The summer moves in slow like this, around here, up in the mountains where the morning chill hangs around and the mist lingers among the valleys and rivers. That was this morning. Tonight, the Reserve gets an ice cube because I could never bother to make a cocktail. This is the time of year I tell myself to go later, to ride the wave of the day, to give myself the break in the middle of the afternoon when I would otherwise stick to the keyboard in a frustration of client calls and copy and the news leaks in through the edges.
It’s everything to not resign to a hammock. To crack a beer and find something to smoke, to soak into a book as I nod off into a nap.
Tonight I have the door open. I’ve got Miles on the juke, maybe a little too loud. I’d like to think the rhythm flows out into the woods. Maybe someone catches a few notes on their way home. Last night the neighbor and I spotted the bear, she’s back with a cub in tow. It’s darling, but you could lose your head. For now, though, she just picks through the trash cans down the block at the men’s group home.
This is a night of jazz, whiskey, and writing. The house lights are low, the dog is snoring on the sofa. Hey, look at me, a stereotype. In a moment I’ll have to get up and turn the record over. Don’t mind me.
It’s always going to be like this, my dear reader. My life is an unending series of fits and starts. Maybe this is what life is for everyone. Or maybe it’s just me and this addlement. This divergency. There is never a plan, never a routine, things just happen. Ask me about the longest job I’ve ever held down - it’s not great. To me, jobs are something to get done rather than do ongoingly. I jump around, I get bored quickly. The worst feeling in the world is when I exceeded my goals during a sales quarter, and my sales manager just said “Great job, now go do it again.”
It’s like this everywhere. I’ll go to the gym for three weeks straight, and then not think about it for the next four months. “Can you post consistently?” an old business coach asked me. It seems simple - write, hit the publish button, move on to the next thing. It turns out, consistency is the last thing I can do if consistency is expected of me.
Remind me to show you my closet of abandoned hobbies.
Well, not abandoned. Most are in cold storage until the wild hair tickles my sphincter again. The fly fishing rod is on deck, the video editing console is on right after.
Things that I guess you can call “consistent.”
I still put words down every day. Sometimes it is a handful of pages typed out in a furious hour. Othertime is a leaf or two of a pocket sized notebook while I’m watching people scroll through their phones while waiting for their lunch.
I won’t say no to a drink. Though, there are a handful of professionals who think I should.
I will take any opportunity to lay down or sit back for a quick nap.
Maybe it’s not “writing every day.” Maybe it’s the need to feel ink spreading across a page. Sometimes it’s a figure, a smile, a shape. Or, in most cases, lines. Lines upon lines.
Between December and last week I traveled a lot more than I care to admit. Remind me to tell you about my carbon footprint, and how I don’t give a fuck about it when there are missles in the air. New York City. Denver. London. Glasgow. Tulum. Atlanta. Charlotte. Charlotte. Charlotte. My stomach goes to hell, I can’t sleep for shit, I make every bad decision in the book when it comes to my overall well being. But I’m on the road, I’m traveling, of course I’ll have some Reserve at 8:30 in the morning (someone’s morning) somewhere over Iceland. I try not to think about this in terms of content. I don’t want to be the guy who misses everything by recording everything. No one needs a travel vlog of a place everyone has visited. Far fewer people are jealous of where you are than they used to be.
There was a time no one wanted to sit through the slideshow when the neighbors got back from Hawaii.
I spend a lot of time looking out of windows from one place to the next. “The journey, not the destination” they say, but the journey is all buses and planes and taxis and trains. The view is always different. I almost always fall asleep for a little bit.
What am I trying to say here? Does it matter? This is the crux of our content age. The headline asks a question that gets answered somewhere, maybe, around the 200th word (below the fold, next to the feature advertiser of the month). You’d be hard pressed nowadays to find an article or blog or substack with a quality concluding paragraph. Or even a finishing sentence with a decent thought. Or, hell, a last period before the page crumbles into content and link farms.
Another consistent thing: when possible I’ll eat this yogurt thing sometime before bed. No fat. All protein. Sprinkled over with this dark chocolate sea salt granola. I say I’m doing it for my health.
The last time I wrote here I thought I was about to go onstage. The Moth happens every month in Asheville - tonight, actually, although I didn’t attend. The worst feeling in the world is sitting anxiously waiting for your name to be called to present to not have your name called at all. It leaves you with a lot of pent up frustration with nowhere to go. You’re also left with a story not shared.
The record is done. Is it too late to start Bitches’ Brew? Never. I have little going on tomorrow. More ice. More Reserve.
Rapid fire: stuff from my notes I thought I was going to write about in this issue -
No one takes the blame. Mexico, right? The only thing I’ve grown more tired of than the Avett Brothers are their fans. Good lord. The shortest bit of the story: a lot of folks came down with the drizzlin’ shits (thus, the nightly culture infusion via yogurt). The wife keeps me abreast of the ridiculousness of the Facebook group where everyone tries to nail a culprit. Was it the shrimp? Nah, must have been the salad. Or maybe a bad batch of ice. Montezuma! What they couldn’t claim: a week of resort food, unlimited alcohol, too much sun, not enough water, and a laughable approach to sleep. If your body is a temple, then Christ is here to furiously upturn the tables.
But no, nah. I think it was the fruit salad.
Yes, I go to a farmicia to find the medicine that eludes me in the States. They have it, the name brand, and I have to do the math in my head from MX to USD and it’s just as expensive. Go figure. We stock up on anti-diarrheal instead. Right now, the inbox in my CVS is a battleground of submitted prescriptions to see what is available, what gets filled, and what might be covered at all by our insurance. This is the problem with ADHD - the treatments are a derivative of meth. Between the federal control and the manufacturing quota restrictions, the stuff you need is back ordered for like 6 months.
Or, maybe, I just need to not have a phone. Not saying it’s a cure, but the mainline of content isn’t helping. I know I can do better. I should probably finish this drink and go read a book.