&mdash; toxic, quixotic

I drank for ten years, though the first ones shone with false brilliance. In college, alcohol was the point. Everything worth doing happened with a drink. Everything worth remembering blurred into nights that were never fully remembered at all.

For me, the point was never the buzz. I wasn’t interested in getting ‘tipsy,’ or laughter, or surface-level fun, the things that ‘happen.’ I drank to black out. It was always the destination. The apotheosis of the evening wasn’t the joke I told or the girl I kissed or the party I stumbled through, it was the moment when memory failed.

People like to call alcohol “liquid courage” but I never experienced it that way. Courage implies stepping more fully into your life, doing the thing you were afraid to do. I wasn’t looking for that. I wasn’t interested in being bolder or more present. What I wanted was absence. Blackout was about vacancy, not bravery. It was a release from the untreated depression and anxiety that made ordinary existence feel unbearable.

And for a while, it worked. Obliteration felt like mercy. The night would dissolve into static, and for a few precious hours I didn’t have to be myself. It was more than being drunk. Drunk meant dulled but still tethered. Blackout meant severed. The tether was gone, the loop was cut, silence at last.

But the myth or glamour of it couldn’t survive with time. The first blackouts felt shocking, almost profound. Later they were just math. If you keep drinking, eventually you black out. What I once romanticized as antihero self-destruction was really just the structure doing what it was designed to do. The system wrote the script, and I just followed it.

By the later years, alcohol wasn’t giving me anything. It wasn’t a gateway to transcendence. It wasn’t rebellion. It wasn’t fun. It was just a cure for the hangover it had caused the day before. I woke up sick and reached for the one thing that could help, even as it guaranteed it would return again tomorrow. The lie had long since revealed itself, but by then I was stuck in a closed loop.

Eventually, I quit. Not in a blaze of insight or a heroic moment of willpower. Not with a speech or a vow or an ultimatum. I quit because there was no other option left. My body was crumbling, my mind unraveling, my life was unlivable. Quitting wasn’t a choice. The decision had been made for me long before I claimed it.

That’s all there is to it: I drank for relief, and I quit for survival. The rest is details. The blackout-as-apotheosis, the antihero romance, the grand narrative of drinking as destiny; that was merely cover I laid over a decade of erosion.

I kept drinking until I couldn’t anymore.

Then, I stopped.

The Last Straw

February 1, 2026

For years I told the story like it was a deliberate arc of redemption.

The “last straw” wasn’t some spectacular unraveling of my life. I didn’t get a DUI. No partner staged an intervention. My friends and family weren’t delivering ultimatums. I had a good job, a strong work ethic, the appearance of stability. I was what they call a “high functioning alcoholic,” though I wasn’t functioning highly in any other area of my life.

In my version, the turning point was simple: I missed my coworker’s Fourth of July barbecue, someone I respected, someone I wanted to network with, a relationship I wanted to build. Out of all the things I had skipped or sabotaged because of drinking, this one was minor. But for whatever reason, that was the moment I decided to stop. I tell people that, and it happened in July 2017.

Only, that’s not what happened.

The barbecue was real. The thought, I don’t want to miss things like this anymore, was real. But nothing changed. Two months later, in September, I was sitting in a doctor’s office for something completely unrelated when the appointment took a hard left turn. Somehow the staff knew I was an alcoholic. Instead of running through the standard checklist, they brought in a social worker. No warning. She picked up the phone, called an outpatient clinic, and handed it to me. That was it. I was too hungover to argue.

It is a curious example of how memory reshapes itself. I carried the shame of being caught, of being “forced,” but wanted the dignity of self-selection, the cleaner narrative of redemption. So over time, the timeline shifted. The barbecue became the moment. The ambush at the clinic faded away.

I was already at Amazon then, working as a contractor. At the time, it was my foothold, the one piece of my life that still looked stable from the outside. I could feel everything else slipping, but if I could turn that contract into a full-time role, I could convince myself I was not really in free fall.

That is why I really went to rehab. Not because I had hit bottom, but because I thought it might save my job. In my head, the equation was simple: fix the drinking, nail the interview, land the FTE. Rehab was not about healing; it was about salvaging the only thing I still valued, my work.

When the interview came, I was sober, but too fragmented to perform. The whole thing was a trainwreck from the first question. I watched myself blow it in real time. When the rejection email came, it merely confirmed: rehab did not work, and neither did I.

I quit the program before finishing. And then I drank for another two years.

The Russian

January 11, 2026

Romance

When Anna and I matched, the app still felt like something people were wary of, so I gave her my full name and even my license plate number. It felt like the normal precaution you took when you were about to meet a stranger from the internet. She got in my car and the connection was immediate. She was a Russian student with a heavy accent, glasses, blond hair, a slightly awkward posture, and a directness that bypassed every American social rule I had ever learned. Nothing about her felt shaped by trying to be a certain type of woman. That made it easier to relax around her than I had ever experienced.

Our first dates were straightforward. Bars, restaurants, the usual places people chose without imagination. The hostess always seated us in the predictable part of the dining room where early Tinder couples were clustered together, all of them stiff and polite and trying too hard. We would sit there watching the slow collapses around us while our conversations never stalled. There was something steady between us from the beginning. She laughed easily. She asked simple questions. She didn’t act like she was auditioning for anything. I didn’t either.

After a few dates she came to my apartment. I had assumed she would look around and quietly recalibrate her interest downward. The place looked like it belonged to someone still in the process of becoming an adult. But she walked in and said she liked it. She didn’t mean she liked me despite the apartment. She liked the apartment. She said she wanted to live that way. Her tone never shifted to suggest she was trying to flatter me or make a point. She spoke in straightforward observations, always. I smoked Parliament Lights then. A week or two later she started smoking them too, not as a gesture or a flirtation, but as if it was simply the logical next step.

She needed to move apartments and I volunteered to help. Her place barely had anything in it. No mattress, no packed boxes, no evidence that she had prepared. I moved her things to the car and she worked beside me without apology or explanation. She didn’t thank me. It didn’t register as rude. It felt like she assumed I already understood the situation and didn’t need the interaction padded with ceremony. I found it refreshing. There was nothing performative between us.

The night it ended didn’t feel like a turning point until the very last minutes of it. I brought a bottle of wine because at that time I brought alcohol to every interaction. Earlier in the evening she had asked why I did that. I didn’t give her a real answer. She then told me stories about Russia, showed me photos of her hometown, played music she grew up with. We had sex. Everything about the night felt warm and steady. There was nothing tense or unsettled. When we were getting ready for bed, she said, in the same tone she used for everything else, “You’re only into me because you have no other options.” I didn’t register it at first. I asked her what she meant. She repeated it, worded more plainly, but with the same neutral delivery.

I didn’t argue. I didn’t explain anything. I didn’t feel insulted in the traditional sense. It was just true. The wine was still sitting on her table, untouched. I picked it up because it was mine. I walked out. She didn’t protest or ask for clarification. The whole thing ended in silence.

Years later, at thirty, I typed her name into Facebook out of nowhere. Her profile hadn’t changed since the last time I’d seen it. Same photos, same posts, same faint trace of a life that had never fully transitioned into adulthood. I sent her a message explaining why I had moved back to Seattle, mentioned the bipolar episode, and gave a brief account of what had happened to me. She didn’t respond. That night I removed her from my friends list. The next day she liked a picture of my cat on Instagram. It wasn’t a re-opening of anything. It was a small sign that she had noticed the change and that was the extent of it.

Gravity

December 21, 2025

I woke up in my apartment with no phone or wallet. Apparently, I had driven home blackout drunk over a span of ninety miles. With dread, I realized I had to go back to Bremerton, because my phone and wallet were still over there. But more than that, there was an understood social contract stating that I had to be present for Geoff’s bachelor party no matter what. I grabbed a jar of quarters and my checkbook and drove back without GPS.

Of course, everything planned that day cost money. I had canceled my cards the night before, and so I had none. I offered to pay for the arcade with quarters, but everyone refused. Allowing me that small dignity would amount to grace I did not deserve. I had to be present because of the social contract, but that same rulebook dictates that everyone should pull their own weight.

So, George paid for things because someone had to, and nobody else wanted to be responsible for me. I could feel it every time his card came out. It wasn’t generosity. He wasn’t willing. He was just the unlucky one on whom that responsibility had fallen.

At the end of the night, I wrote George a check out of desperation to do something. I had the money in my account. That was irrelevant. He refused it, because it was unambiguously pathetic. I did not earn the privilege of his redemption. It wasn’t about the money. It was about humiliation. I needed to feel it. I deserved it. I needed to learn a lesson.

Ten years later, quite unexpectedly, George joined Geoff and me for coffee. He had asked Geoff for my permission to join us, which showed he remembered something of the rift. But once together, we became the same old friends we always were. He didn’t remember a thing about me from that day. He remembered the bachelor party fondly. He wasn’t making a statement. He genuinely didn’t give a fuck.

Apparently, the worst night of my life didn’t exist for anyone else. I had fixated on it for years, believing earnestly that it mattered. I am not sure it is relief that it didn’t. These days, I write off my alcoholic years as sunken costs. But it turns out their meaninglessness has a gravity of its own. It is heavier than the shame I thought I was carrying.

Cocaine

December 7, 2025

The night began as nothing, though I was in a reckless and cocky mood. I decided we were going to get cocaine. None of us had real experience. None of us had connections. None of us even cared that much about cocaine itself. I had just decided that this was the scaffolding I would build a night on, and I committed.

I recruited Noah and James. We met on Capitol Hill over pitchers and tried to act like we knew what we were doing, but the truth was that we had no plan. The only lead I had was a man I met at some party a few weeks earlier. He was magnetic and strange in a way that made you think he had lived everywhere and survived everything. His name was something sharp that I have forgotten. Job or Axe or something like that. Whatever it was, he picked up when I called. He was cool and casual, yet abundantly willing to help.

When he met us later, he told us he had already gotten a dealer’s permission to share his number with us. Pierre. He said Pierre knew who we were and approved. When I contacted him, he sounded warm and professional and almost too understanding for what we were asking. We met him, and our inexperience was obvious. We did not know quantities or prices or etiquette. Yet Pierre did not take advantage of us. He gave us what we could afford and told us to remember the framing so we would not be taken advantage of in the future.

Inside the restroom of a nearby club, Axe showed us how to do it correctly. You do not pinch a nostril shut like the movies. You dip the end of the straw into the bag and breathe in through both nostrils at once and let it hit clean. Simple and unceremonious. We watched him do it and copied him like kids learning something we should not know. We offered him a share. He accepted with real gratitude, thanked us, and then disappeared into his own night.

By then Morgan had arrived. Noah’s girlfriend of two weeks. We drifted through a few bars before ending up at Noah’s place. James dropped off somewhere along the way. Once we were inside, we stayed up until sunrise playing Kings Cup with cocaine, dealing out lines like they were part of the rules. Every card meant another hit. Every rule kept us going.

Somewhere in the middle of it, Morgan and I fell into a rhythm. Innocent but unmistakable. She laughed at everything I said. I told her stories I rarely shared. Half formed theories about myself. Vulnerabilities I had not articulated before. I watched her soak it in. Not seductively. Not romantically. More like a witness who had stumbled into my interior world and found it interesting enough to stay. The room kept shrinking until it felt like only the two of us were awake inside it.

Noah had tapped out first. His body simply gave up before ours did. He lay down in the other room and the night kept going without him. Morgan and I talked and laughed and kept doing lines until nothing was left. When the sun finally cut through the blinds, I left feeling triumphant and weightless. At some point she had given me her number in front of him. None of us reacted. It did not mean anything at the time.

The next day I texted Noah that I had left my shirt at his place. No answer. I assumed he was asleep. I tried again the next day. Nothing. I tried the next week. Still nothing. I kept sending these small, pointless messages into the void, convinced each time that he must be busy or distracted or hungover. It took weeks before I noticed he had blocked me on Facebook. That was the first real clue, but even then I did not understand what I had actually done.

Weeks later I walked into the convenience store in Union Square where I bought cigarettes. Morgan worked there. She had told me that during the cocaine night and it had felt like some kind of cosmic coincidence. I had avoided the store since then, but now she was behind the counter. She lit up when she saw me. Too warm. Too pleased. Her body tilted toward me like she already knew I would respond. It made the air feel unstable. I paid and practically ran out of the store.

That was when everything locked into place. She had left him, and he blamed me. Not for stealing her, because nothing happened. He blamed me for creating the conditions where something could shift. For building a night where he disappeared from his own life and someone else stepped into the space he was supposed to fill.

I never did cocaine again.

Lily

November 23, 2025

Cat

When I first adopted Lily, I made a point of introducing her to my mom right away. Not just a quick hello, but full visits. My mom came over several times a week in those early months, crouching down to Lily’s level, holding her, talking to her in that slow, deliberate voice cats trust. It was our plan: repetition until Lily stopped seeing her as a guest and started seeing her as part of her world.

It worked. Lily imprinted on her in that permanent, unshakable way cats sometimes do. She would run to the door when my mom came over, let her hold her longer than anyone else could. It was just another one of those small victories in early cat ownership, and I never thought about it much after that.

Until now.

Now my mom is paying for the vet visit that might save Lily’s life. The bond we built wasn’t a prerequisite for her help, but it fills the act with a meaning deeper than obligation. Lily doesn’t know this. She walks over and lets her hold her for a long time. Cats remember differently than we do. They remember in pattern and feeling. For Lily, the pattern was simple: my mom always arrived with fun and gentleness.

It’s strange to realize that what saves her is not the medicine, not the money, not even the vet, but the bond built in those first months. The bond we created without knowing what it might one day mean.

And now, when I watch her climb into my mom’s arms, I see the whole lineage of trust replay itself. From the first crouch on the living room floor to now, where Lily purrs against her chest, the line is unbroken.

She doesn’t know any of this, of course. She just knows my mom is here, and that she loves her.

Interviewing While Manic

November 9, 2025

I have had job interviews in every mental state you can imagine, but nothing compares to the ones I did while manic.

Sometimes it worked in my favor. I would walk in, connecting dots faster than they could ask questions, charming them with half formed but somehow compelling ideas. They would lean forward and I would think, I could land this before they even finish explaining the role.

Other times it went the other way. I would start answering questions I had not even been asked yet, following tangents into three other tangents, then circling back like nothing happened. I would pick up on every micro-expression and over interpret them in real time. Half the time I would forget the original question entirely.

And then there were the arrogant days. Like I am doing you a favor. I would sit there listening to their pitch and think, this is a waste of my talent. I would answer questions like they were beneath me or explain exactly what was wrong with their hiring process, their leadership, or their business model. By the end, I was not so much interviewing as explaining why I would never work for their shitty company.

Once in a while I landed in that sweet spot, charismatic enough to intrigue them and qualified enough to make them think twice. That is when I would get the bait and switch offers. Not a flat out no, but, we would like to bring you on as a consultant. Or, we can do a contract to hire arrangement. A yes with a leash attached.

In my head these were moral assaults. I refused them every time, because I told myself I would not take a job where they were betting against me from the start. In reality, those offers would have really helped me, even if they came with invisible strings.

But overwhelmingly, interviewing while manic does not end with a job offer. It ends with a look people give when they are not sure what just happened but they know they will never forget it.

The Downlevel

November 2, 2025

I was working a stable job at a premium company for a good salary. I liked my work. I liked my peers. I liked my leadership. I had relocated to Boston for this job. I’d been brought on as a contractor and was about to convert to full-time, which was the single professional milestone I wanted more than anything; incontrovertible proof that I belonged.

During my interview prep, I became suspicious of the level I was being considered for. I was supposed to focus my answers on sourcing, submittals, ATS, and inmails. I knew something was up. My foot tapped obsessively, filling the silence with palpable anxiety.

“Is there a problem?”

I hadn’t slept for three days by now, and that is since I started counting; which was after weeks of not sleeping well, or possibly at all. I had started going on long walks every morning and evening to vent off some of the accumulated energy, at least 10-20 miles a day, just for maintenance.

“If I had past projects of bigger scope, would you consider looping at a higher level?”

“Why don’t you give me an example of what you mean, and I will let you know if it maps.”

I did. He said it didn’t.

He was going to say that no matter what I said.

“You operate as an L2 here.”

I was speechless. My foot stopped abruptly, I packed up my laptop, and excused myself without explanation. I couldn’t even argue with it. This job was a massive reduction for me. But what he was saying completely dismissed my previous experience.

If I wasn’t manic, that wasn’t fair. But because I was, the injustice wasn’t just frustrating. It was incomprehensible. My brain couldn’t metabolize it. I tried to rationalize the situation, tried to reframe it, I tried to accept it. But I absolutely could not. It was a week until my interview, but I was too disoriented to stop or postpone it. I was on a slow collision course with an outcome I knew I wouldn’t accept.

They ran me through the full interview loop. I was manic as hell, talking too fast, veering off script, pushing too hard, but they knew my work. They had seen it. So they still wanted to hire me, not because I interviewed well but because I had already been doing the job.

Obviously, the offer came in at Recruiter 2.

I turned it down.

Not because it wasn’t fair, although it wasn’t. Not because I had another opportunity. I didn’t. I turned it down because I was so angry about the downlevel that I couldn’t accept it. And then I went further and quit the contract job entirely.

That moment sits in my memory as a fracture. My life divides cleanly around it. Before, Boston was a wonderland. New job, new city, new life. It was working better than anything had ever worked. I had gotten sober permanently.

After I quit, I became radioactive.

Companies saw nine months tenure and assumed the worst. I obviously hadn’t converted because I wasn’t good enough. Clearly I was let go. No one knew the real story, which was in some ways worse because I technically rage quit over a job offer.

I couldn’t exactly explain it. “Sorry, I couldn’t process injustice” doesn’t land in a professional interview.

The interviews I did get didn’t go well. I was still manic, still scattered, and still pissed. I couldn’t fake normal. I spiraled, alone in a city where my only real connection had been work, and now work was gone. I burned through my savings.

Eventually, I took a contract job in California.

A former manager did me a favor; there wasn’t a real hiring need.

As soon as budgets got tight, I was let go.

My Girlfriend for Two Days

October 19, 2025

Romance

I was deep in the college party and bar scene when Sabrina came front and center. Everyone knew everyone, or pretended to. Sabrina had been an ancillary figure in our group, always there at the edges, bumming cigarettes on the porch, but suddenly she was throwing herself at me with an intensity that felt both flattering and overwhelming.

We’d end up on barstools that wobbled, her knee pressed against mine while she leaned in close enough that I could smell her perfume mixing with whiskey. The way she looked at me felt like I was being selected, pulled from the crowd into some private frequency. In retrospect, she was attracted to my social role and image in that world. I was part of her extended friend group, had the same habits, and moved in the same circles.

It escalated to official dating status in a matter of days. We were socially aligned, attractive to each other, sexually compatible. It felt good, or at least it felt like it should feel good.

But I suffered from depression and anxiety that would come in unpredictable waves. One evening we were sitting on the stoop smoking cigarettes; the air was thick and still. I don’t remember what led to it, but I admitted I sometimes had crippling anxiety.

The moment I said it, her face changed. Not gradually, instant – like a door slamming. Her mouth twisted into something between disgust and confusion. “Okay…” she said, drawing out the word with such contempt that I can still hear the exact pitch of it. Then she stood up, dropped her cigarette, and left.

I don’t remember the exact breakup conversation, but that was functionally it.

She was still around constantly, though, and the reality of the bomb I’d dodged quickly surfaced. I watched her throw herself at every guy in our group with the same aggressive focus she’d used on me. The same lean-in at the bar, the same intensity that had felt flattering when it was aimed at me. Everyone saw it. Everybody resisted.

One time she was over when some guy approached the front stoop. He didn’t knock, didn’t hesitate, just walked up and punched someone in our group square in the face. No words, no warning. We all lost our shit. At some point during the chaos, he dropped a screwdriver on the ground, a weapon he’d been carrying. I watched Sabrina quietly pick it up and slip it into her purse, like she was collecting something that belonged to her.

I realized then she’d had him come over to meet her. He wasn’t random, he was hers. It revealed everything about her taste in men.

My Shot at Redemption

October 12, 2025

It was the same agency I had walked into a decade earlier and stumbled out of just over two months later. Back then I was drinking too much to keep my footing. This time I came in sober, lucid, desperate, and hungry.

The pitch had not changed: we are an elite boutique, we work only high-fee searches. I saw only dollar signs. Commission only did not matter. It was all anyone was offering me, and this place carried a different weight. I had failed here once. This was my shot at redemption.

The invitation back felt like recognition, like someone had noticed the distance I had traveled and decided I had earned another chance.

For a while I believed it. I found the rhythm fast, calls, pitches, the slow burn of turning strangers into clients. Every small win was proof I was not the same person who had left years ago. I could see the arc taking shape, the clean ending I had been chasing.

Then the floor shifted. I was working on niche, impossible job orders, and I had already contacted every single viable candidate there was. Everything that had made the agency appealing – high fee, niche searches – was in reality reasons you could not succeed there. I just did not see it that way at first.

I had told myself I would not walk away again. This time I would be successful here. Earn the respect of the owner, a god tier recruiter who billed one million dollars running his own desk while also managing the company.

But there is a difference between proving you can win and proving you will not quit. The first is victory. The second is erosion.

When I left, it was not because I could not do it. It was because I could, and that was no longer the point.

The day after I quit they posted an ad for a salaried position. They had the budget all along. The truth was simple and ugly. They had been betting against me from the start. This was never a redemption arc. It was a rigged game, and I had played it to the end.

Roy and Luna

October 5, 2025

Cat

When I call for Roy and Luna, Lily comes too. She’s never been excluded, not once, but I’ve also never called her name. Just “Roy and Luna.” That’s the phrase.

And still, she comes.

I don’t know when it started. Maybe she noticed the pattern. Maybe she watched what happened next – the pets, the attention, the group cuddle on the floor – and decided that “Roy and Luna” must mean everyone I love. That’s not what I meant, but I don’t correct her.

Because she’s right.

Roy was first to steal my heart. He was bold in a way that never needed to prove itself. He simply belonged.

Luna came with him, a bonded pair, but she hid under the couch for days. She emerged slowly, the kind of cat who negotiates her trust piece by piece. When she finally curled up against me with Roy, I felt the balance click into place. Roy and Luna were always a matched set, opposites stitched into the same fabric. And now I was included.

So when I say their names together, Roy and Luna, it isn’t just a call. It’s shorthand for the whole history of the house. Their names are the spine of my domestic life.

And now Lily knows this too.

She wasn’t there for the beginning. She arrived in a world already inscribed with their names, a third verse to a song that had always been a duet. But cats are pattern-readers. She studied what happened when I said the words. She noticed the sequence: the sound of their names, the rush of paws, and the warmth that followed.

So when I call for Roy and Luna, she comes too. Tail high, eyes bright, no hesitation.

It moves me more than I can explain. Because she isn’t technically right, but she is emotionally right. She reads the signal correctly. The quiet certainty that she belongs. She wasn’t there when the words were coined, but she comes anyway.

I don’t correct her. The truth is, she has redefined the meaning. It no longer means just Roy and Luna. It means come home. And she always does.

The Bus Connection

September 28, 2025

Romance, Work

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The company I worked for ran on booze. Every party blurred into another round, and every team building ended at a bar. I played along because it was the currency of belonging. I could drink until my edges smoothed, sleep badly, then show up the next morning and that endurance passed for competence. After one of those nights I left fired up, not sloppy but alive in a way that felt like light coming from inside me.

There is a phenomenon I have carried all my life. My internal weather dictates how the world responds. When I am depressed, strangers recoil and treat me like static. When I am manic, people lean in as if caught in a current. I used to dismiss it as delusion. That night on the bus, glowing from drink and something more, I could not. The feedback loop was too real.

The bus smelled like vinyl and sweat. People stared at their phones. It was the kind of quiet where everyone was alone together, sealed off in their own screens. I felt like the only one awake inside that hush, the only one scanning for something beyond.

And yet ahead of me, a woman kept locking eyes with me. Not a glance, but held looks that lingered just long enough. Each time she looked away, she smiled. Each time she came back, the smile was a little wider. By the third time, she dropped her head too quickly, caught in her own embarrassment. She was flirting, plain as day. And it repeated for the whole ride until it was the only thing I could see.

When we pulled into the park and ride, the shuffle began. She angled herself so she ended up beside me as we stepped off into the night. I could feel her looking at me, waiting for me to bridge the distance.

And still I said nothing.

Because what if I was wrong? What if the glances were coincidence, or politeness misread by a man who wanted more from them than was ever there? What if I spoke and the spell collapsed, leaving me exposed as a fool? The glow can make you magnetic, but it can also make you reckless. I did not trust myself enough to risk it.

So I kept walking. I got in my car, and I drove home.

Cordy

September 21, 2025

Addiction, Work

In college I took whatever work paid. I repaired laptops, installed software, convinced elderly clients that the internet would not eat them. One of those clients was Cordy. He was a psychologist by training and a hobby photographer by habit. He and his wife Cindy lived on a property in Skagit County in a house he had drawn and built himself. It was the kind of place that collects things: carved masks from Indonesia, a faded map with thumbtack holes, framed Polaroids stacked like proof that the world was larger than my dorm room.

Cordy spoke like someone who had learned how to listen. He trusted simple pleasures. He trusted music, and he trusted the slow work of developing a photograph. He trusted people enough to let them be imperfect. I liked him because he was generous and because he made generosity look ordinary. Cindy had the same ease. Together they were warm in the way people are who have not given up on being tender.

I became their tech person. I showed up once or twice a month and sat at their kitchen table while Cordy fed images into his Mac that I had never used before. I taught him how to organize folders and back up drives and which buttons did which little useful things. The work was small and practical and it kept me connected in a way the campus job could not. It felt like belonging that did not demand performance. I liked going out there.

One afternoon Cindy asked me to do something that felt bigger than a tech job. She wanted a birthday poster for Cordy. She described an old western wanted poster except instead of criminal charges it would be praise. Wanted: More Men Like Cordy. A list of virtues where crimes should be. She imagined it pinned by his closet light so he would see it often. She did not ask for perfection. She asked for tenderness disguised as humor. I am not a designer. I made the poster anyway. The typography was clumsy. The margins did not align. The bullets were awkward. It was amateur hour and it still landed. Cindy loved it. Cordy loved it. Later he tacked it inside his closet where morning light might catch the paper and remind him he was seen.

Then I started buying Adderall from people who did not ask questions. Prescriptions were a gate I could not be bothered with. Street supply was easier. The pills were small and steady and they made it possible to stay up and feel useful. I told myself I was optimizing. It made everything efficient. It made me feel sharp in a way that felt like survival. But survival became excess. I did not measure my intake. My supplier cut me off when I looked like I was breaking. Mercy and refusal come in the same breath from people who know when a person is losing the map. My dealer stopped too.

Withdrawal is a slow erasure. Days become a fog of wanting. I lay in bed and practiced dying. I wrote mental scripts in which everything ended cleanly. The body has a brutal way of teaching you the boundary between useful pain and ruin. I slept badly. I pressed my face into the pillow and wondered how to keep the world far enough away that it would not hurt me.

During those weeks Cordy sent an email. His project was finished. He was showing the work in a downtown gallery, practically in my neighborhood. He extended the exhibit and sent another note. He wanted to celebrate. The messages had the patient tone of someone who expected you to be there. They were invitations wrapped in the trust of friendship.

I did not go. I imagined walking into the gallery and listening to polite people talk about exposure and frame sizes and I imagined my hands shaking. I imagined all the small signs that would reveal I was falling apart, and I chose not to let anyone see the ruin. So I stayed in bed.

Once the withdrawal had subsided somewhat, I called him and the line dropped. I called again and the phone went to voicemail. Just a missed call and then silence.

That was the end. There are things you cannot fix after you let them go. I think now about the poster inside a closet. I imagine Cordy seeing it each morning and thinking the world was kinder than it can be. I imagine how small acts of attention matter.

I never told them how grateful I was. I never explained why I could not come. They would have understood. When I think of Cordy it is with the weight of that unreturned invitation and the memory of a man who pinned a piece of paper to his closet.

The Austin Weekend

September 7, 2025

Romance, Work

In 2020 at a major tech company, I met someone who changed everything in the span of about six weeks.

We were both remote recruiters on the same team. The chemistry was instant and relentless. We would have two conversations running simultaneously, one over Slack for work and another over text for everything else. Hours would disappear into these layered discussions about recruiting, life, random observations, whatever. It was limitless.

I remember scrolling through her Instagram photos for the first time when I discovered she was a lesbian. I guess the math didn’t work out for me, after all. Or so I thought.

After several more weeks of constant texting, she asked me something unusual.

“Would you ever date me?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t even think about my reply. It was simply true, and I just said it. I felt no fear or vulnerability, no risk of rejection. She was unavailable to me; therefore, this must be some kind of hypothetical, intellectual exercise.

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

That’s approximately how it started.

We immediately went into planning & logistics. Eventually I would relocate to Austin. For now, I would come to visit in four weeks. If we could keep the intensity for that long, we’d have a strong foundation.

We maintained it with plenty to spare. The month flew by with the same dual-conversation energy. I booked the flight.

Austin exceeded every expectation. The chemistry translated perfectly to in-person interaction. We talked the same way face-to-face as we had through screens. The physical connection worked. We had sex and it was excellent. Everything about the weekend was clicking exactly as we’d hoped.

Then I did something incredibly dumb.

Before heading out the second day, I took a small hit from my weed vape. She took one too, in solidarity. It seemed harmless. I’ve done this thousands of times in my life. Here we had a tiny, shared moment before exploring the city.

Except, we both got ridiculously high.

I became weird and uncoordinated. She got paranoid and uncomfortable. What should have been a fun day out turned into an awkward nightmare where we were both trapped inside altered versions of ourselves.

When we got back to the hotel room, she quietly collected her things and left. I bought a ticket home that night.

It was over like that.

The smallest possible miscalculation at the worst possible moment. Everything that mattered had worked perfectly; the emotional connection, the physical compatibility, the practical logistics.

Six weeks of building something rare, a perfect weekend confirming it was real, then thirty minutes of being the wrong versions of ourselves when first impressions were everything.

Thirty minutes that undid everything we’d built and everything we could have been.

The Craigslist Job

September 1, 2025

I don’t remember the ad, just the phone call. A dog was barking in the background. Her voice cut through the noise. “Yes, when can you come in?” she asked, already moving on to the next thing. She didn’t need to see my resume.

That moment set the tone for everything that followed.

Her house was chaos. Papers everywhere, dogs barking, phone always ringing. If you could handle it, you could work there.

My first job was reposting the ad and scheduling interviews with other candidates. But at the end of that first day, she said, “When can you come tomorrow?” And the next day it was the same. It wasn’t until the first year passed that it was understood I got the job. She didn’t particularly like me, but she couldn’t find anyone better than me.

At first, I was just helping, like printing things, carrying things, assembling things. But eventually I had become her secretary, marketing department, and professional voice.

What I learned was how to sound professional when you had no idea what you were doing. How to write emails that sounded like they came from someone who knew things, when really I was just mimicking patterns I’d seen online. Sandy would hand me tasks that required experience I didn’t have.

She sold therapy certifications. Expensive ones, $3,000 for a weekend workshop that would supposedly teach you her proprietary method. My job was finding people to buy them. I’d harvest email addresses from her mailing lists and send them copy about “life-changing breakthrough techniques” and “limited-time certification opportunities.”

The people who emailed back sounded desperate. They wanted to know about whether this would actually let them practice therapy. I learned to deflect those questions. To focus on the transformation they’d experience, the tools they’d gain, the community they’d join.

Sandy believed in what she was selling, which made it worse somehow. She wasn’t a scammer because she genuinely thought her method worked. But she was underwater financially and couldn’t stop pushing. Every interaction became a sales opportunity. Every conversation ended with a pitch.

I stayed because I needed the work. I stayed because the chaos felt familiar. And I stayed because, despite everything, I was learning. Not from her, she had nothing to teach me about professionalism or ethics or how to run a business. But I was learning from the necessity of filling gaps she couldn’t see. From having to sound competent when I felt like a fraud. From watching what happened when passion wasn’t backed by substance.

She never made me prove I was useful. She just handed me something and trusted that I’d figure it out. For that, despite everything else, I am grateful to her.

The Linen Closet

August 24, 2025

Cat

Luna vanished the day the contractors came.

The front door had been left open. Not for long, maybe a minute, just long enough. She wasn’t used to the noise, wasn’t used to the outdoors, and in that moment of panic, she must’ve bolted. That was the story. It made sense. There was no sign of her inside the house. I assumed the worst, because it looked like the worst. And once you decide something like that, it calcifies.

I canvassed the neighborhood with printed flyers. I walked the streets calling her name. I left food out and knocked on doors. I was methodical. I left no stone unturned, outside.

I never opened the linen closet.

Instead, I hired a pet detective. A real one with tracking dogs, cameras, cages, all of it. They followed her scent through the neighborhood and stopped a few blocks away. It was high alert; it felt promising. A woman nearby said a new black cat had been showing up at her house. The timing lined up. We gave her the trap and she agreed to monitor it.

But then it got worse.

A man contacted me. Said he’d found a black cat that looked like Luna a few blocks from my house. He sent a blurry photo, just enough to stir hope, not enough to confirm anything. He said he’d bring her to me, but needed gas money first. It was a scam. I knew it. But I was desperate and exhausted. I had handed him a flyer myself. Spoken to him in person. He was supposed to be one of the good guys.

I paid him. He asked for more. I blocked him.

A week passed with nothing happening, no trap results or footage. Just silence. My cat was gone. My hope was gone. I felt sick every time I opened the front door.

And then, for no reason I can name, I opened the linen closet.

She was in there. Alive and calm, just curled behind the towels.

She blinked at me, then walked to the litter box, and nuzzled Roy. Nothing about her behavior suggested trauma. She had been locked in that closet for a week, and she was fine.

I had never looked there. Not once. Because I knew she had gone outside. I’d watched the door hang open. I’d played the story in my head. It made so much sense that I didn’t question it. I never even noticed the closet was closed.

And because of that, because I knew she was outside, I gave a flyer to the man who would scam me. I searched the whole neighborhood. I hired a tracker. I cried. I barely ate. And I left my cat in the closet.

The Office Alcoholic

August 17, 2025

Addiction, Work

I don’t know what fucking genius in management thought putting a fully stocked liquor fridge in the office kitchen was a good idea. This was 2016, peak startup culture, where “work hard, play hard” meant having beer on tap and calling alcoholism “company culture.”

The fridge appeared one Monday morning like some kind of corporate honey trap. Vodka, the good stuff, not bottom-shelf swill. Ostensibly for “company events” and “team building.” In reality, it was like putting a loaded gun in a room full of depressed people.

I wasn’t the only one with a drinking problem at that company. But I was the known quantity. The guy who reeked of booze at 9 AM meetings. The one who got a little too animated at happy hours and stayed too late at company parties.

So when I started taking little sips here and there. Just a shot of vodka to get through the afternoon slump, I thought I was being discrete.

But apparently everyone was doing it. The bottles emptied faster than management expected. The vodka simply disappeared. It became obvious that employees were treating the company liquor like their personal stash.

The difference was, when management started having meetings about the missing alcohol, only one name came up. Mine.

I wasn’t invited to these meetings, obviously. But I could read the room. The way conversations stopped when I walked by. The knowing looks. The careful avoidance of eye contact. I could piece together exactly what was being discussed in those closed-door sessions with everyone who wasn’t me.

Everyone thought it was me. Every missing bottle. The office alcoholic had struck again.

The reality was probably that I’d taken maybe twenty percent of what disappeared. But once you’re labeled “the person with the drinking problem,” every missing drop gets attributed to you.

That’s when I realized how visible my drinking had become. I thought it was a secret, but actually I’d become a workplace character: the guy with the problem. Everyone knew.

I went to my first AA meeting that week.

Not because I was ready to get sober. Even though the humiliation of being the office alcoholic felt unbearable, I continued to drink myself to sleep every night.

The liquor fridge disappeared shortly after that. Management probably realized it wasn’t the brilliant culture-building move they’d imagined.

But the damage was done. I was the alcoholic. And once that label sticks, it follows you into every interaction, every meeting, every performance review.

The worst part is, they weren’t wrong.

How Jamie Died

August 10, 2025

Addiction, Grief

When they prescribed me Adderall again, I wasn’t addicted anymore. That part of my life was over, or at least it felt that way. I didn’t think about how I’d quit or what it had taken, because I wasn’t ready to pick that apart yet. But taking it again forced me into a question I couldn’t avoid: how do you reconcile needing something you were once addicted to.

Life without it had been worse than I wanted to admit. I could go to work, have conversations, finish some things, but never without friction. Focus slipped away constantly. Everything felt slower. It was the kind of constant, low-grade difficulty that wears you down. When I went back on Adderall, it wasn’t a dramatic choice. It was quiet, deliberate, and I decided from the start I would take it exactly as prescribed. I have kept that promise ever since.

My brother never got that chance. His doctors refused to prescribe him Adderall because of his history with opioids, as if they were the same drug or the same danger. He needed it. If we’re being honest, he needed the opioids too, for his pain. It was the same problem I had faced, needing the thing you were once addicted to, except in his case he was denied.

That denial sent him looking for something else. He found propylhexedrine, an over-the-counter stimulant that is harsh, dirty, and incredibly dangerous. He took it for years. In 2016, at twenty-eight years old, his heart gave out.

I still have my prescription. I still take it every day. And I’m still here.

The Walk to Kirkland

August 3, 2025

Addiction, Grief

It was one of those days where the sky feels fake. Blue in a way that seems digitally retouched. My roommates and I didn’t have plans, just inertia, so we decided to walk from Bellevue to Kirkland. No destination, just movement. The kind of aimless day that makes you feel young and whole and not important.

We laughed a lot. Talked about nothing. Walked too far. It felt good. I felt good.

I don’t remember walking back, but we must have. I was back in the apartment when my phone rang. My dad’s name on the screen. I answered with some joke ready to go. I don’t remember what it was. Doesn’t matter. He cut me off mid-sentence.

“Andy. Andy, this is serious. Jamie died.”

There was a pause. My body heard it before I did. Then I said “I have to go” and hung up. Not out of rudeness. Just because the world went offline.

I got in my car and drove to the store. I bought a fifth of liquor. Came home. I don’t remember anything after that.

It wasn’t even to mourn him. I drank because I didn’t know what else to do. Because grief didn’t have a shape yet but alcohol did. Alcohol had always had its job, and this was its moment.

He was dead. I was gone. And the day, bright and pointless and full of nothing, was over.

chiron & prometheus

July 22, 2018

Introspection, Uncategorized

“Alpha Centauri” is the nearest solar system to our own, and is also host to an atmospheric, terrestrial, earthlike planet with probable conditions for liquid water on the surface. It is one of the brightest stars in the sky, and is part of the “Centaurus” constellation which honors the Greek titan “Chiron.” Centaurus has endured thousands of years in the pantheon of major constellations for its relevance to the human condition.

Centaurs were notoriously ignoble hooligans who smoke and drink, and Chiron was a centaur. But he was different; he was civilized, and widely renowned for his wisdom, healing powers, and altruism.

One day, while Chiron was out on a smoke break, suddenly battle erupted nearby – as was commonplace in Greek mythology. Chiron got nicked in the leg by a stray arrow that was poisoned with Hydra venom, literally a mortal wound. But as an immortal Titan, this manifested as a permanent injury that he, the healer, could not heal himself.

Chiron’s legacy persists today as the trope of “Wounded Healer.”

Most my life I’ve been fascinated by this story, which I first learned in my early teens through science fiction. I identified personally with Chiron, somehow able to bring joy to others while suffering demons in private. Once attune to the story, it’s ubiquitous in all of life and popular culture (Dr. House, therapists, my father – a vietnam vet and veteran’s counselor).

Enter: Prometheus

Prometheus was also a Titan, and brother of Chiron. Titans were essentially Gods, except for being at odds with the actual Gods. And so Prometheus undertook the greatest heist in “Human” history – he snuck into Olympus, stole Fire, and brought it to the world; thereby usurping the Gods’ status as savior of mankind.

Prometheus set the world on fire.

Zeus was fuckin pissed, and so he punished Prometheus by chaining him to a cliff where an eagle would come every sunset and eat out his liver, which would regenerate by sunrise; on repeat, daily, for all of eternity.

Enter: Chiron with Prometheus

Chiron grieved for his brother, he grieved for the world’s loss of a champion. Quietly, he grieved for himself. He would do anything to end the pain.

As the Ultimate Solution, therefore, Chiron bargained with Zeus: to bequeath his immortality and take the place of Prometheus, freeing Prometheus, and also freeing himself from this world as the eagle came by dusk.

For all their differences, Zeus was like, that’s fuckin metal. And so he created the Centaurus constellation in the sky in memorium.

And Prometheus was free to champion the mortals and venge the Gods’ misdeeds.

magistrate, a computer virus

January 31, 2017

I spent several days running different kinds of antivirus and restorative techniques. But it was super fucked beyond my competency to repair. Rather the correct and safest thing to do with an infected “black box” is wipe it clean. So I junked it for Ubuntu. Not just to be practical; the power port is still broken and the specs are obsolete, this is not a practical machine.

His login was “Magistrate”, which was particular about him. It belonged to the lexicon of words we used as children in play. Canonical cool words. I did everything in my power to preserve this Windows instance so his username remained in existence. Ultimately I wiped the thing.

Now when I see that machine, it’s empty. Bland, dull. A thing that is there. Like a body bereft its soul. So I have this tension surrounding “Magistrate” that persists within me. Into my memories, my thoughts.

I caught a computer virus.

broken heart

April 14, 2016

I’ve never known a broken heart until my brother died this past weekend.

I am sorry. For every misstep I’ve ever made no matter how large or small, for every wrong I’ve ever done. Not taking a minute out of my shitty, self absorbed miserable life to count my abundant blessings, preferring instead to cry about having a smaller dick.

And he was such a self absorbed fucker, same as me. I can’t erase the shameful, tragic, and even resentful memories from his darkest times. Nor I can’t sing of sunshine and roses when that was never the case. I can’t distill his existence into any trope or allegory. He was all of it, the good and the bad.

And now it’s done and that’s it.

Except that’s all it ever is, for all of us.

I miss you.

labels vs action

January 17, 2016

1 Comment

To invoke the label “I’m an alcoholic” has always seemed to derail the conversation. TMI but as an analogy, I remember I had an enflamed gut, the doctor diagnosed me with gastroenteritis. “What is gastroenteritis?” I ask. “Inflammation of the gut.” Worthless circular logic.

Because a label doesn’t necessarily beget action.

So then to say “Well I don’t know that I resonate with labeling such as “Alcoholic”, what about to generalize to ‘Problem Drinker? That’s more behavioral / action-ey’ Because certainly I knew I had problematic drinking tendencies and I needed to behave better / more responsibility to reduce those problems. Except I don’t actually know how to “behave better” because I never fucking do and I would have figured this out by now if it were possible because that’s the solution I’ve always tried for.

So I try to take a step outside of the occasion of drinking: “I have problematic as well as known alcoholic tendencies that necessitate lifestyle changes which may include managing the amount that I drink.”

This is better but it is critically lacking to why specifically does my condition necessitate change other than to mitigate only Bad consequences? Because Risk Aversion is actually not a genuine motivator for me, and leads to question:

“For what greater Good am I in pursuit beyond merely mitigating the Bad?”

The answer is none.

I am pursuing no greater Good because I waste all of my physical time and health away with debilitating behaviors that enable me on a daily basis to never answer that question.

And truly in my heart, if not always my actions, pursuit of the greater good is the highest ideal of myself. The root of the issue is that I am not on that path.

So to be that person, and not to be the person I am that I don’t particularly like, there is one very specific task I can perform immediately to that end – to begin the journey, I must know Where I Am Going by answering the question “For what greater Good do I pursue beyond merely mitigating the Bad?”

In order to first answer that question, I must become sober, because otherwise I never will.

I don’t mean to cheapen the context of this lovely quote, but it has oddly stayed with me through the years: “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” – Anne Frank

addiction

January 10, 2016

It’s difficult to say. I want to spell out some great glamourous come-to-jesus that somehow finely captures and delivers the true emotionality of it. I want to be heroic, brave, strong, and brilliant, with some triumphant conviction to know and declare I will get through this.

But I am not yet any of those things, I am an addict.

I have a permanent chemistry that is deeply and markedly different from someone without my affliction. Permanently. I broke it. Or maybe I was already broken. It doesn’t matter because that’s just how it is now.

With or without any substances I am this person, I have been this person, I will be this person.

There is no going back, there is no other way forward, no other way it could have been; only a permanent uphill battle that’s now even more challenging than the insurmountable task it already is for someone “normal” – something I have never been, and never will be.

Everything I’ve read is so disheartening, about timelines and struggles. I’m actually worried that support groups will sooner break my heart than heal it. I will find this out first-hand but this is all so new to me. I think I’m past the worst of it in the short term, the booze and Adderall took a greater toll on my health than since.

But solving the bigger issue now is all the rest of everything.

Which is the same it’s always been, and always will be.

For now, I’m no better off than this fictional entity I’ve been playing the part, or who I wanted to be.

But that person is trapped, and I must leave him behind.

“Once a man has changed the relationship between himself and his
environment, he cannot return to the blissful ignorance he left.
Motion, of necessity, involves a change in perspective.” – Commissioner Pravin Lal, “A Social History of Planet”

feast & famine (II)

August 17, 2015

meter, metered poetry, rhyme, rhythmic

1 Comment

This is a rewrite of an older entry, but this here is my first attempt at legit poetry. Literally, mostly metered. If you make it to the end, obviously I need a real ending. But I think up to that point is a decent spur-of-inspiration.

Feast & famine

Life’s all right with adventure and movement;
Horizons span far and broad,
Unfettered by haze and fog
And noise and clutter.
And everything falls into place.

Try I might align myself, as prudent,
To as many harrowing odds;
Against better ways, and chance,
And poise, and balance;
With nothing to stand before me.

But alas should the sails fall flat, halfway through;
Or perhaps away all your crew
Have up and left you;
Straws drawn at dawn embarked, by dusk alone,
To a terrible thirst at sea.

And yet the cellars are dry, and so am I, oh why?
To weather the storm inside,
Abiding time in stride;
To try the tide to take its course – no guide –
And drift all along the way.

Without that pilot light that from all sight eludes me,
Curious to feel it gone but never burning.
So what did I do to deserve the flame, and what did I do to lose it?
Didn’t I care to waste not, want not?
And never abuse it?

I lie here a while in stow to prove it,
Concluding hereto it’s a soothing,
Illusion of forward moving;
For when I wash up at the shore,
Why the fuck was I on a boat?

Winston the Crow

July 24, 2015

In my building’s courtyard, just over a week ago, I came aware of this constant nagging/cawing, and saw it was coming from a young, downy crow hanging low under a covering all alone.

This happens every year, May to July, when parents nudge their baby out of the nest – though continue to monitor them nearby, and from afar, to teach them how to fly and other life skills.

So I witnessed, from the first day, when Winston – as he has been named – was first shoved from the nest. A bizarre, extremely intimate moment in a living thing’s life.

For the first few days he was severely depressed. Literally sitting motionless with his head poked into a bush, hind sticking out, for hours. And other ways of very obviously moping. Though his parents still stuck around, watching from strategic places, cleverly. Reminding me to fuck off if I got too close unawares.

It becomes a whole thing, Winston, always looking out for him. Or listening – his distinct voice, pouring out a constant stream of consciousness. Despair, curiosity, or snark – all distinct emotions. Funny how some animals are so vocal, to no one in particular, to everyone. Or for people, their constant yabber in all varying ways.

It’s something I look forward to. A little peek at the intimacies of an amazingly familiar being. The opportunity to follow the incredibly human thoughts of a non-human, in his constant chatter. In making eye contact and knowing he’s looking back, unglazed.

He’s rapidly growing up, but for his size still has messy, tufts of a downy belly.

Now he can fly, but that’s a skill to be honed. Not quite to the smooth, subtle, regal poise with which we’re so accustomed, how crows tend to fade in the background.

But now I’m so aware of them, always looking to see if it’s Winston. I notice them everywhere, I can see now they’re always fussing about something real, even if it’s above my head. As I ride by on the bus I see them leering down from power lines, sentinels, every one of them is watching me, specifically, as I go by. Realizing that they actually are.

This morning it’s really quiet on my way in to work. In the silence are only my own private thoughts filling the void. Which are, incidentally, the same as Winston’s, having been me telling his story all along.

I detour to my spot, even though it rained a bit earlier; but everything’s mostly dry by now. Unfortunately someone left a bag of dog shit right there, which is inevitable given the courtyard doubles as a dog-shitting spot. But there’s enough space in my nook that it shouldn’t interfere.

I get close and I see it’s not what I thought afterall, rather it’s the wet, wilted, downy, lifeless tufts of Winston’s belly who had passed some time, somehow in the night. I had to leave, and his body is soon cleaned up after.

I wish there was more to say, but that’s the end to the story of Winston the Crow.

new post

March 23, 2014

It’s a strange thing, I haven’t tried writing for a bit of a spell. It’s extraordinarily difficult, this thing.

I have to wonder how it is that people do it on command, and regularly at that. I mean I understand the pull of it, which is why I dabble here and there. It’s sexy, really, this whole thing. First ideas and creativity, made tangible and packaged for delivery. And the presentation, to turn all that solitude and introspection into something that resembles a conversation, incredible.

I haven’t forgotten about this thing, this old blog. It occupies a peculiarly significant space in my identity. I think about it often, the secret part of me that wishes I was something I’ve never become; the writer, creative and insightful.

Sure I lack for drive and discipline; but far beyond than that I feel there’s nothing to say. I’ve been toying with this topic for a while. Yeah I’d love to do this thing, writing. But for every blog/journal I see of someone chronicling their life events, I’m more interested in identifying with their character than I am by their raw content. And, me being subject to the same rules, I find this paralyzing.

I ought to hit Post before I reevaluate my decision and get lost in particulars and possibilities 🙂

Mindfulness and metaphors

April 18, 2013

I sit behind a couple laptops running windows vista. Across the room on display is our product offering, featuring both current and discontinued devices. A TV commercial silently plays on repeat all day, even though nothing on it is relevant today.

The floor is huge, and bright green, and people bustle by the front doors on their way to other venues in the mall. It’s a huge space, and quiet, though it echoes of greater things past. This used to be a major operation. The back space is twice as big as the floor, including two offices and a half kitchen.

This place has offered me refuge after hours, like when I locked my phone and keys in my car and needed a phone. Or while I was in school I’d come and study late, somewhere quiet and clean. Stuff like that. With all the time spent here, and privacy, it’s homey.

Just me and my castle. Safe, comfortable, alone.

Plenty of time to fuck around and binge on netflix. Sometimes I’ll pace about, or sit and stare into space. Sometimes my eyes are drawn to the looping TV commercial like a moth. That’s how I watch football.

And then a sale here and there, which is fun. The challenge is preserving a certain intensity. The physical act of making the sales is, oddly the easiest part of the job, and also the only reason why they pay me to be here. Though they have announced the pending merger with another company.

So really, one specific metaphor is what I started with, and where I will end: Patterns recur in your life because of the energy you put off into the universe.

I’m alone in this town which is stagnant, and also alone at work, and my company is stagnant. And I’m just comfortable enough to get by, but I am not thriving, and my work is just profitable to survive but faces total collapse.

So I am leaving for Seattle in two days.

feast & famine

November 13, 2012

1 Comment

The principle of the “Feast & Famine” is based on an experience I had paying a hand reader for a reading of my prints.

feast & famine

The wind at your back, the lights are all green. Calm and serene, yet sharp and enthused. Life is rife with adventure and movement, and horizons span far and broad, unfettered by haze and fog and noise and clutter.

And everything falls into place.

But alas should the sails fall flat, which they do. The cellars are dry, and so am I, oh why? What did I do to deserve the glow, what have I done to lose it? Didn’t I care to nurture the flame, to waste not, want not, and never abuse it?

My beacon extinguished, can no one see me at all.

But I can still see them.

***

Once a man has changed the relationship between himself and his
environment, he cannot return to the blissful ignorance he left.
Motion, of necessity, involves a change in perspective.

— Commissioner Pravin Lal,

leaders and obstacles

November 2, 2012

Whether or not you like someone is either a choice or a habit; in either case, the onus is on you for this relationship, and not on them. To lay blame upon another for your affection is to concede that you have no agency in determining what people are included in your life.

Certainly there are bad people. That’s cool. But to cast judgment is to relate with them, and relating with them is to selectively internalize them.

So when someone’s a jackass to you, who’s the bigger jackass? If you put them into the plane of being your peer, then you’re also a jackass.

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else—you are the one who gets burned.” – Buddha

Feel compassion for those who are lost, not anger. In their time, they will find their way or they won’t; you can take people only as they are, not as you want them to be. You can only reliably invest in yourself in the present. Waste no time casting and evaluating projections upon others.

There are no adversaries, only leaders and obstacles.

social fucking

October 31, 2012

2 Comments

I’m an introvert and sometimes I get shy in social situations. Other times I can be suave and charismatic. It’s my life purpose to figure out how the fuck to control this on command. Following is a proposed solution.

I glazed over a theory in the canon of Communication studies: Social Penetration Theory. From this name I derived my crass title because it exhibits some cute metaphors if you think about it. The gist is simple: closeness, or intimacy between people is achieved through self disclosure. Duh, but there are broad implications.

Consider how self disclosure occurs. Telling people personal information is the obvious, but supposing communication is incredibly multifaceted, this is barely the tip (innuendo; see “Social Fucking) of the iceberg. People express themselves in many, many ways at all times, and we are naturally attune to these nonverbal communications.

An example: I was in a group and we began to play a Wii dancing game. Self disclosure here is expressed through a body’s movement. Body movement is typically very inhibited, and so sharing something to this degree of intimacy is the main operation behind playing this sort of game. Dancing is fun in and of itself, but consider why this activity is uniquely a social enterprise, and is a totally different experience to do alone.

To suppose this is obvious, therein lies my point: To haphazardly dawdle through any social interaction is an incomplete experience. Unfortunately the introvert may be overwhelmed by the noise in viewing the dancing scenario as courting the group; while the extrovert just “has fun” dancing with friends. These are two entirely valid claims: Yes, you ARE being judged. But also yes, you ARE just having fun with friends. This demonstrates two types of perspective; introspective and extrospective. And the introspective, in its extreme, is confined by thinking too much, and the extrospective is confined by not thinking enough.

I think the latter view (“just having fun”) is the proto-norm of most of society in socializing. But I argue that it is moreso rewarding to build relationships than to do an activity. So in order to reconcile the introspective and extrospective, I propose to redirect from thinking about the ostensible activity, instead to think of the actual activity. You are in fact doing an activity, so the introspective noise should not be disruptive to whatever you are “supposed” to be thinking about. If you are aware that what you are actually doing is relating with people and not just doing things, you will find that social libido flows freer.

So as relating to Social Penetration Theory, how do we self disclose in a way conducive to the social codes, while advancing our ultimate motive towards achieving true relational intimacy? How do we silence the noise, self doubt, and anxiety, behave well, and still maintain our existential humanity?

Worry about what you mean, not what you say or do.

Behind your intentions, your actions will follow. And thus you will disclose your Self, not a Persona, as only you, yourself, can experience closeness and intimacy.

An analogy: You can typically tell a liar, because no matter how “good” they may be at it, they will never have full mastery of every possible channel of their expression.

Sometimes you are made uncomfortable in a group because of things that they say or do, or by their conduct of self expression/disclosure. If someone is rude, or if the group is hazing you for admission, carefully evaluate your goals. If it’s to your benefit to play the social dance, still: play by your own terms and not theirs. If you begin to adjust your self expression to match with theirs, you are forfeiting your own identity for the group identity. Is that what you wanted?

In all of this I’m assuming intimacy is universally good. To invite intimacy into your life, you must self disclose. In being mindful of your self disclosure such that it presents your true self, only thus can you achieve intimacy.

And in mindfully listening to the self disclosure of other people, you will better understand what your relationships consist of and what they do not.

marriage vows

October 21, 2012

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1. I sit in my cubicle, here on earth. When I die, they will put my body in a box and dispose of it in the cold ground. And in all the million ages to come, I will never breathe or laugh or twitch again. So won’t you run and play with me here among the teeming mass of humanity? The universe has spared us this moment.

2. We are gathered here in this place, in this time, in this way, as ensemble, that in unity with X and Y, we embark upon the journey from earthly impermanence to ascendance.

3. No longer mere people are we, but bright children of the stars. And together we shall dance in and out of ten billion years, celebrating the gift of consciousness until the stars themselves grow cold and weary, and our thoughts turn again to the beginning.

4. But when does life start but the when it is realized? Is not Living the virtue of Life? For what reason do we defer living in passion for the future? For what forgotten future do we concede our birthright? By what decree does Heaven reside atop an ivory tower, at which intersection Earth retains Her immutable separation?

5. Heaven lasts long, and Earth abides. What is the secret of their durability? Is it because they do not live for themselves that they endure so long?

6. It is not in life but in Relationship that eternity resides. And so in connecting to that which is greater than self, we may grow where we may have diminished. As said by Li Po:

7. We sit together,

the mountain and I,

until only the mountain remains.

8. Eternity lies ahead of us, and behind. X, have you drunk your fill? (No, I have not.) Y, have you drunk your fill? (No, I have not.)

9. From the delicate strands, between minds we weave out mesh: a blanket to warm the soul.

10. In this way your souls are bound together: no longer two, but as one. Like, kiss or whatever, if you want.

Note: The spacing is beyond my control.

cocaine disdain (v2)

October 18, 2012

My experience with cocaine was disappointing. Though there are greater implications than just the high.

My friend N invited me to an outing – curiously, I barely know him, though we reliably kick it whenever I’m in town, which is infrequently. Of all the odd relationships I have with people, this one is particularly unusual. We live very unlike lives and have unlike values. However, there is an irrational fondness as the driving force behind our friendship. On this occasion, I learned he had begun to sell coke.

I’ve tried cocaine before and it was somewhat fun, though stupidly expensive. If you’re looking for a rush, speed punches harder, lasts longer, is more available, and cheaper. But it’s less romantic. Make no mistake, I am not advocating for substance experimentation; I have no moral framework guiding this account, and am reflecting on the process because I believe it’s unusual for someone in my position to have this experience: I barely know the dude, no one in his social network, and the standard lifestyle among them is very far removed from the lifestyle I live.

So I show up after the core group has dissipated, around 2:00 am. But there came a new wave of people, gradually, as a second “course” took over the night. Everyone was boozing pretty tough, though I stayed dry through the evening. N’s phone became notably active at this time, many a conversation presumably going as thus (I only heard half).

Caller: “What are you doing tonight?”

N: “Drugs, man. Come over.”

So the folks en route came for coke. Turns out N was actually at work through the format of partying. The group was held together by him and his power to provide you with a $5 line, and he was very good at facilitating. I like the dude for his charisma, although he rolls with a much harder crowd than me, and so necessarily has an edgier front in said company. But when not in line for a line, you’re on your own to mingle and roam. Partying is a social event, right?

Anyrate, it’s 2:00 am as the ball gets rolling (a curiously appropriate drug euphemism.)

Some pleasantries. “Would you like to do some cocaine?”

“Yeah.”

So I did.

No real euphoria, and no mania, unlike everyone else. I felt calm, alert, tranquil, and reserved. Everyone else, on the other hand, became radically altered. Aggressive. Tweaky. Quite frankly, stupider. Even me: I tried to write about the event when I got home and had a jumble of garbage to review in the morning.

It also seemed to incite rap battling. I mean, people do this. I know people do this, but here I was. And I was impressed.

I effectively managed to blend in. In the beginning, I had no idea what these people were doing to socialize, and I stayed so long in part because I was trying to figure out how they managed to appear engaged while not actually saying or doing anything. If I were to watch any one person for a time, I came to realize they were all functionally doing the same thing as me. This is why my technique was fitting in. Being aloof in a normal social setting is uncomfortable, but here it was necessary.

A rap-off is a monologue. Taking a line is a transaction. A greeting follows a script of social cues. Making a drink justifies your presence in the room. Going out for a smoke gives you purpose to leave and return. In none of this is there the substance of interpersonal relating. But here, no one was the wiser.

What I have taken away from this experience: How often in day-to-day interaction do we suffer through this same oppressive act, settling for the facade that there’s humanity all around us? All the while we try and forget that it is all an illusion, and we are locked in a cage of maddening solitude. A great thirst awash at sea.

Here we were with all the coke and liquor to keep our hands busy and our minds numb. As thus do we refrain from going insane.

N kept insisting I was his best friend through the night. Coke talk, though it was, he was probably right.

pheromones part 1

September 8, 2012

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I came up with the fantasy of dousing my resume in a pheromone tincture to make it more appealing to an employer. People like people for pretty damn arbitrary reasons, as it is.

So simmering on this idea for a year, I finally took to researching the market for synthetic pheromones — types, brands, and efficacy. This report will contain summary findings of my research (in no particular order), and I expect to write a series of entries based on my experience in actuating this experiment.

Pheromones influencing organisms’ actions and attitudes is a real phenomenon. However, the effects on humans are questionable, as is the entire notion of applying a synthetic pheromone product to achieve ‘results.’ This whole category approaches snake oil territory. A wearer’s confidence is improved upon belief in their effectiveness, though let’s not discredit the placebo effect — it is, afterall, a real result. Part of the difficulty in the scientific community backing synthetic pheromones with supportive proof is that social interaction is a very multifaceted experience and it’s very challenging to break it down with certainty.

The best material I found in my research was anecdotal. I have seen reference to supposed scientific evidence, but I can find no sufficiently credible document. I won’t yet link to the specific product I ended up selecting because I’m not endorsing anything or anyone.

On to my findings/interpretations: I’ve discovered there are two basic paradigms of pheromone product, social and sexual. Within either camp are a myriad of ‘flavors’ that nuance the supposed effect. My initial motivator was to use them for non-sexual purposes, so that is where I am putting most of my attention. A social pheromone affects aspects such as talkativeness, trust, and status. I find the discussion on status to be the most interesting — a lot of pheromone products are marketed to improve status; to be an alpha male/female, or even to incorporate “beta” pheromones to soften the edge.

One can absolutely sense the presence of an Alpha on an intuitive plane. I’ve long believed a person’s status frequently does not align with actions, behaviors; or, necessarily, any justification. Though attitude is an essential part of this social type, consider the logic behind the “American dream;” anyone who works hard enough can rise their way up to being a rich 1%er. Lol.

I find it vindictive to believe this quality can be attributed to something controllable. I’m not the Alpha type; some people walk all over me, and some people adore me. The theory that status is derived from a chemical taste preference would suitably explain the experience: Some people respond to a person’s mix of pheromones so that they perceive that person as having status. Some people have a more universally accepted scent.

But I didn’t go down that path in my selection, I chose the talkative/trust option. Although I should meditate on exactly why this felt like the correct choice to me, intuitively I would explain that ‘Alpha’ people piss me off and so there was no appeal in that scene.

On to my experience, so far. Note: I haven’t received my order yet.

Whenever I get an idea, I love to talk about it with my friends or constituents. This means I told a lot of core people in my circle about my interest in, research of, and purchase of social pheromones; and also shared this information with the perspective of having faith in all of it.

So it came about that, last night, my buddy asked me if I got my order yet. I took this as an opportunity to try a ruse; I said yes, and pointed out all the effects they were having on everyone. Unfortunately, my temporary, subletting roommate does not satisfy the “core person” denomination in my circle. She had a particular reaction.

Pheromone use can come off rather clandestine, manipulative, and arrogant. Well, because it is. Friends of mine may think that’s cool; someone I’m not particularly close with could be put off.

It was a very small window of interaction (I only pulled the ruse for two minutes or so), but in this span, she very ostensibly ignored me, ultimately telling me she was. She left the room after I explained I was trolling.

(Note: “ostensibly ignored me” is the best I can explain a compound social cue. Actually this experience is what precipitated this entire blog entry and so I’m disappointed the actual story took one line once I got to it.)

The ruse drew the opposite effect of my stated goals when it came under scrutiny. Well, even if pheromones “work” I expect the results would be the same in a similar situation.

So the moral of Part 1 of my story: Pheromones are psychosomatic. More to be posted when I receive and test my order.

fourth wall

August 8, 2012

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All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts
-William Shakespeare

Every social interaction adheres to this idea — what the fuck is authentic interaction? Such is reserved for close friends. And even though it’s a rule that public presentation is governed by, everyone — even in private — still adheres to some sort of script. 999999999 academic theorists have expounded on this precept, and countless more ponder this phenomenon in various ways. And even as I write, the obviousness of this notion — the Fourth Wall — is so obvious that I feel silly even writing about it.

My point is not to holy-fuck-this-shit-exists, but to validate this schema of the struggle that I suffer. Everyone’s either an asshole or desperate.

“What do I say?” “How do I behave?” Proficiency of The Script is essential knowledge. Certainly there are different scripts for different scenarios; how do you learn all of them, or any one of them? Goddamn mysterious to me.

The highest achievement in relationship building is to break down the Fourth Wall. This means, in the end, characters are not fully determined by The Script. This means autonomous beings exist — and are independently interacting with each other.

Breaking down the Fourth Wall — this is generally a reserved benefactory. Fundamentally, this is what earns all titles in life, personal and public.

The moral of the story? Because all economic existence is predicated on situational falsehood: do whatever to be quasi-rich, or whatever. You’re destined not to be a 1%-er, because statistics. Fuck what you’ve been told, do what you want to do. This includes doing what you’re told — which seems contradictory, but occupational worth should not be diminished by some irrelevant, deceitful value statement.

*Maybe I’ll review this entry and edit it to make it less drunk. But I am, and sincere, so fuck it. I haven’t written in an extremely long while, and this is refreshing.

where to poem

May 1, 2012

A ship at sea, submissive to the mercy, will and temperament of the deluging heavens, surmises a defiant course in the face of overwhelming obstacle. Among the contours of the icy, boiling water there is no reprieve.

A metaphor in tribute to the throes of daily living, are we but cast about in the illusion of direction, as we encircle the maelstrom that should suck us under?

As rag dolls, we are merely docile creatures of potential. And though the machinations of the daily grind are so entrenching, we envision our vessels forthbound.

The only choice in the matter pertains to your crew and who’s in charge. Those you invite to navigate the wayward journey with you are thus of the most vital importance.

A vessel alone, that now upon whence there is only a chance should the mainstay prevail
Whose faculty, fortune and virtue attend now to challenge the peril, so as to curtail
A monstrously wicked, miscreant delinquent; the sea an assailant that brooks no avail.

And yet

I like it to be on the deck so that when I should fall,
With allies I’ll be as we fight for the health of the whole.
To live or let die is all well in the end should have all gave their all;
What’s now is no matter if long live the soul.

fuck-giving quotient

April 6, 2012

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The Fuck-Giving Quotient

This ratio is comprised of fucks-given to fucks-received; whose ideal is to remain as close to 0 as possible. Let’s explore the nuances.

The fuck is the essential, indivisible unit for this analysis. Thus fucks given and fucks received are of equal value; transactions can be comprised of many fucks, increasing the magnitude of the ratio. However, for the purpose of this model, the ratio is reduced to manageable figures.
If giving a fuck is to be avoided, the fuck given is something better off possessed. Thus fucks are a coveted psychic currency.
As fucks are psychic currency–immaterial–there is no determinate finite quantity. Fiat, if you will. They can be printed. But as they are also inherently valuable, inflation does not apply.
As currency, transactions are voluntary.

The danger in “Not giving a fuck” is the purpose behind this definition. In an intersocial, and intrasocial economy, a lack of cash-flow (fuck-flow) leads to a depression.

It’s rational self-interest in a depression to save your $ (fucks) and avoid expenditure. Thus, commonly a defense mantra, “I don’t give a fuck” is in reference to fuck-scarcity a priori.

The solution is a stimulated economy. To merely not give a fuck exacerbates the problem; fucks must be given. But a fuck-investor will not haphazardly place these investments; they must be smart investments and yield a return.

Of course it’s wise to be frugal where you invest yourself, in what you give a fuck for. So do continue not giving fucks as necessary.

I recommend a 1:3 fucks given to received. Here’s why.

If you give one fuck and receive one fuck, the ratio is 1. This is technically sustainable, better than alternatives, but alas you’re stagnant. Only from a growing portfolio are you likely to be invested in.
If you give one fuck and receive two, the ratio is .5. Keep it up, but this rounds up to 1. You can do better.
If you give one fuck and receive three: Now we’re talking business.
If you give zero fucks and receive any, you’re feudal lord status.
Zero given and zero received means you’re dead.

The moral of the story is to monitor your fuck-giving quotient. For what all you give, what is the return?

locus of creativity

March 28, 2012