the WAS pastry

NOT 

what he said he was bringing 

NOT 

what he supposedly forgot before 

BUT 

pastry

&

I guess I should be 

GRATEFUL 

or something, but it was never about the pastry

not as SUCH 

I'm trying to figure out 

if everything seems different 

because 

I HAVE CHANGED 

or if things are just objectly different 

I was telling him 

about my theories 

I don't know what to think 

I'm in a weird place 

I think 

& I'm trying to figure out 

if this is making sense yet

I'm NOT trying to 

say anything 

NEGATIVE 

I'm NOT 

trying to argue or cause trouble 

I'm NOT mad at anybody 

I just feel like 

the world

doesn't make much sense 

&

the patterns FEEL dangerous 

&

IDEAS, ya know

I LOVE you 

I FEEL 

LIKE 

I'm confusing you and making you

WORRY

I don't want to make you worried & unhappy 

I just want to focus 

on this stuff 

that I feel

HAPPY 

& comfortable with/about

BUT 

I don't think you'll find it interesting 

& I feel like

I should be romantic & poetic & stuff

NOT 

all nerded out

with lists of supplements I'm taking 

OR

DELICIOUS new foods

I'm just SCATTERED 

&

the DREAMS 

I can't remember 

BUT 

UNSETTLING, I think 

I'm gonna try to sleep 

I have therapy 

tomorrow 

goodnight sweetheart 💋 

I LOVE you VERY much 🫶

👾🫚

Rough Sketch:

I say happy holidays for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I think American Christmas is too much already just TOO--  & after working retail for so many years I can't honestly say that I celebrate Christmas, even if I do give some presents to some people at that time of year.  And the thing is, if I don't personally celebrate Christmas, it just FEELS kinda WRONG to be contributing to the too much.  There are other holidays being celebrated.  Yes, if you are buying Christmas stuff at Christmas time it is probably safe for me to assume you celebrate Christmas--  I'm not really worried that I'll offend you by saying Merry Christmas to you.  That is probably not the reason. 

I guess what I'm doing is refusing to do what you expect me to do. 

It doesn't FEEL that way to me.

**************************************************

We celebrated Christmas when I was growing up;  we celebrated it very much as the Standard American Holiday Trifecta:  Thanksgiving, Christmas, & New Year's Eve.  There were shows.  There was gorging.  There was emotional abuse.  There was football.

Not only was there not any JESUS there wasn't even any implied ACTUAL SANTA.  The presents came from who they came from, santa didn't bring anything--  SANTA was a CONCEPT for the spirit of giving;  we're ALL santa, kinda.

That was maybe just because I asked too many questions.  

**************************************************

I think there used to be more of a CONSENSUS REALITY.

NOT that everybody was having the same experience so much as that we all KNEW sort of what we were supposed to be pretending.  BUT now there are hundreds of channels across multiple forms of media, podcasts & other long-form interview, and all the many avenues of written word.  There's no PRIMETIME.  Everyone just decides what they want to hear and look for whoever will give it to them.

There's no CONSENSUS.

I WANTED to think that was GOOD.

MAYBE that was naive.

I had a BUNCH of DREAMS 

BUT 

I can only remember 

right before I woke up

I was sitting

on a toilet(?) on a street corner

an INTERSECTION 

& I just needed

to WIPE 

BUT 

there was a PARADE coming from one direction 

& a GROUP 

coming up beside me 

wanting to TALK to ME

& I was JUST 

STARTING 

to think

YEAH

this is SUPPOSED to be in a PUBLIC 

BATHROOM 

in other words

becoming LUCID 

recognizing it as a symbolic story

my brain has been telling me

MOST of my life 

ANALYZING it 

HOW 

are these elements different 

& WHAT does that MEAN 

WHAT 

am I telling myself 

BUT 

THEN I

WOKE Up

I'm not sure how much sense 

I've been making

I'm trying to 

WEAVE

some sort of

AMERICA // #mERic@

LIKE 

MAYBE 

I'm writing something 

OR

MAYBE 

I'm figuring out a

FRAMEWORK 

to talk in some kind of ongoing way

idk

WHAT 

I'm doing 

I'm NOT 

LIKE 

directing it

I'm ALSO not trying to freak you out

I'm ALSO 

I can't articulate it 

ROLLing OUT 

is the image I get

the map of my MIND 

I feel LESS comfortable with that imagery

I'm NOT saying 

I CAN'T talk about THINGS 

I'm just still trying to figure out HOW I'm talking about them, and I'm also trying to talk, even if I don't know what I'm talking about, and that's bound to be confusing 

I feel like I'm going to make sense 

SOONish

I'm slipping back into my

NIGHT LIFE

sleeping patterns 

war on Christmas 

is sort of about

RETAIL 

at

Xmas time

BUT 

it's ALSO about 

CULTURE war

& CIVILITY

AND

MAYBE it is an 

EXTENDED METAPHOR 

at it's base

it is

about my experience 

saying 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS 

& getting 

ABUSED for it

BECAUSE the ONLY RIGHT THING 

to say

is MERRY CHRISTMAS 

&

ANYTHING else 

is SPACE LASER level

WOKE

GOTTA sleep 

don't let me forget 

the war

on christmas

I gotta sleep 

I saw, sometimes earlier today,

well I guess yesterday 

this commercial 

& it made me

FEEL some sorta way

LIKE 

a Superbowl commercial 

john TRAVOLTA

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER SANTA

REBOOT mojo

ended with what is almost 

CERTAINLY 

AI enhanced elongated face

THUMBS Up 

looking like the buddy Christ*

*Carlin/kevin smith

OH YEAH

& it's a CREDIT card COMMERCIAL 

SO the final line is

WHAT'S in YOUR WALLET 

I MEAN

❤️

I don't feel like

I'm quite 

CALIBRATED yet

I fixed something 

I LOVE you 

VERY 

MUCH 

almost out of battery 

not sure how much sense this makes

❤️

I LOVE the moon

I MEAN 

I love the RAIN 

the way

they move me

I THINK that's NOT something 

it's part of that

WORLD

THING

MOON 

is part of the collective unconscious 

it's not just my

PERSONAL 

moon

I WANT to

tap into

MAGIC 

too

I feel like

I'm this confusing 

CONGLOMERATION 

NOT 

JUST

of logic & whimsy

BUT 

I FEEL a lot of the time 

like I am

of two minds

LIKE 

one of me has these VERY concise

IDEAS of HOW 

I should be DOING THINGS 

BUT 

the ME that has to actually DO them

GIVES PUSHBACK 

& I WONDER if there

REALLY is a MISSION 

AS SUCH 

MAYBE 

it's less hard edged than THAT 

I've been thinking 

MAYBE 

at least PART of the MISSION 

is to FIND the things

that GIVE me

that HAPPINESS I keep saying I WANT

BUT 

can't talk intelligently about

JUST a thought 

I've been watching some Neil deGrass Tyson 

not the current show

I guess 

COSMOS

I think the episodes are from season two

I think

my brain is FULL 

I tried to take astronomy 

in college 

I MAY have told you this already

I have this weird thing

where I can't just memorize a formula

I have to at least KINDA understand where it

comes from, what it means

the prof turned out to be

sought after

for speaking or lecturing or something 

WORLD WIDE

so the class was a revolving door

of grad students 

& I took long enough to 

figure out GRAVITY 

that I just dropped 

BUT 

I really enjoyed

the book

I got to help me understand GRAVITY 

it was a book

written by Isaac Asimov 

for non-scientists

I gotta say, though

this whole

ELECTRON situation 

I don't remember anything about 

ELECTRON orbit distance

from highschool chemistry class

& THAT+the whole time traveling thing

I just think the world

is trippy

TRIPPIER than I even thought 

I haven't been able to articulate 

I've been thinking all day

I have been thinking 

about Monterey 

how different I seem

than the person 

who said 

I just want you to know 

that you are the love of my life 

I am thinking about 

the journey 

& how I've 

metamorphosed into

or am now

SOMETHING 

& I'm not sure what I'm talking about 

which is why 

I haven't said much 

BUT 

it's NOT BAD

just think-y

goodnight sweetheart 💋

I LOVE you VERY much 🫶 

👾🫚

what I did today 

I still don't remember 

what I wanted

to say

before 

BUT I want to say now

I think 

I'm getting better 

I FEEL 

LIKE 

something I can't quite articulate 

is clearer

I have to go to sleep 

goodnight sweetheart 💋 

I LOVE you VERY much 🫶

👾🫚

THIS 

I'm pretty sure 

was NOT it

I CONNECT with 

those pages

THOSE 

images are part of my story 

AND

it flips this way

& it's LIKE 

THUNDERBIRD 

AND

it flips that way

& it's LIKE 

PROPHECY 

& I want to show you my

COLLAGE 

from ninety four

LIKE 

I gotta PROVE something 

BUT 

there's ALSO 

the SONG woven through the LANDSCAPE 

it's 

ALL

the THINGS 

AND

there's this whole world 

in my HEAD 

there was SOMETHING I wanted to tell you 

my phone was apparently

OUT of BATTERY 

&

in the process 

of getting 

to the

CHARGER, and blah blah, I forgot 

let me think 

when I worked at 

third world market 

it was right next door to best buy

& they were NOT f*CKing around with the 

CAMPING overnight

for like five am opening 

first two and a half people get a flat screen TV

for nearly free

NO EXTRA charge

for the TRAMPLING 

I gotta go to bed 

goodnight sweetheart 💋 

I LOVE you VERY much 🫶

👾🫚

a NATION 

of dilettantes