Category: depression

i get it; i’m late

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For all the things I wanted to do with my life, I probably would have had to have started as a teenager.

Unfortunately, the lessons I needed to learn, the skills I had to grow (and am still growing), the mindset, the life experience, all that stuff… it unfolded a little slower than it probably should have.

Maybe I could have gone a more traditional route, and maybe I could have been content with that, but when have I ever been content with anything? In the moment, I can be, in the midst of a good meal or a great book or great sex, a nice moment in the sun while walking the dogs.

But isn’t that the only time ever?

I know it will take me probably until I’m a hundred and no longer able to function physically or mentally to do the work that I want to do, to see the places I wanted to see, to have all the experiences I’ve desired.

I probably won’t make it, barring terrific medical advances. Of course, I could live that long but the growing spectre of fascism, the threat of climate change, bigotry and hatred, the complete breakdown of both civility and the willingness to stand up for what is right, in action more than words, is likely to end this planet (or at least my life or the ability to do the things I desire to do), all that pretty well guarantees that this is a fool’s errand.

But what’s the alternative?

Giving up?

I know I’m a late bloomer, but hell. Fuck it.

There’s no do-overs, so it’s now or never, and if I die in the attempt, without making the impact I would have liked, well, there’s no shame in trying.

Only in giving up.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 1479 words, short story: Late Riser

Read: The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho (also, this has nothing to do with this book, it was garbage, like Eckhart Tolle fucked Hans Christian Andersen and their baby read The Secret on the way out - stuff like this is why people get stuck in their own heads thinking they just have think things into existence, or that all skill is just natural, instead doing the fucking work.)
Comics: Chew 42-44, Chew: Warrior Chicken Poyo (POYO!) 1
Music: No!, They Might Be Giants

early risin’

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I’m up earlier than I wanted to be, but so is everyone else, which kills my time to meditate and read and put on headphones and plow through a random selection of music on my way to the second coffee of the day.

And I’m thinking about time.

I’m thinking about how frozen I am; how stuck; how the only barrier to me getting what I want and being the thing I want to be is myself and this mental block, this block behind the tires of the trailer that is my mine.

My wheels are spinnin’.

Moving beyond is terrifying; there’s so many bad things going on in the world right now to stop it from ever happening, but I cannot control those. I can only control what I need to do to get what’s in my head out of my head.

It’s getting it past that that’s the real trick.

How does the world find it? Can I get it done before I die?

Geez. I guess there really was a theme to all this.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 1273 words, short story: Late Riser

Read: The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
Comics: Chew 39-41, Chew/Revival 1
Music: No, Virginia, The Dresden Dolls

the pushpull

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It tears at me. This urge to drive myself forward, to drive myself into something better, while simultaneously fighting not to give in to all the shit people of the world (and there are many).

It’s the dream of free people everywhere; it’s the slavering desire of every monster to put a stop to it.

It’s those close to us who behave in ways that benefit only themselves; who’d screw over their own blood for their own sick self-interest; who are so lost in their own little world that they fail to see that other people are not simply NPCs in the game of their lives, to be slaughtered or ignored as needed (or at a whim).

My biggest concern is that I’m one of them; my biggest fear is that I’m not serving myself by consistently taking myself out of the equation.

I know I need to help more. I know I barely have enough energy to hold my insides in. It’s a virtual certainty that if I stop holding it together, my body will burst and disintegrate, spilling my entrails to the floor.

Is it too much to ask for wings to emerge from the viscera?

I don’t believe in God or heaven, in no small part because it sounds fucking tedious and hypocritical, but I’d like to think peace is the end result, rather than an eternity of regret.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 432 words, poem: Feathers Falling

Read: Constellation Games, Leonard Richardson
Comics: Chew 20-23
Music: No Security, The Rolling Stones

hopeful

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I’m trying to be more hopeful in the face of a rising tide.

The forces that have colluded since Reagan to undermine freedom, integrity and basic human rights (AKA fascists, bigots and corporations) are peaking, and threatening to drag us all back to the fucking Stone Age.

I am trying to find the inner hope that says, this too shall pass.

We shall rise again, as we inevitably do.

As long as they don’t kill us all first.

Motherfuckers.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 108 words, poem: Feathers Falling

Read: Constellation Games, Leonard Richardson
Comics: Chew 17, 18, 27, 19 (what?  I swear it's right)
Music: No Reason To Complain, Patton Oswalt

roses and violets

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Roses are red
Violets are blue
Hearts are black
And lungs bruised
Legs are weary
Head aches
I’ve gone too far
Before I wake
The road behind
Is trampled waste
Lessons learned
And lost in haste
Roses red
And dipped in black
Falling slowly
Down my back
Burning muscles
Acid lungs
I’ve come to know
My race is run
And if I die before I wake
May someone find
What I meant to make

Target: 1000 words
Written: 80 words, poem: Roses And Violets

Read: Constellation Games, Leonard Richardson
Comics: Chew 13-16
Music: No Line On The Horizon, U2

legacy

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I want to leave behind a body of work that people can dig into and enjoy, even if it’s just in the dissection of me as a person.

I’m sure it won’t all be flattering; I’ve behaved terribly at times.

Such is the life of a drunken wannabe punk kid from the small towns of Ontario. You’ll say and do shit to regret later; apologies don’t mean it didn’t happen.

It also doesn’t mean it’s who you ended up.

I don’t know how I’ll end up.

But I’m worried I don’t have the stamina or force of will for the long run.

Please don’t let me end up one of these cozy mystery writers, or some detective or spy novel fuck, churning out the same formulaic CSI bullshit each week.

It’s always the goddamned butler.

I want my legacy to be more complex than that.

More compelling; equally pathetic, mildly horrific, one long cringe punctuated by the occasional, “Okay, he’s growing on me.”

He’s getting better.

Please let me leave it behind.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 326 words, poem: Roses And Violets

Read: Constellation Games, Leonard Richardson
Comics: Chew 9-12
Music: No Joke!, Meat Puppets

the mungk

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It started off as a riff on a couple of classics, as so many of my things do: the monster under the bed and it was a dark and stormy night…

I can’t seem to help postulating on other ways to see things; it’s a gift and a curse. The need to play devil’s advocate and constantly ask what other ways a thing can be seen is so ingrained in me, it’s just about impossible to keep from indulgence.

The monster under the bed merged with the concept of little things draining the life and verve you’re born with, and grew to encompass loss, abandonment and trauma.

The Mungk is a meditation on the birth of resignation, of fatalism.

Hopelessness, as seen through the guise of a children’s story.

It’s a exploration of how, as we grow, the world reveals itself to be far less well-meaning and static than we presume as children, where parents are gods, friends are forever and it’s one adventure after the other.

I won’t claim to have been abandoned or abused or any of that good stuff. My parents were pretty good. We had our fights, but nothing like what other poor souls have been through. I was disemboweled by a tree when I was eight; it didn’t make me grow up vowing revenge against improperly cut stumps.

(What a shitty superhero that would have been – the Leveller!)

I was more traumatized by the loss of faith; as I’ve said before, if you want to lose your religion, read the Bible. If you’re not out by Leviticus, there’s something wrong with your basic human decency.

The Mungk is trauma on trauma on trauma.

It’s overwhelming, it’s so much bigger than something we can deal with, in a child’s parable.

I’m sorry to unleash this on the world, but well, it’s the thing I’m most proud of, to this point. It’s good.

I think it’s great.

I could be wrong.

That’s the risk a person takes in creating anything. We build, we create, we connect the dots. We put it out into the world and now, it’s something for the jackals. Their noses twitch, their lips pull back from their teeth.

They pounce.

Anyway, the Mungk is born, for better or worse.

Only time will tell if this post is the beginning of something huge, or just another whisper in a storm.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 1618 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Mindset: The New Psychology Of Success, Carol Dweck
Comics: Chew 1-4
Music: No Exit, Blondie (ha!)

falling asleep

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Falling into skyrocketing blood pressure.

It’s like being so drunk you lose all balance and suddenly, tip sideways into the snow, but you’re stuck in the moment where balance fails and you’re just about to tip uncontrollably…

Without even the good time first.

Well, technically. I’m sure the abuse I put my body through was a good time at the time. I just don’t remember any of it.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 1549 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: I'll Be Gone In The Dark, Michelle McNamara
Comics: The Boys 57-59, The Boys: Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker 1
Music: Ninety-Nine-Double-Oh Demos, Local H (most underrated grunge band ever?)

today has only just begun

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And already, it seems like it might have been smarter to throw myself headfirst down the stairs.

Fuck me.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 1649 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: I'll Be Gone In The Dark (I Wish), Michelle McNamara
Comics: The Boys 53-56
Music: Nina Simone Essentials, Nina Simone (probably the only good thing that'll happen all day)

snow market

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Technically, it’s the Dresden Night Market, but whatever. It snowed all day yesterday and is slated to all day today and tomorrow and the next and the next, etc., etc., etc., until climate change murders us all.

Assuming our new fascist overlords don’t get there first. My hope is that Trump’s ego pisses off the rich and they start using their influence to fuck him over.

But for now, it’s winter markets and praying the world doesn’t collapse before I get a chance to finish all that I desire to do.

It’s just too goddamn bad I decided to leave the starting line after most people have already run the race.

Target: 1000 words
Written: 1559 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: I'll Be Gone In The Dark, Michelle McNamara
Comics: The Boys: Highland Laddie 4-6, The Boys 48
Music: Night Time, Killing Joke