(Phaysis)

I’ve been doing it all wrong for the past 10 years.

The coffeeshop is not the destination. It is the journey, the waystation, the pit stop. It is the refreshment break on the way to somewhere else where I’m actually doing something with my life. I should’ve picked up on this years ago, but I didn’t, and I’m a stupid dumbass for not seeing it. Most of the people I know through hanging out at coffeeshops have actually gone on to do great and interesting things. Yet I am still here, bored, alone, and unfulfilled. Continue reading

It’s a late Friday night alone, and my demons are talking at me. They’re telling me that since I am alone, late on a Friday night, that I obviously must have done something wrong with my life. That there had to be one missed opportunity, one blind moment, one bad mistake early on in my adulthood to begin a chain of events, decisions, and lost potential that lead up to yet another night alone. I can’t deny that our lives are more than the sum of our choices, but our choices nonetheless impinge on our lives and hammer us into the shape we are at the present.

I just cannot see where I may have turned wrong. Was it my volition (or lack thereof), or was it outside forces beyond my control (or lack of willpower)? Did I get too greedy? Did I not get bold enough? Did I not answer my hunger when the bounty was rich? I simply do not know, and even with counsel, I never will.

One event is all it takes to initiate a reverberating series of fumbles, misteps, and stutters. I want to recover.

What bothers me most about Easter is that it becomes brutally apparent to me how different I and my ideologies are from those around me. There are a few christian holidays a year, and it’s on those days that those in my various circles of friendship, who are otherwise filial and unobtrusive, get irritatingly noisy. Being a member of Facebook serves to amplify this effect.

I have the regrettable fortune of growing up in a largely christian society. It was fine when I believed as they believed, when I went with the grain and became engrained with the monotheistic, evangelical culture. But the moment I dropped out, I immediately found myself contrariwise to the culture and out of step.

The atheists are no better. The christian and jewish holy week leading up to Easter is also the week that the atheists take upon themselves to broadcast their dogma. I don’t mind their dogma. Hell, I’m an atheist myself. But I refuse to evangelize. It’s that desire to make others believe as they believe that makes them exactly the same, in my eyes, to the christians and their “Great Commission” — which is “Go ye therefore unto all the lands and make disciples of the peoples”. It’s still spreading the seed.

When trees spread their seed and the yellow pollen is in the air, you know what I get? An allergic reaction. To hear a person say “Lift up HIS praises” or “HE is risen!” or “Keep CHRIST in CHRISTmas!” induces an allergic reaction in me, and several times a year I fall ill with disdain.

I am an atheist, but only in the sense that I am nonreligious. I choose to not believe anything; it’s as valid a choice as christianity, judaism, zoroastrianism, or pastafarianism. It’s not that I believe that there is no spiritual plane or no higher deity from whom all matter originates; it’s that I just don’t care, and that’s intentional.

I wish there was an AdBlock for religion.

Apparently, the Texas Relays are in town, meaning downtown is supposed to be fucked up with traffic, cruising, and young adults hooping it up after competitions. Whoopty-shit. Hope I can park somewhere near the venue when I go see VNV Nation tomorrow night. Don’t care if I gotta pay ten bucks to do it.

Looking forward to the show. It’ll be a welcome reprieve from the long workdays, even though I’m taking my work home this weekend. It’s a rare thing that I can work from remote, but now I have the need. Fuck my life.

I was noticing that my blog didn’t have any spam in the queue waiting for deletion. “Hmm, maybe they’ve forgotten about my blog” or “Hmm, maybe that botnet got taken down.” No, the answer is more basic: it’s been over 14 days since my last blog post, past the open comments timeout. Sorry about that, comerades. My bad. Spam away.

Remember that short story I was talking about writing, “Lost Carrier”? Yeah, well something weird happened: I finished it. Really finished it. Compiled the first draft and grabbed a cadre of volunteers to copyedit for me and give me notes on what could use some more work. Sent out the draft to the first of the four volunteers three weeks ago. The last delivery was a week ago. So here’s what’s funny about that: I’ve heard nothing by way of feedback. I’m in an information vacuum. Maybe there’s a curse on the story that causes the reader to go deaf-mute.

Realistically, it’s a short time ago that I submitted the draft to my readers. I sincerely appreciate their free help, and I wouldn’t wish to rush their response for fear of getting poor feedback, but I’m anxious to hear something, anything on how I can make the story better. Y’know? I hope for closure on the feedback loop.

Raise your hand if you’re not ready for the onslaught of the workweek. Raise your other hand if you don’t want it to happen an hour earlier.

Raise your left leg if you like warm spring-like weather. Open windows are a godsend. I took advantage of today’s awesomeness to clean house. Spring cleaning? Why not.

Raise your right leg if you like pie. Pie is good. Save your fork, there’s pie! Also, today is March 14th, also known as 3/14, also known as 3.14, Pi Day. Eat pie. I should’ve eaten some pie, but I’m a nonjoiner. Actually, I had too much dinner to eat pie. So there.

You’re out of limbs to raise, so that’s all I have to say. Enjoy your levitation. You’re welcome.