A Small Oven With One Burner Up Top

The apartment was small - tiny actually - but Andrew didn't mind.

He didn't need much. He had downsized his surroundings to match the downsizing of his life.

It all started out big enough. A college education, respectable job, marriage, a house, kids - he did as he was asked. Gardens wither if you don't tend to them; life is the same.

The marriage died first. High volume arguments replaced kisses, silence replaced high volume arguments, divorce replaced marriage. It was a slow, torturous road, and one that closed off part of Andrew's heart.

The kids eventually hated him, hated his negativity and despair. They got out as soon as they could. Never visited, never called. Birthday cards were sporadic and devoid of emotion.

They forgot him but he was unable to forget them. The pain was enormous.

Andrew poured himself another beer, and three fingers whiskey to soothe his ravaged soul. Looked around the apartment. One twin bed. A nightstand. An aged and abused recliner with a cheap tray table next to it. A small closet with 2 pair of pants, 1 pair of sweatpants, 4 shirts, a sweatshirt, a worn spring jacket and a faded pea coat and 9 empty hangers.

One ground level window through which he could look up to a dirt front yard, and feet walking by to genuine destinations.

A small oven with one burner up top. This was what Andrew fixated on in moments of crushing depression.

He used to love cooking for his family. He was good at it. He was creative. Andrew made his kids laugh when he was in the kitchen. It was the only time he felt free to reveal his inner self. His essence.

He lost the job - a good-paying job - because he called out sick too often, and showed up drunk from time to time. From $135,000 a year to what he lived on now - $16 an hour. That, and a heaping helping of contempt from co-workers and former friends. His ego would be bruised if he had an ego, but that had been downsized too. Obliterated, actually.

Andrew lost the house when he lost the job. You can only lie so much to a mortgage company - there's no room for empathy on a balance sheet. Fortunately for his wife (not that Andrew cared) she could support herself quite well and did not give a damn about the house. She had moved out years ago. She was happy about the foreclosure, though. She loved to see Andrew suffer.

He was getting hungry. He looked at the small oven with one burner up top and thought about the gourmet meal he could whip up on a real stove. But what was the point? It did not take much anymore to kill his hunger. He grabbed a small pan, dumped a can of no name beans with brown sugar and onions into it, sliced up two hot dogs into the mix, placed the pan on the burner and turned it up.

He rarely used the oven.

Andrew wanted to take a baseball bat to his small oven with one burner up top. Thought about it a lot. But he knew he never would.

He believed his kids might stop by unannounced one day. And he would cook them a nice meal.

He would make them laugh.

I'll Be Checking Out, Please

I checked out entirely for the last three days.

A strange and noble experiment.

Had to work Friday, so I went through the motions, but by the time I got home at 8:15 I had checked out. I wasn't really aware of it, though. It was not a conscious decision.

By Saturday, it was.

I didn't exercise Friday, Saturday or today. Just didn't fucking care. I'll crank it all up on Tuesday again.

Today is the pinnacle. Had a wonderful night last night because we lost our fucking power at 9 o'clock and didn't get it back until 2 a.m. So I could not use the CPAP monster. Which means the cats slept in my lap. Both of them.

The CPAP machine scares them as much as it disgusts me. They have not slept with me since I started using the damn thing. I miss them.

Woke up with both of them in my lap. Beautiful. Got up, fed them, brushed my teeth etc, made coffee and sat down with a book. When Carol came down we watched two episodes of Law & Order, and 1 and 1/2 episodes of The Geography of Bliss - a new travel docuseries created by Rainn Wilson. Watch it - it is worth it.

I sat motionless under a blanket (it was 59 degrees when I woke up this morning) in the recliner from 8:30 this morning until 1:30 this afternoon. I never do that. Never.

But remember - I am officially checked out. And it feels pretty good.

And both cats ended up back in my lap for a good chunk of that time, which was absolute bliss.

Cleaned the kittie litter box, ate a little something, came up here. I am about to go downstairs, watch the Red Sox with Carol, then watch any other fucking thing that I feel like watching for the rest of the night. Nestled safely in the recliner, where no one can get at me.

Remember when those tiny birds got smeared in an oil spill, and people cleaned them up with Dawn and released them back to their life?

That is what I am doing to my soul this weekend.

The Way It Is

 We all know we're going to get old and we're all surprised when it happens.

Surrendering To July (Wanna Grab That Drink?)

Throwing in the towel for this month, folks.

I will not have anything of significance to report in my monthly reckoning, which sucks immeasurably because January, February, March and April were positive. But then May and June chugged along with no advancement and July has gone backwards. If this was baseball I wouldn't be too worried about it, but this is my life.

Pretty sure I have gained weight. 

Exercising efforts have fallen way short.

My knee is giving me a lot of trouble and I can't seem to exercise my way out of it. Wearing a sleeve again. Have to contact Dr. Feelgood to see what's going on. I hate doctors.

AI destroyed 99.9% of copywriting hope. After putting in the effort to get up and running, on a zoom call an administrator told me that AI is commandeering the business. There are precious few assignments available, and the ones that are, suck. The rest get swallowed up by AI.

I'm still working a shit-ass little job.

Got no fucking money and no fucking safety net.

Dealing with the house again. Not feeling hopeful at all.

In fact, at the moment, hope in general is on life-support.

Feeling pretty down.

But I'm sure you are too.

Wanna go out for a drink?

A Fairly Inexcusable Error

Watching a little tennis a day or two ago.

A guy made a bad shot. One of the commentators said: "A fairly inexcusable error."

Wouldn't it be great if we all had life commentators following us around, offering opinions about major decisions we are forced to make in our lives? Pointing out our mistakes so we can make mid-course corrections? Most of us don't learn from our mistakes; we just beat our heads against the wall. Some helpful expertise in the moment could re-direct us towards happiness.

They would have to be life experts of some sort. 

Many tennis commentators play tennis so they know exactly what they are talking about. At the very least, most of them have spent a large chunk of their lives commentating on it - they have to be experts on the game and the competitors.

Not sure how it would work. How is a life commentator assigned? Which one is best for you? Who decides?

Maybe the entire pool of life commentators should be made up of fuck-ups - people who have gone off the rails with bad decisions and paid the price...............but survived. People who see the signs and are well equipped to issue warnings, and maybe even advice. But even just warnings would be a large improvement. A solid smack to the head could prove to be a life changer when horrific decisions are made.

What a great, original, and possibly money-making idea. I hereby apppoint myself Commissioner of Life Commentators.

Currently accepting applications.

Delusional?

I am so unstable it's a miracle I can stand.

Still - there is hope.

Killing Customers

The handcuffs were so goddamn tight on his wrists - "It hurts." The cops laughed.

And the spectacle unfolded. In the box office, three cops, Gordon in handcuffs, a customer dead on the floor just outside the ticket window. A copious amount of blood pooled around the victim's head. Most likely from the gaping wound the bullet made as it passed through his skull.

The rest of the customers had been herded outside; the front doors were locked. Temporarily; after all, the show must go on. Management felt confident they could still pull this off and put on a show - and avoid massive refunds. Once again greed trumps empathy.

Volunteers were outside passing out drink tickets. Some customers were shocked and disgusted; others grabbed tickets for their wives who didn't drink.

The dead customer got what he deserved. What a low-life loser. Treating Gordon like a servant, infuriating him with heaping helpings of condescension. Scumbag.

He'd been here before. Many times. Staring down rude customers with a smile and murder in his eyes. They often did not know what to think. There was a hint of believability in those eyes, enough so that many times customers walked away jittery.

Chalk another one up for Gordon.

He'd fantasized often about killing customers. Seemed like fine sport. But of course he never brought the dream to fruition. I mean, it was a bit risky.

But tonight was different. Gordon was fed up - what a stupid fucking job. Processing credit card and cash transactions, printing tickets, handing them out, answering stupid and repetitive questions, acting pleasant with acid in his heart, handling exchanges for indecisive morons who feel a sudden urge to sit in different seats.............and on and on and on.

Contrary to the dribble championed by management and  obedient servants - I mean employees - Gordon felt that patrons represented the dregs of society.

So he killed one. It was as simple as that. With Wild Turkey 101 running through his veins, strengthening his resolve.

The customer started right off with the rudeness and escalated from there. Gordon fought back with words until words were not enough. This was a particularly stupid customer. When he demanded a refund Gordon said "You want a refund? (reaching for his gun), I got your fucking refund right here."

And put a bullet into his forehead.

Gordon waited calmly for the cops to show up.

Later, as his co-workers sat in a bar discussing the weirdness of Gordon's calm demeanor, one finally spoke up and said "You know, I'm thinking even life in prison might be better than selling tickets in a box office."

After a moment's hesitation and reflection, the rest of the crew raised their shot glasses, shouted in unison "I'll drink to that", downed the whiskey and ordered another round.

Finally!!!!!!!!

 I had my emotions surgically removed.

Now I can make logical decisions and amass great wealth.

He Was Never There

Kevin liked to flirt.

His life was empty, his heart was broken, his soul was in pain, so he flirted with Buddhism, but it was too hard.

He flirted with poetry, but was not inspired.

He flirted with therapy, but was not impressed.

He flirted with meditation, but was not calmed.

He flirted with drugs, but was almost destroyed.

He flirted with alcohol, but lost his license.

He flirted with support groups, but was embarrassed by them.

He flirted with establishing new friendships, but felt hollow.

He flirted with leaning on old friends, but was embarrassed by how little he brought to the table.

He flirted with self-help books, seminars, disciplines, and programs, but found there was no self to help.

He flirted with being alone, but couldn't stand the company.

So he disappeared. It wasn't hard.

Because he was never there.

Love Somebody Today

 "He turned on the bare, treeless little plot that held others like his mother and father and looked across the flat land in the direction of the farm where he had been born, where his mother and father had spent their years. He thought of the cost exacted, year after year, by the soil; and it remained as it had been - a little more barren, perhaps, a little more frugal of increase. Nothing had changed. Their lives had been expended in cheerless labor, their wills broken, their intelligences numbed. Now they were in the earth to which they had given their lives; and slowly, year by year, the earth would take them. Slowly the damp and rot would infest the pine boxes that held their bodies, and slowly it would touch their flesh, and finally it would consume the last vestiges of their substances. And they would become a meaningless part of that stubborn earth to which they had long ago given themselves."

William Stoner, upon burying his mother next to his father, from Stoner, by John Williams

A Confluence of Events

1) My knee exploded last Monday.

It has never been the same after surgery. I accept 50% of the blame. I stopped exercising it as soon as it felt good. Should have just kept it up.

Since surgery, it cracks all the time - I have my own personal percussion section in the right knee. But the pain has been intermittant and minimal. Until Monday.

I was walking down the hall at work - during my most favorite work experience - all alone in the entire building. Bliss. And the knee just cracked. Loudly and painfully. It has remained painful and uncomfortable since. Fucking karma, man - bliss rewarded with punishment. This is the life equation I have created.

So I am back to the knee exercises, coupled with daily prayers that this is just a setback and not additonal destruction. However, I am working the knee with a vengeance this time. Not stupidly, but diligently. With grim determination. We'll see where it all leads.

2) FINALLY got the CPAP machine on Thursday. 

This ordeal began in February - February, for Christ sake. First met with Dr. Snooze then. Followed over the folllowing months by two overnights at the sleep center - one without CPAP, and one with the CPAP monster. The CPAP night proved inconclusive and disappointing - they did not get the readings they expected. This soured me on the whole process. But I went ahead anyway.

Used the CPAP monster last night for the first time. How bizarre, how bizarre.  At the sleep center I barely slept at all, so I wasn't expecting much. Had the monster glued to my face for 6 hours last night, probably got 4 hours of "sleep." Woke at 3:30 - the mask causing discomfort. I figured I'd give it another half hour to meet the requirements then take the fucking thing off.

Yes, there are rules. Medicare rules, I assume. I am so sick of rules. I have to use the monster 21 nights a month and 4 hours a night - minimum. I don't know what happens if I don't - they probably take the machine and foreclose on my house.

I was lying there in discomfort - (I am not familiar with the equipment yet, so I didn't want to mess with all the straps and wires and ropes and pulleys) - and I fell asleep. Until 6:30. I take that as a good sign. So I'll adjust the mask today and hope for better.

3) We are listing the house again. 

Meeting with a new realtor on Tuesday. Carol and I took a trip to look at a mobile home yesterday just to get a feel for size. Single wide. We could live in one without killing each other. Still, I had that uncomfortable feeling in my gut - a mobile home? My parents raised me in palatial splendor, I downgraded to whatever level I'm at now when reality grabbed me by the balls, but a mobile home?

Fucked up knee, CPAP Monster, selling the house.

And I have been doing so well limiting my whiskey consumption.

However..................

Everything I think, do, or say is a lie.

However, my thoughts edge closer to the truth.

Ironclad Rule

 If you want to get respect, you have to deserve respect.

Think About It

 If you are furious about the impudence of people you don't respect, your logic is twisted into a Gordian knot.

Alternative Ending

 K pays his tab and walks out into the parking lot. He pops the trunk, grabs a screwdriver, and makes his way over to J's brand new beautiful black Cadillac Escalade.

He laboriously scratches "Fuck You" into the paint on the driver's side door, then circles the bloated luxury vehicle, puncturing all four tires as he goes.

 He slips into his car and drives away smiling, feeling much better about himself.

The dawn of a new day.

Until The Tears Subside

K: I'll have another draft. And while you're at it, pour me a shot of whiskey, will ya?

J: You got it.

K: The problem is, what I suffer from is excruciatingly painful. I can't even function.

J: I didn't even know you were sick.

K: Oh, yeah, you can count on that.

J: Please tell me you don't have cancer.

K: No, worse. The pain is so bad it feels like someone is peeling my skin off with a potato peeler and then pouring hydrochloric acid on the wound. Jesus.

J: Shit, man - that sounds unbearable.

K: You don't even know, man. Sometimes I stagger into the bathroom at work, stuff a paper towel into my mouth and silently scream.

J: That's not good. You gotta deal with this. Have you seen a doctor?

K: I tried, but we didn't connect.

J: What the hell does that mean? You go to a doctor, they do tests, they get results. What does connecting have to do with it?

K: You don't get it. He didn't feel me, he didn't empathize.

J: OK - this disease have a name?

K: Yeah. Low self-esteem.

J: Low self-esteem? Are you fucking kidding me? Low self-esteem? That's not a disease, it's an excuse.

K: An excuse?

J: Yeah, a fucking excuse. For you to avoid responsibility, to redirect blame. (In a high-pitched whiny voice) - "My life sucks but it's not my fault. I hate myself. I got low self-esteem." Jesus.

K: It's a disease, man. It hurts. It really hurts.

J: Drink up and get the fuck outta here. Don't come back until you grow up. Christ, what a fucking wimp.

K pays his tab and sits in his car until the tears subside. Then he drives away.

Serenity Shattered

"Sometimes, immersed in his books, there would come to him the awareness of all that he did not know, of all that he had not read; the serenity for which he laboured was shattered, as he realised the little time he had in life to read so much, to learn what he had to know."

From Stoner, by John Edward Williams

The Pull of Habit

 "We know this, the time of our life is so short, and how we spend it, are we spending it doing what's important to us? Most of us not. I mean it's hard. The pull of habit is so huge............

Ethan Hawke, TED Talk 2020

As Good As It Gets

 ......and you wake up on Monday morning with The Boomtown Rats detonating louder than ever in your head.

When you watch a tennis match like the Gentlemen's Final at Wimbledon that was "played" on Sunday July 16, 2023 between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic, it can make your life feel even more insignificant than it really is.

But you're not really comparing apples to apples, are you?

"Played" because they were not playing. That was a war. Just short of five hours of tennis - five hours - between two men at the height of their game. Sublime.

Competition at that level and that intensity leaves you breathless. It also obliterates your life - the only world that exists is the one on Centre Court.

Until it is over. Stunned, you stagger to your bar and grab a bottle of whiskey and begin chugging in a heroic effort to regain the emotions and forgetfulness you just experienced. But it can't be done. What you witnessed was pure. A moment in time that can never be recaptured.

You wake up on Monday morning, hungover, you throw your pickaxe over your shoulder and head back down into the coal mine. Knowing full well that you are not a professional athlete, never could have been one, that you will never earn that kind of money and achieve that kind of fame. So why beat yourself up?

Because you don't like where you are and you don't see a way out. But that tennis match sparked emotions in you that mimicked what you would feel if you did find a way out. Ultimately, emotions that are futilely experienced.

Hence the conundrum of sports. We watch to be thrilled, we dream about the money they make, we lust for their fame, the adoration they get - it's a complicated mix. And we love it. It's a religion.

But the coal mine awaits.

Compartmentalization is key. You must be able to distinguish between a dream and reality. But reality is such a drag. Still, losing yourself in the moment extends your life. Kills anxiety. Numbs self-loathing.

And reality is reality. It is where you are forced to live, like it or not. So you grab the pickaxe and start chipping away at your job and the rest of your life.

And look forward to the next moment in time, as elusive and unpredictable as that may be.

That's as good as it gets.

Know What I REALLY Want? (At This Time of Year)

I want to load up a cooler with beer and ice.

Toss in a bottle of whiskey. Motor on down to a friend's backyard, drawn in by the classic rock 'n roll playing on his spectacular speaker system. Set up a chair and settle in to talk with the other 20 fun-lovers that are there. Drink some beer, sip some whiskey. Watch the smoke rise from the grill as my stomach growls. Grab a burger and two dogs. Laugh. Fucking laugh. With abandon.

Just have a goddamn "forget about everything else" blast. A genuine blast. Does anyone my age remember how to party? Christ.

No talk about politics, insurance, or the real estate market. Is that even allowed at my age? Is there an unwritten rule that says "when you hit forty you must act reserved and pretend to be worldly even in obvious FUCK IT LET'S JUST HAVE FUN situations?"

I come back to this song time and time again. Allman Brothers. No One To Run With.

"Nobody left to run with anymore, nobody left to do the crazy things we used to do before, nobody left to run with anymore."

Know what? I am having a pretty good summer and I aim to keep it rolling. I am 69. I am not dead.

I will have my fun.

Monday Could Be It

For the past two weeks Carol has been waking up to the sound of tennnis balls being hit by tennis rackets.

Breakfast at Wimbledon, baby. I have been waking up to it every morning. The first week, with a thousand matches to be broadcast, they start at 6 am our time. The second week it is later - 8 or 9.

I sleep in my recliner. I am so glad we spent $100,000 on this recliner. I literally live in it now. I love it more than life itself. I wake up and turn on the TV. Instead of reading, on many days. Like some fool addicted to The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Except I am watching professional tennis. Stunning. Delicious.

I have seen so much exciting tennis. It saves my life. It extends my life. When I watch tennis I forget about my life. It brings me peace. Sweet, unadulterated, blissful peace. Unless I have to leave a match to go to work. Then I want to kill.

I have been examining my relationship to this sport. Tennis is life. You are alone, baby. On display for everyone to see. Win or lose. Deliver or perish. It is hard and it is emotional. It is unpredictable.

Top players go head to head and never know where they will end up. There are physical considerations, emotional considerations - so many intangibles play into it. Practicing 170 hours a week does not guarantee success. Those intangibles bring magic and mystery to the sport.

If someone is down two sets to Novak Djokovic, and suddenly has an impressive flurry of points and games won, I thrill to that. You know they are gonna lose - Djokovic is God. But that flurry is hope, and I connect with what the opponent feels. Maybe, just maybe..........................

The tennis is amazing to watch. So many times I react verbally to amazing shots - holy shit, wow, maybe a groan - I cannot help it. I shift left and right in The Chair - is it in? Did it hit the line? Christ, I love it.

My emotions were rolling like ocean waves this morning as I watched Ons Jabeur lose to Aryna Sabalenka in the women's championship round. Sabalenka won Wimbledon, baby - and she was unseeded. The first unseeded woman to win Wimbledon!

I was rooting for Jabeur - she is ranked 6th in the world and is very emotional. She felt the championship was her destiny after winning the semifinals. She was the runner up at Wimbledon last year. She lost today. That is life. You can't always get what you want. You rarely get what you want. She cried. I shed tears.

TOMORROW: Alcarez vs Djokovic in the men's final. 9 am. A dream matchup. I cannot wait.

They faced off in the semifinals of the French Open, but it was disappointing. Alcarez ran out of gas. Djokovic won 6-3, 5-7, 6-1, 6-1. Alcarez is 20, Djokovic is 36. I could not understand it.

I hope tomorrow is the greatest tennis match ever played. I hope Alcarez eats his fucking Wheaties. Because on Monday I will wake up to my life again. Without anesthesia. When I watch tennis I am a junkie with easy access to heroin. When it is taken away from me we're talking cold turkey, baby. Shaking, sweating, cursing and screaming.

I gotta win the fucking lottery.

You hate it when I talk tennis, don't you?

Stoner Is You

John Edward Williams should be arrested for writing Stoner.

Except that cannot happen because he died in 1994.

The book is pure truth of an unsettling nature. He writes about the non-life that most of us live, and it hurts to read it. Life lived as failure.

The main character is William Stoner, a farm boy whose dad decides he should go to college to study agriculture. While there he accidentally falls in love with literary studies, which becomes his life. Some critics say the novel is about Stoner's primary passions - knowledge and love, but "Stoner's passions manifest themselves into failures, as proven by the bleak end of his life."

It hurts just to write those words.

He pursues a career as a college professor but his career proves to be disappointing; watered down, compromised, never fulfilling the love of literature that got him there in the first place.

He marries a woman who proves to be neurotic and bitter, and his marriage becomes painful and empty. They have a daughter who is the love of his life, but who his wife cruelly manipulates to turn her against and keep her away from her father. He has an affair with a colleague that brings him great joy, but the pettiness of others works to separate them. He has two close friends - one that supports him for his entire life, one who gets killed in WWI. That friend had a philosophical view of life that highlighted life's absurdity and unfairness; his words stuck with Stoner to the end, even though Stoner pursued a predictable path in life.

Stoner is diagnosed with terminal cancer in his sixties. He lies on his deathbed contemplating "the failure that his life must appear to be."

Every joyful expectation in his life ends in failure. And pain. Even his lifelong love of literature cannot sustain him; he was rarely able to translate that passion into his teaching, which almost always came across as lifeless.

What was the point of William Stoner's life? What is the point of anyone's life? To come up with rationalizations to justify the plodding, disappointing way we live it?

This is a painful book to read. Stoner's deathbed scene is overwhelmingly sad; it brings tears when you read it. Because there is nothing exceptional about his life as he runs it back in his mind.

We are alive. We want exceptional. We do not want to be beat down and compromised to the point where we are living this thing that we don't recognize, that hurts us instead of bringing us the joy that life is supposed to deliver.

But that is the way it goes in most cases.

This book is painful because it is full of the truth about life, not the sugarcoated version we all cling to so we can get out of bed every morning.

You should read it. It will make you cry, it will make you feel.

When you are done, smash every mirror in your house.

Heartbreaking

 "Dispassionately, reasonably, he contemplated the failure that his life must appear to be. He had wanted friendship and the closeness of friendship that might hold him in the race of mankind; he had had two friends, one of whom had died senselessly before he was known, the other of whom had now withdrawn so distantly into the ranks of the living that...........

He had wanted the singleness and the still connective passion of marriage; he had had that, too, and he had not known what to do with it, and it had died. He wanted love; and he had had love, and had relinquished it, had let it go into the chaos of potentiality. Katherine, he thought. "Katherine."

And he had wanted to be a teacher, and he had become one; yet he knew, he had always known, that for most of his life he had been an indifferent one. He had dreamed of a kind of integrity, of a kind of purity that was entire; he had found compromise and the assaulting diversion of triviality. He had conceived wisdom, and at the end of the long years he had found ignorance. And what else? he thought. What else?

What did you expect? he asked himself."

Thoughts running through the mind of William Stoner on his death bed, from the book Stoner, by John Williams.

Blame Djokovic

Got a late start today. 

Worked in my first set of exercise, sat down with a bowl of oat crunch Cheerios - topped with a box of raisins - turned on the TV and lo and behold Djokovic was just stepping onto the court against Andrey Rublev in a quarterfinal match.

I had to watch. And I did.

Set me back a few hours.

I am supposed to be about saving my life, toiling every second of every day to do just that but - come on, man - it's Wimbledon. And it's Djokovic.

Absolutely delicious.

Guess I won't be getting rich today, guess I won't be landing that dream job.

No different than any other day.

He Just Kept Digging

He had dug quite a hole for himself..........and he just kept digging.

Even as his mind fought to destroy defeatest habits and create productive habits in their place, he threw another shovelful of dirt over his shoulder. And another. It was if his muscles had a mind of their own. Or no mind at all.

It is true that old habits die hard, but if those old habits lead to an unfulfilled life, shouldn't the effort to kill be maximized?

The shovel struck rock. Sparked and bounced off. Sent painful vibrations up his arm. He switched the power arm from left to right, took one step 6 inches to his right, and drove the blade into the dirt. A clean dig. So satisfying. Until he wondered why he kept doing what he was doing. What exactly was the motivation?

There were examples he could emulate. Friends and relatives who succeeded at life. Had a purpose. Pursued it with single-minded determination. And seemed to derive happiness from the effort.

It is hard to maintain focus as a dreamer. Dreamers dream. And dreams are ethereal. They don't respond well to to-do lists. They shift shape and make bigger promises, and distract with their beauty.

But dreams are not real. You cannot pin them down, you cannot realize them without luck. And magic.

But shovelling is concrete. Black and white. Blade in, blade out, dirt removed, blade back in. And the hole gets deeper. 

A dreamer. A creative. Others survive, even succeed at the dreamer's life. How do they do it? Many suffer along the way but, then again, everybody suffers along the way. That's what makes life so much fun.

Turning creativity into gold. Sensitivity. An otherness. Capitalizing on the truth of the soul. No matter what. Hard work in a brutal world.

A little easier to put shovel to dirt.

He just kept digging.

In Most Cases..................

 In the majority of cases, gratitude is the falsification of reality.

Needs

 I am so sick of not drinking.

In His Own Words

 I tried to explain it to you but failed - the impact that Recovery: Freedom From Our Addictions, by Russell Brand had on my fragile mind.

In his own words: "What began as an opportunity to be free of my most obvious outward problem, chemical addictions, turned into, with very little authority from me, a total excavation of who I am and what it means for me to be a human in the world."

Russell Brand

See You There

 Beginning this morning, and for the next two weeks, you will find me at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in London.

Join me, won't you?

Apocalypse NOW

Wow, I certainly started July off with a bang.

Pissing and moaning to beat the band. I'm sure you enjoyed it.

Bill Maher describes trump as a "whiny little bitch." He could say the same about me.

Carol and I were watching an episode of Law & Order this morning, and Lieutenant Van Buren described a suspect this way: "Wow, he certainly loves to feel sorry for himself." The same could be said about me.

Later in the episode, ADA Rubirosa says directly to the same suspect: "You're an infant." The same could be said about me.

Here's the deal. I'm drawing a line in the sand. July 2023 is the moment of my personal apocalypse:

I will be in different circumstances by the end of the month. I'll either have the writing thing going full blast, or I'll be moving on to something else. I'll be out of my menial job in the box office. I will lose weight, with the maximum goal of getting under 180 by 7/31. I will be thinking differently (especially about myself - I deserve a fucking break).

And when I feel like whining, I will keep my fucking mouth shut.

June - A Reckoning

First of all I'd like to say "Fuck You" to June.

Fucking month stole 30 days from my summer with shitty weather all month long. Glad you're dead.

I exercised 20 days in June. Not exceptional, not bad.

Weight Loss: ZERO. I didn't lose weight, I didn't gain weight.

Two months in a row I did not lose weight. I have hit the proverbial brick wall. 

I will be existing on a diet of cottage cheese, air, and water in July. I weigh 184 pounds. This is not stasis. It is sloth. I am still a fat man. You should see me with my shirt off. On second thought, you do not want to see me with my shirt off. Disgusting.

If I walked into a 7-Eleven on a hot July day to get my hands on a Summertime Citrus Slurpee, followed by a petty criminal there to rob the store - and he commanded all the customers to take their clothes off so they would be less likely to follow him out of the store - I would say "Just shoot me. Fucking shoot me and get it over with. I am not taking my clothes off."

I am going to kick ass in July so much that awards will be awarded.

Working Through Anger on July 1, 2023

I am angry.

I failed in two social situations in one week. At the second one I adopted the role of Village Idiot and played it well. I am furious at my inability to just be me; it has taken on immense and intense proportions this year. Overwhelming, and excruciatingly agonizing.

I lost zero weight in June, for the second month in a row. Massive failure because it's all I got. I mean, I scored the new job and it is dripping with potential, but until I translate potential into $ I got nothing to talk about.

Simultaneously the current job amplified its efforts to humiliate me. 

Sat there yesterday - alone for 2 and 1/2 hours at the end of the day, which is typically a highlight for me, but I was furious. Because I was just a placeholder. Nobody is buying anything on the Friday before the 4th of July weekend. Worse, I have to work Monday - again as a placeholder because someone thinks it's beneficial to keep the box office open on a day when total sales will equal $1.50. Fucking ridiculous.

All the admimistrative people are off and I bear them no ill will. I used to be a professional, I used to have all the perks, I know how it works. But by way of comparison I must be a fucking grunt, right? Condemned to sit bored in an office for 7 hours with no customers walking in and no phones ringing just because someone decided that the box offcie must be open for appearance-sake.

There is no dignity in grunthood.

I am furious at my life today, that stranger that torments me in all my failure, but I am trying to work through it. Carol deserves better. I have already been short with her and she doesn't even know why.

In April I made a pact with myself to treat Carol better. I have been pretty good about it, but my anger is large and it breaks on through to the other side from time to time. I am getting better at it, though. Fuck, I have today and tomorrow off - all I really want is for us to laugh, for Carol to be happy. I think I can pull it off.

I am focusing on weakness starting today. Weakness is what got me here. Weakness in dealing with other people, allowing their opinions and personalities to overwhelm my own. Allowing them to treat me as the Villlage Idiot. Weakness of spirit, weakness of mind, weakness of conviction.

WEAKNESS! Life devours weakness.

My anger has been building from January 1, 2023. I thought I would be freed from the menial job in May, in June, but July is here and I am still there. I cannot stand pissing away my summer as a cretinous employee. A fucking fool.

The kettle's beginning to boil. Back away while you can, because when it blows your face will get burned.

And I will not care.