Category: depression

one hundred

Posted on by admin

A hundred days into this year and we’ve already had multiple collapses, blood issues and a totality.

Sometimes, I’d like there to be a totality inside me, either to end it all or to burn away all the shit. Blind it with a shining aura, a brilliance unendurable except with the darkest glasses.

But the world keeps turning, a disturbing number of people think a man who thought it was intelligent to stare directly at an eclipse is a genius and hate seems to creep further into our lives each and every day.

We need another revolution. Another love-in.

Where’s our John and Yoko? Our sexual revolution appears to revolve around people making sex tapes, where wearing bikinis on your social media is a viable career path.

Where’s our screaming punk? Where’s our Kurt Cobain, hitting the nerves of a generation so raw that it changes entire cultures?

Where’s logic? Where’s freedom? Where are hearts and connection and compassion and a basic understanding of kindness?

Where’s the less ineffectual left? Where’s the sober right?

Where the fuck is everybody?

Social media is madness. Our world is mad.

This has been your daily agonized howl into the void, unable to stand anymore.

Target: 500 words
Written: 191 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: High Hunt, David Eddings
Comics: Y The Last Man 21-24
Music: The Vegas Years, Everclear

eclipsed

Posted on by admin

There’s a phenomenon I haven’t seen since I was a child, and never in the full totality as we’re getting today. I hope it remains unclouded as it has been the last couple of days.

Unfortunately, as with most things in my life, circumstance and poor planning and dedication on my part will likely render it a disappointment, and I, like so many others, will find myself holding the bag of my own responsibility.

Depression in full swing; universe, grant me superpowers.

I’d rather be a hero.

Target: 500 words
Written: 309 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: High Hunt, David Eddings
Comics: Y The Last Man 17-20
Music: Popcorn, Muse

focusin’

Posted on by admin

I seem to slipping into the zone more easily this morning. Maybe it’s an illusion, but I killed my workout this morning, and focus seems to be top of the pops when I’m doing my morning work, my morning commute, as I would say.

Writing’s going well, I’m tuned in, tuned on, and the music flows through me without being a distraction, but a driver.

It’s nice. This doesn’t happen that often.

Maybe the funk is breaking. Hold on long enough and it will; all things pass, as they say, including the bad stuff.

Target: 500 words
Written: 365 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Art Of Non-Conformity, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: Rat Queens 15-16, Rat Queens v2 1-2
Music: Know-It-All, Alessia Cara (what can I say? I dig introvert anthems.)

stuck

Posted on by admin

Today, I am stuck. Every move, blocked. Every item, twisted.

Every step, stagger.

Today, my shoes are sodden with muck, sucking holes bearing downward into the mire.

It is as it always is, as it ever will be.

We are a death march.

Target: 500 words
Written: 587 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Art Of Non-Conformity, Chris Guillebeau
Comics: Rat Queens 11-14
Music: Knives Out, Radiohead

saturday

Posted on by admin

After successfully ripping off both Matt Fraction and Night Vale yesterday, I think I’ll take it a bit easier today. Laundry. Writing. Reading. Maybe some special “me” time (video games, jerks), in between a trip to the grocery store and a dog walk.

It’s funny, because all of that seems so relaxing, and yet, I think what I’d really like to do is go back to bed for several hours and then laze out all day on the couch, only getting up to pee, eat and hopefully, fuck.

What else could a guy need?

Depression and exhaustion are motherfuckers.

Target: 500 words
Written: 301 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, Jane Austen, probably
Comics: Rat Queens Preview 1, Rat Queens 1-3
Music: The King Of Limbs, Radiohead

possible

Posted on by admin

So, I guess it’s possible to get published after all. Not that I had any doubts of my sister-in-law’s ability to do so, we’ve definitely gone about it in different ways. She’s networked her way to support for her book, and that’s the smart way to do it.

I’ve apparently opted for the struggling artist in silence, waiting for discovery somehow from the confines of my attic.

These two things are not particularly compatible. It is unlikely that I will ever be discovered, sending out screeds from my basement; it is a matter of personal disgust to whore myself out.

I know it’s about making a genuine connection with people, with those that may be into the things you’re creating. I know that.

Humanity hasn’t exactly been showing its best side lately and I wouldn’t even know where to look to find a tribe or like-minded folks without running into the kind of awful people I seek endlessly to avoid. I can’t do anymore myopic right-wingers or self-important snoots. I want genuine; I don’t want people who look down their nose at others, or those who want to drag everyone into the muck.

I can’t do it.

The time and energy commitment, when I have so little of either, is a real bummer; how could I possibly have less and survive?

I don’t know.

I am my own worst enemy.

I am my only protector.

Shit.

Target: 500 words
Written: 194 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, Seth Grahame-Smith
Comics: East Of West 36-39
Music: KillYrIdols, Sonic Youth

when it rains

Posted on by admin

It fucking kicks you in the nuts.

Not to belabour the point this morning, but man, between lack of sleep, body aches, creeping depression bordering on full shutdown and a near constant stream of demands, I am on the verge of collapse today.

Of course, no one cares, because this world is now savagely devoid of empathy, compassion or basic attempts at understanding the struggles of our fellow humanity.

On the plus side, Donald Trump can’t post his bond, so there’s that. I have little faith that justice will prevail, of course, because if it was going to, the fucker would have been taken down years ago.

The rich fret not about consequence; all that matters is the score.

Target: 500 words
Written: 440 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, Seth-Grahame Smith
Comics: East Of West 28-31
Music: Killed The Radio Star, Closet Monster

the smell of death

Posted on by admin

I’m not sure what’s happened in my kitchen overnight, but it smells as though something has died.

I’m not sure where it’s coming from. I made peanut butter cookies last night. Could it be from the staling batter in the sink? The dishwasher was full, man. I don’t deserve the scent of rot for not emptying the whole thing late at night.

Sometimes, it feels like life is one calamity after another, a subtle and specially formed hell.

I fell on a skinny tree stump cut off at an absurdly pointed angle when I was eight and nearly died.

It’s becoming less and less of a question in my mind: did I actually die? Is this my hell? I mean, I stole some of those pink musclemen from a Toys ‘R’ Us when I was a child, but I felt horrible about it. Is that enough for the supposed god of mercy and love to sentence an eight year old to hell?

Or maybe I overdosed at some point. I’ve never done anything harder than mushrooms and LSD, but who knows? Laced with something? I drank a lot in my youth; maybe I aspirated out on the floor.

I don’t know, but every moment of joy seems calculated to serve as a reminder of what I’m losing as each new calamity piles on.

I think about death way more than I should.

Target: 500 words
Written: 316 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, Tucker Max
Comics: East Of West 13-15, East Of West: The World 1
Music: The Kids Are Alright, The Who

i guess i shouldn’t write at night

Posted on by admin

Maybe late at night if it’s been a not-so-bad day, and I’m all keyed up and need a release.

But writing after a long day of a hard mental slog? It doesn’t leave much to be desired.

I had a thought about writing of wanting to be bigger than you are (on the inside! And not in the squishy, gooey, fatty way), but that’s too big for me now.

I am small.

My words are small. My works are small.

I am a haiku; flash fiction.

A one-shot comic.

A short story.

A novella, bordering on novelette.

What’s a novelette you say?

A book that wears heels and kicks up its legs in a line with its fellow works, all tits and fishnet, grinning to hide the awful realities behind it.

Target: 500 words
Written: 307 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Welcome To Night Vale, Night Valia (I did like it, but the near constant podcast references slowed it waaaaaaaaaaaay down, making me wish time was as weird as they say it is, and thereby I could skim through it a bit faster.  It got to be a bit of a slog.)
Comics: East Of West 5-8 (way, way into this)
Music: Kid A, Radiohead

rats, kenneth

Posted on by admin

I started off today thinking things were going to be bad. I was distracted, couldn’t focus, following rabbit trails.

That bass started in Rats and suddenly, I was deep in. Pearl Jam is my jam (well, one of them), and that early work?

Shit. Follow it with a little R.E.M. and damn, son, things are looking up.

Except.

They didn’t.

Stuck drain, VPN outages, and a sinking sense of being on the way to being completely fucked… that’s my real jam, apparently.

Seriously, maybe fuck today?

Target: 400 words
Written: 280 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Welcome To Night Vale, those guys
Comics: East Of West 1-4
Music: Kick Out The Jams, MC5