0724 071824 People who mow lawns at 9:00 am are jerks, full stop. Fucking help me, I beasted out two nights in a row to the point I was genuinely sick last night. What the fuck, dude. You’re wasting your summer and you can’t make that anyone else’s fault this time. I feel estranged from the kids. Ever since the whole shoplifting and drinking reve- lation(s). I suspect rectifying that has as much to do with letting go as grabbing on tighter, but then again not letting go too much, or else (for example) Cel may drink herself into oblvion. Her saying “I’m not going to do that” is hardly reassurance. Honestly what I want from them or need from them in order to feel at least a little at peace is for them to commit to not wasting their days. Am I projecting? I just want them to get their asses out of bed, get involved with other people in some way that goes beyond sitting around watching tv or playing overwatch or whatever the fuck, and take some prosocial risks. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to try to leverage whatev- er independence and agency they still depend on my good graces for, in order to get them to do that. I at least need to be able to (honestly) say I tried. So yeah. I’m gonna finish my picnic at Sheridan, roll on down the trail, find a place to piss, and try not to be too worried about the new nazis taking over and ruining civil society. What’s left of it. We were making some progress. We had four years, and we 1 made some progress. WHAT CAN I DO BESIDES SIT HERE AND BE ANXIOUS? That’s what I need to know for me, you know, so it’s not just the kids’ behavior that is an issue here. Or maybe find a place to piss first. I feel like I went several squares backwards on the game board of knowing how to be their dad. Plus, let’s be honest, I just miss them. Getting dramatic and philosophical —go to the beach because life is short!—is not going to change the fact that they’re not 11 and 13 anymore. It hit hard last night when they were all excited to watch the De- scendents movies as a marathon including the new dumb 4th one—with Ismael & Michael. I mean, we used to watch those. We watched the first three together multiple times. I know it’s a right and good and “normal” development, but still—it made me sad, slightly embarrassing as it may be to admit it. I miss my mermaids. 071924 Remaining miserable and anxious is not a strategy. So we’re going full handmaid’s tale —maybe—that just means you have to get sneaky, get actually subversive, not just stoned subversive. But you can’t work well when you’re focused on being a victim. You see a lotta poems and gazing-deep-into-your eyes gems about “the universe.” Seems like a lot of times the word is synonymous with stuff like “moon” or “angels” or, essentially, “god.” But it’s like they didn’t want to just come right out and say “god.” Didn’t want to be nailed to that particular cross (lol). Didn’t want to commit. I could try out a stance of “THERE IS NO UNIVERSE” and all that, but that’s just as boring as the universe. I like to think locally. Here in MKE, for example, we have “the lake.” Everyone wants to get by the lake. Without the lake, we’d be just a godawful, stinking, trashed, 2 segregated, half-forgotten midwestern city. The lake lives and breathes between the bounteous breasts of our space-time curvature. So, Stop #1 on today’s somewhat stiff, tired bike ride is the big triangular cemetary thru which you basically have to go if you want to go south and don’t love almost get- ting run over multiple times as you weave through a wretched Asteroids of cracked glass. There are, as I predicted, plenty of ants and other bugs crawling on me as I type this. Thank the lake (lol), there’s still a somewhat cool somewhat breeze, so I can con- tinue after I finish my ridiculously strong coffee that I forgot to Americanize. Then’s time to put the keyboard and thermos back in the pannier, phone back in the handle- bar bag, and see what’s next to dodge or see or yearn towards. Yes, 80s me would be blown away by this actual, functional, pocket computer and communicator abd navigator that I’m doing this with. He would also be, I think, sad to hear that despite Star-Trek (almost) level coolness in our tech consumption, people are still horrible and democracy is under a real, immediate attack, and he (I) doesn’t (don’t) know exactly what to do about it. I am pretty sure that writing a long clever poem about “the universe” that ends with telling people to “wake up” is not quite going to cut it. Stop #2 is this cute raggedy street segment right off North that they blocked off and turned into a patio. I wonder how much of this kind of stuff will still be available—I mean, stuff with that kind of “for everyone” sentiment, supported by official moneys—if the new nazis take over. Anyway, staying miserable and anxious isn’t a strategy, right? I really dig this rig: the bike, the phone+bluetooth keyboard, the thermos of cof- fee... I’m thinking I could add a little flask of whiskey to pour into the coffee, especially perhaps as it starts getting chillier out? Summer goes by so fast. “Pleasure” wears a little thin. There’s only so many perfect $8 beers you can have by a perfectly laid-back parks dep’t beer garden (how much of this kind of stuff...) be- 3 fore you start to feel like you’re just swilling liquids and getting fat for no reason. I wouldn’t mind going back to my fat state—if there were a really good reason for it—like, if there were a tradeoff, like, your kids will get an extra hundred thousand dollars or would get into college for free or something. But just as a consequence of sliding into “fuck it”? Nope, no sir mister dope fiend, not today. Speaking of which. If you have to engage full logic core overclocked middle-school-philosophy mode hyperconscious processing to fit the words exactly right, you may just want to skip it, let it go, come back when it’s time for the hypnogog... Speaking of which. I rolled past a porch made of a cool concrete slab and some 4x4 posts the color of a national park lodge. It made me miss smoking—not the lame furtive kind, hiding in the shurbbery so no one catches you “getting high,” god, kill me now, but the social kind, the visible kind, the kind where the amiable poison tendrils drift thru the cool night air and weave us one to another, the kind that puts a soft pause on time, the kind that turns our inbetween into an organic collaborative podcast. I mean I’m not gonna take up smoking again, but still. I miss what it was doing, I miss the need to resolve what it was used as a resolution for. Maybe it’s not that writing is dead, maybe it’s just that all the commodified tropes are expired. We got boxes and boxes of Twinkies no one wants except as ironic muse- um exhibits. Look, we all no people don’t go to museums to get in on the revolution. Or do they? Times had to get this threatening for you to say, “I want to be a writer”? And then it’s like, oh by the way, writing’s dead. What else you got? And you’re like, uhh.... I 4 guess I could be a teacher? Good luck. Who or what are you going to teach if the up- side down becomes the surface and the surface becomes the underground? I’m starting to screw around with settings and dumb shit; time to go find the next stop on this train, this train that flees or chases my unease and lurking sorrow. Stop #3 seems to be the end of the pier by makinly beech. some weirdo is here with a little ceramic bong; is talking (singing?) to someone—i think it’s not me but who fucking nose 5 you can win Stop #4 is the picnic shelter south of makinly but I’m not staying long. Just wanted to add to my note about what I want Lib & Cel to do, because I am still worried about them. Stop #5 is by the train trax across the canal from milwaukee cold storage (bygone). gonna feast on muh overpriced 2nd st cheez its and can of coke. 6 7 screaming tuna is just around the corner; imagine that pissed between the plankinton bridge and a trashy bent willow Stop#6, east of potawatomi instead of complaining cuz nobodys doing it, do it 072024 i want my fucking truck back or get a new old one, like a rickety f100 or some shit with another era’s paint job. one bench seat, no crew cab bullshit, long bed. pick up the girls to get them out of a scrape but theres only room in the bed: LIE DOWN, so the cops don’t see you!! lol i hunger, i yearn, i love, i drink, i eat pork steaks under my apple tree as the rem- nants of various assholes’ fireworks go off in the hood. what else ya gonna do after your kidz don’t “need” you anymore? 072124 i hope today sucks less than yesterday when i couldn’t get happy or feel good or be not pissed off impatient irritable and self loathing. god i hate that mode. it’s like irrita- ble soul syndrome. (exacerbated by choices largely in my control) over dere by st mary’s cement, ya, up over dere (but the challenger is not in the dock today) 8 mom said (i haven’t looked at any nooz since the asshole convention FINALLY packed up and left town) biden dropped out. I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing. That could possibly be a good thing. That’s all I’m going to say about that, future me (or kids or whoever) looking back at this to see if I thought anything about this stuff at the time. I do think other things, but they aren’t very interesting. this is where I am todaY: these concrete and steel old-skool arms of the city are almost juxtaposed with the vi- nous and the willowy. up above the lake, on one of the “sensitive cliffs,” <she> wakes up partially, bleary-eyed, just as <he>’s leaving. He gestures at one of the many weeds 9 or shrubs. “Pay attention to that one. It looks like some kind of berry.” Weeks later, she is surviving but still confused, she finds herself circling back around to that part of the woods. There it is, resplendent in full fruit, glistening with deep purple berries just begging to be enjoyed. Huh. She thinks back. Huh. Maybe— But— Huh. A guy just rolled past on a fat e-bike, panniers loaded. Looks like he bought apple jacks. Too bad he’s going the wrong way on the fucking sidewalk, lol. People be dumb. Self incl, obvs. 10 11 072324 Last night was not a beast, but there was a wee bit too much whiskey for optimal sleep, dreaming, and waking. Although there were some good dream fragments (like You’re skinny fat! Well, it’s better than fat fat!), and others I can’t (of course) remember but oh wait! There was a thing about a composite of the girls pointing out when I was getting bitchy and infantile and whiny again. There it is! See? And though I was offend- ed, yes, I had to admit, I could actually see it. That’s good. That’s a good sign. Also: in case I didn’t mention this already, I miss my fucking truck. 12