100718 it’s just one of those non-negotiable things. i’d be going to bed now except i’m doing this and that’s ok i’m eating suckers (the rest of the dumdum pops that somebody bought a whole shitload bag of a few months ago for some reason) i’m listening to ghetto asmr and somebody is leaf blowing in the background and he acted like it was part of the thing but it actually really sucks. fuck leaf blowers. fuck them. fuck them harder. tap tap tap i already know this one is not going to produce anything. i’m just doing it because i decided i have to. we have two cats one goes in and out she can open the screen door from the inside but then if someone closes it after her to keep out the bugs she can’t get back in unless you open it for her. so she bangs on the screen door to get let back in. megan came down here a second ago with no pants on, went to the fridge, got something out, closed the fridge, went halfway up the stairs, stopped to look at something, and then went the rest of the way on up. and for that i am thankful. that is s religious as i get: being thankful for the possibility of small moments like that. we are sheltered. we are fed. we are more or less ok. we have a shot at some kind of future. maybe not as good a shot as people who did everything right and didn’t squander their upbringing. maybe not as big a shot as the people who live all around us in big opulent generic houses with their generic nice cars and their perfect grass and their unblemished walls and their museuem-esque shelves of official knicknacks and shit. i’ve just accepted i’m never going to be one of those people. it’s ok. i really don’t mind. i want to be able to take care of myself and my kids as much as possible for as long as possible, but i don’t ever want to be one of those boring comfortable people. i went through the young phase of that, where you get it all twisted up and bloated and you exaggerate it unnecessarily out of self defense and a lack of self confidence. then i went thru the phase (while i was busy wasting my 30’s on a horrible marriage and a bunch of other wasty type shit) where i thought oh i was wrong and i should aspire to the normal middle aged suburban dream, although it was never really *me* that thought that but for various reasons i let myself be led by the nose into thinking that. and now i’m past both of those phases, and i’m moving on into a phase of you know what? I’m not ever going to be that guy and fuck you. i don’t give a shit. i have other things i’d rather spend my time and energy on. i don’t really have much money to spend because every time i get a little raise it seems like my family gets a little older and needs a little more stuff. so i’m constantly barely breaking even, but that’s ok. i want to be a better writer, a better teacher, a better father, and a better friend. that’s really about it. there is a green plastic bowl of lemons on the table. on the table, a green plastic bowl holds exactly nine lemons. what they are doing there, what they are thinking, what their fate eventually will be, nobody knows. i’m eating suckers and typing this, just killing time until i get a message from someone or something beyond myself. the story isn’t me. the story isn’t me telling you about the shit i’m thinking i can’t keep up with the shit i’m thinking if i do try, i inevitably miss the story because the story is always the lightning that happens while you’re getting the camera ready. \ eating suckers. megan’s little friend was over here. i made salmon and of course because someone besides us was here i rushed it and took it off before it was perfect. it was pretty good though. he was nice. offered to help clean up. i like him. i know megan likes him; she says she’s ok with the being friends thing. i hope she doesn’t get hurt. i don’t understand why he has a girlfriend. i wonder if he’s gay. probably not. gay is such a limiting term. how many people are honestly, truly just gay or not gay. the minority, i’d almost guess but then i’m gauging that from my own perspective, and i can’t really imaging being that simple, that homogeneous. i can’t imagine it, so i doubt that anyone else can be it, too. isn’t that amusing? tap tap tap i drank a bottle of wine. it didn’t really make anything better. i’d have rather smoked a bowl with them. too bad they’re young and still kids and all that. but then again if they weren’t, the whole night would have been different we sat in the living room and listened to in the heights and alexander hamilton. lib and cel drew in their sketch pads. millie even sat half on top of me for a while before she did her cat thing where she bolts up the stairs and is gone. dude said, megan’s little friend, gestured around the room and said this is cool. what? said megan. this. he gestured around the room. sitting together in the living room listening to music. this doesn’t happen in my house. it’s funny because it is actually pretty rare that it happens in our house too. so at that moment it was hard not to have it feel like a little bit of a performance. but that’s ok. because we really were doing it. and it really was kind of cool. it reminded me of when katy’s wide mouthed roommate said katy and i were the pre-TV couple. we performed that for her, too. why are we always performing our idealized versions of ourselves for people who don’t really need us to?