today i am writing some words

today i am writing some words. i don't do it very often. or maybe i do all the time. it's hard to say. i am told that writing anything means i am writer. i tell myself sometimes that's not true. and then i lose the debate. i write work emails 5 days a week. they are dishonest. i format them to have the exact amount of punctuation necessary to express an air of timidness. but not too much. i have to seem passive and weak to those above me but still capable. every email ends with "Thanks!" some times i am not asking for anything, so in order to squeeze in my "thanks," i ask them if there's anything they need, and then thank them for the opportunity to offer me what they need.

i am a terrible writer. but i am a better writer. better than i was. the time i most improved my writing was about from age 20 or so to age 24 or so. during that time i abstained from fiction, which was my passion, and mostly toiled away at the occasional anime review. i read one of them for the first time in a long time awhile back. it was terrible. it wasn't even a review. it was a spoiler intensive analysis of some sorts that repeated a lot of clumsy turns of phrase and words. 28 of 32 people found the review helpful.

when i came back to fiction writing i wrote better stories, insomuch as they were a bit fuller and more interesting. for a few years i made somewhere around 60-70 submissions to literary magazines and short story contests. 0 of the people found them helpful. i had the stories critiqued by other people who were doing the same thing i was doing, and in turn, improved the stories to a point where 0 people found them helpful.

the two years i've written the most in my life were 2007 and 2015. in 2007 i was depressed and self harming in my college dorm room when i wrote a 52000 word novel about a depressed and self harming person living in an apartment. he died. in 2015 i was depressed and self harming in my bedroom when i wrote 113 blog posts and a handful of short stories. i am no longer self harming and this year i might write 25 posts at best. i don't know what this means.

today i am singing in the car. i am not a singer. i sing every day. i write every day. i am not sure what i am. maybe that's the gist of it. maybe until i find who i am i can't find what to write. i think i will never find what to write then, and that is ok, because i am not sure anyone does. if stephen king found the end of the road, perhaps he would stop writing books.

the other day i wrote to a friend what i thought about star wars. it was no different really than what i had said in the car the night previous. maybe i was transcribing. maybe that's all i do. i see stories not in words or characters but in scenes and moods. i see a movie scene and then write it. i feel a feeling and write it. maybe that's why i used to be so attached to the idea of writing screenplays. i could skip all the filler, all the narration. building a world is like drawing, and i am no good at the latter. it'd be better if everyone could just see it and then i could write what the people inhabiting it need to say. i don't have the patience for a middle, for describing the things and places and sounds. i consider the middle everything but the first and last paragraph or scene. some consider me a few years away from middle age. it sounds ridiculous but i am 38 to 39% of the way there. to the last paragraph.

most days i wonder if i should write more words. i wrote my first story in 1st grade. if i really want to then why don't i? there are things. there are always things. i don't think i can write a novel. i think i can write short stories. so for now i should focus on writing the things i can. but i haven't written a short story in years. so maybe i can't do that. thomas would be very mad at me.

this blog could be empty. words inhabit the pages but for all intents and purposes they don't, because it is such a small, insignificant thing. every minute sees 400 hours of video uploaded to youtube, and an ungoldy amount of words and blog posts to an ungodly amount of websites. i think occasionally how the internet is bigger than the earth we inhabit in a way. i can fly to the farthest geographical point from my living room in half a day. i can not begin to imagine what the equally representative occurrence of that would be online.

today i am writing some words. i don't know if i will write some more soon or not. 3 emails sit unread. a blog post counter shows a small number increase by one. i format this post to be impersonal, neglecting grammar rules and formalities to make it seem disarming, distant, sardonic instead of simply dark. i mentally offer a "thanks" to any readers. the opportunity was all mine.

hot hot heat

it's a 100mg thc orange cream soda. serving sizes are something you are not familiar with. it's not a bowl or bong or blunt, it's a soda, how bad can it be? it tastes like orange creamsicles, just a faint hit of it at the end, of something more. the hotel room is drab but it is brightened by her. you are about to take a swig and she stops you, use the shot glass, it's what was recommended. she always looks out for you. one shot, and then half a chocolate, also that hint of grassiness at the very end. lie down. lie down. lie down. nothing, and then everything. the tv is funny. it's all funny. and then it's her hands. they're always warm but now they are hot. your skin is scalding from the touch. you think for a second how wild it is your mind can convince you something is happening that is not, her hands are not irons. your body shakes. and shakes. and shakes. it's all ok, though. the rental car is damaged, the food is fast, the traffic is furious, the drug's too strong, but it's all ok. you have her. you have her. you have her. what's one night too stoned in amidst a lifetime in love? earlier in the night you were so upset, so anxious. the heat from her hands melts it away. you don't know when you fall asleep.

moving day

it's a saturday after noon and it's the only option. move it around. shuffle it. one box goes from kitchen to guest room. nobody uses the guest room right now so it's ok. it's so, so easy. just move it. it can get you published. john stossel once wrote that global warming isn't a big deal because people can just move. move from the coasts, move from the islands. like moving this box. lift and set. room to room. still a roof over its head. it's just a box.

at work one day people talked about how easy it really is. they talked about california, about the homeless  people. they solved it. why not just move to arizona where it's much cheaper? all those homeless people could just leave LA for phoenix. and really, they don't have a house, so it's much easier to move than it is for most? just lift and set. it's just a box.

the tongs are moved from a canister that is too full to a shelf that is not. it's easier to find them now. a good move. the problems are shuffle around to. the school has always been one, it's just moved. first from uni, than community college, than online. life and set. it's so expensive and restrictive and feels like committing in blood. a degree for life. set in stone. it's just a box, right? just a piece of paper. it means nothing.

it feels so human. just move it. change the location. the grass is greener. re-arrange the space. change the energy. leave the rural decaying towns, you know, change is good, right? it's your fault if you stay.  the cities are where it's at. leave the family, leave the childhood. leave skid row, it's too expensive, what's wrong with you? you always have to be moving. the commercials say so. "this one is for the doers" says an ad that tells me if i am not moving, not going, i am worthless. i'd look better if i moved more. my sister had a roommate once who shifted his furniture around every few months. completely moved his bed, shelves, tv, everything. the liquor bottles didn't move though. they were always there in his box. that's all it was i think. who knows really?

but then it all doesn't matter. the desk is 9 hours. i can't leave the desk. i'd get criticized. in trouble. the homework demands it, the job demands it. i can't move. maybe none of us ever have. it seems so easy. lift and set. it's just a box. it's just a life. it's juts a moving day.

the silver lining in grey skies

it was truly the very last warm day. there was no doubt no. no hope for another warm, sunny day. what's left are the remains. the cat tried to eat a leaf off the floor last night, tracked in because they're starting to fall. the temperature is too. the dehumidifiers at work are being put away and instead of being happy at having a little less work at closing time, a small sigh escapes you at what it means. last night the darkness took over by 8. no matter how early you start dinner now it'll be dark by the time you finish.

it gets harder. every single year. the loss of walks, of sun, of warm grilling, of the beach. you haven't gotten yet to where your bones hurt but you know it's probably a matter of time. your back hurt much sooner than you thought so maybe they will too. it feels like giving up so much for something you can't control. wake up in the dark, go to bed in the dark, scrape your car in the dark, walk the dog in the dark. you try to console yourself with the fact that last year you had adult snow days, but unless a polar vortex swoops down with record temperatures, it isn't happening, and all the people who died paid for your weekday cuddles.

the only silver lining is why it's harder. it's harder because you are giving up so much. giving up things you never had. a wonderful dog, grilling for two, singing on the beach, walks along the small inland lakes. maybe that's what to focus on. the fact that this only stings more because for once you have things to look forward to when the sun starts peeking out. when winter meant nothing but cold it was bad but it wasn't loss. you can't be sad with nothing to lose. you can't be sad with everything to lose.

it always seemed far away

when the present author was younger, i.e., an age range presently described by the word "teen," it was largely assumed that the trials and tribulations of an aging body started much later in life. afterall, athletes were in their 20s and 30s, so it stands to reason that the body aches and pains complained about by the present author's parents were something that were decades away. of course, it's easy to not realize that said athletes often wrap up entire limbs in ice and soak in hot tubs for hours after sporting events, but from all outside appearances, physical competence seemed to be something to look forward to for another 20-30 years.

alas, when pulled muscles, neck spasms, knee pain, and general malaise began setting in by the latish 20s, the present author - in talking with others the same age - realized this was truly, gratuitously faulty thinking, and that body pain really just sort of starts way earlier than it is commonly implied when one is told by parents "oh you are soooo young" when in your 20s.

of course, the desk jobs many of us inhabit - including the writer of this piece - likely contribute to the very pains said writer is complaining about. one might be ready to then suggest that doing more physical activity my render these pains a bit less severe. alas, given the present author badly pulled a back muscle this very morning, said activity will have to stay where it has for some time; as a passing thought, the perfect cycle of an inability to play sports anymore, because the present author now has an inability to play sports.

tyndale found nothing in this town

there was nothing. it was that simple. if you made it until 30 you wouldn't make it any longer. there was little to tie you down. maybe the horror of your family stumbling upon your body, if they did, maybe a sunset, who knows, but really, nothing to convince you to stay.

this town is littered with potential past graves. the parking ramp you were going to jump from. the train tracks you could have stepped on. the overpass you could have catapulted off. the lake you could have driven into. the garage you could have hung yourself in. the nightstand that held your razor blades.

there was nothing in this town besides that. no people you knew, no experiences to enjoy. you tossed yourself halfway around the world, tossed back a bottle of liquor and benzos, tossed back all the stress of work with the tobacco spit in your mouth that leaked out and made you want to tear every inch of carpet out of your room, all to try to escape, but it didn't do anything.

you never thought it'd be a person. maybe that was your folly. you used to dream about waking up and looking outside and seeing a palm tree. about walking in winter somewhere warm enough to be in a t-shirt, no longer caring about scars. you used to dream about chicago neighborhoods or paris charm or kuala lumpur hawkers. but dreams are just that, and the older you got the more they became taunts instead of goals. there is no charm in a bedroom that is filthy, in a life that has nothing to keep you here. everything becomes routine. no matter where it is.

you convinced yourself that the only mistake was staying. was keeping yourself here, holding onto to... something, anything.

maybe that's why you'd do anything to not lose her. maybe that's why at work, sitting at your desk, all you can do is think about her. maybe that's why you want so hard to be perfect for her, even though you know she doesn't require it at all. nothing in life ever made you want to live a life like she does, just to see her smile, hear her laugh, look at her dark brown eyes, cuddle on the couch and wonder why this guy is burning his dessert on the cooking show she is so good at coming up with recipes for. maybe that's why you tear up the few times you've fought. it's conflict, but it's conflict with her. and she's not the only thing keeping you alive in the sense that she is solely responsible for your safety, she's not someone who has to cradle your mental health, and your handle on things is the best its been in so many years, but for awhile the world was grey. the palm trees were grey. the neighborhoods - what few there are here - were grey. now nothing is grey. and no matter what, you always want to see this color. the nicest person you've ever met is spending her life with you. she is nobody's keeper, but she will always keep you with her.

the rule of writing

very few things in life are said to be permanent; the common refrain is "death and taxes" although even that is a misnomer given that there are no taxes when one is, well, dead. in that sense, impermanence, as often referred to on this blog in application to some sort of personal failings we all ascribe to, is the most consistent outcome. however, the present author would like to perhaps suggest a sort of permanent reality of existence, that, while like all things is not made duplicitous towards death, exists within the constant bounds of one's lifespan. it is commonly stated that writers eventually grow to the point where previous work they have created appears crude, simple, or poor. many have stated that reading things that they have written in many years past generate so much discomfort as to, in common internet parlance, be "cringe." this experience is not held just to writers, but is commonly described by other creative types, such as singers, songwriters, poets, painters, digital artists, and more.

the present author has found this remarkably true for previously written material, particularly that which construed attempts at writings during said author's late teens and early 20s. however, a series of remarkably mediocre writings from the mid 20s on had seemingly escaped this sort of self-critical critique, largely existing in a settled acceptance of "well, it's not at all good, but it's not completely terrible, and maybe with some tweaking it could be a little less not at all good." alas, the present author committed the cardinal sin of assuming time would not wield its sword, and, upon reading said works this morning, finally felt towards them what was previously felt towards earlier works. the stories that tempted edits and consideration and feelings of potential pride now read as hollow, rushed, pointless, and simplistic. given that said stories - which compromised the entirety of this morning's evaluation - were the last stories the present author ever wrote, and will likely be so, it goes without saying that, like all things, the present author goes out with not a bang, but a whimper, stories condemned to the only permanent fixation we happen to eventually settle on; death.

as usual

"Nothing amazing happens here. Everything is ordinary. The huge factory that can be seen from our town, the Medical Mechanica Plant, all the adults got excited when it came here, like it was really a big thing. The white steam that billows out every day at the same time, it looked to me like smoke that signified some kind of omen. Smoke that spreads out and covers everything."

I stepped outside on a warm summer night at around 10pm. The last vestiges of light were gone. A swampy humidity hit my nose and I was instantly transported to the tropics. In the darkness, you could almost imagine the drooping trees in front of the condo were the outskirts of a tropical rainforest.

"Or like a panda with a mean face, or like sandals with pressure points drawn on them, or the smell of a blackboard eraser, or a Sunday morning where you wake up and it's raining. Well, I like him more than hard bread."

There is something entirely electric about the air on nights like that. Everything feels more alive, like a pulse beating through the atmosphere. You feel like you could reach out and hold air and in a closed fist feel it breathing. The comfort and convenience of just stepping outside is not lost. No coat, no gloves, no hat, no adjustment to cold or wind or dryness. The fireflies that danced around my thighs as I walked through the grass lit up repeatedly, and a pang of jealously at areas of the world where this was permanent, year round, hit me.

"At the time, I didn't notice the sirens that were coming towards us. I don't know where the lies end and the truth begins. I asked myself what I could do for Mamimi. I decided to stay by her side forever."

The fireflies were even thicker a few weeks later in July. Endless days of 90 degree weather, the sun beating down on black pavement during the day, the swarms of bugs at night. How alive everyone feels contradicts how slow and hazy it feels too. It seems possible to lie on the grass beneath the sun forever, listening to music, eyes squinting, faced upwards, the endless blue seemingly starting to bend and waver and melt. It's probably a trick of the long daylight, sunlight from 6am to 9:30 pm makes each day feel like it could last forever.

"You're Puss in Boots, the one who tricks the prince. He hides who he really is and pretends to be someone else forever. So in time he becomes that person, so his lie becomes the truth, see? He transcends the mask. Well, don't you get it? That's how he finds happiness. That's pretty good, right?"

The first time I smelled tropical air it felt like home. I can not explain this. I remember as a kid stepping out of a plane in Florida at age 6, breathing it in, and realizing it smelled different. Every time since then, wherever the world has taken me, any time that smell hits me, I get nostalgic, or wistful. It feels almost like something I need, I have to have, that not breathing it will eventually kill me. On summer nights I think back to sitting outside a hostel in Hong Kong as the city woke up around me, from 4am to 6:30 am, hearing the gradual crescendo of traffic and construction, the sun slowly inching up over the trees and skyscrapers. I once looked up if it was possible to keep a palm tree alive in Michigan. I can't remember when I decided I had a favorite type of tree, only that as long as I have been aware, that has been it. I used to wonder if I could climb them and look down on a beach from their tops. When I was older, I wished I could say as gracefully as they did when I couldn't keep myself still.

"Nothing can happen till you swing the bat."

Years ago I'd drive throughout town in search of something. I was never sure what. There isn't so much to see. Nothing amazing happens here. After decades the roads and buildings have all become familiar. Still, something about the warm air and dusk colors - orange and pink and purple hues lightly brushing each and every puffy cloud - loud music, windows down, made me think that even the most mundane locales could hold some beauty. But it wasn't enough. I made a promise to myself that I'd leave this place. I made a promise to live somewhere where the neon lights and sounds of the city stretched forever, possibilities seemingly endless, where feeling cold and overburdened with layers of clothing never existed, where night drives and walks were just another day, any day, any time of year. I was 17 when I promised myself that.

"By the time I realized it, I had already swung the bat. My palms still sting. I wonder if Haruko feels like this all the time."

As soon as the sun and warmth and dusk and fireflies are here, I am reminded that they will soon be gone. It's a perpetual sadness, that to enjoy something is to be reminded of its impermanence. Everything can be dragged down by a melancholic realization that it to shall pass. In winter, I long for summer to come. In summer, I dread winter. I feel the tug towards something that will not last either way. A lot of people would say this is some sort of intrinsic human condition, former posts on this blog certainly would, but maybe such a generalized point is largely without significance.

"When you're in a town like this all covered with smoke, you forget that there's a world outside. Nothing amazing happens here. And you get used to that, used to a world where everything is ordinary. Every day we spend here is like a whole lifetime of dying slowly. But now Haruko is here. That's how I know there really is a world outside."

We drove around town at 10:35 pm on a night not unlike the one a few weeks ago, or a few years ago, or a few decades ago. It is all the same and yet entirely different. My hand traced tiny circles around her thigh as she shared a new band she was excited about with me. She remembered that I used to do this, I used to love it. At each stop light, the fireflies seemed to light our way. "Turn here" they suggested. The top of the hill overlooking downtown was at once beautiful and disappointing, a reminder that it's the same view I've had my whole life, like a city that could fit in the palm of my hand, one that wouldn't breathe, unlike the air around us.

"Nothing amazing happens here. Everything is ordinary. We crossed the bridge as usual, and before we knew it the seasons had changed. Mamimi left town. She said she wanted to be a photographer. I don’t know what happened to her after that."

The drive lasted forever and not at all, like a summer day. Our car rolled to a stop before the front door of our home as usual. I smiled at her. I never used to smile on these drives; there wasn't anyone to smile to, nobody to see, nothing but the emptiness of a car on a late night drive. We walked in and kissed and swayed back and forth. For a second, I was a palm tree, gracefully moving, side to side, slow and rhythmic. I still fear winter, I still fear being trapped in this city, the pull of convenience and cheapness and familiarity and work. But maybe that's not the point. The person looking for something on those late night drives no longer exists. Something amazing happened here.

senescence for the individual, immortality for the group

a commonly crude nomenclature wielded by a large percentage of the population - primarily online - is one in which a negative thing is often prescribed to be "cancer." given that this is both an inconsiderate phrase given that cancer actually exists as a terrible and painful experience, and that this phrasing is often applied to things like "the video game didn't give her massive tits because cancer" or "i lost this video game because the other player is using a character who is cancer," both of which dramatically oversell the negative outcome of such results, one would have to be daft to not assume that stated nomenclature is rendered largely both meaningless and bad (do not make the joke).

one finds that there is an equally likely portrayed value, that, while not a pithy, rude phrase, conveys a sense of a slow, immaterial march towards death. that is; an entire house of popular culture, from music, to self-help literature, to tv, and more, commonly prescribes the idea that one must be constantly working at all times. this 'hustle' as it were, is key to acquiring the requisite money and standing to survive in the modern world, and said hustle never truly can be allowed to end if one wants to succeed.

what these two seemingly disparate ideas or phrases have in common is a stretch the present author, in this hereto notably infelicitous post, will make via a haphazard rendering of the english language and a medical discovery from the year 1961. it seems reasonable to conclude that the idea of working in perpetuity, until one dies, is actually a distinctly bad thing. that to suggest that exhaustion is essentially the normal state we must occupy in order to exist might be something that society at large should endeavor to avoid. some unfortunate 19 year old dude online might suggest that such thing is 'cancer' which would, while continuing to exist as a rather unfortunate and crude use of the term, be, at least in this case, nominally accurate.

of course, all of this is dramatically and fearfully destitute if the interpretation is not nominally accurate, but instead entirely accurate. given that cancer cells are the only human cells that avoid the hayflick limit, and that said societal value does end with an individual's death (after working nonstop), one might surmise then that the idea of working constantly will, like the immortal cells of cancer that are able to replicate forever, outlive the individual humans subject to said value; all of the latter eventually rendered obsolete, telomerase shortened, existence lost to senescence.

the fall before the pride

it was always the same growing up. maybe never overt, but there. a sort of boot-strap your way through life, never brag, never boast. no joy in who you are. it fit, in a way. you were without church but your parents were raised in very religious households, perhaps if they couldn't impart the gospel onto you at least they could impart other values. pride is a sin. in school your friends would brag during basketball games, you won thunder and lightning against the entire 6th grade once and in a game went off for over 20 points. one day at soccer practice josh told you were the best player on the team far and away.  you shrugged and thanked him sheepishly. it was just what it was. it was to be expected. you had to be good, perfect, beyond perfect, so why brag about what is expected? bragging was rude, callous, made others aware of what they were not or did not have. you remember the money that flowed into your hands for graduating high school, and your friend asked you what you thought, and you said you didn't deserve it for doing what was supposed to be done, and he agreed, he felt the same. you knew that carrots worked better than sticks, this was well backed by decades of research, but neither felt appropriate. you just were, and you shouldn't need a reward to be so. years later you'd try to square this with your politics. you still can't.

there is no pride to be had in who you are. certainly not in where you are born, nationalism a constantly absurd concept, you did not choose your home country from a video game drop down menu before you were spit out. you chose no traits, no characteristics besides what you chose over the course of your life, and choosing the right ones was just that - choosing the right ones, doing the right thing, and isn't that reward enough?

but maybe you went too far. you yearned internally for the clothes you wanted, the classes you wanted, a sense of desire, of acceptance, of someone, anyone to like you and the choices you made, to recognize it. you wanted a publication credit, a slip that said you graduated, something you could hang your hat on, and even if nobody saw it, perhaps that was for the best.

but it all fit. the lack of pride fit your parents, fit your privileged class, fit everything, and so it was the only path. you were whatever someone else needed you to be. when your friends carpooled throughout college and you always drove, you never asked for gas money. you mapped out the destinations and didn't even tell them you had, you put liquor bottles away while they slept, it was the right thing to do, and in their comfort, you found comfort as well, and that was fine. nothing you do should be broadcast, should be told to others, it should just exist, like you, quiet and studious, doing the right thing. pride is a sin.

in the years since, you have wriggled and compromised, or maybe grown, it's all postmodern anyways. the clothes you wear are your own now, the music you listen to your own, the books you read your own. you still want no credit for what is necessary, because everything is necessary at all times.

and so you found yourself in line under rainbow balloons on a warm, sunny summer day, wearing a rainbow tanktop and jeggings and looking all the world like you and your group belonged. and you guess that was always the hard part. belonging. you never belonged at the lunch table you sat at in high school, it was a necessity but you didn't relate to those who trade insults. you didn't belong at the job, at the house with your parents, you felt constantly subverted and shrunk yourself to fit. but there, in the park, it all was. people wearing anything, celebrating themselves, protesting against a system designed for thousands of years to kill them, and still to this day doing so. american flags decorated against rainbow flags, as if the contradiction wasn't obvious. you felt excited about who you were, pins and stickers and clothing that you struggled to wear up until the last year. you walked amongst a crowd that felt like in any other occasion could drown you and never felt unsafe. maybe it was the company. maybe it was the atmosphere. maybe you are still wriggling and growing a bit. maybe you just want to be liked.

but the internal dialogue remains. here are people that deserve their pride, their protest, their life. what do you deserve? you haven't received a raise in years, you haven't changed the world, you haven't graduated, you haven't been perfect. you can't will yourself to be proud, you can't will yourself a feeling that has repulsed you for so long, so you enjoy the moment and try to accept who you are, at the very least, because you have finally found those who have. with your wife, with your friends, in that crowd, who you were was good enough. the next morning, you tried not to look in the mirror and hate your body again, like always, tried not to look at your lack of accomplishments.

after your shower you noticed your pan sticker still on your shirt in a crumpled up pile of dirty laundry. the wristband hugs your wrist throughout the day as a reminder that maybe in an alternate timeline, some version of you who likes being you and wears it like a badge of honor exists, but you can't get over the feeling that it is undeserved. you admonish yourself for not cleaning as you sit on the couch reading something you could never write. this is who you are, and that is ok, and it doesn't need to exist for the world to see. nobody ever told you explicitly, but everybody always did; pride is a sin.

clean

you remember being called back to the bathroom because the sink wasn't quite clean enough. a spot of grime underneath and along the edge where the faucet met the hard counter managed to escape the futile digging of your fingernail-less attempts to dig it out, you had picked the keratin out every day since you were 5 or 6 years old. you'd joke that your fingernails are never dirty because they don't exist, peeled back to disfigured shrapnel. on weekends when you went away, you'd expect to come back to a room your mom had gone through and cleaned, prying open nightstand drawers and going through shelves. many an embarrassing grade was found this way by her. it was all under the guise of making sure your room - which wasn't your room, really, it was still your parents - was clean. when your 6th grade teacher opened up your classroom desk to show your parents during conferences that it was too messy you were driven to school early the next day so you could clean it, you didn't want to lose an assignment or forget to bring home a graded paper you got for your parents to determine if the grade was good enough (if it wasn't an A, it wasn't), at least that's what they told you about it when they told you it was too messy. jenny two desks over had a moldy burger in hers. the teachers didn't care about her though, neither did her parents, so there was nothing to clean. you'd be sad about this when you reflected on it later. clean is a state of class. in high school your mom would reach across and pop a pimple or fix your hair so your appearance was clean, unasked for physical contact your body naturally reacted to by drawing away physically, wondering if seeing her son pull away every time she reached out hurt her.

as you got older you wondered if it was about actually cleanliness, or perhaps it was really about control. the basement office at home your mom asked you to help organize had a betamax porn video in it your parents didn't 'clean' out, the used car you bought from them had an erotic CD in the glove compartment they didn't 'clean' out. the house of theirs is still pristine largely but then your mom sees the state of your car one day and asks if she can help clean it, if she can pay for someone to clean it, please, anything, it's too messy. either it is a judgement on you or an attempt to control the space you still occupy, who knows. as a kid you had a weekly schedule for when to clean the bathrooms at home, when to vacuum, it seemed like any other household chore setup but you suppose every house is different, you have yet to have had a single friend whose place is as clean as the space you occupied as a kid.

she still tries. cars, desks, she offers to come to your place where you live with your wife and clean it, she promises no judgements but you know that has never been true. every year she calls her mom and she comes down and they clean together, an entire house, organized and managed and tidy. like mother like daughter. your current place is full of post-wedding stuff and it is cluttered and you know the words that would escape her mouth walking through the door would be caustic and judgmental.

when you moved into your first place years ago you let your bedroom become a disaster. depression-aided apathy gave way to a carpet completely covered in trash and laundry and alcohol and tobacco stains, not a single speck of carpet showing. over seventy trash bags and two and a half weeks later one spring it was done. you surveyed the room before you. you were content with the state of it. your mom never would be. maybe the metaphor was there the whole time.

the thoughts are gone

The thoughts are gone. It went in waves, of course, like many things - a gradual decline. You stopped writing fiction, and then you stopped writing blog posts, and then you stopped writing emails, and then you ceased to be the one thing you always wanted to be. Many a post in this blog have alluded to giving up on what one might want or desire over the course of existence. Perhaps it's for the best.

There is no conditional "perhaps" in front of the best that previously happened. Through all the tumult and stress and foot stomping and regrets and critiques, your wife stood there in her dress and smiled and you smiled and a weird calmness - about singing in front of a crowd, speaking in front of a crowd, a permanence you for years derided as silly or even stupid - washed over you. There was a rightness here, like the rightness you feel when exploring the streets of Kuala Lumpur, tropical heat and palm trees and rotten durian all assaulting you, of watching a sunset from Darwin beaches, perfect colors splashed across a clear, warm sky, of drinks at a dive bar in Vietnam, company louder - just barely - than the 6 month old billboard hits, but this time it was about a person, not a place, not a time. Or maybe it was a time, a forever stretched out into the very horizon you sat and meditated on from as many corners of the world as possible. A person forever, not setting and rising but there embedded into you like the heart she has tattooed on her wrist. The passport has been unstamped since 2016.

There is a pursuit, at times, of so many things that it is hard to figure out what they are. A pursuit of reading and writing more, a pursuit of video games, a pursuit of travel. It's easy to dwell on the nil here, but harder to spend time with a brief reward. Two classes aced, a life partner, a sense of self that might come and go but at least is no longer the transparent it once permanently was. You sit and painfully watch the clock wishing the night with her wasn't about to end, when in the past, you just wanted it to end, to fall asleep, to never wake up. Now you want it to stretch on for eternity, cuddled up on the couch, laughing all of life's anxieties away. Still there is more around the corner. The counter says two blog posts in two months, one of them not even yours. The book sits next to the bed folded on its spine still somewhere where you left off. Your friends talk about a game in ways you barely understand anymore.

So many references dangle in and out of earshot, quotes, in-jokes, a sort of language owned only by the most select people, you revel in what it means. For so long your language was global, only shrouded in niche internet references insomuch as the internet can be niche, now you have a network of one where language is your own creation, your own household. It feels weird and new and exciting. You and your wife can speak a version of English only you understand. An actual love language. It's weird to think millions more exist.

You still have no idea where any of this leads. All seemed impossible. You knew being a writer was impossible years ago. You knew moving to southeast Asia was impossible years ago. You knew being married was impossible years ago. You knew singing in front of a crowd was impossible years ago. Who knows what you'll think is impossible tomorrow? The counter for May ticks to two. In three days June will read 0. It's easy to focus on the nil.

goodness/you in this light

How do you measure goodness?

On the fridge, a bag of very, very tiny measuring spoons hang in a plastic bag pinned against the chalky white texture of the door via a circular magnet. The spoons are so small that they look like straws. Even smaller. It's a wonder how such a thing could hold or carry anything.

How do you measure goodness?

Worth is innately tied to our work. If you don't work, you aren't deserving. This is a mantra, the mantra, what we are couched in from day one. Help those who will help themselves. How can someone love you if you don't love yourself. It absolves us of all collective badness. You are your own person. This community is not mine.

How do you measure goodness?

Find someone you trust and, as a social experiment someday, ask them to define "work." In my experience, you will soon have someone tripping over their own conditional statements. Work is often the job, that is the first start, it's what we have to do to survive. Most people will start to expand - housework is work (with many caveats, usually from men), but before you know it, there becomes a breakdown. Homework is necessary, not work. It is not "labor hours." But then labor hours are just our job, and our house, our hygiene, these are not our job in a strict sense, but they can be. You can get turned away from a job interview because your clothes are too wrinkled, your hair not combed, your fingernails dirty. And before you know it, the common argument - the common attempt to define work -- breaks down. Writing is work if it's for your job, if you receive money for it, but outside of work? It is a hobby. It is a creative outlet. The nature of the work is not changed in any material way. Housework isn't real work. Homework isn't real work. Flossing your teeth every day isn't real work. Before you know it, the stay at home mom doesn't do any work. She has no goodness. She is not worthy.

How do you measure goodness?

A man comes out of a haircut with a new hairdresser drenched in sweat and nervous to have suggested a change. For years it was the same haircut, at the same person, disappointed each time with the results but knowing that hair would grow back. The new haircut was better. There are changes, ideas, but the man felt better coming out, minus the shirt now feeling like it had been dipped in a tub. Discomfort revisited and overcome. The only reason he went was because his fiancée was there with him, a guide, a comfort in a sphere considered so anxious the man would have not done it without her. Some light. It was such a small thing made big by anxiety, by fears, by a brain sometimes out of control, careening down the tracks. Someone was there to help it along.

How do you measure goodness?

Most billionaires have given money to charity, many of them large amount. As a percentage of their wealth though, they give very little. And as they run roughshed over the environment and labor, people debate if they have bought enough credit to do so. The donations pay for the badness. The capital revenues are work, so they are worthy. Work has been defined. Goodness has been measured in dollars. The stay at home mom is not worthy, again.

How do you measure goodness?

My parents defined goodness as a 4.0 with no exceptions, as good performance in sports with no exceptions. Anything less was badness, was a flaw needing to be yelled out, scrubbed out, like the cleanliness we were coached on from day one of our existence as kids (me and my sister). We were a simulacrum, or an attempt at one. Because it all made sense, we've all heard it. Good grades, good job, now worthy. Goodness attained.

How do you measure goodness?

We can't define work, we can't define worth, we can't measure goodness. The spoons are too small for me to handle. Try as I might, the powder escapes. Try as I might, I can't estimate the creek in the park. Try as I might, I can't measure the time I have spent measuring the time I have spent. We know bad when we see it, we toss and turn over consumption and friendship. Goodbye to John, he dropped the n word. Goodbye to Chris, he was a bully.

How do you measure goodness?

There is very little I, personally, have contributed to this world. I have not, alas, made a billion dollar donation, canvassed for people's rights, or dedicated my entire life to the soul pursuit of ethical goodness after I lost 3 years of sleep over agonizing about a friend's tacky boots.

How do you measure goodness?

Perhaps I fit inside the spoon. Perhaps the people who try their hardest to be there for me are the goodness, and that's all I can offer myself. Perhaps that's good enough, for me, for them, for all of us. Perhaps it's not. In the time you were reading this, someone overdosed and died. Someone died in a war. What goodness was available is now lost.

How do you measure goodness?

I skim this post and roll my eyes, mostly. I'm not fond of much of my writing, but this feels, unambiguously, like my high school self in a way. Vacuous and poorly formed. Not enough distance, not enough deference to elaborate sentence schemes and self-deprecation. Nothing really intelligent or revelatory or noteworthy. Killer Mike said prepare to be average. Can that be measured? It is my first post in over a month. I can not measure any goodness here. Just a void.

How do you measure goodness?

The spoons hang still on the fridge. A small webpage on a college website updates my total accumulated credit hours by 4. A check arrives in the mail connotating a reimbursement of taxes paid. The worth is unambiguous. I have no idea what it means.

-End 

Guest Post

This post is a guest post from my soon to be wife because I refused to write a blog post and instead made dinner.

Our relationship with food is tenuous, it sustains us but ultimately distracts us. Right now there is hemming and hawing over the fact that food is necessary. The kitchen harbors a pacing man, listing the ingredients to a dish we will never finish. He hums along to hozier, he pulls the asparagus from a vase- in short, he is distracting himself, distancing himself from some further notion. He would love for this to be a simple night, a restful night. He would love for this to be a productive night. He cannot decide, and decides not to decide. He wishes there were someone else to make this decision. He won't accept the decision when it comes.

Days are like meals- overfull, necessary, and tedious. We drizzle them in fat, oil, sugar, and heat, we watch them sear, applaud ourselves the little victories. We still fall asleep, overfull, overworked, overtired. We still fall, hunger full of empty notions.

The cabinets are slamming, falling against the cheap 70's style grain. The drawers are shifting, the water running. We are all noise, no sight. We are all days, no nights.

break or broken

the best writing you ever did was after taking a multiyear break. no blogging, no fiction, nothing. you came back with ideas and motivation and in 2 years punched out dozens of stories and hundreds of blog posts.

your mind tells you it was a waste. time in your 20s, wasted. the writing isn't good enough, doesn't matter, anyways. no stories published, blog posts old and forgotten, some deleted out of poor quality or revealing info, who knows.

you squint and realize you haven't written fiction in years. you dream of a scifi novel, or even a melancholy short story. your blog is its quietest in 4 years. a break was good last time. but now you're 30. everything decays now. life is busier now. you're not getting better, not learning, so why not keep trying. write nothing, force ideas, stare at a screen. was the break important? was the writing even better when you came back? do you tell yourself that to justify abandoning your lifelong dream? you wrote before about how it's best to abandon it when you're young and won't be disappointed that it doesn't come true later on. you're still drawn to the screen, the black text on white background, the idea that maybe today it'll be different. it never is.

all at once/make it last

it's not uncommon to hear someone grapple with the difficulty of wanting to eat a good meal all at once, to completely entirely indulge, and yet want to draw it out and make it last. both have cons intrinsic to food; eating too fast is a quick route to physical discomfort, while at a certain point, too slow can cause the quality to degrade say, via, a cooling temperature or slow change in texture from when something first hits the plate. 

this is just food though, and while it's the most common application of said conundrum, it is far from the only. there's a desire to have everything and nothing, all at once and make it last. to live an entire life with the person you love right here and now, have it all and feel it all and taste it all, and yet a desire to drag it out, to not blast off this rocky vestibule and into the vast nothingness of death. and it's not even entirely something so profound. it presents itself in slightly different ways and different sectors but with the same sort of conundrum. the tears shed by emma on her last day at the high school newspaper were similar; a sense of finality, closing, the end of one stop when all she would talk about was how excited she was about college, and then it was here, it was now, and she was crushed. we talk about plowing through college to avoid debt and time and study and homework and yet the end feels like an impenetrable, unknowable object, waiting with just another cycle of future excitement and sad closing. we want it all at once; the degree, the knowledge, the experiences, the nervous makeouts, and none of it all at once, the closure, the ending, the job. we want the taste but not the bloating, the sunsets but not the chores, the love and warmth but not the separation caused by the likes of work or family. maybe that's the difficulty. it's not whether we eat the meal all at once or overtime. it's that every option comes with a tradeoff we don't want, a repercussion we wish to trade in for something else. and as you get older, more and more of these become a personal choice you have control over, and not a parent, or teacher, or peer. maybe we're all stuck staring down at the plate not having made up our minds. what would you like for dinner? i don't know.

1 year is 3 decades

there's no way to put anything other than the end as the end. there are no postscripts or epilogues that can continue ad infinitum. there is always a last word, a last period, a last page.

for almost 30 years each day that was supposed to celebrate a beginning felt a little bit more like celebrating an end. and it wasn't a good end. it wasn't a heartwarming conclusion where someone walks off into the sunset, or vanquishes the enemy, or learns, laughs, loves. it was just an end to nothing. a tiny, barely luminescent flame finally extinguished.

but i suppose, like all things, environments can change. what for 20-odd years was one story was replaced by another. a new narrative, a new cover, a new ending. the ending isn't soon now, it's  not a cold, grey sunday in february of 2019. but that's where it began. it wasn't a sunday, but it was cold, and it was grey, and that didn't matter. maybe it never did.

she told me that i wasn't turning 30. that i was really only one. that what had happened was a life i no longer lived, a person i slowly shed. and she was right. i was so fixated on the story being the same, on the end being plotted out in outlines and notes and mental constructions, that i didn't realize maybe it could change, maybe there would be an epilogue, maybe the epilogue would be longer than the story, maybe there was a sequel, maybe there was just more, more, more.

because someone cares now. and maybe i don't, fully, maybe i will never quite view my body as a sanctuary, or temple, or something to protect and cherish. but someone else does. and as she whisked you away from place to place, feeling to feeling, smile to smile, on a day i knew, knew, knew would be my last, no intrusive thoughts entered. just the warm water on my skin of a swimming pool, the sound of my favorite musical, the taste of her lips on mine, and her smile, so bright it showed the rest of the story for me, lighting the way, piercing whatever grey nightmare a michigan winter had thrust on us.

the things you didn't carry

it hit me while driving to work this morning on a friday. it's hit me before, i suppose, but it's surprising every single time. mornings before work were usually sad. i'd drive to elvis depressedly or sufjan stevens or waxahatchee or flatsound or teen suicide or normal state and mope and stare ahead at the blank canvas of a flat landscape dotted either by grey winter clouds or grey crumbling roads, and that would be my morning. and then my evening would be the same. leave work, drive, sad music, home, sad music, white carpet now grey from dust and so many spilled drinks i cant keep track. grey grey grey. everything.

i drove to work today happy. i listened to happy music, i smiled at one point. i've had mornings like this before, but in the last year they've become more common. they used to be relegated to days leading up to trips to far away locasles. now they're relegated to days. the evening before was wonderful, the weekend ahead will be wonderful, and the things i carry on my shoulders seem a bit lighter for once, less suffocating, less heavy. i drive to work with eyes focused not on the grey right in front of me of another cold, snowy day, but on the time when i will be done with work, on the time when i see her, on the time when we can hug and laugh and share in each other's lives. i don't really know this feeling, it feels like i am shedding 20 years of not having it. it's relearning a bike i did actually forget how to ride. it's relearning me, relearning life. i sang the last few lines to a song that played as i pulled into the parking lot at work. the falsetto i can't reach with my limited range spewed "you're stuck in my mind, all the time." nothing truer has been said.

excerpt like a promethean curse

a small chalkboard stand at work is, belatedly most times, adorned with a supposed 'inspirational' quote or idiom weekly. this blog has, at times, taken idioms and deconstructed them in purposely obtuse ways so as to have a pseudo-ironic, deprecatory posts. the stated goal, then, of each elucidation is different; the former, to inspire achievement - the latter, to inspire a sort of perfunctory chuckle or reflection on the silliness of the english language. in the end, however, both the black chalkboard and the white background result in the same foregone conclusion; nobody reads either, nobody is inspired by either, and all continue their slow march towards death.

promptly

one finds that there exists a whole host of communities dedicated to prompting writing by offering, free of charge, short sentences or paragraphs designed to then motivate a continuation of said sentence or paragraph, so as to then be a sort of sparkplug for a written piece of work. such prompts are often silly and absurd and designed not to necessarily invoke the next great novel, but instead get the so-called creative juices going. given, however, most, if not all, prompts routinely deal in the realm of fiction writing, and not, say, trite, poorly irreverent blogging, it stands to reason that nobody finds sparking the kind of writing that exists in this blog as worthy of anyone's time. what that means for the reader who maintains consumption of hereto blog, is, of course, even more despondent.

you found someone who found you

if your body is a temple or a home or a vehicle or or or… does anyone know? you never treated your body as anything more than a hindrance, a casually exploited vessel that held so many of your insecurities. you never found yourself. your friends would dye their hair or pick their own clothes or get a cool new haircut and all you've known is ridicule. almost 30 and still your mom criticizes your hair, your stomach, your clothes, every single facet of your body is her's to pass judgement on and always has been. your friends would do the same, the clothes you didn't pick out lambasted and your paltry, scrawny, young looking frame a target verbally and physically. lately you found someone you found yourself with. you feel like you can do the things to the temple you never have. your color is different, you try things, some might not work but the learning has to occur. you show her clothes you try on and it's hard and anxiety inducing at first when you see someone else besides her standing there, but you know that she is not your mother, not waiting for a chance to pounce at something not looking good enough - to her you will always look good enough.  it took someone else to make you feel like you had command over yourself. might sound just like a guy, sound like a romcom, sound like a cliché, sound like a weakness, sound like a subplot, sound like growth, what other people think it is doesn't matter. just like what you do to the temple. it's a gift you will never look back upon.

ny/ny (new year new you)

you know it wasn't like, a really long streak or anything, but for several new years there you combined xanax and alcohol until you collapsed onto your bed and that was it. your last new years you didn't and that was good, and then this one you didn't either (there were other things). you were very happy this time. happy when midnight hit, happy in the leadup to it, happy all the next day, happy about a 2019 that you thought could build on 2018. you used to not make resolutions because you knew you'd fail. now you're smarter. it isn't even about whether you 'fail' or not. you are here and you are home and you are in love. resolutions are just another possibility.