I have learned that I have a two-day attention span. Anything after that I am liable to indulge in things that make me happy. Strangely, when I eat cake, I realize how much time I actually have, that when I abstain, I can never seem to find. Today was an ordinary day wasted on the telephone. Not screen time, but talking with relatives that make me feel important (and can help see blind spots in my writing). Responsibility is fun, especially when you don’t have to perform for anyone. Run, Rabbit, Run. When you are busying yourself without relent, no new memories are created, no wisdom. If I didn’t allow myself some sweet tea and a warm shower I’d probably still be uncomfortable scattering and havocing, maybe even getting some work done, but enough is enough, I’m done.

Deep breaths. Deep consistent breaths that will haunt you as you try to fall asleep over the next three hours even though it’s nearly midnight. Deep breaths. I have been on and off smoking for the past eight years, ten if you include marijuana. Sure, I haven’t smoked the green stuff in a while, but my lungs probably look like the grey dandruff that gathers in laundry machines. In other words, as usual, I’m dying. I look forward to it, but a stupid reason like smoking isn’t going to cut it. I sometimes can’t believe what our bodies can endure. The Cheetos, the smokes, the drinks – we are durable machines. But what happens when you go the complete opposite direction? Complete veggies, no tv, only water, running daily. Frankly, that is what I remember being in a relationship was like. No wiggle room (well, maybe occasional ice cream). Perhaps I am inherently competitive even though I don’t want to be. I wish I could just happily eat cheese, but my face swells up like its been stung by a bee. What I am really trying to ask is, is life enjoyable without its unhealthy delicacies. I am enjoying becoming a somewhat better person everyday, and I don’t think I am alone on that score with most people my age. I could be a cynic and imagine that my very slow pace could be surpassed in a 50 foot dash. But Alas, I really don’t understand how people can just go about their lives without being obsessed with self improvement every day. I do NOT think I am better than anyone, in fact, it is probably because of my inferiority complex (stupidity) that I try to better myself. Surprisingly, it seems to be working. That is, if I gauge my success by how much music I listen to. There is still a world of unknown artists, and to be honest, I worry that some day I will run out of good books to read at the pace I am going, but alike all art, once you discover a new crack in the matrix, usually a plethora of relatively good things came washing over your tired bones…it also comes with a lot of bullshit. For the first time in my life, I feel like I have the time to do the things I want (and if I’m being honest) and NEED. I don’t require food and water, nor oxygen. I demand quiet time and good literature. My sister told me that my writing was garbage tonight. She might be right. She doesn’t even read anything besides my first drafts. I might not give myself the time of night tonight. It is just stream of consciousness for those of you have can’t clearly see that. Sometimes I really am able to spin a beautiful string of words together, but other times, just the hypnotizing click of the keys helps silence my overcrowded brain. That is what I am saying. I am saying that instead of scoring a dopamine rush, I am patiently drowning in celibacy that is either going to keep me from sleeping, or make me a productive youth that I haven’t yet achieved. Warning, my first paid article is going to be trash, but it is coming. Well, that is all I’ve ever aspired to be. Somebody who is a bad writer who is never read, but paid! I feel so outdated, even though today was the very first day, perhaps in my whole life, that I didn’t watch youtube, drink soda, shower twice, masterbate etc. etc.

It is never good to lose a reader. I think I am a complicated basket case. Luckily I still have my arms and legs but my brain is that of a schizoid. Unintentionally I often create conflict, but that is the entire point of writing a novel. It probably gets old and don’t I know, we are all getting older. It is best to dare to dream regardless of what people think. I have been deeply tucked in my bed and I let my baked ideas wander and roam like a pack of wildebeest ready for slaughter. There is so many logical problems with what I want to do, but deep down, I think I am smart enough to actually accomplish the impossible. No longer is my drive women – but as I write that I wonder if I have burrowed so deep in my cave that my sex drive has been deprived of any need for human intimacy. But really, I just think I’m a better person that compulsive hormones. I am alone but never lonely. I drank three bottles of brown sugar and that is all the indulgence I would ever need. I pray for six more weeks of boring winter. My real vice is a blank page and spilling my blood to cover it like a Pollock painting. I am very bad at looking at analytics but I think I have something like 8 readers on any given night. Do you have any idea how much that little means to me? It’s not everything only because if it was nothing I’d still want to show off my online diary but you mean a lot to me. It is best to cherish the little things because they will give you back the belief that it won’t end how all the best writers I know died. The background on my phone is the last picture of Jack Kerouac taken by Allen Ginsberg in a Manhattan apartment. He is frowning. He died at 47 when his liver ruptured, an unhappy man I’m sure. Deep down I believe the poet is the only free man (though I am behind on my appointment to write my poetry if I am following the “everytime I find a poem in a book I write one” schedule). Even if you don’t like me, I have done enough with my life to not be a tragic hero. Nearly 5000 miles and there is still more to go. I am not in a rush to die even though it must seem like that from how much I bitch, but one must build pathos to delight in self deprecation. I’ve even wrote a few stand up jokes even though I am terrified of the stage even though one of my passions is public speaking. I hope you don’t think I am copying by thinking about becoming a teacher. With the rollercoaster that I have in store it will not occur for the next few years. The best thing I can say about myself (that I doubt everyone can say) is I’ve never copied anything, from an overdue essay to a romantic belief, I am 100% pure beef.

Revision – there is one sentence in my book that was not original…or was “inspired” by what someone else wrote who I knew. I may take it out of my second draft even if nobody knows because to me, it is like having a foot in a stew, it ruins the whole batch. God knows, it’s only practice.

Every day is history. I’d so much rather live in a library than be on tv. How is it that so much can happen on any given day, but we only recognize the past as a few (usually tragic) events. My life should be interpreted differently than the nightly news. I should think every day of the times that make me stronger and smile regardless that I am plighted with weakness and depression. I think we get too comfortable doing the same things over and over and the next thing we know, it has been a year. Some (and when I say some, I mean most) can’t focus that long and the result is that they are contingent on the tsunami of other expectation obligations. I can’t seem to focus on one idea long enough without it going nowhere quickly. My current record is 31 days consecutive writing and that is all that is important. Everything else is just endurance. I don’t even need to be successful, and my palm reads that I won’t be rich but I just want to know that my dreams are not dead. 23 is too young to be old. My biggest pet peeve is feeling like I have to convince somebody else of this. I’d just hope I can convince myself to jump. It isn’t dangerous, but for some reason, it is still stupid. I have trouble thinking otherwise about myself. Others sometimes suggest I have a brain, and a heart, and courage but no. I am not trying to be recalcitrant, I am trying to belive the American dream that we can do what we want. I am probably getting smarter because I always end up knowing something I didn’t the day before. And sometimes I am hopeful of new perspectives. Self-help books help but I am still a schizoid. We all want to get out of this city that we were raised in because to stay is to admit defeat. I hate to say it makes me very happy to be in Chicago, but that is comfort talking, so no, not for me. Even when I see so many people who can hide the lie to themselves that they are successful based on everybody else’s discretion, I can see the man behind the curtain. There are so many irritating things on my plate but at least I have a full appetite. I am not afraid to swallow a beetle. Hopefully, it will be poisonous enough to help me realize the importance of the little things. Like never growing up one year at a time.