Happy Fourth. We were going to grill and have friends over, but friends' plans got altered and ended up sending late regrets. Kevin and I have spent the day together in the air conditioned bedroom, watching TV with headphones on. I tried to walk Charlie earlier but it was still too hot; now I've forgotten to walk him for the day. I am not good at ( Read more... )

A quickie to say that I'm well and so are my loved ones. Carolyn got herself a job today, so congratulations are due. We had a date for today, anyway, and then she got this job interview this morning, so our lunch became a celebratory outing. I've just dropped her home and walked the dog back with me ( Read more... )

I'm stuck in the middle of an essay about Clint Eastwood and masculinity, and had the most horrible morning, so I escaped into a Netflix DVD I've been sitting on for at least a month. "Our Daily Bread" (1934) is the main feature on a disc of films of the Great Depression. I love movies of the 1930s, because of the socialism in America, and how ( Read more... )

A couple days ago, I was floundering as I recovered from Kevin's "staycation," but I've since recovered and am productive. In fact, doing shit was what I needed to do to stop flailing. Today I had a couple of rewards for my writing. One was getting front page of Open Salon with an Editor's Pick for my essay, "Local tomatoes." Another was having ( Read more... )

I updated my profile, which had been pretty bare bones for a little while because I couldn't think of what to say about myself. I try doing it without using a list of identities and it makes me feel like an undergrad ( Read more... )

I'm feeling lonely and like I'm flapping at loose ends. This happens more easily, the more unraveled my routine gets. I haven't even been out of work for a whole week yet ( Read more... )

Man aspires
To good,
To love
Sighs;

Beaten, corrupted, dying
In his own blood lying
Yet heaves up an eye above
Cries, Love, love.
It is his virtue needs explaining,
Not his failing.

-"Away, Melancholy," by Stevie Smith

Sometimes Kevin says something like this to me. He says, "suffering does not ennoble," and "we love heroes because heroism is so

I had a hard day off yesterday. Today went better. I went to work, and then I ran. Part of what went wrong with yesterday was that I didn't go to the gym, for the second day in a row. That is usually enough to make me feel like shit. I have to do something high intensity for a decently long period of time, almost every day. Something like two days ( Read more... )

Read this just now in The New Yorker, August 11 & 18 issue, and immediately wanted to share it with Kevin. Anyone who's ever wanted to die and doesn't now will understand.

( Trouble, by Matthew Dickman )

I can't stand the regular news items lately: I can always seem to predict what real information, if any, will be in the article based on the headline and short summary. More importantly, I know what the article means in the larger view, and that view is mostly depressing. The only view that isn't so depressing is somewhere between 500 and 10 ( Read more... )