083018 and so the roller coaster starts again well. oh yeah. i’m all right. i just get a little anyway. truly no idea what to say now. not sure why i’m doing this today. went school supply shopping and spent $176 BAM! just like that. Megan begged to get extra gel pens. Megan begged to go to Libby’s school and get push pops. Megan bugged me about when she’s getting new glasses. Megan bugged me about re-uploading her music files. Megan got indignant when I got incensed that everyone left a bunch of trash on the table and Millie picked it all up for them. Megan got snippy when I said I didn’t have time to do the music thing. I sent her an editable copy of her resume to finish and she hasn’t even started to work on that yet, but I’m supposed to drop everything—all the responsibilities of my job that you know pays the rent and the Apple Music bill and you know just like basically everything else—I’m supposed to drop everything after I just got a promotion to full time—I’m supposed to drop everything four days before school starts and as I’ve already explained to them multiple times I have a SHIT load to do—I’m supposed to drop everything after buying all their shit, just drop everything and work on her little problem. Because music is just as important to her as getting a job. You know what? Fuck off. Jesus fucking Christ how did I help raise such a selfish individual. I love her, but Jesus fucking Christ. Anyway, whatever. That department is over there, this department is over here. Blagga blagga bloop bloop blippity blammo stink wap wap fuh-WHAM. It’s supposed to be anything at all except nonsense, but I literally cannot think of anything at all right now. I don’t want to gorge myself on the maudlin, the twisted, the deep, the dark, the psychosexual, the conspiratorial, the confessional, the bloody or the tawdry. I’ve kind of, I mean, yeah, you get a rush when you unearth those old wounds and wells and caverns and secrets. It’s cool. It’s fun. It makes you feel a little lighter, like you just took a really good shit. It makes you feel a little more solid, like you just showed that your brain still works and your body is somehow connected to it, and like you kind of know a little bit of something about who you are and how you connect to other people and the rest of the world besides. It makes you feel like your perception is humming along in harmony with something that at least stands a chance of being “real.” It makes you feel a little bit relaxed, bright, alert, ready, open, and balanced. So that’s cool I guess. I just don’t have anything like that today. There’s a certain limit I think, a certain fatigue. You can’t necessarily do that every single time. Maybe sometimes you just don’t want to. I still carry a lot of rage around with me. Whoops! That almost sounded like the beginning of one! Shit! Is there no way to avoid them? Wiping tired eyes with pre-arthritic knuckles, the guitar-playing therapist puts down his or her guitar and braves a smile. The heater kicks on. The window is open a crack, at an angle, it’s one of those old heavy wrinkly windows that opens out at an angle, because this is an old building, because the high-rent therapists, you know, the ones for expensive pussies, they inhabit all the new buildings, the landscaped suburban enclosures, the earthquake-proof domiciles with proper vending machines and carpets that smell like petroleum by-products, and an intake system that’s actually computerized and has a simple GUI with a tastefully and intelligently designed user interface experience and just also happens to be hooked right up to all your favorite doctors and insurance companies and credit cards and surveillance systems and so you need never fear when you go there; everything is guaranteed to be an extension of your comfortable suburban identity; nothing is going to shock you here; nothing is going to happen here that you didn’t agree to five or ten minutes after you had the pestilent audacity to be born into a society that encourages you to end up at a place like that if you can afford it, and if you can’t, you end up at the other kind of place, the kind with the old angular windows that probably have lead paint on them, or else you end up alone or dead or broke or just plain crazy. Your choice. But it isn’t your choice, because you can’t afford to go to the enclave, and you can’t afford to be dead, because you’re kind of addicted to living, and so here you are, about to unload everything onto this kind, genuine, enthusiastic, slightly tired, going on caffeine, overworked underpaid half informed fully educated guitar playing eyeglass-cleaning therapist who is looking up at you with just the hint of a bacon-flavored smile, that smile that, honestly, is most of the reason you keep coming back here, because it’s the kind of smile you can just eat up, the kind that makes your coat glossy and your mouth sassy, and so you begin to explain without shame. What am I so full of rage for? It’s time to go. We’ll start there next time.