WFH 2022

My job exudes a sad kind of boredom. I call sick people and ask them what they want to do with their money once they die. 

Most of the time they don’t know yet. On average, most of them expect to live to be 163. By that count, they’re all technically middle aged. 

“But I’m middle aged!” They often say and I nod even though they can’t see me. I’ve gotten really good at being present while listening and that helps some with the boredom. That and the fact that we get two 15 minute breaks. I always use the first one to break a drinking glass on the kitchen floor.

That way fantasies of sweeping it up can carry me through to the second break…

Where I’ll dutifully do my sweeping then break another, smaller glass. This glass will carry me through to the end of the shift. 

It’s not a perfect system. I spend a lot of time and money at the dollar store each week. 

But idk, what would you have me do? I’m bored.

Rejected Story Pitch for Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse 2

I may get sued for violating my NDA, but I spent 583 days working on the storyboards for this idea, so fuck you Sony…

Into the Spider-Verse 2: Rest of Title TBD…

Spiderman (new design)

Discovers his partner still has feeings for her ex

 Feeling insecure, he decides he must fight said ex

but the ex has superman powers 

Which prompts spiderman to purchase and use Kryptonite

It’s (arguably) too effective…

As a result, city villians run rampant with no superman powered hero to be like “hey stop that…”

Worse still, once she finds out what he did, Spider-Man’s Partner destroys his prized monocle, puts on her glasses, and becomes a villain too.

Leaving Spiderman exhausted, undignified, and lonely fighting off a sudden (self-inflicted) influx of crime related behaviour. 

Thus, feeling defeated, he decides to take a vacation, but winds up stranded in the airport after several flight delays. 

The End.

Helping people at Gravesites

What about a story about when you and your sister had a fight about you not buying a flower arrangement for your mothers grave. You decide to go visit by yourself but can’t remember where the plot is. In your defence, they haven’t set down the gravestone yet. 

Swallow pride and call sister. No answer. Tough. Call the funeral home. They have no idea who you are talking about. Wrong home. Call the right one. They say “come on in,” which quickly changes to “I’ll just email a map.” Covid life. 

You find the plot. 905. Say two things: I love you. I’m sorry. Someone else lost has been watching you the whole time. Asks for your help finding their cousin’s grave. You spend way more time helping this person find their grave than you did looking for your mom’s and talking to it. Worse, in the end you feel too tired to go back and pick up where you left off with your mom, so you just leave, a bit upset that this person asked for your help and then showed no appreciation afterwards… yet also still somehow happy to have helped.

On Solitude

I only really feel like myself after an extended period of solitary, non-judgemental isolation. 

It’s invigorating to take a step back from the (often handed down) ideas of who you’re supposed to be — what you ought to be doing with your time, who you’re meant to be doing it with, and the things and people you’d do best to avoid in the process — to observe who you actually are underneath it all. And, all my great ideas… 

And every positive life altering decision I’ve ever made… 

Have so far all occurred to me during an extended period of quiet solitude with no specific goal in mind. And when I say extended I mean extended. Ideally around 8 hours a day unless work and personal affairs make that impossible. But life lived this way frequently does feel impossible to the point where I wonder if it might be incompatible with like being emotionally available for romantic partners, family, and friends. It can feel selfish to prioritize your inner needs like this, no matter how spent and spiritually drained you may feel in the moment you decide you need to do it. Moreover, even with a clear, sky blue (non) schedule, it’s still impossible for me commit to this practice knowing the good it does, if I go into it with any specific idea of how that time should be spent. Even something as seemingly innocuous as wanting to count my breath can throw me off and turn the whole process into an intolerable torture. Still it’s magical when I can find the right “ignore all expectations” groove because it’s almost as if in deciding to do nothing and be nothing, I call life’s bluff and force it to reveal who I actually am and who I would choose to be if no one was looking and I had nothing to prove to myself.

Don Hertzfeldt is an award winning independent animator who makes movies I like. I’m choosing to believe Wikipedia when they say he said: 

“You need to try to return to the time when you were a little kid, creating things on a big sheet of paper in a beautiful sunbeam, and not having any cares at all about how it might one day be received. It's when children learn to think, "Is this any good?" that they start to become paralyzed creatively. And this is why most adults don't draw, don't write, don't sing, don't dance, and are terrified in front of audiences….” 

Doing nothing for no good reason, alone, for a really long time is the only credible solution I’ve found out of the state of paralysis he’s describing. Because the audience I’m terrified of lives inside my head, I have to practice living as if it doesn’t exist. And when done in good faith, the results are often surprising and far more playful than I expected them to be going in. I hope one day I meet someone who gets the need to do that sort of thing…

Depression is…

 Depression is 

wishing you could order food 

you hate 

Because all your dishes are dirty 

But it’s also like 

having no more disposable income 

Because you already tried to spend your way 

to happiness 

So having wasted most of the day 

Being unhappy 

Depression is also

Eating ice cream for dinner 

with an upsettingly tiny fork  

when there isn’t enough ice cream left over

From the days before 

When you did the same thing

It’s the middle of the winter

the apartment is too hot

And there’s nothing on tv.

As if all that wasn’t not enough 

the laundry room doesn’t take quarters

and everything else 

keeps getting more expensive. 

So in a sense, depression is also 

Scrolling for miles in one place 

to get a sense of the rest of the world

Where all the news online is garbage

but you refuse to plug your nose.

Does it really have to be this way?

You know the answer is no, 

but remain unsure.

So finally depression maybe isn’t 

You checking the time and deciding 

to write down what’s it’s like to be unhappy 

Hoping that somehow 

in the “sitcom about a dysfunctional family”

that is your mind

doing so counts as an intervention 

Nap Person

“ Just one more episode. It’s so good. I wish I could write like that…”

But u struggle to properly prioritize tasks. Case in point: the pharmacy closes in two hours for the long weekend so u should’ve called hours ago to see if u can pick up your prescription. And now look, nobody’s answering because they’re probably busy now filling orders before the close.

U put off doing things even when you know they’re important, man. “What if the pharmacy calls back too late?” U think. “You’ll have to wait til Monday and that same day you have to meet up with your relatives for family day. You’re going to be a distracted basket case without your medication and it’s not going to go well and it will be because you couldn’t wait to keep watching your show. Like it was going to expire or something.”

Still what’s done is done so u can’t really wait for them to call back. U have to go and hope that they call back while you’re on your way. But because you’re expecting their call now u can’t take the subway because if you’re in the tunnels you’ll miss the callback. See how putting things off has made your life so much more difficult? Make sure u dress warmly because there’s supposed to be a snowstorm out there…

There’s no snowstorm but it’s so cold that ur hands feel numb. But u can’t keep ur gloves on while being on ur phone because then the Apple ID won’t recognize ur gloved… shit. wtf! U were at 52% battery and it just crapped out in like 10 minutes what the fuck! Is it really that cold? Just stick it in your pocket and hope that it warms up. Now how the fuck are u supposed to get your call back?

Okay so u had the brightness setting turned up way too high so that’s why it died. Not too bright smh. But now u only have ten percent left so u’re going to have to force the issue and call again even though it’s been less than an hour since the first call. God, they’re going to think u’re like an agitated junkie hankering for a fix, which doesn’t help matters when the head lady already doesn’t like u… 

Seriously, voicemail again, what the fuck? Was there a stick up? 

Shit. Well since ur phone is gonna die anyway, u may as well take the subway now. It’s fucking cold as shit and ur hands hate you. U don’t have much on your card or the funds to reload it but there should still be enough left for a one way fare. It’s clear walking back will be better once u’ve gotten what your after. 

Geez, the fact that ur phone is basically dead makes staring at it to avoid eye contact with other passengers feel extra stupid. In fact, u’re not really in the mood for that bullshit anyway or pretending like you’re asleep. You’ll get off at the next stop and also just like fuck the subway. It stinks, figuratively and literally. U make eye contact with two strangers because u’re not sure which side the doors are gonna open on. They said on the right but that’s relative to where you’re sitting, no? U can’t see the arrows. These people are looking at you too.

but now one of them is going to turn to the other and pretend they have some pressing matter to discuss. (Note: u’re actually not as angry as the tone of this piece would suggest.) Stranger: “I haven’t been getting good sleep…” it seems so random yet the fact that the concept occurred to him after looking at u leads u to believe that he thinks you look tired. Is that how people really communicate what they’re thinking? Obliquely? Kind of annoying but maybe u only say that because u feel like u struggle to pick up the cues when it’s done. Although if it is in fact what was being done in this case then clearly that’s not the case. U pick up the cues just fine. Maybe u don’t often like what you hear. Or you’re just projecting. Weird. 

Just last week a pedestrian was struck at this intersection you’re about to cross. College and Bay. Heart of the city’s business country. Wouldn’t that suck if that happened to u a couple meters from ur… fuck. There are no lights on in the building… the pharmacy is closed til next Tuesday. Great. No one answered the phone or called u back because there was no one there. 

U should’ve taken the hint. Stayed inside where it was warm. Watched your show instead of listening to

fucking google and its unreliably generic info…

Instead listening to ur inner fear monger. To be fair, It’s intentions were good but the end result is now u have to walk home in the bitter cold with no phone and no medication. Being bad at prioritization could’ve worked in ur favour but Instead u censured and shamed yourself through hell to no real benenfit. Sad. 

Still with no phone u notice things. Like the police cars at damn near every intersection directing traffic. They even have a garbage truck blocking half a four lane street.

At first u suspect something (or someone) fell from above but moving closer it seems like it’s just snow and shit. The walk back felt long at first but in noticing things it starts to pass by decently. By the time u get down to Adelaide st. you’re thinking about the purpose of stories and feel somehow like u get that they’re supposed to be almost like a mnemonic device to help u store and recall important life lessons.

ur hands feel like they’ve been frost bitten and you’ve had ur fucking gloves on the whole way. U pass by the church, trying to get the circulation going in ur right hand. Some nearsighted white guy in a t-shirt sees ur behaviour and gives u a look as if to say “it’s not even that cold.”

In ur mind u tell him to fuck off because it’s ur fucking hand. “How are you telling me how cold it feels?” U think. I could make some forced parallel to writing good stories and how no one can give you advice on how to write stories that make you feel the way you want them to make you feel deep down inside. Like how it’s always this hyper-specific feeling you’re going for that is difficult to put into words, but you try anyway…

U get home and feel decently fine. It’s been a good day. U don’t feel super distracted, and u warm up from outside in short order. Except remembering the overheard subway conversation u soon realize that u do in fact feel really tired. But u’re not a nap person…

Still if stories are also about change, and this is a story, then maybe the story is about how u learned to start taking naps. So u turnoff the lights in ur bedroom and lay down with a hand between ur legs because apparently that eases tension in the spine and helps with sleep… But after about 10 to 15 minutes u accept that you’re still not a napper, so maybe the story is about trying new things or something. Hard to say. Sometimes it’s not clear what a story is about or why u are telling it. Still u also notice that u do kind of like not being glued to ur phone so u decide to let it charge in ur bedroom while u head back to watch the final two episodes of the show u were watching. 

But before doing so u sketch out the broad strokes of the experience u just had: what you were thinking, how you felt at critical junctures etc. Maybe later you can use the details later to write a story that holds your attention like the show you’ve been watching, because why is being you not enough to hold somebody’s attention?