Category: depression

angry

Posted on by admin

My wife says I’m angry. I say she’s angry. She says that’s just at her daughter, but it bleeds out into the rest of the world.

Mine does as well. I’m sick of other people.

I listen to A Wave Across The Bay and I want that for myself.

I want endless falling, never crashing, never landing, never ceasing to exist, but never engaging again.

Endless travel, free of care, free of responsibility.

When Sartre says hell is other people, he might be on to a thing.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1721 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: On Love, Charles Bukowski
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. v6 8-11
Music: Flyin' The Flannel, FIREHOSE (I don't why it's listed in all caps)

trying to remember kindness

Posted on by admin

This is a tough world in which to focus on kindness. I try to, but my frustration with our current political climate and people’s unfortunate behaviour makes it difficult to find sympathy.

It’s very easy to retreat.

Crippling depression and overwhelming stress doesn’t help. When one is in crisis, doing the extra for others seems a step too far.

But perhaps that’s when we need it most.

(What we really need is for someone to show us the same grace in return, but let’s face it – this isn’t that kind of world, and that’s a rare act.)

As someone who has dealt extensively with depression, I can confidently say that most kindness is tempered by judgment.

Oh, I’m so sorry, honey, maybe you should just buck up.

I feel you and what you’re going through, but maybe if you weren’t depressed, you wouldn’t have this problem (no shit, Sherlock).

He’s having a hard time, but he brought it on himself.

Etc., etc.

Do not temper your kindness with judgment; just be there. Give the hug. Hold the hand. Help clean up. Make a casserole.

Listen. Don’t be a jerk.

After all, better out than in, and judgment forces the latter, intentionally or otherwise.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1354 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Night Shift, Stephen King
Comics: Voodoo v2 12, 0, Grifter v3 0, 13
Music: Flood, They Might Be Giants

eight-hundred-ninety-seven

Posted on by admin

That’s how many days since I first sat down and said, “I’m going to try this writing thing,” and put together a haiku about birds falling as a metaphor for our blind spots and was promptly rejected by a magazine that prints exclusively haiku, because I hewed too close to the five-seven-five rule, even though I made it split-sentence run-on, for literary twist.

That’s how many days since I started thinking about monsters under the bed, which led to more short stories about misogyny, a comic about a woman’s revenge and her self-persecution, one about astronauts saving the world by killing innocent aliens, and a book about the Odd Couple, if the odd couple were virtue signaling hypocrites and MAGA monsters.

Eight-hundred-ninety seven days since I wrote down thirty-seven book ideas, a baker’s dozen comics, and vowed to write as many short stories and poems as I possibly could.

And still, I don’t have the guts to send them out to publish.

What is wrong with me?

Wait, don’t answer that. I already know.

I’m scared.

Rejection is the worst feeling. You’re the hero of your own story, tossed away like a background extra cut from the final scene in someone else’s.

My step-son did that once; he and a friend were extras on some dance movie. His friend was considered good-looking enough to make the background cut. My step-son danced for hours to never even get in the frame.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1563 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Well Of Shiuan, C.J. Cherryh (I'm in love all over again)
Comics: Voodoo v2 2-3, Grifter v3 3-4
Music: Fleetwood Mac Essentials, Fleetwood Mac

it’s been a day of revelation

Posted on by admin

Apparently, cutting grass and listening to post-Hoon Blind Melon will do that to someone, in that now, this far in, we see the shape of our lives as carved by our worst enemies.

In my case, crippling depression that I’ve mostly learned to live with, though it’s stolen so goddamn much from me.

So goddamn much.

I want to talk about language and culture and modes of thought, but this damn depression, and this damned lack of time.

So goddamn much.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1785 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Castle Of Wizardry, David Eddings
Comics: WildCats 20-23
Music: The Final Solution - Outcesticide III, Nirvana

sometimes, my notes make me laugh

Posted on by admin

It’s like ongoing comedy at times, like when I pre-tank my book sales because of the florists’ boycott, or when I mistype said as saiad, and immediately decide that this is the new name for a depression nymph.

All this to avoid thinking about the slap in the face, the spit in the eye, the return to stupid games and lies by one of the most selfish individuals we have in our life.

Christ, I’m tired of insecure narcissists and their manipulative selfishness, with no regard as to who they hurt, or the lasting effect of their lies.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 2588 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Dead As A Doornail, Charlaine Harris
Comics: WildCats 3.0 8-11
Music: Fight For Your Mind, Ben Harper (Another Lonely Day is my favourite walking around song)

we need to talk about wil

Posted on by admin

I’ll be honest. I find a lot of commonality with Wil Wheaton, even though Wil Wheaton and I have lived very different lives.

My parents weren’t particularly overbearing, but I definitely feel the anxiety and the insecurity, the desire for people to think I am more than I am, and the head-up-the-assiness of my fully filled with bullshit youth.

How’s that for a sentence?

My first thought when reading Still Just A Geek was, my god, he’s still stuck, still defined by his bitterness and angry from decades before. Thankfully, it mellowed out a bit, but there was a moment there where I was genuinely concerned for him, that he was going to be forever caught in this bitter hatred, this ravaging insecurity, only now, instead of blaming Hollywood and overplaying his hand, he was blaming his parents.

I mean, shit, is he ever hard on young Wil, even as he’s telling young Wil that it’s not his fault. Plus, there’s an oversensitivity to his own insensitivity, in that he wants to give himself a break for being hard on himself, but excoriates himself repeatedly for even the most minor of politically incorrect offenses (never really truly acknowledging that while we know better now as we’ve grown, it’s just not something we understood back then, and we cannot live our lives in perpetual guilt for the smallest of past actions, and outrage for the current ones by everyone else).

I worried he’d traded the bluster of overperformative insecurity and anger for the bluster of overperformative modern social standing (and believe me, it is a major pet peeve of mine when it comes to people whose use of modern political correctness is done solely as performance art, to make other people think of them in a way that doesn’t reflect who they truly are – for example, those who think a social media post is all that’s needed to end racism or transphobia. Exposure helps, but if your only interest is in how it makes you look, well then, fuck you. You’re the example right wing fascists use when they want to demonstrate the hypocrisy of the left – and while they’re still assholes and fully in the wrong about pretty much everything, there’s something to that.)

Don’t be a hypocritical asshole.

In any case, I made myself do what I always do – devil’s advocate. Because I didn’t want to dogpile on the guy. I enjoy his work. I just worried he’d moved into a space where he’d not really moved, but only shifted the focus, or done some minor redecorating.

Of course, again, this was 2021 when he did all these annotations, so another five years gone and who knows where we are now. I’ll guarantee dredging through those old memories was a trigger for past trauma, so while he may have started with the best of intentions, he may have let that past anger infect him a little. It shows in some of the comments he makes. The second half is better, with more recent and more inspired stuff, but at times, it feels like he’s a little scared to really get into it, to let us dive deep into his psyche.

Then again, as he himself mentions at points, he’s under no obligation to share any of that.

And he’s not. He’s right. It just doesn’t make for a great biography when you won’t share your life.

Anyway, this sounds like I’m being a jerk, but I really do identify with the whole thing. I want Wil to be happy because I want myself to be happy. If he is, if he grows and changes and moves on to a full life without all the baggage, well, shit.

Maybe there’s hope for us all.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 726 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Still Just A Geek, Wil Wheaton
Comics: WildC.A.T.S. 47-49, Voodoo 4
Music: Fear Of A Punk Planet, The Vandals (ever fucker yeah)

scream therapy

Posted on by admin

Is this still a thing? I feel like maybe I could get more into kindness if I could just scream it out first.

Or a rage room, but that seems like it’s: a) creepy and b) likely to cause me injury.

After all, I can dislocate a toe by pivoting on one foot, or throw my back out tying shoelaces.

Smashing shit with a sledgehammer seems maybe a bit fraught.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 897 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Interview With The Vampire, Anne Rice (fucking brilliant)
Comics: Grifter 6-7, WildC.A.T.S. 32-33
Music: Famous Monsters, The Misfits

repetition

Posted on by admin

I think it’s time I got more serious about writing and exploring kindness.

See, The Mungk took me to a dark place because I was thinking about trauma, abandonment and isolation the whole time. The Conflagration of Boor and Aghast made me angry, because tapping into the outrage machine and felt helplessness of modern politics can’t help but do so (also, didn’t help that Trump launched his reign of terror).

Father Lightning is, at its core, an exploration of kindness. So rather than bogging down in anger and hopelessness or despair, it was meant to re-centre me, and re-focus on compassion and empathy and treating people with kindness and respect.

But here I am, thinking about anger and trauma, again.

Going forward, no more pain and anger (well, some pain and anger).

The primary focus of this blog will be kindness, and everything that goes along with it.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 2195 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Time For A Tiger, Anthony Burgess (when I started reading this, I thought it might be about an actual tiger, or a tiger as a metaphor for Malaysia near the end of British rule, but nope - a Tiger is a warm beer, and our protagonist spend most of their time not wanting to do anything but stop what they're doing and go have one.  Weird premise, Burgess.  I mean, I understand the sentiment, but weird thing to focus a book on.)
Comics: Voodoo/Zealot: Skin Trade 1, Zealot 1, WildC.A.T.S. 23, Team One/WildC.A.T.S. 2
Music: Facelift, Alice In Chains