11.30.23

the microwave doesn’t work. hasn’t for a while. i can’t remember when it started beeping and blasting SERVICE REQUIRED on the LED panel but i think it was before i left to scotland. that was a while ago. that was september and now we’re on the eve of december and it’s still unresolved. i unplugged it to shut it up and now it just sits there, silent, dead, out of sight and out of mind.

lot of things unresolved. need to get health insurance. need to transfer this 401k check. need to reply to texts back to people (if thats you im sorry). need to do my laundry. need to fill out the ArriveCAN application for my flight saturday and buy a ticket for another one. 3 trips in the next 2 months. so much for my travels being over. it’s fine, though. beats being in the city. it’s better than rotting in bed all day applying for jobs and receiving emails saying we’ve moving on to other candidates and being ghosted by recruiters. trying to find a job through linkedin is like trying to find your wife on a dating app. just a nightmare. two of my least favorite experiences. i’d rather slash my wrists than tap the redownload icon for hinge and if you think i’m joking i’m not.

trying to write another short story but nothing good is coming out. they’re all apocalyptic in tone. end of the world. judgement day. i start writing them and then i pause to do something else then i come back to the open TextEdit window on my mac and i realize its dogshit and i open a new TextEdit window and try writing something else. rinse and repeat ad infinitum. i don’t know what’s stopping me. combination of my own adhd and perfectionism and procrastination, i would have to guess. if i think about it rationally there’s no pressure. it’s substack. it doesn’t matter. i’m not submitting it to a literary journal or the new yorker or even ann manov’s new thing. i guess i’m afraid of it being cringe to read. you can be anything you want on the internet you just can’t be cringe, i’ve learned. that’s a death sentence.

i fell off the twitter wagon which is looking like a mistake. the site isn’t fun anymore. it’s the scrolling equivalent of a hidetaka miyazaki game, the apocalypse already have happened and a bunch of undead lingering around doing fuckall, waiting for you to come around so they can beat you up. kissinger died and you think THAT would have been lit, your favorite washed up leftist irony / weirdo right wing guys posting memes and hot takes but it felt like everyone was just going through the motions. there’s an annoying house style to twitter these days where every post is juuust on the balance between irony and sincerity that you can’t tell which category it is. all the jokes are the same as well. the same formats people ran into the ground years ago. it’s all so tiresome. i’ll deactivate again soon. still on the drugs wagon though. no powders 3 weeks. 

someone asked me at a party when the last time i went to clando was and i said it was a while and they asked what happened to me and i replied back i dunno. beats me. i think a lot of people like that guy only see one version of me, the fucked up one, the one always on at least 2 different drugs at any given moment, the one always starting the night with a celsius and a microdose and going downhill from there. they only ever see me at night or in a morning thats an extension of one. 

i was at another party and i ran into a bunch of people who knew me but i couldn’t name to save my life. they all recounted stories of the first time i met them and it was the same blueprint: me obliterated having a long deep discussion with them, usually at sovhouse or beckett’s (RIP). at first i thought it was funny when i heard these types of stories thrown back at me but now i’m just kind of embarrassed. i turned 29 recently. i can’t keep doing this. i don’t want to be some peter pan adult. nothing but a black hole of despair resides down that rabbit hole. i want to be known as a wannabe writer than a degenerate party boy. and so i keep writing.

more people i know leaving then arriving. most are snowbrids gone south till march but some leaving for good. feels like i’m at the point of my new york career where people start tapping out. either they’re burned out or becoming real adults or they got run out of the city for some drama. schumpeters creative destruction in action.

losing interest in doing things. losing interest in going out. going to the cinema. gaming. hopping between art galleries. i figured unemployment would be a lot of fucking around getting stoned playing earth defense force 5 like the last time it was like this but it’s not. you can go back to the same space, the same feelings, the same situations but it will never be the same as the first time. you can’t re-create it try as you might. it will always be a pale imitation. you have to move on. do something new. write a different story. walk a different path.

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in town for christmas. first time i will have celebrated the holiday without my family. not sure what i’ll do. probably go see the new michael mann film then watch the knicks and warriors get their ass kicked on national television. go to mass. i wonder if you need tickets to go to st patricks on christmas day. should look into that.