skepticlysm

The Jury’s Sleepless

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Skeptifist

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  • In all this time, it’s the first writing from a desktop in months.
  • Not because I couldn’t climb the stairs, but because I got comfortable typing from the corner of the couch with people in the room.
  • Writing’s a solitary endeavor.
  • Mostly I write from a desk.
  • Laptop and attached monitor for that fantastic dual-screen action.
  • Good ergonomic split keyboard.
  • Keyboards:
  • At home, I rock an X-bows Nature.
  • At work … (Ugh, we’ll get to that in a moment) … I have a Microsoft Sculpt keyboard, which Microsoft doesn’t make anymore, but … someone else makes it for them?
  • Prior to getting the X-Bow, the Sculpt claimed the title as “best keyboard I ever used.”
  • Keys felt like a good laptop keyboard.
  • The split perfect.
  • I dealt with carpal tunnel early in my career and took the pain associated with that seriously.
  • I only do straight keyboards when working on laptops.
  • Which makes the current laptop writing trend … concerning?
  • An hour is not all day at work, however.
  • Anyway.
  • Like the teaser teased, I awoke with the dulcet sounds of Rage Against the Machine in my head.
  • They were never my favorite band.
  • Took me a handful of listens just to get onboard.
  • Once I did, however.
  • It’s more Zack’s lyrics and delivery than their sound.
  • Though I do like their sound.
  • They’re in my Top 10.
  • (Which I probably have in my head, but have never committed to paper or e-ink.)
  • But yeah, awoke to a dog lying against my back superheating me, “Guerilla Radio” blasting through my head.
  • READY TO FACE THE MOTHERFUCKING DAY.
  • Rallying around my family to keep me sane.
  • One of the constants about me is that I’m angry.
  • Like, all the time angry.
  • I don’t think of myself that way.
  • I do have a lot of frustration with things and am not shy about voicing them.
  • There’s an angry element to it, sure.
  • Dissonance between the way I’d like things to be and the way they are.
  • And don’t give me that crap about “well, make the changes.”
  • I control what I can … to help manage my frustration.
  • Like …
  • I write to give myself a voice.
  • How many people just don’t have one?
  • They walk about with all the stuff boiling inside and never express it.
  • Tick, tick, boom.
  • Let’s get into that.
  • Frustration.
  • How much frustration comes from fear?
  • Not all of it, sure.
  • But maybe a lot of it.
  • I have always been afraid.
  • Like that’s my trauma default.
  • Life dominated by fear, by what-ifs, and with substantially less focus on the good, what’s going right.
  • Don’t fuck up in view of anyone’s expectations because the Bad will happen.
  • People will walk.
  • Jobs will be lost.
  • Opinions of will occur.
  • And you know why I’m wired that way?
  • Because it’s typically been true.
  • Hard to relax.
  • Guard always up.
  • Scenarios, mostly bad, on decision tree in my head.
  • How much do you miss that way?
  • Scared of opportunity.
  • To even look at it, to entertain the possibilities in something other than risk.
  • The specter of failure the screen saver of the brain.
  • I hate it.
  • I hate being afraid.
  • Hate what it does.
  • Has done.
  • Don’t get me wrong, when the moments come, I usually step toward it and face it.
  • I don’t ever do that willingly.
  • I’m not as cowardly as my daily voice says.
  • Maybe not at all much anymore.
  • It’s tough to break thought patterns.
  • Remember that as you give yourself some grace, right?
  • I say that right?
  • That grace shit?
  • “I think I heard a shot!”
  • Let’s get back to the Frustration thing.
  • I talk a lot about time.
  • Can’t help it.
  • How modern life has wasted a lot of mine.
  • It does beg the question … what would you do with your time if it truly belonged to you?
  • I’d still write.
  • But in addition to that …
  • I’d be one of those Maker people neck deep in Raspberry Pi and 3D printing.
  • Like a character from a Doctorow novel.
  • (Seriously, go read Little Brother. Do it. Do it now.)
  • And goddammit, I’d be playing music.
  • And painting.
  • Though the painting thing is going to get some practice because I’m going to attempt to do some abstract stuff for the house.
  • That shit is expensive.
  • Even not paying a real artist to make it.
  • North of $500 for a reasonably large piece of art.
  • Artists need to get paid.
  • But I still can’t afford to pay them.
  • So gotta make my own stuff.
  • I need to go buy the paint and canvas.
  • Changes, man.
  • Promises made, to myself and others.
  • Still listening to Rage.
  • Damn, Zack has a gift for rhyme with substance.
  • There’s a reason Rage resonates with me, is what I’ve taken 800 words to explain today.
  • That, btw, is what most people do.
  • They identify artists expressing what they can’t.
  • Maybe that’s a life goal for me.
  • To be someone’s expression.
  • To those tired of being victims of the in-house drive-by.
  • Goddamn, Rage was ahead of their time.
  • “Am I standing in line?”
  • See you tomorrow.

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