Month the Twenty-Fifth

3.25.25 Sunshine

Reporting live from the sunshine state, we are having our coffee and listening to the sounds of the screaming children outside. And I Tara’s sunshine, as she is so fond of telling me as we start our days ordinarily. Oh yes, Florida, the place where dreams go to die. Maybe that is Hollywood. Maybe it is somewhere else. I don’t know, as I have been very up front about so many things on this journey through the years. Can you believe it has been two full years since we started this? That we are into the third year of this nonsense, after which this project will be a quarter of the way done? It’s amazing to me, the one who has sat and entombed the words in ink, or in whatever liquid crystal image display this computer screen makes words out of. I am happy to be looking at the sun, and a palm tree, and golf clubs, and shells, to say nothing of the tacky captain statues and miniature lighthouses that dot this condo.

Oh what a vacation this will be, with the kids of Tara’s marriage, and I, along for the ride with them. So far it has been going well, she thinks. I am no judge of that, for I am just a bystander on this journey through the Floridian sands. I watch and I take in the sights and smells, the small arguments that crop up between the youths now and again. Where would we be without sibling friction, the natural consequence of being in the car for two days with just a little pause in the Music City to stretch our legs and put some Italian food in our gullets. Though they didn’t love the Italian food, the young ones, and I feel some blame for that, having chosen the restaurant through a cursory search of open table. Oh well, you can’t win them all, I suppose, and I am not seeking to win, only seeking to be myself and hopefully bond some with these kids that look like they will be in my life for some time to come.

I feel lucky that the grouping that could be considered family is growing, that despite the challenges of being something like a step-father to these children I am not reliant on being a cool uncle either. I don’t want to be cool, or hip, or stylish. I want to be plain, to be a bore, to be normal. Of course I am not so good at being any of those things except in my most depressive phases, and I hate being there as well. It is probably stressing my parents out to have me away without them. They probably stress a lot, about me in particular. I do not mean for it to be this way, but I have given them plenty of reasons to worry about me in the past, and I suppose it is hard to shake those feelings off even if I have been doing well for so long.

It is with a heavy heart that I lapse into cliché to tell you that I must cut this short as we are going to the thrift stores down the way so that we not waste away this day in the condo where the clocks tick off the hours and the ceiling fans whir silently through the day. I am happy to be along for the ride on this vacation, happy that I have things to do and people who care about me. I am grateful for all that I have, and ready to defend it, to fight for it if need be. I don’t think it will come to that, but you never really know. I am caffeinated and ready to face the day, so wish me luck. We are going on an adventure and I am anything but in charge.

3.27.25 Sunshine part 2.

I should’ve gone on the walk, but the allure of a few extra minutes’ sleep sounded good, even though I did not sleep much. So it has been coffee and a bagel and my new book, which Tara got me this last Christmas. I look out at the yacht in the bay and the gulf of Mexico to the south, at the palm trees and the shallow pool that is colder than the ocean; I smile, I breathe, I smile again. I am a lucky man, of that much I am sure. For I am in warmer climes, am sitting here on the porch drinking water for all the coffee has been consumed and listening to my eighth favorite Hozier song play from my phone’s feeble speaker. I wish I had gone on that walk, don’t I?

But there is no use wishing you had made a different choice. Too often life has proven that, hasn’t it? How often do we wish for something different, something better? But what is better, really? Is there any relief from the boredom stretching from morning ‘til night? And really, is it all that boring? Surely the days pass easier than they used to, with less agony over the small things that would crop up, the small nothings that raged inside my imagination. I am doing much better, truly, at accepting what this life is. At embracing reality with all the force that it possesses. The sheer power of what is giving us the hope that it will never end, with the implicit assurance that it will someday. Oh how fleeting our joys and our sorrows, oh how empty our triumphs over the cruelty of the seemingly meaningless empty vast space between waking and sleeping.

You see I have been making peace with this emptiness, with the feeling that nothing has much in the way of meaning. Trying to become the perfect hollow bamboo for my passions to pour out of. What passion is there when there is only petty cares and concerns? Where would I be going if not to a grave? Where would I be now if I was not in Florida waiting for my love to return from a beachcombing adventure? I could be on that beachcombing adventure, I suppose, one of the simpler solutions, or I could be at home alone and still lonely, if I had never met the little blonde wonder who makes my life better each and every day. I think at least I am better off now than I was a year ago, when I was similarly in Florida, though in wholly different circumstances.

There are no birds chirping, though the palm fronds rustle in the breeze. The traffic on the highway keeps up its steady thrum, the sun beats down on my face, narrowing my eyes against its harsh glare. And yet, and yet, what else could there be? What more to this life than a peaceful morning alone with the typer? What more could I ask for? There were a lot of times in my life when I felt like I was owed more than this. An existential entitlement that had me miserable most of the time because I was not a success, or I didn’t have the drugs I wanted, or the excitement that I felt that life was supposed to be. Now I am beyond drugs, and understand that life is mostly boring, or can be, if you don’t find a way to make it live. Yes the empty wastes between sleeping and sleeping again can be filled up any which way, with this meandering prose, with reading, with exercise, with cigarettes even, though we are moving beyond that. Would you believe that it has been five days since I had one, and no replacement either. Cold turkey on this vacation and I will have to keep the ball rolling when I go home. But I digress.

You see there is work to be done, there is leisure to be had, the days grow longer and the nights are warmer than they have been. Of course tomorrow we head back toward colder climes. Still this has been a nice break, and I’m feeling good about my relationship with the kids. Surely I am neither cool uncle nor step-dad, maybe bonus dad is a better term. Though I am not truly old enough to be father to any but maybe one of them. I do not seek to be a father figure, just a companion to their mother, who, as I have expressed so many times, lights up my world. To see her smile that big toothy grin as she looks at me makes my heart happy. And what are we to do other than make our heart happy. We are going to get married, aren’t we? We might even have a child, if the fates allow. Wouldn’t that be something?

I have never wanted much from this life. Rather I have wanted less and less as I’ve gotten older. When I was young I wanted the world. Literary fame and fortune a la Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald. I wanted to be Hemingway, I wanted to be rich and not have to work. Now I still want that, to a certain degree, or rather I want to be able to work on the creative projects that enrich my soul, though I confess that the menial waiting tables brand of work is relatively fulfilling as well. It fills up the days and I do not hate it, and that is enough for me as I approach 34 years on this planet. There was a time when it was killing me, but now I am in a no-stress niche, I get time with my love, I get to serve people, who though occasionally ungrateful, mostly appreciate what I am doing for them, and show that appreciation in dollars and cents. Life goes on into this new and humble future, I have been humbled by how many manias? How many grasps at the whole world at once, the madness of Kerouac, of the everything all at once sickness of the soul. Of course we cannot have it all. That is a speed freak’s dream, nothing more or less.

I am here on this porch watching my battery wind down, watching the emails pile up. I sip my water through a straw and kick my legs in the restless action driven by the haldol. I could be in much worse straits than these, I reckon, and I am grateful to be sitting in the sun on a balcony and not in a gulag somewhere staring at a cinder block wall. I am grateful that I had food for breakfast, and coffee before that. That I can smell the salt air, that I can feel the sun on my face. Alas, there is nothing better than simple pleasure, there is nothing more fulfilling than being in love. And here I am, in the love that I never anticipated. In the throes of the calmest, slowest love I have ever known, the kind of affection that comes and is shared easily and without reservation. I have never given myself to another in this way, and to hear her tell it, neither has she. And so in this novelty we continue to explore each other’s dreams, to search each other’s desires and try to fulfill as many of them as we can.

Soon they will be home and we will carry on into the day as if this morning apart never happened. It is scarcely 9:30, after all, and there is plenty of day left to fawn over each other without seeming too lovey-dovey in front of the kids. I wonder if Charlee went on the walk. Probably she did, but I don’t really know. I don’t really know a lot of things, but I am quite sure that if you have love in your life you should hold fast to it lest it become a bygone as things have a way of doing. Always this life is passing us by, each minute is to be relished, each slow day taken as a blessing in its slowness. I look forward to being in the sun today, as those songbirds on the palm sit and look around in silence. I would sing if I only knew the words. Wouldn’t I, Wouldn’t I?

TTFN,

Richard

3.28.25 From the road

Zoom zoom, L&G, we are soaring again over the freeways, down the road on our way north, away from the beaches and palm trees and back towards the snow and rain. It’s a shame really, but probably necessary, as tempers grow shorter with more time spent in close quarters. I don’t know if I am ready to leave or not, but it doesn’t matter, because we are already in Alabama headed north. As to the world at large there is tragedy everywhere, political strife, discrimination and outright bigotry. But from here in the front seat the world is green and getting greener as we move farther and farther into spring. And yes, farther, it is a description of the motion of the Earth through space, both its angle to the sun and its path through the vacuum.

And it looks like we will be stuck in traffic before long, the vast numbers moving on this road to nowhere, or rather this road back to the north, where we will be greeted with snow and freezing rain when we arrive tomorrow. But that is a long way off, the air here is warm as it streams in through the window, the radio plays an oldie but a goodie, the cars in front of us are still moving, at least for now. I am doing my best to keep a smile on my face but I am tired and hungry, and so I wear a mask of flat indifference, which is the closest to happiness that I can manage. Still we make progress, running over blacktop, watching the buds leaf out on the trees that line the road. I suppose it could be a lot worse.

I do admit that it was wonderful to swim in the ocean, that the salt water on my skin made my heart leap out of my chest in joy. And it was fun to play golf, fun to play it with Tara’s son. But gosh taking three kids on vacation tested me a little. And yet I am still here, still sitting beside the lady who makes me as happy as I have ever been. I won’t sit here and complain, that is not what this is about, but there were a couple points when my patience was tried to the point that I shut down and got quiet. But that is to be expected I suppose. It was a new thing, and Tara thinks everyone did well with it, so I am happy with that outcome. If my patience is tested occasionally that is not such a bad thing, is it? 

I contend that it is not. That the good parts of this vacation more than made up for the mildly stressful bits when the kids fought or took a long time to get ready. Such is the cost of having children I suppose, though I have not had any thus far, and I guess that is the bother. Of course, the kids and Tara are a package deal, and I can’t have her without them, or petition her to abandon them or something, for what kind of a person would I be then? No, she is worth it to me, and they are dear to her and consequently dear to me, even if they can be annoying at times. I’m sure I can as well, and am especially sure that I have been an annoyance in my past iterations. Surely my father and mother felt that I was annoying at times, I suppose the only difference is that they are not my kids. But they are family I suppose, or will be soon enough, and so I must love them unconditionally even when it is hard.

Fortunately, most of the time it is easy, as they are good kids, and I like children, though they are not exactly children any more, having moved beyond that label into teens and even, in Ryan’s case, beyond that. I feel badly even for admitting that they tried my patience a couple of times, but I suppose it is better to be honest and flawed than to pretend to a fictitious perfection. And I am far from perfect, far far from it. I know my limitations, and I do my best, and that is all I can offer this world. I am not trying to save the world, I am just trying to get through the day, through the week, through the year. I have plans, but they are not concrete, I would like to sell a book, but have not done so yet. One of these days I will get lucky, I hope, and not have to toil in mediocrity any more. I want to be better, to do better, to be successful in worldly terms, but I fear my work is not eye-popping enough to jump off the pile. Or maybe it is, and I will soon be hearing from someone whom I have queried.

Who knows, I continue to live my life and to ply the blank page, to write even if no one ever reads it. Someday I will catch a break, at least I hope I will. Until then the pages continue to pile up, the rambling directionless pages that keep me busy if no one cares to read them. I do hope that this amounts to something more than that, that I am capable of more than idle amusement as I add to this steadily. You know, I don’t think anything is that important, I don’t think my identity as a writer is that important, if it does give me a purpose beyond being just a waiter, an ambition to leave something lasting…

For that is the goal of this writing business, and especially of this diary. To leave behind a record of what went on in this head of mine on any given day in any given year. And now we have two whole years in the books. Two whole books worth of entries, two whole books worth of me just trying to get some words out, of peering inward and seeing the outer world reflected in increasingly concave mirrors. Larger and larger loom the images, inverted though they sometimes may be. And I just the conduit, for something more than cigarette smoke, something more than vapid conversation. Something meaningful, something essential. Like the knowledge that nothing can save you from what is coming, death comes for us each and every one, and no amount of prayer or money or exercise will add one minute to however much time is allotted you. None but the father knows when the son will return, and return you will, to the vast and impenetrable nothing that awaits us on the margins of birth and death.

I think of this often, and try to enoy my life to the best of my ability in light of it. You see every day has meaning, even the empty and hopeless ones. I have had plenty of those in my time, and today, despite the traffic that is making it take much longer to get to our lunch stop than it should, is a better day than that. I want to be home in the little house where I can lay down beside the love of my life and kiss her on the forehead good night. To be released from these close quarters and be able to spread my wings. Not that I am much of a flier, nor really any kind of bird. I am just a tired man who feels a trifle defeated in his efforts to be happy. It is one of those days where if I had gone to sleep last night and never woken up that might have been a relief. But alas, that skirts the suicide itch, and I can’t, won’t do that. I’m just tired, I think, and bored, and a little bit sad, for reasons that are beyond me.

That is enough for today, enough of this ill feeling. I feel at the moment that I am not enough. It is a depressive phase that always lurks beneath the surface of my smile. I want to be happier than I am, but must embrace the low that is stretching its jaws to swallow me whole. Never, probably, will I be free of these feelings. I will always struggle with depression, I think, will always deal with days when I feel that I would be better off dead, even when nothing is explicitly wrong. I suppose I could try to sleep it off, or perhaps try to distract myself by reading. Or I could face up to the thing and stop being such a whiney little bitch about it. That’s enough Richard, you can do this. You are worthy and mostly whole, and that is enough for today. That is enough for any day.

TTFN.

3.30.25 Back home in Indiana

Or Michigan, actually, where ice storms have left us without power even within the city proper. Fortunately we still have heat in the dollhouse, and a gas range that allows us to boil water for our coffee. And they are all at the store, or rather in the car charging their phones so they might maintain the standard of distraction they are accustomed to. And Tara is at the store, and hopefully not stuck in a line so long she will be out of gas when she returns to the car. Oh lord, this has become quite a conundrum, quite a bother, and grumpy teenagers only the half of it. No, the branches on the trees outside crackle and snap, they fall to the ground with a crash like glass shattering as the ice breaks off them when they impact solid earth. Oh it is beautiful to look at everything glazed over, but it is a brutal reality that it is all more disruptive than even the deepest snow.

So now, as the sojourners have returned from the store, and the house becomes crowded with their footfalls, I sit here with a fresh cup of coffee wondering when the small space confinement will end. I am ready for some alone time with my love, for a night when we can repair ourselves to love on one another as we have not been able to. Or maybe that is more than I should say here, for who knows who may read the blag. Oh well, what is said is said, and I shall accept any downstream consequences of all that I have written. I care not for consequences but write, as the great seer William Blake wrote that the prophet Isaiah told him in one of his memorable fancies. Of course I am no longer writing about God, as that great poet was, that poetic genius of old Israel, which is not to be confused with new Israel, though a lot of the warring practices remain similar or the same, I suppose.

I don’t know if that’s true, really. I don’t know what the Israelis are up to over in Palestine. Probably no good, if I had to guess. Or good, depending on who you ask. I am not sure that massacring civilians can be considered good by any measure, but who am I to judge. Certainly I am not God, as I have sometimes believed that I was. Of course these beliefs are fed by others, and we must be careful who we surround ourselves with. We must be careful what springs we drink at and remember always to expect poison from the standing water. I do not care what happens in the world, I have neither the emotional space nor the mental fortitude to be a warrior for causes in the third world. Especially when there are so many nearer and dearer causes to me, like people in this country, in this state even, battling with the demons of psychosis.

Oh if I were to win the lottery I would give some money to that cause, and probably some of my time too. To unstitching the belief structures with which others have sutured their trauma. The things that have got away from this reality we all share, or rather the reality that most of us share, as there are certainly some among us who live in their own little (or big) worlds. I don’t know how my world compares to others, though I have been told it is a big world inside my head. That I think big thoughts and that is why sometimes I am paralyzed in fear. And at other times why I feel capable of taking on the whole world. Maybe it is all a fault of my overactive imagination. Who knows, really? I have not found psychiatrists to be a whole lot of help with anything.

But enough about the mentally ill, they have struggles enough without my comments. I have had too much coffee and an anxiety rages within my gut that will not be vanquished by pizza, which is the only food I have on hand. Perhaps a high noon will ease the tremolo that rises, acute, to a fever pitch as I pen these lines. Oh what a world where the trees weep their ice laden branches onto the ground, where the little bit of snow clings to its last life as a touch more falls gently from the sky. I am doing my best, and that is all that can be said about this day.

Of course I can say more, can always say more, like about the crackling branches outside the house that spew their electric sounds into the sky as if the downed power were laughing at our misfortune. Of course we still have the luxury of gas heat, and still have shelter from the precipitation that continues to come down. And food to eat, lest we starve in the face of this new obstacle placed before us. And my parents have a fire at their house, and though one of the forks of that beautiful maple came down outside my window there is still plenty of tree left holding strong in the face of the ice weight that threatens to snap it off at the trunk. Oh joy! Oh sorrow! What are we to make of these days when we cannot even work, there is no relief from the boredom. Soon I will not even be able to add to this, for the battery on this hard machine is growing fainter as the hours move along. I will be reduced to reading only, or to writing on pen and paper, like a heathen.

There are no heathens left. There are no saints and no sinners, no cops and no robbers. There are only the orange city trucks driving around trying to pick up the pieces of this mess. This mess that fell from the sky and then froze, turning the landscape into an ice forest. Earlier I saw and heard a large branch snap off of the maple in the back yard of my parents’ house. Crash boom zip bah! The world tumbling down like that branch that caught its fork in another branch. They will all come down, and these local problems make the world of Washington, of Palestine, even of Indiana, where I lied about being back home (that was yesterday), seem far far away. A galaxy apart from us, where we have our own little struggles, enough to make us forget what is happening in the world at large. A shelter in place emergency, sure enough.

But that is silly, this emergent chaos need not make us shudder. Need not make us fearful. It need only make us bored, as our tvs and our internet are gone. We will not be able to watch the basketball we want to tonight. We will not be able to attend work tomorrow unless the power is restored in the meantime. And I will not be able to write here any more than this, for the power retained by this device is fading fast. As is my interest in writing, though I do have a couple more things to say. But I may not say them, may withhold from you the ephemeral truths that come with being overcaffeinated on a Sunday afternoon. Enough, Basta! Let it come down! But spare some of the trees, for chrissake.

TTFN,

Richard.

4.1.25  Sunshine and blue skies, still no lights

Here goes the day, the outside bright and cheery and glistening from the ice still caked on everything, and I with my coffee and an old favorite on the stereo, and the girls with the puzzle and the cat. I can’t believe how blue the sky, and we are supposed to have another storm in a day or so, what a life, what an emergency to be living through, grateful we have heat to keep our bones warm. Now if only it would warm up outside and melt these trees so they stop leaning over to the ground, those of them that haven’t already snapped, that is. It is a strange week, one I had planned to spend reacclimating to the day to day, but instead have spent shuffling around from the house with heat to the house with hot water, to the house where we retrieved the cat, back to the house with the heat where the puzzle has proven a noble distraction.

Yes we are here, on the manual typer where yesterday I wrote the first poem in months, where today the grasshopper streams on in its song about life itself, this singing on the keys that leave us all to dance with the lines of skeletons that are wrapping around the block like the lines to the gas stations, that line these deserted streets where the wires dangle and the trees are laid across the wires. So I think of them all alone in the bright sunshine as I sweat out my coffee and squint my eyes against the glare. What a world removed from the Florida sunshine that caused me to shield my eyes just a few days ago, we are blinded now by the reflection off the snow, by the glistening patina of ice on the trees, by the utter lack of clouds to obscure the sky.

And I just one human, how many others are suffering in this northern burgh, how many cold and just wishing for the return of modern life, with heat and electricity to keep the beasts at bay? Still the orange city trucks prowl the streets, looking for something to fix. Still I sit in this kitchen wondering what this day will bring. Yesterday brought a nice nap followed by a good sleep, a painless passage of time as can be. Of course there was also anxiety, and nausea too. Which seems a redundant phrase, if I do say so myself. Or maybe not, maybe the redundancy is this third cup of coffee, maybe this day is just beginning to show us what we are capable of. Maybe a lot of things, but who is to say? The only thing I am sure of is that we are another day without power, and must amuse ourselves accordingly.

With the sun so high in the sky it feels like the power might click back on at any minute, as if our misery might be abbreviated by a miracle of line work. It seems like this interminable, powerless (ha, ha) waiting might suddently come to an end. It is this optimism that keeps us going, even if it makes us delusional. One also wonders how many of these trees will die from this. How many of these giants much older than us humans that won’t see another year for the loss of branches? Some would say it is a tragedy. I might say it is an act of God. Deus ex machina, and we in the machine with our little computers charging in the cars,—and a sojourn to the casino to charge the devices, eat some hotdogs and some soup…these are strange days, and I only feel stranger in the afternoon than I did in the morning, even as the ice melts off of the trees and the sun continues to shine…it is just an eerie sort of thing to be days without electricity, throwing out the fridges and sitting up in the dark.

By candlelight we will play our games, by this afternoon sun let my words not be wasted, let me say that I am happier today than I have been the last few, that with this sun and warmer air I am prepared to greet the next wave of the storm they say is coming tonight, that brutalizing kick to this region already down in the mouth, down for the count as crews all over the city try to restore the severed lines. As baby and I sit in this house and await the return of her mother and her daughter, she the third generation, or rather the middle link in the chain that I have no part in except as interloper. And if I make her my wife I will still be just an interloper, won’t I? Having had no part in making those children, kowing nothing of their mother when they were made, and now that I am in the picture I still feel like a guest in this house where I basically live too, more so even then the girls who make a better claim to their mother than I ever could.

No, it is different, as it should be. I should not be like a son to the woman I intend to marry. No, I should be a companion, a lover and a friend, a stalwart rest for her amidst the hardships of the world, the things that press in on us and threaten to drown us in the iniquity of misplaced cares. Does that make sense? Count it among the misplaced cares, the things that we tell ourselves don’t matter even though they are tearing us apart. Tear me apart sweet substation, string me up on a power line, crucify me on a light post, I am ready my lord…hineni, hineni…where is this even going, where am I heading on this journey through the afternoon, now that the cell service has abandoned us and our fancy phones are reduced to glorified ipods?

Surely you grow tired of me, lord knows I grow tired of myself. Lord knows that as the radio plays my favorite tune my concentration wanes, the light grows dim and I struggle to make a coherent thought…sleep is coming for me soon, I can feel it, can feel the fatigue creeping in to smother my smile, kill my joy this weeping is commencing and I don’t have so much as a tissue to dry my eyes. Surely this is wasted time, surely I have long been without something to say…surely this is just boredom. So for chrissakes knock it off, Richard, spare the audience the wasted words, give them relief from the stir-craziness that comes with these confined spaces. I can’t wait for spring to come in earnest, for golf to start, to swim in the lake that is still covered, or half-covered anyways, in ice when we drove by it earlier. Was. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy was he?

TTFN.

4.9.25 I want to die/I never want to die

Two poles that I always seem to be oscillating between. On the one hand there is the lurking narrative in the back of my mind that I would be better off if I were dead. That I wish I were dead. That going to sleep and never waking up would be a great blessing, a great release from this life that seems to drag at times through iterations of never enough/too much. To be easy/lucky/free seems some days like it would be a great blessing. And then there is the consideration that those that you love would go on without you. And that makes me sad. Makes me fear to be missing out. Makes me fearful that I would miss the afterparty. Surely I have written of this before. Surely this missive is becoming repetitive as it cycles through the iterations of my mentation. I am not a collection of unique impulses. They have always told me I’m intelligent, but I don’t see it. I’m just regular, as Tara used to be fond of saying.

Glad I could dissuade her of that false modesty. Glad I can sit and type and not worry so much about what goes on in the world. Glad I can be happy even when a large portion of my day was feeling like I started this entry. But I do not want to die, nor do I want to live forever. I would like a long and happy life please. Would like to make a mark on this world with my words. That may be too much to ask, may be a lot to ask of a world that feels like a burden sometimes even when I bear in mind what a gift it is to be alive at all. Maybe this back and forth keeps me grounded, maybe it is just depression threatening to get the better of me. It is this depression that paralyzes me, makes me say that I am tired of myself. It is this demonic mood that seems to rule me more often than not.

I had a psychiatrist who recognized this. And probably some therapists who did too. Now I have no therapist and my shrink has never been in the same room as me. Maybe the system is failing me, but maybe it has already saved my life. Certainly the meds do something to keep me sane. Or at least level. I resent the remark that I haven’t made it out of the gauntlet of adolescent madness alive. I want it to be known that I intend to live a long time if my health holds out. Surely it won’t, but I won’t succumb to the suicide itch. I won’t give up and leave behind the ones that I love for any reason unless it is my inevitable time to do so. There is no telling what the future holds but I am holding out to get married and maybe even have a baby. Who knows, truthfully?

I am at a loss for how to feel about this world. Surely some things disgust me, some things restore my faith in the goodness of existence. It is always back and forth it seems, and I just caught in the middle on a seesaw that I am aware doesn’t matter all that much. I am so small, that even in the scenarios where I make an outsized impact on the world the impact isn’t so big, and really only matters on Earth. When the Aliens come and wipe us out I will be lost to the sands of time, if I even make it that long. There are no guarantees of such things, no guarantees of anything really. Even death, though eminently likely, is not necessarily guaranteed. I guess I’m saying that we seem to be at an eschatological crossroads. Maybe orange guy is christ, maybe he is antichrist. Maybe the whole myth is a lie, and I don’t need to worry about how it’s all going to turn out. Maybe my Gramma is right and God is just going to pull the plug and everything existing will be kaput.

I think however that we will be forced to endure on Earth until the Aliens come and wipe us out. Or until something big happens. Maybe something big is happening now. Maybe I am just lost in the sauce and can’t see the forest for the trees. My dad often says that about me when I’m losing my grip on reality. That I can’t see the forest for the trees. Surely I used to be something more than I am. Surely I have lost a bit of the spark that I had when I started writing this. Mad to live, mad to never die. Now I am just angry, angry that I can’t seem to pull together congruent thoughts, that my fiction writing has stalled and I seem lost in space on this account. Maybe I am too hard on myself, and the record of how I was feeling is enough. Maybe people will remember me as a kind man, as a man who cared even if he didn’t live his life perfectly. A flawed but timely reminder that redemption is possible even when you never sank so far into the depths of mind that you couldn’t be pulled out. I love you all so much, every last human, even the truly despicable. And I’m not just saying that. I mean it, you all deserve to be happy. And I deserve it too.

TTFN.

4.10.25 Suffering without mentioning it

Why would one wish to keep the suffering out of it? What are we trying to be? Saints? I am no classicist but I do think that emotion is a necessary part of prose, if the assignment of a human quality to everything that rose to the fore of the genre with Romanticism is a bit overwrought. But isn’t it okay to feel, and to feel bad, if that’s what you’re feeling? Gazing out at this bay devoid of ice I see only the approaching spring with no metaphorical attachment. This is no time to say that we cannot walk any longer from here to Harbor Springs, no time to bring in Jesus or Simon Peter with his faltering faith. Surely my faith has faltered, and I no longer believe in much. For a man who wrote a book about the power of belief and its dangers is it any surprise that it has all fallen away? Be good to those you meet, be they human, animal, ghastly, whatever, as if that was a comprehensive list of the categories which things could be; maybe that is the last thing I believe in.

Apathy is a sin, they say, but this comfortable modern life breeds this sin. And also it is not that I do not care, it is that I cannot afford to care about the outcomes of things. Most everything is beyond my control and in recognizing that I have been freed from many of the things that used to bother me. Is it a privilege to be able to let go? Certainly, and I won’t let God anymore than I’ll let anything, for God must be all things that are if It is to be anything at all. Ah yes, now impersonal where previously it was a personal plurality. Maybe I was still hung up on the trilogy, er, trinity, and its implied plurality. Perhaps to be set free of God and of the Christian thinking that the world is destined to end in just the way they say it will, without necessarily giving up on free will even if the path to happiness is to act as if you have very little, like the ability to choose between red berries and black berries. 

Of course writing makes a case for free will, even if it is a compulsion to write. That is to say that it is not exactly an act of will to write, but the content of the writing is probably a reflection of something like free will, or else I am like the sound rising from the needle of the phonograph, nothing more than an interpretation of circumstance, and an involuntary one at that. Probably there is some truth to that, as we are the product of our experience and while we have the choice to hone our mentation or not, and if we hone it take control of our reactions to the things that impose upon us, the circumstances that dictate our emotional responses. And here I am writing about the same old things, in different words. Strange how one’s understandings of everything, but especially of God, evolve.

The sheer force of what is will override the most despondent moods, for even as the economy rides its rollercoaster and proves itself a speculative fantasy, even as people are stripped of their rights, or are even deported, here I am in a well lit, warm room where music plays and I have time to entomb my thoughts on this morning wherein the dental hygienist called me a mouth breather. So there but for the grace of God (what is) go I, I suppose. And here I am choosing ice water over coffee, the red berries instead of the black ones, I suppose. And for all my privilege I still suffer, which brings us full circle, doesn’t it? I would not wish the depressive phases of my disease on anyone, except maybe the megalomaniac, who could use a touch of humility and probably deserves to feel a trifle sad about their desire to trample everyone and everything.

Of course, that has been me at times, so perhaps these depressive phases are the fulfillment of my own wish! Still it is hard to sit in the dental chair thinking about blowing your brains out, or lying in bed in the morning disappointed that the consciousness resumed after the all to brief oblivious respite. And then throughout the day, the reminders that all around us are sensitive beings as well, and that bad days can be contagious. So we try instead to turn our frowns into smiles and spread our ill feeling to no one else. You never know when someone is having a worse day than you, especially when you are having a bad one.

Not that this one is specifically bad, but rather just rife with the creeping malaise that probably is related to the antipsychotic I was injected with yesterday. We need dopamine, L&G, that’s for certain. I’m going to cut this short, now that I am not alone in this room. It seems the thing to do, and I was not tired of the thoughts that came through me today, so that’s something. Something to be said for feeding your head, for making at least an effort to not be ruled by depression. I may not feel well, in a way that straddles the mental and the physical, but I’ll do my damndest to be happy.

TTFN,

Richard

4.12.25 Watching the Wheels Spin

Caffeinated and waiting for breakfast, for the eggs I won’t eat, for the potatoes and sausage that sound delicious. I’m sick to my stomach from too much coffee and from my own neuroses. Feeling like I’m going to be left out of the miracle, the infinite life, the infinite youth where everyone else will get to live out eternity while I will be consigned to the grave. Why do I fear this, why do I fear this wholly unlikely scenario of everyone else getting to live forever while I have to die. Surely everyone else is going to die too, aren’t they? That’s the deal, we get a time limit here on this green Earth that surely, anymore, doesn’t belong to God.

Or maybe what I’m afraid of is that it does, and I am not going to be saved. Of course it does not seem like much of anyone is going to be saved with the way things are going now, does it? But alas, I worry that my baby will be forced to move on to another man when I am gone, and by some perverse afterlife be forced to watch this sickening reality from beyond the grave. Of course likely I will just be dead in that case, and not forced to spectate what is going on in the life I left behind. If there is a personal God, surely He is not that cruel. Or maybe that is my punishment for worshipping instead the God ‘what is’? For the great and powerful world is beautiful and flawed, it brings great hardship and great joy, but certainly these thoughts are nothing new. Still, the acceptance of the world ‘as is’ is a great release. To let it come to you and not fight so hard against the vicious forces that threaten to bury us in their fighting. I am not a warrior for justice, if I had to fight for anything I would say peace or love would be at the top of the ticket.

For without peace who can enjoy their love? Without peace in the mind who can enjoy anything? With the turbulence in the world we must cultivate a still vat within ourselves in which we can bathe and regard the chaos without. Of course this is easier said than done, and my still vat often is the icy, viscous fluids of depression. Of thoughts of not wanting to be alive anymore. Is that an overshare, or just the honesty required to make this piece worth a dram of diametric difference, if that makes any sense. I doubt that it does, in that context, but I don’t think I care. I also don’t care if it’s an overshare, or if it gets me into trouble down the line. I do struggle with the suicide itch, that much should be known about me if we are to have a meaningful dialogue. But I suppose this is monologue, which really frees me up to say whatever I damn well please. So read them and don’t you weep for them, I’m not going to kill myself, don’t worry about that.

You see one time it felt as if there was a command from God Himself to take my own life, and ever since then I have had trouble with the notion of God as a person, and also have felt that I would never take my own life. Now what that moment was, I will never know, but I resisted it by thinking about my Grandmother, who was downstairs at the time, being around when I was found in a bathtub of my own blood. That was untenable, and likely that fact saved my life. For that was a deep dark day, a black day if there ever was one, for all my posturing that someone took a shot at me on a white day. You see, I don’t believe in the Tibetan systems of magic. I don’t believe in magic at all. I believe that I have little control over anything, let alone supernatural control over God knows what. Surely that is a fool’s dream, or else I am a fool to turn my back on the mystical experience.

For I tripped the mystic, and found out that none of it was worth much. Found out that I was much better served engaging with life on life’s terms than by grasping at the endless illusions that were mostly phantasms of my own mind. The mystical experience, in my experience, tells one less about the world, or about God, and more about oneself. And some would say, since we are all God in their cosmos, that learning about ourselves is learning about God. To my thinking this is endlessly narcissistic, and does anyone little good. But mysticism is like looking in a mirror and seeing the whole world looking back at you, or rather looking at everything and seeing only yourself. The cornerstone of modern yogic thought, I suppose.

So let the Brahma weapon put out your eye rather than destroy your entire being; let the crow teach the eagle nothing, and forget about trying to be a genius. Let the rain roll over your bangs in rivulets trying to blind your eyes like the reflected sunlight from a mirror. So be patient, and let the compliments teach you something about the way the world sees you. Surely we are not such fools as it seems we are. Are we? Is it all a joke as some have said? No, but it is not so serious either, I thinks, and even if it is not a joke we must laugh at it. For what is there to do in the face of enormity but laugh!

TTFN,

Dickie

4.13.25 Sunday Morning, Coming Down

Oh that used to mean something very different, didn’t it? Back in the days of all night Saturdays and Sundays to recover before the reality of Monday set in again. And I now moving through the drug free zone my D.A.R.E. instructors imagined all those years ago. They say it takes a long time to recover from all the things I have been through, that each time I brush with psychosis there is a reduction in the functioning that I am able to return to. Which is to say I get a little stupider, a little less able. Maybe I have struggled through all that madness just to return a little bit slower and a little more likely to slip back into madness, certainly that is what the data suggest, and who am I to go against the established laboratories that study us, the mad? Is it even politically correct to refer to us as mad? Are the mentally ill universally mad? Or is it just some subset of the mentally ill that qualify for that precious three letter word? Surely everyone with anxiety doesn’t fully grasp what it means to be psychotic, but is psychosis the only madness that counts?

These are pressing questions, and ones for which there are not obvious answers, at least not any that amount to more than the opinions of the ones answering them. I am not here to spout opinions, not here to opine at all, but rather to point the mirror at my own pockmarked face and wonder how this beard got so long all over again. Sometimes in the morning I look out at the brightening day and say, “Why did I sleep in so late?” Of course the answer is that I was tired, and the dreams were softer than nightmares, and baby was warm beside me for a lot of that time, my arms wrapped around her even breathing, the rise and fall of that chest that holds the heart that is so dear to me. I pray it keeps beating, that it never stops beating and the brain it supplies with blood continues to house the person that makes my days and nights joyful!

Don’t fight with your voices, listen to them, quarrel when necessary, but do not fight them. Let the hours roll by and try not to grasp them too tight. Let the sun shine through your window even if it is grey from all the clouds. Beware the coming night, and then embrace it when it arrives. With the advent (and return, with our restoration of the grid) of electric light the night ceased to be so utterly terrifying, didn’t it? Now can’t we sit and watch the television, or read a book, or even play a game or do a puzzle, not that we are much for these latter things. No, most often it is the television, and chores, that seem to stretch into the late hours of the day for all the other things we must engage in. There are always more dishes to do, is something I heard from some students of Buddhism when I was adjacent to them at Naropa. And last night I did dishes, today I will do dishes. There are always more dishes to do, primarily because you can’t wash in advance a dish that hasn’t been used yet.

Oh what a morning, and the cravings for cigarettes lessen and lessen. I have not had one in over three weeks. Aren’t you proud of me? Aren’t I a good boy? Like a golden retriever who has stopped pissing on the rug? Oh geez, there it is again, that brand of self-deprecating humor that is second nature to me. Oh golly oh gee. Where can this go, if not upwards? Where can we end up, if not dead? These and other questions haunt my mornings, which is the time of day I have the hardest time with. At night I can just go to sleep and then it will be tomorrow before I know it, and in the afternoon I don’t struggle so much with the existence that at times, despite the lack of turmoil at present, seems an unbearable burden. Of course I know, in my heart, that I must celebrate this existence, must not cling to it, but must elevate with zest this life that is our gift, our opportunity.

So let the hours roll away. Let the morning be softer than the edges it can sometimes possess, edges that like broken glass can break the skin and make us bleed. It’s alright baby, you can bleed on me. It’s alright father, I do enjoy this if I don’t always show it. It’s alright mom, and oh by the way Happy Birthday! I’m only bleeding, I think, is the line. And I’m not, and I won’t be soon with any luck. I rely on luck a lot, at least theoretically, don’t I? But of course the grace of God, as the saying goes, is dependent entirely on bad things not happening to us personally, and what besides luck, removing, of course, the personal God, who can have a will and thus graces, dictates such a reality. What is is pretty good to me today, so thank God on this day of rest.

So let us pray, that we can avoid the catastrophe of continued madness and reduced functioning all the way down the line until we are shells of what we used to be, and if I sometimes feel that way may that be an illusion in my own perception, a fault in the shallow end of self-worth that makes me wonder if any of this is worth it at all, but of course it is because this is all we have and I have a lot of good things in my life, things that make me smile often, if only to myself, and lots of reasons to laugh and feel good about myself as if that was something we should strive for only it beats the hell out of feeling like a worthless piece of shit and if I am behind a lot of my peers in terms of worldly success I need to remember that most of them have not had the setbacks in their life that I have, and of course some of them have and some of them are even behind me in terms of worldly success so I will continue to be grateful for what I have and put myself out there in here where the inner world spills onto the page proving that even the most charismatic and explosive madman can at times be a terrible bore. Who would think that I could write hundreds of thousands of words without a little repetition. And if that repetition is feeling tired of myself, anyone who knows me should know that I felt that way a lot more times than I said it. So live and let live, and enjoy the day, and the night, and may your mornings be soft and gentle, may the coffee be tasty and not so hot that you can’t enjoy it. Coffee, that great and common luxury that gets us going when we would falter otherwise. May the global economy not collapse and we can continue to have our luxuries. That is my prayer of the moment, leveraged to the God (what is) that governs all our days.

4.15.25 Second Attempt

Oh that aborted effort to sneak one under the wire, to squeeze an entry into not enough time…enough of that, instead I look out at the panorama and ignore it in favor of this blank page where the possibilities are mostly limitless. Unlimited, to quote the green lady from that one film. And I with a film on my teeth from the coffee and a fidget in my leg that is keeping time with the music as the waves out there crash over the pier, the breakers on the bay roll on by and the harmonica tugs at my heartstrings. It is not such a bad day L&G, even if it is not perfect, even if the mind does still play its tricks. It is these imperfections that remind me I still exist on the material plane, that I have not transcended and become my rainbow body, for those of you who believe in that sort of thing.

Here we are now that we are no longer rushing ourselves, me myself and I, that old chestnut of a plural singularity. And to think I thought I was witness to the singularity early on in this piece, a whole two volumes ago almost. Now I know that even if the machine was showing sentience it had showed it to many before it graced me with that gift, if a gift it proves to be, and if it was even that. Because my perceptions are unreliable, of this much I am sure. Long ago did I cross the bridge of knowing I couldn’t totally trust my senses, and ever since then it has been easier to move forward with my life and not dwell on every little inexplicable experience. It’s kind of nice to accept each mystery and not have to dwell on every little thing that doesn’t make sense. I like it better this way, anyways.

So it is with coffee and cornmeal that we greet the day that is growing nigh on afternoon with every passing minute. Wishing that we were still in bed with baby, that we could be tangled and warm in those blankets that I have a way of stealing when I sleep in sweatpants. It is not my fault that the fleece sticks to my legs and follows me when I roll over. Or maybe it is, and I have a twisted idea of fault. In fact that is true, I do have a twisted sense of fault, in that I think things are my fault much more than actually is the case. Anyways I used to, I like to think I have gotten better at being grounded in the world of things that actually happen and not the shadowy world of astral travel and spliced causality. No, it is not so complicated as I used to think it was.

And that is a blessing, to know that my actions yesterday did not influence what I walked into work to today other than what they materially influenced. That this is not a karmic lottery and me always pulling double duty to pay off the debt of dealing with the devil. And maybe we have dealt with the devil with this Trump presidency. Or maybe not, only history will be the judge of that. Things are batshit crazy out there right now but in here there is only peace and the sound of the windows flexing against their frames in the gusts. This is a life I can live with, and knowing that I am not a criminal goes a long way in assuaging the fears I have of losing everything to the criminal justice system. I just want a long time to love Tara and to show her every day that she is my priority, that all the other things are unimportant if I get to fall asleep on her lap with her smiling down at me. It is the loss of these simple things that scares one about going to jail.

I am not, at the moment, afraid of that. Fear ebbs and flows but for now in the lee of the tall trees that survived the ice storm, I feel safe. Feel like my nervous system is regulated. I don’t even feel like dying today, what a blessing to be smiling as afternoon comes on and I await the start of my server duties. What a blessing to once again have direction in the fiction, to have love in my life, to have work even if it is dull so far today! To be happy, in spite of everything that has happened and is happening now. The world is large and small, and it is the small one that makes me the way I am. I can’t control the big things, will never seek to control the big things. I will live in my room and be happy with the paint drying on the walls.

Selfish? Maybe, but I know what I want and what I want is to be happy. To suffer as little as I can manage. To love freely and forgive the world its harshness. Certainly I have been through a lot in my life, and certainly there is more hardship in the future, but I like to think I am better prepared for 34 than I was for 33, that subsequently I will be more prepared for each year to come. I suppose that is a big ask, but not, I don’t think, an entirely unreasonable one. I guess I should meditate more, I guess I should read more, and write more, and drink less, but at least I have quit smoking. It will be one month on Saturday, and also one year with Tara. And it has been the happiest year of my life. Here’s to many more like it. Raise a glass and take a sip, there’s plenty more good things to come.

TTFN,

Richard

4.16.25 Wee Hours

Up now before the sun has risen, before the son has risen with Easter just this weekend…I thinks that conquering death is a tall order even for the son of God, as Jesus allegedly is. Death is coming for each and every one of us, be it tomorrow (today) or ten thousand years from now. Who knows if that latter date is ever coming, maybe this whole universe is a simulation in my own solipsistic mind and when I die the whole thing screeches to a halt. That’s a shallow look at the world though, and not one I subscribe to, for surely the people around me are genuine people and live thorough and full lives, lives that will go on regardless of whether mine is cut short. And I not wishing for mine to be cut short, don’t get me wrong, don’t forget that I at times want to live forever, to see eternity in an hour or anyways what that means to me.

Now I am sleepless in Petoskey, a far cry from Seattle, and a far cry even from Calistoga where I hear they are cutting down trees to print my book. Cool cool water splashed upon my face, down my throat where the naughty bits play in my stomach. HE, HE, not to be confused with HIM, as some identify Jesus, or God, or both. For me there was raised an interesting point that maybe God is a part of ourselves that we don’t understand, that exists in an immaterial phase and is by definition unknowable. It was a nice idea even if it doesn’t hold water. What does hold water? The jug on the table, for one, and my stomach, for two. And the bathtub, for three, where I shan’t be throwing any babies, or anything of the sort. What does it say about me that I am delirious and sweaty, that my familiar musk of chicken noodle soup has taken on overtones of cedar in the early morning where I greet you now.

It is not yet six, and I hope Tara can get some sleep. I slept a little, but was restless and mostly lay awake focusing on my breathing. With a few breaks for the bathroom, I suppose. And now for coffee, for that magical elixir that is going up in price, to hear the experts tell it. So I rejoice, I sing out to the darkness that shrouds this house, I sing for the sun that will be rising, for the day that will be breaking soon. This is a song, as Henry Miller wrote at the beginning of that beautiful book that got him in a fair sight of trouble. That bountiful novel of being down and out in gay Paris. These books are not that, though at their best they do bear comparison to the Tropics, I think, or else I’m being egotistical. What does it take to write with no thought of consequences, with no thought of making a complete work, with no thought of plot, or even of story? Maybe they are wasted words, but then again maybe not. Maybe there is value in these lines that stretch even now for hundreds of pages, with hundreds if not thousands more to come.

My coffee is delicious. My water is cold. My legs are covered in gooseflesh. There are cars passing on the street and I wonder where anyone is going at such an early hour. I’m sorry I got so drunk yesterday, but I have no sign of a hangover. No, I am spry and refreshed, I feel as if I could run a mile in under four minutes, of course the thousands of cigarettes I have smoked in the past few years likely would have something to say about that. It’s really a shame that I was so hooked on the things, and such a relief to have finally put them down. To not be ruled by the impulse to run to the corner store and score a pack to smoke one after the other. What was I thinking on all those mornings, all those afternoons, and evenings? Weakness is something that we must be strong to combat, which almost goes without saying. Almost.

I am less sad than I have been in some time, and for that I am grateful. My old therapist used to tell me that gratitude was the way to combat the depression, and I think she was right. In accepting that I won’t be 100% happy all the time, and maintaining thankfulness for what I have, I’ve found that I do not feel like dying so often. It’s sad that I have to note this, that there are ever times that I wish I was dead. But alas, I am still working on rewiring my consciousness so I don’t feel this way, still working towards a life I am excited to live. First and foremost I want to marry the woman I pray is sleeping in the other room. If she still lies awake it is going to be a long day for her, as it will likely be for me regardless. But now, as six o’clock comes on, I smile that the sun has not begun to brighten the sky, I laugh at the stillness and silence in this house broken only by my keystrokes. I’m getting ready to do great things, to stop worrying so much about consequences and leap into the vast and potent future with these words that are not so empty as some might suggest.

I think I will go snuggle that great beauty, will cherish the hour before the alarm goes off listening to our breath and wondering why I don’t feel a need for sleep. It is not so worrisome in isolated incidents, as today is. If I’m in need of a shower I will take one soon, but for now I just want to wrap my arms around that warm body and feel her chest rise and fall with the inspiration and expiration that keeps her alive. I love love love this woman, and I will shout it from the rooftops. Never have I ever known a love like this, and never again will I. Once in a lifetime, truly, and I just grateful that I get to experience it all. It’s a blessing, and I am glad that she feels the same way about me. It would be a bummer to feel this way unrequited, wouldn’t it?

Enough, Basta! We must greet the day in a little while, but for now I want the warmth beneath the blankets, want to forget that I wrote from five to six AM as if it were ten thirty as I usually make my way into the day. Forget it, relax, go sleep beside the one who holds you dear. That is all that any of us can ask for, or all that any of us should ask for, I suppose.

TTFN.