1. Life is the process by which luster leaves all things, by which beauty and joy are drained and replaced with nothing.

2. Thinking about Jesus. The Christianity thing. I wish I could do it, man. I think I’m gonna have to do it. My brain can’t stop asking “what’s the point?”, I can’t stop searching for a set of instructions. A magic bullet to kill me/save me. I could be a Communist too. Same thing. Framework through which everything can be made sense of, and a way to negate my urges rather than being forced to channel them. Self-control that isn’t actually derived from the Self. I’m gonna have to do it.

3. I gotta marry a Jewish woman. Just like my grandfather did. He’s a white guy from a poor family in Appalachia. Her family came from Poland and opened up a diner in Hollywood. She’s been trying to destroy that man for nigh on 50 years and it just hasn’t worked. His skull is too thick and his sense of self is too effortlessly strong. I’m not like that. A woman like that would grind my soul into a unrecognizable pile of dust. Sounds wonderful. Sounds hot.

My first “girlfriend” was Jewish. Girl I used to make out with in school when I was in 8th grade. Portions of my mouth kept getting stuck in her braces. We “broke up” right after I attended her Bat Mitzvah. By the time I started freshman year she had become extremely hot. Dark red hair, pale skin, modest dimples, slim waist, a tremendous ass, deep brown eyes, and a wide smile that was endowed with both warmth and a palpable hint of lingering pain; I think her mom died or something. No more braces either. I never talked to her in high school and I haven’t seen her since then. I am quite confident that she has only gotten hotter, and absolutely confident that she is incredible in the sack; that smile is a surefire sign. I’d buy her an engagement ring right now. I’ve already have a bunch of credit card debt. Why the fuck not? Maybe she’ll read this someday and block me on social media.

4. Later on during my family’s Christmas Dinner, my 89-year-old grandfather slowly slipped into tears. He had told all of us that he wanted to say something to us about his past. “…stupid.”, my grandmother muttered under her breath. He then went on to say “When I was a kid, we’d see all the Sears catalogs and all that around Christmastime… we could never have any of it. We never celebrated Christmas when I was a kid. Our mother couldn’t afford it, we were TOO DAMN POOR.” He was 110% not bullshitting about how goddamn poor he’d been. He grew up in the hills of Pennsylvania in a house with three rooms, five boys, and no father. He continued: “I had a good mother… I never got to celebrate Christmas until I was older, coz we were too damn poor… I wish she could see all this… she never got to see all this… I had a good mother…”, he said before pausing to fight back more tears. My father was visibly irritated, he just doesn’t wanna deal with this kind of stuff. Everybody else was silent with a blank look on their face. Looks like it was my job to handle this like a normal-ish human being. “Well,” I said, “you and your brothers worked really hard and had a lot of good luck and now we get to celebrate Christmas. And I’m sure your mother is somewhere watching us.” My poignant little statement didn’t register with him, he just continued crying. But my grandmother said “Here, here!” and everybody else had a toast. Maybe he could tell that I don’t really believe in an afterlife. I don’t think he does either.

Grandpa Jack collected himself and dinner continued. Later on, he asked me how I was doing and I told him that I’d started writing again recently. He got excited. “Oh really? I used to write all the time Jake, matter of fact I got 16 volumes of notebooks downstairs”. I got genuinely excited for the first time in… a long time. “Wait, seriously?” I said. Why the fuck didn’t my dad or anybody tell me about this? Were they aware? Jack told me that when he dies, he’ll give me the notebooks. He ended up taking me down to his art studio and opening up a big black hardbound volume, labeled only as “15”. The second-to-last one. He showed me a brief poetical piece. It was flanked in the pages by journal entries about his life, accompanied with little drawings. I obviously cannot disclose what I read in his notebook with any specificity. I can tell you that the piece he showed me dealt with the search for meaning, and hinted at its possible futility. A familiar theme, and one that I have found increasingly impossible to ignore over the past 3 months or so.

I’m never gonna show Grandpa Jack any of my writing. He doesn’t wanna read about some chick’s ass.

Christmas Eve got real sad. Blindsided me. Bittersweet memories weave their way down circuitous mental routes at a breakneck pace. They catch up to me and grab me by the throat before I even realize I had occasion to run. Disenchantment gets triggered like a landmine as I stumble towards a new horizon. This horizon fails to entice me, but there’s nothing else left for me to stumble towards.

I’ll never share a dream with someone again. I’m sharing my reality with everybody who reads this and anybody who cares to listen. That’s all I’ve got. So if you’re reading or listening, thanks and you’re very welcome. Merry Christmas.

I didn’t even think I was in a bad mood. I had band practice and it went exceptionally well. The four of us went to the bar. I was having a blast at first. Wasn’t drinking, just laughing with some of the only people I like. Time wears on, I get tired, start to feel a little down. Whatever. Bar had an exceptional quantity of good-looking women wandering around that night. Only saw one that was really my type, long-nosed dyed-red-hair trash barbie in a short skirt who was there with a skinny face-tattoo messenger bag guy. The guy you’d expect her to be there with. Lots of actual beautiful women there though. They didn’t grab me by the throat like she did, but they were striking. There was one who was incredible. Vaguely Asian looking, black hair with bangs, black fur, black jeans, perfect tan skin, carried herself like an ethereal, mythic creature. I spotted her as soon as she walked in. When I see a girl who’s hot to me, it makes me nervous. When I see a like this, I’m just floored. Impressed. Amazed. And then I forget about it, because it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t arouse me and I will never consider talking to her. It’s like a lose-lose. Actually, it’s a win-win. I get to admire something beautiful and I don’t have to worry about wanting anything from her. Desire is the stressful part.

I was sitting at a table with Mike. He was quite drunk and he began to comment on both the quantity and quality of ladies at the bar. “Lot of beautiful women here for a Monday”, he remarked with a hearty slur. The Oriental vision in the black fur passed by our table. I saw Mike spot her, amazement washing over his face. “Yeah dude, I know. It’s fucking hard to believe.”, I preempted as she floated out of view (and presumably, earshot). “Damn. Yeah. That is incredible.”, he said. Our conversation paused a moment, both of us paralyzed by her beauty. “I got a chick in Cleveland I’m seeing”, said Mike, “but you should go over and talk to that girl.”. I replied: “If that chick slept with me, that would be a crime against nature.” Mike laughed, because that is a funny thing to say. “God made laws about how I can’t talk to that girl.”, I said. Mike continued to chuckle. I wish he’d left it at that. Just laugh at me. But like clockwork, he started with routine I’d heard numerous times before. “Nah, cmon man, don’t be so hard on yourself, have some confidence.” My response was well-rehearsed. “Nah man look, I know I can be charming, I’ve got some confidence, but like…. C’mon. Just look at that girl. That’d be a stretch. She is objective out of my league.”. I’d been given the “you should have confidence” lecture so many goddamn times, from every goddamn person I’d ever known. Just laugh at me and leave it the fuck alone. Mike got the message and backed off, with one addendum: “Well, look man. All I’m sayin’ is, she’s sitting at a table with Conner and Zoe right now.” Conner and Zoe were people that we knew. This surprised me. Why would someone like that be hanging out with people that I know? People who enjoy talking to me? People who enjoy talking to me are fucked. I expressed a modest quantity of surprise at this and changed the subject. I didn’t want to think about it, because I didn’t want to talk to her.

I wasn’t getting out of this that easily. I’ve gotten out of this easily and very consistently over the years. Recently I’ve felt that time running out. I cannot be like this forever. The level of discomfort that I’ve survived with thus far is not sustainable. I don’t want to overcome it. I need to. Zoe made eye contact with me and signaled me over to their table. Shook my hand. Dread gripped my being already, as I knew what was about to happen. A dread that throttled my entire being, asserting its visceral grip on my body and mind. She was going to ask me the same question that I was asked multiple times a day, every day, and each time I gave the same bullshit answer, and each time I felt the dread’s grip. “How’s it goin? How are you?.” Her impossibly gorgeous friend was directly to my right. I deliberately avoided looking at her. I don’t know if she was paying attention to what I was saying or not. This time, my bullshit answer was an especially sizable load thereof. Even my tone of voice was a mess. I could see Zoe’s face shift, smile swiftly disappearing into the ether, as I warbled my response with uncanny weakness: “Oh, you know… pretty good for the most part.”. Terrible. Absolute shit. The same response I’d given hundreds of times before, at work, at the gym, in line at the supermarket. A pitiful dodge, devoid of meaning or substance, mercilessly programmed deep into my brain until it became second-nature. Ruthlessly uncomfortable every time, but still second-nature. Instinctive. Creating and enduring unnatural and unnecessary discomfort. Over the years I had adjusted to it, as an animal mutates according to its terrain and/or circumstance. The “circumstance” in question here is the treacherous terrain of my soul itself.

There was a brief pause that felt about the same as you’d expect it to, and then Conner put me on blast. He doesn’t know me as well as some of my other friends do, but he must have picked up on a critical fact about me that my very best friends realized long ago. If you’re looking to help me, the only way to get any sort of advice through my exceptionally thick skull is by putting me on blast. He turned to me with a deliberation that I spotted before he even said anything. “Yo Jake,” he said, “you don’t have to read off a fuckin’ script. Just tell ‘em that you’re doing lousy.”

If I just told ‘em that I was doing lousy, there would have been a litany of conversation topics for us to draw upon. I am literally in the process of writing a book about how fuckin’ lousy I’m doing. I would have had plenty to talk about. But that’s not what I told ‘em. I told ‘em that I was doin’ fine, for the most part. I made a few awkward jokes as Zoe’s friends took refuge in whatever app they were browsing, shielded from my disquieting presence by the dopamine-rich glow of their smartphones. Conner’s remark was a revelation. I had been offering up bullshit about how I was “doin’ fine” for years. Every single time was a missed opportunity. Every time I seized up and spat out vapid things that I heard other people say, people who bored me to tears but people who were functional, people who were different from me and therefore inestimably better, I was chipping away at my limbs every single time. Crippling myself. Rewiring my conscious mind against the precious Will of my unconscious soul, rather than aligning them. Drilling that stupid fucking script right into my bones. It was overwhelming when this dawned on me. Conner fucked me up. I paced around the bar awkwardly for a couple minutes and then left.

I’ve had to throw a lot of hoop dreams in the trash over the years. There are a cubic shit-ton of things that I am constitutionally incapable of. I cannot do anything that requires spatial thinking. Building physical things, putting things together. I cannot do it. I can’t work in a machine shop. I can’t be a toolmaker. I can’t work in construction. Anything involving technical competency, even relatively basic technical competency, there is no fucking way. I’ve tried, and it doesn’t take. I can’t do math. I can’t understand science. I cannot write code or do any of that computer stuff. Again, these are paths that I’ve already ventured down. This isn’t me self-deprecating; anyone who knows me well would concur. I’m not cut out for any of that. Anything that could be described as a conventionally “Masculine” life path is a hoop dream for me, and I’ve decided that it’s time for me to give up on my hoop dreams. I have a sneaking suspicion that meeting and pursuing women is a hoop dream for me. It’s just not gonna take. I am hard-wired in a way that ensures as much, and it would be a waste of time and energy to even contemplate changing that. But this is one hoop dream that I’m gonna keep clinging to. Falling in love and/or having a bunch of sex is a lot more appealing than writing code or working in a fucking machine shop.

The next day was Christmas Eve, and I had to go to work. I was tired. Stayed up too late. There was nothing to do at work. All I had to do was stand around and watch my coworkers not work, while they chit-chatted with each other. I took my morning shit around 10am. While sitting on the toilet, I got a phone call from an auto shop where I had made an appointment to get my windshield replaced. They must’ve been calling to confirm my appointment.

“Is this Jake?”

“Yeah, why? What’s up?”

“Hey man this is Tom calling from SafeLite, how’s it goin’?”

“I’m fine. I’m taking a shit at work.”

I lay on my bed shirtless and unshaved. The galvanizing muttonchops are a standard facet of my visage but they are now joined by thick, uncompromising bristles of hair which assert their will with incipient brutality and resolve across my chin and neck. It itches but shaving would be an ordeal. I kind of like the way that it itches. I like to feel shitty. I like to look shitty too, and right now I look like a swarthy Gallic street criminal. Dark facial hairs rendering a dark shadow on my face. My pronounced brow emanating an aura of malice as crazed eyes bursting with intensity lash out in animalistic confusion just underneath.

The hairs on my chest and shoulders are comically numerous, but thinner than the ones on my face and straighter than any other body hair I’ve ever seen. I’ve been eating a lot more carbohydrates lately so my torso is thick and endows me with a presence that unsettles and intimidates those who don’t know any better. Exceptionally broad shoulders taper into increasingly powerful lats, concluding with rather unfortunate patches of fat on my hips. My core muscles are visible but padded with fat. I love my torso, with one real exception: my chest muscles are too damn small. My gut only looks bad because it’s disproportionate to my weak chest. Moreover, a weak chest makes one look weak. This is an irrational aesthetic irony. You don’t use your chest muscles for much of anything. I do my prescribed push-ups with vigor and perfect form, and I perform the bench press dutifully even though it’s my least favorite lift. Neither have gotten me very far. The lower half of my body is monstrous. Gigantic muscular thighs, thighs that frighten me when I look in the mirror. They are currently sheathed by a pair of cheap blue jeans and I am tempted to remove them and gaze upon my powerful haunches. My large butt is clearly the product of innumerable heavy squats and not genetics; those well-practiced in the admiration of asses can spot the difference.

I have the body of a mighty brute. Just put me on a leash already.

I can’t hold on
And I can’t let go
Which hurt hurts the worst?
“I don’t know.”

He propelled himself through the back window in silence, his grandmother’s jewelry box clasped between his right arm and side torso. Sweet relief drew nearer by an increment as he made his way out. He was no stranger to hitting a lick, but this one would inevitably hit *him* a bit harder. More money and more bad karma than lifting his little sister’s abandoned PlayStation. Right now, that didn’t matter. Only one thing mattered right now. Hustle back down the Cul-de-Sac. Hop in the grey station wagon. Start the grey station wagon. Biggie Smalls’ ‘Ready to Die’ pulsating weakly through his busted stereo speakers for the five thousandth time. Accelerate. Across town, past the city proper. Tension, agony, excitement, sweat, and above all the urge to vomit. A menagerie of sensations percolating and intermingling inside of him as he made his way to a West Side suburb.

This was the only regional township where a 24-Hour Pawn Shop was both a profitable venture and a viable one. Park the grey, prolifically noisy station wagon in the lot. Shuffle into the 24-Hour Pawn Shop. Tell the owners/operators/whoever the fuck they are, the worst white guys in the world, that you have some jewelry for them. They don’t say very much. They give you some money. The Divine draws nearer with each new horizon. Home stretch, baby. Leave. Start the station wagon. Accelerate. ‘Ready to Die’ again. It is 5:00am. Only one dope spot open this late/early.

The 24-Hour Dope Spot is even shittier than the 24-Hour Pawn Shop. Drive there. The dark grey-blue of the early morning sky is taunting you. The early morning air feels uncanny, like night air tainted with poison. Park out front. Get out of the station wagon. Knock on the door. 30 seconds of sublime suspense, waiting to for a response. “Yo.” You pass the money through the window. An invisible black man passes a bundle through the window. Anticipation mounting like one thousand slowly blossoming orgasms, all at once, the last and most gorgeous horizon emerging imminent before you.

Get back in the station wagon. Tie off. Shoot up. Ecstatic relief washes over you for a few precious moments. No more agony. No more tension. No more excitement and sweat and vomit. Unfortunately, it was garbage dope. 24-Hour Dope Spot had garbage product. You don’t get the divine euphoria that the good bags give you. That’s what he really needed. That’s what he was after. This was fine, but it wasn’t going to cut it. He was going to have to do it again. New horizons forever dawning, brand new and just the same as the last.

There is no feeling more devastating than the sudden realization that, actually, the rules do apply to you.

People talk a lot about “life’s little pleasures”. “It’s the little things”, they say. Little pleasures never cut it for me. They can’t pierce the haze. They are imperceptible from within my thick and ever-present cloud. If you really think that fresh-washed sheets or a moment spent smelling roses is going to ameliorate my pain then I don’t know what to tell you. No sir, I need big pleasures. Overwhelming ones. Pleasures that could blot out the fucking sun. And that’s why I needed…