BETTER

Me and you, what can we do
when the words we use sometimes
are misconstrued
Well, I won’t guess, what’s coming next
I can’t ever tell you
the deepest well I’ve ever fallen into…

I am sleeping well with more regularity these days.  It’s making all the difference.  I’m shitting like a good functioning biological organism, if several times a day.  Had a painful revelation with ice-cream on that end last week, but, let’s just leave it at no bueno and move on.  The fact that I’m writing about sleep and bowels is either a low point in my writing career or else the luckiest Goddamn thing in the world.  Let’s go with the latter ’cause I’m feeling good Good Reader.  The problem isn’t Life or trying to live your dreams but that when you get there and achieve what you set out to it’s still you there, reaping the reward.  I guess I thought I’d be different somehow and anyway done with the static of an over-anxious brain that wants to fight, fuck or kill at every waking second although bloodlust and dread often wake me early in the morning too.  If you ever made it to the shitlist you’re probably still there which shouldn’t be bad news for you.  You’re living your life and I mine, miraculously and even sublimely sometimes when I’m not enumerating failure or fantasizing about all the ways to ruin you.  Well.  Not you, Good Reader and certainly not us but them, always them–they who stood in our way once and are standing there still, which is my point.  These good days came with a price and this plateau ain’t Heaven.  I’m still paying for what I’ve done or up before dawn plotting on how they’re gonna get their’s. It’s Karma and it sucks but you can work at it like I have, put enough time in to thinking/feeling/doing better and you can burn some of that shit off of you. If you’re lucky you’ll find even more shit underneath to rectify or make peace with and the act of beautifying and making better can go on and on.

It took me about 5 years of sobriety before the treacherous extent of my past caught up with me.  It’s been harrowing and I’m not exactly sure what to do with these memories, to be honest.  I chalk this process up to authentic living but I’m not at my best while carrying this burden.  Sounds like it’s time to go back to the rooms and anyway get over a hump that’s decades old.  Might even be time to fold up the Jolly Roger and confront the only thing scarier than what a sack of shit I was for most of my adult life–a full-time gig.  The shifts at the ARCH are excruciatingly early in the morning, and incredibly bureaucratic at times, but fulfilling on a level I’ve not experienced working a J-O-B before.  I suppose I gleaned some deeper satisfaction as a caregiver but that didn’t last for several maddening and inane reasons.  Beyond altruism I need stability.  I need steady and consistent work but the rub is it’ll only have me champing at the bit and bucking in my pen.  I hate square life.  I always have.  I hate red lights and lunch breaks, pay checks and people.   I’m at a crossroads here but despite my oft-mentioned ailments I am healthier than I’ve ever been.  I feel tremendously lucky to still be after Art.  The written and spoken word and getting up there under the hot lights makin’ ’em know and giving them the what for.  It’s hard to write a post like this, when all is well.  Madonna probably said it better but, who writes when they’re happy?  I just finished Uncle Hank’s broken summers and if anyone is making the case for reportage at all times and for all seasons it’s Henry Rollins.  Besides, this blog’s become a check-in and bet I’m always glad to hear from you.  I’m including my email for you at the end of this post.  I want to hear from you–the good, the bad and the wiggy.  Tell me what you live for or that you just want to die.  Whatever it is, reach out and we’ll make it, Good Reader.

My earlier points on luck and Personal Journalism?  I don’t suppose I can complain about having something to write about–as inane as getting old and self-help might be.  There were years of my life, whole swathes, watching the sun slide down a wall, moving in and out of women’s houses, nights blotto and sharking mad in the blood-red dark.  My decade in the city of Philadelphia was falling down, getting lost and getting fucked.  The decade here was an upswing and reclaim.  We both know it’s been thorny.  All one has to do is look back a week at GFtT to see how impossible things were for me even such a short time ago.  The boon of posts like that is you know you’re not alone.  Then you reach out and I know I’m not either.  Let’s stay together, and, as Greta Thunberg says, see you on the streets motherfucker.

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