Pseudo-PTSD brought me back to old songs like Circa Survive’s “Dyed In the Wool” off of Blue Sky Noise (2009) where Anthony Green tragically sings the chorus that ‘nothing’s going to change that hopeless feeling I get when you say you understand and I know that you can’t.’ I felt that then and now. That album lacks the raw inaccessibility and straight dope of Juturna (2005) and resonates with me a lot less than On Letting Go (2007), but there is always something to be said for when an album comes out. Are these songs meant to live forever or do they mean something more while life is happening in the present?
So I go back to Circa Survive. I dwell on The Killers for some reason. When I run Parkway Drive finds its way through my AirPods, even though I still don’t know half of the words that are being said. But I’ve never been an artsy fellow; movies and music and paintings and any other form of art are not so much about the content than how they make me feel. Oftentimes I label myself as a big stupid dummy, even though I am not big and I am not stupid and I am not, I don’t think, that dumb. But when it comes to art that is exactly what I am. I know nothing except for vibes.
My mind remains a clutter of useless information and cool shit. One divided by nine is eleven percent and one divided by eleven is nine percent. Someone I used to work with named Jimmy Black (who has since passed away) once asked me as I walked into the employee dining room on my way to getting a cup of coffee because I had only gotten like three hours of sleep the night before — not an entirely unusual phenomenon for me — who played quarterback for the University of Miami in 2001 when they lost the National Championship to Ohio State. I said um and thought for a couple seconds. The table he sat at was occupied entirely by dealers, six of them. One for every chair. Oh, I said. Ken Dorsey. Ahh, Ken Dorsey, Jimmy Black said. Of course Eric would know, Jimmy Black said.
A woman played blackjack at my table several months ago and said she played softball in college and I asked which college she played at and she said Old Dominion. We’re in the Southern California desert for christ’s sake, what the fuck. I told her Old Dominion, Nice, The Monarchs. How in the world did you know the mascot of Old Dominion, she asked me. I used to go to school in Virginia for a little while, I said. That wasn’t the truth of the matter. I didn’t have to go to school in Virginia to know that. My dad and I used to play a game when I was a little boy where we would quiz one another on collegiate mascots. Southern Illinois are the Salukis, for instance. Central Connecticut State are the Blue Devils, same as Duke, and so on. The woman was so impressed with me for knowing a small and random school’s mascot such as hers that she tipped me five dollars when I left the table. I don’t even know if she knew whether or not I kept my own tips, which I do, I just think she wanted me to have something to show for the incredibly random knowledge I possess.
And this is who I am. I forget the point I am trying to make mid-sentence. I eat food and mess my fingertips up with hot sauce and walk out into the kitchen and forget why I am there once I make it. Oh, a napkin, I think to myself, even though I am back in my room continuing to eat my burrito. I thought when I learned new things and met new people who taught me new things and kept my mind occupied that it would push out the bullshit. That isn’t how this works. I still remember details from 2001 and random athletes who played on sports teams for like two years back in obscure eras like 2004-2006 and still don’t know what the fuck happened twenty minutes ago.
I traveled by darkness for so long and followed my north star and one day the moon kind of led me astray. Like it was winking at me. So I got off course and began a different path following it, instead of my star, and on and on and on I went and thought I was getting somewhere that I wanted to get to. There was no rainbow and no pot of gold in my wishes, just a fucking moon. They always said the journey is the destination and Dr. Seuss once wrote a book called Oh The Places You Will Go and I bought that back in Virginia once upon a time along with a few calligraphy pens that I stole, actually, in my waist as I crossed a threshold where the cameras couldn’t see me. The moon ended up leading me nowhere. It was just a bunch of dirt and rocks and shit.
I see the struggle as a real one on multiple levels that I do not right now have the perspective to understand. In another life I found solace in drugs. Drugs are fantastic. But I do not do drugs anymore, and I do not wish to do drugs anymore. Drugs are bad for me. And so are virtually all things that I surround my life with, the people and places and things. Nouns, I guess you could say. I punish my mind and my body at every turn, and the sickest part is that while I go through it I know intrinsically that these people and places and things are bad for me. Nouns are bad for me.
I was one way for so long and I attempted to give something else a chance. I liked that version of me, but in some way that version of me failed. It was not rewarded. I’ve been branded almost exclusively for as long as I can remember as being arrogant and cocky and stubborn and in my private moments I know that those things are probably all true but then there’s a different side of me that I don’t show anyone and for good reason because when I do it fails and doesn’t get rewarded. And it makes me wonder if being the carefree asshole is actually the way to go or if merely I should be the other way all the time and hope for someone who doesn’t step on it and play it and take advantage of it.
10:45 on a work night. Peaceful Piano on Spotify. Words on a screen. I thought things used to be so complicated because everything with everyone had to be so specific; I narrowed my lane so much that I didn’t want to share it with anybody else. But then I realized that’s no way to live. I can be an atheist and be homies with people who believe in god or allah or whoever the fuck. I can be a socialist and get along just fine with conservatives who are good workers and good people. I can be the un-superstitious motherfucker I generally always have been in my adult life and coexist with crystal bitches and astrology majors. These are my people, all of them.
And so it’s all just a binary proposition with me. It’s pass or fail, yes or no, black or white, do I fuck with you or do I not. That’s all anything ever comes down to. I’m a good person, and I like other good people.
The night is young, and it’s so quiet. I’ve decided to make this the summer of the tank top, even though I spent like a hundred and twenty dollars on two tank tops so I better fucking like these tank tops. I am all by myself, alone, just as I have ever wanted, just how it more or less has been, and while I am not happy, per se, I don’t know if happy is anything that I ever am, really, or ever want to be. I went to sleep sometime and somewhere and I woke up and became a grumpy old man and everybody sees it, everybody knows it. I do anything for anybody all the time and I have a handful of grey hairs sprouting and that’s just wonderful.
I stay down, on the inside, but I also know that the only time I get the best out of myself is when I am in this state, in this mindset. I have been fighting for too long, like a fish that bit on the hook, and all the while I have tried not to get reeled in. I guess I got popped. I lost one. The motivation that this is going to get out of me is going to be everything, though. Honestly. No part of me wanted this, but in many ways it is exactly what I needed.
Future Bets 
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