge myself. I’m not quite sure how though.
I finished reading two books this week. For a man that has been struggling with his attention span for years or at least feels like he has, that is an accomplishment. I finished the The Great Derangement by Matt Taibbi and The End of Policing by Alex Vitale.
Taibbi is just an excellent writer with a good eye and a keen social conscience. He’s a minor hero of mine. I will pretty much read anything he writes.
The End of Policing made me think a lot. I can’t say that it challenged me too much but it made me think about the why of a lot of things. In recent years, I’ve become really concerned about the militarization of police forces and the violence that more often than not victimizes the poor and people of color. It keeps me up at night. It makes me angry. It makes me want to give the finger to every cop I see. Blue Lives Matter flags make me fighting mad. I really cannot watch cop shows any longer because they play like insidious propaganda to me. The book is a bit dry but it’s quite readable. It is written by an activist academic who traces a lot of the problems heavy handed policing is thrown at to cruel austerity measures. If you’re reading this, you should read that book. I kinda wish everybody in this rotting empire would. Maybe some time soon I will write about some of the things I actually learned from the book.
Some people have the ability to manufacture reality for others.
I am not one of those fucking people.
You probably aren't either so we have that in common.
Lot of people just live here.
That's okay.
This is the part of the evening where I listen to Roads by Portishead and stare at the ceiling pensively.
I’m not sure what this is....
Maybe it’s just a little venting with line breaks.
I got kept inside like
some girl in a tower.
I’m a 21st century digital boy.
World was small
so I came here.
Everything is late
I’m not normal
but not in some cool way.
I’m wise
but I’m weak
Mostly I go no idea what the hell it is I’m doing out here.
I’ve been trying to read more. The journalist Seymour Hersh was on an episode Intercepted (By the way, if you listen to podcasts and you do not listen to Intercepted, you need to be listening to it.) and he said that before you write, you need to read. Of course, Sy Hersh was talking about journalism but it applies even if you aren’t a journalist.
I’ve been struggling with reading for a few years. One thing that has helped is reducing subvocalization when I’m silently reading. No, I’m not becoming some kind of freak who is obsessed with speed reading but it makes things flow a lot more smoothly if I am not reading shit to myself in my head. It never occurred to me to try and cut that out. It’s something that I’ve done since I was a kid but no, I don’t need to do that. I can just sort of look at the words and fit everything together. Almost feels like a superpower actually. It’s weird. I’m re-discovering a love for reading, I think.
I randomly bought a poetry collection to expose myself to verse. It’s garbage.