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 ...