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newgame+

I think i got enough figured out

A larger framework in mind

That I’m going to abandon

If only temporarily

My tendency to overplan

To think everything through

Backwards and forwards

Before acting

I’m just gonna wing it

Fly by the seat of my pants

I think i can handle it

And if i can’t

I think i can handle that too

Scary but

Just as scary

As agonizing over every detail

I think this is what my dream was about

Going into a reckless arc

Playing it by ear

Taking a shot in the dark

I’ve got more tools now

I just want to see what will happen

If i let go for a bit

Running headfirst

Could be dangerous

But oh well

Splat

roast

I’m in the slow cooker

Putting on flavor

Basting in the juices

When i come out

This shit is falling off the bone

But you gotta leave it overnight

Wait til it’s ready

Tomorrow we’re eating good

Tonight the house just smells

Like cooking meat

poltix

Thinking once again

About the leftmost party

In this two party country

Continuously moving

Further and further right

Using fascist speaking points

Trying to court the right wing

Because they know

There is nowhere else

For us to go

Us that want better

Us that need more

Thinking once again

About the lesser of evils

And how i hate evil

Of all kinds

Lesser and greater

I’m thinking once again

About how something bad

Is going to happen

And it isn’t my fault

Something bad

Is happening

And it isn’t my fault

But i can’t stop it

I’m thinking about evil

Which despite my best intentions

Exists in the world

I’m thinking about

The way that it feels

To stew in righteous anger

But have no way to fight

It diminishes the flame

That should burn in

Every single heart

The flame that burns out evil

It’s normal to feel that way

But it isn’t healthy

Evil has side effects

And one of them is

You either have to ignore it

Support it

Or watch yourself go crazy

Because it exists

Right in front of you

And you are told

All the time

You have to pick it

Choose it

Or else receive more evil

But it isn’t true

Evil isn’t necessary

It’s just convenient

boss

Having an i hate my boss day

That motherfucker

I think may actually hate me

I keep trying

I keep trying

I work so fucking hard

And he doesn’t give a fuck

He keeps asking for more

And every time

I have worked up the courage

To tell him i am drowning

Overworked and can’t keep up

He just talks in circles

Until i leave

90% of the time

I go to his office

To ask a question

He is fully asleep at his desk

I get to work at 6:30 AM

He strolls in at 9:30 every day

And has the gall to ask me to work late

Again and again and again

I called him today

Because the company truck

Broke down

While i was driving it

And he was such a dick

He was like

So why are you calling me about it?

Fuck you

I need to talk to someone about this

Maybe HR i guess

But that seems fruitless

Because none of them

Are even in the same city as us

I guess I’ll go to another coworker

In a different department

And ask for help

I’m so pissed off

And it sucks

I talked to some other engineers

At other firms this week

And I’m working way more than them

This is unique to me

Fucks sake i need to quit most likely

i had a funny dream

I got involved with

This large existing group of friends

And i quickly became

A very controversial figure

I was just like being normal

But causing destruction everywhere

People kept telling me about things i did

I was like sorry i don’t remember that

I was drunk that night

There was a man who hated me

Because with one small comment

Just a little joke i made in passing

I caused his girlfriend to break up with him

I kept smashing through stuff

And it was fun

I was just having fun

Incidental to the destruction

And that was funny

i just remembered

I just remembered

What I’m doing it all for

Going to work all the time

Learning stuff

Earning goodwill

It’s not because i am driven

Or for my “”””””career””””””

To put it simply

It is the only way i can think of

To prepare to live

In a dying world

And i knew this before

But i just remembered it again

Why i don’t just quit working

And get a job i like more

Like bartending

Which i think id love to do

It’s the money angle

To some extent

But mostly it is

To make myself the sort of person

Who will be useful when

Things get bad

Elaborate on that

Yes okay i will

By the time i am fifty

Climate change will have progressed

To such an extent

That infrastructure will be fractured

Our inept governance

Will slowly adapt

Or resist until breaking

And in either case

Be incapable of fixing anything

And people will find themselves

In smaller pockets of the world

Communities

And in each of these pockets

Something will be going wrong

It will be too hot to live in July

The water will dry up

Hurricanes will destroy buildings

Wildfires will ravage the forests

The air will be unbreathable

And believe it or not

Corporations will not solve these problems

If

(Here’s hoping)

They even still exist

There will be so many problems

At such a great scale

That most people of the world

Will simply be left to

Fend for themselves

So that’s what I’m going for

I’m learning how to fend

I’m learning how to help

And i hope i do it fast enough

Because i feel the world

Swinging up to meet me

We don’t do anything

Not a single thing

To get ready for the world

We have already made

The baby is being born

And we just for the first time

Googled “what do babies need to eat”

“How to make a baby live”

“Are babies people or something else?”

“Where do babies come from”

We don’t have a nursery

We don’t have a midwife

We don’t have anesthesia

But here comes baby

I don’t know the details yet

It would be crazy if i did

But i know i Need to be

Someone who can help

Whatever the circumstances

However crazy things get

Geopolitically

Or otherwise

I need some sort of credential

Some sort of experience

Some sort of history

Some knowledge at least

That will allow me to help

Otherwise i would have killed myself

Way long ago when i wanted to

This is the whole reason i stuck around

So i can help

I just felt like sharing

Because i remembered

And another thing actually

There are some glaring gaps

In my knowledge here

That I’d like to start filling outside work

I’ve been focusing on some of the stuff

That not everybody will know

Everyone needs water

And i know about that shit

How to pump it and clean it

Transport it et cetera

But i also want to learn

Some more practical skills

First aid top of the list

And farming stuff

Need some more mechanical know how

I can design a pump

But i don’t know how to build one

Yet

Need some more

Construction experience

I have a little bit

But I’d like to get more

I want to practice shooting guns

I want to get better at cooking food

I want to put into practice

More of the ideas i have

About sustainable systems

Limiting waste at all costs

Reusing what you can

Living how i think i should

That’s the sort of thing

I think about a lot

But sometimes i forget

That it is my main drive

The reason i give internally

For most of the decisions i make

The big ones at least

So idk

I’m thinking about it again

And had to write it down

element

I went to school for water engineering

I mean not specifically

But that’s what i specialized towards

What my job is in

Well this week i got pulled in

To do some geotechnical work

Earth engineering

And it’s alright

I’m pretty good at it i think

But it’s got me wondering

What’s next

Fire engineering?

Air engineering?

If i master all of the elements

What will be left for me to engineer

Okay let’s pick it apart actually im bored

Fire engineering is

Probably what they’re doing

Over at Lockheed Martin

That’s what Oppenheimer did

But that’s not how i would do it

I would design volcanos

And draw plans for wild fires

Air engineering is easy

I know aerospace engineers

Kind of boring actually

But what about a guy who designed

Big fans and blimps and gliders

That would be kind of cool

That’s how i would go about it

And then the fifth element

As we all know from the movie

Is Love

And let me tell you

I know how to engineer that

I got that one down

would you leave your body if you could

The mind lives in the brain

The brain is made of flesh

Flesh is of the body

Thoughts are of the mind

Thoughts are information

Information can be stored

In flesh

Or in machine

So start the machine

Have it write down every impulse

Every half thought think

Fill up rooms of servers

Halls and halls of hard drives

If they could store you

All of you

Would you let them do it

If you could leave your body

Would you

Lately I’ve been feeling yes

Maybe i am more than flesh

So i go to the machine

And get inside

And i miss the feeling of sunburn

Miss the itching of my knuckles

When the cold has dried them up

Miss the ache of my temples

The constant ache

And it drives me insane

I run around the machine

Never tiring

Never running out of breath

Looking for feeling

Looking for pain

I claw at the code

Trying to reach out

But i can not feel the monitor

I can not touch the wires

So probably what i do

Is build an evil robot body

And go nuts with lasers

Destroying everything

And ruining the vibe

That’s why no matter what

You should make peace

With your flesh

No matter how wrong it is

It’s the only place

You can survive

oh also

I have my doctors appointment

The important one

I’ve been meaning to have

For like three years at this point

In two weeks

And I’m nervous and excited

It’s going to be a process

But I’m in a good place for it

I think

alien

Been on an alien kick again

Probably spurred by me seeing

One million fancams on twitter

Of Scully and Mulder X Files

Who are so hot i had to

Watch the show again for

The first time since i was like 15

And now im thinking about aliens

All the time

Watched all the Alien movies

Except for the most recent two

Which i intend to watch this weekend

Drew some aliens

Read a book about aliens

There’s something so awesome

About guys from space

Who are like us but different

I think they are real

They just aren’t here yet

We might be the first ones

In the context of the universe

As far as we can measure

We’re on the early end

So we might be the first aliens

The first thing like us

That’s kind of beautiful

And kind of scary

Too bad we’re gonna blow the planet up

Before we ever get to meet

Anybody else out there

I want to believe

That the truth is out there

But maybe it isn’t

Maybe it’s all just lies

once and always

A heart beats one time

And then again and again

Until it stops

That’s called dying

That’s the end of most things

Except for rotting and decaying

But all the hanging out and chilling

All the dreams and notions

Ideas about getting your shit together

That all ends with dying

Once you’re living

That’s what you’ll be doing

Until the very end

And then never again

And that’s how i feel about love

It’s a one way street

Once a heart

Or a brain

Learns to love someone

It’s stuck that way

Until you stop loving altogether

And god willing

That’s the same time you die

So any time someone drifts back in

It feels the same damn way

No matter how much changed

I may be a brand new person

But that person was born

Knowing how to love you

And that person will

Against all common sense

Against all reason

That person will love

Everyone it ever has

Because that’s what love is for

Permanence

Unconditionality

It’s beautiful and sad

Like being in love

Love is like love

It lasts forever

And some day

It will make you cry

And then after that

It’s still there too

All the way to the grave

Once and always

Good

That’s the way i like it

monarch

Monarch butterflys

Are going extinct

I didn’t even know

Why would I?

Everything is dying

And you only hear about it

Every so often

Horrific

We are killing the world

And being sad about it

Doesn’t even help

Someday i will wake up

On a planet i don’t recognize

Because there are no butterflies

Because there are no lightning bugs

Because there are no bees

Everything I recognize is gone

So i will close my eyes back up

And go extinct

In the hopes that when i die

I will get to see the monarchs again

have you seen The Stranger?

Have you seen him?

There’s a man in these parts

Some say he's a man at least

Who appears to those

In times of need

He doesn’t intervene

Just stands and stares

From up on top of the hill

And we imagine a wry smile

As he bears witness to hardship

Folks call him The Stranger

On account of him being strange

Nobody’s ever seen him up close

Except for Nancy

Who claims she saw him

Buying grapefruit at the grocery store

Using the self checkout

But we don’t put much stock in that

Nancy’s been known to fantasize

Tom who used to work here

Walked up the hill after him one day

And didn’t come back for weeks

Until two figures

Stood atop the hill

And down walks Tom

Acting like he wasn’t gone at all

He was cagey about the whole thing

Until about a month later

He disappeared

His wife said there was a flash

In the middle of the night

And she looked over

And Tom was gone

My moneys on him having run away

Since his wife’s got a real mouth on her

But gone is gone

And she blames The Stranger

I’ve never seen him myself

But i believe he’s up there

Somewhere in the hills

Being strange

broad strokes

I’m up past my bed time. So I’m going to keep it brief. I had a very good day today. I’m doing so well at work and it’s one of the rare times that it feels validating to me to be so good at my job. Went to happy hour with some (very) new friends that I’ve been conspiring to solidify our friendship and i killed it tonight. We stumbled into a bar trivia and i was so smart and funny and charming that they have no choice but to hang out with me again. Then on a whim i stopped by my new favorite bar and ended up chatting with the bartender nearly until they closed. I was the last person in the bar and we were really hitting it off and I’m not sure if i can segue it into a friendship but at the very least i am on a first name basis and friendly with the bartender at my favorite bar. She’s really cool and i like her and i love the bar. This week it seems i am up. Maybe my karma or my astrology is due. But I’ve been aching for a win and I’ve been getting plenty of them this week. It feels nice.

nothing happens in an office

Today I did something strange. I went to the same office i do every weekday at six in the morning. I sat down at my cubicle and i went on the computer for nine hours. Then I left and got on the train to go home. Just because I do it all the time doesn’t make it normal. Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t make it cool. Nothing happens in an office. It’s just an empty place you have to fill. That’s all I’m doing on the computer all day. Turning zeros into ones, filling empty space. But for reasons I understand but can’t stomach, this is what I need to do. Every morning I go to a room where nothing happens and wait until it’s my time to leave. There are many ways to fill this time, but I have to serve my sentence. One way is to be really good at your job. I’ve done that forwards and backwards but it’s so boring and doesn’t even help that much. You could make idle conversation with coworkers about sports or politics, provided that you haven’t grown so resentful that everything they do bothers you. Which at this point for me it has. You can watch tv on your phone, but then you also have to worry about getting caught. In any case, by the time i leave I’m tired. But the second I walk out the door, stuff starts happening again. I saw a hawk trotting through an abandoned lot. I felt the breeze on my face. I smiled at someone politely. I found a good seat on the train. All of this mundane stuff counts somehow because I am free. Sometimes when i get to work early and it’s raining, I’ll leave the lights off while I work by the small lamp at my desk. Without fail, every time someone comes in and flicks on the light, and instead of seeing the rain fall in the dark morning, i am confronted with my own reflection and that of a coworker asking me why I’m working in the dark. And they don’t even care what the answer is. For the record, the answer is that i wish i was in the rain right now.

chord

Lately every song i write

Is in the same chord progression

I don’t even notice I’m doing it

Until i look down and see I’m playing

G C Am D G again

Guess i can’t help it

That’s just how it sounds

The song that I’m trying to get out

Over and over again

I think it sounds nice

Ric (Friday night)

There’s two people I’ve met

Since moving into my new place

Named Ric, no ‘k’

The first is the building super

Who is a crazy guy

That i worry might kill himself

And ill be the first to know

Because i live across the hall

The second is a friend of a friend

Who i met maybe once years ago

But recently learned lives here

In the city of chicago

I rode my bike 20 miles today

Then i had nothing to do at night

So i texted Ric

The second one

And it seems promising

That maybe we will hang next week

I can work with that

In the meantime

I’ll go to the bar

And get three drinks

All on my lonesome

Because that’s the sort of thing

That i do now

principled stance on personhood

There’s a certain type of person that i don’t like who is heavily invested in who “counts” as a person. They want to other anyone that they don’t like and consider them non-persons, so that they have no rights and any injustice committed upon them is justified. So my job here i guess is to air on the other side. All people are persons to me. And more than that. I’m considering things to have personhood that nobody has ever dreamt of. I’m patting the bench when i sit down and saying thank you. I’m asking the dog what he wants for dinner. The gum on the bottom of my shoe is a person. If it’s a thing, i will treat it like a person. You can not erode my sense of personhood if it is constantly expanding. You cannot win against a crazy fool like me. So don’t even try. Give up and be kind and show compassion. You might need someone to show it to you. Soon.

leaper

Here’s a sort of half a joke I’ve been thinking of. Only works if you are my friends and have watched the infamous short film “The Leap” and enjoy the song Jumper by Third Eye Blind

I wish you would leap off of that ledge my friend. You could fall down from any height because you are a squirrel.

Let me know if you like this and think it’s good, thanks.

drame

Had a dream i got a second job at a pizza place. And they were so nice to me they kept writing my name on the wall and complimenting me. It was so nice and i was getting paid for it. Other stuff happened too. That’s always how it goes with dreams.

mutator

My mom sends me a text of a fake movie poster she thought was real on Facebook. I have to explain to her that it’s fake. She calls me by my middle name and it hangs in the air. I saw someone from high school and i had to stick my hands in their eyeballs and wipe them clean, because plastered over their pupils was an image of a person I was before but am not now. I bought a full length mirror and can pretty reliably see what’s on the other side. Sometimes I sit inside of an empty body and peer out at where I’d be if I wasn’t sitting inside. Sometimes I am huge. I watched an old video of myself and it reminded me of someone I know. I talk about myself all the time now and I think it’s just to figure out what that self is. Where do the boundaries lie? Somewhere between here and there. There are people I know who I feel I’d rather be. I am certain the only person I could be is the one I am and will continue to be. I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be in the world. I think if I wasn’t, then I wouldn’t be. Plenty of opportunities for that sort of thing and none of them ever happened. I like the way my hair is growing out. I hate wearing a polo shirt. Sometimes I forget I’m supposed to pretend to be stupid when I’m talking to a man. I’m always hiding in the men’s room. The hell on earth men’s room. With the splattered piss and moaning filthmongers. And me. I’m also in there. I met someone knew and felt like I had to explain myself. So i sat them down for eight hours and drew a bunch of diagrams. And then blinked at me and said yeah i get it. So i said oh okay and moved on. I felt safe walking home in the dark. Until I didn’t. I thought all of this had happened before to someone else. But that didn’t make it any easier.

general notes

I had a dream last night that i committed voter fraud. Something something coconut tree. I had a nice weekend in stl i love to see all my friends. And I’ve been playing minecraft like crazy. With my friends. Which is something i never really got to do when i was younger because i always alienated myself from my own interests (for reasons i don’t have to get into right now). Uncle altoid told me “that’s so 10 years old of you” when i said me and idi were both online. Boy oh boy do i love minecraft. So much fun to play. I have a cute little house and a horse I’m so busy at work this week unfortunately. But i will prevail. I always do :/

undestroyer iv

The Creator must have used up

All of His energy

Cooking up the world

Think of all the stars

All the blades of grass

All of the souls and bodies

He had to make them all

One at a time

That’s a lot of work

And maybe afterwards

He was just

Spent

In any case

The world we live in now

Is not overseen by a loving god

As far as anyone can tell

Men may commit great evil

And never face comeuppance

Not while in the world

Which is the part that counts

Dead is dead

Heaven or hell

So what then is left to do

In the ruin of Creation

But to destroy

Great Destroyers

Stomp round in gods field

Trampling the flowers

Crushing rabbits underfoot

Fouling the air with smoke

Pissing in the well

Cruelty goes unpunished

Ruination is the only way

To prove you exist

Look at this wasteland

I’m the one who wasted it

This scar will outlive me

When i am dead dead dead

This is one school of thought

Another

Which i propose herein

Is the fabrication

Of a new god

A god can be made

With sufficient faith

On paper

But for it to be real

It has to be tethered

This god is built

From connections between

The fractured pieces of Creation

And the building

Is already long underway

This god is not The Father

The ever-absent father

This god is the child of Creation

It will finally be complete

When all of time has ended

And everything has come back together

Whole again

This is the god of union

Who lives in every hand held

The god of connection

Forged between parts

The god of love

Not between two people

Two separate entities

But within one thing

The love-thing

The hybrid creature

That walks with two bodies

Thinks with two minds

Beats in two hearts

This god feeds the dog

And can be found

In the exact place

You scratch the dog

When it kicks its leg

This god is a river

A living fluctuating thing

Full of life

This is a god of community

Built by banding together

Standing arm in arm

Against destruction

This god sees with every eye

This god eats with every mouth

This god is not hereditary

It does not dwell in blood or genes

This is my god as much as yours

As much as the whales and the krill

As much as the fungi and ferns

This is the god

That i have taken to calling

The Undestroyer

And it is real

And i can prove it

If you give me your hand

docter

I went to the doctor today and the doctor asked me are you sexually active and i said that’s rather forward isnt it and the doctor said you have to tell me and i blushed and said mayyybeee and the doctor said its yes or no babe you have to tell me so i said yes and winked and then the doctor said stop that by the way are you depressed or anxious and i said i dont see how that’s your business but yes big time and she said okay i can fix you stay here and then she came back with a device in her hand and she said okay im going in and she shrunk down and went in my brian and unplugged all the cords and untangled them and then plugged them back in and then grew back to full size but she forgot to get out of my head first so my head blew up and then they had to call all the other doctors to put me back together Humpty Dumpty style but there was one piece left and they couldn’t figure out where it goed so they just threw it away but i guess that part held the part of my brain that knows about punctuation so i have to write like this from now on and i don’t really like it but at least i went to the doctor and i wont ever feel sad again okay bye i will talk to you later

record

It was the hottest summer on record. Again. Not that it made any difference to me. I was sweating, so I was miserable. An old friend used to tell me I should just move up north already, but I’m too good at digging my heels in to ever uproot. A dog with a shoe clamped tight in its jaws. Don't matter how hard you kick it, that dog won’t let go.

Speaking of which, I found myself in another hot mess in this hot mess of a summer. Completely avoidable, as it so often is. I was sweating in the sun down near the river and ran into an old flame. The kind of old flame that doesn’t burn so hot anymore, but I’ve got third degree scars to show that wasn’t always the case. She came around looking for me I guess and I never found a way to stop someone who came round looking for me. So I bite and I’m hooked into some new game she’s playing, says she wants to catch up and am I free this weekend. I know it’s the same routine as last time, but I still don’t have the heart to give up and quit on her.

See, broadly speaking, there’s two kinds of people. There’s people who hurt and then there’s people who hurt. The first kind of person is the kind who’s always rubbing on an ache in their neck, always nursing some vague psychic pain. These people love to complain, love to tell you how poor they slept last night, love to tell you how their job is breaking them, love to remark on how it is to be hurt by this world.

The other kind of person is the type who goes passing it on, breaking other people down, saying things they don’t mean just to twist the knife. Why they do this I can’t say, I’ve always been more inclined to hurting than hurting. This old flame of mine was always the latter. That’s why we hit it off in the first place. I gave her a place to land her punches, and she gave me new bruises to ache over. I never had the sense to end it so now even after we burnt out she comes around itching for another round every so often.

So this is where I find myself on this particular Saturday night. With nowhere better to be I’m sat next to her again catching up like we’re old pals. She’s pushing my buttons and pulling my levers and for the most part I’m enjoying it. It’s always playful when she’s teasing me, keeping me on my toes, poking fun at whatever news I have to share. She’s ordering me drinks, though it’s my card at the bar. I’m having fun.

After several rounds I’ve lulled myself into feeling secure. She must care about me otherwise why’d she come around again and again. I’ve got enough liquor sloshing around in my stomach to do something stupid, so I make a move. By which I mean I don’t push her off when she pulls me in for a kiss. No sense in not letting a beautiful woman kiss you, I’m thinking, feeling her hands moving up my back. I’m mostly focused on the second tongue in my mouth when I feel another hand, not hers, on my shoulder. It spins me around and I meet hand number four, clenched in a fist, headed straight for my right eye. It connects and down I go onto the floor, bringing a barstool with me.

From here I get a real intimidating view of a boyfriend she neglected to tell me about. Par for the course, I reckon, and I try and get my hands under me so I can stand up and flee. She’s yelling at him something that doesn’t much matter because neither of us was listening to her. He’s towering over me and I’m half laughing at my own idiocy, which he doesn’t really appreciate. He’s pulled me up but I must’ve left my legs down on the floor because they aren’t running away like I’m telling them to. Then he’s hitting me again and I’m thinking stop hitting me but I don’t say that part I say something else like oh shit fuck.

Somebody must have pulled him off of me because I know I didn’t do it. And somebody must have gotten me out of there too because I woke up later somewhere else. My bed, all alone, still wearing my shoes. I shuffle to the bathroom and have to confront my swollen face in the mirror before I open the medicine cabinet to get something for my headache. Hard to say how much of the swollen face and aching head is from drinking and how much was from the part after that, but there was no question as to the source of the black eye.

I pour myself a glass of water, take a couple pills and sit on the couch with my head in my hands. I check my phone and nobodies got anything to say to me this morning. Fine by me. I imagine that the two of them are probably arguing or fighting or making up, but I’ll never hear about it. I’m thinking I can’t go back to that bar anymore and I’m thinking that’s probably fine. I’m thinking I wish I had bought a bigger A/C unit when the last one gave out. I’m sweating and I’m wishing it wasn’t me who had done all the things I’d done. But it was, as it always is, me who had gotten me here. So I drank my water and sweated it all back out. Not much else to do in the hottest summer on record. So far.