she is always there

she is always there. she is there when you leave work at 5, parked next to your slowly breaking down 2003 camry, getting out of her car to hand you some lemon bars and chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, because she misses you. she is there outside your condo with tomato plants earlier in the summer. she is there on the phone asking you for a christmas list, so she can get you gifts that remind you that she is always there. 

she is in your first grade classroom, pulling all the work you were turning in to your teacher out of the dropbox to look over it and make sure it was good enough. she is in 5th grade going through the homework you're going to turn in the next day to make sure it's perfect. she is there in your high school, roaming the halls in front of your classmates, going to each teacher to talk about your grades, your friends deriving an incredible source of humiliating language aimed at you from it. 

the first day of your first job out of college she is always there, sitting next to your desk for two weeks straight. after the work day was over, she'd be there at home to eat dinner with, to say goodnight to. she is there the first day of your first job ever, ordering a bacon egg and cheese biscuit. some days she is there three times, your eight hour shift broken up by three stops through the drive thru as she orders something different each time. 

she is always there except for the very few times she is not. at age 3 you are left at home for an hour or two (it was only supposed to be 15 minutes), just lying on the floor reading dr seuss. she doesn't get home until 5 at the earliest, sometimes 6, sometimes 7, and the later it is the more you can actually watch the few tv shows you want to watch. she is gone sometimes on sundays to show houses and you can actually bust your toys out and let your imagination run wild, as long as it's all put away by the time she is there. she isn't there when you finally, for the first time, open up that you are being bullied. neither parent is there. they don't need to be there for that. there are more important things to attend to.

she is there when she is "supposed" to be. she's there at every sporting event, band performance, graduation ceremony. she only forgets you at school once, and is only late 100 times. she is there in the basement to make sure you are working out in 7th grade so that you can get better at sports. she is there when she measures the circumference of your biceps to see if you are making progress.

she is there in your counseling sessions she works to sign you up for in high school because your grades are dropping and clearly that means she needs to be there even more. she sits there and you clam up, unable to open up to the counselor. she's there again with your counselor in adulthood, your dad and her taking you there in the blizzard of a saturday after you dropped out of school again, her sitting in the room animated while your father sits there silently. she is there driving you to your counselor every week for the first couple years until she seems content that you are actually going to your session. 

you go to australia when you are 17 and she is only there once, on the phone, in a 24 day period. you have the time of your life. she makes sure the next time you travel she tells you she has to be there once a day, time zones be damned, as if the time of your life has to be contorted and manipulated and reduced to something she can hold, until it's not even the time of your life, but of hers. you tear up writing this paragraph at the realization.

she is there even when she is not. when you're driving around town, in every vehicle that looks remotely similar to hers, your heart skipping as you know she'd be watching every move you make on the road, judging your competency. in high school she is calling your friend's houses at random times when you go over to remind you she could be there, and you should be.

she doesn't need to squeeze you tight to make it feel like you are being choked. her presence leaves you with constant claustrophobia, and when she is gone it doesn't relent. she has trained you to know she is behind your shoulder, in the car in the next lane over, on the phone, outside your classroom. she is always watching. you didn't have time for church growing up, but you got your dose of omnipotence. you would lie awake at night in fear wondering where she would be next. your computer? your nightstand? your backpack? your private writing? she is always there. and so you dream of getting so far away she couldn't possibly be. so many thousands of miles that there is no way she could be anywhere near you. and then you think about how'd you'd have to come home for days and days and days at a time for holidays, because she is always there.

predation, chinaware, and buddha

in 1st grade the present author was compelled by the teacher to write a fiction story. you see, the class at the time was going over the full timeline of species on planet earth, from dawn of life to human, covering everything from trilobites to carpet mites. the teacher, with somewhat notoriously difficult handwriting, had a note on the board about a specific period known for an abundance of "predatory fishes." the present author's classmate raised a hand, and, given the messiness of said handwriting, inquired about clarification on the two word phrase; asking, somewhat hesitantly, if it said "predatory dishes." the teacher chuckled, said "i can see why you'd ask that, the 'f' looks like a 'd'" and proceeded to rewrite the word to make it clearer. he then turned back to said classmate and told him he should write a story about predatory dishes, as it would be funny, and that he should ask for my help writing it, out of some misplaced notion that i was good at writing stories (this blog post, while not a fictional story, offering easily one of the greatest arguments against said claim). we wrote a story about dishes with extremely sharp, canine teeth, pointy silverware, and perpetual grins, running around trying to chop people up and eat them.

that teacher would end up teaching history in college, but at that specific time, he might have been teaching the future. for you see, the present author has spoken often, although not in some time, of one of the most simplistic renditions of an important piece of buddhist thought. that is, we exist is a cycle of eternal suffering until we shed desire. that until we do so, unending birth and death continue unabated, filled with pain. and perhaps no other activity quite accurately portrays this cycle as the kitchen on a thursday night. imagine, if you will, stepping into a dirty kitchen before thursday night dinner, and having to embark on a long session of "cleaning dishes." imagine, now, that those dishes, once cleaned, are immediately used to cook and plate the dinner you will fix. finally, once consumption is concluded, said dishes must now be cleaned again.

one could extend this out to an extremely varied host of activities, from waking up, going to work, and coming home, to any broad scale repetition. but expanding the scope out far enough on anything renders the specific analysis pretty meaningless. ergo, the present author must conclude that washing dishes encompasses the four noble truths better than anything else. suffering is true, and it is caused by a perpetually full sink. to end the suffering? just end the desire in having clean dishes, and invest in a large stack of disposable Chinet. not only does it save on having to clean, but truly; how sharp can the teeth of predatory dishes made of recycled paper really be?

the walls are closing in

when i was in 3rd grade our class went over to the local ymca (it was 2 blocks away from our school) every tuesday and thursday for swimming lessons. a game we used to play was where me and my friends would hold our arms out, and slowly close them together as we walked across a street, or across the field we would go through, or across a bunch of sidewalk squares, whatever. if our hands touched together before we did so, we were squashed, either by lava walls, poop walls (i mean we were like 8-9 years old), you get the picture. often we'd be seen hurrying up our last few steps to escape our own demise. it did not matter to us that we were in control of our own walls, each of us playing a version of the game where we were our own judge, jury, and executioner, parameters fully in our control. suffice to say, i don't think any of us every were "crushed." our hands never came together until we just made our goal, perpetually safe.

i don't know what made that exciting back then, because as i got older, i think it's fair to say those very walls - well, not the poop ones - were one of my greatest fears. the walls were closing in on me when i was failing out of university, so i decided that perhaps the best way to avoid it all was to just end it all and let the walls swallow me up. 

the walls are back again, in a way i never thought they would be. i write to you from a country whose leadership has decided that the walls are good for us. that if we all get smashed into the shit we will be better for it, or that dying in it is ok if it kills the right people. there is no matter of control over these though. every single day the inevitability of a deadly virus striking me, my loved ones, my friends and family draws nearer. i can only do so much to push the walls off.

those same walls trap me here. i don't take my privilege of having seen most of the country and a decent chunk of the world lightly, but now i am truly trapped. nobody wants me, us, the people who live here. we have been walled off from the rest of the world because of our insistence on letting the walls do so.

i wrote a while back i would never write anything political on this blog, for i had nothing valuable to contribute, and that remains true, but i find myself drifting to writing about these walls. some, realistically, 250,000 people here have been crushed by them. and they continue to bind and squeeze and grind away. one day they will likely get to me. i only hope i can climb over them enough to get out. that i will not be crushed by them like so many others. it is entirely out of my control. there are no hands to bring together or pull apart.

find:replace

oscar wilde might have once said "the bureaucracy is expanding, to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy." given that most of his life took place in the gilded age, and the last 150 years of economic trajectory, the present author contends that the more apt quote would have been "the capital is expanding, to meet the needs of the expanding capital." jeff bezos' net worth jumped $13 billion in a single day. no bureaucracy could ever even dream to expand like that.

what we owe each other when we owe each other the entire world

at the end of The Good Place, the main characters effectively make the choice that what they owe each other in their time of relative immortality is suicide. within the bounds of a limited lifespan their suicide does not reside - as they could choose to exist forever - but within the bounds of all the things we do as humans; eat, laugh, sleep, love, read, etc., it does still reside. it is a suggestion that in many ways runs counter to both what the show has long suggested, and what the book they so heavily display, What We Owe to Each Other by T.M. Scanlon, suggests. and if you're willing to go really meta and include that the characters of a fictional show owe to the audience what they owe each other in the context of the show - after all, fictional characters don't feel emotions, but actors and viewers do - then the argument breaks down more completely. for the record, it is an entirely good show otherwise.

two days before lockdown i walked into a Target store at 9am. the shelves had been picked over. i kept my distance from the patrons, none in masks, as at the time we didn't have any consideration towards wearing them really, all eyeing each other like we were going to pounce, as if the unknowable was worse than the knowable, as if any sudden movement might catapult a biological weapon upon their bodies. back then we feared touching things others had touched. we now know the virus has been entirely worse than we could have ever imagined, ravaging a country that has consistently, repeatedly blown by worst case scenarios. the suspicion is gone when i go in the store now. people crowd for meat and produce. what we know now can't hurt us. it makes sense, in retrospect. this is a country whose social niceties are built on some assumed, unknowable providence affecting only those whose skin is darker, whose taste in intimacy is a little different. there lies the fear. they are something we can't understand. they will hurt. but the things we do know about other people? well, he's not 'a racist,' he's not 'a sexist,' he's my neighbor. he's a nice guy.

the first time i went to Meijer i watched as a patron walked out, a single item in his hands as he passed through the front door. his body a potential vessel, all for an 8 dollar pack of beer. i watched as another patron picked up a makeup kit, turned it over, looked at it, and put it back, then grabbed another, and repeated the ritual. i thought about how we owe each other the end of such rituals, the end of quick trips, of potentially sickening my wife for some flowers, some beer, some snacks. of the employees who worked their, of those who still had to shop with the kinds of things that make this virus much more dangerous. the justification of everything we did was suddenly fed through a much more stringent and demanding system. do you really need this? don't we owe each other not going out? i thought of all the times i didn't even realize i probably did something that some health expert would grimace at. i approached life with the kind of mindset of trying to be conscientious of everything, on guard of everything, prepared for anything. "that is exhausting," some might say, but in a way it almost came easy to me. it is already my own ritual, thanks to perpetual anxiety and self-doubt. i was asked less of than most anyone else.

i think about how often i washed my hands before all this; easily 15+ times a day, and how that has only increased. i think about my germaphobe mother and my decent memory allowing me to track all places i touched before i washed my hands when i would come back with takeout in the days of lockdown; the doorknob, the fridge handle, the faucet handle, the phone, the wallet, the keys. it could all be wiped down. unlike the makeup kit. then a month into it, the cdc revised their data and suggested transmission via surfaces is very difficult.

there has been no attempt at any philosophical cohesion or kindness from authorities, of course. it was to be expected. at no point has anyone in charge spent a single second lingering on the thought of what they owe the 335 million lives they are in charge of. no book, from scanlon to stephenie meyer to r.l. stein has ever been picked up to perhaps inspire some sort of morality in them. their existence lies entirely in a realm that they get to define, free from any responsibility to others. the justification is whatever they want it to be; its flexibility (trump, et al) bends contractualism to a point where it is almost meaningless. yes, they are seeking to justify themselves, but how they do so, or the ways in which they do so, are so selfishly anarchic that there is no reasonable response or summation to take from it. they simply justify to exist. and to say that is justification just boils down this whole thing to a circular argument to end all circular arguments. its justification is itself. it is really contractarianism; an attempt to simply justify to get what they want, a strategic blunder into selfish narcissism and cruelty, honed by years of wielding it. kant would cry, perhaps. rawls is left even worse off; at no point do they consider themselves to possibly be anyone else.

that is also us. 60+ years ago the first evidence of global warming came to light. massive, unendingly powerful corporations and political parties have done their part to cover it up, hide it, insinuate its dishonesty. if there's one thing i know, it's that we are all relatively powerless in the face of massive institutions, whether when combating a pandemic, climate change, or just the day-to-day grind of life. and yet i sit at a traffic light surrounded on all sides by pickup trucks and wonder if maybe america's complete lack of shared sacrifice and community has made this worse, institutions or not. i wonder if we are all contractarianists, justifying our consumption, our travel, our habits simply as a matter of existence, pushing a terrible externality off into a future we can't really grasp, willing to destroy a planet not just our kids will inherit, but that we are inheriting right this second, every second.

i think of what that means. the sheer weight of probability, of safety, of moral goodness, seems as if it would crush any soul. should i put a mask on in a drive through? i make sure to turn my head towards the interior of my car when i say thank you, so that i never talk to the worker. but then do they not hear me? am i rude? does that even matter right now? before covid it seemed that drug overdoses and suicide and other deaths of despair having a seemingly exponential increase was already entirely impossible for any single person to comprehend or seek to help. now we have... this. maybe there is too much to ask of us all. i guess i am lucky, still. imagine waking up in 1940 and wondering; what if Germany actually wins? imagine waking up in 1918, in the midst of a global war and pandemic. imagine waking up during the bubonic plague, or when pol pot's troops came knocking, or genghis khan's, or european colonizers, or, or, or. we wake up now, though, with a planet on the precipice of nearly unfathomable damage and neglect. our only planet.

i will ask of myself more. because scanlon was wrong to say we owe each other right action, right principles, on reasonable ground. reasonableness is simply the qualifying of status quo, a way to try to frame things that aren't as things that are, a sort of comfort pill that doesn't necessarily reflect reality. reasonableness reflects an unknowing and morphing quality of majority. many terrible things are done out of common sense, out of what a large group of people accepts. that supposed reasonableness is constantly morphing and shifting, revealing a startling weakness in argument. it's so undefinable you can not criticize it. you can not muster a framework to forever understand and evaluate, precisely at any given moment, such things as; reasonableness, averageness, majoritarian acceptance. the goalposts are always moving. there is a global pandemic right now masking a global climate catastrophe. it is exhausting, unfair, and unrelenting. how long must we give up our rituals? how long must we live like this? and, as seemingly unimportant and privileged as it is; god would i love to travel again some day, if only to escape the pickup trucks surrounding me at a traffic light. yet it feels as if nothing can be done. as if this is our reality. and yet it has to be. see, scanlon was ultimately wrong, not out of any misplaced sense of human morality, but because we do not have time to owe each other reasonableness, when we are running out of time to owe each the other the entire world.

schrodinger's results

it has, at various times, and by various people - including a shamanistic mandrill - that "change is good." it has, at various times, and by various people - including a literary celebrity whose parents summoned her by clapping her hands - that "all things come to those who wait." the latter was originally intended to suggest hard work, but, as is the way language seems to do what it wants, is now often used to imply that having patience is key to accomplishment. the end result is a common phrase that suggests you should always be changing or moving, and another that suggests that you should be patient and wait for things to come. given the apparent conflict between the two, the latter will always win, as it's easy to simply then freeze up and do nothing at the lack of a cohesive, simple guide. alas, perhaps if frozen long enough, all things will truly come.

what we use

it's a common and falsely held belief that humans only use 10% of our brains, popularized most recently by bradley cooper and jake mcdorman, who, if the present author were to use only 10% of their brain, might assume is the same person. said belief explains that some magical, medicinal, or otherwise pseudoscientific item could unlock the remaining 90% of our brain, turning us all into an amazing human/genius. said belief persists even though it is frequently the target of debunking, with unassailable evidence having proven for a very long time that humans, actually, use all of their brain.

however, perhaps in looking to pure data and brain imaging, the world has been going about proving this false belief the wrong way, for, much like many other common sense beliefs (like the belief that you can get a common cold from being cold, even though it's a virus), it continues to persist commonly and frequently, cited and referenced by creators, journalists, and "bradlake mcdooper" type people, a name this author has invented to combine two white dudes in similar media together. perhaps, instead of using physical evidence, we should have been using inference based evidence. from there perhaps, the greatest argument that we only use 10% of our brains does not come from CAT or CT scans, or evolutionary biology, but from the reality that many continue to say, with 100% confidence, that we use only 10% of our brain. this would, at the very least, explain much of the present author's condition.

the silence returns

the office is silent. there are just a few noises. the low hum of the a/c turning on when the office approaches 77, or 79, whatever it is set at. it runs more now that it is sunny and warm. the birds chirping on a tree in the front lawn. the clack of fingers pressing against keys on keyboard. this used to be a space that everyone would use as if it was theirs and theirs alone to fill up with sound. sports highlights, country music, phone calls with kids on speaker, admonishing them for being stupid. drinking, jokes. it was a sort of constant annoyance. a reminder of personalities and times that just sort of ran roughshod over all. everything was loud and inappropriate for work, whether politics, family drama, the drinking. nobody cared to care. they stood next to me, at me, hovered around desk and said things to each other that revealed their character.

the noises are gone now and it's better, because when a few noises come back, they come back as anger. indignation at a mask, at a changed setup. the country music and family drama has been replaced with conspiracy and frustration, a disbelief in anything real or tangible, a desire to run roughshod now not with sounds but with virus. the silence is safety, just like it was so long ago when it meant no parents, no teacher, nothing. is it any wonder this is what i believe? it's only when the authority is all gone that i can feel at home in a space. a car door opens and closes outside. the silence is only temporary.

it's picking not biting

it started when i was very young. my mom caught me. i had picked one of my fingernails down until it was so short it had bled. i had tried to hide it in shame but i couldn't. she was sitting on the couch with me and the weather channel was on. my sister was on the couch as well. it was our old tan one before it was replaced with cream later on. and so it started.  the soothing release, the sense of accomplishment when i get part off. it expands to the skin around the nail as when i pick at them hard my nail i am using to pick can slip and hit the skin just beyond the base of the nail. red and inflamed permanently from all the friction and picking. it's not the only source of red. the blood dried from nails picked to short or too much skin picked off blushes the ends of my fingers. it makes sense, as i am permanently embarrassed. my mom once offered me $100 for each nail i stopped picking. i could have had $1000 as like a 12 year old. i failed to stop one. i try to hide my hands casually, waiting for the inevitable comment to come. "you bite your nails?" it's picking not biting. it's more hygienic. so i tell my self.

im on the couch again, 25 years later. im picking in shame, hiding my right hand over the side of the couch. my wife suggests i fiddle with a hair tie. it fulfils my need for movement but the sense of accomplishment is gone. there is no damage to revel in. no painful finish. she suggests writing. it uses my hands and has a concrete goal. i read the post and grimace at the poor quality of writing. a painful finish.

the trust from a new friend

she fell asleep against me as i listened to a podcast on the history of the chicago school of economics. her feet resting on my chest, slow, rhythmic breathing. two months ago she first came into my life. she is often stubborn and yells when you touch her. but in that moment, against the backdrop of a mad world, her peaceful sleep and gentle purrs against my chest bring me relief. there is no demand to be perfect, to be on time, to get a 4.0, to save money, to do anything. she is a cat, and that is all she will ever need to be.

my brain is gone

(this was technically written a couple months ago: content warning for self-harm)

It started with the feeling of needing to pee. I peed 3 times in fifteen minutes. No sleep just body. She falls asleep and nothing is interesting. No reading, no games, no poem writing. You try and fail. It's all meaningless now. No desire. Don't want to go anywhere for birthday. Pointless. Don't deserve it. Her. Nothing. Pain you do you dumbfuck. No energy, always tired. Distant from yourself. You look in the mirror and see a hideous creature. Why are you hungry again? Cover your head with pillow. Maybe you will suffocate. Wake her up wake her up. No don't. Not fair. You have trapped her. You want to drop from school so bad. It's so far off and expensive and pointless. Always a fuckup. You trapped her. You lied. She is now stuck with you depressed fuck. Life spent with sick ghost. Your thoughts won't stop. Remember when you wanted to run into the door over and over until your head caved in. Hurt yourself hurt yourself. Cut off head. Razor to neck decapitate. Suffocate self with pillow. Your brain is being squeezed so hard it hurts so bad all the pressure. Your mom will be mad tomorrow. Cry. You cry twice. Sob into pillow. Shaking. You are not safe you are not safe. The cat leaves. Now is your chance. Knife on arm but nooooo you have to pee. Your head hurts. Where is the Xanax fuuuuuck. Wake her wake her. You are sick you are sick. Thoughts a million miles per hour





Hurt yourself hurt yourself hurt yourself



Cut off head cut off head



The noises. Pounding on the door. Over and over they pound on the storm door before you go to work. Rhythmic.

Tonight there are noises from the man in the doorway. Who is it!? He yells.

Sleep paralysis nightmares endless fear shaking fear shaking

Your head is squuezing your brain your chest is squeezing your heart

Head


Have to pee, can't wake her it all sucks. You can not sleep but you are tired. Last night you were walking through a pool of blood and organs of your loved ones. You watched your sister have her eyes gouged out. Your wife tried to reach you in your burning car as you went up in flames. Only a sick person would have dreams like this every night.



Heart is pounding she stirred next to you. Hurt yourself fuck. You fucking fuck. You worthless fuck. Sick sick sick. Never better. Need a release. Need pain badly. Cut to release. All the thoughts. The fan sounds like a jet engine all noises pound into your head it hurts.



Stomach pee head. You are distant. You can't touch her you are too repulsive too sad. You couldn't touch her earlier when you wanted her. Pee sleep head stomach heart ears all. End me now. Please. Hurt yourself hurt yourself hurt yourself

your head has made a home for demons

you don't really know in retrospect what the worst case scenario was. what if you didn't turn? would he have kept looking at you in the shower? moved closer? what if he had, in that moment, decided to move towards you instead of duck away? what if he became physical? what if he simply wanted to watch you the entire time? does anyone know?  he was twice your size and the hospital would never believe you. he was the security guard who had to suffer by sitting in the bathroom while you showered. no words were spoken. it could have been worse, you tell yourself.

the two men push you down onto the cold hard surface and begin to violate you. one has reached around and the other is using an object. you are thrashing and screaming for help, anyone, you are outside after all. it continues like this for some time, unable to escape, when suddenly, darkness. you are awake. the nightmare is over.

you see the blade reach skin and draw quickly across, blood works immediately to fill in the gap in skin, dribbles down onto the bedsheet. again and again, multiple quick cuts, not as precise as you'd hope. the blood is running down your arm and then onto the floor as you hold your arm out to the side, as if willing gravity to make a mess of your room.

days later you see the terror in your sister's eyes as her head is decapitated, you hear the screams from your wife as her car goes up in flames. you see your dad come to terms with his imminent death as the blade crashes through his chest and into his heart. you see your friends fall off the cliff they so glumly said they'd be safe to bike along. you see the bloodied, demolished corpses, hear the screams as torture is wielded wantonly against everyone you know. suddenly, darkness. you are awake. the nightmare is over.

the years and years and years of fighting back the thoughts of self harm, of gory suicide and racing violence, of a bloodied wrist or head or body lying on the tile floor suddenly seem quaint. you lie down again at 11:30 pm, heart racing. the years of fighting back mental illness may never come to and end. but you know the next seven hours are where the real demons wait.

dog-pee-dog world

i joked today that i cleaned our dog's toilet. i did not write. 'there's other stuff.' there's always other stuff. i could have, i guess. but writing seemed so selfish. it wasn't getting gifts together, wasn't saying hi to my sister. plus, i had come back home with a 30 minute timer on the dog bedding that i'd have to turn around and get to at the laundromat. everything else besides writing seemed so short. moving a piece of furniture 7 feet. clearing the stairs since our cat was now stuck on the ground floor. turning on my pc, sitting, staring at the screen seemed like an eternity. i have perfected the art of making writing take a long time to do nothing. im sure other's have too, so it's not even a rare perfected art. little did i know it'd need a few more minutes. the bedding. it was still a bit damp when i got it home, but i think it's ok. our dog will piss on it anyways. hopefully he'll make it to the weekend. i just washed his bedding on saturday, so at current trends, he'll fall just short.

at lowe's they forgot me, it's ok, i would too. i had purchased some propane and waited and waited and waited outside. i didn't know who to bother after like five or six minutes, so i thought about leaving, even though i spent $21. nobody had come to swap out my tank. nobody would come, right? i started to panic. i must look silly just standing here. it's ok to leave. i leave a lot of things that i can't do. it would have been one more thing. it just wasn't the night. next time, i'd have to buy a new tank and replace one. it'd be like $70, plus the $21 wasted earlier. $90 anxiety. i guess that's the price we pay.

write a little write a lot

ten minutes every day is 70 minutes a week. that's a lot. that's more than an hour in one day. but if you miss a day then it's 20 minutes on one day. miss two and it's 30. and you will miss days. you have to. you can't write every single day. who can? but you can not write. you can go days or weeks without writing. that's easy. and then it's inertia, habit, discontent, whatever. just ten minutes. fifteen seems so aggressive but that really adds up, 105 minutes a week, almost two hours. im writing now. it's my obligation. i want to be a writer, right? i want to do this. i can't write stories anymore because i said what i wanted to. i can't write blog posts anymore because i said what i wanted to. the ideas don't really just come into my head. all my stories ended up the same after a while, after avoiding that for so long. maybe 2020 will be the year all my blog posts are the same, if they aren't already. i thought about writing something really off the wall to see what happened. i've never written fantasy before. it seemed like a good idea. then i looked at this screen and nothing happened, and i logged into blogger, and this did. maybe i'll come back to it. just like i come back to so many things. i don't come back to them.

it's ok, right? i've written 3 blog posts in the last week. they're all sitting in my drafts, saved, waiting for me to think they're good to go, waiting to finish them, peppered with a few notes each of what i'd like to add, ready to eventually sink down the queue list. that's assuming i write more. maybe now they'll sit there at the top, nothing else to replace them, unpublished, forgotten, fading away. now that's a high school existentialist's ending if i ever knew one.

all the light is gone

we didn't know what we were getting into. over 900 feet up in less than a mile, steep rock walls spider-walked across, cold wind wiping across us in october, 2700 feet above sea level at the apex in oregon. eugene is splayed out below us in the ever encroaching darkness as a series of glittering lights. out there are more white people with dreads than the rest of the west coast. at the top, several dogs sit at attention, several people take photos. i find a small little pathway around the edge of the summit, a crooked tree seems to beckon me in; around the corner, someone lights up a blunt, i have stumbled into their nature reserve, i walk out embarrassed.

the walk back down is the 'easy' route, but the rapidly increasing darkness renders the less steep surface every bit as unknowable, occasional stone steps and divots provide all the obstacle needed. the park is open for a bit longer but it might as well not be. we pass nobody on the way down and nobody passes us, the crowd at the top seems to have dispersed into air, there were surely still people up there when we began our descent.

half way down the obstacles grow wings. small objects dart at our face only to ditch impact at the last second, constant, constant, constant. the bats could be showing off their echolocation, or maybe just seek to scare us from their home. it becomes almost surreal how frequent they dive and then rise at the last possible moment. like a storm at about 6 feet above ground.

the path has become flatter now, railroad ties line the dirt path flattened by years of feet. the sunlight heaves one last sigh unto the world and disappears entirely. a flashlight on the end of my phone is all that can show us the way. but there is a different light up ahead. for a brief moment, i wonder if it is the end of the road, the lights  back at the portable toilets and maps and parking lot. it is not the end. it is a bench in front of a swamp. on the bench sit two people, completely and utterly still. they could be statues. they could be ghosts. a lantern sits on the ground next to them. the bats continue but seem to avoid them and them alone, as if a small protective dome surrounds the two figures. there is no talking, no breathing. i do not see them move. in embarrassment i peel my eyes away. it is pitch black. the park closes in 45 minutes. i wonder what it is to them. a date, a getaway, a quiet place, a haunting. i steal one last glance at the bench when i am 50 feet past. i have gone around a bend. all the light is gone.