The things we think are cool become the things we denigrate. CDs become plastic disks. The comforting click clack of the keyboard becomes a mosquito whine. A free find on the side of the road becomes a hobby; a hobby becomes a financial burden. Audiophiles take all the joy out of music. Photography forums take all the joy out of taking pictures. Pretending becomes a job. Alcohol becomes sugar and sugar becomes fat. You spend half the night trying to remember why the day seemed so important. One. (a) ⎤ Two. (b) ⎥ Three. (c) ⎥ Four; ⎥ five. (d) ⎬ (1, 1’, 1’’...2, 2’, 2’’...) Six. (d) ⎥ Seven. (d’) ⎥ Eight. (d’’) ⎥ Nine + nine (e) ⎥ *Ten* (f) ⎦ Maybe that’s too specific and I don’t give a shit anymore. You begin to self-loathe in advance of giving up; it’s a proactive self-defense. Hey. No, seriously. I just noticed that! It’s what I did in St. Louis when I was planning, right down to the world-weary cynical tone, exactly how I was going to say, “Nothing, Artis.” It’s what I did yesterday to mark my departure from planned schoolwork into reinstalling the OS on the laptop for some ungodly reason + whatever the hell else I did (but, credit where due, I did eventually get back to work, so yay me!) It’s what I did when I couldn’t get a job: it took the form of “teaching is stupid. Schools are stupid. People who work in schools are stupid. You’re all stupid because I’m a special, intense kind of stupid; you wouldn’t understand. Comfort me now.” It’s {a little bit at a time} what I do every time I spend my writing time writing about how stupid and degenerate I am! These little sessions are pseudo-poetic self-flagellations! I’m even doing it right now, don’t you think!? You wrap yourself up in the artificial scar tissue of your own scathing self-commentary so that you can feel *that,* or actually maybe you can feel whatever you want, safely wrapped up inside that cocoon like a drunk inside a drunk, when you drop out of your own dream into the suburban sidewalk of having given up. Why do you want to give up? Umm.... I don’t know; because it gets boring? Because I know I won’t be able to keep it up after I do something really good? Because I know she won’t love me back? Because I’m scared of gym teachers and officers and rednecks and jocks? Because I’m not a scientist? or a pilot? or anything really? Because I still live in an apartment and have walmart furniture and a fake futon and fake desks but I spent a shitload of money on this computer and a bunch of other dumb shit? Because I found some pretty nice speakers on the side of the road, but that wasn’t enough and so I had to start worrying about their specs and whether they were perfect or not and then I had to spend $88 on some $20 super tweeters that Radio Shack doesn’t make anymore that I used to have but god knows what I did with them and do you see how quickly it gets away from listening to music? Megan and Alex sat on the couch in a little buttery clump last night, after I had plugged in the new free speakers and the speakers were sitting there in the middle of the living (if you can call it that) room, and I was playing that Glenn Frey (he’s dead now) album to test them out, and it sounded pretty good and it reminded me of Don and good taste and somehow rising beyond premium mediocrity (because of sincerity? authenticity?) and I came in here to click clack on the keyboard and get a little more work (if you can call it that) done, and they just sat in there, just so they could sit by each other, and I wonder what effect that particular music, with the old fashioned arrangements and the elegant sax solo, music that they never would have listened to by their own volition off their own “devices” (ugh) was having on them, consciously or otherwise. Maybe none. Maybe it was all a nice fantasy I made up. But then again, maybe not. I guess that was a moment in which I enjoyed being the old man. I kind of felt for a moment as if I understood what being the old man could be good for, sometimes. You didn’t answer the question. Fuck the question. At least I can recognize when I’m doing the thing—the self-loathing thing. Let’s work on catching that, and trying some things, like pouring a little alcohol into the fountain solution (instead of into my rapidly walrusing carcass) instead of just throwing the envelopes on the floor and slamming shut all the switches and storming out for a smoke. Because when you can survive the urge to self-loathe, you do tend to get to something else. Something that’s got a little something in it. A little something of the city in the morning, the wet lake breeze; the what you meant, the brass & iron, steam & sky, in harmony sing “repent!” Walk there with me now, on that crumbly old sidewalk by those rhythmically clanking old buildings. Have that spring in your step. Be that beautiful, smile, even if it’s just between you and the skirling gulls, one more time. For me.