morgue_n | Recent Entries

My life isn't completely bleak right now. I hate being at work, or being around coworkers really, but outside of work, i have a bunch of things i'm doing and looking forward to.

D&D is wrapping up. I play with the neighbors in my apartment building-- everyone I work with also lives in my building, which has severe drawbacks, but also some incredible perks. One of those perks is reliable D&D. We have reached the climactic conclusion with the final boss fight. That'll happen this week. Next week, we have plans to go to a new bar as our characters. We're not going to do a full costumed larp or anything, but just talk in the voices the whole night. It should be pretty funny.

As DM, my DMPC is a helpful little imp they can summon who they can talk to and ask for advice. When he appears, I play "Pusherman" by Curtis Mayfield and don sunglasses, talking like ICE-T while they wonder how best to approach the next step of their journey. A couple of times, he helps them in combat by, say, biting through an archer's string or stinging a wizard in the middle of a concentration spell. My players summon him every. single. session because they fucking love my ICE-T impression.

Loose Booty, the funk band I'm in, is something I look forward to every Monday when we practice, on our occasional second practices, and on our shows. We have a show this Wednesday. Oh, we have a website now. loosebootyband.com/ (I'm Morgan, by the way, and everything in the bio when you click on my picture is a lie invented by the drummer)

The band has no business sounding as good as we do. It's really fucking stupid how good we sound. Our trumpet player, Mike, is a total legend. Tom laughs heartily at every joke, Jen's cool as hell, Jimmy's down to party, Chris the bassist is such a wholesome guy, Drummer Mike has so much character, and Fukuko the tromboner seems nice (her first practice was yesterday). And of course, Deal is SQUAD. Love that dude. He makes me howl with laughter by whispering the name of the cornier songs before we play them as if they were some sexy conspiracy. I really cherish their company, especially right now.

My expat anniversary is coming up soon. It marks the beginning of my 10th year since I left the USA. I've decided to hold a get together at my favorite hookah cafe garden-- i think I mentioned this is an earlier entry. So far, I've invited 60 people and told everyone they have a +2. It's been a hell of a long while since I hosted a party.

Invited to the party are neighbors, coworkers, and D&D people from my school; people from the Shanghai Writer's Workshop; friends from Funk circles. It should be a weird mix of people. I'm curious to see how they mix.

This party also doubles as my farewell to Shanghai. While I won't leave until July, I know that I won't have an opportunity to throw a goodbye party closer to the date because I'll be swamped with moving and finals. No, it's better to have this thing earlier on in the year.

Current Mood: calm

These past couple of weeks have been gruesome. Between the grief-- which takes me by surprise, but is always around-- and the rigorous Confucian Midterms, I'm a shell of a man.

Last week I, after an irritable, nervous afternoon of beers with friends, I flung myself through my door, collapsed onto my couch, and ugly-cried for like 5 hours straight. I mean

I-aint-got-no-alibi ugly. Like if Natalie Portman and Cuba Gooding Jr. fucked, and had an ugly-crying baby. That was me.

Between weep-hiccups, I made an appointment with my therapist for the following night and summoned my neighbor, Ashleigh, to bring whiskey. I needed to not be conscious. I needed to not see my dead student's face, to see her smile, to think about the muscle cats she always drew, to remember her fondness for ducks, to think about her dark humor, that humor that hinted at what she was struggling with.

Ashleigh brought it over. I got wasted and wept in a fetal position. I'm sure she felt helpless. She choked back tears, watching me.

Today I have to give back exams to some students. One of my high performing students cried because their score wasn't high enough-- they wrote their essay without sticking to the prompt. They made an appointment to talk to me during lunch. I feel for them. Another kid asked me if there was any way I'd give him the points to allow him to sit the move-up exam. He wants to take AP Bio and they simply won't let him unless he can get into Honors English.

I want to cave in. I want to drop my standards. I don't trust my standards. I'm a fucking wreck-- did I grade them fairly?

God i want to quit.

Current Mood: blah

I went to a writer's retreat last weekend. They had a million little lectures, but I didn't go to hardly any of them. Instead, I wrote outside, and lord, it was gorgeous. I got a lot done, and made some great choices in terms of the project I'm working on.

There was this woman there who I instantly fell head over heels for. I haven't had a CRUSH like that in like 5 years. It kind of fucked me up. I was so into her that I couldn't hold a conversation with her or really look her in the eyes, but I constantly wanted to be around her too.

It caught me so off guard because I'm really, really NOT bad at talking to women in general. I leave my apartment door open, and one of my lady neighbors, who is among my best friends in this country, comes over for a nip of whiskey and DEEP chats sometimes. She's attractive-- my most recent ex used to HATE her for her curves, but i'm not attracted to her. I introduced her to my friend instead, and they're now dating.

I go hookah-ing and drinking with her attractive, single friends, but I'm not interested. I carpool with middle school teachers, and most all of them are women. I stop and chat with my coworkers. some of them are hot to behold, but I can tell from a distance that we have not much in common.

A few years ago, I got so tired of being single that I made a point to go on at least one date every week, and sometimes 3 dates a week! with different people! I just got exhausted.

Around this time last year, I started seeing someone who I was interested in, but it wasn't a thunderbolt. It was a slow procession, and it quickly grew into something mostly sexual (due mostly, I think, to her).

the retreat this past weekend was 2/3rds women-- I mostly spoke with women the whole time, and I didn't have a problem at all! The people I hit it off with the most this weekend were both women (one of whom shares my name, Morgan).

But FUUUUUUCK. I had it SO bad for this one woman there. God I haven't felt twitterpated like that in forever. I DREAMED about her for days afterward. I'm still kind of reeling. To be honest, I thought I was too old for crushes like that. I thought I'd never have a crush again. It weirdly gave me hope.

I haven't been in love since 2017. I haven't thought of myself as capable of loving or even being loved since 2017. And I haven't been in a healthy, reciprocating relationship since 2012. I forgot what dreaming like that felt like.

I didn't get her contact info. I'm moving in a couple of months. I both rationalized "it's not worth it. why bother? so I can just have my heart torn open here in two months?" and dreamed "maybe you could catch up in Thailand later" at the same time.

ugh I should schedule an appointment with my therapist.

Current Mood: embarrassed

I had a dream last night that I was outside a school in the evening, and a mass shooter showed up.

He was overweight and had shaggy, stringy hair, as if he didn't wash or take care of himself. His patchy beard stretched from his cheeks down his neck. He wore all black, and straps, patches, and pockets covered his XXL tactical vest. He was holding an AR 15. I knew there were kids in the school for the dance that night.

I changed my voice to be softer, quieter. I eliminated all fear from my body language. I walked towards him. I told him that I might understand him. I asked him why he was doing this. He said he couldn't stand it anymore.

I told him I couldn't either. I turned that hate inward, and I struggled with hating myself. I told him I cut sometimes. I wondered out loud if he dealt with that same hate, but if he turned it outward.

What I said shook him, and I walked up to him. I could smell his sweat and body odor. I don't know when the last time he showered was. I hugged him and told him we could get through this.

I felt my shoulder get wet as he broke down. I held him up.

when i let him go, he was already gone. I heard gunshots from within the school. That's when I woke up

It's spring here in Shanghai. The sky is baby blue, leaves and petals flutter on the warm breeze, and the air is emerald and gold. The splotchy ginko trees stretch across the stone gazebos and turtle ponds and purple flowers on my school's campus. Azure magpies dart from tree to tree, screeching and hoarse. They look pretty but hiss like cats. I can hear woodpigeons somewhere with their throaty hoots.

"Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky," Khalil Gibran said.

The kids hop awkwardly and are happier in general. They have a hard time focusing in this weather, but I don't blame them. I've switched from light jackets to just a T shirt and khakis as I teach.

I'm currently teaching mysticism in 10th grade. The text is The Alchemist, and we're reading it for our world voices unit. We talk about the mediterranean/north africa, and then mystic systems like sufism, buddhism, daoism, and kabbalah. I hit them with Rumi, zen koans, and Khalil Gibran poetry. Oh, and carl jung's deep end. I hit them with the collective human unconscious yesterday. today is archetypes and dream interpretation. To be honest, the book is so ezpz simple that I'm reaching for anything to supplement class time with.

I'm in a funk band now. I don't think I mentioned that. I'm one of two lead singers-- we basically do a lot of call and response for each song. We recently named the band Loose Booty after something a funk singer exclaimed in The Meter's song, "Kiss My Baby." It's also a funkadelic song, I believe.

I ordered satin black lounge wear for the shows. the robe is covered in golden Chinese dragons. I'm wearing a lush purple hand towel on my head (for the sweat and all), nice sunglasses to hide the fear, and a red Zhong Kui medallion that I'm SO pumped for.

Zhong Kui was this badass ghost bounty hunter. He's my favorite character in Chinese myth. The circular medallion is red resin? I think, and it's carved with his fearsome visage and 4 demons in the corners. It's funky as hell and it's a pretty nice apotropaic Chinese folk magic thing.

No news on Thailand. I'm still waiting for late April/early May to roll around before I start looking in earnest for a job.

Hey, how do I get better emotion mood icons? I hate these little boxes I have.

Current Mood: amused

I write these as a meditation whenever I realize I'm getting wrapped up, worked up, and losing touch.

......

Something specific that bothers me about American culture is the obsession not just with winning, but with humiliating the other team as you get that victory. This attitude pervades all aspects of life in the social sphere. It's inherent in sports, obviously. It's clearly in politics, too. Its evident when conservatives slurp up liberal tears at their own destruction. It's evident when liberals mock the poor and oppressed for being victims of systemic oppression.

it's also present in the music. Almost every smash hit is a diss track on some level. Every song's thesis is fuck you, pay me, froth in anger at my antics, I love the attention.

And it doesn't stop there. In business, in movies, and in the foundations of its culture, America Calvin-pisses on whoever is losing. To err is human, and savoring someone else's err is divine.

That's one of the reasons I have stayed in the East for so long. Here, humility is a currency. It has value.

In the west, your win doesn't count unless you can dunk on your opponent. If it's close, it's simply not a win.
In the east, your win doesn't count unless you can do so with grace and humility. Living egolessly is an ideal!

Obviously, people fail at it, but the important aspect here is that when they fail, face is lost. Value is lost.

The strange thing is that I didn't learn the lesson here. I felt this way when I lived in America, too. I think I learned it as a small child when my dad used to try to egg me on, to play on a sense of competition to try to manipulate me. He bragged to bully, and bullied to motivate me. Looking back, I know why. He's motivated by bullying. My dad was and is incredibly competitive, but I learned at a really young age that if I didn't compete, I couldn't lose to him.

But over time, I realized that in cutting out that entire method of manipulation, he couldn't control me with that system anymore. By not competing, I didn't just avoid losing-- I won. I was liberated.

Later, in adolescence, I struggled with depression. I fought my dad, I fought my stepmother. They trashed me constantly. I watched my mother waste years of her life. I took SSRIs, I went to therapy, I ODd, I cut, I visualized my own death, I floundered. It was only when I suffered a massive ego death on my first LSD trip and started reading eastern philosophy that I realized

Oh.

This is an Ego problem. I'm focusing too much on my Self. I'm wrapped up in my sense of Self. I'm concerned with who I'm supposed to be or what I'm supposed to be doing, or who other people think I am, or tying my value up into things I should have and people I should know and me me me my my my my

Self Self Self.

So, I dropped acid and smoked weed and listened to eastern music and read the dao and sufi poetry and buddhism, and it all reinforced this thing I felt like I already knew. And then I moved to the furthest hemisphere away from home that I could.

And i still wasn't happy, because I struggle with that negative Ego work-- it's not that I overvalue myself, but that I undervalue myself so much. I treat my body like a gumwrapper, or a fleshmech that I ride around in. I don't look at my body as a companion or a tool. I view my body as less valuable than my actual bed. And why? Because I am chubby, balding, aging?

I spend an hour on the elliptical multiple times a week. I'm handsome in an El Greco way. I have a voice that sings, and soars, and teaches, and the wrinkles in my face are from years of cry-laughter.

I treat myself like shit for things I have said and done that have made people-- women, black people-- feel uncomfortable. I tell myself that these transgressions are not who I am, and I try to divorce myself from them, but honestly? They are a part of me, in the way that they are lessons I have learned and internalized.

I should accept them in the same way I have accepted the women who done terrible things to me in the past. Some of them destroyed me, but I have learned those lessons, forgiven them, and moved on. I have no hate for them any longer. I was able to forgive some of them AS they were being terrible to me, even AS I left them... so why should I hate myself today for the person I was before, for the misplaced things I said in an awkward moment?

This is why they call it work. It feels sisyphean sometimes, but if you do it right, it's herculean.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G68Q4lCM5pQ&ab_channel=tardiobscurus_jp

Current Mood: calm

Way back when I was in high school and I still had Myspace, I got in contact with a band called Wax on Radio. I think they had sent me a message on the twee platform, and I listened to their songs on the Myspace player. I instantly fell in love. The bassline of one particular song, "When in Rome," was so spacious and peaceful that it became something that I listened to in order to center myself. The song ends in that same bassline but with some treble accents-- I used to imagine myself skating on the stars. The songs ends by fading into about 2 minutes of crickets.

It was gorgeous, and I listened over and over on my trashy dial-up internet. Eventually, I asked for the CD for my birthday (or I bought it for myself. I can't remember which) The CD was only released on this small Indie label out of Chicago, the band's base of operations, so I had to borrow my mom's credit card to purchase it online.

The album art had this circular logo on it that looked like a bird-- a crane maybe-- spreading its wings with a crane within it, and a crane within it, and a crane within it. Black and white. It felt cyclical and unifying, like a yin yang.

BRAND NEW WAX ON THE RADIO EXPOSITION PROMO STICKER DECAL A MUST HAVE VERY RARE! | eBay

It was one of those albums where the end of every song led into the beginning of the next song. Not only that, but the chorus of the last song became the chorus of the first song. It was written with Romantic composer sensibilities. There were leitmotifs, recurring melodies, sometimes variations of the same themes, but reinforcing this idea of the cyclical nature of existence. The lyrics were as deep, and the whole thing was so cohesive and satisfying in a way that no band I have listened to before or hence has been.

I listened to that album until the CD was scratched and unlistenable. Luckily, I had backed it up on iTunes, but eventually my laptop died, and the album was lost to me sometime in college.

I looked to purchase the album again, but the band had fallen apart. They had existed for only a few years, put out one album, and then broke up for some reason. The label no longer sold the album online. I tried to torrent it, but it was too obscure.

For years afterwards, I would search for the band to see if anyone had uploaded the whole album somewhere, but no dice. I saw you could still buy the album online, now on Amazon, but I lived in China, and there was no guaranteeing that the thing would ever get to me. Youtube held one or two of the singles, but the live versions posted on the site were bad-- either terrible quality, or, disappointingly, the vocalist wasn't so hot live.

Last week I did my bi-yearly check, and I found that someone had uploaded the whole album onto Youtube. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-5-xmcLr6I&list=PLl87SEujHP9JkwQ5TbHtUhGPGgmGnDFBW&index=7&ab_channel=MikeMara

Current Mood: satisfied
Current Music: When in Rome

I drove the rugged golden circle of Iceland. I tripped acid barefoot in the rain. I slept in the choir loft of an empty church on the Outer Banks.

When I feel depressed or worthless, one of the conscious defense mechanisms I employ is listing the things that I have done in life. I list my accomplishments until I realize I'm a strong person. I am, in effect, exhibiting evidence.

I drank on an abandoned skyscraper in Pittsburgh. I meditated for a month in a Buddhist monastery. I screamed into the grand canyon.

This process works. It doesn't fix me or anything, or judo-flip me back into a good mood, but it's a brake before I go off the edge. It's treading water, and if I find myself doing this a lot, I know I need to book a therapy appointment, or hit the gym, or really focus on myself in a positive way. It's hard to force myself to self-care sometimes.

I got drunk on sake at an izakaya in Kyoto. I spent a week staying with nomads on a road trip across the Mongolian steppe.

I'm a recovering cutter. It's important I stay on top of this stuff. Single men my age neglect this stuff. We don't talk about it, we don't advocate, we don't put in that labor. It's so much easier to just roll over and give up. I have to stay on top of it. It can beat me, but only if I let it. The loneliness, the worthlessness, can get unbearable.

I went to a Balkan wedding and danced to gypsy horns. I smoked hookah beneath a sunset full of seagulls on a rooftop in Istanbul.

I don't value myself. Not intrinsically. Paradoxically, I value the things I have done. Is that a masculine thing, to value oneself based on the work I do and what I can provide? On my accomplishments? Or is this a capitalist thing? Any way, I did all of these things so that I could feel valuable. I don't feel it otherwise. I barely have a sense of self unless I can see my own wake. It's why I moved abroad.

I sang karaoke in a shanty-town in the Philippines. I made love on the floor of my attic while a band played on the floor beneath us.

I remember starting this as a teenager. I'd take these intensely long walks just to feel something. They were pilgrimages, looking back. A hajj to myself. I started doing things so that I could say "I'm the sort of person who does this." I started doing this just so that I could have the story later, so I could have something to look back on and know who I was.

I passed out, drunk and in my own vomit, in an alley in Korea. I wept until the capillaries in my face burst. I overdosed on antidepressants.

It's been over a year since I've gone anywhere or done anything.

I can't lose myself.

So I got a call from my friend's school-- Thailand opened up, and they're accepting applicants from abroad! Ayyyy. I have an interview/demo lesson on Monday. It has to be 20 minutes long and about the present continuous tense, and for adults at an elementary level. I'm thinking about using news articles from newsela (which lets you pick what grade level to read the articles at) and then showing them where's waldo pictures.

It's been awhile since I taught in grammar land, so it'll be a return to something I used to do like... 6 years ago. I feel rusty.

I'll be honest. I'm not super pumped about going back to the world of ESL, but anything to get out of China. Right now in 10th grade, I'm teaching Perks of Being a Wallflower and jesus fuck I love teaching this book. We had a big talk the other day about how this book is BANNED for me back home, and that it's ILLEGAL for me to teach it, so that's the reason I teach it. Is it okay to ban books? When should a book be banned? I told them I want them to tell me a definitive line by the end of the book if they have one. I plan on having a debate in class about it.

I was focusing so hard on home. I was focusing on my plan and trying to visualize a future where it worked. Then, yesterday I got that email from Thailand. I'd love something tangible to hold onto.

On the same day I got that email, a friend of a friend from back home posted this LONG dramatic breakup on instagram. She aired all of their dirty laundry. She screencapped their drunken arguments; posted video of him vomiting; talked about his workplace drama; doxxed his girlfriend's picture; name, number, and workplace info. It was really fucking gauche, and it reminded me of how desperate I was to leave that town to begin with.

The pills, needles, and alcoholism breeds so much drama.

Current Mood: excited

I decided to focus on moving home for the time being. I talked to Anand, a Thai friend of mine who is pretty pessimistic that anything will open up before 6 months to a year is over, and he said that if I can't handle being in China any longer (which I cannot), then I should focus on home, bide my time, and plan on moving as soon as shit reopens.

That talk with Anand really took a lot of anxiety off my shoulders. To be sure, I'm still anxious, but being able to visualize myself somewhere in July is way nicer than going back and forth back and forth for days. I was waking up in the morning thinking about America, and then going to bed thinking about Thailand.

I'm pretty sure that 7th Day Adventist missionary high school ghosted me. That's for the best. The more I imagined it, the more I hated the idea. I didn't want to go to a school and have that job on my resume, you know? That's a huge red flag for some countries, and other countries might hire me for the completely wrong reasons. And ethically, I would have felt awful about it for a year.

Instead, I will go home, and I'll work out in the mornings, and teach online in the evenings, and take long weed walks through the hills with a uglycute bull dog crashing through the underbrush beside me. I'll take pictures of wild turkeys. I'll track possum prints in the mud and collect cicada skins.

When I'm done with my nature hike quarantine, I'll practice cooking the weird foreign foods I'll miss so much. Kimchi jigae, Szechuan cabbage, Peppers in garlic and oil, scallion pancakes. I'll join my brother's DnD table and maybe run some sessions for his crew.

When shit opens back up and I can get my hands on a vaccine, I'll take road trips. I'll drive out to the college town to check out weird art shows with my best friends alive, I'll visit Bill in Cincinnati, Nate in Columbus, and APayne in Athens. I'll smoke with my college-aged cousins out in Maryland, and hopefully be able to descend into Mammoth Cave finally. Maybe I'll go on dates with women who have opinions and butts, and culture and language will be something envigorating for us to play around with, rather than a complicated obstacle course.

In the meantime, I'll look for a job in South America. I'll take online Spanish classes. Lingopie looks good.

Of course, all of this is going to happen only if Thailand doesn't miraculously swing its doors open in May.

Current Mood: contemplative

I really can't choose my way forward. It's hard to decide, so I'm going to try to figure it out here.

1. Right now, I'm talking to a high school in Thailand about a possible job... but it's a 7th Day Adventist Missionary High School. Ew. As an atheist and member of the Satanic Temple, I feel disgusted by the idea of working there... but this might be my only shot to get into Thailand? Recently, the visa process has become much more complicated because of macarona.

My friends in Thailand (Tyler and Whitney, pagans) are pushing me to go through with it. Their friend Cara (queer, weed-head, pagan) already works there and they say it's fine. Either way, there's a chance they won't hire me anyway, with my not being in the country and all. I kinda hope they deny me. Should I just bail on this? This is probably the most money I could hope to get with my current situation though, and it's a foot in the door to Thailand...

2. I could wait until May and see what my options are then. Maybe the visa process will clear up by then, or a better school will open up. This is a huge gamble though.

3. I could just buy a plane ticket home. My grandparents aren't doing well. A friend of mine ODd. Some other friends are getting married soon. My parent's are both about to move (despite being hella divorced, they always seem to synchronize their major life decisions), and it feels like forever since I touched base with all these people.

I could reconnect with my Uncle and my brother. I already reached out to them and told them moving home is a possibility. I told them not to tell my parent, because my father is pushy and my mother is breakable. Uncle said I could crash at his place for free, my brother said he could hook me up with a cell phone for cheap, and I could use my grandparent's car 'cause they ain't gonna be driving for a damn while. If I moved home, I could teach online classes with my old English head's online school for supplemental income while I plan my next move, hopefully south america somewhere.

My family back home doesn't realize that this would be a temporary thing for me though. My uncle's talking about me finding a job, for example. I want it to be temporary. I hope it'd be temporary. I don't want to teach in the states, and WV is one of the objectively worst states in the union.

I miss the old holler that I grew up in. That place is heaven. I hate the capital city, Charleston, as its full of some pretty broken, terrible, or washed up people. I pity them tbh. The city has eaten them. I hate the idea of moving back to WV as a state. The government chases anyone with plans for the future away, and devours hope and kindness and good will.

Christ I wish I knew what my best option is. Is it go home? I'm afraid if I go home it'll be tough to get back out again. And going home without insurance isn't ideal...

the past 2 mornings, at 5:40am, someone in my apartment building has set off what SOUNDS like a vacuum cleaner for about 10-15 seconds, interrupting my sleep, and fucking up my whole entire day before it begins. I'm guessing its a coffee machine.

Idk who it is. It could be the door to my right, or above me, or below me, but I texted the building group chat this morning to let them know that if it happens again, I will curse them. Like, for real. Like, with cauldrons and shit.

Like, my distilled psychic hatred will be so potent it will be sentient, and the spiritual servitor created by it will live its terrible unlife for one fell purpose: to bring about this fucker's ruin. bit by bit, things in my victim's life will unravel until I will possess their heart in my fucking claws.

so help me, carrion mother. in her flesh we writhe.

Still no luck on the job front. I hit up a school in Thailand, but they told me they don't hire people from outside the country. The school told me that they'd still interview with me, though. Hopefully we can work out some sort of deal. I'm sure they just don't want to cover my plane ticket there. I'm willing to pay to go somewhere. I literally don't know where in the world I'll be in July otherwise. Hopefully not home.

I had a dream about one of my exes from college a few nights ago. I dreamt I had gotten an apartment in wv, and that it was really nice, but then she brought her pill friends over and they wrecked the place. This girl was really nice when I first met her, but she couldn't get focused, and she couldn't get her life together. She started getting into pills. I think in my head, she stands for the archetypal west virginian woman. I think my dream was addressing my subconscious fear that, if I went home, I'd lose sight of myself.

Isn't that strange? to forget who you are by going home?

I've been thinking about home a lot lately. My grandfather is dying. Alzheimer's. He told the nurse the other day that he wants to die, apparently. My family is worried. my grandmother is beside herself. No one in the family wants him to die, but to be honest? I have to admit that if it was me, I'd choose death. At least, I think so. It's hard to know how you'd react in a situation like that.

A friend from back home overdosed on heroin, too. Not recently, either-- the guy died about a year and a half ago, but I didn't find out until last week or so. He was really funny. A bad influence on me, but funny. He is a part of the people who really, really made my humor what it is today, but I've done some dumb shit because I was hanging out with him. It was like he couldn't have fun without being in trouble. He was a destructive, chaotic force. That force made him die younger than he had to. A mutual friend said he'd had some close calls before, and that he'd darkly joked that he couldn't die. I could hear him saying that. It sounds a lot like him. Hoodlum shit.

I've been hitting the gym a lot these past coupla weeks. Elliptical, and now free weights. I'm back to trying to go every day, now that it's warm. I want to feel attractive again. I haven't felt desirable in 6 months or more. I'm also trying to focus on what I eat right now-- or, rather, notice the emotions I feel when I eat. I'm trying to let go of that.

Here, the sky is blue, the air is clear, and the weather is warm. I'm going outside soon and trying to soak up that vitamin D. Elsewhere in the world, Texans are freezing to death in an unnaturally cold spring. It's hard to know what to feel.

I feel a lot of things. I'm trying to reduce myself to the basics, to spend less time online, to focus on this corporeal vehicle that I walk around in, to plan my next few months, to make gains in all aspects of life. I can only focus on myself and the decisions within my grasp. Panicking, catastrophizing, dwelling will not help. It never does.

My priorities are in order right now. I am grateful for this self knowledge.

Current Music: raga

Life update:

I had a chitchat with my therapist. Go me. It's tough to make myself do that when I need it. We talked about my restlessness and lack of value in myself, and my struggle to maintain a growth mindset. I can't control my transgressive thoughts, but I can control how I react to them. This is all stuff I know and I've known and stuff that I put into practice. I've grown a lot. The act of voicing it out loud to another person is envigorating though.

My school let out for Chinese New Year break, and I basically spent a whole fucking week without leaving my apartment (excluding a trip to the dentist)

I got a tooth pulled on Monday. I have a baby tooth that never came in, so it was pretty impossible to brush. This year it got goopy, so I was numbed and awake while I felt my dentist crushing the thing into pieces in my mouth. What a surreal experience. Nightmare fuel.

I watched the LotR trilogy on and off while on painkillers. And Naruto, which I haven't ever really watched (didn't like it), and Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (which is amazing!) Link below if you want it.

https://m.wcostream.com/anime/rise-of-the-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles

In general, I felt like shit all week. A lot of it was recuperating after finals hell. A lot of it was the painkillers. Some of it was getting notified that I didn't get the job in Istanbul. Alas. I was in the process of visualizing myself there, but I really didn't do too hot on my demo lesson. It was kind of a shit show because I was using a service I've never used before, teaching AN ACTUAL CLASS at the school that wanted to hire me, in a lesson I knew a lot about but with no given learning targets other than "help their writing", for students who refused to turn their cameras on or even respond. Ugh. THEN about 6 people interviewed me who ALSO didn't turn their cameras on. Jesus. So yeah, it was a failure that didn't sit right with me for about a week until they let me know they were passing on me.

This week starts an online job fair for expat teachers. I'm signed up but not too pumped about it. To be honest, I really only want to work in Thailand right now. Maybe my ambition is deflated, but eh. My friend Whitney lives there right now, and she said she could get me a job... at about 1/3 my current salary. That's a huge cut for me, but it's still a really livable income. The dope thing about it would be that I could get a way better gig there after a year or so. Even better, when I'm not teaching, I am free. I don't have to sit around and think about work after work, or take grading home for the weekend anymore.

Awhile ago I read my own tarot, and in the future position my layout was all about receiving gifts but not acknowledging them, or accepting them as gifts. I don't really take stock in tarot as a fortune-telling tool, but I do value it as a framing device for my own life. That card placement struck a chord with me because I'm in a position of a million opportunities. I should be more grateful.

Whitney's offer feels like a step down, because monetarily, it is. I haven't been valuing it. But really, it's a convenient sidestep into a country I know I'd be pretty happy in. My life would be yoga in the mornings and a steamy joint in the evening. I could live in a nice little apartment, host DnD, and live comfortably in that country. I wouldn't be able to travel as much. At least for a while. Until I got a different gig. Why not just go and do it?

I'm going to look at this job fair though. If I don't get any offers from a muthafuckin' dream school in an amazing country where I could see myself settling down for the rest of my life, I'm going to take Whitney up on her offer.

Current Mood: awake

I'm elbow deep into grading final exams right now, so I really shouldn't be writing here, but I'm going bananas and I can't really focus. It's hard to focus. I want a complete lack of obligations for a minute. Just awhile. I feel as if I've forgotten who I am.

I was invited out. Not really. kind of. I have a regular spot I go to on Sundays. It's my secret little hookah cafe. Well, it used to be a secret place, but recently I shared it with some coworkers/neighbors, who shared it with their friends, and now it's become something of a set-piece in our lives-- like the Seinfeld diner, or the Friends cafe.

tonight when I started doing the ritual to go out and gathered my socks from the dresser, I sort of fell onto the furniture, leaning on it with my elbows, hanging all my weight from my shoulders like the golden gate bridge. I sat there for a second, wrenching my brow and clenching my skull, wondering where this void inside myself is coming from.

I'm lonely, ya'll.

It's not from lack of friends. I've got plenty, and very good ones. They keep me afloat, too. When I catch myself murmuring transgressive thoughts about myself, my gender, and my well-being under my breath, one of the methods I use to ground myself is to acknowledge that some excellent people like me. They like me a lot. I value their taste and opinions, and they value me. They value the things I say. They laugh at the stories I tell. They enjoy my company. They can't all be wrong, I say to myself.

And it isn't that I don't like or respect women. Most of my friends are women, these days. Beautiful and intelligent, all of them. They expected me out tonight, and if I told them that I was struggling as bad as I am right now, I imagine they'd stop what they were doing and leap to my rescue, to my apartment, to shout kind things at me until I believed them.

I suppose a lot of the problem is that I don't trust women. Not in a romantic way, I mean. I don't trust that any could love me, let alone like me. I ~~do not love~~ struggle with loving myself. My track record isn't stellar. I acknowledge my part in that. I don't think my exes do, and therein lies the problem.

I'm working on this deproinkle (what I call depression in an effort to put a ridiculous wig on something that deeply bothers me), of course. immediate term, I did my laundry today. I woke up early. I shaved. I showered. I graded some of my papers. I read a book. I texted my therapist for the first time in months. I did things with my day instead of what I wanted to do, which was lay on my couch and watch the voidspiral turn, turn, turn.

Long term, I'm moving. I know that I cannot wholly blame my setting for the way I feel, and that even in a Mediterranean clime, I would still suffer from the weird fugue state that my brain juice makes me suffer through, but I definitely think that moving to a place without an oppressive smog would be a skip in the right direction. A place where the local government doesn't actively crack down on art and music. A place where people are a little friendlier. Easier to talk to. Where I'm not so isolated.

short-term, I need to eat healthier and go to the gym. I have bloomed a potbelly this winter. I disgust myself when I think about my corporeal form. I rely on food to get a sense of fulfillment, and I look at kebabs with this silly spirituality. i should probably stop that.

I'm thankful that I have this place to take a mental inventory when I need it. There's a lot that is good about my life right now. it's easy to get distracted, and to fall into the cyclical thinking that blinds me to the boons I possess. Writing has always been an emergency button for me. If you're reading this, thank you for your patience.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: robbie basho

Turnaround seems to be the major theme of my life right now. With everything, in every aspect of life.

Of course, there's the coup. And Parler's hacking and all. It's really fucking stupid, and you love seeing the consequences of that stuff. The no-fly list. The change of power. The entitlement crashing down.

The news cycle made me research Q and the far right movement. This shit slipped right past me all summer because I was so into the BLM stuff. I didn't realize shit about this other half of america. it's so weird, seeing it from the outside.

I'm reaching the end of the first semester of my teaching license. I swore that when I was done with my Master's I'd finish formally educating myself, but now I can tell that I really need to be IB certified to move up in life.

Because I'm looking for a new job, and I think I landed one. In Istanbul, one of my favorite cities in the world. If I land it, I'll move there in like July. God, can you imagine? Hookah, cats, Mediterranean food, seagulls. Walking everywhere all the time. Art. Pfft sign me up.

The high school I teach at is ending it's first semester right now too. Finals are this week. That means it's a time of reflection before I get those damn tests back, and they're gonna eat my life up towards the back half of this week. Starting tomorrow. But then, I have Chinese New Year break, and I'll have so much time to dive into a social life again.

I have a list of everything I want to finish, accomplish, do, or try this break. I can't go anywhere really, so I'm going to do something different every single day, and with a different group of people. I've stayed cooped up all year. The winter depression this year was a travesty.

Currently:

· Hang with Simba and watch Lord of the Rings
· Hang with DeShawn and do literally anything
· See an art exhibit with John
· Do KTV with the whole ass crew
· Buy cologne. My Armani Code is out.
· Get tooth pulled from Dr. Zoe. Oh, I need to message Dr. Zoe about that now.
· Continue my licensing program ugh
· Hang with Chinese coworkers. One of them's really cute and I want to spend some time with her before I leave.
· Monster of the Week with the womenfolk
· Dnd with the regular crew
· Dnd with people who I have been meaning to play with forever
· Stardew valley with John and Deal

And of course, get back into writing every day.

I don't remember much from those days. It hurt, and I blocked them out. That Christmas break is all a blur to me, but there are things that jut out from that foggy sea of memory. I remember feeling like a ghost in your house. Or like I was the only one among the living in a house full of ghosts.

I remember the general tension that hung in the air. I remember all those words no one was saying pressing down with a physical weight.

I remember your small, delicate hands, and my arm on your shoulder, and how docile you had become. I remember how tired and quiet you were. Like a mouse. You, who would fence with me with words. Who was so playful and grinning when you said things because you KNEW they would infuriate or frustrate me. You loved it when I was a litttttle angry. It was your favorite pastime. You loved my snappy retorts. How quick the banter was.

But how quiet and beaten you were, now.

I remember the funeral. I remember being irritated at everyone. Looking back, they didn't know how to deal. Looking back, I was being overprotective of you, and I was taking the nights out on them.

The nights are what I remember most. I remember your body laying next to mine, shuddering in silence as you wept, and wept, and wept for your sister. How wet your face was. I'd drape my arm over you and, not knowing what to say, kiss your wet face and hold you tighter and coo in your ear until you stopped shaking. I remember you leaping awake, or rolling about in sweaty sheets from the nightmares. I woke you from them if I knew you were having them. I cradled you and stroked your hair until I felt your heartbeat quieten.

I remember the Christmas when you opened up presents from someone who wasn't alive anymore. When you traced their handwriting with your fingertips like you could touch her again. When you watched home videos of her, and thumbed through old portraits of her in plays. Or grinning as a baby. I remember your father, stoic, leaving to watch a movie alone. I remember your father holding your mother as she cried.

For Christmas, your father gave me a smoking pipe. He looked at me with wet eyes and told me "thank you for everything."

I'm glad I did it. I wouldn't change a thing... but now, when I think of Christmas joy, or giving in that manic, plastic way-- in that cozy advertisement way-- I cringe. I fall, and no one and nothing is there to catch me on the floor of my kitchen but my own shoulders.

Current Mood: restless

It's hard being at work today, but I've made a bunch of headway in what I have to do, and my classes are pretty much planned for the next few days. The people I work with are kind but they need to work on their reading comprehension skills... i'm tired of telling them the same thing 3, 4, 5 times.

I never asked to be a teacher group leader. In fact, I ask NOT to be one every year, but I get it anyway. Punished for doing good work, I guess.

There's this Chinese story I really like by Zhuangzi:

Old woodworker is walking through the forest with his apprentice. They come across a large tree with a shrine built into its trunk. The apprentice goes, "why is there a shrine beneath this tree?"

The old woodworker goes "the tree is too heavy to float, too pliant to build a house out of, too fragile to make out of furniture. Its fruit isn't tasty or good for cooking, its nuts are poison. It's leaves are too sparse for shade, and besides all that, it's an ugly tree.

THEN THE TREE SAYS "hey well smartass do you know what happens to useful trees? I grew this way on purpose, idiot."

the moral of the story is don't appear too useful or you will rise in station and your life will be worse.

Current Mood: amused

I'm feeling pretty deproinky tonight. It's cold, and the smog makes the sky bleak and poisonous.

I'm thankful for the high caliber people I have inadvertently found myself with. I have about two incredibly good friends here-- people whose banter is a life giving elixir-- and the rest are grand. I've cut off ties with a lot of people this year, and a ton more have moved recently, so I'm thankful for the quality of the few I have left.

In college, I had a small army of friends, and we all hung out with one another in different cliques and combinations, and I'd flit among them, hanging out with a group until I grew socially anxious (don't hang out with them too long or they won't like you anymore) and then I'd go on to the next group.

I've been trying to reconnect with them. My college friends, I mean. But facebook is a barren wasteland. the only people i still know there are selling pyramid schemes or shouting madness into the void. My friends are instead scattered across so many different social medias, and I have sort of lost contact.

Besides, there's only so much of their lives that I can actually be in here, online.

It's hard to believe that I've spent as much time in China as I did in university.

I need to find a new place. I'm leaning towards Thailand right now, but I'd take anything that seemed like it'd hold happiness and friendship and love for my future. I'm hoping moving to a new place will be a rebirth for me. I thought that about Korea, and it was a rebirth, financially. but more of a death, otherwise. I hoped for a rebirth in Shanghai, and for awhile there it was a fucking renaissance, but it's falling apart again.

Wish I believed in God sometimes so I could pray for a sign about what my next step was supposed to be.

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: doin all he knew to do to feed a hungry den

One year my father and I had an intense heart to heart. It ended with him shattering in front of me. I saw him cry bitterly, tears and saliva pooling on the concrete of our breezeway as he clutched his head in his hands, and he admitted to me that every year during Christmas time, he struggled with depression and suicide ideation.

"I've spent more than one Christmas eve with a noose around my neck, Morgan."

I often wonder: did I inherit this unbearable holiday tension? or did I pick up on this energy in the household growing up? Is this in my blood, or is this tradition?

Regardless, images of my own death dance in my head as Thanksgiving passes. Some unseen force grabs me by the lapels and gently tugs towards my 13th story window some evenings. In response, I burn sandalwood incense and curl into a ball like a dog in a thunderstorm on my couch on and off for two months.

I don't just hate it emotionally and psychologically. I hate it ideologically, too. as a humanist, as pro-labor, as an anti-corporationist, as an atheist? I loathe it. lashing your god of death and rebirth with tinsel, placing a garish pom-pom nightcap on his crown, crucifying him on some gaudy tree, and hammering a sign above him: SAVINGS. pulling a society-wide hoax on children, setting them up for delusion later in life. entry-level workers get trampled and stabbed for deals every year. Many people have to work MORE because of this holiday. And it's not even the dude's real birthday.

They shove it down your throat. And if you say ANYTHING negative against it (i never say anything more than "I don't like Christmas," which is why I'm bitching here), they can't believe it! "Wot!" a guy said to me the other day. "You don't like Christmas?! How can you not like Christmas?!" And eventually someone calls you a Grinch.

It's ubiquitous, it's inevitable, and it's inescapable. The trees, the sweaters, the elves on shelves, the MUSIC. ugh that incessant, feckless, whiny, manic joy. it isn't peaceful, it isn't authentic. It's an infection designed by corporate industries.

The beauty of this shitty holiday's annual punctuality, of course, is that I can plan on dealing with it in different ways. I can prepare. I can Home Alone my own psyche. I see this stuff coming so I get ahead of it.

Back home, I actively chose not to celebrate it. I used to rebelliously eat Chinese takeout and walk the empty streets alone, slurping lo mien. I liked that tradition, but it didn't cover me for the two months leading up to the damn celebration.

When I lived in Korea, I tried to go to people's X-mas parties and force myself to enjoy it. That ended with me crying in the shower.

The past couple of years, I locked myself up and refused to go to anything that anyone invited me to. Instead, I play some really long videogame (Witcher 3, last year) or binge TV and eat Mexican and Thai food alone. I tell some close friends that I struggle with real-ass unfuckwitable depression, and I tell them it's absolutely okay to spread that information around so that everyone leaves me alone.

This year, I'm hosting more things at my house. Leaving my apartment feels apocalyptic, but I can create a secular space where I watch horror movies and drink moonshine with friends who are dressed like normal people. Or play stardew valley co-op mode with friends.

I'm also interested in maybe making a bunch of food and celebrating Saturnalia with a choice group of people. Got any ideas for this?

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: Using Again, by Benjamin Tod

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Page generated May. 31st, 2025 03:34 pm

probably a metaphor

pseudointellectual bullshit, definitely

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