Look, I am aware that I need a haircut

This look is not a choice.

I do not want you to think that this is on purpose.

I need you to know that this is not a choice I have made. I am not “trying out a new look.” I just haven’t gotten around to making an appointment with my hair person. You need to book her at least two weeks out and it’s been a real I don’t know what I’ll be doing two weeks from now kind of few months for me. So, it just kinda got past me and keeps getting past me.

This is not an attempt to look cool. In no way is this shaggy, unkept mane a way to display some sort of newfound, midlife, devil-may-care attitude about my appearance. That’s not who I am, or who I will ever pretend to be. I care. Lord knows I care far too much, about way too many things. I still care about the choices I made for my appearance as a child that didn’t turn out great for me. One time, I showed up for a school play with a face full of makeup and got made fun of mercilessly — by boys and girls (and even some adults.) I was in a play! On stage under the bright lights! The only person (other than my mother) who stood up for me was my childhood barber, who also doubled as the hair, makeup, and costume guy for the play, which is maybe why it’s so hard to find a hair person as an adult. None of these new people are gonna stand up for me like he did when I get made fun of by children. How can they possibly live up to this impossibly high-set bar?

See how much I care?

I guess I should also say that this is not some cry for help. I haven’t stopped taking care of myself. I’m still showering, brushing my teeth, and doing all other kinds of basic hygiene and beyond. I’ve even started something I call “Sunday Spa Days” where I pamper myself at home with face and body products I steal from my wife. I’m even flossing!1

I guess I should also also say that at a few points along the way, I did kinda start to think that I might want to grow my hair out. It looked pretty okay, I thought, and I might have started to want to see how it would look if I grew it out really long. But not how I grew it out really long in high school — which was to buzz it all off and then see how long and wild I could get it before getting sent to the school counselor’s office to see if everything was okay at home — which, turns out, was a full year. Twelve months of just showering in the morning, drying my hair with a towel, not touching it with a brush or comb, and going to school looking like Bruce Vilanch before somebody thought to ask if I was experiencing any extra stress about my upcoming graduation and this transitional phase of life. No, I’d want to grow it out but style it nice.

So no, this is not on purpose. I will go back to my regular hair as soon as I can. Unless any of you kind of think that long hair does look good on me. I will do whatever somebody else tells me they like. Unless I discover they are full of it like this one guy who told me, on two separate occasions “Your hair looks great long, never cut it short” and then, another time, months later “Wow, a short cut really works for you, this is your look.” I figured out that guy is a liar who just wants to make people feel nice in the moment and thinks they have bad brains in their heads that can’t remember things. Don’t be like that guy.

Anyways, if you’re not a liar and want to tell me anything I should know about my hair before I schedule my next appointment you have at least two weeks. This is your problem now.

Hey, Mom and Dad! I took your financial advice!

I hope you are proud of your boy. I took your financial advice to heart. I saved money whenever I could. I never bought things I couldn’t afford. And I never, ever, no matter what got a credit card.

I came close a few times, but I always remembered what you told me — which was “never, ever, no matter what get a credit card.” In college, when the banks set up tables outside the Student Center and offered us coupons for mountains of free pizzas it was so hard not to sign up for their low-interest rate offer. I just closed my eyes and pictured the look of disappointment on your face at the thought of me having a line of credit, and kept on walking by. I’ve turned down countless free hats, t-shirts, and jerseys (of my favorite teams and players!) by stiff-arming solicitors at sporting events.

So, like I said I hope you are proud of your boy. Because now your boy needs some help.

I’m going to need you to co-sign for my new apartment. Because, as the realtor put it, I “don’t even exist.” I asked him “What do you mean I don’t exist, I’m standing right in front of you, do you think I’m some kind of mirage or ghost?” and he said, “You don’t exist on paper” and I said “What does that even mean?” and he said “You have no credit history.”

At this point, I puffed out my chest and said “Yeah, ain’t that great, just like Mom and Dad told me” and he shook his head in a way that I can only describe as a way someone would shake their head if they thought they were being pranked. I was shaking my head in the same way because I thought I was being pranked too. I was looking around for hidden cameras in the empty apartment because I couldn’t believe there was any way following my parents’ advice could land me in such a pickle. There we were, two guys, standing in an empty apartment, shaking our heads, each wondering if they were being pranked by the other.

Once he eventually gathered his emotions and thoughts he said “Look, with no line of credit we can’t prove that you can keep up with the rent payments.” I pointed out the fact that I have a job and a steady income which is the recommended amount of at least three times the cost of renting this apartment. He said that wasn’t good enough, he needed a past record of me going into debt and paying that debt off repeatedly over and over to prove that I would not not pay my rent.

Honestly, I don’t know why they would need this. If they want to know if I can pay rent they should look at job. Job is the key, not what I used to do. Job yes? Good. Job no? Bad. Their reasoning doesn’t even make sense. If something happened and I no longer have job — it does not matter how much stuff I used to be able to pay for.

I don’t mean to question your authority as my parents, but I think you goofed. I think you may have given me antiquated advice from another time. So please, help me out here, and cosign for this apartment so I have a place to live. If I’m being honest I think you also owe me a bunch of free pizzas and hats and t-shirts and jerseys that I missed out on, too.

Quick question: did you realize that by telling me to never get a credit card you were making me theoretically not exist? Like, somewhere deep down were you hoping to erase the fact that you have a son by erasing me from the system through which we all have to live? Or maybe you were trying to tether me to you for all-time, never allowing me to run free and fly on my own? Or was this just an honest goof?

Anyways, don’t worry about me losing my job and not being able to pay rent - I’ve taken all your career advice too, so my job knows how good of a worker I am. I volunteer for extra assignments and have never ever once asked for a raise. I stay after hours and work off the clock for no pay and don’t even mention it or remind anybody that I do this. And I keep my mouth shut and let my work do the talking for me. I’m a model employee they’ll never be able to get rid of.

A short list of things I could have done instead of watching The Brutalist three times

Six Hundred and Forty Five Minutes of my Life

1. Learned what Brutalist architecture actually is.

2. Watched Anora 4.64 times.

3. Listened to The Brutalist score 7.86 times (BAH-NA-NAAAAA-NA).

4. Driven from my home in Los Angeles to San Franciso, had lunch, and then turned around and driven back home.

5. Gone for a walk of approximately 37.625 miles.

6. Slept for so long that I woke up mad about how much I slept.

7. Drawn all the pictures by hand the movie got in trouble for using AI to make.

8. 1.5 days of good, old fashioned, American work (just between us, I prefer the movie.)

9. Flown to the east coast, driven to central Pennsylvania, and spent several hours visiting my family (no comment on preference.)

10. Completed the Minnesota New Security Guard Training program (for fun?)

11. Completed California’s 12-hour course for first-time “wet-reckless” DUI offenders.

12. Finally stop laughing after hearing the phrase “wet-reckless” for the first time.

13. Ask every living family member every single question I could possibly think of in an attempt to know where I come from.

14. Made this a longer list of things I could have done with the time I spent watching The Brutalist three times. But that would create a paradox now, wouldn’t it?

A journal of my thoughts when trying to decide what to watch

Just use the watchlist, that’s what it’s there for.

Past You did Future You (who is now Present You) a huge favor by going through each streaming service and curating your watchlist with things You (All-Time) would like to watch. It is now there for You to choose from.

Yeah, but there’s a reason why I didn’t watch those things then, and those reasons are probably still a reason why I don’t want to watch them now. Maybe it’s not the right vibe. Or maybe some of the things I’m waiting to watch with somebody else. Some of them I’m not sure if somebody else wants to watch or not. Some of them are too long, or are meant for a time when I can pay close attention, and I’m not sure if now is a time where I can pay close attention (it’s been a long day, I’m wiped).

There should be multiple watchlist categories that you can label for different watching occasions. That way, you can pull the right watchlist up at the right time. Somebody get me in touch with one of the streamers. This is a million dollar idea. It’s at least a few thousand dollar idea. Is this just what Letterboxd is?

What mood am I even in now? Nothing too long, or that I have to pay close attention to, that’s for sure. Do I want to watch a dumb comedy? How dumb are we talking here? Will that just make me mad? If I watch a dumb comedy will I just go into a rage-spiral because this movie got made and how is this any better than the last script I wrote that was “so funny we had to meet with you” but “not something we can buy right now”? Or maybe that will inspire me. Maybe watching something dumb and “bad” will get me working on the new script I’ve been lazy about. Maybe it will make me push through and finish it instead of just putting it off. Should I just write now? If I don’t know what I want to watch, maybe that’s a sign I should write. But I’m wiped. It’s been a long day.

I’ve been scrolling this whole time. I spaced and I haven’t even paid attention to what I’ve been passing by. I gotta go back.

What about an app that’s just fake movie posters for fake movies that don’t exist and you just scroll through it. You could write little fake descriptions of the movies and everything. Little movie synopsis parodies. I could treat it like a writing exercise. Write as many loglines for stupid movies as I can think of as fast as I can think of them and then Photoshop a fake poster for them. I bet there will be some good ideas that sneak in. Forcing yourself to come up with as many bad ideas as possible is always a way to come up with at least a couple good ideas. I bet people would just this app, too. Just look at funny movie poster parodies and descriptions without the stress of having to ever choose anything to actually watch.

Did I just describe picking something to watch on TV as stressful? What is wrong with me?

I should switch to another service. I’ve been scrolling here too long. Peacock maybe? I never look at Peacock, maybe hidden treasures are waiting for me on Peacock. Oh shit, I don’t have Peacock? I thought I had Peacock. Did I have somebody else’s Peacock login? Why did they get rid of Peacock, don’t they know that hidden treasures are waiting for them on Peacock?

What time is it? Nine PM. Is it too late to start a movie? Probably. I could go to bed and wake up early and try to write tomorrow morning. That’s probably a better use of my time and energy. If I write first thing in the morning I won’t have the excuse of being wiped. But I will feel like I’m shirking other responsibilities. I know myself. I’ll tell myself it’ll “be better” if I answer a few emails first and then get to writing. Then, before I know it, I’ve had a long day and I’m wiped again.

Oooh, I’ve been wanting to watch this for a while. But not now, I gotta be in a different mood. I’ll add it to the watchlist.

What if everyone who read this shared it? And then everyone who got it shared to them shared it again? What if?

We paid off your student loan. No need to say thanks.

We're sure you have a lot of questions.

We are reaching out with an exciting update about the status of your student loans!

You must have been very confused when you received recent correspondence from your original debtor that your student loan had been paid off in full. We know that they know that you know that you didn’t pay it off yourself. Why then, would they tell you that your debt had gone bye-bye? If put in a similar situation we would have done the same thing as you; sat there with our dang mouths shut, considering the case closed.

Maybe you wondered if some kind stranger did you a favor and paid it off on your behalf. Well, that sort of happened. We paid it off on your behalf. Isn’t that cool of us? Aren’t we great dudes? You no longer owe that pesky bank any of your hard-earned money.

Who are we? In short, we’re a small group of friends with a little bit of extra money sitting around that was just burning a hole in our pockets. So we put that money together to help people like you by paying off their student loans. We’re debt purchasers united to kill student loans. We call ourselves the Debt PUnKS. Pretty sweet, eh?

To put it another way — we’re the guys who own you now.

Technically, we don’t own you. That’s still illegal for now, but we’re starting to make cracks. We do own your debt, and that’s just as good. While you no longer have to send that hard-earned money to the bank to pay off your communications degree, you gotta send it to us.

Or — now hear us out — you could do little fun things instead of sending us monthly payments. When we said we had a little bit of extra money lying around we really meant it. We’re fucking loaded, and this money means nothing to us. Also, I don’t know if you know this, but when you buy up debt in bulk you get a great rate from the banks. They had no faith in you ever paying them off. We bought the right to fuck with you forever for pennies on the dollar. So we honestly don’t care if we ever get paid back. We don’t need the money at all.

But we will ruin your life. Starting next month and continuing until, well, let’s face it, forever, your monthly statement will offer you a choice. Pay us your regular, monthly payment until the loan and interest are paid in full (the original amount you borrowed, not the pennies-on-the-dollar amount we paid to acquire it, isn’t finance cool!), or engage in the Debt PUnKS Stunt of the Month for our enjoyment.

What kind of little fun things do we ask from the Debt PUnKS Stunt of the Month? We won’t ruin any future surprises but some of the things we’ve asked in the past of our financial captives have been: posting fake confessions via social media, engaging in a new TikTok dance craze we’ve invented, going to a crowded karaoke bar and singing “Angel” by Sarah McLachlan while crying, full-on ghosting of whoever you are dating at the moment, listing an item for sale online with your naked reflection “accidentally” included in the image, posting credible threats about public figures online, starting a sexual affair with your direct supervisor’s spouse, dognapping, going to your local grocery store and loudly telling on anyone who doesn’t properly scan their stuff at self-checkout, doing a series of “trip-and-spills” at national coffee chains of our choosing, heckling at random funerals, seeing how mad you can get at a gun store without being denied the right to make a purchase, stealing packages from your neighbors and brazenly using the stolen items where they can see you.

So much fun!

You might be asking how any of this is legal. It just is. We own your debt, and we’re giving you a choice. You have complete free will in this to do whatever you want. You don’t have to do any of the stunts. Just like you didn’t need to go to a college you couldn’t afford.

I take it that you’ve figured out by now that when we said we had exciting news about your student debt, we meant that it was exciting for us.

I'm sorry, but you just don't have the follower count to work in our humble little shop

We'd be happy to consider you in the future after more people smash that follow button.

Dear Person,

Thank you for your interest in the Junior Retail Associate position at our humble little shop. Unfortunately, we have chosen to proceed with other candidates who better meet our needs at this time. We wish you all the best in your search for a way to continue to be alive.

If we can provide some feedback, which we can because this is an email and you can’t stop me from continuing to write — you seriously need to consider upping your follower count before you apply for another job. How can any business trust that you’ll be an asset to them when you can’t even be an asset to yourself?

Your application made it through our initial screening process, despite your frankly humiliating follower count that should keep you awake at night, because of your previous training and experience. Your glowing reviews from former employers caught our eye, but not enough to make up for the fact that you have absolutely no influence over other humans at their most influenceable. You absolutely crushed it in your interview which, if we're being completely honest, we only invited you to as a goof. We needed to see what kind of person had such pathetic numbers online. You were lovely, personable, and probably perfect for the day-to-day aspects of this job. We all loved you in person. It’s a shame you can’t seem to make that work online.

If you’re not able to make thousands and thousands of idiots online desperately looking to keep themselves occupied smash the subscribe button so they don’t miss more of what you have to say, then how will you possibly represent our humble little shop to the best of your ability? Who’s going to even see it when we tag you in posts about our store? When you post about having a bad day at work who is even going to see it to ask “where do you work?” so you can reply “at this #humblelittleshop” resulting in a flood of new eyes on our stuff (no press is bad press.) This is the way all industries are going so you better get used to it.

Do you know that only 25 percent of your high school graduating class follows you on Instagram? Those are terrible metrics. These are the people who you should have in the bag. They should be auto follows. Might we suggest some Reels where you tell inside jokes about your hometown. Make local references. Say stuff like “Remember when we used to drive down that creepy street at night at make goat noises outside that one old guys house? What was that about? Why goat noises, he didn’t own a goat. Did he look like a goat? Is there some weird story about this guy and a goat from a long time ago that we didn’t even know about?” That’s, like, an auto share from anybody who follows you to anybody else in your class, they’ll pass it on to other people in your hometown, and pretty soon everybody’s going to be talking about Goat Man and following you. This shit works. Sure, some people will be like “That’s not cool, did you know that Goat Man had to be hospitalized because he tried to do self harm because generation after generation of kids kept harassing him outside his home.” But that’s just engagement, baby! That just feeds the algorithm exactly what it wants.

The algorithm does not want what you’re currently giving it. Your most recent post is just a picture of a tree in the snow. It’s beautiful, but what is the viewer supposed to even do with that? We’ve all seen trees, we’ve all seen snow, we’ve all seen trees beautifully covered in freshly fallen snow on a perfect moonlit evening. Standing tall and lonely in a field that hasn’t yet been walked on. Perfect snow with endless potential. Sure, it makes us think of the joy of childhood and the excitement of the night before a potential snow day. It feels like a little Christmas, the anticipation building in the pit of your stomach, waiting for the announcements on the news the next day, hoping you’ll be set free from having to go to class. Free for a glorious day of playing with your friends outside, tramping over the formerly perfect field, climbing the tree, shaking the branches and watching the snow fall on your friends below. The feeling of going inside for lunch and thawing out over a bowl of soup prepared by your loving mother. Our own potential as endless and perfect as the field the night before. But where’s the call to action?

Lucky for you, one of the things our humble little shop offers is a crash course in mastering social media. For just $79.99 you can learn how to maximize your follower count, increase engagement, and make yourself desirable for potential employment in humble little shops like ours. That’s a small price to play for influence. And the ability to get a job so you can continue to live.

I Tried the Morning Habits of The Richest Man in the World™ for 60 Days

And now I'm in big friggin' trouble...

The world’s most powerful people all swear by their powerful morning routines. They’re able to gain powerful momentum and give themselves a powerful foundation to kick their day off in the right powerful direction through deliberate, calculated, powerful, proven habits to get their minds and bodies prepared for a high-powered day of being powerful.

I decided to test out the morning routine of one of the most powerful people in the world to see how it would impact my life. Because I want to be powerful just like them. Because I am not enough. I am small. I am weak. I am not powerful. I would like to attain more power so I can be like them (the powerful.) This is all probably the fault of my current, stupid, powerless morning routine. So, for 60 days I started my day exactly the same way as the most powerful person I could think of: The Richest Man in the World™.

Here’s what I experienced.

His day doesn’t start on the day, his days actually start on the evening of the day before, giving himself more day than just a day in every day.

I’ve seen stupid bullshit memes that say stuff like “You have the same number of hours in a day as Beyonce.” That might be true for her, a relatively poor person with a net worth of just under $1 billion, but The Richest Man in the World™ has bought himself more hours than all of the rest of us. He didn’t buy this time with money (although he probably could because he has so much of it) he bought it by being a genius.

The Richest Man in the World™ starts his day on the night before. Think about that for a second and then scoop your brains back into your skull and then keep reading. This means his Mondays start on Sundays, and his Sundays start on Saturdays. While the rest of us are winding down from the previous day and spending time with our families and resting and getting ready for sleep, The Richest Man in the World™ is wide awake with his nose to the grindstone.

I assume that he is awake to prepare for the next day. But I couldn’t actually find anything that says this anywhere. I just know he’s awake because he’s posting. He posts at all kinds of hours, deep into the night. He posts at times when everybody else is sleeping. Who’s even awake to see these posts? Somebody is, because the world is round, and it’s not the same time everywhere. This is something The Richest Man in the World™ understands better than anybody else, time zones, that is. Somebody is always awake. So he has to be always awake.

For 60 days, every day, after the end of my day, I started my next day, right away. It took some getting used to. I started saying “It’s Tuesday” on Monday evenings and then after I passed out and woke back up again I thought it was Wednesday for a while. Most of the time it would actually be Tuesday, sometimes it was still even Monday. This really shook me up in the head. My kids and my wife had to get used to it. They kept asking me to spend time with them, and I had to tell them it was time to work. They’d ask if what I was doing could wait for tomorrow and I would have to tell them that today is already tomorrow. They were just as confused as me.

Eventually never sleep at all, just occasionally pass into some sort of zone of existence that is neither asleep nor awake, neither dead or alive.

I came to discover that The Richest Man in the World™ does not actually sleep. I had to dedicate myself to total denial of the luxury of rest.

Turns out your body and brain won’t just let this happen without some serious repercussions. At some point things shut down, but not in a way that makes any sense. Sometimes I would black out, my mind turning off but my body soldiering on without me. I don’t know what my brainless body was doing in these hours, but my kids and wife sure seemed happy about it. I found that after these mental wipes, my kids would tell me they loved me a bunch more than they usually do. They actually at one point said “We really respect you, father” which is something they have never said in my whole history as their dad. My wife would look at me in a way she hasn’t in years. Her eyes burned with passion and fire that would slowly dull the longer my conscious mind remained active. Nobody will tell me why their love for me seemed to grow during the time when my mind wasn’t in control of my body. That scares me. It makes me wonder what my conscious brain is holding me back from, and why I’m so lovable when the mind that makes me me is turned completely off. Who’s in there, when I am not me? Why is that guy so cool and loved? What is wrong with me how I am?

Also very scary, but in a much different way were the times when my brain remained on but my body could not move. Every muscle shut down completely, a waking nightmare. Stuck like a living statue, aware of my surroundings but unable to react. Unable to move. Unable to speak, or scream. Oh, how I wished I could scream. I didn’t know how long these spells would last, if I’d be stuck in this place forever, if I was even still alive, or if I had been banished to the worst hell I could possibly imagine.

Take a shower.

The Richest Man in the World™ still has time for hygiene. That’s where a morning shower comes in. Luckily, the cold water hitting my body would usually help reestablish my mind-body connection, making me whole again. Although, one time, when my mind turned back on, I was in the shower with my wife and I could see that she was really disappointed when she figured out my real self was back. Her reaction was colder than the water. It was a real bummer.

Drugs. Supplements to boost daily productivity.

Now it makes sense! The Richest Man in the World™ is pumping his body full of drugs natural supplements to help boost his productivity. I must advise you, reader, to never, under any circumstances take any drugs supplements unless you are under the supervision of a doctor. Which I was. I went to my doctor with a list of drugs supplements taken by The Richest Man in the World™ and asked for his opinion. This doctor told me “In no way can I recommend that you do this. A drug supplement cocktail such as this is dangerous and irresponsible and could lead to long-term damage or premature death. Please, no matter what you may have heard or read elsewhere, do not take these, for any amount of time. I beg of you.”

The first few days on the drug supplement cocktail were pure bliss. I was so productive! My blackout/paralysis spells stopped completely. I felt more machine than man!

But here’s the thing about drugs supplements — they’re expensive. And I’m not The Richest Man in the World™ (if I was I wouldn’t have to try his morning routine because it would already be my own morning routine because I would be The Richest Man in the World™) Once I ran out of money and couldn’t afford to take the same expensive drug supplement cocktail, I crashed fast. I felt worse than ever. My heart would pound like it was going to leap out of my chest, and then all of a sudden it would stop completely, no pulse at all. Not a weak pulse, or a slow pulse, none. It’s like my heart wasn’t even there. I think I legally died at least once. I stopped breathing automatically. I actually had to think about how to breathe. My body wouldn’t just do it on its own. Do you know how scary it is to have to manually breathe? I couldn’t go to sleep! The blackouts came back. At least my wife and kids were happy again.

Engage in online hate speech.

I have no idea how this helps The Richest Man in the World™ in his successes, but it must, because he sure does a lot of it.

It didn’t help me at all. I got fired from my job. I was already on warning because of my drug use supplement routine gone bad and they said even if I wasn’t on warning I would have gotten fired because I said some really bad shit. I didn’t even mean it, I swear, I was just taking a cue from my hero, The Richest Man in the World™. I don’t even know what some of it meant, it’s just stuff I found on internet forums and slightly changed to make my own on posts. My boss said to me “well, The Richest Man in the World™ doesn’t have to answer to anyone so I guess he can get away with anything he wants” and I said “what about the President?” and my now ex-boss said “I don’t know if you pay attention to world events all that much” and I said “not usually because I’m so busy trying to figure out a way to be rich by doing the same things as people who are already rich” and he said “hey, I’m saying this as a friend, because I think that deep down you’re a really good guy —” and I cut him off and said “I’m going to stop you right there I don’t care about being a really good guy I care about being the richest motherfucker that I can be no matter what it takes I mean no matter what that’s why I said all that stuff on the internet because I thought that somehow saying bad things on the internet would make me a whole buttload of cash” and he said “why would you think that?” and I said “I don’t know, maybe because it seems to be all The Richest Man in the World™ does, I don’t know how he has time for anything else at all, he seems to be just posting hate speech constantly” and he said “I hope you get the help you need” and then security showed up to escort me out of the building so I never got to hear what he was going to say after he said I was deep down a really nice guy.

Ask my dad for money.

So now I don’t have a job, and my family hates me, and I have to somehow pay the bills, so I have to ask my dad for money.

Turns out, that’s how The Richest Man in the World™ got his start on the road to becoming The Richest Man in the World™.

So maybe I’m not so bad off after all.

I can't help but view the act of sweeping the floor as a metaphor for life.

But then again, what isn't a metaphor for life?

I dance with the dust as I push it across the floor. I move with it in tandem, near it and with it but not too close to it. The dust is delicate and I must be careful not to upset it or it might rush away from where I need it to be. If I push too hard it might flee. If I don’t push hard enough, it might not move from where it currently resides.

What starts as random, scattered chaos slowly becomes organized, collected piles that make sense. Piles that I can control. Piles I understand. Sometimes, the act of dancing with dust that I can see reveals dust that I couldn’t see before, but now becomes clear, because I worked on moving it without even knowing it was there.

Didn’t I just do this? Wasn’t all of the chaos collected just a mere moment ago? Wasn’t it organized and neat and complete? I know that it was. I know it wasn’t a dream. I know that the order was real, the chaos was quiet, and things were calm. But here I am, in the chaos once again. Dancing with it, moving it towards making sense, knowing it will become chaos once again before I am ready for that chaos to come. Knowing that even though I know more chaos will come I shouldn’t wait for that chaos to take care of this chaos, because there’s a threshold for how much chaos I can endure at once. I’ve learned this through testing. Through trial and error. Through letting chaos build and pushing the limits to see what I can handle. Through failing. By letting the chaos overwhelm me I learned how to handle it, how to control it before it gets out of hand, how to manipulate the dust while it is still able to be manipulated.

Some of it I recognize, for it is chaos of my own creation. I put it there, in one way or another. I may have brushed it off my shirt, and onto the floor, to be dealt with later. Better on the floor than a burden on my shoulders. It adds up, you know, the dust on your shoulder. No matter how small it may seem, the shoulders don’t need the extra weight. They already hold enough. They should be brushed off as often as possible. The floor can handle the burden. The floor is strong. The floor is sturdy. The floor can hold the mess and the chaos until I am ready to collect it and organize it and move it away. That’s one of the good things about a floor. But the shoulders should be clean.

Some of the mess is not my own but I make it my own because it belongs to people who are my own. Their mess is my mess and sometimes, if I have chosen the right people, my mess becomes theirs. I collect it and take care of it for them as I hope they will for me when I don’t have it in me to deal with the mess. They have brushed off their shoulders onto the floor and I will take it from here. Because they are my people, and I can handle their chaos along with my own.

Some of the chaos is a mystery. I know not where it came from or how it arrived here on my floor, for me to deal with. It is unrecognizable dust. It is not dust of my own creation, or of my people’s creation. It is dust from the universe, sent to me as a test, to clean up that which is not a mess of my own or my people’s making. A mess with no purpose. A mess with no origin or explanation. A mess for the sake of mess itself. I used to hate this mess. I used to curse this mess. Now I welcome it. Keep coming, chaos. Keep coming, mess. Keep trying to overwhelm me. Because I will not let you win. I will not be enveloped in the chaos. I will defeat the chaos as many times as I have to. I will sweep the dust from my floor and into a pan and into the trash and take the trash outside to be taken away. I do this knowing that I will have to do it again sooner than I believe is fair. I will do this as many times as I have to, as long as I have to, because I have a floor, and when you have a floor that floor must be swept.

That is what living is.

A journal of my thoughts when I see a guy who has the same backpack as me

Oh, wow, neat! That guy and I have the same backpack. I guess I need to be careful where we both sit so I don’t accidentally grab his backpack when I’m leaving. I wouldn’t want this to be the start of some international espionage movie-type situation where I’m accidentally mistaken for a spy and get chased around because of a mishap. I have neither the charm, fighting ability, or cleverness to get out of that type of situation. You need at least one, preferably all three of those to handle something like that. You need to be a real Will Smith.

Isn’t is strange? Two guys, same backpack. Of all the backpacks in all the world, the two of us would buy the same backpack and come to the same coffee shop in the same neighborhood on the same day. I wonder what kind of drink he’s getting. Should I ask him? Should I gesture to my backpack and make the international face for “hey, same backpack!” He’ll know what it means. Then I can say “Weird! You’re not also getting a dark roast with a little bit but not too much oat milk sorry for being crass but I want it the color of puppy poop — which isn’t all that crass it’s just a puppy everybody loves puppies and their poop isn’t all that gross and also I can’t think of anything else that is that same color — are you?” That would be crazy! But what if he is ordering the exact same drink in the exact same way in the exact same coffee shop in the exact same neighborhood on the exact same day with the exact same bag? Should I ask him? I should ask him. He’ll think I’m nuts! I shouldn’t ask him. I should sit down. I’ve been staring at him for too long.

I guess it’s not that crazy. It’s not exactly a custom or designer backpack. It’s not at all rare or special. I just went to Amazon (side note, stop shopping on Amazon) and searched for “backpack” and then picked the most normal-looking one on the first page of search results. That’s probably what that guy did too. Pretty normal stuff. I get too excited too easily.

Oh fuck am I boring? Am I just like the backpack? Am I not at all rare or special?

No offense to that guy but after looking at him for way too long he seems like kind of a zero. He hasn’t done anything cool the whole time he has been here. He just ordered a coffee and sat down and got out his laptop. Now he’s just sitting there looking at it. He’s not typing, his eyes aren’t even scanning back and forth like he’s reading anything. Just a dead stare into his computer screen. That’s weird, right? That’s a weird thing to do. What is he even looking at like that? Is he watching a video?

I’m not like that guy, am I? I’m not a boring zero, right? Shit. OK, think. Think of something cool about yourself.

Fuck.

What’s interesting about me?

I can’t think of anything. I’m putting too much pressure on myself. I bet I could think of something interesting about me if I wasn’t trying to. Like how I know a bunch of movies I want to watch but then when the remote is in my hand I have no fucking clue what I want to watch. Maybe that’s what that guy is doing staring at his screen right now. Maybe he’s trying to figure out what he wants to watch and he’s paralyzed by choice. Maybe I’m not like him, maybe he’s like me. Is that better? Is it the same? Is it worse?

Maybe I should get some patches for my backpack. That would make it different from all the other Amazon first page of the search results grey standard normal utility basic backpacks. I’d know it was mine. But what do I get? What kind of symbol should I put on my backpack to represent me and who I am and how I’m different from everybody else? A band? What band though? Oh no I just did that thing where somebody asks you what kind of music you like and you blank because you kinda like all music and will listen to anything at least once to try it but saying that out loud to another person is the most boring thing you can say so you want to say something specific and cool but not look like you’re trying too hard to be specific or cool and now you really can’t think of anything at all and you also don’t want to be the type of guy who says “anything but country” because you don’t like to define yourself by what you don’t like so you have no idea what to say and now you’re just in a deep dark hole internally but on the outside in reality you’re standing there just staring at somebody who could have been a friend but now just thinks you’re a weirdo. But you did that to yourself. How does that even happen?

It’s just a backpack, Aaron. It’s just a tool you use to carry around the stuff you need for the day. It doesn’t really say all that much about you. Take a deep breath.

Should I get a tattoo?

I'm sorry, but I don't want to talk about politics!

Or anything else that I don't understand!

I’d like to begin by offering a sincere apology for yelling at everybody at the party last night. I’m sorry that I screamed “shut up! shut up! shut up! shut up! shut up!” repeatedly until everybody finally shut up. I lashed out in frustration and that was not right. It wasn’t a nice thing to do to friends. I know this doesn’t excuse my actions, but I’d like to offer an explanation for them. Everybody was talking about politics, and I’m just so tired of talking about politics. It’s all I see and hear all day long. I’ve had it up to here with talk of politics.

Plus, I just don’t understand it.

It doesn’t make me feel good to stand around while everybody else is talking about stuff I don’t understand. I just have to nod along but I don't know if I should be nodding in approval or disapproval so I just make these little weird circles with my head. I feel like I’m being hypnotized, both because of the little head circles and the fact that the words become a mush of sounds that don’t make sense and turn into some kind of trance and I start to see myself from outside of my own body. I thought I was gonna float to heaven last night. Screaming “shut up!” at everybody was the only way to make sure I was still alive in my human body. I had to do it so I didn’t fly to God.

You guys have to notice how quiet I get when people start talking politics. Normally, I’m the life of the party. I’m talking all the time. I’m making so many good observational jokes and retorts. I tag almost everything with a joke or reference. But as soon as I hear the words “Democrat” or “Republican” or “state of our nation,” or “here’s how we can organize locally to create and foster a sense of community and support the people around us” it’s like my brain just don’t work no more. I can’t make any of my little jokes or anything and that’s not fair to me because it’s how I function best in our friend group.

I tried to tell Randy this in a one-on-one heart-to-heart but all he had to say to me was “maybe if you feel left out you can just ask some questions and we’d be happy to catch you up.” And then I said “yeah so you can all laugh at me about what I don’t know.” And then Randy said “we won’t laugh at you” and then I said “but what if I’m really dumb. Like really dumb. Like I have to ask a lot of questions about everything all the time.” And then Randy said “that’s OK.”

So I said “OK what is house?” Randy told me I was probably asking about the House of Representatives, the lower house of congress. I said “like a garage?” and Randy said “what?” and I said “like a garage is sometimes a place that’s a smaller house under a bigger house.” and Randy said “sometimes its OK to just listen and not be the center point of the conversation.”

That’s not fair to me! Are you guys even my friends? Do you even want me to be around? Or do you want me to just fly away to God? I can fly away to God I’ll do it! I’ll be up there with God and we’ll be laughing at you now. We’ll be laughing at your conversations because we can understand things that you don’t because we are above even the birds.

So, yeah, guys. I hate to break it to you, but Randy is a dick. I thought I could trust him because one time I did a trust test on him and he passed it. I did a trust test where I a told him a fake secret about how my pants accident at Six Flags wasn’t actually an accident but it was on purpose and he didn’t tell anybody. It didn’t get back to me at all. Nobody said “hey I heard you accidented your pants on purpose and it wasn’t an accident is that true?” So I thought I could trust him but it turns out he’s a snake who doesn’t want me to talk so starts discussions about things he knows put me in a trance. The pants accident was an accident and you can’t make fun of me because it’s a medical stomach thing that happens when I eat too many taquitos.

You might be asking “what is too many taquitos?” and the answer is I don’t even know. I was at a taquito buffet and so I wasn’t even counting. When I’m at a buffet I don’t count I just eat. I eat until there isn’t any more food because I have to win. The buffet is my opponent and I have to beat it by making it not have any more food anymore. The same goes for free samples in grocery stores and shared plates at parties.

You don’t even know this stuff about me because you didn’t care to ask because you’re too busy talking about the state of America. How can you fix the state of America if you can’t even fix the state of your friend right in front of you? You can fix me by only talking about stuff I understand so I can feel engaged in the conversation by making my little jokes and comments which is my main role in our friend group.

If you see me start to float away to God please consider your friend, me, because if you don’t I’m going to have to yell shut up at everybody again to make sure I’m still alive and then I’ll have to send another one of these emails to everybody to tell them I’m sorry again. Because you don’t listen.