120118 trying to frame things in a positive light even the most smiling half witted happy comment can upon rotation and reflection seem sinsiter and accusatory do you have any quirks you’d like us to get rid of for ya? do you overuse the pronoun she? any time i think to write about myself, i tend to change it to “she”, not becauswe i’m socalled “Transgender” but because that’s just who my quiet inner self identifies with. the me that is the dolphin, the baby blue whale, the wide eyed train traveler, the strong but soft, the vulnerable but brave, the naive but reolute, the low-keyed observer of the parade of life, and yet she can get hot and heated sometimes too; she’s like a british stuffed animal going through philological adventures. or something. so tired look, we have to come to terms with this sooner or later: i bought another computer. sure, it was the cheapest one apple has on offer. sure, there are multitudes of reasons why i did it, and some of them aren’t even ENTIRELY insane. but nevertheless, i have to face head on the fact that i did it. i have to turn that over and over in my mind or actually no wait. WE need a more permanent solution to our-- no stop being cute. instead of turning it over and over in my mind, i need to just set it up in the middle of the table, solid and still, and turn the overhead light on, and look right at it, a turkey about to be carved. i need to invite my friends and family over to look at it too. they’re like when do we eat? but i’m like no seriously, i need help. i bought it why? 1. because of the keyboard. it’s so frustrating to type on this one that school gave me. iPads and stuck-on keyboards suck hard rocks. I literally bought it because i wanted to have a writing machine that i could roll over at 5:00 in the morning when i’m tired as farted-out fireworks and be able to pick up and type without driving myself mad with either rtyupo0s likle thissd, or else ty[oslikethis; so i wouldn’t have to either go back forty two million times just to get the word “dogshit” right, and so my fingers won’t hurt in the webbing between them, and i can set on my lap in bed and not have to go down to the basement when (at, again, did i mention, 5:00 in the morning) you and i know both know i would NOT go down to the basement, and etc etc. SO yeah. I bought it because it has the old style keyboard with the real keys, the space between them, and the inverted-T arrows. Will this be enough? When i see it, will i be like, Oh my god it’s so slow and oh my god that display looks fuzzy and dim and washed out? Maybe. Probably. If it’s that fucking unbearable I can return it. But then what options does that leave me? Get used to this fucker? That belongs to the school district? That has software and spyware on it that i cannot get rid of (unless PERHAPS if i install linux which as we know NEVER ends well on these things so i’m not even going to try?) But if i return it, then where does that leave me? the only other option would be a used MBP (instead of a new but outdated MBA which is what i went with) from eBay or Gazelle. Those have risks of their own. See what I mean? I’m turning it over and over. THE PROBLEM IS THE PROBLEM. I’m so disappointed to be sitting here ruminating on this. I’ve done it so many times before. I hate myself for having this conversation with myself again. All the pros and cons of a device, as if it mattered. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t make your decision, slam the turkey on the table, and fuck it. Yes, I literally want you to fuck the turkey. But while your friends and family are watching, don’t forget. I’m avoiding the real issue, not because i’m afraid to face it but because it is unmitigatedly boring. so just, so just for one minute, can you just at least give the real issue a name? Just so i know you aren’t completely delusional? So i know you are who you say you are and that i’m in the right time period and my time machine didn’t break and leave me in the wrong existence? haha, this one article said that with chaos we don’t need the multiverse; they obviously never smoked a hot bowl of salvia divinorum and then took and elevator ride through a hall-of-mirrors series of possible lives, trying to find the right one to land in. And let me ask you this: why, if I had all those options, did I choose to come back to this one, even THEN, when so much of my life was miserable, depressed quiet desperation? Because i would have missed my kids and even my wife. She was (is) a horrible person, but loneliness is scarier than abuse, even the kind of abuse that lives in the first layer under your skin and propagates like a fungus. with barbs and lashes and fat smiling hooks of derogation. god, i missed her then and i was sitting right beside her; i miss her now and she’s losing teeth in prison while i (relatively) prosper. the one who’s been listening from the wings says HEY THAT: MAYBE THAT HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH WHY YOU BOUGHT A COMPUTER, and I’m like, oh shut up. Give us all a break with the stupid computer thing, and just go home will ya? Rehearsal is over. The play is over. AND the one in the wings is like WRONG! THE PLAY IS NEVER OVER and we’re all like oh god not this again. Why does he always drag out the same old boring cliches and metaphors. The one who self-consciously weilds the metaphors, failing to successfully pretend to be unaware of them, is the one who recieves the disdain and the stones. We throw stones offstage towards the shadows of the (what do you call that angled interleaved series of tall narrow curtains that you can hide behind in the wings? the worst hiding place in the world because anyone sitting in the edge seats can see you plain as day; see that you are standing there naked without so much as underwear on, fresh out of your bath, in all your middle aged glory; you grew some hair back to feel a little younger, to feel the actual breeze in your actual hair while you stand resolute as a noble bronze, but then the other day it got long enough to have a little shimmer in in it when you were in the bathroom looking at the face of someone who just bought another computer and you realizeed that there is actually discernable gray in the hair that you grew back, so maybe you’re not so much younger and more virile than your fat brother (you’d like him: he’s fat. he’s a lawyer) after all, and realizing this, you whip around and say HEY WAIT--because you realize you’ve been unfair; that the guy in the wings dripping wet with no clothes on hiding from the audience but yelling out clues and cues to you and your loud friends actually may have had a valid point, and you’re like HEY WAIT, COME BACK HERE, LET’S TALK, but it’s too late. He’s gone. He’s gone and all you have left is this stupid computer. 2. I bought it because i miss my wife, and i’m still afraid of the hypothetical return of my horrible life.