I have been lucid dreaming lately. It’s a product of the booze and subsequent sweats and sleep deprivation. I sleep past midnight usually and wake at 1:00 and spend the rest of the night in a catatonic state. I control the direction of them but it is a thin rest, eaten by chunks of restlessness. And when I wake I think about the vague memories of dreams had and steered and wonder if these are the stories I would write if I wasn’t in the state I’m in. Between 1:00 and 6:00 there must be a hundred of them I wake up to. I remember thinking certain connected pieces would work and could be interesting to someone else... but as I get up, the fine details fade and I am left without much more than a half jar of mustard pickles.

I know now that rarely what I am thinking or feeling is me thinking or feeling but just some muddled version of a person I used to know who slowly turned right but should have turned left and made good choices and bad in equal measure and damn if bad hasn’t taken over lately like a wave hitting a child’s sandcastle. And I’m a tormentor destructor wreaker of havoc son of a bitch on my own self-image as violent as a car-wreck in slow motion because that lies more in line if I’m being honest. Life rarely fucks up at normal playback. It’s slow oh oh so achingly slow and filled with slights and small injustices and the real or fancied indifferences as Whitman mentioned and mostly just the wrong choices of mine that fall in and out of line sequenced in time and oh oh god I must divine but my mind feigns left and right and imagines I’m fine and I’m sane but I’ve been told for true that the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plains.

So it’s cold and I’m over-heated. I mean it’s not that cold but fuck all if I’m not hot as shit literally sweating through my nose and it can’t be because I drink too much it must be because of something else like global warming or fuck all if I know but I know it’s something other than me.

And I go to bed shivering and wake up in cold/hot sweats and how in the hell is that possible and I don’t know but I know because it happens to me.

And I wake up with the weight of too much swirling around my head and those thoughts travel down and stab me in the belly like an ice pick and I go out to smoke around 3 and it rarely helps so late but I still do it and I don’t even know why other than to shake the ghosts.

And when I lay back down with 2 hours left I try goddamn I try to imagine something else and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t because my brain won’t SHUT THE FUCK UP.

And it’s because of her I know it is and she knows it too but she keeps pretending like she doesn’t but I know she knows because I’ve known her for too long and I see that look on her face all sly and scheming and beautiful. But fuck all if I know.

This part of life

is different than when I was younger.

Smaller, faster, in other ways, too.

Constant smiling,

grimacing through bullshit,

makes my mouth hurt.

I find myself so distracted and lost in thought that it's hard to remain in the present. I feel like a time-traveler who can't quite get back. I look at my hands and see furrows that weren't there in another time - the same I see across my face. And I wonder. Am I myself or some chemical derivative... or some combination of the two? One of those, I guess. What's important? That's a good one. Perspective? Which is weird because it's different for everyone. What's truly important? That's better, getting closer to a meaningful conversation, I think. Maslow had an idea: physiological needs, safety, love, esteem, self-actualization. Seems pretty accurate. I fault out on that third one, by my own design, I guess, or maybe nurture, I don't know. 

I like to think that someone will read these thoughts one day - not published or anything, but hopefully my kids. And maybe it will help them better understand a conflicted and imperfect person, if they even care. And maybe they will read and maybe they won't make some of the mistakes I have, but maybe they won't and maybe they will.

If I can somehow bring myself back to equilibrium, I'll focus on things that matter most, and ignore those that matter little. But it's hard, because I'm in an airlock - it's like purgatory; I'm safe but I'm not in the ship yet. And the mistakes I've made, god they're legion. And what was done to me? Does it matter? You can only control your perception and your reaction, nothing else. I wish I wasn't straight-jacketed by distrust. I wish I was quicker witted. I wish the thoughts I have here would come to me in the moment and calm me and steady my reactions. 

You know, I wrote one happy poem in my life - about a sprite in a tree or something, I can't remember exactly. I liked it but it was sort of out of character. Doing this, for me, has always been cathartic, and I don't see anything wrong with that, and I don't feel like I should apologize. You, whoever you are, are my sounding board. I'm closer to you than anyone else, and I whisper things to you I tell no one else.

I could go on for hours, disjointed and out of time... but I'm out of time. Next time.

I am a long-time subscriber. Never sent anything in before, but this is important: Your investigative reporting and in-depth profile pieces are a joy to read. Seriously, keep that shit up. 

But goddamn it, Rolling Stone, your taste in music is worse than my daughter who won’t stop listening to One Direction. At least when she puts that on, I know it’s shit and so I’m not surprised. But you jack-holes love to recommend “good” music, or, in this last mag, list the “best” albums of the year. 

I’m like a baby watching the spoon come towards me, expecting Hawaiian Delight, but getting a gross mouthful of Beef Stew; if you were next to me I’d blast it back in your face. It’s like seeing my best friend ring the doorbell and answering to find a goddamn flaming bag of dog shit. 

Case in point: Father John Misty - Leaving LA. Are you fucking kidding? Hipsters cum in their pants when they hear this guy. How about just listen to the non-shit version of FJM. He’s got a bunch of albums. You may be familiar with him. His name is Bob Dylan. 

To sum up: great reporting and in-depth articles. Keep that shit up! 

Music staff: burn their houses down and murder their next of kin to avoid spreading or perpetuating their unoriginal, shit taste in music. 

“I focus little on things that matter most, and most on things that matter little."

My first and only semester at Virginia Tech, I rode the same elevator every day. It was in the athletic dorm, where my room was. Not sure why, I wasn't an athlete. Maybe a quota thing. They had delicious food in the cafeteria.

So I'm riding the elevator, feeling shitty over my fuckbag parents splitting apart, my little brother still at home on the front lines, when this gigantic football player gets on; huge - 6'7" 250lbs. And there we are, me pissed and ornery, him freakishly enormous, and after a few seconds of silence he looks over at me and says "Hey son, where all the white women at?"