"We have [also] come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism."
"Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children." -MLK Hit the lights if you are the last one to leave this shithole, No need to lock it, we know it'll be ransacked. Only Seussian plumbing stretches up from the rubble, bent and absurd. Ancient pipes which once carried effluent of far better men. All of it sold for scrap. They've alas unbolted his gold toilet and moved it to F.L.A. Wet banker's boxes packed with abandon secrets mildewed by hydrants. Pages peel and flutter in a light breeze. Ideas, and legacies blow about the rotunda floor. Upholstery and charred sofas shelter the rodents who'll make better use of rotting rugs, Tiffany, Chippendale, and Louis XIV. In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to bounce a check. Only sparse Trees watch the barbarians move backwards through time, a retrograde recap of our best mistakes. Dred Scott dead of tuberculosis., and Missouri cheers. All of these reconstructed histories we'd outgrown lifetimes ago, reinstituted. Time scores our modern brilliance against a dark age when all men were actually created equal. A squalid symphony, of scrap trucks, as howling vigilantes keep time to our newly minted poverty. We are all suffering from curable illness, starving, hysterical... D.C. once the dream, drown by ignorance. We were once free, inspired. So long to good people. Some drove this far to save it, some to see it burn. Goodbye to safe harbors, bonsoir big shoulders, au revoir manumission, trees and parks, clean water. Adios to the birthrights beyond the ivy league window. We are just beginning to trample the landscape, packing snow, soil, and crushed red solo cups into the filthy archaeology of our fallen empire. The currency of leadership which had framed our scrappy republic, is now worthless. Emoluments have moved our capital alas to a proper party venue, with eighteen holes straight out back, and TV's on every cart. Welcome hangers-on and drunk drivers to a delirious never ending frat party. Grab a mojito on the lanai, watch us on our news networks. Grab a snack, and take a roadie for your drive, Hold the wheel tightly as we roll out the gate, and over the cliff. Boil the oceans, and level the mountains. Gift shop is closed, but you can carve your initials on a doorway, spray your tag on fallen columns and ink a phrase on Lincoln's backside. Don't get clever, that's all over. We've nothing left to write of progress for many years to come. We are far too busy bottoming out, and building high walls. It was far cheaper to keep them out, then to contain them, so we have walled-in the country clubs. Partitioned our parks. Tolled our byways, and privatized the beaches. We have only this new dark age of infantile carnivals, a caravan of looting nomads, and bullet-proof charlatan carpools. Its too soon to speak fondly of an inevitable rebellion, of mavericks, and of survivors. We are just beginning to trample the landscape, packing snow, soil, and crushed red solo cups into the filthy archaeology of our fallen empire. Welcome has-beens, vagrants & campers to these splendid tent cities. Please enjoy our stunning new detention pens. Will everyone please welcome the infant tyrant clown, and his Afrikaans puppeteer?
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"I'll be a happy idiot and struggle for the legal tender." The Dark Web is just behind that door, over in the corner. The backside of a filthy curtain, where levers, gears and pulleys lift and load uncivilized packages beneath a cold red neon buzz. A conspicuous color red; At a strange time when Americans lose access to their CCP pacifier, and unpack a fascist. Fucking imbalanced universe! -- C'est la vie, and so long. My fridge also houses the dark web, with three distinct leftovers, but nothing you’d have a taste for. Past its threshold, sin and promiscuity ravage sidelined humanity. The dark web is the whole of the web, a polymer ecosystem of intertwined soul crushing empty spaces, filled with vitriol, takeout containers, amazon boxes, and self-help advice. It is where we pretend things are perfect, because the GIF looks nice. The same dark web lingers in the gasket of my high efficiency washing machine, and in my shower grout. By the middle of January mid-winter hum-drum, fuels the same darkness, while the web sprouts a new hybrid strain. My fridge also houses the dark web with three distinct leftovers, but nothing you’d have a taste for. Suffering the indignity of too many food options, is a killing joke. By mid-January, the darkness covering our hemisphere begins to relent long enough to balance hope with our despair, keeping us in the game a bit longer, perhaps. Hope becomes a quiet blanket of sugary white crystals lit by the long shadows of a golden sun; While Evil remains a bleak smothering damp grey, dripping wet chill into otherwise dry socks. Everyone needs a break from winter, and from devices, from ourselves, boring blogs, and shitty pod-casts. But mid-winter reminds me of how far gone we are into the land of make-believe. Well before the weather broke us, we’d already spent far too much money and time alone, opening strange canned goods, stacking dishes in a full sink, sniffing containers of whatever lines the fridge. Running out of tissues, and lotion, winter’s survival seems to hinge upon the arithmetic ten-to-one imbalance of condiment, to food. None of these seem to have expiration dates. In 2023, 74 percent of U.S. "restaurant traffic came from take-out. Today it's even higher, but those who dine-in, bring both their phones, and friends with phones. Sadly, nobody can order without a phone and nearly as many only accept payment by app. All of us are pretending to dine out, while swiping saucy fingers. Everyone is clicking QR's, re-sorting preferences like recyclables, as cookies probe deeper into the nation’s psyche. Nobody is enjoying their time out, Everyone is posting, nobody is present. Everyone is faking it. Apparently, all of the trained servers who weren’t killed by Covid, now work from home on the software backend. If there were ever an argument that we are living in a simulation, this January moment should prove it. To dine out today requires a phone, but nobody uses their phone to call anyone. "I've been aware of the Time going by They say in the end, it's the wink of an eye." Go ahead and fake it!, because pretense is the mod con. Pretending to enjoy the sanctuary of dining out, in that booth by the window, where delivery drones constantly open doors pouring cold chill over a messy dining room. Here the bar is closed, and stacked with containers, and pre-packed take-out, rolled napkins swaddle bendy plastic ware. Your table runner aimlessly shuffles plates, reluctantly returning a plastic container with your check. Apparently, all of the trained servers who weren’t killed by Covid, now work from home on the software backend. Tonight, nobody will ask what you’d enjoyed, because nobody cares. Desserts and Paper Menus have been replaced with a QR sticker and a breath mint. Since 2023 online reservations for tables of one has increased by 30 percent. We are pretending to participate in an online class as the only student. Going out to dinner has become a correspondence course in dating, rather than a date. It’s deep damp January, and we are on the brink of a vengeful takeover. We are pretending to care about fascism, and we are pretending that Europe is not already at war on a larger scale, while local infrastructure is sabotaged regularly, and planes accidentally fall from the sky. We are pretending we get good service, at places which suck. We are pretending that our food is organic, healthy, while your hands swell, and tummies cramp. January 6th reminds us that America is still pretending not to be embroiled in a nativist crusade for white Christian supremacy. We are all Pretending to take ourselves seriously, take ourselves someplace, while not leaving our desktop, our doorstep. We are adapting, inventing systems, to cope through loneliness, while posting youthful selfies, instead of the stunning old fucks we've become. We are emulating favorable aspects, which we observe of others, hoping something sticks. We imitate our costumes, speech, affect, gait, dress, dance-moves, our hairstyles, our religion, past-times, bad habits, and customs. And we do all of that to belong to a larger organism, which is in decline. I am a pretender, and I am the sum total of the junk I once held sacred, crap that I've eaten, collected, wasted, vomited, tossed out, and waded through for decades. Sometimes I’ll scrap everything, perhaps plagiarizing the better aspects of what I've seen -- What I have become. Imitation is a religion, The hard-disc a temple. Opinions always align with the reviews we’ve read. We simulate a walk, a run, a ride, a row. even golfing can be done from home. We are pretending to laugh, pretending to fit in, pretending to matter, I pretend to care, and frequently I pretend to work. I wonder what my life would be like if I were more genuine. If I were, instead of the tapestry of germs and junk I drag around -- Valued for some intrinsic quality unique to me alone. Perhaps, I’d have been a contender. Nothing borrowed, nothing stolen, nothing soft peddled, nothing synthetic to myself. Native and raw, I'd still likely suck. Truth and pretense don’t cancel each other out, they only postpone a reconciliation of the self to a larger organism, which we are actively dismantling now. No rush, they are already breaking down the show by the time you begin your search for tickets. Secular America is reconstituting itself at the mega-church. Tonight, the makeover of American religious freedoms applies its orange toner in the mirror of a wrathful god, and I'm pretending he's not real. We are about to be appalled every waking moment for the next 1460 days by the most fake human ever., and I am pretending not to care about evangelical marauders as I write this. I am pretending to enjoy one-in-four meals with close friends while I keep my ideas to myself. I pretend to give a shit about obscure, even remote events, where empathy is warranted. I'm pretending that two of the five books I'm reading concurrently are decent. I've pretended to belong to book-clubs, groups, gyms, teams, and I fake-it rather well in crowds. I'm holding a plastic cup right now waiting for someone on-stage to awaken me. I join the audience, anxious, hopeful, mouth parted, awaiting my queue to clap. If you've not yet taken a meaningful moment for yourself or for someone else today, or perhaps yet this year -- Amidst the kinetic swirl of Santa-Ana Winds, Wild-Fires, Volcanos, School Drop-offs, Funerals, Dog-Grooming, Final Exams, Yoga Injuries, Hangovers, Missed Deadlines, Tax Bills, Snow-Storms, Power-Outages, Confessions, Car-Wrecks, Snow-Shoveling and Migraines, and a high of twelve degrees... And if your holiday vacation wasn't exactly what you'd saved up for. You can always fake it. And... You'd be in good company. If you didn't unwrap the thing you'd prayed to Santa-Jesus for, you'll likely order it anyway, and a dynamic web-page will have decided which brand you buy. What may be missing this second week post-apocalypse, is to contemplate what you still have to be grateful for, just before our country goes to shit (again). You may think you need some alone time, or a new pair of shoes. You may believe that your best remedy involves a good book, some solitude, a walk in the park, a punk show..., a vinyl record. Perhaps it is silence. But, most likely it's some human contact. "Where the Ad's take aim, and lay their claim To the heart and the soul of the spender." Because we all fuck up our best holiday plans, to some extent and we still get up and do it again. January 15th is the International Day of "The Pretender". Where we listen more than we talk, and read more than we flick, Give more than we take... And 'Giving a shit' this early in the year, I suppose, may qualify us to be human again. To claw back from a filthy sub-stack of winter’s dark web. Today is the day that we'll let go of having to suck it in, while we suck it up. Perhaps we are pretending to be nice for everyone else's sake. Today we'll trash malingering leftovers. Perhaps we'll leave the TV off, 'til we toss-out those take-out containers. Today, I told the kid at the coffee shop that, "We'd only just met", [and that] "I gave your tip to my Garbage man, my Mail Man, and my Dog Groomer, who always come through for me". Today, I brought dinner to my neighbor’s house, and drove 250 miles to visit elderly friends just to check in on them. I wrote a few letters to newly minted strangers and spun my chair around to jet them off to the letter box. I remember this estranged feeling of being human, and being part of a larger organism, well before I'd taken the shape of some bleak winter island. In seclusion, I'd forgotten about so many things, & the fragile lattice of people who'd shaped me, whom I've (perhaps) taken for granted. Fair weather friends, never call mid-January, unless their TV breaks, their internet goes down, or someone dies. There was a spike in deaths when they certified the certifiable. Good people left the game simply to quash its unrelenting background noise. Far less people sing in their cars... Nearly nobody owns a legitimate home stereo. A portable web speaker sits on the counter, like the speaker phone from Charlie's Angels, lonely uninspired, we await musical instruction from a non-randomized algorithmic playlist. Then more thumbing through phones for the song’s meaning. I try to contextualize how any person from outside our culture, perhaps aliens, would observe billions of people at dinner, driving, jogging, cycling, and sunning themselves on a beach-holiday staring deeply into tiny screens for wisdom, for company. How we must appear from outside the bubble. Swiping for food -- Posture stooped and slouchy. A four-top with three lost to a 3" screen. I'm pretending it wont be quite so bad. Make-believe sketches in the season’s margins, establishing the time scale for Winter's cruel work. To get clean of the blahs, I’ll begin by tossing those tiny hot sauce containers I’ve been keeping for some reason, and throw away a dozen flimsy plastic sporks, cheap chopsticks, soy packets, tiny tubs of parmesan, single serving chili-flakes, and 6 condiments of unknown origin. Perhaps I’ll bake something, embarrass myself at Karaoke, and then hit that 4 AM Punk Bar. If I make it ‘til spring, I'll need to pretend to really enjoy winter. Man! this Jackson Brown Track is Magic. Build a Time Machine to actually meet some Aliens... They are all around you, but were invisible until now Seated in coach, This trip to Mars will be the literal worst fucking flight anyone has ever booked. And that's well before you actually land, and see just how lame your hotel room is. Now considering your carry-on... What do you bring for a raucous good time on Mars? A Euchre deck, and perhaps some edibles? A couple dozen Go-Gurt? Bad fucking ideas abound in the brains of senseless billionaires. Science fiction does shape all sorts of fascinating ideas into real objects, but if a nuclear warhead weren't the poster-boy example of bad ideas... We've actually invented huge dick-shaped rockets which burn ludicrous money, taking humanity nowhere, but closer to it's burnt end... Often Sci-Fi can be rather silly. Bad Ideas often leave us waking up naked, and afraid, with a bad hang-over and no real idea how we've arrived here, nor what we' may have contracted... Is this not Time-Travel? What if we could simply go back? Perhaps not strangely, the realization of time travel largely depends upon a shit-ton of capital investment, a bit more 'time' (ironically) to get things right, and a ton of negative energy, (even more ironic) which we already have in spades here in the U.S.A. As Nasa states in their conclusion from initial feasibility studies with JPL on Time travel, They acknowledge it's "more than theoretical possibility", "...The concept (of Alcubierreian Time-Travel) is still a mathematical toy until the need for negative energy can be adequately addressed". Should we perhaps ask the White House for some of that magical fuel? With arbitrary parameters R > 0 and σ > 0., Alcubierre's specific form of the metric for viable Time Travel can thus be written as the following handy equation: 𝑑𝑠2 = −𝑐2𝑑𝑡2 + [𝑑𝑥 − 𝑣𝑠(𝑡)𝑓(𝑟𝑠)𝑑𝑡]2 + 𝑑𝑦2 + 𝑑𝑧2 ds2=(vs(t)2f(rs(t))2−1)dt2−2vs(t)f(rs(t))dxdt+dx2+dy2+dz2. I'm unsure (of course) as to whether you may believe we can move through time more quickly or more slowly, than our droll slog through a midwestern winter -- Or even if you'd care to go back in time to fix some shit right now... But when you look at the math, it sure looks possible. Especially when, and if technology catches up with theory. Before then -- Like most inventions, Time-Travel remains science fiction. Nobody gives a fuck what I think. Really. What is important, is that tech billionaires are competing for insane tax-subsidized NASA contracts, including 'lunatic' plans to colonize Mars. Which is way fucking stupid. Elon thinks this is his ULTIMATE, Bug-Out Shelter, so fuck New Zealand, right? Mars, Instead of Time-Travel?, seems to me a stupid fucking investment. But "Space travel", is NOT "time-travel", and the rest of this trip is going to fucking blow when you see your Hotel. Mars: that totally hostile wasteland (way more desolate than Vegas with or without burning Cyber trucks). A red planet which is completely inhospitable to humans. Seated in coach, This trip will be the literal worst fucking idea anyone ever had. Like being air-dropped along a trump-era Mexicali border-path just to get a mean summer tan. THIS, excursion without water, I.D., a visa, or any hope for survival whatsoever is way fucking lame. Like Mars. Space is loosely defined as: "EMPTY, if a bit more boring than Mars". So perhaps Mars is even a bit less fun than being rounded-up and later caged by white-nationalist border patrols in a wicked hot desert. You feel Desolate, desperate... You may initially be grateful to see someone, anyone else alas, for a moment. But "Space travel", is NOT "time-travel", and the rest of the trip is going to fucking blow. Until someone can use Alcubierre's time travel plan, driven by copious amounts of Earth's abundant "negative energy". We are not going anywhere fast. Spinning our magical wheels. Meanwhile somewhere near Davenport Iowa, an only-child falls dead asleep, exhausted after playing with cousins at aunt and uncle's lovely home on Christmas eve. They are carefully, quietly carried out to the car, sleeping soundly as they are driven home two towns away. They drive for hours, and are later being tucked into a happy blue bed, lined with H.A. Rey books, and stuffed animals -- They awaken way too fucking early on Christmas morning to a shit-ton of presents. Is this NOT Time-Travel? For my money, I'd prefer to see investment in a mode of transportation where I simply awaken comfortably at any given destination. No hassle, No TSA, No road rage, No cramped coach-class single-serving cutlery. Has anyone ever wondered what the fuck people are actually doing up there in "Empty Space", On a space station? In fact when you think of it as "Empty" and even call it "EMPTY", instead of "Space" -- It seems rather self-evidently "UN-FUCKING-FUN". Research.... Is it really "research"? Building a way cool new rocket-ship, (which is basically a red-hot jet-fueled man-member), is a bit like getting excited about a brand-new electric sports-car which you still have to drive manually, cautiously, and slowly through heavy rush-hour traffic every damn day, just to pay for the fucking note & insurance on the thing in the first place. So why is it that humans equate time travel with 'Space", and why is Space travel (mediocre rocketry) still so highly venerated that we aspire to make new larger ones every day? IF The Moon landing were done and dusted... then what is the rat-race to Mars really about, besides braggadocio B.S.? Where are the Jet-Packs we were promised as children, and if we had them, could we not travel someplace interesting?, Like Michigan? Fuck Elon!, and Fuck all of that reckless burning of "the people's" tax-subsidized cash to light the weekend wick of billionaire-boys-club benders. Back-yard BBQ bull-shit boy-games involving 400 tons of lighter-fluid, while really kind humans suffer, starve, helpless, and homeless... Seem strange to anyone else? Here is a brilliant first step for the "DOGE-DOLTS"... sit for a dozen grueling congressional hearings on how this "research" is beneficial to it's constituents. It's like space-era crusades, where (wait for it), Men (again) decide not to conquer any more (new) land but instead go about slaughtering each-other for not digging their version of the facts and some wacky religion. Conquest of Mars, or "Empty-Space" for that matter is another stupid lark. Like paying for a shitty album, with one OK track, just for the right to say you'd heard of them first. What really happens when living out there all alone with your Tesla Mars-buggy? Boredom. Blissful Beautiful Boredom. Mars Colonies are as fictive as Fox News, but you can't use a sharp axe to escape Mars. This is not to diminish many way cool new space telescopes, which have little to do with fictional Martian Colonies, and Space-Based warfare. Space telescopes launched a decade ago give real insight into our human origin story, well before we flushed it down the toilet. Time seems to slow during some significant incidents, such as a car wreck, or a bike accident, but also in an injury, a high-dive, or a gymnastics routine. This is called a Time Expansion Experience. Moving objects of larger mass appear to have a distinct time-scale as compared to smaller objects throughout "space". Between the two reside the possibility of controlling our own time travel. Empty space without time-travel portends a Sisyphean Odyssey, without end, or justifiable reward for humankind. NASA says that until we can make a machine arrive someplace meaningful in a far more efficient time-scale, we are spinning our wheels. So Cool Your Jets, because anyway Mars will be rather like Nogales, or Santa Fe... for a Canadian -- a strangely beautiful foreign landscape -- Peaceful if you can pack enough good shit to eat, drink, and play with, to fend off boredom in your desert time-share, because it's too fucking hot outside. With nothing much else to do, but meth, and whisky, we succumb to writing bad blogs, and the socials. Look, I'll be the first person in the mosh-pit to welcome Space-travelers. In particularly if they look like Bowie in the "Man Who Fell to Earth" or the copycat "Terminator"... But let's begin with welcoming all of the lovely "Aliens" living right here on Planet Earth. Mars is rather crappy, and time travel is how you use yours. We all have limited time, and most of us have broken time-machines -- What matters is what one does with it.
Try this Book out: "Time Expansion Experiences" by Steven M Taylor Last Night At The Bar "My flying saucer is Ziggy Stardust My time machine is a bicycle", He Said "I'm stuck", She said "So you don't have a car then?" She looks at her phone. "Nothing but Negative Energy" "Our timeline is non-linear." "Pardon Me?" "I Left my charger at home" Two percent remaining, panic "Faith is a passable forgery" But Western Union has one of those pens. It's Mid-January And everyone's desperate for a party. So it's loud as fuck. Shoulders knotted into my neck "It's loud here", "really fucking loud!" "Right?" Teeth stained with wine Dehydrated, My heart pounds ...I ask her if she could "stop talking about work" For just a minute? "Any Books you love?" Changing the topic? Then, a loud car-wreck outside the front window Who's just now staggering in. "Where you from?" Beautiful ring", she questions. "...I'm an artist, painter really." "Lovely", "showing anything"? "But I've only finished one so far." "One what?, Painting?" "Long Story." "I've got about 12 minutes until my Lyft arrives..." "Okay... Let's do this." Back to, "Where you from?" "I've painted a portrait of God." "Yeah?" "Wisconsin." "God from Wisconsin too?" She asked. "Nope, nowhere near there." "How was it?" "What?, he said" "When she sat for you, "She Nice?" "God's NOT a she" "How do you know?" "God is something else, Way cooler" "I have to ask..., is it a nude?, the picture?" "Clever!" "Nah, No nudity, just a painting really" "Where is home?" "What?" "The ride is taking you home?" "No... elsewhere." ... "Okay cool, ...So anyway, I have to be someplace" "Sorry." "Sorry?" "Do you have a picture of your portrait?" "What portrait?" "'God' "I mean, On your phone?" "Oh, yep." "May I?" "Sure" [She moves in closer] "Ready?" [He swipes a few times.] [The room mutes] There is no sound, None No movement He hums something from "Black-Star". She looks beautiful and Lost He sets his phone in her palm. Her eyes dilate, As she falls from her stool Her bag spills under the crowd, ...and the music returns, loudly He lunges for his phone, and lifts her up "I'm a black star... I'm a black star" Plays "It's fucking Bowie", She says. "Yes, I think". The music changes To Theologians, and her phone pings "What's happening?" "To Me?" "You saw him? That's the Picture." "Holy Fuck!" "Holy Fuck, yep!" "Let's Go!" We get into her car, as snow falls. Should Old Acquaintance be forgot, and never thought upon; The flames of Love extinguished, and fully past and gone: Is thy sweet Heart now grown so cold, that loving Breast of thine; That thou canst never once reflect On old long syne. Of course whenever this incantation is sung aloud, it is already too late for reconciliation, but the sentiment and the nostalgic question is noteworthy. As always the appropriate singer is a Scotsman, fragrant with Lagavulin, beer & haggis. What first comes to mind are the torrid letters from a past girlfriend (when we sill called them that); Letters ritually burned in my weber grille just before leaving my old apartment, for a new city and a new beginning... The Bobby Burns song begins by posing a rhetorical question: Is it right that old times be forgotten? The answer is generally interpreted as a "call to remember long-standing friendships".[9] It is always appropriate to know where one comes from and how they have landed exactly here -- Which begins within the retro-perspectival tunnel of contemplation. Like Dickensian Time-Travel, ghosts revisit us on holidays to poke fun. But... to become well regarded, is to become wealthy. Remembering this oft dreadful feeling of kissing goodbye, The songs, and sounds of celebrants as they snore, and sleep off an entire year's worth of forgettable moments, is classic "Old Lang Syne". Half drunk cans of still beer remains -- Memories, many will try to erase, linger before their inevitable reboot. Good Morning! What is it which most harkens in the New year? Dread? Is it the pursuit of some mythical newness?, as if a clock tower could ring absolution. Or is it the feeling of cheating on your past, expecting a clean slate for all of one's crimes? Absolution is the auld lang syne. This (largely plagiarized) Robert Burns poem most encapsulates: A. Post-trump-era funk. B. The Seasonal affective disorder of January 1. C. Post-Covid Identity-Crisis malaise. D. The end of Western democratic mismanagement over all human endeavor. E. Selfish dismantlement of social order, whilst taking our lovely contentment for granted. F. All of the Above ʃɪd o̜ːld ə.kwɛn.təns bi fər.ɡot The Internet Bubble having truly popped, smearing hot plastic trash everywhere, broken vacuums, charging-cords, cardboard boxes blanketing our otherwise lovely landscape. We are left to consider, if forgetting isn't (perhaps) better than remembering where we'd gone wrong. The Blahs are indeed real, but they are not a ready replacement for being happy. oːld ə.kwɛn.təns come at a person without invite, and they are hard to ward off. They naturally come mid-winter, when my vitamin D levels have bottomed-out. They reliably arrive on "January One". Last year I broke up with my entire family, but not over something petty. Nor for semantic differences. Nor because of Covid, Vaccines, Fauci, Trump, Palestine, nor merely for their actual behaving badly, (as they have), but not before trying -- I left them for my own mental health. Considered justifications bounced off of many close friends -- My 'real' relatives, returned similar astonishment as to how my very darling siblings could have become so conceded, so base, and so petty, as to be unwilling to participate in "family" whatsoever for decades -- And then to criticize those who do it well. As comparisons go, we all split up with friends over politics, babies, pets, recycling, global warming, sports teams, venereal diseases... And for many, having moved to some smug suburb, ostensibly keeping their families safe, this broadens the gap of our very different lives. But Family had, (until now), seemed immune to dissolution. And our differences had seemed not so far apart. Our cohesion mandatory, unwavering. There is nothing new in the act of falling away from former friends. As one discovers, adjusts, and rearranges how they'd like to be perceived. People change -- Plain and simple. Families also change, but unlike "All In The Family", or "The Brady Bunch", there is no special connective tissue preventing a family from decomposing. Few of us consider how to navigate our lives with the goal of later being well regarded. Instead we adopt a new crowd when the old one no longer suits our interests. Moving away from old college friends, or relocating for work... A family, nearly always appeared as this thing which (I'd imagined) was permanent. Much like the home one grows up in, had seemed a hub to a wheel of growth. Elastic bands stretched out like rays from our parent's curved coffee table, allowed broad leeway, and the freedoms to invent oneself. Yet... Retracting rubber-bands always returned siblings to it's core year over year, for what (I'd believed) was intractable, (Generally around the Holidays). Many rediscover religion during crisis, or death. They may attend Church during a tragedy, or Only at Christmas when feeling un-moored. Some may say a prayer at a funeral, But, the realignment of family always seemed nonfungible. A warm permanence. "We two have paddled in the stream, from morning sun till dine; But seas between us broad have roared since auld lang syne." It's not you, it's me, and I understand the consequence for not having worked on some relationships. Especially the ones we may take for granted. I know the heavy lift required to reinforce these bonds. This year however, in spite of trying my level best, I found out that family is not actually permanent. Nor in the way I'd expected, is it always there when you need it. Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Is it broken, or even worth fixing? "Auld Lang Syne" fairly epitomizes the wishful New-Years page turn. I got pocket dialed by an old friend today, News Years Day. And of course, I'd received all sorts of strange out of the woodwork texts from friends, past and obscure. But the pocket dial seemed more to me that someone called to tap that Auld Lang Syne, and lost their nerve. As Holidays trace the life-lines which construct us, I'm sure that we'd all conjured similar memories for and of, those who'd helped shape our current world. And so it goes that we reflect when we are idle enough to do so, upon our missteps, and those myriad souls who've shaped our understanding of the self. Whether I'm locked in prison figuratively today, or (for fuck sake) actually incarcerated... Having enough pause to reflect upon where we come from, and the connective fractals of our being, "Auld Lang Syne" fairly epitomizes the wishful New-Year's page turn. This non-literal shortest day of the year, is always (fucking) New Years Day. It is one generally without chores. Where we perhaps fix the boiler, or wipe down the bar, but today, we mostly reflect upon relationships for auld lang syne ["Old Long Since"]. "Since basically forever", ...or more appropriately "Since you'd last thought about them". Or, simply... "For Fuck-Sake". And as the poem goes, "Auld Lang Syne's" latter verses wander through meadows picking flowers, sharing pints, paddling rough streams... Together and apart, reminding us of what a dickhead we may have become. Nostalgia rears to shore up patterns within our human experience which bring both joy and sorrow. My Family collapsed when my Mother died, burdened with shame and true sorrow. And as my siblings were inventing new ways of behaving badly, slinging blame for who did whatever wrong... We alas combusted in earnest whereupon my Father died nine months later. With nothing left to bring us back together, and nothing remaining to complain about -- It alas appeared that each sibling now fostered one of two permanent familial failings: [A.] loathing for those who'd judged them harshly for "NEVER LIFTING A FUCKING FINGER TO HELP THEIR AILING PARENTS..." Or [B.] A throne from which to sprinkle resentment upon the selfish ones who'd "NEVER LIFTING A FUCKING FINGER TO HELP THEIR AILING PARENTS." There is a rite of passage in saying goodbye to family, and I've recently consoled neighbors, and friends who are struggling with the same care-giver conundrum. I'm now sure that this is how many families break up, and whether they ever reconcile remains a mystery. "And surely you'll buy your pint cup!, and surely I'll buy mine! And we'll take a cup o' kindness yet, for auld lang syne." My takeaway, grazing leftovers contemplating this short & lazy day where things often go wrong... I lounge in awe of the wishful absurdity that 'a single day', (or a single song) could wipe away past dumb-shit behavior -- If we could simply find the will to drunk-text upon new-years. Or to pocket dial those who we know we should have kept in touch with, we'd be absolved. Hopefulness builds in the incantation of this poem. What is most profound, I suppose is remembering, Old acquaintances', and of course reaching out to those, as awkward as that is. One should do that right? ... yes definitely, if one is able. It is a fascinating time, and if you cannot fix it, then sing about it, and move on. With a full heart and speech impaired by Speyside whisky, one can recite the Scotts version, ...Although every year I return to a more melancholic Dan Fogelberg, (alto sax and all). Shid ald akwentans bee firgot, an nivir brocht[d] ti mynd? Shid ald akwentans bee firgot, an ald lang syn*? Chorus: Fir ald lang syn, ma jo, fir ald lang syn, wil tak a cup o kyndnes yet, fir ald lang syn. An sheerly yil bee yur pynt-staup! an sheerly al bee myn! An will tak a cup o kyndnes yet, fir ald lang syn. Chorus We twa hay rin aboot the braes, an pood the gowans fyn; Bit weev wandert monae a weery fet, sin ald lang syn. Chorus We twa hay pedilt in the burn, fray mornin sun til dyn; But seas between us bred hay roard sin ald lang syn. Chorus An thers a han, my trustee feer! an gees a han o thyn! And we'll tak a richt[d] gude-willie-waucht,[d] fir ald lang syn. And there's a hand my trusty friend! And give me a hand o' thine! And we'll take a right good-will draught, for auld lang syne. |
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January 2025
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