I don’t like morning much (too much weird energy). But I missed my flight last night. So now I’m staring out over the giant fish bowl called the North Denver security checkpoint very early in the morning. And I feel only gratitude. It’s oddly restorative watching the system whir into life: The dozen security people moving and talking as if it’s not 4:30 in the morning, the hundreds of passengers silently delegating responsibility for the infrastructure that will jettison them across the country. It’s so intricate. So precarious. I feel lucky that I got to live through a period of time where something this delicate was even possible. …
By LA
For a place that is so incredibly beautiful, there is something about Southern California that I find relentlessly lonely. More than New York. More than any city of Europe. I find Southern California to be a terribly isolating and ungrounded experience. Which isn’t always a bad thing. There are times when it does a world of good to be alone. I just need to expect the sensation. Rather than stumbling through it for three days, wondering why I feel so off. The irony is that on the whole I find the people in LA to be very friendly (with a few extreme exceptions). On this trip one of our servers …
2019 – Year in Review
As I near the exit on 2019, I’m doing something that I don’t normally do: reflection (historically it’s rumination or bust for me). And what I find as look at 2019, is that it might be the best year of my life. Clarification- my adult life. Ten was fucking amazing. And so I’m forced to confront the correlation between feeling positive and the dearth of writing the past few months. Yes, I was working on the novel for the last half of the year. But that was editing, not inspiration. That was basketball practice. That was going to the gym. All work, minimal fun. I don’t know yet if it’s …
Repeat Happiness
I’ve had many happy moments in my life. Most of those I only realize the happiness in retrospect. In a rare few, I was aware of the love and happiness while it was happening (and I say love, because I’m not sure if my happiness ever existed without love, regardless of how perverse or alien from conventional love it might have appeared). What is rarer still, are moments of recognizable happiness that have occurred, and continue to occur. Working from my bed at night, while my daughter sleeps next to me is that kind of happiness. And the only example that I can think of. We have a routine. …
Memories, again
The loss of memory is one of the most profound feelings of loss I have ever experienced. The irony is not that I didn’t expect things to fade. I knew they would leave me. I just never thought it would matter. I always thought I could replace the old with the new. However, there comes a time when you can’t do something new. And then you cling. But the nature of memories is that they’re imperfect. The details continuing to be viewed through dirtier and dirtier water. Sometimes I try to back into the details through deduction. It’s a gross and addictive exercise. That really only ends when I accept …
Sticky Notes
Music can take me back more than any other media. Or sense. Even new songs that are of a certain familiar style. It can happen very suddenly that I’m a productive member of the human race, working away diligently and with contentment in my soul, and then Spotify will switch to a song and the work drops away as I listen closely to the lyrics. An hour later, I’m in a music spiral, with the door locked and nothing to show for my time except for cheap thoughts and scribbled out sticky notes. This is one of those sticky notes. What does it mean to be fucked up? It can …