{horn intro}
This small town and the darkness of an artificial evening can hold space for a middle-aged woman walking her dog and scream-crying [and dancing] to the soundtrack of her adultification. For 48 minutes and 50 seconds, I am transported to the beginnings of figuring out how to be alive in this world. And I remember why I love the autumn of the year.
The days get shorter and the nights get cold
The jangly guitar. Upbeat background vocals. I can feel all my muscles unclenching. That’s right, I am alive, and mostly it is good to be alive. It is good to be manically crushing my eyes closed as I violently beat my head in time with that riff. Trying to disappear into the feeling of being soothed that I remember back before I was really myself.
Don’t worry, even if things end up a bit too heavy
There was a little too much holding the tension for everyone else that unfolded over the weekend. So many, many everyones in a life of seeking community and family. It takes so much energy to practice cognitive empathy, to make up for those other empathies that struggle to empathize. And then it was Monday with no rest in sight until Friday.
The more we move ahead the more we’re stuck in rewind
Social media’s precision algorithm reminded me that I don’t hate Mondays, I hate capitalism. Confronting the systemic violence and theft and lies underneath everything might be true and righteous, but sometimes information feels like noise. I can’t rehash the truth constantly when what is most needed is action.
I’m already digging
I disappeared into the great void of not-being for a while where my ego doesn’t exist and I can remember that we are all one. It’s lovely there. I had some tea. The ratio of honey to chai to cream was exquisite and had it been another day then I could have paid some Mary Oliver-level attention to my one wild and precious life.
But I probably really should have been at work
Phone call. I think we have had this conversation before. It has been hard to understand how much of myself I want to give away to other people when they don’t give things back, when they take me for granted. I think we talked about this together again so we could feel less insane together.
I guess I’m stuck here like a plant on a windowsill
Emergency text from the end of the world, “HALP mom, he bought me clothes without me being there AGAIN.” Many sobbing emojis. “What would happen if you just said ‘thanks’ and then shoved that stuff in your closet?” “But I’ve told him not to do this!!!” “You deserve to be listened to. He might not be able to listen.”
God, who’d want to be such an asshole
Deep breath. I love you, it will be ok. Text messages are a blessing because people can reach me at any time. Text messages are a curse because people can reach me at any time. Once again there is nowhere for this to go but somehow it has to go somewhere.
I’m gonna drown the ocean
The email from Friday stared back at me, unaddressed. This is not a real ask, there is no real measure of success. But it has been a business day, I can’t risk looking inattentive, I must mind my stakeholder management! Trapped in a circular discussion with a superior, strange echoes of – oh I don’t know – every job I have ever had. Think the thoughts for us, but don’t think past us because you have to get paid.
Well, you shot off your mouth and look where that got you
An hour spent reading many generations of IT procurement policy and procedure and considering all the ways I have personally observed us not following it. We have built entire buildings without the proper paperwork. Everything is just sitting in some archived pst file, I assure you. It’s turtles all the way down. But yeah, I will help with this contract, sure.
Do you believe what you’re saying? Yeah, right now, but not that often
{interlude}
“I think she just wants you to shadow their process and offer advice.” “My advice is that they stop buying stuff.” Funny how the solution to IT problems is the solution to non-IT problems too. I try to shove down, again, the feeling that none of this work is real. It only exists because of dumb design choices we made in the past and we follow these directives like they are divinely mandated.
Great for solving problems, after it creates a problem
The standing height on my desk is programmed into setting number 1 and the sitting is number 2, as if I am trying to convince myself that the prime directive is to be on my feet. I was supposed to be working on my novel today. So much hustle. So many people supporting me only to not do the thing that is in me to do.
You were so true to yourself, you were true to no one else
At least once a work day, I think. “I just don’t want to…anything.” He hands me cheese and apple slices like I’m an elementary school kid who can’t use knives yet [thank you]. “Just not this anything.” I can imagine so many other anythings that are so much better than this one. Why is this the timeline?
I just don’t think that it’s right
For dinner, the cellophane covered birthday cake of an 8-year-old [delicious, actually]. I am not a depressive, not really. I prefer to identify as stark-raving sane. I’m too joyful and filled with gratitude to easily persist in this world that wants to reduce us all to commodities. The leaves are too red, the petrichor is too melancholy. I love the world too much.
The good times are killing me
Sometimes the universe conspires to give me something fully formed. This piece erupted out of the divine pneuma when I put my earbuds in and listened to Modest Mouse’s Good News for People Who Love Bad News while walking the dog this evening instead of turning on an audiobook. It is not even my favorite album of the early 2000s, but sometimes these things just hit right. When in doubt, we’ll all float on ok. This helped me of 21 years ago and it helped me today because we don’t listen to music to help ourselves cope with the good stuff. So as much as everything feels commodified these days, art is still what gets us through.
The Oracle of Z 