Goddammit
What the fuck am I doing back here already?
It hasn't even been a month yet. I was supposed to disappear for a lot longer than that. I hate writing, and Hive always seems to exhaust me for some reason, yet here I am writing on Hive again and setting myself up for hatred and exhaustion again. Should I cancel my delegation to qurator so I can go back to hitting people with a whopping one-nickel upvote, or should I just leave it delegated and switch to only tipping people with pizza and beer tokens? I don't know but I could really use some pizza and beer right now. Every day I force myself to go job hunting around the various writing job boards, hoping to find and apply for a writing job that doesn't make me want to hammer a tent peg through my own fucking skull. Unfortunately, everything that's available these days makes me want to hammer a tent peg through my own fucking skull. Oh, you're seeking top-notch storytellers who love juggling multiple tasks and have expert-level SEO knowledge and impeccable spelling and grammar chops and who are also great team players and never miss a deadline—and you're paying a "competitive" 10 cents a word freelance contract with no byline or benefits of any kind? Go fuck a lamprey in the mouth you fucking pisslicker. I think I've permanently broken the part of me that used to be able to write bullshit marketing copy for a living. On the one hand that's good because I don't have to write bullshit marketing copy for a living anymore, but on the other hand that's bad because writing bullshit marketing copy has been my main source of income for well over a decade. So what am I supposed to do now? One of my exes once told me that I use the word "anyway" too much, both in written and verbal communication. So anyway, this morning I woke up cold and alone at dawn like I always do, rolled out of my tent, threw a rock at the bluejay that was preparing to take a shit on my car, threw another, and then stood there shivering and staring at the Sawatch while I waited for the JetBoil to make my water hot enough for coffee. I was right smack-dab in the middle of a deeply satisfying thought about how pointless everything is when suddenly I realized that I really, really needed to write something today. Hence this post. I think the Crank Yanker was probably a mistake, but it helped me put all of these words here in this here particular order, and either way it's the bar's fault for taking my dollars and pouring beer in a glass for me. I can already feel the burnout breathing down my neck like the wolves in my dream last night. For anyone who's curious, dying in a nightmare does not result in dying in real life, although if I'm being honest that would be a really sweet way to go. Way back when I worked in editorial at Groupon, my manager and I used to joke that being a writer is a terrible thing to do with your life. At the time it was a bit tongue-in-cheek, although I think we both understood there was something sort of sinister in the normalcy of creative types putting guns to their heads, their heads into ovens, et cetera. Now I'm not sure how tongue-in-cheek it really is. For instance, what if I had gone to college for computer science instead? But anyway, I didn't, and so here I am tossing words onto the internet again and hoping something good comes of it before Russia takes out the entire North American power grid and starts smashing big red launch buttons while we're all arguing with each other in the dark about who gets to use the generator to charge their satphone next. The only thing I wanted for Christmas was the ability to be a consistent, everyday kind of writer—but Santa didn't deliver, so before he could get his fat jolly ass back up the chimney I wrapped a string of icicle lights around his fat jolly throat and choked him to death, in real life. Then I fled the flatlands and drove west till I saw mountains.
Well then... I'd tell you to cheer up, but I actually quite enjoyed the read. Sharp, intentional. So while I certainly don't want you to drive a tent peg into your skull, I'll venture an encouraging word. I !LUV your style (and your surroundings). Thanks for sharing... and best of luck overall. Things are going down the shitter though in general, I know. 🙄
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Thanks for reading and I promise I won't hammer a tent peg through my skull. I will only daydream about it :)
I'm glad you enjoyed the read, it was a lot of fun writing it. Here, have some !PIZZA… better eat it fast, I heard those Russian soldiers are hungry.
!LOL
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I too say anyway too much. Maybe it is a writer thing. That makes sense - it is a way of ushering the story along, and writers think in story format. I told him about how I say anyway also, now to move things along...
So anyway...
I'm glad you decided to write. There are a few people missing from my Hive life right now, and I don't like vacancies. Vacancies are contagious.
So anyway.
Writing here is indeed very habit forming. I catch myself formulating when someone does something odd in front of me in real life. I think I should just enjoy this absurd moment. But apparently really enjoying the moment also means putting it into words. Excellent brain exercise. I'm sure it is keeping us both from developing Alzheimer's or terrible habits like a solid eight hours of sleep. My eight hours is being frittered away literally while I type this...
So anyway, don't injure yourself with scary sharp things. And don't be exhausted. And don't disappear. That is a lot of advice, which makes me want to hop into another role and say something like: I've been worried sick, young man!
Alright, that exclamation is a lie. I'm pretty sure you are older than me, and I wasn't worried at all. But I did hope you were doing well.
Anyway, !PIZZA :) Don't worry, I won't injure myself with sharp things, just blunt things. It'll be fine.
Anyway,
I'm 38. Your turn.
I was right. You've got 3 years on me. You are the same age as my sister, which means that you have about 20 more grey hairs than me, but otherwise are basically the same.
I haven't counted my grey hairs recently but it's probably at least 20. In another 3 years I expect most of my head to be half and half. Most of the dudes in my family all seem to go gray around 40-45.
So when I was younger I thought going grey meant that your hairs sort of faded, and you literally had greyish hairs, rather than a mixture of darker and white hairs. Or maybe some people do have fading hair...hmmm...I need to stare at people's hair more often. I am getting white hairs sneaking in around my temples, and it seems to me that in fifteen years I will have pure white hair just like Mrs. Claus, except mine is straight. A straight-haired Mrs. Claus. I think I can make it work.
Men look good in grey, you've really got no troubles.
It's 2022 so I think Mrs. Claus is allowed to have straight hair if that's what she wants. If Hollywood hasn't made a movie yet about the evil patriarchal repression of curly-haired Mrs. Clauses who've always dreamed of going straight, then they should.
This is encouraging, thanks. Also, my dad always used to say he didn't care what color his hair turned so long as it didn't fall out. It never did so he died happy and I suppose it will be the same for me.
Nine years ago I worked for a sleezy old attorney. Him and his yacht club buddies, oh just thinking of them makes me laugh. They were all single and in their 70s and looking for love...from women at least thirty years younger than them. Most of them had given up on American women and were conversing with women in Russia, Ukraine, and the Philippines. My boss was severely technologically handicapped (among many other more repulsive personality handicaps), and periodically asked me to send an email to one of his foreign lady friend prospects, which always turned out to be a repulsively intriguing experience. Anyway, a bunch of these men dyed their hair. My boss looked particularly humorous with his old man rounded shoulders and beer belly, his wrinkled fat face and his bulky 1980's eyeglasses, and bam - hair the color of a seven-year-old with freckles in Ireland. Then his crony would walk in with hair blacker than I'm sure it ever could have been in his youth, like somehow he had taken a sharpie to it. Hilarious.
Anyway, long story short, your dad's philosophy is wise. Any natural color is fine.
I trust Mrs. Claus will be so progressive in 15 years that she will have divorced the big guy and will be photographed snowboarding somewhere in Colorado.
It seems like most tactics people use to escape old age just end up making them look worse. Dying hair, facelifts, botox, etc are all kind of terrifying. Personally I'm shooting for the grizzled old mountain man look. And I will draw the line at women 25 years younger than me. 30 years younger, that's just creepy.
Grizzled Old Mountain Man sounds good. I think I'm going for Ruffled Old Palmetto Crone.
Nice. Yeah it's important to have goals in life.
I have a Santa outfit, beard and sack and all, would you like me to send it to you? I don't need it anymore since my son is over 20 years old.
Yes to all the questions that deserve a yes and no to all that deserve a no.
Back to that Santa outfit again, if we wait, you could get it radiated since Russia and Putins army is so eager to set fire nuclear plants in Ukraine.
I use the words so, well and or course too much.
But that Santa outfit, if you order it now, I can give you a huge discount, like 99%.
I really appreciate the fact that you are tossing words onto the internet again.
About that Santa outfit, so I can sell it to you for 1€, is that okay? Then again Finnish postal fees are so ridiculously high that it could cost you 200€ but are you still interested?
Do not hit your head anywhere, I might need it. I hear there might be some proof of brain in it. Brain is my favourite.
Now sending Santa outfit.
Beep beep beep beep.
Well, I can't wait to get that Santa outfit. Of course, I'll climb to the top of a mountain wearing it and then take a picture. So, have a slice of radioactive !PIZZA, or don't.
Insanely radioactive thank yous.
@brandt, I don't know what to say except that I was captivated by every word you wrote in this post. You have an awesome sense of humor, a wonderful wit, a great way with irony, and a command of the English language that would make both Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson take notice. Okay, they are probably horrible choices for iconic literary figures, since they both took their own lives. No one should do that. But they were brilliant. And brilliance should shine. It's perhaps a tormented place, where great ideas and creative words form and become something too large to contain, but the people who choose that journey bring awe and wonder to the rest of us.
... said from one tormented writer to another. I grew up in a world of words with academic parents, discovered a love of writing and became obsessed with how to use this gift.
And then, after much pondering and soul searching, I decided I didn't want to live the life of a suffering writer. I wanted more certainty in my life. Decades of technical and marketing writing later, I'm glad I made the choice. It was the right one for me. There was a fork in the road where I knew I had two options — one being solitude, writing, a lot of coffee and wine, and a regular job as a bartender, and the other being marriage, family, career, a home, and money to live life the way I want while also working on my creative writing — and I chose the latter: stability. But I admire people immensely who make the choice not to sell their souls. That's a bit dramatic, yet true. We all have to make choices. Once we make those choices, the rest tends to fall in place to support them.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, and I'm glad you enjoyed reading that giant block of text up there. I'm so over marketing copy that if someone tells me I should make my writing more "scannable" or run it through some fucking web app to make it more "readable" then I will purposely submit copy with long complex paragraphs and run-on sentences, followed by my resignation letter. It sounds like you made the reasonable decision to focus on stability, and I admire that. If I could find that it would be ideal. However I have yet to discover a job that doesn't make me want to drive into oncoming traffic every day on my way to work, and freelance writing at least gives me the flexibility to move around and be mobile which is key to not going insane. Have you ever seen the movie Falling Down with Michael Douglas? That's probably going to be me someday. Don't tell anyone.
!PIZZA
!PIZZA
Hey thanks for the !PIZZA!
!BEER
!BEER! My favorite!
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BEER.Hey @jacobtothe, here is a little bit of
BEERfrom @brandt for you. Enjoy it!Do you want to win SOME BEER together with your friends and draw the
BEERKING.PIZZA Holders sent $PIZZA tips in this post's comments:
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BEER.Hey @brandt, here is a little bit of
BEERfrom @jacobtothe for you. Enjoy it!Do you want to win SOME BEER together with your friends and draw the
BEERKING.Oh hey look you wrote something! I think it's because you're a mountain man again, but I could be wrong.
I paid that blue jay to poop on your car. Sorry. I thought it would be funny. Inspiring, even.
Yes indeed I have my mountains back. I'm pretty sure Kansas got about three hundred miles wider since the last time I drove across it. Thanks for sending the bluejay. !PIZZA
You're welcome!
I think my pizza receiver is broken...
Yeah it's either broken or I'm misunderstanding how the bot works. I suspect there is a max amount of pizza you can tip per day, but that isn't specified anywhere or if it is I haven't found it. Let's see if my daily tip has recharged or not: !PIZZA
!ITWORKED !THANKS
It’s hard doing soul sucking things for work when we want to do other things. Hope the job prospects get better! As hard as it is to get on here and write, thankfully there’s delegations to get some stuff back while you are occupied doing other things or trying to stay away to take a break.
Hey, thanks for the well wishes. I'm sure I will find something eventually. In the meantime it is rather fun to channel the frustration into writing. !PIZZA time!