—ALL I WANNA DO IS HAVE SOME FUN

 

…I know we already went over this, but I’m still stumped.

 

…I’m sorry for being so stupid. Sometimes I just like to stare at the clouds. I’m a dope.

 

…At least you know what you’re laughing at. 

 

…You’re one of the lucky ones.

 

…We can see everything, and yet it will never be enough.

 

…Why did I think I could do this again?

 

…Eeyore was always my favorite character. I felt like he had a lot more depth than we were privy to.

 

…“There was still something true about people, something that never seemed to change—they loved destruction." Scott McClanahan, Fights!

 

…“I've had a few men ask me personally or on their pages what they would like women to see men do or say in light of *waves hands wildly at all the misogyny and assault of late.* Speaking only for myself. 1. Call out that shit when you see it. Just make a post or a comment stating how gross you find it. Simple is better, to be honest. "I'm horrified by...." 2. Read feminist scholarship (hi, bell hooks,) or research statistics about things like the gender pay gap, how recently women were considered their male partner's property, and SA stats. 3. Learn to digest women's anger without taking it personally--we've had to do the same for men historically. 4. Understand that patriarchy harms men too, so you're also helping yourself by unlearning. 5. Remember it's never too late to start any of these.” Jordan Rosenfeld

 

…I thought the fight was over, but the fight is never over.

 

…At least I’m not the one locking doors.

 

…“I like to smoke cigarettes because it lets people know I’m into death.” Scott McClanahan, Fights!

 

…We’re still arguing about what makes something beautiful.

 

…When you ride with a friend, you stay with him.

 

…I didn’t realize you could that, that you could just say, No thanks.

 

…“If someone gave me Narcan and fucked up my high, I’d be so fucking pissed.” Scott McClanahan, Fights!

 

…Isn’t the point of life to help each other?

 

…All things are imaginary until you can touch them.

 

…It’s colder at night than I remember.

 

…“And love is like this:

Too much or too little.”

 --Chelsea Dingman, I, Divided

 

…You could listen to my heart if you want, and tell me how many screeches you hear.

 

…Don’t talk like that. You wouldn’t want someone talking to you that way.

 

…He’s your friend, not mine. Not mine by a long shot.

 

…What a silly thing to believe.

 

…“We need friends, Etna, the bird says. We need a pack.

Even if we lose our pack, I say.

Especially because of that, she says.”

-- Paul Yoon, Etna

 

…“I was aware, with a new intensity, of my loneliness.” Paul Yoon, Etna

 

…It never occurred to me that my mother could cry. In fact, I can’t remember ever seeing her do it.

 

…I am the worst small-talker in the world. When I do it—small talk—I feel sort of ridiculous, like there’s a judge or matriarch watching over me, giggling to themselves as I fumble for something relevant to say.

 

…If you’re ever lucky enough to have a best friend like I have, then you’re one lucky motherfucker.

 

…But anyway, let’s see what Scott has to say.

 

…“It’s crazy but people don’t like to buy books covered in dried blood.” Scott McClanahan, Fights!

 

…Who are you? What’s your name? 

 

…I have all these hideous, remarkable, unbelievable bits I was going to share about the last week and the monster, but I’m just going to pass. I’m not going to mention this (from WP) Trump: I ‘should have won’ Nobel Peace Prize, award is ‘forever discredited'

or this--Trump rips Zelensky amid Russia diesel deal feud: 'I suggest they get a new leader'

(because Zelensky is my hero) or this

Homeland Security Secretary Mullin says livestreaming Hasan execution aligns with Trump 'restoring American values'

or Russia strikes Ukrainian power plant after Trump claims energy ceasefire

or Trump calls Omar ‘totally crooked’ in first remarks on raid or 

Secret documents obtained by The Post reveal major donors behind $330 million for Trump’s ballroom Tech giants Nvidia and Apple each committed $25 million, the top contribution amount, the documents show. Absent from the list is President Donald Trump himself, who has said that he is helping to pay for the project.

…So, there--no political statements this Friday.

 

…What we know is what we know, and what we hold too tightly, is what we break.

 

…I’m not sure how I feel about Shane Gillis’s SNL monologue. Mostly I’m thinking, if you’re a comedian, isn’t anything fair game? If you censor comedians, then where does that end? If you don’t like it fine, but he’s a comedian who’s fallen on his face. Maybe that makes me a misogynist to say that, but shouldn’t comedy, like the arts, be left alone to speak for themselves?

 

…A lot of times the idea is better than the actual act. But not always. Thus, the conundrum. 

 

…And here I’m telling you the truth.

 

…“In the end, you do what the voice tells you.

It says forget, you forget.

It says begin again, you begin again.”

  --Louise Gluck

 

…In haste, and because I really disliked that person, I said probably some things I shouldn’t have.

 

…“He was embarrassed. It was his default line; it came out of his mouth when he wanted to say other things to her.”

  --Lily King, Five Tuesdays in Winter

 

…That last drink might be the first. You never know.

 

…It’s a terrible time for books, but in one of the brightest moments of this trip, a couple sat down next to me with their two young children and both of them had books (!) instead of Gameboys or iPads with them, and the boy would jab his sister and read something from his book to her and she’d jab his shoulder and read something to him. It was glorious.

 

…I know you’re thinking about me, just as I am thinking about you.

 

…The question is always: What makes your heart sing? 

 

..“Is this talking? Because it feels like you’re telling me what I should remember.”

  --Lily King, Five Tuesdays in Winter

 

…Some people are rougher than others.

 

…When I die, please remember me.

…“Be careful what you say here. People might think you’re serious.”

 

…I am.

 

…I looking under my fingernails for signs that might mean something…

 

...I have a happy story to end things on. It’s long. But it’s worth the read…

 

He lost everything. Then he found riches in a dumpster.

By Danielle Paquet, WP

For Carter Stevens, the American Dream is built on reinvention. But can his next act help him escape the cockroaches?

 

NASHVILLE — Behind a luxury high-rise, Carter Stevens inspected his favorite dumpster.

Dresses on plastic hangers dangled over its rusty edge. A 65-inch flat-screen television jutted through cardboard boxes. A marble side table, wedged between trash bags, gleamed under the lunchtime sun.

“Jackpot,” the 31-year-old muttered.

Sweating in the 95-degree heat, Carter tied his curly black hair into a bun and strode up to the steel bin the size of a U-Haul truck, ignoring the sticker that read “KEEP OFF!” He stepped onto a support rail and rose to his tiptoes, scanning inside for cockroaches. Nothing rustled.

“Easy does it,” he said, hoisting himself into the garbage.

Carter abhorred insects and was allergic to cat dander, but rummaging through dumpsters, he’d found a Gucci bag. BAPE sneakers. A Louis Vuitton button-up. “All the stuff we use to fill the void,” he said.

Overconsumption had nearly ruined him before he learned how to exploit it. In two years, he’d gone from homeless and in debt to earning six figures from selling what others threw away.

Americans buy and discard more stuff than anyone else, and in Tennessee’s booming capital — the Music City, the bachelorette destination, the influencer hub of the South — junk struck Carter as astonishingly valuable. People came here chasing stardom or a fresh identity; 86 new residents arrived each day, per the local government’s last count. Carter imagined some crash-landed, like he had, leaving wreckage for him to sift through when Everything Must Go. Or they acquired upgrades they associated with success, shedding whatever hadn’t satisfied them.

Carter had salvaged stuff in unopened boxes. Stuff that he’d seen models praise on TikTok. Stuff that reminded him of what he’d once maxed out his credit cards to wear. Stuff that he’d had to offload, quickly, when he couldn’t cover the rent for his three-bedroom house in the summer of 2024 and moved into a $30-per-day Zipcar.

“Still has the tag on it,” he said, yanking a lacy white Simply Southern frock from the heap. Someone had spent $59.99 on what he called a “grandma dress” before chucking it unworn. Carter popped the trunk of his cherry red Lexus ES and tossed it in.

“Might be worth something,” he said.

Probably not enough for him to risk a bug crawling up his pantleg. Yet it could help fund his next venture, one Carter hoped would set up the rest of his life.

Damp and itchy and distressingly close to what smelled like spoiled yogurt, he tried to apply that optimism to his own recovery. If Carter could repurpose rubbish, he figured, maybe he could repurpose himself.

THE LONGING THAT GOT HIM into this mess started with light-up sneakers. As a first-grader, Carter ached for a pair, but his parents didn’t cave. They taught him to work for what he wanted.

His father was a successful music producer, so Carter grew up around wealth, which intensified his fixation on flashy shoes and Ed Hardy rhinestone shirts and souped-up Mustangs. Sophomore year, he applied for a job at McDonald’s and began saving for what he coveted. “Nice sh--,” Carter said.

The appetite for more and better was baked into American culture long before he was born. Spending was patriotic in the nation that invented mass marketing. Spending kept the factories running. Spending became so excessive, the historian who coined the term “American dream” advised his countrymen in 1931 not to mistake prosperity for “material plenty.” But over the last century, federal statistics show, the amount of clothes and shoes that Americans scrapped each year shot up almost tenfold.

Carter found a silk Christian Dior windbreaker at Goodwill for $1 in 2018, shortly after he’d dropped out of college. He’d never felt comfortable in a classroom, but for much of the next six years, he excelled at sourcing vintage pieces from donation bins and estate sales for a second-hand market near Vanderbilt University. “I made it,” he thought when a friend told him the young woman browsing his clothing racks was country star Kacey Musgraves.

Carter could have stashed away money. “But I screwed myself,” he said. First, he started taking too much Adderall. Then too many other drugs. In 2021, he spent a week in rehab and eased off the narcotics. But Carter still struggled with his addiction to spending.

He bought Christian Dior Birkenstocks for $1,200. A camping van for $10,000. A Mercedes-AMG that cost $3,100 monthly, including insurance. “I just woke up itching for stuff,” he recalled. His monthly outflow, at its highest, surpassed $15,000.

When the celebrity interest moved on and business dwindled and Carter owed more than he was making, he slept in his storage unit until an attendant warned he’d get kicked out. Crashing with his parents hadn’t worked, either. They’d argued. He’d wanted to be alone.

Cramped in a Nissan Sentra for three weeks, Carter vowed to control his cravings.

A cousin loaned him cash to get into a one-bedroom apartment, and he hawked just enough shirts to cover the $1,000 monthly rent. His rebound started one November afternoon last year, when, emerging from Goodwill, Carter noticed men behind the warehouse next door plopping dozens of office chairs next to a dumpster.

“Those are trash?” he’d walked over to ask. Yes, replied one man, who introduced himself as a trucker for a moving company. And more were coming, he said, thanks to a corporate office shuttering.

Carter crouched over the swivel seats and Googled the brand. Steelcase. They were going for hundreds of dollars each online.

He returned with a trailer and grabbed 190 chairs. All but 40 sold in six weeks to liquidators he’d emailed. The $17,000 profit allowed Carter to pay off his credit cards and pay back his cousin.

His foraging expanded to other warehouses, hotels, apartment buildings and the mall. Eager for leads on personal clutter, too, he printed lawn signs: “JUNK AWAY JUNK REMOVAL. TEXT OR CALL.” retrieved couches, standing desks, industrial lamps and iPads. After six weeks, his eBay sales hit $30,000. Once, a security guard confronted him with a gun drawn. Mostly, though, nobody seemed to care.

Carter wondered what his parents would think. They’d refused to lend him money when he’d felt most vulnerable, and for two weeks, he’d been too angry to speak to them.

Still, he wanted to make them proud.

“I’m providing a service,” he told them.