Did you ever watch Mad About You in the ‘90s?  Do you remember the theme song?  (‘The Final Frontier’)

It had this slightly misogynistic line:“Tell me all your secrets, and i’ll tell you most of mine, …”

I hear that now and it bothers me a little.  The woman is supposed to tell him all her secrets, and the man says he’ll only tell you most of his.  That really doesn’t seem fair.

Tell me all your secrets and i’ll tell you all of mine.  That would be fair, but is it as good a lyric then?  Does the tension between “all” and “most” in the lyrics add something to the song?

Maybe.

Or am i being over-sensitive? Maybe I have too much time on my hands and I should be working more on my own shit.

I took a 4-mile walk today, so i guess that was something.  Doing errands.  Not a trip to NARA Park, unfortunately.

~

I guess i can move at my own pace now; married, i always felt like i had to hurry and get things done according to somebody’s schedule, but now it’s just me. Maybe i’m a little slower. Maybe i stay up later than i used to — who cares? You take enough THC and alcohol, and it doesn’t really matter at all.

Well, i learned a lot by being married. I learned about people, i guess. I learned about myself. And i learned that i wasn’t very good at marriage to begin with, so I’m sure not gonna try that again. I’m too disabled to make much of a spouse anyway. I gave it a good shot, and that’s enough. I’m done.

It’s a lot easier this way. Nobody’s gonna read this stuff; it’s not gonna have any effect on anyone. I don’t have to talk to people. I don’t have to see people. No one will really notice.

I can watch reruns to my heart‘s content. I can listen to music. Or not. It doesn’t matter. I can even say that it doesn’t matter and no one will say “Don’t say that it doesn’t matter!” — Not anymore.

I can pursue my useless little self-involved projects. It won’t bother anyone. Ojo the cat doesn’t mind, as long as I feed him fairly often. My friends leave me alone, and that’s just fine; i really don’t have the heart to see them anymore anyway.

My imagination is enough to keep me busy. My books and my videos help pass the time. THC and alcohol help, too. I only have to go to the doctor once a year or so; i’m healthy enough.

People just leave me alone, and that’s the way I like it. I can just simplify my life and i’ll hardly even notice the passage of time. And if i don’t think about the past, it’s like it didn’t even happen. I’m certainly not worried about the future — the world can look out for itself. Don’t get me started on the United States. I’ve already basically given up on it. People here are useless.

The years will go by, and it will become easier. Then it will be decades; and before I know it, i’ll be really old and then I won’t have anything else to worry about. There’s no point in worrying. There’s no point in caring. The world is just gonna go on the same way it always has.

It doesn’t really matter. It’s easier this way. I don’t need any more life experiences. I’ve had plenty. I’ve got my books. I’ve got my music. My videos. That’s all I ever really wanted. I can go for a ride. I can take a walk. I’m free.

I realize some now why disorder (in our shared space) bothered people in my life so much.

Today i was able to take the time to put up some shelves in the bathroom which i’d been meaning to for a few months. And i could tell right away how much it eased my mind.

I’ve never been great at doing unpleasant things in a timely fashion; maybe nobody is. Now that Sandi is gone, i’m more free to keep my own schedule … but it’s taken me a long time — 9 months — to get back on track with getting things done. (And at this point i’m starting to force myself to get to work.)

Also, with Sandi not here, i feel like i’m maybe ready to actually do something creative again with my life. So I got the website, dsm32.org, to try to force myself to get some writing done.

And i still have a tendency to look back rather than look ahead. Why do i think the answers are in the past and not in the future sitting right here in front of me? Or maybe that’s just in my nature, to introspect, which is why i enjoyed fiction (which is usually written in the past tense) — reading and writing, and also discussing.

Just this morning, I was thinking back to a money question that I faced in 1992. I could’ve either taken Cornell University to court for a monetary settlement about my suicide attempt, or returned and finished my degree. I’m not sure of the actual legal merits of the case, but it could have involved a substantial settlement. And even if I had lost, perhaps it would’ve motivated Cornell to put up nets under the bridges almost twenty years before they eventually did. Having a number of relatively-easy-to-jump-off-of bridges around the campus of a top 1% university is perhaps in advisable, given how competitive the students typically are.

But then my mind began to lead me down a rabbit hole of thinking well what if instead of jumping off the bridge (you idiot) what if you had done something else … become a lawyer instead, say. Don’t get me started.

I don’t need a bunch of money. I need to do something that I will respect myself for.

(I’m also watching Ally McBeal episodes from the ‘90s, and that’s a show which touches on a lot of high-personal-performance issues and makes me think about love again, and how to value it in my life.)

Anyway, let’s see if i can get myself to engage in 2025 once in a while too. (even though i prefer the ‘90s).

Some days it doesn’t matter if you really want to; you just have to do begin writing and see what comes out.

If it sucks, it sucks. But the reason we keep going is that some days — and you can’t ever tell which ones — you come up with something good. Something new. Maybe even original.

Maybe it happens by itself. Maybe it’s helped by the THC gummy you took earlier. Doesn’t matter. You just have to look out for the good days and make sure you right whatever it is that you feel.

It’s like bicycling — i have to bicycle fairly often; if i stop for a while, it takes me a *bunch* of rides to get back into it. Sometimes even if i don’t have to go somewhere, i just go … i just see how far i want, or where i decide to go; and i’m sometimes surprised by where i’m lead.

(And it’s funny, how i begin to see my phone screen as a page, and now i find myself writing in phone-screen-sized chunks — that’s become the news PAGE size, not a computer-screen-sized page or a paper-page-sized page. My page values have become more phone-shaped and phone-sized.)

Anyway, sending good energy to you all. Celebrate life!

another day, another hemp THC gummy.

the ideas flow more easily; the mind relaxes. i hardly notice the sounds of the ocean in the background after a while.

writing is just the courage to say something when no one has asked a question — it is responding to an implicit question posed by the universe around us.

language makes the world more interesting, as well as the people in it. without language, life is dull. there is little comedy without language.

but the joy of experience does not require language, except to communicate it to someone. do you use language with yourself, or only with other people?

writing implies other people (to read the writing), even if it’s just you at a later time. let the words flow out of you like waves crashing against the shore, extending and withdrawing, order and over again.

let other people walk on your beach at the water’s edge; every wave is different, but also the same. if you do not express yourself, do you truly live? or are you just a ghost?

watch the sun rise over the ocean — every day, if you can; even if it’s only a recent recording from a nearby beach that some angel has recorded and posted on YouTube.

this is a new website to go with the email from my old school.

and it’s dedicated to Sandi Mrowka, the woman i met in 2011 and who later asked me to marry her; i had the privilege to know her for 13 years, but she died last year from cancer.

this will be a place that i can write & express stuff, as best i can. i’m trying to piece together another book — a sequel to anomaly — called better off, and maybe i’ll try out some stuff out here as i write it.

Come check out my new blog at ActonConcordVoice.wordpress.com and thanks for stopping by!

Garrison Keillor is back doing The Writer’s Almanac ! ! !

Find the latest episode at:  http://www.garrisonkeillor.com/radio/

Namaste.

New Writer’s Almanac 20180531 Thursday

Un-Mute and Enjoy!

This is the final “New” Writer’s Almanac post!  It’s been fun!  Goodbye.

#WritersAlmanac

#TheWritersAlmanac

#NewWritersAlmanac

(adapted from the Writer’s Almanac 20120531 Thursday and from 20130531 Friday)

New Writer’s Almanac 20180530 Wednesday

Un-Mute and Enjoy!

#WritersAlmanac

#TheWritersAlmanac

#NewWritersAlmanac

(adapted from the Writer’s Almanac 20120530 Wednesday)