Hard to write

It's the middle of September, and this will be my twenty-eighth post in 2026.

Twenty-eight is an important number. In the years since I started this blog (not counting 2007, as I started in December), my worst year for posting has been 2016. In 2016, I posted twenty-eight times. So reaching that number means, At least this year won't be worse than 2016. At least I won't have reached a new low!

Nice to know.

But it's also September. The year is almost 3/4 over. How have I written so little?

I don't know. For a while, towards the beginning of the year, it just seemed like nothing was happening to me—like there was nothing to write about. Then I committed to finishing my book this year. Then I went to the Ecosophian convention. Then other stuff started to happen, and I realized that Lack-of-Material isn't really my problem. (Besides, there's always more to say. Remember the time that Robert Pirsig assigned a rhetoric student to write about the front of the Bozeman Opera House, starting with the upper left-hand brick!)

Are my habits getting in the way? Probably. I get up in the morning, fiddle around for a while, finally get a shower and have breakfast, check my email for a while, ... and then go take a nap! After that, it's mid-afternoon and I'm ready to spend a couple hours on the day's work before it's dinner time. I usually don't accomplish anything after dinner.

It's not like I'm "too busy" in a conventional sense. I scarcely go out. I talk to very few people. That may be part of the problem, in fact: that I use food and drink and Twitter to replace the human company that I miss. But then, why not spend the time writing? That's a kind of conversation, after all?

I don't know the answer. It just seems too hard, somehow. Even for the regular writing that I have to do to support the two columns I post online every week, I've been writing quick-'n'-easy pieces because I can't bend my mind around how much work it would take to write something more substantive.

Maybe I need to fall in love. Maybe the NRE would drive me to get my ass in gear. Too bad I'm way too old for any of the equipment to work any more.

Maybe if I got out more, the rest might follow. Meanwhile, does it ever seem to you that I'm repeating myself a lot?

           

How'm I doing?

Every blog goes through cycles. 

There are periods when you find yourself bursting with thoughts. Everything reminds you of something else, and you have to talk about all of it.

And then there are times when you just have nothing to say.

So maybe it's time for me to quote Ed Koch and ask, "How'm I doing?" Not because I need to hear an answer from you—if anybody is out there reading this—but just to put a marker in the ground to let you know how ... in fact ... I am doing. 

Let me look at the blog for a minute. In the last three months—January, February, and March—I have posted five times. The last two times that I show five posts (or fewer) in three months were both in 2018:

• August, 1. September, 3. October, 0
• January, 0. February, 1. March, 4. 

So it has happened before, and I've pulled out of it. Doubtless I'll pull out again, however implausible that might look in the moment.

How AM I doing?

I've been trying to exercise at the beginning of every day. What with other things showing up in my calendar, "every day" seems to mean four or five times a week. After I exercise, I'm wiped out for hours. I take a nap. I sit idly in front of the computer. I can scarcely formulate thoughts. But hey, I exercised.

I'm trying to eat less. Maybe if I exercise and also eat less, I'll lose some weight. It has worked in years past—I know, because I have records. But not now, or at any rate not yet. Maybe I haven't hit the right combination yet. Or maybe there are calories in alcohol, and I should ... you know ... cut down on those calories as well. I do that successfully for a couple days at a time, or even longer. But if I take credit for too much success, then tonight will be an epic failure. 

I'm trying to get more sleep. Not tonight, of course, because I've already spent way too long trying to figure out a trivial formatting issue on this blog. But ... you know ... on other nights.

I have kept up publishing in my professional blog on a weekly basis. Readership goes up and down. One frivolous post a few weeks ago got over 500 pageviews. A piece that I thought might be more useful last week got 30. I have no idea what makes the difference.

I have made zero progress on the book I told you I was writing ... what was that? Five years ago? Six? A long time, in any event.

You know I follow the blog and writings of John Michael Greer. Months ago, some people talked about putting on a convention of Greer's readers this summer, and started a website where individuals could express interest. I expressed interest a month ago and have been trying to contact the principals ever since. Nothing, of course.

I talk to Marie once a week, over Teams. I talk to Debbie once a week, over Zoom. I visit the UU Sangha once a week, in person. That's most of my social interaction right there.

I had lunch today with a guy I used to work with. He was recently laid off when his company closed this office, and he's retirement age. So being out of work doesn't seem to worry him a lot. But he still has his resume out, he is in touch with a bunch of people we both used to work with, and he is trying to line up musical gigs for his band (where he plays bass). He's also actively involved as a trainer for a local organization that helps families who have to deal with mental illness, because his 20-year-old daughter is suffering. Wow, I never knew there WAS such an organization back when I still lived with Wife! It's great to know that my friend is so involved with the community, and with other people. It's great to know that he isn't stuck at home, isolated and socially withdrawn.

I wonder what that must be like?

I try to do a Tarot reading every morning to predict what's going to happen in the day. The idea is that by making predictions and then comparing them with reality, maybe I can get better at it. Well ... sometimes they match and sometimes they don't. I don't know if I'm getting any better. Usually I can predict my day pretty well, but that's because I never do anything unexpected.

The closest thing I have to a daily record of what's going on with me is what I write the next morning when I'm trying to evaluate the cards from the day before. Even then I sometimes miss a few days because I never get around to the reading. I'm pretty sure there are no gems buried in that data that you'd have any interest in hearing about.

What else is there to say? Not a lot, I think. I've just summarized the last several months for you, and it took you only a couple of minutes to read. Efficient, isn't it?

Maybe later I'll think of something else to say.

            

Tired

Oh look, it's Friday the thirteenth! Also I see that it is just exactly one month since my last post. Hmm.

I've had a note on my desk to write this for ... gosh, it feels like at least a week. And I was meaning to write it for maybe a week before that. But I just couldn't muster the energy to bother. Something ironic in that.

First the good news: my cough is almost gone. Yes, I said a month ago that it was "getting better," but there was a long, long tail on that curve. I still had plenty of times that it would incapacitate me for minutes ... just not so many of them as before. And slowly, bit by bit, the attacks got fewer. I started attending Sangha in person again, instead of by Zoom, because I didn't need to screen out quite so many coughing fits. And by today (knock wood!)—really, for a few days now—it seems to be almost gone. Once or twice late at night, maybe, but not otherwise.

Other than that, I have been wiped out most of the month.I have kept current on my writing deadlines. (That's one blog post about professional topics under my real name per week, and one short little blurb per week also under my real name.) I have gone out to get groceries when I need them. I have met other obligations when they have come up. But not much else.

All I want to do is sleep. Coffee will postpone the sleep, but it doesn't give me any boost, or the feeling of actual energy in my limbs that makes me want to go do stuff. Only spirits give me that boost (echoes of this post, thirteen years ago!) but of course I can't spend the whole day drinking. So I get up in the morning, browse the Internet, have breakfast, take a nap, browse the Internet some more, maybe answer a couple of emails, have dinner with wine, browse the Internet with a nightcap or three, and go to bed. And my body feels sluggish except when I am asleep, like I have to drag it through the motions. No wonder I'd rather be asleep! That's the only time that I'm not fighting my body just to move it through space.

Is this what "wanting to die" feels like? I don't perceive myself to be especially sad, but just getting through the day seems to take more effort than I feel like expending. 

Is this depression? (I wrote about that here. My plan of taking some of my old SSRI's didn't last very long, though.)  

Here's another ironic bit: I wrote all the above in the present tense, but it doesn't actually reflect how I feel this morning. For the last couple of weeks I've been trying to get a little more exercise, and maybe to eat a little less often. The last couple of nights, it's turned out that I've had little or nothing to drink. I've started going to bed earlier, with the result that I sometimes sleep 9 or 10 hours at a stretch during the night. And by the most remarkable coincidence, I've started napping less, and I've felt incrementally more energy. Wow, who would ever have thought there could be a connection? (Yes, that's sarcasm.) On the other hand, I do take notice that I couldn't even muster the energy to write about this state while in the middle of it. I hope I can maintain a little momentum in the current direction.

      

Analysis through movies

The other day I was wasting time on Twitter, and I ran across someone who claimed, "Tell me your favorite Christmas movie and I’ll tell you your trauma."

I'd recently re-read this post from last year, so I felt I was game for the challenge. I replied, "Can you do this with favorite non-Christmas movies? Favorite Christmas movie: 'It's a Wonderful Life.' Favorite movie all-around: probably 'Lawrence of Arabia'."

The next morning, he had replied back: "you are deeply concerned about the impact you have on other people’s lives and often fear that you’re not doing enough."

Umm ... OK, I guess. Actually that's not too far off. Good to know. 

Depressed?

I wonder if I'm depressed?

Look over the last few posts. Not exactly upbeat, are they? Now look over the last several years. Count how many posts have complained that I am stuck, becalmed, going nowhere. Do you detect a theme?

Some time ago—I guess it was back when I was still working and had medical insurance (so in 2021 or before)—I stopped taking my daily wellbutrin because I couldn't tell that it made any difference. Also I read random voices on Twitter who suggested that SSRI's are useless or worse. And since I haven't had a lot of firm commitments since my work ended, it's been hard to tell whether I'm slowing down.

But yes, I'm slowing down. I eat and drink, I browse the Internet, I sleep a lot; but I don't exercise, and compared to the time I have available I'm not very productive. Maybe the wellbutrin is the relevant factor.

At any rate, it's likely one relevant factor. Another may be my comparative isolation. When I ask Google about the consequences of prolonged isolation, it gives me an answer that includes depression, obesity, and social skills deterioration. (I'm pretty sure I can detect that last one in myself, though self-diagnosis is always tricky). And the first two linked articles—by the CDC and the APA, respectively—give a spooky list of long-term outcomes.

I'll try taking the wellbutrin again, starting after Marie goes home from her impending visit. (I don't want to change anything before then, in case of unexpected results.) I suppose this means I have to find a doctor, since my last one retired back in 2023 and I'll need a prescription. Maybe Wife has a stockpile I can hit up. But experimentation has to be the key. I hope for the best. 

Why do I court failure?

At one point back in 2016, when we first got back together, Marie told me that decades earlier—when we knew each other in college—she had been racking her brains trying to figure out why we got along so well. That sounds like a strange thing to say, but here's what she meant by it.

By the time she was in middle school, Marie's home life was hopelessly dysfunctional: her father had committed suicide, and her mother was a blackout drunk who had once molested her all the way to orgasm (back when Marie was 12 and didn't understand what was going on). See, for example, this post and this one. And when Marie looked around at her friends, the only ones she felt naturally at-ease with were the ones whose home lives were equally dysfunctional. So she just figured that's how it was: she was messed up, and the only people she could really relax around were equally messed up.

Then she met me, and right away felt at ease around me. So she tried to create conversational openings to let me explain how my family was dysfunctional, while she shared how her family was dysfunctional. She figured it would be a bonding exercise.

Only I never took the bait. On the one hand, I had long since internalized the rule that you Never Talk Your Family Down to Others. And on the other hand, I genuinely didn't understand that there was anything dysfunctional about us. By conventional standards we were all pretty normal. My dad sometimes drank a lot, but not to the point that he ever lost his job or got into fights. My parents stayed married during ten disastrous years of running a business that they hated and didn't understand (or not at first). We didn't have a lot of money, but somehow we got by. So I never had any lurid tales of dysfunction to share with Marie, and she was left baffled. How can I possibly feel so at ease with him when he and his family are so normal?

In the first couple of months that we were back in communication, she kept probing at this point until I finally asked her to stop. Also after a couple of months we started fucking, and we had better things to talk about.

Over time, of course, I have come to have a clearer understanding of some of the mind games that Father played ... mostly not, I think, out of actual malice, but in an attempt to placate some of his own demons. And I've talked about how he interacted with me using a power dynamic that felt very sexual, even if we both had our clothes on. (See, for example, this post and this post; for a more light-hearted approach, you might also try this post.)

But just this evening, I thought of a neat formula that summarizes the profound ambivalence—and that's putting it nicely!—that I feel about great achievement.

Father forced me to feel pride in my achievements in the same way that Marie's mother forced her to feel orgasms.

I'm not sure I have stories to back that up—well, I've got one but I'm not ready to share it yet. Other than that one, I think it mostly took the form of little remarks here and there by the way, bits and bobs that I probably can't remember accurately or at all but that contributed to an overall ambience of expectations.

But the end result for both of us was very similar. 

• For years, Marie could not take pleasure in sex, or at best she could take only the limpest and most qualified form of pleasure. 
• For years, I have not been able to take pleasure in my achievements, or only the limpest and most qualified form of pleasure.

What does this look like in practice?

• When people praise Son1 and Son2, I agree that they have both grown into fine young men; but I insist that parents don't have a lot of influence on that, and that the credit goes to them for choosing to become so good. The only parenting victory that I will own is my forcing Wife to let both boys go to boarding school, in order to get them away from the two of us!
• Back when I was working, my greatest victories at work were the kind of thing where I could easily say, "Everyone came together as a team and did their parts really well. All I had to contribute was a little organization, and taking minutes." And you can bet that's exactly what I said.
• I have confessed to you lot (who would never tell a soul, and besides I'm hiding behind a mask) that yes, in odd moments I have occasionally felt little wisps of pride in my ancient academic achievements, back during the Buchanan Administration; I have also said that those wisps of pride feel like "a really degrading sexual fetish," or like "masturbating in public." And of course you remember the cartoon I posted about it all. 

So honestly I think it's a pretty good analogy. It captures just how slimy and unclean I feel around the whole topic of achievement.

And how much cleaner I feel around failure, by comparison. 

P.S.: I think this insight helps explain much of the ambivalence I have around school and anything that looks like it. I've talked about that a lot over the years, but see especially this post and this one. Now I'm wrestling with the question how much of this post about Marie applies to me too. I think any simple answer will be wrong, and that the true answer is "Not 100% but also not 0%."

  

Talking about vacation

Memo to the reader: I thought about titling this piece "On vacation," in the same way that one might title a treatise, "On the Gods," or "On human nature." But I realized that most people would assume it just meant, "I'm going to be away from my computer and not writing for a while." In this case that's not what I mean. Hence the slightly clunkier title.

It's late at night. I've drunk too much. And I need to do things in the morning. Why am I not in bed asleep?

Well, I almost was—at the end of another highly unproductive and useless day. (I keep hoping my days will be productive. But that would require that I actually had the will to accomplish something, and that will is often missing.) But then I thought of an interesting pattern. I wanted to record it before I forgot it, and so here we are.

It's just this. You've heard me complain about being stuck, dead in the water, accomplishing nothing. I've blamed it on booze and on Twitter, both of which are indeed serious contributors to my time-wasting. But both of them are enablers, not root causes. The reality is, This is something I do.

So for example:

Solitude

This weekend I visited my mother. I drove down on Saturday. When I got there, she was at her storage unit with Brother and SIL; but it wasn't long before they came back, along with a friend of Brother's. We sat around and talked a while before they all went home. Then Mother and I stayed up until 2:00 in the morning, drinking brandy and talking some more. Sunday, Mother and I drove into the Big City to go to a concert. We met Brother and SIL there, and we chatted after the concert before going home. Today (Monday), Brother and SIL came out, and we all contributed to a nice meal outside in the early evening. So it sounds like I spent the weekend socializing with family.

You'd think.

But in reality, not so much. Saturday, sure, we sat around chatting for a bit, but in a superficial way. I got to talk to Mother more after everyone else left. But then we drank enough and stayed up late enough that Sunday was pretty miserable. I mostly tried to stay out of those conversations because I was still wiped out. And today? Mother was in the kitchen cooking; Brother and SIL were in the kitchen cooking. I tried my damnedest to stay away, somewhere else, for hours.

Why? I worried about saying something thoughtless that might offend someone. I guess I was thinking particularly that I might say something to offend SIL (see especially this post and this one, for example), but at the same time I was prepared for the possibility of equal-opportunity offensiveness. Not of purpose, of course! Just because I don't trust myself a lot in social situations any more. (If I ever did.)

Maybe I worry too much. Besides, if you are weak at a particular skill, you get better by exercising it more, not by avoiding it. 

Right, whatever. Anyway, after we had our meal (where I was careful to praise every dish!) I announced that I needed to get back home. I cleared the table of dishes (see, I helped out a little bit!) and then took off. Now I'm back at home, and I feel much more at ease. So far as I can tell, I didn't offend anyone this time. And thank heavens for that! 

      

Bad habits, 3

A couple days ago I got an idea for a post to write here, and it turns out I've already written it—or at any rate the first half of it. (You can find it here.) It was going to be about how I've gotten into a lot of bad habits lately. Self-destructive or suicidal habits, if I don't correct them. Habits that are guaranteed to shorten my lifespan. I'm too isolated from others. I don't exercise enough and I'm putting on weight again. My alcohol consumption is on its way up. (In 2021, I averaged 3.3 drinks per day; in 2022, 3.6; in 2023, 4.1; in 2024 to date, 5.2.) I do some volunteer work for the professional society that covers the profession I used to follow, but I feel grumpy and alienated about it. It's been months since I cleaned my apartment. And so on.

Why do I feel no push to do anything better?

Well, in a sense I do feel a little push. Otherwise I wouldn't feel bad about it and write you now. But it's not a strong enough push to overcome the lethargy that holds me in place.

Most immediately, I don't have anyone in my face, that I have to report to. I don't have anyone making me do anything. I'm sure Marie would be happy to offer to nag me if I asked her to, but I don't want to ask her to.

Besides, when I bang this drum too loudly there's another side of my brain that fights back. "Geez, what do you want, anyway? I already set myself a major life goal, and I hit it. Isn't that good enough? Can't I relax now?"

I think the answer is No, it's not really good enough. I think the answer is that, as long as I'm alive I should keep pushing forward.

But it sounds like a lot of work. 

          

Am I become Death?

Back on New Year's Day, I did a Tarot reading for myself for the year. Much of what it told me was unexceptional. My immediate situation was pegged as waiting (8 Wands reversed), exacerbated by indecision (2 Swords). The basis of my situation is that I'm acting like a scholar (Page of Pentacles) by thinking and writing, both here and in my professional blog under my real name. And so on.

Now my Self card was Death. At the time, I read this as advice that I would see major changes in my Self this year, because I have always read that card as "major change." But I wonder if there might not be more going on?

Over on the Patio I just finished a pair of articles which propose that humans thrive best under conditions of adversity, scarcity, and conflict—not peace and plenty. (You can find the first one here, and the second one here.) And last night, after I finished writing and posting the second article, I started to think about it with respect to my own situation. I have enough to eat and drink, and a roof over my head, all without working. I live alone, so I don't have to fight with anyone over the breakfast table. For the most part, except for some writing once or twice a week, there's nothing special that I need to do.

When John B. Calhoun subjected a population of rats to those exact same conditions, the rats died.

And so I began to wonder, Does the Death card have a double meaning for me right now? Yes, of course it generally means "major change." And of course anyone learning the Tarot is always warned not to read it as death simply and straight-up, because that will terrify the person you are reading for. But I start to think that maybe it means something a little more complex, something like this:

The unbearable weight of being Stagg R. Leigh

I guess I'm I glad I'll never hit the big time.

A couple nights ago, I went out to see "American Fiction." Incidentally, it's a great movie, and one that works on many levels. If you haven't seen it yet, go see it now.

But in particular, I was emailing with Marie earlier this evening. I mentioned the movie and told her I'd liked it. She went online and found a trailer, and said it looks like "The Producers." I replied that it is nothing at all like "The Producers." (Not to say anything against "The Producers"! It's the funniest movie ever made. But "American Fiction" breathes a whole different air.)

So I started to think to myself, What do I like about it so much?

Fair warning: In what follows there are likely to be SPOILERS! So don't read any farther unless you have already seen the movie or just don't care.

Meeting my Shadow

Last night during dinner I had an encounter with my Shadow. The Jungian kind. Perhaps I'd better start again.

I haven't read very much Jung, and I'm no expert in the tenets of Jungian psychology. Most of what I know about the Shadow archetype, I've learned from reading John Michael Greer—for example, in this essay here. See also this YouTube video as a quick summary:

But his description has always been a bit difficult for me to apply to myself. 

• Your Shadow consists of all the parts of yourself that you don't like. OK, so far, so good. 
• But specifically they are things you hate so much that you refuse to acknowledge that they are part of you. This makes it harder, because I freely acknowledge many of the unpleasant sides of my own character. I talk about them in this venue, not infrequently. Do I have to rule out all of those?
• Because you can't admit that your Shadow characteristics are part of you, you project them onto your enemies. Gosh, do I have enemies?
• And whenever you see someone else exhibit one of these behaviors, it makes you crazy.

I wasn't sure what that left me. But it turns out that's because I have a bad memory.

Waiting for the end of the world 7, summary

So why did I title this series "Waiting for the end of the world"? When I stumble up out of my chair after doomscrolling through Twitter for days at a time, what is it that I think I see coming?

Well, if I list them grouped according to which entry in the series I used to discuss each one, I find myself fretting over the following:

1. The dollar is at risk of collapse, under the weight of decades of deficit spending. If it collapses, it will pull the American economy down with it.
2. Political conversation in this country has become toxic, so I can't discuss this stuff except here where I am anonymous.
3. Society encourages lunatic opinions and penalizes people for saying things that are obviously simple facts. (Example: "A man cannot become a woman.")
4. We have forgotten how to conduct normal politics. We have started weaponizing the justice system against political opponents. This is how we slide from a Republic into a Principate.
5. Our Presidential politics are dominated by a senile and obstructionist gerontocracy. This means we have no real chance to change course. Again, this is how we slide from a Republic into a Principate.
6. Our irresponsible support of Ukraine means that we are actively provoking World War Three, which we will lose badly. Even without Ukraine, it's pretty likely anyway because of troubles in other parts of the world

Is that enough to deserve the title "Waiting for the end of the world"? 

Maybe I should add that I don't expect a sudden, apocalyptic end. World War III will be bad, but the odds are that someone will survive. Or we might come to our senses and avoid it somehow. Avoiding a Principate will be harder. (In fact there are good reasons to think we may already be there.) But it any event, my point is not that we should expect the country to look like Lear's blasted heath a week from next Tuesday. 

What I really expect is a long slow decline, what John Michael Greer calls The Long Descent. Life will get harder and things will get more expensive. Tools will break down and we won't be able to fix them. Government agencies will get more troublesome and less useful, until one by one they are shuttered "temporarily" out of "budgetary concerns." We will still have some kinds of technology, but we will gradually stop using others. (No, I don't know which will be which.)

Greer talks about this in a lot of places. You might check out this essay here (from back in 2004), or his archived blog The Archdruid Report, or his current blog Ecosophia. He has widened his topics over the years, but The Long Descent is never far from his thoughts.

In any event, I need to get off Twitter and stick my head outdoors once in a while.

P.S.: This same month, I've been writing a couple of posts over on the Patio, also about the end of the world. You can find the first one here. I expect to write the next installment soon.

  

          

Waiting for the end of the world 2, politics

 I've written about how sedentary I've become, how more and more I seem to spend hours on Twitter rather than actually accomplish anything. Even when I do manage to get something done—a couple days ago I wrote the next installment for the weekly blog I maintain under my real name—I find it hard to give a shit. I still have weekly calls with Marie and with Debbie (not together, to be clear), but I never have any news. "Yeah, I spent the last week sitting around uselessly like a bump on a log. How about you?" All I really want to do is sleep. I'm pretty sure this is what depression looks like.

(It's true that I was able to rouse myself out of my torpor to call Marie a few weeks ago and make arrangements to go to Paris. So I guess I'm not irretrievably lost yet. But now that we've booked the flight and the hotel, I'm not exactly doing a lot more to prepare. I tell myself that I've got a couple of months.)

What I have also observed is that a lot of the stuff I doomscroll on Twitter is politics, and I don't discuss it with anyone. This is part of where I get my running title, "Waiting for the end of the world": it seems like the political problems I keep reading about are intractable and will ultimately pull us apart. Or what is actually more likely, I think, is not that we will pull apart into some kind of civil war, but just that we will slowly unwind—kind of like the old Soviet Union did in the 1980's. Every year things will get just a little bit less effective and a little bit less useful, until one day we are trying to do something routine in our statecraft and the handle will break off in our hand. 

Becalmed

I got back from Scotland over three weeks ago.

When I got back, I learned that the owner of the company where I have been consulting had just sold the company the day before. The new owners saw no value in keeping me around. My last day there was about two weeks ago.

My cough is back. Again.

Last weekend I drove down to Big City to spend a couple of days visiting Mother. I briefly mention the story here.

I have kept posting once a week on the professional blog I keep under my real name.

I have a phone call once a week with Marie, and another (on a different day) with Debbie. I join a Zoom call for Sangha once a week, as well.

But for the most part I have no obligations to anyone, and nothing that I especially need to do. Let me say that again, for clarity.

There.  Is.  Nothing.  I.  Need.  To.  Do.

The technical term for this condition is freedom. Nobody ever bothers to tell you that it sucks.

Reframing

A couple days ago, I posted a long list of sour gripes that I had distilled from a daylong bad mood. One of these was a complaint that Marie wants me to move in with her. I dismissed this by saying that "the relationship comes with too much baggage" and "the extent to which she needs me is just wearing."

But there's another way to frame this. I even hint at it in a later paragraph of that same post, but not clearly enough.

As it is, my remarks make it sound like I'm talking about Marie: because of this-and-that things about her, I don't want to move in with her or make the relationship that much closer than it is now.

But maybe none of this is about her. Maybe this is all about me. 

More and more I feel like I don't have it in me to want that close a relationship any more, with anybody. Relationships like that require deep trust, and I don't have it to give. I suppose once upon a time I had a normal allotment of trust doled out to me; but it feels like I've used it all up.

Of course I could be wrong. I used to think I was long past the chance of feeling giddy romanticism after so many years with Wife, and then I fell in love with D. So maybe the possibility for being foolish is still there. Maybe when I'm 85 I will lose my head over some sweet young Nimuë; since I have no magic arts to teach, she'll doubtless have to get rid of me with something more practical like a restraining order.

Maybe I'm just an idiot. That's at least a parsimonious explanation of the data.

    

Feels like a long month, part 2

I think I'm learning something: Never, ever, tell you readers out there (if any) that I've stopped drinking; because the act of telling you so guarantees that I will fall off the wagon that very evening!

I've been in a foul mood all day. Part of it is the other stressors that I talked about in my post earlier today: the job hunting (combined with ambivalence for even getting a job in the first place), and Wife's contemptible stunt of wheedling a place to live out of Son 1 because she's afraid that the alimony I pay her might be interrupted (if I am jobless long enough).

But part of it is my phone call this morning with Marie. While I was cursing at the walls and failing to accomplish anything useful all day, I also found myself making up lists of things to yell about:

Item: The only two people whose spending I have ever tried to control before this were Wife (who spent like a drunken sailor) and D (who berated me for failing to follow through on an alleged promise that I still think I never made, to pay for one of her plane tickets). But now it's come up with Marie. In an email back in March she wrote:

I am realizing I owe you an apology.

I have been affected all along by knowing that I don't have the income to support indefinitely a jet-setting relationship.  And I've felt you were uncaring when that's what you seemed to want, when you seemed blithely to assume that we could just happily jog along the way we started.  

When I had deliberately hidden from you that I couldn't really afford this.  

I don't know when the right time to have had this conversation would have been, but I'm pretty sure five years in isn't it.

I hid pertinent information from you, and then, worse, I have been blaming you for acting in ignorance of that information.

As a rhetorical device, it's clever that she phrased it as an "apology." It sounds like she's claiming to be in the wrong. But surely this belongs on a list of historically magnificent passive-aggressive apologies. If you can read this and walk away thinking that she's really admitting to being in the wrong, you have a blessedly thicker skin than I do.

We emailed about it in March. No resolution. We talked on the phone. No resolution. I agreed to visit her in May, which I did. But that was a distraction, not a resolution. Then a few days ago she told me she had gotten a bonus at work, and how about if she spent it on a plane ticket to come see me?

And I told her No. Not on your nickel. If you are going to come see me, somebody else (like me, for example) has to pay for it.

So controlling.

And that's what we talked about this morning. She was offended at the idea that I should pay for her flight. I told her that now I knew it was a problem, there was no way I was going to allow her to keep paying for her own flights because I know for a fact it will come back to bite me. That some time five or ten years from now she'll be saying, "But Hosea, you knew that paying for these visits was hard for me. And yet you've allowed us to go blithely on as if we didn't have to change a thing. As if my finances didn't matter. As if  I  didn't matter." (Incidentally, did you pick up on the word "allowed" in that speech? After Wife and D, I have come to expect that any unsatisfactory arrangement will be retroactively ascribed to me as if I had the authority to change it. Better, therefore, to step up and change it now … by being so controlling. Marie has up till now not remarked on the choice of word.) We agreed that she will come to visit me some time soon, and I'll pay for the ticket -- even if only just this once. In other words, another distraction. No resolution.

Wow. That was a lot of background, wasn't it? The point of all the explanation was simply this: when I start micromanaging somebody else's spending, it's a sign that I do not feel safe in the relationship. It is therefore a danger sign for the relationship itself.

Item: Part of why I don't feel safe in the relationship is that Marie broods silently. She overthinks things heavily, and then follows the counsel of her inmost heart without ever communicating to the outside world. So, for example, she told me today that it hurt her feelings deeply that once I knew I was going to be laid off, I didn't consider moving to be near her. But I did consider it, I objected. I thought we talked about that. Apparently not, or at any rate not in her world. (I can't swear in a court of law that I discussed it with her; but gosh, I kind of thought I had.) The point, though, is that those discussions were back in February or March. This is the last day of June, and it's the first I heard of it. 

In the same way, I confirmed with my mother back then that if I never found another job I could move in with her. Marie says she offered that I could move in with her too, and I ignored the offer. OK, I'm not sure I remember her offering, but maybe. But again, that was February or March. This is June 30. What else is she hiding in her breast that I don't know about yet?

Hard to feel secure when I don't know what's coming.

Item: So -- about those offers to move in with her. Some time after we got involved, Marie explained that she had always wanted to be Mrs. Tanatu and she figured now was her big chance. When I explained that this was impossible because I am still legally married -- and in fact that there's no way I will ever marry again, even if Wife drops dead or is abducted by space aliens -- it did not go over well. But that discussion was more than four years ago. Surely she has had time to get over it?

Maybe not.

The thing is that I don't think I'll ever want to live with Marie, unless I've gotten old and feeble and need someone to look after me. It just feels like too much work, like the relationship comes with too much baggage for that. I love the literary side of the relationship, when we can trade poems back and forth. And the sex is fine too. But I'd have to be paying attention all the time. And the extent to which she needs me is just wearing.

Item: Speaking of that last point …. Over and over, Marie is distressed about things that come down to "It feels like I love you more than you love me." And I'm sure that's absolutely true. I haven't said so, because it's a hell of a thing to tell someone. But Marie seems to be still head-over-heels in love with me, suffering from that kind of self-forgetting romantic love that needs the other person 24-7, that is so captivating and delightful -- the kind of love everyone should enjoy at least once. And I don't think I have that in me any more. After Wife and D, I don't think I can trust anyone that far ever again. I'm happy with the time that I spend with Marie, but I don't think I'll ever again put my eggs in someone else's basket. That's why I'll never marry again.

And what this really means is that Marie isn't getting her needs met either. The relationship isn't right or fair for her either.

Have I just talked myself into breaking up with her?

I don't know. I'd better sleep on it. Maybe I'll get one more drink as a nightcap.

Bloody hell.

   

Feels like a long month

It feels like it has been a very long month.

I've had a couple of screening interviews: one for a job six hours from here that I really don't want, and one for a job that they said could be done remotely (though the office is about three hours from here). The second one also produced a real interview, by Zoom, late Monday. I think it went OK. At any rate there were no embarrassing silences. I can't tell whether they liked me, and in any event they were still in the middle of interviewing other candidates. We'll see.

On paper the job is perfect for me. I was excited while I was doing the interview. Now I just want to crawl into a hole somewhere. I find myself hoping I'll be rejected on the first pass.

I started a blog under my real name, about my real-life work. No links from here, though. Sorry.

Debbie visited for a night. Her plan was to visit a number of her friends in this town, and to spend the nights here. No, nothing happened in that sense -- I mean, no sex. Also she got sick for most of the night with some kind of gastrointestinal bug. I slept through it but she told me the next morning.

Debbie also has a number of hikes she wants to take me on. I've been trying to exercise more, so that these might even be possible. But I'm tired and I'd rather nap.

Last Saturday I had a routine physical checkup. My blood pressure was a little high, so they asked me to take it at home when I'm relaxed and send them the results. I'm doing that. But I've also stopped drinking in the last few days, to help pull down my blood pressure. I'm sure it's good for me, but I miss it.

Next month Wife is moving in with Son 1. He seems to have his eyes open about the whole thing. I think it is the most despicable thing she has done in a long time. Why hasn't she found some other form of income? Why does she insist on being so god-damned dependent? 

I've started to fight with Marie about how she pays for her travel to see me. I told her the same thing I once told D, that I have to pay for all her trips after this. She balked. We talked. No resolution. She's also been hurt ever since I decided not to go to Sticksville that in my worst-case planning I considered moving in with my mother but not moving in with her. She said she offered. I didn't remember that she'd offered, and I can't imagine a world in which I move in with her.

Maybe I'm depressed. Ya think?

      

So little

I have accomplished more or less fuck-all in my job search in the last week. Yesterday Marie sent me an email asking how it's going, since I haven't said much about it. I don't really want to admit to her how useless I've been, but this evening I sat down in front of an open text file just to type out the first things that came to my head on the subject. It ended up as a conversation that went like this.

==========

Why have you accomplished so little in job hunting?

Well it's not like I've done nothing. I've watched recorded videos about how to brand yourself. I've attended live webinars on important topics like how to get medical insurance when you are unemployed. I spent a lot of time formatting my resume for the state unemployment department, which was a requirement for getting Unemployment Insurance. And I've attended professional webinars put on by my professional association.

You've also squandered hours and hours of time. And all this stuff -- maybe it matters but it's all getting in your way. Why aren't you looking for work?

Because I don't want to!

You don't want work?

I wouldn't mind working. I don't want to have to look for work!

Bad news, dude, but jobs don't grow on trees.

I know that.

Fine. What do you dislike about it so much?

I don't like that it's all a competition I don't like having to think about what I'm especially good at. And all my accomplishments seem so specious. When I go online and read the requirements for this or that real job, I think there's no way I can match those. What a joke! They are looking for people who are polished and accomplished. I sit at my desk and fill out forms, after somebody else explains them all to me.

Is that all you can do?

Well -- OK, maybe not. But I don't see any way that I can pretend to meet all the bright, shiny requirements in these ads.

Are you looking at the wrong ads?

I guess I must be.

Where would you find the right ones?

Shit, I don't know! I'm googling jobs with titles similar to the ones I used to have, or that use keywords that look right.

But you don't fit most of what you find?

Let's say that when I see a new ad, the first thing I do is scan it for some requirement that would eliminate me. I usually find one.

Because you don't want to work?

Because I don't want to have to fight for it in the arena. So if there's some reason I'm going to be disqualified anyway, I figure let's get it over with. There usually is.

And you assume they are going to find someone with 100% of what they want.

Maybe not. Look, if the part I don't have is listed as "preferred" or "nice to have" then I don't worry so much. But if they absolutely require some familiarity that I don't have, why should I waste their time and mine applying?

If that's true it seems like you should spend more time at the search, not less, because you need time to weed out all the inappropriate ones. 

I know, I know. It's just depressing.

Do you need to target your search a little better? Who is it that you can really help?

Small start-ups that have just been acquired by huge global firms and need help integrating into the systems of their new parent. At least, that's where my last two jobs have been.

Is that who you are targeting?

I don't know how to find them.

Are you asking anybody?

No. Where would I even start?

Your existing network? Or that consultant that your last employer hired for you until June?

Oh. Yeah. I guess that would be a good idea. I didn't think of that. Also I don't want to move out of this general region.

Nice to know your requirements are so simple!

Well, you know, my mom ….

Yes, yes. I know. Nice to know your requirements are so simple. Are you sure you're not just adding more requirements to make a big heap so the whole effort becomes impossible?

I'm not sure, no.

So you might be?

I might.

Is that OK with you?

Fuck, I don't know. What does it matter?

Are you planning to get another job?

Oh, I'm sure it will happen sooner or later.

Which? When?

I don't know.

Do you care?

It's hard for me to care.

Because you don't want to?

Not a lot, I guess.

Do you want to retire?

I don't know if I can afford to retire.

If you could afford it, would you want to?

It would be tempting. On the other hand I look at how I piss away my days right now, and I remember how much my dad pissed away his time once he sold his business, and I'm not sure it would make me any happier. What it would make me, after a little while, is unemployable -- because I would have forgotten the dance that you have to do at work to get things done.

Are there things you still want to get done?

Sure. I want to write up all the philosophy that I keep promising out on the Patio, and maybe a couple of things I've never mentioned there. I'd like to publish a book I started writing last year about some of the stuff I do professionally.

Could you do those things if you weren't working?

You'd think so, huh? But I don't know if I'd ever get the motivation to sit down and do it.

Will you do those things if you do get a job?

I haven't yet, and I'm nearly 60.

So are you saying they'll never happen?

I'm saying I need some kind of outside compulsion.

And what about job hunting?

Look, tomorrow morning I've got an appointment with my main consultant, and also with a resume specialist. Those meetings will push me back on track.

Really?

No, not really.

==========

Fun, huh? Maybe I need to admit that one of my consultants is Sister Failure. Or maybe I just need to get my ass in gear. That's another way to read the data.

     

Death in the air, 2

I remarked yesterday that I've been reminded of death seemingly a lot in the last six weeks or so. So I put some of those thoughts in an email to Marie, who wrote me back today. Here are a few excerpts from what she said.

Hey, sweetness.

Some conversations work better when we can hold each other for comfort.

But I noticed in myself, last visit, a reluctance to "spoil" our short time together by having a depressing conversation.  

So I mentioned that you seemed to have developed sleep apnea since my last visit, but I didn't mention how it worried me.  Particularly in conjunction with other changes I noticed.  Did you talk to your doctor?  And is he knowledgeable about that condition?  Because sleep apnea can lead to metabolic syndrome and heart problems, and you're already at fairly high risk for that.  It worries me, how tired you've been.  Might be just depression, which would be bad enough; but it might be something worse.

I am frankly more frightened that you might suffer a heart attack, my beloved, than I am that you'll freeze to death next winter.  Or even fall again and injure yourself badly, though I was terrified for you when that happened.

Other changes--your tiredness, I've mentioned.  Your weight increase.  Your e.d.--you had no trouble satisfying me, God knows, so I had no complaints there, but knowing you're otherwise at risk makes it seem a sinister sign.

Even how we ate and drank, down there; we were sort of en fete every day, and I didn't know how much that represented a departure from how you have been feeding yourself.  I know that the loneliness and stress of the pandemic led me to comfort myself with food, as is my wont.  And so I have gained back 12 pounds of the 46 I had lost.  But even so, it was noticeable to me that we were eating more rich food, and fewer vegetables and fruits, than I do on my own.  I didn't know how much of that reflected the holidays, and wanting to treat me, and eating up the cheeses and wines you had been given for Christmas, and how much it reflected your normal diet.  The DASH heart-healthy diet recommended by the Mayo Clinic and Harvard Health, for example, recommends 4-5 servings daily of vegetables, and as many of fruit.  I usually easily make that for veggies, and barely make that for fruit.  Of course it's much harder to eat fresh if one only goes shopping every two weeks, so the pandemic has hurt that as well.

Back to your letter proper.

Regarding the other deaths you spoke of... yeah, it's weird to reflect that we're at an age where we have to start expecting people in our cohort to die.  Already it's an exception for my peers to have both parents; I think I have only one friend my age who does.  And those who do still have parents, those parents are fragile.  I guess I personally see that most with Schmidt's mom, since I have known her for forty years now, but seen her only sporadically in that time.  

And I've noticed for a while now the decreased resilience of my own body; so have you.... 

But yeah, it's sobering and frightening to reflect that people our age are starting to die of ordinary diseases, not just of extraordinary circumstances.  As well as saddening, when it's someone we like and value, like Fillette.  

I do love Son 1's comment; how nice he acknowledges that if you died right now, you'd leave an intellectual legacy to be managed, even if he firmly declines to be the one to manage it!  And yeah, I would, but I would much rather talk to you about your writing, than arrange to publish it as a posthumous tribute.

So take care of yourself, my dearest.  Eh?

Loving you always,

Marie