#308

Drove to work bright and early this morning only to find the parking lot empty and the garage and gates locked. As I cruised the scene to make sure to myself that there was truly no one else there and no one was going to show up, the realization dawned: spent too long in the service industry. Too many years working every single holiday except Christmas Day and New Year's. Worked some of those, too. 

Pour one out for everyone consigned to the more permissive levels of modern slavery today. I need hardly mention that many should be poured out often for all those consigned to any form of modern slavery. A lot of bad shit happens to a lot of unlucky people every day, and in most cases, the people with the power to do something about it are prevented from doing so for a multitude of reasons both legitimately constraining and merely selfish. All those of us without such powers or constraints can do, we ought to, even if it's just to bear witness in our hearts, and feel something about it.

*

Indeed, being as we're already talking about this particular national holiday and gross, avoidable human misery, perhaps I'll allow myself a word or three on the way this Supreme Court majority is popping off. "Happy fucking fourth of July! Abortion is literally murder because of twelfth-century British common law, so fuck 2022, fuck society, and fuck women. The EPA can't tell anyone nothing! Every company that wants to belch all the carbon they can into the atmosphere can do so with impunity as far as we're concerned. And we're just getting started, you godless cumsluts. Lube those shitty little assholes while you can, 'cause we're coming in full bore."

Honestly fucking grim. I joke but do not laugh. Is it even a joke? Everything bad I was afraid would happen six years ago is happening, because every bad thing I was afraid would happen fourteen years ago happened. You don't even want to know the shit I'm afraid of right now. Happy fourth of July, we might not have another because our government is no longer a republic or a democracy. A cadre of unelected officials are dictating public policy with formal impunity to the detriment of the population, a corrupt and totally ineffectual legislative branch whines for the camera--all the majority of them know how to do, seemingly--and an ancient, doddering figurehead moans and gestures from a discredited office. 

I dunno, man. Just looks shitty. Like some fast-forward fall of Rome shit. Checks and balances right out the fucking window.

Ah, well. What can you do but watch it play out and try to make the best decisions you can based on what you see. Personally, I'll just keep going to work and reading books. Perhaps lay by a goodly stock of nonperishable goods and potable water. Pray and think, and think and pray. Practice dying an honest man in my mind, that I may be ready if called upon.

--JL

#307

Ugh! Time. It passes, events in its slipstream mass, accrete, gain specific gravity, and settle into an orbit from which they are difficult to deviate by main force. Took a whole trip to Chicago since last I posted! Had a little ten-day vacation between the end of school and taking on work as a bus washer until school starts up again! Also, have had a lot of intricate, heavily plotted dreams wherein having sex with a variety of extremely hot women was integral to many of them, about one woman every three dreams. This probably indicates that I could use a girlfriend, but who knows. Sometimes extracurricular romance is a healthy and natural thing (provided all generals and particulars are honest, open, and aboveboard) and sometimes it's the devil in you, jerking you around by the glands. Hard to say! Hard to say.

*

Chicago is always pretty cool. Love being in that city. As a born city boy, merely the sight of many tall buildings, let alone being amongst them, is soothing to the mind. Love a small town, love the great wilderness even more, farms are cool, I can hang anywhere and thrive, but there's something about a city that is particular, and that something particular to each city, and I love Chicago and Chicago's particular thing very much. My dad used to work there, both my brothers went to college there. It's a thing with our family, hanging out in Chicago. Ezra hadn't been since some barely-remembered middle school trip, so we did some basic tourist things; crashed at an err bee and bee on the south side, up to the big skydeck on top of Willis Tower (I would say the weirdest part of Sears being in its grave is decidedly the new name for the tower--why couldn't they have kept the name on, I wonder? Because we fucking hate history in this country, history can fuck off and die, we say--the new Skydeck, incidentally, had a lot less history than it did the last time I was up there), Shedd Aquarium, all day the next day at the Field Museum basically, and on the last day we wandered about Millennium Park till it was time for the train to leave. Next time we'll do some more stuff like that but also try to get to a couple of the neighborhoods less traveled and also try to spend more time there in general. I like to spend a lot of time in museums, and can easily spend two days in the Chicago Institute of Art. Like to see Pilsen and Hyde Park, too. We took the Line everywhere, as is right and proper. 

*

We had breakfast at this place kind of at the bottom of a hotel near the lake twice called Little Branch--man, that place was just rad. Loved their digs, their food, and their smoothies. Also had a big ole cup of Mexican chocolate and that was extremely legit as well.

*

Everything, of course, cost way too much damn money, But that's part of it. So fuck it.

*

Doing a thing of reading several books at once at the moment. Here is what they are and how it is going:

Still reading John Milton's Paradise Lost. I dunno, I like it, and I read bunches of it at once, but it doesn't seem to finish. And there's two more poems in the book after that, Samson Agonistes and Lycidas. Damn, boy. I mean. he's good, he's fucking brilliant and all, but damn. Something about it is just slow.

Los Años Extraordinarios, by Rodrigo Cortés--pretty early on, but it's damn awesome. I read a lot slower in Spanish--maybe have mentioned this--but it's important, so we soldier on. In this case in particular, gotta stop and look up words pretty much on every page 'cause the dude has a word fetish, which is cool. Yet, there's a reason I need to break this thing up with other books.

Sometimes a Great Notion, by Ken Kesey--loving this bad boy. The one on which progress is proportionally the most voracious at the moment. Kesey really is fucking Steinbeck-level Great American Novelist, boys, you heard it from me and you can take it to the bank. Might have to reread Sailor Song soon. There's a book that smacked my brain and changed me around.

Jason & Medeia, by John Gardner--call me what you want. but this is way fucking better than Paradise Lost. Like, way better. This shit is intense and way more readable. Dope poem, makes me want to work on something like this that's been rattling in my brain for a long time.

*

Whichever one of these I finish first will give way to Steppenwolf, by Hermann Hesse. Love my Hesse. Gotta find that book of fairy-stories of his, that shit is fire. Also everything the man wrote, pretty much.

*

Ok bye gotta eat gotta write more still getting used to everything but hardcore production will, I pray, resume sooner rather than later because I really want it to ok yes cool peace

--JL

#306

Made mention yesterday of how yard work is perhaps not my preferred task; not really my thing. Did some yesterday and even more today, and this served as a reminder that often, at least when under your own steam as opposed to under coercion--and if one can do it under coercion, more power to one--the trick to activity is to just bear with it till the endorphins kick in and you can lose yourself in it, do philosophy, listen to the voice of God. This can take a lot of time, but I believe there's a knack for it one can foster and encourage within themselves. Some people are probably born with it, but growing up, I had to force myself to do anything I didn't immediately enjoy and demonstrate a talent for.

If you are like this yourself, I recommend sticking with stuff--the payoff's pretty good even if the thing is bullshit and doesn't really matter. One of the great significances of life is giving meaning of yourself to whatever lies before you. Also in raising your skill ceiling whenever possible, gaining cross-class skills, just generally increasing your capacity. There is joy in watching your own numbers go up before they inevitably roll back to zero. The question of where we put our points is the question of who we are as people, which, personally, is a vital question indeed.

*

Plip ploop! These posts sure are a lot of nothing. Well, I'm finding my way back to it. Though pointlessness is the name of this game, so, I really can't lose, except when I make a point, which is still an ironic win. Tasting nothing but pure victory, time after time, baby. Love it.

Will tomorrow be the day my words catch fire and I give this space something more real, brighter, harder, alive? Something to chew on and come into? Strap in. Maybe for nothing. Who knows! Uncertainty rules this chaotic existence with an wavering, unsteady scepter.

PEACE, MUTHAFUX

--JL

#305

Gotta chop some lawn. The city says so! Absolutely fucking hate that, but hate will not deter fees and civic action, so, gotta chop some lawn. Haven't had to deal with that need in some years, so my calluses ain't built, which is annoying. Don't make use of gas-powered implements, so things are harder and more time-consuming than they might otherwise be, but overall, this is worth it. Nice to burn calories and harden the body, nice to have a bit of relative quiet and more intentionality about the task. If I am personally swinging a tool and seeing and hearing and smelling the grass cut and fall without the interposition of a motor and fumes, I'm relatively happier, though I don't enjoy yard work all that much in any case.

Picked up a few books from a bookstore, which I haven't done in a long time. Money, you know. Still wasn't really trying to spend a lot of dough, but figured whatever, though. Whatever! I really fuckin wanted some new books that didn't come in the mail. The mail is nice, but it's not the same. So, books acquired since I mentioned it last:

Mail Books:

World Hidden in Plain Sight: The Evolving Idea of Complexity at the Santa Fe Institute, 1984-2019, ed. David C. Krakauer

History, Big History, & Metahistory, ed. David C. Krakauer, John Lewis Gaddis, Kenneth Pomeranz

Store Books: 

1Q84, Murakami Haruki

I and Thou, Martin Buber, transl. Walter Kaufmann

Musth, Ashwini Bhasi 

*

It's a very beautiful day. Beautiful enough to chop lawn without too much grousing about it. Think I'll do outside stuff now, and if I approach this keyboard again today, it will be to write in other text fields. However, I said I'd be here today yesterday, and I say today that I will be here tomorrow--praying that it is the start of a renewed period of productivity. The harrowing silence of non-production has been bothering my mind, and a stand must be took.

Peace, universal lovers

--JL

#304

We're going to blame the seeking of neurochemical stability and balance on the lack of posts and creative output in general. Guess also I should admit to myself that my office is not a super great place to write in yet, but making it better seems like too much hard work at a time when there's lots of other hard and necessary work to choose from and also I just want to chill a bit.

Back to to the brain chemistry: it's not strange being off everything, which is the strange part. I mean, because I'm the type of person who invests a lot of energy into the types and forms of bodily, psychic, and spiritual consumption they're undertaking in particular, I am concentrating on vitamin intake, nutritional supplements, and the timing of hydration and exercise with more zeal then when I smoked and drank--weed, tobacco; caffeine, alcohol. Once was a time I would eat a big spoonful of wheat germ for breakfast, have a small lunch at the Chinese place I worked at, and take the rest of my calories as brown liquor and foamy beers, smoking all the day and night. Occasionally, eggs, or a peanut butter sandwich. Didn't drink coffee back then. Started with the coffee in earnest when I quit drinking the first time. I would also drink cans of flavored sparkling water by the case, and smoke my cigs, though I'd left weed at that point as well. Even at points when I'd quit the rest, I'd stick with one; caffeine and nothing else at one point, weed and nothing else at another. But I haven't used nothing, nothing at all on the daily, since schoolboy days, basically.

Feeling fine, but at the same time, there are things I have to figure out how to do and carve the space for again. Writing is the main thing. A better chair, a lower desk, time, better organizing the writing space. In truth, I've done a great bulk of my writing recumbent, which is part of why my laptops tend to fall apart, but that's my most habitual zone. The most important ingredient will be time.

Truly, I am exhausted from merely this small effort. But I will nail myself to the duty of getting another one out tomorrow, The discipline must begin again. 

--JL

#303

Been avoiding writing about much that is topical in terms of world events in the blog for quite some time. Admittedly, been avoiding the blog itself for a little while, which always happens when I move. It is more difficult for me to be productive with writing when my books are not in some form of organized shape, and they are not right now, but there's lots to do each day--and I'm not the best at prioritizing my most private inner needs, even though they're essentially the most important ones. For me. But like, dishes gotta get done. Kids gotta get bussed to school, and bussed home--at least, if I want a paycheck they do. Shit needs cleaning. Etc. All that is more vital to me, these days, than virtual spaces and distant lands. Also I feel driven to record more lush memories in this space, to make it more autobiographical, though this is hard and time-consuming work.

However, I care deeply about virtual spaces and distant lands, and I do read stuff and have my considered opinions. Six years back, in the truly dark times of 2016, my addiction to information and news media of many varieties reached critical mass and I collapsed in on myself. In the time this blog has run I have practiced dipping my toes in, commenting occasionally, largely because while I was not ON twotter, I was still using. Since I quit that mess completely, it has been easier to just get the essentials and move on with my life.

This business in Ukraine is in its third month, though, and I have so many high-concept notions around it, and Russian policy in general, and multipolarity & globalization, the furthered sagas of covid, the further sagas of cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens, and this new Chinese autonomous ship class that went from announcement to reality in a year, business news in all its great variety--all these are things I take careful note of, and think about commensurately. So many conflicts! So much progress, and so much backwards thinking and commentary about it from so many quarters, while the real game runs faster and harder and smarter than ever before! I just drooled a tiny bit.

Whatever it is in me that cares about the big picture, about history in the distant past and history carving itself out in blood right now today and where the twain intermix in ferocious, glorious alchemy--I mean, it's an unbelievably exciting time to be alive. All that really happens in life materially, though, is gas prices are up and I have to put away some laundry. So who really cares, really, truly? I shouldn't. But I do. Is the blog better or more useful when I am writing about the complexities of the now that we share virtually, or when I am waxing philosophical and reporting on the mundane intricacies of my own quiet life?

Anyway, sometime in the next series of days I'll try to strike a balance; post something autobiographical, post something about current events, those wicked, heady current events. Past and present. Innerworld and outerworld. 

Today, I dunno. Think this is all I got today. Felt good to type it, though. 

--JL

#302

Better. Feeling, that is. A little better. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be something approaching the new 100% fitness, sans caffeine, sans anything resembling a vice except a touch of sugar once a day. Suppose some consider video games a vice, but I don't know what to say to those people except most of what you can say about video games, positive and negative, can be said about books and paintings and music and basically art in general. If, in your worldview, art is a negative, your confusion is so total that we won't be able to communicate very effectively at all. I mean, you have to suspend your morals just to use language.

Well, anyhow, I also choose to retain the right to smoke a fine cigar on occasions. 

There's a decent chance that rather than waking up fine tomorrow, I will be awoken by an awful headache which is only tolerable in one single precisely upright sitting position, with my head held at one single precise angle; any deviation from this stasis will cause stabbing, otherworldly pain. It should go away in time for me to start work, but it's not a great way to pop the cork on a day. This happened a few times last time I quit drinking coffee.

Point of quitting caffeine is to give me more time and focus in the early mornings to exercise and maybe write a little. Making coffee takes a long time, being as we hand-grind beans and use a chemex-style coffeemaker. This makes for superior coffee. However, I'm also always torn between looking for more independence and imbibing chemicals as a ritual, but right now, I'm in independence mode, and I'm sick of needing coffee, from having to make it to having to sit and drink it. Rather be doing stuff. It's just not time I want to give to a thing anymore. And the contingencies of dependency always bother me. It's the best way for me to motivate myself to stop doing something--the strategic vulnerability, the weakness of need. Can't rely on cigs for sanity buffering; can't afford it in any sense. Can't rely on caffeine for anything; gotta be able to get up and go without aid, without guaranteeing painful incapacitation if I can't for any reason get it.

Yes, the less need the better. For example, it is time to end this post, because my need for nutrition is interfering with my drive to create. And needs must, dear reader.

--JL