083118 TROUBLESHOOTING I get an infinite mirrors effect when I look at my own thoughts. POSSIBLE WORKAROUND: Lay off the weed. Look at someone else’s thoughts. Find a tunnel off the main tunnel and escape down it. I’m tired of my own affected voice. POSSIBLE WORKAROUND: Try some different voices. I can’t stop veering into quasi social commentary, wherein I come across as thinking I’m superior to my suburban neighbors and pretty much everyone else in the world, and then I overcompensate for that urge with contrived self loathing or self flagellation. POSSIBLE WORKAROUND: Do some penance. Do some volunteer work. Talk to someone without judging them first. Do some work that makes a difference. Everything turns into gay porn. POSSIBLE WORKAROUND: Go with it; it’s kind of nice to still have some sexual energy at *your* age. Or cuckold porn. POSSIBLE WORKAROUND: Go with it; it’s kind of nice to still have some sexual energy at *your* age. Embrace who you are. Take some risks and talk to people and go places and meet people and get into some situations where some stuff might happen that might make you a little more thrilled and a little less lonely. I know this is dangerous territory for you, *partly* because of what happened last time you really dug deep into intimacy with another human being, but honestly, the odds are pretty good that that won’t happen again. It’s like worrying about having too *little* salt in your diet; you don’t need to worry that you’re not going to be careful and vigilant enough. My neck hurts. POSSIBLE WORKAROUND: Swim, exercise, try different pillow combinations, get a massage, fix the weird aspect of your nose and throat that makes it impossible for you to sleep on your back, take some ibuprofen...? I keep opting for sleep and snooze instead of getting up and getting going; I’m afraid I’m missing some of the juiciest gems. POSSIBLE WORKAROUND: You are. I don’t have a workaround for that. Get up. I don’t understand how a gem can be juicy. POSSIBLE WORKAROUND: You can always throw that part away later if it never makes sense. Or leave it in; you don’t have to understand everything. I’m sick of my jokesy tone; I act like I’m funny but I’m not, and the cognitive dissonance is eating away at what’s left of my brain. POSSIBLE WORKAROUND: Don’t be so fucking dramatic. You’re fine. Sometimes you are funny, in a groaning “dad” sort of way. There’s worse things. I read scary or sad or haunting articles at night and it’s hard to sleep. POSSIBLE WORKAROUND: Do or read something else at night. I have to piss by 5:00 at the latest, and then I try to go back to sleep but that next hour just makes me sleepier and groggier. POSSIBLE WORKAROUND: I mean, I don’t know dude. Talk to your doctor I guess. Maybe find a new doctor? The day encroaches so quickly, burning off all my dreams, like a hot jet through misty morning cirrostratus, replacing nature’s tendrils with contrails of mankind’s brute geometry. POSSIBLE WORKAROUND: Yeah, there’s really no way around this except getting up right away. I know it’s hard and sometimes impossible, but it’s do-able. You’ve done it before. You don’t have to get up and be clever; you just have to get up. I keep stopping to think. POSSIBLE WORKAROUND: Don’t worry about that too much. I keep smelling the faint smell of cat piss from somewhere, because my fucking sandy skinny cat pisses on the landing or on the bathroom rug (aka “towel”) if I close the back door before she’s done having adventures for the night. I’d kind of like to just let her out and close the door and then never open it again because I’m so FUCKING SICK OF THE SMELL OF CAT PISS I COULD JUST FUCKING VOMIT BLOOD. But of course I can’t do that. POSSIBLE WORKAROUND: Exercise a modicum of empathy. You don’t *really* know for sure why your cat is pissing. Maybe she’s getting old! So are you! Isn’t some of the rage and resentment stemming from your own fear of the smell of your *own* piss, after all? Because you can see in more directions now than you could when you were twenty-three or whatever. You can go home and visit your mom and step dad and see what life is like, a few minutes after you’re young, and a few more minutes after that, when your day is hooked up to oxygen tubes and getting up and going anywhere is a big production. Time changes its increments. Maybe your cat knows this. Maybe the two of you are just pissing it away in different ways, together, at the same time. I have a meeting with a co-worker in a minute, and I still have to take a shower and shave because the co-worker is another human being and I don’t want to show up grunting like a troglodyte in sweat pants, but I didn’t get up early enough to not worry about what time it is, and that makes this activity less fluid and vigorous. POSSIBLE WORKAROUND: I know you’re busy, but set a time to read the next portion(s) of Dorothea’s book. Meanwhile, absolutely do not quit. Remember, it’s still “succeed or quit.” After all this, I’m still afraid of the words “writing” and “writer.” POSSIBLE WORKAROUND: Embrace those words. Mostly you’re afraid of them because you still don’t see the utility or the accomplishment in this. You’re not getting paid, you’re not getting any awards, you’re not sharing, you’re not getting feedback let alone praise or pussy like in the old days; you’re old enough to know that basically, except in rare situations, no one really cares, and so that leaves it all on you, quiet, like the first few fallen leaves in August, when the old men on Thursday at the car show by the gas station are wearing thin sweaters in the tawny sunshine, and the breeze tastes a little like gray asphalt and pumpkins, and you know it’s all going to be over soon, so soon, so quickly, in such a flash, and you’re melancholy, and you get the urge to turn around and go home and cook some stew or turnips or something, and maybe take a nap, light a candle or a fire, and huddle close with your warm snuggly little children, and what were we talking about again?