—THIS IS HOW SOME OF IT REALLY HAPPENED

 

 

…Here I am, overthinking everything again.

 

…Maybe I should sleep it off.

 

…So, what do you want from me? What do you need?

 

…It’s not easy. It’s never easy.

 

…When it comes to feedback about my writing, I’d rather have blunt honesty than people blowing smoke.

 

…Everyone says tomorrow and tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes.

 

…Maybe I’m the drama.

 

…Everyone has their stuff.

 

…But who were you telling?

 

…It can sometimes be a shock when people remember what you remember.

 

…Thank God for Spotify.

 

…I’ve been thinking twice. Thought you should know.

 

…It was never going to be good timing.

 

…What are you sorry for?

 

…A lot of times, reality really sucks.

 

…When you find yourself circling the drain is when it’s a good time to call a friend.

 

…There’s always a “but,” an “unless,” and “except.” 

 

…--“Why are all of your songs sad? Every single one of them?

     --“They’ve always been that way. Even when I was a kid, I wrote them like that. I don’t know why exactly, but that’s the way they come out.”

          ---Willy Vlautin, The Horse

 

…There are five times as many men who say they have no close friends as there were in 1990. 

 

…I hate when people say something is a “gamechanger.” But I dislike “Y’all” a lot more.

 

…Today, it’s me. Tomorrow it could be you.

 

--I had hardly begun to read 

I asked how can you ever be sure 

that what you write is really 

any good at all and he said you can’t 

 

you can’t you can never be sure 

you die without knowing 

whether anything you wrote was any good 

if you have to be sure don’t write.

    --W.S. Merwin, Berryman

 

…This is probably the right time to re-direct your focus.

…Yeah, I know.

 

…What’s the smart move here, because I never really know?

 

…Maybe you should come to the funeral after all. 

 

…I think there are more steps.

 

…I wish I could feel like that, like they do on Sunday. I wish I could believe in something like that.

 

…Being happy is a really important part of living for a long time.

 

… “I can't believe what you say, because I see what you do.” James Baldwin

 

...This is like totally stupid. I don’t even know what I’m doing.

 

…You have to give it up for anybody (especially a guy) who tries to cover The Cranberries, “Linger.”

 

…Sing me song for a while. We can talk about it later.

 

…Just drop me off and pick me up later if you feel like it.

 

…“He was done with stewing over songs until he was half mad. And no matter what he did or how hard he tried, his songs were good but never great. How many notebooks had he filled? How many hours and months and years had he toiled and tinkered?” Willy Vlautin, The Horse  

 

---Everything okay?

--I don’t want to bother you, man.

--You’re not bothering me. I’m asking.

 

“…Asking one good question is like pushing the Play button.” The Boys 

 

…Yeah, I’m just not sure about that.

 

…I’m not there yet.

 

…Is this going to be a good thing?

 

…When I say, “I love you,” I’m not joking.

 

…We’re about as good as we’re ever going to be.

 

…What is it you remember about that time?

 

…It was strange, in the corporate world, always being on display. And now I’m the opposite. I’ll take today over that every time.

 

…YOU APPEARED IN 43 SEARCHES THIS WEEK

 

…I guess I just don’t want to keep on carrying it. Do you. Know what I mean?

…“The fake liberal media says I’m charging $5,000 for front-row tickets,” Kid Rock wrote in his social media message — before going on to confirm that $5K is indeed what he is charging for the top face-value tickets to his upcoming shows. “I WILL pray for them, but I know that sooner or later God will cut ‘em down,” Rock said, referring to members of the media who reported on his ticket prices.”

 …Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right…

 

…People only know what they see.

 

…But you didn’t even listen.

 

…I wish I was the favorite.

 

…I guess you can train yourself to do anything.

 

…“Prayer is the hygiene of the soul.” Baudelaire 

 

…Infirmed much?

 

…I need to avoid nowhere.

 

…Nothing hurts as much as hope not being met with reality.

 

…Just 54 percent of U.S. adults say the consume alcohol, the smallest percentage in 90 years.

 

…Since the U.S. president claimed he wanted to make Canada the “51^ststate,” traffic across the Washington state border from Canada has fallen by 1.2 million cars.

 

…Headline last week from The Washington Post:

Trump aides struggle with how to spend $500 billion more on military

  

...Last year, the government eliminated all US funding at $22 Billion annually for USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) whose key initiatives included “ Feed the Future (agriculture), Power Africa, global health (vaccines, disease control)”

A 2025 study estimates that USAID-supported programs saved approximately 91-92 million lives in low- and middle-income countries between 2001 and 2021.

 

“O.K., I’ll put that on my calendar and we’ll just keep an eye on the weather and the fall of democracy.”

…What are you thinking about?

 

…Almost every day, it’s impossible to read the news and not be completely repulsed by something.

 

…I think I mostly agree with this guy—

"I’ve been watching an absolutely heroic amount of pearl-clutching lately from people who insist that J.D. Vance would somehow be “worse” than Trump once Trump’s inevitable political and biological expiration arrives.

Let’s get something straight: it has never been about Trump, not for one second.

Trump is just the mascot. The real story is the people who finally saw themselves in him and felt validated by what they saw.

I actually believe most of them will drift away when the cult collapses, like embarrassed fans of a one-hit wonder. Many of them will swear they were never really into him at all. The MAGA amnesia is going to be epic.

I used to wonder how it was possible that Trump could have won in 2016 and then again in 2024, given how emotionally toxic, morally vacant, and psychologically mangled he is.

I don’t wonder anymore.

I think he won for that exact reason.

He wasn’t a candidate. He was a mirror.

If you were a racist, you found your guy.

If you were a misogynist, you found your guy.

If money was your only religion, you found your guy.

If your heart was armored shut, you found your guy.

If you mocked disabled people, you found your guy.

If you hated intelligent people, you found your guy.

If you were a rapist, you found your guy.

If you enjoyed golden showers with Russian sex workers, you found your guy.

If you’d done absolutely nothing to confront your emotional wreckage, you found your guy.

If you were a serial cheater, you found your guy.

If you were a perpetual bankrupt, you found your guy.

If you stiffed honest workers, you found your guy.

If you were a conman, you found your guy.

If you mocked people’s appearances, you found your guy.

If you longed for a toxic Daddy, you found your guy.

If you were dissociated and disembodied, you found your guy.

If you were unconscionable in every economic dealing, you found your guy.

If you lied as naturally as breathing, you found your guy.

If you’d never eaten a green vegetable, you found your guy.

If you were a white supremacist, you found your guy.

If your ego contained a hole so large not even the presidency could fill it, you found your guy.

If you were a sociopath who cared not one molecule about other humans, you found your guy.

If he had only two of these traits, he never would have won. He won because he had hundreds of them, and millions of people recognized themselves in at least one.

This has never been about Trump. It has always been about the people who finally had their worst instincts validated.

Trump didn’t create the cruelty, he licensed it. He handed out permission slips for hate.

He is merely a symptom of a far deeper disease: collective toxicity.

If there is one sentence that explains Trump’s power, it is this: “He says the things I’m thinking.”

That’s the part that should chill the spine.

Who knew that tens of millions of Americans were thinking such unconscionable things about their fellow citizens? Who knew how many white men felt so threatened by women and challenged by minorities that they were ready to torch democracy to feel big again? Who knew that after decades of apparent progress on race and gender, so many people were living in seething resentment, waiting for a demagogue to legitimize their worst selves and convert their bitterness into political power?

Perhaps we were living in a fool’s paradise.

We aren’t anymore."

– Michael Jochum, Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition

 

…“In a time of rising cruelty, love feels like something we’re not supposed to have time for.” Ingrid Keir