—NOW I WALK AROUND BACKWARD

  

Help

 

It helps if you have cocaine. 

It helps if it’s an old story, but not one about the sad moon, or a drunk dad who does the same unspeakable things all inebriated fathers do. 

It helps if it’s storming outside, hail ricocheting off the roof, same as that perpetual haunt pushing up beneath your skin, like a trapped beetle, needling you again to say something you can’t, and never do. 

It helps if your therapist nods off while you’re sharing about the six-month period your parents became nudists, their saggy bits barely covered in pubic hair that resembled month’s old alfalfa sprouts.

It helps if you haven’t eaten since Tuesday.

It helps if your heart is shattered and you feel guilty that it isn’t your fault this time either. 

It helps to sink into a frigid bath of pity and self-loathing, gasping Fuck quietly in a shaky voice no one will ever hear. 

It helps to have a broken mirror nearby, one with the backing cardboard showing through, lightning-shaped shards glinting in the sink like so many sins. 

It helps, too, if your soulmate dog died recently, twenty minutes after you rush her to the emergency vet, where you forget her collar and they call you five days later to say so. 

It helps, too, if you’ve stopped seeing colors and it helps if you don’t put that razor to your wrist, because you have thighs after all, and there’s a thumbtack for that. 

It helps, they say, if you have a pen or a keyboard handy, though no one’s ever going to understand anything you’ve written anyway, how could they? But it helps.

—LEAVE A LIGHT ON FOR YOURSELF

 

1841

 

He would call me after a sparrow flew into the window, though he never knew about the dead birds, how could he, drunk as he always he was, his voice slurpy-sounding as if he was sipping on some kind of stone soup, and I’d be at work when he’d call so they’d have to page me through the store’s speakers, using the special code I’d given them, Len Kuntz 1841, sometimes it was for Mariners tickets, sometimes to tell me what a shit brother I’d become for living in a stucco mansion like a rich prick, but he could also be inventive, even fucked up by noon, like once my brother claimed he’d killed a guy and laughed about it, though as I said, he was a perpetual and spectacular drunk, a 13 year-old kid when he ran away, ten years older than me, so I never knew him until these calls started, and then before he died, I learned things I didn’t want to know about him, though his son needed to tell someone, so I listened and nodded and said I’m sorry because I meant it, although what I wanted to say was I’m disgusted, and then a few days later at the burial site while the pastor expressed false gibberish, I looked over my nephew’s shoulder into the guts of some nearby trees expecting to see dead sparrows hanging from their limbs, but instead it was two crows, black as migraine spots, and these birds they were just dawdling, shooting the shit you might say, or maybe they were mere strangers, with nothing else to do, just getting to know each other, stooped there on that crooked branch, on that humid August afternoon as we buried my brother.

—MAYBE THERE’S A BETTER WAY TO SAY THINGS, BUT I HAVEN’T FIGURE THAT OUT YET 

 

 

… "You plod along and you find the humor, and you say thank you for the trees, thank you for life. Life is a miracle." Beatrice Stieber, 102-years old

 

…Worrying less is a good start. But how do you get there?

 

…I’ve been learning to get out my own way more, and so far, it’s working out fairly well.

 

…Isn’t it crazy the things you can’t remember anymore?

 

…“Dance when you’re broken open.

       Dance if you’ve torn the bandage off.

    Dance in the middle of the fighting.

        Dance in your blood.

       Dance when you’re perfectly free.”

        --Rumi

 

…It’s incredulous to me that the people who have the greatest ability to do something about the narcissistic buffoon in The White House just sit there, nod, grin, and do nothing. Is there really nothing left of your moral being? Is your spouse proud of you? Your kids? What does the mirror really tell you when you look into it hoping to see who you are?

 

…I don’t always get there, but with certain people I try, I always try to look them straight in the eye.

 

…You’re just supposed to do the best you can, but honestly, do any of us really do that?

 

…What is it about the feeling you get when you check off things on your to-do list that makes you feel hopeful?

 

…It’s really hard to hide when you don’t know who you’re hiding from.

 

…What a feeling it is—another person believing in you.

 

…The nice thing about being silent is you can’t be misquoted.

 

…When the stakes are high, the right answer always feels like it’s the wrong one.

 

…I don’t really believe in karma, but I’ve always liked to believe that the kindness you show others finds a way back to you in some form or other. And well, if it doesn’t, so what?

 

…The problem with motivation is it’s hardly ever there when you need it most.  

 

…“I’m attracted to intelligence and creativity and passion – and not necessarily the romantic kind. I want to learn from someone who is greedy for information and light and laughter and the whole world. Someone who celebrates their days and finds inspiration in what other people accomplish.” Renee Zellweger

 

…The average person has 70,000 thoughts a day.

 

…For me, one of the great joys is discovering a new poet whose voice and style I can connect with. It’s a little bit like falling in love with a pen pal you’ll never meet. 

 

…Austria had its second mass shooting the other day, a horrific event. That’s two mass shooting for them in the last 22 years, compared with 109 in the US during the same time period. 

 

…The things that scratch your brain are usually the ones to give ample attention to.

 

…I often remember this woman (a legend at the company I worked for) who once admonished my excitement by saying, “Len, if it sounds too good be true, that’s because it is.”

 

…The only thing better than hearing a bunch of Italian youngsters talking is hearing them giggle.

 

…I hope they’re not bluffing when they say, It’s never too late.

 

…Killing your inner critic always helps.

 

…“People’s behavior tells you exactly where you stand in their life. You need to understand: This is very black and white. You are either a priority or you are not. There is no middle ground.” Mel Robbins

 

…I haven’t seen Bud (the beaver) in quite some time, even though I’ve often been up about when he swims the lake in the morning. I always wonder—Did I just miss him? Did he just do the whole lake underwater? Or has something bad happened? 

 

…It seems unbelievable, but it’s true: Every year 2,000 new marine species are discovered.

 

…“And if I’d been looking for good apples in a bad year for apples, I’d have missed it.” Greg Kosmicki

 

…I keep thinking, I’m getting there. I’m getting there. I’m almost there. But am I really?

 

…NYC again topped a list of the wealthiest cities in the world with 384,500 millionaires, 818 centimillionaires and 66 billionaires. San Fran came in second with 342,400 millionaires.

Make of it what you will.

 

…“We didn’t want this show to be a show which has answers. We wanted this to be a giant question mark, which said, ‘We’ve got a problem here.’” Stephen Graham, writer of Adolescence

 

…Even if they’re a total jerk and a complete asshole, if they really, truly love art, I’ll listen to what they have to say.

 

…Even when it’s 90 out there, it can get really cold in here.

 

…Most times, “Thank you,” never seems sufficient, but if it’s delivered in a quiet way, I always feel it differently.

 

…I’m not sure what it means to be a poet laureate (though I do like that it’s never capitalized). Maybe I’ll just proclaim myself the poet laureate of Flowing Lake and see what the fishes think about that.

 

…“Someone is always going to be disappointed by the decisions you make. Don’t ever let it be you that’s disappointed.” Mel Robbins

 

…What kind of arrogant, name-calling, egotistical toddler does this?

Meanwhile, Trump attacked Newsom on Truth Social and other platforms. “The very incompetent ‘Governor,’ Gavin Newscum, and ‘Mayor,’ Karen Bass, should be saying, ‘THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP, YOU ARE SO WONDERFUL. WE WOULD BE NOTHING WITHOUT YOU, SIR,’” Trump wrote Monday in a Truth Social post that has received 53,000 likes.

 

…A little vulnerability can go a long way.

 

…I used to think jetlag was a hoax, but then again, I used to think a lot of things that I don’t think anymore.

 

…I’ve always thought that the best teachers are those who don’t just tell you what to do, but they show you how to do it.

 

…“Life needed these moments where you felt the split of who you were and who you became. Without those moments, what was your life? Just an unbroken line that went from birth to death.” Kevin Wilson, Run for The Hills

 

…“Time needs another minute at least/Take your time, but you’ve got a limit.” Sly Stone

 

…You can say whatever you want about Joe Biden, but would he ever post something like this?

"They stole the 2020 election and hijacked the country using a decrepit corpse as a frontman."

 

…And isn’t it funny how there was absolutely no election fraud whatsoever this last time around? I mean, since you-know-who won?

 

…Turns out the meaning of life is not even three minutes long, and it’s right here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAaMJ4mjG9I

 

…According to a U of Kansas study, to become a casual friend, you have to spend 74 hours with someone. To become a close friend, you have to spend over 200 hours with them.

 

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader. Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.” Robert Frost

 

…I was the only person in my family to ever get cold sores. From a young age, I got them, sometimes really bad ones. And I’d get nosebleeds as well when no one else did. I wonder what that means.

 

….“Hate is a strong word, but I really, really don’t like you.” Plain White Tees

 

…When pastors stop talking about Jesus and start talking about politics, it’s all over for me.

 

…God knows I’ve got my problems.

 

…Brian Wilson’s death struck me surprisingly hard. He was very troubled, obviously, and if you’re to be honest, The Beach Boys’ songs had great hooks, but their early lyrics were pretty juvenile and lame, not unlike one of my favorite bands of all time, The Brothers Gibb. But “In My Room” and “God Only Knows” and “Caroline, No,” those were brilliant through and through.

 

…I remember once introducing my Admin to Tony Orlando and Dawn and her coming in to share her reaction, which was, “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard.” My daughter said the exact same thing when I shared Air Supply with her.

 

…Right now, near dusk, the different guys on their boats out on the lake are gray silhouettes. The look like something Donatello would have sculpted, or Carver would have written about.

 

“I’m not an activist or an advocate, or a spokesperson or someone on some mission. I like being free to have a point of view. I guess I do have a truth. I have a point of view, but I try not to have an agenda. Again and again and again, I find that if I show up and sit with people and am willing to accept what they offer with an open mind and heart, then people will tell me rather extraordinary things about themselves and the world that they live in. I’m not a reporter—and that’s a luxury.” Anthony Bourdain

 

…I guess men are supposed be really good at grilling. They’re also not supposed to wear pink, but I wore my jacket yesterday nonetheless.

 

…I know not everyone had a John in their life, and I don’t take it lightly that I did.

 

…Most days it’s hard to imagine dying.

 

…Today, though, right this second, it’s good to be alive.  

—LET’S PRETEND IT’S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD

 

MAGA and the Unbeliever

  

He’s old enough to know better 

almost 88 in September 

but still wears that red cap 

to the hardware store Kroger Costco 

church where Jesus who embodied 

love is the star attraction 

a worthy mentor for anybody 

believer or not and because 

he’s up there in years he 

gets rightful respect he gets 

a pass for things like donning 

his shrieking siren cap

and though he’s almost blood of mine 

I hold him at our door nonetheless

say take it off please or leave 

the first time I’ve ever asked 

my father in-law for anything 

the first time I ever picked Jesus over him 

and knew with certainty

which one to believe in

 

—I WROTE A LETTER TO THE KID ON THE SUN

 

The Missing Boy

 

She fell in love with the missing boy. Found a faded poster clinging to a pole by its last rusted staple. He’d be about her age now, 14, she figured. And though he’d been gone half her lifetime, the boy bloomed at once in maturity before her eyes. He looked like no one she’d ever met or seen, sure not her brothers who forced her to keep their dark secrets. Couldn’t love be a secret, too, she wondered, a good one? And so she tucked the flyer inside her sock, happy to feel it brushing up her ankle when she walked, though halfway down the road to her house, she went left instead, and decided to skip.

 

—SORRY, NOT SORRY

 

 

…I always think I’m the one who listens most and talks less, but maybe I’m all wrong about that.

 

…It must be nice to one day just decide you’re no longer afraid of heights and then, just like that, you’re not anymore.

 

…Do you ever talk to yourself? Like, out loud? I never used to, but I sure do now. I even talk back to myself.

 

....Did you lose yourself, or your self-esteem?

 

…“There are two moments worthwhile in writing, the one when you start and the other when you throw it in the waste-paper basket.” Samuel Beckett

 

…That could be the story of my life.

 

…Giraffes, deer and squirrels are my favorite three animals. I’ve told a few people that, but none have ever asked me, Why? Until the other day. And that caught my attention.  

 

…Wind puppets are another thing that makes me happy whenever I see them.

 

…I’m probably the only one alive who has never seen a falling star.

 

…But fireflies, I’ve seen some of those.

 

…I just can’t. I can’t get my head around how anyone other than a vapid soulless person can support him. (I know, I know. I keep bringing him up, but I don’t want to. I really don’t, yet it’s inescapable, even when you try so hard to avoid it.) So, is it okay to call everyone in a past administration “scum”? Is that what a Christian would do? Is that the kind of President we want? Do we want to raise our children to call others they don’t like, or even detest, “scum”? Would the country and world be better if we all went around calling others “scum”? If you can listen and watch this insane lunatic day-to-day and be happy with his conduct, or even anywhere close to satisfied with it, then I hope I never meet you.

And “scum” is just a sliver.

 

…What I’ve realized is that when friends share something, I automatically compare what they’ve said to anything similar I might have experienced myself. And then I have to check myself, because that’s not why they shared it—to hear your personal history on the subject. In that moment, it’s theirs alone, so let them have it.  

 

…In my other diary, all I ever write about is the weather. 

 

…The other day my son asked me, “Do you know anyone without vices, or like without even one?” And I said, “Too many.”

 

…“A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn’t.” Tom Waits

 

…In the film, “What Women Want” Mel Gibson’s character miraculously becomes gifted with the ability to read/hear the thoughts of every woman he encounters. I always thought I’d want that, to know what people really thought about me. But I wouldn’t want to know that now.    

 

…I always get a little nervous, and suspicious when someone begins a sentence with, “Can I ask you something?”  

 

…Kim Chinquee is a writer I’ve admired for a long time and I once actually posted an interview on here that I’d done with her. When I asked her (probably the worst question you can ask a writer) “Why do you write?” she answered, “Why does one do anything at all?” I think about her response quite often, and I wonder, Yeah, why?

 

…I don’t mean this as Woe is me, but my parents never taught us any nursery rhymes growing up. The first time someone referenced one, they didn’t believe I had no idea what they were talking about. Now, when anyone quotes a nursery rhyme, a writer or a person on TV, I pay really close attention.

 

…I'm grateful that we can now use the words therapy or meds as if they’re the same as gym class or aspirin. It didn’t always used to be that way.

 

…What drinking did for me was to make me braver than I am or ever will be. I think that’s why I always miss it so much.

 

…I can usually tell, within five minutes, if I’m going to like a show, if I’m going to be able to sit with it for a long time, get immersive and appreciate the acting and storytelling and not feel as if I’m witnessing a story that’s acted out badly, with poor writing and direction.

It’s typically the same way with me and strangers. If I meet a person for the first time, I can usually tell within five minutes if I’m going to like them, but more important still, if I’m going to trust them.

Sometimes, though, I’m wrong. And I’m always glad I am when that happens.

 

…Would you rather be surprised about getting a random gift, or get a heads-up that it’s coming?

 

…Were you a kid who woke up early and shook their present under the tree, trying to judge the jostle inside, the heft and noise of it? Did you ever carefully peel back the tape, just enough so you could see the box label, then slyly tamp down that stub of tape and the ripped edge of wrapping? If you were, good for you.

 

…The Five Love Languages is a book I read reluctantly, but it changed my life in a lot of ways. It changed the way I think about love.

 

…I love animals, but I hate zoos. Which is stupid, because every person who works at a zoo is probably an incredible person, underpaid by a lot, I’m guessing, who only works there because they love animals more than the rest of us. But still—the cages, the bars…

 

…Speaking of…Long story, but I’ll try to be brief. My brother and I caught a Blue-tailed-racer once and kept it in a Folgers can with airholes punched through the plastic stopper-top. Blue-tailed racers are beautiful snakes, colorful, slippery and slithering though hard to catch. We had a number of them out in our backyard, around summertime, just up the path behind our trailer.

So my brother and I caught one, named it and kept it, and our dad said, “You boys don’t know what you’re getting into.” It sounded ominous, but we were kids, punks really, so we just thought, Fuck off old man.

But then the snake got loose and dad found it dangling from one of those beet-colored, rusted pipes in the belly of our makeshift trailer where dad would have a work station of sorts, to tool leather belts (many, which he’d use on us), and so he took us outside and did just that, bare-bottomed in the glaring sun, both of us, my brother and I. But you know what? We laughed the whole time. Really. We laughed and kept laughing while it was happening because Louie (that was the snake’s name. I remember now) had gotten free. And we weren’t jealous he'd escaped. We were so happy, it was one of the happiest days of my childhood.

 

…“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” James Baldwin

 

…Lifting weights is the epitome of vanity, is it not? But, so what? It feels good to look a little better than you did before.

 

…I see Pete all the time (and I’m grateful), but I haven’t seen Bud in months. That’s a little unsettling, especially since most times I’m up before dawn when he would usually by swimming westward across the lake. 

 

…It’s not a test, but sometimes it feels like it is.

 

…Sleep is exhausting.

 

…Sometimes all you have to do is say, “Hey,” and that’s enough. 

 

…“Travel is the medicine that fights racism.” Pavlov

 

…You may not believe in Jesus, but you sure as hell had better believe in Satan. Just turn on the news.

 

…Who needs “existential threats” when the real ones are right here?

 

…I rarely use exclamation marks in any form of writing. Maybe it’s the Show-Don’t-Tell drilled into me. Or maybe I just want it to be special to the person I do write it to, instead of it being another overused platitude or symbol.

 

…Working your way back is always the tricky part. 

 

…I hate whenever I use clichés, but well, you know sometimes…

 

…One of my biggest fears is driving on these country roads here late at night and hitting a deer. Not sure how I’d ever get over that. 

 

…“James Joyce: His writing is not about something. It is the thing itself.” – Samuel Beckett

 

… The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

--Elizabeth Bishop

 

—IT’S NOT ALWAYS PRETTY, EVEN IF IT’S TRUE

 

The Dogs Were Good (Again)

 

As if they had a choice, chained to the backyard fence, whimpering in the freeze like the weaklings you said they’d be. I threw some dry ham bones and snouted one, remembering to laugh as you’d said to. None of them ever barked, which made me wonder what good they were even after the spray hose shot ice bullets and dirt nails across their fur. Last night, I took dinner by candlelight and ate my steak facing the window, holding up each forkful so the moonglow caught the juice dripping, precisely the way you said I should if they were ever dopes again. Not one of them pulled on the links, not even the mom of those two scrawny runts, which made me wonder—what good is it having a mother anyway?

—WAS YOUR SMILE ALWAYS CROOKED?

 

Beautiful Nowhere

 

On the cruise ship deck every pale person (we’re all white) is sucking up Greek sun hoping it will make them dark but not red or black, and the blonde woman I thought I liked is in a chair two over with her friend but she won’t shut the fuck up, not even as the Filipino waiter guy entertains us impromptu with a nasty-as-hell pole dance, gyrating his groin against one of the pillars to hoots and applause, entertainment cheap as dust here, if you can afford it.

Last night the entire Filipino crew put on a talent show singing Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Aretha and Bruno Mars as we all waved like a wheat field shimmering in the sun, but now the blonde lady (remarkably) ( admirably in some ways) is still jabbering though it’s about Trump and how he wants to stop the genocide of white people in South Africa, and I’m thinking I’m just about as white as those poor endangered guys but I’m not so sure I want to be white anymore, or even American, and I know how self-righteous I sound in this poem, or probably in every poem I’ve ever written, and from my safe shell-shaped seat I have an interesting view of the blonde woman’s head because she’s pulled her hair back, held there by a gold mollusk-looking clip, so that it’s really more than just her head I’m seeing, it’s like I’m seeing all the way inside her skull, and, yep, she’s still yammering and I’m still annoyed though why should I be, me here in the Aegean sea where she and me have the same thinking tool hanging above our necks and both of ours are working overtime at the same time in this exact moment on a cruise ship in beautiful nowhere that would cost an African a fortune he can’t conceive of in his fine-functioning skull, and I could be wrong or the blonde woman could be, but we’ll never know now because the sun’s bowing out of this movie, taking the whole view with it.

 

—NOW I’M IN IT

 

 

…The truth is, the things you think are so amazing and profound are never going to seem as amazing and profound to anyone else. So, get over yourself.

 

…Sometimes missing the boat is the best thing that can happen to you.*

 

…You know I’m not talking to you, right?

 

…“If it doesn’t matter in five years, it doesn’t matter.” Cher, on the best advice she ever received about how to be happier 

 

…Ultimately, someone always pays, or should, though it never fixes anything.

 

…All of my writer friends threw around the word “anaphora” the other day, like it was as commonplace as “shit” or “breakfast” but it wasn’t a word I knew, or know now, since I’ve yet to look it up.

 

…If you don’t remember a name, does it mean you don’t care to remember?

 

…No one should be able to ruin your day, but it happens.

 

…I wish when I read, “The U.S.” does this or that, that I still loved my country, that I cared what it did, or didn’t do.  

 

…Sometimes a dream you have makes so much sense that you get out of bed and stumble around at 2am just so it’ll stop, or be over, so you can try to understand why it happened in the first place.

 

…Sufjan Stevens could murder an entire family, and I would deny he did, and I would still love him to the end.

 

…You know you’re in another headspace when you think, You know what? I want to hear “Messy” right now. 

Again.

 

…There’s something about someone saying nice things about your writing—when you can tell they’re sincere and really mean it—that makes you believe in yourself again. You shouldn’t need another’s approval because look where a lot of famous artists would be if they gave up after hearing someone lambast their skill. But still, it helps.

 

…It’s amazing how much you can say when you don’t know what you’re talking about.

 

…“Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I have taken for granted.” Sylvia Plath

 

…I never want to know what I know until after I’ve fucked it up.

 

…I really wish politicians could be banned from using “The American people.” Every time I hear them start off with that, the first thing I think is: How do you know what I think, or want? and by the way, what you’re going to say next is something I have never in my life thought, or wanted.  

 

…If I ever post “It Helps” on here and you happen to read to the fourth stanza, let me know what you think? My writing instructor said that part was so funny she spat out the tea she was drinking. Only it wasn’t meant to be funny. 

Not at all.

 

…It’s pretty easy to mock Christians, I get it. But Jesus, he’s a different matter altogether.

 

…Another thing I have to be better at is—just because it means a certain thing to you, doesn’t mean anyone else is going to understand it, if you don’t explain yourself first, and well enough.

 

...You can lie all you want, but you don’t get a badge for that.

 

…It’s the tender things I love most now, or maybe I always have and didn’t realize it until recently.

 

…When you talk like that, it hurts like hell, but why should it?

 

…It’s amazing, isn’t it? If you pause a few seconds and look just look around—there’s wonder everywhere.

 

…The fact that you can be there, but not be there whatsoever is a sad one, and one of life’s biggest challenges.

 

…When you’re raised from a very young age, say five years-old, by a man who’s not your father, well, that’s the man who becomes your father. Biology is important, obviously, but if you break it down (and I know this sounds crude) it’s just one sperm latching onto an egg. Why does that hold so much significance? It’s happenstance, or so I think. Love, Show-Don’t-Tell, that’s the difference, that’s what matters in the end, and all along. 

 

…“‪Everything you do matters.

‪Every thought, kindness, story. Every moment of empathy. Every moment of love.

‪Keep lifting each other up. Keep offering help. Vote. Speak. Support. Listen. Never give in to the darkness. Channel your inner cat and love fiercely.”

   --Carrie Jones

 

…It’s more than astonishing (or whatever better word you can come up with) to think that one person cannot only destroy an entire country, but the whole world. And it’s (your word again) to think anyone alive, with a functioning brain, thought it would be okay to have him in that chair, and then to think, after he was, “I’m really pleased with how things have turned out.”

 

…Be honest--it’s hard to say you’re not scared of death and actually mean it. 

 

…Some people like golf, some bird-watch. It can sound stupid to you, but hey, they’ve found something that brings them joy.

 

…I sure think about joy a lot now.

 

…Better late than never. So true. 

 

…“Attention is so close to love. It’s hard to tell the difference.” Amy Marques

 

…I guess—if you have the same incredibly vivid dream about being lost and not finding your way back—it should be pretty easy to figure out the symbolism. 

 

…Why is it that no matter how much fun you’ve had elsewhere—a nightclub, a concert, a different country—there’s nothing like being home?

 

…I think it’s okay, or maybe even important, to be effusive from time to time, so long as it’s genuine and you really mean it. Can you imagine what it’d be like if everyone did that from time to time? If more people got overly-excited about a good thing, no matter how simple it seems?

 

…I don’t do emojis. It’s not because I think I’m too cool. It’s just because they feel like a trick.

 

…I also don’t make heart-shapes with my fingers during concerts. And if the singer asks everyone to wave their arms back and forth, I won’t do that either. It feels manipulative and contrived. Same as when the singer shouts, “I can’t hear you Seattle” after you’ve already screamed as loud as you can.  

 

…At the Kendrick/SZA concert, along with 70,000 other fans, there were two very Arian-looking guys one row in front of my son and I. I say “Arian” and you’re probably thinking I’m dialing it up, but if you saw them you’d say, Yeah, I get what you mean. And one of them was wearing a jacket that said BLUE LIVES MATTER. Of course, they do. But really? Really? At Kendrick, you wear that? 

 

…A lot of celebrities, and the things you read about them, sound so performative, right? And so when one of those articles shows up in my Inbox, I typically delete right away. But I’ll click on a few now and then. Like if the celebrity seems genuine and is willing to talk off-script, I get curious. They’re no different than you or I, other than they’ve, by happenstance, managed to transcend what we consider normal life.

Hence, I clicked on one about Valerie Bertinelli the other day. In it, she talked about her trauma while being pictured sans makeup. She actually looked like a lovely, plain older women with skin creases. I loved what she said, and this bit—

"Nobody has the market cornered on grief and heartache," Bertinelli wrote. "People go through hard s--- all the time. You just do what you have to do to get through what you have to get through."

 

…Again, why do we not just spell out the entire letters for Shit or Fuck? It seems asinine not to.

 

...Sometimes I’ll write a piece and people say, “I can’t wait to see this one out in the world.” But what if it doesn’t matter that the world sees it? Or, the opposite, What if the only reason the piece mattered is if it was out in the world?

 

…Did I ever tell you I’m often accused of thinking too much? Or over-thinking things? 

 

…”Not everyone will like you. But I’ve learned to like me.” Mateus Iscold

 

…Being lucky only really matters when you know you are.

 

…All this life passing me by, passing you by. Just look at all we didn’t see a minute ago.

 

…The smart play is almost always to just shut up and go with it.

 

…“ I know heaven is real because I see it in the eyes of everyone I love.” Shaun Cawley

 

…Told me that I shouldn’t fight for what I felt.

 

…The problem with being an expressive fan is when you share your enthusiasm about something the artist did, and they don’t know you, and they’re unused to getting praise, they think you’re a stalker or freak, which I understand, yet I still do it anyway. I still tell people all the time.

 

…I shared a poem with my friend, who is a pilot and not a writer type. It took him a spell to get back to me, but when he did, he said, “Thx for the poem. Interesting.” 

That’s code I know.

 

…Every look is a truth and it’s written in stone.