Sunday 11/24/24
Awoken at one in the morning by drunks in the street. Really smart conversations. Nice to hear such intelligent people making merry. Thus the day began. Wasn't supposed to start too much later anyway at least.
I saw an option on a social media site to provide a list of words and phrases that would not be included in any post one was shown. That was useful. This is my list at present:
ADHD
amirite
at the end of the day
bear
bingo card
cat
cats
Change my mind
checks notes
cishet
Dear algorithm
generation
everyday
feral
hot take
ick
imma
indie
introvert
I'm so sorry that happened
LFG
literally
lmao
lol
McDonald's
nap
neurodivergent
normalize
patriarchy
Romantasy
Sir
slaps
smh
sorry not sorry
spice
spicy
Stephen King
Taylor Swift
therapist
therapy
This is the way
tired
unpopular opinion
yall
y'all
"Everyday" is there because almost everyone who uses it actually means "every day."
The last few days have been more in line with what one would expect from this time of year in New England. Or what one would have previously expected before October became the new September and November became the new October. It's cold, windy, raining. The leaves are blowing all around. This is weather I like. Good weather, too, for dipping back into William Sloane's To Walk the Night.
Saw this guy in North Square the other day with a microphone come up to a couple and say, "Can I ask you a question?" and they said yes and he said, "What message would you give your younger self?"
I hate trite shit like this. It produces instant loathing in me. Come up with something original. And this is someone, of course, who thinks he's being all deep, repeating the same stupid garbage that other idiots who think they're being all deep are saying millions and millions of times every day, congratulating himself that he's hit on something smart.
It's a moronic premise anyway. You have to learn. You can't just be told. And that is the premise, right? It's like a single sentence, this thing you'd say to your earlier self, which is a better word than "younger." The premise isn't that you'd teach yourself; it's that you have a single sentence to declare to yourself.
The answer is obviously focus more on anal. No, I'm kidding. A little levity.
People really don't know what the word "fact" means. They almost always use it incorrectly. "Prime Michael Jordan was better at basketball than a kindergarten." Not a fact. "Michael Jordan was a six-time NBA champion." Fact. It's not a fact that I'm a better writer than Carolyn Kuebler. That's a truth. It is a fact that I've published thousands more works than she has.
You have to know what words mean. When you don't, you can't just say, "Language is fluid" like the problem isn't your ignorance, which is the real issue. But rather than accept that and work on things and become more knowledgeable, people blame the victim, essentially. It's not some flaw in me, they maintain, it's language's fault!
Language really isn't all that fluid. Not in this manner. Words still have their meanings. Those meanings for most of those words don't change that much--if at all--through the centuries. House still means house. It's just that people know that word, so they don't need to try and shirk responsibility for their own stupidity in that case.
Trust no one who has this need to say, "Language is fluid," and believe me, someone who says that once says it a lot. They're just trying to cover up their own ignorance.
As radical as this sounds, you can always just learn a basic thing that you don't know. You don't even have to take the phone out of your hand or stop staring at that screen that's rotting you from the inside out.
Fred Claus was on last night while I was at the desk and couldn't change the channel from there, so it remained on for a while before I said, "Enough, I can't take this."
I had a dream about this person I dated from Oberlin a long time ago. Shallow person who was always going to be that way. In this dream, they were the opposite, this put-together, non-shallow person, which was disorienting even within the context of the dream, as it had the quality of waiting for the inevitable other shoe to drop.
Then I had a dream that I was a member of a Nick Drake club and this club had meetings. I think everyone in the club was writing a book on Nick Drake. I talked with the organizer on the phone ahead of the first meeting. Which I thought had gone well. Then we got together, we're sitting at this big meeting table, and that person says, "Colin, would you please start us off by playing some music?" And I'm like, "With what?" It's not as if there was a stereo with these Nick Drake albums. And this guy is looking all disapproving, but also like this was a set-up. So I start talking about the song "Which Will," and he's looking more disgusted, and again it feels like a frame job, and he starts dishing out the attitude, and I rise, basically say, fuck this, I don't have time for this, and then leave and get a coffee and get back to work on my Nick Drake project.
Finally saw the guy in the building who goes through the hallway belching. Until then, I'd only heard him. If I had gone to the police station and described how I thought this person would look to a sketch artist, the sketch artist could have done their work, and what they came up with would have looked just like this guy. No neck, double chin, scratching himself. Probably like twenty-eight, looks older than I am, will be able to pass for late fifties in ten years, and someone who has doubtlessly used the term "finger bang" many times in his life. I had just done a set of push-ups, was about to do another, and I just looked at this guy and shook my head as he was coming down the stairs, with that sort of spraddled gait of the asshole, you know, where the person also walks like they're leaning back in a recliner, too. He had that vacant look in the eyes of a man off to get a big sandwich and that sandwich was all that mattered.
It's three in the morning now. It's so loud outside with these gathered idiots. Very limited stairs yesterday. Walked five miles. Today marks 3059 days, or 437 weeks, without a drink. My mother heard from her doctor yesterday that she remains cancer free.
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