No Disclosure (An Anti-Political Post).

After looking at my phone shortly after waking up today, I received a jolt.

No way. Could it be?

Google had sent me a notification about a news story, though I couldn’t read the entire headline. I can’t remember exactly what it said, but my passing adrenaline was inspired by my insane, however fleeting thought that it was announcing that the government had come clean about what it knows regarding UFOs.

Only a moment passed and I realized how ridiculous that was — fuck, they’ll never come clean — and glancing at the full headline confirmed that indeed, disclosure had not taken place as I slept.

Good. An event of that caliber would certainly mean I’d have to step back into the news cycle again. Pay attention to everything I can. I’d have to keep up. I’d have to bear the agonizing pangs of expanded political awareness again.

I’d have to kiss my news abstinence goodbye. And I’ve been doing so good.

Despite my impulse to educate myself in what’s going on in the world, I have managed to keep the news at a reasonably safe distance the last few months. Fretting and stressing out about my own comparatively petty problems is quite enough for me, thank you. The news just sends me overboard, chronically worrying about things that — while I’d never argue they’re irrelevant to my life — are largely out of my control. I become more anxious, frustrated and bitter than ever.

Of course, the concern over the fate of the species still remains, and my self-imposed vacuum of knowledge can itself spark some anxiety, but in terms of the emotional consequences, it is far less than would be the case if I were actually informed.

Given what’s going on now, paying attention is the last thing I should do.

(IMPOTUS can go fuck himself on so many fronts…)

Given what’s going on now, not paying attention is getting increasingly difficult as well, however. But I can still avert my eyes and not die inside.

I’ve never been more thankful that the government’s still lying about UFOs than I was this morning.

In Dreams, Part II.

He asked me what was wrong, and it eventually came out that, aside from the same old issue of hating my job and not having the courage and ambition to get a new one, I realized how much I missed college. All the mindless minutiae of my job, all the shallow, superficial, mundane, throw-away conversations, it made me miss the intellectual depth and general atmosphere of higher education.

In stark contrast to my high school career, I had done exceptionally well in college, too, at least until that last semester. That was when the college began to push for more group activities. I am ridden with anxiety and work better alone. Even worse, that was when, three to four years in, I had my first public speaking class. The first public speaking I had ever had to do in college, strangely enough. My niave expectations, when I had finally entered college in my thirties because I had finally decided what I wanted to do — to be an English teacher, to major in Integrated Linguistic Arts — was that all the anxiety attacks I had endured while speaking before the class in high school had diminished to nothing, that it was something I had naturally outgrown, that I could do this.

As I said: so bloody niave of me.

During my first day in public speaking class, it was our duty to talk to the person next to us. Then we were to both to get up in front of the class for a mere 20-second speech in which we were to introduce our neighbor.

It was high school all over again.

Cold sweat. Clammy hands. Mouth dry. Throat narrowing to a straw, a coffee stirrer. Trembling. Stomach demons. Forgetting how to breathe. Feeling like I was dying in utter agony without any hope for the release of actual death as a finality. I felt like I had withdrawn into,my head and ultimately became all eyes. Inability to blink. Uncertain where to put my drying, intense eyes. Overwhlelned by their attention and the senses emotions. Overload to the extreme. Feeling as though I actually had to push out the words as I shuddered and slurred my words.

Fucking hell. Truly: fucking hell.

I sat down. I trembled uncontrollably for the rest of the class and never returned.

From there, things fell apart and went straight to hell. Ultimately, I dropped out of college. The dream of being an English teacher died. I defaulted on my loans. I succumbed to the depressing fate of my present fast food shit job. College was a failed endeavor. Maybe when I’m old enough I’ll just sit in on classes, learning for the sake of learning, no credits earned and no career end-goal, but aside from that, this was clearly over.

There was no going back now.

“You can go back,” Moe informed me.

Even with all I owe in loans, I could still go back, he said, but I’d have to follow through this time. I could have enough money through the loans to live off of as I go to college, too, and maybe get a part time job to get some extra cash. I could work at my fast food place of employment only one, two days a week, or, better yet, get a part-time warehouse job.

The thought of reclaiming the sense of focus and structure college provided, the thought of once again being in at least a closer approximation to a creative and intellectual atmosphere again, the thought of landing in a career I might be passionate about, that might provide meaning for me, that would be not merely a job but a desirable way of life and means of societal survival — it inspired hope in me.

Moe had managed it, so he told he in so many words, and there was no reason I couldn’t.

If not that, I could pursue a trade. Some time ago — probably longer than it seems, given the ever-accelerating sense of time as I age — some kids that I had previously known as they hung out at the fast food joint I work at had gotten jobs at a place in town. A place were they were being taught the art of welding. It was good money, and they urged me to leave the oil-infested shithole I was working at and pursue this path as well. They worked rather hard to inspire me, too, but I never made an effort.

As I told this to Moe, I register the possibility in my mind, and as he mentioned, if I did pursue that trade, not only would I get a better job and make considerably more money, but it could also provide another outlet for my artistic endeavors.

I’d failed to consider that.

The weird shit I could weld and even potentially sell…

I had never really explored any three-dimensional art before, and the idea sparked some lovely fires in my mind.

In the meantime, regardless as to whether I pursued a career through college or trade, I would be treading down a path where I would make what at least for me would be a considerable amount of money — money that I had never earned before. Particularly in tandem with my lack of materialism, my simple lifestyle, this would eliminate so many worries that currently plague my nights and days.

No more worries about making rent, paying bills, being able to afford presents for birthdays and Christmas, or fears of my car breaking down and having to rely on the charity of friends or my parents to overcome such obstacles so as to survive.

My parents wouldn’t die worrying about me, either, which is a growing concern of mine at this point.

I could even move out of my apartment and into a trailer or small house closer to my family, closer to the rural, closer to nature, far away from populations denser in more ways than one and the sickening cities and light pollution that serves to obscure the beloved night sky that always serves to feed my soul and soothe my mind.

So with Moe’s help, one could say I opened a trap door in my psyche and peered into forgotten or buried potential — potential I desire to face and explore yet simultaneously fear, as I thus far lack the necessary courage and ambition to tread down those anxiety-inspiring steps.

Why am I so fucking stuck? Why am I so damned afraid?

In Dreams, Part I.

I’m with a group of others in some dark, apparently abandoned house, and I think we were looking for a stairway. In any case, I’m fairly certain I was the one to find the trap door on the bare wood floor and open it. Below, a wooden stairway led down to a dark, furnished basement. It wasn’t cluttered and disorderly, just dark, and I have the sense that no one had been down there for a long time. Even so, there’s something about the thought of going down there that frightens me, something about the vibe of the place that creeps me the fuck out.

I used to recall my dreams frequently, and I would recall large portions of them. Nowadays, I only relatively occasionally remember a single scene if I’m lucky, and I wonder if its because I’ve developed the habit — which as of late I’ve been attempting to break — of immediately going to my phone or my laptop upon awakening and filling my consciousness with videos or social media garbage.

In any case, I failed to do that when I awoke today and, while letting my mind wander as I sat on the pot, I made an effort to recall any fragmentary recollections of dreams I’ve might have had. I knew I’d had a series of dreams last night, after all, so there should be something there within conscious reach, especially considering I’d just woken up.

And that’s when I remembered the scene about the trap door and the hidden basement.

This has been a relatively common dream theme of mine for as long as I can remember. Underground places where I hide are a common element in the context of my recurring doomsday dreams, for instance, though they are by no means specific to that context. To the contrary, the theme of basements, underground installations, sewers, or even hidden rooms is also a common dream theme for me in general — and for people in general, judging from what I’ve read and from the perhaps strangely large amount of dreams people I know have told me.

I know that these hidden areas, as we might collectively call them, represent the unconscious or shadow aspects of the self. And though I’m sure I’ve done it before, I googled the dream meaning of basements today to see if it might help me interpret this dream in particular.

Evidently basements represent the deepest and darkest vistas of the psyche — thoughts, emotions and memories that make us feel uncomfortable, issues that overwhelm us and so remain unresolved because we have yet to consciously and deliberately deal with them.

At the very least, that feels accurate.

I found the trap door, opened it, and saw the basement and the stairway that led to it, but the place seemed dark, uninviting, and unbearably creepy. For all I know, I may have subsequently walked down there, as I only recall this portion of the dream, but I feel that this wasn’t the case. So perhaps this implies that while I sought out and found this part of me, that while I’m aware of this hidden sector of myself, I have yet to summon up the courage to face it and explore it.

Typically when I have such dreams, at least outside the doomsday context, the hidden room or basement is cluttered, however, or at least that’s how I remember it without going back and exploring thr former dreams I documented. It seems like an area that serves as an unregulated dumping ground for forgotten, neglected or buried contents of the mind. Here, however, the place looked orderly, if not strangely clean for what seemed to be a hidden and presumably unoccupied area.

What the fuck might that imply? Its hard to tell for certain.

My mind travels to numerous, faraway places in the course of a day, often entirely unhinged and at best only distantly related to my external activities, so in my attempts to understand my dreams in the past I have often neglected to look at my activities in the previous day for indications of what my dreams the following eve might mean. In an attempt to remedy this neglect and provide, if nothing else, more meat to chew on in attempts to discern this dreams meaning, I decided to reflect on my activities the last two days.

Thursday evening, after arriving home from work, I worked on a post for another blog dealing with my exploration of my recurring UFO dreams which, along with the aforementioned doomsday dreams, are the two recurring dreams, or major recurring dream themes, that have haunted my nocturnal, subjective meanderings since at least as early as the mid-1990s.

I was drinking as I was doing this, which inevitably means I ultimately stopped working on that project for the evening, began writing poetry and smoking pot on top of the booze, and seemingly inevitably ended the night by falling down a rabbit hole of porn.

Within the last two days I also think I finished watching the second season of Lost in Space, and watched some YouTube videos — some informative, others clips of comedians I enjoy in an attempt to boost my mood.

On Friday, I hung out with Moe, and after he left I watched the rest of Inception on Netflix, which I may have started watching the evening earlier, if not days earlier.

The fact that I was exploring my recurring dreams of UFOs the day before and ended the night before the dream by watching Inception, which is about dreams, may certainly hold some significance — as might the conversation Moe and I had.

We hadn’t hung out in two or three weeks. Part of the reason was the holidays, part of the reason was my depressed mood coupled with my socially and emotionally overwhelmed state as of late. It might be due to the season, as while my depression and anxiety isn’t specific to the endless Winternity months, this time of year clearly exacerbates them.

I rarely if ever have enough money to purchase gifts and even when I do I never know what to get anyone and the process of driving and shopping has never been a comfortable one for me. As a consequence, I always feel like such a selfish piece of shit around this time of year. With some help I requested from my youngest sister, I managed to get gifts for my neice and nephew this year, at least, but got everyone else nothing more than stupid fucking cards.

One of the gifts I received from my parents was a draft table thing with a sliding ruler, minus the table part. It has little legs so that you can prop it up at a slant, and it will be perfect for my artwork. I loved it.

Before I left my parents house, as I was moving it so as to put it in my car, I hit a corner of a wall in the kitchen and busted the ruler part of it. I instantly started cussing and damning myself, an outburst of anger I certainly didn’t wish to display before my loved ones — and cuss words which, though fairly natural in my daily discourse, I did not wish to express before my nephew and niece.

I remember looking up after I calmed a tad to find my neice, concerned and curious, had run over. I caught her eyes and felt so fucking ashamed of myself.

Afterward, though it may have just been my imagination, the entire mood of the house seemed to drop. They all seemed tired, drained, miserable. So over Christmas. Eve, the middle child, seemed most miserable of all, though she claimed she felt sick from having eaten too much.

I know what its like to be possessed by the infectious emotions of another, and again, while it might have been my imagination, it seemed to me at the time that my outburst had somehow infected them all.

In any case, it was a shitty way for me to end a holiday get-together.

My clumsiness, my dumb act of damaging a nice gift, and my outburst before my family — my niece in particular — ate me up for days, constantly flashing back in my mind with intense, vicious, self-damning emotions that failed to diminish.

It still crops up, to be honest. I was and am angry at myself on so many levels.

At work, I have been increasingly bored, frustrated, miserable. It culminated in a thought that had cropped up in my mind on Thursday, my last shift until tomorrow, Sunday. In essence, I found myself thinking not only how much I hated this job and my lack of motivation and courage to find a new one, but that I really, really missed college.

This became a subject of conversation between Moe and I when he arrived Friday evening and we continued our tradition of sitting in the living room of my apartment and splitting a six pack as we got lost in conversation for hours — on this occassion, roughly six hours.

Right before the holidays, Moe had finally received his long-awaited notice in the mail that stated he had passed his physical. This meant he could now go down to Texas for over a year to go into training to become a pilot. I couldn’t be happier for him. At around thirty years of age, he had been beating himself up over the fact that he was still living with his parents, and that despite chasing a few potential careers through college he still didn’t know what the bloody fuck he wanted to do with his life and lacked any semblance of direction. For a long time his passion seemed exclusive to music — he is an epic bassist — though he tried to find a more practical means of making a living, of building a life. All his choices of focus in college, however practial, however well within his capabilities given his intelligence, however good a living he would be making given he pursued them straight through to the finish line, never seemed to truly spark the fire of passion within him, so he eventually lost interest. When it came to pursuing being a pilot, however, I could feel the difference. I could see the change, and I had no doubt — indeed, I have no doubt — that this is his path, that he is fully invested, that he will follow it through.

It will suck not having him around for over a year, and I will sincerely miss his company — he is one of a very small minority that I can be myself around in comfort — but I wouldn’t have this any other way. The guy needs this. He deserves it. I want to see him suceed in the pursuit of his passions.

At some point in our conversation he expertly shifted the focus onto me, however, which I simultaneously desired and feared. I had ghosted him the previous weekend and spent the week wondering if I had pissed him off; if, for all I knew, he might already be on his way to Texas. I told him the truth, which is that I had subjected myself to self-imposed isolation and really felt I’d needed it, that it had done me some good, and that is was by no means personal.

My Favorite Human.

Earlier in the week, I was coming out of the bathroom, which leads directly into my bedroom. As I did so, I looked towards the doorway that leads to the rest of my apartment.

In a flash, I see someone step into the doorframe from the direction of my apartment door — jarring, given that I live alone. A surge of adrenaline flooded me, and the deluge continued even after my quick determination, my flash of recognition.

It was my father.

Did my parents come up here for some reason without telling me? If so, how did they get inside? I’m paranoid, so my door is always locked and bolted. Fuck, was this a crisis apparition?

Was dad okay?

It didn’t make any sense, not a lone lick of sense — at least for a few seconds, until I realized that my bedroom door was actually closed and what I was actually looking at was my own fucking reflection in the mirror fixed to the back of the door.

So its indisputable: I look like him now. And to he honest, I feel proud of that. I have never known a better man. I love him deeper than I fear I could ever express.

After all: without doubt, he’s my favorite human.

Pointless Resolutions for Another Revolution.

I bought two 24 ounce beers on the way home from work last might after we closed the place early at ten, but I wasn’t in the mood to drink by the time I got home. So I put in a pizza, got mildly high and watched the last few episodes of the second season of Lost in Space.

Aside from work, this wasn’t a bad New Years. Not in the least.

I still find it interesting that on the night when everyone drinks I elect not to participate despite the fact that I’ve been drinking frequently as of late. I think I just like to bite my thumb at tradition. Any time a large group of people are really into something it immediately becomes suspect and any appeal it had tends to evaporate.

Its like when I’m planning on doing something out of my own volition and then someone tells me I have to do it or really should do it. My desire withdraws.

Earlier in the day, I was thinkimg on how New Years resolutions seem to be a pointless practice, as no one ever seems to follow through with them. That fact kind of takes the pressure off of making such resolutions, though. And since I’ve been trying to write every day, I forced myself to make some with the full awareness that I will not, in all likelihood, live up to them and they’ll probably roll over into 2021:

1) Stop drinking. Or at the very least slow the fuck down. At this point, I would really like to just stick to smoking weed. Weed hangovers are comforting, like someone wrapped you in a fluffy, warm blanket. Booze hangovers make you feel sick, and sometimes they can even make you feel like a raw nerve, hypersensitive to everything. And I clearly have enough of that naturally. I’m nearly always self-loathing when I wake up after drinking, too, and this is never the case with cannabis.

I’ve continued drinking because it allows me escape from my emotions, from giving a shit at all. Its also a convenient way to shift gears and not take the fucking bull shit work packs into me home with me. No wage slave hangover.

I’m a very happy drunk — and another word that begins with an “h” and ends in a “y” — and so its much like having a button I can press to make myself happy whenever I wish. I have also told myself that it helps with writing, but it does only up to drinking, say, a 24 ounce beer. After that, only poetry seems possible unless I want to write something I’ll find stupid and horrible upon sobering up. And while pot may not be the best sleep aid, experience suggests its infinitely better than booze.

2) Draw every day. Even if its just a few little sketches on a single page of my sketchbook, I need to get the artistic juices flowing again on a daily basis. Not drinking may help with this process, as booze and art do not typically go together in my experience. Cannabis, however, is perfect for the practice.

3) Get laid. Not drinking may make any attempt to get laid even more difficult than it already is. The longer its been, the more anxious I am when I sense that a golden opportunity is in close proximity. The more I need it, the more difficult it is to obtain.

Drinking at a bar, which I rarely do anymore, would provide a potential way to circumvent this not-getting-laid problem, but clearly not if I quit drinking altogether.

Though it’s probably not the time to rant about this, I really wish they’d legalize prostitution. It could be regulated if brought into the light, the women would be safer all around, and schmucks like me would certainly invest. I think I’d be happier and more relaxed. Probably more confident as well.

4) Get a better job that’s closer to home. This would either require getting a job closer to where I live now or securing a job elsewhere and finding a new residence in close proximity. In any case, I could watch this shithole town I work shrink in my rearview mirror for the last time and it would be beautiful.

Art, Writing, & Other Release Valves.

Back in high school, I’d stay after school and, alone in the art room, I’d do my pen drawings or, more often, engage in my chalk pastel works. I’d do this at home in my bedroom, too.

This was my psychic bloodletting.

After I took apart my old art desk for some reason and could not, for the life of me, put it back together, I’d use the wall behind my door. I’d place a huge piece of paper there, masking tape at the edges and the sides, and then I’d put a CD in my old boom box. Usually, I’d listen to Tool’s Aenema album, or at least that’s how I remember it. I’d grab my chalk pastels and just let my emotions guide my hands, sometimes caught in some insane frenzy, intensely drawing and smearing the colors.

High on the catharsis. Empowered and actively nurturing the connection I had with some deep, dark, utterly alien part of me.

I always felt cleansed at the end, exorcised, often satisfied with the end product and quite proud of it. I just needed to get the seemingly endless within me out of me, expel it meaningfully, trap it in amber upon the page like an insect, take a Kodak moment of my soul.

Parting with my pieces, selling my shit, it wasn’t a concern, even a thought. These were pieces of my fucking soul, after all. This was my personal art therapy, and that’s what mattered most.

I’ve gone through periods where I felt like that channel between me and Me was constipated, of course. Where the art I produced wasn’t nearly as satisfying, where all the shit looked the same and lacked soul. There are always those dry periods.

And then there were periods in which I just fell out of it, as has happened again — though its slowly working its way back in.

Usually when this happens, nearly always, I find my focus has merely shifted. My avenue of exorcism had changed. My catharsis found an alternative outlet: writing.

And it wasn’t always an either/or kind of circumstance, either.

I would let my fingers tap madly on the keyboard, let them hunt and peck at high speed until they ached and I feared they might bleed. Driven by emotion, I was like a stenographer for my spontaneous thoughts. Not to share, not to impress people, not to post it on social media to get likes that would deliver a fucking dopamine hit, but because I had to get this out, and some parts of myself could be better expressed through writing than artwork.

And I remember constantly thinking back then that I needed yet another outlet, and my constant interest was music. I wanted to sing. To play guitar. I needed another way to scratch the itch. I needed another release valve.

I never pursued music, not really. I took piano lessons at school for awhile, though that was earlier, during middle school, I think, and I didn’t follow through for too long. I was asked to be the lead singer for a developing band, but I was too nervous about singing, which I had never tried. Even earlier, when I was a teen, I took gutair lessons, but the class, despite me squeezing it for all it was worth, kind of sucked. I used my mother’s acoustic for awhile, then a twelve-string I borrowed from a friend, and eventually a series of electric gutairs.

Presently, I have an electric tuner. A little, glitchy amp. Plenty of books from those lessons long ago and ones I’ve collected since I was a teen. Tabliture for Metallica songs, Creedence Clearwater Revival sings.

Those books remain in my large, walk-in closet as my electric guitar collects dust in a corner in my apartment.

Maybe if I survive another two decades or so. Maybe if I manage to make money off my artwork and writing I’ll be able to quit my shit job, and I’ll feel I have the time to develop this new outlet.

I’m not holding my breath, though. I’ve just started drawing again, after all.

Currently, writing is my major outlet. I write on my phone here and there throughout the workday. When I get home, if I’m drinking — which, let’s face it, is usually the fucking case — I’ll write a bit of prose, perhaps, but once I have some cannabis on top of that and I suddenly shift into poetry mode. So much so, in fact, that I ultimately decided to make a separate blog dedicated to it.

What has been lacking as of late is my artwork, and its pathetic how often I plan to do it and fail. Afterwards, I almost always feel so cleansed and charged. This last weekend, I spent some time doodling in my sketchbook while mildly high, and I’m slowly falling into the groove again. I certainly don’t wish to quit writing, but I need the visual arts as well. I need both release valves.

Sometimes I wish I could just go hide somewhere for awhile, somewhere that was my own and where I had minimal human contact, and focus on art and writing exclusively. I’d live in a sort of vaccum and nurture my only avenues towards true liberty in life without distraction.

That’s not likely to happen, of course, so I really need to find the motivation to make use of what time I have to pursue my passions. To spill my fucking soul through imagery bled onto the page.

I’ve got to pull out of this rut. Its not like getting laid, after all — I can do this on my own. What the hell is the problem?

On Shit Moods, Chuck Palahnuik, & Cognitive Reframing.

All weekend, which is to say Friday and Saturday, I kept my phone on silent and largely ignored Facebook. Save for a quick journey to the grocery store yesterday, I stayed in my apartment, avoiding social contact and doing next to nothing — and I felt better for it.

Then I left for work today. I knew this to be a bad move, but it was a move I had to make. I need to pay for rent and food and stuff.

Anyway, my mind had been engulfed in this controlled anger since my way to work, where the dumb person in the van in front of me stopped in the middle of the lane to let out an old woman with a walker.

They didn’t turn into a parking space or try to make room for whoever was behind them, just abruptly stopped without warning and took their sweet ass time. They showed no sign of hearing me honking, either.

Shortly thereafter my anger inverted, aimed toward a myself, and most of the day — until the incident with the Polite Puppeteer I spoke of in my former post — my angry mind has defaulted to the usual:

“What’s wrong with me? I’m potentially insane, stuck in a job I loathe, and I’m not in a relationship or even getting laid.”

So let me take a moment to tackle just why mulling over this shit is a pointless practice. Just to remind myself.

Though I may have changed in the last decade and a half since I last tried to be part of a two-person unit, it never takes me long until I have the desire to end it and just be alone. So there’s a good chance that even if I got in a relationship I wouldn’t be any happier — after the initial, honeymoon, puppy-love portion of the experience ended, that is, and those endogenous chemicals left my system.

In the meantime, I might knock up the girl, and how better would I be then? Raising a kid on a fast food wage? Passing on whatever the fuck is wrong with me? Bringing a child into what increasingly looks to be an irreversibly doomed world (climate change, “Feminist” man hate, corporations and Big Brother watching in increasingly intrusive ways, groups held over the individual, growing lack of empathy, the potentially devastating mess that is artificial intelligence, narcissistic authoritarian shit-stains like Trump being given positions of power, and so on).

I should appreciate my bachelorhood and circumstantial abstinence more, in other words, as things could be considerably worse.

And while I am indeed stuck in a job I loathe and which bears not the vaguest relation to my true passions, I do have a job — and a stable job I’ve managed to keep for over a decade and a half, no less. I also happen like nearly everyone I work with — as unique individuals if not as coworkers — and that has certainly not always been the case.

I could have a worse job. I could be homeless or be entirely reliant on the state or on my family, both of which would be considerably worse scenarios in my opinion. So again, things could be so, so much worse.

Then there is that ever-looming fear for my sanity. If I’m truly bat-shit, than at least I’m moderately functional, and given what passes for normalcy, is it really something one should aspire for, that one should feel shameful and guilty and self-loathing for lacking?

Certainly fucking not.

I need to remember there is always a glass-half-full perspective in reach. That I need not exacerbate life’s apparently inherent state of dissatisfaction by fixating in the negative and beating myself up inside for every fucking conceivable thing.

Wise words were spoken by Chuck Palahnuik, author of one of my favorite books and man who loves sitting on chairs backwards during interviews, and he said it on The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast #1158. I transcribed what he said and kept it in a file on my phone, wanting to explore the concept further, and it seems so appropriate for me to offer it now:

“It’s always about what they call cognitive reframing… Whatever happens, you reframe it in such a way that you recognize the value of it, regardless of what happens. You know, before my father got murdered, he had been asking me for an introduction to Winona Ryder in 1998. And I kept on thinking, I am not going to introduce my father to Winona Ryder because I know he’s gonna hit on her. And I’m just going to be mortified to have my dad hitting on Winona Ryder. And he’d always talk about how pretty she was, ‘Any chance I can meet her?’ And to tell the truth, when I got the word that my father had been murdered by a white supremacist in the mountains of Idaho, one of my first thoughts was: I’m off the hook with that Winona Ryder thing. And that’s cognitive reframing.”

Of Polite Puppeteers & Angry Empaths.

She’s short, somewhere just passed the point where she might get away with calling herself “thick,” and has dark, curly hair. While not a regular, she has come in here periodically over the years and she irritates the living hell out of me every time she emerges once again.

She uses the same strategy, without fail, every time I see her. She’ll say hi, ask you how you’re doing, and if she’s patient enough she’ll wait for a pleasant response from you before coming at you with the question.

“Any way I could have a cigarette?”

“I hope I’m not bothering you, but could I bum a ride?”

“I hate to ask, but do you have two dollars?”

“This is embarassing, but I need a kidney…”

You know, shit like that.

And if you say no, even politely with a legitimate excuse, she’ll apologize profusely, as if she just asked a simple question she truly hated asking and you lashed out at her unempathically in response.

This? This is her way of trying to instill guilt in you for denying her.

She never seems to remember who she asks, either, for whenever I see her — at work or elsewhere in this cesspool of a town — she approaches me, executes her strategy, and I’ve never, ever said yes to her.

Why? Because I hate when people elicit targeted emotional states in you strictly for the purposes of manipulating you. It doesn’t matter if they’re trying to control you through guilt or use your empathy against you. I find all of it intolerable.

Its one of those circumstances where I’m not certain what pisses me off more: the fact that she’s trying to manipulate me or the fact that she thinks I’m weak-willed and dumb enough to fall for it.

The insult to my intelligence, come to think of it, gets deeper under my skin than her attempt to play me like a marionette.

I saw her around earlier, and as I’m sitting in my car having a smoke toward the end of the shift I see her come out the side door of the restaurant. I can feel her eyes on me, smell her intent like a horrific fart, but I don’t look up. Refuse to look up.

Inside my head, I’m begging her: don’t. Don’t do it. Its so inauthentic. So slimey. And its so predictable, too, and that pisses me off. Don’t prove me right, goddamn it, pleasantly surprise me.

“Hi,” I hear her say.

Damn it.

“Hey,” I manage to squeeze out.

I can hear her about to proceed with her regularly scheduled programming, but it’s interrupted as Jed opens the back door to light up a cigarette himself. He’s an easier target, as he’s closer and not hiding in a Sunfire, so she course-corrects.

Even so, it all unfolds as I anticipated.

He gives her the cigarette, unfortunately, which she smokes by the side door. My rage builds as I hear her now talking to some guy on his way into the restaurant using the same technique.

She asks him for two dollars, though. He says no, offers an excuse, she guilt-trip apologizes for asking him and bothering him, and he goes inside. Inside my mind, I cheer.

The bastard got away. Good for him.

After a moment, she then turns back to Jed, who also denies her before he retreats back in the back door.

My smoke is done, too, so I try to avoid eye contact with her, even in the periphery, as I lock my car door and proceed to the back door.

I’m halfway in when she approaches and asks me for two dollars.

Fuck. Fuckity-fuck. So close.

I want to call her out. To be mean. Make her remember me so she never tries to manipulate me again.

“No,” is what I go with, though, still avoiding eye contact, and I shut the door before she can guilt trip me.

Empty.

After I got back from my parent’s house yesterday for Christmas, I sat down at my computer chair, wanting to write a bit and then do some artwork. I just felt dead inside, empty. Everything within seemed stuck in a sort of suspended animation, it seems. I felt uninspired and entirely disinterested in everything. I didn’t feel like writing, drawing, or reading. I couldn’t get through YouTube videos, either, and felt no urge to watch Netflix.

Was I tired? Yes. And I was a bit pissed from when I hit a wall and broke part of a gift I’d been given as I was trying to take it to my car before leaving my parents house; I kept flashing back to it, beating myself up inside and calling myself names. So maybe those factors had something to do with it, but this has happened one or two other times lately.

In response, I eventually drank and smoked some weed, which got me feeling better and writing a little — after which I descended into my intoxicated poetry and then into a vortex of porn.

This is probably not the best way to deal with this issue — which is to say the booze and porn factors.

Of Rudolph, Frosty, Santa, & the Consequences of Christmas Music.

You try to avoid it. Fight against it. They’re the same old tunes you’ve heard since before you could walk or talk. Even John Lennon’s Christmas song has come to annoy you.

Why do we do this to ourselves? There’s nothing new under the sun when it comes to this.

Inevitably, though, a Christmas song gets stuck in your head, as everyone plays that shit relentlessly. White Christmas. Blue Christmas. Frosty the Snowman. Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. That infinitely annoying rendition of Jingle Bells where they sing the “jingle bells” part super fucking fast.

As it tortures you internally, it gets you thinking. Over a stupid soundtrack, yes, but it gets you thinking.

If there was a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer reboot set in modern day and made here in the US of A, I think the second half of the story would be entirely different. Think Tim Burton meets Tarantino.

Rudolph would respond to them laughing, calling him names, and heartlessly ostricizing him quite differently. He’d compile an eight-reindeer kill list and then, on the night before Christmas, he’d put his homicidal plan into action.

“Nose so bright,” he would say to his honker aglow, causing him to quite literally see red, “please guide my slaying tonight.”

With all his targets struck dumb and paralyzed before the bright glow of his blood-red shnoz, he would then proceed to mow down his antler-crowned classmates in a Christmas Eve bloodbath, forcing Saint Nick to upgrade to a more modern means of transportation on his big night, maybe a Tesla.

And on his journey to deliver gifts to the children of the world, he’d hit a deer in Ohio and have to wait on AAA.

As for Rudolph, he would no longer “go down in history,” perhaps, but he’d at least have his 15 minutes of horror-inspired fame and dominate a few news cycles.

Then there’s Frosty the Snowman.

Sporting a scarf, a silk top hat, a cane, and with a corncob pipe hanging out of his invisible mouth, he sounds ridiculous. With his coal eyes black as death and a button nose — not a carrot, for some reason — he then sounds terrifying, but that’s not how the story goes. After the children make the snowman and place an old silk hat they found atop his well-packed noggin, he began dancing and playing with them, and he turns out to be quite the joyous and courteous fellow.

With the sun blazing above him, however, he knew his time was short, and so decided to live it up — before running away, waving goodbye and promising to return as he booked it over the snowy hills. And apparently quite loudly.

Much as the Santa myth seems to prepare the youth for the adult version of the myth — namely the Christian Sky Daddy — Frosty preps them for Jesus.

Think about it: Santa lives at the North Pole, which we perceive as “upwards,” much like “heaven,” though here, rather than fluffy white clouds, we instead have an equally desolate, white wasteland of snow and ice. He’s all-seeing — always watching and keeping a list of people and a tally of their good and bad deeds, rewarding the good and punishing the bad — with coal, we are told, which has associations with fire and therefore stands in for the threat of Hell.

And Santa is an anagram of Satan, too, which I will never not find funny. It reminds me if the quote from the Principia Discordia:

“Dyslexic Christian worships dog, sells soul to Santa.”

And rather than angels, we have elves as his minions. And instead of a chariot, we have a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer.

And Frosty’s kid-Jesus, no doubt about it. Mysterious origins, magical abilities (like being sentient and stuff), spreading good will and then departing with the promise of return.

In any case: Happy Holidays.