skepticlysm

I Mean, What the Hell

Written by

Skeptifist

in

  • Yeah, this work stuff.
  • Tomorrow’s my last half-day before resuming full-time on Thursday.
  • There’s not been one day in the last almost two weeks where I haven’t come home and fallen asleep in the … den?
  • Is it the den?
  • It’s the TV room.
  • The room we spend most of our time in.
  • That’s why they’re called Living Rooms, I guess.
  • Our house is weird.
  • There’s one room that’s like a wide hallway with a fireplace.
  • Anyway, the point …
  • You haven’t been getting lists because of work.
  • Ironic.
  • Maybe Alanis’s version.
  • Maybe the actual version.
  • Who can say.
  • I have notes in my notebook.
  • Those were relevant at the time.
  • And looking at them now, I’m not feelin’ it.
  • Them.
  • Feeling them.
  • Which would …
  • I mean, rehashing my anger toward our lives of indentured servitude … done it already, and I’m too tired from my job to try again.
  • Which is all you need to say.
  • Those notes were from July anyway.
  • Barely.
  • The day before the end of July.
  • I did spend that particular afternoon listening to Twenty One Pilots.
  • That shit should be hyphenated, by the way.
  • Twenty-One Pilots.
  • Compound adjectives are hyphenated.
  • And judgment is not spelled with an E before the M.
  • I did have a note about grammar, so … that written list might be paying off a tiny bit.
  • A tad, as it were.
  • Also from the notebook:
    • Parking garage
    • WFH
      • Idiots
      • Interview
    • Virgin Islands
    • Negative Inertia
    • Tai Chi
    • A/C guy
    • Read Wednesday’s notes
    • Walgreens
  • The other day, the kid and I went to Walgreens for dessert.
  • She offered to drive.
  • Alas, we did not have the Pilot because it was in the shop.
  • And I haven’t taught her to drive a manual yet.
  • Anyway, we walked into Walgreens and saw a Reese’s display of pumpkins and bats and ghosts and whatnot.
  • You know, the Halloween stuff.
  • And I thought, “Of course that shit’s on sale, it’s olll … oh, shit.”
  • I have time warped.
  • 2026 is going to have to be my year, because I missed a quarter of this one.
  • Woosh.
  • But yes, it’s too damn early for Halloween stuff.
  • Three solid months.
  • At least two months early.
  • Right?
  • We’re willing to give stores a month before a holiday to sell the shit for that particular holiday, right?
  • Virgin Islands?
  • Ooh, right.
  • Bought this book about how to refine your writing/research process, and at the end of the introduction from the author, he signed his name and followed it with … “Virgin Islands.”
  • Bro.
  • You sonofabitch.
  • Rubbing that shit in.
  • “I wrote this book and self-published it and now I get to live in the Virgin Islands while you buy my book and daydream of breaking free of your indenturedship! Sucka!”
  • It’s like that meme of the dude flashing the Peace sign from someone’s freshly dug grave.
  • At least he didn’t use AI to write it.
  • (Because then anyone could repackage it and sell it with a different name and get their own Virgin Island residence.)
  • (Or maybe he got to write the book because he already had money in the first place.)
  • I collect books about writing.
  • My three favorites are probably Hemingway’s, Stephen King’s, and Elmore Leonard’s 10 writing tips, which is a … list.
  • Last week, the kid told me she was reading the intro for King’s The Life of Chuck, and said it sounded like my writing.
  • I told her his book, On Writing, was really good and that she should read it.
  • She said, “Perhaps.”
  • The really odd part of that … I haven’t read a lot of King.
  • Fewer than five.
  • A few days ago, we were talking about work/school and trying to be creative afterward.
  • “I want to work on something creative, but when I get home from being bored all day at school, I can’t do it.”
  • “It’s difficult.”
  • That’s not my real problem.
  • Yes, it’s true, but …
  • Wait.
  • I’m about to overshare.
  • …
  • Nevermind. Not doing that.
  • Authenticity.
  • Gross.
  • It would smell like excuse refuse.
  • Funny how that is, right?
  • Your feelings about a thing are legitimate.
  • Your struggles to overcome a thing are real.
  • And yet, say them aloud they become excuses.
  • Oof.
  • Do your therapy.
  • Do the work.
  • Overcoming the thing is the goal.
  • Avoiding the thing is the problem.
  • Blameshifting is the problem.
  • Own your shit. Conquer it.
  • You go to therapy, right?
  • No?
  • “You think that air you’re breathing is real?”
  • Again!
  • “Fear is the mindkiller.”
  • Inertia is the worst.
  • Trying to write from a recliner in the … TV room … while the kid’s watching The Office (which I never got into) …
  • (We can still talk about tacos without them being Trump, right?)
  • (Nevermind.)
  • I started getting ads for tai chi.
  • Which I want to do.
  • Finding a place though.
  • Do you know what that’s like for introverts?
  • Going to a class of any kind?
  • But especially those martial arts classes.
  • (It is a martial art, but not one where they punch each other in the head; doing that when you have a titanium plate in your dome and a rescabbed scar is probably a bad idea.)
  • I want the habit, though.
  • I get tired of push-ups, you know?
  • (This is what I get when I write when I should be napping.)
  • (Seriously, this one’s a sack of cats.)
  • (Imma stop now.)
  • (You’re welcome.)

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