After Burn

“When you hit a wall – of your own imagined limitations – just kick it in.”   Sam Shepard (November 5, 1943 - July 30, 2017)

maybe this will be the week i start to move on find a job find a purpose sleep longer eat healthier exercise more not give up or give in maybe this will be the week i get it together laugh harder cry less stop waiting start doing maybe this will be the week my life will change for the better maybe this will be the week it all comes together or maybe it won’t maybe this won’t be the week i start over maybe i’ve been starting over every single day for a while now maybe each day is just a battle of its own maybe i take the good with the bad just keep trying not looking around for benchmarks maybe this week i don’t compare myself to others even all the other selves have been before especially those other selves maybe the bigger and better things i hope and strive for are never going to come maybe it doesn’t even matter if they do maybe i just keep fighting for it anyway maybe that’s all that matters

a year ago today i last looked into your eyes love, lust, pain in my heart, no surprise in six more years it will be all new skin time will tell if it was a loss or a win for now it's just another bad day in july one more line, exasperated sigh

Weird, meandering, depressing worm hole of insomniac thoughts led me to realizing even if I were to get somebody pregnant right now the child wouldn’t likely be born until after my 36th birthday next year. Not sure what to make of that. Of course the more depressing realization is that I haven’t had sex with anyone since shortly before I turned 34. 35 has been somehow even more sexless without much hope of changing, and we’re about halfway to 36. Life is so goddamn slow and fast at the same time, especially when you aren’t getting laid or getting much of anything else in your life.

"How do you move on? You move on when your heart finally understands that there is no turning back." - JRR Tolkien "I am half agony, half hope…"  - Jane Austen, Persuasion "I guess that’s just part of loving people: You have to give things up. Sometimes you even have to give them up." - Lauren Oliver, Delirium "Real love is always chaotic. You lose control; you lose perspective. You lose the ability to protect yourself. The greater the love, the greater the chaos. It’s a given and that’s the secret." -  Jonathan Carroll, White Apples "It is important that you say what you mean to say. Time is too short. You must speak the words that matter."  -  Kate DiCamillo, The Magician’s Elephant

Not a single family member or friend has called. Texted. Sent a Facebook message. E-mailed. Nothing.  It starts off with people coming to actually see you in person. Then it’s a phone call. Then a text message. Eventually just a post your Facebook wall or a comment on something you have posted on social media. Then nothing. And perhaps it should be that way.  Life goes on. Everything has a shelf life. It doesn’t mean they aren’t thinking about it. It doesn’t mean they don’t care. But they have moved on. Those of us who will never be lucky enough to do that, well the best we can hope for is just a day spent surrounded by love and life. But I don’t have such things in my orbit currently, so I just try to make it through the day and onto the next. 

Change happens both instantly and then very slowly over time. We tend to romanticize &  overemphasize the instant part, and yet it is the fading away that takes the most strength to live through. Metaphorically speaking it isn't the fall that kills you, it's the drowning. 

What if you have a Dad Bod but you aren’t a Dad what does that make you? If you’re just a divorced guy that has never been a father and whose body doesn’t seem to change much even when you dieting & exercising because you’re over 35 now and will probably just always a bit chubby or schlumpy. Kind of like actor Josh Gad. Aha! That’s it! I have Gad Bod.

Comedown has already commenced. Wish I had drugs strong enough to knock me out right now. Tomorrow is going to suck regardless, but it would suck less if I knew I could sleep tonight and get up earlier enough to see the Wimbledon Men’s Final. Perhaps I should take a shower, since I don’t think I’ve done that in a few days.

Next time I need to address or get the attention of two people who look like they are together, whether as friends or lovers or just in deep conversation or connection, I’m going to shout “Hey! Porkchop & Applesauce! Over here!”. And I’ll giggle inside even though they will likely just have a very muted reaction if any reaction at all. It hasn’t even officially been announced as an actual project yet but I already hate every single thing about the Quentin Tarantino/Charles Manson movie. I like Lily James a lot. She is very talented and beautiful; and her career is going great. But my ex-wife totally nailed it when we were watching the 2015 Cinderella and she pointed out that Sophie McShera - who was playing one of the evil stepsisters in that film but it is probably better known for portraying Daisy on Downton Abbey - should’ve been Cinderella.  If I could play a role on any TV series or in any film it would be the character of Bullseye, who is a well-known adver...

I was asked recently if there is a film that I would like to remake if I could. It is a great question. And I have multiple answers. Just recently I was thinking about how the 2002 film Reign of Fire that co-starred Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey and was about a post-apocalyptic world overrun with dragons was such a (pun absolutely intended) misfire. Granted I haven’t re-watched it since it was originally released fifteen years ago, but it just seems like there has to be a much better film to be culled from that premise and heck even bring back the two leads, give them a better script and some great supporting cast. Effects certainly could be done better these days, too. I have always had a fondness for New Line Cinema’s other big horror film franchise from the 80s/90s - Critters - and have long dreamed of remaking/rebooting it with today’s technology while keeping the campy charm and fun of the original. There are two lighthearted romantic comedies with very similar plot...

It’s still late Sunday. July 9th. Next Sunday on the 16th will mark 14 years since my younger (and only) brother committed suicide at the age of nineteen. But today marks fourteen years since I last saw or talked to him. He came by my place in Austin during the day. I was meeting some friends later than evening to see the first Pirates of the Caribbean film on opening night, he had plans to do something else but we had discussed going to the lake with other friends that weekend and trying to catch Bad Boys II the following week when it came out. At some point that afternoon he stepped outside to smoke a cigarette. Then I noticed he had just left without saying anything. At the time I remembered that it felt unusual, not that he would’ve made a big deal about leaving, but it definitely seemed out of the norm to just take off without letting me know he was going. And then a week went by and we hadn’t seen each or talked again, which wasn’t horribly unusual. I remember having a conversati...

It’s important to remind yourself that you do actually like and even love some things in the world. Of course you do truly hate certain things, but not every fucking thing. It’s just your mental illness and depression making you feel like you hate everything.