—CUT ME SOME SLACK. WHO DO YOU WANT ME TO BE?

 

…“I like my morning coffee. I like it in a certain way.” Amy Marques

 

…It’s not a competition, but if you want one, I’ll tell everyone you won.

 

…Once you know the characters, the story makes a lot more sense.

 

…Whether you care about sports or not, it’s a good story to see the guy picked very last (#257) in the 2022 draft (and nicknamed “Mr. Irrelevant” because of it) sign a contract in 2025 that makes him one of the highest paid players in the NFL.

 

…Wild runnin’ horses, Colour code champagne, once you’ve had a taste of it, it all tastes the same.

 

…Isn’t it strange how certain mirrors reflect you (yourself) back differently, like, some make you think, Wow, I look okay, or I actually look pretty good, then with others it’s like, What the hell? I look like a great grandparent? When did I ever end up looking like that?

No? Maybe it’s just me then.

But there’s a metaphor in that.

 

…It’s pouring right now, like thousands of masseuse fingers kneading the bread in the sky. It’s intense-sounding, but also intimate on my roof—easy and delicate. 

Hail is my favorite kind of weather by a landslide. Thunder is second. Lightening third. Snow fourth. But any kind of rain, I love it.

 

…I have a friend who’s transfixed by the weather—its patterns, its unpredictability and refusal to comply with forecasts, which way the wind will hit. I call him, affectionately, a weather whore. (Is that also sexist somehow?)  He’s adorable this guy, amazing and I love him to death, and I’ve always wondered if the weather might be a metaphor for something else, something he knows that I don't.

 

…Fucking poets, right?

 

…Those guys out in their boats, sort of hunched over the side—they must really love the rain, too.   

 

…I’m not positive but I’m pretty sure I’m going to die here, writing to you, whomever you might be.

 

…“We have a deficit of wonder. I think it’s because of computers. When I ask people questions now, they get on their computer or phone – `Gimme a few minutes and I’ll let you know….’ And I’m, like, ‘Nooooo.’ I want them to wonder about it, man. I don’t want to know the answer. I just want them to wonder about it." 

 --Tom Waits

 

…I almost got one foot in front of my feelings.

 

…It can get dark, it can get gray, but look what you have. 

 

…I had five other posts, five other cut-and-pastes, I was going to do today, but I went with this one, unedited. God help me.

 

…I seem to say that a lot. Especially lately. 

 

…It’s good to have pragmatic people in your life. They help you rationalize the world when it seems blurry and entirely fucked up.

 

…I love true crime, but to actually kill someone? That’s something I just can’t get my head around.

 

…“Poetry should be written so that if you throw a poem at the window, the glass will shatter,” wrote Daniil Kharms in 1930

 

…All these years later, I’m just now getting the joke every one of my friends got way back when it was first told.

 

…No one wants to listen to whining, even when you should, even when you’re supposed to.

 

…Do I not care about it, or do I care too much? It can’t be both, can it? Once I figure that out, I think I’m going to be good to go.

 

…Yes, we both live in the same country. But, No, it doesn’t impact us in the same way, not even if we both hate him.

 

…Maybe the real issue is vanity.

 

…It took me all this time to realize everything boils down to ego, your self-esteem and mine. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s just a fact—what you think of yourself and how you see the world, how you feel about the things happening around you.

 

…I don’t believe in parallel universes, or time travel, but I do think chronology can waver and shift, like what felt so important once now doesn’t mean anything at all. And vice-versa. 

 

…I’ve tried believin’, I’ve tried, I’ve tired, I’ll try again.

 

…If you’re going to be that way, you should be that way, and be okay with it.

 

…“Free will” seems like both the best answer ever and the best mindfuck of all time.

 

…When you over-loop a song, that’s a sign you should hit the sack, or hit something that’s not a person or your favorite pet. 

 

…Everyone needs someone to call them out on their shit.

 

…Happiness is kind of squirrely. Like what is it, really? And do I have it? Can I keep it? How can I keep it safe? Make it last? Is it more than just feelings? More than pleasure, because can’t you be happy in a moment, then terribly sad when you step away?

 

…I’m just asking the questions I have no answer for, and I’m hoping you’ll help me.

 

…You get the cut and I feel the hit.

 

…From The Washington Post:

 LIVE EVERY DAY LIKE IT’S YOUR FIRST

 

Suleika Jaouad, the memoirist and author of a new best seller, “The Book of Alchemy,” was diagnosed with leukemia in her 20s. Last summer, she had a recurrence, and the advice a lot of people offered was to live each day like it was her last. But every time she heard that sentence, she felt an “intense sense of panic,” Jaouad said.

“It is exhausting to try to make every family dinner as meaningful as possible — to carpe diem the crap out of every single moment,” she said. “So I am done doing that. Instead, I’ve had to shift to a different mind-set, which is the idea of living every day as if it’s your first — to wake up with a sense of curiosity and wonder and playfulness.”

One way Jaouad, a committed journal keeper, tries to accomplish that is through what she calls “small acts of creative alchemy.” Recently she has been jotting down 10 memorable moments from the past 24 hours, stream of consciousness. She has been surprised by the things that have bubbled up.

“It’s always the small moments,” Jaouad said.

 

…There’s just no getting around it---allergies are not a spectator sport.

 

…When you think about yourself, what age to you see yourself as? (Is that another dumb question?) Because in my head I’m most often always nine or sixteen, and I wish I wasn’t the first one. 

 

…But then, how would I have made it to sixteen?

 

…When you love ballads, the trick is not letting your emotions become part of the story, otherwise, if you’re like me, you’re fucked for hours.

 

…love is the shadow self 

of fear / though infused with light 

its paradox the ache / that makes 

us hold the word ‘heart’ / in our 

mouths sometimes / afraid to swallow

  --Sonia Greenfield

 

…Is it possible to share something vulnerable and genuinely not want, or need, a response? (Just asking for a friend.)

 

…I’ve looked down on another, smiled while I was at it.

 

...There really aren’t a lot of people like you. I hope you’re real, because a lot of things I believe in aren’t.

 

…You’re supposed to forgive yourself. A therapist said to me, adding, “If Jesus forgives you, what’s your problem?” And I thought—well, that’s my problem right there. One of them at least.

 

…He showed me a picture, a machine printout of my mother, had me look at it, and instead of having an epiphany or finding any sort of emotional resolution, I just sobbed.

 

…I then afterward, when similar experience happen, I always like myself even less. It’s like, grow the fuck up. You’re not a child anymore. Stop being such a victim.

 

…“Someday, I would like to go home. The exact location of this place, I don't know, but someday I would like to go. There would be a pleasing feeling of familiarity and a sense of welcome in everything I saw. People would greet me warmly. They would remind me of the length of my absence and the thousands of miles I had travelled in those restless years, but mostly, they would tell me that I had been missed, and that things were better now I had returned. Autumn would come to this place of welcome, this place I would know to be home. Autumn would come and the air would grow cool, dry and magic, as it does that time of the year. At night, I would walk the streets but not feel lonely, for these are the streets of my home town. These are the streets that I had thought about while far away, and now I was back, and all was as it should be. The trees and the falling leaves would welcome me. I would look up at the moon, and remember seeing it in countries all over the world as I had restlessly journeyed for decades, never remembering it looking the same as when viewed from my hometown.”—Henry Rollins

 

…I guess I could be happier. I suppose I could be less of a dick.

 

…I really like this quote but didn’t like the show as much as everyone else did—“If you’re comfortable, you’re doing it wrong.” Ted Lasso

 

…Some days it feels like this computer is going to blow up in my face. Other days, it feels as if it already has.