Category: Uncategorized

Attention, fractured: modern condition. Default setting. After eight hours of copywriting/essay scrawling/texts/blogs/hookup apps my head’s swimming with words.

Red flags pop with the coupled rush of dopamine: someone’s thinking of/admiring/remarking on/updating/hating on/lusting after me. Little ol’ me.

Stop life, check phone.

In the balance of my happiness, what’s the ratio of external to internal validation? No wonder we Netflix and kill. Heads, deadened. End the night of a long hard day with a couch and a chihuahua.

I’m reminded, restoring those posts, of my long-held practice. Those close to me get nicknamed here. I can think of three who need immediate naming and the naming seems impossible. How do I sum up the whole of a multilayered pal? How do I top the Manly Fireplug? Truly inspired, that one.

Take several steps back to acknowledge one fact: three pals are good. Three pals are gifts. Three years ago when I came to this valley I had….not three.

One pal headed here for a weekend stay. A tour of autumn leaves (how middle-aged) and maybe a first visit, at last, to MASS MoCA. Jenny Holzer on exhibit! We are guileless in our dreams, she once wrote. I first found her in college in the library stacks. Abuse of power comes as no surprise.

Well, yes. Kurds now being killed, left swinging in the wind. Thanks, stable genius. Must be more of that 3D chess.

And my biggest problems? Vacuuming my apartment tonight and picking up hazelnut creamer for my unnamed pal.

Playing indoor fetch with Agnes. She has her pick of nicknamed pals: Mr. Monkeypants, Funny Bunny, Flatty Patty, and Chuckie Duckie. My home’s not aflame. Just a zoo.

Spent most of the weekend restoring a ton of blog posts that I’d lost a couple of years ago when, fueled by technical stupidity and impatience, I’d attempted an amateurish update to the template.

Guys, it was a lot of work. I’ve been blogging (admittedly off and on) for 18 years. EIGHTEEN YEARS. I am prehistoric. A dinosaur of vanity. Delusional in thinking that anybody would care about my thoughts on life, let alone 18 years’ worth.

And yet here I am. I don’t quite know how to do this, or why I’m doing it, despite 18 years of experience. I kept my mouth shut the past few years because life came at me hard and left me like a wounded deer limping through a Darwinian woods, my life razed to the ground and me, shoved down a hole with the depth and distortions of Wonderland.

(I haven’t lost my taste for melodrama.)

All of my thoughts were bleak and I couldn’t stick them on the internet. Someone would have called the authorities.

A guy I know, after scanning a couple of my posts last week, asked if I tended towards melancholia, and I spit out my coffee. Dude, that’s my default setting.

I look back at those posts—after hunkering all weekend in their moody climate—and I see a guy upon whom life hung a little heavy. 18 years of posts reveal patterns. Loneliness, addiction, terminal illnesses. Embarrassing—in retrospect—to see how I fawned over a Fireplug. How I still fall prey to unrequited blah blah.

Old patterns worn into the wood. Men and dogs. Dogs and men.

God, I wanted to delete half this blog. Sometimes for content. Sometimes for clumsy, pedestrian writing. Mostly for the unvarnished earnestness. But it’s like I struck this deal 18 years ago— a deal that nobody demanded—to keep it all up. A social experiment in voluntary humiliation. A Dear-Diary-I-think-he-likes-me-back for public consumption.

It’s a Monday in western Massachusetts. I hit the snooze button four or five times at dawn, dragged myself out of bed, made coffee, walked and fed Agnes. Showered, dressed, and packed a lunch. I drove 26 minutes through relatively light traffic to Springfield, to the job I’ve held for six months, where I wield words for a living. It’s my first professional writing job, and they seem to like me enough.

I still don’t quite know how I got here.

It’s been four and a half years since I left my life in San Francisco. And it’s only now that I’ve pulled myself out of the hole. Half-blind, unsteady. My beard turned gray.

And here I am again. Not sure what to do or what to say. A more guarded man than the 30-year-old boy who first strung the words “dog” and “poet” together on nothing more than instinct. Trying to build my world up again with words. Hanging them on the line for all to see.

Hello, I think. I think I’m here.

We at__________would like to express our appreciation for your hard work and dedication. As part of our efforts to attain the GREAT PLACE TO WORK® certification, we invite you to answer the following questions:

What are your favorite aspects of the job?

• The kitchen that is bigger than my apartment. The espresso maker that costs more than my rent.
• The half-and-half elf.
• The main switchboard elf.
• Working with words for a living because I actually suck at everything else.
• The gratification I feel when I type on the company-wide instant message app, and five seconds later hear 25 people bust out laughing at my perfectly-timed joke about gay firemen.
• My modesty and humility.

What are your least favorite aspects of the job:

• The brand-new, 2012-era interior decorating scheme inhibits my output sex drive creativity.
• I am literally the only single person in the entire office. I’m not sad. You’re sad.
• Walking by my headshot every time I have to take a piss.
• The office Shih Tzu that doesn’t like to be looked at or touched. A dog that doesn’t like to be looked at or touched is a cat. Nobody told me we could bring cats to work.
• The cat’s owner, who regularly rushes out of the corner office to go on high-decibel, company-wide rants that I suspect are fully funded by Fox News.

What are the most humorous aspects of the job?

• The rich, white, straight Boss/ Fox News Anchor screaming at us that everyone in this country is treated exactly the same, i.e. everyone gets the same breaks in life regardless of color, gender, orientation, class, etc.
• The young blonde intern who just started, i.e. the boss’ daughter.
• You can be fired for being gay in 29 states. Evicted from your apartment in 31.
• Transgenders/military, gays/religious objections of healthcare workers, etc. etc.
• Since I had to leave my last job because of a co-worker who sent gay slur texts about me to other co-workers—a  woman who once said she could never vote for anyone with the same genitalia as her own, and since I went to HR, and since that kicked off a months-long ordeal that ultimately led to our union protecting her job, and since I ended up feeling weirdly guilty about the whole thing, and since I’ve been at this new job for two months, and since 24 out of 25 people laugh at my gay firemen jokes, I feel obligated, out of self-preservation, to find the above soul-crushing humorous.
• When people tell me that Western Massachusetts is super progressive.
• Wayne in graphic design’s novelty ties are actually surprisingly funny.

We thank you for your contributions, and feel confident that they will help us attain the GREAT PLACE TO WORK® certification.  Now that your 15-minute break is over, we invite you to resume your work, back in your windowless cubicle over by the copier, underneath the “Don’t count the days, make the days count” inspirational quote.

At least once a week I wonder to myself how the hell I ended up out here. By “out here” I mean the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts, a relatively picturesque region of small quaint towns, five colleges, a few craft breweries, lesbians, trans folk, and more kombucha than could fill Lake Eerie. In moments of particularly intense ingratitude I call it Bumfuck, U.S.A.

I mean, I can trace the path backwards to the job that I was working in Boston, for an enormous online retailer who encouraged us to work from home and, wanting to find a place within driving distance that I could afford – my own place – I looked outside of the expensive city and more or less by accident landed out here. The job ended a few months later and I’ve been employed by a university ever since.

But I’ve struggled to make friends and to carve a life out for myself that is full of any real meaning. I endure rather than live, more or less held together by duct tape, a chihuahua, and a couple of long-distance friendships, and I mean, thank God for them.

A handful of far-flung men have come and gone, and though I’ve recently taken up my still-unfinished book again, I’m way too familiar with the deepest dankest corners of my Netflix queue.

I walk across campus like a ghost, invisible to the fresh-faced youth. I think I was cruised by a gay dude once during my entire time in the Valley, and I mean, c’mon, a dude needs validation.

I never wanted to leave San Francisco. Three years ago (fuck how time grinds), on the cusp of divorce, deep down in PTSD-mode, I couldn’t imagine subjecting myself to an apartment with roommates – the only viable option for staying. So I ran up the coast to Portland, stung and exiled by the gods of money and love. And thinking about the city that I called home for 18 years hurt too much so I forced myself to think of other things.

What I’ve figured out, in hindsight, is that I drastically underestimated the importance of human connection in the place you call home. They’re the reasons to keep living – the bonds we create with others, the folks who have our backs.

And I’ve thought about where I would like to live next, what city is worth saving money for, and I’ve come up with a half-hearted two or three, apprehensively, and I was talking to a good friend in New York City on FaceTime a couple of weeks ago and describing the state of my brain when I left San Francisco, how I couldn’t then imagine living with roommates but that I would embrace them now just to stay in the place that felt like home.

“Then why is San Francisco off the table?” he asked.

I was struck kind of dumb for a second. “Because…it’s so damn expensive?”

“So what? Do something for me. Close your eyes and picture yourself living back there, surrounded by people who know and care about you.”

And I couldn’t help it – I teared up, and I put my hands over my eyes, and then my friend started crying too.

“Fuck you,” he said, walking away from the phone and across his kitchen. “I’m gonna go drink some milk,” he said.  He opened the fridge. “And fuck you again.”

“You did it,” I said. “So fuck you.”

“Fuck you.”

“Why are you crying?” I said.

“Because sometimes people being nice is more sad than happy.”

I didn’t argue with him, that for me it was kind of the opposite – my tears were of happiness, or more about gratitude, the future kind of gratitude, when you picture yourself – when I picture myself – rejoining society after a long spell of utter isolation, and rediscovering moments of joy or plain satisfaction. Human fucking connection.

Later he said, “Picture yourself stepping off the plane at SFO,” and I started crying again.

It’s probably not possible. It’s so much money. I’m torn in two – the dreamer and the realist. I have a job more or less waiting for me but I’d probably need two. The city’s changed, keeps changing, has changed too much. Friends have left. I’ve got a (quiet, sweet) chihuahua and landlords hate dogs. I need to save up money. I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do, but I can’t stay here. I’ve got to figure this out.

The obsession fades as quickly as it came, draining out of me, a bit more each day, until I have days where I don’t even think about him until the afternoon, until the evening, and it drains, dripping, leaving me where I feared I’d be, alone with myself, with what feels some days like a long list of failures and a sharp craving for connection.

I’ve been crying like a motherfucker lately.

I didn’t cry when my husband left me, or when I had to leave the city I called home, or when I got so broke I didn’t know how I’d pay rent. But now I cry every single fucking day, usually the radio or the television or a line in some book, usually over some kind of gesture towards connection.

I fucking cried, sobbed even, while watching the finale of the Great British Baking Show. I hate the word wept but I fucking wept. I couldn’t stop. I saw a woman won who I wanted to win not just for her talents but also because I now really love to see a minority do really well in life just to piss off the Nazis. And I saw her family and friends jumping with pure joy at her win, and fuck I’m nearly crying now. Because fuck it, damn it, I want to win at something, and I want to be surrounded by family and friends who love the fuck out of me. And instead I’m in Bumfuck, MA wondering many days if I will ever have the strength or the talent again to produce something beautiful and true. Has life thrown too many punches at me in the past five years to keep me down for good? Is it even worth trying to write something beautiful and true anymore in a culture that has stopped reading?

Dread hangs over me daily. I know I need to move again to save myself, but the idea of moving terrifies me. I’ll move to LA and my 2001 4Runner will break down and I’ll run out of money and be without a car and without a job and then without a home, and I’ll be fucking homeless on the streets of fucking Los Angeles, and nobody will know.

I guess this is being an adult, right? Who among us isn’t scared to death of something? Who isn’t whistling in the dark? Who doesn’t feel like an imposter sometimes? And despite the dread I’m not one to give up. I keep going, a bulletproof weeping android, plowing along, taking frequent breaks to dull his existential pain with doses of baking shows.

(I started cooking for myself. And I’ve written five pages of my book again. But enough on that.)

I’m lonely but my life doesn’t suck. I have a couple of good friends here on the East Coast. Sometimes I get to see them. I drive home from my job at UMass and the radio plays pop songs that make me cry, and the crying is real and true and I cry and crave more connection, and I make it home to my little dog, who stands up on her back legs and waves her front paws at me as I call her Little Girl and close in for a hug.

‘Sup, Internet?

It’s been a while. I’ve been busy climbing out of that mile-deep hole I fell into when I found my father’s incest stories on a website and kind of lost my mind.

I’ve moved yet again, out of Boston, to the town of Easthampton, in western Massachusetts. It’s in the Pioneer Valley with a bunch of other cool towns, and five colleges like Amherst, Smith, and Hampshire. A pretty progressive area with a lot of lesbians, a few gay dudes, and many transgender folks as well. I finally have my own place, a huge loft in a converted factory.

I work from home for the world’s largest online retailer, on a project that I can’t even talk about. That makes it sound much more interesting than the reality. Best part of the job is the company of my chihuahua.

I joined a writer’s group through Amherst Writers and Artists and have been working on a new project that I’m kind of excited about. I’ll keep you updated here. I’m sober, going to meetings, and trying to make friends here, which is not a simple process in New England. Wish me luck with that.

I’m horrified by what’s happening with our country, terrified of what is to come, yet hopeful that we can mobilize resistance. I’m hopeful that on a personal level, the next year will treat me better than the last couple of years have. I’ve got my feet under me now, and I’m wishing you a Happy New Year.

In the end it was a clean sweep. Five schools, five rejections. A bitter pill for a guy who’d always figured out how to earn an A.

They never give you their reason, though, so I was left with a bunch of presumptions. The only one that made any sense is that the schools didn’t like the ten-year gap between master’s degree and the phd application, a gap in which I was dealing with batshit family trauma and actively trying to stay alive.

I’m tired of counting the costs of depression. It’s taken nearly everything from me. But I’m still here – words I had tattooed on my left arm as a reminder to myself of that mysterious accomplishment.

So good bye to that little daydream of academia. I have no interest in hanging around knocking on a closed door. I’m left with plan B; find a job that doesn’t suck in a city that I like. I miss California, and though I’ll never be able to afford another modest home on the gleaming hills of San Francisco, there are still cities in the southern half of the state where a writer could eke out a living.

But moving from Boston takes cash, of which I had none. I quit working with dogs because dogs just don’t pay. While scraping the bottom of the money barrel I got recruited on a six-month contract to work for the world’s largest online retailer, on a project I can’t even disclose.

Mostly a remote job, which the Little Girl loves because she gets to sleep in the gap between my calves as I type away on the bed. Two days a week I go into the office and work alongside a bunch of other nerdy English and Linguistics majors. I enjoy their company, and find I need my bunker less these days, even though I spend 90% of my free time there. I guess that’s progress.

I’ve had insomnia since leaving Portland, and am possessed by nightmares in which I’m rejected by family or my ex-husband, over and over, most nights. Some of the nightmares are so real I find them tough to shake. I carry them through the following days.

While waiting to hear back from the grad schools I submitted excerpts from my book to a slew of literary magazines, something I hadn’t tried in years, and then collected a slew of rejections.

Out of forty submissions I got one acceptance, a couple of finalist awards for contests, and five or six near-misses, where they tell you they like your writing, would like to see more, but not this particular story, please.  A pretty standard writer’s haul. The trick is not to fight the misery of rejection. The trick is to revel in it. The trick is to endure.

 

I’ve been slowly working on restoring my archives. At one of the nadirs of the brutal fog my site got hacked and gutted and I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to figure out backups or restoration.

I underestimated the challenge ahead of me. Never mind the tedious cutting and pasting from the Wayback Machine, the downloading and uploading of photos, the fixing of links.

That was cake compared to the posts themselves: I’m halfway-through my romance with the Fireplug. I restored the posts about our wedding, the photos, our vows.

I wrote our vows and the one that I always remember, the one I keep coming back to, is I will never give up on you.

I thought long and hard about those vows, and I thought long and hard about the one in particular. It’s not something I have a lot of practice with, in either direction. I had to ask myself if I really meant it, if I would never give up on him.

I did mean it, though in the coming years depression and PTSD proved too tenacious, and my marriage fell apart. But still I meant it.  I probably still do.

The loss of it has staggered me. I miss my home so much that I turn my thoughts in any other direction. I am lucky, though, that I have one thing left I will never give up on.

 

It’s hard to give up on life and the possibility of human connection when people keep trying to help you. I’m humbled by you guys, especially – I have to say it – those of you who contributed money to me through PayPal. I tried to be all self-sufficient and turn down the offers, but in the end I really I needed help.

Portland hasn’t exactly opened its watery, mossy arms to me. I can’t find enough work here to pay the rent. I can’t even get a job interview. I don’t know if there are too many people moving here or what, but it seems like jobs and wages aren’t keeping up with the rents.

All this time on my hands, flat-broke and a stranger to this city. A new shrink re-diagnosed me with recurrent major depression – my old pal the brutal fog hasn’t really lifted in three years. She said that suicidal ideations are an indication that it’s been going on for a long time, and is nearing its logical conclusion.

So I’ve got a toolbox full of psych meds.

I needed something to pin my meager hopes on, something besides the prospect of another shitty, low-paying job that would merely get me by.

So I’ve spent the past couple of months pulling myself up through the fog by applying to Ph.D. programs in writing for next fall. I had a lot of time to think about the times when I felt most awake, most alive, and they’ve always been in academia. I like the life of the mind, and I think I could make a good professor.

In the meantime, though, I’m almost out of money. I’ve decided to leave Portland and accept my sister’s offer to live with her family in Boston, at least until I know if I’ve been accepted by any school.

Melanie is officially a step-sister, my mother’s partner’s daughter, but we’ve always been close and have grown closer over the past couple of years. I got to spend time with my niece during a recent visit. Agnes flew with me. It’s sweet having a tiny dog sometimes.

I think I’ll be a little happier with some family around me. I leave in a couple of weeks, and I think I have enough money to get me across the country in time for the New Year. Me and Agnes – road trip!