Month the Twenty-First

11.22.24 Happy Birthday Andy Boy!

Oh they say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but sometimes people just pass on from our consciousness, into the past where we don’t often think of them, if we ever do. And then something like a birthday to make you realize how much you miss that sweet little nugget of a friend. Those strange days, those psychotic days in that little upstairs room with its bunk beds and the typer on the desk. All the words that poured out of me, all the little infidelities of those days. I am glad they are behind me. I am glad that I am no longer in a relationship where other people seem more attractive to me than the person I’m with. That was a hell so subtle I didn’t even realize I was in one. And then and then and then, ended with as much love as I could manage. More than a year ago now, and she still hurting to hear her tell it. And I totally moved on, preparing to marry another. Oh lordy lord, it is sad to think that I thought I was happy all that time.

Of course there were rumblings, there were many indications, actually, that I wasn’t happy. That I could be happier. That I needed to be, actually. Even if it went against the grain to end things. It was the right thing to do, and I’m much happier now, in a relationship with someone who excites me, mind, body, and soul. This might be hard for her to read some day, if she reads it. K, that is. But she was never much for reading my stuff even when we were together. That was an issue for me, actually. The lack of interest in my creative work. The lack of interest in who I really was, so I felt I was wearing a mask most of the time. Pretending to be the perfect man for her, when inside what I really wanted was something different. If you are struggling with something similar my advice to you is to walk out the door, no matter how hard or complicated it is. If you’re trying to be something you’re not, you will never be happy, no matter what anybody thinks about your decision to leave.

And maybe you’ll find something better, and maybe you won’t. I did, but there was no guarantee of that. I was alone for a while. Really alone. Drinking a lot. Sad, lonely, even at times broken. Fractured, unable to function. But not necessarily because of the breakup I suppose. It was just one thing among many. And now, on the other side, seven months in to the one I hope goes the distance, I can smile and sing along to the song pouring out of the speaker. You gotta fake it at least until you make it. That’s what the muse said, to throw back to an essay I wrote a long time ago. What seems lifetimes ago. Another time I tried to leave K. Oh gosh there were so many times I can’t even remember them all. And always the same reasoning of ‘you’re having issues, you don’t want to leave’ when really that was all I wanted to do. But the timing being what it was brought me to Tara, and for that I am grateful.

You see, looking back, everything was perfect, but really only because it brought me to here. It was fatally flawed on another level, and it took me much longer to get out of that situation than it should have. How many months did Brenda tell me I needed to break up with Korshye before I finally did. And even then it was drawn out for weeks. The summer Grasshoppers from those times are a decent chronicle of what was, even if I don’t go into too much detail. And how many emotional affairs in the meantime. Now I can’t even fathom needing one. My emotional needs are being met, as well as my physical and social needs. It is a little strange when you are not used to it, and it can make you fearful to lose what you have because it seems so good in comparison to all that came before it. But you must swallow that fear as if it were pride and move forward with trust into happiness. Or anyways that is what I am trying to do.

It is sometimes hard to move beyond fear, but Trungpa said you must admit you are afraid in order to do so. I have no trouble admitting I am afraid. There are many fears that haunt me in the middle of the night. That keep me up as my baby sleeps soundly beside me. Or they strike in the middle of the afternoon when I have nothing to distract me. Fears that border on paranoias, at times, anyways. Maybe some of it is my illness. Maybe some of the reason Tara says I’m the nicest person she knows is my medication. There was somebody on reddit who said it made them nicer. And I new to the reddit game, not a pro of finding porn on there, or any of the other nsfw threads. Oh gosh, the fear, the fear, of not being enough, and simultaneous to that the fear of being too much.

I think I will cut this short, with a wish that Andy Boy have a good day, wherever he is. And maybe even that he responds to me, wherever he is. It is hard falling out of touch with someone you used to see every day. Who used to be your best friend. Even if it got weird, even if you were weird, and he was weird, you can still love each other. Platonic love in its finest form, and one I miss. Maybe we can rekindle our friendship. Maybe he has moved on. As I have moved on from the person I was in those days. When the precursor to this project flowed from my fingertips and I was tripping the live fantastic all the time. All this time, all this time spent trying to figure it out and finding myself here with things that I value but not being any closer to having it figured out. You just have to roll with it and ride the wave. It will take you where you’re going, that much is for sure, even if it isn’t what you planned. I like when plans come true, but of course there are never any guarantees of that. Just take it as it comes with a smile and you’ll be alright. That’s my best advice for tonight, which is just another day, after all. I can’t wait to give a kiss to the one I love, and to meet her son, and hopefully make a good impression. My mom is worried about me being drunk because I have had one and a half beers by three o’clock. As if. Maybe once upon a time but I am not trying to escape. Just tapping into my inner European lifestyle. It is a day off, after all, and so long as I don’t get stoned or fall asleep at the table I’m sure everything will be fine.

I haven’t had a cigarette in 36 hours and I want to continue that trend indefinitely. No vaping either. I don’t even have a patch on today, and the anxiety is managable. I think I will continue like this. I think I will go cold turkey and get away from the vice, finally. As long as nobody else buys them—ahem, looking at you, dear—there is hope that I can live forever. Or at least a very long time. Longer than I deserve, hopefully.

That is all for now. Basta. Enough,

TTFN.

11.24.24 Spaghetti Bake in Paradise

Here we are, another day on the couch with a movie and red red wine. And editing, and typing, and the manuscripts away to someone who maybe could get them in the hands of someone who was interested. Hard copies, printed out and delivered this morning to a house in Charlevoix! Exciting stuff, truly, and I have a better feeling about this than about the twenty or so queries I sent out over the interwebs in the last month, some of which have already come back as rejections. Who is to say what will come of anything, I guess, and there is no guarantee that any of it will work out at all. I may just languish in poverty my whole life. But let’s hope not, let’s hope that I make the big time, in the USA. To quote Paul McCartney on the subject, that is.

I think I am happy, though Tara had a disturbing dream about me last night. I can only imagine what I did! Must have been bad. I don’t think I want to know. I feel badly enough about it as it is, without knowing and without having actually done anything. I know dreams are disturbing, I had a number of disturbing dreams last night as well. The last one, relatively concurrent with the one where I acted poorly, hinged on me making a soccer team. I wasn’t sure I was going to make the cut, and that was disturbing to the ego. But I suppose all is better now that afternoon has come on, and we are watching a Jarmusch film, and preparing to eat baked spaghetti with garlic toast. I can’t wait, as I am quite hungry, the few pieces of pizza I had earlier did little but whet my appetite.

I see mow that this is meandering, that I have lost the thread. I can’t wait to eat! Can’t wait to see where the day takes us. Can’t wait to see if my dreams of being a writer pan out. That I become rich and famous and never have to work in a bar again.

12.2.24 Abrupt

That was an abrupt ending to what was an abbreviated entry. But now we are into a new month, and I am happy to announce that I am in the last days of having to work the job that I so dislike. Just a couple more weeks and then I will be on to the next thing, which though for now is similarly menial, will at least be closer to home, and have better hours. I don’t want to spend the whole time bitching about how I was so unhappy, anyone who knows me knows. It is just that once one reaches the point with a job that they can no longer stomach being there, it hurts to go in, and once you cross that threshold there is little that can be done to salvage your working life. I had reached this point, and needed to do something different, so I acted, and now I am not bound to things like working New Year’s eve until midnight or later and will be able to walk to work, a large bonus as the weather turns wintry. Also not having to leave forty five minutes before a shift will be a boon, a real blessing for those of you who view your world that way.

There is sun streaming in through the window and if I am creatively blocked nobody told me. Or rather someone did tell me but I don’t think myself creatively blocked. Maybe I am just in a phase when the accretion of new material is secondary to getting the old material out into the world. I have taken some action on that front, and maybe Hollywood will soon be knocking on my door. There is so much potential in those books, I can feel it in my bones. Can feel that they are destined to be something, something more than some pages in a drawer. But the world of publishing is hard to break into, and even once you break in there are no guarantees. So many books do not sell, and once you have a book that does not sell, there is no guarantee that anyone will publish your subsequent books. And yet it would be nice to get my name up there in 8.5 x 11” mimeograph, to quote that great west coast sage, that bastard brother of letters who will be read for years and years and years.

I would love to sell as many copies of any of my books as Buk sells in a year. But that is a tall order, and maybe one too tall to aspire to. I think, of course, that there are possibilities beyond the page as well. Maybe Sophia Coppola will pick up Elena, and I will have a movie before I have a book. That would certainly boost sales, I would think. But that as well is perhaps too tall. Who knows though, stranger things have happened, and maybe the ambitious tetralogy of Parable films will eventually get made. Maybe all these things will come to fruition and I will be released unto the typewriter to make a career out of that. A girl can dream, can’t she?

Enough, enough of all that, there is serious philosophical material to be discussed. Like the existence of God, or the feeling that it is all happening so fast that we are losing our chances before we even realize we had them. We can make our way through life in this way and never grasp on to what is ours, and then we will have wasted said life. So I look to the future with a keen eye on the present, on the love that each day proves to me what a lucky man I am. The love that shows me all the time that I am no loser, as it sometimes feels that I am with my lack of success at 33. But then again some do not even know what they want at 50, or 70, for that matter. To know I want to be a writer, to know I want to be a good lover and a good husband, those things matter more to me than the seeming lack of success. Maybe I am successful, only not yet in worldly terms. Worldly success will come, I hope, but if it does not, I will deal with the disappointment somehow, surely.

What does it even mean to be successful, in absolute terms? Is it enough to be good? Is it enough to make the ones you love smile and laugh? I think that maybe it is. That maybe doing those things is even more important than making it onto the NYT bestseller list, or having a film made out of your book. Maybe these things are the true measure of a life, belly laughs from a baby, first steps, high school graduation (not yours of course, that is old news). The milestones of a life lived in communion with another, and another, and another, maybe. Who knows what it means to be a family man, I have no children yet, and it is looking to be that way for a while if all goes according to plan. Though I would like a couple one day there are no guarantees of that, as there are few guarantees of anything in this life.

I wish I could be kissing my baby right now, that we could be sitting and watching a silly show while I type this. That we could spend every moment together. Though we would probably drive each other crazy, get sick of the other one’s habits. But maybe not. A girl can dream, no? And I dream of happiness that stretches from here to the distant grave. To the end of the line, to the parting that can’t be undone. And maybe I will get to see that. Maybe, if I continue to be lucky enough to share space with the beautiful gorgeous woman who makes my stomach tumble each time she says she can’t wait to call me her husband. I can’t wait to call her my wife. The steps I have already taken toward that, held up by her divorce not being final until February. Another couple months of waiting to make permanent the only thing that really has moved me to act in this way. To act without reservations, to know for sure the thing that I want.

That is enough for now, and you have surely tired of my ramblings. This chronicle of my inner life must surely be stale. And yet I persist, persist in writing out my hopes and fears and desires. Maybe someday they’ll read this and say a genius wrote it, but more likely they will not much read it, will not much care to see what goes on inside this “beautiful” mind. I do not know if my mind is beautiful, but there are some who think it is. And to them I pray that I will see the light of day come down on a beautifully bound book, the collection of years and years of writing. To the end of the line! To the end of the page! We will see what happens, won’t we?

TTFN.

12.4.24 Rereading the old

We have come a long way in this missive, this rapturous, blaspheming, sacrosanct text that is over 150,000 words at this point. And how many more to come? How many years will I get to continue this beautiful rapture until it becomes so inane that none will want to read it? I’m hoping the full twelve but if I can’t put down the cigarettes maybe I will not be blessed with that much time. It has been a struggle for so long and I don’t seem to be making any progress. Still buying packs, still smoking them like they are going out of style. I must desist, for my health, to help me to see the love that has graced my life into old age. That is the thing I must hold onto.

For to grow old is a gift, and to grow wise a rarer one. Some would say I am already wise, but I demur. I know some things but mostly I know how little I know. And I don’t care to know much more, my brain is already overstuffed as it is. I just want to be happy. So what does that mean?

I think it means, at least in part, making peace with the suffering and injustice in the world. It means appreciating what you have and not always wanting more. It is having something that you wish would last and doing everything in your power to make it so. It is so, so many things. I think that I am happier than I have ever been, and that, as the snow comes down outside this little dollhouse I would not rather be anywhere than here in my baby’s house waiting for her to come home.

Oh the joys of love, and the ravages of insecurity. Have I ever done wrong, certainly, but have I ever tried to hurt anyone? Rarely, if ever. Maybe that is why Tara says I am the nicest person she knows. And likes to hear me laugh, because she knows it is rarely mean spirited. And I just a lonely little man who thinks that he deserves good things. That is something that can contribute to happiness, certainly, a positive self worth. And though I wonder sometimes if I am enough, or if I am too much—both the same impulse, at an emotional level, I think—I mostly feel that I am enough and not too much. Though I am not perfect—that is for sure—I do my best to be loving and kind to everyone I meet. That is a major requisite for happiness too I think, though surely there are wretched people who enjoy their wretchedness as well. But you should be good for good’s sake, or goodness’ sake to quote the Christmas carol.

If I sound like a broken record it is because I only have so many unique ideas. I am a finite set, a limited thinker, a limited number of thoughts. And happiness not dependent on any of those things. Happiness something else, something I can’t describe in its entirety because I don’t fully understand it. Because we need mystery in our lives to be happy I think. If we’ve got it all figured out it is bound to come crashing down around us. Change being the only constant, the world is a cruel arbiter at times. Yet we have some agency, I believe. It cannot all be predetermined. We have choices, some more pivotal than others, and who knows, really, how it will all shake out. The future is unwritten, the past is a corridor with doors that lead to reminisces pleasant, or not so pleasant, and we don’t always have the power to control which doors we open.

There is a place that I go to often, where they give me my drug of choice and send me on my way twice a day. It is a coffee shop, of course, and the people there are nice even if often it seems like they hate what they are doing. Who truly enjoys what they do for work? The lucky ones, that’s who. And I lucky to have this, this boundless emptiness in which to explore my heart’s desires. This journal of what is important to me on a given day cannot be bound by the limits of my imagination, which surely sometimes is more active than others. On days like today, it is limited by the confines of this room. The candlesticks, the aloe, the bouquet of flowers that I got for her a couple weeks ago after we fought. And I the winner in that I got to come home to her and kiss her on the mouth. What a world we inhabit, what a life to be living.

For I am living my life, to the fullest I can presently imagine. Good wine, good food, good company. All helpful with the happiness business. Good music, good friends, good family. And I just along for the ride as the snow piles up outside and the wind blows around the eaves. How many more times will I hear it howl and be grateful that I have walls to protect me from its ravages? How many more times will I salute the gods of indoor plumbing before I succumb to whatever it is that will take me? How many more hours gazing longingly at the face that I see when I lie down to sleep at night? How many more sweet gestures? How many more intimate evenings?

I think that I am hoping for many more of all those things. I think I am hoping that this goes on forever. That this blissful relationship proves to be the one I was looking for all those years. That nothing so rocks the boat that we cannot continue loving each other the way we do now. For he that has fears to lose, and fears most acutely losing to a rival. And she so attractive, getting the attention of everyone from the furniture executives to the chiropractor, and I just the man that stands to lose. I guess I get some attention as well, but being a man it is fewer, farther between, and altogether less brazen than that which is lavished on her. I do my best to be strong, confident in the love we share. But hearing these things does give the slightest pause. It makes me a trifle jealous, if I’m being honest.

But I maintain my composure, communicate when I’m uncomfortable about something. I don’t know what else to do, and so far it has gotten us over the pitfalls of what has come along. I think that I will cut this short, and shower, and meditate, and then maybe start in on dinner. I’m excited for her to come home, so we can be domestic and play house in this small space that drives her crazy, especially when she has the girls here. I’m excited to see what the future holds, even with my insecurities. I know that she is true to me and that I light up her world in much the same way that she lights up mine. That is the thing to focus on, being the best you can be and bringing the most joy to the ones who matter most. I’m sorry I said anything about that, but it springs up now and again, especially on slow days when the weather outside is frightful. No fire in this house, but the little heater is doing its job. I hope you are having a good day, as I am, and that when she comes home sparks fly! Oh what a joy to be young and in love, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

TTFN,

Al

12.5.24 The replacements

There’s no telling which of these vices will kill me first. It’s the cigarettes. So I’m trying a new strategy. Hemp cigarettes as a replacement for the habit while I break the addiction, and then I’ll break the habit and give my lungs a break. Still it is better, I think, not to be nicotine cycling in this brutal cold. To make an attempt to break the addiction once and for all. Even if I am still smoking something for now. And they say that CBD, which is in the hemp cigarettes, is a cancer fighter. Who knows? I just know that I was really struggling to go full cold turkey and smoke nothing, and smoking pot is not good for my brain, so these no thc cigarettes seem to be a decent intermediate. 

That is enough about the vices, which I feel badly about missing an opportunity to catch a few minutes with Tara because I was at the store buying them. But I will make dinner again tonight and we will actually meditate as we said we were going to yesterday. And who knows, maybe we will find something like balance, like peace when we lie down to sleep, and won’t have to rely on cold medicine to get a full night’s rest. I think that I am happy to have another night with her. To hopefully be able to be waiting for her when she gets home and start dinner shortly thereafter and and and just know domestic bliss for a little while. Not even sure what I will be cooking yet, but such is the nature of idle days that they unfold of their own accord without too much guidance from the frontal lobes.

The frontal lobes. Full frontal. And mine seem to be working swimmingly. Seem to be, anyways. Who is to say whether I am firing on all cylinders? Who is to say that I am all I can be? Certainly I am trying my hardest. And making compromises when necessary. Trying to find the middle road through the dark wood, so that I may enter again the inferno and eventually make it to paradise. Who is to say anything? Why say it again? There is no easy answer to these questions, if an answer is required at all. I surmise that it is not.

It seems the storm is mostly over for us, and that we don’t need to hunker down and shelter in place as we had to all those other times. What a strange thing to have lived through pandemics and lockdowns. What a strange time to be alive, as the world seems to be coming slightly unglued, or perhaps being glued together in a new and interesting way. I don’t know what is going to happen, and rather than being a source of fear as it has been at some times, it is a neutral thing. I don’t need to control the future to prosper in it. And Prospero, on the beach, is losing steam as he prepares to give me all the wealth scattered by the tempest. I’m not sure I have that right, I was a poor hand at Shakespeare. I’m not even sure I’m in the right canon.

But that’s enough of this for now. Clearly I have little to say. Clearly I am just typing for the sake of the thing. But that is fine, I think, I think too that I am going to do my damndest to put down the deathsticks. That I am actually going to do what I said I have been trying to do more times than I can count. It is time, ladies and gentlemen, to make good on the promise that I will put them down. To get free of nicotine and realize that they are a fleeting pleasure at best, and truly not worth their weight in salt. I think I will go clean the kitchen from yesterday’s cooking, and then perhaps have some lunch, and then go shopping. That’s my agenda for the day, hope you’ve enjoyed my TED talk.

TTFN.