End of the Map

Wednesday, 10.24.18 11:44 am 36 years old 186 pounds Prescott, AZ In the early 21st century, something awful happened: humanity was given the ability to send text messages. At first, we thought this was a good thing. Business could move faster. The populace could stay more informed. We could communicate with one another at a rate previously unseen in history. We were moving into the Information Age with gusto and it felt like the Right Thing at the Right Time. We did not know then what a terrible and powerful weapon we were handed. A text is to its recipient as a blank page is to a writer. Devoid of context, tone, or voice, a text can be whatever the recipient wants/thinks/needs/feels it to be. The original intent can only be explained in person, but that happens much later (if it happens at all) and oftentimes, the explanation is too little, too late or heard by deaf ears. In a flash, a text message can undo hours spent together, long talks of empathy and commiseration, and a

Wednesday, 8.29.18 10:49pm 36 years old 187 pounds Top 5 Outkast Songs: SpottieOttieDopalicious, B.O.B., Humble Mumble, Southernplayalistic, Roses Denver, CO 2018 has been an astonishingly strange year thus far. The author is feeling reflective as we tick down to September and begin the final quarter turn. How do we still have four months left to go? How do we only have four months left to go? On a cold, clear night in January, I left/was fired from the one job I'd known since arriving in Denver. It was devastating to me at the time, and then liberating, and then frightening. I fought through some very lean months with the gracious help of friends and my new adopted family here in this strange city next to the mountains. There solidified within me this feeling that I was doing all the right things and had made all the right choices and though it was difficult to see at the time, it would all work out to be okay. It was more difficult to know this truth on some days. On a

Tuesday, 8.21.18 3:06pm 36 years old (feels like) 1000 pounds Lake Pend Oreille, ID If the company a man keeps is a reflection of who he is, then I would like to apologize for being a drunk and a drug addict. I would like to apologize for being someone who is flaky and bad about keeping plans. I would like to apologize for being terrible about keeping in touch. I would like to apologize for being unreliable, for not doing what I'm asked, for being impulsive, for thinking always and only of myself. I would like to apologize for being a bad friend. I would like to apologize for being passive-aggressive on social media. I would like to apologize for manipulating the emotions of the people I care about most. I would like to apologize for being a bad friend. And I think maybe from now on, I will severely limit the company I keep.

Tuesday, 7.17.18 12:53pm 36 years old 184 pounds Topeka, KS A bunch of fat raindrops sit pregnant and poised to pop in the bloated, humid air of a summer day in the capital city of Kansas. Topeka is not a place anyone chooses who isn't from here. Topeka is a place to which you become chained as a child. My coworkers and I have been summoned here to teach a software we know to be buggy to a group of teachers who are here against their will. Eyes are glassy with boredom in the reflection of their laptop screens. They are full from lunch, and sleepy. They are growing restless as my cohorts continue to bullshit their way through functionality we know to be problematic. I'm here to shadow and to learn. I make myself an effective shadow - I sit quietly in a corner and I watch. All I've learned so far is that this is not going anywhere near as smoothly as my colleagues would like. This morning's training took three hours. In that time, I heard the phrase, "what you

Wednesday, 6.20.18 3:26pm 36 years old 185 pounds Denver, CO "Why can't you just be cool?" Reader, the author does not need to tell you how often he has been asked this question. And for fuck's sake, if I knew how to be cool all the time, then I would be! I'm not choosing this neurotic weirdness because it's a hoot or a good time - this is how I goddamn am. Believe me, I've been trying to solve this riddle for years. Spin class is back in my life, which means that the fire has returned. It feels like I haven't missed a day. I was worried that after such a long layoff, and smoking like a chimney in the meantime, that I'd be more than rusty. Those fears were groundless and it's like I never left. It's been a welcome reintroduction. Remember always that she is a cat. She will let you know when she wants to be stroked and petted and played with and loved. Until that notice is given, you are invited to fuck off please. An alarming tr

Wednesday, 5.30.18 8:52pm 36 years old 189 pounds Denver, CO I suppose the truest mark of my progress is that to mark the third anniversary of my freedom from alcohol is that I didn't feel compelled to mark the occasion at all. Thinking back on the events of a late May day three years ago fills me with a lot of shame, and a lot of sadness, and a lot of dark thoughts about who I used to be, who I might still become if I'm not careful, what I've put my family through.... It's important to feel those emotions sometimes to their fullest extent for the purpose of growth and because it is what a responsible, emotionally healthy adult should do. It's also important not to live in that space for too long. You have never seen thread unravel so fast as when a former addict starts tugging at the frayed end of their self-confidence. Marking the occasion is important for the purpose of marking progress. I will not argue with that. One thousand and ninety-five days have pa

Imagine that your parents constantly told you that you were a ploy to keep one of them in a relationship they hated. Imagine that the ploy failed anyway, and you were told that you were the reason why. Imagine if someone who married into your family was allowed to slag and belittle and demean your mother whenever they felt like it without penalty or consequence. Imagine being told over and over again that you were not strong enough, physically or emotionally or mentally. Imagine being born with a borderline photographic memory and autism that went undiagnosed for years, and trying to forget all of these things. Imagine being told that now that the divorce was finalized, you and your brother were the family unit and that you were the two who truly mattered, and then imagine getting guilt-tripped any time you and your brother did things together that excluded the rest of your "family." Imagine that whenever you screwed up, your parents wrote you a letter about it instead

Thursday, 5.3.18 11:19am 36 years old 188 pounds Denver, CO This weekend: Boston. Seafood. Brother. Mom. Home. Heart. Happy. Portland, Maine. New work orientation. Seeing the headquarters. Meeting my team. Networking. Plugging in to the mother-ship. So the montage of your life is going to cut itself together in your head, playing itself like film in those moments of mental quiet that are fewer and farther between. The more time we experience, the faster it seems to move, and all of a sudden, those moments that still feel so fresh are three and four years ago, and you're knocking out years at a clip unprecedented. Periods of a few months, a hard labor jail sentence as a child, are nothing to you as an adult. Six months? Be over before you know it. Two years? Pfffft, do it standing on my head. There were a few things about myself that I had to learn by leaving Boston. The author will not bore you, reader, with what those lessons were - those are private intellectual prope

Friday, 4.20.18 36 years old 188 pounds Denver, CO On April 20, 1999, I was in a high school in downtown Rome, Italy. As part of a student learning program for Italian language students in the city of Boston, a handful of us from three different schools were flown to Italy for a nine-day tour of the country. We saw the canals of Venice, the art museums of Florence, and the ruins of Rome. We stood on the banks of the Tiber River. We climbed to the cuppola of St. Peter's Basilica. We attended mass in the plaza of Vatican City with Pope John Paul II. We ate. Oh my God, did we eat. This being a school trip, though, there were some responsibilities. We had to spend one day in an actual Italian high school, taking classes and sitting in lecture like every other Roman high school student our age. It was a challenge for two reasons. The first was that while we had been studying Italian for five years, NOTHING prepares one for the speed of the native speakers. The second was that the

Monday, 4.16.18 3:03pm 36 years old 186 pounds Bronchial health: so-so Brontosaurus health: extinct Bronte Sisters health: lively on the page Denver, CO Challenging oneself and exposing oneself to new experiences is the zest with which any good life is seasoned, no doubt. But every once in a while, a return to a familiar form, function, family, friend, or folly is a welcome relief. Our well-worn shoes are worn well for a reason, after all. It is in this sentiment and in these feelings and in this headspace that the author finds himself today, reader, and it is a most welcome homecoming. I embarked today on a new career opportunity, and while the company and people and lingo and tools and internal sites and clients are all new to me, the author is treading a path he has trodden before. We find ourselves once again, reader, walking the halls of academia, though in a slightly different garb than before. No longer is the author a classroom teacher in the traditional sense - he i

Wednesday, 4.4.18 4:42pm The author believes that he has found a direction for this blog. This is an exciting prospect, reader. There is nothing quite like watching the nebulous coalesce into something tangible. It is the author's sincere hope that you will enjoy the journey alongside him. We have only just begun!

Wednesday, 4.4.18 36 years old 186 pounds Days til WrestleMania 34: 4 Days til I start the new job: 12 Relief level: HIGH What if this? What if, when you're born, there is an archer assigned to you. The archer is your judgment. When you do something bad, Or if you do something hurtful or harmful, The archer looses an arrow from his quill And sets it on his bow And raises the weapon to aim at you And draws back the string. What if this? What if, throughout your life, as missteps or bad deeds occur, he draws back the bowstring a little farther and a little farther and a little farther And he widens his aim? The arrow points at you. The arrow points at your family. The arrow points at your children. The arrow points at your dog. The arrow points at your house Your career Your health Your car Your savings account Your spouse Your love..... What if this? Vaguely, maybe, in the back of your mind, you feel the tension. Vaguely, maybe, you're aware t

Monday, 3.26.18 1:55pm 36 years old 185 pounds Life according to John Cena: Hustle, Loyalty, Respect Life according to Kurt Angle: Integrity, Intensity, Intelligence Life according to the puppy Rousimoff: Play Time, Nap Time, Food Time At the edge of town About a six minute drive from what passes as Main Street Over the train tracks that have needed a weeding since before they were laid Between the eroded farmhouses and the marsh that follows the river to the south Down the road just a piece from the best slice of pie baked west of the mountain Behind the masks of the alcoholics that stagger in and out of the two bars that drain love and wallets and marriages where sunlight doesn't touch Beyond the reach of all but the sheriff department, and he only comes 'round when there's real trouble like murder trouble like that summer that no one talks about when Jimmy and Paige were found with their.... Into the teeth of a wind that bites, and a sun that beams like Je

Thursday, 3.22.18 1:11pm 36 years old 184 pounds Daniel Bryan in-ring status: active Emotion level at Daniel Bryan's return to active status: overjoyed It is a source of annoyance to the author's compatriots and associates and friends and colleagues that frequently, he is caught whistling the theme music of the circus. Its association with clowns and what that imagery invokes for some folks notwithstanding, it is a catchy tune that adheres well to one's audio faculties and proves difficult to shake. As far as commercial jingles go, it is devastatingly effective. But the author whistles this tune as a reminder to himself: this is all just a circus. The author raised his Twitter app yesterday afternoon to discover that the nation's former vice president, Joe Biden, had said in an interview that had they gone to high school together and had he behaved then as he does now, Biden would have beaten the hell out of President Donald J. Trump. The ridiculousness of that

Wednesday, 3.7.18 11:38pm Favorite Oceans, ranked: 1. Atlantic 2. Pacific 3. Frank 4. Indian 5. Billy Denver, CO The night summer air is sticky and still warm. He's making the walk again, crossing the stretch of road that manages to skirt the shoreline and ocean at one elbow, and contours into the overpass that extends to the suburbs along another. Strapped to his back in a knapsack are the clothes from the day's workout in the spin studio, and a Tupperware container of the night's leftover dinner cooked alongside his lady love, and a thirty-two ounce water bottle filled to the brim and fastened tight. It's a Tuesday night, but because it's July, the city streets are thick with tourists and couples and families. The business day crowd is sparsely represented - loosened ties and flip-flops beneath pencil skirts confessing to some bit of happy hour fun - but these suburban commuters are a focused group. They maintain a margarita buzz while figuring out a tra

Monday, 3.5.18 12:31pm 36 years old 188 pounds (Oscar party excess) Meteorological conditions: windy enough to blow Odysseus home Puppy conditions: Rousimoff is occupied with a chew toy, and is happy Denver, CO The author has not yet met a person without a ghost story. These tales of specters and ghouls and supernatural spirits have spanned the spectrum from spooky to surreal to silly to seriously weird. The author's former residences in Boston were frequented with otherworldly visitors. In the neighborhood of Dorchester, the author dozed and made a home in a former crime scene. You see, reader, the previous residents of the home had been a mother and father and son. The story has it that son tried to execute mother and father by way of arson - a ghastly bit of business, reader, the author agrees. So one can imagine what sort of energies flowed through that home - macabre vibrations abounded. It is the author's second residence in Boston that bears the most interest

Friday, 3.2.18 12:49pm 36 years old 187 pounds Daily coffee intake, in cups: 2.71 Job status: underemployed Emotional status: underwhelmed Denver, CO Reader, the author wonders today if the current state of things is designed to complicate life in such a manner as to keep liquor sales trending ever upward, and mental health professionals in BMWs and furs. Surely if one wanted to make such a case, the evidence at hand would prove more than adequate. The author would like to submit this morning's events as an example. While the author was once upon a time gainfully employed at a very large IT company that insured his health, dental, and vision, those days have passed. Since then, employment has been gainful enough, but the insurance benefits have not been so easily come by. Without insurance, a primary care physician is not something one is able to have on speed dial, and it is those same physicians whose expertise is needed to procure a physical examination attesting to o

Wednesday, 2.28.18 1:28pm 36 years old 187 pounds Cigarette intake: occasional Exercise regiment: occasionally not Days without alcohol: 1004 Days of borderline rage at lack of alcohol: 1001 Denver, CO This particular journey begins with a blog post. It is the first blog post by the author in some time, so the author is hopeful that you will bear with him as this ship finds easier eddies of epistrophe and smoother seas of syllepsis. Onward we press. The author wonders where there is left to go, now that we've covered the map. There are no untouched places, there are no unseen spaces, there are no tribes or races left for new discovery. (Well, not totally, of course. The author will no doubt be proven wrong in the coming weeks or months by some newfound flora or fauna from the tropical jungles or the briny deep or the snow-capped peaks.) But those discoveries are becoming fewer and farther between, are they not? Our spirit of "FORWARD!" has become an